Seeking Understanding | Steve Leuck, PharmD, AudibleRx CEO

Transcript Disclaimer: This transcript is generated using speech-to-text technology and may contain errors or inaccuracies.

Steve Leuck, PharmD: [00:00:00] Well, hello, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Steve. Oh, good morning. Hey Steve, for those who haven't come across you online, introduce yourself. And what are we gonna be talking about today? 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: My name is uh, Dr. Steve Leuck pharmacist. I've been practicing for about 35 years now. And currently I'm. CEO of a company called audible RX. We provide, uh, consumer medication information in an easy to listen audio format, trying to help the current state of health literacy in our nation.

Uh, I've written quite a bit. I've, uh, found my pin and have put in, uh, quite a few articles at pharmacy times and have recently ventured off into my own blog space. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't think I even know what the word literacy means. Is it reading or understanding or what does it 

actually 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: mean when someone comes into the store and they pick up their prescription bottle?

We're assuming when they walk out that they're gonna be able to look at that label and have an understanding of what they're supposed to do. Even though we spend time talking with them at the counter, when they get home, they're gonna look at that bottle. They're gonna see their name on there, and there's gonna be a set of directions.

We wanna make sure that they understand what those directions mean. You know, when it says, take two tablets a day, is that once in the morning, once in the evening, do I have it with food? Do I not have it with food? And you know, our nation has this program that over the last 30 years, we've been required to hand out consumer medication, information sheets with each and every press.

Each state has their own specific nuances to that rule. However, that's the education that the patients get aside from their communication with their healthcare provider. And over the years you practiced independent pharmacy, me practicing independent pharmacy. We know that the vast majority of these retail establishments that are out there putting prescriptions out, whether it's mail order or whether it's a big chain store or.

The pharmacist does not always have time to communicate with their patient. And so the idea to, to know that the patient is understanding the medication is, is few and far between nationally, a few years back, there was a study that showed that 36% of the popul. The United States is either at or below literacy levels.

So that means that they, they can't read or they have a very difficult time reading or understanding material 

Mike Koelzer, Host: literacy is based around reading and understanding what you read. Right. I can maybe sound out some Spanish or something, cause I know the rules, but I don't understand it. So it, that sounds 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: perfect.

Exactly. Knowing what you're reading, not only knowing what you're reading, but having it, having a general understanding of what that means. And then when you take that and combine it with health it's, uh, you know, health literacy is an understanding of your health and being able to be in the position where you make appropriate decisions, based upon that understanding.

So someone can, you know, at a general level of health literacy be able to number one, know what your diagnosis is. Or diagnoses, if you have more than one, number two, knowing what your treatment plan is, what did your doctor or pharmacist or nurse practitioner tell you that you're going to do to treat your current diagnoses and number three, understanding those treatments.

How do you go about following through on the treatments that were given to you? May. So I understandably based upon the national levels, there's 30, at least 36% of the population out there that can't do that. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: And so where did this interest start? Steve, with you? The business guy in me is always gonna say, how can I start things as a business?

I don't follow through on those. I just think from the business side to, how did that start as the business for you? The chicken and the egg. Were you saying, Hey, I should do it audibly. And who can I do this for? Or was it. Hey, I see people that are not understanding this. Where did your start in this come from?

Yeah, 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: That's a super good question because you're right. And, and I suppose this is probably the case, those who know how to start businesses do it because they see a financial gain from it and they're able to put in a model and. Boom another year or two later, they've got a profit out of it.

This wasn't necessarily that type of a business. Um, July of 2011, I was sitting in, I clearly remember this. I was in the, in our little store, you know, an outpatient pharmacy and on campus at a community hospital. Patients are coming and going all the time. Cuz they're seeing doctors in the clinic. They walk by.

They look in, they see, oh, there's a pharmacist. I have a question. Let's go talk to 'em. And so they walk in and I always start with, well, I understand you have a question. You fill your prescriptions at this other store, they have your profile. You should [00:05:00] really utilize your pharmacist. I, 100% of the time, try to promote the development of a relationship with your pharmacist.

That's first and foremost, have your pharmacist available so you can talk to. So anyway, this happened one time a patient came in, they were asking about, uh Noex and they had been to their pharmacy, picked up the prescription. The pharmacist was too busy to ask any questions. So they just picked up the question prescription and left.

They didn't have a consultation. So I discussed this with them. I got their information to transfer their other medications over to our store and started taking care of them as a patient. And then I went through the answers to the, to. To their medication and that like clicked. It's like, wow, wouldn't it be great.

