The Influential Advisor

071: The $1.5 Trillion Blind Spot: What Every Advisor Needs to Know About Addiction with Cheryl Canzanella

• Paul G. McManus

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In this podcast episode, I welcome Cheryl Canzanella, an advocate for opioid financial awareness, to discuss the often-overlooked connection between addiction and financial planning.

This episode highlights the profound impact of the opioid epidemic on families and financial advisors, offering practical strategies to support clients dealing with the financial and emotional toll of addiction. Cheryl’s powerful personal story and her mission to educate financial professionals provide a fresh perspective on how advisors can better serve their clients.

Cheryl’s Journey: From Financial Advisor to Advocate

  • A Career in Finance: Cheryl spent 25 years as a successful financial advisor, helping clients navigate life’s uncertainties.
  • Personal Tragedy: After losing her husband to an opioid overdose at the age of 38, Cheryl experienced firsthand the devastating impact of addiction on families and finances.
  • Finding Her Voice: She turned her personal loss into a mission, educating financial advisors about the economic and emotional challenges clients face due to addiction.

The Opioid Epidemic: A Financial Planning Crisis

  • Staggering Statistics: Addiction costs the U.S. economy an estimated $1.5 trillion annually, with 200 lives lost daily to opioid overdoses.
  • Red Flags for Advisors: Cheryl shares signs that financial advisors can look for, such as sudden asset liquidation, changes in beneficiaries, or uncharacteristic financial behavior.
  • Emotional Barriers: Many clients feel shame or denial about addiction, making it essential for advisors to create a judgment-free, confidential environment.

Equipping Advisors to Help Clients

  • Proactive Strategies: Cheryl emphasizes the importance of including addiction-related questions in client fact-finding processes and financial plans.
  • Building Resources: Advisors can partner with counselors, rehabilitation centers, and other professionals to offer holistic support.
  • Education as Key: She highlights the need for industry-wide education to address the stigma surrounding addiction and better support affected clients.

Key Takeaways and Future Outlook

  • The Role of Financial Advisors: Advisors are often on the front lines, recognizing financial red flags before others, making their role critical in addressing addiction-related challenges.
  • Breaking the Stigma: Open conversations, education, and empathy are essential to reducing the stigma and fostering hope for affected families.
  • Cheryl’s Mission: Through her work, Cheryl aims to empower financial advisors with the knowledge and resources to make a difference in their clients’ lives.

About our guest: Cheryl Canzanella, an advocate for opioid financial awareness.

You can learn more about her work:

https://cherylcanzanella.com/
https://opioidfinancialawareness.com/

About Your Host:  Paul G. McManus is an accomplished author and expert in helping financial professionals grow their businesses. With over eight years of experience working exclusively with financial professionals, Paul has helped his clients generate tens of millions of dollars in fees and commissions.

Claim your free audiobook copy at: www.theshortbookformula.com

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Speaker 1:

If you're like most financial advisors, you pride yourself on helping clients prepare for life's uncertainties market downturns, health emergencies, career changes but there's a crisis affecting millions of American families that many of us aren't equipped to discuss, let alone address addiction. Our guest today knows this reality all too well. Reality all too well. Cheryl Canzanella not only spent 25 years as a successful financial advisor, but she also experienced the devastating impact of the opioid epidemic in her own family, when she lost her husband at age 38. What started with a routine back injury and prescription painkillers ended in tragedy and taught her powerful lessons about the intersection of addiction and financial planning that every advisor needs to understand. Today, she's breaking the silence around this epidemic and showing advisors how to identify warning signs, have difficult conversations and protect clients who are facing similar struggles. With nearly half of Americans knowing someone affected by addiction and an estimated $1.5 trillion in annual economic impact, this isn't just a health crisis. It's a financial planning crisis hiding in plain sight.

