Navigating the Storm: Insights into Substance Abuse and Family Interventions with Pej Alaghamandan

From the throes of addiction to becoming a beacon of hope for others, our esteemed guest, Pej the Interventionist, is here to share his riveting journey. Imagine what it feels like to rise from the ashes of your own struggle, only to become an interventionist. Pej's transformative life story is a testament to resilience and the human spirit's ability to overcome adversity.

In a society where drugs like methamphetamine and Fentanyl are alarmingly on the rise, Pej unfolds the ramifications of these evolving trends in substance abuse treatment. We discuss prop 110 from an on-the-ground view of how the decriminalization of drugs in Oregon has sent shockwaves through the Portland drug market. Listen in as he demystifies the complexities of intervening with individuals using methamphetamine and those in psychosis, accentuating the crucial role that law enforcement plays in these challenging situations.

Shifting focus from societal trends to individual battles, we break down different intervention models — from the Johnson Model to Invitational interventions. Pej brings out the significance of understanding family history and dealing with generational trauma in executing successful interventions. Throughout our conversation, it becomes evident that interventions are not just about rescuing an individual from the clutches of addiction, but also about healing families caught in this destructive cycle. Join us for a poignant exploration into the world of interventions and their indispensable contribution to addiction treatment.

To connect with Pej on social media or discuss how he can help your family, please visit:
Pej Intervention or call him at 310-596-9356
TikTok: @pejinterventions
YouTube: Pej the Interventionist

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

If you don't mind, I will begin at the beginning.

Speaker 2: 0:04

Who's our next guest? We got no one. We need a new format. We should shut down and retool.

Speaker 1: 0:11

We're talking about Valium, we're talking about Quailoots, we're talking about Fina Barbatal, the weed smokers and the pill poppers.

Speaker 2: 0:20

We're gonna have to edit a lot of this shit out. I couldn't believe that Son of a Bitch had the balls to say that.

Speaker 1: 0:29

Welcome to the Party Wreckers podcast, hosted by professional interventionists Matt Brown and Sam Davis. This is a podcast for families or individuals with loved ones who are struggling with addiction or alcoholism and are reluctant to get the help that they need. We hope to educate and entertain you while removing the fear from the conversation. Stay with us and we'll get you through it. Please welcome the Party Wreckers, matt Brown and Sam Davis.

Speaker 3: 1:06

Alright. Alright, we're back for another episode. My name is Matt Brown. I'm with Freedom Interventions. I'm on the West Coast out here in Oregon. Sam Davis is my co-host with Broad Highway Recovery back in Virginia and, if this is your first time listening to us, we're two interventionists in full-time practice. We have private practices, we work with families all over the country, and I should also warn you, if this is your first time listening to us, that the man that you're about to hear next has a golden voice and you will fall in love. You will want to turn the podcast on and just kind of fall asleep to the voice that you're about to hear. Alright, sam, I think I properly prepared them. Tell us how you do it, man.

Speaker 2: 1:49

So they're getting ready to be really disappointed when they actually hear my voice. But you know, we don't want them to go to sleep, we want to keep them entertained. That's what we're here for is to entertain. We see so much stuff out here across the land being interventionists, but we see the same thing, right. There's different family systems all over the country that hail from the south, that hail from the north, that hail from great wealth and hail from medium range income and even lower income, but the behaviors are the same.

Speaker 2: 2:20

So we want to share all that with everyone. And we've got someone cool on today. His name's Pej the interventionist. I had the honor of meeting him Well, it was a couple months ago, Pej, I think it was and I had the also honor of being on his podcast that he does on YouTube. We'll get into that and share his channel so you can check him out. But, ladies and gentlemen, without further ado, my buddy over on the West Coast, Pej the interventionist, how are you, my friend?

Speaker 4: 2:46

I'm great Thank you for having me on Party records man you guys be doing in the party.

Speaker 2: 2:53

Well, how'd you come up with that, matt? Matt came up with that name, and it's an interesting story.

Speaker 3: 2:57

So back in probably 2004, I was introduced to the idea of a professional intervention. My family had tried to intervene on me several years before that, without success, and I started working at a treatment center. There was a guy there that did interventions for us. He's since passed away but certainly left a huge mark on my professional and personal life, and anytime I had the opportunity to go and do an intervention with him and sit second chair, he'd let me go with him. But he had this kind of inside joke between the two of us, you know, and before we'd hop on the plane or before we'd get in the car, he'd say all right, here come the party records.

Speaker 3: 3:40

And you know, it was just kind of something between he and I. Oh, I assume, I want to. I want to assume that it was just between he and I. It makes me feel more special that way. But you know, he was a guy who really kind of helped me get started going down this road, you know. So, robert, rest in peace. Your legacy lives on through the name of our podcast.

