Tom Welch Podcast Interview

Welcome to Here’s to Your Health with Joshua Lane.  Here’s to Your Health discusses the current thinking in wellness, bringing you the most influential thinkers in beauty, fitness, and longevity. Your host Joshua Lane was part of the Dr. Ann Wigmore team that helped bring wheatgrass sprouts and raw foods to a worldwide audience, and now the host of Here’s to Your Health, Joshua Lane.

Welcome to this edition of Here’s to Your Health. I’m your host and Josh Lane. One thing we recognize is that today in the United States in 2022, there are some people and maybe a good number of people who struggle with alcohol, opioid, and other addictive disorders. Our guest this morning is Tom Welch and Tom Welch is the Executive Vice President of BioCorRx and they are a leading healthcare solutions company and they focus on improving the lives of those struggling with alcohol, opioid and other addictive disorders. Tom Welch, welcome to Here’s to Your Health.

Thanks Josh, I appreciate you having me.

And I’m very happy having you know this is a wellness show and we discuss wellness topics, and I thinkevery adult listening to the broadcast today understands that some people do struggle with alcoholism and with using drugs with using opioids, they get addicted to for, you know, sometimes prescribed by the physician, and then they just get hooked on them so these are serious issues that affect you know a very good number of people in the United States. So what does BioCorRx do?  What is the current thinking about treating these addictive problems successfully?

Yes, well BioCorRx, more and more physicians are treating drug addiction and alcohol addiction within their practices now and that’s believe it or not something new. It used to be someone with an alcoholic or an opioid addict would go see their doctor and they would send them off to AA or Narcotics Anonymous. They really didn’t know what to do with them. But now with the advancement of medication-assisted treatment, more and more physicians are treating within their practices. What BioCorRx does is create programs both behavioral and medication-assisted treatment programs with peer support and behavioral support, cognitive behavioral therapy so that those doctors have a full suite of options for that patient.

All right, so our guest is Tom Welch, the Executive VP of BioCorRx and they work with improving the lives of those who are struggling with alcohol or opioid or other addictive disorders. So Tom, it seems to me now that this is a subject, problems with addiction that most Americans recognize this is a serious problem and I guess maybe even kind of a mainstream problem. I mean, it seems to happen to a very large number of us. So what is the new scientific thinking? Why is a program like yours and others, why are there so many new programs now?

Well, there’s a number of reasons. Again, there’s been a lot of advancements when it comes to medication in substance use disorder. There’s such a large number of people now that are addicted to alcohol, opioids, and meth that we are deploying more resources to finding these things to help these people. But it really is a multifactorial disease. It requires not only medications but behavioral programs, psychosocial programs, and it’s not a short-term fix. It’s a societal problem and it’s something all of us as a community have to start looking at seriously. Josh, we had 100,000 plus overdose deaths in 2020. If that isn’t a wake-up call, I don’t know what it is.

That was 100,000 overdoses. Was that with methamphetamine?

That’s a combination of heroin, fentanyl, meth. It’s no secret that fentanyl is starting to show up in all types of drugs. So these days of recreational drug use are over.

Right.

Fentanyl for lack of a better term is almost like a weapon of mass destruction now.

Yes, it is amazing, right and well said too. That it is no longer just recreational drug use because you could be say a 17-year-old high school senior and take some sort of drug you think is gonna be a laugh ’cause your only 17 and really, it’s laced with fentanyl and it actually kills you the first time you take it, you die, so it’s really quite amazingly serious as a problem. Is the country more sophisticated now in understanding these problems? I mean is your company BioCorRx are you guys being successful are people listening?

Well, I don’t know if they’re more sophisticated, but certainly they’re waking up to what’s in front of us and that’s a step in the right direction. BioCorRx, again, you know we’re working with medication. We work with 503A compounding pharmacies. They created a naltrexone implant. And that implant, it really does two things. One, naltrexone creates a block on the opioid receptor that’s known as the mu receptor and keeps someone safe from overdose, as long as they have therapeutic levels in their system- so they can’t overdose. And two it regulates the dopamine in the brain so essentially it’s removing the cravings for someone who’s addicted to a substance, so that’s giving someone a window of opportunity to really concentrate and work on the psychosocial behavioral side of their addictive disorder.

That seems very important. Our guest is Tom Welch and Tom is the Executive Vice President of BioCorRx and they are a healthcare solutions company and they help us those who have problems with alcohol, opioid or other addictive disorders, which I guess effects really a reasonably good number of people and I guess the programs are more sophisticated now. Of course AA was always probably very helpful and NA was helpful as well. No doubt that those were very helpful, but some people really need more than those programs. Do you think, or does BioCorRx teach physicians, you give them a program to follow, is that it?

That’s correct, so we have a copywritten cognitive behavioral therapy program that we’ll supply to physicians, and that’s it’s a 35-module program, and essentially someone could take the modules in that program and bring them to their therapists or to their peer support specialist, and they could work those modules while they’ve got the clarity, while they’ve got this medication in their system and apply it to their lives. In addition to that, we have peer support technology and I’ll tell you why this is important, especially in the current environment with the virus. This is an app where you literally are working with a peer support specialist on a HIPAA compliant app where you can actually see someone of a similar profile who’s in recovery, who you could talk through 24 hours a day 7 days a week and they’re there for you. They’re there to help you through it, so it’s again it’s all of these things that are going to help to get someone to the next level. It’s not just the medication or just behavioral, it’s all the wrap around services and physicians can use those and deploy them in their practice.

