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Still Functioning… But It’s Costing More — George Haymaker · Dispatched & Dysfunctional

• Chris Stockton: Welcome back to Dispatch is Functional. This show is for people still showing up while quietly wearing down. The ones handling business, paying bills, taking care of everybody else, still producing, still performing, still smiling. But privately, everyone, everything's costing more now. Energy, patience, focus, joy. Today's guest knows what it means to look successful on paper while feeling it off, feeling off underneath it all. This one's going to be Honest Today, Blunt. truthful like always. So a lot of people are going to hear themselves in this one. Today's guest is Mr. George Heymeyer. Before titles, credentials, but credentials, cannot speak today. Credentials, bios, or other published internet stuff. Who are you really and what made this conversation worth saying yes to today? George Haymaker III: Hey Chris, great to be on with you. Thanks for having me and just for accuracy sake, my last name is Haymaker like the punch. Chris Stockton: Hey, Micah. My bad. George Haymaker III: It's all good. Thanks for having me. Chris Stockton: So who are you and what made this conversation worth saying yes to? George Haymaker III: Oh boy. Well, let's stick with the parts that might be relevant to your audience. I am a 65 year old ex entrepreneur who spent three and a half decades building businesses of various sizes in different industries. Chris Stockton: Ha George Haymaker III: I'm also a guy who traveled that journey with a lot of mental unhelpfulness, a lot of patterns that weren't serving me well, a lot of uncomfortable thoughts, reactive emotions, ⁓ bad behaviors that were bad for me and bad for the world around me. Very intense, ⁓ driven, persistent, take no excuses type operator in business. And, you know, I just got really activated, my nervous system, I was just always stressed out, always looking for what wasn't going to go right. ⁓ Results never being good enough. ⁓ Not caring who I stepped on along the way to get what I felt like I needed to get to prove myself. So I was on this never ending journey, feeling not good enough. to feel good enough and I was using business as my playground to try to do that and unfortunately, I found alcohol and drugs along the way and they started to work really well in terms of ⁓ calming me and So that became a pattern of mine as I would you know work really hard perform perform perform and then calmed down with the use of alcohol and drugs. And that was my pattern for during my 20s, 30s and 40s until the gig was up and I became fully addicted to pain pills and alcohol in my late 40s and then hit a hard, hard bottom in my early 50s and ended up in rehab where ⁓ my life began to turn around. And ⁓ we can go into what that looked like and how that happens. But I'll stop there because that gives you a sense of who I am and kind of how I ended up where I'm at today. Chris Stockton: Yes, sir. And as I said before, the show is I'm great to have you on. I'm glad you're still with us. I'm glad that you're fighting your addictions and your demons. George Haymaker III: Yeah, it's, I don't feel like I'm fighting anymore. ⁓ And that's important. And I don't feel like I'm fighting my demons. And that's the thing that we can talk about today is what exactly are those demons and how do they end up in the brain? And why do they keep resurfacing? And what can we do to, to resolve them so that they're no longer demons? ⁓ cause that's really where the magic is. And it's, I had no idea. Another thing I forgot to mention was during my professional career, I had no idea how the brain worked. I just expected, and I think for my work in the brain now, I've learned that most people don't and they just expect it to be there and work for them. And they, they feel like they can just demand, demand, demand from it. And it should perform. And unfortunately, the brain doesn't work like that. And it took me some really big consequences to try to start to figure that out. And so that was my journey at the beginning. I landed in AA and that got me stable. You know, at least I wasn't using and drinking. And I went to I was very involved in AA. I went almost every day and had a great sponsor. But it wasn't enough for me to. ⁓ just be in AA and not know where I was heading and what this was going to look like. That's the scariest part is when we're in a life that we're not happy with, we can't even envision what something else looks like and it's super scary and we're full of fear and we just feel like we're stuck and trapped. And so, you I used to listen in rehab to these speakers that would come in and tell me how great their life got. and you know it had been 10, 12, 15, 20 years since they had recovered and I'm like you got to be kidding me right? Like but it was the only hope that I had because at that point you're grasping at straws. So I just hoped and I decided that I would stop doing things my way because that obviously hadn't worked real well. And so I decided I would start to listen and read and take in other people's advice and information because my way of doing things hadn't worked real good. And so was prepared to admit that and then just start to, I did a lot of reading about addiction science and about ⁓ psychology to understand what had happened in my brain. How did I get there? Why was I experiencing all these unhelpful ⁓ mental experiences, thoughts, emotions, behaviors, and what was it gonna look like to try to change? And how did AA help that? on and on and on. I just had so many questions. And so that really started to illuminate me by understanding the brain and how it worked. And that led me into