Podcast #2 – Leading with Purpose: Mary Bono’s Inspiring Mission to Transform Lives

Doug Dvorak (00:00.765)
Good day Mission Possible podcast nation. I’m your host Doug Dvorak and I’m looking forward to sharing incredible stories from my guests that are truly amazing and whose mission is to bring rich possibilities to enhance the lives and communities in which they live and impact. Our guest today is the honorable Mary Bono. Mary is an American politician, businesswoman and lobbyist who served Palm Springs and most of central and eastern Riverside.

California in the House of Representatives from 1998 to 2013. A member of the Republican Party, Mary was first elected to Congress in 1998. She sat on the Energy and Commerce Committee and was chairwoman of the Subcommittee on Commerce and Manufacturing. In 2018, she founded the political affairs consulting firm Integritas by Bono. She is currently CEO of MAPTA, Mothers for Awareness and Prevention of Drug Abuse. I’m an ambassador for MAPTA and really appreciate the great work that Mary and her leadership team, the board and the ambassadors are working for MAPTA. Mary, high honor and privilege. Welcome.

Mary Bono (01:19.298)
Thank you so much for having me here. And thank you for being an ambassador for us. You are just an absolute rock star and a force of nature. So I’m glad to be here.

Doug Dvorak (01:28.477)
Thank you, Mary. Mary, so I’m gonna pepper you with a couple questions. First, about your role and motivation. Mary, can you share with us your journey? What led you to become the CEO for Mothers for Awareness and Prevention of Drug Abuse?

Mary Bono (01:42.808)
You know Doug, that’s an interesting question and it’s something that just grabbed me early on. I was a sitting member of Congress at the time and a family member who became addicted to prescription opioids because you know he thought they were safer than the street drugs and the drugs the kids were partying with at the time and kids, a few kids at the time thought that if it came in a little brown bottle with a white screw top that they were safer than street drugs. So kids began experimenting with prescription pills. We went public about the struggle and tried to raise the awareness about these are not safe little party drugs. They’re not safer by any means. And after we’d gone public, we became sort of beacons for other parents who are going through the same thing. So I thought we would help raise the alarm and the sound bell and be the canaries in the coal mine, if you will, say, hey, look, something is amiss, something is wrong. Kids are using these prescription pills and they are overdosing and dying. And so at that time, what bothered me the most was this was a preventable problem. These again were legal prescription drugs and the federal government in itself has at least a dozen agencies with some role. in controlling these sorts of substances and yet they weren’t doing their jobs. That’s what bothered me the most and that people were asleep with the switch and kids were dying. So we became involved. It really seemed to me that the prescription drug epidemic was extremely preventable if people were actually doing their jobs and paying attention to the problem. Long, long answer to your question, but that’s the origin.

Doug Dvorak (03:35.773)
And we see in the news all the fentanyl issues, the opioid issues, north of 100,000 deaths last year or this year alone. But I don’t know anyone who, if not their immediate family, their world, or in their sphere of influence, opioids have decimated lives and families. In my world, I shared with you, part of my attraction to MAPTAS, I had a long-term team member, a young man, die with a needle in his arm. Side of Chicago. One of my senior trainers son got injured. played at you know Big Ten College football. Had an injury. The doctor prescribed opioids. They wouldn’t prescribe them anymore and he went to a street version of that and he died. So can you share with us or unpack some of the data points or numbers that are out there to to really give context to to why MAPTA is so critical at this point in time in this country?

Mary Bono (04:38.21)
Thank you, Doug. know, oftentimes it’s easy to search out the data point we want to sell our story. But in this case, you can look anywhere and find data that truly matters. And it matters because it’s obvious that it’s fixable. I mean, obviously we’re not gonna save 100 % of lives, but if we do a better job than we are, we can save a lot of lives. So. Whether the number is over 100,000 people per year are dying from drug overdose deaths, whether it’s opioids or other drugs. Excuse me, you multiply that by five years or more, 500,000 people. Again, these are preventable deaths. So the data points are there. My frustration early on with the federal agencies, know, National Institutes of Drug Abuse is one that I like to point to.
We were seeing kids dying in our congressional districts and it was obvious that this was an epidemic by the numbers that we were seeing. Yet NIDA was unwilling to look at the data, it seems to me. I’m oversimplifying it, but look, it’s an emotional issue. But they were not willing to declare an epidemic based upon the previous 50,000 people who had died. They wanted funding to make the study of the next 50,000 people who are going to die.

