When your brain starts to feel that

negative emotion, it needs that emotion

to go away. And if the best answer that

you've got is the addictive substance,

that's what you're going to use.

>> And I hate to say it, but the cure for

addiction, the only cure I've seen, and

not like these overpriced rehabs or a

lot of these fraudulent fixes that are

sold to people.

And there there good people who will

support you. Alcoholics Anonymous, I

think by and large is a good

organization. It's not the only one.

Um

the cure for addiction is suffering.

You suffer enough

that something inside you goes, "I'm

done."

And I'm very lucky because I hit that

point before I lost

really the things that were the most

important to me. It was not my career or

money. It was my relationship with my

kids. And when I felt as if

it impacted them,

I recognized it.

It was the worst day of my life.

I made amends.

And I for a while I thought maybe this

is temporary. Maybe this is a feeling

that's going to go away. But since that

day, I swear to Christ, I have not

[clears throat]

ever wanted to drink once.

>> So this is fascinating. So when I was a

second-year resident at Mass General

Hospital, I would hear this from my

patients. So sometimes you you have a

patient who comes in who's got like

heart disease or they're in the

emergency room with like hypertensive

crisis or something like that. And

people will say like, you know, when

overcoming addiction like enough is

enough. One day you wake up and enough

is enough. And you've suffered enough at

that point. And once you've suffered

enough through the addiction of or the

cure for addiction is suffering. And so

then I'd be like, "What happens on that

day? How do you wake up one day and you

say to yourself enough is enough?"

Because if this is the solution to

addiction, to wake up one day

and enough is enough,

how do we get people to consistently do

that? So I started looking at some

research. This is from years ago. And

one of the shocking things that I

learned in residency was that over 50%

of people who overcome addiction do so

without any medical intervention. So,

most people are solving this problem on

their own. And And Ben Affleck talks

about these overpriced rehabs, which I

agree with to a certain degree. So, the

the sad truth if you look at these

high-priced rehabs is many of them have

a business model of recurring customers.

And I know people will sort of say this

about like medical professionals and

it's like, "Yeah, we want to keep people

sick and like that's how we make money."

I've worked at several rehabs and I've

seen two different kinds of rehabs.

There are those that practice

evidence-based treatment and really try

to help people get sober. Those can be

amazing. And there are those that give

people basically a 30-day vacation. And

the key thing is the aftercare plan. So,

what are you going to do to maintain

sobriety when you leave? And what I

noticed is a lot of these these rehabs

are very very very amazing while you're

there and then they have no aftercare

plan. And they sort of have a good

justification for there like, "Look, our

job is these 30 days, not what happens

afterward." But, the question still

remains, how do you get to enough is

enough? Right? Because if that's the

answer, waking up one day and you say,

"You know, enough is enough. I've been

wasting 10 years of my life sitting at

home, playing video games, watching

porn. Enough is enough. Now, I'm going

to do something with my life." How do

you get there? How do you reproduce

that? And this is where I learned

something really fascinating as I was

trying to figure out, how do I find this

point with my patients? One of the

biggest mistakes I see people make,

especially today on the internet, don't

confuse a lack of progress with a lack

of progress. So, this is just the way

that the brain works. So, in 1983, there

was something called the Libet

experiment. There's a button. All the

experiment is is you hit it with your

right hand or you hit it with your left

hand. That's it. And they asked people,

"Let us know when you decide which hand

to use." And so, you say, "Okay, I've

decided right hand." And you hit the

button. They say, "Okay, I've decided

left hand." And you hit the button. You

just do that a bunch of times. And while

you're doing this experiment, you have

electrodes hooked up to your head. And

what scientists were able to predict is

which decision you would make. They can

detect about 500 milliseconds before you

make a decision, which decision you're

going to make. So, they can tell you

whether you're going to pick right hand

or left hand by measuring the electrical

activity in the brain. Basically, a

bunch of neuroscientists are like, "Free

will doesn't exist. By the time you

think you make a decision, your brain

has been making lots of calculations

without your knowledge. Your brain makes

a decision, and then you become aware of

it. You think you're making the

decision, but you're not making the

decision." Y'all, if y'all want to learn

a little bit more, by all means, watch

another YouTube video. If you guys are

actually interested in finding the

practical tools to change on your own,

that's where memberships comes in.