If there was a spot where patients could go to a trusted site developed by a pharmacist where they could go to and hear all of the required counseling elements necessary for that particular medication fully 100% with the idea that that counseling would not replace. The pharmacist discussion, it would stimulate a conversation.

So the patient has a clear idea of what they do and don't know about the medications. And ideally then take appropriate questions back to their own healthcare provider, trying to in empower the patient to engage in their own

care. They're gonna have a better outcome of therapy. Clear, clear and simple. They know why they're taking it. And importantly, the, uh, the, the, what are the consequences. If I don't take my medication, that's where it came from. And from that point, what, what was interesting at that point? I went home that night.

I got on the computer and I did research. I wanted to find out if there was any audio presentation out there that did this. I looked and looked and looked and couldn't find anything anywhere. And what it did is it led me to researching what consumer medication information is, where it comes from the long story of the FDA and their requirement.

For consumer medication information and there it was, you know, it's a boring, long story. I've written about that and that's out there and available. I don't wanna talk about that. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: When you made this, were you thinking for a more homey approach or did you think right off the bat that there might be some people that can't read?

Steve Leuck, PharmD: So right off the bat, Mike, what I thought was these consumer medication information sheets that we hand out to patients. These sheets are complicated at best. And patients take a look at them and they quickly scan through maybe to what they wanna look at, or they look at it and they see that there's way too many words that they're specifically written to cover the legal requirements of the institution, handing them out and to take, to take that paper and record that paper sounds like.

Like the dictionary. And so my take on it was to create a quote unquote, plain language, uh, document, not specifically geared to any grade level. I didn't want to pigeonhole it, but what I wanted to do was to create, create a document. That number one covered all of those required elements that the FDA.

Encourages writers of consumer medication information to have in the document. There's an outline that the FDA puts out that says, these are the elements that should be in the CMI document. Right? And so I created my own template and then from non copyright protected material would take that information, put it into the document.

And, and, uh, record it. And yes, specifically my, my, my thought was, yeah, there's, there's an element of people out there who have difficulty understanding these documents. It's difficult, there are patients out there who can't read because their eyesight is difficult. And so that was initially my first, my first thought was those are the people that I want to, I want to get with this and I'm gonna build this and put it out.

and if at some point in time, someone wants to pick it up and pay for it, buy it from me. That's great. But in the meantime, I'm just gonna fill this need and by doing it that way. It allowed me to continue working on it. I didn't have, you know, number one, I didn't invest a bunch of money and all I was doing was putting hours and hours and hours of my time into it.

Time from 4:00 AM to 6:00 AM in the morning. So it wasn't getting in anyone's way. I wasn't taking away from family time. I was able to do this on my own. After doing it and putting it out there. The feedback that I was getting back from friends, from people who were using it is that this is a very useful document to have a very useful product to have for those that are literate for those that fall in the top 50%, because it still meets all of those specific needs.

And it's not talking down to anyone. It's just [00:10:00] talking in plain language. Well, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's interesting because you talk about literacy and earlier, my thoughts were going to people that can't read, but. A lot of people in a way, if they're looking at these FDA sheets, is anybody literate when they're reading these, if it's not broken down into plain English, I mean, your audience really could be like 90% of the population instead of just 36% of the population, you know, because I think we all can.

Broken down a little 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: bit better. Oh, of course. I totally agree. I mean, uh, so in general, think, think about your audience. You have patients who come into your store on a regular basis and. Um, they're given I'm sure that your pharmacists, you or your, your staff always spends time counseling with them, the new prescriptions as they come through, if they had an invitation, when they got home, rather than having that document, that they have to go and read through, or that, that you're required to give them when they go home with a new prescription, if they, uh, if they also had this invitation to follow up on a, uh, on the, on the audible RX website.

If you have any questions, take a look at this right here, just as an extra bit of information, they can go through that. And then. After you listen to that, give me a call. Let me know if you have any questions about what you heard. I'd love to go over it with you. The, what I have found is that patients, once they have listened to it, they have such a better understanding.

And it's just one time. It's not something that people would go back to. It's not designed that someone's gonna go back to on a regular basis as a reference, it's designed as a once and done. Type of a product where they will go through it one time, get a good general understanding of start to finish, how it works, what it's supposed to be doing, what the consequences are of not taking it, that type of thing.

