Addiction Recovery, Workplace Safety, and Building a Second Life

Hello and welcome back to Therapist Voices at Reach Link. Reach Link is a digital mental health counseling platform. My name is Jessica Herurwitz and I oversee our network of therapists. Today's guest is someone I know very well. About 13 years ago, I joined the EAP profession and Jeff Mangram took me under his wing. He introduced me to people in the field, even took me to networking events. We even road tripppked from Florida to Alabama to present at a conference. I'm not sure if you even know this, but I was driving and you were sleeping and I did get a speeding ticket in your car, but we can talk about that later. That was about 10 years ago. I did not know that. Jeff founded a company in the late 1980s, if I'm not mistaken, called Sane and Sober Theater, also known as SST. Jeff, share with us, if you would a little bit about what SST is, how it started, what it stood for then, and what it's transformed into, which from what I understand is something very different and very exciting.

Uh, well, thank you. I'm happy to be here. Yeah, I started SST in 1987. You know, I I've always wanted to write, produce, direct, and work in the theater. And I actually got I got a a scholarship to go to Bradley University, which is just south of Chicago, a few hours. Um, and uh, you know, they had a great theater program there. Um unfortunately I was doing a lot of pure research in the area of alcoholism and chemical dependency. Um I was an excellent scientist. Uh I in fact uh they I was so good I was so good at my research that they um the other scientists there asked me to leave. They asked me to leave Bradley. Uh I went over to uh Illinois State University because they had a better theater program there anyway obviously and uh yeah absolutely where I continued my research uh and uh uh they got tired of me there as well uh and so they sent me home and I went back uh to Chicago and I decided maybe I should do something about this.

So I got into a program of recovery. Uh, so I was sober, but I was insane because I had all of these skills and tools to work in the theater. Uh, but I couldn't do it. Uh, because the only people I knew in this industry were people like myself, drunks and addicts. Uh, and then and they told me that if I if I didn't change my play pins and my playmates, so to speak, um, if I kept going to the barber shop, I would eventually get a haircut. So, I decided, you know what? Why don't I start my own theater company, which was nuts. I mean, it was absolutely nuts. But, this is going back a ways. This was back uh in the late 80s. This was pre-Orah Winfrey, believe it or not. There was a time when we had no Oprah. Um, and and I mentioned that because I think Oprah did a lot for opening the door to talk about mental health issues uh publicly.

Um, and some of these other shows as well, but but I I I think that she was kind of on the and and always treated it, I think, with a lot of respect. But this was pre- Oprah Winfrey and I got this idea, why not write theater programs, plays if you will, short version plays combining comedic and dramatic scenes with informative material, uh discussing alcoholism and addiction as a disease model because again that was just really coming into its own at that time. Uh, so I wrote these pieces. I demonstrated what alcoholism and addiction look like at home, what it looked like at work, and what avenues of help were available to them, primarily through employee assistance programs. These new fangled programs that had just um really started to take hold um with the u with the passage of the drug-free workplace act, I believe was 1989, I think.

Uh, and so, um, I I I wrote a couple of pieces. I, uh, did a couple of, u demonstration shows. Some people from EAPs came to watch it. Uh, the next thing I know, we we were doing, I think we did 33 shows for our first client. It was u, uh, UAW Electromotive Vision division in Chicago. And they had at that time 5,000 employees. And we um uh we were doing shows at 3:00 in the afternoon and 11 o'clock at night and 3:00 in the morning and 8 o'clock in the morning. Uh just doing them around the the schedule and they saw EAP utilization rate increase 120%. And when we saw that 120%. So, I knew that we had something special at that point. And because of the the passage of the drug-free workplace act, this is when a lot of the big EAPs that we know now, like the huge EAPs, uh, were just cutting their teeth.

So, they would hire us to come in. They would bring in a bunch of HR people. They would hire us to come in to do our dog and pony show, if you will. and then they would close, you know, they would get up and say, "We provide these EAP services, so they would sell it." So, um, so that's how I kind of wormed my way into the EAP world. Um, and also it there wasn't even an EPA back then. There wasn't EPA, it was alka. Alaka, right? And so it was it was just an amazing opportunity to get out and uh perform these plays uh and encourage because look theater has always been an incredible education tool. It's how we taught each other since the ancient Greeks. rather than getting up and talking about a subject, um to get up and model the behavior and allow people to observe that and then come to their own conclusion.

