August 17, 2025 • 40 mins
Jay Davidson-The Miracle on Market Street-The road to Recovery
Hess and Delbert welcome Jay Davidson, the man that made the Healing Place Recovery what it is today. He has been at the Healing Place for 34 years, from its start as the Father Morgan Homeless shelter to now a 500 bed campus for men and 250 campus for women. They boast a 65% success rate in recovery-taking the person through detox, and 148 days later to the place of continuance of care, or some call after care. 85% of the 125 employees are alumnae of the program. Recovery is not just from the drug or substance, but psychological, social, mental, and spiritual. A 100 bed program has begun in Campbelllsville Ky. This model has been studied by recovery experts from all over the world. Listen in as Jay explains how it has evolved and become the success it is today.
Order Jay's Book Miracle on Market: Where hope is Found and Change Happens
https://www.amazon.com/Miracle-Market-Where-Change-Happens/dp/1953655785
I am still collecting for José's cancer treatments. We are awaiting the next CT Scans that will tell you where he is after his second round of treatments. Thank you for your continued support!
https://gofund.me/e6f61999
In addition to being a podcast host, Hess is also an LCSW--if you'd like to learn more about her work as a therapist, check it out at www.jessicabollinger.com
One of her mission's is for all of our lights to shine--when we see each other and allow ourself to be seen--and we can say to the person in front of us, There You Are! the world will be an amazing place!
Delbert is a top realtor in Louisville, KY, and you can find her at Kentucky Select Properties She will help you find your home, and also help you get the most equity when you sell your house.
Her philanthropic work to continue her sister Carole and niece Meghan is Carole's Kitchen. Blessings in a Backpack helps feed the many hungry students in our schools. The instagram account is: https://www.instagram.com/caroleskitchen.nonprofit?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igsh=ZDNlZDc0MzIxNw==
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Hess (00:05):
Hey, welcome to our Sunday morning chat.
This is Hess.
I'm in Lexington, Kentucky,sitting in the white chair
looking out the window at thefarm.
Delbert (00:15):
Hey, good morning everybody.
This is Delbert.
As always.
I'm coming to you live from thebig green couch in Louisville,
Kentucky.
It is another beautiful day
Hess (00:27):
Yeah.
And in our last podcast folks,we talked about the night
before, I had attended the theFreedom Dinner of that the
healing Place puts on.
And it was centered aroundhonoring Jay Davidson, who has
made the healing place inLouisville, the Recovery Center
there in Louisville.
(00:47):
And now they're also inCampbellsville, the Healing
Place, what it is today.
And Delbert and I are lucky tohave on our guest today.
Jay Davidson.
Jay, thank you for coming to metell you this about that.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou and how you got to the
Healing Place.
Jay Davidson (01:06):
Hessan thank you for this opportunity.
I really appreciate it.
I came to the healing place by,by way of God's plan.
I had no intention of gettinginvolved with that.
Homeless, homelessness.
And the short story is afterretiring from the army, knocking
around for five years to find amy niche.
(01:28):
I ended up going back to schooland getting my ma master's in
social work with, on a clinicalper track, because I wanted to
be a psychotherapist forveterans and their related
families and doing counseling inRadcliffe, in Elizabethtown,
Kentucky.
However, I had to pay my backsome tuition that I used for
(01:50):
school.
I needed a job.
And the first job offer I gotwas to go to help these doctors
who were operating an overnightshelter for homeless men.
And they looked at my resume,figured that with my military
experience, I could probably runa shelter.
Wasn't too concerned about whatI do with my social work degree,
(02:10):
but they hired me to.
Run the homeless shelter.
The short of it is that after Igot there, I realized that the
staff, the resident staff therereally needed to go.
They did not have the bestinterests of the men at heart,
so I fired'em all and spent thenext two weeks there in the
(02:32):
shelter.
Connecting with the, and reallygetting to know them, getting to
know them by first name.
I did have to keep three paidcooks because we still needed to
get food cooked.
But aside from the foodpreparation, I pretty well
pretty much did everything else.
During that process, I realizedthat of the 80 men checking in
(02:54):
every night, a good 80% of themare alcoholics or addicts.
I was eight years sober at thetime and realized that if they
were never gonna be able to getoff the street if they didn't
learn how to get, if they didn'tget sober.
And that, that began to reallyweigh on my heart, knowing that
we needed to do somethingdifferent.
(03:15):
Whatever was available in 1991out in the Louisville community
wasn't working for them.
And so we really needed to dosomething different and a new
approach, or a differentapproach, but as it works out, I
really didn't know what to do.
I had no experience on programdevelopment.
I just had my own 12 stepexperience.
(03:36):
It was an education that Ilearned by the men teaching me
what they needed, and that'skinda how it got started.
Hess (03:44):
So almost what I'm hearing you say, it was like a young you
had a young mind and an openmind to try to learn what you
needed to learn to be able
Jay Davidson (03:52):
That's very polite.
It was an empty mind that knewnothing
Hess (03:55):
yeah.
Yeah.
So then you began and say moreabout like how it progressed and
how it became, what it is today.
Jay Davidson (04:02):
It started with the we all already had the
overnight shelter that was a wetshelter.
In other words, they you couldcome in under the influence of
drugs and alcohol.
And I was, we were able to setup a system of accountability
where they, that overnightguests and they are guests were
responsible for maintaining thesafety and security of the
shelter.
(04:23):
And so with that, we needed anoutreach to the street for that,
a alcoholic or addict thatwanted to detox, so to speak.
So the old buildings that 1017,1019 West market became what we
called a sobering up center, 24hours a day, seven days a week,
where men under the influencecould come in and safely detox.
(04:47):
It was a non-medical detox,meaning they would be allowed to
cold Turkey detox off of alltheir alcohol and drugs.
The only ones that weren'tallowed to do that were anyone
coming in on benzodiazepines,Xanax, out, Valium, Librium,
that sort of thing.
We would send them to thehospital for a medical
detoxification, by and large.
(05:09):
Heroin crack meth.
Alcohol, you name it, can prettymuch safely detox without fear
of fatality.
So now we had two outreaches.
We had to outreach to the streetthrough the overnight shelter.
We had an outreach through thedetox through the men on the
street.
There were still under theinfluence.
(05:29):
And so now we needed to start arecovery program.
Jes s you appreciate this mysocial work degree.
And the theory was, is that youcan't mix drinking with
non-drinking or using withnon-using because that would
create all kinds of relapsedpotential and all kinds of
problems and so forth.
(05:50):
So you really need to do a drugand alcohol free program.
This is October.
1991 or 92.
And so I decide on Monday, let'smake this shelter, alcohol and
drug free for the beginning of arecovery program.
So I did check in Monday nightand I checked in 80 men.
(06:12):
As they checked in, I did thesniff test, and if they smell
like alcohol, I said, look man Iknow what you're struggling
with, but this is gonna be analcohol and drug free program
for for recovery.
So if you come in under theinfluence, we won't be able to
check you in.
And everybody nodded their headand said, yes, okay, fine.
(06:33):
Tuesday I get ready to check inthe 80 men and only 50 are
there.
I say where are the other 30?
I said you said they smell likealcohol, don't bother coming,
and they are trying to get intothe other four shelters.
So I said, fine.
That night I got phone callsfrom every night manager all
four shelters saying, what inthe hell's going on down at the
(06:55):
Morgan Center?
These men said you kicked themout and they can't get back in.
And I said we're just trying tostart a recovery program.
I thought that, I thought it wasover with, okay, Wednesday
morning at 9:30 in the morningout on Market Street, there are
guys walking up and down thesidewalk with placards saying,
(07:16):
Doctors shelters Rules Unfair.
