A Story of Recovery, Grief, and Service with John Torsch

In this powerful episode, Rich Bennett and co-host Wendy Beck sit down with John Torsch to discuss his deeply personal journey through addiction, grief, and recovery. After losing his brother, Daniel, to an overdose, John turned tragedy into purpose by dedicating his life to harm reduction and addiction advocacy. He shares the inspiring story of how his family started the Daniel Carl Torsch Foundation, which focuses on overdose prevention, harm reduction, and supporting families affected by addiction. Through his experience in advocacy and outreach, John emphasizes the importance of compassion, community, and meeting people where they are in their recovery journey. Join us as we explore how grief can ignite a mission of hope and service.

Sponsored by: Rage Against Addiction, a nonprofit dedicated to connecting addicts and their families with the resources they need for a lasting recovery. Visit RageAgainstAddiction.org to learn more.

Sponsor Message:

Today's episode of Conversations with Rich Bennett is brought to you by Rage Against Addiction. Rage Against Addiction is a nonprofit organization dedicated to providing support, resources, and education to families and individuals battling addiction. Whether you’re seeking recovery, supporting a loved one, or looking to get involved, Rage Against Addiction is committed to helping you every step of the way. Together, we can fight the disease of addiction and rebuild lives.

To learn more or to support their mission, visit RageAgainstAddiction.org.

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Transcript

Rich Bennett 0:00
Welcome to Conversations with Wendy. 

I just had to. 

Wendy Beck 0:08
Thank you. 

Rich Bennett 0:08
I'm her co-host. 

Wendy Beck 0:11
Today he is, ladies and gentlemen. 

Rich Bennett 0:15
Oh, God. Now, Wendy told me that if she had somebody special she wanted to bring on. And of course, Tiger, before we recorded, I think she did this to embarrass me, cause she knows I love to talk about cooking and all the food, but he is a chef. And we have John Tauscher on with us. But I'm going to just let Wendy take it over before. Look, you got me all. Frazzled here where you said chef and was like and I just came back from that cooking class to was like, Come on now. 

Wendy Beck 0:50
I know. Well, the reason that I wanted to bring John on is that I'm I'm very familiar with the foundation that his family started. And I'm not sure how many years ago I was going to guess around ten. Years, maybe 

John Torsch 1:06
Pretty. 

Wendy Beck 1:06
13 years. Okay. And this is partially it's about overdose awareness because we have a loved one that struggled and we have similar stories in some ways. And but I also want to kind of go through the journey with you about, you know, the the devastation that your family went through, the hope that you're bringing to the community, and then your separation from that into a passion that you have now or have had along the way, because you have a really interesting story. Would you would you mind just giving us a little bit of the backstory on, you know, starting wherever you want with that? And we can throw in some questions because I don't even know where to start because you have so much you have such a of an abundance of experience in so many different fields that I want you to kind of start where you think the story is, you know, should start. 

John Torsch 2:04
Well, yeah, you're right over. As my mom said, I wear a lot of hats, and I've worn a lot of hats in my life. 

I guess. You know, I have a lot of interest, and this is like my life is like 80 days played out over 40 years of what it looks like of, you know, mildly controlled, you know, 80 day. 

I have an interest in something and I turn out that I'm good at it and make and I can make a living at it and I try to pursue it or if it feels right or something that needs to be done. It's just always done it. I have to. Right? So I was born with thread syndrome and part of having Tourette's is this. It's kind of shared across the spectrum. There's this like hyper exaggerated sense of justice that a lot of us with threads seem to have. We're very highly empathic. We we really had starting at an early age, a lot of us become advocates because we know what it's like just to struggle in our own life and have so little control over our own thoughts and bodies. And it just turns us into, you know, kind of like a natural born anti-authoritarian. And, you know, it's this justice warrior. So it's just in my nature. I guess you have to pursue a lot of the stuff that I've done. But my story, I mean, I guess cooking and that's what I'm doing right now, it's kind of come back full circle. So I started cooking when I was getting paid to cook when I was 13. My earliest memories are of rolling meatballs with my grandmother and cooking with my mother and grandmother. So food was always a big deal in our family and we always had a lot of joy in the kitchen purchases. So my happiest memories are and are in the kitchen. My uncle solely selling seafood in Gardnerville and Northeast Baltimore. So that's where I got started and started as a grunt. I was 13 years old, getting paid $4 cash every day and cleaning out the cleaning out the grease pits under the old school, you know, three bay sinks and and doing the fryers and mopping, just being the grunt and slowly, you know, learning how to sort crabs and seeing crabs. And, you know, you had some great folks that work there. One in particular who showed me the ropes of some of Shotover cooking and I'm you know, young team is doing this. And I progressed throughout the years. I worked at the original Beau Brooks for a while. I moved with them to Canton when they made the move begin originally, that was when I was like 15 or 16. I was a cook at Glenmore Garden for a while, and then I came back and became the sous chef and then kind of like a quasi head chef there for a little while. But that's a long story. So I'm going to bounce around a couple of different restaurants kind of learning what I wanted to learn from each chef or each restaurant that I worked for. And when I was 20, I wound up basically taking my first solo trip to Jamaica and not always my parents. You know, we didn't have much, but the one thing we did have, you know, every couple of years was a big vacation. And, you know, they would take us to to Jamaica twice as a, you know, eight years old and maybe 12 years old. So I always knew that I'd be back and, you know, I had always dreamed of, you know, just living that kind of like vagabond lifestyle and seeing what life was like, you know, living outside of the US, making trying to make it on my own. So 20 I took my first trip there, spent two months there and fell in love with it and basically had the offer to come back as sort of the the seasonal chef of the restaurant. So I would go back for anywhere from like two months to four or five months of the year and cook a little bit in the restaurant, grow a little ganja, make a little hash. It was it was a very exciting, relaxing. It's like living in a Jimmy Buffett song. You have to really for four months out of the year 

and did that for as long as I could. 

Transitioned into the low voltage field for a while. I was independent contractor. I have a camera systems and things like that for a few years and got out of the kitchen and 

that's kind of what I was in limbo doing when dad died. Dan died in 2010 and in December 2000. 

Wendy Beck 6:17
That's your brother. 

John Torsch 6:18
There is one other. 

Wendy Beck 6:18
That's just for the audience. 

John Torsch 6:20
Daniel. George. So when Dan died in 2010, you know, I was still heavily into my own drug use, you know, drugs and addiction and drug dealers selling drugs all on a large part of my story. You know, it's the same age that I started cooking. I started selling drugs. It's just kind of like how the progression worked. 

Cannabis did for me. What no pill or entire team of doctors ever could. So a 13, that's the first joint changed my life. So, you know, 13 I was you smoking weed every day and, you know, beating myself up on the prescription meds that I've been on since I was seven. And from that moment on, you know, just not because of the weed itself. I just sort of like who I was introduced to, the circle that I would be introduced to through that. And it just kind of led to the natural progression. So, you know, when Dan died, I was still I wouldn't say I was, you know, deep into my addiction at the time, but I was still, you know, using opiates pretty regularly the night he died, You know, I was I was high on oxygen 

when Dan died. You know, obviously, you go through the initial shock of, you know, such a traumatic death. We found him. You know, I worked on him for 10 minutes till the paramedics got there. So, I mean, it wasn't a you know, it wasn't a phone call or knock on the door. It was kind of as traumatic as it could be, I guess you can say. And, you know, at first at first we knew we weren't going to let down. Like we know we were going to do something like we can't let Dan just be a statistic because he was so much larger than his addiction and he was just such a beautiful soul. 

So the first thing we did, we tried to find some support because, like, you didn't actually my mom. 

Wendy Beck 8:10
How old was he? If you don't mind me interrupting. I'm sorry. I don't. 

John Torsch 8:13
You can interrupt any time. Dan was 24. 

Wendy Beck 8:17
24. Okay. 

John Torsch 8:18
And, you know, I have a habit of, like, bouncing around in stores. I'll be a Dallas 24. You know, he had been through traditional treatment and rehab probably four times by that time, starting at 17. And at the time, he had been he was living hit his longest stretch of really solid recovery for probably nine or ten months. He was living in Florida. You know, he got shuffle, he got patient broke. And unfortunately, he went from, you know, Bowling Green white urine up here to move down to Boca and, you know, just milking my parents insurance and all the all the extras in the recovery. Housing simply did well, at least for the time that he was down there. So when he came home, Dan, you know, dad came home in September of 2010. He looked great. He was healthy, tanned, You know, he had nine months of recovery, the longest stretch he had had. And his whole life, really, his whole, you know, later, later in life. 

