Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Healing Dependency on Crisis and Chaos with Dr. Scott Lyons

Episode Date: December 20, 2023

Did you know there’s such a thing as Drama Addiction? Today in the Language of Love Conversation, I'm joined by Dr. Scott Lyons, and we're tackling this intriguing topic. From genetics and biochemistry to environmental triggers, we're exploring the roots of this addiction, often linked to trauma and a need to fill emotional voids. Picture drama addicts as thrill-seekers, creating chaos to dodge anxiety and boredom. The catch? This addiction doesn't just affect individuals; it's a relationship wrecking ball. Dr. Scott and I discuss the unsettling impact of drama addiction on connections and share strategies for breaking free. We're big on self-awareness and somatic experiencing as tools to understand and overcome this addiction. By addressing the root causes head-on, we believe in fostering effective recovery. While these techniques are helpful, it's important to address the core issues and underlying causes of drama addiction. When looking for a clinician or support for drama addiction, I suggest seeking someone who specializes in trauma and addiction. A clinician who is trained in somatic experiencing can be very effective in treating drama addiction. Here is a sneak peek at the episode: Drama addiction and its prevalence in our culture Explanation of drama addiction as unnecessary turmoil and intensification of emotions The connection between drama addiction and trauma, dissociation, and filling a void Characteristics of drama addicts, such as focusing on external stimuli and seeking chaos Dynamics of drama addiction in relationships and the role of co-regulation Discussion on drama addicts as energy vampires and fear of intimacy Importance of recognizing and breaking the addiction cycle of drama and stress Strategies for breaking the addiction cycle, including observing reactions and exploring underlying feelings and needs Techniques for managing drama addiction, such as the "step back" and "taking the silverware back" techniques  Visit Dr. Scott's website to learn more about the cool stuff he does. Take a look at his book "Addicted to Drama: Healing Dependency on Crisis and Chaos in Yourself and Others" by Dr. Scott Lyons. You can also connect with Dr. Scott on LinkedIn. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love.

Dr. Scott Lyons is a licensed holistic psychologist, educator, and author of the book Addicted to Drama, Healing Dependency on Crisis and Chaos in Yourself and Others. In this episode of Language of Love Conversations, we are getting into it, not only what drama addiction is and how insidious it is in our culture, but what's underneath it and what can you do to address it and shift out of drama addiction? If you are someone who it feels like you're always in an argument or always in a crisis are always upset about something, or always things are falling apart, or maybe you love and care about someone like that, you are going to love this episode of The Language of Love.

Scott Lyons, welcome. Hello. Thank you for having me. It's such a pleasure to hang out with you again. I know. I did your podcast. Now you're doing mine. And I had actually gotten them mixed up. So I had read almost all of your book before I realized that I was actually doing your podcast, not, not being interviewed, you know, not interviewing you, but being interviewed. But it was cool because I usually, you know, I had read almost the whole book and I will say this. And I think I said this to you when we spoke on your podcast that I read, obviously, as

I'm sure you do, I read, I make it a point. I'm not one of those interviewers that doesn't read the book. I hate when people don't read my book and interview me. I'm just like, at least read the book, you know? At least the cliff notes. Yeah, at least look at the darn thing. So I read a lot of self-help books, obviously, because I'm all about helping people learn to love

and be loved better and manifest their, you know, ideal relationships in life. So all the people I interview are in that vein and I'm reading a lot of self-help books, but this was really good. Thanks. It was not. I mean, a lot of they're all decent, you know, and they make some good points, but a lot of it is like regurgitated stuff you could read and any other self. It doesn't go deeper. It doesn't help you understand how the issues form, which to me is such a big part of resolving the issue that whatever the book is addressing. Yeah. So this book is about being addicted to drama, which a lot of people don't even know

is a thing. I knew was a thing before I read it because a lot of my healing in my own recovery of codependency has been, and I happen to have a few amazing coaches and friends who helped me understand this has been about recognizing my addiction to drama and how many years I spent there. And so I'm not only a recovering codependent, I'm a recovering drama addict. So I'm super interested in diving into this topic with you because I don't think most people recognize when they are a drama, you know, you may recognize, you may not want to see it, but you kind of recognize when you're addicted to a substance, right? Or to sex or to gambling or something, right? But this is much more insidious. So let's just start there. What is

a drama addict? And then maybe we can get into some of the common symptoms and you may recognize yourself for someone you love there so yeah so let's start with the word drama it's we're talking about unnecessary turmoil turmoil it's the over exaggeration it's the intensification it's the unnecessary amount of energy emotion to adapt to function to be in exchange with what's happening in the world around you and within you so it's as and it shows up as the unnecessary turmoil. And the idea of addiction has been a long evolution in the sense that we used to think about addiction as just like, oh, it's a brain disease. That's it. And we didn't really recognize the contribution of the environment. We thought it was just a

genetic component. And now we really identify that the addiction is just as much about genetics and the biochemistry as it is about the ecosystem or the environment to which you were growing up in and the the amount of resources or support you have when we think about an addiction we know there's a commonality between whether it's sex addiction or whether it's gambling or whether it's stress and drama or whether it's cocaine there's these commonalities you know these certain things that make it an addiction, whether it's like we have withdrawal symptoms when we don't have it, it occupies too much of our time. We grow tolerance to it, meaning we need more to get more higher. We need more to feel more alive in the case of a drama addiction.

