This episode marks the introduction to the recovery theme of the podcast. Betsy Byler, LPC-SAS, ICS, LPCC, joins me to talk about substance addiction, love addiction, and the difference between the two. We also discuss addiction from the perspective of brain science and how the brain actually changes the addicted person. It’s a fascinating and insightful conversation.

Before you turn the episode off or think this theme might not be applicable to you - there's a saying in recovery, “Everyone's recovering from something.” So even if you don’t have a dysfunctional relationship with alcohol or another substance, throughout this series we'll be talking about recovery in general. If you are interested in personal development, I really do think that you will walk away with some nuggets of wisdom. If nothing else, you will understand what it's like to be a person in recovery. I hope you do tune in.

For those of you new to Betsy, she is a mental health therapist, substance abuse counselor, clinical supervisor, and host of the All Things Substance podcast.

Some of the topics we discussed include:

The signs that substance use is moving from recreational to problematic and what it means to be an addict (6:16)
Why addicts do the things they do based on how the brain changes the addicted person (14:24)
Trauma is highly correlated with substance (32:01)
How love addiction is biologically different than substance addiction (37:48)

http://andreaowen.com/504

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Episode 504: Substance Addiction and Love Addiction with Betsy Byler