Fighting The Opioid Crisis

For thirty five years, Cindy Stumpo has been a female home builder with a passion for design, a mastery of detail, and a commitment to her crack. With daughter Samantha Stumpo by her side, I don't need my whole family on a date with me. That's a good note. It's goddymn weird. See. Stumpo Development is the only second generation female construction company in the country. You're crazy, You're a wacko, You're insane. I mean, it

just doesn't end together. Cindy and Samantha welcome guest to explore the world of construction, real estate, development, design and more. You're unpredictable. Every time I think I know what you want, you switch it out. But that's what makes your houses all Your need discuss anything that happens between the roof and the foundation. Nothing is off limits. You truly do care about everybody. She can yell at, chi can scream, but when you get her

alone, she's the best person on the planet. Cindy Stumpo is tough as nails and welcome to Tough as Nails. Cindy Stumpo on WBC News Radio ten thirty and tonight, we have a special guest. Want to take it from here. We've got Samanthon' showroom. We also showroom. We got we got Samanthon the showroom. When I go back to the country. You're trying to buy a new cars. What you're talking about, willis. And then we

have Nelson. Nelson introduced yourself. Hey, I'm Nelson to Peger real Estate Developers, Special guest host and I'm here to learn a little bit more about what you're doing. Okay, and who's our guests for receiving. So we have Adam Tucker, the CEO of Addiction Treatment Center of New England. Glad to be here, thanks for having me. We're talking about, you know, a former addiction specialist for the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy.

We're talking about someone who's had the honor of advising the Executive Office of the President federal level addiction policy. We're talking about someone who owned who holds a master's in professional Counseling from Grand Cannon University and a BA in psychology from the University of Tennessee, Knoxville. So we're talking about a really experienced individual here right Like to Adam, I mean, tell me what's your background. Sure. So, I'm a small town boy from Virginia, born and raised

with two parents that were in the education business. I was always in and around the helping profession, had a love for trying to take care of people, and pursued that due to some personal experiences that I had in my life and has led me to this profession, which is the only thing that I've done in my entire career. I'm gonna I'm just gonna star. I'm not going to get right to the questions here. I just want to talk freely and clearly. Here. We have a massive problem on massif as rightly,

and it's not getting any better. And it seems like all we're doing is taking the keyn and kicking it down the road. We moved the people a mile, another mile down the road, another mile down the road. Well, the truth is, I think we've never had this conversation, you and I. No, Throwing money at this is not the problem. Throwing money

to beds and we have facilities is what we need to do. People have to be housed, and if you want them to get better, right, if they continue and this cannot be a seven day cleanout, because they're going to run right back out exactly. I think we've all known now to get an addic clean, they need a year program, they need a long time, can't. I think it's individual ize treatment, but definitely along absolutely, but the seven two weeks that insurance companies will pay for, and it's getting

to a point with insurance companies. Unfortunately, they will not bring you in for dope sic. Because if you're doing any of heroin or any of the painkillers and you stop using them, you're going to be sick for three or four days, like you get the flu and you're back on your feet. Now you know you're doing benzos alcohol. You can die coming off benzos. You can die coming off alcohol. I think you're going to find the insurance

companies as we go down the road. I'm not going to take you in for heroin or the painkillers, which is going to be a problem for me. But addictions, addiction, unfortunately, the insurance game is a tough one right now. You know they want to pay for the physical withdrawal symptoms, and when the person is able to physically that's it. Out the door, you go, yep, out the door, you go. May the force be with you and we'll see you again in three months, right exactly,

or when it gets cold in Boston, you need a bed exactly. Okay, I've played this game a long time. I've been in construction for thirty six years. Union and non union. The only difference I can say is the unions to take care of their guys at one point, I can't speak now. I've been out of the union for twenty years, eighteen seventeen years. But it was a time that they got them in places and they bought some of their own facilities to house their own guys, to get them better.