Speaker 2: 4:00

Right on. So, Pidge, how'd you end up here? I mean, we're just jumping right into it, right? No more small talk, no need for any more introductions. Let's just see how in the hell did Pidge end up here today?

Speaker 3: 4:18

Hanging out in the shallow end of the pool is no fun, let's just jump in the deep end.

Speaker 4: 4:22

Well, I mean, you know I've been doing interventions for quite some time myself too. I was trained under the direction of Earl Hightower. You know he's a very well known interventionist, Probably one of the best of the best. He's a good old timer too. You know there's circles. But you know how did I end up here? I noticed something that was going on with you and I kind of just zeroed in on it. Somebody turned me on to this podcast. I listened to you guys and I was like I can vibe with these guys, Like I think we're kind of cut from the same cloth. It's interesting. Obviously we all three of us had addiction problems and alcoholism and both of you guys were intervened on at certain points in your lives, and so was I was more intervened on by my mother, who was a pistol, and you know.

Speaker 4: 5:11

Let me just give you a little background of who I am. So I'm a Persian, Iranian man that was born in Germany and raised in solid city Utah for the first portion of my life, and so I always felt different. I always felt like I didn't fit in with people, and I got into drugs and alcohol at a very, very young age and I continued to carry on that lifestyle. I also experienced some major, major trauma where, you know, I was behind the wheel and somebody, I hit someone on a bicycle and they ended up dying and so that ended me up in the system and I've been locked up a lot. I've been a drug dealer, a drug user, all that stuff for a long time and by the time I was 35, almost 36 years old, I was just a shell of a man and dying. You know, like I didn't know what to do with myself, not just dying physically but dying spiritually.

Speaker 4: 6:00

So I was reintroduced to a man who I went into this facility that he had. I had met him five years before. He had just a sober living out in Huntington Beach, California. But when I met him again when I was 35, he started taking me on what would be seen as interventions. He wasn't an official interventionist but he was a Persian guy, His facility was Persian.

Speaker 4: 6:24

So I went to go make the Persian mother happy, but then I just started to kind of you know, this dude looked like a Persian recovery Yoda. He even kind of sounded like him right, Like he'd be like hello, how are you doing? Welcome, we have tours, we go to meetings, and none of what he had to offer. The first time around, when I was 30 and straight out of jail, Did I want anything to do with it and I didn't stay at his house. But this time I ended up at his front doorstep and they say there are no coincidences, God's way of staying anonymous that I ended up, you know, meeting this guy again, and God rest his soul. He just died about 120 days ago, but that was my greatest mentor. I would go with him into certain family systems, especially Persians, because there's lots of us and lots of Persians have addiction problems and alcoholism. So I just watched this guy the way he now go ahead.

Speaker 2: 7:15

Now wouldn't you say I mean, it's been my experience working with different cultures in this field, doing interventions that there are some cultures that I have found, the Persian culture being one of them? Correct me if you think I'm wrong. No, you're absolutely right. Where it's ingrained in the culture of that mom takes care. Right, mom, that there's a lot of enabling this, not just as a result of the addiction, but also ingrained in their culture. Next level, it's very difficult to overcome.

Speaker 4: 7:45

Next level, enabling the entire Persian culture and community, just reeks of codependency, I mean in a really disgusting way. And I don't think it's their fault, it's just the way they're raised. And on top of that, no Persians want to ever think that their beloved kids that they want to go on to school and become a doctor or engineer or an attorney is a heroin addict. They just don't want that. So there's a major stigma that's attached to that as well. As Asian, I've done all kinds of interventions on different cultures and I see who wants to sweep the problem under the rug and who doesn't really want to admit what's wrong, and they certainly don't want to think blame either for any of it. They don't believe in a fair amount of money In our culture as a whole.

Speaker 3: 8:35

Just you look at the United States as a melting pot. I think that there's a stigma around addiction that there is a lot of shame. It's somehow looked at as a moral issue. It's looked at as a character flaw. You don't have the fortitude to be able to just pull yourself up by your bootstraps and move ahead and leave this in the past.

Speaker 3: 8:57

And I think, inherently, regardless of what country your heritage is from, as we come into this society, you guys are both working in this field. How often do you talk with a family where they want to lead with the fact that their son or their daughter has a mental health issue? They have ADHD, they have oppositional defiant disorder, they have bipolar or depression, and if we could just find a program that would treat that, then I think that for I say this all the time I think that a lot of families prefer that it would be a mental health issue because it requires less of a change and less of an investment on the part of the family when they're dealing with something that, hey, you know what, if I could just get this person medicated, we'd be okay All the time.

