Chapter 44: Getting Raw, Real, and Emotional Over Jax Taylor

Published Aug 7, 2024, 2:59 AM

Rachel is brought to tears while discussing her former "Vanderpump Rules" co-star Jax Taylor’s recent mental health facility check-in. Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist Joe Girillo also joins to discuss the matter, including why Taylor did this so publicly. 

This is Rachel Goes Rogue. Welcome to a special episode of Rachel Goes Rogue. I'm your host, Rachel Savannah Levis, and today we are doing something a little bit different. We're covering a recent headline. As you may have seen, Jax Taylor announced he is entering a mental health facility. I don't expect everyone to understand me, but I do want to make it clear that it is important for me to stand up for what I believe is right. And I know that standing up for people that have gone through the darkest, darkest stuff that JAXX is going through right now, that's what's right, That's what feels right. I'm someone who has first hand experience with seeking treatment. I wish nothing but the best for Jack's I have spoken about how much it has helped me, so I really hope that Jax receives the same benefits that I did through my recovery. Today we're talking to Joe Jirillo, who is a distinguished therapist with specialties and behavioral issues and personality disorders. Joe has lots of expertise on recovery and addiction specialization, and I felt like it was only suiting to have him on today, I to talk about the most recent headline with Jax Taylor, who announced that he has admitted himself to a mental health facility. Now we're not sure what type of mental health facility, if it's impatient, outpatient, what that may be. But this is obviously an important topic for me to speak about because I had a similar experience in making the decision to check myself in. I want to add more context to the situation, and I want to share oh my thoughts and feelings and all of that with someone who's an expert. So so, thank you so much, Joe Derillo. Glad you're here.

Thank you nice to be here.

Okay, So when you hear that someone is entering treatment, it sounds it sounds scary. What are some misconceptions about entering a treatment facility?

That's that's a really good question. Usually people don't attempt to join a treatment facility or go into treatment unless they already are at a point where they recognize that they're having problems they can't deal with by themselves. When it comes to most of my experience has been working in chemical dependency, as far as the hospitalization part. Other addictions that are that are related but not chemically related gambling addictions, sex and love addiction, et cetera, et cetera. That they all are basically kind of like looked at in the same way because the same parts of the brain line up when they're stimulated as do when people are chemically independent. Part of the problem with addiction in general is the difficulty being able to recognize what's going on with you for yourself. So it's a rare occasion in my experience when somebody says, oh boy, I need help and science himself into treatment, Generally somebody else's behind and kind of nudging him and going, honey, I love you, but man, man, I think that this is bigger than just you, so maybe we should get something help.

Just to empathize with where Jacks is at and the decision that he made. I'm sure there was this internal battle that he was facing, and I'm sure there was probably somebody that really does care about him seeing him spiral in some sort of way, and I'm sure this has been something that he has been grappling for quite some time.

Yeah, and you know, I don't know details either about your hospitalization or Jack's hospitalization at all, but I've watched thousands of people go through treatment. In the course of my career, I worked seventeen years, almost eighteen years in psychiatric hospitals literally doing that, working with people throughout the day, doing groups and stuff like that. Most in that time in addiction treatment.

Yeah, can you explain to people what the different types of treatment looks like?