But this is becoming a bad epidemic. And the other problem is we're losing too many kids. We're losing too many adults, young kids, young people to overdoses. Yeah, this is not nineteen eighty two. You did a line of coking, you didn't die. It's not you did it. You know. Now these kids are buying anything on the streets and slays with fatanol even in add medication something it. And these kids, I don't know

that they're playing with fire. They're taking a thirty eight. They're putting in the head with one bullet and spin it and let's see if the bull goes in. Right. The recreational drug use is a thing of the past. Right, It can take you out one shot, one shot. Ye. Now, do I believe that there are kids that can use recreational drugs, Yeah, I do. I mean I stawted my generation. Sure. But eventually, if you've got that personality, that recreational drug is going to take

you over. And that's it. And I do believe that some of some of us have that addictive personality and some of us don't. Ye. Fortunately, it's going to catch you a lot quicker now with the drugs supply and they just you ever meet a business where they want to kill their clients? Never understood this business any want to kill your clients. It's very different. So it's when I go back. This is a very sense of subject for

me too, Okay. And when I went back, when we go back thirty years ago and I was out raising money, I was already six years into my business and could do this. I was twenty twenty three I started my company. So let's say I lost a brother at twenty six. He was twenty eight, So twenty nine I was heavily involved raising money for drug addiction homes. You would have thought I was asking for I don't know, Jesus Christ all Mighty to come down. The answer would always be no,

No, we don't give those causes it And these are my friends. We will give for breast cancer, this, that, but not now. Now we all have children. My daughter's thirty six now right, and those parents the Newton Brookline area that we lived in, now they started to feel the last ten years of their kids getting involved in Now it's an easier pull and

an easier play to get money. But prior to that, I was like, yeah, you know, we don't give tactics that would piss me off because nobody decides, hey I want to go up and be an addict. Doesn't work that way. Okay, Yeah, it's a very stigmatized disease. And unfortunately, and you're a low life and you're this and that, and it's a disease. Let's call it what's it's a disease, the mental illness. As far as I'm concerned, I put under the mental umbrella. Now

you take it from there. I'm just saying that it was always a hard cry to get help. Sure, yeah, absolutely, to support these houses. Yeah, like I said, it's it's a very stigmatized disease. Unfortunately, people have done a lot of research now that as has caught up with the times and people are starting to understand it. However, the stigma is still large and in charge over top of it, so it keeps people out

of treatment. Right, I stigmatize my own disease. I don't want to go into treatment because I don't even want to admit to my family that I want that I have this issue. So a lot of it's held internally based upon everything that's taking place out in the world as far as a disease is concerned. So it's there's still a lot of room that needs to be done in terms of calling a disease, making it a widespread It's not a moral failure here that we're dealing with. And like you said, you immediate the

nail on the head. We didn't. We didn't ask for this as a child, right now, They didn't wake up and say I want to be an addict. Right. This is this is a problem of why do we feel bad for the press that gets cancer. We don't feel bad for the press that's sticking a needle in there on right right, But that well, we didn't ask for the cancer, they can stop putting you need Yeah, okay, you don't know that, Okay, So I always say, never

spit in the water. You may have to drink. And that's been my philosophy because you don't know when it's going to be one of your children exactly, or somebody that you love in your family. Right, And there's where the empathy is not there. It's it's getting better. But man, thirty years ago, twenty five years ago, twenty there was no empathy for this.

Well, I think the truth of the matter is with the stigma and people again doing research and raising awareness, it's come so far now that I would venture to say there's not many individuals out there that haven't had some relatability to some person that's in the last decade, right exactly Exactly. People have personal experience, whether it's themselves, a loved one, a family member, a friend that they've seen go through this and hopefully they're still alive. And

my last question, I'll let Nelson take over the others. You've been through. How many governors now in the state of Massachusetts tried to fight this. So I'm a new bosson boy here, I've been here so you've just been coming on to mea wu ye okay, yep under okay, So keep going. We also take off because I don't want to. I don't want to lose any seconds. I don't want to lose any time yet. Yeah, honestly, just listen to the conversation between you both. You know, it

has me wondering is the government doing enough to combat this crisis? I think there's always all that thought, we've got to go to break and then we'll come right back to that. I'm sending Stumpley you listen to the Nails a w BZ News Radio ten thirty sponsored my floor in Decor, National Lumber and Village Bank, and let the wrong one los in pad in danger to immerse it semen and I'm sending stumbling you listening to Tampa Nails on WBZ News Radio

ten thirty. Let's take it back Sammy Nelson and I guess let's talk about it, Adam, let's do it. So is the government doing enough to combat this crisis? You know, I think they're I think they're going in

the right direction. I think there's always room to do more with the disease of addiction, just because it's so misunderstood, And I don't think it's always the best the best angle to point blame at the government, you know, but I think they're trying, and they're taking on, they're taking on a massive problem, uh throughout our country, and it's uh, it's tough.

