The Dr. Josh Axe Show - Why Everyone Is Addicted to Something (12 Steps to Overcome Negative Patterns) | Ian Morgan Cron

Episode Date: January 23, 2025

In this thought-provoking episode of The Dr. Josh Axe Show, Dr. Axe sits down with bestselling author, speaker, and Enneagram expert Ian Cron to explore the groundbreaking concepts behind his latest book, The Fix. Together, they discuss how addiction isn’t just about substances—it’s about the unhealthy loops we all fall into, whether it's sugar, people-pleasing, or endless Amazon purchases. Ian shares how the 12-step program can be a spiritual trellis for growth, helping anyone break free from these cycles and reconnect with their God-given purpose. Ian is the renowned inventor of the modern Enneagram framework and a seasoned spiritual guide. His book, The Fix, distills decades of wisdom into actionable steps for transformation, making him the perfect guest to help listeners tackle life’s challenges with grace and clarity. You’ll hear: How addiction can take many forms beyond substances—like workaholism, people-pleasing, or constant scrolling Why loneliness and mental health struggles have skyrocketed in the digital age and what to do about it How the 12 steps provide a simple yet profound roadmap for spiritual and emotional renewal How to cultivate emotional balance and equanimity in a chaotic world Walk away with practical tools to break free from the loops holding you back and start living with purpose and peace Don’t miss this life-changing conversation that dives deep into the intersection of psychology, spirituality, and personal growth. Whether you’re struggling with an obvious addiction or subtle patterns of discontent, this episode offers actionable insights and hope. Tune in to transform your life and take the first step toward becoming the person God designed you to be. #addiction #draxe #drjoshaxe Want more of The Dr. Josh Axe Show? Subscribe to the YouTube channel. Follow Dr. Josh Axe Instagram Twitter Facebook TikTok Website Follow Ian Morgan Cron Instagram Facebook LinkedIn Website ------  Staying healthy in today's world is an upstream battle. Subscribe to Wellness Weekly, your 5-minute dose of sound health advice to help you grow physically, mentally, and spiritually. Every Wednesday, you'll get:  Holistic health news & life-hacks from a biblical world view Powerful free resources including classes, Q&As, and guides from Dr. Axe The latest episodes of The Dr. Josh Axe Show Sign up here → https://forms.thehealthinstitute.com/l-77  Submit your questions via voice memo to be featured on the show → speakpipe.com/drjoshaxe  ------  00:00 Mental Health Issues 04:47 Cycle of Addiction 21:00 12 Steps for Transformation 30:40 How to Overcome Resistance 38:12 Reformation vs Transformation 44:49 Spiritual Growth 51:20 Relationships with Others ------  Links:  Check out Ian Morgan Cron’s latest book, The Fix → https://ianmorgancron.com/thefix  ------  Ads:  Even if your bloodwork looks "normal," your symptoms could point to Cell Danger Response (CDR). Discover how to break free from CDR and unlock your full potential at https://beyondbloodwork.com/. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to Dr. Josh Axe show. I'm your host, Dr. Axe. And each and every week on this show, we dive deep into the science and principles behind how to grow in body, mind and spirit and take your health and your life to the next level. Today, we've got an incredible episode, Ian Kronoson. He is the inventor of the enneagram, which I'm a big fan of and we've talked about it before. And he's the author of a new book called The Fix. It's really about how a certain program and way of thinking and philosophy, in life can help you experience breakthroughs, whether you're struggling with a sugar addiction or a food addiction, or you're a people pleaser, or you have some barrier in your life in your relationship or your workplace, or something professionally that's just keeping you from being who God designed you to be. We're going to talk about the exact steps, 12 steps specifically, in order to help you experience that breakthrough that you need in your life. Let's dive in. Ian, welcome the show. Josh, I'm really glad to be here. Well, good.

Well, hey, we're going to talk about fixing things today. So fixing a lot of people have a lot of emotional issues, a lot of addictions. I think, you know, what's interesting, when I first opened up my functional medicine clinic in Nashville, this was years ago, the most common conditions that were growing were issues like cancer, diabetes, heart disease, hypothyroidism. Today, over the last seven years, it's mental health issues. Yeah, and I think it's also, don't you think it also has something to do with, the rise of social media.

Yeah. And also the normalization of vulnerability. Right. And sometimes people go too far and sometimes I think to myself, well, that's, you know, okay, that's a little, you know, in this milieu, that's probably going further than is probably healthy. Yeah. I think the ability to maintain some level of privacy, not secrecy, but privacy is a

healthy thing. Yeah. And there are contexts in which I can share this and others I shouldn't. Some of those barriers have come down too far. But on the whole, I think that, you know, more younger generations, and particularly since COVID, too. I think COVID had a big impact. Oh, it radically changed the world.

Yeah. I mean, it was the biggest shift in the past, you know, 100 some years of convinced. Yeah. And so people have been coming out of the closet like, man, depression, anxiety. Loneliness. Loneliness is endemic, right? Addictions, all manner of things have come out of the closet. And again, I think it's healthier to air those, you know, in appropriate settings, inappropriate ways. I do think that, you know, when we're talking about, as you were saying, like, everything from depression to anxiety, loneliness. I mean, these are conditions that are continuing to climb. And as you're saying, a lot people are more vulnerable about them. And I think that these issues, have always been there, but I also think that they are in certain ways more prevalent, loneliness, for example, not to say people haven't been lonely, but I think because people have pursued, for instance, social media, I think is a primary example. It's like if you've got a thousand friends

on social media, but you're only going shallow with a thousand people. Like, it's probably healthier to go deep with five people than go shallow with a thousand. Yeah. Well, the irony there is, right, like you and I have meaningful sized audiences, right? They may be friends, they may be termed friends on social media. They are not your friends. You know what I mean? Not in the classical sense of the word. And to be reminded of that and to tether your self-worth to friends,

numbers of friends or the likes or anything like that is a very slippery slope. I mean, how much do you think that has to do with addiction today? Like people get it addicting to things in terms of what we're talking about here with their identity and connection to others and God. in other groups. Yeah. Well, I mean, addiction is such a tricky creature, right? I think it's part of the human condition.

There's a great Christian psychiatrist named Gerald May wrote a classic book years ago called Addiction and Grace. And one of the things that he said is to be human is to be addicted. And to be addicted and human is to stand in need of grace. So really, it's hardwired into us. You know, like addiction. Well, and I know this. I've said this hormonally.