neuroscience, which is where my practice is in today, is understanding how the brain works, how it functions, what it's designed to do. how it performs most optimally, what can we do to change our thoughts, emotions and behaviors? Like the brain is this organ that produces our mind, it constructs the mental experience and we can actually partner with the brain to change it all. It's the most amazing thing you've ever ⁓ encountered in your life. I know it sounds really wild to people. to think, what do you mean? I've been experiencing these same thoughts, emotions and behaviors for years and you're telling me, you ex addict and alcoholic that you can suddenly change all of this stuff and have it be different? You mean you can change what the brain actually brings into your consciousness and have it be different thoughts and different emotions and behaviors? You betcha, that's exactly what I'm telling you. And it is the most magical thing ⁓ that most of us don't have any idea exists. It is, can you imagine that you are able to completely architect your mental experience if you don't like what it is now? It's very similar to like if you don't like your body, You know that you can eat differently and go to the gym, hit the pavement running, whatever, you you know how to go do a better body. You may not do it, but you know that there's a way. The exact same thing, potential, exists for the brain. It sounds crazy, but it's absolutely true. Instead of training muscle fibers and fat cells for the body, We're training neurons in the brain and it responds exactly the same way. Chris Stockton: You brought up a good point there too. So back in 2020, actually had a, they say, I went to a stroke center for a stroke. I didn't realize like you were saying about the exercise you have to do to be able to retrain your neuro pathways, your neurons. And to me that was a very awakening experience because my entire left side was gone. I'm fully functional now. I have no deficits whatsoever. And it was all due to trying to retrain them pathways to recreate the neurons, you know, and the experience actually, like you said, just as you said, I had to exercise it, I had to make it work. It was broken. I didn't like it and so much went into it and have to relearn and redo and hell, I'm still missing part of my life due to that. That'll probably never come back. But you know, it's something that you have to function with. You have to know how to do and being able to do it. Once you start it, it's not as difficult as people think it is. It's just like you said, the gym, you know, if you've never been to the gym, you're scared of it. You start working out, you enjoy it, you're able to do it. It's the same exact thing with psychological or physiological exercises for the brain, you know, and it's amazing to me. George Haymaker III: So, if, can I just add in there why the brain resists what, the brain is built ⁓ to be wary of new things. And that is because the brain's number one job is to protect us and keep us alive, ⁓ conserve resources. And by resources, I mean energy, neurotransmitters. I mean it just wants to conserve what it takes to operate and only apply them to things that it knows will be safe for us, have a certain outcome, ⁓ be rewarding and so the brain is constantly calculating everything in our world and saying is this worth it? That's what it does all day long. Okay, and it's because it wants to keep you alive So you have babies and continue the species that's really at the end of the day what its job is it's not to get you a bigger house and more money and and About and all that it's to keep you alive and allow you to have babies. And so it's constantly calculating so when we if you've never been to the gym and You know you You would you find that you would like to get stronger, lose weight, get more fit, whatever. ⁓ But you've never been there. Your brain has never been there to the gym. And so it doesn't have any idea because it's never experienced it before, whether that's safe, rewarding, how much how costly it is in terms of resources. So it will automatically hold on to its resources and not give you any motivation or energy to go do it because it doesn't know what the outcome is. It can't predict it. That is the key. It cannot predict what that experience is like because it hasn't experienced it. And then you just said the magic thing, which is once you go, all you got to do is go and guess what happens? The brain experiences it, realizes it's not only not as bad as it thought, but it's actually rewarding and not as costly and it has these other benefits. And so then the brain will start to say, huh, this wasn't as bad as I thought. I'm going to start ⁓ dedicating more resources to it like dopamine for motivation and energy to go do it. And so that's why the resistance begins to fade because it has experiential evidence that it works. And so And congratulations on rebuilding your own brain. that, mean, it oftentimes it takes guys like you and me some really bad consequences to figure this out and unfortunate. And that's unfortunate because all the rest of us out there are really that would like to change can change, but the consequences aren't bad enough. And their brain hasn't for the brain to say, you know something, I'm going to let you go do that because, ⁓ you know, right now, I can predict your life and I know what's going to keep you safe and alive. And so I'm resisting doing anything new. And so what we want to do is to try to get everyone to realize that, maybe things could be even better. OK, I'm not living the full extent of what I want to live. And so I don't have to wait for the bad consequences that Chris and George experienced. I can actually do it well before that and not