To kick off this new season of the Treating Trauma Podcast, which is all about the tenants of the Milestones experience, we're joined by Miles Adcox, the Onsite and Milestones Owner and Chairman.
Miles shares the heart behind one of our most important values, "Healing Hospitality." As Milestones celebrates 10 years, Miles also takes us back to the beginning days and how the idea of healing people back to wholeness is the foundation of everything we do at Milestones. From our clinical team to our culinary, hospitality, and client support, our team is committed to treating each and every guest with safety and care.
Learn more about Milestones Healing Hospitality.
Mentioned in this episode:
Miles shares the heart behind one of our most important values, "Healing Hospitality." As Milestones celebrates 10 years, Miles also takes us back to the beginning days and how the idea of healing people back to wholeness is the foundation of everything we do at Milestones. From our clinical team to our culinary, hospitality, and client support, our team is committed to treating each and every guest with safety and care.
Learn more about Milestones Healing Hospitality.
Mentioned in this episode:
2:58 - Where trauma and substance abuse treatment intersect
16:50 - The origins of Milestones' Healing Hospitality and Miles' journey in residential treatment
24:10 - Creating a supportive community for mental health treatment
30:00 - Repairing through hospitality
38:37 - Valuing guests and corrective experiences
44:00 - Mental health, recovery, and support
Creators & Guests
Host
Christopher O'Reilly
Christopher O’Reilly, MA, LPC, serves as the Vice President of Clinical Services for Milestones. Christopher has an extensive career running residential and outpatient programs specializing in trauma, addiction treatment, and detox. Within a nearly 20-year career with Caron Treatment Centers, he honed his administrative and clinical skills, overseeing residential programs’ full range of operational and therapeutic functions. Christopher also served as an adjunct professor at West Chester University, teaching mind, body health.
Host
Mickenzie Vought
In her role as Alumni and Community Relations, Mickenzie is responsible for serving Onsite, Milestones, and Onsite Wellness House alumni communities. She is also integral in furthering Onsite’s mission to design and deliver transformational experiences that optimize life and build meaning and value into the human experience. You may recognize her voice or face through the various hats she wears representing the Onsite brand as the producer and co-host of the Living Centered Podcast and host of Onsite’s emotional wellness webinars.
Guest
Miles Adcox
Miles Adcox is a speaker, thought leader, advocate, advisor, and entrepreneur in the emotional wellness space. Unabashed personal freedom is a key to Miles’ personality; his ability to live life out loud through really hard work and great decisions is inspiring and something that people often long to emulate. Miles’ personal style and design inspirations draw from cowboy and western culture. Miles has a personal eagerness for adventure, and he encourages others to take a step outside themselves, both physically and mentally, in order to be vulnerable and become in-tune with their emotions and intentions. He is the Chairman and Owner of Onsite, an internationally-known emotional wellness lifestyle brand that delivers life-changing personal growth workshops, digital mental health master classes, emotionally smart leadership retreats, and residential emotional wellness and trauma treatment. Miles’ work at Onsite has been featured on 20/20, Good Morning America, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Dr. Phil Show, The Doctors, People, Billboard, Marie Claire, and more.
What is Treating Trauma Podcast?
We all have moments where life is hard, yet some of us have had to endure more than our fair share of pain, hardship, struggle, and trauma. Through in-depth interviews with our clinicians and trauma experts, this limited series explores how unresolved experiences from our past can interfere with the demands of our present, impact our relationships, and hold us back from the future we want to live.
If you or someone you love is struggling with behaviors associated with unaddressed trauma, Treating Trauma offers a unique look at how various healing methods and trauma treatments can offer a path toward recovery, growth, and wholeness.
Welcome to the Treating Trauma Podcast. Join us for this limited series of conversations with our clinicians and alum. Together, we'll explore the pillars that support the Milestone's innovative recovery that works. These conversations are an inside look into the approach, expertise, healing, hospitality, and community that make up the Milestones experience. Let's jump in.
Mickenzie Vought:Hey, everyone. I am so excited to be kicking off this brand new series of the treating trauma podcast with the one and only Myles Adcox. Myles is the owner and proprietor of On-site and Milestones. And he every time I sit down a conversation with him, I just leave fuller. I think I leave having slowed down my nervous system a little bit.
Mickenzie Vought:I think he has a way of just dropping in and being present in a way that I don't often experience in the world. So I hope that you enjoy this episode. He came on to talk about one of the tenants of the milestones experience, but also to celebrate our 10 years. It has been 10 years since milestones started. So he kind of took us back to the origins in the beginning, both in his story and how he decided to bring the Milestones brand out into the world and really focus on trauma centered treatment, and it is so powerful.
Christopher O'Reilly:Yeah. I I really enjoyed this, conversation too, Mackenzie, and and to get the historical context of everything in regards to just thoughts and and needs and just creative solutions to problems and all went into creating milestones.
Mickenzie Vought:Yeah. So we focus on on one of the tenants of milestones being our healing hospitality and how it just really interjects into everything we do, but he also took us back. Well, friends, I am so excited to be kicking off this brand new series with the one and only Myles Adcox. Miles, thanks for joining Christopher and I today.
Miles Adcox:Hey. This is fun. I need to do lots of podcasts. Well, I don't do a lot anymore, but doing it with friends and colleagues, this feels like we're just having a conversation at lunch. That's nice.
Mickenzie Vought:Yeah. What I have loved about the last series and what we are building in this series is just getting to see the heart behind milestones and why it's so impactful. And I think we continue to come back to there's something rare at milestones, and Christopher often talks about that. And I think one of the main reasons is something we call healing hospitality. So I'm excited to jump into that conversation with you.
