Our Guest
Ana Lankford, LMFT
Ana is is the program director for Oklahoma’s only recovery high school. She has extensive experience with adolescents and Substance Use Disorder, and greatly enjoys educating others on this often overlooked population.
Transcript for this episode:
Josh: Hello and welcome back to our next episode of the Therapist Collective. I am super, super excited to have Anna Lankford with me here today. Anna is the program director for Oklahoma’s only recovery high school. She has extensive experience with adolescence and substance use disorder, greatly enjoys educating others on this often overlooked population.
I’ll just say I was really thrilled when I saw that Anna was interested in joining me for this, and I did a little bit of research on the school that she’s the program director for, and I can’t wait to hear more about it. Welcome to the show, Anna. Thanks for being here.
Ana: Thank you for having me. I’m always excited to share about what we do and how it can impact teens lives.
Josh: Perfect. Okay. So for people like me who had never really heard of recovery high schools, give us the rundown. What is the recovery high school all about?
Ana: So just some basic history on my school and how we came to be is kind of the, the basic explanation as far as how that all works and how, how it all developed.
So we started about 18 years ago. And we started under the umbrella of an organization called Oklahoma Outreach. And what that was, was a non profit that helped parents send their teens to treatment. And so treatment’s very expensive. Anyone who’s sent a kiddo to treatment knows that even with insurance, it just is, it is so expensive and so prohibitive.
So they started this non profit to financially assist parents who wanted to send their kids to treatment. And so they were sending the teens treatment. They were doing fantastic and treatment. And then they were coming home and they were going back to their regular schools and relapsing very, very quickly.
So they figured out, you know, probably within a year or so of this, that a protective supportive educational environment. Would be a really critical piece of this puzzle for long term recovery for adolescents. So you know, they always kind of laugh when they tell the story of how we started because literally they got a book called how to start a recovery high school.
For dummies, basically, and they turned to page one and you know the rest is history. We’ve been, we’ve, our, my particular school has been around for about 18 years. And initially started out with one student and we are very small still today, our maximum enrollment is 15 students. And we do that very deliberately so that we can give these teens a high level of You know, interventions, attention, focus.
You know, we always tell parents that one of the main differences between us and a regular high school’s kids cannot disappear here. You know, they’re always being I don’t want to say watched, but they’re always being Connected to would be the word. I was greatly. There’s always staff around them.
We get to know the kids really, really well. So we the high school started and it had been going for about three or four years when they kind of looked at how things were going, what the outcomes were, and they realized these kids, one of the other components they were really missing out on was social connection with other teens who were dealing with the things that they were dealing with.
Trying to be sober as an adolescent is very, very difficult. I kind of, the way I equate it is like, Imagine if like, you know, this little claw machines that you can, you know, get the stuffed animals and stuff with imagine if a claw machine came down and grabbed you by your head and pulled you up and dropped you in the middle of China and you didn’t have a road map and you didn’t speak the language and you didn’t know anybody there, but yet you were being instructed to go someplace.
That you’ve never been it would be incredibly difficult, you know, you, you might make your way there, but it was probably gonna take a really long time and you’d have a whole lot of missteps. Right? Right. So what, what we are doing here and in other recovery high schools is providing them with a peer group as well of other teens who are walking that same road that they’re walking.
And so it’s called our alternative peer group. And so we have the high school and then we have the alternative peer group and the alternative peer group meets in the afternoons and evenings after school four nights a week within that APG program. We have a family support program. So on Monday evenings, I lead a family support group where, you know, it’s also really critical for the families to have their people that are also walking through this.
To give guidance and support and just so that they know that they’re not alone in this process.
Josh: That’s amazing. That’s so cool. Yeah. No, I love that. I love that. And you know what? That actually happens to me where I was dropped in the middle of China with no, no way to go. And so I, I totally connect with that.
And it was amazing how just finding someone that understood. You know how confusing and difficult it was. You know that brought some grounding for us as we were trying to make our way so I can only imagine what that must be like for the students and the families just to have that. So I want to take a quick breaks to hear a word from our sponsor and then I want to dive back in and hear more specifically about what treatment looks like within this high school setting.
Brief pause, I’ll edit this part out.
Okay, so you mentioned that this is a little bit different from traditional high schools. What are some other ways that that the, the school that you’re the director of differs and specifically when it, when it relates to helping students through their substance use disorders?
