Why "Respectable" Addictions Are Quietly Sabotaging Your Life Feat. Gabor Maté

We had talked about respectable addictions versus drugs in which we stigmatize, and you had some really interesting insights, and I think a lot of people in the room could relate to that when you were talking about that.

Yeah, so, well, again, I mentioned that, so that my, both my addictions, the work was very respectable. It got me nothing but praise and income, and it, created deep problems in my family, you know. And then my shopping addiction. Well, he's a lover of classical music. Isn't that wonderful? You know. But some of the respectable addictions, and I say this somewhat hesitatingly, but I'll say it anyway in front of a business audience, had to do with profit and power, where for some people nothing is ever enough. And it's not, and it's not because they're bad people, but because they're trying to stuff a hole inside themselves. And then that can cause serious damage in the world, such as we're seeing with the environment and climate change and other pollution and other issues. You know, so these, these, or an addiction to power. Like, I'm just reading a biography of Napoleon, and Napoleon was a genius. He really, like, you know, when you talk about genius, that was a genius for you in so many ways.

But he was also totally addicted to power.

And even in exile, he said, I love power, and he called Paris his mistress. Well, a lot of people died because of addiction to power. And yet, you know, he's a hero, he's respected, whereas the substance addict who shoots up heroin in the back alley is ostracized and discarded from society. So yeah, there's the respectable addictions, and then there's these arbitrarily chosen addicts on whom we project all our disdain and our all our self-judgment basically, the stuff we don't like about themselves, we project it onto these other people.

When I started talking about addiction in the Genius Network meetings, some people loved it, other people were like, "What the hell is all this? I didn't come join Genius Network so I can hear you talk about addictions." And this one guy literally dropped out of the group because he didn't like me talking about addiction. And then he came, he contacted me a few months later and he's like, "I'm going to be in Phoenix. Can we have lunch?" And we get together for lunch and then he's like, I am so sorry, my daughter is a heroin addict. I'm a workaholic. It just was too close to home. And he's like, I gave him some suggestions and it got her into treatment and now she's doing much better. But I just want to plant a seed today. That's why I brought Gab Bour here. I want to plant a seed. Some of you totally are in this conversation.

Others are like, It's getting worse.

The world is, I mean, you just look at the opiate addiction. We need voices, we need people of influence that could share something that is helpful because you cannot punish pain out of people in the criminal justice system. And you said in one of your talks that if you wanted to create the perfect system that would keep people addicted, you would create the exact prison system that we have in the United States. And it's true.

It's very simple. I mean, if you look at your own addictions, those of you— and most of you raised your hand— and when you gave it up for a while and then you relapsed, what usually happened that caused the relapse? Usually something stressful happened. So it was your way of dealing with stress. So it follows that the more you stress people, the more you entrench them in their addictions. So create a system that ostracizes and punishes and torments people, and exiles them from society, you're just making sure that they're going to stay addicted.

That's all.

So what didn't I ask you that I should have, if anything?

Because I could go on for a long time, but we're on the clock. But there's so many different areas.

Hmm.

Well, I don't know that there's much that you didn't ask me that you should have. What I was really hoping to do here in conversation with you is just to get across just how human this phenomenon of addiction is. And if we approach it with understanding and curiosity, about the person who's experiencing it, or in our own case, real compassionate curiosity for ourselves, then we can actually deal with the problem.

Yeah.

One thing I'll mention is— oh yeah, I'll say one thing. Yeah, I want to distinguish two kinds of trauma. So there's overt trauma, then there's what we call developmental trauma. And we have two very great examples of it in the United States. So what does trauma do? It separates us from ourselves. We lose ourselves, like we said. It also gives us a very negative view of the world. So if we have a negative view of the world, then we act accordingly. We are defensive and we're grandiose and we're aggressive. So There's a man who said that the world is a horrible place. Now I'm not commenting on anybody's politics here. I'm talking pure psychology, okay? I'm not talking about policy, foreign or domestic. I'm talking about mind states. Please understand that. So however you voted in this last election, don't take offense, please. But the man who said that the world is a horrible place is the President of the United States. That's the world he lives in. And why does he live in that world? Because he grew up in a family that taught him that. His father was a domineering, um, rageaholic, um, tyrant who demeaned his children. His brother drank himself to death. And this man develops all these issues like attention problems, and grandiosity, and psychiatrists have diagnosed him with narcissism and all this kind of stuff, which are not faults, they are the outcomes of trauma. So there's that overt trauma, and we live in such a traumatized society that these people actually rise to the top. But his opponent was even more interesting. I don't know if you saw the Democratic National Convention. And when Hillary won the nomination, there was a video narrated about her life by God himself, Morgan Freeman. How many of you saw that video about her life? Now, there was something very interesting in that video that I saw no comments on whatsoever. This anecdote comes from Hillary, and what happens is that and it's presented as an example of wonderful character-building, strength-building parenting. What happens is that the 4-year-old Hillary runs into her home to her mother, afraid because neighborhood kids are bullying her, threatening her. And the mother says, "There is no room for cowards in this house. Now you get out there and you deal with it." And this is presented as, "This made me tough and this made me a fighter and this is character-building." Now, the actual message to the child is not that there's no room for cards in this house, because the 4-year-old or 5-year-old who runs to mom is only doing what any mammal will do, any young mammal will do when they're threatened, is they'll go to their protective figures. It's not cowardice, it's just natural attachment. The message is, there's no room for your vulnerability in this house. You have to be tough, you have to suck it up. Now jump 65 years ahead and the presidential campaign, and there's a famous scene where Trump is looming all over, hovering all over Hillary, and she doesn't say a thing. She's just sucking it up. And then she develops pneumonia. Remember during the campaign she had pneumonia? How did the world find out that she had pneumonia? Because she collapsed and her security people had to pick her up. But she didn't tell anybody about it. She didn't talk about it because she learned at an early age to suck it up and that she mustn't be vulnerable. So what I'm saying— and that's what's called developmental trauma, where not when something bad happens to you, but when the good things that should happen don't happen. And the good thing that didn't happen is the mother should have scooped her up and said, "Oh boy, you're really scared, aren't you?" That's what didn't happen. And so what I'm saying is that overt trauma— and there's lots of studies on how overt trauma— if those of you are not familiar with the Adverse Childhood Experiences studies, the ACE studies, where they looked at 17,000 Californians, most half of them university graduates, and the more adversity there was in their childhood, meaning physical, sexual, or emotional abuse, death of a parent, a divorce, a parent being addicted, a parent being mentally ill, violence in the family, neglect, a parent being jailed. For each of these adverse experiences, the risk of addiction goes up exponentially. And you can download your ACE score just by going to the internet. It'll give you a lot of insight about yourself. But there's that other kind of trauma, which is the developmental trauma, which doesn't happen because bad things happen to you, but just because you weren't held. In the way it needed to be held. So that's the final thing I wanted to tell you.

