NC DWI Guy #3 Understanding addiction with Dr. Daniel Martin

Jake Minick:

Hello, freedom fighters, and welcome to another episode. Today, joining us on the podcast is Dr. Daniel Martin. Dr. Martin is an Asheville native. He earned his doctorate of chiropractic from the Life University, where he completed his residency at the largest chiropractic office in Georgia. He is advanced proficient certified in torque release technique, which is the most specific scientific research-based chiropractic technique in the world. Dr. Dan has a passion for seeing lives change through principled chiropractic. He is currently his diplomat in addictionology from the American College of Addictionology and Compulsive Disorders, which is a certification that will allow him to impact the lives of many individuals in the Asheville community. So, Dr. Dan, thank you for taking the time to come on and join us for the podcast.

Dan Martin:

Absolutely. Yeah, thank you for having me. Excited to be here.

Jake Minick:

Well, Dr. Dan, before we get too deep into what we’re going through today, we’re going to talk about the brain chemistry, what’s going on, with addiction. So what is addiction, just understanding better what addiction looks like, and then also, the torque release technique that can be helpful in terms of addressing addiction. But before we get to that, I had a little surprise for you. My assistant Stephanie went to Asheville Christian Academy, where apparently she found a yearbook that has a-

Dan Martin:

Yes!

Jake Minick:

… a good shot. I don’t know what age. Is says Daniel Martin. But we got the yearbook picture of Dr. Martin. Well before he entered the chiropractic business. So what-

Dan Martin:

Oh, that is fantastic.

Jake Minick:

… was the timeframe for figuring out that this was going to be the lifelong deal?

Dan Martin:

That’s fantastic. I’m going to go with… That looks maybe like seventh grade, I’m going to go with. But that’s so great. Funny enough that you brought that up because I was going to ask you about it. Because I watched one of your videos and I saw Stephanie in there. I was like, oh my gosh! I went to school with her, so-

Jake Minick:

That’s awesome.

Dan Martin:

… that’s fantastic. Yeah, that’s great. That’s a dime right there.

Jake Minick:

We’ll send it to the team maybe at some point.

Dan Martin:

I think that they would like that picture. Oh, that’s great.

Jake Minick:

Well, Dr. Dan, thanks again for being on. And what we maybe want to just start off with are kind of understanding what various types of addiction that you see.

Dan Martin:

Addiction is just a massive, massive beast. And it’s a beast that has many heads and many forms. And if you were like me before I started going to this… taking these classes with the American College of Addictionology… I didn’t really understand what addiction was. It only from what I had seen and thought of in my own mind. Being maybe an alcoholic. Maybe the guy laying on the street downtown and there’s some needles around. But I didn’t realize how rooted addiction is in this culture and there’s just several forms that it can actually take versus maybe the, I would say, stereotypical ones that come to mind or especially that came into my mind.

Dan Martin:

So the one thing I think, with anything you’re studying or that you want to really tackle from any standpoint, is you really have to understand or try to understand exactly what it is that you are facing before you go after it. It’s like a football game. I played on the flag… We had a flag football with Asheville City League. Oh my gosh. We were in the upper league. We got crushed. We never prepared. We never had practice. And the teams that did were practicing… We got slaughtered. So I think addiction’s like that. If you don’t know what you’re going after, man, you’re going to beat up. And even when you do know what you’re doing, it is still such a beast and has such a grip on people’s lives that you’re still going to get beat up, right? Because it’s a disease of chronic relapse. But, man, what an exciting field because it’s one of the biggest… In my opinion, the biggest problem in the American health field today and it’s not talked about. It’s not addressed. It’s a black sheep. And not a lot of people really know about it.

Dan Martin:

So I would say, to start off, let’s define it. What is addiction? Addiction is deciding to do something… a compulsion of use that you’re going to do despite the negative consequence. Versus, let’s say, an abuser. Let’s say someone who does something… Let’s go with alcohol. Has a drink every once in a while. They’re not actually an alcoholic, but they might’ve used it. They might binge drink on the weekend every once in a while and they’re abusing it. They’re not actually addicted.

