The Addicted Mind Podcast

Due to the worldwide situation with the Coronavirus pandemic, and everything else that goes along with that, we're bringing you a special episode today. The current situation has left most of us with very intense emotions that can be quite difficult to cope with.So Suzie Wolfer, who was our guest on a previous episode of The Addicted Mind podcast, (Episode 53) decided to join us today, to share some of her insight about emotion regulation, distress tolerance, and somatic experiencing, to help us cope with the feelings that this pandemic has brought up. Episode link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/special-episodeSuzie Wolfer, LCSW, SEP, is a therapist specializing in Somatic Experiencing®, a powerful system for healing trauma and addiction at their core, and for completing trauma so that it lets go of you.Suzie has noticed recently that almost all her clients are experiencing the signs of freeze, and often, they are experiencing anxiety along with that too. She points out that we all have within our bodies certain superpowers, that have come to us through millions of years of evolution, that will allow us to move easily through this very frightening time. So today, she will be talking about those superpowers, and she will explain how to use them to move through this difficult time with a little more ease and, hopefully, a lot less freeze. Freeze makes our bodies go rigid, feel numb, and get ready to bolt. Suzie always used to experience this at the thought of going to see the dentist. What she realized, after getting some training in Somatic Experiencing, was that she had the superpowers of fight, flight, and freeze. So, the next time that she had to visit the dentist, she tried using these things, rather than letting them control her. She began to practice noticing, welcoming and allowing the feelings of freeze, rather than fighting them off and letting them frighten her. She became aware that the feelings that she was experiencing were like a wild animal's response to a threat, so she imagined what she would do to the animal attacking her if her body was that of a wild animal. The image that came to her mind was that she would punch the attacking animal in the face with her super-powerful fist and then she would run away to a safe place, where she would relax. While imaging the wild animal scenario, she became aware of her body shaking. She allowed the shaking, which was coming from her autonomic nervous system, to continue, and then things started calming down. After getting up from the dentist's chair, and walking to her car, she noticed that it had been the first time that she had ever been able to function normally after a dental appointment. She realized that this is something that we need to complete, and completing something is very different from managing anxiety and freeze.We call freeze a superpower because it allows us to become invisible by holding ourselves very still. Predators detect their prey from the carbon dioxide in their exhalation, so holding very still, breathing very shallowly, and keeping ourselves hunched over with our eyes down are the same things that wild animals do to keep themselves safe from threat. But people do tend to become scared when their bodies do these things without them realizing what is happening.Currently, we are all experiencing an existential, invisible threat. We can't fight it or outrun it, but we can freeze. Our physical biology can invoke the very smart superpower to hunker down. However, along with that comes fear, so we also need to do something to overcome that and develop within ourselves an ease for readiness. There are some techniques that we can use, with our friends and our children, to enable us to respond in a manageable way to our current, frightening situation. Firstly, tune into your body and become aware of where you are holding tension right now.  Notice, and welcome whatever is going on in your body.  Don't try to make your feelings go away. Simply notice them with curiosity. Taking a deep breath naturally, is a sign that your autonomic nervous system has hit the reset button. It means that you're present and that things are returning to normal in your body. Let your eyes go wherever they want to, in the outer world. Notice what they are looking at. This will bring yourself into the present moment, through your senses. Notice how your body is responding to whatever it is looking at. Remember that even a one percent shift towards ease is the beginning of a process. Ask yourself four questions: 1) Are you safe right now? (Yes or no?) If the answer is "no", ask yourself if you truly are not safe, or if you just don't feel safe. The reality is that most of us are safe.2) Using your five senses, affirm that your body truly is safe right now. As mammals, we often take safety cues from one another, so looking into someone else's eyes can help us to feel safe.3) Bring your attention back inside yourself and notice how your body responds when your attention is aligned with your mind and body around the idea of being safe. 4) Take a moment to savor the shift that you have experienced, and know that it is possible to return to this state whenever you need to.This process can be repeated over and over, whenever necessary.Links and resources:To contact Suzie: https://www.oregonsomatictherapy.com/https://traumahealing.org/ Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-addicted-mind-podcast/donations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, Rebecca