That’s a problem with the government as a whole. Some things are just obvious. Maybe they’re anecdotal at times, but sometimes if you’re a policymaker or a leader and you can’t see the writing on the wall about what’s going to happen and make a difference, then you shouldn’t be doing that job. So the data point, just look for it. I think the biggest data point that matters to me the most now, as you’ve stated, Doug, there’s not…

I don’t know too many Americans who haven’t known somebody who’s been affected by this, whether they’ve personally lost somebody in their family or whether they know somebody who has, but the data point is it’s in every single community in America. And the important point is we can to a large degree make a difference by raising our voices, raising awareness and making change.

Doug Dvorak (06:56.967)
Excellent. Mary, what are the biggest challenges you face as your role as CEO of such a vital organization?

Mary Bono (07:04.172)
Well, look, I think any CEO of any nonprofit, even though our nonprofit is small and we’re small and mighty by design, of course, I’m gonna say the number one challenge is money and raising money. But I think on the issue front, what we’re really faced with, and I’ve run into it and my colleagues, our colleagues in the same space will tell you the same thing. Nobody thinks this is their…

problem. It’s not going to happen to them, somebody else’s problem, some other block in my neighborhood. They never realize that the danger is there. And as you know, we started the campaign with Mothers for Awareness and Prevention of Drug Abuse called The Greatest Gift is a Conversation. And I know you know this because you’ve been so fabulous as a voice as one of our ambassadors. But I had learned on sending a family member off to college, a grandchild, and said to her mother, have you had the talk? And I look at you, because I go, when we were kids, the talk was something entirely different. It was the birds and the bees talk. But the talk nowadays needs to be, be careful of drugs, be careful of the illicit drug supply. And by the way, be careful of any drug supply because it’s tainted.

So I had simply said, have you had the talk? And the response was this, in verbatim, I don’t need to, my kid is a good kid. And I thought, wow, there’s quite a lot wrong with that statement. First of all, it’s stigmatizing. Secondly, you don’t realize that good kids maybe offered an Adderall pill to stay up all night long studying for their final exam. And that pill will be laced with a deadly amount of fentanyl. So the talk is essential now. Look, when we were kids, God, I’m at that age now, when we were kids, we walked both ways up in the snow and all that kind of stuff. I didn’t mean to sound like that, but when we were kids, we had room to experiment and be stupid and most likely survive it. Whether it was too much beer, sneaking some scotch out of your parents’ liquor bar, whatever it was, nowadays,

Mary Bono (09:26.102)
You know, the DEA says one pill can kill and it’s true. And Doug, I gotta tell you kind of an interesting story. Recently, I spent the day cooking for neighbors and at the end of the day, I’m going, wow, my back hurts. You know how that happens. You cook all day long and your back hurts. so they go, I’ve got some flexor all at home. My parents brought it. My parents live in Panama.

And so they brought some flexural wrapped up in some Kleenex and offered me this flexural. And I’m thinking, wow, I could really use some relief from this back pain. And my husband looks and he goes, Mary, are you insane? Don’t you realize what you’re doing? Somebody’s offering good, well-intended people absolutely nothing but good intentions. However, I don’t know the source of those pills.

I don’t know where they came from. The truth was they came from these people had just come up from Central America for a holiday. And I’m kind of going, this is how how dangerous this problem is. It’s a trusted source, you know, family, friends. And and here they have some little pills and wrapped up in a tissue. And here you go. And that’s the danger. And people don’t realize trusted sources so often now, whether it’s a college kid going, I know this is my friend. and she’s a good kid and she’s offered me some material to study. So obviously the danger here is people aren’t trying to abuse these drugs but they’re being offered one and it’s deadly. So the problem has changed so dramatically since MAPTA was first formed and we’re still trying to do everything we can to raise the awareness and fight drug abuse as a whole. We’re preventionists at heart. We’d rather people don’t experiment with drugs, don’t do drugs.

But the threat has changed so much over the past decade.

Doug Dvorak (11:30.237)
Thank you. Mary, how do you manage the emotional toll of working in a field that deals with such difficult and often heartbreaking issues?

