The One You Feed - Judith Grisel on the Neuroscience of Addiction

Starting point is 00:00:00 The end, or the addiction, is evident when the debt that I accrued by borrowing good feelings from the future comes due. Welcome to The One You Feed. Throughout time, great thinkers have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes like, garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true. And yet, for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self-pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't have instead of what we do. We think things that hold us back and dampen our spirit.

Starting point is 00:00:45 But it's not just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort to make a life worth living. This podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction. How they feed their good wolf. Wolf. I'm Jason Alexander and I'm Peter Tilden. And together our mission on the Really No Really podcast is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why the bathroom door doesn't go all the way to the floor. What's in the museum of failure? And does your dog truly love you? We

Starting point is 00:01:29 have the answer. Go to really no really.com and register to win $500 a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition signed Jason bobblehead. The really no really podcast. Follow us on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Thanks for joining us. Our guest on this episode is Dr. Judith Grissel, a professor of psychology at Bucknell University. Judith is a behavioral neuroscientist with a particular interest in addiction. She's trying to determine what is different about people who develop drug addictions before they ever try a drug. Today, Eric and Judith discuss her book, Never Enough, The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction.

Starting point is 00:02:10 Hi, Judy. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Eric. Good to be here. I'm happy to have you on. Your book is called Never Enough, The Neuroscience and Experience of Addiction, which neuroscience and addiction are a couple of our favorite topics around here, so this should be a good conversation. But let's start like we always do with the parable. There is a grandmother who's talking with her granddaughter, and she says, in life, there are two wolves inside of us that are always at battle.

Starting point is 00:02:37 One is a good wolf, which represents things like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear. And the grandmother stops and she thinks about it for a second and she looks up at her grandmother. She says, well, grandmother, which one wins? And the grandmother says, the one you feed. So I'd like to start off by asking you what that parable means to you in your life and in the work that you do. So many layers to that parable. The first thing, though, that it probably reminds me of is this notion that if I focus on the solution, the problem goes away. Whereas if I focus on the problem, it just gets bigger. And for some reason, I guess because it's

Starting point is 00:03:20 true, that's really been my experience. I have a tendency, partly, I think, innate and partly well-taught by my parents to really try to wrestle with my problems, to bring them to the ground, to manage the heck out of them. And in trying to do that, I often, Trying to do that, I often, maybe always, kind of make a little bit of a mess, bigger mess. And for me, there is such power in letting go. And this is really the core lesson in recovery, that letting go of the problems and turning to the good wolf, which is for me often much quieter and much more subtle and easier to ignore, easier to miss than the raging one, you know, with the snarls and the big teeth and everything. But when I turn to that quiet one and put my back, as it were, to the other, I end up experiencing a sort

Starting point is 00:04:28 of resolution in a much more elegant and easy way than I would achieve on my own by trying to kill that bad wolf. Yeah, that's a lovely way of saying it. And I think that idea of focusing on solutions is so important. What you did, though, coming out of an experience of addiction was to become a neuroscientist and really stare pretty closely at the problem, so to speak, as a way of trying to figure out and solve addiction. Yeah, I mean, I wish I could say that I just turned my back on the bad wolf and, you know, embrace the kind one. But for me, they're always side by side. So at the very same time that I was practicing letting go, and really letting go of so much of the compulsions and the darkness and really the desire for the bad wolf in a way. At the same time that I was so trying to be with the kind one, I was also working on training the bad one. So I have a tendency to want to hedge bets and walk a middle line that makes my life interesting and full of tension. But I wasn't, you know, quite that wise, I guess, to completely drop it. And the way that I was able to let go of something that I loved so much, which was using drugs, was to take my compulsive nature a little bit and in a kind of protected way, get in the cage with the wolf. And I think that that protected way was through intellect rather than just my core urges.