Sure that they're okay. Let's take chemical dependency as a model for instance. There are different attitudes, different different approaches towards dealing with addiction, different philosophies and reality there's one philosophy which is the one that I probably subscribed to more than any, which is once that addiction is a developmental problem that once it comes to a specific point, it's not much good to try to rationalize your way through it, to be able to like think your way into recovery. Recovery being that you're a life that's not disabled by what it is your addictive practices. And so the most important thing, probably in any treatment for any kind of addiction is a period of time where you're removed from your current environment, so you have actually had the ability to almost like the detox that we talk about in addiction is more a matter well for chemical dependency. It's a matter of not taking any medication or any kind of drug or alcohol at all for a period of time long enough so that your mind actually starts to see things clearly, your grain actually starts to heal as well as the rest of you, and that takes weeks and months. I remember years ago when I was working over at loss in Senis, I asked the question of the doctors how long does a person have to be sober so to speak of their addiction before their mind is working the way it did before the addiction took power over them. And the answer was generally about two years. And it's a developmental healing that takes about that long before you're at the point and you're never quite the same anymore, but you come to a recognition this is something you used to work for me. I can't do this anymore because now it works against me, and I need to be able to maintain that position if I'm going to survive it, because everything inside of me is going to be telling me I should just go back to doing what I was doing before, because that felt right. No matter what the thing is that you are struggling with, its addiction to that piece is really essential in chemical dependency. A lot of times they focus on twelve step programs as being the continuation or maintenance it helps people be able to stay sober. Nobody, for instance, nobody really gets sober in AA per se. They usually get sobered by some sort of effort like a rehab or something like that, detox and rehab. But the maintenance of how you continue forward to be able to live differently requires it you establish some rules for yourself that you didn't follow by before, and A gives a framework for that. It's really quite unique any of the twelve step programs do saying basically that you need to recognize that you have a problem. The problem is not going to go away, and you need to continue to be mindfulness throughout the course of your life or it will flare up again. In other words, you're putting your problem inter a mission. Some programs for recovery will basically I don't want to criticize them, but they'll spend a lot of time campering you and doing kind of a pseudo therapy, which they think is supposed to be the healing part of what it is that goes on. But it's a dual connection. When I was working at loss and Cinas. For instance, they didn't want us to do any deep therapy with people while they were detoxing off of chemicals. They wanted to do the kind of stuff that's going to be the right you're right and now stuff to be able to get you in a position to stay sober and then down the line a couple of months then will get you going in like a deeper therapy that's going to be looking at the parts of your life that may be up to this type of thing and how you are going to change so that you don't want back.

Any one hundred percent. Yeah. I remember when I was checking myself into the Meadows, which is the recovery center that I spent three months at, and they took me off of all my medication even though I was diagnosed with adhd ADD And I remember, obviously everyone is coming in they're at their own personal rock bottom. So people are exhausted and they are just like trying to function. They're trying to understand life and how they got to this point. Also accepting the fact that your way isn't working for you anymore and you need to figure out what a better way to live your life. Is, and so like being ready to surrender to that and and take in that knowledge is also a process once you're entering. Also, I remember the Meadows had like heavy group therapy, so that first full week I was dedicated to attending everything, but I was falling asleep in the group session and nodding off, and I was like apologizing, I'm so sorry that I keep nodding off. I don't mean to be rude, and everyone was very accepting. They're like, no, we get it, it's fine. And then once I was able to get back on my medication that helps me keep focused. And I had to take the Tova test to verify that I actually was diagnosed with ADHD and I wasn't like abusing a substance. They were able to put me back on my medication, and then I was much more present and able to kind of take in the information. And it's a whole learning process too. The way that each facility is structured, they probably teach you how to talk about your experience in a way that's respectful to yourself and respectful to others. And it's learning a new structure of how people communicate in this setting, so that you're able to communicate effective and it's able to be received by others. It's a big learning process. You know.

I'm so glad that you've said that, because you know, it's always occurred to me that there's something about addiction that is kind of a delusional disorder where it's really hard for you to see yourself. I always I used to tell people in group all the time, the flaw in human beings is that we've got two eyes in the front of our head pointing away from us, and that just by nature, it's hard for us to see ourselves clearly. With addiction, that's twice asar So the focus, the focus has to be on group therapy because in group therapy, what happens is you're hearing your story coming out of other people who are sharing, and then you can hear it, but you can't sure, you can't even bring it up for yourself and tired.

Oh yeah, that is such a point to drive home. And it also gives you perspective of how we project onto others our own stuff and recognizing that others are able to hold up this projection screen in a way for us to see ourselves within ourselves. It's information that we receive back from their story, hearing their story and recognizing, oh, these are the similarities. This is what I also experienced, processing that and then being able to express that and connect in a way. It's very relational, yep.

Absolutely, and there's power in that that you can't get from anywhere else. It's just it's a kind of a magic when you see it happening that it's really hard to explain to people unless in there.

Yeah, okay, like let's get into Jack's just a little bit. Because understanding this headline is also understanding the nature of the beast. With vander Pump Rules, when you sign a contract to agree to share your life for the rest of the world to see, basically and to experience with you because tltimately, I think the reason why we connect with reality TV so much is through seeing our experience in other people and then therefore learning more about ourselves. So when you sign a contract to display your life on vander Pump Rules, I can completely understand why Jacks decided to share with the world that he checked himself into a recovery center, because that is the reality of the situation, that is what is happening in his life, and so I believe I understand why Jack's publicly announced he was going to treatment. But for those who may not understand why and who are criticizing him for sharing it publicly, why do you think he decided to make a public statement instead of addressing it privately and dealing with it privately? And I have my own understanding, But for those from the outside looking in and kind of judging the situation for him being so public with this statement, kind of like posting books and all that stuff, why do you think that he decided to go that route?