Mary Bono (11:40.888)
That’s a great question because it is really hard. And you know, our team and you know the team, Kim and Cecilia and I, even over the past three weeks, we’ve been on multiple phone calls with parents who’ve just lost a child. Mothers, actually in this case, they’re all mothers. And it’s hard. And it’s difficult because…

They’re in a very deep grief stage and they’re looking to do anything they possibly can to prevent other parents from going through this pain and to save other lives. And it’s hard for me because I’ve been listening to these stories forever, well over a decade. But what motivates me is I don’t want to meet more parents in the future who go through this. mean, of course I want to meet them if they’ve gone through it. I don’t want it to happen to them.

Everybody in this field, look, we work with a lot of nonprofits who have the same passion, the same mission, and it is the same thing. We’ve met too many from the past. And how do we prevent meeting more in the future? And I know that sounds a little trite, but the emotion of hearing a mom break down and cry because her son’s death was preventable. We talked to a mother whose son was a student at UCLA.

and died in his dorm room from a fentanyl overdose, an overdose of something that contained fentanyl. And you listen and you can console and try to understand and be there. But the challenge and the fight is, I mean, there’s two, help somebody overcome their grief. But the battle is to make sure it doesn’t happen again. And so far, we’re not winning that battle. I know that the…

The federal government has come out recently said, our numbers are declining. To tell you the truth, Doug, I don’t know a single advocate in this space who agrees with the fact that, know, or agrees with the notion that the numbers are declining.

Doug Dvorak (13:47.015)
Mary, that’s interesting because in the last week, either Wall Street Journal or The Economist, trusted, in my view, trusted, accurate, real news said it was on the decline for the first time. So that really piqued my interest. Unpack that a little more for me, please.

Mary Bono (14:05.038)
Well, I don’t know if it’s election year data that’s coming out or what it might be. You know, let’s hope that the numbers are coming down, but they’re still over 100,000 a year. Of course, anytime if you’re a data person, you see the trend declining, you want to do more of what you’ve done to see that trend line, you know, go down, go the way you want it to go. look, the cartels and the bad guys are one step ahead of us. There’s a new drug on the street every day, cheaper, more potent, more lethal. And so we can’t let up our guard and act like this is time to celebrate. It might be a blip in the day, it may it’s an anomaly for whatever reason, whether it’s politically motivated, or whether it’s a supply chain issue, who knows, but it’s not a time to stop and celebrate.

It is a time to examine what we’re doing right. All of us as nonprofits, like we’re prevention people at HeartLine, I’ve said, I have a lot of great friends who are into harm reduction. Not my thing, but it’s theirs and good for them. We have new amazing opioid, solely opioid, but opioid overdose reversal medications or opioid antagonists out there somewhere over the counter. You can go into your local pharmacy and most likely buy some Narcan.

You can also buy it from Amazon and have Narcan on hand in case you come across somebody overdosing from an opioid. So there are lot of significant changes, improvements, things we can do that are attributing, I think, if there is actually a decline. And let’s do more of it. Absolutely. Find out what we’re doing that might be changing that data and let’s do more of it. But let’s not for a moment go, good, this this problem is behind us. I just don’t think we’re there.

Doug Dvorak (15:56.008)
you. Mary as a mother and grandmother yourself, how does your role as a parent and grandmother influence your work with MAPTA?

Mary Bono (16:02.958)
Hmm.

That’s such a great question because it’s generational. I’ve talked about that I’m a grandmother, I’m a 63 year old grandmother and between my husband and myself, we have 11 grandkids. So we’re very blessed. But you know, again, I talked about the threats when we were kids. And then you go to, you know, my children’s generation when the fentanyl, the opioid crisis was just beginning.

Doug Dvorak (16:16.603)
Wow.

