Episode 141

uh your story is important because it can become a page in somebody else’s survival guide and that’s something unfortunately that this current system just doesn’t do doesn’t do it doesn’t meet people where they’re at it meets people where they think they’re at right which is devalued yes there’s a place for that but build rapport because these people are walking all over people now be in the spirit of am I going to hurt your feelings I don’t want my problems to get easier I want to get stronger and how I deal with them [Music]
hey everybody and welcome to another amazing and exciting episode of Finding Peaks Yours Truly Chris Burns president and founder so excited today to be joined by my good friend colleague and the most one of the most amazing humans I Know Dan hooko good to see you brother Chris it’s good to see you bro thank you for having me absolutely man we were just kind of chopping it up as we do about 30 minutes before the show and I wanted to start with something a little bit new today and we’re trying something new here on Peaks I’m not formulating any questions we’re just coming in and having Dynamic connected and present conversations that matter and so uh Dan’s going to be kind of the Forefront of that but before we get going I wanted to welcome everybody into Dan’s personal life a little bit now he allows everybody in through the show and the things he does in the community but fun facts about Dan 2025 let’s go round one Dan take it away fun facts about d one of my favorite ones and I know we were just talking about and I was you I was was talking about how you know like I love the Shaolin Kung Fu over over at the sevenstar Phoenix shouting them out a little bit really quick but I I was saying like the last year just because of getting everything going and the busy I haven’t been as present there so I just got back into doing the shin conditioning where like we have these like pain sticks it’s like these there like a bunch of like wires and it frays out you tap up and down your shins and I just really got back into doing it consistently again for the shin conditioning because I mean if we’re going Shin to Shin I’m I’m going to win that that’s that’s the goal and so just back into doing that and then just like the rolling up and down the Shins I use a piece of Rattan and just piece of retan yeah what is retan retan it looks like bamboo it’s it’s like a a brownish kind of like it has like the segments like bamboo and I get the thinner branches basically that’s um we use those for our staffs when we do our staff fighting stuff but I like to get the thinner ones there’s just something about the thinner ones when you roll it it just seems like it’s more effective and we usually go up and down the shin a number of times but I’ve been doing it more I’m like part of me is like I got to catch up because I haven’t been consistent but the other part of me is just like I love it so I’m just rolling up and down my shin and actually they’re they’ve been a little bit bruised lately and it’s been a while since I’ve experienced that but you got to have Shin armor if you’re kicking with your shins you know or if you’re getting kicked in The Shins D I love that man and I was asking Dan because I I do Jiu-Jitsu and a little bit of wrestling this kind of thing and a lot of like highle wrestlers don’t quote me on this this with the hybrid level wrestlers that I hang out with especially for novice level wrestling people they’re like get good shooting to one side right get one side good and I was talking to Dan I was like well so you just do that front leg right cuz you’re you’re a southpaw and he’s like no you have to do both why do you have to do both why is that important but Chris you got to do both because if somebody you know gets an angle on you and they go for a kick or a sweep and you end up going Shin to shin and like if someone’s going for a sweep for me and I catch it what I would do is I would anchor I’d put my weight on that leg to stop it and if it’s Shin to shin and we’re going Shin to Shin mine’s not breaking yeah yeah that’s so cool man so I’m sitting here chatting with Dan and I’m like you know we’re going to start the show with fun facts about Dan let go that’s a beautiful fact you know when you were talking about the Rattan or the one that you actually get I wonder if it’s kind of like like getting tattooed where when they come in with like the real um like the big mags like the 12 needles are like those are all right when they come in with the little bumblebees like the two and the threes it’s like g g g you’re just like move it’s like a different kind of special pain yeah you know it’s exactly there C there’s certain special pains that you just grow to love because you just know that it’s doing something to build you I love that yeah and and it and I want to be clear too and a lot of people talk about this you know just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s good but there are a lot of things that are hard um and necessary to work through yeah uh that can equal um positivity endurance strength connectivity and um a lot of good things on the end of it as well absolutely and Chris that’s like one of my kind of mantras is I didn’t pray for an easy life you know what I’m saying and it’s one of those things where sometimes it’s just like oh man I like to do difficult