Speaker 1: Welcome to the two seventeen Recovery Podcast.
Speaker 2: If you don't make mistakes, you won't learn.
Speaker 1: With your host Corey Winfield, you know there was a
Speaker 1: reason why that didn't work out, and you can look
Speaker 1: back at it and go, yep. I'm glad that didn't
Speaker 1: work out how I wanted it, because I would have
Speaker 1: been horrible and co host Martine Winningfield fairly expensive membership
Speaker 1: to Cold Gym when I was in college, but I
Speaker 1: use that all time. It is the eighth of August
Speaker 1: twenty twenty four. My name is Cory Winfield, joined with
Speaker 1: a very special guest on the podcast today, the one
Speaker 1: that only mister Richard Tate. Richard, I will let you
Speaker 1: introduce yourself.
Speaker 2: I'm Richard Tate. I started Cliffside Malibu back in two
Speaker 2: thousand and four, turned it into a treatment center in
Speaker 2: two thousand and five from Amend's Only Sober Living, sold
Speaker 2: it in June of eighteen, twenty eighteen. Was forced into
Speaker 2: a five year retirement due to my non compete. It
Speaker 2: was purgatory. It was actually worse than that. It was hell.
Speaker 2: And I'm back with something that we started from scratch
Speaker 2: called Carrera Treatment, Wellness and SPA which is one of one.
Speaker 2: It's the first of its kind anywhere. And I purchased
Speaker 2: an affordable treatment center called One Method Center with twenty
Speaker 2: four beds. It's in network with a few things right now.
Speaker 2: It will be in network with everything hopefully by the
Speaker 2: end of the year. Our dream is really to scale
Speaker 2: to one thousand beds with the in network program and
Speaker 2: treat the military and take the homeless right off the
Speaker 2: street and treat them. We're going to do a pilot
Speaker 2: program of twenty five people right off the street. They overlap,
Speaker 2: so a lot of them are veterans, and we're going
Speaker 2: to do a pilot program. We're going to follow them
Speaker 2: around for six months, and we're going to submit the
Speaker 2: data to the city, the state, and the federal government,
Speaker 2: and we're going to let them know this is a
Speaker 2: model for the country. I can't take the streets anymore, man,
Speaker 2: I just can't take them. Okay, I see a kid.
Speaker 2: We were talking about kids beforehand. Congratulations on your newborn,
Speaker 2: big deal, huge deal. And when I see a child
Speaker 2: in an encampment, my throat starts to close. I can't
Speaker 2: even take it. And I've lived here fifty eight years
Speaker 2: in LA and you know, all my friends are here,
Speaker 2: my famili's here. I don't really go on vacation, you know,
Speaker 2: because I live in LA and with where the fuck
Speaker 2: am I going? You know what I mean? It's the
Speaker 2: most beautiful city in the world on a Sunday morning
Speaker 2: at six point thirty when you drive about the city,
Speaker 2: it's just beautiful. Now, we live in the you know,
Speaker 2: in certain areas in the third world country, and I
Speaker 2: just and I just can't take it.
Speaker 1: We have the same problem here in Traverse City, not
Speaker 1: nearly on the scale that they have in LA, but
Speaker 1: it's getting bad. And Traverse City is kind of known
Speaker 1: as a vacation city. You know, there's there's some money here,
Speaker 1: and all of a sudden you got people living in
Speaker 1: the woods camping out, and people are like, what's going on?
Speaker 1: What are we going to do about those people? Other
Speaker 1: places come in. I'm not going to name agencies and
Speaker 1: stuff like that, because what they do does help people.
Speaker 1: But when they help people, that's a business too. If
Speaker 1: you came to my restaurant, Richard, and you're in there
Speaker 1: and someone came in and said, hey, at five o'clock,
Speaker 1: I'm going to pay you one hundred dollars for every
Speaker 1: person that's in your restaurant, I wouldn't make it easy
Speaker 1: for you to leave, you know what I'm saying. And
Speaker 1: there is a business side to that as well. Of course,
Speaker 1: it takes money to buy beds to put electricity on.