Mary Bono (16:34.254)
And now my grandchildren are of an age that the fentanyl crisis is very real, is a serious threat. You know, when you get older, you realize, know, 15 year difference or 15 to 20 year difference in generations is not a whole lot. It seems like it when you like listen to music and how far we’ve come and how different we all are generationally, but the threats that are out there get worse by generation. And if you’ve lived through the prescription, opioid epidemic and now you see the fentanyl epidemic, I think you’d be callous not to try to do everything you can. And what’s terrifying again is this is one mishap. We have one of our board members, Doug, who very active, has big conversations with her daughter about the threat of drugs and was in a dance class one day and one of the other students came up and had some powdered Tylenol on her and I mean there’s like nine-year-olds I believe eight nine ten year olds and had some powdered Tylenol say ooh this is really good and it tastes really delicious here have some and this board member is going I She was telling me she was astounded because how that threat there you go again How would anybody know and how would her daughter know hey don’t trust that? It’s not some yummy little cherry flavored powdered Tylenol Lord only knows what it is so

It motivates me again because we can make a difference. And I think that if we just save one life, it’s worth everything we do. But of course we want to do what we can to save and impact far more than just one. But yeah.

Doug Dvorak (18:19.325)
Absolutely, Mary, now about MAPTA. For those who may not be familiar with MAPTA or Mothers for Awareness and Prevention of Drug Abuse, can you explain the overarching mission of MAPTA?

Mary Bono (18:33.166)
Sure, our overarching mission is raising awareness. And again, when I surveyed the landscape of other nonprofits and, you know, governmental organizations, again, whether it’s SAMHSA, which is a substance abuse mental health services administration, or all of the agencies, state, federal, local, who have a role in this, I believe the biggest…

missing piece is raising the awareness and pointing it out to people because again people think this is not going to happen to me or to my family and I think when you look at the whole landscape of who’s doing what whether it’s the DEA and drug interdiction and taking down you know Department of Justice taking down cartel members and bad guys and dealers and local police going after bad guys drug dealers the one missing piece to me where we need to do a better job well

everywhere. But why think we can make the biggest differences again to raise the awareness. I’m a big believer, like I’m a drug nihilist at heart. think, you know, and Kim, our mutual friend Kim and the producer of my podcast and part of MAPDA, we’re like, and I know you’re the same way because you’re a pickleball addict. But it’s like,

You know, you need a fix of some sort. Go take a hike, go take a walk, go into nature, go outside, get outside of yourself. Whatever it takes, take a mile walk, go look at the sunrise, go look at the sunset, all sorts of these things. And instead our society and our culture any longer is there’s a pill to fix everything. And whether you’re watching TV or whatever it is, it’s just such an easy way to try to treat our problems.

And I think we can do a better job. And I think this is a bigger conversation, you know, whether into mindfulness or whatever it might be. But the goal is to how to push society and people to kind of just behave differently and not turn to the latest, greatest drug that’s going to fix all of our problems and our woes. I don’t know that makes sense, but sounded good to me. Pick a ball for everybody.

Doug Dvorak (20:36.977)
makes no pickleball I’m in a pickleball two paddles and two balls in every garage how does

Mary Bono (20:46.35)
I’m serious, there’s something to it, but people, look, I don’t know, on the, I took a pickleball lesson with my grandkids over the summer and I’m thinking, you know what, I should probably just play tennis again. Get out there and play tennis, but it’s amazing. And you’re a champion, right?

Doug Dvorak (21:02.043)
And you know, yeah, I just attended the Nationals in Phoenix last weekend, Triple Crown, but it’s a bronze Triple Crown, three events, three Barnes-Metals. it was a great people, thank you. And you know, as you know, I’m a recovering alcoholic and I’ve had issues, had issues with drugs, but the common thread for a lot of men in recovery and some women is, you know, compulsive and to deal with

Mary Bono (21:15.608)
Congratulations.

Mary Bono (21:20.651)
I did not know that.

Doug Dvorak (21:32.057)
If you can keep that that drag in that drug that drink away and to your point incorporate more healthy My wife doesn’t have a problem with me being addicted to pickleball She did when I was addicted to drugs and alcohol because the the the magnitude of the problem for me I was a one was never enough in a thousand were too many and I’m just glad I I I’m a few 24 hours away from that, but you know, I feel for our youth today I’m involved in couple of boards and I love dealing with young people but to our point we’re both the same age 63 I look at and you’ve alluded to that what were we concerned with that 15 16 17 and it wasn’t really about nuclear proliferation global warming the rise of you know these bad actors all over the planet and pandemics and homeschooling these young people have a lot more to deal with than we do and drugs are not a healthy way to deal with that, getting involved in something else. But one of the great programs MAP2HAD, and that leads me to the next question, you know.

