Never Give Up With John Giordano Blossom Your Awesome Podcast

Blossom Your Awesome Podcast Never Give Up With John Giordano

John Giordano joins us on episode #243.

John Giordano is an Addiction, Trauma and Recovery Expert - MAC, DHL, CAP, Certified Hypnotherapist, Author, and Entrepreneur

John is an addiction expert whose career spans over thirty-years. His passion for helping people is evident through his decades of work of helping thousands of addicts find their path of recovery at his former treatment center.

He is considered by his peers to be a pioneer in holistic addiction treatment. John developed innovative new therapies early in his career that have been proven effective and gone on to become standard care in most modern treatment centers. He continues to play a pivotal role in the ongoing effort to usher evidenced-based and scientifically proven holistic modalities into the mainstream of addiction medicine.

To learn more about John check him out at his website.

To follow me, get bonus content from the show, my own takeaways and favorite quotes, along with access to my newsletter Check me out here at my Substack.

This is the best place to support my work.

Or sign up for my Weekly Newsletter here.

To see more of my work check me out at my website where I write and cover mindfulness and other things to help you Blossom Your Awesome.

Or checkout my other site where I right about arts and culture, wellness, essays and op-eds.

Or follow me on instagram where I post fairly regularly and ask an inquisitive question or two weekly in hopes of getting you thinking about your life and going deeper with it.

My Instagram - i_go_by_skd

To see more of who I'm talking to on the Podcast, to advertise your brand on the Blossom Your Awesome Podcast or just get in touch click here.  

Transcript

Sue (00:00.672)
Hi there. Today on the show, we have got Dr. John Giordano here with us. I am so honored and delighted to have you here. Welcome to the show.

Dr. John Giordano (00:11.938)
Thank you, and I'm honored to be on anybody's show who is giving good information to people that is desperately needed.

Sue (00:20.076)
Well, you do remarkable work. It's, okay, I'm gonna try to do some of what you do justice here. So you are certified addiction professional, master addiction counselor, certified hypnotherapist, criminal justice specialist, master in neuro linguistics, programming, certified practitioner of EMDR. The list goes on and on. You have a center, a recovery center.

that you had an award-winning recovery center that you eventually sold, G&G Holistic Addiction Treatment Center, and give us the backstory here, how and why, and there's more. There's more to the certifications and honorary degrees and doctorates and all of that, but give us your backstory.

Dr. John Giordano (01:11.01)
You know, I'm a recovering addict. Matter of fact, I just came up on December 4th, 39 years of recovery. I didn't think I'd get 39 minutes, nevermind 39 years. But the backstory goes, I give you a little bit about my history, okay? And I wanna segue right through it because I wanna get to the stuff that people can use today. Okay? First of all, I come from a mafia type family.

My father was a heroin dealer. My uncle was a hit man. Uh, my grandfather was a Shylock. Those are the guys that lend you money. If you don't pay on time or you didn't pay, you paid one way or the other. My whole family was like nefarious type family. People used to ask me, Hey John, how come you don't watch your sopranos? I said, I don't have to. I lived it. So, uh, real quick when I was eight, my father, uh, went to jail. Uh, he was, uh, selling heroin and he got busted.

And eight and a half, I got molested by boys in the neighborhood. And then at nine, I got molested by this girl who was 14. She was babysitting me. And I had to deal with all that stuff. And I put this out there for people who have been molested. And, you know, until you get that experience, it's very difficult to talk to other people that they don't say, so you don't understand what it felt like. And it's very debilitating.

I didn't know if I was straight. I didn't know if I was gay. I didn't know what something's wrong with me. Don't have evil in me. Even with the priest and said, you could take this evil out of me. You know, um, I went through all that growing up. I got into gangs. I was in black gangs, Hispanic gangs, Irish gangs. I was in every gang known to man. And, um, I wondered up stumbling into karate and, you know, I was this wild 14 and a half year old kid that thought he was the toughest guy in the neighborhood. And you know how.

As they say, youth is wasted on the young. Well, that was so true. Anyway, I saw this karate school, my other gang member, he said, hey, let's go up and see if we can beat up the karate teacher. By the way, don't try that, it's not a good idea. Anyway, we went upstairs and the class was still going and I was getting late, I had to get home. Otherwise, my father would hit me with the belt. You know, he was out of jail already and I was 14 and a half. He got out of jail when I was 12.

Dr. John Giordano (03:27.83)
And anyway, I went up and I joined. My mother didn't want me to join. My father said, it's okay. We joined. I joined the karate class and anyway, it was a jujitsu class. I didn't know the difference. I just wanted to beat up the instructor. You know, I wanted to show them how tough I was. Anyway, I got up there and he was showing us how to fall, how to roll, how to do all this stuff, and then we sat in a circle and he said, I'm going to show you how to block a punch. He says, do I have a volunteer? And I raised my hand right away. And as he was talking to the class, I went to punch him in the head.

