41: Michele Ryan share her journey of change: Abstinence based thinking to the benefits of Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT).
“Community heals addiction… addiction hates community.” -Michele Ryan
The pain when you see your loved ones suffer from addiction is indescribable. The pain when you can’t help them because you are going through it yourself is even worse. While you have exhausted all your means and energy to get rid of your situation, you seem to be digging deeper down that abyss. The problem? You were fighting the battle alone. But you don’t have to. Michele Ryan, the Program Director at Behavioral Health Group in Longmont, learned that from experience. Tied up in the chains of addiction for many years and eventually watching her son fall into the same trap, made her feel like she was in a dense, dark forest with no way out. Allow her to share her own recovery journey and how the community has helped her along the way.
“Addiction is not a moral failing… it’s a brain disease.” (Jeff Jones) The problem sometimes, is when people think that it isn’t. Then, medication is left out of the picture. This becomes problematic soon when overconfidence takes over, leading the person to believe the greatest lie: One won’t hurt- one drink, one pill. And then eventually, you’re caught in the same trap again. But, all of these can be avoided with the right perspective and a healthy dose of medication. Learn more about Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT) and its benefits as opposed to Abstinence-based Approach. Many are skeptical about this but it’s also good to know the common misconceptions on MAT before disregarding it entirely. Also, consider the factors that contribute to its effectiveness. There is however, one area which MAT cannot reach yet: the Meth epidemic. Known by many names, Meth is spreading like a wildfire and is affecting many people at any age, anywhere around the globe. Get a hint on this deathly plague from today’s podcast. The truth however is, it’s not only Meth or any other drugs or alcohol. There are a lot, in fact, anything can be addictive to a person overwhelmed with pain and sorrows. You were alone when your problems drowned you down. But this time, it’s up to you to reach your hand out. This episode can be your guide on how to do that. Surely a good pair of sympathetic ears and a warm pair of hands can lift you up.
Highlights:
02:38 Medicating Addiction
04:23 Michele: 20 Years in Recovery
06:29 Medically Assisted Treatment (MAT)
09:21 Misconceptions on MAT
13:01 Factors for Efficacy of MAT
16:26 Finding Help
20:04 The Biggest Lie: One Won’t Hurt
22:44 The Meth Epidemic
Abstinence Approach vs. #MAT … Addiction is a disease for which there is a cure! Listen in as @TFRSolution interviews Michele Ryan on her recovery journey. This could be the end of your sufferings! Share on X
Connect With Michele
Email: Michele.ryan@bhgrecovery.com
Telephone: 303-345-0123
Quotes:
12:14 “One of the things that I’m hearing then is that there are people that can take methadone for the rest of their life, and it will keep them safe. And it will allow them to get their children back, get their life back, and to contribute in the world and in ways that they want to.” –Jeff Jones, synthesizing concepts on MAT
15:34 “It helped me to continue to love my kids, and not love their disease, I was able to separate them as a human being from their disease and continue to love them without enabling them.” –Michele Ryan
16:19 “I couldn’t do it on my own, because my own natural instincts were to continue to buffer their fall.” -Michele Ryan
19:08 “Relating to someone else is such a huge first step… Because it’s, it’s easy to become isolated here.” –Jeff Jones
19:26 “For me, that isolation is what was the most painful part of this process.” -Michele Ryan
19:46 “Community heals addiction… addiction hates community.” -Michele Ryan
20:04 “The disease in our brain wants us to… believe the lies that we believe, that we tell ourselves: ‘one won’t hurt.’ ” -Michele Ryan
20:43 “One of the things that I know about addiction, or the one of the ways that I talk about it is it impairs the brain of the individual, but it also impairs the thinking of those around them, specifically, family members.” –Jeff Jones
20:21 “Addiction is not a moral failing… it’s a brain disease.” –Jeff Jones
27:27 “I can’t tell you how important it is to connect to other people that are going through what you’re going through. It saved my life. It changed my life for me.” -Michele Ryan
28:39 “And the biggest takeaway I can tell you is if you’re going to try to do it alone, it’s going to take longer, much longer.”-Michele Ryan
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions
This episode of Families Navigating Addiction and Recovery is sponsored by The Family Recovery Solution where we recognize that families are the biggest stakeholder in this addiction crisis. And we see that families can be a stronger part of the solution in their own family, in their communities, and in our world. We know that addiction in the family is not the fault of the family. We know that family engagement increases the potential of change happening sooner and positive outcomes lasting longer, as well as navigating healing connections in the family now and well into the future. So we’ve created an online platform for families to safely navigate this journey at their pace. Check out www.thefamilyrecoverysolution.com
JEFF: So today on Families Navigating Addiction and Recovery Podcast, I have a guest that I have known for quite some time, Michele Ryan. She is a clinical director at Behavioral Health Group in Longmont and I also know her from Boulder County opioid advisory board. And so, I asked Michele to come on here today to talk about her experiences with Medically Assisted Treatment, which is what the Behavioral Health Group is all about and it’s essentially Methadone and Suboxone and Vivitrol and she’ll talk more about that. But thank you very much for being here today.
