Episode 150

suffering ceases to be suffering as it finds meaning. So just showing people that like even in sobriety like you can have a really fun exciting life and you can build it the way that you want to build it. It can look a million different ways. I always say the single greatest coping mechanism I’ve ever experienced or witnessed or held space within my recovery is community. Yeah. of like how do I really get aligned with my mental, my spiritual and my physical self just to come back to that place that does tell me that I am perfect imperfect which is perfect like I’m perfectly me. [Music] [Applause] [Music] Hey everybody and welcome to another amazing, exciting and of course enthusiastic episode of Finding Peaks. host Chris Burns, president and founder here at Peaks Recovery Centers, established in 2014. Coming up on our 11-year anniversary in September, get excited. A lot of good things coming there. Um, I am humbled and honored today to be joined by a guest um that I just hold in high regard in our community, offering services to folks in a vulnerable community that desperately need it. It’s very much integrated. We have Jared Marquette here today. He is the owner of Sonder Integrated Living as well as Archipelago Club. Welcome to the show, sir. Thank you very much. I’m happy to be here. So grateful to have you. I want to we had a conversation for about 20 minutes prior to the show and I just want to dive in where we first picked up and tell us a little bit about your journey, even the venture capital stuff and how you moved through that with your mental health and began to um think about things that were more purpose driven like a capelgo and certainly SER. Um I want the viewers to really get some context for your story and and why you’re sitting here today. Yeah, it’s interesting. It’s uh you know the Steve Jobs commitment or commencement speech where you can’t connect the dots looking forward. You can only connect them looking back. Um so as I’m going through it, it always feels chaotic. And then when I look back, I’m like, “Oh, that makes sense. That that works here and there.” And um you know, I I started my professional career really um at about 30 years old. I went back to school in my late 20s to get an MBA and ended up going into venture capital work and moved to Nashville to work for uh venture capital like kind of aggregate there and I didn’t really know what venture capital was. I got really lucky. It’s like a big part of my story is is lucky. Um my godfather would say the harder you work the luckier you get. I like that. And so I do too. It makes sense. um and ended up in DC working for a few funds up there that were very purpose- driven funds and my job was kind of to build community and so to aggregate, organize and communicate resources that supported the investments that we made which just kind of put me out in the community in front of people all of which were trying to accomplish different things. Um I moved every Sunday for a year and a half to a new city and yeah it was a lot. It was it was a whole lot and it was beautiful and and I’m really appreciative for it. Um, also it was it was really tiring. Yeah. And at one point we hired an intern who like graduated Yale Law School at like 23 or 24. She’d worked for FEMA. She came in as an intern. She was willing to work like 90 hours a week, no problem. And I was just like taking at her all to keep up with her. and you know it was really unhealthy and and had a moment of of recognition where I was like I don’t think I’m built for this and I didn’t want to admit that but I just felt out of alignment. I felt really unhealthy. I hadn’t gone to the gym. I went once at this place near my apartment that I never saw in DC to a CrossFit gym and thought I was going to die. And I used to do CrossFit all the time and I felt great. It was just I realized like how far off base I was. And I came back to Denver because I’d previously lived in Denver and came back for New Year’s Eve, talked to my mom on the phone. I remember I was walking through Rhino and I told her, I was like, I don’t think I can leave. Like, I don’t think I can go back to that. And she said, well, don’t. And I ended up seeing a friend a few days later who sent me to a breath work because I was telling him just about how I was feeling and how far away from myself I was feeling and had like a really profound experience in this breath work. And I’m a skeptic with all things still at Archipelago. I get made fun of because I’m always like that’s not real. Like that’s not a real thing. What does the water even do for you? Yeah. You know, and I said it about acupuncture one time and someone’s like, “Oh, so you’re telling me like thousands of years of anecdotal evidence from millions of people doesn’t equal your own random opinion.” I was like, “Oh man, okay, maybe maybe I should rethink this.” Um, but after that, you know, I started looking at like the ways that I was trying to keep myself healthy and how unhealthy I’d been. And I still had the the venture capital lens of, you know, what’s this community like well positioned to support Denver well positioned to support? What are people looking for? What am I spending money on that I think other people will be spending money on in the future? And it was wellness. And so we ended up me and business partner Jason Shepard and then um brought in someone named Nora Saxs that was working at Summit which is I don’t know are you familiar with Summit out in Utah? Um they put on big experiential events around wellness. It’s it’s a great organization and brought her in and decided to open up membership focused wellness community like a social club. Um so like Soho House but just like not as nice and not as big and not as fancy. Um and did that for about eight years. We’ve been doing it for eight years. I thought we’d be in 10 cities in five years and there came a point where that just became clear it wasn’t going to happen. the model wasn’t there. We weren’t making the money that we needed to. We could support stability in a market. We couldn’t really support growth. And so decided to shut it down. Actually, a month after my dad passed away, we decided to shut it down. Um, which was like a really hard decision to make and a lot of loss kind of balled in to one. Um, and I kind of spiraled again from there and I for a year just got really depressed and then hit like a breaking point. I don’t know if it’s I started googling like what’s happening to me because it felt specific but really foreign to me and the best I could come up with was like ego death. Like over the course of a few days I just went like full dark night of the soul. I I I just I became wildly depressed and decided that I was going to take a year off and took time off of work. Ended up going