Great, thank you. And for people to read your books, watch your videos, I mean, I'm gonna put a lot of Gabor's work on GeniusRecovery.com, which is the educational platform we're creating, and we'll have him featured in the documentary, the stuff we're doing with Artists for Addicts. Your books, you know, When the Body Says No, In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, Scattered, I know you have a new book coming out.

In my head, yes.

In your head?

Yeah.

Hey, it's all in our head, right?

It's all in my head.

So how do people find more about you?

Well, my website is www.drgabormaté.com.

Dr.?

Dr., yeah.

Dr. Gabor.

It's also, you can just Google me on YouTube. A lot of my lectures are on there. They're free. So both of it, my website and on YouTube.

Great.

Let's talk about, I guess, compulsive work.

Sure.

How does one address it?

Joe Polish: Sure. Well, again, if you address everything from the point of view of what can it teach me and how can I be compassionate about looking at it, the answers will emerge. So, you know, like you, I was a workaholic doctor. Now, the more I was a workaholic doctor, the more the world rewarded me. The more money I made, the more respect I had. So it's like you say, it's a respectable addiction. What was the downside? I was disconnected from myself. I wasn't available for my children as they were growing up emotionally because the work was— I was identified with the work. And of course my marriage suffered. And it was hard to recognize that because the work is so rewarding and it turns you on. You get this dopamine hit from working. What was it all about? Well, when your mother gives you to a stranger, When you're 11 months old, what conclusion you gonna come to? That you're not wanted. You can't come to any other conclusion. That's the wound. Not that they give me to a stranger, but that I conclude that I'm not wanted. Now, if you're not wanted, if you don't think you're important just for existing, as I said many times before, you know what you do? You go to medical school. Now they're going to want you all the time. When they're being born, when they're dying, and every minute in between, when they're in trouble, they're going to call you. And every time they call you, it feels so great, you're so important. But it never fulfills it, or it never fills the inner emptiness, does it? It's a temporary hit, like with any other addiction. Because something in you says, whether you're aware of it or not, Would they still want me if I was giving all the time? So you have to keep proving to yourself. So that hole never gets filled, you have to keep doing it, and so it's completely addictive. Now, the work that you guys do, there's probably two levels to it, if I can make a broad generalization. One is you're really turned on by some project, by some idea that you have that you want to realize in the world, that you want to give to the world, through which you want to express some aspects of your genuine being. Like for medicine, I really was interested in helping and healing people. That's perfectly good and legitimate. But then there's another underside to it, which is where I have to prove my importance, I have to validate my existence, I have to justify the very fact that I'm here on Earth, and I have to keep proving to myself just how good I can be, 'cause I don't believe that I'm good. That's the part that creates the workaholism. Not the first part. You can do the work without identifying with it. Now, identification means this. It comes from the Latin word idem, which means the same, and facere, to make. So when you make yourself the same as your work, when your identity is bound up with your work, now you're lost in your work. On the other hand, if you know who you are, or find out who you are, and then you choose to do the work, 'cause that's your calling and it's what turns you on, it's what allows you to express your creativity, then that's great, then now you're no longer a workaholic, you're just somebody who does great work. So the distinction again is the inner relationship to it and whether or not you identify with it. And if you identify with it, it's always some attempt to salve without healing some childhood trauma.

Yeah, that's great.

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 joesfreebook.com and you can get a copy there.

So my friend and Genius Network member Sam Karashi, who did a great—

Yeah, yeah. He's awesome.

He's very— He actually—

I talked with him because he's gone pretty deep into your book, and I was just looking at things that would be the most valuable for this audience.

Yeah, we just did an Instagram together, Sam and I.

Yeah, he's great, and he'll watch this, of course.

He's in—

where's he at right now? Saudi Arabia.

So this is the question: for a speaker on stage, a leader of a team, or a parent, when would vulnerability compromise credibility?

Never.

You know, I often talk about my addiction, and I wonder—

you know, I talk about sex addiction.

Does it—

the answer is never. Because vulnerability, again, it comes from a Latin word, vulnerare, to wound. Here's the reality, people. As human beings, we're all profoundly vulnerable, from conception until death. There's nothing you can do not to be vulnerable. There's things you can do to protect yourself from the awareness of vulnerability, and one of the impacts of trauma is we try to cover up our vulnerability.

Mm-hmm.

You know, hardened criminals, you know why they become hardened? Because they suffered so much, they try to protect themselves from their vulnerability. If you go into the prisons, and if you deal with some of the most, um, lifers, people who've done terrible things, if you get to know them, if they open up, this may sound strange to a lot of people, But they're some of the most sweetest, most sensitive people in the world. They had to harden up under conditions that were intolerable when they were growing up. So, um, in terms of when is vulnerable— vulnerability a negative— no, vulnerability is just owning that we're all people. And that there's nothing unique about me in my woundedness or unique about you in your woundedness. We all share that. And I'm pretty sure you get the same response as I get whenever we share something of our own struggle or something of our own vulnerability. People so appreciate it.

Yeah.

Because now they don't feel alone. The one of the— let me tell you guys a story and see what you think about it. I want you to imagine a 4— this is a real story. A 4-year-old girl who's being bullied by kids in the neighborhood, and she runs into her family home, and she runs to her mother for protection, and the mother says, "There's no room for cowards in this house." "There's no room for cowards in this house. No, you get out there and deal with it." Any of you parents here? Are you parents, some of you here? How would you feel about saying that to a 4-year-old girl? The message is, Not that there's no room for cowards, because a 4-year-old girl seeking protection from the mother is not a coward. She's a 4-year-old girl going to the natural source of support. Imagine a mother bear or a mother gorilla ignoring the distress of their young one, of their vulnerable young one, and forcing it away from her presence. Now this story was told on American television at the 2016 Democratic Convention when Hillary Clinton was nominated for the presidency. And this story was told as a wonderful example of resilience-building parenting. The message to the child wasn't— and I'm not talking politics here, I'm talking about how so many of our political leaders are wounded people. And the message was told as a wonderful example of, you know, toughening up a kid. 60 years later, if you recall, the candidate became ill with pneumonia and dehydrated. Do you remember what she did with it? Nothing. She didn't tell anybody. She collapsed in the street, and her servicemen, the Secret Servicemen, had to carry her into the van. Because the message she got was, "You gotta suck it up, you're on your own. There's no room for vulnerability here." So this is a culture that actually celebrates trauma. And millions of people watched that. There was not a single commentary in the media about what was being celebrated here, is the traumatization of a vulnerable 4-year-old. So I'm saying on the opposite side, let's not be tough. Let's be vulnerable.

You said it's a brain disease, and I mean, I've done a lot of reading on addiction. I go to conferences. I mean, I'm very much an addictive thinker.

You're one of the biggest conference-goers I know.

Yeah, well, a lot of things. And I'm fascinated with the whole subject of addiction because I believe mental illness in the worst possible states will manifest itself as an addiction. And from a layman's standpoint, meaning To me, I interpret it as something where willpower, choice, all of those things have—

Doesn't matter.