Dan Martin:

One of my favorite analogies, I would say, is the difference between an addict and an abuser is a person that goes to a bar. They go into the bar. They have way too many drinks. They decide to drive home. They get pulled over by the cop. And the abuser is going to, one, be super upset. They’re going to be crying. They’re going to be very shook about the situation. And they’re going to get that ticket and they are never going to do that again. It’s over. They had negative consequence. Man, I just got a huge ticket and points on my license. It’s done. That alcoholic has a totally different response. And they’re in complete denial. It can’t be them. They can’t be the problem. And it’s, hey, that… If I had gone the back road, that cop wouldn’t have seen me. Or this cop has got nothing better to do than pull me over again. That’s normally the case of what happens, but… That’s not going to be their last time. And I’m sure that you… In practice, you have repeat people coming in with DUIs, right? And the reality-

Jake Minick:

Yeah. Sometimes just weeks apart from another one.

Dan Martin:

Right. And I’m sure… In our minds, we all are like, how in the world is this person not learning their lesson? How did they not… Why are they not learning from their mistake? And the reality is… I think that to fully understand that there’s just so many layers that are there that are causing to do this where you’re like, man, this is a no brainer, but for them, it’s not. They have a daily struggle. Imagine something so strong. An inch, a burn. You ever be like… Let’s say you’re really hungry and you’re starving. But imagine that feeling all the time. To do that one thing. To use or do that thing. It’s a super, super big deal. And the reality, too, is that all addicts are brilliant people. They’re super intelligent. Because think about it. They continue to do these things that they know are slowly killing themselves. They’re hurting their friends. They’re hurting their family members. But denial is so powerful and the grip of that disease, addiction and denial, is on them that is drives people to their death. And what happens is the end result is jail, death, or an institution. Unless they are able to recover.

Dan Martin:

So that just is a taste of what addiction is, but there’s definitely different components that make it up. It’s not one thing. There’s a physical component. There’s a mental component. There’s a spiritual component. And there’s a metabolic component. And each one of those things is comprising what’s going on with this person. And the reality, too, is that this is not just… It’s not just one doctor can handle all this. It’s multi-factoral, across all fields, of what this person needs. And that’s what makes it so complex is there’s just so much there to work with. So what are… Yeah, go ahead.

Jake Minick:

Just in terms of the understanding addiction in terms of what’s going on in the brain. What’s happening in terms of an addict’s brain chemically?

Dan Martin:

So, basically… and we’ll go back to a study that’s fantastic. Well, first off, an alcoholic, okay? They used to back in the day… and we’re talking 1900s, ’50s, stuff like that. If you’re an alcoholic, you’re just a bad person. It was a moral issue. And what a lot of doctors started to theorize and say, hey, they’re not a bad person. It’s a disease and it’s a problem. And they were actually able to prove that. Dr. [Jellinek 00:10:22] was one of the first guys who was instrumental, who came up with a curve. Because in order for something to be labeled a disease, it has to have a start point and an end point and have a progression of events in there. And he proved that that was indeed the case. He was able to prove, from the first drink to rock bottom and then back up, that there’s a progression of it.

Dan Martin:

So what happened was there was a doctor by the name of [Candace Pert 00:10:48], and this was in the late ’80s, and what she found… She was doing research on people that had passed away who were alcoholics in cities and they were taking the bodies of the people that had died and she was looking at their cerebral and spinal fluid and their brains and analyzing what type of neurotransmitters and what was actually in the brain. And what she found was actually a substance that was within morphine addicts or opioids and that didn’t make any sense. She was like, well, how can this be in an addict’s brain? What she ended up finding out was even… Earlier, way back in World War I, there was a substance… and what she found was called THIQ. It’s tetrahydroisquinoline. We’ll just call it, say, THIQ.

