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Charge Forward Podcast
From Prison to Purpose: Troy Sandifer's Journey to Helping Thousands Overcome Addiction
What would you do if faced with 24 years in prison? For Troy Sandifer, the answer was to turn his life around and help thousands of others do the same. In this powerful episode of the Charge Forward Podcast, we dive deep into Troy’s inspiring journey from personal tragedy to community triumph. After losing his close friend Josh Barley to an overdose, Troy transformed his pain into a mission, creating Hustle Recovery—a life-changing organization that has helped over 4,000 individuals overcome addiction.
Troy and co-founder John Hughes share the incredible story of how a heartfelt Facebook post grew into a movement that’s making a real impact in the lives of those in recovery. From reducing overdose deaths to securing funding for essential recovery services, Hustle Recovery is a testament to the power of second chances.
Key Takeaways:
- The critical role of housing, employment, and support in the recovery journey
- How Sober and Serene Enterprises is providing stable jobs for those in early recovery
- The broader impact of Hustle Recovery in promoting health, wellness, and community resilience
Troy’s story is a powerful reminder that one person’s resolve can spark a movement and bring transformative change to a community. Tune in to hear how Hustle Recovery is redefining what’s possible in addiction recovery.
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Hey team, welcome to the Charge Forward podcast. I'm your host, jJim Cripps, coming to you from HitLab Studios. Joining me today in the studio is Troy Sandifer and John Hughes. Troy, you guys have been doing some amazing work over at Hustle Recovery. How many people have you guys already helped? Just over 4,000. And I know you guys are in recovery, but what does that look like?
Troy Sandifer:them and I know you guys are in recovery, but what does that look like? What we do is we help people who are struggling with addiction. We meet people where they are in their addiction when they call us for help. We help to navigate them to different treatment centers or whatever their need may be. We provide them with resources, get them into a treatment center, get them into recovery housing afterwards, and then we can help with just meeting social determinants such as housing, employment, things like that.
Jim Cripps:How did you get started in helping people get into recovery programs and beyond To?
Troy Sandifer:be honest, man, I don't believe anything was an accident, but you could say by complete accident. Um may, the first of 2020, I was in early recovery myself. I got a call from a friend of mine's mother that morning to tell me that my friend, josh barley, had died of a fentanyl overdose. That morning I remember when she called, just being really upset, crying uncontrollably and just feeling like I needed to do something. Josh, he wasn't the first person I ever knew that died of an overdose, but something about his just kind of hit different. Josh left behind a four-month-old son and a 14-year-old daughter and a wife.
Troy Sandifer:What I did is I put a post on Facebook that basically said look, man, if you're struggling with this, you don't have to die. There are people out here who will help you, and if you don't know where to find help, here's my number. Not really knowing what I was going to do to help. I feel like this is kind of where God showed up in my story, because that post took off. It was shared hundreds of times over the next few months. About the 20th day I had that post up, my phone started to ring. The first day I got six calls, all the same people I'd never met in my life who said hey, man, a friend of mine shared this post on Facebook says you can get people into rehab. And I remember looking back at my phone and scrolling and saying, oh my God, where did I say that? Because I had no clue how to get anybody into rehab. I was thinking more along the lines of you know, we could go to a 12 step meeting or maybe go to church or have coffee and talk about it. I mean, I really had no idea what I was going to do to help. I just felt driven to help.
Troy Sandifer:I remember going to bed that night really disappointed, like, man, you don't put it out there, you're going to help these people Now you don't know what to do. I remember praying about it and when I got up that next morning I said man, I'm going to teach myself how to get people into treatment. Um, at the time we were quarantined. This was early pandemic so we couldn't go to work, so it gave me plenty of time. Um, I remember sitting at my kitchen table with my iPhone and a notebook and just Googling treatment facilities in a 200 mile radius of Nashville.
Troy Sandifer:I would call these facilities as they popped up on Google. They would answer and I would say hey, my name is Troy, I'm a recovering addict and I'm tired of watching these people die. Could you please tell me how to get people in your treatment center? So I just started taking notes, you know, was it a male or female facility? What insurances do they take, that they have grant funding? What was the procedure? What was the criteria people needed to meet? Before I knew it, I'd filled up three subject notebooks. Fast forward just over four years to today. We now work with over 50 different treatment facilities and over 100 different sober living houses.
Jim Cripps:That's amazing. That's amazing. And so that first time, that first, that first person, how did you, how did you get them into treatment, not knowing the process or any of those things, obviously working the phones but how did that? How did that go?
Troy Sandifer:Well, it was lots and lots of phone calls for sure. And then I actually got ahold of somebody at a at a local place here, buffalo Valley, who said that they would work with me to help get that person in. They didn't have insurance. So pretty immediately I had to learn how the grant system worked here in Tennessee. Those first few we had to get real creative on getting them there, and then, real quickly. Those first few we had to get real creative on getting them there, and then, real quickly what we realized was there was more to it than just getting people admitted into treatment. I remember the first guy calling me back and saying, hey, man, I got a bed but I don't have a way to get there. And I remember I told him at the time I was selling windows for Window World and I said, hey, hey, man, just I'm not working today because we're off. I'll just come and get you and take you. Um, I think last year we logged just over half a million miles taking people to treatment centers.
