September 29, 2021 • 40 mins
In this episode, TN Voices CEO Rikki Harris and COO Will Voss talk with Monty Burks, PhD, CPRS, Director of Faith Based Initiatives for the Tennessee Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse Services. The three discuss how faith, in whatever form that may take, has not only given them a second chance, but also given them the tools they need to help others connect to mental health and recovery.
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Unknown (00:05):
and it is a podcast of Tennessee voices about mental
health, featuring stories ofpeople who have overcome mental
health challenges, as well asthose who have helped people
overcome mental healthchallenges. This podcast is
about authenticity. And it'sintended to give a voice to
those who are passionate aboutmental well being. We hope that
(00:27):
by sharing stories, listenersunderstand mental health and
just how important it is in ourday to day lives, and they will
help us reduce stigma. We wantyou to know that so many who
have struggled with mentalhealth can and did overcome
their challenges. And if you arestruggling, you can too. I'm
your host, Ricky Harris, CEO,Tennessee voices, and with me is
(00:51):
my favorite co host, WilburRoss, CEO of Tennessee voices.
Welcome to our podcast. Let'sget candid.
We're super excited for thisepisode of candid I am here with
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my co host will Vox. It'samazing. Hey, today we have a
guest that we are well and Ireally excited to talk to you
today Monty because there islike something in the air like
things are swirlingconversations about mental
health and spirituality havejust been like
(01:33):
oozing in the last 48 hours. Butfor me for the last couple of
months. So let's start withthis. You introduce yourself.
Tell us what you do, what yourtitle is, where you work, and
why your shirt says continue.
But anyway, I'll Absolutely Somy name is Monty Burks. I'm the
director of faith basedinitiatives with the Tennessee
Department of Mental Health andSubstance Abuse Services. My job
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is to connect our faithcommunities to the behavioral
health care continuum and tohelp them build recovery
ministries, be part of therecovery conversation,
understand the continuum ofcare, prevention, treatment,
recovery, criminal justice, allof that is part of this unique,
amazing story that's going to beone of the greatest stories ever
told, as it continues to unfoldthroughout the course of our
(02:17):
history. You know, we're we'reall boots on the ground from the
beginning to where we are nowwe've seen it all. So that's
actually part of what continuedmeans It means our story
continues. That's what recoverymeans. You know, sometimes
people's false narrative, notunderstanding what recovery
actually means. They think thatthat we've recovered, because
they tell us that we have orthat we've been through a
program or we went through a 12step. But the story continues to
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continue to continue. And youknow, and that's what that
means. And that's how itcorrelates with my work is our
faith communities are connectedacross all of these different
veins in the communities to helpthe story continue. Because long
after all three of those aregone, those faith communities
are still going to be standing.
And we have to make sure we haveresources for them so the
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stories can keep going.
I love that. I love that. And Ilove that shirt badly. I just
think that I have a friend whohas the semicolon tattoo. Yeah,
that's what it means just todaynot to be continued as
continued. Yes, that's right.
And you work for the Departmentof Mental Health and Substance
Abuse Services. And you've beenthere for how long? I've been
there for eight years in thisrole. Before I work with the
(03:22):
department did contract workwith the department as the one
of the original project lifelinecoordinators, which is a program
that I actually oversee now, Iwas one of the first ones that
was tasked with reducing thestigma related to the disease of
addiction. So we went out andkind of planted seeds and tilled
soil for some time to start theconversations on what the other
side of addiction looked like.
(03:43):
And we you know, evolved tobeing the voice behind people
with mental health issues,mental health concerns, mental
health awareness, and I knowwe're going to talk about all
that, but it's kind of the allof the work is it's behavioral
health. It's all of us togetherfighting the same fight. We just
have to take it from differentangles. Yeah, no. Monty, you
talk a lot aboutyour project lifeline and you
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mentioned something that is it'sbeen a topic for a number of
years you said the the diseaseof addiction. Now some people
say that you know, addictionisn't is a disease and some say
that it is Why do you personallycall it disease? Brain Science
man, follow the science, youknow, look at look at what you
know me myself. I'm personallyI'm in recovery. I've spent 21
(04:24):
years free from the bondage thatalmost destroyed me and my
family. So when my recoverywall, I tried to quit it and
obviously, you know, I was like,Hey, maybe I should stop using
but every time I stopped using Ididn't understand the cravings,
the anxiety, the depression orthe withdrawals. All of these
things happened to me, which aretechnically you know, it was
because I had retrain my brainto act a certain way. I changed
(04:46):
the chemistry in my brain laterthrough through research
development and me sitting downjust asking those honest
questions and listening to someother professionals. I found out
that this is what this cost tomy body
is cognitive internal trauma.
And then I'm also a person, Ihave a stent in my chest, I've
got to stay in my heart a heartattack a few years what a while
(05:06):
back. And I found out that youcan change and alter your body's
chemistry with intake, they canproduce an outcome. And it's the
same way with drug use. And it'sstill it, that's where the
disease comes from. And so tothose who are on the fence that
don't really understand that,respectfully, let's not divide
ourselves on that part of it.
(05:27):
And let's figure out like we're,we contribute things that cause
these things. And there's alsosome genetic factors, let's just
figure out how we can worktogether to figure that out,
because the arguments alwayscome respectfully. It's almost
like the comment section versuscommon sense. And I don't ever
let any comment, CommentsSection rhetoric, determine how
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I treat other people in the net.
That way, it kind of shapes theconversation a little different.
I'm also super conservative fromRare rural America, I get it.
Sometimes people have differentbackgrounds, different
different, different educationalbackgrounds, different expertise
in different professions. So Ican understand why the person
that doesn't is not involved inthe scientific world might not
understand or believe whensomebody says addiction is a
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disease, because the only sideof addiction they've seen is
somebody doing something to themor taking something from them,
or hurting someone in theirfamily. So finding those
comfortable correlates throughcultural competent conversation,
we've been able to find that youknow what, maybe we see it
different. But we still have thesame goal. Our purpose is to try
to combatthis is why I was so excited to
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have you on because I knew youwould come straight to your
personal experience. And that iswhat this podcast is all about
is talking to people who arewilling to share their life
experience in order to helpsomeone else. So your story of
recovery, you just kind ofbriefly laid it out for us. But
how did you how did you get tothe point of being 21 years? You
(06:54):
said? Yes.
Great question. So I'm going toanswer the question in a couple
of different ways. But one is, Iwant to give credit to you,
Ricky a wheel is people like youthat helped my story continue.
You know, I have the space toopenly talk about my
vulnerabilities and what I'vebeen through. And if it wasn't
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for people like you that werewilling to understand and stop
sweeping me under the rug, andthen trying to tell my story. I
think that a lot of my recoveryprocess was I've always I was a
radical out there on the streetsand will be a radical in my
recovery. It is what it is I'mloud. I've always been loud, you
know, come from a martial artbackground and punching and
kicking since I was born.
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When I needed help, I couldn'tfind anybody to talk to because
people didn't everybody wasquiet. And I know anonymity is a
great piece of the recoverycommunity. But the other side of
that was I couldn't find theleadership I needed I needed
that I needed to see people saythat this is what the other side
of addiction looks like. Okay,I'm I live with a mental health
concern that I cope ideal Imanage all of these other things
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people needed to tell that storyand I think a culture at one
point we were more of a law andorder culture the I'm talking
about the TV show, every time wetalked about addiction, all you
saw was people like hiding theirpurse or or incarcerated
somebody, it was always one ofthese these super dramatic
stories, but not the real sideof this thing is is like human,
this is human capital. Likethese are people that are going
(08:23):
down this this drain. And so Iwas the reason I was able to to,
to get ahead of and stay aheadof and still constantly stay
connected with the recoverycommunity in my sobriety was
because I found people like you,one of my college professors was
the first person that I reachedout to he got me to go back to
school. Some of his words were,this is the beginning of your
(08:45):
career. When I told him that Isaid, I'm going through
something man, I've got to go toa treatment program. I know what
treatment you want him to calltreatment, something else.
That's what I was gonna gothrough a program. He said,
Cool, learn everything you canfrom it. He said, Because this
will this will be what you canbuild your career off of. He
didn't realize that he was arevolutionary visionary before
we even had people like youready that do the same thing
with everybody that walksthrough your doors, you coach
(09:07):
them into saying, Listen, thisis your game, you figure out how
to play your four quarters, andthe outcome is going to be your
win no matter what happens. Andso I had those people in my life
and that's what kept me youknow, moving and going and
continuing. If it had not beenfor people like you and if it
wasn't for people like you guys,we wouldn't exist because the
world would continue to putpeople in a box that was
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different and keep them in thatbox and then tell the story
about the box while not lettingthe box tell its own story.
Wow.
I've got to absorb that let thebox tell its own story. I mean,
I I'm just thinking about thenumber of times I sit and listen
to someone speak about someoneelse's journey. And that it
(09:51):
gives me chills because it wasso motivating to will and I to
have the people tell us abouttheir journey. That's That's
really amazing.
