Ep39 Addiction Treatment | Military, First Responders, Law Enforcement

Ep39 Addiction Treatment | Military, First Responders, Law Enforcement

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

Chris Langley: Hi, welcome to Addiction Recovery Place, the podcast championing addiction treatment professionals around the world. I'm your host, Chris Langley, and I'm very, pleased to introduce today's guest, Sharon Prager, the CEO and founder of Calm Seas Psychotherapy in New York. Sharon is also a member of NAADAC. Welcome to Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, Sharon. It's so good to have you join us today.

Sharon Prager: Thank you. I'm glad to be here. I appreciate

Chris Langley: We're very excited to hear about the wonderful work that you're doing. So we're just going to get straight on with the first question. So can you tell us about your journey and how you started your amazing service?

Sharon Prager: Sure. I started my educational journey, looking to get into law enforcement. A lot of my friends were in law enforcement, and this was something I thought that would be really good for me. It would be a good fit, and I went to school for criminal justice and got my first associate's degree and moved on from there to Forensic Psychology.

[00:01:00] Because my professor had said at the time, you really shouldn't be a police officer. You should be on the other side of this. Long story short, once I was in the field of forensics, I was meeting a lot of people that were in jails and prisons that were, really riddled with substance abuse and PTSD, many of them veterans.

That led me on another journey to find out why that was happening. And I went back to school and I got an MSW in social work and I specialized in military behavioral health. After years of working with that population, they were like, you really don't have the same experience that we do.

So I joined the New York state guard so that. I would be able to identify with them a little bit more. It's not on the same level as the National Guard or the Army, but very similar in the aspect of mental health. That's basically how [00:02:00] I got to the place where, treating veterans and then law enforcement and first responders came to fruition.

Chris Langley: When did that journey start, Sharon? How long ago did you start this? Cause you've done an

awful lot. That's an incredible amount of work you've done.

Sharon Prager: Yes. I think I started this back in 2000. That was when this originally began, and it's been quite a journey. It's been very fulfilling and heartwarming and heart wrenching at times, but, I wouldn't choose anything else to do.

Chris Langley: That sounds incredible. It really does. So congratulations. You really did. really, you. really did throw yourself into this, didn't you?

Sharon Prager: For sure.

Chris Langley: My next question was going to be was what made you specialise in working in law enforcement? But I think you've answered it perfectly brilliantly there. So can you tell us a little bit about Calm Seas and some of the team members and their roles and what you do?

Sharon Prager: Sure. Sure, [00:03:00] we have about 55 clinicians, and administrative staff and a slew of interns that we've been training. they specialize in EMDR, Cognitive Processing Therapy, Prolonged Exposure Therapy. We have some CASACs that are also specific to dealing with addiction and trauma, and they really, I I can't say enough for them.

I don't know if you want me to call specific people out but there's so many.

Chris Langley: Okay.

Sharon Prager: Yeah. Our senior staff members are, Kiran Miner. She is also having a background in corrections, and she's a family member of military. She does EMDR and, intrnal family systems, types of therapy. Then we have, Jen Johnston.

She is one of our most amazing EMDR therapists and she supervises all of [00:04:00] the EMDR therapists in our practice. I think there's 12 or 13 of them now. She's also has a background in corrections and her husband was in law enforcement, like mine was, and in our additional senior staff, we have, Denise is, she is also a family member of law enforcement and she works with family members and children in our practice.

Let's see. So have, Allen Hershman, who is amazing. He was actually my Colonel in the guard, and he's been in uniformed services, probably longer than he wants me to say.

I'll leave that out, but he's really the grounding force for all of us. He's been helpful leading the ship. Joe [00:05:00] Culoso is our military liaison, I guess would be the best way to put him.

He has an amazing knowledge of neuropsychology, EMDR therapy. He served also in the army. He's a combat vet, and he brings a lot to the table to share with all of us to give his experiences so that we'd learn a little bit more as well. That's a handful of people that are just they're, really amazing.

I could go on for hours talking about my staff because they are really very well educated and committed to our population.

Chris Langley: It certainly sounds like you've got the real A team with you. That's an incredible amount of experience you've got on the table. That's amazing to hear. So can you just tell us about some of the other therapies that you offer?

