The One Day At A Time Recovery Podcast

Please Subscribe For More Episodes!   iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo   Connect with Julie Website: https://juliebloom.world/en/   Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/julie-bloom-m-ed-b-comm-2988b385/   Instagram: @juliebloom.world   Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/juliebloom.world?locale=fr_FR   Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen Hello Loves,   Thank you for downloading the podcast, my name is Arlina, and I’ll be your host.   Before we jump in, I have a question for you. Would you enjoy getting a weekly email from me with a list of my favorite recovery/self-improvement books, the “holy crap this is good” podcast episodes I’m listening to, along with the meditations that are helping me stay sane? If you’re saying “hell yeah” then visit odaatchat.com to sign up for the weekly newsletter. And if you do, you’ll also get links to the weekly odaat podcast episodes on YouTube, so you can see my guests in action!   Today’s guest is the lovely Julie Bloom. I met Julie in my coaching certification class, and she quickly became my personal coach! She has helped my ADHD brain stay focused on my goals, manage my priorities and has helped me get “unstuck” so I can complete projects that feel overwhelming. She speaks several languages fluently, she’s a corporate wellness trainer and just an all around amazingly intuitive magical unicorn and I adore her! She’s going to share her story, but we also talk about how sobriety was important in the role of healing from PTSD.   So with that, please enjoy this episode, with Julie!

Please Subscribe For More Episodes!   iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo   Connect with Jeremy! Visit Website: wearmolt.com Listen to Podcast: https://anchor.fm/moltafflictions Follow on Instagram @wearmolt   Lightning Round Answers:  Book recommendation: Alcoholics Anonymous Favorite Quote: No tree can grow to heaven unless it’s roots reach down to hell - Carl Jung What I wish I knew: Being Sober is Different than Recovery Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen   Hello Loves,   Thank you for downloading the podcast, my name is Arlina, and I’ll be your host.   Today my guest is Jeremy Melloul, founder of Molt - a men’s clothing brand that not only raises addiction awareness, but actually contributes a portion of the proceeds to fund sober living for those in need. He is also the host of the Molt Addiction Podcast, where I had the opportunity to share some of my recovery journey.   In this episode he shares his recovery from heroin addiction, and we talk about attachment disorders, family dynamics in early recovery, his daily morning recovery practice and lots more. I hope you enjoy this episode as much as I did!

Please Subscribe For More Episodes!   iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen

Please Subscribe For More Episodes!   iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo   Purchase Her Book on Amazon! Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen Hello Loves,   Thank you for downloading the podcast, my name is Arlina, and I’ll be your host.   In case we haven’t met yet, I am a certified Recovery Coach and Hypnotist. I am obsessed with all things recovery, including neuroscience, reprogramming the subconscious mind, law of attraction, all forms of personal growth and spirituality. I have been practicing abstinence from drugs and alcohol since 4/23/94, and I believe in people finding what works for them.    Today I’ll be talking with Dr Anna Lembke, she is Chief of the Stanford Addiction Medicine Dual Diagnosis Clinic at Stanford University and author of the #1 Bestseller “Dopamine Nation: Finding Balance In the Age of Indulgence”. It would be a vast understatement to say it was such an honor to interview her for the podcast.  If you’ve been listening to these interviews for any length of time, you’ll know I love learning about ideas I can share that will help lead people out of suffering. Up til now I’ve been hyper focused on empathy largely based off of Brene Brown’s work around vulnerability and she shared that empathy is the antidote to shame. I’ve also treasured the idea that “honesty without compassion is cruelty” so I’ve been pretty focused on empathy but it felt like something was missing.   Then I read this by Anna: “Empathy without accountability perpetuates victimhood”. I had an absolute “holy crap” moment. Not an “aha”, a holy crap. Because, I believe that I can’t really help people who are stuck or committed to a victim mentality. Those are people who are unwilling or unable to accept personal responsibility and I actually have a visceral and negative response to that type of thinking.   I had to send Anna a follow up email and ask for more feedback, specifically around what to say to people who have relapsed, and this is what she said:   “I’m so sorry. I’m sorry for your suffering. That must be so hard.”  What this does is validate that the relapse happened, while also acknowledging the pain that person is experiencing. I think of it similar to what I would say to someone who told me their cancer which had been in remission came back.”   So brilliant. I just love her.   Anyway, that was a very long intro, but I wanted you to have that extra bit of wisdom from her.   I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did.   Arlina Allen  6:09   Okay, here we go. We'll talk to you. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.   Unknown Speaker  6:15   Thank you for inviting me, I am very happy to be here.   Arlina Allen  6:18   I'm so excited. Listen, I say that all the time. But I really, really men it this time because I have been reading your book, and actually I listened to the audio book first while I'm walking, because I sort of like the first wash of like, all these concepts. And then I get the book because I'm a students. And I like to, you know, highlight and underline and Mark things. And this book was stuff. It has some pictures. Yeah. Picture like people like me, pictures are amazing. Yeah. But I just it's called dopamine, finding balance in the age of indulgence, I'm sorry, dopamine nation. And, wow, I have so many questions to ask. But I think a good place to start might be with maybe what what is dopamine? Really, because I think there's a lot of misconceptions about what dopamine is, there isn't like a dopamine pill. But you know, when people take drugs, I think they activate dopamine, but maybe I don't really have a good understanding. So I thought maybe I could sort of clarify what it really is, and, and why it's important.   Dr Anna Lembke  7:31   Yeah, so dopamine is a chemical that we make in our brain. And it's very important for the experience of motivation, reward, and pleasure, and also fundamental in this self reregulating kind of system, that's called homeostasis, that is so fundamental to our physiology, and also, you know, to our survival. So essentially, you know, in a kind of broad brushstrokes simplified form, if you imagine that there is a balance in your brain, kind of like a teeter totter in a kid's playground, when we do something pleasurable that balance tips one way, and when we do something that's painful, that balance tips the other way, or when we ingest a substance that's pleasurable, or when we have an injury, you know, we cut our finger to the side of pain. But one of the overarching rules governing that balance is that it wants to remain level or preserve what neuroscientists call homeostasis. And it will work very hard to preserve a level balance with any deviation from neutrality. So when we do something that is pleasurable, we release dopamine, the pleasure neurotransmitter in the brain's reward pathway, which is a special part of our brain that's been conserved over millions of years, and is the same across many different species, even very primitive organisms. And that balance tip slightly to the side of pleasure. But no sooner Has that happened, then our brain will try to reregulate to bring that balance level again. And it does that by down regulating dopamine production and down regulating dopamine transmission in the reward pathway. But it doesn't just bring dopamine back down to tonic baseline levels, it actually brings it below baseline. So what happens I think of that as these Gremlins hopping on the pain side of the balance to bring in level again, but they stay on until the balance is tipped and equal and opposite amount to the side of pain. Yes, and that's of course, the kind of looking at the book. There's a little graphic in there, right there. And with Gremlins, right, I'm also a visual thinker. And so I just, you know, wanted to create a simple metaphor.   Arlina Allen  9:52   This is Brian, on page 52 of the book. There's like the seesaw or the teeter totter that you mentioned. And I thought That was so interesting because it when you're talking about uh when we indulge in the dopamine like you know even on the little graph is chocolate social media gaming porn shopping in my case drugs alcohol all that stuff not to say that I don't indulge in social media those other are those other things shopping that we there is that deficit it's like the equal opposite   Dr Anna Lembke  10:26   yes right for every pleasure we pay a price yes price is the come down and sometimes can be very subtle outside of conscious awareness. But you know it's there. And you know if we wait long enough that feeling of wanting to buy one more thing or watch one more video or have one more piece of chocolate goes away and and homeostasis is restored. But if we continue to bombard our dopamine reward pathway with highly reinforcing drugs and behaviors, what ends up happening is that to compensate for that, let's say artificially high levels of dopamine and I call it artificial because you know, the fundamental difference between things that are addictive and those that are not are that addictive, things release a whole lot more dopamine in the reward pathway. And of course, technology has taken even things that were not addictive like food, and made them highly potent and turn them into drugs or human connection. Social media has drug A fight human connection. But as a result of constantly bombarding our dopamine reward pathways, what ends up happening is our brains are desperately trying to compensate. And so they're way down down regulate, our brains are down regulating our dopamine production, and we end up in this kind of chronic dopamine deficit state where we have, you know, 1000s, of Gremlins on the pain side of the balance, and they've kind of camped out there, right, they brought their barbecues, their tents, they're not going anywhere fast. And, and it lasts a long time, which I think is really fundamental to understanding a couple of things. The first thing is, why on earth do people with addiction, relapse, after months, or even years of recovery and abstinence and their lives are so much better? Why on earth would they go back to using the reason is because they're not necessarily walking around. With a level balance, they are potentially walking around with a balance tilted to the side of pain on a daily basis experiencing the universal symptoms of withdrawal, which can last for months to years. And those include anxiety, insomnia, irritability, depression, and craving or intrusive thoughts of wanting views. The other reason I think this is balances is really helpful, is because not only does it allow us to understand the disease of addiction and relapse and to have compassion for that. But also it might explain, and this is the fundamental hypothesis of dopamine nation. Why it is that despite the fact that we have all our survival needs met, and then some why our rates of depression, anxiety and suicide going up all over the world, especially in rich countries. And I do believe that's because we individually and collectively, are engaging in so many high reward high pleasure activities and substances, that in order for our primitive brains to compensate, we have collectively downregulated, our own dopamine transmission such that we're all more depressed and anxious.   Arlina Allen  13:22   Yeah, you know, in the beginning of recovery, a lot of people talk about boredom. And I think we're so overstimulated when we're using that, when we get sober and practice that, you know, those of us are practicing practicing abstinence, I am aware that there is like harm reduction, you know, and that's the thing I totally I feel like that's totally valid. I quit drinking alcohol on my 25th birthday and continued to smoke weed for five months. I didn't know that recovery is about complete apps. That's just, they called it the marijuana maintenance program back in the day. Uh huh. Anyway, now we're calling it harm reduction, just fine. But what I thought was so interesting is and this is what I have heard over the years is that when people first get sober, they're bored. And I listened to the interview you did with Dr. Andrew Huber many we're talking about boredom and anxiety, which at first blush, you wouldn't think that those two go together. But when all your needs are met, and you really have and you don't have a passion or in my case obsessions for different things. If you don't if you don't have that you like get bored and then it's like, creates anxiety. Right? I see that in my kids.   Unknown Speaker  14:37   Yeah, of course. Yeah. I mean, especially the way because we're living in a time when we're constantly able to distract distract ourselves from our own thoughts, and our own ruminations and even our own creativity really, such that when we take away those distractions, we're suddenly you know, plummeted into the abyss really existentially We are bored, and sort of then contemplate well, gee, I don't have anything to do like, What? What is the purpose of my life anyway. But I think the key really is number one to acknowledge that boredom can be an extremely painful emotion, literally, physically painful, and scary. But that if we can just sit with it, and not try to run away from it, it is also the progenitor of creativity, and a place where new things are born. And so you know, just thinking about, like, you know, open space, like, it's like, you need space before you can have a supernova, you know, you need to have that blankness in order to, you know, initiate something new. And the internet really allows us all to be in this constant state of reactivity, where we're always responding to some some kind of input, rather than, you know, sitting quietly and generating.   Arlina Allen  15:56   Yeah, no, it's, I have a question for you about the neurotransmitter. So it's my understanding, like, from a chemistry perspective, that, you know, your receptors, your brain cells have receptors on them that are the uptake with Deborah allow the cells to receive the dopamine. And if you flood your cells, I'm sorry, I don't know that is your neurotransmitters? Yes, yes. Okay. So the receptor if there, there's like little receptors that allow that uptake of the dopamine, but if it's flooded too much, your cells will retract those receptors. Exactly. Right. So this is the attic mind, how long does it take the brain to heal, meaning it puts back a normal amount of receptors, because in my mind, I was thinking, I took some physiology anatomy in college, and it was like, Oh, that's why when people first stop using, they don't feel anything, it's like they can't, because their brain was trying to protect them this whole time by retracting those receptors, not allowing them to uptake the dopamine. And so because they're not there, people feel flat, like they, they feel flat, and they can't feel it. And so everybody always says, Well, how long until I start feeling good again? Like, how long does it take their brain cells to put those little receptors back out? So people start feeling good?   Dr Anna Lembke  17:21   Yeah, so in my clinical experience, it takes a minimum of a month, and that's less bad, not bad. And let me just say, a minimum of a month to start to regenerate other receptors and regulate dopamine transmission. But I mean, the protracted abstinence syndrome can last many months to even years, in some cases, right? Yeah. pends on the person, it depends on the drug, it depends on how you know how much they used. But in my clinical experience, and again, this is supported by some evidence, if people totally abstain for one month, in weeks one and two, that pleasure, pain balance to transmission is below baseline, because it's exactly as you say, our neurons have retracted those dopamine receptors, so we're not getting, you know, that stimulation. And we're experiencing withdrawal. But by weeks, three or four, people typically start to feel better. And by week four, even people with some very severe addictions, will start to notice improvement. Now, one thing you have to be really careful about is cross addiction. So all addictive substances work on that same common pathway, don't mean is a universal currency for the process of addiction, at least as far as we know, at this point. So if you give up your cannabis, but you keep smoking cigarettes, you know, you're not going to get the same kind of upregulation. Because you're not going to be abstaining from nicotine, which is gonna be you know, it's not, you know, most of my patients are not willing to give up cigarettes and nicotine and alcohol and all of it at once. That's a lot to give up. So whatever they're willing to do is great. And often they will see improvements, even if they just give up one thing. But to really get the full benefit and really restore homeostasis, you kind of have to give it all up in order. What   Arlina Allen  19:12   about what about caffeine?   Dr Anna Lembke  19:14   Well, you know, caffeine is a stimulant. So it sort of depends on how much you're using. If you're one cup of coffee a day, it probably isn't going to make much difference and you can just keep doing that. But if you're at you know, eight cups of coffee a day, that's that's probably probably time to. And the truth is that, believe it or not, it sounds harder to give it all up at once. But it might in fact be easier. There are studies showing that people who quit drinking and quit smoking cigarettes at the same time have better outcomes than people who just quit drinking but keep smoking.   Arlina Allen  19:50   Or these people who were considered pretty heavy on the alcohol use disorder spectrum or you know, I don't think alcoholic is really a A clinical term any longer Is that true?   Unknown Speaker  20:02   That's true.   Arlina Allen  20:03   It's alcohol use disorder.   Dr Anna Lembke  20:04   Yes, that's right. So we're trying to the alcoholic comes from Alcoholics Anonymous. It's just not a medicalized term. It's a perfectly good term. But it's just not one that we're, you know, we're using in Medicine Today we're trying to use a more generic term that can crossover many different substances to now it's, we don't even use the term addiction, believe it or not in a lot. Yeah, strange, right? And that's, you know, believe it or not, it hasn't really been the term the medical term. Now, let me say I use it all the time. It's the broadly understood term for this process. It is used in neuroscience texts. It is in the name of the of NIDA, the National, its own National Institute of Drug Abuse, which is a term we don't use anymore. The language of addiction is changing. But in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, it's not called nicotine addiction, or alcohol addiction. It's called nicotine use disorder, alcohol use disorder, cannabis use disorder, and I'm like that.   Arlina Allen  21:01   Okay. So it is specific to the whatever people are using. Okay, that's so interesting. I did not know that. Listen, I kind of came up in Alcoholics Anonymous. So, you know, but I've noticed that, and I'm sure you've noticed this too, like, and maybe not because you're not on social media. Is that true? You're not on social media? That's not true. Yeah, that's true. But you are in the social dilemma. Right? Fascinating. Like I had resisted watching it, because I'm sorry, I was sort of in the camp of, you know, I use social media for good. You know, so I don't, I didn't maybe are good. Yeah, it can. Yeah, I mean, it's that's how I communicate all everything that I do. My podcast and everything that I do is I'm trying to disseminate information, you know, solution. And he's social media. So I'm like, it's all it hits like money. It's all in how you use it, right? Like you use your powers for good. Kind of like Spider Man. But, um, where am I going with that, but but it's there's a bit of self denial because I do find I'm, you know, sort of like the typical addict, let's say, have that sort of propensity for addiction or anything obsessive anything that I like, I want more, right, I don't really have that off switch. So it's like, oh, I found something I'm passionate about is helping people recovering, Alcoholics Anonymous, and so that's all I want to do. So he says, it seems like a healthier obsession.   Dr Anna Lembke  22:37   You know, putting investing our energy into things that we care about, that gives us to me meaning and purpose that serve others that make the world a better place, those are all those are all good things, they can also cross the line into addiction, we can, you know, there is work addiction. People can get, you know, caught up in that in a way that's not healthy for themselves or others. But in general, you know, when we're serving others, those are usually healthy behaviors.   Arlina Allen  23:06   Yeah, I remembered my point of that little thing I just did. But with the social media, it's so interesting to see that the vernacular is changing in the world of social media, how people like me who are trying to disseminate information about recovery and sobriety, the vernacular is changing, because a lot of people, women, especially, actually are very, like anti a, because of the male dominated vocabulary. And, you know, there's this sort of patriarchal overtone, and overtures. And I kind of grew up in the church where I learned to, you know, you're supposed to read the Bible, and then you sort of decipher what it means to you. When I got sober. I was like, these people are like, Oh, you can solve that problem here. And I was like, I'm all in. And I would read the text and literature and I would just translate like, I had that ability to translate into what it means to me. So I didn't really get hung up on I was super desperate to be sober. So I didn't get hung up on terms like alcoholic or, you know, everything being in he him. There's like in the book, I'm sure you're familiar, a chapter to the lives, right? Yeah. As if we were, you know, the women were sort of secondary. And so there's all this discussion right now about how, like a lot of people I interview they talk about alcohol free, they won't even use the word like alcoholic seem shaming. Uh huh. Or have you have you experienced that and the people that come to see you.   Dr Anna Lembke  24:43   I certainly have, you know, encountered a lot of people who for whom a was not useful or effective, but I've encountered an equal number or more for whom a was absolutely you know, the lifesaver for them men and women. But I think it's important to put a into its historical context, it started in the 1930s. It was started by, you know, two men who met each other and support each other. It is one of the most remarkable and robust social movements in the last 100 years, totally peer driven, takes no financial outside support takes no political stance is free is everywhere. And I do agree with you that, you know, language was important and needs to change with changing times. And I think there have been some updates to the big book, you know, more more modern, and more accessible. And certainly, I've heard of certain I'm aware of abuses in the rooms and in a, I mean, I'm glad today that there are many options, different options for me to get into recovery online, in person. abstinence oriented, moderation oriented, and I think this is great. I think there are lots of paths to the top of the mountain. But I would not throw out a you know, I know, it's a really powerful philosophy and approach. And, you know, just absolutely miraculous for, you know, for people for whom it works and who actively participate.   Arlina Allen  26:15   Yeah, well, there you go, you have to actively participate. I'm a huge fan like it absolutely. There was not actually when I got sober 27 years ago, there wasn't really nothing else. Yeah, there was really nothing else, I was super grateful. And I lived in San Jose. So in the Bay Area, where you are, there are there were like 800 meetings a week. Yeah. And there were women's meetings and very specialized meetings, there was I used to go to a 6am meeting every day that attracts a certain crowd. So I was I was super lucky. And I know that's not the case everywhere. But   Dr Anna Lembke  26:51   the other thing to keep in mind is that the rates of alcohol use disorder and women have gone up 85% in the last two decades, 85%, the ratio of women who are addicted to alcohol, or men who are addicted to alcohol versus women has been in the range of five to one to two to one for many generations, but in the last generation, starting with the millennials, that is approached one to one. And so now women are as likely to present with an alcohol use disorder as men, which is a brand new phenomenon. And really, you know, therefore, I do appreciate that, you know, women, who are we have more women than ever, you know, addicted to alcohol, they're also wanting new ways that are better suited to women, possibly, you know, to get into recovery.   Arlina Allen  27:41   Yeah, I had a friend point out that, you know, the court system is sending people to a, who may or may not belong there, you know, predators, people with, you know, you know, violent histories or whatever that, you know, the court system is sending a lot of people there, too, I always tell women to go to women's meetings,   Dr Anna Lembke  28:00   I think that's a good place place to start. Or what I say to people is that, you know, going to meetings is a little bit. I mean, maybe this isn't a great analogy, but it's a little bit like dating, you have to, you know, meet a bunch of different meetings before you find one that you like, that's a great analogy. And there's a lot of frogs. Yeah. And then the truth is that recovery is better in some meetings than others. So you want to make sure you find a meeting where there's good recovery and recovery can change. I mean, these are very organic, human gatherings, and you can have a meeting that's really unhealthy and positive, and then it loses a few key people, or there's some other disruption of location or time you lose that frame and you lose the meeting. So it's important to, you know, to just make sure you're going to Good, good meetings.   Arlina Allen  28:47   Yeah, absolutely. And, you know, I've seen, like for women who have children like I, you for, so I was with my husband, and he's sober. And we didn't go to meetings together for like, 10 years when we first had kids, because number one, I never, I can't focus on funding to bring my kid to Yeah, it was just a variety mindset. Yeah, yeah. So there were so for women, when they have kids, it's like lifestyle changes, you know, affect your ability to go to, to meetings. I know. For some women, it was like, they're working full time. They have kids, it's like, you want me to go to 90 meetings in 90 days? That seems impossible. But you know, nowadays, it's a little different because we have online meetings and things like that. We have a little more, but gosh, it depends. I know the pandemic was really hard on a lot of people in a lot of ways. But it also presented has now provided new opportunities, because now women can go to meetings like we can literally, there's an international woman's meeting that goes 24 seven. Wow, that's cool. Yeah, it's been continuous for four months now. I want to ask you, I've so many questions. So we were talking about early recovery, people experiencing boredom and Takes about, you know, it takes some time for that to heal. So I think if people are aware of that that's coming that they can adapt to that. And to know that their passions for things will come back. Dr. Haberman described addiction as a narrowing of things that bring pleasure. And it's so interesting because as soon as we set it down, it's like, we start finding other things interesting again, when it comes to so I'm a mom, I know a lot of my listeners are your mom, you know, the whole video game thing, especially in this age of pandemic, where kids don't really have a whole lot to do and they're craving connection. It's been really confusing as a parent to know how to support your kids. It's like, Listen, I can't entertain their, you know, their teenagers, I can entertain them the whole time. It's like I have work to do. But I'm terrified about what's what happens to them sometimes in this in this age, and I have moms that are like, and our kids are so in touch with, like their neurosis now, like when I was coming up, we didn't know that my sister was struggling with clinical depression. We didn't know that that was the thing. The you know, whatever. 