How and Why Does Addiction Happen?

There is no such thing as an addiction gene. Now I know that might be a little bit surprising to you because you, because you've heard maybe for years and years that addiction is genetic. It's passed down between family members. And the reason why that said is because there does seem to be a correlation. And you look at people's family trees and you can see, you know, Uncle Harry was addicted, and then this one, and then this one, then my brother or whatever. And you can see it being passed down in family systems. But it's not nearly, it's just not nearly as encoded in the DNA as we think. It's Biology 101. You know about DNA. I think they probably teach that in junior high school now, right? So your DNA is sort of like the code that makes up who you are. It's your special code. There's nobody else on the planet has your code. And that's why we can do these cool genetic testing things, right? But they're in that code. It's not like one of those pieces of code. It says like Amber has the addiction gene. It doesn't really work that way. Now they have found, science has found a few different genes that, that may be involved with addiction, but there's no such thing as you got the addiction gene. And actually, I think this is actually really good news because if you think about like our DNA, we're like, if it's in your DNA, what can you do about it? You can't change that, right? But it's not actually written in there like that. Like we think there's act. There's a new term out there. It's new to me. I learned it a few years ago called epigenetics. And that is the study of how the environment can change your DNA code or activate and deactivate parts of your DNA code. So an easy way to think of it might be to think about like your, your laptop or your phone, your tablet, where it has hardware that's already in it. It has sort of a. When you get it and you sort of. And it's that clean, brand new, the slate is clean. There's not a lot of stuff in there. And it' has to get to know you and all that kind of stuff. It's got some code put in it from the get go that's like your DNA, but also like on your laptop. You eventually you program that, that laptop, you kind of personalize it to yourself. And it's interesting when you get a new laptop, you know how it takes you through all those Things it wants to know your voice, it wants to see your face, it wants to hear how you talk, you know, because it's trying to customize to you. Well, that's how our, our brains work, if you think about it. You know, the, the hardware is there when we're born, but we install the software as we go along. So this is how the addiction thing comes in. Our brains are programmed for survival and efficiency. And sometimes it's, you know, our brains are trying to get us to survive right, and do it efficiently, but not necessarily throw, thrive, right? So it doesn't necessarily. It's not programmed to make you live your best life. It's programmed to make you live okay. And that's where you can get in trouble with addiction. Because what happens is as part of that efficiency, part of our brain, it tries to reduce the amount of energy that you need to do any one task by putting it on autopilot. And we all have a lot of things that we do on autopilot, right? Like when you get out of the shower, you probably dry off the same way. If you drive yourself to work, you probably drive the same way every time. I know I do. And if I've switched offices or if I've got to go somewhere else, I can't tell you how many times I've literally drove to the wrong place just because I'm not even in there. My brain is on autopilot. So when you do things enough times, your brain just sort of codes it in for you to be able to do it automatically so that you can then shift your attention to other things and you can learn new things. When we, when we first learned to hit a baseball, you have to think about it a lot. And then eventually you don't even think about it just happens. And that's great because our brains are supposed to be efficient like that. But it will start to encode all of your habits. And if you have a habit of any kind of addictive thing, it will start to encode that in your brain. Now we have all those neurochemical changes that happen as part of that encoding, but it also, it just literally puts it on autopilot so that you're doing the same thing over and over and over and over again. The good news is, is just because you have that code in there, you can put a new code in. Just like you can update your laptop, just like you can update your iPhone or your Samsung phone to the latest, current updated version, you can change the algorithm, basically, you can put new code in that will make it act differently. Because if you, if you think about it, you got the. The coding. Your DNA that's inside, that's there when you're born. It's all there, but it's waiting for these other codes to come in from the outside to tell it to activate and deactivate certain pieces of the DNA code. And I don't want to get, like, too far into it, but it gets kind of crazy because you can actually, the environment can change one person's genetic traits, which can then be passed down to their children and their children and their children, which is kind of crazy when you think about it, because it's not just you. It. It keeps passing it on. I think it's, you know, it's part of that sort of like, survival of the fittest thing. And it goes on down the. So how do you retrain your brain? How do