"Rob Tomlinson: Nashville Music Industry Leader on Addiction Recovery and Healing in Music"

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Speaker 1: M Taking a Walk Nashville.

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Speaker 2: Hi, I'm Sarah Harrelson, your host of Taking a Walk Nashville, and today I'm here with Rob Tomlinson, a care manager at the Recovery Unplugged facility in Brentwood, Tennessee, just south of Nashville. To give everyone some background on Recovery Unplugged. They are a national behavioral health provider that provides care for people going through addiction, substance abuse, and other mental health disorders, including but not limited to, depression and anxiety and PTSD. Recovery Unplugged has seven locations nationwide, and here's the cool thing. Their inpatient and outpatient programs utilize music assisted treatments to promote healing and long term recovery. Join me as I take a walk with Rob Tomlinson today.

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Speaker 1: Welcome to Taking a Walk Nashville with your hosts, singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson.

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Speaker 2: Thank you for being on Taking a Walk in Nashville today.

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Speaker 3: Rob, How are you all doing good? How are you?

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Speaker 4: I'm good? Thank you?

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Speaker 3: So?

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Speaker 4: Can you just start by sharing what led you to finding and working for Recovery Unplugged.

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Speaker 3: Absolutely, I'm in long term recovery myself. I just celebrated thirteen years sober this past Monday. Thank you. And music and recovery for me have always been probably two of the most powerful forces that I've experienced in my life. Music obviously from a young age, and then recovery as I was an adult. Music's kind of always been like my best friend.

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Speaker 4: You know.

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Speaker 3: It was there for me when I felt the lonelin loneliest and it felt it was there for me when I've been at my highest, you know what I mean, And there's just so much power in it. And with recovery unplugged my journey there. I moved to Nashville around seven years years ago from Philadelphia, pursuing music full time. I worked in treatment in Philadelphia for about three years, and this was before the fetanyl and pandemic that came out, and I was working in treatment during the fetanyl epidemic and the amount of people that passed away from overdose. It was very overwhelming and I said I would never work in treatment ever again. So I pursue music full time and moved to Nashville, got signed. Then COVID hit right, so it was like another kind of like call it fork in the road, you know. I was getting older, my brother was having kids, I was turning. I think I turned like thirty two at the time, and being a full time musician is extremely difficult, especially if it's a career and not just a hobby like being able to It's essentially three full time jobs. I had a really good friend of mine asked me, you know, when were you the happiest, And my response was one, I work in treatment because I would work I would do like music therapy based groups. I would do, you know, like I'd bring in like a lot of music into the facility. When I worked in Philly and I saw that Recovery Unplug was hiring, but they were hiring for like entry level position, like as like a tech like making like very little money. And I had, like, you know, I had multiple years experience working in treatment, but that's all they were hiring for. But I believe so strongly in Recovery on Plug's mission and who they are and what they stood for, that I was like, you know what, Like it's going to work out. Within within a year, I was promoted to lead Alumni Coordinator, which is basically like helping people get into treatment that have been through recovery unplugged, like say they slip up and they need, you know, to re enter treatment again, like I was the guy that they would call. And I also started taking responsibility of Sober Sessions, primarily in just Nashville, which is just a sober based concert series that we put on for the recovery community. And the next year I got promoted to campaign manager of all of Recovery Unpluggs, so all of our locations Florida, you know, Virginia, South Carolina, New Jersey, Texas, Nashville obviously, and my responsibility of this past year has been our social media presence putting on sober sessions and all of our locations, which you know, we just got word that I don't know when this is going to air, but we just got word literally like fifteen minutes ago that Anthony Green of Circus Survive Seos and he's in recovery and he's going to be headlining our Austin Sober Sessions that we're going to be doing in November. So lots of really cool things. My main initiative is do as much dope shit as possible for the recovery community and for the mental health community, and just to show that you can have fun sober and not have to worry about substance or whatever in order to feel connected. So very cool.

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Speaker 4: So, how long has the Nashville facility been around and who started Recovery Unplugged in general?