How does MAPTA approach drug abuse and prevention, but specifically programs or initiatives that you’re especially proud of? I’m especially proud of MAPTA in the value of a conversation and the messaging that we’ve done. Can you unpack and explain that for our listeners, please?

Mary Bono (23:04.664)
Well, I can try. Again, without relying on data, scientists, anthropologists, psychologists, just my gut feeling and as a communicator, that when we do talk about, have the conversation about drug abuse, that generally people shut down. Not my problem, not gonna happen, somebody else’s problem or that’s some sort of a moral.

wall we’re going to have between us or I’m just going to go numb. So when we came up with the idea of the greatest gift is a conversation is trying to trying to you know tear down the wall of listening and hearing and sort of remove some of the stigma perhaps of the conversation but definitely try to address this is not going to happen to me and so it really was a trying to encourage people to have a warm and loving conversation with our family members and our friends and our loved ones about the dangers. And again, this isn’t necessarily, you know, don’t don’t drink alcohol. That’s a different conversation to have. This is about the dangers of the drug supply. And it’s also about the dangers of opioids. I personally believe and you might feel differently if being in recovery from from alcohol. But I believe that

Opioids work on the brain for a reason they work as a very powerful analgesic for a reason and the human brain likes them and I think they like them faster than they like alcohol. I think they like opioids. You know, some people would say it only takes three days to become habituated to opioids. Some people will say five, but that’s a pretty quick, you know, I don’t call addiction. So pretty quick. dangerous sign. a warning sign. like, hmm, what can I do to watch what I’m doing? And again, like, I believe people who are truly in pain need pain medication. I’m never advocating for keep opioids away from people who are in pain. That’s not the point. The point was originally, why are opioids not being, they’re not, they’re in the hands of our children. They’re in the hands of people who don’t have a prescription.

Mary Bono (25:25.058)
People are partying with these people who have no doctor, no medical supervision, yet they have opioids that they’re using and then getting addicted to. So that was the obvious point that we’re failing as a country on that. But again, back to the whole notion of opioids and now the cartels and the bad guys and the chemists who are whether they’re in Mexico or China or wherever, their whole point is let’s find the quickest thing we can possibly find to hook the human.

I like to call it the human animal, but to hook the human brain on something. So then there are perpetual customers. and if by the way, we happen to kill them along the way, it’s okay because there’s so many more customers we’re gonna find anyway. So there really are super duper bad guys behind all of this.

You know, I think the fentanyl crisis and now the new drugs, carfentanil, there’s another one today coming in, you on the scene. I mean, their whole point is to create these things, hook people in, and if they kill them, they’re fine with that. I don’t think that there’s any moral compunction at all behind the people who are behind all of this.

Doug Dvorak (26:41.597)
Eternal vigilance, you know, I have a close friend whose daughter is a sophomore at the University of Michigan and we were talking and she said to her daughter, not take any Tylenol that’s not in its package or because, you know, just eternal vigilance. Mary, what are some of the most common misconceptions about drug abuse and prevention that you encounter in your work?

Mary Bono (27:06.914)
Hmm. And by the way, I know that you did send me these questions up front because you’re an amazing host and very, very, very thoughtful. I glanced him over, but I didn’t really read him because I wanted to just answer top of mind. I think the biggest misconceptions are that it’s not going to happen to me. Or that I can beat it. But the other misconception, Doug, I’ll tell you the truth is when someone does become addicted, people First of all, they do not realize that addiction or alcohol use disorder are diseases. You know, we’ve been battling this for a long time. They are diseases. However, you don’t treat them like an ordinary disease. By ordinary, I mean diabetes, heart disease. Let’s go down the list of things. It’s entirely different. It has to be treated differently. And it takes a professional to sort of guide you through the proper steps to actually get your loved one help.

it defies any other disease. you fall in love with somebody, or excuse me, if you’re love with somebody who’s suffering from cancer, you know, you pretty much, you can go to medical doctor and the protocol and the treatments will be pretty much what you’d expect and you’re gonna follow medical advice. But when somebody’s struggling with a substance use disorder, alcohol use disorder, it’s a little bit different and it’s a new science to some degree. It wasn’t, you know, it… until very recent history that they started treating this like a disease and what do we do and how do we do it? And so I would encourage people if you love somebody who’s suffering, get help yourself because to find out first of all how to keep your own sanity and protect your own health, it takes, you know, sometimes expert guidance on navigating those steps. So I’d say the biggest misconceptions when people don’t realize it’s a disease and I’ll tell you this and I know you know this.

somebody can’t yell at you loudly enough to make you change. They can’t cry enough to make you change. They can’t leave you often enough to make you change. It’s so much more complicated than that. And so I am a proud person who will tell you I have leaned on professional help so many times, therapists, psychologists, psychiatrists, and helping me navigate these steps to maintain my own health and if you will, my own sanity at times.

