The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Overcoming Addiction: George Haymaker’s Journey and Neuroscience Coaching

Episode Date: February 11, 2025

Overcoming Addiction: George Haymaker's Journey and Neuroscience Coaching Georgehaymaker.com About the Guest(s): George Haymaker is a former entrepreneur turned neuroscience coach and educator. Previously grappling with alcohol and drug addiction, George has transformed his life through the principles of neuroscience and neuroplasticity. Now, he dedicates his efforts to helping others improve their lives by understanding and reorganizing their brain's pathways. He works with various audiences, including those dealing with substance abuse, working professionals struggling with behavioral issues, and college students facing identity and self-esteem issues. Episode Summary: In this riveting episode of The Chris Voss Show, host Chris Voss engages with George Haymaker, a neuroscience coach and former entrepreneur, who shares his journey of overcoming addiction and transforming his life through neuroscience. The conversation delves into George's tumultuous past, the influence of childhood trauma on addiction, and the incredible capability of neuroplasticity to reshape lives. Listeners are introduced to Haymaker's approach to neuroeducation and how he utilizes it to aid individuals and organizations in overcoming behavioral challenges and fostering growth. Throughout the episode, George highlights the significant role of childhood experiences in shaping neurological pathways and their impact on adult behavior, emphasizing the power of the brain to adapt and change. He provides a detailed account of his battle with substance abuse, leading to his realization of hitting rock bottom at the age of 50, and the steps he undertook towards recovery. The dialogue explores the essence of addiction, differentiating between addictive personalities and abusive behavior, and advocating the importance of therapy and coaching to address unresolved trauma. The episode closes with George encouraging others by affirming that change is possible through understanding and rewiring the brain. Key Takeaways: Childhood trauma can significantly influence brain development and adult behavior, showcasing the importance of addressing past experiences. Neuroplasticity allows the brain to change and adapt, providing a solid foundation for personal transformation and overcoming addiction. A structured approach and consistent effort in altering thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can effectively remap brain pathways. Recognizing and addressing addictive behaviors can lead to substantial improvements in personal and professional life. Seeking therapy or coaching is vital for overcoming trauma and addiction, and it's never too late to make a positive change. Notable Quotes: "We're all products of our past experiences, and the brain's natural ability to change is what allows us to become different people." "Trauma is in the eyes of the beholder. What's traumatizing for one might not be so for another." "The brain doesn't have to run our lives; we have the ability to change its course and lead different lives." "Reward is a key component in making change happen, as our brains respond strongly to positive reinforcement." "You don't have to wait until you hit rock bottom to decide you want to change."

You wanted the best. You've got the best podcast, the hottest podcast in the world. The Chris Voss Show, the preeminent podcast with guests so smart you may experience serious brain bleed. The CEOs, authors, thought leaders, visionaries, and motivators. Get ready. Get ready. Strap yourself in. Keep your hands, arms, and legs inside the vehicle at all times. Because you're about to go on a monster education roller coaster with your brain. Now, here's your host, Chris Voss. Hi, this is Voss here from thechrisvossshow.com. Ladies and gentlemen, the heart and legs of things in the Mixed Official.

Welcome to the big show. As always, the Chris Voss Show is a family that loves you but doesn't judge you as harshly as the rest of your family because they know you better than we do. But don't ask to loan you money. We're not that kind of family. We're not that close. We're just, we're kind of close. Anyway, guys, go to goodreads.com, 4chesschrisvoss, linkedin.com, 4chesschrisvoss. Chris Voss won the TikTokity,

and all those crazy places on the internet. Opinions expressed by guests on the podcast are solely their own and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the host or the Chris Foss Show. Some guests of the show may be advertising on the podcast, but it is not an endorsement or review of any kind. Today we have a fine young man joining us today called, he's called, his name is George Haymaker. He's a former entrepreneur, former alcoholic addict, and now a neuroscience coach and educator who helps others improve their lives through neuroscience. Who knew?

Science. It beats doing voodoo dolls. He's a former entrepreneur who founded and led several small to medium-sized companies. I don't know. I shouldn't shame voodoo. Should I? Maybe it is a science that works. Who knows?