And yeah, I mean, we we thought all was well. And, you know, three months later, you know, he was gone. So 

my mom was really the one who kind of was like searching for a comfort, you know. So she was one week we went to a few 

bereavement groups together and like, none of them just felt right. I think one was compassionate friends and things like that. He just then, you know, when you know how it's just it's it's different when you've lost someone to drug related death, it's just a different feeling, a different stigma that goes with it. The battle is is different. Not that, you know, your grief is any more important or more painful than someone who's lost their parent. But it's hard, you know? So you want to be. 

Wendy Beck 10:02
It's complicated. It's definitely complicated. 

John Torsch 10:06
So we found grass and I think January saw one snowy January night. And me, my mom drove up to Philly and we found our people. We found our group were like, All right, these people get it. They understand us. We got to have a little bit of hope. We have to see like these are people that are four years, five years out from this. And, you know, they're they're okay. You know, they some people have done things in their loved ones memory. 

And that's why after that, you know, we started in that first year, you know, you're just kind of in shock. You're just kind of in autopilot. And yeah, I remember sitting at the kitchen table just thinking, what are we all talking? What are we going to do? You know, what what can we do to to honor Dan? And we decided to start over 1c3 and become a nonprofit. Seems like the logical thing to do. We'll have a bull roast, will raise some money and just, you know, see what we could do. At the time, you know, we had struggled with a lot of the financial burden of Dan's treatment, the co-pays and the recovery, housing and things like that. 

Deductibles. So we applied My mom really I mean, I did a little bit for my mom, you know, sitting at the kitchen table for like two months, filling out the five, the 1c3 paperwork. We got it. And I applied in June and got it in August. And we had our first fundraiser and then shortly after and I think we raised we that was our big year mean first I was our biggest fundraiser. We raised like $30,000 and we just decided like we'll just kind of do whatever we can and we paid for some treatment scholarships and we had some recovery housing scholarships and we were patient like somebody needed a deductible to go into treatment. But we were but then we started finding ourselves as as navigators. I mean, almost immediately we realized that my mother, especially, you know, myself, would kind of worked in tandem helping them these last couple of years. We had this wealth of knowledge that they didn't have. So we were able to almost immediately start helping families navigate. And back then, the system was incredibly complicated. The treatment was not available since before the Affordable Care Act and before Medicaid expansion. You know, it's it's 

it was not a good time to be seeking such treatment in Maryland. 

But, you know, one thing after another, it slowly snowballed. And we would have more fundraisers and we would see more needs. And I went and decided to travel. And shortly after that I left and I traveled for years. You know, I've been a solo traveler now for most half of my life. And just basically after Dan died, I pretty much sold everything that I owned and liquidated my entire material life and broke up with my fiance at the time and just totally changed my life. And I left for Asia and 

didn't come home for like ten months. And anyway, I kept going for four years, you know, doing this. And my own addiction progressed as I was traveling because in my own grief, you know, that was my that was my way of creating. Dan was just traveling and using every drug that I could get my hands on and 

other things, taking just lots of risk, whether it was the sex or money or drugs or you know, gambling. Every place that I could, you know, had access to 

what really was the turning point was I came back in 2017 

and decided to write a book, finished like my memoir and Tell Mine and Dan's story. And in the middle of writing that, I just I wrote this really poignant chapter and it really detailed, like the the depths of Dan and I's just kind of what we went through together and sort of the peak of my own, I guess, dealing. So and at the time I was just left with this really profound sense of guilt, like it really put into perspective just how much I had taken from the community that was from addicted to opiates for so many years. Because even though that I use opiates, I always had what I would call it the dealer's habit. I always had the light switch for whatever reason, when drugs became a problem for me, I have this sense of self awareness and whatever you want to call it, and I want to call it strength or fortitude, whatever it is. For whatever reason, I have a switch that Dan and a lot of our friends don't have. When drugs become problematic for me, I can flip a switch and walk away from certain substances without therapy and treatment and starting the clock and some of these things. Dan couldn't. 

So I had to really take a look at that. And and what I decided was, okay, the way that I'm going to kind of balance the scales and 

sort of repay some of this debt that I felt that I owed was to really run with our foundation. Now, like, I'm going to see what I can do for people that are still struggling. I'm doing well myself now. I found my own recovery a year before that, after a really horrible night in the Keys or really terrible morning. I said, Great mother, terrible morning. So that's what sort of my own recovery. So. 

Wendy Beck 15:18
Can you tell us a little bit about the mission of the the foundation and how it how it changed and some of the really poignant things that you guys have done that I really want people to know about, things that you were involved in, in the Narcan and all of those kind of things. I just it's amazing. And Rich, his mom is Tony, you know that right with Tony talks that we she was part of 

Rich Bennett 15:47
Oh. 

Wendy Beck 15:47
the. Yeah. So I'm sorry, 

Rich Bennett 15:49
No, 

Wendy Beck 15:49
I. 

Rich Bennett 15:49
I know why the name says familiar. Okay. 

Wendy Beck 15:52
Sorry about that. Yes. So. Okay. Sorry. I didn't mean to interrupt again. 

John Torsch 15:57
That's for you. Let me know where you are. Like I said, because I can diverge my. It's been such a. It's been a wild ride and there's a lot of different parts to it. So the foundation in 20, so we started we're very politically active, as you know. And so we started 2012 by helping to introduce the the 2013 Overdose Prevention Act or I response bill, I should say sorry if either ambitious, responsible. So our the only water we had from that day with Dan was what if we had Narcan? What if we had Naloxone? All right. When I fell down, he was warm. I don't know if he had a pulse because of the adrenaline that was going in me. But the reality is, if we had naloxone that day, you know, things like my life would have been might have been much different. So at the time when Dan died, the only place you could get Narcan from was this Baltimore City Department of Health. And they were only writing prescriptions to people in active addiction, which doesn't make any sense to the time that you need Narcan is if you're unconscious. Right. So we my mom got together with Cathy Klaus Meyer, and they'll get Eric from all at the time and helped with a couple of other really amazing. Wendy, I believe you are a part of that and Ginger and just get the sounds. Mom, you've got a m Sara We're really pissed off. Grieving moms got together and got this really incredible piece of legislation passed, and that's sort of where it really began. Like the working that where we shifted from a quote, like a traditional foundation that just sort of takes in and gives out different different scholarships, different grants and money to a working nonprofit, a working charity where we started coming in boots on the ground. So Dan Big, who was sort of afraid of the grandfather of of harm reduction, it's just an amazing human being is the reason why we have the low barrier access and the locks on the we have today. He gave us our first shipment of, I think three or 400 doses of naloxone from what was called ocean at the time. And we started just giving out kits and doing community trainings on how to use it, trying to get it into the people's hands. And they did the most and just it snowballed from there. We went from that into the Good Samaritan law trip, helping to pass the original good Samaritan law and multiple amendments to that law. The 

there's a couple of different other pieces of legislation that we've we've worked on. But really it was when I came back here I'm really excited to expand is when we started Hot. We went after grants, we started hiring an outreach team. I actually went in to different treatment centers and started meeting with everyone who was applying for recovery housing scholarships. That was when I started sort of working as a peer without even knowing it. I would go in, I'd meet with everyone that was asking for a scholarship, find out what their additional needs were, and decide whether or not they were the right person for a recovery, housing scholarship, and also what else we could do to help meet their needs. Whether it was clothes or food or legal issues. They were having case management challenges. They were having. And again, it's just recognizing the need and writing a grant for. And that's really how it became where we are today. You know, harm reduction was I mean, I'd always practice harm reduction, not even knowing it. But then as I became more involved and researched and started being introduced to so many incredible people that were on the frontlines of harm reduction, that's when I would say like we really kind of exploded in the direct in the direct services, actually hiring an outreach team, putting on our backpacks, going into encampments, getting getting the supplies that people really desperately needed into their hands, and slowly growing into this really incredible outreach team that we've created today that now includes a wound care nurse. And we have seven employees. We have five team of five peers of incredible care coordinator. So, I mean, our philosophy these days are when we meet people where they are with zero barriers and we simply say, how can we help you today? And if we can't help you with exactly what you're asking for, we can introduce you to someone who is for someone. I'm sorry? Someone. 