And by the way, don't do that. I winded up on the floor. I had a foot in my throat and I was looking up and this round face smiling at me. I fell in love with the martial arts and I've been doing the martial arts for over 60 years and Black Belt Hall of Fame national, five time national karate champion and all that kind of stuff. Um, I really bought into this. I got a, I quit school in the ninth grade. I was very insecure. I couldn't spell very well. Now they have spell checks. I'm doing pretty good.

And, you know, I had it. So there's a lot of things through my journey. I mean, sometimes people ask me, what would you change in your life? I said, absolutely nothing. You know, and the, for the reason is everything that happened to me got me to where I am today. So I'm going to go segue all the ways through my uncle, through my wedding, when I was 20, I told you who my uncle was anyway. Uh, it was very interesting when it was a Jewish girl.

and I'm an Italian and the Jewish girl's parents, he was a lawyer, she was the head of the PTA and they didn't want them to marry a non-Jewish guy and but they fell in love with my family. I guess they didn't see too good. Anyway, my family was great, they just don't mess with them, that's all. Anyway, my uncle threw the wedding and on one side, they had the groom and then they had the bride and on the side that the groom,

The bride, they had lawyers and doctors with pens and suits. And on the other side, they had racketeer guys with guns. So it was a whole different kind of diverse crew. Anyway, Decatur insulted my uncle in front of the family. So he killed him the next day. And my bride and I had to leave town real quick because they were coming over to my grandmother's house. She's throwing guns down the chute because he was living with my grandmother. And he said, the detectives are coming. You guys got to get out of here right away.

Dr. John Giordano (05:55.222)
So I said, what do you mean? He killed the caterer. I said, oh my God. So we had to make excuses how we had to leave to the airport. We went to the airport and I left. So that's some of the stories. I have this book that I wrote. It's called the kid from the South Bronx who never gave up. It's how I turned $300 into 45 million. And if you, if you would've said that to me growing up, I probably would've punched you in the face thinking you're trying to make fun of me.

But I winded up in, fast forward, I winded up in recovery. My family did an intervention. I mean, I'm wondering who did an intervention on them. But anyway, they said I was getting out of control. I was going into treatment. I had a spiritual awakening in treatment. I moved on. I wanted to become a therapist. I really loved what was going on. I was still very insecure. I went back to school, got my GED. And it's what I'm trying to teach people with the book.

It doesn't matter where you come from, what your family was like, what your education was like, how you perceive yourself, you can be successful and you can make a difference in the world. And that's why I wrote the book. And, um, and I, and it was very difficult writing the book cause I was revisiting all my traumas. Half the time I was crying. Another half the time I put the book down and I didn't want to write anymore. Then I picked it back up a month later.

And it was quite a journey. And if I may, can I read something from the book, the cover?

Sue (07:32.197)
love that please.

Dr. John Giordano (07:33.59)
Well, here's what I wrote through what I've learned. The kid from the South Bronx who never gave up. Here is my roadmap for positive change. There is one thing in this world, one special lesson, one constant that has guided me through the turbulent waters of life. This infinite rule, which most people know, but ignore, who simply do not follow their life lessons. That is, no matter what.

no matter the circumstances, the obstacles, the people that get in our way, or things that slow us down, follow this one simple rule. Never give up on your dreams, never let go of your passions, and especially never give up on yourself or a God of your understanding. My name is John Giordano, and I'm a recovering addict who turned $300 into 45 million. I was blessed to become currently

extremely successful and I'd like to share my story with you. This is how my life was transformed and how I was saved from falling into the abyss of hell. And by following this one rule and learning how to have a life with

And that's my advice or what I'm sharing that I learned through my trials. And the words I'm still going through. I just had cancer in my throat. Beat that. Um, I just got operated on my neck seven weeks ago. They put, uh, I got, let me see 14 screws and two rods and 43 staples in my back.

And all the alternative treatments that I learned over the years, God bless me. I can't even sue. I can't even explain. I am with some of the top scientists actually in the world. How did that happen? I have no idea. And, you know, it was very interesting. I opened up a hospital program. I had no money. I was homeless. I was living in a hotel. I got divorced. I was living in a hotel. Uh, my friend gave me a room that he owned the hotel. I had a bicycle. Somebody loaned me.

Dr. John Giordano (09:44.298)
Had a Jari Superquarters in one of the headquarters. So I know what it's like to be homeless. And it wasn't the first time. I used to live in my karate school dressing room, which was six feet wide and 15 feet long. It was in between two buildings. Somebody put a roof over it and a back and a front and opened it to my karate school. So I know what it's like to be poor. I know what it's like to be an inner city kid. And I know what it's like to have money. And you wanna know the truth.