Williams joins us. Rebecca is a licensed psychologist, who lived and worked in beautiful San Diego, California for twenty-five years. She recently relocated to Savannah, Georgia to be close to the wildlife and the natural beauty of the area. Rebecca's path into addiction opened up through her family's struggles with addiction. Especially those of her late mother.Episode link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/92Growing up in this way, Rebecca wanted to learn as much as she could about addiction so she got her Master's degree in Counseling Psychology, followed by her Ph.D. at the University of California, Santa Barbara. One of Rebecca's specialties is mindfulness. She has been working on it for the last twenty years and she has found it paramount to her self-healing and also to her capabilities as a psychologist. She discovered mindfulness through yoga when she started teaching it in the eighties before mindfulness became cool.Mindfulness helped Rebecca to quieten her anxious mind. It's also a tool that has been very helpful to her, in her profession, to help a lot of other people with anxiety, depression, and other issues relating to mental health.Mindfulness, as a practice, is a way through anxiety. Jon Kabat-Zinn described mindfulness as being in the present moment, on purpose, and without judgment. Being in the present moment is a challenge, and doing it on purpose takes work. Letting go of judgment can be difficult, but like everything, with practice, it gets easier.Although it can take a lot to rid yourself of judgment, Rebecca explains that when you get used to not judging anymore, your brain starts to re-calibrate itself. And new, smoother neural pathways start opening up. Rebecca believes that it all starts with the simple step of finding a quiet place where you won't be disturbed for a while. Then close your eyes for five minutes, and focus something like a sound or your breathing. If you do this every single day, you will become calmer and more focused over time.There's no right way to meditate. It's just about permitting yourself to take the time to do it. Rebecca tends to struggle with her mind jumping around, so she concentrates on her breathing to help still her mind. She advises people to keep it uncomplicated, and as simple and as possible. Rebecca also suggests doing a walking meditation. To do that, you can simply count the colors of green that you see while you're out walking. Or, if you're in the city, you can count all the different shades of grey you come across. The main thing is to permit yourself to be okay with any anxious thoughts that may arise because they are normal. And remember that the mind is designed to think so you can simply be grateful for that and keep going. Links and resources:Rebecca's website: www.mindfulnessworkbook.comBooks mentioned: Full Catastrophe Living: Using the Wisdom of Your Body and Mind to Face Stress, Pain, and Illness by Jon Kabat-ZinnGift of Recovery: 52 Mindful Ways To Live Joyfully Beyond Addiction by Rebecca Williams and Julie S KraftThe Mindfulness Workbook for Addiction: A Guide to Coping with the Grief, Stress and Anger that Trigger Addictive Behaviors by Rebecca Williams and Julie S Kraft Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Anita Abdul-Karim is our guest for today. Anita is a registered dietician and she has written a book called Bad Bitches Don't Diet. Today, she will be sharing her journey and talking to us about her book. Anita is from the Middle East. She struggled to fit in while growing up because there weren't many other Middle Eastern people at her school. She was also chubby, and not the smartest kid in the class, so, although her parents did the best they could under the circumstances, all of that added to the social pressure that Anita was experiencing.Anita was overweight, and that impacted on her socially, and also within her family. So she tried to take matters into her own hands while growing up. Having a scientific mind, she gravitated towards any available information about diets and nutrition. Episode link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/91Anita lost a lot of weight in the seventh and eighth grades. However, in her senior year of high school, a lot was going on, and she gained thirty pounds in one month. It was a very dramatic situation.Although Anita's weight fluctuated a lot, she was always aware of being overweight. And although she binged from time to time, she still knew that she wanted to become a dietician, and study nutrition.Anita has always wanted to understand and move towards the truth. So she enrolled in an excellent program and learned about the science of nutrition. Then she came across a book called Intuitive Eating, written by two dieticians, Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole, and that took a huge weight off her shoulders and changed her entire life.The philosophy behind eating intuitively is all about learning to trust your body to tell you what it needs. Unfortunately, however, most people grow up being taught not to trust themselves. This can cause a lot of misery and even lead people towards addictions because the further you push away from yourself, the more miserable you become.Anita continued to suffer a lot of social pressure while she was studying because she was still overweight and people often made nasty comments about her being large and studying nutrition. So although she was still suffering the misery of trying to figure out her body, she started learning how