The Addiction Free Lifestyle: How To Break Free From Nicotine, Caffeine, Drugs, Porn, Masturbation, Alcohol, Serial Relationships & Much More With Ronnie Landis.

My name is Ben Greenfield, and on this episode of the Ben Greenfield Life Podcast.

The physical body is an instrument, a divine instrument that has its own inherent intelligence, and it's being run entirely by the power of the soul. They're trying to just, like, get to the next thing, the next thing, but they don't integrate who they are. Essentially. What does it feel like to feel whole, healed, and complete in your body right here, right now, white knuckling it and forbidding certain habits and trying to, like, willpower yourself through it? Because that doesn't work. You actually have to look in the mirror and scan that.

Faith, family, fitness, health, performance, nutrition, longevity, ancestral living, biohacking, and a whole lot more. Welcome to the show.

All right.

I was in Austin a few weeks ago, and one of my new friends gave me a book about addiction. And I almost didn't read it, but then I was on the airplane. I popped it open. I couldn't put it down. It was really good. And I flew back to Austin, and I wanted a walk with him, and I interviewed him. His name is Ronnie Landis. This book on breaking addiction is amazing. It's really good. You got to listen to this interview, and you got to get the book.

I'm going to put all the goodies.

For you over@BenGreenfieldLife.com Breaking Addiction. That's BenGreenfieldLife.com Breaking addiction. I hope you enjoy this show. We did it when we were walking right along the walking paths there in Austin, Texas. Absolutely amazing chat. So I hope you dig it.

So, Ronnie, do you think we'll get, like, dehydrated to the point of cramping on this hellishly hot and muggy walk? Or did you bring some Gatorade in your back pocket?

No Gatorade, but I did take a good amount of electrolytes on the way here.

You stopped at all the. All the places covered, all the Whole Foods and, you know, Sun Life, all our favorite spots. Just stock up on salt.

I had to get fueled up for this.

I got my usual bag of salt in my fanny pack. Did I show that to you last week when we ate at the Abba?

I think so.

The Mediterranean restaurant? Yeah, great restaurant. And Ronnie and I had dinner there, and I just put that salt on just about everything. So anyways, though, so Ronnie Landis and I are walking along the path here in Austin, Texas. This path have a name?

Zilker Park.

Zilker Park. All right. So, you know, you may occasionally hear things such as the tractor that we're about to Walk by. Every podcast needs a good tractor. Hopefully everything else is more soothing and nature based, like the sound of ducks or maybe a squirrel chomping on a.

Yeah, we're moving through. We're just moving through these little nuances.

Yeah. So. So forgive us for the. The occasional tractor. But anyways, the reason that I wanted to go on this. This walk with Ronnie is because he wrote a book. The. The name of the book is the Addiction Free Lifestyle. Has a subtitle too, doesn't it? The true. The True Path. Ronnie's holding the book. The True path to Inner peace and self mastery. It's only fair. He has to hold the book, so I have to hold the microphone. And this. This book, the Addiction Free Lifestyle, you know, I get handed a lot of books, and Ronnie gave it to me at Paleo Effects a couple of weeks ago, and I. I wasn't sure if I was going to read it or not, but I wound up cracking it open on the plane and just kind of read it for three hours on the way home and finished it when I got home, and it was just great. Just chock full of a lot of really good stuff related to these attachments, these addictions that even us, you know, seemingly healthy people can really accumulate in life to the extent where it becomes damaging. And so if you feel like you're attached to certain things, supplements, drugs, coffee, exercise, relationships, porn, masturbation, you name it, Ronnie tackles it in this book. And I had some specific questions I wanted to get into on this walk with Ronnie. So, Ronnie, welcome to the show, man.

Thanks, Ben. It's an incredible honor to not only be on the show, but just to hang out with you and just the testament of, like, the embodiment that you've held for so many years and the. Not just the health world, but, like, really bringing in a more spiritually orientated message, which is really what this book is about. Like, underneath everything, it's a spiritual manual for our own inner evolution and our own salvation.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that's really. When you step back and look at the idea behind physical culture, at least my take on it, and the reason I'm weaving so much of the sacredness of spirituality into my messaging is because at the end of the day, not only is your soul really the most important part of your existence, but, I mean, the source of happiness, of fulfillment, of meaning, of connection, of love, it's really not necessarily your kale smoothie or, you know, set of dumbbells. It's all these spiritual practices. And I think that you know, the topic of addiction is really interesting because it creates a lot of friction in terms of spiritual development. And I'd love to hear your story because, you know, you're an athlete. I know you were. You're competing in the games, I think, for Taekwondo. So tell me a little bit about your story, particularly as it's relevant to addiction.

Yeah.

And we got time, we got miles and miles of walking trips.

Yeah. So I was raised as a martial artist since I was 4. And when I was 4, I can't really recall, but my first conscious memory was of Bruce Lee. And it was kind of just one of those, like, destined moments of, like, the iconography of Bruce Lee. And so many people can relate to that. When I mentioned that, like, he was just such a, like, legendary figure and.

Except that movie, Once Upon a Time in Hollywood, a lot of people got pissed off about the way he was.

Yeah, I didn't even bother to watch that thing. But it kind of imprinted this, this icon of like a real life superhero that was both philosophical and physical. And so that kind of followed me throughout my life. And, you know, going through martial arts and being a basketball player and all that, I was really motivated towards, like my own greatness as a physical pursuit. And then I dove into philosophy, Eastern mysticism, theology, just on a spiritual pursuit. And long story short, I had two knee surgeries when I was 18 and 21. And that drove me beyond the body to go into both the mind, but then also had to learn how to heal the body. Yeah, because before it was just really all sports performance. What was up with the knees I tore. When I was 18, I tore my MCL on my right knee through just overtraining. I was just so driven and I just had to constantly train, train, train. And I over trained. And that was kind of my first opportunity to take a step back from the physical training and start to delve into more of the psychological and philosophical aspect of life.

Right. And the gift of injury, personal development. Sometimes I'll get a little upset at God for throwing me a curveball in the injury department. And typically the outcome is it's there to keep me humble, there to teach me a lesson I can teach to other people, or there to push me towards some type of spiritual development. Because I've built an imbalance between physical and spiritual development.

Yeah. And it was all like my own personal pursuit. But then that forced me into actually teaching. And I ran a martial arts school for many years. Hundreds of students, mostly children. And I really was just passionate about leading the next generation through martial arts. And then eventually I got into the holistic health world just through osmosis. Just going on YouTube university, I stumbled on, like, Paul Check and David Wolf and these people, and it completely blew my mind. I had no idea that this world even existed.

Oh, wow.

And that opened up a big rabbit hole where I just became inspired to redirect all my energy towards becoming a health motivational speaker and a nutritionist and studying how to heal physical, not its injuries, but diseases and degeneration and that kind of thing. And yeah, as far as, like, just speeding through it as far as addiction goes, I think that there was always like these subtle energetics of addiction just as coping mechanisms through trauma. And the intensity of my own personal life, which athletics was a great way to cope with that and to channel that energy. But when that was kind of taken away, I had to deal with the internal angst and this almost like existential pressure that I felt. And, you know, things like tobacco smoking. Yeah.

I was gonna say, I want to hear about the specific addictions that you dealt with, especially as a guy who was immersed in health. It's not, I would imagine you weren't like, eating Big Macs and smoking cigarettes.

No, no, no. Well, actually not like conventional cigarettes, but there was a point where I got into like, American spirits tobacco and quote unquote, organic tobacco and different things like that. It was just part of kind of like the pseudo alternative health culture.

Yeah. And nicotine is probably one of the most addictive, currently popular supplements out. You know, I'm shocked the number of. Of health influencers we hang out with.

Yep.

