*SPECIAL EPISODE ALERT!!* In this very special episode, Ashley sits down with Peter Loeb (her father and one of the co-founders of Lionrock Recovery), and together they hash out their story of living through and overcoming her addiction together. Peter shares intimate details of helping Ashley through her journey to recovery, and he also discusses the heartbreaking loss of his sister, Karen. Join us in this heartfelt and sobering episode that beautifully captures the love of a father for his daughter!
#8: SPECIAL EPISODE ALERT!! In this very special episode, Ashley sits down with Peter Loeb (her father and one of the co-founders of Lionrock Recovery), and together they hash out their story of living through and overcoming her addiction together.
Peter shares intimate details of helping Ashley through her journey to recovery, and he also discusses the heartbreaking loss of his sister, Karen. Join us in this heartfelt and sobering episode that beautifully captures the love of a father for his daughter!
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Show Notes:
3:36 - "You're not the boss of me"
4:24 - Ashley clarifies how she got to the Avril Lavigne concert when telling her story in Episode 1
5:25 - Talking about the difficulty of discussing recovery "war stories" as a family member
6:35 - The difference between having a sister battling addiction and a daughter battling addiction
9:32 - Karen Lobster Karen
9:59 - “You were a spirited child…” & self-soothing issues
14:15 - Perceptions
15:15 - Other children to parent, along with having to parent your child in active addiction
18:15 - Like having a burn victim at home
23:08 - Ashley coming home after treatment
24:24 - Ashley’s overdose on heroin in the family home
27:48 - How the overdose changed things
30:32 - What it’s like having a child who is newly sober
33:10 - Telehealth and video conferencing check-ins
35:36 - Dealing with an older boyfriend dating your child in active addiction
39:45 - Never give up
41:13 - Focusing on helping/watching your child build a life in recovery
46:08 - Dedicating your life to fighting addiction (co-founding and running Lionrock Recovery)
52:28 - The difference between an alcoholic’s relationship with alcohol vs. a “normie’s” relationship with alcohol
54:45 - Working with family
1:00:14 - Advice to other parents who are dealing with a child in addiction
The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast would like to thank our sponsor, Lionrock Recovery, for their support. Lionrock Recovery is an online substance abuse counseling program where you can get help for drinking or drug use from the privacy of your own home. For more information, visit http://www.lionrockrecovery.com.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hello, beautiful people. Welcome to The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast. My name is Ashley Loeb Blassingame. I am here to introduce you to our wonderful guest, Peter Loeb. Since 2010, Peter has served as the CEO of Lionrock Recovery, which he co-founded. Joint commission, accredited Lionrock is a pioneer in the provision of telehealth substance use disorder recovery services. Over a nearly four decade career, Peter worked in interactive media and technology development, financial services and energy. Peter's interest in healthcare grew out of his long experience as a close family member of people struggling with substance use disorders, a very nice way to say that he had alcoholics and addicts in his family.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Peter loves rock and funk music, especially Nikka Costa, and frequents many live shows. He has three adult awesome daughters, and has been married for nearly 40 years. He lives in the San Francisco bay area and loves to play him some squash. He also goes by dad, and he is my father. We did this episode because we wanted to introduce another perspective on what it's like to be a member of the family of someone struggling with addiction. Since you heard my story from start to finish, we thought that it would be really cool to have this perspective from the parent over that same period of time. Some really cool things came out, things I didn't know. Peter gets very vulnerable and shares his experience with both me and his sister.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I hope you enjoy this conversation, and you get a better idea that Lionrock Recovery has a altruistic mission, and a little bit about who we are, and what we stand for. With that, episode eight, let's do this. All right.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
This is a special day.
Peter Loeb:
I feel special.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We have a very special guest today here. We have senor Peter Loeb.
Peter Loeb:
I'm your dad.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
He happens to be my dad. So, could get weird. This is very exciting. He's in the podcast booth today. Peter, I do call him Peter because we work together and I'm just used to it. So if that freaks you out, then call your sponsor.
Peter Loeb:
I will call you daughter.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. You will call me queen. Yeah, you told me earlier you had a little frog in your throat-ey.
Peter Loeb:
I do.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Normally, I'm of crystal voice. Crystalline.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Crystalline. Ah, crystalline. Okay. What do you want to talk about today? Just kidding, it's my choice.
Peter Loeb:
Okay.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We grew up together.
Peter Loeb:
Well, yeah, I suppose at this point that's true.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah. And it's been quite a ride. Now we've been working together for almost nine years.
Peter Loeb:
And that's been fun.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Do you enjoy that?
Peter Loeb:
I do, actually.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You're still not the boss of me.
Peter Loeb:
No, but I am, actually.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's in a very unfortunate situation I've put myself in.
Peter Loeb:
For years, you told me-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I am.
Peter Loeb:
I'm not the boss, you're not the boss of me, and-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Now.
Peter Loeb:
Now I am, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Brutal.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Brutal. Well ...
Peter Loeb:
Okay.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. I've been sober for 13 years.
Peter Loeb:
Thank god for that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I got sober January 7th of 2006. During the time before that, the not sober time, you were in charge of my well-being.
Peter Loeb:
Didn't do a very good job of that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How'd that go?
Peter Loeb:
Not so good.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No? Okay. Well, in the first episode, I told my story, which I know you listened to. And, oh my gosh, when I told my story-
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, you didn't remember how you got to the Avril Lavigne concert.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yes. Those of you who've heard my story, when I told my story, I didn't remember, I said I have no idea why I was at this Avril Lavigne concert.
Peter Loeb:
Because I took you there.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And it turns out, yeah. Peter, tell us.
Peter Loeb:
With your youngest sister and a friend of the family's. For all you parents out there, imagine you take two of your kids to a rock concert, and you only go home with one of them. Hey, hey.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Turns out I disappeared, and that's what I remember. I remember from the point of my ex-boyfriend, or my boyfriend at the time, showing up, and me leaving with him. And then of course, the-
Peter Loeb:
What an awful human being he is.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The kidnapping and all that stuff happened from the bar after that. And the night before, I was in the psych ward.
Peter Loeb:
The night before that? No.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Before we went to the concert?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Mm-hmm (affirmative).
Peter Loeb:
Oh. It all blends together.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, yeah.
Peter Loeb:
I think one of the things that is most useful to say is that early on in your recovery, we had to come to terms around how much talk about all this stuff made sense. Because as a person in recovery, you have the disease that tells you you don't have a disease, so you keep it all fresh, so you make sure you don't go back.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
As family members, we have to forget, we have to forget all the horrible things. None of them are funny to us. In fact, that's one of the hard things for me going to meetings with you, which I enjoy doing. But as everyone's telling their war story, and for me, those are traumatic stories. For me, there's nothing funny about them at all. And I want to laugh with everybody else in the room, but I can't. It's been an interesting experience, for those of you out there who may be family members, or ... that dichotomy is very much the case, which is as people in recovery have to keep it alive, people who are loved ones have to put it away.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. And we've talked a lot about that. My mom can barely ...