Shut out the homeless.
I even had men standing in thestreets passing out, stopping
cars and passing out hand bills.
You can imagine by 10 30 I hadall four TV stations and both
newspapers down here, down atthe Morgan Center saying, what's
going on?
Your doctors?
Your doctors are kickingeverybody out of the shelter.
(07:37):
And I said we're just trying tostart a recovery program to help
them learn how to get deal withtheir addiction.
Dr.
Ward was a little bit concernedabout publicity and negative
publicity as were the other 14doctors on the board.
So they had an emergency meetingof the board of directors.
There was nine members on theboard, and they met that
(07:57):
following Thursday afternoon,Thursday evening, actually there
were 18.
18 people showed up for thatboard meeting.
They argued for hours back andforth, wet versus dry, dry
versus wet.
How are we gonna do it?
Finally, Dr.
Ward took a vote, nine voted wetand nine voted dry.
I said, oh my gosh, I have to domy military tap dance to figure
(08:20):
out how to answer thischallenge.
So I said, maybe we could doboth.
I said how?
How are you gonna do that?
I said I don't know.
I guess we probably just have tostart and hire some more staff
so I can, so that we can doboth.
And they said, okay, how muchmoney will you not need?
And I said I don't know.
I did the swag, this silly wildass guess.
And I said, thousand dollarsought to be able to get us
(08:42):
started.
They went out and got that ahundred thousand dollars.
The building that JesseBollinger had built was a two
two story, 24,000 square footfacility.
12,000 square feet on eachfloor.
So it turned out, and on thefirst floor was the kitchen, the
dining room offices and thebackside had 40 beds.
(09:03):
And then on top floor there wereanother 40 beds up on the second
floor.
So it became the top floor,became the wet overnight shelter
for the overnight men who stillwanted to stay on the recovery
program.
And the bottom floor becamealcohol and drug free in the
beginning of the recoveryprogram.
And that was in November.
In November of 92.
(09:24):
By January of 93 we startedofficially a 12 step recovery
program with 10 men in theprogram.
Hess (09:34):
Got it.
Got it.
Delbert (09:37):
That's amazing.
I was looking at your four stepsyour website.
Was that something that youincorporated after?
Those decisions were made to dothe wet and dry.
Jay Davidson (09:49):
Yes.
So I knew I was way outta myelement professionally Hess, I
was well beyond my scope ofpractice and skill.
So at the time I was undersupervision for my licensed
clinical social work, and Italked to my, my supervisor and
I said, Hey, I need some help.
And he said there's this guydown in Shreveport, Louisiana
(10:10):
that's been in the treatmentfield for 25 years.
He is seen everything, doneeverything, looking for a job,
but he'd be glad to come up andconsult with you for only maybe
a month or two because he'sgonna be moving on to look for a
job.
And so I said, okay that's finewith me.
I just needed a good a start.
So I called him and talked tohim and he said I don't know
(10:32):
you, you don't like to mixdrinking with non-drinking, but
I'll come up and take a look.
He came up and within one weekhe fell in love with the whole
concept.
I.
Never left.
He, so I hired him and hetogether, he, it was a yin and
yang kind of thing.
He was the hard, the structuredclinical treatment guy.
(10:53):
And I was a soft woozy.
Let's take care of him and thenlove him side.
So anytime we had a discussion,we had to find a, meet a middle
ground.
And through that point.
Delbert (11:06):
love.
Jay Davidson (11:07):
Through that process we had a basic, very
light structure of steps andclasses and so forth, but every
time the guys in the programfound a loophole, we had to plug
the loophole.
And so when I say the men reallydesigned the mo the program,
they really did.
Delbert (11:25):
Oh wow.
Wow.
Hess (11:28):
So say more about what the program went into in those four
steps and how people move alongfrom
Jay Davidson (11:34):
Yeah.
Hess (11:34):
on through.
Jay Davidson (11:36):
It's evolved over the years because of the drug.
As the drugs have changed,we've, I have seen every drug
you can imagine and I can gointo a whole dissertation on,
it's not a drug problem, it's abehavior problem.
But we started,
Hess (11:50):
And Hey Jay, let me just say this about that is, is.
That's part of our problem.
People try to go after the druginstead of go after and help the
Jay Davidson (11:59):
Yes, correct.
Hess (12:00):
And they, and then I was reading something how the drug
ends up morphing into somethingelse because like the the pills
morphed in heroin because pillsgot too expensive.
So you gotta treat the personand not the drug.
So go
Jay Davidson (12:15):
You're exactly right that I can go into a long
talk about harm reduction andSuboxone and methadone.
But that's another story abouthow you prolong people on
medication for a lifetime andnever really deal with the issue
of changing their behavior.
But anyway, so we start with thenon-medical detox and we'll
(12:36):
allow them to stay in the detoxas long as they physically have
to.
Sometimes some drugs take longerto detox, some all, basically
all the chemicals are out of thebody within 72 to 96 hours.
But still, there's all thephysical aspects of the nervous
system disturbances and sleepingdisorders and all those kind of
(12:58):
things, and just not physicallyable to really.
Be mobile for more than four,two or three hours.
So we need to allow them to stayin the detox until they're
physically able.
It doesn't mean they're justlaying around.
They're going to classes andthey're going to AA meetings and
they're going to those kind ofsupport meetings all the time
(13:18):
that they're in that non-medicaldetox.
Once they're detoxed, they'll gointo what we call our safe
haven, which is they'rerestricted to the property for
two weeks, meaning they, theycan't leave the property for any
reason.
While going to classes andmeetings and the, it's their
opportunity to continue toreally, to continue to detox and
(13:41):
also start to learn how to buildrelationships.
They're in they're in a four mancubic four man rooms and they
start to have to build friend.
If you're sleeping with threeother guys, at some point you
gotta figure out how to worktogether.
So it's great.
It's a great opportunity forthem to reach out, and start to
build relationships.
Alcoholics and addicts areunconnected and this whole mo,
(14:04):
this is a social model, meaningsocially connecting.
And so it starts right afterdetox it starts really in detox,
but then they continue that intothat that four man room where
they start talking to eachother.
Can you believe it?
And start realizing.
Learning how they start tobecome vulnerable and
(14:25):
transparent and start sharingfeelings and emotions.
And they realize that the personhearing that becomes vulnerable
and transparent and it starts toshare back.
And they start continuing tobuild that relationship and all
of a sudden they realize theygot somebody they can trust for
the first time in their life.
Hess (14:43):
Lovely, lovely.
Delbert (14:44):
Beautiful.
Love
Jay Davidson (14:45):
And after the two weeks, then they go into the
motivational track where they'reguaranteed a bed for a week.
And the way they keep that bedis they go to classes during the
day and meetings during the day,but those classes and meetings
are off campus intentionally.
For the men, they actually walktwo miles one direction to the
10 o'clock class and then a oneo'clock class in the afternoon.
(15:09):
In that interim break for twohours, they can go to the other
two or three shelters and getone, two, or three free lunches
depending how fast they walk.
And then come back to the oneo'clock class and then trudge
back to the main campus at theHealing place to be able to get
back in time to attend orparticipate in a three o'clock
(15:30):
class with the men who arefurther along in the program.
So they're still incontemplation, stage of their
addiction or their.
Journey, but they're gonna be ina group class that afternoon of
those who are committed torecovery and they're, all those
men in that class are alreadythree or four months clean,
working on their recoveryjourney.
(15:51):
So there's constant rolemodeling happening every day,
all day.
In that motivational track, theyget they have a paper where they
get signatures for all theirclasses and all the meetings
they attend that week and all.
So the peer mentors who run theprogram take a look at the each
individual sheet.