Speaker 1:

I'm excited for today's interview. When we spoke in Phoenix, where we met a few months ago, you shared with me something that, for me, was very unique. I'd never heard about it before, or at least in this context. Of course, I'm going to let you tell your story. So today's conversation is going to be about how to think differently about traditional financial planning and you have a very powerful personal story that we're going to ask you to share with us and then, ultimately, how that story and just your experience can impact other financial advisors and the work they do, helping families achieve their goals. Tell us what led you to become an advocate for families dealing with addiction.

Speaker 2:

So I've been in the financial industry for 25 years and never did I think that I would become a widow at 38 years old and especially being in the financial industry. We are planning for the unknown every day. But it's not that I just became a widow. It was the way it happened, and going through addiction within my family and seeing it happen right in front of me, it was very shameful so I did not speak a word of it. Here I am building my business and making probably the most money that I've ever made in my life. I was the breadwinner, I was the only income earner.

Speaker 2:

Over time, as I'm building my practice, I just dove into that and tried to remove myself from what was happening at home. My late husband was injured from a back injury and what started with prescriptions turned out to spiral into an all out addiction. So dealing with that, I wouldn't tell a soul, not even my closest friends, and I'll tell you after 25 years in the financial industry, working specifically with financial advisors over the years. Most of my friends are in the financial industry, very good friends, and most of them had no idea it was very shameful. When he did pass, it was an overdose from fentanyl, from opioids.

Speaker 2:

What I realized is that when I started to speak up about it, that I wasn't alone. There were a lot of people that could relate to what I was going through and had clients with what I was going through. So I found a intense need to start speaking up about it and start sharing, because there were so many in our industry that have been infected with clients, yet they really, from a financial advisor standpoint, a lot of them may have just stumbled upon it and didn't realize how much it is actually impacting their business. I did find my voice because at the time I had none, so I felt a need to have a voice for those that don't have a voice and help educate my peers in the financial industry.

Speaker 1:

Myself. I was completely ignorant to I think it's commonly called the opioid epidemic, so I've been completely ignorant towards it just because I don't have anyone that I'm aware of in my immediate surroundings that's dealing with it. But just in the past year or two I watched a couple documentaries that really laid out some of the background of it and it was just shocking and sad and heartbreaking For an advisor that's maybe listening to this and is wanting to connect the dots in terms of how this may or may not impact them. What are some background or statistics you can share when it comes to how widespread this is?

Speaker 2:

Right now, 200 people are dying every day. So 200 people are losing their life and by the time we're done in 30 minutes, probably about six more will lose their life. Half of Americans right now almost half know someone. Consider yourself lucky that you don't have someone in your immediate circle, but half of Americans know someone close to them or have a family member that has been impacted by addiction in general and with the opioid epidemic just skyrocketing, those numbers are very high due to what we call opioid use disorder. It's not just opioid addiction but opioid use disorder. So many half of Americans are impacted by this.

Speaker 2:

There's a high probability from an advisor standpoint that you have clients impacted by this as well. Investment News did a survey about seven years ago and that survey I think they interviewed maybe about a hundred or so advisors and only a third of them thought that maybe they knew someone, they had a client that might be impacted by the opioid epidemic. But that number is a lot higher than what was actually reported because many advisors just don't realize how much their clients, their families, are impacted by this. It is gone from an economic standpoint. We're at about a one, five trillion a year in economic costs and what that trickles down to is, even though, paul, you don't know someone in your circle from a trickle down effect, it's impacting you.

Speaker 2:

Seventy five percent of business owners are impacted. Again, I feel that number is a lot lower than what they really truly understand. So when it comes to that, even if you're working with business owners from an advisor, you are impacted and bringing that message from what's going on. Watching those movies, the movies you mentioned, there's more and more movies are coming out and they're actually doing a very good job of portraying the process and the evolution of where it started, back in the nineties to where we are today. And right now the floodgates are open. Even though we made steps to pull back, the floodgates are open and that just means it's just going to get worse and worse over time.

