Ep66 Addiction Treatment - Virtual Holistic Addiction Treatment

Chris Langley: Hi, welcome to Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, the podcast championing addiction treatment professionals around the world. I'm your host, Chris Langley. I'm very pleased to introduce today's guest. First you have Michael Brunk, who's the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Pathfinder Recovery, and we also have Dr Hannah Jurewicz, who's the Chief Clinical Officer at Pathfinder Recovery, which is located in Connecticut. Welcome to the Addiction Recovery Place Podcast, Michael and Hannah, it's great to have you both with us today.

Hannah Jurewicz: thanks.

Chris Langley: appreciated.

Michael Brunk: Thanks for having us.

Hannah Jurewicz: Yeah.

Chris Langley: It's my real pleasure to have you both. Firstly, before we start, I'd just like to, read a quote that I've got from your website, which really encompasses what your work is about. It says, "our approach empowers you to integrate recovery into your daily life, as true healing isn't just about quitting a substance; it's about learning how to live without it." I love that quote from your website. That really does show the kind of great work that you do. What I'd like to do is to start off with, can you tell us about yourselves and your career journeys? If we start with Michael,

Michael Brunk: Sure. Yeah. again, thanks for us. So I, gosh, I feel incredibly blessed to even be here today and having this conversation and to even be able to talk about Pathfinder Recovery. I have spent most of my professional career working in Human Services. My 15 years, I worked in the health and wellness industry supporting folks on their journey towards an improved version of themselves.

Usually, they're looking for some type wellness, journey and that was really an amazing opportunity for me to work with a lot of individuals in a very sort of raw way. When somebody's, sitting there and they're talking about, the way that they feel about themselves and things that they would like to see improve, whether it be physically or emotionally or mentally, or even within their family unit, but it really gave me an opportunity just to see how much alike we all really are at our core. At the core of us, really of every individual, at least in my opinion, just this desire for love and acceptance, and I think within that desire, it gets really messy at times.

I think when you are, part of an environment where you don't experience that, maybe you haven't seen it in a really, positive way or maybe you haven't really even seen it at all. You try to find ways to look for that sort of self-love, that self-healing.

And I saw that a lot in the wellness industry. And then I transitioned into this space of substance use, about six years ago. And a lot of those principles or rules, I guess with working with individuals that's, they change over, they transfer over into our space.

What you really find in our space is exactly that. It's just, it's an acute version of folks that really have been starved of that self-love. And there's so many reasons why that happens. And, for me as well as probably for a lot of folks at this stage, I grew up in an environment, where I was very familiar with, substance use with mental health struggles and challenges.

It was normalized for me, growing up in the seventies and living in an environment where partying and using substances to escape, was just something that, you know, that I saw daily and that I was around. I was very familiar with it coming into this space and then being able to pull on my professional experience in the wellness industry fell in love with it almost immediately.

It's unique, the mental health, behavioral health space, it's really is one of those, the stigma is real. So it's one of those things where unless you know somebody that's in this space that works within it, you may not even know that it exists or really how big it really truly is.

So a lot of my journey initially was just discovering what the space looked like, and how I fit into it. I had really great opportunities to work with some really great organizations along the way, which flash forward, about November of last year, I left my previous employer and had the blessing, had the opportunity to be able to start working with Pathfinder So Pathfinder is a combination of my wellness journey, my journey within this space of mental health, behavioral health, and really trying to figure out how we can make healing accessible, make it accessible to all in a way that is fair and equitable. Through my experiences doing this and working with families, it just became really apparent to me. that so much of this industry, so much of the care that's available and out there it's oftentimes dictated based off of things like money and insurance policies.

And I get that. These are things that sort of make the world go around as we know it today, but for me, when we're really talking about human lives and how devastating this disease can be on the family unit, how devastating this disease can be on the individual, I just really believe firmly that there's a better way. Thankfully, where we are today with technology and even with COVID and everybody got really, comfortable on Zoom during those couple of years, and it just makes this virtual setting of being able to offer support and care that much more doable.

So this journey of putting Pathway together for exactly that, to create a platform that's based on connectivity and accountability and support and really just trying to be that light.

I heard a saying early on when I got started in the business development side of this, the marketing, and I was trying to just learn my voice and working with clients that, our goal really is just to be, it's just to be a beacon of light. We can't save anyone necessarily, but what we can do is we can sit as close to them as possible, and we can try to shine a light. Hopefully if they're willing, they can see the light, and they can start to move towards it. And that's really truly what I hope Pathfinder can become. As we grow it with great people like Hannah and other folks that are on our team is just to build that light. The longer we do it, and the more we stay focused and committed to the mission and our vision, the greater that light's gonna become.

I'm just super blessed and happy to be part of this and thank you for having me.

Chris Langley: Oh, thank you so much for that, Michael. That was a lovely introduction to you and to your career. We are gonna be delving into to the great work that you and your amazing team are all doing at Pathfinder. Before we do, I'd just like to ask you the same question, Hannah, Tell us about yourself and your career journey and how you are working a Pathfinder.

Hannah Jurewicz: Absolutely. I agree with Michael. Thank you so much for having us on your podcast. The work that you're doing is really important and being able to spread this through social media was both creative and it's just the work that you're doing is unique and, really critical to our industry. So thank you.

I've been in the field about 35 years. After graduate school I worked in hospitals and outpatient clinics, doing assessments, treatments, treatment and research on, any central nervous system assault.