If you gave a 

Mike Koelzer, Host: pharmacist has a choice to say, talk to this person for about a minute or read through this page for four minutes and make it as your voice can be as interesting as you want it to be. But every pharmacist would say, oh, I'm gonna pick the 32nd one or the minute one that's all people are ready for at a given time.

Talk to me about the business side of things, because I've got a lot of stuff that's brewing. I haven't monetized the podcast. You know, it's hard to when you have three listeners, 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: well, that that's me, you and someone 

Mike Koelzer, Host: else. Right. It's usually my guest next week's guest. And then I listen to it and yeah, my dog lady in the car.

So that brings us up to three, but you know for sure. There's stuff I've done. Like I've got this, um, group on LinkedIn, the independent. Pharmacist owners. I've had that since 2009 and that's at about 10,000 people. I haven't done anything with that. I'm just kind of grouping these things up. Mm-hmm where eventually some of these puzzle pieces might fit together.

They might not. But talk to me about audible RX. We talked about where the thoughts started, where did they go to right away after this started and where are they now with audible RX 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: to cover the history of it? Rather quickly, I built a website on my own. I wrote and recorded. 200 sessions of the top medications currently we're at 300 sessions and the idea is we have the top 80 to 85% of the medications that go out of any regular community pharmacy.

So that's our current library and we have it in Spanish and I've started to do it in, um, Vietnamese. I have it in the written format in Vietnamese. After four or five years of doing it, I realized I wasn't gonna get anywhere on my own. I needed to get some help. I got a partner. She was a lady who I'd worked with for, um, 15 years in pharmacy.

And she had just retired and was ready to invest a little bit. And we, we came together, joined forces, uh, and that was about three or four years ago. We got our team together, built a new website. Got the sessions professionally recorded and took it on the road to a pharmacy seminar incredibly well received.

However, no one was ready to pick it up yet because they wanted it integrated into their computer system, into their, their hospital, electronic health record. Over the next year, I had five big pitches. We'd pitched to Rite aid, blue shield dignity. Uh, Sutter health and, uh, first data bank and every one of them thought this was a fantastic idea.

They loved the concept. All of them wanted to show that it was in fact, ready to be integrated into the electronic health record and had studies showing that yes, in fact, it is improving patient health literacy, that it is decreasing readmissions. The idea in the pitch is that with audible ORX, we're gonna affect that a little bit.

Even if we move it one or 2%, we're gonna make an impact on the cost. And then with retail, you know, [00:15:00] DIR fees, right? The direct indirect reward is the ban of our existence. We do not like D fees, 2015 retail pharmacy paid 23 billion. And D fees. Bam. That is a huge number. And the idea that with adherence to medication, a percentage of adherence is patients understanding their medications.

Right. Okay. And so if we could, with, if we could address that percent of the population who is non-ad adhere. Because they don't understand their medications, not just because they forget to take their dose or because they, you know, for whatever other reason we, we address that, uh, they're not adherent.

And now adherence is addressed many different ways. The majority of the ways that we address adherence are medication apps that tell us when to take it bubble, packing, pill boxes, all of those things. The other side of it though, is education. The education of understanding. And there's a couple of studies out there that show that it makes a difference that when people understand their medications, it makes a difference and they take 'em more regularly.

So that 23 billion, if we moved that 1%, that's a lot of money. So those were my pitches, right? They loved it. Even first data bank, I talked to them, they said, this is a great product. Uh, maybe we'll do it ourselves. Um, uh, thanks for the idea, honestly, though, their take on it was, they loved the product they said, but if we, if we integrated your product in with our product, we would have to go through each and every session and vet it to make sure it fit exactly with the material that we have on our database.

And they go, we're not gonna do that. And they said, there's no reason for us to do an audio format for it. We're getting plenty of traction on our written pro written product right now, business model. Doesn't doesn't show the need for it. No, one's gonna pay for it. So those were our pitches. We then went to, you know, and so the hospitals, the retail settings, they wanted it plug and play integrated, ready to.

Mike Koelzer, Host: When they talk about integration, do you mean like the hospital was saying where they had to make sure that it lined up with their information? Or do you mean more technology wise? They wanted it more integrated, like, like on their own screen or something, 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: right? Yeah. Technology wise, they want it integrated with the, you know, how some of the.

Your pharmacy software has programs integrated in the first data bank, you type up a prescription, the paper prints out automatically. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: They wanted it to come out as a QR code or 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: something. Yeah, it would either come out as a barcode or it would come out as a, you know, I, I could give them a plug-in plate. I don't know what this means.

