Latest / Recovering Out Loud / Chasing Pleasure, Finding Meaning: What I Got Wrong in 7.5 Years of Sobriety

Transcript

Chasing Pleasure, Finding Meaning: What I Got Wrong in 7.5 Years of Sobriety · Recovering Out Loud

0:00
I was watching the Kevin Hart roast the other day on Netflix
0:03
and there was a joke in there that really sparked my interest
0:08
in talking about this and being fun in recovery and being fun
0:12
with. One of the comics said they're
0:15
talking about Pete Davidson. And Pete Davidson, if you don't
0:17
know, he's pretty open about being sober and his struggles
0:20
with addiction. He's a comedian.
0:22
He was on SNL, Saturday Night Live for a long time.
0:25
Very successful now and he went sober and he's open about it,
0:29
talks about it. And one of the jokes was, oh,
0:31
Pete, you know, you used you'd be a lot more fun if you were
0:34
drinking. We need you to get drinking
0:36
again. You're insinuating, obviously,
0:37
that he's not fun anymore sober. And this is a huge thing for a
0:42
lot of us. A common misconception in
0:44
addiction recovery is that I need drugs and alcohol to have
0:48
fun, to be myself, to be loose. I talk about this a lot in the
0:51
identity episode and getting a sober identity.
0:54
But here's the thing with this. People on the outside don't
0:58
realize the low lows that we experience.
1:02
They only see us out in public and when we're presenting our
1:06
stage character to the world. So when they see us, listen, a
1:10
lot of people are more fun drunk.
1:12
Let's be honest. There are people out there that
1:13
are just fun when they're drunk and they're partying and they're
1:15
high. I was not one of them in the
1:18
beginning. I was where I thought I was at
1:20
least. But towards the end, if there's
1:23
a lot of dark lonely moments, we lose our personality and and
1:27
develop no personality. Towards the end, when I was
1:29
using and drinking every day, I became a shell of a human being.
1:33
I didn't know who the hell I was.
1:35
I was not fun to be around. You didn't want to hang out with
1:37
me when I was in my act of addiction.
1:40
And so I want you to think about this.
1:43
There are times when it feels like you miss the drunk high
1:49
version of yourself. You miss the party version of
1:52
yourself, the identity that you cultivated in active addiction.
1:55
I'm here to tell you that if you're like me, you can develop
2:00
a new identity. But also your brain will trick
2:05
you to tell you that it was more fun, or that you were more fun,
2:07
or that you need it to be more fun.
2:10
You need it to be this version of yourself that you think
2:13
everybody likes. That is not true.
2:16
It is just another lie that addiction tells us another
2:19
story. That addiction spins us when
2:22
things are going hard or things are getting rough in our life or
2:25
things are just mundane or OK or boring.
2:28
You can have fun sober. You just need to find out what
2:31
you like to do and then do those things.
2:33
So that was a little segue, a little sidetrack into today's
2:38
episode. Doesn't really have much to do
2:40
with today's episode. But I, I was thinking about
2:42
that. I was prompted to share about
2:44
that because we make jokes about people.
2:46
Oh, you know, he needs a drink. You you'd be more fun with a
2:49
drink. But it's often not true.
2:51
And a lot of us become shells of humans towards the end.
2:56
So don't ever forget that, that just because your brain
3:00
remembers the fun parts doesn't mean that it was always fun,
3:03
doesn't mean that recovery can't be fun.
3:06
And so today I want to talk about pleasure seeking pleasure
3:10
versus seeking meaning, seeking purpose, and the importance of
3:16
stopping that dopamine seeking behavior, that pleasure seeking
3:19
behavior in recovery because we did it for so long.
3:21
I did it for so long in active addiction, But also how to find
3:24
meaning and why meaning is important.
3:27
And I think a lot of us spend a lot of time seeking pleasure in
3:31
recovery through cars, through jobs, through money, through
3:35
relationships, through gambling. And we don't ever, we just go in
3:41
this sort of treadmill, which I'm going to talk about the
3:44
hedonic treadmill, this pleasure seeking treadmill over and over
3:48
again. And we're never really
3:49
satisfied. We're never satiated, we're
3:51
never full because it's impossible to be full on outside
3:56
things, on material things. They lose their shine after a
4:00
while. Pleasure feels good and means
4:04
nothing. Meaning feels hard and changes
4:08
everything. Recovery is the war between
4:11
those two drives and most of us even years in are still picking
4:16
the wrong side without knowing it.