Not knowing Jackson? Of course, being a therapist, it's unfair for me to be able to say what I think he was thinking because I don't know the first thing about it.

Correct good point, but I.

Will say this, there is still a stigma out there about addiction and about recovery and about getting help that is really super unfortunately, and I would say pauses hundreds of thousands of deaths in America every year, where people think that I'm just going to gust through my problem and no one else needs to know about it, because if they do, they're going to think less of me, And in my experience, almost always that's not true at all. In my experience in the current age, when people go get help, other people around them actually get courage to go get help themselves. So it may be, if I'm guessing you know it, maybe the Jacks felt like it was actually a service to the public. Maybe for him to be public about this and say, look, I need help and I'm going to go get it. Maybe he was part of the fact that he didn't want to totally give up a contract that was going to end if you run into treatment without making it a part of his story. Or maybe it was just that, you know, he felt that he didn't have the energy to be able to keep it a secret. The media can be pretty heavy duty when it comes to loss and senus. I'm sorry, don't need to jump around. Loss and Cenus has been traditionally a place where movie stars and rock stars and entertainment people would go and spend time and so forth. As a result, there were certain i'll call them loosely news companies that would have helicopters over head taking pictures and drones and things like that, while there were patients in our care that were a high profiles, so to speak, and it was really unfortunate because it sensationalizes at that level what's going on with people in a way that's really not helpful and actually can be destructive. I saw a number of people who are in treatment recognize that they were being found out and wanted to leave as a result of it, who really needed to be talked off the ledge to be able to stay and actually focus on what was important rather than what the media might say and the public might think. And so I totally get that. I can say this when people focus on their own recovery and they get well, it's almost like the old saying the best revenge is success that when you were healthy. Other people get nothing from that. It's something positive in the end, And in the process they made bad mouth it until they suddenly recognize the old crap. What was I thinking?

Yeah, yeah, when I And the reason why I'm drawing this back to myself is to not make it about me. I want to make that very clear. It's so that I can be relational to the situation that we see happening once again in a different circumstance. It's a little bit different, but it's it's the overarching theme is the same, and the context. The deeper stuff is ultimately the same, even though it's showing up a little bit differently. Ooh yeah, I was met with a lot of judgment and scrutiny. I decided not to publicize that I was seeking treatment, and unfortunately, somebody who was in the recovery center the first week that I checked in, and it was her last week, she recognized me and got too excited. I can empathize and understand where she was coming from with, you know, being excited to tell a friend of who the heck she just saw at the meadow that got out And then you know, that was heart wrenching because that was out of my control, and I wanted it to be sacred. I wanted it to be like, I'm just focusing on myself. I need to mute out all the noise. But then once that happened, the press took that and then twisted it and then started saying that, no, I'm not actually at a mental health facility, I'm at a spa. So then that was the narrative that was being put out and the irony of all of that, and the full circle moment is Jack's was one of the people saying that he knows for a fact that I was at a SPA, So I just want to bring that context into this space to understand, like, this is something that is so important to talk about, and the reason why I'm talking about it right now is not to put judgment on anybody. I don't even judge Jack's honestly, Like, I think I can empathize with his moment of judging me for getting treatment and actually, like, maybe this may be my own projection, and I'm aware of that, but I can rationalize the fact that he probably was suppressing something within him, truly wanting to get treatment, because he was probably grappling with this for quite some time, suppressing that and then projecting that onto me, saying like, no, there's no frickin way she's checking herself into a mental health facility. Who the heck would do that? I share as hell would it, And at that time, he wouldn't because he hadn't yet, And so I can completely empathize with where he was coming from, and I hope that this experience. I can only hope that this experience becomes full circle for him so that he can have more empathy with people who you know, are actually seeking treatment and actually are wanting to become a healthier version of themselves.

You know, at the risk it sounded like I understand what's going on with someone who I had never met. I would say that that that's going to be clear indication of the quality of the sobriety if afterwards he recognizes that. The reason I'm saying that is because addiction has a tendency to bring us to the very worst of ourselves. Okay, I mean it develops some of you know, it's.

It.