Who chains who basically? No, they don't chain smoke, but they have nicotine almost 24 7, you know, for a while. And, you know, I'm one of the sponsors of my podcast, Lucy Gum. Right. So they make like nicotine lozenges and little gums and. And they. And. And I really wasn't a nicotine user at all. And they started sending me this stuff and it's great. You know, it's a good little cognitive pick me up. Gives you some focus. I think it pairs great with a cup of coffee for a long riding day. But I found myself, like, I'd chew two pieces a day. Yeah, chew three pieces a day, but I wouldn't really feel it as much. So then shoot four pieces a day. And, you know, now that I. I've dug into it and researched and discovered that you got to be super hyper aware of nicotine and very, very careful with it, you know, I I might use anywhere from 0 to 4 milligrams a day of nicotine. But, but I mean, that's, that's one that's very popular right now. Shocked me how many people, once I started paying attention, use, you know, snoozes and stop at the gas station, buy those little zen packets and things like that. So you had, you had nicotine going on, what else?

Yeah, so basically the main things that I dealt with was a nicotine tobacco habit, on and off. Pornography, alcohol was never really a big thing. Although I drank in my younger years, I never had an addiction to. Is more of a social thing. And then, you know, social media, like those things were like major, major kind of addictions, if you will, in the closet. But I didn't really. The thing is, I didn't really know that I had any addictions until I did, which was only like maybe four or five years ago. It really became obvious that I'm in the throes of an addiction cycle.

Yeah, yeah. And, you know, the, the. I'm just curious, you know, and, and forgive me if I'm probing too much when you say something like a porn addiction, like, what's that actually mean? Yeah, I know some, some guys especially might be listening. I know, I know a lot of girls will view porn as well, Some guys might be listening. They're like, well, geez, I don't know. I look at it once a week and, you know, maybe jack off a couple of times a month to porn or, you know, are we talking about the people who are like, sitting in front of the computer from 9pm to midnight, you know, scrolling and swiping or. What's a, what's an addiction?

So let y get really clear on this thing of addiction. We have to separate the mechanism versus the actual human condition itself. They're two separate things. So when I say when, when. I'll just throw some things out there, whether it's substances, it's cannabis, it's tobacco, it's alcohol, it's sugar, it's, you know, certain types of food, processed food, it's pornography, etc. Etc. Those aren't actually addictions. Those are just coping mechanisms. Okay, so when you ask what, what, what's that addiction? It was actually a deeper, a deeper kind of psycho spiritual void that I was trying to fill.

Interesting. That reminds me of a quote, I think by Dallas Willard, favorite author of mine, who says that when men go to porn, they're seeking God. That's what he said. When men go to porn, they're seeking God. That's really good because again, we're. There are both laudable and also potentially shameful things that we tend to try to cram into the. The eternal abyss in our souls. That God shaped hole that authors like, you know, Blaise Pascal or C.S. lewis or Augustine write of this idea that, you know, and it's hyper related to what you're talking about right now. Yeah, Porn is seeking God, nicotine is seeking God. Yeah, it's like a sex addiction or anything else.

Yeah, it's like a surrogate. It's like you're trying to fill in that space of inner tension or boredom when really what you need is connection and creativity. And so that space of boredom is actually an access point to find that creativity. But we're uncomfortable with being uncomfortable. So we have to find something outside of us to soothe that internal disconnect that again, like, can only come from God or self or source. It can't come from something outside of yourself.

Yeah. Okay, so back to your explanation of what it actually means to be addicted. Like what boots on the streets, what that looks like. You use an example of something like porn or nicotine or something like that.

Well, what defines an addiction technically, clinically, is how much dopamine it produces in the brain and how easily accessible it is. And that's a really important insight because. And we'll get into the dopamine thing, but how easily accessible something is to you is really important because then we start to talk about delayed gratification versus instant gratification and our ability to delay gratification, that is discipline ourself, is really the most important.

Marshmallow test.

The totally. Right. So I mean, it's, you know, it's like, it's such a deep topic that I began to explore and going through my own process. Like as I was writing this book, the book just kind of started writing itself through me because it was also part of my own cathartic process of unwinding both the conscious awareness of these things, but the subconscious aspects of how addiction patterns or attachments form, whether it's through our childhood parental attachment wounds, that that form and those play out in our relationship dynamics. And that also plays out in this, you know, this pornography or sex addiction.

Yeah.

Kind of conversation.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, you know, for me personally, I guess if I could lend my own flavor to this, because I. I tend to have a very. My, my wife, it's so funny, she doesn't get attached to anything, you know, camping and you give her a towel and maybe a knife and she's good. Whereas I'm like, wait, wait, I need these two supplements and I got, I need my little noisemaker thing and I'll wear my wax earplugs so the birds don't wake me up at 3:30am and you know, not only do I kind of get into that mode where I become attached to certain things, but even based on genetic typing and I don't recall if you talk about this in your book. Yeah, I have some genetic predispositions to an addictive personality. Mostly from my, well, it's actually from both my father's and my mother's side. Both of whom were kind of not super heavy drug users but definitely had some substance abuse issues in their early life as well. And so I received some of that. And so for example, I've dug myself into holes before where I couldn't function during the day without a minimum of four cups of coffee. Right? Just severe caffeine addictions that I eventually weaned myself off of. Very, very simple for me. I just switched to decaf and started slowly diluting and diluting and diluting. And now I have about, oh, three to four cups of coffee a week, which is horrible considering I own a coffee company. But that's, that's just, that's just my jam and I love it and it has, it's, it's, it's desired effects that way.

Coffee, I just want to mention, like I didn't mention before, but I actually had a really strong coffee. And Eve, as I speak, I'm being mindful of using the word addiction because it's not really totally accurate to my perspective, but we're going with it. I had a strong coffee attachment and it's, that's a really interesting one too. And just like studying the methyl xanthine chemical grouping.

Talk about that for a second. I'll come back to my addictions, but I always talk about that second. You call it like a psychotropic compound in your brain.

Yeah, absolutely. I mean anyone that's drinking coffee then gotten off coffee and come back to it has to admit that this is a mind altering drug. Now that doesn't necessarily make it good or bad. And the thing with coffee is that it has a utility. And in the entrepreneur community it's kind of a double edged sword for me. What I found was that when I first started getting into it, it gave me this cognitive boost. It linearialized my thoughts from kind of scattered like visionary to really focused. But then at some point I realized that I'm sitting At a coffee shop, I'm drinking coffee, and I'm not getting a damn thing done. And not only am I not getting anything done, I literally can't function. Like, I. I'm like, stressed out. There's anxiety building in my system.

Wow.

But what's really interesting is I have the conscious awareness of it, but I continue to repeat the pattern.

Yeah.

Which that in of itself is. Right.

This is like the people with lung cancer who literally. And I've seen this, they call it a stoma or like a hole in their neck that they can smoke a cigarette through because. And correct me if I'm wrong, but this is one of the. Identities that one would associate with addiction is engaging in the habit despite the knowledge that it's harmful or holding one back in life.

Yeah. And that's what we call. What's the term? It's. It's a death habit. It's a subtle death habit.

Yeah. You use that term in your book subtle. What's. What's subtle death habit mean?

So I got the term subtle death habit from an author named Leonard Orr. And he was kind of like this. This holistic health and longevity expert in the, like, early 1900s. And his whole thing was about, like, reaching immortality. Now, he died a while ago, but one of the.

Obviously worked out very well for him.

Yeah. But one of the interesting things that came out of his work was this perspective on subtle death habits. And essentially what that is is exactly what you're speaking to. And what I'm speaking to is that these repeated patterns of self sabotage that are causing us to go down a death spiral, meaning atrophy, increasing the aging process, stress, anxiety, causing us to go in a downward spiral. And yet we're repeating these patterns and behaviors, and that essentially.

All right, we're turning and going across a bridge, everyone. So we'll give you the play by play. All right, go ahead.

Yeah. And there's a metaphysical perspective to it, which is essentially there. There's something that's attached to us, like our psyche. That's. It's like a parasite. That's the best way of putting it. It's like a parasitic energy or parasite consciousness that is causing us to do things that not only are robbing us of our vital life force, but are robbing us of our. Our life.