to walk the Camino de Santiago. Um and so, you know, walked 35 days, eight hours a day in silence. And at the end of it, just realized that I really wasn’t okay. um at that point that I really like decided to dedicate dedicate myself to doing the right things for me, which had always been cold plunge here. Yeah. Drink less than most people. It would be good, but I finally said like I have to cut out the things that I have to cut out. Um and got really healthy and was looking for a project. And at Archipelago, we’d seen a lot of people come in that were recently sober or sober curious, finding their sobriety, and they were all staying sober. And that was an unexpected outcome of the business itself. It’s not what we intended in the beginning. Um, and during the course of all of this too, I had some family back home who were opening up sober living facilities and they wanted to open up something out here. Ended up not working out to do it together, but I’d gotten in my head to do it. And last November decided to go for it and open up a sober living house. that really thought that I had not necessarily knowledge on what it meant to be in addiction recovery, but what it meant to like build intentional, purposeful, mindful, healthy life, and that that could really help people. I’d seen it help people through archipelago. And so, we ended up opening in February down in Denver. We have a women’s house down there, looking for a second house right now. And yeah, it kind of brings us to where we’re at now. That’s beautiful. I I love what you said about the Achapelago Club and what it created, kind of the vision for helping folks within your integrated um recovery home up there in Denver in Cherry Creek specifically because I I’ve talked about it on the show before, but I I always say the single greatest coping mechanism I’ve ever experienced or witnessed or held space with in my recovery is community. Yeah. And it’s interesting because I think a lot of our viewers might think, especially substance use folks, might think, well, no, I have to be in this one community because that’s where all the addicts are and that’s where the people that can relate to me. But your story brings up something far more clear. It’s like, no, when I can be connected in community, have a great person to my right and a great person to my left, and be seen, valued, and heard in that, my life can take on new meaning. Absolutely. And I love that you guys were able to foster that through a capella and and really begin to see that. And even even with Sonder as well, it’s just kind of like a community center of folks that come together from all different walks of life. It’s all pathways. You do mental health, but more than anything, you help people integrate their lives and find their passion, kind of find their true north. How do you how do you explore that with folks, especially with folks maybe who have come through our program that have been kind of hitting over the head with uh a substance use approach throughout their entire recovery, a substance use approach throughout their treatment or some treatment programs even offering 12 steps within their treatment program as a way of group therapy? How do you not dismantle but kind of uncover and unpack with your guests that there potentially is a different opportunity? Yeah. I think one is just like to give access to opportunity, right? It’s like I can explain to you. You cold plunch. Yeah. Like it’s a thing that you do. It’s a thing I try and do. I’m terrible at it. Yeah. Like I’m real bad. I’m like a one minute and I try. I can I always set it for 4:15 cuz it takes me 15 seconds cuz I’ll sit there and be like, “You getting in? You getting in?” Yeah. I’m pretty much the same way. And then like I’ve learned just like go all the way under. So that way when your head pops up, your head’s warm all of a sudden. provides this weird relief. Um, but you know, I can explain it to you. I can explain that it’s good for you, but it it doesn’t really matter until you do it. Yeah. And you know, for us, I don’t even really tell people that I’m trying to get them to explore different avenues to their own wellness and recovery and and really just like building themsel and their routine. I just show them things and let them experience them for themselves. Like at at Sa we have pretty much weekly or bi-weekly programming that we bring into the house. And it might be a journaling workshop. It might be a breath work. We go to archipelago and do the cold plunge in the sauna. We do sound healings. And I don’t expect that everyone’s life is changed by any means by doing one of these things. But you know if there’s eight people there from the house for it, two or three of them really connect to it and then they start to explore it for themselves. And that was the whole idea of archipelago is we just wanted to do like a lot of varied things for people and give them the opportunity to experience the modality and see what worked for them. And I think the other part is we try and create like a space of aspiration. And so, you know, we say like we’re a hopebased approach. And I think that that’s saying that we want people to at Archipelago, at Sa, just in my general community, anyone around me, like I want them to understand that like life is difficult. I get that. Life is suffering and and I I prescribe to that to a degree. It can also be beautiful and you can build it as you want to build it. So just showing people that like even in sobriety like you can have a really fun exciting life and you can build it the way that you want to build it. It can it can look a million different ways and I think that we I think the 12step approach is amazing and has helped so many people and it’s a great foundation. I think for a lot of people there comes a point where they start to say like okay like I want to build a life like I want to build my life and you kind of see that boredom start to set in at like 90 days and and they think like is this it? And so just trying to show people like it can be but it doesn’t have to be. You can experience different things. You can experience different people. You can experience life differently. and just giving them the opportunity to do so and giving them the freedom like in the house I was telling you we had the group of the girls came to me and they said does they have four weekly programs they have to do a week can be yoga it can be meditation it can be aa they’re like you know we all want to go to the fireworks does that count towards our weekly program I was like absolutely that’s like the healthiest thing I’ve heard you guys say that you want to do in a long time you’re going to go you’re going to be sober together you’re going to have this great experience you’re going to come back and think like that