And so there's these commonalities and there's another commonality that's not as talked about. People like Gabor Mate talk about it, which is it fills the void. Yeah. To me, that's the main thing people have to understand about every addiction, that you're either running from something or to something trying to fill that empty hole in you, right? Yeah. And what so many of us don't understand, it's like, okay, yeah, there's emptiness, but let's go back and go, why is there a void?

Why is there an emptiness? And we can go back to something as simple as dissociation. a dissociation you know when we take a vacation from ourselves so to speak it's an inherent component in our biology to disconnect from ourself to separate to divorce ourself so as not to be overwhelmed by how much we have to feel at any one given time yeah and that can be a life saving strategy especially for a kid i mean many of us wouldn't have survived our childhood traumas if we didn't disassociate if we didn't leave the building so to speak at least intellectually and emotionally right yeah check out exactly anything from just distracting yourself to losing time

right like anywhere in between yeah you're driving in the car and you keep missing the exit and you're like where did i go where where what happened in that space in between or you do everything simple or you get to work and you're like oh my god i don't even remember driving here or you leave work and you don't remember the day of what you had to do or how you made it through the day yeah so we all know to some degree or we might know it even in sex yeah like so many of us oh gosh yeah oh my gosh it's one of the hardest things to help people stop doing so that they can experience pleasure they want is to stop leaving their bodies while they're doing it but that usually like this issue is usually rooted in trauma absolutely so we disconnect we vacate

ourselves as a means of survival. And then there's a void. There's literally an emptiness where we should have been belonging to ourselves. And so, we fill that void with things that distract us from the pain of our own absence from ourselves. And in doing so, it gives us some distraction. It also takes the pain away, especially stress. So, stress is this amazing thing that we often think is just like the big bad bogey monster in the closet. But when we are in a stress response, it releases more energy. So we're more energized. It is distracting. It offers a distraction. So we feel less pain and it is also a pain reliever. It literally blocks the pain receptors. So we feel less pain, which is what happens when you go for a run and you have that

runner's high. Yeah. And so chaos, which a lot of people and I know, you know, I'm like I said, I'm a recovering addict, but I also know a lot of drama addicts. We're going to get into later on how to deal with the drama addicts in your life, not just if you are a drama addict. But I want to just read this thing I highlighted when you were first sort of getting because I think it's a good summary of what you're just saying. What is a drama addict? And what you write is instead of focusing on their own feelings of unmet needs, a person dealing with an addiction to drama will instead focus on an outside stimulus like situations, events, or people. And they may often feel anxious or bored when things are calm. And so first of all, they don't necessarily notice

they're feeling anxious or bored. They're just uncomfortable with the anxiety or boredom. And then they unconsciously, it's not like they're rubbing their hands together and be like, let's go create some chaos so I don't have to feel so anxious. It's not conscious. But then we unconsciously pick a fight or freak out about something or fixate. And there's plenty of drama to fixate in the world right now. We fixate on the drama of the world and we feel that charge and that drama. I've been noticing my addiction revitalizing itself in the midst of current events, right? I have to be really careful about that. But some of the common symptoms, you talked about one of them, which is disassociation, right? And often this feeling

of numbness, which can come with disassociation or just with trauma in general. There's often, I think, a feeling of dread, right? Like the other shoe's about to drop, something really bad is going to happen. And then this feeling of like being alone in the world, like no one's there for you or everyone's abandoned you or it's all up to you or you're shouldering all the burden. And this is a big one that I didn't notice as much in myself because I'm in myself, but I notice in other drama addicts is that they use a lot of this terminology like, you know never like lots of extremes it's the best the best thing i've i've you know or this is the worst thing that's ever you know there's these extremes in their vocabulary and the way

they're experiencing the world yeah it's always something yes you know that common phrase it's always something or why me why can't i just find peace that's all i want and yet at the same time anyone on the outside would be like you're an agent of chaos and everything around you seems to be turmoil and stress and like it's just like and you can feel it we all know like if you think about it for a moment as you're listening think of someone who you just like think of an addiction a drama and see who in your life might fit that category yeah you don't even necessarily know all the symptoms yet, but something internally in you, like an alarm that goes off that says something isn't right. Something is about this person, stirs things up, gets into fights

unnecessarily, exaggerates the situation. Always has a trauma or drama. Always has a trauma or drama. Yeah. Takes one small thing and makes it so big. I mean, I think I gave the example in my book, like blows out a birthday candle with a fire hose. yeah yeah it's like that you know it's just like and you can feel the dissonance between how much energy and attention and emotion is necessary and how much is used and there's a big difference between those two when you're observing on the outside from the inside it makes sense it feels like the extreme amount of energy the heightened attention and exaggeration of your emotions feels so right and justified it feels like it's exactly the amount exactly right oh yeah it feels

totally normal justified addict and justified and you know it's interesting we're gonna i want to get into now we're gonna in a little bit also because i think it's important at least it helps me not just as a therapist but as a human being to understand the underpinnings right like people who are drama addicts are not loser a-holes that you should you know that don't deserve love or or troublemakers or chaos bringers, although often they're treated that way. It's rooted in, you know, trauma, disconnection, unmet needs. And we're going to talk about that. But I want to get into relationships first because, you know, that's my favorite subject. But, you know, I'm just thinking like there's I have a girlfriend of mine and this was something interesting that

happened after Sammy died. Right. So when we have these big tragedies or these big things that break us apart, reconfigure like the butterfly, right? The caterpillar turns to mush, complete and utter mush, right? And then we reconfigure and often into ultimately a metamorphosis and a beautiful butterfly that's very different and more self-actualized. But in that process, I was so, and still am in many ways, so raw, like my emotional sensory system was outside my skin. And I was always someone, even after, and my husband would often call me on this. He's like, have you ever noticed that so many of your friends are hot messes? Like from the time, this was my codependency at work, right?