Your name faces and voices, likethese people have a voice. You
know, it's cool to see people ona mural. And it's great. Let's
hear their voice. Let's let'slet them tell their story I love
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when people from the outside inother disciplines tell our story
respectful. But every once in awhile they get their Burbidge
wrong terminology wrong, theyuse words that may trigger a
person that's not part of thiscommunity to look at us a
certain way through the wholestory. So when the wrong
language, the wrong little ittybitty dive into something that's
to criminal justice related toincarceration related to
(10:35):
something, the person's going tothe whole time, they're going to
treat me or my conversationabout me, how they look at me,
how you look at somebody is howyou treat them. So if you don't
look at them as less than ahuman being, or somebody that's
less than you, Bill, great. Idon't want you to be sympathetic
toward me, I want to beempathetic with me. And that's
letting the box tell its ownstory. Monty, you know, you talk
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about words and stories andhearing voices. It's, you know,
hearing people's stories, you'vegot a powerful story. And I hope
you know that. And it'ssomething that stood out
earlier, you know, we so oftensay, being on your mental health
journey or your recoveryjourney, and earlier on this
call, you called it a walk, yourrecovery walk, and it made me
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think no, maybe that's how weneed to start approaching this,
letting people know that thisjourney may take a while. And
you don't have to hop on it andstart running. Think of it as a
walk. Think of it as a walk.
Building muscle memory, so youcrawl, then you walk, then you
run, it's a step by stepprocess. And sometimes how we
(11:41):
got to crawl to it means we'reat the bottom of the barrel, we
hit rock bottom, and we have tocrawl the stand. And then we
have to stand and then we walk,I correlate my recovery journey.
My walk is building musclememory, like you build in the
gym, each day, I have to liftand push and pull and remove the
bad and continue to add the goodand know that it's an ever
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evolving world we live in, whichmeans relapse triggers take new
forms and new faces. Be alwaysaware of what those relapse
triggers are, what they can bewhat they could be. And then
part of my recovery wheel is youknow, I hit all 12 out after my
12 step, I go back and look. Andit all meant something different
to me because my scales off ofmy eyes had been removed. So now
(12:24):
I can go back and re reevaluatethose 12 and be able to
articulate that to somebody elseas I walk and walk with them.
You know, I'll you know, youguys know I'm a I'm a church
guy, you know, from theChristian faith. I stand proud
of my faith. I work with peoplewho don't believe what I believe
actually, I work with a lot ofpeople who believe anything.
Cool. Let's have a cup ofcoffee, pass me some cake. So
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that's the way I roll with that.
I don't bet right now. Not yet.
It does not bother me at all.
Matter of fact, I think that thethings that uniquely separate us
can actually pull us together ina central point to save
somebody's life. Because I can'treach everybody. And I know I
can't, it's not going to happen.
But you know, understandingother cultures may help us be
able to open those doors. Man issomething powerful about a group
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of people to sit down in a roomthat can get away from all
differences and focus on apurpose, and then help somebody
help themselves. I guess that'sthe most amazing, you know,
godly gift that has ever beengiven to any of us. My buddy
Kurt Johnson, he's a lifelongcourt, he calls it the gift of
desperation. And I agree withhim, because we desperately
(13:33):
tried to figure out ways to getin get ahead of the opioid
epidemic. And then what cameafter the opioid epidemic and
then the stigma around mentalhealth is one of the other
things it could because peopleare so quick that girl, you
crazy boy, crazy, Greg, I can'tbelieve he can like it, I'll
just pull yourself up, you ain'tdoing depressed, you just better
get happy. Now we know that itdoesn't work like that. We know
(13:54):
that the process is much moreintricate. But having those
those those dual and tri quadvoices come in from different
communities and differentaspects. We can look at a
holistic part of a person andlike you know what, I'm a
fitness guru. I'm a mentalhealth coach. I'm a I'm a
speaker, I'm a mechanic, allfour of those have a different
role in helping somebody rebuildtheir lives. I love what you
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said about that centric pointcoming together putting
differences aside, this is kindof what the podcast is to is
we're going to talk about mentalhealth we're going to talk about
substance abuse we're gonna talkabout whatever makes you feel
any kind of way outside of whatyou think should be normal
right? But then we're also atthe same time on the potty is
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going to celebrate thosedifferences between us because
it takes all of us and Ipersonally find a lot of joy in
learning about other people'sculture and their differences or
backgrounds and who they are andwhat what makes them tick and so
um, we have like, zoned throughzoom straight in on your life
and and the depth of your youknow, recovery and all that good
(14:58):
stuff on a zoom out for us.
I can't because I'm sitting heretalking to you and I'm if I
close my eyes Marty, I hear mybrother in law, who is from
Pierre part Louisiana. And I'mgoing like Monty Monty sounds
like my brother in law. Mybrother in law's Cajun. My
brother in law speaks French andhe tell me, who is Monty, what
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is your story? What's yourbackground? What's your culture?
What do you do? What do youlike?
I love it. I love to hear theCajun me. So my mother was born
in New Orleans. My family partof my family migrated up from
that part of the country, manymoons ago, but that we still
have a lot of thosetraditional ways, especially
(15:41):
with our cooking, we can getdown with the Get down.
We can fry.
We'll be right back after thisshort break.
Tn voices is now hiringqualified applicants to build
positions all across the state,you can be part of a growing
(16:02):
team that puts the mental healthof Tennesseans first and thrive
in a compassionate workenvironment to apply to join our
team log on to tnvoices.org/employment.
Welcome back to everybody'sneighborhoods, and everybody
(16:23):
knew everybody I grew up in, youknow, in the south, very, very
wonderful culture. I'm countriesI don't know what Ma'am, I, my
family of martial martial artspeople. I'm still I'm still a
I'm a black belt in Brazilianjujitsu. It's actually one of
the longest it's one of thelongest classes you have to take
a training you have to take tobecome a black belt of eight to
(16:45):
12 years is what it takes. Ittook me a little bit over 10
years to get back. I still teachjiu jitsu I work with some of
our actually, I've worked with alot of people in the middle
health and substance abusecommunity, I try to get
everybody to figure out thesealternative ways to expend that
energy. And you know, martialarts actually got one of our
guys, we just gave him a we justup he just got a new belt. And
he's a he's a person with livedexperience and tells the story
(17:06):
all over the world. And I'vebeen an MMA guy fought in the
MMA arena for some time, but wona couple of Big championships.
You google my name, you cancheck me out on there. I didn't
go into that. But it was fun.
For me. Yes, it was fun timesfor me. But you know, that's,
that's who I am. You guys seeme, you know me, I wear a suit
all the time. But the majorityof the work I do is in a T shirt
and a hat. I'm super recoverycentric, I grew up I didn't have
(17:29):
a lot growing up. So we workfrom the bottom to make make
things for ourselves. So Iunderstand that. Sometimes I
think my mom growing up hashelped me understand that all
communities are not going toalways be the same, but it
doesn't make one equal orgreater than or less than the
other. It's incumbent on me as aperson who has access to
resources to make sure Itranslate on both sides, how
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these resources work. So I thinkthat that's a blessing that's
come from my upbringing. I'malso biracial. My mother's
African American, my father'sCaucasian German, Irish. My
mother's part Native American,African American, I have a
unique heritage. I love it, Iembrace all of my wonderful
things that I have going on. Iwish I could cook in all those
different cultures, I cannot.
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But the part that came up fromthe from the we call it the
dirty dirty, that's new in NewOrleans. We call it very dirty,
dirty south Louisiana stuff cameup with me. And that's when you
pick up a little bit of accent.
All I can say in French, thosepolitical francais. The rest of
that is I don't even if youanswer me, I don't even know
what you say it. Sothat's a little bit about me.
Please feel free to ask anyquestions that you want to ask.
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I'm proud to be who I am, whereI'm from the things I went
through. I don't glorify my badparts of my past. But I'm not
afraid to tell the story becauseI know it can connect somebody
to a better lifestyle. Mm hmm.
All right. Um, there's so manythings you just said I want to I
want to say first, so the partyou were talking about, we all
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went our different ways onSunday, when you're talking
about being in a household withmom and dad on to religious
differences, right. Itimmediately made me think of the
the quote from Martin LutherKing, Jr. That Sunday, still is
the most segregated day.
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They even said like Sunday atthe 11 o'clock hour, because
that was like the most commontime for, you know, our church
services.
I'm seeing a change in that inmy church. But I'm 40. So until
recently, I didn't I still sawwhat Martin Luther King Jr. was
saying he saw what about you?
What about you will Is that Isthat true in your world? You
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know, we that quote stays alwaysstuck with me for so long. And I
think you know, people havelooked at it as yes, this is the
most segregated day of the yearbased on how much were we put a
focus onreligion versus spirituality.
And we think, Well, whatdenomination are you? What
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denomination are you? I grew upseeing me. Very, very small
population of us now I grew upgoing to Baptist churches. And
then now, you know, asnondenominational so, people
were trying to figure out whatwhere do I fit in? And, you
know, I push a lot of my friendsand family to think of where are
you getting fit the most? Where,where do you feel like you've
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found and connected to a greatteacher, and you feel that, you
know, starch is a good family toprovide that support and my time
of need, no matter what it is,you know, and really blending,
Hey, are we talking about mentalhealth? You know, in the
database background, you know, Ihear more and more leaders of
faith based organizations,putting it in their sermons, and
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letting you know, their theircongregation and followers know
that they this is important totalk about, you got to keep that
in the forefront of your mind iswell, you know, Monty, you
mentioned a lot of old thingsthat that I've heard in the
black community, you know, asfar as I don't talk about it, or
older person, do drugs. And wesee that conversation trend
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changing. And and let you know,it's a good feeling, to be able
to say, you know, what, we'renot where we want to be. But we
have come a long way. As far ashow we're talking about
addiction, how we're talkingabout mental health and other co
occurring disorders.
And to be a part of that, youknow, Monty utilizing your
(21:27):
voice, I don't think you realizehow many people that you have
impacted that you probably havenever even met yet.