4:19
I chased pleasure for years in active addiction.
4:21
I chased meaning for 7 1/2 years when I was sober the first time
4:25
and I still picked up. So today I'm going to tell you
4:28
what I got wrong both times. Because if you don't understand
4:31
the difference between these two drives, sobriety can't save you
4:35
from either one. I need to know the difference.
4:37
I need to know when I'm living in pleasure seeking and when I'm
4:40
living in meaning seeking. So welcome back guys.
4:44
My name is Anthony. I'm an alcoholic and an addict.
4:46
I came into recovery in 2015, had 7 1/2 years of sobriety and
4:50
contented sobriety and recovery, and I relapsed on secrets,
4:54
steroids, and ADHD medication. I'm here today with almost a
4:57
year and a half sober again. I'm grateful to be here today.
5:00
I'm grateful to be alive. I'm grateful to be in recovery
5:04
because I know not everybody makes it back and I know how
5:07
hard it was to come back. So I'm grateful for that.
5:09
I'm grateful for the people that helped me put down the ladder
5:11
for me when I was struggling. So this is a contest.
5:14
There's two drives, one nervous system.
5:17
They fight every day. Pleasure, fast, loud, exciting,
5:21
front loaded, sensory ends. It ends, it's temporary, it's
5:28
transient beer, the like drugs, the win, the dopamine, the quick
5:35
Band-Aid solution, the quick fix, the exciting bang if you
5:38
will. And then we have meaning.
5:41
So meaning is slow, quiet, back loaded, structural compounds,
5:48
service, mastery, belonging, story.
5:52
Why the why I'm doing things, why I'm here?
5:56
What is my purpose? Purpose, right?
5:58
Delayed gratification instead of instant gratification.
6:03
So we're talking about the experiencing self versus the
6:07
remembering self. Pleasure plays the experiencing
6:11
self. Meaning plays the remembering
6:13
self. Addiction is what happens when
6:15
pleasure runs the entire show. Sobriety doesn't automatically
6:20
fix that. It just removes one, one of the
6:22
pleasures, one of pleasure's favorite tools.
6:25
Why pleasure wins the early war. So pleasure is a is biologically
6:30
louder. Your brain rewards it on a
6:33
millisecond timeline, meaning rewards you, meaning rewards you
6:38
weeks, months, years later. It's delayed gratification.
6:42
You don't get that instant gratification, that high, that
6:46
quick burst of dopamine, sometimes never in a way you can
6:51
feel at all. So every single pleasure source
6:54
eventually recalibrates. The treadmill is the engine of
6:58
addiction. Restless, irritable discontent.
7:01
That's the treadmill talking for me.
7:03
I always chase that first line of cocaine, that first pill in
7:07
the morning. When I was on ADHD medication,
7:10
that instant high when my tolerance was down.
7:13
I used to. I remember I used to take Tums
7:15
to change the acidity in my stomach so I could get higher,
7:18
more high. I could feel it more.
7:20
I used to crush up my pills so I could put them under my tongue
7:23
if they were extended relief release and make them instant
7:26
release. I searched for the most
7:29
effective, efficient ways to use drugs and alcohol.
7:32
How can I get high faster? How can I make this last longer?
7:35
I'm always searching for more. It's never enough.
7:39
So the pleasure trap, the core idea of the pleasure trap is
7:43
that addiction is the most efficient pleasure delivery
7:47
system humans have ever built and it's the most reliable way
7:50
to destroy a life. That tells you something.
7:53
If pleasure were the answer, we'd all be the happiest people
7:56
on earth. But we were the most miserable,
7:58
especially those that have spent years in active addiction.
8:02
So Anna Lemke is a a famous, I think she's a scientist.
8:06
I could be wrong. She goes on Huberman podcast a
8:08
lot, but she has a book called dopamine nation.
8:10
She's oh, sorry. She's a psychiatrist from
8:12
Stanford. Her central image, The brain,
8:15
has a pleasure pain balance. Like a seesaw, every spike of
8:19
pleasure gets met by an equal and opposite tilt toward pain.