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Speaker 3: So the Nashville Facility's been around for a little over I would say, like, don't fact check me on this, but like around seven years okay. Recovery Unplugged was started by this guy named Richie Supa who is the manager of Aerosmith and he's been creen for over twenty five years plus. He went into facilities in Fort Lauderdale and he called himself Recovery Unplugged. And what he would do is he would go into facilities with a guitar and play for the clients to all these other rehabs and it created such a positive response through music, and he would go in play songs that he wrote. He helped co write Amazing by Aerosmith, Pink by Aersmith. You know. He ended up having an investment opportunity with a couple other guys and they were just like listen, like there's a need for this and it is such a cool angle and cool concept. Richie Supa we've been around for over thirteen years plus thirteen years later, he still plays at the Fort Lauderdale facility every Friday for the clients. Thirteen years later. It's called Field Good Fridays. And one of our alumni that came through Recovery Unplugged over five years ago. His name is Adam David. He started playing our Field Good Fridays and literally just won the voice this past season. So you never know, you know, you never know who it's going to impact, You never know how your life is going to be changed, Like even if it's just like staying clean a day at a time, Like the power of music and the power of recovery is so strong. The disease of addiction is horrifying and insidious in so many ways, but recovery is so much stronger if it's utilized in a way way that you know, the ripple effect that music can kind of like drives the vehicle for it. It's just, in my opinion, one of the most powerful things.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I'm a big believer that music heals and that music is medicinal. And I got to perform at one of your feel Good Fridays the other month, and I think it's so important to provide music to clients and patients, So how do you find these music performances to be healing to patients?

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Speaker 3: It is so the opposite of addiction is connection, right. One of my favorite cliches is that fear is something that we learn, I don't believe and not and like the only thing that we really have fear of is like legitimate fears, is like fear of like you know, physically being harmed and so many other things. Right, and so myself included having you know, PTSD and trauma and a lot of these things incorporated into my childhood and then adulthood off obviously like I have rightfully so learned to be afraid of certain things, certain scenarios, so on and so forth. So I've learned to put up walls lack of a better word. Right, music for me, it cuts through everything, It cuts through all the fear. It allows me to get to a place of vulnerability and safety that maybe years of therapy would have to get to. Right, And and therapy is incredible, don't get it, don't get it twisted. But a song that I would hear when I was younger or when a you know, client would hear when they were younger. I'll give you an example, like I ran a group one time and I performed to Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd. You know, obviously, the backstory of the song is like one of the guys went on a psychedelic trip and just never came back and wrote a song about very angry. I'm very pissed off that you did this because I love you and I but after you go through the grieving process, say I love you anyway, I just wish you were here, man, Right, there was a woman that was in that group that lost her daughter to addiction, and she never properly grieved over it. I played that song for her tears starts streaming down her face. The last time that she heard that song was at her daughter's funeral. She got involved into addiction, obviously, and then over the course of time, she never properly emotionally grieved her daughter's death. And when she heard that song sober for the first time, she was, all the emotions came up and she was able to healthily process that emotion in a group setting. That is like what the power of live music can do. You know, I'm not a therapist by any means. I'm just a human being that I believe. It's like experience over opinions and my experiences as a musician. Now, if that experience can be applied as many times as possible on a daily basis, I'm doing a good job. Right. So now my job v via social media and TikTok and Instagram and like all that other kind of stuff. Like being able to do that to an organic arty audience, not just in our facilities, but being able to do that. Here's a story, here's an experience, here's a song, and someone scrolling they're having the worst that they've ever had and they've seen that. I can tell you, Like so many people reach out to me, Hey man, I'm struggling. I'm going through detoks withdrawals and they're not ready for treatment. But just to note like they're not alone is what it's about.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, right, I find those stories on recovery and plugs social media to be so impactful. So, like you said, some of the performers at the facility are not music therapist, But do you have music therapist or what other kind of treatments music treatments do you have at the facility?

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Speaker 3: In Nationale in particular music therapy and having music as a form of treatment or two completely different worlds. Just want to make that like absolutely clear. Are all of our therapists are master level clinicians, but we do not do actual music therapy, right, Like what people do say for example, like in a hospice setting having a music therapist come in, Right, that's completely different than the music modalities that we use.

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Speaker 4: Right.

