Steve Martorano 
The Behavioral Corner is produced in partnership with Retreat Behavioral Health -- where healing happens.

The Behavioral Corner 
Hi, and welcome. I'm Steve Martorano, and this is the Behavioral Corner. You're invited to hang with us as we discuss how we live today, the choices we make, what we do, and how they affect our health and well-being. So you're on the corner, the Behavioral Corner. Please hang around for a while.

Steve Martorano 
Hi, everybody, and welcome to the Behavioral Corner, a podcast about everything. Because that's what affects our behavioral health, everything. So we get together weekly and try to pull together some interesting insights and people that can help us flesh all this out. So that we might get well all of us, which is the goal, right? It's all made possible by our underwriter partners, Retreat Behavioral Health, you'll hear more about them ahead and actually hear a little bit about him at the beginning because there are so often they will, we will rely upon them for some of their people who are among the best in their field. To talk about some of the issues here on the Behavioral Corner. We welcome back for a second time a real friend of the program...of the podcast, Ben Chapman is with us. Ben is in the West Palm Beach, Florida Operations, the Headquarters of Retreat, where he is the practices manager. And he, as I said, had been a guest before. We bring it back today, for two reasons, we're going to flesh out a little bit more of the topic we originally talked to him about. And we're also bringing him back on the occasion of his anniversary of seven...count them seven years sober. Ben, welcome back to the show, and congratulations.

Ben Champion 
Thank you so much. Thank you for having me, again.

Steve Martorano 
Seven years is you know, seven years is nice. I mean that is good for you. That's great. So, you know, before we get any further, I mean, we talked about, you know, sobriety a lot here and recovery, and you know, is probably better than most people that, you know, you're never done being sober. You know what I mean? You're sober for the rest of your life. But at some point, doesn't it feel like in terms of your sobriety for seven years, a long time? I didn't say you're getting closer to the number of years, you were sober. Have you surpassed the number of years you were substance abuse suffer?

Ben Champion 
We're getting there. We're roughly around April 10 that will be right, the sweet part.

Steve Martorano 
Okay. So I mean, I've talked to people who are, you know, 20 years into their sobriety, they were only using for 10, you know, 15 years, it's only you know, it's a hell of a time, but they're now sober longer than they were abusing substances. Does it feel like that to you that you've passed some threshold? And it's all downhill? You know, it's all peaches and cream from here, or is it an everyday thing?

Ben Champion 
There are parts of you that when you get to a certain year time AA teaches you that you're gonna get your marbles back. But I definitely believe for each individual it's our own journey. For myself, right around five years was the sweet part where it's like, Okay, hit a goal. And now life is becoming normalized again. But as you said, it's an everyday thing I remind myself of.

Steve Martorano 
It is worth noting because I think it can be helpful to people, correct me if I'm wrong, that during those periods of time before you get to that sweet spot five years, or whatever it is for you. You got to wake up every day knowing Okay, I gotta get through this day. But there's that, you know, the doubt that sometimes the urges are stronger than others. As you accumulate time, it would seem that those things become less critical. And that here's the thing I think people need to know about sobriety and its making it last, the longer it lasts, the stronger it gets. Is that true?

Ben Champion 
Absolutely. What I found in my recovery, and what I share with the patients is at I think it was five years, six years, I went to my sister's after the wedding party. And that was the first time in my six years at the time of sobriety that I felt the anxiety of not wanting to drink but being around drinking. And that's six years into it. So I think regardless of how much time you have, it's those bigger moments that we have to be more aware of than the everyday ins and outs of life.

Steve Martorano 
I have every confidence that you're going to wake up one morning and go Well I'm sober twice as long as I was abusing. So good, good for you. I know from your previous visit that among the many methods that you availed yourself of in order to get ultimately sober. Music played a central role. Let's go back down there again and flesh it out a little more. When you were using what was your relationship to music -- when you were inactive substance abuse. What was your relationship music, if any?

