The Shadows of Childhood and Generational Trauma: The Hidden Roots of Addiction and Mental Illness

What are the lasting effects of childhood trauma, generational addiction, chronic stress, and unresolved grief on adult mental health? 

In this in-depth conversation, mental health and diagnostic expert Dr. James Flowers shares the personal experiences that shaped his clinical philosophy and approach to integrative psychiatry. Growing up in South Texas in a family affected by dysfunction, alcoholism, emotional adversity, and repeated loss, he reflects on how early life environments shape identity, coping patterns, overachievement, and vulnerability across generations. 

With more than twenty five years of experience in the evaluation and treatment of chronic pain and co occurring addiction, Dr. Flowers explains why modern psychiatry often moves too quickly toward diagnosis and medication without fully understanding root causes. He discusses the risks of fragmented care and standardized treatment models, and introduces his comprehensive 360 degree psychiatric evaluation approach known as the Living MRI. This model integrates medical testing, neuropsychology, hormones, nutrition, inflammation, brain imaging, and longitudinal assessment to understand the whole person rather than isolated symptoms. 

The conversation explores: 

• Generational trauma and addiction cycles 
• Emotional abuse and high functioning coping patterns 
• Workaholism as a trauma adaptation 
• Complicated grief and cumulative loss 
• The connection between chronic pain and addiction 
• Neuroplasticity and brain healing 
• Holistic and integrative psychiatric care 
• Affordable residential treatment models 
• Boundaries, self care, and spirituality in long term recovery 

This episode offers both personal insight and clinical depth for anyone interested in trauma psychology, addiction recovery, brain health, and the evolving future of modern mental health treatment. 

About James Flowers: For more than 25 years, Dr. James has been one of the most recognized and respected names in the field of chronic pain, pain recovery, and addiction. With his broad educational background and extensive experience in both the evaluation and treatment of chronic pain and co-occurring addiction, he is recognized as an expert. 

00:00:00 Introduction to Dr. James Flowers and his clinical mission 
00:02:17 Childhood in South Texas and early family dysfunction 
00:04:56 Generational addiction and emotional abuse 
00:06:03 Loss, workaholism, and family instability 
00:08:17 Death, grief, and academic resilience 
00:12:32 Healthy coping mechanisms and overachievement 
00:14:53 Therapy, early intervention, and lifelong support 
00:18:03 Understanding family dysfunction and trauma cycles 
00:21:56 Trauma, wealth, and generational behavioral patterns 
00:25:34 Choosing psychology and psychiatry as a calling 
00:29:26 The evolution of modern mental health resources 
00:34:04 The risks of fast psychiatric diagnoses 
00:37:31 The Living MRI comprehensive psychiatric evaluation 
00:42:02 Moving beyond standardized mental health treatment 
00:43:14 The Jay Flowers Health Institute model 
00:48:32 Accessibility and barriers to quality mental health care 
00:51:28 Building an affordable residential treatment model 
00:52:42 Vision, purpose, and manifestation in clinical practice 
01:07:38 Neuroplasticity and healing the brain after trauma 
01:13:03 Boundaries, balance, and sustainable self care 
01:21:01 Spirituality, compassion, and final reflections 

Follow Abdullah Boulad: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abdullahboulad/  
https://www.instagram.com/abdullahboulad/  

Follow Dr James Flowers: 
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesflowersphd/ 

Transcript

James Flowers 00:00:00  My entire life has been formed because of my family circumstances. My grandfather was an addict. My grandmother was an addict that passed down into my father. He was a very heavy drinker. He became a workaholic. My entire family system was truly traumatizing. My oldest sister became a drug addict herself when I was ten. My dad took my sister to a treatment. He drove home and walked in. We were talking and my father looked over at me and he grabbed his chest and he fell out of the chair and died. Wow. My mother, who was sitting at the other end of the table, she drank her vodka and she's like, well, fuck, what are we going to do now? It was insane, right? And I literally can remember saying to myself, all of these people are nuts, and I'm not going to I'm not going to live my life like this. And I want to help people like this. At ten years old, we can't just look in a silo. Let's not look at the addiction only.

James Flowers 00:01:03  Let's not look just at the depression or the anxiety. You have to really look broad spectrum. The average psychiatrist in the United States will diagnose a patient within eight minutes.

Abdullah Boulad 00:01:16  How is this possible?

James Flowers 00:01:17  It's impossible.

Abdullah Boulad 00:01:20  Welcome to the Living a Life and Balance podcast. My name is Abdullah Bullard. I'm the founder and CEO of the Balanced Rehab Clinic. My guest today is Doctor James Flowers, mental health and addiction specialist and founder of the Jay Flowers Health Institute. In this episode, James shares his powerful personal story. Growing up in a wealthy but deeply dysfunctional family marked by addiction, trauma and tragedy, James made it his life's mission to understand why families fall apart and how to help them heal. He also shares his insights on the science of manifestation, proving that vision, when backed by intention and integrity, can truly change lives. I hope you will enjoy. James. Yes. What motivated you to do what you do today?

James Flowers 00:02:17  Boy, that's a deep question for me and a little bit long answer, but but since you ask, I'll.

James Flowers 00:02:25  I'll go back. I might as well go back all the way to childhood because I have to. Please. You know what I do today, I'll start with is my life passion, my mission, my purpose. I believe that I'm here for a reason. And that reason really is to help and save lives, help people to achieve the best, the health in every realm of their life that they can possibly achieve. And the reason that is. Is because I grew up, I typically will say deep South Texas. If you visualize Texas, where the Texas Mexican border is. I grew up on a very large ranch, and, and we raised cattle and grain and horses and all of that. So I grew up in a very small little micro village right on this ranch. And my grandfather was a surgeon. He built the hospital, the first hospital in the area in South Texas. And so I grew up in a family of wealth that was extremely dysfunctional and every way you can possibly imagine. And my mom and my dad met when they were 16 years old, different high schools.

James Flowers 00:03:45  And they met at what we call a football game and, and at halftime. And they met and fell in love and they eloped to Mexico and they got married two weeks later. And my dad brings my mother home, which is about 2.5 hours from her home where she grew up, and he walks in his house and says, hi, mom, dad, this is my new wife, Cynthia. Can you imagine?

Abdullah Boulad 00:04:13  Yes. Congratulations.

James Flowers 00:04:14  Congratulations. Congratulations. Certainly not. Exactly. And my grandmother was furious. My father's mother was just furious. And she actually slapped my mother very hard and called her pretty bad name, right? And so my grandfather, being a physician, my mother started crying, and she was very upset. And my grandfather reached over to his little box and he says, here, have some Valium. You'll feel better. Right? So day one already. And my going back a little bit. My grandfather, was an addict. my grandmother was an addict. and on my father's side and on my mother's side.

James Flowers 00:04:56  Both her mother and father were alcoholics. Okay. Very professional, very successful in what they did. They were very what you what we call functioning alcoholics their entire life. But they began drinking as children as well. And my grandfather on my father's side began drinking early. And so that passed down into my father, who was very gregarious, very outgoing, very handsome, somewhat of a ladies man. And he married my mother. And when he married my mother shortly after they were going to a party. And he looked at my mother and he said, look, we're going to walk in. I just want you to smile and don't say a word. Just nod your head, yes or no, I'll do all the talking. Right. So he just treated her. my mother was also, Miss South Texas and beauty pageant queen and all of that. So? So he treated her like that, which it was a it was emotional abuse. You know, she didn't really realize it was emotional abuse, but it was he was a very heavy drinker.