The addiction itself creates character flaws. Whereas people think that your character flawed and that's why you're an addict, and that's not that's not true. The character flaws are the result of trying to survive in your addiction and doing the only things that possibly can do. And none of them are very upfront and straight. You know, most of them are duplessness and deceitful and you know, hiding and so forth. I totally respect anybody's choice to be able to get some without it being in the public eye. You know, not not to talk a lot about AA, but I mean that program started one hundred years ago, and they called it Alcoholics Anonymous because basically it's nobody's business that yours, that you have this problem and you're trying to get sober. Although the people close to us almost always know there's something going on with us, they just can't put a finger on it necessarily. And so there's that, you know. And like I said, I'm not gonna you know, honk on the Big Book or anything like that. But the twelve steps of a are really interesting in the sense that the first step is the only one that talks about a chemical right or the thing that you're addicted to. It says, we recognize we were powerless over whatever your drug choices or whatever your addiction is, that our lives had become unmanageable. If you can't wrap your head around that first part, you're never going to be able to deal with the stuff that is what the stuff of addiction is about that you have to The next eleven steps don't say anything about it an object of dependency at all. They talk about how to live different.

Interesting stuff, very interesting. Would it be a fair statement to say that, like, you have to grapple with the fact that you have to accept the things you cannot change and encourage to change the things that you can, and recognizing that you actually do have a problem. Admitting it is the first step, and maybe that may be the hardest step because you won't be able to get the resources in the support that you need in order to tackle it until you admit that you have a problem. And a big part of AA and recovery programs is the community and the people who you know. Like ultimately, when you go through the twelve steps, you now know that you have a message to carry to all of those who also deal with addiction, and it is your duty to help those people and it fulfills your soul. So there are people that want to help others and they step into this place of leadership and guidance because we have been for the people who are grappling with addiction. We have been placing power in a substance or a person to take us out of our pain and to numb us from what we are not healed from. Ooh yeah, And the only way you can really heal is through others in your community. And that is why it's so so, so so so important to look at your environment, to look at your work environment, look at your everyday life. What is your routine, what are the things that you're doing for your soul, what are the things that make you happy? Are you really happy or are you just trying to get by getting a paycheck? And like selling your soul for money in order for a means too meant to have some sort of false freedom when in reality you're trapped. It's a golden handcuffs type of situation.

Absolutely, absolutely, there's no saying that you use in the program. The only thing that has to change is everything, which is doesn't mean that you necessarily have to like, you know, go live, you know, on a kibootz or something like that, but what it means is that if you're not willing to change whatever it is it's required to change to be able to stay sober, you won't, you know. And it's interesting to hear you talk about it because I noticed that there's times when you're talking about it, it's almost like your breath is taken away because you get it so deeply from what you experienced of your of your own addiction. You know that that it's it should be the kind of thing that takes your breath away because we're so incapable of recognizing what's going on while we're in it, except that maybe we don't know what we're doing. We're scared, we need help, and we don't even know how to ask for it. Quite often. And then when you're when you're away from it for a while and able to remain abstinate, so to speak, which is just just the beginning part of it, you look back on it and you have this tremendous sense of what the hell was I thinking? You know, I don't think I was thinking anything. It's like my addiction was thinking for me and making decisions that kept me for taking care of myself.

Yeah, and it's a and this is where the piece of compassion comes in because it was used as a survival mechanism. Yes, because like your body, your brain is so smart, and you are going to find ways to survive in a high stress, chaotic environment where your soul is not fulfilled. You will find the thing outside of yourself that will bring you some sort of relief and escape from it all. And I do feel like and I'm not a man, so I can't speak to this because I haven't experienced it. And I'm happy that you are a man, so I can ask you personally. I feel like there's a piece with the toxic masculinity and suppressing your emotions, not feeling all your emotions, and the message that society gives me men that if you cry, you are weak. If you are vulnerable, you are weak. And in reality, the vulnerability and the ability to recognize and allow yourself to feel all of your emotion is the strongest thing we can do as human beings. Right. Can you speak to that as a man? Yeah?

I speak that as a human, but as a man in particularly because I recognize that I'm a man as well, and I'm really happy about that. I like being a man. But there's a lot of baggage that goes along with it, part of which it is to even ask for help or say I think I might have been wrong sounds like weakness. And the last thing in the world that Amanda is allowed to show in this world is weakness, because it means they're a failure, you know. And so to be able to actually understand that there's a reason that I ended up in the position I'm in and there's no way I'm going to survive this unless I get help, is that's a big step. That is a huge, huge stuff. I don't know if it's really that easier for women to be honest with you, there's a stigma for men, but at this point in our development, I think the women probably encourage encounter of the same thing. For minute, it's like, I can't take time off for my work. If I take time off for my work, I can't tell you the number of people I watched leaf treatment in the middle of it because their business was going to fail if they didn't, and the women that would would do the exact same thing for the very same reason my career. I need to be in Chicago tomorrow and I have to leave it and then I'll come back. Okay, I really promise it doesn't happen, you know. Or even my kids need me at home, you know, or my mother needs me to take care of her. It's like it's always the.

