Sober Motivation: Sharing Sobriety Stories - When it came to alcohol Dr. Sumeet Bahl was all or nothing and desired for a change.

Episode Date: August 3, 2023

In this episode, we have Dr. Sumeet Bahl who always had a vision of being a doctor very early on in life. During high school, he was a great student and a football team member when he began drinking alcohol. When he graduated college and had no medical school to go to Sumeet began furthering his exploration of meditation and that was when his relationship with alcohol would change forever. Dr. Bahl is currently an interventional radiologist in Brooklyn, NY and shares some insight with us on the effects of alcohol. With over 18 years of being alcohol-free, this is Sumeet’s story on the sober motivation podcast. -------------- Follow Dr. Sumeet Bahl on Instagram HERE Download the SoberBuddy App HERE Follow SoberMotivaiton on Instagram HERE Check out SoberLink HERE

Welcome to Season 3 of the Suburmotivation podcast. Join me, Brad, each week is my guests and I share incredible, inspiring, and powerful sobriety stories. We are here to show sobriety as possible one story at a time. Let's go. In this episode, we have Dr. Sumit Ball, who always had a vision of being a doctor very early on in life. During high school, he was a great student and a football team member when he began drinking

alcohol. When he graduated college and had no medical school to go to, Samit began furthering his exploration of meditation, and that was when his relationship with alcohol would change forever. Dr. Ball is currently an interventional radiologist in Brooklyn, New York, and share some valuable insight with us on the effects of alcohol. With over 18 years of being alcohol-free, this is Samit's story on the Sober Motivation podcast. Hey, how's it going, everyone, Brad here?

Look, this episode's incredible, and we're going to get right to it. But before we do, I just got off of the big, sober buddy's Zoom meeting that we have once per month. We had about 75 to 80 people there. And let me tell you, it was incredible. Hearing people's stories about where they're at, two people shared that they had not smiled like that in months. But being able to share their story in a Zoom room full of other people that could understand, just really validated where they're at. And that's the importance of community and connection when we're on this sober journey. I mean, you'll hear it all the time that connection is the opposite of addiction and getting connected

with people that are on the journey is extremely helpful. And that's exactly what we do over at Sober Buddy with our two meetings a day and our supportive community and the groups and the chat feed. So if you're looking for some community and some connection, to get connected with people that are on the journey that are supportive, that are kind, that are like-minded, be sure to head over to Your Sober Buddy.com and download the app. Join me on there. I do three groups a week, Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.

And I hope to see you there soon. And so many people from this podcast have checked out the app and they're loving it. So don't just take it for me. Come over and see what we're all about. Getting sober is a lifestyle change. And sometimes a little technology can help. Imagine a breathalyzer that works like a habit tracker for sobriety. Soberlink helps you replace bad habits with healthy ones.

Weighing less than a pound and as compact as a sunglass case. Soberlink devices have a built-in facial recognition, tamper detection, and advanced reporting, which is just another way of saying it'll keep you on. honest. On top of all that, results are sent instantly to loved ones to help you stay accountable. Go after your goals. Visit soberlink.com slash recover to sign up and receive $50 off your device. Welcome back, everyone, to another episode of the Sober Motivation podcast. Today, we've got Dr. Ball with us. How are you? I'm doing great. How about you, Brad? I'm incredible. It's Monday. It's another day to get at it another week, right? Yeah. Yeah. So what was it like for you growing up?

I had pretty much the ideal childhood, I would say. I'm an only child. I was very close to my parents and I still am. I grew up in Atlanta, Georgia, about, well, 20, 30 minutes outside of Atlanta. And I had just like this very, very classic American childhood. I'm Indian American. My parents are immigrants from India originally. My dad really grew up in England, but he was born in India.

And I grew up with a very Indian culture, but a very American culture, too. and my parents had a very liberal approach to how they were going to raise me. My mom basically said that, look, you're out in the world. You're going to be exposed to things, whether we say to do them or not do them, you're going to make your own decisions. And it's our job to expose you to what's out there and then for you to make your own decisions. We want to equip you when you're with your friends on your own. My dad growing up in England, you know, alcohol is not stigmatized there whatsoever. So for him, it was not a big deal as long as I was responsible about every single.

thing. So I played high school football and having good grades and playing high school football, you kind of get this idea that you just become the cool guy in the room because you got this education first, but then also you want to play a contact sport and that's like the coolest contact sport you can play and everyone has a good time. So it becomes this very all-American upbringing. And I started drinking when I was 16 years old. And that's just kind of came up because again, my parents said, we know you're going to go to parties. We just want you to make informed decisions. So as you can see, I was very close with them. It was a very open book. I had nothing to hide from them because they knew exactly what I was doing. And their rule was just don't drive. Always just

be safe. That's it. And if you get in a bind, call us if you need help. That was it. No judgment. It was really incredible. So, you know, the grades are great. Playing football, everything's great. And then that's when I started to party for the first time and have fun with my friends. We would finish the games Friday night down in Atlanta or down in the southeast. Waffle House is the big restaurant. And once you get done with the games, we would all go to Waffle House. That's where we'd go party. We'd go hang out. Everyone was there.

