Why Addiction Isn't the Problem—It’s the Solution with Dr. Gabor Maté

Okay, what is addiction?

Let's define it.

So addiction is complex, but it's manifested in any behavior. Any behavior that a person finds temporary pleasure or relief in and therefore craves, but suffers negative consequences in the long term and can't give up. Now, notice any behavior. I didn't say drugs. Most of the time we think about addiction, we think of substances. And that certainly is one important target of addictive behavior. But I said any behavior that could be gambling, could be sex, could be relationships, could be Internet, could be Facebook, could be shopping, as in my case, could be eating, could be work. Any behavior that gives you temporary relief, pleasure, but you suffer negative consequences, you don't get up, that's an addiction. Now let me ask you this question. According to that definition, how many people here will acknowledge that sometime or another in your lives you've had some kind of an addiction? Sometime. Okay? That's how relevant it is. Okay. And if I'm going with that stream, let me also ask you guys another question for which I'll ask some of you to just put your hand up and shout out your answers. I'm going to ask you not what you're addicted to or when or for how long. I'm just going to ask you, what did you like about it? What did it do for you? What did it give you in the short term? So who would tell me? Relief from relief from pain. Thank you. Anybody else? Sorry.

Control.

Control. Relief from pain. Gave you control. What else? Love. Somebody said escape from anxiety. Thank you. What else.

Was that?

Loneliness.

It dealt with loneliness. Okay, let's look at these things now. Escape from pain. Pain relief. Sense of control. Relief from loneliness. What else did people say?

Anxiety.

Relief from anxiety. In other words, inner peace. So right away, when you understand that, you get that the addiction wasn't your problem. Your addiction was your attempt to solve a problem. And the real question is, how did that problem develop? How come it's 7 billion human beings in the world? You felt lonely? How come you lacked a sense of agency, control, authority in your life? Why were you in so much emotional pain and everything you said? The loneliness, the lack of power, the lack of control, the anxiety, these are forms of emotional pain. So my mantra on addiction is not why the addiction, but why the pain? And this is where we can talk more about it. But as you and I both know, the current model of addiction is either the legal one, which says it's a choice that people make and therefore we have to punish them for it, or it's a medical one, in which case it's an inherited brain disease, but it isn't either of those things. Where it actually is is an attempt to solve a human life problem, that of emotional pain, loneliness, distress, anxiety, whatever it is. And the real question then is, what happened in my life or your life, Joe, or everybody else's lives here that we incurred pain, and then how do we deal with our pain? Because the addiction itself magnifies the pain. It multiplies, increases it exponentially. So it begins in pain. As Eckhart Tolle, the spiritual teacher, says, addictions begin in pain and they end in pain.

Hey, I hope you're enjoying this video. And I want to let you know that I have a new book that's come out, and if you'd like to get it absolutely free, there's a link below in the description. Or you can wait till the end.

Of this video or you can Simply.

Go to joe'sfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

Yeah, well, it was on this stage last year that actually for the first time, publicly told about not only my drug addiction, which I, you know, for several years ago is the first time I started talking about being a drug addict.

And what was that in your case? Cocaine?

Was it or it was cocaine? Yeah. Well, I mean, heck, when I was between the ages of 16, 18, it started with I would get high every day and smoke pot. I went take pills, speed, I would snort crystal meth, I would snort cocaine. And there was one day, I remember where I. And one day I was free, basing. I was on lsd. I was smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol, taking mushrooms and snorting crystal meth all in one day. And I mean, like, I was in bad shape. And you've now, Gabor. When I was in Vancouver, you toured me around. Were you actually Vancouver's east side? Because you treated some of the worst addicts on Vancouver's east side for many years. And during that time, you know, I did a lot of drugs. And then I got. I moved away from the environment, started exercising, ended up getting a job in a mental hospital as a mental health tech. And I would take the patients that were there for addiction to aa. I would drive them to AA meetings and NA meetings, and I would sit in on those meetings, never realizing later in life how much relevance it had. But the core addiction was sexual addiction. Because I was molested as a kid. My mother died when I was 4. I was molested as a kid. I was paid money, not to say anything between the ages of 8 to 10. And it wired in my Head that sex is not an intimate act of love and oneness. It's something you do. Get off.

If I may interrupt, there was something else here too. So I'll talk about myself and I'll talk about you. So one of my addictions has been to work. In fact, that's a continued challenge for me if you look at my travel schedule. So I got a certain message from the world. I was born in Budapest, Hungary, 1944. Jewish parents, two months before the Nazis occupied Hungary. So I spent the first year of my life with my mother under Nazi rule. And she was in terror the whole year, as you can imagine. Parents killed in Auschwitz and so on. My father was away in forced labor. The message I got from the world is that the world didn't want me. Not because Hitler didn't want me, because I didn't know Hitler. But my mother was unhappy. And children are narcissists in the developmental sense. They take everything personally. So when the bad things are happening, it must be about me. And if she's not happy around me, Thich Nhat Hanh, the spiritual teacher, says that the greatest gift parents can give their children is their own happiness. Because the children take that personally. It's about us. We must be great creatures. So when my mother is unhappy and depressed and in terror, I get the message the world doesn't want me. And then at one year of age, she give me to a stranger to save my life. So I don't see her for a month. I get the message the world doesn't want me. Now. Then in Canada, 30 years later, 30 odd years later, I become a physician. Well, one way to deal with not being wanted is to become a doctor. Not they're going to want you all the time. They're going to want you when they're being born, they want you when they're dying. And they're going to want you at every moment, in between. And the beeper is always going. This is before cell phones, of course, and the beeper is always going. And you're getting validation every moment. And what it is is a compensation for the sense of not being wanted that I've never dealt with. Now, in your case, you got a message as well that you're wanted through your body, you're wanted through your body, you're wanted when you're sexually available. That's the message you get. What are you going to do? So especially if you look at men who are sex addicts and women who are sex addicts, there's no such thing as what's the word. An infomaniac. That's just a slander. What it really is is women or sometimes men who've learned that only through their bodies and only through the sexual act are they actually wanted. Well, that's really addictive because we all need to be wanted. And that's. I think that's also what's behind it.

Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, and I lived with so much shame. Even though I started making money, I always had that deep shame and that secret life. And I just struggled.

And.

The thing that became more apparent to me was I was in a. I became financially capable of joining like a high profile group. And I joined a high profile group for people that were struggling with sexual addictions. And in that room were billionaires, famous athletes, politicians, Academy award winning actors and actresses, you know, men and women. And I saw people that the world admired in their most broken states. And I realized, wow, you know, that whole saying that which is most private is most public, that so many people struggle with this. And that's why I've now wanted to use the platform that I have in business to go out and try to change the global conversation about how people view and treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment. And right now, the criminal justice system is treating addicts when it needs to be something else.

Well, if you look at the criminal justice system, it's really based on this idea that, as I said earlier, that addiction is a choice that somebody makes. If somebody's not making a conscious choice, what are they doing punishing them? You don't punish people because they're suffering and they're trying to escape from their pain. You help them instead of making them criminals. And number one, number two, it's very arbitrary as to what we decide should be legal or illegal. Because give me a thousand heroin addicts who inject four times a day in a quantity that does not lead to an overdose. And give me a thousand people who smoke a pack a day and another thousand who drink heavily. Guess which thousand is going to be the healthiest and the longest living at the end of 30 years? By far, the heroin group. So by far, I'm talking medical facts here. So by some, I'm not saying that heroin should be legalized and sold in corner stores like cigarettes. But I am saying that the decision to criminalize it is utterly arbitrary and has nothing to do with either science or logic or humanity.

Right. I mean, you know, you cannot punish pain out of people. And I mean, I have some stats here that I've heard you say that, you know, every month, 911 happens actually.

According to the President's commission on addiction, on the opioid crisis. And by the way, even when we talk about the opioid crisis, it's a rather arbitrary determination. Not because it isn't a crisis. I mean, it is according to the President's own advisory commission, every three weeks you have a 911 happening in the United States as a result of illegal drug overdoses.

Let alone, we're just talking drugs, we're.

Not talking all the other, we're just talking illegal drugs. I'm not even talking alcohol or cigarettes or everything else. We're just talking overdoses. And now it's hitting the white middle class. It's actually helping to lower the life expectancy of the white middle class male for the first time in a long time. But it's been hitting our Aboriginal population for a long time. It's been happening there for decades. If you go to the native reservations in Canada or the U.S. suicides, overdoses, they've been happening in epidemic proportions for decades. We just don't think that's so important now that it's happening to us or the people that we care about now. It's a crisis. And then if you ask the question, well, why is it that the Aboriginal population has got this tremendous rate of, of addiction? And again, that's a very interesting question. Because this whole idea that addiction is a genetic disease flies out the window when you look at the aboriginal experience. Because the Aboriginals in North America had actually access to potentially addictive substances long before Caucasians came here. They had access to tobacco, they had access to alcohol. In New Mexico, they had access to psychedelic substances like peyote. And they even knew these substances and they even used them. But how did they use them? They used them ceremonially, not to upturn and diminish their consciousness, but to raise their consciousness. They used it to connect spiritually with creation. They used it to create community and contact and culture. The addictive use is just the opposite. The other use is to escape from pain. And it's alone and it's not communal. If the problem was genetic, why weren't they addicted before? The reason they're addicted now is because the severe trauma that they've suffered over hundreds of years, their near extermination, and I don't have to give you all the details, I'm sure you know it all. Same thing in Canada. So what I'm saying with addiction, in short, is that every case of addiction originates in trauma. And that trauma could be Overt, like in the case of the aboriginal population, their children in Canada being taken away from them, sent to residential schools for 100 years where they were sexually abused and beaten up and their culture and their language was denied. In British Columbia in 1960, I know a woman who was four years old in 1965 in my province of British Columbia, who at four years old was taken to the residential school where she spoke her tribal language. And the punishment was that that they stuck a pin in her tongue for a whole hour. A four year old and then she sits there for a whole hour and she can't put her tongue in her mouth because it'll cut her lips. And then sexual abuse began. So then when I look at Vancouver's downtown east side, which is North America's most concentrated area of drug use, we have more drug addicts there in a few swell block radius than anywhere on the continent. It's a shock to people even who come from Detroit and New York to Vancouver. 30% of our clients down there are first nations or aboriginal people. They make up 4% of the population. Why? Because of the severe trauma that they've experienced. And this is the one piece, the trauma piece that you and I are so aware of, but that addiction. I was talking to a colleague of mine, Jamie. Where are you? Jamie, you're here. Somewhere in the room. She's a physician from Detroit.

Oh, Dr. Jamie, hope you in the room. Oh, she's, I think she's in the genius lounge.