Wendy Beck 20:13
Yeah. For the for the already the listening audience. It's not very familiar with harm reduction. Can you just give us like a, you know, a 50,000 foot view of what that is and how that is and can be the first steps to recovery? 

John Torsch 20:28
Well, harm reduction is recovered. Recovery is harm reduction. It's it's one you know, they go hand in hand. So the the proper definition would be, you know, harm reduction is a set of principles and practices meant to reduce the harm of of drug use. It's also and more importantly, at its core, it is a movement for self social justice built on a belief in and by people who use drugs so long. At the core of harm reduction is listening to people who use drugs, giving them actually a seat at the table and listening to our voices and helping to dismantle all of these systems and walls and the cycle of what would I call it, the American endemic that have created the cycle of addiction and drug use that we have today. So harm reduction at its core is reducing the harm of any inherently dangerous activity. You know, wearing a seatbelt is harm reduction. A designated driver as harm reduction, wearing sunblock is harm reduction. Wearing a life preserver is is harm reduction. Wearing a helmet when you ride a motorcycle is harm reduction. So, yes, when you think about it, we've applied harm reduction to every other facet of our daily life in society, whether it's whether it's sports, whether it's extreme sports, like, you know, paragliding or bungee jumping. Those industries are governed by experts in that industry, people who actually know what they're doing. They lived it. They created the they've created the regulations. The people who know it the most. And they've done everything they can to mitigate the risks of this inherently dangerous activity. It doesn't eliminate the danger. People still die doing these sorts, 

but we do everything we can. So in every other field we've done, we as a society have done everything we can to mitigate the risks of inherently dangerous activities, except when it comes to, quote, illegal drug use. We've done it with tobacco and nicotine. We've done it with alcohol. We have every type of messaging you can imagine. We have every type of regulation. We have legalised homebrewing, we have drunk driving laws, we have access to a legal regulated product we've done and yet we still lose 100,000 people a year to alcohol related deaths and diseases. But think about how many we would lose if it wasn't as regulated and we didn't create as much harm reduction around it as we did. So that's what we're trying to do. When I say we, the harm reduction movement, harm reduction as a whole is trying to do is apply that same philosophy to all types of drug use and look at the look at where we are today and realize that the war on drugs, the illegality of drugs, the carceral system, everything that we've created so far isn't working. In fact, it's made the problem exponentially worse. 

So what we do as at the Torch Foundation, is to do everything that we can to mitigate those risks, and that includes giving out We are a free services program, so we give out sterile, sterile syringes. We occasionally give out ice, we give out smoking kits and safer snorting kits. We give out supplies like cookers and tourniquets and cotton swabs. And these are all meant to reduce the likelihood of blood borne diseases. 

We give out hygiene kits, we give our wound care kits. Know now with the emergence of Cytosine, which is a animal tranquilizer that has made its way into the illicit drug supply, the wounds have become, again, exponentially worse. It's one of those ripple effects of what we call the iron law prohibition. It's just another ripple effect of the war on drugs. So giving out wound care kits and having a nurse now that's properly trained on how to care for the wounds that's caused by was name. Excuse me. It's trying to elevate the voices of the people that we serve and trying to give them a voice at the table, or at least the people with the lived experience and not necessarily the living experience, making sure that their voices are heard at the committees that we attend at the town hall meetings that we attend. See the money that's pouring down the pipe that's meant to reduce drug related deaths, you know, trying to elevate voices that were marginalized in the past so that they can have a real opinion and try to have a tangible effect on where these funds go. And so they're not squandered. We provide case management services. So a lot of the folks that we meet have no idea they have a birth certificate, no Social Security card. That's a big part of what our team does, is helping people navigate the social services system, how to get their health care benefits, their SNAP benefits. That's another big one, is helping people with their food stamps, helping them get their I.D. because the Real ID Act, you can imagine it was hard. It was hard for high functioning people to get there. They have all the paperwork to get your real ID. You can imagine how it is for someone who's suffered severe trauma in their life as unstable housing, mental health. Their mental health is unstable using fentanyl. And as I was saying, it's very hard for them to be able to focus on on getting that paperwork together. So that's a big part of what we do, is helping people manage what I call life shit. You know, when you go into treatment, there's a lot of people there helping there to help you with the drug part of it. The drugs. The drugs, The drugs. How to get off the drugs, how to stay off the drugs. But there's very little help to actually help people with. Well, again, lifestyle, how to open a checking account, how to tailor their resume so they can apply for a job. A lot of people have a lot outstanding court and legal issues. So connecting them with legal aid and actually representing them when they go to court, standing up and saying, Yes, Your Honor, we have faith in this person and we've been working with them on several months and look at the progression that they've made. So helping to keep people out again, out of somewhere where they don't belong. Locked in a cage because of their drug use versus thriving in a treatment center or a recovery home or wherever else their life may be. So we wear a lot of hats. We our team, we do a lot of different things. Basically, it's the full continuum of care. We try to do as much as we can to support the individual as well as their families, because this is a it can be a family struggle. So helping families, 

trying to do the right word, trying to help families cope with their loved one who might be an act of addiction, but also, 

again, practice harm reduction to, you know, when you have someone either living in recovery or active addiction in your home. A lot of what we've done in me personally, is helping families with what's known as overdose prevention plans. So if someone's actually using, you know, how do you prevent them from overdosing in your home, as well as overdose response plans, where if the worst would happen and you do and your child does overdose, this is how you use naloxone, This is how you save your life. And that's along with, you know, connecting them with different support groups and, you know, therapist for themselves and, you know, things like that. So it's it's also it's the it's the people. So we're like a hybrid organization that's kind of like when I when I call us, I'm very excited that to use that word, because not only do we meet people where they are in the trenches, the worst type time of their addiction, but that's not where we only focus. Our team doesn't get to just see the hardships and the struggle of the people that we serve. We work with a lot of different recovery homes and treatment centers, so we help people that are do the same services that we offer to people that are in treatment centers, helping them with their IDs and bus passes and their Social Security cards and things like that. We offer those same support services to people that are still using drugs, living in tents and park benches throughout Baltimore County and Baltimore City 

and. 

Wendy Beck 28:23
I was going to ask what what community do you serve? For the most part, the organization. And also can you kind of describe the the progress over the past 13 years of like what it look like from now till then with statistics and that kind of thing? Because I feel like what you're talking about is, is evidence based and you're you're proving that this is working. And can you throw out numbers or just tell us, like, how has it changed stigma and that type of thing? And and where do you see tomorrow? 

John Torsch 28:59
Well, let's see where to start. 

Wendy Beck 29:02
That's. 

John Torsch 29:02
Gretchen. 

Wendy Beck 29:03
That's. I'm a lot on the. 

John Torsch 29:06
The 

so in in some ways we've progressed in terms of acceptance, in terms of access to care, lowering barriers. Maryland we're we're very privileged in Maryland. I so I make no qualms about saying that. We're very fortunate. So many states may have the advocates and other executive directors and harm reduction that I'm friends with. They struggle terribly in their states. There's no funding. There's so much stigma, there's so many barriers. It's like Harford County on steroids. And let's face it, Harvard County is not very harm reduction friendly, your treatment friendly. You can be traditional or recovery friendly, but when it 

Wendy Beck 29:48
Recovery 

John Torsch 29:48
comes. 