Okay, and I want to ask you about that. There's behavioral addictions such as sex, which we're going to talk heavily about today, gambling, you know, eating, internet, and then there's chemical addictions, alcohol, drugs, things that are consumed.

Sure.

Is there a difference between a chemical addiction versus a behavioral addiction other than the way that it's acted out?

Well, what's important is that that everybody understand it taps into the same parts of the brain. So it's the same reward centers, uses the same chemicals like dopamine, for example. If you have a good meal, it raises your dopamine 50%. If you have sex, it raises it 100%. If you drink alcohol, it raises it 100%. Take methamphetamines, raises it 1,100%. So sometimes some things are too good. The brain can't— you can't be a recreational user of meth and not have a problem, see. And there are other things like that. So the first thing that you need to understand is it taps into the same parts of the brain. What makes it different, and especially with food and sex, they are different than everything, which is why many of my patients will say, heroin addicts, cocaine addicts will say, by far sex was much more difficult than their cocaine or their heroin. And part of the reason is, first of all, the brain will categorize anything sexual, both men and women, 20% faster than anything else. We are wired to be sexual because it's about survival. Food is about survival. Food and sex are also sensate. In other words, um, we are the only country in the world that has a dessert cart. Interesting. Yeah, and the reason we do is because the presentation and the smell is part of how you sell the food. And the food industry has been very effective at marketing and building ways in which it gets people to buy food that's not good for people. So, the senses are very important, and so a cocaine addict doesn't care how his cocaine is packaged. Just wants the cocaine. But food and sex presentation can mean a lot in terms of what does that mean to the person, how that person looks. Just think of words, Joe Polish, that you can think of right now that would apply to both food and sex.

Hunger.

Delicious.

Yeah.

Beautiful.

Yeah, exactly.

Erotic.

Yeah.

So you have—

See how my brain just works like this, Pat? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But the point is, is that they're regarded as two of the toughest addictions because of how they're wired. And then they are intimately connected also with historically issues around trauma, sexual abuse. Many people who are overweight have been sexually abused. It's a way to defend themselves sexually. Sex addicts have been abused sexually. Fear is a big factor in all addictions. Every addiction has what we call a stress factor. You really can't have an addiction without stress because of what it does to the brain.

What is your perspective on addiction and recovery, and how can we best help families, you know, heal and recover, since you know that's one of my main areas of focus?

I think addiction's a really tough problem.

Very.

First of all, I think it's universal. I think all of us are addicted in one way or another to one thing or another. The only reason we don't see that is that some addictions are socially acceptable.

Workaholism.

Workaholism, addiction to shopping, addiction to power, addiction to thinking, which is very prominent in intellectual circles. I mean, there's all sorts of things.

What—

how to deal with addictions, I think it's really tough. I mean, one strategy is to shift addictive behavior to things that are less harmful rather than more harmful. You know, it's better to be addicted to running than to cigarette smoking, for example, but it's still an addiction. To try to get to the root of addictive behavior, I think that's really tough. I think that's, you know, I think the people that have it right are Buddhist psychologists who say that the root of addictive behavior is attachment. It's the illusion that satisfaction and completeness come from something external to you. And until you can practice realizing that you are complete as is, it's hard for you to be free. I think the most encouraging thing that I see about addiction is that— and this is true of everything I looked at, whether it's cigarettes or heroin— if people progress, I mean, just go through life enough and don't, you know, get snuffed out in one way or another, one day their motivation to drop it becomes— reaches a point at which it's easy. You know, you see people that have tried to quit smoking again and again, and they talk about what a struggle it is and how hard, and they go back to it. And one day a person wakes up, and it may be looking at stained fingers or looking at a dirty ashtray, and suddenly they don't want to do it anymore. And that time it's easy. The problem is you can't put motivation into another person, and that's the frustration of, you know, addiction treatment. All you can do is arrange circumstances and encourage people to try and keep trying, and one day the reservoir of motivation is full enough that it becomes easy.

Yeah, well, you know, this— now this will always sound kind of weird when I bring up addiction stuff, but you are very knowledgeable in the area of shifting consciousness. And so, you know, I believe that addiction is a solution. It's not a very good solution, it could kill you. And I also believe that I'd like to see policy change because you can't punish the pain out of people. Right now we have, you know, the criminal justice system treating addiction, and we need a more compassionate approach. And there's ways to really shift consciousness. And so I wanna ask you about plant medicines and psychedelics, 'cause I see MDMA coming down the pike, psilocybin. You have lots of experience with, you wrote a book called "The Natural Mind" in 1971.

My first book, yeah.

A revolutionary approach to the drug problem. And you thought this would totally shift, but what happened is this war on drugs happened. And, uh, I mean, I'd love to have you— I know this is not an easy question, but what, what is consciousness? I mean, and, and looking at altering it and shifting it in ways so you, you live in the world in a better, happier, more connected space, because I think the opposite of addiction is connection.

And there's—

and so anything you can speak to that?

Well, it's a big subject. Yeah, it is.

I know, I know.

I would say, you know, the, the argument that I get into with scientific materialists is over the nature of consciousness. They think that consciousness is a product of brain biochemistry or electrical activity in the brain. I think that consciousness is primary and that I think consciousness organizes matter into more and more complex forms. There's no way of proving one or the other. It's just a different worldview, but I find that my worldview makes things much more interesting. And, you know, my experiences also are that by changing consciousness consciousness, by changing what's in your head, you can change the external world. And I have seen that again and again. You know, just as a mundane example, I've for a long time lived with dogs, and I've always had Rhodesian Ridgebacks. And I had a male— I lived out in— I had a property that bordered on Saguaro National Park, east of— southeast of Tucson. And I had one big male who all he wanted to do was crawl in your lap and snuggle. And I came home one day and found he had backed a worker, you know, someone who's working on the landscape, against the wall. The guy was brandishing a rake, and the dog's hackles were up, snarling. There was no way to convince this guy that it was his emotions that were producing this behavior in the dog. There was no way to convince him that this was not a vicious attack dog that I had there. And I see this kind of thing all the time, you know, in interactions with people, interactions with all sorts of things. I've also seen, I'll just tell you a few, I've told these stories before, but some of the potentials that I see in psychedelics. I had, this goes way back in my early exploratory days, I must have been about 28, I suppose. I had a lifelong allergy to cats. If a cat licked me, if a cat came near me, my eyes would itch. If it licked me, I'd get hives. So I never let cats near me. And one day I took, LSD with a group of friends outdoors. It was a beautiful day. I just— it was just fantastic. Everything was wonderful. In the midst of this, a cat jumped into my lap, and my immediate reaction was sort of this. And then I thought, this is really silly, you know? And I relaxed and I petted the cat, had no allergic reaction. I've never had one since. So instant disappearance of a lifelong allergy.

Yeah.