Okay. All right. Yeah, yeah. So she works in the emergency ward at Detroit Hospital. And she graduated in 05 from medical school in Michigan and asked her, how many lectures on emotional trauma did you receive? Not a single one. How many lectures on how the human brain develops in interaction with the environment that you receive? Not one. Which is the same with me when I went to medical school, I don't know, 40 odd years ago. And so what I'm saying is that the medical world utterly misunderstands the problem and don't get any training in understanding human psychology. And the same thing is true of many of the programs where people go for addiction. So they never deal with the core issue. They only deal with the behavior of addiction, but the behavior is only a symptom.

Now what advice would you give to someone that is struggling with addiction? Because I know in your book you don't say that you don't tell people this is the path to do it. I mean everyone, because what I did.

I don't suggest that to anybody. Everybody can't do what I did.

Yeah.

Okay. I went to something that I was told. How many of you speakers, raise your hands, please. Speakers, how many of you are coaches? Okay. What we do is when we speak as speakers, as coaches, as entrepreneurs, the people that are with us, they all have stories in their head that they got from life. My favorite book says, be ye not conformed to this world. Be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind. When Dr. Alfred Goldson came to me and said, les Brown. Yes? I've got some bad news. I said, what is it? He said, man. He said, you got prostate cancer. Your PSA is 2,400. I said, what does that mean? That means your prostate specific antigen, 1 to 4 is normal. And I asked, I said, is there anything else? He said, yeah, what? It's metastasized to seven areas of your body. I said, wow. He said, why are you smiling? I said, man, seven is my lucky number. He looked at his nurse. I said, I was born February 17th. I'm one of seven children. Joshua marched around the walls of Jericho seven times. Naaman dipped himself in the River Jordan seven times. I said, Seven is my lucky number. And I. And I asked, is there anything else? He said, yes. And I said, what is it? He said, you're ugly, too. He said, but you got this. You got this. Brown, are you listening to me? He said, I never tell my patients they're terminally ill. What I say is that my knowledge, my abilities and my skills have terminated. I determine the diagnosis. You and God determine the prognosis. A fact is not a verdict. You got your work cut out for you. And I said, thank you. I want you to write this down. Distract, dispute and inspire. What he did was cancer. Distract. Cancer is the most feared word in seven different languages. So when someone is told, you have cancer, the fear alone. There's a book called the Biology of Hope, that it compromises your immune system to protect you by 40%. So what he did was he distracted me from the fear. And when he made me laugh, when you laugh. And I use humor in my presentation because when people laugh, joke, they're not thinking and their hearts open. And then I come up back with something I want them to get in their heart. He said, you're ugly, too. And I started laughing. Say, cool, that ain't funny. He said, but you got this. You got this. And I felt it in my heart. He said, a diagnosis is not a prognosis. No, this is no verdict. You and God got this. And that's what we do when we distract them. From the current story and speak affirmatively. You can make it through this. You dismantle their current belief system. You're now in their heart, and you inspire them to become, as Mother Teresa would say, a pencil in the hand of God and start writing a new chapter in their lives. And that was 39 years ago. That's why I got the cancer center's Center. Cancer Center's award of America perseverance, 39 years. Fourth stage cancer. Yes. Yeah. So when we speak, the mindset, your mindset, the whole area of psychoneuroimmunology, the mindset, the biology of hope that Norman Cousins talked about, who was a physicist and he saw old Groucho Marx movies and I Love Lucy and use humor to get through it. And so through your mindset, through changing your eating habits and decreasing the toxic negative people in your life and things that's not in alignment with you, being able to live a life of joy, harmony, and peace, that's very important. You have to begin to assess yourself and look at your life, and you have to say, who is it I can count on and who should I count out? And you're one of those people I call. I said, joe, been through this. This is his passion. And then I went online. I started doing research. I wanted to find out. I told everybody, if you know somebody who d from prostate cancer, don't tell me. I'm not interested. I want to know who lived. There's a song called Don't. I don't want nobody bringing me any bad news. I'm not being insensitive. I just don't need that in my consciousness. And so the. So I went online and saw this kid, Dr. Lee, starving cancer, and Chris beat cancer. And I started talking to people. A guy who. In my book that I talk about who. I went to meet him at his house. He was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And they said, people die within six months. And it's been eight years now. And I asked him, I said, man, why are you here? He said, three doctors told him to get his affairs in order. But there was a doctor he developed a relationship with. And I talk about this in the book. And he came in and he said, this is for you. And he gave him a clock. It was wrapped up, and he unpackaged the gift, the clock. He said, man, there's no hands on this clock. He said, I know. He said, you have to determine how long you want to be here. That's your call. That's not us, that's you. You now have to Take responsibility for what you want to do. At this point, you can either surrender to what we have told you. And I'm saying to you that we are not experts. This is a practice because I got a stethoscope and a white jacket. Just because I said, or my partner said that you have a terminal illness does not mean that it's true. Life is a fight for territory. And once you stop fighting for what you want, what you don't want will automatically take over. You gotta fight on your hands.

There's a point in time where, as you know, you've sat through with many people. When life ends, it is time to let go. And that. Do you have a fear of death?