It's a much more engaging way. The transfer of learning is much stronger doing it that way. Um it's like if you're driving down the the highway and you hear about an accident on the side of the road, chances are you're going to keep barreling down the road. But if we see an accident, our behavior changes. We slow down. We look, we we become cautious. Um, and so we do, we learn more through our eyes than we do through our ears. And the way to do that is to model that behavior, demonstrate it, illustrate it, show it, rather than just get up and talk and tell about it. Um, and I had a great run. Um uh during that period of time too I had three um four fulllength plays produced in Chicago. One of them at Stephen Wolf which was really exciting. Um and uh everything was hunky dory until 2008 and then it just pancake.

That was the u the subprime meltdown, right? The the banks too big to fail and all this stuff. Well, the first thing that went away was learning and development. Nobody was doing learning and development. We were doing 160 170 shows a year. I think in 2008 we did 10. And um and I thought, you know, uh we've seen ups and downs with the economy before and it would come back, but it never did. Uh well, it didn't for quite some time. And um and so then I I I needed to get a a real job after all that time and I went to work for a couple of treatment facilities. So I learned that side of the business as well. I was a national director business development for a couple of companies and you know they they they mentored me in that space very well. Then three years ago I was doing some work. I've always been working around safety sensitive.

So safe uh uh uh DOT regulated uh employees because because they are regulated by the DOT, they have some special issues that they have to deal with. They can get violations and they can be removed from duty and all of this other stuff. And that was always a fascination to me. And so when 3 years ago, I decided I was going to strike off on my own again uh and but this time provide education services specifically to folks who have a DOT violation. And as you as you know, when somebody gets a DOT violation, they have to go see a SAP, have an assess assessment made. And then the SAP has to recommend education or treatment. One or the other. Nobody gets out of here alive, right? That you got to do one or the other. And with all of my work in that space, the one thing that I saw kind of lacking was live face to well not face to face but but through a Zoom platform.

Um uh live education. Uh a lot of the a lot of the programs out there are click-through programs where um they the the the client goes to this platform. uh they're shown some videos. They answer a few questions. Then they see some more videos and they answer a few questions and then at the end it spits out a certificate of completion for four hours of learning or eight hours of learning or 12 hours of learning. Well, I always thought that that was kind of putting it it did it didn't if the if the goal of this is to ensure a transfer of learning that the client is actually walking away with some skills and tools that's going to help them prevent future violations. Well, how can you do that with a click-through program? I'm sure that there's some science out there that shows that there there's some efficacy there because any kind of education is going to be helpful.

But we dialogue, right? They they ask they stop me. They ask me questions. We expound on different points of content that we're exploring. At the at the end of the event, I asked them all to generate an action statement. So, coming from their words, number one, what happened? So, taking ownership of the violation. Number two, what did they learn in our time together? Um, and and and I think that that's important for the SAP to know. Um, and I always break it down like this, like, you know, I'm not a clinician. At the end of all of this, I am not going to know your life. You guys can be telling me exactly the truth, and I have no reason to doubt you, but being a recovering alcoholic myself, I know that we're not the most honest people when it comes to our drug and alcohol use. So, I'm not going to know if you're struggling or not.

But regardless of that, if you cannot apply the information that I'm sharing with you personally, with your personal circumstance, statistically speaking, there's somebody in your life that you love and that you care about that is going to struggle with this issue or is struggling with this issue. And you may pick up the skills and the tools in our time together that enables you to say just the right thing at just the right time in just the right way and it changed the whole trajectory of that loved one's life. Would that be worth the 4 hours and the 95 bucks that you're spending to sit here with me tonight? And people get that. And people get that also. They come in and they're a little pissed off. They're a little um you know, the DOT's got nothing better to do with its time than to crap on my life, right?

Because they're not working. I approach that as well. And I I I have some I have some uh I don't want to say crash videos, but I have some uh videos that I show them at the very beginning uh that are drug and alcohol related crashes and and talk a little bit about that and say, "Look, you know, these regs are in place for good reason." And the reason is there are people working in safety sensitive position. They have no business being there. They need to be identified and removed. However, you eat a gummy at a friend's wedding four weeks ago, chances are you're going to test positive and you're going to be right in this process along with everybody else. Uh but at least there is a process because you know many many years ago there was no process. It was zero tolerance. you tested positive or you refused to test, you were gone.

