Ep20 Addiction Treatment: Recovery A-Team

Ep20 Addiction Treatment Recovery A-Team, Mitch Prager, Soberman's Estate
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[00:00:00] Boom, boom, boom, boom, boom.

Chris Langley: Hi, welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, the podcast championing addiction treatment professionals around the world. I'm your host, Chris Langley, and I'm pleased to introduce today's guest, Mitch Prager. Mitch is the CEO,

Founder, and Owner of Soberman's Estate, a men's treatment center located in Cave Creek, Arizona. The treatment center is professionals who seek privacy while attending treatment for addiction and mental health issues. Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, Mitch. It's great to have you join us today.

Mitch Prager: Thank you, Chris. It's my pleasure.

Chris Langley: Really appreciate it. I know you're incredibly busy, Mitch, so we're just going to jump straight in with the first question. Tell us about your journey and how you became to be the CEO of Soberman's Estate.

Mitch Prager: My sobriety journey began May 25th of 1998, just over 26 years ago. When I was about 14 years sober, [00:01:00] my older brother, Jeff was drinking. I said to him, "Jeff, I quit drinking 14 years ago. You should stop drinking." And he was taking pills every day that his doctor gave him.

He was taking pain pills that were prescribed by his physician. And I was worried about it. I said, "look, Jeff, you, could, you can die any day. You're taking pills and you're drinking." I did my best to help my brother and I was sober 14 years. He had an accidental heart attack, overdose and passed away in 2010 when I was 12 years sober.

I thought, here I am. I've got, 12 years of experience. I do go to 12-Step meetings and I'm a big fan of Alcoholics Anonymous. He, was not interested in doing that. He had been to treatment before, and he did not have a good experience in treatment and refused to go back to a treatment center.

Then, two years later, I was sponsoring my best friend. He was a physician, Ear, Nose and [00:02:00] Throat physician in Scottsdale, Arizona. We were best friends, and I sponsored him for five years. For five years, he didn't have a drink; didn't have any drugs. I'm patting myself on the shoulder.

"Oh, look, I'm a great sponsor. I sponsored for this guy for five years and he hasn't had a drink." Turns out the reason he didn't drink for five years was not because I was a good sponsor. It was because he was reporting to the Arizona Medical Board. And so he had, he was subject to a random urine analysis.

So every day he may get drug tested. And after five years he started drinking again. He passed away in 2012 and at that point I had 14 years sobriety. So there I was.

Chris Langley: Goodness me.

Mitch Prager: He had a DUI. He got arrested and I had a bed for him at two different treatment centers. One he had been to previously, another one I had heard good things about, and he refused to go back to the treatment center where he went before. He had a bad experience with treatment.

He refused to do that. And he ended up dying as a direct result from alcoholism. So [00:03:00] there I was 14 years sober. I couldn't save my brother and I couldn't save my best friend. So I went on this journey to try to figure out is there a treatment center that Jeff and Jerry would have gone to?

So that's where the dream of Soberman's Estate started with Jeff and Jerry. It was very personal in nature. After many years of thinking about it, my wife, my close friends, my therapist, my mom at the time all said, "Quit talking about this. Open the place." And so I toured dozens and dozens of treatment centers all over the country and talked with hundreds of men that have been in treatment centers and asked what had worked, and I went on this journey to open up Soberman's Estate.

Professionally, this is my third career. So my first career was Hotel Management. So I ran 11 hotels, and I knew how to run hotels. So I had the hospitality piece. And then in 1997, I opened up an executive search recruiting firm and did that for about 20 [00:04:00] years. And, so my second career was recruiting.

So I had the hotel piece, how to run a hotel, and I used my recruiting skills to recruit the A Team. So for well over a year or so, I recruited what I would call the A Team to, open Soberman's Estate. So I coupled my professional skills of hospitality and recruiting and my personal passion of helping other men recover.

That's where the journey came from, and that's what the journey still continues. That is the Soberman's Estate journey. It's Jeff and Jerry and hospitality and recruiting.

Chris Langley: Goodness me. So something out of such tragedy, you're now, doing incredible work for your clients. From what I've seen, obviously about your service, it looks a pretty incredible place. It really does. And I'm very, touched to be talking to you today, Mitch. I really am. Can you tell us about some of the other team members that you have at Soberman's Estate who are dedicated in helping your residents there?