Ana: So our school, like I said, is even within the world of recovery schools.
And right now I believe there are I want to say 48 to 50 recovery high schools in the United States. We are governed by a governing body. A. H. R. S. And you know, that’s just kind of our overarching they’re the ones who do our certifications and all that kind of stuff. So we do fall under their umbrella and we do have to follow their guidelines.
However, we are structured very differently than a lot of the recovery high schools are. We’re a true private school. The majority of the other recovery schools are actually either considered to be charter schools or connected to a public school. So we, when we were formed, our founding people made the decision that we were going to be a truly independent entity.
We don’t accept any state or federal dollars. So You know, our funding is very different. And so we do things a little bit differently, but the way we do things works. So for the high school in and of itself, like I said, we’re a little teeny tiny. We’re, we’re ninth grade through 12th grade. We will with every student that comes in, if a teen has been going through these kinds of struggles, mental health, substance abuse, that kind of thing for the most part, they’ve been to treatment or they’ve been to a hospital or they’ve been, you know Not staying up with their studies through one reason or another.
It’s pretty hard to, you know, make good grades and learn whenever you’re high. Right. Right. So a lot of them come to us very far behind in school. So one of the things we will do is. Our academic director is wonderful. She will sit down with every student look at their transcript, get a personalized education plan together for the team that meets their specific goals.
So we we use an online program, but we also supplement that with a lot of hands on type stuff. In fact, right now, while I’m talking to you, the, the kids are in our art room and they are making pottery. Bases for our fundraiser, which is coming up. Cool. So we, you know, we do a lot of art with the kids.
We’re, we’re what they call an A plus school, meaning that we do some form of art or literacy every day. So we have people that come in from the community and do art classes, like what’s happening right now. We have people who come in and do music. So we have guitars and we have keyboards here. We have le banjos, wind instruments, whatever they wanna do.
We have, and we bring in people to do that. For P. E. For instance, this this semester, I believe that we’re going to be doing rowing. We have a really nice boathouse Chesapeake boathouse on the Oklahoma River. And so the kids will be crewing boats. awesome. Yeah, it’s really cool. So we do everything that we can to give them the most quote unquote normal high school experience they can have in a very abnormal situation.
You know, we have a little prom that we do for them, that kind of thing. But our daily structure is is very much centered around the kids and their specific needs. During the day, you know, I, myself, I’m a therapist and then I have a counterpart. He was also a therapist. And so we work with the kids every day centered around like setting goals and just daily check ins.
And if they come in the door and they have relapsed, they know that they can come straight to me or straight to my counterpart. And we’re going to sit down. We’re going to talk about it. We don’t kick kids out for relapse. That would be counterproductive. You know, we’re here to support and love them through that and figure out what’s going on and, and, and work through those problems.
So, it’s a very unique environment. You know, we all cook lunch together. We all eat lunch together. Yeah, yeah. It’s, it’s a really… Full deal. So it’s, it’s, it differs from a regular normal high school in I think every aspect.
Josh: Yeah. That sounds like it’s got a lot of the benefits of an inpatient treatment program, but without all of the, the difficult things that go along with that.
Yep. And so are you offering therapy as part of their academics or is that more of the peer program?
Ana: It’s, you know, we always say we’re not we’re a recovery high school with a recovery support program attached to it. So we do not provide mental health or substance use or substance abuse. Therapy.
We are not licensed to do that. So kind of where we work is under the umbrella of school counseling. So that’s more of our focus. Of course, things come up, you know, they, they can’t not come up. But we do that’s kind of more of the pervades that we’re under is that our our recovery support program that meets after school.
That is actually I’m the director of that program. Thank you. And it is actually led and ran by my three recovery coaches. One of my recovery coaches Actually graduated from our program two years ago, and if you look on our website, teen recovery solutions dot org, you’ll see a video with Riley where it was report.
I think the video was done three years ago. And in the video, he stated his goal was to come back and work for us. And so he’s been, he’s been our lead coach for about a year now. Riley got sober when he was 17. And then Grant is another one of our coaches. He got sober about six years ago when he was 19.
And then our other recovery coach also got sober when she was young. So you know, they act as mentors and guides friends. Support. Sometimes butt kickers, , when the kids meet the kids.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So during the program, parts of those you said they meet in the evenings and the weekends.
What, what sort of things are happening there that, that help them with their recovery?