What do I know? Don't put a curse on me, people. That's all I'm saying. He also struggled with severe anxiety, low self-esteem, anger, and other symptoms related to childhood trauma and upbringing. He coped with the systems by turning to addictive substance abuse, hitting the bottom at age 50, taking up to 50 pain pills and drinking two bottles of vodka per day before hitting bottom. As at a life and death crossroads, he had a rehab and began a program of recovery and discovery. Welcome to the show.

How are you, George? Doing great, Chris. It's hard to believe I'm still alive after all that, huh? We're glad to the show. How are you, George? Doing great, Chris. It's hard to believe I'm still alive after all that, huh? We're glad to have you. We're glad you're still here. That's quite the journey you went on. And a lot of people in rehab and a lot of people with addiction issues, they're dealing with childhood traumas and they're using that as a cope. And so it's important to understand what people are going through.

So give us a dot coms. Where do you want people to find out more about you on the interwebs? Yeah, my website is georgehaymaker.com. And you'll find a lot about my approach to neuroscience coaching and neuroeducation. I serve three primary audiences, those that are struggling with substance use, abuse, and addiction. I also have working professionals that work for companies that struggle with various forms of behavior, things that disaffect workplace culture, cause them to find it hard to get along and relate to their colleagues. Then I also help college students that are struggling with identity and self-esteem, self-confidence issues. There's a lot of that going on around today with how children have been brought up in the social media era.

So yeah, those are the three audiences that I try to target. And so your journey in helping people with neuroscience, tell us what is the definition of neuroscience specifically and neuroeducation and how do you kind of help people apply that? Sure. Neuroscience, you know, is the study of the brain and the nervous system, how it functions and how we can change it. Neuroplasticity is the name of the brain's natural ability to change, adapt and evolve. And thank goodness for people like me who were in a bad spot our brains malfunctioning that we are able to change ourselves and reorganize our the physiology in our brains the neurons the neural pathways how they're organized and make ourselves

into different people but basically chris we're all products of our past experiences. So all the things that have happened to us in our past make up who we are today. And that physiologically represents itself in our brain in terms of how the brain is organized and mapped out. And so when we habituate certain patterns, unhelpful thoughts, feelings, behaviors like addiction. We have formed those neural pathways in our brain to deal with life, to think that way, feel that way, behave that way. And the more that we do it, the stronger that mapping gets put into place, the stronger those pathways become. And it becomes very difficult to escape unless we decide that we are going to change and have the appropriate motivation and commitment to change and then set out a new set of feelings, thoughts, and behaviors that represent how we want to be.

So just as how we've created ourselves to be how we are today, we can envision a new future and then create new experiences by how we think feel and behave and then the more that we repeat those thoughts feelings and behaviors we start to reorganize and remap out our brain in that in that new vision we have for ourselves oh do you think that a lot of those neural pathways were changed during the trauma period that people went through in childhood well they were formed during that period. So our pathways were particularly apt to the formation of these pathways when we're children. So the front parts of our brains, the parts that allow us to evaluate information, make decisions, impulse control, pass judgment on things,

don't start forming until the age of six and don't fully develop until our mid-20s. Evaluate information, make decisions, impulse control, pass judgment on things. Don't start forming until the age of six and don't fully develop until our mid-20s. So everything that happens to us as children goes right into our brains and imprints itself into memory. Wow. Yeah. So that's why people that have difficult upbringings find themselves behaving, thinking, and feeling in such ways as adults that reflect how they were brought up. So frankly, if you were to go into an AA meeting and hear about people's addiction histories, it all generally starts in childhood with how they were brought up. And that shapes the brain. Yeah. I mean, it's interesting to me. It's always been interesting

to me as I've learned about it, how much childhood, your blueprints, the things you get from your parents, their relationships, interactions, the things you learn, things that happen to you. age in our brain is at a function where it can't it can't handle it and sometimes these things come up later in life and when the brain goes maybe they can deal with this memory or that memory and there it is oh yeah it's kind of interesting tell us you know we've we've touched on a little bit but in your words tell us kind of what your upbringing was like i don't know if you want to talk about trauma that you experienced or you know what what happened to you growing up and some of the details of some of the ups and downs you know it sounds like you finally bottomed out when you turned 50 and and boy that's a hard road two bottles of vodka and is that 16 ounces or 32 i lost count but it was a lot it almost so there's more than 132 then