Mitch Prager: Sure. We have [00:05:00] over 25 employees, and we typically have an average of seven clients. So at any given time, there's more compassionate caregivers than there are clients at the estate. But in the interest of time, I'll share with you that we, that many of the team members we have are, were on my pre-opening team when we opened over five years ago, I'll tell you about two of them, Dr.

Gazda, he's our Medical Director. And so when I was interviewing the psychiatrists, I'd ask them questions and, I said to him, "what's, your ideal day?"

He said, "do you do Equine therapy or yoga."

And I said, "yeah, we do."

And he said, "after yoga, I would like to do a group therapy session."

And I said, "wait, psychiatrists, don't they spend eight minutes with a client and quickly write a medicine?"

And he says, "not me. I'm a psycho analysis, trained psychologist, as well as a psychiatrist. And I believe in a holistic care."

So he's been our Medical [00:06:00] Director, and he's authored dozens and dozens of studies on medications and is up to date on all the medications. He also believes in a holistic care.

So he's our Medical Director, and he's been on the team since before we opened. And then, another fascinating story that I can't take credit for, is our, Equine Therapist, who a woman named Janice Story. She's in charge of our holistic programming. When I acquired the property, the neighbors were concerned.

And so Janice was a neighbor. So she came over and she asked what we're doing here.

And I said, "we're opening up a treatment center."

And she said, "are you going to have Equine Therapy?"

I said, "yeah, why do you ask?"

She said, "my business partner and I wrote the curriculum called Freedom Way."

So Janice story and her business partner wrote the curriculum called Freedom Way, and they train other equine assisted coaches to do equine assisted therapy.

And so she happens to be a neighbor. And she has nine horses, and we have our own [00:07:00] stables and our own horses, but she's able to talk with each of the clients and based on their personality and their needs, she may select one of her nine horses and literally walk that horse to work. So she builds a relationship with every one of our clients and she also, runs our alumni.

So when the clients complete their programming, she's the alumni coordinator too. And she's also been on the team since before we opened. She was a gift. We joke about it and I say, "I manifested Soberman's Estate because I thought about it for years."

And she said, "no, I manifested it because I wanted to be able to walk to work."

And now she literally walks to work and her property, her estate is like one, one, we each have five acre properties and are separated by 365 large steps across the desert. So, that's a little bit about a couple of our team members.

Chris Langley: Wow. It was meant to be. That's for sure, Mitch. You tell us about your treatment modalities and what you, do for your clients?

Mitch Prager: I sure can. So our clinical [00:08:00] program is, we, have, it's a six week program with psychoanalysis. We have a team of therapists. So I'm going to just go over some of the

Chris Langley: Please do.

Mitch Prager: modalities that they use. They use CBT cognitive behavioral therapy. They use trauma resolution therapy. Solution focused therapy, EMDR, which is the eye movement.

These such as stations, that's a mouthful. I'm going to say EMDR. they do, psychodynamic interpersonal therapy. They do DBT. And, for the last couple of years, we've also been doing accelerated resolution therapy, ART, which is really fantastic. And we couple that with traditional psychoanalysis.

So both ends of the, spectrum there, we do neurofeedback. So it's a very, we have a lot of modalities within the clinical program itself. We've got two psychiatrists on board and we have, four therapists, [00:09:00] licensed professional counselors, again, for an average of about seven clients. So what's unique about it is that every single client gets a minimum of three individual sessions every week.

As far as the program is concerned, it wouldn't be complete, unless I share with you that treating the client is just part of it. We treat the family from day one. And, and we also continue to keep the, treat the clients, as part of alumni. So we asked the client, we highly recommend and respect the request that the client allow their family to participate in treatment.

And so hopefully they will, and they'll have a couple of individual sessions with their family every week. But even if they say no, we still invite the family to participate every Saturday from 9 a.m. to 11 a.m. in a psychoeducational group. We do not mention any clients by name. But if the clients going back to that household, the people in that household, in his circle,

we invite [00:10:00] them to participate each Saturday. And basically they go over the psychoeducation topics for six weeks. So when the client goes home, they're speaking the same language. And they're on the same page. So the family is part of that. And then the family continues on as long as they wish. We have some family members where their loved one has completed residential treatment two, three years ago.

And every Saturday they're still there as part of this family group. And same with our clients. We invite our clients to come back once a week as for alumni and it is alumni, but there's a clinician sitting there and it's processing, but it's an alumni group every Thursday. So the local clients would do it on property during the afternoon.

And then the, once they're out of state, do it in the evening via zoom, but that goes on continuously, even after they complete the programming.