Ana: So we don’t, we used to do weekends. We don’t really do weekends anymore. It just kind of got. Really difficult. So it’s during the week. Like I said, Monday is our family support group. And so that meets every Monday evening.
And it’s a time when all the families and all the kids get together, we talk about successes and struggles, and the kids will break off and they do their group. And then the parents have their support group, which I’m a facilitator for that. And so that that’s a really really important thing. Critical time for teens to be able to process through their stuff and for the parents to be able to bounce things off the other parents.
And then on Tuesdays and Thursdays is our group nights. And so Tuesday evenings, we’ll do groups about various types of topics that apply to overarching recovery. It could be meditation, mindfulness. It could be finding your creativity again, spirituality, you know, all those. All those really critical components of long term recovery.
Thursday’s our step group. We are, we are rooted in the 12 steps. We’re not a 12 step program or 12 step, you know, but our principles are 12 step principles. And so Thursday evenings we’ll work through some of the 12 step stuff every month as a different step. And then on Fridays, Is is our social time.
So Fridays after school we do like our accountability group and it’s just kind of like a, you know, taking the temperature of the community making sure everybody’s doing okay if there’s any beefs we get it all worked out. And then we’ll go do something fun like tonight. It’s, it’s still just Brutally hot here in Oklahoma.
So they’re going to go to the pool and just kind of have a night to swim. But we do all sorts of stuff on Friday evenings. We might go to a drive in movie or go roller skating or ice skating or go to the park and fly kites. And I mean that literally, go to the park and fly kites. But to us, that’s really a very, very critical part of our program is that social aspect, because these teens oftentimes when they’re trying to get sober and find recovery, it is very isolating and very lonely, because, you know, we’re asking them to change everything.
In their life, including their peer group. We’ve taken them out of their schools. We’ve taken them away from their friends. We’ve taken away the thing that they love the most, which is their substances. So we have to replace that. And so Friday evenings is really their time to bond and connect and to just learn how to have fun again in sobriety and recovery.
Another really cool part of what we do that I love, and actually we just got back from retreat last week, so I take the kids three times a year on a retreat. So last week we were actually in the mountains in Arkansas and, you know, we we just use that time to get back out into nature and to just connect with the world around them and to just breathe and to get away from all the pressures and stresses.
And so it’s, it’s a really cool thing.
Josh: That’s awesome. That sounds like such a well rounded. Program that that you have for them, and I’m sure that it’s got its own challenges, right? Oh, yeah. So I’d be kind of curious to hear, you know, just because you’re an LMFT, right? Correct. So I’d be really curious to know, you know, as a, as a counselor who’s functioning in this role of program director, where do you feel like some of those challenges are the most taxing?
And then how you kind of move through some of those.
Ana: So I, I would say probably the biggest challenge that we’re, we’re facing at the moment is the fact that Oklahoma has, they legalized marijuana, I guess about we, about two, two or three years ago, and it’s medical, but we also have the most lax medical marijuana laws in the whole United States.
So it might as well be because it’s just, it is not well controlled and weed is. and they can easily acces of people’s feelings and it is like, let’s just be a big of a deal. But I’m You know, I grew up in the 80s where, you know, we jokingly called it ditchweed. Well, that stuff that they were using back then was about 7 to 10 percent THC.
This, the, the medical marijuana today that the kids are getting their hands on is anywhere from 90 to 99 percent pure THC. So we’re talking about a very, very different stuff. It is not. Comparable. You cannot compare it. You cannot compare the effect on the brain. You cannot compare the effect on their system and the addictive process that they go through with it.
That’s a huge challenge for us because it is so very accessible and the attitude is well, I mean, it’s legal So can’t be that bad, but we’re seeing families that are being torn apart by this kids who are failing schools I mean, you know, I like I always say it’s not the substance is how the substance is creating unmanageability in your life So the access ability to weed is is a huge challenge another challenge, you know Honestly, do the all the kids who come here want to be sober?
No, absolutely not. You know, we’re a program of choice. We are not a program where kids are court ordered to be here or anything like that. We’re definitely a program of choice because we are a private school, but they do have to have a degree of willingness. You know, so if we have a kid who’s just totally unwilling to even try that poisons the well, so to speak, and impacts all the other kids that are trying.
So we have to kind of work and manage that. Always our focus is the well being of our community. So Oklahoma also is kind of a just a black hole when it comes to mental health and substance abuse help. There’s just nothing for our teens here. So another challenge is being able to, you know, if these teens need a higher level of care just finding that higher level of care.
