How did this last month go? Did you find any help in episode 220 when we talked about wanting better self-esteem? Were you able to find ways to help you not take things personally in your marriage or with your family in episode 221? Did you get any clarity on what addiction is in Episode 222?
We get feedback from Adam and Neil to help recap each of these episodes and how they were received or understood by others outside of the therapy profession. What did you think about those shows?
Tune in to see the March Month in Review Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
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Episode #223 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Through a therapist’s eyes. March, 2023. In review, we have got Mr. Neil who is usually behind the curtains, out in front of the curtains. How are you, sir? Hey, I
Neil Robinson: made it almost through the
Chris Gazdik: week, so we’re good. Almost through the week. Glorious Friday, next to next up. And Mr. Adam Cloninger back with us, man.
How you been? Good man. Good. Been hanging out and enjoying the
Adam Cloninger: springtime weather we got. Yep. Let just move the microphone. Is the volume still good? I’m hoping. I think you’re Check check. Ten four. Dude. That’s like
Chris Gazdik: check, check. One two, check two. Don’t we do that before we start?
Adam Cloninger: Yeah, but I moved the microphone, so I’m just, just making sure.
Chris Gazdik: All right. This is where you get personal insights directly from a therapist in time in your car and personal time at home. We are talking about the three shows that we did in March, which have to do with the four shows. We did four shows this month. Well, I only got three to review.
Neil Robinson: Oh. Well, I don’t know.
You
Chris Gazdik: missed a [00:01:00] month. Did I missed? I don’t think so.
Neil Robinson: Okay. I, I added a month. I added a week.
Chris Gazdik: Well, you get three from what we did. You’ll have to see what I missed if I did a fpa. But anyway, we got I want better self-esteem. And boy, it was a fun conversation on don’t take things personally in your marriage and the show.
That was the bombies, the, the loudest. The, the, did we do the battle title the, the panel battles about addiction. Did you get that?
Neil Robinson: Yeah, I got that one. No, I remember technical issues for self-esteem. Oh, you were camping. That was the problem. We screwed up Cause it’s been four weeks, but I messed, we messed up the first one.
Adam Cloninger: Is that the one where y’all had to record it twice? Yep. Okay.
Neil Robinson: Yep. Yes. Like I said, that was a good, good exercise and rebuilding self-esteem after everything got screwed up by me.
Adam Cloninger: We
Chris Gazdik: were so happy with Neil that day. It was like we did the whole show, did the, all the way through. It got jacked up. It’s never happened before and we had to redo the whole thing, but yeah, so it was like the best show ever because we did it twice.
Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: No, I’m in the first
Neil Robinson: episode. No, the, no, the the first one [00:02:00] was actually low energy. Chris wasn’t Film got at the beginning. Oh. I was dead. So it was actually better we recorded it because the second show was really good. Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: I was, I was very, the second time. So five star reviews help us out a lot. We got the merch man over there today.
If you see on YouTube, he’s got the banging hat hold banging cup, banging book. I guess he’s like a walking billboard today, this guy. But it does help us out to go check out through a therapist’s eyes.com, the merch button, buy some cool stuff, contact through a therapist eyes where you join us to interact with us through a therapist Eyes re-understanding emotions and Becoming your Best Self is the book boy.
I’m gonna get the other book out on marriage. When’s coming out? You were a contributing factor to that Adam. Oh boy. Thank you for that man. Last time we was hanging out you’re like, so, so, so like are you gonna get it done this year? Ah, and I was like, the answer’s yes. Okay. The answer’s yes. So I’m just keeping from
Adam Cloninger: procrastinating cuz you know,
Chris Gazdik: well I ain’t gonna do it.
The resident procrastinator. Yes. Self-proclaimed. That is not a sh [00:03:00] shot across the bow. I don’t want to get an email about that. Listen, I’m gonna start us off with a current event though. Today because we have yet again, you know, in the states here another mass shooting event. Now, dude, before the mics came on, Adam, you’re like, you don’t even know about Tennessee.
Hmm. How do you not know?
Adam Cloninger: I mean, I heard some conversations at work back in the office, and I heard some conversations about gun control and stuff, but I mean, that’s kind of a, you know,
that’s
Chris Gazdik: what we do always hear about. But I didn’t, these conversations and all, I, I told her, Neil, you were like surprised as well Adam
but honestly, I’m proud of you, man, because. Getting inundated with news we are learning is bad. I think that we’ve learned enough about mental health and social media and the news outlets to be able to say that. So I You must be, and you are in a good mood. Yes, I am. You are in a good mood because he didn’t hear about this horrible news coming out of Nashville, Tennessee at the Covenant School, [00:04:00] which is a private Christian institution where yet again, we have someone who walked into the school fully armed.
And Adam, I understand that three elementary school children got shot as well as a three adult staff members of the school. So it’s just, it’s just terrible. And I’m sure that y’all have known about this. I, I’m doing a current event on it to point out a different component though, of this that is bothersome.
Now, I’m not gonna read it, but on my phone. I have had a, a personal friend of mine share, I mean, he shared this texting interlude that he had with, I’m just gonna say somebody he knows and this somebody that he knows is texting about how this is a conspiracy and the police are planting a dummy decoy. How the [00:05:00] shoes are different from when he was in the school to when he was outside of the school or something, or that’s
Adam Cloninger: another one of those things, like that guy that just got sued not too long ago about the other
Chris Gazdik: shooting.
Yeah, yeah. What’s his name? That, that was big in the news?
Neil Robinson: The written house one or
Adam Cloninger: no
Chris Gazdik: shooting The big podcaster that got nailed for making, I think, I think y’all talked about it near morning episode. We did. I’m, I’m, his name is just, I’m brain farting on it. I don’t even wanna say his name. The
Adam Cloninger: other podcaster that mentioned that, you know, the, one of the shootings was Oh, Jones,
Neil Robinson: Alex Jones.
Okay.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. Jones. I, yeah. You know, I look if you, The current event to me is I do not understand where and how quickly we all go towards, no, I’m not gonna say we all go, that some go towards conspiracy, thinking about horrific events just out of jaded negative. [00:06:00] Sarcastic, hurtful. I think distrusting is the biggest component that people are going on, and I don’t understand it.
I’m gonna make a call that that needs to stop. It’s ridiculous.
Adam Cloninger: Is it, is it maybe disbelief?
Chris Gazdik: It’s disbelief. Distrust and, and having a, some sort of political view about something. And what gets lost is the, the grieving of the families. With the Jones case, we saw horrible examples of that where people are literally being threatened that they’re making false claims about their own children.
Like, do we not have some decorum in society that we respect people’s loss and pain and horrific, tragic events. It’s, we do not, dude, to answer your question,
Adam Cloninger: we do not. You, you took
Neil Robinson: the words right outta my mouth. Yes. No,
Chris Gazdik: it’s just not, you can ask the question, right? I mean, so yeah. It’s, it’s, it’s a current event that I, I’m taking that angle cuz I don’t hear many [00:07:00] people really coming down hard on that.
And I wanted to come down hard on that because it, it hurts people’s mental health and it hurts all of our psyche for that matter. And, and it’s on simple, stupid little thinking. In my interlude with my buddy who was trying to say like, I don’t even know how to respond to this person. I’m like, well, first of all, well if someone who got to me before, you know, they can get to it, it’s like you can easily get on there and digitally change somebody’s shoe color.
And somebody covered that in the news to correspond. Like that’s what happened. Somebody got on, changed the shoes and then created this story or. Be, I’m gonna say bullshit like that. And what I said is, you know, and they also kind of went on and like, well, you see that the strobes were already on school, was pree evacuated?