Sharon Prager: Yeah, so we have, I mentioned EMDR and prolonged exposure. [00:06:00] also have nutritionists, eating disorders, neuropsychotherapy, grief therapy, somatic therapies, we do couples counseling, family counseling, adolescent and children's care, and we have over 22 groups right now that are running, including Seeking Safety models, self-help Self help models, even though it's not necessarily a clinical aspect, but we do offer AA and any opportunities and groups and so forth.

Chris Langley: What are some of the states you currently working in? It's not just New York, is it?

Sharon Prager: No, it's not. we are in New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, Maryland, Washington D. C., North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, Arizona and Alaska.

Chris Langley: Wow.

Sharon Prager: Yeah,

Chris Langley: Very impressive.

It's

Sharon Prager: pretty extensive

Chris Langley: [00:07:00] Indeed. You mentioned to me that you work with families and young people, which is just such an important part of recovery for people suffering from addictions and post traumatic stress disorder. Can you explain a little bit more about this service and how you help with educating family members about addiction and mental health trauma?

Sharon Prager: Yeah, I think the aspect and the view that we have on this is that you can't treat the individual. This affects the entire family. The entire family needs to be in therapy to some degree to be able to support and transition, I'll call it with the person who has either PTSD or addiction or both.

Specifically young adults and children in these environments are quite

exposed to a parental trauma or addiction, and they suffer from that as [00:08:00] well. So having them in the practice and giving them a safe place where they can meet with other teams to discuss some of the same issues that they experienced in their family life as well as working through their own traumas and addiction is really helpful, I think for the whole family. I don't know if that actually answered the question.

Chris Langley: Totally. It really does. It's very,

It's just lovely to hear that you offer the whole family this support because it's so badly needed within your, your client group, especially. I think any client group really, but your client group, especially because they've been exposed to so much.

Sharon Prager: Absolutely.

their

Chris Langley: And then it transpires onto their family life. Unfortunately.

Sharon Prager: For sure.

Chris Langley: A word that comes up whenever I do these podcasts is, sadly stigma. Would you say that this is one of the biggest barriers to people wishing to access therapy for addictions, especially given your client group within law enforcement and the military as well. [00:09:00] .

Sharon Prager: Absolutely. This word that comes up often. It also comes up often with shame, isolation and fear. Stigma is a big thing that prevents people from coming in for treatment, especially military and lost law enforcement and first responders. Being able to admit to that and to come forward and say, "I need help," there's a fear that they're going to be perceived as weak or not capable or not being able to stand the line.

It is a really a huge issue, and it's something I think that we're battling with consistently. I think the thought process of being seen as weak prevent them from coming into treatment, as well as the fear of, "well, I might lose my job or somebody's going to think I'm not capable," and that's problematic as well.

I and think that all of those things are [00:10:00] tied to that stigma, that one word, they're all connected.

Chris Langley: It's very sad, isn't it? In this day and age, that this still has such a big, impact with people entering treatment. Do you ever, do you ever get any any pushback from family members at all? It must be a very difficult, challenging role for you to address this.

Sharon Prager: I think, typically, if the individual is in treatment, they are the force behind getting the family involved. We'll ask and we try to encourage, but it's really whether or not they are able to say, "listen, I need you to be there" and the family member has to want that. But we know it doesn't work really well without that, right? It is a family problem, so we have to address it as a family issue.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. What's the response been to when you're approaching [00:11:00] certain professional organisations about your fantastic service? Have you had any resistance initially when you approach, say, law, enforcement agencies or federal agencies?

Sharon Prager:

In the beginning, 10 years ago, there were far more people that were resistant to having that conversation. I think that is also part of that stigma. When you're looking at the command, they're usually, very salty folks that have been in the field for a long period of time, and they have that need to protect their people as well as themselves from any thought that they would be incapable or weak.

However, one of the things that we try to do, we're diligent in doing a lot of outreach and trying to change and challenge the way that law enforcement and military look at mental health. [00:12:00] The repetitive trauma that these populations see over the course of time really, I don't want to say weakens them, but it's like death by a 1000 cuts. The things they see every day, day in and day out, it's a moral injury that is really hard to ignore, or not be able to address at some point in time. It does create some of that, some of that issue, I think, from when you're looking at it from a command point of view. Definitely in the last 10 years or so, I think we've seen some tremendous change in the way that they are looking at how to keep their, men and women healthy and stable and realizing that addiction and mental health issues are just that they're issues. They can [00:13:00] be overcome and addressed.