It's tough to wrap your head around it from a from a state level, from a federal level, even just from a from a family system's point of view. So again, I don't know if I want to point fingers at anybody, but I think there's always room to expand in terms of what we need to do. But Okay, that'll be the finger points. So yeah, go for Itkay, you don't. You can be politically correct. I

don't have to be politically correct. I do blame our government. I do blame our states and cities and towns because there is more we can do. Come on, we can't stop this. We don't stop this because there's too much money involved. There's a lot of money involved. And yeah, like

I said, I think there's more to do. I think there's more that can be done perhabs that people can I have friends that literally the last excuse me, last five to seven years have spent millions on their children to get them clean, right, have taken family money because when you stop, sure, right, but we can't get a kid clean or an adult clean unless they want to get clean. Point. And the work's going to be put

into it, right, hard work. And I've seen guys, especially in construction, go twenty years end up in the hospital because they hurt their back or whatever. They give them morphine. They come out of the hospitals and they're back running at fifty years old again or sixty. It bites them right back, It doesn't. You can have all that time and then you're right back on the pony right like that time never even lapsed that you were clean.

Yep. It's a chronic progressive relapsing disease is what we call it. And you if you have a period of abstinence and you relapse, you go right back to where you came from, just as if you've been using the whole time. Exactly. So when we talk about methadone mile in Boston, if you asked me twenty years ago if I thought I'd ever see this,

I would have left. I was at absolutely not. What have I seen this in areas like Chelsea before I would have saw this mass out you know, I mean under the bridges in Chelsea where back in the day, that's where they were selling everything and anything they could. Yeah, but mass Ave I never I never saw this copy. Are you telling me there's no place that we can house them like in ear if we took them to ear Mass? Ear Mass. Let me ask this question. Ear Mass used to have

all these old Armi barracks. Are those Armie barracks still standing around or have they been demolished and rebuilt? You'd have to tell me. You'd have to tell me. I remember being ear masked about twenty three years ago, Miles ear Barrick. You know what I mean, like empty boarded up New Hampshire, boarded up places. There is a place to put them. There's a place to put them, you know. I think unfortunately it's it's it's a housing issue, but it's a it's an it's always that we don't have enough

good help to go around. Also, that's a piece of it, you know. And I could talk about the various aspects of treatment and what it takes to really involve somebody in quality individualized care, and the truth of the matter is the level of acuity of individuals that are down on mass av Right now, it's going to take complete wrap around services for those individuals so we

can get them clean. There's there's what's called a housing first model, which is you get them in a house, you get them in a residence, and that takes care of their first step of care right. And however, what they find is in the house they continue to use right because they're not stable mentally, physically, emotionally. And so there's that aspect of it.

There's a spirituality aspect of it. There's a family system's aspect of it that goes into all this, and that's you can't just chuck money at that, right. That takes individuals that have been trained that can that can provide this certain aspect of that individual's disease. And it's time. It's it's a relationship, right. I can't dive in with you. I'm a therapist at heart, That's how I got into this business. I can't begin to help you

until I even begin to develop rapport with you. So how would you even begin to dig down into these individuals that are at mass and casts. You can't even begin to have a relationship with them because of their level of instability.

So it's going to take it's going to take a complete effort from all aspects of care because the truth of the matter is, even I imagine putting yourself down on the mass and cast right now, every single moment that you were down there, you would acquire more trauma, right, you would acquire more trauma. I can't even drive down that street without having trauma. Can you imagine living on it? No? Right, So, because I'd never say anything like this, this is this is like I went down with my

bodyguard because I was afraid to go down myself. But yeah, it was like walking zombies. It was like it was like a movie. Sure, it's like a scary movie. It was a terrible yep. And so trauma change changes, sorry, changes the brain, right, and it changes how the brain functions. And so these individuals are in a non stop fight or flight stance, right, and so to to even get them to a perspective where they could see outside of that, it's going to take a lot.

So we're not just looking at a one size fits all blanket cover to fix these individuals. We're gonna have to have people that go down there. So what what is really the plan the governor brought you here. Nope, the government had brought not bring me here. I worked for the federal government for a period of time, and then once my contract ended, I moved to the Addiction Treatment Center of New England, where I work now as a CEO.