You know, I'm not much of a techie myself. the idea that you could type the prescription and a link is sent to their phone automat. So they click on it and listen 

Mike Koelzer, Host: to it, some integration to make it easy for people. 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: And so that costs a lot of money. I went to investors that some investors really love and were ready to, to give us some, some funding.

However, they don't like the fact that I'm a full-time employee at a hospital. Right. They don't wanna give me a million bucks to start working on a project. If I am not 100% doing that project. Okay. And that was fine. I totally got it. That makes sense. I could go out and hire someone to be that person, but my partner and I looked at it and we thought, you know what?

Our mission here is to provide this education at no charge to patients. We want patients to be able to have this. So a year and a half ago, we regrouped. We got two other people to work with us. One's a pharmacist, one's a, a marketing agent and both of them are very closely related to us and they are in the millennial group set.

So they understand tech much better than my partner and I do. And one of them helped me design the project, a project implementer. She pushed it all the way through, which was amazing. And the other one actually built the website and. Six months ago, we launched our new upgraded, very easy to use website and what we are doing now, our business model at this point in time, moving forward is grassroots I on a daily basis, contact people on LinkedIn and invite them to sign our terms and agreement paper so they can use audible RX in their practice at no charge.

Use it as an education tool for their patients. And we want that to keep [00:20:00] rolling forward. We wanna slowly increase our user base. We wanna see, you know, right now we have 2000 people using it each month throughout the world. We want to get that to 5,000 people a day in order to make a difference. Once we get to a certain level, then we can show that our product has value.

That it is making a difference in a large number of people. And at that point in time, a larger company's gonna look at it and say, Hey, okay. We are in need of having our own database, our own library of consumer medication information for our patient population. This looks like a really good product. We want it.

And we're gonna say, okay, good. What do you, you know, let's make a deal. But until that point comes along, Which it will. Our idea is to just, just keep working at it, uh, building sessions as necessary and promoting it and getting out in front of people. We, um, our latest venture, and this is, this is something good.

If any, so my invitation here, since I have a forum, is any pharmacist out there, any institution who would like to use this as an education resource for their patients? We have a simple terms and agreement, paper, check a couple boxes and sign it and send it back to us. And then we will help you promote it within your practice, however necessary.

And if you like we're gathering collaborative, uh, partners where we will post your logo on our page as a collaborative partner in favor of increasing health literacy. And in return you post. Our logo on your page, showing that you're using our product. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I think so many pharmacies can relate to the fact that in business, one of the lessons there is you keep moving daily and people will say, well, no, Mike, anybody can just move.

You have to make progress. It's like, I know that, but there's also just value in moving. It seems to keep grease on the gears. You know, it's a big thing. 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: Oh, I totally agree. Yeah. You, you have shown that in, in what you do, you have to have, you have to have some goals that you're setting. And you have to be able to meet those on a regular basis or re at least review them on a regular basis.

I, I like to say where I am right now. I'm nine and a half years into my 10, 10 year overnight success. Yeah, exactly right. , 

Mike Koelzer, Host: That's the truth. Starting something like this, you know, 10 years ago is, is 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: quite a feat. Well, the idea of maintaining passion in order to continue doing it. And that to me, you know, prior to that, Prior to that, I'd always been looking for the thing that's going to keep me going, what will my legacy be?

What am I gonna continue to do throughout the years? And this stuck, you know, I put it out there. I started doing it six months later, I'm looking at myself, wow, this is, this is still happening. Yeah. And so you were talking about how to. How to get it out there, how to monetize, you know, your three, your three listeners that you have, how do we make that seven?

Yeah. Um, and what I did in 2014 or 2015, sometime around there. Reading all that I could about how to get people to look at my website. And I didn't want to, I didn't wanna pay, I didn't wanna pay anyone advertising. And so the idea was blogging. That was the number one way to try to get people to look at my website.

And then the question comes to how, how much, how often, what am I supposed to do? And general consensus is twice a week. And so what I did in the beginning. December or January 1st, 2014 or 15. I'm not sure. I started a, uh, I started a blog page and I wrote, I, I made a commitment to myself for the next 52 weeks.

I'm gonna post twice a week. And, um, and I was surprised that there was always a topic. There was always something to talk about. And throughout that time, my following grew and grew and grew, which was really nice. I appreciated that. And it also stimulated this, uh, process of wow. Okay. Uh, you know, as time went by, my writing got a little bit, a little bit more interesting, a little bit less, um, fact and a little bit more story and.