Peter Loeb:
Oh, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You're more so able to talk about it a lot more so, and she can barely-
Peter Loeb:
She thinks we're crazy to be in this field.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. She really can't go near it. What was it like ... Your sister passed away, my aunt, your sister passed away, Karen, in 2010 from a lifelong battle with addiction. And of course, I battled for many years with this. Can you talk a little bit about what it's like, the difference between maybe having a sister and having a daughter who's battling it? And some of the things that you went through?
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. Well, and I grew up in a household with my sister, who was at the time pretty young, and was struggling with all the things that eventually led to her substance problems being a huge part of her life. But certainly, substances appeared reasonably early. So I experienced it also as a sibling.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Peter Loeb:
So I've experienced it both as a sibling and a parent. I can tell you that sibling is your peer. And you have, particularly when your sibling is an adult, you have an expectation that this person is your peer, and is an adult, and has certain obligations to meet. If that person is not able to be a reasonable guest, or friend, or even relation, you ... it's easier to create boundaries and stick to them.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did you ever have the feeling like, I mean, is the compassion different?
Peter Loeb:
Well, I think it's hard to say also because my first experience with addiction and treatment was when my sister went off to rehab in 1985, which I was part of the process of getting that to happen. At the time, I really knew very little about it. And thought, like most people, that you go to rehab for 30 days and you're good, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. So that compassion had to have been different because you didn't understand what you were dealing with.
Peter Loeb:
Didn't understand what we were dealing with. And of course, by the time we got out to, when I was in my 40s and you had been to rehab a few times, and were struggling with your recovery, I knew a lot more about it of course. And then that was also the period of time when my sister came back into my life because our dad passed away. She sort of fell under my care. But just as a general statement, when it's your child, you'll do anything, just like you would do anything for your child regardless. When it's your sibling, you'll go pretty far, but it's not like when it's your child. Your child, you, you know?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
When you saw me, I mean, when I was little, I remember you comparing me, not in a derogatory way, but just comparing me to Karen. And things I would do, or just dramatic stuff or whatever, rebellious stuff.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. It's funny. Yeah, in [inaudible 00:09:22] respect, I don't actually think you're a lot like Karen. Karen, my sister. You did name yourself Karen.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, this is good.
Peter Loeb:
First, you named yourself Karen, you were four-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Wait, how old? Yeah, okay.
Peter Loeb:
You were four. You named yourself Karen, and you wouldn't answer if we called you Ashley. Then you changed your name to Karen Lobster. So it wasn't enough for us just to say Karen, you had to be Karen Lobster.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Obviously.
Peter Loeb:
But then about a week later, you were Karen Lobster Karen.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Just in case you forgot the Karen in the beginning.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How long did you call me Karen Lobster Karen?
Peter Loeb:
As long as you wanted, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's right, that's right.
Peter Loeb:
You were a spirited child. There were things about you that we didn't identify. And again, I would say to parents out there, if you have a child who has a really hard time calming him or herself down, that is something to look at. That is something to look at.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Self soothing.
Peter Loeb:
Self soothing, yeah, right. That's a pretty big deal.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What did it look like?
Peter Loeb:
Well, we would be piling out of Disneyland after an awful, from my perspective, day of too many sugary drinks, and long lines for minute long rides, and all sorts of awful things like that. But you guys loved it, and that was what was important. But we piled back into the car, and we'd be on our way out. We were staying with my father-in-law who lived ... he was an hour and a half away. You would immediately want to know what was for dinner, what we were going to do next day, what were we going to do ... There was no elapsed time from that activity to your concern about understanding what was going to happen next.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
How old was I when that happened? That particular-
Peter Loeb:
10.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
10, yeah. Basically, I could not be in the moment.
Peter Loeb:
No. Right, I guess that's true. Well, I think you were in the moment okay until that moment ended. And then you were completely at loose ends, and found that very hard. When people ask me, which they do, believe it or not, how do I know if my kid blah, blah, blah? I always say look for that. Look for kids who have trouble self soothing, who can't ... Another example for you was from probably late elementary school, early middle school, where you got 100s on every test you took. My wife and I always used to wonder whose child you really were because you got better grades than either of us ever got. You would say up as a kid until all hours. We would have to force you to go to bed because you were studying.
Peter Loeb:
And then I'd come home from work the next day, and you'd be on your bed crying your eyes out because you'd failed the test. You'd failed the test, you knew you'd failed the test. It was, you're a total failure, the world was ending. And then of course, the test came back 100, 100, 100. Eventually, what I did was I collected up a bunch of those test because this was a pattern. When I found you crying your eyes out, I would just hold up three or four tests that said 100 on them. And I'd say, well, hello?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah, I do remember that. I remember that well, just the sheer panic. I actually had to, I started crying during one of the tests and had to take a break, which was embarrassing.
Peter Loeb:
Because you were worried you were going to fail while you were taking it?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. I don't have that-
Peter Loeb:
That's a little scary.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I don't have that problem anymore, but it was indicative of another thing. What's funny is that of course, I, my experience, and this is just from the kid's experience for parents who are worried about you can't win, which is your attempts to soothe me and say, "Of course you got 100," right? You would say, you and mom would say, "Of course you got 100, Ashley." And I was like, oh, they expect this of me, they're not proud of me. That was my interpretation of, well, they expect it, so they're not surprised. They're not surprised, therefore, they're not impressed. It was-
Peter Loeb:
Of course we told you we were impressed.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, but you were so used to it, right?
Peter Loeb:
Sure.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You didn't have a shock on your face, so I took that to mean ... What I find interesting when we go back and revisit this stuff is just the child's perspective, and how it's so hard ... as a parent, it's almost impossible, I don't want to say impossible, but almost impossible to win because whatever you're trying to do is, I'm interpreting it. And if I don't interpret it the way that you're intending, then it doesn't even ... that's the narrative I have. I grew up with X narrative, that's the narrative I have. And that's how I responded to my life, even if it wasn't true. And much of it wasn't real.
Peter Loeb:
Well, that's one of the hardest things about being a parent, is that you have to be in charge of where things are going. And you can't always explain it. You can't. I mean, you have children yourself, you know that you can't explain much to a two and a half year old. You can explain some stuff, but they don't have the perspective to understand. You and I spent a lot of hours, I don't know, more than a decade ago now, thankfully, going over here's what you perceived as a 10 year old, 11 year old, 12 year old. Here's what I was thinking, here's what I perceived. And I had those conversations also with your sister, Marina, about stuff that was going on in the house. And that she, from a younger person's perspective, perceived in one way because she just didn't have the ... she didn't have the information. And there was no way to give her that information because she didn't have the experience to go with it. I think those things honestly go to parenting in any context.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, for sure.