From the time I was little, I was attracted to and attracted to broken little birds and people who were struggling because I could help them. And that was also how I got love. I mean, this was not conscious, but it's how I got love and safety in relationship because I had this false story that if you need me, you won't leave me, right? That's a common codependent story. So I was always attracted. And also I find people who have had struggles in life are deeper and more multilayered and are interesting and compelling. And so I'm attracted to them for that reason. But unconsciously, the wounded part of me is attracted to them because I want to help and I want love and I want to give love. So I have a lot of friends who have a lot of drama in their life. Many of them have slowly cleared the slates over the years and kind of called, made space for more self-actualized, whole-souled people. But I still have a lot of friends that could fit this description. and one in particular I is a really old beautiful sold friend who you know is probably like 30 years

we've been friends and I could no longer talk to her really like I really shut her out of my life during this time of grief and she was really hurt by it understandably so and I had to I didn't have the words that I if I'd read your book I probably would have but all I said to her is there is so much drama in your life. There is always such a crisis. And I am so raw. I couldn't handle it. I couldn't help you. I couldn't handle it. And also, I was seeing that a lot of what she was like, oh, my God, this was, you know, what she's in these chaos things about. We're like, OK, so your ex-husband is being a jerk. Like my kid is dead, you know, or OK, so your car is broken down and, you know, you're upset about it. Who gives a shit? You know, like sort of my

threshold for empathy was really different on me. Right. That part is on me. And I have moved through that. I think that's a natural part of grief, especially after a big or any trauma after a big trauma. But I had to have that conversation with her. It did not go well for her. It did not go well. And I tried to be as I mean, I wasn't mean about it, but I was trying to explain why I had to withdraw. I want to talk about, first of all, how drama addiction plays out in relationships, right? And I know you talk about how the water is kind of always simmering and often empathy is weaponized. I want you to talk about that as well, but anything else relevant to what it's like to be in relationship, whether it's a friendship or a love relationship

or a family relationship, because I got a kid who's addicted to drugs, what that looks like. Yeah. I mean, here's what we know for sure, is that if the relationship to ourself is in peril, is so challenging, is so painful, especially if there's a part of us that is divorced from ourself, then how are we going to be in relationship to someone else? it's impossible there isn't an embodied self-actualization there isn't a presence that feels safe to then extend that presence to be in the vulnerable interconnection with someone else it's impossible yeah but we all do it but we all do it we all we all want it it's like in the same way no one wants drama like but we're going to chase the drama to avoid our trauma

like but we go back to no one wants the drama it doesn't mean that there isn't a subconscious part of us that keeps manifesting or creating it or seeking it right or finding any way to stoke the fire to rev up to get that pain relief to get that distraction to get that energy that often happens and is needed because when we are divorced from ourself there's also not a lot of rejuvenation our energy when we're constantly needing to be stressed out relaxing feels dangerous yeah so we don't get to recuperate that energy so we need to resource that energy from somewhere else and so we either take it from other people we involve them in our drama we rope them in like a tornado and we siphon off their drama and their reaction their reaction to the stress

and use it as a battery pack or fuel on our own fire that's like an energy vampire it's like an energy vampire. Absolutely. So there's no sense for that individual, that relationship equals safety. Yeah. And then they probably never had that experience. No, it's too dangerous. I can tell you from personal experience, it feels dangerous to have a intimate connection with someone. It's going to be taken away at any moment. That shoe is going to drop. Yeah. And so what do we do when there's too much connection? We blow it up. We don't want to, but we do. We find and we nitpick all the things that are wrong with them. Yeah. Or we start controlling them, or we get upset over something they did and create all this drama, or then we get deemed

high maintenance or too difficult or impossible to please or too, too, too of something, which often we are. Yeah, it's true. And it's representative of actually an anxiety that resides underneath the hood of the behavior. And that's the thing that like, it's really hard to be empathetic to someone who's addicted to drama. You're like, why are you sabotaging us? We could have something so good. Why, why are you doing that? And it's like, they have to for their own sense of preservation. It gets too close that vulnerability happens and they suddenly an alarm goes off that says i could be annihilated if i let my guard down i'm going to come back into that trauma i'm going to be traumatized i had a woman i worked with years ago and we were doing a practice

called quietude which is entering into layer after layer of settling and stillness and what happens for so many of us who are addicted to stress addicted drama is we source things that keep us revving so we start to relax and an alarm system goes off that are called the revving reflex and we source material just in stressors to start to bring us back up to a level that maintains our hyper vigilance that prevents us from being too susceptible to being attacked to being annihilated to being re-traumatized and the same is true in relationship. The thing about relationships is that we can have co-regulation. Your presence with me settles me. Every time I see you or talk to you, I go, that's part of your gift to the

world. And for someone who is addicted to stress, addicted to drama, after some time, I don't even know it. Suddenly I start to feel anxious. Something feels wrong, but I can't quite put my, I can't quite name and identify it. There's like this itch of like things to feel too safe, something's going to happen. And I either seek it, I search it, or I create it to justify the anxiety that's building within me. And when I can find it, when I create it, when I seek it, whatever it is, and I match it, I match the situation in our relationship, I create the drama in our relationship and it matches the anxiety inside me, I feel relief. Yeah. Even though the result does not bring relief, the feeling brings, just like any addiction,

the drink, the drug brings temporary relief, but then you have the shrapnel. Listening to you, I'm freaking out a little bit because I'm realizing, I mean, in a good way, but I'm realizing, my husband just said to me earlier on, at the time we're recording this, There was a there's a huge march happening this morning in Washington of, I don't know, a hundred. The whole whole Washington mall is filled with people supporting the Jewish population and speaking up against anti-Semitism. And my husband brought it to my attention. And the first thing I said was, yeah, you know, it's amazing. I hope they don't get bombed.