Chris Langley: Wow.

Mitch Prager: We really keep in touch with the clients.

Chris Langley: Absolutely. Absolutely. My next question, which was going to be what makes Soberman's Estate different from other treatment services. And I think you've just answered it there.

Mitch Prager: Oh,

I'll give you one.

Chris Langley: Is there anything you can add? That'll be

Mitch Prager: great.

Yeah, I can add something small to that. Basically, we [00:11:00] only admit adult men age 30 and up. And, what's unique about us is we do allow the men to bring their laptops and cell phones. And so that's, unique. the thought behind that is, like a personal example, if I go on vacation, I can spend an hour checking with, in and with the estate and spend the other 23 being present for my family.

So the same thing applies while in treatment. They can spend an hour with their agent or their office manager or their colleagues, and then be present for one on one and group counseling because you let them keep in touch with the outside world. So it's unique that they can bring laptops and cell phones and, Yeah.

And then it's, we look at treatment like a gift, not a punishment.

Chris Langley: I love it. That's absolutely perfect. So how are people referred to you, Mitch? And what's the process for evaluating someone before or even when they arrive at Soberman's Estate?

Mitch Prager: Sure. [00:12:00] Most clients find out about us from a referral. If they're a therapist or someone that's been in treatment. It's interesting at almost any given time, we have someone in treatment that toured our facility. They may work at another treatment center or be a colleague in the industry, but they tour our facility, and they see, with our team of 25 plus and a handful of clients that we have really compassionate caregivers.

So almost any given time we have someone there that has a relative in the industry, which is interesting. But, So with that, how they find out about us is basically word of mouth. We don't, advertise this way. It's word of mouth through, through professionals. And then we're very, selective.

The Clinical Director interviews, the potential admit first, the Admissions Director does a full screening. Then the Clinical Director reviews the screening and talks with the client. And then the nurse also reviews all the medical concerns and [00:13:00] speaks with the client. So basically there's, they've had three talks with our team before they're admitted.

So we're really looking out for two things. One, is it going to help this person? And then two, is it going to, will they be a good fit for the milieu? And to make sure that it's because the milieu is very important. They get a lot from each other. So we want to make sure it's a good fit all around.

Chris Langley: That sounds like a very thorough evaluation. The fact you've got three different professionals involved in that process, that's, powerful stuff that really is because you can look at each different problem and issue around someone's life and put together, is this right for them? And is this the right place for you?

I think that's wonderful. I've not really come across many places that have so many, not so many assessments, but so many different professionals involved in the process. That's something very, special indeed. Since being in your position, Mitch, have you seen any shifts in drug use or risk associated with this?

Because obviously with fentanyl and the other opioids that are coming into play, sadly, in America and around the [00:14:00] world now, I hear, have you seen any changes at all over the last five years, for instance, in drug use or drug risk?

Mitch Prager: Yeah. I can share with you when I was a teenager we used to call it experimenting with drugs, and my children are older now, but when they were teenagers, it seemed to be the same thing. You experiment with drugs. And so decades ago. If the experiment didn't go well, you had a hangover the next day,

maybe there was a blackout and you forgot what you said. Maybe there was a dent in the car, but that's some, of those, were negative consequences from experimenting with drugs. So is it more serious now? A hundred percent. Now the experiment ends in death. I was at a high school recently,

where there was a big service for a 16 year old boy. His mom spoke. His dad spoke. His brother spoke. His sister spoke, and [00:15:00] they were all shared as the community members. This was a good kid who literally just experimented with drugs one time, and it was fentanyl and he died. Then an expert from the community came out and told about that this one case was just one case out of the hundreds.

And this is going on in every city across the country. So now. Experimenting with drugs ends in death. So yes, the consequences are just, it's, uncomparable. Yeah. It's just, it's a game changer. Yeah.

Chris Langley: Would you say Arizona has experienced a big influx of fentanyl? Or is it obviously it's probably more than statewide, but as Arizona as a state, have you

more fentanyl deaths?

Mitch Prager: We're a border state with Mexico and we're border, from California. Once it enters the country, it's very readily available. It's yeah. So it's definitely an issue. The fentanyl has, it's definitely become an issue. With my clientele at [00:16:00] Soberman's Estate, we're mostly professional men.

Most of them are alcohol. Most of them are opiates. They all have co-occurring. issues, behavioral health issues. So we don't see any, fentanyl as a primary substance of choice, but they've, gotten fentanyl in their, cocaine, or they're in their opiates that they bought on the street.