Then they also take intoconsideration, were they very,
(16:15):
did they participate in class?
Did they share in class?
Did they ask questions?
When volunteers were needed tounload a truck, did they
volunteer to unload the truck?
Those kind of things.
And so the client with the mostclass signatures and the most
meeting signatures and ispositive in class, gets a bed
move.
Bed move means he is movingcloser to the formal program.
(16:37):
It's a tangible reward for hardwork.
It's not enough to know you'repsychologically or mentally
changing.
You need tangible reward.
And that tangible reward is thatacknowledgement that you're
working hard and so you get tomove.
If you find that your buddiesare moving faster than you are,
it's because they're workingharder than you.
(16:58):
No, no one to blame butyourself.
So you can't blame the staff'cause the staff's totally out
of it.
So that puts the whole burden onthe individual and their effort.
Hess (17:08):
Got it.
And you took me to a floor wherethere was a big room where
there's a group of people that,that The program, monitor each
one
Jay Davidson (17:18):
yep.
Yep.
Hess (17:19):
and they're all on a computer.
And when those papers of whatmeetings they went get to, went
to, they're all like checked onthis big diagram.
It's it's like down at NASA inthe space launch thing.
Jay Davidson (17:30):
That's, you're exactly right.
Yes.
And that room is, I call thatthe operation center, the war
room, whatever, it's operated bythe 20 volunteer peer mentors
that keep track of all the menin the program.
And they track everything, howmany meetings they've been to,
whether they have their driver'slicense or not, whether they
have their social security cardTB tests whether they've got
(17:52):
court appointments, whetherthey've got.
C Ps, everything, CPSappointments, whatever.
They track it all and monitor itto make sure that it's one thing
for people to have clients tohave appointments, but it's
another thing for them to beheld accountable to make sure
they make that appointment,which is un you unique on the
street.
'cause there's no appointments,there's no calendar, there's no
(18:13):
clock, there's noaccountability.
So I.
Delbert (18:15):
Right.
Jay Davidson (18:16):
Three months and it in the front part of the
motivational track, they'regoing through the first three
steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And then be before they can gointo step four and the formal
part of the program, they haveto have a sponsor.
You won't, you will not be movedinto the f for formal part of
the program without a sponsor.
(18:36):
'cause the whole key to recoveryis starting to establish a
tradition of having a sponsor ina support group over and above
any kind of treatment or therapyor whatever.
So they have to have theirsponsor.
They go into the formal part ofthe program, and that's steps
four through 12 will takeanother three months to go
through those steps.
Four through 12.
(18:57):
While there, they'll all have ajob to do in the shelter.
This is an opportunity for themto assume responsibility and
then be held accountable forthat responsibility, which is
unique again for them.
Since it's never been that wayon the street and many, we have
many young people that havenever had a job in their life
and now they're gonna have to bethe kitchen supervisor and run a
(19:19):
crew of five and be heldaccountable for putting out 1500
meals a day.
They may have never cooked intheir life, but that's okay.
'cause somehow or other they'reall gonna work together and that
food's gonna be cooked and it'sgonna come out on time.
Hess (19:34):
And I remember in that one section on that one floor, you
had all the veterans
Jay Davidson (19:37):
Right.
Hess (19:38):
When would veterans be all put together?
And this is all part of thatconnection thing because you
said people in the militaryalready have that
Jay Davidson (19:46):
It's interesting alcoholics and that ex need to
talk about the their pain andthey need to talk to somebody
that can understand their pain.
So one alcoholic to anotheralcoholic.
Add to that, being a veteran,it's a double trip'cause
veterans need to talk abouttheir military experience and
they need to talk to somebodywho will understand while at the
same time they're alcoholic andaddicts.
(20:06):
So they need to have that.
Alcoholic and addict veterans.
So it was ideal, it's an idealsetup for us to integrate the
veterans into our structuredprogram.
It, early on it was difficult.
It couldn't happen from ourperspective because the veterans
that were referred to us throughthe VA program all came with a
(20:28):
lot of medications and so forth,and it was well beyond our.
Scope of practice.
So we just couldn't help'em.
We did always have a significantpercent, about 25% of our entire
client base was veteran from thevery beginning.
And they were just volunteer offthe street coming into the
program about seven years ago.
(20:49):
The VA.
Got got smart and startedlooking at the amount of
prescriptions that were beinggiven to a veteran and realized
they were doing more harm thangood.
And so they've tightened up onthat.
And they also committed to fortreatment programs
community-based treatmentprograms they would provide
mental health counseling.
So at that point, we decided toget back into, and we submitted
(21:12):
a grant proposal for a veteransprogram, and we were awarded.
Three veterans programs.
One low demand, which is a 20bed overnight shelter kind of
idea for veterans that don'thave a mental health or
substance abuse issue, but aresimply homeless.
And we can get them hooked upwith a Hud va hud vash section
(21:34):
eight vouchers fairly quickly toget them into housing.
52 beds for clinical treatmentfor veterans, so that have
alcoholism or drug addiction andmental illness.
Those that's in effect.
And we get, vA sends a mentalhealth clinician three days a
week to support that programwhile they take care of the
mental health issues.
(21:55):
We take care of the recovery,the substance abuse recovery
program and provide the housingand so forth.
Then we have a a 90 day programfor veterans for drug and
alcohol recovery.
And we now have this year aswe've finally gotten three
female veterans.
So now we have our femaleveterans are starting to come
(22:18):
out of the hiding and start tocome un reach out for help,
which I.
Hess (22:25):
So did you finish the whole motivational track?
You said they go on all the waythrough step
Jay Davidson (22:30):
Yes.
And that's where you we plug in.
You're familiar with the termaftercare.
We call it continuing care asopposed to aftercare.
'cause re recovery is acontinuing process, but it's the
same any aftercare that you findanywhere else.
We're elevating that programthrough the Brady center for
Productive Life and adding a 12week curriculum of, resume
(22:51):
writing, interview preparation,resource searches for career
jobs and matching skills tocareers and all that sort of
thing
Delbert (22:59):
Oh, that's I have a question.
Interesting that, yourconnectors because alcoholics
and addicts are not connected.
I never realized that.
Tell us some of the other thingsthat maybe the public doesn't
understand about in treatmentand some of the misconceptions.
Jay Davidson (23:24):
The first misconception is that it's not a
chemical problem.
Addiction is a biological,sociological, psychological, and
spiritual disease.
Starting in the mind.
And so if you take each one ofthose components and really
analyze the biological partwell, there's obviously the body
(23:47):
reaction to the chemical, howthe chemical destroys body
alcohol, for example, affectsevery organ in the body.
And so the psychological is the.
Distorted thinking, the confusedthinking caused by the chemical.
The sociological is, they'reunconnected because of behavior
(24:07):
and attitude.
Spiritual is, we believe that aspiritual component is being
connected to a higher power.
The higher power is the onlypower that can restore us to
sanity because we were insane.
And on an on a side addictionaffects every ethnic
sociological and economic socistrata in this world, addiction
(24:30):
is worldwide.
It's not centered on anyparticular area.
It's also affects every everylevel of education, every level
of it.
It does not simply put, it doesnot discriminate.
And we've had high, highlyskilled professionals you name
it, we've had that have comethrough the healing place.
(24:53):
And so I also like to say that Isay that tongue in cheek, being
in recovery myself, but I saythat everyone out there in the
world that's not an alcoholic oraddict, I call them earth
people.
Those Earth people arestruggling with shortcomings and
character defects when they'rewhite knuckling it, clawing at
trying to figure out how to dealwith those.
(25:14):
And fortunately, those of us inrecovery have a program that
helps us deal with all of that.