things because I feel like it it builds character it’s like that that Comfort like the sticker Comforts a slow death prefer pain just because like I don’t know it starts to forge you into the person where it’s like I don’t want my problems to get easier I want to get stronger and how I deal with them I was sitting with a guy the other day and this is is a a tough way to put it but a lot of people in early recovery especially dealing with substance driven issues and mental health driven issues are experiencing a lot of Shame yeah you know they’ll say things like I feel like a piece of [  ] man yeah so I feel like the scum of the earth so what am I going to do and then they go do something with you it’s hard maybe they get through boxing maybe today they went through Prime they went through a Jiu-Jitsu class and they get out and they have this experience in that 24-hour segment of time where they say something like you know what I don’t feel like a piece of [  ] yeah that’s powerful and it’s palatable and I think sometimes in environment it gets excused for kind of like it’s just this hard thing and it’s just these thing people get through it produces mental health it’s a mental health Victory yes right yes talk to me a little bit about that and how you guys you guys are getting people real active in community you got some new contracts going we’re inte ating people from the Department of Corrections a lot of good stuff going on at the bridge right now yes thank you Chris thank you so yeah at the bridge that’s where the magic happens is it’s first of all community and it’s people speaking life into you but but so that’s great and that has its place but when you go in and you get to experience something hard with that Community speaking life into you it’s kind of that whole iron sharpens iron thing and when we get into what’s going on with the brain your body you’re you’re in there your box and you’re like I don’t want to spar yet or maybe you know like because I see a lot of guys that you know they think that they’re tough and it’s like well I don’t want to spar it’s like we’re going to teach you before you Spar buddy yeah don’t hurt them yeah don’t hurt them when they come in trying to fight like this get your elbows down my friend like this isn’t the yard yeah but they say they they they tell the kids I keep them in like a like a tyrannosaurus yeah you protect yourself you keep it in tight you keep it in tight you know yeah but but when you go in and you get to do this thing like you experience this like and you’re swinging and you’re hitting the bag and you do like 10 three minute rounds first of all you didn’t even think you can do it so you’re just gushing with dopamine cuz you just accomplished something and the endorphins it feels good it’s like you naturally like I’m feel like I’m supposed to be doing this because when you really go back like remember like tribe yeah like when it gets into like like like even think like with with the depression cure it talks about like back to like the hter gatherers you got your purpose and you used to have to walk 10 miles to hunt your deer to get it to quarter it to draw to take it back and you’re getting the endorphins and everything and back then you had to now it’s like we have to supplement these things and when we don’t physiologically we deteriorate yeah so you have to get these exercise things and now when you go do it you feel so good it starts to build your confidence up and then you do it with all these other people and you have the accountability piece and it’s just like it it just it works and there’s all this research coming out like the physiology first the university I follow them on Instagram they’re they’re they’re great they just came out with this study it was from 2023 and it came out in 2024 and they didn’t I didn’t get into the specifics of it but it said that with int exercise with intensity is 1.5 times effective as medication and cogn cognitive behavior therapy so now people are like oh cool now this is please understand I’m not saying stop your therapy or your medication you add to it add this to it and now we got a cocktail for Success so I remember I’ve heard it before and I remember you said this you said this a bunch of times if we could take that feeling we get and put it in a pill it’d be the bestselling mental health substance use treatment that there is yeah people be snorting It Be Still yeah right or taking eight of them you go to the C all be sold out it’s it’s right there and that’s what I love about it is people think that it’s inaccessible to them right but that’s that’s why it’s interesting that you call yourself the bridge and I referred when we were building Peaks maybe I stole it from you I don’t know I I liken the facility at Peaks as a bridge for folks that are struggling with acute mental health yeah in a lot of the ways same same way you’re creating this bridge for people to have purpose and what if just for a second like and this just dawned on me when you were talking like what if part of your purpose was you right and then and now this investment that’s doing this hard thing that’s doing it in community really matters yeah right because now all of a sudden I I’ve illuminated purpose and I’ve invested in that purpose 24 hours at a time yes it’s a beautiful thing what are you seeing with guys that are coming out