Starting point is 00:06:16 And I wouldn't say that it was always smooth and easy, but I did have a strong will and I think I was waiting to see which would win, honestly. And I figured, you know, if I am bored with the kind wolf eventually, then, you know, I'll maybe have a better strategy for managing the other one, which is sort of embarrassing to say. Yeah. Well, I think channeling that will, as you use the word for it, or energy, I think is important in recovery. For me, I had to find ways of channeling. And I would sometimes have people say, or I would think to myself, I wonder, have I just substituted like, you know, addiction for workaholism? And I would go, well, if I did, you know what, I'll take that trade, because this is way less self destructive. But I really think to put a

Starting point is 00:07:12 more benevolent spin on that, what I've noticed is that there's an enthusiasm that I have about things and that I do best when I let that enthusiasm out and I let it roam. It does well. There's an old Zen saying, how do you control your cow? And they say, well, give it a bigger field, right? It's a similar idea. I just give this energy a bigger and more productive field to play in. Yeah, and I agree. I think it's healthier that way. You know, by the time I hit bottom, I was solely engaged with the dark wolf. And then I kind of spun the other way. I guess I imagined briefly that, you know, I'm going to now become clean and wholesome and truthful and all those things. And I think I was maybe out of balance a little bit there too. And

Starting point is 00:08:07 it wasn't in a way authentic. So I agree with you that for me, it's important to focus on what I want and not what I don't want. You know, I'm one of these people, like I could be skiing and there could be one tree in the middle of the glade, you know, and I know I don't want to hit it, but I somehow go right for it. So that doesn't work for me. I have to aim for what I do want. And it was helpful to learn, you know, that there were other things of value. But I agree that the same liabilities that led me to kind of walk in the dark sides of things also were assets in other places and times. And I think that in a way that is part of my authenticity. Yeah. And reading your descriptions of your addiction, we sound very similar. I think a

Starting point is 00:09:01 lot of addicts are, but I love the way you put this. You said, you're talking about your addiction. You said, I began with enthusiasm, even determination. From the start, I consumed as much and as often as I could, literally. And that really kind of sums me up too. I had a couple of early using experiences, 15 years old, that were strange. I used strange, but then there were some circumstances that conspired to put the whole rest of it off till I was 18. I started a nonprofit organization for tutoring disadvantaged children. I saw what alcohol and drugs were doing in their families' lives, and I was like, I don't want any part of that. But I turned 18, and I, you know, one night decided to have a drink, and it was just off to the races. That idea of enthusiasm and determination

Starting point is 00:09:47 really describes the way I pursued my addiction. Yeah, I am so interested in that tendency, which I really think separates, you know, the sheep and the goats in a way. My research, which is now on neuroscience and I study pharmacology and genetics, is to try to understand what's different about the brains of people like you and me before we ever picked up. I admire the fact that you had something kind of bigger than yourself that you were working on, which I think is a very big part of my recovery. And for me, science was that, that I had to find something other than myself. And right around 13, 12 or that, that I had to find something other than myself. And right around 13, 12 or 13, when I picked up, there was nothing bigger than myself that

Starting point is 00:10:30 I could imagine. So I was really off to the races. That is so true that it scares me now. It takes my breath away. But at the time, I embraced it so fully. It was really only constraints that were fewer and fewer that prevented me from constantly using. And I think a lot of us do have that kind of like a switch is turned, you know, with the first time. You described also that children oftentimes who turn into addicts

Starting point is 00:11:00 show an increased level of risk taking early on. And it's funny, because I mean, from the time I was like 10 years old, I was a chronic kleptomaniac. And the level of theft just kept escalating, you know, through my teenage years, you know, and I didn't want 90% of the stuff I took. That wasn't what it was. It was the thrill. It made me feel alive. And so when I read you say that, I was like, oh, yep, that really describes me. I had this tendency to take risks well before my addiction proper. Yeah, it's interesting. A big part of that is genetic. So, you know, kids in general are more prone to risk taking than adults, which is part of the whole design, because if we were all really conservative, it wouldn't work out so well for humanity, but also wouldn't work out great if we were all, you know, jumping off of cliffs.

