The One You Feed

Practical Wisdom for a Better Life

Addiction & Recovery

A collection of The One You Feed episodes dealing with addiction and recovery

The Case for Harm Reduction with Maia Szalavitz

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case for harm reduction

Maia Szalavitz is an American reporter and New York Times best-selling author who has focused much of her work on the topic of addiction. She has won awards from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the Drug Policy Alliance, the American Psychological Association and the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology for her 30 years of groundbreaking writing on addiction, drug policy and neuroscience.

In this episode, Maia and Eric discuss her book, Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction.

But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!

In This Interview, Maia Szalavitz and I Discuss The Case for Harm Reduction and…

  • Her book: Undoing Drugs: The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction
  • What “harm reduction” means in the case of addition
  • The truth behind why we have the drug policies that we currently have
  • Differentiating between the terms dependence and addiction
  • The real problem of addiction being the compulsive behavior that’s ruining your life
  • The role of moderation in substance use in people in recovery
  • How to know whether or not moderation or abstinence is right for you
  • The problem with a binary approach to drug use
  • The harm reduction recovery approach as any positive change
  • The difficult but crucial role of being a beginner to learn what’s right for you

Maia Szalavitz Links:

Maia’s Website

Twitter

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Maia Szalavitz, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Maia Szalavitz on a Different Lens of Addiction (2017)

Judson Brewer on Addiction and the Craving Mind

Neuroscience of Addiction with Judith Grisel

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neuroscience of addiction

Dr. Judith Grisel is a professor of Psychology at Bucknell University.  Judith is a behavioral neuroscientist with a particular interest in addiction.  Her work includes trying to determine what is different about people who develop drug addictions before they ever try a drug. 

In this episode, Judith and Eric discuss her book, “Never Enough:  The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction” where she shares her personal experience of overcoming addiction as well as her passion for research into the neuroscience of addiction.

But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!

In This Interview, Judith Grisel and I Discuss the Neuroscience of Addiction, and…

  • Her book, Never Enough:  The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction”  
  • Channeling her strong will and enthusiasm for addiction into recovery 
  • Focusing on what she wanted rather than what she didn’t want
  • The complexity of addiction is there are so many factors that lead to it
  • Nature via nurture as well as the inherited risks of addiction
  • The increased risk of teenagers with addictive disorders when using drugs or alcohol while the brain is still developing.
  • The neural states associated with addiction also come from our history, culture, socialization, communication, and even microbiomes.
  • The “debt of addiction is accrued when borrowing good feelings from the future is due”
  • Mechanisms of what happens in the brain when abusing substances
  • Tolerance is when the brain adapts and counteracts the effects of the drug
  • Dependence is when you no longer like yourself without the drug
  • Younger adults may be more prone to addiction, but also more resilient.
  • Her experience of receiving tough love from her parents that ultimately led to recovery.
  • How isolation causes addiction and addiction causes isolation
  • Connection is crucial in the process of recovery

Dr. Judith Grisel Links:

Judy Grisel

Ted Talk

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Judy Grisel on the Neuroscience of Addiction, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Dr. Gabor Mate

Johann Hari

Maia Szalavitz

The Magic of Being Sober with Laura McKowen

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magic of being sober

Laura McKowen is an author,  award winning blogger and host of Spiritualish, a show that provides an irreverent take on self help.  She has been featured on WebMD, the New York Post, Bravo, the Today Show, and more.  Laura also hosts sold out retreats and courses teaching people to say Yes to a bigger life.  In this episode, she and Eric discuss her newest book, “We are the Luckiest, the Surprising Magic of a Sober Life”

You can find all of the most up to date crisis help & support resources that Eric is making available through The One You Feed by going to www.oneyoufeed.net/help

The wisdom and practice of self-compassion is a foundational principle that Eric teaches and helps his private clients learn to apply through the 1-on-1 Spiritual Habits Program. To learn more about this program, click here.

Need help with completing your goals in 2020? The One You Feed Transformation Program can help you accomplish your goals this year.

But wait – there’s more! The episode is not quite over!! We continue the conversation and you can access this exclusive content right in your podcast player feed. Head over to our Patreon page and pledge to donate just $10 a month. It’s that simple and we’ll give you good stuff as a thank you!

In This Interview, Laura McKowen and I Discuss the Magic of Being Sober and…

  • Her book, We Are the Luckiest:  The Surprising Magic of a Sober Life
  • Addiction isn’t about will power or being bad
  • How we as humans are “magnificent monsters” in that we all have light and dark inside of us
  • Being in a liminal space is where transformation takes place.  
  • Looking at challenging times and asking “What is this trying to teach me?”
  • Embracing the mystery of not knowing
  • How addiction demands everything
  • Having a “split mind” – the conflict of wanting to drink and knowing that you shouldn’t
  • The cognitive dissonance between who we think we are and what we’re doing
  • Being afraid of how you’ll feel when you’re not drinking
  • Understanding that sobriety gets better, then it gets worse, then it’s different
  • Her experience with AA and the positive and negative aspects of this recovery program
  • The importance of dealing with the physical body in recovery
  • The fear of “aloneness” and not having a home within ourselves 
  • Dealing with the ongoing struggle and need to be fixed or saved by someone
  • Learning to not being afraid of herself and starting to build self esteem and dignity

Laura McKowen Links:

lauramckowen.com

Twitter

Instagram

Facebook

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If you enjoyed this conversation with Laura McKowen on the Magic of Being Sober, you might also enjoy these other episodes:

Catherine Gray

Mishka Shubaly

Anna David

Judson Brewer: Addiction and the Craving Mind

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Judson Brewer Full The One You Feed

Judson Brewer MD PhD is widely considered an expert in the areas of habit change, the “science of self-mastery” and mindfulness training for addiction. He has published a number of peer-reviewed articles and book chapters, he has trained US Olympic coaches, and his work has been featured on 60 Minutes, TEDMED, Time, Forbes, BBC, NPR, Businessweek and others. So – you get the idea…this guy knows what he’s talking about and what he’s talking about is fascinating. It’s a very different approach to ridding yourself of addiction and it works. it works much better than even currently accepted “gold standard programs” and it’s something you can learn how to do today. In fact, you can learn how to do it by listening to this episode.

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In This Interview, Judson Brewer and I Discuss…

  • His book, The Craving Mind: From Cigarettes to Smartphones to Love – Why We Get Hooked and How We Can Break Bad Habits
  • Trigger, Behavior, Result
  • Rewards and Punishments
  • Habit Loop
  • Subjective Bias
  • Addiction: Continued use despite adverse consequences
  • Addiction: a way to avoid something
  • Every time we give in to a craving, we reinforce that habit loop
  • Cravings are like stray cats
  • If you don’t feed a craving it will burn itself out
  • Surfing a craving
  • The way cravings feel like they’re going to crush us and last forever – cognitive distortion
  • Craving Wave: come – crest – go away\
  • Awareness helps us surf these craving waves
  • What does this feel like in my body right now?
  • Paying attention to the craving rather than avoid it or make it go away
  • RAIN
  • This method had 5x quit rates than the gold standard smoking cessation program
  • Substitute behavior
  • In their quest for happiness, people mistake excitement of the mind for real happiness
  • Investigate the craving and the reward
  • Excitement brings contraction
  • Get curious about your experiences – it helps you remain open
  • Default mode network
  • Conceptual vs Experiential Self
  • The contraction of ego
  • How we relate to our thoughts and feelings makes all the difference

Judson Brewer Links

220: Catherine Gray

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Catherine Gray -Full- The One You Feed

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Catherine Gray is an award-winning writer and editor. Her most recent book is called, The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober. What a brilliant title and what a brilliant book. In it – and in this interview – Catherine offers so many good ideas, phrases, and pearls of wisdom to take away and keep close by. She shares a bit about her journey to and through sobriety with Eric and the critical “ah ha” moments along the way that really helped her build the life she’s living today. If you don’t have a revelatory moment when listening to her in this interview, we’ll be surprised.
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In This Interview, Catherine Gray and I Discuss…

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Her book, The Unexpected Joy of Being Sober
  • The challenge of training our brains to look for the good stuff in life
  • The question: Would my life be better sober? instead of Am I an alcoholic?
  • Rock bottom being a different place for different people at different times
  • The challenge of moderation
  • The beautiful clarity of zero
  • The limbic system in distress with indecision
  • Controlling vs Enjoying drinking
  • Alcohol being like a cheat code in a video game when it comes to inhibition
  • That no one regrets being sober
  • The awful feelings at the beginning of getting sober are what you feel like because of the drinking, not the getting sober
  • Learning the skills to enjoy life sober
  • Addictive voice recognition
  • Negative Thought Patterns:
    • B&B
    • Children in a car
    • Bird watching
  • That there are many different ways to get sober
  • How expectations are resentments under construction
  • Day counting in being sober
  • I don’t vs I can’t

Catherine Gray Links

Homepage

Instagram

Twitter

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A grandfather is talking with his grandson and he says there are two wolves inside of us which are always at war with each other. 

One of them is a good wolf which represents things like kindness, bravery and love. The other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed, hatred and fear.

The grandson stops and thinks about it for a second then he looks up at his grandfather and says, “Grandfather, which one wins?”

The grandfather quietly replies, the one you feed 

The Tale of Two Wolves is often attributed to the Cherokee Indians but there seems to be no real proof of this. It has also been attributed to evangelical preacher Billy Graham and Irish Playwright George Bernard Shaw. It appears no one knows for sure but this does not diminish the power of the parable.

This parable goes by many names including:

The Tale of Two Wolves

The Parable of the Two Wolves

Two Wolves

Which Wolf Do You Feed

Which Wolf are You Feeding

Which Wolf Will You Feed

It also often features different animals, mainly two dogs

202: Maia Szalavitz – A Different Lens on Addiction

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Maia Szalavitz- Full- The One You Feed

Maia Szalavitz is an American reporter and author who has focused much of her work on the topic of addiction. In this paradigm-shifting interview, she explains what she means by claiming that addiction is a learning disorder, a developmental disorder. It’s a different way of thinking of addiction than it being a disease or a moral failing. As a result, it has different implications for how it should then be treated. Some of what Maia has to say is polarising and some will immediately make intuitive sense and you’ll ask yourself why you haven’t thought that way before. Take a listen to what she has to say and let us know what you think.

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This week we talk to Maia Szalavitz

Maia Szalavitz is one of the premier American journalists covering addiction and drugs. She is co-author of Born for Love and The Boy Who Was Raised as a Dog, both with Dr. Bruce D. Perry. Her book, Help at Any Cost is the first book-length exposé of the “tough love” business that dominates addiction treatment. She writes for TIME.com, VICE, the New York Times, Scientific American Mind, Elle, Psychology Today and Marie Claire among others.

Her latest book is Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction

 In This Interview, Maia Szalavitz and I Discuss…

  • The Wolf Parable
  • Her book,  Unbroken Brain: A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction
  • That your brain becomes what it does – that the more you repeat an activity, the easier it becomes
  • How addiction is a developmental disorder
  • That learning is critical to addiction
  • The problems with discussion about addiction as a disease
  • Arguing that addiction is a disease and then treating it like a moral failing
  • How addiction resets your priorities and therefore you’ll make very different decisions
  • Addiction = compulsive behavior that continues despite negative consequences
  • How illogical it is then to try and address addiction by focusing on implementing additional negative consequences
  • The complexity of addiction, genes + culture + timing
  • The developmental history that gets you to addiction
  • How the drug isn’t the problem and our efforts to simply get rid of it isn’t a helpful solution
  • Addiction as a learning disorder that is characterized by a resistance to punishment
  • The problem with “rock bottom” is that it can only be identified retrospectively, it’s not helpful scientifically, and it implies a moral component of having to reach a point of extreme degradation before you can stop
  • What the motivation is that turns people to recovery
  • How addicts keep using because they can’t see how they can survive any other way and recovery begins when you start to see that there are other options
  • That people with addiction are living at a point of learned helplessness, so the role of hope and other ways of managing their life is critical to recovery and it can start before they quit their drug(s) of choice
  • Addiction as a coping mechanism
  • The pleasures of the hunt vs the pleasures of the feast
  • Wanting vs Liking
  • Different motivational states
  • Addiction as escalating wanting
  • Stimulants and an escalating cycle of never being satisfied and chasing that satisfaction
  • 12 Step Programs: are they effective? are they useful?
  • The role of medicine in a developmental disorder
  • Looking at addicts as students who need to learn better coping skills rather than sinners who need to be forced to repent
  • That people who are addicted are PEOPLE and we need to treat them that way

Maia Szalavitz Links