We're really actually better offand like luckier than those
everyone else out there that'sstruggling with that, those
defects of character because wehave a solution.
Hess (25:32):
Yeah.
My dad always said the bestpeople he is ever known are
people in recovery.
Because you're working on it,you know that, you know that
there's a problem in there andyou're working on it where, like
you said we're, I'm just not,Delbert, I'm just white
knuckling it and being quiet.
Delbert (25:49):
And I'm a little more vocal about my white knuckling.
I'm just out there, whiteknuckling it and everybody
knows.
Okay.
Jay Davidson (25:54):
and it's tough.
It's tough.
And then
Hess (25:57):
Yes.
Jay Davidson (25:58):
of it, okay, so the other part of it is it's a
family disease.
It's, and my what I mean that isthat the chaotic.
The chaos created by the addictdestroys the nuclear family.
And what happens is the familyin this chaos panics and tries
to deal with the outbursts, theanger, the fru, the pain, the
(26:21):
lies, the all of that go thoseinto that addictive behavior,
alcohol's behavior.
And they develop inappropriateunhealthy coping mechanisms, and
they become as sick as theaddict or alcoholic.
And so really it, it takes boththe addict and the family to go
through a change process to beable to come out with healthy
(26:42):
coping skills and living skills.
Hess (26:46):
And everybody out there, I want you to know that the
healing place the campus for menand the campus of women.
Now they have a campus inCampbellsville, Kentucky.
It's all free for anybody that,that walks in the door and goes
through detox.
It's totally free and it carriesyou, carries the person all the
way through all of these stagesand steps and you have a really
(27:09):
high success rate because ofthat, because they get all of
this different stabilization.
You're you have a 65% success
Jay Davidson (27:16):
Something like that.
We had that other school whereyou are Hess does the outcome
study for us and they've donethe center for alcohol and Drug.
Research at the University ofKentucky does our outcome study.
Done it for almost 18 years now,and it's the statistics are
consistent every year.
(27:37):
Reductions in crime reduction orelimination of drug use
connection with family,connection with better jobs.
Just the whole wrap series ofsocial determinants that say
you're successful are allpositive.
And we get the, we get thosereports every year.
Hess (27:56):
So like they were pointing out at the dinner that.
That when you, when thisperson's in recovery and gets to
the place where they've becomemore whole, you're also maybe
allowing them to get their kidsback.
You're improving that wholefamily.
And therefore, if you improvethat family and you're improving
their children and then theirchildren are growing up with
(28:18):
something different you'reimproving society.
Jay Davidson (28:21):
Absolutely.
90% of the women coming throughour program have children and
80% of the men have childrencoming through our program.
And of course, society puts theburden on the, or the guilt trip
of burden on the mother.
To be responsible for the care.
But more and more men arestepping up and taking
responsibility at about stepeight of the 12 steps of the
(28:42):
recovery program, havingdemonstrated a positive recovery
journey at that point we workedwith CPS and other entities to
begin formal reunification withthe children.
And that's a process that'sdetermined primarily by the
children and the ones that arehave been disconnected.
(29:02):
'cause they're the ones thathave to be prepared to wanna re
reunite.
So it's a process that takes andas you will realize it's all
about building a relationship oftrust.
And when the alcoholic or addicthas destroyed that trust for so
many years, it's gonna take awhile for that trust to be
reestablished.
(29:22):
And the only way you canreestablish trust with an
alcoholic or addict is toobserve their demonstrated
behavior and observe theirdemonstrated change in the way
they think and the way they act.
Hess (29:37):
Over and over I heard the words, believe in the process,
believe in the process.
Jay Davidson (29:42):
The process
Hess (29:43):
Yeah.
Jay Davidson (29:43):
and the process is continued change through
sharing, role modeling positivechanges in working on your
character defects andshortcomings.
And the process is going throughthe full 12 steps with there's.
Each of those steps has classesand it takes 154 days to go
(30:04):
through all the 12 steps.
And that's the process.
The process really starts fromdetox and flows all the way
through to the end of the pointof aftercare continuing care.
And the process is the stepsthat I've just described.
And when you don't like it, theysay trust the process.
Stick around.
Hess (30:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just stick around.
Stick around, and also lookoutside
Jay Davidson (30:28):
Yes.
Hess (30:29):
I heard that said.
Yeah, and I, when I came andvisited your place last month
you said one of the first jobsthat someone will get will
Because the kitchen is full ofstress.
There's always a lot of chaosand you gotta work with other
people when you're working inthe kitchen.
Jay Davidson (30:42):
Alcoholics and addicts are really smart.
That's why we don't have a lotof written rules.
I told you there's five cardinalrules, no fighting or threats of
violence.
No.
Sexually acting out, no racism.
No using drugs or alcohol, andno stealing.
Violate any one of those five inyour.
Immediately discharged, but thestaff develop a behavioral
(31:02):
contract where you can completethat behavior contract and come
back into the program Now.
There, are there a lot ofunofficial guidelines and kind
of structure guidelines?
Yes, absolutely.
But the burden is on you to findout what, who, what they are by
asking questions.
And if you ask the wrong person,get the wrong information, you
(31:24):
end up getting consequences.
See alcoholics and that create.
Issue events that they shouldget consequences for, but in
real life, that consequence forthat issue doesn't happen right
away.
It happens down the road, days,weeks, months, or years away.
Then when that consequence doeshappen, they get pissed off
(31:46):
'cause they can't connect it tothe original event and they get
mad at God and everybody elseand they go out and get high
Delbert (31:52):
No.
Jay Davidson (31:53):
place.
You create an incident,immediate consequence.
So that you can recognize all ofa sudden if I do something
wrong, there's a consequence.
Now there's no consequencethat's gonna hurt you severely
at the healing place.
It's a safe place to makemistakes.
So if you put all the rules inwriting, alcohol are smart
(32:13):
enough to circumvent all thoserules, get all the way through
the program, and they're gonnaleave the way they came, and
then we don't want that.
We want them to learn how tochange.
And the fastest way to seesomeone's carriage of defects is
to put'em under stress.
And so the first job in theirthat's at step four after that,
that, here's the idea.
(32:33):
They just went through two and ahalf months of motivation.
Trudging back and forth everyday, Monday through Friday to
that classroom and demonstratingin the rain, in the snow and the
heat and all that, that they'remotivated to go to any lengths
to get their recovery as theywere willing to go to any
lengths to get their drug.
So now they're all hyped up.
'cause now I'm gonna go into theprogram.
I got my sponsor and I'm readyto do step four, which is a
(32:57):
searching and fearless moralinventory of my wrongs.
Which is an inventory of fearsand inventory of resentments and
inventory of people I've harmedand the inventory of my sexual
misbehavior.
So that's in itself stressful.
And then we're gonna throw'eminto a job, which they don't
know anything about.
It's just in the kitchen now,we'll end up having character
(33:20):
defects to work on.
Hess (33:23):
Yeah.
Just amazing.
Just amazing.
Okay everybody look into theHealing Place and you have those
three campuses.
How many beds do you have onMarket Street for the men and
how many do you have down therefor the women and what,
Jay Davidson (33:38):
Five, there's 500 beds for men on 10th and market.
There are 250 beds at thewomen's campus.
There's a hundred beds down inCampbellsville.
Hess (33:48):
Wow.
Jay, you are amazing.
You're amazing.
And.
I heard the quote by theastronaut that came back landed
that was in the Space Stationfor 148 days, and she just
talked about how wonderful itwas that the whole world, all
these countries have workedtogether to be up there and have
the space station going on for25 years, and that's such.
(34:10):
to work together.
