Our Guest: Joseph Eisele, CACIII Author and Owner of InnerBalance Health Center

This episode features Joseph Eisele, owner of InnerBalance Health Center in Loveland, Colorado, and author of “Leaving Drug and Alcohol Addictions for Good, How Biochemical Restoration Radically Improves Your Chances of Recovery.” Inner Balance uses a unique holistic approach to addiction treatment, combining biochemical restoration, nutritional therapy, and talk therapy. Joseph, a recovering addict himself, shares his inspiring journey and sheds light on the science behind addiction. The discussion dives into the many biochemical levels and genetic markers Inner Balance measures, highlighting how these imbalances can contribute to anxiety, depression, and ultimately, addiction. By understanding these underlying factors, Inner Balance can create a personalized treatment plan to address the root causes of addiction, not just the symptoms. Tune in to learn more about Joseph’s approach to addiction recovery and how Inner Balance is helping people achieve lasting sobriety.

For more information on Drug Diversion mitigation and resources, visit: https://www.rxpert.solutions/

For more information on Inner Balance Health Center, visit: https://innerbalancehealthcenter.com/

Transcript:

Terri
Welcome back, everybody. My guest today is Joe Eisele, the owner of the Inner Balance Health Center, a treatment center in Loveland, Colorado. You are just down the way from me, Joe. I am in Cheyenne, so we’re pretty close. He’s also the author of Leaving Drug and Alcohol Addictions for Good, how biochemical restoration radically improves your chances for recovery. So welcome, Joe, to the Drug Diversion Insight podcast. Your treatment center advertises itself as different than a traditional addiction treatment center because it takes a true holistic approach. And that’s what we’re going to talk about today. But I’d like to start first with having you tell us a little bit about yourself. How did you get to this point? What was the impetus for starting this treatment center? 

Joseph
Well, thanks for having me, Terri. I appreciate it. And I hope today can be informative, especially for families who are struggling with a loved one with an alcohol or drug addiction. Yes, my story is in this book, leaving drug and alcohol addiction for good. It’s too long. We made it too long. And I realize that now, but I think it’s a really good book and it’ll help families understand. It’s actually a story of my journey through addictions and recovery and then how I got into this. But also the writer. Unbeknownst to both of us, once we got joined up and started writing this book, what came to light was her son was having a serious addiction to opiates, getting into a lot of trouble, almost died from it. And then his journey into recovery, and he’s doing great now. He’s married. 

Joseph
He’s sober five years. But that’s all in the book. So I’ll give you a brief overview. I grew up in southern California. I was 14 years old. Had a bad, I was a shy kid. I had night tears almost every night, thinking somebody was in the house, gonna get us or kill us with a knife. And I couldn’t sleep at night. Some nights I wouldn’t fall asleep until this sun started to come up. I didn’t realize what was wrong. The funny thing that I know now is that I had these tears at night. But when I woke up and the sun came up, they’re all gone. It didn’t bother me because I could go out throughout my day. 

Joseph
But I was home one day with a bad cough, and my mom came in and I was watching tv and she gave me this red liquid. And about 30 minutes later, this incredible peace came over me. My mind just quieted down and I sat. My mom went out shopping, and I sat and stared at that television for probably 2 hours, not even changing the channel. It just took me into the most incredible place I’d ever been. And the next, that feeling wore off. The next day, she gave me some of that coding cough syrup. And I got the same wonderful feeling. I love that feeling. I went back to school, but I couldn’t get that feeling out of my mind of how great it felt. 

Joseph
So a few days later, I went down in my mom’s medicine cabinet, opened the door, and sure enough, there was a red bottle of codeine cough syrup. And I started sipping out of it every few days to get that feeling, but it was going down. So one day I was in there, and I looked to the left, and there was a pill bottle. And I’ll never forget when I open the. My uncle is a physician. He was the one giving her these things, so I figured they were safe. I’ll never forget. They were big, fat. It was kind of a reddish gray capsule. And it said on the bottle, take one every 4 hours for pain. Well, I figured if that cough syrup did for me, maybe these would, too. So I took a couple out. 

Joseph
I was a little bit nervous, but I took one. And I got a great feeling from that darva set. And it’s not just another opiate. So that really set me off on a 20 year, very serious addiction to drugs and alcohol. I moved away from the pills because. In the coding, because my mom would find out. So I started drinking, and it took away my shyness. I start in high school. I started making a lot of friends. Alcohol. I had a love affair with alcohol all the way through high school and other drugs. And I started hanging around with kids who kind of did the same thing. We’d party on the weekends. Heavy. We’d drink. If our parents were out of town, we’d go through their medicine cabinet and see what we could find. And I didn’t think there are any consequences. 