Speaker 1:

So if we're not already open to exploring that, we've got clients experiencing this, it's going to come unfortunately, and you had said something just about your own personal experience and you I think the word you said is shame or you were embarrassed and you didn't want to talk about it, and of course, it's for myself. I said I'm unaware of anyone in my inner circle that is dealing with this, just because I don't ask about it. And probably, to your point, if someone does have a family member or a loved one that is dealing with, it can be a sense of shame or privacy or those things. And so, from an advisor's standpoint, what are the things that they should either be looking for or the questions they should be asking to their clients in order to see if there's I don't want to say opportunity, but an ability to help their clients who are impacted?

Speaker 2:

by this Sure. So there's a lot of moving parts here, because it's not only the shame that keeps your clients from sharing this, it's also they could be in denial, and I've been in both. So I was in complete denial that we were even going through a problem, so why would I admit to something like that? And then you've got the parent who might feel that they're a failure for going through this, and that is absolutely not the case, but that is the true reality. And then you've got the third thing is why would I tell my financial advisor it has nothing to do with them. But once you do see some of those red flags, yeah, I'll share some of those as well. But you might want to have a conversation not necessarily addressing it with them direct. And there's a couple of different ways you could go about this, whether or not it's making it part of your fact finder, when you're sitting down finding out information, just say, hey, I just want you to know here's why I'm going to ask questions for this and here's where we can help you financially. And of course, you can always bring in outside resources from that point. But they need to know why. You might need some liquidity, you might need to access money quickly we don't want you to incur penalties or taxes or there might be a better way or direction to access money, or you might want to set up a will proper language in your trust. There's a lot of different things. On just that fact-finding part, you lay the groundwork like we're going to ask questions and don't worry, this is an anonymity, we won't share this. This is private. This is a judgment-free zone. Make them feel completely comfortable.

Speaker 2:

If it's an existing client and you see some red flags, you might want to just consider telling them and meeting with them more often than just an annual review. You might want to just share with them that hey, have you seen the recent episode on the opioid epidemic? I've got clients going through this. This is very real and it's hitting home in our neighborhoods. I just want you to know, if anything ever comes up about this, that I'm here as a resource to you, so approaching it in a very hands-off way, letting them know that you're there. You might even provide videos or an article or signs or things that you want to share where you don't have to address them directly, but seeing those red flags, that's where it becomes a little bit challenging. Just like we have a responsibility to help maybe seniors that might be going through issues and we have certain steps to take to help our seniors. If we see red flags of someone being manipulated or going through issues, that we should handle this, the same way that families could be manipulated by their own family members. So if we see liquidation of assets, if we see changes of beneficiaries, all of those red flags those typical red flags are ways to keep your eyes open and just consider.

Speaker 2:

But also think about reading between the lines. What happens when a client just stops talking about their son or daughter, or they breeze over them? They just don't want to talk about it. They don't want to say, oh, they're going to college and getting married, they don't exist anymore. That might be a red flag. How many of your clients are grandparents starting their life in retirement now, have a new grandbaby they have to take care of, or a grandchild? Talk about putting a dent in the whole retirement plan with expenses. So that may not necessarily mean addiction in the family, but it could be a sign and those are big signs. Reading between the lines and trying to see is debt rising, shooting's been shooting through the roof or they now having to unexpectedly move? There's a lot of different red flags that could come about. It's just a matter of are you open to seeing them and then taking action, like asking those questions?

Speaker 1:

One of the things I remember you sharing or telling me when we met in Phoenix was and I'm going to butcher this, so correct me if I'm wrong but essentially, when you have a loved one that's going through this, you would spend any amounts of money to help them. Right, you would go into debt and I'm just extrapolating here but you would liquidate your 401k, you would do all these different things to help them because this is a loved one and you want to do anything to help them. The question I have is what impact can a financial advisor have other than being, maybe, a sounding board? But if, at the end of the day, someone is going to make decisions that may not be in their own financial interest, but they're going to do it because they have a loved one that they want to help, no matter what impact can a financial advisor make?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, it's a good point If you're not going to stop someone from trying to save the life of their loved one. I personally met someone who lost her son around the same time that my late husband passed away. I don't know her financial situation. She told me she spent about $100,000 trying to help save him. I don't know if that's a lot of money for her. That would be a lot of money for me personally. I can tell you that. I can also tell you that she would spend that and more if her son was alive here today. So you're not going to stop that.