And she said, when you reachyour goals, when you take the
elevator up to your goal andyou've reached your goal, send
it back down.
You're sending it back down withthe people that are following
you, taking on responsibilitythere.
And you still have a good handin it.
And just bless you and
Jay Davidson (34:27):
Thank you.
Hess (34:28):
so many people love you and you've changed so many
lives.
Thank you so much for talking tous today.
Jay Davidson (34:33):
Thank you.
Delbert (34:35):
We are so honored that you were with us today.
Jay.
Thank you so much for your
Jay Davidson (34:39):
Anytime.
Hess (34:41):
Yeah.
So thanks podsters forlistening.
Please share if you have anyquestions, and if you have any
questions for Jay, just let usknow.
Peace and love.
Delbert (34:50):
We love you friends.
Hess (34:50):
Yeah.
Take care y'all.
Peace and love.
Delbert (34:53):
you.
Peace and
Jay Davidson (34:54):
Bye.
Hey, welcome to our Sunday morning chat.
This is Hess.
I'm in Lexington, Kentucky,sitting in the white chair
looking out the window at thefarm.
Delbert (00:15):
Hey, good morning everybody.
This is Delbert.
As always.
I'm coming to you live from thebig green couch in Louisville,
Kentucky.
It is another beautiful day
Hess (00:27):
Yeah.
And in our last podcast folks,we talked about the night
before, I had attended the theFreedom Dinner of that the
healing Place puts on.
And it was centered aroundhonoring Jay Davidson, who has
made the healing place inLouisville, the Recovery Center
there in Louisville.
(00:47):
And now they're also inCampbellsville, the Healing
Place, what it is today.
And Delbert and I are lucky tohave on our guest today.
Jay Davidson.
Jay, thank you for coming to metell you this about that.
So tell us a little bit aboutyou and how you got to the
Healing Place.
Jay Davidson (01:06):
Hessan thank you for this opportunity.
I really appreciate it.
I came to the healing place by,by way of God's plan.
I had no intention of gettinginvolved with that.
Homeless, homelessness.
And the short story is afterretiring from the army, knocking
around for five years to find amy niche.
(01:28):
I ended up going back to schooland getting my ma master's in
social work with, on a clinicalper track, because I wanted to
be a psychotherapist forveterans and their related
families and doing counseling inRadcliffe, in Elizabethtown,
Kentucky.
However, I had to pay my backsome tuition that I used for
(01:50):
school.
I needed a job.
And the first job offer I gotwas to go to help these doctors
who were operating an overnightshelter for homeless men.
And they looked at my resume,figured that with my military
experience, I could probably runa shelter.
Wasn't too concerned about whatI do with my social work degree,
(02:10):
but they hired me to.
Run the homeless shelter.
The short of it is that after Igot there, I realized that the
staff, the resident staff therereally needed to go.
They did not have the bestinterests of the men at heart,
so I fired'em all and spent thenext two weeks there in the
(02:32):
shelter.
Connecting with the, and reallygetting to know them, getting to
know them by first name.
I did have to keep three paidcooks because we still needed to
get food cooked.
But aside from the foodpreparation, I pretty well
pretty much did everything else.
During that process, I realizedthat of the 80 men checking in
(02:54):
every night, a good 80% of themare alcoholics or addicts.
I was eight years sober at thetime and realized that if they
were never gonna be able to getoff the street if they didn't
learn how to get, if they didn'tget sober.
And that, that began to reallyweigh on my heart, knowing that
we needed to do somethingdifferent.
(03:15):
Whatever was available in 1991out in the Louisville community
wasn't working for them.
And so we really needed to dosomething different and a new
approach, or a differentapproach, but as it works out, I
really didn't know what to do.
I had no experience on programdevelopment.
I just had my own 12 stepexperience.
(03:36):
It was an education that Ilearned by the men teaching me
what they needed, and that'skinda how it got started.
Hess (03:44):
So almost what I'm hearing you say, it was like a young you
had a young mind and an openmind to try to learn what you
needed to learn to be able
Jay Davidson (03:52):
That's very polite.
It was an empty mind that knewnothing
Hess (03:55):
yeah.
Yeah.
So then you began and say moreabout like how it progressed and
how it became, what it is today.
Jay Davidson (04:02):
It started with the we all already had the
overnight shelter that was a wetshelter.
In other words, they you couldcome in under the influence of
drugs and alcohol.
And I was, we were able to setup a system of accountability
where they, that overnightguests and they are guests were
responsible for maintaining thesafety and security of the
shelter.
(04:23):
And so with that, we needed anoutreach to the street for that,
a alcoholic or addict thatwanted to detox, so to speak.
So the old buildings that 1017,1019 West market became what we
called a sobering up center, 24hours a day, seven days a week,
where men under the influencecould come in and safely detox.
(04:47):
It was a non-medical detox,meaning they would be allowed to
cold Turkey detox off of alltheir alcohol and drugs.
The only ones that weren'tallowed to do that were anyone
coming in on benzodiazepines,Xanax, out, Valium, Librium,
that sort of thing.
We would send them to thehospital for a medical
detoxification, by and large.
(05:09):
Heroin crack meth.
Alcohol, you name it, can prettymuch safely detox without fear
of fatality.
So now we had two outreaches.
We had to outreach to the streetthrough the overnight shelter.
We had an outreach through thedetox through the men on the
street.
There were still under theinfluence.
(05:29):
And so now we needed to start arecovery program.
Jes s you appreciate this mysocial work degree.
And the theory was, is that youcan't mix drinking with
non-drinking or using withnon-using because that would
create all kinds of relapsedpotential and all kinds of
problems and so forth.
(05:50):
So you really need to do a drugand alcohol free program.
This is October.
1991 or 92.
And so I decide on Monday, let'smake this shelter, alcohol and
drug free for the beginning of arecovery program.
So I did check in Monday nightand I checked in 80 men.
(06:12):
As they checked in, I did thesniff test, and if they smell
like alcohol, I said, look man Iknow what you're struggling
with, but this is gonna be analcohol and drug free program
for for recovery.
So if you come in under theinfluence, we won't be able to
check you in.
And everybody nodded their headand said, yes, okay, fine.
(06:33):
Tuesday I get ready to check inthe 80 men and only 50 are
there.
I say where are the other 30?
I said you said they smell likealcohol, don't bother coming,
and they are trying to get intothe other four shelters.
So I said, fine.
That night I got phone callsfrom every night manager all
four shelters saying, what inthe hell's going on down at the
(06:55):
Morgan Center?
These men said you kicked themout and they can't get back in.
And I said we're just trying tostart a recovery program.
I thought that, I thought it wasover with, okay, Wednesday
morning at 9:30 in the morningout on Market Street, there are
guys walking up and down thesidewalk with placards saying,
(07:16):
Doctors shelters Rules Unfair.
Shut out the homeless.
I even had men standing in thestreets passing out, stopping
cars and passing out hand bills.
You can imagine by 10 30 I hadall four TV stations and both
newspapers down here, down atthe Morgan Center saying, what's
going on?
Your doctors?
Your doctors are kickingeverybody out of the shelter.
(07:37):
And I said we're just trying tostart a recovery program to help
them learn how to get deal withtheir addiction.
Dr.
Ward was a little bit concernedabout publicity and negative
publicity as were the other 14doctors on the board.
So they had an emergency meetingof the board of directors.
There was nine members on theboard, and they met that
(07:57):
following Thursday afternoon,Thursday evening, actually there
were 18.
18 people showed up for thatboard meeting.
They argued for hours back andforth, wet versus dry, dry
versus wet.
How are we gonna do it?
Finally, Dr.
Ward took a vote, nine voted wetand nine voted dry.