40 I don't know how overall I don't do math A long time ago. But now the kids are like, Oh, I have anxiety. I have depression. I have this. It's you know, the sex. Sexual orientation is so fluid. And it's like, as a parent, it's hard to know how to support your kids because we were kind of grew. I think you grew up with syrup. Did you grow up with like, a little bit of tough love?   Dr Anna Lembke  31:36   Yeah, you know, a little bit of healthy neglect. I think it's fair to say, maybe verging on unhealthy neglect. But yeah, baby nine.   Unknown Speaker  31:44   Is that a thing? benign?   Arlina Allen  31:45   Yeah, so that's Yeah, my mom was a total badass. Is that was like it was the whole Go figure. Figure it out? That's right. Yeah, for yourself. And, but we don't do that to our kids now, because we are aware of like the suicide rate. So I feel like we're in a rock between a rock and a hard place, because we can't really do the hardest thing anymore. Because our kids might kill themselves. And it's like, how, as a mom, am I supposed to help my kids through the difficult times without them getting addicted to video games? Or like, even if they're home all the time, they're not doing drugs and alcohol? They can still be, you know, porn. And listen, I don't even want to know. But video, let's just say video games, just like the online stimulation. How do I, as a mom, like your mom, how do you help your kids? How do we help our kids like self regulate?   Dr Anna Lembke  32:44   Well, I think an important important place to start is to talk about how pleasure and pain are processed in the brain. And how the brain really does want to assert this level balance or preserve homeostasis. And that any deviation from neutrality, whether it's on the pleasure side, or the pain side actually constitutes a stressor to the brains when we think about what's stressing kids out. Now, I would argue, as I do argue, in my book, that it's all of the feel good drugs and behaviors that's actually contributing to the stressors itself. Because when we're the kids are playing these video games, they're getting a huge bolus of dopamine in the reward pathway, then their brains need to compensate by down regulating their own dopamine transmission, bringing it bringing in those postsynaptic receptors. Such that you know, when those kids try to pull away from the video game, first of all, it's very hard to do that they will experientially describe that. And then they're depressed. So it's actually the gaming and the pornography and the social media that is causing the depression and anxiety and not the other way around. So what I counsel parents to do is to first understand something about that basic neurophysiology, explain it to their kids, talk to kids about how these online products can be great, but they can also be drugs and that they have been engineered to be drugs and to keep us clicking, and swiping and scrolling. And that we have to be really mindful of how we're using them and that in moderation, it's just fine. But just like you wouldn't get up and eat ice cream for breakfast, you probably don't want to get up first thing in the morning and, you know, be scrolling through social media and do that all day long. You know, the all all good things in moderation. Right, right. I mean, so we're all we all struggle with this. It's not just our kids. The other thing I say to parents, you know, so, as a family, talk about the dangers in talking about the good things about social media and video games and all that, but also talk about the dangers. Talk about how important it is to pay attention to not just how you feel when you're doing the activity, but also how it makes you feel afterwards. Talk about the importance of having some device free and tech free times in the day like maybe at dinner time or some other time with the family. Family, maybe taking tech free vacations, if you can do that, where maybe for a week at a time, everybody leaves their devices at home and goes and interacts in nature. These are all things that people, they just like they're horrified at the thoughts they get, right? Thinking about just leaving their phone behind, but But the truth is, that's really an indication of how addicted, we have all become. Even the thought of not bringing our phones with us, you know, generates anxiety. And you know, that's the same thing as my patients who are addicted to alcohol. And the thought of not having access to alcohol at that party, or at that gathering, or when I get home, you know, is absolutely terrifying to me. So I think we really have to, you know, conceptualize these behaviors as potentially highly addictive and, you know, be thoughtful about organizing our use around them to really respect the pathophysiology. In the   Arlina Allen  35:57   first the first thought they came up here and he said, Take a tech free vacation, I was like, isn't the first week off of addiction like your worst week?   Dr Anna Lembke  36:06   It is, it is. And frankly, that's why I do recommend a full month off in order to give it enough time to reset reward pathways so that you're not craving anymore. Yeah. And then and then if you want to go back to using or you have to go back to using because you need the smartphone for your work. Really, at that point, it's much easier to be intentional and thoughtful about using differently using less barriers.   Arlina Allen  36:31   Like the self binding you were talking about.   Unknown Speaker  36:34   Right? Okay, so   Arlina Allen  36:35   I'm going to jump to that since we just talked about it. So page 93 of the book, we talk about binding and I thought that was really interesting. I loved how he used Homer's Odysseus and the sirens, the story of the sirens, how's the captain would be back on his air in time self to the boat. You know what's funny is this whole time I thought the sirens were like mermaids. They're birds.   Dr Anna Lembke  36:57   They're half bird, half human creatures who spell bind sailors with their enchanting song, lure them to the rocks, and kill them that way. Kill him. I don't know. But yeah, so the story, right is that that he he but he asks his sailors to bind him to the mast, and to put beeswax in his ear so they can get through that passage without being lowered, lowered by the sirens.   Arlina Allen  37:22   What are some of those? Okay, so we mentioned, let's see, I have a list of I had a list of soft binding, things you mentioned, you know, first thing that came to mind was rehab, that's kind of a soft binding thing. And it's the first 30 days gives you a chance for your brain to reset. Obviously, like changing your environment, removing all temptations around your house when you were talking about video games, you know, or other devices. You had an interesting, I don't want to spoil the book for anybody, but you had an interesting client or patient that had a machine. Right, right, machine. But anyway, he broke in her head and did all kinds of crazy things to try to avoid it. bless his heart, that must have been awful. But yeah, so we do all kinds of self binding practices or so but I kind of wanted to relay that relate that to medications, would you consider medications a self binding? practice?   Dr Anna Lembke  38:25   Yeah, I think they really can be so for example, if you take a medication like now trek zone, which blocks the opioid receptor, that's been shown to help people reduce or stop opioids because obviously if the receptors blocked opioids like heroin or fake it in whatever it is, can't bind, but alcohol is also mediated through our own endogenous opioid system. So when the naltrexone is on the opioid receptor, alcohol is not as reinforcing. And so that can help people either stop drinking alcohol or reduce the number of drinks on drinking days. So it's a nice medicine to help people not only whose goal is abstinence, but also who have a goal of moderation. You know,   Arlina Allen  39:09   I have a client who has a family member, let's say is probably physically addicted alcohol is naltrexone use for somebody that you're chemically detoxing or medically detoxing. Is that a is that a drug that   Dr Anna Lembke  39:24   we we think of detox which is that period of helping somebody through acute withdrawal, especially potentially life threatening withdrawal and say that alcohol withdrawal can be life threatening benzodiazepine withdrawal can be life threatening that Xanax, Valium, Klonopin, advant opioid withdrawal can be life threatening. So if you're somebody who's so physically dependent on alcohol, benzos, or opioids, that you're going to go into life threatening withdrawal, you wouldn't want to just quit, you know, you would want to go see a doctor and have a medically supervised you know, medically managed withdrawal All we really think of addiction treatment or recovery as beginning, when acute withdrawal is over. Oh god, no, naltrexone is a medicine that we would use to help somebody get into and maintain recovery. It's not a medicine that we use in in acute withdrawal.   Arlina Allen  40:22   Okay, so that's after acute withdrawal. That's right. Yeah, that's important. Let's talk a little bit about I like that you have dopamine as an acronym on page 88. Okay, he had it summarized in that little, and a picture. I like pictures. Can we go over the what it stands for?   Dr Anna Lembke  40:44   Yeah. So the dopamine acronym is really just a framework for how to initially approach the problem of compulsive overconsumption, or in some cases, addiction. This is a framework that is good choice in people who are not so physically dependent, that they're going to go into life threatening withdrawal. And it wouldn't be a good framework for somebody who had already repeatedly tried to stop on their own and just was incapable somebody, for example, who was injecting heroin multiple times a day and just couldn't even go for a day without so that that would be somebody who would really need a higher level of care. But for those of us who have maybe mild to moderate addiction, or maybe aren't even addicted yet, but we're on our way to becoming addicted and or just engaging in compulsive overconsumption. This dopamine acronym kind of outlines a basic framework, and the D stands for data. And that's where I asked patients to describe to me what they're using, how much how often, and just by getting them to articulate to another human being what they're doing, that often brings into relief, their actual use in a way that they can be in denial about as long as it's just kind of this amorphous behavior in their heads. So I really like to start with just asking them in a non judgmental way, you know, how much are you on social media? How many hours a day? What are you doing? The O of dopamine stands for objectives. And this really gets into why why is it that you're doing that drug, or that behavior? What's positive about it for you, because I really do think that even irrational behaviors make some sense, subjectively, and so it's important for us to understand what's driving that individual's behavior. And then the P of dopamine stands for problems, that's when we get into, you know, what's problematic about your use, I understand why you do it, I understand what's good about it, what's problematic about it, and that can range to everything from you know, it's not working anymore. Like it used to do X, Y, and Z for me, and it's not doing those things, too, it costs a lot of money to it's interfering with my relationships work with my ability to do schoolwork, with my health. So there are many, many different reasons that people people will say, often, you know, in the way they do it, that it's, you know, to solve a problem, like anxiety or depression, but it may not be solving that problem anymore.   Arlina Allen  43:13   Sorry. So you get them sort of in touch with specifics. Yeah. So yeah, so you're not asserting pressure? Because I think I used to be a sales grown and sales, they teach you not to pressure people because it viscerally creates resistance. Yeah, right. Right. But when you ask somebody like, what, what problems is it caused? Like, what specifically what caught? What problems? Is it causing for you? They're coming up with their own. Like, I went through that experience to specific consequences that were a problem for me,   Dr Anna Lembke  43:47   right? Yeah, you basically ask them just to be objective and analytical about their own subjective experience. And just kind of, you know, go, Hey, you know, this is what I do. And this is, this is how it makes me feel.   Arlina Allen  44:00   You know, what I love about science when it comes to addiction? Is it kind of depersonalized is that because we experienced so much shame and guilt? And we did terrible? Listen, I did, did some terrible and embarrassing things when I was drinking and using they caused guilt and shame, right? Well, when I started to understand the mechanics of why I fell into the trap in the first place, was sort of depersonalized it a little bit, right and took away some of the guilt and shame. And I love this approach of objective analytical sciency stuff, because it does sort of make it more easier for me to then accept the solution.   Dr Anna Lembke  44:37   Yeah, you realize it's not about your it's not that you're a bad person, it's that it's a bad disease. And these are highly addictive substances and behaviors and they were engineered to hook us, right. The a of dopamine is really the the key intervention and that's where I ask patients to abstain from their drug of choice for 30 days. Why 30 days because that's an amount of time that most people can wrap their head around and I say never drink again. I'm Not going to be very persuasive, but I say, Hey, can you give it up for 30 days, please, I can, I can probably do that. The other thing again is that 30 days is the minimum amount of time it takes for those neural adaptation Gremlins to hop off the pain side of the balance for homeostasis to be restored, which is just another way of saying that's the amount of time it takes for us to up regulate our dopamine receptors and dopamine transmission so that we can widen our lens start to enjoy other things, but also look back and see true cause and effect because when we're chasing dopamine we really don't see the impact that it has on our lives.   Arlina Allen  45:37   It's so we get so blind that's like the denial part, right? Yeah, we lose completely lose perspective.   Dr Anna Lembke  45:43   That's right. The hard thing about getting patients to you know engage in this in this task is that many of them come in feeling bad already, right? They're looking fresh and anxiety and then I'm suggesting to do something that's going to actually make them feel worse and worse. But what I say to them it's kind of like getting you know treatment for cancer it's it's really hard when you're in it, but when you come out the other side of it, it'll it'll be worth it and potentially life saving, saving. Yeah. And then the The M is stands for mindfulness is just a way to sit with feelings, including negative, scary, strange feelings, without judgment and also without reaction without trying to get rid of those feelings. insight of dopamine acronym, just stands for how this this experiment really does give us an enormous amount of insight often into how addicted we really are. Because like I said, we were we will tend to minimize and normalize and you know, in the book, I talk about my my own romance novel reading addiction. So   Unknown Speaker  46:42   funny as all I'm right there with you, girl. Until I like, Oh, yeah, right. As it is embarrassing. my   Arlina Allen  46:48   mic, as   Unknown Speaker  46:49   I know, it is.   Arlina Allen  46:51   My boys are like sparkly vampires. What   Dr Anna Lembke  46:53   is right, right, I know, two additional ways that we are sort of incontinent around our desires is always shame producing. It's interesting. Yeah. But, but you know, this is really again, just a way to gather data, do an experiment, gain insight. And it's an embodied physical experiment, I think that's really key, too, because so much of our mental health interventions are asking patients to sort of just rearrange their thoughts. But this is a really physical thing where you know, you go into withdrawal, you know, when you feel that physically, and it's painful. So kind of asking people to embrace something that's painful in the service of feeling better in the long run. And then N stands for next steps. That's when people come back after a month, if they were able to do it, I say, Okay, do you want to keep abstaining? Or do you want to go back to using and most of them say they want to go back to using what they want to use in moderation? Yeah. And sometimes   Arlina Allen  47:48   disappointing for you to hear, like, does that make you nervous, you know,   Dr Anna Lembke  47:51   sometimes, because sometimes my choice for them really would be absence, and I kind of know that they're not going to be able to moderate. But you know, you got to meet patients where they are. And if I try to railroad them into it, it's not going to work pressure, sometimes they just have to go out and get more data and go through that loop a couple more times. And they're like, you know, what, I think I'm better off abstaining. I that's much more persuasive than if I try to tell them, that's not really gonna work for you. The other thing I would say is I have had patients who surprised me, and actually with enormous effort, were able to abstain sometimes even when they were able to do it, though they said it wasn't worth it, it took too much effort and energy, that it was easier to abstain. But importantly, there are no drugs that we use that we can't abstain from, like food, or like our smartphones so hard. Yeah. Or sex. I mean, I think most of us think of sex as, as a part of, you know, a healthy part of a healthy life. But then that idea of Well, how do we moderate becomes important, I think, for all of us, even for those of us who are trying to abstain from our drug of choice, because, because we're just bombarded by these highly rewarding substances and behaviors. And so we're all we're all challenged with, you know, abstention, and moderation and, and I really think that people in recovery, you know, as I say, in the book, our modern day profits for the rest of us kind of can show us how to live in this token saturated world. So just to finish off, then e of dopamine stands for experiment. That's where people go back out and implement what they've learned now with a pleasure pain pathway that's at the homeostatic level place. You know, so they can go out and have a better chance of being successful with moderation, or abstinence, or whatever it is.   Arlina Allen  49:39   Yeah. Thank you for going through that and being able to remember all the things you were super smart, I would not have been able to do that off the top of my head. A couple of questions came up from as you were going through that. So I just find it like such a paradox that you know, people with these use disorder. have such as high tolerance for pain on one hand like the consequences and on on the other hand we have such an in ability we have like this avoidance of emotional pain right and I just wonder I heard this I was watching this show things totally unrelated But anyway, I was watching the show called meat eater and this guy was talking about how and as a hunter, you know, human beings have something called shifting baseline syndrome. Have you ever heard of that idea? The idea is that as human evolution through human evolution or as societies change, we have good time feast and famine right? And so we have this ability to normalize lower standards of living, right and so in Alcoholics Anonymous that we talk about seeking lower companionship or like this is okay this is okay. Yeah, and so I was like that is so funny. But at the same time when it comes to paint like emotional pain tolerance, it feels like we're living in this really weird worldwide we're experiencing or we're creating all this pain for ourselves because we're you know, you drink in us you spend all your money and you're in all this pain and so what do you do you drink and use more to because you can't tolerate the pain you know, it's just such a weird place to be we have this and I feel like in all fairness that most people have an avoidance of emotional pain what are some of the ways I mean I feel like you know the great thing about a it was like we have community like it's a ready made community to help us get through emotional pain. I shared with you earlier that my mom is ill I just found out last week that she's terminally ill. And I'm not insensitive, and he might be a little bit maybe a little bit numb. But I have found I so I've been 27 years sober. It used to be if I got stood up on a date, I would go on a bender, like I couldn't tolerate it. Now I'm sober a long time. My mom is really sick. And it doesn't even occur to me to use what happened to my brain. From that, you know what I'm saying? It's like, yeah, oh, yeah. Now what happened to my brain?   Dr Anna Lembke  52:17   Well, I mean, your your brain is not any longer in that addiction cycle, your brain is at a homeostatic baseline. And it might even be tipped slightly to the side of pleasure such that you have the mental calluses and the resilience to withstand even enormously painful things like, you know, the potential loss of a loved one. Well, I'm again, I just think that thinking about the balance and the neurophysiology and that what happens when people are in their addiction loop is that they're essentially walking around with a pleasure pain balance tipped chronically to the side of pain, their dopamine transmission is at chronically lower levels. And so there's an enormous physiologic drive, to get their drug and to prioritize that drug over everything else, not to get high, but just to get out of pain and to feel normal. Whereas once you and that also means that even the nearest slight is going to make you feel more pain because you're already in this painful state. And that you know, what we call natural rewards, more modest rewards, food, clothing, shelter, a good conversation with a friend will no longer be adequate, right? Because you've got all these Gremlins camped out on the pain 10 pounds. Now you need a great big bolus of a supercharged potent drug, just to bring you level again. Whereas once you're in recovery, and you start to repair all of that and the Gremlins hop off and you start to upregulate, not just your own endogenous dopamine but also your endocannabinoid system, your endo opioid system, your serotonin or norepinephrine. Now you've got a pleasure pain balance, that's subtle, right? It's homeostatic it's level its sensitive, appropriately to small pleasures. It's sensitive to small pains but resilient enough to you know, quickly restore homeostasis in both directions. And you know, that's that's great. That's exactly where we want to be. Yeah, it   Arlina Allen  54:10   takes takes a lot of work takes a lot it does   Unknown Speaker  54:12   it takes a lot of vigilance and where it's you know, when you when I think about that pleasure, pain balance, it's sometimes I say it's like a teeter totter and a kid's playground, but really, it's more like a piece of plywood on a ball and you're standing on that piece and you're constantly having to move in order to keep in balance it's not a static process it's a really dynamic process that takes constant small adjustments   Arlina Allen  54:37   Yeah, and I'm glad you talked about that you're you know talking about balance and and and we only have a couple minutes and so I did want to touch on the scent. Thank you so much for writing this book. This was so such such an important book for people like me, who need to know why and need to know how and what to do about it right like we can we know ruminate on the problem. All day long, but I need to know what to do. Right? There are practical steps, tangible, practical, understandable, things to do to get better. And the idea is that and you did talk about like we can break our dopamine reward system, but you also said we can heal it. And that is the hope that this will give provides so much hope and like a real concrete, practical way that doesn't require like a you know, religion or you don't have to do like, like, I'm not knocking that at all right? Because I found that to be super helpful, but I don't know I'm a science girl at heart and I need to know why. I write I need to me, to me kind of girl at the end of the day, and at the end of the book on page 231 we're talking about your conclusion, which is the lessons of balance and you know, I've, you know, heard people say I think of balance is sort of a wide path that's not a razor's edge and I just gonna read under read you something that you wrote, you're like I already know. We all desire a respite from the world, a break from the impossible standards we often set for ourselves and others. It's natural that we would seek a reprieve from our own relentless ruminations. Oh, my God, the whole obsessive thinking, why did I do this? Why can't I do that? Look what they did to me? How could I do that to them? And then your question you pose is what if, instead of seeking oblivion by escaping from the world, we turn toward it? That is the challenge, right? That is the challenge is to, you know, Sheryl Sandberg said lean in, right, you know, but it's in the leaning in that, it we, you know, I'm always talking about let's process her resolution, right. And that requires leaning in,   Unknown Speaker  56:55   it does, yeah. And I think, you know, I mean, we're all seeking transcendence, and that loss of self, that non being where we're not ruminating and thinking about ourselves in the world, and, you know, escaping with drugs, or in my case in into fantasy novels, you know, is one way to do that, but not ultimately, a very adaptive way to do that, a better way to do that is actually to do the opposite. And really engage with the people around us with the life that we've been given, immerse ourselves in it. And when we invest in and immerse ourselves in, you know, in our real lives, they do become, you know, transcendental, they do take on a kind of luminous and numinous quality that's really enhancing that releases dopamine, but in a way that is enduring, and healthy. And so yeah, that's, I think, really the antidote to to to addiction, you know, instead of trying to run away, turn around, and immerse yourself in it.   Arlina Allen  57:57   That is the antidote simple, but not easy.   Unknown Speaker  57:59   That's not easy to do. Yeah, well, listen,   Arlina Allen  58:03   at the end of the day, that's why we all need each other. Right? You know, and, and I know from reading the book that you did your own work, and I really appreciated that about you, thank you for sharing those for your transparency and your vulnerability in the book of sharing your own, you know, struggles that you did your own work. So thank you. Thank you so much again, for this time, I'm so honored and and this was such an amazing book and where do people find? Find out more about you?   Unknown Speaker  58:32   Well, the book is available where books are sold, that's probably the best source of finding my work. It's also available on on Audible, as you mentioned, for people who'd rather listen than then read a physical book or a Kindle version. And then there's more about me on on Olympia calm or dopamine nation calm a website that was created for the book.   Arlina Allen  58:56   Listen, thank you so much for idea, tell Andrew I said “Hey”.   Unknown Speaker  59:03   All right. Yeah. Thank you so much.  