>> [music]

>> And if y'all are interested in getting

some help or achieving a particular

milestone 4 weeks, 8 weeks, or 12

[music] weeks from now, check out

coaching.

So, if y'all are interested, check out

the link in the description below.

So, here's a key thing that a lot of

people don't understand. When you go

through life, you're doing something,

doing something, doing something, doing

something. Nothing's working, nothing's

working, nothing's working, nothing's

working. You say, "I'm stuck. The

problem has not been solved." In Ben

Affleck's case, struggling with alcohol

addiction for who knows how many years,

hasn't solved the problem, what hasn't

solved Well, one day he wakes up and he

says, "Enough is enough." How does your

brain decide? I'd say it's kind of like

picking a tomato, right? So, if I go to

my friend and I say, "Hey, how do you

get a tomato?" And he says, "You go

outside and you pluck tomatoes, and then

you have tomatoes." This is in medicine

what we call the proximal cause, the

final step before the outcome happens.

The problem with the internet is that

there is an overwhelming emphasis on

proximal causes. So, this clip of Ben

Affleck 60 seconds has 19 million views.

So, everyone's looking at this and

thinking to themselves, "I just need to

wake up and one day say enough is

enough. That's like saying how do you

find tomatoes? You go outside and you

pick pluck them. But the process to

reproduce that is not go outside and

pluck them. It's till the soil, plant

the seed, water it every day, tons of

actions that result in zero tomatoes.

And then finally, the last step, step 99

to 100, the final step you take is take

the tomato. That's what Ben Affleck is

talking about. Enough is enough. And

this is what's so confusing about this

is when people watch this, right? We

think I want to reproduce this. How do I

wake up and say to myself, enough is

enough? How do I do that? How do I find

it's enough suffering, right? That's he

says, I suffered enough. That's not

actually correct. There is so much more

that went into this. Cuz here's the

thing, he went to all these fancy

rehabs, right? Got all this addiction

treatment, did Alcoholics Anonymous.

Hold on a second. What is the influence

of all the psychotherapy that he did for

30 days while he was there? Whatever

amount of aftercare he got, whatever

amount of AA meetings that he did, the

internal reflections that he did, laying

awake at night, taking a walk in the

morning, going for a swim, working out

with someone, talking to somebody else,

where does all of that factor in? And

this is the problem, right? So if you

were struggling with something and you

were looking at someone talking on the

internet, myself included, and they're

like, this is the way. You need to

understand that there's a thousand

inputs that will result in enough is

enough. And so the biggest mistake that

I see people make is confusing a lack of

progress with a lack of progress. Just

because you don't have tomatoes in your

hand does not mean that you're actually

progressing. And this is what makes this

so hard, because what's happening in

your brain is you are investing effort,

right? I till the soil, I plant a seed,

I water it for 10 days. I've put in a

bunch of effort, zero yield. Then put in

water for another 10 days, zero yield.

Then you water one day and you get

tomatoes. You water one day and you get

tomatoes. Now I'm watering over 10 days

and I get 100 tomatoes. So the tricky

thing is that when we are outcome

focused, which is the bias that

everybody on the internet has, right?

They're like, here's how you make a $100

million YouTube channel. Here's how you

write a best-selling novel. Here's how

you do this. Here's how you outcome,

outcome. Here's how you get laid with

Here's how you do this, do

this, do this. Follow this plan, follow

this plan, follow this plan. It's not

how it works. Right? And the crazy thing

he says, "Enough is enough. How do you

define enough? What amount of

suffering?" The someone's subjective

experience of something is not the same

as a data-driven approach to understand

how to cultivate that final action. And

so when it comes to addiction, like I'll

give you guys a couple of examples,

right? So if you want to get to the

point of enough is enough, here's a

super high-level view. First thing that

you need, which he actually talks about,

is a competing interest. So what a lot

of people don't realize, they're like,

"Oh, I need to stop. How do I stop?"