It is incredibly difficult. Yeah, incredibly hard.
Josh: So are they, are they required to have ongoing therapeutic care if they’re enrolled? Is that something that’s, that’s mandatory or just?
Ana: It’s not mandatory. It’s very strongly recommended. We strongly recommend they have outside therapists, strongly recommend they have that they find an outside recovery support group, and that can be anything.
It doesn’t have to be AA or NA or CA or any of the A’s. It could be We have a partnership, not really a partnership, but we have a group that they’re a part of Dharma recovery. It’s called refuge recovery. And so they, they, they rent out our space that one of our spaces that we use. And so we encourage kids to try that if they don’t like a, or in a there’s smart recovery, there’s rational recovery, there’s celebrated, there’s all kinds of recovery support groups that they can get themselves.
connected to and engaged with. And so we really want them to do that because we can’t be there 24 7. So they really need to build an outside group and outside community. So that is a big part of it.
Josh: Yeah. So I’m just imagining, you know, some of my own families that I’ve worked with that, you know, have adolescents that, that deal with substance use and just how difficult it is for them to find treatment.
And that’s kind of what you’re saying is, you know, the, the options aren’t great. Most of them are inpatient. And like you said, they just get thrown back into their, their setting. That was the problem in the first part of the problem in the first place. With so few of these schools out there, you know, what do you, what would you encourage therapists to, to do to help their families?
You know, do people relocate in order to attend these kind of schools, like what are Yeah,
Ana: we have had that happen. Yeah. You know, we don’t provide transportation so. You know, the parents have to get their kids here, obviously, but we’ve had kids that have enrolled from an hour and a half drive away and they’re after the parents have done it for so long, they actually will just move.
They’ll move to to closer to here. So, I mean, it’s not like they’re relocating states, but they are, you know, trying to get closer to the school. For, you know, therapists who are working with teens, And they’re going through this type of situation. I really think that just being aware of and connected to the resources that you do have available.
It is really critical communicate with the therapist. There’s not, I don’t know how it is in other places, but here, there aren’t a lot of therapists that are. Willing the frustrating and they can be very hard to break through with. And so there’s a lot of therapists that just, they just don’t want to do it.
So I’m connected to the other therapists who do work with teens is also really critical because you can share resources because like for us, you know, you’re talking about challenges. One of our challenges has been that people don’t really know about us. It’s changing greatly because we’re doing a lot more outreach and things like that.
But you know, it’s really important to network and just to know where the resources are and know where to go. I always, whenever I have a kiddo who has to go to treatment, we have to, I have to send them out of state because there’s really nothing here. So, I have connections with treatment centers for adolescents all over the United States.
I won’t refer a teen to a treatment center unless I myself have walked in the front door of that treatment center, reported myself, and met the people there. Because this is a very, very, very fragile population, and there are places out there kiddos. So I’m very particular about where I refer. So I encourage other therapists to do that as well.
Reach out to the treatment centers that are around and available in your area and connect to the people who work there and know those people. So when you do have a kiddo that comes in that needs treatment, you know where to send them and you know what to do.
Josh: Yeah, yeah. You know, I’m sure that we have some school counselors that, that might tune into this, their this podcast.
I’m wondering if, if they were considering becoming a part of a school like this, you know, what, what advice would you give them, or words of encouragement maybe, if that’s something that they’re really considering, because that’s the, just the emotional investment, I can only imagine. You know, how difficult that might be just investing day to day, like you said, in such a fragile population.
So suppose someone’s considering being a part of this, what would you say to them?
Ana: So, you know, I, I try to explain what I do to other people and it just really. They don’t, it’s so hard to grasp what this is about, unless you do it. You know, one of the things that I had to learn pretty early on was you cannot personal, you cannot personalize successes and you cannot personalize struggles that the kids are having.
And you have to be very able and willing to meet a team right where they are and to understand that. That, that you have to take care of yourself as well, because it’s very easy to lose yourself in the teens and their families, these families haven’t had support. And so oftentimes, like boundaries are difficult for them, I really have struggled with families texting me at night, calling me at night, it’s like, we’re not going to do that.
So I would always just say. Know what you’re getting into for one thing like don’t don’t have a pie in the sky idea of what you’re gonna be doing because it can get down and dirty and it’s difficult work. It’s really difficult work because you’re dealing with kids and families from every walk of life, every background, every situation high levels of trauma, parents are traumatized by this point in time.