James Flowers 00:06:03  he also, became a workaholic. he worked both in my family's oil company and then also, he sold had several automobile dealerships. And so he sold, you know, lots and lots of cars and worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week. So he was a philanderer. My mother would stay home and drink and take Valium. I was raised by a nanny. And so my entire family system was truly Trump traumatizing to children. My mother got pregnant, shortly after they married and carried twin boys, nine months and lost them at birth. Both of them died at birth. And so that was traumatizing to my mother and caused her to take more volume, more alcohol and smoke, right? She probably smoked through her pregnancies back then, like a lot of women did. But, she became pregnant about a year and a half, two years later, with my oldest sister. Then two years later, she had twin daughters, my sisters. And then five years later, she had me. So I'm the youngest.

James Flowers 00:07:13  and so we grew up. My mom and dad traveled frequently. They were gone. We grew up in an isolated area, and we had a nanny who took care of us, who was really like my mother. and as I went through elementary school, my sister, my oldest sister became a drug addict herself. Right. So she started with marijuana in the 70s and then started with cocaine or, you know, ended up doing cocaine and then eventually heroin. And then she became a drug dealer in South Texas. And because my family was very well known in that region. she would get pulled over and have marijuana, cocaine, heroin with her. And the police would just say, we're going to take it from you. Stop doing this. Never any consequences. They'd call my father and they'd say, you know, hey, Brenda was. We pulled her over and she had drugs in her car. Please tell her to stop. And my father would do it and move on. Right. So her problem got worse and worse, and, she ended up in treatment.

James Flowers 00:08:17  And for the next probably 10 or 12 years, she was in and out of treatment constantly. She would go to treatment, she would either leave against medical advice or she would stay and then get out and then relapse because she wouldn't work a program. And also because my family was so dysfunctional and didn't work their own program because they were in their own active addiction. So when I was ten, my dad took my sister to a Treatment. again, after many, many times. And the day he took her to treatment, he drove home and walked in, and my mother was sitting at one end of the table. I was my dad was sitting here, my sister's here. My. And I was over here and walked in and we're starting to have dinner. My mother had her vodka. My father had his scotch or whiskey, whatever it was at the time. And we were talking and my father looked over at me and he grabbed his chest and he fell out of the chair and died. Wow.

James Flowers 00:09:18  And, my mother, who was sitting at the other end of the table, stood up and she drank her vodka, and she's like, well, fuck, what are we going to do now? That was the reaction. It was insane, right? And I was just sitting there like, is this actually happening? My sisters are crying and, you know, going a little crazy. And so I picked up the phone and called my grandfather, the doctor and he said, I'll call an ambulance, get him to the hospital. But he was already dead at 40 years old from his own work. Yeah. Very young. So when he died, my mother sent me to a school in Houston. and I finished high school in Houston, and then eventually, my mother moved to Houston. Then I went off to college. But. But looking back, when I was ten years old, I watched my entire family's dysfunction. And I literally can remember saying to myself, I am not going to do this.

James Flowers 00:10:23  This is not who I am. And all of these people are nuts, and I'm not going to I'm not going to live my life like this. But I want to know why they're like this. I'm not sure. And I want to help people like this at ten years old. Okay. And so I continue my life and go to high school and then off to college and, and in my first year of college. my mother called me about halfway through my first year, and she said she was crying. And I said, what's going on? And she said, your sister, your oldest sister, Brenda, just fell eight stories off of her balcony. And died. And, what happened? You know, once we figured out what happened, she was high on cocaine, and she was hallucinating, and we don't know if she fell or jumped or how it happened, but nonetheless, she died and had a lot of drugs in her system. And so my mother continued to spiral from depression.

James Flowers 00:11:18  And then shortly after that, one of the twins was diagnosed with cancer. And it was a very painful neuropathic pain. lots of tumors that they would surgically remove, and then they would grow back within six months. And she died six months later. And so I just continued through undergraduate just to live in this, you know, traumatized family, lots of death. Both of my grandparents on my mother's side died of cirrhosis of the liver from alcoholism, severe alcoholism. and, I just, you know, I said, I'm working on my degree in business. I'm going to double major. I'm going to change it to psychology or get a double major and do both. And that's what I did. And then I went off to graduate school and then off to my doctoral program and then to fellowship. And my entire life has been formed to where I am today because of my family circumstances. and in my own situation, people often often ask me, are you an addict? Like, why didn't you become an addict? Or are you an addict? And they assume that I am.

James Flowers 00:12:32  And I've never smoked a cigarette. I've never smoked a cigar. I rarely have a glass of wine, you know. Maybe with a steak or something for dinner every once in a while. but I just missed it. It was like a bullet that just came past my face and missed me for some reason. But I did not end up with addiction. My addiction became. And I can remember when this happened and a light bulb turned on is, I did not miss a day of school from kindergarten through my doctorate degree, not one class, and I just focused because it was an escape for me away from my family. And so and then I began to run and I was a ran track in college. I was a sprinter. And so I focused on exercise, running and studying and and learning about human behavior. And I did that all the way through my doctorate. And then I switched to marathons and became a marathon runner. And and that was part of my own therapy as well. And I eventually I've run 28 or 30 marathons in 100 mile races.

James Flowers 00:13:46  And so my addiction really began, exercise, running, studying, learning about human behavior, which if you're going to have an addiction, not too bad of an addiction. But but realizing it really was an addiction for me. sometimes, even at my age now, I'm like, what? Can I go back? Should I go get a law degree now? You know? But, that's basically in a nutshell. I know it was a long answer, but that's how I ended up where I am today in this field, is really my family's dysfunction and background.

Abdullah Boulad 00:14:25  Thank you for sharing that. There's a lot to take in. yeah. You talk about it right now, obviously, because you have processed and and done your work, Yeah. But it's it's, there's a lot of emotion and feeling behind each little story you just have explained. My question to you is, how could you function at that young age and what was supporting you?

James Flowers 00:14:53  So two things supported me. one, I had a very, very, very close relationship.

James Flowers 00:15:03  her name was Eva, and she was from, Mexico. And she was our nanny. And she took just she really understood. She barely spoke English from the time my mother, my mother was pregnant with my her first set of twin boys when she came to work for my family. And she stayed with my family. And for the next 50 years, really working with, with my mom and my family. And. But she was more my guardian and my love than my own family because they were so dysfunctional and she would sit on my bed with me at night and we would pray together. And she was very spiritual, and she would talk to me about wonderful things, and she would talk to me about the good in life and how to live a healthy life. Right? And she loved my mother. She loved my sisters, and she had a great relationship with them. But there was something about me that she, just like a mother bird, took care of me. and I think part of it was that.

James Flowers 00:16:11  And then the other thing that as dysfunctional as my family was and the alcoholism and the drug addiction in my family, when my father died, my mother had the foresight at least to say, I want you to go to therapy, and you have a lot to deal with in your life. And one of these days it's going to boil over and you're going to have a breakdown and you've got to go to therapy. So she was still in her addiction at that time. And I said, sure, yes, I'll, I'll do that. And and so I started therapy. And to this day I've never quit therapy. I still every Tuesday from 10 to 11 a.m. in Houston, I see my psychiatrist, and we do talk therapy, and she is an amazing woman that I've seen for years. and it's really saved my life keeping myself well. And I did a lot of trauma work pre the psychiatry work that I'm doing now, but, I did a lot of trauma work, a lot of therapy over the years, and, and knew that if I went in to do this for a living, I had to be.

James Flowers 00:17:29  Well. So I think those two things, one My mother did have a little bit of mothering in her in a healthy way to get me into therapy. And then my, Eva, who just passed away two years ago, by the way. And that was pretty traumatic for me to lose her as.

Abdullah Boulad 00:17:46  Well, I can't imagine. It was like during that time, like your safe space she gave you and and some, some some motivation, that there is something outside what you have experienced as a.