We're an outpatient treatment program set in Brighton and that's that's my full time gig now. And how much does it cost to come through your program? So we're a state program. We have Medicare, Medicaid, it's it's insurance based, it's it's very cheap. Yeah, so we we how many times, you know, getting drugs? Like what was the place down the Cape Sammy Gosne Gosnell back in the day, used to be a good place. Right now they're just pulling tennis balls over with drugs in it, right because

maybe you have to go to jail if you don't go to rehabs. So, you know, I don't know. I look at there's so much money in the state of Massachusetts. There's so much money here. We're not I recognized that in my time here. Okay, and private people can only do so much. But we could open up beds, we could open up eds, absolutely. What is the plan here? Absolutely? When you meet with the politicians here, what's their plan? Some may better clean up mass ave

Yep. Absolutely, So that's a piece of it. And she hasn't done anything as far as I can see. Okay, I haven't been here long enough to see it. I have, I have, so you know our maya has got to do something. Sure, sure, absolutely So I think about all these people that own that real estate on MASSV right, and they're crying every day like please push this. Sure, what do we do here? Yep? It's a again, it's a funding from a housing perspective. That's a piece of it. But it can't just be housing, right,

It's got to be it's got to be services. So those those individuals down there, the amount of clinical services that they would need, the amount of medical services that they would need, the amount of vocational and employment service. This right, because you can think about it. If I get a house and I don't have a job, where are you gonna end up? How many people losing on Mass have every day? I can tell you that I can't tell you that number, but I can tell you it is estimated in

the last year that we lost over twenty three hundred to opiate overdose. And I just ran outical that we're losing thirty to fifty people a day. Is that true? I wouldn't doubt it. You wouldn't doubt it. Right, just in Massachusetts, just on that one street, honey, just on that one street. Oh my god. Yeah, it's crazy. Well, and it's it's not just fentanyl. Now, there's drugs out there called xylazine, which is essentially a horse trequilizer that I mean, it's again, the drug

supply is a totally different beast, so we could dig into. But it's again I used to think of the past again, It's not nineteen eighty two picking up a grammar cocaine, going out with your friends, having a good time, and everybody's going to come home alive. It doesn't work that way anymore. They just keep cutting with things that want to make it more addictive,

more addictive, highly addicted. Like heroin. You do a line of oh, then you're gonna need it because there's something in that that's making you physically. Cocaine wasn't a physical drug. It was more of a mental drug. You like that feeling of feeling like we used to call it the wop wopping Knights like everybody's I love it, blah blah. Now you do a line of coca and you're dead on the ground, following at the mouth.

I mean you know, yeah, let me take you inside of the mind of a substance user, which is down on mass f If if I find out somebody has has overdosed, I want to go to that dealer because I know that's the stuff that's strong that can get me to the level that I want to get to. So they push the boundaries now right, like we're not just using to get high, We're using to get to that point of I mean death, right. They don't want to die, they want to

get right there. And so that's a piece of the drug supply down there right now. And that's that's the name of the game that we're trying to fix. And again, we can't take these drug deals off the streets. Why I think, Right, But here's what I say, I die from your drug, you go to jail. I'm dead, you go to jail. I'm sorry. There's gonna be saying. That's like having a loaded gun of thirty eight and putting it right in his head. That's how I see

it. You're not wrong, but yeah, you're not wrong, and we can't take them off the streets. The question is why don't we want to take them off the streets. Why we bust a couple and we put them away and we made an example that to me, I believe that goes way past my pay grade, your pay grade, everybody's pay grade. Somebody makes money off drugs somewhere, and it's so far up that political chain I don't even know where it stops and stops. But we're going back to break.

I'm sitting stumbling and listen Tough of Nails on WZ News Radio ten thirty. And Right Back sponsored by Pillow Windows of Boston, Next Day Molding and Kennedy Carpet Welcome Back, Top and Dale Sity Stuff on WBZ News Radio ten thirty. And I'm here with Sammy, I'm here with Nelson, and I'm here with my amazing guest. Right here. You're supposed to introduce yourself, Adam