Mickenzie Vought:But before we do, we're reaching 10 years this year of milestones. And I wondered if you miles would just kind of take us back and give us maybe the origins of milestones? Because I don't I don't personally know that, and I know Christopher's only been here a few years. So what was it like in those early days, and what prompted milestones to begin?
Miles Adcox:I'm excited to talk about both. I can't wait to get into the hospitality conversation, but part of the origin and the roots of milestones and the vision, started there, honestly. I, I start I kinda grew up in the residential treatment space prior to pivoting over to on-site, where initially we were focusing more on short term, intensives and workshops as our kind of core modality. And it's still kind of our flagship with On-site. But, what we were seeing, well, when I say I grew up in a meeting, I got to run a program, an extended care, substance use program that had a specialty of trauma.
Miles Adcox:And that was back when the continuum of care often was separated from different entities or different organizations. It's not so common now because about 15 years ago, when we start the industry started to get rolled up and and bought by a lot of private equity groups. They just created the entire continuum of care because they wanted to keep all the business in house. I kinda miss those days a little bit because it was really fun to get to collaborate with a great primary care center, would send to a great extended care center, would send to a great transitional living or sober living. And there was this entire continuum, and we all collaborated across the country, and it was really fun.
Miles Adcox:Now I will say to pick on it, it was a little fragmented at times too. Sometimes it's tough to get people to go from this organization to come trust another one. But Christopher, for example, had a huge impact and led a big initiative at Karen up in Warrenville, Pennsylvania for years years prior to coming to Tennessee and taking on milestones. But Karen was a good example because I ran a place, the extended care program that I ran, partnered a lot with Karen. Karen was known for primary care back in the day, and I think now they've built up more continuum too.
Miles Adcox:But, they somebody would come to Karen for 30 days, and then they would say, then what? And we offered the 90 day follow-up at the extended care program I ran. And at that time, I began to see our outcomes weren't where I hoped they would be. And we didn't have a sophisticated way to measure them back then because we didn't have big budget for outcome studies. But we started an internal study, and it showed that a large mark majority of people were not able to sustain or maintain sobriety.
Miles Adcox:Even after, let's say, 4 good months of treatment, which is more than most people get. So I began to ask questions. I wasn't super satisfied with that. It's like, hey. What are we missing?
Miles Adcox:What are we missing? And about that time was when, the concept of psychological trauma began to trend, and you start to hear about it more. It's still in pockets, but you begin to hear about it more in the substance use or addiction treatment field. But initially, none of us knew what to do with it, really. It's like, well, when you treat substance use and trauma at the same time?
Miles Adcox:Do you keep them separate? You know, how do you do this? You need to get somebody sober before you do the trauma work. And often, you didn't get that luxury. If you're lucky, you get somebody for 28, 30 days.
Miles Adcox:And it takes every bit of that sometimes to work through substance use primary stages. And then you're sending people home with unresolved trauma. And if they did the aftercare, they could work on some of it there. But it turned out to be a pretty significant invader in people's progress and their recovery. And so we started turning our our model towards a working trauma model.
Christopher O'Reilly:And sure
Miles Adcox:enough, we started seeing better outcomes, better results. We took a swing and started trying to treat thoughtfully. We tried to treat trauma and extended care substance use at the same time. Now we had the advantage of them having some primary under their belts. It was a little easier for us to do it as a stage 2.
Miles Adcox:But, boy, did we see unbelievable results in the model when we started really focusing on trauma and trying to get trained in all the modalities and become equipped. And we were kind of one of the earlier programs at that time, the one I represented then. And I'll say after about 5 years of doing that, people started seeing us as a trauma extended care program. And I didn't mean to be branded that way. It's just we were putting so much emphasis on it that the substance substance use community really only had us and 2 other options to send that, as extended care for trauma.
Miles Adcox:And so I knew we were on to something. And I knew it was a nuanced, challenging approach to be able to do and do well. Because once you start opening up and inviting people's trauma narrative into a therapeutic context, then you can expect the nervous system to be activated more. Because ultimately, we're opening up spaces and places in the mind and body that have been harmed, betrayed, abused, whatever the trauma might be, historically. And then we're gonna go back and open up some of those doors in some cases.
Miles Adcox:Often, that's a concept or a myth about trauma, is everybody thinks you have to go back and resolve it all. You don't. I wanna say that upfront. It's not necessarily our model. But at some level, we go back and explore parts of it safely.
Miles Adcox:And to do that, you can imagine it really creates a lot of sensitivity. You have to really double down on psychological safety. And what I learned, in that extended care model, pre my on-site days and pre milestones, was that I tried to think about what is it about a company or another offering that is memorable to me? What places or companies have I engaged with that I remembered them but and and wanted to return business? And it was it was the ones that had really good customer service.
Miles Adcox:And at the time, it was the Southwest Airlines. It was such a loyal Southwest guy in the early days. And Herb, the guy that founded the company, his his primary marker was the best customer service in the industry. And of course, as they got bigger, that was harder to sustain.
Christopher O'Reilly:And other,
Miles Adcox:I could list some hotel chains that were the same way. And I thought, Is there something therapeutic about good customer service? Is there something because ultimately, we're trying to create meaning and value in people's story, allow them to be seen, heard, and valued, which are some of the tenants of psychological safety. And sure enough, treating people really well inside and outside of a therapeutic framework supports that. So we started doing that.