Um, at the end of that end, end of that timeframe, I thought, well, I kind of like this. I'd like to continue on doing this a little bit because it, it seems to work and there was at that time, and I'm not sure if you're familiar with this site, a, a gentleman, I forget what his name is, but he runs a site called RX E consult, and he has a forum for [00:25:00] healthcare professionals.

Who wants to be published, who hasn't put it out there anymore. They sign up with him and it's kinda like a, kinda like a Strava for, or Facebook for, uh, for people who want to put right articles, they sign up, they put their article on and, and you can post your own articles to hear. Um, so I did that for about a year, signed up with him and, you know, once every month I would post an article and I, and I would put a little more time into it than I would the blog.

And then for my blog post, I would just link it to that. After doing that for about a year, a friend, an online associate who I had worked with in the past. Um, and I think you've interviewed him before Alex, Alex barks. Yes, Alex. Right. He, uh, he sent me a note and said, Hey, Steve pharmacy times is looking for some pharmacist to write to, to increase their viewership.

And, um, I thought, okay, this sounds like a good opportunity. And so I. Put my hat in the ring. And they said, okay, sure. If you're willing to give us a couple articles, uh, a month on a regular basis, then, um, we'd be happy to review 'em and post 'em if we would like 'em. And so I started in on that and, and, and, and, you know, they, this was actually making money, you know, we, we would get paid for 'em, which was something totally new to me, the concept of, you know, writing and getting paid for doing that.

Um, I did that for about 18 to 20 months or so. And it was really enjoyable and I was amazed at how much viewership the articles got. And they also allowed me to put a bio that had my link to my website. So that was more publicity. That was good. And that increased audible or access following as 

Mike Koelzer, Host: well.

You've got a lot of articles in there. Steve, how many did you put in pharmacy times? There 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: are I, I looked the other day. Just check for this. And there were between 80 and a hundred. I, I forget the exact number, but I was. Going down, lots of different topics. I was 

Mike Koelzer, Host: looking at it. And typically when someone says they've been in the magazine, it's like, you know, you're looking, gonna look at a few, three, four articles, something like that.

But there's a ton of 'em at 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: the end of that at the end of my time doing that, I, I, I was, um, I wanted to have my own material. I had all of these different thoughts and ideas building up that we're not really pharmacy times material. And they had changed their structure on how. Remunerate you for your time.

And I decided to take it elsewhere. So I created my own space about a year and a half or two years ago called viewpoint RX. And I try to get myself to put a story down at least once every four to six weeks or so. And the idea of my current space is that everyone. Major impactful stories that have happened in their life, right?

These different things that we've come across, that we've done. Some of them touching, some of them funny, all of them. When you sit and meditate on it for a while, somehow many of them can be related back to the pharmacy world. One way, shape or form. Probably about 

Mike Koelzer, Host: Five years ago, I did a similar thing for the business I wanted to.

Blog a little bit. And so I said I was gonna do a hundred and when I was done, I was going to stop. I knew that I was starting to get close mentally, that I had to stop around a hundred and I ended up splitting those up and they were about 50 personal 50 business. And I put 'em into a little collection of each one value I have from that is if you ask someone to write an article on a, on a drug, you know, Accutane or something like that, it's obvious that they would then learn a lot more from it, even though the information's out there, but just the fact of them organizing it and putting it into paragraphs and so on.

They're gonna learn a ton from it. But I think that these lessons that, uh, you have on the viewpoint RX, it's amazing how clear those become. In your head. Once you've had to think of that for two or three days, life lessons by thinking of it and verbalizing it and writing about things like that, that if you didn't have that, you wouldn't capture those thoughts as well.

And those would not become lessons to somebody else because you haven't even sorted it out in your own head 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: yet. I totally agree that that's 100% correct. And, um, And being able to have the opportunity to do that is a blessing given the time to sit and think through those processes and the willingness to participate in it and share it out there.

And the conversation that you get because of that is nothing but growth. You 

Mike Koelzer, Host: mentioned audible RX about something to put your stamp on, and you talk about these blog posts and stuff like that. for me. I think deep down has something to do with legacy, you know, of, of being able to share. I want people to know a little bit of me, maybe when I'm gone.