Doug Dvorak (29:28.797)
Excellent. Mary, we’ve talked a lot about the challenges of opioids and fentanyl, but can you share a success story that really resonates and stands out to you? One where the organization’s work made a significant difference?

Mary Bono (29:42.928)
MAPTA?

Well, And, you know, maybe it’s only a couple of data points. But what I’ve loved in our conversations about, you know, the greatest gift is a conversation entering into this with love and understanding. We have had. Parents and grandparents tell us that they have bought naloxone for their loved ones to carry. I had some grandparents tell me, you know, I know my grandson doesn’t use, but I know, you know, my grandson’s 15 years old, 16 years old, he’s not using, but I know he will probably be at a party or at a place where somebody is, and I want him to be equipped. And this came out of people who prior to this thought this was somebody else’s problem. They didn’t see this through the lens of my grandchild, whether he’s in high school or college, could be equipped to save a life.

And I think just changing that narrative and you know, I buy Narcan, I bought Narcan at the grocery store, at the pharmacy department of the grocery store, it’s sitting right there and you think that there’s a stigma, if I’m gonna buy my Naloxone, my Narcan, geez, it must mean that I’m using, it’s the farthest thing from the truth. I think people really go, wow, it really makes a lot of sense to be prepared in the event of an opioid overdose emergency.

So when I hear grandparents saying this and saying, hey, I bought it on Amazon, I had it sent to my grandson, and he keeps it in the glove box of his car, I think, well, we’re making a difference. So that’s one. The rest sometimes we’re tilting at windmills, you know, a little bit. Yeah.

Doug Dvorak (31:26.877)
That’s excellent.

Doug Dvorak (31:33.585)
No, that’s a great one. Thank you. Mary, how do you think the stigma surrounding addiction affects the ability of families and individuals to seek health? And then what can we do to reduce that stigma?

Mary Bono (31:45.262)
always lead with love and understanding. Mm-hmm. You know…

Doug Dvorak (31:47.885)
I love that. Yes. Compassion. Kindness.

Mary Bono (31:54.478)
I’ve always said, and I love that we’re contemporaries because we have the same, we grew up the same television shows. One of them was the Munsters. Now I grew up, my mother was an alcoholic from my earliest childhood memory until I was willing to college. And when you grow up in a household with that, and she was, I would say for the most part, a dysfunctional alcoholic, brilliant, brilliant, brilliant woman, chemist. Brilliant woman but when you grow up with it we with you when you live with it I should say if you remember the show the monsters and for those of you who are too young to remember it just Google it but in the monsters there was a dragon who lived underneath the staircase and the staircase would be closed and the family would be looking like this well other than being monsters and looking like monsters other than beautiful Marilyn but the staircase would open up an outward come that dragon And that’s how I felt about alcoholism and, you know, prior to my understanding of drug addiction, but that’s what I felt as long as the family can hide it. If we can be secretive about it, if we can bury our pain just to get through our day, then everything will be okay. And it wasn’t until I think it was in junior high, excuse me, sorry. And I met a girl, your girls at the time, became one of my best friends in my life.

And what do you know? Her mother was also suffering from an alcohol use disorder. Sorry, give me one second. But I think once I realized the community that other people are suffering too, that you’re not alone, I think that is the biggest thing is to know you’re not alone. When we feel we’re alone, we feel ashamed. We’re embarrassed by the behavior.

instead of recognizing it as a disease. And I think that’s a holdover from thinking this was a moral failing that somebody would make this choice. Yes, we might make the choice to pick up, you know, a glass of vodka or whatever the substance might be. That might be a failing at that moment. But once somebody is truly suffering from the disease, you have to recognize it is a disease and

