A Way to Recover: Trey Lewis (Transcript)

Here is the full transcript of CEO of Good Landing Recovery, Trey Lewis’ talk titled “A Way to Recover” at TEDxAlexanderPark 2023 conference.

Listen to the audio version here:

TRANSCRIPT:

Hey guys, my name is Trey Lewis and I’m the founder and CEO of a drug and alcohol program. It is, to my knowledge, the largest or one of the largest drug and alcohol programs in the nation. I say that as an introduction because as I talk about recovery today, you should know that we will probably treat over a thousand patients this year. This project doesn’t just come from an idea I had one day. I’m not a medical professional, but it is born out of passion.

My Personal Journey

I was raised in North Mississippi to a good family, went on a collegiate tennis scholarship, and ended up an IV methamphetamine drug addict. By the time I was 25 years old, I’d been through 10 treatment centers and had 4 DUIs. I remember what it was like during that time when my family and all those peers in school, who at one time cared so deeply about me and with whom we had great relationships, no longer believed in me. They no longer had any hope for my life.

Honestly, I ran into somebody recently and they said, “You know what, I just can’t believe what you’re doing now. What I would have thought a win would have been for you is if you just would have stayed alive. If you just would have stayed alive and stayed out of prison, I would have thought, man, your life turned out successful.” I remember that shame and I remember that guilt.

Seeking Change

One thing that I did after that last treatment center was run and join the United States military. I joined the Air Force in hopes that maybe Uncle Sam could fix me. Maybe there was some lack of discipline or something that I was lacking. But there’s a saying that says, “Wherever you go, there you are.”

The problem was that I took myself with me. It didn’t matter whether I was in North Mississippi or at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California or Atlanta, Georgia. If it doesn’t change in here, then I’m going to eventually go back. If I don’t change my environment and I don’t really start to pick and choose who’s going to be in it, then I’m going to find myself back in that place again.

Rock Bottom in the Air Force

Sure enough, 2,000 miles away from home, there I was on the West Coast, and I found myself in trouble yet again. I’m sitting there wondering, “What in the world is going on?” I ended up getting my fourth DUI out there while I was in the Air Force. Some of those weren’t charges, but this fourth one, I’d gotten it, and it was a major violation in the military. They put it up at the front gate. I had to do a public apology to my squadron.

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I remember just thinking, “What in the world is going on with my life?” I was at an airman’s event one night, and the command chief master sergeant of that Air Force Base, the highest enlisted rank there, saw me and said, “Airman Lewis, I see leadership on your life, and I want to mentor you.” I knew that he did not know that I was the airman that had just gotten the DUI, that I was the black stain on the entire base. I just sheepishly said, “Chief, I don’t know if you understand that I’m the one that just got the DUI.”

He goes, “I don’t care. I see leadership on your life, and I want to mentor you.”

The Power of Mentorship

The next week, I walked into his office. It was this huge office, the biggest office I’d ever been in. It had a couch in it. I mean, it blew me away. He sat down with me and started to invest in my life. What that did for me was to show that somebody looked at me when I did not believe in myself, when I felt like my whole life had shattered and it was just business as usual and this was going to be the outcome of my life. Somebody took the time to invest in me, who loved me when I did not love myself. And it was powerful.

The Current State of Addiction

That’s what it’s all about today when I say, “How do we recover?” When you look at these statistics, over 20 million drug addicts and alcoholics in the United States over the age of 12 years old, 90-something thousand opioid overdoses that ended in death. I mean, we’re not talking about the hundreds of thousands where they were Narcaned and brought back to life. This is huge, what we’re facing today.

We see all of that and you say, “Man, what is the deal? Why are we seeing this? Is it a lack of research?” I don’t think that’s it. On my staff, I have an addictionologist, somebody that went to Florida, a former surgeon that specializes in addiction medicine and is the dean of the college at Georgia College of the addiction medicine program. Three nurse practitioners, 15-20 master’s level therapists. You look at this and you’re thinking, “Hey, what is the common denominator?”

The Root of Addiction: Pride

I believe that it’s pride. There are so many different things that are going on when somebody is being ushered into recovery. What we end up seeing is that when somebody gets addicted, it changes the way that they negotiate life. It changes. I don’t care if you were raised in the absolute best family with the two best parents. If that person has a genetic predisposition and they end up addicted, then what ends up happening is that it changes.

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The Power of Environment

James Clear in “Atomic Habits” talks about the Vietnam War.

In 1971, they’re in the 16th year of the Vietnam War. Do some research. Over 20% of the soldiers in Vietnam are addicted to heroin. So they start to insulate. They start to put all the programs in place to help these refugees, if you will, out of drug addiction when they come back to America because they know it’s going to be such a major issue.

What they found out is that when they pulled them out of the stress of war, took them out of an environment where all these triggers went around, where they had heroin at their fingertips, and put them back in America, 90% of them went cold turkey. The drug addiction went away just like that.

Now, some of that might sound contradictory to “wherever you go, there you are,” but it’s not an either/or, it is a both/and. It is realizing that I’ve got to change the inside of me, but then I also have to be able to change my environment. I have to say I’m going to choose the music that I’m going to be listening to. I’ve got to choose the people that are going to be in my life and what’s going to be said about me.

Learning to Fight a New Way

I boxed when I was out in California. It wasn’t a big deal, so don’t start Googling my name and boxing with it, but the guy that trained me was a big deal. He fought number five in the world light heavyweight. He made an appearance in Rocky II and was just an amazing coach. But I think probably like so many guys, we all think that we know how to fight.

But the first day that I showed up to a training session with him and he’s telling me to show him my jab, I’m just thinking, “I have no idea what I’m doing. I don’t know how to throw a punch.” And so he taught me how to fight.

Here’s the deal: I can teach you how to box in about two minutes. I can teach you a jab. I can teach you a right cross. I can teach you a left and right hook. I can teach you a left and right uppercut, just like that. But do you think that you’re ready for the ring? Do you think that you’re ready to go and get in the cage tomorrow, even though you would be able to give intellectual assent? No, it is getting in an environment and throwing thousands and thousands and thousands of punches before it becomes yours.

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The Importance of Persistence in Recovery

I think that’s the problem all of the time, whenever we’re getting somebody into the environment and saying, “Hey, the longer that you stay in this environment, your chances go up exponentially of walking into long-term recovery.” You can give intellectual assent. You can agree that the bench press works, and that if you lift heavy weight, it will give you a bigger chest. But until you get underneath that bar and start lifting that heavy weight, you’ll never see any results.

We’ve got to get in that place and we’ve got to find people that say, “Hey, you’ve got to stay in the place long enough so that you can see real transformation and not prematurely abort the process.”

Conclusion

It is my mission. It is my goal. It is my passion to see people walk into recovery. It is nothing that excites me more when we’re doing graduations on Friday nights and parents stop by after the presentation is over and they say to me, “Trey, thank you so much.” And I know this is God’s work and I know that I just have a front row seat to it when they said, “I haven’t seen the light in my kids’ eyes in so long. My spouse has not been physically, emotionally present with our family in decades and now we have him back. We have our mom back. We have our sister back.”

So hopefully today I’ve empowered you to be able to remove the stigma and to know that we are fighting against the disease and that these aren’t throwaways. They’re not second-class citizens, but these are people that we want to go after and say there is a way out of this hell of active addiction.

Thank you guys so much. It’s been a pleasure.