Please Subscribe For More Episodes!  Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo   Link to Judy's Book:  https://amzn.to/3DTeXet     Hello Loves, Thank you for downloading the podcast, my name is Arlina, and I’ll be your host.   In case we haven’t met yet, I am a certified Recovery Coach and Hypnotist. I am obsessed with all things recovery, including neuroscience, reprogramming the subconscious mind, law of attraction, all forms of personal growth and spirituality. I have been practicing abstinence from drugs and alcohol since 4/23/94, and that just goes to show, if I can do it, you can too.   Today I’m talking with Judith Grisel. She holds a PhD in Neuroscience, she’s a professor at Bucknell University and author of the highly impactful book “Never Enough: the Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction”   What is so interesting about her is that once she got sober, like a lot of us, she wanted to help others suffering from addiction, but she took it to a whole other level! She got her Phd in neuroscience to try to cure addiction! I’m so in awe of her.    This book is full of the mechanics and mechanisms of addiction which really takes the shame out of having mental illness because it demonstrates that anyone could fall prey to addiction. I listened to the audio version of the book, which, btw, I loved  because her voice is so soothing, but I also got the paperback because I wanted to really study some of the concepts she goes into. Plus there’s a few pictures in it so there’s that.   I hope you enjoy this conversation as much as I did! With that, please enjoy this episode with Judy.   Transcript: Arlina Allen  0:08   Let's see. Judy, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. I'm really happy to be here. Arlina is it okay to call you, Judy? Oh, yes. Dr. Chris. No, please. Thank you. Well, listen, I am so excited to talk to you. I have your book. I posted on social media, I was like, I have a big announcement. And I'm talking to the author of never enough the neuroscience and experience of addiction. those that know me know that I'm completely obsessed with the mind the brain. I know sometimes people think of those as two different things, but we can kind of get into it. But what I thought was so good about this book, right? And what I love about science in general, is that it has a way when we you understand sort of the mechanics of it, it kind of depersonalized us and helps us to answer or resolve the things like guilt and shame which she which seemed to me to be a block or a barrier to healing. So I thought maybe we could start first with your a little bit of your story. Like what is I know you've been sober for 35 years? Congratulations.   Unknown Speaker  1:29   It is long time. Yeah. really grateful. Yeah, I it's funny that you mentioned guilt and shame, because I, I could see in my own life, how initially, drugs end up including alcohol were sort of the self or guilt and shame that was just it is still sort of deep in my bones. I'm not sure if it's genetic, or environmental or what, but I am, well acquainted with self criticism, and just, I guess, feelings of unworthiness. And I almost didn't realize that until I had my first drink, which was right about the time of my 13th birthday. And I was a good drink. I mean, I had little sips here and there, but I got loaded for the first time at that age. And more than anything else, it was this great relief, because I suddenly either didn't care or was made, you know, kind of transiently whole in a way that was so profound, so people talk about it all the time. But it did literally feel as if that absence was running over and you know, with fullness, I guess and so, I because I was off to the races pretty pretty dramatically. I grew up in a I guess there's no such thing as a typical home, but I was certainly fairly advantaged and you know, had no big traumas. I guess that's also kind of a funny thing to say. But you know, in light of how hard it is to grow up, I think I was fairly on the easy half anyway. And, but I got this alcohol, I spent 10 years taking as much of every single mind altering drug I could find. I remember one time I found some pills and I just, you know, took them, I was kind of, and I still am, I guess a little bit all or none so I, I was definitely I went from none to all. And as a result, I was kicked out of my first school in 10th grade. It was a, you know, girls Catholic school, so they didn't go for the kind of thing I was up to. And then to colleges I was expelled from and I was homeless intermittently, often, I contracted hepatitis C sharing dirty needles. And I hated myself really, I did hate myself that was probably my bottom was as kind of self loathing, so that I was just a teeny bit unwilling even though at the time, right around the time my 23rd birthday, I thought, drugs and alcohol were the solution to my problems of the cause. I was sort of willing to go to what I thought was going to be like a spa, an educational spa, which they was treatment. This was in the 80s so I had no idea about drug treatment at all. I just heard the word treatment and it seemed to be something I deserved. So anyhow, I ended up in what was more like a hospital for crazy adolescence and, and there without drugs in my body for a few weeks, I got kind of scared at the disaster of my life. And, and I guess I wasn't you know, it's an interesting thing as we talk about how we have to sort of see it and be willing to change. I was barely willing, I feel like I was kind of plucked out of my situation. And I had just enough grace or openness. I am sort of an experimentalist at heart. And I, I think I figured they were all saying to me from going on too much, by the way. Arlina But anyway, I was saying, you know, if you want to live, you're gonna have to quit using and I thought, No way. There's got to be another way work around. Yeah, work around, there's a backdoor somewhere. So I figured I would cure my addiction was going to take me seven years, I was going to stay clean for that seven years. Well, I solved the disease of addiction, which is what everybody was saying. And then I would use and so I was open minded and totally, you know, arrogant ignorance, naive, I don't know. But I, I was willing to do seven years, I guess,   Arlina Allen  6:26   what was the seven years to get your degree? You know,   Unknown Speaker  6:28   no, I think I wasn't thinking that clearly. I figured that I started when I was 13, I was 23, I decided I wasn't really in terrible shape, you know. So it was like seven years of intense addiction. Somehow it seemed balanced to me, if I could clear it up in seven years, and then there was just no way you were gonna tell me, I was going to spend the rest of my life without drugs, which is what my life is completely about by that time. So yeah, I was scared enough to be willing enough to be open enough to try a different way temporarily. And I remember when seven years came, by the way, and went and I looked around my life was a zillion times better. It wasn't, you know, easy, by any means. But it was definitely better. And my curiosity had kind of come back. And so I, you know, kind of a data time is, you know, stuck it out. And so here I am, 35 years clean and sober, still have not cured addiction, still very interested in the role of science in understanding and treating and preventing addiction, but also recognize that there's a lot that science doesn't know. And so, yeah, I think, yeah, it's been a it's been a fun, rich trip.   Arlina Allen  8:07   It's fun. That's, that's awesome. I mean, we were people who insist on having a time that's for sure. I think that's so amazing that so so you became abstinent at 23. From then on, he became abstinent.   Unknown Speaker  8:22   I mean, I smoked a few cigarettes and I'm completely addicted to coffee, but I don't think that his account had other than nicotine, any mind altering chemicals, and I've been tempted many times, so it's not like I just said, you know, that's it for me, I guess. Yeah, just a long, long time.   Arlina Allen  8:46   You know, I knew that you and I were going to be friends when you talked in your book about like, the your love of weed. Oh, my gosh, if I there was a period of time that if I was awake, I was high. Right? I grew up in the church and the preacher's daughter. The pastor's daughter once told me she's like, I'm high. So often that not being high was as my altered reality. And I was like, Oh, my God, you're my hero. I want to be just like you. And I was. But in your book, you talk about how I see after I got sober. It took me a little over a year to go a single day without wishing for a drink. That is rough. But it was more than nine years before my craving to get high abated during that, and I think I'm so glad that you've mentioned that because I think a lot of people especially those who are 12, step oriented, are you know, they hear stories about like, the obsession to use is lifted, or they're on this pink cloud. And I think for people who don't have that experience, they feel They're doing something wrong. Right. But   Unknown Speaker  10:02   I think for Bill Wilson, right, it was just an overnight thing. And for many of us, it's sometimes slowly and for I was definitely have a slow variety. I, I really, and when I say, you know, for the craving to abate, I really seriously wish to get high for most days, those nine years. Yeah. And I, you know, the more time that went by the more, I could see what was at risk. So when I first got clean, you know, there's nothing to lose, because you're at rock bottom. But, you know, as a result of putting one foot in front of the other things got much better. So, you know, then I could kind of see that, and then I remember so well, I can almost taste it the experience of not wanting to smoke, and I can remember how all the sudden, I was okay to be in concerts that were indoors with good weed around me. Or, you know, I was sort of indifferent. Like I was like, I had been to alcohol. You know, I'm, I have served alcohol to friends. And I was kind of in that position, like, I don't care if you smoke or not. And then it got I had the craving come back. I was, I was joke about this, but right around menopause. I just knew that, for me, an antidote to the anxiety and just sort of the brittle angst of hormonal changes, I guess was going, you know, could be smoking. And, you know, anxiety is so epidemic, and I hadn't really had a ton of it until, and there was other things going on in the world, we can just say at that. But, anyhow, oh my gosh, and I think I say this in the book, too. But I, I, at the time, I was thinking maybe I'll get cancer and my doctors make me smoke. And then little I do you know, I mean, I was wishing for, you know, some kind of serious illness. So   Arlina Allen  12:23   our minds play funny tricks on us, it doesn't matter how long you're sober. It's just weird layer. If that was ever a solution in your mind. I've heard that dopamine is like the Save button. Right? I don't know if you've ever heard of Dr. Andrew Haberman, he talks about how in nature like a deer that will find water, they get like dopamine is released. And that's how they remember where the water is. And it's almost similar for us. Like when we do something that makes us feel good. Dopamine is then released. And it helps us to remember what made us feel good. And I feel like it's burned in my psyche that if I take a bomb hat that I'm going to feel good. And I have other solutions, but it's all it's I don't think that idea is ever gonna leave me, you know, 27 years sober. I was telling you earlier that my younger son went to rehab. And this all was predicated because we found a Bag of Weed in his room and duty, I had not held a bag of marijuana for almost 30 years. And when it was in my hand, this plastic baggie, it was like I was a teenager again. And my inner drug addict was like, well, maybe we should, maybe we could maybe maybe. And I was like, I was actually a little alarmed almost a little bit of shame. Like seriously, after all this time, after all the work I've done. It's still there. I mean, it's just so engrained in my brain, I guess.   Unknown Speaker  14:00   Absolutely. And I think the one of the interesting things about the story, you just told us that the ability of a drug to make to release dopamine is different across the population. So for some people, that marijuana let's say, or alcohol doesn't do much to that for me, and for other people. It's really a potent signal. And I think that is part of the reason some of us are more at risk than others and and also the reason why it's not a really reasonable argument to say, you know, why don't they just put it down because it is like a thirsty person finding water as opposed to somebody who's completely satisfied finding water, you know, you can take it or leave it. So I think that's true. And also the brain. You know, learning is absolutely persistent. So Pretty sure we will both be I guess subject to those kinds of, you know, triggers through our until we die.   Arlina Allen  15:11   Yeah, maybe, maybe this is a good time to ask you, you know, what is what's different in that? So you're you have your PhD in neuroscience. And you know, he got sober and went on this quest to cure addiction. What have you found that's different about the brain of people who get addicted so quickly?   Unknown Speaker  15:34   Mm hmm. Well, I guess the, what I want to say first is that it's not simple, I thought I was gonna be a little switch that we were going to discover, and I wasn't alone in this, I think this was scientific understanding in the 80s, we'll find that, you know, broken switch or molecule or circuit and fix it. It's definitely not that way. So the causes of addiction are very complex and intersectional. They involve differences in dopamine and other genetic liabilities, or protective factors that make the the initial sensitivity to a drug, different across different people. So some try a drug for the first time and absolutely love it. About a third of people, for instance, try opiates and don't like them at all. And they usually try them in the doctor's office, but they find them aversive. So obviously, that's a good protective,   Arlina Allen  16:40   meaning, meaning they don't like the way they feel. Yeah, so weird to me,   Unknown Speaker  16:45   largely genetic. I know. Right? So very big individual differences. And then there are sex differences. So women tend to appreciate drugs that provide relief. And then justice is overgeneralizing a little bit Sure, overall, tend to appreciate drugs that make them feel good. And so women don't want to feel bad, and drugs help with that, certainly, especially and men like to feel good. Another big factor, and probably the largest factor more than genetic liability is adolescent exposure. So kids, like your son and my daughter are tuned into Well, they have, they have a particular kind of brain that is the adolescent brain that is really prone to trying new things, really prone to not worrying is certainly abstractly worrying about consequences. So they're less cautious. And they, they want to buck against whatever they're told, they shouldn't do. And those three traits like novelty seeking, and risk taking, and not really caring about consequences are ones that help them to become adults, if they just listened to their parents until they were 35. No one would really like that. So they they're designed to kind of say, not this, you know, I'm making my own way, which would be good if there wasn't so many high potency, dangerous ways of escaping at their fingertips. So I think through most of our evolutionary history, these you know, kids having that tendency is is no problem. The other thing that kids have in their brains are different about is that, and we all know this, they are terrific at learning. I'm teacher, and it's crazy, because and you probably noticed this with your own children, but they don't seem to even be paying attention. yet. They are like sponges information really goes in. And if they were learning French, or if they're learning addiction, both ways, their brain is really quick to take the experience and build it into the structures so that it's lasting, and I can learn French, or addiction, but your chances are so much lower. So if you start using any addictive drug, before you're 18 you have about a 25% chance of developing a substance use disorder. And the earlier you start using, the higher the chance, I started 13 so you know it was basically more likely than not. And that's because 13 year olds are great at picking up new information, much better than 33 year olds. So they if you if you Wait, on the other hand till you're 21, your chances are one in 25.   Arlina Allen  20:06   Wow, I told   Unknown Speaker  20:07   my kids that and I tell my students that and they all ignore me. Why? Because they're high novelty seeking high risk taking, and they don't really want to listen to the, you know, concerns or worries. I mean, that's not how they're designed. So we're in a kind of a perfect storm for them. And that, that is the best predictor of developing a problem starting early is starting or like,   Arlina Allen  20:30   you know what terrifies me nowadays I have a nephew who's 26 years old. And he's had four friends died from accidental fentanyl overdose, because for whatever reason, drug dealers are putting fentanyl and everything. And you know, these are pretty well adjusted kids. I don't think it's I know that there's a certain percentage of the population who indulge a little bit who don't have a disorder. Or maybe that's Yeah, is that is that true?   Unknown Speaker  21:02   Well, it's, it's more true if you start at 26. And if you start at 16, as I just said, but I think the reason that nose and everything is because it is so is it a traffic, it's so so potent, that a tiny bit can get the whole town high. So it's really advantageous to traffickers. And also, because people are having access to more and more chemicals. And when they start early, especially their reward pathway, the dopamine pathway we've been talking about is kind of desensitized, so they can't, you know, have a cup of wine coolers that doesn't do the trick at all anymore, they need something a little more, because they're sort of immune to the that dopamine, squirt? So yeah, unfortunately, I think that's another reason it's not gonna. We, I think focus, we've also noticed lately that there's more and more overdoses from methamphetamine, and then from somebody who's been looking at the trends for a long time, it's always be something and there's always going to be more potent, whatever. So it's not the drug itself, as much as this very narrow ledge that more and more of us are on trying to, I guess, medicate reality. And and so, you know, I think, I don't know how that is for your nephew. But it's a terrible lesson to have to learn for all of us.   Arlina Allen  22:51   It's just, it just makes me sick. I mean, I think there was a report that was released, I think it was at the end of March, there was a 12 year period that they were measuring overdoses that ended in March, and I think they track like 80,000 deaths. And, and I just think about all the families like all the mothers, all the all the fathers and siblings, and just everybody that's affected by so many deaths, and   Unknown Speaker  23:19   and I think a 40% increase in those deaths over the last year with COVID. So the isolation as Alicia is, has made, and also the the higher, you know, the more likely you are to find fentanyl, and whatever it is you're taking at, which is just hard to prepare for I think, biologically. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's, it's tragic. It's so tragic.   Arlina Allen  23:50   And then and then so my mind naturally goes, Well, what can we do about it? You know, it's like, we can understand, I love how, you know, science will sort of break down the mechanics. And once we understand, you know, alcohol is addictive drugs are addictive. I mean, there's a reason why they're illegal, right? It's because they're so harmful. But, you know, and then we can get into the causes, right? Like you mentioned, it's a very complex issue, you know, we you mentioned, do you that you didn't have any big trauma growing up, but I feel like, you know, we were sort of in that generation where we were not like things like ADHD and anxiety and depression weren't really talked about a whole lot. And we really didn't know how to treat those. And so our parents handled us with a lot of tough love. I got a lot of tough love and you know, from reading your book and listening to your interviews, it sounds like you were raised with that as well. And then your Can we just talk a little bit about your dad, like I wonder what it was. We talk a lot about science and it sort of leaves God out a little bit. But in my experience, it feels like there are things that are sort of serendipitous or magical about the unusual things that happen that lead us to a life of recovery. Like, what was your dad's role and your recovery?   Unknown Speaker  25:23   Um, yeah. So, so much in that question, especially, I guess I want to start by saying that I agree that we did not recognize trauma, and anxiety and all mental illnesses, wait, their response was, was so different, I think. And in my house, it was to push through both my father's parents were immigrants. And he dealt with life by controlling everything he could. And that worked great until he, you know, met 13 year old me. And I was absolutely out of control, by definition, and   Arlina Allen  26:11   he would have been terrifying to me.   Unknown Speaker  26:13   I was terrified. And I was I was, like, determinately, out of control. I mean, that was my goal to be absolutely out of control. And the more both my parents tried to kind of constrain me, the less manageable I was, and I guess I, I don't think I'm unique in this. I mean, I've raised three children. And so it's something built into the teenage neurobiology. And I had it probably in spades. So his way of life because   Arlina Allen  26:45   you're smart, smart kids are harder to race.   Unknown Speaker  26:48   I don't know. I'm also, one thing I like about myself more than if I have any smartness is, is that I'm, I guess, strong willed. And so I don't know if that actually goes with intelligence or not, but I'm not the one who's following so much. And so I wasn't named, I wasn't influenced really by too much of what people, you know, just like you said, you know, you try to get the information out. Drugs are dangerous, but it doesn't really have an impact my kids have grown up with man, they've been sort of forced to look at graphs and things. And, you know, they'll say to me, my daughter said to me the other day, you know, I know all this. But and that is sort of how I was, and I didn't know that much. My mother was giving me a reader's digest reprints you know, of how lead would damage your ovaries and stuff. But anyway, you're like,   Arlina Allen  27:49   Oh, good, I will get pregnant.   Unknown Speaker  27:51   No, I didn't. Yeah, wasn't on my radar at all. But anyhow, my father, because I think it was so painful to be around me. And to watch me his strategy, which is kind of in our family, I guess, was just denial that he even had a daughter. So during a period, after they kicked me out of the house, right about my 10th birthday. He, he would, and he would say that he had two sons. It was just too much for him. And this is kind of the way he is. So it's, and I think it's fragile. That's what he was. And he was raised to be fragile, because it was a lot to worry about, because they were poor immigrants and you know, a million ways to not make it and I think that's common for a lot of people today. So my father was just able to block it out. And we have a family friend who I dedicated the book to father, Marty Devereaux, who is this kind of an unbelievable, interesting person. He's in his 80s. Now, we're still good friends, but he is a psychologist, and has a lot of experience with addiction and also a Catholic priest. And he told my father, and don't my father's not really Catholic. I mean, he was raised Catholic, but that doesn't mean too much these days. So anyway, he   Arlina Allen  29:19   Where was he from? Marty Devereaux?   