Jim Cripps:So, oh, wow, that's, that's a big deal, that's a big job. Through that process, through going from just a Facebook post to now my phone's ringing, to now, I'm trying to figure out how this, this whole system, works. I guess. When did you kind of understand that this, this, is going to be something I'm going to have to leave my job and and do this, or I'm called to do this?
Troy Sandifer:Well, it was a couple. I worked full time for a couple of years as we started out. The evolution of it was I happened to meet a guy, a very good friend of mine today, aaron Hamm, who just said hey, man, I'd like to buy you some houses. And I remember the day he told me that I was thinking like who the heck is out here buying people houses? I've never heard anything like that in my life, but that's what he did.
Troy Sandifer:So when me and john first got started, we opened our first, uh, sober living home for men just down the road from here, actually off of bell road. John ran that for me for I guess 14 months and I'll be honest, uh, we didn't see a lot of people get a whole lot of help. I think maybe three people stayed clean and sober in that first 14 months and I remember me and him having lunch and just talking about, like man, are we really helping anybody here, you know? And I remember saying we need to figure out a way to do this differently. And I remember saying, man, we need to figure out a way to do this differently. And John said man, why don't we go back to our roots? What is hustle? Recovery at its roots, and what we are is we knock down barriers to recovery, whatever that barrier may be. You don't know who to call? You call us, we make the calls for you. You don't have a ride? You call me, I'll come and get you. You don't have shoes on your feet. Whatever the barrier is, we'll make sure it gets taken care of.
Troy Sandifer:So we sat down that day and we looked at it and said man, what do people need in early recovery? What do they need once they leave a treatment facility? Well, for one. They need a place to lay their head at night. And we were already doing that, but there was so much more to it, I think. The other thing we came up with was that people need a job. What does that consist of? Well, they need to ride back and forth. They need to know how to ask for a job. So what we did is we started a staffing company called Sober and Serene Enterprises, and we have some wonderful corporate partners AL Smith, gates, precast, rogers Manufacturing, crown Bakery and a couple other ones who have agreed to hire people for us that are in early recovery.
Troy Sandifer:We cater just to people in early recovery. We take them back and forth to work. We help them get bank accounts set up through our partners at Redstone Federal Credit Union. We help them get bank accounts set up through our partners at Redstone Federal Credit Union. We help them get their IDs back. We basically hold their hand for six months as they walk through the recovery process, because what we were finding was we were pretty good at getting people into treatment, but what were these people doing when they left treatment? In the beginning, we were seeing a lot of people that would be repeat. They were coming back within months. Sometimes, or they were calling me for jail, or they had relapsed, or whatever the situation may be. So what we figured out is the only true determinant that someone stays clean and sober is their length of engagement in recovery. So we we look for ways to address these social determinants, you know, and provide people with the things that they needed in order to be successful in integrating back into society.
Jim Cripps:Yeah Well, I mean, sounds like you've, you've. You went from the early stages of just we help people get into a treatment center to really now having a process for how people truly recover. Yes, sir, and I mean, I'm sure that wasn't easy. I'm sure that was a lot of trial and error and just banging your head against the wall. We definitely learned by fire. Well, how did you and John get connected?
Troy Sandifer:Well, we knew a lot of the same people in addiction. A little background on me. I'm a convicted drug dealer. I got in trouble one time in my whole life and it consisted of six felonies. At the time that I started Hustle Recovery by accident or divine intervention or whatever it was. I was actually on trial at the time for my drug activities in Rutherford County. John, when I first met him face to face he was actually detoxing off of heroin.
John Hughes:Yeah, yeah.
Troy Sandifer:He was in my living room floor detoxing from heroin. Yeah, Um, I don't know that. He got cleaned that day.
John Hughes:I think he ended up going back to jail back to jail and then, and then took the other, the harder route, you know, as we do sometimes.
Troy Sandifer:Yeah, yeah, um, when he got out of treat I mean out of jail, though uh, we had a hard time finding a treatment center for him because John, like me, didn't have any insurance and there wasn't a whole lot of block funding or grant funding available at the time. So we ended up getting him into a program called Recovery on Wildview, and back then it was a program where you could stay for 90 days and there was no charge.
John Hughes:The owner just asked that you wrote the first 164 pages of the big book of Alcoholics Anonymous, that was a charge.
Troy Sandifer:That's a good charge.
Jim Cripps:That's a good case.
John Hughes:I wrote all of it until my hand fell off for like three weeks.