Dan Martin:

And what had happened… In World War I, the Allies, they had ran out of, basically, morphine to help their wounded on the front lines so they had to come up with something to help them. So they put their scientists to work and they came up with THIQ and it was this synthetic form of morphine. It was so addictive and so powerful, they couldn’t wean these guys off it. They were so addicted to it. So, basically, they go, “Hey, well, we can’t use this because this is not going to do too good in the public,” so they put it on the back shelves. That’s what actually Dr. Candace Pert discovered was in this person’s brain. So what does that mean? Basically-

Jake Minick:

And to just kind of dive into that because I find that study really fascinating… In terms of what they found in the soldiers that had fought during World War I in the brain, that was caused chemically by, basically, injecting a foreign substance into that person. Is that an accurate way of thinking?

Dan Martin:

Yeah. Let me kind of break that down. Basically, they were giving these soldiers THIQ. They were giving it to them. Then that was in their system and they became addicted. So what Candace Pert found was that, in alcoholics, that they themselves were not being injected or taking morphine, but that their bodies actually… the neurochemistry in the brain, the way that their body actually broke down alcohol, was breaking it down and THIQ was being produced organically.

Jake Minick:

Yeah, that’s wild.

Dan Martin:

Isn’t that crazy? What’s happened is no matter whether it’s alcohol or… There’s five addictions. Alcohol, or drugs and alcohol, work, sex, gambling, risk-taking. And what’s happening in the brain is your body is processing that and creating that THIQ. And the reality is once THIQ enters the brain, it never leaves. That’s why someone who can… An alcoholic who has their last drink, then they don’t drink for 25 years, and they have the worst relapse you’ve ever seen. Same thing with a drug addict. That substance that is literally that strong was being created. So she found it in those alcoholics.

Jake Minick:

Yeah, that’s wild.

Dan Martin:

Yeah. I mean, pretty amazing, isn’t it? So that’s what happening as far as neurochemistry goes in the brain, but as far as chiropractic goes-

Jake Minick:

Tell us a little bit about… In terms of with that research, what kind of technique… and talking about torque release technique… What impact did that have in terms of being able to help address addiction and address addicts with this particular treatment model?

Dan Martin:

So torque release is one specific type of technique. There are a lot of awesome techniques in chiropractic. Torque release technique is the newest, most advanced technique and the cool thing about it is it was actually purely born out of research. It actually wasn’t even intended to be a technique. It was actually discovered. Unlike a lot of other chiropractic techniques… and, again, they’re all great. They all work, but they were more so one doctor, on his own, found awesome ways to adjust someone and then said, “Hey, I’m going to name this after me. This is this technique.” As opposed to torque release used a lot of those awesome types of analysis of these brilliant other chiropractors and basically turned it into one technique from a research study. And that’s how the whole torque release technique was born.

Dan Martin:

Basically, how it was born was they did a huge study in Miami on a bunch of cocaine addicts and what they found was that when they introduced-

Jake Minick:

This was through the drug treatment court there, is that-

Dan Martin:

Correct. Yep. It was the first… If I’m not mistaken, the Miami Drug Court. The first one. And Dr. Holder, Jay Holder, was instrumental. He was the creator of torque release technique and he conducted the study with a Ph.D. biostatistician, Robert Duncan, and they… What they did was they took three groups. It was a double blind with a placebo control, which is the gold standard for research studies, and they wanted it to be that way to prove how powerful this is. And their goal was to show what chiropractic was intended to be, which is proving that chiropractic increases human potential and state of well-being. And there’s no better population to do that with than the addicted, who innately struggle with achieving a normal state of wellbeing and human potential and that’s why they do that substance abuse or whatever their poison is to achieve that. And the torque release model was applied to show that, hey, this population has a what we call reward deficiency syndrome, where they have a gene marker, the A2 allele, where they’re actually impossible for this person to achieve that normal state of wellbeing.