Tucker, CEO of the Diiction Treatment Center of New England. There you go, Adam, tell us if you could boom step your finger, give me what that looks like for a fix? Yep, that's the question, right, And I think that's what's so hard. Money's no objects. Money's no object. Politicians is going to play with you. Yeah, do what they whatever you want. Yep, you got the you got the Christmas gift of

lifetime. Go ahead, time right, give me it's it's time. It's time spent with these individuals to learn their story, to learn who they are, to learn how they got to the point of where they're at right now, and for somebody to show them love that they've probably never had in their life, because it's going to be the hardest thing that they've ever dealt with. And so that's time. From a housing perspective, that's time. From

a medical perspective, that's time. From a therapeutic pic. All right, I'm gonna hold you that I've seen good kids come out of bad homes. I've seen bad kids come out of good homes. Right, sure. But I've always said this, this is just my and I've talked to many doctors on this, but usually the self medicating starts from something at a young age, whether it's anxiety, panic, not feeling confluent in your skin, shy

abuse, whether it's been mental, physical, sexual. Okay, I think most people I've met in my career, my life, and my career, my personal life, most had those underlying problems, right, and they would never diagnose properly, and especially the ones that were sexually molested. Sure, and they ran, yep to run. And it started with hot alcohol as

teenagers than just jump jump jump. Who thought in twenty twenty three we'd be back to nineteen sixty four in the Boston Commons when I was a little girl, right, I was born sixty four, so maybe I was five six years old on the ducks was what were those duck boats? The duck boats? They're still there. Yeah, But I used to be I used to be scared as a little girl holding my dad's hand looking at all the protesters. No they were they were like daisies and on their heads like whatever,

whippie hippies they were all they were all using those type of drugs. And then I remember watching the movie as another young girl that affected me was Charles Manson and watching that whole movie, right, oh wow, I never want to do that, Like, I never want to be that person. I don't. All those things affected me along the way to stay away from drugs. And I've never had a drink of alcohol in my life, and those choices were made because I just saw too much bad with it that why do

I can live vicariously through you? Okay? And I do suffer from panic disorders since six years old. So if anybody should go there and self medicate, sure, give me, give me a scotch, give me something to throw it back and get rid of the panic attack. Right yep. I think that's what's so confusing about it, right, is it's not It's not

a blanket disease. Right. I can't say if you have panic disorder, if you have anxiety or bipolar one, or it's gezo effective, that you're going to choose substances as your vice to be able to escape from that. That's just not the case. And if it was, it'd be way easier to treat, right, it'd be it would be your normal disease where you go to the doctor and they would say this is what you have. You've got diabetes, this is the treatment for it, and it would lay out

that way. But it comes from so many different directions and maybe no direction at all as to how it got there, that it's not a one size fits all blanket and that's the that's the complexity of it all. So there's not you're not agreeing with mental abuse, not enough love in the house. Oh I'm absolutely agreeing with Oh you are. I am absolutely So that's how it starts. Basically, there's a piece of that, right, there's a

piece of that. There's a piece of that. And again, you know, I don't want to This may seem like a vague answer, but it can come from all different directions. But then you can get the kid that grew up in the perfect family with mom and dad that loves him or her and a good family, good home, upper class and they're still running too,

and they still end up out on the streets. Well, they might not end up on the streets on mass Ave because mommy and daddy keep fixing the problem with money because they can well, and let me paint you another

picture. We don't always get to see inside of the homes. So maybe mommy and daddy had money, and maybe mom and dad were there, But maybe and mommy and dad weren't there, right, Maybe they worked a long time, and maybe they had a job that pulled them away, and we don't know what kind of emotional trauma that calls for that individual, right, there might be an experience that that kid needed support at that time, and Daddy was at a conference in California. Daddy didn't choose for that to happen,

right, Daddy didn't mean for that to happen. Nobody meant for that to happen. But I don't get to choose how I respond to these traumatic situations. My brain does, right, My brain says, I need somebody here for me right now, and Daddy's not here for me, right, And so that's the start. That's one, that's step one, and then other experiences happen where that leads into that trauma, right, and it builds and it builds and it builds it. Then I get a substance, and

that substance is my best friend. That substance allows me to get away from that because I haven't been able to get away from that. So you actually probably your first love is that substance. It is your best friend, right, and then it kills you, right, It slowly eats away at you.

And so that's what's so tricky about these individuals getting care, which is, at one point time, this substance was my best friend, and it took me out of these situations and this trauma and this turmoil that took place with me, you know, probably internally on a daily basis, and it

slowly eats away at me. And now you're telling me that I can't have that vice in my life and I have to essentially, I have to go back and deal not only do I not get that vice, but I don't I have to go back and deal with that trauma in order to get cleaned somewhere. Wow. And then you're telling me that it's a twenty four hour disease that I have to train every day. The stone has made a song, Mother's Little Helper, Right, I'm for that song. Right. That

was just to get through having two three kids. Right. Sure, you know think about this. Back in the day, my mother tells me stories that after you had a baby, they gave you black beauties you could lose the weight. And then you got a bunch of women running around in their sixties running around cleaning everybody's house. Is the parents, the grandparents, they lived in three decades because they're all wite out on black beauties. Wow.