Troy Sandifer:Yeah, and he's actually the guy that owned that program is who kind of put us in business with Sober Living. John, he just he kept calling every day and you know, I think at the time you probably, just like me in early recovery, didn't have a whole lot of people who cared about you yeah, they cared about you that were doing the things that we were doing, so it took me to work every day for like for a long time, until I got my
John Hughes:license and a car and everything. So, yeah, I mean I think it started me and him. Just, you know, I just would call and I had a lot of friends that that not really looked up to me but were like you know, if John can get sober, I can get sober or clean, whatever you want to call it. And, um, they would, they would call my phone or they would hit me up on Facebook and want help, you know, and I just started flooding Troy's, you know. Hey man, I got this guy, this guy, this girl, this girl, this guy, and it kind of developed a relationship for me and him, um, and plus he was taking me to work too. So, like it was, it was cool.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, I mean that's a, that's a lot of accountability, because you're on this ride to and from work every day. You know and, and I almost think you know again, things don't happen by accident. It's all for a reason. You know it, probably in order for you all to build a successful program that helps get people you know through recovery not to relapse. You may have I mean, it may be due to the fact that you had to go through those hard knocks and you know, take the hard route.
John Hughes:Yeah, I've been to a lot of different programs. Troy was the lucky one that went to one, you know.
Troy Sandifer:But I've been to treatment probably six, seven times, you know. It didn't hurt that I was looking at 24 years in the contentry Right.
John Hughes:Quite a bit of motivation. So I mean, you know, I know I don't know what works and what doesn't work, but I've been to a lot of these places to see what is working and what's not. You know, um, what we have now is, is it doesn't so a big problem? I get from all these other treatment centers that call and stuff. They'll say, hey, man, I got three days left. You know, um, you know I got 30 days clean now. But like, what do I? What do I do now?
John Hughes:You know so our, our program's kind of set up to where, after six months, you know you have a full-time job to come out to, that you're hired on with benefits, you have money in your savings account, you have, uh, you know, while you're with us, we try to get your license back and stuff we try to get you, get you set up to where, when you leave us, you know you have a, you have a chance to actually get back into society and not, oh man, I just finished a six month program. What do I do now? You know? So it's, it's really, it's really working for the guys who stick it out.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, Cause I mean in my head without that and I mean I could be wrong on this, but I mean it's like okay, you got out and you're kind of sitting on the sidewalk outside the treatment center, Exactly, Like what's next, Exactly, and you no longer have your crutch.
Troy Sandifer:Yeah, you know, now you've got to deal with life on life's terms and you don't have the crutch that you used to have, which was getting high. 30 days just isn't enough. It's not enough time to repair the relationships that you've broken. Mom and dad might be proud that you went, but you took the mower last time you were here. Bud, you can't come back here yet. So it takes a little bit more time to you know, to rekindle those relationships and to kind of prove yourself to people that, hey, this isn't just a one-off thing Like, this is a lifestyle that I'm living now.
Jim Cripps:So yeah, and so. So how does that, that process work for you guys? I mean, obviously I know you help you, you help people get into a treatment program. Uh, I think the first time we talked one of the things I didn't understand is, you know, a lot of times there's not a treatment program to get into because they're full, right, and so you know, I think you guys do some stuff on the front end of like well, we, we do, we, so we.
Troy Sandifer:We recently got licensed to open a treatment center ourselves. We actually opened up here. In about a week We'll be taking our first patients. We finally got in network with some insurance companies. We'll be doing TennCare, but the program that we're most proud of is one that we piloted a year ago in Rutherford County, called Respite Care for People with SUD and, if you will, to somebody that doesn't understand.
Jim Cripps:What does that mean? Substance use disorders with SUD. Yes, substance use disorder.
Troy Sandifer:So what happened is, as we were navigating all these people into treatment centers, what we found is it was hard for people to get same-day admission. What we figured out through navigating 4,000 people to treatment was when these people call, especially opiate addicts. When they call me, I've got about a four to six hour window to make something happen. If not, they usually return to use because they're sick. They don't feel good, they want to feel better. Once they return to use, they have a. They're at a higher risk for overdose, and then it might be six to eight months down the road before I'm able to catch up with them again, and usually when I catch them again, they're calling me from a jail cell. Now they've really got some consequences.
Troy Sandifer:Um, not only that, we had five people die um over about a two year period period that were waiting on treatment beds. One guy we'd actually talked to that morning said hey, we're on the way to get you, to take you to treatment, and he overdosed in the time it took us to get to the hotel room to get him. That day I told my staff if someone is using fentanyl and they are motivated to get help, just bring them to my house and put them on the couch, and we did that for what? About a year?
John Hughes:Yeah.
Troy Sandifer:A year ago in April, though, my 16-year-old daughter moved back in with me, who I'd been estranged from because of my addiction for about four years, so I can no longer do that anymore, and I happened to be talking to a friend of mine, dr Sam McMaster, about what I'd been doing, and he said well, man, what you're doing is called respite care. I didn't even know there was a name for it, I just thought hey, these people need some help.