They are angry by the time their kids get here. So you’re dealing with you’re not just dealing with the kids You’re dealing with their families the parents grandparents. I mean the whole Freaking family system is right there in your office. And I mean literally right there you have to I just feel really strongly that you have to have a real heart and passion for this kind of work because it’s very difficult.
You know, my, how I came to this work was I had a child of my own who struggled as an adolescent and there was no support or help for me at all. And I made a lot of mistakes with, with my child that has impacted our relationship. You know, my child is now 35 years old and, you know, we still are working through the mistakes.
Mistakes I made and things that I did that were not supportive and were not, were not helpful to, to my child. So a big part of my passion for what I do is to have other families be given the tools that I was never given and the support that I never could find. So you really have to have a connection to and a passion for this work.
You have to understand, you have to have a really, really fundamental, deep understanding of the addictive process and what it is in an adolescent. The additional pressures adolescents have are great. That are completely outside of your purveyance of control. So, you know, it’s, it’s not an easy job.
It’s a fun job. It’s a great job. And it’s very rewarding, but it is not easy.
Josh: Yeah. So just as you, as you were saying that I’m just, I can, I can hear the tension in, in, in choosing this because on the one hand you’re saying, man, you really have to have a passion for this work. And then on the other hand, you have to not personalize the successes and the failures.
And so there’s like this high level of investment. And I know the return, you know, is, is there when you, when you see those successes, but that, that really stood out to me about not personalizing the failures, right? So what I’m hearing is when, when an adolescent relapses, not taking that personal, not, not thinking I didn’t do a good enough job, or if I had only done X, Y, and Z, but then also when they’re doing amazing and they have these huge gains and they’ve been sober for, you know, four years and they’re graduating, not just getting kind of an overinflated sense of like your own contributions to it.
Is that kind of what you’re saying?
Ana: Exactly.
Josh: Yeah. Yeah. Man, that’s got to be difficult.
Ana: It is. You know, I’ve been, I’ve been working with adolescents through my entire career. I was clinical director of a treatment center for girls in a small town here for years. And I just love working with the teens.
And a lot of people think I’m just nuts because, you know, they do, man, they push you, they drive you crazy. They, they are boundary. Pushing little machines, but at the same time these are just kids who’ve been hurt and Are looking for they’re looking for unconditional positive regard. That’s what they’re looking for.
That’s why we give them. Pure acceptance, you know a big part of our program was we do we do drug tests We drug test at least twice a week sometimes three times a week. Like every student? Every student. Wow. And we do that not for ha ha got you or look at you. You relapsed you POS It’s for accountability for support so that we know where they are and what they’re doing because they can present one way, but the truth is a whole different thing.
So, we find when we’re drug testing them regularly, that that gives us the ability to really keep a handle on what’s really going on with those kids. Yeah. So a lot of the kids come here and like they’ve been in very punitive situations and punitive programs and so they have a really hard time making that mental switch to understanding that we’re not here to punish them, right, and you know we’re not here to harm them or to control them or to lock them up or what have you.
And so. You know, when they can make that, when they make that turn and they have that realization it’s a pretty, that’s a pretty cool.
Josh: Yeah. I would imagine that as they, as they come to experience that unconditional positive regard, that it kind of disarms that part of them that feels the need to manipulate and dissuade things.
And when, when that guard comes down. That’s when you see that turning point or that breakthrough, where they really start to realize, okay, these people are for me. They’re not trying to take advantage of me or, you know, things like that.
Ana: So that’s right. We tell them all the time. You know, we’re not We’re not walking behind you, pushing you.
We’re not walking in front of you, dragging you. We’re going to walk right here next to you. And if you need to sit down for a week or two and just not walk, we’ll sit down right here with you. If you want to talk, talk, if you don’t, don’t, but we’re with you. We’re with you. And it does. It takes a while to understand that.
Josh: That’s amazing. I love that. And I obviously, I mean, it makes sense that that would be the most effective way of, of, of helping these individuals move along. So, you know, I’m an LMFT as well. And so I’m always curious about how the rest of the family and the rest of the system is impacted by this, right?