Chris Langley: It's probably down to your service and your approach as well that's changed this, helped with their mind shift to see this as a health issue as well.

Sharon Prager: I hope so. I think also, recent, events in the course of politics and just in general, we're seeing things in the law enforcement agencies that are coming out into public light. That is a good thing. I think forcing the hand, like how can we do this better? And how can we protect them better as well as then, of course, that protects our communities better, right? If everybody is coming from a healthy perspective and a safe perspective, everything changes for all of us.

Chris Langley: Yeah,

Sharon Prager: I think it's an important aspect.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. When we first met Sharon, I asked about some of the other services that you're going to be offering. You [00:14:00] mentioned that, people just phone up and ask if you have a certain service or therapy. You also mentioned you have a whiteboard for future ideas, which I thought was fantastic.

So what have you got in the pipeline for any new groups or therapies that you want to tell us about?

Sharon Prager: We just actually made a new lineup of groups for the fall. Some of them are specific to retirement for law enforcement and military. We know it's a big transitional time, to spend your life in a uniform and then one day you're not that. You're identity changes quite a bit.

So we're offering a lot of support groups surrounding that. Some of the future goals is, we started a new nonprofit and the hope is that will be the epicenter for research and for education in these populations, specifically in commands and communities to help them understand, that our stance on this is that [00:15:00] the first responders need to be physically fit and mentally well, and changing the verbiage and the expectation from mental illness to mental resilience and being proactive, not reactive really can change the outcome, and I think take away from some of that stigma we were talking about earlier.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. That sounds incredible. The new groups are starting in the fall for what you're

Sharon Prager: Yes.

Chris Langley: doing.

Sharon Prager: Yeah, it's technically started.

Chris Langley: Okay. Yeah, we are in the fall. Yeah.

Sharon Prager: Yes,

Chris Langley: Okay, fair enough. Last couple of questions, Sharon. You're,

a long term member of NAADAC. how has being a member helped your career or your work? And what would you say to anyone who's considering being a member?

Sharon Prager: I'm, really not sure how it's helped, except for having resources, education, support with other professionals. Yes. That's been very helpful, and I [00:16:00] recommend anyone that's working in the addiction field to reach out and become part of, it's a solution and a place for us all to be able to work together to make some changes.

Chris Langley: Excellent. Excellent. Thank you for that.

Sharon Prager: Sure,

Chris Langley: I ask all of my guests this question because I get some very interesting varied answers, which I love about this. But can you tell me your opinion of harm reduction and how it can play such a pivotal role in recovery?

Chris Langley: So, I'm not a personal advocate of harm reduction, and it's not to say that people are not capable of doing that and reducing their use. However, I feel like in my, area, I feel that it's the need to be present and to be aware and to be able to work through some of the issues that cause us to use in the first place.

We really need to be present and sober and capable of doing that to make that resolve. I [00:17:00] don't know. I know that for some people it is, a model that works, but I haven't really met anyone to be able to do that and work through the trauma that caused that issue in the first place.

That's perfect. Thank you for that. That's a great answer. Do you have a message for anyone who's listening to this podcast, who's going through an addiction or has experienced trauma and post traumatic stress disorder?

Sharon Prager: Yes, I do for sure. I think my message is first and foremost, that you're not a burden. You're not weak, that you're injured and you need to heal. To to, our team, you're family, and we're here for you. And even if that means calling to get a referral to somewhere else, please, don't hesitate to reach out.

That's, why all of us are in this. We're in this together. It's not something we can do alone.

Chris Langley: That's very powerful. Thank you very much. And last question, really important one. Can you tell our listeners [00:18:00] how best to contact you and to find your service online?

Sharon Prager: Yes, so phone number is 888 975 CALM or 2256 if that's easier for people. And our website is www. calmseapsyc.com

Chris Langley: Wonderful. Well, sharon, it's been a real privilege and an honour to talk to you today and to find out about the vital work that you and your team are doing. It's, lovely to hear that these services are available for your client group and the families, and it's just wonderful to hear.

So thank you very much indeed for your time. I really appreciate it.

Sharon Prager: Thank you. I appreciate

Chris Langley: Thank

Chris Langley: you.

Sharon Prager: Have a great day

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