By: Lakeview Health
David Naylor, CEO at Bridgeway Holistic Sober Living visited the Lakeview Health campus in Jacksonville, Florida. During his visit we sat down with him to talk about Bridgeway’s sober living program in Austin, Texas. https://youtu.be/IHwSeo1iYHU To learn more about Bridgeway Sober Living, visit their website at http://bridgewaysoberliving.com. Bridgeway Sober Living Podcast Transcript Gina Thorne: Welcome everyone, to the Lakeview Podcast Series. I am really pleased today to be joined by David Naylor who is with Bridgeway Sober Living in Austin, Texas. It’s nice to have you here. David Naylor: Thank you so much, it’s great to be here. Gina: I am excited to hear more about your program. So Bridgeway Holistic Sober Living has eight beds, correct? Or eight houses. David: Yes, we’ve got eight homes. Gina: And how many are men and how many are women? David: We’ve got five male houses and three female houses. Gina: And so, how’s that working out? I mean, what made you decide that this is the direction you wanted to go in? David: Well, my first real treatment happened when I was 17 and I didn’t really heal and do the work until about 12 years later when I was 29. I was in corporate for most of my life. I was at Google for several years and it came to the point where, last year, where it was in my career, but it wasn’t in my calling. So I read this book, “From Career to Your Calling,” and I’ve always enjoyed helping people experience what I experienced and that’s when I left my dream career and my dream job and set out for my calling and opened one house, and it’s just been kind of a flood gate knowing that I was following that voice inside and it has grown pretty quickly. Gina: And it’s just a passion now. David: It is. Gina: That’s great. You talk about healing a lot on your website and in a lot of the literature you have, so what does that healing look like for your residents when they come to your program? David: Well, when they come in, as you know, in treatment and IOP, it’s expensive, especially if one doesn’t have insurance. We are really affordable. So you can come in and live in a community of people in a safe, nurturing environment with structure, accountability, where you’re going to work the 12-steps and develop a relationship with your higher power, but you’re also going to connect to your feelings. You’re also going to learn how to rescue that inner child, if you will, and raise yourself up, do a lot of family origins work, and learn how to ask for what you need or want and learn how to rebuild that self-esteem, learn how to set boundaries and just kind of like, get that extra mile of care, mentorship, coaching, you know, it comes with a gym membership, and just kind of a holistic, 360 approach. Gina: Sounds very familiar because I believe we’ve adopted some of that very same stuff over here at Lakeview, so that’s great. So you talk a lot about the concept of healing and a lot of that is driven by the work you do with your Recovery Coaches. You also talk about how you have a minimum of 10 years’ experience in working with recovery, or at least your coaches do. You believe that in order for it to be authentic for your staff, in order for them to relate, they really have to understand the steps and understand the process of recovery. So what does that look like when you’re working with your staff? David: So for instance, we just hired someone who has been at Origins for several years in San Padre. All of our staff has not only had to work through the steps for their drug of choice, whatever that was, but they also do the deeper level process addiction work. They learn, “Oh wait, ok drug/alcohol,” but what’s underneath that? Co-dependency, food addiction, relationship, work, sex addiction, and then they kind of work those layers to really connect with their true self to know the steps, but also the deeper level of the trauma, trauma work, co-dependency work, shame release, and learn how to live with full self-esteem, if you will. So our staff has had all of that experience and training to then pass on to our residents. Gina: So it’s almost like putting your oxygen mask on first in order to help the residents. David: That’s right. Gina: That’s great. That’s a wonderful Servant Leadership approach as well. David: Well, my higher power who I call God, has given us this. It’s not ours, right? So this is the flood, this is what he’s opened up. In eight months, we’ve grown to eight houses and 65 residents. So we have a duty to have a core leadership team to serve the souls that God brings, not us. Gina: That’s a great philosophy, David. For those folks that are watching today, if they wanted to learn more about how Bridgeway works, and they wanted to access services at Bridgeway, how would they get in touch with you? David: Well you can go to BridgewaySoberLiving.com and we’ve also recently acquired HickoryWindRanch.com so you can go to either one of those websites or you can call us at 512-765-5711 or you can email me at david@bridgewaysoberliving.com and someone will get back to you. Gina: That’s great. Thanks so much for visiting us here in Jacksonville. For those folks that are watching today and want to learn more about how to access residential treatment, we invite you to call us at 866-887-0142 and one of our trained staff will be available to help you right away. Thank you!