I don't know. I just feel like maybe as [00:30:00] humans creating humans, some of us want to leave stuff behind. How much do you think about that? Like this stuff is handed on as your wisdom or doesn't it go that far? 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: 100% everything you said? Yes. Um, I. I love the fact that both my kids, they're 27 and 29 right now, um, that both of them love to participate in my life and understand what's going on and, um, have a deep understanding of where I've been and what I've gone through and where I've come to as well as my wife and you touch on a real key point of, of legacy and kids and what our life is meant to be that type of stuff.

So when my kids were three. And five years old, I turned myself into the state board of pharmacy and my supervisor because I was using drugs. Uh, I was stealing drugs from work. I was using drugs. I was drinking and I needed help. And I had a, I had an immense spiritual awakening that happened when I was at church one day.

I still went to church every week, even though I was going through this stuff. And. Priest. I felt like was looking straight at me and saying, okay, you know, after the sermon that he had given it related to going home and dealing with the one thing that has been on your mind forever, that you're not taking care of, go home and take care of it today.

And that was like a burning Bush. Right. Um, I went home. Told my wife that look, this is what's going on. She didn't know. She knew that something was crazy because her life had been in turmoil for the last two or three years. But I was a highly productive healthcare professional working a lot of hours, maintaining a home.

You know what all intensive purposes looked like living the dream on the outside. And I went home, told her, and we called my boss. He said, okay, Steve, thank you. I said, if you need to call the police and have him arrest me, do it, whatever you need to do, I just can't do this anymore. And he said, he said, no, we're gonna call the state board of pharmacy, the recovery program.

We got a hold of the, uh, state board of pharmacy recovery program. And the next day I was in a 28 day treatment. Um, I saved my life. And when I was there, the first night I was there, groups of people brought 12 step meetings into these recovery programs. At least the one that I was at. And the one that came on the first day was one of our local physicians.

I knew him. He told his story. How he, you know, his experience, what had happened, his strength, what he had gotten from the program and his hope where he was going to, and I looked at that and I thought, oh, this is how you stop. I had no idea how to stop using it. Just didn't know how to stop drinking and how to stop using it.

Wasn't uh, in my skill set, I had tried many times for. A day, two days, two hours, and it just wasn't happening. I learned the tools. There are tools. Talk about a toolbox that's full of these recovery tools. My kids knew from the get go by the time my daughter was in third grade and she was having these. Dare programs at school, you know, where they come in, they talk about drugs and stuff.

She would come home and she would interview me. She would interview her dad about, you know, who you know about what it was like to take drugs, what it was like to drink, what it was, you know, these different things, and then go back to school and be able to answer all the questions appropriately. I, um, my, my understanding of this process is that kids need to understand everything that we're going through, in my opinion, it, um, The idea of sequestering or secluding them from the truth.

Um, Does not help them, understanding the truth and understanding what we're going through when they're old enough to understand it. You know, that's our, that's a parenting prerogative when they're old enough to understand different things differently, more and more is revealed. But the, um, they, they look forward to the articles that I write that are deep and involved and, and.

Troubles that I have gone through or growth that I have had. They have, uh, they always are excited about it when it comes out, they go right to reading it and, and, and love commenting, or sharing back and having conversation about it. I wasn't sure if I was gonna practice again. So I had a, I, I picked up a, um, started going to a, a program to become a certified drug and addiction counselor.

And it was a, a, a year long certification program. And once I just, as I was completing that program and, and that was an amazing program that it helped open up and [00:35:00] along with, along with state mandated mandated therapy and group sessions with other doctors and pharmacists, this really helped me understand where it came from the whole, not just how to live without taking drugs and alcohol, but where did it come from?

How did I get to this? What was going on in my life from when I was born until now that brought me to this point here, it allowed me to move forward and see that. Yes, I'm still a good person. I can still practice pharmacy really well. And I have a lot to offer to this world. And, um, with that, I've opened up at our local community hospital.

Just before I graduated from this addiction counseling program, I applied for it, went in, talked to them and from the get go, I sat down and said, look, here's my story. This is what I've been through. And here's where I am today. And this is what I hope to do if you hire me. And they were like, okay, that's good.

We trust you. Come on in. We'll give you a chance. That was, uh, uh, 24 years ago, 

Mike Koelzer, Host: the time that you remember your first thoughts, there's some ingredient why you were abusing drugs and escaping and things like that. I imagine that's a 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: lifetime in short, for me, it was all about people pleasing and that pendulum, the right that pendulum, that swings back and forth on one side, I, from the get, go being the youngest of.