Speaker 1: But when grants are coming through and people are getting
Speaker 1: like five six million dollars and the end result is
Speaker 1: the same every year, something's got to change. Like, yes,
Speaker 1: they're providing a roof for someone said, that's cool, but
Speaker 1: where's the next step? And I like the approach that
Speaker 1: you're taking, man. And of course governments, cities, states, they
Speaker 1: love that data, so I think that's very important. And
Speaker 1: obviously you do too. You seem like a smart guy,
Speaker 1: you know, to give that to them, to track the
Speaker 1: program and say this is working, this isn't working, because
Speaker 1: you know as well as I know, that's not going
Speaker 1: to work for every single person, but when it works
Speaker 1: for eighty percent of them, that could be huge.
Speaker 2: Man, it ain't gonna work for eighty percent of them.
Speaker 2: I'm looking for two thirds. Okay. If I can get
Speaker 2: two thirds, and I think that's realistic, we can do it.
Speaker 2: And I've got a lot of plans for it. My
Speaker 2: buddy Ken Kraft has got over twenty seven hundred beds
Speaker 2: right now with people living in them in La. He's
Speaker 2: responsible for the tiny homes all over LA. I mean,
Speaker 2: he's just a hero. He's a hero, and he wants
Speaker 2: me to do his wrap around services. So maybe we'll
Speaker 2: do it there, and I'll just move my staff down
Speaker 2: there to do that and get more of them. I
Speaker 2: haven't really decided. I'm actually going. When I get back,
Speaker 2: I have to give a talk in the Hamptons. But
Speaker 2: when i'm back, I'm going to go with a film
Speaker 2: crew and I'm going to check out these places so
Speaker 2: that I have it and I can go back and
Speaker 2: look at it. I've got a concussion. I forget everything,
Speaker 2: so I have to go ahead and do that so
Speaker 2: that when I miss something, I can go back and
Speaker 2: look at it over and over and over again and
Speaker 2: figure out what this is. Talk to everyone who works
Speaker 2: there and people that live there, get the vibe of it,
Speaker 2: See what they need, what's good, what could be worked on?
Speaker 2: You know that kind of thing. But you know that's
Speaker 2: dream man. That's why I came back. I ain't missing
Speaker 2: any meals anymore. Okay, that ain't happening. The Ventanyl issue
Speaker 2: is the worst. Okay. I've been telling people since two
Speaker 2: thousand and fifteen, fourteen whatever it is, maybe even thirteen,
Speaker 2: that this is the worst epidemic we've ever faced, Okay,
Speaker 2: and it's going to get worse. And cut two, I
Speaker 2: come back five years later, it's exponentially worse. Okay. With ventanyl,
Speaker 2: then you've got car fentanyl, which is fifty times stronger
Speaker 2: or something like that than ventanyl. And then you've got trank, okay,
Speaker 2: which is xylazine, which is a animal tranquilizer, which is
Speaker 2: why they call it trank mixed with ventanyl. Right, So
Speaker 2: it's a flesh eating drug. You hunch over and like
Speaker 2: literally like your knuckles are touching the ground and it
Speaker 2: opens up sores in your arms and legs where you inject,
Speaker 2: and then they just keep injecting into the sore and
Speaker 2: you're literally looking at their bone and you can't save
Speaker 2: anybody because narcan doesn't work with it. So and it's
Speaker 2: very hard to get off. And most people that are
Speaker 2: taking fentanyl and trank and car fentanyl don't know it.
Speaker 2: They don't know it sure because seven out of ten
Speaker 2: pills right now in powder have fentanyl in it, right,
Speaker 2: So you go ahead and you buy a percocet and
Speaker 2: you think you're getting a perkoset and you're not getting
Speaker 2: a purchase at laced with ventanyl, right, And that's why
Speaker 2: people are dying. You have to look at it like this,
Speaker 2: and I always explain it the same way. Okay, so
Speaker 2: I'm very disciplined and I stay on message. The chemicals
Speaker 2: to make fentanyl are brought from China and they are
Speaker 2: sent to Latin American countries, primarily Mexico. And then you've
Speaker 2: got some guy in a half's mat suit with a
Speaker 2: big wooden stick and a huge vat and he's stirring
Speaker 2: the shit, right, very scientific, and then they load him
Speaker 2: into pill form, right into molds. And think of it
Speaker 2: like a chocolate chip cookie. You bite into a chocolate
Speaker 2: chip cookie, You've got all these chocolate chips, the chocolate
Speaker 2: chips are fed, and all you're dead. Sometimes you don't
Speaker 2: get any chips, or one chip, well you're not that high,
Speaker 2: so you take another one. Now you're dead. Okay. So
Speaker 2: it's not if people are going to be dying, it's
Speaker 2: when they're going to be dying for sure. I mean,
Speaker 2: this is just the worst epidemic we've ever had. And
Speaker 2: by the way, trank is coming to a suburb near you,
Speaker 2: so and not that that's going to make a difference
Speaker 2: because these are going to be richer people or whatever.