Dan Martin:

So, basically, what the study showed… and I’m just going to kind of look down here and read this to make sure I get all these stats right. They took three groups. They took group 1… Let me just read this. Group 1 received standard addiction treatment including group therapy, psychotherapy, medical care. The normal things that you see in a rehab center. Group 2 received the same addiction treatment, but was also provided subluxation-based chiropractic care, which is torque release technique. Based on the subluxation. That subluxation is inhibiting human potential. And that’s basically what that means. Or dysponesis. And then Group 3 was the placebo group, which received the same addiction performed in group 1 and 2, but also provided placebo chiropractic adjustments. So they were getting adjustments, but it wasn’t with the torque release protocol and the integrator. Specifically calibrated. What the stats show, which were amazing, is… So group 1, which was just the generic rehab center treatment… Group 1 finished their treatment with just 56% of group 1… This is a 30-day normal rehab setting. Only 56% of group 1 finished the program compared to 75% who had placebo adjustments. And then group 2, who had torque release, there was 100% completion, which is unheard of.

Jake Minick:

That is unheard of. I mean, that’s a ridiculous number.

Dan Martin:

It’s ridiculous. And, again, I’m not saying… It has to be conjunction with all these other things. They need to be in some sort of group therapy. They need to be seeing a psychotherapist or some sort of therapy. They have to be having proper nutrition. They have to be… All those other protocols. But once you had this ingredient to allow this person to neurologically function better, you’re drastically increasing their chances to be able to recover, one, and then also stay in recovery for a long time. It’s amazing.

Jake Minick:

It is amazing. And maybe give us a general overview of why that technique… why torque release is so instrumental in terms of allowing physiologically a person to operate at maximum health.

Dan Martin:

Yeah, absolutely. That’s a great question. And, again, that’s the goal. The goal of torque release is to not treat problems. It’s to not treat pain. Our whole society is so allopathic and just treating a symptom. We don’t actually… Like, well, hey, how can we actually function better and why are we not vitalistic in our approach? And that’s what torque release is. Another thing that Candace Pert discovered that was really instrumental in helping show the power of what a specific adjustment can do with a torque release protocol is that the limbic system is a system in our bodies that deals with emotion. State of wellbeing. And, basically, when you break emotions down, what are they? They’re basically neuropeptides that is being created in your brain. And what she found when she did those studies with the alcoholics is that the majority of the limbic tissue in a person was in their spinal cord and in the dorsal horns of their spinal cord, but all the way through. The mesolimbic system sits on the top portion of the brain inside and then we have the dorsal horns here in the spinal cord and then running down.

Dan Martin:

So what does that mean? What happens is what we are looking for with a torque release protocol adjustment is we are looking for primary areas, misalignments of the vertebrae in your vertebral column, that are protecting your spinal cord, which are rich and loaded with limbic tissue. So imagine when you have misalignments that have been there for years or 10, 20 plus and you have terrible posture and your back is like this and you have scoliosis. You can’t achieve a normal state of wellbeing. So by actually getting correction, correcting those primary misalignments, primary subluxations… Amazing. We’re actually facilitating the brain to communicate and allowing those neurotransmitters and dominoes to fall, the brain cascade reward system, to allow you to function better. This is incredible for people that can’t achieve a normal state of wellbeing like the addiction population, but imagine you as a normal person. How this can you actually help keep you functioning really, really well.

Jake Minick:

Yeah, it is. It’s amazing and… In terms of looking at it from the perspective of somebody suffering from an addiction, when these neurotransmitters are communication appropriately, is that basically then allowing a lot of the other forms of traditional treatment to optimally work with regard to that particular individual?

Dan Martin:

Exactly. 100%. I mean, in my opinion, everyone who’s in… Everyone should be getting adjusted, but especially people… It goes hand in hand with psychotherapy. It enhances ten times. There’s actually an article in… It was either in Psychology Today or another big time magazine that was saying that, actually, if psychotherapists refer their person to a chiropractor and work in conjunction, it’s really, really powerful. It absolutely enhances, in every single aspect, that person’s ability to heal and to function better. So whatever that they are doing, they have a higher percentage to complete that and stay in that mode of recovery and restoration versus the other. You’re taking one step either way. Every day, each decision is a small step towards or away from health. It’s always… Nothing perfect, but you want to try to add all those little percentage points. And especially someone who’s struggling with something, a disease so powerful, why not do something that can only help you?