Because sometimes the family is part of the, the problem, right? And so even though they’re not going back into the, the school setting where, you know, their peer group might be influencing them, sometimes the family is the, is the issue, right? And so what do you guys do to? I mean, I know you said Monday nights are the, are the family time, but how do you, how do you navigate through that when the family is, when you eat as a, as a seasoned therapist, I’m sure you can clearly identify when, when the family is a big part of that.
So what do you do with that?
Ana: You know, one of the things that I say to my family is all the time is your, your, your, your team cannot get well in the same environment that they got sick in. You cannot have the expectation that your team is going to be able to maintain and achieve. and sustain long term positive changes if the home environment is not also changing.
They cannot get well where they got sick. You know, and of course we have families that we work with from all over the spectrum. Some get it, some don’t. Some are willing, some are not. So the ones who are willing, we, we connect and we do it. The ones that are not, we just do everything we can with their kiddo.
We, one of the things that I love about our program is that we do offer a high level of support for our parents. We have a parent recovery coach actually and she’s awesome and she’s been working with us for quite some time. She’s there on Monday nights, oftentimes she’ll facilitate you know, run it kind of like an Al Anon type meeting.
She always says, you know, her phone doesn’t know what time it is. And so parents can call her or text her any time that they’re struggling and that they just need guidance, you know she has her own story. Her husband’s alcoholic and recovery been been sober for years. Her her son actually came through our program and he worked for me for a while.
Now he’s off in California being a big shot. photographer in LA which was his dream and sobriety gave him this dream. Very cool thing. So she’s been there. She’s done that. She’s bought the t shirt. She’s black belt. Al Anon is what we joke. So she’s there and she runs on Thursday night. She runs a mom’s Al Anon group for the moms.
So we do have that, that, that support for the parents and families. Also we will do A family contract or family agreement is really the better word. And it’s not just about the teen. It’s not about, well, Johnny’s not going to do this. And if Johnny does that, then this is what’s going to happen.
It is a family agreement. So the family agrees to go to family therapy. They agree to go to support groups if they need to go to support groups. Families with active alcoholism and addiction in their families, you know, the families agree to address that and to look at that. They agree to have a drug free, substance free home.
So, you know, we’re in constant communication and contact with our parents and we, we offer them as much as we can. That’s awesome. That’s awesome.
Josh: Do you see families where maybe there’s other addicts that as a result of their, their child being enrolled, they find their own sobriety?
Ana: Yeah, we have had I think it’s three or four parents who have gone to treatment themselves after their, their child has been here and they’ve seen and listened.
And heard and observed and they realized. Maybe I got a problem too. And so, yeah, we have had parents that we’ve, we’ve gotten them to treatment and they’ve gotten sober and clean and, you know, it’s a great thing for their family. That’s awesome. It is. It’s pretty cool.
Josh: Yeah. Very, very cool. So suppose there’s therapists in the Oklahoma City area.
Right. That’s where you’re at Oklahoma City. And, and they’re wanting to, is there a way for them to get involved with, with the recovery school there that you’re a part of or other recovery schools if they’re in other parts of town where these are parts of the country where these exist? What could a therapist do if they wanted to, to partner?
Ana: Refer. Just send us, send us your kids, send us your referrals. Like we have we call them Lunch and Learn, so we do open houses, that kind of thing, where therapists can come here, they can tour, they can learn about what we do. So, you know, just, a big part is just spreading the word for their families to know that we are here.
But therapists can also do things like they can volunteer, like if they have a specific interest in something, it doesn’t even have to be like maybe, maybe they love to do a collage type thing and they can do a therapeutic focus on a collage with the kids. You know, time is precious for these kids.
And so, you know, taking 30, 45 minutes out of your day to send the kid. Send them donuts or something, you know, just so that they know that they’re, that they’re seen and that they’re cared for and that they’re loved. But like I said, for therapists, I really, you know, say this again, it’s just really critical for them to know what the resources are local to you for your clients.
That’s the biggest thing you can do.
Josh: Yeah. So often I find myself You know, in, in certain settings where, where my clients are dealing with active addiction. I, I’m primarily a couples therapist. And, you know, that obviously adds a, a very difficult dimension to, to recovery. But, you know, I’m, I’m not a licensed chemical dependency counselor.
I’ve not been, I, I’ve gone through some couples recovery trainings. But, you know, I haven’t, haven’t really equipped myself to treat. Substance use disorder, right? And so just knowing where those limitations are for me, you know, and how I need to refer out, I think is really important. And I don’t treat teenagers really, but I can see how just becoming aware of what’s out there, you know, if there’s a, if there’s a school like this, is there a, is there a directory of.
