After the Trident

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

Mike: Welcome everybody. This is Avoiding Addiction Affliction, brought to you by Westwords Consulting, the Kenosha County Substance Use Disorder Coalition, and by a grant by the state of Wisconsin's Dose of Reality: Real Talks remind you that opioids are powerful drugs, and that one pill can kill. I'm Mike McGowan.

Mike: You know, like a lot of folks, Dr. Tony Dice learned to bury the pain, he buried all of it. In recovery, he learned to cope with the feelings and in his professional life, he has specialized in treating populations who have traditionally shown an increased level of resistance to treatment that is founded in a distrust of supporting systems.

Mike: Dr. Dice is CEO and owner of Bishop and Dice Defense, LLC, empowering veterans, law enforcement, and first responders. As a Navy SEAL, therapist, paramedic and firefighter, his memoir After the Trident, and it's terrific, reveals the transformative power of his holistic change model designed to heal the invisible wounds of those who serve.

Mike: His story is both remarkable and inspirational. Welcome, Dr. Dice.

Tony: Hey. Thank you Mike. It's so good to be here, man. What an honor. Appreciate it.

Mike: Yeah. Well, thanks. That's nice of you to say. Late in your book, you say, everything that broke me also built me. Let's get a sense of that life before we get into your present.

Mike: 'Cause your young life is amazing. Your parents, is it all right to just say your parents had issues?

Tony: Oh man. Yeah. And it's, I go all the way back in this book.

Mike: Yeah, you do.

Tony: Because the programming that took place that so much comes to light when you're working with someone in addiction.

Tony: It's all of that is your programming, your upbringing. So in order to find empathy for a character, you need to kind of understand where that character came from. And so with my parents. In my book I refer to my mom was the thunder, my dad was the lightning. 'Cause my mom was very vocal, very loud.

Tony: She liked to yell. She did like the wooden spoon, as a disciplinary action. But my dad, I mean, he had these two modes, he was either. He was just, he abused substances. So he was either this high dad that was wow happy, or there was this sober dad that was stern and a very, very, very intense disciplinarian.

Tony: I mean, he had this change. He would do, like, he would sit down with you and he'd be very calm and direct and tell you exactly how you screwed up. And then he would switch into this berserk, kind of beat the shit outta you mode. So you were like, (fingers clenched) ahh! But what that did for me is instead of me just becoming a good kid, I became a super high risk tolerance.

Tony: I would just up my sneaky game, and then I'd go, I'm never gonna get caught again. And I would just. You know, elevate my skillset. So I had that going on and with my mom, she had a lot of sayings that she'd always say, like, she would say things like she was very Catholic. Like the truth always wins.

Tony: And she would say things like, I have eyes in the back of my head, or I can always tell when you're lying. And even as a young kid I would test these theories and I go, well, I got away with stuff and you didn't catch me. So that's not accurate. (laughs)

Mike: Is that the double legacy you're talking about when you say your parents left you a double legacy?

Tony: Yes. Yes. They modeled some good behaviors a lot. And my mom, I'm not gonna shortchange 'em, my mom, just eight kids, give her props for that. She encouraged us all. She would say, you can do anything you want, just start. Made us all feel incredibly special.

Tony: My dad was his incredible imagination. Super gifted woodworker, you know, talented. So we got a lot of those skills, creativity and ingenuity skills. But this other legacy of the dark side, like there is a whole other world that we keep secret. And that kind of builds and builds and builds and builds throughout our lives.

Mike: Where were you in the birth order of the eighth?

Tony: I was number one. (laughs)

Mike: Yeah. I think that's an interesting spot to be, right?

Tony: Mm-hmm.

Mike: 'Cause I think you see it all. How did you handle your, what did you see your mom doing to handle your dad's addiction? Like, how did she handle it and what legacy did that leave you?

Mike: Like what did you watch her do?