Yeah. It's such a good point, because it feels like. It's almost like not self. When those type of. What you call subtle death habits take over. Now, you know, and I. It makes me wonder, though, because you said, like, we're we're uncomfortable being uncomfortable as humans. Yet it seems that in many cases this self sabotage that occurs is almost like a need for drama, a need for discomfort, a need for like this angst that we create. Like, it's almost like we create these dependencies because we want the struggle.

Yeah, it's, it's self inflicted. And so that's, that's the, it's like a neurotic pattern, like a neurotic psychological pattern where somebody can't stop scratching, scratching an itch or stop whatever the, whatever the pattern is, it's self inflicted abuse.

So, so you know, this, this idea of addiction, you know, back to me, I, I talked about coffee, I talked about nicotine, which, which I eventually kind of weed myself off using like some black pepper extract and some different essential oils along with just like the, the mouth feel of gum. I just switched to a brand of gum that was the same size and shape and texture that didn't have nicotine in it. You know, kind of like the strategy I used with decaf coffee. There was a time in my life when I travel every single night before I go to bed to help me get to sleep, I'd pull up some porn and masturbate. Right. And it became one of those things like, oh, I take my cbd, I take my melatonin and then I masturbate and then I go to sleep. And you build up this addiction, this attachment. Another horrible result of that. As you become dependent on it, you start to objectify women. It changes your dopamine circuits in terms of the way they're tired up when you view a naked body. And so there's all sorts of downstream side effects that just kind of ruin you sexually, you know, in a scenario like that. Actually, let's go this way. So less cars.

It's a form of like pressure release. So that pressure release valve, we're trying to find a way to release this built up compressed pressure inside the system. And if we don't have a better and more productive strategy, then we're going to find any strategy to manage our own stress response system. And the pornography, man, it's such a, it's just such a deep one and it's so unassuming because in our culture it's so in our face and it's been so socially accepted. And that's the thing with a lot of these quote unquote drugs or drugified technology is that it's so socially accepted that we don't identify it as a drug or as an addiction.

Right, right. And you know, one thing that this makes me think about a little bit is there is this. So, you know, as, as a guy who believes that we were created by a divine being and wired up a certain way, there's, there's this deep seated human desire through essentially drugs slash plant medicines, sex slash relationships and music, slash rock and roll, right? The whole sex, drugs and rock and roll piece to crave this altered state of consciousness. It's almost like we spend half of our lives seeking an altered state of consciousness, which again, I think is partially the desire for God. And I say this out of personal experience because as my connection and my union and my dialogue daily with God has increased in leaps and bounds by the grace of God, I'm so grateful for that, my desire to shift states of consciousness has decreased dramatically. And I mean, even down to subtle, subtle nuances. Like, you know, when my wife and I would make love, I'd be like, oh, let's, you know, let's take a hit on a vape pen and let's do some intranasal ketamine and oxytocin. Shift our state of consciousness, right? Let's stack it, which has its time and place, right, but it can become a crutch. And then as I've grown closer to God, it's almost as though you're able to slip into altered states of consciousness using natural activities without the use of external supplementation. But it is interesting, like I think a big part of addiction, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, is almost seeking out that altered state of consciousness that was so beautifully built into us.

I mean, that's such a perfect context because that, that really is the most practical way of looking at it. I think what, what it is is that most of us have become accustomed to such a fl. Flat reality. Like our, our frame of reality is so flat and densified and heavy that we need something to alleviate, to alleviate that flatness or to, to, to bring color back into our black and white type of reality. If we've numbed ourselves out throughout our life and we're just used to this kind of humdrum sitcom, black and white like kind of reality, you know, the 9 to 5 and, you know, kind of the quote unquote American dream that we're all sold. Work till you die and then maybe you'll be liberated at some point, I, I think it's, it's definitely at a, at a spiritual, metaphysical level. It's definitely a yearning for the divine. And just practically, it's, it's from a brain chemistry and brainwave state. It's like we're trying to shift out of the beta brainwave state. And, you know, that's an interesting term too, like, with this whole thing with, like, beta males.

Yeah.

This hyperactive, like, seeking hungry ghost energy. Beta, beta, beta, beta, beta.

Yeah.

It's like we're trying to get into the alpha and gamma and hyper gamma states. And it makes me think of Joe Dispenza's work. Right. Because he doesn't use any external substances to get his people.

Yeah, that's what I've heard.

Into that state.

And people have this deep spiritual awakening experience.

Yeah. And so it's really interesting that you bring that up because that's been my experience too. The more I just commit and devote myself to basic principles and practices like meditation, breath work, self regulation, self honesty, accountability, just my health practices, I can get myself into that state and set a new, like, set point in my brain. So, like, when I do a plant medicine ceremony or microdose, it's not compensating for. Or it's not like, escaping from my reality, it's enhancing my set point.

Yeah, yeah, that. That makes. It makes sense. And you know, when. When we're talking about especially things like sex and masturbation, it makes you think about relationships too. I hadn't really thought about this that much. Probably just because I've been married for so long. It hasn't really been something I've struggled with. Although I would, like, I know at my core, if I weren't married, I would struggle with the same thing. And that's like this relationship addiction. Can you talk about your relationship with relationships?

Oh, yeah, That's. That's powerful. Yeah, I've. I've had. I've had a lot of really deep relationships with. With women at different points. And, you know, you might call it like a serial monogamist or just getting involved in really, like, powerful connective relationships with women that ultimately were not good for me. But because the connection was so strong, it was like an immediate access point to that. That divinity, if you will.

Yeah.

But then the problem was, like, potential projections onto the person that they're like my twin flame or my karmic partner, like, whatever spiritualized perspective that would overcast the red flags.

Right.

And that led to a lot of what we call, like, trauma bonding and.

A lot of trauma bonding.

Yeah. Like when two people's traumas, like their childhood traumas.

Yeah. But they.

They fit in together like puzzle pieces. And that also explains the magnetic pull that two people might have together with that very sexually charged, like passionate charge versus a connection that has a very heart centered connection and that that passion slowly develops over time.

Yeah.

We might call that a healthy bonding process.

Now, is that related to attachment theory? Because like I personally constantly seek out verification from my wife. And I should rephrase that. I have the tendency to do that since I have recognized it. It's not something I do as much, but like seeking out approval from my wife, seeking out verification, seeking out praise. Whereas she is very distant and wants to be very lone and independent. It's like the yin and the yang of attachment styles. I think mine's called anxiety attachment. And hers?

Yeah, Anxious attachment.

Hers. What would hers be if you're distant?

Avoidant.

Yeah, avoidant. So I'm anxiety attachment. She's avoidant attachment. And fortunately, when we, when we live our lives, right, and we pray together and we're bonded and we meditate together and you know, we're making love a lot and we're just, you know, being super open and transparent with each other. It's as though those two tendencies almost pull us together a little bit.

Right.

But at the same time, it's yet another scenario in relationships where I think, especially if you have like the anxiety attachment, you're constantly seeking out relationships to verify you 100%.

It's, it's seeking validation and gratification to validate your own existence. Existence or your own worth, your own value. So like as a man growing up with a single mother, I found out for me actually about a year ago, doing like a really deep shamanic clearing session, it came to my awareness that a lot of my relationship challenges were partly due to this anxious attachment wound that I picked up from my mother, who, who I didn't receive that nurturing love from, not because she was a bad mother, but she just didn't have the tools. And I as a child had to develop adult like, strategies to get attention and love from my mother.

Yeah.

So then I started to recognize how this was subtly showing up in my relationships with other women. And then those trigger responses, those like survival responses that would kick on in moments of conflict or if the other partner was avoidant. The more anxious I get, the more avoidant they get. And that's usually the avoidant thing, is usually from the father, like the daughter to father mother or son to mother. Kind of dynamic.

