This week on Sober Stories, we had the opportunity to interview Dr. Jeff Simone of @reactionrecovery. (S01/E008) Jeff is a Doctor of Clinical Pharmacology, living in the greater Philadelphia area. Jeff battled an opioid and amphetamine addiction that he first sought treatment for in 2013. After several difficult years, he achieved sustained remission in 2016 and is currently living a life of full abstinence. Jeff founded Reaction Recovery in 2019 where he currently works one on one with individuals who are seeking to achieve greater emotional and physical stability on their own recovery journeys. Jeff has coached over 150 clients and families, centered on the Bio-psycho-social Model. Jeff also hosts the podcast “Surviving Opioids – Beyond an Epidemic.”

In our conversation with Jeff, we talked about his experience with opioid and amphetamine addiction during school and his early pharmacy career, how we build Recovery Capital, what the recovery community gets right (and what it gets wrong), and so much more.

For our full conversation, head to the Sober Stories Podcast (Apple, Spotify) or view the episode on our Youtube Channel. 

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Jeff, on Desert Time

So Moses is cast out and he and his people have been freed from bond, but it still took them 40 years to get to the promised land. They’re no longer in slavery, but they have to walk through this desert time. They have to do their desert time before getting to the promised land. That’s what I think about in terms of like early recovery for a lot of people.

Certainly the people that gravitate towards me, this is not everybody’s experience. There are people who stopped, like they’re off alcohol or something for a week, and they’re shouting to the mountaintops and they’re loving it. And they’re posting 30 day pictures and ‘my skin looks better, my face looks better.’ That’d be nice, wouldn’t that be nice? But I usually cringe just a little bit that when I see that, just for their own sake, you know? Cause I feel that they might be setting themselves up potentially for some trouble.

My thing is, you have to do this desert time And, we have to do that with other people. I say that I’ve been in recovery since 2016, but what I’m describing to you right now is where I’m getting a court order at 24. The worst years of my life, hands down—not even a close second—came after I was introduced to recovery. That was my desert time.

Jeff, on his turning point

My son is six years old, so my recovery lined up with him. I used to try to read them these Nancy Tillman books. I’d sit with him at night as an infant, a couple months old, and read. I couldn’t even make it through like this book without breaking down. I felt so terrible that, not for the first time, it wasn’t even for me. I didn’t even value like what was going on with myself at this point. I was deteriorating mentally as well.

And I did not value my own life at this point, but I would look at him and just think, man, there are seven and a half billion people in this planet. This guy got so unlucky to have gotten beamed into this house. What an unfortunate turn of events for him.

At that point I had been through 90 days of inpatient treatment. Then outpatient. I had this feeling that at that point I was either going to get sober, or I wasn’t. And it was such a strange experience. I was 12 stepped into a group 30 minutes away, and somebody will come and get me and bring me out there. And I detoxed in the back of this room, and it was in the winter. Oh, it was so cold. I was so sick and I would just sit in the back and I would just wonder, what had happened? I was making a ton of money managing the largest pharmacies in Southern California a couple of years ago, and now this.

And people ask me what was different, and I struggled for a while to answer that question. I still struggle to answer it because it is hard to describe it, but when I’m pressed, I say the difference was I accepted that I was going to stay sober long before I accepted that I was ever going to feel better again.

Jeff, on Recovery Capital

I define Recovery Capital as the internal and external resources needed to initiate and sustain recovery. We can objectively measure recovery capital and then can chart an individual’s prognosis over time.

Recovery Capital is the number one thing that is going to predict who is going to get to the point of sustainable recovery, sustainable remission to the point where you and your family can sustain your recovery without external help.

You think about the things that our society has set up that actively remove Recovery Capital. Like, you got a possession charge three years ago and you have a felony on your record. Part of Recovery Capital is the ability to get a job, maintain a job, and to make money. We can say money’s not important, it’s just right up there with oxygen. When you start putting stuff in their way, or they can’t get affordable housing because of X, Y, and Z, has happened, that’s the external Recovery Capital that we’re talking about.

So if you’re working with somebody there’s a pyramid. If you’re not meeting the capital that they need to achieve housing, or they don’t know how they’re going to afford my grocery bill — it’s walking with these people up this pyramid, and trying to build out the foundation. It is supporting and then holding them accountable to build these tiny little habits. And then as that stuff starts to materialize, okay, now we can look at the next thing.

Connect with Jeff

On Instagram – @reactionrecovery
Online – Reaction Recovery
Surviving Opioids – Beyond an Epidemic Podcast

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Catch the whole conversation:

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