October 23, 2023 • 39 mins
Singer/songwriter Melissa Etheridge shares her powerful and honest journey of losing her son to the battle of addiction and the challenges families face with this disease. Through her heart-wrenching testimonial, we look into the emotional trauma that families experience when dealing with a loved one's addiction with insight from industry-leading experts from Recovery Centers of America.
844-25-RECOVERY
This podcast episode and others are available to watch in video format here www.RCARecovery360.com
Any views or comments provided by individuals other than RCA employees are their own and do not represent the official views of Recovery Centers of America.
844-25-RECOVERY
This podcast episode and others are available to watch in video format here www.RCARecovery360.com
Any views or comments provided by individuals other than RCA employees are their own and do not represent the official views of Recovery Centers of America.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:02):
Hello, and welcome to Recovery threesixty, the podcast dedicated to exploring the
pathways to treatment and recovery, broughtto you by the Recovery Centers of America.
I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrow, director ofNews and Community Affairs for iHeartMedia,
Philadelphia, and I am joined byTony Luke Junior. Tony tell us about
yourself. In twenty seventeen, Ilost my son to an overdose and it
(00:26):
literally changed my life. I wasin the food business at cheesesteak shops called
Tony Luke's. I've been a musiciansince I was a Kidwood wrote for many
other artists in the eighties and thenI concentrated on the music using the gift
that I was given to bring hopeand to try to relate to other people
(00:47):
that have suffered losses and that havewu any kind of a loved one,
you know, whether it was achild or a spouse or suicide. And
that's kind of the mission and thepodcast. We wanted it to be real
about talking to people about real lifethings, and we're hoping to bring not
a clinical perspective to what everyone isdealing with mental health and trauma, but
(01:10):
are real if I'm sitting in yourhouse and we're talking, and we're just
talking to each other and talking abouteach other's pain and how we got through
it well. Today we are joinedby doctor Pete Vernig, who serves as
vice president of Mental health Services atRecovery Centers of America, and we are
(01:37):
thrilled to welcome renowned singer and songwriterMelissa Ethridge. Beyond her multiple Grammy winning
musical career, Melissa brings a uniqueperspective to the conversation about recovery and sobriety
through her music and public platform.Melissa Ethred's dedication to raising awareness about substance
use disorder, reducing stigma, andpromoting access to treatment and support services exemplifies
(02:01):
her commitment to using her voice forpositive change. Thank you so much for
joining us here. Melissa and Tony'sgot the first question, Go Tony Mellissie.
You lost your son to substance usedisorder and if it would be okay,
would you be able to share someof the cherished memories or qualities about
(02:22):
your son that you'd like the worldto remember him by. And how has
your son's passing influenced your perspective onaddiction and on mental health itself. Oh
well, my son was twenty onewhen he overdosed. He was he was
(02:45):
a scorpio. He was very fieryand filled with a lot of desire,
and a lot of times his desiresort of passed up his ability in some
things. He kind of would wouldtry to do too much and he'd get
frustrated. So a lot of hislife was a little frustrating. But boy,
(03:08):
he loved being outdoors. He wasa big outdoors guy, mountain bike
and snowboarding, and that's where hegot He was very, very good snowboarding
and he was doing a jump andhe broke his ankle, and that's where
the painkiller started. Snowboarding was oneof his his favorite favorite things to do,
(03:30):
and unfortunately, the last like twothree years of his life was sort
of spent in that descent. Andhaving this in our family and having this
happened to me, I realized Iam not alone. I realized there are
hundreds of thousands of families that don'tspeak about it and don't can't you know,
(03:53):
can't share it, and they takeon this sort of guilt and shame
about it. Is so much ofit has to do with mental health,
so much of it has to dowith that, and you know, the
last three years of his life,we tried a lot of rehab and a
lot of programs, and it neverstuck with him. He was very stubborn,
(04:16):
he was very kind of lost inthat way, and so I've always
been hoping there would be in thefuture more different types of recovery options available
out there. Doctor Verne, canyou talk about the importance of destigmatizing overdose
(04:38):
deaths and highlighting the need for improvedaddiction treatment and prevention. Absolutely so.
The stigma that surrounds death by thingslike drug overdose or suicide is something that
has been with us, obviously fora very long time. And we used
to think that making the suggestion tosomeone that you know, we're not going
to share that publicly, it wasabout protecting the family, but in reality
(05:00):
it robbed them of the opportunity toshare that information, to talk about their
loved one. Now, obviously,when somebody loses somebody that they care about,
it's their choice what they want toshare, how they want to share
it. But by communicating that topeople, what we were doing was telling
them that the way that their lovedone died was wrong or shameful, and
it was a secret that had tobe kept. In addition to that,
(05:21):
by not publicizing or not sharing thefact that somebody died of an overdose,
we're also hiding the importance of theissue in our society. We're robbing people
of the opportunity to know that theirfriend or their loved one, or somebody
in their social circle had died ofsuicide or had died of a drug overdose.
(05:43):
Which when we know somebody near usthat experiences something that helps us to
understand and helps to raise our awarenessas well. Melissa, your music has
meant so much to so many people, certainly in my life. But I
wonder if you can talk about howyour music has served as a source of
healing or expression for you in copingwith your son's lass. Oh, it
(06:06):
means everything. When he he diedduring the pandemic, and it was it
was so difficult because you know,we couldn't do a funeral at the time,
he couldn't do any kind of service, and and you know, we
couldn't gather friends and everybody together.And I just started playing music, and
(06:28):
I my wife and I created athing called Ethart's TV where five days a
week. We would we would puton, you know, an hour show.
We would I would either sing orwe would do a little you know,
talk show or something. And themusic just one hundred percent healed me.
And then the next year I gotto tour and I started playing again,
(06:48):
and it's a very it's a sublimeplace that that I go to when
I play, and it's it's it'spure joy. And to be able to
reach that and and and feel that, and then right from that, I
haven't written a lot. I'm actuallyin New York on Broadway right now.
(07:09):
The Broadway show has his It speaksabout his death and becoming back from that,
and so that's very healing for me. Tell us more about the Broadway
show. It sounds like it wasan opportunity for you to really process a
lot of your feelings, to beable to share a message that has a
wider application to people who get toexperience it. Yeah, it's it's it's
(07:33):
a fun show. It's it's music, it's it's my story. I do
a lot of talking. It's notlike a concert, even though I am
performing in it. And I takepeople from my growing up in Kansas to
Hollywood and the you know, becominga musician and a star, and then
(07:56):
family and then in the end,it is about losing Beckett, but it's
also about carrying on. It's aboutwalking past that. It's about remembering him
in a way that he would wantme to. He would want me to
be happy. He would not wantme to be covered in guilt and shame
and destroy my life because of whathe did. Tony, Well, it's
(08:22):
funny because it's kind of scary.It's such a parallel years ago. You
know, you wrote music for me, was to try to create, to
write what you would be considered ahit record. And when my son died,
I have two other children, andfor the first time I truly understood
what he felt. Because as muchas I love with every five of my
(08:46):
being my other two children, allI wanted was the pain to stop.