MICHELE: Yes.
JEFF: Yeah. So if we could start Michele, and if you could talk a little bit about who you are so people here kind of start to get a flavor of who Michele Ryan is.
MICHELE: Okay. Will do.
JEFF: Yeah.
MICHELE: Like Jeff mentioned, I am the program director of a Medically Assisted Treatment center in Longmont. And we are, purpose is to help people recover from the effects of their opioid use disorder. And that’s all clinical words, but what that means is people that are no longer able to stop using opiates such as Heroin or Oxycontin or pain medication, they become addicted to it. And what we do is help them recover from that addiction by using medication such as Methadone, Buprenorphine, which is also known as Suboxone. And another drug called Vivitrol, which is a shot that they get once a month and it acts like Suboxone. Suboxone is a medication that people take every day and it blocks the receptor from accepting any other opiates into the system. Vivitrol does the same thing, only they get a shot once a month. And then Methadone is a medication that partially or fully blocks the receptor, but it doesn’t, I mean it fully fills the receptor, but it doesn’t block the receptor on the brain. And all three medications are approved by the FDA. Methadone happens to be the one that has had the most experience, has been around the longest.
JEFF: Right. Yeah. Thank you. And so, could you talk a little bit about yourself and who you are so people have a sense of.
MICHELE: Yes. So, and I personally am in recovery from my substance use disorder, which happens to be alcohol in my case. I’ve been in recovery for over 20 years, and I also have a son that is a victim of the opioid use disorder. He’s also an alcoholic, but he’s also a heroin addict that happens to be in recovery today. And I have a lot of experience with the ends and outs of trying to get him treatment and trying to not enable him to continue his drug use based on my actions.
JEFF: Yeah. Which that’s a huge challenge, I’m sure.
MICHELE: Yes. Yes. It is, I can’t do that alone. I reached out for help with that and the most beneficial help I ever received was from Al-Anon.
JEFF: Aha. Yeah.
MICHELE: A group of people that understand what it’s like and it’s a place where you can talk about it and get solutions and get –
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: – and that’s been the most helpful thing in my entire life with my children.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah. So I just want to underline that in this conversation, you’re coming to this with your own experience of 20 years of being in recovery and being the mom to your son who he’s in recovery too. It sounds like, and you’ve, it sounds like you are still in some process of how do I not enable him and how do I support him staying in recovery? And then also you’re bringing your knowledge and wisdom of being an addiction professional.
MICHELE: Correct. Yes.
JEFF: Yeah – yeah. So, with the Medically Assisted Treatment thing, can you talk a little bit about like before Medically Assisted Treatment was available and just your own path to it and on understanding and that kind of thing?
MICHELE: Yes. So about 10 years ago, I changed my career and got into substance use disorder, helping people with substance use disorder. And I started out in an abstinence based type of process where the belief was that you have to be totally off of all drugs to be considered to be clean or drug free.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: And then I had an opportunity to meet some people that were taking Methadone and getting their lives back. And that changed my perception about abstinence based recovery versus medically assisted recovery. And my experience is that especially the opioid use disorder patient or person has, because of the withdrawals are so intense, most people do not use heroin or overtake their pain pills because they’re trying to get high. Most people take that medication so that they don’t feel sick. And what the medication that we give at the Behavioral Health Group does is it satisfies the brain so that, but it doesn’t get them high, it just allows them to not get sick and to return to a somewhat a normal life again. And once they’re strong enough, once the brain is healed enough and once they developed a really strong support system, then they can get off of the medication that we offer, slowly. And they go on with their lives. So, what helped me change my mind about that is talking to the people that actually are using the medication for the purpose of bettering their lives.
JEFF: Yeah – yeah. Thank you. So that was a change process for you kind of being in an abstinence based program and then meeting people who started doing Methadone to help them heal their brain and still feel well.