And that's immediately where my mind went. And he said, which is, you know, a viable possibility. Right. I mean, hopefully that won't happen. But given what's the way people have been responding to all of this, it's a little, you know, it's freaking me out. All of it's freaking me out. Not just the Jewish thing, but all of it. And so he said, have you noticed that you are, I forget how he put it, but basically that I'm seeing the negatives every time he offers something, I say, yeah, hope they don't get bombed. Well, you know, we'll see if that happens. well you know like i'm in this pessimistic he was and i got defensive a little bit and i was like i think you're being a little critical like i'm going through a lot right now and there's a lot going on in my personal life and in the world and it's a lot to handle you're in the protective negative yeah yeah i'm i'm falling back i'm relapsing this is the trauma vortex love we in

it because we get over trauma vortex oh shit it is a it is a lens of preservation yeah so i want to be really clear about that when someone is like focusing on the negative and i see it in couples therapy all the time where someone says like they're like oh last night we had the best date i felt so connected to you and then the other partner might go yeah but i had to initiate that date yes yeah i'm like shut the fuck up please shut up and enjoy each other not really i would never say that but in my mind i'm like oh i know it's so vulnerable this moment is so vulnerable to absorb to take in the good and i i have a practice with folks they call marinating in the good that came out of couples work where I was like whoa whoa whoa whoa let's pause I hear that

there might be a need that comes up but before we address that need and we will can we marinate in the good if we were to take like fill a bathtub with the sensation of what that date was like last night were you really connected can you dip your foot in yeah can you dip your leg in can you settle into the whole bathtub? Can you marinate in it? And then check back in with your partner and see how that feels. And they'll say, oh my God, I feel so warm. I feel so connected. And then there's something that suddenly it tries to take me out. I don't want to be taken out, but I start to have that negative thought about like, you know, do they find me attractive? Right. Or I had to initiate it or they don't really think it's rooted in, it's not real.

I can't trust it. In my case, I call it the gobsmacked trauma. This whole thing that I've had lots of gobsmacked trauma where you're just smacked across the face with a devastating reality or a devastating trauma or death or whatever. And so I've had a lot of that in my life. But even just what's happening now in the world feels like a big old gobsmack. So it kind to make sense that for many of us, even if you've gotten a handle and you've been in a place of appreciation and you can see the silver lining and you can bathe in the, what was it called that you bathe in? The good, the marinating in the good, yeah. The good and the marinating in the good, yumminess, right? You're in this, you've relapsed, or at least I have, into this place

of hypervigilance and preparedness. Preparedness. Yeah, and it makes so much sense. Look, we're neurologically, neurobiologically designed to focus on negative. It's a form of preservation. You know, Rick Hansen talks about this a lot in his work and the Buddha brain.

It's his book. There's just a lot of good research on it that says basically for every three negative thoughts that we have or negative focal points that keeps us in that preservation, that perceived preservation, we need like nine positive thoughts to balance it out. So it's like a one to three ratio. I just exaggerated it with three to nine because I'm addicted to drama and I can do that.

You had to elevate it. Yeah, elevate it. I just wanted to prove a point. And for those of us who are, I mean, my point is now clear. Those of us who have an addiction to drama or stress, it's that much more. Yeah. because what happens and this is so interesting is like trauma is not about the event alone trauma is really about the preparation for the next trauma yeah it really is and so our biology

our senses especially attune to be on guard for the next thing the next potential threat So literally our senses, our smell, our taste, our eyes, our eyes narrow to focus in, our taste focuses on more bitters, our hearing attunes to more low sounds. All of this means that we are tuned into a world of potential cues of danger as opposed to cues of safety. So we will miss cues of safety if we are stuck in the channels of looking for cues of danger. It doesn't have to be the saber-toothed tiger at the mouth of the cave, right? It can be your partner's rejection or protecting against aren't a danger to your life, but are a severe danger to your heart, to your soul. You talk about these different layers that cause drama addiction, right?

And the innermost layer to the second, third, and fourth, and the innermost is that layer of unmet needs that usually starts in those early childhood neglect, hypercriticism, abuse, abandonment, you know, anything. On a whole continuum, it doesn't have to be big T trauma. It can be little T trauma. And then the next layer is sort of that isolation and pain that comes as a result of protecting yourself, I guess, and also as a result of the stories the child, usually the child tells themselves as to why. Because a child, everything, we're all narcissistic as kids, right? So everything is because of us, right? So the fact that dad left or mom is always telling me I'm bad or is hurting me or whatever is because of me, right? So I'm going to isolate.

I'm going to be alone in my pain. Oh, how do I deal with that? Comes the third layer. I'm just going to numb out. I'm going to disassociate. I'm going to numb myself out in whatever way I can. And then you're saying that it's the fourth layer where the drama addiction kicks in because we're seeking an antidote to the numbness.