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Speaker 3: Some of the modalities of music that we do use in therapy would be like an example of a you know, like recovery playlist is a good example, right, Like having like an idea. One group that we've run in the past is like give us a song that you have that you want played at your one year so anniversary, right, and you play that at like fifteen days clean, sixteen days clean, and what you use is like positive projection to be able to in visualize like what that feeling would be like and had that inspire to get to a year, which, by the way, I've had people get to a year and send me a letter and be like, hey, just so you know, I remember that song that I had in that group that one day whatever. Right, We do a little bit of everything like we do everything from brain spotting to you know, normal detoc sessions. You know, when someone's in detox, will have four to five one on one therapist groups a week. Then obviously as they're in residential that I'll ramp down. I'll be kind of based more off of like a community perspective We've had. We've had therapists that have been there that have worked with clients to be able to write a song right while they're going through detox, and they don't have to be a singer songwriter in order to do that right, And we have musicians that work there that are in recovery that you know, myself included that I've had clients that are touring musicians that haven't written in years, and I have like, you know, a mini recording set up. We'll write an album while they're in treatment. So it really depends on I think it's just a matter of the angle of how you look at it, right, Like a lot of people look at music therapy as like a very distinctive thing, like you go to school for it, which yes you do. You get a degree in music therapy, absolutely, but a lot of people have degrees in like real life experience, and in the world of addiction, having a lot of knowledge and a lot of clinical background is absolutely important. That's why we have like, you know, master's levels clinicians. But it takes a village in order to elevate someone to get to the truth of who they are, right, you know.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think it's really important to talk about the positive impact of music because I think many people in the music industry as creative space a lot of pressure. So maybe some people who are creatives at these facilities, you know, have struggled with addiction because they were in a path of music. So how do you help someone find the positive side of music if they're there after having a negative struggle with music that led them to addiction.

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Speaker 3: Sure, I think reframing is a positive tool for just about it right, whether not. You don't have to be in recovery, like you can be just a normal human being and reframing something how something is years ago to how it is now. Give relationships as an example, you have one dad relationship and then all of a sudden, every relationship after that, you know, like that story is so common amongst so many people, you know, And reframing trust and reframing relationships like very common. So talking about music, I'll speak for myself. My relationship with music is and has been, you know, in the beginning, it was my first talent show in sixth grade, ten eleven years old. It was bullied my whole life, right, And then I saw my dad play music and I'm like, oh my god, Like he's loved by so many people, that's the answer, right. So I became obsessed with learning how to play guitar and sing and like all that other kind of stuff. So sixth grade talent show rolls around, I perform Standing Over. I'm like, Okay, this is the answer forever, right, And I just pursued that with relentless ambition for the next ten years of my life. It was never enough to fill that hole within myself to accept myself on a deep level. Right. So when I got clean, my relationship with music changed. It wasn't about let me do this cool magic trick to show you how talented I am. It was how can I do this thing to let you not feel alone? Because I know what that feeling is like. And I think that's really just kind of what it comes down to, is that, like, how do you reframe a negative emotion like loneliness, for example, into saying like, hey, I know what that feels like. Let's actually feel connected through loneliness. So, you know, you could take eleanor Rigby for example, which is a song that is like look at all the lonely people, right, and being able to say like, Hey, you might be a sixty year old alcoholic and I might be a twenty two year old fetanyl addict, but we both know what loneliness feels like. So we can listen to that song and then if we could find if we could find connection through that, what else can we find connection through? Right? And then that it just causes an open minded ripple effect too. Well, maybe my dad felt the same way, maybe my mom felt the same way. Maybe you know it just like it's all about just reversing and reframing, and music can be the foundation for that. Yeah, you know, it can be the foundation for any kind of connection that might be possible. I don't know if that answered the question.

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Speaker 4: But I think, Salia, I think it's important to reframe because some people might be and stuck in the mindset that they can no longer do music, but maybe they can keep doing music, and maybe it's just in another form, like you said, writing songs about what they've been through and their experiences.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it's the wrong question. So what I mean by that is like music's not the problem, like on the problem, Okay. Music is kind of like music is this cool thing. It's like it's like an attribute that I have if I were to go all in. It's not just it's not just me, Like music is not all of who I am, Like who I am as a person is a funny, charismatic, very caring, very loving, very empathetic, very flawed, Like I have all these things as part of being a human being. And if you can go down that journey of understanding that you're a human being first being able to allow music to be just like ten percent of who I am and not one hundred percent of who I am, it's not your identity, right, And I think that's like such a hard battle that so many people fight, because when you're selling yourself as an artist or musician, you're the product, and if the product fails, then all of a sudden that is like, oh my god, I failed. But that's not true. You have to be able to understand that the foundation is like Okay, as any product, you have to learn what works it doesn't work, but also be able to dissociate yourself from the product. You know, you have to be able to say like, okay, I'm rob first, and then whatever happens after that, X, Y, and Z.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, I think that's very true and important. You already mentioned a couple of songs like wish You were here? Is that your healing anthem? Or would what would you say is your healing anthem?