I mean, dopamine has a priming. example of this, even oxytocin and serotonin. So, I mean, there's no doubt we are physiologically, yeah, wired for addiction. Yeah. But, you know, Bill Wilson, who founded Alcoholics Anonymous, was a genius, really. You know, he was one of these guys who was channeling, you know, God stuff without, I don't even think even knowing he was doing it, you know, which makes it even more brilliant, you know. You know, addiction is so complicated, right? I think there's a genetic or a biological component, there's a neurological component, there's a social component, there's an economic component. It's just very, very complicated. But ultimately, he said,

it's principally a spiritual malady. And I think that's right. I do too. That addiction is an attempt to find an external solution to an internal problem. Can I tell you, I think that's true with most health conditions. Interesting. I think people struggling with everything from to autoimmune disease to high blood pressure. It's mostly that exact same thing. I think it's mostly a spiritual problem. Like for instance, blood pressure as a primary example, I mean, yeah, you can eat too much sodium and those sort of things impact it mildly and some seed oils and inflammatory fats, but for the most part, it's stress. And so what's causing stress? Well, it's worry, worrying about your future, it's grieving over your past, it's living in a state of unforgiveness. I mean, in Chinese

medicine, the way that they look at this, and by the way, there's a lot more, research on this now coming out, but every emotion, different emotions affect different organ systems and cause disease there. So we know, for instance, that worry affects the digestive system, grief and not letting go of things of your past impacts the lungs and the colon and the immune system. And so I just wanted to reemphasize your point is I think it's almost every health problem, at least, and not to say diet doesn't impact it, I think it does, but I actually still think what impacts our health even more than food is our spiritual state. Yeah. So let me ask you a question about stress. I've heard it said that stress is what happens when there's greater demand

than there is supply. Yeah. Is that true? In other words, if you're stressed because of work, it's because there's more demand for your time than there is supply of it. I think that's a great example of it. I think that's a, because here's what happens is stress isn't all bad. Like in fact, if your organs are never stressed, they can't be strengthened. So there is a level of stressing that we actually want. But it's, yeah, when you over, it's, you know, the equivalent of our muscles are organs. It's like if I go and try and right now, if I go and try and curl 50 pound dunbells constantly, I'm eventually going to tear my bicep. It's just too much. But a lot of people are essentially tearing injuring, doing those very same things to their gut microbiome, to their arterial walls,

to their organs. But I think that's a great, you know, a great way to sum it up. Yeah. So what's interesting about the 12 steps as a program for living, right, as a spiritual program for living is, I think it addresses a lot of what we're talking about, right? Like in, let's just define an addiction for a second. Yeah, yeah. So maybe we could say that an addiction is an unhealthy, unhealthy, compulsive relationship with a person.

a behavior or a substance that has mood-altering effects and negative consequences. Right? Yeah. So all those things have to kind of be in place. So if you're a workaholic, for example, right, you have a unhealthy, compulsive relationship with work and success, right? That has mood-altering effect because my self-esteem is bolstered by my success, my identity is reinforced through my success and through my work.

et cetera, et cetera. And it has negative consequences because my marriage is tanking. My kids are estranged for me because I'm never around. My health is suffering because I'm working too much, right? That's just an addictive loop. Yeah. Right. You're in an addicts loop at that point, right? So what the 12 steps do is an outline for living that is very, very biblical. Like when I look at the 12 steps are going, okay, that's the gospel in miniature. Wow. Right. Steps one to three are just about making peace with God, getting your relationship with God straightened out. Repent, right? Yeah. Or is that later on? Well, it's that actually runs through the whole, right? However, when I think of the word repent, what I don't think is, okay, I have to crucify myself for being a bad person, right?

No, when I use the word, I think the first thing is, and I know the Hebraic actually is, is probably more comprehensive, but what I, what I'm saying with that is more, I recognize I've got a problem, and I admit I'm not doing, I'm not, I'm not doing. the right thing. Like it's sort of this thing of like I, okay, I realize and I want to make a change and I'm going to make a change that I am working too much and I've put this over my family and over God and over things that should be a bigger priority. Yeah. And the original meaning of that word really is in the original language is to change the way you think. Right. Change your mind. Like just change your mind about what will bring you happiness, what will bring you life, what we'll bring, right? It's just a change of mind. So when you think about the prodigal son, it's a perfect example of this, right? He came to his senses. Yeah, there you go.

It changed his mind. He turned and went back home, right? Because it doesn't, yeah, the root of the word too means to literally change direction, like go completely the opposite way. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. And so what the steps do, right, one through three, all right, well, we're going to straighten out a relationship with God. Then four through seven, it's just we're going to straighten out a relationship with ourselves. And then eight and nine is we're going to straighten out our relationships with other people. And then 10 through 12 is we're going to cultivate a lifestyle that promotes health and produce a generative way of being in the world moving forward. And that's it. I mean, they're simple. They're not easy, but it's super simple and it covers the gamut of the human

experience. And it's not just, well, in the book I talk about this idea. that I just think everybody's an addict, right, at some level. Now, some obviously have more fatal consequences quicker, right, than others. However, everybody's got loops of addiction, right? And the only way to disentangle ourselves from them, and many of us don't realize how much they're tyrannizing our lives, right, is to get these three domains together, right? And you talk about integration a lot.

I think the integration of God's self and others is pretty dang important. Oh, my gosh, it's so big. I mean, I'm thinking about, you know, I watched this with Hillsdale College. There's this great Bible study that they had for free that I went through. And there was this expert in Hebrew and Genesis. And he talked about that when you're reading Genesis, that part of what we're called to do is reestablish our relationship with God, with others, and with the earth. Actually, even with our environment. And so I think it's very, you know, akin to that in terms of we need to redeem these relationships.

if we're going to be whole again. Yes, but that requires a plan. Yeah. So here's the deal, right? You go to most churches or synagogues or whatever your spiritual orientation is, right? And if you were to go up to a common person and say to them, do you have a plan for transformation? They look at you like, well, I mean, I go to church and I listen to worship music in the car, and I prays you every now and then. It's like, okay, that's all good.

And I don't want to put that down, all well-intentionally good, but you don't have a plan. Yeah, yeah. You know? And it's like, and actually, most of it's like. And actually most churches, and I've been a pastor, so I know how this works, right? They don't have a plan for you either. Like they have programs, but no plan, right? And what the steps provide, and I'm not saying it's the only plan,

but is a time-tested, evidence-based, tens of millions, if not hundreds of millions people of lives, have been radically overhauled, revolutionized, saved as a result of working that simple program. And what the book is trying to say in the fix is, look, man, Like, you could, anyone can derive the same benefits from this program, whether they self-identify as an addict or not. You know what I mean? It's like, this is for everybody. It's out there for you.

And I just wanted to democratize it. Like, hey, let's just get it out of church basements and get it in the hands of everybody. Yeah. You know, because what's happening in the basement of the church? More miracles are happening in the basement usually than upstairs. Yeah. Where the 12-step meetings are happening. Hey, talk to me about this because I think there's probably some people thinking.