I said, oh my gosh, I have to domy military tap dance to figure
(08:20):
out how to answer thischallenge.
So I said, maybe we could doboth.
I said how?
How are you gonna do that?
I said I don't know.
I guess we probably just have tostart and hire some more staff
so I can, so that we can doboth.
And they said, okay, how muchmoney will you not need?
And I said I don't know.
I did the swag, this silly wildass guess.
And I said, thousand dollarsought to be able to get us
(08:42):
started.
They went out and got that ahundred thousand dollars.
The building that JesseBollinger had built was a two
two story, 24,000 square footfacility.
12,000 square feet on eachfloor.
So it turned out, and on thefirst floor was the kitchen, the
dining room offices and thebackside had 40 beds.
(09:03):
And then on top floor there wereanother 40 beds up on the second
floor.
So it became the top floor,became the wet overnight shelter
for the overnight men who stillwanted to stay on the recovery
program.
And the bottom floor becamealcohol and drug free in the
beginning of the recoveryprogram.
And that was in November.
In November of 92.
(09:24):
By January of 93 we startedofficially a 12 step recovery
program with 10 men in theprogram.
Hess (09:34):
Got it.
Got it.
Delbert (09:37):
That's amazing.
I was looking at your four stepsyour website.
Was that something that youincorporated after?
Those decisions were made to dothe wet and dry.
Jay Davidson (09:49):
Yes.
So I knew I was way outta myelement professionally Hess, I
was well beyond my scope ofpractice and skill.
So at the time I was undersupervision for my licensed
clinical social work, and Italked to my, my supervisor and
I said, Hey, I need some help.
And he said there's this guydown in Shreveport, Louisiana
(10:10):
that's been in the treatmentfield for 25 years.
He is seen everything, doneeverything, looking for a job,
but he'd be glad to come up andconsult with you for only maybe
a month or two because he'sgonna be moving on to look for a
job.
And so I said, okay that's finewith me.
I just needed a good a start.
So I called him and talked tohim and he said I don't know
(10:32):
you, you don't like to mixdrinking with non-drinking, but
I'll come up and take a look.
He came up and within one weekhe fell in love with the whole
concept.
I.
Never left.
He, so I hired him and hetogether, he, it was a yin and
yang kind of thing.
He was the hard, the structuredclinical treatment guy.
(10:53):
And I was a soft woozy.
Let's take care of him and thenlove him side.
So anytime we had a discussion,we had to find a, meet a middle
ground.
And through that point.
Delbert (11:06):
love.
Jay Davidson (11:07):
Through that process we had a basic, very
light structure of steps andclasses and so forth, but every
time the guys in the programfound a loophole, we had to plug
the loophole.
And so when I say the men reallydesigned the mo the program,
they really did.
Delbert (11:25):
Oh wow.
Wow.
Hess (11:28):
So say more about what the program went into in those four
steps and how people move alongfrom
Jay Davidson (11:34):
Yeah.
Hess (11:34):
on through.
Jay Davidson (11:36):
It's evolved over the years because of the drug.
As the drugs have changed,we've, I have seen every drug
you can imagine and I can gointo a whole dissertation on,
it's not a drug problem, it's abehavior problem.
But we started,
Hess (11:50):
And Hey Jay, let me just say this about that is, is.
That's part of our problem.
People try to go after the druginstead of go after and help the
Jay Davidson (11:59):
Yes, correct.
Hess (12:00):
And they, and then I was reading something how the drug
ends up morphing into somethingelse because like the the pills
morphed in heroin because pillsgot too expensive.
So you gotta treat the personand not the drug.
So go
Jay Davidson (12:15):
You're exactly right that I can go into a long
talk about harm reduction andSuboxone and methadone.
But that's another story abouthow you prolong people on
medication for a lifetime andnever really deal with the issue
of changing their behavior.
But anyway, so we start with thenon-medical detox and we'll
(12:36):
allow them to stay in the detoxas long as they physically have
to.
Sometimes some drugs take longerto detox, some all, basically
all the chemicals are out of thebody within 72 to 96 hours.
But still, there's all thephysical aspects of the nervous
system disturbances and sleepingdisorders and all those kind of
(12:58):
things, and just not physicallyable to really.
Be mobile for more than four,two or three hours.
So we need to allow them to stayin the detox until they're
physically able.
It doesn't mean they're justlaying around.
They're going to classes andthey're going to AA meetings and
they're going to those kind ofsupport meetings all the time
(13:18):
that they're in that non-medicaldetox.
Once they're detoxed, they'll gointo what we call our safe
haven, which is they'rerestricted to the property for
two weeks, meaning they, theycan't leave the property for any
reason.
While going to classes andmeetings and the, it's their
opportunity to continue toreally, to continue to detox and
(13:41):
also start to learn how to buildrelationships.
They're in they're in a four mancubic four man rooms and they
start to have to build friend.
If you're sleeping with threeother guys, at some point you
gotta figure out how to worktogether.
So it's great.
It's a great opportunity forthem to reach out, and start to
build relationships.
Alcoholics and addicts areunconnected and this whole mo,
(14:04):
this is a social model, meaningsocially connecting.
And so it starts right afterdetox it starts really in detox,
but then they continue that intothat that four man room where
they start talking to eachother.
Can you believe it?
And start realizing.
Learning how they start tobecome vulnerable and
(14:25):
transparent and start sharingfeelings and emotions.
And they realize that the personhearing that becomes vulnerable
and transparent and it starts toshare back.
And they start continuing tobuild that relationship and all
of a sudden they realize theygot somebody they can trust for
the first time in their life.
Hess (14:43):
Lovely, lovely.
Delbert (14:44):
Beautiful.
Love
Jay Davidson (14:45):
And after the two weeks, then they go into the
motivational track where they'reguaranteed a bed for a week.
And the way they keep that bedis they go to classes during the
day and meetings during the day,but those classes and meetings
are off campus intentionally.
For the men, they actually walktwo miles one direction to the
10 o'clock class and then a oneo'clock class in the afternoon.
(15:09):
In that interim break for twohours, they can go to the other
two or three shelters and getone, two, or three free lunches
depending how fast they walk.
And then come back to the oneo'clock class and then trudge
back to the main campus at theHealing place to be able to get
back in time to attend orparticipate in a three o'clock
(15:30):
class with the men who arefurther along in the program.
So they're still incontemplation, stage of their
addiction or their.
Journey, but they're gonna be ina group class that afternoon of
those who are committed torecovery and they're, all those
men in that class are alreadythree or four months clean,
working on their recoveryjourney.
(15:51):
So there's constant rolemodeling happening every day,
all day.
In that motivational track, theyget they have a paper where they
get signatures for all theirclasses and all the meetings
they attend that week and all.
So the peer mentors who run theprogram take a look at the each
individual sheet.
Then they also take intoconsideration, were they very,
(16:15):
did they participate in class?
Did they share in class?
Did they ask questions?
When volunteers were needed tounload a truck, did they
volunteer to unload the truck?
Those kind of things.
And so the client with the mostclass signatures and the most
meeting signatures and ispositive in class, gets a bed
move.
Bed move means he is movingcloser to the formal program.
(16:37):
It's a tangible reward for hardwork.
It's not enough to know you'repsychologically or mentally
changing.
You need tangible reward.
And that tangible reward is thatacknowledgement that you're
working hard and so you get tomove.
If you find that your buddiesare moving faster than you are,
it's because they're workingharder than you.
(16:58):
No, no one to blame butyourself.
So you can't blame the staff'cause the staff's totally out
of it.
So that puts the whole burden onthe individual and their effort.
Hess (17:08):
Got it.