Right? Right. Yeah. And, and it's really interesting how all of that can stem from the way that you were raised. Like, I often look to my mom for approval. I look so. And I'm very careful, even with my own sons, with the way that I compliment them in terms of like, you're smart or look at those muscles you're getting. Instead, I'll say things like, oh, man, you studied hard this week. Or I noticed how. How much effort you're putting that barbell or kettlebell this morning. But I'll rarely praise them based on attributes because I don't want them to, as I think I did to a certain extent, develop an attachment to certain attributes, whether it's your body or your intelligence or something like that. Because what I found myself doing back to the relationship piece of. Is seeking verification that those attributes are present. This trail is getting a little gnarly, so we can turn around. It's your barefoot.

It's like it's valuing the process versus valuing the outcome.

Yeah.

Like, you're not the product of. Of the results that you gain. You, like, the value is in the. In the effort, the process, the. The determination like that you. That you give to something. The discipline, no matter what the outcome is.

You mentioned the meditation guy Da Silva. Yeah.

Joe Dispenza.

Joe Dispenza, yeah. But there's another guy who you talk about in the book that you say that you learned a lot from a guy named John demartini. I think I actually have his book read a few years ago, the Values Factor. Did he write the Values Factor?

Yeah.

Okay, tell me about what.

What.

What exactly you got out of John demartini. Relevant to addiction, man.

I mean, John demartini is one of the living masters in this world and the human development specialist. And I spent a lot of time with him. I did a great interview with him many years ago, and I spent two days with him in one of his workshops. And. Wow. So there's two things that come out of his work primarily is this value system determination, which is essentially understanding your own core values, not the things that you say you want or the things that you project onto the world. The social motifs and stuff, the things that you think you should value, but the things that you actually intrinsically value as a way to be more authentic, to be who you actually are. And then this other piece is he has a perspective that built into every single situation as well as, like, the universe as a whole. Whole are the complementary opposites. So the yin and the yang. Parasympathetic, Sympathetic. Anabolism. Catabolism. Male, female. Support and challenge. Entropy, syntropy. Like, there's always support and challenge built into Every situation. Because as human beings we're wired for growth and right left hemisphere of the brain. So his whole thing is about integrating the polarities into a state of neutrality. So you're not too positive, you're not too negative, you're not up, you're not down. You're always centered and integrated so you can perceive reality accurately.

Now is that related to the eagle eye perspective that you talk about?

Yeah, the eagle eye perspective is just a term that I coined in relation to this perspective being able to see life from a higher vantage point because we get so caught in the myopic minutia. The, the Hindus would call that the Maya. We get caught in just like the small little trivial details of our life and we get stressed out and, and just bogged down by those things. But if we're able to take a more neutral, equanimatous perspective where we can rise above and kind of get like a God's eye view on things, we actually see the implicate perfection in all. In life, in all situations. The geometry of life is working out perfectly. But if we're a fish in a water tank, you can't teach a water, you can't teach a fish about water because you're in it, right? You have to be able to zoom out in order to see what's really going on.

It's kind of a little bit related to my own process of evening self examination where I will close my eyes, I'll play the entire day like a movie in my mind, watching myself acting out my day, third person, right? So I'm looking at myself with that kind of like eagle eye standpoint. You're detached from your Persona on the movie screen. Detached, you know, and in this situation I'm as, I'm meditating and this is like a four to five minute evening practice. I'm asking myself, what good have I done today? What could I have done better this day? And that in many cases includes identifications of areas where I fell into attachment or I fell back into addiction to something. Because you can nip that in the bud when you examine at the end of each day. And then of course, where was I most purpose filled? Back to, you know, something we've alluded to already, that having a strong life's purpose, along with the connection to God is one of the best ways to reduce that need for escapism and that need to shift state of consciousness using substances. But yeah, it sounds very similar to that evening process of self examination.

It's a, it's like a Self inventory process. And what I, what I'm getting from what you're saying is that you're essentially being honest with yourself. And this is the whole thing with addiction, by the way. It's not so much about white knuckling it and you know, forbidding certain habits and trying to like willpower yourself through it because that doesn't work. You actually have to look in the mirror and scan and like assess and just be honest and take it out of the shadows and put it into the light. And I really like the spiritual framework because it orients our mind towards something that's beyond our own self limitations, our own stories, our beliefs, our wounds, our traumas, our phantom fears. We get so caught in that. And I think one of the biggest issues, spiritually speaking, is that we've been taught through this scientismic, materialistic, atheistic culture that were insignificant. We're isolated on this planet.

Yep.

We're all by ourselves. Right. And without whether people believe in any type of religion, it gives us a framework to actually look beyond to something, you know, something beyond us to, to a creator, you know, whether that's the ultimate truth or not. I believe it is. I know it is, just like you do, but I. Without that, my mind would go into chaos.

Yeah, yeah, I agree. I mean, another book I'm reading right now called Renovated. Excellent book. Two great books of people, I think, who are listening to this, who are into the spiritual side of addiction. Renovated by Dallas Willard. The last book he wrote before he died, that guy I mentioned earlier who said that when men go to porn they're seeking God. And then also the book Resilient by John Eldredge, which more talks about how to stay in daily union with God. Because for me, when it comes to the hyper awareness and the ability to slow down and breathe that I think is necessary to be able to identify, you know, oh, is this a true, you know, need for energy or am I just having a craving for nicotine? Or you know, is, is, is opening up this world website right before I go to bed in a hotel room at night. The type of thing that if my wife were sitting right here with me that she would really enjoy seeing, you know, or feel proud of me about, you know, what would this look like if I were on a movie screen right now engaging this particular activity? You know, all those type of mental triggers, they seem easier to come by when, as this book Renovated points out, I'm engaged in what I consider to be three of the most important aspects of my spiritual lifestyle. Daily Dialogue with God. And I don't say prayer as much as dialogue because I think sometimes we forget that God is a father and a friend who's here to help us. God's not here to, like, you know, like you might learn in Sunday school, like, send you to hell for touching your penis. Right. Like, that's not, that's not what God is.

Like a shadow, masculine interpretation of God.

Right, Exactly. So, so dialogue with God and then setting aside all fear and placing all trust in God, you know, fear, oh, I'm not going to have enough energy today unless I do the coffee and the nicotine or I'm not going to be able to sleep tonight unless I take this supplement and that supplement. Or I'm not going to feel myself in this social situation unless I have engaged in this relationship or this sexual practice. And so it's the daily dialogue with God, the, the trust and then finally fully loving other people, you know, just fully acting out the golden rule. And those three things, dialogue, trust, and love really, to me, have made tackling my own propensity towards getting addicted and attached to certain things a lot easier to manage.

That's so well put. I completely agree with that. And it's like how I think about the utility of the idea of God as a loving health heavenly Father is that it keeps us honest and accountable, especially us as men. Like, I, I mean, the accountability factor as a man is so key. We, we, we. We need that. We crave that. We're designed that way. And it's not just accountability with other men because other men are just men. We need a higher source of accountability so we can aspire to be more than we currently are.

Right.

Not through fear, not through shame, not through guilt, but through aspiration and inspiration.

Right.

And that's also, by the way, what came up for me when you're talking about, you know, your, the dynamic with your wife. And it's very similar with my partner.

Where.

I, I had an ayahuasca experience, the last one I did last December. And ayah starts stripping me of all my, all my attachments and like social media, my career, like, all these things that I think are important. It just starts stripping it all. And it showed me the only thing that's actually real is relationships. It was like, fundamentally the only thing that's actually real is relationships. And it showed me this image of me with my wife, with children in the future. And it was like, if you really want to devote your life to, to God, devote your life to one woman.

Yep.

And I was like, oh, okay, thank you.