And this is all obviously unconscious. This isn't something we're consciously doing. I referred to myself as a, to my parents as a kid, as the walking ghost, as a walking ghost. And I felt that way. I felt undimensional. I mean, I didn't have quite the words to describe it then. So they put me in therapy, but I can say now, like I didn't feel whole. I felt vacant. I felt empty. I felt less than, and it wasn't a self-esteem. like i'm a kinesthetic learner i feel my body and i felt like only half of me was there and the things that gave me a sense of purpose and aliveness were the things that crossed that threshold of numbness so the decibel of emotions the decibel of excitement had to be higher than than the layer of numbness that existed in my life so like when i would perform in front of thousand people and the excitement in the of hearing that rose above and i felt something

and i felt alive and i will tell you on an existential level it is so much better to feel alive than dead yeah i mean i know we i know we might think that of like oh of course but i can tell you unless you've been deep in the dark of depression yeah deep in the dark of numbness and had the experience of feeling aliveness like we all as humans strive for aliveness because the clamp downness the absence of life the absence of flow in our being yeah is torment it is i would do anything to not be in the depths of that numbness ever again yeah in the numbness and i think also drama can be a distraction, like you're numb, but then also sometimes you're remembering something or sometimes you don't want to think about one thing. So you have to fixate

on something really major from focusing on the thing you don't want to look at. As most of you know, for the past several years, I've been on a pretty intense grief journey and it's been a path of healing. I've shared lots of that healing with you and lots of the healing resources that I found. And I am so thrilled to announce that I am doing my first ever retreat for grieving mamas. So if you or someone you love is a mama who has lost a child in any way, at any stage, at any age, I would love for you to come join me at 1440 Multiversity in the Redwoods near Santa Cruz, California for four amazing days of beautiful,

uplifting community and healing. We've got David Kessler. We've got Paul Selig. We've got Catherine Woodward Thomas. We've got me. We've got body work. We've got organic food, beautiful rooms. Go to 1440.org.

Check it out. It's right there on the homepage. I really hope you can join us. Drama is this great tool that keeps us out of the numbness. it helps us cross that threshold to feel more aliveness and even a sense of purpose. Yeah. Like if, I don't know about you, but as the, as a referee between parents who fought a lot, it was exhilarating.

I felt, and like their drama meant my sense of purpose. Oh yeah, for sure. And I got, I mean, I've, I've apologized to her. I'm current, I'm estranged for many years from my sister, by choice out of my own, you know, emotional survival. But over the years and even before that, I have apologized to her for my role in, because she was definitely the black sheep. And I was so traumatized. I had so much emotional trauma, physical trauma, sexual trauma. I mean, we both did but speaking for myself I thrived on her being which I feel felt so I mean I feel better about it now because I've really honored it and owned it and apologized and made my

restitution as best I could but I as the little sister not only could get more of the minimal love and approval that was available by joining in the chaos of demonizing her for and she was of course, stepping into the role she was given, you know, she acted out a lot, but also I was not only in the middle of all that, which started to not only get me more love and approval, but a lot of drama, which was really juicy and enervating. But also I was their couples therapist. My, I mean, my, I was, I knew way too much. They both confided way too much and I had way too much emotional power over the situation. And yeah, it was like a high and there are gifts in it. Obviously, I'm an amazing therapist today because of that. It just takes a wee bit of trauma to be a good

therapist. I started practicing when I was four, but yeah, so it's interesting. So let's talk about, we've talked about some of the causes and the underpinnings and the way it manifests, but what the hell do you do about it? You talk about the milestones of healing and what are some of the milestones of healing, but even more specifically, what kinds of things help to break the addiction cycle? Yeah. Well, I think the first is, let's talk about breaking our own addiction to drama or stress for ourselves. And then how the how do we get space from those who are in their pattern because that's intense too yes yeah uh and we yeah we'll talk about it so from the personal side it's like recognize first where

it's present and that's not easy that's actually probably going to be the hardest thing because we will do so much to justify our reactions but if people have given us feedback that like hey there's some weird disproportionate amount of energy, attention, and emotional exaggeration intensity of your reaction to what the stimulus actually is, basically, if you're making a mountain out of molehills, that's a good indication for you to maybe turn inward. And one of the things I invite people to start to recognize is what happens when you start to settle? What happens when you start to feel calm? How comfortable is boredom? And that's when we start to get into the material and what i call revving so you know when you're in a bathtub when you're

listening to my gentle voice no i'm just kidding um when you're in a place where there's an opportunity for settling and relaxation what happens how far can you really allow yourself to go and the term we use in developmental movement is called yielding so it's a like it's not like a softening yeah thank you and it doesn't just stop it's not like i it's like an elevator yeah so it's softening level one and then i go down on the elevator it's the sub-basement and then the sub-sub-basement of settling and then there's more and there's and it's ever going layers of settling and yielding and of softening and so we can start to say where do we hit a shelf and that's that's softening as we go down and then that when we hit a shelf is when we start to go

i'm gonna think about i don't know my boss i'm gonna think like something on my to-do list or i gotta go schedule stuff yeah or i have to call a friend or i gotta start scrolling on the internet and like in my head lately every time i try to meditate i'm like oh shit for 10 minutes i've been supposed to be meditating and i'm running through this thing in my head yeah oh yeah or like so I got to level one recently my favorite is like I moved out of New York and I caught myself speed walking down the streets of Miami and I was like and and for those who aren't here like where I live in Miami it's slow yeah like compared to New York it's slow and I was like why am I why am I like speed walking I literally have nowhere to go I'm taking a walk

