Our Founder Chris Burns opens up about some of the personal journeys he has endeavored, alongside the growth of Peaks Recovery. 

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[Music]
all right welcome back to another
episode of finding peaks
uh very excited to be here today uh on
this
new day yeah different episode
um as promised over the many episodes
we’ve done so far we’re gonna start
bringing guests on
uh moving forward and creating different
um hosts within the process
and uh so to my left here today is um
president founder of peaks recovery
centers christopher burns
and hello everybody welcome thank you
good energy also
uh my brother too just in case or just
to create awareness around that we got
the burns last night
brother don’t let the hairline fool you
i am
younger yeah 14 months 14 months and
then
to my right here of course as you all
know our chief clinical officer jason
friesma
step brother step brother born in the
fire
so um well excited to have you here
today chris with us
um uh and in the future i think you’re
gonna bring a great deal of energy in a
variety of different ways to
not only these episodes but i think the
recovery journey and engaging the
audience with that
we are the original we’re the ogs right
at peaks recovery centers we were there
in the beginning certainly you created
it invited us into the process and so i
think today
it would just be uh fun and interesting
and insightful to
kind of look at the past where we
started what we thought recovery was as
a journey back then
where we’ve come today and um
you know what it looks like and what are
those differences and then what have
been those interesting challenges and
in betweens and and so forth so um
so yeah i feel like we got to start here
with your energy
nice grateful to be here in your both of
your presents i’ve watched this is
episode
nine all right i think we’re over that
are we yeah i know i get why you get it
wrong man
yeah because the last one i watched i
think yeah whatever no
grateful to be here i’ve loved watching
you guys collaborate and bounce
ideas off of each other and um i think
it’s been really
informative in a lot of aspects and so
grateful to be here and spread some
positive energy some recovery oriented
energy which i have a ton of but i want
to start with
this mental healthy shirt that i got and
i got it from
a past client he texts me was here
a while back and he texted me said hey i
wanted to send you something
which what size shirt do you wear and so
we sent this through and it’s a just a
really cool thing it’s um
men’s health as well as rhone athletic
gear
doing a collaboration for men’s mental
health month as well as pride month and
then mental health awareness was last
month so
just really inviting all men um to
engage in their mental health
and to take that seriously and um i
think that’s probably one of the bigger
things
that’s changed about peaks over the last
seven years
is really this opportunity to go from
where i started it in 2014 which was a
really
heavy emphasis on a 12-step foundation
and approach to care
um you know we had great therapists but
we were really missing kind of
insights into curriculum trauma-informed
care
and things like that but we had that
heavy emphasis on connection
in the community with the 12-step way of
life and you know i believed in that
wholeheartedly
and i still believe in a lot of the
safety and connectivity that the 12-step
way of life provides
certainly there’s a lot of great things
in there um but i think to set in that
and to build a model of care out of that
is to say that
from that one day in 1935 in akron ohio
when alcoholics anonymous was formed
that we haven’t learned anything moving
forward
because most certainly alcoholics
anonymous hasn’t changed at all they’ve
been tried and true
over the last nearly 100 years and so i
had a heavy belief system on that and we
that’s what we wrapped peaks around on
this idea that nobody cares what you
know until they know that you care with
a heavy emphasis on
community integration um and really why
wouldn’t we because the resources
weren’t there
and we had really good results
throughout those first years
first few years of peak’s recovery
wouldn’t you say chris that you started
i would i think i’ve told you this
before but i think you kind of started
peaks
you started a treatment center and you
didn’t believe in treatment
yeah that’s a great point um i can
remember sitting in treatment
at 20 21 and 22 and then sitting there
in those trauma weeks and i’m just like
i’m just not finding it sat with a young
adult the other day at 20 years
like i just can’t find my inner child
i’m like i can relate yeah
because i didn’t believe in the efficacy
behind
treatment behind clinical modalities
because
my life had been saved repaired and
reformed through the 12 steps of
alcoholics anonymous
but what i learned through that was it’s
just a very close-minded approach to
helping people
but it was so much to me and it was such
a breath of fresh air you know when i
walked into alcoholics anonymous
in 2008 devoid of a healthy family
system i walked in and these people told
me
we love you we care about you and we
believe in you and i can remember some
of those men in the front end
of my recovery breathing life into me
that otherwise wasn’t there and so i was
just so convicted
with that approach so when we opened
peaks recovery centers i opened up the
treatment part