And you mentioned everyone's an addict. I think there probably are some people thinking, well, I mean, I'm not an addict. You know, I'm not doing too much alcohol. I'm not doing too many drugs. But what about, you know, buying stuff every five minutes on Amazon and having it delivered to your door? And we're returning it. I know a guy who goes to Costco all the time, right?

And he gets like $5,000 for the stuff for a party. And then he returns it two weeks later. I mean, and he's actually caught in a cycle of it. Like he's, you know, or the people we know are buyers. gamblers, debt, you know, people-pleasing, codependency. See, I was going to get into people-placing. Yeah, codependency, sugar. Oh, my gosh. I mean, there are a lot of these things that I think that they're not drugs, they're not alcohol, but they're addictions. They have mood-altering effect and negative consequences. And you can't stop. Yeah. On your own. Like, you have tried,

you know, you've tried diets, you've tried this, you've tried that, you keep sneaking. down at 2 o'clock in the morning to have, you know, Ben and Jerry's because guess what, you're anxious. You have, you know, as great spiritual masters have said, you are experiencing that sort of sense of existential dis-ease, discontent, in quietude. You know, those feelings that are on the baseline of the human condition. I mean, if you're reading the same Bible I'm reading, right, like that is just our baseline. Yeah.

Right? We are not. So there's a term I use in the book. It's the feeling of not-at-homeness that I think people carry with them, right? Now, how you manage that not-at-hom-homans. Can you talk about that a little bit more, the feeling of not-at-homeness? Yeah, so, I mean, well, from a biblical perspective, right? C.S. Lewis, I'm seeing his books on your shelf here.

I love Lewis, right? Okay, well, Lewis talks about it so beautifully, right? We have this internal sense that there is a far-off country that we have not yet visited, but it lives within us. Do you know what I mean? And we're not there. Yeah. And so we just kind of carry that.

And emotionally, I think, the way that I would describe it, there's a longing. Yes. Yeah. And our longings and our unattended sorrows that we carry, right? They're just part of the human condition. And what we do with them and how we manage or deal with them, right, with God's help is what for me determines what Bill Wilson calls emotional sobriety, right? Not just physical sobriety.

He talks about emotional sobriety. Like, how do you live as somebody in the world who can maintain emotional balance in the face of whatever it throws at you? Right. And that's what the steps are designed to do. Again, I keep referring back to them, obviously, because that's what the whole premise of the book is, right? But this is like a, you know, when you think about,

the 12 steps maybe as a rule of life. Like the Benedictans had a rule of life. Monastic communities had rules of life. Well, that word rule, actually in the Latin, means trellis. So a trellis is a structure on which you grow things, right? Plants, whatever, tomatoes, roses, vines, whatever your thing is. But you need a structure to grow with, right? And so 12 steps are a kind of trellis, if you will, on which we can grow a healthy

spiritual life and address that sense of spiritual homelessness that we feel on a regular basis. That, you know, Lewis would talk about it maybe as, and so would Ronald Rollheiser, another great contemporary Christian thinker. They would describe it as, you are a finite creature with infinite desires. And that's a lot to contain in this moral body of ours. You know what I mean? Yeah. We have these drives and desires, and some are healthy, and some govern our lives.

negatively from the shadows. And we just have to do the work, you know, of creating the natural environment in which we can experience spiritual transformation. And again, for me, in my life, I've organized it around these steps, right, living out these steps and these spiritual principles that are inside these steps to create the most content and satisfying life that I can have on this side of the divide. Yeah. You know, I'm thinking about, you know, I've, in counseling as you have a lot of different people. And of course, me, it's more health oriented, but thousands of thousands of people. And sometimes people will see results really fast. Yeah. And they're the people, it's funny, I can, and I'm curious if you've experienced something

similar in your field, I can sometimes tell, I don't know if immediately, it's the right word, but within sometimes minutes, if somebody is likely to have some challenges in getting better and overcoming their condition versus people are going to probably, I think, experience really great results based on this. I would sit down on their first appointment and I would go over a diet, diary with them and say, hey, write down what you're typically eating breakfast, lunch, and dinner. And then I would say before the next consultation where I would really go through maybe blood work and more in-depth plan is I would say something like, okay, hey, between now and then, let's make a few changes. Let's change your breakfast. Okay, let's stop doing the, you know, the pop tarts.

Yeah, exactly. The pop tarts, whatever might be, something like that. And let's start doing something like this superfood smoothie. Let's do some berries. Let's do some, you know, some bone broth or plant protein or collagen. Let's do something like this. And I would get one of two reactions. One was just very like, you're taking this away from me. I mean, it was almost this thing of like you're taking away this thing that I love.

And you're saying, I can't have this thing. And the people that were able to just say, okay, I'll make that chain. Like, you know, I'm going to go ahead and do this smoother. I'm going to do this. They would see good results. The people that were like hanging on for deer, life and asking the question, but can I keep doing this? Are you going to take this from me? They had a harder time. They had a harder time with the breakthrough. Yeah. Oh, I can, I definitely

have that experience with clients, coaching clients now, because I don't, I don't have a therapy practice right now. But my coaching clients, yeah, you, you are, it's fairly quick to see the, the, the resistance. Yeah. Resistance is a good word. Yeah. And, and part of the time, sometimes it's because they're just not in enough pain. Yeah, right. Pain and pleasure, right? Those are those are very motivating. It's interesting, you know, when you read the Bible and you're reading the Old Testament, it's like fear God and love God, right? It's those, it's sort of like fear is pain and, you know, love is more pleasurable. I mean, it's just, I mean, it goes way back. And isn't it how our brains are kind of set up, right? Like human beings are comfort seekers. They like pleasure. Yeah. And they're averse to pain. Yeah. Right. And distress. Again, part of the addiction loop, right? Yeah. We feel. distress consciously or unconsciously, and we seek out ways to fix, right? The problem. Let me ask this.

So if you've got somebody who, and by the way, I just want to tell everybody, I'm super excited about this book. Ian Kron here, it's called The Fix. And this is really how to go through these steps to overcome these barriers in your life. It's not just addictions. It is addictions, but some of you don't think of them as addiction. So I also want to say, you've been saying.

you've been stuck in a place in your life and you're suffering, again, with a medical condition, with a bad relationship, with low self-esteem, with guilt, with shame, any of those issues that are plaguing you. And it's a way to start to advance and create a breakthrough in your life. And I think for a lot of people, you know, I think about this, I think a lot of people don't know, one, where to start. And two, some people might even know where to start, but then they don't know the second step after where to start. So walk me through a little bit about the 12 steps, just a little bit more detail in terms of how you create this trellis and how you go from one rung to another to another. Yeah, well said, because they build on each other, right? There's the reason, there's a kind of

inner genius to the way it's set up, right? Step one, you can't do step two until you've done one. But I bet a lot of people are trying to go to 12 from the first thing, and this is why they keep feeling. This is why the diet's not working or the relationship keeps going. You know, Maybe it feels better for, it seems like it's better for a week or two, but then it just, you're back where you start it. So step one is we admitted we were powerless over. Now, if you're an AA, you say alcohol. If you're in NA, you'd say, you know, drugs. If you were an OA as overeaters, you'd say food.