No. Here's. I'm not a religious person. I want to say, because I quote a lot of things from Bible everywhere. I'm not a religious person, but I'm a spiritual person. Religious people afraid of going to hell. Spiritual people have been there. And hell, to me, is what you experience when you die and you meet the person that you were supposed to become. That's why one of my mentees, Dr. Miles Monroe out of the Bahamas, who died in a plane crash, we. And I give my speech, live full and die empty. He said, the ideal situation for a man or woman to die, Howard Thurman, is to have family members praying with you as you're about to cross over. But he said, imagine, if you will, being on your deathbed and standing around your bed, the ghost of the dreams, the ideas, the abilities, the talents, the gifts given to you by life. But you, for whatever reason, you never used those talents. You never tapped into those gifts. You never made that contribution. You never made the impact that you were chosen out of 400 million sperm to make. And there they are, standing around your bed, looking at you with large, angry eyes, saying, we came to you and only you could have given us life. And now we must die with you forever. I want all of you to say with me, live full. Live full. Say it again. Live full.

Live full.

Die empty.

Die empty.

That's what the Genius Network is about. It's about robbing the cemetery of the gifts that you have in you. You're a masterpiece because you're a piece of the master. You were born and preserved for such a time as this. Don't come for me. I didn't call an Uber.

So the question is to give a couple definitions. I mean, there's a lot of different definitions I've heard of addiction. The way that I think about addiction, it's a connection Disorder. So what we're really talking about here is how to connect with others, how to connect with yourself. And there's mechanisms that people use to numb themselves because they're feeling disconnected.

I just. A connection disorder. I mean, talk about piercing, symptomatic crap. Connection disorder. So what if addiction, maybe all addiction, maybe something. Or what if addiction is a symptom of us not being connected the way we need? Is that essentially what I'm hearing you say?

Absolutely. Absolutely. The opposite of addiction is connection. And so the thing.

And there's other people that are saying.

This, like my dear friend Gabor Mate, who wrote a book called in the Realm of Hungry Ghost. He believes that addiction is a response to trauma. And I used to believe that addiction was a brain disease and needed to be cured. And I'd rather people refer to it as a brain disease than looking at people as moral degenerates that are just making bad choices because, you know, addiction is doing something you don't want to do, or maybe you do want to do it and not being able to stop. And in this thing that you're doing, either the drugs, the chemicals, the behavior is compulsive, it's impulsive, and it has consequences that are bad. And so, you know, to have a craving that is far greater than your ability to stop it. In people that don't have addictions, and they see the crazy making of addicts, like, why are you drinking and drugging and watching Internet porn and gambling the money away or the workaholism or the exercise addiction or the bulimic. You know, I mean, all addictions have elements of binging and purging, excess and deprivation.

And there's a.

You know, the rock band Guns N Roses from back in the day, their first most popular album was called Appetite for Destruction. And those three words really greatly describe what an addict is craving. They are craving destruction. Addicts crave. The addict mind craves chaos, not harmony. And for some reason, it's very difficult for people to comprehend that. For instance, you know, if someone's not a smoker and hates smoking. As an example, my father died from lung cancer and he smoked most of his life. And people. And so I hate cigarettes. I can't stand cigarettes. I don't like the smell of them.

But.

But when I was a drug addict, I used to smoke cigarettes and I used to smoke cocaine. I used to free base cocaine, I used to snort crystal meth, I used to take speed, I would take lsd. I would get high and smoke pot. I mean, like, you Know, I drink constantly. I mean, when it was just like, constant consumption, it. And it would be real easy to say, well, that person's an idiot. And you could argue, well, you know. But I'll tell you, when I was in those moments, it was way more powerful than my ability to control that. And what I was really trying to do was just numb myself because I was in pain, I was depressed, I felt anxious, I felt fearful. And so if someone is depressed or having anxiety or incredibly lonely or fearful or just wants to jump out of their skin or is hating life, there's nothing wrong with wanting that pain to go away. If you just itch, there's nothing wrong with wanting the itching to stop. The challenge is the mechanisms we choose to scratch the itch. And so what happens with addiction is that people are trying to numb themselves, but the way that they're going about trying to escape it is actually making it worse. So when I say I want to change the global conversation about how people view addicts, the question well, how are you going to do that? Well, part of it is, quit looking at these individuals as moral degenerates. These are people that are traumatized and the things that they're doing, totally. I mean, if you look at people in jail like, you cannot punish pain out of people. And we're putting these people in cages. Now, granted, addicts in their worst states lie. They cheat, they steal. They can do harm. They can drink and drive and kill people. They can rob stores. I mean, they can do awful things. However, most addicts aren't doing those things. Most addicts are, like, just hurt individuals, and they're trying to escape this mental pain and anguish. And so the way that I am thinking about addiction right now, and by the way, everything that I'm saying, I am a student just as much as, you know, I'm an addict that's out searching for solutions, talking to some of the best people in the world. Because of who I am, I have an opportunity to use my business contacts and what I do in the world to actually get into places that many people cannot. So I'm really seeking this out. But I'm also a beginner's mind. I try, like, I'm always open to have my paradigm shifted. I'm always open to see, say, what don't I know? And unlearning is more important than learning. So as I'm on this journey, I'm looking at addiction as a solution, which sounds crazy to some people, but I start thinking, okay, if the world is flat and you think the world is flat, you're going to interact with the world as a flat world. But once you learn the world is round, that changes everything about how you look at the world. Well, if you think addicts or moral degenerates and they're losers and they should be thrown in prison, then who's going to treat these people? The criminal justice system, Judges, wardens, you know, police officers. And these people are not equipped, nor are they trained to treat people like that are addicts, like, in a compassionate way. They need to get them off the street, they need to throw them in jail, they need to process them, lock them up. And most people that are in like 80 to 90% of crimes that are committed, people were under the influence, for one. And most of those crimes are not violent crimes. A lot of these people that are in jail, possession, things like that. And the reality is, people, that, again, you cannot punish the pain out of people and you can't incarcerate them. And Gabor Mate said, if you wanted to create the perfect system that kept people as addicts, you would develop the exact PRISM system that we have in the United States.

