Addiction Expert: Addiction Isn't What You Think

Addiction is a lot more common than I believe people realize, me included. I don't think I fully understood how much addiction affects people's lives. When you look at the amount of people in our country alone that either navigate their own addictions or are dealing with a family member or close personal friend navigating addiction, it's very, very real. And I think it's one of the most misunderstood topics that there is. I think there is a lot of blame every direction when it comes to addiction. There's a lot of confusing information on how to navigate it for yourself or for a family member. I think this is perfect topic to dive into, especially most of you listening your midlife time. And you might have your own struggles. A struggle with a spouse, but also kids, especially at our age group where they are teens or we're becoming empty nesters, they're getting into young adult. So today we're having a really real discussion about variables here. I've got Chris Doyle on who helps families navigate addiction. He very much himself walked through his own path with this. And I had a credible conversation with him yesterday, the day before recording, listened to other resources from him and he knows what he's talking about here and he's super helpful. So, Chris, thank you so much for being here today.

It's my pleasure, Natalie. Thanks for having me.

So I met you through one of my friends, Joe Polish, who I know my listeners might know him, they might not, but Joe's one of my very good friends. He is one of the most integrity driven people I've ever met in my life. He's a huge connector. He is incredible. And one of the things that makes Joe just so incredibly special is his vulnerability and his transparency around his own addiction struggles. And this isn't about Joe today, but what I wanted to share first is I met Chris through Joe. And anyone Joe introduces me to, I know is someone I've gotta know and I've gotta interview and get closer with. But addiction, the first thing I wanna say is addiction doesn't have to define your whole life. But we've got a lot of questions. So, Chris, I don't even know where to start. Maybe let's just start a little bit with your background and your story, like how this even became such a big part of your life.

Sure, sure. I mean, I just wanna touch on what you said as far as Joe. Like, I've learned so much from Joe and Joe was one of the. When you mentioned vulnerability, him sharing his story in a public way was one of the first times I Ever heard anyone share to that kind of degree and where he was vulnerable and he was honest about what he was struggling with. And I was just so impressed by that that, you know, and that was like six or seven years ago. And then over time, you know, developed a relationship with him and, you know, just love what he's doing with genius recovery. And so, you know, it's an education platform. It wants to, you know, change the global conversation about how we treat addicts with compassion instead of judgment and share the best forms of treatment that have efficacy and share them with the world. And so aligned with that message. And so that's how my relationship with Joe developed. And, you know, by extension, that's why he connects me with some people. Like, he connected us because, you know, so much of what we deal with is something that isn't necessarily public. It's not in the public sphere in that way where people think that, you know. Well, I don't know what people think, because I know that I have a particular way of thinking about things because I've lived it. I've been through alcohol and cocaine addiction, and I'm sober 18 years now. But I wonder how. And that's why I think this will be interesting to have this conversation, because I'll get to see what your perspective is, the kinds of questions that you have, and. And then we'll, you know, kind of shed a light on things from there.

All right, thank you. I want to start a little bit with the elephant in the room. And I'll admit I fell into this camp for many, many years thinking associating addiction with bad person bad choices, not an actual problem. I associated it with what's wrong with people. Why don't they have more control? This is bad. This is stupid. This is a dumb decision. They're ruining their life, like, literally. I'm just being honest. That's how I would have looked at addiction. And I had my own experiences with people in my life before where that's how I treated it. You know, like, they got this. They're not in my life anymore. Like, literally. That's how I. So I want to start with that elephant first. And I know that's not where we're going to focus, but it's important because I do have listeners, that that's how they feel.

Yeah. So I think the best way to. Especially for your audience. Right. Where you mentioned that they have kids. And so let's take teenagers, for instance. So if you have a teen, you can also look at your own experience when you were a Teenager. Did you drink or use drugs when you were a teenager?

I tried them, sure.

Yeah. And so that's the first question. And most people, they go, yeah, I tried them. And then the following thing would be, so if you have teens today, do you think that they're legitimately not going to try using substances? Do you really believe that that's not going to be something that they do? Because statistically speaking, somewhere in the 90th percentile, teenagers drink or get high or get drunk or use even, you know, serious substances when they are in their teenage years. Okay. That's when they first try it. So now, considering that when you talk about, like, bad person and all those kinds of associations, really, it's just a luck of the draw thing. It's kind of like 10 kids go out to have shrimp for the first time and one of them has an allergy.

Makes sense.

It wasn't because they were a bad person. All 10 of them decided to have shrimp that day, but one of them happened to have a reaction to it that's going to change their life. And when it comes to substances, right, so you have all these kids going to a keg party at 16 years old for the very first time. All 10 of them have a drink for the first time, all 10 of them get drunk for the first time, but one of them has a reaction that's going to change their life.

Wow, I hear you there. And I think a lot of parents will say, well, not my kid. I'm going to control. I did this as a teenager, so I will control. I'll put restrictions. They'll have curfews, they'll have. I will have trackers on them that I will like, control, control, control. So, and I know this is. I want to address all this first because it is important. And I see I have my own friends doing this to their kids. Right. So what happens when a parent takes that approach?

Well, I mean, it's not going to work unless you could really legitimately somehow prevent them from having a drink or a drug for the very first time. That's basically, you know, if you use that shrimp example again, the only, the only thing would be to. They don't have it, they don't touch it ever. And that's just unlikely. I mean, again, does anybody really think that your teenager is not going to somehow some way attempt to try something because they have an opportunity to do it and they just do it and whatever. And everything that you said there is not so much the restrictive stuff, but the mindset. This is what's challenging when it comes to addiction is that in the example, 9 out of 10 have a normal reaction. 9 out of 10, they get drunk and then, you know, like, they're going to have their. It's going to be normal. It's going to be a normal experience for them for the rest of their life. It's not going to be something. I think that's another misconception maybe, that people think that you, you drink or use substances so consistently, compulsively over time, and then you develop an addiction. And addiction is separate from dependence. A person can develop a dependency where they, you know, maybe they shouldn't be doing it and they're doing it because they're stressed or they're overwhelmed or what have you. Addiction, it looks very similar, but addiction is more consistent with, you know, they really don't have a choice. Right after the very first time they get drunk or high, it's something that just grips them. They say, that was incredible. What it does for them is now going to be worth whatever it does to them in the future. They're not going to care about consequences because it feels like a solution for them. It feels like this is the answer I've been looking for. And therefore I don't have to develop any other coping skills to manage life. I have the solution now things make sense, whereas everybody else's experience, it's not that. Right. And so when parents respond, this is what I was trying to make the point of, it's like, yeah, you got like a good 85 to 90% chance that you're gonna be right when you say, it's not my kid. But for the 10 to 15%, if you're wrong about that, this is a tornado that could absolutely destroy, you know, everything in its wake. And so if you don't really come to grips with the fact that, oh my God, my kid could have an addiction and it's happening a lot sooner than you think, it could really have devastating consequences for you and your family.