Same, exactly. Yes, yes, yes, it's the feeling the need to prioritize your family. And I'm sure there is some sort of validation that you get from being needed by others in some sort of way and feeling like this is a selfless thing for me to do, to not take time away from my family to focus on myself, like I need to The thought process right of somebody deciding not to enter treatment because they want to prioritize their family. In air quotes, would be like, it's a selfless thing to sacrifice my mental well being for my family because they need me in air quotes, But in reality, your family needs the healed version of yourself, And so when you are deciding to go to treatment, like that is the ultimate form of self care. And for the people saying that that is selfish, I was told that me seeking treatment was selfish and I had to grapple with that and really look at myself and see, like, am I being a selfish person right now? The messaging that I was getting from the public, it was a really really really big mind twist, and I thank goodness I had therapists like on call and therapy every single day to process through it, because it was really heavy, and it really prevented me from like going full in in my recovery because I was grappling with all the outside noise and trying to figure out, like, how do I trust myself again?

Yeah that I ran four different groups every single day when I was working in the recovery center over at Los Ancinos, so called the Briar Unit, and it was really quite a magical place when some miracles happen. And I don't say that lightly because I'm not like a magical thinking guy. But the four groups basically would start with a step group where people were actually doing some writing and journaling on each one of the steps one at a time, and doing a presentation in front of everybody about how they related to the questions regarding that step. The second group was one called it was a meditation group. The second group of the day would be mindfulness, where we actually learned ways to be able to tork ourselves down and so forth and be able to take a more mindful approach to life. The third group of the day was relapse prevention, which was let's talk about all the ways you're going to go back to doing what you were doing before, because if we don't talk about them straight up front and admit to it, we're going to be vulnerable to it. So at the very least, let's talk about it, so when you're ready to do that, you remember this conversation and maybe the help.

Yeah.

And then recovery education, which is let's talk about the biology of this, the psychology of this, the spirituality of this, and how all of those have been affected so four separate groups. In the relapsed prevention group, the big question always was what is the number one reason that you're convinced you need to leave treatment? Right? And there is nobody in that room ever that said, well, I'm completely convinced I need to stay here. There was always that element to doubt or life. I need to get back to all these things that you know, if you were to complete the sentence, really what it would be would be I need to get back to my stone stealth that the rest of the world has gotten used to that I'm convinced they need of me. And that's what people are really struggling with when they're in treatment, Like I don't know if I'm going to be useful if I'm sober. I don't know if I'm ever going to have fun again if I'm sober. I don't know how people are going to see me or how really how am I going to see myself if I.

Get so m Yeah, I mean, just you saying that has made me realize something really monumental about my particular experience. Because I was getting so much public shame that I literally did not want to leave. I was like, oh, I know I have nowhere else to be. I don't want to be out there. I don't want my phone, I don't want to look at that stuff. I don't want to do that. The only thing that was the outside source was the person that I was involved with, the codependent relationship that I was involved in. I was still speaking to that person in the meadows, very limited, and as time went on, it got shorter and shorter until it was completely cut off. But I had no desire to leave, and I knew that, Like that's part of the reason why I extended longer, because I knew I needed more help. I was still calling him, and I knew I needed help. I knew there was something more for me. They did some parts work with the group that you have to go through all the basic forty five day teachings and learnings and therapy before you can graduate into a more advanced group that goes even deeper and gets more to the root cause, and that the parts inside of you that are at conflict with one another and identifying those and validating those and understanding where the motives are coming from, so you have complete awareness and could be a functional adult. And so I knew I needed that too. I was like, that's a big part for me because I had these conflicting thoughts in my mind constantly my whole life. So it really was exactly what I truly needed to evolve into the healed person that I have become today. And now I get to share this message to those who need to hear it the most. And there is a reason why this is being brought up in this way. Again, there is a reason why we seek our information through the form of media, and this is exactly the demographic that we're talking about. The viewers that tune into vander Pump Rules want to, like I said, relate to others on the television screen. So even if this is a storyline, even if they do implement this in the valley, I think I don't think that's a bad thing. I think ultimately that is for the greater good. This is the reason why there's reality TV, and the reason why people are interested in topics like this and discussing it is because there is a discussion to be had. There is something here that is so important, and it is so important to have these kinds of discussions and share it with the larger audience because it is going to reach people that are going to see this and take something that they hear today and reflect on their lives so that they can start healing themselves, and in turn, it's a trickle down effect. It's it's healing the world, right.