Yeah. Well, it's. It, you know, coming. Coming from a married man who has been happily married for a while and is likely biased because of that, that extreme amount of fulfillment and satisfaction that I get from having a strong family rooted in faith at home, I can tell you that once I realized that aside from my relationship with God, family comes first, right? Like equipping my children, loving my wife when I leave the home, making sure just everything is set up for them in terms of preparation, in terms of provision, in terms of love. I always thought, like, you go out and you work and then you bring the bacon home to the family and would often put more energy into. Into work than into family. And I've completely reversed that total. 180. Like, I. I put a lot of focus on the relationship with my wife, the relationship with my family, because at the end of the day, it's like all this work that you do, you know, it's all for naught. It's like. It's like the people who make a bunch of money and have cars and boats and homes and, you know, fancy toys but don't have time to do anything with it because they're just working.

Have you found through that way of being that that's increased not only your prosperity, but the quality, Quality of opportunities that come to you?

I don't know about the quality of opportunities, but the.

Because I honestly like which ones are really.

I almost like, say, say no to more. But yeah, choosing and prioritizing those things that would best allow me to be there for my family. Yeah, absolutely. So the quality has, has profoundly increased. And, you know, we. We kind of got down the road. They're talking about certain tactics like stepping out and looking at yourself in the third person, developing a spiritual walk with God. We talked about, like, some practical things like using, you know, black pepper, you know, instead of nicotine, or decaf coffee instead of regular. But then there's some other tactics that you talk about in the book. One was called the. The quantum collapse process. That one intrigued me. Tell me about that one.

Okay, so the quantum collapse process is. It's a process that I've developed that I take clients through and do workshops on. And essentially what it is is it's a. It's a hybrid between what I've learned from Joe Dispenza and John demartini. And it's a. It's a meditation, breath, work practice where I have people go into just a normal state of breathing. In through the nose, out through the mouth, and guiding them to drop into their autonomic nervous system. And essentially what the process takes people through is their own inner landscape, meaning they're able to track. Scan their own nervous system response. And through the breathwork practice of them completely just surrendering and being guided through it, they're able to track the sensations in their body and detach from the stories in their mind that are essentially blocking them from really feeling what's going on in their physical system.

Hmm. Yeah, it's interesting. It sounds a little bit like contemplative prayer.

Sure.

In contemplative prayer, at least my own flavor of it, I sometimes will talk about things and feel as though I've bastardized them and turn them into my own version. But contemplative prayer, you sit and you first become mindful. You know, what's the temperature and the sensation of the air that's coming in through your nostrils with each breath? What is the sensation of the fabric against your skin or the socks against the sole of your feet? What little puffs of wind can you feel in the room? You know, what's the sensation in your hands? Are they tingling? Are they numb? Are they cold? Are they hot through the feet? What's the sensation in the gut? Is it settled? Is it tight? Is it cramped? Is it bubbly? And you just kind of do a full body scan. And then the prayer part of it is. You then just basically imagine Jesus coming into the room. This is really powerful because a lot of times you'll literally just, like, see Jesus, like, as a vision coming into the room. And you can even do this with your eyes open, which is interesting. A lot of times with contemplative prayer, you start eyes closed, and then you go eyes open as you begin to look for Jesus, and you pay attention to, you know, how's he carrying himself, what's the tension in his shoulders or the lack thereof. You know, what's kind of looks of love and forgiveness and pride? Is he giving you. How is he comforting you? And you just basically sit there with Jesus. Yeah, exactly. And then this can be something that you just pause and do for two to four minutes at a couple points during the day. But then at the very end, you just basically ask Jesus for what it is that you need. Ask him for help, ask him for strength, ask him for direction, ask him for peace, asking for wisdom. So it's, you know, contemplative prayer essentially, is like mindfulness meditation combined with seeing and talking with Jesus. And it's incredible in terms of just connecting with where your Body is in the moment, but doing so with the guidance of a deity, that's.

That's really interesting because that, that, that, like that theological framework is great because that's essentially what I'm guiding people through. And I have, like, audio recordings. People can do this on their own, too. One layer of it, it would be that process. You're doing a scan to clear the, like, preliminary layers from the system. And then once you, once you do that, now you have more of an access point to actually determine your internal set point. So, for example, when people are deep in the process and their system is down regulated, I'll kind of go through a process and say, okay, what does it feel like to feel whole, healed and complete in your body right here, right now and then. So the idea is that we're creating new reference points for lived experience so the brain and the body can sync up together. Because, you know, the stress, the anxiety, the depression, all the things, we've patterned those in our neurochemistry and our nervous system. So those are reliable reference points for states of being that are familiar.

Yeah.

And if we're trying to change those things at the level of the mind, we're just going to be in our mind.

Yeah.

And we're just going to be going back and forth, but we're never going to move an inch.

Yeah.

So it helps to create like a. It collapses time essentially, in this, in past, present, into the moment, into the physical body. So somebody can actually gain a new reference point and practice that. So when they go out into the world, it has an accumulatory effect in their system.

Yeah. Yeah. It's so interesting that a lot of this does come down to mindfulness. And I mean, there are other things too, you know, like, for example, you know, this is gonna sound super trite compared to what you were just talking about, but like, three of the top things that I do, if I have some kind of a craving or I'm trying to break an attachment to something, I think you talk about one of them in the book, push ups.

Yeah.

Meaning like, yeah, I want this piece of, you know, nicotine gum. I want to, you know, have a cup of coffee, whatever. Yeah. For me, it's 30. 30 is the magic number. 30 push ups. Popping a piece of gum, which I realize could sound like an addiction of itself, but it's like this tiny little, sweet little dopaminergic hit that's just like. It is not that damaging. Right. And so just like chopping on a piece of gum when you're Craving something else that you might be addicted to. And then the last one is music. I find that just listening to a really, really great song can make you forget about what it was that you felt helplessly attached and addicted to. Five minutes earlier this is.

Okay, what just came to me is. So dopamine is a really deep, interesting topic. One of the things that dopamine does is it controls our time perception. And so when somebody has like low level dopamine, they go more into a depressive state and they usually are more focused on the past. And so time, the perception of time slows down.

Right.

And it gets too long.

Right. This is like when you're low on dopamine. Sometimes it's of kind can happen after a weekend of partying, for example, and you go to the gym and you're just, you feel like soul crushed, sweating your eyeballs out. You feel like you've been there like an hour and you look at your watch and it's been like four minutes.

Yeah.

A lot of times that's low dopamine.

Yeah. Or you're doing a withdrawal program or a cleanse or a detox or a dopamine fast. And this is why it's so challenging if people don't have the right strategy because they're dopamine baseline drops and that's when all the cravings come up because the brain gets addicted. I don't necessarily believe that. Well, that's a whole other topic. But the, the addicted personality, the way I look at it is that your brain actually develops addiction pathways of its own. And it's, it, it has associated an outside substance as the way to alleviate it's own stress response, its own inflammation. And so we, so that craving or that agitation is a way for the brain to trigger the body into getting that thing to relieve its own addiction tendency.

Yeah. And you know, part of this though makes me wonder. You know, I talk about like push ups or gum or music or these little like bursts of energy. You know, you have a section in your book. I, I, I wrote down the page. It's page 112. You have this quote in the book where you talk about where we should be getting our energy from. Okay. And I, I think we may have alluded to it a little bit, but can you go into that quote? I could read it if you want me to. No, I, I, okay, tell me.

There's actually a perspective I, I have on that real quick from a cellular metabolic, metabolic perspective. So, and especially like in, in our relative field in the audience that Listens to you. Everyone's familiar with like basic cellular respiration of glycolysis, sugar metabolism and ketosis, fat metabolism as the primary energy sources for ourselves. And that's like level one, Right? That's kind of the materialistic level.

Right. Then under macros.

Yeah, the macros. Right. And then underneath that, our cells respire on oxygen and hydrogen, which is why things like ozone therapy is so powerful and hydrogen therapy and, and we're made mostly of water. Right. We all kind of know that. So that's an interesting perspective. Then underneath that though. And you learn this through fasting. I did a lot of fasting, especially when I was a raw vegan for, for many years.

