President Sue called our meeting to order with a tolling of the Rotary Bell. Barb Lezotte offered a reflection for the club, and we sang our patriotic song. Diane Sanborn introduced our many visiting Rotarians attending the District Conference and acknowledged on behalf of Rotary that the State of Michigan legislature and the City of Lansing have proclaimed May 20th “Rotary Day”.
Special music was presented by John Dale Smith on piano and Matt Eldred vocals performing “Bring Him Home” and “Sit Down You’re Rockin’ the Boat”. A well done and truly amazing performance for our meeting today.
President Sue introduced Ann Cauley, the Chair of the Month and Day. Ann remarked that her speaker themes have been our health care system as one of her passions as a registered nurse for her career. Remarking with the pandemic we are experiencing a expanded mental health crisis with alcohol and opioid consumption increasing and those dealing with extreme depression and anxiety. With those remarks Ann introduced our speaker Michael Stratton, Psychotherapist, author, and DJ.
Michael began his presentation that it is unusual for anyone today to not have been touched by addiction in some way whether it be a family member, a friend or even yourself. Michael remarked that statistically there is a 12% chance people in the meeting today have or are dealing with an addiction. Addictions take many forms biological, food, spending, gambling. Really anything one can get compulsive about.
Michael views himself in many roles as a husband, father, brother, grandfather, and an alcoholic with a marijuana addiction and most importantly to this presentation a person in long term recovery in the past 31 years. Michael shared five stories to present his views on addiction and the process of recovery.
First, he told his own story, his first introduction to alcohol was in high school to get over his shyness and insecurities as a teenager. As time passed alcohol slowly became part of his life socially as he moved on to college and later in life. The road to addiction is a slow process usually starting as a solution to perceived problems or insecurities. At some point his drinking required him to create rules around drinking and eventually switched to marijuana then adding alcohol back into the mix. While successful in his chosen career path as a highly functioning person and a trained psychologist even he failed to see the problem himself initially. When he did realize it had become a problem, he tried to stop on his own many times each time failing, and this is a common theme among those struggling with addiction.
His road to recovery was when he chose to seek help from others, while overcoming his fears of being exposed as a fraud in that he was a trained psychologist. His most recent book titled “The Little Green Book (a guide to breaking up with marijuana) is intended to explore one’s relationship with marijuana with a nonjudgmental viewpoint.
The second story involves two fish swimming along and one fish says, “man this water is clear” and the other fish responds, “what’s water”, to illustrate consciousness, which is what we swim in and sometimes we aren’t even aware of the water. This really is an example of how we treat our thoughts as true versus a by-product of our experiences. Addictions come from this interaction with consciousness in it becomes a coping mechanism or process.
Story three, involves a period in the early 2000s after Michael had been in his recovery for about 10 years. He was contacted by Child and Family Services as an opportunity to use a federal grant to study teenage substance abusers. The study revealed that teenagers were terribly underserved compared to adults. When in fact many adults dealing with substance abuse began when they were teenagers. These substance abusers tend to have common traits such as issues with mood, emotion, trauma, mental and a oppositional defiance. This led to a motivational interviewing approach to treatment, for example asking open ended questions such as why don’t change.
Fourth, is his experience with Cold Stone Creamery as he and his wife discovered the wonders of this ice cream emporium and their design your own ice cream dream. They were visiting every week and always left extremely happy and satisfied. Eventually, he realized that the weekly trip had become an addiction to desire and not to the substance they sought. The desire is always different than the thing.
The last story involves getting past your fears. Michael had a fear of speaking to large groups early in his career, until he saw a close friend take the stage at the Wharton Center to introduce a national writer lecture and his friend was so comfortable and at ease at the podium. He asked his friend the secret, to which he explained the key is to remove yourself and your worries from the equation by viewing your role as giver and a conduit to the message.
After several questions and Michael’s thoughtful responses, the meeting was brought to a close by President Sue, until we meet again in June.
Tim Adam's email is: TAdams@manercpa.com