to get some fresh air and i'm like in a hurry yeah and i was like oh my gosh this is it this is the same thing and i started to slow down and then i started to notice the birds and i was like why are the birds so loud oh and i was like oh my gosh i'm revving again i'm finding different stimulus okay so notice when you're revving all right keep notice when you're revving exactly so all of these ways internal revving finding stimulus on the outside creating binds is another form of revving like in the book i give the example of a client who has their house was a mess their literal environment was a representation of their internal chaos and she wanted to hire a cleaner and she was saying to me if i hire a cleaner it means i'm lazy but if i don't hire

a cleaner it means my house is just going to get more chaos and people are going to judge me but people are also going to judge me if i get a cleaner because then they'll know i am kill. And it just would go, it's a bind. It means you can never, it just is constant fuel that you could never actually relax in. So it's a bind rev. So all these different ways that we are not allowing ourselves to settle. It's like, okay, watch two hours of the news. Why? What was the point, the threshold to which you had enough information in which you started to flood and get too much or doom scroll or doom scroll like why didn't you stop yourself what was the point in which you were full yeah just like in eating like at what point do you feel satiated and then

you don't even notice a lot of times you don't even notice and then you miss the point because you're not relaxed and attuned and in your body yeah right so that's why the awareness is so hard of when you're, so notice how much you're willing to rest and relax and be in ease and flow and when you're revving in all these different ways. And then once you recognize that, what do you do when you rev? Yeah. So when you start to rev, it's the, we're going to want to put a wedge in between the rev and then the final explosion, that catharsis, you know, that, that very extreme reaction that often happens as part of an addiction to drama. So it's like, I'm starting to rev. Okay. I'm going to tune my attention back to something else. Or I'm going to look under the hood and go,

what am I feeling? What was I feeling right before I was rubbing? Oh, I was sad. Oh, interesting. So when I get sad and I don't want to feel it, I start sourcing drama. I start sourcing stress. Okay. That's good information. And the more I can wedge between the stimulus and the response between the rev and the reaction that the explosion that comes yeah i can start to attune more to my underlying feelings and needs which then allows me to start to process the deeper layers of trauma that never got to be seen witnessed metabolized expressed and that's where we start to get like we start to take the fuel out of the pattern essentially yeah when we take the fuel out of the pattern, right? Let's say someone, you know, we're listening to you

right now, and this is making a lot of sense. And, you know, obviously a coach, a therapist, someone who, you know, and I'll ask you for what to look for in a support, you know, a clinical support, but what are some things that like anyone could do? You know, I know you're a huge fan of somatic experiencing and that's a big part of your work. Like what are some specific strategies that we can start implementing into our lives when we know, and obviously this is not to replace awareness and exploration, but just as a maintenance or as a survival strategy to stop, to shift out of the rev, what are some strategies that work? Oh gosh, there's so many.

And there's a whole appendix in the book of them too. One that comes to mind right away, and we can think about this in relation to what you were talking about is I do what's just called a step back technique, which is I start to notice I'm revving and I locate the source that I'm using. Okay. It's the news. So I step back from my television. I might literally take a step back and I put a caution tape in my mind around the television. And so every time I start to go near the stimulus, I have this buffer of going, why did I put that tape there? Oh yeah. Because I'm using it. I'm using it to rev myself up. So am I about to use it again? Or am I really interested in watching the newest episode of

Frasier or whatever? Yeah, exactly. I'm coming up against a buffer by putting that caution tape that makes me evaluate. And this is a metaphorical image of a caution tape. You're not literally putting, although I guess you could. It's metaphorical, although I have done it. I have done it with a client before where i bought some caution tape and we put it around a subject that they kept coming back to over and over again and this caution tape practice actually helped them stop using it to continuously rev and it was destroying the relationship we need some phone cases that you should market those phone cases that look like caution tape yeah i had a technique I used for many years called taking the silverware back for someone who's not coming to

dinner. It's like in this way, it's like, oh, when I was relaxing, this came about as a practice that I was like, I was thinking about, I didn't have a partner. I'm so sad about the person who's absent, who doesn't love me enough. And I would play that out in my head. And then I, or when I was in the middle of divorce, I would play out scenes with my ex-husband and I would go, whoa, whoa, whoa, they're not here. I set the dinner table for them, invited them there, and there's no one at the dinner table. So I started doing this practice where metaphorically or imagistically again, I would take the placemat, the plate, the cup, the fork, the knife that I had placed for them at the table beside me and put it away. And it was such a relief to my nervous system to say

they don't belong in my sphere right here right in my home in my peace in my home in my peace i brought them in i set the table for them they weren't even here that was me yeah and so for me to unwind so it's an unwinding practice there's step back there's unwinding i'm unwinding the the steps i took to create the drama in my mind and these are i mean there's so many great strategies these guys in the book. And they all are extremely helpful, but it will become more of like trying to put out a fire with a water gun if you don't deal with what's underneath, right? If you don't address the core issues and the underpinning, as you say, then you're just always dealing with the fires and the symptoms and using these techniques, which help and work,

but it's much more of an efforting, right? What we most want is for you to get underneath that and get the help you need so that you can shift out of the, you know, go into recovery rather than trying to go, you know, trying to avoid bars, right? Like actually what you do need to do as an alcoholic in recovery, right? But you also need to get to the core of the addiction so that it doesn't rule your life. So when someone is looking for a clinician or a support for drama addiction, I mean, obviously they can read your book and they can learn from you, but what should they be looking for? How do they find someone who can help? Here's the thing is I am a really honest practitioner. And I always ask permission. I go through this whole process of, can I be