The people who were watching the game. Hey, congratulations. Great job on the win or the loss or whatever was. You don't care by that point. You're there just eat some food and go to a party after that. And that's where the night really began. And so we just had an incredible time doing that. And for me, my job was make sure that I'm going to get into, I wanted to be a doctor at the time.

always knew I wanted to be. So the thing was, how do I get into a university program that was going to set me up for that? But also, how do I have a balance of having a good time? And I really had that childhood. I wouldn't change anything about it. Yeah, wow, that's incredible. Yeah, the sense of community from playing football and high school being involved with that stuff is incredible. From just listening to a little bit of your story there, the drinking was never really, other than not being of age, maybe. It was never really a problem. Like, he didn't get in any trouble from it. It was just a good time type thing. Or did that ever start in any of your story?

No, I think my parents did it in such a, it's really incredible how they did it. I went on spring break, my junior and senior year of high school. And it was same desk in Florida on the Florida Panhandle. That's where everyone was going to go. And that's every year. That's where people were going from my school. And I told them in my junior year, I said, I want to go. Okay, we know what's going to happen down there.

Here's the deal. We're going to go down with you. Take whichever friends you want. you're going to have your own room, but the rule is we're going to be in adjoining rooms. Not just to watch out, but if you need anything, we're going to be there. And that was the premise behind it always. It was not like you're going to get in so much trouble because I had a 40 GPA. Like, I was still a good kid, but I pushed the limits on what fun I'm going to have.

So they knew that too, but they want to make sure I was safe. So that's why I never really got in trouble from that perspective because those spring breaks, they said, we're going to be in adjoining rooms. And if anything comes up, we're going to be right there. And that's how it was. I was never really in a situation where I could get in too much trouble because I already knew that I can push the limits, but only so far because they're just right with an earshot. And that was really helpful to do. I hope I can pass that forward when my son gets older.

Yeah, no, it does sound really incredible too, right? And then it also opens up the communication. There's no fear of judgment like you mentioned earlier to where if you were to ever end up or if somebody else had this parenting style, if the kids were to end up in a tough. spot. What we often do is we just hide it. We don't share anything that builds up in a bunch of different ways. And then, you know, at 15, 16, on our own to try to figure out these situations when our parents could be there to, with their experience to help us out. I think that's incredible. Yeah, it really was. So where do you go from here? Then you have high school. You knew early on, like forever ago that you wanted to be a doctor. Yeah, I've wanted to be a doctor since I was maybe five or six years old. And it kind of comes by virtue of

just growing up in an Indian community where education is the push, number one priority. These are all immigrants who are self-made. They either went to med school in India, and then they came at a time where residencies were available back then. They're not like that now. We got plenty of physicians trained here, but there they were looking for people. And so all these Indians came over, and that's what I was exposed to, these hardworking immigrants who took the exams to pass the entrance exams into U.S.

training, that was my life. And I was like, wow, these people, they're making money. They look important and they're taking care of sick people. Even if we're here at this event, Saturday, 10 p.m., they're still getting phone calls from the hospital, able to manage things remotely. And I said, wow, this is incredible. They're genuinely helping people. And I saw that growing up. And so that's what I want to do. I started volunteering early on in my life at the hospitals. I saw my first autopsy when I was 15 years old, wasn't afraid of it, and just getting the early exposure. And then high school, taking all of the advanced courses to get myself ready to get into a college

that would allow me to become a doctor and then I went to every university in Atlanta just 30 minutes away from my parents' house. I look back and I said, I used to take a lot of chances back then. I think I still do now, but that was the only program I applied to. It was a top 10 university in the country at the time

and it was the only program I applied to and I got in. And normally people applied to 15, 20 schools. I was like, oh, let me just go for it. And that's where I ended up. but that's where things took an unexpected turn, where you basically got someone who is used to winning all the time, has this ideal childhood, and then I'm on my own.

And you would think for most people, if there's some amount of restriction when they're growing up, that's when they're going to let loose when they're on their own. I already had that time. So I just decided to amp it up even more and kind of deprioritize the stream of becoming a doctor. and even though I'm taking these pre-men classes, and still the grades are good,

but I could have done much better. And you really have to be very competitive when you want to do this. So I'd say the first year, especially, I had my first real girlfriend. She was like the girl that everyone was after, and I was like, yeah, she's two years older than me. Big win there.

And you just got this college life as a freshman, and my head was in the clouds. Partying was the priority, and the pre-med stuff kind of took a backseat. And so that's where I'm now losing, you could say, for the first time and saying, okay, something's not going ideally. And I went through varying degrees of ups and downs in the path. But ultimately, I did not get into men's school when I was applying from college. And I remember going back to my parents, my mom had a conversation with me.

And she said, look, in the middle of college, you asked me to back off because you said, don't give you all that pressure. You'd figure it out. And now here you are graduating from a major university and you're not getting into med school. How does that feel? I was like, it feels terrible. It feels absolutely terrible. A dream is kind of broken. And so then I had to figure out what I'm going to do from there. So I went to grad school in New York, in Westchester County, and had to prove myself from that point. And that's where a major transition happened between no alcohol and alcohol and how it all comes together and what my vision was.

That was when you went back to school then. That's when you quit drinking? Yeah, exactly. So the story behind that and the way that, that all comes together, is when I didn't graduate, I really had to bring my life back together here. This is in 2005. A little background on this, I had learned meditation when I was a freshman in high school. I was not that regular with it throughout high school, but in college, I started becoming a little more regular, but still, again, pre-med was taking the priority and having a good time, that was it. And so my meditation practice was intermittent. Once I took these medical entrance exams and did not do well on them, even though my grades I recovered were doing reasonably well,

but the MCAT scores, the medical entrance exam was so terrible that I was just really looking to myself internally. And so when I graduated college, again, I started drinking when I was 16 years old. That's two years in high school plus all four years of college. When I graduated college and had no medical school to go to, that year, when I graduated, I learned a more advanced technique of meditation. It's a pretty highly advanced technique that's now been 18 years since I learned that technique. And little did I know that it would completely change my life within a matter of months after learning that technique. And so I learned it in the beginning of the summer that I graduated, college and I was planning on going to grad school at the end of that summer and starting of fall

where I knew I was going to now be faced with the challenge of making sure I get into med school for the next two years after that. And at the end of that summer, right before starting grad school, I went on a meditation retreat for two weeks and came back completely changed. I just went so deep in this meditation technique. When I returned, I went out for one more night. And it was the night before I had to give a talk on my meditation experience. And so I went out and had an incredible night. I blacked out, which is generally how I would do things. I was not the type of person who would sip on a beer or two. People were like, you can drink with us. I have a sit. And I was like, that's not how I roll. For me, it's go in all the way. I was very hardcore and whatever I did. And that's

what I did that night. And so my mom wakes me up the next morning. As she's kind of shaking me, she's like, get up, get up. You have that talk on meditation about your experience with the meditation thing. I was like, oh my gosh, okay, let's go. So I'm just quickly throwing on my clouds. And I arrive at this home, family friend. And there's all these, in my community, we call them all aunties and uncles, whether you're related to them or not, the elders in my community. And there was a good 100 plus of them in the room.

And I had to give my talk on basically, what is it like to be a 21, 22 year old who has been in a meditation for a number of years and comes back from this retreat because they all want their kids to do it, right? I'm kind of like living this ideal childhood and everyone's looking at me and all the eyes are on me, this kid who seemingly got everything figured out. And there I am talking about my meditation experience. Brad, this was my dream. I'm living my dream already and I was fumbling through my words.

I was trying to piece things together, things that were otherwise very clear in my head. When I'm lucid, they weren't coming out clearly. And after that, even my mom had to fill in things. She'd like nudge me and be like, tell him the other part. Tell him the other part. I'm like, I've never had to fumble through my words like that. And the reception was good from all the people in that talk. But I told my mom, I was like, I think I'm done drinking.

And she was like, why? And I said, because I can't do this anymore. It's incongruent. There's a discordance between what I've said I want to do and what I'm actually doing right now. I want to be not only a doctor, but I want to be a doctor who can change lives on a math scale. And for me, I'm young. And I think people could use these meditation techniques because I know what they've done for me already. I'm not perfect by any means.

I'm flawed just like everyone else, but I know it can serve. And if people want to hear my experience already, clearly I'm doing something that can benefit people. And I want to have a clear mind and a clear voice that can convey that to other people. That was the journey of me now going into grad school by that point, totally not drinking and just basically studying my heads in the books. And my meditation practice was so unbelievably deep during those two years. and I graduated number one in my class at that point.

The lowest score I ever got on any exam in those two years was a 94 out of 100. Consistently every exam I was acing. And I think a lot of that had to do with just having a very clear mind and a very definitive meditation practice. That was a major turning point for me, that talk, that I just totally failed at when I drank the night before. Wow, that's quite the story. And it's interesting too, because, yeah, alcohol will definitely get in the way of our dreams

and what we want to do and what we want to accomplish. It's really hard to go after the hard stuff when, you know, if you're hung over three or four days a week, in all the consequences that come along with that, right, the natural ones. So that's incredible. So how do you do it though? So you heading into grad school. I mean, I'm sure that there's a lot of drinking going on there.

I mean, how did you navigate that differently than you did your first four years? Was it tempting? Were you tempted at all? Meeting people and the environments? Maybe it was a little different. I don't know. I've never been to grad school. Yeah, it didn't even tempt me nothing. I didn't change because someone forced me to, and I wasn't

changed by some external circumstance. I think it was me who changed. The meditation practice is what really changed my internal network so much that I lost the desire. And I think that's the best way I can really describe it, is the desire had dropped off. And to be honest, that's how I've generally done things. People always wonder how I'm like a night and day kind of light switch person. And I don't think everyone's like that, nor should everyone be. But that's generally how I've been. I quit smoking pot in 2003. I became vegetarian in 2004. I quit drinking in 2005. And these were all things that I thought I had a reasonably healthy relationship with. I could manage, you know, to whatever amount that I was consuming those things. And just for each of them, they went away,