Wendy Beck 29:49
from 

John Torsch 29:49
Recovery for. But when it comes to actual harm reduction services, Harford County is still one of the only counties in the state that doesn't have a syringe services program, either through their health department or they're nonprofit. And we could talk about where the funding goes for 4 hours, but we're not in Hartford County, so we serve Baltimore County, Baltimore City, and parts of Anne Arundel County because we serve Brooklyn Park and Brooklyn kind of forms. It's in this little triangle where all the counties come together. Nobody really wants to take credit for it. So we and some other organizations serve a large population in Brooklyn, one of the oldest encampments in the city. It's a very dangerous, 

unique area that we serve only certain of our only certain peers will go there and serve there, because it's not only do we I mean, obviously Baltimore isn't just the drugs and our mental health and our housing crisis. It's a it's a very dangerous place to be. So, you know, the violence is not a portion of what we do, but in terms of our are have to deal with. But in terms of the progression. So again, when we first started doing this, when Dan was going through treatment, it was very difficult to navigate the system. There were very few treatment options or even less recovery homes. There was there was very little regulation. You couldn't get naloxone. You fast forward to today. And thanks to the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare, thanks to Medicaid expansion, anyone in Maryland who needs it has Medicaid. We have some excellent treatment centers that have opened up that are almost exclusively, you know, they survive on patients with with Medicaid. So a lot of people who are poor, indigent, low income, they qualify for health care and treatment services they would normally be able to qualify for just a few years ago. We have access to fentanyl and vials and test strips, so pretty much the most for Maryland's a very progressive state in terms of prevention, treatment, recovery services, harm reduction services. We're allowed to do almost everything harm reduction related here that any other state is allowed to do. The only thing we don't have here right now is our sanctioned overdose prevention sites or what's called safe injection sites. And they're there. They're just not legal and sanctioned, unfortunately, because our legislators are still a little little too conservative. 

Wendy Beck 32:04
Is that different than syringe services? 

John Torsch 32:07
It's much different. Yeah. So the places and everybody's. 

Wendy Beck 32:10
Yeah. Can you explain it a little bit? Because, I mean, I don't I don't know if I'm completely familiar with with them and what they do. 

John Torsch 32:18
Overdose prevention sites are also known as safe injection sites, or safe consumption sites are operational around the world. I believe they're in 18 or 20 different countries. One of the largest well known is on site, Insite on site for Insite in Canada, a campground in British Columbia. I visited about a half a dozen of them around the world, in Spain, Portugal and 

Australia. 

And I visited these sites that are everywhere from like the grungy basements that look like, you know, people used to get high in that doctors with look like they just stepped out of a, you know, eighties punk rock video all the way up to world class facilities that are run by the Red Cross. So there's a full spectrum of what these facilities and what these sites look like. And in essence, what they are are drop in centers. They're there health care, the recovery community centers, their health care centers, their shelters. The the ones that I've seen generally combined of a continuum of care. So it can look like you walk into a building in Spain or Barcelona and it's there's a shelter there. So there's a dorm that has beds, there's laundry services, there's doctors. If you want to have health care, want to do this, it's for your physical health care. There's mental health care services. There's a methadone provider if you want to, if you need to access your medications. There's food that serve there. There's peers and case managers and social workers, people like myself and our team. But also there's a room where people can safely use their drugs. And when I say safely, I mean to the place where they can test their drugs for contaminants, they can have sterile supplies and they can be under no threat of dying of an overdose in the you know, more than 20 years of these have been operational around the world. There's never been a fatal overdose at any of these sites. Combined, they've made hundreds of thousands of linkages to care. These sites are just like that. Don't get me wrong. There are some sites that want that they're at their most basic are literally just a tent with somebody watching. People 

Rich Bennett 34:31
Right. 

John Torsch 34:31
use just to make sure that they don't die and its core I in and there's nothing wrong with that. I mean in different settings and festival settings in urban areas where that's needed that's no different than someone kind of what we call like you used to call street doctors or like people like somebody who's kind of like the OG of the community, just making sure the people in their little community are safe or in their house are safe, where they're just doing it on a on a much more, I would call it like a more professional level. So that's basically what an overdose prevention site is. It's a it's a place where people can access health, physical health, mental health services, recovery support services, homeless services, but they also have a place where they can use their drugs without the threat of of dying somewhere. That's not a McDonald's or a Starbucks bathroom or a library bathroom where you're going to die alone need. 

Wendy Beck 35:30
Now, how does the how does the community react to that around the world? Because I know if we said that we were going to, you know, pop one up the street here in Bel Air, there would be you know, there will probably be rioting in the streets. I'm just saying, like, honestly, like, so how is how is it received around the world and and how do we get to that place, you know, here in our own town or our own, our own country? Like, I don't I don't know. Is it It's something that's available in New York. Is it available in California? Like how how is that working in some places and then have this really high stigma, other places where people just are just don't want anything to do with it? 

John Torsch 36:15
Like anything else, it takes education, advocacy, sometimes money, you know, money. You have to play their game. This all is dependent on legislators. So the legislators, you got to remember, there's there's no money at all behind what we do. There's. Your grassroots advocacy, everything, all the progression that we've 

Wendy Beck 36:32
Right. 

John Torsch 36:32
done in Maryland over the last ten years with yourself and and just Jen Turk and my mom and all the incredible advocates that we've done. We've never put a single penny into any of these legislators campaigns or pockets, so we've never bought a seat at the table. We don't have any favors that they owe us. It's all been this is what's right. This is what has to be done. So we want to get it done. And they'll do that up to a point. But at the end of the day, these legislators are worried about their jobs. They have very nice cushy careers and power that they don't want to lose and piss off their voters. And so it's really getting the legislators first and educating them from the experts, getting as much face time as we can with them, really explaining what recovery looks like, what multiple paths to recovery looks like, what harm reduction actually is, and the data behind it and just all the positives and then worrying about their constituents later. You know, this is what's right. This is what the experts say. This is what the data says. You know, we worry about that down the road. But as far as like shifting opinions, that's a tough nut to crack. And I would say in my experience, unfortunately, like everything else, a lot of it comes down to individual ideology. Political ideology is a big one and socioeconomic class. So depending on what county you're in, what city you're in, how people vote is going to determine how they feel about, you know, how empathetic they are, how realistic they are about what public health outreach actually looks like. There's a lot of myopic view of in America, we have a lot of American exceptionalism. We have a lot of what like a very myopic view of what like if it works here or just because something or just because something works in another country doesn't mean it's going to work here. There's a lot of opposition to other countries data if it didn't come from the U.S. and that's in academia, and that's all the way down to people who don't have any clue of what we're talking about right now. But yet we'll still have a strong opinion about it. So, you know, the reality is 

it's not going to be accepted in every area. But the areas that is needed the most is where it is, where they are generally most accepted in urban areas. There's not a lot of push back there. Very liberal areas. They want to they don't want to see people dying in their Starbucks bathrooms. They don't want to see people using shooting heroin, fentanyl in front of their stores, in front of their streets. They they support the public health aspect of this type of outreach and this type of supportive services. That's not to say there isn't pushback and pushback from law enforcement. That's not a big problem, is navigating that depends on the police force that you have and how willing they are to actually, you know, let this program work and not target people that are going in and out of these facilities, because then it kind of becomes a moot point because why would someone use it when they know you're just using it basically as a sting operation to just do nothing but pad your numbers and bust people that are using drugs? Like what if what a waste of a day to hang outside of one of these sites and bust people for five bucks worth of fentanyl heroin, like in 2024? Don't we have better things to do? Haven't we figured it out? There's a better way to do this now. 

Wendy Beck 39:42
I guess I want to I want to bring it back around because I know like I know, John, you can talk about this stuff for hours and hours just because you it's ingrained in you and, you know, I just know because we have I mean, we've been friends on Facebook for years now, and I've seen your travels and I've seen, you know, I've paid attention to your story. Just, you know, just because you're in my feed. And my question is, I know that the advocacy work that you have been doing over the years, they're really strenuous on your mental health and not that I know anything about your mental health, but I just know your journey in times where you're saying like, I need a break. And I think that that's really important for the peers and the people like you and me and your mom and all of these other people that are just fighting this fight, that you need to have this level of self care. And I think that when you take, you know, you're saying I'm out and I'm going to go do this, it is kind of taking you on a journey to where you are today. And I feel like you're in a really good place from what I can see. And I'd like to kind of hear about how you got from, you know, being in like, I'm not saying you were in Burn, Burn out because I don't know personally, but being in a place of burnout to a place of joy because we've suffered great a great loss because we jumped into the arena to try to give back and help. And then what toll it takes on an individual and how you get to the other side of that, I think is really important because not only are we talking about overdose awareness, we're talking about recovery month. And I also want to know what we're like for you, because I know that there's not one path fits all. And I'm going to I'm a supporter of that. And just because, you know, rage against addiction we have and houses and all of these things, I do believe that there is not one path for everyone. So I think that you're a little bit on that that spectrum and talking about that as well, if we could go there, because a lot of people don't quite understand some of that. 