transparent with you? Because oftentimes people want to just express, they want to dump on that practitioner and that's fine, but that's not going to get you to some place of change. Sorry, loves. I want you to feel heard, but if you're feeling hurt, if you're using therapy and weaponizing it in some ways as a means to pull someone else into your drama and justify your response, that's never going to help. You're never going to make the change. So a therapist who's really honest and say, can we pause here? I noticed we were just settling. And then we so quickly jumped into talking about your mom when we were still talking about work. Can you help me track that transition oh you you're not aware of that transition either let's step back yeah let's step

back and go what happens when we just talk about work again oh there's nothing there can we pause what's it like to be with something that's where there's not something there is that tolerable yeah but i want to talk about my mom now i'm like cool we'll talk about your mom if when we can tolerate also the absence of stress yeah yeah so you hold them accountable And I think what you're saying is that a lot of people, a lot of therapists don't. Yeah, they'll listen. They'll just be a dumping ground for you to continue the drama addiction. Look, this will probably get me canceled among therapists, but we have to be careful about not enabling them by simply doing our job of listening and saying, uh-huh.

Yeah, yeah. I agree with that. I get really annoyed by that. And that's how I was originally, before I got my own training, that's how I was trained originally in graduate schools, to be the blank slate. and just let them, you know, like psychoanalysis, basically one step removed from it, which obviously, you know, works for a few people didn't work for Woody Allen after 20 years, but it works, you know, for some people, but I agree with you. And I think also if you have a drama addiction and this feels familiar to you, what we're talking about, you definitely want to talk

to someone who and work with someone who has experience with trauma because even if you don't think you had trauma you you did if your trauma surprise sorry loves even if it was a little t trauma a lot you know you still have trauma and someone who also does a lot of what we call somatic experiencing you know less they there is a place for talking and listening but and processing verbally but a lot of this i think is yeah the body keeps the score yeah and it's holding on to these patterns that are below the level i mean if you were cognitively aware of it you probably wouldn't do it right so we know it's in the subconscious and guess where the subconscious is your body yeah so that's so someone who has a body-based therapy approach

is going to be really helpful because this revving reflex is primal. It is so primal. And it's beyond conscious awareness. Absolutely. Truly. Until you make it conscious. And then even then you're going to regress at times, just like I am now. And be compassionate. We're going to regress. We're going to fall back into our protective patterns when we're flooded, when we're overwhelmed. And that is okay. And this is where we have like great resources like your husband and say hey love oh something feels older and familiar in this approach can we can we do a check-in like are you feeling overwhelmed what's

under the hood of that overwhelm how are you well you call me love you just call me he calls you out he's a little more straightforward yeah what the fuck what's going on with you he's nice about it but it's like have you noticed you know have you noticed yeah or like notice you're a total bitch no he doesn't yeah but that's for my favorite i have this story that it feels a little more negative with you than usual yeah yeah curious what's going on with you you know you could always do that approach because here's the thing is someone who's addicted to drama is not going to see themselves more than the victim of the experience and that's part of the what makes it so hard is because they can pull people in. They can justify it. They can find

all the evidence they need to make the issue, the source of the issue about someone else. Yeah. But for me, it's the gobsmacked trauma, but I'm thinking like of this friend for her, I think it's empathy trauma. Like she, and it's not conscious, but she has found not only does a distractor from other pain, she can elicit empathy, which she didn't get enough of growing at all growing up. Yeah. So if you're in a drama or trauma and you've learned, you may exhaust people eventually, but if you've learned that people are like, oh, you're so strong, you're so, you know, I'm so sorry you're going through so much. It's like soothes that little one in you who never got that. Yeah. Yeah, for sure. You know, when drama is the currency of love or chaos

is the currency of love in your family guess what you're going to do to feel loved with when you're an adult so if i got the most attention when i was sick or something was wrong guess what i'm going to replicate that unconsciously in my adult in my teenage years and my adulthood say i feel lonely what do i do oh yeah i'm gonna go get ill i'm gonna make myself i'm gonna overschedule myself so much until i'm ill and then i'm going to call my mom and then she'll love me yeah and this once again guys told this conversation is happening beyond your conscious awareness so not saying that you're intentionally having this or consciously having this thought process but that's what your unconscious mind yeah is doing so when you love someone or are in relationship

with someone and and you're listening to this and you're like oh yeah that's my mom that's my My mom, my friend, my sister, my kid, whatever, my brother, my husband, whoever, right? Drama knows no gender. Let's be very clear about that. No age, no gender. No age, no gender. What do you recommend? I mean, obviously, one of the things you already recommended, you know, is to kind of gently

and lovingly call them to consciousness if you can. But what else beyond that? Yeah. Let's just say the first response of that is not to necessarily cut off the relationship. I would say that is a possibility. And it's not that I'm going to poo-poo it because I've had to do it. You've had to do it. And it's okay. It's not a first choice. It's not a first choice. And, you know, so there's a lot of other pieces in between, which is to say, like, maybe you create a little more boundary of going like, okay, let's say my best friend, Alex, is constantly in some drama, constantly overscheduling himself and then complaining about it. And there's just no space. He's taking up all the air from the room.