James Flowers 00:18:00  Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 00:18:03  Yes. you mentioned a couple times now dysfunctional family. What's your understanding of being dysfunctional? How can this character be characterized and and identified?

James Flowers 00:18:16  Sure. Yeah. You know, first of all, I think it's rare. You probably know this just as well as I do. It's very rare to find a family that's completely functional. Right. Everybody in every family has their. Their issues and their dysfunctions and their family and. And I think both of our practices, are working with very high net worth families.

James Flowers 00:18:41  And I come from a high net worth family who, in my experience and in my work over the years and in my research and that level of wealth and really even in other levels as well, I know, there's going to be a certain amount of dysfunction. And the higher the wealth, the more dysfunction there is in a family because it brings so many problems. Money brings big problems into a family. And but what do I mean by dysfunction? In my family, the dysfunction was my father, Mary, and my mother, at 16, not telling his parents about it, his parents being alcoholics and behaving really as poor parenting. Right, is dysfunctional. My mother's parents and their alcoholism. For example, my mother was very beautiful. Blond hair, blue eyes, beauty pageant. And her sister. my aunt, who I love dearly, was pretty. Not like my mother. Pretty. And my grandmother. Every day after school when my mother was growing up, when my mother and Judy would get to home in the afternoon, my grandmother would look at my mom and she would say, Cynthia, go get in the car.

James Flowers 00:20:04  We're going to the country club, and we're going to go play golf and and, visit. And Judy would say, my mother's sister would say, I want to go. And my my grandmother would look at my aunt and say, Judy. Cynthia never has to worry about a thing in her life. She is so beautiful. She's never going to have to worry. You, on the other hand, are going to have to study. So go to your room and study. That is a huge. It just gives me chills even saying it. And it is so dysfunctional, so emotionally horrible. And it really clearly hurt my relationship. I mean, my mother's relationship with her sister, and they really did not have a relationship until after my father died. And they began to repair their relationship. When my mother got sober, started attending AA and started attending her own therapy. And, my mother died, in 2016 from Alzheimer's. And before she died, before she became, so sick with Alzheimer's.

James Flowers 00:21:11  She and my aunt were actually very close, and they did a lot of therapy together. My aunt, also out of her own trauma from that, became a psychologist and practiced well into her 80s. And, and so that's just a little bit about dysfunction and, and, and my family in particular.

Abdullah Boulad 00:21:35  And do you think this dysfunction because you could, you could think about now also generational trauma and and also like living growing up privileged that this has also an effect. So what do you think in now in your case or in your family's case, generationally speaking had the bigger effect? Why?

James Flowers 00:21:56  I think both. I think that, you know, if you look back at my, at my family tree and you look at the dysfunction down, it passed from generation to my grandfather was German. my mother was German. my grandfather was in World War two. Okay. there was a lot of trauma in their backgrounds, which I think also led to part of their drinking and part of their self-medicating and part of their addiction.

James Flowers 00:22:28  And I think that they didn't have the capacity to. Well, my grandfather was probably a wonderful physician, and he knew how to take care of other people. He didn't know how to take care of his own. Right. So then my father grew up like that. He didn't realize or was never taught how to treat someone appropriately. So he grew up just like his father drank, did drugs every once in a while, I'm sure, treated my mother horribly. Cheated on her many times. and I think that that generational trauma, even today, I. You know, if you'll recall, my twin brothers died at birth, and then my oldest sister died from drug addiction, then a twin died from cancer. So I have one sister left. And and to this day, It makes me so sad that she has. She will not go to therapy and she carries a tremendous amount of anger, a tremendous amount of resentment. She and I have a very strained relationship because she believes that because I was the favorite, she didn't get what she deserved in our family.

James Flowers 00:23:47  And and it's continuing to affect her children. And I see that in her own children. And so it's continuing and part of my family and I think on my side, you know, through going to therapy, I'm hoping and I feel very positive that I've stopped that peace on my side. but I also think I want to go back and mention something. So I grew up in a very high net worth, successful family because of the drug addiction and because of the alcoholism. My grandfather quit practicing early and my family when my father died at 40. His family split and one side of the family took and inherited the oil company. My side of the family didn't, and my mother went from living in a a probably, you know what some people may say? Mansion or beautiful home. Huge home. to having nothing when my father died. And that was extremely traumatic as well. She was cut off by my father's side of the family financially, and they took care of me financially, but refused to take care of my mother financially.

James Flowers 00:25:06  And, and so that was also traumatic. So the so the generational wealth also ended because of addiction, which you and I have seen in multiple families and family members that that we work with.

Abdullah Boulad 00:25:23  Okay. It's, And this is what brought you into mental health and addiction treatment. And how was your journey there?

James Flowers 00:25:34  Yeah, it was, for me, it was. I don't want to say simple, but it was so natural for me. I, I knew I just, I ate it like I was eating breakfast. I ate it like I was the knowledge and the in the studying and the papers and the research and I, you know, like I said, I never missed a class even all the way through. And so it was my escape. And so the knowledge just I just like, it was like, synthesized right into my brain. And I would listen to every word every professor said. And when I had to do my field practicum, and when I had to do therapy in classes and stuff, I just ate it up.

James Flowers 00:26:23  Loved it. Now people can also be book smart and not a good therapist. Right. So you have to have both. And it's a balance. Speaking of balance. And, and I think I balance that pretty well. I love the therapeutic aspect of what I do. I also love the business side of what I do of running my practice and J. Flowers Health Institute and, and so and because I've done a lot of therapy myself and been in therapy, I've picked up on what was very beneficial for me and have used the tools that I've learned in therapy, through education, through reading, through research, and through 31 years of experience of working with people. So the journey for me was, somewhat of a journey of peace because it gave me relief to actually do it.

Abdullah Boulad 00:27:22  Was it also kind of a self-help process? Oh, yeah. Because that's what what what we see very often, like people who struggle themselves go into mental health treatment, study psychology, getting a counselor or coach, whatever.

James Flowers 00:27:37  Yeah, I used to deny it. Yeah. Before I did a lot of therapy. And, you know, people would say, of course that's what you were doing. Yeah, of course you're doing that because of your, you know, and I would say, no, no, that's not why I'm doing it. I'm doing it because I think it's a great thing to do. I'm not doing it because of my family. And absolutely I did it because of my dysfunction that I grew up in and my family. And I felt like, you know, they always say either in medical, like freshman in medical school, the first year med student will come down with every disease that they learn about. Right. And they they pick up every symptom they have. And I did that my first year. You know, in in my graduate program. And I'd say, oh my gosh, am I borderline? Oh my gosh, am I bipolar? Oh no. You know, but of course doing therapy and reading and researching and all of that.

James Flowers 00:28:32  yes, I did it because of my, my own family and trauma that I had. And that's why I think you're right. So many of us who do this for a living have something in our background that brought us here.

Abdullah Boulad 00:28:45  Yeah. And I think it's not not something bad. It's I mean, many, many big, authors, therapists, physicians today, they, they have they have an experienced background. And this is what's adding value to to their practice today. Certainly. Yeah. Yeah. But when I, when I look back to, to the generations, obviously your grandparents and your parents, they haven't had the right resources available, maybe to them. Yeah. Whereas today I feel there is more available. So how do you see how? How do you see this, have been developed in the last decades.

James Flowers 00:29:26  You're exactly right. I think in the, 40s, 50, 60, 70s. I'll stop at 60s even. Because in the 70s, we started seeing a lot more therapy because it was kind of the thing, the popular thing to do go to psychiatry or what have you.

James Flowers 00:29:43  But you're right, the resources were limited, and they lived in a rural area and, in a rural South Texas area, and there was no real therapy available at all. And I think over time, you know, my mother started therapy in the 70s when it was kind of the cool thing to do. She started going to psychiatry and, and, and she loved it, and it became more accessible to them and of course, jumped forward many years and with the advent of Covid. You know, I remember in my own practice when Covid hit, I literally panicked and I thought, oh my gosh.

