Ep16 Addiction Treatment: Warrior Reset for Veterans

Ep16 Garret Biss, Author, TEDx Speaker, and Veteran Recovery Coach, ValiantPath™️

[00:00:00] Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Chris Langley: Hi, welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place.

The podcast championing addiction treatment specialists around the world. I'm your host Chris Langley. I'm very pleased to introduce today's guest Garrett Biss. Garrett is a veteran award-winning author and respected thought leader in the addiction recovery industry. He's a very highly sought after speaker and trainer for the national conferences down to the boardroom.

He's a retired Marine Corps pilot. Garrett turned personal adversity into advocacy after confronting a post-retirement crisis of anxiety, depression, addiction, and thoughts of suicide. Garrett charted a transformative path of recovery, emphasizing self-worth and resilience, the co-founder of a pioneering recovery residence and creator of Valiant Path.

Garrett leads others thoughts towards healing and growth. Garrett is an esteemed speaker who blends engineering precision with innovation and [00:01:00] military leadership to inspire change and offer practical solutions to complex challenges. Welcome to Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, Gareth. Thanks for joining us.

Garret Biss: Thanks for having me. I really appreciate it. I'm excited to have a conversation with you and see what comes up. I know you've got a lot of juicy questions, maybe you'll still, we'll see what, see what you bring

up, but I'm excited about it.

Let's hope so. No, I really appreciate your time. I know you're incredibly busy you are. I just like to say I'm truly honoured to have you today. I've just got to say that I've obviously, since we first met, I've, learned a lot about you and the amazing work and the story that you've, that you have.

Chris Langley: And I just want to bring this to the audience today. So I'm just going to jump straight in, Garrett. Tell us about your journey and how you became a certified addiction recovery coach.

Garret Biss: So great question. I took many different turns that probably I couldn't have forecast 10 years ago if I were looking forward down the road. but I think such is life, a lot of times things will manifest or will be opportunities, that we hadn't predicted. I don't know if your [00:02:00] move across the pond was something that you thought you would do earlier in your life, or if it just came an opportunity and you pursued it.

That's a lot like my journey. So when I transitioned out of the Marine Corps, as you mentioned, faced a really dark and difficult, challenging time. And I struggled with something that later, took me a couple of years to get some clarity on, but I struggled with something that many veterans face when they transition out of the active duty service. In fact, my recent TEDx talk talks all about the unspoken trauma of military transition, and what I found or what I struggled with was that loss of connection, the loss of positive self-identity or authenticity and, mainly the loss of meaning, so much had changed in my life. And really it was. In my mid to late thirties, I felt like I was thrust into the world, as an adolescent all over again. I had to find new things about my place in the world, it was very strange to me. I wasn't prepared for it. Wasn't really expecting it. And that confrontation, this really led me to a dark place. Through that [00:03:00] journey, I began to understand a lot more about this, whatever the, this so called dark place that many people can get to or experience in different ways in their life. And fortunately I was introduced to, and my path crossed with some great coaching and mentorship that helped me. Rebuild a life.

As I always say, the journey for the goal for recovery, addiction, recovery shouldn't be living a life without a substance or a behavior. It should be creating and building a life that you don't wan to escape from.

So fortunately, through the coaching and some of the mentorship that I received, I was able to kinda go back to the, foundation, repair the found. And start to create an existence for myself that wasn't so hard to deal with something I didn't want to escape, avoid or numb constantly, and that led me to a much better place. And then through that journey, and this is really a long answer to maybe a short question, but through that journey, I began to appreciate and understand, for one, the suffering of other individuals. Now with a greater clarity, I feel, because I had experienced some things that a lot of other people experience. Everybody's journey [00:04:00] is different. Everybody experiences the challenges and obstacles in their life in a different way. But I felt that I had a connection to or an understanding of some of those challenges from a different perspective. And then my unique journey, not going through a traditional addiction treatment, kind of process, I brought some insight and some, and a different perspective, from the journey that I had. So I found a real value for that, a real need for some of the things that I picked up and some of the things that I developed through my journey, especially in the addiction recovery community. Supporting individuals that have struggled with substances and behaviors in their past and getting to a place that they want to be in their life. Again, not just avoid of a substance or behavior, but actually getting to a life that they're that they deserve to live an experience that they deserve to experience. And then most recently, I had an epiphany or an aha that. I had this experience, this little hiatus, if you will, for six or seven years after the Marine Corps, learning a lot in the addiction recovery space, learning a lot about personal development [00:05:00] and, applied positive psychology, self esteem, many of the things that kind of come, together to create this lens through which we live our life.

Learning a lot about that and I really felt called back to bring all that knowledge and all the, that training and experience to serving the veteran population. Because that's certainly a struggle that transition is certainly a struggle that I understand, more than, than maybe other people do more than other things.

I understand about my own life. And we look at the veteran population in general, and the population, there's 19 million veterans in the United States alone, many millions more around the

world.

As a population in America, veterans are 200% more likely to struggle with mental health challenges or suffer with addiction.

And you look at the suicide rate, they, recently reported 20, 22 a day. Now recent reports are saying upwards of 40, more than 40, either suicides or easily preventable deaths. That veterans are suffering. So that's a long [00:06:00] answer to maybe your short question, but that's the journey that I've been on these last couple of years and now, why I'm doing what I do now to share a little bit of hope, if nothing else, a little bit of hope and hopefully some insight and some tools that individuals can use to steer their life into a better

direction.

Chris Langley: Thank you very much for that answer. that's, a absolutely fascinating story. How, long did this journey take you, Garrett, from this time you joined the, military to when you started your, the great work that you are now doing?