Speaker 3: 9:42

All the time. So certainly Earl's name is well known in our circles and I certainly love listening to that guy as a 12-step speaker. How did you find Earl, or how did he find you?

Speaker 4: 9:58

When I was about six years sober. I'm 16 years sober now. When I was about six years sober, I worked in a detox in Orange County, california, newport Beach, and somebody gave me a speaker tape of this guy and said you should listen to this guy and I said what's his name? They said Earl Hightower. I'm like is he black? Like the name Hightower Earl, it sounded like a black dude, right.

Speaker 3: 10:18

And I listened to this. That's just from a police academy movie.

Speaker 4: 10:21

Police academy right. So I listened to this guy's tape and I'm like, oh man, like this story is very similar to mine, like I like this. And you know, I started looking him up and I realized, oh, he works. You know, he works in this industry. He helps a lot of people. He's not just specific to the alcoholic, he's like helping addicts out there too. And Spirit of the Universe just kind of worked its magic.

Speaker 4: 10:44

Within one year I got out of Orange County. I moved to LA. I had opened up these like structured sober livings which I still have to the state sundown in Orange County now. But I told all the guys within two weeks I had like six guys. We're all going to this CA meeting. There's a guy he's coming out of, speaker Hyattus. His name's girl, hyatt Hauer. I've heard a CD. We need to go there.

Speaker 4: 11:05

So I remember we went there and as we pulled up I seen this little short man out front and I thought that's gotta be him. He was a really humble dude making conversation with everyone. I went up and talked to him. I had just turned seven years sober and I told me you know, my name is Pedge and he goes. Well, nice to meet you, pedge. I say, well, I'm seven years sober, I'm looking for a sponsor in the area, and he said you're okay, right. I said, yeah, what do you mean? He goes well, you're seven years sober, you should be okay, right? I go, yeah, I'm okay. He said, okay, well, here's my phone number, call me up. And then that you know. The rest was history.

Speaker 4: 11:41

So it started in that arena, right. But once I actually went and sat down with him and learned about him and he learned about me, he took me under his wing and so I started working for Hyatt Tower Associates as a marketing director, which I never had been a marketing director, I didn't go to school for none of that stuff, right. But this guy, he hired me, he believed in me and he told me we could go out and help a lot of people do the right thing and take. You know this could be a career path for you. And so, moving forward, we started organizing a lot of intervention trainings. He asked me to obviously find the director I got to put this stuff together. So he asked me to help him find people that want to do it or learn to do interventions. And so then I started going to those trainings too, and that's kind of how it all just came together, which was magical.

Speaker 3: 12:30

Well, and before we move forward, sam, we forgot to mention at the beginning of the episode that we have a training coming up at the end of September in Maryland. If you want to consider and you know as you listen to the three of us talk about the crazy world that we work in if you want to consider getting trained to become an interventionist, you can go to interventiononcallcom and look at the training registration form there. You know, on that note, it takes a special kind of crazy to want to walk into a home or you know, a place where the person doesn't know you're coming. They're not going to be happy that you're there. The family is just on pins and needles, hoping that. You know beyond hope sometimes that this is going to work and we have to walk in there and find a way to create that opportunity of motivation, of hope, of momentum. What is it about this work that speaks to you? Passion?

Speaker 4: 13:28

Obviously, it's the rewards.

Speaker 4: 13:30

It's about actually going into what you're talking about, seeing somebody in their full blown disease or alcoholism, whether they didn't know that you were going to come or the family was going to come, or whether they just see in the light, like having that glimmer of hope where they actually sometimes actually really wished somebody cared enough to do this for them.

Speaker 4: 13:52

Right, and but even the ones that are the most resistant, seeing the ones that will fight you tooth and nail and try to convince you of every excuse in the book of why they don't need to get help, but being able to work with the family and being able to work with the individual and getting them to where they need to go, and then, on the other side of that, once they get out, being involved in some capacity in their life, whether they bring you on as a coach or whatever to really really see a long term sobriety plan and implementation of just sobriety within their lives that's what it's all about.

Speaker 4: 14:28

I mean it really like I'm not the type of person that's like I'm not this many successful interventions there's a lot of them that you get the interventions as total success but the person doesn't actually follow through, and I don't. You know, I'm not a miracle worker. If they want to involve me, or if they want me to hold them accountable or keep working with them, great. But like I live for seeing the miracles when the people actually get on the other end of this and get their lives back.

Speaker 2: 14:55

Yeah, and it takes some skill. I mean there's a, there's a level of skill that goes into this thing. That is some of it just can't be trained. You've got to kind of have it inside of you. You've got to be that, that quick thinker. Now, in other areas of my life I'm not such a quick thinker. I can get all jumbled up on you about picking out some tile or some cabinets or, you know, going shopping at the grocery store. But you've got to be able to make those quick decisions in the moment during an intervention.