Ben Champion 
So for myself as the way I grew up was in a very Caucasian area. So I myself, turn to more hip hop, more rap music to kind of feel my pain. So my relationship with music in addiction was trying to feel my feelings and looking to other people, other artists to help me describe the pain I was going through. So I think a lot of self-discovery in the music and now that I'm on the other side of sobriety, I can really look back. And that's why I'm here with you today to say, Oh, wow, these are the pains and the sufferings I was going through music was describing, I didn't know how to say it out loud.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Your problem was alcohol, right?

Ben Champion 
Yes.

Steve Martorano 
At some point, was the music sort of enabling the behavior? Do you know what I mean?

Ben Champion 
100%.

Steve Martorano 
Right?

Ben Champion 
Yes. I recently shared with my clients, there's a song that was playing for them. And at four o'clock in the morning, like any good alcoholic, I'd be sitting on my porch drinking, listening to sad songs about drinking,

Steve Martorano 
But not in any way to get better just to have some misery loves company, right?

Ben Champion 
Yep. 100% just say, well, you feel this pain, I feel this pain, let's keep in the pain and not look past the pain.

Steve Martorano 
Is there an example of that? I mean, I know we talked earlier about Dear Alcohol. The song by DAX is that the kind of thing you had in mind?

Ben Champion 
So the song back then for those times, it was called, it was from Love and Theft, Whiskey on my Beath. And the synopsis of the song is essentially not wanting to meet our creator in a drunken state. And the fears and worries of individuals that we have, you know, passing on and not being able to be the best person we can be.

Steve Martorano 
When I know that this is, you deeply mean this when you talk about music saved you and helped you get sober. We know music isn't it has an enormous power over triggers memories, it soothes us, it makes us happy. You're right, it can make you sad. And as a therapy, we know that music therapy is a real thing and is widely employed. So it seems to me like you say you had a relationship when you were drinking very heavily. And the music was sort of your partner there you guys, we're getting loaded together, more or less. And then it begins to transition into more when you start to realize you have a problem. Did you then start looking for songs that maybe could help you figure out what the problem was?

Ben Champion 
Absolutely. The last song I listened to before I went into inpatient in May of 2016 was from an artist named Hopson, the song was called Fly. And it was one of those moments when I heard that song and it was just at the right time in my life when I was moving to a new stage of my life. And that's when I realized I still listen to that song when I'm in moments where I need clarity, that I realized music can play a bigger part in my sobriety than just something I'm afraid of. But something I can look forward to and enjoy and embrace myself with.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, before you got to that point where music became a therapy was it ever a trigger for you? Was it the music that made you drink?

Ben Champion 
I think the music for myself was more of an allowance to feel the things I was going through. Rap music back in the day was definitely a lot more predicated on drinking and doing drugs. And putting that on made me feel like I was part of that culture and allowed me the hide behind the music and the emotions that went into the music and the go into the clubs and everything you fit in with the music. Now when you step back from it, it's like I don't want to be that person anymore.

Steve Martorano 
Music when you think about it as someone's unfortunate connection to alcohol, because of the context in which we hear it. I mean, yeah, we hear it in the car, radio, and we're on our phone, but we also hear it at events. We hear to concerts, we hear it in bars, it can trigger people, right?

Ben Champion 
Oh, 100%. Music is something I've taught clients to this day. You know, when they first come, I said what do you what some music you listen to, and I work with them to kind of change that. Because as you said, if we're living in our past and our music is still in our past, then all we're feeding ourselves is negative information and negative thoughts of things that we're trying to move beyond.

Steve Martorano 
Ben Chapman is our guest Ben is with Retreat Behavioral Health in their West Palm facility. And he's talking about his sobriety which is right now reaching seven successful years and the effect music had both when he was using when he decided to get sober and how it continues to shape his outlook on a lot of things and advice he gives other people. We're going to take a second or two to listen to a song he told me meant a lot to you and have you talk about it. This is called Dear Alcohol by DAX. Let's take a moment and listen to that.

Steve Martorano 
You know, that's pretty straightforward. That's the guy who knows he's got a problem. When did you first hear that? Under what circumstances?