So if it is kind of a luck of the draw, if I'm hearing you correctly, like some people, it's not gonna be a thing. Like, we kind of accept that they all are going to try it. Some people it's a real thing. Some people it is not a real thing. Is the real thing like a DNA thing? Like you genetically are prone to it? Is it truly, or is it a psychology thing where something maybe is off in your brain, like you, maybe you are undiagnosed ADHD or bipolar or manic depression? Like something like that. And now this feels like the solution. What is that that makes the addiction.

So research wise they don't have a definitive answer to that question. There are, you know, particular risk factors, right? I mean, so there is that kind of genetic or if you want to look at it, like epigenetic kind of factor where if you have a parent or grandparents who struggled with alcohol or drugs that it increases the likelihood that, you know, someone else in that line could. However, it's not like a, it's not cut and dry, you have increased odds, but it's not necessarily to be that if someone has undiagnosed mental health illnesses or issues. That isn't necessarily. It's not. So again, it's like in a majority of cases, dependence can be linked to someone who has something that's undiagnosed. Right? Because it could be something that's kind of. It is that self medicating kind of idea. Addiction is co occurring. Meaning it is, it needs to be on the list of things that are going wrong. Also. It's in addition to it's primary potentially it's its own thing. So if you're, if you're saying, okay, well what do we, what might they be struggling with that's undiagnosed? They might have adhd, they might have bipolar disorder, they might have a personality disorder, they might have social anxiety, they might have manic depression and they might have addiction. It's not addiction is being caused by any of those things. Addiction is because of the reaction of that particular substance on that person's body and brain.

So if I'm hearing you correctly, yeah, it's. There's not just one answer here. And yes, they could have something undiagnosed, yes it could be a genetic variable, but the common denominator is that substance, whatever that is or that act gave them some type of relief. It was a solution in their mind. Is that, is that accurate relief in.

The sense of like more in their body, you know, like mind and body that it really, truly feels like, like I just solved it. Whatever pain and suffering I was feeling going into this, it feels like life makes sense now.

Right.

You know, like a joke that people say in the communities that I hang out in is like I could have used a drink in first grade. You know, because whatever it was that these kids seem to have figured out, I'm feeling not a part of or I'm feeling like I don't fit in. I'm feeling, you know, that whatever all those types of feelings were. And I think this is accurate or maybe a good way to kind of get to this point. Probably all the kids in first grade are feeling that way, right? But not all of them, when they have a drink someday are gonna have the experience of feeling like, oh, okay, good. Now I get it. Now I feel okay, they're just going to have a drink and it's going to be like, you know, like having a donut or having, you know, whatever other experience that you have in life, but it's not going to be a life changing experience. Like, do you remember the first time you had a chocolate donut?

No.

I don't know if you can recall. I can't either. But someone who's addicted to donuts, they'll probably remember the first time.

And that's why you'll hear a description of like somebody the first time they tried coke or the first time they remember the exact description of it.

Right. And like all of it. All of it. And I'll just, you know, lots of people, myself included, will just delete whatever bad things happen that night. It just won't. That won't show up in the retelling of the story because I just don't, I literally don't remember it in that way. All I'm remembering is the feeling, the euphoria, the feeling of being a part of and fitting in and all of that.

My next question to that is when it comes to drugs specifically, so let's just go extreme there. So talk about cocaine or whatever it is, heroin or whatever that extreme drug is. Wouldn't anybody, even someone who doesn't have addictive tendencies, remember that first time they try that? Because that's such an extreme. Like the donut's not an extreme, but that one would, wouldn't they?

Yeah. And the normal experience to trying some high powered substance like that is going to be. That was awful. And I'm never gonna do that again.

Oh, the normal experience. Got it. Wow. So if someone says it was incredible, that's the danger?

Well, no, no, no. If someone were to do heroin from a standstill, someone that's not, you know, like, that isn't kind of like I would have been receptive to doing heroin, but I never got there. Just in my own story, it just never happened. But if someone, like take for instance, the Vietnam kind of example, right. When our soldiers went over to Vietnam, a lot of them became dependent on heroin while they were over there. They're dealing with the realities of war. It's this terrible experience. They're far away from home. They don't want to be there. And heroin is readily available. And so they're using heroin like we're drinking coffee today.

Right, Right.

It's just. That's what they have and they're doing it. And then when the war's over and they come home, a vast majority of them just left heroin in Vietnam. They just. I'm not doing that anymore.

Yeah.

Now I'm back here. And so it wasn't an addiction, but it was a dependence at the time.

That makes sense. Dependency versus. So dependency could be a coping mechanism, but it doesn't mean it's necessarily an addiction.

Correct.

Addiction is all of those. It's dependency, a coping. But you can't stop.

Correct. That's. That is the easiest two word definition. The fastest two word definition for addiction is can't stop.

Can't stop. That makes sense. Okay. So that's an important distinction for, I guess, anyone listening to understand because it doesn't mean the other one's not a problem too. But dependency and coping is different than can't stop. And so we have to at least label and understand what it is that we're navigating.

Right.

Okay.

Right.

What happens when. And since we're talking about teens and parents right now, first you find out your kid is doing stuff, using whatever that is, and you don't know if they're dependent or coping or can't stop. Like you're in that camp.

Yep.

What is the right and the wrong way to handle it? And I'm going to start with. I want to start actually with the wrong because. And I don't. Maybe you don't think there is a right or wrong. But what I see is sometimes parents go back to that same control thing. Like, let me double down. We'll take away everything restriction. Like what happens when we do that?

Yeah. So that is, if you wanted to classify it that way, I would say wrong in the sense of it's not going to help you accomplish what you want. If your concern is really, if my child has an addiction and I don't want them to do this, then you're gonna. That's the opposite of how you want to handle this. It's, you know, so when we say wrong, it's like, you know, it's literally the opposite direction of what I would recommend. However, if it's a dependence kind of thing or if it's something where you're just concerned. Again, like, this is why it's so challenging for so many parents, because so many parents who do the quote unquote Wrong thing that you just described are going to have success because their kid wasn't an addict.