Mary Bono (34:23.182)
treat love and compassion and get serious help and do what you can. Because I will tell you this, there are things you can do that also make it worse. I hate to tell you that, but there are a lot of things you can do that can make it worse and to any parent who might be listening, the biggest mistake is to think, I’m gonna send my child off to, you name the treatment center. I’m gonna send them off for 30 days and they’ll come back fixed and perfect. Because that’s not the truth. And it’s a hard awakening for parents to realize, wow,

you know, sometimes health insurance will cover some of treatment, not always, but you realize, wow, I just put out a ton of cash and 30 days later we’re just beginning to find the cure. So I really caution people it’s the beginning and it’s the beginning of a lifelong journey. And the best thing to do is to figure out what tools you need to be helpful because again, I just said it, but there are things you can do that can actually make it worse for your loved one.

and certainly worse for yourself too.

Doug Dvorak (35:24.571)
And once you remove that drug, that opioid, that alcohol, and you’ve effectively dealt with the abuse or addiction issue, then you’ve got a living issue. You’ve got the wreckage, I had the wreckage of my past and I had to learn how to relive. And for me, it was piercing the veil of denial and really accepting reality and accepting.

who and what I was. Mary, what role does education play in drug abuse prevention and how can schools and community centers be more proactive in addressing the issue?

Mary Bono (36:04.664)
Doug, this is just my opinion, right? My strong opinion. Look, somewhere along, strong opinion, somewhere along the way we quit telling people doing drugs is stupid. We’re doing it every day. Look, weed’s legal. And by the way, there’s so many problems with that. You know, now we’re talking about psychedelics, we’re talking about all this stuff and we’re getting back to this whole thing on, there’s something for everybody.

Doug Dvorak (36:08.711)
but a good opinion, a good opinion, and a strong opinion.

Mary Bono (36:32.46)
And we forget to tell our kids, this is risky. Be careful what you’re doing. We stopped having this conversation. People will tell you that the Just Say No campaign, the Nancy Reagan Just Say No campaign failed and the war on drugs failed. It’s like, seriously? They repealed all of that. Honestly, and I don’t consider myself a partisan politician, but during President Obama’s first term, they repealed all of that.

and said the war on drugs has failed and it’s failing. Okay, however, the numbers are worse than they’ve ever been. So how do you not tell a child? It’s just stupid to do that. So, you know, we’ve got great friends and colleagues, great scholars, academia, people with lived experience, everything. One of my favorites is Dr. Keith Humphries out of Stanford. And he will talk about the mistake that we’re removing the stigma and that there’s a, there’s a you know, a differentiation here on the stigma of somebody who needs treatment needs to get into treatment or is in recovery. Absolutely should not be stigmatized whatsoever. But do you want to tell a 12 year old it’s really stupid? Don’t do it. Absolutely. And that’s where we’re missing the mark here on absolutely. If you are, you know, an active person who’s is, you know, in an active use phase and or you’re in recovery like you I am so freaking proud of you for being in recovery and being proud about it and talking about it and being a role model for that no stigma actually I think quite the opposite nothing but pride I’m so proud of you and proud to know you but at the same time I’m to tell my 12 year old grandson you’re an effing idiot if you try this stuff so

The stigma conversation is interesting and Dr. Keith Humphrey Stanford again is the first to say that probably a lot more eloquently and he probably doesn’t say effin when he talks about it. But he’s the one who really pointed it out to me there’s a difference and it is an important difference and we can do both.

Doug Dvorak (38:40.305)
Yeah, you know what, outside of illicit opioids, fentanyl, we are the only industrialized first world country, industrialized country that allows prescription drugs to be advertised on TV. what, you know, every time I’m watching TV, it’s three or four drugs, albeit legal, but you know, write a script for this, write a script for that. It’s just an immersion of drugs.

But I’m really interested in how MAPTA is collaborating with other nonprofits, government agencies, or health professionals to amplify its impact. You mentioned the doctor from Stanford. Can you unpack that for us? How is MAPTA collaborating with nonprofits, government agencies, and health professionals to amplify the impact in the message?

Mary Bono (39:37.398)
That’s noise on my part, isn’t it? Sorry, I got it.

Doug Dvorak (39:42.299)
I thought you farted. All that I… I’m kidding. Is he building a space shuttle for Musk?