And I think about you know, evenwhen I first met you, you've
been at the department for eightyears, and I've been with
Tennessee voices a little oversix. People were like, You got
to be Monty, you got to meetMonty, like, who is Monty who is
Monty. And it was just our firstinitial conversation you talked
(21:52):
about, you come to work dressedup. And this is who you are
outside of your hat and t shirt,you're presenting yourself in a
manner of with with humility,this is who I am, no matter what
I have. And this is my story asI'm walking on this journey. So
I absolutely loved it. And beingable to be vulnerable in this
moment, I've got to tell you, Iappreciate that. And anyone
(22:13):
listening definitely, definitelydefinitely does as well. And I
remember that anyway. AndI'm freaking out because I'm
sitting here going like, Okay,you're describing this story of
being, you know, in a householdto different religions. And and
now you're in a position ofconnecting all kinds of faith
based communities on a topicthat you're really passionate
(22:39):
about and lives experience.
That's got to feel like wow, my,my journey makes so much sense.
Now, it does. Go back and lookat Exodus And Moses. And all of
the times that Moses rejectedthe teaching or rejected the
word, he always had his ownplan. But his foot his footsteps
(23:00):
were already ordered. Sometimeswe don't realize that, you know,
and I mean, this was, you know,I respect all traditions, but
I'm going to speak from mine. Ibelieve that an anointing is put
on all of us to do a certainthing. And then at the right and
proper time, when we have comeout of the wilderness wilderness
ready to work in the appointmentwill come. And when that
appointment comes, whether wewant to walk in and or not, we
(23:20):
will be used to do a mightything. And that's where I'm
thankful to God and my family,my friends, and people like you
again, I say it to you often,that without all of these tools
and these resources, ourworkouts wouldn't work. Because
that's, you know, it's a system.
And the things that I wentthrough brought me to you. I
remember I can remember thefirst time I met both you Well,
(23:41):
I remember the first time I metyou, man, I met Rick, I remember
the first time I met you at a atone of the council meetings
where they were the whole statewas together. That's the first
time I met you. And I met we'llat a meeting and it was here in
Nashville, we sit there talk fora minute, we just kind of
chatted it up. I was like, Hey,how you doing? We just We talked
for a couple of seconds. I thinkit's important that we all
always make those interactionswhen we interface with each
(24:03):
other, to put a face with aname. So that when the time
comes for us to come out of thewilderness, we know exactly who
we are. And it's time for us todo the great work. I think there
are no introductions that don'tgo there. All of us are meant to
do something. That's why we meteach other. I was tickled to
death when I was asked to be onyour podcast because I got a lot
(24:24):
of respect for you guys. Soundslike let me come on. So I gotta
make sureI mean excited to be able to
share I'm alsojust want to give you guys a lot
of Thanks for the hard work youdo. Because you know sometimes
communities don't understand orrespect the depth of what you
do. I know from even where Iwork, sometimes people have no
(24:47):
idea like what do you doexactly? Cool. Let me explain to
you guys probably get the samething. But for me, as a person
will live experience a personthat knows how community
structures work and be theperson that works for the city.
I appreciate and applaud you,your work your staff, your team.
I, you know, I said before thispodcast started, I love to hear
(25:08):
and see things. And you've been,you know, you impact me. I know
that I have the realSuperfriends all heroes don't
wear capes. We don't. And I saywe because I'm one of one of the
Lorien heroes. I'm Ricky, well,we already know Ricky's one, you
know, it is what it is.
When we getto heaven, so my chest, you
know.
(25:33):
You're funny, you're funny.
Well, I'm just, we love what youdo, too. Because one of the
things that I studied way backin the day, when I was still
working on my graduate degree,was about how, in mental health
treatment at the community basedlevel, there is a desire for
people who seek services to gethelp at an emotional or
(25:58):
behavioral level. But there'salso a desire at a spiritual
level, and you're taught youkind of defined a little bit of
spirituality, not as religionbut as purpose as meaning as how
I'm connected between myself andothers. And for some between
myself, others and God. And soyou're helping the community
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kind of bring together, how canyour purpose, your spiritual
connection, help serve you to bestrong and your mental health
help move you to a place offinding that great joy in what
you do and not getting lost inyou know, difficult things that
you can overcome? And you'reyou're out there doing everyday
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telling people how to do this,how to connect. And I think
that's a really, that's reallyamazing. Talk about some of the
places you go outside ofchurches. Where else are you out
there? Oh, yes. So you know,man, I don't even know where to
begin. I've been some work withour synagogues, mosques,
temples, street ministries,homeless camps, I've been
(27:08):
everywhere, one of the one ofthe messages that really
resonates with me is to pick upyour mat and walk. And there's a
lot of people that don't, thathaven't had the opportunity for
someone to say that to them. Tosay that no matter you know,
what we got in these communitiesand work with a lot of work with
a lot of Tennessee, the majorityof our faith based communities
is the church is the Christianfaith. So that's 87% of the
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people that I work with are fromthe Christian faith, but there's
still these other small sectionsor centers or groups of
communities, but the message isstill the same. No matter how
things have happened, no matterhow heavy the weight has been,
the fact that we can have thisconversation now gives us a
chance to pick up our mat andwalk, and whatever that means to
(27:50):
them. And whatever that means tome, this time the healing
process begins. And we talkedabout it earlier with recovery
walk, that's where I get thatfrom, well, that's why I say
that often is to pick up yourmat and walk. And when you do
that, you get to teach otherpeople that this is what it
looks like when you get up andwalk it up. I'm not I mean, it's
just anybody listening, I wantto make sure they hear me right
(28:10):
on this, I know that somepeople's situations are a lot
deeper than mine. They've beenaffected, they've been
traumatized a different level,different levels. And I have
been with that being said, wecan have this conversation, that
means we have access toresources, which means that
there's an opportunity to heal.
And one of the things aboutgoing into these diverse
communities, is I always sharethat message. And if somebody
(28:32):
has something to say, I willshut everything down and listen
to that one person. Because wedon't know who our next
president is going to be. Mynext governor is going to be our
next senator is gonna be itmight be that person standing
right in front of us trying totell us what has happened to
them, and try to ask somebody isthere anybody that can help me
not realizing that we're justthe tools, but the tools are
(28:54):
going to be you to helpyourself, we're gonna give you
the tools to do it. So being inthose communities out, you know,
I went to one of our ruralareas, Ricky, a few years back,
and two different denominationswhich will hit over the head
sometimes the denomination isworking sometimes between
denominations is harder thanworking between two different
religions. And that is that is ahow do we take that
(29:18):
two ladies from two differentdenominations decided they were
going to work together and dosome recovery work? So their
idea was they're both retired sothey had a little bit of time on
their hands. I call them seasonsI don't like the word retirement
season because they know morethan I know and they more than
they two grandmothers. That'sthe grandmothers of the most you
underutilized weapon weaponizedresource that we don't use in
(29:38):
America. If you shoot a youshoot 20 grandmothers into a
crowd of people acting up, Iguarantee you all those people
acting up are going to bow outand if they don't pay you, the
switches will come from theperson's anyway, that's a whole
nother that's a whole othercultural conversation. But these
two ladies were able to becauseof who they were, and because of
them being a bit season lineagetheir area, we're able to work
(30:00):
with the criminal justicecommunity, they work with the
jail, the judges, they work withthe Prevention Coalition, they
work with everything possible,the lady started putting people
to work, they started takingpeople from the jail helping get
him helping to get transportedto treatment across the state,
they did all of this because thecommunity trusted them because
of who they were. And that's oneof the things I was I was able
(30:21):
to be a part of gettingresources to those ladies,
because those ladies did aNarcan training. And actually
were able to distribute Mark hamto a family in need, and some of
those life get saved from it.
And that was because they tookit upon themselves in their
position where they were, theyrecognized that we can be
powerful in this space. And somepeople don't realize that when
(30:44):
you have a space on it, whateverthat space is, only if your
space is only put in socialmedia post once a day on it, do
something positive with it,because that's the space that
you have that you could possiblybe part of someone's life being
saved. And they did that theyactually took these two ladies
actually transported a person totreatment, they use the church
van, and some donations from thecommunity. And I'll tell you how
(31:07):
they get donations, they don'task, they tell you, you donate
to this, because this is whatwe're doing period. I love their
business model.
It wouldn't work for me, but itworked for them. But they took a
person from where they wereabout 202 110 miles west and got
them got this person into atreatment program. And that
person that went through thatprogram now works alongside of
(31:28):
them. This was like three, fouryears ago, this person now walks
beside them. Actually thisperson is who they openly
identify about, I'll let themtell their own story. But
they're sorted by peer recoveryspecialist. Now they went
through the training, and theyserve these ladies in this
ministry. But these are theseare parts of the things that
happen when we do something. Ifyou do nothing, nothing happens
if you do something, somethinghappens. So sometimes to do
(31:50):
something is to stand in frontof a pulpit on a Sunday and talk
about mental health andsubstance abuse and where people
from the church can play intothe plans of the part. You don't
have an act have to have anacronym behind your name to help
somebody. You just have to havea heart willing to do the work.
And then you can work with thepeople with the letters behind
their name to get peopleservices later. It's all a
wonderful, comfortablerelationship.
(32:11):
Oh, they can you talk Mondayabout you know, partner with
folks. And you mentionedcertified peer recovery
specialist earlier and youyourself are certified peer
recovery specialist. I was soexcited when I got a chance to
see in the news the other dayabout another partnership that
you had formed to make change towhich was partnering with
(32:31):
Lipscomb University. Now is onlynot only was I proud because I
went to school there because youdid something that was new for
the mental health programs overthere at Lipscomb. So talk to
listeners a little bit aboutkind of that collaboration with
Lipscomb, what happened inwhat's the goal, what's the
hope, man, Dr. Nash. She is ashe is just a light in the dark
(32:54):
man. She kicked man. She's yourprofessor, my colleague, my
friend. I call them my professoryesterday. She was she's she's
something else man. Um, we wereable to tell the cool thing
about this. And I know Ricky,you'll appreciate this is one of
my faith based coordinatorsattends Lipscomb University.