Tell you what, around the same time, even more— not even I, first of all, I'd love to open Dr. Weil's allergy clinic, uh, you know, maybe 10 sessions spaced a week apart. And the first one you get a full dose of whatever, and then a kaleidoscope on your face, and then the dose reduces, and at some point you're taking a placebo and you don't know when that happens. You can— allergies are learned responses, you can unlearn them. So this one's a little trickier to explain. I also had I grew up being told that I could never get tan. I had fair skin, and my experience was when I was out in the sun, I would burn. I spent, we used to go down to the Jersey Shore, and this is in the days before sunscreen. Probably the things we put on us magnified the effect of the sun. But anyway, sheets of skin peeling off, bright red, horrible pain, and then I'd be as fair as ever. So I just took this that no, I couldn't get tan. So also around this time, also with LSD on a beautiful day. I was living in rural Virginia. I was running around with no clothes on, and I was lying in the grass and looking up at the sun, and I thought, this is also really silly. And I just sort of relaxed and, you know, exposed myself to the sun. The next day I got tan, and I have ever since. Now, that's a little trickier to explain. I mean, that has something—

because the question is, what the hell's going on?

Well, what's going on, probably, you know, your pigmentation is controlled by cells called melanocytes, which are close to neurons, and they are involved with the immune system. So again, this has to be a mind-mediated effect that changes the way that those cells behave. But I think that, that's just hints at the kind of potential that's there. Uh, and same with the back pain stuff, that there are ways that you can change, you know, external reality and physical reality by changing things in your head.

Oh, my, my belief, because of all the pain I used to, to have in having spent a lot of time in the addiction recovery world with my own recovery is I see addicts have a tremendous amount of back pain, knee pain, neck pain, shoulder pain, migraine headaches, skin problems, digestive issues. And I think the same things that manifest themselves as addictions in destructive ways are the same mechanism that manifests in pain. And I don't, I don't hear very many people, if anyone, talking about it and linking the two together. But I think there's a huge thing— sleep problems, all kinds of stuff because I've been, you know.

And have you— do you have any experience with ibogaine or know people that have?

Oh, I'm, I'm the first person in the world to have before and after brain scans and serotonin and dopamine tests of doing ibogaine. I scanned my brain before, went and did it, came back and scanned it again. And I have hours of interviews with one of the top psychiatrists who specializes in using psychedelics and plant medicines, uh, for addiction treatment and PTSD. So yeah, I've—

so this is the African— this is the African psychedelic and little known here and has has a reputation now for treating addictive behavior sometimes very fast. Yeah, it's not available here. There are clinics in Mexico.

That's where I went, right?

Right.

But, you know, you asked at the beginning about what's happening. It is remarkable to me to see this, you know, new interest in psychedelics in our culture and a lot of research. And in the old days, you know, it was a lot of research looking for bad effects, and now there's a lot of researchers trying to document positive effects of psychedelics. Oregon has an initiative coming to legalize psilocybin. Psilocybin. I think the potential for MDMA to treat PTSD, psilocybin for obsessive compulsive disorder and depression. I think these will eventually have these drugs be available for therapeutic use.

Are you friends with Rick Doblin?

Yes, sure.

Yeah, Rick, he is just the guy. I mean, you got to really give him credit for the sheer amount of doors slammed in his face and the amount of resistance, but just wanting to go out there and find ways to help reduce human suffering.

So it's changing now. I mean, when I see characters on mainstream TV series microdosing, something is changing.

Exactly.

So your artist friend, do you know Gabor Maté? You familiar with Gabor Maté? Yeah. So Gabor is a good friend of mine. He lives here in Canada. Yeah. And when I created Artists for Addicts back in 2015, he had written up this whole thing for me about the sensitivity of artists. And, you know, some of the world's— if people walked in Hollywood and saw the Hollywood stars, they would be so— I bet you half the people that have Hollywood stars have struggled with addiction.

Of course.

And many of them have died. And so, you know, you've got the 27 Club where there's 150+ musicians and artists that have died at 27 years old. And it's so interesting because the creators of the world, And I don't just say creators in terms of artists or music, but like the entrepreneurial creators.

Yeah.

There's so much anguish and there's so much mental struggle. And so I think, can it be parlayed into something productive or is it something that just keeps them trapped? And I think, so what are your thoughts on, 'cause I had mentioned before we started recording, you wanna talk about addiction. You're like, sure, let's go there. And I think of addiction as a solution to, to pain. You know, I don't, I don't believe you can punish pain out of people. So if you try to incarcerate someone, which they do, uh, or you, you look at someone as a moral degenerate, like a choice, then it, it just makes it more hidden. People don't want to talk about it because they're going to be publicly shamed. Have you struggled with, uh, addiction in your life?

It's interesting, right? Because it's like when people talk about addiction, people talk about drugs, right? Like they have certain the way they label stuff. But then I sometimes, then I help people take a broader perspective, right? And a lot of people addicted to working hard, right?

Oh, well, you know, there's a book on workaholism and the subtitle is The Respectable Addiction.

So I've been lucky, if you will, that my addictions have been mostly of the type that is less frowned upon by the human society. But the addiction of Being smart and constantly learning new stuff. It's awesome. Addiction. And it also, like, over the years became very clear to me that this is also one of my ways to kind of escape, you know, like, when I'm suffering struggle, then I might be likely to try to read a new book and find a new way of thinking about stuff. And it's funny, right? Because a lot of the times it's also about instead of dealing with stuff, we try to find a way to heal stuff or learn or understand stuff. It's like stuff is right here, but yeah, let's— I don't like that. That's too hard. You know, let me try to— and addiction to working, like, you know, a lot of my life has been— again, it's been generally manageable. Like I worked quite a bit, but then I also had my kids and I'm happy that I spent a fair bit of time with them and all of that. But so I had those things and the light addiction to alcohol and whatnot, and I had there, light addiction to cannabis, if you will, for some time. Those are mostly gone. But again, like for me, this is a, it's a word. What does it really mean? It means that a human being, you know, we all have emotions we're not comfortable with. And then we try to find a tool, a way to manage them, right? And then we find the tool and eventually inevitably we overuse that, right? Like, you know, we work a bit, we work more, work harder. Oh, it's cool. You know, generates dopamine and recognition and results and success and whatnot. But then we keep working more and more and, you know, we stuck in that. Or maybe we drink a little bit and then over the years we keep drinking more and more or whatever other thing we consume. Like coffee is my drug, you know, I like it. You know, I drink a few cups a day and it is a drug.

And what's the most coffee you've ever drank in a day?

Not a lot. Like, I don't know, maybe 4 or 5 cups.

Okay.

I mean, one of the mechanisms that's been programmed into me a long time ago is discipline, right? So that's been a very powerful tool that that's been in me since my childhood. And it's been extremely effective in a lot of things and really messed me up in a lot of things too.

Right.

You know, like the way I think about this is also, here's their range. Like some people are really good at discipline and some people are really good at being sensitive and surrendering.

Right.

And I think that sometimes We have a natural way, kind of, we gravitate toward one or another because of our genetic circumstance and whatnot. And, you know, but I've seen people stuck in one of those for a long time.