Garret Biss: I joined the military in

99 when I was 18 years old, right out of high school. Actually, I graduated high school early, so I can join the military early. That's how ready I was. So that's how ready I was to join the Marine Corps. That's also how aware I was of my own nature and behaviors. And my realization was if I were to delay. My joining the Marine Corps any longer, there was a increasing likelihood every day that I might do

something to mess up that opportunity.

I figured I better do what I can to [00:07:00] try to get down to boot camp as quick as possible. in March of 99, I went down to Parris Island and started my Marine Corps career, and then I took an early retirement.

I was offered an early retirement and. In 2015, so I had the opportunity to get commissioned along the way and fly C130s and do some amazing, wonderful things, see a lot of places in parts of the world, and then was offered a retirement in 2015, and everything was great, and then my world fell apart. I tell some people my last deployment was to Afghanistan, and in many ways I feel like I left the war abroad just to come home and face the war or battle going on in my own

life.

As I began that transition and started struggling with some of the elements that we just discussed in that journey.

Chris Langley: Goodness me. Garrett, can you share the inspiration behind starting Valiant Path and Unspoken Trauma and how they specifically help veterans?

Garret Biss: Yeah, certainly for, so for anybody that's interested, you can go to unspokentrauma.vet, and that's the place where you can view my recent TEDx talk. [00:08:00] It's a great, 11 minute conversation about some of the struggles and challenges that veterans usually face. What I have come to understand is that regardless of what a veteran experiences while they're in the military, that transition from military service itself can be traumatic, and I think this is what fuels and this is what leads to those highly inflated or those highly, yeah, the, high rates of mental health challenges and addiction challenges, if, for nothing else, it's because of that transition from military service.

If you go to unspokentrauma.Vet, not only is that a place you can watch the 11 minute TEDx talk. But it's also a place that you can share it with others. And what I'm really encouraging people to do is if you have any friends, if there's any veterans or loved ones or, colleagues that you'd like to experience that with, and I invite you to, host or co-host with me, a virtual watch party.

And that's just an opportunity to come together, watch the 11 minute talk together, and then unpack it a little bit, do some sharing. I think there's a lot of healing that can come through sharing. So it just provides a great opportunity to experience that. And then [00:09:00] for people to share their own thoughts and their own feelings, I've, had a opportunity to present to even Vietnam veterans recently, and I've heard a lot of them saying, or one in particular said, I've been struggling with something internal for the last decade since I left Vietnam.

And you're the first, this is the first time that I've been able to, through the way that I expressed it, the first time that he was able to put a finger or point to, where that, void was inside. Again, a lot of, a lot of introspection can be fueled by

this. A lot of growth, a lot of gain of, of ultimately hope and understanding can come from it. I invite anybody to check that out, and I'll provide you the link if you want to put it in the show notes. Valiant Path is a program where I work specifically with veterans who have struggled with either behavioral addictions, some, maybe some lingering mental health challenges. and it's what Valiant Path is, it's a comprehensive and a holistic coaching program.

So we provide, or we still many of the elements that veterans struggle with, whether they, whether it's [00:10:00] that lack of connection. which we provide through some group coaching in connection with other veterans, whether it's a lack of positive identity or authenticity, which we do a lot of practices and some processes to help regain that sense of authenticity, or that loss of sense of meaning or that adjustment, if you will, the sense of meaning, to help veterans reconnect with things that they enjoy and things that bring that meaning and purpose to their life. It's a three month program, and it can continue on past that for any veterans that are interested, but it's designed to be a three month program providing some positive psychology based curriculum, a lot of interventions that I've picked up through, through my time, and a lot of the things that are, most powerful and efficacious in my journey that I like to share with other veterans. and then it also includes a component for really deep emotional processing. It's not a clinical tool, but it's a powerful coaching tool that I use that provides a, therapeutic, result for deep emotional processing. a lot of times some of the struggles that we have stem from deeper either [00:11:00] repressed or unrecognized or undealt with emotions or needs that we have. so through this unique process, it's very efficacious for to provide the safe, easy and an effective way to either get in touch with things that we bottled up or release things that aren't serving us any longer, or overcome and move past some beliefs that are holding us back or keeping us in prison. That's all through a coaching program called Valiant Path. And if anybody's interested in that, they can learn a little bit more at ValiantPath.net as well.

Chris Langley: I will definitely be making sure that the links are below this video. It must be incredibly inspiring for veterans who are just coming home from war to meet someone such as yourself, and then to realize that there is a pathway to recovery, a genuine pathway and the support that comes from you as a very experienced veteran.

Who've gone through this process of, addiction treatment and to come out the other side and to doing the work that you are doing now. There's no other word but inspiring for that and I, [00:12:00] thank you very much for explaining that. And, are there any other resources that, veterans are available?

What, is there anything specific for veterans for addiction other than yourself or.

Garret Biss: So there are a lot of, fortunately, there's a lot of non-profits out there. I think there's, I, the last I looked, there was 40,000 non-profits that have been designed to help veterans. so there's a lot of programs out there. One thing I always encourage people that I talk to is understand that every individual that struggled either with their mental health challenges, or addictions or just compulsive behaviors or any behavior that's showing up in a way that's creating a consequence in their life that they would like to change or like to avoid for every individual,

there's an estimated 28 to 30M adults in America that are struggling with some kind of substance or behavior. It's creating a negative impact on their life. That's 28 to 30 million different life stories or life paths that got them to that place, combination of, biopsychosocial, spiritual elements, but for everybody, it's a different combination.

The reason I bring that up is because for [00:13:00] every person that's seeking a road to recovery or a road to a better place in their life, it's going to be a different combination of tools, resources, processes, and support to get them to that better place. And I only mentioned that because for some people, unfortunately, that if they struggle in their life and they reach out for, maybe they listen, they read a book to hear some, some program or some therapist or some, some retreat center that they can go to and they go to it and it doesn't create that transformation that they were hoping for. One potential consequence of that is that the veteran or the individual can internalize that as though they're so defective, they're helpless, like the things aren't ever going to get better. Especially if you go to a program or, if you're involved in a support group where you see everybody else around you having positive change and growing

and, experiencing the change that they want, and you're not experiencing that. Sometimes we can internalize that I'm just so defective, I'm not good enough for this, or there's nothing that can help me. And that's a [00:14:00] very to take somebody in a dark place and then put them to a darker place where they feel less hopeful, that's a very, negative consequence.