Speaker 2: Because everything gets desensitized everything. Remember back in the day,
Speaker 2: I think it was like ten years ago, maybe nine
Speaker 2: years ago in Connecticut, those first graders all got shot.
Speaker 2: There were like twenty one kids that passed away in
Speaker 2: a couple teachers and right then everybody, for me, for sure,
Speaker 2: I'm like, Okay, that's it. That's where the country draws
Speaker 2: the line. Okay, this is changing right now. Okay, twenty
Speaker 2: one five year olds first graders. Yeah, it's over ninety
Speaker 2: percent of Republicans n r A members wanted background checks.
Speaker 2: Everybody did. Do you think anything got done? Nothing got done. Okay,
Speaker 2: so this is just going to be the new normal. Okay.
Speaker 2: We never in our wildest dreams thought we'd ever see
Speaker 2: encampments on sidewalks, and now it's people just step over
Speaker 2: people to get to where they got to go. You
Speaker 2: got to leave this place better than you found it, man,
Speaker 2: that's it.
Speaker 1: I guess Portland's real bad people were actually vacation to
Speaker 1: Philadelphia to video people on trink because it was so
Speaker 1: bad you could just drive it on the street and
Speaker 1: there they are around the corner, look like zombies, which.
Speaker 2: Is both good and bad because it's you know, it
Speaker 2: brings light and attention to the situation. But think about
Speaker 2: how the people there must feel, okay, being videoed, Okay,
Speaker 2: like they don't have enough shame, Like their life isn't
Speaker 2: shitty enough. Now it's broadcasted to the world. It's just,
Speaker 2: you know, it's bad. It's bad all all of it's bad.
Speaker 1: Somebody who's new to the homeless population just on some
Speaker 1: hard times man, you know, like get divorced, lose your house, whatever.
Speaker 1: They're out there and someone gives them a cigarette. Well
Speaker 1: they didn't know it was lace was something, you know,
Speaker 1: and now they're running around and then they're hooked, you know.
Speaker 1: And you know, crystal meth is still huge here and
Speaker 1: ice or whatever they want to call it. But it
Speaker 1: just mixes right to the next thing. And when people
Speaker 1: are I don't want to say dumb enough, maybe on
Speaker 1: educated enough to realize, like you said, it's coming miscalculation
Speaker 1: of community standards, I guess you know, oh, our standards
Speaker 1: are better than that, And well, no, you don't understand
Speaker 1: how this works, do you There is something that can
Speaker 1: be out in front of it, you know, and we
Speaker 1: can help those people when they do need it. Like
Speaker 1: you were saying about the project that you have coming up,
Speaker 1: I'm that is music to my ears, man. And I
Speaker 1: don't know if you're working with like behavioral facilities out there,
Speaker 1: because you know, some people I know here they need
Speaker 1: like adult foster living, like they need a place to go.
Speaker 1: They cannot care for themselves, some of them, whether it
Speaker 1: be they were just out there because of that, whether
Speaker 1: drugs has taken their mental state to that place, but
Speaker 1: they cannot care for themselves. They don't know how to
Speaker 1: wash themselves, they don't know how to pay rent, they
Speaker 1: don't know how to do these basic things that you
Speaker 1: and I, yeah, sure we know how to do that,
Speaker 1: but some of these people don't. So I think you know,
Speaker 1: getting them to that next level, you know, and kind
Speaker 1: of separating them out to like, Okay, this person has
Speaker 1: a substitute disorder, this person needs a little bit more
Speaker 1: care than that. You know, this person has both. You know,
Speaker 1: like let's let's see what we can do. But that
Speaker 1: seems like a large task.