John Torsch 41:52
Yeah. Yeah. So again. 

Wendy Beck 41:54
A lot. 

John Torsch 41:55
Start with the. No, no, it's no bleeding. It's. It's all the topics I love to talk about. Now I get the again. I could talk about him for 4 hours. So, yeah, I mean, you followed my feed. And one of the reasons why I was so I'm always so public about my mental health and about, you know, how I was struggling and the appearance I had been, whether it was with cumulative grief or the trauma and vicarious trauma or just the playing on, you know, just being burned out and drained from this, where it's important, you know, I think, to be I was it's important for me to be transparent about it as a team leader and as someone who is building an outreach team, but also as someone who, even though I was quite new in harm reduction, there were people who were brand new that were looking up to me and following me and people that I was mentoring that I had, that it just felt, you know, it was best to be transparent about it. And the reality is, you know, when I started, when I came back in 2017 or 2018 and decided to do give what I was what I called the selfless year, I was going to do everything I could for that year to help as many people as I could, answer every call, answer every text. I'm going to just dive in headfirst and we're going to do it. And that year turned into four years of operating at a level that and I don't mean that I really don't mean this in an arrogant way. It's a it's more of it's it's for me I operate at a level that most people in this field never will. 

There are some that truly and that's what that's what did me in. It's because when you get into this and you do answer every call and answer every text and you become the one beacon of hope in so many people's lives. And I was in the trenches giving out thousands of my cards, you know, meeting people everywhere. You know, see, if you need anything, just call me, hit me up, you know? And that turned into everyone calling me and hitting me up. And and when you do that, and if you don't have very strong boundaries and if you're highly empathic and empathetic person, it's very difficult, very easy to be to be calm, drained. And I got to a point that it wasn't just because it's not just the work that we do. And you got to it's the the work that we do, working with people, seeing people in their most desperate moments, seeing the I want to call it that, the plight, the degradation that people have to live in, experiencing their vicarious trauma, the deaths that unfortunately, you know, will continue to happen. But also for me personally, it was the battle that really did me. And it was because you had to because as an advocate, you're you become a warrior in this field if you want to do it the right way as a harm reduction, as you're battling every one, every sort of say, every fucking day you're battling, whether it's a treatment center, a recovery house, a parole and probation agent, a lawyer, you know, whether it's a health care system, an E.R., there's there's always some system of care or some level of government that's trying to screw over or harm the person that you're trying to help. They're making their life and my life harder. Legislators, bureaucrats. It's a constant battle every day, every conversation. This is what we need now. Well, this is the way it is. Like. So that to me is like what really mean? On top of the cumulative deaths and the cumulative grief of losing so many people in such a short amount of time. I had some very, very hard losses. My my Protegé Charlie Esper, who I was bringing along, he died, you know, hours after one of our team meetings with a syringe that I had given him for outreach. It was things that you have to deal with. And these are things that come with any any person who does this long term in this field. I was experienced and I was so grateful for the mentors that I had along the way that helped get me through this. You know, during COVID was know, COVID 20, 20, 2021, 22. These were horrible years for harm reduction as we lost so many people, not just the people that we were serving our participants, our clients, but our friends in other harm reduction as a long term members in the field, the best of us were dying, and the only people that we had to look to really are our beacons of hope were the few survivors from the AIDS epidemic. They were the ones that we could look to, the only ones who knew what it was like to go to every single week. You're going to memorial, you're going to a funeral. You know, there's no other population outside of a war torn country that understands that level of cumulative grief. So we were looking to them, you know, how did you get through that? How do we how do we continue on? How do we keep fighting when we're just feel like we're taking one step forward and three steps back every day? And know we got some some great advice. And you know, for me, health care had to be self care had to become more than a buzzword. My family finally put their I mean, they almost had like a mini intervention kind of thing. And they said, like, you have to go. You've got to buy your plane ticket. You've been saying you're going to go for months, like it's time to go back. Like it was the longest I'd ever been in the U.S. since I was 20. You know, I was just kind of stuck here trying to build our team, trying to continue on what I, you know, the vision that I had. And that's when we hired Hannah. And Hannah. Hannah Jones. Ah, my right hand person who's our team supervisor and just has been amazing, you know, And having my I'm very privileged also in this business in a way, because my mother, Toni, is our executive director and I have an amazing right hand person, Hannah, who can do wear all the hats that I wore somehow without burning herself out because she has stronger boundaries than I do. And now my brother Austin works for us, so I'm able to step back and right grants and handle, you know, political advocacy and help steer and guide the philosophy of the foundation and more of a training and a mentor than any type of direct services. And that's what that's the role that I have shifted into. And that's what was necessary for me. Like I had to be in this field. I'm not ever going to go anywhere. This is my life. It's what I've dedicated a third of my life at this point to. But I couldn't provide direct services anymore to people. My cost was I mean, I was beyond burnt out. I was an old chicken wing left on the grill overnight. You know, I had nothing left. I know what it's like to be my my baseline for probably a year was completely numb. The highest that I could get was completely numb or crushing depression like that was my spectrum. And I finally had to leave. And psilocybin is a big part of my journey. Microdosing mushrooms psilocybin at that time brought me help me. I was in I was in the Galapagos when I would say where I was or what has I felt I should. I didn't bring it to the Galapagos, 

but, you know, I was I was able to experience joy again for the first time in a very long time. And I remember laying in my hammock and feeling it. I had this great day and I remember laying in my hammock and going like, how is that? And it took me a second to realize it, but I was happy. I'm like, Oh my God, Like, I'm happy, you know, like I feel happy again. It was there was this emotional feeling that I could not punch through. And I finally punched through it again. Because, Wendy, as you can probably relate to this, and most people that have experienced profound loss understand this, but there's a level of happiness that I can reach while Dan was alive, there's before Dan and there's after Dan, I was with Dan and there's without Dan. Basically. So, you know, when Dan was alive, I could go on on a hike or, you know, after a party or I could reach a ten, you know, and happiness, I could be ecstatic and be extremely content and happy. You know, I can't get to that after Dan die. It doesn't matter what drugs I'm on, doesn't matter where I am or what accomplishment country I'm in, I can be happy and I can feel accomplished and I can be having a great day and smile and laugh. But I won't reach that level that I was at that time while Dan was alive. And that's okay with me now. I've accepted that. I've made that a part of me and who I am, and there's nothing I can do about that. That's also part of the gratitude that I have, because I still have both parents that are alive. You know, I have uncles and aunts and elderly parents that are elderly family members that are alive. I have my health. This is the best time in my life. Every day that I wake up right now is the best time that I'm going to have. So that's why I make the most of it every single day, because one day my home, the structure is going to be there, but it's not going to be home anymore. My parents aren't going to be there. And that happiness that I could feel today, I'm not going to be able to feel ten or 20 years from now because they're going to be gone. And my family is everything to me. I don't have kids. I've never been married. I don't own a home. My life is my work and my travels. It's my, you know, my story and what I do and my family. So, you know, I'm extremely grateful for. 

Wendy Beck 51:08
Do you do you feel do you feel that that level of, you know, depression was the trauma of loss and grief, or do you feel like it was cumulative from the work that we're doing? Because I feel like, you know, your level of fear. I mean, you know, I'm not going to say that like I don't have happiness after losing, you know, my my daughter, I continue to live and I feel happy in there. But there's this inherent sadness that I that's never going to go away. And so, you know, I think that where you went because of the burnout. And correct me if I'm wrong, took you down a different rabbit hole. Is that do you know what I'm saying? Like no one can go at that level for. 

John Torsch 51:57
Right. Exactly. And most unfortunately, the ones that do don't make it. And I'm not going to name names because I don't want to put. Don't want to speculate. Speculate on why. 

Wendy Beck 52:09
And I know. 