And you took me to a floor wherethere was a big room where
there's a group of people that,that The program, monitor each
one
Jay Davidson (17:18):
yep.
Yep.
Hess (17:19):
and they're all on a computer.
And when those papers of whatmeetings they went get to, went
to, they're all like checked onthis big diagram.
It's it's like down at NASA inthe space launch thing.
Jay Davidson (17:30):
That's, you're exactly right.
Yes.
And that room is, I call thatthe operation center, the war
room, whatever, it's operated bythe 20 volunteer peer mentors
that keep track of all the menin the program.
And they track everything, howmany meetings they've been to,
whether they have their driver'slicense or not, whether they
have their social security cardTB tests whether they've got
(17:52):
court appointments, whetherthey've got.
C Ps, everything, CPSappointments, whatever.
They track it all and monitor itto make sure that it's one thing
for people to have clients tohave appointments, but it's
another thing for them to beheld accountable to make sure
they make that appointment,which is un you unique on the
street.
'cause there's no appointments,there's no calendar, there's no
(18:13):
clock, there's noaccountability.
So I.
Delbert (18:15):
Right.
Jay Davidson (18:16):
Three months and it in the front part of the
motivational track, they'regoing through the first three
steps of Alcoholics Anonymous.
And then be before they can gointo step four and the formal
part of the program, they haveto have a sponsor.
You won't, you will not be movedinto the f for formal part of
the program without a sponsor.
(18:36):
'cause the whole key to recoveryis starting to establish a
tradition of having a sponsor ina support group over and above
any kind of treatment or therapyor whatever.
So they have to have theirsponsor.
They go into the formal part ofthe program, and that's steps
four through 12 will takeanother three months to go
through those steps.
Four through 12.
(18:57):
While there, they'll all have ajob to do in the shelter.
This is an opportunity for themto assume responsibility and
then be held accountable forthat responsibility, which is
unique again for them.
Since it's never been that wayon the street and many, we have
many young people that havenever had a job in their life
and now they're gonna have to bethe kitchen supervisor and run a
(19:19):
crew of five and be heldaccountable for putting out 1500
meals a day.
They may have never cooked intheir life, but that's okay.
'cause somehow or other they'reall gonna work together and that
food's gonna be cooked and it'sgonna come out on time.
Hess (19:34):
And I remember in that one section on that one floor, you
had all the veterans
Jay Davidson (19:37):
Right.
Hess (19:38):
When would veterans be all put together?
And this is all part of thatconnection thing because you
said people in the militaryalready have that
Jay Davidson (19:46):
It's interesting alcoholics and that ex need to
talk about the their pain andthey need to talk to somebody
that can understand their pain.
So one alcoholic to anotheralcoholic.
Add to that, being a veteran,it's a double trip'cause
veterans need to talk abouttheir military experience and
they need to talk to somebodywho will understand while at the
same time they're alcoholic andaddicts.
(20:06):
So they need to have that.
Alcoholic and addict veterans.
So it was ideal, it's an idealsetup for us to integrate the
veterans into our structuredprogram.
It, early on it was difficult.
It couldn't happen from ourperspective because the veterans
that were referred to us throughthe VA program all came with a
(20:28):
lot of medications and so forth,and it was well beyond our.
Scope of practice.
So we just couldn't help'em.
We did always have a significantpercent, about 25% of our entire
client base was veteran from thevery beginning.
And they were just volunteer offthe street coming into the
program about seven years ago.
(20:49):
The VA.
Got got smart and startedlooking at the amount of
prescriptions that were beinggiven to a veteran and realized
they were doing more harm thangood.
And so they've tightened up onthat.
And they also committed to fortreatment programs
community-based treatmentprograms they would provide
mental health counseling.
So at that point, we decided toget back into, and we submitted
(21:12):
a grant proposal for a veteransprogram, and we were awarded.
Three veterans programs.
One low demand, which is a 20bed overnight shelter kind of
idea for veterans that don'thave a mental health or
substance abuse issue, but aresimply homeless.
And we can get them hooked upwith a Hud va hud vash section
(21:34):
eight vouchers fairly quickly toget them into housing.
52 beds for clinical treatmentfor veterans, so that have
alcoholism or drug addiction andmental illness.
Those that's in effect.
And we get, vA sends a mentalhealth clinician three days a
week to support that programwhile they take care of the
mental health issues.
(21:55):
We take care of the recovery,the substance abuse recovery
program and provide the housingand so forth.
Then we have a a 90 day programfor veterans for drug and
alcohol recovery.
And we now have this year aswe've finally gotten three
female veterans.
So now we have our femaleveterans are starting to come
(22:18):
out of the hiding and start tocome un reach out for help,
which I.
Hess (22:25):
So did you finish the whole motivational track?
You said they go on all the waythrough step
Jay Davidson (22:30):
Yes.
And that's where you we plug in.
You're familiar with the termaftercare.
We call it continuing care asopposed to aftercare.
'cause re recovery is acontinuing process, but it's the
same any aftercare that you findanywhere else.
We're elevating that programthrough the Brady center for
Productive Life and adding a 12week curriculum of, resume
(22:51):
writing, interview preparation,resource searches for career
jobs and matching skills tocareers and all that sort of
thing
Delbert (22:59):
Oh, that's I have a question.
Interesting that, yourconnectors because alcoholics
and addicts are not connected.
I never realized that.
Tell us some of the other thingsthat maybe the public doesn't
understand about in treatmentand some of the misconceptions.
Jay Davidson (23:24):
The first misconception is that it's not a
chemical problem.
Addiction is a biological,sociological, psychological, and
spiritual disease.
Starting in the mind.
And so if you take each one ofthose components and really
analyze the biological partwell, there's obviously the body
(23:47):
reaction to the chemical, howthe chemical destroys body
alcohol, for example, affectsevery organ in the body.
And so the psychological is the.
Distorted thinking, the confusedthinking caused by the chemical.
The sociological is, they'reunconnected because of behavior
(24:07):
and attitude.
Spiritual is, we believe that aspiritual component is being
connected to a higher power.
The higher power is the onlypower that can restore us to
sanity because we were insane.
And on an on a side addictionaffects every ethnic
sociological and economic socistrata in this world, addiction
(24:30):
is worldwide.
It's not centered on anyparticular area.
It's also affects every everylevel of education, every level
of it.
It does not simply put, it doesnot discriminate.
And we've had high, highlyskilled professionals you name
it, we've had that have comethrough the healing place.
(24:53):
And so I also like to say that Isay that tongue in cheek, being
in recovery myself, but I saythat everyone out there in the
world that's not an alcoholic oraddict, I call them earth
people.
Those Earth people arestruggling with shortcomings and
character defects when they'rewhite knuckling it, clawing at
trying to figure out how to dealwith those.
(25:14):
And fortunately, those of us inrecovery have a program that
helps us deal with all of that.
We're really actually better offand like luckier than those
everyone else out there that'sstruggling with that, those
defects of character because wehave a solution.
Hess (25:32):
Yeah.
My dad always said the bestpeople he is ever known are
people in recovery.
Because you're working on it,you know that, you know that
there's a problem in there andyou're working on it where, like
you said we're, I'm just not,Delbert, I'm just white
knuckling it and being quiet.
Delbert (25:49):
And I'm a little more vocal about my white knuckling.
I'm just out there, whiteknuckling it and everybody
knows.
Okay.
Jay Davidson (25:54):
and it's tough.
It's tough.
And then
Hess (25:57):
Yes.
Jay Davidson (25:58):
of it, okay, so the other part of it is it's a
family disease.
It's, and my what I mean that isthat the chaotic.
The chaos created by the addictdestroys the nuclear family.