Okay.

That led me into the world of cleansing and detoxing. And I'm like on a five day water fast. And I'm like, whoa, I have more energy right now than anything. And maybe that's because of autophagy of protein deposits turning into cellular energy and ketones and glycogen, all that. Okay, fine. But through that process and through my own research, I came across another perspective from a theoretical physicist named Fritz Albert Popp, who discovered that our cells fundamentally are operating on what's called biophotons. And so this is, this is, this is ultimately to me really where true energy comes from, is from our living environment. Biophotons, photons, light frequencies or light energies. Like we're doing right now, the penetration of the UV light to our skin and our skin has more photoreceptors than anything. Right, we're light beings. Right? Yeah, we're water based beings. We're light beings.

We're not, we're not quite plants, but we interact from an energetic standpoint with light photons way more than most people even realize.

And Rudolph Steiner said, like the human being is an inverted plant.

Yeah, that's true.

So like the leaf of a plant is like a solar panel that's, that's receiving the light through photosystems, synthesis, turning into energy. We're doing the same thing in our own unique process. And so I found through a combination of fasting, cleansing and getting into nature, getting barefoot on the ground, the negative ions that are pulsating and going through my system and getting spring water, getting into bodies of water and then getting the sun exposure, my energy levels skyrocketed. But it wasn't like a stimulation. It was more this core Ojas, jing restorative, like primordial energy.

Yeah, I've felt that. It's the energy that you have when you're Camping and forced away from all the devices in the indoor boxes. And, you know, it's barefoot, it's water, it's a lot of times, you know, clean or natural food or very little food at all. And you're, of course, walking in your bare feet right now. I had to ride my bike down here, and I'm a wimp, so I've got shoes on. But I am a little jealous because right now, I mean, I would imagine you're. You're even harnessing some of these negative ions from this trail right here.

I had to meeting up with you. I was like, I know, I know.

You'Re all excited for me to be connected to Gaia, and here I am with my. With my Brooks on. But, you know, it's. That is really interesting, this idea that we're energetic beings. I mean, Nikola Tesla, I think it was, who said, you know, where we're all just like vibration and energy. And many people, especially since the days of atwater and calorie counting and measuring the caloric equivalent of foods, have kind of made this assumption that our energy is derived from either supplements or calories. But, I mean, even Jesus Christ. Right. Says that we are not sustained by bread alone.

Right? Right.

There's a lot more. And I know he was alluding to subtle energies as well when he said something like that, or at least have a strong sense that he was referring not only to your relationship with God.

But just Mount Sinai. Right?

Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Okay, so in terms of the addiction piece, there was one other thing that I wanted to ask you about because I thought this was interesting. It related to addiction specifically, and that was movies and entertainment.

Right.

Because, like, I think a lot of people, they're super into it, and it's, of course, super accepted to have your Netflix show. And, you know, that's not a struggle of mine, but I know a lot of people deal with that, and they probably benefit from hearing your take on it.

Yeah. So I call it entertainment entrainment. This is really key to understand. So the brain doesn't actually have a context for what's real and what's not actually real. And so what we're perceiving through the optics of our eyes that go into our brain and our consciousness is being deposited in our subconscious mind. And not to say like any of this is inherently wrong. However, when we're glued to the television or we're watching these enthralling movies, all movies, all successful movies are built from the framework of the hero's journey kind of cycle that Joseph Campbell put together, which is. Which is a predictable cycle that mirrors our own hero's journey. If we're on a hero's journey, ordinary.

World call, adventure, refusal to call.

Yes.

Meeting with the mentor, crossing the threshold. Test Allies, enemies, approach the innermost cave. The ordeal, the road back, the resurrection and the return with the elixir. That's a. Mitch, I think that's it.

Well, yes. And what's interesting about that too is like, so we can get inspiration from these things, but usually we're actually numbing out because it's just entertainment and we're not actually on our own hero's journey. And we start to live vicariously through the characters in a movie. And the brain can register that as if we're having the lived experience, which is why we know it's a movie. Right. But something in us, we can get emotional. We go on the ride with the kids characters and our brain starts to, well, it can just interpret it as if we're having the experience, but we're not actually living it. And this is the same thing with like video games or pornography for that matter. If somebody's watching pornography, you get this hyper normal stimuli of dopamine, which again controls time perception. And you, your brain is so flooded with this stimuli, the simulation, as if you're the one having it.

Yep.

And then as we know as well as a lot of us men know, is like you have this increased, almost like cathartic release. Then after, it's like kind of weird. It's like leaving a crime scene.

It's like, oh God, didn't feel quite right. Something's missing, something's wrong there.

I'm just gonna like clean up and just walk away as if that didn't even happen. Yep.

So, yeah, I agree with that. And the part about watching the movies and living out someone else's story, it's really interesting because a lot of really impactful people, I know they don't consume a lot of entertainment and I think that's because they haven't scratched that itch of having done something epic through someone else's experience. So they're creating their own epicness in their own life. I've also.

This is why people watch sports so much. Right?

Right. I've always been a guy who'd much rather play. Like even during the Super Bowl, I'd be the guy who's like, dad, let's go throw the football. So the football, I don't watch the game. And then the, the idea behind movies also, I think, and this is an Interesting theory that I think I first read about in a book about the secret life of plants. Yes. Of all things, is this idea that it suppresses dream cycles because all of the lights and flashes and colors on the television screen allow the same type of cognitive processing that you'd normally achieve through dreams. And so you miss out on a lot of the memory consolidation and the building of creativity circuits in the brain when you're outsourcing your creativity and your dream cycling to the television instead. Does that make sense?

Yeah. You're essentially fragmenting your psyche with all this external input. But then what about the output? What about the cognitive dumping? Where is all that stuff going? It's like it creates all these open tabs in our brain. But just like a CPU processor or your browser, if you have all these open tabs, it slows down the processing system and it just creates congestion.

Right, right. And then, you know, related to the piece about porn, one last thought on that is a lot of times you're. You're watching other males. You're watching other males have sex with these. These females that you're desiring. And it creates, like, this. This beta process where you're literally watching the other members of the tribe do the thing that you wish to be doing physically. And it almost, like, hardwires this beta circuitry, and you put you in a beta brainwave. Yeah. You become a less dominant male because you're just so used to watching other males do what you're craving to do.

It's so insidious.

Yeah, it's. I mean, there are entire books on this and websites like your brainonporn.com, but it's definitely a big one. And so there's obviously a lot of considerations here. There are a lot of solutions. But one solution that you lay out that I'd love to dive into a little bit is something you call the dopamine reset protocol. I know some people might be aware of this because there was a gal who recently wrote a book on dopamine. I forget her name. You may have heard, like, she made dopamine fasting. Yeah. Yeah. It was Anna Lemke.

Yes.

Yeah. Anna Lemke. Yeah. So anyways, talk to me about the dopamine reset.

Okay. So I. I really got deep into this about two years ago. I've been studying dopamine just on and off since, you know, 2011 or something. And I got into it with multiple sclerosis research and Parkinson's, and realizing that dopamine not only is this, like, really powerful Neurotransmitter that's related to planet pleasure and Reward. So I came to find that dopamine can. Is highly. It influences all your motor functions in the myelination of your nerve cells and just so many aspects of the physical experience. So I just been kind of tracking this on and off for years. But then about two years ago, when I started working through my own coffee and tobacco addictions and realizing that I'm stuck in this like, perpetual D dopamine loop, I realized that I needed to actually start studying this a lot deeper. And then I started looking into this idea of dopamine fasting. And the basic idea with that is that you're essentially abstaining from all external dopamine inputs. And so all the quote, unquote addictions.

Wait, quick question. I mean, all the people who are supplementing with L dopa and mucuna, which is again, kind of like nicotine, something I've found. I think you mentioned this in your book too. A lot more people than you know are literally taking dopamine as a supplement. They've built up such a tolerance to it.