Abdullah Boulad 00:30:23  What this will cap into the world.

James Flowers 00:30:26  This is going to be the end of the world. And I'm going to close my practice and I catastrophizing and life is over right as I know it. And it was exactly the opposite, right? Business flourished and mental health because so many therapists went home and got on zoom and started doing teletherapy. And today, even after Covid, you see private practitioners and psychiatrists that are doing almost there's probably almost as many online therapists doing zoom or some type of electronic image therapy as there are in-person therapist.

James Flowers 00:31:02  And in an in practice. I don't know if you've noticed this in your own practice, but sometimes it's even hard to hire an extremely highly educated quality therapist or psychiatrist because they can do the same thing at home. Yeah, it's difficult to bring them in.

Abdullah Boulad 00:31:21  More.

James Flowers 00:31:21  Comfortable. Exactly. But but back to your point, certainly therapy has become so much more available because we've had, you know, a huge growth in this field of, of psychology and mental health and addiction. You know, 30 years ago when I started working in the addiction and mental health world in the United States, there wasn't a ton of treatment programs today. You see programs just popping up everywhere. I was over, at the Masters events in the in the exhibit hall, and I was looking at the booth and I was like, wow, I'm never there. New. Oh. They're new. And it's like, people just keep Coming. And sometimes I worry about that. Sometimes I'm like, when is it going to get too saturated and what's the quality of work? So I want to make sure that we keep our world in therapy and mental health high quality.

James Flowers 00:32:21  And I worry that sometimes it's it's too much.

Abdullah Boulad 00:32:27  I believe, I believe this will happen naturally. Yeah. in the last and the last decade, I've seen people coming and then going again, and only those who are able to provide, positive outcomes, they will survive.

James Flowers 00:32:45  Exactly.

Abdullah Boulad 00:32:47  but I also see, for example, when we think about about your grandparents and your parents, maybe the church or before that the tribe was, was was therapy was the supportive community. Right. later on. Okay. We this was replaced by the psychiatrist or by a therapist locally, but you still had no access to information. No books or rarely. Maybe you go and get information. No internet with the internet with. Now we have online therapy and and AI and ChatGPT and automated therapy and and conferences and online conferences, so much more. Resources and information are available for, for the majority of people, if they are in Uganda or in somewhere, somewhere in Patagonia. It's available. It's available. Therapy is available.

Abdullah Boulad 00:33:45  And that's the beauty. I think what what we have today. But people still need to know what they need to have. And the difficulty most likely is, the diagnosis. Yeah. Because it's easy to self-diagnose like mental health sites.

James Flowers 00:34:04  Doctor.

Abdullah Boulad 00:34:04  Google doctor Google. Am I bipolar, am I borderline? Am I this and what is the treatment? And this is like the making standards of of what people are. What's your thought?

James Flowers 00:34:18  Oh my gosh I have a lot of thought on that. so I'm going to jump back again because I'm a storyteller, as you can tell. But 30 years ago when I started working in this field, people would go into and what and let me say this, and it continues today. So at the best treatment centers, many of the best treatment centers, and many of the lowest quality treatment centers, what I've seen happen in treatment in general, whether it was addiction treatment or mental health treatment, but I'll stick with addiction for now, is people would go into an addiction treatment program, let's say, for alcoholism, right? They would see a psychiatrist for 15, 20 minutes.

James Flowers 00:35:03  They would see a medical doctor for 30 minutes and a nurse for 20 minutes, and then they would go detox, right? And the dying, the psychiatrist would write a diagnosis. Substance use disorder. Right. Addiction addict. They put them in a 12 step program and they tell them, read this book. We're going to do group every single day, all day long. And you're going to leave here and you're going to go to meetings the rest of your life. And that's all you need. Right. And they and they just did not look at the comorbid disorders that come along. You're not. You don't just wake up as an addict. Right. You don't just wake up and say, I want a beer, or I want a drink, or I want cocaine. It's there for a reason. Or let me say this. Maybe some young people do cocaine the first time because their friends want them to do it. Maybe. But many times they do it the first time and they have this feeling that'll mask something, right? Whether it's unconscious or conscious, something triggers in their brain that made them feel so good.

James Flowers 00:36:12  Forget something, not worry about something that they said, I want more, right? And so they keep going and become either physically, psychologically or otherwise addicted and continue to do that. So what I've seen the evolution, you know, in the field over the last 30 years is for so many, for 2024, probably of those 30 years, we saw people get stuck in either a mental health program, you know, Harvard Mental Health Newsletter presented a paper that said the average psychiatrist in the United States will diagnose a patient within eight minutes.

Abdullah Boulad 00:36:55  How is this possible?

James Flowers 00:36:56  It's impossible. Impossible. You can't do that.

Abdullah Boulad 00:37:01  And then they prescribe a medication.

James Flowers 00:37:03  They write the prescription. They give it to the nurse, and they. And to the social worker or whoever's treating. And they're like, here's this disorder treat. Right. And then they go along and they treat it and they don't look at anything else. And it's just so wrong. And so that's really the reason that I left that strictly addiction world and mental health world and, and said I really want to build an institute.

James Flowers 00:37:31  Houston, Texas is home to the largest medical center in the world. And in my fellowship training, I also learned in my training that we can't just look in a silo. Right. Let's not look at the addiction only let's not look just at the depression or the anxiety or the failure to launch. He's a failure to launch because he comes from a wealthy family, and he just needs some motivational interviewing or what have you, and you have to really look. Broad spectrum. And I think you and I share that philosophy is let's look 360 degrees of a person's life and let's evaluate them inside and outside from childhood through today. And so what I say is, is I coined a term called a living MRI. And, and that is, is that you come into my practice and you're seen by a psychiatrist for maybe three hours on one day, and you may seem another hour to hour and a half for many days after that, but there's no ten minute, 20 minute, 30 minute. And there's no immediate no diagnosis on day one.

James Flowers 00:38:43  Right. That's impossible. You've got to get to know someone. So you need to do medicine, history and physical and lab work and blood work in order. Diagnostics like CT scans, looking at the brain, looking at any damages, and then you move into psychiatry and then you move into neuropsychology or clinical psychology and look at personality patterns. And we even look at, I believe that you should look at your nutrition and look at your nutritional deficiencies. Women should look at their hormones. Men should be seen by a urologist. Right. My patients even see an ophthalmologist. And and you've got to uncover every tiny spectrum of their life with precision. And we meet every single day. We see patients one on one, not ten at a time. Right? Not 12 or 13 people in a group. Sorry, guys. not, you know, we do it one on one, and and at the end or every day we talk. And the diagnosis can change from day to day. Right. But we look again, look at the total life and we come up with a concrete set of root issues, causes and diagnoses.

James Flowers 00:40:01  And then we build a roadmap or a treatment plan that says, you know what? This person with the issues and outstanding problems in this person's life, I need to send you to the balance house. That would be the best place in the world for you. Or I need to send you to somewhere over here. Somewhere over here. Or if they're appropriate, they'll stay with me and do what we call our wellness program for a period of time. But I would say more than half of my patients I send out somewhere in the world for treatment, and about 40% stay that are appropriate, that I think, would benefit from what we offer. Yeah. So, yeah, we've gone from, you know, I, I wish that all over the world, substance use disorder was more regulated, that we had to include every treatment center had to include a well-rounded team, right? But it's just not there. So I just don't think treating the addiction alone is going to suffice.

Abdullah Boulad 00:41:02  Yeah. This is this is where this has come from.