because i knew that was the resourceful
piece that was going to keep the company
going
and keep it so we can continue to do
circles can continue to integrate
into the 12-step way of life and quite
frankly and candidly
it wasn’t until i did a deep dive into
my own personal story
into my own past and really started to
dismiss or explore some of that
intensity
that i still held with some of those
rough edges in the early stages of peaks
so current time i tend to believe it’s
it’s more of a both and proposition
i still believe because the 12 steps has
the most people in it and they’ve helped
the most people
i tend to believe that that’s the
greatest resource we can integrate in
into the community
however i also believe that should be
met with a professional
involved and you should be walking the
steps with the professional with the
support
of the community but the community today
is so much more of an adjunct
to what we do and not the primary
purpose and not the primary source or
the curriculum in which
clients walk today so it wasn’t until i
was able to have that personal
experience
started peaks with my overall personal
experience and peaks has kind of
moved in that direction with the help of
some great clinicians and some great
leaders
and really me doing my work because when
i did my work i was like you guys have
been right all of these years
this is awesome yeah you know and and
the reason i wasn’t open to that early
on was because of trauma
and and how i define that in my life
today is i’m looking for hard edges
right 12 steps is the only way meeting
every day for the rest of your life
where you’ll die
have to do this counseling every day
until it’s over and
really a more recovering space that i’m
learning and beginning to lean into
today is this is this kind of gray area
in the middle
where i can take it i can leave it it’s
functional
it’s healthy it’s boundaried and it’s
safe you know and so
i tend to believe and really have a
heavy emphasis on
trauma-informed care now i believe that
the medical profession needs to be
trauma-informed i think
teachers need to be trauma-informed i
think the world needs to be
trauma-informed
and if we begin to become
trauma-informed we can understand things
like craving states and we can begin
to dismiss this addiction thing and so
it’s such a more hopeful view whereas
when i open peaks recovery in 2014 i
might have said
it’s a.a the rest of your life or you’ll
die
or you won’t have a good shot or you
won’t be able to experience happiness in
the way that you would in the center of
that room
and today i just don’t believe that hard
edge i believe there needs to be some
recovery space in there for people to
navigate
and find their true self um and that’s
what
trauma is is it’s that unalignment of
the true self and
obviously that that treatment or that
healing and recovery is
bringing that back in alignment so i
don’t think 2014
chris would recognize this guy no he’d
be honest with you
yeah it’s it’s been he would say who’s
this skinny guy sitting here
who’s that skinny guy right he’s talking
about plants
but i’m really grateful to be in this
space and to have grown
in my recovery because it’s really
helped me grow as a professional and see
things a bit more clearly
and it’s been awesome and it’s really
helped me too on the ground level
you know i’m sitting with guys today
that are in grief week
or in family week or in identity week
are um
you know really doing these deep dives
down to a place that i was unwilling to
go for a long time
and now i get to just lock arms with
them and say man i remember when i was
going through that two weeks ago
or i remember six months ago i was right
where you were just keep fighting
keep supporting keep locking arms and so
i’ve been able to really support
my friends and family and then folks in
recovery in a really
new and refreshing way that i didn’t
know was possible so
yeah and you get i mean you spend a
great deal of time
not only communicating with families on
the front end of programming but
certainly meeting with each and every
client throughout their treatment
episodes sitting down having coffee with
them and i think
um you know something that i would like
to draw your energy toward and introduce
to the audience
in a big way is what are what are those
moments like
being in you know on coffee dates with
you know men
or or women in early recovery and um
you know maybe walk us through some of
those uh challenges and sort of how you
guide that as a process
yeah i mean it’s a great question and
really a unique
experience um
when i first got sober in 2008 my first
sponsor larry smith was like you’re
getting coffee with this guy
i was like what what are you talking
about what am i getting coffee with this
guy
i don’t want to get coffee with guys
right i’m 22 years old i don’t get
coffee with guys
not then anyway and he said chris you
need to just trust the process
so i sat down and had a cup of coffee
and in that cup of coffee
at 90 days sober for the first time in
my life
i realized what i was put on this earth
to do
and so it was so profound in that moment
and what i was put on this earth to do
was stay sober and help other alcoholics
to achieve sobriety i knew that on that
day
just through this intimate connection
with another guy that i had
i had never met before and so i carried
that with me
in the peaks and throughout the early
stages of my recovery and even now and