And their mothers were giving them the black beauties to help them lose the weight. Yeah, but they didn't know that black beauties were going to be a dictating They didn't know. You went to the doctors. You were stressed out. Raised mom went to the doctors. She had three boys fourteen months apart. Pick up a pack of cigarettes to smoke, a pack of you know, go smoke cigarettes, so it'll relax you. Sure, here's the xanax.

Welcome to the club. There you go, Adam, Let me ask you a question, right, has this gotten worse over time when you look at the statistics right on a graph? On a graph shater, has this gotten worse over time? Or are we getting in a better place? It's getting worse, right, it's getting worse. I think I think it was trending in that direction, naturally. I think COVID expedited it because addiction breeds itself in isolation. Right, it could be my whole family right here,

right, I could have all the support in the world. But if I don't think I have it, I'm in that state of isolation, right. The only thing I need is that vice. So, and that's all we had for that whole period of time, which was isolation, right, and so it only you know, I can't tell me how many people that I know that that picked up again during COVID that had years and years and years of sobriety due to the fact that they went back to that state of isolation.

So it's only getting worse. The drug supply adds to that. We had no meetings, Yeah, they were all closed down, all the church meetings, everything. If you got online you could catch a meeting maybe, but those people need to be a meetings. But you have to understand something. You go to a meeting and the minute you walk out the door, this five drug dealer is hustling you. The minute you walk out the door. Wow, So you go to a meeting to do the right thing and

then you walk out the door. And I'd come out with some of my guys. Look, I've left job sites. My guys have needed me, and you know my kids know this. And I've gone in the middle of two o'clock, three o'clock in the afternoon and grab one of my guys. I see is falling, let's go going to a meeting. And that could have built a really bad reputation for me where I build right Newton Brookline.

Joe Dommley, I didn't give two craps what people thought of me. You want to think I'm a drug user, Go, I think I'm a drug user. But I've been asked to leave rooms because somebody would say, she doesn't use drugs, and the guy riding the room would say, or the meeting excuse me, But you're making that press uncomfortable. You are a drug user. No, I'm not a drug user. But see the guy i'm here with, he's going with me for twenty years. I'm going to stay

right by his side. So tell the person that's got a problem that I'm in the room to leave the room. Yeah, okay, or get over it, because I could really here who's in this room, And I'm not here to talk about anybody that's in this room. So that's her problem or his problem, not mine. And I'm not leaving here. That's funny, I mean, that's that's how I started. I'm not in recovery myself with my childhood best friend at a young age started using, and I did the

same thing. I said, let's go, dude, you're ass in this room. I'll sit here with you in the same experience. Right, That's the only thing I knew, Right, I grew up with parents that were teachers, and I said, I'm gonna take you to class, Bud, like, let's go right, And so that's all I knew to do. But it's it's hard, man, being being on the other side of the boat is hard for the individual that has a substant use disorder, but it's

also hard for the individuals that are loving them from the outside. No, absolutely, so, Adam, let me ask you this high level what and what needs to happen in order for us to go down? Right, let's crime. What needs to happen? Yeah, high level? Yeah, boom boom boom boom yep, let's crime. Money needs to get needs to get spent on the on the supply side of things, the drug dealer side of things, right, we need to there needs to be Hey, hold, I thought, I'm sorry, guys, I gotta be the rude one.

I'm sinny stumbling you. Listen to the Toughest Nails on WBZ News Radio ten thirty will be right Back, sponsored by new Brook Realty Group, Boston, would Smaller Insurance World Auto Body and Tosca Drive Auto Body go into Dante into the show, Good Constant and welcome back to Tough Snails. On WBZ News Radio ten thirty and I'm here with Sammy, I'm here with Nelson, I'm here with Adam. Good Adam, finish up what you're saying just now.