So it could have been stroke, head injury, spinal cord injury, what we now know is autoimmune disorders, and so I would work with them. My job was basically from the neck up, trying to figure out, what has gone wrong and how can we help repair and fit back into the world. It's always fascinating to me that the human spirit has this amazing, ability, capacity, to heal.

And, it may not look like what it did before, but it still heals and finds its own new journey. Much like the flower that grew in Brooklyn. Anyway, after my hospital work, I then finished my research there. I went on to work with developmental disabilities and intellectual disabilities, neurodivergence, autism, and for many years, I supported them.

I did publish a few books, when the whole, ADA really became, it was passed earlier, but it became of real interest to communities, businesses in the US, small midsize businesses. And so I published a number of books, a series to help with awareness and inclusion, back in the nineties. And then I went on to start my own agency for intellectual disabilities, adults helping day and res and that kind of thing.

What I started to notice is that with our neurodivergent population, we tend to medically restrain them. That is to say we overmedicate them, rather than looking at what's going on, and they have a higher prevalence for, not only mental illness but addiction, and that tends to be prescribed, rather than treated.

And I develop programs specifically to help adults who have intellectual disabilities and autism neurodivergence, to address the needs of mental health and addiction. And, so it was their own unique program written in ways and practiced in ways that would be meaningful to whatever, dyslexia or, inability to read or some problems with comprehension.

One of the things I found that was fascinating is that literally no one had a problem with the idea of a higher power. That was the one obstacle that most professionals think, I don't see how they could, if they don't get like something outside themselves. Literally no one had a problem with that.

It's really cool how we underestimate the human spirit to find healing. And then more recently , I joined, I have a private practice, and I joined Michael and his team to develop Pathfinder Recovery because it just seemed like it all could come together. We could reach people who didn't have access, whether they can't drive or they're too far away, or the closest brick and mortar is hours, maybe they have to work. There's so many people on the sort of poverty line, that it would be so hard for them to not be able to, they can't call out a work. They live paycheck to paycheck, right?

And so we love this group of people and we want to help them and reach them and be as creative as you can. So one of the things that Pathfinder Recovery does really is we customize, what it is. Like, I like the way Michael talked about, we just want love. We want safety. And so that's where we start with is that you are loved; you are safe.

We're here. We're part of your tribe now, and we're gonna figure this out together, right? And yes, we do it virtually because that's the world we live in today, and that's the way we can reach more people across the country, right? I'm really happy to be here and to have this conversation with you.

It's my passion.

Chris Langley: Oh, I can tell that most definitely from you both. And I've obviously met a couple of the other members of your amazing team. Before we move on, can you just tell us about the team that have at Pathfinder Recovery? Because they're amazing folk. They really are.

I was totally blown away when I met them.

Hannah Jurewicz: We have, okay, so first of all, you've met Michael. He is the most precious human being on earth. He is our talk about a beacon of light and our concept purveyor of communication and love. So we always start with that. We have Eliza Foltz, who hopefully, the public will get to meet again.

She is just an inspiration having, personal and professional experience in this like I do, and I should probably call out that one of the cool things about our team is we all have this lived experience. So I'm 35 years in recovery, and I'm also neurodivergent, if you can tell. So it makes it really, magical to have all of us come together.

We have a strong, medical, the chief medical officer, Dr. David Hendricks. And we have, who has all kinds of experience in both, ER work. So he knows what it is. When we bring people in who feel very acute, very dysregulated. Then we have a strong clinical team that, what we work with mostly is a lot of polyvagal work, EMDR, somatic healing.

We incorporate all the whole person in what we're trying to do. So Dr. David can help us with the withdrawal management and make sure that we feel safe and we understand all the neurobiology of our addiction. And then we kind of transition into the clinicians, me being one of them, that will help stabilize, ground, educate, develop the coping skills you need. To Michael's point, like learning how to live life on life's terms. You're in there. Let's treat you while you're in your space that you need to be able to live in and what does that look like and how do we help the families and help you live within your community in a new way in recovery.

So what else? We have recovery coaches, which are phenomenal. They develop their own program with you to help on that accountability. Ss a team, we all use biometrics. That is to say we're very interested. We know research has shown that sleep disturbances, higher, heart rate variability, lack of movement, all of these things are predictors of relapse.

And so if we can get in there for early intervention, we might create relapse prevention. So early intervention. Relapse prevention. And so if we can teach people who have up until now been dissociating from anything that they, "I don't want to feel in my body. Thank you. I do that very well with alcohol and drugs."

Nope. Now we're not gonna do that. We're going to introduce ourselves back to our bodies. And, learn about our heart rate and our difficulty sleeping and how all of these factors, right? So we use the biometrics and our clinicians and our recovery coaches work hand in hand to help people become accountable, and responsible for identifying those factors.

And so developing the coping skills to what do we do instead? So the clinical work and the recovery coaching can go on indefinitely, which is another nice piece. Most brick and mortars, it's a hard stop. Most IOPs, p PHPs hard stop. We don't tell you that because we don't know what your journey's going to look like.

So we want to be there and make sure that you feel that you're connected to a recovery community, that you're off and running and doing these things. And if you need us indefinitely, that was the point of being your tribe in the beginning. We're here.

Chris Langley: Yeah. Wow. such a unique service that you're offering it. It really is. How did you all get together? How did Pathfinder Recovery start? Because you've got so many different professionals working together and obviously been virtual as well, so how did you all get together?