was a great night and I didn’t use I didn’t drink you know and so I understand that this is an option I understand that this is out there for me and so kind of letting them find it too and we really encourage them we say like don’t be afraid to ask if it counts I’ll tell you if it doesn’t but the only requirement that we have for the programs is they’re in community working out by yourself doesn’t count going to a workout class does um and so you know just putting them in a position to be together and experience it together I think is a huge part of it That’s incredible. That’s a lot different emphasis and communication than something like if you want what I have, you’ll do what I do. Yeah. That’s tough, you know, and that feels a lot of times like suffocating. Yeah. And it’s interesting you say that, you know, a lot of folks stories, a lot of your guests stories around 90 days, they’re like, what do we do now? I spent a lot of time in Alcoholics Anonymous and absolutely love my time in there, but there’s a constant theme and it’s a very important story I think for people to hear. And you know, I always say it was between five and 10 years. Five and 10 years. I can’t tell you how many friends in there. I’m like, am I the only one sitting in here thinking I’m I should kill myself? Like, am I the only one in here that like my quality of life is about a four? And it has nothing to do with the program. It provided me a foundation for sobriety and recovery that was amazing. But we got to have purpose in our lives. At least I know I have to have purpose. When I can be purpose driven, I can be authentic. Yeah. And that lack of authenticity and not having autonomy to explore what might benefit myself in my recovery and the ones around me can be really difficult to process. Yeah. You know, Yeah. The um I love what you said too about you you allow Saipelago. Yeah. And so we we go in once a month. we try and do which anyone listening to this should check out um like broader communityoriented sober activities and so it’s for anybody our house has their dedicated spaces there so if we do a breath work for 40 people we take up eight to 10 spaces and then the rest is for anyone else who wants to come try it and then we also go in for different programs and I use the practitioners very fortunate to have network of practitioners we built over eight years through archipelago all of which are unbelievably willing to support this cause. I mean, it’s beautiful. Um that they they just love that this is something that’s happening to. And so, yeah, we take people into there, too, because I also want to like get them out of the house and into public. Like, there’s this shame around sober living and and I get it. And you know, everyone that comes in, I say the first thing to them, they like look kind of sad. I’m like, “No one wants to be here.” And it’s okay that you feel that way. No one like says like I’m glad that I’ve ended up in sober living. Yeah. You know, but but it’s a step, but also like there’s there’s a lot of people out there that are in the same position as you. And it’s just like not talked about and like let’s get out there and let’s put you in archipelago, which isn’t a place for sober people. It’s a place for anybody trying to make their life better. And ultimately, that’s all you are is like another person trying to make your life better. I don’t know how many times we have the conversation at the house of they start explaining to me something that’s going wrong and it’s difficult in their life and it’s because they’re an addict. It’s because they’re in recovery and I’m like I don’t know how to tell you this but that’s just a human experience of what you’re having right there. Like I have it. Everyone has it. You know, like s like defined as the momentary recognition that we all live deep and intricate lives that you do, that the person that see out the window does. And you know, I think that if we all could take a step back and just recognize that we’re all in this in the same capacity. We’re all, you know, humans. We’re we’re souls having this experience. then it kind of takes some of the pressure off to like think of us so much as individuals instead of just people that we belong and we deserve and we can have the same things as everyone else. Even the setup of the house like our house is intentionally very well set up. It’s beautiful and it’s because like that’s what they deserve, you know, and not what they need to aspire to. It’s like what they what they deserve now. They deserve to be in the public spaces. They deserve to be in programs with other people that are sober or not sober and working together. Yeah, I love that. And they absolutely do deserve that because they’re making like one of the most courageous decisions of their life%. You know, we have this concierge hospitality approach to our guest and most certainly in the first 72 hours because they’re the most important people in the room. And so we always go out, we meet the family, it’s very concierge. Can I get you something to drink? Like we want them to feel like because they’re there today, it’s the Super Bowl for us. Yeah. It’s the freaking Super Bowl. Every day is the Super Bowl. And we talked about it a little bit before the show. It’s like we get to do this privileged work with people and explore with them like what might make them feel human again. Yeah. I mean that’s incredible stuff. Yeah. And I love that you’re introducing to not just you know we can go to AA meetings. I I love that. Um but also in introducing these third party resources, introducing people to breath work. Yeah. I never I didn’t know how to breathe. I still struggle with it until I had 10 years sober. Yeah. Nobody ever said, “Bro, you need to breathe.” Yeah. like breathe this thing you do every day all day you’re Yeah like you’re holding your breath again you know and I never thought for a moment that that would help me in my recovery but it’s been foundational for me and so I just I really love the approach that you’re taking um the concier the hospitality the putting the individuals first because so often we refer out to so sober living homes and they’re met with quite the opposite you know yeah and I mean it’s a tough space right and it’s I think all of it’s needed I’m not saying that there aren’t bad actors in the space, but like you know it’s it’s we provide service to like a specific set of people and it’s taken us six to eight months to figure out who that is and what it looks like and and for us we say life integration more than sober living. Yeah. We aren’t here to help you get sober. Um there are lots of great resources for that. If I tried to say I was one of them, I’d be lying. It’d be like me telling you that I’m gonna make you a bodybuilder, right? And I’m, you