Speaker 2: It's not Let's get back to common sense. Okay, So
Speaker 2: a lot of these people are this close, like a
Speaker 2: hair from being homeless, right, and there's new people popping
Speaker 2: up on the streets all the time. It's not always
Speaker 2: the mentally ill and the drug addicted. It's people sleeping
Speaker 2: in their cars and then waking up in the morning
Speaker 2: and going to the YMCA and showering or getting a
Speaker 2: gym membership and showering and then putting on their clothes
Speaker 2: and going to work and you know, trying to dig
Speaker 2: their way out of this thing. But what happens is
Speaker 2: is if you stay on the street too long, develop
Speaker 2: something called a learned helplessness, which is just a fancy
Speaker 2: way of saying, what's the use, and you give up.
Speaker 2: It's like crawling into the fetal position, just being despondent,
Speaker 2: like nobody gives a shit about you in the world.
Speaker 2: That's what we have to prevent. Not that we can't
Speaker 2: fix that, but it takes a while. It takes what
Speaker 2: it takes. I didn't know how to take care of
Speaker 2: myself either. I was homeless for a little while. I
Speaker 2: didn't know how to take care of myself and wash
Speaker 2: myself and work and pay the rent. Fuck I got money.
Speaker 2: I was thinking about paying the rent, but the shit
Speaker 2: turned into crack couponts. I mean, that's just the way
Speaker 2: what was for me. Everybody gets a turn, everybody and
Speaker 2: it's their turn. And if you know how to fix
Speaker 2: shit like that, and you don't, you're a dick.
Speaker 1: Speaking of dick's, I was checking out the website for
Speaker 1: the new place Quarreras, and I noticed, like, because if
Speaker 1: you put it in Google, it pops up and then
Speaker 1: it has Google reviews. And he had a few reviews
Speaker 1: and then you had one guy give you a three star. Now,
Speaker 1: why you beef with Gary Ramirez? You know he put
Speaker 1: his name out there, so I'll almost say it, but
Speaker 1: you're like, nah, that dude, never heard of him, never
Speaker 1: been to our place, you know, Like, what the hell, man,
Speaker 1: there's some dicks.
Speaker 2: Out there, because there is no Gary Ramirez. See if
Speaker 2: you look at it, you'll see he's never posted anything ever,
Speaker 2: He's never He's a ghost. It's a created account. So
Speaker 2: what typically happens here is I came back right and
Speaker 2: destabilized everybody here.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: They all think that because they're all half full, that
Speaker 2: I've taken the rest of their business and nothing could
Speaker 2: be further from the truth. They just don't know why
Speaker 2: they're empty. And the reason they're empty is because a
Speaker 2: couple things number one, Number one, they're empty because it's
Speaker 2: hard to advertise on Google anymore. People don't know how
Speaker 2: to do it. I went ahead and did it the
Speaker 2: old way and donkey it off one hundred and eighty
Speaker 2: thousand of my most favorite dollars in two months. I
Speaker 2: didn't get one client that used to get me eighteen clients,
Speaker 2: so I was pretty scared and I had to figure
Speaker 2: it out. But I figured it out because I have
Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty employees and I'm not going to fail, right,
Speaker 2: So I figured it out. But it cost me a
Speaker 2: fortune to figure it out. Not everybody has. Not everybody
Speaker 2: stupid enough to donkey off all their cash to figure
Speaker 2: something out, Okay, but I have no respect for none.
Speaker 2: So I just like to build things. So we're going
Speaker 2: to build it. And so that's one. The second thing
Speaker 2: is when I left in twenty eighteen, you are getting
Speaker 2: paid about sixty seven cents on the dollar for every
Speaker 2: dollar you build. Today it's twenty five cents on the dollar.
Speaker 2: That's right before when I left, the average length of
Speaker 2: stay was just over twenty seven days. Today it's about
Speaker 2: twenty three days. So you know they're not approving more time.
Speaker 2: They're paying you sixty percent less. And if you're working
Speaker 2: on a twenty five or thirty percent margin like most
Speaker 2: of these places are, now, you're losing thirty cents on
Speaker 2: the dollar every month and you're slowly going out of business.
Speaker 2: The people in treatment don't understand that. They don't get
Speaker 2: it until it's too late, because census in the treatment
Speaker 2: industry goes up and down. It's not a regular thing.