Starting point is 00:11:55 So this way, you know, there's a nice balance that's sorted kind of by age, but some kids are much more risk-taking than others, and that's largely genetic. kids are much more risk-taking than others, and that's largely genetic. And I was very much the same way. I was literally jumping off of things early, breaking into things. And it's funny, I wasn't much of a thief unless it was something like food or drugs that I actually needed. But I got sober and I started stealing. Interesting. Yeah. I know. It's ridiculous. It was stuff I didn't even need or even want. I remember telling somebody one day, I was so ashamed, but it was just the excitement of it.

Starting point is 00:12:34 And I didn't even know this guy. It was some old man that I was introduced to. And he said, well, just don't do that. And somehow I stopped. said, well, just don't do that. And somehow I stopped. But I still like the feeling of being late or having a deadline that's not quite there or running for a plane or something in the old days. Yeah, yep. So let's talk a little bit about the work you've done your research about trying to figure out why do we become addicts. And you say that there's a variety of factors that go into it. There's genetic predisposition, there's developmental influences,

Starting point is 00:13:12 there's environmental input, there's all these different layers. And I think, you know, obviously the, is it nature or nurture, is such a reductive idea because it's all these factors that layer on top of each other in really complex ways. Yes, you said it really well. I think we now say nature via nurture rather than nature or nurture, but still that kind of begs the question. We know about half the risk is inherited, but we can only explain a very small portion of that. So despite all the genetic mapping that's going on, we haven't been able to

Starting point is 00:13:54 get to it. And that's because, as you say, it's really complex. And the same with environment. So, you know, unfortunately, nobody is able to look at a person and say, you will or you will not become an addict. And in a way, until you can do that, you're just guessing, sort of like predicting the weather. So we know it goes with abuse and neglect. It goes with early exposure. And certainly, like you, picking up at 15 and me a few years before that, that's highly deterministic. to take these big risks and really seeking meaningful experiences, which as we know, can be readily obtained or at least a facsimile of them in a bottle or a pill or a joint or something. So they explore and then as a result of kind of regular use while their brain is being

Starting point is 00:14:59 put together and organized, it's organized under those conditions. So most people who have a substance use disorder begin using before they're 18. I think I read something the other day that if you start drinking before you're 18, you have a one in four chance of developing an alcohol use disorder. But if you wait to drink until you're 21, you have a 1 in 25 chance. So just those three years of brain development make a huge difference in the effect of alcohol on your reward system and on your proclivity for seeking those kinds of things. So, you know, we could really plummet addiction rates if we put all the teenagers on some island with nothing to use. plummet addiction rates if we put all the teenagers on some island with nothing to use. Do we know anything about adolescent use rates, whether those are going up? Is that part of what could be behind what we think is an increase in addiction?

Starting point is 00:15:55 Yes, they definitely are going up. And they're going up even between now and last year at this time. So this particular time in the midst of COVID is really challenging. And there's, in a way, two main reasons for using. One is to feel good, and one is to stop feeling bad. And I think that second factor is really coming to play these days. That second factor is really coming to play these days. There's more anxiety, more depression, and more substance abuse among teens than I believe there's ever been. And I think they're self-medicating. Boredom and maybe worse, you know, maybe despair, loneliness, wondering, you know.

Starting point is 00:16:46 I think it's such a hard time that many of us feel pulled that way, but for kids, especially. Well, yeah. And I think that totally makes sense because so much of what they would do that would be positive is gone. I mean, I know parents who have children of this age now, I don't know the children, but you know, who's like, well, my daughter was really into track and that's gone. And so now she's just sitting around the house all day and she's depressed. You know, my son is now 22, but as a teenager and I, and I began to realize that he was consuming a little bit, right? I had this reaction of first one, okay, I'm worried it's genetic, you know? And then secondly, all the studies I've seen about, yeah, that the longer you put off using, the less drugs you put into a developing brain, the better.