not because anyone said to, but the desire completely dropped off. So yeah, it's a good question. I was in grad school, but the desire wasn't there. I was around it. People were drinking whenever we got done with exams and we were hanging out. Just wasn't tempted at all. I knew what I had to do to get to the next level. So I knew I had to amp up my game to fulfill a dream, but also I had something that was an internal practice that was fulfilling me more than anything else could. Yeah. Gotcha. Yeah, that's incredible. The mindfulness too. Is this a certain practice of mindfulness you talk about? Is there different kinds of meditation that you can do? Yeah, so one of them you just mentioned, mindfulness. It's a very basic technique. Complex in its methods, but easy to do. Complex in what it's doing for you, but easy to do. And that's just being aware of your breath. Sitting in a silent place, you can sit on a chair or you can sit by yourself on a bed, on the floor, however is comfortable. And you just keep your back straight, your chin parallel to the ground. You relax your shoulders and you close your eyes and you look at the point between your eyebrows. And just breathing in through your nose and out through your your nose, you're just watching your breast and being aware of it. And that's what I had done for many years. I still do it now, but until 2005, when I learned that advanced technique that I was talking about, that's called Cria Yoga. And that's a far more advanced technique in what it does to you. And you're basically channeling energy up your spine. And you're being fully aware of the energy as it's channeling up your spine at with your breast. And that's the one that you feel sensations throughout your body.

people talk about psychedelics and that. And I know people struggle with that as well. But imagine some of the effects of alcohol or psychedelics, but with no side effects. And you're feeling something really incredible. And that's what Cria Yoga has been doing for me since 2005. And so those two techniques in tandem really, really can deepen your consciousness to the point where you can see things beyond yourself. And that's where the lack of desire comes in a very clear mind for what you want to do. And you're very definitive in that. Wow. Does that take some time to practice? I know you mentioned too that that's a high level practice that takes time for someone to learn that type of meditation. Yeah, it does. It's something that took me years. I mean, even now, even 18 years in, I still feel like I'm a novice that trying to do it,

right? Just to do anything. I'm sure when you started this podcast, right? It was something that you're kind of winging it and then you get good and then people appreciate it grows. And it because something that people can resonate with. It's no different than anything else. This meditation practice, same thing. Yeah, so true. And I always find, too, when I get into things, I think I've got something figured out. And then I realize there's levels to it. Like they figured out, but now there's more to it. Like, more gets uncovered, right? So. Yeah. And I would imagine, aside from the craft that you've created with the stories that you hear, you probably hear such an array of stories and for whenever I've listened to from what you share, there's such a range and you're just like, wow, okay, that's a new insight.

And you feel like whenever you talk to people, the insights just keep coming, right? Oh, for sure. Yeah. And it's so interesting, too, because I feel like as we're going more into like this alcohol free world than this recovery and sobriety, however people identify, I'm just hearing so many more different techniques and things that are helping people along their journey as to when I started this journey, probably around 2005. I feel like that's a common theme here.

Right. Around 2005, I mean, you kind of had a couple different options, like get a therapist or go to the church basement. You know, those are things to go to rehab and I did all of the above at some point or another, but I love it that we're bringing more of this stuff in, this holistic approach to help people improve their lives. And just what you mentioned there too, I'm just thinking, if someone's listening to this and they're like, you know what, I've come to the conclusion that alcohol is getting in between me and where I want to be. What would you suggest somebody do to get started on moving forward with giving it up? I think everyone's approach is different.

What they internalize to help them make the change is very different. So sometimes it might be family and they just care for their family that much. And that's what it is like, okay, I've got to do it from my family. Sometimes it's your own health. And so from a physician perspective, I can share just what are the negative effects? Alcohol literally can damage nerves. It damages a multitude of cells. One of them that we think of most is the liver.

So if this appeals to someone, you can take a scientific approach and that might be, okay, It's damaging brain cells and it's damaging the liver. And in fact, we actually use 95 plus percent alcohol to kill certain tumors in the body. So if you're doing that to kill something, imagine what it's doing to healthy tissue. Yet we consume it. I wish only people knew that. So there's the health side of it. And you can just look at the examples maybe in your own life and say, okay, I've seen people succumb to this.

I've looked at the things that are happening to me in my life and my struggles with this particular. drug. And now I know the negative health effects of it. Okay, that's my motivation to change. And there's a multitude of those things from the health perspective. Alcoholic liver disease, for example, something called cirrhosis where your liver fails. You can develop fluid in your belly from alcoholic liver disease. You can develop these tangle of veins in your stomach and your esophagus that people can vomit blood, like severe, severe vomiting. In my world, interventional radiology, there's a procedure that we have to do where we create a new communication between two veins in the liver to reduce the pressure in the liver from bleeding. That's called a tips procedure. When your liver goes through a lot

of disease, it can produce a tumor called hepatocellular carcinoma. It's the most common liver malignancy, meaning bad type of liver tumor that you can get. And that one can do wreak havoc on your liver and other tissues in your body. And there's a procedure that we do to shut the blood supply down to those tumors. So there's just so many negative effects from it. That's from the health perspective, the physical health perspective, just knowing that and being empowered with it, whether it's your family or your physical health. The other part is a clarity of mind. Maybe you're looking for something that you want to do from a mental health perspective. One of them you mentioned might be seeing a therapist, working with someone who can help you just sometimes it's cognitive