And I remember walking into the roomto take my life because the pages wouldn't
go away, and I passed akeyboard and I remember sitting down. There's
a picture of my son next tothe keyboard, and I remembered all of
(09:07):
the pain just kind of came outof me when I was playing and writing,
and I was writing my pain onthe piano, and like you,
it saved me from ending my becauseif you haven't lost a child, there's
no way in the world I canexplain to you that kind of pain,
(09:31):
that never ending, NonStop kind ofpain. And you can't go around that
pain, which is why people selfmedicate. You need to go through it.
And that's why music to me andmusic therapy and art therapy are so
monumental that need to be incorporated inrecovery because it gives someone an outlet for
(09:52):
them to let it out and getit out of their body, because until
you reach why they're self medicating,it's a never ending loop that never stops
for them. Yeah, Melissa,so many families face the stigma associated with
addiction, and I know that you'vebeen really an advocate for erasing that stigma,
(10:13):
and I wonder if you can talkabout steps that we can do to
reduce the stigma and promote an openconversation about addiction and recovery. Well,
more education on the mental health aspectand less on Oh they weren't raised ride
or boy if they had you know, given them this or not given them
(10:37):
that. And oh they're rich andso they got in you know, they
got too much and all the sortof excuses that they use and blame.
Yeah, yeah, the blaming thatthey use. If we can get past
that and realize that a lot offamilies have mental health issues in them for
just because they do, not becausethere's anything wrong with the family structure,
(11:01):
but just because this life is filledwith that, and if we can have
a start a conversation on just acceptingthat, you know, some members of
some families have these issues and moveforward and not go backward in some sort
(11:22):
of blame, but move forward withother ways of treating it. Yeah,
it seems like people still think aboutaddiction or substance use issues as a personal
character flaw. Right. They say, oh, if you were strong enough
or you did this, you couldovercome it. They don't understand about the
(11:46):
fact that it really is a disease. It's not a choice necessarily. Yeah,
like you said, it's a loop. There's a loop that just that
happens, and your beliefs get nardand your habits, you know, in
the beliefs that come out of thosehabits, and you get so in such
(12:07):
a poll that there's nothing that anybodycan say to you. You have to
have real alternatives to break break thoseloops and create different neural paths and create
different habits and different beliefs. Andsometimes the biggest culprit, believe it or
not, is your own family andfriends. See the first step to changing
(12:30):
the way people look at the stigmaassociated with mental health is to make sure
your family understands. Like, whenmy son died, there were friends and
family members that came up to me. We're like, well, don't tell
people how he died. Don't tellthem that he odeed, because you don't
want people to think. I'm like, what are you talking about? Why
wouldn't I like? The first stepis that families have to understand that mental
(12:54):
health is not a weakness okay,and that addiction is not a choice.
It is self medicating an issue thatthey're having trouble dealing with. But the
family's got to be the first oneto get on board, because you can't
expect the rest of the world tochange. If your own family and friends
think that way, you have tojust keep beating them up with the fact
(13:16):
of proof that don't be ashamed.I talked to an elderly woman to put
a picture of her daughter up.No one knew she died of an overdose.
I said, you put that pictureup on social media and you tell
them that that was your loved oneand you love them. There's nothing wrong
with them. And they suffered andthey lost a battle, but they foughted
every single day. The strongest peoplein the world are people that are in
(13:39):
recovery. They have more strength thanmost people I've ever met in my entire
life, yet they're treated as ifthey have no strength at all, Doctor
Vernig. Many families face the stigmaassociated with addiction. What steps do you
think can be taken to reduce thisstigma and promote open conversations about addiction and
(14:01):
recovery. Well, the question aboutstigma is very important because not only does
it harm families, but it harmsindividuals who are in need of services.
One of the main barriers for peoplewith a substance use disorder or a mental
illness to getting care, getting thesupport, getting the help that they need
is fear of stigma, fear ofblame, fear of the shame that comes
(14:22):
with unfortunately, living with one ofthese disorders. In our society, we
don't blame somebody for having hypertension orhaving cancer or any other illness. This
is one of the only areas ofhealthcare where we blame the person for their
illness. So, in terms ofyour question about how we start to break
that stigma down, really it's whatyou're doing, Tony. It's what Melissa,
(14:43):
you're doing speaking out talking about it. This is one of the most
important things that we can do,is we can show that it's not shameful.
We can show that it's okay forus to talk about. It's okay
to discuss when somebody is living witha substance use disorder, It's okay to
talk about when somebody has as amental illness. This is a part of
life and there's no shame. It'snot a character flaw. It's something that
(15:05):
is out in the open, orshould be out in the open, and
something that millions and millions of Americansdeal with every single day. Melissa having
and Tony, both of you havegone through a situation where you have a
child an addiction, and I thinkthat's got to be one of the hardest
thing a parent has to deal withaddress. You feel like you want to
(15:30):
save your child, you want tohelp your child, and sometimes you just
don't know how. And I wonderif you have any advice. Having gone
through that journey with your son,what is your advice to parents who may
be concerned about their child's substance useaddiction. Well, I think in our
society, in the Western world,there is this belief that it is the
(15:54):
parent's responsibility for a child to havea happy child, That we are here
to tell them all the rules,we are here to train them to become
good, outstanding, happy, productivepeople. And that's certainly what I thought
(16:15):
before I had children, and onceI had them, I realized, oh
my goodness, each one of thesechildren is completely different, and they come
into the world with their own perceptionand their own strengths and weaknesses, and
it is their journey in this lifeis about them walking the steps and making
(16:38):
the choices. And the best thingthat I can do for them is,
you know, feed and water them, of course, you know, they
provide them those basic needs, andlove them unconditionally, not just I'm going
to love you under the condition ifyou do everything that makes me happy,
(17:00):
if you follow all my rules,then I'll love you. No, it's
it's unconditionally love you. I loveyou the way you are, no matter
what you're going through. So you'vegot that bottom line of love, and
then just be an example of hey, I try to do this. I
try to show my children that Ilove my work. It makes me happy.
(17:23):
Sometimes it takes me away from them, but it makes me so happy
to do what I love. Andthey can see that this is what a
life looks like of finding your joyand pursuing it, you know, pursuing
your desires and creating and and it'songoing and it's up and down, and
(17:45):
this is how you get through that. That's the best thing I can do
is to be an example. Ican't. I'm not here to say you're
supposed to go to school and getstraight a's. You're supposed to go to
college. Then you're supposed to geta job. Some people do do that.
I have one child who's been verygood at that. She's got her
master's and she's all great. Andthen I have an artist, and I
(18:07):
have, you know, all differenttypes. And if we can kind of
change the sort of outlook on whata family is and what a parent's role
is, then maybe we can startto open up this world so people don't
feel like their failure if they don'tget a master's degree or you know something
(18:30):
like that. Yeah, I lovethat. And I get great comfort from
something that I heard a couple ofyears ago, and that is parents should
take less blame and less credit forhow their kids turn out. Right there,
you go both. Absolutely, absolutely, I'm one hundred percent agree with
that, Tony. I agree withher. My thing when I speak to
(18:53):
people is that you need to alwayslet your child know that you love them.
Okay, people tell me, well, then you're enabling them. There's
a big difference between enabling someone whois suffering from addiction or supporting them.
