Navigating Law & Legal Powers For Taking Care Of Your Addicted Loved Ones

In this episode, I sit down with behavioral health attorney Mark Astor to discuss addiction, mental illness, family intervention, and the legal options available when someone can no longer make safe decisions for themselves. Mr. Astor has practiced law for more than three decades and founded a firm dedicated to helping families whose loved ones are struggling with substance use disorders, severe mental-health conditions, repeated treatment failures, medication noncompliance, arrests, overdoses, and other escalating crises. 

Mr. Astor explains how civil legal proceedings can sometimes give families the authority to make treatment decisions for an adult loved one whose judgment has been severely impaired. We discuss court-ordered treatment, guardianship, emergency evaluations, competency, diversionary courts, the Baker Act, and Florida’s Marchman Act. I also press him on the difficult ethical questions surrounding personal freedom, involuntary treatment, accountability, and when intervention becomes necessary to preserve someone’s opportunity to recover. 

We also examine the relationship between behavioral health and the criminal justice system. Mr. Astor shares how his early work as a prosecutor exposed him to repeat offenders whose underlying addiction or mental illness was rarely addressed effectively. Together, we explore when treatment may be more appropriate than punishment, why recovery usually requires a long-term continuum of care, and how families can distinguish between a temporary problem and a dangerous pattern requiring professional intervention. 

Beyond the legal discussion, Mr. Astor shares his entrepreneurial journey of rebuilding his career after burnout, divorce, financial hardship, repeated failure on the California Bar Exam, and the loss of his father. His story demonstrates how failure can redirect a person toward meaningful work. The central message of this conversation is that families should not wait for overdose, incarceration, violence, or death before asking for help. Recovery is not an instant destination, but informed intervention may create the time, structure, and accountability necessary for someone to begin that journey. 

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*Couple O' Nukes LLC and Mr. Whiskey are not licensed medical entities, nor do they take responsibility for any advice or information put forth by guests. Take all advice at your own risk.

Transcript

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome back to another episode of Couple O' Nukes. As always, I'm your host, Mr. Whiskey, and I wanna start this conversation by saying that mental health issues and addiction, they're very important. They're very prominent in our world right now. As I always say, almost everyone knows someone who is struggling with something, whether that's addiction, suicidal ideation, or some kind of depression or anxiety. I wanna start by saying it's not a blanket excuse for all behaviors, for all actions. But there are a lot of people who are not getting the help they need, some people who are being criminally charged when they shouldn't be held responsible and should be getting treatment. And so there's a lot of ups and down in this world that are not fair and that are not being done properly. But there are also a lot of people advocating for better help, for better treatment, and I wanna read something directly from the bio of our guest today that I really liked. "Intervention isn't about taking away someone's freedom. It's about preserving their opportunity to recover." And just with that in mind, we're gonna have a great conversation today about a very important subject that affects a lot of families very deeply, very personally, and can completely change the course of people's lives. So here with Mark G. Astor to get into this very important, heavy subject, and I, I hope everyone can take away some great stuff. Mr. Astor, so great to host you and to get into, again, such a necessary conversation that is not just Something you advocate for, something that you do for a living, but something that has personally deeply affected you as well. So I'd love for you to give us a brief overview of yourself before we get into it today. Well, first of all, I hope that you'll call me Mark or you're gonna make me feel really old. Um, but I, I really appreciate, um, you having me as a guest, and I know I had a little time to chat with you before we came on. So I appreciate you, and I thank you for your service, and, uh, I'm honored to be here. So, um, I'm an attorney. This is my 32nd year of practice, and 10 years ago, actually February of 2016, when I was flat broke and had no money, um, I sat down in the local library here where I live in Boca Raton, Florida, and I founded a law firm, and the mission of the firm is to save families whose loved ones are suffering from substance use, mental health disorders, and failed attempts at recovery. So we speak to, to families from all over the country, usually moms and dads who have an adult child with a long history of drug use, mental illness, treatment that doesn't work if they'll even go. They're probably med noncompliant. Uh, they may well have been a guest of the state through either the criminal justice system or the mental health system, and they may even have suffered an overdose of some kind. And the families call us and say, "Hey, we've had enough. We can't take anymore. We understand you might be able to help us." And the answer to that is, yes, usually we can help, but recovery is a journey. It's not a destination. It's not like I wave a magic wand, and everything's fine. I mean, and I tell families, "I have a wand, but the problem is if I wave it, it's, it's gonna probably take about a year, right? Not just for your loved one to experience recovery, but to be able to maintain it." That's what it, it typically looks like, and that doesn't mean you need me for a year. Typically, we're on a case, you know, anywhere from three to six months, but it's not unusual for us to be on the case for a year. We may not be actively working on it, but we're the, we're the attorneys of record, so that if there's an issue, the court can call us back in and say, "Hey, we need to address this problem." So that's, that's what we do. Um, and we're 10 and a half years in, and I've been very blessed and, um, we've helped a lot of people. We've also lost some people because that is the nature of, of behavioral health. Right. Right? It's a, it's a disease of the mind and it's progressive and it will get worse and, and it will eventually potentially take somebody. Right. And, you know, you talk about the journey, you know, it's not an instant fix. And one thing I wanna address with that too is if there's anything I learned over hundreds of episodes working with people in addiction recovery, mental health, suicidal ideation, recovery has to be their personal choice as well. It doesn't have to start that way. You know, I've had great stories of people who were, quote, I hate to use the word, forced into rehab, taken there by someone else, and it ended up changing and saving their life. And I've had some people who reluctantly went and then grew to accept it. And I've had people who have gone to rehab multiple times because the first four times they didn't wanna go, and the last time they did, and that was when recovery happened. So it's also about having the person want to make that choice to recover. You know, I've, I've had addicts who, you know, their motivation for recovering was just to abuse at higher levels, you know, to drink again or to grow some kind of tolerance. And so I think the motivation behind it, the intention behind it is super important as well. And sometimes we need someone to help take us to that