Tony: Oh gosh. With my dad, she was constantly using our dad as a threat. Just wait till your dad gets home. You're gonna get it. And you were like, (fists clenched) ahh!, you know, here he comes. But I, being a little kid, we internalize everything. And so they tried hiding their blowouts from us. But there are many times I remember having my brothers and sisters and we're all under the bed in the bedroom hiding 'cause they're yelling at each other. And we're sneaking the telephone in there and calling our grandparents, come get us! We were scared. So they tried to shield us from it, but we, you know, the household is aware of the dysfunction.

Tony: And the kids... I took it as like, oh, they're yelling about something I did. I'm in trouble. Like they're gonna come and get me next. So I really thought a lot of the stress my mom was going through was because of me.

Mike: Huh. I watched my mom wait till my dad passed out and then go through his pockets, you know, and you learn everything, right?

Tony: Yes.

Mike: And how they handle it, the whole message is keep the peace. And so sometimes that double legacy is, they say one thing and then you see them doing another.

Tony: Oh, I see what you're saying there. Yeah. Yeah. I didn't witness that so much, but I do know that this k not we get when we do something wrong.

Tony: I learned that at an early age that how to hold that pain, and that was just something that, I, I talk about my dad kept a lot of cash in his pocket and talking about, you know, you fishing money out of the, mom fishing money out the pockets. But I remember my dad when he would pass out on the bed.

Tony: I would, as he snored, I would crawl across the floor, you know, and as you (snore), I'd move a little bit and then (sshhh) I'd be still, but I would get my hand up into his jeans pocket and I'm fishing out a couple dollars if I were to get caught, I would be dead.

Mike: Yep.

Tony: But that knot in your chest, that when you're just about to get caught that tightness, I remember that vividly and I've had that my whole life.

Mike: Yeah.

Tony: Up until, until I found in recovery. But that's something that you learn to carry that tightness. Yeah.

Mike: Well that risk taking, you just talked about, it permeates the first part of your book, big time. It you were for those of you who will read the book you will instantly recognize Dr. Dice because everyone knew a kid like you, everyone, you were, if that's alright to say, you were what my mom would've called a handful.

Tony: Ahhh. (laughs)

Mike: And not just at home, but in school, when you were in school, you cut a lot of corners.

Tony: Yeah. Yeah. Mom pulled us out early on for homeschooling. She, I think she believed the Catholic church wasn't Catholic enough and as she pulls outta school, and this was back when homeschooling was taboo, so we were deathly afraid growing up the truant officer was gonna come get us.

Mike: Yeah. Well, I thought what was fascinating about that is you didn't give up when you were homeschooled. You wanted to see if you were keeping up, right? So talk about the questions that you ask other kids when you'd bump into them.

Tony: Mm-hmm.

Tony: My mom told us once, she give us the textbooks.

Tony: And I love my mom. Mom, I love you, you're not a great teacher. But she would give us textbooks and give us worksheets, and she would literally say, learn or be stupid. It's up to you. And so I had this fear that I'm gonna be stupid. And when we were like going on like a road trip anywhere. If I saw another kid at like a gas station who was my age, I would walk up to him and I would ask him like math questions or history questions, trying to see if I was at the same level as them trying to figure out, am I stupid or not? The isolation, I mean, it has an effect on you, not having a peer group to know where you stand.

Mike: Well, and you weren't stupid.

Tony: Well, I didn't know that then, but, yeah. (laughs)

Mike: Well, I mean, you kept plugging away. Your memoir is one amazing chapter after another, we could just keep going. But let's fast forward to the SEALS. When you're cutting all the corners and bumping into difficulties. Did the military provide you some structure that allowed you to have an outlet for those things?

Tony: Let's see, the military, there was two things the military gave me that I loved right off the bat.

Tony: I loved like some stability in knowing where you're supposed to be when you're supposed to be there. That was pretty... Okay, I can do this pretty easily. But the second thing was the relationship with alcohol. Oh my gosh. I mean, it is in the military. It's like any drinking I had done before had turned pro.