And the idea of the connection, the lack of connection, in my opinion, one of the most fundamental human needs, maybe the most fundamental human need that we all have. I don't care who you are, we all have it. Is the need for connection. What does it feel like to be disconnected? Living hell, in a sense. And so if people are acting out with addictive behaviors, with addictive chemicals, because it's a symptom of them being disconnected, then when you look at, well, our system, the way it's set up, the prison system, none of that is offering connection.

Oh, no.

Connections that, you know, a matter of the heart. Not like, okay, there's a cement cage to connect to. Like, no. So I'm curious when. Because I love where you're going with this. I think insanity doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result. I think we as a society, we have so many systems set up to treat the symptoms of addiction, and. And I think we've proven about 12,000 times in a row it doesn't work. It might temporarily patch things. It might keep people out of harm's way temporarily. But to get to the heart of the matter, I daresay we have to go to the heart. So when we look at the disconnection that is maybe the deepest form of human suffering with addicts, where does the disconnection come from?

Well, there's a lot of things. So let Me give some commentary on that too. I want to say one more thing about the solution aspect of it is when I say addiction is a solution, it actually numbs you. If you're in pain, if you're feeling disconnected, you can artificially get high.

You.

Can act out sexually, you can gamble and get an adrenaline surge, you can look at Internet screens and you can get dopamine hits. I mean, there's all kinds of stimulation that will make you feel artificially connected and that will numb the pain. And that is a solution. The problem is this is a solution that will kill you in some cases. So if you can survive addiction, it might get you through some sort of painful moments. The challenge is it actually creates more. But I'll say the connection this way. So like Dr. Bob and Bill W.

They're the ones that are that founded AA Alcoholics.

And in the 1930s, and to this day, there are millions of people that rely on 12 step groups.

Now, if you have never been to.

A 12 step group, or you like or dislike 12 step groups, or whatever perspective you have about it, I want you to know that if 12 step groups just stopped, like tomorrow, and these are worldwide, the world would be a much different place. It would be screwed.

Yes.

We would literally probably go into war. I mean, there are so many people that go to 12 step groups now. Why do they go to 12 step groups? They're trying to connect with other addicts. Right. And hope heals. And so when you are able to walk into a room where you're so broken and so desperate that you have to really say, I need help. These groups are, you know, readily available for free, you know, and they operate through the voluntary contributions of their members. But this is not a sort of like, hey, let's endorse 12 step groups. Although I think they're incredibly valuable, there's many other things that I believe will help with addiction, and 12 steps are just one of them. And so Bill W. And Dr. Bob founded AA in the 30s. And there's a quote from Bill W. Where he said, as alcoholics, we're trying to drink God out of a bottle.

And I always.

And I always even say, you know, even if you're an atheist, if you just think of that statement like, okay, as an alcoholic, we're trying to drink God out of a bottle. I believe however someone wants to define spirituality, and I can make fun of it just as much as, like, I.

Don'T make fun of spirituality.

He was just doing it before.

I'd be offended if that ever happened.

And so, you know, if you think about that, he's like, okay, you know.

We'Re trying to drink God out of a bottle. And addicts are actually the most spiritually potential people, I believe, because they're trying to connect us something. You know, let's get high, let's, you know, I'm trying to drink my way to this, this void I'm feeling. I'm trying to, you know, if you're a sex addict, you're trying to, you know, have sex or look at porn, if you're gambling, you're just trying to connect with that, that feeling something so you can feel exhilarated, so you can feel better.

It's just strongly looking for connection where it's not exactly. It is the desire for connection at some level that drives the reaching to the addiction.

I think most forms of self destruction are looking for love in all the wrong places. But it's seducing, it's tempting, it's exhilarating, believe me. I mean a lot of my, you know, because my addictions have been drugs, alcohol, sex, work, exercise performance, addiction, image management. I mean all of the shit that goes into, you know, living a double life is exhausting. And you know, if you start looking at self destructive behavior and I'm sure everyone that is watching this or listening to this, that is like connected with being a human. They have done things that they wish they would have done differently, that they regret. They, you know, procrastinate. They, you know, can't make their goals happen. They don't do New Year's resolutions. Maybe they've lied, maybe they've cheated, maybe they stole, maybe they've done something wrong that they're horribly ashamed about. Addiction is rooted in isolation. It's rooted in shame, it's rooted in guilt, it's rooted in self loathing isolation. And so humans have experienced things. Different people respond to different things and have different sensitivity levels. But if you just sit and think about like, did you have loving, wonderful parents that you felt really connected with? If you did, then you're, you probably feel more connected as a human. But if you have a parent die, if you were molested. My mother died when I was 4 years old. My father never remarried. He was a totally broken person. He didn't know how to cope with it. I don't remember many aspects of my childhood that were very happy now given the circumstances, even when people do awful shit. I believe most human beings, when I'm thinking from my higher, higher self, whatever that higher self is, and a lot.

Of times I'm not.