to come back to herself and block the opinions of others. She soon learned how to be completely still and surrender to the point of being okay with herself and with everything happening in the present moment. She realized that any deviation from that kind of thinking could lead her towards an addiction.Coming from a background as a health educator, Anita found that asking her patients questions inevitably led to better outcomes for their lives. That is because asking people questions empowers them and informs them subconsciously that they have the answers to most of their ailments. Many people don't consider food to be their medicine. Nor do they consider food to be something that can cause them to feel something immediately like medication does. Links and resources:Anita’s InstagramBooks mentioned: Bad Bitches Don't Diet: A True Philosophy About Food by Anita Abdul-Karim Intuitive Eating: A Revolutionary Program That Works by Elyse Resch and Evelyn Tribole Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, our guest is Julie Hall. Julie is the author of The Narcissist In Your Life: Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free, which was released in December 2019. In today's episode, she will be talking to us about what narcissism is and what it's like growing up with a narcissistic parent or parents.Julie comes from a narcissistic family, so she describes herself as a survivor. She is an educational writer, poet, and journalist. While working on her memoirs, she came to realize that narcissism had been a major theme throughout her life, so she shifted gears and began to write specifically about narcissism. This became part of Julie's healing process.Episode link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/90Julie has a popular blog called The Narcissist Family Files, and you can find the articles that she writes regularly in Psychology Today. She also has articles in The HuffPost and various other places on the internet. Narcissism is a personality disorder and there has been a lot of talk about it recently. Julie's book is about narcissistic personality disorder and how it affects the people close to the person with the disorder. Everyone has a level of healthy narcissism, in that we all see things through our lens to some degree. The narcissist, however, has pathological levels of self-involvement and he or she experiences fundamental developmental deficits, early on in life.In a family in which one or both of the parents are narcissistic, the family is structured in such a way that the needs of the children are secondary to the needs of the parents.With narcissists, there's an underlying sense of profound vulnerability, shame, inferiority, and worthlessness. Narcissism is a defensive coping structure and children who develop this kind of coping structure tend to repress their feelings of vulnerability and shame and they build an exterior persona to mask their overwhelming feelings. They develop a false grandiose and superior personality, often becoming domineering and competitive. They are out of touch with their inner, emotional world and so they don't actively engage with people on an emotional level. The narcissistic personality avoids self-reflection at all costs and it learns to mimic certain behaviors that look like intimacy. Narcissists tend to see themselves and others as either worthless or wonderful. When they see themselves (or others) as perfect, they need to stay that way in order not to feel worthless. They seem to be in a state that is disconnected from other people.A major loss could sometime cause narcissists to look for help. This can be difficult for them and their process of recovery takes a long time, possibly seven to ten years.It's devastating to be around a narcissist regularly. Especially for children, who suffer from a lot of pain, confusion, and complex trauma as a result.Addiction is a part of the narcissistic family system. As well as a pattern of depression, anger, confusion, family rifts, and alienation, with no awareness of what the core issue is, or naming the personality disorder that is driving the dysfunction within the family system. Denial is a big obstacle for the children of narcissists to overcome. They tend to move through all the stages of grief for a very long time. The therapists who can best help the children of narcissists have usually gone through the same kind of experience themselves, like children. Becoming educated about narcissism is very important for people who grew up with narcissistic parents. It's very easy to do today because there is so much information available.Links and Resources:Julie's website and blog: www.narcissistfamilyfiles.com Books Mentioned: The Narcissist In Your Life, Recognizing the Patterns and Learning to Break Free by Julie HallThe Narcissistic Family:Diagnosis and Treatment by Robert M. Pressman and Stephanie Donaldson-PressmanSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-addicted-mind-podcast/donations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