Ben Champion 
So funnily enough, we were on my wife and I were on a cruise to Honduras, where I'm adopted for the first time, my life going back. And as everyone knows, on the cruise ship, you have no service. And for a glimmer of time, I had service on YouTube, and the song came out. And I listened to it. And from that moment, I first heard it, I ran and found my wife on a cruise ship. And I said this is going to change people's lives in the world. It was the first time I ever heard a song, describe what an alcoholic No matter your age or race, what they go through in such a simple and pure way that made me feel connected to something for the first time.

Steve Martorano 
Were you sober at the time we first started?

Ben Champion 
Yes, yep.

Steve Martorano 
So this was a reinforcement for you.

Ben Champion 
This was a hallelujah somebody finally put into words the pain and suffering we had all been through. And now we can see it.

Steve Martorano 
It's amazing the power of art in general, but certainly, music powerfully, to take something that you feel but can't articulate. And then suddenly it's a revelation when you go, Oh, that's exactly what it feels like. It's exactly what I'm thinking. We've all had that experience. The difference it could change people is what you believe.

Ben Champion 
Absolutely. Right away. When we got back stateside I sent it to my mother and I asked her to please listen to it. And it was the first time my mom ever understood what alcoholism was in her son.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, you know, that's interesting as well. So it not only helped you, and you believe that not only will help people who are abusing substances, alcohol in particular but that it can help explain to your loved ones what you were going through.

Ben Champion 
Absolutely in a clear and honest way that is not in any way demeaning of what alcoholics do to hide themselves. But just a straightforward, I need help just like everybody else. And this is a pain, I'm going through a very simple and cut and dry.

Steve Martorano 
There are all kinds of benefits that might not be immediately apparent. I mean, certainly, music can reduce stress, it can affect our mood. But one of the things I was surprised to read was that it doesn't necessarily have to change your mood, but it can help you manage your mood. What does that mean to you?

Ben Champion 
So for myself, I use music as a big part of our office as a precursor to therapy. We have a lot of patients come in who are younger, a lot of veterans, and I tried to put music on to get them in the mood of maybe going back in their life and saying, Well I liked that song when I was listening to in the 90s and letting them start feeling emotions before going into therapy. Because as you said, music will unlock things for us. We may not know when. But I always believe just having music in your head and a song in your head will allow you to relate to something around you and open to you know the talk to others.

Steve Martorano 
Well, that's the next thing I wanted to ask you about. It can be enormously helpful I'm told in helping to build up social engagement again.

Ben Champion 
Absolutely.

Steve Martorano 
Substance abuse isolates us. Were you drinking alone or were you at the end were you drinking alone are you still drinking out in public with a bunch of people?

Ben Champion 
I was drinking alone for 90% of my drinking career

Steve Martorano 
Is it typical by the way is it typical of substance abusers that they at the at the at the bottom of it all they're doing it privately and alone rather than socially?

Ben Champion 
I think so. I think as we get worse in our addiction the worse we feel about ourselves and we recluse because we don't want others to see our pain at the same time. We can't explain why we're doing the things we're doing so it's easier to be by yourself and hide.

Steve Martorano  
You mentioned your sister's wedding ...

Ben Champion 
Yes.

Steve Martorano 
...there's a social environment it's you know, rife with music. It's not a wedding in the world that doesn't have a lot of music going on in that context and where you were at that time. Is there a conflict there? There the music seems appropriate to the moment is it changing the way you feel about your sobriety? What was that like?

Ben Champion 
In that moment I listened to all my cues from all the amazing therapists I work with. I've been in therapy with myself, and I knew the science for myself. My anxiety was cooking. And I knew that the music was loud, which was overloading my senses. And the immediate thing I did after I left the wedding is I got in my car and turn on music that I knew would calm me. And I went for a two-hour drive. So yeah, sometimes music, you know, even if we have a crowded lobby, you're turned down because it's anxiety-provoking that you can't really listen to what the music saying. It's just background noise. So I think there are pros and cons to when to listen to music and if you're in a certain headspace,

Steve Martorano 
Right, right, exactly. And we know there's plenty of evidence to suggest it has a physiological effect. What kind of changes in one's body occurs? We've talked about, you know, the psychology of it. There's music, lower your blood pressure, for instance.