Whatever the thing is. We admitted we were powerless over blank that our lives had become unmanageable. So the first step out of the gate is it feels humiliating, but you just have to reach a point in your life where you say, I'm out of ammo. Like I have tried everything to overcome this health problem. or this way of this pattern of living. And yet I find myself caught in an uninterrupted circuit of self-destructive behavior.

And I just can't seem to get myself out of it, right? I've been to therapy. I've been to this. I've been to that. And part of it is you have to reach a place where you say, I give up. And here's the great paradox. When you give up, when you admit powerlessness, then another power comes in. That's not yours.

It's like humility and pride that we hear about the Bible. I mean, it's that. Like I said, this is pure, just like unvarnished biblical gospel principles, right? Yeah. I'm powerless. And my life is unmanageable. Now, some people have a hard time of that because they're like, well, I still got two cars. And I live in a beautiful neighborhood.

And I got a scratch golf game and I got this and, you know, whatever the thing is. Right. Well, unmanageability takes a lot of forms, right? It can be anxiety. It could be bad health. It could be emotional dysregulation all the time. It could be whatever the thing. is, right? Yeah. So, but you just, you're not managing well, right? Step two, came to believe that a

power greater than myself could restore me to sanity. Sanity in the original world, meaning wholeness, right? It can just restore me to wholeness. So just this acknowledgement, and I love how baby step and kind the steps are. It's like, can you just be open to the idea that there's a power greater than you that can lift you out of the morass of your problem? Step three, turn my will in my life over to the care of God as I understand him. And that's this place where you, if you think about the first three steps, you could, you could boil it down to this. I can't.

He can. I think I'll let him. Right? Yeah. See, most people are caught in a loop of, in their spiritual lives and they don't, it's well intentioned, it's just in opposition to grace. Okay. I think what they do is they think, I'm just going to work really hard.

myself and that's called reformation. I'm just going to work on me, you know, and become a, I'm going to try to become a really great Christian. Sometimes when people, I hear people say, I'm trying to be a good Christian. I'm like, well, then you don't understand the gospel. Yeah, yeah. You don't understand it. Yeah. Like, can I tell you something that's so inspired me? Just, well, it's on the top of my head. Have you followed Russell Brand in the past year or so? A little bit, not much. I mean, it's been so amazing to see his transformation. I mean, he went from being this Hollywood icon, having a massive follow. to, I think, kind of hitting rock bottom emotionally spiritually and just giving his life to Jesus.

He was baptized. He's baptizing others now and just so outspoken about his faith. And it was like he had to hit rock bottom before he was willing to make this transformation. But anyways, it just made me think of like, you know, a lot of what you're sharing right now in terms of just, you know, he had to come to this place. You could see it in him. He went from being arrogant to like his level of humility is just, that's the big, if I'm like, what's really different about him right now? It was like, it's this humility. And you know where that all started for him, right?

The 12 steps. Really? No, I didn't. In fact, he has a book called Recovery. And it's the story of his journey to sobriety from drugs, alcohol, overeating sugar. And it's actually a fairly decent book. Don't read it if you have any aversion to rough language. Yeah, yeah.

But it's actually quite a good book. And his spiritual journey for, you know, well over a decade began in the 12 steps. Wow. So he may have hit an emotional bottom, but he knew he had a trellis. You know what I mean? Yeah. That was the entry point for him is through the 12 steps. Wow.

And that's just an example. That's why when Christians say, me, oh, I don't see Jesus enough in the 12 steps. I'm like, give it a minute. Well, like sometimes people find their way there. It's just a natural progress. But you've got to start somewhere. Yeah. Yeah.

I mean, I think that's what's so powerful about. You know, Jordan Peterson reminds me of this a little bit today is, as you would say, he doesn't very frequently talk about Jesus example. I mean, you know, he'll call him the logos and use. He does talk about him. And it's actually becoming more and more. But I think he's teaching people patterns that sort of create this sort of guide to get there. Yes. And that is the point of the steps, by the way. So here's the bottom line.

Your addiction, my addiction, whatever it is, is not the problem. It's the symptom. It's the solution to the problem that we have, right? And it makes sense, right? Like, we shouldn't be down on ourselves because we've become a problem drink or a problem. You know, it's like, no, that's what humans do, right? Like, don't be too hard on yourself. It's like, you went looking for a solution. And guess what?

In the beginning, it worked. It really helped. Then the problem is that the solution becomes a bigger problem than the problem it was trying to solve. Yeah. Right. And that's just the nature of the human condition. For example, like I've met people who were overweight. Yes. And so they started running or doing something like that.

And then they ran and they ran until finally their joints were worn out. And then they're like, but then now they don't know what to do. They're in so much pain because they've overrun. And then it's like, well, now what? So they start eating again. So they start eating again. That's right. And something like that.

They're going from one solution, one external solution to the individual. internal problem to the next. It's like, well, I'm going to go back to the last one because that one worked, right? And so once you realize, okay, this isn't the problem. This is my solution, right? Now I have to remove the solution. And once I do, the problem is going to make itself apparent again. And so in a way, your addiction is an invitation from God to a greater new level of intimacy with him that you didn't know existed yet. That's a great way to think about it. If you've been doing everything right, eating clean, exercising, but somehow you're still not feeling your best, your energy's dragging, your memory is slipping and it's frustrating because you know there's more to your potential. Well, what if the issue isn't just in your routine, but it's deep down inside your cells?

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And they're trying to hide it from everybody. Yes. Yeah. Well, you think about the maybe a project, and I talk about this in the book, right? You have a sort of a progression. Pain, right? Then you find an anesthetizing or numbing person, behavior or substance. Yeah.

Right. Oh, then step three, I'm a genius. It works, right? And then step four is, uh-oh, now it owns me, right? And then step five is shame and pain about the solution, which then takes me back to step one, pain, and gets me back to using again, doing it again, having temporary relief. And then the, but of course, as you know, it's escalating. So now I've got to do more of it than the last time. Yes, yes.