know, 5 foot 10, maybe nine and 150 pounds. You know, it’s like you shouldn’t listen to me there. Um, but, you know, for people that have found a foundation in their sobriety and are looking more towards the future and building a life like I think we are a good resource and there are other places that are going to be better at that. I think the 12 steps is again a great foundation for things and can be something that you continue to integrate throughout your life. Y um but you know we’ve we’ve kind of learned our place through trial and error and I think in acknowledging that has been important. You know it’s kind of like the who am I to tell you what to do and I’m not anyone to tell anyone what to do. I can give you an idea of things that might work but also with just in my realm of I even hate to call it expertise but experience which is more around wellness and habit building and um yeah the life integration piece. Yeah. Don’t you feel like um one of my favorite humans in this field, his name’s TJ Woodward. He’s an author and he wrote a recovery program called Conscious Recovery. It’s incredible. It’s an incredible recovery program. But what he often talks about in that program is for therapy, right? And to be able to help someone, it’s really about taking care of ourselves. Yeah. and then holding that space with another that they too have exactly inside of them buried somewhere inside that exact perfection that that we’re holding. Yeah. And he he’s really clear on and I always talk about this on the show, but um he said when we’re born we we have this unique perfection. He’s like, “You ever had a kid?” I was like, “Yeah, I’ve had kids and I’ve watched them come out and not for a moment would I say that’s anything other than perfect.” Yeah. And so we have this perfection inside of us and then life builds. And so your approach is really reminding me of just reidentifying that perfection, that humanness, and also like something happened to you, but there’s nothing wrong with you. Yeah. You know, and I think we tell ourselves a variety of messages that can be conflated and blown up over time and create and exacerbate a ton of shame. Yeah. You know, it’s even I woke up this morning and my girlfriend’s doing a rotation down here in Colorado Springs and she Memorial or um UC Health. UC Health. Okay. Yeah. And one she’s a surgery resident. She’s a badass. I already sometimes I just feel inadequate, you know, with what she does. I really do. And you know, she got up at 5:30 this morning and then I laid around until 6:30 and then it’s 7:00 and I get out of bed and then I get on my phone and there came a moment this morning like I had a lot of shame. Like I was coming here to this. I’m like and I text I literally texted her and I was like I feel like a fraud going to do this and what like who am I to do any of this? I don’t get it, you know, and she’s incredibly supportive. But, you know, what I ended up needing to do was go to the gym, work out, get in the cold plunge, eat some healthy food, and come back to myself. And I think that such a big part of this is like helping people understand that they are always deserving and they’re not always going to feel that way. It’s not like you just flip this switch and one day you’re good. Yeah. It’s one morning you’re bad. What do you do to get better? And you know, we try and give people the tools to come back to that to like find themsel. And you know, it took me an hour and a half to come to a place where I thought like, okay, I can go do this podcast and feel good about myself and you know, but it’s always there. And I think with a lot of what we do with a mindful practice, you recovery 2.0, know, I’ve heard you call it on the podcast before, you know, of like how do I really get aligned with my mental, my spiritual, and my physical self just to come back to that place that does tell me that I am perfect, imperfect. Yeah. Which is perfect. Like I’m perfectly me. Yeah. Um and you know, it just it it takes time and effort and and again, I think that’s the life integration piece is life, not like momentary integration or one year integration. It’s it’s like this is going to be you for the rest of your life and like how do we build that and how do we build that habit? Yeah. I actually love that you brought that up. I don’t think hopefully the viewers don’t think that every day Chris Burns has amazing days. Yeah. But you introduced an element that we chatted a little bit before the show and maybe touched on here, but like you’re just introducing humanness. Yeah. And I love what you do with some of your guests in your program is, you know, they come in and they say them certain things and you know, I might be this, I might be that. And I love what you you tell them back and it’s like you’re human. You’re experiencing a human experience and we’re all experiencing it. Yeah. My fellowship just got 100 times bigger, you know? So now we’re all in this thing together called life. Yeah. So I love how you introduced that on the show. It’s really authentic and I think it’s important. It’s similar to, you know, this morning when I woke up, I’m like, mother of God, when my feet hit the floor, I was like, there’s no way this can happen today. Yeah. But I’m like, all right, I’ll just do a mile. I’ve talked about this all the time. I’ll do a mile. And then I get over the hill and I’m like, all right, make it two. All right, well the down the back is downhill, so that’s easy. make it three. Come back. I’m just going to do a couple sets. I’m going to do this. Then I just do one step, one breath, one day, one thing at a time. And I’ve been talking a lot lately, too, about especially folks in early recovery and just experiencing life on life’s terms. It’s like sometimes our goals are too big and that can create shame. Yeah. And so if if if the mountain seems too big to climb, we just make a smaller goal. Yeah. You know, and it feels like that’s kind of the the path that you deliver for the folks that call Sonder home for and it is a it’s a minimum of a three-month commitment, right? Yeah. Yeah. So, they’re calling it home and they can live up there for up to two years. It reminds me of when we first opened Peaks, we’d have guys picking up couple years in recovery and it’s just cool to be able to live um side by side with those folks. Yeah. It’s amazing to see our house manager the other day and we were sitting in a meeting and she had this throwaway comment that she said, “This is the first home I’ve had in 16 years.” And I was like, “Can we come back to that?” Hold on. Like, what do you mean? Like, yeah, this is like that’s that’s amazing. That’s beautiful. Like, I I I would have never thought that, you know? And yeah, that people need space to be and to live and to like have their experience and to