And I always tell them. They'relike, well, they need to hit
(19:15):
rock bottom and they need to beon the street. And I'm like,
one size does not fit all foreveryone. Your child needs to understand that
you are there for them. Butfor me, there are boundaries. There
are boundaries that everyone has to liveby. So my thing always was,
when you want help, I'm here. If you don't want help, I
(19:36):
can't force you into a recovery center. I can't force you into detox because
all you'll do is run away andthen it'll happen again. You got to
want the help, So the onlything I can guarantee you is I will
love you. I will feed you, I will give you whatever you need.
You need clothing, you need this, I will give you those things.
(19:56):
But I am not going to giveyou money to go out and support
you doing something that is detrimental toyour health and to your life. But
I'm always here if you need me. But there needs to be boundaries that
are put up because if not,no one respects that. And she's right,
every person is different. What worksfor one person will not work for
(20:22):
someone else. And as a parent, all you can do is love your
children. That is paramount. Imean, there's nothing else. You can't
live their life for them. Everyone of us that walks the face of
this earth has our own journey.We are born with the journey. It's
the journey we have to walk.Our children have their own journey that we
have to walk. We should helpguide them when they want advice, we
(20:47):
don't give it unless they want it. Okay. And the one thing that
you said, Melissa that hit homeso much to me in the world was
don't preach it, live it,and you will do more by living it
than you ever will by telling whoeverwill, by telling someone Doctor Vernig,
(21:07):
Melissa just talked about how parents,how parents can address the issue of their
children's substance use or addiction issues.And I wonder, as from a perspective
of a clinician, what advice wouldyou give to parents in terms of how
they can address a situation which oftentimesparents have no idea what to say or
(21:29):
do you know, Melissa, Ithink what you said is spot on that
when we try to confront, whenwe try to push something, really what
that does is it causes people toclose down. It causes people to be
more reactive and less open to talk. Making sure that your children know you
are going to listen to them,You're not going to provide judgment. You're
going to be someone that they cantalk to, normalizing for them that it's
(21:52):
an okay conversation to have if you'restruggling. I want to hear about it.
I don't only want to hear aboutit when things are going well.
I want to hear about it whenthings are aren't. And letting them know
that they're going to have love andnot face judgment regardless of what they bring
to you. So not trying toforce them into a certain course of action,
because treatment can look different for differentpeople. There's no one right way
(22:12):
to recover from a substance use disorder, just like there's no one right way
to live a person's life. Sobeing open, being direct, and always
being available with a supportive ear somebodyto listen to their concerns. Well,
let's see you you'd kind of touchedon it already, but I still think
(22:33):
it's worth revisiting the question about strengthand resilience in the face of loss.
What advice do you have for othersdealing with the grief of losing someone to
substance use disorder. Well, Ithink everyone has their own grief process,
(22:53):
you know, and it's I meanI had, you know, a process
of great grief of the loss,and you know, the memories and that
sort of thing. And I havea strong spiritual practice and belief in this
(23:14):
physical world and the non physical world, and death is does not mean death
to the soul and the spirit andthat energy still lives on. So I
get a lot of comfort from that, and that he is in a place
of no pain, which comforts mebecause he was in so much pain.
(23:36):
I would try to really get someoneto understand that any pain that you are
feeling, any guilt, shame,anger, fear, any of those things
you're feeling that is causing you painabout that person who is gone, does
(24:00):
prolong. It serves a purpose inthe short term, get it out,
but let it be once it's out, and continue your life and your search
for your own joy and happiness,because your loved one would want that for
you. They would not want youto stop your life and your grieving over
(24:23):
and over and is going to ultimatelymake you sick and it's going to take
you away from your other loved ones. So it's letting yourself off the hook.
It's a self forgiveness and then ultimatelyfinding peace somehow, somehow with peace
with the lost peace with yourself andknowing you did the best you could.
(24:48):
I did the best I could andbeing able then to walk every day with
that and get the momentum of joyand happiness back in your life. Yeah,
that was so on point. Youknow, she makes a great point.
I just want to touch on quickly. There's a big difference between suffering
(25:11):
and pain. Pain you can livewith, suffering you cannot. And what
Melissa just hit on, which wasso incredible and I want to emphasize it,
is that when you understand the lesson, your own lesson from whatever tragedy
(25:32):
happens in your life, when youcan find the lesson in that tragedy to
whether you it's it's always an innerjourney. Peace and happiness is a choice
that you make. We can chooseto suffer, we can choose to be
unhappy, we can choose to bemiserable, and it's okay to feel your
feelings and go to that place.Like there's times for three days, I
(25:56):
won't get off the couch, Iwon't shower, I won't bathe, I
won't brush myne do anything, andI don't punish myself for it, because
it's okay for me to go there. I just can't live there, and
you understand you can't live there.But that's the point when when you if
you want the piece, you gotto surrender to what the lesson is in
the tragedy of yourself and understand it. And then the pain you can manage,
(26:22):
because you never get over the lossof Atla. You never wake up
and go up. But there's timesI wake up. There's my son's picture.
I laugh, I talk to himhis pictures in my studio. I
go, do you like this song? What do you think do you do
you think this is good? Inever thought I would get to a place
like that. But in order todo that, you've got to put it
down. You've got to let itdown. You've got to stop blaming yourself.
(26:44):
Like like Melissa was just talking about, you have to stop blaming yourself
and understand that none of us areperfect. We do the best that we
can in the moment that we aredoing it, and you have to let
that down. Carrying that weight willkill you. Melissa talked about her recovery
from heartbreak, and I wonder ifyou could jump in and also give some
(27:08):
advice on what resources or what avenuespeople could look at in terms of being
able to address their own heartbreaking loss. So in coping with loss, one
of the most important things to rememberis that for no two people is there
the exact same way of going throughit. So you know, everybody may
(27:30):
feel things that are similar, butthe way through may be different for those
two people. One important component isthe ability to express oneself. So that
can be talking to a friend orfamily member, or to a spiritual support
or a therapist. As Tony talkedabout expressing oneself through music and art,
sometimes something as simple as expressing oneselfto themselves by journaling. You know,
(27:52):
there's many different ways that a personcan get those feelings out, but ultimately
getting through is oftentimes about It's aboutthe ability to think about and to feel
those feelings and to not avoid tonot run from those feelings either. So
you know, as we talked aboutavoidance being a big part of substance use
itself, so being able to getthrough loss, being able to process loss
(28:17):
with others, with oneself, andhaving people around them, being surrounded by
a support system who is there readyto help when a person needs it,
knowing that, you know, youmay say to somebody, I may not
need you right now, but Imight need you in the future. So
just know that if I reach outto you, this is what I need,
this is how you can help me. And you know what, maybe
(28:37):
you're never going to reach out tothem because maybe that's not what you need
in the moment, but maybe youare going to. So having those social
supports is a big part of recovery. Well, Melissa, you have such
great advice, which is a lotof it is self forgiveness and feel your
feelings. I mean, when youhave a loss, that deep, and
as someone who has not lost achild, it's probably one of my biggest
(29:02):
fears. But again, you know, the process is organic. You have
to let you you have to feelyour feelings, but also get some help,
right, I mean there are peopleout there that you can talk to
that can help you process those feelings. Therapy is a good thing, right,
Yeah, talking about it, gettingthrough it, but again not talking
(29:22):
about it forever, because then youget stuck in a loop of that.