Starting point is 00:17:29 So I've got that on one hand. And then on the other hand, the overreaction of a parent that can often push a child deeper into it. And I think all parents go through that to some degree. I think it's more acute for people like you and me. And I have raised three kids. The youngest is 17, so I guess I'm still raising. But yeah, you feel a little hypocritical in a way.

Starting point is 00:17:51 But it's also hard to bring much over on us because I think we're kind of tuned in. But also full of empathy because it's a tough thing. Yeah. Yeah. What I saw in my son that was so different than me though, is, and I've seen it since he was little, he's like me in a lot of ways, but he's like me grown up and healthier. Like he doesn't have that crazed hunger. I just always seemed to have, you know, even from just a child, you can look back at me as a child and you're like,

Starting point is 00:18:24 have. You know, even from just a child, you can look back at me as a child, and you're like, kid was not right. And I just, you know, I didn't see that in him. And so far, it's not been a problem. I know that we're not out of the woods by any stretch of the imagination. But I think it's a good analogy in a way for what we're talking about. Because I think that anybody, about because I think that anybody, even somebody who starts out with more maturity and poise in a way than you and me, could, in circumstances that are challenging enough, sort of give into it. My youngest daughter is also that way, and she's also dabbled. And, you know, we kind of go back and forth, but she seems much less reckless than I am and also much less determined. But I think that, you know, we should, as parents, worry about the conditions that make it more likely for kids to embrace recklessness and less likely. And I was thinking about your volunteer

Starting point is 00:19:22 nonprofit or whatever it was that you were doing. I love that story, and I'd like to hear more about it someday. But I think this time, it's especially hard to get out of ourselves. And there's so much time not to be, but opportunities for that kind of thing may be good substitutes when we can get back to prevention. good substitutes when we can get back to prevention. Yeah, I stumbled into that understanding what happens when I sort of put myself in service of something bigger. I stumbled into it as a teenager. I certainly had no idea what I was doing, but it very much did for those years just arrest that burgeoning drug use. All of a sudden, I was kind of centered and focused. And it was really helpful

Starting point is 00:20:05 when I got sober, because I could reflect back on that and go, oh, look, that was the best time of my life. You know, up till then, that had been the time I had been happiest. And I was like, oh, well, what was it that made me happiest? It's always good when you have an experience of something versus somebody telling you something. Well, I think this is characterizing exactly where all adolescents are. They need developmentally, and their brain is set up to support this. They need to find something challenging, engaging, worthwhile, just the kinds of things that you describe. And I don't think it matters what it is. But in lieu of that, with so much high potency drugs available, they can kind of take the place. And I think that it is really a second best thing. And I even think it's interesting that you realize that right away when you got clean again. But I think that adults, you and me, are at fault for not ensuring that there's more opportunities for kids. If I had to characterize adolescence, I would say this is the time of life that people are oriented to find meaning.

Starting point is 00:21:22 If there is nothing but reruns on TV and on the phone, then you got to get it somewhere. So that's good. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

Starting point is 00:22:15 The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Starting point is 00:22:34 Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really, No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really? No, really. Yeah, really. No, really. Go to reallynoreally.com and register to win $500, a guest spot on our podcast or a limited edition

Starting point is 00:22:55 signed Jason bobblehead. It's called Really? No, really. And you can find it on the iHeartRadio app on Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. So let's talk a little bit more about, you alluded to it, but that, you know, we've done a lot of work on genetics. There was a lot of hype and there was a lot of hope, like, okay, we've mapped the genome, we've got all this figured out, there was this, and it's not really particularly, and you say particularly for people who have mental disorders, whether that be alcoholism, addiction, or depression, or Alzheimer's, or all these different things, that we're really not much closer in a lot of ways to a cure. You characterize it often as two steps forward and 1.99 steps backwards as we work through this stuff.