Joseph
Although I know, I do know that was affecting my school. But after high school, things started to even get worse. We messed around for a year, and a buddy and I, our parents decided we need to go to college. Got into college, but I was totally out of control. Had to drop out my second year. Started getting in trouble with the law, Duis. I’d start in Santa Monica. I was older now, and I had. I had a fake license early on, but I’d start hanging out in bars. After the bars closed, I couldn’t find by my car. I’d end up falling, passing out in a phone booth. Police would take me down to jail, let me out the next day. So in that 20 years, I ended up in four mental hospitals because my parents thought I was something seriously wrong with me. 

Joseph
And every one of these. UCLA Psych Hospital, Brockman Memorial, St. John’s. The worst is Camarillo State hospital. None of these treatment centers back then knew how to treat addictions. Their belief was sat around in a group, and they helped you be in touch with your feelings and realize maybe you had some trauma as a kid or something, that things would be okay. Well, obviously, people who know about addictions, that doesn’t work. As a matter of fact, most of those hospitals, I came out on more drugs. I got addicted to volume for ten years. I had three doctors giving me different medications. Two of them were trying to help. One of them was doing it for money. A lot of young kids would line up outside his office in Venice on a Saturday, and he’d say, joe, what do you need today? 

Joseph
And I said, well, doc, I’m kind of tired. Maybe I need an eschatrol. Escotrol. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of that drug. It was unbelievable. It was a time capsule. You could still, if you type it in, it’s still on the Internet. It looked like a contact capsule, little beads in it. And it was. It was speed cut with phenobarbital, and it was incredibly addictive. I mean, they finally, the pharmacist got it pulled off the market. It was so addictive. But I would get all these different drugs from that doctor. Finally got caught, and he lost his license, I think even did some time. 

Terri
Was he a treatment doctor or just a regular doctor? 

Joseph
Yeah, I think just a regular family physician. 

Terri
Okay. 

Joseph
Through a friend who was doing this. Now, this was some 60 years ago or 55 years ago, a long time ago, but that was my life back for about 20 years. I didn’t want to end up that way. But once a person is trapped in addiction, it’s very hard to get out. And because now, not only was I using drugs and alcohol for how I felt before I picked up any drugs or alcohol, my mind raised kind of shy. But now I’m using to relieve the consequences of the chemicals that I was out of control with. So. And there was no solution. Doctors couldn’t help me. They didn’t know how to help me. Mental hospitals, the only one hospital was St. John’s. And he had some people come take me to an AA meeting, but that was about it. So I came out here. 

Joseph
I was going to be committed back to brockman Memorial. My brother and his friends were trying to have me committed. They wouldn’t commit me, so they left me there. I’ve been living out of a suitcase, really out of control, and I’m in the waiting room of this hospital, and my mom used to take me home and help me, clean me up, feed me. So I figured I’d call her, and this was a turning point for me. So I’m on the phone, and I’m saying, mom, I’m feeling pretty bad. Maybe I could come home for a week or two. And then I hear the tears on the other end of the phone, and she’s crying, and she says, joe, you’re killing yourself, and you’re killing me. I can’t do it anymore. 

Joseph
She said, and she didn’t say a one way ticket, but she said, I’ll buy you a ticket to Colorado. I had a cousin out here in Fort Collins. So I said, all right. So they picked me up. I had my summer, all my summer California clothes. I landed in Denver in January, the worst snowstorm had in years. And now my cousin picks me up, puts me in her basement in Fort Collins, and now I’m coming off all this stuff. I’m coming off the benzos, coming off the alcohol, whatever I was thinking, and it was not fun, I started shaking, hallucinating, seeing things come out of the walls. So on the third day, she took me to psychiatrist who was specializing in alcohol. He put me in the hospital, and back then, they did not know how to detox you off benzos. 

Joseph
He just stopped it. But seven days, I shook, and they gave me iv’s. And then he suggests that I go to treatment up in the mountains, up at harmony. So I went up there. I tried. I went to meetings. I did want to get well. I did want to get my life back together. But even when I stopped using, I was still severely depressed, anxious. My mind raced. Came out of treatment, stayed sober six months. Then I went to a dentist to get a root canal, and he says, joe, you might want this for pain. The little voice inside said, joe, you better now. What the heck? I can handle it. I can handle a little, few little pills. So I took those pain pills and started a relapse for about a year. 

Joseph
Went through, back through treatment, came out, went to Chicago, this gal I met, and we both relapsed. It was a disaster. Came back here to Fort Collins. They wouldn’t let me back in treatment. The doctor wouldn’t help me with any medication withdrawal. So I didn’t know what I was gonna do. It’s actually, a few days ago was my 43rd sobriety date. Thank you. Thank you. I didn’t know what I was going to do. I had an old beat up automobile. So I was driving from Fort Collins to Loveland, Colorado, to an AA meeting that I had been trying to get sober in and out of AA, but I really wasn’t doing what I needed to do. So all the way over that to that meeting that night, I was swearing, if there’s a God, why are you doing this to me? 