point. I wanna step back, though, with what got you into this line of work. You talked about, you know, when you founded this, kind of the situations being a lot less than ideal. So let's kinda go back to your early life and where that journey kinda led you to Yeah, so I, I started my legal career, um, in 1994. So when I graduated law school I was a, I was an assistant state attorney. I was a prosecutor for five years, so from '94 to '99. I had interned with the state attorney's office here in Palm Beach County in 1993. I spent six months as an intern, tried about a dozen cases, and, um, I can't tell you that I was particularly, when I was in law school, that I was a particularly good student. I was, I was in the top half of the class, which means I wasn't far from the bottom half. Um, I wasn't really passionate about the law. A lot of it didn't make sense to me. And, uh, you know, I was somewhat, you know, naive about how the, the law would even work. And then I got an opportunity to, to intern at, at the local state attorney's office, and I spent six months there trying cases. And five minutes into my first real trial, 'cause as an intern I could try real cases, I was like, "Okay, this all makes... Now I get it." And I decided that's what I wanted to do for at least initially. So they hired me in '94, about a month before I graduated law school, and I spent five years trying cases. And over five years I did, I tried about 200 jury trials, so probably another 100 non-jury trials. Um, that's a lot of trial work in a very brief period of time. So I spent a lot of time trying cases, right? And the last year and a half I was trying nothing but first and second-degree felonies, including murder cases. So I was, I was a busy guy, and after five years I was burned out and I left, which was, in hindsight I wish I hadn't have done that, but, you know, this is what life's about, right? You make choices and sometimes they're right and sometimes they're wrong. And if you can make more right than wrong, you're headed in the right direction. If you don't, you're headed in the wrong direction. But one of the things I realized pretty quickly, um, because I kept seeing the same faces over and over again, was that, that we have... There was, there was a problem, right? I mean, so these days in, in the criminal justice system we're a bit more switched on to substance use and mental i- issue, mental health issues, and even our veterans, which I think we do a shameful job of taking care of, but maybe that's a different topic for a different day. So we now have what I call diversionary courts, drug court- Mental health court, veterans court, special courts for veterans. But back in the '90s when I was a prosecutor, we didn't have those, and the mandate even today in the, in Florida's criminal justice system is to punish first and, and rehabilitate second. Well, in the '90s when we had that mandate, we didn't have those diversionary courts. So if somebody kept coming back over and over again because they had a behavioral health issue, at some point we just said, "Well, we'll just need to lock 'em up for as long as we can." And that's what we did, right? My experience is that people do not get better either, either in the county jail or a state prison or a state mental health hospital. So, you know, we had all these people that were coming in and out, and we didn't s- it didn't seem like we were helping them. Um- Hmm ... I left, I did some criminal defense work for several years. I made a lot more money, and I was pretty darn miserable. I really lost my passion for practicing law. Not because I didn't enjoy the work. It was challenging. But it, but when you're a prosecutor and you are h- helping the victim of a violent crime or the family of a decedent to get some closure, that to me felt really good, and I took my, my responsibility very seriously. And I was typically working late every single night and most weekends. I wasn't one of these lazy prosecutors who went in there and winged it. I took my responsibility to rep- you know, to represent the state and to get these, these families and these victims some closure. I took that really seriously, and so I had a very strong work ethic, but that resulted in me being burned out, you know, after five years. So, um, I tried for many years not to practice law, um, because I couldn't, I just couldn't do it anymore. I wasn't enjoying it. Um, I, in 2004 I took a year off. Uh, I'd gotten married at 34. I was divorced at 35, and that made me ask myself a very important question which was, "Was I happy?" And the answer was very obvious, which was no, I was pretty darn miserable. And so I took a year off in 2004. I moved to Washington, D.C. I went back to school for a year. I got my master's in law, uh, which is basically an extra year of law school taking advanced courses that 90% of lawyers will never, ever take. Um, I also worked on a presidential campaign for a year, so that was a really im- important year for me. The candidate I worked for didn't win, so I had to come home, uh, in 2005. Um, in 2012 Having worked for various family businesses and been pretty darn unhappy, uh, I, I, I w- I ran off to California for three years, and I spent three years doing things that single guys do. You can use your imagination, but I I, I like the ladies, and I did at that time, and that was one of my vices. Not a very good vice. And I spent three years there. I took the California bar twice, and I failed it twice. And then after I ran out of money, I had to come home to Florida, and I, I figured I should take one more crack at the bar exam. So I sat down at the local library, spent a couple of months studying for the exam, flew back to California, took the exam one more time, and then found out that I'd failed it a third time. I got within a percentage point of passing the third time- Hmm ... and I failed it. And, you know, I, I said to myself, "Maybe I'm just not supposed to be there." Because I'd spent a year at this point studying for the California bar and failing it. I think I studied full time for the Florida bar for three weeks and passed it first go. So my ego was a little bit bruised, and I thought, "Maybe I'm just not as smart as I think I am." So h- here's what happened. Here's what, what, what got me on the, the right path. I met somebody that changed the course of my life. I got invited to a breakfast meeting down in The Gables. So if you know Florida, The Gables is about an hour and a half north, uh, excuse me, south of me. And there was a 7:30 breakfast meeting where a guy was doing a presentation. His name is R. John Robins, and what R. John Robins had founded was a company that teaches lawyers the one thing they don't teach any law student at any law school anywhere in the country, and that is the business side of practicing law, how to be an entrepreneurial lawyer. And I went down there 'cause somebody said, "Oh, you should hear this guy speak. He's interesting." And he spoke to a group of about 20 lawyers, and I was, you know, on the side there watching him. And they looked at him like he had three heads because, you know, as lawyers, I mean, they couldn't possibly admit to themselves that they knew absolutely nothing about what he was talking about because they'd never been taught this stuff. But it really resonated with me because I came from an entrepreneurial background. I had a, a dad that left school at 14 and a mother that left school at 16. So for me, just, for me to go to law school was a really big deal in my family. It never happened before. And my dad built businesses. Some worked, some didn't. Some made money, and towards the end of his life that, they broke him, literally and fig- figuratively. So I understood. I, I really appreciated what he was saying, and long story short is I begged him for a job. He interviewed me