Troy Sandifer:I'm just going to make sure you don't die today until I can get you there. And I was like, well, that's interesting, it's actually called something. And he said, yeah, man, I helped pilot a program in new hampshire. So I started reading on the program and I'm like, wow, this is what we do. Um, at the time, rutherford county's uh ride board, um, which has some amazing people on it, uh, mr craig harris is a commissioner over there in Rutherford County and he's the chairman of that board. He put together an awesome group of people to be able to give out this money that has came in from the pharmaceutical settlements. So we were the first person that they ever funded.
Troy Sandifer:Now, it wasn't easy to get funded, of course, because we had to go back, I think, three months in a row, and what we did is we asked them to give us $100,000 to pilot the program with. That's the only money we've ever gotten from anybody. Everything else we've done has been grassroots and out of our own pockets. But they took a chance on me. I remember the day they voted yes. Like I said, we'd already been there three months in a row. And I remember Mr Craig Harris saying Troy, you told me you're a convicted drug dealer. Why should I trust you? And my answer to that was, sir, you shouldn't, but you should give me a chance to prove myself to you. And he did. Now he made me report back every single month on every single dime we spent and how many people we helped. But what it did it was we were able to open up 10 beds here in Middle Tennessee specifically for this reason.
Troy Sandifer:Now I can't take all the credit for it. There's a lot of good people doing a lot of good work over there, but in one year we were able to see a 16% drop in the overdose death rate for Rutherford County. Through doing that work we met some people at MTSU. We invited them out to one of our properties because I collect a lot of data. I'm a data fanatic, but I don't know what to do with it when I collect it right.
Troy Sandifer:So MPSU came out Miss Cindy Chafin and I kind of told her our story and told her about my passion, and I showed her all this data and I said hey, man, could you help me tell a story with this? And she said I'll tell you what I can do you one better. We'll help you write a grant to the state opioid abatement council and we'll help you manage the grant. And in March of this year we received just well, we haven't received it yet, but we were awarded just over $8 million to take this program across the state. So a year from today, we should have six locations opened up uh two in each grand division across the state, so that's amazing.
Jim Cripps:And when you say, opened up, that's, that's beds that's a recovery center. What is that?
Troy Sandifer:So what that is going to be is just for respite housing, that is, for people who are looking for treatment but cannot get into a treatment center today. So we we bring these people in. It puts them in a safe, homelike environment. We're able to provide some services there. We've got MOUs with some places to provide MAT. We can start to work to knock down some of those barriers that are keeping them from going into treatment. You wouldn't believe how many there are. It might be something as simple as I'm not going unless I find somewhere to keep my dog before I go, so we'll help with whatever it is that needs to be helped with. Before this respite care thing came about, we would tell you, hey, we get you a bed, but we can't get you there until Tuesday and, like I said, a lot of people didn't make it to those beds.
John Hughes:They ain't got until Tuesday.
Jim Cripps:Now, no, you know, they got minutes and hours, not days Exactly.
Troy Sandifer:With what we've been able to do. In the last year, 94% of the people who came into our respite care made it to a treatment center. 84% of those people completed the initial treatment center we got them into and when we followed up at six months, 48% of those people stayed clean and sober. So the preliminary numbers on it have been outstanding.
Jim Cripps:And so, if we look nationwide, what do those numbers look like compared to your numbers?
Jim Cripps:from what I've been told is somewhere around 10 of people that are leaving treatment centers are actually staying clean after a 28 day program wow wow so, and and largely it's because that program is too short, right, yeah, if you know if I'm understanding it right and so so let's just say you know, all things work great. You get me into a respite housing situation. I get into a program, I come out of the program. What is what does that look like? The transition from leaving the program to coming in, you know, to to your program.
Troy Sandifer:So usually, as as you're getting ready to leave that treatment center, they're going to set you up with the discharge planner or a caseworker there's somebody there at the treatment center who is helping you figure out the next steps. At that time you will contact me or my staff and then we will help you figure out what's next. We've been pretty good at placing people where they need to be, because not every program works for everybody. Um, like, ours isn't right for everybody, but people in certain situations. Ours is great for, like, if you don't have a job or family support to go back to, if you don't have a vehicle, um, then you can come to us for six months.
Troy Sandifer:Um, we will pick you up from the treatment center the day that you get out. You usually stay with us for about two weeks before we'll let you go to work. In those two weeks we do what we call job readiness training. Basically, we'll do like five different classes. I think it is the do's and don'ts of interviewing workplace etiquette, workplace workplace safety, resume writing, and there's one other one that escapes me, but you'll do that. In the first few weeks We'll start getting your identification stuff together, start getting your bank account set up, getting what else? Is there Any other kind of services you might need, whether it be mental health appointments?
John Hughes:whatever it is that two weeks gap is just to get people up really acclimated to the house, like this is who my roommate is. This is, you know, this is what time we're doing meetings. This is how it's kind of how the house is working. You know, it's never good to throw somebody in fresh out of recovery, like oh, fresh out of recovery. Like oh, did you go into work tomorrow? You know it, never I've tried to.
Jim Cripps:We tried that and it didn't work out.