have any regrets. And be the and I can actually create a lifestyle around rebuilding and working with my brain So it becomes what I want it to become without having to have these bad consequences And that's the work I do I help explain to people how they get from point a to point b and And what that looks like so it's understandable And once it's understandable, we have a plan And it becomes less overwhelming And then they understand it's like getting a trainer at the gym. He takes you around to the machines, shows you how it gives you a plan, shows you what tells you what's going to happen if you do the plan. And so then you have an understanding and you become less overwhelmed by it. OK, that's what I do is I help people understand how their brain works and how to get ⁓ change that's not only that's sustainable and teaching the brain that this type of change is in the long term interest of you. And then the brain stops, you have stopped having to work at it. The brain actually wants to do it. And then it becomes a habit and a lifestyle because the brain is actually driving you and predicting you to do these new things because it likes it now. But it's getting down that path at the beginning and getting dissipating the brain's resistance to where the brain can get some experiential evidence that what it is you're trying to get it to do is worth doing. That's it. Chris Stockton: Makes sense. So on that note, you know, in the first response field, we deal with a lot of accolades, a lot of issues. ⁓ We do deal with a bunch of assaults. We deal with a bunch of our own mental fatigues, our own burnouts. And it makes us slowly change from who we were. to who we are and it makes us push away from the things we love. It makes us push away from our families. And you even said on your forum is still functioning, doesn't just mean okay. So on that note, how and why does our own minds... You know, after we deal with the traumas we deal with, why does it make us shut down? How can we fix from shutting down so much or making us change to who we don't want to be? George Haymaker III: Yeah, so going back to the brain's job and that's really what it helps to do in all these situations. Whenever you're trying to pick apart your mental experience and understand why it is what it is and why it's becoming what it's becoming, ⁓ it helps to understand what the brain's trying to do and how it constructs our mental experience. Okay? Because then if you can do that, then you can explain what's going on. Once you can explain what's going on, then you have an answer for it. And right then and there, there's awareness and understanding and that calms the nervous system a lot. Because then you realize it's not you, the person. It's your brain and how it's constructing your mental experience. And that's the biggest thing is we want to step away from our brain and realize that I know that that mental experience feels like it's us, you know, and it's overwhelming, but it's not us. It's simply what the brain is predicting in the moment. And so here's here's what happens very simply is Every moment of every day the brain is navigating life and it surveys the environment. So in a first responders world that can be very stressful situations, right? And then it's consulting your body, getting readings from your body in terms of how it feels about what it's seeing, hearing, smelling and what your senses are bringing in. So the brain is constantly bringing in data from the environment and from your body That travels into the brain and the brain then has to evaluate that decide what's meaningful and how to interpret it Okay, and then what it does is then it goes back to its file cabinets memory Chris Stockton: Makes sense. George Haymaker III: and says, based on what I'm seeing now, this data that's coming in from my environment and how my body's reacting to it. What should I predict in terms of how to think, feel and behave in that moment? And that happens all day long every day. That's how your brain constructs your experience. Gathering data, comparing it to what it already knows and it's experienced, and pulling out the thoughts, emotions, and behaviors that it feels do the best job of meeting your needs, getting through the situation, ⁓ keeping you in survival, conserving resources, and just handling the situation. So when you guys as first responders are seeing very difficult things, ⁓ your brain is trying to figure out how to interpret that and how you should think, feel and behave in response. And the kinds of stuff you guys see is hard to process. ⁓ It's like hard to make sense of any of it. And so especially like stuff you've never seen before Like what does your brain have to go to in your past? to allow you to interpret and Determine how you should think feel and behave to some of the stuff that you see and experience Like there it's just guessing or it doesn't even have an answer Chris Stockton: Yeah, it doesn't see it. It don't have an idea on what to do because of a lot of the stuff we see. No one else really sees and there's no rhyme or reason to why you do see it and that you're making sense on why the brain does that because like you said, there's no storage for, well, this is what a decapitated body looks like. Something you may have never seen in your life before. George Haymaker III: They're exactly right. There's no narrative that the brain has to make sense of any of that. So then if the brain can't make sense of it, ⁓ it has no idea what to predict. And so what you can and you tell me if I'm wrong But your brain probably gets flooded with ⁓ mental friction Anguish, you know emotional all kinds of emotions that aren't helpful or are comfortable ⁓ a bunch of different thoughts because it doesn't