Abdullah Boulad 00:41:07  so, so usually. Okay. It's, an addiction in-house. So let's treat the addiction. so. But what is the underlying cause? Absolutely. For me, for our for our practice at the balance, it's pretty normal. This is our ethos. The more the holistic approach, the individualized approach. And with that, without judging what, what the diagnosis is, even if someone comes with the diagnosis, I tell them, yeah, that's fine, that's nice. Good, good to have. But let's let's look at it exactly. Let's, let's question it. Yeah. but this is by by far not the standard around the world. And when I look at US, the 12 step group based treatment programs is still more more the standard.

James Flowers 00:42:02  It is and and I think unfortunately can cause more damage. Right. now I also want to say, I think that some people have gone through, you know, an addiction treatment program. Many people have gone through addiction treatment and they get a sponsor and they do well and they stay sober.

James Flowers 00:42:20  Now, I've also seen a big population in that group that use that, sponsor as their therapist, which is not the right tool. Right. So I just think people need to think broader in terms of addiction and mental health is we've got to look at everything. We've got to look at the medical kind of the what I call the biopsychosocial model of health. Right. Biological, psychological, sociological in every other way. Yeah, yeah. So I, I hope that we can bring that more to the world and people will see the successes of that.

Abdullah Boulad 00:42:57  Tell us about Jay Flowers. How are you set up? Yeah. What type of, I understand you you focus on the diagnosis, the assessments, to understand in what state someone is, but how how do you provide the service of your wellness program? Sure.

James Flowers 00:43:14  So our patients come, like your patients, from all over the world, every corner of the world. we're a small practice. We, I typically treat about, 14 to 18, sometimes 20 patients a month on a one on one basis only.

James Flowers 00:43:33  No group. Everything is one on one. We're on a 30 acre campus, in the middle of Houston, Texas. So you have to visualize 8 million people, right? In a very busy city. And then you have this sanctuary, right? And we sit on this, what I call a sanctuary. And it's a private club, private membership only club. And, people, my patients fly in. Everything is handled for them other than, you know, travel arrangements that are handled. and once we pick them up at the airport, we get them settled onto our campus. And our offices are on this campus, as well as their housing is on this campus, 170 500 zero square foot fitness facility, Olympic sized pool, three Olympic sized pools, pickleball courts, tennis courts, everything that you can imagine. Over 300 different group classes a day for exercise. everything from yoga to breathing to sound bowls to everything that you can imagine are offered during the day. And depending on what the patient needs, we can choose.

James Flowers 00:44:43  I have someone that I refer to as an air traffic controller, and all he does all day long is get feedback from the team, and then he makes schedules all day long. He's just sitting at a computer with three screens moving patients. Because I may say today, you know, this person needs to go have a CT scan tomorrow. And if he's already done the CT scan, then he's got to move that patient back around to different therapies. And so so we're really set up that we can turn on a dime. We can change whatever we need to change. everything is on the campus. But we also have access to, again, the Texas Medical Center. Texas Medical Center, as I said, is the largest in the world. Every specialist under the sun that you can imagine. and we partner with them. And that if I need a neurosurgeon, we can get our patient into a neurosurgeon within typically 24 to 72 hours. Mr.. Neuroscience Institute, the top neuroscience institute in the world.

James Flowers 00:45:49  If we need the chair of that institute, we have access to the chair almost immediately to evaluate our patients. Surgical. Many of our patients have come and had to have different types of surgery. Then we'll rehabilitate them. So we have the capacity to treat medical psychological social that biopsychosocial right. Everything on the campus. And so every patient is also assigned a wellness coach that is trained in our method that stays with them 24 hours a day. They have separate bedrooms but they stay in the same house or same, house together. and they're with them at night because at night I'm not seeing them. The therapist isn't seeing them. Right. You sure? You do many of the same things. And at night, that's some of the most important time is to watch their behavior. right. What do they want to do? So we'll take them to baseball games. We'll take them to basketball games, take them to concerts and look at their behavior, observe their behavior, and then report back to the clinical team.

James Flowers 00:46:56  So whatever it is under the sun that we need to do for their treatment plan, we certainly will put that into the treatment plan. But we're all based on this 30 acre campus that that allows us to do pretty much anything we need to do on a patient basis. And, and so many treatment centers will say we're individualized. Right. They're not individualized.

Abdullah Boulad 00:47:18  Why do you think they are not?

James Flowers 00:47:20  I think that because of the model and the way that the 12 step model is set up, that you have people enter a treatment plan or into a treatment program, probably around the world. Right. And they're an addict, let's say a drug addict or a cocaine addict or whatever type of drug or alcoholism it is. And they go in, they have that assessment and they say, okay, go into group, right. And they all get this 16 to 20 to 30 people are all going to the same group. And you may get three minutes of face time, but the rest of that 90 minutes, you're listening to 16 or 18 other people's problems and not getting to process yours.

James Flowers 00:48:00  And then you have one, sometimes two individual therapy sessions a week that's just not going to cut it.

Abdullah Boulad 00:48:08  Or they misunderstand is individualized. Treatment is not just having a one on one session once a week.

James Flowers 00:48:16  And that's what they call that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And and I appreciate the way that you guys do it as well as us is that no one really gets the same treatment. Everyone is unique. We all have our own issues and our own problems.

Abdullah Boulad 00:48:32  It comes with a price tag. It does.

James Flowers 00:48:34  So, yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 00:48:35  It's not, because there is a barrier, to get that level of, of of care. And the question for me is also how to overcome this barrier to get treatment or a holistic, individualized treatment like we're talking about right now.

James Flowers 00:48:52  Yeah. So I'm glad you brought that up, because when I do a lecture at a conference and I ask, does anybody have any questions? I always know the first answer. Someone's going to raise their hand and say, wow, how are my people going to afford that? Yes.

James Flowers 00:49:10  Right. And then I'm like, oh, right. I used to do that. And I used to go, oh my gosh. And I would talk about it because it is the way that we practice is an expensive way to practice. It cost. The overhead of the practice is huge. When you hire incredible staff, incredible physicians, incredible highly educated people, they come with a price tag. And when you sit with them for three hours at a time. Individually, that comes with a price tag. That is my burden, right. And your burden. And so it does cost a tremendous amount of money to be able to access the kind of top quality care that we provide. And so what I did for a while is I would do lectures. I started doing some lectures on teaching, private practice therapists, how to collaborate with physicians in their community and how to collaborate with, nutritionists in their community. But I would always get the feedback is I'm trying, but they won't call me back or I'm trying and they say they don't have time.

James Flowers 00:50:21  And so what.

Abdullah Boulad 00:50:22  They they they keep hold of their clients and not being collaborative.

James Flowers 00:50:26  They don't want to share. Right. They think they're going to lose them when actually it's quite the opposite. You keep yours. We're going to share back and forth because they need both of us. Right. So it's just like in my evaluation. People may come to me for you may call me and say, hey, Doctor Flowers, I have a very complex person. I'm not sure what's going on. Can you guys do an evaluation and then get him back over to us? Yes, 100%. That's not my patient. It's my patient for two weeks for the evaluation. And then we get that patient back out. And? And that's the collaborative approach, right? But the way that I overcame the financial piece of it is after many years of practicing the way that I practice and getting that question of how do you broaden the net for people to come in? about two years ago, I built a residential program, a 16 bed residential program in Houston.

James Flowers 00:51:28  that does do many of the same things that flowers J. Flowers Health Institute does. And it's all residential, so they're all in the same house, which lowers the cost. That's right. And it also does some group mostly group therapy, but they still get individual therapy every day. So the price on that is about a quarter of what it would cost to go to J flowers. So what that's helped me do is for families that cannot afford you. And I, it allows them to come to a very high quality program at a quarter of the cost and get much of the same treatment.

Abdullah Boulad 00:52:10  Is this eligible by insurance?