Michael Brunk: Yeah, I, so I'll give credit where credit is due. Pathfinder Recovery as the idea of being this sort of virtual in-home withdrawal management Detox actually came from our doctor, Dr. David Hendricks. So he initially had the idea and he comes from. He actually started his professional journey, in emergency medicine, working in emergency rooms, and then had the opportunity, years ago to switch over to addiction medicine, where he helped to launch a really well known program in Connecticut, High Watch.

He helped them to really design, develop, and launch their in-person brick and mortar detox. he is also since then has had a number of years within the space working in-person brick and mortar. Then I actually had the opportunity to work with Dave, at one point as well at Paramount Wellness Retreat, which was my previous employer.

That's how he and I connected. Along that path, at some point had this idea for Pathfinder, tried to launch it, but then was still trying to do all of his physician work. He and I talked a few times. Everything just lined up. You know that in November of last year, as I had mentioned, that my, had a career change and I really had to do some self-assessment for myself. Love the space, love the mission, love helping people, all the things we've already discussed, but knew that in order for me to continue to do this, I needed to, I don't wanna say do it on my terms, but in a way, do it on my terms and do it in a way that I could feel good about it, but in a way that I knew that would be working towards helping the most amount of people possible, not designing really great quality care based on the individual's ability to afford it. So that was really like, really important for me. And I saw the opportunity with Pathfinder that this could really be it. When had the time. I had the bandwidth, so I just really threw myself into it. What initially was really thought of being maybe just a single state Connecticut only, virtual detox, I stepped beyond that and said, this is an opportunity that if we do it right with the right people on board, we can open this up to really to anyone.

We don't have the same boundaries that a brick and mortar facility would have of geographic location, number of seats or beds, where we could really, take in a lot of folks. So that's really was in my mind, like what I wanted to accomplish. Speaking truth, truth is a funny thing, and is a commitment that I've made with myself, as I've continued to go, make my journey through this, path. There's so much hurt and this disease of mental health and addiction does want us to be honest. It wants us to be anything but honest.

Because it wants to protect it, it wants to protect the disease. This is God's plan. This I give it up to the universe, and I have no problem saying that. I mean that in the most loving way that our goal as human beings is to support each other. I love Hannah says tribe, because to me that's really what it is. We're a big tribe. And unfortunately, there's, that, may have that same sort of driving mission. But I think collectively, as far as the Pathfinder team goes, we do. Everybody that's come on board with Pathfinder has come on at exactly the right moment. So from Eliza joining the team to Hannah, joining the team to, our admission staff, our off, clinicians, our We one of the coolest collective of mission vision driven folks. They've worked at organizations and seen a lot of things they loved, but also have seen a lot of things that, geez, they just wish that maybe there was a way that they could do something and just change it.

I think every single one of them, once they got to understand like what we're trying to do here, what the long-term goal of Pathfinder really is, have signed up wholeheartedly, thrown themselves into it, to go above and beyond. It's really been magical to watch, honestly. I think it through, picking the right folks. It's the right folks who found the project. It continues to just be that way.

Chris Langley: Yeah, it seems like you are pioneers of a new model. In this age, since Zoom and since COVID, and you've just developed this amazing sounding service that can really go national. My next question really to you both was, so what states do you currently work in and what are some of the barriers that you are finding with expanding into other states?

Because what you're offering is a, certainly a service that could be spread nationally, as I've just mentioned. What states are you working in now currently? Should we go with Hannah?

Hannah Jurewicz: Okay, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna punt it over to Michael, but I will say, so far we're in Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, and New Hampshire. and I know that we're headed west, but take it away, Michael.

Michael Brunk: Yeah, I, so yes, so that's accurate. So New England is just by, that's where we're all stationed. So the team just naturally has a lot great connections within the industry, within Connecticut, Massachusetts, Vermont, New Hampshire. The challenge, I think. Gosh, there are a lot of challenges. I think some of the challenges to doing this on a national scale in every state is each operates as their own entity. Each state has a lot of just red tape that you have to cut through in order to be able to get yourself set up and licensed. Some are easier than others to be able to maneuver in. And I do understand that needs to be there because the hope is that you're really trying to keep bad players out and you're trying to make way for folks that are trying to do the right thing. But unfortunately in that, it can create a little bit of a lag. So I've accepted it. I wasn't unfamiliar with that being the case that each state is very specific, but it does slow down the process of us being able to grow and develop. I think too, because the goal, as you mentioned it really, the goal would be, and, I certainly hope that we can achieve this, that we would be able to go national. The progress that we've made and the speed that we're making it within is totally acceptable.

Like it's because each state really is going to become its sort of own ecosystem and understanding the needs within that state. Whatever the challenges might be specific to that state, the state population, what's available to them.

So each state is very unique. We wanna be able to give the appropriate amount of time and attention to that state as we move and as we launch. But we have pretty aggressive goals. As of right now, we're very much in the sort of infancy of this, within the next five years I'd like to see us in move into 25 states in five years. So that's, that's setting us on a five state per year trajectory, which I think we, can definitely do. It's gonna be fun to do it, that's for sure.

Chris Langley: Yeah, you've grown very quickly in such a short space of time as well. You are already working in different states as well, so it shows that the model is very popular and it's very doable as well within different states. That's incredible because you've only been doing this for such a short space of time

Hannah Jurewicz: Yeah.

Chris Langley: and to achieve what you and your team have done is just wow.

Hannah Jurewicz: I would say the other, piece to that is all, of that creates really the lag, but we also wanna be very culturally competent as best we can be and moving into new communities, new states takes time because we wanna do it respectfully. So we also need to understand what are the specific needs we can meet within each state and each culture.