Miles Adcox:We started to create a good customer service initiative in this extended care substance use trauma program that I was running. And then I really saw momentum pick up. It was like everybody wanted to send us people, and we didn't have a big marketing machine. It was just we were full all the time. And as it turned out, it started to get out among the referral community that we were doing good work and and people were happy with the results and felt good about their time with us, that they would call.
Miles Adcox:And if a client had trauma and co occurring substance use, but only had enough budget to do 1 30 day stay, they would say, hey. First? Because we we don't have another option after that. We really think if they don't do the trauma work, there's too big of a risk that they might not be able to stay sober. So that was really illuminating.
Miles Adcox:That was a marker early on that I tucked away. I was like, There is something here with this primary trauma work. Somewhere along the substance use continuum. And now I'm a little biased because I'm a trauma guy at heart. And so most of my training has been there ever since I stumbled upon it to the days I'm telling you about now.
Miles Adcox:And I'd have to say, I I'm still yet to see a substance use client in my career of 20 years that didn't have trauma on board. Now in some circles, that might be a little controversial, because what I'm implying, and I don't mean to be by saying that, it's just experience talking, is that trauma is the catalyst for substance all substance use. And I don't think it is necessarily. I think there's a pre genetic disposition. It's a complicated approach for the disease of substance use or or addiction.
Miles Adcox:However, I do think, we can't ignore that psychological trauma and compound stress are a significant catalyst for being able to find something to numb and soothe our bodies, and it's quite effective. So I'll jump forward now. I loved the trauma lane so much that when we started getting people that didn't have substance abuse on board, but just had trauma on board say, hey, we heard you do good trauma work. Can I come to your program? And at that time, we were like, well, if you don't have any substance use issues, we really don't treat that.
Miles Adcox:We can't treat you. And that was kind of frustrating. It's like, I wanna be able to support these people. So I began to look for a space and a place that made accessible, good trauma care more available, and made the door wider for anybody in the world that could use support on navigating the historic or challenging parts of their story, had a place to go. And that there weren't it wasn't so complicated from an admissions criteria to get in.
Miles Adcox:Well, that led me down the path of looking to find a short term workshop intensive based program that could solely focus on trauma. Long story longer, because you you asked about milestones at on-site, but I had to tell you the origin of both. That was what ultimately led me down, which is a beautiful story for another time, to become part of the on-site lineage. I got to be friends with some of the people who had carried this beautiful On-site lineage forward. And so sure enough, I became the successor there, and I got to come on board there.
Miles Adcox:And I ran both this other program, the other substance use program, and On-site for the 1st 2 years. So from 2007 to 2,009, I did both. And frankly, I you know, On-site was so small, I couldn't really afford to come over there just yet, for a paid position. And so I kinda just did both. But my passion was really in the trauma work.
Miles Adcox:And so I just kept getting more and more drawn to On-site. I loved its origins. I loved its history. And so I jumped in, finally in 2009. And we were off and running doing the workshops in intensive model.
Miles Adcox:And we started a program about 2 years into my tenure at on-site called healing trauma program. And this was a week long workshop, that focused specifically on trauma. Now it's not to say that all the workshops we do at on-site don't have a trauma foundation or base. They do. A lot of people do great trauma work in living center program and some of our other workshops.
Miles Adcox:But that healing trauma program was the first one where we actually put it in the name. So we're going to work specifically with trauma in a short term period. And it ended up being a beautiful offering. We're still offering it today. And it's it's a great short term workshop.
Miles Adcox:It's a good fit for a lot of people. However, we started to learn pretty quickly that when you offer good trauma work in a short term, capacity, there's a high demand for it. And we started getting inquiries right and left for people that wanted to come to that workshop that we realized pretty quickly needed a longer stay. They needed they they had a little bit more acuity. They just needed to slow it down.
Miles Adcox:There were there were holes in that that intensive model because the beauty of milestones is being able to utilize a lot of the intensive modalities, but slow it down and let it breathe. And I really it's my not to to pick on the workshop, but it's my favorite model. I think if if anybody I'd love the world to go through milestones. I was gonna say if anybody that's experienced trauma but I mean, let let's face it. The world is full of stress.
Miles Adcox:We all consume it. And if we could all get 30 days to work through the difficult parts of our stories, I I think the world could be a better place. And so I'm a big believer and a big advocate for that long term model, but we didn't have it. And at that time, the industry was starting to get rolled up by Wall Street, so the quality started to slip. I was looking everywhere and I began to get we began to get people in the workshop model that we needed to send to long term treatment.
Miles Adcox:Either they came in and recognized they needed more, but we had to tell them on the front end we couldn't do it in a short term window. And the options got really slim. Because sure enough, the minute you, and I don't mean to over pick on the the publicly owned places or the venture capital backed places, but I mean, let's face it. They they have a return to me, And, we're no longer reporting to the client or the family. You're reporting to a board of directors that are looking for a 5 year flip or return.
Miles Adcox:So the priority shifted in the space to where people stop focusing on how do you treat trauma really well. It's like, how do we treat it all so that we can keep all the revenue in house? And so that's one of the reasons why we've maintained independence all these years. And so that we could put people over profit when we needed to at times for the quality of the care. But that was the origin story of milestones.
Miles Adcox:It was like, oh, man. It's not there. And this is a pain in my neck to try to refer people to places where I just couldn't find them or they were getting disappointed. So finally, I and I'll be honest. I missed it a little bit too.