Yeah, I got to eat three. I got to eat three Snickers bars instead of two, right? And then more shame and pain, right? Takes me back to step one. And here we are. We're caught in the loop. Wow. You know?

We talked about resistance earlier. How do you overcome resistance? So we were talking about those people that sometimes they feel, it feels like it's maybe hard or challenging to help them change. How do you overcome the resistance or help them overcome the resistance themselves? I think there's a couple of ways. But one certainly is when someone says to me, well, I'm not sure if I'm an alcohol, I go, all right, we'll just keep going.

Yeah. I mean, I just don't argue with them. Yeah. Like, keep going and come back when you realize it's not working. Yeah. You know, it's a little dangerous because sometimes people are really on the edge, you know, health-wise. Yeah. But the bottom line is I can't overcome somebody's resistance.

Can I tell you when my, the hardest thing I've ever dealt with, one of the hardest things that motion was when I was about to graduate and open up my own functional medicine clinic. Well, the year before that, I started seeing patients for the first time. I started leading this large Bible study. And I started for really the first time of my life, I feel like getting in really significant places of leadership or helping people direct their lives. And I felt the sense of like this unbelievable way. And I went in to see my pastor and had this amazing pastor in Florida.

And I went in there and I sat down with him across from him. And he didn't say anything. He just sat there. And finally I said, Larry, I feel like I just want to cry. And I've had the way and I can't. But I can't even do that. I'm like I just feel so much weight. And the thing that I realized was,

I felt like I had to change everybody. Like I felt like when the patient wasn't seeing the results because they wouldn't change their diet or wouldn't do the thing. Like that was completely on me and my responsibility. And it almost like it broke me. Like I had to get to this place of like giving that to God and not trying to carry that thing myself.

But that was a real big point of turning point in my life. Yeah. I realized I just, that was a tough thing. Yeah. I think a lot of people were carrying this sort of maybe weight, wait with that sort of thing. Absolutely. And in the clinical setting, we might say that that is a kind of codependency. Right? Yeah. Like I have to change people. And then we can go to more and more

desperate ends to try and make that happen. Right. Yeah. And by the way, the more we try to change people, the more they resist. Right. Yeah. And the more our self-esteem gets tethered to their changing. Right. I'm not a good person unless I can get you to stop doing this or start doing that. Right. It's like, I see this with parents and children all the time. You know what I mean? It's like you got a 19 year old kid. They're not living the life that you think they should be living. And you are now absolutely obsessed.

You can't stop worrying. You're anxious. It's like, okay. Well, you know, and the kid is becoming more and more strange from you because you are, you are, you know, coming up with more and more subtle or not so subtle ways of controlling them. Right? Well, I mean, first off, this is hitting the cord with some people because I and just see, I mean, I'm thinking about my own mom, okay, with this too. But it's just,

there are so many moms out there that just want to help their kids so much or so many parents. And so this is a good one because this, this is prevalent. Absolutely. Yeah. And what has to happen is, well, let's look back to the steps. You have to go to a place to go, you know what, I admit that I am powerless over Billy. And my continued, obsessive, addictive ways of relating to him is making my life unmanageable. Now, I believe, step two, I've come to believe that a power greater than myself could restore me to sanity, right? To wholeness, to right thinking about this.

Step three, I'm going to turn my will and my life and Billy over to the care of God as I understand him, right? And that's, you know, because at a certain point, you know, we have, we have a, have some influence, but we have no control. I mean, do you know how many patients I've seen where the reason why they have the gut issues or the hormonal issues was because the mom was worrying about the kids in that exact cycle? That goes back to what I was saying earlier. I think the majority of health conditions, the single greatest factor making people sick

today is addiction. Yes. It's this emotional thing. I mean, it's the single biggest factor. Yeah. And so then we get to step four, right, made a searching and fearless moral inventory of ourselves. So now you have to start to do the hard work of going, you know, the, the thing. The reason I'm doing with this with Billy is is because my whole self-esteem is trapped

in his being the success as I define it that I want him to be. Wow. And I'm not letting him make the decisions that a 19 or 20-year-old is supposed to make. You know what I mean? It's like, I have to let go, you know? Like at this point, I am no longer a cop. I am no longer a coach with this kid. I'm a consultant.

I got to wait for the client to come to me. You know what I mean? When your kids are little, you're a cop. you're a cop, right? You yell at them, you grab them, your hands, you take them out of the street. Get to be teenagers, you're a coach at this point, right? Because your level of control is going down pretty dramatically. By the time you get to 19, 20, 21, and on, you're a consultant, sorry. And if you try to be a cop, when you're supposed to be a consultant, bad things happen. And if you try to be a consultant when you're supposed to be a cop, bad things happen. Yeah. Right. So it's again,

it's like you've had to do these inventories. That's one of the things that the program does is it says, all right, we're going to have to take a look inside with a kind, self-compassionate, dispassionate view, right? In other words, to do an inventory is like when you go to the grocery store, if you own a grocery store, it's like, I just got to go through the tomatoes and figure out which ones are bad, I can't sell anymore, and which ones are good I'm going to leave on the shelf. Yeah. So we just go inside with kindness and look around and we own what's ours, right?

Yeah. And that's, you know, part of the journey. As I said, these steps are simple. they're not easy. They require some effort on your part. But as you know from scripture, from the Stoics, from others, right? Like self-examination, like a life without self-examination is not heading in the right direction. Yeah. I think we live in a society today that's very future-driven. I think most people spend a lot more time on goal setting than they do self-awareness and self-examination. I think goals are vision or where you want to go. Self-examine.

and nation awareness are, you need to know where you're at now. Yes. Like, where are you now? Yes. And a lot of people, they don't want to know. They want to think maybe they're somewhere else than they actually are. Yeah. And people who resist it are usually people who are struggling with shame.

Yeah. And they just, and I get it. Like, I get it. Yeah. Right. But I just always try to encourage people I work with to say, look, you know, this is what humans do. Like, you're not going to come up with anything new and creative.

Like people say to you all the time, man, I'm the worst of all sinners. And I'm like, don't flatter yourself. You know what I mean? Like you don't even flatter yourself. Like I've met people far worse than you. Yeah. Number one. Number two, you haven't come up with anything really all that.

You have not even remotely come up with some new character defect that hasn't ever been out there like wildly present in the population forever, right? We're just going to look at your particular set of issues. And we're just going to own it, right? without shame. Now, there may be some grief and some sadness in there. That's normal too, right? But we just have to go in and shine the light of our attention on those things that are obstacles to our loving God, ourselves, and others. And we're just going to name them. And then we're going to admit them. That's so good. You know, I think a lot of people today, and if we're talking about maybe the secular world, is they try and skip the first three steps.

and say, well, I need to find myself or do something within myself or change myself. Yes. What tends to happen to people if they just decide, I want to just try and change myself, but kind of skip those first three steps of getting right connected with God. So that's reformation. We were talking about that earlier. And I did finish that thought. So thank you for circling back to it, right?