Peter Loeb:
Having a child with substance use problem makes it harder. But I think that that particular problem is pretty common.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
One thing that's, I don't know, not ... unique is the wrong word, but one thing that you dealt with with our battle years was weighing out the ability to parent. I'm the oldest of three girls and we're all very close in age. And as I'm going off the deep end, late middle school, I'm getting in trouble at school, I'm using, I'm doing all these things, you have two other children to parent. And one of which I am pulling into my substance use.
Peter Loeb:
Sure. Well, the other one was there, so-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Peter Loeb:
She was exposed to things.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
The youngest one, right. But I mean, those were the types of things in a household, as a parent, you know that you know a percentage of what's going on, right?
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, yeah. Sure.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What's that ... talk to us about what it's like to parent in that situation?
Peter Loeb:
When you have somebody who is oppositional-ly defiant, which is, I think, your middle name. I think we changed that legally.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's ODD, oppositional defiance disorder. Look it up, it's a real thing.
Peter Loeb:
I think we changed your middle name to that at one point.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
To ODD?
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You down with ODD?
Peter Loeb:
Ashley ODD Loeb Blassingame.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, Ashley.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. After Karen Lobster Karen.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I had a lot of identities.
Peter Loeb:
It's really hard to, how do you discipline? Parents don't like disciplining their kids. It's terribly painful. You love these little people. You don't want to hurt them, you don't want to ... disciplining is awful. But if you don't discipline your kids, life does it. And life is much less kind than you. So you take up that task because you have to. But then what happens when you've taken everything away? You don't have your this, you don't have your that, you don't have your privileges, you don't have your pager was probably the technology of the day, you don't have this. After a while, you've done everything. What are you going to do?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, that was the thing. And we've talked about this, that I basically figured out early on that if you don't have anything they can take from you, if you relinquish ... kind of Buddhist of me, if you think about it.
Peter Loeb:
Oh, you're so Buddhist.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I am so Buddhist. If you relinquish attachment to all these things, what are they going to do? I was all about-
Peter Loeb:
That is Buddhist.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I know. I was Buddhist in a bad way. But what are they going to do, right?
Peter Loeb:
Buddhist in a bad way. There's something-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Can you think about that? Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
There's something good there, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I feel that's a-
Peter Loeb:
Bad to the Buddhist.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Bad to the Buddhist. I'm Buddha bad.
Peter Loeb:
Buddha bad. I like that, that's good.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We're changing my name. Ashley Buddha Bad Ashley.
Peter Loeb:
Buddha Bad Ass.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Buddha Bad Ass, BBD. No, BBA. Okay, just kidding. Anyway, the figuring out, well, if I do all these things, then you can't punish me. So then you're just fully going rogue.
Peter Loeb:
As difficult as that was because of you, how do you set discipline in a house for anybody else if they say, "Well, Ashley doesn't have to come home at night," or whatever?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. And you're like, "well, no she does. She just doesn't."
Peter Loeb:
She does, she's just not doing it right. At the end of the day, the long story short is that the decision to gently expel you from the house and send you to treatment was about your sisters. Because while there was certainly one train of thought, which was we ... this is like having a burn victim at home, we're not really set up to handle this.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's interesting [crosstalk 00:18:29].
Peter Loeb:
It's like an acute problem. We don't have the skills to ...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Peter Loeb:
But the flip side was is that it really, really was that we were not providing the safe childhood for your sisters that we owed them, as well as you. And what happens when you have one child who's got a big problem is, you focus there, and the others. I know from my own childhood that all the attention went to my sister, who also had substance problems. And my brother was quite sick as a child, so they were there. I was sort of ... I was certainly not neglected, but I was left to my own devices. For me, that was a good thing. But in the case of your sisters, we weren't doing the right thing by them.
Peter Loeb:
That was the biggest motivator. I will say, though, that the day you went to rehab, I ... it was the only day in my entire life so far that I've just spent in bed staring at the ceiling, because it was the first time in at least a year that I wasn't afraid you were going to die that day. That was a relief that is beyond description. Meanwhile, you weren't very happy.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's an understatement.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. Understandably so, but there was just ...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, I mean, it is-
Peter Loeb:
Got to the point where ...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
As a parent-
Peter Loeb:
What else could you do?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. As a parent, when I had my boys, I just have a whole new perspective, which-
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, of course.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Of course, you had always told me I would. Actually, I should say that after getting a few years of sobriety, and you guys sent me away to a really awful place and-
Peter Loeb:
On purpose.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And I was angry about it for a long time. It caused some amount of damage. However, what we talked about-
Peter Loeb:
Not on purpose.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, not a ... he was kidding.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What we talked about, however, was that at the time, I was ... it was absolutely a serious consideration that I would not make it through the end of the year. That was not out of the realm of things of what was going on.
Peter Loeb:
You almost died so many times.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. When I went to that, what we talked about, and when I was a couple years sober, about how that place kept me alive.
Peter Loeb:
Kept you alive.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It kept me alive. And yes, it was terrible, and it was-
Peter Loeb:
Well, you weren't there that long because you did manage to get thrown out.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, you pulled me out of there.
Peter Loeb:
Well, but-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Nine months.
Peter Loeb:
They wanted you to leave.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, oh.
Peter Loeb:
Oh, you didn't know that?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, I thought you pulled me out.
Peter Loeb:
They were-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I thought you realized and came to rescue.
Peter Loeb:
They said you had to go to wilderness and start over, or they were going to throw you out. And we were like, "What are you talking about? This was your responsibility."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, that's interesting.
Peter Loeb:
I can't believe you didn't know that. Here we are in podcast land.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I know, we're in podcast land.
Peter Loeb:
God, what else is going to come out?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I know, I know. Stay tuned. Yeah. No, I thought I came home from that, and that was-
Peter Loeb:
Well, your mother always hated the place from day one. Not that I liked it, but at the end, again, the problem is-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, if you're afraid I was going to die every day.
Peter Loeb:
Right. When your mother always said, "This is just a glorified prison," she was right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. It was worse than prison.
Peter Loeb:
But it was-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Because they could do whatever the ... they want.
Peter Loeb:
It just was, you have to do something.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
That's what happens to you in life, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. And-
Peter Loeb:
Life presents stuff.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And I was 16, so there was-
Peter Loeb:
It was a moment in time where there was an opening, so we ...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, I came home, right? I came home and-
Peter Loeb:
After-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
After Vista.