Some of it is socioeconomics. Some of it is geographic, Some of it might be just awareness and acceptance that addiction is a thing. I certainly have traveled the country, and there are people who, they're just catching on that, "oh wow, my uncles or aunts or my brother or sister passed away. We just thought they had a bad liver. We never connected it." So that's still out there. And so to be as respectful as possible to say, "okay, let us educate you a little bit about these things." So every, state and every community within the state may be very different, and we wanna do this carefully.

And that's another piece of it, is making sure that we have all the qualified players, in those states to be the best source of support.

Chris Langley: Yeah. Yeah. that's so important. It really is. You have many services at, Pathfinder Recovery that are quite unique in the recovery field, I feel. Because you provide at Home Detox and other at home services. Can you tell us about some of these and how you work with your clients?

How does a client find you and how do you start working with a client? How easy is it for a client to jump on board and to start working with you?

Michael Brunk: Great. I'll start. So I think clients find us from a couple of different paths. So there's different paths to finding Pathfinder, so within the industry itself, there's a pretty strong dynamic of business of providers supporting providers.

Pathfinder really because of the nature of it, the convenience of it, the path, there's a little bit of some, there's even a little passiveness with inside of it so that the client, it can help to work within the client's schedule without interrupting their schedule too much. So naturally Pathfinder is going to become, I think, a viable, and I loosely say, easy step down option for clients that are coming out of the more structured brick and mortar detox, residential. Because we can allow for that client to go back into their home, go back into their work life, still receive the clinical care, still receive the strong peer support through recovery coaching, doctor check-ins, so they can still receive all those really important components, but they can start to integrate back into their life.

So I think naturally that's gonna be a really strong potential referral for us, is that person that is needed, that stabilization initially, virtual wasn't right for them to receive it, but they still need that continuum long-term care. So I think that's really in the essence of that connectivity and accountability and the virtual platform, some of the great things that we're gonna plug into that with our mobile, we have a mobile app.

We have, the biometric rings, which Hannah mentioned. So there's some really cool things there that we can help to support that long-term recovery. The other side of it, so having worked in the space, and my time in the space prior to doing, taking on this, position and this role was really in marketing.

I was the Chief Marketing Officer for my employer. Then I was Business Development for my employer before that. So I got to see a lot of the front end, and the industry really will speak to this the statistics in the industry really are a little sad, right? These just loose statistics, but there's roughly 40 million people that are struggling from substance use disorder within the United States, give or take. Of the 40 million people within the United States that are struggling, roughly 10 to 15% of those individuals are receiving care. They're actually, and in my experience working in the space, the 10% that are actually getting the help, tend to be the 10% where the wheels have completely fallen off the bus. They generally are in a place in their life where they've got a lot of external pressure on them because it's either their family infrastructure, their family structures have completely fallen down. Nobody's talking to them anymore. Maybe their employers are mandating it because they've just gotten to that point. They could be legal issues with DUIs. Could be severe health issues with liver failure. So generally that's not in all cases, but I would say as a general statement, the clients that are coming to that, that 10% that are receiving the treatment aren't, usually that well.

My mind is there's a whole lot of folks out there that need that help way before it gets to that point. And I've had a lot of those conversations, where somebody knows that something's off. I'm talking to a loved one, a family member, a parent, a wife, a husband, and they're looking for, answers or solutions, but they're just not quite ready to make that commitment to go in person.

They don't know if it's that bad off yet, And is there another way? So I, saw that happen a lot. So my hope is, that we can help to catch some of those individuals and get to that. place where their life has become so unmanageable. So how do they find us? to your initial question, so I think the internet. So digital, a lot of people just, going online and, searching "in-home" options, "in-home recovery options" "in-home treatment", options "at-home detox", "at-home withdrawal management", and then really making, smart investment in that space as well. I think it's also just continuing to do the right thing and the word will get out there and spread, for folks that are looking for an alternative to, going inpatient for whatever those reasons might look like, that will also find us, that way. Our service is for a less acute client, especially for the withdrawal management. Safety is always gonna be first for us. We're not trying to push the envelope and put somebody in an unsafe sort of space. So we do a really strong assessment with anybody that prior to them coming in and we make sure that, clinical and our, medical folks have all had the ability to measure, to weigh in on the client and and how appropriate we are for whatever the services that we're recommending. so really keeping that sort of top of mind for us.

Chris Langley: What would you say makes a home detox or home care more suitable to say as you gave the example of a bricks and mortar recovery service? Because it's quite an interesting model, I think. What would you say makes it more suitable?

Michael Brunk: Hannah, do you wanna take this one?

Hannah Jurewicz: Sure. it's funny because Michael and I could both probably answer all the questions, but we're playing ping pong nicely. Just to step back one second, so if you wanna contact us, we're at pathfinder-recovery.com and then, what I would encourage people to do is when they think they may have a problem or they know somebody with a problem is go and talk to your doctor or your clinician and talk to them about this as an option. Then let's make it, a team effort so that your primary care or your initial counselor, we can all work together so that we can see if this is the right fit for you and make sure that you're, safe all the way through the process. We do have a number of brick and mortar rehabs that, refer to us both because somebody washes out, and they can't sustain the entire treatment time because they can't be away from home, or something goes wrong or it's not a good fit.

We're perfect in those situations. The way that you would think about, us being a better fit is, first of all, we need to know that during the detox process, you're at home and Dr. David will be checking with you every day, or one of his nurses every day. I would check in with you every day, or one of my clinicians would check in every day.