Starting point is 00:23:44 nine nine steps backwards as we work through this stuff. Oh, yeah, I could talk about this for hours and hours. And it's a topic that I love. I'm kind of, on one hand, this is another example of the two wolves, I guess, I really buy into this whole biological thing. I love the brain. I know for sure that everything I experience, including urges and highs and lows, is reflected in brain activity that I have. So it seems so straightforward to be able to understand that. And I think maybe getting more unpopular by saying this over and over again, so I feel a little heretical, but if you just look at the data, we're not doing that great. We're not really solving these big problems. And in fact, some of them like depression and anxiety and substance use disorders are getting worse. And I don't think that means that we don't

Starting point is 00:24:39 understand anything about the brain. We understand a lot. It's just much less straightforward than I hoped. I read a news report about a new finding in physics, and I'm just fascinated by these things in physics, because I don't know if you're following up on this, but, you know, first it was quantum entanglement, where things were connected without any physical cause. And then there was more recently, the idea that sort of parallel truths happening at the same time. So the very idea of objectivity, which empirical methods is based upon, is at its fundamental structural nature, not true. at its fundamental structural nature, not true. So, you know, there's both of those things that are happening at the same time. And that on a good day is so exciting. Because how do you bring those together? What I think more than anything else is that there's always a physical cause in a physical world, but that there may be as many ways to

Starting point is 00:25:49 express the tendencies that you and I have as there are people who are like you and me. So, I just think it's naive and simplistic to imagine that we are going to characterize the neural states associated with addiction, you know, writ large. I have much more appreciation for nature and its power than I do for our scientists who I think are awesome, but not that awesome. Well, you say in short, now is the time for us to recognize that our brains are not the source of who we are or the path to whom we might become, which is really interesting because you're on one hand saying, okay, I believe that everything that happens, there's a neural correlate for as in it happens in the brain.

Starting point is 00:26:42 And if we searched long enough and hard enough, we could eventually find out how the wiring and it all works. And at the very same time, that doesn't tell us perhaps what's most important and fundamental in order for us to make changes. Is that a safe way of characterizing it? Yes. And as soon as we would describe what's going on when someone's craving a hit of cocaine or taking a hit of cocaine, we would realize that there are many other possible brain states that could predict that exact same experience. Or you could be having that brain state that you've just identified as the critical one. And it could also predict falling in love with your child,

Starting point is 00:27:27 you know, or something. And I think you said something also really quickly at the beginning of this, which is that what's going on in my brain is not just coming from me and my little brain and my genes. It's coming from a vast landscape of history and culture and socialization and communication and microbiomes and sounds. And I mean, there is probably nothing that is not connected to the molecules of dopamine in your brain, you know. and so then to pull out the molecule of dopamine and say, aha, here it is, is silly a little. Right. It is staggering when you think about what all goes into making up a person and their experience. The Buddhist term we would use is it's karma, you know, but karma we tend to think, oh, well, it's just the actions that I took inetics and shows up in the child. And so all of a sudden now I've got my parents, not just their genes. And so again, when I start thinking about it, I'm just like, infinite. It's an infinite web. Yeah, and when you were talking, I almost said this earlier when you were talking about your son or we were talking about kids today,

Starting point is 00:29:12 and maybe the increased rates of substance abuse are due to these current conditions we're having, or maybe they're due to having parents like you and me who were smoking a lot of weed in the 70s, you know, and programmed the genomes to set up for craving in a way. basic physical studies or a human being or something in between, I think doesn't much matter. I think it's daunting, but it's just awe-inspiring. Going back to the wolves, I guess, because that means, implies at least, that by taking some small step, by doing some one little thing positive for myself or in my day or for my neighbor, I am having this effect. And I know this is not a new notion, but we're starting to see the physical substrates of that truth. And I think it certainly, it couldn't apply to basic physics