MICHELE: Yes.
JEFF: And, I mean this change process that you just mentioned there to me seemed so important because there’s still quite a bit of stigma out there. And I think about like AA groups or something like that.
MICHELE: Yeah.
JEFF: And they’re not all the same. And, you know, I’ve heard some people can, like say if you are on Methadone, you’re just exchanging one drug for another or something. Can you talk about your change process from that kind of thinking?
MICHELE: Yeah. Well, the change process happened when I started talking to people that were actually using the medication to get off opiates. And how, and, you know, they talked in depth to me about how it changed their lives. I mean, they had lost everything. Their children, their jobs, their homes, their cars, everything was lost to these people that were just trying not to get sick. And how they were trying not to get sick was illegal. They had to go buy drugs on the street –
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: – to not get sick. And then once they were able to get into a treatment center that offered this medication, they were able to get, they showed me that they got their jobs back, their car back, their children back, their relationships back. I have in fact a patient that has been on Methadone for 35 years.
JEFF: Oh my gosh!
MICHELE: And he doesn’t intend on ever getting off of Methadone. And he doesn’t have to. It is the catalyst is keeping him safe from using illicit drugs again and it’s allowing him to maintain his lifestyle, which he was able to get back. And physically it’s not any, there’s no danger in him taking methadone. You can take Methadone all your life that won’t hurt you. There’s a miss, no more out there that Methadone eats your bones, that’s not true. None of that is true. And, you know, it would be just like a diabetic needing insulin for the rest of their life. You wouldn’t tell a diabetic: “Yeah, you got to get off that insulin man.”
JEFF: Yeah.
MICHELE: You got to just start eating right and get off that insulin.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: So, it’s along those same lines with people on Methadone. However, with that said, I’ve also talked to people that got on Methadone or Suboxone, got their lives back together and then slowly weaned off of the medication assisted treatment and are doing great. They moved on with their lives and what the difference between the people that get on Methadone or on Medically Assisted Treatment and then get off of Medically Assisted Treatment are and be successful is the people that develop a strong support system outside of the medication and outside of the treatment center. Meaning they have friends that don’t use drugs or have to drink to party or they found other things in life that excited them other than the medication. Those people have been successful.
JEFF: Yeah. I really want to like underline and put in bold what you just said there because I think that’s so important. I mean, one of the things that I’m hearing then is that there are people that can take, you know, Methadone for the rest of their life and it will keep them safe and it will allow them to get their children back, get their life back and to contribute in the world in ways that they want to and they can still continue doing Methadone to support them doing that. And then there’s this other group of people where they can get on it for a period of time and then do the hard work of changing their lifestyle and building a support system around them. And that can take, you know, anywhere from many months to many years –
MICHELE: Correct. Absolutely. Mmhhmm, yeah.
JEFF: – kind of thing. Yeah. So I mean, Michele, is there anything that you see that like how come some people can do this and some can’t?
MICHELE: Well, again, it depends on, it’s more than just taking the pill or taking the shot. It’s about the persons, I mean there’s mental health issues that might come into play. Trauma might come into play. So, what in my experience with not only the patients that I currently help, but my own son is that there are dual diagnosis. So, both issues need to be addressed simultaneously is the best way to put it and that’s hard to find. It’s hard to find help for people that have dual diagnosis. And what I mean by dual diagnosis is they might have bipolar for instance, and a substance use disorder. And if you treat the substance use disorder and don’t treat the bipolar, the bipolar mental health issue may encourage relapse and back and forth.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah. And so from the family’s standpoint and very early on, is there some things that would be helpful for families to know or do to, you know, maybe start planting seeds for their loved one to, I mean, for them to accept validity and research that is out there for this?
MICHELE: Well, I can only speak from my own experience in that regard because I, you know, I read everything and I begged anybody that would listen to me to help me with what was going on with, I have two boys and one of them is an alcoholic and one of them is a heroin addict. And this started when they were very young and I couldn’t get anybody to help me. Nobody knew what to do. And finally, as a last resort, I went to an Al-Anon meeting. I don’t know why it’s so hard for people to get into an Al-Anon meeting. I was just like everybody else. I did everything but reach out for help in that direction. And once I started going to an Al Anon meeting and I got connected with parents that were having the same kind of issues, it helped me to continue to love my kids and not love their disease. I was able to separate them as a human being from their disease and continue to love them without enabling them. So, I no longer had to give them money, because I was giving them money because I didn’t want them to steal. I didn’t want them to go to jail. So I was buffering this, the natural consequences.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: And Al-Anon helped me see, help me detach from that and be able to be okay with that, knowing that, this give them permission to love them anyway and not love their disease. I was able to do that with their health, however, I couldn’t do it on my own because my own natural instincts were to continue to buffer their fall.