So I like to encourage individuals to find what feels right for you. And if you've tried something in the past and it didn't really work, try something

else. Or maybe it's going to be a combination of different things that need to come together, but then, you can go to Google and search for veteran and then, recovery residences or, treatment programs or retreats and find a plethora of things.

One of the things I'm really excited about and I'm actually working with. IAVA, which is the Iraq Afghanistan Veterans Association of America, to advocate for some newer treatments, whether it's psychedelic assisted treatments or some modalities like the one I use in Valiant Path, which is called RIM, standing for regenerating images and memory, which is a newer modality for emotional processing and healing.

I really want to make, these things more widely available to veterans.

The traditional veteran that struggles and, they'll come, [00:15:00] if they, do and stats show that only about one in ten people that are really struggling and really want to make a change in their life, only about one in ten will ever start that process.

They'll ever reach out and ask for help or seek, treatment. And of those one in ten that, veterans, the traditional path for veterans is that they go and they seek clinical treatment, and often that comes with a lot of prescriptions

to deal with symptoms of a deeper issue that often also create additional problems that then need to be dealt with.

You're on your, you're on your medication to help you go to sleep, and then you got another medication to help you wake up, and then you got a medication to help with the anxiety during the

day, and then that's creating, sexual dysfunctions, then you got another medication for that, and then on and on.

I've talked to a lot of veterans that reached out to me about Valiant Path, and they'll say, "I'm on six, eight, a dozen different medications, and the byproduct of that is I just feel numb all the time. Like I'm so disconnected with myself. Sure, maybe I'm not having as many nightmares as I was,

and maybe I don't feel the anxiety, the crippling [00:16:00] anxiety during the day, but I really don't feel anything." So now, they've masked some symptoms. But they're still not living the life that they

want. And That's what saddens me the most. We look at the population of veterans, about 18 to 19 million veterans in America. And as a population, I think of, yes, there's, a tremendous number of them that are struggling, and on the, across the spectrum of, human wellbeing and human

suffering, they're struggling so much that maybe they're clinically diagnosable or they have a real issue. What I try not to forget is there's also millions of veterans out there that maybe they're not struggling to that extreme, but they're still not living the life that they want to live.

There's still something that's missing. There's still some impact that they're not making or connection that they don't have or level of engagement that they've lost that makes them feel like the life that they're living isn't as good as it could be, and there's a lot that we can do to support veterans to get back to that place.

Chris Langley: Yeah.

Garret Biss: You mentioned a minute ago, and I'll just comment on this before I forget it, but you talked about veterans coming

[00:17:00] home from combat. What I've seen is that the veterans, a lot of veterans go to a dark place, either after their last deployment or when they transition out of the military. The

thing is, it's not as predictable as, X, Y, Z veteran or, Joe or Jane veteran leaves the military and then x number of weeks or months later, they enter the dark place. For veterans, I've found that it can be immediately. It can be even before the transition happens is the anxiety and the, question about what the next life is going to bring, starts to stir up some challenges. For a lot of veterans, and I honestly happens after two or three years when, the honeymoon phase of this new civilian transition has worn off and now they're settling into their new reality and realizing it's not all it's cracked up to be or it's not all they were expecting. The journey into just like everybody's journey into addiction, that journey into a darker place, looks different for everybody.

Fortunately, I think there's some tools that can [00:18:00] work very well for many people or many veterans to help them get back to a better place.

Chris Langley: That was actually going to be my next question, Garrett, about elaborating on the unique challenges that veterans encounter during addiction recovery and how these differ from civilians. So you've just answered my next question perfectly there, absolutely.

Spoiler alert for my TEDx talk, but in the talk, I talk about three unique things that affect veterans or affect veterans in a unique way. We as humans, I understand we have three fundamental human needs, beyond our basic needs for food, water and shelter. We have three fundamental needs.

Garret Biss: One is for connection. We need connection to others in order to survive. Both in a sense that we couldn't fulfill all of our needs continuously if we weren't part of a community, if we didn't have people around us doing the wonderful jobs that they do to bring us resources and process things and create this, I couldn't if I came in this morning to office and I flicked on the light switch.

If it wasn't for other people that were I was a part of, that were part of this community, then nothing would happen. It wasn't for the Amazon driver that stops by my house [00:19:00] every other day, I wouldn't have half the things that I have. There's that element of being part of a community where we need connection.

We need to not be outcast or pushed away from that. We also really need connection in order to emotionally

regulate in order to deal with some of the emotions in order to discharge some of the stress that we feel we need a connection to a tribe or tribal creatures. And we're really hardwired for human connection. We see it in as simply as. It feels good to be around our friends and part of that is because through the hard wiring for connection, we can, we feel some oxytocin, which helps reduce the adrenaline and cortisol on our body, which helps us process some negative emotions or stress that might be building up when we feel alone, or if we don't feel a sense of belonging, that can be a very anxious thing. Feeling or an anxious place. So all these benefits come from a sense of connection. When we look at what connection means in the military, what connection looks like in the military,

we have an incredibly special kind of bond in the military through the [00:20:00] relationships that we develop with those that we're serving alongside of, whether it's through the harsh training environments, whether it's through the long deployments, there's, some joint suffering that takes

place that really brings people closer together.