cuz the guys aren’t coming out of a Department of Corrections you know swinging around the confidence wand no being like I’m here you know it’s quite the opposite and they defend it in a certain way but what are you seeing as far as kind of breaking down these walls and um people being integrated in the community yeah so that’s great Chris I love that so what I see with that a lot of the time right when they get out I’m going to tell you the thing that hurts people the most is relationships and every time I see it because you’ll be in Doc and you’ll be doing your addiction treatment program you’ll be doing your your your community like maybe like a 12ep or a support group and you’re putting all this work into what your recovery and your life skills and education but you nobody ever is touching my what my relationships used to look like so they get out and they have all this stuff going for some of them and then they go back to that whoever that individual from the trap house and it just bombs and like you always hear if you go to the barber shop enough times you’re going to get a haircut like you can only be strong in that setting for so long and there’s just something that happens to these people that that hits them but then on the other end like the first thing we like we really got to look at on that is while they’ve been working in there they’re going to get out and like if you’re paroling homeless if you’re discharging homeless discharge like so parole is you go to parole discharges you’ve completed so much of your sentence that you like you’re done you’re done you off paper and so there has to be a plan with that and that’s where parole cannot help so that’s where we’ll step in we’ll help with parole we’ll talk to case management will they literally just let him out the front gate yeah just go go we don’t care here’s a bus ticket for getting back to where you’re from 50 bucks yeah 50 bucks little card yeah voucher yeah yeah and and it and that sucks but it’s like parole can’t pay for it you’re not on parole there you know what I’m saying yeah so we step in we do a lot of stuff with that and we really attack like your basic needs first because I tell you what Chris if I get out and I don’t have a I don’t have a place to live the last thing I’m thinking about is going to the boxing gym right you know yeah I can’t take a shower afterwards yeah yes you know like yeah yeah I love how you you step in and kind of start to serve some of those Primal needs yes like man I just need a toothbrush toothpaste coming in I need a sober living I need a gym I can go to that doesn’t cost 15 50 like lifetime even though we love Villa you know was cool B was cool great people there at Bley yeah yep what’s up but I I love that so when you can meet them where they’re at and that’s something unfortunately that this current system just doesn’t do doesn’t do it doesn’t meet people where they’re at it meets people where they think they’re at right which is devalued yes and I love when you can come in and reorient he said such a Good Thing Man relationships it’s like my old friend D young she’s like drugs don’t kill people Rel relationships do and it’s some of the most difficult things to pull away from and I wonder why we don’t go back to the old methodology cuz when I was 22 years old and I was getting sober my sponsor sat me down and was like you don’t have any friends those friends are gone yeah cut it out and I’m like what no way and he was like cut the [  ] man you want a new life you said you were going to take suggestions you’re going to go to the Department of Corrections do this thing that I’m telling you to do or keep getting what you’ve always got yes and so I grudgingly was like dude okay and I didn’t have a relationship for the first year yeah and I honestly I got I met my wife before that got a relationship with her at 14 months I tell you right there that was 5 years too early yeah yeah but it worked yeah it it worked out because I had great people around me but what do you do because these PE the folks are coming out and from a relationship perspective and a primal needs perspective they’re looking to really connect they’ve been withdrawn disconnected from their families for sometimes 15 20 years yeah how do we speak life into life like come with us disconnect from that for an opportunity to move in a New Direction it’s got to be yeah and that’s where it’s just got to be a slow grind because obviously with those old family Dynamics you might have trust issues you might have abandonment issues and it could be hard like for somebody to come in and like trust me trust the situation and you got to build rapport I do want to speak to what you said about it being 20 years ago I want to tell you this [  ] is soft these days and we need to tell up a little bit because it’s like oh oh did I offend you I’m like there’s a place for that but build rapport because these people are walking all over people now in the spirit of am I going to hurt your feelings I’m not okay with that at all exactly like there’s an element of like we there’s out of love and I think that if you can have love behind it and be known and have some Rapport too but yeah I’m about a a little bit like harder but I love you approach I love that too and I think right there’s a time and place in a set and setting where it’s really fitting yeah like we sit