Right. So how do you know? You don't know.

You don't. The ones who, whose children are addicts, they are the ones who are going to suffer the consequences. I mean, the parents now they're gonna suffer the consequences of having listened to their girlfriends about what they should do.

Right.

Because their girlfriend is saying, oh, well, when my son was 18, here's what we did. But they're not talking about an addict necessarily. And so if your kid happens to be an addict, that same approach is not gonna work. Now, on the flip side of that coin, if you were to do what I recommend parents do, it will work either way.

Okay, and what's that?

Or at least it will set you up to work either way. So I call it the connected response method. And essentially what it means is, and this is for anybody that has teens, and you can have this conversation as early as 11 or 12, because surprisingly, most of those high schoolers, like I said, the first time they're using substances still today is at 12 years old.

Wow.

So when I was a kid, 12, it's like, you know, I can't imagine my kid being 12, but legitimately it's still 12.

And by the way, I just want to, and maybe you can definitely tell me if I'm wrong here, but I'm thinking things like self harming where a parent might not. That's also addiction. So. And that tends to start at age 12. So when.

So that could be another mental health issue. And that's why, you know, like you'd want to have, you know, your health professionals involved. I'm not a health professional in that way. Right. But something like that, self harming behavior is certainly a risk factor. It's something to consider. It's something where I just want parents especially to just not exclude addiction as a possibility. Because your picture of addiction is on someone's last day, it's someone who's 20 years down the road into their alcohol or their drug addiction, or if it's a fentanyl addiction, it's somebody who's living on the street in Phoenix right now, who's been there for five years. That picture is what people have in their mind. And I've had hundreds and hundreds of conversations with so many people, myself included. I got sober at 17. My initial instance of getting sober was 17. Joe Polish, we mentioned him. He was sober in his late teens. Right. So many conversations of teenagers who are getting sober. What does that mean? It means we had the addiction already. We were already addicted. It wasn't some far off place called addiction. We were addicted then. I was a full blown alcoholic addict at 16. And it doesn't have anything to do with the quantities like how much I drank. It wasn't about these major consequences. It just has to do with what alcohol does to my body and brain when I put it in my body. And that as soon as I said to myself, I don't want to do this anymore, I couldn't stop.

Some people listening are going to hear what you just said the last few minutes and think, well, my kid falls in that other camp. It's the, it's not an addiction, it's dependence. So, so I'm going to double down on restrictions. And they don't know, but, but like, so they just heard that part. What do you want them to know first? And then we're gonna. I want to talk about the right way to handle.

So I think if I explain the right way to handle, then that'll make it okay. Make sense. Let's do that. So. So the right way to handle it is to, like I said, as early as 11 or 12 years old, but somewhere, your next opportunity to have this conversation, you want to sit down and be able to say, I don't know if I've ever gone on record with this before, but I just want to make sure that you know where we stand as far as substance use goes and that under no circumstances is it okay for you to use anything until you are of legal age to do so. Okay, you are establishing your position as a parent. And this is where if there's any kind of pushback, like if parents are like, yeah, but what about this? Or what about, it's like zero. I don't want to hear that. I'm giving you. This is the thing. This is your baseline communication. Don't talk about how I want them to have some experience with it before they go to college or I want them to do it here safely because I suspect that they're going to do it anyway. So I want them to figure it out. No, no, no. Their brain is still developing. If they take anything, you are increasing the likelihood of that risk factor going up that they would be someone that goes from dependence to addiction and that it would happen early.

So that's the baseline that you say. Doesn't mean they'll listen, but it's the baseline that you say, what about the parents that did that wrong? They said all those things you just said, don't Say, and now they are. How do they recourse that, how do they course correct that?

Right, right. Yeah. I mean, so that's pretty easy. So in the past I may have said some things that I realize now I recognize that the approach that I had when talking about substances was probably not the most effective approach. We should have had some conversations that, you know, we could have had some more dialogue back and forth. And so I apologize for that. I shouldn't handle it the way that I did. But I just want you to know, moving forward, just so we're clear, under no circumstances is it okay for you to use substances until you're of legal age to do so.

Okay. A lot of questions here if you, whether you handled that wrong or correct. If somebody in the household is using substances, how do you explain that to your child? Yeah. So you're telling your child under no circumstances, as you just said, but somebody else in the household, the teenage brother, the sister, the mom, the whoever is actually doing that and the kid sees it. How do you correct, how do you, what do you say about that? Or do you even have to address that? You say they're of legal age. I don't, I don't just. What's the correct way?

That's. You are leaning on the legality issue.

Okay.

You're using the legal part of it as your leverage to just kind of have this point blank declaration. You're establishing your position that it's not okay with you. And if, let's say, you know, you're talking to a 14 year old, but there's a 17 year old in the house who has a problem. Right. Well, you could reference the fact that like, I mean, right now your brother is struggling and we are, now we're coming to grips with that and we're going to do everything we can to help him. But it's for that very reason that we want to make sure that you know where we stand, that we don't want you using any substances because that could happen. Or if you have someone in the family that you could reference, of course you could say, you know, what happened to Uncle Bill, his struggles, and it's not because he was bad and it's not because he did anything wrong. It's just because he started young and we don't want that to happen to you. So under no circumstances is it okay for you to use any substances until you are of legal age to do so.

So this is great. And I think a lot of people are having light bulb moments hearing that because I can Tell you pretty much everyone I know, like let their child try wine or like, or said what you said, hey, if you're going to do it, do it with me, it'll be safe or let me know. Like so I feel that there's a lot of epiphanies happening there and there's nothing we, that people can do to course correct that if it's later. So like now let's say you're dealing, you've got your. Because we're talking to people that are kind of empty nesters now. Right. So 18, 19, 20, 21. So now you've got a kid that is in it. What do you say now? Because rather than saying okay, it's self beat up now, like, like they said everything wrong or whatever it is, what do you say now?

Yeah, I mean that's where my work comes into play.

Yeah, right.