behavioral therapy. Sometimes it's just speaking with someone. And the other one, which is most near and dear to my heart, is from a spiritual perspective. You don't have to be a religious person. have to believe in God or you might believe in God and you might have some, all of us have a different perception of him or her, whatever you want to say. None of that matters. Is there something that you can do to just turn within and as you get the practice down, you start realizing that you're not the mind or body that you think you are. And once you realize that, you start to feel that, wow, I'm not beholden to any substances that are there. While I might not have been the classic person for addiction in that sense. Maybe I was to some degree because clearly I went

through a good six year run where I couldn't say no and I wanted to do it. I might not have had to seek help for it, but it was something that I was very much attached to and I couldn't stop at one or two or three. It was five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten and it had to be the strongest version of it. So in order to then navigate that, I had to find something else that was more fulfilling. And I think a meditation practice is a really, really lovely, sustainable way to do it without any external validation from anyone else and you can do it anytime anywhere. And that's my favorite of all, I would say. Yeah. No, that's incredible. Where would you suggest somebody start? They're like, hey, I listen to the show. I love what I heard. What would be my first step to bring a meditation

practice into my life? So an easy way to do it. There's a couple of apps. One of them is calm, another one's headspace. They have a lot of guided meditations on there. And we're talking about 500 million to a billion dollar companies. I mean, they've done so well, because there is a demand, there's a need for it. Those are really nice, and they do varying ones. Some of them might be with music. Some of them might be guided through a whole time. Some of them start with guided, and then they go into silence for some time.

So there's a whole range, and you can do what appeals to you. You literally just scroll through the app and see, okay, what works for me? I will say the best meditation technique out there is the one that you're going to do, that you're going to show up to every day. Then I tell my patients that from a procedural perspective, after you do this operation on me, how do I now take control over this? What diet, for example? I said the one that you're going to stick to.

So that's what I'd say. Headspace and column are great ways to start. Then beyond that, just like we have coaches in sports or you might have in AA, people have an accountability coach, right? So there's a whole range of things. Why do we have coaches? And even the best of the best, LeBron James has a coach. Michael Jordan had a coach.

It doesn't matter how good you are, you've got someone to keep you accountable. So the next level of having done the app on your own is to seek a community. And in the meditation world, we call it a guru. A guru is not just a teacher, but a guru is someone who dispels darkness, to be specific about that term. And then there are meditation organizations that you may find that appeal to you and say, okay, I want to create a community around or I want to be part of a community. And that's the next level that you want to do with the collective consciousness, having people who are going through a similar experience. And there's a couple of them. The one that I'm part of is called self-realization fellowship. There's one called Isha Yoga, ISHA Yoga, the Chopra Center, the Chopra Center for Wellness. There's something called Art of Living. There's a whole range of them. And you might want to start there or maybe you want to start on your own with one of these apps and ultimately get there. But having that community and having a guru, you guide you is really helpful for sustainability and all the troubleshooting that may be there

down the road. My favorite book, the one that totally changed my life, which I read in that 2005 summer when I transitioned from undergrad and drinking to grad school and not drinking, is called autobiography of a yogi. That book has changed countless lives. And whether you end up going down my route, which is self-realization fellowship or not, that's less important. But the book itself is really incredible. And how incredible is it? He basically the author of the book and the founder of the one where I learned Korea Yoga, Yogananda writes about his very tangible real experience of meditation. And he goes into such depth. It'll blow your mind. You're going to be like, I cannot believe that someone can live a life like this and go beyond the current state of whatever

we think reality is. It's all described in there. And I can attest to it, even if someone happens to be a little bit of a doubter. I get that. I'm a scientist myself. I want empirical data before I believe in it. So I want to experience it first. Well, I got to experience it firsthand, and then I got confirmation from reading. You went like, holy crap. This is very real.

Steve Jobs used to read this book annually. It was the only book on his iPad. Think about the founder of Apple, and he owns an iPad, and the only book on his iPad was autobiography of a yogi. And he used to read it every year. And when he died at his funeral, the one gift that he gave everyone was, a copy of this book. Everyone at the funeral received a copy of this book. So for whatever imperfections that Steve Jobs was in terms of anger issues and stuff like, he wasn't perfect, but no one can argue

that he was a visionary beyond his time. And think of the level of channeling this guy was able to do and create something beautiful. So everyone listening to this, I want them to feel empowered that, okay, if I read this book and start some of these apps and do this, you can take control over your own life because I'm a good example of it. It's definitely doable and sustainable. That's the key. Yeah, wow, that's a lot of great resources. Yeah, the apps too. I've heard of those over the years and they seem to be really in the last five years or so, I think, just really picking up, maybe a little bit longer than that, really picking up mainstream for a need for those type of guided meditations and all that type stuff. So that's incredible. I'm like on the fence now. I'm not much of a reader,

but I might have to check it out. Yeah, you'd love them. Yeah, incredible. I want to jump back into another question I have and I might be naive in a sense on this. But a lot of people drink alcohol for a long time. Some people, I don't know, 40, 50 years and maybe there's no blaring medical conditions. Then other people, it might be 10 years or 20 years and they start having problems with their liver or the countless other things that you mentioned. I mean, is there a thing that you would say, hey, this is a serious red flag for that something could come up from drinking? Yeah, you can actually see it very soon. People think of the long-term complications. Now, not everyone has access to this, but to give an example.