No, I'm sorry. Your said Your father was an immigrant. Oh,   Unknown Speaker  29:24   he was born in Atlantic City. But his mother was from Slovenia, and his father from Switzerland. And they met in Central Park. They were both, you know, one was a baker one was a housecleaner. And they sent two sons to college and wow. Yeah, I mean, you know, I think it's a pretty typical American story. Yeah, yeah. But um, anyway, Marty said take her out to dinner and bring her flowers like on a date. Well, I have No idea what how my father did this because he's, he's just not the type to waste any money on flowers, or two. And I was when I say I think I tried to convey this in the book. But when I imagined myself now at that moment, I was pretty deplorable. I was probably quite smelly and dirty. I was, at this point, sort of living in a one bedroom apartment with many people. And I was pretty gross. So anyway, this is when you were 23. I was not quite 23. So his takeaway? Yeah, so we he picked me up and you know, so not only was I gross, I was completely belligerent. I, I thought that my parents were terrible. And I didn't want any part of their fascist, you know, existence. And yet, I deserved a nice dinner, of course. So my big dilemma, I will not I really can still almost feel this was how we were going for early bird dinner, because it's my dad. And I'm very frugal. Yeah, he is wealthy and frugal. And   Arlina Allen  31:27   that's how I get wealthy.   Unknown Speaker  31:28   Yeah, I mean, this is sort of the first thing I guess. But anyway,   Arlina Allen  31:32   and that was a dad begged my dad, maybe it is a dead   Unknown Speaker  31:35   thing. He was also an airline pilot, so just not extremely cautious. He still is. And he's, he's in his 80s today, and we have a great relationship. But anyway, I was so stuck, because when he was picking me up, maybe quarter to five, but I had to figure out between 11 when I woke up and six hours later, how to be not too high when he came, you know, high enough, but not too high. And of course, this is harder and harder to achieve at this point in my life, because I could either be passed out or getting ready to be I mean, it was just hard to find that place. So anyway, he picks me up, he takes me out. And he said, and we talked about this still. Dude, I just wanting you to be happy. And I guess I should say, he doesn't remember saying that. But I know he said it. Because it was the most unlikely words that could ever come. And this is sort of what you were getting at, I guess where did those words come from? They're not my dad. My dad was worried about my teeth and the way you know, a lot of things but not my happiness ever. No, probably it's hard for him. And I had of course, no. No adequate response to that because I was absolutely miserable. And it went right into my heart. I fell apart. Yeah, it was a funny like tears   Arlina Allen  33:10   in my eyes. Just to think that the hard ass dad was so sweet, right? When you needed it the most. I know,   Unknown Speaker  33:17   you know what he tells me now it's funny. He, I was so out of it. I guess I don't remember the flowers. But he took me in his very clean car and my friends I guess to the beach to go for a swim that same day, that same after dinner. And we got to fill the sand. And that's what he remembers as his biggest stretch. And what I remember as his biggest stretch is him reaching across the table with his heart and saying, I want you to live basically. I mean, he sent me how I think he he met a lot by that. And my mother was not invited to the dinner. I hadn't spoken with her in a long time either. But she had been researching treatment centers for years she had had a court order actually in Florida, there's an act where you can commit somebody because of their addictions. And they thought over that a lot. But anyway, next thing I knew they flew me to a treatment center, which of course I had no idea what I was getting into and saved my life really. That place did. So I feel really fortunate that I had that opportunity to wake up a little bit as I think for the chances are that my father wouldn't have said that my mother wouldn't have had the resources to know what to do and I would have died on the streets probably not too much longer.   Arlina Allen  34:52   I feel like that really speaks to you know, people just didn't have solutions, right and they get so far straighted that their only choice is to disown right. Like I had that same experience with my mom, she disowned me on a regular basis, like she was an immigrant from Mexico. And although my father was, you know, his, his people have been here a long time. Like, they didn't know what to do with me either. And, you know, my dad was always the sweet and nurturing one, but he was, you know, he's former Marine, he was a government guy, he was kind of a hard ass, and in a lot of respects, but, you know, our parents, you know, just, it's just speaks to the love of a parent, you know, you want to save your kids. You know, you see your kids are suffering and like, my mother just didn't know how she was so frustrated that she would disown me on a regular basis. But I think when I think it's the contrast between like, a little bit of sweetness goes a long way, because it's not what we're used to. It's so shocking. Like, shocking to the system,   Unknown Speaker  36:00   let's thought about it a lot, because I do think there's a, I had a boyfriend at the time who died. Oh, overdose. And his parents were extremely sweet. So it's hard. And you could say they sweeted him into his last big use, but um, I don't know that there's a recipe I think if if there was one thing that, that I tried to do with is to show up and be honest, and I think it was so painful for my parents, both of my parents to just grapple with what happened to their little girl, that their tendency was to not show up. And I don't blame them. I mean, it's it's tough. It's tough raising teenagers sometimes because they're not that it's almost unrecognizable, you know, from the sweet nine year olds, or the 99 might become, but I think what we're called to do for each other is to tell the truth, not their truth. You know, I don't you know, you're speaking from him first himself. He said, Yeah, I was. I mean, I think this was true for him, I think, really at the core, and somehow he had the grace to find it. What all he really wants and all, probably any parent wants their kid to be well, and whatever well looks like for us. And I think the fact that he could say that was kind of miraculous.   Arlina Allen  37:42   Very, yeah, that was absolutely. sneak up for Marty, right?   Unknown Speaker  37:47   Yeah, yeah. Exactly. No, I   Arlina Allen  37:50   think yeah, it's, it's just, yeah, my mom was, she was really tough. And I remember growing up, she's going through her second divorce. And all my hair started falling out, like a lot I was under, and nobody knew what was going on. And you know, when it ended is one day, she let me curl up in her lap and cry. I had a good cry. And then my hair stopped falling out after that. Wow. Yeah. And I think it was like, there needs to be this balance. Like I feel like as a parent I attend like we tell our kids that we love them all the time. And I almost feel like maybe we maybe it's a little too much sweetness. You know, I have I have the the hard ass edge me because I think I inherited that from my mom. But you know it when you get something different from your parent, it is kind of jolting. It is kind of healing, it can be life changing, if it's different. So if you're sweet all the time, when you show up with boundaries that can be jolting. When you're a hard ass your whole life and you show up with a little bit of sweetness. It can be start, it's like a pattern interrupt, you know that. It's just kind of interesting. And I wanted to ask you a little bit   Unknown Speaker  39:09   of a story, by the way. But your mother obviously was disappointed, you know, and her own struggles, but that she was able to be with you. And warning I think that is really a bridge.   Arlina Allen  39:28   That was it made me feel you know, like the talk about original wounds, like I don't matter, or I'm unlovable because I'm either too much or not good enough. Right. Or maybe that I'm alone, you know, those original wounds, and I feel like I had all those but my mom, you know, in that moment, it's like those, like that moment that your dad had like they were willing to do something different. Like they had a glimmer of hope, like somebody gave them hope and they decided to do something different. And that's kind of what But you said your dad reached across the table with his heart, you know, and it was like, there is something that's transmitted, like when people are really vulnerable and honest and coming from their heart. That's so healing. Right? And I feel like that's a lot of what recovery has been about for me is that just that willing to be vulnerable and have a degree of humility, it's a lot of times kind of, like forced humility. It's like, like, I have to get honest about what what's really going on, so that I can get the solution. But you know, as a parent, you know, we're talking about our kids, and how do we reach our kids, because I think that's, you know, in this day and age, a lot of us that have had addiction issues, you know, we're worried about passing it down to our kids. And we thought we were talking earlier about leading by example, right, we need to lead by example for our kids, and it's so hard to know, I felt like we're walking this fine line. Because, you know, kids commit suicide all the time, like, you know, and the, there's all these ideas, like kids are like, a very aware of anxiety and depression, and being socially awkward, and there seems to be, you know, and as a parent, it's like, you want to encourage them to get help and take responsibility for their feelings at the same time, you don't want to push them too hard, because that is the ultimate threat is that they will commit suicide. Right. And it's, and I know that they're taking drugs to medicate, I took drugs to medicate. And I used to say that, you know, drugs, drugs, were my savior for a long time. If, if I had to feel, you know, especially those young years 1415 if I had to feel all the feelings, because I didn't have any coping skills, I don't know that I would have survived. So, you know, I know you've been trying to cure addiction, and what are some of the things that, you know, besides leading by example, for our kids, how can we, how do we, how do we fix this duty? How do we,   Unknown Speaker  42:08   I think we show up for each other is to start I don't know. But I, I do feel, and everybody says this, I guess every generation notices this, but I do think it is an inordinately challenging time to be growing up. I was saying to a student in my office, not too long ago, you know, if you're not anxious, you're crazy. Because and crazy is probably not the right word for Psychology at it. You know, and here I am a psychologist, I'm not all that correct times. But I think that you at least if you're not anxious, and you're growing up right now, you're somehow blind and deaf, or in denial, yeah, or in a massive denial, which I don't even know, I think that I think what's different, and what shifted for my dad, and what continues to be something that I work on, is to respond to all this pain, the natural response is to sort of curl up and close in, and to hide, and to take ourselves away. And as addicts you know, I still have a great capacity for denial that I have to check all the time. But I also found many tools to use. And that's why drugs are so compelling, because it was like, boom, you know, you've got a 10 foot wall now, between you and any realities, are safe and cozy, and delightful. And I think kids find drugs, you know, to do the same thing, but they also are stuck in a way because face it, that it's a tear, it's a hard time for any of us to be on the planet. And there's not a lot of great models of going through that awake and an honest and I guess, you know, I just try to put myself in the position of a nine year old, knowing, you know, probably on Instagram and every other thing, you know, how much suffering there is or is about to be. And then seeing the many ways, drugs and other ways that adults around are medicating and escaping. And even though you and I have been able to put down drugs, I think, at least for me, I guess I can still do want I naturally want to distance myself. And I don't I think that is a way to kind of abandon the nine year olds. I don't know how old you were when you're here was five out but I think as about maybe than nine or 10 Yeah, the metaphor is put our heads on each other's laps and, and just cry, you know, cry or or whimper or hope or try or touch each other I think in touch each other in the in the true spot where there is anxiety and depression and fear because if we can't do that and there's so many opportunities to escape I you know we're in a kind of a vortex going down the drain here because the more we escaped the worst things grow around us because we don't have to deal with them. And then the young people see oh my gosh, it's, you know, this is a crazy house. This being Earth. So I, I think or your family, I suppose but I, I guess we're both your mother and my father were able to do was recognize, you know, the truest piece of themselves and their children and respond honestly. Yeah. And that sometimes that might be kindness, sometimes that might not be kindness. But I think it's honesty, that's the, the, the thing we're really lacking or, or, you know, maybe the, the lifesaver would be Yeah,   Arlina Allen  46:44   I think in that moment, there was, you know, a high degree of empathy. Bernie Brown is a shame researcher, she talks about empathy is the antidote to shame. Right? I've heard people say that, you know, this is a disease of isolation and connection is the cure. And you know, I really feel like connection is one of those one of those solutions to all this, like, we need to connect with each other. We're, you know, as human beings, we actually really need each other.   Unknown Speaker  47:15   Oh, my goodness, yeah.   Arlina Allen  47:17   Yeah, I need to be around easily cope with stress   Unknown Speaker  47:20   is by social support. And there's tons of evidence that social support, not only mitigates, but also reverses the effects of stress. And it is, you know, surely a big part of, of getting better as individuals and also as communities and families, I think, recognizing that and it's tough because my parents kicked me out your your mother disowned you. And partly for me that facing the consequences of my decisions was helpful. But I do think that's harder because fentanyl wasn't around. You know, you you don't want to face them in the ultimate, you know, right, way too early. So I guess as parents we, we try to block a very tough line these weird. Yeah, it is hard.   Arlina Allen  48:23   Yeah. But I'm glad to hear that there's evidence that shows that social support mitigates and reverses stress, that's amazing. It kind of confirms everything that we knew, right? Like, we got sober we got social support, we, you know, had lots of people who had done it before us so learning by example, I hear that hope I've heard hope is hearing other people's experiences, which is why I do the podcast right? You know, people that listen, go Okay, you know, we can talk about the mechanics how, how the brain works, and all that and how it's affected by alcohol. And you know why it's a bad idea. But then hearing about like the turning point, like when your dad reached out to you, and you were at that place where I'm sure you had you were sick and tired of being sick and tired. Ready, just ready enough, you talk about just having just a tiny bit of willingness. It's a little chink in the armor. How long were you in that? That rehab in the 80s   Unknown Speaker  49:29   I was in for 20 days, which seemed like nine years and then I was in a halfway house for three months, which I calculated at the time so I know this is true was 1/27 of my life or something. I forget how I did that or something like that. I had some kind of crazy mula totally a rip off. I was so furious. But I, I was, like I say at the turning point, and there's been so many times, you know, I know where things are. Lena, we're talking about openness. And I think one way I could be honest, is to say, even after setting addiction for 35 years, and having all this personal and scientific experience, I still need to be open to all I don't know. And certainty is a lie, you know, certainty is the biggest illusion. And so here we are kind of trying to get through. And I think that is what I first had in my I was very certain until I'm in the treatment center. And I'm asked to try a different way. And I was troubled, because on one way I went, and I could see my way was not going great. Like it was really not going well. And I could see that without the drugs, you know, for a few weeks. But to do an another way that was extremely vague and chancy, and, you know, just seemed really crazy. To me. I was just stuck. And that, like you say this, just a tiny bit willing to say, I don't know. And, okay, you know, and this is a still, I think where I am I one of the things I love about recovery the most is that it is always different. And, you know, I thought that drugs were gonna give me this great, you know, every day is a big surprise, you know, who knows if it's the cops or that whatever. It just turned out to be adrenaline, but it was a grind, it was not really novel or interesting. And in fact, 35 years later, I'm I'm just astounded by how much mystery there is, in any day. It's just breathtaking. So I guess that I have to show up for that, you know, I have to not buy into the lie that I know exactly what I'm doing. Right?   Arlina Allen  52:20   I think the more we learn, the more we realize we don't know, a lot. You know, yeah, that is a I do love that about recovery is that every day is kind of new again, you know, and that we don't have to, and there's so much interesting research going on. Now I know that, you know, and I didn't I feel like we're running out of time, but that there is so much research now on helping people with chronic addiction through things like psychedelics. It's just like, you know, I I practice abstinence. So that's, let's face it, my life is fine. Like I don't, you know, need that. But for the chronic alcoholic who meets some criteria of like, you know, post traumatic stress disorder, and things like that. I know, Johns Hopkins is doing some interesting studies about that. That Yeah, there's still so much to learn about, about the brain and addiction and how to help people. Where do you see the focus of your work in the next, I don't know, five to 10 years?   Unknown Speaker  53:28   Well, can I just respond to this thing about the psychedelic so   Arlina Allen  53:33   Oh, sure. Yeah, cuz Yeah, you wrote a lot about it, and you're But well, I read some about   Unknown Speaker  53:36   And I think it's congruent with what other people are writing to that it may be those drugs may be a useful tool. But it reminds me that they go back to what you were saying earlier, the the benefit of those drugs is in their ability to help us connect with something bigger than ourselves, you know, which could be the love of other people. And I think that it reminds me that every drug is only doing nothing new, it's a total we have the capacity to do ourselves. So the way the pharmacology goes is that drugs work by exploiting pathways we already have. So in a way, this opportunity for transcending ourselves to connection with others, maybe helped by psychedelics, but those are not the answer. The answer is transcending ourselves by connecting with ourselves in something bigger than ourselves. So I would say that what I'm working on now Well, I there's so much that I am excited to do I wish I could stay up later, but I've got my research lab going. I'm studying sex differences in addiction. I'm also studying initial responses. to drugs and I'm interested in the genetic difference, individual differences that are mediated by an interaction of genes and say stress or other kinds of environmental influences. But I'm also hoping to write another book and I have this is funny because I'm, I don't really consider myself the book writing type, I'm kind of like the short, quick, get it done thing. And the first book took 10 years. So I don't have that a 10 years. I know so sad. Because I was busy, I was raising children and I was trying to get grants and we're, you know, grade papers and all that. So I can't do that, again, I don't, I have three books, so I'm probably not going to live long enough. So three books I want to write and I have a sabbatical coming up. And I'm hoping that I will have an opportunity to spend the year getting at least one of those out either on the adolescent vulnerability to addiction or on sex differences in the causes and consequences of addictive drugs, or just a kind of more philosophical take on. Because so a response to the opportunity that everybody alive on the planet has today to take substances and just as you were saying, sometimes for some people, those and some substances might be beneficial, and sometimes not. And I think that understanding and sort of finding your way to a personal ethic of how, what drugs in my life requires and appreciation of science, but also of you know, our honest assessment of who and where we are our development and what drugs are doing for instance, I this is just a little thing, but I read the other day that the marijuana industry is really exacerbating the droughts on the west coast. And that is a sort of a dilemma for this idea. And I mean, I I think there may be benefits also, but you know, it's not that our choices, if we know anything in October of 2021, we realize that our individual choices have impact on others, and so and on ourselves. So I guess I want to just consider that and not in a you know, there's a lot that can be said about it. So anyway, I'm excited about all those things. Who knows what tomorrow will bring, but I'm hoping to take a break from teaching it's been a tough year and a half with COVID Yeah, routines and yeah, yeah, I think we're all kind of hobbling through   Arlina Allen  58:03   Yeah, my heart goes out to all the teachers I know it's just been it's we're living in through unprecedented time so I really so grateful to all the teachers who've been able to hack it out and help our kids right it's it's really important work. You know, they I think they need as many people in their corner as they can get. So thank you for hanging it out and being available to all these kids. But I am so excited about your your book projects. I will personally be rooting for the one about adolescence.   Unknown Speaker  58:38   Me too, that one almost could write itself the data, you know, in the last 1520 years are overwhelming. And so it's really a good time to get that out. And, and adolescents are like sitting ducks today. And that is not their problem. That's all of our problem.   Arlina Allen  59:00   Oh yeah, they're our future. Right? I remember people saying that about us. Listen, thank you so much for your time today. When you get done with that book. You come on back and we'll talk about that one too.   Unknown Speaker  59:13   Okay. Arlina Thank you for having me. It's been really nice. Yeah, such   Arlina Allen  59:16   a pleasure. We'll talk soon thanks. Bye bye.