So you'd get a full, range of people and the recovery coach possibly, check in and make sure that, we're talking to you, seeing if you're okay, what's happening, how do you feel, all the things. So you have a lot of check-ins, maybe even more check-ins, than you'd have if you were lying in a bed somewhere, being shuffled from like group to group.

This way we are doing that in that sort of concierge, space. However, we also ask, or actually require, that you have a reliable partner. Could be a spouse, an adult child, it could be a friend, we don't care, but somebody who's willing to take responsibility to be eyes on when we can't be there.

So somebody to make sure that the medication is being delivered, as prescribed, and that there's adherence and that if there's anything outside of what are the parameters for a healthy detox that they take responsibility for whatever has to happen next. And so that is part of it.

We have this kind of co-regulation team between your reliable relative or friend, and you and us to make sure that you get through this safely. That is the big. It's that first week, just making sure that everything stays stable and the way it is now, remember we also have the biometric ring on.

We also have the team app. So everything's constantly checking in on a variety of ways, to make sure that you're okay. And then we really launch in when you're ready and able to focus on all the other good stuff.

Chris Langley: yYou just touched on something there, Hannah, because, when we first met, you discussed with me data, the compelling data on health and wellness, which is a different angle to what I've ever experienced on doing these podcasts. Can you explain to our audience about this and why it's such a big factor when it comes to recovery?

It was really interesting

Hannah Jurewicz: Okay. So in terms of health and wellness, I'm gonna punt that first to Michael, because I need to think about that for a second. What do you mean?

Chris Langley: When you were saying about the app, when you're talking about the app and

Hannah Jurewicz: Oh.

Chris Langley: with data and how it helps with the recovery. I beg your pardon? My question probably wasn't as straight as it could be, but

Hannah Jurewicz: Absolutely. So I do want Michael to chime in because he has a strong background in health and wellness. I will say this, that there are certain specific biometrics we know that we lose touch with. I say biometrics. Let's just say what it is. We're so traumatized. We're so dissociated. We've been trying to control our feelings and our states of being through all these different methods, whether we've overworked, over-exercised, drugs, alcohol, all the things, gambling, shopping, sex. So we lose. You can't just take somebody and say, okay, we're gonna remove all this, the alcohol and drugs and then off you go, into recovery and go learn about yourself.

So this is a really important part for us to monitor. Where somebody's oxygen is, their heart rate, is their sleep, their exercise, their movement. When I say exercise, I really mean generically are you up and walking around? Or did you literally stay in bed or that chair all day long? Your nutrition, all of these things.

And so that becomes an essential component of our process to heal and to use that self-awareness ultimately to becoming more accountable and using others to co-regulate with accountability, to help you stay. Nobody does this alone. We were never meant to do this alone. Anybody who thinks they can do all this stuff alone, go back in terms of evolution.

Those are the ones that the saber tooth tiger picked off pretty quickly. So we need to live as a tribe and to be able to communicate. And so I just wanna put that out there. It does take a tribe to help us heal and to continue living. I also wanna indicate that recovery is a day at a time.

We're given a gift of sobriety and recovery, it is a gift given to us. And so we must work on this every single day or the little neurological tracks of addiction take over. They will take your brain hostage. That's why we want to keep working at this in a daily way. There was a saying, "you go to meetings until you want to, and then all of a sudden you find that you're really loving it and you want to go to meetings."

That's where we're at using all the bells and whistles and the interests around the health and wellness that we can. But I know Michael has stuff to say about that.

Chris Langley: thank you, Hannah.

Michael Brunk: I do. l love it because again, having just spent so much time in that space. I started as a personal trainer, when in health and wellness, and I and initially, I was a trainer working with folks for, I think about the roughly the first three years that I was in that space. There were things that have always have stuck with me. It's empowerment is what I'm getting at. So I think that a lot of times when you feel powerless and whatever that is so powerless to a substance, powerless to relationship, powerless to a body condition, if you don't do anything to regain that sense of control or power. It starts to eat away at you. It starts to literally just take its toll on you, and you see it manifest all sorts of different ways. So in the health and wellness specifically, it would manifest into all kinds of things from, diabetes to cardiac issues as well as the unspoken things, relationship issues, intimacy issues, all those things that then come along with. "I don't really like the way I look, I don't like the way I feel." from a wellness perspective, it was really essentially number one, first and foremost. And I, think recovery is very much similar to this. The plan has to ultimately be coached, but the plan has to come from the individual. So it ultimately starts with working with that person and really talking to them today about "what does it mean? What does recovery really mean to you? What does it look like for you?" For somebody, it might mean that, "I've got three kids and I am totally absent, and recovery means that, I need to be able to get control over my disease so that I can be a better parent." It might mean something that's completely different to somebody else, but I can't tell you why it's important to you. I need for you to tell me and ultimately help to coach you to come to that realization of, yeah, these are the things that I want to accomplish in the wellness industry. It's the same thing.

So these are the things I want to accomplish. "I wanna lose weight."

"Why do you wanna lose weight?" We all wanna lose a little bit of weight.

"I wan to lose weight because I'm not moving. I used to be able to move, and I can no longer go golf. I used to have a lot of passion with golf and I can't get out on the course anymore because it's just too hard."

Helping them make that sort of connection, very similar to what we try to do in the recovery space. But once you help that individual get to that place of creating the plan for themselves. And then it's connectivity. So in the in the wellness industry, it was all about connecting them to tribes.