And when you separate from the military, you also separate from that, from those like, those people from a similar cloth as yourself and that can be very challenging. And when we lose that sense of connection, we also lose that, capacity or some of that hard wiring ability that we have to deal with the hard times that are certainly going to come. the transition from anything can be challenging, but when we lose that sense of connection. And this isn't unique to veterans. I'm sure that you felt a little sense of this as you transition as you move to a new country and a new community. If you feel disconnected from those things that you're familiar with and people that, just that, that gets you without having to talk to you because they have had similar experiences and similar background, there can be a sense of loss there, that loss of, familiarity or a loss of sense of safety that comes from feeling that sense of connection. That's a big challenge that veterans face. The next [00:21:00] challenge is that positive self-identity as I talk about in the TEDx, the sense of authenticity. not only do we need to be connected to other people, but we need to be connected and accepted by other people with permission to show up as we are, with permission to say what we think, say how we're feeling, ask for what we need, and feel that it's not going to jeopardize our connection. Any time that we lose that permission to be authentic, the way we typically deal with it is we'll start showing up as a version of ourself. We'll start speaking the way that we think other people want us to speak or acting the way that other people might want us to act in order to maintain that sense of connection.

That's how deep that sense of connection runs is that we'll actually change the way that we're showing up in order to sustain or retain that sense of connection. The challenge with that is that we might feel that we're maintaining connection if I'm showing up to you and I'm putting a mask on and I'm showing up as a version of myself or showing up completely in character as somebody completely different, and if I receive your connection, [00:22:00] that's not going to fulfill my needs for connection the same way, because I know that it comes with and it's like an asterisk. It's I've got connection. But if you were to figure out who I really was, then he would think different things of

me. So that, that's the challenge and especially when veterans transition out of the military and we're in a new environment around people that speak in a different way, have a different set of values, different set of beliefs, different perspective for viewing the world.

When we find ourselves surrounded in this new population, that creates a lot of challenges. And one of the ways that we, I think, instinctively deal with that is by starting to show up in a little bit different way. We're going to,

we're going to bottle up that dark sense of humor that maybe helped us connect with and deal with things in the military. Some of the level of intensity that we see, we're trained in the military to see everything through a lens of life or death,

because, whether it's true or not, we're taught, the way they organize the things on your desk is going to contribute to, either protecting or ending somebody's life, potentially in a combat situation.

So that level of [00:23:00] intensity, it's ingrained in us from the first day of basic training for officer, candidate school. That's really a lens with which we then get to see everything. And, so when you carry that level of intensity to a civilian world where, you show up 5 minutes late for an appointment, it's not the end of the world. It feels like the end of the world to everybody around us. That doesn't seem like it. So that can make us feel more like an outcast and more we don't really belong in this new tribe. so these are all things that kind of influence us to that instinctive nature. All right, I better hide the way that I'm feeling inside so that I can be accepted by and good enough for those people around

me. The cost that comes with that is, as I said, you already lose the sense of that connection. But the real cost that comes with that is you're also telling yourself that there's something about me that's not good enough. And when we start to process that, and when we start, and when that feeling starts to sink in, that creates a whole. A whole host or a whole list of other

problems that that needs to be

addressed.

And then the last 1, if I, if you want me

to rip [00:24:00] on the last 1 is that sense of meaning, so sense of meaning is awesome. It can be that joy. It can be that thing that excites us and provides, positive, that, that, that sense of drive in our life. But what I've come to learn and appreciate is that a sense of meaning also provides our capacity for suffering. If you say, think of some of the hardest things that you've done in your life, you were able to do it. You're able to, endure it or live through it because of the sense of meaning that came with it. And if you lose that sense of meaning for many veterans, they found a profound sense of meaning while they're in the service. If you lose that sense of meaning, You're also losing the capacity to endure the hard things that come up

Chris Langley: Yes. Definitely.

Garret Biss: and life is always going to bring up hard times. that's

part of the life journey. If you lose the capacity to deal with those times, then that creates a, a very challenging situation or experience for a lot of veterans.

Chris Langley: that was an incredible description of my answer to my [00:25:00] question, Garrett. Thank you very much indeed. Can you tell our audience a little, some examples of evidence based practices that have proven particularly effective in helping veterans overcome addiction compared to civilians?

Garret Biss: I've, been exposed to and experienced some different things. So another point I wanted to bring up is you mentioned clinical and you mentioned treatment or treatment to me and clinical. I think of is. That's hand in hand. So backing up a little bit, I run an addiction recovery residence here in eastern North Carolina and addiction recovery residence is a place that provides a safe, supportive environment for individuals to seek and grow insert or long term recovery. One thing about addiction recovery residents, at least the way that they're structured in North Carolina. Is that they are nonclinical in nature. That means that we don't perform clinical services in house, but we can provide a wraparound of everything else that somebody needs to foster to further the recovery journey.

The beautiful thing about that is then we can plug into [00:26:00] various clinicians and treatment providers in the community and how that goes along with coaching is I understand. So coaching is. Is by definition, or by the way, I understand it is non clinical in nature. So when we think of clinical, I think of two things, that really define clinical to me.

One is the scope of what I've experienced clinical work to do is to have a professional that's trained in some of the challenges that humans face who can assess, diagnose, And then treat a specific element and anything that's clinical in nature. I understand it to be trying to assess something that's wrong with an individual and then help them mitigate the effects of that thing or help them be less wrong.

What's holding you down? Are these kind of behaviors and these things are these ailments, these diagnoses that you have? So let's move on. Let's go to work on mitigating some of the effects of that. On the other side, coaching, I understand to be non clinical in nature. And it focuses, especially in the Valiant Path, we focus on what's [00:27:00] right with somebody.