So even those that are not seeking fentanyl, it's, yeah. To answer your question, yes,

it's gotten much more serious.

Chris Langley: I've, I ask everyone these questions about fentanyl on these podcasts, Mitch, I hear some real horror stories as to people finding fentanyl even cannabis I've heard about and, more recreational drugs like amphetamines or MDMA or things like that.

It's just it just seems everywhere now. And like you said, the risks are so much different to what they were 15, 20 years ago, and it's just [00:17:00] ramped up. iIt's It's, really tragic because it's now happening around the world, even in the UK, we have it now, I think, and it's just going across Europe.

So it seems to be spreading very, quickly. And last couple of questions, Mitch, I ask all of my guests this question because I get some very interesting and varied answers. But can you tell me your own opinion of harm reduction and how it plays such a pivotal role in recovery?

Mitch Prager: Sure. If you go into an airport or any public building there, you're going to see a fire extinguisher on the wall, right? And a good chance you'll see the paddles or somebody's heart on the wall defibrillator, but for sure you'll see a fire extinguisher. A colleague of mine, a friend of mine, and I had this discussion quite a while ago that why isn't Narcan like this?

So I'm going to, I'm going to give a plug to a friend of mine. His name's Carey Davidson. He has a company called, NARSTOP, N A R [00:18:00] S T O P. and he had this dream where just everywhere you'd see a fire extinguisher on the wall, you'd see Narcan on the wall. So you'd go up, you'd go see a fire, you'd grab the fire extinguisher and put it out.

If you see someone overdosing you run up to the, NARSTOP, pull out some NARCAN, and give them a little shot in their nose and nasal spray and can save their life. I was actually his first customer. I bought the first one because he, you said, where's your NARCAN? I said, we have a, take care.

We have it on the wall. I said, that's good. Most of the time I go to a treatment center and say, where's your Narcan? Oh, it's in a drawer someplace, and they don't know where it is. And we actually have a, in the nurse's office with a clip on a wall. So you could grab it, God forbid, if you need it.

But, I'm going to give you that lead for your next part podcast. Yeah. His name's Carey Davidson and it's, N A R S T O P. That's the answer. I believe in it, of course. [00:19:00] it's, saving lives.

Chris Langley: Absolutely.

Mitch Prager: It's different than what I do. Ours is, it's treatment. People that want to get help, they're going into help to get help, but we don't do emergency care like that. That's what that approach is.

Chris Langley: Yeah, definitely. Narcan has become such a tool in stopping overdoses. I first came across Narcan around about 2014 when I was in the UK.

Mitch Prager: Oh,

Chris Langley: We used to have it in our drawers all the time. We had the IV version and very effective because we sadly had people outside of our treatment centres overdosing, and we had to get there very quickly, but Narcan

it has saved so many lives, and I'm a big supporter of it.

Mitch Prager: Absolutely.

Chris Langley: That's great to hear, Mitch. you touched on family earlier, and you're the family support that you offer, because it's such a vital component of recovery. Can you tell us about some of the other support that you offer loved ones of the people who attend Soberman's Estate?

Mitch Prager: [00:20:00] excuse the pause. I'm just thinking that we had a woman I just spoke with yesterday who called and wanted to thank us for being on the Saturday call. She's been coming for over two years. An elderly woman, a son and the son is in his fifties and he completed programming like two years ago.

She still is on our calls and she has become like a role model to some of the other family members of our clients, addiction, alcoholism absolutely affects the loved ones. It just does. And it wouldn't be fair if we didn't treat the loved ones along, along with them. We do, a ceremony when the clients complete their residential treatment, and we invite the family members to come in.

So if they're able to, they come in and they go through this beautiful ceremony that we host on property. And if they're not able to come in, because many of our clients fly in from all over the country and several international, [00:21:00] sometimes they'll write letters. So last week we had an international client and the family couldn't fly in, but the wife and the daughter each wrote a beautiful letter to the husband that was in treatment.

And we read that letter to the client, both, both from the wife and the daughter. And, everyone was standing in a circle at the ceremony and just seeing how much love and support he has. When the family is supportive, it gives the client that much more of a chance. So that's unfortunate.

a lot of marriages end in divorce. We tell the spouses, look, yeah, his stock is down now, but he's in treatment. His stocks don't go up. He's going to get better from here. This is an all time low. Don't, sell now.

Chris Langley: That's right.