And having all of these older siblings that are, that are just so excited to see you and wanna know how you're doing and oh yeah. You're going straight to college. That type of thing. You know, you, you want, you wanna please? I wanted to please people because it felt really good. But then on the other side of it, I realized that no, I don't wanna please people.

I don't wanna escape. Uh, and, and this alcohol really helps me hide from people. It helps me escape those feelings that I need to perform really well, and that does nothing but grow as time goes on. And, you know, before I knew it, I'm, I'm, you know, performing well in high school, doing good senior class president and, uh, honor roll.

And at the same time, You know, getting drunk on weekends every time. And then in, once you get, once I got into college, it was the same thing I was, I did really well in school. I was participating in state pharmacy organizations. I was participating in the student counseling programs on the other side of it, the weekend partying was just increasing and increasing, and then you bring it into the professional world.

And you think, you know, as a healthcare professional, I've got it all under control, as long as I'm still showing up for work. As long as I'm, my clothes are washed and I'm getting dressed and I'm, I'm bringing money home and buying a house and raising kids. It's all fine. I got it under control. Don't worry about it.

Whereas on the other side, I'm, you know, I'm, I'm volunteering for more to stay late. I'm coming in early, I'm taking on extra tasks just to show all these people that look, I've got it all under control when in fact. On the other side of it, it's just increasing and getting stronger and stronger. And, you know, it's in those situations, people who they're gonna get, they're gonna get caught up in a lie and get caught by the authorities because they've drunk driving or stolen something or something, or they're gonna, um, or they're gonna kill themselves inadvertently 

Mike Koelzer, Host: you.

And I talked a little bit before the show and we're both in number. Eight children. I'm eight of 12 and you're, you're eight of eight. And it's practically worse for you because you're the youngest. I was the youngest boy. I can appreciate that of being the one that people looked to. For me, it wasn't so smart, but it was being a, um, kind of a clown around the family.

I wasn't necessarily. Clown in life, but around the family, you know, I, I could, I could make 'em laugh, you know, and, and most of it is stuff you can't repeat on the air here. Right? not because it's filthy, it's just childish, you know, childish stuff that you. Try to get a laugh from, but it became where you almost became two separate people, the tears of a clown, you know, or something where sure.

In your case, it was the tears of someone who was being productive and straight and narrow and leadership and things like that. Merging those together. The true Steve with the outward, Steve, it's just hard to become that one person that for the first 25 years of your life, it was, it was almost like two split people.

You're. 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: And it's and, and what I learned and what, what is, what I can do now, um, is be present with my wife, be present with my kids. And this has been the gift of the last 25 years. Is that when something happens, when something critical happens at home, Steve's present, we don't, they, they don't have to worry if I'm gonna be here or not.

I'm there. [00:40:00] And if something happens at work, you know, I'm, I'm there also at that point in time, there's, there's, there's an authenticity to being present and, um, not needing to think back in your brain. What did I tell him last time? Because I wanna make sure I tell him the same story this next time. And I stick to that storyline.

If all that you're doing is telling the truth. If all that you'd have is integrity, as you move forward, then you don't even have to think about it because you know that what you told 'em last time is gonna be the same as what you tell 'em this time, because you're pulling from the same spot inside of you.

That has that same authentic, true story. And that takes away so much stress and so much angst out of your life, that it allows you to focus and be more clear and present with what's going on in front of you today. It's incredible, um, I mean, a lot of people already know this because they weren't born as drug addicts and alcoholics, but myself, it was, it was something brand new to me.

This concept of being able to be present. When you say 

Mike Koelzer, Host: present and being telling the truth, does that mean physically or are you talking more about your feelings being true? Both. 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: Both on all levels. The idea of being present is that when I'm, when I'm sitting with someone like you today, I'm not thinking about everything else I need to do.

I'm here with you and you've got my attention. I can carry that over to time with my wife, when I'm sitting with her, she's got my attention. I'm not, I'm not worried about what's going on over here or over here or stuff at work or because, um, Because I know all that's where it's supposed to be. I'm here with her at that moment in time.

And that isn't something that I always knew how to do. Was that 

Mike Koelzer, Host: because you were covering your tracks in the snow, or that was a challenge that you had of, of focusing? I don't 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: I think it was much of a challenge I had with focusing. I think so. It was, yes, it was covering my tracks, but it was also, um, not worrying what other people are thinking about me and for such a long time for such a long time.