yeah it was ugly at the end you know know, just waking up every couple of hours, having to take more substances just to go back to sleep. Anyway, you know, my childhood, and again, trauma is in the eyes of the beholder, right? So what's trauma for one person isn't necessarily traumatizing for the next. But in my case, my dad was a corporate executive. We moved every year to two years. So I was constantly in and out of environments, never really getting to feel comfortable in one before I had to go into another, always saying goodbye to friends, meeting new friends. And then there was a lot of physical discipline in our home.

And I really idolized my parents. So it wasn't really necessarily just the physical harm. It was more these two people that you look up to as your primary attachments in life were basically telling you through their actions that you were not a good person and that you weren't worthy and so on. They moved overseas when I was in eighth grade. I went away to boarding school, so kind of fending for myself in that way. There was some sexual abuse from some neighborhood boys that occurred. So just a compilation of different things that didn't make me feel very good about myself and a lot of anxiety, some moderate depression. I got to college, found substances, it all got better.

And that's how I coped for the next 30 some years. Again, before I hit bottom. And it wasn't just the addiction, it was anger issues, hypersensitivity, hyper defensiveness. Anytime anybody would tell me anything different than I wanted to hear, I hearkened back to those early days when I was being threatened by my parents' actions that said, you know, you aren't thinking the right way. You're behaving the right way. You're not feeling the right way. And so that's what happens is we react. We're going to react. Sorry to interrupt you. You feel like you're being traumatized again. You're entering the trauma.

It never heals. So the scabs just continue to get reopened. It could be new triggers, but they feel like the old ones. And so these are our defense mechanisms in the desire to survive. We're all just trying to survive. And these are just different flavors of the same ice cream that threaten your survival. And you're going to do whatever you have to do to feel like you can survive yeah a lot of people don't realize that you know if you're being gaslit you feel like you're being manipulated in some sort of way if people are scaring with you you know those are all signs that you probably have some unresolved trauma and you're you're

basically like you mentioned your your brain is going hey we're being traumatized again fight or flight mode. And, you know, I mean, and that's where people react very poorly. You know, I've seen people flip out, you know, at the coffee barista at Starbucks because, I don't know, she didn't get the milk right or something. And, you know, you see people lose their shit. You see these Karens that are out there wandering around and these people literally lose their bananas. And if you have that, the reason I'm pointing that out is if you have that in your life, please go get some therapy and realize you have some help.

You need some help because it's a sign that you're being triggered because you have unresolved trauma. And the only way to really heal that is to go through trauma. So what was your... Go ahead. Chris, just know highlight that point these unresolved traumas feelings thoughts behaviors present themselves as these pathways in your brain your neurons have formed in such a way that it represents these past traumas and so

what happens is our brain you know goes back to those pathways they light up again and and our behaviors and feelings and thoughts that occurred way back when resurface again and we continue to reenact the same things over and over again because these pathways have been reorganized that way and they're so strong due to that emotional component yeah and sometimes i, my understanding is sometimes the reason we keep repeating those is we're trying to reconcile them. But the problem is the source, right? The problem is the source of the issue where we haven't unresolved the trauma. And you can't really fix it until you go cut out the source. It's kind of like you can't fix cancer just fix cancer just by i don't know taking aspirin you got to go in and cut out the cancer so so what what was how did you identify what rock bottom was for you can you give somebody you know because there's somebody probably listening that's going through this where they're close to their rock bottom or they maybe they're at their rock bottom well what did rock bottom look like for you and how did

what did you do in that moment that made you make a change to where you're like, I'm not going to do this anymore? Yeah, so everybody's rock bottom is different. And I actually had it easy because I hit such a hard bottom. And I assure you, when you're taking 50 pain pills and drinking two bottles of vodka a day, you just simply can't go on many more days like that. Because I hit a brick wall and i had no choice but to change what the people i feel compassion and empathy for are those where the consequences haven't piled up to that degree you know they haven't killed somebody by driving drugs whatever it might be and they're just struggling and yet they don't