Tony: These guys knew how to play the game. You drink to indoctrinate, you drink to elevate, you drink to commemorate, you drink to separate. I mean, it's the love language of the military. And I always carried a flask with me anywhere I went because if anyone had a problem with anything, I could sit down and be the hero. Here buddy let's get through this. You know, it's this emotional currency that's, it's uniformly accepted across all services. I mean, I loved the tradition the military held with alcohol, and I took to that rather well, I always had a flask on me. I always was the first to like just do shots! The military gave me this Swiss army knife of emotions, how to deal with them.

Tony: And I really like, whoa, whoa, I found something here.

Mike: Well, you became a SEAL, you don't just join the SEALS, you have to compete to get into SEALS.

Tony: You do.

Mike: That's not easy.

Tony: No, and I'll describe, this kind of captures where I was. I grew up on the mountains of Northern California on the Klamath River, so I knew how to jump and swim in currents and I was pretty adept in the water.

Tony: And so I thought I was pretty good. (laughs) I show up at the BUD/S, the Navy SEAL training. And there's 180 guys in our class, and all of them are the big fish from their little ponds. I mean, big fish. Some guys didn't go to the Olympics that year because they wanted to be a Navy SEAL, you know, division one athletes.

Tony: They had just these people that all looked like studs. They had the sunglasses and the big muscles, and they looked like Navy SEALS. And you know, statistically in the next six weeks 80% of these guys are gonna quit something that they swore they would die before they quit. So what's that fear of like, what have we gotten into?

Tony: What's about to happen that kind of anxiety going in was huge. And then watching people change their life goals, watching dreams crash, it was. It was intense. And so BUD/S was, it's everything the books write about, it lived up to its reputation. It was tough.

Mike: Did you ever feel like ringing the bell?

Tony: Oh yeah, in fact, I talked about, 'cause I started out in class 212. I got medically rolled back to 219 and I was such a secret guy, I was trying to hide injuries. I was in my first hell week and I'm trying to hide dislocated shoulder was just trying to keep up.

Tony: Are you fine? I'm fine! Well, you gotta get under the boat. Like, you know, my arm would kept falling outta socket as I'm trying to get on the boat. Are you gonna quit? No! And then I grabbed on. Eventually I couldn't keep up and then the boat's going on without me, and they're pulling me back and I still wouldn't tell 'em about my shoulder.

Tony: And then they're like, you gotta ring the bell. I had to stand there and I had to ring the bell. And that was just. (Exploding sound) Afterwards I went into medical and they're like, Why'd you ring the bell? So they medically rolled me back to another class and I graduated 219, so I got to go through hell week twice.

Mike: Oh, there you go.

Tony: Yeah. Bonus, bonus. Yeah.

Mike: Well, how do you go from carrying a flask to well, at one point in the book you say everybody was watching Breaking Bad. I was living it. How do you go from. Flask to meth?

Tony: Yes. Crystal meth. Let's see. My journey through addiction has shown me that it's always wanting more.

Tony: My drinking escalated, my drinking escalated. And in the SEAL teams, we party hard and, but there's a function of you being a SEAL, you want to keep your game face on. You don't wanna lose control when you're a control freak. And so if you start getting too tipsy, I quickly learned a couple bumps of cocaine, boop, straightens right out.

Tony: I can keep on partying. So this became a utility, the Coke, bum bum bum bum. I'm not recommending this, but back then if I wanted to drink and drive, that's how I roll. But today, knowing what I know now and watching that escalate, it was a train wreck, knock on wood, nothing. I didn't get pulled over back then, or didn't get any alcohol or drug related incidences, but it was escalating and cocaine led to the ecstasy years, and the ecstasy years were crazy.