Speaker 2:

However, you could educate them, like I said before, direct them on how to access the right type of funds. Let me tell you, you're not thinking clearly. You're making very cloudy and irrational financial decisions. So maybe you can direct them on how to access money. So maybe you can direct them on how to access money. Maybe you can help direct them and educate them on how long it's going to take to rebuild those assets and how little time they have to rebuild and how to replenish them and how long that's going to take. They might think twice. It's not really up to you to decide whether or not they spend their money on saving a loved one, but you should have some input, maybe help them to make more sound financial decisions.

Speaker 2:

There's no way to tell. Some people might just be a one-time thing, some people might be an ongoing thing, and just the ability to give them advice would mean so much at a time when their life is in chaos. It's not just spending money on things like rehab and the drugs itself or the theft involved. It's things like just spending more on DoorDash. It's spending more on things that you would not typically do. If your items in your home are being pawned into a pawn shop and having to get irreplaceable heirlooms out of the pawn shop, it's expenses that you're just not thinking of that are going to happen. And it's going to a pawn shop and having to get irreplaceable heirlooms out of the pawn shop, it's expenses that you're just not thinking of, that are going to happen and it's going to start happening pretty quickly.

Speaker 1:

You are a financial advisor, so did you have your own financial advisor? At the time, I had plenty of financial advisors. You were surrounded by them. I was surrounded by them. So what questions did they ask? Or did you wish that they asked to have better supported you while you were going through this?

Speaker 2:

I needed a tap on the shoulder, I needed to be approached personally. This is me speaking. I wish I had someone tap me on the shoulder to say hey, here's how things work. I remember going through I'm not in healthcare or property and casualty, but I remember not being able to quite understand if my insurance was gonna pay for the cost of rehabilitation. We pulled 15 grand out, five grand from my father-in-law. We pulled money together, we paid in cash for him to attend and I don't think I ever looked back to see about what. Did insurance cover it?

Speaker 2:

When I could have easily picked up the phone and asked somebody, what questions could they have asked me again, I think if they just would have addressed it with me and said hey, have you thought about this? Have you thought about that? There were times when he was on what are called medically assisted treatment. So as you're going through treatment, you are getting what a doctor is prescribing to help curb the addiction. You become addicted to that and I remember many times pulling money out voluntarily when we didn't even have the money so he could get more of that because he didn't have enough.

Speaker 2:

I was personally making really poor decisions. I was essentially helping him buy drugs on the street. Do you think any rational person when you would think that why would they do that? Well, you're when you're in the midst of it and you just want your loved one to feel better and to be better, you're going to do crazy things like that. Yeah, I wish I would have had someone say look, at least address it with me. And say look, maybe we should talk about your spending. Every penny I was making was flying right out the door.

Speaker 1:

That was the shocking thing for me when I watched those documentaries recently and I think specifically they were about Purdue Pharma and, at least from my understanding, ushered in, at least in part, this whole opioid epidemic, and what really stood out to me was that these were just regular, everyday, hardworking Americans Before this. You think, okay, someone has a drug addiction. I don't want to say it's their fault, but they're choosing this. They're getting into alcoholism. They're making bad decisions. They're choosing this. They're getting into like alcoholism. They're making bad decisions, they're bringing this upon themselves to some degree.

Speaker 1:

But what this movie really educated me on and reinforced in my mind was that the people that are suffering for this by and large and I think you said this was your husband. He got injured at work, he got something going to work, everyday middle-class person, and they have some sort of accident or injury or something. They go to their doctor, who they trust, who they should go to, and at the time their doctor was recommending these different things because that's what they were being told to recommend. And you go from just trying to take care of your health to suddenly being addicted to drugs and then it cascades, and so it was just really shocking to really see it from that point of view, and so I share that. Just because I can understand whether it's the person going through it or the loved one. I can imagine you find yourself in these situations that you're like how did I get here?