Ben Champion 
I would think so I know for myself, when I hear a really good song, the hairs on my arm stand up. And I really just sit back and pause and maybe not even understand the motions that are given to me until I listened to it a few times because it was that inspiring. So I think a lot of times, yeah, they kind of have a calming effect. It can help lower the blood pressure helps just kind of clear the fog in your head and help you realign your thoughts to where you want them to be.

Steve Martorano 
Ben, I know you don't on a day-to-day basis as part of your job. Treat people but you interact, with patients who are in Retreat, and many of them are young, of course, you had the occasion to have conversations with him about just the subject of music and how it can help.

Ben Champion 
Oh, absolutely every new patient that comes into our building here in West Palm, I talk to them about their music, the group's talk about the music, the therapist talked to him about it. I really like our office to be one where everybody feels included. So we started thanks to your suggestion, our own Spotify playlist here. So all the clients can be part of us growing and people growing in their lives changing.

Steve Martorano 
Oh, they say you're building that list of music, that means something to them. That's that's, that's terrific. By the way, we're going to put a bunch of this stuff together and put a little playlist that Ben and his guys are going to provide to us and it'll be on Spotify on the behavioral corner page as well. Ben with regard to getting, you know, getting the attention to the honest attention of somebody in deep substance abuse trouble. Is the music of faster way to get their attention than it was, you know, I mean, for instance, you had people tell you many, many times, and you knew many, many times that you should stop drinking, and it wasn't working. It wasn't working, and then you hear some song, and suddenly the light goes on. Do you believe that event can happen? To anyone?

Ben Champion 
Absolutely. I think if people take time to really understand what the positives of music are, I think you can reallocate the time that they spend listening to music to actually listen to music for the words and the context instead of just the beats and the popularity of the artists who can fit in with your group. I think at the end of the day, the coolest thing about music. And what DAX in particular is doing is he's allowing others to join on songs to show their pain and to show their recovery roads.

Steve Martorano 
Well, it's interesting. You just described what I would call as deep listening. Everybody thinks that they hear music. You do hear music, unless you're having a hearing problem, you can hear it. But deep listening is another thing. Do you remember when you went beyond the beat and started listening to the words or because it was hip hop, the words must have come first? Right? I was at work.

Ben Champion 
I think when that really hit me was actually with DAX's song that we previously spoke about. Because it was so clear in the message. It allowed me to say what I really liked about this music. And let me look back at my past and the things and struggles I went through. And we listened to songs. So I myself worked on about three or four songs I broke apart and inserted my feelings and my emotions through the song as I was listening to it, so I could really connect with my feelings.

Steve Martorano 
What else is someone's musical case? Tell us, particularly in your context. When someone is at the intake stage, coming into a facility there ask a lot of questions. Most of them are pretty straightforward medical kinds of questions and background stuff. What do you learn? What do you think you can learn from somebody when you ask them what kind of music you're listening to? What do you find out when you hear their answer?

Ben Champion 
For myself? Usually what I find is the younger kids listen to rap. And you'll ask them where are you from. And a lot of times those clients are never we're never will be from these places where these artists are saying about and the pains and sufferings they're singing about. So a lot of times, it's re-adjusting those patients' emotions and saying, Okay, we all feel depression, anxiety, but you're not living in the eighth ward somewhere. You're living here. So how do we address your feelings and your emotions here? Instead of pretending you're somewhere else where you're not, you don't have to ever feel that pain, hopefully. So what's the address where you're at today that for me, I believe that's changing sometimes the music we listen to say, You know what, I live in a really well-off area. And I'm struggling with depression, anxiety, but I'm not living in this segment of the population and dealing with their pain struggling, so I can't relate to them. All I'm doing is listening to music to be popular. I think a lot of it is, you know, not following what everyone else does all the popular music, it's what, what makes you happy? What makes you tear up at night? And I think that's the motions and the music that helps you.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, it's hard, to avoid what's popular, particularly when it's metastasized to the size that has now I wonder, I mean, this with all due respect, I wonder what's really motivating those people that are spending 1000s of dollars to see Bruce Springsteen or Taylor Swift, beyond the love of the music, you know, the sense of being where it's happening, and all of that can be a distraction to the benefits of listening to music deeply. As I said, we're going to play some of the stuff that Ben has talked about, we'll have a list that in his folks put together for us. But I just want to sort of swing this back to how someone listening, who isn't quite ready for treatment might have might approach this, is it? Do you recommend that it has to be contemporary music? If you're young, it has to be young music. Or can it? Can it be any kind of music?