Starting point is 00:30:23 and butterflies in Asia, but not to individuals who are struggling with addiction. we become addicted. And I'm going to cut to the end of this and let you work us backwards from it. But you say that the most profound law of drug use is this, there is no free lunch. So let's work our way back through kind of what's happening in addiction. If at the end of the day, what you're basically saying is you can't use an addictive substance and not have some things occur. So let's kind of work back from that end point, which is, you know, chronic addiction, where, as you also say, that the only reprieve is sort of a temporary lifting of chronic despair, which is where every addict ends up. Like, okay, I will get high, and getting high just means I pull back from the brink of complete darkness for a second or two. You know, that's where we end up. There's no free

Starting point is 00:31:32 lunch. So let's kind of work back. Yeah, I love starting at the end. And that's kind of a fun thing for me. So I would say that the end or the addiction is evident when the debt that I accrued by borrowing good feelings from the future comes due. And I can't get any more out of the bank. I'm out. And so now I have to, it's possible, but it's staying hard. I have to pay that debt back. And so that is no free lunch. And what happened to me going now to the beginning is that I got high the first few times and I thought, this is fantastic. I want to stay like this. I want to always feel great and above the norm. I want to be flush, in other words. But as we know, the more we use, the less well it works. That's called tolerance. And that's because the brain adapts. And the brain adapts by producing

Starting point is 00:32:35 the exact opposite effect of the drug. It does that because it doesn't want me to feel great. It doesn't want you to feel great. If I felt great all the time, face it, I wouldn't survive because I would completely miss bad news. You know, there's a hurricane coming. Well, you know, I'll get to that tomorrow because I'm feeling so great. I just want to lay here. Or good things, you know, here's a potential mate. Well, I'm, you know, busy, blissed out by myself, so I'm not so interested. And either of those things are not sustainable for life. So the brain has very fundamentally built in, it is like a law of thermodynamics, I think, that it counteracts whatever effects the drug produces. So if I use

Starting point is 00:33:19 a drug to make me feel euphoric, my brain is going to produce suffering. So that when the euphoria and the suffering meet, the euphoria from the drug and the suffering from my brain, I'll be normal, which is a bummer because it's expensive then and it's a pain in the neck. And I just feel basically normal by spending all my time getting the drug. So that the lunch is not free because now I'm having to pay for it. And it's also getting thinner and thinner. What used to be a Carnegie Deli sub is now some cheese sandwich. So I have to take more. And if I don't get it, if I somehow miss out, I feel much less than normal. And that sense of dependence, I'm dependent on the drug

Starting point is 00:34:08 when I no longer like myself or my life without it. And it's only the drug that makes me and my life bearable. Then I'm addicted and the debts come due. I'm Jason Alexander. And I'm Peter Tilden. And together on the Really No Really podcast, our mission is to get the true answers to life's baffling questions like why they refuse to make the bathroom door go all the way to the floor. We got the answer. Will space junk block your cell signal?

Starting point is 00:35:13 The astronaut who almost drowned during a spacewalk gives us the answer. We talk with the scientist who figured out if your dog truly loves you and the one bringing back the woolly mammoth. Plus, does Tom Cruise really do his own stunts? His stuntman reveals the answer. And you never know who's going to drop by. Mr. Bryan Cranston is with us today. How are you, too?

Starting point is 00:35:32 Hello, my friend. Wayne Knight about Jurassic Park. Wayne Knight, welcome to Really No Really, sir. Bless you all. Hello, Newman. And you never know when Howie Mandel might just stop by to talk about judging. Really? That's the opening? Really No Really. Yeah, really. No really. Go to reallynoreally.com You write this, I'm just going to read these couple of sentences.