8:24
The brain demands homeostasis, this sort of level playing
8:28
field. Every high writes a check, then
8:32
comes back. Every high writes a check.
8:35
The comeback has to cash tolerance, is seesaw.
8:39
Is the seesaw recalibrating? Eventually baseline equals pain
8:43
and the drug just gets you to neutral.
8:45
The hedonic adaptations or the hedonic treadmill, as I
8:49
mentioned earlier, you adjust to whatever level of pleasure you
8:53
have. So the new car, the new
8:55
relationship, the new dose of drug or alcohol, the new amount
8:59
of drink, the new strength of drink, three weeks in, it's
9:02
baseline, you're right back at baseline and you need to
9:04
compensate. So Bruce Alexander's Rat Pack,
9:07
rat park study, sorry, this isn't Frank Sinatra rat park
9:10
study. In the 1970s, isolated rats and
9:15
isolated rats had, so they had the ability to hammer the
9:18
cocaine lever, they had a button that they could press when they
9:21
could get cocaine whenever they wanted.
9:23
Rats in an enriched environment with other rats.
9:26
So connection, people, community barely touched the the lever.
9:30
They barely reached for the high when they had other rats around
9:32
them. This suggests connection and
9:35
environment matter as much as a substance.
9:39
That's why I always, you always hear me say community is so
9:41
important. I need to be around other people
9:43
because I get meaning in relationships.
9:46
I get meaning in connection with human beings, connection with a
9:49
higher power. My higher power speaks to other
9:52
people. We were meant to exist in tribes
9:55
as human beings in packs. We were meant to exist, coexist
9:58
with each other in harmony and love and we are meant to be
10:02
around people. That's why isolation is so
10:04
dangerous an addiction. I need to be around people.
10:06
So for me, I can think of countless times where I needed
10:09
more to feel the same high or to feel less.
10:12
I even switched from drugs. I, I opted I went from cocaine.
10:16
I went from Vyvanse to cocaine to meth to in pills because I, I
10:20
needed more and I was buying it off the dark web.
10:22
Who the fuck knows what was in that?
10:25
Those drugs. I remember I bought a testing
10:27
kit and never used it, or I used it once and the Adderall I had
10:30
tested for meth and then I never used it again.
10:32
I was like, it's so what's the point of this anyways?
10:36
Yeah, you hear this all the time.
10:38
The first. What was the I want to ask you
10:40
what was the first time you remember?
10:41
The drugs stopped working, the alcohol stopped working.
10:44
It stopped achieving its goal. You hear a lot of people come
10:47
into recovery and say that the drugs stopped achieving their
10:51
purpose. They stopped achieving their
10:52
goal. They stopped working for me.
10:54
And so eventually the only option was to either off myself
10:58
or to get into recovery. And I'm happy personally that
11:01
you're listening today. You chose recovery.
11:03
You're choosing recovery. I'm so glad that you're here
11:06
because a lot of people don't make it out.
11:07
Let's be honest. And it's sad and it's tragic,
11:09
but it's the truth. Think about how many people
11:11
you've been to rehab with, if you've been to treatment, if
11:14
you've had the privilege of going to treatment, think about
11:17
the people that you were in there with.
11:18
How many of them think about it today?
11:20
I want you to think about this. How many of them are still sober
11:22
today, are still connected to you, and how many of them have
11:27
unfortunately passed away in? When I was 23 and I went to
11:31
Hazelden in Minnesota, there was a lot of opiate users there.
11:36
I must have. I think I lost 10 people, 5 to
11:40
10 people that I went to treatment with in the years
11:43
after post rehab. The pleasure coded recovery
11:47
trap. Most people don't get sober to
11:49
find meaning because I I never came here to be a better person.
11:53
There was no moral high ground that I was seeking.
11:55
I just wanted the pain to stop. I I was driven to to recovery by
12:01
circumstance rather than by virtue.
12:03
I came here because my circumstances were so terrible.
12:07
My life had become non existent. I didn't recognize the man in
12:12
the mirror anymore. I didn't even know what was
12:14
going on in my life. I was so sick and tired of being
12:17
sick and tired. I didn't want to feel this way
12:19
anymore. I was done living my life this
12:23
way. I was done feeling like a piece
12:27
of shit, like a fuck up, like a mess, like I couldn't control
12:31
anything in my life. Most people don't get sober to
12:33
find meaning. They get sober because pleasure
12:35
stopped paying out and started taking everything.