Speaker 2: It goes up and down, so they just think it's
Speaker 2: a downturn, and then the downturn never goes back up,
Speaker 2: and before you know it, you can't make payroll in
Speaker 2: thirty six hours. And that's why I bought one method,
Speaker 2: because they couldn't make payroll. So these are the two
Speaker 2: reasons why people are struggling, the two major reasons. I mean,
Speaker 2: labor costs went way up after the pandemic. Nobody wanted
Speaker 2: to work. Now everybody works, and they have to be
Speaker 2: taught how to You know, everything when you don't do
Speaker 2: something for a while, at atrophies right, so you know,
Speaker 2: they have to be coached up and everything again, and
Speaker 2: that's why people are failing right now. And just to
Speaker 2: illustrate that, when I left and sold Cliffside in eighteen,
Speaker 2: there were eighteen thousand treatment centers in the country. At
Speaker 2: the end of last year. When I started again, it
Speaker 2: was twelve thousand and change by the end of this
Speaker 2: and eighty five percent of that happened in twenty twenty three.
Speaker 2: Now cut to this year. I guarantee that by the
Speaker 2: end of the year, when the numbers come out in
Speaker 2: January or February or whenever they come out, I can
Speaker 2: tell you now that there's going to be under ten
Speaker 2: thousand treatment centers. They're all going out of business. They
Speaker 2: can't figure it out. You know. It's one thing to
Speaker 2: have insurance contracts so that you know what you're going
Speaker 2: to be getting right and you can provide the treatment
Speaker 2: that you need to provide. It's another thing to not
Speaker 2: know how to get clients. You're not paid a certain amount.
Speaker 2: I get it, they're not staying as long. I get it.
Speaker 2: That just means you need more clients, you need more volume. Well,
Speaker 2: that's the hardest thing to do right in this business.
Speaker 2: If you don't if you don't have those two things,
Speaker 2: you're in trouble right now.
Speaker 1: First of one I went to treatment was out in California.
Speaker 1: I don't remember the name of the place. I don't know,
Speaker 1: and it was in LA Well, the first one. They
Speaker 1: sent me to some Palm Springs and they had their website.
Speaker 1: It looked pretty thought, man, okay, this sounds good. So
Speaker 1: I fly out there and what it actually was was
Speaker 1: a motel six that they had converted into a treatment center.
Speaker 1: And I get out there and I was like, you
Speaker 1: know what, you did this to yourself. You're gonna have
Speaker 1: to just suck it up. And the guy tell it,
Speaker 1: throws me some some sheets and says, you know how
Speaker 1: to make a bed and I say, yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: know how to make a bed. And he's like, well,
Speaker 1: here you go, you're in that room. So I go
Speaker 1: in this room and I was the only one in
Speaker 1: the room, but there were two other people coming that
Speaker 1: that night apparently, And so I picked the bed that
Speaker 1: I wanted and I looked down at it and it
Speaker 1: was a very thin mattress and there were bloodstains on it,
Speaker 1: and I was again, you know, you did this to yourself.
Speaker 1: You know you got to suck it up. So I
Speaker 1: make the bed and then I lay there and I
Speaker 1: started thinking, like, this is an all men's facility. You know,
Speaker 1: if it was a women's facility, I can say, Okay,
Speaker 1: the monthly thing happens. But then I started thinking, I'm like,
Speaker 1: this is a men's facility. Like somebody get stabbed in
Speaker 1: this motherfucker, you know, Like what is going on? Dope?
Speaker 1: I was like, what the fuck is going So I'm
Speaker 1: like I'm laying there more and I'm still trying to
Speaker 1: like tough myself through it, like you put yourself in.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, you know what, I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: gonna do this, you know, I don't think this is
Speaker 1: gonna work for me. So I go out and I
Speaker 1: started to walk to the office and let him know
Speaker 1: like this isn't this isn't where I need to be
Speaker 1: and this is not what your website look like. And
Speaker 1: this dude walks up and he's like, yo, man, you've
Speaker 1: got a cigarette, you know, And I was like, well, sure,
Speaker 1: just don't you know, have sex with me when I'm
Speaker 1: not looking here you go. So I get some cigarettes
Speaker 1: and I watched in office. I'm like, yeah, this isn't working,
Speaker 1: you know. I was like, I gotta go and they're like, I, well,
Speaker 1: you're gonna owe us for this, you know, and it
Speaker 1: was like thirty grand or something. I was like, this
Speaker 1: is a what we call false advertising, and I would
Speaker 1: love to see a bill for this because I'm not
Speaker 1: paying you guys nothing. And they're like, all right, get out.