Peter Loeb:
Right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I was 17, and I came home. My room has been transformed into the living room that we still called Ashley's room, which was funny. I was sleeping on the pullout couch or whatever. You guys were trying to figure out what to do with me, which I think a lot of family members deal with. Like, okay, what do we-
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, what now?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What now?
Peter Loeb:
Well, that was one of the things about Lionrock. I don't want to diverge too far there, but one of the things about Lionrock is we don't throw people out. We don't-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, that's when you're ... For people who don't know, Peter is also the CEO of Lionrock Recovery. His big thing, which I agree with, and it's a very personal thing is, we're not going to just ditch people because that did happen to me and-
Peter Loeb:
And to my sister.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And your sister so many times.
Peter Loeb:
Our experience was, you go to treatment, and they tell you it's a safe place to learn, and grow and whatever. And then as soon as you screwed up, out you go.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. And the reality is that we're people with alcoholism and addiction, of course we're going to screw it up.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. I know that now. So that's why we built in a bunch of things into the Lionrock program that allow us to keep people in the fold, even if they're not appropriate for group in the outpatient level of care for a few days. Yeah, we stick with them. We keep working it. Anyway.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I got home and was completely shellshocked, quite literally, shellshocked. And ended up ... let's go to that. What did you think when I got home after I had been-
Peter Loeb:
I had no idea, I had no idea what to do.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But I had been treated, right? So did you think I was better?
Peter Loeb:
No.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. Did you-
Peter Loeb:
Well, I didn't know. The thing is, I didn't really understand the problem.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So that treatment center didn't educate you about-
Peter Loeb:
No, not at all.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. So you didn't really understand the problem. Did you think the problem was emotional and substance? Did you think I was an alcoholic?
Peter Loeb:
I mean, I didn't have a label for it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You just knew something was really wrong?
Peter Loeb:
Well, I knew you had a drug problem, but I didn't know why.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did you think I was going to use? I've never asked you these questions.
Peter Loeb:
I can't remember. I think that I ... I mean, you always hope not, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Peter Loeb:
You always hope not, but I don't remember at that level of detail. I do remember, though, that we tried to find a school for you that was not a rehab. And that you and I went on our crazy trip, looking at some schools on the east coast.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You didn't know I was drunk the whole time?
Peter Loeb:
I didn't. That obviously didn't work out so well. Of course, it culminated in your overdose in your room.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What was that day like? That was May 17th, 2004.
Peter Loeb:
That was the scariest day of my life. I walked into your room because we were taking you to a psychology appointment, and you were kind of dead. I mean, I can joke a little about it now, but not much. Your skin was blue, your lips were black, your fingernails were black. You weren't really breathing. There was a hypodermic needle on the ground next to you. Actually, you were on the couch. And my mother in law was visiting, just to make it simpler. She and I and your mother crowded around you and attempted to give you mouth to mouth resuscitation. We didn't know what to do. You were breathing, but barely. And your color was just so bad. It was so frightening. The muscles in your jaw were locked, so your jaw was tight. We couldn't actually even open your mouth to breathe in, which was ... I still don't understand why that would've happened, but it did. We called 911. We had, if you've ever seen a 911 call on television, you hear the people, the operator's-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Calm voice.
Peter Loeb:
Calmly going through the process, and that you hear everyone screaming on the other end of the phone. And that was us. I mean, it was absolutely terrifying.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Was Tori home?
Peter Loeb:
Nobody else was home. Nobody else was home. When the paramedics arrived, they were pretty casual about it. They knew what the problem was because they had asked, and we told them.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So you knew?
Peter Loeb:
It was pretty clear from the hypodermic needle sitting next to you that you had a heroin overdose. They just walked in. I remember thinking-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Faster.
Peter Loeb:
Hurry up, you know? And that was probably a gentle way of what I was really thinking. Actually, I had kind of an out of body experience that day. It was really, really weird. But I remember them being casual because they had NARCAN and they knew what was going to happen. They knew that you were going to come back. So they injected you with NARCAN and it was ... it looked like magic. You went from basically dead to awake.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It didn't feel like magic.
Peter Loeb:
It felt like magic?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It did not feel like magic.
Peter Loeb:
Oh, no. Yeah, to you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Just FYI.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, you went into immediate withdrawal. Yeah, you were angry when you woke up.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I was really angry. Well, I also didn't know what was going on. I was naked, they cut the ... or whatever, from the top, they cut the sweatshirt off.
Peter Loeb:
I don't even remember that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Tori was mad at me because they cut her, I was wearing her sweatshirt. They cut the sweatshirt off, and there's a dude above me, and I'm naked, and there are people around me yelling.
Peter Loeb:
I don't remember you being naked, but-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Or with my shirt off.
Peter Loeb:
I don't even remember that. But anyway-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, it was a big ... oh, no. It was Marina's sweatshirt. It was Marina's because one of the girls was ... there was some issue that, this is the kind of stuff that happens with siblings with substance abuse, where they were like, "I'm really sorry you overdosed, but also, they cut my sweatshirt in half and I'm really pissed about it." That actually happened. It was like-
Peter Loeb:
If they'd been there with us, I think they might've had a slightly different opinion.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Well, and Marina was so angry at me she didn't come to the hospital.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. Yeah, Marina was pretty angry with you. Marina basically told us you probably weren't going to make it, so we should just write you off, which was, again, a sibling response.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It was [crosstalk 00:27:42], yeah.
Peter Loeb:
But not a parental response. Yeah, that was a really bad day, which I hope never happens to anybody.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What did that change for your life? At the time, you didn't really know what I had. You didn't know ... I had gone to treatment. What did that situation, what was that like? How did that change things?
Peter Loeb:
I'm not really sure, to tell you the truth, how it actually changed things. What I can say is that at one point, my mother asked me, how do you even stay sane through all of this? I thought about it for a little while, and what I realized was that we were Buddhists also. We would just let it wash over us. I just, it was complete acceptance, this is what's happening. I didn't question it, and I didn't ... I just accepted it. It was red alert. I mean, we were just, this is what's happening. Let's deal with it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Were you like, okay, this is life and death and-
Peter Loeb:
Oh, it was very life and death.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But I mean, did it change your perspective on how serious the problem was?
Peter Loeb:
No, it was just more the same. There were so many other things that happened that were terrifying. That was the most terrifying, but there were a ton of other things. I guess how it changed for me was I knew that you probably weren't going to be staying home.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
I think we had been hoping that the time-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That we could reintegrate?
