Doing the Hard Things

[Upbeat Guitar Music]

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

Mike: My guest today, Matt Christensen, grew up as the oldest child in a loving family. He'd already lost his sense of direction when in his early 20s he also lost his mom. Poor choices and decisions followed, and then his family introduced him to The Other Side Academy. First as a student, now as a staff member.

Mike: I'm gonna let him tell the story. Welcome, Matt.

Matt: Yeah. Hey, thank you so much for having me. I it's great to be here.

Mike: I appreciate it so much. We'll get to The Other Side Academy in just a few minutes, but I always like to start with the story, right? The staff blurb on The Other Side Academy's webpage, and listeners, you know that there's links to that at the end of the podcast, says that you had talent when you were younger, but that you under-efforted.

Mike: That's my word. I don't even know if it's a word.

Matt: (laughs) No, it's a great word.

Mike: And underachieved, yeah?

Matt: Yeah, absolutely. I think for me growing up, I had a lot of talent in a lot of things that I did. I grew up with a great family. My parents were loving. I had three sisters and a brother that I grew up with, and I had every opportunity in the world.

Matt: I played a lot of sports, learned instruments, and did those things, and I was pretty talented right off the bat with most of those things. But during that time, I developed some type of laziness to me. And if things started becoming hard if it became something that talent alone I couldn't, then really I would just struggle beyond that. I would just give up. I would just be, "Okay that's enough." I was first chair trumpet growing up, and then when it got to the point to where people that exceled, that really tried, started getting better than me, I'd be, "Okay that was fun."

Matt: Same thing with I pole vaulted in high school, and I would, I'd go to practice and just kinda do the minimal effort. And my classmates would go there. They'd come early, they'd leave late, and I was just "All right. Have fun, guys. Have fun, guys. I'm still gonna, I'm still gonna beat you guys at this."

Matt: And that only lasted for so long until finally they started becoming really up and up and coming, and I was finally like, "Okay. That's neat. All right, bye." And I just wouldn't want to put in that extra effort. It was... looking back it's, sad to think about but at the same time, that's just kinda how I, who I was at the time.

Mike: Were there coaches or teachers who tried to pull you aside and say, "Hey, look, you got a lot of talent, but you're getting passed by here"?

Matt: No I think I always did. I would always do well enough to where I don't think they, they felt like they needed to do that. It was just kind of I think it was up to me at that point to just, make the hard decision to just put in more effort on there instead of like I would do really well in high school, but, if I wanted to get to that college, ranked, like pole vaulting I knew I had to put in that extra effort.

Matt: I just didn't really care to. I was lazy. I was super lazy.

Mike: Did that laziness lead to bad decisions down the road then?

Matt: I think down the road it's... absolutely did. That's a trait that I carried on forever would be at least until I got to The Other Side Academy was just trying to find that easy route. And like, when it came to eventually getting help, like I wouldn't want to do things that seemed hard, at the time.

Mike: What were some of the bad decisions you ended up making?

Matt: Ooh, let's see. So... Especially growing up, I developed this, when I wouldn't get my way I would just realize, okay I don't have to, I don't have to tell the truth when it comes to things. Instead of going and having the hard conversations with my parents about stuff, it's it's easier to just lie, to just be sneaky about stuff.

Matt: So if I had a friends having a party in middle school, and initially I knew I'd asked about it a week or two ago and they told me no. Quick, okay, the next time this happens, I'm just gonna lie about it. And that became easier, for me to do instead of yeah, it just became easier and I started developing just sneaky behaviors, manipulative behaviors early, very early on.

Mike: Did they catch you?

Matt: Not a lot. I was pretty... I feel like in comparison to a lot of my at least, especially the people that I work with here now I was a pretty good kid. I got okay grades. I was never super rude to my parents. I got my chores done. I was just really, I was just really sneaky. Yeah.

Mike: And that stuff, Matt, leads to immaturity, and then your mom tragically... What did, she passed away when you were 20?