Jake Minick:

I think being as progressive as possible when you’re dealing with something like addiction and taking every angle instead of just trying one thing at a time or just trying this treatment… For those people that have the financial resources and the familial commitment, the right kind of support group in place, why not be trying everything possible? The other thing I wanted to ask you about is the help in terms of amino acid supplements that is also a part of being able to help address issues with those suffering from addiction. So tell us just a little bit about that treatment operation as well.

Dan Martin:

What we call neurotransmitters, the stuff that’s in the brain that allows you to function well. An example would be… Something that people struggle with or addicts have a problem with is… The majority of addicts have what we call reward deficiency syndrome. And one thing that… a big neurotransmitter involved with that would be dopamine. On average… Let’s say… It’s a reward neurotransmitter. So when you eat food… You have that big ole slice of pizza you’ve been dreaming about all day. Your body is creating dopamine. It’s, I think, around three to four hundred dopamine. When you have sex. Add another couple hundred on there. But when you do something like heroin, it’s like 10000 is produced. So imagine. If you’re doing heroin, all you want to do is heroin. Because you feel so good.

Dan Martin:

What happens is, though, when the addicted population… Depending upon what they are addicted to and what the poison of their choice is, it affects the body differently and depletes natural neurotransmitters that are gone. So when you have such a massive, chronic depletion… or even acute. Let’s say someone just started. This will help that big time. But if it’s been for a long time, the body can’t produce those like it should because they’ve just been so far depleted. And what happens is-

Jake Minick:

So where, for a normal person, if they have a couple of beers, the reward center is basically kind of at a high dopamine level, for somebody that’s addicted and is not experiencing that same level even once they’ve had 12 or 15 drinks.

Dan Martin:

Right. And tolerance builds and builds and builds and builds and builds. I mean, amazing. It’s a testament… It really is. It’s a testament to how amazing our bodies are and what they can handle. Like it’s unreal. Your body is choosing to be alive and can handle liters upon liters of insane amounts of alcohol and still alive. So imagine what it can do on the other side. You know what I mean? By allowing it to function better. And that’s what neurotransmitter… You call it nutraceuticals. Amino acid therapy or neurotransmitter replacement therapy. It’s basically taking those main types of nutraceuticals or neurotransmitters that have been depleted.

Dan Martin:

So there’s normally four that all… the majority of the addiction population should consistently take. And there’s four of them. One is called DL-phenylalanine. L-glutamine, L-tyrosine, L-tryptophan, and chromium. Again, depending upon what the addict is struggling with, there are other things because there’s other target organ damage and other areas that they might need a different type of amino acid. But that is also really important and I can’t say… I haven’t spoken with a lot of the different centers that we have here in Asheville, but it’s something that should be recommended that they take. And this is very inexpensive. This is a really, really great alternative.

Jake Minick:

I think that’s one of the great things about that particular treatment option is it seems very, very affordable.

Dan Martin:

Very affordable. Oh yeah. And something you would take on an empty stomach. There’s a great book called… I would highly recommend reading it. It’s fantastic. It’s called Staying Clean and Sober. There’s a couple editions. They’re all good, but I think the third edition is probably the best. The authors are fantastic. Both struggle with addiction, but have mapped out a lot of great alternative ways for results for themselves, but also for others. Amino acids are talked about at length in there. Torque release is talked about and the research. So that’s a great book and a resource.

Jake Minick:

I think, for us, as attorneys, this is just something that is helpful when we have a client that comes into the office. We tend to look at the legal implications first. That’s what we’re trained in. That’s what we went to school for. So we walk through the case, what are the sentencing factors that are going to play in in the court room, how likely could this case be won at trial, what is a plea offer going to look like from the state. But not recognizing for anybody that is suffering from an addiction, and a lot of clients are either addicts or trending in that direction, this is something that’s really important for us in terms of being able to offer comprehensive counseling to the clients that we have the ability to come into contact with. So understanding how these different supplements, torque release technique, can then be utilized in a larger treatment plan, I think is a really big deal for us to be able to bring that to our clients.