And what happens is the familyin this chaos panics and tries
to deal with the outbursts, theanger, the fru, the pain, the
(26:21):
lies, the all of that go thoseinto that addictive behavior,
alcohol's behavior.
And they develop inappropriateunhealthy coping mechanisms, and
they become as sick as theaddict or alcoholic.
And so really it, it takes boththe addict and the family to go
through a change process to beable to come out with healthy
(26:42):
coping skills and living skills.
Hess (26:46):
And everybody out there, I want you to know that the
healing place the campus for menand the campus of women.
Now they have a campus inCampbellsville, Kentucky.
It's all free for anybody that,that walks in the door and goes
through detox.
It's totally free and it carriesyou, carries the person all the
way through all of these stagesand steps and you have a really
(27:09):
high success rate because ofthat, because they get all of
this different stabilization.
You're you have a 65% success
Jay Davidson (27:16):
Something like that.
We had that other school whereyou are Hess does the outcome
study for us and they've donethe center for alcohol and Drug.
Research at the University ofKentucky does our outcome study.
Done it for almost 18 years now,and it's the statistics are
consistent every year.
(27:37):
Reductions in crime reduction orelimination of drug use
connection with family,connection with better jobs.
Just the whole wrap series ofsocial determinants that say
you're successful are allpositive.
And we get the, we get thosereports every year.
Hess (27:56):
So like they were pointing out at the dinner that.
That when you, when thisperson's in recovery and gets to
the place where they've becomemore whole, you're also maybe
allowing them to get their kidsback.
You're improving that wholefamily.
And therefore, if you improvethat family and you're improving
their children and then theirchildren are growing up with
(28:18):
something different you'reimproving society.
Jay Davidson (28:21):
Absolutely.
90% of the women coming throughour program have children and
80% of the men have childrencoming through our program.
And of course, society puts theburden on the, or the guilt trip
of burden on the mother.
To be responsible for the care.
But more and more men arestepping up and taking
responsibility at about stepeight of the 12 steps of the
(28:42):
recovery program, havingdemonstrated a positive recovery
journey at that point we workedwith CPS and other entities to
begin formal reunification withthe children.
And that's a process that'sdetermined primarily by the
children and the ones that arehave been disconnected.
(29:02):
'cause they're the ones thathave to be prepared to wanna re
reunite.
So it's a process that takes andas you will realize it's all
about building a relationship oftrust.
And when the alcoholic or addicthas destroyed that trust for so
many years, it's gonna take awhile for that trust to be
reestablished.
(29:22):
And the only way you canreestablish trust with an
alcoholic or addict is toobserve their demonstrated
behavior and observe theirdemonstrated change in the way
they think and the way they act.
Hess (29:37):
Over and over I heard the words, believe in the process,
believe in the process.
Jay Davidson (29:42):
The process
Hess (29:43):
Yeah.
Jay Davidson (29:43):
and the process is continued change through
sharing, role modeling positivechanges in working on your
character defects andshortcomings.
And the process is going throughthe full 12 steps with there's.
Each of those steps has classesand it takes 154 days to go
(30:04):
through all the 12 steps.
And that's the process.
The process really starts fromdetox and flows all the way
through to the end of the pointof aftercare continuing care.
And the process is the stepsthat I've just described.
And when you don't like it, theysay trust the process.
Stick around.
Hess (30:24):
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just stick around.
Stick around, and also lookoutside
Jay Davidson (30:28):
Yes.
Hess (30:29):
I heard that said.
Yeah, and I, when I came andvisited your place last month
you said one of the first jobsthat someone will get will
Because the kitchen is full ofstress.
There's always a lot of chaosand you gotta work with other
people when you're working inthe kitchen.
Jay Davidson (30:42):
Alcoholics and addicts are really smart.
That's why we don't have a lotof written rules.
I told you there's five cardinalrules, no fighting or threats of
violence.
No.
Sexually acting out, no racism.
No using drugs or alcohol, andno stealing.
Violate any one of those five inyour.
Immediately discharged, but thestaff develop a behavioral
(31:02):
contract where you can completethat behavior contract and come
back into the program Now.
There, are there a lot ofunofficial guidelines and kind
of structure guidelines?
Yes, absolutely.
But the burden is on you to findout what, who, what they are by
asking questions.
And if you ask the wrong person,get the wrong information, you
(31:24):
end up getting consequences.
See alcoholics and that create.
Issue events that they shouldget consequences for, but in
real life, that consequence forthat issue doesn't happen right
away.
It happens down the road, days,weeks, months, or years away.
Then when that consequence doeshappen, they get pissed off
(31:46):
'cause they can't connect it tothe original event and they get
mad at God and everybody elseand they go out and get high
Delbert (31:52):
No.
Jay Davidson (31:53):
place.
You create an incident,immediate consequence.
So that you can recognize all ofa sudden if I do something
wrong, there's a consequence.
Now there's no consequencethat's gonna hurt you severely
at the healing place.
It's a safe place to makemistakes.
So if you put all the rules inwriting, alcohol are smart
(32:13):
enough to circumvent all thoserules, get all the way through
the program, and they're gonnaleave the way they came, and
then we don't want that.
We want them to learn how tochange.
And the fastest way to seesomeone's carriage of defects is
to put'em under stress.
And so the first job in theirthat's at step four after that,
that, here's the idea.
(32:33):
They just went through two and ahalf months of motivation.
Trudging back and forth everyday, Monday through Friday to
that classroom and demonstratingin the rain, in the snow and the
heat and all that, that they'remotivated to go to any lengths
to get their recovery as theywere willing to go to any
lengths to get their drug.
So now they're all hyped up.
'cause now I'm gonna go into theprogram.
I got my sponsor and I'm readyto do step four, which is a
(32:57):
searching and fearless moralinventory of my wrongs.
Which is an inventory of fearsand inventory of resentments and
inventory of people I've harmedand the inventory of my sexual
misbehavior.
So that's in itself stressful.
And then we're gonna throw'eminto a job, which they don't
know anything about.
It's just in the kitchen now,we'll end up having character
(33:20):
defects to work on.
Hess (33:23):
Yeah.
Just amazing.
Just amazing.
Okay everybody look into theHealing Place and you have those
three campuses.
How many beds do you have onMarket Street for the men and
how many do you have down therefor the women and what,
Jay Davidson (33:38):
Five, there's 500 beds for men on 10th and market.
There are 250 beds at thewomen's campus.
There's a hundred beds down inCampbellsville.
Hess (33:48):
Wow.
Jay, you are amazing.
You're amazing.
And.
I heard the quote by theastronaut that came back landed
that was in the Space Stationfor 148 days, and she just
talked about how wonderful itwas that the whole world, all
these countries have workedtogether to be up there and have
the space station going on for25 years, and that's such.
(34:10):
to work together.
And she said, when you reachyour goals, when you take the
elevator up to your goal andyou've reached your goal, send
it back down.
You're sending it back down withthe people that are following
you, taking on responsibilitythere.
And you still have a good handin it.
And just bless you and
Jay Davidson (34:27):
Thank you.
Hess (34:28):
so many people love you and you've changed so many
lives.
Thank you so much for talking tous today.
Jay Davidson (34:33):
Thank you.
Delbert (34:35):
We are so honored that you were with us today.
Jay.
Thank you so much for your
Jay Davidson (34:39):
Anytime.
Hess (34:41):
Yeah.
So thanks podsters forlistening.
Please share if you have anyquestions, and if you have any
questions for Jay, just let usknow.
Peace and love.
Delbert (34:50):
We love you friends.
Hess (34:50):
Yeah.
Take care y'all.
Peace and love.
Delbert (34:53):
you.
Peace and
Jay Davidson (34:54):
Bye.
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