Tony: By this time in the teens. I was dodging drug tests and I was like, whoa, got lucky there my name didn't get called. This was all pre 9/11, so there was no war going on. I have all this training. I've been training for war. I want war. We're getting spun up and going on deployments and nothing's happening.

Tony: And it's when you, someone like me. Have you ever been to a concert and you see some idiot climbing like the sound?

Mike: Yes.

Tony: Up there. That's me. I'm gonna get into mischief and get into trouble, and I was doing that in the SEALs I was goofing off doing crazy stuff on deployments. I was a time bomb.

Tony: And so with drug and alcohol escalating I ended up, my reenlistment was coming up and I could say, you know, something bad is gonna happen. And I elected to punch out. I got outta the military. People who've been through this can identify what I'm about to share.

Tony: The veteran population, you know, those who have enlisted and served. We believe strongly in the value of freedom. We love the idea of freedom in our society, but when you enlist in the military, you are giving up so much freedom. I mean, freedom of movement, freedom of what you're saying, freedom of everything. Accountability.

Tony: You give up so much freedom until the day you get out. And then you're giving back all this freedom. And for me, you know, I was a paramedic firefighter, Navy SEAL, that's 10 years of service where those were all giving up freedoms and now I'm being released from captivity. I remember that, that feeling of I can do whatever the F I want.

Tony: I mean, I was just this uhhh. Like you took an animal out of a cage and I went, go. And that's where you see the drug use takes this radical woo. Going out and cocaine gets expensive Mike. I'm here to say cocaine's a hell of a habit. Crystal meth was a financial decision. When I tried it out the first time, I'm like, wow!

Tony: And it lasts six, seven times as long and cheaper. It was a financial move. It got its hooks in me and I was off and running.

Mike: Yeah. A lot of bottoms. You know, there's a for those of you watching this on YouTube, it's clear that Dr. Dice is in really good shape, there's a photo of you with your son in the book.

Tony: Mm-hmm.

Mike: If you look at you now, that photo, you're unrecognizable. You can see what meth does.

Tony: I was 90 pounds lighter in that picture. I'm 220 now. I was 130 pounds in that photo. You know, at 6' 2", that's a hell of a weight loss program. They call it the STEM Fast Program.

Tony: But yeah that was two weeks before my bottom. That picture was taken and it is. It's funny how denial works. You know, you can't see it. Everyone else around you is going, what's wrong with you Dice? What's going on? I remember getting turned down for a contract. I was like, basically a mercenary in that kind period in my life.

Tony: And I remember getting turned down and that hits your ego, which just triggers more use. I was spiraling at that point.

Mike: Yeah. There's a lot of cool things in your book, but one of the parts I like the best, and I hope it's all right to say this, I'm not spoiling anything.

Tony: No, you're not spoiling anything.

Mike: Is being reimbursement, being what it is.

Mike: You're told, okay, you need to pay this much or you can't stay in treatment. And Dr. Dice, you actually left treatment to sell your car, to go back into treatment. I gotta tell you, I ran treatment centers. If you would've said, I gotta leave here, Mike, to go sell my car, to come back to pay you the bill, I would've said okay we won't see him for a while. But you actually did that. You followed through.

Tony: Yeah. I mean, there was a moment and this was about four days into my treatment and I was still like, didn't wanna be here. I was in and out, in and out. And there was a moment of me being in the little small group and I'm just kind of spaced out, not paying attention, I'm looking out the window and there was this moment of like, I hate who I've become.

Tony: I can't stand this person. There's a chance maybe this recovery shit will work. Maybe. Maybe. And it was like a forced kind of perspective, like those view master things when you pull a little lever and a little slide clicked over when we were kids.

Mike: Yeah.

Tony: It was like my world went, it went from hopeless to maybe, maybe this will work.

Tony: And I remember that that was like a little bit of hope of maybe change. Couple days later, the insurance was up and they're asking me to leave.

Mike: Yeah.

