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Re-Release: Dr. Gabor Mate on Addiction

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Dr. Gabor Mate´- The One You Feed

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.

 In This Interview, Dr. 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?
  • 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

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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.
 
Our sponsor this week is Casper Mattress visit  www.casper.com/oneyoufeed  and use the promo code theoneyoufeed for $50 off your purchase

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