James Flowers 00:52:12  Yeah. Out of network.

Abdullah Boulad 00:52:13  Insurance network?

James Flowers 00:52:14  Yeah. So it's out of network insurance in the States. and then, the price of it, is in the $40,000 range. So it's very accessible to so many more people. to access.

Abdullah Boulad 00:52:30  Yes.

James Flowers 00:52:30  Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 00:52:32  Beautiful. Nice. Great job you do. Thank you. Obviously there is another topic I would like to to get into which is manifestation.

Abdullah Boulad 00:52:42  Oh, yeah. I know you have some thoughts about that. Can you? Can you explain to me what's your understanding of manifestation? Is it. I think about something. And then it will happen.

James Flowers 00:52:54  I wish it was that easy. However, sometimes I can say it actually can be that easy on some things, right? So, my idea of manifestation is that I do believe very strongly, and I've seen it in my own life, and I've seen it in the life of many people that I work with, is that if we believe and we can see and we can visualize what we want to happen and what we want to achieve, if you can truly do that and practice it, you can hold it in your hand. you can achieve it. Right. And I'm going to give you an example. many years ago, in my younger years, I had always wanted to open a treatment program, and I wanted to do it on a ranch right in Texas. And I wanted it to be absolutely beautiful, high end, and offer amazing services.

James Flowers 00:53:56  And the cost of that was somewhere I found one. Someone called me one day and said, I found this property, and I know you want to do something like this, and why don't you look at it online? And I looked at it online and I had seen it. I had and I have a vision board and I have, you know, a small vision board, and I'll have what I want to achieve and see the picture of it and look at it every day. And I had a picture of this, a different ranch, but a ranch. And I knew one day that I would do this. And so this person called me, I went to see this property. And I said, oh, I'm going to buy this property and start a program. And so I went home and told my partner, oh my gosh, I found this amazing property. How much is that property? Well, it's about 20 something million dollars. It's like, are you crazy? And I said, no, I'm going to buy this property.

James Flowers 00:54:53  He's like, you don't have $20 million to buy this property. And I said, not today, I don't, but I'm going to get it. So I went back the next day, and I met the owner of the property and sat down with her. And in our conversation she said, what do you want to do with this property? And I said, told her what I wanted to do with it. And she said, that's amazing. She goes, I've used this property as a sanctuary and a spa, but you have a much broader idea than I had. I don't want to do that. But I do have an eating disorder. She had gone to the Meadows for treatment many years ago successfully, and she still worked a program. And it hit a little nerve with her. Right. And and it hit her kind of in her heart. And I said, would you take this property off the market for 90 days and give me 90 days to, to figure this out? And she said she closed her eyes and she was like, I really want to keep it on the market.

James Flowers 00:55:56  And I said, just 90 days. I'll let you know tomorrow. So I drive back home to two and a half, three hours home. I sit at my computer and I start working on a business plan, and I knew that I was going to get that property. I felt it, I knew how to get there. So you don't have to just visualize it. You also have to visualize the steps to get there, right? So if you want a 20 something million dollar property, you got to have a business plan, right? So you have to take action on the Visualization. So I took action and I built a business plan. Looked at the numbers and I said, this will cash flow if I have this many patients and, you know, etc. she called me the next morning and she said, I'll, I'll give you 90 days. So I continued to build my business plan and mold it. 60 days went by and I think I raised $4 million, and I needed a lot more money.

James Flowers 00:56:56  And I was like, I'm gonna get it. I'm not worried about it. And so a week later, I was speaking in San Diego, California, at a conference. And the conference went a little long, longer than I wanted. And I missed my flight back to Houston. And it was the last flight of the day, and I had to be in Houston the next morning for a financial meeting for this property that I wanted to buy. And so I, looked online on my phone. Can I Is there any way to get back to Texas tonight? And there was one flight. Went to San Francisco and then to Houston, and it landed in Houston, like at 230 in the morning. And I was like, that's fine, I'll do it. And then I looked at the price and it was like almost $3,000. And this is a long time ago, right? And I was like, oh my God, $3,000. I have to be, I'm gonna do it. So I get on the plane, go to San Francisco, a group of people get on the plane to go to Houston.

James Flowers 00:57:54  And this woman was sitting two rows in front of me and the man sitting next to me ask her if she would switch seats. And her first response, she said, no, I don't want to switch seats. And he said, okay. But right before they closed the door, she turned around and she said, I'm sorry, I was tired. I'll switch seats. And so she switched seats and she sits down next to me and we take off and I have my laptop. I open my laptop and I'm typing, and she glances at it and it said something about addiction, right? And so I had my EarPods in, and she taps me on my knee and I took it out and she said, are you in recovery? And I said, well, I said, no, I'm not in recovery, but that's what I do for a living. And and she said, oh, she said, my son is in recovery. And I said, congratulations. That's amazing. I put my AirPod back in and we're flying to Houston.

James Flowers 00:58:51  And she taps me and she's like, how do I know if my son's going to relapse? And I was like, oh, that's a very deep subject.

Abdullah Boulad 00:59:00  Becoming a therapy session in the plane.

James Flowers 00:59:02  It's like, oh no, here we go. We're gonna do therapy all the way to Houston. And, and and I, you know, I explained to her there is no way to be sure, right? You know, and I talked about all of that, about relapse and what to look for and things like that. So she talks to me. We land at 2:00 in the morning in Houston. The plane hits the ground, and when the plane hit the ground, Her cell phone started ringing and she answered her cell phone and she says, oh no. She's like, hold on a second. We hadn't even introduced ourselves. Right. I didn't know her name. She didn't know my name. And she goes, my driver had a flat tire on the way to pick me up. Would you take me home? And I was like, okay, crazy lady.

James Flowers 00:59:46  I'm glad I'm not a stalker or a murderer, but sure, I'll take you home. And, and so we go to luggage and and I didn't have any. I had a little carry on, and she said, I've got a little bit of luggage. So we go to the luggage area. She had 11 suitcases, 11. And I was like, oh my gosh, thank God I have a at that time of a Tahoe, right? A big car, big truck. And so it fit in my SUV and we're driving down the freeway. And she's still asking me questions about her son. And you remember it's two something in the morning. And so we drive for about 30 minutes. And oddly, my house was in the same direction as her home, not in the same neighborhood, but the same direction. So we're driving and I take the exit to her neighborhood, and all of a sudden she goes. Have you ever thought about opening a treatment center in Central Texas like Austin? And my body just got chills and I was like, I have.

James Flowers 01:00:54  Yes. And, you know, and I didn't think anything of it. And I keep driving and and, she didn't say anything else and we're driving and she said, turn here and turn here. And then, about right before we got to her house, she said, you're going to have to stop at the gate when you. And I said, of course. And so I pull up to this home that had this huge gate and a guard in front of it, and this guard comes out and he's like, oh. Good morning ma'am. And she said, please open the gate. And he looked at me and he said, I need your ID. And I was like, I'm with her. And he goes, I need your ID. And I was like, okay. So I give him my ID, scans it, and the gate opens, right? And he gives me my ID back, and it's 3:00 in the morning now, right. And these two double doors open at our house, and nine staff members walk out to greet her at 3 a.m. in the morning, and she steps out of my car and they start taking the luggage out.

James Flowers 01:01:54  And she said, can I have your card? And I said, sure. So I gave her my card and I leave, and I go to sleep, and I go to the meeting the next day and really wasn't even thinking about her at all. I focused on the meeting that I was in, and at 10 a.m. my phone rings and I looked at it and I was like, I don't know who this is. And I answered the phone and said, this is Doctor Flowers. And she said hello. And I was like, I'm sorry, who is this? And she said, it's your friend from last night. And I was like, oh, okay. Hi. And she said, would you have dinner with my husband and I tonight? And I said, certainly. So she goes, meet us at the club. I knew what club it was. So I had no I was like, yes, I'll meet you there. So I met with went to dinner and I sat down and her husband said, so my wife tells me that you're interested in possibly opening a treatment center in Austin.