know what to think and you know, who knows what behaviors and they could end up in coping behaviors to deal with the trauma, you know, the emotional effects, right? Chris Stockton: So from my standpoint. ⁓ A lot of, a lot of what I see on scenes or I don't really get a lot of the, like you said, thoughts going racing or anything like that. It's more of a, I guess after all the training and all that, we learn how to tell the brain, this is what we're doing. This is how we need to do it. You know, for instance, I was on a MVC or a motor vehicle crash. About a month ago that I was off duty a gentleman wound up passing away Due to the traumatic injuries. It was a vehicle versus a motorcycle ⁓ And You know, I've seen it numerous times ⁓ Never without any gear, but I was able to do what I could do ⁓ And the only thought that kept coming to my mind was is this guy gonna make it is he not gonna make it? And also the medic that took over from me was a dickhead. But other than that, you know, that was the only thing going in my mind is, am I doing everything right? Is this what I was trained to do? And is there anything else I could have done? You know, so there's not a lot of, and I may be a weirdo that don't have a lot of thoughts that go through his head on those things, but you know, I was. strategically going through every process I could I was Assessing everything that I could at the same time and You know doing the best I could ⁓ With that information that was like you said processing to the brain George Haymaker III: Okay, so what okay you're a veteran though right? I mean you've been in this a while. Chris Stockton: ⁓ yeah. Yeah, I was thought you meant veteran as an as an army or something. I was never in the service. But yes, I've been doing this for 10 years. George Haymaker III: No. Okay. Okay and so you've seen a number of these situations and you have now arrived at a narrative or a interpretation of these types of traumatic situations ⁓ a certain interpretation right and what what would you say that is what would you say that is for you so you come upon a scene and what is it that you how do you how do you look at it and interpret it? Chris Stockton: So first, I see if anyone's injured. Second, see if they're breathing. Third, see if they're moving. And then start going from there on who I would. Like at this scene, was in the end three people. Only one was the patient. ⁓ The other ones were OK. So on that, I... George Haymaker III: Okay. Chris Stockton: assessed the guy that was on the ground because of other two. I yelled at him, Hey, are you a good, they talked back. He was on the ground, not speaking, not coherent. So he was my first priority. George Haymaker III: Okay, but I mean is this a situation where you arrive at it and you're looking to help people that you're... because that's what I'm after in terms of how you view the whole situation and your role in it. Like what are you trying to accomplish? Not the detail but the big picture. Chris Stockton: Yes. I gotcha. They're just there to help, just to make sure they can hopefully get from that scene home. That's my ultimate goal. George Haymaker III: Okay and so you've interpreted it that way and that is an interpretation that's helpful for you where you're it's an opportunity to help people and save their life maybe and and and restore you know their lives back to them is that would that be fair? Chris Stockton: That's fair, yes. George Haymaker III: Okay and so has it always been that way or is that something that you've kind of evolved into that interpretation over your years? Chris Stockton: I think I've evolved into it. In the beginning, it was like you were saying, you don't know what the hell to do. You don't know what's going on. So there's no rhyme or reason to what you're really doing, except for the training that you receive on, you know, as they tell us the, you know, as a scene safe is ABCs and so on and so forth. You know, you just go buy your check boxes. And honestly, that's probably why they do it the way they do it is from what you're saying is. They train you this way. Your mind goes back to this to do it this way. And that's how they do it. And it does make sense now that you broke it down like that. George Haymaker III: Yeah and so all I'm and I don't know how much they go into the neuroscience around you know interpretation of things because how you perceive that situation as being ⁓ something that is helpful to you or not helpful ⁓ has a lot to do with what your brain will predict that you do next. So if you're if you're mortified by it and traumatized by it initially, let's say in your early days of being a first responder, your brain is then left with trying to figure out how to keep you safe in the in that situation and how to you know meet your needs the best way it can. And so it may be just so overwhelming to people, early first responders, that they then respond by ⁓ coping with drugs and alcohol, avoiding, avoiding, shutting down, withdrawing, I think some of the things that you mentioned. And so that's, you know, these are responses by the brain saying, this is how we need to think, feel and behave. in this moment because we're doing the best we can to try to keep you safe and meet your needs the best way we can and this is all we know. And so what I would do with people is to help them interpret this situation in a way that's more helpful to them. Maybe the way that you've now evolved into where it's an opportunity to help people and restore their lives and be of service and things that are like are important to you and your values, right? And so then if you can get your brain to interpret it that way, that's a different interpretation than maybe it's been in the past. And your brain