Joseph
Why is my life so messed up? And then I break down in tears. I had the thought of turning the steering wheel and ending it, but I didn’t. And to me, two miracles happened that night. It was at that meeting I wasn’t going to share. I never did share at meetings, but it came around to me and I said, my name’s Joe, I’m an alcoholic, and I can’t stop drinking, and I’m afraid I’m going to die. That was the first miracle. If I hadn’t shared that. The other miracle, a little old lady sitting to the right of me, Adam, a Stephen, she’s passed now, turned to me and put her finger in my face and said, you got to get a sponsor, Joe. You’ve been trying to beat this addiction alone, and you can’t do it. 

Joseph
So I did get a sponsor that night, and that started my journey into sobriety. My sponsor was a phenomenal man, and I started working the program, but I was still depressed, I was still anxious, not sleeping more, an hour to a night. But I was just. I was hanging on. About eight months into my sobriety, I was in a bookstore and I picked up a book by Doctor Broda Barnes on the thyroid. I went to the back of the book and I looked at those symptoms, and I had all of those symptoms. I went and found a doctor down in Denver. He would start treating me, not only checking my t four and tsh, but he would check my free t three, because what I didn’t realize I’d had a thyroid problem for a long time. 

Joseph
It’s in my book, and I don’t know if this is true, but when I was a young kid, I would swallow the toothpaste that had fluoride in it. Now, I don’t know what that had on, but I had a thyroid problem way back then as a kid. And so this doctor helped me put me on a natural thyroid compound, and I started feeling better. And about six or seven months later, I found a holistic doctor, Terri Grossman, just starting up a practice in Denver. He found out I had mercury, lead, and arsenic in my blood. Had. And I don’t know where that came from. I had hypoglycemia. These neurotransmitters on my brain weren’t working. He checked those. A lot of it was because my diet was horrible. 

Joseph
I was eating Kentucky fried chicken, drinking a six pack of coke a day, smoking a pack of cigarettes. I had adrenal exhaustion. Two little glands on my kidneys weren’t functioning because with the stress and my addiction, I had very low testosterone, very low dhea. So he did a lot of these, and he started chelating out the heavy metals. And a little bit later, a few months, several months later, I found a holistic doctor in Fort Collins, doctor Jacqueline Fields, who’s still my physician. She’s the one that really told Joe, you got to get off the sugar. You drink weight as a kid. I just, I. I don’t know if your bosco is. It was that brown sugary liquid I get out of the icebox, and I’d squeeze a bunch. 

Joseph
She got me off the sugar and the caffeine and got me eating healthy and starting. I was living on McDonald’s and Kentucky fried chicken. Well, she said, joe, you’re not getting any fresh vegetables. So that was very helpful. I started in what I call today my journey in biochemical restoration, health and recovery, not only support in a twelve step program. So I started exercising, eating better, started running. Eventually, after a few years, I did run a marathon, which I would never do again. It was very difficult. It was hard, but I did it. And then I got into the field of addiction a roundabout way. I didn’t know where I was going, because when I came out here some 45 years ago, I was spiritually empty, meaning I couldn’t feel love for anything. I hated myself. I hated where I was. 

Joseph
I had no friends, I had no future, no education, no finances. But slowly I started. But I answered an ad in the paper, Art Loboso. He was running a house for young kids with school problems, junior high and high school kids. But the problem was 80% of them were sneaking out at night and get high. So he hired me to keep these kids from sneaking out so I could stay up all night. It didn’t work. After a few months, the teachers are saying, art, these kids are still coming either high or coming off of something. So we realized I couldn’t even stop them. So we opened up lyrical youth homes for just for kids who had a drug problem. So that’s really started counseling and then eventually got into a treatment center. 

Joseph
It was more of like a DUI program, but that’s where I started getting really certified. And then doctor Ash, the psychiatrist who helped me get up into treatment, wanted to open up an outpatient program. So we opened up seven lakes. There are seven of us. I was a clinical director, and it was a traditional treatment center. Talk therapy, pharmaceutical drugs if needed. And I did that for 15 years. But I was getting. But along that time, I was still working on my health, working with doctor fields, reading about things, getting off, you know, off the Internet, wherever I could about my health, and what else could I be focusing on? And we did okay. It was an outpatient program. We had about a 20, 30% success rate, mainly because we could keep connected with these clients for a longer period of time. 