Speaker 2: 15:22

And you know, all three of us are on social media, we all have TikToks, we all have a certain level of you know, when you're, when you're at this stage of social media, you get some hate, you get some people that don't understand interventions. And I was called. Actually a few weeks ago I was, I was called, not an interventionist. I was not an interventionist at all, you know, and that was news to me, because just that Sunday before I walked into a woman's house at eight o'clock on a Sunday morning and she had no idea that I was coming and this woman had an anger that I hadn't seen in a long, long, long time.

Speaker 2: 15:57

I mean, this woman was angry, angry and she called me every name in the book and she stood up and presented a case to her family and how they have disappointed her through the years. And what in the world are you bringing this white guy up in the miles? For? You know, and you know we left with that woman and ended up. She went to treatment that day. So I would challenge anyone that says that you know we're not interventionists to go try that I'll drive you to the next intervention and I'll sit out in the driveway and you just go on in there and come out with an individual like that.

Speaker 3: 16:34

Did this insightful individual give any indication as to how they arrived at the decision that you were not an interventionist, sam, or did they just decide and just announce that to you?

Speaker 2: 16:44

Oh man, you know, sometimes haters just hate to hate. You know, they just pull shit out of this guy and that's all right. That's all right.

Speaker 3: 16:54

Well, pige, I mean, you've been doing this now for what? 10 years?

Speaker 4: 17:00

Professionally I'd say eight years, but you know anything before that, like there was a lot of times I was doing interventions without knowing that I was doing interventions, you know.

Speaker 3: 17:11

Sure, well, I know Sam and I have talked about this between you, know us and our practices, but as you, especially over the last several years with you, know the pandemic and the introduction of fentanyl into kind of the mainstream drug culture, what kind of changes have you seen in the landscape as far as addiction and treatment in the time that you've been doing this?

Speaker 4: 17:37

Well, I mean you just said it right there. I mean I've worked in a lot of treatment centers so I watched the fentanyl craze come into effect. I've watched it go from being lollipops and patches that people actually were getting you know medical grade fentanyl to what's being distributed out there by supposedly made in China and then whoever in South America likes to get it into all of our states. Every state has it. Every single state in the United States has somebody that is, or many people that are, addicted to this stuff. And it's not just your average everyday 22 year old kid, it's 40 and 50 year olds, and there's teenagers that are doing it too. So it's crazy. What type of people are my put in treatment these days? Fentanyl addicts, people that are using drugs that they don't know have fentanyl in them, straight up alcoholics. Those are actually my favorite interventions. They're a lot easier right Sometimes. I mean, the ego is quite a fascinating thing.

Speaker 3: 18:39

What are you seeing is in terms of the correlation between high concentration THC use and mental health right now, oh, it's horrible.

Speaker 4: 18:48

Okay, so on my take talk, I have a lot of kids that are telling me that they're experiencing deep personalization derealization. They obviously have looked this stuff up because they feel a way of sorts, and that's happening from this the concentrate. You know the type of carts that are out there, especially the counterfeit carts that they're getting their hands on the stuff that they're buying from. Who knows the plug or whatever they're getting. You know they're having psychotic breaks. Some of them are actually, you know, hospitalized as a result of THC. And then also there's the I forget what it's called, but it's the stuff of it. When you do THC you throw up. All the time it's called like HP.

Speaker 3: 19:24

Yes, I'm hearing a lot about that lately too. It's basically a THC overdose.

Speaker 2: 19:29

Yeah, Like, yeah, what's it called green and out right.

Speaker 4: 19:33

Yeah, green and out is the nickname, but there's like an official name.

Speaker 3: 19:36

There's a clinical name for it. I can't remember what it is right now.

Speaker 4: 19:38

And I should learn it because I make videos about it. I look it up real quick when I make the videos, but still, that's a common thing too, right?

Speaker 4: 19:47

So there's that A lot of kids are experimenting with psilocybin. I mean we have, you know, right now it's been more popularized to use psilocybin or ketamine or LSD in a microdose form. But a lot of these people, when a doctor tells them you could microdose this to help your depression, suddenly a lot of these kids turn into like they go for macrodosing. Right, I did an intervention on a kid that was a straight ketamine addict, like he didn't like any other substance except for ketamine. And then to put them in treatment and he's over it now, like he's not into ketamine. But you know, that's what I see a lot of hallucinogens, things like that. Yeah, meth. Meth is huge, like come on.

Speaker 3: 20:35

It's making a huge comeback up here.

Speaker 4: 20:37

It's making a huge comeback and that was kind of my demise.

Speaker 3: 20:41

One of mine, Mine too and I can't, from what it sounds like. The methamphetamine that's getting used today is nothing like what I was using 20 years ago.