Oftentimes that is when I am getting the phone call and I'm now figuring out everything that's gone on over the last however many years, how long they've been using substances, what the relationship dynamic is, how they communicate. Now said to various different things in the past, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, to kind of get a real clear picture of what's going to be the most effective thing to communicate to them, to influence a decision to get help if help is needed. Right. And once I get a clear picture and typically if I'm getting the phone call, some form of help is going to be needed by that point. Right. But even going back to what I said, as far as establishing your position on that, just to be clear, you're not establishing your position there with the expectation that your child is going to listen to you and never drink or use drugs. You're saying that just to be on the record so that you have the ground to stand on to have the next conversation. And what you're, the reason you're doing that is so that you can begin to develop a pattern if it's there, someone that doesn't have a problem, you'll be able to have these open ended conversations. Now if you remain calm and curious and empathetic to what their experience is with whatever is going on, you're gonna be able to start to see the signs if you know what to look for. That's why you're having the conversation. It's not with the expectation they're not gonna. It's so that you can have another conversation and another and another. And as you have more conversations, if they begin to pull back, they're avoidant, they're defiant. They're getting more and more in denial, delusional, resistant to having the conversation. You. That's when you know, okay, because someone that doesn't have an addiction wouldn't respond that way to a calm, curious, I'm here for you kind of conversation.

Hey there. If you're finding value in this episode of Midlife Conversations, I would really appreciate it if you would hit that like button and subscribe. And when that little bell pops up, you want to hit that. That way you are notified of all new episodes so you don't miss a beat. Also, you subscribing and liking helps others find this content and allows me to keep growing, keep getting amazing new guests for you and to keep sharing. Okay, let's talk about that calm, curious, I'm here for you conversation. So because we just talked about, I want to go on the record, this is where I stand. But what's now the part two, this calm, curious when something happens, right?

So now something has happened and you know that they got drunk or high and so it's just like, okay, so help me understand what happened last night. Okay, I heard you come in, it was like 3 o' clock in the morning and you know, whatever, like, help me understand what happened last night. And you're just having an open ended conversation where you're just asking questions and you want to treat your child and again, now we're talking about a teenager. You want to treat your teenager with the same empathy that you would like. You're doing your best to kind of put your counselor hat on, if you will. Like you don't want to have that. Whatever your relationship dynamic is, you want to take a contrary action in how you're going to communicate with them for this conversation.

So you're asking questions as if they had like a fight in school or they had, they got hurt or something like, or had a breakup. So that kind of curiosity versus like.

Okay, help me understand how would you talk to a friend of yours that was going through something like just what happened, what's going on, help me understand it, like that kind of thing. And you're getting as much information as you can and you're just trying to have them share as much as they are comfortable sharing and then you just re establish your position at the end of it in a loving way. You just say, okay, well I'm really glad that you shared all that with me. And just to go back on the record, just so you know, moving forward, it's not okay with us that you use any substances. Okay.

Now you didn't say anything about punishment, you didn't say anything about taking your cell phone away. Nothing.

Zero, zero. Because what I want them to do is to feel comfortable coming to you to tell you what happened when something happens. I don't. My interest is in helping you determine whether your child is struggling with an addiction or not and to do it as early as possible. Right. Because addiction is like a fire. It doesn't stop on its own. So if we can get clear that, oh, this is smoke, it's going to be a lot easier to put that fire out than to get that wrong and then wait for it to become a five alarm blaze. And the five alarm blaze happens now when they're at school, now they're out of the house and now the fire is just raging and raging and you don't have the kind of access that you had to them. If you would have just had open ended, receptive, calm, curious conversations with them about substance use when it was happening in real time. Because if your kid doesn't have an addiction, by the second or third or fourth time you have that conversation, they're going to get it and they're going to likely change their behavior because of the way that you've responded all along. It's like the ordinary teen stuff that happens. If you were to talk to any parenting coach about just, you know, what's happening with teens. I was just listening to Dave Asprey the other day, right. Like we're bio biologically wired to not want to listen to our parents when we are teenagers. It's like part of our survival instinct is to just not, you know, be interested in wanting to listen to you. So all of the. This is why I said it's not gonna work. It's not a good approach what you're saying as far as like the punishment and restrictions and all of that. Because even if they don't have an addiction or they don't have a dependency, you're pushing them towards sneaking it, you're pushing them towards doing it anyway. Right. That they're gonna do it. Now are they gonna develop an addiction? Probably not. That's what that's. But that's neither here nor there to the strategy. The strategy is having calm, curious, open ended conversations in the early going, establishing that it's not okay. And then by the third, fourth time it happens, then you're able to highlight, you know, there's this pattern here where, you know, where we stand, we've talked about this, we've Said that it's not okay for you to do it, and you're continuing to do it. So what do you think is going on here? Is it possible that this is something that's becoming more of a problem than maybe we'd like to admit? I think we're at a point where we may need to do something about this or we're getting really close. What do you think would make the biggest difference for you? Would you be willing to speak to someone or would you be against talking to someone? I think we need to have a conversation with someone who can have this conversation in a way maybe where it's not your mom and dad, maybe it's someone who is knowledgeable about this. Would you be against speaking with a counselor? A psychiatrist? A therapist. And that happens not in a way where it's like you find out they were drunk last night, and then it's like, that's it. You're going to a psychiatrist. It's instead of being that, it's more like they're open to it because you were calm and curious.

So the. I'm going to a psychiatrist. I'm not dismissing that one, but I. I think I'm talking more about that's not the threat that I typically hear, but the here that the threat that I'll hear is more lockdown, more restrictions. No cell phone, no friends. You can't see the boyfriend, you can't see the girlfriend. You can't have this friend. You can't go out. You thought you were going out there. You're not going out anymore. Like, so that's, that's the reaction that I'll typically hear from a parent. And if I'm hearing you correctly, that doesn't solve the problem. It actually could make it devastatingly worse. How do they. And I know you've given some tools on what to change, but you know, you're gonna have a lot very resistant people hearing this too, thinking, I know my child. This is like, what do you want them to know?