So the type of work that I do, I'm an interventional radiologist. What that means is I don't just read cat scans, x-rays and ultrasounds and MRIs. I use those imaging modalities to operate on people in a minimally invasive way. So I'm exposed to a lot of CAT scans. And you can look at a CAT scan on someone from just one night of drinking. So let's say they drank the night before and they happen to come into the emergency room and get a cat scan the next day, you can see fatty liver deposits in their liver just from one night of drinking. That's it. It's that quick. So what happens is when you drink alcohol,

the way your liver processes that, it turns the liver cells into fat cells. And so the liver on the cat scan has the appearance of fat deposits all throughout. Now, you may not even realize this happened, but it's certainly happened, and we've got imaging proof of it. And you can look and say, well, how do you know that wasn't there before? Because we've seen that a week ago, the person came in for some other reason, and their liver was normal. Then you find out they drank the night before, and now you've got one week's span, and now they've got fatty liver in that week before they did not. So we know it's the alcohol. That's a short-term thing. Now, of course, you or I, if we went drinking, there's no way we're going to know because who's getting a cat scan. But it just shows you how quick the

effect is. So one thing is obviously you can measure your blood alcohol level, but okay, fine. If someone were to say, well, yeah, I feel good. I drink. Yeah, you got all this alcohol in your blood. Great. Sure, a cop tested it. That just proves what we already know. And well, you're not going to think twice about it. But this imaging proof that I have access to is like, you can't lie. You have to see it to believe it, right? Picture tells a thousand words. Use whatever phrase you want. I get to see that. So that's something there. The other part is generally addictive person. We're not even talking about the mild drink because there's plenty of people who want to quit just because they want to and they want to feel better. And that's lovely. And I'm a huge advocate

for that too. But we've talked about someone who had whether it's a medically treated problem or maybe with someone from the psychology standpoint, they needed help. They need some accountability. There might be that or it's just severe disease. The whole range, sometimes you don't realize those until later. And that's the challenge. But one thing you can catch earlier on is just this person generally have some amount of, I don't want to say addiction, but attachment to certain things they do in their life that can be also negative. It can serve them really well in certain ways, but can serve them very poorly in others. You can just watch that trend. So like for me, for example, as I said, I generally am black or white. I'm either driving 15 miles an hour

at the speed limit, if that's what it's zoned for, I'm driving 90 miles an hour. Like, that's just kind of how I am. I've learned now that I have a three-year-old and I've been married for a good number of years that there is a sweet spot to live in life. And that's the thing that I learned over time. But my inherent default is go bigger, go home. And when you meet people like that, it's going to manifest itself in a multitude of ways. They might channel it throughout the whole, or it might be something else that they do. Extreme sports, driving really fast, whatever it might be. And when alcohol becomes a manifestation of it, you can see that in other aspects of their life. They love really hard. They can also, on the other side, get really angry really easily too. And you can watch those

trends. And I think, again, this goes back just briefly to the meditation part, you learn to live a balanced life. You don't have to live on the extremes, neither passive nor too aggressive, somewhere in between, but that requires training your mind. And that really benefits from the alcohol perspective. Yeah, no, that's incredible. What about a lot of people that you treat over the years? Like, do people get help after this stuff? I've had some people tell me this. Some of the older boys, they go into the doctor and they've been smoking and drinking for years. The doctor says like, hey, look at your wife there. Like, if you love this lady, you got to shut it down.

And the old boy there, he said, oh, yeah, you're right, you know. And that's it. No intervention, no 12 step, no treatment, no recovery, nothing just starts it down. And then I've taught with other people that are headed in that direction. And they're mentioning that they're waiting for that conversation to happen. So I'm just thinking, like, does that actually work to get people to say, you know, what? Enough is enough?

Does that make any sense? You mean just the conversation like that? What's the effect on your family? It does, but not for everyone. Not for everyone, which is why I've seen countless patients over the years who have been admitted for something related to their alcoholic liver disease.

And they're like, all right, doc, this is it. This is the last time. I don't want to end up here again. And then they come back. They might come back a few weeks later. It might be a few months. It might be a few years. And every statement like that matters. And I don't think that if anyone's struggling without listening to this right now,

I don't think you should ever feel that just because you relapsed or said something that you're a failure because you weren't able to do it. It's just it's that gripping. It's that gripping. And we're not just talking about alcohol. We're talking about in general. The chemical process in our minds of addiction is that strong that in order to overcome it, of course there can be medical intervention that can happen. but sometimes it does require being on that metaphorical wedge where you're looking at a life where it's either death or severe complications from that. And you're saying, okay, irrespective of how I feel about myself, I don't want my family to suffer and have to be responsible

either for taking care of me if I'm in a coma or if I happen to be gone and no longer here because I got a wife and children who depend on me. And it does often work, but many times, doesn't. And that's not to be criticized because it's just that challenging. And I will say that there are certain things in place in the medical world where you're not allowed to get certain treatments unless you have stopped and proven that. So for example, one really good example is liver transplant. You cannot get a liver transplant if you continue to drink. So you have to stop, I believe it's six months or a

year of proof that you have not touched any alcohol whatsoever. And only then once you've gotten into the point of end-stage liver disease? Are you a candidate for liver transplant? We're talking about the most severe of the severe cases. But even then, at some point, you're having to hold yourself accountable. So the sooner that conversation starts, well before you get there, the better. And I think as long as it's done in a loving, non-judgmental fashion, even if you seemingly fail, and I don't think it's a failure. If you do drink again, of course it's not. But just having that conversation with yourself and your family is one step beyond not having it at all, or at least having some sense of self-awareness. That's beautiful. Yeah, it is that hard for some people to stay sober for it.