John Hughes:They ended up leaving, or you know. So we give them some time just to sit back and get all their ducks in a row and and uh, it sets them up for it to be successful a little more, that's good.
Jim Cripps:And and in that two weeks is it round the clock, or I mean, do their supervision or your supervision?
Troy Sandifer:supervision or your supervision. Yeah, there's around the clock supervision in all of our houses. Once they start work in that second week we'll they'll get a job assignment at one of the different companies we we work with. They're working usually eight to ten hours a day.
John Hughes:Yeah, I don't let I don't let them work any more than 50 because they got to have time for the recovery. You know, um, there's some, maybe there's some weekends that that that's one of my partners will let them work. You know, if they're, if they're all caught up on their chore or doing you know their step work looks good and we'll let them. We'll let them work an extra.
Troy Sandifer:You know, eight hours or something, but so one of the things that we do me and John come from a 12 step background, so we're firm believers in the 12 steps of recovery AA, NA, all those, All the A's, yeah, all the A's.
Troy Sandifer:So one of the reasons that we have been successful is we've had an outpouring of support from the recovery community here locally so people come into the homes and actually sponsor these guys and girls to help take them through the 12 steps of recovery. So every day while they're there they go to work and then they get an hour of programming. Every day we do a mix of uh, a few different curriculums and then they do an hour of 12-step work. Every day we go go to several meetings outside meetings. That way they can kind of build a network of people who are in recovery. We try to go to all the recovery fests and different events that they have.
Troy Sandifer:And then the other thing that we do is we try to do as much volunteer work with these guys as we can to get them giving back something in the community. What we found is that the opposite of addiction is connection. So these guys and girls have to be able to make connections with other people. So they do that in the houses, in the events that we go to and also in the workplace.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, and do you see, I guess when somebody comes out of a program, comes into your program and they're working through, I mean, do you usually try to place them in the same general vicinity where they live, or? Or you know, if they're from middle Tennessee, we try to stay in middle Tennessee, or is that? Is that a hindrance?
Troy Sandifer:They live with us. Yeah, yeah, uh, we have locations in Dixon, nashville and Cheatham County, so it'll be one of those three locations. If you're from Antioch, I'm probably not going to put you in my Antioch house. You're probably coming out to Cheatham County, right? If you're from Cheatham County, you might go to Dixon. So we found that they're. There's something to changing your playground a little bit, you know.
Jim Cripps:Yeah absolutely yeah. That environment is too easy to go back to.
Troy Sandifer:It is it is, yeah, it can be very tempting, yeah, especially once you get a little bit of money in the bank.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, and so so what does that I mean? So they, they work, they work through your program over the course of six months that's six months after they went through the treatment, right, right. So now we've got seven months, um, and kind of in our rear view mirror counting the days, and you know what? What does? What does the average one come out with? Obviously, they've got a job. Has that switched to more of a permanent type of employment situation, or all?
John Hughes:of our contracts offered. You know, most of my most of my guys are making over $20 an hour. When they graduate with full benefits, they come out with like $3,000 to $5,000 in their savings account and a head full of recovery.
John Hughes:And a head full of recovery, man. They got some sponsorships, they got us, they got the community, they got the friends, the brothers that they graduated with and we have some step-down houses for them that they go into. Now we don't supply transportation there and stuff, but but I mean, at that time you're coming out and you you have enough money to go put money down in a car, you have money to get your license back, you have money to move around. You know pay for some ubers until you get, you know, your, your other checks coming in, like you have. You have some resources to move around with.
Jim Cripps:Yeah no, that's great, yeah, that's great.
Troy Sandifer:Uh, the step-down houses are more what I call traditional sober living. So we ask that you hit five 12-step meetings a week or church pay your rent. On Friday we randomly drug test you. You still have the accountability, just not 24-hour day supervision like you had before.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, and you're being weaned off to do it on your own.
John Hughes:Yeah, and that's kind of what our program is about. You know we're not trying to lock you in. You know we want you to experience just enough of life to where, like, you can kind of get out out, out into the workplace and and have some of those triggers come and then you can come home and talk about them and then you can you know you can, you can go through those things. That's going to happen, but you're going to. I like when guys go through some stuff in our program, because at least they're, at least they have us around them to go through some stuff and they're not, you know, out alone on their on their own, knowing that they can go get high today, you know, like they, they have some accountability. So we kind of like for for them to get out and get a little taste of the real world, you know.
Jim Cripps:Yeah Because. Whether?
John Hughes:Yeah because they're going to be in it soon enough, exactly right.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, that's great, Troy, backing up just a little bit, one of the most fascinating things that we talked about before is you said you were in court looking at one heck of a sentence for getting in trouble, and I know it was not the motivation why you started this thing, but boy did it play into your favor when when it definitely did.
Troy Sandifer:Like I said, I was on trial when I started this. I started it on May, the 1st of 2020. In October is when I was due to go to trial. I had a very good attorney a good friend of mine to this day and he said look, man, like you're going to prison for a little while, like you need to just get your mind right. It's going to like, it's going to happen. There's I'm a good attorney, but there's not much I can do about this. And he was right. I mean, I'd been dealing to my own habit and I deserved every day they would have gave me.