Miles Adcox:I missed that longer term option, but it was really out of necessity that we were like, let's create it. Let's create a a boutique, beautiful trauma program, put it on the same campus, let's share space. So that's kinda how how we got, how we got started. Long answer, but I haven't answered that in a long time. I hope it makes sense.
Christopher O'Reilly:That's great. Miles, the, the piece you mentioned about, you know, work well, I'll just say for myself working in addiction treatment for a long time, I too got the sense that, like, yes, addressing the addiction is important, but we need to get to what's underneath it. Maybe not the reason, but what's fueling it. And I think part of why people have such a hard time staying sober is because they have relational trauma, and they don't know how to really rely on other people and connect emotionally. So they have a hard time, you know, doing good work and progressing in a 12 step program because they don't know how to trust.
Christopher O'Reilly:And it's it's all trauma based. And I get really excited when people come to milestones that have had addiction treatment 3, 4, 5 times. And we can kinda get to what's underneath the reason it's not working. That's a that's a that's something I get really excited about.
Mickenzie Vought:I didn't know that basically you had created what you saw being in need out of the workshops. I had never known that connection. So that's super
Christopher O'Reilly:5 years that I've worked here, I've just gathered how much you
Mickenzie Vought:love that residential space. I know from your own story, and just hearing you talk over the last 5 years that I've worked here, I've just gathered how much you love that residential space and how it really was a space that you cut your teeth. So I think it's such a cool full circle moment that the workshops were also a part of that. What I was thinking is why you're talking is, I thought maybe this principle of, like, how healing hospitality and all of these customer service places could be healing came later on in your journey, too. But you're saying it came when you were working before you even took over it on-site.
Mickenzie Vought:So when did you start to put a name to it? Like, this is what we think is the marking difference. We are first addressing trauma and also bringing this other piece in of what we now we now have coined healing hospitality.
Miles Adcox:I guess there's a why behind my passion for longer term what we call long term residential care. And it's I'm I'm a product of it. That's where I started my journey was going to a residential program in my early twenties, and that's what was a catalyst for me going back and getting more education, getting into the field. But my own personal story was one in which I was so unfamiliar with the landscape. I had no idea that places like this existed or were even needed.
Miles Adcox:I just, you know, you you see what you see in the media. And back then, there was no social media, so we weren't getting the coverage we are now. And although therapy in today's climate's a little more hip, sexy, and cool than it was back a few years ago.
Mickenzie Vought:Yeah. Totally.
Miles Adcox:There's still a lot of stigma, but it's it's more understood and more known now than it was then. And so when I became a needing recipient of a service like that, I I didn't know what is there one? What what do you do? Where do you go? And thankfully, I had somebody guide me towards a program.
Miles Adcox:And as far as I knew, I thought he was the only one in the country. I didn't know they had them everywhere or what they were exactly. But I went in with a mountain of shame. A mountain of shame. I went in thinking, oh my goodness.
Miles Adcox:How did life get to a point where it felt unmanageable enough that I have to go somewhere to try to solve problems for me to live productively? I just I went in with this cloud of thinking, man, it's gotten pretty bad. The fact that I need to check out and go somewhere. That was my perspective then. And after about a week and a half into the process, something started to happen when I began to meet normal everyday people who were quite successful in life, but they they hit a roadblock and they were there.
Miles Adcox:And I begin instead of looking at it like, oh, my gosh. Look what's wrong with you that you had to come fix your problems. I started looking at it, like, what courage
Mickenzie Vought:Yeah.
Miles Adcox:It takes to step out of life to come become a better version of yourself, and heal the parts that can trip us up out in humanity. That began to be my shining light in my beacon. I was like, how does the world not know about this kind of stuff? And how come more of us don't do this? And of course, you go through history.
Miles Adcox:There's all these versions of it that we called sabbaticals and different things where it's like we checked out. And and and for the for the whole point of retooling and resting and getting our mind and body recalibrated to get back into some sense of symbiosis. But we somehow box that off. And it's like, this is where you go when life's not working. And I just looked at it so differently.
Miles Adcox:And it was the people, not the program, not the place. It was the people that woke me up and let the lights came back on, and I began to see them as heroes. I was like, man, people that step into the journey of recovery are my heroes. And how do I be around more of them? Well, I made a career out of it.
Miles Adcox:That was one good good way of doing it. And turns out a lot of people on the journey of emotional sobriety or substance sobriety or trauma recovery, work in places like ours. A lot of us got here that way. Just cool. It's kind of a neat, side effect.
Miles Adcox:But that early origin story when, people saw me at my worst and they looked at me as I was somehow at my best.
Christopher O'Reilly:Mhmm.
Miles Adcox:It it was shocking to me. And I I love when I see a client today show up at Milestones. And I don't get to be on campus as much as I used to, but I love when I am out there. It's my favorite place to be. And I'll see, David, who is just one of my favorite people, who works at Milestones.
Miles Adcox:He's had an entire career as a farmer. He's the sweetest, gentleest man. And then he retires from farming and comes now and serves in a role for our clients. He takes care of them as an advocate. But one of the things he does is tours people when they arrive.
Miles Adcox:And he's got this just warmest spirit. And so when I see David coming by on a golf cart with a new client, I literally will leave any meeting. Any meeting, I mean, I don't care how important it is. I usually sprint out the door to stop them and catch them because I want to give people what I got at one of my most vulnerable moments in my life. I wanna be able to just look them in the eye, and I know they're nervous, and I know they're scared.