It now becomes your journey, yourpath. You know, what are you
going to do now? And whatstory are you going to tell? Life
is filled with loss. There's goingto be lost. It's just going to
happen. It's the duality of theuniverse we live in. And yes,
(29:45):
there are a lot of people thatyou can go talk to that have experienced
it and can help. There's alot of options. Yeah. And plus
I think you also exemplify the powerof art and music heal and Tony talked
about it too, art therapy,music therapy. As a musician, you
(30:06):
have the gift of being able toutilize that. But you know, even
someone like me who has no talentwhatsoever in music, could probably benefit from
from that kind of therapy. Ithink there's something about art and music therapy
that really transcends just even talking aboutyour feelings, right, yeah, because
when you have to remember if you'rewriting a poem or you're writing a song,
(30:30):
or you're writing music or a paintingor a sketch, sometimes if you're
afraid to let people in and youdon't want them to judge you, you
create something and then it's almost like, well, this is how I feel,
but that's not me. It almostgives you a way to open up
being anonymous to that part of you. And then once you see that and
(30:55):
you let that out, you knowthat it's okay to be flawed. We're
all flawed. Every single one ofus are flawed, and every single one
of us has a gift. We'reall born with a gift. But sometimes
life kind of squishes us, tellsus that we have to be put in
a certain box and we can't dothis and we can't do that, and
we let our mind take control insteadof our soul, which is the one
(31:19):
that is really in charge. Thesoul is watching this what I call the
life experience that we're living. Weallow the mind to take over and the
mind creates all these scenarios which leadsus down a very dark path. I
think for me, and I canonly speak for me. I found my
(31:41):
strength in getting it out, andthe way I got it out was through
through music. So I think thatthere needs to be an outlet to push
through the issue. The whole ideaof addiction is that we're going around the
issues, so we're self medicating aroundthe problem, and that's where the loop
(32:05):
comes in. Well, people,the biggest question I'm always asking is,
well, how could someone be inrecovery for three years and then not be
How could they fall from that?And I go because when willpower and the
support system which is helping your willpowerbreaks down for some reason, in the
(32:29):
perfect storm, we resort back tothe one thing that we know will ease
our pain because the system is setup to support a willpower of you not
wanting to use when the system shouldbe set up from the mental health perspective
(32:50):
to go through it, because onceyou go through it, the chances of
you ever falling back are reduced bya thousand percent because now you're not self
medicating a problem anymore. When peoplesay, well, they're getting high.
No, when I was younger,I drank, I did drugs, I
(33:10):
got high. I was a kid. I enjoyed it. People that are
suffering from addiction and recovery are nevergetting high. They are self medicating.
There is a big, big difference. So I like to put doctor Vernig
on the spot for a minute ifI can. Oh, of course,
after listening to this interview, andI know you come from the mental health
(33:32):
perspective, please I hope that wehave converted you in one way that maybe
we can we can rely on youas being an advocate now to recovery centers
to make it a very big priorityto add music and art as part of
(33:54):
the therapy in all of these centers, so that they're as an outlet.
Because music is a universal language.Whether you're a musician or you're not.
Music is energy. It's vibrations.Those vibrations make you feel good or feel
anxious or feel bad. If younotice, tones and frequencies have a big
(34:15):
mood swing on our brain the wayit interprets that. I'm hoping that during
the show we have maybe brought inanother soldier that can be a true advocate.
When when you sit down with thesecenters and you put programs together and
go. I think it's very importantthat we implement a music program, an
(34:36):
art program for another outlet for peoplethat want to use it. Just another
tool in the box that you're usingalready, Tony. You don't have to
convert me. I am already there. I've worked with music and art and
dance movement therapists throughout my career andseen how it enables people to express themselves,
to communicate, to find ways otherthan word words to express what they're
(35:00):
feeling. One of the things thatyou said that I think is so important
is how people need to communicate theirpain. People need to be able to
talk about it. But for somepeople talking about it using words, they
may not be ready to do that, that may be difficult for them,
and so finding a different way ofexpressing that. For some it's creating music
or art. For some people it'sjust listening to that music and being able
(35:21):
to see how that resonates with them, how that speaks to them as a
person. All of that is criticaland can be such an important part of
recovery. And what you said aboutmental health also, I think is important
to kind of highlight as well thefact that underlying substance use for so many
people is that pain of depression,of anxiety, of trauma that they've experienced.
(35:43):
For so many people, they're chasingthe substance, not to get high,
as you said, but to selfmedicate. They don't want to feel,
and it is a disease for themof avoidance, avoiding the feelings that
they're feeling, avoiding the thoughts thatthey're experiencing, avoiding the memories that they
don't want to have. And thatis is such a common route into substance
use disorder for so many millions ofpeople. Melissa, I know that you've
(36:05):
got a very busy schedule and weare so grateful for the time that you've
allotted to speak with us. Butbefore we let you go, we'd like
you to share information about your EthridgeFoundation. Tell us about that. Well.
The Ethage Foundation I put to mywife and I put together after my
son's death. We've raised hundreds ofthousands of dollars to put toward research towards
(36:30):
different options to opioid use and tohelp with opioid use disorder. We specialize
in plant medicines, in psychedelics.Actually, there's a lot of interest and
work going on there, so weput the money toward collecting the data,
doing the research so that we canpass the laws that make these options available.
(36:53):
If people would like more information aboutthe Ethridge Foundation, how do they
get in touch? It's Ethridge Foundationdot org. You can donate, you
can read about it. There's manyways to be of help. Fantastic and
pete. If people would like toknow more information about Recovery Centers of America,
where do they go? Anyone interestedin learning more about Recovery Centers of
(37:14):
America can go to our website atRecoverycentersofamerica dot com or call our mission center
at one eight hundred Recovery. Wehave staff twenty four to seven who will
listen to you if you want tocall about your own struggles. If you
have a family member who may needsome support, give us a call and
(37:35):
we'll have staff standing by to help. Melissa Ethridge, singer and songwriter,
Grammy Award winner advocate for raising awarenessabout substance use disorder, reducing stigma,
and promoting access to treatment and support. We are so grateful that you've spent
the time with us. Thank youso much, Thank you so very much,
and much love to you Tony.Much love to you as well.
(37:57):
Thank you so much for doing this. I know how incredibly busy you are,
but your voice holds a lot ofweight and more voices need to come
together, and you have my gratitudefor forever, for today. Thank you
so much, Thank you. Blessingsto you all. Thank you, God,
bless you. Recovery three sixty isn'tjust about stories of survival from substance
(38:20):
use disorder. It's a resource forthose seeking answers, support and hope.
Whether you're personally navigating the challenging terreign of recovery, or you're here to
learn how to be a better ally. This podcast is a source of information,
inspiration, and empowerment thanks to doctorPeter Vernick, vice president of Mental
Health Services at Recovery Centers of America, and Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter
(38:43):
Melissa Ethridge, and advocate for raisingawareness about substance use disorder, reducing stigma,
and promoting access to treatment and support. We will see you next time.