It's always an inside job. And spirituality is the foundation. I don't go with religion. I go with spirituality. Learn to be kind instead of right. You know, treat people, you know, the way you want to be treated. Help people less fortunate than you. Don't do your best not to lie, cheat or steal, you know, and become a better human being. And that's what I attribute to in my life.

And I don't know how all this stuff happened. I'm with Dr. Deborah Mash, who is a neuromolecular scientist from the University of Miami School of Medicine. She was the head of the Brain Bank and the Alzheimer's Foundation, but she's also a pioneer in psychedelic medicine, a treatment called Ibogaine, which is an incredible substance. I worked with her for 14 years on the island of St. Gertz, because it is a schedule one drug.

can't use that here in the United States. Pharmaceutical companies don't want that because then they don't make money. And what Ibogaine does, it detoxes people to 24 hours off of heroin, alcohol, cocaine, all that kind of stuff. Even though cocaine may not need a detox, but it detoxes them and resets their brain. And what happens with Ibogaine, Ibogaine is a bush from West Africa.

that was used by the Weene tribe and they use it as a rite of passage for their people. And what this guy Howard Lutzoff, one of the new high, he was looking to get high with this Ibogaine substance, right? And he was a tremendous heroin addict. I mean, I don't know how many 10 bags a day he was using him in real heavy duty. Anyway, he did Ibogaine. He woke up the next morning detox, which is unheard of. Usually takes anywhere from seven to nine to 10 days depending.

Dr. John Giordano (12:09.134)
If you're a fast metabolizer, slow metabolizer, your liver functioning, how much drugs you're doing in order to detox your arylopoietin, it's like that. Anyway, he figured he could make money, opened up a place in Panama. He reached out to Dr. Maher. She was doing research on Ibogaine and they got together. But eventually, you know, addicts, just because they stop drugs and alcohol, doesn't mean that their behaviors have gotten much better. Little better, but not much better. So she left and she opened up a place in St. Kitts.

I don't want to go too much into the stories because we can't get the book and it talks about all of that stuff. It talks how I got cheated by my doctor and my therapist. I opened up a hospital program and I wanted to help people. So my friend that owns a hotel says, I told him, listen, I got this doctor, he's a famous addiction doctor and he wants to open up a treatment center. He says, oh, do you have him? I said, yeah, I lied. I didn't have any talk to him.

He was my doctor, but I never mentioned this. Now I didn't have any money, it was broke as a joke. And anyway, he said, well, how much money you need? Now what does an addict who went to a treatment center know about how much money you need to open up a treatment center? I had no clue. I said, okay, a quarter of a million dollars. He said, if you can get them, I'll give you the money. Okay, so I walked into his office, the doctor's office. I suggested, well, we had a quarter of a million dollars. He was like a community. So, you know, I was just thinking about that.

And we opened up this program called New Life. Instead of going through the whole rigmarole what happened, I hired my therapist. I hired all the people that helped me. I didn't know it was corporate rating. I just hired the people, helped me and gave them extravagant salaries. Anyway, my therapist was very jealous that I was his boss. Well, it's nothing to do with that. I just wanted to give back because he helped save my life. But anyway,

They took the treatment, set it out for Monday. I didn't have a lawyer, I'm a street kid, what do I know? You cheat me, I punch you in the face. But I can't do it anymore, now I'm in recovery. So that went on and then I opened up another, I went back to school. They allowed me to work there because they needed 6,000 hours and I had to go to school to get 300 hours of addiction training. And I went after my 6,000 hours, I went up leaving there.

Dr. John Giordano (14:34.998)
It's a whole thing, but you can read about it in the book. And, um, cause I want to get to the stuff that's really going to help people. I just want to give you a brief overview of my life. And anyway, I got it somehow. I got it hooked up with these doctors and all these different people. You know, when you're a street kid, you learn how to, how do you explain it? When you have nothing, you learn how to get something, you know, uh, when you're not in recovery, you do it illegally. When you're in recovery, you.

Don't let anything stop you, just keep going. And that's where I wind it up. Now I work with neuroscientists, geneticists, psychiatrists, researchers from 12 universities. I'm one of the leading experts on alternative medicine. I'm a leading expert on adaptation medicine. I'm a chaplain for the police department. If you ask me all this stuff, it's like crazy stupid. My wife says...

please don't tell all the people this, they think you're full of alonely. I said, well, they can look it up, look me up on Wikipedia, they can look me up anyway, you can see all this stuff. Anyway, I developed a program, my son almost died from this disease of addiction. My wife almost died, I almost died. And I saw what was going on, I says, we're not treating people, we're warehousing them. And I understand why, because it's all about money.

Unfortunately, our world became a total addiction, addictive world. It's about money, power and control. Just look at our governments. I don't care. You want to be a Democrat, you want to be a Republican, all the same stuff. You know, what poison you want to get, that's up to you. And the bottom line is, is that I wanted to do something different. And I started looking more deeply into what the Yumi condition was and why it was the way it was.