Please Subscribe For More Episodes!   iTunes: https://apple.co/30g6ALF Spotify: https://odaatchat.libsyn.com/spotify Stitcher: https://bit.ly/3n0taNQ YouTube Channel: https://bit.ly/2UpR5Lo Be sure to follow me on Instagram for daily inspiration: @odaatpodcast and @arlinaallen   Connect with Jolene Park Visit Jolene’s Website: https://grayareadrinkers.com/ Follow Jolene on Instagram @jolene_park Watch Jolene’s TEDx talk: https://www.healthydiscoveries.com/tedx-talk/      The Lightning Round    Book recommendations:  Drinking, A Love Story, by Caroline Knapp Many Roads, One Journey: Moving Beyond the Twelve Steps, by Charlotte Kasl Favorite Quote: “This too shall pass” Regular Self-Care Practice: Grounding - walking barefoot on the beach, breathwork, somatic work, and healthy eating. Transcript:  Arlina Allen  2:56   Jolene, thank you so much for joining me today.   Jolene Park  3:03   Thanks for having me I'm I'm really looking forward to chatting with you and getting to know you a little bit more in the studio.   Arlina Allen  3:09    Listen, I appreciate somebody who has done their own work and who has a lot of credibility. Can I just say that to you?   Unknown Speaker  3:20   Thank you. I received that and appreciate that and feel the exact same way so I'm with you. Yeah,   Arlina Allen  3:27   we were just okay, I'm not gonna go into a rant, but maybe just a tiny little soapbox. You know, little cautionary tale. There's, there's a while I love how open people are being with their recovery. I just really appreciate people who have done their own work, right? So and you'll hear it I listen, I can sniff it out in two seconds. If I'm talking to someone who has not done their own work. And I've listened, I've listened to your TED Talk, your other interviews, there's lots of really good quality stuff that you've been putting out that I really appreciate. Because you are rooted in logic, which is nice. You got a lot of science going on. I love me some science. So we'll talk about all the stuff all the things, but just for fun. Do you hear my dog barking? Yeah, one second. I'm so sorry.   Unknown Speaker  4:54   Oh, I think you're still muted. Ah, here we go.   Arlina Allen  5:02   Okay, I had to go. Let my I have an English bulldog named named Teddy had to let him out. Did you know that Dr. Andrew Huberman has an English bulldog?   Unknown Speaker  5:11   I mean, his dog is no castellet. Well, long videos watch. Yeah, yeah. Costello was Costello   Arlina Allen  5:18   okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we were totally   Unknown Speaker  5:23   embarrassed that I know that but I might make you vermin fans.   Arlina Allen  5:27   Me, too. Oh my God. He's talking about him all the time. I digress. Sorry about that, I will have to edit that little part out. What I where I thought we would start is just kind of a fun little lightning round. It's a fun little icebreaker. When you first started your journey to do you call it do how do you refer to it your alcohol free journey, your sobriety journey?   Unknown Speaker  5:53   alcohol free is what I use most. But you know, I'll interchange sobriety here and there, but in general, I, you know, I'll the term alcohol free is what I'm most comfortable with.   Arlina Allen  6:05   Okay, cool. Yeah. I mean, it's so interesting, you know, over the years, you know, when people were first talking about getting sober, it was all about alcoholism. Right. And you and I know now that the DSM five doesn't even recognize that term anymore. It's alcohol use disorder. So which I appreciate because that sort of speaks to the spectrum. Right? There's an Oh, you're going to talk about this too. I'm not gonna steal your thunder here. But um, but yes, so when you started your alcohol free journey, were there particular books that you found really helpful?   Unknown Speaker  6:42   Oh, what a fun question.   Arlina Allen  6:45   I am obsessive when it comes to books.   Unknown Speaker  6:48   Yeah. Because you know, when I started my journey, and Anna Grace's book was not out. Oh, okay. Unexpected joy of getting sober. You know, all of these these books, the sober diaries by Claire Pouliot. None of those. They all came after I quit drinking. Yeah, me too. So yeah, this is a really fun question. Kind of, you know, pre this big Instagram boom, about talking about alcohol free. I definitely read Carolyn naps book, the drinking love story. Have you? Have you read her memoir?   Arlina Allen  7:20   I haven't. That also came out after I got sober. I heard that people read the books that came out when they got sober, or became alcohol free.   Unknown Speaker  7:31   She wrote her book. I think it was in the 90s and the 90s. Yeah, okay. Yeah, she was an early, early one. And her writing is just exquisite. I mean, it's so visceral and it pulls you out. I mean, it almost it's called drinking a love story. And she really romanticizes the drink and she had an absolute 100% you know, drinking problem, but her writing is just mesmerizing. So I read her memoir a couple times. But you know, who I knew about early on to was Charlotte, I think it's castle, k s L, I never know how to say her last name. And she wrote the book moving beyond the 12 steps, many roads one journey,   Arlina Allen  8:18   I think wow. And   Unknown Speaker  8:21   and so she took a she looks at the physiology, which is you know, is a real core piece of my work and you know, potential things like blood sugar and, and allergies to alcohol and, and she, you know, she knew about that side as a psychologist, but, but were her work really, where she really anchored it was looking at the language of the bill Wilson's 12 steps. And so she wrote the 16 steps and more of a feminine kind of empowered approach, you know, she just turned the language and so I enjoyed her work and kind of her take on things. And I think that you know, her book came out probably in the 90s as well   Arlina Allen  9:03   in the 90s that is so interesting. So I grew up in the church where I was accustomed to reading patriarchal language of the Bible and things like that. And and I was accustomed to reading things and then interpreting it like I didn't realize I was I had like this interpretation filter, so that you know, when I got sober in 94, all there was really was the 12 steps. And I was so desperate to be different and I just happened to know some people who were going and so I just kind of got they call it getting Eskimos in the cold, I guess. Um, and so that that worked for me. But it's so fascinating that there were so many women that are just like, I'm not okay with this, like this whole patriarchal thing and, and so it's so interesting to hear that Charlotte was able to sort of translate To the 16 steps I'm totally gonna have to check that out so that was a book that you read early on as well   Unknown Speaker  10:06   it was because I I appreciated her comprehensive approach which is very much resonated with me about looking at the biochemistry looking at the emotional components and today's you know language around that is the somatic work the polyvagal work which Charlotte wasn't you know that's newer research but she was aware of that of that bigger comprehensive approach around the codependency is another you know term that was more traditional but that emotional sobriety and then the spiritual piece of it too and there's all different you know, currents to ride with that and and she helped me you know, have an appreciation too I've always been very neutral with with 12 steps I've been in and out of meetings you know, throughout the years and I certainly see from a nervous system standpoint the huge benefit of the community so being in a room with other human beings where you can be heard and seen and witnessed and you know, that your story is held and that's very healing to the nervous system. I understand the criticisms and I have you know, I respect you know, it's everybody has their different preference but speaking strictly from a nervous system standpoint community and the predictability the regular meetings the the support that that you know, there's a lot of dynamics in there that are very supportive to the nervous system now we can find them in you know, in churches or spiritual groups or movement groups like yoga communities or more knitting communities it doesn't have to be a recovery based community but in general community that's part of my acronym nourish uniting with others so   Arlina Allen  11:55   I thought we're gonna get to that I wrote   Unknown Speaker  11:58   and power code   Arlina Allen  12:01   is so good it okay so I don't want to jump ahead but I'm just I'm gonna ask you about all that cuz I was listening to and I was like writing this down I was like, Oh my god, how did I not hear about this before? It's so interesting that we can sort of sort of like package or position information in a way that is so consumable and easy to remember your whole nourish, and that a knack? Is it an acronym my does that sound weird? acronym, acronym? Sorry, dear, I laugh at my own jokes. Bear with me. Um, okay, so the books these are, these are really good books. Okay, so drinking a love story, and then moving beyond the 12 steps, which I totally appreciate. Like,   Unknown Speaker  12:45   let me let me throw one other in there that was very emotional. And we can as we get more into kind of the biochemistry of the book, seven weeks to sobriety was also very influential. And I can dig more into that but but the author, she has her PhD in nutrition. And she was inspired to write the book again in the 90s, I believe, is when it came out, because her teenage son, I think it was late teens, early 20s, went into to to traditional treatment, around the you know, mid 90s, and stayed sober, but was miserable. So emotionally, he came out of treatment and was still very depressed and he didn't drink but tragically then took his life because the alcohol had been removed. But the other pieces is like he didn't feel better, even though he was following you know, the program. And so his mother then said, there's something else we're not even talking about the physical side, there's this whole biochemical side and she got very interested in the nutrients and the amino acids and went on for her PhD to really learn that and then opened a treatment center in Minneapolis, called the health Recovery Center wrote a book called seven weeks to sobriety. And so that was an influential part as I was studying and learning functional medicine about that biochemical piece and and Charlotte wrote about that too. She understood some of the biochemical side but she really looked at kind of that psycho emotional spiritual. So those those were influential books to me while I was drinking like the you know, because I'm a I'm a nutritionist I'm a health coach, I have been for 20 years and so that stuff was always interesting to me. And I would read it and kind of chew on it and be like, this is kind of fascinating. It's a little bit off the traditional path. I still drink but it was planting seeds of where ultimately got me to my final stop what I used when I stopped and now what what I use in my work was was those early seeds.   Arlina Allen  14:41   Yeah, so good. I mean, listen, there's a period of time like I lived in this barn, the Self Help section at Barnes and Noble trying to like think my way into right living as they say. And just because I had as I want to ask you about this a little bit later, but once having the information wasn't like applying them formation is kind of my current obsession and so we'll talk about how to apply it and but I think that's really important that we'll we'll talk about that Do you have a sort of go to mantra or quote that you live by   Unknown Speaker  15:17   this too shall pass   Arlina Allen  15:18   whoo that's fine   Unknown Speaker  15:20   yeah or another one is you know all as well which comes from a Christian mystic in England Her name is Julian of Norwich. Yeah, I I like the Christian the feminine Christian mystics I draw a lot of wisdom from and that was that was one of her really well known quotes is well as well   Arlina Allen  15:43   yeah. I love that Oh, you know what I'm what I like is that just popped into my head was in the end everything will be okay. And if it's not okay, it's not the end.   Unknown Speaker  15:54   Yeah. Yeah. I often post that around New Year's, you know, turning up the calendar and kind of New Year's Eve and it feels like the end but it's you know, we're beginning   Arlina Allen  16:10   Yes, every and has a beginning. I love that. Let's see, do you have a regular your own personal self care routine? Like do you like a daily practice a weekly practice,   Unknown Speaker  16:24   I have a whole menu of nourishment that I have a bag of nourishment that goes Borg and self care. I'm admittedly i'm i'm not great about you know, hitting every single day. But I certainly have really favorite practices that and it changes you know, with different seasons, the time of the year as I grow and evolve and what my needs are, sometimes they're more physical, sometimes they're more emotional, sometimes more spiritual. So it shifts. Right now I'm in Charleston, right outside Charleston, South Carolina on purpose to be very close to the beach because walking barefoot on the beach scene at the beach regularly for me is a huge daily practice and regulator. So that's a biggie. Um, I like breathwork. So that's also very regulating and calming to me to do some kind of some. It's a little bit of Wim Hof. But it's not total Wim Hof.   Arlina Allen  17:26   Half every morning like Monday through Friday. We host this little it's like a 25 we do Wim Hof for 10 minutes and then Tara Brock reign meditation for 10 minutes. No chit chat. No messing around, in and out. Love   Unknown Speaker  17:39   Yeah, yeah. And so I find a grounding for me like literally feet on the earth and then kind of active breathwork both are very settling and soothing to me. And I like those a lot. So those are kind of my my key things saying, you know, really hydrated, sleep, regular, predictable bedtime and wake time is helpful for me. But yeah, you know, there's when I quit drinking, I was using more herbs. There's all kinds of stuff. I mean, we can all   Arlina Allen  18:13   I know that. Yeah. Do you know I am just so glad that you highlighted that there are many tools that you don't do them every single day, like super hard, like you're not militant about it, and that there are different things for different seasons. Because often I talk to people, I even the clients that I coach, they're like, Oh, I didn't do this every single day. And it's like, you don't have to do it every day because our needs actually change and fluctuate. And so it's okay to be flexible, right? And just pay attention. Yeah, pay attention to what your needs are that day. And I have a client who called it her smorgasbord of things. But she you know, she did she put a time limit on it. She's like, Okay, I'm not gonna spend more than an hour, right? She's retired, she's like, I'm not gonna spend because then it becomes this other thing you beat yourself up with, like, all different things. So I like I like the flexibility. And I think consistency can be viewed, let's say over a month period of time, right? If you did, if you did something like 20 days out, that's pretty consistent. Right? You don't have to do something every day to be that's extreme thinking of consistent. We're so funny.   Unknown Speaker  19:30   Yeah. And you know, he's a core philosophy of mind for myself and how I work with others, especially with women. I'm very interested in you know, the cycles and the rhythms. So in our own body within this is noticing nature, so noticing the seasons in nature, but we also have that those seasons within our own body. And so it's very linear and masculine, the masculine archetype to kind of a 24 hour cycle where it's like every morning, do a spin class. And there's nothing wrong with that. But more of the feminine Yin cycle is there's different times of the month depending if we're relating bleeding coming into oscillation, you know, out of our bleed time, our energy cycle is different. And even if you know women listening are menopausal had stopped bleeding or not bleeding for whatever reason, our bodies still sync with the moon. And so there's just times with whether the moon is full or dark a new moon, are as women, our bodies really sink in with that, and it's more about peak energy time versus a low energy time. And so it you know, you don't even have to let get militant about the moon or the moon. You know, this is my work of I'm always cueing clients of notice what feels really nourishing right now, not because you should or you have to, or somebody posted about on Instagram, but does it just feel nourishing to like, take a nap. And, and noticing that and giving yourself permission. So that's so much of my work of tracking, instead of beating ourselves with a whip, really noticing what can   Arlina Allen  21:11   we Yeah, I love that you are not shame based, I can already hear it, you know, it's more nurturing and supportive. And you It's really cool. You know, a lot of the stuff, I know that you're like in the corporate world, like you're very corporate friendly, like palatable. And when I was listening to a lot of your stuff, I was thinking of my friends, you know, I'm from Silicon Valley, I did, I was corporate for a very long time. And in sales, tech sales, and so very, like male dominated very robotic, I would say, and very, like, absent of feelings. It's like, No, no, we don't talk about failing, they can talk about, they'll talk about stress, like, but that's about it, like tired or stressed. Like, the language is very limited. And so it's so it's so interesting that you have it seems like a very unique capability, capacity for being able to speak the corporate language, right, meet people where they are, but then also introduce very practical ideas, you know, paying attention to, you know, the moon and stuff like that, that that was not I did not expect that. And I think it's so refreshing when you're able to sort of live, you know, straddle the, you know, the corporate world, which is so robotic and so shot like, shallow is that I don't know if that's fair. But you know, people are trying to survive in this very, you know, a, a type driven accomplishment, don't feel anything environment. Right? Yeah. I don't know, where alcohol   Unknown Speaker  22:45   comes in. Like, it makes so much sense then, when we drive ourselves at that level. Why alcohol is also so prevalent in   Arlina Allen  22:52   the corporate world. Yeah, big time.   Unknown Speaker  22:55   Yeah. You know, and that's where I really feel like I learned how to corporate minds love physiology. And they, they're fascinated by how the brain works, and that peak performance and, and how to manage stress, you know, that those are buzzwords. And so bringing that in, in kind of a fun inspiring, like, a little bit of a different angle. It's that's where I learned to, to really speak to this, that that was kind of a universal message. And so, you know, I certainly wouldn't lock in talking about the moon. I have, I have found that weird. You know, I'm interested in those aspects that I've found by building the rapport and laying the groundwork of when there's this gut brain connection and what the bacteria in your gut is doing. And this there's this nerve in the back of the cranium called poly vagal nerve, when it's not toned. And this dysregulation, like, which I mean, I level that too. I'm fascinated by it. I you know, I love kind of that logical, yeah, give me that, you know, what is this? Like? How does it work? Why does it work? And then building that rapport where people can be like, that's so fascinating. And then it's like, oh, and do you also know that it's our bodies are 70% water and the moon regulates the tides that the ocean water? Our body is also you know, there's a thing to that it's responding to it. Yeah. And so when we set it up in the physiology which all of this can can be backed in physiology, there's data for all of it, and then it doesn't sound so Whoo. And like, well, this is just nuts.   Arlina Allen  24:43   It's like well, I love how science is explaining why woo is so fascinating, right? It's like there are those of us that less I'm pretty open minded. You know, but I need some science behind it to, but I am I almost missed the whole we should highlight the fact that Do you really like this gray area drinking expert right that's that's really how I came to know you and I thought you know that is meeting people where they are in the corporate world like in the corporate world these people are so driven and there's this perfectionism that happens in the corporate world it's like don't show any of your any of your flaws you know it's like this very robotic it's pushed yourself you know endlessly this 80 Hour Workweek is celebrated and you know they claim work life balance but you know I would be on at sales you know, quarterly business reviews where the VP would be out drinking until like, you know six in the morning and show up for the eight o'clock meeting still a little bit drunk I'm I would imagine and so it's so interesting to sort of gently like we're avoiding words like alcoholism which you know, we don't we understand that that's not really a thing anymore. There's a spectrum but the gray area drinking seems to be seems to be a very nice entry point Can you explain to the listeners like people listening they're like what is this gray area drinking because I think once you explain it everyone goes Oh, yeah, I totally know what that is. Yeah, so   Unknown Speaker  26:15   I was teaching I was doing a lot of contract work from 2004 to 2011 in corporate America trip flying and traveling around the whole United States doing on site workshops being contracted to come in for exactly what you're speaking to us Can you come do these training programs for the employees on this work life balance, they're really stressed they're you know, we're watching the biometrics we're doing these health fairs and we want to have blood pressure kind of overall more in range and their cholesterol and their BMI and we realize it's more of a comprehensive approach so when you come teach them so that you know that was that's my foundation and the work I was doing and what we never talked about around blood pressure and weight and sleep issues and stress was alcohol but you know, bringing in then these resources these regulating resources of around food and around sleep and really practical things to do some regulation in the body which which employees loved and because you know, a lot of people would come into the workshop saying I know this stuff, I'm a marathon runner, you know this it's my hobby and and then we do these workshops and they're like, I didn't know this like I didn't know that about you know, grounding and what like the omega three fat actually does in my brain with my neuro chemicals and so again, people I work with, they're very well read, they're very smart they like this information, they're already reading books listening to podcasts, but then when we can apply it to peak performance and the challenges that come up because of the you know, the corporate deadlines and and a lot of people are drinking heavily and we're not talking about it. And so I would come in from the angle of your craving brain whatever your brain is craving. Here's some ways to you know, because you don't hang the hang the poster seven come to the alcohol class in the boardroom at noon, like people are not going to be alone, right? People are not going to you know, trip over themselves to get to that boardroom but when we talk about the craving brain and ways that you can regulate and work with you know, your innate body's rhythms and cycles and systems in the gut in the brain, people were really really fascinated by that. And then to your question about you know, what is gray area drinking it's that space where people are functioning really well my clients tell me this all the time, I saw it all the time in the corporate world, people function and they drink really heavily. And if they didn't fall into that those traditional definitions of like end stage, just kind of rock bottom the wheels fall off our life but they also weren't every now and again drinkers where they had a drink or two a couple times a year, they were in between this and it was this gray area where again slipping through the cracks it was the white elephant in the room that is how everybody was drinking and nobody was talking about it. And it's how I was drinking and teaching wellness you know, it's like I love this stuff I love about functional nutrition and with the body and regulating the body and then on the weekends I'd be out with my friends drinking like everybody else around me It's how we all drank but it was just you know, and then I would stop many many times and I can't keep drinking like this and I was able to stop it wasn't a problem for me to stop what was more of the problem was after a couple months saying why am I being so restrictive I can have a drink so I would go back to drinking this the staying stopped the same stop which is very characteristic of gray area drinkers because people will say you know, I don't drink every day I you know, go weeks and don't drink. I'm like that's really characteristic. But the hard thing is Sticking with that because it's this gray area of like but nothing bad has happened like I don't have this external kind of proof that there's a problem yet it's the 3am wake up the dry mouth that mentally beating ourselves up but nobody hears that conversation except us in our own head and then going through the gymnastics of okay I'm now I'm just going to drink on the weekend I'm not going to I'm not going to drink again I'm it's this whole thing that goes on for months and years that nobody ever talked about   Arlina Allen  30:31   this it seems there there's this whole other layer of insanity that goes around trying to manage it right like oh well I'm just gonna drink a glass of water between drinks or I'm gonna have a glass of water by the bedside with electrolytes in it so that when I wake up in the morning in the middle of the night just totally dehydrated or you know having the Advil and the by Xen and the charcoal things and the oh my god I'm exhausted just thinking about it right it's like this whole insanity to make make it okay from for the drinking part and it's the whole back and forth that is was so exhausting I wonder so and we were talking a little bit about like just having the information is not enough it's about applying the information but don't you feel like there had to you had to like make a decision like at some point you got sick of the back and forth and you what what was there like a tipping point for you that you were just like this is that I'm done for good this time?   