He's in the Masters of clinicalsocial work program. And he
(33:17):
brought the conversation to hisclass, he started bringing these
conversations out because we oneof the things that we do people
to work under the program isthat obviously, I push everybody
to go back to school. You havelived experience, let's let's
attach that lived experience toyour school and see if we can
make a comfortable mix becausethis is how we re re invest into
the behavioral healthcareworkforce is people like you
(33:39):
with lived experience. It's sucha great opportunity where people
will live experience to becomeclinicians, licensed clinical
social workers have PhDs, MDS,all these things coming from
people that understand how thesystem operates on both sides,
understanding that sometimes thetextbook while it's wonderful
and great, it's only a schematicand things happen outside of the
schematic. But his name is JamieHarper. He's in a master's
(34:01):
program saying actually he justgraduated, we were able to
connect the dots with Dr.
Witherspoon and bring in one ofour other lifeline peers. We've
been focusing on recovery allytraining. We had multiple
conversations during COVID. Andwe said you know what Lipscomb
campus is going to be a becomingrecovery friendly campus. So we
were able to start bisonrecovery. Now the coolest thing
about this is Lipscomb is one ofour most conservative
(34:25):
universities, if not our mostconservative university in the
state of Tennessee. They werethe first university to adopt a
recover recovery ally revise andrecovery full effect collegiate
recovery movement in our state.
They did it right there. And itwas under Dr. Nash's leadership.
And after Witherspoon, Nash toldus that it wasn't just this the
(34:46):
hyphenated part of her lastname, Dr. Witherspoon Nash. It
was her leadership and herunderstanding of how how these
things work. And we were able toget that done man and you
wouldn't have that the the themore the feeling
College was my access torecovery. I went back to school
and that community is whathelped keep me clean to get me
to where I met, you know,retraining the brain, man. It's
(35:09):
all about building strongbrains, right? You can build
them when they're young,sometimes they get not built,
right. So sometimes you have tostrip the car rebuilding, she
understands that we've gotstudents that are coming in,
they can benefit from this typeof community. And now we have
this full players recoverycommunity. So that happened, we
got six other CollegiateRecovery academies coming up.
That was our first one, we havesix other ones coming up over
the course of the next fourmonths. As long as you know, of
(35:31):
course, the COVID numbers,though, what you know, depending
on the Delta variant, and such,but her leadership has caused
the butterfly effect that Iactually mentioned on the on the
White House Call yesterday, Idid a webinar for the White
House yesterday afternoon. And Italked about how low some
college had adopted a collegiaterecovery working with with a
faith based initiative. Andpeople still couldn't put
(35:52):
together a collegiate recovery,faith based initiative. When we
throw something that you will,yeah, let me throw something at
you. Every single college in ourstate is surrounded by steeples.
People that have to go to schooldon't always get their recovery
on campus, but they need thecongregations around them and be
the resource they step right offof that ground and go into that
(36:13):
a meeting that in a meeting thatdouble trouble that about
medicated assisted withwhatever, whatever the meeting
is, whatever the congregationholds, it's just another
opportunity for access points.
On the flip side of that adage,straight ministry driven we are
doing ministry work outside thefour walls of a sanctuary.
That's what we're supposed to dofish on the other side of the
boat, fish on the other side ofthe boat, man. Don't get me to
(36:33):
preach. And I'm sorry, that'snot what the podcast is for. I
apologize.
You know, I'm all I'm all aboutlike reestablishment like giving
people another chance. Andsometimes it takes more than a
second, it might take a third orfourth with a with a some of our
with the sum of all ourexperiences. Sometimes the
second chance people don't evensee it because of everything
(36:55):
that's happened to them in theirlife. They can't even accept the
second chance they like, wow, Ireally cares enough about me.
What do they want from me? Wow.
You know, maybe I should go backto riding the bike that I've
been trying to ride because thisfeels better to me. Anyway, I'm
going back in two aces. But I'msorry. I'll get the preaching
y'all y'all y'all know how I am.
I'm a real. Yes, Monty, you sayyou get to preach. And I had to
(37:18):
kind of realize where I was fora minute because I almost said
Amen a few times.
The same will receive really Iknow Ricky said to save.
We'll be right back after thisshort break.
September is Suicide PreventionMonth. And there are things each
(37:40):
of us can do to help preventsuicide. Every year at this time
lifeline and other mental healthorganizations and individuals
across the US and around theworld. Raise awareness of
suicide prevention. If you arehaving suicidal thoughts, call
1-800-273-8255 and head to t andvoices.org. For mental health
(38:05):
resources, including our newlyrenovated online library. You
can be the one to preventsuicide this month, and all your
mom by gaining tools andknowledge to foster better
mental health for yourself. Andthose around you.
Welcome backjust like round robin, let's go
(38:33):
around and say what was yoursecond chance? What was your
What was that second chance thatmade the difference? I mean,
small, big, it doesn't matter.
What was that second chance thatyou'll always look back and go,
Oh my gosh, I'm grateful that Igot that.
Who wants to go first? Oh.
(38:58):
We're gonna we'll right now.
I've got a bunch of secondchances.
I'll start.
My biggest Second Chance was Iwent to a class that class on a
criminal justice professor. Iwent to talk to him. Because at
that point, I knew I was goingto have to, I needed to go to
(39:18):
treatment. I had to get out ofschool to stop going to school.
I had to get myself together. SoI had to stop. Um, he at that
point when he told me that thisis the beginning of your story
of your career. That was thefirst time anybody ever said
that anything to me like that.
And that was the beginning. Thatwas the catalyst explosion that
happened. That was my bang,right? There's like this, I can
(39:41):
do this. i It wasn't easy. Likeit's like to me, I felt like he
wasn't going to give me anotherchance because I failed. But to
me, I would the only person thatthought I failed was me, wasn't
him. He said you did this isyour opportunity. So my
obstacle became an opportunity,because he told me that I could.
(40:04):
He told me that I could. Sothat's my second chance story.
That's just as one of a million,but that's one that sticks with
me pretty good. I love that.
That's awesome. Well, that thereis plenty of me, the story that
really comes to mind is when Iwas graduating from undergrad
from Ole Miss, and I couldn'tfind a job down there.
(40:25):
I retired, I couldn't find a jobdown there. I wanted to be in
DC, but I knew I didn't want togo on and get my masters at that
time. So I end up having to moveback home. And I feel like that
would that's a second chance.
You know, it was my parentssaying, you know, have faith,
it's gonna work out, it's goingto come to you. Because at that
time, I felt that I was losingit. Like, you know what, I was
(40:48):
supposed to have all thistogether on graduation day. And
it was always remembering, youknow what, I'm thankful that I
was even able to go back homeand have that place to and that
support to go to I tell a lot ofkids students now I leave home
the right way. Because you neverknow, you may have to go back.
And I think it was them beingable to give me that chance to,
(41:09):
like, come back. We're stillhere for you. It's going to work
out. Just remember, rememberwhat your values.
Yeah.
That's awesome, man. That'sawesome. You're awesome person.
So the product of that secondchance is you right here right
now?
Absolutely.
(41:29):
Yeah. I mean, I have one bigone. And it makes all the other
ones seem not even importantanymore. Because I was born
dead.
I'm not supposed to be alive.
And I very much my mother saidto me, no one can explain it. It
doesn't make sense. You weren'tsupposed to live. And when when
(41:52):
you did when you startedbreathing. It was so much time
elapsed between I mean, theydon't know when I stopped
breathing in the womb to thepoint of delivery. But it was at
least 20 minutes and CPR of CPRthat they were like, Let's be
prepared this. She he lost muchoxygen to our brain. She'll
(42:15):
never be okay. And my mom was awoman of faith. And she refused
to accept that. And she prayedand prayed and prayed and said,
I don't know what your plan isfor her Lord. But I know there
is one and and so you know,sometimes when I think about
that, I think was that my secondchance being born dead? Or was
(42:36):
it being born again later? Rightas a seven year old? That wasn't
my real second chance. But yeah,that that was it. And as you
were talking and I was thinkingabout those chances, I was like,
wow, you know, I think I thinkthat's really cool. Because we
can all connect to a time whenwe got that chance. Thank you
for sharing that. That's That'sme. That's so that's a
(42:59):
much respect to you and yourmother.
She's boys story without cryingand I'm 40 years old and she's
still a little lip quivers. Whenshe starts to tell it. I'm like,
I know, Mom. I know. But I'mhere I made it.
So we all three no bubblesprayer warriors don't. Yes. Yes.
(43:23):
Well that I learned a lot.
Monty, first of all, thank youfor your vulnerability. Thank
you for your openness. Thank youfor what you do every day and
how you committed your life toothers. And that's kind of what
this is all about to what we'vemet some pretty altruistic
people. Wow, your altruism isit's off the chart. So thanks
for being there for people doingwhat you do and podcast. We love
(43:44):
it so much that you joined ustoday. Thank you for letting me
come on y'all. My friends, mycolleagues. Thank you for
joining us. If you enjoy today'sprogram, like subscribe and
review this podcast. If you orsomeone you know is in need of
mental health support services,log on to tn voices.org or call
(44:04):
one 806 70988 to join us nexttime as we get candid
and it is a podcast of Tennessee voices about mental
health, featuring stories ofpeople who have overcome mental
health challenges, as well asthose who have helped people
overcome mental healthchallenges. This podcast is
about authenticity. And it'sintended to give a voice to
those who are passionate aboutmental well being. We hope that
(00:27):
by sharing stories, listenersunderstand mental health and
just how important it is in ourday to day lives, and they will
help us reduce stigma. We wantyou to know that so many who
have struggled with mentalhealth can and did overcome
their challenges. And if you arestruggling, you can too. I'm
your host, Ricky Harris, CEO,Tennessee voices, and with me is
(00:51):
my favorite co host, WilburRoss, CEO of Tennessee voices.