So in tribes in that industry. It's, group exercise classes It's small group training. It's connecting to a personal coach. It's having that one-on-one coach there for you just to help you to navigate and do it safely and to have success. And over time, as people start to see that and start to recognize the success that they're having, they want to continue with it because they feel better. They're moving better, their mood is better. They're happier. They're generally more positive. They're starting to see results. They're starting to see whatever those results, whatever those goals are that they set for themselves. They're starting to see themselves accomplish those results. It's very empowering. And then from their end comes that kind of self-love. So now I'm finding a way to love myself again and feel good about what I'm doing. In the wellness piece of this, it's transferable. We're, essentially, we're doing the same thing. And in the industry, in the wellness industry, there's been a ton of data, too much research and success around the use of biometric work like biometrics. So the Fitbit is nothing new that's been around in the wellness industry for a very long time. And the statistics for those that understand why is it important, not just, I know I need to take steps, but why is it important that I take steps? Why is it important that this activity leads to burning X amount of calories or helps me to sleep or whatever it is. But teaching them, educating them again, it's self-empowerment. So now I'm finding ways to take back control of what I feel like I've lost. And unfortunately, in this space, especially I think with substance use in particular, mental health can be very debilitating, but a lot of times with substance use, a lot of individuals get to a place where there's this deep feeling of hopelessness

Chris Langley: Yeah.

Michael Brunk: I've tried this. Nobody understands. Nobody wants to hear me anymore.

My loved ones don't want to talk to me. I've been shut out of this group, my friend group. You just get to this place ultimately, that I've seen at least working with individuals, where it's just "what do I even do where, how do I even start this journey?"

I think that's the goal, is to help somebody to start to take that path and in that too, is focusing on the family unit. So I think that's all also something, I don't know if we've talked much too much about it, but there's a real opportunity for us through this journey to look at, not only the individual, but the environment. A lot of times that's really overlooked in our space. Folks will leave treatment, and they'll go home but nobody's really checking that environment out. Nobody's really talking to them about the family unit. What are you going home to? It happens a little, since we are truly virtual in-home, we really take a deep look at that. We want to make sure that this is the appropriate environment for us to be able to deliver the care we want to deliver and that you have the greatest achievements for success. Then if there's room where we can help to provide support, even if it's just recommendations like Al-Anon, or recommendations to, really great family therapist, help them through their journey, we can help to that and make those recommendations as we go as well.

Chris Langley: Wow. love that because you are really joining so many dots here as well with what you are doing. You are looking at the whole picture in such a different way. I think, and it's, quite remarkable what you're all doing as a team. ,

Hannah Jurewicz: I just wanted to jump in because I just wanted to call out that distinction. We heavily lean into a Stages of Change Model, which means that you can be, pre-contemplative, and we can still work with you to get you into that space to find out what would it take for change to happen.

What do you need to see before you are willing to change? One of the first questions, I ask people is, "do you wanna live or you wanna die? Do you want to choose life today or not?" It's okay. We could talk about really tough conversations. We don't have to hide behind some, oh, we can't talk. Yes, we can, because it's, I know what's on your mind, Let's not be afraid to talk about that. And if they choose life, then we're off. We're off and running. We see what that looks like for them. And if they don't, then I sit with them. We stay with them. Okay, what would need to happen? in terms of that loss of hope, right?

In terms of the world crashing down around them, and somehow they know it has to do with them, but they don't understand why all these bad things happened to them. And it's connecting the dots about, whether it's previous trauma, all of the mental health and stuff that goes on living a life of untreated bipolar, living a life of untreated borderline, being called all these things like you so and so forth.

So we have to do a lot of supporting, educating, creating a safe space, because that's so important to help people. We use each other to co-regulate and determine that a space is safe. We do it all the time. We're always scanning unconsciously to make sure everything is safe.

We're always, it's just what we do all the time, even in our own homes, which is why we'll see something like, "oh, I left the stove on" whatever. We're always scanning, and it's critical. That relationship between another human being where we can use, it's our mirror neurons, but this is literally like neurologically what we do to find safety is to use other people and what they're doing, how they're behaving, to determine if we're safe. And so when we use drugs or alcohol, we tend to isolate ourselves more and more and now we're just left alone in hell, frankly. I look at it as our job. We reach our hands down into hell and pull you out because we know we can see what you can't see yet.

So we use that stages of change very carefully, precontemplative, contemplative, the planning, the action and so on. We use that in the addiction world. Relapse is at the end of that stages of change. So we wanna make sure that we're studying all of that to make sure that somebody doesn't end up relapsing. We stay with them for a long time.

I just wanted to say that because sometimes people confuse that with harm reduction and that is not the same thing. So we can get somebody in a pre-contemplation stage and help them get where they need to get. That's not the same thing as a public safety or a public health measure in terms of harm reduction.

yeah.

Chris Langley: Thank you for that, Hannah. So something Michael touched on earlier, you mentioned the word stigma, Michael. Why do you think that stigma of addiction and mental health is still such a barrier for people wanting to access an appropriate service to help them? Because it seems to be such an issue still. Why, do you think that is?

Michael Brunk: So My opinion, and my opinion's changed a little, it's definitely grown and morphed over the last couple of years. I don't think we'll ever do away with stigma because the frankly, the truth of it is this is a horrible disease that causes us to do horrible things. So nobody wants to be the first to stand up there on a soapbox and say, "yeah, my husband burned the house down in one of his drunken rages," right?