Unknown Speaker  31:29   Well that was December 14 2014 which was the the solid in my bones resolute I'm done. This is it and you know, it wasn't a Cavalier decision It wasn't easy. Alcohol is a problem for me you know, it was very typical for me I'm just gonna have a glass I can just you know, I want to just open a bottle at home pour that glass and then I would drink it and be like, ah, screw it I'll have enough it was very easy to do you know finish the bottle that was that was my kind of typical pattern and knock on wood. Fortunately nothing you know, half bad happened like I didn't have a DUI or anything like that, but there was so much of that. That's how I drank and then I would stop many many times over the years under the wellness umbrella I'm going to do a paleo challenge I'm I'm doing a yoga you know challenge I I'm just not going to drink and people get used to that and and it worked because they knew I was in wellness they knew I was and it's like oh that makes sense like you're doing so I never really it was it I flew under the radar with it. But then I would say oh I can you know be a social drinker. I want to be a social drinker. So it really to your question, it was just so much of that back and forth which is exhausting. It never changes I would go right back to where I left off whether it was one month or seven months it didn't matter and it was just this resolute because I had bad you know back and forth so many times of just I'm tired of this. I don't want to keep doing this. I've been through different seasons with it I've been through different experiences with it. You know what I've been dating not dating really high stress with work or whatever, it just doesn't change and I had that real conversation with myself December 14 2014 going through those scenarios of like you know what if I go on this romantic holiday like what if and I was like no no, I'm just I'm done. And that was seven I'm coming up on my seven year anniversary this December.   Arlina Allen  33:40   Oh my gosh, that's so exciting. Congratulations that is not easy. That is not easy. Yeah, so Okay, so you know what I love about what you do is that the science behind it the science behind like the addiction of alcoholism or alcohol the science sort of depersonalized is that right? And so it takes out the shame takes out the gill and it's like well of course you're getting addicted to alcohol Look what it's doing to your brain right and so you talk about three the neurotransmitters and a way that I thought was so good it was like oh, that's why right so you talked about GABA, serotonin and dopamine and you're gonna be able to explain it much better but when I heard you talk about it the first time I was like that as the shit Oh my god, like people need to hear this. So what is your What is your explanation behind those three neuro chemicals and how they make us feel that sort of drive the compulsion to drink   Unknown Speaker  34:46   well, so that you know there's there's four major neural chemicals I hit on three of them in my TED talk, but there's four major ones. So two are the gas pedal for our body and then two are the brakes for us. So the gas pedal dopamine and serotonin. So dopamine is the drive that shapes that with the motivation to to move. To get up out of bed and produce we need that we need to be motivated. And then the acetylcholine is the other kind of gas pedal. And that's about focus and memory. And then serotonin and GABA are the brakes. So GABA is that relaxation feeling where the mind shuts off. And there's just that feeling of kind of that downshift. And serotonin is just the feeling of happiness, bliss, life is good, I'm not really needing or craving anything to fill a void right now I'm just I'm content I'm good. And so we need the balance of gas pedal what you know, we need to move and stay motivated and produce and we're, you know, accomplish and have that drive. And we need memory to have that memory bank and our focus and like these are, you know, important things just to biologically function. But then we need to balance that with rest and relaxation, and some happiness and some bliss and just contentment. And so when you know, those get out of balance for all kinds of reasons, sleep, you know, not sleeping, well, eating a lot of processed food and sugar, drugs and alcohol, trauma, stress, so all of those things can open up the valve, where's those neural chemicals just flush through us much quicker, because we're inside that's like who there's stress, there's, you know, all this sugar, all this alcohol. So we need to compensate open the valve and then all of a sudden, it's like, we're really depleted now and gabbeh or something, you know, we're going through that scenario, and the body just can't do the uptake enough to replenish and make it quick enough to fill it up. So we're the dumping it too fast, or not making it fast enough. And so when we come into baseline, the body can do what it knows to do, it can make adequate chemicals through real food, like omega three fish oil, you know, through the amino acids, those are the raw materials that then make these neural chemicals. And we can we can hold on to our neural chemicals and not just flesh them through our system so quickly, by you know, some different practices and movement and rest and good replenishing sleep. And so to me, it's it's where the rubber meets the road with all of the practices, exercises, theories, techniques, because you spoke to it a minute ago about how we can just kind of get into like this militant, like I need to do it, I should do it. I heard it's good. I heard it's bad. I heard it's like, no, it's about noticing, what are you needed to replenish right now what's deficient and depleted. And so the body's just trying to keep us in homeostasis, and that, and then we reach to alcohol. So it's like when we understand the physiology, it's like, Oh, interesting, something's depleted and deficient, physiologically, not psychologically. And so the body's just trying to compensate. So alcohol is a physical substance, our physical body is depleted, we and our physical body, and we get a physical effect very immediately. So the body's like, keep doing it, like i don't i, this, it seems to work immediately. So and that's been where that addictive loop gets in. So where I then work is, let's lift the hood, what's depleted in the first place, biochemically, emotionally, energetically, and let's replenish what's truly needing to be replenished. It's not because you're a bad person, or you did something wrong. It's just like going to be in the body detective, the body whisperer, which I love doing. And, and often, it's just, you know, it doesn't have to be really complicated. It's just going back to the basics. And I'd find this in the corporate world all the time, too. We want the shiny, you know, stuff, the shiny next thing, and nobody's hydrated. Nobody's sleeping regularly. And this is where the application comes down. Because it's, it's like, yeah, yeah, yeah, I should drink more water should get better slide,   Arlina Allen  39:12   isn't it, nobody wants to hear that.   Unknown Speaker  39:17   It's not sexy. It's not glamorous, and we're out the other. I'm the same way I get it. But what's really cool about this work is when you have the actual experience. So when you actually have a 10 hour night of deep restorative sleep, it's mind blowing, it's a 180 it's the same way with, you know, sewers,   Unknown Speaker  39:36   or certain things. And so I'm always working with clients of like, it's not about getting a gold star from me and checking the box and doing all these things to perform and achieve. That's what makes us want to drink because we're, we're exhausted. So now it's when you put something in when you add it in, what happens because when we drink something happens and so if you're not noticing an effect that's really Positive that you can, you know, like, again, when I do breath work, there's an effect. Like, I feel that I mean, there's this bliss and this calm that moves through my body by by, you know, consciously doing different practices with my breath. So it's like I want to do that again, like that almost feels like I just had a glass of wine, what I did with that breathwork so that's the work and it's it's exciting, it can be really inspiring. And it's very empowering to go back to the physiology because that's where all the secrets and the magic are. And it puts aside the psychological shame that we've kind of gotten tangled in that's really unnecessary. Yeah,   Arlina Allen  40:40   you know, you hit on something that kind of sparked a light me which is about adding in, because a lot of recovery is about taking away, right, we're taking away the one thing like listen, when I was still drinking, and I smoked a lot of weed. Taking I was I loved those things, those were the things that receiving me, right and I crashed and burned early, I was done at 25. Because I did not manage, because not managing well. But to let them go was so hard because it was I felt like the thing that was bringing me like that was saving me so to let it so deprivation, I you know is a big thing for people that are you know, going alcohol free, or getting sober or whatever. And I love the idea that you're presenting which is adding in, right, let's add in the things that give you the feeling that we wanted from the drugs or alcohol in the first place. So it's a totally different mindset instead of deprivation. It's about adding I love that idea.   Unknown Speaker  41:46   Yeah, I do too. deprivation doesn't work for me. So I'm not going to try to talk with somebody else or coach somebody else through deprivation, like I don't want to be deprived who does. Nobody wants that. It doesn't work. So I would   Arlina Allen  41:58   be there we would be broken alone.   Unknown Speaker  42:02   And we know from behavior change from behavior, psychology, that deprivation, it never works now, but I can put it back in the physiology. So what we're dealing with is the amygdala and the animal brain, the animal brain only concern it has one concern as to keep us alive, right? And so if there's a sense of deprivation, that signals it's a biological signal, we're gonna die. So who's gonna win? Is that animal, right? Every time. So we've got to give the message then to the amygdala, that alarm center in the body that we're not in this deprivation, like we're not going to die, you're, we want to give that animal something. And, and that animal kind of limbic brain, it doesn't understand language. So this is why you know, saying, Just relax.   Arlina Allen  42:51   Don't ever tell an angry woman to relax? Yeah,   Unknown Speaker  42:54   well, it's like, it's literally like saying to an animal, just relax. They don't understand words our animal brain does literally doesn't understand words. But what it understands is sensation. And so alcohol gives us sensation in the physical body, walking barefoot on the beach gives a physical sensation. If I take a gamma boosting herb, it gives us sensation. And so that's where it's like the rubber meets the road with these practices of what we're doing is we're working on the physiology to give us sensation, that then travels up the spinal cord from the body into the brain saying, Oh, that feels good. And the animal brain is like, Okay, I'm not deprived, I feel this comfort, I feel soothing, I feel contained, which is what we're ultimately looking for. So it's not you give up alcohol and jump off a cliff and just hold your breath and hope for the best. It's, you make a decision to stop alcohol, and then open up this door and explore all of these really cold processes that give a physiological effect that no one ever taught us. But   Arlina Allen  43:59   exactly nobody ever taught us that's why we're using reaching for things that are not good for us because you know, that's what's available. We don't know about all these other things. And this is really speaks to the I want to get to the nurse thing, don't let me forget. But I wanted to also point out something that you highlight, which is it used to be that we would talk about the brain first and then the body and you flip that around, you're talking about addressing the somatic experience and and you hit the nail on the head when you're talking about experience and feelings. Right? And so talk to me a little bit about how we you're we're looking at this differently now we're looking at somatic and then neuro chemistry.   Unknown Speaker  44:45   So you know, that's the latest neuroscience, where Bessel Vander kolk, who wrote the bought the book, the body keeps the score. Oh, Peter Levine, who is the grandfather of somatic experiencing. This is the current research and it's not their opinion. It's I mean, the data is there.   Arlina Allen  45:02   Yeah, there, we have empirical data, we've got the   Unknown Speaker  45:05   data, they're doing the studies, they're you know, they're measuring gabbeh levels, then they have a group of people do 60 minutes of yoga, and then they measure their data levels again, so they're really watching this kind of stuff. But where all of this kind of somatic new neuroscience, what they find from research, not opinion, is that it's bottom up, not top down. So we work with the body, which is kind of all the stuff I've been talking about when we shift the body and the body can start to feel a sensation of calm, and soothing and grounding. That message goes up the spinal cord to the brain. And then the brain can say, the animal brain can say, okay, we're, we're okay with that. Because, again, that animal brain doesn't understand language. So we can't talk to the animal brain. We have to have feel that sensations in the body in really practical ways. This is not esoteric. Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo.   Arlina Allen  46:01   I like blue. But this is science.   Unknown Speaker  46:03   Yeah, yeah. So that it's, you know, it's where the neurosciences and so that's where I work I work with with physiology with   Arlina Allen  46:11   physiology. Okay. And that makes perfect sense. And that maybe this is a good segue Can we talk about your acronym for nourish because it was all   Unknown Speaker  46:21   good, thank you. So as a as a functional nutritionist, my just really kind of, to pick a word that embodies my work over 20 years, it's it's nourish, which is my strength, and also my shadow, because the work for me is continually nourishing myself and not just food. So what I teach is what I also learn and keep practice. Yeah, so I'm always you know, it's not like I just quit drinking and now I've arrived and tell everybody else what they need to do. Constant practice, alright, but but the word that anchors that for me is nourish and then I created an acronym out of that for for my TED Talk. And so and is notice nature. Oh is observe your breath. You is unite with others are replenished with food. I initiate movement. s sit in stillness, and h is harnessed creativity. And I'm working on my book right now all about that, oh, there's numerous, numerous options and resources and things within each of those categories. But it really brings that whole comprehensive approach biochemical, somatic, emotional, energetic routines, that different things work for different people for regulating and nourishing the nervous system.   Arlina Allen  47:51   You just said something in my eyes lit up, because everybody is different, right? There's so many different paths to this sort of recovery, sobriety, alcohol free life, right? Not there's no one solution that works for everybody. And I think that's largely what's so confusing, is, there are so many, like everybody is so different. And there are so many different tools, but I like the idea that this nourish actually can be applied no matter what your specific situation it is. Your situation is. So what are some of the you mentioned, different supplements and things to sort of regulate those? You know, the GABA, serotonin, dopamine, acetylcholine? What if someone's curious about like, what they should be using? Do you have a resource on your website? Or maybe you can just rattle off a few things that people might try?   Unknown Speaker  48:50   Yeah, yeah, I'm happy to kind of talk through some of those pieces. So I work with clients one on one to really customize this piece. And kind of piggyback on what you just said, I really work with biochemical individuality. So I can rattle off some things, but it surrounds snowflakes,   Arlina Allen  49:06   unique snowflakes, right? It doesn't   Unknown Speaker  49:09   mean everybody out there then needs to take this particular supplement or eat this particular food. And B, this is my functional medicine background of what is individual for your biochemistry. And there's different ways to test that. And we can do lab testing and things. But But you know, the easiest, most inexpensive way is when you eat something, when you take something when you do something, notice what happens next, and three things happen. And it can be a really profound like, wow, that helps so much. My mind is blown right now. Or it can be kind of a neutral, like didn't really feel anything one way or the other. Or it can be I hated that, and I don't like how I feel now. And so I'm always cueing people back to that and the more kind of regulated and grounded we are in our body when the body is Calm, and there's practices and ways to do that, the easier it is then to kind of notice, like, what just happened here. Whereas if we're always kind of up in our head and just running and you know, in that intellect mental, it's hard to be like, I don't even know if I liked it. I mean, I just did it. So that's the argument of kind of somatic work. But um, but going back to just kind of some things, you know, I recommend, so biochemically whole food is king is golden. eating real food is is a great place to start. So did it grow from the ground? Can you pick it? berries? You know, bananas off the tree? Can you know, can you hunt it? If you eat meat? Can you gather it like gathering fish, or eggs or cream from the cow. So actual real food, that there isn't a list of ingredients, you know, 43 letters long and a whole paragraph. Real Food. And this is what I would teach in corporate all the time is, it's actually really, really fascinating. You know, one of the most fascinating lectures I ever heard in functional medicine, was a medical doctor who lectured about broccoli for an hour, it was fascinating. Because the chemical breakdown in broccoli, and every fruit and every vegetable, some of that we are still discovering. Because it's like, yeah, yeah, eat your vegetables. But when you really break it down, it's mind blowing, like what that, again, it's physical food and our physical body, what that does. So going back to the basics of whole food, if there's anything I can inspire people with is eat real food. That's in season, it's local, it's colorful, if possible, sometimes that's not always possible. But starting there, you know, eating regularly, because then the body breaks down into amino acids that are the raw materials for the brain. When you eat real, healthy fats, those break down into the omega three fats, some of our omega six fats, those are those necessary fats, again, for the brain, you know, good vegetables, even fermented vegetables, like sauerkraut, that's that good bacteria that goes into the gut. So there's just, it's just endless. The benefits of, you know, the exciting, like, mechanisms within food. And so I like to start there and try to you know, inspire people, and you don't have to, like clear your cupboards. It doesn't have to be radical. Yeah, I'm never radical about any of this. But the idea of adding something in instead of trying to take a bunch of stuff out, add in real food,   Arlina Allen  52:39   and real food, that isn't it? Yeah. And I think you were, I think I heard you say that the amino acids and the proteins are the building blocks to these neuro chemicals that we need. And like, at the end of the day, when maybe your gamma is low, or serotonin, or whatever it may be, all of them are low at the end, is that true that it's low at the end of the day?   Unknown Speaker  53:00   That's a good question. Um, I think it's more kind of over time, you know, like a 30 day period, a snapshot of like, what are we, you know, kind of dumping in that period, although there are urine tests that we do a 24 hour urine collection, and they are seeing like, how much of the neurotransmitter were dumped into our urine in a 24 hour period. So I think it's both you know, just kind of seeing like, the pattern that the body is on but also it's interesting, like what happens over over a longer period too.   Arlina Allen  53:32   Yeah, the reason I asked about the end of the day because I feel like that's like the witching hour for a lot of people, you know, but I think it speaks to meeting like we're so jacked up all day trying to get stuff done, that in the evening we're trying to do was deregulate down regulate to regulate, yeah, just just regulate, yeah, emotion management thing.   Unknown Speaker  53:56   So biochemistry is a huge part of it, our neuro chemicals, our blood sugar, our you know, our thyroid, our gut bacteria, our adrenal function. So adrenals are closely connected with dopamine. So if we're running on cortisol and adrenaline, then we're also pulling down on dopamine as well. Every neural chemicals connected with a hormone. So progesterone and gabbeh are connected, which I find a lot of women who are in this gray area struggle with wine are low and progesterone and low and Gabba. And you know, a common kind of symptom complaint of those two chemicals being low is anxiety and difficulty sleeping. And so a lot of women that are reaching to wine to help them sleep and to help manage their anxiety and when we lift the physiological hood, it's low gabicce, low progesterone. So there's all of these kind of physiological pieces, we can start with food, there's different nutrients that can i Find a lot of women are low and gabbeh. Dopamine is the sexy neuro chemical that everybody's like, oh, the dopamine hit the dopamine hit but but in reality, if we're really trying to boost dopamine, we tend to be more interested in things like cocaine, ecstasy, espresso, a pot of coffee, where if we're cocaine or coffee is more low gabbeh, which I'm certainly have that predisposition to be low gabbeh that's been more reaching to things like marijuana, Cannabis, alcohol to hit that off switch. So it's interesting what people you know, reach to so that's the biochemical side, there's some herbs or some nutrients to boost GABA boost dopamine, but then there's also what you're talking about kind of the witching hour, at the end of the day, that then goes into some of just the nervous system fight flight freeze response. So it's not always biochemical, but they're all interconnected, they all work together. If we're in a constant flee response, we're going to be dumping a lot more, you know, of our gas, the dopamine they see, so it all connects. But the but the fight flee freeze response. And if we're, if that valve is always on, if we're always kind of in a flee or in a fight, or we've just in that frozen kind of immobilized, protective state, that's exhausting. Any of those states if the, if the on switch is always on. So by the end of the day, it's hard to continue, we're exhausted holding that dysregulated state. So now we want to regulate it with alcohol to kind of let the valve off constantly, you know, we're fleeing, we want to move we want to, and it's like, I want to stop and slow down. So it could be some of that polyvagal kind of stress response, as well. And then there's, you know, the, the energetic side of things. So this is acupuncture, you know, they talk about, like how the energy moves in the body. So, if there's an area that's, that's more stuck, or moving really fast, and that's where body work comes in acupuncture, you know, working with the energy system, so there's no one size fits all, but I work with people to get kind of the full story. And it's like, where do we want to kind of start here with what might be a missing piece? And what might be depleted? And it's so   Arlina Allen  57:17   good, how do people connect with you if they want to reach out and work with you.   Unknown Speaker  57:23   So gray area drinkers calm is my sites where all my info is, you can email me I work with clients, one on one, I have a coach training where I train other coaches on the nourish method. And my TED Talks, there are lots of interviews I've done. And then I have did a podcast as well called edit, editing, our drinking and our lives. And so all of that on gray area drinkers calm.   Arlina Allen  57:48   That is amazing. I leave all leave links, ever. I know people are probably taking notes or driving or whatever. So I'll leave all the links in the show notes. But this has been such a fascinating conversation. I could easily talk to you for the rest of the day. So many questions. And I just think this was so helpful. Thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you so much for having me. It's fun to meet you and chat with you. Thank you. Yeah, definitely. Thanks so much. And I'll leave all the show notes, links in the show notes how people can get a hold of you.   Unknown Speaker  58:20   Wonderful. Thank you.   Arlina Allen  58:22   Thanks.  