Miles Adcox:And I know they're like, where did we come to? Is this is this place safe? Are these people safe? And I wanna be able to look at them with confidence in seeing them what somebody saw in me, which is a deep belief that they're making a really good decision and that they have within them the tools they need to change and be able to heal from the pain that they experience. And I believe that is good hospitality.
Miles Adcox:And it starts there. It's it's it's connection. And it happened to me at an early age. I get into the field and and and I start paying attention to what's kinda working. And at first, I used to call it organizational health and culture.
Miles Adcox:And I do think it's a tenant or an element of that, but I was hyper focused on that. I was like, if backstage can match what's happening out front, then I think our service deliverable will have a better chance of being sticky and effective. But then ultimately, when did we coin Healing Hospitality? I think the more I got interested in it, the more we started to put an emphasis on it. The more emphasis we put on it, of course, the better results and the better people we attracted to work there.
Miles Adcox:But what happened, Mackenzie, was when we grew and we went from 10 people to 20 people to 30 employees to 40 employees, it got hard to do. Yeah. Because suddenly, it couldn't be personality driven anymore. You had to figure out a way to scale it in a way that some and Mackenzie, you're one of the best I've ever seen. It just you're you have the hospitable presence, and and you always affirm people, and you're just really good at that.
Miles Adcox:And it comes natural to you, I make up. You've probably worked on it over the years too because I think it's a trait that you like. But for a lot of people, it just doesn't come natural, especially if you hadn't been on the receiving end of it. So I began to try to think, how do we get this how do we train people? How do we get it across the whole ecosystem?
Miles Adcox:Well, we better call it what it is. And I read a white paper on hospitality. I read a book on hospitality. I started studying a little bit about the tenants of it. And it really parlayed well with psychological safety.
Miles Adcox:It's like, dang, these are right in the same neighborhood. So that's what led me one day to write on a napkin. Hospitality really is healing, if it's done well. And then that that got us to healing hospitality, and we've been off and running, since and trying to infuse that into the therapeutic mortality we use everyday at Milestones.
Mickenzie Vought:I love that. And I think you coming from your experience and that being the bedrock at which this has been built on, I think does make all the difference. Because when you have someone saying, I know what it's like, I've been in that situation. I literally can be hospitable to what you're experiencing. It makes all the difference.
Mickenzie Vought:I see that when you sit with our clients, they feel seen, they feel known. And then I see it translated to everyone else. Like, the milestones team is one of the most incredible connected and hospitable team I've ever I've ever witnessed. Just the way that the team that you've built right now, Christopher, is just so encompassing. Like, I'm, like, visualizing arms coming around our clients.
Mickenzie Vought:And so I love hearing the roots of that. And I'm just really grateful that that is what everything in the last 10 years have poured out of.
Christopher O'Reilly:Yeah. I was, spending 20 years in residential treatment myself. I was overwhelmed with, the intention that was put into structuring the way Milestones runs. Yeah. The positions that are there and, you know, Miles and I have had conversations about the problem of burnout in residential treatment.
Christopher O'Reilly:And I think Yeah. Milestones are set up in a way that the team feels very supported, and therefore, they're in a good space to provide a high quality care and an attention to the the guests that we have. And it Mhmm.
Miles Adcox:And
Christopher O'Reilly:it very much aids in the healing process. And a lot of times, Miles, I feel like the, the the guests that come to milestones, they have a lot of corrective experiences where they feel
Mickenzie Vought:Even that word guest, I feel like is a corrective experience in the realm of mental health care.
Christopher O'Reilly:Sure.
Mickenzie Vought:Like, to be viewed as a guest as someone who is wanted in this space, welcome, cared for. Like, that's what I imagine.
Christopher O'Reilly:100%. But but that that feeling cared for, is just such a huge component of the experience. And and it has a lot to do with the way milestones is set up.
Miles Adcox:Yeah. I agree, Christopher. I think where you were going with that corrective experience is you hear about people. We we do get people that have been to a lot of programs and sometimes, and it is really nice to hear. And and look, I I I get that we're we're really proud of our offering.
Miles Adcox:We're re we all represent a team that we're so proud of. So, we're going to gloat and we're going to gloat about our offering. We do a
Christopher O'Reilly:little bit. Yeah.
Miles Adcox:However, it's really not about us. That's the beauty of healing hospitality is if you make it about the client and if you make it about the people in front of you and see them as people, not patients, see them as people, then you can create a magic that will help overcome or correct any experiences where you felt dismissed or disconnected historically. But when I I use the word magic because well, here's a perfect example. I just got back from 6 days in Orlando. You don't go to Orlando in the middle of summer for 6 days in any other reason.
Miles Adcox:Take your kids to Disney. And, of course, Disney touts the magic. And but most parents go down there with a little bit of dread on the way and then a lot of exhaustion on the back end. It's like, are we really gonna go down there and battle everything? The elements, the heat, the people, so our kids can experience the Disney magic.
Miles Adcox:But Disney is so clever, and they're so subtle. And that a lot of times, we leave as parents, and the magic kinda seeped into us as well. Now it didn't it didn't counteract the exhaustion. I'm still exhausted. But I left feeling some of that magic.
Miles Adcox:And it was as simple as people making eye contact with me, connecting with me on a deeper level, letting me know that they valued their position to be able to serve me while I was in their care. Now that seems so obvious that, of course, if you're gonna be in the human service business, that you might do that in a residential treatment program. But it it's pretty rare air. It was so surprising to me that it often gets looked at more like a factory model. It's like we have a clinical product.
Miles Adcox:We have a curriculum. You are the client. This is what we treat you with. And, it's not that way ever. There's some great places out there and good people.