What are the things that are going and how do we leverage that to get to a better place? Ultimately trying to, both paths are trying to get to a better place, just two different perspectives or two different approaches

to it. For that reason, I think that clinical service and clinical treatment and coaching can compliment each

other extremely well because it.

it's attacking a, an issue on two

fronts and looking at it from two different perspectives and rightly If there's a lot of ailments or a lot of diagnoses or a lot of, challenges that are holding somebody back, then probably the best path is to clear up some of those things and then continue that journey and get to as far as you want to get to. With some, coaching, accountability and support. The other thing that, differentiates in my mind, the difference between clinical, treatment and, coaching or peer coaching peer support is, if two of us come together, let's say you come to me for coaching, if we're sitting in a room

together, I understand that you are the expert in you, and you are the expert in [00:28:00] where you want to go. So I use coaching tools, or I'll share coaching tools and processes with you that will help you get to that place that you want to get to, that you've defined, you define what you want that outcome to look like. In a clinical setting, I understand if the two of us came together, and if I were a clinician, then I would be the expert in the room, helping you assess the things that are going on your life.

And then it's up to me to diagnose what the issue is, and then help come up with a treatment plan to solve that. You mentioned treatment, you mentioned clinical in the past, so I just want to offer that perspective for anybody that's heard these terms of recovery coaching, peer support, and then, the various modalities of treatment. Things that I've been experienced with, , So two things that have been most effective for me is one is some psychedelic experiences that I've had. And there's a lot of effort and attention now in our community or in our country to help expand access to some psychedelically assisted treatments, especially for veterans, hopefully for everybody, [00:29:00] but especially for veterans. There's still a lot that we need to learn about how to do that most effectively, but I think it's certainly something that we should that we should promote and look into. Another thing, that is a friend of mine who introduced me to it called RIM or regenerating images and memory. This is the coaching tool that I use in Valiant Path. He likes to call it, or he, says it's much like a psychedelic experience without the drug.

Chris Langley: Okay. Yeah.

Garret Biss: Some of the effects of the process of it can allow individuals to get into similar, deep states and process similarly, deeply entrenched emotions and have similar transformations in their life through this guided practice through a RIM session. So those are two things that I found most effective. I've also been, I've been around the addiction industry for a number of years, so I've heard about and picked up a lot of things. One thing I most recently been introduced to is Equine Therapy, so I've been had a number of sessions with that.

I've heard that it's an [00:30:00] evidence-based tool that's proven extremely efficacious, especially for people with complex PTSD or severe trauma. So I'm, excited to have a little bit more exposure to that, but that's something I've heard great things, for veterans. There's also many different modalities, and this took me a while to understand that if you just type, if you go to psychologytoday.Com, or if you type in your Google search engine that you're looking for a therapist or a counselor. There's a lot of different tools and modalities and really philosophies out there on how these clinicians work with somebody. and this is something I didn't realize that you should do until recently, but figure out what tools and modalities they've been trained in and what they use. if you go to an LCSW or a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, maybe they're using internal family systems, maybe they're using cognitive behavioral therapy,

maybe they're using EMDR, maybe they're using some other tools or other processes, but understand that, for one, every individual therapist or clinician is a different person. They're going to have a different flavor and kind of a different take on what to do, but they all should have been trained in [00:31:00] and, utilize different, skills or different tool set. So I mentioned that back to the point about, find the secret recipe that's right for you to get to where you want to get to.

Chris Langley: You mentioned psychedelic therapy. Can you tell us a little bit about that? What, drugs are used or how the therapy sessions are

Garret Biss: Yeah, so there's a lot of different things and depending on where you

go and who you're experiencing it with, I guess the experiences can, vary significantly. I do see a, similarity here back to that discussion of who's the expert, the expert in the room, through psychedelic experiences.

My, there's, they can certainly be guided and led by people that are either trained in psychedelic assisted therapy, or if you look for a more indigenous or traditional route, it's going to be a shaman or a, or some kind of healer.

They can be, very, they can be an expert in the medicine, and they can be an expert in the ceremonial process, but when it comes to [00:32:00] dealing with the internal challenges that you're facing, it's very much an individual

journey. There's a lot of different. I'm reading a book right now called Trippy. I'm only a couple chapters into it. So I won't give it a good or a bad testimonial just yet.

I'm enjoying it so

far, but it talks a little bit about some different elements of psychedelics and how they're being used

both in indigenous cultures and ways that there's retreats that are really reaching out to and trying to find Westerners to come to their retreats throughout Central and South America, and then some pockets with places around, around the States that are providing access to psychedelic treatments. A great book about is, Michael Pollan's, "How to Change Your Mind" for anybody that wants more of a, an encyclopedic look at various kinds of substances. Why some have negative, some, kind of negative stigma still attached to it. What that whole journey was about. And most importantly, how some different [00:33:00] substances work and how they can be a great benefit. All right. So what I have experienced and what I've so I've experienced personally, I've experienced a couple of different psychedelic medicines. Plant medicines and depending on the type of plant medicine, the experience can be very different. Some can be 10-15 minutes long. Some can be hours long. Some are taken over weeks at a time, just depending on what the medicine is. But one thing I will say is that it helps, some of the research shows this and the thought about why it's so effective for a lot of things. Some of the medicines, they're very effective at changing, like hitting the reset button on your normal thought patterns and the belief systems that you have. So if we, we can get entrenched in certain perspectives, certain beliefs, certain behavioral patterns, and it can be very difficult and challenging to, we can't think our way through a lot of those

changes.

Even if we see things in our life that we want to change, it's very difficult to think through and cognitively, pull ourselves to a [00:34:00] new version of ourself or moving past some of the things that are holding us back. The psychedelics, what they've shown is that it has a very effective way at resetting our default mode network.

The default mode network just being the, the system of values and beliefs and perspectives that we use that are guiding our life has a very effective job at resetting that and promoting neuroplasticity, so even allowing the brain to physically change in it and its structure. To help release things that aren't serving us and adopt things that could serve us.