Everyone's focused on the behavior. You

don't need I mean, focusing on the

behavior is important. It's one piece of

the puzzle. But the the drive is very

important, right? The motivation is very

important. You have to have a good

enough reason to stop. And this is where

things get tricky and fun. Because if

you're struggling with something, you

may say to me, "Dr. K, I know I need to

stop. This is ruining my life. I've been

stuck at home for 10 years. Pornography

addiction is ruining my life. I have

erectile dysfunction. I've never been on

a date or whatever." What whatever

All of these things are bad. This is all

ruining my life. I don't want those

things. I Like this is really important

to me. Except it's all a scam run by

your mind, right? So this is simply how

motivation works, right? Your brain has

competing interests. It's like, I want

to do this, I don't want to do this. And

one of the This is so fascinating as a

psychiatrist. When people come into my

office and they say, "Yeah, the

addiction is ruining my life." And they

get they consciously give me 10 reasons.

None of those are where the money is.

That is actually misdirection done by

their unconscious mind to keep them away

from what really hurts. It's almost like

I don't know if this makes sense. It's

almost like a script. Oh yeah, this

addiction is destroying my life. It's

destroying this. It's destroying this.

It's destroying this. It's destroying

this. But what really bothers them is if

I stop, I have to face the guilt of

having screwed up the last 10 years of

my life. It's not that I've I want to

build my life. I want to build my life.

But oh my god, I hate myself because now

I've wasted 10 years of my life. I

should have conquered this earlier. I

could have conquered this earlier, but I

didn't do it and I can't tolerate that.

So instead, I look somewhere else. And

anytime you have something bad in your

life that your mind ruminates on over

and over and over again. See, this is

what people don't understand.

Rumination, you think oh I want to stop

thinking these thoughts. I want to stop

thinking these thoughts. Everything in

your body and your mind has a function.

What is the function of rumination? As

long as we keep chewing on this thing a

thousand times, we won't look at other

things. And what's really fascinating

about this is if you look at rumination

and you try to focus on other things,

your brain will shift back. And what I

sort of noticed as a psychiatrist is the

closer we got to the answer, the harder

the rumination would trigger and the

more the person would snap back. Because

that's what they're trying to avoid. So

the first thing that you need is a

competing interest. You need a reason

that is good enough to stop. Second

thing, generally speaking, that you

need. In order for something to be

addictive, it requires two things. The

ability to give pleasure and the ability

to take away pain. Something really

important to understand, with human

beings, you can't take something away,

you have to replace it. You can pause

something for a little while, but until

you have a sustainable replacement, the

behavior will just reemerge because of

the behavior is designed to solve a

problem, right? So, if someone is poor

and hungry, I can get them to stop

stealing for a day, 2 days, 3 days, 4

days, 5 days, but unless they have some

way to get food, they're going to go

back to stealing, they're going to go

back to what they know. So, you need a

competing interest. And when it comes to

the addiction, the biggest thing that I

find that people need is an alternate

way to deal with negative emotions.

Because over time, when you're addicted

to something, the pleasure that the

addiction gives you starts to develop a

tolerance. And so, this idea behind

heroin use and chasing the dragon is

that the first time you use heroin, it's

amazing. And every subsequent time, you

are chasing that first experience.

You're looking for a repeat of that, but

it's never going to come again. And you

keep looking, and you keep looking, and

you keep looking, and the more you play,

the less fun you have, right? Dota 2,

League of Legends, Valorant, take your

pick. Like, there's nothing that beats

Wow Classic. And in order to try to

recapture the glory days of Wow Classic,

what do they do? They really re-release

Wow Classic. And do we make new video

games anymore? No, we remaster old ones.

Because we're all chasing the dragon

when it comes to the gaming industry.

Back in the good old days, when we had

physical discs, and people made games

with heart and spirit, without

microtransactions, back in the days when

games were good. Give me that. So, if

you are trying to overcome an addiction,

you need a way to deal with your

negative emotions. So, sometimes

something like therapy works well for

this, meditation works well for this.

And generally speaking, those 50% of

people who overcome addictions without,

you know, therapy or anything like that,

they're still discovering alternate

ways. So, I would bet you money that if

you ask Ben Affleck when you're having a

bad day 15 years ago, what are the

things that you used to do to take care

of yourself, and today, what are the

things that you do to take care of

yourself? And I I'm sure you will find

all manner of daily or weekly emotional

things that they do. So, emotional

regulation is critical because when your

brain starts to feel that negative

emotion, it needs that emotion to go

away. And if the best answer that you've

got is the addictive substance, that's

what you're going to use. So, when I

work with people with pornography

addiction, people think that it's about

sex. They think it's about lust. It's

not. It's about emotional regulation.