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, that we would able to work it out. I think that made it pretty clear that some more work was required. And we were incredibly lucky to find Gatehouse Academy when we did. They were willing to take you as a 17 year old, which frankly was probably not legal for them, but they did it. It's very hard to find treatment for a 17 year old because they really belong with adults in many ways, but you can't put them with adults. And they're going to age out of an adolescent program quickly, so the programs don't really want to fill a spot with a 17 year old. So it turned out to be very difficult to place you. But that place was fantastic. And there is where you really learned.
Peter Loeb:
One day, we were visiting and you were standing around at the smoking circle. A lot of addiction going on at the addiction treatment facility, but anyway, you said to me, "You know dad, even if you and mom are the worst parents ever, every day of my life I spend being angry about it is a day of my life I'm choosing to waste." And I said, "There you go. You got it. You're good."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And then went on to relapse two more times.
Peter Loeb:
Well ... I always said about you, some people are audio learners, some people are visual learners, you are a two by four between the eyes learner.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, yes. Yes.
Peter Loeb:
It definitely requires a certain amount of repetition.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What's it like having a child who's newly sober? Or in those first couple years, in riding that relapse wave where you're like, okay, we've got this, we've got some momentum, she's doing well. When were you like, okay, we're okay?
Peter Loeb:
Like, yesterday.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. Perfect.
Peter Loeb:
There's no line of demarcation because one of the hard things as family members is, and again, I go back to Lionrock, which is so integrated into my experience.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Well, it's a result of your experience.
Peter Loeb:
Exactly. And a lot of things that I didn't like about our experience are things that we've tried to do with Lionrock, where you can connect people who are far apart geographically, or just can't make it together. Family week in residential treatment was-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Peter had so many family weeks.
Peter Loeb:
A lot of family weeks. A lot of family weeks. Anyway-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, we've talked about it. Really, seriously, everything. We know everything.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, a lot of family weeks, yeah. But the problem with family week is, and for those of you who don't know, family week occurs midway through treatment where the family shows up. You and five other families sit in a room together in uncomfortable chairs for way too many hours, and to, at first, your absolute terror and dismay, share your intimate story with everybody else in the room. Yay. Now of course, your loved one's been doing that for-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, weeks, months.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, but it's a new experience. And also, it's-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's where you learn. This is important to talk about because that is where, that's where things changed in our relationship because you got it. I mean, not at the level, but ... it was like you understood something that you had never understood before.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. Well, before we go there, I just want to say, just finish that the-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, yeah. Sorry.
Peter Loeb:
The issue with the family week is, is that when you come in, you still are really angry with your loved one because your loved one left under duress in some way or another, was stealing from you, was lying to you, was disrupting the rest of your life, was in grave danger all the time. And you haven't had any ... I mean, it's only been four weeks, or six weeks, or whatever it is for you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, not that long.
Peter Loeb:
For them, your loved one's been working hard every day, ideally, trying to make progress on it, and hasn't been able to show you progress. So you show up, and they show up. And your loved one's like, "Oh, look, I've had all these revelations."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I'm a new woman.
Peter Loeb:
And we're like, no, I still kind of hate you, you know?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. I'm like, "Oh my gosh, it's been 20 days and I am new woman."
Peter Loeb:
Oh, I'm a different person.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I'm coming out. Yeah, and you were like, no.
Peter Loeb:
And we were like, no. One of the things about telehealth and video conferencing is you can ... you could fly alongside. We could have multiple check ins rather than waiting until having one big one. But what is nice about having everybody in the same room, and I will say after you get over the shock of it, is you see, wow, these are other nice families. And these kids, their kids are smart and seem nice enough. They're trying really hard. They've all taken a second mortgage on their house to send their child to treatment. You realize how much of ... how the whole problem is bigger than you are because as parents, you hope that you're in control of your children. You have that responsibility.
Peter Loeb:
So if you ... but you're not able to control things. And to understand that this is a disease on top of a psychological problem, typically, of some sort. That it's bigger than you, it's bigger than you wouldn't let them have a later curfew, or you didn't tell them they were a great student one day, or whatever it was that you're bad at that they've been telling you you're bad at, of course, for years, that there's more at work there. I think that was actually, to your second question, very helpful because I was able to see that we weren't alone, that the shame and the stigma. I mean, we had your sister's friends families wouldn't let them come over to our house while you lived there.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
One of the deans at the, the dean at the middle school that they were going to told my sister's best friend, who was new at the time to the school-
Peter Loeb:
Told her mother.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Told her mother to stay away from my sister. Not me, I was gone. To stay away from my sister.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, we were bad news.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Bad seed.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But people don't understand.
Peter Loeb:
They don't understand. But what they do understand is there's danger there. And again, you're a parent now-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I get it. I do get it.
Peter Loeb:
Why would you send your kid into-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I wouldn't. I wouldn't.
Peter Loeb:
Right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And I get it, and I do get it. It's very painful, though.
Peter Loeb:
As parents, when you're dealing with this kind of problem-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's isolating.
Peter Loeb:
There's no sanctuary.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
So I think that's the bond. Certainly, people coming out of treatment together have an enormous bond. And we feel kindred spirits with the parents of the people that you're friends with still. We saw them at a wedding last year. We've all been to war together.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah, for sure, we've all been to war together. I want to drop into one more topic before we start to talk about the recovery piece, and living together with this, I mean, frankly, family recovery, which is something that's very stereotypical for daughters with addiction. Hold your seat, I know this is not your favorite topic. I want to talk to you about the older boyfriends who come along very often with the young girls who are struggling with substance abuse, who are basically these guys who are running the show, which is just the common thing. The boyfriend, the bad seed, he's the problem, blah, blah, blah.
Peter Loeb:
Well, first of all, if you're a parent listening to this, you're right. They are the worst humans on the planet. Okay, so just now we've got that clear. They are the worst humans on the planet. They are preying on somebody who's weak and is not in a position to oppose them. They are typically people who have that need. They have that need for control and, frankly, are often evil. I'm not a big, "They're evil doers," kind of guy. But in particular, this one is an evil man.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Mine, in this case, Devin was the first person to put a needle in my arm and caused incredible, incredible grief and strife in our family. Often, there was a battle between my alliance to him and my alliance to my family. I think that is something, I hear it all the time. There's this driving force, there's this partner. And as a family member, mother or father, parent, how do you navigate, or what would you tell people? Obviously, there's no good solution, but what would you tell someone? Think about someone who's in-
Peter Loeb:
I'd say probably, what I would say for advice is, sadly, is you need to remove your child from the situation. The fact is, is that when you're dealing with a child, even a child who looks and sounds like an adult, one of the biggest mistakes that we as parents made was, as father of three daughters is, we often mistook sophistication for maturity. Sophistication is relatively easy to come by. It comes with genetics. It comes with-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Cultural understanding.