twice and hired me. And so I spent a year there working for him, learning about the business side of practicing law. But here's what I didn't know when I went to work for him, at least initially, was that at their very core, his company, called How to Manage a Small Law Firm, is a personal growth company for lawyers. So he's like the Tony Robbins of the legal profession. Hmm. I learned a couple things. First of all, financial growth must precede... Excuse me. Personal growth must precede financial growth. Okay? You have to take 100% responsibility for your life, both personally and professionally, and I had to find a group of people that I, that I could help so I could get that, that feeling back that I'd lost for all those years. And I just- I had close family members and friends who had these issues, and nobody else out there, as far as I could find, had ever built a law firm helping just these people. And so in February of '16, I sat down in the same library that I'd studied for the California Bar for the third time, and I opened up my own law firm. I sat myself down in the cof- cafeteria there. I was broke. I had a few shekels for the cheap coffee they sold. I got really, really cheap business cards made at Vistaprint. I ran around to treatment centers, handing out my business card. I created a spreadsheet, all the people that I knew. And you gotta remember, I hadn't lived in Florida for three years. I hadn't practiced law in probably five or six, so a lot of people didn't even know I was home. So I just started calling people and making coffee appointments and luncheon appointments. I would speak to anybody and everybody who would hear what I had, had to say, and I did not get a behavioral health case for 14 months. Wow. So I took a lot of other- I took other cases. The first case I had was a student athlete who got himself in a bit of hot water with another female student, and they were talking about taking away his scholarship and expelling him, which would have obviously had a severe effect on his future. I took that case. I took criminal cases. I took a couple of family law cases that I co-counseled with a friend of mine that was a family law practitioner, 'cause I knew nothing about family law Um, I took whatever I could to pay bills. And 11 months in, I also unexpectedly lost my father. So I had to scramble to pay for a funeral, which, you know- Expensive so I maxed out a credit card. Yeah, it's really expensive to pay for a funeral. So- It's unrealistically expensive in my opinion. Yes. It's a scam. I- it was like buying a condo. Yeah. Right? Or, or, or a medium-sized car. It was really expensive, so I had to figure that out. But I persevered and, um, after about a year, I had enough to get a small office. 14 months in, somebody called me with my first behavioral health case. Um, in 2017, I met my now wife at a, uh, a, like a networking event within this, the office space, and she had a background in guardianship work. So guardianship was traditionally used, has always been used for elderly people. Well, my wife is a genius, and she figured out we could use guardianship for the kinds of people that we were working with, 25 to 45, with severe behavioral health issues where their family needed a significant control. Right. And for the, really for the next six years, it was just us doing everything: sales, marketing, meeting with clients, drafting pleadings, running to court. You name it, we did it, eight days a week and 25 hours a day. Right. And it's only been the last three years where we hired staff. W- so we're now a team of 15 people. So that means I don't have to take all the incoming phone calls. I don't have to do all the legal work. I have people to do that, which means I get to sit here and have a conversation with you and share, you know, my journey, my passion, my mission. So that is the Cliff Note version of what I've been dealing with for 10 and a half years, but it really is about grit, determination, and simply refusing to stay on my backside when I was down and out. Right. And figuring out who needed my help and how best to help them, and that is the way to build a business. That's how Winns does- 100%, and there's a lot to unpack there, so we're gonna go- Yeah ... you know, one question at a time. Starting first and foremost- Okay ... why law school? You know, you gave a little bit of the family background, so obviously there's a motivation to get an education. Yeah. Law school is probably the deepest end of the pool you could have dove into. So was there a particular motivation, or was it, was it just the idea of, hey, this is school school, or did you think about other career paths before that? Yeah, so as I, as I mentioned, my dad was not an educated man, but he was street smart. And he said to me, "Listen, if you become a, a profession, or if you have a profession of some kind, you'll always make a living." And he said, you know, "It could be a law- you could be a lawyer. You could be an accountant. You could be a doctor. I mean, something where you get to charge for your experience and time." And- Right ... you know, I got towards the end of college, and I said, "Okay, maybe I should just go to law school. You know, if I don't do it now, I'm probably never gonna do it." So that's what I did. I, I got myself into law school. And like I said, the first two years I really, I wasn't particularly passionate about the law. I mean, I, I did what I needed to, to do to pass my classes. I don't think I got an A in a, in a class until my third year. So, uh, you know, I wouldn't say I was floating through for the first few years, but I was pretty close to floating through. Um, you know, it just, it didn't make sense to me. You know, I, I'd come into class. Class started at 9:00. I'd walk in three minutes into, and some of my student co- you know, fellow students had been in the library for two hours looking at the latest case. Hmm. I'm like, what for? I went to the gym. I had to go work out. Who cares about the latest case? I'm just trying here to pass the class and get through a bar exam. So I wasn't really passionate about it. But I said to myself, you know- If you wanna be a real lawyer, you gotta learn how to... You gotta at least get some trial experience. You gotta learn what it's like to be in the courtroom. And so I had this opportunity to intern, um, and it was supp- only supposed to be three months. It ended up being six months because the job I was supposed to have in the summer I got fired from. So my life has been about some failures, but I've learned through life that sometimes failure is the key to success. You fail at something, and it's not, well, you're a loser 'cause you failed, it's the universe trying to move you in a different direction. So if I had, if I had worked that job, which was, you know, clerking at a big PI law firm that I thought would look sexy on my resume, if I'd spent three months working there and being bored absolutely out of my mind in a library, I would've had something nice on my resume, but I've o- would've only have had three months to intern with the State Attorney's Office. They may never have hired me. Instead, I got fired and spent six months, so I did a, I did a double internship. And, and what I figured out right out of the gate, I was in my first trial, I was like, "Okay, this is where I am supposed to be." And I was really good at it. Um, it was a natural talent for me to be in the courtroom, and all of the things I had done learning in law school, like the rules of evidence, the rules of procedure, and substantive law, which I'd studied hard, right? And my trial ad pr- uh, class that I took, which is where they teach you how to try a case, it all suddenly started to make sense, and I did a dozen jury trials as a second-year law student, which had never been done before. I doubt