Generally, that's what I understand of all real psychedelic medications that are, available out there. They have this in nature. There's some things that are, ketamine assisted therapy is something that, that is pretty widely accessible now. As one of the 1st things, there's a lot of things going through the FDA right now. They're trying to do additional trials for MDMA assisted therapy. There's a lot of, a lot in the news about that. So hopefully [00:35:00] we'll see a gain in accessibility to it. I'm certainly not the expert on it and can't, but, for anybody that's interested, there's a lot out there. There's a lot of, good and recent books out there, a lot of videos and podcasts out there that talk specifically about it.

Chris Langley: I'm really glad that this kind of therapy is coming to the forefront now because it needs to be addressed and it needs to be looked at because clearly, it can work for quite a few people. Garrett, you mentioned the word earlier stigma, and that's, this is my next question. I wanted to ask with stigma being one of the biggest reasons why people don't want to take that first step to get help for their addictions,

how would you address the stigma surrounding addiction within the veteran community? And what struggles do you what strategies do you recommend for overcoming stigma? Because it's such a big thing. It's a word that comes up in every one of my podcasts.

Garret Biss: Yeah. I think of, I do think of stigma and as my recovery residents were doing a, an "End the [00:36:00] Stigma" campaign, which really I think is more of a compassion and understanding campaign, because that's, I think what we're trying to get to, I think one of the biggest things that we can do with any, whether it's addiction or whether it's the veteran population is just talk about it and have more conversations about it. Anytime somebody shares a little bit of their journey, then we can normalize conversations about it. So that people aren't so afraid. It's really ingrained in our culture, this negative connotation of addiction and what an addict looks like. So I, get the resistance to somebody confronting that or sharing a little bit of their true pain and their true suffering for fear that they're going to be wrapped up in this, "everybody's going to now think of me as, some junkie on the streets" for those that are listening with quote unquote kind of "junkie on the streets." And afraid that, people's perception of them or their beliefs in them is going to change. So if we carry a negative image, then we, or we know that other people carry a negative image, that can be a tremendous barrier.

And I believe it is the biggest barrier to people seeking help and getting the treatment and support that they

need.

Chris Langley: [00:37:00] Yes,

Garret Biss: wouldn't be afraid to reach out to friends and say, "Hey, what do you recommend? Does anybody have this? a good place to get a good deal." But if I was struggling with a mental health condition or struggling with a substance, and I was afraid it was getting out of control, there's a lot of, there's a huge barrier there to reaching out for help. And that, affects in two ways. One it affects in those that are seeking help or those that might seek help if they knew a place where they could go or they weren't afraid to bring it up. It also affects the proliferation of, or the spreading of, great tools and resources in the communities that can help people. If you or I, if we went out and we had a great meal, or if we went and saw a movie and we loved it, or if we read a good book, like Michael Pollan's book, "How to Change a Mind", or any of my books, which I can name drop later.

If we read a great book and we loved it, then we could share, we'd run around, we'd share that with our friends.

"Hey, you should check this out. Oh, go try this new restaurant. Hey, this new, this new, this, new theater or something in town was amazing." If we have a loved one or if we personally go away and seek very effective and [00:38:00] transformative mental health treatment or addiction treatment, or if our loved one goes away, we're not going to come back and share that with everybody the same way we would something else. And that's a byproduct of the stigma. And that's why I think it is the number one barrier to people getting the help that they need because What do we do about it? I think just having these open conversations for one, whether it's having podcasts like this, where people can tune into and hear and say, "Oh, wow, these people sound kind of normal.

And that's the experience that they face sounds like mine. And these people that have dealt with this issue before or change their life. That sounds pretty cool. I want to try that." And people also, and for everybody doing that's very effective for more, high, the more well known individuals to come out and do it.

Also, I think, provides a lot of courage and a lot of perspective to other individuals. If so and so's at such status or they're doing so well or, they, have made certain things or achieved certain things in their life and they say that they struggle with it and they got help and it's okay for them to [00:39:00] talk about it.

Then, I think that can go a great, a great way to promoting it and making it feel safe for other people to, reach out.

Chris Langley: I'm hoping that there's a societal shift at the moment with, drug addiction and drug treatment, and obviously what you were saying about the therapy side of things. So hopefully in the future stigma might be reduced. My experience working within the field, stigma was one of the biggest ones.

And as I mentioned earlier, that word comes up on every podcast. It seems to be the main, one of the main issues, because you've got family, you've got work, you've got life, and if stigma comes into, if stigma affects you, you entering treatment, then it's, it can be very difficult.

Could you share some practical advice for veterans, Garret, who are struggling with their transition to civilian life, especially those facing addiction or mental health challenges from leaving the military?

Garret Biss: Certainly. So just reaching out and, [00:40:00] talking with other veterans about it, this kind of goes back to the tie with stigma, but a lot of veterans are struggling. A lot of veterans suffer with that transition. Don't hold that into yourself, and it can be hard and challenging to talk about with other people that aren't in your shoes or other non veterans. So go find some other veterans to talk about it with, whether they're in your local organization, community, whether you're using Facebook to connect with people or other social media platforms to connect, but recognize, so this is my, this, would be my parting shot, typically, but recognize, and I want you to know this, and if you've forgotten this, then I want you to know that it's true, that you are, and this is whoever's listening, you are lovable and

acceptable, and you are worth joy and happiness in your life.

Regardless of how you feel, regardless of what you've experienced in the past. So just know that I know that, and I want you to go find, find proof of that. So just have those conversations, know that there can be something better. If you're not getting the joy and the, experience in your life that you want, know that you can have a better experience. There's other people out there that have gone before you that have struggled and suffered. And there's people that have [00:41:00] that have, found some paths out and if you're not at the place that you want to be in your life, whatever that looks like, maybe you're doing really well, maybe from the outside looking in, everything's perfect in your life. So maybe that makes you feel a little bit of, disconnect or shame or guilt for not feeling more fulfilled with the beautiful things that you have. However, you're feeling if you want to feel better, there's a pathway to it and then not a, chemical pathway

to it. Although, medically assisted treatment, I may take the discussion for another time.