Welcome to our podcast. Let'sget candid.
We're super excited for thisepisode of candid I am here with
(01:12):
my co host will Vox. It'samazing. Hey, today we have a
guest that we are well and Ireally excited to talk to you
today Monty because there islike something in the air like
things are swirlingconversations about mental
health and spirituality havejust been like
(01:33):
oozing in the last 48 hours. Butfor me for the last couple of
months. So let's start withthis. You introduce yourself.
Tell us what you do, what yourtitle is, where you work, and
why your shirt says continue.
But anyway, I'll Absolutely Somy name is Monty Burks. I'm the
director of faith basedinitiatives with the Tennessee
Department of Mental Health andSubstance Abuse Services. My job
(01:54):
is to connect our faithcommunities to the behavioral
health care continuum and tohelp them build recovery
ministries, be part of therecovery conversation,
understand the continuum ofcare, prevention, treatment,
recovery, criminal justice, allof that is part of this unique,
amazing story that's going to beone of the greatest stories ever
told, as it continues to unfoldthroughout the course of our
(02:17):
history. You know, we're we'reall boots on the ground from the
beginning to where we are nowwe've seen it all. So that's
actually part of what continuedmeans It means our story
continues. That's what recoverymeans. You know, sometimes
people's false narrative, notunderstanding what recovery
actually means. They think thatthat we've recovered, because
they tell us that we have orthat we've been through a
program or we went through a 12step. But the story continues to
(02:39):
continue to continue. And youknow, and that's what that
means. And that's how itcorrelates with my work is our
faith communities are connectedacross all of these different
veins in the communities to helpthe story continue. Because long
after all three of those aregone, those faith communities
are still going to be standing.
And we have to make sure we haveresources for them so the
(03:00):
stories can keep going.
I love that. I love that. And Ilove that shirt badly. I just
think that I have a friend whohas the semicolon tattoo. Yeah,
that's what it means just todaynot to be continued as
continued. Yes, that's right.
And you work for the Departmentof Mental Health and Substance
Abuse Services. And you've beenthere for how long? I've been
there for eight years in thisrole. Before I work with the
(03:22):
department did contract workwith the department as the one
of the original project lifelinecoordinators, which is a program
that I actually oversee now, Iwas one of the first ones that
was tasked with reducing thestigma related to the disease of
addiction. So we went out andkind of planted seeds and tilled
soil for some time to start theconversations on what the other
side of addiction looked like.
(03:43):
And we you know, evolved tobeing the voice behind people
with mental health issues,mental health concerns, mental
health awareness, and I knowwe're going to talk about all
that, but it's kind of the allof the work is it's behavioral
health. It's all of us togetherfighting the same fight. We just
have to take it from differentangles. Yeah, no. Monty, you
talk a lot aboutyour project lifeline and you
(04:04):
mentioned something that is it'sbeen a topic for a number of
years you said the the diseaseof addiction. Now some people
say that you know, addictionisn't is a disease and some say
that it is Why do you personallycall it disease? Brain Science
man, follow the science, youknow, look at look at what you
know me myself. I'm personallyI'm in recovery. I've spent 21
(04:24):
years free from the bondage thatalmost destroyed me and my
family. So when my recoverywall, I tried to quit it and
obviously, you know, I was like,Hey, maybe I should stop using
but every time I stopped using Ididn't understand the cravings,
the anxiety, the depression orthe withdrawals. All of these
things happened to me, which aretechnically you know, it was
because I had retrain my brainto act a certain way. I changed
(04:46):
the chemistry in my brain laterthrough through research
development and me sitting downjust asking those honest
questions and listening to someother professionals. I found out
that this is what this cost tomy body
is cognitive internal trauma.
And then I'm also a person, Ihave a stent in my chest, I've
got to stay in my heart a heartattack a few years what a while
(05:06):
back. And I found out that youcan change and alter your body's
chemistry with intake, they canproduce an outcome. And it's the
same way with drug use. And it'sstill it, that's where the
disease comes from. And so tothose who are on the fence that
don't really understand that,respectfully, let's not divide
ourselves on that part of it.
(05:27):
And let's figure out like we're,we contribute things that cause
these things. And there's alsosome genetic factors, let's just
figure out how we can worktogether to figure that out,
because the arguments alwayscome respectfully. It's almost
like the comment section versuscommon sense. And I don't ever
let any comment, CommentsSection rhetoric, determine how
(05:48):
I treat other people in the net.
That way, it kind of shapes theconversation a little different.
I'm also super conservative fromRare rural America, I get it.
Sometimes people have differentbackgrounds, different
different, different educationalbackgrounds, different expertise
in different professions. So Ican understand why the person
that doesn't is not involved inthe scientific world might not
understand or believe whensomebody says addiction is a
(06:11):
disease, because the only sideof addiction they've seen is
somebody doing something to themor taking something from them,
or hurting someone in theirfamily. So finding those
comfortable correlates throughcultural competent conversation,
we've been able to find that youknow what, maybe we see it
different. But we still have thesame goal. Our purpose is to try
to combatthis is why I was so excited to
(06:31):
have you on because I knew youwould come straight to your
personal experience. And that iswhat this podcast is all about
is talking to people who arewilling to share their life
experience in order to helpsomeone else. So your story of
recovery, you just kind ofbriefly laid it out for us. But
how did you how did you get tothe point of being 21 years? You
(06:54):
said? Yes.
Great question. So I'm going toanswer the question in a couple
of different ways. But one is, Iwant to give credit to you,
Ricky a wheel is people like youthat helped my story continue.
You know, I have the space toopenly talk about my
vulnerabilities and what I'vebeen through. And if it wasn't
(07:16):
for people like you that werewilling to understand and stop
sweeping me under the rug, andthen trying to tell my story. I
think that a lot of my recoveryprocess was I've always I was a
radical out there on the streetsand will be a radical in my
recovery. It is what it is I'mloud. I've always been loud, you
know, come from a martial artbackground and punching and
kicking since I was born.
(07:37):
When I needed help, I couldn'tfind anybody to talk to because
people didn't everybody wasquiet. And I know anonymity is a
great piece of the recoverycommunity. But the other side of
that was I couldn't find theleadership I needed I needed
that I needed to see people saythat this is what the other side
of addiction looks like. Okay,I'm I live with a mental health
concern that I cope ideal Imanage all of these other things
(08:02):
people needed to tell that storyand I think a culture at one
point we were more of a law andorder culture the I'm talking
about the TV show, every time wetalked about addiction, all you
saw was people like hiding theirpurse or or incarcerated
somebody, it was always one ofthese these super dramatic
stories, but not the real sideof this thing is is like human,
this is human capital. Likethese are people that are going
(08:23):
down this this drain. And so Iwas the reason I was able to to,
to get ahead of and stay aheadof and still constantly stay
connected with the recoverycommunity in my sobriety was
because I found people like you,one of my college professors was
the first person that I reachedout to he got me to go back to
school. Some of his words were,this is the beginning of your
(08:45):
career. When I told him that Isaid, I'm going through
something man, I've got to go toa treatment program. I know what
treatment you want him to calltreatment, something else.
That's what I was gonna gothrough a program. He said,
Cool, learn everything you canfrom it. He said, Because this
will this will be what you canbuild your career off of. He
didn't realize that he was arevolutionary visionary before
we even had people like youready that do the same thing
with everybody that walksthrough your doors, you coach
(09:07):
them into saying, Listen, thisis your game, you figure out how
to play your four quarters, andthe outcome is going to be your
win no matter what happens. Andso I had those people in my life
and that's what kept me youknow, moving and going and
continuing. If it had not beenfor people like you and if it
wasn't for people like you guys,we wouldn't exist because the
world would continue to putpeople in a box that was
(09:29):
different and keep them in thatbox and then tell the story
about the box while not lettingthe box tell its own story.
Wow.
I've got to absorb that let thebox tell its own story. I mean,
I I'm just thinking about thenumber of times I sit and listen
to someone speak about someoneelse's journey. And that it
(09:51):
gives me chills because it wasso motivating to will and I to
have the people tell us abouttheir journey. That's That's
really amazing.
Your name faces and voices, likethese people have a voice. You
know, it's cool to see people ona mural. And it's great. Let's
hear their voice. Let's let'slet them tell their story I love
(10:12):
when people from the outside inother disciplines tell our story
respectful. But every once in awhile they get their Burbidge
wrong terminology wrong, theyuse words that may trigger a
person that's not part of thiscommunity to look at us a
certain way through the wholestory. So when the wrong
language, the wrong little ittybitty dive into something that's
to criminal justice related toincarceration related to
(10:35):
something, the person's going tothe whole time, they're going to
treat me or my conversationabout me, how they look at me,
how you look at somebody is howyou treat them. So if you don't
look at them as less than ahuman being, or somebody that's
less than you, Bill, great. Idon't want you to be sympathetic
toward me, I want to beempathetic with me. And that's
letting the box tell its ownstory. Monty, you know, you talk
(10:57):
about words and stories andhearing voices. It's, you know,
hearing people's stories, you'vegot a powerful story. And I hope
you know that. And it'ssomething that stood out
earlier, you know, we so oftensay, being on your mental health
journey or your recoveryjourney, and earlier on this
call, you called it a walk, yourrecovery walk, and it made me
(11:18):
think no, maybe that's how weneed to start approaching this,
letting people know that thisjourney may take a while. And
you don't have to hop on it andstart running. Think of it as a
walk. Think of it as a walk.