Ben Champion 
Speaking for myself, I was blessed to be raised by two parents who listen to 60s-70s music. So for myself, I was really blessed to have a wide-ranging idea of music, an idea of my feelings that I could attach them to. So I think for anybody, I think music in any time period can be eye-opening, I met nice people. So listen to Mozart and Beethoven because of the simplicity of sympathy, and how calming they are.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah. Well, you know, it's very, when you think about it, it's a very mysterious thing that they for the since the beginning of time, humanity seemed to, you know, want to make rhythms and they want to make music. It must feel some deep, deep need. And according to our young guest, Ben Chapman, it not only does that in a pleasurable sense, but I think you think music saved your life, right?

Ben Champion 
Yeah, absolutely. I think music gave me a second shot at life to actually feel my emotions and feel the things I've been through in life, and to finally understand how to explain them to others. In a way that's not as scary as opening yourself fully, but a lot of music speaks for you.

Steve Martorano 
Young people get excited when you talk to them about music.

Ben Champion 
Oh, absolutely. It's fun watching them change the way they look at it and view artists, and then realize that they don't have to necessarily look like that person to feel the things that they've been through. I think that the most important in our field is all of us suffer something, not to look like somebody would be like somebody to feel their pain.

Steve Martorano 
Do you have any advice to give to say, parents or grandparents who are around younger people who clearly have a substance abuse problem but their music is part of their life, as most kids are? You know, it's like, turn that down. What's that junk you're listening to? What would you tell parents about the music their kids may be listening to that they're listening to? Should they be listening deeper as well?

Ben Champion 
I think so. I think if you're gonna relate to anybody, I think you got to look at all aspects of things they do. And I think music, as we talked about, they're all is the hidden way that a lot of us speak our minds without having to deal with the stressors of questions being brought back to us. It's Hey, this song describes how I feel listened to it. And allow me to delve deeper into it slowly. It's not scary. I think parents just listen to the songs and watch their child's emotions and the activities they may be doing listening to the music and you may find a correlation between the friendships of the people. Because at the end of the day, again, just because we listen to music doesn't mean that where we are acting like those people. We have those same situations we have to understand that we gotta take the good and the bad from music and find our own lane with it.

Steve Martorano 
Yeah, it's easy to criticize, and not as productive as trying to understand not so much what they're listening to, but why they're listening to it. Why are they listening to that? Maybe you can learn something about the trouble your kids are in. Anyway, Ben Chapman, congratulations again, on seven years of sobriety. There will come a time when you'll be the only one that knows how many years it is. And we hope it'll be many, many more, obviously. Thanks for joining us on the Corner. And thanks for the Spotify list so you guys have it, we're on the Retreat site, so you can see it.

Ben Champion 
So right now we are updating as groups go on. But we have a TV here where we just share screen share it from my phone so that clients can listen to their music all the time that they're doing groups.

Steve Martorano 
By the way, you got to do your own show you got to do a whole show about music that has charms to sue the savage breast. Ben Chapman, thank you for sharing this time with us. We always enjoy your expertise.

Ben Champion 
 Absolutely. Thank you so much, Steve.

Steve Martorano 
Thank you, guys, as well. Don't forget to like us, follow us, and subscribe. We're everywhere. We're everywhere. You can find us on Facebook, Spotify, Instagram, and Apple Tunes the whole place. See you next time on the Corner.

Retreat Behavioral Health 
Retreat Behavioral Health has proudly been serving the community for over ten years. Here at Retreat, we believe in the power of connection and quality care. We offer comprehensive, holistic, and compassionate treatment from industry-leading experts. Call 855-802-6600 or visit us at www.retreatbehavioralhealth.com to begin your journey today.

The Behavioral Corner 
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