Porn is really good at numbing the

negative emotions in your brain. So, you

have to develop that. And here's the

tricky thing, right? So, don't confuse a

lack of progress with a lack of

progress. If you start meditating every

day, if you do Nadi Shodhana and

Kapalabhati and Manipura Chakra Sadhana

for to digest and emotionally process

and emotionally regulate all this stuff,

you'll do that stuff for 90 days and

you'll still be addicted. And so, you'll

look at all this meditation that you're

doing and you'll say it didn't solve the

problem. It's a waste of time. Don't

confuse a lack of progress with lack of

progress. Third thing that all addicts

have to do, and this is probably in some

ways the hardest and in some ways the

easiest. They have to change their

environment. What a lot of people don't

understand is people think addiction is

a moral failing, but what we now know is

that addiction is an environmental

disease. Everyone's like, "Oh, like I'm

genetically predisposed and all this

stuff." This is fascinating, okay? So,

43% of US soldiers in Vietnam used

narcotics, okay? 34% of people were

using heroin. And when they came back,

that number dropped to 7%. See, we think

that an addiction is something that is

inside you. An addiction is an

a genetic vulnerability that meets an

environment. These rates dropped, and

it's not like, let me tell you guys, you

know, I wasn't alive back then, but I

got to say, if you guys think these

soldiers coming back from Vietnam were

getting platinum level Massachusetts

General Hospital Harvard Medical School

level of addiction care when they came

back, you'd be surprised they didn't get

They didn't get any care, and the

number drops astronomically. So,

post-Vietnam narcotic use for those

first addicted in Vietnam. So, of the 90

people, 65 quit all narcotics. 33

continued to use without any addiction,

and only two out of the 90 that

developed an addiction still had

addiction. Like, this is insane, right?

So, we have this idea that, "Oh,

addiction is a moral failing." Not true.

Then we've got all this neuro science.

Uh genetics. Not your fault, bro. The

truth of the matter is that addiction is

an environmental illness, right? And

this is the most striking when I learned

this particular set. I'm sure there's

different data here and there, but I

think this is like really cool because

this is when we learn this. We're like,

"Hold on a second. 90 people were

addicted to narcotics in Vietnam, and

when we came back, only two of them

were?" I I I could have misinterpreted

the table a little bit, but the broader

point still stands. And this is the

challenge, right? So, this is like the

hard part is like people watch me on the

internet, and you think, "Oh, Dr. K,

like in these four walls, teach me

something that I can change about myself

so that in this environment, I can be

different within the environment." And I

will do that. I've tried to do that.

We're going to do that some today,

right? because we have to play the hand

that we're dealt. Not all of y'all have

the opportunity to move across country

to wherever and change your environment.

So, there are certain things that you

can do internally within an environment,

and that most important environment is

this here. See, we think that our body

and our mind are us. They're not us.

They are the environment in which we

exist, right? Your body is your most

basic form of environment. Your mind is

the most basic, most proximal

environment, technically, right? Because

your mind does things, and then you have

to deal with the consequences of

sunshine or rain or clouds or

thunderstorms in your own head. So, if

you are trying to overcome an addiction,

the environment needs to change. Your

friend group needs to change. If you are

addicted to alcohol and you're part of a

fraternity where you guys go to bars all

the time and you have frat parties all

the time, really hard to kick the

addiction. That's a huge part of what

Alcoholics Anonymous offers. Cuz what do

people in AA do? They grind meetings.

Why do they grind meetings? Because

while you're grinding a meeting, you're

not grinding your bar tab. So, as you

change your environment, the the

strength of the addiction will start to

weaken. And it's not any one of these

things, right? These are the three core

things that I try to do with all of my

patients who have an addiction. Why?

What's the competing interest? Number

two, how are we going to manage your

emotions? And number three, how are we

going to change your environment, which

includes things like triggers? Are we

going to stop going to happy hour, stop

going to bars, find a new friend group,

pick up frisbee golf, go to the dog

park, you're going to get a dog and

you're going to start going to the dog

park. Huge. And as you implement these

things, one day you will wake up and

your mind will say, "Enough is enough."

And you'll think, "Ah, I have done it."

Hey y'all, thanks for watching the

video. If y'all want more information on

this subconscious processing, we have a

two-hour deep dive into decision-making

over on the membership side.