It's it's interesting when you're talking about this because while I was working at Loss and Cenas, MTV put together a program called Celebrity Rehab. It was very it was it wasn't the first recovery related show reality TV show, but it it pretty much took the drama and accentuated the drama part of it in a rather unfortunate way, because all people saw was like the crazy acting out behavior and stuff like this, and people getting in trouble and people acting badly and stuff like that, which that in and of itself really didn't help people understand addiction or the treatment. So media has a real deep responsibility of being able to present this stuff in a way that's wise, which unfortunately, I don't think that the media or politics is necessarily all that good and being read by wisdom. So it really requires it. Whoever is producing shows like I really really takes it, treats it with respect and delicacy. The other thing is I don't mean to be like an agenda person here, but one of the things that's really difficult about rehab these days is that most people can't afford rehab unless they've got some sort of insurance, and when they've got insurance at all, it's never enough for what's required to be able to stay well. Most places will pay for most insurance companies will pay for detox where you're out of the life threatening situation, and then they'll pay maybe a little bit day by day to rehab itself after the detox, residential treatments sometimes a little bit. Unfortunately, they require you to fail lower levels of treatment so that you need higher levels of treatment, and they won't pay for it unless you fail the lower level of treatment, which really takes people to a very dangerous place, especially if they know that if I relapse, they'll pay for longer next time. The old programs like fifty years ago, back then me even maybe thirty years ago, we're one year and two year program where people went away. It was like a monastic approach to dealing with stuff, and I'm not sure that people necessarily stayed sober and longer. I'm not really sure if the length of sobriety is the goal necessarily, I don't. I don't think so. But programs today people are they're they're lucky if they can stay in treatment for like a week, two weeks, three weeks, anything passed their detox alone. And if they can, they're some of a lucky few. If you've got private funding or an organization that can help, that's fantastic. But insurance doesn't make it any easier for people to get sober. And that's something that really needs to be looked at in a serious way because hospitals and rehabs they need to be able to survive, they need to be able to make a living. And whether or not they're they're overcharging, I mean they get they get a reputation from being spatlike for that very reason. The cost is tremendous and a lot of times only people who are wealthy can afford it. Are very connected that that is real shame.

Yes, yes, yes to all of that. And it's also why it's so important for me to share what I've learned there, because I know that other people need this information and it's it's resonating with people because it's not just it's addiction as a whole, but also, like relationship wise, everyone deals with relationship issues, everyone has struggles relationally, and that's why it's so applicable to humanity as a whole. And I just wanted to touch back really quick to you know, the main assumption right now of people assuming that Jack's admitted himself to a mental health facility for the show or for a storyline. Since cameras are up from filming right now, that may be an assumption. And my response to that is the timing of it all is completely irrelevant. It really doesn't matter when, Like regardless if Jack's was checking in now while the show is filming, or if he was checking himself when the show was airing, or if the show was completely not airing at all, it really doesn't matter. When he was going to check himself in it, it was going to be faced with the same public scrutiny and questioning.

Yeah, yeah, I would, I would think so, yeah, I would think so yea.

So let's go back to we were talking about how men and women deal a little bit, like the standards of society that places a expectations on men versus women.

Yeah, I think I got.

When there's children involved in a family. What's the best way to approach talking about this topic to the children involved.

Wow, that's a really great question there. You know, there's a lot of different thoughts about this. The first thing, most parents don't want their kids to understand or know what it is that they're struggling with. But I got to tell you something. In my experience, kids know there's something going on, and when you don't explain to them in reality what the thing is and the way the kids can to understand, it's worse because then they're if addiction stands by anything, it's denial in silence. Okay, those things keep addiction going. When you pull one of those two things out, the whole thing collapses, all right. So if you are upfront about it and go, honey, I need to go away for a little while to a hospital. I'm going to be, you know, a couple of miles away. And the reason is because my body has developed an inappropriate relationship to a chemical that I've been using. And I feel really bad about this. But the only avenue get well is if we're apart for a little while while I'm taking care of this and to help them understand the other aspect, which No one wants to talk about the genetic predisposition to pass addiction down, even behavioral addictions, not just chemical addictions, from one generation to the next is enormous. They say that. They say that the stats showed that about one out of every ten people in America at least develop a chemical dependency problem of some sort during the course of their life. That's enormous number of people.