Or there's this violence that comes out of this person that causes them to be absolutely despicable and, in a lot of ways, really dark. So stigma of that I don't think ever goes away. I think it's there. I think it's education is what has to happen.

It's the understanding that it's the shame, right? That this is something that happens and it is a disease, and there is hope and there's help for it. But as far as the stigma behind it, I don't know. We have a lot of work to do if we ever really want to think that would go away.

But I don't know that it's ever, to me, I've wrestled with this idea of the stigma behind this a lot. I grew up in an environment that was, like I said, it was, heavily riddled with mental health and substance use. And it's just not something you want to tell everybody about, and it's because I think, it's, there's shock value to it. If you're not experiencing that, if you're in a relatively normal environment, and I were to sit down with you and talk to you about what my day was like, you would be mortified. You'd be, as a kid growing up, so there's always going to just be that natural sort of guarding and protecting of our environment. I think there's also this desire that I found to normalize our behaviors, right? So even growing up in that environment, I wanted it to be normal. I knew it wasn't. But I wanted it to be normal, so I didn't want to talk about it as anything other than that.

To put a stigma on, so think it's very complicated. It's really just creating more education around it. The more we talk about it, the more that we understand you're not alone in this and there are resources, available to you.

And I see it happening. It's slowly starting to become more and more of a I don't wanna say a water cooler conversation, but certainly I think today versus maybe 5 or 10 years ago, if you had a challenge or you were struggling or a loved one was struggling, there's probably a lot more folks around you that would have an idea as to at least, "Hey, give these folks a call."

Or, "I heard about this really great program." That may not have been the case 5 or 10 years ago. So I do think we're making positive headway with it, but again, that's, my thoughts behind it. I, imagine Hannah has, her own,

Hannah Jurewicz: I sure do. The stigma is around fear of survival and safety, right? So it's a public health, public safety issue. So people will stigmatize something because basically they want the larger community to stay away from it. Because if I say it's really bad, it's really bad. Maybe you won't die from it.

So if there was a poisoned contaminated creek nearby, in terms of our evolution, if I created all the stigma around the creek and anybody who goes near it and I'm like, oh, those people are gonna be, we wanna get you away from the bad. So it starts with that. It's fear based. I get that. It's fear-based. The problem is that when it turns into a public safety issue, we demonize it and sort of righteously so. We're demonizing the behavior, but we're also holding those people accountable for their behavior. People who work and live in the world of recovery, understand that is a mental, it is a brain disease.

We have known that for almost a hundred years now. And so that's the part that is so painful around stigmatizing addiction is because when it is a public safety issue, I understand the fear, but to understand that it's like schizophrenia. It's like bipolar. It's, like a genetic, congenital defect.

It's like how diabetes can be transferred or heart conditions, right? It isn't any different than that. It's like blaming the person who got cancer, right? That's the part that's so heartbreaking is to understand that all of our behavior ultimately is genetic. We haven't changed in 300,000 years.

We are still doing the same thing, just using technology. So the impact is global, but we have not changed. Our genetics are the same. So did we have addicted tribal members way back when? Probably. And we just left them to the side because when they started, taking all our mushrooms, we're like, get the hell outta here. But now what I want to do is get our attention on recovery and to say. Stigma for the addiction. It is scary. I don't know that for health and safety reasons, I'll ever make a dent in that except to Mike's point, talking about awareness, creating that space, helping people understand it's a brain disease that things can get way out of hand, but let's not lose the person in the disease.

Let's still remember there's a person in there. And then to separate that from recovery, recovery is an entirely different entity, and that should be celebrated. And, we do celebrate it in our world. We have anniversaries and celebrations and parties and walks and all kinds of things and festivals and rock concerts.

We love celebrating recovery. If you're in that world, you know all of

that. It's really about carving apart the addiction from the recovery, letting that be not stigmatized. People often don't get that. And then really going in and remembering there's a person behind that addiction. And can we reach them?

Chris Langley: Yeah. I love that.

Michael Brunk: Yeah,

Chris Langley: much,

Michael Brunk: love it. I, just wanted to add, I think the stigma, the blessing in the stigma is exactly what I think what Hannah is, saying within the recovery, the journey to recovery, right? So the stigma has all these sort of gross all the yuckiness around it. It's the journey through that and into that place of recovery, which to me is, really it's recovery.

We call it recovery, but to me it's really a journey into, spiritual connection. We've lost ourselves so far. A lot of folks have so much into just the darkness of it all and into the what is of the moment that we can't see beyond it.

And so that journey through the stigma, out of the stigma into that space of recovery, what might initially be a physical sort of, I need to recover from these things that I've done to my body, but now I need to start to clear up these things that I've done with my mind and these things that I've done with my spirit.

And that whole body, that whole kind of wellness starts to come together. yeah, it is the stigma I think in a lot of ways that, that sort of maybe, stunts that growth a little bit in the

but that's really, what we're here to do is to help to offset that a little bit.

Chris Langley: yeah. Most definitely. It's just such a continuing issue and thankfully we're able to talk about addiction, I think a lot more openly now than maybe we were, as you said, Michael, 10, 15 years ago. Certainly not back in the eighties as far as I remember being an eighties child.

That was awful. Last couple of questions I'd like to ask. I ask all of my guests this because I get some really interesting and varied answers, but can you tell me your opinion of harm reduction and how it can play such a role in recovery? Start with Hannah.