Troy Sandifer:By the time I went to trial, I'd gotten 33 people into treatment. When I got to my trial readiness hearing that day, I remember my attorney standing over at the DA's desk and waving at me to come here and I remember thinking, oh Lord, I'm going to jail today. Every time I'd gotten someone to the treatment, I'd done a post on Facebook that would say you know, john, congratulations on the decision you made for a better life and thank you to whatever treatment center had helped me get them in. And if you or somebody you know is struggling with this, give me a call I can help and if nobody told you today I love you and I believe in you and God's going to see you through this, I ended every post that way and I remember the DA had all of these posts printed out on a separate piece of paper and spread across the desk.
Jim Cripps:So this was the DA, not your lawyer. This was the DA doing it, yeah.
Troy Sandifer:Okay. The DA had caught wind of what I was doing, so she made me an offer that day. She said, troy, I think you'll do more good out here than you will in there. And they made me an offer of 16 years on community corrections, which I'm serving out today. It's actually been a very humbling experience, but it's also been a great experience. It's kept me accountable.
Troy Sandifer:I recently graduated from community corrections to state probation. A good friend of mine, ms April, that runs community corrections in our region, actually called me personally to congratulate me on my graduation and now we work really closely with their program. We take the guys that are on community corrections into our program now and it's worked out great so far. And then recently my new state probation officer reached out. He's a pastor and he's going to come out and do pastoral support in our houses. So it's been a really, really good experience. I never thought that I would be having lunch and meetings with like judges and attorneys and state representatives and the people I get to sit at a table with today. It's really amazing the life that I get to live.
John Hughes:Yeah, man they. Let us walk into jails and get people out of jail.
Jim Cripps:And walk out, Walk out Well it's not for nothing, it's because they see what you do with them, right.
Jim Cripps:You know, Whether you want to say it's selfish or selfless, it's really the same thing, right? You know, and that's just, I mean it's wonderful. I mean it's fantastic, you know. So kind of the premise of our podcast is, you know, those that choose to charge forward when they hit those walls, when they hit those trying times, when other people would just lay down. And I think you guys are just an amazing example of that, because it's the whole reason you're sitting here, it's the whole reason that you're doing what you're doing and helping the people that you're helping and you're trying to teach them to charge forward, right?
John Hughes:yeah man it's a different life, man. Definitely do what, do what do what we used to live Um, I won't ever do nothing that different. You know, I don't even feel like. I don't even feel like this is a job. You know, I feel like this is a dream come true. You know, just sit back and just help people that I was in the same spot with that. I was in, uh, give them hope Like you can. You can charge forward and you can get out of this stuff, man.
Troy Sandifer:Yeah, no, it's wonderful. Well, I've always say you know, I'll tell the guys in our house. I believe God puts us through what we go through to give us a testimony and our only job is to tell our story and then God will use that story to touch somebody else's life, because you never know what it is you may say to someone about your story that's going to resonate with them and give them the hope that that they can do something different.
Jim Cripps:You know, yeah, I'm a. I'm a firm believer. The worst thing that can possibly happen to a person is them lose hope. Right, that's right.
Jim Cripps:You know, absolutely right, um, what you know uh, we haven't talked about this you know, when they're in your treatment program, when you're helping them through that, do you teach them anything on the health side of things, like what you know? What are you? How are you teaching them to take care of their body so that they're, you know, less likely to get sick, more likely to keep that job, you know, to stay engaged and keep pushing forward?
Troy Sandifer:Yeah, part of the program that we do includes health and wellness. Um, like this month, I know, uh, my hair medical center is coming out doing a big training on reproductive health. Um, we do a lot of stuff around STDs, hep C, things like that. Um, not only that, but, um, you know, getting in some exercise and um, yeah, a lot of people like to lift weights at our, at our place. Yeah, we've got little small gyms at each place. I mean nothing fancy, but we've got some weights they can throw around and some treadmills they can run on.
John Hughes:And you got a couple of swimming pools, yeah, so we try to keep the swimming pools up. They go out and swim after work and stuff, so we try to keep them you know pretty active. Yeah, well, it just makes you feel human.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, you know um, and you know, do people donate that equipment? I guess, how do you get that equipment? How could somebody donate a piece of equipment? That's, yeah, we'll take all we can get.
Troy Sandifer:We're a poor non-profit don't let the grant we got coming fool you. It's a line item. Yeah, all that money spent. We still need all the help we can get. But, um, yeah, actually, um, cheetah middle school um, actually donated a bunch of stuff to us. We went down, our guys went and helped them do some painting. Uh, was it last year, the year before? I think it was last year, yeah, and they had some, uh, treadmills and different things that they donated to us. And then we've had some individuals who came forward to bring us some different stuff.
John Hughes:So yeah, we need some dumbbells y'all.
Jim Cripps:Hey everybody, you heard it here Hustle recovery.