And, and I’m like, if, if there’s an emergency, I’m gonna pull any emergency button that, you know, gets anybody’s attention there. So of course it was pulled earlier. Well, when,
Neil Robinson: if you look at it just stupid, they got in the school by shooting through the door with high powered rifles, [00:08:00] like Right. How does someone not hear that and realize, oh, I should pull an alarm a
Adam Cloninger: bit.
Chris Gazdik: Right. Immediately. It’s an emergency alarm. So look, it just, it gets some. Get some trust and have some, some pause. I mean, what are we a day or two after this? And people are talking about a conspiracy with this event. It, it’s just, we need to have better decorum than that. Let’s, let’s, let’s work on that.
I’m gonna get off of it cuz I’ll get upset. I’m gonna take a drink of water. We’re gonna transit to our game. Can we play our game?
Neil Robinson: Yes, we can. We can play
Chris Gazdik: the game. Okay. All right. So if you’re if you’re new to the month in review, Adam shows up and he gives us two words. That’s all Neil and I have is two words to decide what, I guess it’s a current event, kind of mm-hmm.
Thing as well. What other current event has been in the news that impacts mental health in some way? That’s the game. So let’s play what you
Adam Cloninger: got. All right. So I’m gonna try to make it a little [00:09:00] fresh today. I’m changing the rules a little bit on y’all. Oh
Neil Robinson: man. I don’t do well with rule changes when it comes to games.
Adam Cloninger: So this time I’m not gonna give y’all just one word I’m gonna give you. Like two or three words
Neil Robinson: or three words. So now I change it to two phrases versus two
Adam Cloninger: words, no words. It’s, but it’s just me. A couple
Chris Gazdik: words, but how about a description of the article or the event? No, no, no, no. But too much.
Adam Cloninger: I’m gonna do a play on words so it’s not, still not gonna be absolutely clear what I’m talking about.
And once y’all pick with what the article, you’ll, you understand what you mean. So the two, the two articles, one would be about natives and cowboys. Ooh, or kings and
Chris Gazdik: trees. Holy crap. That’s just so random. Yep.
Adam Cloninger: But again, it’s a play on words. Sos kings
Chris Gazdik: and trees, Kings and trees. Natives and cowboys.
Cowboys or
Adam Cloninger: kings and trees.
Neil Robinson: I want kings and trees cuz I have no clue where you’re gonna go with that one. I
Chris Gazdik: have no clue where he is going with that one. And I think that’s why I don’t want [00:10:00] it. I want, I think I want the, the, the other one, the natives and cowboys. Cause it just sounds fun. It’s like a play on cowboys and Indians.
And you know, this
Adam Cloninger: iss the hell I thought this would go to. What’s that? I figured
Chris Gazdik: it’d be like that. Oh, did you? You called that? Yeah. Yeah. So what are we gonna do, Neil? How do we play rock paper? Scissor. You try to convince me. I convince you. What are we gonna do here? You’re the
Neil Robinson: host, so technically you could probably take priority
Chris Gazdik: if you want.
You’re the man. So you always take priority and tell us what to do.
Neil Robinson: Absolutely not. I’m
Adam Cloninger: not kings. Kings and
Chris Gazdik: trees makes no sense to me. No,
Neil Robinson: that’s what makes it fun. That’s what makes it fun. The the unknown. See, this is the difference in our personality. I love the unknown of the, that one. He’s like, I want something.
I think I know what’s going on with it. And so there’s this comfort level that he wants to No,
Chris Gazdik: no, no. That’s not totally true. I love surprises. So improving that, I’ll go with your, your, your notion that, we’ll, we’ll go with surprises. I li I don’t like things to change, but I like spontaneity. S
Neil Robinson: Do [00:11:00] you like how I, do you like how he did that?
So he sided with me. That was
Adam Cloninger: pretty slick, right? Psyched me out here. I don’t like things to change, but like spontaneity. I
Chris Gazdik: know, I know. Okay. That’s, I’m, I’m, I’m a, I’m one to figure out buddy. We can, yeah, we can go on that one. He’s an enigma
Neil Robinson: wrapped in a red. That
Adam Cloninger: means we’re going with kings and trees.
Kings and trees. Okay. Remember I said it’s gonna be a play on words, right? Yes. Okay. So the Mexico government has announced a 22% reduction in the monarch butterfly population and they attribute that to deforestation, kings trees, monarchs, kings trees. Ah, that’s interesting. Nice. So I wanted to Brilliant throw you off by doing that.
Brilliant. So, basically the officials say that it’s based, it’s cause of deforestation. There’s also a guy that’s he started out doing research and doing some non-profit stuff for Monarch butterflies. His opinion is it’s herbicides. But my [00:12:00] point is it is environmental stuff that goes on.
And I don’t think humans, I think we’d be naive to think that we actually understand what’s going on in a ecosystem, so, right. Now the, the deforestation thing, they said that, and they didn’t, they didn’t give a whole lot of detail. I’m a little confused on that, but they basically said the deforestation has tripled.
I don’t, they didn’t really give a timeframe or how they determined it tripled, but the rate of deforestation has tripled in Mexico. In Mexico, so, With that in mind I’m thinking, you know, people might be stressed out about, you know, environmental change, herbicides, what kind of effects it has on people.
Are, are, are, are we eating stuff at center of Food, deforestation, environmental change stuff?
Chris Gazdik: So what do you think? Well, it’s interesting that it works well, honestly, with unplanned the, the conspiracy thinking that, that people have. Before we dive into it, just for a minute though, I mean, it’s funny when you say Mexico, I was hoping you’d go where you didn’t go.
There’s a cool story out about the [00:13:00] Mexican president, like supporting or, or putting out there support in like a mythical, what was it, swamp monster type thing. It wasn’t swamp monster, but it was like a, a troll.
Neil Robinson: Cap or whatever.
Adam Cloninger: Chupa. Cbra or it, what is that? I think so it’s, it’s
Neil Robinson: a mythical dog-like beast that will basically like suck the blood of the goats.
Yeah. So basically Chupa. CBRA means like goat sucker. And the funny thing is there’s a movie on Netflix called Chupa, which because of the word they took, it basically is suck in me in Spanish. That’s the name of the movie cuz they call it Chupa. Is it like a vampire movie? No, it’s like a, it’s like a kids’ movie where it’s like, like the Chupa copper is like this neat little fantasy animal that a kid finds and they become friends, I think.
But basically they call it Chupa, which is. Just suck in Spanish. You don’t know
Adam Cloninger: much about crypto creatures, do you? I
Chris Gazdik: don’t, ma’am. We can do a whole show. There’s, I actually, I’m a friend that wanted to do a crypto podcast. Actually what’s funny is no, this wasn’t that. This was about [00:14:00] something that you had to like, you know, appease so that you could plant your beans and make a good harvest, and it was a troll like figure, whatever it was.
But anyway, we are totally dive deranged around off of the topic of, you know, I don’t know, Neil. Yeah. I think that people do freak out about climate change and, and really have a lot of emotions about what this is and what this isn’t, how it operates, how it is. And a lot of fear is used about it either way.
It, it, it’s unfortunate that it turns into a, an agenda piece, but how do people handle in their mental health fears, you know, about
Neil Robinson: this? I, I mean, I think it goes back to the fear comes in because of the unknown. Like you’ve said, one of the biggest issues is you don’t know what’s really causing it. We know, right?
I mean, you could almost say that. Surely that man is the reason there’s problems, but what caused it, we don’t really know. I mean, could it be the Mexican cartel taking on the avocado groves and spreading too wide and that’s it. Yeah, that’s it. That’s it. That [00:15:00] caused it, you know, it could be herbicides because you know, that is a known problem.
You get, you’re spraying nearby things. You’re killing the milk weeds, which then causes what? That’s what Monarch used. So, but the unknown, going back to the conspiracy theory, I think that’s what drives all these theories and thoughts because there’s a fear and you’re trying to rationalize what’s going on.
Right? Oh my, oh my Lord. Our planet is two degrees hotter because of cars. Well, nevermind. We have 7 billion people now. And have you ever been in a room with like five people in the room? Just gets naturally 10 degrees hotter. There’s what you’re talking about. Yeah, I know, right? But no, I think it’s correct.
It’s that fear, that rash trying to rationalize what’s going on. And you get a lot of con, you know, conspiracy theorists trying to. Figure out in their brain they’re trying to justify or figure it out. And that’s a great sign of like what goes on to mental health when it’s a bigger problem than you. Can rational figure out.
And the
Chris Gazdik: other piece of that, just like we were talking about that we didn’t plan it, but the two stories do work together because the fact of trust in your fellow man, the, the ability to [00:16:00] trust, you know, things that science is teaching us. Cuz I, I listen to a lot of podcasts on science and there’s a lot that we do.
That’s out there. But do people trust what we have learned and what we, what we do know? But do
Adam Cloninger: we really know? We really don’t know. We just think, well, there’s theories and, but there’s, we really don’t know. We, we
Chris Gazdik: have, we have some things that we know, and we have some things that we don’t know. And like most things that are in science, when you know very little, it looks really solid.
When you learn more about it, it breaks up and there’s gaps in what you know, and new questions come around. So the more that we’re learning, the more that we ask questions, the more that we feel like we don’t know, but we actually know more. That’s just science. That’s the way, that’s the way it works. I think you start realizing
Adam Cloninger: you don’t
Chris Gazdik: know anything.
Well, for real, when you start learning a lot and you start asking really deeper questions, dude, there’s nothing that we know about the human psyche. If we want to go to that, right? We’ve learned a lot about the human [00:17:00] psyche, but there are so many more questions and you know, in the weeds that we get with it, which is good because then we learn more information, but that triggers more questions and the more answers that get to those questions, new questions emerge and we just learn.
And that’s just, we keep on learning. I mean, when, when, when we first started this venture in, in psychology field, we thought drilling a hole in the forehead of your head and scraping around brain tissue was gonna relieve schizophrenia. Wait a minute, we don’t do that anymore. We don’t, we don’t do, we don’t do that anymore.
Okay. And there was a big event in Nashville. You’re learning a lot today. Okay. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s, it, it are these things, these, these mental health emotional realities interestingly do come into these topics that you wouldn’t think are, but there’s ever-present emotional reality that we’re, that we’re dealing with.
You know,
Adam Cloninger: it’d be awesome. If someone did like a study and found out that drilling a hole actually did help, that would drive Chris insane. [00:18:00] It would shock
Chris Gazdik: me. Well, they, they do that. Did it shock e ect It would shock me. Yes. They do that
Neil Robinson: to relieve pressure when there’s extra fluid on the brain. So I mean, it, it does help in some cases there is, but, but the thing is, you know, you know, whole scraping around the brain is probably more of the bigger problem than
Adam Cloninger: drilling the
Chris Gazdik: hole.
But yeah, and, and it didn’t it didn’t help schizophrenia. So let’s go on to our shows and clip into episode two 20. This is the one that we actually did twice. Why Neil thought we had four shows to, to get into. You know, I thought we’d spend a minute, a little bit on the questions, the three questions of episode two 20 that we posed for you to think about.
Were, you know, where does self-esteem come? A B, when did life damage your view of yourself and how many times was that the case and how, how do I actually do build up self-esteem process? So the second time was better than the first time Neil?
Neil Robinson: I think so. Like I said, it, it started off [00:19:00] on a higher energy because like I said, you were exhausted before the, the first time we recorded it.
But I think it was also kind of cool seeing, knowing the conversations and then the panel could kind of go through like what they talked about last time and kinda to actually remembered what she did. Yeah, exactly. Because I think, I think the part she brought up again was the self-esteem versus self-confidence, which was a really cool thing to understand the difference between those two things.
And so yeah, I thought I was interested doing it because we’ve never really done a. Twice. Yeah. So it’s interesting to see the difference. Yeah, exactly. She’ll practice. We’re gonna do those on Tuesdays, right? Nope, just kidding.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Every Tuesday,
Neil Robinson: negator, I’m pretty sure my wife would kill me if I have to leave the house for another, another night, a week.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I’m I’m putting a veto on that one. Even though you’re the man who tells us what to do. Where does self-esteem come from? What’d you think we covered with that? Or these questions we’re, we’re go down to questions Neil and think about like where, where we were on them.
Neil Robinson: I mean I think we talked about with, [00:20:00] when it comes to the self-esteem, it was, you know, the nature. I think nature has a lot of stuff I think we kind of talked about before, you know, nature is what can make or break your self-esteem. I mean some people do have a natural, tend to be more resilient depending how they do it or how they perceive things.
But nature I think, really is a deciding factor on your level of self-esteem. And you know, cuz you talked about question. Your life damages it. Your life is the nature that you’re in. Sorry, nurture. I was
Adam Cloninger: gonna say, scratch that last 10 seconds because I, were you here when we recorded
Neil Robinson: the show? My polish kicked in.
They got a little backwards. Yeah. Either time. That’s awesome.
Chris Gazdik: So nurture. Nurture, yeah.
Adam Cloninger: Is a huge nature. That’s why you kinda look
Chris Gazdik: at me like, huh? I was waiting to pounce, man.
Neil Robinson: N nurture is a huge part of your self-esteem. Yeah, that’s what I was saying. Because it dictates so much of how you, what you go through, how you learn to handle things, all those different pieces.
So yes, nurture, not nature,
Adam Cloninger: which [00:21:00] it does it not come, come from survival too in itself. I mean, you know, you do, you learn, okay, you become confident, confident hunter or whatever. Oh yeah. Then you do something, you know, it didn’t work out so good. I, I didn’t even be more
Chris Gazdik: careful on that next time. Yeah. Well, the, the things that you survive from actually would be part of the, the nurture, the, the, the nature nurture argument and in the mental health field is when you have biology, genetics, you know, like your body is geared in a certain sort of way.
We are like physically wired, you know, in, in certain ways that, that, that nature. Drives how you feel and how you operate and how you think and whatnot. That’s where a lot of the science-based diagnostics come from and whatnot. On the other hand you got this, this nurture, it’s nurture meaning, you know, your mother and father, family nurture you.
So it’s the social and emotional experiences. So if you’re surviving from something, you know, an event running from a tiger or dealing with dealing with a school shooting or something, that’s going to be pretty profound in the way [00:22:00] that you experience the world in yourself. And so it’s nurtures everything social and emotional.
And you’re right, it is interesting because most things in our field have this interesting balance, right between, you know, the nature and nurture realm of stuff. And I, I was kind of pleased that the, the panel agreed with me that I don’t think mostly a lot of times that the, the social is so much more important.
In, in this. And you know, when you look down on the long list of things that, you know, people experience that affect our, our, our self-esteem. Adam, this is the second question. Like, when did life damage my view? I mean, think of how many of these things you experienced, right? You know, high school breakups, middle school breakups, adult breakups really are breakups at any point.
Yeah. I’m dying. I I’m dying. Yeah. It’s painful. Yeah. You know, job loss parents being critical highlight that in a big way. Car accidents or police tickets. You should have heard John’s story about the police ticket. That was hysterical. [00:23:00] You remember that, Neil? That was great. Let’s just say you’ll have to listen to that episode 2 23 to.
How the police in some Florida County tormented a poor young John Pope that was terrible of them. That’s a teaser. You gotta listen to the show. But moving on, you know, one of life’s many failures or perceived failures in parenting are, I just wrote our spouse as something that, that breaks into your self-esteem.
You could just stop, just say your spouse. Just stop and say there, Facebook, social media, trauma, bullying, loss of a friend, I mean, it could go on, but losses of any kind. I mean, just, can you imagine, Adam, like all these different things that, that influence your self-esteem over all those years?
Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. For the positive, we have equally as a long of a list, but you know, interestingly, we focus on what affects our self-esteem. We assume it’s what hits us and what’s hurts us, and how does it take a, [00:24:00] how does it take a hit? Right. So it it’s, it’s happening all throughout your life, which led me to look, look at like, you know, one of the places I think that we landed with that was, isn’t it normal guys to have a low self-esteem?
Adam Cloninger: I’m, I’m not seeing that at all. Right? You gonna tell me how you come up with that?
Chris Gazdik: I figured you wouldn’t. I feel
Adam Cloninger: you
Neil Robinson: wouldn’t, this is, see he, him and I are kind of a part where nature does kind of kick in cuz I think him and I have a more of a optimistic personality. But yet knowing life there is the battle of bad things do happen, but I think it’s interest.
Looking at this list, you didn’t put anything on here that talks about how it could build your self-esteem. Exactly. That’s what getting, getting a promotion, you know, you know, winning a contest, winning a, a game or a match. You know, having the parents congratulate you on your straight A’s or the opposite of everything in the list.
Right. And the, all the opposite. So it’s funny [00:25:00] how, cuz I just notice I’m like you’re saying how these affect our self-esteem, but that’s all the negatives first, all the positive stuff that happens in a life and it’s kinda like, wait, is that kinda one of those things? Cuz that, and when we look at our lives, you know, the pain is more prevalent.
So that’s why the negative stand out’s, the reality more that’s reality. You know, that’s human nature. We talked
Chris Gazdik: about survival. The pain is more prevalent. We need to write that down as a quote to be honest with you. A T-shirt and make sure you’re quoted on that because you know, yeah. If you think about a baseball game that you’re playing in honor of opening day of baseball, yes, I got that in, I’m happy about myself.
You know, you don’t think about the stolen bass or the bass hit or even winning the game when you’re playing in that game back in your mind. And we do the same thing when we play back the years of our life. You know, we hit out and single out those pieces, those moments that were like pin pricks or, or big events that hurt us.
And, and in the baseball game, we really [00:26:00] focus on the, the error that we made off. I just thought I’d just got an edge on that ball. If I took one more step before I jumped up, I would’ve been able to grab it or what?
That’s,
Adam Cloninger: well, even statistically they do that. I mean they, you know, they keep track of errors.
They also keep track of home runs and hits too. Right. So they do both.
Chris Gazdik: They, but, but where’s the focus? Well, they do both. Yeah. The focus Camille, both. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I, and don’t get me wrong, I, I don’t think that we, I noticed it too, Neil. When I was reading it, I think we, we had must have had a brain flash together.
I didn’t realize that when we recorded the show, but both times, both either time. Dang. Did we make that point, Neil? It’s okay man, that we, we did that. It’s okay. How’s your
Adam Cloninger: self-esteem,
Neil Robinson: Neil? I came back. I’m still here today. Right. Yeah. Resiliency man. But cuz I, I think that’s because I’m like thinking about, you know, my kid wrestles and you always have the bad matches.
Like it’s always, those always sent, like today [00:27:00] his, his high school went to the band contest and they got superior, which is like the best you can do in a contest, which is Right, right. We’re super excited about it, but honestly, he’ll probably think about the winter concert that he messed up five notes on and that’s gonna hurt him more.
He’s gonna think about it more than his band doing super great today. It’s just that weird, weird nature that we look at. Yeah, I think about both of them.
Chris Gazdik: You might, but here’s my argument Adam, I I, there, I really think that it is true to say, Much more than we let anybody know or let onto that it is very, very normal for us to have a low self-esteem.
If not for moments, then possibly chronically. We have doubts, insecurities, fears. We don’t like to put ’em out there. We like to put ’em behind the mask that we’re running. But if you get to know anybody close, you know your spouse closest, you know your kids and you know your family members pretty close as well.
And you know what makes them tick, what gets them right [00:28:00] And, and, but the rest of the world doesn’t see a lot of those things cuz we don’t show them. So I really want to normalize this focus that we have on things that were hurt spots and hit us because we all have them and we all have to overcome them.
And when we learn to overcome them, we can get to where we land on building self-esteem, which is the focus of what we wanted to land on. But people feel like crap internally and don’t. Let that be known. Does that, that’s where I’m coming from. Adam, does that Yep. Convince you a little bit. Yep. I mean, we’re not gonna show it, thank you.
But I always think of that lineup for high schoolers, you know, where they line everybody up on the, the baseline of the, the gym and, and they say anybody that’s ever been, you know, spit at then, then take a step forward. Has anybody ever been told they’re not pretty? And some kids will take a step forward.
Has anybody ever been told that they’re weak? Okay. Take a step [00:29:00] forward and you look back after all these questions and like even the, the most popular kids in the school are like way on the other side of the gym. And everyone’s like, what the heck? Like everyone is experiencing these shots that get delivered and they hit you.
They. And you remember them. Even if you’re stupid successful, the valedictorian smartest kid in the class is feeling like, Ugh. But I, but I didn’t, but I didn’t get the five point you. Oh, I, I’m, I didn’t do well enough. I should have got more college credit. I didn’t get, I was in high school. Ms. Jones AP class got me.
I only got a b I should have been in college two years
Adam Cloninger: earlier.
Chris Gazdik: You’re right, right. It’s ridiculous what we do in our heads. So, Neil, where did we land? Go on to like, actually, how do we build self-esteem? I’m curious what you kind of remember [00:30:00] and I helped you out with a list there. I mean, I think the one thing, oh, wait.
Oh, no, no. Before you do, I’m sorry because I did forget to, I didn’t forget when we did the show, our conversation sometimes takes us into a different direction, and I guess I’m only gonna do another honorable mention. I’m not gonna talk about it as much again, but what we didn’t get to talk about a lot is that biology part of what does biologically impact our self-esteem?
That sounds weird, right? How does our biology, the genetics, that type of thing, actually affect our, our self? We didn’t get to talk about that at all, did we, Neil, I think
Neil Robinson: we talked, didn’t we talk some clinically about some how sometime there’s mental your mental states or your mental, I dunno what the, I don’t wanna say disorders, but your, your mental health, you know, state conditions, right.
Conditions, they, they can help, they can change how your self-esteem is because [00:31:00] obviously if you’re dealing with depression or stuff like that, it makes a huge difference. And I kinda talked about that, where my personality is different than my wife’s personality. My kids, even my two kids. That biology of how I made up.
I can handle things different or I’ll take things on differently. So while it might hurt my self-esteem, some, it might hurt my, my one kid worse, right? So biologically I have a certain preconceived thought process, a preconceived notions or way that I handle things. You know, just like some people, when they have, when some when they get knocked down, they come back 10 times more successful.
Where some people, when they get knocked down, they go into, it’s going hole. They they hide in a hole. Yeah, exactly. And. That’s that I think is that kinda where you’re going with the biology, your natural tendency to go one direction over another as you deal with either the good or the bad self-esteem.
And when you do something good, do you take that time to celebrate it or do you say, oh, well then I still messed up on these other things and you worry about that sort
Chris Gazdik: of, I, I, I think more of it in way of what struggling with, [00:32:00] with these conditions. And we did an honorable mention through the show and that’s all we’re gonna do here as well, unfortunately.
But a really good example, if you remember we were talking with Victoria about her, the attention deficit, the A D H D reality that she. Shares openly that she manages. Listen, your brain is wired and operating in a certain way where you’re attentive to so many things at once that you can’t be in the moment.
And it causes all kinds of school behavior problems is the kid that’s moving and hyper and won’t stop talking and the teacher thinks they’re the problem child or other people think they’re weird because they’re literally up out of their chair dancing around or just totally drifted off, daydreaming not in the conversation that the person’s trying to have with them, or only half there.
And they, they, they get told that they don’t care, that they’re not a good student, that they’re lazy, that they’re [00:33:00] stupid. And it’s like, wait a minute. They have adhd. They gotta be interested. They gotta. Interested in they’ve, and it’s gotta come in short doses. Like classically, if a parent says, okay, Johnny, go pick up the sticks.
Come in and wash the dishes, and then go make your bed. He’s gonna go, I, I, sticks, sticks, sticks. I
Adam Cloninger: did sticks. Put my stick in the bed. Wait,
Chris Gazdik: put the sticks in the bed. I they’re good Sticks in bed. I did
Adam Cloninger: right me good. Stick in bed. Right?
Chris Gazdik: He’s gonna go pick up the sticks in the yard and there’s no shot with the bed.
No shot with the dishes. And,
Neil Robinson: and I think what you brought up too is that when you acknowledge that there is those, those things like ADHD and depression and those types of things, you have to be aware that you’re battling those things when you have self-esteem issues and you’re going through those processes, right?
So knowing that you have those can either help you process it differently to know, oh, here’s what’s going on. It’s not really me or I, this is what’s going on. Or your parents or [00:34:00] friends or significant others will know, oh, he has this thing going on that we have to be aware of. I need to do. Do it this way.
I didn’t handle it differently because with Eve, with my kids who don’t have those things that we know about, like I just don’t know that his personality d than this for his personality. And you have to know how to handle it.
Chris Gazdik: But that’s the key. You set that up beautifully and you didn’t even know it.
Here’s one of my main, I don’t think you, maybe you did should go up now. I know, right? Maybe you didn’t know it. The, the big, big piece with this is when you have a mental health condition going on, it is a biological influence on you and you don’t know it. That’s when your self-esteem gets hit the hardest and the most and chronically, unfortunately, when that’s kind of going on.
So when you’re an a ADHD kid and you don’t know that you have a adhd, then dang, you’re really gonna believe what people are telling you in self-esteem. Look, it breaks my heart sometimes [00:35:00] when severe symptom sets like that with particularly kids and they start believing these things and it’s just like, oh my gosh, part of my therapy, like a big percentage of my therapy is building that kid back up so that they have some self-worth and, and learn to value themselves more and recover in their self-view.
Because you get crushed, man. So I gotta
Adam Cloninger: know something. No, no, no. What? You gotta know. No, this is kind of off topic, but a minute ago I started you off topic. I know a minute ago I started kind of chuckling cause, and, and I might have to ask Neil, I guess, did he mention dishes the first time around? I heard the sticks.
I heard the bed. I didn’t hear dishes. Was was dishes the third topic? Yes, it was.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. I just was curious. Could, can, you could fry. I guess I should jump out. Can you confirm Neil or deny? I
Neil Robinson: can neither confirm or deny
Chris Gazdik: he’s got no shot. It was little Johnny go pick up the sticks. Go make your bed and then go wash the dishes.
That’s what it was. I’m pretty sure. Ah, they did the first
Adam Cloninger: two then I like was you lost the dishes. I
Neil Robinson: squirreled, I was so [00:36:00] stuck in with the sticks in the bed. That’s,
Adam Cloninger: see that’s the only two thing I remember. I heard the first two and the third
Chris Gazdik: one I didn’t hear. All right. Neil, quickly take us to where we landed on how, how do you actually build self-esteem?
You remember anything?
Neil Robinson: Well I, I mean, like I said, the one that stands out that I loved to celebrate your accomplishments cuz that’s never done anymore. Yeah. And and I think that’s just so over like it’s underrated. It’s overlooked. Like the fact even little things like that’s the thing. It’s like, well let’s
Chris Gazdik: practice this.
Since we have last seen you Mr. Adam Clinger, what is a little success that you’ve had? Put him totally on the spot. Let’s celebrate.
Neil Robinson: Go Adam. Go. Go Adam, go. I
Adam Cloninger: got something in mine. I don’t really want to talk about that
Chris Gazdik: though. Well, that was a big success,
Adam Cloninger: but that’s what I mean. It’s, I, something happened at work, but I, I don’t think I had any part of it, but it, I benefited from it.
So I don’t really go on that successes. Hmm. [00:37:00] There it is. This, well, this is minor, but you, you know, like you, you have like
Chris Gazdik: a lot. You please don’t ask him if he’s fixed his lawnmower.
Adam Cloninger: No. Actually has, has to do with the lawn. Oh, wow. Hesitant. So, you know how you got, you know how you has a lot to do around the house and you’re like, I’ll never get this all done.
So this week I got actually a lot done around the, around the house in the, the, the yard with, and this is where you gonna think it’s funny.
Neil Robinson: Without a
Adam Cloninger: riding lawnmower. Cause my riding lawnmower won’t crank right
Chris Gazdik: now. Are you serious? Yeah. I won’t
Neil Robinson: crank. Good. Good thing you the good thing. It looks nice in the garage.
This
Adam Cloninger: nice though? You
Chris Gazdik: looked really good. I I gotta tune you in if you’re catching this newer, we were bashing this poor man Adam, him when he was making his old nasty, dingy dungy looking donkey’s a word by the way. Riding lawnmower into a beautifully fixed, painted [00:38:00] imma I mean, it was an immaculate looking new thing.
And now you’re saying, you poor man, this doesn’t work. Yeah, well we’re celebrating that. You got a lot done in the, in the, I got a lot done in spite
Adam Cloninger: of my riding lawnmower not
Chris Gazdik: working. I’m so sorry, bro. That’s all
Adam Cloninger: right. That sucks. And later on after the show, I’m gonna tell you the, the symptoms what happened.
That makes no sense.
Chris Gazdik: It should crank. So it’s a good point, Neil. Even these simple little things. And we do, we have a very productive day out in the yard. Man, I feel good about that and that builds me up, you know, and we, you’re right Neil, we forget to celebrate those types of things. I’m gonna put a promo out here and I’m gonna celebrate a success just cuz I wanna do the promo.
And I think that honestly it fits with these shows. So, authority Magazine, you ever hear of Authority Magazine? Mm-hmm. Yeah. Well, I was able to have my proposal to be accepted onto an article that they’re working and it fits just perfectly because the topic is how to believe in yourself or why is it important to believe in yourself.
And so my [00:39:00] interview of 20, 22, 5 interviews, whatever it was, had. You know, people in the field in different sectors answer these set of questions. Put a lot of work into this, Adam, I’m not gonna lie. And mine comes out, I think March the 14th or April the 14th. So you have an article in the magazine? Yeah, dude, it was like a 5,000 page paper when I was done with it.
They ask a lot of questions and I wrote a lot about it. Kind of proud of it. I’m gonna be honest with you. I’m assume Go can dance for the magazine. No, no. They go word for word, everything you wrote. They, it’s, it’s a, it’s a, it’s a decent read man, and there’s a lot of good information from multiple different perspectives.
So check out authority magazine.com and particularly on the 14th. But the other ones, oh, they’re probably
Adam Cloninger: good too. Do you know what, what if, I mean, what’s.
Chris Gazdik: Issue. The title of it is, no, I don’t think it works that way, man. You go to Authority Magazine and you scroll all the way down to what’s his name?
Sylvia is the, the author. And the [00:40:00] title of it is we’ll put a link up on the show for course question. You put a link on it and you know, why is it important to believe in yourself and, and, and then how to do all of that really good content. So I feel really proud and, and very celebratory about that one.
And if they like mine as one of the better ones, they’ll put it on Buzzfeed as well, which would be super cool. So it’s important to do that, right? This builds yourself up and it’s okay, hey, to celebrate things that you do well and let people know. I think we’re afraid to be arrogant and pompous with it.
And you know, people. You know, just get afraid of talking about the good things they did.
Adam Cloninger: Well, I think everybody should, should, I don’t know if it’s celebrate, but you need to be allow yourself to feel good about
Chris Gazdik: accomplishments. Yeah. We talk about feel good file on the, on the show many times over.
Other people talk about their jar of success or I call it the feel good file. Like I literally have a letter in there that, you [00:41:00] know, I, I do read from time to time that this lady literally claimed that I saved her life on a a mobile crisis team that I worked up at, right when I was actually in grad school.
And she credited that phone call cause she was at the end of her rope that day and she wrote a letter to Human Resources. Ironically, they never even told me about the letter until I was in trouble a year later and I was going through my personnel file and I was like, wait a minute. What is this? Ah, true story.
But I do digress. Anything else big that we had on there, but we need to move on. Accepting compliments, celebrating yourself, and feeling good about what you do. Accept compliments when people give them to you. That was another big thing, but listen to the show. We took a deeper dive on in episode 2 21.
Don’t take things personally in your marriage. Three questions. When do fights tend to occur in marriage? How defensive do we have tendencies with and with this skill, being compassionate and supportive, becoming [00:42:00] possible. Ultimately, we we’re looking for selflessness, so we want to figure out how to do this as a skill, right?
And that leads to being compassionate and supportive because when you take things personally in your marriage, man, and we all do it. How did that call that show? Go Mr. Robinson.
Neil Robinson: I thought it was actually a really good show and I, I think actually in that show, the, the interesting take was the pope because yeah, cuz of his history, his, his personality changes.
He’s been married so long. It, it was interesting to see his, his change cuz he talked about how he was when he was younger and where he is now. And so seeing him talk about his, cuz when he is younger, you are definitely, when you start early in your relationships, you kind of have that tendency to be more defensive.
And if you don’t really work on the relationship, all it does is to me, it just builds up, it gets worse and worse and worse. You have to have that, you know, it has to be an even relationship where you have to both [00:43:00] want to improve that relationship or improve that other person.
Chris Gazdik: That’s, yeah, and I think’s hard.
I think I told him on the show that I, I really value, hi John’s cool, not value, what’s the word I’m looking for? Probably put them on a pedestal a little bit just because I see the way they interact and I see the way they, they operate and you know, his wife Joy is so amazing. They, they’ve been, and they’ve been married for 41 years.
But what he talked about on there was, what we need to really focus on and realize is that is a, that is a result of a long time in that journey, man. It wasn’t always that way. And I think people that idealizes the word I was looking at, you know, other people’s relationships that are healthy and doing real well.
Like right now, like, you don’t know the trials and tribulations that they’ve gone through to get to the point where they’re doing real well. Right. And John, I think was pretty honest about that and open about that. Am I, am I correct Neil? Yeah, he was, you know, and, and, and I think that just gives us all hope to like, you know, [00:44:00] look, push through the tough times, push through the, the challenges, learn from things that are going on.
And one of the biggest things to learn, like if I could tell newlyweds almost a hundred percent of the time, I’ll tell ’em, like, look, get to a place where you can say anything that you feel or want to say. Secondly, avoid taking things personally because it makes all the difference in the world. By the way, fyi, like, I suck at this.
It’s, it’s, I suck at this. It’s, it’s a very, I think it one of the things Victoria said too, right? Mm-hmm. It’s like, oh my God. Yeah.
Adam Cloninger: That’s, I I can’t do
Neil Robinson: this. Yeah. You guys are, you guys are a little
Chris Gazdik: sensitive. Oh, come on, you withdrawal based engulfment person over there. We’re all sensitive. We’re all equally sensitive.
No, you’re, you’re
Neil Robinson: more sensitive.
Chris Gazdik: Oh my gosh. My family’s gonna hear that and they’re gonna like, blow me up. Thanks Neil.
Adam Cloninger: So Neil confirmed it.
Chris Gazdik: He don’t, no, nothing. What did I tell you? He’s the [00:45:00] guy who knows everything and tells us what to do. I’m gonna rescind that, that that’s gone, bro. No. I do, I take things personally and, and it’s something that you have to really learn how to manage.
You have to learn how to deal with You should have known me 10, 10, 15 years ago, Neil, you were worse. Way, way, way. I’ve come a long way. So what do we do? What do we need to review with that? One of the things I think that is strong about understanding how this works is the, the result of taking things personally in your marriage, I think really comes down to laying into a horrible action.
And it’s one that we all do. Any idea, Adam, what a horrible action is in a marriage that we probably pretty much all do to our spouse.
Adam Cloninger: I was just trying to figure it out when we were
Chris Gazdik: talking about it. When we feel. Like we’ve been attacked or we feel insecure or when we [00:46:00] feel actually the results of taking things personally, having hurt feelings or a sense of not being heard or misunderstood, disregarded, undervalued.
Those are the, a lot of the effects that we talked about in this episode, but what do you think that results in? What do we tend to do next?
Adam Cloninger: Well, some people lash
Chris Gazdik: back out, gone to say, on the right path, we blame our spouse. That’s what we do. We end up having a complaint or observing something or feeling some sort of way with, yes, Neil, all of the engulfment based insecurities that people have as well with sensitivities.
I got a fire back.
Adam Cloninger: Well, I can’t relate to this cause. In my past marriage. I mean, everything was her fault. So.
Well, that’s a real, I I don’t know what you mean by blaming people. Cause everything was her fault. That’s
Chris Gazdik: a real shot across the bow. Well done there. You you [00:47:00] have a lot of glee right now. I must point out this is, this is like bubbling over. No, we blame, we lay down and throw blame at the feet of our spouse when we feel some sort of way.
And that probably started feeling some sort of way by taking something personally that we didn’t need to do. So that’s a nasty cycle that people get into. If we looked at it in detail, would find Gottman’s four horsemen that we’ve talked about on the show as well. You know, criticisms, defensiveness, stonewalling, and what’s the fourth one?
On the tip of my tongue that begins with a sea. Contempt. Contempt is the fourth one, right? So be careful out there when you’re dealing with all of these types of things and landing yourself into blame of your spouse for taking things personally. So what’s the answer really? I wanna reference the selflessness show, episode two 14.
Takes a deep dive on that for sure. [00:48:00] And basically kind of doing the opposite of these types of things that we do when we are taking ’em personally. You want to kind of reverse course to get out of this state? That’s terrible. Let me see. Yeah, let’s move on to episode 2 22. Boy, that was a little bit of a shit show.
2 22, wasn’t it?
Neil Robinson: That that was a, that was a chaotic progress is what that was. Because it was one of those things, there was added value, but yet it was, it ended up being so chaotic just to me, and that’s why I text you part way through the show, like you need to recap because you guys are going down like the bigger struggle.
Cause it’s, it was supposed to be about how addiction, addiction recovery and the estrangements in the family dynamics is what it was supposed to go down as the panelists start talking about it. Well, the question becomes is what is an addiction? Because you have addiction versus abuse and there’s this whole big thing that Yeah, [00:49:00] exactly.
I did the same thing. And so that became the conversation about what is technically an addiction.
Adam Cloninger: So show was
Chris Gazdik: about what is addiction. Yes. I hope you retitled it that way. Neil. This the, the title I hope comes the panel battles on what is addiction. Yeah. I can do that. Huh? I can make sure that is, oh, is it actually not out yet?
So this is, this is March the 30th. That’s right. That’s coming out Monday, isn’t it? Yep. Yeah. No, it was, and, and, and I wasn’t surprised at all. As a matter of fact, if I recall correctly, when we were talking about it, I prefaced that little segment to say, look, let’s be careful. Let’s be brief. I, I don’t want to go down a bunny hole into this, you know, this question because I knew it was coming and the math didn’t work.
It did, did not work. No, no. It, which is fine. I it’s great content because it is a fundamental, basic question. We could have done this whole show on it. Just for [00:50:00] grins and giggles from a non-clinical perspective, Adam, I’m curious how you would say, like, what is, what, what, how do you answer that question?
What is addiction?
Adam Cloninger: Hmm. Without using the word addicted. It, it’s, it’s a condition where you’re stuck on having a certain condition where you, you have to have something or you gotta do something, or you gotta be something or
Chris Gazdik: Yeah, we just can’t talk about this topic enough because there’s so much confusion out there about what is addiction and what, what isn’t.
Gotta have something here is Yeah. Which misses a lot of what we look for. For what, what is addiction? Cuz I mean, I have to have Steeler football band, but I am not addicted to Steeler football. Neil, let me just ask you to like rage or roam with your thoughts because when we were, when the mics went off, I feel like [00:51:00] you and I were interacting.
I mean, it was like there was a lot of energy there. It’s well and.
Neil Robinson: Part of it is the perceived notion of what an addiction is. And when you’re inside, when you have a, have an addiction, you don’t really notice what it really is. But yet you see a lot of other things outside of it that you would think are an addiction.
You know, you and I talked about, you know, you know, the things that you were, you do that I’m like, I think that’s an addiction. You’re like, well, it’s not because of this. And then I look back, I’m like, okay, well maybe I have an addiction hairs
Adam Cloninger: though, with the definition of
Neil Robinson: addiction, which, which is kinda history.
Cause, and this is a question I have for you, being in therapy, you know, being a therapist since 1995, like, when did that, did, was there a time when the. Definition of addiction shifted from where it is now to where it used to be. Because like I said to me, someone who just smokes cigarettes or is, you know, drinks every once in a while, but they feel like it’s irregular.
You said someone who like drinks every night doesn’t mean that they’re addicted [00:52:00] to it. Or someone who abuses alcohol doesn’t mean they’re addicted to it. When was that shift, you know, when did it start shifting to that criteria, those seven or so criteria you had that you guys talked about? So
Chris Gazdik: the cri, yeah.
Okay. So I just did a little journey up and down as you were asking that the, the criterion really hasn’t changed for quite a while. In the forties and fifties, problems with alcohol were exploding. Right. And that’s when AA came around. Dr. Bob and Bill Wilson got together two dudes in Akron, Ohio, and.
Created a set of things that they did. 12 steps to attain and maintain sobriety. It’s the best thing that works most for works. Best for most. That’s somebody else’s quote that I’ve learned early on before I was even a clinician. That I’ve subscribed to since. So AA is a [00:53:00] great option. Not the only option out there, but to get well from addictions.
I’ll put that out there as a plug. But you know, we started to really get those criterions clear in the sixties and seventies and, and diagnosing addiction and learned a lot about it. Not a lot has changed since then. Really. Not a lot of science has really dove in and changed this. But ironically, that being said, very recently our, we had a major change in how we see addiction now.
It’s an alcohol use disorder. That’s what we call it, hog washing. My mind, I don’t mind saying it publicly, you know, because we used to say there’s substance abuse, as you said, in the way that I characterize that as being a problem using alcohol or drugs, that it’s caused some sort of problem, significant, and you continue to use.
That’s the way we kind of characterized. Of abuse, but there’s a big jump between [00:54:00] abuse and the addictions. And we used to call it alcohol dependence, cocaine dependence, and so on. And to answer your question, Adam, really the big marker among seven or eight criterion that we look for is a loss of control over your relationship with the substance that creates the euphoria.
Now, the easiest way that I’ve been able to design a definition or an understanding of what a loss of control means is predictability, right? If you have a predictable relationship with your substance of choice, generally it’s probably not addiction, cuz it’s you. You control it, it’s really predictable.
But when you really don’t know, I might have a couple drinks, I might have a crap ton, I. Get home when I planned at nine o’clock, but it might not be till two o’clock in the morning. People around you have no idea what to expect when they come home. They’re gonna get the Adam who’s cool, chill, calm, sober and whatnot.
Or they might get that Adam who’s already passed out, or they might get that [00:55:00] Adam who’s like pretty irritated and difficult to be around. You don’t know because the substances in your life. So when you jump over that, that that bar from abuse to addiction, addiction is mild, moderate, and severe. Because in a diseased model sort of way, we know exactly what it progresses.
Like we know what it looks like now, what is probably gonna be like and what late stage addiction looks like. It’s very predictable in that way. That’s why I think that there’s a clear reality that you have addiction or you don’t have addiction. Boy, I think we screwed that up when we switched over to what we now say is alcohol use disorder, and they’ve just clumped it all together Adam.
Now it’s like, oh, alcohol’s not this great thing in your life. So, It’s a problem and we’re gonna call it alcohol use disorder. It’s so inadequate. Alcohol use disorder, mild, moderate and severe. Basically alcohol [00:56:00] use disorder. Mild means that you’re abusing the substance, like our old definition. And then moderate and severe is kind of what we mean by addiction.
The, the only main thing, Neil, going back to your question that we got, and I’ll stop ranting on this, is like we have brain imaging and we’ve kind of learned a little bit about, you know, the depths of that organ, which is where the addiction seems to be pretty rubbing hard in, you know, we have a lot more to learn about the way the endorphins and the dopamine system works and kind of what happens in that biological way.
Going back to your point, Adam, we’ve learned a little bit more, but we’ve learned that we don’t know crap. You know, we’ve learned so much more that we have got much more deeper questions about this, but I really think we’ve spun off into the wrong direction. Sorry for all that. I’m done. Mic drop, boom. Go do.
Do you
Adam Cloninger: think that
Neil Robinson: the shift in the name to a disorder is kind of [00:57:00] like candy coat candy coating it because there’s such a negative thing to addiction, so it’s one of those things like, we wanna make these people feel better, so we don’t wanna call it an addiction. Probably. I feel like there’s so many things that changed probably, whether it’s.
Yeah, to regulate it differently or to make people feel better. There’s always that shift when, when in reality, if you really have an addiction problem, you need to treat it seriously because of, like you said, there’s that in that infection path of when you first start, we see these symptoms and then if it’s not treated, it does have a very negative aspect in your life and those that are around you.
And I think there is a seriousness. You have to look to that. Because you do have to address it. And it is kind of, I feel like with a lot of addictions for a lot of times it’s everyone’s kind of for the ride and you’re kind of going up that rollercoaster and then you don’t realize it till you hit the top.
That finally it just, it lets
Chris Gazdik: go. Listen, if you get doubts about what addiction is and you talk to people that have gone pretty far in their career of using they, they’ll say, look, I’m a drunk. [00:58:00] Okay, that’s what it is. I’m a drunk. And the, the, the, the folks that have a long term career with using, like dude, they get to places they do things.
It gets to the point because it gets worse and worse and worse with progression. You we’re not, if you don’t have addiction, you’re not gonna get there. You’re just, your life is not gonna get there. And, and they, they get to some horrible places. That, that just make it so obvious that there’s definitely something there that’s biological for you, then no human sane person is gonna get to that point.
Now you do some pretty stupid things when you’re drunk. I mean, I’ve done that, we’ve all done that. But chronically and, you know, destructively, you know, to the, to, to the point of cirrhosis of the liver, you’re about to die and you still drink. Like it’s, it, there’s gotta be a biological reality. Yeah. That’s driving these [00:59:00] folks now, earlier in the process, it’s a lot less clear.
Is it abuses an addiction? That’s a, I think that’s where we get the battle lines drawn and the confusion and, you know, challenging the understandings of addiction. Right. And a lot of my colleagues really, really struggle with this. But
Neil Robinson: Victoria seemed like she was really like, cuz she was kinda like, wait, abuse.
Yeah. Addiction and abuse. Like, what’s, what’s the difference? And, you know, I would be intrigued going back to your statement about the, the, the brain, how it handles different things and you know, we’ve talked about this before we even talked about some, you know, sometimes people’s bodies change because, you know, hormones change and you get those things and, and that can dictate how your body addresses it.
You know, the dopamine levels when you look at the differences of which is a factor,
Chris Gazdik: right. I think a factor of abuse.
Neil Robinson: Yeah. Yeah. Because when you talk about, like, you know, you talk about online video games and the dopamine rush you get from that, right? That. Space, Chris.
Chris Gazdik: Right. That what?
Neil Robinson: StarCraft, it’s that [01:00:00] StarCraft.
You gotta watch out for that StarCraft, Hey,
Chris Gazdik: that will wire you, man.
Neil Robinson: Exactly. But no, it’s one of those interesting things because like for some one person chemically, that type of dopamine is gonna trigger that euphoria that I need to get more worse. Someone else might be cigarettes or it might be like you said, an opioid or an alcohol.
But it goes back to, like you said, it’s that physical, that brain composition, how that particular chemical affects that person. Cuz that’s why you can have two people with an addiction in a family where one would be beer or alcohol and the other one might be heroin. Drug choices. You are Exactly. And so, but it’s still the same thing.
Your body is. Very susceptible to en enjoying a certain type of a chemical right. That they break down, that then leads to that next step. You know, just like everything else, we don’t
Chris Gazdik: have time to revisit, but I was super excited that John confirmed that he had heard the digestion process with alcohol at some point in his career.
And we haven’t learned anything more about that. Neither of us have he nor I, that you’ll have to listen to that because that to me was the [01:01:00] coolest part. I, I really wanna talk about that now, but I, I don’t have time cuz I wanna say what I say about this a lot of times in what you’re saying, Neil. Yeah.
You know, we get alcohol, drugs, weed pot pills like that clearly can have addiction with it. And there’s only four other things. We’ve talked about it on a show before, but it’s, it’s the process addictions, eating, addictions, gambling addictions or debting sex addictions. And the last one is online video gaming addictions.
Now, you know, I like games, you just joked at me. Right, right. But here’s the difference, right. For that might help people understand. What is this endorphin jump that you’re talking about? I mean, listen, I get this when I play StarCraft. I mean, my buddy and I, Adrian, he, we talk about it. He’s like, oh my God.
It just, I’m so wired. You know? It’s like, because you’re, you’re, you’re doing something different than when you’re playing video games. Also, by the way, social media is not addictive. I’ve talked to experts in the field about this. It’s, it’s online video gaming, meaning you’re [01:02:00] playing against another human being on a platform, on a computer that’s very, very different.
Anyway, I feel wired. I feel worked up, like I can be exhausted and I go play it and I’m just all lit up. But the difference is there’s a choice to make and I see the clock and I can predict to you pretty much after playing for a half an hour when we will be done playing, it’s gonna be late in about 1 30, 2 30 in the morning.
We need to stop. And that stop. Is this in the week? I’m hoping. Stop. Oh, hell yeah. Okay. Hell yeah. And usually on a Friday when I have a Saturday to recover before a Sunday and a Saturday rather to recover, I struggle on Monday if I do this on a Friday and a Saturday. And so that rarely happens. I don’t know when the last time, if it has happened again.
Control, right? Do you see the predictability? Somebody who gets that endorphin rush, they’re gonna be playing and playing and playing, and they’re not really gonna be mindful [01:03:00] or thoughtful about what their limits were. And before you know it, they’ve literally spent 12, 16 hours. Playing this online video.
Gaming addiction is like, you’re playing a lot. You literally stop to eat, sometimes not, and you don’t really consider sleep cuz you give yourself three hours before you get back on. It’s wild. And it’s very different than your average gamer. Cause I know you like games too. I’m thinking
Adam Cloninger: of was it
Chris Gazdik: Gungho?
Was it the car show? The, the Gungho The movie. Yeah. In the eighties. Gungho Remember
Adam Cloninger: how they were cutting corners to like, not leave the line?
Chris Gazdik: Not leave the line. Yeah. They had the, they had to get
Adam Cloninger: so many cars
Chris Gazdik: out. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Bolts were left off and parts. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I’m, I’m
Adam Cloninger: thinking when you’re talking about video games, I’m thinking about you’re cutting corners.
I gotta go a. Yeah. Got. Where’s a bottle at? I got eight while playing.
Chris Gazdik: You do cut corners? Absolutely. I see your point. Now I’m struggling with you [01:04:00] for a minute, but I will pull it back to next. Well,
Neil Robinson: one that, and that goes back as you go. You, you, you go a little bit further. You take off one bolt and then you take off two, then you take off three and next, you know, you get the car off the line and then the, the whole thing falls apart because you took off too many.
Yeah. That and that, and that’s where the addiction comes in is the fact you, so do you, it starts with a couple
Chris Gazdik: bolts. Same thing with sex addiction, right? You just getting a little bit of porn. You’re just watching a little bit of porn. Hey, I got a little app. That’s all I got. And before you know it, you’ve got an app and you’ve got dots on your computer and, and screen.
And you’re having sex two or three times a week with, with different people every time. How does, like what? It’s crazy.
Adam Cloninger: So are you eating when you’re playing video
Chris Gazdik: games? I eat before I play video games. Adam. He
Adam Cloninger: plans. It’s, we’re predictable. We’re making sure it’s
Chris Gazdik: predictable. It is. We’re pretty sure it’s not interfering with Why would I, dude, look at me.
Flourish me. Okay, just look at me. I eat, I eat well. Closing thoughts on March. Let’s get ourselves outta here. Wind down. Cool. Set of shows. I think, I think [01:05:00] we’ll have another addiction show. And did I already advertise? I think it did earlier, didn’t I? Womanizing Womanizing. I think
Adam Cloninger: that was on
Chris Gazdik: YouTube Live.
Oh, that was on YouTube live. Oh. So, well, I’m foreshadowing if you listen to the shows in April, you’ll certainly hear a show on womanizing. Unfortunately, the expert, Adam, will not be here for thanks. I’m sorry, did I,
Adam Cloninger: you know, I’m be questioned about this later than tonight. Yes, indeed. Well, what’s did Chris mean by that?
Yeah,
Chris Gazdik: Julie, we have, we have hung out many a time. Just say that. I’ll just say that. Listen, thanks for hanging out with Adam Neil. You’re gonna have to go back behind the curtain. And guys, I hope you have a great week. Stay safe out there in the world. Take care of yourselves and we’ll see you next week.
Take care.