Speaker 4: 20:49

No, it's not because it's got. It's got these chemicals in it, like P2P and other things that people are using meth and going in the straight psychosis like almost immediately. You know how many people find me on TikTok. How many wives are out there or husbands are out there that don't know what to do with their spouse because they are hearing voices. They think their computers are hacked. They're up in the house looking out the windows. They're not functioning in every day and last they can't even work anymore. You know so much. It's just so it's running rampant. So it's not just fentanyl. There's a mess created. It's due for sure.

Speaker 2: 21:24

Yeah, those are the hardest interventions to do, in my opinion, of the methamphetamine in the marijuana and do psychosis yeah. Most difficult interventions. It's very difficult Very difficult Because you're not going to sit around in a circle and read letters in a living room where it's going to have any impact at all.

Speaker 2: 21:41

This is mainly interventions like that, with methamphetamine or no. Certainly there's exceptions to this. I've had exceptions but overall it's about we got to get them stopped first. We got to get them stopped. We got to get them landed somewhere to marinate so they can land from. That psychosis Usually ends up in a psych unit, whether they're picked up on a TDO or detaining order or get locked up for some other reason to let them marinate for a while. Yeah, give them steel as a, then we can make the approach. But it's difficult and you know you hear all of this about fentanyl and you're doing a lot of fentanyl interventions. I myself, most of my interventions are either methamphetamine or alcohol or marijuana.

Speaker 4: 22:22

Errol likes to throw all the methamphetamine ones at me because he knows I was a former meth user, so he knows I speak that language. I know psychosis because I was experiencing it with my friends when I was out there, so I know what it looks like now with people that are currently using it, because they're not easy. You're absolutely right.

Speaker 3: 22:41

With Proposition 110 passing last year here in Oregon or a year and a half ago now. You know it's pretty much everything's been decriminalized here in Oregon. There's not a lot of criminal or legal consequences for people who are caught in possession, and so for the last year, year and a half, it's gone to shit up in your area.

Speaker 4: 23:00

I did an intervention.

Speaker 3: 23:01

It really has. It's so bad.

Speaker 3: 23:04

You know, basically after 5 pm in downtown Portland, they know that law enforcement presence just because of the reduction of size of police force in Portland, they know that there's a fewer number of officers on the street after 5 or 6 o'clock in the evening and so you walk around downtown Portland, which I don't recommend that anybody do. But if you walk in downtown Portland after 6 pm, it's basically an open air drug market. You get people out there and people are openly using, without hesitation, visible to anybody that wants to walk down there. And you know the comparison of course has been made like oh well, this is just Amsterdam, like everything's legal here and, I think, the implementation of Prop 110.

Speaker 3: 23:50

I was talking to a guy with the Oregon Health Authority last week just trying to get involved with the training, because the idea is, hey, if you get caught, we're going to give you an option. You can either pay $100 fine or you can go and get an assessment to see if you're eligible to go to treatment pay for by the state. And in theory that's a great idea, because who has more interaction with drug addicts than law enforcement in most cases, other than their families? And so I called over there and said hey, how can I get involved with training these people who are doing these assessments so that they have some ability not only to work with the individuals, but if there's an opportunity to bring their family into the conversation and help provide that motivation, how can we do this?

Speaker 3: 24:36

And the guy from the Oregon Health Authority said you know, we just finished our first round of funding. We haven't even begun to train people. There aren't people actively doing those assessments yet. So the tickets are being written for the last year and a half, but nobody's doing assessments, nobody's given people the opportunity to go to treatment, and so the idea is sound, but it's just not happening yet. And so fentanyl is massive up here, meth is massive up here, you know, as it is all over the country. But yeah, it's a mess, it's a mess.

Speaker 2: 25:08

You know, I was out in California a few weeks well, I'll say a few weeks, that's probably a few months ago doing an intervention and I had the honor of listening to your beloved mayor of Portland Oregon, when he was getting railed by some citizens and a bigger bull shitter I have not seen in a long, long time. He was complete. He was as full as shit as a Christmas goose man he was. He had just blanket answers of no. I think we're doing just fine here and in the meanwhile of cities and like flames, you know, just being torched. Nothing to see here, yeah, nothing to see here. Man ain't a glad to win. Quit blowing, you know.

Speaker 3: 25:50

Well, pej, what? What approach do you take for intervention? I know a lot of interventionists prefer invitation interventions or surprise interventions. What modality, if there is one that you subscribe to more than others? What do you like to do as far as intervention?