you recode it? The first thing you have to do is you have to create some new habits. And it's going to be hard to get out of that same old lane that you've been in. But the good news is, is that you can. I was talking to a guy yesterday, and he was like, I don't even think about anymore. He's a year sober from opiates, and he's telling me, I don't even think about it anymore. Like, honestly, it was like. It was like a different life. And like, I, it, I. I don't know. I just look back at it and I'm like, what was I thinking? I was so crazy. Like, I don't miss it. I don't want it. I don't think about it. And a lot of that has to do with. That's not who he is. He has all new patterns and routines that he does now. And so it doesn't even fit into his life anymore. And he was kind of lucky because right when he was getting clean sober, he. He had a big move and some stuff like that, which helped, I think, to retrain some of his. His automatic autopilot thing. I do think that helped him a lot. And I could. I try to give that advice to anybody that's new in the process who's trying to get sober. Change all your patterns. You know, don't drive home the same way. Don't stop at the convenience store where you always stop and get your secret stuff or whatever. You know, change, you know, change the clothes that you wear if you start. If you used to use or drink or engage in your addictive behavior in certain outfits. Change all of It. And it will help to change that automatic pattern that you have. One of the things that's interesting is, you know, when you think about DNA and who someone is and who someone's personality is, how many of you have known someone that struggled with an addiction, maybe even yourself or someone else. And it's like there are two different personalities in there. It's literally two different people. I see it all the time in my office. It's like. And then once you. Once you've known someone long enough and you've seen, like, the addictive version and then the regular version, you get pretty clued in on which one you're dealing with. And it's. It's literally two different people almost. And when those. You think about when that addictive substance or addictive behaviors in, it's like that is activating the code for this personality part to come out. And so that's what I mean when I say that environment can change. The coding in your DNA can make certain things activate and certain things deactivate. I would love to hear from some of you guys that are in recovery, if there's anyone watching this in recovery about the process that you used to change your habits, to change your coding. And also maybe if you want to tell us a little bit about your personalities, like, this is who I am when I'm in this mode, and this is who I am when I'm in that mode. It's almost like. And eventually when you get into addiction long enough, it's kind of like all it takes is, you know, one. One beer, one shot, one line, one whatever. And it's like activated. And now it's like. It's almost like you literally put a code into the computer, and now you have this whole different operating system that comes up, and it happens very quickly. For someone who's maybe been addicted, but then they've been sober for a long time, they put that one time back in there, and it reactivates all that stuff on autopilot. It's like if, for example, if you quit drinking and you were drinking a pint a day or something like that, your brain is so used to you drinking a pine day, as soon as you drink alcohol at all, it automatically goes to the autopilot thing. And it says, well, he's going to drink a pint. So it starts producing all the brain chemicals necessary to sort of digest, deal with, and balance out a pint of alcohol. And that's why you. There's these sayings, once an addict, always an addict, and that kind of thing. And that's kind of one of those sayings that sort of. It does has truth in it related to what we're talking about right now. But. But it doesn't mean like, if I'm an addict now, I'm always going to be that way. But. But what it does mean is if I. I have this other part and it can be reactivated at any time and it doesn't go away, you know, you can be sober for years and then you put that substance or behavior, whatever your addiction is, into the coding and it's immediately. Usually happens, I would say between one and three days, I would guess, and you're right back where you left off. That's a recovery saying you pick up where you left off and then you go further. And it's so true. Another one of my clients this week was talking to me about he couldn't believe how fast the addictive behavior came back. It was like immediately I was obsessing about it. I was thinking about where I could get more. I was thinking about like, just went crazy with it. Because what happens for a lot of people in relapse is they think, oh, I'm just going to do it this one time. But because your brain has put that on autopilot, there's no such thing as the one time anymore because it'll immediately, immediately activate that separate operating system and then you move into that person. And that's. It's just so interesting if you see this from the outside too. It's like one day you're talking to one person and the next day you're talking to a whole different person. And it is like, mind boggling. All right, let's see what you guys have to say about this topic, about this sort of ways of turning on certain things and off other things. Hey, Weston. Hey, Debbie. Hillary. Hillary's saying