That it does require this kind of mindset shift because everything that you just described doesn't put the fire out. Or how about this? If you're going to use a consequence, right, you do not want to use consequences in an effort to make someone stop doing something. You want to use a consequence or link the consequence to them starting something different. So you don't want to say, I'm going to take your phone away, or you're not going to be able to see your boyfriend because you drank and you need to stop drinking. Or you need to stop smoking weed, or you need to stop whatever the thing is that you want them to stop. The way to position that is more like, here's what I'd like you to do. And then you're going to ask them to do a tangible thing. And that thing would be speaking with a counselor or going into a recovery program of some kind, going into a peer support group, going into, you know, any form of help. But whatever step it is that you want to have them take in what you feel is the right direction, it's here's what I'd like you to do. And is there any reason why you wouldn't be okay with doing that? You get all of the responses to that that they would have as to why they'd feel resistant or whatever, and you try and work through that. But then at the end of the day, if you're ready to pull the trigger on this, you're basically going to say, well, it's important for me that you do this because we've had this conversation multiple times and it's still, now we're in this place where you're still doing it. And so if you don't speak with this person, if you don't go to this place, if you don't do this thing, then we're gonna have to take away your phone or we're gonna have to keep you away from this or do that or whatever. And so now it's a clear there's a next step to take. Yeah. If they're, if they have an addiction and you say you need to not do this anymore, you just gave them an impossible ask. It's not something that I can actually follow through on because I don't have the ability to stop. So if you punish me, all you're doing is now punishing me for something that I have zero control over.

Wow, that's a lot. Yeah. Now, yesterday when I talked to you, when I was understanding more about what you do, you mentioned there's many different types of addictions. It's not just substance, it's not just drugs or alcohol. You had mentioned that there could be sex or love addiction, there could be spending addiction. You said there. Can you just speak a little bit into that? Because I think that gets overlooked a lot by parents too.

Sure, sure. Well, the Alcoholics Anonymous was formed in the 1930s and it was the first 12 step group that came into existence. And since then we have, I think there's over 250 other 12 steps based fellowships for all manners of different Things that people could struggle with or be addicted to. And so, yeah, you have sex addiction, you have sex and love addiction, you have codependency, you have gambling, you have shopping, you have food and sugar. And like any substances, of course, literally any kind of substances can be something that someone is going to get addicted to. But people, you know, have behaviorally where they can get themselves into debt, kind of be addicted to being in debt. I mean, so. But there's the hope though, here is that there's a program for it, you know, and oftentimes, you know, another program that I recommend is, you know, there's the fellowships that come about from if, for instance, Al Anon. Al anon is a 12 step fellowship for family members who have someone who struggles with alcohol. Naranon is for family members for people who struggle with narcotics. You have, you know, all of the codependents. Anonymous is again, that's more for people, but maybe people that are kind of really identifying with the codependency issues that they struggle with and putting a reliance on people, a dependence on people who don't necessarily deserve to have that reliance and dependence. And then the other is adult children of alcoholics, which is for children who grew up in an alcoholic household or a household that you would maybe typically define as what was a dysfunctional household. And some of the things that relationally that child may have grown up and experienced. And then they try to make sense of why their life is the way that it is. And it turns out they developed a lot of these patterns because they grew up with an alcoholic father or a mother who was addicted and you know, all of the various different things that come from that. So I mean, there's lots of things that people struggle with, but there's also helpful answers for all of those, you know, thanks, if you're willing to give them a try.

You said a lot in there that I've got I want to go a little bit deeper on. I'm going to ask you about codependence because I think that's a very important topic. I know it's a whole different direction, but I'm asking about that in a second. But I want to ask first about lying, because lying, from what I've started to dig into and understand, lying can be the COVID for addiction, but it also can be its own addiction. Do I have that right? Can you help understand the line or where you look at with the lying?

Yeah, I mean, I hadn't. I hadn't considered that or heard that as far as just lying itself. Yeah, but compulsive lying, certainly there are people who are pathological liars.

Right.

And the pathology of it could just be. Who knows where that comes from? But they just, you know, they. Maybe they're not feeling safe enough to tell the truth, you know, if it was for whatever reason, you know. And that's another thing that Joe Polish talks about often from a friend of his, Don Wood, where if you understood the atmospheric conditions of someone's life, you'd understand why they do what they do. Right. You understand their behaviors. And so there's. You can get to the root causes of these things. And certainly I had root causes, and we all have root causes. And. But the lying, as far as. From an addiction standpoint, is that addiction is going to do whatever it has to do to protect itself.

Wow.

It needs to. I mean, it's terrible to think about in this way, but it's like the craving, the compulsion to use the substance is almost like its own entity in a way. It's like it has me. Yeah, I don't have it. I don't have addiction as much as addiction as me. But I'm convinced that I'm the one that's making the decisions here. I'm convinced that I am in control. I want to go get drunk. I want to get high tonight. This is me that's deciding to do this. Right. But what about all of the hundreds of mornings that I woke up and said, I don't want to do this anymore, and then did it anyway? And that's consistent with. I've surveyed over 1,000 people in recovery and asked them how many mornings they woke up saying, this is it. I'm done. I am never going to do this anymore. And this is in the quiet of their own mind. We're not talking about a promise being made to a loved one just all by themselves waking up and saying, I'm done. I can't do this. I can't live this way. And then how many times did you do that and then drink or do drugs again? And the number one answer is countless. Countless mornings.

You know, I. When I was listening to your original interview that I heard with Joe Polish. Maybe I'm taking this out of context. I think I heard you say that everyone that has an addiction, they. They're not dumb. Like, they know that they've got a problem, and they know that they need help. They are in this conversation still of. And these are my words, not the words you use, but they're in this conversation of thinking they can control it all. Think they got it, think they can handle it versus surrendering. I think that's kind of the message I took listening to you.

Yeah.

Is that accurate?

Yeah. The primary delusions that we suffer from. So initially is I don't have a problem. And then I don't have a problem kind of transforms into I don't need help. So somewhere along the way, the outward indications that we're getting, they just become too hard to deny outright. We can't just outright say it's not a problem anymore. And so that's when you hear someone say, like, well, I know I have a problem, or I know I got to do something about it. Or, you know, guys that'll say, like, yeah, I know I'm an alcoholic. They're in the bar and they're drinking, and I know I'm an alcoholic, but they don't know what being an alcoholic means. Yeah, they don't really get it, but they're able to. They have to admit enough of a problem, but they wouldn't be able to define the problem. And so. But that is kind of secondary to the fact that they don't believe that they need any help. And so it's. I. But I got this. I'm fine. I can handle this on my own. I'm working on it. Just give me some time. Once this is done, I'll be, you know, I'm going to cut back, I'm going to slow down, I'm going to stop. But, you know, and. And they will do that all the way up until they die.