I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrell and I'm TonyLuke Junior. And the number or
(39:06):
as the number ors
Hello, and welcome to Recovery threesixty, the podcast dedicated to exploring the
pathways to treatment and recovery, broughtto you by the Recovery Centers of America.
I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrow, director ofNews and Community Affairs for iHeartMedia,
Philadelphia, and I am joined byTony Luke Junior. Tony tell us about
yourself. In twenty seventeen, Ilost my son to an overdose and it
(00:26):
literally changed my life. I wasin the food business at cheesesteak shops called
Tony Luke's. I've been a musiciansince I was a Kidwood wrote for many
other artists in the eighties and thenI concentrated on the music using the gift
that I was given to bring hopeand to try to relate to other people
(00:47):
that have suffered losses and that havewu any kind of a loved one,
you know, whether it was achild or a spouse or suicide. And
that's kind of the mission and thepodcast. We wanted it to be real
about talking to people about real lifethings, and we're hoping to bring not
a clinical perspective to what everyone isdealing with mental health and trauma, but
(01:10):
are real if I'm sitting in yourhouse and we're talking, and we're just
talking to each other and talking abouteach other's pain and how we got through
it well. Today we are joinedby doctor Pete Vernig, who serves as
vice president of Mental health Services atRecovery Centers of America, and we are
(01:37):
thrilled to welcome renowned singer and songwriterMelissa Ethridge. Beyond her multiple Grammy winning
musical career, Melissa brings a uniqueperspective to the conversation about recovery and sobriety
through her music and public platform.Melissa Ethred's dedication to raising awareness about substance
use disorder, reducing stigma, andpromoting access to treatment and support services exemplifies
(02:01):
her commitment to using her voice forpositive change. Thank you so much for
joining us here. Melissa and Tony'sgot the first question, Go Tony Mellissie.
You lost your son to substance usedisorder and if it would be okay,
would you be able to share someof the cherished memories or qualities about
(02:22):
your son that you'd like the worldto remember him by. And how has
your son's passing influenced your perspective onaddiction and on mental health itself. Oh
well, my son was twenty onewhen he overdosed. He was he was
(02:45):
a scorpio. He was very fieryand filled with a lot of desire,
and a lot of times his desiresort of passed up his ability in some
things. He kind of would wouldtry to do too much and he'd get
frustrated. So a lot of hislife was a little frustrating. But boy,
(03:08):
he loved being outdoors. He wasa big outdoors guy, mountain bike
and snowboarding, and that's where hegot He was very, very good snowboarding
and he was doing a jump andhe broke his ankle, and that's where
the painkiller started. Snowboarding was oneof his his favorite favorite things to do,
(03:30):
and unfortunately, the last like twothree years of his life was sort
of spent in that descent. Andhaving this in our family and having this
happened to me, I realized Iam not alone. I realized there are
hundreds of thousands of families that don'tspeak about it and don't can't you know,
(03:53):
can't share it, and they takeon this sort of guilt and shame
about it. Is so much ofit has to do with mental health,
so much of it has to dowith that, and you know, the
last three years of his life,we tried a lot of rehab and a
lot of programs, and it neverstuck with him. He was very stubborn,
(04:16):
he was very kind of lost inthat way, and so I've always
been hoping there would be in thefuture more different types of recovery options available
out there. Doctor Verne, canyou talk about the importance of destigmatizing overdose
(04:38):
deaths and highlighting the need for improvedaddiction treatment and prevention. Absolutely so.
The stigma that surrounds death by thingslike drug overdose or suicide is something that
has been with us, obviously fora very long time. And we used
to think that making the suggestion tosomeone that you know, we're not going
to share that publicly, it wasabout protecting the family, but in reality
(05:00):
it robbed them of the opportunity toshare that information, to talk about their
loved one. Now, obviously,when somebody loses somebody that they care about,
it's their choice what they want toshare, how they want to share
it. But by communicating that topeople, what we were doing was telling
them that the way that their lovedone died was wrong or shameful, and
it was a secret that had tobe kept. In addition to that,
(05:21):
by not publicizing or not sharing thefact that somebody died of an overdose,
we're also hiding the importance of theissue in our society. We're robbing people
of the opportunity to know that theirfriend or their loved one, or somebody
in their social circle had died ofsuicide or had died of a drug overdose.
(05:43):
Which when we know somebody near usthat experiences something that helps us to
understand and helps to raise our awarenessas well. Melissa, your music has
meant so much to so many people, certainly in my life. But I
wonder if you can talk about howyour music has served as a source of
healing or expression for you in copingwith your son's lass. Oh, it
(06:06):
means everything. When he he diedduring the pandemic, and it was it
was so difficult because you know,we couldn't do a funeral at the time,
he couldn't do any kind of service, and and you know, we
couldn't gather friends and everybody together.And I just started playing music, and
(06:28):
I my wife and I created athing called Ethart's TV where five days a
week. We would we would puton, you know, an hour show.
We would I would either sing orwe would do a little you know,
talk show or something. And themusic just one hundred percent healed me.
And then the next year I gotto tour and I started playing again,
(06:48):
and it's a very it's a sublimeplace that that I go to when
I play, and it's it's it'spure joy. And to be able to
reach that and and and feel that, and then right from that, I
haven't written a lot. I'm actuallyin New York on Broadway right now.
(07:09):
The Broadway show has his It speaksabout his death and becoming back from that,
and so that's very healing for me. Tell us more about the Broadway
show. It sounds like it wasan opportunity for you to really process a
lot of your feelings, to beable to share a message that has a
wider application to people who get toexperience it. Yeah, it's it's it's
(07:33):
a fun show. It's it's music, it's it's my story. I do
a lot of talking. It's notlike a concert, even though I am
performing in it. And I takepeople from my growing up in Kansas to
Hollywood and the you know, becominga musician and a star, and then
(07:56):
family and then in the end,it is about losing Beckett, but it's
also about carrying on. It's aboutwalking past that. It's about remembering him
in a way that he would wantme to. He would want me to
be happy. He would not wantme to be covered in guilt and shame
and destroy my life because of whathe did. Tony, Well, it's
(08:22):
funny because it's kind of scary.It's such a parallel years ago. You
know, you wrote music for me, was to try to create, to
write what you would be considered ahit record. And when my son died,
I have two other children, andfor the first time I truly understood
what he felt. Because as muchas I love with every five of my
(08:46):
being my other two children, allI wanted was the pain to stop.
And I remember walking into the roomto take my life because the pages wouldn't
go away, and I passed akeyboard and I remember sitting down. There's
a picture of my son next tothe keyboard, and I remembered all of
(09:07):
the pain just kind of came outof me when I was playing and writing,
and I was writing my pain onthe piano, and like you,
it saved me from ending my becauseif you haven't lost a child, there's
no way in the world I canexplain to you that kind of pain,
(09:31):
that never ending, NonStop kind ofpain. And you can't go around that
pain, which is why people selfmedicate. You need to go through it.