Right.

If you have a parent or a grandparent that had a problem with chemical dependency in your bloodline, you're five times more likely to develop the problem yourself. If both sides of your family contained problems with addiction, you're ten times more likely than the average person developer a problem. That means that for you to think that your kids aren't going to be affected by this if you don't tell them, is a huge mistake. Now, case in point, I'm an addict in recovery myself. I got sober when my wife went to treatment for alcoholics. That was twenty years ago. We just celebrated a twenty years sober anniversary and thank you very much. My grandfather that was a serious alcoholic that no one wanted to talk about it. We had the blessing and curse that just before we kids were born, the grandkids were born, Grandpa stopped drinking completely, and no one ever told us that Grandpa had struggled with this problem. Had I known that I had addiction in my family in my genes when I was a teenager and I discovered alcohol, and I found that I wanted to do this all day, every day because it was the only thing that felt right. That may have helped me tremendously. I don't know, you know, there's no way for me to get now looking back on it, but I can't imagine that we do our kids anything but a tremendous service. You know, if your kid, if you have sickle cellia in your family, you have diabetes in your family, if you have a cancer history in your family, you would tell your kids, you know, we need to watch out for this because it's a family's thing, you know. And so to not share that with your kids in a way that they're going to be able to find useful is a real mistake. That's my personal orientation to it.

Yeah, And my personal orientation to it is there's some serious truth to that. Because I just released a podcast episode about my adoption story and my adoption process, and I was adopted at birth, raised by my adopted parents. It was an in family adoption, so I know my biological mother. And it's just kind of mind blowing the fact that there are so many similarities between my birth mother and me, the way that we approach relationships and the type of relationships that we have prioritized in our lives. And I hope, I hope, like I don't offend my birth mother when I say this, because I want to be respectful, I really really do, But it really is the truth with it's generational, it's intergenerational. It is like a family lineage if you really think about it. We are just now kind of cracking the surface on what mental health really is and taking this dialogue into our mainstream media and our everyday conversations, and that's huge. I can feel like our ancestors being like cheering because there is so much healing to do and so much hurt that has been passed down biologically and because of the similarities. I believe that without a doubt.

Boy, I agree with you completely. I mean, there is nothing more powerful you can do to break that cycle than say the buck stops here. Okay, you didn't want to talk about it with me. I'm not going to make that mistake. I'm going to talk about it with my kids, and I'm going to help them understand this in a way that's not shaming. If your biological mother is attended by the fact that you mentioned that she had a problem with addiction, then it's unfortunate that she's hurt. But there are some things that are more important.

Absolutely, and I don't think that she will be hurt. She has texted me after listening to the podcast episode and she just was giving me so much love and I was giving her that love back. I was like, it was the most selfless thing you could have ever done as a human to allow your sister to use your body as a vessel for me to be born for her, and the way that it was conceived. I'm getting more information, like I'm truly healing my birth story right now, and it is so like wow, it is so beautiful, and I just wanted to share this because it's on the top of my mind and I'm really putting the pieces together. In my birth, I was a premature baby and the umbilical cord was wrapped around my neck in the delivery. That's why they had to perform that emergency C section. And it's no wonder why I have this blockage in my throat. I have always felt this, like I can't speak. I have a hard time breathing. There's something I want to say, but I can't say it. And it's this whole like healing your throat chakram. I'm getting into a lot of the you know, your throat chakra, the yoga, all of that stuff is helping me in my recovery. So there is something to do with the throat chakra and healing that and opening that up and the way that I am able to speak and articulate my thoughts, feelings and emotions. Now it's like night and day. It really is. And I know the people listening in see it too, because I started this show when I was twenty one and I was very insecure and I was seeking external validation, and of course it led me down the path of where it led me to, and I had to reach this rock bottom in a weird sort of way to really look at my stuff. Now, Was it okay? The way that the network handled it and the way that the public handled it. No, there was too much public shaming. There was too much sensationalism. It really shaming somebody for sharing that they have a problem in their addiction and recognizing their problem and especially going to go get treatment is not okay. There is no productivity with shaming somebody like that. It's actually the inverse effect, because the whole point of addiction, the reason that we got here, is because of the shame. So when you're adding more as salt to the wound, it just makes it that much harder to heal. So I urge urge urge you guys, please please, please, Like, let's be respectful, let's be compassionate, like there is there is a soul cry here that needs to be heard. And like judging people and making fun of people and thinking the worst of the situation is not going to help. It's not going to help. Like, let's let's believe in this. I choose to believe that Jack is going to figure out his stuff. I did. I see that for him, and I'm rooting for him. Eventually he's going to know. Eventually he'll get it, and you know, I'm looking forward to the day that that does become full circle. But until then, all I can do is just express myself authentically and like continue to talk about it, and can you to have this dialogue because it really is that important to me, and I.