when i get the opportunity to sit down
with a young adult a mature adult
it it is so rewarding for me and so
impactful i assume for the client
because here is somebody who’s sat in
the seat they’ve sat in
walked through a painful journey of
trauma exploration and healing
set tough boundaries had difficult
conversations overcome adversity
been met with a tremendous amount of
pain and shame of which we’ve been able
to overcome
and so it really is is inspiring for the
client and very connecting
and it goes back to that idea in 2014
that nobody cares what you know them
till they know that you care
and i really want to show these clients
that i care
and i tell them things like hey i love
you man and i don’t need to know you to
tell you i love you man
i love people that are working towards
mental clarity and mental health
i just really engage and align with that
fight
and so i have the most spiritual of
experiences
and i sit with guys that tell me
horrific stories of pain and shame
but then we’re able to sit there and
lock arms and have a smile as well and
be hopeful for the recovery process so
a lot of times these guys and girls
young women
mature women in our women’s program they
think they’re coming in and they’re
going to get this
this great energy of which they will and
they may get a lot from it but i’m
leaving that moment
so much more filled up um so much more
recovery oriented than before that um
and they give me feedback too
you know on different things and i can
grow in certain areas you know i was
sitting with a kid the other day and
i was talking to him a bit about um
diet and food and energy and how it
fills up your body and how bad food
gives the inflammation and the recovery
process and how
really treating the whole person and he
looked at me clear as day he said
man i would have thought you were just a
plant-based guy i would have had no idea
you would eat all that horrible stuff
i was like i’m like man so i left that
and i was like man there’s an
opportunity for growth for so many years
with diet exercise it had these hard
edges right and so
in those opportunities that i get to sit
with clients i do two a day
five days a week um it really is both in
like he gets an opportunity to connect
with the president of the company
who kind of somewhat runs the show and
then i get an opportunity to get a
breath of fresh air from some young
new recovery which is really
invigorating
so it’s it’s a really it’s a really cool
experience
yeah and as the company’s grown i mean
it it just
feels like you know we talked about in
the past episodes jason you know our
whys and our
in our how and our what and so forth and
as the company has grown
you know i feel like both of you in this
room are
the ambassadors of ry at peaks recovery
centers and
in that really incredible way i feel
like you guys continue to fulfill that
promise that we
engaged with in 2014 and certainly have
allowed me opportunities you know
through that
business lens to cater to the company
culture and the what and how aspect of
things but
um you know i think we can experience
and feel your energy and the why in all
of this but to state it firmly
and really ground it you know what is
your why
i mean it is was and always has been to
walk with people in the early stages of
recovery
in order to experience hope change and
growth um
and that’s what i’ll continue to do and
it’s not it’s not out in front of these
people either
which is what i used to think it was um
i used to think that i had to be way out
in front of the race i had to be
waving the checkered flag follow me and
i just think
for so much of my earlier recovery it
was more about being right
than being helpful and so i’m just
really trying to be helpful now and
set side by side with these guys side by
side with staff
side by side with my family side by side
and in alignment with the world
and i just have found that there’s such
a much better path
to navigate for me considering where i
came from
um in my life so
will you have well go for it please i
was just gonna add
um chris like when i met you back in
when i came and joined peaks you did
this thing that i’ve never heard of
called circle
with clients um and it wasn’t clinical
space
like in fact i think we all had to leave
the room when you would do circle
uh yeah and probably needed to leave the
room just because it wasn’t
a very clinical environment but um
i am really curious uh because i have
sat in on a few since then but
how has your circle changed over the
last seven years so cert maybe explain
circle in its background and then
like how you approach it differently
yeah i mean great
great question great point um circle
when i first got involved in circle was
back in prescott arizona now
mind you prescott arizona has more
treatment centers per capita than
anywhere else in the world
and so you have a lot of inexperienced
operators myself included
running treatment centers that they
probably otherwise shouldn’t be running
quite frankly
there’s no education there’s no insight
there’s no clinical acumen there’s no
and so they would allow these circles to
happen and
it very much is kind of old school aaa
it’s calling you out it’s accountability
and at the same time i could probably
say um somewhat shaming
you know we would go in there and we
would uh we would unpack things in a
group setting that maybe otherwise would
have been unpacked individually but