John Torsch 52:11
I want to speculate on what drove them that final day or that final hour. But I'm extremely again, and my mother and Hannah and my brother, I'm extremely fortunate to be able to because because otherwise you got to it's like it's like a small business owner. You know, they build something up from the ground. That's their baby. You wonder why some of these people are hanging on 20 and 30 years. You know, they're they're well, they're wealthy. They can retire, but yet they still work on this business that could run without them easily. It's because it's their baby. They can't give it up. And it's the same thing with harm reduction organizations in these outreach organizations, people like myself, like you build it up and you do this work, and then you get to the point where you have to pull back. But then so many of us are stuck with that inevitable, if not me, then who? There's this tremendous guilt. I mean, that was the hardest part. There's this massive, overwhelming sense of guilt when you have to step away and you're not answering those calls anymore, that the people who you were their beacon of hope for so many years, you just can't be it anymore. You can't manage their crisis anymore. You have to make that warm handoff to someone that I trust and I think that they'll connect with. That was the hardest part of this, was making that transition and introducing so many people that I love, that I care about, that I desperately wanted to see get better and to just just not die in for I mean, I just like to think of myself like I can't lose another one selfishly on me. Like, I just I can't lose another one. That's not about me. It's them. But that was the that was a very difficult thing to do. So I think for a lot of peers and a lot of especially harm reduction, people like myself, founders, especially the founders, are the ones that just never get to step away because it's theirs, you know, And they can they can bring people in to try to run the day to day, but they're still writing the grants or managing the grants for us. We'll never turn it over. It's the Daniel Coral Torch Foundation. You know, the our team wears my brothers name on their chests every day. If it wasn't my mom writing it, it would have to be me or my brother or we wouldn't exist. You know, and that's a that's a weight that you have to carry. 

Wendy Beck 54:29
The vision comes from. Yeah, it's a vision that comes from within. And now I want to I want to take I want to step back and I because I have this really good visual of you laying in the hammock with that happy moment. So at that point, I mean, I'm jealous because I want to lay in the hammock and feel that happiness probably somewhere nice and warm and tropical. But where where did that take you when you had that moment where you're like, oh, you know, what is this feeling that I'm feeling, feeling after everything that I've been through for the past ten, 11, 12, 13 years? And where am I going to go from here? And and I know you're going to keep your your foot in the the the foundation, as you just said, always. But where are you finding your joy now? And tell us a little bit about that, because I feel like it's very fascinating. I really do. 

John Torsch 55:21
Well, yeah. I mean, that was the beginning of me refilling my car. And, you know, now my cup is. Is I don't want to say it's quite overflowing because I'm, I'm physically I'm tired from the contract that I'm doing. Me, I'm working 60, 70 hours a week. But mentally and spiritually I'm. 

Rich Bennett 55:35
Who? 

John Torsch 55:36
Fantastic. I mean, the best mental space that I've seen in a long time. I'm also in a very. Excuse me. It's a very special part of the world where I am right now. The vibes here are there. They're great vibes everywhere that I go. But 

when I started to, that was what allowed me to actually finally make the transition. Like, I knew that I was going to be a I knew that I wasn't thinking about, you know, suicide and death every single day at that point, because I know what it's like to wake up every single day and have to try to find a reason to live for a reason not to die, I should say. And from a very young age, it's something I'm very open about. Intrusive thoughts are a big part of the umbrella of Tourette syndrome that I would call. So, you know, suicide and thoughts of death and horribly morbid thoughts have been part of my daily routines since, as far as I can remember. But it becomes less and less when you are happy, you know, when you have a sense of purpose and when you're feeling fulfilled. And for me personally, it's when I'm not being constantly pulled out and drained. And, you know, unfortunately, that's just what happens to the helpers and the helpers and the healers among us. And they just 

we have to be very careful of the situations that we put ourselves in and protecting ourselves and protecting our life, protecting our energy. As cliche as that sounds, it's true. Grounding, protecting ourselves, protecting our life, you know, being self aware of how our energy is distorted by other people's energy. You know, I had to make some hard goodbyes. I've had to make some hard I've had to pull away from a lot of people. Some of it has been politically, some of it has been morally and ethically. Some of it has just been, you know, we've kind of gone our separate ways in life, but I'm better for it. And sometimes the hardest decisions that we make are the best decisions for us or the most painful the most difficult us to make and to pull off. But in the end, it's the best for us and, you know, I love, you know, my life of travel. You know, I've traveled to 41 countries by myself now. I've been to every continent. I'm what I live on. Like a like, like 1 to 3 month birth. So that's kind of like my style of traveling is I like immersing myself into a culture. So I usually rent an Airbnb for a month to two months or three months. And usually that's that's a combination of two things. That's my attention span. I generally get pretty bored with the place after a month to three months. It's also the usual visa, you know, limits in most of the countries that I that I go to. But I live cheap. I live in cheap Airbnbs. I love street food, know that's food as is my life. So when I'm traveling, I really try to immerse myself in the culture and, you know, find my regular soup lady and my regular, you know, the fresh fruit stand that I go to every day, you sort of become part of that community. You find your favorite restaurant or two, and I work my way. I eat my way through that that menu. And it's not like and I've done the bus every day and a ferry every other day in a plane every three days, like I've been that traveler and. It's called, or sometimes like in some regions of the world, you kind of have to travel like that. But I'd much prefer a slower pace of travel. So I thought at this point, you know, I'd be I would have been to over 100 countries by now, just based on all the travelers that I know with this lifestyle. But what I would call our we're kind of like country tickers or, you know, box tickers. 

Whereas me, you know, I've been to some of the countries that I love. I've been to multiple times like that. When I when I finally felt that happiness, I was in the Galapagos and I've been to the Galapagos now three times, it's my happy place. It's a very privileged thing to say, you know, the Galapagos Island that many times. But it's only because I've found a cheap way. When I say cheap, I mean it's cheap. And in relative terms, the cost of living in the US. I found a cheap way to live in the Galapagos just once I get there. And because I spent so much time in Ecuador, once I'm already in Ecuador, I'm only a $400 round trip flight from the Galapagos. You know, that's the great thing about being there and. The town that I found in Ecuador is what I call the fishing village that time forgot. It reminds me of the original village that I moved to in Jamaica. There's not even an ATM in town. It's a functioning fishing village. There's about 150 to 200 expats that live within, you know, a 20 minute drive. You know, an expat as an expat, as an expatriate, or they're just basically Canadian and Americans and Canadians that have retired to Ecuador. And, you know, I've had a little pop up restaurant there a few times. I've done some catering in private chef ing and I have a piece of. It's not mine, but I have a restaurant there that I can a little pirate bar and restaurant made of driftwood, driftwood and thatch and bamboo. And we're squatting. We're a public beach and, you know, paying bribes to the local ministry. But it's like, that's the kind of stuff that I like doing. And I've been asked so many times this season. 

Wendy Beck 1:00:48
It sounds so romantic. 

John Torsch 1:00:50
Kind of guerrilla, I guess. 

Wendy Beck 1:00:52
It's romantic. And maybe that's not the right not the 

John Torsch 1:00:55
It 

Wendy Beck 1:00:55
right 

John Torsch 1:00:55
is. 

Wendy Beck 1:00:55
word, 

John Torsch 1:00:55
I mean, to kind 

Wendy Beck 1:00:55
but. 

John Torsch 1:00:56
of romanticize it. It comes with its own challenges. But both both ways come with their own set of challenges. Like, I've been, as I told you earlier, you know, I work right now. You know, I'm in Cape Cod. I mean, I took a seasonal contract because that's what it was. So basically, after I had fully made the transition earlier this year, like I was like, okay, I am done. I transitioned from direct services to mentoring and teaching for about six months to a year because I live very cheap and I'm I'm good at making money. And also I'm not stupid with my money. I'm not rich by any means. But, you know, I live cheap, I hustle hard, I save, I travel. And I repeat, that's kind of been my cycle through life. So I went into teaching and mentoring and I've lectured at colleges and things like that. And, you know, I've become a sort of a consultant in harm reduction field. So that's, you know, earned me a little bit of an income. But then finally, I was just like, I, I can't just talk about drugs and death all day because when you are an expert in harm reduction, 

you put in the work that we do and in the harm reduction field, you put yourself at the epicenter of what I would call society's woes. You know, every single problem, every single social determinant of of poor outcomes, everything that's driving the deaths of despair. We're at the center of. So everything that I'm reading is related to one sense, one injustice or another, one death or another. Something negative. And I just got tired of it. I couldn't do it anymore. And I love cooking. It had been six years since I have been in a professional cooking world or taking any kind of a gig. And I decided, you know what? I really want to build my house in Ecuador. I really want to have my own little piece of paradise. I don't have enough to do it the way that I wanted to do it. So I'm like, okay, I'm going to take another cooking contract. So I revise my resume and jump back into the field. And what's pretty cool is at my age, I'm 40 and I was a chef for many, many years and I met this like so anyway, listening the chefs at 40 years old with know decade or two of real life experience, we're in basically the home. We're approaching the peak or at the peak of our earning potential. And we are of such high demand for any potential people looking for private chefs or restaurant managers or owners. Because we're working chefs, we not only have the experience, but we have that old school work ethic. We're 40 years old, so we're not. We have that old school work that we're not going to call out for a headache. We're not going to be on our phones. But we're only 40 and we're not 50. And this is not a dig at older people, but it's just it's something that I've noticed is that at 40, the owners know that we still have gas left in the tank. We're not thinking about retirement in five years 

Rich Bennett 1:03:46
Yeah. 