No questions asked. You were gone. And companies pushed back on the DOT and said, "Hey, we're human beings. We make mistakes." The DOT relented and they said, "Okay, we'll build a process, but it's going to be time consuming. It's going to be expensive. It's going to be a pain in the ass." Um, but everybody is going to get looked at. Everybody's going to have to have an assessment. Um, and by law, you're going to have to have education or treatment, one or the other. And so, I just encourage them. I I set the tone right away. It's like, look, this is not a punishment. In fact, I love to have a good time doing this because I feel like the work that we're doing in this room is really important and I'm getting you one step closer getting back to work. That's a great thing, isn't it? Uh so we have a great time in the class and uh the material uh the content is is fresh and new and interesting and um you know most of the time uh when I I I love to read the action statements that they write.

Um and sometimes it's a sometimes it's I tested positive for weed. I learned weed is really, really bad. I promise I won't do weed anymore. So, I get those, right? But you get people being you've been able to elicit them being real with you through the way that you've approached this. But that's you. That goes all the way back to your theater stuff. It's this all is such a continuation and you're using it in such an amazing way. Thank you. And and I agree. I I I've just I've had such strange experiences, work experiences around this field and I've been able to see it from a lot of different angles. And so I think that that enables me uh to approach some of this material with some humor, with some um but also, you know, I share some things uh um while we're doing it. You know, I lost my dad to this issue.

I lost my brother to this issue. uh and at one point uh toward the end as we're talking about guidelines I I share that and you know and I I so it's not just um you know trying to make light of everything all the time. We get we drill in down into some stuff and and my sharing prompts other people in the group to share and by the end of the time it's really strange. You wouldn't think that you can really connect with people on that Zoom platform so quickly but it does happen. Um, by the end of the education program, people are jumping off. They're sticking around. They're talking. They're sharing. They're giving tidbits of information. Hey, you know, I found this company that is hiring people that have a SAP violation in the clearing house. I'm going there. They're going to fly me in. They're going to uh work over my documents with me and they're going to get my return to duty test uploaded into the clearing house and I'm supposed to be driving that night, you know, and that gives a lot of hope to these folks because they're right.

The end of the day, there's nothing. What do you have if you don't have some hope for something? Exactly. And so, uh, you know, I try to help build them back up and understand, look, you hit a speed bump. You did not hit a wall. Right. This is not the end. Um, yes, there are some companies out there that will not touch you uh while this violation is in the clearing house. It rolls off after 5 years. Um, uh, but big companies like Knight, Hunt, ABF, their insurance company is not going to let them hire somebody with a SAP violation. Sure. But the the and I'm I'm talking about the FMCSA, so the commercial driver's license. um uh modal right now. Um that industry is 80,000 drivers short right now today. They need 80,000 drivers. So yes, there's there's a lot of companies out there that won't touch you, but there are far more companies out there that are desperate to have you come and work for them.

And so they need to hear that message. I do research. I I I there are certain websites that you can go to that specialize in CDL jobs and you type in SAP friendly trucking company and it will populate a list of national, regional, and local companies that are willing to work with you with a SAP violation. Uh and so when they start to hear that, they're like, "Oh, okay. All right. Maybe this isn't maybe it's not over. Maybe I haven't screwed myself really bad this time." because that's what they're fighting and they're ashamed, right? Because Oh, yeah. Last week I had a guy he uh this morning this morning better example, I have a woman who uh was in a lot of back pain. She took her son's hydrocodone, right, to get out of that pain. Random drug test. She tests positive for opioids. 26 years she's worked with this bus company and they fired her on the spot after 26 years because they had to.

It's in the policy and she understands that. But that doesn't make walk that long walk out the door any easier. this morning. We did seven private sessions and we the la this morning was the last one. And I said, um, listen, once you get through this, once you do the return to duty test, it's negative and it gets uploaded into the clearing house and you're taken out of prohibited status, go ask for your job back. You have nothing to lose. You have nothing to lose. And most companies write into their policy, if you test positive or if you refuse, you will be terminated immediately. Period. It doesn't say you will be terminated immediately and you can never come back to work for us ever, ever. And imagine all of that experience walking out the door. That is that is institutional knowledge that is walking out the door.