Building muscle memory, so youcrawl, then you walk, then you
run, it's a step by stepprocess. And sometimes how we
(11:41):
got to crawl to it means we'reat the bottom of the barrel, we
hit rock bottom, and we have tocrawl the stand. And then we
have to stand and then we walk,I correlate my recovery journey.
My walk is building musclememory, like you build in the
gym, each day, I have to liftand push and pull and remove the
bad and continue to add the goodand know that it's an ever
(12:01):
evolving world we live in, whichmeans relapse triggers take new
forms and new faces. Be alwaysaware of what those relapse
triggers are, what they can bewhat they could be. And then
part of my recovery wheel is youknow, I hit all 12 out after my
12 step, I go back and look. Andit all meant something different
to me because my scales off ofmy eyes had been removed. So now
(12:24):
I can go back and re reevaluatethose 12 and be able to
articulate that to somebody elseas I walk and walk with them.
You know, I'll you know, youguys know I'm a I'm a church
guy, you know, from theChristian faith. I stand proud
of my faith. I work with peoplewho don't believe what I believe
actually, I work with a lot ofpeople who believe anything.
Cool. Let's have a cup ofcoffee, pass me some cake. So
(12:46):
that's the way I roll with that.
I don't bet right now. Not yet.
It does not bother me at all.
Matter of fact, I think that thethings that uniquely separate us
can actually pull us together ina central point to save
somebody's life. Because I can'treach everybody. And I know I
can't, it's not going to happen.
But you know, understandingother cultures may help us be
able to open those doors. Man issomething powerful about a group
(13:10):
of people to sit down in a roomthat can get away from all
differences and focus on apurpose, and then help somebody
help themselves. I guess that'sthe most amazing, you know,
godly gift that has ever beengiven to any of us. My buddy
Kurt Johnson, he's a lifelongcourt, he calls it the gift of
desperation. And I agree withhim, because we desperately
(13:33):
tried to figure out ways to getin get ahead of the opioid
epidemic. And then what cameafter the opioid epidemic and
then the stigma around mentalhealth is one of the other
things it could because peopleare so quick that girl, you
crazy boy, crazy, Greg, I can'tbelieve he can like it, I'll
just pull yourself up, you ain'tdoing depressed, you just better
get happy. Now we know that itdoesn't work like that. We know
(13:54):
that the process is much moreintricate. But having those
those those dual and tri quadvoices come in from different
communities and differentaspects. We can look at a
holistic part of a person andlike you know what, I'm a
fitness guru. I'm a mentalhealth coach. I'm a I'm a
speaker, I'm a mechanic, allfour of those have a different
role in helping somebody rebuildtheir lives. I love what you
(14:16):
said about that centric pointcoming together putting
differences aside, this is kindof what the podcast is to is
we're going to talk about mentalhealth we're going to talk about
substance abuse we're gonna talkabout whatever makes you feel
any kind of way outside of whatyou think should be normal
right? But then we're also atthe same time on the potty is
(14:36):
going to celebrate thosedifferences between us because
it takes all of us and Ipersonally find a lot of joy in
learning about other people'sculture and their differences or
backgrounds and who they are andwhat what makes them tick and so
um, we have like, zoned throughzoom straight in on your life
and and the depth of your youknow, recovery and all that good
(14:58):
stuff on a zoom out for us.
I can't because I'm sitting heretalking to you and I'm if I
close my eyes Marty, I hear mybrother in law, who is from
Pierre part Louisiana. And I'mgoing like Monty Monty sounds
like my brother in law. Mybrother in law's Cajun. My
brother in law speaks French andhe tell me, who is Monty, what
(15:21):
is your story? What's yourbackground? What's your culture?
What do you do? What do youlike?
I love it. I love to hear theCajun me. So my mother was born
in New Orleans. My family partof my family migrated up from
that part of the country, manymoons ago, but that we still
have a lot of thosetraditional ways, especially
(15:41):
with our cooking, we can getdown with the Get down.
We can fry.
We'll be right back after thisshort break.
Tn voices is now hiringqualified applicants to build
positions all across the state,you can be part of a growing
(16:02):
team that puts the mental healthof Tennesseans first and thrive
in a compassionate workenvironment to apply to join our
team log on to tnvoices.org/employment.
Welcome back to everybody'sneighborhoods, and everybody
(16:23):
knew everybody I grew up in, youknow, in the south, very, very
wonderful culture. I'm countriesI don't know what Ma'am, I, my
family of martial martial artspeople. I'm still I'm still a
I'm a black belt in Brazilianjujitsu. It's actually one of
the longest it's one of thelongest classes you have to take
a training you have to take tobecome a black belt of eight to
(16:45):
12 years is what it takes. Ittook me a little bit over 10
years to get back. I still teachjiu jitsu I work with some of
our actually, I've worked with alot of people in the middle
health and substance abusecommunity, I try to get
everybody to figure out thesealternative ways to expend that
energy. And you know, martialarts actually got one of our
guys, we just gave him a we justup he just got a new belt. And
he's a he's a person with livedexperience and tells the story
(17:06):
all over the world. And I'vebeen an MMA guy fought in the
MMA arena for some time, but wona couple of Big championships.
You google my name, you cancheck me out on there. I didn't
go into that. But it was fun.
For me. Yes, it was fun timesfor me. But you know, that's,
that's who I am. You guys seeme, you know me, I wear a suit
all the time. But the majorityof the work I do is in a T shirt
and a hat. I'm super recoverycentric, I grew up I didn't have
(17:29):
a lot growing up. So we workfrom the bottom to make make
things for ourselves. So Iunderstand that. Sometimes I
think my mom growing up hashelped me understand that all
communities are not going toalways be the same, but it
doesn't make one equal orgreater than or less than the
other. It's incumbent on me as aperson who has access to
resources to make sure Itranslate on both sides, how
(17:51):
these resources work. So I thinkthat that's a blessing that's
come from my upbringing. I'malso biracial. My mother's
African American, my father'sCaucasian German, Irish. My
mother's part Native American,African American, I have a
unique heritage. I love it, Iembrace all of my wonderful
things that I have going on. Iwish I could cook in all those
different cultures, I cannot.
(18:15):
But the part that came up fromthe from the we call it the
dirty dirty, that's new in NewOrleans. We call it very dirty,
dirty south Louisiana stuff cameup with me. And that's when you
pick up a little bit of accent.
All I can say in French, thosepolitical francais. The rest of
that is I don't even if youanswer me, I don't even know
what you say it. Sothat's a little bit about me.
Please feel free to ask anyquestions that you want to ask.
(18:38):
I'm proud to be who I am, whereI'm from the things I went
through. I don't glorify my badparts of my past. But I'm not
afraid to tell the story becauseI know it can connect somebody
to a better lifestyle. Mm hmm.
All right. Um, there's so manythings you just said I want to I
want to say first, so the partyou were talking about, we all
(19:00):
went our different ways onSunday, when you're talking
about being in a household withmom and dad on to religious
differences, right. Itimmediately made me think of the
the quote from Martin LutherKing, Jr. That Sunday, still is
the most segregated day.
(19:20):
They even said like Sunday atthe 11 o'clock hour, because
that was like the most commontime for, you know, our church
services.
I'm seeing a change in that inmy church. But I'm 40. So until
recently, I didn't I still sawwhat Martin Luther King Jr. was
saying he saw what about you?
What about you will Is that Isthat true in your world? You
(19:43):
know, we that quote stays alwaysstuck with me for so long. And I
think you know, people havelooked at it as yes, this is the
most segregated day of the yearbased on how much were we put a
focus onreligion versus spirituality.
And we think, Well, whatdenomination are you? What
(20:04):
denomination are you? I grew upseeing me. Very, very small
population of us now I grew upgoing to Baptist churches. And
then now, you know, asnondenominational so, people
were trying to figure out whatwhere do I fit in? And, you
know, I push a lot of my friendsand family to think of where are
you getting fit the most? Where,where do you feel like you've
(20:24):
found and connected to a greatteacher, and you feel that, you
know, starch is a good family toprovide that support and my time
of need, no matter what it is,you know, and really blending,
Hey, are we talking about mentalhealth? You know, in the
database background, you know, Ihear more and more leaders of
faith based organizations,putting it in their sermons, and
(20:45):
letting you know, their theircongregation and followers know
that they this is important totalk about, you got to keep that
in the forefront of your mind iswell, you know, Monty, you
mentioned a lot of old thingsthat that I've heard in the
black community, you know, asfar as I don't talk about it, or
older person, do drugs. And wesee that conversation trend
(21:06):
changing. And and let you know,it's a good feeling, to be able
to say, you know, what, we'renot where we want to be. But we
have come a long way. As far ashow we're talking about
addiction, how we're talkingabout mental health and other co
occurring disorders.
And to be a part of that, youknow, Monty utilizing your
(21:27):
voice, I don't think you realizehow many people that you have
impacted that you probably havenever even met yet.