John Torsch 1:03:47
or ten years. So at 40 years old, when I set my resume, I applied for three jobs and I got all three of them. And these are all working for I've worked for what's known as ultrahigh net worth individual. so I've worked in I've been a private chef and I've worked in an Alaskan fishing lodge for, you know, extremely wealthy people on this job that I've applied for today or that I applied for, which led to me here today is again, working or serving the, you know, a group of ultra high net worth individuals. So these are stressful contracts in terms of the level that you have to operate at every day. Like I bring my A-game every day with every place that I serve. I work six days a week. We're open six days a week, and I'm off. Today is actually my day off, but it's not really a day off because I'm ordering a menu planning. You know, I've got to do some scheduling. So that's Chef life. Me, chef, life isn't just cooking. There's inventory I have to do. I've got to go all out for out stuff for tomorrow. So I got to run back to my. 

Wendy Beck 1:04:45
There's, you know, that's that's the shelf life, too. It has that romantic kind of thing. You know, I keep using the word romantic, and maybe that's just weird, but, you know, it's like this this thing that not many people could imagine doing. So it has like this, I don't know, just like this, this magic to it. And so, you know, people who who love to eat like I do, you know, see what you create. It's just this level of of creating daily that is just really impressive. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:17
An art. 

Wendy Beck 1:05:17
And so that being your habit. Yeah. And with that being your happy place and you have these goals and you're still, you know, got your foot in the advocacy. Tell us like, tell us like what's your favorite thing to cook or what do you what are you doing right now? That's just like because it looks pretty interesting on your Facebook store. Anybody you know to check it out. But I don't want to bombard your your Facebook with that. But it really it's not your average, you know, spaghetti and meatballs that's. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:46
Snyder Regular soup to nuts. 

John Torsch 1:05:49
Why? 

Wendy Beck 1:05:50
Yeah. There you go. 

John Torsch 1:05:52
It's funny. The best show. 

Wendy Beck 1:05:54
He brought that back around. 

John Torsch 1:05:56
The best chef I ever worked for called me. He gave me a great coffee, says John. You are an amazing cook, but you're just an okay chef. So if you're a rustic chef, that's what you call me. You're a rustic chef. You don't give a shit about your knife cuts, you know? But your execution is perfect. You know how food tastes. And that's really all that matters in the end. I'm not a tweezers chef, which is what keeps me out of a lot of the Michelin restaurants and the other fine dining world because I just. I don't know. I don't have a lot of patience for. I'd rather you know, I don't get me wrong. I appreciate it. I've been on a mission in restaurants and I have bucket lists, restaurants that I you know, I have a deep appreciation for chefs and cooks in that world. It's just not for me. But I love to cook my food. Punches you in the face. I love to cook the same way I love to eat. I like big flavors, but I like good home cooking whether. 

Wendy Beck 1:06:47
So you're going to make me dinner? You're going to eat. Let's just play along here. going to make. I'm up for anything. I look for anything. So what are you going to. 

John Torsch 1:06:56
I don't know. It depends on. It really depends on what you're into. I mean, if it's just like, Oh, I'm just going to cook you whatever I'm going to cook. And just like, because that's how I am in Ecuador. I am a destination chef. People come and they cook what I eat, what's on my chalkboard menu that day, or what's on what I just put out that day. But know I love I love tacos. I love great, great fish tacos and, you know, making wasabi slaw and mixing pickled daikon radish and with my slaw and making really great marinades with sesame and soy and mirin and chili paste. And I like things that are alive. I like curing and pickling and smoking and making my own kimchi. And I might make you like a Tom Cobb or Tom 

Tom Yangon, which is a Thai soup, you know, again, just like bursting with flavor and they got to you shrimp with the heads, you get all the tamales and you get the real rich stock. So like everything I do is I. 

Wendy Beck 1:07:55
I'm. I'm up for it. I'm up for it. What are we going to. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:00
I shoot. You know me. One day I'll eat anything that doesn't eat me first. So the you just menu with the shrimp page something. 

Wendy Beck 1:08:11
And he's actually I've been up to lunch with him 

and he lets the the waitress pick this meal. 

Rich Bennett 1:08:18
Yeah, I love going to restaurants and just they surprised me. 

Never been never gotten anything bad yet. Actually, you said 41 different countries. 

What's one of the most exciting things as you've eight, you're in these different countries that you were just like, it just blew you away. You like, Wow, you weren't expecting that. 

John Torsch 1:08:44
Well, my favorite the best thing I've ever seen is there's so there's a dish in Penang that's my favorite food city in the world. Penang is an island in Malaysia, and it's a it's a very diverse island. So it's it's my favorite for a lot of reasons. But the food there is just it's a it's a melting pot and a hodgepodge of Malay, Thai, Chinese, Indian, Pakistani. You know, there's such an incredible melting pot of flavors in there. And they have a dish there that's it's traditionally a grilled stingray dish or it's grilled stingray in Sambal in a sambal sauce. And they cook it in a big grill on a banana leaf. And there's this old guy. So I got taken I was at a food event, wound up hitting it off with these locals and. Late at night. This guy says, you know, I want to take you somewhere really special. So he takes me to this place and the chef is he's old, he's grumpy, he's dirty, he smokes while he's cooking. And I mean, he what he was cooking, though. I mean, it was just amazing. He he dices this. He dosas is garlic and onion and chilies fresh and he lays them on this like, layer of butter and then lays fresh grouper on top of it. And covered in this is homemade sambal. And I've got a I got a video of it, but it's a dish that is executed perfectly. It's bursting with flavor. The environment of where it is, like the smoke hits you as you grow in it and the chilies and the garlic and you're crying and you're coughing and the whole half the food court is gagging along with you. And they're all waiting. And it's a sacred God. Like, there's there's like, this unspoken rule that you don't talk about this guy on the Internet. So there's one kind of a partial review on Google, but that's it. He has no votes on Google. He's not on any best list of Canadian Canadians world famous. There's so many must if you Google Open investor, you're going to see dozens of lists. But he's not on any of them. And that is my my favorite. And then Loxo, which is their national dish, which is a it's a it's basically a mac. It's a kind of a mackerel soup. It's it's basically a fish grouper, a fish curry that has like 35 different ingredients. And it's again, it's this huge explosion of salty, savory, sweet, sour. There's some there's a new mommy in there. It's just it's called neon yum cooking and onion or peranakan cooking. And it's a blend of Malay, Thai and Chinese. That's where it is, right just below the Thai border. And because of how migration happened. And then on top of that, there's a massive Hindu Indian population. So they have it. They have what's called nasty, tender and nasty Kandahar is essentially an Indian buffet on steroids. It's the most incredible Indian buffet you can imagine. But everything goes on one plate. So you put it all on one plate with like four or five different kinds of dishes and two or three different rices, and then they cover it in three or four of the different curries. And then you eat it all with your hand. 

Rich Bennett 1:11:56
Wow. 

John Torsch 1:11:57
It's again, it's just. 

Wendy Beck 1:12:01
Well, it sounds like you are a wealth of information in words like we'll have to when you're done. This project. Maybe you can come back and talk to us about food because I would love. 

