This show was supposed to be about addiction recovery and the family dynamics, but as the panel started talking about addiction, it became clear that there is a lot of confusion about what addiction is. At one point the question came up about what is abuse and how is it different then addiction. This was a good question because it helped clarify the difference between the two and why there is more to an addiction than most people realize or want to admit.
Tune in to see What is Addiction Through a Therapist’s Eyes.
Listen for the following takeaways from the show:
- Do you have a clear understanding of what addiction is?
- What does recovery mean to you?
- What do we mean by addiction being a family disease?
- It can take up to 3 generations to break the addiction cycle.
- If you’re a therapists, you have to make sure you do not have a blindspot for addiction.
- Understanding the physiology of addiction can help people understand what is going on.
- The earlier you start in an addiction the worse the long term affects are.
- They discuss the symptoms you are looking for when classifying addiction.
- Visit Samsah.gov or 1-800-622-Help if you are struggling with Substance Abuse.
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Episode #222 Transcription
Chris Gazdik: [00:00:00] Hello, this is March the 23rd and you have found through a therapist’s eyes that is Mr. I’m gonna say Victoria Pope over there. No,
John-Nelson Pope: no, his, his
Chris Gazdik: Holiness. Oh my goodness. The Pope. Pope.
John-Nelson Pope: Pope
Chris Gazdik: John. Be careful man. That’s fine. You’re talking about being burned in stake a little bit before the mics came on.
You better be careful, brother. No, that is miss Victoria Pendergrass. Hello. And Mr. John, the Pope is hanging out with us, so we are gonna be talking today about. A different angle on recovery from addiction, the estrangements that kind of occur, and how they kind of occur and, and how, how to manage them because it’s an angle that isn’t really talked about in recovery circles a lot, honestly.
Right. And I had a really interesting conversation even just today that was kind of extensive about that. And he gave me [00:01:00] permission to kind of pepper that in. So literally like what you get on through a therapist’s eyes is what we say through our eyes. What we deal with in our therapy offices. You know, some of this topic is, is just that.
So it, it’s
John-Nelson Pope: not as emphasized as much as it used to be. Is that part of that is because of treatment
issues
Chris Gazdik: or, I don’t think it’s ever really Yeah. Been emphasized. John, I’ll be curious to hear more about that. Okay. With what your thoughts are that that’s a curious, I’m curious there. Well, yeah. Yeah. So now so.
Where’s my intro stuff? Yeah. We have the book out re Understanding Emotions and Becoming Your Best Self. The Facebook Live has turned over to YouTube live, so we definitely wanna tell your friends subscribe, share it, whatnot. I don’t know. Can you share YouTube? Yes, you can. I did not know that you could share YouTube videos.
How cool is that? Well, yeah, I did. I guess I don’t do it very often, but I do digress. This is the delivery of Therapy [00:02:00] Services. It is
Victoria Pendergrass: not oh, delivery of therapy services,
Chris Gazdik: but it is where you get insights from therapists and personal time in your car and personal time at home. Look, this is the human emotional experience.
We seriously enjoy an endeavor to figure this out together with you. So do you have a clear understanding of what addiction is? I have a whole lot of content that we’ve done on a show about that, and I still am amazed at how confused people get about that. What does it mean to you recovery? In the addictions field, that’s actually controversial a little bit.
I dunno if I could say controversial, but people that in the addictions field, you need to understand, even have confusion or difference about we’re in recovery or were recovered. It’s an interesting dynamic. So there’s some things there. And then what do we mean by addiction being a family disease?
Because that has a lot to do with the estrangements that. That we get into. So, John, I’m, I’m curious, circling back there to that right, right. You, [00:03:00] I would maintain and it seems like you have a different experience Yeah. Talking about recovery issues. But see, I’m so old. Yeah. There’s an old joke. No. Yeah. Is that, no, I’m serious at this point today, no.
John-Nelson Pope: When I went to, when I went to seminary, I and we had, we had this all the time and that’s where we had families involved with recovery of, of clients. And in those days we called ’em patients. And well, no, I get
Chris Gazdik: that around the eighties, really more like the seventies. Claudia Black and, and, and others were transformational.
Mm-hmm. In previous, in changing the previous belief. That addiction really is a disease of an individual and there wasn’t much focus on anything else. But she brought around all of the dynamics that I’m gonna talk about a little bit tonight. Murray Bowen, family Dynamics, I don’t know
John-Nelson Pope: that name. Murray Bowen is Bowen Family’s Systems, which was the genograms all the time.
And we talked [00:04:00] about he dealt and worked with a lot of the,
Chris Gazdik: That was Virginia Satir did a lot of that.
John-Nelson Pope: No, she got it from him.
Chris Gazdik: Oh, really? Yeah, she took it that, yeah. Isn’t that funny? And we, she
John-Nelson Pope: was, we worshiped at the altar of Virginia Satir. Right. But first we worshiped at Murray Bowens.
Chris Gazdik: Interesting.
Yeah. And I don’t mean that literally. Yeah. Okay. Of course. So, but, but it’s interesting because what I’m saying is it’s not really ever been a focus on the angle of, in specifically in particularly in recovery, how to recover the estranged reality. That
John-Nelson Pope: relationships. Now, now, now you got that.
Chris Gazdik: This is the angle that I’m taking.
Okay. Okay. So we’re on the same page as we usually are. The estrangement recovery uhhuh in damaged and broken, and. You know, the fault lines that get created in an addict’s life. How about that first statement? That’s excellent. Are profound and haven’t [00:05:00] really been discussed. Mm-hmm. I don’t feel like, it’s like you get in recovery and you manage yourself and you know, family relationships kind of come around, but there’s not a lot of guidance for people in recovery to recover the relationships that have been fractured throughout their life.
Right, right. So I want, that’s the way I wanna bend us a little bit today. Okay. Yeah. So if you
John-Nelson Pope: were looking at it from a family systems point of view a little bit, that would be that your family’s in dis equilibrium. In other words, it’s a, it’s, it’s in chaos. And the idea is, is that family would like to establish equilibrium again.
Yes. But instead of going back to the alcohol lives or the alcohol misuse or substance use, you would you would establish a new equilibrium. And our, and that would reinforce
Chris Gazdik: positive. And our family members or friends, man or coworkers, people. In that addict’s life, [00:06:00] are they in a place to really facilitate themselves?
Yeah. With that, which is part of like this big fracture that happens, this chasm that gets so wide, it’s like, look, I have been here for a long time supporting you, loving you, caring for you. And unfortunately it might have been codependent ways, but, and I just got so burnt out that I can’t do this anymore.
And now you’re coming back and you’re saying you’re great and in recovery and everything’s wonderful. Well, I’m not exactly right. And, and this is why I have a metaphor for addiction, and this will be a good transition to think about. Like, so what. So in, in recovery, I harken it to being a black hole.
Cause it, it cobbles all the physical and emotional resources of that individual and all those around the person. So that’s, that’s, this is a cool metaphor. I like that. I like
John-Nelson Pope: that metaphor. Yeah. But and, and I think [00:07:00] that’s one thing that you wouldn’t note and is that many relationships, marriages, partnerships long-term living, arrange arrangements just kind of crumble.
Chris Gazdik: Absolutely. Yeah. And get destroyed.
John-Nelson Pope: And the little kiddos, they, they get
wiped
Chris Gazdik: out. They really have a massive amount of emotional insecurity essentially that plays out through. Their life. As a matter of fact, early on in my travels, I heard this reality of Victoria about addiction. That I’m curious how will strike you, right?
Is that when you take one individual’s alcohol or drug addiction, you will need three generations of sobriety to eradicate the emotional That’s Bowen it. really? Yeah. That’s Bowen. Okay. Well I must have liked him. Yeah, he’s, I I thought
John-Nelson Pope: that was crazy. Now from generation to [00:08:00] un yeah.
Chris Gazdik: I thought that was bizarre.
I, I totally pooed that, you know, early in my career, I’m like, no, that’s crazy. Bet that
Victoria Pendergrass: doesn’t make any sense. I don’t think it’s that crazy because when you think of all other sorts of trauma like generational. It takes like a long time. Like if you, you know, when you parenting, like all those types of things, when you’re breaking a cycle, it’s not gonna happen over one generation.
So, I mean, it makes sense to me that it would take. Well, you several generations to people have break that hat to like break that cycle. You
Chris Gazdik: were a lot brighter than I was early in my career. About your stage of, of your career. Well, no,
John-Nelson Pope: the, the, that’s the thing is, is that people have to be prepared to be able to say, okay, I’m not just doing it for me right now.
Right. But we’re gonna do it inter for generational. And I think we talked about that in other areas. I,
Chris Gazdik: yeah. But I don’t think that gets enough press either. Yeah. In, in the recovery treatment world. You [00:09:00] know, and that is a good, you know, relapse recovery tool, you know, that is a good thing to focus on because you really are affecting the generation’s plural after you.
Mm-hmm. Which means if I’m the addict, my kid, excuse me, the first generation, my grandkids are the second. And then finally the grandkids being their parental relationship to their kids is the third generation, like that’s. That’s a lot. So Victoria, anyway, I’m, I’m curious to, to, that was a little bit of a spin to the, the segment I want to do.
I don’t think we can have conversations about addiction unless we have, you know, some interlude on what addiction is. That is so twisted nowadays I feel like, and I’ll. Curious John, cause I know you’d carry more experience. You’ve been dealing with addiction for how long in your career? 40 something years.
Yeah. When did you get trained and whatnot?
John-Nelson Pope: I would, I would say in 77, 78. And then,
Chris Gazdik: and specifically in substance abuse field? Alcohol. Yeah. Yeah. That’s awesome. And
John-Nelson Pope: then in 1988 and [00:10:00] 89, I went through the Navy program for training.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. I’ll tell you why I’m so into that and, and any therapist listening out here, I’m gonna be opinionated right now and I apologize a little bit for that, but not really because I’m gonna say it like I find a great problem in the massive divide that has been in our industry between substance abuse professionals and mental health professionals.
I used to feel like such an oddball being in the middle of that crew that did both mental health and substance abuse. I really, really did In the early nineties. I was like, well, I think it’s still there. It’s absolutely still there, John. And that’s what I’m railing on. Well, and that’s
Victoria Pendergrass: the thing is like Casey was my supervisor who’s been on the podcast and she told me that like, really in almost every client you work with, there’s probably some sort of addiction.
It’s an issue in there. And whether it is them personally or it’s their a family member, like there is some sort of, you’re gonna be dealing with
Chris Gazdik: addiction and here’s the deal to jump in. The reality of it is [00:11:00] guys and gals out there is, is that when you have an utter refusal to gain awareness and understanding and knowledge about the substance abuse field, you will have a massive blind spot.
And I submit again, sorry. I know it’s a little bit of an opinion, and I don’t mean to step on anybody’s toes, but it’s such an important issue because of what Victoria was just saying. The reality of it is you will have in. I don’t know, percentage wise. That’s great. I’m gonna say all clients Yeah. Are gonna have parents, they’re gonna have family members, they’re gonna have themselves and they’re not gonna tell you that it’s there.
So it, it, it really is incumbent upon the mental health field to gain awareness and education and training on substance abuse there. I’ve said it. I think that’s super important. I think it’s key how
John-Nelson Pope: you do the assessments too, because you can find, get a, you can mine a lot of information where you can, where there would be initially a denial and [00:12:00] then
Victoria Pendergrass: get other yeah.
I learned that the hard way cuz I was meeting with someone basically since I started here in August, roughly. Okay. And it was only like recently that I found out that they, they admitted to having an issue with alcohol. It was like alcohol or cigarettes or something like that. Absolutely. Like some type of addiction.
And I was like, Oh crap. Like I’ve been meeting with you for like six months and you’re like, I’ve just self, so yeah, and I mean, I learned that lesson there. Like in my assessment I now, that was, you know, when I first started here and I was still you
Chris Gazdik: agreeing.
John-Nelson Pope: You weren’t
Chris Gazdik: green. Yeah. So, so, so Victoria. Yeah.
You know, we don’t get this in school if you’re not purposeful about getting the substance abuse training and understanding. No. And wrapping yourself around. I’m gonna ask you a question. One, one outta 10 10 A I, I’m, I feel pretty solid in, in my understanding of addiction and drug treatments. One being I’ve never exposed, I don’t do anything with this.
This is not my deal. Where, just curious where you’d put [00:13:00] yourself. I’d probably say
Victoria Pendergrass: like a five or a six. Oh, pretty high. Yeah. Well, pretty high. Yeah. At least because you paid attention.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. And I know you had an awesome
Victoria Pendergrass: supervisor. Yeah, Casey. Shout out to Casey. But you know, I think it’s also just we have, so in grad school you have an addictions course.
Course.
Chris Gazdik: I did not know that. Yes, you do. But it’s just a semester we doing
John-Nelson Pope: counseling. It’s required by K prep. It’s, yeah. It’s required
Victoria Pendergrass: by accrediting agency. So in No, you’re right. No. So wow. Just to be clear, the reason why Chris is shocked by that is cuz he’s a licensed social worker. So your course, my course of graduate school might be different than myself and John who are licensed.
Correct. Clinical mental health counselors. Correct. But then again, it’s just a semester and it’s just all the board like it, you’re not deep dive and really you’re not getting into treatment of people who, you just learn about the addictions, you learn about the theories you learn. And honestly, if you ask me right now to recall one of those, other [00:14:00] than the person you’ve already mentioned, like I
Chris Gazdik: really wanna spend back to you Victoria on this.
Yeah. Cause you’re fresh from grad school Yeah. And whatnot. And I want to, I. I’m learning, right? I really wanna learn about this because the segment we’re on here is what is addiction and that gets hot. Mm-hmm. But John, I’m curious from your perspective, you agreed with me that there’s this great divide between the professions.
Exactly. And I know and have recognized for a while that it’s gotten better. It has gotten better. I literally heard Claudia Black talking about that, which is, you know, my big first foray into understanding family dynamics with her content. Back in the nineties, I actually saw her talk live. That was really cool.
Ooh. And she made the point recently on a show that I heard her on saying, wow, we never knew we had needed to have some understanding of mental health. And now we talk about mental health issues and I’m sitting there at my car, love dying, driving home, and I’m like, of, yes, of course. Like I was so happy to hear that.
How much has it gotten better [00:15:00] in your view? Because I just took a jump up today in saying the fact that there’s a semester course in grad school is fan freaking fantastic. I
John-Nelson Pope: didn’t know that. Well, I, I’m supervising somebody currently and he’s working for where it, it’s basically a methadone.
Clinic. Mm-hmm. And he’s he’s working with people that are addiction specialists. They have the certification. There’s different levels. But he is viewed with suspicion because he has some a master’s in clinical mental health counseling. And he’s already got a certification because he worked in an area.
So you get that one area where there’s. no Intersection and then you get some others. I know some, I have a colleague who I esteem very much. She’s at Carolina Behavioral and she is working very closely with clinical mental health counseling and addiction issues to bring ’em together. Bring them together.
It’s Kathy Allen. [00:16:00] She might be a good guest to,
Chris Gazdik: to ask. It’s interesting. Come on. I’m really glad to hear that. I’m still gonna stand by what I was saying. Opinionated Lee a little bit in the field that if you, if you refuse to pay attention to substance abuse, which I think there’s a lot of people out there that definitely still do that.
You are creating a blind spot in your clinical delivery. Exactly. Now I do know from my, do not back down from that,
Victoria Pendergrass: thank you. From my experience in my grad school program we had was I went to Ele Orine in Hickory and we. Several McLeod, I think is the name of it, which is a methadone clinic. Oh yeah. Yeah.
And so they were always looking for job or for hiring people, cuz it’s just such like a, back, back then it was really easy for a lot of the grad students. Like I know several of the grad students that I was in with. It was really easy for them to get like, sucked into that. And then
John-Nelson Pope: Well, and, and you don’t actually do counseling.
They, they discourage any of that counseling, right? Yeah. And you get 15 minutes with your client. [00:17:00] Right.
Chris Gazdik: What’s that gonna do? Wait, you can’t do anything. Okay. Well let me get us back on track with Victoria in grad school. Yeah. What are the theories, what are the beliefs? How do we see addiction in, in the, in the academic realm of our field?
And here’s the history real quick. Okay. I am really steeped in the more of the traditional kind of 12 step. Disease model, biological reality that we’ve still yet to date, gotten clear on in through science. Mm-hmm. But that nowadays, the other side of the debate seems to be a lot looser of a definition about how addiction works.
Hazleton studies that have come out, you know, what happens with compulsive use and, and mm-hmm. You know, falling into addiction later on in life. I’m kind of, of the mind that a baby is an alcoholic. Mm-hmm. They just haven’t had alcohol yet. And we [00:18:00] really don’t know that they’re the case now. I wanna also give us a warning.
Let’s be a little brief. Guys. Could, we could do a long time with this cuz I want to know what you think too. John,
Victoria Pendergrass: what do you think? I mean, for me, As I mentioned earlier, it’s not an in-depth core semester course. Like we went over the 12 step program. We went over like the basics of, and I’m honestly g I can’t remember any of it.
I mean, that was so long ago that, I mean, they dealt with the basics of, you know, like what addiction is and you know, well
Chris Gazdik: that’s the question. Oh, what is it?
Victoria Pendergrass: I mean, I would define it as like your, the ability to like not control, so like to be so
Chris Gazdik: Well, that’s right on point from what we know. Yeah. Okay. So
Victoria Pendergrass: that’s how it, I
Chris Gazdik: mean, okay.
John, what do you take? What to say? Take it, John, what do you It’s like, it’s
John-Nelson Pope: like John. Yeah. It’s like pornography. You, you, you can, you know it when you see it. And so, [00:19:00] so an addiction is, is very much something that, and I’m describing it it’s something that other people see and the person that has an addiction doesn’t see in himself or herself, or fully understands that really cool take.
Yeah. But it’s also but there’s also the concept of denial that goes in with, with addiction.
Chris Gazdik: I guess, I guess I’ll, I wanna cut to the chase and move on to the point or idea of, is it, is it genetic, biological or is it is it more, you know, social and emotional and, oh, it’s moral abuse? No. Yeah. Boy, we’re going back on old,
John-Nelson Pope: back in the old days.
Yeah. Yeah. It was moral. But I, I, I personally think that it’s it’s a dance of a, of a physical and emotional addiction along also with biochemical. And so there’s a genetic aspect to this, and so it’s a whole.
Chris Gazdik: [00:20:00] Mixture. Can you be an addict when you weren’t an addict before?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, we’re just waiting to be an addict, aren’t we?
Is that what you were bringing
Victoria Pendergrass: up? I think it can be both. I guess I really be genetics and
Chris Gazdik: social fall on the lines of, like I said, a baby has addiction or doesn’t. We just don’t know until we begin to, as you say, John, see it. Mm-hmm. How it plays out in the symptom sets that we look on for that. So,
John-Nelson Pope: Fraud.
I mean, Freud would talk about drives and, and, and all of that. We all have these drives. Yeah. So can those become
Chris Gazdik: addiction? No. I, I do not see that, that way Uhhuh. Okay. I categorically do not go that direction, which is quite to the point. You know, how do we categorize a.ddiction You know, we used to have, you know, alcohol abuse and then we had alcohol dependence.
Mild, moderate and severe. Right. There are clear delineations on what now We still
John-Nelson Pope: have that
Chris Gazdik: [00:21:00] with a U D N. No, we, we, now we go substance use disorder. Yeah. And, and, and well alcohol use disorder. Mild, moderate, and severe. Severe. They have gotten rid of the delineation between abuse of the substance. Right.
And dependence. Otherwise. I would agree with you on that. Yeah. Yeah. And I think there’s a clear delineation, uhhuh, there’s, if you’re abusing a substance that is not addiction. No,
John-Nelson Pope: you’re right. Well, but I’m an old school,
Chris Gazdik: you knows. Again, I think that we’re an, so you can clear steps with
Victoria Pendergrass: that. Can you explain like why you think the abuse of something is not the same thing as being addicted to it?
Well,
Chris Gazdik: the old thinking, again, we need to get off of this cause we’re gonna go too long here. The, but I want to answer your question. The, because it’s important. There’s so many questions about, yeah. What are we even talking here when we’re talking about estrangements of relationships and what happens in recovery when there’s so much confusion about what addiction is?
So the, the de, the delineation [00:22:00] here, Victoria, traditionally, is that with abuse issues, okay, with substance abuse issues, yeah, there is control over your use. I mean, there’s several symptoms that we look for for addiction, but you go from having some sort of problem with your use of alcohol, drugs, pot pills, weed, everything else in place of alcohol, and you continue use, that’s what we used to call abuse, but that is not addiction.
There are other symptoms, but the big jump is exactly what you landed on, controlled use, and that leads to mild addiction, moderate addiction, or severe addiction.
Victoria Pendergrass: But do you not think that someone that is at least somewhat abusing a substance or whatever, Can, I mean, I don’t know. I guess I might be, this might be the young part of me, but in my brain, it seems like if you’re abusing something, then there has to at least be some sort of addiction there.
No,
Chris Gazdik: I would, I would say no. And that’s what I mean, that’s why [00:23:00] it’s become, I mean, there can be, don’t get me wrong, but that’s where you get, you know, people that are using alcohol to cope with emotions inappropriately. And it can get pretty ugly, don’t, you know? It really can. Yeah. But they still have control over their use and there’s a big differential, people with
John-Nelson Pope: complicated grief you’ll see an increase of alcohol use Absolutely.
And misuse. Absolutely. But that doesn’t necessarily mean addiction. It does
Chris Gazdik: not.
Victoria Pendergrass: So then are you saying like the, the person, male or female or whoever comes home every night and every night they have a glass of bourbon? Right. That would, would you consider that like just. Like a abuse or an addiction like, and then they, they feel some type of way if they go a couple days and don’t have one.
Chris Gazdik: Well, you have the physical,
go
John-Nelson Pope: ahead, John. Yeah. That would take place and Gotcha. So that would indicate [00:24:00] addiction. Addiction because let’s say if your heart rate changes and your blood pressure changes and all the, the other aspects and you start having physical
Victoria Pendergrass: reactions and sickness. Okay. But then let’s say one day said person comes home and drinks.
Half a bottle of tequila, but then they don’t drink anything for another three weeks, then that, or they go a couple days and they drink
John-Nelson Pope: several. Well, the way I would, the way I dealt, I mean, I was instructed, was that you would have the, the, the, even if you were, if you do binging and that sort of thing Yeah.
That would indicate abuse. Abuse. It could not dependency, abuse, and even to the extent that it would progress into addiction. Okay.
Victoria Pendergrass: So it could progress. So abuse can progress into addiction is what you are saying. But ultimately,
Chris Gazdik: see, but that’s the interesting, that’s the interesting piece.
Yeah. Let, let me, let me tell you what I mean. So the way I see that [00:25:00] Victoria Yeah. Is,
it’s a tricky question. No. Right? No. Essentially, no. Okay. So, What, what we’ve just decided we, we just took like a five minute break off camera and, and I just pulled an executive decision in Audible. We’re not gonna be talking about the Estrangements component because this is such a, an important issue and I could just tell our energy and the confusion it’s out there about our conversation.
So the title now is that you will have seen already out there in the world the panel battles with what is addiction,
John-Nelson Pope: right? Well, and I, and I would. And I would agree with you on that because I think that’s the other thing that we have, we’ve seen addiction play out in so many different ways. Is there a sense that there are separate, let’s say you, you’re going by the disease model, is there types, different types of disease which could be described as addiction?
Yeah. Such [00:26:00] as substance use, but not just a certain substance, but that type of disease process that might be going on in terms of how it affects people
Chris Gazdik: and, and it’s funny, John, because I’ve never really felt secure in my learning or what I’ve seen read, heard academics talking about the types never has really gotten crystallized in my mind with what we know about that.
So it, I think there are a lot of unanswered questions. Yeah,
Victoria Pendergrass: there lot. So then why. Can you then explain to me why you think someone can’t? Right. Why abuse can’t coming back there into addiction, because
Chris Gazdik: I was coming back there. Okay. So because Victoria, the, the way that. We have seen addiction for a long time, and studies have shown this pretty clearly.
Mm-hmm. Very good. Science on the notion that alcoholism, drug addiction, by the way, [00:27:00] alcohol, weed, pot, pills, whatever, heroin y’all have. Uppers. Downers in betweeners. We remember that video. John upper drowners. All Arounders George. All arounders. Remember the all around? Yeah. Yeah. That was a, that was the title of what we, we have as data out there in content.
We also have eating addictions, gambling addictions, right. Sex, compulsive buying. Well, yeah. Gambling and debting. Yeah. Gambling addictions. Now we can also say debting addictions, eating addictions. Mm-hmm. Sexual addictions. And I do believe in the world health organization’s online video gaming. Addictions as being legit.
Yes. Mm-hmm. Listen, everything else is not. It is not found to be addiction. Okay. Drugs, alcohol, weed, pot, pills, those four things. You don’t get addicted to sports. You don’t get addicted to cars. You don’t get addicted to picking your nails. Compulsive behavior is not addiction. Okay. I’m gonna make that [00:28:00] statement, but again, back to your thought here.
Okay. Victoria, we, we see very clear in science mm-hmm. That alcohol addictions progress. So they start small and they get bigger. Right. Just like a snowball on top of the hill and with every rotation they picked. Yeah. It does not go uphill. So they, so hold on. Okay. Hold on. So that’s where you got go.
Somebody that has abusive behavior mm-hmm. With alcohol might very well be early on in their addiction process. Okay. But we don’t know that. We don’t see that very clearly because they don’t mean enough signs. They haven’t really demonstrated enough to demonstrate a lack of control. So people that don’t have addiction genetically, I believe, and I think there’s some science out there that says they won’t become enough into it to meet the criterions for addiction.
[00:29:00] Addiction. And there’s great controversy about this and I don’t understand
Victoria Pendergrass: why I, yeah, like even for me, I feel like I get what you’re saying, but then so, but what you’re saying is that someone can start out as having, I mean, you’re basically saying that there, if someone that has addiction, we’re saying alcohol, right?
Yes. Have an alcohol to make it simple. Would you say alcoholism? Yeah, alcoholism. And they’re addicted. Well, early stages it looks like alcohol abuse Correct. Is what you’re saying? Correct. So it can go from abuse to addiction, but ultimately that addiction, well, it’s appearance already there. Good. The addiction is already there.
It’s just presenting as a abuse of the alcohol now, but later on it will present itself as addiction. Right. Is that what I’m hearing you
Chris Gazdik: saying? I think you’re on it. Okay. I
John-Nelson Pope: would, I would argue also perhaps, and I’m not a, I’m not a medical doctor, don’t play one on tv. Yep.
Chris Gazdik: Anything like that. And we didn’t sleep in holiday and last
John-Nelson Pope: night I did not sleep in a Holiday Inn.[00:30:00]
But is that physiologically people’s reaction for someone who abuses alcohol or other drugs as opposed, there’s a real substantial physiological changes that occur in the body. Absolutely. The body actually processes. For example, let’s talk about alcoholism deliver. Metabolizes alcohol for most of us.
If we do and we drink too much alcohol, we regret it. We have the, the horrible Yeah, they do too. People that are have alcoholism, but their body metabolizes so much more efficiently. Yeah. Okay. Alcohol
Victoria Pendergrass: for example. So basically, so they’re able to function. Yeah. They can More than someone like as if I were to go get blackout drunk,
Chris Gazdik: tolerance begins to develop, which is one of the signs that we look for in understanding what it looks like and what the symptoms are.
John-Nelson Pope: But there’s a sense where the metabolizing of the, of the alcohol is more efficient than the metabolizing. So it is
Victoria Pendergrass: so [00:31:00] it is physiological. Like it
Chris Gazdik: is physiological. This is why I like to say babies have this or don’t, we just don’t know. Right. Until they begin to engage in the substance,
Victoria Pendergrass: which then makes more sense.
Why when you say it takes two, three generations for.
Chris Gazdik: Addiction. Sobriety? Well, that’s just with sobriety. Oh, too. So for family dynamics, the family dynamics, which we’ve switched our topic today
Victoria Pendergrass: from when we were all there. Okay. So I mean, but then just,
Chris Gazdik: okay. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. I don’t know
Chris Gazdik: where I was gonna go with that.
Okay. I’m sorry. Yeah, John, I think that there’s another interesting piece about that, that I was listening to you in and saying, I, I almost kind of lost it. Uhhuh. So what were you saying again? And it’ll come back to me
John-Nelson Pope: about the physiological changes where the body Yes. Action.
Chris Gazdik: Metabolizes. I know it would come back immediately to me.
The alcohol more efficiently than, yeah. So what, what, what I heard [00:32:00] once talked about Uhhuh, and I never heard this again. Uhhuh. And it was fascinating to me, and I was young enough in my career. I, I couldn’t really grasp at all. And I, and I, and I lost it. Mm-hmm. So I’m really excited to hear if you’ve seen anything about this insofar as the metabolic reality difference between alcoholics and non-alcoholic.
Cuz there are metabolic differences. One time I heard a guy talking about the processing of alcohol in the human body. Non alcoholics processed this substance a hundred percent elimination, right? They process it through a hundred percent elimination. And there was somebody that talked about the science that identified addicted folks.
Do not have a hundred percent elimination. When they ingest alcohol specifically, they have like, I don’t know, [00:33:00] 99.77875. So
Victoria Pendergrass: there’s a fraction of the alcohol that stays in their body, is that what you’re saying? Yes.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. And, and, and that’s through the whole digestive process. Now I’ve never heard another follow up to that.
I’ve never heard any more information about that. That’s about the best description I can give. Mm-hmm. For what I mm-hmm. Recall. Mm-hmm. Have you ever heard anything like that? Yeah, I have. I have. Oh, I’m so excited right now. So, but I really am,
John-Nelson Pope: and it’s interesting that there’s a, there’s a, a, a sense of, well, the family dynamic, obviously it, it affects people.
Yeah. It’s emotions. Yeah. So
Chris Gazdik: we’re talking about metabolic physiological digestive
John-Nelson Pope: process. Well, yeah. And, and you could see how the, how it kind of changes the body too. Yes. There’s, there’s a, there’s a sense that, let’s say you drink so much that you, it starts to affect the, the varis, or they call it esophageal varices
Chris Gazdik: affects everything.
You’re, [00:34:00] you’re, you’re uh,
John-Nelson Pope: people bleed
Chris Gazdik: out light blood,
John-Nelson Pope: blood. I actually worked very possibly in the veins. I mean, worked with clients that were in hospital and they were basically on li they were as close to death as you could possibly get and still be alive, and they would literally ooze fluid because of their, their liver
Chris Gazdik: and their kidney function.
I’ll tell you something. There is not an organ that alcohol misses. It’s really devastating in long-term. Mm-hmm. Late stage addiction is the language. Mm-hmm. Okay. Because in late stage addiction, y you, you. Every single organ down to your skin and mm-hmm. Everything is, is massively impacted. But, but what, let’s get back to that.
What you recall about the digestive process. Anything come to your, your mind?
John-Nelson Pope: I, I think it’s somehow the I’m, I’m having to go back about 20 years. I know polysaccharides or something like that in the liver. And so the storage is, yes, that’s it. Yeah. And, [00:35:00] and it’s actually gets stored in I think fat deposits, I’m not sure, but it’s in, it’s deposited throughout the body.
Chris Gazdik: Why have we not heard anything more about that, John?
John-Nelson Pope: I, I don’t know. And I’m, I’m, I don’t want to step in it because I didn’t sleep in the
Chris Gazdik: Holiday Inn and, and to be clear, yeah. We are not medical experts. We’re not, I’m not a medical doctor. You are not either. And this is above my head. This is, but, but I heard someone talking about that over the year and a long time ago.
I’m not 20, but more like 15 years ago. Is poly peptides polyp? Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I, I polysaccharides, I don’t understand why we haven’t gotten more insight research and, and strong evidence about what it is that that is, cuz that is very convincing in my young brain when I heard that. Like, oh wow, there’s something to this disease model mm-hmm.
Yeah. That we can kind of see and [00:36:00] observe because I’m telling you, When you look at addiction Man and the progression aspect of it, it is not a lot of these folks that have been abusing alcohol for a long time. You can be using alcohol to cope with your emotions and you don’t get there. There in late stage.
Addiction is so loud, so clear. Like the symptoms are, I mean, it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s profound. Yeah. I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean I think it’s, I mean, probably the reason that it’s hasn’t been information as far as money and research. Yeah. Like someone actually has to say like, oh, this is something that I wanna research and look into.
And then they actually have to have probably bodies to. Research on I would, my
Chris Gazdik: guess. Yeah. Or lot or Yeah. Or whatever. There’s gotta be research ethics. Yeah.
Victoria Pendergrass: Yeah. But I was crap
John-Nelson Pope: when I, when I was, I’m so old. I watched, I wa I was in high school in California and they showed us a picture of, of the [00:37:00] results of somebody that died in a car crash.
Yeah. And they did an autopsy. This is on film now. I’m in the 10th grade. And they take her brain out and they cut, cut the brain in sections. Yeah. And they do where the ventricles have, have shrunken and Yeah. You know, the, the, the white matter has, has basically eroded away. And and then they said this could happen to you.
Oh lord.
Victoria Pendergrass: I would be traumatized. Traumatized. But what I was, I remember what I was gonna say. I think it would be beneficial if someone ended up doing more research about this, because hugely, I think, and as we’ve talked about this before, like. It’s very eye-opening for a lot. Like I think this could be very eye-opening for our clients to be able to tell them like, okay, this is what happens to you.
The feel
Chris Gazdik: theologically, theological theologically what? Biologic
Victoria Pendergrass: the physiologically. Physiologically and like biologically, like this is what [00:38:00] happens to your body. I think cuz a lot of times we’ve talked about how, you know, explaining diagnoses to PA to clients can be very eye-opening for clients uhhuh and can very be very enlight enlightening and stuff.
So I think maybe potential, and I can be wrong bro, this, but potentially being able to explain like, okay, this is what this is. Your body is different than someone who doesn’t have addiction. Like down to the way that your body metabolizes and stuff like Exactly. And I think that that might, could be. De shaming.
Yeah.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. De and take the guilt escalating away from it. Yeah. It’s it, it, it, it lends to the ability of allowing someone to understand they’re not an, going back to your statement, John, an immoral person. Right. In the fifties and sixties, when we started to identify the explosion of alcoholism, specifically in relationship to prohibition, allowing people to really get pretty freaking crazy on alcohol.
Yeah. Because of these intensity levels [00:39:00] that have happened. Look, the, it’s the, it ex, the, the moral reality is not a factor. These are not losers, dumb street people that go on. Mm-hmm. It is. And to the YouTube question that we have received, you. Does heredity determine tendencies towards addiction? And the answer in my mind is yes.
Yes. A definite yes. Sounding clear. Scientifically studied, yes. But why? We get this idea in our field where people are just like, oh, well, you know, if you’re abusing alcohol, be careful. Now you might trigger off addiction. I’m
Victoria Pendergrass: kinda like, see, and probably a week ago before this, I probably would’ve been one of those people saying that,
Chris Gazdik: right?
Like, look, if you start having abuse of alcohol at the age of, let’s just say 38, Now. Mm-hmm. I’m not saying if you never had [00:40:00] alcohol right. Until age 38. I’m saying, you’re saying abusive, you’ve been drinking, you’ve been doing, you know, a little bit of weed, what have you, and partied in college and you know, and then, but you hit like 38 and you start getting pretty abusive with it.
Mm-hmm. Now let’s say you’ve just gone through bankruptcy or whatever major life event has happened and you start to really get into any of these types of things. Mm-hmm. Eating sexual behavior online, video, gaming ga did I say gambling? Mm-hmm. Alcohol, weed, you know, getting into your buddy’s Adderall pills to deal with sleep, all that.
You start getting pretty goofy. With your relationship with drugs and alcohol at the age of 38, prior to life’s been pretty chill. Mm-hmm. There really hadn’t been any problems.
Victoria Pendergrass: You’ve been able to drink here and there without, for like 15, 20
Chris Gazdik: years. Yeah. And now you get goofy. I’m thinking that person can’t [00:41:00] really get to the addiction designation.
Right.
Victoria Pendergrass: I would agree. That’s what I, based off what you’ve told, what, what we’ve talked about so far.
Chris Gazdik: That’s what I’m seeing. John, you look puzzled.
John-Nelson Pope: No, I, I, I, I followed you. I, I wasn’t at first, but I, I think that’s, that’s the Let’s say there’s some severe marital problems and you’re 38. Sure. And you, you’re not sure if your spouse is faithful separation, separation, divorce, whatever, or you lose your job.
Lots of things. Yeah. Lot of lots of things since, so that’s how you’re treating yourself. Yeah. But
Victoria Pendergrass: and it, what I was saying earlier about the physiological stuff, it and informing the clients, it’s not that we’re creating an excuse like, oh, this is my excuse for why I’m addicted to alcohol. But we’re just saying, or at least I’m, I’m just saying that I think it just helps to be aware.
And once you’re aware, then you can make lifestyle choices or decisions to move in the right [00:42:00] direction.
Chris Gazdik: Here’s an excellent contributor to our discussion from YouTube. Thank you. Neil. Can you say, in real time and perfectly fit into this conversation? Mm-hmm. Can you say, addiction hides hurt? Hides hurt.
Okay. And I’m gonna say that addiction does not hide hurt, really? Because when you’re progressing through a genetic, biological reality of your relationship with alcohol, drugs bought weed, pot pills, right? Of course it’s going to hide hurt. And there’s going to be all kinds of hurt and the emotional turmoil that gets churned through this journey through active addiction.
Yeah. There’s gonna be a lot of hurt and you’re gonna drink more, like begins to build and, and, and spice, but with the concept of like hiding the hurt that you feel or managing the emotions that we have, well, that’s the abusive component. Mm-hmm. Yeah. And that’s the, that’s the [00:43:00] interesting rub and divide, you know, that we have with, with this, this differential.
It’s fascinating stuff. Mm-hmm. Let me just tune into where our heads are at this point, like, Is your head spinning, Victoria or only mildly?
Victoria Pendergrass: Mildly. Mildly. Well, and I think for me, and you know, we’ve talked about this before, you know, you’ve encouraged me to, you know, go seek out like addictions, conferences and mm-hmm.
And things like that to get a more, a better understanding of, you know, ways that you can help treat people who come to you with addiction or even, I think maybe even with abuse of something. But yeah, I think my head’s a little spinning just cuz it’s a lot of information. Yeah. And it’s a lot of like thin lines sometimes between like what is what and Yeah.
Or what could be like,
Chris Gazdik: I feel like when you do scientific research, I remember this from. [00:44:00] Something very early on when I was in college, the guy like drew a solid line on the board. Mm-hmm. And he said, you know, when you study something it looks like, oh, this is very clear and you, but then you get little holes in what you see and you get additional questions.
And then it’s a pretty solid line with a couple of blanks, you know, and then you. Hone in a little bit more and you research even a little bit more. It’s kinda like, okay, well suddenly that line looks like more blank spots and we might get a little information to fill in those blank spots, but we zoom in a little bit more and before you
John-Nelson Pope: continue, that’s a re that’s a reverse
Chris Gazdik: gestalt.
I’m, I’m not even gonna try to let the audience know what that means right now. Sure. But yeah. But, but, but that’s where we’ve gotten to some of this confusion, I feel like, in that, through the substance abuse field with a simple question like, what is addiction? You know, we, we get, we get more and more data that, that, that seems to poke holes in what we used to think we know [00:45:00] and, and why is Fresh Thinkers, which I love new researchers, which I think is fantastic, blow up what hasn’t really been blown up yet, though, and again, as simply as I can put it, babies are addicts.
They just haven’t had alcohol yet, so we don’t know. And their, their system hasn’t gone off on it yet. I believe that we’re going to get to that
John-Nelson Pope: point. You know, but you, you could say too, because there’s sometimes there’s parents, let’s say the, the, the birth mother with a child that’s in utero and the, the mother’s abusing alcohol.
There’s some real results that affect that child for forever. And that’s fetal alcohol syndrome. Mm-hmm. But there’s also with other drugs as well, cocaine, crack, cocaine, heroin, that also affects the, the fetus. And so there is not just a. An inheritance, there’s an epigenetic aspect which causes the manifestation or gene expression, I’m sorry, [00:46:00] going in, I’m going into the weeds, but there, it, it, it, it’s very complicated.
It’s,
Victoria Pendergrass: and so Chris, what you’re saying is that with the whole baby thing, babies either are born addicted or they’re not. So you’re saying that Okay, so a baby that’s born addicted, if they don’t have a drop of alcohol until they’re 45, yeah. It doesn’t matter that addiction will kick in once they have that alcohol.
Right. Or once they pop that
Chris Gazdik: pill or once they, they start getting into a mine and mood altering substance thing. Thing or whatever it is. Do its thing. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, that’s why honestly, if you have a genetic predisposition, anyone in your family, it’s a standard question in any survey, you know. Is there any grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, parents for sure, because we know statistically way solid mm-hmm.
That your chances of having addiction to yourself are way higher, as with most mental health conditions. Well,
I
Victoria Pendergrass: mean, there’s tons of people out there Yeah. Who will say like, okay, I don’t drink any kind of [00:47:00] alcohol. I don’t do any kind of this or that because addiction runs in my family. Exactly. I don’t want to risk, why take the chance myself early getting.
Chris Gazdik: Listen, addiction is in my family and, and I have told both of my kids very, very clearly. It makes me downright scary. Nervous for them. Yeah. About the reality that this can be an issue, cuz I know so much about what that life is like. And
Victoria Pendergrass: question, and correct me if I’m wrong, we’re just talking about blanket addiction.
So say your dad or your mom or a parent, we’ll just say a parent. A parent was addicted to alcohol. And so you also have that addiction gene, or whatever you wanna call it in you. That doesn’t necessarily mean that you, you will be addicted to alcohol. You might end up being addicted to porn. Are we saying that that’s more the like, is it the same?
Go ahead, John. Is it the same addiction that travels, or is it just addiction in general? But the thing, I [00:48:00]
John-Nelson Pope: think that’s the genetic aspect of it. So there’s the propensity for addiction. It doesn’t, but I think in terms of born, in terms of, of drugs or alcohol, in terms of mind altering,
Chris Gazdik: well, not so fast because there’s, you’re thinking storm.
It’s just a question. Yes. There’s an interesting thing here to answer my view on this thought, Victoria. Okay. Is that what you’re talking about As a drug of choice, there is a drug of choice that people tend to get mainlined on, pun intended. The upper
John-Nelson Pope: uppers tend to like the up of the things that are stimulants and the folks that take s for example, alcohol will be more likely to
Chris Gazdik: go that way.
Well, but when you’ve block to that, People will do what’s called cross addiction and jump to something else. Right? Right. But it
John-Nelson Pope: will tend to be the same category type of
Chris Gazdik: an upper account does Okay. To get in the weeds. It does A little bit. Yes. Yeah, that’s what I was saying. But let’s say you took out all of the, [00:49:00] the stimulants.
You’d go the other way. You’d find another way. Mm-hmm. And you ready below your mind? Okay. I’m sure you’ve thought about this. Yes. What trips me the hell out is if this is, so, the way that we’re talking about the genetic reality and the disease model and mm-hmm. Long term knowledge of that, the earlier you start on your mind and mood altering.
The worst prognosis. We see that clearly, right? The brain
John-Nelson Pope: development of an adolescent. You know where I’m going. Yeah. I know exactly where you’re going. Yep. And I would, I would say that, and you’d, it, you would have that as your mind is being bathed in those chemicals. Yep. Mm-hmm. You, you are in a sense being grew the, the drug is grooming you to, it’s triggering
Chris Gazdik: life early.
Yeah. So if you’re that first, wait a minute, wait a minute. Wait a minute. It’s triggering earlier. So usually people never really had [00:50:00] alcohol and whatever. I mean, sometimes they, seven, eight, it was early. Usually my drug history start 12, 13, whatever. So two things. One, we are potty training kids with exposure to video stuff.
Now that’s not addictive, not social media. That’s another show, which we’ve done many shows on this, by the way, to get more complete deep dives. Mm-hmm. It triggers though. Particularly with pornography. Boy John, very early on in a kid’s life, I have had exposure to pornography and video exposure with gaming and whatnot, with a competitive nature to it, which is online video gaming, which is different, right?
Very early on in people’s lives. 5, 6, 4 years old. So
Victoria Pendergrass: when I was in at elementary, I mean, yeah, half more than half the school played Fortnite or for Played Fortnight, played some sort of [00:51:00] video game that can be on the regular basis. Every
John-Nelson Pope: night we just had rubber bands.
Chris Gazdik: I know, right? Marbles and marbles. I played with Army men or whatever, but you see what I’m saying?
That scares me to death. Yeah. That if this is the case. Mm-hmm. And it trips me out that you’re talking specifically Fortnite for elementary school kids, Victoria. Because real quick, there is a difference between playing a video game campaign, doing social media, Facebook, you know, Twitter, Snapchat, all the stuff.
There is a difference between that. Mm-hmm. And online video gamings, like Fortnite, I play StarCraft. StarCraft is like Fortnite where I get onto this computer game and I’m playing. not A computer. There’s a fundamental difference in the gaming world Yes. Of playing another person. Person. I can tell you that I have not gotten tired of playing StarCraft for Dang, near 13 years now.
Because
Victoria Pendergrass: you’re playing, it’s a person and not, you’re not playing a computer
Chris Gazdik: every day. And it [00:52:00] wires me, guys. Yeah. I, I get an endorphin rush. I get charged. I can be wicked, laid out, tired, and I play this game and it’s two 30 in the morning before I know what happened. That’s d. Then these other things. So would, would you say that that’s abuse of Go the game.
Go ahead. Go ahead John. No,
John-Nelson Pope: there was a Star Trek next Generation that had the same premise. Yeah, yeah. On that issue. And they had this little eye device. And interestingly, it looks a little bit like Google glasses or something, but it was the next generation and there was the sense that it altered the way the brain worked.
It rewired
Chris Gazdik: the brain. So then are you so hold on, Victoria, let me go. I know. That’s why I called the audible on this show share because we wanna go, go, go. Don’t we? I, I want to make sure that we answer this before we get off of the air with this issue, cuz we will talk about it again. Yeah. You hear the energy, you hear the information lots.
There’s a lot to kind of grab through. So I know [00:53:00] we’re doing this at the end, but you just ask, is that Abuse Victoria? That’s where people get into like, is this abuse or is this addiction, is this abuse or is this addiction? Yeah, John, you check me here. Okay. Right. The signs and symptoms of alcohol and drug addictions and other process addictions gambling.
Mm-hmm. Sex eating and online video gaming. The symptoms that we are looking for mm-hmm. Are major. One is the loss of control and I like to say that is absolutely, absolutely like, Is what you’re doing predictable. That’s the easiest way to understand that tolerance. Exactly. Okay. You, you develop a higher than typical tolerance for people.
You have lied about your use. Okay. And so there’s a high level of dishonesty or so behavioral changes. There’s behavioral changes. You have some sort of legal issue in your life that has developed D U I D W
John-Nelson Pope: I, right? Lose a job.
Chris Gazdik: So, so the idea here is, and what are some of [00:54:00] the other ones? I’m gonna let your brain think I’m, the idea here is, You have like 7, 8, 9, 10 of these things that we’re looking for.
If you have one or two, okay, we’re aware of it, but we don’t meet Criterion yet. You got four, five, and six of them. It’s kind of like, yeah. Yeah. This is what we wanna call it. So what are some of the other ones, John?
John-Nelson Pope: Well, it affects your work. You work, employment work difficulties, that sort of thing.
A again, the financial difficulties. Come in with that.
Victoria Pendergrass: Are you bringing it into work? Like all tolerance, all of a sudden you’re bringing vodka and a water bottle to work, right?
Chris Gazdik: Mm-hmm. So you’re doing the
Victoria Pendergrass: drinking or to like the birthday party or whatever.
Chris Gazdik: Yeah. Yeah. Another symptom is preoccupation.
Right? You have to understand what you have to do a
John-Nelson Pope: lot of planning to get the drug
Chris Gazdik: right, or to use it. You will protect or hide your supply. You
John-Nelson Pope: get in trouble with the law, okay? Just to try to get that supply.
Chris Gazdik: There social impacts such as marriage and mm-hmm. Another, another symptom is that somebody in your life has expressed concern about your relationship with alcohol and [00:55:00] drugs
John-Nelson Pope: breakdown of what you normally would ethically do.
Okay. In other
Chris Gazdik: words, so we got it right? Yeah. Like there’s, that’s our, that’s off the cuff. Mm-hmm. I
John-Nelson Pope: mean, do you, people would end up somebody that would not enter into prostitution. Yeah. Right. Because
Chris Gazdik: of addiction. And, and what’s funny about this, John, to me, with our experience going way back with this, I love the way that you, you started us out and well, we have a couple more minutes that we can go, but maybe we give the audience a break and cut out like a three minute.
I wanna
John-Nelson Pope: Okay. Good. That we are not without
Chris Gazdik: hope. Okay. Okay. Cool. I’m gonna let you take us out here in a minute or two. Okay. But isn’t it like, wow, you know it when you see it? Mm-hmm. Like with a seasoned professional that’s dealt with this? Or if you’ve had a spouse with addiction, let’s say family
Victoria Pendergrass: member, you
Chris Gazdik: see it?
Yeah. Mm-hmm. You know what this is? And it’s really clear to you. And you know what, it’s not [00:56:00] like, just like porn. You know what’s not pornography. Mm-hmm. When you’re looking at it, when you’ve lived this or you’ve been around addiction and you’ve been processing through this with people, man, it’s, it’s, it’s clear, isn’t it?
You’re right.
John-Nelson Pope: It’s clear. Well, I, I, you know, the thing is, I’ve, I’ve had clients that have had relatives, let’s say, parents, fathers or mothers that struggle with addiction. The children tend to be very control oriented. They want to be able to ha and they have this very strong sense of having had grown up and taking adult responsibilities at a very young age.
That’s
Chris Gazdik: another aspect. Yeah. We’ll talk about this topic again because man, the, the reality of family dynamics is huge. Like I said, we didn’t even get to that like we planned today, which is, which is fine. One more real quick little segment. I think that, We have time. How much time do you wanna wrap up with?
I just need
John-Nelson Pope: to, to give this [00:57:00] advice.
Chris Gazdik: Okay. Here, here’s, here’s, here’s the manifestation of this. In real life, in a therapy office, through my therapist’s eyes, mm-hmm. More times than not, I have worked with a client where they’re very much in this like, you know, I don’t know, maybe I am, maybe I’m not, you know, we’ve broken down the denials so we’re, have an honest communication about what’s going on in your life.
We’re, and I may spend, you know, five, six months with this person, you know, evaluating this, trying to figure out like, does this really affect me or does this not? It’s like, I don’t know, and I don’t have a blood test that I can jerk blood outta your arm and put on a microscope and say, yes, it is. That’s part of the, the, the science of what we’re doing with diagnostics.
But I called this stage the experiment. So what, what I’ve done many times over. When I go into with a client the experiment, I’ll present it to ’em. It’s like, look, go ahead and drink. We’ll talk about what’s [00:58:00] going on with it. We’ll track it, we’ll follow it. And I did this with one, with one person for like a year and a half, two years while they were into therapy experience.
They stopped therapy and they came back in another aspect of their life a year later. And they, they, we went into this experiment again and finally he kind of came out and he’s like, look, I, we went down to the beach. I started drinking before we had lunch, just cause I wanted to get a start on it. We had lunch, had a beer there, we went down to the beach.
Of course you’re gonna drink with families. All drinking at the beach. It was kind of cool. Came back, you know, wanted to have another drink before dinner or whatever. I drank with the dinner thing, Chris, they, they all stopped and went to bed. I kept on drinking that light like this needs to stop. That was three years into like this experimental, like, are you, are you not says
John-Nelson Pope: the pre-contemplation then contemplation.
Chris Gazdik: That’s motivational interviewing stuff. Yes. That’s exactly what mm-hmm. It, it
John-Nelson Pope: was so that you were in a, a prolonged [00:59:00] conversation
Chris Gazdik: with, with this guy to figure out like, is so difficult, can I identify this for myself or not? So listen John, you’re gonna take us out if you’ve listened to this. You really need to know that.
We’ve talked about this throughout our discussions on addiction, and so we’ve taken deep dives on this before and it’s exciting to talk to other professionals about it because the energy of what you got with this show is what you get when you do that. Yeah. With professionals, like I learned a lot. Yeah.
And so keep tuning in. I, I hope we haven’t confused you even more. We may have, but that’s what happens when you begin talking about these things.
John-Nelson Pope: Bottom line, bottom line is if you’ve got questions and you need to have some. Education. You can always contact us here in Metrolina through a therapist eyes or, and let’s say both, and you [01:00:00] can go to a website and it’s a government website.
It’s samsa. Which is the substance abuse and mental health services administration. And it’s s a m h sa.gov and you can always get help 24 7 24 hours a day, seven days a week. It doesn’t take any holidays. And if you’ve got this sense that you really would like to, to stop the chaos, stop the chaos and the destruction, you go ahead and, and make this call and gimme the number.
Reach out. Yeah, it is 1-800-662-HELP. 1-800-662-HELP. H E L P.
Chris Gazdik: I appreciate that, John, because you know, when you’ve worked with the addictions field for as long as clearly you and I have. You get a compassion for this, it, you get an understanding of the carnage that happens for people and oftentimes [01:01:00] for a lifetime.
And the systems of denial, they just miss it. And they, they have a horrible misery and through no fault of their own. So reach out if you’ve got questions. Like John said, don’t be alone. Deal with the shame. Don’t let the shame block you and, and reach out and get help. John, I I thank you for that, Victoria.
Thank you for your and discussion.