And that's why music to me andmusic therapy and art therapy are so
monumental that need to be incorporated inrecovery because it gives someone an outlet for
(09:52):
them to let it out and getit out of their body, because until
you reach why they're self medicating,it's a never ending loop that never stops
for them. Yeah, Melissa,so many families face the stigma associated with
addiction, and I know that you'vebeen really an advocate for erasing that stigma,
(10:13):
and I wonder if you can talkabout steps that we can do to
reduce the stigma and promote an openconversation about addiction and recovery. Well,
more education on the mental health aspectand less on Oh they weren't raised ride
or boy if they had you know, given them this or not given them
(10:37):
that. And oh they're rich andso they got in you know, they
got too much and all the sortof excuses that they use and blame.
Yeah, yeah, the blaming thatthey use. If we can get past
that and realize that a lot offamilies have mental health issues in them for
just because they do, not becausethere's anything wrong with the family structure,
(11:01):
but just because this life is filledwith that, and if we can have
a start a conversation on just acceptingthat, you know, some members of
some families have these issues and moveforward and not go backward in some sort
(11:22):
of blame, but move forward withother ways of treating it. Yeah,
it seems like people still think aboutaddiction or substance use issues as a personal
character flaw. Right. They say, oh, if you were strong enough
or you did this, you couldovercome it. They don't understand about the
(11:46):
fact that it really is a disease. It's not a choice necessarily. Yeah,
like you said, it's a loop. There's a loop that just that
happens, and your beliefs get nardand your habits, you know, in
the beliefs that come out of thosehabits, and you get so in such
(12:07):
a poll that there's nothing that anybodycan say to you. You have to
have real alternatives to break break thoseloops and create different neural paths and create
different habits and different beliefs. Andsometimes the biggest culprit, believe it or
not, is your own family andfriends. See the first step to changing
(12:30):
the way people look at the stigmaassociated with mental health is to make sure
your family understands. Like, whenmy son died, there were friends and
family members that came up to me. We're like, well, don't tell
people how he died. Don't tellthem that he odeed, because you don't
want people to think. I'm like, what are you talking about? Why
wouldn't I like? The first stepis that families have to understand that mental
(12:54):
health is not a weakness okay,and that addiction is not a choice.
It is self medicating an issue thatthey're having trouble dealing with. But the
family's got to be the first oneto get on board, because you can't
expect the rest of the world tochange. If your own family and friends
think that way, you have tojust keep beating them up with the fact
(13:16):
of proof that don't be ashamed.I talked to an elderly woman to put
a picture of her daughter up.No one knew she died of an overdose.
I said, you put that pictureup on social media and you tell
them that that was your loved oneand you love them. There's nothing wrong
with them. And they suffered andthey lost a battle, but they foughted
every single day. The strongest peoplein the world are people that are in
(13:39):
recovery. They have more strength thanmost people I've ever met in my entire
life, yet they're treated as ifthey have no strength at all, Doctor
Vernig. Many families face the stigmaassociated with addiction. What steps do you
think can be taken to reduce thisstigma and promote open conversations about addiction and
(14:01):
recovery. Well, the question aboutstigma is very important because not only does
it harm families, but it harmsindividuals who are in need of services.
One of the main barriers for peoplewith a substance use disorder or a mental
illness to getting care, getting thesupport, getting the help that they need
is fear of stigma, fear ofblame, fear of the shame that comes
(14:22):
with unfortunately, living with one ofthese disorders. In our society, we
don't blame somebody for having hypertension orhaving cancer or any other illness. This
is one of the only areas ofhealthcare where we blame the person for their
illness. So, in terms ofyour question about how we start to break
that stigma down, really it's whatyou're doing, Tony. It's what Melissa,
(14:43):
you're doing speaking out talking about it. This is one of the most
important things that we can do,is we can show that it's not shameful.
We can show that it's okay forus to talk about. It's okay
to discuss when somebody is living witha substance use disorder, It's okay to
talk about when somebody has as amental illness. This is a part of
life and there's no shame. It'snot a character flaw. It's something that
(15:05):
is out in the open, orshould be out in the open, and
something that millions and millions of Americansdeal with every single day. Melissa having
and Tony, both of you havegone through a situation where you have a
child an addiction, and I thinkthat's got to be one of the hardest
thing a parent has to deal withaddress. You feel like you want to
(15:30):
save your child, you want tohelp your child, and sometimes you just
don't know how. And I wonderif you have any advice. Having gone
through that journey with your son,what is your advice to parents who may
be concerned about their child's substance useaddiction. Well, I think in our
society, in the Western world,there is this belief that it is the
(15:54):
parent's responsibility for a child to havea happy child, That we are here
to tell them all the rules,we are here to train them to become
good, outstanding, happy, productivepeople. And that's certainly what I thought
(16:15):
before I had children, and onceI had them, I realized, oh
my goodness, each one of thesechildren is completely different, and they come
into the world with their own perceptionand their own strengths and weaknesses, and
it is their journey in this lifeis about them walking the steps and making
(16:38):
the choices. And the best thingthat I can do for them is,
you know, feed and water them, of course, you know, they
provide them those basic needs, andlove them unconditionally, not just I'm going
to love you under the condition ifyou do everything that makes me happy,
(17:00):
if you follow all my rules,then I'll love you. No, it's
it's unconditionally love you. I loveyou the way you are, no matter
what you're going through. So you'vegot that bottom line of love, and
then just be an example of hey, I try to do this. I
try to show my children that Ilove my work. It makes me happy.
(17:23):
Sometimes it takes me away from them, but it makes me so happy
to do what I love. Andthey can see that this is what a
life looks like of finding your joyand pursuing it, you know, pursuing
your desires and creating and and it'songoing and it's up and down, and
(17:45):
this is how you get through that. That's the best thing I can do
is to be an example. Ican't. I'm not here to say you're
supposed to go to school and getstraight a's. You're supposed to go to
college. Then you're supposed to geta job. Some people do do that.
I have one child who's been verygood at that. She's got her
master's and she's all great. Andthen I have an artist, and I
(18:07):
have, you know, all differenttypes. And if we can kind of
change the sort of outlook on whata family is and what a parent's role
is, then maybe we can startto open up this world so people don't
feel like their failure if they don'tget a master's degree or you know something
(18:30):
like that. Yeah, I lovethat. And I get great comfort from
something that I heard a couple ofyears ago, and that is parents should
take less blame and less credit forhow their kids turn out. Right there,
you go both. Absolutely, absolutely, I'm one hundred percent agree with
that, Tony. I agree withher. My thing when I speak to
(18:53):
people is that you need to alwayslet your child know that you love them.
Okay, people tell me, well, then you're enabling them. There's
a big difference between enabling someone whois suffering from addiction or supporting them.
And I always tell them. They'relike, well, they need to hit
(19:15):
rock bottom and they need to beon the street. And I'm like,
one size does not fit all foreveryone. Your child needs to understand that
you are there for them. Butfor me, there are boundaries. There
are boundaries that everyone has to liveby. So my thing always was,
when you want help, I'm here. If you don't want help, I
(19:36):
can't force you into a recovery center. I can't force you into detox because
all you'll do is run away andthen it'll happen again. You got to
want the help, So the onlything I can guarantee you is I will
love you. I will feed you, I will give you whatever you need.