will then suddenly predict more helpful things that we can actually teach it, train it. So in other words, we could retrain your brain to look at these situations differently and have different thoughts, emotions and behaviors in response to them. OK, and so then that just changes everything about your experience relating to it. Chris Stockton: That makes sense. So I guess on that note, I know we were talking about it earlier. So is that. Is that how and why we get as burnout as we do? also, you know, we all the traumas in our heads, I guess, is that one of the reasons as you're speaking of the demons we fight? Is that one of the reasons that a lot of us succumb to our own demons or? Wind up, you know, needing the assistance we need is because we have so much that I guess normal people don't have. George Haymaker III: Yeah, so there's two things going on with what you just said. So burnout is a state where your brain is consuming more resources than it has available to it ⁓ to supply it to function well. So your brain is a resource hog. It weighs two to three pounds, but it's consuming a ton of energy and neurotransmitters, which are made out of protein for things like calm and focus and alertness and motivation. And it consumes minerals and vitamins in order to for the neurons to work and open and close the gates of them. So you can think. So it's constantly consuming all these resources. And so there's this ongoing battle day in and day out between. How many demands am I putting on my brain versus how much of these this resource is available each and every moment of every day? And so it's very common for people to run into resource deficit states. where they have used up all their resources, their energy, their neurotransmitters, and their brain begins to ⁓ signal stress because that's the only thing it has left to do in order to meet your demands is bring in stress because it has no more resources left. In other words, there's this constant equation going on, supply and demand of resources. It's how much you're supplying, every moment of every day and how fast you're spending them. And the moment that your brain detects more demand than resources, it has to call in stress to fill the gap. And so if your lifestyle is such where you're either not eating right, hydrating correctly, sleeping correctly, exercising correctly, ⁓ if you're not doing what needs to be done to fill the tank with resources and then you're you have a lifestyle or a bad life plan ⁓ in terms of how you spend those resources and you're running out constantly that's why your brain is just always in stress is because you know you don't have an approach that that balances those out and in your line of work it's really hard because can you imagine how many resources you're consuming when you're ⁓ on one of these scenes a ton because what does it take to process that level of trauma you know i mean you know you're adrenaline you're on these scenes you're just trying to save somebody's life you're dealing with the emotional impact of it and and all the negative thoughts that could arise Chris Stockton: I would imagine a lot. George Haymaker III: ⁓ You're grinding, grinding. I mean you're just spending resources at a really rapid clip and then you may not have enough to carry you forward. Or you may have burned out your tank. And so now you're running in this resource deficit state day after day. It's being filled by stress and when you do that overwhelm day after day after day it ends up in burnout. where your brain, what your brain finally does is says, you know something, you've been taking me through this meat grinder, this hamster wheel, day after day after day. And all I do is end up in resource deficit. And so you know what? I'm gonna stop applying resources to what you wanna do, your job, because I need to hold on to what I have ⁓ in the case, I really need them to help you survive. like the base case of living. And so that's what burnout is. It's this endless state of resource deficit where your brain has to hold back resources to protect you and you just feel burnout. can't, you know, have no desire to do anything. Chris Stockton: I gotcha. That makes sense. ⁓ George Haymaker III: And so, you know, what that the resolution to that is setting up a lifestyle that supplies resources more readily and understanding how to do that, what the brain needs when it needs it. But then also look at how we're spending our resources during the day to make sure that we're doing that efficiently so that we try to keep this equation in balance constantly. Chris Stockton: Okay, I gotcha. That actually does make a lot more sense. So, I guess the accumulation and the thoughts of it, I guess that's what we actually wind up calling our demons, if you will. George Haymaker III: Yeah, and that's the other piece of it. Yep. And so these demons which are cognitive responses that the brain is now predicting So remember when you have a demon that floats in your brain Your brain is you're in a context of some life life is happening. It's triggering data is coming into your brain and it Causes the brain to reach for this demon and pull it out of its file cabinet and put it into your consciousness as a thought. So here's the magic is we can back away from our brain and say, okay, brain, ⁓ I understand what you're doing. You are predicting this demon because I've taught you that that's what we should be doing in this situation. Because every time you bring it into my consciousness, I go ahead and engage with the demon. So that means I'm approving of your prediction. And every time I act out the thinking of the demon and engage in it, that's like a new repetition at the gym. And so every time that you do something over and over again, that's