We have Kenneth Anderson, from HAMS (Harm Reduction Abstinence and Moderation Support) and the Harm Reduction Network with us today. He will be talking about harm reduction, what that means, how that differs from traditional forms of treatment (like twelve-step abstinence models), and the way that the harm reduction model can help people who are not yet ready for, or not willing to practice total abstinence, but would still like to change their drinking habits.Kenneth is the founder and CEO of the HAMS Harm Reduction Network, a free-of-charge support group for people who want to make any kind of positive change to their drinking habits, from safer drinking to reduced drinking, to quitting altogether. There are seventeen elements to the HAMS program, which are all optional and can be done in any order. Although HAMS is an alcohol-focused group, they don't stop anyone from talking about any other addictions or problems that they may have.Episode link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/89HAMS has a handbook, called How To Change Your Drinking, which was written by Kenneth. The book was published ten years ago and about 22 000 copies have been sold on Amazon.Kenneth used to drink a lot and he was getting into trouble as a result. He tried turning to several different groups, Alcoholics Annonymous included, for help but they did not work for him. He tried Moderation Management for a while, and while he was there, he developed the Harm Reduction approach. He was fascinated by the concept of harm reduction and began volunteering at the Needle Exchange Program in Minneapolis. There, he learned a lot and it completely changed his perspective. He realized the importance of encouraging every positive change.The problem with abstinence models is that they are perfectionistic. So any improvement that anyone makes, apart from abstaining entirely, is not deemed to have any value whatsoever.The Harm Reduction Model is about every positive change and it is a very pragmatic model in the United States. It was started in Holland, when drug users decided to do something to help themselves, and decided to start handing out clean needles to prevent their friends from dying. This model used to be illegal in the United States and it is still illegal in many places.Harm Reduction encourages people to pick a goal that fits them. A goal that is do-able and right for them. Many people who come to Harm Reduction eventually choose to abstain completely.Generally, about 85% of all the alcoholics who recover do it on their own. It sometimes takes a long time, but recovery from alcoholism through controlled behavior does happen.Early on, there were a great number of approaches to addiction treatment. Kenneth is currently writing a history of addiction treatments in America. Aversion Therapy was big in the US until the 1980s. There was a chain of about 25 Aversion Therapy hospitals, using conditioned taste aversion, or electric shocks, and there were no alternative treatments available at the time. What sets the Harm Reduction Network apart from all other recovery programs is that they are willing to welcome and support anyone who wants to make any kind of positive change to their drinking habits. They have online groups and a forum on their website so that you can do all the work yourself, for free. They also have a very popular Facebook group. Better Is Better is one of HAMS's most popular models.Links and resources:The HAMS website - www.hams.ccThe National Epidemiologic Survey on Alcohol and Related Conditions (NESARC) Waves 1 and 2: Review and summary of findings - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4618096/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Josh Rychert joins us today. He will be talking about the recovery community called Recovery Dharma, in Boise, Idaho. Josh shares his personal story and explains how mindfulness, Buddhism, and learning to understand his dharma assisted him and can assist others too, by bringing the elements of peace and calmness into their lives and their recovery process. Episode Link>>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/88Josh is in Boise, Idaho, where he has been involved in the recovery community since 2014. Recovery Dharma, under that name, only came into being last year. Recovery Dharma in Boise started as Refuge Recovery, with small groups and alliances with other similar groups through an online presence. Recovery Dharma is an addiction recovery peer support group, with meetings all over the nation. It uses Buddhism, with the Four Noble Truths and the Eightfold Path, as a way to structure recovery for individuals.Josh's recovery began in 1995. After having had issues with an alcohol use disorder, he became involved with Twelve Step groups. And after many years of recovery, Josh eventually found himself moving away from the Twelve Steps and developing an interest in meditation, to help his depression. Eventually, he rediscovered his need for a recovery community, and he fell into the Buddhist addiction recovery path, under the name of Refuge Recovery.Buddhism was something that recognized Josh's capacity to have a life where compulsions and addictions were not the primary focus. It offered him an opportunity to identify with a recovery path that didn't identify with his addiction. He could, however, still recognize the risk of compulsions and addictions in his life. The kind of present moment experience that Josh wanted from Buddhism was the experience of seeing the world clearly, being able to participate in life, and simply being alive and happy. While recognizing, at the same time, that he had certain risks to his wellness.For most people in recovery, options are not offered to them in the beginning. People with addictions are usually referred directly to Twelve-Step-based recovery programs, although many people don't resonate with that. Having Buddhism as an option is valuable because it recognizes a modern incarnation of our knowledge of recovery and it does not require