Speaker 2:

I often say that I was addicted to his addiction. I was addicted to trying to fix his addiction. I was addicted to controlling the situation. I was addicted to not letting anyone know. I was addicted to trying to fix it. You can't do any of that. So I was going through my own crazy world and going and thinking irrationally, because when you're addicted, you're not thinking. I don't care what the addiction is. It doesn't necessarily have to be about drugs. It could be monetary, it could be health, it could be a lot of different things that people are addicted to. You're not thinking clearly and I was just as bad as he was, in a sense that I'm not making very smart decisions.

Speaker 1:

Let's shift gears a little bit and expand upon this again. For a financial advisor listening to this. So today, how do you help financial advisors? How do you educate them? How do you help them support their clients when it comes to these topics?

Speaker 2:

One it's being able to just educate them on my story is just one of many thousands of people, but educate them on how it is connected to their business, how it is connected to their clients, helping them to identify those red flags that there's so many to how do they have the conversation and what financial strategies that they should consider when a family is going through this. So I help them with providing educational material resources available to them and to just be that person, to share a real life story and to share how this all connects and is truly connected with our industry, because oftentimes financial advisors may not realize that they're on the front lines before anyone else sees, because it's when the money runs out that when the real problems start. So if your family is going through, especially the high net worth individuals, they just have enough resources and money to be able to sweep this under the rug, to fix the problem, to throw money at it. But if there's legal issues and they can just make it go away because they have the funding or they have enough money to spend on getting help and they don't have to worry about going to work and keeping the food and keeping lights on and food on the table. So if there are individuals that need help and they've run out of money, that's when the issues start.

Speaker 2:

So it's not just about helping clients that are already going through. It's just identifying beforehand, so being able to help with those resources and to help make that connection, that it's not just, like you said, people out living in the streets and abandoned buildings and begging for money on the side of the road that, oh wait, this does happen to the wealthy, this happens to the rich and famous. So if it happens to the rich and famous that have all the access to an availability to the top places to get them help and they have the money to be able to spend on it, and then you've got the people that are destitute. What about all the people in between these two stereotypes? And that's where the connection comes in and that's my goal to educate them that they are impacted and you do have access to resources because you are on the front lines.

Speaker 1:

I know that today's election day. I'm sure this will air after that, but I know the vice presidential candidate, jd Vance. His mom was addicted to opioids, I believe, and she's about 10 years sober. I share that. Just to say that there's people in all walks of life right, and is there hope? I don't know enough about this, but what do you see? Is there hope in terms of us overcoming this as a country, or where are we in this? Are we still getting worse? Where do you see us? I?

Speaker 2:

would hope that we've got nowhere to go but up and things to get better. Unfortunately, I feel like the floodgates are open, but when it comes to hope, I feel like this is a battle that can be won. That takes education, that takes everyone to be motivated to understand things from the outside, beyond the traditional financial planning and beyond the traditional thinking in general. It's not necessarily about trying to just save the assets. It's about trying to save lives. I think the more that we can educate people, the more we can help diminish some of the stigma that is out there and the misunderstandings and the challenges. So if we want to defeat the epidemic, we need more conversations, less judgment, more education, less stigma, and that would be a way to lead us to that hope by being able to face some of those challenges with knowledge.

Speaker 1:

Is there any question that I haven't asked you that, at this point, you think would be important for people to know about, or that you would like to share?