at the end of them it was just really
this connecting opportunity
to come together as one but the circles
that i saw in the past were
kind of very shaming and even when i
opened peaks i tried to
the best i could be devoid of shame but
i’m sure there was hard edges in there
because i came from a 12-step approach
which says
suit up show up shut up
oftentimes yeah and that’s the premise
they stand on and so i would go into
these circles
suit up show up shut up right and we
would go around and we would accountable
we would check in from an accountability
perspective honesty what are you being
dishonest about
so right away i would tell a client
you’re dishonest yeah right away shame
on chair
yeah i don’t know if anybody’s ever told
you you’re a liar but you’re a liar yeah
right so just we understand today and
even then
i’m sure you did that this is not
helpful
shame on shame does nothing but drive
more shame and more pain
and so as we’ve been able to grow or as
i’ve been able to grow as a professional
and in my recovery
and the recovery field has grown we’ve
been able to
you know i was in circle just uh this
morning and just had a really cool
opportunity to check in with people
ask open-ended questions don’t do use
statements and just really have changed
that part of it and brought it into a
much more functional
comforting and safe space i have a
tremendous experience on
my personal trauma and the recovery
they’re from
and i have a lot of experience on this
recovery journey and so i just try and
combine
those two things and see if i can’t
align with clients and we can’t make
some magic happen whereas before
it was kind of that other analogy where
i was out in front and i’m like this is
the way
shut up and follow me so just a huge
shift
and a shift that i’m hopeful that the
field is paying attention to
because we don’t need people to stand on
the table naked anymore
yeah that’s not helpful yeah so
so i know that never happened at peaks
never happened
it’s a metaphor total metaphor total
metaphor
yeah i know that good absolutely well um
you know it’s certainly
um exciting to have you in the room and
be thinking about these
uh things and um hopefully too the
viewers can uh
also i mean there’s just no doubt to me
that they’re going to be energized by
your energy and so forth but
this you you provide an incredible
amount of hope and i think you know in
parting ways here at the end of this
episode i’m curious about what you think
are some of the major
you know maybe put down you know one or
two of what you believe are some of the
major challenges moving forward but also
in the brilliant way that you always do
tied up with hope um as we exit this
episode
yeah thank you it’s been really cool
being in here and it’s it’s almost like
i’ve never been here before it’s kind of
what it feels like really yeah
i mean it’s like anyway um
it’s we’re facing a lot of challenges
right we have a polarized world out
there
um you know depending on what side
you’re on really doesn’t matter you’re
going to find chris burns and peaks
recovery riding right up the middle
because i want to be most helpful to
most people right but we have to really
let down our guard
and move into a space of love and
compassion because that’s the bridge
of which we all need to travel to help
this mental health
catastrophe and not only it was a mental
health catastrophe before 2021 and
before 2020
we had big issues and so my my big
calling
um to the community to the world to the
people is like
give a smile give a handshake give a hug
wrap your arms around somebody in need
create opportunity
don’t draw lines in the sand that’s
people
don’t like to see that be inviting be
comforting
and i have found that it’s through that
love and that compassion
you can really connect right i’ve sat
with people that love president trump
i’ve sat with people that loved
president biden i’ve sat with people
and the constant is recovery compassion
love
because it’s the only that’s the only
language we can speak today
in order to get this thing right in my
opinion
we have to dismiss the hard edges create
the openness
and opportunity and understand that
everybody is a unique individual
and unto themselves and we should allow
them to explore that
and i think that’s the problem with the
world currently
is that we have a traumatized population
who are
living out their trauma on the people
they care about unfortunately creating
more
mental health catastrophes and
generational shame pain and trauma
down the way so love your neighbor i’m
all about it big hearts big smiles
well beautiful i have i have nothing to
to add to that uh
impactful um energy that you just left
us with in that regard so
we’ll just uh call this the exit at this
time chris thank you so much for being
here
excited to have you in this seat in the
future hosting it bringing in your own
uh guests and so forth and energizing
that uh ever important recovery side of
this journey
uh for all the viewers out there check
us out on instagram facebook all the
social media youtube
um we got what podcasts all sorts of
ways to discover these opportunities
along the way and certainly feel free to
reach out to us at finding peaks at
peaksrecovery.com
if you have questions thoughts concerns
things you’d love chris to speak on in
the future myself to speak on jason
clinton whoever’s hosting
um and we love you all so very much and
look forward to the next episode until
next time
you