Speaker 4: 26:05

your approach I mean being trained by Earl. You know he's really big on the Johnson model. Same, I was also trained by Patty Pike and Ed Storty. Both of them are I think Ed is more into the Johnson model. And then when I learned about the invitation model I and how it functions, I kind of like that too Depends on the case. You know it's going to totally depend on the case, like I I got to. I got to get the full scenario, I got to get the picture of what we're, what we're dealing with, so that I know how to go about it and sometimes I will do an intervention where they do not know I'm an interventionist.

Speaker 4: 26:45

I'm just a person that's had a drug problem too, that got sober and is, you know, it's out there helping people get sober too. I don't necessarily be, you know. They don't need to know I'm hired help, or that a family or a group of friends have come together to bring me in. Sometimes it's a case I'm working on for a little while, you know, especially those meth ones. Those are the ones and I got to be out there and build rapport with somebody that's homeless or something Like. I'm not going to, you know, intervene on his life. I need to be like gradually work him and work him or her or whatever, and be able to let them know hey, you know what?

Speaker 4: 27:22

I used to be homeless too. I was out here on the street. So now I've changed my life, I've been sober for a while, and if I can gain their trust enough, then I can guide them in the direction of really getting help. So but I admire so many different types of models, you know, and I I mixed it up I do all different types, I don't just stick with one.

Speaker 2: 27:44

Yeah, when I hear an individual that says you know, I do only invitational or I do only this model, or only that, that gives me pause, gives me pause.

Speaker 4: 27:54

I like invitational for certain cases because you know if somebody's a hard head or if it's the person that they can go forward and say hey, we've been talking to someone that's a professional that helps people, we invite you to come and sit with us and talk with the person too. It kind of lets the person know well, the gig is up because they know they're talking to someone right, and then maybe we'll actually sit down with this person and get somewhere. So it depends. I really admire invitational, depending on the case. Sorry to cut you off.

Speaker 3: 28:25

No, no, you're good, I was just going to say, you know some families that know about the different modalities, they'll want to go down the road of an invitational intervention and I get the feeling that it's really just not appropriate. Their loved one's not going to respond to that. But it feels better for the family to not do it by surprise, because they don't. They're so used to the eruption, they're so used to that moment of, you know, flash of anger in the beginning of that conversation, because I mean, I did that to my family, like, if you want to talk about this with me, this, I'm going to hurt you, I'm going to say things that leave a mark and you're not going to want to do this again.

Speaker 3: 29:03

And so families get conditioned into silence because of that. That it's like, well, if we could just get them to agree to come and sit down, you know, then it would be a better conversation. And sometimes that's true, don't get me wrong. But most of the time we're anticipating a response that hasn't happened yet and trying to mitigate that. And the reality is we don't need to be afraid of somebody's reaction if we're approaching it the right way, with the right motives and the right attitude and with the right amount of love. I mean, I think so many people expect this to be a harsh, confrontational type of experience, and a well done intervention should never be that way.

Speaker 4: 29:44

Never.

Speaker 2: 29:45

There's never a reason to be unkind or unloving. What do you run into the most Page? What is the belief system, the number one belief of a family, and a fear around intervention. What is? What are you seeing out here? What is it?

Speaker 4: 30:00

Is there any hope? Are they ever going to get better? We've tried this so many times. They've been to treatment so many times. What's going to be different? You know, it's really interesting, like sometimes when I'm in the middle of an intervention the thought goes through my head what would Earl do right now? What did Earl train me to do right now? What would Earl say right now? And then suddenly something will come out of my mouth that's both Earl influenced but Pedge style. And then later, when I go talk to Earl about it, he'll say something like well, I would have said that, but good job.

Speaker 4: 30:40

But you know, I run into, I just I run into people that feel like there's they just no hope anymore, like this is the last resort. You know, you already know, both of you guys know that a lot of people attempt to do family interventions a bunch of times, or one time that they fail, and then they resort to actually looking for some professional counsel or help, right, and so, if you know the Persians, they love to say we leave everything up to God. And then you and I'm like, oh thanks, like don't put me in that category, don't put me in that position. I'm not a miracle worker. I'm going to do my best. I'm going to say what I can say.

Speaker 4: 31:21

I've been everything I've been trained and saying, but also whatever comes from my heart. You know, it's always got to be love. It's always got to build trust. There's a lot of people out there that especially the ones his kids are doing fentanyl or their loved ones are doing fentanyl. It's like we already know this is Russian roulette. It could happen any second. That person's life is on the line. Time is of the essence. We got to get this going now. We got to get this going yesterday.

Speaker 3: 31:46

So well, I'll ask this question to both of you because I think you both may have different answers to this. But what do you see when families try to do their own intervention without talking to an interventionist? We're just kind of working off of instinct. What do you see the biggest mistake being when you talk to families to say, hey, we've tried this before and it didn't work. What was the common denominator in most of those cases? For the reason that the person didn't move ahead with the plan, if there was a plan.