Peter Loeb:
Right, right. You look grown up, you're smart, you're able to assimilate a lot of information. But the maturity to handle what's going on is still something that takes some time. I think particularly in our culture where young women have more freedom than probably ever before, this is one of the downsides. I'm not saying it's enough that you'd change that. I don't think it is. But you can't control the boyfriend. The boyfriend is not in your family. You can try to have the boyfriend arrested, which crossed my mind. But at the end of the day, I decided that the focus on you was more important. That the boyfriend, I don't really care what happens to him. He's a lost cause anyway. I'm going to focus all of my energy on you, on my daughter.
Peter Loeb:
In fact, I told him at one point that ... something very much to that affect. That basically, I was going to focus on you, and that he was going to stay away. And that if I had to turn my focus toward him, it was not going to be a pleasant experience for anybody. But that if he really cared about you, allowing me to do that, to take care of you, and to him to stay away, would be proof of that. And because he was at his heart a BS-er, he couldn't tell me no. He couldn't say no. That's not what I want.
Peter Loeb:
So there's no good solution, unfortunately. I would say the solution is, is that you have to get your daughter, if you have a daughter in that situation, away to another place. There's no guarantees that he won't follow, and there are no guarantees that she won't find someone else like that. I think that the key to the whole thing is you just never give up. It doesn't matter what happens, you never give up. I think if you don't give up, even if you don't win, you at least can look yourself in the mirror. And that's pretty critical.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. So you have getting in, me, I get sober and I get into UCLA.
Peter Loeb:
Yay.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And our family's starting to heal. How do you put aside that feeling like it's never, like it's a daily reprieve? At this point, when I got sober, we had been through all these treatment centers, all these therapists. And you knew, you understood at a very deep level, having seen me relapse several times, my last relapse being quite horrendous.
Peter Loeb:
Luckily, I wasn't there for that one.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. But you knew-
Peter Loeb:
Sure, I understood. Yeah, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
This is not a permanent thing. This is a daily, requires regular work. What's that like? How do relax? How do you get rid of the adrenal fatigue that comes with having a child in ... how does that transition happen?
Peter Loeb:
That's a good question.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Because you don't wake up every day worried that I'm going to drink?
Peter Loeb:
No, I don't. I don't.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I mean, I'm sure there have been times where you've been very concerned, but I don't think at 13 years, I don't think it's-
Peter Loeb:
No, I don't worry. I don't worry about that.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
When do you think that happened? Because that probably didn't happen for a while.
Peter Loeb:
I think that it's less the worry about a relapse, per say, and it's more about focusing on helping you, or watching you build a life. Building a life in recovery. Are you working whatever program you should be working? Are you getting the education you need? Do you have friends who seem like they have their act together, and are positive influence on you? Do you have a job? Do you have a boyfriend who is human, unlike some of the ones who preceded. I think that it's really those things that build some confidence that you're going in the right direction. And then also, trust is ... you didn't have a key to our house for a lot of years, right? You get to a point where we gave you a key to the house again. You build trust.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Now I can't find it.
Peter Loeb:
Are you trustworthy? There was a long period of time you were not trustworthy.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, absolutely not. I was not trustworthy.
Peter Loeb:
So I think that-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Did it take-
Peter Loeb:
It was years, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, it was years.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. I mean, it's something you want.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Of course.
Peter Loeb:
But what happens with anybody, and of course this isn't isolated to addiction. But when somebody burns you enough times, you protect yourself, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
That's what happens with anybody. It's not just you, I've seen it lots and lots of times, and heard about it many more, that that's what happens. People just don't trust you. They're not willing to trust. I think the rebuilding of trust is really as important as anything in terms of having to worry about relapse going. I mean, I know it's possible.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But there's trust, right? There's that trust piece that we have. And then there's also you're trusting me, but you know I have this disease that tells me I don't have a disease that I have to work on. How often does that come up for you?
Peter Loeb:
I built a cell downstairs in our basement so that if you relapse, I'll just lock you up there. That's what the Russians do, you know? I read an article, the Russians, that's what they-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, here we go.
Peter Loeb:
They have these rehabs that are just prisons. And they just put you in there for-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And that worked so well when I was a teenager.
Peter Loeb:
It works really well. Well, we could try it again. I mean, now, I don't know.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Second times the charm.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, so-
Peter Loeb:
I honestly don't worry about it that much. That's not to say that it's not a real danger, but I know that you have it in hand. I know that you have a husband and children who count on you. And I know that that is ... I know how that feels, so I know that you're paying attention to that. You could get hit by a truck too, and I'm not worried about that. I could get hit by a truck, I'm not worried about that. I mean, those things are ...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Peter Loeb:
Again, if you stopped working your program, if you started doing a lot of erratic things that I knew were counter to what you should be doing, then we would intervene right away. I wouldn't wait until you ...
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Yeah, you know what it looks like.
Peter Loeb:
I would be oiling the door on that ... no, I'm kidding. Just for listeners, I will not lock her in my basement.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Are you kidding?
Peter Loeb:
Do not go look there if she disappears.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We have everything under control. So now you have grandsons who are the children of two recovering alcoholics.
Peter Loeb:
Some people have a college fund.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We have a rehab fund.
Peter Loeb:
There you go.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. You've now transformed ... You worked on Wall Street, you worked in entertainment and video games, music. I could go on.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, I know.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We could probably go to ... we should just name the industries you haven't worked in. I don't think you've ever been a garbage collector.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, but if you clean a vacuum cleaner-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You're a vacuum cleaner.
Peter Loeb:
There you go.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
There you go. So now you've dedicated your life to this topic, right? Woo-hoo.
Peter Loeb:
Woo-hoo.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
All that, oh, we want to forget, we don't need to talk about it.
Peter Loeb:
Well, people do say to me, and including your mother, my wife. The truth is, is that I would be a terrible counselor. I could not absorb-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Hence the, "You could get hit by a truck any day. I could."
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, I could lock you in the basement.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Or I could lock you in the basement.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
See? Problem solved.
Peter Loeb:
Problem solved. I don't absorb the energy of it. I asked Joan Schumacher, who retired from working us after many years recently, love her, "Joan, how do you go through every day listening to everybody tell their story? And it's one horror story after another. How do you not absorb that?" And she said, "Well, I focus on the future and the possiblities for these people." I mean, I'd like to think I could do that, but I don't think I could do that. I know that just engaging with the haters online gets to me over time. So I don't really feel, even though I know what we do is what we do, I am not on the frontline.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You are the CEO of Lionrock Recovery, as we mentioned. And this has been, as you've called it, your revenge against addiction.