reliance on a Higher Power.Mindfulness has been scientifically validated. With cravings, mindfulness helps people to be with the discomfort, and sit through it. Also, when the cravings have lessened, mindfulness helps people to thrive, in the moment.Recovery Dharma is broken down into some general categories. There is the practice of meditation, there are recovery meetings, and there is the study of Buddhism.Dharma is often the word used to describe the teachings of Buddhism. More broadly, it describes a sense of truth, or a clear understanding of reality, or the wise teachings that bring about in people a sense of well-being and an ability to connect with the world. It allows people to share their wisdom and it offers them a sense of togetherness.The Recovery Dharma meetings facilitate a sharing of wisdom through engaging in a practice to build a sense of calm and equanimity.Recovery Dharma is a branch of Refuge Recovery and it addresses the underlying causes of people's addictions. There's a recognition within the professional community today, that Recovery Dharma, and the practice of meditation, are very valuable to people on the path of recovery. Links and resources:https://www.meetup.com/recoverydharmaboise/ Recovery Dharma's Facebook page - https://www.facebook.com/groups/recovery.dharma/The Addicted Mind Website - www.theaddictedmind.com For more info about Novus Mindful Life Institute, go to www.theaddictedmind.com/helpJoin our Facebook group. Go to www.facebook.com, type in The Addicted Mind, and click 'join'.Book: The Mindful Way Through Depression by  Mark Williams, John Teasdale, Zindel Segal, and Jon Kabat-Zinn Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today's guest is Alex Katehakis. Alex is a Clinical Sexologist with a doctorate in human sexuality. She's also the Clinical Director of the Center For Healthy Sex in Los Angeles, California.Alex has written several books - Sex Addiction As Affect Dysregulation, Erotic Intelligence, and Mirror Of Intimacy. Episode link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/87In today's episode, she shares her wisdom and insight about recovery and we have a great conversation about the root causes of the addictive process. We focus on the early developmental trauma and the way that it affects the ability to regulate our affect, and how addictive substances or processes are used to escape from those feelings. Alex has always been fascinated by human sexuality. After practicing as a licensed marriage/family therapist for twenty-five years, she decided to dive deeper into human sexuality, rather than psychology.Talking about affect is referring to emotions. These emotions live deep within the body, and they only come forward when they are registered by the brain as feelings. When a person is dysregulated and stressed out, their affect becomes dysregulated. When a child feels threatened, perhaps from an alcoholic, raging, shut down, or mean parent, their affect becomes dysregulated and they will always find themselves looking for something to make them feel better. In their waking life, a dysregulated person will feel anxious, depressed, dead internally, or dull. There's a general lack of feeling vitality in the body.Dysregulated people say they don't feel joy states, or they are super anxious, so they have to drink to make the anxiety go away. They may use sex to make themselves feel powerful or good about themselves.Anything that we're doing outside of ourselves to make ourselves feel 'right internally' speaks to affect dysregulation. Someone who is securely attached, and has a good heart-rate variability in general, doesn't have to reach for anything to change their internal state or mood. Love addicts, and some sex addicts, learned very early on that they had to get their needs met by themselves, so they used fantasy, which is a form of mild to moderate dissociation. This makes it difficult for them to connect to another person, as an adult, and to have intimacy or closeness. People often don't know this about themselves until their lives become unmanageable. Change is possible, however, it takes time. Willpower is difficult for people experiencing a lot of stress. It's not the best way to change long-standing patterns that people have developed over time.Long-term psychotherapy can help people feel into their bodies, and it allows them to feel the things they could not feel, as a child. Twelve-step programs help people change because they are inclusive and non-judgmental. As humans, we all need other people to survive. In her book, Sex Addiction As Affect Dysregulation, Alex looks at the underlying mechanism that drives problematic behavior. It helps people to see sex addiction in a new way, and it offers hope for the people who are struggling with it. Sex addiction is being recognized more and more by the scientific community as a bone fide problem. It was first recognized in about 1978, although people were talking about it as an affliction as early as in the 1800s. In 2011, the American Society of Addiction Medicine made a public policy statement, in which they included sex as an addiction. In 2018, a proposed diagnosis of compulsive sexual behavior disorder was established for the international coding book, the ICD.Remember, it's never too late to take a step in the direction of health!Links and resources:To find out more, go to www.thecenterforhealthysex.com Alex also has a Youtube channel with hundreds of videos from sex-experts around the world. Alex's books: Sex Addiction As Affect Dysregulation           Erotic Intelligence           Mirror Of Intimacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