Arlina Allen 0:13 Dr. Rob Kelly, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you, Andy for asking. Awesome. Looking forward to this. Hey, before we get started, I saw a picture of you with an English bulldog. Was that yours? Unknown Speaker 0:25 Yes, I have three English Bulldogs we strive for, but we had to rehome one because of fights. Oh, but I have Mackenzie, Who's the girl and two boys. Arlina Allen 0:34 And so sweet. So I've had four total but right now I have just one. Yeah, an English bulldog. His name is Teddy. He's the podcast mascot. You will occasionally hear him snoring in the background. Unknown Speaker 0:47 Always. I've got three in the office today cuz doing other things downstairs. But yeah, I hope they don't balk or anything. Otherwise, we're in trouble. It's Arlina Allen 0:56 fine. It's fine. This is not CNN. Be good. But my audience is all about sobriety and finding solutions. And you are the solution guy. I saw you on the doctors and did my research and saw on your on your website that you talk about permanent recovery. And that's what everybody wants. Everybody wants these people who've just been through the wringer of people who want to stop and cannot. Those are our people. Right and so I can't wait to hear what you have to say about all that. But like I said, before we jump in we do this something called the lightning round. So I'm just gonna pepper you with it's never usually very fast. But I'm I'm so curious. What were some of your favorite books when you got sober? Unknown Speaker 1:51 When I got sober? Well, obviously the big book I read often, but I kind of well I wrote about myself. So that's obviously the best ever. But just real life, I love biographies. I love to see how other people live. And now other people have overcome not not a big believer in you know, these get get well or get fit box that are out there. I just think that it's all about the mind. on trade with the mind. Yeah, I Arlina Allen 2:21 couldn't agree more. Yeah, I'll be talking to Dr. Anne Lemke. She wrote that book that just was released dopamine nation, so I'm super excited about that. And also, never enough. Another neuroscientist. Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I'm all about it. Awesome. What about do you have like a favorite go to mantra, he kind of said it this morning. When I asked I Unknown Speaker 2:44 did I did. I always use that it's dreaming. I'm living the dream instead of dreaming a living is and it came to me. When I was homeless, passing a nice house with the children mum and dad. Having Christmas lunch. I used to dream of that. I used to dream of living that little dream. And I went I did. It just came to me one day, and it's been my mantra ever since. Arlina Allen 3:08 Yeah, we do have a tendency to spend a lot of time in fantasy land. One more. Yeah. And that throws Unknown Speaker 3:14 even afterwards, if I'm honest. Um, do you have a regular self care routine that you practice for yourself? I do every single day when I get up. First thing I want to do is I want to train my subconscious brain. So I go to the mirror. I love myself in the eyes. And I say I love you 10 times. I don't say any other affirmation just I love you. Because I used to have a big problem with that. So I'm kind of stored in the subconscious brain. So when it comes to like decision making, that's going to pop over to the prefrontal cortex, and I'm gonna go you know, something, I love myself today. I deserve this. So yeah, that's what I do. And then I write out five things, I'm going to accomplish that day. And, and the idea behind that is if I if I, if I complete all five, I've taken a step forward in life. If I only complete three or four, I've taken a step back in life. Arlina Allen 4:07 Oh, interesting account. You know, what I heard recently is accountability. Empathy without accountability reinforces the victim mentality. Yes. I like that. I like the I like that accountability piece that you have for yourself. I have a feeling you're kind of a hard ass and I can't wait to talk to you about that. But I have one more question. I like I like to work question. What's the one thing you wish you knew when you first got sober? It's gonna be okay. That's gonna be my life's gonna be amazing. You're like this amazing? He says, um, and what do you do for fun? Unknown Speaker 4:44 I have a music where am I used to be a musician when I was young. So I was a onstage musician and then I was a played at Abbey Road for about three or four years. I played with elton john Queen David Bowie. So I have a music room at home or with a full fall everything Got everything and you can imagine so I go in there about once every couple of days and I may play drums or guitar I might play keyboard I might write songs I might do a live YouTube. So that's what I do and of course walking my three English Bulldogs is also great Arlina Allen 5:16 use I noticed that you have some big guns Do you consider exercise fun? Unknown Speaker 5:21 Yes of course. Yeah, I I have what's called a mirror in the house. We also have a bike. A well known bike power. Arlina Allen 5:28 The mirror the exercise mirror thing? Yeah. Oh, you like that? I'm, I'm I know. Phenomenal. You can do everything on that. Yeah. And you can make yourself look beautiful. Yes. If you really squint for me, I'm like, Oh, yeah. Can I just I don't want to gloss over the fact that you mentioned that you play with elton john and Queen. fucking amazing. Unknown Speaker 5:49 Right on, right. That is Arlina Allen 5:52 amazing. He just kind of like threw that out there very casually. That's pretty incredible. Unknown Speaker 5:57 Yeah, why? It's what paid for courage college, I was a session musician. I grew up on a unmade projects. So I wasn't ever going anywhere, really. But I was wanting to better so I auditioned after playing another recording studio sessions and then added seven auditions and got the job. And I was only 16 at the time against perfect. I know. But I had this confident. Well, I said my mom used to tell me I used to walk around with a guitar around my neck and wouldn't even check it out of both. I was just because I'm musical family. I was on stage at nine. Family. So yeah, so awesome. Everyone asked the same thing. Who's the worst person you've played with? Regarding hanging around? Who's the best, worst person to elton john. Once he gets into that mood, his heart was Arlina Allen 6:40 out before he got sober after? Unknown Speaker 6:43 Yes, I think before it would be 79 around the area. And the best would be Freddie Mercury. We spent hours and hours late into the night chatting about philosophy and how it can change the world. So yeah, I got this Arlina Allen 6:58 sense from Freddie Mercury that he'd be really funny. Unknown Speaker 7:01 Oh, yeah, he is. He's always kind of switched on. You never find him in a bad mood. He's always smiling. He used to call me Robbie, darling. Unknown Speaker 7:10 What else would he call you? Right? Unknown Speaker 7:14 Awesome, guys. Arlina Allen 7:15 It's amazing that he is truly truly unique. That's very cool. Okay, well, that's it for my silly lightning round questions. I always like to provide like Book Resources and things like that and sort of set the stage for mindset. But really, what I, what you and I think both care about is helping other people and to help other people I do I actually practice hypnotherapy. So when you talk about subconscious mind, neuroscience and all that stuff, what we're talking about is root cause, right? Because we're You and I are dealing with people that have chronic, persistent, pervasive conditioning from childhood. I read somewhere in your stuff that root causes are abandonment, fear and shame. Can you tell me a little bit about why those things lead us to want to medicate with drugs and alcohol? And really, mostly, what is your process to help treat that pervasive consist consistent conditioning? Unknown Speaker 8:16 Well, we have to look, there's a couple of things you need to look out before again, that conversation and that is the alcoholic brain, which is a predisposition. We're born this way. So rather drink, not like drug taking. alcoholism is different. So we look at that brain, for instance, is what I study. And many people often ask me, what's the gateway drug? Rob? It's obviously marijuana. And my answer is always the same. It's trauma. That's the gateway drug. So I'm born this way. I have a remapped neural pathways at birth because you have the alcoholic brain, which wants to self sabotage any opportunity it can. So remapped and then trauma. Now when I'd say trauma, people think, Oh, well, I've never been in a car crash or, you know, it's no witness to murder or right. But drama could be in the house. So for instance, by my mom watching, hypothetically, one day and me and my brothers stood on the table, my brother's a normie. And my mom says to my brother, because this is what she said, and this is what she he hears, Paul, down on that table. You stupid idiot. Get down, and he jumps off and he laughs What I hear same sentence said to me in the same voice, get out of that chair, you stupid idiot. So my brain and subconscious brain and central nervous system is jacked up for a start. And all that wording, everything we hear, and we see is always stored in the subconscious brain every thing we do, and that's why the latest science that I do regarding the brain is helpful into the subconscious brain. So I'm automatically abandoned because of the way I hear and see things. So my dad used to work a lot of hours were a working class family. So I have hardly seen my dad there. abandonment issues straight away, which we don't think or abandonment issues. My dad's doing the best he can, you know? Oh, don't be silly, Robert, you can't go to college like your brother. Oh my goodness that does more harm than you could ever imagine. But my subconscious brain loves that stuff. Arlina Allen 10:17 Why did she say Why did she say you can't Don't be silly, you can't go to college, it was Unknown Speaker 10:22 just something my mom said, you know, it's not like my brother, when it's like, we can't go to college, we just don't do that. See, I was supposed to grow up, just like my parents. By the time I was 18, married by the time I was 19, have a baby or to have a normal nine to five working manual job and go to the pub every night and the way home. That was it from generations to generations. Because you can see that pattern of alcoholism and mindset going back through my family, that that's what they settled for. Now, I was different, I didn't want to settle for that. So going back to the abandonment, the alcoholic brain and central nervous system. And the whole aura is always felt as if we don't fit in. So I never fit in anywhere. So there's the abandonment, again, the shame of where I grew up. I grew up on the project counselor stage, all my friends I went to school with even though it was just a normal school, they lived on a private estates, which parents had a mortgage, we pay rent, I was so embarrassed about I was so shameful. And of course, when my drinking took over at the age of nine, I started but it took over about 2526 there was the shame of that. So what we do is we have to go back or we call is a scene of the crime. And we have to start clearing that stuff up. And the worst thing somebody can say to me is Oh, yeah, I've kind of worked on that myself. If you worked on that yourself, you won't be relaxing, first of all, and you won't be going through girlfriend's chain every week, you know, you're having, we have to really go back and look exactly what you do and repair that damage done in the past and usually by Kagan's Arlina Allen 11:57 so when you say go back to the past and repair the damage, that is the crux of the treatment, right? Unknown Speaker 12:04 Yes. Yes. Because you have to go back and look, you know, I mean, many people come in, they go, Okay, well, I drink him out. I don't do this. They do that. Well, anything, any trauma. Now. Everything's good. And when we go back and really pinpoint, they forget to tell me about the molestation from the father or the uncle or the priest. They forgot to tell me a bit homosexual actually did when he was nine or 10. They forgot to tell me about how the mum used to smack them across the face because their house wasn't tidy when they come home. So they kind of think well, mum and dad did the best now. I'm not having that. hating on people say that. Well, they did the best they could now, you know, I used to walk to school with holes in my socks, and cardboard in my shoes. Because I hold in my shoes. Walking on the snow to Mars. I had to watch work every day because my mom couldn't afford my socks and shoes. Now my mom could afford and my dad to go to the bar every Friday and Saturday night. So I had one person sat down once and he said this. He said wrong. You really upset about them shoes. And I said yeah, but my mom dad couldn't afford it. And he said this to me that changed my life. He says when your mom went to the bars every Friday, Saturday and Sunday night, did she have holes in her socks? And I was like, when he hit me I had more trauma and I could ever imagine growing up, you know, they will drop me with a friend. But when I got to the friend, the man and the woman they would say okay, we ever we have a naked night tonight. So everyone gets naked. I didn't tell my mom that because I thought it was natural. Arlina Allen 13:36 Yeah, yeah. That everybody in the house got naked. Unknown Speaker 13:40 Yeah, but you know, all the kids and the mom and dad. And that's just a Wait, why. So I went along. I never even mentioned it because I thought it was the norm. You see my I have a big thing. And it's this, anything less than nurturing as a child, his child abuse, especially what find out more about the brain and the central nervous system. I can never get a girlfriend, Why do I always leave? Why is it Why did I marry my dad? Well, it's like, you have to understand why we do these things. There's a pattern to our behavior. And if and if you're happy doing that pattern and living the way you're living great, but if you want to change your life, then you need to go back and clear this stuff up and change neural pathways from self sabotage to self care. Because at the moment, or when I was born up until about 28 when I got sober. I had more self sabotage. And then I did self care. So I start really good. Oh, I would look so good. I mean, when I was when I went to work, I do anything girlfriend, but after a month or two, it's self sabotage. If you feel like this. Oh my god, it's it's nine o'clock. Rob. You're not supposed to start till 10 and then six rather you're going home. I'll stay till seven A month later, Where the hell is Rob It's one o'clock. That's all my life has been like that. Because I self sabotage over any considerable period with a mindset like that. Arlina Allen 14:59 Right? It's an internal In a mindset of I don't really truly deserve this Unknown Speaker 15:04 100 and million percent and the other one is self dialog I can I can sell stuff so you don't have to say anything to me. I dropped a pat on the floor and I go What a stupid idiot when I'm picking it up loves that stuff so when I go for that car that job that girl that house whatever the subconscious brain goes, You stupid idiot. What are you doing here? You can't do this Did you think you are and I still get that today when I go on when I do speaking of setting the wing some town I'm thinking oh my god, they don't want what I've got nothing to offer. Oh my god, oh my god, and a panic. And then God taking a walk over and I'm a big spiritual guy now used to hate that word garden. Oh, we're all happy going to church. I used to hate that. Arlina Allen 15:47 Did you go to church growing up? Unknown Speaker 15:48 I did. I was a quiet I was a quiet boy I was I was a chorister, as they call it in the Protestant church had a great voice and my but my headmaster sexually abused me. One of the guys that you know, and I blame my mom. My mom knew about this. Arlina Allen 16:06 That he was like that and sent you anyway. Unknown Speaker 16:09 It was nothing directly talked about. But I remember being picked up. There's a there's a group out there of saying there's a cola, Vienna Boys Choir, and we should delete it. Well, my headmaster said well, who was also the the teacher of the music and the church, said to my mom, we have Robert an audition for the Vienna Boys Choir in Chester, which is 70 miles away for LA. He took me there and the rest was blurred. We never went to any audition. I come home feeling sick. Mom said I was silent for about three months. Yeah, I was concerned if and I was shocked. I don't remember the incident. But put two and two together. You know, I don't know of any audition. So it's a ruse. And then there was the neighbor across the road. That was about 1415. And he was he was married. But he was he was gay. And we go to the sauna together because I was into fitness and bodybuilding at the time. And he would try to MLS me and do things. And it was awkward. And no one made it into fun, but many years later, and I said oh you everyone needs to go to sauna. I said, Oh yeah, with the gay guy. And I looked at them. And I said, How'd you know? Now everyone knows about him? And I didn't say Arlina but I wanted to say why the fuck? Did you just let me go through five years of my life with this guy knowing quite well, what he's capable of doing. And he really kind of set me and not against my parents. But I'm thinking you know, the best he could is not good enough for me. Arlina Allen 17:38 I don't know I heard that at a meeting one time this guy because you do hear that a lot and I think it's a way it's a sort of like spiritual bypassing like you have to go through the pain first and do the processing metabolize the pain Ababa. And sometimes that bought they did the best they could offers a little bit of peace. But if you don't do the work first, it's just spiritual bypassing and you're just putting a bandaid over a pile of shit. Right? Exactly. This guy stood up at a meeting one day and he like, pounded the podium. He goes it wasn't good enough. Yes, it wasn't. And I was like, Thank you finally somebody said Unknown Speaker 18:18 you say the truth exists. And that's and that's what's missing. One of the things that I came to America because I wasn't known or famous or anything back then is I wanted to to have a platform where I could speak my mind. I don't report to anybody you know if I say the things that other people are thinking or wish they could say because it isn't good enough. You drop the fucking bar mom and dad own it you know get get oh well that's just the way that my dad never spoke to me. You know, he couldn't give him a gift he was one of them gave very embarrassed what it was just the way he was brought bullshit. Change it I changed it you know I lost my kids and all that but now I've got in touch with one of our I've changed it you know? Just to what No, it's not I'm not having that. You know, Arlina Allen 19:00 what's important about owning it in your mind like when when you're when you tell somebody you know hey, it wasn't good enough and we want them to own it. Is it the validation is it a standing up for ourselves? What is it about owning it that is so important Unknown Speaker 19:18 well first of all when I when I do that it's it's telling the truth it's out in the truth is that there are some there are some guys going up now around the world that don't even think the Holocaust happened. It's that crazy. Don't want people to get into that. It's like less reminders who dropped the ball and who didn't you know, and I like I like given information that you know people go oh shouldn't be talking about that. You know, first of all the alcoholism. Yes, we should. And I'm blatant when farmers comment on little Johnny's you know his his drinking every day like what he's gonna die. Whoa, you can't say that. Yours. Why? Why can I not speak the truth? Truth tell him for me is powerful. Yes, really is power. And I like to I like to. First of all, I have this order that attracts people when I speak. And that was a gift. I used to be on it, huh? Yeah, yeah. Now I say louder, say stronger, say proud. And people listen. And I love the fact that let's not keep it hidden away. Bring it out because alcoholics used to be until two, three years ago, where the gay community was 30 years ago, is that we don't talk about that. We don't really we know it goes on. But hey, you know, I always think I know right? But Arlina Allen 20:33 okay, here's, here's this Sorry to interrupt you. But here's the thing. It's okay for you to get drunk and show your ass in public. Yeah, but God forbid you tell people I don't drink anymore. I just don't like black now. I don't like waking up. And the worst thing in Unknown Speaker 20:47 the world is like, I heard this guy tell the joke when she was like, I went to the bar. And the guy said to me, do you want to drink and he says no one alcoholic? And he said what? He said, I'm sorry. I'm a I'm a serial killer. Thank God for that. scenario, when I'm out there just doing it. You know, it's Arlina Allen 21:06 so crazy to me that people are so like, and people still like that are in recovery. And listen, I don't I don't come out with like, I'm an alcoholic. I'm just like, yeah, don't do that. It just depends on the audience. It really depends on you have to you have to know your audience. Like at work I used to when I was in corporate, I would just be like, yeah, just not drinking want to get up early. Want to be fresh. Unknown Speaker 21:28 Yes. But I'm the last 10 years have been with people who are getting back in shape. And I've worked with a lot of a list footballers and stuff like that. And the fitness now is about getting back in shape, which covers for those people, I tell them the truth. You know, when they come in with a table, or you want a drink, and I was drinking, by the way to go do and drink, I'll just have cold coke. You're a big guy, you know, what you want to drink. Especially if it's a woman something it's like, I just have a little whiskey and like if I had a whiskey, first of all, I'm going to try to rape you. Or take you on in front of my wife. And then we're going to start fighting anybody who disagrees with me. And then I'm not going to actually get you on because I'll be arrested. What? That's what happens when I drink so I'll just have a coke. Yes, sir. And then walk away Arlina Allen 22:14 from coke coming out. One time I made the mistake and tell this guy at work. Because I go oh, I don't drink and he goes How come and I tend to break out naked. And he was off to drinks place. Oh, wrong, wrong thing to say. Break out in handcuffs. How about that? I'm allergic. Yeah, nobody scared of me fighting. I'm like five, three. That's awesome. But okay, so you know what I wanted to ask you? I did. I saw a lot of your videos and things like that. And you have this very strong personality kind of in your face thing. And there. There are some people that that that that really respond like they respond to that people who are in denial, people who just need that. I think people crave that level of accountability. People want to know where the boundaries are, so they can feel safe. But I don't think it works for everyone. How do you know who that works for I you know, since you are able to adapt to every different kind of alcoholic? I think that's part of the gift the chameleon thing, right? I'm sure you have that too. You have learned to turn that into an asset. How do you read someone to know whether the in your face kind of style works or the gentle nurturing works? Unknown Speaker 23:37 So usually the firt the first indication is where they contacted us. It's like, well, I heard this podcast and oh, my God, I love Dr. Rob cannon, that's the first one he needs in his face. And then you got a parent's recall about this 18 year old girl is second too much heroin. And you know, you need a different approach to that. So and then they need to take an assessment, one of the reasons why we have a 97% success rate, over 20 odd years, 30 years and 7000 patients is because of the assessment. So I find out real quick whether you whether you really want to do this deal. So when when we will not take anybody's money if we can't guarantee that they can recover. So the assessment kind of puts everything into place for me. And you know, most people want what I give, but there are so I have a psychotherapist that works with four girls of sorry, three girls and one guy that needs a soft approach. And that's great. We'll do that. Okay. No, but that Arlina Allen 24:35 be assessment that so you You must turn away a lot of people who don't really want it. Unknown Speaker 24:41 Yes. And that's what people can't understand, especially our so called treatment friends out there who keep checking the same person back time and time again for 30,000 a month is like I won't do that. Well, how do you survive? Well, we took almost a million dollars this year. How much did you take by being honest and straight with people because now we get to get be known like that is if you can't pass, I don't care how much money you've got. We've been offered blank checks, literally blank checks by billionaires and say fill it on yours. Unknown Speaker 25:11 Yes, they're saying, Unknown Speaker 25:12 My child is my child. I'll give you a blank check. You can do anything. You can buy your house, you can take a million you do. I'm the guy that turned down Britney Spears for a million dollars back in Dallas in the day because she came in she was drunk. She was three hours late. And she was a mess. So I said, No, I'm not doing it. Jamie at that girl bunnies are please Rob, please robbed. And the bodyguard often said, You're not leaving until you see her. So I'll put him in his place. And then two days later, she shaved all my hair off. So I won't do that. I can't lock in a parent's face and say, Hey, I'm really sorry. But she didn't want to know, I don't believe in that. If you get somebody with you, one on one, we do one hour a day for 90 days, you can change the way they think, per an Arlina Allen 25:55 hour a day for 90 days. What do you do in that hour? Unknown Speaker 25:58 Well, five days with me, and I go back and change neural pathways. And I change belief and I change behavior. And we build a future for them. So if they need a job, we'll get them on. If they need to start their own business, we'll build them a website, all this great stuff, my psychotherapist will go back to the scenes of the crime. He's specialize in childhood trauma, my number one coach, which is also my daughter, which we'll get into later, and Manchester office in England about a year ago. And she is the family, people because we believe if somebody calls, who wants help in a house, and this him, his wife and two children over the age of 16, all of them need to be in the program. We will take you on say, well, let's just be that sick. Now the house is sick, first of all, and the wife probably enabling, and she's going through some stuff, and she's probably mad or nervous breakdown. So either you all come on, or we don't see you as all Arlina Allen 26:54 that brilliant. Unknown Speaker 26:56 What do you think, you know, if you can imagine a house, let's be let's say speak Japanese. And we to take them out of the house and stick them in our houses, let's speak English, because we have a different language for recovery. So he speaks English, Japanese how still speaking Japanese. So we take the guy we're putting back into the Japanese speaking house, what's going to happen is going to start speaking Japanese. And that's one of the problems with recovery, you don't understand the family dynamic dynamics around the alcoholic, the whole family's sick and we need to heal the whole family. So we find that very unnecessarily intense work with the family dimension, the family unit. And of course, the alcoholic and the desperate wife, you know, terrible when we leave the wives alone or the husband's whoever the drinker is or the user. And we forget all about it. Because they've got the abandonment, they've got the shame, they've got the remorse they've got I always say, you know, sort of wives and husbands or partners or alcoholics or addicts, the PTSD that you have, because you have it, if you will, every one is no different from the PTSD from someone coming home from war. Now, I I love our soldiers, I'm an American citizen, I love them to bits, but just talk about the brain guys, because both of them never know it's going to be the last day, both of them never, no one's going to kick off. Both of them never know that you're not going to walk on eggshells today. It's