So reformation is, I'm going to work on myself and change these things. And my thing is, okay, well, good luck. It's stoicism. I mean, that's impore. I mean, it may be maybe not exactly, but I think that's. Yeah. And I actually appreciate pieces of stoicism. Oh, me too.

Right? Yeah. But the problem is, is that, well, as my sponsor once said to me, Ian, we are well past any conversation about you changing you. You know what I mean? Like, I love this guy. That's so great. That's good.

Right. And I'm like, okay. He said, so I use an illustration in the book. My son, this is a little scatological, but we'll run with it, right? So he's about maybe a year and a half, two years old. He's in the bathtub. I realize I don't have a towel. I run to the linen closet to get it.

In the brief moment that that happened, and you know, you've got kids, you know this happens, right? He takes an epic poo in the tub, right? Epic. Yeah. I mean, like Exxon Valdez level, right? And in the little brief time I'm not in the room, he realizes he has created a natural disaster as well. And he has tried to pick this stuff up and then he realizes it's on his hands and now he's wiping it on his hair. And then it's wiped on the walls, right?

All over the place, right? He has made more of a mess trying to clean himself up, right? Reformation. He's just trying to clean himself up. And guess what? Didn't work, right? It's actually made more of a mess than when he started. What a great picture.

I mean, I got 11-month-old and a 4-year-old right now. I mean, you know, the place we're living right now. So what did he need? He needed a power greater than himself, external to him, namely me, to come in and go, it's okay, dude, I got this. Just relax. Let go. like stop and then i come in and i can clean them off and i can shower them off and then all is well

wow so that is a really a great biblical example of how transformation works transformation is when you give god consent to do for you what you have never been able to do for yourself wow and so we move from that reformation mindset to a transformation mindset which is so counterintuitive because everything in us, the ego, says, I got this. I can do this. And God says, okay, well, really, you're making this harder than it needs to be. Give me consent to do this for you. And that's, again, the genius of the steps, right? The steps are not a self-help program. Because if your self-could have helped you, wouldn't have done that by now? Like, you know what I mean? like self-help is kind of a ridiculous.

It's ridiculous. I mean, you know, even the whole, the whole genre right now, it's almost making some of this worse. Yeah. I mean, you know, it's because you're just distracting yourself with with something that's not allowing you to get to the root of the whole thing. Yes. And in fact, I bet there's a bunch of listeners right now.

The resistance has gone way up, right? Because he's like, well, you're staying to stop trying? And I'm like, no, I will say, I would strongly encourage you to, stop trying to earn love from God, right? Or to earn God's intervention through your good efforts. But actually, your good efforts are maybe standing in the way of allowing God to do for you what it is that you most deeply desire.

Okay, I think there are a good amount of people. You know, I've really come to appreciate. I grew up and still, you know, Protestant. And so funny. I got so many different denominations growing up. We went to Baptist when I was in elementary school. Then I went to Methodist. And then I went to denominational.

And then I went to Presbyterian. And then I was at a charismatic church. And it was like a lot of different churches I've experienced. And half my family was Catholic growing up, got a lot of Orthodox friends. All that being said, I've come to really appreciate, I think, a lot of the different, you know, virtues and qualities between, you know, both Catholicism and Protestantism. And I think that it's easy to get in the ditch of both of them. The thing I wanted to mention here is I think sometimes people when they hear, okay, you need to stop working or trying because that's not necessarily what you're saying.

It's, they actually do that. You know, so it's like you've got like maybe like some Catholics that are trying and working too much. And then some Christians hear what you said. But then they're like, they almost don't do anything. And they don't work as hard. How do you find that balance for people? or how do you, can you help create the right perspective for people of understanding? No, you should work heartily as for the Lord and not for men.

You should run to win the race. There's this element of laying it all on the table, going hard after things, but you're doing it in a completely different way with a different sort of fuel and motivation that maybe you had before. As passive as it sounds, I think there's so much power and surrender. in embracing my power of my spiritual powerlessness, right? Because then it makes room for a different power to enter. That can, as I use that old mantra,

who can, will do for me what I can't do for myself. I think that's grace, right? You know, I used to have an old running coach when I was in track and he would tell us to run relaxed. Yes. And it was like, if you would try and run too hard and kind of do it all versus, you know, letting your own body sort of propel you forward. It was a very different way of running.

Yeah. And there's a term, you know, tenemy, right, which is where you have two seemingly opposite ideas that would seem to negate one another, but both are true at the same time, right? And, you know, when you're talking about faith, if you can't get comfortable with paradox, you're going to have a real hard time. Free will, predestination. There's a lot of these. There's a lot of these, right, virgin births.

I mean, come on. I mean, what are we doing here? You know, three in one, one and three. There's a lot of weird stuff going on here, right? And so if you can't hold these things in tension, you're going to run into problems. Now, for me personally, there are spiritual practices that I regularly engage. For example, centering prayer. For me, centering prayer is like one of the most helpful spiritual practices where I sit 20, 25 minutes a morning in silence.

And I simply present myself to God in the silence. And I say to him, look, listen, there's a mess inside here, right? Like, I can't fix this. So I'm going to sit here and I'm going to meditate on a word. And I'm just going to focus my attention on it. And I'm going to give you permission to do the work in me that I can't do for myself. And I have seen the most remarkable results as a result. Right.

So here's how you know you're growing spiritually. You're starting to see virtues arise in your character that even surprise you on. regular basis. Without any effort. It's just like there's something flowing in you and you're like, holy smokes, what's going on? It's like, well, that's called grace. You're changing from the inside out. You're no longer taping fruit to trees, which is what you've been doing before, right? Now it's just flowing naturally up through the root system and you're bearing fruit that you didn't even know you could do. And again, I love the steps because the steps, like Wilson had a very biblical worldview, right, whether he knew it or not. But of course, you know, maybe your listeners

don't know this, but the 12 steps actually derived from a Christian movement called the Oxford movie. Yeah, I didn't know that. Yeah, I don't think most people will realize that. Yeah, but yeah. Come straight out of it, you know. And he made it available to people of all spiritual orientations because he was trying to save people's lives, right? He didn't want to make it just for Christians to become sober people, right? He wanted everyone. So in a good way, I think what he did is he said, okay, I'm going to make this available to everybody, right? You know, one thing I like to think about, and I'd encourage everybody to do this, like I think back at the biggest turning points in my life and who I've become and who I am,

and one of my biggest turning points by far, it might be my biggest, it's up there, is when I was in college, I, you know, I grew up a Christian, and then went off for a couple years in college and sort of, you know, drank and partied and felt really empty. and then I remember just praying and just said, God, I feel so, I surrendered. That's what I'll say. I surrendered. And I remember going down this path of just sort of following where God was leading me.