Starting point is 00:36:06 An addict doesn't drink coffee because she's tired she's tired because she drinks coffee regular drinkers don't have cocktails in order to relax after a rough day their day is filled with tension and anxiety because they drink so much heroin produces euphoria and blocks pain in a naive user but addicts can't kick a heroin habit because without it, they are in excruciating pain. Exactly. Yep. Yep. I think your addiction ended with primarily an intravenous cocaine user. That was what brought me to the bottom. That's a hard way to go. Oh, it was hard and fast. Yeah. And I'm grateful for that. I'm really grateful for that. Yep. I was a heroin addict. My first round,

Starting point is 00:36:44 and then I got sober. I was sober about eight years, and I used again. And the second time, it was mainly marijuana and alcohol, which sounds like, oh, that's not so bad. But it was just as bad. The bottom was different. The circumstances were different. But the internal state of slavery was just the same. Yeah, it's interesting you use the word slavery because the word addiction comes from, you probably have talked about this on your show before, but it comes from Roman times when if someone did owe money that they couldn't repay, they were made to be a slave to their creditor. And that person could kill them if they wanted. And they weren't allowed to be freed until they paid it back, which is exactly what we're talking about.

Starting point is 00:37:32 How old were you when you quit the first time? Pretty much 25. Yeah, 24, 25, that sort of transition. Yeah, I guess I want to mention this one sort of new idea in neuroscience or maybe new to me, but we were more prone because we started young, but we're also more resilient because we stopped young. And so this is a really vulnerable time for kids, but it's also a really potent opportunity for them and for the people who love them to provide effective interventions because of the same plasticity that we've been talking about in the brain. So I think if you can hit bottom

Starting point is 00:38:11 quickly, you know, that's probably a big grace. And so cocaine, yeah, was that for me? I was in South Florida. I couldn't get my hands on many opiates. I did try a few things here and there, but it wasn't at all reliable. But coke was everywhere. Yeah, I was ahead of my time. I was leading it. I was leading a cultural trend about about 20 years too early. I want to talk a little bit about you getting sober. And, you know, we talk a lot about sobriety coming when people hit bottom. And we talk a lot about consequence.ety coming when people hit bottom, and we talk a lot about consequence. And those things are valid and they're important. I happen to think they're half the equation.

Starting point is 00:38:52 And you tell a story in there about what to you was a really pivotal thing you think in getting sober, which was your father. Can you talk about that? I sure can. You know, you didn't say what the other half was, but I think we probably agree on what that other half was. My parents were very into the tough love. Can you talk about that? bad for me and I was going to do it whether they liked it or not. And they said with complete straight faces, well, fine, but we're not supporting you. And I was at first, you know, kind of surprised, like how dare they? And then I was ecstatic because I thought, wow, I had all this freedom. So I did have some big consequences and I think that was a big part of it. But I also had my father kind of, of all people, reach out to me at a time when I absolutely hated myself and hated my life. So I got what I wanted, which was to use as much as I wanted whenever I wanted. I had very few, if any, blocks to my own determined use. And I was miserable, completely miserable,

Starting point is 00:40:07 which I wasn't quite able to see. I mean, I knew I was miserable, but I didn't see the connection with drugs. And then I just guess all girls, little girls, have a soft spot in their hearts for their dads. But my father, who was kind of a, not the softest, he was kind of a jerk in a lot of ways, but for inexplicable reasons, and I love to say that because he has no idea to this day why he did this. Nobody believes that he did it. Who knows him? My brothers think, what? That? Arda?

Starting point is 00:40:39 But he took me out, he brought flowers to my dumpy apartment that I lived in with several people who were also, you know, look like me. And he took me out for dinner. It was right before my 23rd birthday. And he just normally wasn't that kind of kind and gentle guy. He's getting actually more that way now. But, you know, that wasn't enough to do it. But he said to me, I just want you to be happy.