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Speaker 3: It's a good question. I would have to say. There's two songs. Song number one would be After the Storm by Mumford and Sons. I played that song on religious repeat when I was in treatment. This was like over fifteen years ago, so this was I It was when they had like the iPod homes, remember those. Yeah, I would like someone gave it to me for like an hour and they were just like here, just listen to whatever. I just listened to that song and repeat. So every single year in my anniversary, I listened to it just to kind of remind myself. Another song is Endless by Pine Grove, and that song is kind of about everything that I talked about, just like being human or I would also say a little bit of everything by dolls. It's like kind of like being able to understand that, like happiness, it's all the spectrum of emotions that come along with being human. It's not just like feeling good all the time or feeling bad all the time. It's like there will always be that, and the sooner that I accept that, the sooner that I can allow life to just be life for.

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Speaker 4: Ready to Yeah, very cool. So, if someone is listening to this and they want to support Recovery Unplugged in some way, how can they reach out to get involved?

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Speaker 3: You can look us up on our website Recovery Unplugged dot com. I would say that one out of three people know someone or is someone that struggles with addiction and mental health. I would say that, like there is a solution, and that our admissions line is open twenty four hours, seven days a week. If we can't help you, we will find someone to help you. Our initiative is that, like, we obviously have a very good facility, you've been there, Like we have a very awesome expectation and standard that we try to uphold by, but we also believe in like, hey, if we can't help you. We will find someone that will whether you have insurance or not, whether you have money or not, whether you have the resources or not, let us be the resource to help you. I've worked in that department. I've worked in the park department of getting people into treatment, and I can honestly say with like full disclosure that the company genuinely cares about helping people.

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Speaker 4: So yeah, yeah, very nice. Facility of the staff there is great, So definitely check them out. Lastly, we are on taking a walk Nashville. So do you have a favorite place you like to take a walk in.

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Speaker 3: Nashville Percy Warner Percy Warner, Massie Ridge Trail. I was going to go there this morning, but my car age trouble. So it's sacred ground for me. I've had the most conversations with the God understanding there and it's free and it's beautiful. Coming from Philadelphia and living here, it like reminds me how lucky I am to live in Nashville, right, And there's so many beautiful trails around here and local state parks and you'd be insane to not take advantage of it if you live here.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's my favorite park is Nazi Regis up the two mile.

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Speaker 3: Loop, it's a six mile loop, okay four point five and oh the Red Trail Yeah yeah.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, that's a top one m of summer.

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Speaker 3: Yeah, it is a good workout, I will say that.

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Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, it's I think it's in the top ten in the nation actually for runners because of how sternuous it is. So yeah, definitely checked out that park Percy Warner if you're in Nashville. So thank you for your time today, Rob Everyone. Head to Recovery unplugg dot com if you would like to seek recovery, refer patient, or simply support this organization. So any final words you'd like to.

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Speaker 3: Send now, just grateful, grateful that we get the opportunity to do this, and I'm super stoked and excited to see where the next year takes us. We are doing a lot of really cool stuff. Just know that if you're a musician and you're struggling, or you know you're not a musician and you're struggling, to just reach out, whether it's to us, to a family member, just reach out. I promise you. It is the hardest thing to do in the world, but it's it's giving up one thing to get gain everything.

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Speaker 4: And thank you for being here today and make sure to follow Recovery and Plugged on social media at Recovery and Fluted.

00:22:44
Speaker 1: Thanks for listening to Taking a Walk Nashville with singer songwriter Sarah Harrelson, and check out our other podcasts, Music, Save Me, Comedy Save Me, and Taking a Walk. Available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts