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 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.

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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

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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 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 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

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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 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.

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

144: Taylor Hunt

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This week we talk to Taylor Hunt

Taylor Hunt is a devoted student of Ashtanga, a system of yoga originally transmitted by Sri K. Pattabhi Jois. The system is now transmitted by his teacher, Sharath Jois, in Mysore, India.

Taylor was the first Ashtanga teacher in Ohio granted Level II Authorization to teach from the Sri K. Pattabhi Jois Ashtanga Yoga Institute (KPJAYI) in Mysore, India. He is dedicated to sharing the transformative and healing practice with others by teaching daily Mysore classes at Ashtanga Yoga Columbus and offering workshops around the country. He is also the author of the recently published book, A Way From Darkness, and director of the Trini Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to sharing the life-changing practice of Ashtanga with those suffering from addiction.

 In This Interview, Taylor Hunt and I Discuss…

  • The One You Feed parable
  • How the parable applies to a person with addiction
  • Addiction = A disease of denial
  • His book, A Way From Darkness
  • The varying amounts of meeting attendance and other support mechanisms in the recovery process
  • The importance of being connected to one’s self in a healthy life
  • The importance of state of mind and intention when it comes to the practice of yoga
  • The ways emotions show up in our body
  • Ashtanga Yoga
  • How he helps his students connect to their yoga practice on a spiritual level
  • The importance of not comparing your insides with someone else’s outsides
  • The surprising thing that his dad said to him when he asked for his blessing to go to India
  • “Bring Your Ass to Class”
  • How he built the self-discipline to cultivate a consistent yoga practice
  • The danger of identifying ourselves with our thoughts

Taylor Hunt Links

116: Dr. Gabor Mate´

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This week we talk to Dr. Gabor Mate´ about addiction

A renowned speaker, and bestselling author, Dr. Gabor Maté is highly sought after for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress and childhood development.

For twelve years Dr. Maté worked in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside with patients challenged by hard-core drug addiction, mental illness and HIV, including at Vancouver’s Supervised Injection Site.

As an author, Dr. Maté has written several bestselling books including the award-winning In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts: Close Encounters with Addiction; When the Body Says No: The Cost of Hidden Stress; and Scattered Minds: A New Look at the Origins and Healing of Attention Deficit Disorder, and co-authored Hold on to Your Kids. His works have been published internationally in twenty languages.

Dr. Maté is the co-founder of Compassion for Addiction, a new non-profit that focusses on addiction. He is also an advisor of Drugs over Dinner.

Dr. Maté has received the Hubert Evans Prize for Literary Non-Fiction; an Honorary Degree (Law) from the University of Northern British Columbia; an Outstanding Alumnus Award from Simon Fraser University; and the 2012 Martin Luther King Humanitarian Award from Mothers Against Teen Violence. He is an adjunct professor in the Faculty of Criminology, Simon Fraser University.

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In This Interview, Gabor Mate´ and I Discuss:

  • The One You Feed parable
  • The degree of choice we have in life
  • What is the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts?
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  • What is addiction?
  • The characteristics of addiction
  • Recognizing what addicts get out of their addiction
  • The fundamental question is not “Why the Addiction” but “Why the Pain”
  • How all addiction comes out of some hurt or trauma
  • The different types of trauma
  • The role of neurotransmitters in addiction
  • How drugs and alcohol destroy the parts of the brain that allow us to make sound decisions
  • Whether or not genetics play a significant role in addiction
  • Whether our culture breeds addiction
  • How our children get most of their leadership from other children
  • How the breakup of family, community and clan is contributing to addiction
  • The critical role of the culture in our the development of our brains
  • Recognizing our inherent value
  • To what degree we have freedom over our choices
  • Without consciousness, there is no freedom
  • Paths to recovery
  • How compassion can help with recovery
  • Developing compassionate curiosity towards ourselves

Dr. Gabor Mate´  Links

Homepage

TED Talk

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