Miles Adcox:But if you can create a communal aspect that humanizes the process of healing, then I believe you've got a working model that feels way more realistic. And now I wanna say upfront to you, it's not super sophisticated. It's not, you know, I think we got great clinical integrity, super smart people, but we got people first. And we're trying to build healthy community, which doesn't always look perfect or beautiful. It's a little messy.
Miles Adcox:But when my favorite part about it is that I believe we're dealing with clients who have had their attachment altered at some point.
Mickenzie Vought:We've
Miles Adcox:got insecure attachment usually that's trauma induced. And if we're as Christopher said in the beginning, if all we do is treat you with clinical tools and then make suggestions about where you go from here, which 99% of our suggestions are gonna be getting back into community because we know good healthy community repairs trauma. And we suspect that you're gonna be able to go do that and trust community. 0 chance. So we've gotta put as much emphasis on humanizing elements of healthy community, letting people workshop that, have good experiences and challenging experiences while they're with us, but they never not feel held and supported.
Miles Adcox:And when they do, we're able to repair, own our part, connect. Make it just, you know and Christopher's done a really great job. Amanda, all the people there have done a really great job of modeling a community I'd wanna live in when out in the world. Yeah. Because we're we're doing relationship constantly among staff, among clients.
Miles Adcox:And, of course, we've got healthy boundaries and separation and all the things that, you know, are necessary. But it's amazing to watch. It's just it's a realistic treatment model with fun of sophistication, but with an emphasis on community and connection that I believe is hospitality.
Christopher O'Reilly:Well, that
Mickenzie Vought:think about, like, good hospitality and good, like, service opportunities. And I often I know we often say, like, it's not about the rip. It's about the repair. But I'd love to hear from the 2 of you how you have seen even those moments of repair be hospitable. Because when we think about it from a business standpoint, like you're talking, Miles, I think about like when Southwest makes a repair on something that they messed up on, or I think about another business that if you tweet out to them and they come back and, like, fix it, there's something about the value in the brand equity and the trust that I have in someone who's willing to admit, like, hey, we don't nail it all the time.
Mickenzie Vought:And it's not just that you had a bad experience with us. Let us have a corrective experience. And I think there's statistics around like a corrective experience can actually help your brand more than if someone didn't have an issue at all, like often if you handle that well, from a marketing and branding standpoint, but I'd love to hear about how we create that in milestones, because I've heard stories where people love the community, and they also start to to lean in and trust in a different way because they watch us do the same and model it. They watch our staff have reparative conversations. They watch us meet them in something that we maybe fell short on.
Mickenzie Vought:Like, I'd love to hear from the perspective of the 2 of you what that has looked like and how that is a part of the healing hospitality.
Christopher O'Reilly:You know, I think for starters, Mackenzie, when you can develop a good relationship with someone, it's much easier to have hard conversations or, you know, when there's a level of trust, then I think that goes over well when we do make a mistake and we do mess up and, you know, so so to me, it's like we have some foundational pieces in place so that when it's important to have a hard conversation, it's not even a hard conversation when, like, maybe we mess up or something is imperfect, which which often happens. I mean, we're we're all humans. But the other piece is, like, when we have to have a hard conversation with folks about maybe their behavior and some of the blind spots that they might have. And it's Yes. And it's so important.
Christopher O'Reilly:It's kinda like not addressing it is doing them a disservice. So I think that, you know, having a connection with people, you know, even in my role, like, I make sure to get to know all the milestone clients so that if anything hard comes up, I can be a resource. Like, that's really huge. And if, you know, we do a really good job when we invite someone to milestones for for care. We feel really confident that we can provide them with the care that they need.
Christopher O'Reilly:And then sometimes as we get to know clients, their needs are outside of our scope of practice. I think that's rare, but it does happen. So Yeah. In those and that kinda can feel like a rip for our clients. And in those occasions, those rare occasions that happens, you know, we will not only help them find the next place, but, you know, help them set it all up.
Christopher O'Reilly:And and I mean, just we stay connected to them for a period of time. And I like the thing, you know, once you come to milestones, you're always an alum, and therefore, we always wanna be a resource. And so it's it's kinda like when someone graduates from university, they could always reach out to that university for help in in maybe professionally, but for us, it's we all we wanna be a part of their story moving forward and however we can.
Miles Adcox:Yeah. I love that, Christopher. And, Mackenzie, you you said when we don't nail it all the time. And I've kinda come to the I wish somebody could've told me this in the very beginning. It would've saved me a lot of heartache and sleepless nights.
Miles Adcox:But I've kinda come into the conclusion as I'm getting a little more gray hair and a little more seasoned that I don't think you can. I just don't think it's possible to nail mental health treatment or therapy all the time. It is such a nuanced, multifaceted, human centric approach. And it is beautiful, and it is artful, and it is essential, and I think it's sacred. And it's it can be complicated because you're up against some psychological challenges sometimes that and so I used to be like, unless we're getting a 5 out of 5.
Miles Adcox:Oh, you know, I've driven you crazy, Mackenzie, you and the marketing team on this because y'all sometimes will watch our online activity and reviews unless we you know, I want all perfect reviews. And it's it's impossible because in in one, we're human. We're gonna make mistakes. But often, some of our reviews aren't from people that never even come. That wanted to come, but we said, you know, we just don't think we're the right fit.
Miles Adcox:We wanna help you find another place. And they just weren't happy with that decision. Or some of them were just not in a good head space. And and, of course, some of them might be on us. But for the most part, all of them we've tried to repair.