You cannot buy that. uh it's grown over time and they now have to replace you with somebody who might test positive for THC next week. So, it becomes a turn and burn. I told her, "Look, when you go and you ask for your job back, take your action statement with you because they're going to ask you about this violation." Uh, and and if all you got is I took somebody else's prescription medication, that that's not a great response in an interview situation. You look them in the eye and you say, "Yes, this is what happened. This is what I learned going through this process. This is how I'm going to use what I learned to avoid future violations. In fact, you need to hire me back because I guarantee the other bus drivers out there don't know that if you um sign into a collection site and you're sitting in the waiting room waiting to give your sample and suddenly your phone starts blowing up and it's your wife or your husband and it says 911 and you need to answer that phone phone call, but you don't want to share your business with everybody sitting in the waiting room.

So, you step out that front door to answer that phone call. That's a violation. That's a refusal. Most people don't know if you apply for three different jobs at three different companies, you're going to get three pre-employment screens. And I if you decide that you're not going to go work for this job, you still have to respond to that pre-employment screen or that's a refusal. Most people don't know that CBD products contain trace amounts of THC. And if I have the kind of body that holds on to THC for a long time, 30 to 45 days is the the the the estimate. I have somebody in my class 87 days. It took 87 days for the THC to leave a system. So he is the kind of body that holds on to this stuff. If I'm taking a CBD product like a cream and I'm rubbing it on my hands, well, that's that's a transdermal patch.

It's a nicotine patch, right? The THC goes right through my skin, right into my bloodstream. And if I'm using that cream every day over time, I can acrue and store just enough to get over that 15 nanogram cut off level and test positive for THC. And I never even got high. People don't know this. And so, and by the way, people used to say I was crazy for saying that. There's a case pending that was pending in front of the Supreme Court five months ago. A truck driver is suing a CBD manufacturer. They're trying to get the case thrown out of court. the the US Supreme Court um uh looked at the science uh had uh content experts come in and they said, "Nope, this case is going forward because we do believe what the science demonstrates is that you can acrue enough and store enough THC over time that yes, you can test positive for uh THC on a random drug test."

So, it's not just me saying it now, it's the US Supreme Court. So, a lot of this stuff people don't know, Jess. and and they um and again this is stuff that comes up in discussion um that you're not going to get with a click-through program. No. Right. The other advantage of doing live platform courses is I it's very rare but I have removed people from the class because I highly suspected them as being intoxicated. Um, I wondered about that. I wondered about that. I mean, your radar your radar is on, right? You can't smell them, but you really don't have to. Especially if you're in recovery yourself, you know. You know, if you know, you know. And And boy, I know. I mean, if somebody is in there because because they tested positive for methamphetamine and they can't stop cleaning the house.

It's just my normal personality. Or they're juggling or they're doing something, right? They're juggling with their feet. Yeah, there's something going on. There's something going on. And and so I can in my notes because I do write summary notes and I include their action statement in that I can write in the summary I uh remove this individual because um I I it's my strong belief that this individual was under the influence during the class. Uh it was disrupting the rest of the uh uh class members. Um and I removed them. Um, I don't I don't say they were. I say that I highly suspect that they were under the influence. And and and again, those those are very rare because most people again, they're trying to get back to work, but a certain percentage of these folks are going to be in full-blown addiction.

And yes, they're not going to be able to that they'll have those periodic lapses of control. One of the reasons why they're there, they're using their substance while they are in operation. And these are the folks that need to be identified and removed from this industry. I'm very clear about that. Um, and we talk a lot about cannabis. Did you did you did you catch that the federal government moved THC from a schedule one drug down to a schedule three drug two weeks ago? Yes, I actually got an email I got an email that DOT email THC from a schedule one down to a schedule 3 is that it will will relax um obstacles uh for them to do further research on it. That's all BS. That is all BS. The reason for doing that, that is the first major step in making cannabis legal across the country. That is bottom line.

Bottom line and there's a reason for that. There's THC is only legal in 23 states either recreationally or through the use of a medical card. That's 27 states that it's still illegal. And those 27 states are looking at the 23 states that where it is legal and they're raking in the cash. They're raking in the cash in those states from cannabis sales. They want that, right? They want that. But their constituents, their state constituents will never vote for legal weed. So the only option is to get the feds to legalize it on a national level and then they can go, well, it's not our call. It's now legal everywhere. So we're going to have to have dispensaries. We're going to have to we're going to have to do this. But how does that then though pivot your class? I mean, here you are in the middle of this.