it's been done since. I mean, I was the most successful intern they ever had. I also did an appellate argument. That had never done before, been done before either. I mean, I was absolutely gung ho, and they ended up hiring me. Um, so you know, my, my life has been about some failures, right? What would've happened if I'd have passed that California Bar Exam? I never, I wouldn't be sitting here. I wouldn't have met my wife. I wouldn't have two- Right ... amazing stepchildren. I wouldn't have built a business. I probably would've been in, in Oakland, California, doing criminal defense work. So, 'cause I had a friend there, uh, that wanted me to come partner with him and build a criminal defense practice. He's still there. When I was taking the bar exam for the first time, he was taking it for the third time. He had been a, a public defender in Miami when I'd been a prosecutor in Palm Beach. Mm. So I mean, my life has been about some failures, but it's also been about listening to w- to the universe and m- being moved in the right direction. So, um, yeah, and I got married two and a half years ago, my second marriage, which is interesting because when I met my wife in '17, I told her I would never, ever get married again. And I will tell you, it's the single best decision I've ever made. Mm. I couldn't have built this law firm without her, and my wife is a brilliant lawyer in her own right. Here's the irony. We went to the same law school, and we were there at the same time. I was a first-year law student when she was a third-year law student. She was two years ahead of me, and our paths never crossed. And she said to me, she jokingly said to me recently, she said, "You know, if I'd have met you in law school, I wouldn't have paid you any attention. I was a third-year. I was getting ready to graduate, and you were a peon first-year. Why would I have ever paid you any attention?" Right? Right. Third-years didn't date first-years. So but think about that, right? It may have been by chance. Um, but maybe it wasn't chance. Maybe it was the universe trying to put the right person in, in my life, but I wasn't real- ready to accept her. I was busy f- you know, still fighting the good fight and enjoying the single life. So sometimes you have to just pay attention, and when it comes to being an entrepreneur, not being afraid to move forward and make a mistake, right? You can't have anal- uh, you know, paralysis by analysis. Just make a decision. If it turns out to be wrong, you'll know. If you don't make the decision to make the commitment to make that decision, you'll never know, and you'll just sit there, you know, "What do I do? What do I do?" 100%. But I wanna unpack some legal jargon for a lot of people listening who may not be- Yep ... so familiar with the world of law. So we talk about terms like prosecutor, attorney, judge. You know, some of us may not be familiar with that, especially prosecutor. So what does that all mean in a very simple sense? Okay, so I think you even have this i- in the, in the, in the, in the, um, military world. We have the un- is it the Uniform Code of Military Justice? So the military has their own internal, um, legal system, right? So I don't know if folks have been watching any of the, the recent cases like the Charlie Kirk case, but, you know, when it comes to criminal cases, those are prosecuted by the state. We also have a federal criminal system. So I was a state prosecutor, right? And I, and I, my... I worked within Palm Beach County, so I was an, a Palm Beach County assistant state attorney. So the, the case, if somebody got arrested, the case would get reviewed, and we would make a filing decision, because just 'cause someone's been arrested doesn't mean to say they're gonna get prosecuted. So law enforcement is responsible for making arrests and bringing, and bringing all the evidence to the state attorney's office. The state attorney's office then decides to make a filing decision. They are going to prosecute the case, and it is the, the, the role of the assistant prosecutors to actually litigate the case through the process, through the actual criminal justice system. So the judge is there to make, you know, uh, a s- you know, legal rulings and help the case move through. The judge might also be responsible for hearing the case if that's the decision that's made, and the judge could potentially be responsible for sentencing somebody, whether it's after trial or as part of some kind of negotiated settlement. So you've got the prosecutor, the judge, and then you have a defense lawyer. Maybe it's court-appointed counsel like a public defender, or it's a private lawyer. So we have, you know, we have three branches of government. We have legislative. Those are the folks up in Tallahassee or in DC that pass laws. We have our executive, right? Uh, like the president or the governor. And then we have our judiciary, which is our judges. You know, state judges, county judges, federal judges, and that's, those are the three branches of our government. So I was working in, obviously, you know, I was part of the executive branch. I mean, I wasn't, I wasn't a judge and I wasn't a legislator, so I was part of the executive part of government, right? 'Cause I was working for the government. So that's how our system all works. Right. And speaking of the process of the legal system, we're talking about specifically with you and over this episode cases of mental health, you know, behavioral issues, addiction. Now, obviously every state is a little bit different, and I'm not too familiar, but is there a point in the process where if someone's arrested or if someone's gonna be prosecuted where it says, wait a minute, they need a mental health evaluation first? Is that at any point mandatory if, let's say, hey, there was substance abuse involved, or there is symptoms involved, therefore, before we move forward, we have to do a mental health evaluation? Or is it only after the fact? Or is it only if someone's a repeat offender and a, quote, "pattern is noticed"? What is the whole process with that? Okay, so there's quite a bit to unpack here. So, uh- Right. Right ... the cases I'm involved in are, are of a civil nature so that- Okay ... no- no one's getting prosecuted criminally, okay? So we are, our client is typically the family. Mm. And we are initiate, we're filing a case in, it's in actually in the probate division, but not to get too complicated here. It's a civil proceeding, so we're filing a case. It's almost as if we're the prosecutor and we're filing a civil proceeding, and then obviously the person on the other end of this, who's probably the patient, is going to get notice and there's gonna be a, a whole proceeding. So instead of a prosecutor and a defense lawyer, there's gonna be, you know, me as sort of plaintiff's counsel, and then there's gonna be a defense lawyer. Could be private, could be a court appointed, and then there's gonna be a judge who hears the case. So similar to the criminal system, but we're not talking initially about throwing somebody in, in jail because of a criminal sanction. So you, so, and we're using, like you said, assessment and treatment as part of the way the case gets resolved potentially. But the, the, but as you correctly pointed out, sometimes that world and the criminal world, you know, they cross over. So there's a couple of times where issues of substance use, you know, and mental illness could, could be issues in a criminal case. One of them could be competence, right? Is somebody even competent to proceed to trial? Right. Are they able to actually help their lawyer to provide a defense for them? And that's normally something that gets addressed pretrial. Okay. Right? The defense lawyer may say, "You know, I don't know if my client's competent to proceed to trial." And then the court's gonna appoint, you know, some experts to review the person. Are they capable of going to trial? 