be able to provide that and create that is is amazing. You know, archipelago, we called it the third space. So, it’s not your house, it’s not your work, it’s a third space. I think we didn’t make that up. And it’s kind There’s a third space coffee down here. Yeah. Yeah. It’s like it’s kind of common nomenclature. And um which I kind of thought this was going to be it, but that was a memoir. I was I was like, “Oh, no. this is the first space for some people. Like I I didn’t even realize that that’s what we were creating. Um which is a beautiful moment, too. Yeah. And that’s really cool. Yeah. When I hear those things, it’s just like humbles me to my soul. It’s like we did this together. He’s like, “No, you did. No, we did it.” Yeah. You know, I had a guy um who went through our program. He was an old biker guy, a big old gray beard. He just left like four or five days ago, and I got to hang out with him a little bit in his last couple weeks. We shared a smoothie and he sat down with me the other day and he was like, “Five things in my life, my first kid being born, my second kid being born, um getting married to my wife. There was one other thing.” And he said, “In Peak’s recovery, top five.” I mean, he’s a six-year-old. He’s been through a ton. We get this opportunity and to sit with people on, you know, potentially their worst day and walk them into a life that they didn’t even know was possible. Yeah. And I love how we can approach it today because you know guys will sit down with me sometimes and women they’ll sit down they’ll say okay well how do I do it like I don’t know I know I don’t know. Yeah thing is I’m like I am not the one to tell you that. No one else is like you’re going to have to figure that out yourself. Exactly. We can be supportive of that but like yeah this is your journey. Yeah. You know and that’s a beautiful thing. It’s a journey. It’s you read all the epics and like we we idolize and we fantasize about these extreme scenarios where we’re the hero or the heroin and we we’re and then we comes to our life and we just want it to be so perfect and so smooth. Mhm. But like also do we like isn’t there something kind of beautiful like the people in the house like I get these moments sometimes and it’s even hard for me to understand how I feel about it that I recognize like there’s this extreme beauty in the fact that their life has like this arc that they’re going to be able to overcome something hopefully you know so significant and that’s that’s life like that’s what you look back on and are proud of. that’s what you like that’s what makes you who you are like I think all of us look back on life and like the things we’re the most proud of were the hardest things you know and like this is an opportunity and if they can see it that way to like really go through something tremendously difficult and our house manager had to have back surgery um like two years ago she had back surgery and then she back had been getting worse and one day I walked in the house and she could barely walk and I’m like you got to go to the hospital she’s like they’re going to keep me there. She’s like, “That’s what they do, you know.” And she’s an addict and and you know, spent several years on the streets and and she’s just like, “I know how the hospitals go.” I’m like, “No, you’re going to be fine.” She gets in the hospital and they’re like, “You’re going to be here like seven weeks.” Like, “Oh, I told you.” I’m like, “Oh, you were right. My bad.” Um, but it turns out that she had had a like sepsis, like a spinal infection. Oh, sure. and she got sober and stayed sober and has still been sober, but it’s been 10 months now. For nine months of that, having a spinal infection and having to get like part of her spinal column removed through the surgery, having to spend seven weeks in the hospital. And at the end of it, she’s like, I feel like it’s just kicking my butt. I’m like, I kind of think you’re kicking it’s it’s a hard fight. Like, I’m not saying this is an easy fight, but I’m like, I think you’re winning. You know, you just kind of saw her like she sat with it for a minute and she’s like, yeah. And I’m like, “Yeah, you are.” Like, “This is going to be a huge part of your life.” You know, this is just like something you can be so proud of. And just to see them, the little things, the big things, like I’m proud this morning I went to the gym. Yeah. And the cold punch. Like it’s a little thing, but like I’m proud. It made my day better. And seeing them with the little things that they do when they get up a little earlier, when they read 10 pages of a book to when they hit a year sobriety, you know, it’s that and everything in between. just these like moments of of joy and like understanding that they’re like creating this life that they kind of didn’t think they would have at some point and to see that it’s just beautiful. Yeah, it really is. And and I don’t think a lot of people fighting for recovery, mental health or otherwise know how that’s going to be received in the community because oftentimes they haven’t been received well as a result. Yeah. You know, and and I think to your point, words really matter and reframing really matters. I was reading I mean it was a podcast who knows um it’s a handful of months ago but it was talking about like cancer diagnosises and how when you go in and you you’re cancer free the doctor tells you you’re in remission and like what that does to individuals as opposed to be like you’re cancer free we beat this thing. Yeah. Let’s go. So then I’m not telling myself a story that there’s a boogeyman in the closet that’s going to come get me. Yeah. Creating unnecessary whatever in my nervous system. Yeah. You know. So, I love that opportunity because we have this we have this ability today or this this this opportunity um to sit with people who have very negative narratives about themselves and others. And that little reframe allows people to peek in a window that they didn’t know was in the house. Yeah. And the other part of it that I’ve recognized is like exposure. So, kind of back to like taking them to archipelago or like telling them to go like exist in the world. And something unique, most of my friends and like my have a big core friend group. Like we do like once a year 30 guy trips. It’s like for being 41, I have like too many friends. Very fortunate for it. That’s awesome. Most of them aren’t sober, you know. Um and when I first started this, they were like, “Oh man, like are you sure? Like it’s going to be really tough the type of people in the house.” And they’re like, you know, and they weren’t trying to look down on it, but they they they were, you know, to a degree. And here we are eight months later and all my friends are like, “Tell me how Lindsay is doing. She’s killing it. She’s so killing it.” And so like all my friends, like even their attitude on it is just like changed so dramatically that they’re like proud of these people that they don’t know. And you know, I’m not sharing like the details with them of things, but when I get excited about something, I’m like, “This girl in my house is killing it.” Like, you know, she just went through this really hard thing and she stayed sober. And their attitude is is looking at it like it seems like they look at each other when they do something great. It’s not this like pity congratulations. It’s like oh man they did something really hard and that’s amazing. And so I think just like continuing to open up the exposure to it and you know it’s like 20% of adults suffer from some sort of substance issue. 