Wow. Okay. I want to talk about co dependence for a minute and kind of the way that people maybe handle or support the wrong thing. And this is harder for me than. Than you'll probably, because you're way more in this. So I'm kind of just gathering and guessing what I think. But is. And you're the expert here, but what does I think? People. I've at least. I've seen people go through things different ways when they have an active addict in their life. Either, you know, what we talked about earlier, the anger and the control and like the restrictions. That's like one direction. I've also seen the whole denial. Like it's not happening and I don't want to look at it and let's just avoid it. I've seen the joining in. Let me do it with you. Like, it's okay. I did it too, as a teen. Let me help. You know, like, it's okay. So there's this joining in, but then there's this Codependence. What does codependence mean and what is happening there?

Well, I'm not an expert on codependency. I would recommend people read Codependent no More by Melody Beatty. And to do your research on codependency, you'll certainly learn more than what you'll get from me right now. But what I would say is that for someone who's codependent, it's very difficult. It's almost like a match made in toxic heaven. If you're in a relationship with someone who has an addiction because the need to feel needed, to be needed to be a fixer, to be someone who is solving the problem, is valued because I have made the pain go away. You know, someone who can come to the rescue and say, it's okay, baby, I'm here. When someone has that kind of drive within them for whatever atmospheric conditions it was that they grew up with, right to then have this be how they are. You are in this bottomless pit of you are never going to be able to fix it all. You're never going to be able to soothe at all, you're never going to be able to rescue at all. Because the addiction is like, it's. It's just going to continue and continue and continue. So in that way, it's like you have an endless supply of things to fix. You have an endless supply of chaos to deal with. It's almost your own toxic scenario for that.

It's your own thing. Like you're. It's almost like that's like your version of addiction away if you're codependent like this. So they. You said it's a match made in toxic heaven. It makes sense. Like you're going to repair. Here's something I just put together and oh, gosh, I'm like thinking of so many examples of this now where somebody either lost a parent or lost a. Lost somebody else in their life to an addiction and now they've got somebody else. So they're gonna fix it now. Like, now they didn't handle it right with that person, so they're gonna save this one by helping to keep the secret or whatever it is.

Yeah, I've heard it said we repeat what we don't repair. So you are attempting to heal your wounds by putting yourself into circumstances subconsciously, unknowingly, that are going to, you know, give you an opportunity to heal that old wound. And so here I go now I'm going to be with someone who is going to give me that shot at, if I would have somehow figured this out with my dad when I was seven years old, maybe my dad would still be alive today and maybe things wouldn't have gone as so bad and all that sort of stuff. Again, this is all subconscious and we're assuming, you know, like no work done whatsoever. And now here she is, she's 27 years old and she's in this relationship with this man who's just like her father, but not just, you know, personality wise, literally struggling with the very same alcoholism. And. But here's what's so sad about it, is that the 27 year old version and the 7 year old version, you are never going to solve alcoholism. It was never in your control to solve it. You can't, and this is an Al Anon phrase, but like you can't control it, you can't cure it. It's not your responsibility. But like parents especially will now and this is why, going back to what we've kind of talked about in a general way so many times here, it's like the tactical things that parents will do, it's like you're trying to control a raging fire. It's an impossibility. You're not going to be able to do it. Once you identify that what you're dealing with here is addiction, there's an answer for addiction, but the addiction is not your child. And so if you're trying to control your child or trying to fix your child, rescue your child in the hopes that that's going to stop the addiction. It won't. It's just none of that would stop a shrimp allergy, right? None of it is gonna stop the alcoholism. It's just not. But there are things that work for alcoholism. But once you separate your child from their addiction, that's when you can begin to say, because I can't solve your kid, but I can handle addiction. There's a pathway for that.

What do you want the parent to know that's in self beat up and this is all consuming? Because I mean this can rock somebody's world. I mean it's not just rocking the person's world that's going through the addiction. It could stop somebody completely in their tracks. They can't focus on anything like this is consuming them. What do you know? What do you want them to know? How do they even begin to take care of themselves?

Yeah, well, okay, that's another question. So I've got a lot of them. The best way to. So my mother is, she's sober 50 years now and when I was 17 years old I came home from a keg party that she didn't know I was at. She just knows I'm out, right? Yep. And I wind up, you know, It's Sunday morning, 11 o' clock in the morning, I come walking in the door and my head's low because I had a bad night. You know, again, she doesn't have any of the details of that bad night, but she can see it on my face, she can look at me coming in the door. Now there's any number of things, and we've talked about it here that my mother could have done in response to her 17 year old son walking in Sunday morning at 11 o'. Clock. Yeah, she could have. It could have been screaming, yelling, it could have been, oh my God, I'm so happy you're home. I was so worried. It could have been this, it could have been that, it could have been any number of things that she could have done in response to that. And what she did was she said, chris, would you like to go to a meeting with me? And I said, okay. And then she took me to the meeting and then she let the people on the other side of the door help me with the problem that she had never had a conversation with me about ever. Now she did have a conversation where she said, chris, under no circumstance is it okay for you to be using any substances until you're of legal age to do so. I knew that when I was 15. Right. So she was on record and she had instances of me, she knew I was drunk on at least two different episodes, but she didn't have any overt. Are you an alcoholic? Do you think you have a problem? You need to speak to someone, we need to do something about this or grounding me because I was drinking. She might have grounded me for a different rule that I broke. Yeah, but not because of directly connected to alcohol and drugs. Why was she able to do that? Because she understands alcoholism. She had it herself. So her tact was not to do anything that she knows is not going to work anyway, what she did. One of the main advantages that my mother had, and so this is what I want your audience to know, right. Is that she never ever made herself responsible for my addiction.

Right.

It was not her fault. It's just something that happens to some people. Oh, my boy's got it too. That's it.

Do you have kids, Chris? Yes, if your have and if your kids, I don't know how old they are, if they've walk through or if they did walk, if they were to.

Walk through my oldest, seven.

So you'll obviously have these conversations, but if you found out, I mean, obviously seven's very young, so you likely that wouldn't happen now. But if you were to find out something was going on with your kid and it wasn't good and you're, you're navigating this, how would it. I obviously I know how what you would say to them, I know you would bring them to a meeting, you would understand it's not your problem. But how would you mentally not let that consume you? Because I think that is, you know, you think of any, any family crisis, you can't work, you can't focus. Like you can't. I think of when, when my dad died, my whole world was turned upside down. Like there's these, there's these moments, right. I just heard somebody speak recently on aging parents with dementia and they literally couldn't focus on their business. Like, how do you, and I know you're not a psychiatrist or a psychologist, but any advice there that you want this mom to hear or this dad to hear?