here with Nick all the time and I don’t know that there’s a client that’s gone through Peaks recovery centers that I wasn’t harder on yeah but he would sit here and tell you zob but I know I know you love me right and you were there for me and you showed up and you meant what you said and you said what you meant and you showed up 24 hours at a time so it mattered to me and he’s like and I needed that and so picking the right time and I think it’s important to talk about in our industry because we’ve gotten so far away from like just sitting with a man sitting with another man or a woman sitting with another woman and saying hey cut the [ __ ] yeah right yeah and sometimes there certain folks that that’s all they can hear yes you know yeah and for those folks we really need to do them a solid and be authentic and kind yes you know so I love that we’re still talking about that because if somebody doesn’t kick you in the butt sometimes you don’t even know you need a butt kicking for sure you know there was once upon a time where if I wasn’t getting kicked in the butt like I’m not doing anything like I remember I walked in when I first started 12ep right when I got out of my treatment I went down it was right up the street from here on wasach the downtown nuner group and I went in there and they’re like raise your hand if you don’t have a sponsor and I’m like raise my hand and so I had like four or five men come up to me after and asked me if they could sponsor me you remember I was a knucklehead and I was just like I don’t think I’ll listen to you guys man are you and then I ended up getting I’m not like really going to go into like was a motorcycle club member but won’t say his name we’ll protect the anonymity but but uh he was like Dan will you get on the effing ground and lick my boots to stay sober I was like I could work with this dude I was like yeah I absolutely will and I was like I can work with this dude you know like sometimes you need that sometimes you got to hear that you know and sometimes we need to be invested with people that are right next to us that are invested in that kind of way yes you know where we’re like actually willing to fight together for Recovery yeah and I’m will I’m a good enough friend of yours that if you Veer off that path yeah I’ll close come close to smacking you silly cuz I love you so much you know and that’s kind of what your crew reminds me of man like the people that you hang out with it’s like reminds me like the Mighty Ducks bro and it’s like the Flying V Flying V you know you’re taking off and the Flying V doesn’t come out of doesn’t come out of rhythm man it’s got to be this way for a reason and you guys just move into Community like this bop bop and sometimes you get bigger and thinner and bigger and thinner but the mission is clear the goal is attainable and for each and every one of you the goal is clear and it’s in in alignment with Peaks recovery too man it’s to save lives yes absolutely bro and it’s Mission critical yes so I wanted to bend into as well and I didn’t want to get off the podcast without talking about a lot of the resources that are coming up it’s Medicaid right yeah yeah with the Medicaid side of things but often times too and we talked about this in our last meeting when there tends to be often or a lot of resources moving into a market there tends to be a lot of abuse of those resources yes and so I want to bring in as these resources need to elevate and the funding needs to be there and it is I want to make sure that we’re seeing the most int connections possible absolutely so in an effort to continue to save lives and not hurt people yes so I wanted to chat with you a little bit about that how do how does somebody who’s accessing their Medicaid um and trying to utilize a community-based resource like yourself how do we find out similar to like calling you know the 13,000 private treatment programs how do we know what’s good yeah so uh I have a rule of thumb with how I measure some of these some of these places like there’s a couple of places that are very ethical but I never hear like oh this place saved my life I just don’t hear it and and and but there are a couple of places I in in there is some very unethical stuff going around in in the peer support recovery Support Services things with the billing yeah like like changing who they’re billing from in primary and that’s not okay you know but my rule of thumb is when I hear this certain place like oh this saved my life when I see their Community come together it’s kind you can kind of tell like Hey we’re out doing stuff we’re we’re doing this like I had this uh this group I’m not obviously not mentioning any names of anybody tonight but I had this group at the at the um at The Sanctuary Church Recovery Group the other night and there was like eight of them from this organization there just speaking life and active and doing things and I was just like I remember that I’m going to remember that and I’m going to send people to you because I see the fruit of what you’re doing and it was great cuz you could see it from like you can tell who’s like the head coach over they like like their kind of head person and then the step under and then their people like you can tell and just seeing the excitement and hearing about what they’re doing and their shares I was just like C can I just come and