I believe most people, even when they're doing crazy shit, are doing the best they know how to do given the circumstances. And so my father, you know, tried to do the best he could do, but he was a really broken person. So therefore he didn't know quite how to instill a lot of confidence, a lot of self esteem, a lot of love. I was molested as a kid. I used to get paid money to not say anything about it. And it wired in my mind that sex is not an intimate act of love and oneness. It's something that you do just to get off. So I was never able to feel comfortable with sexuality. I was never able to feel comfortable with connection. And it's funny because now I'm known as this connector in business because I connect, you know, all kinds of, you know, great people off the charts.

And if a. You said so much and I want you to keep going.

No, no, please interrupt me at any point in time if there's, you know.

I already interrupted you.

He just did that.

Did you see that?

Yeah.

And I love your vulnerability. So your mother died when you were four. If that's not disconnection with a capital D, I don't know what would be. Your father couldn't cope with the loss of his wife. He became psychologically unavailable. That's disconnection with a capital D. And then you got a form of connection. Now granted, none of us would say this was a great form of connection. It was shitty connection, but it was connection. You were molested.

Yeah, I was molested.

That was a sexual experience that you learned to associate. Ah, sexual stimulation equals connection. It especially equals way more connection that I'm getting with mom who's passed away. Way more connection that I'm getting with dad, who's maybe there physically but not there really psychologically. So that made an impression on you. You were a little boy who became desperate for connection and life gave you an example, albeit really a crappy example from our standards today. But it gave you an example of what connection was and you ran with it.

Yeah, and what I did is there's not a day that's gone by in my adult life where I've not thought about that in the rumination, the preoccupation. And for years I had so much of my self worth tied into this shameful, violated piece of shit that I felt like after that happened because. And it didn't happen once, it happened multiple times. And I didn't know how to interpret it because I was between the ages of 8 and 10 years old. And, you know, and so part of it is like, it didn't make any sense. And I used to minimize it, you know, I never told anyone about it. I mean, now I publicly am talking about this shit, you know, like right now. But it took years before I could realize that you're as sick as your secrets. And if you have sickness and you feel shameful and you feel like you can't get ahead, I mean, there's probably something that is interfering with it. Meaning the sun is always there. There just may be clouds. And so my form of clouds were addiction. My form of clouds were hiding it in denial and trying to escape it and any way that I could escape it. And I used to say, oh, but, you know, I don't live in a third world country. I wasn't starving to death, I wasn't thrown in a concentration camp. And I've got people like Gabor Mate that said, you know, how does a four year old, you know, do you know any four year olds? He's like, how does a four year old respond to their mother dying? I mean, you're four, how would you. And I'd be like, you know, he's like, abandonment, you know. You know, how would you. And so you were right, though. Like, it is a form of connection. And what I've learned, part of the goal is to find the best forms of treatment that have efficacy, where people can go and find community, sharing inspirational videos, talking with addicts, and just putting that stuff out there in the world. Because I want to help connect people, because I never felt that connection growing up. And so I initially found it through doing drugs and escapism. But the way that I defined myself, it took me years to really kind of make any sense about it. And what I would want people to actually think about. Who do you know, in your life that is struggling with addiction if you yourself are struggling with addiction or a behavior that it's kind of like there's a song lyric, I tell myself I will not go even as I drive there. And if you could imagine, I don't want to do this. I don't want to be in this relationship. This person hurts me, this person beats me. This person is abusive, this environment is abusive, but you keep walking through that door. What it did for me is it somehow created this template. So when you take sex addiction, you know, which is. There's an interview I did with Pat Karns years ago. Now people, if they just type in Joe Polish sex addiction into YouTube, you can watch the video. And I'd watch the full length video if you're interested in this. About an hour and 45 minutes long. And we talk about arousal templates. And whenever someone is introduced to sexuality, they have an arousal template. So if you, like you were saying earlier, with connection, if you're introduced into sex by being raped or being molested or in some sort of dangerous way, what's weird is that there in many cases, you can create a trauma bond where you actually bond with the trauma and then you live your life out being, pursuing things that kind of reenact some of the shit that was done to you. So when you see a woman that will be attracted to guys that beat her or are mean, that are abusive, and you look back at, well, what happened in the life, it wasn't always being molested or assaulted. It could have been an alcoholic parent, it could have been some sort of abandonment, it could have been some sort of exposure to a disease. It could have been a horrible car accident. But there was some sort of trauma, you know, and people bond with traumas and then they seek out these sort of things and they're just trying to connect. I mean, it doesn't make sense to a lot of people.

It's not a logical issue, it's an emotional issue.

It's subconscious, don't work logically.

It is really interesting how many people's businesses and what they end up doing for a career has absolutely nothing to do with what they ever thought they would land into. It's like these strategic byproducts and a lot of it comes out of total adversity. And for areas of life that not only don't work, that are totally broken and you're forced to take a path that you would never typically want to go down, and there you are, and then your ability to parlay it into something. So, like, when did you first record a video and put it up and get feedback either from your friends or it just dawned on you and now, you know, you've got literally millions of people that watch you on probably a daily basis, right?

My first serious video because I was still, you know, I was kind of a social media YouTube guy at the time, back in like 2006. And so you stream back then. And so I would just stream regular stuff while I was playing football. I would go on there, but it was very rehabbish, as I would say, you know, like, I was very inconsistent with my lifestyles. And the first, I feel like, rehab time video that I was like committed to it, I remember I was still living in my mom's house. I was living in her guest room. And it was called. I'm trying to think of the name. It wasn't called Faith. I think it was called Faith It Out. I don't remember the title, but I think it was called Faith It Out.