unhelpful, you are reinforcing it, like doing another repetition at the gym. And that Chris Stockton: Huh. George Haymaker III: the brain gets stronger and more convinced that this is the right pattern every time that you engage with it. So what we need to do is pull away from that demon and analyze it, find out why it's there, what the brain is, why the brain is predicting it, what need it's trying to meet, reinterpret the context around why, around that the brain predicting it in that context, and then either, you know, reinterpreting the context so a new prediction arises or ⁓ developing a new set of thoughts and emotions and behaviors that we can put in the place of the existing one. And so really what we're doing is trying to splice out a demon and install something in its place that's more helpful. So we would sit down and say, okay, Here's what the demon is. Here's why we're the demons coming up for us. What would we rather have the brain think and feel and act and then install that in its place and start to tell the brain why this new pattern is more helpful. So the brain does predictions based on how valuable it thinks the thoughts, emotions and behaviors are that it predicts. And so if we can convince the brain through showing it. experiential evidence that the new thing that we wanted to think, feel and behave in place of the demon is more valuable to us and has a higher ranking in the brain's nomenclature. If we can convince it of that, then the brain will start to predict that instead. And so that's what we're really doing is creating new thoughts in place of the demon and then installing it in the brain, introducing it to the brain and then convincing the brain that it's a better pattern than the demon. And so that's... I understand that you know, maybe a little hard to grasp at first, but it's basically just taking something out of our life that's unhelpful, putting like a transplant. So taking out a bad organ, putting a new one in, and then getting the body to take that new organ, getting the brain to accept the new pattern as being better than the other one. And that's really the neuroscience behind how you reconstruct your mind. So you could go through your life, ⁓ whack-a-mole, pulling out all the demons and saying, this is not helpful. What would I rather have the brain be thinking in this moment? And what emotions come along with it, what I like, and just be creative and design a better outcome for yourself. And then if you knew how to convince the brain to prefer that new pattern, because it works better over the demon, the brain will automatically just start to send that into your consciousness instead of the demon. Now that's the magical part that, you know, people have a hard time believing, but I can tell you from certainty, and I'm sure that you're going to remember your own life experience, there was a time when the only thing that would come into my mind was alcohol or drugs, for every moment. Now it doesn't even occur to me. Chris Stockton: So is that why we? George Haymaker III: You want to talk about a demon, do 50 pain pills a day and drink two bottles of vodka. Try going not 10 minutes without having to do more. That's a demon. And now it doesn't even occur to me. Doesn't even occur to me. Chris Stockton: So is that why we delve to alcohol or illicit drugs? I know we call it a crutch in the end, but is that the reason, is we're filling that void or that mechanism with that instead? George Haymaker III: Okay. Okay, here's what it is. No one ever rarely decides they want to become an addict or an alcoholic. 99.99 % of the time, they have demons, uncomfortable thoughts, emotions, behaviors that aren't helpful, that are negative, that are uncomfortable, often from childhood, that they want, that they... want the brain and them want to get rid of them because it's uncomfortable. Who wants to live with that? Who wants to live with negative thoughts and emotions? Demons. No one does. Okay, so the brain's job is to try to get rid of that friction in your head and so it's looking for ways to do that. When it finds alcohol and drugs and recognizes how effective they are at getting rid of demons and calming us and getting rid of the negative ⁓ nervous system experience. When it recognizes how effective it is, how easy and quick it is, and how low cost it is to get, like all you got to do is go over to the cabinet and grab the bottle. Like that doesn't take any effort at all. So when the brain starts to make that equation, it says, I'm going to use alcohol and drugs to ease my demons. And so it's a coping mechanism to get rid of the friction. And the problem is they're so effective, more effective than sex, ⁓ exercise, eating, like all the other things we can think of in life that help relieve our anxiety. Drugs and drinking are by far the best, most effective. They release more feel-good chemicals than any of those things. And so when the brain looks at that solution, it says, damn, these things are really effective. I'm going, that's what I'm going to tell you to go do. And that's why we get these cravings is because the brain says, go do that. I know it's going to give us relief right away. And so generally addiction sits on top of underlying unhelpful patterns or demons. Okay. And so we're, bothered by something in life or our jobs by seeing all the trauma that you guys do as first responders. You're really uncomfortable as a result. And you're you're you and your brain are trying to find a way to get relief. And if you experiment with drugs and alcohol, you're teaching your brain that this is the most effective solution it can it can ever find. And then and then we just keep going. Your brain wants to keep going to it because it works well. So it's