JEFF: Right. Yeah – yeah. Well, so, and just from what you know then Michele, are there some things that you could say in addition that may help family members kind of take that first step to go to Al-Anon?
MICHELE: Yeah. Well, Al-Anon for me it was free and I didn’t have any money.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: I had to go to Al-Anon and, you know, I don’t know, my experience in life has been that group therapy of any kind has always been the most beneficial change agent for me in my own life. But there are also independent counselors that you can go to that can help you, help us see through the trees, we’re in the middle of the forest, and we need help. I needed help seeing through the trees and any help I can get. So, you know, if you can afford it and you can find individual counseling, specifically with the addictions specialty counselor.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: I would highly recommend that. There are also, you could go to your, if you’re religious, you can go to your churches. Some churches have their own systems of helping families with this issue because it’s worldwide and it’s not discriminatory.
JEFF: Right – right.
MICHELE: Right? So, I have friends that I’ve met along the way that have relied on their church and their connections to the church to help them get through it.
JEFF: Yeah.
MICHELE: Yeah, that kind of stuff. Yeah.
JEFF: Yeah. So, I mean one of the things that I have seen that can be so beneficial early on, and you talked about a number of ways that it can manifest, but that is just connecting, like human connection. And with other people that are in similar situations and they know what I’m talking about, they’ve been there kind of thing and that human connection, I think, you know, my sense of it and just from doing groups and stuff is kind of watching people’s body language. And when someone across the room starts telling a story about their situation and then seeing other people kind of relax and nod their head and, you know, kind of walk down at the floor and it just like that kind of like really relating to someone else is such a huge first step, you know.
MICHELE: Yeah. It really does help us not feel all alone.
JEFF: Right. Absolutely. Because it’s easy to become isolated here.
MICHELE: So easy. It’s so easy. And it’s so, for me that isolation is what was the most painful part of this process for me. It’s dark in there all alone.
JEFF: And it’s almost like the addiction thrives on that and can have a hay day with isolation.
MICHELE: Yeah. You know that my new motto in life is Community Heals Addiction and Addiction Hates Community. [laughing]
JEFF: [laughing] Addiction hates community.
MICHELE: That’s right. Our brain, the disease in our brain wants us to isolate. It wants us to believe the lies that we believe that we tell ourselves. One won’t hurt. Oh, I’m just going to give them the money this time and then he’s going to get better. And if I do one drink, if I take one drink, nobody’s going to know and I’m only going to take one.
JEFF: Yeah – yeah. So Michele, that’s such an important point that you talk about there and you talked about it from the standpoint of, you know, the individual with the addiction, but then also from the parent, it’s okay if I give them money. So, it’s like one of the things that I know about addiction, or one of the ways that I talk about it is it impairs the brain of the individual, but it also impairs the thinking of those around them, specifically family members and that, you know, kind of like being in a group of likeminded people who can tell their own story, talk about their own thinking distortions can be such a wonderful opportunity to, you know, get a reality check on one’s own thinking.
MICHELE: Absolutely. It is a healing environment.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: Even if you don’t want it to be, you get help that heal when you’re around others that understand where you’re coming from.
JEFF: Yeah. Wow. So that sounds like, you know, something that I really hope people take away from, you know, that you get help from other people around you in your own healing process.
MICHELE: Yeah.
JEFF: Yeah. And then when we spoke earlier, I asked you about what you would like people to kind of take away from this and, you know, one of the things was that treatment, like letting people know treatment is available for people. And specifically with opiate treatment is available and that, you know, addiction is not a moral failing. Actually, addiction is all around us and it’s a brain disease. And then the other thing that I really don’t know a lot about that I would like to hear your perspective of and that is the Meth epidemic and what you see happening there.