How does that? So, we talk about that and look, the DOT is not backing down on THC. In fact, they've already written safety carveout language, paraphrasing, we're going to continue to test for THC and if it's in your system, if it's in your body, it's going to continue to be uh a violation. And the reason for that is that there is a spectrum of users, right? You've got on one side uh you've got the weekend warrior, right? The person that might smoke a a joint on a weekend or maybe they're doing a THC gummy uh to sleep at night uh or relieve pain. And then on the other end, you've got Chich and Chong, right? I love Chichin Chong, but I don't want to meet Chicher Chong driving a 140,000lb truck at 70 m an hour down through a narrow canyon road. The DOT does not have the time or the bandwidth to investigate these cases to determine are you the weekend warrior or are you Chich and John.

So, we're just going to air on the side of safety. If it's in your system, we're assuming you're chong and you're not going to be driving. It really is that simple. And when you break it down like that, people go, "Oh, okay. I get that. It's not a personal thing." It feels really personal. Uh but it's not. It's not a personal thing. It is about safeguarding the traveling public. Safety first. making sure that people who should not be in operation are not there. Um so again one I think one of the advantages is you know I don't think that a single person in my class is going to remember that a standard drink is 6 ounce of pure alcohol. Um and and that uh a glass of wine and a glass of beer and a shot glass are three different alcoholic beverages with three different volumes, but each contains one standard drink.

I don't believe that they're going to remember that. What they will remember are the stories that we talk about, the information that is shared by the other people in the class, their experience, their desire uh to want to do better. We talk about what is most important to you in your life and what are you doing to protect those things because those things are precious. And if we're talking about reducing risk in order to protect those things, what does that look like? How do you gauge that? I mean, how do you gauge whether or not they really took something away? Now, the SAP is going to do a follow-up assessment, and it's one of the reasons why a lot of SAPs recommend people to me is that they know the kind of result that they get. I I I believe that the if the goal is is providing education that is going to be meaningful, relevant, applicable to that individual's livelihood.

This is where they get it. And uh it's exciting. I've been doing it. I'm going to be celebrating three years in April. Um, and I just love it. I absolutely love it. I love my classes. I love the people in the classes. We get people from every walk of life. We've got truck drivers. We've got railroad conductors. We've got signalmen. We've got uh we've got we've got uh riverboat pilots. Um we've got flight attendants. get a few pilots here and there, too, which is kind of interesting because with the pilots, it's the HIMS program, and it's usually mandatory um uh 30-day inpatient, 28 day inpatient, but I I I'm I'm kind of mystified, and I had like three or four airline pilots come through, and I I've never had a chance to really talk to them about that and why they're going through an education program when they probably are being subjected to the HIMS program.

So I I I hope to you have done am I wrong in thinking that you have done a lot of work with with airlines? That's something I always um connect you with. Yeah, I've helped 168 class A medical airline pilots, so commercial airline pilots get through the hems program. So well there you go. That's I guess that's what I was remembering. That'll do it. And and and probably three times that number with flight attendants. I've been doing that work for I was about 17 years I think it was. So um you know again I I always focused on safety sensitive and uh so again that that gave me great experience and sitting in here but I get a lot of truck drivers. I get a lot of ship captains and also light rail uh so stuff people that that fall under FTA. The other thing is mirror programs. So there's a lot of work out there that is safety sensitive, but it's not regulated by the DOT.

Oh yeah. And so that company might have what's called a mirror policy. They're not regulated by the DOT, but they have a policy that that they write that mirrors the DOT. So they have to go through the same process. So a lot of building trades uh a lot of uh DoD and that doesn't fall under the DOT they they they have mirror programs. Any kind of federal agency typically has a mirror policy even like um Social Security Administration something like that where you wouldn't think that there would be any kind of safety issue but they have a mirror policy. So they refer those folks uh through there. Um, and uh, uh, it it we get people in there from all walks of life. And it's so funny, you know, you'll have some pretty hardcore truckers sitting in there and you might have two or three flight attendants, right, that are uh, really gussied up and, you know, they've got their they're playing their whole role of being a flight attendant.