Is it still up or did you take it down?

No, matter of fact, it's not called Faith It Out. It's called Free Yourself. That's what it was. Free Yourself. And I believe it's still up. If you dive back into the YouTube files, it's still there. And I was recording on my imac that I had in there. And back then, I would, like. I mean, I was just trying to be so perfect, like, you know, just trying to make sure everything was right. And so when I look back at those videos, I kind of cringe. But at the same time, like, man, that's where I started at, you know? So that was my first time doing that. And then got to a point where I just started picking up my iPhone and just started speaking from my heart. And I didn't have, like, you know, some. Cause I used to think I have to have this production. I have to have this and that, and those things are awesome and incredible. But I realized I just needed to have my truth, my reality, and just my soul to pick up a phone and inspire people. And so the videos that started to go viral were. You're perfect for the heart that's meant to love you and know your circle. And those videos, like. Cause at first I was getting, like, you know, maybe, I don't know, 100 views. And that was a lot for me and for people out there. If you're impacting 100 people with those views, that is a lot. But to see it now is just incredible. And those videos went viral. And those videos went viral after I officially quit football, literally, like, two months, I was still trying to play arena football. I was still trying to hang on. I let go of that. And I kid you not, Joe, like, two, three months later, those videos took off.

Why do you think that is?

I just think that, you know, just with my faith, I just feel like it was just God speaking to me, saying, you know what? You're trying to hold on to this thing out of fear. And I was. I was fear of financial security. That's how I was getting paid. Fear of my identity, like, who would I be without football? Even though I didn't love it no more. And I think a lot of people, we hold onto things that we that we don't love anymore. We aren't in love with those things anymore. Out of the fear. And so when I let go, it was like, okay, you're taking a step. And now the rope bridge was cut off, too. So I had no. I couldn't go back. You know, I couldn't go back. The rope bridge was cut off. And literally, people thought I was crazy. I mean, my friends thought I was crazy. My mom and my dad kind of thought. They didn't say it, but I know they were like, are you sure? Because I had a family to provide for. And I was like, I don't know how I'm gonna do it. I don't know what's gonna happen. But I know this is the purpose for my life, because when I was on that stage, I'm not gonna go through that whole story, but when I was on the stage speaking to 3,000 kids, my very first big speaking engagement, I didn't want to do it. I was nervous. And on that stage is where I found myself, because I prepared. The whole night before I prepared this long layout. I knew it. Like, I always feel like a rap verse. But as soon as I stepped on stage, I went blank. And at that point, I was like, I can either sink or I can swim. And I said, God, use me. So a lot of people ask, like, where do you get your speaking from the heart style and just your passion? It was in that moment because I had nothing to lean on except my story and myself. And, you know, with kids, you can't fool kids. They'll let you know, like, quick, you know? And at that moment is when I realized, like, man, I still had confidence in the midst of fear. I still had power in the midst of my weakness at that moment. So I said, this has to be what I was created to do with my life. And at that moment is when I made those calls and called my coach, told them I'm not coming, called my friends, called my parents, and that's when rehab time really started. Wow. Wow.

So let me. Let me ask you about.

Because you.

You weave a lot of God into your videos, and I always tend to try to bring it up because I sit and think of who are the listeners here that are atheists, that don't resonate at all with God. And, you know, my background, I was. My mother was a former nun. She actually left the convent because she had gotten ill and met my father in church, and they ended up getting married. And I was raised Catholic, and my experience with it was very negative. And Even to the point where this whole notion of God with all of the being molested as a kid, my mother dying, lots of abuse, lots of things that happened. It wasn't until later in adult life where I realized I have a real issue with this whole God thing. And even though I spent thousands of hours of my life praying and going to church every day when I went to Catholic school, you know, I just could not feel this connection with this source. And so to this day, you know, I always am a little suspect when someone is so hardcore about what they think God is, because, you know, there's many different perceptions of that. The real question is to not go into trying to describe God because, you know you're going to have a million different versions. It's more about faith. And so what does God mean to you and where does this faith come from? Because I think a lot of times people have a real, you know, your messages. I don't care what anyone, you know, if they're religious, spiritual atheists, there's so much good in what it is that you share. And what I don't want to do is have someone either cut themselves off because they're like, oh, they hear this charged word, which is very positive for some people and extremely negative for others. So I'd love to get your perspective.