James Flowers 01:02:49  And I was like, I am. And, but I'm not sure what this meeting is about. And he goes, well, I don't either, really, but just tell me about this treatment center. So I tell him about it, and he gets up and shakes my hand and leaves, and I was like, okay. So she and I sit there and talk a little bit more, and we leave, and I go home and she goes home. And the next day he called, ask me to come to his office. I went to his office and he said, did you bring a business plan for that. And I said, I actually have one in the car. And he said, go get it. I got it, and I gave it to him, and he said, I'll get in touch in two weeks. And I said to him, I said, I only have two weeks left for this property or I'm going to lose the property. And, he looked at what I was trying to raise and he said, who owns this property? Mind you, it's like 200 miles away.

James Flowers 01:03:42  Right? And I told him the owner of the property, and he goes and he picked up his phone and pushed one but one button, and he got this woman on the phone and he said, hi there. I'm sitting with James Flowers, and I heard her go, what? And he goes, I need you to take your property off the the market while I look at this. And so he knew her. Yeah. Like, what a coincidence, right? Long story short, he writes the check and their son, who is in recovery, moves to Austin. I mentor him for a few years and build this program in Austin that I had always wanted to have. And I knew from childhood that that I wanted to do this, and I did it. I knew from halfway through my career that I wanted to buy a ranch and do it, and I did it. I know, and I have so many hundreds of examples of manifestation now that's a big manifestation, right? Raising over $20 million for a treatment center.

James Flowers 01:04:45  But doing that. But my point is, is what I'm going to talk about in my lecture tomorrow and when I talk to patients about is, is no matter what our lives are and where we come from, if we work to achieve and we visualize what we want, we can manifest it. Right? And because what happens is, is you build that energy into your subconscious mind, in your subconscious mind draws you to things that get you closer to actually achieving that, right? So sometimes you don't even realize that that you're the people, that you're surrounding yourself may be the next person that helps you achieve what you want to achieve. Right. And so I'll go into much more science about it later. But but basically it is a law of attraction and it's a law of belief. And we can train our brains to rewire, you know, we think negative thoughts. every most people think negative thoughts all day long about something. Oh, she's wearing an ugly dress. Oh, he looks awful today.

James Flowers 01:05:57  Looks like he hasn't slept. He looks so tired. Oh, I don't want to go to this. This talk today is so boring. Oh, that meeting I went to was so boring. If we can turn that off for a period of time and catch ourselves and stop ourselves from doing that and turn our thoughts into more positive thoughts. It literally rewires through something called neuroplasticity, our brain to begin to think more positively. And when we think positively, our brains are drawn to positive things. It's just the way God made us, I believe.

Abdullah Boulad 01:06:31  I love that. We love that. And, there is there is something called thoughts affect emotions. Emotions affect behavior. Yes. So it has to start somewhere. And I love the fact that you mentioned your vision board. And it has to start with a vision board. Vision board is not a woo woo ha ha. Yes, it's something you need to know what you want. If if if you if you jump into a car, if you don't know where you want to be ending, you will not be starting.

Abdullah Boulad 01:07:05  Right?

James Flowers 01:07:05  Going. Right. Exactly. That's exactly right. You have to have a vision. You have to be able to see it, and you have to be able to have that vision board people like you just said. People will laugh and go, you want me to do a vision board? I'm not going to do it. You know what? I don't care if you do an actual vision board or a magnet on your refrigerator or one on your mirror, but if you put your visions there, it draws you to that. Just like you said. You get in your car and you set your GPS to where you want to go, and it takes you there. Right.

Abdullah Boulad 01:07:38  But what's the neuroscience perspective of manifestation? Is there some scientific proof of that?

James Flowers 01:07:47  You know, I would say that there's not actually any hardcore scientific proof on manifestation, but but what we do know scientifically is that we can physically we rewire the brain through neuroplasticity is real it. We can have an extremely dysfunctional brain. And I'll give you another quick story.

James Flowers 01:08:14  I'll try to be fast here, but I had a patient there was 21 years old that was admitted to a psychiatric hospital in Duke University in the States, and he was diagnosed with schizophrenia on day one. His mother said, there's no way my son has schizophrenia. And the dad said, honey, this is Duke. Our son has schizophrenia, so let them medicate him with schizophrenia, which obviously the medication for schizophrenia is a very harsh medication. And so they began to medicate their son, with, clozapine, which is an old schizophrenic medication, schizophrenia medication. And his health continued to decline and his mood declined and its good. So schizophrenia increased, right? The paranoia increased, the anger increased, the thoughts, mood decreased. And so he. They had him there on this medication for about a week and a half, almost two weeks treating schizophrenia. The mother said it two weeks or a week and a half into it. I'm taking him out of here. She called me. I don't remember who gave her my my cell phone, but she called me on my cell and she said, what do you think after hearing this? And I said, well, I don't know.

James Flowers 01:09:33  It's sounds like he meets the criteria for schizophrenia, but if they haven't done a full evaluation, I would say have him evaluated. And she said, can I bring him to Houston? I said, of course, put him on a private plane. And mom and he flew over and on day one, day one that he was with us. He'd been in a hospital for two weeks. On day one, our medical director said one simple question to him, to he and his mother. Have you done any traveling over the summer? And the mother said he could barely even talk, so I couldn't hardly answer. And the mother said, yeah, we traveled all summer and he said, where did you travel? Well, we went to India, we went to Thailand, we went to there and there in Asia. And he said, okay. And he looked at me and he said, we're going to go to the hospital and we're going to do a brain MRI. Let's let's go. So he called.

James Flowers 01:10:24  And you know, typically, as it is, I'm sure everywhere MRI okay, we'll get back with you in 3 to 5 days and you'll come to an appointment. So we were in in 45 minutes having a brain MRI. And this young man, 21 years old, had a 13 inch tapeworm in his brain eating his brain. He had more than 50 penny sized holes in his brain. Okay. And so they induced him into a coma, and they began feeding him or intravenously, feeding him with an extremely strong Antibiotic that would kill this tapeworm over a period of time. And he couldn't be awake because if he was awake when the worm is dying, it's flipping trying to live. And that would have driven him even more crazy, right? Insane, really. And so the worm, once it dies, you know, our body just it kind of dissolves into the body. And so we began. He woke up from the coma four weeks out, and he was conscious and he was talking, and he was more clear.

James Flowers 01:11:38  And he came to our program and started doing the wellness program, and we started doing some brain exercises, a lot of medical work, a lot of psychiatric work, a lot of mental health work, and a lot of brain training. Right. And through neuroplasticity, through regrowing and rewiring the brain, over time, those holes began to close and all of his circuits started rewiring. His mood stabilized and he was able to go back to Duke University and graduated three years later with incredible success. Beautiful, but but our brains have that capacity. We just have to learn how to work it and we have to be guided through that. So there is science on neuroplasticity. Yes. which I believe leads to that manifestation. Right.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:30  Or the manifestation affects also how we think, how we rewire our brains.

James Flowers 01:12:35  Absolutely.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:36  And that will.

James Flowers 01:12:38  Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:39  Effect.

James Flowers 01:12:39  So true.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:40  Processes.

James Flowers 01:12:41  Absolutely. Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:43  Nice. Let's start manifesting then. Let's do it.

James Flowers 01:12:46  Let's do it. Let's talk about what we want and make it happen.

James Flowers 01:12:50  And I believe anybody can do that. We just have to learn how to do it. And then the key is is practicing.