Speaker 1: I'm like, well, can you guys call me a cab
Speaker 1: and they're like nope. They just threw me right out
Speaker 1: in the street. Arion Palm Springs and I call this
Speaker 1: guy who called himself a recovery treatment coordinator and he
Speaker 1: kept telling me, man, I'm not getting paid anything for this.
Speaker 1: I'm not getting he was making sure, you know. And
Speaker 1: I'm like, that's the first thing a liar tells me.
Speaker 1: I'm not a liar. I've had people say that to
Speaker 1: me and I'm like, okay, well you're a liar then, dude,
Speaker 1: because we all lie about something and for you just
Speaker 1: to say that right off the rip, you know, I
Speaker 1: think you're a liar. But I call him up and
Speaker 1: I'm like, dude, what's up? So then they send me
Speaker 1: to La. This dude drives down to get me, brings
Speaker 1: me to LA. I was staying in this house it's
Speaker 1: called the Orange House. It was in the West Hollywood
Speaker 1: or something, and that was crazy, man, my first experience.
Speaker 1: And I go through this whole intake process and the
Speaker 1: lady's telling me that I need to be on some
Speaker 1: kind of medication and I was like, but I just
Speaker 1: want to quit drinking, and she was like, no, we
Speaker 1: need to put you on something because we need to
Speaker 1: charge your insurance company for it. And when she said
Speaker 1: that to me, and for the next probably three years,
Speaker 1: I did not trust anybody, right, I thought they were
Speaker 1: all for the money. And then eventually, you know, I
Speaker 1: get out of radio, I don't have insurance. I'm on Medicaid.
Speaker 1: So then you got to be bounced around through the
Speaker 1: state places, which some are okay, some aren't, but it's
Speaker 1: still maybe never trust them. And now, like I kind
Speaker 1: of laugh about it now because I'm like, oh, that
Speaker 1: place was early after my Medicaid money, because you know,
Speaker 1: Medicaid they don't pay shit, you know, Like, but now
Speaker 1: I look about it, it is kind of funny. But
Speaker 1: that first experience, and that's why when we have people,
Speaker 1: because what we do is we take people to them
Speaker 1: from treatment. We have a recovery community center where we
Speaker 1: let people host their own meetings. If you want to
Speaker 1: play with tonka trucks, bring them in. Let's go that.
Speaker 1: If that can keep you sober, if you can build
Speaker 1: a community and you can have fun doing it, let's
Speaker 1: do it. We don't have one of those meetings yet,
Speaker 1: but we do have art, we have music. I mean,
Speaker 1: we let them pick whatever they want, you know. But
Speaker 1: that treatment thing, you know, taking people to them from
Speaker 1: treatment when they have no other way to get there
Speaker 1: is huge, and we use recovery coaches to do it.
Speaker 1: We have great conversations and sometimes we're driving all over
Speaker 1: the state. You know, we're in northern Michigan, we drive
Speaker 1: to Detroit, you know, it's four hour trip, you know,
Speaker 1: and we're just talking. There's nothing we're selling this person
Speaker 1: in the back seat, you know, and it becomes a
Speaker 1: natural conversation and that is such a huge advantage for people.
Speaker 1: And we're hoping to get some funny so we can
Speaker 1: like track that and actually report that to the state
Speaker 1: because you know, they all they love the numbers, so
Speaker 1: you got to give them the numbers, and you know,
Speaker 1: the funding to track that stuff would be nice. But
Speaker 1: there's some grants out there and we're doing what we can.
Speaker 1: But it's such a huge thing, and the state looks
Speaker 1: at it like, oh, well, you've just given transportation. They
Speaker 1: say you can't bill for recovery coaching and gas mileage
Speaker 1: because that's double dipping. And I'm like, those are two
Speaker 1: different services, man, you know, and some of that stuff
Speaker 1: can be very frustrating.
Speaker 2: But companies, just so you know, are built okay to
Speaker 2: take money in and not let money out. The next
Speaker 2: insurance company that gives a shit about you will be
Speaker 2: the first. As far as you know, the bad actors
Speaker 2: in our industry, there's a shit ton of them. There
Speaker 2: are more bad actors, I would argue than not. That's
Speaker 2: a horrible state of affairs for treatment in this country.