So refreshing to hear you talk about it like this. You know, it's like you took an opportunity and hopefully he takes that same opportunity. We all have it, you know, we take it when we're ready. That's it. And quite often you see people go in and out and rehab a dozen times, two dozen times and it's not sticking. And other times you see people go through it and they get it. And it's so it's fascinating to me by the way that you were born with the umbilical corner around your neck and then you grow up to be a podcast host.

I know, I know, I know. It's irony. It's the poetry, it is the symbolism, it is all of that. It really is. It's also a lot of ying and yang symbolism for me right now, the contrast the complete opposite of the spectrum in a lot of ways for me to fully understand what it is like to be a human being being on this earth truly, and I feel like there is a power in that, there's a power in that knowledge. I am very blessed to be able to have gotten the treatment that I needed for the duration that I absolutely needed. It was an investment in my future. The amount of times that people came up to me saying, you are so lucky that you are figuring this out at the age that you are, because I wish I had this stuff when I was younger. My life would be completely different. And so it's like, Wow, as much as this has been a pain, excruciating pain, it has also been a blessing. And I had to turn down, like I went completely my bank account, like I had to invest in a publicist for the first time. I don't know what I'm doing. I'm going to the meadows and all this meat is all around me, and I'm like, I need somebody to help me. I need help. A lot of my money went to that. The recovery itself, big big chunk of money of that right, and then also the continued recovery, the continued treatment, the continued weekly therapy appointments, the investment in my yoga practice, the investment in my pilates, investment in the arts and crafts, the investment and the things that bring me joy and understanding that I have to spend money in order to feel abundant. And abundance isn't just money. It is friendship, It is your connection to your higher power. Is sharing knowledge and sharing joy and sharing compassion and sharing truth and healing the world. That is true abundance. And I know also it's this whole learning process of being misunderstood by other people and letting other people misunderstand and you it's not your job to correct them or defend yourself. Although there was a lot of lies out there that I really did feel like I needed to set the story straight because no, no, you know, like I will defend myself if you are spreading a lie about me. But other than that, you can say whatever the heck you want about me. It really doesn't affect me because you personally are not in my life. And that being said, I care so much about the people that tune into this podcast to get the information that they need, and I know that I am helping others in this way, and that heals something within me.

You know, I have a kind of a mantra for myself that I have to remember whenever I start to get discouraged about what people have to say to me about me. I think to myself, it's they don't hate me because I'm a screwed up person. They hate me because they're screwed up people. The hating comes from place that's not a healthy, honest place.

Do you understand that, Yes? And also it's it's also learning like really only take the advice of the people that you want to be more like the people that you look up to ask their opinion. Ask they're probably not going to tell you unless you ask right. And the people that are throwing their opinion at you, there's probably not the people that you really want to take on their opinion because ultimately, once you realize this and do the work, it's a projection of themselves. And then you give them grace because you realize that they have some healing to do, and you send a prayer and you hope that they one day realize that their trigger, what's triggering within them from your action. You hope that they realize that that is something within themselves that they need to look at. And that's the beauty of it.

Yeah. Yeah, this has been this is my first podcast. This has been my absolute delight. It's been so good talking to you today.

Gosh, it has been so good talking to you. Joe Jarillo LMFT. Thank you so much. Is there Do you have Instagram? Are you on social media? Can people find you?

I do have a lot going on on social media. I have a website, Joe Jurilo LMFT, which is out there that people can can look me up on and find out information about my background and stuff like that. I one of my goals this year is to actually get back to an active social media presence, which I had for quite a while and then sort of let it laps. And now we're getting back.

Well, you post this and you're going to get some traction here without a doubt.

I have a private practice in Tehanga that I actually have out of my house. It's a home office, and I'm no longer working in hospitals anymore, just practice something that I specialized in this area, and a couple of other things as well.

Awesome, Well, thank you so much for joining me. It really has been a pleasure as well. Show Tarrillo, all right, thank you, Thank you so much for listening to Rachel goes Grogue. Follow us on Instagram and TikTok for exclusive video content. At Rachel Gohs Rogue Podcast