And it's always something. and there's exaggerated language and it's like and here's the news today and i i'm part of this etc and i'm gonna go like and he calls me and he goes i need to go on a walk with you i'm like cool i have 20 minutes i have a 20 minute window for you normally i know in the past i give you an hour two hours three hours today i have 20 minutes for you and by the way we're gonna do it outside I'm not going to sit I'm not going to be cornered in a room with you I'm not saying I'm not going to be cornered but I really need to do it outside and I need to do it while moving so we have some type of public area we have space so that as they're trying to yeah as they're trying to pull

me into their drama I'm focusing on the trees that have roots I'm connecting to them as opposed to the drama so you don't get sucked into the vortex yeah so that I don't get sucked into the vortex such an important thing because drama stress is the most contagious body state there is you know emotions are contagious we know that's why i couldn't be around my beloved friend because it was contagious and i already had a lion's share i was dealing with on my own right so yeah that makes total sense and we know this it's called stress contagion so examples are like someone is doing a public speech on a stage, everyone in the audience who watched that person had the same heart rate response, the same cortisol response as those who are on the stage.

That's so important to recognize. Yeah, it's entrainment. It's absolutely been proven scientifically that that is what's happening. So addiction to drama is contagious. So you got to do your work to keep grounded to keep anchored if you need to do a cleaning ritual after you're with that person like i wash my hands after i'm with a patient or a family member who has a lot of drama i go back and i wash my hands again i keep imagining that sense of the tree rooting same in my body i'm not going to get pulled into their vortex and when i feel like i don't have the strength i'm going to walk away i'm going to say i'm going to see you tomorrow i'm going to see you in 20 minutes. Or I say, Oh, I have a meeting that I forgot to, that I have to get to.

I'm going to remove myself enough and say, I love you. I'm going to see you later. And I recuperate and I take care of myself. And I'm not saying I'm at this point with my friend or with anyone I'm even thinking of, but I'm just imagining how bad this can be for people. At what point is it too much work to ground and you know and protect yourself and wash it off and make sure like at what point are you just like this I mean obviously if they're part of your family or you deeply love them you're gonna you know try to always keep them in your life and manage it but at what point do you say dude like I can't handle this anymore you got to do something about this I can't live this way anymore what time do you at what point do you just sort of and obviously it's different

for everyone. But how do you recognize that threshold? Yeah, it's not easy. So I want to say it takes a lot of work to be in relationship and hopefully they're in therapy doing the work. Yeah. Two. And if they're not, that's a good information. Like they're not going to change. Sorry. It's not going to magically disappear. Yeah. If they're not getting help, that is who they're going to stay. Absolutely. That is absolutely. The pattern is not going to change. also you need to recognize what's your contribution to it am i enabling them do i get something from this so you have to recognize am i is this also part of my addiction to drama by being in relationship to them i might say but they're so much fun they aren't fun because they're human

too and they can be you know super fun i want to go hang out and hear the gossip and the tea but if you cross them you're on the other side of it so easily and so recognize what is your contribution what is your need in relationship to them and after you know there's all these steps i have in the book like establishing boundaries cleaning cleansing rituals doing your own work i can be with clients who are extreme in this pattern at this point can i be with a relative for more than a couple hours no oh very different very different and so like there's also just like what is but so i'll go okay i'm coming over for thanksgiving dinner i'm only going for two hours that's my threshold when i go home to see family members i do it for two days that's my threshold

i know that's my threshold i love them and i have boundaries yes because i'm taking care of myself and if I can't maintain my boundaries if I can't ground if I can't in doing my own work if I can't do it and I'm still getting hurt then it's okay to walk away a walk away doesn't have to be permanent right you can just take a break and re-calibrate yeah and I and I also will say something hey I know it's not your intention but I'm feeling like there's so much going on right now that i can't be there for you in the way that i wish i could be i need to go do like a week's retreat of just re-energizing me or might be two weeks or might be a month so that i can come back and if there's room for it i just want to say like i notice sometimes things feel heavier

than they might need to be it's really that there's a lot of intensity and what i want for both of us is more ease in life and i'm seeing this great therapist you might want to see someone to you know there's lots of ways that was a good model good model you gotta get your therapy yeah yeah i will say direct like hey boo i think your addicted drama will never work all they will feel is your abandonment and it'll become another drama and attack and it will become another drama and guess what you're gonna have to live through that to clean your clear yourself from that attachment to them and the relationship dynamics and and so like sometimes there's a lot of work about what it is to process your own guilt around walking away from someone who's hurting you yeah and

drama addicts are very attracted to codependents and codependents are very attracted to drama addicts so and we codependents often are drama addicts so yeah it's an it's a beautiful opportunity for healing let's just put it that way for all parties involved scott lions thank you yeah go ahead what were you gonna say oh i just said i agree it really is like if we if we look at this not as something to shame people with or shame ourselves with but as an opportunity for some really deep healing i think because it's so prevalent it is just so prevalent check out any you know the internet check out the news check out all these ways in which an addiction and drama is not just our own anymore it's also being kind of pushed on us yeah by society makes a lot of

money drama by you know like my old pacing like running through new york which is like you know it's running through miami but it's walking through new york that type of pacing that urgency culture is prevalent everywhere now yeah and so i just want to say it so beautifully said All of this is not to shame. It's an opportunity to come home to ourselves and to heal. Beautiful. Thank you so much. The book, guys, is Addicted to Drama, Healing Dependency on Crisis and Chaos in Yourself

and Others. So much good understanding of the underpinning of it, that not only what we've explored here, but much more of it in the book, as well as tons of tools and techniques and strategies. so we'll have that in the show notes as well as any kind of links and we thank you so much thank you for the work you do in the world thank you for shining a light on this insidious drama addiction that almost all of us seem to be in fact of and showing us light in the path to healing i'm so grateful. Thank you so much. My heart, you're just like my sport car