HealthyGamerGG - Can people even change?

Episode Date: April 19, 2022

Today Doctor K talks about addictions, how to turn over a new leaf, subconscious change, and more! Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/healthygamergg/donationsAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Like, how'd you quit alcohol? She's like, I woke up one day and just knew enough was enough. It's like RNG, like loot box kind of business where it's like every day your mind wakes up. Every day you get hammered and you vomit and you get an ulcer. You open a loot box. And in the loot box, there's a one out of a thousand chance that your mind will be like, enough is enough. And then you won. There's actually a subconscious, like work that's being done.

Like, much like your computer, you know, I can. can look at the screen and I can see an image, but there's like thousands or millions of calculations going on the processor like all the time. They go to rehab. Two weeks. They're clean. They leave. They're clean for a week. They relapse. Oh, crap. Back to square one. And so this happens, right? They relapse. Go back to square one, back to square one, except it's not back to square one. Does Dr. K ever explain how people turn over new leaves? I love seeing posts here or in Reddit about success stories or people who are depressed and posts before slash after photos of cleaning their room or losing weight, I always skimmed through the comments to find out how they got their success. But if someone

asks how do they did it, and the O.P responds, they say something like, I just got tired of having a shitty life and decided to change, which is pretty worthless advice to me. I'm tired of not being able to change my life. For instance, I'm so miserable in my trashed, messy room, and I, if I, feel like I would do anything to have cleaned it, but I can never get myself to clean it. It reminds me of the motivation focus video where Dr. K, where he talks about people getting themselves to the gym by saying, just go to the gym, which is what they see, but it's actually unhelpful and inaccurate advice for everyone watching. Any tips? I'm so miserable. I could logically improve my life so easily, but if I could just get off my ass. Like I know logically that cleaning my

room would only take a few hours, and I have the time, but never the motivation. As a result, I have no control over my life. Great question. Everyone's like, turn over a new leaf, man. I woke up one day and I realized enough is enough. I'd had enough. The question is like, why couldn't you wake up yesterday and realize enough is enough? Why couldn't I wake up five years ago and realize that League of Legends, I'm done with you. Right? What the hell is going on? You wake up one day in your mind is just like, yeah, I had enough.

I'm going to start living my life regular now. How does that work? So good news is that we know. There's an answer to this question. Okay. So the first thing to understand. So we're going to talk about addictions. So that's what I have experience in.

And I think it really illustrates this problem well. So one of the things that can, use the hell out of me. Okay. So I'm, I'm training to become a psychiatrist, okay? I'm not really too interested in addictions, by the way. So this is my first, second year of psychiatry training. I'm primarily interested in complementary and I'll turn to the medicine. So I'm, like, going to, like, do like, mind-body stuff. I was, like, super into mind-body stuff. So I was, like, you know, working with patients with cancer and things like that, pain, chronic pain, all this kind of stuff. Right. And then they're the addicts. And some people really like addictions,

but like homeless people coming into the emergency room, they smell bad, they're addicted, they just come in week after week after week. They're using all the time and like, you know, these are the people like, I can't do addiction medicine. It smells too bad. So then I talk to them and I get confused.

Because sometimes you'll get someone in your outpatient clinic, right? So like I'll see this homeless person who comes in every weekend because he's drunk. And then like during the week I'll see someone who used to be. drunk. And I'll ask them. So I remember there was a 50-year-old woman who used to have a drinking problem. Now she seems fine. It's like doesn't have a drinking problem. She's like coming in with like anxiety or whatever. Like how'd you quit alcohol? She's like, I woke up one day and just knew enough was enough. When I talked to more people and I'm like, how'd you quit alcohol? They're like,

I just woke up one day and knew like it was too much. It had gone too far. And I was like, what's too far? And they're like, I don't know. I just woke up one day and it's like, I'd gone too far. So I got, I got kind of confused. I was like, what the hell is this? Like some people just randomly, what is like a coin flip? Like, it's like RNG, like loot box kind of business where it's like every day your mind wakes up. Every day you get hammered and you vomit and you get an ulcer. You open a loot box. And in the loot box, there's a one out of a thousand chance that your mind will be like, enough is enough. and then you won. Right? Is that really what is going on?