And I love that perspective from you about it's not a failure. This is where you are. If you've drank again, this is where you are. And you have to kind of make a decision from here to move forward. Some people are under the assumption, too, that everything's thrown away. You know, like if they had maybe six months and then they drank again, all the past success or whatever they want to call it is gone. I don't think so at all. I think that you can take a lot of that with you. You've fallen down and now you've faced with a decision to get back up or stay down. But it doesn't mean that the experience of what you learned in the last six months was all for nothing. I love that. We have to learn to keep going. I didn't get this figured out my first time,

10th time or probably 15th time. It took a lot of times. It's just more dangerous. Now, though, to be honest, that's a tough conversation to have just with the other drugs that are out there now, right? That next time, and I know we've talked mostly about alcohol in this conversation, but when we talk about the fentanyl and car fentanyl in those conversations, just the reality is out there that you really have to be careful with stuff because with alcohol, I don't know, I'm just guessing here, but most of the times you'll hopefully be okay. With the other stuff, it's a coin flip from what it sounds like. It's a coin flip. So you got to just be safe out there. Yeah, it can be. So you mentioned fentanyl. I use fentanyl very regularly on my patients, at least once a day, if not more. And some of them who are really concerned about its effects will ask me, is this addictive? And I said, I don't expect it to be after one use.

But yeah, absolutely, it's that strong. If you look at some of my patients who are anxious before the procedure, and then once they get fentanyl, and then Versaid, which is a benzodiazepine in the same category is alchable. I'm basically giving them this incredible combination of drugs. And then you see what they're like in the middle of the procedure and just the heart rate goes down. They feel so good. They're kind of sleeping through the procedure, very nicely. And you see them in the recovery area. And they're just kind of chilling. They're just kind of vibing on. You just feel like good on it. And you can understand how effective these things are and then potentially how addictive they can be. But, you know, we use them in the clinical setting. But it's great. Sometimes when I do,

hear some of my patients ask me, like, oh, fentanyl, I've heard of that. Maybe you shouldn't use it on me because I just really don't want to get addicted. And that's really incredible to have that type of insight. But I say, you're going to be okay, this one or two times. We're going to have to do it to make you comfortable. Yeah, not everyone has that type of insight. Oh, for sure. They're just very, very gripping. The physiology behind what addiction is and the effect on your brain. But the dopamine rush is very real. Dopamine is one of the pleasure neurotransmitters. And speaking of that, like, for example, we talked about other drugs, cocaine. Cocaine prevents dopamine from being taken back up into the nerves. It releases it from one

nerve to communicate with another nerve and those two endings. And what the cocaine does is because the dopamine is supposed to be taken back up into the cell so it doesn't keep giving that pleasure. But cocaine prevents it. And it's just constant fire, fire, fire, fire, fire, fire. And then what happens? You need more and you know the story. You need more and more and more to get the same sex. Yeah. And then you get really depressed and you're craving for more after. I had my fair share of cocaine. I mean, it was probably the worst thing. I don't even know why I kept going back to do it over and over again because I literally hated it. But I mean, that's addiction, I think, in a layman's terms, right? It's something you don't want to do,

but you can't stop. And that's where I ended up, you know, with so many different things when it came to all kinds of stuff. I didn't want to go for another day and I just couldn't stop until I did. And I love what you brought up before way back in our talk here, which has been incredible, by the way, about it was something you decided you wanted to wanted to do for yourself. I'm not sure if those were your exact words, but a lot of us, over time, family will mention this, the judge will mention this, probation officer, friends, you got to quit, you got to quit. And I had all of that. But I never was able to get and stay sober until this was my own idea, which it sucked. I didn't want it to be that way because I didn't

want to see my parents upset with me and I didn't want to lose everything and I didn't want to hurt all these people and I didn't want to end up in these pickles all the time. But for me, personally it wasn't until I had this idea that I've got to do something different because it was like you talked earlier too about the life and death thing. That's where it was headed for me and grateful to be on this side. Grateful to have a chat with you today and for you to share some of your expertise and stuff because I'm seeing these articles come out too. A lot of these articles, right? And you can kind of tell what side they're going for this mainstream stuff, right? Why in a day makes you live longer? And then you'll see another article that says, why in a day? And I think

saw when the other day more women are killing themselves with alcohol now than ever before. And you see all this stuff, right? And sometimes it's hard to know what to believe, I think, for the average Joe that doesn't want to chase every rabbit hole. So thank you for bringing some real stuff in your experience to things. I'm wondering, too, though, how do you work through that, like personally? I know the meditation is a huge, huge thing for you, and that's probably helpful. But how do you work through it when you're saving people's lives and you're in things like out, that's just got to be an immense responsibility. It's challenging. We saw that during the COVID era, especially, where doctors are just, they've got the term compassion fatigue. I don't know if

you've heard that term, but it's very real. You have such little time to take care of yourself because you're constantly taking care of someone else. I go, I wake up in the morning and I help get my three-year-old ready for school. My wife and I do. And then I come and take care of sick people and operate on them, and then I go home and I've got a three-year-old, which obviously I love more than anything else in the whole world, but it's still you're responsible for another human being. Then at 2 in the morning, if I'm on coal, I can be woken up and said, hey, someone's bleeding very severely.