something. Just let's see what Hillary's saying. I believe that with traumas we learned things to deal with emotions. It has a lot to do with it. I know I turned to substances because I wanted to feel better and I didn't know how. Yes, I can definitely see what you're saying there because I think if you have trauma, as in like you have like post traumatic stress disorder or complex trauma, then you're probably uncomfortable because your anxiety is high. And so it's going to make you more prone to want to self medicate that once you start self medicating that enough times in the same way, then we get into the autopilot because whatever, especially when it comes to chemical substances. Whatever drug you put into your body, your brain has to balance that out so it doesn't kill you. So it's like if you're trying to have more energy and you're using cocaine or amphetamines, your brain tries to balance that out by producing a whole lot of the opposite kind of chemical, like the slow you down, calm you down kind of chemical. And whatever, whatever the substance is, it's the opposite your brain. So it starts to overproduce that opposite end of it, trying to get you back to homeostasis, trying to get you back to balance. So as soon as you do it one time, it activates the whole autopilot zone. So all those neurochemicals are going to be released even though you didn't drink the pint this time, even though you just had the one cigarette or whatever it is. So trauma might make you more likely to lean on the substance for comfort, for self, medication to feel better, to function. And then the habit, when you do it enough times, then you get into that addicted realm. Let's see here. Hillary says being in recovery is giving me freedom to learn how to cope and deal with my emotions and heal with my trauma. That's a really good point also, Hillary, because one of the things that gets wired in there is that when we're in an active addiction, we use that addiction to cope with everything. We're sad, we do the addicted thing, we're happy, we do the addicted thing. It's a holiday. We do the addicted thing. It's a Wednesday, we do that thing. So we have sort of encoded in our brain, that's the way you emotionally cope. So when you're, you're new in recovery, not only are your emotions, like, raw and your brain chemistry is all over the place, but, but you're, you don't have those coping skills anymore because the only you, you basically were using one coping skill for everything, and it was your go to autopilot. And that's why emotions can be such huge triggers. But like I said, the good news is you could put a new algorithm in there. You can change the coding that's in the computer. So it's like if you think about what Google does, when you Google follows you around and Facebook and all this algorithms that are out there, and it learns you and it learns what you like, and then once it learns what you like, it starts to put the same, or it starts to put things in front of you that it thinks you want to see or hear more about. And so that's an example of how you're putting information into the computer from the environment and that information is then changing the algorithm that's inside of Google, the computer, whatever. Same thing for yourself. See here. Hey Anthony. Hey Star. Star says sounds like a family curse. Is it possible to break off the family line? Yeah, 100 for sure. You know, they say it's, it's kind of like sometimes addiction is compared to like, like if you had like a cancer gene or something like that. And it's like you, if you have a cancer gene and maybe you smoke or whatever, you can activate that cancer gene and you could get cancer. But you could, if you have a cancer gene or whatever, you can also just get cancer and never have smoked ever in your life. Like it can get activated, but not with addiction. You can't get addicted to alcohol if you've never drank alcohol. You see what I mean? Like it does. There's not a thing in there, a switch that turns on because you have it. It's the switch. It doesn't work like that. Which I'm telling you is great news because it means we have more control over it. Not, it's not easy to rewrite all you code in your brain, but it definitely can be done. Star says my alcoholic husband, I'm guessing that's what ah is, is the oldest of seven children. Their mom was alcoholic and every one of the seven kids were alcoholic. And you, like I said, you do see where alcoholism or addiction of any kind follows down. Gene. But there's so many other things. There's learned behavior, there's environment, there's the fact that if the mom was alcoholic, the kids didn't get their needs met and they may have trauma which then sets them up for what Hill was talking about a second ago. You know, and we get in that, we get in that loop. I just want you guys to know it's not this pass down trait. Like I have blue eyes. Like there's no, it's not going to change. You know, it's like that's not the way addiction works. And that is a good thing. In fact, you guys have heard of the term like addictive personality before. One of the best pieces of news about the whole situation is I think our brains are wired up to work the way that they work for, like I said, for survival. But it's also you can use that in your direction because the same people that have that wiring that makes them more prone to addiction for whatever reasons, whether it's nature, nurture, they have that obsessive tendency. And I tell this to all my clients. I'm like, you