Peter Loeb:
Yup. I want a piece back.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, for taking your sister and almost taking your daughter. We've been on this journey together and really had ... it's been a fight. It's been a-
Peter Loeb:
It's a really hard business. I've been in a lot of businesses, as you mentioned. The first thing that makes it hard is that so many people in our field are dishonest. I had no idea that was going to be the case. To be honest, I was shocked. I worked on Wall Street for years. And people there are much more disciplined and clean than people I see in our field. That's really troubling. And then of course, that's accelerated with the opioid crisis to become a thing. So now in the press, all you read about when you read about addiction treatment is the bad stuff, is the bad people doing the bad things. And we aren't them. Like they say in politics, when you're explaining, you're losing. I find that very challenging. The work we do is important work. If you get a chance to go to our website and listen to some testimonials, you'll hear our clients in their own voices, in their own words, telling you about their experience with us. When I-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Let me just interrupt real quick. For anybody who doesn't know, Lionrock Recovery does intensive outpatient treatment, or outpatient treatment, online through video conference. So it's telehealth for substance abuse.
Peter Loeb:
Right. Exactly, yeah. Which sounds like that can't be a great idea, but actually, it's fantastic because people get to connect from a comfortable place for them. They feel ready to open up and talk, and safe enough to do it. It's very private. There's no privacy in going away to residential care, "Hi, bye, I'm leaving. See you in, I don't know."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right. Oh, she just left. Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Or, let's drive over to the local hospital and take the elevator to the behavioral health floor three times a week. I won't run into anybody I know. How could that happen? So it's very, very private. It seems like an obvious thing. But we, of course, because anything new is suspect, we have-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Expect it's been nine years.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, now it's accepted.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And now it is, you're right.
Peter Loeb:
People used to walk by early on when I would exhibit at a conference, and they would literally laugh. Literally. Or, "You can't do that." Okay. Okay, well, we're doing it, so I'm not sure why we can't, but ... So it's a difficult business. And then the insurance companies are difficult to deal with. No one should feel sorry for us, we chose it. It's very rewarding to be able to do work that helps people, helps people really. I've been in the entertainment business, and it's great to entertain people. Games are fun, music is fun, I like all those things. I worked on Wall Street where it's a lot easier to make money. That was nice. That aspect of that was nice. But here, we're really, we're doing good work. We're really contributing to the welfare of the people that we work with.
Peter Loeb:
Particularly at this phase of my life, that's an important thing to me. I think I would have a hard time just making widgets and selling them, unless that was all I ... I mean, obviously I got to pay the rent, so I would do what I needed to do. But as far as having the choice, and I feel grateful that I have the choice, we have some great investors who have supported us all along. We started out thinking we were going to be part of the mainstream addiction treatment world, that we were going to be aftercare from residential treatment, because that's, frankly, that's what I knew. And the people that we recruited to work with us early on, that's what they knew. But it's turned out that people find us online, and they tell us that they wouldn't get help any other way.
Peter Loeb:
Most people listening probably don't know, but somewhere between 10 and 20% of the people who struggle with a substance problem get help for it. And somewhere between 80% and 90% don't. In our field, there's a lot of talk about, why can't we reach those people? The answer is because we just didn't have the right product for them. We didn't-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, we have been an industry, a field, that has only treated at the acute level. That's why-
Peter Loeb:
That's right, that's right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Because people basically have had to wait until they have had-
Peter Loeb:
Absolutely.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It is so bad that they're willing to do that not private, expensive. They're willing to take extreme measures. And really, what we've been doing, and what our goal was, and what we talked about was, what if we could reach the Karens, the Ashley, whomever, before it was so bad that they had to be removed from their situation for extended periods of time? What if we could teach them about the coping skills in the environments where the triggers are happening? Because I know for me, I would get sober, go to treatment. I'm in this place, there's no alcohol, I have counselors, blah, blah, blah. I get out and yes, I've been told how to deal with that trigger, like they told us while we were in the treatment center.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
But now I'm actually experiencing the trigger, and I'm not in a safe shielded environment, and my therapist isn't right there. So how do I do that? I personally was so institutionalized because I was in treatment for so long, just an extended period of time, that that was such a struggle. And I know that our clients are dealing with triggers as they're happening.
Peter Loeb:
Yes. That point of view is actually coming to be accepted among the health plans. And that's a good thing because you're right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love when he says that.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. You're right, but I'm still the boss of you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That burns.
Peter Loeb:
We talk about this all the time, that people actually, they don't think to themselves, oh, I've got an alcohol problem. They think, I've got a life problem, I've got a stress problem.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Totally, yeah. Alcohol is just a piece of ...
Peter Loeb:
Right.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And that's true. It's a symptom of the problem. I mean, they're not wrong.
Peter Loeb:
It's a solution to the problem.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's a solution, right. It becomes the problem. It starts out as the solution.
Peter Loeb:
Right. One of the things I always think about is, is that if ... poor alcoholics, they're-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, poor us.
Peter Loeb:
Poor alcoholics. They're using something that the rest of us normies, muggles consider something fun that we associate with pleasure. So because we see you doing that first thing in the morning, we think, oh, you just want to party. But what we don't realize is that you're using it as an analgesic, that you are trying to dampen your feelings of anxiety, of fear, of stress that are coming from the stuff that's causing-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, we're not partying. We're using it to get to normal.
Peter Loeb:
Right. And people don't understand that. One of the things I like to say to people just because it sounds shocking is, "What if they were drinking motor oil?" Then you'd really understand, right? Because you wouldn't see them with a bottle of vodka. You'd see them with a bottle of motor oil and you'd think, what, you're drinking motor oil? What? Why would you do that?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We'd all be in psych hospitals.
Peter Loeb:
Well, I mean, if the shoe fits.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
If the shoe fits, yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
True. Had a few tours.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
What's it like working with your kid who-
Peter Loeb:
Oh, it's awesome. Well, I think it's been very healing for me. I know it's been very healing for me. I can't speak for you. It's been-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, you can't.
Peter Loeb:
Well, I can't because I'm not really the boss of you on that. But it continues to be very healing because you've been able to not only come back into the fold, but contribute to this enterprise that's focused on the thing that hurt us in the first place.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
So what you're saying is, this is public, that all of the years of pain and suffering that-
Peter Loeb:
Were so worth it. No, they were.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I was the sacrificial lamb here because I got this disease, this alcoholism, had to go through this stuff. And then I had to go through all that treatment to be able to get the training that I need to help start our company.
Peter Loeb:
You planned that all out, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Basically, I'm an investor in the company because ... no, how does that work? Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
I think we need to ask your mother and see if she agrees.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No. Basically, it was this well, fine tuned plan, right?
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. Not for me, no.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No. I mean, it's ... it just worked out that way.