Speaker 4: 32:12

Go ahead, sam, you go first, I asked two things.

Speaker 2: 32:16

One, which is pretty simple they didn't have a program picked out, they didn't have a bed lined up at a program, they didn't have the solution destination in place and communication. They went out on more of you need, you need, you should, you need to do this, we want this and we need to do that. Instead of speaking in eye statements, the interventionist is gonna help the family, speak in eye statements of what you will and will not do, moving forward Families that try interventions on their own without any guidance or any strategy. It's more of hey, you're sick, you need help, and what it does really is it's putting the entire health of the family dynamic solely on the shoulders of a sick, addicted individual, and it's unfair.

Speaker 3: 33:04

What about you, Pesh?

Speaker 4: 33:06

I mean pretty much. You know communication definitely. You know a lot of families fail to understand that this is a family disease. There's a reason that your loved one is in this way and you're part of it. And it's hard to actually say that directly to a family because then you know, people might get defensive and all that. But if a family tries to do a family intervention on their own, they're bringing that same dynamic into that arena in that moment. So if you've got dad that's always spying off the handle, coming in strong and hot right, and then you've got mom that's the nurturing, loving mother that she is, then it's the same stuff.

Speaker 4: 33:45

Is, how do you think that intervention is gonna go when the person's already where they're at, based off of how you've been to them? So that's why a lot of them don't always work. Then sometimes I think some family interventions actually work. You know, what really is interesting for me is families that call me, acting like they're interested in my services, gathering information from how I operate and then going and saying thank you very much and whatever they've learned from that. Because now and I had to be really careful now just to let them know this is part of what I do. I can tell you bits and pieces, but it's even. Then they'll go take that and try to do it themselves and call me later and say it didn't work. I'm like, well, you kind of just you did your own thing again, so that's one of the reasons where you're at.

Speaker 3: 34:36

It's kind of like going to a professional photographer or interviewing a professional photographer to take wedding pictures or family pictures, and it's like, okay, so what kind of lens are you using and what's the aperture, and gathering all that information and thinking you're gonna be able to go and produce the same kind of pictures that this professional photographer might be able to produce. And yeah, it often doesn't turn out that way.

Speaker 2: 35:00

Yeah, because what you think is what they perceive is showing up to the intervention is mom, dad, sister, grandma, grandpa, uncle Bill and Aunt Jane. But what's really showing up to the intervention? That looks like them, but what's really showing up is the mascot, the lost child, the enabler, the hero and the scapegoat right.

Speaker 4: 35:22

And they're gonna present that way.

Speaker 2: 35:23

So what an intervention is what we all three do? Is we get them back to their genuine selves, to where mom is showing up effectively communicating, Dad is showing up, changing the way he's communicating, speaking their truth and understanding their truth.

Speaker 3: 35:38

It's a big difference. This is the one thing that I love about Judith Landau's training with Arise is that it starts out by creating this family genogram. That really kind of helps take a look at, okay, what's the history here, how many generations do we have that go back where there's mental health issues, where there's substance abuse issues, and it really takes into account and kind of puts it all up there for everybody to see the layers of generational trauma and generational, the issues that continue to get passed from one generation to the next, and whether that's culturally I mean Pesh, how many generations have been in your family here in the US?

Speaker 4: 36:20

Just my parents. That's it Okay.

Speaker 3: 36:23

And so were they born in Iran, or were they born here?

Speaker 4: 36:27

Both my parents are Iranian, but they met in Germany and had me there.

Speaker 3: 36:31

Okay, and I don't know what the history necessarily is with previous generations there.

Speaker 4: 36:38

But I'll tell you there was a reason I left and went to Germany, I'm guessing. They went to Germany to go study. Yeah, to go abroad and go get educated.

Speaker 3: 36:50

So all of that, you know, going back three, four, five generations, that gets, without even realizing it, that influences the present generation. And you bring grandma and grandpa, aunts and uncles, all that in, like Sam was saying, and all of a sudden all of that generational stuff shows up in one moment and you know, we hope that it'll get better. And, like you were saying, sometimes family interventions are very successful. I think it really just depends on I mean, I can't say it depends on one specific thing it depends on so many different factors that as professionals we have to go in there and kind of help them navigate.

Speaker 4: 37:30

That's our job.

Speaker 2: 37:31

Yeah.

