South Jersey High School Grad, Pro Wrestler Kurt Angle Develop App To Help Recovering Addicts

When Harold Jonas moved from Philadelphia to a small South Jersey suburb as a teenager, he had a hard time adjusting to life outside the city. Jonas, who graduated from Cherry Hill High School East in 1972, found himself visiting the city quite a bit, longing for the “fierce independence” Philadelphia had to offer.

As a self-described “under-developed kid,” he found himself smoking marijuana in his spare time. It wasn’t long before he moved on to a stronger addiction, one that took him down into the very depths of drug use on the streets of Camden.

“In October of 1987, I was living in methadone clinics,” Jonas said. “I spent my time on Admiral Wilson Boulevard, in cheap hotels. It was a bad existence.”

In 1996, Kurt Angle won an Olympic Gold Medal in heavyweight wrestling after breaking his neck. It was the first of six broken necks he would sustain during a professional career that will culminate with him headlining the WWE Hall of Fame Class of 2017 later this month.

Although Angle couldn’t take any painkillers as an amateur athlete, he would step through the looking glass into opioid addiction in 2003, landing him in a situation in which he would get 4 DUIs in five years and nearly lose his family.

“I loved painkillers,” said, the pro wrestling superstar who was a multiple-time world champion in both WWE and TNA. “I didn’t have to feel anything. … I was going to 12 different doctors ordering prescriptions and getting more illegally. I had to take that many to stop the withdrawal. It was an expensive habit, a bad habit.”

Jonas and Angle both battled and overcame addiction. Their family backgrounds are filled with addiction. They both know how difficult overcoming addiction can be — they both recognize you never truly defeat it — and they want to do their part to help struggling addicts overcome their own demons.

Together, they’ve worked together on the Anglestrong Recovery App. The app allows users to create a profile and enter “lifeline supports,” family and friends who can monitor the user’s progress from a safe distance. The person “checks in” every day, and answer a couple of questions. If they miss a check-in, their lifelines are alerted that something may be wrong.

The app costs $1 a day, and is available on Google Play and in the iPhone app store.

In New Jersey, there’s a clear battle against addiction taking place, with Gov. Chris Christie making the battle against addiction the focus of his final year in office. As a result of the Opioid Antidote and Overdose Prevention Act of 2013, police in New Jersey, and nurses in school districts in Gloucester Township and Ocean County carry the heroin antidote Narcan/Naloxone.

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But how can addicts continue the battle after they leave rehab, when they find themselves alone on Day 1?

“A vast number of people have a phone,” Jonas, now a practicing Psychotherapist and Licensed Therapist in Florida and founder/president of the Sober Network said. “Homeless people have phones. I see people who have nothing else in the world, they have a smartphone.”

Last spring, Jonas read a story online about Angle’s search for a development company for his app. Jonas contacted Angle and showed him his FlexDek platform, which he uses to house apps like the one Angle was looking to develop, to support healthy lifestyle changes.

“We let him know how quickly we could get it launched,” Jonas said. “We turned him on to it within three weeks.”

Less than a year later, the app is available to download. In addition to the lifelines, users are invited to participate in a monthly conference call with Angle. Its creators say it’s private, secure and confidential, and it’s GPS enabled.

It’s also cheaper than seeing a counselor and, as Jonas put it, “spending $20 to get dope sick.”

Jonas was 33 in 1987, when he says he was using hard drugs in cheap motels. It was the same year he began his road to recovery, but he had to move away from New Jersey to do it.

“I’ve been in Florida since 1987,” Jonas said. “I checked into drug treatment and stayed here. I built a new life.”

He said it was hard to be away from his family, including his young kids. He got remarried and now has five children in his life. Four went to college, including one who is pursuing her MBA and one who is a pharmacist at the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia (C.H.O.P.).

He was steered into his current line of work by a therapist during his recovery. Jonas went on to earn his PhD from International University with a focus on Addictive Disorders, and his MA in Counseling Psychology from Antioch University. He calls his line of work an ethically and morally responsible way to generate revenue.

He says he has never met Angle face-to-face, but finds it easy to work with him because they have the same belief system.

One belief Angle has is that total recovery needs to be a positive experience.

“In rehab, they tell you you’re going to mess up,” Angle said. “ … I don’t want to hear that I’ll relapse or mess up. They tell you that you’ll have to replace the drug with something else. Why not replace it with something more productive?”

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In rehab, Angle says they point you toward AA meetings, which works for a lot of addicts, but addicts hear the calling of their addiction every day.

Studies have suggested that between 70 percent and 90 percent of people overcoming addiction have at least one moderate slip, while about half return to heavy use, according to Addiction Campuses. Users are invited to talk about their addiction on the app, if they wish.

“I thought about using today, but I wasn’t obsessed with it,” Angle said. “It gets easier the longer you’re away from it. It’s been four years for me.”

Angle, who believes addiction is hereditary, recalled how difficult it was for him to grasp the concept of never taking another painkiller again the first day he checked into rehab. He said the key is to just worry about today, and deal with tomorrow when it arrives.

The app is part of the overall program users can register for at anglestrong.com.

Angle lost his father to alcohol addiction, his sister to heroin addiction, and his brother to prison for killing Angle's sister-in-law.

Angle eventually checked into rehab, in part, because his wife told him she was going to leave him. It wasn’t until he got there that he discovered he really had a problem. He said during his recovery, he didn’t miss getting high because he was using prescription drugs to treat his pain. But he knew a lot of people who did, and he’s motivated to help them.

“Everything I teach on there, that’s me,” Angle said.

They pair doesn't have a specific goal for the app, but Jonas said he is happy with the results he's seen since the app fully launched in January. As of last week, 300 people had downloaded the app on Google Play, with a limited amount of PR.

"I'm happy with the feedback we've gotten," Jonas said. "This is giving people accountability. Families are buying this for the addicts in their life and this is giving them peace of mind."

The attached images of the app and of Kurt Angle were provided