'Cause if they can't help their lawyer, how, how can... We don't put people who aren't competent, we don't put them in jail, right? We don't prosecute them. They may end up in a state hospital to resolve the competency issue, but- Right ... so we can have that. Now, the other issue is, is, is, is there a behavioral health issue that's causing them to act criminally? Well, if it's a murder case, you know, th- that case is gonna get prosecuted, right? But if it's, say, like a petty theft or they broke into someone's car, i- is it the kind of crime where we wanna tr- wh- where we want to get them help, right, and we use the criminal system and as leverage to get them into treatment, keep them there long enough so that they don't come back, right? And maybe the, the, the resolution is you do the treatment, we drop the case, right? That's typically what happens in a diversionary court. When I was representing a couple of veterans in veterans court, they'd go through the treatment process, and then the state would drop the case, which was great, right? It's a win-win for everybody. They got treatment on the s- you know, the state paid for it And then the case got dropped, so they didn't have this thing hanging over their head for the rest of their lives. So there's, there are, are times when behavioral health issues become relevant in a c- in a case. But look, if somebody is a repeat offender, they're not gonna get a diversionary court option. The case is getting prosecuted, and at some point, especially here in Florida, the state says, "You know, I'm sorry, you know, this has been going on long enough. We're gonna lock you up for as long as we can, 'cause we gotta make sure we protect s- you know, the public and the society." Right. So sometimes these things all crisscross, and that's why I think the... I think that one of the things that distinguishes us from s- you know, some of the people that are trying to do what we do, they, they simply don't have the experience, especially in the criminal system, that we do. Now, I get calls on criminal cases. I just don't take them anymore. I've got a full plate. I refer them to another lawyer that I know, like, and trust, who's gonna do a good job representing these people, but also understands what we're trying to do here, which is to get people into treatment so they don't keep coming back. That's the goal here. Mm. So, um I live in an interesting world I'll leave it at that. Right, right. And it's definitely a very complicated and sensitive matter when it comes to, you know, if someone is, you know, competent and aware of what they are doing and, you know, the degree of the crime. I think it is a very complicated situation with each individual case and each individual person being a completely unique circumstance. Now, when you talk about families coming to you, who exactly is coming to you and why? What is their goal when they're working with you? Yeah, so normally it's the parents. Not every time, but I would say 90% of the time we're getting calls from parents. And it's because they've got a loved one, 25 to 45 is our typical age range- Mm-hmm who has, who's got a long history, five years, 10 years, sometimes even longer, of drug use, okay? And mental illness. And treatment doesn't work, whatever that really means. If they'll even go, right? They don't take their medications, or they start and they stop. Um, and, and maybe they've been involved in the criminal system. Maybe they've been sucked into the mental health system in their particular state, or maybe even here in Florida. Maybe they've had an overdose, right? All kinds of crazy behavior. And the family gets to us and they're like, "We're done." Right? We- they feel like they're, they've, they're out of options. Maybe their loved one goes into treatment but never stays long enough. Maybe they've been- Wow ... into treatment, but it's not a clinically appropriate facility. Maybe they, they didn't work the c- what, what I call a continuum of care. Maybe they didn't get to that year-long, you know, uh, situation where they did a year and now, and, right? They just did 30 days, or 60 days, or 90 days, and it wasn't long enough. Maybe they started taking meds and, and stopped. I mean, there's a whole myriad of, of issues that we see. Correct. Yes. Um, but they're coming to us because they want the ability to make the decision their loved one can't make. So when somebody has a behavioral health issue, as a general rule, th- th- their mind, it's almost as if their mind had been hijacked, right? It looks like them, sounds like them, walks like them. They're the proverbial duck. But they are not capable of making the decision to either go into treatment or stay long enough, or work the program. They're just simply not capable of doing it. So if they can't make it, well, who's gonna make the decision for them? Well, sometimes the state does it, as you, as you correctly mentioned, through the criminal justice system, 'cause people with behavioral health issues sometimes make silly decisions and get 'ems- get themselves arrested. Okay, well now the state has you through the criminal system. They'll lock you up in the county jail and maybe a state penitentiary. Or the state steps in and you get sucked into the mental health system. Here in Florida, we call it the Baker Act. Our statute, our- Right ... involuntary commitment statute is named after somebody whose last name is Baker, but every state has a version of that, right? And the state can lock you up, right, in the mental health system so you can't leave, and they can forcibly medicate you and do all kinds of horrible stuff to you, right? So the state can step in. Or you do nothing and sometimes the consequences of that can be tragic. Or the family says, "We wanna make the decision." Okay, and that's where I come in. I- we, we get f- the families varying degrees of control from a court or courts, 'cause we might be in front of a couple of different judges. We get the authority to m- so they can make the decision their loved one cannot make, okay? So I know that sometimes, you know, folks will say, "Well, I don't wanna force anybody into treatment." I'm not asking you to force them. I'm asking you to make the decision they can't make, and that's a very different way of looking at things, because I don't want to be forced to do something any more than, than you do, right? Nobody likes to be forced, but if they're not running the show, somebody has to make the decision for them. And if they're over 18 and an adult, they get to make decisions about their own life and how they live it. Well, sometimes we gotta take that decision-making authority away and give it to somebody who's better equipped to make that decision. Could be the state, but we'd rather it was the parents. That's where we come in. We empower families to be able to make the decision for their loved one that their loved one simply cannot make because their mind's been hijacked. That's where we come in. Okay. And it's really about families hitting rock bottom, not their loved one hitting rock bottom, because their rock bottom might be, you know, tragic. Yes. It's about the family. When have you had enough? When have you suffered enough? When has your loved one suffered enough? That's a question only a family can answer, but by the time they come to us, they've hit rock bottom and they're ready to have a different outcome. But it's not an easy decision to make, right? Nobody wants to go to court. Nobody wants to hire a lawyer. As my late dad used to tell me, nobody wants to give a lawyer any money. Um, and no one wants to be butting heads being on the opposite side of the courtroom to somebody they love. It's an very uncomfortable feeling, and I get it So if I'm