That's what I grew up with. All of these old elder siblings, me being concerned, me wanting to present myself to them in an appropriate light because I adore them and concerned what they would think about me. And then I carry that through to school and everyone's judging you. And I, and, and I didn't have the tools to not care what they thought about me.

So I tried to meet their expectations. Yes. And when I went to work, I tried to meet their expectations and exceed their expectations. So 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I always came in as the pleaser. So I was pleasing everybody because that was my way to motivate them. And pretty soon I truly created two different people. I finally.

Kind of broke down and got some professional help in merging those two people together. My outside and my inside are getting closer to one another. 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: What I 

hear from you and what I think is a really important message you're saying is number one, the merging of these two, this side, and this side is bringing you more closely together.

To be the authentic Mike That's our, our authenticity. That's what we wanna show through is our authenticity. This, the inside and the outside look the same. We walk the walk, we talk, the talk. Someone sees us. They're seeing who really is here. They're not seeing a persona projecting something else. They're really seeing the person who's here.

This is what you get. Second thing is there is help and it doesn't matter. Strong. We are strong. We think we are, or no matter how damaged we think we might be, it helps to talk to someone to start that step of seeking a therapist, talking to a counselor, asking for an employee assistance program, whatever that may be.

There's there's, I've never met anyone who has come out the other side of going to therapy thinking, oh, that was a waste of time that didn't do any good. Is always a benefit to it. And, and, and that's a strong message. What it makes you do is it makes you face yourself. You have to look at it. There has to be some sort of willingness to walk through that door and to participate, but that's there.

That's a really good thing. There's 

Mike Koelzer, Host: a lot of help, whether it's medicinal help therapy. Reading support groups, whatever. And one thing I'm happy about now is that I know where that support is, and I'm still using a good portion of that. And so [00:45:00] I feel. Actually safer now because I know where my net is.

And when I think back to the pharmacist that gave you his trust when you had just gotten out of, uh, you know, therapy and so on. I think people know that they're like, well, you're maybe the last person I'm concerned with now because you know the tools that are there, you've got that safety net. 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: So what I, what I like about that is bringing that full circle back around to where we are today.

Working in a pharmacy, talking with people are those tools that I got from the treatment program from the year long course on drug and alcohol counseling. I utilize those every day in my practice. We have patients who come to me in the county, they come to me in our pharmacy specifically because they know that I'm gonna keep them on track with their controlled substances.

We have patients who, at least once a week, are early on their refills, you know? I mean, we get that all the time, you know, without that work anyway. Many times they'll many times they'll just slightly open the door a little bit by saying, well, what am I gonna do? That's an invitation to me to share with them a little bit about, yeah, there is hope you, you, we, we can, we can work on this.

There's, uh, many different ways that we can proceed with many physicians that I work with. Know, no, no, my story. And so they will refer patients to me specifically so that I can work with them in my short, you know, two or five minute counseling sessions with the counter. A lot 

Mike Koelzer, Host: pharmacists have a big heart, but someone who's been through what you've been through, I don't know, maybe has like a little bit more of an easy path to the heart to get to other people you've been there and, and done that.

That's quite a gift that you can bring out of your road that you've traveled. So thank you for all you do. Yeah. I 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: appreciate that. These ideas, I can't encourage enough for young pharmacists to number one, get on LinkedIn. Put yourself out there. Start connecting with people. Number two, start writing a blog, especially pharmacy students pick the topics that you're interested in once a month, put it out there, right about it.

Try to connect with people, create your online presence. And then when you have an idea, that's got some legs, pick it up and walk forward with it. We have so many pharmacists who are so incredibly clinically fantastic. They know their stuff inside and out. They. really fast. They're sharp, they're clear, but they don't necessarily take their ideas, package 'em up and present them to someone else and try to move forward with it.

And that's what I encourage is taking those ideas, packaging them. Trying to find out who you present it to and move forward with it. You know, be that, be that person who steps out of the box. 

Mike Koelzer, Host: I don't think you can emphasize that enough of getting that stuff down and writing, even if it's not widely disseminated, yet you have taken a thought and put it on paper and packaged it into something that's coherent.

And once you make it coherent for someone else, what you're really doing is making it coherent for yourself. Yeah. Steve really fascinating stuff. Keep up the fight way 

Steve Leuck, PharmD: to. Mike. I appreciate it. Thank you very much. And you as 

Mike Koelzer, Host: well. God bless. Bye-bye.