Joseph
But I got a little frustrated because I kept asking the other clinicians if we could move in this direction that I was kind of in. And the doctor was really traditional and didn’t want to move in that direction. So I left, got a partner, and opened up interbalance. That was, I think, around 25 years ago. It was very rudimentary. Back then it was outpatient in the basement of doctor fields and Doctor McDonald’s clinic. It was outpatient about three times a week. We had a doctor, Terri Groves, and we did some basic stuff. Not a lot, but some basic, but our groups were educational and still some talk therapy. And then we just started progressing from there. Eventually, Doctor Roger Bilika, who has just got out, well, I actually came out. He was a. For five years, he was a head doctor at Nassau. 

Joseph
He ran this medical program in Nassau, and he got into functional medicine at Nassau because he was there when they put, John Glynn was like, 70 something. They put him up in space, and they started realizing they can’t use a lot of these powerful drugs up in space on these astronauts. So he really started getting into more holistic things. So he left there, he got a job, but he ended up in Fort Collins looking for opening up a practice, and he and I hooked up. So he was our doctor for several years. And then we’ve finally. We were all outpatient. But finally he found a house, a bed and breakfast in Loveland that was for sale. Really nice five star bed and breakfast. She said, why don’t you guys buy that and we’ll run our client? Because our clients were outpatient. 

Joseph
Their diet, you know, you couldn’t keep on track. Diet. They stay out late sometimes so it was kind of difficult. So we bought the Cattail creek in Loveland. And then we, for the first six months, were transporting from there up to Fort Collins and back. But eventually, right around the corner in this, in the same area, a dentist office came up. We purchased that. And, and then eventually another, right in the same lot, another building came open. So then that’s when Doctor Bilika came on board. We really started doing a lot of more holistic kind of stuff that we do today. 

Terri
Yeah. So what a fantastic story and what a horrible beginning for you. And so what seemed benign, right? I mean, one that you didn’t realize there was something wrong, you reach out and tell your parents or somebody that I just don’t feel right. And then, too, that cough syrup, which you would think would be so benign. And it’s a story I hear more and more for people that become addicted. Is that first exposure? That’s. Oof, wow. This is different. So, but congratulations on what? Quite a story, working through all of that and then what you have gone on to do since then. What do, what components then are part of your program? I’ve heard biochemical restoration and talk therapy. What else is included in your program? And then we’ll talk more about specifically what those mean. 

Joseph
Yeah, sure, Terri. So if you research and understand, for the last 80 years, treatment centers for addictions came out of the twelve steps movement years ago, 80 some years ago, and it was all talk therapy. That’s what you did is you come in, you tell your story, you get feedback for other clients. It helped you understand that you have an illness, one that you have to own, like cancer or heart disease. And then they help you understand the damage it’s done in your life and people around you, and that you need to get a support system, those are good goals, but those have not changed in 80 years. It’s still the same thing. No other illness we know of in this country have we stayed so stagnant. 

Joseph
We always are making progress, looking at new things, new kind of treatment, but not in the twelve now. So what they did some years after that is they started introducing pharmaceutical drugs, because they did realize that people with addictions could struggle with the depression and anxiety. But those two things, that’s the only change that’s been made over 80 years, really. So that’s what we’ve focused. We actually let me back up because when I got sober, I was reading a book by Joan Matthews Larson and seven weeks to sobriety, she had a clinic in Minnesota called Health Recovery center. She was doing this kind of work, and she was having some really good success. But a few years ago, she passed away and her kids couldn’t keep it open. 

Joseph
So there are some people out there that are doing this kind of thing, but not a lot. Not a lot. Treatment centers have a hard time. They don’t understand this way of approach. They think it might be too costly because you have to do a lot of lab work, supplements, and that kind of thing. So we realized that. And that’s why one of the things we realized some years back is that nobody likes to sit around in a group and talk about how messed up their life is. That’s, you know, so we have seven different counselors that help people. So they’re doing. They’re getting a lot of individual, over 28 individual sessions. That’s where, honestly, a lot of the work is done. Our program is educational groups, educating people on addictions, educating them on brain chemistry, on diet, on. 

Joseph
What we like to say is, our program is half a wellness program, half addiction program, because we have to look at the things that are continuing when people leave, like I did, continuing to cause problems, because we are going to gravitate back to something to make us feel better. So. So that’s, we holistic to us means that we treat the damage from drug and alcohol addictions to the mind, the body, the spirit, and the environment. The mind is we have a mental health counselor, because one of the things, or the main thing, the only thing that will cause an addict, an alcoholic, to pick up a drink is if their mind tells them it’s okay and they can get away with it. Every time I took a drink for 20 years or a drug I didn’t focus on, it’s gonna. It’s gonna cause problems. 