Yeah. Sure. So money needs to get spent on the supply side of things, right, We need to attack the dealers in the in the drug supply. Money needs to get spent on housing. Money needs to get spent on raising individuals to to want to work in this profession. Right, there's a very difficult profession to work in. The level of burnout is through the roof Wow, and and and frankly, these are some of the in a professional terms, these individuals have to have some of the most empathy of anybody

that I've ever seen. So as money's got to get spent on workforce, and then I think he's got to get spence on I guess what you would call like, I'm gonna call it quality treatment. Right. There's tons of

treatment out there, There's there's all kinds of access to treatment. But the end but the care that's actually given to the individuals is it individualized treatment for that person that you're that you're working with, right right, right, right, And the other problem here Nelson, and you've got small children, and where you're from, you have parents like this. I don't think drugs have ever been something that's impacted your family. But it takes one child, one

one parent, one person family that will bring down the whole family. You will all come to your knees because of one that's doing drugs, because then the parents are fighting over that one child, and they're fighting with each other, and the other siblings are fighting. Every is fighting. One person is doing all the wrong and the rest are getting effected. That's why they have something called alan On. And then I did. I went to an alan On meeting and I'm like, why am I here? Why am I sitting

this meeting. I'm not the one that needs to help, but you do because your brain gets so messed up because they'll love you, half of your family, and you see some self destructing and you can't stop it. We took Samantha, she was eighteen, less than eighteen seventeen, to we made it do four or five drugs. She didn't do drugs, but we made her. We wanted her to see and I went with her and her dad and there was an aisle between us, so her and her father was sitting

next to each other. I had been to enough of these meetings right with my guys at work, and I'm over on through the aisle, right and I'm looking at these two crying their rise outyep, because they couldn't handle the stories. But I don't know about you guys, but I watched a movie in school. I don't know if you had at Sammy. It was called Skid Straight. I know of it. I don't know if I've seen it. I think they stopped playing it in junior high schools and high schools.

But let me tell you, it impacted me to stay straight. Okay, so it was called Skisvan. I don't know if they still do it. But Sammy, do you remember going back those days when you went, when we took those meetings to show you what can go on if you pick up drugs? Do you remember sending the crying, hearing the stories. It was a meeting. Of course, you had a meeting. There you go,

and that's real and in your face. And I think every parent, even if your your kids could be super straight, bring them, expose them absolutely to the real world. I've got a three four year old and they're coming to work with that. Come on, let's check it out. You know, she was exposed. This is what can happen. This will be your story. So maybe for the next general bringing the next kids up, subject them to this, let them make better decisions that they maybe can make by

hearing other people's stories. Yeah, there's a huge education awareness DARE, but I don't think that's the thing anymore. Here was in schools. I don't think DEAR did much of anything. It's there still, it's pretty few and far between. I don't know how effective DARE was, but I do think there's a huge piece right now that you know, education awareness and prevention from a young age age is going to be part of it, right, Like it has to be. It's critical. It's a critical piece of this.

And it doesn't even necessarily have to be from you know, I'm gonna scare you out of your you know, you're soon to be substance use disorder at some point. But like, here's what it is. Here's sort of how it manifests, and let's just have the awareness and keep an eye on it.

If something was to pop up, right, you know, I think you know, any sort of mental illness or emotional you know, trauma at a young age, Get the individual, get the kid help, right, Like, let's let's catch it early on before it starts to fester and manifest to where it gets to a point like this. What's your feelings on the rehab programs when you start flying your kids to Colorado, your husband to call it to the mountains, and you're spending one hundred thousand maybe a bit more

a month, right, get a bed? Yep. I've seen more. I've seen more people stay clean coming out of the Meridian House, which is a hardcore program. You grab and twilage you're cleaning. You don't get this, you know boushy Okay, linen beds with your vag covers, right, yep? Yep? Which program to works the best? I think they could? Yeah? Well again, I'm gonna give you another vague answer. I

think they can both work the same. I think it's it comes down to one factor, which is what is that individual's level of readiness to change at that time? Right? Because if I push you, I don't care where you go. If I push you in the Meridian House, if I push you out to the bougie Colorado beds, if you're still what they call pre contemplative, which I'm not even that. What that means is I'm not even contemplating changing at this time. Or maybe if I'm contemplative and I'm just kind

of perusing it around my mind. You know where you're going, right, Like, the individual has to be ready to change in order to do this, and and and we can't make them. And that's what's so hard from an outside perspective, which is I love somebody so much that I'm willing to do whatever I want, whatever I can do for this individual. And truth of the matter is, I can't do a damn thing about it. So let's say, okay, somebody goes into McLean's, we get them a bed

for which would happen? We can get you a bed for four days, get you cleaned out, then we had nowhere to put you, right, Okay. I did notice they would try the hottest to try to find. Now, if you had good insurance, it's always easy, right. Sure, if you don't have a good insurance, it kind of like stuck. But I didn't notice that they would find a lot of good place up in Hampshire where there's you can breathe. It's not the city. You're out there