You know, that's okay. So where I, where my brain goes with what you just said is that when I was in the peak of struggling with my addiction, the worst stages were when I was 18 years old. I was freebasing cocaine. I was snorting crystal meth. I'd taken LSD probably 75 times before the age of 18. I was taking speed. I was getting high every day, smoking cigarettes, drinking alcohol. I was a mess. And in my worst state, there was one week where I had not eaten for hardly anything for the entire week. And on average, I was weighing 120 pounds. And when you're a male and you're 5'10", that's freaking skinny. And there was one week where I had just eaten hardly anything. I'd just been doing coke all week. I was up. Up just almost nonstop for this whole week. And I weighed myself and I got down to 105 pounds. And I looked like a freaking skeleton. And people were telling me, like, you need help, you need help. And it would just piss me off. And I was oblivious of seeing how messed up I had become. And so obviously I write about this in books that I've written and whatnot, so I won't go into the whole story. The— what ended up happening is I got out of where I was living, I drove to New Mexico on this piece of crap pickup truck and lived in a trailer with my father and got sober. And The first 6 months were just grueling. And then I ended up getting a job selling gym memberships. And for the first time in my life, I started consistently exercising. Then I met someone there and I got a job at a mental hospital and I was a mental health tech and I would drive. One of the things of my job was to 3 times a week to drive the patients there that were adults for drug addiction, alcoholism, to AA meetings, Alcoholics Anonymous, NA meetings, Narcotics Anonymous, CA meetings, Cocaine Anonymous. And I would sit in on these meetings not realizing how valuable that would be, not only to my life then, but in my future life, because my core addiction was sex addiction. And that stemmed from being raped and molested as a kid. And I was paid money not to say anything. I also didn't have any female upbringing because my mother died. When I was 4 years old, and my father never remarried. So, he was just tormented. So, I had a really not a very happy— Yeah. It was a miserable childhood. But basically, I just didn't deal with any of the trauma. So, I'd gotten sober from drugs, but I never dealt with the underlying issues that caused me to drink in the first place. And so, that term dry drunk, there's a lot of dry drunks in a lot of my very successful friends and colleagues, like you had mentioned, they're workaholics. But it is this compulsivity that you get rewarded in the world. You get high status, you can make a lot of money, you can actually do a lot of good stuff. But inside, there's this drive that is driving you crazy. And so workaholism, sex addiction, drug addiction, these were all—

Bingo.

Yeah, exactly.

Bingo.

And I'll tell you, during the pandemic and during this big, the NFT craze that was a couple of years ago, I was looking, even thinking of myself and the people I was talking with, it totally mirrors gambling addiction. Crypto addiction is very similar to gambling addiction. And I'm like, man, there's a ton of people in that space that struggle with addiction, on top of the fact that they're staring at screens all day long. Because internet addiction, porn addiction, gambling addiction, gaming addiction— yeah, these are all these compulsive ways that, that people try to, uh, you know, try to, uh, scratch the itch. So, you know, the, the spectrum of— I, I think that line, the opposite of addiction is connection, uh, in, in the ultimate form of connection is getting into a state of flow where you time disappears and you feel really connected there. And most human life is kind of in between and it vacillates between joy and misery. Although from my perspective, I think it's more unhappiness than happiness. And I don't even think happiness is like the goal. As a matter of fact, I mean, some of the world's greatest achievers and people that have done things did not live most of their life in joy. A lot of it was— so how do you view sacrifice and how do you view what you're willing to endure pain for, for different people, for different causes, for your family? I mean, is there places where you're like, you know, I will trade peace of mind for productivity in these areas?

This is a very complex calculation that a human being does every single moment. Right? Like, you know, what do I do? And it has a certain pattern, so it keeps applying, right? And it finds them successful or not, and it keeps applying them in one way or another. So, like, sacrifice, right? It's always the way I look at the human being. Human being does what it does, and then there is a story about why did I do that, and is it good, is it bad, whatnot. And The story is a superficial layer on top of that. The behavior is not driven by the story, but the story is one aspect of what a human being is. And I also seen that our story about what's happening, why am I doing things, can change, radically change, right? But the thing is, like, you know, even when the story changes, the behavior might still be there or not, you know, like, it's really fascinating. So, Somehow for me, for example, I've never, on the one hand, I can say that I rarely sacrificed some physical aspects of my health. Like for example, I've always been very good with sleeping. That's something I've never really sacrificed.

Really?

Okay. And when I was working full-time, studying full-time and having a kid, like, you know, sleep was difficult sometimes, but I would never, for example, work during the night and do stuff and whatnot. Like, you know, I would always go to sleep and still kind of, that's been all of my life. But then also sacrifice, right? Like, and then I exercised for the bulk of my life. I started exercising about 17 and I was this skinny guy and I wanted to be bigger for like, you know, to attract girls and also to look scary to bullies and whatnot, right?

Right, right.

Of course, there's a practical reason.

So I've done that and And it's been awesome, but also like I've been in that discipline of doing that. I've been also looking back, I've been so insensitive to some injuries and stuff and, you know, injuring myself basically, not properly healing. And some of that stuff caught up with me later on, right? So it's like, so that's another sacrifice, right? So all kinds of sacrifices, right? But whether we talk about sacrifices or not, right? Like, we kind of want to say, I'm noble, I'm doing this stuff for the good, for the future. But you know what, fuck your future, because the future will always surprise you, right? So we do what we do, and then what happens is what happens. So it's merely what we do is our current best effort based on everything that happened to us, based on our current mindset and emotions and how did we sleep and what did we eat and what did we listen to and maybe listen to your podcast, right? You know, yeah, or maybe we listened to some asshole. Yeah, who said something different and gave us some, uh, whatever, crystal meth.

I never tried that, but well, you know, you probably, you know, it's funny, the only thing that makes the brain light up quicker than sexual imagery is methamphetamine. I mean, when you— so it literally— so yeah, you probably don't want to try. It's, it's a bit— yeah, but yeah, but here's the thing, like, I, I don't think any— if, if you're sitting, if you're sitting there, I don't even know what the hell rational even means, like, half the time. Yeah, you don't— would sit there and be like, let me take this substance that's going to, right, uh, you know, be clearly has a lot of consequences, but it gets you high. But at the same time, you know, if you've been on medicine journeys, which you have, those could be really intense too. But the, you know, the point is, is like people are trying to escape constantly the, you know, the reality of a situation. So let me mention this because I want to get your perspective on what you think of this line. I talk about it all the time because it just for some reason, it just resonates with me. So I have a a Genius Network member named Dr. Don Wood, and he's a trauma doctor. He used to be a hockey player and he's in his 60s and he never had a lot of severe trauma. He never had, like, that he can recall any serious trauma in his life, but his wife did. And he got into, you know, becoming a trauma therapist in a lot of ways because of his wife and just different people. And he's become really, really good at it. And he has this line where he said, if you understood the atmospheric conditions of somebody's life, it would make sense why they are the way that they are.