Yeah, my mother was working a 12 step program for herself already before I had ever gotten to the place where I was struggling with anything. My wife and I, two years ago we lost our son Connor in, you know, what should have been a routine delivery. And you know, it was a perfect pregnancy, our third child. And you know what you would imagine, I don't Even know, like 99.99 times out of 100 the things that were happening in that delivery room would not result in the baby dying, but ours died. And so I work a 12 step program also. So it's the reason I'm not consumed or having things that get kind of overwhelmed, like even on the very worst of circumstances is because I've already been working a program. So you know, one of the things that I, you know, like just suggestion wise is, you know, be the example. A lot of times if I'm talking to parents, I'm going to look to see what kind of, what is their background, what is their story, right. Oftentimes I've recommended adult children of alcoholics, for instance, to clients of mine who I'm working with mom to get her son into a treatment program. But then I say, mom, I want you to go and check out this program for you. Yeah. And then she goes and she says, oh my God, this is what I've been looking for my whole life. And that's why those types of programs are so incredible because they give the experience of what I was looking for in a bottle, they give that experience. It's the same thing. When I first got drunk, I thought this is it, this makes sense. And then when I got around my people, my community who struggled with the same problem and it was like, oh, this is it. And it's going to be a solid replacement for that old substance. It's like it doesn't even compare. It makes the substance obsolete. As a solution, it just goes away. It's a non option. It's not something I struggle with. Like, oh maybe should I drink? Should I not drink? That's not even happening in my brain anymore. And so when we lost Connor, it wasn't even a thought to drink.

So with your example and somebody that is also an addict and how they are not consuming, being part of a 12 step and all that makes sense. But what about the parent that that's not there, that's not their world. Like they, they aren't the addict. That maybe isn't what is going on with them. But it's like they basically thought that everything was perfect or you know, because that's a real thing too. Like I did everything right. Or you know, this is their belief right now. Right. I did everything right. And I have these other, my other kids are fine and this is like what? So now their world's turned upside down. Do you still feel that person needs to get into a 12 step as well? Like so does that parent also need to go look at this, Even though.

Addiction'S not their thing 100% because that's the other, all those other 12 step fellowships are not necessarily substance related. Yeah, codependency isn't substance related. You know, even gambling, sex and love addiction, like none of that, that's not substance related. But there's all these other pathways and avenues. And if it's not going to be 12 step, it could be other, some other kind of peer support. Right. But almost always when I'm doing an intervention, a successful intervention looks like not just the addicted loved one getting into a treatment program, but it's one, two or three other people on the inter intervention team entering a program also. But the program might be something that's like a week long clinical program or starting EMDR with the counselor or getting into a meditation practice or starting. Have you ever done hot yoga and you've never done hot yoga? Well, let's get you into hot yoga because of just hearing the story and just be like, there's a lot of stuff going on in her body. And I think that hot yoga would likely Be the best thing. So I just make a recommendation on that. And. But there's gonna be stuff to do, right? But I think mindset wise is really important and right up front, and I hope that everybody kind of gets this is, yeah, you can do everything right. Like fire prevention, for instance. You know, I was a firefighter, by the way. That's where a lot of these references happen. I'm retired now, but I was a New York city firefighter for 15 years. But, you know, there's a lot of fire prevention practices that people put into place. Right? Your home has a lot of fire prevention, and buildings have fire prevention. Does anybody think that fire prevention prevents fire?

No.

No. All it does is slow fire down at best. It mitigates it. It warns you, it identifies it. It says, oh, we got a fire going on. That's fire prevention. It doesn't prevent it. So you could have done everything right. As a parent, you were amazing. You did a great job. And all these other kids, they're doing great, but you have one that, oops, a fire happened. And that can happen, despite all the prevention, despite the fact that you did everything you possibly could. And it has nothing to do with anything you did wrong as a parent. And by the way, it doesn't even have anything to do wrong that they did because all the other kids were playing with matches, too. And you wish that they didn't, right? But the other kids, they didn't accidentally start a fire when they started playing with matches. And just have a luck of the draw, your kid. There was a little spark and then, oh, my God, a fire started. But they do that.

Joe. Sorry, Chris, how do you. I just called you Joe. That's funny. I don't know why I thought Joe for a second, because he introduced us. Chris, my question, what do you do for. I know you said this is what you do for a living, is you really help navigate this. But talk to us a little bit more about that. Like how. Because you're so knowledgeable and you're so helpful and I. I know when I had some questions and I had asked our friend Joe, he didn't even know why I was really asking. He just said, you have to talk to. You have to talk to Chris. Like, he just connect us. And you were so. I mean, you guys, this is really funny, actually. Like, Joe gave him a little information. Why? I had questions and Chris texted me back and I listened to a video and I said, I'll reach out to you. He texted me almost every day saying, hey, I think we need to talk. Like, what's going on? And he was super supportive. And then I just had this incredible talk with him yesterday. So I want to acknowledge that with you first. Like, you didn't. You don't know who I am or why, like, anything about me, and you didn't know I had a podcast. Like, none of this. And you were just so amazing to connect and compassionate and, like, asking why I was asking questions and understanding, how do you even make a living doing that? And what. What do you do?

And.

And why do you take that approach? And how. How do people work with you?

Yeah, I mean, so I started out when I was a firefighter. I was a counselor in. Within the department for half of the. Half of my career also. And so I started helping with getting first responders into rehab and then would counsel and do group counseling and things like that. And so I needed to get trained in intervention. Once I started to identify that, a lot of, you know, I became the guy that I was having conversations with, someone that might have had marital problems or job issues or PTSD or any number of things that were going on with them. And then in the course of that conversation, I'm identifying he also has a problem with alcohol or he also had an injury, and they prescribed opiates, and so he's addicted to opiates, and yet he's talking to me now about marital problems, but he's not talking about the substances at all. But I can read between the lines. And within that one session, I would have. Typically, I would have them on their way to rehab the next day.

Wow.

And that was something like a skill set then that I got to develop, but I didn't have it 100% of the time. Maybe 8 out of 10 cases, I'd be able to pull that off. But every once in a while, I'd have a guy that I just was not able to break through the level of denial that they were in to get them to even admit that they had a problem. And so I got trained in intervention, got the skill set. And then because of. Just. I'd have a lot of phone calls. And I will. I'm explaining it by getting to this point that phone calls would come in from wives of firefighters, and it's like, can you help my husband? And when I first started, it was like, yeah, of course we can. Here are all the options we have on how we can help him. And just have him give me a call. Now he's not gonna get on the phone with me.