Speaker 2: But you know it's true. And the client facing people
Speaker 2: that work in it treatment center, the therapists in particular,
Speaker 2: are generally very good souls. Now, whether or not they
Speaker 2: have the ability to help anybody is debatable. I think
Speaker 2: only about certainly in the single digits, and I would
Speaker 2: argue two or three percent of the people that actually
Speaker 2: work in treatment centers have the ability to help anybody.
Speaker 2: But or a real alcoholic like me, somebody who came
Speaker 2: in had a back surgery and took pills for a
Speaker 2: couple months or three months or six months or whatever
Speaker 2: it is, and it's got them right. They don't have
Speaker 2: it because they're physically dependent. That's one thing. Okay, anybody
Speaker 2: can do that, but the owners. But they're generally kind
Speaker 2: souls and they're certainly not going to hurt anybody, and
Speaker 2: they're going to just time matters, right, So they're going
Speaker 2: to help people based on that. They'll meet people they
Speaker 2: connect to, they'll have a therapeutic alliance that they'll meet
Speaker 2: friends there for support. That's all good. But the people
Speaker 2: who are shitty are generally the ownership. And there's nothing
Speaker 2: worse than Florida. People will call me and say, you know,
Speaker 2: I don't want to come to La you know, you
Speaker 2: know there's this place in Florida, and like, hold on,
Speaker 2: go to Georgia, go anywhere. Okay, literally anywhere but Florida.
Speaker 2: Because there's so many bad actors in Florida. You don't
Speaker 2: know who's righteous and who isn't. This is the home
Speaker 2: of pill mills, where they were selling pill mills pills
Speaker 2: in parking lots of fast food restaurants. This is the
Speaker 2: beginning of the labs where you know, you take a
Speaker 2: cup of urine and you charge thirty nine hundred bucks
Speaker 2: for it, and they do it. I mean, these guys
Speaker 2: did it three times a day, so they're making twelve
Speaker 2: ten grand, you know, after some cuts, they're making ten
Speaker 2: grand aday just on piss. I mean they're in the
Speaker 2: piss business. They're not in the treatment business. Now they
Speaker 2: cut a lot of that down, so now you're not
Speaker 2: getting paid on any of that. I mean I didn't
Speaker 2: have a lab until like twenty sixteen, two years before
Speaker 2: I sold cliff Side. Everyone was charging thirty eight ninety five,
Speaker 2: thirty nine, twenty five, whatever it was, And we were
Speaker 2: charging five hundred and seventy seven dollars because I just
Speaker 2: wanted to make certain that and I had an opinion
Speaker 2: letter from an attorney that said I could charge seven fifty.
Speaker 2: But I didn't even think that was right. I think
Speaker 2: you could make one hundred dollars testing somebody twice a week,
Speaker 2: and that was enough cushion for me to where I
Speaker 2: wouldn't lose money. I don't want to make any money.
Speaker 2: I just didn't want to lose money. But I did
Speaker 2: want to know who the hell was loaded in my place,
Speaker 2: and not wait a week to find out. I wanted
Speaker 2: to know in you know, a couple of hours, because
Speaker 2: we gave a shit about our people. But the owners
Speaker 2: are usually the worst man. They just are. And it's
Speaker 2: not because they start out being bad people. Maybe they don't,
Speaker 2: but you have a bunch of employees and you have
Speaker 2: the stress of it, and you just, you know, you
Speaker 2: take shortcuts, like not giving people back their money after
Speaker 2: being there a day when they're you know, they were
Speaker 2: lured there under false pretenses. And it's even worse than that.
Speaker 2: You know, they have something called the Florida shuffle right
Speaker 2: where you know you got. They'll take in somebody with
Speaker 2: great insurance or cash. The guy leaves the insurance company,
Speaker 2: stop stops paying, the parents, stop paying whatever it is.
Speaker 2: They leave, a girl, a hot girl is there right
Speaker 2: to meet them, takes them, pumps them full of cocaine
Speaker 2: and benzos and alcohol opiates, you know, so that they're
Speaker 2: poly substance users, right. That means that they use a
Speaker 2: ton of shit, right, and a ton of different shit,
Speaker 2: and then they I'm back and they tell the parents
Speaker 2: you know, oh he's fucked up again. We need the help.