That can be a pathway to it. And I'm certainly an advocate for anybody that helps. But, but a numbing and an avoidance and a disconnecting yourself from the things that you love or the things that you want in your life or the things that you want to experience. That's not something that you have to go through.

So have those conversations, find some other veterans where you feel safe talking about it. And for anybody that doesn't want to talk to other people, one gift that I put together for, your listeners is called the Warrior Reset. And the warrior reset is just a handful of things that I found to be most effective, most efficacious to help have an emotional, physiological, [00:42:00] spiritual, mental reset.

So if you're feeling a little bit disconnected, if you feel like something's missing, you're not sure what it is, you feel like you're not showing up as a good a version of yourself as you used to. If you feel like you're carrying a little extra in your pack than what you probably should, then certainly check it out.

You can go to thewarriorreset.com, and what you'll find is you'll get a guide to challenge you to do a 10 day reset, and I lay out four different exercises, or four different processes that you can do. Each day you do them all together. It'll take less than 15 minutes each day. But if you do that for 10 days, you'll experience a major shift in both how you feel about yourself, how you feel about your situation, the way that you feel physiologically. It'll help you discharge some stress and reset your emotional operating system, and, help you regain a sense of clarity and focus on your life. So you can check that out. thewarriorreset.com.

Chris Langley: I'll definitely leave all the links for, what we've spoken about today in the description Garret. So thank you very much for that. Last couple of questions. I ask this [00:43:00] question of all my guests because it's, I get so many different, answers to this. In Britain, harm reduction is a very different thing to harm reduction in America or harm reduction in different countries, it seems.

So what's your opinion or your explanation what harm reduction is? What, are your beliefs around harm reduction? Yes.

Garret Biss: I think harm reduction is something that we invite into every area of our life. It's just, when we talk about addiction and a lot of people have different perspectives on it, some, and this is something that I found interesting, even those in the harm reduction community or people that have that are pro-harm reduction, maybe they've had an experience with one very small element.

I think of harm reduction is as a huge overarching, widely sweeping term that can talk about many, different things. One form of harm reduction, and that this is somebody's experience that maybe they get entrenched on this, but, needle exchanges. So harm reduction, in, the name says it all, but what the effect is, or what the intent is [00:44:00] try to reduce the harm that potentially harmful behaviors can have on an individual.

And the philosophy behind it is, if we can reduce one of the worst things about addiction is it's an accelerating downward spiral into the pits of despair is one way to think about it and anything we can do to slow down that spiraling that downward spiral so that somebody has a chance to move out of that place

I think is a great thing. So if somebody has a, if we look at let's say a heroin user that steals things, pawns them, buys heroin from a, from an unknown source, or does things, with their body to get the money to afford the heroin, there's a whole list of very high risk behaviors that are involved in that, in that, lifestyle or in that need to satiate that need for their addictive substance. If we can mitigate the risks of any of those, and I understand that to be harm

reduction. So maybe it is, a needle exchange being one of them. So one of the biggest risks for either spreading HIV, spreading [00:45:00] hepatitis C, or even spreading, trace amounts of fentanyl that could kill the next user.

One of the biggest risks is, using dirty

needles. So a needle exchange, the intent is to provide clean needles for exchange for old dirty needles. The kind of the hidden agenda or the secondary agenda is, I guess there's many secondary and tertiary effects, but helping bring people together to a place.

"So here's your clean needles. Here's also a brochure about a self help meeting. Maybe you didn't know about here's a brochure for treatment. If you ever get to that place, you want to know what that entails." So provides access to those that are struggling the most where that barrier of stigma might have prevented them in the past from getting to a better place. It also reduces the depth that somebody will cycle into their addiction. Maybe their substance use issue is now transpired into some serious health issues. Here's financial

issues. So serious interpersonal issues If we can stop that, before some of those issues take place that we don't have a deep of a hole to help somebody dig out of when they're seeking [00:46:00] moving beyond that. There's other people in the camp of harm reduction as not a temporary solution, which you can be in a lot of cases, but a permanent solution. They continue with X, Y, Z behavior, but I'm going to implement some harm reduction principles in order to make it more safe. And for people that don't like getting behind the harm reduction aspect of it, and they're fighting against it, "come on, you use harm reduction every day in your

life." For people that consume, for people that consume alcohol, your harm reduction is calling the uber to get on so that you don't, do another high risk behavior of driving while intoxicated, harm reduction, if you're again, if you're consuming alcohol, you're doing it from a known source and you have something that's, been processed, where it's coming from, it's going to be safe. As far as to consume it. So that's another element of harm reduction. If you get in a vehicle and you click your seatbelt, that's harm reduction. If you're riding a vehicle with an airbag, that's harm reduction. So there's many different ways that harm reduction kind of shows up in our life. So [00:47:00] I, think the resistance to it is, people that just don't really understand it.

They don't really understand it in the full context or the full benefits and values of it. I think, again, moving beyond that, the more that we can discuss it, the more that we can bring understanding and passion to the conversation that will help spread, very, many pathways of,

harm reduction, and if you have some just like internal beliefs and you just can't get behind the thought of exchanging, dirty needles for clean needles or having a safe injection sites because you think it's so wrong, that's not all harm reduction. There's a lot of other elements to harm

reduction.

Chris Langley: Totally. That was a fantastic description. And thank you very much indeed for that, Garrett. In your state, I'd just like to add to that. In your state, is there a needle exchange program?