And uh um and it's I try my best to kind of incorporate their jobs because if I'm just talking to truckers, then the flight attendants feel like they're being short. It sounds like there's an art to it. It really is. Um whenever I get a flight attendant, I always ask them first thing, give us what is the spiel about the oxygen masks? And they're like, what? You know, the little the little demonstration that you give around the oxygen mask. What's the point of that? um what do you instruct us to do? And they go, "Oh, yeah. We tell you to put the oxygen mask on yourself first before you help other people." This is good. That's why you're here. You're getting the oxygen mask. Now that you're getting this information, you're going to be able to help other people as well. This is not just to mitigate your violation.

I'm telling you, you're here for a reason. there. Somebody out there needs this information. You've got it now and you're going to find an opportunity to pass that information along and it's going to help somebody else. And you can just see how their attitude changes about that whole thing. Um it it really is amazing. And uh and so I always uh try to um because of my experience I can talk trucking, I can talk FAA and FRA and PHMSA. Um you know pipeline uh a lot of lot of pipeliners I get too. Um and so uh it it's just uh by by reaching out to them and talking their language. Um, I also I I I I asked, you know, if I've got three flight attendants and 15 truckers, I asked the flight attendant, "What was your training program like? Share with the truck drivers, what kind of training did you do?"

And it's typically 6 to 8 weeks, 12-hour day. They're not getting paid any money. Uh, and it's all focused on safety. Truck drivers don't know that. Truck drivers think that a flight attendant is a a waiter in a bad restaurant at 30,000 feet. You know, they don't know that they're there. Their primary purpose is to ensure the safety of the passengers on that flight. No, you I just try to engage them and and and and let them know um and let them share a little bit about what it is that they do so that other people have a greater understanding of we're not just talking about driving a truck. We're talking about all aspects of safety. I I tell the last the very last thing I tell them is it was a pleasure to meet you, but don't ever come back. I don't ever want to see you again. Stop tackling your own quarterback.

Stop stop setting up obstacles in front of yourself. Uh don't ever come back. You're too savvy for this. You don't need to come back. So I do my best to tell them don't come back. Different. So there's with with how you offer is it like a blanket like you said four or eight 4 hours 4 8 12 16 20 hours those are the and then I do private sessions as well. You do have how different is that? Is that like someone private sessions? Is that Yeah, private sessions are blast. um they're time consuming. The advantage of doing the um uh uh uh the privates is especially if somebody doesn't have a real command of the English language. So I can take longer time talking with them, making sure that they're understanding the point. I've done work with people with a translator and that actually worked out fairly well.

It was a guy from Usuzbekiststan. I don't speak Usuzbek. You don't? I don't. I don't. I I I haven't I haven't cranked that up on my battle yet. And so, uh, he had a, uh, translator and she was extremely good. And I could give some information and then take a pause, let her translate, and then when when she was she was when she was done translating, I would ask her, "Does he understand what what what I'm talking about here?" Who's to know though? Like you is it the same standard that like how do you know that they aren't getting it? Yeah. How I probe them I probe them with questions. Uh you know I I want this individual to answer this question. And so again it's kind of just sitting there letting the client talk with the translator and then the translator coming to me. It just it takes more time that would that would that would really slow down a regular class.

Sure. But I can do that. The other advantage is if maybe somebody is a repeater, not necessarily with me, but maybe this is their second or their third violation. And so I can really hone in, okay, what is going on with you and tailor the material to supportively confront uh the issues that they're facing in hopes of coming up with a good action statement that they can live by. So that's amazing. That makes it almost a little bit concierge, if you will. It is. It is. It it it is it is concierge in in in an education sense. Yeah. Um, and so that means real early mornings because I like to do them in the morning. I I like to have my evenings free so that I can relax and and um because it you are you are on camera all day long. Um, and you're in that bubble and it it's it's like driving. Uh, it's exhausting.

You have to be looking at what's down the road. You got to be looking at what's in your side views. You got to be looking what's behind you. What that pedestrian doing? What's that driver doing? It's the same thing in teaching these courses. What is this client doing? What is this client doing? Is this client engaging or do I need to bring them in? And it just is amazing at how depth that you can get. It it it about 20 minutes into it, the glass falls away and it just feels like we're in a classroom. Wow. It really does. The the the platform falls away and people are engaged just like they would be in a classroom. It's amazing.