Speaker 2: Or he tells the insurance company. I'm sorry, you know,
Speaker 2: it didn't hold, didn't take. And that's the kind of
Speaker 2: stuff that they do. They do the body brokering where
Speaker 2: they're buying clients, all this stuff where they take their
Speaker 2: breaks on the front end, you know what I mean,
Speaker 2: and they apologize for it later, and it's based out
Speaker 2: of necessity for these people a lot of times more
Speaker 2: than it is greed.
Speaker 1: It'll make you angry.
Speaker 2: No, No, because I think I have a different outlook
Speaker 2: on life. You know, I was typically a child. I
Speaker 2: believed that, you know, our government representatives gave a shit
Speaker 2: about us. I believe that they had the intestinal fortitude
Speaker 2: to deal with major problems like homelessness and encampments and
Speaker 2: you know, gun control and all that other shit. You know,
Speaker 2: nobody's taking anybody's fucking guns. I mean, what the fuck.
Speaker 2: There's more guns in this nation by miles than there
Speaker 2: are people. Okay, good luck with that, always taking anybody's guns.
Speaker 2: But do you really need a gun with a magazine
Speaker 2: that can take out twenty one kids in five minutes?
Speaker 2: Twenty one first graders? Really that's what you need. So
Speaker 2: when you talk about people body broke ying and doing
Speaker 2: that other shit with these women, and everything. It's depressing,
Speaker 2: but I've learned to live with my disappointment. It's sad.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'm disappointed, you know, and I'm doing the
Speaker 2: best I can to, you know, get a foot in
Speaker 2: the door. I may be on a commission for the
Speaker 2: VA to where I me and this commission go and
Speaker 2: we talk to the city Council and we make recommendations
Speaker 2: on stuff like this. You know, they're not going to listen.
Speaker 2: They don't give a fuck. But we're going to do this,
Speaker 2: and we're going to go We're going to exhaust all
Speaker 2: our legislative remedies. We're gon we're going to do this
Speaker 2: one and we're going to do that one, and I'm
Speaker 2: going to learn about it. A good friend of mine
Speaker 2: will be the district attorney on November fifth. He's going
Speaker 2: to beat the shit out of this freak gascon because
Speaker 2: he's a good man. So the encampment's done. The smashing
Speaker 2: grabs where you run into a place and steal nine
Speaker 2: hundred and ninety five dollars with a shit and traumatize
Speaker 2: everybody in the store, and the knockover old ladies and
Speaker 2: mothers with strollers and shit and traumatize all the employees
Speaker 2: that's done this ventanyl thing. Okay, they're going to start
Speaker 2: prosecuting for that. You know. I've been running a PSA
Speaker 2: up in Sacramento to shame these folks to pass something
Speaker 2: called Alexandra's Law, which is basically just a traffic ticket,
Speaker 2: and it basically what it says is, okay, drug dealer,
Speaker 2: this is your one get out of jail free card.
Speaker 2: But the next time you're fucked. And that can't pass.
Speaker 2: It can't pass because the Democrats won't pass it. And
Speaker 2: I'm not a Democrat. I'm not a Republican. I'm the
Speaker 2: adult in the room. I'm in the middle. I love
Speaker 2: my Republican brothers and sisters. I love my Democrat brothers
Speaker 2: and sisters. I just don't like the crazies on each
Speaker 2: end of the poll. Let's not do crazy. Let's get
Speaker 2: back to common sense, take care of each other, do
Speaker 2: right by everyone, and leave this place better than we
Speaker 2: found it. Okay, there's nothing to get here, there's only
Speaker 2: to give. That's childlike thinking because people aren't acting like that.
Speaker 2: They're too self interested and too polarized due to social media.
Speaker 2: These are problems that we've got right now, and they
Speaker 2: lead into and overlap into our areas.
Speaker 1: Thanks again Richard Tate for joining me on the program.
Speaker 1: For more on Richard Tate, Google them It's Taie.
Speaker 2: Thanks for listening to the two seventeen Recovery podcast. Listen
Speaker 2: to over nine hundred episodes on the two seventeen Recovery
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Speaker 2: two seventeen recovery dot com.