You need clothing, you need this, I will give you those things.
(19:56):
But I am not going to giveyou money to go out and support
you doing something that is detrimental toyour health and to your life. But
I'm always here if you need me. But there needs to be boundaries that
are put up because if not,no one respects that. And she's right,
every person is different. What worksfor one person will not work for
(20:22):
someone else. And as a parent, all you can do is love your
children. That is paramount. Imean, there's nothing else. You can't
live their life for them. Everyone of us that walks the face of
this earth has our own journey.We are born with the journey. It's
the journey we have to walk.Our children have their own journey that we
have to walk. We should helpguide them when they want advice, we
(20:47):
don't give it unless they want it. Okay. And the one thing that
you said, Melissa that hit homeso much to me in the world was
don't preach it, live it,and you will do more by living it
than you ever will by telling whoeverwill, by telling someone Doctor Vernig,
(21:07):
Melissa just talked about how parents,how parents can address the issue of their
children's substance use or addiction issues.And I wonder, as from a perspective
of a clinician, what advice wouldyou give to parents in terms of how
they can address a situation which oftentimesparents have no idea what to say or
(21:29):
do you know, Melissa, Ithink what you said is spot on that
when we try to confront, whenwe try to push something, really what
that does is it causes people toclose down. It causes people to be
more reactive and less open to talk. Making sure that your children know you
are going to listen to them,You're not going to provide judgment. You're
going to be someone that they cantalk to, normalizing for them that it's
(21:52):
an okay conversation to have if you'restruggling. I want to hear about it.
I don't only want to hear aboutit when things are going well.
I want to hear about it whenthings are aren't. And letting them know
that they're going to have love andnot face judgment regardless of what they bring
to you. So not trying toforce them into a certain course of action,
because treatment can look different for differentpeople. There's no one right way
(22:12):
to recover from a substance use disorder, just like there's no one right way
to live a person's life. Sobeing open, being direct, and always
being available with a supportive ear somebodyto listen to their concerns. Well,
let's see you you'd kind of touchedon it already, but I still think
(22:33):
it's worth revisiting the question about strengthand resilience in the face of loss.
What advice do you have for othersdealing with the grief of losing someone to
substance use disorder. Well, Ithink everyone has their own grief process,
(22:53):
you know, and it's I meanI had, you know, a process
of great grief of the loss,and you know, the memories and that
sort of thing. And I havea strong spiritual practice and belief in this
(23:14):
physical world and the non physical world, and death is does not mean death
to the soul and the spirit andthat energy still lives on. So I
get a lot of comfort from that, and that he is in a place
of no pain, which comforts mebecause he was in so much pain.
(23:36):
I would try to really get someoneto understand that any pain that you are
feeling, any guilt, shame,anger, fear, any of those things
you're feeling that is causing you painabout that person who is gone, does
(24:00):
prolong. It serves a purpose inthe short term, get it out,
but let it be once it's out, and continue your life and your search
for your own joy and happiness,because your loved one would want that for
you. They would not want youto stop your life and your grieving over
(24:23):
and over and is going to ultimatelymake you sick and it's going to take
you away from your other loved ones. So it's letting yourself off the hook.
It's a self forgiveness and then ultimatelyfinding peace somehow, somehow with peace
with the lost peace with yourself andknowing you did the best you could.
(24:48):
I did the best I could andbeing able then to walk every day with
that and get the momentum of joyand happiness back in your life. Yeah,
that was so on point. Youknow, she makes a great point.
I just want to touch on quickly. There's a big difference between suffering
(25:11):
and pain. Pain you can livewith, suffering you cannot. And what
Melissa just hit on, which wasso incredible and I want to emphasize it,
is that when you understand the lesson, your own lesson from whatever tragedy
(25:32):
happens in your life, when youcan find the lesson in that tragedy to
whether you it's it's always an innerjourney. Peace and happiness is a choice
that you make. We can chooseto suffer, we can choose to be
unhappy, we can choose to bemiserable, and it's okay to feel your
feelings and go to that place.Like there's times for three days, I
(25:56):
won't get off the couch, Iwon't shower, I won't bathe, I
won't brush myne do anything, andI don't punish myself for it, because
it's okay for me to go there. I just can't live there, and
you understand you can't live there.But that's the point when when you if
you want the piece, you gotto surrender to what the lesson is in
the tragedy of yourself and understand it. And then the pain you can manage,
(26:22):
because you never get over the lossof Atla. You never wake up
and go up. But there's timesI wake up. There's my son's picture.
I laugh, I talk to himhis pictures in my studio. I
go, do you like this song? What do you think do you do
you think this is good? Inever thought I would get to a place
like that. But in order todo that, you've got to put it
down. You've got to let itdown. You've got to stop blaming yourself.
(26:44):
Like like Melissa was just talking about, you have to stop blaming yourself
and understand that none of us areperfect. We do the best that we
can in the moment that we aredoing it, and you have to let
that down. Carrying that weight willkill you. Melissa talked about her recovery
from heartbreak, and I wonder ifyou could jump in and also give some
(27:08):
advice on what resources or what avenuespeople could look at in terms of being
able to address their own heartbreaking loss. So in coping with loss, one
of the most important things to rememberis that for no two people is there
the exact same way of going throughit. So you know, everybody may
(27:30):
feel things that are similar, butthe way through may be different for those
two people. One important component isthe ability to express oneself. So that
can be talking to a friend orfamily member, or to a spiritual support
or a therapist. As Tony talkedabout expressing oneself through music and art,
sometimes something as simple as expressing oneselfto themselves by journaling. You know,
(27:52):
there's many different ways that a personcan get those feelings out, but ultimately
getting through is oftentimes about It's aboutthe ability to think about and to feel
those feelings and to not avoid tonot run from those feelings either. So
you know, as we talked aboutavoidance being a big part of substance use
itself, so being able to getthrough loss, being able to process loss
(28:17):
with others, with oneself, andhaving people around them, being surrounded by
a support system who is there readyto help when a person needs it,
knowing that, you know, youmay say to somebody, I may not
need you right now, but Imight need you in the future. So
just know that if I reach outto you, this is what I need,
this is how you can help me. And you know what, maybe
(28:37):
you're never going to reach out tothem because maybe that's not what you need
in the moment, but maybe youare going to. So having those social
supports is a big part of recovery. Well, Melissa, you have such
great advice, which is a lotof it is self forgiveness and feel your
feelings. I mean, when youhave a loss, that deep, and
as someone who has not lost achild, it's probably one of my biggest
(29:02):
fears. But again, you know, the process is organic. You have
to let you you have to feelyour feelings, but also get some help,
right, I mean there are peopleout there that you can talk to
that can help you process those feelings. Therapy is a good thing, right,
Yeah, talking about it, gettingthrough it, but again not talking
(29:22):
about it forever, because then youget stuck in a loop of that.