picturing this correctly, well, well, let's back up. You're saying you give a power of decision to the parent, the parents or guardians of the individual who is suffering from an addiction or a mental health disorder, right? So what does that mean, the power of that decision? What decision? That if they sign you into treatment, that you can't sign yourself out, the guardians have to sign you out? Or what does this look like when you talk about the power of decision? What it looks like is the, the parents, the family now has the ability to put, to make you go to treatment, and if you don't go, then I guess we're gonna have a different conversation with a judge about what kind of sanction might be imposed upon you. Mm. Potentially jail. So yeah, you gotta go. You, you, you... We're not... The decision to go is being made by the family. The decision to stay is being made by the family, and if you leave, then the decision about what might get, what sanction you might get is gonna be made by a judge. Mm. Right? So compliance is not optional. It's mandatory. So yeah, we're gonna take that a- we're gonna take the decision away from you because you can't make it. So yeah, I mean- Okay ... there's a, there's a, there are consequences for not complying with a court order. Right. So essentially, the, the way it's- It's accountability ... basically is it's, well, it's making their, it's legally backed. When it's giving the parents legal backing to make decisions. So now when a family comes to you and says, "We want to have this legal decision power over our loved one who is suffering," is it the loved one who is suffering can get a lawyer to go to court to fight against that? And, and them and their lawyer will say, "I am competent enough or in my own ability to make my own decisions, and I don't wanna go." And if their lawyer wins the case against, I, I don't know if it's you or someone else representing them, then the family will not have that power to make the legal decision. Is it, it's kind of a court battle, is that correct? It can be. Yeah. I mean, most of the time it's not. Okay. We're able to resolve these and get somebody into treatment. But yeah, it can become a court battle. You got it. And we'll have a small trial. It's not a jury trial, and these are confidential proceedings. They're not open to the whole world. Okay. But yeah, I mean, it, yeah, it c- it c- we can have a hearing, and they can fight, and, uh, theoretically they can win. Right, and I don't say that to dishearten- Doesn't happen very often, but it can happen right, I don't say that to dishearten or discourage anyone- No ... from trying to, you know, get that decision power. But it is a, a realistic possibility. Yeah. But, uh, it is, and but here's the difference. So i- in the criminal arena, right, if you get prosecuted for something, you go to trial- Mm ... and you win, the state can't re-prosecute for the same thing. We have what's known as double jeopardy, right? Yeah. State doesn't get a second bite of the very same apple. In my case, that's not necessarily true. But let's say hypothetically we go to, we go to court, we lose the hearing for whatever reason, right? I might wait 30 days, get a, a bit more evidence, and then refile a brand new case. Now I got more evidence. I can do that. Mm. So I don't have that double jeopardy restriction like- Mm ... like the state would. Now obviously in the state's situation, if you get tried, say, for, for murder and you get acquitted, they can't retry you for the same murder. But if you are alleged to have gone out and killed somebody else, well, they can try you for that 'cause it's different, different case. Well, I think it's really important in the type of field that you're working in because that, that retrial is important because as you mentioned in the very beginning of the episode, mental health issues and addiction are often progressive. In fact, I often say they're exponential in the way they grow. And so 30 days doesn't sound like a long time, but 30 days in the world of addiction or mental health decline can be a huge change, so I think that's really important. So we talked about this is the least likely case scenario, though still possible. So what is the common experience typically? If you wanna walk us through the family contacting you, and then kind of how it proceeds from there. Yeah. So n- normally we're the last port of call, so normally the- everybody calls, they're in a bit of a panic, right? We're the, we're- Mm-hmm ... the 911 of the, of the legal, of the legal system. Okay. So they call us. They go through what we call a triage process, meaning, you know, we wanna find out what's going on, right? How long has it been going on for? What have they tried? What's worked? What hasn't? All of the history, so we ... Because obviously as lawyers, I, I gotta make sure we can prove the case, right? I'm bound by not just ethical rules, but rules of evidence, rules of procedure, rules of substantive law. I gotta make sure we have enough evidence, and can we, do we have a, a likely, a likely successful outcome for the, for the client, for the family? Because if we don't, well, then we're, we're gonna tell them, "Listen, we c- I don't think we can win this case." And where that scenario typically comes up is where mom and dad say, you know, I'll say, "Well, when was the last time you saw, saw your loved one," right? Little Johnny, Little Jane. You know, "It's been several months. I haven't seen him." "Okay, how do you know they're using?" "Well, because, you know, the- they were always using," or, "I spoke to him and he sounded high." Mm. Or, "I spoke to her and she sounded drunk." Mm-hmm. Or, "I could tell she was off her meds." Okay, now I might have an evidentiary problem, right? Mm, correct. Because I gotta be able to prove that, that it, they're actually using. And I'm sure the parents are right, but I just know as, mm, some families tell me, right, it's not evidence. It's, uh, it's a hunch, right? And I'm sure they're right, but in, in court I gotta make sure we have evidence. Correct. And we might say, "Listen, you haven't seen him in several months, so either we need to gather more evidence, or let's talk about a different option." So that's part of the process, but let's say we have enough evidence and we're gonna file a case. I would say that in just about every one of our cases is always filed on an emergency basis. So they pay the fees, they sign the retainer agreement, and then the case gets assigned to one of my two associates and their paralegals, and we will start drafting pretty much immediately, normally that day or the next day, right? So we are filing something very quickly, and we're getting it to court very quickly. Now, some of the work we do- We're able to file on what's known as an ex parte emergency basis. What does that mean? It means that we're gonna file, file our pleadings, and the court is not going to set a hearing, is not going to appoint a lawyer. The court's gonna review what we've, we sent in and say, "Yep, we have an emergency," and they're gonna order the police to go and get this person and pick 'em up off the streets and get 'em to a place of safety, right? Things are so critical, we just don't have time for the hearing. So we can get 'em held for an initial 72-hour evaluation, and then we'll have a hearing. They'll get a lawyer. They'll get to be heard, right? But sometimes we need to move very, very quickly. So either way, there's going to be a hearing, and normally we are in court very quickly. So the, it's not like a criminal case or a typical civil case where things, where there's depositions and all kinds of discovery and things take weeks and months and years. Our timelines are extremely compressed. Mm-hmm. We are... We can be in court and for an actual hearing two to five days. That's pretty