David Fawcett is our guest for today and he will be talking about chemsex addiction. He will explain what it is and how people recover when they fuse a drug addiction and a sex addiction. Episode Link>>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/86David is a licensed clinical social worker and a sexologist (sex therapist). For the last twenty years, he has been working with men who have sex with men who use methamphetamine, other drugs, and high-risk sex. He has now developed an interest in what has become known as chemsex.  For years, people were coming to David, as a sexologist, with their sexual problems. By looking at their history, he noticed that the sexual problems were being caused by methamphetamine. And he realized that people were often seeking help for their sex problems rather than for their drug problems. This led to David's discovery of the fusion between sexual behavior and drug use. And the devastation that it caused for the affected individuals. People simultaneously using drugs and sex causes a fusion, or bonding, of neuropathways in the brain. This brings about a specific set of behaviors, making it necessary for them to deal simultaneously with both their sex and their substance addictions. People's sex lives become so set by the super-stimulation of sex and drugs that nothing normal is appealing anymore. Sex and porn addiction play out similarly and the brain has to reboot in recovery. There is even a state, called anhedonia, where people are no longer able to experience any pleasure and life feels grey and depressing. This is often due to the brain shedding its receptors. People who were a year or eighteen months clean were coming to see David. They had virtually no sexual desire because sex been so fused with their drug use that when they gave up the drugs, the sex went with it. This happens because of Dopamine, one of the neurotransmitters in the brain, that bonds actions and rewards together.  With chemsex, there is a high-level volume of stimulation coming into the brain. So the brain sheds its Dopamine receptors to control the level of stimulation that it is receiving. This can lead to depression. Methamphetamine is neurotoxic. This means that it consumes and destroys the receptors in the brain. It can take several years in recovery for the neuropathways to recover. Recovery from chemsex involves working with both the chemical and the sex sides of the addiction. David uses an abstinence-across-the-board model, combined with recovery plans for sex and substance addictions. One of David's goals is to re-integrate healthy sexuality back into people's lives. Anything that gets people into their bodies and out of their heads speeds up the process.  Peer support is really valuable for recovery from chemsex addiction. Recovery is possible! Links and resources:David's email - david@seekingintegrity.comDavid's websites - www.seekingintegrity.com              www.sexandrelationshipshealing.comSupport this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/the-addicted-mind-podcast/donations Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Kathleen Oh is our guest for today. We have a great conversation with her about breathwork, facilitating change, and non-ordinary experiences. Episode Link>>>>www.theaddictedmind.com/85Kathleen is an Integration Coach, and her work started three years ago, in the foundation of her addiction, and her recovery. She had plenty of help from some great mentors and teachers along the way, however, it was ultimately the tools that she acquired for herself, in her journey out of her addiction, that got her to where she is today.Kathleen has a food addiction. This was very hard for her, and although her addiction wasn't obvious to others, it was clear to her that there was something profoundly wrong with her brain because she saw how she was continuously cycling through addictions with cigarettes, alcohol, and food. She was a binge-eater who used to eat secretly. She was obese, and her appetite for refined foods was insatiable, so she knew she had an issue with food but she did not realize at the time that it was an addiction. She thought it was an emotional need that she was trying to fulfill.The specific foods that Kathleen cannot tolerate are refined. Due to their molecular structure, her brain takes in refined foods as if they are drugs like heroin or cocaine. It was a huge eye-opener for her when she discovered that by removing refined foods from her diet, she was able to access the non-ordinary experiences of a spiritual awakening.Breathwork has resulted in some of the most profound experiences that Kathleen has ever had. She started her relationship with breathwork about twenty years ago, when she encountered Breath Therapy for the first time, and her facilitator became her mentor. Breathwork has allowed Kathleen to feel safe to be in her body. This connection to herself has given her something wonderful that she has never experienced before. Breathwork supported Kathleen in a way that she could accept the difficult moments in her life and power through them. Breathwork became a place of surrender for her, and this became the foundation for her recovery.Although the method that Kathleen's breathwork facilitator used was initially very challenging for her, it became the primary breath that Kathleen used at the time. It involves a sharp intake of breath, into the top third of the lungs, and the sound it makes can create a shocking feeling and cause one to re-experience past traumas that have been stored in the body. Holotropic Breathwork is probably the most effective and best-researched breathing technique. It was developed in the 1960s by a psychiatrist called Stanislav Grof, who came to the US to do LSD research. When his research into LSD was terminated in the late 1960s, he continued looking for ways to bring about the non-ordinary state. He found that breathwork was as effective as LSD, and using yogic breath practices, shamanic journeys, and loud cultural music and drumming, he developed the Holotropic Breathwork system.The breathwork that Kathleen coaches and facilitates is intuitive and unguided. One of its premises is to inhale a lot more breath than you exhale, to build up CO2 in the body. This shuts down the default mechanism in the brain and allows people to connect with parts of themselves that have previously been inaccessible on a day-to-day basis. This technique works very well for addictions because it allows people to access their inner truth, and see themselves in a different light. They can then work with their experiences with more resources than they had when the initial incident occurred.Breath is our life source. Kathleen believes that breathwork is our highest power and something that everybody needs because it connects us to something greater and more powerful than we are. By practicing breathwork, we are creating a better version of ourselves which will ultimately benefit everyone. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Today, our guest is German Lopez. German a writer and he is currently doing a project called The Rehab Racket, which involves looking into addiction treatment, exploring some of the issues associated with it, and bringing them to light. This challenges the addiction treatment community to provide the very best care for people who are suffering from addictions.German is a senior correspondent at Vox.com. Before, he was writing mostly about drug policy and criminal justice issues, but for the past few months, his focus has been on The Rehab Racket project, which was created to investigate the cost and quality of the treatment that is available for addictions in the United States. At this point, German has received more than 1100 submissions from patients and their families.For the last few years, German has been researching and writing about the opioid epidemic. He saw that policy-makers had been making an effort to put more money into addiction treatment, which is something that activists had been calling for, for quite some time. This information initially seemed contradictory to him because addiction is hard to treat, and there was a general understanding out there that much of the available treatment was inadequate, not evidence-based, and not really helping a lot of people. German wanted to make sure that the money being poured into addiction treatment was indeed going towards something worthwhile and effective. So he started talking to families, to ascertain whether or not he was onto something. This is how The Rehab Racket project came about.It seems that the idea that people who use drugs and go through addiction treatment are under-represented overall in the conversation, has changed in recent years, particularly with the opioid epidemic. This is what motivated German to want to hear directly from the affected people.Hearing from people who found a treatment that worked for their addiction, and got them into recovery, who had spent thousands, and sometimes even tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars on that treatment was alarming for German. The American health insurance system is supposed to protect people from these catastrophic costs, and in a lot of cases, the insurance is not doing that due to the many barriers that are involved.For a long time, society neglected this particular area of health care. There were initially no places that provided treatment for addictions, so that forced all the assistance to come from community groups, like AA and other twelve-step groups.Treatment for addiction is still a relatively young field, it takes good research to make a good change, and we are still learning about the most effective ways to help people who are struggling with addictions. However, many treatment facilities don't track their outcomes and many of the surveys that are done around addiction and recovery are of very poor quality, so it's difficult, at this stage, to know what kind of treatment is the most effective. But, based on the data that's available from the federal survey of treatment facilities, there seems to be more push lately to find out more about this particular field of health care.People with addictions need support. However, there's still a stigma with addictions, so people who struggle with them often get treated badly, with a lack of compassion. German has seen that even doctors, nurses, and other people who have been trained to deal with the suffering, tend to be prejudiced towards people with addictions. He would like to see this change and see the people in authority and policy-makers realizing that people with addictions need to be treated kindly, with compassion and care. He points out that this could be one of our society's main lines of defense against the current drug crisis. Links:German's Reporting on Vox - www.vox.com/rehabGerman on twitter - @germanrlopez Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.