Troy Sandifer:They could use some dumbbells out there. Definitely good, definitely good I love it.
Jim Cripps:Well, you know I think that's a huge piece of it is teaching people how to take care of their body, how to make sure that they're ready for that next day, because if you don't feel good, you're much more likely you know to do something that's even worse.
Jim Cripps:Mind, body, spirit. You know that's right. That's right. I mean, somebody out there right now is listening to this podcast and you know, maybe they need to be in a treatment center. Maybe, and you know, maybe they need to be in a treatment center. Maybe they haven't come to the reality yet that the bottom is near. What do you say specifically to them? You know somebody that's in that type of situation.
Troy Sandifer:That it's not hopeless. Recovery is possible. If it worked for somebody like me, believe me, it'll work for you. Help is available, no matter what your situation is whether you have insurance, you don't have insurance, it doesn't really matter. We can find a way to help you.
John Hughes:All you've got to do is reach out to us. I helped a guy yesterday in New York. That's the cool thing about this. Everybody that I work with pretty much is in recovery and they work for places that have that, have places all over you know, united States. So when I was getting sober it was, it was like that for me. I mean, what I want help, but what do I do? You know, yeah, and it's. I wish a place like hustle was around during that time.
John Hughes:You know, um, everybody on our side of the fence is is ex addicts, ex, you know whatever, convict sex workers, whatever we have. We have a lot of people on our team that that are man, if, if you need any kind of direction or some help, like that man, there's hope and one of us are going to answer the phone and be able to talk to you and say, man, we're being exactly where you're at right now, you know, and this is what we need to do to get this going. So that's the cool thing about us is we, we kind of take the we're like the middle man to all this. So if you, if you're too sick, you know to make make the phone calls, we'll make them for you. You know um I just I sick, you know to make make the phone calls, we'll make them for you. You know um I just I wish there was more places like us around.
Jim Cripps:You know cause my phone does not stop.
John Hughes:Neither does Troy's, kim's, none of ours do. So you know we need some more.
Jim Cripps:Well, I think, you know, I think one of the uh, one of the big problems that I don't think is well understood is whether we're talking about coming out of a treatment program or whether we're talking about coming out of incarceration. That transition back into society is not good. I mean, that's as nice as I can possibly say. It, it's, it's. It's either abrupt and there's no, there's no guidance, or it's right into a bad situation. You know, and there's no, there's no guidance, or it's right into a bad situation.
Troy Sandifer:You know, I think everybody should do what they call a reentry simulation. They have these randomly throughout the state. We've been to a couple of them. They they kind of walk you through a scenario. It's almost like a game you're playing. That kind of shows you how difficult it is when you don't have identification, you don't have transportation, you don't have a stable place to live, you don't know what your next meal is coming from, to be able to go and do the right things and and get all of these social determinants that you need to get took care of, took, took care of. It's not easy and without people to walk you through that and help you through that, for some people it's impossible. It's a lot easier just to go back to the streets, right, you know. So, yeah, we definitely need more places. That and don't get me wrong there's a lot of good places out there, but the demand is so high that there's just not enough. Not enough to go around to help everybody.
Jim Cripps:There's only so many spots, there's only so many beds, so many yep. So wow, wow, well, you guys are doing amazing work and I, you know, I think one of the things that maybe that you don't tout enough about yourselves is you know that's 4,000 people you've you've got into into treatment and, and you know, got through the process. But how many lives do those people touch? You know it's the, you know anywhere from three to 20 people that their life affects. You know if they're, if they're back in with their family or you know they're able to get back with their family versus, you know, on their own because of this addiction.
John Hughes:Yeah, that's true. No, definitely. I go to these detoxes and speak, you know, and I always tell that's what I say to them. Like you know, it takes people like me and Troy people that's been through it to really, if I can just get everybody that I'm speaking to, if they just just one person in here just gets the message and goes back and touches 10 more people and then they touch, and that's the only way we're going to put a dent in this stuff is is to talk about it and drop the stigma about it and and make it make it almost a dinner table conversation. You know that's it needs to be, needs to be forefront. Yeah, you know.
Jim Cripps:No, I agree, and you know it's. You know it's way more in depth than that A hundred percent. I feel the same way about money. You know it's up to us, as parents, in order to teach the things that the world will teach them the wrong thing. Right, you know? And yeah, it may be an uncomfortable conversation, it may not be something we're looking forward to, but we either teach them the right way or somebody else is going to teach them the wrong way.
John Hughes:You know it's different now. Or somebody else is going to teach them the wrong way. You know it's different now. Troy always says it like you can't go out and do cocaine on the weekends. You know it's probably laced with fentanyl and you're probably going to die, you know. So there's not much room to try anything anymore, man. It's a totally different world we live in from when I was a kid, or you know, you're a little older than I am.
Troy Sandifer:It's life or death now, and you know this. This epidemic that we're facing is a true epidemic. It's taking more lives than everything else combined, and it's happening right here. Nashville, Tennessee, is the number two metro in the United States for overdose deaths, Only behind Baltimore, Maryland. More people die per capita in Davidson County from overdose than anywhere else in the country. That's scary.