in the wildlife. You know what I mean, you're out there in the woods, you're out there. Is there something to be said about those type of programs up there? There is, for sure. I think there's a big piece of it that where you get treatment needs to be out of the

environment that you got sick. Right, I can't if I got sick on mass ap and I'm trying to get clean on like, come on, man, that's not going to work, right, Get me somewhere else, Like it doesn't have to be big and bougie with a private chef and you know, you know, all the bells and whistles. But but get me out of get me out of where I got sick. I get to I get to take a step back, I get to you. I get to get out of this environment, and I get to assess everything that's taking place in

that environment. So it's another problem. And I'm not sure, but I mean, you go you stock going to western mass right, here's a mass it's very cheap. The land is still cheap. Sure, you go up to New Hampshire. Land is cheap to be able to do this or is it? We don't want to not backyard attitude. I think there's a piece of that. And I think I probably need to clarify when I say you

got to get out of the environment that get that you got sick. You know, these individuals that we will go back to Massing Casts, right, they don't have to leave the city. They probably just need to get away from Mass and Casts where the hustle and bustle is and where they can't get out of there and what the drug deals just keep coming by there and selling. Is that what they're doing. I'm sure there's a piece of that. Right, I'm going to go to wherever the demand is. As a dealer,

you know, it's a business. It's a business, right, So where they gained the money? Where the dealers getting the money? No, we know, we know the dealers get the money. Where these people get

the money, Well, they're homeless, they're homeless. I think. I think what you got to understand about somebody with substan Choose disorder is they are incredibly resilient and incredibly resourceful, right, I think, And again I'm not I'm a new bosson boy here, but what I've heard about the mass and Cast area is that they had these tent villages and they came back and they wiped them all away, right, they took all their tents away. Now,

what'd you find happened after that? They got all new tints exactly right right the street, right down the street. Right. So they're incredibly resilient and incredibly resourceful. Like having a job in an income to fuel substance chose disorder is not a problem for somebody that has that issue. They get in the cash, they'll make it work, right, they'll make it work. And again I don't want to get too far down. They don't have jobs,

so they robbing people? What are they doing? Maybe maybe they you know, they might be collecting cans and selling recycling. Like, they'll make it work, right, because that that disease is so strong, I'm going to fuel it. What are they to do over the winter time? It's really cold here. That's tough. What's gonna be the answer? Then? That's tough. It's uh. Again, we we got to get them in some sort of housing, even if it's just for like, what's the plan

right now to treat their physical needs? I don't know. I don't know what there is from a political standpoint, right, I can tell you what what we do at our treatment center. But I can't. I can't tell you from the political standpoint. I haven't lived here long enough. I haven't I haven't seen different different mayors. But but I can tell you that that we're gonna have to get these individuals off the street. Okay, So when you were working with the White House, Yeah, what EXPERI answers, Well,

that was, man, what what what is that? The lowest on the TOTEM poll? No, no, no, no, it's uh, there's there's so many discussions that happened at the same time at the White House, and what a cool experience that was for me. I got brought on as again, I'm a therapist by trade. That's how I got into this game, yep. And I got on to advise their federal level policy from

the perspective of somebody with boots on the ground as a therapist. And so there's tons of different experiences and conversations that they're having, and I think one of them is housing that that they're looking into in terms of federal money spent, never gonna happen. They can't get them the streets, right, But it's good to dream. But we can all dream. But all that thought

I'm Sidy Stumbling listening to Tampa's Nails on WBZ news Radio. Tempory lead right back, could stay week It's just to agree and welcome back to Tampas Nails on WBZ News Radio ten thirty And I'm Sindy. I'm here with Sammy, and I'm here with Nelson. I'm here with Adam, absolutely Adam. So tell the people how can they reach out to you? How can they connect with you? So we are We're the Addiction Treatment Center of New England.

We're set down in Brighton, Massachusetts, on the grounds of the bright Marine Hospital. We are an outpatient treatment program that has medicated assistant treatments, behavioral health counseling, recovery coaching, and we even have a program that provides transportation to us. You can you can look at our website. It's a t c n E dot net as in the Addiction Treatment Center of New England dot net. It's got all of our admission criteria and ways to make referrals to

us. And we're there to help and would love to be able to hold individuals hands and care. Everybody. Have a great, safe weekend. This is Cindy Stampo on WBZ news radio ten thirty