darn quick, right? So w- we're used to moving at a very rapid pace. So things can move pretty quickly. So it could be two to five days for an initial hearing, and maybe we're back somewhere between 10 days and 30 days for another hearing, and maybe there's one after that. But things move very, very quickly, right? They have to because someone's now in a critical situation potentially. All righty. So one of the most important questions I gotta ask you for everyone listening right now, the gauge of who should call you, who should not call you, right? To filter out all the, "Hey, the case is just not strong enough yet," because the person is not in a bad enough situation, or, you know, 'cause I don't want everyone who just has someone who's, who's drunk or may be doing drugs for occasionally to call you, right? Who should call you, who should not call you? What is the gauge of level when it comes to making this kind of determination? Well, I, I think, you know, for families out there that are watching, do they think there's a problem, right? I mean, I always tell families the first thing you should do is talk to your loved one. Be a nosy parent. Find out what's going on. Ask them, "Is there a problem here?" I mean, they, maybe there's, maybe you've seen them using in the house. Maybe they admitted it to you, right? And, and there, and typically there's a lot of red flags that happen that you maybe subconsciously notice but decide to ignore because you're saying, "No, this could, not my kid," right? Th- there's a whole probably a bunch of red flags, right? They've just changed. Things have changed, right? They flunked out of school. They couldn't hold down a job. Nobody special in their life. Hanging out with all kinds of different weird loser-type people they've never hung out with, right? They're aloof. They don't wanna be with the family. Um, right? Their eating habits have changed, not for the good. Their bathing habits have changed, not for the good. They've stopped taking their medications they need to take. I mean, there's a whole pattern of behavior here, and now- Mm-hmm ... the family says to their loved one, "What's going on? We're finding drugs in the house. You know, um, you seem off," right? And the, the loved one says, "What? Nothing wrong with me. I'm perfectly okay. I'm fine." They're in denial, right? "It, it, it's you that needs to go and see the psychiatrist. I'm perfectly okay." I think at that point there's a problem, right? If your loved one's like, "Yeah, I have a problem. I can't stop drinking. I can't stop using marijuana," or whatever it is, or they're paranoid and they're delusional, right, those types of things, then I think, yeah, you, th- this is a time we can have a conversation with you. I don't, I don't wanna be, I don't want parents to think well, they have to make the decision as to whether or not they should call. If you think there is a problem, and that is somewhat of a subjective opinion, then call us. We're happy to chat with you. You know? If you want, you know, more information about what we do and what are the red flags, I mean, I have 1,200 videos on YouTube. I make three or four videos every day talking about these issues, right? Go on YouTube. Download 'em. I give away a ton of stuff. I wrote a book all about the Marchman Act, which is a spe- which is a unique statute we have here in Florida for somebody that's got a primary substance use disorder. Go to the website. Download the book. It's free. So you don't have to guess at this stuff. I've given a- I ... Before you even pick up the phone to me, right, you can, you can learn- Right ... a lot about what we do and a lot about what things may be going on with your family just by doing a little bit of research. And if you wanna talk to us, we'd love to hear from you. And I wanna go back to one of the things holding people back, right? We talked in the very beginning, and I'm gonna quote it again from, you know, your bio online, "Intervention isn't about taking away someone's freedom. It's about preserving their opportunity to recover." And I think it is a very difficult position to be in, to be intervening. But like you mentioned, uh, it's our responsibility, whether that's a familial connection, whether that's just our moral ethical duty to take care of one another as human beings. And I think that is really important to recognize the way, and some of us don't understand the sheer gravity of how drugs and mental health issues can change a person's mind, as you said. Because y- you said it very great earlier on, it can look like them, sound like them, right? But it's about the internal. It's about the internal. And so I think that's really important. One thing I wanna very much clarify for everyone listening, are you only ... I don't know how it works. So are you only able to do this in Florida, or can people from other states reach out to you? How does that work? Yeah. You know, that is such a good question. I'm glad that you asked it. So, um, I would tell you, and I don't know why this is, the bulk of the people that we work with, um, they're not in Florida. I get calls from all over the country, sometimes out of the country, um, because they're dealing with these issues and they found us online or they got referred to us. So I'm barred in Florida and I'm barred in Massachusetts. Florida, in my opinion, is the single best place to do this for two reasons. Number one, we have great treatment here, and I work with three, occasionally a fourth treatment center that I would, that I would gladly refer you to, right? That I would gladly refer my own family to. So that's number one. Number two, we've, we've got great laws here. The Marchman Act is there's nothing else like it anywhere else in the country, right? Where I can get an emergency order, get your loved one picked up, get them to a place of safety, and then send them to treatment for chunks of three months at a time. So we've got some amazing laws down here, and our judges, especially in South Florida, are really, really switched onto this stuff. So Florida's a great place to come for treatment, and I'm pretty good at getting people here. Sometimes, you know, by hook or by crook, right, I might have to bring them here. Or we work with a lawyer in another state who files something that gives you authority to transport them here. But, but Florida is a great place to come. So if you can do three to six months here in Florida and then go back to your home state, that's a beautiful thing to finish, you know, the rest of the treatment, right? Because if somebody spends three to six months here, they're probably stabilized by the time they go home, which means they're less likely to, to leave treatment. They're more likely to take their medications. They're less likely to get arrested and do all the crazy things they were doing beforehand. So that's, that's typically what it looks like, is we want people here in Florida that can, that can come here, be assessed, be stabilized, and begin their treatment and start down that path of recovery. That's why f- that's what we're doing. Right occasionally I do it in Massachusetts. I told you my wife practiced up there for about a dozen years and f- and Massachusetts is not a bad place either. They have pretty good laws there especially guardianship. They have good treatment there too but I mean, Florida's the, the number one place to come at least initially and then you can go home to your, you know to, you know, the rest of your state and finish up there Right, and if not possible, you have a huge network of people to refer in most states, correct? I do, and I, I've, um, you know, one of the things I, you know, I've spent a lot of time with and my wife and I have spent a lot of time with is going and visiting different treatment centers. I mean, you know, like I said, I've