Yeah, of course.

Yeah.

So in your, you know, so if you think about the atmospheric conditions of your life, if I had them, I would be you if I was built genetically everything the same. And so, you know, and you've talked about this where people are, you know, people are just doing what it is they do. It's not even right.

Let me also talk a little bit about this, because when we talk about trauma, I don't even like to use that word anymore because For me, it's just like every human being has all kinds of influences on them all the time. And then some of them, they are powerful and they stay with us for a long time. Some of them are more fleeting, right? And you look outside the window, you look at this tree, it has a unique shape of its branches and leaves and whatnot.

That's—

it's been shaped by how the sun, the structures, the wind, the humidity and all of that stuff.

Right.

The same with a human being, right? We are shaped by that, but we are not a static thing. You know, it's not like we become this and then we stay this. You know, we're ever-flowing infinity, constantly dancing with our environment. And what is also interesting is that as I've been in the last year, especially kind of diving more and more into the world of AI, and AI is modernized, they are built on a somewhat simplistic model of a human brain, neural networks, and What is very interesting is like one aspect of this, like when we humans think about the brain and we have, many of us heard the story that we have these neurons and they then get activated. For example, a neuron can be activated when you see somebody's face, right? So we say that, and people who are well familiar with, they might even have a bunch of different neurons activated when that happens. But anyways, and human brain is, One unique aspect of this is that it's much more complex than our simplistic story about this, meaning that if you take a particular neuron, it's not that it reacts to a particular abstract event like this human being, but it reacts to maybe this human being and also affected a little bit like it's activated less or more based on the weather, based on some maybe music, based on some of their chemicals that you have in your bloodstream. From what you eating. And the thing is, so it's a very complex structure and you cannot just take away one neuron and say, oh, this is a bad thing. This is my addiction pattern. And I can somehow get rid of this because this is an intrinsic aspect of what you are. And maybe your kindness, maybe your ambitions and your achievements, they're there in that neuron as well. Right?

Right.

So We talked a little bit about this thing about many people are now on this journey to authentic self, right? And that idea is based on a very simplistic understanding of human being that here's my good authentic human being and here's some bullshit that I don't like. I'll get rid of the bullshit. I'll be so awesome, right? And this is so fucked up, right? Because you already are all of this. And all of your parts are interrelated. You know, you take this part and then maybe you will have less of this pattern, but also you will become maybe less friendly, less ambitious. Maybe you will get really fat. Who knows, right? But that's the point. You cannot disassemble a human being into components. It's just like one interconnected, interwoven structure.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I was gonna ask you about the forgiveness.

Yeah, that's a good note to end on.

Yeah.

Forgiveness is such a tough space because, you know, a lot of the psychological literature describes forgiveness as sort of a major mental illness antidote, mental health antidote, right? You will feel better if you forgive and you'll feel lighter and all kinds of peace and reconciliation work and all of that is written around forgiveness. Here's the rub. In the West, we like to put people on a schedule like, hurry up, forgive, forgive, everything's going to be so much easier if you just forgive your dad. Could we just get over this? No! We cannot put these human processes on a schedule. To me, forgiveness is sort of a two-part kind of a process. There's a letting go piece and there's forgiving. Forgiving is a much higher order concept because it involves no longer feeling resentful about what that person did to you.

You.

And you know what? Some people are never going to get there. I work with many, like I said, survivors of child sexual abuse, and they say to me, I don't want to forgive the person who did this to me. And they've gone from therapist to therapist that say you need to forgive. And I said, fuck them. You do not need to forgive the person who did this to you. I want you to let this go because you're carrying this weight. You're making that more of your heavy soul weight. Can we help you put it down and no longer take responsibility for what happened to you and let you move forward? But you don't have to forgive. Forgiveness is very much a something we try to sell in the West. It's very much built into religion. But here's the problem with forgiveness. For a narcissist, forgiveness is permission. They're like, this is cool, I did— I cheated on you and you're Great, that's permission to do that again. Rarely, sadly, does a narcissist integrate forgiveness as someone doing the divine for them, right? If I did something bad and someone forgave me, I'd be like, oh my God, thank you. And I mean, you would forever monitor never to make that misstep again. But for all the couples, especially couples, but I've also seen this happen in professional consultations I've done, When the narcissist got forgiven, 9 times out of 10, they went out and committed the same transgression again, thinking, "Well, she forgave me before. He forgave me before. He or she is going to forgive me again." And then what it does is it screws up your ability to forgive even in the healthy parts of your life, because now that very— that incredibly, what I consider honestly divine space has been abused. So I think forgiveness This is personal. It doesn't always happen. And for me, the real goal is letting go. And if you can get to the letting go, which is really a sense of, I am no longer going to carry this burden around. But you know what? I do feel resentful because you changed my life in a permanent way. And I'm not okay with this change. I feel different. And I don't want to feel this. And you made my fucking life a little more unsafe. So no, I don't forgive you. View. And my practice is very focused on giving people enough forgiveness that some people come around. And sometimes the best I hope for is letting it go with indifference. They see the cheater on the street 10 years later, or they even see the abuser on the street 10 years later, and like, you know what, I didn't feel a thing. And that's when they feel empowered. And then it doesn't even matter. Forgiveness becomes almost irrelevant.

One of the things that impresses me, like, you are incredibly well accomplished in the business world. Like, if you don't know Joe Polish, just like Google him, you'll see amazing things. But what fascinates me way more than what you accomplish is what drives you, your passion. And would you be willing to share like the big-time cause, the passion that's driving you present day?

Well, my big passion project, if you want to call it that, is I have a business that teaches entrepreneurs entrepreneurs how to build and grow their companies. I have millions of people that have downloaded my podcast on business. And what I am doing in my life right now, what I think is my calling, is to help change the global conversation about how people view addicts and addiction and to treat addicts with compassion, not with judgment. And the reason that I resonate so much with that is I am an addict. In my drugs and behavior. Now, you can ask me about anything. I will be as open as I can be, as long as it's hopefully helpful to people. And look, I love goofing around. I love joking. As a matter of fact, humor brings a level of relief to some of the pain and anxiety that humans experience. And certainly, if it wasn't for humor, some of the darkest, hardest times in my life— and since so much of my work is is now being focused on people with addictions, I want to bring as much humor and joy to them as possible, which is why it's great to talk to you because you do a combination of both, you know. And so I, I really want to change the global conversation about how people view addicts, and the reason being is, you know, we're in America right now and there's almost 1% of the US population which is incarcerated, and you cannot punish pain out of people. And now, couple things I want to do as we get into this subject is I'm interested in addiction, I'm interested in recovery, I'm interested in finding the best forms of treatment that have efficacy and delivering those to people as much of it as possible for free because a lot of addicts don't have any money, they're struggling, and family members and all the pain, I mean, It's across the board. Hundreds of thousands of people die every year from tobacco. Alcohol, lots of deaths, lots of chaos. Opiate addictions, the current stats are something like 78 people a day are dying of opiate addictions in the US, and every year it is increasing substantially. I mean, in 2014, deaths by drugs exceeded car accident deaths, which was like 37,000 car accident deaths, and then addiction was like 49,000. And now it's even far greater every year, and it's just getting worse and worse. So we're dealing with the largest addiction crisis in human history.