12:38
Yeah, it's a good way to put it. The problem is when the pain
12:42
stops, pleasure starts looking attractive again, just in a
12:47
legal packaging. So you get sober and you start
12:51
to seek other things because you stop doing the recovery stuff.
12:53
You lose your connection with the power greater than yourself
12:56
or your recovery community, and you're feeling that hole inside
12:59
of you. And instead of seeking something
13:01
greater than you, you're seeking material things.
13:04
Because Instagram tells me that I'm going to be happy if I have
13:07
a better car. Well, Drake looks really happy.
13:10
He's got tons of money. That must be the answer.
13:14
I'm gonna chase that. By the way, shout out Drake.
13:16
Doing great things for the City of Toronto.
13:18
Love the guy. I don't know him personally,
13:20
obviously. Yeah, we're golfing buddies.
13:24
What a great night. Last night he froze the CN
13:26
Tower. I live right downtown Toronto,
13:28
so it's great to see. The fireworks were amazing.
13:30
My wife loved them. Amazing, Amazing show.
13:34
Doing great things for the city of Toronto.
13:36
Love to see it. Don't ever forget where you came
13:38
from, people. So then we have the ISM swap.
13:41
Cross addiction, you go from sober from the substance to
13:45
still running the same operating system.
13:47
So work hits, gym hits, food hits, money hits, sex,
13:51
relationship hits, achievement hits, even recovery itself as a
13:56
hit. You're chasing those things.
13:58
You become obsessed, obsessive about those things.
14:01
The praise, the milestones, the Atta boys, the pass on the back,
14:04
the chips, the medallions, the the stand up applause, the
14:10
crying and laughing and cheering.
14:12
For me, I got obsessed with golf when I first got sober.
14:15
I got obsessed with golf. The gym.
14:17
I I swapped addictions for a long time shopping.
14:20
Good thing is I think today what's my addiction today?
14:22
Instagram for sure. Social media is my addiction
14:25
today. Chasing the likes, chasing the
14:27
follows. I got to stop.
14:28
It's not enjoyable. My neck hurts.
14:30
I'm looking at my phone too much lately.
14:32
I had an app that blocked the Instagram and the Tiktok and
14:35
stuff like that. But listen to me, I sound like
14:38
an 8 year old man. Did you get Instagram and
14:40
there's TikTok? I had an app or blocked them.
14:42
I I guess I what did I do? I stopped.
14:47
I stopped using those apps to block Instagram because I told
14:50
myself that I need to look at it for business purposes.
14:54
Good old addict I am. Why meaning loses the daily
14:57
fight. Meaning is bad at marketing
15:00
itself. It's not a sexy thing.
15:03
It doesn't feel like anything in the moment.
15:05
Sitting with a newcomer at 11:00 PM is not a dopamine hit.
15:09
It compounds, but it doesn't announce itself.
15:12
These are the slow I'm I'm putting down.
15:16
I'm investing in my recovery today in small increments, and
15:20
it doesn't look sexy when I save $5 every week or every day.
15:24
But over time, it compounds and you see the purpose of it.
15:29
You just don't see it now. So the shift for me is to be
15:32
able to see the work I'm putting in today, the podcast work, the
15:37
sobriety work, all the work that I'm putting in today.
15:40
It's not gonna pay off in a couple of hours.
15:42
It's not gonna pay off tomorrow. I have to be patient.
15:46
It's gonna pay off eventually. And then to have the faith that
15:49
it will pay off if I just keep showing up and just keep putting
15:52
in the work, that's hard. That's hard, man.
15:55
It's hard to have that faith, to take that leap of faith.
15:57
I don't know what I'm doing right now.
15:59
I'm gonna do it and I'm gonna trust that the results are gonna
16:02
be whatever they're going to be and I'm OK.
16:04
I'm going to be taken care of. I'm OK.
16:06
At the end of the day, if I just take this leap of faith today,
16:09
if I just put in the work one step at a time today, things are
16:13
going to work out. It's hard to do that, but it's
16:16
very powerful and very effective.