MICHELE: Okay. Yeah. So recently, you know, I’ve been involved in the opioid advisory group in Boulder County. And we’ve actually renamed the group to Substance Use Advisory Group and that we’re talking about the meth epidemic now because everybody that’s taking or following this statistics let’s say, are saying that their people are using meth more now than they are opiates. And the fear is that we don’t know what meth is cut with and a product that’s out there that people are using it and, you know, meth makes people feel good. They get a really good high euphoria that lasts for 12 hours at a time. And it makes them feel like they can do anything and that they’re smarter and stronger and they have more energy. And then when they come down off the Methamphetamine, they feel really tired and really sleepy and really sick and they can’t get their energy back. So, they do meth again to get their energy back. And the interesting thing that I’ve learned recently is that Methamphetamine use covers up all the withdrawal symptoms of anything else. So if heroin addicts can’t get ahold of their heroin, they’ll do Meth because it masks the effects of withdrawal, so we have that going on too.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: And as of right now, there is no quick fix for a Methamphetamine addict to go into treatment with, there’s no Medically Assisted Treatment available for methamphetamine. The only way to get off of meth is to be totally abstinent from it. And I think right now people are trying to develop treatment modalities specifically designed to help people with methamphetamine, but that’s still in the baby stages of it.
JEFF: Right.
MICHELE: My own experience, I had, both my boys did Methamphetamine as well. They outgrew it. They quit doing it because they didn’t like it anymore. So I know people that have been on Meth for years and years and years. And they do it in different ways. They smoke it. They shoot it. They put it in their veins. They snort it. They do it in all kinds of different ways. So, my message I guess to the people that are suffering with loved ones or yourselves that are suffering with the use of Methamphetamine, is to just remember that it’s brain disorder, not a moral failing and look for what’s going to be on the horizon with that for helping our loved ones get off of Methamphetamine and find a support group, telling you that’s been my experience in life is finding people that have gone through it before me.
JEFF: Right – right. So like right now, how do people currently get off of meth, just abstinence and then support systems.
MICHELE: Yep, that’s it.
JEFF: Yeah.
MICHELE: That’s it. There, you know, doctors of course are looking at this to try to find out if maybe adding an antidepressant to somebodies regimen of medication for a short period of time will fix what the Meth destroy,like Serotonin uptake and Dopamine uptake and all of that. The brain chemicals, and I’m not the person to talk about that because I’m not that, you know, I’m not the medical person to talk about that. Just my own experience has been that they’re talking about it, so that might come down the road, but for right now, the only people that I know that successfully about meth is that they just quit using it. They would sleep for like a week and quit using it and they had to distract their mind from not wanting to go back there.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah. So all just all the behavioral change in one’s schedule and structure and day to day how they do life.
MICHELE: Yeah.
JEFF: Yeah. Yeah – yeah. Wow. Beautiful. So Michele, if you had the ear of every family member who is struggling with a loved one, what would you want them to know?
MICHELE: The biggest takeaway that I can give you is that when I tried to do this alone, I got sicker than my kids did. I was physically sicker than my children. When I finally reached out for help, my life changed. And today, I can’t tell you how important it is to connect to other people that are going through what you’re going through. It saved my life. It changed my life for me.
JEFF: Yeah. Wow. That was pretty loud and clear right there. You know, just to acknowledging that you were physically sick –
MICHELE: Yeah.
JEFF: – from, you know, trying to use the strategies and attempt of being a mom and your attempt was making you physically sick.
MICHELE: Absolutely. I lost weight. Everything. I lost my hair. Lots of stuff happened during that time period.
JEFF: Yeah. Wow. Well, so important. So, anything else that you would like to share before we bring this to a close?
MICHELE: No, I think I’ve shared everything. I mean, I could talk forever on this subject because I love talking about it because I want people to get it. I want people to know that there is a solution and that they don’t have to suffer. That there is a way out of this mire. And the biggest takeaway I can tell you is if you’re going to do it alone, it’s going to take longer, much longer, if ever.
JEFF: If ever. Yeah. If ever. Wow. Wow. Well, thank you very much for the conversation here and the point. And if people wanted to follow up and have conversation with you or connect with you or where you work, would that be okay?
MICHELE: Yes, absolutely. For sure.
JEFF: And how would they do that?
MICHELE: They can contact me at the BHG in Longmont. They can email me, if they want at Michele.ryan@bhgrecovery.com.
JEFF: Okay. And Michele just has one L in there and I know that from experience of putting it.
MICHELE: Well, sorry. Yes, that’s right.
JEFF: That’s okay. Yeah. Well, thank you very much Michele. I appreciate it.
MICHELE: Thank you for having me on Jeff. I appreciate it too.