Joseph
I’m gonna lose control. I’m gonna end up in a psychosis. My thinking was, this time will be different. I’ll be able to management, I won’t drink as much. I’ll take whiskey with milk, I’ll manage. If I take. If I take eschatrol or some speed with alcohol, I won’t get so drunk. I mean, we spend hours trying to figure out how to maintain our drinking and our drug use. So the mental health counselor focus on that insanity, that you cannot have those thoughts, because that’s what’s going to lead you to picking up the drink. You have to have the thoughts of this time we do a little thing where they write down all the damage it’s done and how on the damage it will continue to do. And I tell them to put that on your mirror every morning. 

Joseph
And if you pick and read that for 30 seconds, if I drink, I could go to jail. I lose my family, I’ll lose my finances. We’re trying to counter the brain thinking I can handle and get away with it, with what really will happen if I pick up a drink. The mental health counselor works on their thinking. A lot of people come to us on negative thoughts. I screwed up my life. I’m a failure. Those thoughts are not productive for recovery. So she educates the person on the power of their mind and how they can start changing those thoughts. The biochemical piece we could get into, I don’t know if you’re ready for that, but that’s our specialty. If you want to talk about that. 

Terri
Yeah. Let’s list out what are the other components, and then we’ll dig deeper in. 

Joseph
The biochemical mind, body, spirit, and environment. So the spirit in our program, spirituality, means the ability to feel love for things, to be able to feel love for ourself, our family, our animals, our friends, nature. Maybe a connection with a higher power. But for every human being on this planet, what gives us a quality life is to have a lot of strong, loving, spiritual connections. The ability to feel love, and that’s exact drug and alcohol addictions is what damages and severs our loving connections. We start hurting people, we start arguing with people. We don’t get out of nature, we don’t exercise, we isolate. And we start like I did, ending up here some 45 years ago, spiritually dead inside. I couldn’t feel love for anything. 

Joseph
That’s another reason why people continue to pick up drugs and alcohol, because we cannot tolerate that absence of being able to feel love. So we have a spiritual counselor. He takes him on a four hour nature walk, and out there, he explores with them. Mary, what did you have love for when you were younger? A dog, a cat, family. How did that feel? And then where are you with these connections? What do you feel loved for? Almost routine. Every client that come in, they’re not feeling loved for much. They feel like a failure. So then when they come back, he works on them with understanding how to regain the ability to feel loved. Number one, you have to stop putting these chemicals in your body. Number one. But then, and this is where the twelve step movement really helps a lot. 

Joseph
You start making amends to your family. You start. You start forgiving yourself, because you’re not the cause of this. You’re a victim of your addiction. You would no more do these kind of things. You’re trapped in addiction is causing you to hurt people and hurt yourself. So start forgiving yourself. So he works on them with all of that process and helps repair with the family and then the environment. One of our counselors is called a life coach. Her job is to help our clients develop a strong program for when they leave. And what that is going to be is dependent on each person and what they’re willing to do and willing to look into maybe twelve step movement, women for sobriety, church, buddhism. But her job is to help them create that when they leave. 

Joseph
And then she can stay with them for up to a year. They get 22 sessions in person or on zoom, and she helps in to maintain what they created in the program. 

Terri
Okay. All right. No, that sounds very comprehensive. And you’re right, it’s not just treating the addiction, it’s what caused it in the first place. Right. What are those? Because you’ll, the coping mechanisms. If you don’t know how to adjust with that, too, then. Then you’re still in trouble. But the biochemical is interesting because that means that there’s potentially just some things that it has nothing to do with coping. It’s what the biochemical piece that you have that we don’t have control over, so to speak, if we don’t know what they are. So let’s talk about that. What are some of the things that you do look for that maybe the listeners don’t even realize can be looked for or fixed? You mentioned the thyroid was an issue for you. But what are some of the other things? 

Joseph
When I talked about when I was younger, having night terrors, not being able to sleep, a lot of young kids are getting diagnosed with ADD or ADHD. There is a condition out there called histedalia, or high histamine. Histamine is a chemical that’s in our brain and it helps fire our neurons to give us thought. Well, so with that condition of histodelia, what it means, and it’s genetic, what it means is we’re creating too much histamine and it’s firing our neurons all the time, too fast. So, difficulty sleeping, difficulty concentrating, difficulty. Some of the symptoms are racing mind. Anxiety, depression, insomnia, OCD, perfectionism, overachiever, low contentment, high risk takers, high sex drive, high libido. Vulnerable to addictions because. And then I found something out a few years ago that was remember me in the codeine reduces histamine better than anything interesting. 

Joseph
I felt so much peace because it lowered my histamine. And a lot of young kids that have high histamine, they get into high risk activities, high skiing, mountain climbing, because what it does is when you’re in these high risk activities, you really have to slow your mind down to concentrate, and that really feels good. But if you think about the Kennedy family, President Kennedy, John Kennedy was having a lot of sexual problems. TED Kennedy, alcohol problems, drug problems. RoberT Kennedy Junior now acknowledges having a serious addiction to think it’s alcohol or drugs. They all had high histamine. They all have because they’re high achievers. When you get a lot of histamine in your brain, you can be successful. A lot of our successful people, some of our presidents have high histamine. 