Tony: The treatment center. And I called everyone. No one would gimme a loan for money. If I leave here, I'm gonna relapse. I know it.

Tony: And I went to my therapist and I said, I need a four hour pass. And his first thought was similar to yours. His first thought was. Oh, you're gonna go rob a bank, aren't you? He thought that was my next decision making, which made sense. But I said, no, I want to go try selling my car. And he gave me a four hour pass, like, and when I got that check, Mike, I was in the parking lot of CarMax.

Tony: I'm sure they ripped me off, but it was enough to cover treatment. And I did look at that check and I said. I don't have to go back.

Mike: Right.

Tony: Yeah. This is a good run. I was already picturing the hotel room I was gonna go to, who I was gonna call. But I had that little moment of maybe, man, and that little moment I hung on.

Tony: I said, I wanna be different. This might be my ticket. I didn't even cash that check. I didn't trust myself going to the bank. I went straight back to the treatment center, said, can I endorse this over to you? And they accepted it as payment. Just crazy.

Mike: There's so much in it. I could do a whole podcast on just, on just that four hours in itself.

Tony: Mm-hmm.

Mike: Because there's some, you know, triggers and decisions and it's unbelievable.

Tony: Defining moments, man, defining moments.

Mike: Well, and then in treatment, you have to learn finally to address all those things as a kid. And boy, this resonated with me, and I bet it would with tons of people, especially men. At your dad's funeral or grandpa said, men don't cry. Well, really? No kidding. But now you have to face some of those feelings.

Tony: Mm-hmm. Yeah. He was a colonel in the Air Force, so he's old school and yeah he said, men don't cry suck it up. And you're the man now.

Mike: Yeah. You're the man.

Tony: You're the man now.

Tony: And that you said two things there. I don't remember crying after that. But the second thing, it kind of kicked off this. I gotta be the man kind of fire. Like I gotta be the hero of the day. And that kind of led to this firefighter, paramedic, Navy SEAL, kind of trying to find the top, the biggest, the biggest, baddest guy I could be.

Tony: Yeah.

Mike: Well, and then we'll fast forward, we could again do a whole season, maybe we will talk about your holistic change model. How did you come up with that and talk about it.

Tony: Sure, sure, sure.

Mike: You attach it to the 12 steps, which I think is fascinating.

Tony: I did, I went through a 12 step recovery program and I also was completing my master's, and I went back to work as a therapist in that same treatment center.

Tony: And then I had this like, how does this happen? I'm working as a therapist and a counselor, so I know theory and I'm under strike. How did so much change occur in just the space of a year? Everything about me changed. And as I went back for my PhD, which you know, that's a program that makes you question everything.

Tony: I began to really look at this 12 step recovery, like what is going on? And these underlying theories were kind of emerged. It's almost like it's always been there. I just brushed off the 1935 jargon it was written in. And the first three steps are just basically stages of change.

Tony: And therapists and counselors out there know what I'm talking about. Steps four and five are narrative therapy. It's just us processing and restructuring and repackaging, owning our story, having empathy for ourselves. You roll in step 6, 7, 8, and nine. That's all cognitive behavioral therapy.

Tony: All of this changing behavior, modification, repairing past wounds and all of that. And then the last three steps. Steps 10, 11, and 12 are all existential therapy. Finding our place in the world, finding a purpose, all of that. So these are what was important to me is like if I'm a therapist or a counselor and I'm working with a patient who's in a 12 step recovery program, now I know what tools best support where they are in that phase of recovering.

Mike: Well, and there's a reason why they're the 12 steps, right? You don't start self-actualizing when you're 6' 2" 110 pounds on crystal meth.

Tony: That's true. That's true. (laughs) Yeah. And it's the progression. Every one of these therapeutic models can work and has as evidence-based practice.