And one of the things that led me to was to do this group that was doing. Neil Anderson wrote The Bondage Breaker. Okay. You ever heard that? No. Anyways, it was a book about just sort of sharing the things that I was doing, just admitting the things I've doing wrong that I'm surrendering it to God. moving forward and I remember I had people come up to me for the next few months after

while I was going through this process like multiple people saying you're different there's something different about you yes and to me at first I didn't like it but then over time but I think then I started to realize because it was like I started my friend group I didn't fit anymore with the current group that I was the people I was running around like I just wasn't a fit and so I didn't find a completely new friend group and but I do feel like I but then over time I realize that was the greatest compliment I could ever receive. Yeah. And what you're really describing is what happens in like 12-step meetings. Yeah. What's so interesting is every, every depiction of a 12-step meeting you've ever seen on television is an utter lie. I can just tell you right now. Like every time I see

one, I'm like, wait a minute, that is not like any meeting I've ever been to, right? They're glum. They're like people sitting around talking about problems. It's like when you go to meetings, there's what always surprises newcomers is the amount of laughter. Really? Yeah. Just lots of laughter. Wow. And laughter about things most people won't laugh about.

You know what I mean? Yeah. It's like, oh yeah, of course I did that. You know what I mean? And you just remember and it's kind of like laugh. The other piece of it that is so interesting is we focus on the solution, not the problem. The point of the 12 steps, you know, is not to get you to stop drinking, right? The 12 steps says, having had a spiritual awakening as the result of these steps, right?

The whole point of the 12 steps is to facilitate a spiritual awakening of sufficient force that it expels your need for your self-prescribed treatment plans unnecessary. Your sugar fix, your maker's mark fix, your cigarette fix, your workaholism fix, your people-pleasing fix, whatever your fix is, you would have a spiritual awakening of sufficient force So it's like, I don't even need that anymore. That's the whole thing of the 12 steps. Now, I don't think it happens just once, by the way. Yeah.

I think it happens serially. We have spiritual awakenings. We have moments of insight where we go, ah, a deeper surrender. I'm called to a deeper surrender. And that deeper surrender is now going to produce a whole new crop of, you know, fruit and good things in my life that came as a result of my giving up and handing it over. You know, first of all, I love this conversation because I am always very obsessive about, let's get the root of the problem. Like, let's not waste our time.

Let's actually do something that's transformational and let's not waste our time. And I am curious about some of these other. So we spent a lot of times on, I think, the most important steps. I mean, reconnecting with God. A little bit we talked about getting right with ourselves. By the way, I do want to mention for everybody, this is such an amazing book. If you are, and by the way, I'm going to go through the book, here. I got to get some of the highlights here, but I'm going to go through myself. And actually,

I have a men's group. We're going to go through this book together. I'm really excited about it. And, but I want to encourage everybody to get the book, read through the book. We're all addicts. We all have something, a barrier that's in our way. And even if you have spent a lot of time, I know we have a lot of people that are, you know, Christians and Jews on this podcast, a lot of people that are religious. But I want to encourage you to go through this because this is, something that even though you might have got a glimpse of this in church, there's such power and going through the actual full program yourself. And here's the thing, it's going to help you. And then you can use some of this frame of mind to, I love the trellis example here, Ian, because

when you know the pattern of how to overcome one thing and you do it once, now you know how to do it for these other obstacles in your life. And you can help other people as well. So there's so much power there. Is there any, do you get into habits here or anything like that? I mean, I think that, you know, one of the things that I think about when, in a book I recently wrote, I talk a lot about overcoming limiting beliefs. And one of the things sometimes once you get to the end is, how do I reinforce this and make it part of who I am? Because you said, sometimes there's one awakening, but how do you sort of create these multiple awakenings or continue to go all the way up the trellis and make this part of who you are? So my sponsor, he's a very funny, funny guy, man.

and he's incredibly wise. And once he said to me, he says, you know, once you've done these steps long enough, the numbers fall away. And now you're just reflexively pulling, drawing wisdom from them as you move throughout the day. You know what I mean? Yeah.

And as you said, you set up a new pattern, right? A new set of habits. A new way of looking at the world. Yeah. It's like changing out one pair of glasses for another. and you're like, oh, I didn't have the right prescription before. Everything was blurry. Now things are pretty clear, you know.

And so I have seen people, Josh, this is the most amazing thing. I was a pastor for years, right? And I yearned for transformation for my people and for myself, right? And the best transformation was going on in the basement. Like the people who didn't even attend church upstairs, right? I have seen levels, like I have met people who, this is not an exaggeration, and I see it regularly, where people were living in the back of their cars, right? I mean really at their bottom, right?

And two years later, married, kids, job, life, focused on character, focused on virtues, focused on being of service to other people. That's what the steps are about. They're not about, how do I give this up and live with the whole of my soul? It's like, no, no, no, no, no. That's not what it's about. Like, yes, we are going to want to expel these habits in our lives that are not serving us, right? These solutions to this internal plan.

But it goes well beyond that. The 12 steps are a way of life that ultimately equip you to become a useful, purposeful person who is germinating the world with the love of God. Right? Yeah. And, you know, I was telling a friend yesterday about the 10th step, right? The 10th step is continue to take personal inventory and when we were wrong promptly admitted it. And not long ago, I had a moment. I'm at a coffee shop down on Music Row that I'd love to go to.

I'm in a bad mood. I go in. The line is like out the door. Never is like that. There's a brand new barista. And guess what? The barista is like talking to everybody at length about their lives. This is why the line is out the door, right?

And because I'm a little efficiency-minded, I'm a little bit like, okay, this is not working. And I'm getting more and more annoyed. I get up to the front of the line. And she says, well, hi, hon. And I don't like it when 25-year-olds call me, hon, by the way. And so I'm like, okay. And she's like, what can I get you? I said, like a cortado, you know, kind of icily.

And she goes, and how would you like it? And I went, today. I would like it today. I was not at my best, right? I was not at my best. And then she hands me the cortado and she goes, here's your drink, jackass. Right. And this was not a good moment, right?

And I left furious. And I called my sponsor and he said, do you think it's time to do a 10th step? Meaning, don't you think you ought to go back there and promptly admit that you were wrong and ask her forgiveness and see if you can make it up to her somehow? So I'm like, I hate this. I hate these steps. I hate these dang steps. Now my ego is going, I don't want to do that. But I turn my car around.