Joseph
But once you find drugs and alcohol to lower your histamine, you start using that as medication to relieve the symptoms that histodelia creates. Now, there is another side of that. A few people, we see 40% of our people in our program have histodelia. One of the drugs. And a lot of doctors now and psychiatrists are prescribing hydroxyzine, a very safe drug. They don’t know why they’re prescribing, except it reduces anxiety. But it is one of the best drugs for reducing histamine levels. And they’re not even aware that these clients have histedelia. They just know they’re giving this and it’s working. We try some natural approaches before we can use hydroxyzine. 

Joseph
It’s a very safe medication, but we can all, we all, before that, we tried some other natural approaches because most of the things we use, we try naturally, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, essential fatty acids. But there’s another condition of low histamine. We don’t see a lot of it. We do occasionally, and it’s not enough histamine in the brain. And those symptoms are paranoia, anxiety, irritability, tired easily, feeling overwhelmed, frustrated, and they start binge drinking, and they get addicted to chemicals. We’re looking at genetics now. We’re finding three genes problematic with addicted people. The most prevalent is called an MTHFR 1298 gene. People can look that up on Google, look at the symptoms of some really good websites. Now talking about it’s a methylation issue. 

Joseph
Inability to methylate and causing between 30% to 70% of b vitamins to not function in the body, especially b six and b three, which are needed for the body to produce serotonin, dopamine. With the 1298 gene, there’s anxiety, depression, addictions, insomnia, ADHD, ADD, Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s. Now, the 677 gene that’s another methylation gene, causes more heart problems and cancer. What this thing gene is it supposed to help regulate an enzyme to break down folic acid, the nutrient folic acid is very important for these neurotransmitter functions in the brain. Serotonin for depression, for anxiety, and dopamine, just for an overwhelming over a good feeling of well being. Well, if you don’t have enough folic acid, these are not going to work very well. So when you find that gene, there’s a lot of information on the Internet now about these genes, methylation issues. 

Joseph
You can’t fix that gene. So we just give them a methylated form of folic acid, and now they don’t need that gene to work. We see a lot of people with 1298 gene, and we see people with the six seven also, these are genetic. There’s another gene called the Cb’s gene, and it is an inability to create bioptrin. Bioptin BH four. It’s a natural chemicals made in Germany. Now you can get it. When you don’t have biopterin, you have a hard time converting an amino acid, tyrosine to dopamine. A lot of opiate people are getting addicted because of that. It causes anxiety, depression, foggy brain. It increases ammonia levels, which is not good. You don’t want ammonia in your brain. 

Joseph
And again, we can’t fix that gene, but we can just give people bioptin, a natural chemical, and now they don’t need that gene to work. Some of the other things, adrenal function, we look at the two little glands that sit on the kidneys. They secrete very important hormones. A lot of people that are trying to get on these low cholesterol diets, because adrenal glands need cholesterol, they take cholesterol in, and then with certain enzymes, they start creating hormones. The first one is pregnenolone for membrane concentration. And then it branches off with different enzymes. This side more, a little more male, but not exclusively. DHEA is very important. Testosterone is very important. These adrenal glands are creating these hormones. On the other side is more female estrogens, progesterone, those kind of hormones. And we test the adrenal function. 

Joseph
And when we find it, we can use. DHEA will help convert to testosterone. We can actually use products that are natural for testosterone. A lot of doctors or some are moving away from the testosterone injection because what they’re finding is it’s too much at one time, it’s too hard on the heart. So they’re getting more compounded testosterone, more time released, which is slower released in the body. And females who look at their hormones, too, which is really important. Some of the adrenal function, elevated cortisol, fatigue, irritability, sugar craving, confusion, night sweats, low cortisol, sensitivity to light, emotional instability, cognitive decline, poor stress management. So some of the. So some of the nutrients we look for that are really important, NAD is. They’re now giving NAD injections. And we decided to do that, too. Sublingual. Not sublingual, but intermuscular. 

Joseph
You don’t have, you can give it an iv, but it takes 3 hours to drip, or you can give it intramuscular. Nad is coenzymated. B three. Key cofactor to creating serotonin and dopamine. Ten to 30% of the population cannot turn b three into an active form of NAD. Poor function, anxiety, depression, insomnia. So we can give capsules of NAD. But when they first come in, when you give these injects of NAD, it really helps withdrawal symptoms. Vitamin D six, p five p. It’s necessary to create serotonin. Ten to 30% of the population cannot turn b six into active form of p five p. Insomnia, anxiety, depression, addiction. Pyroluria is another condition. Pyroluria is a blood condition. Everybody sloughs off dead blood cells. That’s a natural process. People sloughing off too many pyrroles. They’re a magnet for zinc and b six. 