16:20
You just don't know it yet. Pleasure is front loaded reward
16:23
back loaded cost Meaning is front loaded cost back loaded
16:28
reward. Your nervous system was trained
16:30
for however many years to optimize the first one, it does
16:35
not naturally pick the second one.
16:36
Delayed gratification is the goal here.
16:39
I'm sacrificing the new iPhone today for the house down the
16:44
road. Instead it's the.
16:46
Usually it's the other way around.
16:47
I'm getting the iPhone today and I'm not thinking about the house
16:49
I want to buy down the road. I had a very effective
16:53
psychiatrist tell me that Doctor Joseph Lee and Hazelden changed
16:57
my whole view of addiction when he put his hands out like that.
17:00
And he showed me, instead of sacrificing your money for the
17:03
iPhone today, think about the house down the road.
17:06
That is addiction right there, the delayed gratification.
17:09
So I want to talk about Viktor Frankel.
17:10
If you don't know Viktor Frankel, he's a he wrote the
17:13
book Man Search for meaning. He was a he was in concentration
17:18
camp during the Holocaust and he wrote this amazing book.
17:21
If you haven't read it, I'd highly recommend it.
17:23
It's one of my favorite books. I haven't read the whole thing,
17:25
actually. I have to be honest, but I've
17:26
read a lot of it. But it's a high, highly studied,
17:29
sought after book. Those this is what he says.
17:32
Those who have a why to live can bear with almost any how I have
17:39
to read that again. That's beautiful.
17:41
Those who have a why to live can bear with almost any how.
17:47
So if I have a why, I have a reason.
17:49
I have a purpose. I have meaning.
17:51
I'll do whatever it takes. You tell me how.
17:54
If you told me to go left, I'm going to go left.
17:55
If you tell me to go right, I'm going to go right.
17:57
If you tell me to jump, I'm going to say how high.
17:59
That's recovery, man. I don't really.
18:01
I'm taking suggestions from that I don't necessarily believe in,
18:05
but they're coming from someone doing better than me or someone
18:09
who is knows what they're talking about because they've
18:11
done it before. If that works with starting a
18:13
business that works with getting sober, that works with playing
18:17
golf, I'm going to trust that this guy or girl knows what he's
18:20
talking about. This person knows what they're
18:22
talking about because they look like they can do it.
18:24
They they're look happy, they look successful.
18:27
They are successful in whatever area we're talking about.
18:31
South Frankel talks about the in the camps, being in the camps,
18:35
the concentration camps, survivors weren't the strongest
18:40
or most optimistic. They were the ones with meaning.
18:44
So I'll do a quick case study on my relapse after 7 1/2 years.
18:48
A lot of you have heard this already.
18:49
I'll make it brief. Essentially, I relapsed because
18:52
I stopped connecting with my recovery program, my higher
18:55
power, with others. I stopped helping others.
18:57
I stopped practicing the principles, spiritual
18:59
principles, honesty, hope, faith, perseverance, service,
19:04
humility, brotherly love. I I stopped practicing those
19:10
principles, I stopped my connection and I started.
19:14
So I stopped looking for the answer within because I already
19:18
I had already found it. But it's I need to be reminded
19:20
that the answer is always within me.
19:22
And I started looking externally.
19:24
I use outside things to change my insides.
19:26
So by process of elimination, when I use the car, the car
19:29
doesn't work. When I get the promotion, the
19:30
promotion doesn't work. And when I say work me fill this
19:33
hole makes me feel better. Eventually I'm going to lead
19:36
going to end up doing my drugs or drinking again because that
19:40
worked for a moment and my brain remembers that.
19:42
And when I start keeping secrets, I eventually end up in
19:46
the fuck it. And when I'm saying fuck it,
19:48
whatever, F it, F it, F it. I'm going to relapse.
19:51
And that's how I did after 7 1/2 years of contented sobriety and
19:55
recovery. The trap inside the trap.
19:57
Most people who hear this episode will try to chase
19:59
meaning the same way they chased pleasure.
20:02
I'll do service until I I feel meaningful.
20:05
That's pleasure logic. Wearing a meaning costume.
20:08
Meaning is not a feeling you achieve, it's a direction you
20:12
live in. The test here is if it stops
20:15
feeling rewarding, would you keep doing it?