Speaker 4: 37:32

Yeah, sam had brought it up earlier because we're out there on TikTok. I didn't know you have a TikTok, I want to see your TikTok too. And when we are doing the type of work that we do and then we're also, in a sense, broadcasting ourselves and building our brand, there's always going to be people that criticize us, but nobody understands or sees what we actually do on the front lines and this type of work is not not everyone's cut out for this type of work. I have a lot of friends, a lot of colleagues in addiction treatment and mental health treatment that tell me I don't know how you do it. And sometimes I ask myself I don't know how I do it either. I have this drive to try to save lives and that's really what I live for. So, of course, every person that's successful especially people like us, that are miracles, that are sober, enjoying our lives now, as opposed to what we were caught up, that madness that we were caught up before. When we're out here fighting a good fight and doing what we're doing to help people, you're always going to get some critics, but it says a lot about them too.

Speaker 4: 38:31

I think when I listened to your podcast, I really loved when Sam brought up the four agreements. Right, and I do my very best to try to live by the four agreements. But I come short a lot too, because I can personalize things, I can make assumptions, but I know if I'm doing my best and I and I'm true to my word and I have integrity, I don't. You know, in God's eyes I go out and carry God's vision and I don't really need to worry about what people are saying about me. So I appreciate you guys Because, like when I was listening to your podcast, I noticed that you all don't really associate a lot with other interventions. You might be friends with them, but I thought I could be these guys' friend and I think we would be just fine.

Speaker 3: 39:13

I would agree, yeah, I would agree with that. And it's probably out of our own insecurity that we don't bring other interventionists on here. So you're the very first one and, yeah, thanks for coming on, god thank you, maybe it's we're maturing a little bit, sam, and having other interventionists on here. I'm sure it's occurred to us before, but that is the first interventionist interventionist besides the two of us we found on here, I think.

Speaker 4: 39:39

I want to come to your training. Like I've got family in Maryland, so maybe we can work that out.

Speaker 2: 39:44

Yeah, definitely, man. Love to have you, love to have you, love to have you on IOC, Love that we don't have anybody in LA. No, we don't.

Speaker 2: 39:53

But you know, guys, when we're out here on social media or out here on podcasts and we're being very public about what it is that we do and who it is that we are, I know I'm very transparent. Paj is very transparent. I know, Matt, you're very transparent on social media for the entire world to see. And it really comes down to if you're doing something that is substantial. We're entering, you know, a conversation that is very controversial about addiction and family systems right out of the gate. But if you're doing something substantial in that field and in your arena, you're going to have to deal with very difficult people and there are just a certain percentage of the population that are very difficult people and on social media you're going to hit that. You got to have thick skin. You know the universe and God didn't bring us this far. To bring us this far, I believe there's a message to be shared and keep on trucking.

Speaker 3: 40:52

Well, and it's usually the criticism usually comes from lack of understanding, preconceived ideas, beliefs that people don't want to let go of. I know in the past when I've been critical of things, even in this inner-own field, like when you talk about medication, assisted treatment, when you talk about, you know, some other things that I used to be very dogmatic about. I didn't want to be wrong, and so I held on to some ideas that I probably held on to for way too long, just out of the fear of being wrong.

Speaker 4: 41:23

Yeah, Well, actually, when I listened to you guys' podcast about that before too, it's one of the things where my ears pricked forward. I still have a lot of my old ideas that I was taught and stand by, but that's for a good reason. That's a whole other can of worms. We don't want to get into that. But I like the harm reduction community. I've invited some of them to come onto my podcast. They have denied me. I don't know why, but I'd love to have a conversation with them, Open my mind to other things, because I don't want to just be in a one-track narrow mind.

Speaker 3: 41:59

Well, on that note, pej, let's let everybody know what the name of your podcast is, and if they want to get in touch with you to help their loved one, how do they do that?

Speaker 4: 42:07

So I have a podcast that's called Pej's Recovery Corner. It is a recovery podcast that brings all different types of people from all walks of life on it or in recovery, people that have had addiction problems, alcoholism, mental health problems that are trying to live a different way. Then I have a YouTube channel called Pej the Addiction Interventionist. There's many different channels on there, many different things to see, lots of shorts the podcast is displayed on there, as well as videos that we make educational videos about addiction and alcoholism and mental health. On TikTok, pej Intervention, I have a website called PejInterventioncom and, yeah, on Instagram to Pej Intervention, all of that, so people can find me in all those different areas.

Speaker 3: 42:56

And for those that don't know, pej is spelled P-E-J, p-e-j. Well, very good, it's been really nice having you on here, pej. I know we're in many ways cut from the same cloth, but it's always nice to have another voice that can really maybe provide some different perspectives on the work that we do as interventionists, and appreciate you taking the time to be here with us today.

Speaker 4: 43:23

Thank you, guys, both for having me on. I loved it. Let's keep going. I can record some more parties.

Speaker 3: 43:30

There you go. Yeah, let's talk soon, fellas, yeah.

Speaker 2: 43:34

All right, Thanks guys.