Mary Bono (39:44.152)
That’d be a lot louder than that Doug. I think it’s my husband building a fire. think our, my wall is up to the fireplace and living room and I think he’s building a fire. but thank you. Okay. Back to reality.

Doug Dvorak (40:00.635)
Let me ask the question one more time. How are you, the ambassadors and MAPTA, the organization, collaborating and working with nonprofits, government agencies, or health professionals to amplify the message and your impact?

Mary Bono (40:18.094)
You know what I love about this field in this area? I can say I can off the top of my head list 10 nonprofits and if I tried a little hard, I could probably go down to 30 or 40. I have so much admiration and respect for these other nonprofits. It’s not a competition. It’s not a race. Nobody is out to become the number one. You know nonprofit in the space. Most of the nonprofits we work with are have been founded by and run by. family of a loved one. I can go through Safe Project, Song for Charlie, Shatterproof. Let’s just go down the list. There are so many. I have, mean, dare I say it, some love for all of these people who this is their mission and this is their battle and this is what they’re trying to do. Very rarely have I seen sort of pride of authorship or this is my way, the highway. We share ideas.

As a matter of fact, the greatest gift is a conversation idea. So take the pledge. I borrowed that from my friends at Safe Project, the Stop Addiction Fatality Overdoses. I just butchered that acronym, but Safe Project, because they have a No Stigma pledge. And so I said, hey, do you mind? This is our little twist on it. And they said, go for it. And where do we sign? So the notion is we all try to help each other do what we can.

We also hope that one day we’re all out of business because it’s no longer a problem. But I would say largely we grieve together. We share resources together. We respect each other. And then as far as the government goes, and I have to tell you, Republican administration, Democrat administration, it’s the same way. They reach out to us. We reach out to them. Republican members of Congress, Democrat members of Congress. There’s no party affiliation.

there really is a sense on what do we do, what’s the best way to do it and how do we get it done? And I can tell you again from, you know, the Biden administration, Trump administration, Obama administration, Bush administration, that has been the ethos, I would say. We’re not doing a good enough job, but by and large, the environment itself.

Mary Bono (42:39.914)
is encouraging on the number of people who truly trying to make a difference.

Doug Dvorak (42:43.769)
Excellent. Now we’re into the tail end of our podcast called Rapid Fire Round. I’m going to ask you some rapid fire questions and you just do the great response work you’re doing. Mary, if somebody has a loved one, family, friend that’s in the throes of opioid addiction, what should they do?

Mary Bono (43:05.55)
call it professional. And I can tell you the first place I would go and I’m not sponsored by them or is the Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation. Look them up on the website, hazeldenbettifordfoundation.org. Look them up, they’ve got telehealth, they’ve got all sorts of opportunities. I would start there, number one.

Doug Dvorak (43:27.697)
What are your goals for the future of MAPDA?

Mary Bono (43:32.622)
Our goals for MAPT in the future are to remain small but mighty, maybe less small and mightier, but again to continue to say without reservation or hesitation that drug abuse and trying drugs is just stupid.

Doug Dvorak (43:48.573)
How can people listening to today’s Mission Possible podcast get involved with MAPTA and help make a difference in their own communities?

Mary Bono (43:57.388)
Well, please reach out to us at mapta.ngo. We’d be happy to have your assistance and get them involved right now. As you know, our new program is to get Naloxone boxes placed. We’re partnering with a nonprofit out of West Virginia, but to get Naloxone boxes placed right next to the defibrillators and all sorts of public places.

Doug Dvorak (44:19.535)
Excellent. Last question. Mary, if there’s one message you want to leave with our audience today, what would it be?

Mary Bono (44:26.126)
Lead with love always all issues all problems lead with love. Sorry, try silly but lead with love

Doug Dvorak (44:30.045)
lead with love. know love kindness the world needs more of that. Our guest today has been the honorable Mary Bono CEO of MAPDA mothers for awareness and prevention of drug abuse. Thank you Mary and if they one more time the MAPDA URL.

Mary Bono (44:51.498)
mapda.ngo and you can reach out to us there at any time you’d like. We’d love to have you.

Doug Dvorak (44:58.397)
Excellent. Thanks. Our guest has been the Honorable Mary Bono. Check our podcast out, Mission Possible Podcast Nation. Thanks for listening and Carpe Diem.

Mary Bono (45:08.568)
Carpe Diem.