20:17
If no, you. We're after the feeling, not the
20:21
meaning. Rig the fight in the meanings
20:25
favor. Tuesday at 3:00 PM.
20:27
What do you actually do? I'm usually doing podcast stuff
20:30
at that time. I'm usually doing editing.
20:32
I'm usually doing something with social media or my recovery
20:37
page. And yeah, I mean, if I think
20:39
about it, that's my meaning today is to carry the message to
20:42
other addicts and Alcoholics through the form of podcast and
20:44
social media. That might change over time, but
20:48
today that's the meaning. And when I post a podcast, I
20:52
don't get paid for it. I don't get money, I don't get
20:54
instant gratification, I don't get quick fixes.
20:57
I don't get this Band-Aid solution.
20:59
It's not sexy in the moment, but over time I have to do these
21:03
things. If I want to grow the podcast,
21:06
if I want to start a business, if I want to eventually earn
21:09
income, I have to put in the work today.
21:12
And yeah, sure, it's not all about money, this is true.
21:15
But I would love to make a living off of this.
21:17
I really would, if I'm being honest.
21:19
I want to make a living off this because I love doing it.
21:21
I enjoy doing it, and it doesn't seem like work on a lot of days.
21:25
Some days it does, but some days it feels like a chore.
21:28
So does recovery. But I do it anyways because
21:31
that's how I built my recovery program.
21:34
Over small moments, over repeated actions, repetition,
21:39
getting in the reps It's so simple, but it's really not
21:42
easy. The verdict plus the warning.
21:45
So take a side. Don't take, don't both sides
21:49
this, take a side. Are you seeking pleasure today?
21:52
Ask yourself honestly, or am I seeking pleasure today or am I
21:55
seeking meaning? And the best part about it is
21:58
you can go back and forth and realize it and stop yourself
22:01
before it's too late. And at any moment in your day,
22:04
you can stop and think, you know what?
22:05
I'm going to stop chasing pleasure today.
22:07
I'm gonna stop chasing pleasure right now.
22:10
I'm gonna start chasing meaning I'm gonna do the small things
22:12
that pay off in the end, but I don't see the end goal right
22:16
now. You can decide at any moment to
22:18
look at anything and say, hey, I'm gonna change this right now.
22:22
Pleasure is not the enemy here. Pleasure as the organizing
22:26
principle is the enemy. So if that's your direct
22:29
guiding, only guiding force, your North Star, not a good
22:32
thing. Recovery is the slow process of
22:34
moving meaning from the passenger seat into the driver's
22:38
seat. If your recovery is still
22:40
organized around feeling good, even if it's the good of being
22:45
sober, there's a clock on it. It's going to end eventually.
22:49
I had a mentor always tell me this.
22:51
I don't need to feel good, I need to do good.
22:57
I love that it's simple, it's, it's effective.
23:00
I can grasp onto that. I'm not going to feel good all
23:03
the fucking time, and neither are you, but I can do good in
23:06
the small moments that point toward the end goal of meaning.
23:11
I just don't see it yet, and I never will, because I have
23:14
finite power. Trust the universe that it's
23:17
gonna work out. Trust God that it's gonna work
23:19
out. Whatever your whatever you
23:21
believe in. Trust the sun.
23:23
Pray to the sun that it's gonna work out.
23:25
Pray to the sky, the clouds, the birds.
23:27
I don't care as long as it's not a human being.
23:29
Pray. Pray to something that has
23:31
infinite power, not my finite power.
23:34
It's all going to work out if I just do the next right thing
23:38
over the small moments in my day.
23:40
I'll get proof of that eventually.
23:41
I just doesn't. You just don't see it now, like
23:43
I said. OK guys, thanks so much for
23:46
listening. Thank you for being here.
23:48
I have a new episode coming out on Tuesday with Steven.
23:51
We talk about crack cocaine addiction.
23:53
We talk about benders. We talk about rehab.
23:56
We talk about faith and he did a great job so stay stay tuned for
23:59
that one. I love every single one of you.
24:02
Thank you so much for being here.
24:03
Thank you for sending me amazing heartfelt messages of
24:07
inspiration and joy. I love hearing people counting
24:10
days and going out getting after it and doing the do things.
24:14
Keep messaging me. If no one has told you this yet,
24:16
today I love you and recovery is simple, not easy.