Recovery schools and things like that.
Ana: It’s the association of recovery high schools, HRS. And so they do have a website and you can go on the website, but in where you are located and they’ll pull up Texas has several schools. There’s, I know, I know that there’s one in Houston. There’s one. There may be even more than one in Austin.
Actually in Austin, it’s Arch Academy and they’re kind of like the OG of recovery schools. Oh, really? Okay. Yeah. Yeah. They’ve been doing this for a really, really long time, but you know, we had a kiddo here who moved to New Jersey and the family found a recovery high school in New Jersey and that’s where they moved.
That’s where they chose to go was so that their kid could go from our school to that school. Wow. So there is, there is a directory. Yes.
Josh: That’s awesome. That’s awesome. Well, we’ll, we’ll link to that directory in the show notes for sure. So is there anything else that you think, man, you just want to brag on the school because it’s so exciting what you guys have going on and I’m sure that you’ve got, you know, some great outcomes as a result of that.
I mean, any, just, just take an opportunity to just brag on, on what you’ve got specifically going there. Cause I know you, you’ve got to be proud of it.
Ana: We’re very proud of what we do. We love what we do. The people who work with me you know, they’ve, I’ve been here for six years. The academic director has been here for 12 years.
You know, people come here and they stay here because what we, my executive director always says, we’re in the miracle business, you know, we’re, we are here and we get to watch miracles happen. And it’s super cool, you know, but I think one of my very favorite stories, that just kind of sums up why we just keep doing what we’re doing and we don’t give up.
Like I said, I was the clinical director of a treatment center and there was a girl that came to my treatment center and I was her therapist there and then I referred her and she came here for school. This was before I was working here and she came here and she She had a rough go. She, she relapsed. She, she did this all before she came here.
So she relapsed. She was in a really bad situation. She came back to the treatment center did a 30 day refresh, came here, hit the ground running, did it, did the deal, graduated from here, started college. Then she came back as a recovery coach and she worked here for two years and then she, I was laughing because one day she was looking for a new car and she was like asking me about my car and I handed her my car keys and I just started to laugh and I just said, if I, if you would have told me three years ago, I would be handing your ass.
My car keys and believing that you would bring it back to me. I would have been crazy. This May she graduated from law school. Oh, wow. Law school. And you know, her career path is going to be she wants to work in the drug court program and she wants to work to change policies and to change the landscape of our judicial system and how our judicial system interacts with and manages addiction, substance use disorders, and mental health.
I don’t think there’s a cooler, cooler story that I could tell than that. And it’s, and you know, she’s just, she’s one story like that. There’s multiple other kids who’ve done some pretty cool stuff. Just like Ian, the one I was telling you about. You know, his dream was always to be a photographer. He came here, he got through school, he became sober.
He worked here with us, and saved his pennies, and… He has, he just photographed like Coachella and some huge, huge musical stars and TV stars and things like that. He’s, he’s photographing them. He’s reached his goal. Like his dream has been met. And he did that with. Sobriety and with recovery, that is why when the days are hard, I go home and I just wonder what the hell am I doing, you know, is anything I do here is does any of it matter that I remember these success stories.
Yeah, there’s other stories you know we went to a funeral in January of a student who overdosed on fentanyl. And so there’s stories like that too. But those stories, also keep us motivated to keep sure because we want to prevent that from happening.
Josh: Wow. Wow. A lot of ups and downs, but it sounds like a great, great community to be a part of.
And I’m sure you’re doing an amazing work there, Anna. Yeah.
Ana: Well, I love it very much.
Josh: Well, thank you so much for joining me today and just sharing that experience. I, I, I’m, you know, the, one of the, the goals of this podcast is to inspire people. A lot of therapists trying to find their niche, trying to find, you know, what’s going to be right for them.
And, and, you know, maybe somebody listening to this was just really, really overwhelmed with, you know, inspiration to, to enter into something like this. And they’re, they’re. Considering it. So thank you so much for joining us. Maybe we’ll have you back again sometime.
Ana: I would love that. And if anybody has questions our website is teen recovery solutions.
org and my contact information is on there. So please feel free to reach out, call, email, whatever. We’re here.
Josh: Awesome. Awesome. Thank you so much. And we’ll see you another time.
Ana: Thank you.