live at your house that’s Co you know yeah it it was super cool so definitely definitely like what you see and you’ll hear stuff like you hear in the community there’s places burning each other down and breaking off from other places and starting their own thing and I’m just like guys yeah it’s not supposed to be a hustle and Chris what what I’m really seeing with a lot of the people that start or like that are involved with these certain places it’s they’re sober I’m like what kind of program are you working what kind of program are you having people working and a lot of them from from my perspective and from some of the other people it looks Chris to me like they got sober and they found another hustle and it breaks my heart that they’re making this hustle human lives yeah and it’s just like about money I’m like I never hear about like what are you doing in the community and you you can see it if you look you know it’s but it it sucks that that’s going on because then you get some of these people and they don’t last at these places and then they go to these other very ethical very cool places and they try to take these other ways with them and they get called out for like you can’t do that so it’s like you got to retach them and hopefully they’re like oh okay cool or this but what we’re hearing and I’m seeing is like oh this is how this place is doing it so I’m making mental notes of that you know it’ss hard too cuz you’re you’re trying to offer Quality Care yes you know and recovery and opportunities for people to heal and when people come and offer a subpar resource it kind of It kind of undercuts the market and it displaces trust in the community that already doesn’t have any yes you know produce stigma not ramp it up exactly nobody’s like yeah I’m trusting all these people this is great yeah you know you got to give them reasons too but I love man and I know there’s a close circle of you and some people that are close to you that are just doing this amazing work in community both on the sober living side getting people active both and matter so so so much and then you guys are getting unplugged into communities which in my opinion we’ve talked about on the show before I don’t know if there’s anything more valuable than being seen valued and heard in the community yes you know to double down on purpose yes purpose is such a huge factor in there like you see these broken people and it’s back to what a minut getting out of Doc and they they don’t know but it it’s it’s so beautiful when you see somebody that just comes from what they would probably say is my life is a train wreck and when you show them hey you can take this train wreck and you can turn it into a page and someone else’s survival guide and then you just see that purpose light up and they just ignite and they just become this force of good it’s just like cool go do it we’re going to walk with you just to make sure everything’s good and oh it just builds and build and it’s leaders making leaders making leaders and impacting the community and then oh it just lights on fire it’s beautiful yeah man that’s going to be a real right there yes bro that’s going to be a real right yes bro did you say again you you quoted something yeah yeah leaders making leaders yeah yeah I think I got Survival Guide something yeah yeah oh oh yeah I did I saw that on a meme and I want to say it was associated with my dude John Maxwell but uh but it’s um uh your story is important because it can become a page in somebody else’s Survival Guide yeah I like that yeah cuz everybody story every morning he’s pop he pops up all over the place dude I love them quotes man I see him like putting like that like metal like that like metal music with it I’ll do a little hip-hop sometimes for my hip-hop people but yeah you know what I’m saying I love metal I used to always listen to hip-hop I don’t listen to it quite as much anymore yeah but I’ve been going back in the gym lately and doing 2000s ESS Central hip hop okay it’s been really nice oh kind of thing yeah like early 2000s that’s awesome like changy yeah that’s awesome yeah bro let’s go man so yeah absolutely love what what you guys are doing man you guys are obviously thriving in community for a good reason um you know something greater is blessing your soccer off for sure and I just love watch you vibrating in community and and to kind of hear the ripple effect as I sit down with people each and every week and have coffees and just to hear your name come up I don’t know that there’s any other professional that’s come up in a more positive light than you over the last six or seven years man I mean people speak highly of you the way that you walk the way that you talk is very very consistent and so to me very very trustworthy um so I appreciate what you do uh before we get off here I want to Dove tail in Dan still runs our alumni as well that’s right so let’s talk a little bit about Tuesday nights what do we have to look forward to what’s been going on what are we excited about um I’ve been going into the facility not on Tuesday nights but I’ve been going in on Mondays and Thursdays from 6:00 to 7: good and doing this little peer group yes it’s just been warm in my heart I love it I go in there and I don’t have a plan president founder going to the thing they’re like what’s up I’m like you tell me yeah I don’t know man six