And I think about you know, evenwhen I first met you, you've
been at the department for eightyears, and I've been with
Tennessee voices a little oversix. People were like, You got
to be Monty, you got to meetMonty, like, who is Monty who is
Monty. And it was just our firstinitial conversation you talked
(21:52):
about, you come to work dressedup. And this is who you are
outside of your hat and t shirt,you're presenting yourself in a
manner of with with humility,this is who I am, no matter what
I have. And this is my story asI'm walking on this journey. So
I absolutely loved it. And beingable to be vulnerable in this
moment, I've got to tell you, Iappreciate that. And anyone
(22:13):
listening definitely, definitelydefinitely does as well. And I
remember that anyway. AndI'm freaking out because I'm
sitting here going like, Okay,you're describing this story of
being, you know, in a householdto different religions. And and
now you're in a position ofconnecting all kinds of faith
based communities on a topicthat you're really passionate
(22:39):
about and lives experience.
That's got to feel like wow, my,my journey makes so much sense.
Now, it does. Go back and lookat Exodus And Moses. And all of
the times that Moses rejectedthe teaching or rejected the
word, he always had his ownplan. But his foot his footsteps
(23:00):
were already ordered. Sometimeswe don't realize that, you know,
and I mean, this was, you know,I respect all traditions, but
I'm going to speak from mine. Ibelieve that an anointing is put
on all of us to do a certainthing. And then at the right and
proper time, when we have comeout of the wilderness wilderness
ready to work in the appointmentwill come. And when that
appointment comes, whether wewant to walk in and or not, we
(23:20):
will be used to do a mightything. And that's where I'm
thankful to God and my family,my friends, and people like you
again, I say it to you often,that without all of these tools
and these resources, ourworkouts wouldn't work. Because
that's, you know, it's a system.
And the things that I wentthrough brought me to you. I
remember I can remember thefirst time I met both you Well,
(23:41):
I remember the first time I metyou, man, I met Rick, I remember
the first time I met you at a atone of the council meetings
where they were the whole statewas together. That's the first
time I met you. And I met we'llat a meeting and it was here in
Nashville, we sit there talk fora minute, we just kind of
chatted it up. I was like, Hey,how you doing? We just We talked
for a couple of seconds. I thinkit's important that we all
always make those interactionswhen we interface with each
(24:03):
other, to put a face with aname. So that when the time
comes for us to come out of thewilderness, we know exactly who
we are. And it's time for us todo the great work. I think there
are no introductions that don'tgo there. All of us are meant to
do something. That's why we meteach other. I was tickled to
death when I was asked to be onyour podcast because I got a lot
(24:24):
of respect for you guys. Soundslike let me come on. So I gotta
make sureI mean excited to be able to
share I'm alsojust want to give you guys a lot
of Thanks for the hard work youdo. Because you know sometimes
communities don't understand orrespect the depth of what you
do. I know from even where Iwork, sometimes people have no
(24:47):
idea like what do you doexactly? Cool. Let me explain to
you guys probably get the samething. But for me, as a person
will live experience a personthat knows how community
structures work and be theperson that works for the city.
I appreciate and applaud you,your work your staff, your team.
I, you know, I said before thispodcast started, I love to hear
(25:08):
and see things. And you've been,you know, you impact me. I know
that I have the realSuperfriends all heroes don't
wear capes. We don't. And I saywe because I'm one of one of the
Lorien heroes. I'm Ricky, well,we already know Ricky's one, you
know, it is what it is.
When we getto heaven, so my chest, you
know.
(25:33):
You're funny, you're funny.
Well, I'm just, we love what youdo, too. Because one of the
things that I studied way backin the day, when I was still
working on my graduate degree,was about how, in mental health
treatment at the community basedlevel, there is a desire for
people who seek services to gethelp at an emotional or
(25:58):
behavioral level. But there'salso a desire at a spiritual
level, and you're taught youkind of defined a little bit of
spirituality, not as religionbut as purpose as meaning as how
I'm connected between myself andothers. And for some between
myself, others and God. And soyou're helping the community
(26:22):
kind of bring together, how canyour purpose, your spiritual
connection, help serve you to bestrong and your mental health
help move you to a place offinding that great joy in what
you do and not getting lost inyou know, difficult things that
you can overcome? And you'reyou're out there doing everyday
(26:45):
telling people how to do this,how to connect. And I think
that's a really, that's reallyamazing. Talk about some of the
places you go outside ofchurches. Where else are you out
there? Oh, yes. So you know,man, I don't even know where to
begin. I've been some work withour synagogues, mosques,
temples, street ministries,homeless camps, I've been
(27:08):
everywhere, one of the one ofthe messages that really
resonates with me is to pick upyour mat and walk. And there's a
lot of people that don't, thathaven't had the opportunity for
someone to say that to them. Tosay that no matter you know,
what we got in these communitiesand work with a lot of work with
a lot of Tennessee, the majorityof our faith based communities
is the church is the Christianfaith. So that's 87% of the
(27:28):
people that I work with are fromthe Christian faith, but there's
still these other small sectionsor centers or groups of
communities, but the message isstill the same. No matter how
things have happened, no matterhow heavy the weight has been,
the fact that we can have thisconversation now gives us a
chance to pick up our mat andwalk, and whatever that means to
(27:50):
them. And whatever that means tome, this time the healing
process begins. And we talkedabout it earlier with recovery
walk, that's where I get thatfrom, well, that's why I say
that often is to pick up yourmat and walk. And when you do
that, you get to teach otherpeople that this is what it
looks like when you get up andwalk it up. I'm not I mean, it's
just anybody listening, I wantto make sure they hear me right
(28:10):
on this, I know that somepeople's situations are a lot
deeper than mine. They've beenaffected, they've been
traumatized a different level,different levels. And I have
been with that being said, wecan have this conversation, that
means we have access toresources, which means that
there's an opportunity to heal.
And one of the things aboutgoing into these diverse
communities, is I always sharethat message. And if somebody
(28:32):
has something to say, I willshut everything down and listen
to that one person. Because wedon't know who our next
president is going to be. Mynext governor is going to be our
next senator is gonna be itmight be that person standing
right in front of us trying totell us what has happened to
them, and try to ask somebody isthere anybody that can help me
not realizing that we're justthe tools, but the tools are
(28:54):
going to be you to helpyourself, we're gonna give you
the tools to do it. So being inthose communities out, you know,
I went to one of our ruralareas, Ricky, a few years back,
and two different denominationswhich will hit over the head
sometimes the denomination isworking sometimes between
denominations is harder thanworking between two different
religions. And that is that is ahow do we take that
(29:18):
two ladies from two differentdenominations decided they were
going to work together and dosome recovery work? So their
idea was they're both retired sothey had a little bit of time on
their hands. I call them seasonsI don't like the word retirement
season because they know morethan I know and they more than
they two grandmothers. That'sthe grandmothers of the most you
underutilized weapon weaponizedresource that we don't use in
(29:38):
America. If you shoot a youshoot 20 grandmothers into a
crowd of people acting up, Iguarantee you all those people
acting up are going to bow outand if they don't pay you, the
switches will come from theperson's anyway, that's a whole
nother that's a whole othercultural conversation. But these
two ladies were able to becauseof who they were, and because of
them being a bit season lineagetheir area, we're able to work
(30:00):
with the criminal justicecommunity, they work with the
jail, the judges, they work withthe Prevention Coalition, they
work with everything possible,the lady started putting people
to work, they started takingpeople from the jail helping get
him helping to get transportedto treatment across the state,
they did all of this because thecommunity trusted them because
of who they were. And that's oneof the things I was I was able
(30:21):
to be a part of gettingresources to those ladies,
because those ladies did aNarcan training. And actually
were able to distribute Mark hamto a family in need, and some of
those life get saved from it.
And that was because they tookit upon themselves in their
position where they were, theyrecognized that we can be
powerful in this space. And somepeople don't realize that when
(30:44):
you have a space on it, whateverthat space is, only if your
space is only put in socialmedia post once a day on it, do
something positive with it,because that's the space that
you have that you could possiblybe part of someone's life being
saved. And they did that theyactually took these two ladies
actually transported a person totreatment, they use the church
van, and some donations from thecommunity. And I'll tell you how
(31:07):
they get donations, they don'task, they tell you, you donate
to this, because this is whatwe're doing period. I love their
business model.
It wouldn't work for me, but itworked for them. But they took a
person from where they wereabout 202 110 miles west and got
them got this person into atreatment program. And that
person that went through thatprogram now works alongside of
(31:28):
them. This was like three, fouryears ago, this person now walks
beside them. Actually thisperson is who they openly
identify about, I'll let themtell their own story. But
they're sorted by peer recoveryspecialist. Now they went
through the training, and theyserve these ladies in this
ministry. But these are theseare parts of the things that
happen when we do something. Ifyou do nothing, nothing happens
if you do something, somethinghappens. So sometimes to do
(31:50):
something is to stand in frontof a pulpit on a Sunday and talk
about mental health andsubstance abuse and where people
from the church can play intothe plans of the part. You don't
have an act have to have anacronym behind your name to help
somebody. You just have to havea heart willing to do the work.
And then you can work with thepeople with the letters behind
their name to get peopleservices later. It's all a
wonderful, comfortablerelationship.
(32:11):
Oh, they can you talk Mondayabout you know, partner with
folks. And you mentionedcertified peer recovery
specialist earlier and youyourself are certified peer
recovery specialist. I was soexcited when I got a chance to
see in the news the other dayabout another partnership that
you had formed to make change towhich was partnering with
(32:31):
Lipscomb University. Now is onlynot only was I proud because I
went to school there because youdid something that was new for
the mental health programs overthere at Lipscomb. So talk to
listeners a little bit aboutkind of that collaboration with
Lipscomb, what happened inwhat's the goal, what's the
hope, man, Dr. Nash. She is ashe is just a light in the dark
(32:54):
man. She kicked man. She's yourprofessor, my colleague, my
friend. I call them my professoryesterday. She was she's she's
something else man. Um, we wereable to tell the cool thing
about this. And I know Ricky,you'll appreciate this is one of
my faith based coordinatorsattends Lipscomb University.