Mitch Prager: Let's, give this a try. Each relationship is different, of course, but we've seen a lot of marriages get better and better.

And one of the joys I get is Janice, who runs our alumni, she's constantly in [00:22:00] contact with the families. So she's sending, shows me pictures on a daily basis of, children and grandchildren and they're happy and living better lives. And, family is a big part of it. Isolation is a part of our disease.

And, when we get better, our world grows, our relationships get better.

Chris Langley: Yeah, absolutely. I wanted to ask that because I was really touched when I saw that on your website about the real support you offer families and families are so often forgotten within the process of recovery because sometimes families have just been put through the mill with the addiction, and they just don't want to talk to someone who's gone taken to those places.

And but to see what you offer the families, I was genuinely touched by seeing that. So was great to see, honestly. And last question, Mitch, have you a message to anyone who is listening to this podcast, who is going through addiction, or a mental health crisis?

Mitch Prager: Yes, [00:23:00] there's hope. My message is that there is hope, and we've helped the client who came in at 82 years old a few years ago and he's doing fine. So it's never too late. We do have a speaker every Thursday, we have an alumni come in and speak to our clients, and it was, there's a speaker, I'll give you his first name, Jason.

During his story, he showed, he shows a photo, he did go to AA and he had maybe, 30 or 40, 24 hour chips and probably 30, 30 day chips and a bunch of six day chips. So for seven years, he just couldn't string together more than six months. But after seven years or so, now he's sober for about five years.

Mitch Prager: He comes in and tells his story. And I do, share with the clients like he's an exception. He had cheated the grim reaper so many times and escaped death so many times that this is not normal. But now he's [00:24:00] sober about five years and this is a guy who just couldn't get it, couldn't get it, couldn't get it, but now he's got it and he's doing really well and he's helping lots of other people.

So my message is there absolutely is hope and it's never too late. and also that relapse does not have to be part of your journey. So this particular person I just mentioned, Jason had relapsed many times, and I still have hope for him. But when I, quit on May 25th, 1998. I haven't had a drink since then.

For years before that, yes, I stopped and started cause I didn't admit I had a problem. But once I really admitted I had a problem, went to treatment and really decided I wanted just to live a sober life, I haven't had a drink since. And I have many friends that have 30, 40, 50 years sobriety that are really enjoying the life without alcohol and drugs.

And yes, there absolutely is hope. You could have a really good life, and the idea is that when you take away the alcohol or take away the drugs, it's going to get filled with something worse. It can get filled with gambling or sex or [00:25:00] overeating or something. We got to fill it with good stuff. So we take away the alcohol and the idea is

we absolutely insist on enjoying life. Fill it with good stuff. Fill it with repair relationship with your family, filled with old hobbies that you haven't done in a long time. Fill it with good things, because that's the idea of it. There is hope and our stock doesn't get back to where it was. It goes higher.

Our life is much better than it was. I hear my wife saying to some single friends on the phone, "Oh, you should find a guy that has some longterm sobriety because we're good people." And, so yeah, if someone's thinking about, can I get this or not? Yes, you can. You can get better. You can get, it's not too late.

If you want help, there's great help available. Not just at Soberman's Estate. We're small, very small, very selective. Only men, only adults. But there's a lot of good treatment out there for people who want, help.

Chris Langley: Of course. Thank you very much for that Mitch. And, last question, can you tell our listeners how best to contact you and to find your service online?

Mitch Prager: [00:26:00] Absolutely. So the, our telephone number is 480 595 2222. And, I am a Sober Man. So hopefully that will help you remember the name of the, of our recovery center. It's Soberman's Estate. So it's, my estate. It's called Soberman's Estate. So if you Google Soberman's Estate you should be able to find us.

Chris Langley: Excellent stuff for Mitch. Is there anything else you'd like to mention? I may not have asked you if we

Mitch Prager: I think we've covered it very well and I'm grateful for the opportunity. Chris, you're doing good work. You're, getting the message out there that there is help. And so thank you for what you do to help others.

Chris Langley: I really appreciate that Mitch. And, I'm honestly, so impressed with the work that you've done and the history of what you've gone through and where you're at now is just it's very motivational. I think anyone listening to this is going to be quite enthralled by your journey, and the service you offer your clients.

So [00:27:00] thank you very much indeed for joining me today, Mitch. I look forward to speaking to you again soon. Take care.

Mitch Prager: Thank you, Chris. Thank you. Bye for now.

Chris Langley: Bye bye.

Do, do, do, do, do.