the same thing. So the brain doesn't know the difference between war and war in the household. That's another thing that people don't understand. So the wife is going to be okay. Now she won't, you know, she will, you know, either commit suicide or do a runner or assist the alcoholic start drinking again, because she can't stand this new person that's come out. So it's really complex when when we talk about fixing, you know, it really is. And that's what we've done. We've spent 20 odd years, I do the latest brain science, I do brain spotting. What's brain spotting brain spot is a new development, that was only three people in the country or the world right now it can do it. Because it's not even, they haven't even bought a training course for it. But brain spotting is a technique that goes into the pupil and to the subconscious brain. It's a bit like a DMR. But it's it's a little different. So we're talking to the subconscious brain. And it's all about eye movement and the flicker in one eye. And then we stay with that flicker in that one eye and we find out what's caused that. And so Arlina Allen 29:17 where are they? I can see I can I see where you're going with this. So when you say that you see the eye flicker that's in the indicate and can't speak this morning. That's an indication that there is a traumatic memory there. Yes. And so you have them you see like what's happening now? Yes, that kind of thing. And the Unknown Speaker 29:36 first response, I know it's nothing, but we hold it there. We hold it. And they've got a look at the pan. And that may take five hours. It might take five minutes, but I'm staying there and all of a sudden they go Yeah, yeah. When you start talking about the traumatic event, it's the most powerful thing I've ever seen. Arlina Allen 29:56 So that's so this is what's been coming up for me lately. is there's the traumatic events like EMDR, like you mentioned, the eye movement desensitization reprocessing or reprogramming. And then there's but what do you do with the people who have the consistent pervasive trauma day in and day out? Like I was talking to a gal who had a mother who was a heroin addict, and she would hear her mother on the phone saying, we don't have enough, I need money, I need to feed my kids. Like she was using her kids as a scapegoat. And she was using her kids to get money. And but and there were times when she didn't have food. So today, she hoards food, and she has a weight issue. Right? It's and so you know, we were going to do some EMDR, or some, you know, hypnosis on that. So she goes, but it's not one situation, it's pervasive. How do you treat that pervasive, repetitive conditioning like that mental conditioning? Unknown Speaker 30:54 So we use the brain spotting, obviously, we also use a technique, which is called somatic experience, which is se people call it se. So we go back and we look at the central nervous system, and why is this being beat? Why is this happening? What's causing it, then we go into the brain, and we look at what's been happening in the past. So now we're using NLP neuro linguistic programming. So we're watching the behavior or watching the brain change and watching the trauma in the past, any patient or constantly, first of all needs to feel safe, we're getting in a safe place. And we go through that through the NLP or the SE. And we find out so then three techniques together, as as well as building confidence in the patient, that you're your own person, you know, and, unfortunately, we're going to go back, and we're going to pick them to pieces, the scene of the crime, as we call it, and then bring you forward through for the trauma through the behavior through the reaction that you have through the fear, but you haven't we walk them through bit by bit until they have clear conscience. And this takes time to deal with that in mind, Arlina Allen 32:02 yeah. Okay. So you create the safe space, you build confidence, and then bring them through those traumatic experiences with the button. So that feeling of safety and confidence overrides? Yes. Fear. Oh, 100%. That's what is the rewiring of the brain? Unknown Speaker 32:23 Yes, it's really it's resetting your pathways is what it is. Yeah. And then, and then once we've reset your pathways, and get them excited about life, the neurons start firing and get as excited. Every time we say certain things like thank you to somebody, dopamine is released into the brain, we use that a lot, you have to compliment three people every day. So it's a new technique that we have been doing for so many years, that used to call it out the box, they still call it out the box. But with the percentage rates that was on a success we had, we just really need to start looking at alternative ways to go back and fix this permanently. We don't need to go to for medication straight away. Because when we do, or, Arlina Allen 33:03 I'm sorry, go ahead and finish. Unknown Speaker 33:06 Thoughts about drugs, especially heroin addicts. 99.9% of heroin addicts started in the doctor's office, just because the doctor says it so it doesn't make it right. Or doesn't make it true. Yeah, and one of my big deals at the moment is fight against your doctor questioning why how when, what's going on? Why do I need to take this what damage is gonna do to what's the long term effect, but we don't we just go to doctors who are getting backhanders from somewhere, because the latest medication like vyvanse is out. And all of a sudden, it's the number one pill, you couldn't get it over here in Texas, you have to wait a week for vyvanse so popular he was someone who's getting something for doing that. What is five ounce vyvanse is a bit like it's it's amphetamine salts, it's it's a bit like Adderall. It's a different name on it. So when we're feeding our kids, amphetamine salts, speed is what we're giving our kids for attention deficit, when I was a kid, attention deficit was a slap across the head and say, concentrate. But there's a whole new story on that, where we go with that I can't get into it now. Because there's a lot more to explain about that. But that's that's what we do with people, you know, and we build them up and we create a life worth living. And we'll go to any lengths to do it and the length now, so doing as we have to, Arlina Allen 34:23 yeah, let me ask you, there's a lot of talk about I really don't have any judgment about about how people get sober and I understand that there's, you know, harm reduction is a thing. Yes, right. Like I get that and but I'm always I don't have enough information to make an informed decision about like the brain and the neural pathways and because while I think it's important for you know, people are smoking weed to get off heroin and that keeps them alive. God bless you. Do what you got to do. My concern is that like If the emotional and mental evolution or progress ends there, Do you have feelings about I'm sure you have feelings or opinions about like, why is harm reduction? not meant to be a permanent thing? Like how, like when I talk to people like that, how can we move them? Yes, I'm glad you're alive. If that's what's keeping you alive, I don't even have an opinion. But what about, what about one day stopping that? What about healing your brain and your dopamine reward system so that you no longer have to do that you can have the benefits of living a full life. Yeah, because I've heard of people on Suboxone for years, that's not the idea, you know, is much harder to come off Suboxone is heroin as a fact. So what we have to do is, is down step and grade and down and then taper off gradually and have an end date for that. So let's say the end date is two months or three months, we need to we need to keep heading towards that. And eventually as the brain starts to weaken up, and the central nervous system starts to activate supposed to do, and the feelings start coming back. And you realize that life is worth living and so much you've missed out on, eventually the end date will happen, and then be able to come off successfully. So depending on how far down how bad the psychosis is, how bad the day has been damaged, you cannot just stop and say, Okay, my fault drugs now, that's the worst thing in the world you can do, right best thing in the world you can do is seek doctor's help, come down and get your doctor to bring you down. Same with alcohol. I'm wherever they call me all the time, while he's drunk. Uh, you know, he's in a bad state of head. Now the bottles, don't hide the bottles, make him drink until he gets to detox. And many people are just ignorant about these because lack of now, therefore, his lack of information, though, we've been stuck in a closet for so long that you know, and that's one of the things that you want to do. Listen, when I was homeless people used to spit on me on the floor. I used to wake up and kids used to throw diapers on me that will fall. You know, having a lie. I woke up one morning, I was covered in this stuff. And I just I'm angry at that. And I'm really happy that I'm in a great place to do that today. So you know, I'm really strong on let's get a solution, a permanent solution for this minutes lotion, medication. Unfortunately, I don't think for addiction or alcoholism in general, permanent medication is not the way to go. That's in my opinion. because nothing's good enough for me. You know, we go to the sandwich shop, my friend has a sandwich and a call, I get to seminary a bag of chips, two cups, you know, I want 50,000 in the bank. Great. So when we get it Oh, it's just 100. It's crazy. So giving people drugs over lunch impaired regarding alcohol in our government, their addiction, not talking about medical, I take, I take a small drug for my depression, my antidepressant. And I'm proud of that, and I'm not coming off it. And that's the way it goes, you know, we should have that fine line between good medical advice. And don't listen to what other people say. So when it comes down to hardcore, abstinence completely 100% for that, the way we get there, wow, I don't care how you get there. When you come to me, there's an A, B, and C and you'll follow that up. People often say the difference between a therapist and what Dr. Rob's crew does, is the therapist will ask you How are you feeling? Then bastards will tell you how to feel. It's like, well, that's what it is. Because if I sat here long enough for me, and I said, I love you. I think you're the most amazing, gorgeous person I've ever seen. I want to leave my late wife tomorrow. And I want to come and find you out and marry you. You're going to laugh. But if I said it often enough, you're going to start to believe it. And if I said it real often enough, I'm going to start to believe it. So what we hear when we get these patients in sets them up for an amazing life. When's the last time somebody said you're an amazing person? When's the last time we thank somebody? I'll tell them I love you. When you start saying you stopped at a hospital walked in and thanked all the nurses. It never happens. Because especially when you get to a position like me and other people like me. I'm in the office some months ago and have two nurses there once a year once in their ages. And I heard them once said, oh my god. Did you see what Dr. Kerry just did with that guy? came in measureable suicidal, he walked out laughing and Western said bye to everybody is an absolute miracle worker 90 days. Yeah. And the older nurses said, Hey, have you told him that? And said, No, not me. They already knows. But I knows. We don't know. No, no. That's okay. So. So this is the interesting thing about, you know, the default mode network, right? That that operating system that we have in our brain and we tend to this what I've had this, you know, this observation that we need that if we've had constant conditioning of negativity, right like you were talking about repetition, you said if I tell you All these beautiful things, you're gonna start to believe that I'm gonna start to believing it's the repetition because the subconscious mind doesn't filter false from the truth. Right? It just takes, it's like the balance scale, which is kind of the good news, right? There's that idea of 51% that we're actually all you need is 51% to tip the scale, right? So it's this ongoing conditioning that that we need. So over those 90 days, they get the, you know, they get reconditioned, their mind is reset, the family is re adjusted. But the kicker is the the default mode network and going back to the old way, it's like if we don't maintain the conditioning, is it true that they go back to the old ways? What do you do for the ongoing conditioning course? Unknown Speaker 40:46 So this is my guys who are less than I'm sorry, what guys are watching? This is my self sabotage. neuropathways there's a blue plan. lymphocytes out sabotage, okay, these down here. Your small bits of self care. This runs my brain. Yes, I will self sabotage. So what this program does is it takes you from there to there, Arlina Allen 41:09 flips it over. Unknown Speaker 41:10 Yeah, so so they said never going to go away. So we need to daily maintain this by the smallest things obviously Peter, spiritual guy, you pray, covenant people at the Good Samaritan, you know, whenever I go into a room, like the room up, because if I walk into a room with a frown on my face, those people are gonna frown back. If I walk in the room and a smile on my face, most people gonna smile back. That's the hardest thing for people to do is practice smiling. You know, because the world needs leaders, you could be a leader for a day in the office or that waiting room or, you know, the elevator, you know, it's all about carrying carrying a message of Hey, you can be anything you want. And people people used to go Dr. Robert cambia president as I beg to differ today. You know, our business has just been run our country Don't tell me you can't do anything. There's no difference in somebody who comes to me almost homeless or homeless like me, and they and the CEO sat in that office above the only difference is he believed he could do it you don't want to believe that they can do it. The world is that oyster? Absolutely. Arlina Allen 42:13 People really understand how powerful beliefs are no are all in your subconscious mind. Unknown Speaker 42:20 Yeah, all powerful they are I always tell people your power but you just don't know it we need to start realizing how powerful you really are. Arlina Allen 42:28 Yes, I think you know and traditional, like 12 step record like the old school recovery is beating the drum of you're powerless you're powerless over you know, that hear it all the time. powerless over people places and things and I think I have to call bullshit on that. Unknown Speaker 42:43 Because you know, it's the face the biggest myth in a Yeah, is what because what is that once the Heartless were all put? No, it doesn't. Arlina Allen 42:51 alcohol. Unknown Speaker 42:53 What are the step one says we admitted we were powerless. How can I be power is not aware, no apostrophe in there. But people put in all powers over I'm not powerless over alcohol. I pass the liquor store. Hey, man, it's a past tense, they meant it to be a past tense. The term a permanent recovery. We had mentioned we were and our lives had now. It's all past tense once you start the steps if you've read the book, I mean, I love 12 step meetings with that big book because it's the truth. Yeah, talk about a psychic change and people go is that crystal ball? Listen, in 1938 when they were talking about a psychic change, it was changed neural pathways. 10 years ago, only 10 years ago in the medical fraternity, we found the brain was like plastic neuroplasticity they call it so same thing to change the neural pathways a mold in them in 1938 these guys were talking about that. Ai rooms right now are a joke. 90% of people in any meeting around the world is a heavy drinker. And we allow them to get away with this bullshit that come in. Oh, today I want to talk about I went to bed last night and my cat was looking bear up from my husband. Is he an alcoholic? Fuck Really? You know, we allow these guys to do that. So the real message is gone. But I've got to tell you 20 Arlina Allen 44:08 depends where you go. It did. Not only not all meetings are created. Oh, Unknown Speaker 44:13 no, they're not. They're amazing meetings. But there's the best piece of literature I've ever read. Is the 164 about about Blue Book. Oh, yeah. All the studies I've done in the world regarding that pertaining to the recovery of an alcoholic was the best book I've ever read. Arlina Allen 44:25 Yeah, I love the community that Yeah, there's so many good things but but you know, you just blew my mind with the whole we're powerless. Not we're powerless. Little apostrophe makes all the difference. And I guess the one thing that really bothers me about the 12 step community is the way some people treat the book like a new Bible. It's the religious dogmatic, like they're close minded to other things. And I wanted to ask you if you had any thoughts or opinions on, like treatment resistant depression with the use of psychedelics, I know Johns Hopkins is doing lots of studies. And there's this new like alternative recovery for people with like, intense heroin addiction or tend to alcoholism. They're doing these Iosco retreats in Costa Rica do what what are your thoughts on those? Unknown Speaker 45:16 Well, I have to be really kind of medical hair and say, hey, there's not enough data to make a decision right now. But we only know a little about the brain, we're discovering more and more every month. So why wouldn't you try that? Why wouldn't you try a different route to get to the same end result? Which is sanity? and living your best life? You know, and it may work for you? It may not? AIA may work for you. It may not. I mean, you don't have to go one place. 111 place is not the answer to everyone's problems here. The answer is to seek out the treatment that your doctor or therapist tells you to try. And I tried aect about five years ago with electronics I can't remember now trauma or something. But I was depressed, very, very depressed. And this is what my hater my career, but I did it for about four weeks best thing I ever did. Oh, my thing I ever did. Yeah, in literally four or five weeks. So I am always looking at different alternative new treatment, you know, and I don't put it down on anybody or anything from the medical fraternity that wants to be tried. Because why wouldn't we? Arlina Allen 46:23 Yeah, I've seen some just really interest. I've been hearing lots of experiences from people who talk about doing these Iosco retreats, I practice abstinence, my life is great. And I don't feel the need to I don't suffer from depression. It sounds very interesting, because it is a it sounds like a process of dissolving the ego. And really, it's like, it's like it drops the veil of denial. And you can see things clearly what you were talking about before about recognizing and acknowledging the truth, right, the truth of maybe some of the fear and the abandonment in the past. And I just found that really interesting. It'll be interesting to see what the Johns Hopkins clinical trials do. But I know of people personally who do things like the micro dosing to treat clinical depression, and things like Unknown Speaker 47:12 somebody like john hopkins university, and hospital to try this because everyone else would put a dampener on it. So I'm glad a good name in the industry. And the medical fraternity has actually taken steps to do this. I think it's absolutely amazing. But at the end of the day, it all goes back to your childhood. And you always go back to the predisposition and the heredis do facts of any illness around especially alcoholism and addiction. So it would be interesting to find out because the problem is with this world right now, is everybody knows somebody with an alcohol or drug problem. And I always say to him, if you don't, it's probably you. Because everybody knows somebody. You know, and a few times I've said that people got very quiet, and ended the conversation real quick. Yeah. So you know, let's bring it out into the open. Let's try all these things for different people and see if we can get a response. Arlina Allen 48:06 Yeah, yeah, life is short. Let's just Cut the bullshit and get to the truth. Unknown Speaker 48:11 sugarcoating. This shit kills people. And when somebody goes into a room, and a room and goes, Well, we're all powerless over alcohol. My answer is always the same. How many fucking people have you killed with that line? How many people have you killed by just saying that you self sank just son of a bitch. Read the park? If you if you stuck in is that was that mean? Read the information that tells us read it. It's awesome. Arlina Allen 48:35 Yeah, and it's not it's not only read it but apply it right we have to take action and apply the information. So it's not enough to know how we are know what we need to know the how we need to know how to apply this information. And, and listen, I just love what you're doing. It's I'm so pumped. I'm gonna leave all your links in the show notes. What's the best way to get ahold of you? If somebody is needing your help or wanting your help Unknown Speaker 49:00 jump on a Google or anything like that search engine. Just put my name in there. Dr. Rob Kelly, you'll see me websites Rob Kelly, calm I spell my name with two B's. So it's our BB k e Ll y.com. And if you want Listen, guys, I want to say something. If you're sat at home and listen to this and don't think you're worth anything and don't think you can allow anything because of your past. I want to apologize to you guys. Because somebody put that there. We are born with million dollar minds stop hanging around 10 cent minds, it's not for you. So that being said, I know people are set on going it's okay for him to do a turn to I don't know what to do. I'm going to give you my phone number here and my personal phone number. And if you're sat at home in a bad state, I'd rather come and help you right now and come to your funeral. So if you're sat at home in a bad state and want a 10 minute pep talk that will change your life. Here's my personal phone number people don't believe me. This is my cell phone number. It's not my assistance. It's not the front desk. It's 214600 zero to one, zero. Now, as you can imagine, I'm a busy guy where you call me or text me, leave a message, I will get back to you and it will be okay. Don't believe the hype. It's gonna be alright. Arlina Allen 50:12 Wow, that's impressive. I was like, Oh shit, he's really going to do it. Unknown Speaker 50:17 No, people are surprised that that you know, it just I know, I'm in the trenches with you guys. It's on to a homeless guy that got his kids taken off in, you know, that fell asleep. Last drive his kids Three days later not being changed or fed and I'm drunk on the floor, and the police drag them out of there. This is the guy that his eldest daughter said, baby, Daddy, please stop drinking and I couldn't do it. Six months later, I was homeless, the million dollar house had gone. The cars the wife, the kids, the parents, the brother and sister, I was abandoned on the street, I can do this. I'd love to sit here and tell you, I'm really clever. But I'm not. If I can do this, you can do that. You just need that 10 Mini pep talk to set you on the real track. And of course it had been helped you professionally, of course. But you do have to pass an assessment. And 75% of people that come to us fail the assessment, unfortunately, because we're the real deal. We're talking to true. Arlina Allen 51:09 accountability. I love it. Dr. Rob Kelly, thank you so much for your time today. I am so inspired and excited about the work that you're doing. I can't wait to leave all the links to all the resources and thank you so much for being the real deal and giving your phone number. That's incredible. Unknown Speaker 51:29 I know it's awesome. Thank you guys for listening and thank you Arlina you're an amazing and I love you by the way. Arlina Allen 51:34 I love you. I believe you. You have a wonderful day. Thank you so much. Thank you. Bye bye Transcribed by https://otter.ai

In case we haven’t met yet, I am a certified sobriety coach and hypnotist. I help people release childhood trauma that is at the core of addiction, without having to re-experience the traumatic events.  I have been practicing abstinence from drugs and alcohol since 4/23/94, and I believe in people finding what works for them. I honor all forms of recovery, but I do not indulge in, or encourage any form of shame based recovery.   Today I have the honor of introducing you to Blair Sharp. She’s a wife, mother and a sobriety activist. She writes for several publications on topics related to sobriety and she has a popular IG account where she shares her story and all kinds of inspiration and support to those on their recovery journey.

Thank you for downloading the podcast, my name is Arlina, and I’ll be your host.   In case we haven’t met yet, I am a certified Recovery Coach and Hypnotist. I am obsessed with all things recovery & sobriety, including neuroscience behind behavior change, reprogramming the subconscious mind, law of attraction, all forms of personal growth and spirituality. I have been practicing abstinence from drugs and alcohol since 4/23/94, and I believe in people finding what works for them. I honor all forms of recovery, but I do not indulge in, or encourage any form of shame based recovery.   Today I’m excited to share this interview with Eric Zimmer, the host behind the podcast phenomenon that is The One You Feed with about 24 million downloads. That’s HUGE! His guest list reads like the all star roster of the spirituality and recovery thought leaders. People like Father Richard Rhor, Marianne Williamson, Chris Bosh, Caroline Myss and many more of my personal heroes.    This episode is all about the science behind behavior change and how you can incorporate spiritual habits and strategies that will help you feel more connected, trusting and shoot, just feel better!   I love what Eric is doing so much, I’m going to offer a bonus to the first 10 listeners who register for his 8 week class: a full hypnotherapy session with me valued at $200. I don’t actually offer single sessions, so if you’d like to try it, now’s your chance!   All you have to do to register is email me at arlina@odaatchat.com for the sign up link or visit my website at odaatchat.com and the link will be in the episode show notes.   So with that, let’s jump into the episode, with Eric!

In case we haven’t met yet, I am a certified Recovery Coach and Hypnotist. I am obsessed with all things recovery, including neuroscience, reprogramming the subconscious mind, law of attraction, all forms of personal growth and spirituality. I have been practicing abstinence from drugs and alcohol since 4/23/94, and I believe in people finding what works for them. I honor all forms of recovery, but I do not indulge in, or encourage any form of shame based recovery. My fabulous guest today is Ashley Loeb Blassingame, CPO (Chief People Officer) at LionRock recovery, an Online Substance Abuse Counseling. Ashley was guest #121 and is here for an encore interview to talk about National Online Recovery Day, which is Sept 22.  Link to past episode: http://odaatchat.com/index.php/2020/09/15/oc121-ashley/   She also wrote: “You Are Not Alone: How to get your life back when there is a drug or alcohol problem” and is the host of the VERY popular podcast “The Courage to Change”.   Soooo little disclaimer here, the beginning of our conversation is highly inappropriate. We were giggling quite a bit because apparently, we both have a very juvenile sense of humor. But once we settle down, and I promise, it’s quick, we get right into talking about important things like how she has learned to cope with the obsession to use even though she’s in long term recovery, raising twin boys, running a company and all the while trying to stay sane.   She’s super funny, and I’m excited for you to meet her!   Oh! And just one more thing before we start: I’m working on a book project and looking for anonymous volunteers who are willing to talk with me about core wounds. I’m looking for people in recovery who were raised with absent or emotionally unavailable parents. If you are interested, your story could be featured in the book and help an untold number of people. All you have to do is email me at podcastvolunteer@gmail.com and I’ll send you a short questionnaire with additional details. and don't forget to follow the podcast on Instagram for contests, challenges and prizes! @odaatpodcast So there you have it, please enjoy this conversation with Ashley.