Speaker 2:

I do want to share and go back to where you said the pharmaceutical companies when they started this. I really think when people think of opioids there's a misunderstanding in general on really what they are and opioids although it's a term used to collectively refer to opiate and opioids and opium but an opioid is actually derived from the opium poppy seed and that includes the pharmaceuticals and that's what you see the movies and all of the pharmaceutical companies pushing in the early nineties. The heroin is also derived from the opium poppy seed, is also considered an opiate and it is just as highly addictive as the prescription pain pills but it is also potentially deadly. So, interchangeably, heroin and prescription pain pills are along the same thing. And what I don't think people realize is how easy it is to go from prescription pain pills to illegal heroin, so legally prescribed to illegal heroin out on the streets. And then when we have the rise in deaths for opioids in general, that is coming from fentanyl, which everyone has heard.

Speaker 2:

There's a couple of different other types of opioids out there, but they're fully synthetic. There's no opium, it's not dry, it's all chemicals. The spike and increase in overdose deaths is due to fentanyl. What people don't realize is the number one reason for people dying from opioids. The number one reason was prescription pain pills. Then fentanyl came. So this is why it's so important to understand the connection that you have with your clients, because clients, like you said, are being prescribed this and then, if the doctor pulls back, the next easy place to get it is out on the streets and that's heroin. I would say that would be something I'd like to share and make sure people are aware, and I think the movies do try to share that progression. But there's a lot of good movies out there on that.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, I've watched a couple just recently about the Purdue Pharma and I think one had Matthew Broderick in it. I forget the title of it at this point, but that's what was infuriating, at least from watching the movie, and I'm just going to assume it was mostly accurate. I'm sure there's some license taken here and there, but you go from at least in the movie. You go from the doctor essentially pushing it and say, hey, this is a I don't want to say a miracle cure, but this is a miracle drug and it's going to help you with your pain. And they're prescribing it. And of course the pharmaceutical companies saying, oh, give them more for purpose of sales. And of course they get hooked. And then the doctor comes in and says, okay, I can't prescribe anymore, I have to pull back. And now you've just created build off of what you were saying and just from my limited understanding. So now you're like what do I do?

Speaker 1:

My doctor essentially got me addicted and now he's not prescribing, and now I need this. And so what do you do? And that's where you end up on the street buying some illegal version of it. But it's not like that's where you started, right, you weren't trying to go out and party, because in my mind that's like I'll use the word junkie you think they're just trying to party and they're not taking responsibility for life. But this is completely different. This is your everyday person goes to work, gets injured or something like that. Goes to their doctor, looks for help, gets recommended. This, gets addicted because of that recommendation, gets the rug pulled out from underneath them and now they're stuck and that is just infuriating.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, and that's one of the reasons why it's so important for companies to also in the financial industry, to be aware of this and to educate their advisors, because they're actually putting themselves in a legal and liability, because are you really doing what's in the best?

Speaker 2:

Do you really know your client? If you're not asking the questions right, addiction is uncomfortable to talk about it. There's special needs and there's special considerations that have to be taken care of. If you don't truly know what your clients are going through, that's a breakdown in your ability to really provide what's in the best interest of your clients. There's a reason why 60 to 70% of like intergenerational wealth transfers fail. There's a breakdown of trust and communication within the family.

Speaker 2:

Addiction can be a huge impact to that statistic and that's why it's so important to talk about it. And, from a company perspective, it's so important for companies to at least educate their advisors or provide education so they are at least aware of some of these and they could maybe make a shift or be able to ask the right questions or just simply give third-party resources to local people. We build strategic alliances with CPAs, estate planning attorneys, long-term care facilities. Do we have connections with local rehabilitation or counselors or therapists or debt counselors, so there's so many things that we could just provide as a resource just refer them when they don't know where to turn. Being able to educate your advisors could go so far.

Speaker 1:

So for someone listening to the podcast and wants to reach out to you or learn more about the work you do or participate in any of your educational programs, what's the best way for them to reach out or to learn more about you?

Speaker 2:

You can simply put in my name, CherylKanzanellacom, or my actual website is Opioid Financial Awareness.

Speaker 1:

And we'll link to that in the show notes. I've enjoyed the conversation. This has been informative for me and, I hope so, for our audience as well. Thank you for taking the time to be with us today. Thanks, paul.