Mm, no.

And as I'M giving her that advice because that was advice I was directed to give. Yeah, I know he's not gonna get on the phone. Cause I understand addiction. I know, like, I just basically told her, I can't do anything to help you. That's the honest truth. It's like, I just gave you a bunch of fluff. Thanks for calling. So it was like, that needs to be a different conversation. And when I got trained in intervention, I now began to develop, how do I coach this wife on what to say to him to get him on the phone with me? Because that's the starting point. This is one of the key kind of distinctions when you deal with, like, kind of understanding addiction and recovery. People talk about he has to want it, he has to be ready, he has to hit it bottom. You know, ultimately, it's his decision to do something. You can't make him do anything. There's a difference between getting sober and staying sober. And staying sober is where all of that becomes relevant. Staying sober is about intrinsic motivation and having being able to look back in hindsight and say, I didn't like the way that my life was, and those last couple of times really were bad, and I'm glad I don't live that way anymore. But getting sober is coming from a place of active addiction. And when someone's in active addiction, they don't want it. They're not ready, they haven't hit bottom. They don't necessarily want anything to do with getting sober. And yet people get sober that way from that position all the time. There's like, meetings and rehabs filled with people right now who don't want to be there. Yeah, that's what they're for. They're there to break through that resistance and that denial. So that all of a sudden, there's an epiphany where that person goes, oh, my God, I really do have a problem. But they don't go there themselves. They're not initiating that. So the way that I help is you're going to call me as a parent or as a significant other, a family member, and you're going to say, my so and so has. Has a problem with drugs. And you have professional interventions which are like, in person, you're guiding multiple family members. But the thing that brings me a lot of joy is that I've developed this method so that I could maybe just coach you over an hour or two or three or four and get you to a place where you're gonna get them to. They'll be able to have the Conversation that brings them to the people that can break down the resistance, that can break down the denial and the defiance and. And they could start to identify, oh, my God, I've had a problem this whole time.

So you educate the parent, the spouse, the whoever, you work with them to help them through the process. So they have the resources, the tools, the skills, the communication, all of that. That's how people can hire you or how they work with you. Is that accurate?

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. And I, like, educate and coach through what they're going through specifically right now, but usually it's pretty, you know, it's pretty fast. They're in an intense situation, and maybe something is likely has precipitated them calling me. And so, you know, in much the same way we talked about before, you're going to be able to use whatever the circumstance is and you're going to communicate it effectively. And it's like, so for this reason, this is why we need to do something about this in a way that we haven't done before. And so. And then there's a bunch of tips and techniques, but I have. I have kind of drizzled them in here as we've gone, but, you know, ways to ask questions.

Yeah, I know. This is incredible. Now, how would one actually go about hiring you or finding you or learning more or having that conversation with you?

Yeah, if you go to whyintervention.com so that's why intervention.com I have a lot of free resources there. I have a podcast also, where I've probably 100 hours of just a lot of this kind of mindset education.

And is that called why? What's the name of the podcast?

The why Intervention Podcast. Yeah. Yeah. It would not be unusual for me to hear from people who are calling me for the first time, and I find out that they've listened to 30 or 40 episodes, you know, and then. And then they finally come around to, I should talk to him. And I try to make it as, you know, interventions are usually a big investment. Right.

Yeah.

And because you think about, like, investments, the TV version, it's celebrities, it's athletes, it's people that, you know, it's like Ray Donovan coming in to come and fix my problem, you know, like. And I try to make it a lot more accessible and affordable to families. Because it's. My dream is to just have the tools be accessible for everyone so that you can start once you recognize that. That piece, that there's a difference between getting sober and staying sober. The influence that you have is over the getting sober part. Nobody is. You can't guarantee staying sober, but staying sober is impossible if the person doesn't get sober first and on their own, they're unlikely to get sober.

I think sometimes not all parents, but a lot of parents will have this belief that I got to put my kid in a program or I got to send them out, like somebody else is going to handle this. And if I'm hearing you correctly, you almost have to handle yourself first. You've got to learn, you have to understand, you have to get your own coaching, your own. And you get to be that person that intersect. You get to be the quarterback in it. You don't just hand it off. You literally get to be the quarterback kind of putting the right. I mean, that's what I'm hearing. So you support that role?

Yes, because it's not necessarily going to be just as simple as you hand it off to whoever when crisis hits. It's. It would be a lot more beneficial for you to have far more information and understanding going into that than not, you know, because there's. There's any number of little tweaky kind of things that if you don't know about it, just blows up your whole thing, you know, like you send them to a program in the program and now they want to come home and they say that something's happening here. And if you weren't talking to me ahead of that. Right. You know, I've oftentimes it's like, it's like just these, these minor things that could blow up the whole process. But you know, I mean, it's a terrible, it's a terrible metaphor, but it does explain it. Right. When my father in law passed away, I remember being taken by how the funeral director was at our house now or at their house within an hour and he's there in a suit and he's. Yeah, I just remember just like, wow, just the responsiveness of this, that he's here and now from my father in law passing to the funeral, that guy, like you said, is quarterbacking all of the logistics from start to finish, from the moment he passed away through burial at the cemetery. Right. Imagine like not having all of that and being a family who's now grieving, but also having to figure out all the logistics of every single little thing that has to happen between, you know, those two moments. Right. And so there's a lot of various little like things that are going on between. You identify someone has an addiction that you love and care about, and then how do I get them into a program that's going to be able to actually help them and give us the best shot at long term recovery.

So good. So if you're listening and you want to access Chris, you want to learn more whyintervention.com and as he said, he has a bunch of free resources. He's got a podcast and if they want to work with you, they want to actually have a conversation with you. Is there an application? How do they do that? Is that all on the website as well?

Yeah, yeah. You can do an intervention assessment tool and then you'd be able to schedule call or I have course materials available and a lot of that is pretty cool way of doing things. But if you, if you feel like this appeals to you, you can find out like how to have this conversation. I call it the three phase conversation. It's far more in depth. Hours of like, how do you do this? But if you're interested in that, I'm sure it'll appeal to you if you just go check it out.

Thank you so much, Chris. Thank you.