Yeah, you know, I know you have a— you alluded to a background of experientially being an addict, and I know you've shared shared with me some of these stats. I'd like to talk more about those in a second. And, you know, personally, the, the, you know, I haven't been an addict that I'm aware of. Maybe I'm just addicted to not being an addict.

It's possible.

It is possible, I guess.

Hopefully that doesn't get cured. But, you know, I was very touched, must have been 3, 4 months ago at this point, one of my absolute best friends we've been friends since we were 11 years old. His brother died from addiction from prescription painkillers, and, and that definitely hit home. And then, you know, you came into my life and started sharing with me your passion. And I like how you say you're out to change, amongst other things, change the global conversation about addiction, because it seems to to me, like, we, we as in society, kind of write addicts off, like, you know, whatever, they're less than human. But, like, you do the math and, like, those are humans on very powerful chemically, you know, biological, chemically altering substances that might make them act inhuman, but those are as humans.

Right, and it's part of this separating bad behavior from badness. I mean, like, by the way, if you think you may not resonate with this, like the recent Surgeon General report that came out at the end of last year has it listed that 1 out of 7 people in America struggle with addiction, and I would venture to say that this is worldwide. This is a global, not just a global problem, it's a global epidemic. I think the vast majority of wars, diseases, lifestyle diseases and things are caused by this thing we call addiction. And 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.

Mm-hmm.

Connection disorder. So what if addiction— maybe all addiction, maybe some of it— 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 The opposite of addiction is connection. And so the thing— and there's other people that are saying this, you know, like my dear friend Gabor Mate, who wrote a book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, is, you know, I mean, 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 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 to stop it. And 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 3 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, someone's not a smoker and hates smoking as an example. For 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 when I was a drug addict, I used to smoke cigarettes. And I used to smoke cocaine. I used to freebase 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. It was just like constant consumption. And, you know, 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 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, is the mechanisms we choose to scratch the itch. And so what happens with addiction is that people 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 is, 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.

Yeah.

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, 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 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 say, what don't I know? And unlearning is more important than learning. So as I'm on this, this journey, I'm looking at addiction as a solution, which sounds crazy to some people. But I started 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 the world is round, that changes everything about how you look at the world. Well, if you think addicts are 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 off the street, they need to throw them in jail, they need to process them, lock them up. And most people that are in jail, 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, you know, things like that. And the reality is, people that you, again, you cannot punish the pain out of people, and you can't incarcerate them. And Gabor Maté said if you wanted to create the perfect system that kept people as addicts, you would develop the exact prison system that we have in the United States.

Yeah, 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, connected, 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.

You know, connection's 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 I think we've proven about 12,000 times in a row it doesn't work.

Right.

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 dare say 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, you know, you can act out sexually, you 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.

Sure.

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 actually, you know, creates more. But I'll say the connection this way. So, like, Dr. Bob and Bill W., they're the ones that founded AA, Alcoholics Anonymous, 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.

Sure.

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 readily available for free. 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. Interview where he said, "As alcoholics, we're trying to drink God out of a bottle." And I always even say, 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.

You were just doing it before this video.

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 with something.

Sure.

You know, let's get high. Let's, you know, I'm trying to drink my way to 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 connected with being a human, they have done things that they wish they would have done differently.

For sure.

That they regret. They procrastinate. They 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 that they're horribly shamed 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 had a parent die, if you were molested like, you know, 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. And so 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 self, whatever that higher self is, and a lot of times I'm not— I believe most 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 I— you said so much and I want you to keep going.

No, no, please interrupt me at any point in time if I already interrupted you. He just did that. Did you see that?

Yeah. But so, and I love your vulnerability. So your mother died when you were 4. 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. Connection 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, 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. I'll be a really 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 it— is it— there's not a day that's gone by in my adult life where I've not thought about that. And it's in the rumination, the preoccupation, the— and for years I had so much of my self-worth tied into this shameful, violated piece of shit that I felt like. 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 so part of it is like it didn't make any sense. And I used to minimize it. I never told anyone about it. I mean, now I publicly am talking about this shit, 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.

Sure.

And so my form of clouds were addiction, my form of clouds were hiding it in denial and trying to, you know, escape it in 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 4-year-old, you know, do you know any 4-year-olds? He's like, how does a 4-year-old respond to their mother dying? I mean, you're 4, how would you? And I'd be like, you know, he's like, abandonment, you know, you know, how would— and so you were right though, like it isn't 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, I never felt that connection growing up. And so I I initially found it through, you know, 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, 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 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 can 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 I did with Pat Carnes 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 he— 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, what 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.

Subconsciouses don't work logically.

Exactly, exactly.

Personally, my 15 years of doing emotional healing client coaching, you know, I'll certainly raise my hand and say I didn't specialize in working with addicts. Yes, I think we're all addicted to something, and at the beginning of this I said, well, you know, I haven't had addiction in my my life. And then you mentioned workaholism, it's like, oh yeah, I've been addicted to not seeing my addiction.

So yeah, workaholism is the respectable addiction, by the way.

Sure. And, and yeah, maybe more functional than others, but nonetheless realizing to some degree all people are addicted to something, even if it's not a clinical problem. What I found with, uh, you know, the folks I've worked with over the course of my 15 years of and emotional healing work is what would heal the shame, what would heal the guilt, what would heal the anger and the fear is connection with thyself. And I don't mean to just placate this and like, "Oh yeah, heal it, connect to yourself." It's like, yeah, great words that are very useless to say because it's very much a journey. I've personally really found value in encouraging people and working with myself in my life, looking at the emotions, the traumas, the wounding, and the pain that we still carry, whether we know it's there or it's there but we don't know it. But making connection with those emotions is a big connection because what we connect to when we're connecting to the emotions that are painful and so intimidating is the part of us that holds that emotion. I do a lot of inner child work so it's like when, you know, when I went through a wounding experience when I was 7, very shaming, disconnected from it for a couple decades because like when I was 7 I didn't know how to deal with intense shame. I didn't even know what it was. What I would realize is, wow, my whole 7 7-year-old inner child is not a part of my life. I'm very disconnected from him because I don't want to feel what he feels.

Right.

And the late John Bradshaw, you've probably gotten into some John Bradshaw work.

Oh yeah, he was brilliant.