This is actually a really good point. So with, with the dopamine dilemma, as I call it, you have two things going on. You have the dopamine receptors in the brain that have been blunted and numbed out from excess dopamine stimulation. And those receptors, when they get blunted out, there's so much more dopamine coming, coming into the system that the receptor sites can't take in all that dopamine, so they just get numbed out over time. So the receptors themselves have to be repaired and rebuilt through neurogenesis. And that's part of the, part of the thing there is when you're fasting or abstaining on the external dopamine inputs, it gives the brain space to go through its own neurogenic neuronal regeneration process. Okay, and then, and then there's the other side, which is the dopaminergic system itself that needs to go through some sort of repair process. Some people are not able to produce dopamine because their hormones are out of balance, their adrenals are out of balance, they're of some form of toxicity. They built up in the body. They're in a. They're in a perpetual sympathetic stress overload state. Yeah, right. So then the L dopa, which I got into about 10 years ago, getting into this research, is really an interesting ayurvedic herb in of itself. But basically what people are doing is they're they're trying to rebuild the dopamine circuits.

Yeah. And I forget, by the way, with that one is the, the makuna pruriens from which the L dope is derived. That, that is a plant, right?

Yeah, it's a Ayurvedic herb. They call it, call it the velvet bean.

Okay.

And it also has growth hormones in it.

Interesting.

Yeah. So that, that's, that's what they prescribe, like a pharmaceutical version of it with people that have like Parkinson's and other dopamine related issues.

So we know what dopamine is. Yeah. And as far as the dopamine reset protocol, you know, walk me through the super nuts, what that actually looks like for someone who's like, okay, Ben, Ronnie got me convinced. I. It super bugs me. Whatever. Nicotine, caffeine, porn, social media relationships, food, exercise, you name it.

What do I do about this?

What does it look like?

Okay, so I'm going to lay out my protocol and I've adapted this over just the last 10 years of my kind of, my framework that I work with people on. So the first level is what we're talking about. It's the abstaining and withdrawal process that I call the reset process. So there's three phases. There's the reset, the reboot and the recovery. And so the reset is just like, it's the, it's the withdrawal process. But the way that I do it is I don't have people just abstain cold turkey. That, that doesn't really work very well. So what I do is I implement particular nutritional protocols to help people reboot their neurotransmitter system, to sometimes rebuild their microbiome system for nutrient absorption, the gut brain connection. Dietary kind of protocols, like all those basic things that you talk about all the time. Amino acids for rebuilding the neurotransmitters, different types of supplements, B vitamins.

On the dopamine reset protocol, it's not like cold turkey water.

No.

You're essentially replacing it. Sounds to me like a lot of the nutrients or the minerals that would have tended to have become depleted as the body has been in sympathetic overdrive for so long. Specific, like probiotics, amino acids, magnesium, etc.

Minerals. Trace minerals. Yeah, Things of that nature, like understanding. For example, in my, in my, my online program, I have a PDF that I'll walk you through right now. Just the framework.

Yeah.

There's specific protocols for coffee, for cannabis, for social media, for porn, for.

So it can differ from, from vice device.

Yes. And the basic, the basic Supplemental protocol is relatively the same. There's going to be a full spectrum B vitamin supplement with B6, B9 and B12. There's going to be an omega 3 fatty acid protocol or supplement. There's going to be a full spectrum magnesium like the bio optimizers. There's going to be always free form amino acids like the ones that you guys used to use.

Because that's like really the, like the kion aminos.

Exactly like those are, those are the building blocks.

Right.

So I want to help people restore the building blocks and also re engage with their cellular metabolism so they can start to produce energy naturally and they don't have to go through this drastic dopamine withdrawal. They can just start to kind of build their baseline back up. They can work through the cravings. Now implementing the second factor is the lifestyle itself. So integrating a lifestyle blueprint, including some sort of movement fitness protocol which is up to the person. It can be martial arts, weightlifting, running, yoga, you know, whatever, getting into nature, whatever, whatever your deal is, you just need to move the body. You need to start engaging with the body. And then there's another piece to it which I think is one of the most powerful insights which is it's, it's a, it's a waking and sleep cycle framework.

Okay.

So what I walk people through is this, this understanding that just like nature has its own seasons and cycles, our body has its own seasons and cycles. And these seasons are actually happening through, throughout every day. So we have a morning cycle, a midday cycle and a night cycle. And through developing a nighttime ritual leading into sleep, it helps people actually drop into a restful sleep practice. And then when they have, when they wake up, there's a morning ritual, morning practice that they develop for themselves. And then you're starting to see, set the stage to balance out your biorhythms. And then in the, in some point in the midday, there's also a transition phase. So for example, in the morning you're transitioning from sleep time. You're coming back into your body. So what I tell people is before you get out of bed, definitely before you check your phone, put your hand on your heart and just take 10 diaphragmatic breaths. You're engaged, engaging with your body, you're scanning it, you're essentially prioritizing yourself first thing in the morning.

Yeah, yeah, it's got, there's, there's even an app that I've used in the past for this, though I've since distanced myself from the app because I can, I can just do it without using the app. But I think it's fantastic. It's called the pause app and it's kind of interesting because when you first get it, the only pause you're able to unlock is the one minute pause and you gotta do that three times and it brings you up to the three minute pause and then I think there's like a five minute after that and I believe a ten. But it's literally you can play it when you get up in the morning. It's soothing music, soothing voice, walks you through kind of something very similar to that contemplative prayer and mindfulness practice I talked about. But yeah, I mean, whatever it takes. It's this idea of, I mean the way I think about it, Ronnie is checking in with the body and checking in with God.

That's it.

That's the very beginning of the day.

That's exactly what I'm saying. Like the tendency is that we check our phone, we have an alarm clock, we get on Instagram immediately. The moment we do that, our dopamine system is so sensitive that we get neuro linked into this digital interface and our brainwave gets all scattered and our energy for the day just gets scattered. And so the idea is that we're organizing and structuring our energetic with intention and focus first thing in the day to create that foundation.

Yeah, yeah. Okay, so the 21 day dopamine reset protocol, you said the first part is reset.

Yeah.

Okay. And then reboot.

Okay. So reboot is essentially it's if you think of your computer like the iOS processor on your Mac, every now and then you're going to upgrade to a new operating system. Right, right. So the idea is that you have to reset the, the system itself before you can reboot.

Right.

You always have to.

You can go from Maverick to Leopard to Cheetah, Oddball OS name they call it.

Yeah.

Most people in the like human potential or optimization world are trying to skip levels, Right. They're trying to just like get to the next thing, the next thing. But they don't integrate what they've learned or you know, who they are essentially. And there's a great quote by Ken Wilber which is transcend but include. So transcend the level that you're at, but include everything. And so that's kind of the idea. You have to learn how to reset or turn off.

You mean include everything that's positive?

That's right, yeah, yeah, yeah.

You wouldn't want all your life experiences that you've gotten rid of on the Reset part.

Yeah, that's right. And that's why we do the reset. So the brain can go through the. Its cognitive pruning process. If we don't learn how to shut down the system, then we're not going to be able to auto delete all those old files.

Right.

So you go through the reset, which is essentially abstaining and letting go of the detrimental habits themselves. The brain is going to go through its own cognitive reset process, and then we support it through the nutritional and lifestyle style practices. And then the reboot process is, is kind of like a skill acquisition process.

Okay.

So we're engaging with new patterns and behaviors and habits that are going to help restructure a new identity.

Okay.