25 of us almost with mental health issues like it’s everywhere. And to tell me 25% of people suffer from mental health give me Exactly. It’s up there. 25% report. Yeah. you know, and it’s like way up, we all do, like it’s all on a spectrum. Um, but you know, just to kind of see people start to like recognize that it’s just like a different form of struggle and we all struggle and um so that’s been like a really cool thing too and I think again like it makes me want to do more and more to like get it out in the world and and get people more exposed to the idea that like there’s there’s so much beauty in this struggle too. And you know, Victor Frankl has a quote that suffering ceases to be suffering as it finds meaning. And I think for these people in recovery, as they start to recognize that they do inspire, that they’re suffering, that they’ve always viewed as suffering and it was nothing but suffering, it’s this bad, terrible time, it starts to get meaning because it’s helping somebody else or it’s changing the paradigm. and shifting people’s perspective and it creates meaning and then it kind of ceases to be suffering. There’s this switch this moment that all of a sudden like that struggle for that that year that five years that 10 years doesn’t become suffering it becomes important. It becomes part of life and not just their life but everyone’s life you know and it’s it’s like a really amazing thing to see too. Yeah. Man’s Search for Mania. That’s a great book. Yeah, it is. It’s wild. It’s a it’s it’s wild. It’s like the most horrific place on earth. But we talk about purpose and defining purpose and meaning as a foundation for life. Yeah. And the folks that were able to do that with the hellacious situation they had to walk through. Yeah. Found survival. Yeah. You know, in in a very very dark place. Yeah. You know, so introducing that, that was another thing I wanted to bring up is like your integrated home sa specifically. I I think this can be not just for people who are coming out of an inpatient treatment program or people coming out of Rose House or people, you know, transitioning out of these really heavy kind of clinical settings. You know, this is starting to speak to me of like, you know, folks in community that are just having quality of life issues, identifying purpose, like what’s my road map? What does my life look like? How do I find There was a program out of Carbondale. it’s not around anymore and it was it was kind of apparent to Jaywalker Lodge but it was it was very similar in what you guys do and the example they gave me um was you know we had a guy come in you know and they had to have a year sober to get into the program. Yeah. So they had to be at that point that you’re talking about where it’s like what am I doing? Where am I going? And who’s coming with me? Um and he he defines a moment where he’s like this guy he’d never been in a he’d never been in a helicopter before but he wanted to be a helicopter pilot. He just loved it man. and he loses the TV, Blackhawk down, loved all his stuff. Really just loved it. They’re like, “Hey, man. Well, let’s get this thing booked for you. Let’s get you up in a helicopter. See how it feels, man.” And he went up there. He’s like, “I hate this. I hate this. I hate this.” And so, we just strike that off the list. We don’t have to go down this path. I don’t have to go to school. I don’t have to get in the simulator to find myself in the helicopter two years down the road and be like, “Wait a minute.” Yeah. So, I love that you introduce people to like ideas and concepts and, you know, different opportunities for work and relationships because something’s going to stick. Yeah. We have someone in our house right now and her recovery is pretty much going hiking. I love it. Like, and she does other things, too, but like if I was just to stick her in a room four days a week to have conversations with 40 people, I just don’t see her connecting that well to it, you know? and she’s been great. She’s amazing to have in the house. She keeps a garden outside. She picks all of our weeds. We have a lot of our landscaping is wild. We have a lot of weeds and it’s been raining a lot. Yeah. And but you know, it’s like she goes hiking with other sober people and it’s like great. I would have never if you would have walked in this house and said, “What should I do?” I don’t think I would have been like you should go on hikes, right? You know, like even though I know that’s a healthy thing to do, it’s not the first thing I would say to somebody. But, you know, just giving them the opportunity and access and being in Colorado like there there is so much too and and I’m learning more about Denver Artist and Recovery and the work that they do and that there’s, you know, all of these organizations that are focused around sober pickle ball, sober rock climbing, sober painting, you know, and not that I think that everyone in recovery needs to only surround themsel with other people in recovery. I mean it can be a great thing but um you know to have those resources especially in those earlier stages like the you know kind of six months a year in and be able to kind of build a life like that I think is amazing too. Yeah. And so just helping I’m trying to learn more about it so that I can help them learn more about it and give access like core power does a free 11 a.m. class every Sunday for the community and there’s a core power yoga down the street from us. So, it’s like go to that. You know, there’s just like all these things out there that are healthy, maybe not sober, but they are sober. Yoga is generally sober. Um, you know, that might not be the the main intention of it, but just to connect into and giving people access to those resources and understanding what they are. It’s so interesting you say that because the I was in um where was I? 20 end of 23 right before Christmas. We were in I was in New York City with my wife and I started to see these bars pop up, man. I’m like looking around. I’m like, so