Like that, there's got to be more to it. There's got to be some semblance to this, right? There has to be something going on. So then I started learning some addiction psychiatry, and we came across something called motivational interviewing. And the big thing that I learned is that our mind is subconsciously changing without our awareness.

So this is the first thing to understand. So we sort of understand this kind of, right? So like, you know, when you like are struggling to understand something and it clicks? So that's like an example of I don't understand it, I don't understand it, I don't understand, and it clicks. Oh, now I get it. But what is the process that is going on? Is it basically RNG? No.

There's actually a subconscious like work that's being done. Like, much like your computer, you know, I can look at the screen and I can see an image, but there's like thousands or millions of calculations going on the processor like all the time. Even with the monitor off, there's like stuff going on. So your brain is the same way. Your mind is the same way. There's tons of subconscious processing. This is something that people with addictions don't understand and it really causes problems.

So, for example, some people will like, okay, like enough is enough. I'm going to be sober. They go to rehab. Two weeks. They're clean. They leave. They're clean for a week. They relapse.

Oh, crap. Back to square one. You go on a six-month binge. Come back. I need to get clean. How long were you sober last time? I was sober for three weeks. Two of those were in rehab, so I didn't have access to alcohol.

So really one week is what counts. Okay, let's give it another shot. Go to rehab. Two weeks. This time they're sober for two months. They relapse. Go on a binge for eight months. come back. And so this happens, right? They relapse, go back to square one, back to square one,

except it's not back to square one. I know it sounds kind of weird, but your brain is actually learning how to relapse less. This is the skill. Right? We think about sobriety, and this is a problem with our conception. So we think about these things as binary. Turn over a new leaf is binary. it's like clear progress from like A to B. The leaf is turned over. It's done. It's not like that. The mind is fluid.

We're going to flip that leaf back over and then we're going to flip it again. So what should you learn? You should learn the skill of flipping the leaf. Because right now what happens is I flip the leaf once. I make progress. I'm sober for 30 days. Woohoo. And then I relapse.

And then I beat myself up. Not only did I relapse. Now I have to deal with the shit. shame and the self-judgment of I screwed it up. I had everything and I screwed it up. Oh my God, I screwed it up. And then you need to drink even more because like now there's like not only the addiction, but now there's like the screwed up psychology of I screwed up. There's the shame that goes with that. There's the patheticness that goes with that. There's a sense of powerlessness that goes with that. We pile up all these negative emotions because we had turned over that leaf and

it flipped over again and I am to blame. And so it makes it. it twice as hard. First thing you got to understand is that turning over a new leaf is a process. It's going to flip back over and we're going to learn how to flip it again. It's a subconscious process. It happens slowly. So there's certain things that you can do to accelerate it, which we'll talk about in a second. So like turning over a new leaf is not like something that you just do. It's something that happens for a long time and then like it sort of gets done. So like I'd almost say it's kind of like you know, when you're microwaving something or like baking a cookie. Say baking a cookie. So you put the cookie in. Cookies in the oven for 15 minutes. Ding, you open it. Now the cookie

is cooked. You put in dough, you get out of cookie. But eat, you know, the time that the dough goes into the oven, at the time that you pull the cookie out of the oven, you're not aware of the change that going on. But the change is happening constantly in the background. It's baking, heating up, melting, getting gooey. And then it comes out. And so what we see is we see the cookie dough and we see the baked cookie. And you look at yourself and you say, I have cookie dough.

You look over here and you say, there's this crispy, chewy cookie cookie in the middle. Chew in the middle, crispy on the outside. You smell that cookie dough, right? Because you can smell it. You can't smell the dough. But we're all ignorant of the oven. We're all ignorant of the time it takes.

All we see is the people who like go to the gym every day. We don't see the four years it took them to start going to the gym. We don't see that, right? Or sure, we see that, but we see it at everyone who's not at the gym. You go to the grocery store. There's like a thousand people who are struggling to go to the gym. But we don't realize, we don't connect those dots. So it's a subconscious process that happens slowly. Now, there are certain things that you can do to facilitate this process. And this is the concept of stages of change in motivational interviewing. So there are people that are five fundamental psychological stages.

Okay? The first is something called pre-contemplative. I'm not thinking about it yet. I'm not thinking about turning over a new leaf. I don't need to turn over a new leaf. I don't want to turn over a new leaf. This is pre-contemplative. In addiction, we also call this denial.