know how to change and they don't quite have that hitting the bottom motivation to cause them to change so that's really where i try to help people is you don't have to wait until you get to that point where you just can't go on anymore you can change at any time and that's where coaching really helps is it is if you partner with the coach and they help you become aware of what you're going through, how the brain works, how what you're going through is represented in the brain, and how the brain can change so that you can live a different life. So I imagine it was affecting your relationships too, was it? Were there a lot of different signs you were seeing that people might want to be able to identify out there if they're going through similar things? Yeah, a lot of it's in your own behavior.

You know, hopefully you can recognize it yourself, but it certainly affects your relationships. I, you know, scared my wife and my puppies off. And when you start scaring your puppies off, you know you're a bad dude. Yeah, because they're pretty loving, unconditional. My dogs still put up with me, and I still fart in the bed. So they still love me. I think. I don't know.

I suppose if I ever run out of treats, I'll find out how much they love me. How did you get help at the time you hit rock bottom what did you do to change i had to go to rehab myself for my addiction just because i couldn't stop without being physically separated from the substances and the the environments i was in environment yeah yes but that's not necessary for everyone, especially if you don't have addiction and you're just looking to change thought patterns, deep-seated feelings, other types of behavior. You know, you can change those things by still going through everyday life. You just have to go through life differently. So that's what I do is I help people understand, you know, once we start to change our actions, our thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in the way that we want to behave, think, and feel,

and then we repeat them over and over again through a structured lifestyle that we build together, before you know it, through enough repetition, and once the brain starts experiencing some reward associated with those changes, these new pathways develop. And then the new pathways, over time, begin to overtake the old pathways, and you start to shift and migrate. Where people get stuck and lost is they don't stick with it long enough. You know, Chris, if you want to be a great weightlifter or a great instrumentalist in some musical instrument, you don't just practice for a week and say, I'm not great. That's enough. You know that you're going to have to practice for a period of time to get where you want to go. And that's the same thing when you're remapping,

you're reorganizing your brain and redeveloping your mental life, is it just doesn't happen overnight. You have to practice these things and stay committed to them and you will start to see rewards within a few weeks and you know you can often often shift your entire personality in months no and so you've got to change the mapping your brain you got to you got to resolve those issues. Did you have an addictive personality, or do you think that the addiction was really just tied towards coping per se? Because I'll give you an example. So I don't have an addictive personality, but I definitely used alcohol as a crutch in the evenings for 10, 15 years, where I would drink.

I thought I was going to sleep better doing it, and it was like a nightcap to put me out. But I would drink half a bottle of vodka. I'm a bigger guy, and I have a high tolerance for everything. So there's that. But still, my friends would be like, you have an addiction problem. I'm like, I don't. I have an abuse problem.

I abuse it, but I don't get the shakes like you guys do when you're smoking. Like my friends, if they don't get their cigarette or their fix, I've seen people that drink too, they'll start to shake. They'll start to go through withdrawal symptoms. So I never had that sort of thing. And when I quit that and I quit Mountain Dew and I quit a bunch of stuff, I just cold turkey'd it and it was over. So do you feel like you were in one of those two canisters?

Because some people do have addictive personalities. I mean, I live in Vegas, so I bring this up. And that's a whole different sort of animal than just abuse and coping for trauma. Yeah. The answer to your question is yes. And you can tell pretty easily by looking at your ancestry. The entire side of my mom's family were addicts and so that's a genetic component right we have our environmental component which is the shit we go through in life and that causes us to cope in certain ways but there's also

the genetic component which is we're built certain ways when we come out of the womb. And those people that have addiction in the family and have a genetic predisposition have a four times more likelihood to become addicts than people that don't. And then if you add trauma on top of that, you have another four times more likely to become an addict. So when you have trauma and you have addiction in your genetics, you have an eight times more likelihood that you will become an addict. So when you have trauma and you have addiction in your genetics, you have an eight times more likelihood that you will become an addict, especially if you start before the age of 18, when the front part of your brain is not yet finished to develop. So you don't know what it is that you're doing to yourself. Yeah. And I think a lot of people have addiction in their story. They have somebody that their family that has it and sometimes it can miss generations sometimes some siblings have a predisposition others don't so it's kind of the