Miles Adcox:It was the complications of trying to support somebody walking through a very difficult time in their life. And it's right with opportunity to create divide and division and challenge. But when it comes to repair, I love that you called attention to that. It's a very counter cultural thing to do today. Because we live especially from a business, which I don't love that.
Miles Adcox:I I don't love that we live in such a litigious world that everyone is on eggshells because you have to be so careful. Because if you run any business, especially in the health care or mental health care continuum, then you have to have legal counsel. It's it's you have to. And what's legal counsel going to always tell you? Well, you know, saying nothing is better than saying something.
Miles Adcox:So because you never know downstream how you handle that. What puts everybody on their heels, and you can't even be a human. You can't be like, oh, man. Did I mess up? Can I own that?
Miles Adcox:Am I sorry? So we've just decided to be risk forward on that kind of thing. Obviously, we try to be responsible and and try to support people, as best we can. And there are times that we just can't say certain things. But for the most part, we want our people to be able to own things and to repair.
Miles Adcox:And if we make a miss, just to sit down and say, hey. You know what? We could have done that better. My approach could have been different. Or I'm sorry that we missed that piece.
Miles Adcox:Here's how here's what we'd like to do to make it better. I have seen that not only is it countercultural to do it, it's also countercultural to receive it. And especially as a trauma survivor because often, these are people we are people who often have wounds that we never get the courtesy or benefit of getting repair from some of the primary wounds. Whether it's, you grew up with a narcissistic parent. You're a a a an emotional incest survivor.
Miles Adcox:You're a rape survivor. You often don't get the apology that you deserve. You don't get the repair you deserve. And so therefore, it can create this imprint where you go through life a little bit walled off to the concept. And when somebody softens, even as minute as I sat by you at lunch today and kinda dismissed you because I was distracted and looking at my phone.
Miles Adcox:That can be very activating. But for me to be able to look and and give you a repair for some time for some people that come to us, it's the first repair they've ever had. And it might be one of the most impactful part of their host stay. So whereas I used to look at mistakes on our part is, oh my goodness, we can't make those. Now I look at it as like, ah, what an opportunity.
Miles Adcox:And we get to be humble. We get to be real. We get to repair. We get to connect. And we get to witness and mirror to people that this is a natural way of being human and doing relationship.
Miles Adcox:It's the only way to do relationship. I wouldn't have a marriage without repair. I wouldn't be a good dad without repair. Yeah. I wouldn't be a good leader without repair.
Miles Adcox:How many times Christopher has seen me sit in front of the executive team and say, guys, I think I messed this one up. You know, I'd I'd like to have done it differently. And that's what we hope everybody on our team feels permission to do. We don't get that right all the time, but we really try to live that out because we believe it's a good lived experience and example for the for the guests that we're serving.
Mickenzie Vought:I love that. And I appreciate you being forthcoming and and even just saying we're leading with the risk in that. It is rare to do it and rare to receive it. And so I hope people listening today are like, oh, I just think right here at the heart of it, the 2 of you are really what set it apart different. And and it is.
Mickenzie Vought:It's it's different. And I think it's a rare experience, and it's a super vulnerable experience to lean into this work. And I really appreciate the way that you guys meet people in that. You just say, like, hey, we get that, and we're gonna be with you every step of the way. That is something that I feel like we have really supported our clients in.
Mickenzie Vought:So I'm appreciative of that. Miles, I think a lot of times people share a lot of those feelings you were sharing at the front end of have beliefs about what it means to go into residential treatment or what it means to press pause on your life for 30, 60, 90 days, and really focus in on yourself. So I wondered if maybe you have some encouragement for people who might be finding themselves there today and listening and thinking, can I even lean into this? Yeah. I just wondered from your perspective what you might encourage them with.
Miles Adcox:Yeah. You know what? I'd like to do 2 things, and I'll start with this one, and then I'll I'll go into what you invited. I'd wanna say 2 for any of our offerings because we we're supporting a couple thousand people minimum and often more a year. And but it is more a year if you go to our online offerings too.
Miles Adcox:And there's no way in that we're not gonna disappoint somebody or let them down or you know? I love that we have good reviews. I love that we have trusting clients. I love that the grand majority of feedback we get is awesome and life changing. That feels so good.
Miles Adcox:Mhmm. But I do know sometimes we don't hear from people that maybe we're let down, or maybe it wasn't a fit, or maybe they they left some disappointment, or maybe they left and and felt like they maybe didn't get everything they needed. And I get to meet with some people on the back end even though our council says don't. I'm like, no. Of course.
Miles Adcox:I'm gonna talk to people because I never want people leaving, even if if there was something compromised, not feeling like they're not cared about and that we're not good people trying to do a good thing. But I guess I wanna say this just in case anybody's listening that might have, been a part of our our our world, or maybe they called wanting to be a part of it, but it just didn't work out for any reason, that I'd wanna repair that and not out of guilt. Honestly, it's just out of it's you deserve that. It doesn't matter where fault lies. I've learned that repair is a deserving element that we all get inside and outside of On-site's ecosystem.
Miles Adcox:And I'm gonna spread it out further than milestones in On-site and say, as a member of the mental health community, if you've been let down by mental health care or a professional, I'm sorry about that. Yeah. It's one of the more sensitive and painful things to get hurt by because you're going into it being hurt and trying to solve for that and thinking, this is the safe place I can go. And then you realize that it's a very human process like every other process. And so I would encourage you to and I'm somebody that that happened to.