with sober curious bars, yeah, it’s a thing cuz what we’re learning now through like the Hubbermans of the world, it’s like, yeah, maybe even one drink a week might be too much. Yeah. You know, and it’s it’s not that I have a problem with it. It’s just it messes up with my sleep, you know, my sleep hygiene goes down the road, my nutrition, certainly the sugar. And so I’m just learning from like a costbenefit analysis, like I don’t want to do that, but I want to be in community. Yeah. And so offering people an opportunity to find themselves in those communities, sober or otherwise. I like to involve myself in those communities, too. And a lot of the communities we’re talking about, like hiking, jiu-jitsu, um, you know, art, a lot of these things, it’s really difficult to like have a drink in your hand while you’re doing it. Yeah. You know what I’m saying? And you’re not hiking with me if you have a drink in your hand. You know, it’s going to be a tough hike. Yeah. So, I I just I love that. And I think it’s actually taking shape for a lot of people, folks who haven’t even struggled with it whatsoever. Yeah. I think that that’s been a beautiful thing, too, is just to see like greater acceptance. And I don’t know, I don’t have like sources on this, but it from what I understand, Gen Z has done like a great job with finding other resources and opportunities than drinking. And I just I read like the liquor and bar industry complaining about Gen Z because they’re not drinking as much. It’s pretty funny. Um, but you know, it’s like it’s just that it’s been embedded into what we do so much too, you know, and that makes it so much more difficult, but like it doesn’t have to be. Yeah. like you can be sober and have fun. Y like it’s a thing, you know, like I do things all the time that I’m sober and have fun. And so, you know, just kind of getting people used to that idea, too. I love that, man. It’s a it’s a really cool thing you guys are doing and really unique. I appreciate that. And I think the business model is is exactly what Colorado needs right now. It seems like it and it’s been wellreceived. uh had conversations really early that I said I’m going to do it my way, which is this wellness-based approach. If that doesn’t work, that’s okay. I’m going to turn this into an Airbnb. The option wasn’t to stick six people in a room and rotate them through. And I think that that’s needed sometimes in like early stages and certain people like that’s that’s needed. It just wasn’t my understanding or expertise either. Um luckily it worked. It’s working. I don’t say it works. That’s scary to say. One day at a time. Yeah. One day at a time, you know, but um you know, we got really lucky having like Denver Women’s Recovery down the street and um just some wonderful people. And in this space, it’s I cold called like I I made a list of 300 different in Colorado, I found 300 different rehabs and I just started cold calling them and I was like, “Oh, this is going to suck.” I’ve done cold calling before and I’m expecting them to be like, “Here’s the email, like general email. Send your information.” And I’d be like, “Well, you know, my name’s Jared and I’m opening a sober living. Who do I talk to?” They’d be like, “You got to talk to Janet. Janet, get over here.” And Janet be like, “Oh, hey, tell me about your sober living and can I come visit and do you want to come visit us?” It’s like this is not like any business I’ve been a part of that everyone’s been like just so welcoming and so open to supporting and it’s just like it’s it’s amazing. You know, the Colorado provider community is really unique. Yeah. Um you know, I’ve been in Northern Arizona. I’ve worked with people in Southern California and there’s just horrific things going on in our industry. But Colorado is one of the places, at least in my experience of nearly 20 years of doing this, they have a lot of integrity about the way that they work together. And it’s really nice and comforting. Yeah, it really is. Like I went to a a dinner last night randomly. A girl I went to preschool with. No way. Now works at a re uh rehab out in Asheville, North Carolina. Okay. And she was in town putting on a dinner. I haven’t seen her since I mean 20 years since I’ve seen her. Um but you know, I walk in and there’s like four or five people that I know. Wow. Um Nick who works with you guys is in there, you know, and I see Nick. I love Nick. I give him a hug. you know, he’s amazing. Um, and everyone’s just like so happy and open and it’s just not what I expected. You know, it felt so quickly a part of the community and I felt like an outsider at first. I’m new. I don’t really know what’s going on and it scared me and there’s a lot of terminology. Yeah. You know, everyone’s like IOP, PHP like writing them down in my notebook. I’m like Google this later, you know, and then I just learned to be like what’s that, you know, and ask because no one when I did say like what’s that, people be like oh of course like let me make sure like you understand that not like oh you don’t get that you know. Um and yeah again it’s it’s community you know and I’m with I’m with you. It’s like at the basis of everything like having a supportive community whatever that looks like to you is in my opinion like the most important thing that you can do. It’s it’s a first step. AA provides that so well out of the gate. You know, you can walk in any room in any city, basically any country in the world, and you can have that opportunity and then someone will walk right up to you and introduce them. Absolutely. Hey, how are you? I’m Jim. Yeah. Yeah. And at first it’s like shocking. Yeah. Like what do I do with this? Yeah. you know, but to be able to to provide that other places, too. Like we have a calendar at the house. Like the most important thing on the calendar is when somebody new moves in. Oh, yeah. You know, it’s not the program you’re supposed to go to or this or that. It’s like knowing someone new is going to be there that day and like prep for them and give that to them. And what I’ve seen happen there, we had we had a big transition. And as soon as our house manager went to the hospital, we went down to zero people for a period of time and then by the time she came back, we had an interim house management. Um, we had six or seven people in the house and I told them that Lindsay was coming back and it was her birthday and they got her flowers and I took her flowers to the hospital and she had been really nervous about coming back to the house. like they all know each other and I’m not a part of the community and you know I assure her I’m like this is your house more than it’s even my house this is this is yours like you’ve done such a great job and it’s yours but I take her these flowers and she got like really emotional and she said this is the first birthday gift I’ve gotten since I was 16 years old I didn’t know how to respond to that like it broke my heart and made me happy but she came back into the house and it just like such an easier experience because like this community had embraced someone that they didn’t know yet. All they knew is that I cared about this person. Mhm. I care about them. She’s here to help them. They’re going to embrace it. And it’s made all of the difference in her recovery, too. And like coming into things and just to be able to see stuff like that is just Yeah. the community building, just people coming together and the common purpose. I guess it’s it’s sobbriety you want to call that, but it’s support. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it’s it’s more than that. Yeah. Wellness and support. I think most people can get down with that. Yeah. I think if you asked if you pulled 100 people, they could you use some wellness and some support? I’d be shocked if it’s not in the 90th percentile. Yeah. I mean, who’s going to say no to that? No. I No support here. Yeah. Yeah. I’m independent. Yeah. I’m I’m good. I’m a lone wolf. That’s usually, you know, that’s what it’s so funny, man. And it’s interesting what trauma and mental health issues can make you believe. Yeah. You know, because when I got into recovery, I was like, I don’t like people. And I was actually diagnosed with antisocial personality. Me. Yeah. And a social what? You know, but we get in these moments and and you and I have this opportunity in the provider community here in Colorado gets this opportunity to just walk with people side by side as we climb out of the hole. Yeah. Together. And they get to see it, you know. And I had a friend in college. I remember a conversation. and they were going through a breakup and she was like, “You know, I feel crazy because I just want to drive by his house and see if anyone else is there.” I’m like, “It’s not crazy to think that.” I’m like, “If you do that, you’re you’re starting to like skirt a line.” Yeah. And she’s like, “Really? Like you think that? Like you you feel that way, you know?” And it’s like, “Yeah, like we all do.” And like just the relief that comes to a person when they get to understand that they’re not alone. Yeah. And and it’s same thing like we get to walk side by side. I’m gonna be honest with you about how I feel. And I tell everybody in the house like if I I go to our house meeting about once a month and and I’m always really honest like what’s the worst part of your day? I’m like I’m going to go first and I’m going to tell you the worst part of my week or my day and be really honest and just being able to help people understand again this idea of s that we all live these really intricate lives and there’s good to that and there’s bad to that. And in community we get to process that together. We get to lean on each other. we get to learn from each other and this just like such a valuable asset to have that I don’t want to say it’s underappreciated now because I feel like there’s become a lot more appreciation for it especially over like the last 10 years and especially since co Yeah. Yeah. Um, but you know, still a long way to go and seeing people just now starting to accept the fact that like I I do need that for me and for my family and for anyone’s life that I touch. The more support I have, the more support I can give and building that into their lives is so important. Yeah. Really unique, really cool model you have. For the viewers, websites, how do we find you? How do we get a hold of you? Yeah. Um website we you asked me the question before is it sober living and god it’s hard for me I want to call it integrative living now because I’m learning what it is website saunders soberliving.com okay um sint integrativeliving is still open as a domain and maybe I’ll shift to that it’s pretty long just don’t put peaks do it won’t work um but saundersliving.com um and then information’s on there okay um I don’t have we don’t have social media I don’t have social media as like a person Um, yeah, it’s just been a great shift. My best friend doesn’t do social media. And I’m like, you’re a lucky man. Yeah, I have a Facebook. I don’t use it. I don’t know if you’re like allowed to get rid of Facebook at this point. Like everything’s so connected to it that I don’t really school. Um, but yeah, Saunders Sober Living and then archipeloded.com. Um, you know, I think both great resources for people and not just in sobriety. Again, like we said, it’s just people that are trying to like trying to find a different way to live, trying to find a better way to live. And I think it’s it’s amazing. Um, archipelago is downtown by the aquarium. Oh, cool. Yeah. Okay. And so, uh, we have a digital billboard on the highway that only I know how to control that 250,000 people drive by a day. Really? Yeah. It’s amazing. That’s cool. Yeah. So, like I put ridiculous things on there. The Denver Post called me one day and they’re like, “Please tell us what’s going on.” They’re like, “None of this makes any sense.” Like I’m like putting stuff up about like Zack Morris and Save by the Bell and but uh yeah, so that space is downtown and then um our sober living is like in the Cherry Creek, Virginia Village area. Looking to open up another one over there in the same area. Yeah, in the same area. Yeah, it just I got really lucky that we put it where it was, but I can reverse engineer that luck to to get it again now that I know what it is. Um so going to try and stay there for the next one and then looking to open a men’s house sooner than later, too. Beautiful. Um, and yeah, and you know, besides that, I tell everybody like we just want to be a resource for wellness and anything that we can be, whether it’s you’re looking for sober living or you just think that there’s something that I know or we know that could be helpful, like reach out. Yeah. Like you said, we’re all in this together and we all want to be supportive of each other, make the world a better place. Um, partially selfishly so I feel good. Something that makes me feel good. It’s my cold plunge is also like feeling like I was of service in some capacity. Um, so yeah, open open to it all. Yeah, thank you so much, Jared. Yeah, thank you. This was I like I said, I came in feeling undeserving and and nervous and and there’s always going to be an element of that and um but this is wonderful and I really appreciate it a time. Yeah, thank you so much and please get on those websites. Uh I think you’re going to be blown away. you know, the Saunders Sober Living website as well as archipelago. Just really unique modalities, unique service lines here in Denver to the greater Colorado area. Appreciate you. Until next time, my beautiful people. Peace.