Joseph
They cause a deficiency, and zinc and b six is necessary to create serotonin. They create a social anxiety, isolation, shyness, introvert, worry, fearfulness and paranoia. So when we find, we just give them more b six and zinc. 

Terri
Do any of your physicians that you work with? I mean, this sounds like a great service and a great battery of tests to help people that don’t have a substance use disorder maybe yet, but have anxiety, depression and stuff. Do you work with people that don’t have any addictions that just don’t feel healthy and suffer from some of these other things? 

Joseph
We don’t, but we refer out Doctor Roger Bilika and his brother who came out from Arizona. Bill Bilika, prominent, very incredible physician. They would open a clinic years ago called Trilife Health. So they do that kind of work. And there’s psychiatrist even here in Fort Collins that are getting into more of this now. They can, you know, as you know, with doctors, they like to go slow. So harder one blood work and a few months later they said that we’ll do another one. People with addictions can’t wait. That’s why we do all these in the beginning, because they have to get help immediately. But, yeah, we don’t, because we can’t. We’ve thought about doing something like that. But, but you’re right. This, I honestly believe every doctor, even with 14 year old, should run all these tests. 

Joseph
They don’t cost a fortune, but they can create, they can keep from having so much destruction in this country. 

Terri
Right. Because, well, and, yeah, and as you know, a 14 year old won’t necessarily say something’s wrong. 

Joseph
I did. I did. My mom got me a visit with my uncle and he did some tests and I asked him, could you x ray my brain? I told him there’s something’s wrong with my brain. He, I don’t know if he did something, I don’t know if you x rayed it, but he came back and said, your brain’s fine, you’re fine. 

Terri
Yeah, you’re fine. Yeah, well, and that was a long time ago, too. So you’re right. We look at things differently. You know, I think, too, another benefit of all of this testing and then finding potential reasons for what is happening with someone in their addiction. I would imagine that probably makes them feel better about their life. Right? I mean, you don’t want to, like, I call it blame shifting. You know, with my kids, don’t blame shift, take ownership. But in this case, there are other chemical reasons for things. So I would hope that, I would think that would help with their healing process. 

Joseph
Absolutely. I’ll give you an example of what I like to tell. First of all, this country has gotten into really bad shape. Doctors and psychiatrists treating a lot of this stuff with pharmaceutical drugs because that’s all they know. They have no other tools, most of them. And it’s a shame because they don’t have time, I guess they don’t have time to look into a lot of things like this with a patient before they move into those kind of medications. But my example of, so if you were in a bad car accident and you had a broken leg and they took you to the emergency room and they didn’t fix your leg, but they gave you pain medication and said, go home and take this medication, it will keep you from feeling the pain. Well, that’s crazy. That’s absolutely crazy. 

Joseph
They’re not getting at the root cause of the pain, the broken leg. Fix the broken leg and you don’t need the pain pills forever, just for a short period of time. But unfortunately, that’s what psychiatrists and doctors are doing. You go to them, they say, I’m depressed. My mind races. Here’s Ritalin, here’s antidepressants. Go home and take these drugs. They’re not getting to the root cause. Why does this person have anxiety? Why do they have depression? And that’s where all they have to do is some of these tests and they can maybe discover something where they don’t need. 

Joseph
There is a place for medicine, and most medicine is great and it does a great job, but they should be doing things before they need to put somebody on these powerful psychotic medications, especially for people who only have mild depression or mild anxiety that don’t. If somebody’s suicidal, absolutely. They need to give them something to keep them from hurting themselves. But the vast majority of people are not in that class and they probably, I honestly don’t, I believe that probably 80% of the people don’t need to be on these pharmaceutical drugs, but they’re on them because doctors do not understand, they don’t have these tools to help their patients. I think they would, I think they would love to have this stuff to. 

Terri
Right? Yeah. Do you have any statistics on the relapse rate through your program? People that come through your program, if. 

Joseph
Any treatment center tells you we have a fantastic success rate, don’t believe them because you can’t do it. It’s so expensive to run it. You have to get released from the client family, you have to run them, test them every month, call them every month for a year to get information. There was one treatment center that said we get a 90 some percent success rate and we verify it. Well, when I looked into and I studied it, what I found out is the treatment center are the ones that chose the people for the study. Well guess what? Of course if I did that, I choose the best people who I know had better. But we, I think we do get a high success rate, but it’s just based on the feedback that we get from our life. 