Miles Adcox:And the first two attempts I I got to go into therapy were didn't go well. And and I don't wanna get into them. Now I would if we had time, but they didn't go well, and I almost didn't didn't reach out a third time. And, man, I'm glad I did. It changed my life in such a beautiful way, and I'm still on the path of chasing meaning and value.
Miles Adcox:And I probably always will be. And people say, what's good mental health? I think it's living with intention and having meaning and value in your story. And I came to that conclusion in the midst of the pandemic when the whole world started asking the question because we all got a minute to breathe, a forced and, of course, I know this is probably an unfair generalization because the world was in a lot of pain. People were losing people.
Miles Adcox:People were losing income and jobs. So I wanna take that away. But let's say the the worried well that had security in their health, in their job, it had to go home. They didn't report. Oh, man.
Miles Adcox:I finally get a break. They reported, oh my gosh. I'm stressed out of my mind. What do I do with myself? Yeah.
Miles Adcox:And and I was there too because I'm on the rat race like the rest of you, and I've got I've got the tools. It doesn't mean I don't move at the pace that that our world moves at. And instead of having the response of, like, we get a chance to go be in our garden, it was like, what do we do with ourselves? And I was we were all really, really, really stressed. And I and mental health, statistics went through the roof, and we all saw that, and we're still seeing it even post pandemic.
Miles Adcox:And what was fascinating was the resumes we started to get. I just couldn't believe it. When we would put a job out, we would get resumes from industries I'd never thought would send us a resume all over. Tech industry, Wall Street. And I was like, what are these people doing applying for jobs at on-site milestones?
Miles Adcox:And it turns out if you get the conversation with them, they were like, man, I've had all the success I wanted to have. I have chased my career. And now I stopped long enough to ask the question, does it really matter? Is there really any meaning and value in what I'm doing? And they said, I wanna work at a place that gives meaning to value in people, but this is what I want my life.
Miles Adcox:And I thought that's really mental health. That kinda sums it up. Is do we feel tethered and connected to who we are and who we're becoming? So I would say, part 2 to Mackenzie's inquiry. If you're out there, and I I wouldn't just say for milestones and on-site because it's not gonna be a fit for everybody.
Miles Adcox:It may not even be accessible for everybody. There could be Exactly. Vocational restrictions for you can't get off work. There could be financial limitations Because I know, we've got a certain model that we've found that works for us for the quality we're trying to provide, but it can't work for everybody. So if you're drawn to us, if you're drawn to On-site and you're listening to this podcast, if you're drawn to Mackenzie's personality or Christopher's, you're drawn to me, don't let us just be a representation of on-site milestones because that may or may not be the place that is the fit for you.
Miles Adcox:If it is, we can't wait to meet you. Let us be a representation of hope and healing and change and growth and services that provide that. Because they are out there. There's a lot of services that serve the entire socioeconomic spectrum. So even if you feel under resourced, there are ways to get support.
Miles Adcox:And here's the good news. Everything we do, I believe, is the way human beings I believe God created human beings naturally designed to do what we do professionally. To be heard, to be listened to, not to be advised right away, but to be seen, to be valued, to be held, to feel like you can take your mask down and share the best and worst parts of you, to be loved, be celebrated, to laugh unrestricted, to be able to dance like nobody's watching. All the things that we get to see and experience and touch and be a part of, I believe, is the way we were naturally designed to be as human beings. I do think humans are designed to take care of humans, But we've gotten off track a little, so we live in a culture where that's not the norm, and that's why jobs like ours are needed.
Miles Adcox:But what we hope to do is emulate a way of being that ripples far beyond the corners of Cumberland Furnace and goes out into every pocket of humanity. Like, I hope my influence on my son because of what I've learned in my own recovery journey and as a mental health professional. I hope it seeps through my parenthood, And I hope it seeps into his classroom. And I hope it seeps into I just hope it it leaks out. And so, if you're out there and you're feeling stuck and overwhelmed, my hope is that you will seek out a resource.
Miles Adcox:And if you bump into roadblocks or get hurt by a resource, my hope is that you will seek out a community of people that could hold you unconditionally and see you as you are and believe that you've got the tools that you need within you that are equipped to change because I certainly believe you do. And I've seen, I mean, unfathomable things that can happen to the human spirit. And Christopher's seen more than I have. I mean, things that just hurt my gut, when I'm here. Make I mean and I've taken thousands of calls.
Miles Adcox:I'll take thousands more of people that would just say things, and I'm like, I think I'll hear a worse story than that. And and then you hear another story. It's like, how how does the human spirit survive that? And not only have we seen countless people survive unthinkable circumstances, we've seen them thrive. We've seen people go on to thrive.
Miles Adcox:And that's what is possible in anybody's life out there that may be listening to this today. Sorry. I got on a soapbox. I just get so passionate about this stuff.
Mickenzie Vought:It's good.
Christopher O'Reilly:So good.
Mickenzie Vought:So good. Well, thank you so much, Miles. I feel like I could talk to you 1,000 more hours on this, but, we're just so grateful for your leadership and the way that you are pouring back into that. And, Christopher, I just wanna echo that as well. And I think for all you guys listening, just I think Miles said it all.
Mickenzie Vought:That was so good. Christopher, do you got anything to add?
Christopher O'Reilly:No. It's just been a great conversation, Miles, and I and I appreciate the the origin story too on multiple levels. I think it's, I think it's really special and unique.
Miles Adcox:Great. Thank you. I appreciate you both. I'm glad we're doing this. It's fun to be a part of it.
Miles Adcox:Thanks for having me.