can use that same obsessive tendency and turn it into something else and you can either and be a very successful person. So if you have these set of characteristics, you, you, you can go down this lane, you know, and have an addiction, or you can go down this completely opposite lane and let that drive you towards something else. You can always say, use your obsessor for the good. Debbie says, I am adopted and always wondered if I had a genetic predisposition to addiction and alcohol. Also have seen people's faces completely change when they're under the influence. I think that is interesting. And people that are adopted statistically are more likely to have an addiction issue. My mom was adopted and she had addiction issues for her whole life. And some of that can be genetic, I guess, but not like one gene. But even the problem with some of those adoptive studies, because that's how they usually try to prove that something is genetic or not, is they do like they call it like the twin studies where you have two twins that are adopted out but they go to two different families. It's like which traits do they have that are exactly the same and which traits that they have that are different and, and they used to think that that's a way of separating out genetics versus environment. Right. But it's not really. Because even when you're in utero in your mama's womb, your environment is encoding based on what she eats and doesn't eat, based on how much stress she has, based on what's going on in her life. And when it comes to adoption, I think what's particularly hard is any woman who is pregnant and has to give up their baby is under a lot of stress. Right. Like it's not a good time. So you got to think all those stress chemicals that are coming in into the baby's environment, even in the womb that is changing the genetic coating from the get go. So what might seem like it's being passed down, like hair color, eye color, that kind of thing. It, it's not, it's just not quite that straightforward. Let's see. Cindy says 54th day, no alcohol for me. I would hurry first thing in the mornings before my husband went to work because I have no car to get a half pint of vodka. Yes. Eight in the morning I would say I was going to the Dollar General for Red Bull. Now I go to a different Dollar General and get a monster coffee drink and a cherry pie. Lol. I love this. And you Know, when I think about. When I hear this, Cindy is I immediately think about just how freaking hard it is to keep up an active addiction. That's a lot of work. I mean, having to get up that early to sneak off to the store every single morning. Like, what if you want to sleep in? If you don't want to do it that day? There's no such thing. When you. Especially if you get to the point you're alcohol dependent, there's no, like, I want to sleep in. You got to get out. You got to get the door out the door. You got to get it, you got to hide it. You got to pretend you bought a Red Bull. And it's just a mess. It's so much work. And being sober is hard at first, but after the first part, life is so much easier, a thousand times easier, because you. All you have to do is live your life. When you have active addiction, you have to do all the life stuff and manage this 24,7 non stop addiction. And that's why things fall through the cracks, is because you got this secret life going on over here, and then you got your real life going over here or your outside life, the life that other people know. And that's a lot leading two lives at one time. So once you get past those first parts, like just like what Cindy's saying, and you. You turn that addiction part off, then all you gotta do is manage the one life way, way, way easier. Baby says, what if you've known and loved them for 30 years and only in the past eight years they totally changed when they started drinking. They say they were always pretending to be good, and now they're not. I don't buy that. If. If you've known someone. What was that? Hold on, let me put it back. 30 years. Okay, so 30 minus 8 was 22. You can pretend to be a certain way for a minute, maybe a few weeks, but you can't. You're not going to be that good that you just were 22 years. You were this one person over here. This is really the addiction talking. That's saying that thing. That's saying like, oh, this who I was the whole time. I was just pretending before. And part of that is their own addictive talk that's trying to tell. That's their little addiction in their head trying to tell them that's who they are. Because it's trying to say, you can't change. You never were good anyway. You were always this person. And that is addictive thinking. So you can hear. It's like that little voice that's in that person's head and then they're saying it to you out loud. But if somebody was sitting in my office and said that I'd be like that's a bunch of junk. You didn't. You were not this person for 22 years and faking it like it's just not gonna happen. I am gonna put the link in the description and I'll put it right here in the chat for you too for you to get more add recovery resources. If you go to our website we have tons of free addiction recovery resources so be sure and check those out. I will see you actually tomorrow we are going to have a bonus meeting. We're going to have someone on here talking about gaming addiction. So if you're interested in that, make sure you have your little bell clicked so you'll know when we're when we go live with that video tomorrow. See you next time.