Joseph
Coaches of them talking to these clients for up to a year after they leave treatment. But no, there’s nobody can really say. There are very few studies, but it wasn’t done based on, you know, they found that, they said that traditional treatment and twelve step get about a 20% success rate. Now the downside with that, with the twelve step is that they just interviewed people who were in there for a short time. And yes, probably 80% of the people come leave, but a lot of them who come back and once they get involved, like I did. It really works. So. Yeah, right. 

Terri
Yeah. Once they, when they leave, they look healthy, but unless you stay in contact, you really have no idea what. And I would think that. Well, it depends. I guess some people might be embarrassed to go back to the same treatment center that they were in before and admit that I need help. 

Joseph
I tell parents when they’re sending their young person, 20, 25, 30 year olds, I say, yes, we can give 100%, but depending on how much your person’s going to give us, how much you’re going to get out of the program. 

Terri
Absolutely. 

Joseph
And they’re really dedicated and they’re going to do the work. They’re going to get a lot more out of the program. And then when they leave, a lot of young kids. One of the things that most people don’t realize, what drug and alcohol addiction does, it starts, it stops our emotional development. I started using at 14. I got sober at 34. I had the emotional development of about a 1617 year old. I couldn’t deal with my feelings. Hard time in relationships, and so these younger people, we really work hard getting them into sober living or continued care when they’re done with our 28 days because emotionally they’re not mature enough yet to really. 

Terri
Yeah, that’s a good point. Yeah, I haven’t thought about that. My work is primarily with healthcare professionals and substance use disorder. Do you do any work with any of the Colorado medical facilities or the Colorado peer assistants services to treat healthcare professionals? Do you see many of them come through your program? 

Joseph
Oh, not a lot, but we have, we’ve had airline pilots, nurses, doctors. Yes, we’ve had them come through our program. Yeah, I wish, you know, I wish there was a way. Joan Larson, years ago, she wrote a book. She took it to Hazelton. Hazelton is one of the very first treatment centers in the country, is very well known. She gave the book to all the counselors and they read it and they loved it. They took it to the higher arcs and said, we can’t do this. We have to change everything about a program. We have to do all these lab work. It’s going to cost a fortune. And then we don’t understand it. So it’s very hard to move. 

Joseph
There was a treatment center, a big, famous one down in Arizona, and they came up trying to market, and I asked, my question is, do you feed your, what do you think about sugar with your clients? You say, we give it to them. It’s like comfort food. So they just don’t understand. Just like physicians that don’t know about this stuff and how it’s not, we’re not discovering this stuff is mainstream. When we find it, this stuff is out there, it’s just a matter of taking it and consolidating it and looking at how can we help the addicted community and how can treatment centers start moving into just the diet? When people come to us, we don’t give them sugar, we don’t give them caffeine. They get three healthy, natural, organic meals a day. 

Joseph
They get educated on, they do a four hour glucose tolerance test. Every alcoholic almost has hypoglycemia, mild, moderate, severe, pre diabetic. So they get educated on diet and how important it is because we give them a lot of supplements, they come in. But honestly, once they’re eating healthy, most of the supplements they should get from their diet. Now, some of them, they don’t. If they have genetics, vitamin D, 70% of the people in this country are deficient from diet, vitamin D, because they don’t get out in the sun in the winter. They don’t. And they put on sunscreen. So a lot of people should take vitamin D all the time. 

Terri
Yeah, well, the healthy nutrition is just, I mean, that’s kind of a, something we should all be doing. It makes such a difference with everything. So, yeah, you would think that would be kind of a standard for any programs. Well, this was fantastic. Fascinating. Some things I’ve never thought about or heard of before. Truly a holistic, you know, when, prior to having this conversation, when I think of holistic, I think of, you know, helping them detox and then the counseling piece of it, so they can get to the root of, you know, what is your problem? Let’s give you new coping strategies, let’s work through your traumas. But that is, there’s a whole nother several pieces to it that I had never really thought about, but make perfect sense. 

Joseph
I’ll give you another, I’ll give you another thought to think about how much of what you just said would heal a broken leg. Talk therapy. No, it’s not going to heal a broken leg. It’s not going to heal hypoglycemia or adrenal exhaustion or thyroid. Out of work. So, yeah, that stuff is important. I’m not saying it’s not important. 

Terri
Right, right. 

Joseph
Have to bring it all together. 

Terri
Yeah, together. Yeah. Well, thank you very much for your time, Joe. This was fascinating. Fascinating. Thank you for the work that you’re doing. It’s, it’s not easy work. I’m sure you have days of where it’s just very rewarding. 

Joseph
But it’s horrible. We just had two people come through, and it is the hardest thing to deal with because withdrawal is so devastating. You have to get them off 24 hours before you can even put them on Suboxone. Who could help them? Thank you for having me and I appreciate it. Thank you. 

Terri
Absolutely. Thank you, Joe. Bye.