A Case Study of a Drug Addiction

On today's episode, Duane speaks with Howard Lipp about the recovery he experienced after coming up against a wall that he couldn't move. He also shares about the experience he had in rehab that led him to do some work with psychedelics. This enabled him to transcend and find a way out of his suffering and pain.

Howard jumped into the world of recovery in 2002 after hitting a wall with drugs and alcohol which he describes as impenetrable. He later realized he had a callous on his forehead from running into the same wall for such a long time without realizing it. Although he wasn't actively suicidal, he no longer wanted to live the way he was living.

Therefore, he went through a Pavlovian conditioning program that worked for a while. The problem was that it didn't solve the internal conflict he had within him: his feelings of worthlessness and all the pain he carried from his past of abuse and bullying. 

Howard went through most of his life believing there was something foundationally wrong with him. It was easy to grab evidence from his experience as a child and from the fact that he needed something outside of himself to feel okay in his skin. The only thing that shut that up was alcohol. It worked well. The problem is, eventually every substance will fail.

Howard went to a treatment center and had the most unusual experience after being awake for 21 days. Then, he didn't move for three days and had no detox symptoms or medications applied to his body. 

Today, Howard talks about the out-of-body experience he had at this treatment center. He also shares his first experience with plant-based medicine and how it broke through something within him. He felt an immediate connection to the presence of a great mystery of spirit. 

He later realized that his addiction was not to a substance but to his thinking. He believed every single thought he had and that the thinker was him rather than the construct itself. He also started to see how his experience had informed his beliefs. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• The belief that leads to a feeling of unworthiness
• Looking beyond the constructive self
• The self-flagellating false self that beats the crap out of us
• The belief that we’re separate from the Divine
• Why circumstances are not the challenge but the thinking mind is
• What happens when you use your mind as the guidance system for living
• The benefits of plant-based medicine in healing addiction and trauma

Key Quotes:

[03:13] - “You can't solve the problem with the thing that's causing the problem.”

[04:50] - "We come from the realm of the great mystery, and land into a body and we're not received as this whole and complete being. Instead, we're given lots of reasons why we're not whole and complete."

[12:28] - "As Michael Palin says, ‘If you really want to change your mind, you're going to have to address these false selves.’" 

[16:25] - "Nobody is really suffering from an addiction to a substance and that is a known fact that it's a symptom."

[23:16] - “Psychedelics bring you into the present moment and you can't run away.”

[29:32] - “My suffering is not what's happening in the moment. It's the story I tell myself about it.”

[42:02] - "The greatest lie we tell ourselves and our kids is that the value of a human being can be codified or quantified by anything of this world, our job, or money or all of that. But the essence of what we are can’t be measured."

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

www.enaandhoward.com 

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

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