Jim Cripps:That is scary, that's scary to think about, that's scary to. I mean it's it's right here in our back back door and it's it's people that we know you know, yeah, um, and it's ugly, but we're not going to fix it if we don't tell the truth. That's right, blind and simple. And so somebody you know right now could be struggling with addiction.
Troy Sandifer:Sometimes you know, sometimes you don't know, I think a lot of the problem is. You know, we're in the Bible Belt and a lot of people look at addiction as a moral dilemma. And it's not. It's a brain disorder. This and it's not. It's a brain disorder. This is a health problem, and the sooner we start treating it as such, the quicker we're going to get to some solutions.
Jim Cripps:Yeah.
Troy Sandifer:We can't arrest our way out of this problem Right, because it doesn't fix it. It does not, yeah, at times it just makes it worse.
Jim Cripps:Um, you know somebody out there is, maybe in your closer to, in your seat, in that you know they're through recovery and they're trying to figure out what they're meant to do. They haven't found their calling yet. Uh, you know how does somebody, how does somebody take charge and go? You know help other people. You know help other people.
Troy Sandifer:For me, man, it was just doing the next right thing, if, if you see that guy you know, have a conversation with somebody, that's the main thing. Um, you know, set all your judgments aside. Realize that drug addicts aren't bad people. They're people in bad situations that might've made some bad decisions. But, you know, be be open and willing to, uh, to let God use you.
Jim Cripps:Yeah, and what I see sometimes too is you know, it's sometimes not even a bad decision in my opinion, that can be considered controversial, but you know it's sometimes not even a bad decision in my opinion, that can be considered controversial. But you know, let's just say you get hurt and while you were recovering you got addicted to that painkiller Because they, you know, they put you on Oxy, you know, or whatever version, and then it just spiraled.
Troy Sandifer:That's where a lot of us started. That's exactly where I started. I hurt my back. I ended up getting into pain management. I was way over prescribed pain pills which led into other addictions. I was in pain management for six years. The government cracked down on the over prescribing. What that did? It didn't get rid of the people who were using opiates for pain. It just pushed them into the illicit market. They started using heroin is what it was back then. Real quickly the cartels and distributors realized it was a lot cheaper and more profitable to provide fentanyl instead of heroin. And then that's what it's turned into. And now what our problem is is these opiates. They're evolving quicker than we can keep up with them. You know, at one point fentanyl was our biggest problem and now there's probably four or five other drugs that are worse problem than that yeah.
Jim Cripps:You know that's terrible. Well, guys, you know I appreciate the amazing work you guys are doing out here. It's making a difference and you know, if we, if we just use 10 as the multiplier, we're talking about 40,000 people, that that you guys have affected their lives, their family members, in some shape, form or fashion. To mention, you know the, uh, the businesses that you're you're getting employees into and helping them find, you know, people to work for them and people that are going to be thankful for the work and do good work. So, uh, again, thank you for what you're doing here in middle Tennessee. It's it's fantastic to see. Thank you, jim. Yeah, absolutely.
Jim Cripps:Uh how did? How? Does somebody get ahold of you? How to? How does somebody reach out? They got a family member, or they're the one that needs help, or they want to donate something.
Troy Sandifer:So you can find us online at wwwhustlerecoveryorg is our website. We're also on Facebook at Hustle Recovery INC. We're also on Instagram, and then you can call us at either 615-617-7530.
John Hughes:That's me, that's John's number, okay, and then you've got Kimberly Ryan's number, which is 629-899-1001. Yep.
Troy Sandifer:Or you can reach me at 615-568-5699. All right.
Jim Cripps:And then last thing is, if you could ask the audience for something or give them one tidbit of wisdom, what would that be?
Troy Sandifer:Don't ever. You can never dream big enough for what God has in store for you. I'm not telling you not to plan, but don't be so married to your plan. Never dreamed big enough for what God has in store for you. I'm not telling you not to plan, but don't be so married to your plan that you can't let God work in it. Because when I started this I never thought it, never dreamed it would be what it is today. I was just trying to get a few people into treatment before I went to prison. Never did I think we would touch so many lives, so that's it.
Jim Cripps:That's amazing. Well, troy, john, thanks for your sharing Um listeners of the charge for podcast. Um, I want to say special thanks to Troy and John from hustle recovery for coming out and sharing their story and just the amazing work that they're doing here in middle Tennessee. Uh, also, you know, huge shout out to our sponsors, sense Custom Development and Charge Forward Solutions. Until next time. We'll see you later. Team, thanks so much for joining us for this episode of the Charge Forward Podcast. Look forward to other amazing guests and until next time. I'm your host, jim Cripps. Special thanks, as always, to Nick Heider and the creative team at HitLab Studios here in Nashville, tennessee. Special thanks to our sponsors, sense Custom Development and Charge Forward Solutions. Please be sure to like and subscribe.