a coping mechanism for underlying demons or unhelpful mental patterns. Chris Stockton: So this is a question on that note of things is. Trying figure out how to say this without sounding like a dick. ⁓ I guess if we wind up losing to these thoughts or inferences in alcohol and drugs don't help anymore, I guess that's when everyone starts to deteriorate even more and winds up actively killing themselves or attempting to kill themselves. ⁓ Is that due to? I guess the brain just saying I'm done or how a neuroscience does that work? George Haymaker III: You're saying when the drugs and alcohol stop working. Yeah. Okay. So picture you're a fireman and you go to a little small garbage can fire and you bring out your big old hose and blast that garbage can fire. Chris Stockton: Right. George Haymaker III: So that's like overdoing it right? Too much water and force and pressure for that context. That's exactly what drugs and alcohol do. So it's like taking a fire hose to water a little small plant that you just planted. What happens in the brain is those drugs and alcohol release so much dopamine into the brain. It's like a fire hose. The brain is not designed to receive that much dopamine. ⁓ So look at it this way, the most dopamine that any normal life pleasure like exercise or the best sex you've ever had will, let's say that your baseline dopamine level is 50 out of a thousand, like that's how that's enough for you to stay motivated, want to get out of bed. When you have sex or ⁓ like a great exercise, you might go to you know 200 and it's a very slow rise and then it it recedes. When you do alcohol or meth or cocaine it is anywhere between three and ten times that amount. So basically you are flooding your brain with more dopamine than it's ever been meant to handle. Chris Stockton: Damn, okay. George Haymaker III: And so what happens is the infrastructure of the brain, the neurons, the receptors on the neurons begin to malfunction and shut down. It's like if you took a fire hose to a little plant, you'd blow the thing away. And so that's what we're doing is we're shutting down the receptors on the other end of the neuron that received the dopamine and where we get the experience, the motivation, the feel good. Okay, and so it takes more because as these receptors are shutting down We have to do more and more of the drug to have anywhere near the same effect And so that's where tolerance develops. We have to keep doing more and more to have anywhere near the same effect And then eventually ⁓ Normal Only feels like this elevated dopamine level and we're just it's just not doing the trick anymore We're not, we're just doing it to feel normal. Because ⁓ our brain has stopped producing any dopamine for anything else other than the drugs or alcohol. So the only way we can get any type of normalcy is to only with the drugs and alcohol. You know, sex or anything else without the drug is not giving us anything. And so it's just this gradual, persistent, progressive ⁓ damaging of the reward network of the brain where it starts to shut down because there's just too much dopamine and we're damaging the plumbing and so ⁓ that's what everybody experiences. You know do these things long enough and it's they stop working and so then you're then you're at a stage of now what? The only I'm only doing these things to feel normal if I don't do them then I start to withdraw so I have to do them just to stop the withdrawals and there's no joy in doing them anymore. And so that is a really lonely place. Is when you're at the end and you're not getting any more buzz, you're just trying to feel normal, you're trapped, and if you know that you, you know that you, if you stop doing them you're going to go into withdrawals and so you're at wit's end. What do I do now? And you either die or end up in rehab or you know figure it out but the great thing about the brain again is it can heal assuming you haven't gone too far and it will the reward network will begin to adjust adapt and evolve and begin to adapt back to and we can teach it again to enjoy normal life pleasures. And that's what me, addicts like me have to learn to do is to retrain the brain, the reward network, to enjoy normal life pleasures again and get dopamine from normal things. And that's so that's what we do with with addicts is we take get physical separation by not doing them anymore. The brain gradually begins to heal. Then we're training the brain to enjoy these new things again. Little by little it starts to produce dopamine for normal life pleasures. And we begin to focus on other ⁓ pleasurable chemicals like serotonin instead of dopamine, where we're feeling more good about ourselves and we get this rise of warmth and goodness from within, from serotonin in our gut, that is released when we're living more true to who we wanna be, more true to our values. So if you've ever thought of being proud of yourself by living life the right way in a way that you're proud of and you feel this warming sensation in your chest and your gut and you feel goosebumps, that is serotonin. And so that's what we want to teach ourselves is how to transition from a dopamine fueled life into a serotonin fueled life where we're not pursuing these hits of pleasure all the time. We're pursuing constant long-lasting sustainable well-being that serotonin produces. And so that's what I really try to focus my life around now is living in alignment with the values, who I want to be, so that ⁓ I get a different feel-good experience. One that is true every day, not that I have to chase like dopamine. you... okay, so does that answer your question? Chris Stockton: I gotcha. It does. It does. ⁓ guess and then once, like you said, all hope is gone throughout our own brain is