I go back, the line is pretty much dissipated. And I go up to this woman whose name is Felicity, by the way. And I said, you know, I was in here earlier and I really, I acted like a jerk. And I just want to ask your forgiveness and ask if there's some way I can make that up to you. And she just started to cry. And she came out from behind the counter. She gave me a big hug. And she said, I had a fight with my boyfriend and I didn't respond very well. And I've been thinking about you. And then I, you know, next thing I know, we're having a moment. Like we're doing therapy in the coffee shop, right? And I end up with a free cortado with extra cinnamon and a new best friend named Felicity. Wow.

That's a, you know, to me when I do the steps, it's like, oh, that's how we're supposed to be in the world. That's just a gospel. That's just an example of the gospel at work, right? You know, I think everybody can really relate to this, that we all have family members. We all have people we encounter at work that are difficult. And it is so easy to, you know, when you get punched, punch back. And, you know, and I think about in my life when I'm at my best, it's when I'm the most aware of myself, of others. I'm living in that spiritual state, the surrendered state.

And when I have that person say something to me or do something that I feel like isn't right, I can instead not think about how I'm a victim or how it's offending me instead I can think about, how's that person doing? I wonder what's going on. How can I? This is straight out of the steps you're talking about. Like it's just common perennial wisdom, right so like I I think about in the big book of AA which is kind of the text that we use we reference a lot and it says love and tolerance is our code right so when I get up in the morning I'm encouraged to do what's called the third step prayer it's the first thing I think of before I get out of bed it's the first prayer I say and it's like now reflexive right I'm not patting

myself on the back I've just done it so much first thing that it's the first thing I think of it goes like this God I offer myself to the to build with me and to do with me as thou wilt. Listen to this next line. Relieve me of the bondage of self that I may better do thy will. That's a huge idea. Because what you're saying is like when someone asks me, how do you know you're doing well spiritually?

I go, when I'm doing well spiritually, it's impossible to offend me. Yeah, that's right. Right? Yeah. Because my ego isn't at risk here. My ego has been right sized, right? You can say, you know, it's like, okay.

well, as you said, my mind doesn't go to, well, how, don't you know who I think I am? You know, it's like it goes to, my mind goes to, ah, so this is a sick person, I'm a sick person. How would I want to be treated if, you know, if I were a sick person? I need to extend love and grace and mercy and kindness to this person in the hope that their heart will warm and gentle and become, you know, this will be a moment where I get to disseminate the gospel in like concrete. fashion. Yeah. Right. And that's the mindset shift that the 12 steps encourages. You know, when I think about people that are at the top of their fields, the top 1% of the 1% of the 1%,

they're the people that are the most, I think it's they're the most aware. And this could extend almost anything. I mean, I think about like finances. Like if you have Warren Buffett and he's going to buy something and he's got like he is the most aware person in the room of what's going on financially here and here and here. with this person, with his own. I'm like, there's a high level awareness. When I run into and spend time with, you know, a lot of pastors and priests and rabbis, monks, there tends to be this thing where it's harder to rattle them.

It's harder to offend them. And I think the thing is, is they've learned these principles via the Bible, via the 12 steps, psychologists sometimes follow in that category two, where they've learned this framework. They have the trail. They understand these patterns, and they're living in this higher state. and I just want to encourage everybody if you're a person that wants to live in that higher state

you want to live in that higher state of awareness you want to grow spiritually and you want to break through these things that are holding you back from becoming the person God wants you to be this is really an amazing roadmap to be able to do that and so I know Ian here has this book it's nationwide the book's called The Fix

okay so it's called The Fix you can buy it on Amazon.com it's in bookstores nationwide Ian has been on a lot of podcasts and he's been on a lot of different shows talking about this because it's truly transformational as we talked about it, Transform Russell Brand's life. I remember I watched this video recently with Jim Carrey.

You could see a very similar thing. You know, these sort of principles transforming his life. There are people who have literally become different people overnight, better people because of these principles and these steps. So Ian, I'm so encouraged by this. It's been an amazing conversation. I'm really excited for people to go through this book.

excited to do this with my men's group as well because I know that we're going to experience even a greater depth of understanding as we go through it. So thanks much. Any last words of wisdom or thoughts for everybody in terms of just, you know, why you wrote the book and what you hope they can walk away with? So I wrote the book because the 12 steps completely revolutionized my life, you know. And, you know, for me, like my life mission is to present people with. or introduce them to ideas and experiences that will deepen and improve their lives.

That's my mission in life. So whether it's the anagram or whatever. And the 12 steps have brought me to a place of you were referring to emotional balance. And there's a great word for that equanimity, right? This ability to kind of move through the world, not being thrown off the beam all the time. You know, not acting like somebody trapped in a phone booth with a murder hornet. That's what most people are like, man. Aren't they?

I mean, they're just like in reactivity all the time. Yeah. Right. But to learn just how to be in the world as a grounded, centered, self-aware person. And most importantly, a God-centered person. Yeah. Right. And I'm not going to dictate to you what that God is, right? That's an evolving thing for people, right?

But all I'm going to say is, is that when you move from being an egocentric person to a theocentric person, everything changes. Mm-hmm. You know? everybody's in the right lane. Yeah, yeah. And you know what the steps do, by the way? They're like that thing in your car where you start to drift out of the lane and it just gently bumps you back.

Yes. Right. That for me is what the steps have been, right? Like when I start to leave my lane, it's like bumps me back and says, you can keep going. Okay, go ahead. But really, if you just follow the directions, you get to stay in your lane and avoid a lot of accidents. Wow. That's so good.

Well, I just want to say thanks to Ian Crone here for coming on. and sharing all of his wisdom. This has been so powerful. We didn't even get into the Enneagram. I'm going to be on again, Ian, so we can talk about more of that and just continue this conversation in the future. But just so, so grateful that you came on.

I want to encourage everybody get the book. It's called The Fix, by here by Ancron, and it's on Amazon Bookstores nationwide. And I want to say, just thanks to all of you who tuned in here, you know, this show is all about how you can grow. It's here to help you grow in body, in mind, in spirit, and take your health

in your life to the next level. I want to say so many of you are on this mission with me and with people like us, like Ian here, and we want to help transform the world. We want to help transform people's lives. And so I want to say thank you for sharing this video and podcast. I want to say thank you for subscribing. And I'm so excited to continue to connect with you and grow with you. And also, hey, if you're watching on YouTube, leave a comment.

We would love to hear from you. What is your biggest takeaway? Do you have any addictions? Have you ever done the 12-step program? We'd love to hear from you. what is your single biggest takeaway from the wisdom that Ian shared with us today? Hey, I can't wait to see you on next episode. Have a great week.