Tony: It does their job. But when done in this order, when you go stage the change, you know, narrative, CBT, existential, that seems to have traction with the people in addiction. It just that work, that progression works for this. So this just call it a theoretical model, but this seems to be like the magic sauce for people in recovery and the flip side of this.

Tony: There is a lot of people I run with you who are just completely averse to 12 step recovery program.

Mike: Yeah.

Tony: And it's because, I'll be honest, it sounds and presents like a cult. We meet in the basements of churches and use anonymous names and have secret handshakes and hugs and it's just all, you know, we follow these guidelines set out by our forefathers.

Tony: It's very, it's a non-religious program that starts and end with a prayer. It's very controversial for some. Well, the holistic change model, if done through a therapist, can provide an alternative way to access the same therapeutic principles.

Mike: Well, and you start out I think everybody in, the whole one day at a time, and I'm sure you were like this too.

Mike: A lot of people say one day, gimme 10 minutes at a time. Gimme one hour at a time.

Tony: That's right. (laughs)

Mike: How long was it before you could see the bigger picture where you weren't just going day to day, I'm not gonna use today.

Tony: Well, as with most people, others begin to notice it before I noticed it myself.

Mike: Yeah, right.

Tony: Yeah. But I did, there was a moment that for me, this was from my moment, about three months in. I became aware that I did not think about using today, and I remember calling my sponsor and saying, and I didn't even wanna say it loud because I didn't wanna jinx it.

Mike: Right.

Tony: I was like, (whispering) I don't think I thought about using it. (laughs)

Tony: I was very like, is it gonna come back? You know? And because it does take some time for the reprogramming. It takes, it took decades to program me to get this way. Yeah. I was surprised that so much could happen so quickly in that first year to deprogram us.

Mike: Well, while you're living your life and doing all the things from Navy SEAL to firefighter, to paramedic.

Mike: Now you can say I was always trying to be the big guy. Right. Well, I don't know that you saw that at the time. It's in hindsight that you see that bigger picture about how your mom influenced you, how your dad influenced you, your grandpa, your circumstances.

Tony: Yeah.

Mike: And I think people search for that before they're actually doing the right thing.

Mike: That's probably a poor way to put it, but know.

Tony: And you kind of hit the nail on the head there, because what I did in my book is I write the chapter as I remember it. And at the end of the chapter, I would reflect saying, Hey, this is how this is and how it affected me. And then I'd circle it back to the holistic change model.

Tony: But if someone were to read this, it's almost like an example of how you might do a self-examination of your own lifestyle. Like, oh wow! I never thought about my interaction with my parent that way, would have that kind of effect in my future. So it's an example of some self-reflection that someone might do for themselves.

Mike: I really like that part of your book, Dr. Dice. It was interesting 'cause at the end of a chapter, instead of flipping the next chapter, I found myself thinking like, okay, I can see what he's talking about here. I can see that connection. You can see. So there's a forward to it too, where it's like, here's the way it's gonna turn out based on what he's doing.

Tony: Awesome.

Mike: Talk about, it's also remarkable. So being homeschooled, here's the books. Go for it. And just running around the hills of Northern California.

Tony: Yes.

Mike: To a doctorate. To a doctorate. Come on.

Mike: That's remarkable.

Tony: I mean, I'm sure it was a little bit of being obsessive and compulsive tied into that.

Mike: Well, I wanted to ask you though. Because you talked about being at the gas station and asking those kids along the way when you got your GED and then bachelor's and then master's, and was there a sense of that imposter syndrome that so many people talk about?

Tony: Oh yeah. Oh yeah.

Tony: I mean, my entire life there's been that imposter syndrome and it's funny that creativity and having some ingenuity and being a little sneaky, all that's a cool mix for like finding the crevice and slipping through it, you know, and or getting it done in the nick of time or all those little recipes I've had that's helped me succeed. But also on the subtext is, well, you wouldn't have succeeded if you would've done it like everyone else.

Tony: I kept getting through systems like accomplishing my tasks, but I would figure out a way, so I would make it somehow, and I would not give myself credit for it. I would say, well, you cheated. Well you cheated. Well you cheated. And so that imposter syndrome has kind of followed me everywhere, and it wasn't until in recovery that there was this sense of, like, I wasn't attaching gratitude for my skill sets. And there was also a lot of like, you know, we've all been given different blessings, advantages. The thing is, what are you doing with it? Are you using 'em for your greater good or are you using 'em for selfish means?

Tony: What are you doing with that? For me, there was a sense of balancing the scales of karma in the universe. There was this definitely, I've been on the take for a long time, and the shifting of, wow, this hole that I have in me has something to do with me being right with the world.

Tony: Yeah. And so there was like a reckoning. It had to be had I had lived my life up until recovery with the end justifying the means. Then there was a total flip to the script coming outta recovery was the means will justify the end.

Mike: Wow. When you work with, especially men who, because you talk about first responders in the military and people who have buried the same sorts of feelings you've buried.

Mike: There's a resistance to therapy that is intense. How do you break through that for the therapy?

Tony: That resistance is thick. It's like you read about.

Mike: Yeah.

Tony: And here I'll give you a like a visual demonstration. (laughs)

Tony: For those of you who are just listening. I'm standing here with my dukes up. You know, my fists are up, and this is every law enforcement, first responder, military veteran inside their head. This is, how you doing? I'm good. Everything's fine. You know, our defenses are up. You know, I have not let you in. I don't even trust you yet.

Tony: You know, I'm just here in my fighting stance and I can't, Mike, my feet are slightly belated on the floor. I'm slightly angled towards you. My feet are up. I am so comfortable right here. I mean, this is my, mm-hmm. This is my home right here. Now I'm taking a step back. I'm slowly lowering my arms, opening and extending 'em out and down by my sides.

Tony: I do not look or feel comfortable in this position. I have the full front of me exposed. I'm open. This is me being vulnerable.

Mike: Mm-hmm.

Tony: This is not where I wanna be. And I mean, that is a veteran law enforcement's, first offender mindset is that it takes a lot to get from here (clenched fists up) to here (steps back, puts arms down). Where authentic connection can occur and you know it, it takes a lot of trust.

Tony: It takes do you have any idea what I've been through? Are you one of us? You put me in a group of unknowns, like an anonymous program. I don't know if I arrested you, I don't know if, if what I share is gonna blow your mind and you'll never talk to me again. There's this sense of that you can't handle the truth and that, that takes a while to get through. And, and so I put together this company, Bishop and Dice Defense as a vehicle, which its sole purpose is to get through that, that resistance you're talking about. And what we do is we, and this sounds crazy, we provide uniform, tactics, training, ammunition, and mental health services.

Tony: So they may sound like they don't go together, but we'll roll into a police department, fire department, a VA center, and we'll give them the best gear. All the gear the team guys are using. Ammunition, training, we'll talk shop for a whole year, Mike. We'll go in for a whole year and get to know 'em and hang out and dah, dah, dah, dah.

Tony: And on year two, once there's a relationship built, we'll bring in mental health services. And when we even bring it in, like, listen, hey, hey, you can log in anonymously. You don't have to show your picture. You just wanna ask questions. Let's just talk. And that's the beginning of catching them with at least half their guard down.

Tony: And that's the way we found, we've been able to get through these health resistant populations.

Mike: It's a way into the door.

Tony: It is. It is. And it's a, gosh, it's so resistance.

Mike: Well, and I think, we're not gonna, I don't know that I'll live to see it, but you know what you're also doing is you're redefining masculinity, to cope with this stuff.

Mike: To deal with this stuff. And I know there's a lot of women listening, but, so hard for men to deal with this when the messages across the spectrum are, don't deal with it.

Tony: Yeah. And I'm not gonna take women. We each have our own unique challenges. Yeah. Men, women have our own unique challenges to get through to the process.

Tony: And for men, that is one that's socially constructed. It's from a very early age, handle your shit, you know?

Mike: Yeah.

Tony: Yeah. Even in the military, the program is, be squared away so that you can help the team. So it's on you to be squared away. And what that means, you suck it up. That means you suck it up.

Tony: It's the programming is fierce to get you there. In fact, they give a whole, it's like a processing camp, a brainwashing facility they call bootcamp, where they spend weeks and weeks and weeks deprogramming and reprogramming you with this military mindset. And when he let you outta the military, do they give you a de boot camping?

Tony: No, no, no. It's like, all right, try to use this programming in the normal sector. See how it works out.

Mike: Well, and we're seeing some of the you know. A lot of veterans are in trouble with mental health. And we're seeing some of that play out in our society.

Tony: Mm-hmm. And the higher suicide rate.

Tony: Highest association with drug use, alcohol use. I think if I want say something to the veterans and non-veterans out there. Listen, the military is a violent organization. It's designed for war. It's not designed for mental health. In fact, in all our dropdown menus for decision making, when I have to make a decision, I have this little dropdown menu of different options I can choose. Up there somewhere, violence is always an option. That's always an option to any problem that's presented. And when you're leased into the civilian sector. And there's an argument going on or a dispute, the violence is gonna pop up and I have to talk myself out of the violent option on a regular basis.

Tony: Alright? I gotta find another way to interact. Well, that option keeps dropping down. Even with when you're sober, where you're drunk, you know, when you're high, that violent option is always there. And so when it comes to taking one's life or having those kind of thoughts, that violent option is still popping down.

Tony: So I think people need to understand that this programming is, it's not something that just goes away and it's something that we need to be able to brooch. I'm a firm believer that talking about it is not encourage it. In fact, it's the opposite. It needs to be the white elephant in the room that we always get to as quick as possible.

Tony: So I'm all about, let's start a conversation.

Mike: Oh, that's, oh, all right. That's a great place to end it right there. Let's start a conversation. I was gonna ask you what you hope people take away from your talk, but that's just a great.

Tony: That's it right there, man. Yeah.

Mike: You know, I know we have law enforcement people listening because we've done podcasts with them and first responders.

Tony: Yeah.

Mike: So as you all know, there's a link to Dr. Dice's contact information and Bishop and Dice PSYOPs attached to the podcast for both the gear and the mental health. Please access it as well as the book. Dr. Dice, thanks so much for being with us today.

Tony: Sure. Can I give you a shout out to law enforcement real quick?

Mike: Yeah, absolutely.

Tony: To the law enforcement population out there who's taken a beating for years now. Listen, I've worked with your population extensively and I'm gonna put this out there, no disrespect, but you guys are going through more than most.

Tony: In fact, you're a little more twisted than most populations I work with because of this. This one thing, when a military person deploys, they are in country. They do their bit, they come home, they train, they get, you know, law enforcement, you are never off deployment. You are forever deployed. You never are actually coming back from the deployment.

Tony: You are constantly in country. That'd be the equivalent of me going to Afghanistan and looking for mental health services in Afghanistan. How the hell would I trust anyone over there to be on my side or take care of me? The same kind of conversation for you needs to be had. You are on deploy in the U.S.

Tony: You do need help. It's gonna be an additional layer of challenge for you to find someone to talk to. This is why you're so resistant to deprogramming. I need you to talk to a buddy, talk to anybody. Remember, addiction is the opposite of connection. Addiction is the opposite of connection. We need you to connect with somebody somewhere in some way, so you're not alone in this.

Tony: That's all I ask. Start the conversation.

Mike: Wow. Great message.

Mike: Thanks for those of you who are listening and watching. We hope that you find support wherever you are, help wherever you are. Thanks for listening, be safe, and as Dr. Dice would say, you just have to reach out, it is there for you.