On that, for sure. And I always tell people, like you said, I mean, people who follow me, I've had, you know, Muslims, atheists and everything. And I think they look at the message and take what they need and leave what they don't. And they respect my beliefs. You know, that's what I'm always a respecter of people's beliefs and only can speak about just in my life. Of course, I was raised around it. My dad's a pastor, my grandmother, all those things. But it wasn't until two situations happened in my life that really made me draw me closer to God. One was when I was six, seven years old. I had a real bad asthma condition. Of course, it's a lot better now with more knowledge I have. But living in New Orleans with that humidity, I mean, I'd take breathing treatments every night. It was bad. It got to a point where I was coughing so bad that my blood vessels turned white. I mean, my white around my eyes turned. My blood vessels popped, so all the white was red, right? And so I would go to school, and that's the first time I get bullied. Second grade, they're calling me like, devil boy, all these things. And I was sick, and my mom, you know, My mother didn't know. The doctor gave us a suppressing cough medicine, which made it worse. And my mother said, you know, something. Told her God, you know, for her, told her, you know, through a friend, like, hey, take that baby to the hospital. Like, literally on the way to the hospital, I get there, I get in the er, and I still remember, like, it was yesterday. They put me down, and my mom leaves the room, and there's this one guy across the table. His son had just got shot. And I stopped breathing, you know, stopped breathing. Gone pretty much. And the only thing I remember is them bringing me back. But the guy was watching me, went and told my mom, and they brought me back, whatever. Like that at that moment is when I felt, like, just my connection with God. Honestly, just in that moment, I felt him. It's kind of hard to explain. I couldn't put into words, but I felt them in that moment. And another moment was, of course, just me hitting my rock bottom and just me giving me this purpose. Like, you know, it's so hard for me to explain, like, rehab time and how everything is going on and things like that. But only that I can say is I just know it's the call that God has for my life. When I speak, I feel like he's flowing through me and all of these things. I mean, I think I'm an intelligent person, but I don't think I'm as incredible as people may put it on me. I think it's just the incredible God that I serve, you know, so that's what. What God is for me. Like, this is my experiences through life. And when I look back, my faith isn't built upon, like, what could happen in the future. My faith is built upon what has happened in my life. And so every time I look back, and people can call it coincidence that they believe that or whatever it may be, but every time I look back in my life, everything added up to this moment. I had to go through the NFL. I learned so many things to put me in this moment. Friendships that. It's just so hard to explain. Even how we met, you know, everything had to happen to get to this moment. Every time I look back, you know, my faith just gets stronger and stronger from that. And so that's what faith means to me, honestly.

Yeah, well, and I think to be void of faith in any particular area, not that you can't get through it, just. It's a heck of a lot more painful. And what's interesting, too, is because of so much time that I have spent in recovery. And with people that there are, I see some people that just not only don't believe in God, they hate the notion of it, and they hate people that even have that belief and so part of it. And there's so many people that are quote unquote religious that, you know, let's take Jesus. Even though you can look at God as many, many different sources, where they seem to be the antithesis of what his message appears to be, which is totally non accepting. And so I think part of it is just accepting others and accepting yourself without having to be like, oh, I'm going to invalidate that person because of that. Because it's real easy to point fingers at any part of a person or what they do that you don't like. And if you want the world to change, good luck with trying to change the world. You got to change the way you look at the world, the way you experience the world.

And so I even think too, I mean, just to like, I mean, love. I mean, I think love is of course the universal language. And that's something I try to get people. And it's funny you said that because. And it's true, you know, even when it comes to Christians, and I say this all the time, is that, you know, we could be some of the most judgmental people ever. Like, even with myself, like, you go to my page, it's like, Trent, you know, you have. I have one lady tell me I don't dress Christian enough. You know, I'm like, what is that? You know, so I wear sandals, you know, so I see so much judgmental stuff and I think keeps people away. But I always say this to just, to, you know, believers that I talk to, I say, you know, don't let the imperfections of man keep you from the perfection of God. Yeah. You know, and I think you have to understand that. And we blame, even me, I blame God for my situation so much. I blame God for this, I blame God for that. But I was never taking the responsibility. I mean, we live in an evil world with people who do certain things, you know, and we have to take the responsibility also.

So I remember when we were doing yoga at my house a few months ago, and someone out of the blue just starts saying, yoga is like some. And it's like, we're doing a yoga class, you know, with my friends.

I get that too.

Yeah.

I'm just like, honestly, that's my best connection with God. Everything is what you make it. I feel like personally, you know, whether whatever opinion, whatever everybody has Opinion. People tell you that some water is bad for you. I'm just like, what? So, you know, everything is bad, you know, so you just have to take your experiences for yourself. And I think as long as you operate in love, man, I think it works out awesome.

What's the mission currently behind rehab?

Time. Just to renew every heart and body. You know, I want to give people worth. That's my thing. I mean, know your worth tour. But I want people to understand that they have worth. I mean, that's my message. Regardless of what's going on outside of you, I want you to know that you're an incredible person. Don't let what's going on outside of you define what's inside of you. So that's my mission, man. Just to get people to understand their worth. Yeah. Great.

What are some of the most valuable life lessons that you've learned?

Oh, man. I think one is facing your reality. I can share this. The three R's. You know, facing your reality is one. And I always say, you know, you'll never win your award by running from your battles. I talked about it at the tour, and I think so many times we run away because of fear, whatever it may be. But when you step and face whatever it is, that battle or that whatever that fear, you overcome it. You realize you gain a strength that you never knew you had. You know? So I think a lot of people, a lot of times we need to face our reality, whatever that is. You don't have to become your reality in that sense, but you have to face it, you know, and you can grow from that. I think another lesson was release. You know, whether it's friendships, and I don't always promote that, but release the toxic things from your life. You know, people say don't burn bridges. I definitely agree, but I feel like there are certain bridges you need to burn, you know, that you can't afford to go back to. So releasing things from your life, it taught me that I had to change my environment. As I always say, you know, you don't blame a flower when it doesn't blossom or bloom. What do you do? You fix the environment. So sometimes it's not always you, you know, sometimes it is what's around you, and so I have to change that. And last is just repairing your life, whatever that means to you, whether it's, you know, seminars, whether it's mentorship, whether it's digging up the bad seeds that's been in your life since you were born that was given unto you, and digging up those things and replacing those things with seeds of faith and seeds of power. So I go through that pretty much every single day. I think that's what my struggle has taught me, and that's what I try to teach other people.

Okay.

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