Yeah, that makes sense to me that you’re right, it’s way more comprehensive.  Our guest is Tom Welch. Tom is the Executive Vice President for BioCorRx, and they help us with problems with alcohol or opioid or other addictive disorders. Tom, how does the physician start out with this program? Do they call you, do call them, and then they study? What do the physicians do?

Yeah, so it’s both. I mean, we, we’ve talked to a number of physicians here locally. We work with a number of physicians nationwide. You know we have a website online. They could sign up to work with us and then we get them trained. We have an online modular training system. We can also do in-person training and actually they could be set up and ready to g within a few weeks. So it’s very simple.

And have you found that the physicians are open to it, that they’re happy to be part of the program? I know that everything has to be approved by their, probably their medical schools and by the state boards. So in other words, all the information or BioCorRx has been approved by, say, the California State Board is like so yours is an approved program?

So yeah, so the program itself is: it’s the medication, it’s behavioral, and it’s the peer support. So all of these things are standard practice in medication-assisted treatment.  The medication itself, again, is compounded under state and federal guidelines. Naltrexone, the medication itself has actually been FDA approved since the ‘80s for opioid abuse in the ‘90s for alcohol abuse.  The issue was compliance. It was an oral medication and no one was taking it, or they would take it for a little while and then a party would come up or you know they have to choose between their best friend, a bottle of alcohol, or to shoot up, or their naltrexone pills. So essentially what this does is it removes that compliance.

All right now. Please give my listeners a perspective on the problem with addiction in the United States and I have read that more than 85% of the people who have problems with alcohol abuse or dependence go untreated in the United States, is that a correct number?

Yeah, and the problem is getting worse. Again this virus has only exacerbated the problem, and I think that the best way to describe this is drive to a bridge in Los Angeles. It used to be, you know, maybe you’d see a homeless person in a sleeping bag. Now they’re tent cities.

Yes.

So it’s in our face. It’s out there and we have to do something about it. Meth is an emerging threat. Congress is strongly considering designating meth an emerging threat and with good reason. Meth has changed since Mexican cartels that their manufacturing method. It’s a much more dangerous substance than it used to be. But just to give you an idea, Josh. What is on our emerging threat list in the United States? It’s North Korea’s military, biotechnology, infectious diseases, so it’s a serious problem and if we don’t do something about it as a community, it’s going to get worse.

Right no, unfortunately, it is a terribly serious problem, and I do think that a very good number of the people that you see, especially here in Los Angeles, and there are more than 50,000 that’s the official estimate who live in tents and I know wandering around the streets that many of them are actually meth methamphetamine users and that there seems to be no tolerance for the medication for the meth and that the men and women really don’t live that long. I have read that the heroin user years ago, 20-30 years ago could actually be a heroin user for a number of years and not literally pass away, but that with the methamphetamine or with the fentanyl that the men and women who fall into that really oftentimes don’t live very long.

Well, that’s correct and you said it right. I mean, it’s a different landscape. Meth used to be made with ephedrine which was a substance that you would find commonly in sinus medicine until we started regulating that, now it’s used- it’s what they call a P2P method, and it’s meth made with phenylacetone. That’s in jet fuel. That is in solvents. That is in, you know, suntan lotion. So now you’re seeing more and more meth induced mental illness, which is eventually corroding the brain and the receptors and people are dying. And now you add fentanyl on top of that and you’ve got a poison.

Wow, yeah, this is really quite actually literally frightening. Our guest is Tom Welch and Tom is the Executive Vice President for BioCorRx. Tom, what can our listeners of Here’s to Your Health do? How can they contact you at BioCorRx? You, know what should we do now?

Well, our website address is the best way. It’s beataddiction.com (or www.beataddiction.com). That is where you can get a hold of us and actually fill out a sheet. If you’re a physician and we can get back to you and we can go over sort of all the nuances of the program and get you up and trained.

All righty Tom Welch with BioCorRx Tom, do me a favor give us that website once again.

That’s beataddiction.com. B as in boy e-a-t addiction dot com.

And what can the listeners do? Let’s say that we have a family member or good friend or ourself, we think, well we have a problem, you know. So what do you suggest we do?

So we have a number of doctors across the US that have already trained in our program, so you can go to the website. There’s actually a link that you could reach out to us and we could put you in touch with a physician in your area.

And once again, Tom, give us your website.

It’s www.beataddiction.com.

Tom Welch, thank you very much. Our guest has been Tom Welch. Tom is Executive VP for BioCorRx and they work with problems with addiction in America. And here’s an interesting number too. It’s an estimated 900,000 people who use heroin illegally in the United States. 900,000 and that the addiction costs in the United States costs America an estimated 700 billion dollars each year and more than two million people in the United States abuse prescription pain relievers. So this is really a very serious problem again, our guest has been Tom Welch with BioCorRx and we can contact them by beataddiction.com. Go to the website. Speak to your family. Speak to your friends. Mention it to your physician. It seems like a very important program at a time when we’re recognizing these terrible problems with addiction. This is Josh Lane, listening to Here’s to Your Health. We’re going to take a short break. We’ll be right back after these important messages.  Thank you for tuning in to this edition of Here’s to Your Health with Joshua Lane. If you have any questions about the guests or topics discussed tonight, please give us a call at 818 707-0005. That number is 818 707-0005. This is Josh Lane on behalf of the cast and crew, I would like to wish you a healthy and safe good evening.