Matt: So I, yeah, I was in my early 20s. I'm 37 now, and she passed away in 2011.

Mike: Aw.

Matt: And yeah, it was all pretty quick. I was going to a Utah state university that's up in northern Utah at the time when she got sick.

Matt: And it was all pretty quick. It all happened probably within about a year or so of her getting diagnosed. And at the time, I was just getting into really starting to party a lot. I was living at a frat house up there when I learned about it, and my family used it as a time to grow together as a family.

Matt: They lived about an hour south of me. And I could have, I had every decision, like I could have came down a lot more often and been there to help them and be there for them while everybody was going through that, spend a lot more time with my mom. But I spent that time just really just hiding and partying and numbing all of that during that time. And yeah, it was it was tough.

Mike: And then after she passed, how did you cope?

Matt: I got a lot more into partying and I started getting into-- I started dabbling in a bit more heavy drugs. In high school I had-- It was during that, that OxyContin phase.

Matt: And I dabbled in that a little bit during high school, but just stopped when I graduated high school. And until when stuff happened with my mom I started getting back into harder stuff. you know, I used heroin for the first time, back during that time period too.

Matt: But one thing I always think about during all of that is just kinda the power of decisions because I think a lot of people have a lot of trauma or events that happen in their life. But one thing that I've been able to look at, in hindsight is the fact that the same event happened, the same event that happened to me happened to every single person in my family. My dad lost a spouse. My sisters and brother all lost a parent. And it's really the same situation that happened, same event. But like I said before, they chose to become closer as a family because of that.

Matt: They didn't all become drug addicts, because of that. But it... And so it was my decision to go that route. So even though the event happened, especially now I try to look at that and not think of that as something that forced me to go down the route that I did.

Mike: Maybe it's because of that your dad didn't wanna also lose a son, your siblings lose a sibling. So then they found The Other Side Academy, I assume the one in Utah. You have Utah and Denver, right?

Matt: Yeah. Utah and Denver.

Mike: So talk about The Other Side Academy. Let our listeners know what that's all about.

Matt: Yeah, so the great thing about The Other Side Academy, one thing that really sticks out about us is we're long. We're two and a half years which is great. I'd never done any type of program. So I'd never experienced a 30, 60, 90-day program. I just jumped right into... Yeah, one that was gonna work the most so it's long. Also it's free. That's one cool thing. We don't take any government funds, here at the Academy. And how we go about doing that is we have a few different enterprises that we have.

Matt: We have a moving company, it's one of the best in the state. We have two thrift boutiques that have won best in Salt Lake City the last six years in a row. And we have a construction crew. I helped run our corporate development running my team would reach out for any kind donations.

Matt: Because the students come in with just the clothes on their back. And so we're reaching out for hygiene, coffee, food, tools for our moving company and construction crew. So that's how we generate the money to keep the doors open. One of our main things is we focus on the behavior.

Matt: So we have a lot of students that, two ways that you can get into the Academy is you can either write from jails or prison. Or you can just walk in, which is what I did. I'm what we consider a walk-in. Just knew that my life was just not going anywhere and just wanted to make a change.

Matt: But the example I wanted to bring up is we do have those people that come from jails and prisons, and they'll stay locked up, and they're sober during that time period, and then they go back to society and just start inhibiting the same behaviors. And then it just turns into this cycle.

Matt: And so at least our thought process is you were sober during that time period. How come when you get out and you're still sober? Why are you still inhibiting, those behaviors? So we focus on the behaviors at the Academy. Anything from just small corrections, like we have our if you don't push in your seats, we have people correcting you on that. If you're talking bad about a peer, we're correcting you on that so you're not, getting in the habit of gossiping. Really so many different behaviors we start focusing on early on at the Academy.

Matt: It's pretty cool.

Mike: That has gotta be really difficult for people who come in leading a really unstructured life to all of a sudden be really structured.

Matt: Oh, absolutely, especially with these people that came from jails and prisons.

Mike: Yeah.

Matt: That are used to living the either look the other way type of mindset.

Matt: They don't wanna rat on anybody. They don't wanna be snitches. Here we focus on one of our core beliefs is 200% accountability. So not only am I accountable for myself, but I'm also accountable for the other person, too. And that's actually something I really struggled early on in my stay.

Matt: If something didn't bother me, if it wasn't gonna affect me, or at least I thought that, then I was just kinda "Okay that's their issue to deal with." And I would just, I didn't really have a backbone.

Mike: Mind your own business, right?

Matt: Yeah, mind my own business, and I learned pretty quickly, especially here at the Academy, if you see somebody do something and people learn about it, they'll get some consequences, but you'll probably get twice the amount of consequences because you just didn't do anything about it.

Mike: I assume, Matt, that there's a progression.

Mike: You don't come into the same part of the program that you leave with two and a half years later?

Matt: Oh, no. So with us being an Academy, we're set up, like we have a, like a freshman, sophomore, junior, senior, master student. And so you start out it's in-house, so everybody lives here.

Matt: We have about 125 students at the moment.

Mike: Wow.

Matt: And when you get here and you're a freshman, you're really just working doing house chores, cleaning bathrooms, doing laundry for the students that are at some of our enterprises. But the big thing is you're learning to actually work with your peers.

Matt: As a staff, we're looking at the freshmen. We're seeing what they struggle with. Is this person bossy? Is this person a lay down? What do they all struggle with? And so that's the first bit of your stay. After a few months, you get called off to one of the enterprises and then, and so forth and so forth.

Matt: One other cool thing about the Academy it is two and a half years, but you're not required to leave at that two and a half year mark. A lot of places if the funding runs out they say, "All right, see ya," you're gone. But since we're, not funded by the government and we're able to allow people to leave when best suits them.

Matt: So for me, even though I might have been fine after my two-year period, I wanted to give back to the house, and I wanted to just continue riding the wave that I was riding. And so I committed to stay a third year. And I ended up getting more growth in my third year than I did in the first two years combined.

Mike: What did you learn about yourself?

Matt: Ooh, I was able to develop a lot of self-love for myself. That amongst many things. One thing to go back to my mother as well. My mother had a wonderful smile. It was great. A wonderful smile. And I had her smile.

Matt: That was one of those things that it got commented to me all the time, growing up, "Oh, you have your mom's smile. You have your mom's smile." So when she passed away, it was something that my relatives, like my grandparents would see me and be like, "Oh, "It's so great to see you," 'cause, it would remind them, of my mother, their daughter.

Matt: But due to my bad decisions, a lot of substance abuse, my smile just started to deteriorate over time, and it started having the opposite effect with my relatives. They started... they'd see me and like they'd be double sad.

Matt: Like it'd remind them of my mom, but then also remind them of how their son's doing, kind of- ... at that time. And I was pretty shameful. I was pretty shameful about that. And when I got to the Academy and I was able to do the process and start finding my worth, which is infinite and intrinsic and beyond.

Matt: And once I kinda got to that point, I'd probably been here about a year when that happened and I was okay with myself. I was happy with myself, with, not a great smile or not. I just loved me. And right around that time is when the Academy told me that they were gonna start helping me with my dental stuff.

Matt: And I started getting that taken care of. And a little while later, I got my smile back and that's... And, but the great thing is I was able to begin to love myself before that happened. And so now even, smile or not, like I love the person that I am.

Matt: But I'm super grateful that the Academy was able to do that for me.

Mike: You talk about on your little blog, doing the hard things, right?

Matt: Yeah.

Mike: What? Oh, yeah. What were the hard things?

Matt: Ooh, so for me it was there's not a lot of hard things they ask us to do, but it's, most of it's uncomfortable.

Matt: It's a lot of uncomfortable things. So even just as I worked in our corporate development and I was making phone calls and doing things most... There'd be moments where I just wouldn't want to maybe call somebody back. There'd be an uncomfortable conversation I knew that was coming.

Matt: And old me would've just either just ghosted that person or just, probably just ghosted that person to tell you the truth and not deal with that. Now I'm put in a situation where I have to deal with this, and or at least that's what's expected of me. And so I started doing those hard things.

Matt: And I guess to go along the lines of the, one of our founders Joseph Grenny, he helped co-write Crucial Conversations. He's the one that told me about this quote, but it's "If you do hard things, you gain ability. When you gain ability, you're able to do even harder things. And when you're able to do even harder things, miracles happen." And that's something that resonated with me. And once I saw that I was able to do these harder things, I was like, "All right what else can I do?" And before, like I said, I always just stopped when things got tough, and now being put in these situations where at least I felt like I had to do it, I was able to see my true potential.

Mike: Now you're a staff member. So what does the staff do with... Not everybody who begins finishes, I would think. You have to have some people who go "I'm out." So what does the staff say or how do they intervene with people who say, who get to that point of doing the hard things, then they back off rather than push through?

Matt: Like students that, that wanna leave?

Mike: Yeah.

Matt: We deal with that on a daily basis. It's typically we just have to pull them aside and remind them how they felt when they sat in that initial interview that we did. Because when people sit in that initial interview they're broken.

Matt: They're scared. They don't know what to do. A lot of people don't have anywhere to go. I remember that feeling, sitting in our interview room and being like, "What am I gonna do if they don't accept me?" But then after people had been there for a few weeks, that gratefulness starts to wear off a little bit.

Matt: And so especially during that interview I tell them, I'm like, "I'm gonna bring this up to you again, in a few months when..."

Mike: Yep

Matt: "When you're feeling like you wanna go." One big thing that gets people out the door is kids and family. 'Cause they're not allowed to talk to their kids the whole time that they're here.

Matt: Family's a slow process, but eventually they are able to talk to their siblings and people that raised them. But people wanna go out to either maybe try to save other people or they say they wanna be there for their kids. But there's plenty of time that they may not have been locked up, before here that, they weren't using that time to, to be with their kids.

Matt: One, one thing we always ask people when we're interviewing them or talking to them is do you love your kids? And usually they always say "Absolutely. Absolutely I love my kids." And one thing that our director will say to them a lot is then I'd hate to see how you treat the people that you hate, if that's the way you treat the people that you love." And so sometimes it's just, reminding them that, that they really just need to work on themselves to just be. For me it was, I just wanted to be certain in myself. I didn't wanna roll the dice with my life after this like I'd done so many times.

Matt: And so I just tell people, I'm like, "Don't you wanna go out and just actually be certain that you're gonna be a good father, that you're gonna be a good mother? Instead of thinking that you might be okay now? Your kids are doing just fine without you, when you weren't being a parent even when you were there."

Matt: At least in my opinion, I feel like you can't be a drug addict and be a good parent.

Mike: I would think that the success rate for the people who complete the program is astounding.

Matt: I don't have the exact numbers in front of me, but, and I don't know the exact numbers of other 30, 60, 90-day programs. But I'm told that it's somewhere in the, single digits, with the, 30, 60, 90-day programs a lot of the time. And when our students, when they've completed the program, stayed an extra year, and they've done a, like a year in our graduate housing, typically I believe our succ- success rate so if they're, it's 65% of our graduates are drug-free, crime-free, and employed.

Matt: When somewhere in that range, like of the 65% range, almost 70, I think.

Mike: And given the population who you work with, that's astounding.

Matt: Oh, yeah. Absolutely. I think some people look at it, and they think "Oh, like a 60-something? That's like a, that's like a D+." But it's but then when you look at other places it's really miraculous what we're able to do.

Mike: Yeah. I don't remember now too, but on your website, when you look at the history, your founder talks about the number of incarcerated days it saves, the amount of money that it saves the state as an alternative to incarceration, which is stunning.

Matt: Yeah. One thing that my dad always instilled in me, or at least tried his best to instill in me, like I still remember it now is he always focused on being an asset rather than being a liability.

Matt: And even, like I had a lot of ups and downs in my life. And sometimes that I wasn't using and felt like I was doing pretty okay, but looking back, I was just bleh. Like I wasn't really aspiring to anything. I wasn't saving money, I wasn't being a true responsible adult, and I certainly was not being an asset to society.

Matt: So one of my main focuses here is not just not be a liability, you know- ... out there to society, but to try to be an asset and to try to give back, because right now I'm still in the process of balancing the scales. That's a big thing for me is trying to... 'Cause I hurt a lot of people, and there's a lot, there's a lot of people out there that that especially now that I've been, now that I'm staff and not a student at the Academy, I'm able to- I've been reaching back out to people, and I think there was a big part of me, especially being at the Academy for so long, that assumed that I would graduate and people would be, "Hey! Great job. Wow, you're such a changed person. We want you in our lives." And that just isn't always the case. There's a lot of hurt that I did. And so I'm still in the process of balancing the scales, and that's one of those things to where I plan on doing that for quite a while.

Mike: That's a conversation maybe for another day or a whole new conversation, but you're right, Matt. If we have three people, three people out there, one of them would welcome you with open arms.

Matt: Yeah.

Mike: Another would be skeptical and say we'll meet for coffee, see what you have to offer."

Mike: And the third one would say, "Get out of my life permanently," right?

Matt: Oh, yeah.

Mike: And you're not in control of any of that.

Matt: Nope.

Mike: Yeah.

Matt: Nope. And I don't blame any of them for- ... whatever reactions they, they did have. It was it's absolutely fair. And I was able to just say, "Okay, okay I fully understand, and I hope you have a great life."

Mike: Yeah.

Matt: The ones that just were not, willing to have me back in their life.

Mike: Was your dad?

Matt: No, my, my dad has alwa- my dad has always been really supportive, and he's been there. I... He's the one that probably should be the most hesitant to, to have me- ... in my life. He's retired, and was just excited to just go on motorcycle rides with his friends.

Matt: And here's his 30-something-year-old son that's, that he's allowing to stay at his place with him, for a little bit. And he did that a couple times until finally he, he had enough. But he he didn't need that. And I was lying to him, stealing from him.

Mike: Sure.

Matt: Just being just super manipulative.

Matt: And he didn't have any of that coming. But no he's been super supportive. And he's one of the people that, yeah he's definitely just on my team to help.

Mike: For the faculty members who are graduates, how does that help when you're working with the students?

Matt: I think that's also one of the number one things that helps us work. Because at least for me, if I was going to therapy and talking to somebody I'm talking to somebody... And no- nothing against therapists, but I can manipulate, a therapist easy.

Matt: I'll tell them exactly what they wanna hear to, and that's not really helping me. But with our staff all being graduates from The Other Side Academy, they're able to see my BS. They're able to, they live the same type of lifestyle that, that I've lived in.

Matt: And so it's one of those things to where when our students are trying to get, one over on us and do something, we're able to call them out on it. And there's nothing that we're asking our students to do that we didn't do ourselves as staff or when we were students in some way or form.

Matt: And we're able to... yeah it's hard to take direction from somebody that hasn't really walked in your shoes a lot. We have those people in the Academy, like the Joseph Grenny that, no, he has not lived a life of crime and but he's a great example.

Matt: But then we have the Dave Durochers, that did, that, that were wild and were able to that even though they didn't graduate from The Other Side Academy, like he graduated from Delancey Street it's very similar and we're able to look at that as an example. And I think it's huge for the Academy.

Mike: And now you have campuses in Utah, right? Two of them? Do you- and then one in Denver?

Matt: We have one in Utah and then we have one in Denver. Yeah. And then the rumor is possibly a third one on the way, but that's just a rumor at this point.

Mike: I love our... I think our listeners would like this too.

Mike: Tell us about the bench.

Matt: The bench. Okay. (laughs) Yeah. The bench is... so the bench is awesome. The bench it's a portal from, we treat it as a portal from our old life to our new life. Right when you open the doors in our main campus, the bench is just sitting right there.

Matt: And so I remember just sitting on the bench when I first got there, and we had a list. We have we have 12 beliefs that we have and there's, and it was just framed up in, in front of me and I was able to see what the Toast of Beliefs are made of. But cool thing about the bench is I was also able to see everybody around me and what was going on.

Matt: And the first thing I noticed was how happy everybody was while I was sitting on the bench, during that time period. But the bench so the bench you sit on before you get accepted. It's also used for, disciplinary reasons too. It's sat right next to the front door, so if people are thinking about leaving, a lot of times we just tell them like, "Hey, calm down a little bit. Just sit on the bench before you think about, doing anything dumb." Some people have, 10, 20 years over their head and they want to walk out the door just, you, based off of a little emotion. And we'll just say, "Hey, just chill out. Just sit on the bench." Other times people will you know, maybe they'll break the rules and we'll just tell them, "Hey, you gotta go sit on the bench."

Matt: With the process here, we're really strict and we don't want people to do it with a dirty conscience with things that they've been doing here at the Academy that they're not supposed to do. So we have what's called like a cleanup process.

Matt: So if I was only allowed two cups of coffee one day, and I started making a habit to have three of them, it gets into, my, into my head that I can break the rule in this way. And then, a little while later I get to a crossroads at something and I already know " I already break the rule in this way, so why not this way?"

Matt: And it turns into this snowball effect of me breaking the rules. And next thing you know, next thing you know, I I'm not calling other people out for things they're doing because who am I to do that? And so the house just and so I just, I start getting what we call, getting dirty in that sense.

Matt: And we always tell our students "You can't do the process with a bunch of dirt on you." It just becomes a backpack full of rocks, and the process just becomes harder. So one thing that we implore them to do a lot is to clean up. And so we'll tell them to sit on the bench and, think about everything that, think about all this dirt you have on you.

Matt: And to just let, allow that baggage, off of you. And that's just one of the, one of the cool things that they're able to do on the bench as well.

Matt: I'll let you go with this. You started this by talking about settling, being lazy.

Mike: Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Matt: Tell us something that you've accomplished that you would, looking back on your younger self, you would have went, "No way am I gonna do this," and yet you have.

Mike: Let's see. So I just bought a new car on Saturday actually. This is the first time I bought a car responsibly by myself- ... I think probably ever. I bought it from the same dealership that I bought my last car at, but the last time I borrowed $100 from my girlfriend's dad, went in there, had a double-digit APR, and walked out with the only thing that they would give me, and then ended up getting that car repo'd in six months.

Mike: Now, and then I got a fantastic deal. I saved a whole bunch of money that I was able to put down. I don't think I've ever saved money in my entire life. I'm doing these things that, sadly, it's one of those things that all adults should know how to do, is just basic things.

Mike: But I'm just proud of myself that I'm able to adult. I'm able to make the hard choices even when I'm just sometimes don't wanna do anything. I might just be sitting up in my room, and I live up here on, on campus, and I'll be sitting there thinking "Am I just gonna sit here and doom scroll or you know, just kind of lay here? Or should I go down and and check in with the guys, see how they're doing?" And now I'm able to make that decision and it's easy. And I'll go down to the floor and I'll talk to my guys. I'll check in on them, make sure they're doing good. And I'll get so fulfilled from doing that.

Mike: It's really cool. But before it was just those... I just, that lazy part of me just didn't wanna do anything, and I wouldn't excel. So now I'm able to see the benefits of when I put in that extra effort. It's awesome.

Matt: And it is awesome. Matt I so appreciate the time that you took to, to help us.

Matt: We've talked here, folks, about a lotta different programs, and I just wanted to shine a light on The Other Side Academy because they're doing some things with some really difficult populations that a lotta people shy away from. We just barely touched on some of the stuff that you all do.

Matt: We'll leave your website at the blurb of the podcast in case you want more information.

Matt: Thanks for sharing your story, Matt, your work.

Matt: For those of you listening, watching, we hope that you're safe. We hope that you're well, and we hope that you also do the hard things