Starting point is 00:41:06 And for some reason, there was enough grace in the air and a little chink in my heart that I heard that and fell apart because I knew I wasn't happy. And I knew I couldn't say I was happy. I mean, I could say almost anything, but I couldn't say that. So I ended up going to treatment. But I think the other half of the equation was not only that love, but this is maybe more pragmatic than you want. But for me, I had opportunities. I got to a good treatment center and a halfway house. They were really excellent. And then I had an opportunity to go to school, not with a lot of debt. I got a little Toyota or Honda, you know, a small car. And I had to climb out of the hole, you know, had to pay back the debt. But I had a lot of people cheering me on on the sides and throwing me little ropes and

Starting point is 00:42:09 sandwiches or whatever. And I think I had opportunities that many people don't. Yeah, me too. Me too. And I think that second half of the equation, I like the way you framed it as opportunity. I think I would call it hope, you know, which are similar things. You know, I think there had to be the despair of where I was, and then some sort of hope that things could get better. But I love that story about your dad, because it speaks to the fact of this sort of human connection. And we've done a lot of shows, we've had Johan Harjian,

Starting point is 00:42:42 who wrote a great book about chasing the scream. Oh, I love it. And a lot of things, which really talks about this idea, and he develops it in his later work, about that there's an isolation. And more and more, because the other thing that we could say is contributing to growing addiction rates would be our growing cultural trend towards isolation. You know, it's another element in this mix. And so I think that what I love about your story is it shows a human connection happening. And I think that's such an important part in recovery. I know it was in mine. I mean, the connection to the other people in recovery and just connection back to life and opportunities and all those things are so important.

Starting point is 00:43:25 I completely agree. I think isolation is incendiary. And for all the reasons that we've been touching on, and probably many more, I had a friend who would say that isolation causes addiction, and addiction causes isolation. So it really is a kind of a terrible cycle. And I think that connection is the process of recovery. And what's so hard in the beginning, I'm sure it was for you as it definitely was for me is, you know, I felt unworthy of connecting and people didn't actually want to connect with me much. So this, the fact that my father who was, you know, kind of neat and clean reached out to me in this way. He told me this story more recently, which I completely forgot this part, but he came back to the apartment with me. I'm sure, you know, I had

Starting point is 00:44:14 snot all over my face and I was a mess. And he took my friends and I in his clean BMW probably to the beach swimming. And we all got sand in the car, which for my dad. But he stretched. He stretched in such a way, which I didn't even remember, but I think I didn't even have to put that through my cortex. I think there was a piece of my soul that felt my father's love in letting me and my dirty friends climb into his clean car that uh was probably miraculous yeah because you talk about your father had essentially written you off he didn't even talk about having a daughter anymore like you you were you were dead to him yeah i was yeah it's funny a family friend who I dedicated the book to, Martin Devereaux, who is also a Catholic priest and a psychologist and sort of just a generally really wise and

Starting point is 00:45:16 loving person, probably the least judgmental person I've ever encountered. He was the one who said to my father, hey, why don't you take her out for dinner and get her some flowers? So, there was a lot involved. And then once he said, would you go to treatment, which he only said that because my mother, who is the nurse-y type, knew all about treatment centers. She had been researching them for years and years, and she knew exactly where to go. So the fact that he was sort of the middleman between this big line of people who cared, and I was lucky to have so much care. Yep. Well, I think that's a beautiful story. You and I are going to continue talking in the post-show conversation a little bit more about the mechanics of addiction, what's happening underneath the hood, and also

Starting point is 00:46:05 talk a little bit about, we have some friends in common, Richard Rohr and James Finley and the work they've done. And we'll talk a little bit about the role that's played in your recovery also in the post-show conversation. Listeners, if you'd like to get access to that, as well as a special episode I do each week called A Teaching, A Song, and A Poem. You can become members of our community at oneufeed.net slash join. Judy, thank you so much for coming on. This is one of those fun conversations that could go another two hours if I let it, but we're wrapping up for time constraints. But thank you so much.

Starting point is 00:46:40 I really enjoyed this. Thank you, Eric. I enjoyed enjoyed this. Thank you, Eric. I enjoyed it too. If what you just heard was helpful to you, please consider making a monthly donation to support the One You Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members-only benefits. It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now, we are so grateful for the members of our community.

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The One You Feed - Judith Grisel on the Neuroscience of Addiction

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