Hannah Jurewicz: so I think that what harm reduction does is keep the world a little safer. Keep the addicts a little safer. Giving, outreach and clinicians, another shot at, pun intended, another shot at reaching them and helping them to choose life and helping them to see that there is a way through this.

And to Michael's point about, we can help you heal your body and then, wait, the journey is really even more exciting than that because there's a psych, psychological and spiritual, healing that will take place in connection that is beyond your wildest dreams. And I think that harm reduction's purpose is for public safety and public health more.

But it does give us an opportunity to just talk to people, to connect with them and give them that sense of hope that Michael was referring to maybe try recovery.

Chris Langley: Yep. I love that. Thank

Michael Brunk: such a great question. We wrestled with this question not too long ago. Like what, because I think there is really this harm reduction that, what it means by definition, and then what we have, what it's evolved into in our heads of, just meeting that person no matter where they are, and just trying to help them that next positive step forward.

But then there's a lot of responsibility in that too, because again, when we talk about the disease itself and the disease, enabling is a real thing. And we see it all the time. We see it all the time with family members, with loved ones, with spouses where they say, one side of the mouth that we want our loved one to get well, but then in the other side there, but I'm gonna continue to let this person stay in my basement, and I'm gonna continue to pay their way, and I'm never gonna really force them to get treatment.

So somebody might say, they're letting them stay in my basement. So that's harm reduction, is it? Is it, are you really reducing the harm to that individual? Are you really just doing this so you feel a little bit better about yourself? So you don't have to have that shame or that regret in case something should happen to them, which is I think a lot of times what fuels a lot of those decisions. It is a very good conversation because in my mind what I thought harm reduction is, and what it was, is really not truly by definition what it is. It's the education piece that we've been talking about, and it's the desire, I think the harm reduction is, meeting with somebody that has a true desire to try to find a better version of themselves and how they're living today and, helping, but the ownership, and I said this in the past, even in the health and wellness industry, we can talk to you all day long about what a great plan might look like, but unless you're willing to show up and, get out there and do the work, it doesn't, it's who are we really helping?

Am I really helping you to reduce whatever the harm is that you might be facing? You're willing to show up and do it, that's, gotta be part of the deal here.

Chris Langley: Most definitely. Final question for you both. We'll start with Hannah. Do you have a message, Hannah, for anyone who's listening to this podcast, who's going through an addiction at the moment? Yes.

Hannah Jurewicz: Yes. when you feel your worst and you're feeling lonely and isolated, and whatever you've tried, hasn't worked. There is a way. There is a way, and this can be the worst time of your life, and you never have to go through this again. You don't have to. That is optional. And at Pathfinder Recovery, we are here, and give us a call, reach out online, because we want you to choose life.

Chris Langley: Thank you and you, Michael.

Michael Brunk: No, I, love that. Ithink it's every day that we're here, we have one more day just to try to do things a little better. And whether that's for ourselves or for the ones that love us, and if you're hearing that voice inside of yourself, that's just calling out to, there has to be a better way.

There has to be something more. It's that inner you that wants you to see beyond the limitations that you put on yourself and that voice inside of us. The universe. It's gonna keep calling out at you. And I think that a lot of times folks that are in that real dark place, they hear that voice the loudest. And it causes a lot of internal conflict because that voice doesn't ever wanna let you go. That light inside of you is never going to let you go. You may push it down as far, so that you think you can't see it, but it's always there and it's always gonna try to find a way to make its way to the surface. So listen to that light. Listen to that voice, and you're not alone. A lot of people have, made this journey and have come out the other side successfully and have amazing stories to tell. I think in a lot of ways, not to get too philosophical about this, even though I love to, we're, creating soldiers. So those, individuals that are in recovery that are going through this journey, we're creating soldiers. We're creating folks that understand what that darkness looks like. But also understands that they have the power to tell that darkness, to sit down, to tell that darkness, that it does not have dominion over them. That it's fine. It can be here, and we see you. We recognize you, but you don't have power over me. I have the power over that. And giving that sense of hope to somebody or allowing somebody to see that. I think that's it. It's inside of all of us, and we are amazing creatures, that our species is just beautiful in so many ways, but we also have, we have our challenges.

But yeah, the hope is there. It's real.

Chris Langley: I love that. tThank you so much for that. And thank you so much for both of your time today. I really appreciate it. The last question I'd just like to ask, Hannah did touch on this earlier, but can you tell our listeners how to best to contact you and to find your service online? We're going to have a link in the bottom, but if you can just tell us that'd be great.

Hannah Jurewicz: Sell it, Michael.

Michael Brunk: Ah, okay. So yes, you can find us, you can find us online at Pathfinder Recovery. pathfinder-recovery.com is how anybody can find us online. We're available. If anybody listening wants to go to, we have a mobile app that can be downloaded, in both the, iPhone as well as on both iPhones and Androids, which is another great resource tool for folks that can, gain access to us as well as we have events, calendars in there and alumni calendar. Some really great recovery tools that are within the mobile app. ​

Chris Langley: Amazing. and Michael, I'd like to thank you both for your time today and for everything you are doing for all of your clients. And what you've developed here is something phenomenal. I've done 65 of these podcasts and I don't think I've spoken to anyone that's developing something with such scope that can really go nationally. It really can. And the dedication that you and your team have, because I've met a couple of your other team members as well, is just incredible. I'm looking forward to having, some more of your team on the podcast in the very near future. But I'd just like to thank you both for your time today.

Thank you so much.

Michael Brunk: Thank you. I appreciate it.

Hannah Jurewicz: Thank you so much.