A Debate on Drug Addiction Recovery Issues with Mr. Daniel Gasser Part 1 – Ep195

Addiction, Podcasts

We welcome to the show Daniel Gasser. He is a former drunk for over 30 years and since that time, he is working to help others that struggle with alcohol addiction. This was a fun discussion between a trained therapists and a recovered addict that pitted two trains of thought against each other. One is based on years of research and experience, and the other is what has worked for someone that struggled with addictions.

Tune in to see the Debate on Addiction Recovery Through a Therapist’s Eyes.

If you want to contact Mr. Daniel Gasser

Listen for the following takeaways from the show:

  • We start the show by discussing the latest police shooting with an emphasis on human nature and we react when under a high stress situation.
  • We welcome our guest Daniel Gasser to show.
  • After going through rehab therapy to fight his addiction, and it did not help, he figured out a way to help himself.
  • He took all the books and ideas he went through and put together a video lesson that he calls “Positive Brainwashing”.
  • Every addiction is a trap, and it is too late once you step into it.
  • Wording is important – “I Have to stop drinking” needs to change to “I don’t drink.”
  • Addiction starts with your trigger/reason and escalates if you don’t address that source.
  • There is a danger when they relapse, so you have to make the decision to not go back.
  • Chris discusses alcoholism is a disease and Daniel disagrees.

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Episode #195 Transcription

Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello everybody. And welcome to another addition of Through a Therapist’s Eyes. This is the introduction for our guests, Mr. Daniel Gasser. I wake up and have no idea where I am. I’m looking around trying to orient myself. My head is hurting. I lift my head and hope no one recognizes me as I try to figure out what happened this time.

I’m laying in a corner in a side street. I slowly start to realize what must have happened. Like any other evening after work, I had a drink or two with my friends and colleagues, but somewhere, somehow it turned from a quick fun evening. To me ending up in the same [00:01:00] insane place. I can’t remember clearly exactly how it all happened again, but I know it has, I’m in a daze I’m compounded by headache and confusion.

How did I get here? My friends have long gone home. Why did it happen again? I knew something had to change. That is how this journey began as a coach. And now he has helped men all over the planet to become free from booze, with the same method that he himself has mastered. So we are gonna have an awesome conversation this week and probably possibly next week, guys, with Daniel gasser.

Welcome to through a therapist. ISS Daniel, how are you? Yeah, I’m good. I’m good. Yeah, it’s good. I we’re gonna do a current event here in a moment, but but I gotta tell you, we were just talking off the mics and so. I’m looking forward to this conversation because it, it came from from, and thank [00:02:00] you publicly for finding me on LinkedIn.

That that was pretty cool. And I checked you out, did some Google searching and stuff. And, and I think our conversation is gonna be super fun because, and Daniel confirmed. He’s like, I think we’re gonna disagree constantly, but that was in response to me saying, I don’t think we’re gonna find ourselves disagreeing much, actually.

So I guess here we go on the ride, right, sir. yeah, we,

Daniel Gasser: we disagree to agree or something

Chris Gazdik: like that. ah, I hate that phrase. I, I, we agree to disagree. Nah, we, yeah, no, we will find our way to some conclusions tonight. I am sure. But this is gonna be all about alcohol and, and drug addictions in, in, in a different kind of conversation than what we’ve had on the show before he heads up Neil after we do the current event I forgot to do it.

If you could help me out. And I just realized right now, get a, get a list of the, the addiction shows that we’ve done the episodes. And that will help to to frame this up because we’ve talked about addiction on this show several times and this is gonna be different because it’s all [00:03:00] about like, kind of this MI misunderstanding and, and controversy sort of wrapped around the disease model that we’ve talked about.

We’ll talk about that a lot. And then we’ll talk about, you know, recovery and different factors with recovery and, and Daniel, what your, what your coaching style is and, and what you do with coaching. First of all, I wanna say, like, it’s, it’s, it’s awesome to talk to people that are also working with, with people that are still out there struggling and frankly, dying from drug and alcohol addictions.

It is, it is one of the shoot, I think I could say it’s one of the more deadly things that we deal with in, in my field of mental health and substance abuse. So thank you. Thank you really for what you’re doing online and what you do.

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. It’s, it’s like if you overcome such things that there is this urge that you have to, to help others.

I know that from other people who have overcome things and, and they just, they can’t just go on with their normal lives anymore. I don’t, I [00:04:00] never meant to be a coach. I don’t want to be a coach. I hate this word actually, but it’s yeah, it’s coaching people. It’s like in sports, you coach the sport and if it helps even one single man on

Chris Gazdik: the planet.

Yeah. I’ll do it. Absolutely. So let me get my housekeeping out of the way. This is through a therapist eyes, and I am a therapist since 1995, got the book out, rediscovering emotions and becoming your best self, like to say, this is where you get personal insights directly from a therapist, this episode. And next, I think I can say you get episode.

Or insights directly from a coach as well in your own home and personal time in your car. So see the world through the lens of a therapist, be awares not to delivery of therapy services in any way help us out around the world. Five star reviews are awesome. If you must give us a four. All right. If you must, but apple iTunes, you can write the reviews on there that helps us a lot to contact at through therapist, eyes.com of how to [00:05:00] interact with us.

We’re not doing the Facebook live because we’re doing this on zoom. Our gentleman, Mr. Gasser is actually in Switzerland by the way. So halfway around the world. I think that’s pretty, pretty stupid. Cool. Daniel, I like to say on the show in the beginning every time, this is the human emotional experience, and we are going to endeavor to figure this out together.

And I think this show particularly is, is pretty poignant that way. Got a current event that I wanna cover though. Neil. Did you get a chance to look this stuff up? Because I think that you had said, wow, I didn’t even hear anything about this, this, this current event with, with Jaylen Walker. Yeah, no, I,

neil: I did. I had heard about it. I just hadn’t had a chance to do anything with it yet because I want to make sure that I understood what happened. What’s going on. I didn’t want to assume so. Yeah. That’s what I, I hadn’t really taken the time to dive in to see what, what the situation was.

Chris Gazdik: Well, yeah, it’s, it’s crazy because and, and Daniel, you chime in whenever you want to, because I think that your perspective from Switzerland might be very interesting you [00:06:00] know, from a genuine bonafide European, right?

So this is this is yet another police shooting event that we’ve had, which we’ve had, you know, several of ’em in the states and all you know, first I wanna say like, you know, I really support the police. They have a super difficult job. It’s really ridiculously tough what they do and what they’re dealing with in the.

Serious and dangerous situations that they have, they need support for their mental health and they need support for their training in a mental health perspective and in all the debriefing that they do. So, Neil, the facts that I saw seems to be car chase. Let’s just pause right there. You remember us talking about a chased situation?

Do you ever remember us talking about that, Neil? Yeah. The,

neil: the, the, the physical change it puts on the police officers or the force responders. When you’re chasing, you’re breathing faster, heavier, your adrenaline’s kicked your, you know, your awareness is heightened, but it’s also, you’re also a little bit more edgy, more, you know, your rationale is gonna be a little bit off.

Chris Gazdik: Your [00:07:00] rationale is almost gone. it’s, it’s your amygdala fires. And you got all these chemicals blowing through your body, like adrenaline cortisol, cortisone, like you can’t, you can’t think because your body is in a fight or flight survival mode to the point that you could pick up a car. like, remember that guys.

And we’ve talked about this before, so here we go yet. Another time where there’s a car chase I don’t know some equipment they notice and they’re, they’re checking him out. And then now, while being in this chase, whether it, I don’t know if it was fast or slow, but shots came out of the car. So they observe the shots, the car stops.

He gets out the car with a, a full black mask on and, you know, takes off running down the street. And then during the run, evidently he turns around and there’s a massive police shooting. 12, 12 officers evidently involved, eight of them shot and discharged their weapons with arguably excessive shots firing like 60 rounds of them hit Jalen.[00:08:00]

And there was also a loaded handgun that was found in his car with a ring and the clip taken out. But this is caused a major uproar. I, I don’t even know what city this was in. I, I, I don’t think Chicago was Akron, Ohio, Akron, Ohio. That’s right. And Daniel, I mean, we just had this whole thing happen with another major shooting in, in a, in a 4th of July celebration at city streets in Chicago.

So it, this just seems like a, a lot it’s going on? Yeah. You took your mic off. I’m I’m curious what you think Daniel it’s.

Daniel Gasser: Oh, it’s, it’s a very, very delicate topic because yeah. In, in Europe, especially in Switzerland, we have this militia army. So every single man is basically armed, but we, we never have, I don’t know why, frankly, it it’s very sad, but we, we never have these kind of issues.

And we always hear from the states like these school shootings or this [00:09:00] car chasing or people. Committing suicide through the police. And, and we are always like, amazed, like what the hell is going

Chris Gazdik: on over there? Really?

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. How do you deal with that? How, how it’s still going on and how these whole weapons discussions you have all the time.

I mean, you, you, frankly speaking, you’re deeply divided on that topic and, and, and it’s, it’s, I think personally, this is not Europe Europe’s opinion, but my opinion personally, that this does a lot of harm to your country and you, you ought to, to find a solution to this. I don’t know. I don’t know the solution, but yeah, you really need to find a solution to this whole weapon thing, because it’s horrible.

It’s just horrible.

Chris Gazdik: It is. It is beyond traumatic and

Daniel Gasser: police officers getting shot by, by some, sorry to say by some weirdo, or I dunno, what’s wrong with the guy. [00:10:00] I don’t know if, if in Europe, someone gets shot to death by police. It’s a huge thing. This is never happening. And the police is actually blamed and, and there is investigations going on or why this could have happened.

If you, if police shoot someone in the leg to stop him. Okay, fine. That’s their job. But if they shoot him to that, it really must be some good, good reason why this could have happened. And in the states, it seems to us that it’s almost every day, which yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s really sad. It makes me sad.

Chris Gazdik: That is fascinating.

Yeah. Yeah. I, you know, I, I, I just wanna highlight, I mean, I’m curious, I, the differences are, are kind of interesting but I’m just highlighting the, the need for an understanding that when you’re in the chase scenario, You know a potential criminal [00:11:00] or suspect is, is running, you know, and you’re kind of going after him doing your job.

Like you get so elevated in your emotion and your amygdula, it just takes over. And it’s like a phrase, you know, scared brain and the thinking goes offline. It’s just it, it is, it is something and it, and it happens just just far, far too much. So we’re, we’re with the police officers and Jaylen’s family and all those that knew him.

It’s it’s yet, again, a traumatic reality that people will have a lot of healing to do from as well with the, the 4th of July shootings. And you know, we’re not too far away from, you know, the the other mass shooting. I mean, we’ve had a couple of slew of ’em in the, in the most recent times. So yeah, we all need to come together and, and, and heal and recover.

And as you say, Daniel, figure out long term solutions to get this thing. decreased and de elevated cuz as it is, it is pretty divisive. So let’s move on to what we’re talking about. A any other thoughts, Neil or [00:12:00] any, any comments?

neil: Oh, I have, I’m sure I have a lot of comments. Yeah. But I think, I think two things come from, this is one, you talked about the police in those situations and, and their, their brains are firing and they’re in a, but then you asked that Jaylen who, for whatever, whatever reason he was there, his thought process was, you know, why are you running from the cops?

Why are you, you know, all that. There’s a lot of stuff that he got himself worked up and he didn’t comply. He didn’t have the right rationale. So, so there’s both sides to it, of him and the cops being in this situation that take a deep breath, kind of calm down. I think one of the biggest issues overall, you know, working on this show with you, everything, the biggest problem in America to me is mental health.

There’s a lot of mental health issues that I think from some of the research. A lot of the European countries have a different, a different mentality on, on how to handle mental health, how to process things. You know, there’s a different thought process between America [00:13:00] and our way that we handle things and the way Europeans do it.

And I think that’s why they’re, that’s one of the huge differences. And I’m saying Europeans are better about handling their mental health. They take their breaks, they do the self care, they do the things that they need to do. And you can correct me if I’m wrong, Daniel, but I’ve seen more of that versus America’s overly stressed, overly, overly need to have all their information, need to have all the stuff, you know, feed me, feed me, feed me, kind of like mentality.

And then they just don’t know how to process it. They don’t take those breaks. So that that’s my take on it. Yeah. As a non-trained person.

Daniel Gasser: I, I think I see, I see the United States as a, as a country. And again, this is not Europe’s opinion. This is my personal opinion. Like a teenager as a country, you are very young.

my family has a house up in the mountain. That’s older than the states.

Chris Gazdik: yeah. Wow. Yeah. You know, I mean,

Daniel Gasser: it’s like, it’s, it’s crazy. And you’re so, and you’re behaving like a teenager as a country, you know, and Europe is [00:14:00] as said before, it’s very old. So maybe that’s the reason why we’re handing these things a little bit different, but we have also mental health issues to, to go a little bit towards the topic we’re gonna talk about.

We have also huge alcohol problems and drug abuse problems and, and it’s not that Europe is all fine and good. No, not at all. We have similar issues that you have, but maybe as Neil says we have different approach to, to, to handle the things I am fast and you will get there. What’s. You will get there.

Chris Gazdik: yeah. You know, I, I, I, I have heard that before I’ve had clients you know, from, from different parts around the world and, and, and it’s funny, I’ve heard that, you know, the teenage reference and I don’t take offense of that because at all, as an American, because I mean, it’s amazing to me when you think, like, you know, what, what are we one 16th of the age of other countries from 2000, 3000 years old?

Like, it’s [00:15:00] amazing to me the, the level of history that, that, that entails. I mean, at Byzantine empires and gosh, I mean, it’s just, it’s it’s it’s it’s I just can’t fathom. You know, the, the, the reality that, that, that is so Daniel. Yeah. Let’s, let’s launch a little bit. Let me just get kind of start by getting your story and, and you know, we started off with that bio.

Like that’s literally the bio that you have that I, that I had. So whatever it is that you want to kind of talk about with your credentials, your your history. I definitely wanna to get into your story a little bit, if you’re willing to share any of that. You know, who is Daniel, Mr. Daniel gasser

Daniel Gasser: so, yeah, first of all, thanks a lot for having me who is Daniel gasser?

A normal regular guy actually

tried to make a career, trying to have a good life, but somehow in early teenage years, Got on their own path. So I started to drink at the age of [00:16:00] 13, which is very young. It is. And to smoke weed obviously too, because there’s always goes hand in hand and it all went very quickly, very sideways.

At the age of 17, I started to inject heroine into my veins.

Chris Gazdik: Gotcha. Brilliant idea. You’re going to say maybe not,

Daniel Gasser: but I could stop that at the age of 22, actually with the help of a classic traditional therapy. Okay. But it didn’t really stop. I just shifted things from heroin to alcohol, to cocaine, to weed,

all sort of, yeah. To all sort of, of, of substances. So for me in retro, In, in

Chris Gazdik: retrospect, you know what I mean? yes. Thanks. In retrospect, that’s a big word. In retrospect, the,

Daniel Gasser: the therapy didn’t didn’t work actually, because if it [00:17:00] had I wouldn’t have to take other substances

and that went on and on and on for the next 30 years or so.

And I, I was asked myself, why is it possible to stop something really bad as heroin that can actually kill you very quickly? And that something that is widely accepted by society and everybody does it and you, you can’t get rid of it. And I found out that that is one of the major reasons why it’s such a huge problem to get rid of it because it’s so widely accepted by society.

Chris Gazdik: If you see the alcohol you speak of.

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. If you see a herring chunking or, or a crack chunk or something laying in the streets, you don’t want to be that guy. Yeah. N nobody wants to be that guy. So it, it makes it, it’s like a a threshold you don’t wanna step over that

Chris Gazdik: threshold. Well, it’s interesting that you say that, cuz that’s [00:18:00] actually one of the things that I’ve wondered about, you know, in, in my circles, in the substance abuse treatment fields, you’ll, you’ll hear people say that nicotine actually is one of the most addictive substances and I’ve always, I’ve always questioned that because one, I don’t know or understand or think that we have a great plan to measure the level of addictive nature to a particular substance.

And what I always thought was that, well, cigarettes, particularly when I grew up in the eighties it, it it’s different now, but when I grew up in the eighties, it was all over the place. It was culturally supported, expected. Encouraged almost. And so we’ve dealt with that now, now it’s just not like I got a 20 year old and a 17 year old and they think smoking’s like the worst thing since ever and, and I would submit to you, it’s probably not as hard to stop smoking now as it kind of used to be for exactly the reason that you point out.

So that’s, that’s interesting. See, I told you we’ll agree Daniel, on some things, man.

Daniel Gasser: yeah, we, we agree on that. I think [00:19:00] personally giving up smoking was very easy.

Yeah.

Daniel Gasser: With the same method I’m teaching now, the guys for, for alcohol, it’s just, it’s a question of mindset. And did you know that on a from a medical point of view, after 24 hours, all the nicotine is gone from your body,

Chris Gazdik: right?

Daniel Gasser: So your body has healed in 24 hours, which is not the case with alcohol, with strong alcoholism, which is not the case with heroin, which is not the case with any strong drug, you know?

And, but nicotine is so. As you say, it’s it’s one, one part is society. And the other part is it’s highly addictive at the moment.

I think it, it keeps you on the toes all the time, but it goes away so quickly, the effect that you need another one so quickly, it’s like crack for me. It’s the same thing as crack.

Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. So let, let me get back to, to the story. So you [00:20:00] started, when you’re 13 drinking, you get into the heroin deal, it sounds like you got off of heroin and whatnot, you know, in your early twenties, but then for, you said like 30 more years you’re involved in the alcohol use, pretty intently and regularly.

Is that, is that right? Yeah. That’s right. And you said you had some traditional therapies. What was the traditional therapies component? Just, just psychotherapy 1 0 1 or rehabs or what? Rehab was

Daniel Gasser: classic rehab with group sessions with 1 0 1 sessions.

Chris Gazdik: You go to the facility and you stay there 24 7 and yeah.

Day program him away for a while. they put him away for a minute, no white coats and craziest things like that happen though. But there’s a lot of fear about that. And so you’ve been sober now. I, I think, is that, is that correct? There’s no alcohol, no weed pot pills, heroin. Nothing. Is that full sober?

No, it’s

Daniel Gasser: not part of my

Chris Gazdik: universe anymore. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s been for four years.

Daniel Gasser: Alcohol has been for four years now [00:21:00] and let me just shut down this thing. Okay. Yeah. Alcohol has been for four years, no, three years or something. Yeah. I don’t keep track. Yep. Yep. We can talk about counting days after if you want.

Chris Gazdik: Well, there’s a lot of things to get to. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Gasser: And smoking it’s like five years or so we, the same thing and I stopped all that with the same method. So yeah, I, and I have alcohol in my house. If you come see me in Switzerland, you can have your beer. If you, if you like a beer, everything is here, but it’s not, it’s not attractive to me anymore.

Not right. Right. And that’s what I call freedom real freedom because I don’t,

Chris Gazdik: I don’t an amazing thing. Stay away from it kind of, you know? Yeah. You know, and that’s, and that’s what this show really kind of is, is a little bit about, right? Like I’m, I’m, I’ve made this confession on the show before but I feel bad about it now, [00:22:00] but for anybody, by the way, that might be listening to the show, we’ll have show notes and ways to get up with Daniel you know, myself, different treatment resources, all the things, because, you know, I, I, I, I, I thought it was a little funny and a little corny when I was a young clinician that somebody was talking about my supervisor and a program director were talking about having a candle in the window for all those that are out.

That are, that are still using and, and, and lost really. And shame on me. I, I shouldn’t have made fun of that in my head because man, what a, what a reality, this is that we’re talking about. And the reality is that there are so many people that are just ensnared and trapped and, and grabbed by addiction and people that don’t have addiction just generally do not.

They don’t have an understanding of like how people can continue doing something. That’s destroying them. And we’re gonna talk about that a little bit tonight. I think, but gimme the, the, the rundown, if you will, Daniel, maybe on, you know, [00:23:00] you, you said on before the mics came on, you don’t like calling it coaching, but you have a method.

What’s what’s the basics there. What do you wanna say about that? Cause that’s intriguing. I’m sure to people to hear, right. I, I

Daniel Gasser: have to say it’s not my method. I didn’t invent it. I put that things together from different books, from different things that helped me. Gotcha. And I figured if it helped me, it’s worth put something together.

And as people are not reading books these days

Chris Gazdik: anymore, I know, right. I’m an author.

Daniel Gasser: Me too. Efforts. Me too. Yeah. And, but, so I put together this video training, this video program, and it consists basically I call it a positive brainwash. It consists of changing the point of you on alcohol, on, on, on society.

How it, how society a, how alcohol is perceived in society, how it’s still widely accepted, but also of course, what it actually doing to [00:24:00] you and not, you know, like lecturing people, you shouldn’t do that. That’s really bad for you. Nobody listens to that. You cannot tell a grown up man. That’s bad for you. We we’re, man.

We

Chris Gazdik: don’t listen to these kind of things. You definitely can’t tell a grown woman what to do. Neither. I’ll tell you that. Yeah. But I’m working with

Daniel Gasser: men. So I, can I work with both? I can’t tell my queen either what to do.

Chris Gazdik: So yeah. I work with both and I live with one, right? Yeah. So

Daniel Gasser: first of all, I, I try to, to tell the people that it’s not their fault.

Mm-hmm because there’s something really, really weird going on in society that if you’re a casual drinker and so called casual drinker, which makes me smile all the time there is no problem because every 90% of the people are doing it. Yeah. But then suddenly some kind of miracle happening and you are incurably ill alcoholic.

How the hell does that happen [00:25:00] overnight? Over the years. And where’s the. Where’s the threshold. Where does people or society decide that I’m a casual drinker and you are a freaking alcoholic. And so it’s a trap to answer your, your, your previous question. Every addiction is a trap. You step into that trap because you don’t know at first.

And once you realize it’s too late, you are in the trap and what happens medically, I think, you know, better than me, but what happens medically that especially with, with alcohol, because it’s, it’s very slow. It’s slow going terribly slow. Yeah. It keeps you trapped, but in a, in a very weird and slow way.

So you drink and what your body does, it makes you throw. That’s a message from the body telling you, Hey dude, that’s not good for us. Don’t do that anymore. Please

Chris Gazdik: expel [00:26:00] immediately in violently. Yeah. get that

Daniel Gasser: shit out of here, you know? Yeah. And, and then you continue to do it and we have to acquire that taste.

That’s one part of my method too, to open your eyes, that if you have to acquire a taste, it’s probably not

Chris Gazdik: good for you Pepsis. Pretty good though. Sorry. Diet Pepsi.

Daniel Gasser: Pretty good with all that phosphoric shit in it. Yeah. Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: There is that. Yes. destroys your bones and is yeah, we we’re born and we, we drink milk naturally and water naturally.

And then we add all these other things that, you know, coffee and caffeine and you know, yeah. However

Daniel Gasser: so you continue to drink it. Then your body gives you the message, like hangover. That’s again, a message. Hey, listen, this is not good, please. Would you please stop that? And then if you continue to do it, your body thinks that you have no choice.[00:27:00]

So he starts building up a resistance

Chris Gazdik: tolerance,

Daniel Gasser: tolerance, resistance, like with any poison. If you take a little bit of arsenic every day, your body starts to build up a resistance, a tolerance until the day that it’s just too much and your liver is gonna collapse and your, your kidney is gonna collapse.

And I know the doctor. Yeah, but this is what happens. So, and this is the trap. This is how this trap works. So on one side you have society telling you that’s perfectly normal to have a drink every day. And then you have your body on the other side, trying to protect you because the only job our body has is to keep us alive as long as possible, as healthy as possible period, that’s its job.

And it, it does an amazing job actually, [00:28:00] but we are so stupid and we’re tating it all the time with diet Pepsi, for example. Ah, it it’s good. Tough. No, we have to discuss that another time. This is really bad for you.

Chris Gazdik: okay. This is poison. Well, I’m drinking green tea. That’s better for me, right? That’s

Daniel Gasser: cool.

I’m drinking top water. That’s even better. So

Chris Gazdik: probably so. Yeah.

Daniel Gasser: And that’s, that’s the, the thing I try to open their eyes.

Chris Gazdik: Yeah, it sounds like you’re, you’re talking about kind of behavioral methods, looking at your behavior decision making cognitively, you know, reframing, you know, you could say forms of cognitive behavioral therapy, you know, that’s our, our, our, this is some of our clinical world and you’re, you’re kind of going at it, you know, with a social view and re redesigning your behavior and redesigning your thoughts and, and reframing your whole perspective and persona around alcohol and or drug.

Is that, I mean, yeah, I know that’s an oversimplification. Yeah. But no, no,

Daniel Gasser: that’s, that’s more or [00:29:00] less it, but a major part. I, I really wanna stress on that. It’s I’m trying to take

Chris Gazdik: the blame away. Yeah. Shame and the guilt are horrible components of addiction. Yes.

Daniel Gasser: It’s horrible components of every aspect of life.

Yeah. But especially in addiction. And once that thing is away, we can start to work on the question comes then most of the time, not with every man. What’s the trigger? Why, why the hell are you drinking? And so a good example was this, this it entrepreneur, self-made multimillionaire everything, but drinking like a cow,

as we say in German. Mm-hmm , you know, Zoe. Yeah. Yeah. And we found out that he started to drink as a teenager because he was afraid of talking to girls too

shy. Right. Stupid and simple reason. We all know that talking to a girl for the first [00:30:00] time in your life, it’s like,

Chris Gazdik: oh, scary,

Daniel Gasser: scary. So to lose his inhibitions a little bit, he started to drink and there you go, 40 years after he’s like, oh, that’s it.

And that was a big breakthrough for him. And the other part was his wordings he’s using, he always said like, I have to stop. I really should stop. I shall not drink, et cetera, et cetera. And I got him to change his wordings into, I do not drink period. So it sounds simple, but actually it is very simple. And I think we have to, and I jump ahead a little bit.

I know you can stop me anytime. I think we have to, to go away from that disease thinking as an addiction. Okay. Because I don’t think it’s a disease. That’s [00:31:00] a very well made up. Excuse.

Chris Gazdik: You’ve gotta kill me. He’s gonna, no, I’m not gonna kill you, but I disagree. he’s gotta cut my we’ll get going here a little bit.

I don’t know if I said it yet or not. I think I did earlier. You know, he, he, in, in some of your videos, you said there’s you know, that part of the 90, 95% of the professionals you talk to will tell you these things and those things. And, and it’s just, I, I think you actually said, like, it’s all wrong.

And I was like, oh, I gotta talk to this guy. It’s gonna be fun. Cuz I’m one of those 90 fivers . But as I said, I think that there’s a lot of things that we won’t disagree on actually, as we, as we go through some of those things and the disease model is, is, is another one of the, is one of those that, that, well, we may end up disagreeing on that to a certain extent, but we, I think there’s some understandings about that, but so Daniel, do you, do you have any, I mean, I know it’s early.

I don’t, you’ve been doing this for a few years and whatnot in working with other addicts and things. Do, do you have any like, you know documented stuff or [00:32:00] do you, I I’m, I’m a clinician, so I hate research. I’m not that kind of a guy keeping track of data and statistics. I, I, I love those researchers.

They, they do it all for me and then I can learn from it. And it’s wonderful. Right. But, but still I’m wondering in your practice, you know, what kind of relapse rates you have or what, what sort of documented understanding that you have with people? And again, I know it’s really early in, in your work, but oh, I,

Daniel Gasser: I don’t keep track.

Yeah,

Chris Gazdik: I know. Yeah. Do you have a sense at all though? Sorry. Do you have a sense at all about that though? Like, you know later this guy came back, give me Frank. I think it’s 50, 50. Yeah. 50 50, right? I think so because

Daniel Gasser: the guys that I have contact with, because I keep contact with them. Gotcha.

They, they either say, yeah, we should have a talk and then I know, Ooh, it’s not really working.

Yeah. Or they say, yeah, Daniel, everything is cool. I love you. I’m so grateful. It’s [00:33:00] awesome. It’s my life has changed and yada and all that stuff. Gotcha. So, but I, I, how would you keep track? It’s it’s very difficult because I’m not, I don’t wanna be the guy that, that holds an Excel sheet for my, for my, for the guys I’m helping,

Chris Gazdik: because, well, yeah, like I said, that that’s, that’s why I love the researchers, cuz they do track, you know, 20 year longitudinal studies and you know, do different factors to kind of understand C B T cognitive behavioral therapy versus 12 step therapy models versus motivational and interviewing there’s different things.

I mean, so those guys do that, but I, but I, I wanted to have a sense because I have a sense as well. There are a lot of people that I work with that do relapse. I mean, relapse is a. Part of the addiction problem and it always has. Yeah. The recidivism rates are terrible. Yeah. I tried, yeah. I

Daniel Gasser: tried so many things myself. I even went to a right. I even went to AA meetings. Right. Which I [00:34:00] was like,

I’m on the wrong planet here. This, this can’t be it for me. I mean, this, this association don’t get me wrong. They, they help a lot of people getting away from it. But in my opinion, they, they just put them in another dependency. But that’s my opinion.

So I tried a lot of things. I tried. I dunno if you have that in the states, we have that blue cross organization.

Chris Gazdik: Sure. Well, do we, what do you mean? Maybe not? It’s it’s anti

Daniel Gasser: alcoholics, but quite they’re quite

Chris Gazdik: aggressive. The anti alcoholics anonymous or something. No, no,

Daniel Gasser: no. It’s another, it’s another association, but they really, they don’t want to hear about alcohol. If, if you are now be my guest in my house and you have your beer because you like your beer and I have my glass of water, this, this would be absolute. No go. Yeah, because me as a former drunk, I cannot sit at a table with someone who has a beer and enjoying it. And I’m still [00:35:00] talking to you. No freaking

Chris Gazdik: way says blue says blue cross.

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. Yeah. Maybe I’m doing that a little bit wrong, but I don’t care because this is all for me. This is all dinosaur thinking. Yeah. And so I tried a lot of things and this kind of method worked for me and this kind of method works for a lot of guys. I helped. So I don’t need any documentary. I know this shit works. If you apply the tools I’m giving you, it

Chris Gazdik: works. Yeah. And, and I’ll tell you we’ll talk about AA here in a little bit in either today or, or the next week next session. You know, AA, I’ve heard it quoted saying, you know, it is what works best for most. And I, I have heard that and, and I have seen that but truthfully, you know, whatever, somewhere, some way somebody finds a way to be sober that, Hey, hat’s off.

Fantastic. Because there really isn’t any [00:36:00] one way for, for one person, AA is not for everybody. There are other things that are out there. However, there’s a really important part. And I, and I’m I just listening to you talk, I think that we’re going to agree on this, but I’m not sure where you stand with people that have identified a, a problem with alcohol call it addiction or not, which by the way, do you call it addiction or no?

Yeah, of course. Yeah. Okay. So, you know, when you’ve identified addiction in your life Do you agree or disagree? That sobriety is the only answer that we know of to be safe from the continued affliction that addiction creates in somebody’s life.

Daniel Gasser: Well, generally speaking, I I’d say yes. Yeah. I’d say yes, but

Chris Gazdik: yeah, cuz I, I couldn’t be more clear about this and, and it, and it scares me to death because there are programs that are out there that, that have the, the primary goal of returning to normal use and [00:37:00] what, what we see right.

The smile. I’m curious what the laugh is, because what we see is that that’s primarily, what is the fact with addiction is, is common use is not, seems to be possible for people that enter into or have addiction. Right. So is that, does that seem in, in line with the way you see it or feel?

Daniel Gasser: I go even a step further. Okay. I’d say there is no normal use of alcohol. Okay. There are different, there are different states of addiction fact is, and I’m sure you agree with that. Alcohol is a highly addictive substance, physically, highly addictive, the day you touching alcohol. And you repeat that for a short while of time, your body is building up a [00:38:00] resistance, a tolerance, and that’s the definition of physically being addicted to something.

Okay. So I think, Ooh, some people gonna hate me out there. I think that’s OK. 90% of all Western grownups are addicted to alcohol

Chris Gazdik: period. Yeah. I, I, I, I think the, so to

Daniel Gasser: answer, go ahead to, to answer your question. I think I agree with you. There is no returning to quote normal using of a substance. You cannot use a poison normally.

How would you do that? How would that work? Let’s say you are addicted to arsenic. It’s stupid, but you know what I mean? You wouldn’t, once you got off that poison, you wouldn’t want to return to use poison. Why would you do that?

Chris Gazdik: So we’ve, we’ve made a major change in, in Western medicine. If you’ve heard of the [00:39:00] diagnostic and statistical manual, the DSM, have you ever heard of that?

No. Okay. It’s a big book. It’s the purple book right there. Actually, I’m pointing to it on my screen. You have to go to the YouTube version. If you got. Audio version of that, that sucker right there has got every single diagnosis in the mental health and substance abuse field. And we have to learn all about it and whatnot.

And it made a major change. When we, we brought the five out from the four revised DSM four R we used to, and I still do way more buy into this reality that you’ve got a continuum of everybody that uses substances and the continuum starts if you’ve ever had it with social use. And that’s largely defined by, you know, no major problems in your life that have really occurred from your relationship with alcohol.

And then you move into abuse and that is characterized by some sort of problems have really begun to occur. But then you continue to use given despite those problems, but then there’s addiction. And we used to diagnose alcohol abuse and [00:40:00] then alcohol dependence is what we, we used to call it, but it’s it’s addiction.

The words are interchangeable, and then you have mild, moderate and severe. And the, the addiction diagnosis per se has a progressive nature. So addiction progresses through the different stages of use and the major differential between people that have abuse issues and people that have addiction is characterized by a lot of things.

But the simplest thing is a lack of control. So a lack of control is demonstrated and the easiest way I’ve been able to over the years, help people understand, you know, what that looks like is a com unpredictability, right? Like you just don’t know when your bio that we read at the top there is gonna happen, or you’re gonna have those 2, 3, 5 beers and go home to your wife.

After you have dinner with your friends, you just there’s, it’s unpredictable when that’s gonna happen. And that, that, that’s an easy way to kind of understand the loss of control. So, but now we’ve switched that all up. We’ve taken [00:41:00] that and putting that aside. Fancy people think they got cool research and stuff.

And they’ve, they’ve just said, now we’re just gonna call it all a substance use disorder and that’s mild, moderate and severe still. So it’s still a continuum, but they have, and I hate this, but they have made a distinction different from alcohol or drug, weed, pot, whatever abuse versus addiction.

They’ve just lumped the abuse into the addiction realm and put it all in the same continuum. And I contend that there is a very different reality cuz we know about 10 to 15% of populations really around the world, I think, but certainly in the states 10 to have addiction 10 to 15 percent. So it is interesting.

I think we’re saying similar things, but there’s a, there’s a difference in that there are people that are social users likely, never have addiction abusing people, but they’re never likely at having addiction. It’s about 10 to 15% [00:42:00] that we can identify with that classification. Does that make sense?

Does that make you mad? no, no,

Daniel Gasser: no. That makes sense. That makes actually the two sides of it. So it makes sense of the addiction or abuse. Let’s not jump on terms here of being a progressive

Chris Gazdik: thing. Yeah, totally agree on that. Yeah. Starts out small, gets bigger, bigger. Yeah. You know, that’s what the char that’s what that characteristic some physical aspect, but

Daniel Gasser: also

Chris Gazdik: some mental aspect.

Correct. But, and by the way, it doesn’t go in reverse. It always gets worse with addiction. Yeah. Yeah.

Daniel Gasser: But now let’s take an example. Let’s take the businessman as a family, children, and he has his drink every day. Let’s say that’s a glass of wine. Okay. And you ask him to not have his glass of [00:43:00] wine for a week.

Yep. Now some people I say, okay, fine. Yep. And after that week you ask them, how was your week did you think about having that glass? Did you think about, oh no. I told Daniella that I want, and if you have that thought for me, in my opinion, you’re addicted could be, yeah. Could be you have that problem already because you have to discipline yourself because you made a deal with Daniel or with Chris to not have that glass of wine every evening for a week or for three days or whatever.

So if you have that thought for me, you are on the good road to addiction.

Chris Gazdik: Could it indicate something that we call preoccupation that is a symptom of addiction. Thoughts about your next drink and an overwhelming sense of thinking about it and planning for it and sort of wrapping your day or right. [00:44:00] Exactly.

It’s a substitute. Yeah. Preoccupation is a symptom.

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. And because people think, for example, let’s have that even drink again, that alcohol is actually relaxing them, which is completely wrong. I like that analogy with the fire alarm, you have a fire alarm going on and you, you take the battery out, you call the firefighter and say, everything is fine.

Fire is under control, but you just shut down the alarm, which is stress. All right. So if you drink to cope with stress, all you do is shutting down the alarm, but the stress is still here. And the reason for stress is still here. So, but it’s very difficult to say, what is actually the problem is the substance or the abuse of the substance, the problem, or is the problem in life that’s leading to the abuse.

And I [00:45:00] think it got, it gets with the years it gets mixed up. So initially you have triggered, you have kind of, of an issue for me. It was I sensed very early in my life as a nine year old already that something is really going very, very wrong on this planet in our society. So I told my parents and what you gonna tell a nine year old?

Yeah, you are right. We’re pretty much screwed up. No, you don’t gonna tell that. Do your nine year old, right?

Right. you tell him? Yeah, listen. No, no, everything is fine, but that I, I don’t blame my parents for having done that. I would, I would’ve done the same if I had child, but. That led for me to a, a disruption, because I knew what I felt deep inside. Me and everybody told me, no, you’re wrong. Everything is fine. Now [00:46:00] I know I was perfectly right with my, with my intuition, but that led such a disruption that I, I thought I’m completely wrong. Everything is wrong with me. Right. And

if back then I would have had the right people to talk to. I probably would never have abused of anything because if even only someone would showed up to me and say, yeah, you, you are actually pretty right.

You know, the planet is pretty screwed up. We have a lot of problems and two, I don’t know if we’re gonna solve them. That would’ve been okay. Right. It’s screwed, but I’m not wrong at least I sense that. Right. But that’s my story. So, but then you start drinking. I started drinking and I started drinking a lot only beer and stuff like that, but a lot to cover that fire alarm to [00:47:00] cover that feeling of being wrong.

And so it’s, it’s, I think it starts with, with a trigger as I call it with the reason, but then it, as you don’t solve the problem by addiction, obviously it got mixed up with the problems coming from the addiction to your initial problem,

Chris Gazdik: which is life and stress and yeah. And that’s a tricky. So it is tricky.

So here’s what I wanna do. I’m aware of the time, the, the second part, I wanna get to issues in recovery and, and, and we’ll go back and forth with some of the different things. What I want to try to do is, is hone us in because we gotta got a lot to get to with the disease model. And I want take a deep dive on that and, and, and end today with that.

And there’s, there’s some reading that I wanna do and some stuff that I wanna get to. So let me, let me frame us into there with that and see, you know, what you feel Daniel about, where addiction comes from. Cause I hear you talking about that already. And the way that I [00:48:00] look at this is as an overview of everything in mental health, depression, anxiety, O C D PTSD, all these different things, right?

There’s, there’s a tale of two tape. Okay. On the, on the one side you have biological realities, genetic genetic traits, the, the amygdala, the limbic system exercise nutrition, all, all the body, the, the biological realities drive, how it is that we feel. But then on the other side, you have social and emotional realities.

So primary life experiences, primary life’s events and the daily grind and distress that also drives how it is that we feel. So there’s this, there’s this combining mix. And I hear you talking about that, but if we look at addiction, I would maintain that. It seems to me for the 10 to 15%, that this social and emotional stuff gets created, also contributes to the problems and whatnot, but that, and this gets to the disease model that really like, and I tell my clients this all the time and it takes the shame and guilt away by the way, cuz they didn’t do anything wrong.

[00:49:00] There’s they’re not a bad person. All those stigmas and stereotypes. I’m all about blowing those up. Part of the reason for this platform through a therapist. But that there is a genetic reality that basically babies already are alcoholics or not. We just don’t know if they are or not until they begin and progress with their relationship with alcohol.

So it’s kind of really on that biological side, statistically genetics make a big difference. In our assessment, we always ask about family genetics, uncles, aunts, grandparents, siblings, like that helps us to determine if addiction is there or not. Doesn’t mean it is if you have a granddaddy or a dad, but the percentages genetically are, are very clear and very there.

So do you think that’s the social side, this genetic biological side? Like where do you, where do you stand with that?

Daniel Gasser: To take that first, if it takes away the blame fine. Yeah. [00:50:00]

Chris Gazdik: Sure everything. Everything is cool if you, yeah. You want that shame and guilt gone, don’t you? Yeah, yeah, yeah. But

Daniel Gasser: I think that’s crap. Yeah. Okay. Newer researchers on, on genetics has shown that actually 10% of our genetics is given and the rest we have influence of that. Mm-hmm we have influence on our genetics. So if your father is a diabetic, it doesn’t mean that you have to be a diabetic, too bad example. I know because I have no clue about all these things, but are you familiar with the work of Dr. Dispenser?

Chris Gazdik: I am not Dr. Joe dispenser, go

Daniel Gasser: have a look. What he has to say. He’s a neuro a neuroscientist and he has a whole bunch of. Talking about this genetic things and placebo things also, I personally think, and really this is my [00:51:00] opinion. I think that the whole DC thing, it’s a big excuse because from society let’s take the alcohol example, they can say, okay, you know, he’s an alcoholic, he’s ill, poor little thing.

And the guy being ill quote can say the same. Oh, you know, I’m ill, I’m a poor little thing. And that’s why I think it’s a, it’s a on one side, it’s an excuse on the other side, it’s a money machine. Oh, people gonna hate me for this

Chris Gazdik: again. no money machine. Yeah. I, I, I, I wonder Daniel because I, I, I see it as a little bit of a reality and, and it is a reality that does take away the guilt and the shame.

I mean, this is not like you’re a loser person. You’re stupid. You’re not able to make good decisions. There’s a reality with yes. With predisposition disposition, please. You

Daniel Gasser: are what’s that stupid. You are stupid. You take the wrong decisions. That’s stupid, Daniel, just [00:52:00] because he thinks he is wrong on the planet.

He starts drinking. What’s stupid asshole. Of course you’re stupid because other people having similar problems, taking other decisions as a teenager, they don’t start to drink. So, so it’s of course, part of it is taking stupid decisions, but that’s not the problem. Because everybody all, oh, my mic fell off.

Chris Gazdik: We are, we still hear you. all, all

Daniel Gasser: the 7 billion people take stupid decisions all the time, so that’s not the problem, but that can’t be the excuse.

Chris Gazdik: Well, yeah, it there’s. When you look at the disease model, I, I, I prepared and looked at the definition. It it’s it’s, it’s said as a disorder of structure or function in the human animal plant or [00:53:00] human, especially one that produces significant signs or symptoms, or that affects specific location and is not simply a direct result of physical injury.

So basically these deviations and there’s symptoms that look that we look for that, that we’re identifying signs and symptoms are really all that we’re looking for are classifications. Nothing weird about that. You have signs and symptoms of diabetes, you have signs and symptoms of heart disease. You have signs and symptoms of all these types of stuff.

And with addiction, check out this list, right? Loss of control, emotional relief use the concept of progression. We talked about a concept of tolerance that we talked about is actually something called gulping. I won’t spend time an actual experience of blackouts, which is very abnormal in the experience of a typical drinker problems in life associated to use.

And continue using mentioned that with abuse, increased frequency, preoccupation, we talked a little bit about guilt associated[00:54:00]

to the use avoidance in talking about the issue hiding beverages. I always think that’s, if you’re hiding a beverage, to me, that’s a big one. It’s kind of like, what are we hiding? Lying about use loss of other interests in life legal or other social issues. And then physical dependence actually with withdrawal symptoms and then periods of abstinence that are sort of forced by the user.

So those are like, you know, and then the DSM goes specific on some of those things. But, but those are, those are like specific things that we’re looking for. And the way that I work with this is that like, if you have one or two of these flags, these are all red flags. It doesn’t mean that you have addiction.

But when we begin having, you know, 2, 3, 5 of these, it’s kind of like, wow, you know, but when you got 6, 7, 8, 9 of these, it’s like, dude, this is a raging persevere issue. And because we don’t have a blood test, we don’t have anything that we can say you got COVID right. Because we can look at the little COVID PO [00:55:00] things on the molecule and we just don’t have anything like that.

Really, for all of mental health, my whole industry, what we have is we can look at signs and symptoms and we can say, oh, okay, well that sounds like enough signs of depression that we can say your body has depress. Right. And, and by the way, it went away, it lasts about two weeks to, to three months. That’s a depression episode.

We know what that looks like. O C D we all have anxiety, but we have signs of O C D touch doorknobs, or you have compulsive thoughts. You have, you know, ritualistic behavior, right. We, we have signs. And when we have enough symptoms of that, we can call that sort of the part of the classification system.

And that’s no different with addiction. So it’s, it’s, it is tricky that way. And, and, and there seems to be some understandings that we’re having genetically about all of these things, you know, bipolar schizophrenia, you know, the, the body at birth does have a lot [00:56:00] of predisposed reality with all of these things, including including addiction.

Now I I’ll add. And then I’ll see what you got to think. When you say we have domain over our own bodies, that we can get healthy. Thank goodness. We’ve learned about brain plasticity, right? That’s a fancy way of saying, we used to think once you kill brain cells, they’re dead. You can’t get anymore. Now we know there is amazing regenerative ability of our bodies.

There are amazing creations. So do we do have some domain over our bodies and what happens, but there’s predispositions. And there’s a, there’s a reason why we got 10, 15%. I mean, that number has held very, very sound. Those are some of the things we talk about with, you know, this disease model. If you will.

I know that’s a lot.

Daniel Gasser: No, no, but it’s okay. So maybe we should define the term

Chris Gazdik: disease. Yeah. Oh yeah. Oh yeah. I there’s a lot of misunderstanding about that. Yeah. Because for

Daniel Gasser: me a disease is [00:57:00] that I go to a doctor, he diagnoses it. He gives me some

pill. I’m simplifying it a lot, but it should be diagnostic. It, it should be diagnostic. And the way you explain it to me, There

Chris Gazdik: is clearly. Yeah. Yeah. They’re very specific. I

Daniel Gasser: took diagnose an addiction or an abuse. There is a list of symptoms if I have a few of them, ding down alarm clock. Yeah. But on, on a, on a more philosophical way of thinking, I think it’s dangerous to call it the disease because of the reasons I stated before, because of the excuse part of it.

It’s not my fault if I have a disease so I can, nothing, I can do nothing about it,

Chris Gazdik: right? Yeah, no, we don’t buy that. Not in our field, not in, not in the, the clinician treatment field, because there is something you can do about it. Same thing with depression, same thing with O C. There’s treatments that we manage cognitive behavioral therapy [00:58:00] therapies.

There are some pills for something. Okay. Seem to love the idea of taking pills to treat things. I don’t know why we love that, but we love that. We’re trying to manipulate the body and the structures with, with neurotransmitters and, you know, dopamine levels and neuro epinephrine and the limbic system and you know, all that stuff, you know, it’s, there’s a lot there.

But we’re, we’re trying to, you know, it isn’t just, oh, I can’t do anything about it. like, no, wait a minute. But yeah. So

Daniel Gasser: maybe I have to review that, but in my, in my world, when people come to me and say, yeah, you know, I’m ill. I tend to say you, no, you’re not absolutely stupid, absolutely stupid decisions. And that led to the point that you are here now sitting with me and we can solve that.

I’m what I’m against is that alcoholism is still called

Chris Gazdik: an Inc incurable illness. Yeah. That’s a, that’s the rub and that’s a bit of the trouble.

Daniel Gasser: I think what, I’m the living example. That’s not true.

Chris Gazdik: Well, but Daniel, the thing [00:59:00] where we, we differ with that is it, it it’s, it’s, it’s so scary to me that people will work with alcoholism and return to some sanity of life as you have, and then move forward to think that they can continue or revert back.

And this time I’ll control the drinking. Right. Mm-hmm now you, you kind of qualified that a little differently saying, yeah, drinking’s kind of bad for everybody. I would submit. It’s really not. The 90% of people will drink alcohol, do all the time and never really have any problems develop up in their life.

I’m one of them.

Daniel Gasser: Right. Okay. Do you drink more than 10 years

Chris Gazdik: ago? Oh, I’m sure. Heck I was in college way too long ago. than that yeah.

Daniel Gasser: No, but say, tell me, do you drink more? What’s that? Do you drink more than 10 years before

Chris Gazdik: 10 years? Oh, sure. [01:00:00] Yeah. When I was in my twenties, absolutely. I’m like I said, I’m way I’m way I drank in college a, a good bit.

I’m sure. And that was way more than 10 years. That’s what I’m trying to joke with. No, no, its true.

Daniel Gasser: Maybe it’s a language problem. When you look at the, the quantity you’re drinking now, is it more than 10 years ago or is it the same or is it less?

Chris Gazdik: Oh, it’s probably about the same, about 10 years ago. But when I was in college and a younger man, I would drink way, you know more.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Okay.

Daniel Gasser: Because a lot of people that drink slowly but surely more and more and more and more and more and they never have a problem in their

Chris Gazdik: life. Well there, yeah, there’s a term that drives me nuts and there’s a term called functional alcoholism and that’s just that’s. Ah, it, there is no such thing as, as functional alcoholic.

That drives me nuts because you can have a functional life basically. And we did a show on that. Neil reminded here at the end. We’ll have it on the show notes, but I want you to say it out loud. [01:01:00] The episodes that we did on that, I’m reminded because we, we did a show on functional alcoholism and I think the title was not so functional alcoholic.

It’s like, that’s, that’s just a retarded word in my mind. It’s a weird word.

Daniel Gasser: I think it it’s quite correct. I was a functional drinker for over 30 years. Right. Right. And what I understand on the functional drinking is that you have your life, you have your career, you have your family. Yeah. Everything is fine. Quote, but deep inside, it’s not, it really, isn’t more, more and more and more until the day. You’re not a functional drinker anymore because something happened like car accidents or

Chris Gazdik: fire. Exactly. Or whatever, a perfect example of that as a very functional person that I, I was working with and we were identifying, trying to figure out, does this addiction apply to you or not?

And that was kind of like in my mind. Yeah, probably, but he was working with it. And anyway, he was really functional person, pretty [01:02:00] high level professional in the industry. But then he, he, he came home driving home drunk and puked all over himself and had to walk into the home, you know, and for him, that was his reconciliation moment of like, wow, this really is more of an issue in my life than it is for most others and began to really break down.

There’s another concept called denial to, to really get aware of like this, this relationship with alcohol is different for me than it is for most others. Yeah. And, and that was an important reconciliation for him. And he got. But the trouble is, and this is where it does suck for addiction. We don’t know of anybody that really can, can demonstrate a return to average drinking levels such as I kind of described.

Right. Like, but that

Daniel Gasser: that’s, what’s not getting into my brain. Why would someone that has discovered that it’s he’s poisoning himself? Oh yeah. [01:03:00] Over years. Why what’s that stupid idea of wanting to return? It’s like, if I wanted to return to, let’s say one shot of heroin a month, right.

That’s completely stupid. Right? because I got away. Sadly poison. Why would I try it? On the other hand, I got away from nicotine too, but from time to others, I

enjoy smoking a cigar. The big fat Cuban ones. Yes.

Chris Gazdik: I love them. They’re pretty good. And they’re

Daniel Gasser: pretty good. but I don’t get addict to them. Right. Strangely, because one reason there’s a lot less of nicotine in, in these things. You don’t pull it in that much. It’s not industrially added nicotine like in the cigarettes, but still, so there, I think there are [01:04:00] substances you can return to normal use like cigar as a former smoker, right? Some smokers or some form of smokers might not be able to

Chris Gazdik: return. And I think therein lies a little bit of the difference with the genetic reality that bodies operate at about 10 to 15% of us.

Something’s different in our bodies. So, because there are a lot of people that develop more problems, abuse, if you will, that they get their stressed in life together and they can revert back to social uses, which is more, you know, normal levels. But once we’re in the addiction identification, yeah. You’re kind of screwed for life, I guess, because you really cannot return and go back down, you know, the line of progression it, it rolled down.

Daniel Gasser: Why would you do that again, chris? Why [01:05:00] would one do that?

Chris Gazdik: People have told me all the time. I mean, for all sorts of reasons, I think every alcoholic kind of wants to be able to be a controlled user. I have people in my practice all the time saying, why can I do this? And I say, you know, I don’t know why you can’t biologically.

There’s a reality here though. We have not seen success with addiction returning back to that. They want to be like everybody else, right. That seems to be able to drink with no problem. And they get sucked into that. This idea that I don’t really have addiction. I mean, it’s crazy because I’ve seen people that are 20 years sober and they’re talking into my office, they relapsed and in a relatively short period of time, I’m talking weeks to months, maybe a year, but pretty quickly in their life.

Boom. They are way beyond where they even were when they left off, which is another danger about progression. It it’s it’s as though they never stopped drinking and it continued to get worse and worse and they were 20 years sober. you know why? Well, I don’t think we really can [01:06:00] explain that one, but why do think I can?

Daniel Gasser: I think I can, they didn’t solve it. They didn’t understand it. They didn’t change their point of view. You can pour beer over me. Beer was my favorite drink. Yeah, you can. You can force me. I would never relapse. Let me tell you a little story. I.

Chris Gazdik: Was cooking. Okay. Go with this story. And then Neil, if you got those shows, I wanna say I’m out loud at the end here.

And then we’ll, we’ll go to our next episode. So I was

Daniel Gasser: cooking and I had this recipe and it was wine to pull over the source. Right, right. And I had no wine, but I had beer. It was like few months ago. So I took a beer from the seller and I opened it and that,

Chris Gazdik: oh, the sound, you know? [01:07:00] Yeah. I was like, oh, it trigger sometimes.

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. And I got frightened. Right. And I said, oh fuck. And then I said, okay, man, you’re coaching for the man. Yeah. You have, you are a big mouth cheeky guy going all over social media that you have found the method that everything is fine. So now yeah, you’re gonna have, you’re gonna have a sip of this beer.

Yeah. And I can tell you, my heart beat was like really high because what if I relapse? Right. What if my wife’s gonna quit? Because she doesn’t do that twice in life, you know? Right. She’s still buy me 20 years, but not once more. Right. So I took the beer and put it to my mouth and then I smelled it. Yep.

And I was like a child when you give him alcohol, [01:08:00] right. Natural reaction reaction. It’s like, Ugh. And I forced myself, even after that smell, I forced myself having a zip. And I can tell you, Chris it’s it was awful,

Chris Gazdik: right?

Daniel Gasser: It was totally, totally awful. And there I knew, yes. If you use this method correctly, you’re never gonna relapse ever. And that’s why the reason that I can have alcohol in my house,

because I’m never gonna touch it anymore. It’s it’s awful. Yeah. It tastes awful. It sounds awful. It smells awful. Everything about it is awful. And that’s why I’m telling you people relapse, I think is my theory. And again, some people gonna hate me for that.

I don’t care because they don’t look at it differently. They look at it the same way they did 20 years before, and they just [01:09:00] resist for the rest of their lives. And then they’re gonna relapse. Of course.

Chris Gazdik: So that’s yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s a dangerous time and it’s, it’s, it is a little bit of a, a reality, the, the, the dangers of relapse, I mean, I’ve which with which if you’re hearing me Neil, by the way, let’s, let’s hit that next, but you know, you you’ve said that a few times and, and clearing up some of the myths, right?

Like we, we don’t really have to have the suggestion that you can’t be around alcohol. I mean, you know, when you get sober and you’re, and you’re, well, you know, and you’re stable in your sobriety. I mean, there are bartenders I’ve worked with in therapy that are, you know, that are, that are alcoholics, but they’re in recovery and they’re, they’re tending bar.

I mean, you know, it it’s when, when you’re right, when you’re clear that, like, I have a different relationship with alcohol, I am allergic to, it is another way of thinking of it. It doesn’t work for me in my body, and it’s not, I’m not, I’m not going there again. You can have people over drinking barriers, you can, I mean, I’ve [01:10:00] got, I’ve got recovered alcoholics that make the best drinks for their wives or for their husbands that than other people normally could.

It’s fine. Right? Yeah, it’s fine. But now in early recovery, we want a sober environment that is safer for people that are new, new, new to this. Now that is a suggestion sometimes when you’re, when you’re trying to be sober for like the first week, weeks, or months. Right. Like that’s where it becomes, you know, totally agree with you sometime a suggestion.

So, Neil, what are those what are those numbers? And we’ll start off with that, the next episode as well, and, and continue this awesome conversation with Daniel gasser. So what, what do you got, Neil? How many did we do on this thing? Anyway,

neil: I got 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12. And there are some opioids versus alcohol, but so basically running down it, and these will be in the show notes on the website.

You got. Twenty five twenty eight, twenty nine thirty. Are we born addicts? That’s kind of, I think a [01:11:00] out cut that you had. I think from one of the other shows 64, 75, 81, 11, 1 56 and 1 68 and the not so functional alcoholic was 75,

Chris Gazdik: not so functional alcoholic. 75. Yeah. We’ve talked about it on the show, Daniel A.

Good bit because it’s one of our primary topics and it’s one that I carry deeply about because actually this is one that I sort of you know, began my career with ironically, teaching the DUI class and learning about all of the, the basic fundamentals of it. And I kind of stumbled into, you know, the addiction.

Otherwise I might have been like a lot of my other colleagues that just do not understand addiction. Like I said, getting better. But it used to be like, I work with drug and alcohol addictions, and I don’t do mental health. I work with mental health, but I don’t deal with drug and alcohol addictions. And it drives me nuts, man, to my colleagues.

I love you out there. Thank you for doing what you’re doing, but if you don’t have an understanding of addiction to drug alcohol issues, like, get it, get some trainings because you are looking [01:12:00] at it and you don’t know it. Yeah. Is the reality in our mental health field.

Daniel Gasser: So that’s the peer, the peer theory, right. Because that’s why people are coming to me because they’re sick of getting of walking in the office of their doctor and say, oh, you’re an alcoholic.

You’re no problem. Yeah. You

know? Yeah. It is coming to a guy

Chris Gazdik: like it’s become so prominent that, that like people, yeah. It’s like, listen, this is only about 10 to 15% of our population.

It’s not 40% of our population. Yeah. Sorry. It, I get excited about

Daniel Gasser: that, but yeah. Yeah. But to that, I have to say. Maybe by definition or by your definition, or by that professional definition of alcoholism or whatever you call it, it’s 10 to 15%, but

alcohol is causing so much problems in society that it can’t be that only 10 to [01:13:00] 15% have a problem with it.

Chris Gazdik: Oh, there’s a lot more than abuse substance. Yes.

Daniel Gasser: Yeah. We saw that during the lockdowns of COVID. Oh yes. Twice. Oh yes. Binge drinking, domestic violence, child abuse, all that horrible stuff. And did you know that alcohol sales of alcohol has gone up of over 300%?

Chris Gazdik: Oh, it’s raging. Yeah, it’s raging. So

Daniel Gasser: maybe these 10 to 15% have an actual problem of being addicted.

That substance causes so many problems. We should just

Chris Gazdik: ban it from society one to four. Yeah. He, he going back to prohibition, Neil yeah, man. You,

Daniel Gasser: you know this guys who actually had a good idea. Yeah.

Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Well, listen, we gotta get outta here today, but we’re gonna be spending a whole nother episode on the different issues and alcohol addiction and recovery and what those issues are, because there’s a lot of myths about this guys.

There’s a lot of stereotypes. There’s a lot of things and we’re, we’re endeavoring to figure this thing out together. Daniel [01:14:00] and I, so I really want you to come back next week because man, there’s so much to cover with this that we, we have that are, that are controversial. Daniel. I’m glad you’re talking with us and I’m glad you ain’t got mad at me yet, by the way, man.

Daniel Gasser: likewise, Chris, thank you for having me.

neil: So before we, before we go to the next episode, what’s the best way for people to reach you Daniel, like what’s oh, thank you for that, Neil. Yeah.

Daniel Gasser: So you can go to quit the bottle.com. Plain and simple. You can reach me on LinkedIn. I stopped using Facebook and there is just Daniel gasser, Switzerland.

Yeah, but I think over quit the bottle.com. It’s the

Chris Gazdik: easiest way to go. Thank you, Neil, for saving me there, brother. , would’ve had to put an addition on the beginning of this show or something for all of that. And we’ll do that at the beginning and next show as well,

Daniel Gasser: just to say, just to say, if you go to quit the bottle.com, of course I’m selling this coaching packages there.

Don’t buy that. Just write [01:15:00] an email to Daniel, quit the bottle.com and we have a chat first. I’m not the coach making a lot of money. I’m not an needy coach. I have my business running. I’m good. yeah. So just write me an email on Daniel. Quit the bottle.com and we have a conversation.

Chris Gazdik: All right. And Daniel, I’m really glad.

And thank you again for doing the work that you’re doing with men and women around the world that are dealing with alcohol and drug troubles. All right, guys, we will see you all next week. Take care and be well, bye.

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