It now becomes your journey, yourpath. You know, what are you
going to do now? And whatstory are you going to tell? Life
is filled with loss. There's goingto be lost. It's just going to
happen. It's the duality of theuniverse we live in. And yes,
(29:45):
there are a lot of people thatyou can go talk to that have experienced
it and can help. There's alot of options. Yeah. And plus
I think you also exemplify the powerof art and music heal and Tony talked
about it too, art therapy,music therapy. As a musician, you
(30:06):
have the gift of being able toutilize that. But you know, even
someone like me who has no talentwhatsoever in music, could probably benefit from
from that kind of therapy. Ithink there's something about art and music therapy
that really transcends just even talking aboutyour feelings, right, yeah, because
when you have to remember if you'rewriting a poem or you're writing a song,
(30:30):
or you're writing music or a paintingor a sketch, sometimes if you're
afraid to let people in and youdon't want them to judge you, you
create something and then it's almost like, well, this is how I feel,
but that's not me. It almostgives you a way to open up
being anonymous to that part of you. And then once you see that and
(30:55):
you let that out, you knowthat it's okay to be flawed. We're
all flawed. Every single one ofus are flawed, and every single one
of us has a gift. We'reall born with a gift. But sometimes
life kind of squishes us, tellsus that we have to be put in
a certain box and we can't dothis and we can't do that, and
we let our mind take control insteadof our soul, which is the one
(31:19):
that is really in charge. Thesoul is watching this what I call the
life experience that we're living. Weallow the mind to take over and the
mind creates all these scenarios which leadsus down a very dark path. I
think for me, and I canonly speak for me. I found my
(31:41):
strength in getting it out, andthe way I got it out was through
through music. So I think thatthere needs to be an outlet to push
through the issue. The whole ideaof addiction is that we're going around the
issues, so we're self medicating aroundthe problem, and that's where the loop
(32:05):
comes in. Well, people,the biggest question I'm always asking is,
well, how could someone be inrecovery for three years and then not be
How could they fall from that?And I go because when willpower and the
support system which is helping your willpowerbreaks down for some reason, in the
(32:29):
perfect storm, we resort back tothe one thing that we know will ease
our pain because the system is setup to support a willpower of you not
wanting to use when the system shouldbe set up from the mental health perspective
(32:50):
to go through it, because onceyou go through it, the chances of
you ever falling back are reduced bya thousand percent because now you're not self
medicating a problem anymore. When peoplesay, well, they're getting high.
No, when I was younger,I drank, I did drugs, I
(33:10):
got high. I was a kid. I enjoyed it. People that are
suffering from addiction and recovery are nevergetting high. They are self medicating.
There is a big, big difference. So I like to put doctor Vernig
on the spot for a minute ifI can. Oh, of course,
after listening to this interview, andI know you come from the mental health
(33:32):
perspective, please I hope that wehave converted you in one way that maybe
we can we can rely on youas being an advocate now to recovery centers
to make it a very big priorityto add music and art as part of
(33:54):
the therapy in all of these centers, so that they're as an outlet.
Because music is a universal language.Whether you're a musician or you're not.
Music is energy. It's vibrations.Those vibrations make you feel good or feel
anxious or feel bad. If younotice, tones and frequencies have a big
(34:15):
mood swing on our brain the wayit interprets that. I'm hoping that during
the show we have maybe brought inanother soldier that can be a true advocate.
When when you sit down with thesecenters and you put programs together and
go. I think it's very importantthat we implement a music program, an
(34:36):
art program for another outlet for peoplethat want to use it. Just another
tool in the box that you're usingalready, Tony. You don't have to
convert me. I am already there. I've worked with music and art and
dance movement therapists throughout my career andseen how it enables people to express themselves,
to communicate, to find ways otherthan word words to express what they're
(35:00):
feeling. One of the things thatyou said that I think is so important
is how people need to communicate theirpain. People need to be able to
talk about it. But for somepeople talking about it using words, they
may not be ready to do that, that may be difficult for them,
and so finding a different way ofexpressing that. For some it's creating music
or art. For some people it'sjust listening to that music and being able
(35:21):
to see how that resonates with them, how that speaks to them as a
person. All of that is criticaland can be such an important part of
recovery. And what you said aboutmental health also, I think is important
to kind of highlight as well thefact that underlying substance use for so many
people is that pain of depression,of anxiety, of trauma that they've experienced.
(35:43):
For so many people, they're chasingthe substance, not to get high,
as you said, but to selfmedicate. They don't want to feel,
and it is a disease for themof avoidance, avoiding the feelings that
they're feeling, avoiding the thoughts thatthey're experiencing, avoiding the memories that they
don't want to have. And thatis is such a common route into substance
use disorder for so many millions ofpeople. Melissa, I know that you've
(36:05):
got a very busy schedule and weare so grateful for the time that you've
allotted to speak with us. Butbefore we let you go, we'd like
you to share information about your EthridgeFoundation. Tell us about that. Well.
The Ethage Foundation I put to mywife and I put together after my
son's death. We've raised hundreds ofthousands of dollars to put toward research towards
(36:30):
different options to opioid use and tohelp with opioid use disorder. We specialize
in plant medicines, in psychedelics.Actually, there's a lot of interest and
work going on there, so weput the money toward collecting the data,
doing the research so that we canpass the laws that make these options available.
(36:53):
If people would like more information aboutthe Ethridge Foundation, how do they
get in touch? It's Ethridge Foundationdot org. You can donate, you
can read about it. There's manyways to be of help. Fantastic and
pete. If people would like toknow more information about Recovery Centers of America,
where do they go? Anyone interestedin learning more about Recovery Centers of
(37:14):
America can go to our website atRecoverycentersofamerica dot com or call our mission center
at one eight hundred Recovery. Wehave staff twenty four to seven who will
listen to you if you want tocall about your own struggles. If you
have a family member who may needsome support, give us a call and
(37:35):
we'll have staff standing by to help. Melissa Ethridge, singer and songwriter,
Grammy Award winner advocate for raising awarenessabout substance use disorder, reducing stigma,
and promoting access to treatment and support. We are so grateful that you've spent
the time with us. Thank youso much, Thank you so very much,
and much love to you Tony.Much love to you as well.
(37:57):
Thank you so much for doing this. I know how incredibly busy you are,
but your voice holds a lot ofweight and more voices need to come
together, and you have my gratitudefor forever, for today. Thank you
so much, Thank you. Blessingsto you all. Thank you, God,
bless you. Recovery three sixty isn'tjust about stories of survival from substance
(38:20):
use disorder. It's a resource forthose seeking answers, support and hope.
Whether you're personally navigating the challenging terreign of recovery, or you're here to
learn how to be a better ally. This podcast is a source of information,
inspiration, and empowerment thanks to doctorPeter Vernick, vice president of Mental
Health Services at Recovery Centers of America, and Grammy Award winning singer and songwriter
(38:43):
Melissa Ethridge, and advocate for raisingawareness about substance use disorder, reducing stigma,
and promoting access to treatment and support. We will see you next time.
I'm Lorraine Ballard Morrell and I'm TonyLuke Junior. And the number or
(39:06):
as the number ors
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show
The Clay Travis and Buck Sexton Show. Clay Travis and Buck Sexton tackle the biggest stories in news, politics and current events with intelligence and humor. From the border crisis, to the madness of cancel culture and far-left missteps, Clay and Buck guide listeners through the latest headlines and hot topics with fun and entertaining conversations and opinions.