Yeah, so he has a quote that says, this might oversimplify it but maybe not, all addiction is a symptom of not feeling what you're feeling. So I found when we can make connection to our feelings, especially those past pains and traumas, and feel the feelings— feeling is the evidence of healing— it is a huge, huge, huge step of recovery. It's connecting to ourself and it's recovering thyself. And in my opinion, one of the biggest forms of hell on earth is living beside yourself. You not being connected to you, to me, it's a form of self-betrayal. And not to make this too much about me, but I'm gonna make it a little bit more about me. Last night at the book signing, I was giving a talk and someone asked me a question about my comedy. And the moral of the story was about 2 and a half years ago, years ago, when I started making making comedy videos, it was a very important rite of passage of reconnecting with a part of me. Yeah. When I was 7, when I was 4, those young ages, I developed a sense of humor in order to disconnect from pain. And the more I would use humor, the funnier I got. I was getting more practice with it, but the more disconnected I was getting with my myself. Let me cover up the pain with the dirt of humor, with the flowers of humor. Cover up the dirt with the flowers of humor. Change the analogy. So I found when I reclaimed my inner comedian in a big way a couple years ago, it was really reconnecting with like the wounded 7-year-old inner child that was covering himself up with the camouflage of comedy And that's why when I— I'm not sure if y'all have heard me talk about like my breakthrough making videos. It was something I was— comedy videos— something I was so resistant to for so long. It was so scary to me like, "Ah, it'll discredit me professionally." But it was me connecting to me, another part of me in a big way. So maybe connection is a huge huge, huge force of healing that we all need in our lives. And P.S., like, addicts too. So I just, I, I talk, you know, kind of haphazardly there because, again, haven't worked directly with addicts. That hasn't been my specialty. But I'm just curious your thoughts on any of that ramble, my friend.

Well, I think a lot of people probably watch your comedy videos and can connect with it because they can see all of these things that they have pursued and that many people pursue trying to find joy and enlightenment and connection. And you know that there's just a lot of crazy shit out there, and humor brings a lightness to it. And I believe humor is critical, especially when you're going through difficult, challenging times. Like, if you're stressed or you're having a shitty day, I mean, the more you can inject Laughter, you know, I made that comment earlier, we were shooting videos earlier where, you know, that whole saying, you know, an apple a day will keep the doctor away, unless you realize the sugar in the apple could perhaps make you have to go to the—

anyway.

And there's that.

There's that. But, you know, laughter every day will probably keep the doctor away, and it'll really allow you to just feel alive. So when, like, if there's a cutter, someone's cutting themselves, In some ways, they don't feel and they just need to feel. Even if the feeling is pain, that is something other than feeling neglected or—

and I'm not—

there's many reasons why people cut, okay? So I'm not trying to say that's the reason. It's just with connection, it's so critical.

Hi, Joe Polish. This is a place where I want to express my gratitude for your work and also some questions. This is a very special moment for me I haven't read your book still. It was one of my promises as soon as it gets published. My English is not the best, but here I go. So the question that I have for you and the group is, now I'm becoming a little bit resentful by the fact that I connect a lot of people. I love to connect people. And I think that's a great also asset, but sometimes I feel that I don't get it in return, you know? So I feel the message of a giver and a taker, and I feel that I want to balance that aspect in my life. So the other point is I want to start giving some or creating some masterminds or community around books, around knowledge, around all of that. And I don't know if the Skin in the Game or the payment is a way to getting more commitment for each person is the question that I have for you. And a lot of gratefulness.

Yeah, yeah, no worries. It looks like you're in the gym working out. Yeah, which is good.

Good. Before sauna.

Yeah, yeah. And I— before—

good.

Yeah, that's awesome. If I can get done enough tonight, I'll be going to a sauna and a cold plunge later. Uh, so I think you said getting resentful when you're offering things to people and then they don't—

yeah.

So here's the thing, and I write about this in my book, that if you're a giver, you're going to get taken advantage of. There's no ifs, ands, or buts about it. It's not— it's just that's— that's— you're a target if you're genuinely an empathetic giver. Now, when you— when someone says giving value though, you need to make sure that you're dealing with people at the level at which they respond. I also have a section in the book where I talk about how to deal with intimidation because not everybody responds well to kindness and be nice. Some people, like, you got to talk shit to them. Some people, they, they're not going to hang out with someone that's not kind of like a bully. And so you have to pick and choose, uh, if you want to exhibit, or if it's, if it's within your being, to, uh, utilize the, the behaviors needed to influence certain people. So I want people that are ELF— easy, lucrative, and fun. And if what I used to do And believe me, I've been very annoyed, and I've had to go through a lot of resentments in my life where I felt like I just bent over backwards to help someone. And I have been massively betrayed by people that I spent years helping that, uh, literally cost so much money, anguish, angst. I mean, I was raped and molested as a kid. I kind of get the predator thing of people hurting you. So, uh, you know, it happens in business, it happens in life. Uh, you know, most people are going to get their heart broken, uh, probably not just once but many different ways. Uh, the key though is to really do some inner reflective work and say, what am I doing that's leaving the door open, and how can I better boundary myself? And so what I used to do is look for red flags, and then my friend You know, Patrick Gentempo, he gave me this, you know, just a simple way, look for the yellow flags. And I used to ignore the red flags, but I didn't even notice the yellow flags. And so by going through it, it gives you an opportunity to develop your spidey senses. And I, it's the lifeguard analogy is throw out a life jacket to people drowning that are swimming towards you. Oftentimes we want to pursue people that are rejecting us, and you see it happen in the dynamics of dating where someone pays no attention to you, you want their attention. It's that little kid in us that, please validate me, please, you know, give me attention. And oftentimes we are wasting our time, attention, money, effort, and energy that are not reciprocal people. They're not worthy of it. Other times we're going into a situation with an agenda and we have taker energy and it drives people away. So that's something you really have to connect with yourself. And if you are creating value and you can prove it and you can validate it, I mean, Dean Jackson talks about this quite a bit, is, you know, oftentimes if you want an opportunity, say, look, I'm going to produce this result for you. And if I do, will you pay for it? Yes or no? And, and if they will say, okay, I'm just going to, I'm just going to give it to you for free. But you're gonna pay me, um, you know, because people are less attached to future money than they are to, you know, money right now. And that's what some, you know, Dean actually goes right into that. The other times you just need a more compelling offer. You know, Dean Jackson has that line where he says a compelling offer is 10 times more powerful than a convincing argument. So if we have to convince people to give us money, convince people to do stuff, and oftentimes when we're selling, we are doing that, but really try to think about What's the headline? What do I need to say? What's the offer? And how do I bring people in? So it's, you know, it's his whole notion of, you know, more cheese, less whiskers. You know, the prime directive of a cat is to get cheese, avoid mice. And so, you know, Dean has this whole way that he—

Other way around.

Oh, I'm sorry.

What did I say?

The prime directive of a mouse. Oh, I said prime directive of a cat.

Sorry, sorry.

Yes.

Okay, I hope you found that video awesome and useful.

So if you want If you want to get a free copy of my book, I want you to click here. And if you want to watch some more videos that will be useful and awesome, click here.

Go ahead.

They're over here. Do it now.

Come on.

Thank you.

Watch 'em.