I love learning. I'm an avid reader. I remember I only went to the ninth grade, okay, which is almost like comical. All right. But you know what? Through time, I learned how to look at all this stuff. I learned how to do research. I became part of a team of researchers and the stuff I talk about, hardly anyone's talking about. So I always ask a question to therapists.

Dr. John Giordano (16:57.982)
and doctors and psychiatry. Where does depression come from? Where does anxiety come from? And they inevitably tell me, oh, it comes from trauma, early childhood stuff, low self-esteem, all of these different things. Isn't that correct? Yes, psychologically you're right. But it's supposed to be a medical model. Where's the medical? So I said, what about a low thyroid? Like we were talking earlier. If you have a low thyroid, you're gonna have depression and anxiety.

Go look it up guys, don't believe a word I tell you. I always tell people, please do not believe me. Look it up. Okay, leaky gut syndrome, H. pylori infection. These are gut issues. I've been doing this for 25 years, people used to laugh at me. Okay, the gut has more neurons in it. Go look it up, then the brain. What happens is serotonin and dopamine, those are your feel-good drugs that you manufacture naturally, all right?

a grown into your gut, 80 to 90%. Goes up what is called the vagus nerve and deposits it into the brain. So if your gut's messed up, guess what? This is gonna be messed up. Most people don't understand. Leaky gut, H. pylori, hypoglycemia. We see that a lot, low blood sugar in alcoholics. Okay, low testosterone. We did a study on clients that came in, 85% of them had low tests.

or very high tests, those were weight lifters, things like that, suffered from depression and anxiety. Heavy metals, that when you have heavy metals in your body, and we get it from rices, you got arsenic in rice, you got all kinds, go look this stuff up, you're not going to believe our food supply. You're going to be in shock, okay? Heavy metals causes a disruption in neurotransmitters, okay? It messes up the connections in the brain.

It mimics attention deficit disorder and bipolar disorder. Very interesting things that are going on. Now, the problem is, is when you go to treatment, insurance companies only cover stuff that really doesn't work that well. They don't cover all the things I'm talking about. All right. And the bottom line is...

Dr. John Giordano (19:22.906)
We keep doing the same thing over and over again, expecting different results for 70 years. We have a five to 8% recovery rate. What are we doing? All right, drugs and alcohol damage the brain. You ask a doctor what to do about it, he's gonna tell you time. Exercise, eat right. Now he's right about some of them. Addicts don't have time. Cause within the first two weeks of coming out of treatment, they're using. So how much time do they have?

But if you do hyperbaric medicine, that's oxygen under pressure, which turns into a medicine, which actually can heal the brain. Okay? It's amazing stuff that's out there. But the insurance companies won't pay for it.

So, oh, there's not enough research. There's not enough this, there's not enough that. Well, for God's sake, how about the research you're doing that you're paying for stuff that doesn't work? Now I have a way how to deal with this, okay? Which I would love to get in front of an insurance company and explain it to them, because I know it's about money, all right? It's a bad model. The treatment center's job is to make money and it's to get paid.

And the insurance company is not to pay. So you've got two opposing forces here. All right. Now what people don't understand is this. It doesn't take 30 days or two weeks to heal your brain. Drugs and alcohol changes the molecular structure of the way your brain functionality. That's a fact. And if you don't think drugs and, and do that to your brain, go on business with a guy that does drugs. Let me know how well you do.

All right? Rob your eyes out. Because addicts don't only abuse drugs and alcohol, they abuse people, places and things. Because their brain's not functioning right. Not all addicts are the same. I never robbed anybody. The only thing I robbed is my children from having a good father. I robbed my mother and father from having a good son. I robbed in a different way. And I robbed myself for being a better human.

Dr. John Giordano (21:38.89)
So yeah, we do abuse people, places and things. We abuse the people that love us. We abuse the people that are friends, the people that stand up for us here. And the bottom line is I go out there as much as I can to change the way we do treatment. Now my 62 bed inpatient facility, which I eventually got, which I started with $300 suit and you know.

After they paid me out from the other two treatment centers that I owned well that I worked in then They paid me eighty thousand dollars. We went to court. I finally got a lawyer and I had a spending condition because most addicts have more than one addiction And I only had three hundred dollars left and the woman that I was with at the time So why don't you open up an outpatient clinic? I said, I don't want to open up anymore treatment centers. But anyway, I wind up doing that and I had

one employee, you're looking at him. And then I have a friend of mine, I went partners where they said, look, I'll give you 50% of the company, you run the business, because I wasn't a business guy at the time. And he said, well, let me see your books. I said, what books? I said, I don't have any books. He said, well, honey, you know who pays you? Well, they give me money, I put it in my pocket, they'll pay. He said, are you crazy? They're adding, they're not gonna pay you. Well, eventually we straighten things out, we got his son.

with us as another partner who was a genius when he came to the internet. And we went from a 750 square foot place with creditors chasing us to a 2500 square foot place. Okay. And we had, we couldn't pay a bill. Sometimes we couldn't make payroll, but we gave people treatment anyway. Then we treated one of the clients. His father was a mult He bought us a bunch of buildings.

We expanded and we grew and the design of the program that I did was, and all of it is evidence-based, we had hyperbaric medicine. Now this is 20-something years ago. We treated the gut. We did micronutrient testing to see were you deficient because the body is a system like our planet. If the body is out of homeostasis, everything else falls into that space. We did neurofeedback, biofeedback.

Dr. John Giordano (24:02.846)
Aromatherapy, acupuncture, lymphatic massage to get the drugs out of the body on a cellular level. We did colonics. We did, we took them to the gym. We did hypnotherapy. We did EM trauma work. You can't believe all the stuff we did. And we have aftercare for life. So as long as they, we were alive and they were alive, we had them come and did group therapy on Skype or in person if they were in town.

Nobody, even today, has done that. And people say, well, you didn't, you didn't get any money from, uh, the massage and the hyperbaric. I said, no, I see. I understand addicts. We'll feel good junkies. If it feels good, we want more. So what it did was we gave them four free modalities. You can do hyperbaric, you can do a massage, you can do a colonic and you can do whatever. All right. After that, if you liked it, then you would buy.

different modalities at half price. So I says, well, at least we, you know, if we can break even it'd be good, but we made money, excuse me, and not only did we make money, we became a brand. And what wound up happening was after about 18 years of doing this. And let me digress a little bit. We were in trouble early on and I was going out with this other woman who's now my wife for 28 years. Um.

And we're going out for three months and I needed money to continue what I was doing and she had a brand new car and she had two kids in it and they were destroying the car. I said, look, sell the car, give me the money and I'll buy you one day, a car 10 times better. So she sold the car. All right. Our parents freaked out, our brother, everybody freaked out. How could you not, not with this guy for three months. She says, I believe in him. Well.

Eight years later, I bought him a Bentley.

Dr. John Giordano (26:07.446)
So that's how God put this woman into my life. It was the best woman I've ever met in my entire life. Not because she gave me the 20,000, but she believes in me as crazy as I sound. And then I'm also one of the leading experts in psychedelics and that's where I'm going today. We're talking about psychedelic medicine. Do you have any questions?

Sue (26:32.624)
I have so many questions for you. Now, first of all, in your own recovery, were you tapping into some of these alternative modalities? Is that how, and that's how you realized, okay, this is really where it's at. This is what, because you, your space, your center, G&G, was having astounding numbers in terms of success.

Dr. John Giordano (26:45.47)
Absolutely.

Sue (27:02.176)
paired to other centers, right? Where you say the numbers are so much lower, but you guys have like a 60% success rate.

Dr. John Giordano (27:12.046)
Well, here's the deal. I would never suggest anything to anybody unless I did it myself. Now, just because it works on me doesn't mean it's gonna work on you. But at least there's a good starting point for me that I know at least it worked for me. So not everything works for everyone. So I just want to make it clear with everybody out there. But in recovery about depression, anxiety, you gotta keep on doing different things if you want to overcome it. If you sit back...

what's the alternative? You're going to suffer? All right. We suffer enough as human beings. To me, this is hell. When you die, you go to heaven. So the bottom line is, is that never give up. All right. And don't give up before the miracle happens either. You know, people try something for a minute and they go, oh, it didn't work. No, it took time for you to get sick. It takes time for you to get well. Now the problem with the addiction treatment model

It's a 28 day or two week, three week model. How in the world is someone that's doing drugs for 10 years, five years, 20 years, 30 years, going to get well in three weeks? It's like ridiculous. Okay? So it's about money. Okay. Well, I came up with a methodology that's a real simple methodology through a demonstration project.

You have a 60 to 90 day treatment program, okay, based on the severity of the illness. Inpatient, not outpatient, because outpatient, they fly away. All right. They need to be in long enough to get their mind straight enough to see some clarity and where they are and what they're doing. Doesn't mean they're not going to relapse, but they have a better shot at it. All right. Now, where do I, and then doing all these different modalities that I spoke about earlier.

treating the whole person from trauma all the ways to healing the brain, healing the gut, proper diet, exercise, spirituality, which is a foundation. Addicts lose their God. I know me. I didn't care about God. God what? You know? And here I am a chaplain for the police. My father must be rolling over in the grave. But what the bottom line is, is that...

Dr. John Giordano (29:36.738)
There's a program out which is called the Physicians Referral Network. Okay. It's a 90 day program, five year aftercare program for doctors who use drugs, who get busted or turn themselves in. Okay. To go to rehab. And that's their model. They have a 90% recovery rate. Now the pushback is, well, they're afraid of losing their license. That may be partially true.

Let's say it's a 40%. Okay, 30%, how about 20%? That's better than five to 8%. Now, if you have millions of people that are dying, how many people are you saving? Can't save everybody, but at least we could ship away. And that's how we need to look at it. Now, the insurance companies to me, they think they're so smart, they're as dumb as a rock. So I'll tell you why I say that. My insurance card is my golden ticket to three hearts in a car.

And what does that mean? I can go Sue, I can go to your program. I come out, I relapse, I can go to John's program. I relapse, I can go Harry's program. I can make the gambit all the way around. And you know how many thousands of dollars that's causing, costing the insurance company? It's almost like a joke. My idea is to have them go to treatment for 60 to 90 days, like I said, depending on the severity of the illness.

treating them with all these modalities, all right? Making sure later on, depending on what population you're treating, some populations, they definitely need life skill training. They need all kinds of other things. Other people need other types of modalities, other kinds of treatment modalities. But looking at that, and what they don't understand is really simple. So after that, if they relapse once, okay?

You put them back in for re up two weeks, three weeks, whatever. But if they relapse again, then they no longer can use that insurance, but they have to go to a, uh, not for profit rehab. All right. And after a year, they can use their insurance for rehab again. Simple, not rocket science. It's a numbers game. So that's my idea of how to deal with this stuff. It does it have flaws in it?

Dr. John Giordano (32:02.762)
Maybe yes, maybe no, but it's a hell of a lot better model than.

Sue (32:07.812)
Mm-hmm. So are you, I mean, so really you would be up against insurance companies because so few people could actually afford this kind of treatment, right?

Dr. John Giordano (32:20.012)
Right.

Sue (32:21.808)
Yeah, wow. I mean, it's an incredible idea. So and I know you guys have a center. You are on the board of this new center in Florida. Up and coming like virtual state of the art that's going to offer everything.

Dr. John Giordano (32:37.578)
Yeah, we want to change how the medical industry functions. Okay. We're going to be doing body scans to see if you have things that are not showing up on regular exams. We're doing micronutrient testing, gut testing. You know, if you catch things early, your chances of survival and doing better go up extra nominally.

Okay. But you know, we don't do that. Sometimes you can't even get an appointment for a doctor for a month. Meanwhile, what's happening? It's getting worse. It's getting worse and getting worse. I'll give you an example. I went when I had cancer in my throat, I had, uh, HPV, uh, which is a virus that you get from having sex. I'll put it that way. Okay. So what happened was, uh, I went in.

And I use Western medicine and I use Eastern medicine, you know, but I'm also a researcher. So I researched what the alternatives are. So they cut the cancer out and then they have this guy comes into the office with the doctor. And he says, well, we want to tell you about radiation and chemotherapy. I said, thank you, but no, thank you. He said, well, what do you mean? I said, well, let me explain something to you. And I'm not talking for anybody else. I'm not saying you shouldn't get this. This is just for me.

All right. I said, you got a five year study. You got a 30% success, right? A success rate. Okay. And what's leftover causes more harm sometimes than the radiation and the chemo. I says, no, thank you. So it's been almost two years now. I'm cool. Not to say it might come back. It won't come back, but it's the type of cancer that's very treatable. And the bottom line is, is your attitude is the most important.

thing in your whole life. And if you don't have your health, you don't have your wealth. Period. So that's why in my home, and we talked about it if I believe in it, I have a state-of-the-art hyperbaric chamber because I can afford it now. I have a red light therapy bed which heals inflammation and helps you with your skin and wrinkles and all kinds of other stuff. You know, I'm 77 years old. And I still compete. I still work out.

Dr. John Giordano (35:02.202)
I'm in better shape than some 30-year-olds, because if you don't exercise, you don't move your body, forget it. All right? I have infrared sauna. I have a massage room. I have a steam room. I have another thing you put your feet in. It's called anionization that gets the toxins out of your body. I have a cold plunge in my house. People come in and go, what is this, a spa? I said, let me explain something to you.

Okay. And I get massaged with you just had before we went on this podcast. Okay. I said, look, I do any D plus any D is amazing. Are you familiar with any D soon?

Sue (35:43.548)
What is NAD?

Dr. John Giordano (35:45.158)
NAD look it up guys. NAD is an enzyme That we manufacture naturally, but as we get older it diminishes like other things Okay, and it works with what is called your myocondria Your myocondria is the engine for every cell in your body And when you do NAD Okay, what it does is it repairs the cells in your body and gives you energy NMN

You heard the, you always hear people talking about Nick and my, I can't even pronounce it. Okay. And all I can tell you is this, you get younger, you can go back in time on a cellular level. You have a chronological age and you have a cellular age. Okay. Now, unfortunately, okay. It takes money. Sorry.

until we can catch up with helping the people that are less fortunate. Uh, you know, if you're like me, you can maneuver through all this stuff, but, you know, a lot of people don't have that ability and, uh, there's stuff out there that's mind blowing. I didn't even see, if you have a D deficiency, uh, you have to look at different nutrients and you have to make sure, you know, both doctors go, well, you know,

Sue (36:51.564)
Right?

Sue (36:58.207)
Wow. And now.

Dr. John Giordano (37:09.554)
I give you an example. I was lecturing in Gainesville to the Addiction Doctors Society, but since I'm not a medical doctor, you know, they got to get CMEs. My friend was the president. So he opened up the lecture. I did the meat of the lecture and he closed, so therefore they can get their CMEs. And one of the things I told him about was nutrients. And one of the doctors raised his hand and goes, look, John, it's an unregulated industry. And if you eat right,

You said, you don't need any nutrients. He says, well, you're partially true. I said, but doc, look around the room and let me know who do you think is eating right? The whole room broke up laughing. All the doctors with a belly on them, they're all out of shape. You know, these are healthcare people. You know, look, all I know is this. You can talk the talk, but you gotta walk the walk. And that's just about it. And I do my best to set an example because people don't listen too much about what you say, they watch what you do. And that's how children function also.

Sue (38:09.696)
So let me ask you, John, now, you know, what is, I love your story and this idea, this is something we touched on earlier about recovery. And I know it's not easy. You are an anomaly in the sense that it's such a small percentage. Like you say, so many people might go to recovery, they do that two, three weeks, and then within a matter of weeks, they're using again. And then they just don't even.

bother ever returning to recovery because in their minds or their experiences that it doesn't work. Right? So few people actually recover and stay recovered. But it's possible. So what is your advice? What is your guidance to somebody who feels, who wants to recover but just doesn't know how to get started?

Dr. John Giordano (39:03.438)
Well, you know what? People don't believe in AA, NA, church and all this stuff. Look, you need to get with a group of people that are on the same path as you, number one. I mean, look, I'm a recovering addict. I don't hang out with addicts that are using. I hang out with people that are not using. It's very difficult because most addicts and alcoholers suffer from depression and anxiety. And the segue now into the psychedelic field,

Because SSRIs, you know, those are Zoloft, Wellbutrin, Limectil, all these other drugs that psychiatrists give people. That's really a guessing game. They really don't know. Okay, that's why, oh, take more of this, take less of this, take this, take that. We're not looking at people as systems. We're a system. Okay? You have genetics. Okay. You have.

all kinds of different things, gut issues, body issues, trauma issues. So we met treating people with wholism. That's number one. So you got to go out and do the best you can with what you can. And that's what I did. But I had a little bit more luck with that because of luck or whatever you want to call it. Being a martial artist, you know, I learned all this stuff. I just wasn't practicing.

the way I was taught with the discipline, the focus, how to tolerate pain, how to do all of that stuff. All right, and once I got it to recovery, I picked it back up. So I had that skillset. So what people have to do is they have to develop a skillset. They have to go to treatment, and treatment should be at least six months. 90 days, six months, wherever you go.

Otherwise, 28 days will work for some people like me. I'm lucky, only relapsed, none. I have one white chip, okay? And I'm the guy that didn't want to go to treatment, I'm the guy that didn't have a problem. So I wasn't an atypical guy. And matter of fact, in treatment, it says I was less likely to succeed.

Dr. John Giordano (41:18.038)
So it's in God's hands, whatever God is to any of you out there, but you got to do the work, man. Okay. If you don't want to do the work, go to meetings, sit in the meeting room. You have no money, sit in the meeting room. Oh, that stuff I, I don't like it because I want to use, you want to use anyway. So at least be in the place where people are trying not to use, you know, it's not about giving yourself all this baloney and why, you know, so all I know is this every time I use to get away from a problem, I created nine more problems.

So how's that working for any of you out there?

So maybe you need to change something different that you don't believe in.

Sue (41:59.004)
And I love this idea of, because so often you hear people, they want to quit, but they don't know how to quit or there's no one there. They don't have anyone who's going to help them. There are no resources, but like you say, building that community and there are free resources. There are places you can go and find other like-minded people who are having that same struggle, but who are trying to quit and wanting to quit or have quit and are getting through it.

Dr. John Giordano (42:15.583)
Yes, sir.

Dr. John Giordano (42:28.302)
Well, I was a clinical director for a place called The Better Way. It was a 55, at the time it was a 55 bed indigent facility for people that had HIV, who were homeless and who were dual diagnosed. That means they had mental health problems and addiction problems. And a lot of these people that stayed in there for six months in a year, didn't recover. How long? I can't track people for their whole life.

But at least I know for about six months to a year, they were doing good. And that's not the average today.

Gotta keep up the work. It's like going to the gym for a month, getting really working hard, man. And don't go anywhere and say, well, I can't believe I'm not in shape. You gotta continue. You gotta put the effort in. No effort, no anything. And stop giving up before the miracle happens.

Sue (43:26.56)
Oh, I love that. And now, John, you know, at one point, or you've mentioned psychedelics, and that's really kind of an up and coming thing, which is showing a lot of promise. Uh, do you believe that to be a potential answer for recovery?

Dr. John Giordano (43:48.598)
Well, I'll put it to you this way. It's another tool in the toolbox. Doesn't work for everyone, but it works for a lot of people. Ketamine, for instance, is an anesthetic that they use in the operating room. At low doses, okay, they use for depression and anxiety. And what happens is it turns into like a form of psychedelic and it sends you back into your subconscious. See, what most people don't understand, talk therapy is very important.

I don't poo anything. If it works for you, please do it. I don't care. But I just want you to be open minded, take a look at other modalities, other things that may or may not help you. Talk therapy deals with the software of the brain.

Psychedelics, on the other hand, and EMDR, okay, which is a trauma technique, deals with the hard drive. It's just like your computer. Our brains are like a computer. If you erase stuff off of your computer, it's still on your hard drive. That's why the FBI comes in and they take your hard drive. Okay. Because the stuff is still there. All right. So you have to deal with what's driving these things. Okay. Not just with the soft part of it. All right.

So what psychedelics do when done properly, you know, I did every drug known to man. I did all the psychedelics. I'm a sixties kid, okay? Not the same. You have to do it in an environment where you have an intention of healing, where you have a therapist, that's an integrative therapist, not a regular therapist. They have to understand and know how to deal with psychedelic patients, because they are different.

Okay? And what you do is you help them to, when they go into their journey, to help them extrapolate out what they see in their journey. You know, just because you see an ocean or you see a person in your, in your dream state, doesn't mean that's what it really means. Okay? So everything has different meanings to it. And what you do is you work with the patient.

Dr. John Giordano (46:00.29)
They go, wow, I never thought of this. Wow, I never thought of that. And they start to have resolution. But you know, psychedelics is like any other thing, just like treatment, just like exercise, just like diet. It's called consistency. So we learned through, uh, fMRIs and CAT scans that for instance, ketamine and psilocybin and all these other, uh, drugs, uh, plant medicines. Okay.

What they do is they grow new neurons, new connections in the brain. But a new connection is just like a path in the woods. And you see when you go in the woods and you see there's a path where people have walked, you see it's like dirt and either side there's the grass, okay, the floral. All right. But what happens if nobody walks in there anymore? It overgrows. So if you don't work and nurturing that new connection.

with proper behaviors, with proper diet, with proper exercise and things like that. It goes back to where it was. We always go back to what we're familiar with. So in order to create a new habit and new connections, you have to give time time. And that's where people get stuck. They think they do a psychedelic and they're fixed. Or you get people that keep doing psychedelics, keep doing psychedelic.

No, no, no. Once you learn what you need to do, now you have to do the work. You know, everybody wants a quick fix and how to get there quick. There's no quick. It didn't take you quick to get to as sick as you are. Took you time. Takes time to get well. People go, how much time? Everyone's different. Everyone is different. So that's what you have to realize. And that's what I, and you know, people say, well, I'm recovered. Well, that means you're dead.

They said, what do you mean? Are you alive? They go, yeah. Well, excuse my expression, shit happens. How are you dealing with it? Where's your tools? Are you still using those tools? Oh, you forgot about them. So as life goes on, you're gonna have threats, you're gonna have disappointments, you're gonna have betrayals. You're gonna have a whole list of different things in your life, okay? That's gonna show up. It's how you suit up.

Dr. John Giordano (48:29.538)
that was going to make the difference. So it's an ongoing treatment. I'm always learning about myself. I'm always working on myself. One thing I learned in life, and this is what I teach people, you know what I know? I don't know. That's what I know. So as long as you remain a good student, maybe one day you'll be a good teacher.

Sue (48:57.857)
Mm-hmm. Oh, I love it, John. So much wisdom, so many insights. So a couple of things. First and foremost, I just want to thank you so much for your time today. You've had so much wisdom. I think people are going to have so many great takeaways from all of what you've shared here. I'm going to be sure to have your links for people. I know you're up to more big things, so I would love to

Sue (49:25.968)
And now in closing, you've already said all of these amazing things. But if there was just one message, your hope for everybody, what is that closing message you want to leave us with?

Dr. John Giordano (49:40.922)
simple. Never give up on yourself, on the god of your understanding, on your dreams, on your passions. No matter what occurs, alright, there's other people worse off than you sometimes. So be grateful for what you do have, instead of what you don't have.

Sue (50:06.996)
That is such a powerful closing message. John, you've been so amazing. Thank you so much.

Dr. John Giordano (50:13.61)
My pleasure. Thank you for having me on.

Sue (50:15.98)
Thank you.