when people make that final action, I guess. George Haymaker III: Yeah, they've got a choice to make and that was same as me. I I tried to kill myself. ⁓ didn't, you know, obviously didn't go through with it. ⁓ but it was touch and go that last weekend before I went into rehab. I could have gone either way and you are feeling so shitty, so desperate, so hopeless that I'm telling you it's an option. It was for me and I've heard stories from other people. And so it's that moment of truth where you get the decision, do you want to try again? So the hopeful message I have for people is that your brain is resilient, it can respond, it can heal. You can teach it how to enjoy normal life pleasures again. You can teach it how to repattern itself with more helpful thoughts, emotions and behaviors. You've trained your brain to be how it is now through your life and the things that you've experienced and you've developed thoughts, emotions and behaviors as a result. You can just as easily start over again and retrain it to be different. Chris Stockton: love that. So I guess my final question on this is if someone's listening right now, you know, they're still functioning, they're still dependable, still carrying everyone else, but they probably feel like they're dissipating or fading, if you will. ⁓ What truth do they need to hear from you right now? George Haymaker III: Well, ⁓ you know, it gets down to deciding. And there's a couple of different parts of the brain. So there's the front part, which is the part that imagines. You know, life being different, life being better. Then there's the back part of the brain, which we've been talking about today, that's predicting your thoughts, emotions and behaviors. And so we have to decide, do we want to listen to the front part of our brain that wants it to be different, knowing that there is a process and some work ahead to retrain the back part of the brain to come along with the front part of the brain, or do we want to just leave it the way it is and allow the back part of the brain to run our life? So all it really is is like an operating system, like your computer, where it needs to be updated. We need to update the back part of the brain with what we know the front part of the brain wants to become. And if you have the wherewithal to wanna do that and have your life be better, it's available to you. If you don't, then that's your call. but your brain will continue to surface the same thoughts, emotions and behaviors that are bothering you now because it doesn't know any different and it's just doing its job. So it's incredibly hopeful, but you just have to decide that enough is enough and I will not go out this way. I do not want to end up 10, 20 years from now doing the same stuff, having the same experience and having regrets. And that's what it took for me was sitting in that eight by 10 room, going through withdrawals, asking myself, did I wanna go out of this world that way? Was this what I wanted to be known for? And is this all I wanted my life to have meant? And that was enough for me to say, no, I'm gonna try again. Chris Stockton: That's amazing. Like I said earlier, I'm glad you're still with us. I'm glad you, you know, got as far as you did in this journey. And that's, that's the thing is no one in this world is better without anybody. George Haymaker III: Yeah. Yeah, and there's just so much beauty to be had. And I know that what I'm saying to some people may sound a little far-fetched and trust me, I thought the same thing. I did. And that's why I just have dedicated my life to this, the rest of my life, this new career I have, helping people ⁓ transform themselves and their mental experience. Because I know what it can do for people. I know how valuable it is. There's nothing I've done in my life that even comes close To doing giving me the reward that this does seeing people transform And and everybody out there, especially if you're a first responder. I mean you make your You went into this to help people So help yourself You know, I mean why is it that you you know Everybody needs help. The brain is a really hard working organ and when we we put it under the conditions that you guys put it under No wonder it struggles It's only natural So, know, let's be kind to our brains and understand that the only reason it's giving us what it's giving us in terms of our mental experience is because we've Exposed it to the things that we've exposed it to and it's done its best job to predict How we should think feel and behave to get us through life And that's it And if it's not helpful, it's okay The brain has just done the best that it could do and it needs your help to tell it what to do different It's not going to find these things on its own. That's not how it's designed. It's designed to give you Its best guess based on what it's already learned So if it doesn't know enough, we have to teach it some more, doing different ways that we would prefer. Chris Stockton: I love it. And I really appreciate you coming on today, being honest about, you the pressures that people can actually feel and how to overcome them. A lot of people really needed to hear this. Hopefully they do. ⁓ If people want to reach out to you or follow you, learn more about you, how or where would they go to find all that? George Haymaker III: Yeah, come see me at georgehamaker.com. It's H-A-Y-M-A-K-E-R georgehamaker.com. It's my website. You can schedule a call with me where we can just have a 30 minute free call to talk about what's going on with you. And then if you'd like to work together to improve your life, we can do that. You can find me on LinkedIn, ⁓ George Hamaker. ⁓ Those are probably the best, most immediate ways. Chris Stockton: Thank you, George.