got a select group here in Florida, but, you know, we were in California last week. We went to visit a treatment center. I was in ... I spent quite a bit of time in Utah, one of my favorite places in the country. When we were there about a month ago, we went to visit treatment centers. Why? Because people from Utah are coming here to Florida to do the initial part of their treatment and then going back to Utah to finish up, primarily because we have great treatment here, and we have a legal system that c- can give the families some control while the fam- you know, while this, their loved one is going through the whole assessment, stabilization, and initial treatment process. So I spend a lot of time, and I've got a lot of tentacles all over the place. So if a family needs a referral to, say, somebody in California or New York, I can usually help them. If they need a lawyer up there, I can usually find somebody. So, you know, one of the, one of the, I, I think m- focuses is, for me, has been to be able to give people resources, 'cause they don't always need me. I, I may not be the right fit for them. W- They, they may not have a case that's appropriate for us, right? And so I ... There are normally different things or options I give them. One of them may be an intervention. You know, I've got a couple of interventions that I work with. I mean, I'm, I mean, I'm talking about people that are, you know, either a f- f- you know, PhD level interventionist or master's level interventionist, and maybe an intervention is a great way to get their loved one into treatment, and then I can help them to keep them there. Th- there's all kinds of options available, and it really- Right ... figuring out those options really is a part of what we do, but it also means the family's gotta pick up the phone and have that initial conversation with us, if that makes sense. Of course, and we're gonna have your information in the description below or your website link so people can check out all of those resources as well as how to contact you. And I think just, again, to reinforce the idea of why you should intervene, right? Bystanderism can lead to, as you mentioned, you used the word tragic, uh, it can lead to death. It can lead to whether that's overdose, or it can lead to life in prison. It can lead to in and out of the legal court system, right? So sometimes we worry about, uh, a stay in an addiction treatment center and not weighing that against, well, what, what are the other options in worst case scenarios, which can be death, not just of the person who is dealing with the mental health issues or an addiction, but a lot of times it can lead to whether that's through, you know, vehicle operation use while intoxicated or high or m- mentally unwell, operation of firearms, whatever it may be. It can lead to the death of other people as well. So there's a, there's a moral weight to this about being a bystander and intervening before it's too late. You know, I think intervention is so important. So thank you for having this conversation with me. You're welcome. And as we wrap up here, just what would you want everyone to really take away from this? Um, I, I think a couple things. Number one, while I know that you sometimes you feel like you're out of outcomes, I'm here to tell you I think there is a, a different outcome, and that's number one. Number two, um, that recovery's a journey. It's not a destination, right? And anybody who tells you that, you know, they've got the magic pill or, you know, they only need to do 30 days of treatment is not only lying to themselves, they're probably lying to you, too, right? It does take time, and I, and I think, again, understanding how all of these systems work together is important, so you- if you're gonna work with a lawyer, may not be me. I'm not everybody's proverbial cup of tea You need to work with somebody who understands how the, how the, the civil and criminal work together, um, right? You need to work with somebody who is a specialist, right? I mean, if God forbid you had cancer, you wouldn't go and see a dermatologist, right? Or a chiropractor. And it's not, I'm not poo-pooing them, but they're not specialists in cancer, right? You want an oncologist. Right. Right? Find a specialist. And the other thing is, you know, don't be afraid to pick up the phone and have a conversation with us, right? We are here to serve and give you information, and to potentially give you options. And if we're not the right option or you just don't wanna do it, that's okay. It's a no judgment zone. But it starts with saying, "Okay, maybe there's a different outcome for our family. Maybe there's one last opportunity here." And don't be afraid to pick up the phone. And if you don't wanna talk to us, well, at least go to the YouTube channel and, and look at the videos or download the book. I mean, there's so ... I give so much content away, partly because there's so much misinformation out there about- Mm ... how this all works. And so I make videos, and I make them based on all of the, you know, the conversations that I've had over the years. And lit- I've literally spoken to... I mean, I bet you I've spoken to over 10,000 families in the last several years. I mean, I, I ... We speak to a lot of families. And, and we've handled a lot of cases, and I have a lot of experience in both the criminal and, and behavioral health space. And so I, I wanna ... I, I give you as much value and information as I possibly can. And I tell families, if they're looking at my video, "If there's an issue I haven't made a video about, let me know. Post in the comments. I'll make you the video. I'll do it for you." 'Cause if it's affecting your family, it's probably affecting somebody else's, and I want you to get the information. 'Cause if you go to Google and chat, or ChatGPT, which people seem to do now, it's probably gonna give you the wrong information. And you need to know, right? What, how does it work in the real world? How does it work in Miami-Dade versus in Pasco or Pinellas or Leon County? Because it does work differently in different parts of Florida, right? I might not file a case, a particular type of case, in one county that I might file in another. Well, how do you know which county does it better? Well, because I've done it. That's how I know. Right? Experience. Experience matters. You know, I mean, you, you know, you shared your ex- your experience with me in the military. I wouldn't know how to do your job. Right? I'd probably electrocute myself and everybody else on the ship, right? Experience matters and so does training. So if y- please, if you're, if you're, if, have any doubt, call us. We wanna talk to you. Let's figure out if we can help you or not Well, Mark, thank you so much for your time today Thank you to you, and your service Yes, sir. And thank you for what you're doing. I think it's really important because, you know, there are so many. You talked about, you know, tens of thousands of families, and I know from the line of work that I'm in, I've talked to hundreds of people who all have family members, loved ones, friends, coworkers, whatever it is. We see it on the news, we see it on social media, we see it in our lives, dealing with mental health issues, dealing with addiction, and, you know, getting the proper help for everyone is so important, providing these resources. So thank you for what you do, including your time today guesting on the show. Yeah. Thank you for having me. Before I go, can I give out my website? Is that okay? For sure, of course. So if, for families that want information, our main website is mentalhealthaddictionlawfirm.com. That's mentalhealthaddictionlawfirm.com. And if they can't find the website, just Google my name, and you'll find me all over, all over the place. Yes, sir. So once again, thank you. Thank you