Episode 365: The Best Kept Secret: Building Bridges to Recovery on Tribal Lands with Doug Leech
The Addicted Mind Podcast
Duane Osterlind, LMFT
4.7 • 655 Ratings
🗓️ 22 December 2025
⏱️ 30 minutes
🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Duane Osterlind sits down with Doug Leech, founder of Ascension Recovery Services, to discuss the monumental challenge of expanding high-quality addiction treatment to "treatment deserts"—specifically rural areas and tribal lands. Doug shares his vulnerable personal journey from a high-achieving accountant struggling with opioid addiction and homelessness to becoming a visionary leader in behavioral health.
The conversation dives deep into the collaboration with the Pawnee Nation to build a sustainable, native-owned recovery center. Doug explains how he combined his expertise in accounting and neuroplasticity with ancient spiritual traditions and cultural healing to overcome the unique financial, political, and logistical hurdles of building on sovereign land.
Key Discussion Points
- Doug’s Personal Story: From working at a top accounting firm to living in a car due to opioid addiction, Doug discusses the powerful role of shame and the life-changing experience of finding recovery in Minnesota when his home state of West Virginia had no options.
- The Problem of Treatment Deserts: Why many communities (veterans, Medicaid recipients, and Native American tribes) are often left without any local access to life-saving care.
- The Pawnee Nation Project: The complexities of building on sovereign land, including financing without the ability to repossess property and navigating tribal government cycles.
- Workforce Development: The "10-year plan" to train tribal members—from peer recovery coaches to Master’s-level clinicians—to ensure the program is self-sustaining and native-operated.
- The Business of Recovery: How Doug uses his accounting background (and lessons from Sarbanes-Oxley) to build clinical programs that are not only effective but financially viable.
- The Power of Service: Why giving back through the 12th step is essential to maintaining long-term recovery.
Quotes from the Episode
"Addiction is the best-kept secret that everybody knows." — Doug Leech
"I'll die with this disease, not from it." — Doug Leech
Resources Mentioned
- Ascension Recovery Services: ascensionrs.com
- White Bison: A resource for Wellbriety and culturally based healing for indigenous peoples.
- The Addicted Mind Podcast: theaddictedmind.com
Doug Leech is in recovery and the founder of Ascension Recovery Services. Motivated by his own struggle to find care, he has dedicated his career to developing full-continuum recovery models for underserved populations, helping open dozens of centers across the United States.
Connect with Doug:
- LinkedIn: Doug Leech
- Website: ascensionrs.com
If you live in California and are looking for counseling or therapy please check out Novus Mindful Life Counseling and Recovery Center
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | Hello everyone and welcome to another episode of The Addicted Mind podcast. |
| 0:04.0 | I'm your host, Dwayne Austerland. |
| 0:10.0 | I think about people that come through the doors that are just totally defeated and have no hope |
| 0:17.0 | and just the way that they look after a week of being in the facility or two weeks or three weeks. |
| 0:21.3 | And that's what motivates me. So it's always, in my mind, based on the patient care, |
| 0:26.7 | the patient experience. And I think about myself and how I was blessed and fortunate at a family |
| 0:31.6 | that could pay for me to go to out-of-state treatment. And that most people don't have that |
| 0:36.8 | opportunity. |
| 0:40.3 | We have a great guest today. |
| 0:42.3 | Our guest is Douglas Leach, the founder and CEO of Ascension Recovery Services. |
| 0:48.3 | After finding his own path to long-term recovery, |
| 0:52.3 | Doug has dedicated his life to helping communities build sustainable, |
| 0:57.1 | high-impact behavioral health care programs. And today, he's joining us to share not only his own |
| 1:04.3 | story, but a story about a powerful partnership between his organization and the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. |
| 1:12.9 | This project is a moving example of how culturally responsive care can bring healing to |
| 1:18.0 | communities that need it most. |
| 1:19.9 | They developed a state-of-the-art treatment center that thoughtfully blends evidence-based care |
| 1:25.8 | with traditional native healing practices, |
| 1:29.4 | serving both native and non-native individuals. |
| 1:32.6 | And Doug's going to discuss the growing movement towards culturally responsive health care |
| 1:37.5 | and how these kinds of partnerships can expand access to life-saving treatment in underserved |
| 1:44.1 | communities across the country. |
... |
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