And so the reboot, if you imagine like on the operating system when it's loading now, you're in a loading phase, okay. So you're loading new information, a new version of yourself. And then the third. And obviously you have to practice the things. And then as the brain restructures itself and readapts to these new patterns of being, then you go through the recovery phase, which is really just the integration phase. Last thing I'll say about this is a little bit of a metaphysical perspective. The recovery phase to addiction is that we're essentially recovering the parts of us that got lost through childhood trauma or through relational trauma, or the parts of us that the innocence, the innocence in us that got lost along the way of life. What I found through leading people through These processes over 30 or 40 days, not only did they get like all the physical benefits, but what I started hearing from people with simple things like getting off coffee, they started to feel that child inside of them that never got the love or the attention or felt abandoned. There was something inside of them that kind of clicked in and integrated and that that's like the recovery process. It's not that you're recovering from being an addict, you're recovering apart from part of yourself that got lost and led to the addiction.

Yeah, yeah. It's really interesting because I feel like to a certain extent, even before I read your book, I'd kind of stumbled across doing something similarly, when I'd find myself attached to certain things, like basically asking myself, okay, what has this depleted? Or what hole is this attempting to fill? Meaning in many cases, an addiction can only deplete minerals, let's say coffee for, for example, depletion of minerals, depletion of some of the dose of hexanoic acid. You talked about the oleic acid for your myelin sheaths. And then the adenosine receptors, it's like, what do I need to reset and then what do I need to replace that's been depleted? And then there's kind of like that phase that you go through, which I suppose would be the reboot phase, where you're just kind of listening to your body as it deals with the not having access to what it had before while having what that thing Depleted, replaced. And then finally you get into this phase where it just becomes the new normal, the new lifestyle becomes the new normal.

Yeah, that's right.

Yeah.

And there's a thing that just came up. I think you'll really appreciate that. I. I really want to get across to people. My personal perspective is that the physical body is not just being run on electrolytical impulses from the brain to the body or whatever, the, you know, basic physiology of it. The physical body is an instrument, a divine instrument that has its own inherent intelligence, and it's being run entirely by the power of the soul. So the more somebody is insouled, meaning they're embodied in their physical body, they feel safe to be their body. They're fully expressed, they're authentic, they're in their value system, they're following what's truly meaningful to them. The more the body turns on. Yeah, And I know this because we've seen it like in cases of spontaneous remissions, where people have an automatic healing that has no rhyme or reason or no medical explanation.

Yeah.

Somebody's completely revived their addictions, their afflictions completely removed, their identity shifted completely. And I want to drive that point because it's not just the. The physical stuff is like the. The support and maintenance for the physical body.

Yep.

But the spiritual, the spiritual aspect, the metaphysical aspect really, to me is. Is really the real deal.

Now related to that, you talk about your own kind of unique three step flavor of prayer in the book and how prayer has helped you. You know, I know that you believe in the power of prayer. You and I even prayed before this podcast. Not like a pharisaical, hey, look at us on Zelker Trail praying type of manner, but just to dedicate it to God and ask God that it helps some people out. Which I'm hoping, if you're listening right now, you're learning some things that help you. But Ronnie, you also talk about prayer in the book, and I believe you say three different kind of steps. You point out three different steps for prayer.

I'd have to go back to find those three exact steps, but I do. But what I Do know that I talk about in the chapter is essentially my perspective on prayer is like a living prayer.

Right.

It's not just words you speak or it's definitely not coming from desperation or like treating God like a vending machine.

Yes.

To get me out of this thing that I got myself into time and time again. It's like an embodiment practice. So like, as I go into a prayer practice, I am seeking to embody the energetic of my prayer. So it's living inside of me versus me, grasping for something outside of me to bail me out of something.

Yeah, yeah. Well, that comes back to the dialogue piece. I think that, that considering your relationship with God as being dialogue, not vending machine based is. It's. It's just a very magical way to live once you're able to feel the presence of God in everything that you do and see God in everything. I don't believe that. I don't believe that we are God or that plants are God. Like, I don't have a universal approach in terms of who I believe God is, but I do believe he reveals himself to us in a bite of steak, in a sip of wine, in a lover's embrace, in the smell of a rose, in the feel of the, you know, the sand and the gravel against your feet right now, Ronnie, all of these are revealing God to you. And if you're engaged, living with creation, fully mindful, while at the same time opening dialogue with God throughout the day, even just like taking a breath, like a simple breath in through the nose and having it be a breath of gratefulness. I just can't emphasize enough how much I've found that to help me manage just about anything that I've been trying to, you know, back to the eternal, you know, abyss in the. In the soul that have been trying to fill with other substances. As soon as you plug God in, you know, and it's so simple, yet it's. It's something people resist so much, I think, because they. They just feel like there's got to be another solution. The next supplement, the next task. Yeah, the next recovery protocol. But it's got to start, in my opinion, with. With a spiritual connection 100%.

And what comes along with that is a conference with the shadow. Like our shadow tendencies, our traumas are less than moral or ethical behaviors, our self kind of interests or agendas. Like we have to confront that shadow nature of ourselves and we have to do it through love. Like that's really the only way, but it's a journey to get there. Right. And it can be arduous and it can be lonely and very confusing, confronting. And I think that's why it's hard for people to go in front of the mirror and really look themselves in the eyes and really scan and really, like, really see themselves. Yeah. And when I say they, I mean us.

Of course.

Until I started doing this, I started looking myself in the mirror and scanning like, okay, bags under the eyes. Okay. And then tracing like, okay, well, you know what? You didn't get enough sleep? You didn't follow your own practice or just, you know, just being honest with myself.

Yeah.

And I found through that process, yeah, it was a little bit confronting for a moment, but then it was also very liberating because I didn't have to hold it in the closet. I didn't have to pretend like I needed to have everything together or be this kind of like Superman character where I had to. I had to be the healthiest person ever just to get out there and say, speak about things, to help people. I just need to be honest with myself and, and give those things over to God like you said to, to lighten my load so I could actually let go of the stress I was carrying, which was what. What was leading to these, like, these addiction patterns, which was just a way to cope with my own drama.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean, you, you jam packed a lot into that book, man. And it is available for sale right now, like on Amazon. People get it.

Yeah. And they could actually get it on the website, the addictionfreelifestyle.com.

All right, I'll make sure that I link to that in the show notes. The show notes are going to be@BenGreenfieldFitness.com Breaking Addiction. That's BenGreenfieldFitness.com Breaking addiction. And then the, the reset protocol, the recovery. Like you work with people one on one as well?

I, I work with people one on one and I actually have a dopamine reset video course. So it's a 30 video course that goes really deep into everything to do with dopamine. It also goes into personal development aspects, it goes into trauma, addiction, supplementation, like all these kind of lifestyle factors. So it's called the ultimate 30 day dopamine reset program. Program.

Okay.

And it's, it's a self study course, but every quarter we do a group dopamine reset as a, as an add on for everybody who signs up for the video course.

Okay, cool. Does anybody ever get addicted to the course and keep coming back for more? Paradoxically, that's an interesting thing, right?

You got. Sometimes you got to.

I'm addicted to breaking addictions.

Yeah, well, that. That is a thing too.

Yeah. Here we are back at the tractor. Isn't that. Isn't that good? Good timing and a way to bring it full circle back to the annoying beeps and loud crashing sounds. And I hope that the fact that we recorded this while walking was not too distracting for those of you who are listening in. But man, oh, man, I would just highly recommend Ronnie's book to you or anyone you know who is dealing with an attachment or an addiction in life. Again, it's the addiction free lifestyle link to the show notes@bengreenfieldfitness.com Breaking addiction. And Ronnie, I just, I feel like. I feel like we connected for a reason. I'm glad to be acquainted with you now. Hopefully I can call you a friend.

Absolutely.

All right, well, cool. Give me a hug, brother.

Thank you, bro.

There's a nice sweaty hug that you guys can listen to on the microphone. And thank you all to listening. For listening. It's Ben Greenfield Fitness. Even though I got to remember, I got to start saying BenGreenfieldLife.com because I rebranded Ben Greenfield Life Breaking addiction. Have an amazing and beautiful and hopefully addiction free day, everybody.

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Means a lot.