This person is in denial. They don't think they have a problem. They're not contemplating a change. Okay? Second stage of change is contemplative. Now I'm thinking about it, but I'm not ready to make a change. So there are advantages to turn it over this newly, but there are also disadvantages. This is where most people trip up. Because when we get to this sentence, okay, I'm so miserable,

I could logically improve my life so easily if I could just get off my ass. So what does this person not understand? The downside of getting off of your ass, right? Because they're seeing that logically, I could get all these benefits, but what does it cost you? This is the contemplative stage. So the contemplative stage is characterized by ambivalence, which means internal conflict. And so what happens is people look for solutions, but internally they're not motivated to change. This is why the self-help industry is a thing. Why do people keep buying self-help books? Because self-help books give you solutions that you're not going to engage in.

That's how they work. They prey on the contemplative. Because remember, the pre-contemplative person doesn't have a problem. so he doesn't even need the self-help book. It's the contemplative person who's not motivated to change but wants to change that will buy the book

that will make things easy for me. That's what you're looking for from a book. You're looking to magically remove the cost of changing. So when you're contemplative, you have internal conflicts. So there's a part of you that wants to change. There's a part of you that doesn't want to change.

The problem is, all we see is, oh my God, imagine how awesome I like. would be logically, it would be so much better if I could change. If I could change, oh my God, this would be great, this would be great, this. I can do this, I can do this, I can do this. We never look at what it costs us to change. And the truth of the matter is that the cost of changing is higher than the cost of staying the same. That's why we stay the same. Why do you think people stay addicted to stuff? It's because like as long as I have the alcohol, like, I don't need to

worry about my problems. Right? So like now you give someone a choice. Hey, today I give you a choice. drink this, possibly you'll vomit, but for the next eight hours, you won't have to worry about a damn thing. I don't want to worry about anything for eight hours. I'll take the bottle because I don't vomit every time. So we don't think about the cost. We're stuck in this ambivalence. There's a part of us that wants to change, part of us that doesn't want to change. So what do you do if you're ambivalent?

Think about the cost, right? Really think about, like, what would happen if I changed? What would I have to give up if I changed? This is where, like, your mind will say there's nothing. There's no point. You don't get anything from doing this. Of course you get something to do this. You would not be doing this unless you got something from it.

And the more idiotic, it seems, the stronger the reinforcement is, right? So if we look at something like opiate addiction, opiate addiction ruins lives on a colossal scale. I'm going to get divorced. My kids are going to hate me. I'm going to burn through my life savings. I'm going to lose my job. I'm going to get HIV. I'm going to get endocarditis.

I'm going to become homeless. I'm going to be sexually assaulted. Yeah, I'll take the heroin. So what people need to understand is the more you throw your life away, think about how much the heroin has to give you in order to pay that price. It has to be greater than that. We don't make trades, right, unless they're good for us as human beings. So if you're stuck, you need to really think about what do I get out of being here?

And you may say, oh, I get nothing. miserable. No, you get something. Because here's what happens. When you try to change, you start paying that cost. And that's why you don't follow through with the change. Because you start paying the cost and you're like, oh, hell no. Right? We talked early about someone giving up weed because of their anxiety. What do you that person does when they skip a day of smoking? Oh, hell no. That's what your mind says. So you have to honor that part, right? So instead of ignoring it, realize, okay, I'm really getting something to this, then you can actually make a choice.

Right, but you have to know what you're paying for up front. And if you know what you're paying for up front, then you're more likely to pay it. You're more likely to follow through. You're more likely to actually turn over that new leaf. Because turning over the new leaf isn't the problem. The problem is keeping the new leaf that way, not flipping it back, not slipping back into patterns.

So instead of people are like, oh, how do I start going to the gym? You've been to the gym, hopefully, once before. the question is, why did you stop? What happened within you that caused you to stop? So after the contemplative phase comes the planning phase. This is where people like, okay, like I really do want to change. People want to jump to one solution where that's where like at the planning phase we have to really think through our options. What's the best way to change? What gives us the greatest chance for success? Right? How do I actually like, should I go to the gym?