He's in the Masters of clinicalsocial work program. And he
(33:17):
brought the conversation to hisclass, he started bringing these
conversations out because we oneof the things that we do people
to work under the program isthat obviously, I push everybody
to go back to school. You havelived experience, let's let's
attach that lived experience toyour school and see if we can
make a comfortable mix becausethis is how we re re invest into
the behavioral healthcareworkforce is people like you
(33:39):
with lived experience. It's sucha great opportunity where people
will live experience to becomeclinicians, licensed clinical
social workers have PhDs, MDS,all these things coming from
people that understand how thesystem operates on both sides,
understanding that sometimes thetextbook while it's wonderful
and great, it's only a schematicand things happen outside of the
schematic. But his name is JamieHarper. He's in a master's
(34:01):
program saying actually he justgraduated, we were able to
connect the dots with Dr.
Witherspoon and bring in one ofour other lifeline peers. We've
been focusing on recovery allytraining. We had multiple
conversations during COVID. Andwe said you know what Lipscomb
campus is going to be a becomingrecovery friendly campus. So we
were able to start bisonrecovery. Now the coolest thing
about this is Lipscomb is one ofour most conservative
(34:25):
universities, if not our mostconservative university in the
state of Tennessee. They werethe first university to adopt a
recover recovery ally revise andrecovery full effect collegiate
recovery movement in our state.
They did it right there. And itwas under Dr. Nash's leadership.
And after Witherspoon, Nash toldus that it wasn't just this the
(34:46):
hyphenated part of her lastname, Dr. Witherspoon Nash. It
was her leadership and herunderstanding of how how these
things work. And we were able toget that done man and you
wouldn't have that the the themore the feeling
College was my access torecovery. I went back to school
and that community is whathelped keep me clean to get me
to where I met, you know,retraining the brain, man. It's
(35:09):
all about building strongbrains, right? You can build
them when they're young,sometimes they get not built,
right. So sometimes you have tostrip the car rebuilding, she
understands that we've gotstudents that are coming in,
they can benefit from this typeof community. And now we have
this full players recoverycommunity. So that happened, we
got six other CollegiateRecovery academies coming up.
That was our first one, we havesix other ones coming up over
the course of the next fourmonths. As long as you know, of
(35:31):
course, the COVID numbers,though, what you know, depending
on the Delta variant, and such,but her leadership has caused
the butterfly effect that Iactually mentioned on the on the
White House Call yesterday, Idid a webinar for the White
House yesterday afternoon. And Italked about how low some
college had adopted a collegiaterecovery working with with a
faith based initiative. Andpeople still couldn't put
(35:52):
together a collegiate recovery,faith based initiative. When we
throw something that you will,yeah, let me throw something at
you. Every single college in ourstate is surrounded by steeples.
People that have to go to schooldon't always get their recovery
on campus, but they need thecongregations around them and be
the resource they step right offof that ground and go into that
(36:13):
a meeting that in a meeting thatdouble trouble that about
medicated assisted withwhatever, whatever the meeting
is, whatever the congregationholds, it's just another
opportunity for access points.
On the flip side of that adage,straight ministry driven we are
doing ministry work outside thefour walls of a sanctuary.
That's what we're supposed to dofish on the other side of the
boat, fish on the other side ofthe boat, man. Don't get me to
(36:33):
preach. And I'm sorry, that'snot what the podcast is for. I
apologize.
You know, I'm all I'm all aboutlike reestablishment like giving
people another chance. Andsometimes it takes more than a
second, it might take a third orfourth with a with a some of our
with the sum of all ourexperiences. Sometimes the
second chance people don't evensee it because of everything
(36:55):
that's happened to them in theirlife. They can't even accept the
second chance they like, wow, Ireally cares enough about me.
What do they want from me? Wow.
You know, maybe I should go backto riding the bike that I've
been trying to ride because thisfeels better to me. Anyway, I'm
going back in two aces. But I'msorry. I'll get the preaching
y'all y'all y'all know how I am.
I'm a real. Yes, Monty, you sayyou get to preach. And I had to
(37:18):
kind of realize where I was fora minute because I almost said
Amen a few times.
The same will receive really Iknow Ricky said to save.
We'll be right back after thisshort break.
September is Suicide PreventionMonth. And there are things each
(37:40):
of us can do to help preventsuicide. Every year at this time
lifeline and other mental healthorganizations and individuals
across the US and around theworld. Raise awareness of
suicide prevention. If you arehaving suicidal thoughts, call
1-800-273-8255 and head to t andvoices.org. For mental health
(38:05):
resources, including our newlyrenovated online library. You
can be the one to preventsuicide this month, and all your
mom by gaining tools andknowledge to foster better
mental health for yourself. Andthose around you.
Welcome backjust like round robin, let's go
(38:33):
around and say what was yoursecond chance? What was your
What was that second chance thatmade the difference? I mean,
small, big, it doesn't matter.
What was that second chance thatyou'll always look back and go,
Oh my gosh, I'm grateful that Igot that.
Who wants to go first? Oh.
(38:58):
We're gonna we'll right now.
I've got a bunch of secondchances.
I'll start.
My biggest Second Chance was Iwent to a class that class on a
criminal justice professor. Iwent to talk to him. Because at
that point, I knew I was goingto have to, I needed to go to
(39:18):
treatment. I had to get out ofschool to stop going to school.
I had to get myself together. SoI had to stop. Um, he at that
point when he told me that thisis the beginning of your story
of your career. That was thefirst time anybody ever said
that anything to me like that.
And that was the beginning. Thatwas the catalyst explosion that
happened. That was my bang,right? There's like this, I can
(39:41):
do this. i It wasn't easy. Likeit's like to me, I felt like he
wasn't going to give me anotherchance because I failed. But to
me, I would the only person thatthought I failed was me, wasn't
him. He said you did this isyour opportunity. So my
obstacle became an opportunity,because he told me that I could.
(40:04):
He told me that I could. Sothat's my second chance story.
That's just as one of a million,but that's one that sticks with
me pretty good. I love that.
That's awesome. Well, that thereis plenty of me, the story that
really comes to mind is when Iwas graduating from undergrad
from Ole Miss, and I couldn'tfind a job down there.
(40:25):
I retired, I couldn't find a jobdown there. I wanted to be in
DC, but I knew I didn't want togo on and get my masters at that
time. So I end up having to moveback home. And I feel like that
would that's a second chance.
You know, it was my parentssaying, you know, have faith,
it's gonna work out, it's goingto come to you. Because at that
time, I felt that I was losingit. Like, you know what, I was
(40:48):
supposed to have all thistogether on graduation day. And
it was always remembering, youknow what, I'm thankful that I
was even able to go back homeand have that place to and that
support to go to I tell a lot ofkids students now I leave home
the right way. Because you neverknow, you may have to go back.
And I think it was them beingable to give me that chance to,
(41:09):
like, come back. We're stillhere for you. It's going to work
out. Just remember, rememberwhat your values.
Yeah.
That's awesome, man. That'sawesome. You're awesome person.
So the product of that secondchance is you right here right
now?
Absolutely.
(41:29):
Yeah. I mean, I have one bigone. And it makes all the other
ones seem not even importantanymore. Because I was born
dead.
I'm not supposed to be alive.
And I very much my mother saidto me, no one can explain it. It
doesn't make sense. You weren'tsupposed to live. And when when
(41:52):
you did when you startedbreathing. It was so much time
elapsed between I mean, theydon't know when I stopped
breathing in the womb to thepoint of delivery. But it was at
least 20 minutes and CPR of CPRthat they were like, Let's be
prepared this. She he lost muchoxygen to our brain. She'll
(42:15):
never be okay. And my mom was awoman of faith. And she refused
to accept that. And she prayedand prayed and prayed and said,
I don't know what your plan isfor her Lord. But I know there
is one and and so you know,sometimes when I think about
that, I think was that my secondchance being born dead? Or was
(42:36):
it being born again later? Rightas a seven year old? That wasn't
my real second chance. But yeah,that that was it. And as you
were talking and I was thinkingabout those chances, I was like,
wow, you know, I think I thinkthat's really cool. Because we
can all connect to a time whenwe got that chance. Thank you
for sharing that. That's That'sme. That's so that's a
(42:59):
much respect to you and yourmother.
She's boys story without cryingand I'm 40 years old and she's
still a little lip quivers. Whenshe starts to tell it. I'm like,
I know, Mom. I know. But I'mhere I made it.
So we all three no bubblesprayer warriors don't. Yes. Yes.
(43:23):
Well that I learned a lot.
Monty, first of all, thank youfor your vulnerability. Thank
you for your openness. Thank youfor what you do every day and
how you committed your life toothers. And that's kind of what
this is all about to what we'vemet some pretty altruistic
people. Wow, your altruism isit's off the chart. So thanks
for being there for people doingwhat you do and podcast. We love
(43:44):
it so much that you joined ustoday. Thank you for letting me
come on y'all. My friends, mycolleagues. Thank you for
joining us. If you enjoy today'sprogram, like subscribe and
review this podcast. If you orsomeone you know is in need of
mental health support services,log on to tn voices.org or call
(44:04):
one 806 70988 to join us nexttime as we get candid
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