you know genetic lottery but there are people that do become addicts that don't have predisposition yeah so yeah my personal history for sure so now you're helping other people deal with their issues and stuff like that. Tell us about some of the courses and offerings you have on your website that you utilize to help people overcome these things. Yeah. So what I recommend is 12 sessions working together, which is generally 12 weeks. You know, once you enter a program like this, you want to stay immersed in it. And it needs to become a priority in your life. If you have one foot in one foot out, you don't get the results. And so that consists of, you know, 1275 minute sessions, there's a lot of communication that goes on in between sessions,

a lot of follow up, a lot of make sure making sure that we're still on track, a lot of accountability measures. And we just kind of walk through this process and, you know, celebrate the victories. It's important to recognize when things do happen because you can build on that. We're all like animals. You know, we get trained. And when we get rewards from things, we want to do more of it. And that's the primitive midbrain parts of our brain that celebrate those things reward reward is a key component in making this thing happen and so you know we're looking at 12 weeks together if not longer but it definitely takes up to three months

to begin to begin to see some real shifting in how you're thinking feeling and behaving and starting to see the rewards that you want. Drifting is good, as it were. And people can do that through working with you. I assume you have working professionals and organizations you work with, addiction and harm reduction, sober companionship. So with the sober companionship, are you being like a sponsor sort of thing for them

and the AA sense of it? No, AA sponsorship is free but let's say you're a corporate executive and you know you know you have this issue may not be addiction but it could be abuse and you you've got to go to corporate functions and you don't want to get out of hand and do anything inappropriate and you have to give a speech you know i can accompany somebody to those functions. I can work with executives on, and let's say they want to cut back or cut down or maybe they're sober curious.

Then we can work on these programs of rebuilding a life that allows them to cope with their thoughts, feelings, and behaviors in a more healthy way so that they're not relying on addictive substances to cope. And so we begin that shift by working together. Rewire the brain, change it, focus it, change the neural things. I mean, it's great that we have this ability to be conscious as human beings.

At least some of us are conscious, let's put it that way. There's a couple people wandering around. There's a couple people voting that way there's a couple people wandering around and there's a couple people voting that way the so it's i see on your website that you you gave up you trade your alcohol and prescription drug habit for ice cream addiction is that how is that going and what is that about yeah so that was my go-to right after i left recovery so so I transferred to sugar. I can imagine that. But really, if you're transferring addictions, you're not really dealing with the issues deep down. So over time, the reason I have that on there

is I developed an ice cream brand that was much healthier than traditional ice cream, but still tasted as good. So I operated that venture for a number of years and you know eventually i've kind of cut out all that kind of stuff from my diet you recognize the full addiction of because i see that like i mentioned earlier i see that i live in vegas and so i see people that will try and transfer from one addiction to the other and when they have an addictive personality you know you've got to recognize that you know some people give up smoking and they'll put on 300 pounds because they're they'll

go eat instead of you know it's it's there's almost uh there's almost a tactile mouth tactile sort of addiction it's a whole ritual yeah where people people you know you gotta have some in your mouth so you know gum might be maybe a healthier thing to put in your mouth and i don't know there's some gum has got a lot of sugar in it too so yeah i mean but i'm glad you recognize that and and you you went through that journey so people can do a discovery call looks like with you for about 30 minutes and find out if you're good fit and how things can work together with you yeah free discovery call happy to talk through what you're struggling with and you know we can see if we're a good fit together and lay out a plan to to move forward but i just want to i want to ensure people that this is possible i mean i was in a bad bad state um and the brain the great thing about the