Jake Minick:

Maybe where I’d like to finish our conversation is really about how this plays out in the courtroom. I’ll ask a couple of questions that will be more how does this work in terms of the treatment angle of things. From medical care. But I think that there are all kinds of ways that we, as attorneys, can mitigate a client’s sentence in the courtroom. So anybody that is convicted, whether they enter a guilty plea or after trial… Anybody that is being sentenced by the court. We’re talking about how did it get to this point. Judge, here I’m going to let you know about this person’s life story. I’m going to let you know that this person is a good member of the community. They work hard in school. They provide community service hours for X, Y, Z organizations. They’ve had their alcohol assessment, their treatment. They’ve gone to a driving school. Maybe they’ve done inpatient treatment. Worn a continuous alcohol monitoring device. But to have a medical kind of way of addressing addition, through medical treatment of torque release, I think is a really powerful way for us to start not only helping our client in terms of addressing addiction, but also in terms of being able to showcase to the judge our client is really being proactive in how they are addressing this. They’re changing their whole life around.

Dan Martin:

Absolutely. I think that’s huge. That’s one thing I love about… At the bottom of your email. I thought it was great. It said, “Helping good…” And I might mess up a little bit, but “helping good people in their darkest hour.” I think that’s fantastic. And I think if people actively chose, like you said, it looks amazing. To say, hey, I recognize I do have a problem. I have made a mistake, but I’m actively trying to better myself, to better the community, with my family, and et cetera. I think that’s a great thing.

Jake Minick:

And in terms of being able to support that to a judge, for somebody that is receiving torque release treatment to help address addiction, is that something that can be specifically stated by a doctor. Could you write a letter that says, effectively, I’ve been seeing… As long as the patient is okay with that.

Dan Martin:

Yeah. Oh, totally. And there were… In the Miami Drug Court, what they did back in the late ’90s was… It was court-mandated. That you will go to jail unless you complete a year worth of treatment of torque release technique. And that’s the thing is people that happened with… They did another study and of the 1600 people that did that over a year, there was a three percent arrest rate, which is, again, unheard of. But yeah. I mean, I can absolutely… And that’s the thing. I have access to people that are way smarter than me. Dr. Holder… I have a great relationship with him and he can always help navigate a lot of these waters to help benefit us all. Because in the long run, our intent is to help and serve people and have them be the best version of themselves.

Jake Minick:

Yeah. I think that being able to showcase to a judge, here is what this treatment looks like, why it’s helpful to addressing addiction-

Dan Martin:

Here are the numbers.

Jake Minick:

Again, it’s just showcasing to the judge… Yeah, right. We’re showcasing to the judge this is legitimate and our client is really taking every means possible to address this addiction. They’re not just doing the bare minimum court-mandated assessment and treatment. They’re trying to change their life in order to take this disease head-on.

Dan Martin:

Yeah. And it’s also… When it’s applied, it’s so cost-effective. Versus just a lot of high prices out there. This is super cost-effective to allow this person to get the treatment that they need and actually get better results for less cost.

Jake Minick:

Right, exactly. Well, I appreciate very much the conversation, Dr. Dan. For you coming on. We appreciate everything that you’re doing in the community. You have an incredible practice and a great team. And at some point maybe in the future, we’ll have you back on to just talk to us about how you run your business because it’s actually a very impressive business model and the customer care level that you guys bring, patient care level that you guys bring, just from personal experience, is incredible. So maybe we’ll have you back on at some point to talk to us about the amazing business that you are operating as well.

Dan Martin:

Well, those are very kind words and I, again, thank you for the opportunity. I can say the same thing about y’all. What you guys do over there. It’s exciting. It’s just great to be around awesome people that all want to just help this community and provide great service and that’s what it’s all about, so. I really appreciate it.

Jake Minick:

Absolutely. Thanks, Dr. Dan.

Dan Martin:

Yeah, man. Absolutely.