Should I like do crossfit? Should I order weights at home? Should I do body weight exercises? Should I do like fitness stuff on YouTube, should I get a Peloton, like what works for me? So you have to really think about your whole situation, what will set you up for success the best. Then you give it a shot. Then you go to the action phase. Fourth cognitive stage.

If you set up planning properly, it'll make your action more likely to succeed. And then you enter maintenance or relapse, which is the fifth phase. So either you're good then or you screw up and you kind of go back to one of the earlier stages. Like, ah, it's not for me. You're back to pre-contemplative.

or like, man, that really, like, I don't really want to do that anymore. There's a part of me that wants to be healthy, but there's a part of me that doesn't. I think it is our lack of awareness of internal conflict, which is why it feels like there's an iceberg underneath the surface when we try to change. Because we're not aware of that iceberg. It's there. We need to bring it to the surface through awareness. And awareness of the cost is the first thing.

So if you're stuck and you want to turn over a new leaf, the main question that most of you all probably need to ask yourselves is what is the price of turning over to the new leaf and you your mind will jump to one answer and you'll think oh that's not so fit like you know that's easy price to pay but then when you try to actually do it you'll notice all kinds of other prices prices costs that you didn't realize you're going to be small stuff too it'll like nickel and dime you to death going to the gym means waking up at 7 a.m. Holy crap I didn't even think about that. that. I don't want to wake up at seven. I'm not willing to wake up at seven. Waking up at seven means trying to go to bed at 10 p.m., which doesn't work because I'm tossing and

turning all night. I'm not falling to sleep anyway. Let me just hop back on the computer. Let me watch something. It takes me four hours to fall asleep. Screw that. Then I'm tired the next day. So then you're like, mine is thinking, like, why would I want to toss and turn for four hours to not go to the gym next morning because I'm too tired? That's the cost. Yeah, you've got to do that again. But I'm not even going to the gym. Yeah, why the hell would I pay the price of tossing and turning for four hours if I'm not even going to the gym? Because if you do that enough, maybe one day you'll go to the gym. Fuck that. And that's why we don't change. Make sense? So how do you turn over a new leaf? Try to think a little bit about where you are on the spectrum.

Is it really a problem? Do you think it's a problem? Are you conflicted? And even after the conflict, have you really thought through the best way to turn over the new leaf? Right? Because once again, he's thinking, oh, turning over the leaf is binary. How do you turn over new leaf? No, there's a thousand ways to turn it over. Right? You can turn it over this way.

You can turn it over that way. You can turn it over this way. And they all make a difference for your likelihood of success. Then there's the action. You really have to plan it out, right? What am I going to do? When am I going to do it? Where am I going to do it?

And then there's the action. Then there's feedback over the action. It may not work. It may work. It may work partially. okay, like how do we want to kind of change that a little bit? Griffin the mythic is saying, Dr. Kay, everything is so hard,

you're damn right it is. But only at the beginning. The realization that everything is so hard is a consequence of awareness. Because our whole lives we try to forget. And once we step into our like basement, which we've been throwing crap into for a long time, it looks overwhelming.

The good news is that it only feels so hard at the very beginning. The only reason it's so hard is because we've left, we've neglected it for a decade. That's why there's so much crap to do. If you feel like it feels hard, you're on the right path. You can even let it discourage you, but don't let it stop you from acting.

Do something. Tiny step. Tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, tiny, keep taking steps. Because then what you'll do is it'll start to get easier. And then it's like, then you're off to the races. Then life becomes easy. And I kid you not, life can absolutely be easy.

Life can be joyous. Life can be easy. Life can be successful. All of these things are possible. And the great irony is that it turns out to be a lot easier than most people think. Am I sure? In my experience, yes. Does it apply to you?

I hope so. is it worked for a hundred people I've taught, a thousand people I've taught, I don't know, 100 people, sure. Just like most things in life, once you get into it, it turns out to be easier than you expected. Isn't it always a bit scary, though, Dr. Kay? Not always. At the beginning, sure. At the beginning, it's always scary.

When you're ignorant, it's always scary. When there's an unknown, it's always scary. But once you know, once you have experience, once you have confidence, is there a danger? Sure, sure, but is it scary? No longer. Because you have faith in yourself. Then even the negative outcomes stop being scary. But there are tragedies that are too devastating. No, they've been devastating thus far. They don't need to be going forward.