Garret Biss: There's some in the county. We'd like to have a more so, but there's not as many in the county. There is one fascinating program, which we are doing, which is funded through, I think, when the universities and they get some federal funding where they do substance and drug testing. So [00:48:00] sometimes, a lot of law enforcement officers will send samples of things there just so they can have a good map of what, substances are on the street. I think right now, I think recently, I saw there's 38 or 39 different substances that they're finding, in our community, but also, and strangely enough, and this is a quite controversial, but also there will be some dealers that will get a new supply of something and then send a little bit of it off to make sure that it is what they think it is before they spread it around. I don't know if that curbs, their spreading it around, or not, but there is some awareness on that side, especially with all these horrible chemicals and all these horrible substances that are getting into everything, that, that's what really scares me.

And this is the, the last conversational harm reduction is, when I'm working with somebody, as a recovery coach, I don't really care what you do or what you don't do. I don't, solely work with somebody who is abstained from some arbitrary substance that was controlling their life.

Because I understand from a human nature perspective, there's a lot of things that we do in our life [00:49:00] to bring some external stimulus and to create an internal response. So I don't think that, this could be a long conversation, I won't go too deep into it. I was working with somebody who was, seeking recovery coaching, and I said, "Look, I don't, I'm not making a judgment about what you do or what you don't do.

What I would highly encourage is that you think from a harm perspective lens, let's do some things to mitigate those risks. If you're buying some, if you're, acquiring substances from XYZ people, Then realize that maybe there's some over the counter solutions that you can get that can provide the same effect, especially with some of the, some of the hemp regulations and there's some THC substances or low THC substances that you can go and get over the counter, at least in my state. Let's think about using some of those things. Maybe it costs a little bit more. Maybe, you got to, maybe, you got to plan that out a little bit more. You can't just call somebody on, on your cell phone at midnight. But let's do that because right now you're in a bad situation in your life that you don't want to be in and you want some changes to take place. But every time you're doing one of these things, you're, risking compounding your [00:50:00] situation, a hundred times, a hundred fold. You're risking picking up a felony charge. You're risking, an accident. You're risking, getting, a substance that's been laced by something.

That's what we're seeing everywhere, is that every substance, there's a potential to be laced with something else. Most, most commonly is

fentanyl." I've worked with individuals who had a pot addiction and come to find out they were being exposed to fentanyl. They couldn't understand why this one guy's pot was so amazing.

And then come to find out that they're getting

fentanyl along with it. and they're mixing it in cocaine. They're mixing it in all these manufactured pills to look like over the counter or look like prescribed pills. So it's everywhere. And that's really scary. We've had, an overdose recently from a middle schooler who grabbed a vape pen that happened to be laced with fentanyl and passed away. so it's, it's hard to find a place where you think that you can access something safe, but with that in mind, let's try to mitigate some of that risk and think about the behaviors that we're using, or the numbing or coping mechanisms that we're using as we work on our life and try to get back to a better place [00:51:00] and let's make some decisions so that we don't, open that door for a potential, accelerated downward spiral.

Chris Langley: Definitely. Definitely. I'm, just amazed, I've actually heard of, in previous podcast, people telling me about, marijuana, cannabis being laced with fentanyl and I, just, I, was so, surprised when I heard about this, but it's now happening in Europe as well. I don't know what's happening, but it's a very scary development.

It really, is. And, no, thank you very much for that. My last question, Garrett. I know you've maybe gone over this earlier, but I just wanted to reiterate this question. What message would you like to leave our veteran listeners today who are experiencing addictions and mental health problems?

Garret Biss: Yeah. So for any veterans, again, know that there's a lot of other veterans that are experiencing something

similar. So don't fight it in isolation. Don't suffer in isolation. Know that regardless of what you've experienced, what you've done, what you want in your life that you're deserving of the happiness and joy.[00:52:00]

You, put your life on the line for it. You've

raised your hand. You've done, you've stepped forward to protect this

country and protect our way of life. You deserve to experience the life you want in this country that you fought to defend. Whether you've been deployed abroad, whether you've been to combat or not, you raised your hand and you, stepped forward with a willingness to do what was necessary to protect our

country.

There's tools and there's pathways out there. If there's anything that you've tried in the past, and they didn't provide the effect that you want, go find something different. Find another tool, find other people that have, been down a similar path and find out what they used. And piece together your own plan.

If you want to help or support doing that, addiction recovery coaches are a great resource, whether you've struggled with addiction or you've just struggled with some compulsive behaviors that you think are creating some challenges in your life. It can be a great guide to help you assess some things or help you assess some things and then make some choices and realize some tools to get to a better place, whether you reach out to me or whether you reach out to anybody else, you can do a Google search for recovery coach, veteran recovery coach, veteran peer support specialist, and [00:53:00] there's a whole litany of resources out there, but ultimately, if you're not in the place you want to be, then first do the warrior reset and experience the benefits of that, and then second, don't, continue, don't, stop looking for, the tools, the resources to help get to a better place.

Chris Langley: Garret, I can't tell you how I've been truly honored to have you come and talk today. And I want to thank you for everything that you've done, everything you do every day for you, that for the veterans that badly need your care and your help. And, I'd like to thank you for taking the time out of your very busy schedule today to come on to the podcast and, maybe in a year we can have you on again and you can tell us about your the next part of your journey because by the sounds of it, you've got some, you've got some big, bigger things coming as well.

So I'd just like to thank you very much indeed for your time. Really appreciate

Garret Biss: Yeah, I love it, Chris. I appreciate it. I appreciate this opportunity to speak with your audience on the Additional Recovery Place Podcast. And I would love to come, back in a couple months

or in a year and talk some more.

Chris Langley: Definitely. Most definitely. Thanks a lot, Garret. Cheers. Take care.

Garret Biss: Be well.

[00:54:00] Do, do, do, do, do.