Rich Bennett 1:12:14
Oh, God. 

Wendy Beck 1:12:15
Okay. And and I can and I can see, you know, his demeanor does change. And look, you're smiling. You're smiling, John. You're you're not smiling earlier in the things. So I'm glad we broke through and we got to find you and, you know, in your authentic ness. And I love that. And I want to thank you so, so much for coming on here to say I'm so excited to talk to him, really. But one other question and then I'll leave it to Rich if he has any. 

Rich Bennett 1:12:42
I have one. 

Wendy Beck 1:12:43
Have you finished that book? 

Rich Bennett 1:12:46
That was my one. 

Wendy Beck 1:12:47
About your brother, then? Do we have any kind of like. 

I know you had a, uh. I want to say something about a greater you on your travels were posting about life in. The greater. Is that 

John Torsch 1:13:03
was. 

Wendy Beck 1:13:03
still a thing? 

He's laughing, but I do remember that. 

Rich Bennett 1:13:11
I was going to ask him about. 

Wendy Beck 1:13:12
Pay attention. 

John Torsch 1:13:13
Limiting. 

Many greater 

and many greater has been to I don't know, it's probably been 15 countries or served by now, but many greater countries in there. This is my alter ego, which is many greater pagan adventures. They have their own Facebook page and Instagram. And so this is Adventures of many greater. 

Wendy Beck 1:13:42
That's hilarious. 

Rich Bennett 1:13:43
So for those of you listening, what he's holding up is a greater that basically fits in the palm of your hand. I mean, I've never seen one that small. 

John Torsch 1:13:56
If you if you Google mini grater or tiny grater, you'll you'll find it's just an Amazon buy. You know, my grandmother had one of these. She gave it to me years ago and I used it. And I don't even know how it started. I have no idea why. I think I was just like, I'm just I do something goofy. And again, it's just kind of like part of my this is my personality. I am going to just have some fun and carry this many grader with me. But, you know, they've had some really cool photos. I got to meet one of my heroes in Tokyo and Osaka, Japan, and he's an incredible sushi chef where he plays with flame flame throwers and fire. And he actually took one as a gift. I gave him like my original mini. Great. Or this is the this is many great, probably three or four by now, because sometimes they get crushed or they get lost or something, but. 

So you got to keep you got to have fun. And they're functional, too, you know, So you got to bust out a little wedge of arm. And I've got my my mini grader. 

Wendy Beck 1:14:55
Some ginger. 

Rich Bennett 1:14:57
I see myself going on Amazon and buying one of them now. Thanks. 

Wendy Beck 1:15:03
I know the sales are going to spike on that. 

John Torsch 1:15:05
Many craters. Great. But as far as the book goes, so I am I am currently about 70,000 words and I'm very happy with into what I would say is probably 100,000 word memoir. I have an action plan. I know. I know the literary agent that I want and I know the publishing house that I want to publish the book. I am so great. I'm so thankful that I never listen to the pressure of people telling me, like, you got to get the book out of the building. This, you know, you're building up the excitement for all these years. You just just publish your book. You can always write a second one. And I'm so glad that I did, because I've changed so much since 2018 when I started writing this. And the book has had so many variations now that now it is such a more authentic version of me. There's so much like I've had such an there's been so much ego death and so much healing and experiences that have happened since then, that now when it's finally done and I'm really going to work on it after this and maybe you'll get done, maybe it will have a great ending for it. Now. So yeah, yeah, we'll see. I'm not feeling the pressure like I used to. It was like, Oh my God, I have to get this done now. It's just when I'm in a good headspace and I want to put my head down and try to finish it, I can. And thankfully I'm in a place where I've made the connections, where when I am ready, I've got the pipeline for the literary agent that I that I'm really hoping will 

open the door for me. And then after that, there's no delusions of grandeur. I just want to get the book done and whatever happens, happens. You know, I don't want to be. I have a huge fear of fame. I have a massive fear of success. I'm far more terrified of success than I am failure. Failure doesn't scare me. I've been broke before. Like I said, it's not the worst thing in the world. I've got lots of talents, but success like, Oh my God, I write this book and it's like a huge success. Like, that's scary. 

Wendy Beck 1:16:58
Well, you have already succeeded in so many ways that, you know, I don't think that you need to worry about that. I think organically you have, you know, gone the path that you followed your heart over and over again. And I just I'm really thankful that we got to talk and got to talk at this level because I think that you're. Awesome. 

John Torsch 1:17:21
I surveyed yourself, I made me read. You all have done amazing things in your years. We're very grateful to have you as a community partner and to have you as a resource and no doubt, I mean the lives that you've transformed and saved. Now we all are doing the best we can to, you know, honor our loved ones. At the end of the day. You know, that's that's how we can rest. That's what gives us our. 

Wendy Beck 1:17:45
Absolutely. 

John Torsch 1:17:47
That little. We're doing it and we're doing it for them. 

Wendy Beck 1:17:51
Right. And fighting and finding joy on the other side is not an easy task. And I know that there's a lot of people that, you know, may never find that on the other side of losing something so precious. But, you know, you kind of have to you kind of have to decide for yourself that, you know, it is about me, too. And I have a purpose and I'm taking what happened and I'm creating something to help make change. And, you know, I'm I'm I'm proud to say that I think that we're on the same kind of team. And I like that. 

John Torsch 1:18:25
Absolutely. Takes a village. 

Wendy Beck 1:18:27
Does. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:28
You can wrap it up. One, because you stole my question. It was about the book. 

Wendy Beck 1:18:33
I'm sorry. Well, no, you wrap it up 

Rich Bennett 1:18:35
Well, 

Wendy Beck 1:18:35
because 

Rich Bennett 1:18:35
actually, 

Wendy Beck 1:18:35
I don't. 

Rich Bennett 1:18:35
I do. I do have one question, 

especially with, you know, with the cooking and everything. Any plans of actually doing a cookbook or adding recipes to the book you're working on now? 

John Torsch 1:18:49
I do plan on having a few recipes in the book. Yeah. And eventually, you know, who knows? I have no doubt that if I do find an agent in the book as well, I have no doubt they'll probably ask me to write a cookbook and I could. I actually love to do a collaboration. I have 

my one of my mentors and one of my my best friends is Jennifer Mullins, and she is the best Jamaican chef I've ever known. And she's actually a white woman from Minnesota who moved to Jamaica years and years ago. And we became very good friends and she was the manager of the resort that I lived out of living on her property for years. And anyway, she and her recipes I would love to be able to highlight one day and so and to collaborate so we could get back to that part of Jamaica that she lived in for so many years, is extremely poor and basically 

subsistence village, you know, and especially in the last couple of years, it's it's got a lot harder. So I'd love to be able to do a collaboration and publish some of her recipes to be able to put some money into into that community. That's something I've always thought about because everybody's got a cookbook these days, right? There's a lot of books. 

Wendy Beck 1:20:09
Well. Food memoirs. Food memoirs are my favorite. I absolutely love books that incorporate, you know, the the food of the family or, you know, journey. I love it. I love it. So I hope. 

John Torsch 1:20:22
Well, this is going to be my kitchen confidential. This is going to be it's it's a wild ride. It's. It's everything and anything and everything to make you laugh or make you angry or make you cry to make you angry. 

So. But that's the goal 

Wendy Beck 1:20:36
Good. 

John Torsch 1:20:36
is to keep people in this just like my life. You have to take them along on that roller coaster, but also to highlight the importance of the work that, you know, all of us of do and the importance to keep it going, keep those conversations moving forward. You know, keep talking about it. 

Rich Bennett 1:20:54
Actually, one last question. Where can people go to make a donation to the foundation? 

John Torsch 1:20:59
Our Web site. You can Google just for foundation 

t0rch. If you Google to foundation, you'll find us. Our official name is the Daniel Coral Forest Foundation, and our website is DC T Foundation and Secord. 

Rich Bennett 1:21:16
John, I want to thank you so much. Wendy, it's always a pleasure. Now I have to go to Amazon and buy that John torch. Many 

John Torsch 1:21:25
Get 

Rich Bennett 1:21:25
good. 

John Torsch 1:21:25
the mitigator. They come in to come in two and three packs. You can give one to a friend. 

Wendy Beck 1:21:29
That's right. Ooh.