brain is the brain doesn't have to run our lives we i want to encourage you to run your own brain the brain is there like every other part of your body to serve you. And we have the ability to change its course, change its direction, remap it, reform new pathways, and lead different lives. I assure you it's possible. And I encourage everybody, if you're out there and you find yourself being triggered all the time by news, gaslighting, politics was kind of an identity of my trigger of gaslighting you know if you're going about your day and people are triggering you sometimes the simplest thing is setting you off you know where you're kind of you know you might look back on it and go hey i'm kind of overreacted you know you're flipping out on people sometimes that you know don't don't

really deserve or didn't have an intent to harm you in any way, but you're upset because the latte wasn't right or something. Get help. Talk to a therapist. Talk to George here, but get help. Realize you have a problem. If you think you have an addiction problem, reach out as well. It doesn't hurt.

I think one of the hardest parts, George, tell me if I'm wrong here, is sometimes we feel isolated and alone. And sometimes we feel alone that this is just me. I'm the only person who has this problem. I don't know how to solve it. And one of the great things about our podcast and people like you coming on the show is it helps other people know that they're not alone in what they're dealing with and that there is blueprints there is a way out and there is help yeah these issues are remarkably common

you know everybody struggles with their thoughts feelings and behaviors in one form or another so we're all similar in that way and the thing about drugs and alcohol is it makes you isolate even more nothing becomes more important than the drug and alcohol your relationship really screws you up chemically makes your conditions worse it exacerbates the thoughts thoughts feelings and behaviors that you're having so there is tons of help out there and this stuff is more common than you think and and you know we're all in this together. So please get help. Reach out, too.

And, you know, we talked to, we just had a previous episode about an hour ago where we talked about gut health. We've talked about this on the show before, too. The one problem you have is when you put substances like you and me drinking the vodka there and drugs and other sort of things in your system, it can flame your gut health, and then it inflames your brain. And there's kind of a system where you feel like shit, so you drink because you feel like shit, and you're just going to feel more like shit. It's like this cyclical thing that goes around, and you're just, why do I feel like shit?

I feel better if I take some booze, because I don't feel like shit so much, or I don't feel anything maybe and it's just a vicious cycle and so you know i grew drinking in 2020 during covid and i just got tired of feeling like i just got tired of the bloating and the hangovers and the and the you know an hour on a couple hours on friday night pound of vodka and have partying or whatever you know three day equal three days of dehydration bloating water gain water loss just my energy would be destroyed i would just feel like i was dragging for three days like i couldn't have

enough coffee and being free of all that stuff sugar and mountain dew was also one of my other sort of crutches you know getting rid of all that shit, man. I feel like a great human being. I can't even imagine taking a drink today. And I didn't have a crash. I just started lifting my body and went, you know what? It's so nice not to have those hangovers. Every now and then I get a caffeine hangover, a caffeine withdrawal hangover,

because I drink a lot of espresso. And I'll feel like that caffeine hangover, I'll be like oh my god this is what the hangovers for alcohol used to be like only ten times worse oh yeah you're laying in bed for two or three days just in the fetal position with all your body parts are like fuck you we're leaving so give people a final pitch out, onboard with you, reach out to you, etc. Sarah.com, all that good stuff, George. Yeah, so again, my name is George Haymaker. I'm a neuroscience coach and neuroeducator.

We do a lot of education in our work together. I teach you how the brain works, how it changes, and keep it simple, keep it fun, keep it safe. It's a great collaborative environment. We focus on how to get you forward, you know, how to start taking action and help you start living the life that you want to live. GeorgeHaymaker.com. Thank you, George, for coming on and thank you for sharing your story. I know we'll help some people out there and definitely want to save them. So

get help, folks. Don't wait. so get help folks don't wait please don't don't wait you know i i i woke up to a lot of my issues from childhood trauma and abuse that i was doing to booze around my 50s so to george you don't want to wait i you know people always say to me what would you go back and tell your teenage person or high school person if you could go back and get in fucking therapy. Thank you, George, for coming to the show. Thanks for tuning in. Go to goodreads.com, Fortress, Chris Foss, LinkedIn.com,

Fortress, Chris Foss, Chris Foss, one of the TikTokity and Chris Foss, Facebook.com. Be good to each other. Stay safe. We'll see you next time.