Abdullah Boulad 01:12:56  James. Yeah. What what do you do? Private life. to stay in balance.

James Flowers 01:13:03  Great question and great reminder. Right. I love that word balance. And it's amazing how many times it comes up in our daily lives. Right? Just in a general conversation or conversations with patients about balancing their lives. And you know, that old term physician, heal thyself. Right. They're the hardest ones to treat therapists or the equally as hard. In trying to balance our lives and what I find, for me, that balance helps me balance my lives. And I'll back up a little bit and say that I was married for 25 years in a relationship and a wonderful marriage. but, my husband that I was married to at the time, was my practice partner as well. Okay. And we worked together 24 hours a day. We lived together 24 hours a day. We vacationed together 24 hours a day and we never stop talking about work.

James Flowers 01:14:04  So we had zero balance in our marriage for many years about that, right? And 25 years into it, right. Your relationship begins to change, right? And it changes from a wonderful, intimate friendship. I'm sorry, a wonderful, intimate relationship, almost really more so into a business relationship and a friendship. Right? That's not healthy in a marriage. It's just it's great that you get along so well and you talk about work all the time and you're successful, but the intimacy disappears and the marriage becomes dysfunctional. And I was happy. Right. And he went to therapy and went to a program in California for about a week. And he came home at the end of this week, and I'm sitting in a hot tub at home and I'm like, well, come home, get in the hot tub. And he's like, okay, but we need to have a conversation first. Yeah. And I'm like, okay. He gets in the hot tub and he says, you know how much I love you? And I said, yeah, I love you, too.

James Flowers 01:15:09  And, let me tell you about what happened at work. And he goes, no, let's talk about our divorce. And I was like, what? And he goes, we're getting a divorce. And I'm like, there's no way like no we have a we have everything in the world we want. We have a hugely successful life. What do you mean this is, this is irrational. What did that woman teach you? That we need to get divorced. And so I had no balance in my life. Right. And and so we divorced. And it was an extremely amicable relationship or divorce. And he is my dearest best friend in my life. I trust him more than anyone else in the world, and I believe he trusts me today more than anyone else in this world. He was recently hospitalized with a very severe illness. I'm still his medical power of attorney. And, And he's still my practice partner. we went through a period of therapy for the business. Right on how we're going to manage that and take care of that and continue working together, not being in a relationship together.

James Flowers 01:16:22  And that took some practice. And then I went to, a trauma program and really learned how to get balance in my own life. Right. And so, so it was a really difficult year, even though it was amicable. I went through about a year of pretty intense sadness, regret, anger at myself, going, what did I do? I've worked for the last 25 years. And but I didn't think about my relationship. And so that balance was tilted so far over to the financial and the success and the the the patience and the practice and, you know, all of that, but everything personal I ignored. And so I learned over the next few years through intense therapy, going to a little trauma program, that I worked hard on, that for me, balance in a well-rounded life is I start my day with meditation every day. I had to relearn how to meditate because I really wasn't doing it the right way. I have a relationship now. I'm in a very wonderful relationship. And let me tell you, the balance is in my life.

James Flowers 01:17:40  Completely changed. I run, I exercise, I have a personal trainer, I eat what I eat as I eat as good as I can. I wish I could say I ate better, but. But, I eat pretty healthy food. I meditate and I really try to take my hat off when I leave my practice and leave it on my desk, and I literally visualize myself doing that and say, this is staying here, and I'm going to go home and have my life and probably a little bit, because where I am at my stage in my life and my practice, I can do that. It's harder to do that earlier in a career, but now I can walk away because I know I trust my entire staff that the place isn't going to burn down, and if it does, it's going to take care of itself, right? And so balance for me now is being able to leave work at work. I'm available if they need me, but they know I need my own life and my own balance.

James Flowers 01:18:42  I take vacations of taking a trip around the world twice in the last two years, and so I've never taken time for myself and so for me, I work really hard, really hard, and I work a lot of hours. But when I'm done, I'm done. And I need to have my life with my partner and my family and with my friends and take care of myself mentally, emotionally and physically.

Abdullah Boulad 01:19:12  Thank you for sharing that and being that open. I, I, I see this in so many entrepreneurs and and that's the difficulty being a business owner, running a business where you focus on building something up and then when is enough enough, and when do you start to put boundaries in place. So you, you, you value also self-care. But the problem with this is that we end up most of the time identifying than ourselves with what we are doing, and we don't diversify in terms of roles, being a family member, being a friend to others and and value that as well. So I, I appreciate you sharing this.

James Flowers 01:19:57  It was a learning curve. And, but I just I love my life so much more today. And I'm really incredibly grateful that he and I are still very close friends. we I feel like we're still family. And so to see in a different way. and yet we have our own separate, very separate lives and relationships and, but but I think we should all try to recognize it and really try to build a more balance in our lives. So that word balance and what you do at balance is and teaching that is so important. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 01:20:38  And we have to live it and be the role models. That's right. For our clients. Otherwise we are not authentic enough. And exactly, we don't know what we are talking about Otherwise.

James Flowers 01:20:49  That's right. Yeah.

Abdullah Boulad 01:20:51  What is the one thing you you recommend to anyone in the world to, to do, to care about in their life?

James Flowers 01:21:01  Even though I'm not in recovery. and when I talk about a higher power, I talk about it from a spirituality standpoint.

James Flowers 01:21:09  Is that for me? I talk to God all day long. Like, I wake up talking to God. I go to bed talking to God. Sometimes I think I talk to him like in the middle of the night. And and I think that that for in my life, not so much from a religiosity standpoint, but from way more spiritual is I know there's a higher power than me, and I know that I am here for a reason, and I believe he put me here for a reason, and I believe that he can help me. And and and I know that because of him, I give back. And I want other people. I want us to live, you know, this political world that we're living in today, I think in my lifetime is the worst that I've ever seen it. And I think there's so much hatred in this world. And and I just this sounds so cliche, but I really want there to be so much more kindness in this world. And so what I want for people is to stop and think before they say something negative and talk about, even in just conversation, you know, gossiping, right? And sitting at a table when you sit at a table at a restaurant, if you if you close your eyes for about a minute, you can hear 2 or 3 tables talking.

James Flowers 01:22:40  Almost every conversation you hear is a complaint talking about someone else or a problem, right? It just is. And it's like, why can't we just learn how to change that and talk about put our phones down in our pocket? Right. Get away from it and leave it alone for an hour. And just be together and have a positive conversation. So what I want is I want people to realize in their lives, whatever their higher power is, to trust it, and then also be kind and just be gentle with yourself and with other people. I hope that doesn't sound.

Abdullah Boulad 01:23:22  Oh, it sounds great. It gives it gives purpose when there is no purpose and also empowers that you can do something in life which is meaningful. Yeah. And one or the other way. Yeah. But the topic you, you also mentioned about, about people talking, complaining that's a huge topic. And maybe this is for another podcast.

James Flowers 01:23:48  We'll do another podcast.

Abdullah Boulad 01:23:49  I have together for today. I'm very grateful for having you here.

Abdullah Boulad 01:23:55  I, I, I got to know that you are a great storyteller, and, and, thank you very much for all the work you do. And pioneering also, the way for individualized care and, and and representing that in the world. I appreciate it very much. Your our conversation today. Thank you very much, James.

James Flowers 01:24:16  Yeah. Likewise. I want to say thank you for asking me to be here, for having me here. I want you to know that I so much respect the work that you guys do at balance, I haven't been I'd love to come visit and say hello and learn more about it, but I know that you guys do incredible work, and so thank you for what you're doing back.

Abdullah Boulad 01:24:37  Thank you. Yeah. And you're invited. Please come and visit us.

James Flowers 01:24:40  I will. Thank you so much. Yeah.