Can you come take care of that? And then I've got to go do it in the middle of the night. I'm always having to put my own needs aside to be able to do that, and that's what comes with the profession. It's something that we've been tasked with, but it's also an honor to have that responsibility because when someone's on my table, I'm it. I'm the last line. They're either dead if I don't do anything or they're going to be alive and walk out of the hospital in a couple of days because I was able to do it.

I'm very supported. I'm where I am because my parents are awesome. My wife is awesome. My mentors. We all need mentors, right? Like the people who probably got you where you are to this day. You mentioned about your parents. They were a component of it because you didn't want to feel that way. you wanted to change for yourself and you got other people who you've had to answer to and look at yourself and they're kind of the mirror saying, okay, I don't want to be that version that they see. I want to be something better for myself. So same thing I was going through. If I want to really be a doctor, I got to follow my mentors. So now here I've been with my staff. I've got a great team who helped me get through these situations. I might be the lead and the one whose hands are doing

the work, but I couldn't do it without a whole bunch of people and people who got me to where I am and where I'm going. It's a very coordinated effort. One thing I'll say that's the most pleasurable about this. I think even doctors who've been in the game a long time don't realize. Doctor is Latin for teacher. Most people don't know that. To be a real doctor is not just to give medications and operate on someone, but it's to educate. And if you can educate your patients or educate your community, now you've done the next step, which is you've empowered them to make their own decisions for their own health. And once you've done that, there are instances where I've even decided you're not a great candidate for the procedure. And they're like, oh, I thought I was here

to get, I was like, you're not here to get the operation. You're here in a consultation for me to empower you to make your own decision whether you want it or not, or if I think you're the best candidate for it or not. If you walk away, not going with this, but you feel empowered and you know what you're getting into next, then I did my job. And so then things feel less contractual. Things feel like there was a and a take, we gave each other an experience. And I think that's the most pleasurable part about being a doctor. So that's what I really love is just educating everyone and empowering them. Yeah, wow, that's beautiful. I didn't know that. Makes a lot of sense though. Beautiful. Before we wrap up, is there anything that you want to end with?

I just want to say that if anyone out there is feeling challenged by something that is gripping them, that there is another side to that. And I think the first thing is being forgiving of yourself. realizing your imperfections, because if anyone's out there judging you for whatever you are at whatever stage of lights you're in, they probably haven't looked in the mirror themselves enough. Because if you really do, that person would start to realize their own imperfections. So while you might be struggling with one thing, theirs might be on a more minor scale, relatively speaking, and there's might not be life for death, but they've got room for change too. The next point I want to make is that no matter where you are in the game, there's a thing

that we think that in order to teach people, I must be perfect. No, you don't have to be. You just need to be further ahead in the game than someone else and pass that information forward. And that's how we keep empowering one level to the other, to the other, to the other. So I'm forgiving of myself, but I'm looking ahead to see where I can be. Now I got to point B. Now I can help the people in point A. Now point C can help me get where I need to go to get there. And you just keep paying it forward. And lastly, how to do that, how to really take control. Again, I'll mention it. I really think meditation is just a lovely thing to do.

You really, really do get to take control over your own life and your mind. And once you have control over your mind, no one else or any substance has control over it. You truly do. Love that beautiful way to end. That's great insight. And I love that perspective for things. Well, thank you. It's been so much fun.

Yeah, likewise for me. Thank you so much for having me. It was an awesome conversation. Well, there it is, everybody. Dr. Ball, what an incredible episode. So grateful that he reached out to come on the podcast. Some valuable insight. I mean, how dangerous alcohol is, right?

I mean, he's performing a lot of these operations for people that, you know, alcohol has caused this stuff. So he definitely sees it, you know, all the time. All the time in his work and grateful that he would come on here and share his story and some of the stuff that's been helpful for him. So if you guys enjoyed this as much as I did, be sure to reach out to him. I'll throw his Instagram handle in the show notes below. And if you haven't left a review yet for the show, please do that. That would be incredible if you're on Spotify, if you're on Apple, if you're on Podbean,

wherever you're listening to the show at, be sure to drop a review. And look, I'm going to do some special for this show because I know there's some people that aren't listening to the end. but the first person who gets to this part of the show and sends me an email send me an email Brad at Brad T-T-Thomas T-M-C-L-E-O-D dot com and I'll send you a free t-shirt from the store

I'll see you guys on the next one look I'm having a ton of fun with this I'm so happy to hear that it's been helpful for so many people make sure to reach out to the guests let them know you appreciate them showing up for the show, putting it all out there, you know, being vulnerable, sharing their story with a, you know, a worldwide audience. And everybody else who's been sending kind messages, I mean, it means the world. It really does. It's the fuel that keeps this thing going.

See you on the next one.