Peter Loeb:
It just worked out. Now, we've been lucky. And no, working with family is ... historical over the eons, people always worked with their families, right?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right.
Peter Loeb:
You were always in the family business.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Right, because of that trust.
Peter Loeb:
Right. Well, and also, yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Proximity. But yeah, it's been, for me, it's been very healing. It's been really fun to have this project together ... this project. It started as a project.
Peter Loeb:
This life.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, this life. Yeah because it's funny, when we talk about Lionrock, it's our ...
Peter Loeb:
In your life, it's-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
It's everything. I mean, it's all of it. It's what we've been doing. I remember sitting in an office. It was just the three of us, you, me and Ian, our other co-founder. And we were talking about this idea, and talking about how we were going to do it. You guys were giving me direction that was like, pull a rabbit out of a hat and just do something. I don't even remember what it was, I just remember thinking, you've got to be kidding me. How am I going to do ... this isn't a company. This is a desk.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
And then I remember desperately being like, I got to quit, I got to do something else because we changed the business plan three times within the course of a few months, or in the early days. And I had been telling people, going out and telling people what the first one was. And then you guys called me and you're like, "Actually, we're going to change this." I'm like, "That changes the whole business plan. I just went out and told all these people what we're doing. Now we're not even doing that." And how many iterations. And just my ability do adapt has changed so dramatically because I really struggle to, from, I really struggled-
Peter Loeb:
You hate change.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, and to create from nothing. I'm good at when you bring me in the middle and work the systems, but it was such a challenge in the beginning to go from literally nothing, absolute ... like, a PowerPoint to we employ ... it's-
Peter Loeb:
Well, a lot of it is faith. You have to basically suspend disbelief. You have to say we can do this. I had the luck of having a mentor when I was a young guy, when I was a kid, who I saw do the same thing. He was a teacher at our school and he decided ... the details aren't interesting, but he wanted to start a bunch of activities. We started a sport at the school. We didn't invent one, he wanted lacrosse to be at our school. So I saw how he did it. I saw all the steps. He went from we had nothing, to we had a full on lacrosse team a year later. Having learned those things early, it never occurs to me that you can't do it.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I see that.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah.
Peter Loeb:
Now, it doesn't always work. But I never worry that because it doesn't exist, it can't exist. I'm sure it can. So it's just a question of, can we make it fit? Of course, that's the fun part. Once a company becomes real, it's work. Early on, it's paly. We're imagining, oh, it'll be like this, and it could be like that. Once you get going, it's more like, oh, we're going to run out of money if we don't fix these five problems, but we can only fix two of them. Which two?
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah. Oh, god.
Peter Loeb:
Being an entrepreneur, it's a lifestyle, it's not a job. And it's a really bad idea for people ... I often ask people, "Do you prefer fear or boredom?" And people usually say, "What?" And I say, "No, I know you don't like either. Which one?" Because if you pick boredom, if you don't pick fear, you really shouldn't be an entrepreneur. Because the downside of working, having a job and working at a company is it's boring sometimes. It's annoying. You have to do what you have to do and push through. Being an entrepreneur is never boring, and it's terrifying about half the time.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
That's completely accurate.
Peter Loeb:
And you have to learn how to suppress the fear. Actually, you hct learn how to let the fear wash over you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Embrace it.
Peter Loeb:
It's kind of what we were talking about before, about what do you do-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
You have to learn how to cope with feelings, and feel your feelings. A feeling washing over you is really the ability to let a feeling take over, and let it pass. To feel it, and let it pass.
Peter Loeb:
We really are Buddhists.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We are Buddhists.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah. I'm going to have to come up with a Buddhist name for you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Okay. I thought it was Buddha, what was it?
Peter Loeb:
Oh, Buddha Bad Ass.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Buddha Bad Ass. I like it. Too bad it couldn't have been my AOL screen name when I was 12.
Peter Loeb:
Lil Buddha Bad Ass.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Lil Buddha Bad Ass, A-W-L. Yeah. I think it's about really being able to feel your feelings. And I have definitely had to for-
Peter Loeb:
Maybe being an entrepreneur, maybe we should start a recovery track where you-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, god. See? This is what happens when you're an entrepreneur.
Peter Loeb:
When you become an entrepreneur, it's like part of your recovery is learning how to be an entrepreneur because that enables you to deal with uncertainty.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
No, it enables you to experience uncertainty.
Peter Loeb:
Well, we'll have counselors along with you all the time-
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Oh, jeez. I can't [crosstalk 01:00:00]-
Peter Loeb:
Saying, "Oh, we're not payroll next week? No, don't worry, we will."
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Yeah, just let go of it. Let it wash over you. Feel your feelings, no attachments.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah, no attachment.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Well, just as we wrap up, what advice would you give to parents in the thick of it with a kid? They're in the thick of it, they don't know what to do.
Peter Loeb:
It's really simple, just don't give up. Don't give up. Try everything you can. Don't give up. You'll hear a lot of, "Oh, you need to let that kid live out on the street under a dumpster because that's the only thing that works." Well, that's your choice. I will say, actually, apropos of your question, you get a lot of advice from people. You get a lot of advice from people who know more about addiction and treatment and recovery than you do, but they're not the parent of the child. And the decisions you make will last a lifetime, good or bad. For the people who are the experts who are giving you advice, you're just one more person they're giving that advice to. And even if they engage with you, and they help you for a year or two, or whatever it may be, it's just a year or two. And you're going to live with whatever the decisions are for the rest of your life, and whatever the outcomes are.
Peter Loeb:
Follow your gut. Don't decide that you don't know what's right. There are a lot of times when they say, "Oh, well, you have to be hard with people and you have to," ... yeah, to some degree. But if it doesn't make sense for you to allow your daughter to live under a dumpster, don't do it. That doesn't mean you bring her home, and give her everything under the sun, and give her access to your bank account and the keys to the car. But it's your decision. So make sure you make it from the heart, and you just stick with it. And just don't give up. Don't give up.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
We'll, thanks for not giving up on me.
Peter Loeb:
Yeah.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
I love you.
Peter Loeb:
Love you.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
Thanks, everybody. See you next week. The Courage to Change: A Recovery Podcast, would like to thank our sponsor, Lionrock Recovery, for their support. Lionrock Recovery provides online substance abuse counseling, where you can get help from the privacy of your own home.
Ashley Loeb Blassingame:
For more information, visit www.lionrockrecovery.com/podcast. Subscribe and join our podcast community to hear amazing stories of courage and transformation. We are so grateful to our listeners, and hope that you will engage with us. Please email us comments, questions, anything you want to share with us, how this podcast has affected you. Our email address is podcast@lionrockrecovery.com. We want to hear from you.