o’clock on a Thursday how are we connecting how are we getting a good night’s sleep what do y’all have for dinner why does it matter let’s do a meditation like anyway so it’s been nice for me but tell me a little bit about Al I will I just want say bro you don’t even need to go in with a plan bro just the way you present yourself could be the whole plan bro you you just go in there and say what you did bro and there’s wisdom and Recovery to it because you you walk the walk thanks yeah absolutely bro so oh alumni has been a blast we just this last Tuesday I brought in a whole bunch it was like seven or eight o of the alumni that was everywhere from a couple of years since they had been through the the main program and multiple parts of the program and all the way to they got out like they’re still in like you know PHP IOP had them come back in and had a bunch of the residential there and a whole bunch more of the alumni I just had them introduce thems tell a little bit about thems when they went through the program what parts of the program they went through and their say their favorite color oh that’s cool yeah and just the questions and the way they all answered it was it was different like everybody was different but the same there was so many similarities and you just saw like the the new were residential clients just have these just aha moments and they were just so grateful like I it it warmed my heart so we’ve been doing that and usually like the first hour we’ll do karaoke but it was so good this Tuesday with the panel Chris that we’re making it a monthly thing oh that’s so cool man are you starting to see cuz it’s like I remember when I was in treatment and the alumni would come in it was like drinking out of a fire hose like I couldn’t get enough information from them yes I was like get out of my way staff so you’re seeing like some of these residential clients really having life spoken into them by some of our alumni oh yeah that’s cool oh it’s so cool after too because like like sometimes like when we have a speaker it’ll end a little bit late you know that’s cool but I tried to end it like 5 minutes early just so the residential clients could have time and not not really get into the alumni you know I don’t to stay like super late but trying to respect their time a little bit so they could go and connect and it was just it was beautiful like three or four alumni talking meeting one of the residents and just speaking to them speaking life this is how I did this this is how this is what PHP did for me this is what IOP did for me this is my experience with the whole program and Oh So Co you just yeah it was so cool just to sit back just it was like I lit the fuse and then it just boom it just did it it did its thing it was it was so cool bro it was almost like the thing we used to do back in when you first worked for us in 2016 yeah when we used to share stories yes remember that yeah I do remember that just everybody that came in you have to share stories yeah like so new guy would come in and in the first 24 to 48 hours everybody had to share their story with them yeah before you know you’re part of the club yes that’s a beautiful thing it is it built that camaraderie cuz I know like back in like 2016 17 18 some of the guys from that program who still talk to each other I’m in contact still with a few of them and it’s like yo yeah I still talk to so and so I’m like that’s awesome like why don’t you I come back and talk sometime yeah I had one of them come back uh um probably six months ago from from I believe 16 or 17 came back and and spoke and talked about how different the program was and where he’s at now and it was it was magical did a great job you know what reminds me that it was 2016 as we used to have that picture in the hallway over at montabella and it was you with your beanie on and you were looking out over the mountains yes and it said something 2016 yeah and you were out on a Hut trip I think yep yeah man yeah that was still up at it’s still it’s up at the uh Brook Park now it’s up in it’s in the hall it’s still there I was like it’s almost 10 years ago that’s almost 10 years man we’ve been on a journey we’ve been on a journey bro it’s been cool so good who would have thought on that day like almost 10 years later here we are yeah uh more purposeful driven and connected than ever man it’s a it’s been an absolute blessing being your friend colleague cheering you on in community has been um one of my personal favorites dude so bro thank you it’s been an honor also bro I just want to say like like I don’t I think I say this often when I talk to you but like right when I got out of prison and I started with Peaks recovery I don’t even think you knew that I was the way that I was looking at you when we were going to the gym is I was like this is what my life can look like like I don’t think you knew that you were modeling something for me of of what my future could look like and I’m forever grateful for that bro yeah man thank so grateful for you and we are going to have Dan back on soon for more fun facts with Dan check us out probably sometime early summer late spring we’ll bring him back on let them know what the bridge is doing what our alumni community’s doing everything is hot and connected right now thank you so much my brother until next time thank you peace peace [Music]
you