Speaker 1: You cannot separate the individual from the environment, and you
Speaker 1: cannot separate the mind from the body. And so when
Speaker 1: people are living in a stressed culture, they have stressed minds,
Speaker 1: and stressed minds result in stressed bodies. Welcome to the
Speaker 1: one you feed Throughout time, great tinkers have recognized the
Speaker 1: importance of the thoughts we have quotes like garbage in,
Speaker 1: garbage out, or you are what you think, ring true.
Speaker 1: And yet for many of us, our thoughts don't strengthen
Speaker 1: or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 1: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 1: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 1: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 1: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent, and creative effort
Speaker 1: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 1: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 1: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 1: Our guest on this episode is a renowned speaker and
Speaker 1: best selling author, Dr Gabor Mate. He's highly sought after
Speaker 1: for his expertise on a range of topics including addiction, stress,
Speaker 1: and childhood development. For twelve years, Dr Mate worked in
Speaker 1: Vancouver's downtown east Side with patients challenged by hardcore drug addiction,
Speaker 1: mental illness, and HIV, including Vancouver's supervised injection site. As
Speaker 1: an author, Dr Mate has written several best selling books,
Speaker 1: including the award winning In the Realm of the Hungry Ghosts,
Speaker 1: Close Encounters with Addiction, and the book When the Body
Speaker 1: Says No, The Cost of Hidden Stress. His works have
Speaker 1: been published internationally in twenty languages. To get a free
Speaker 1: download of Eric's favorite gabor Mate quotes, go to one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net, slash me and here the interview
Speaker 1: with Hi Gaba. We're welcome to the show. I am
Speaker 1: really excited to get you on. You're known as a
Speaker 1: real expert in the field of addiction, as a recovering
Speaker 1: heroin addict and alcoholic myself. It's a topic that comes
Speaker 1: up a lot on the show and we talk about
Speaker 1: and we'll talk a lot about your book In the
Speaker 1: Realm of the Hungry Ghosts um as well as your
Speaker 1: forthcoming book that's yet to be released. But first let's
Speaker 1: start like we always do with the parable. There's a
Speaker 1: grandfather who's talking with his grandson. He says, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. One is a good wolf, which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other is
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred
Speaker 1: and fear. The grandson stops and he thinks about it
Speaker 1: for a second, and he looks up at his grandfather
Speaker 1: and he says, well, grandfather, which one wins? And the
Speaker 1: grandfather says, the one you feed. So I'd like to
Speaker 1: start off by asking you what that parable means to
Speaker 1: you in your life and in the work that you do.
Speaker 1: The parable is a helpful teaching tool as a metaphor,
Speaker 1: but truth to tell, and despite the fact that this
Speaker 1: is the theme of your program, I don't find it
Speaker 1: a compelling understanding of what life is all about. Because
Speaker 1: it would all be rather easy if feeding the good
Speaker 1: wolf would be a matter of choice, and then we
Speaker 1: could all thrive and do well and have great relationships
Speaker 1: and great jobs, and great bodies and great and great
Speaker 1: souls for that matter. But is it a matter of choice.
Speaker 1: I've never found a simile addict who actually chose to
Speaker 1: be an addict. I don't know anybody that wakes up
Speaker 1: one morning and says my ambition in life is to
Speaker 1: become a drug addict or sex addict, or shopping addict,
Speaker 1: or a food addict, or an internet addict or gambling addict,
Speaker 1: or any other kind of addict. So first of all,
Speaker 1: the metaphor implies a freedom to make that choice. And
Speaker 1: of course freedom is a subtle thing, but it's not
Speaker 1: as clear as that metaphor in that story would have it.
Speaker 1: We can talk more about where I think addiction comes from,
Speaker 1: but let me just makes the first point that it's
Speaker 1: not so much a matter of choice. Secondly, the good
Speaker 1: and bad implies an acceptance and oh celebration of the
Speaker 1: one and the rejection of the other condemnation of the other.
Speaker 1: So there's a judgment involved different parts of ourselves, some
Speaker 1: of which are good, others are bad. On the contrary,
Speaker 1: I find that it's those parts that we consider bad
Speaker 1: that we have to be most compassionate with. That's the
Speaker 1: part of us that we have to understand, that's the
Speaker 1: part of us that we have to recognize. What role
Speaker 1: that so called bad well have actually played in our life.
Speaker 1: Why he was she came along and while we became
Speaker 1: so attached to it. That takes understanding, And some compare
Speaker 1: what I call compassion of curiosity and some willingness to accept.
Speaker 1: So the split between the good and the bad, the
Speaker 1: good wolf and the bad wolf psychologically, to me is hurtful.
Speaker 1: And secondly, as I said in the beginning, it's not
Speaker 1: so much a matter of choice as a matter of
Speaker 1: actually seeing where both those parts of ourselves arise from.
Speaker 1: So I could say more and yes, by all meanes
Speaker 1: we show it as best we can feed the wholesome,
Speaker 1: healthy parts of ourselves, but we have to have a
Speaker 1: lot of understanding and compassion for that other part as well.
Speaker 1: Without that, we will never liberate ourselves. Well, that is
Speaker 1: a great way to lead into it. And one of
Speaker 1: the things I did want to talk about, we'll get
Speaker 1: to it a little bit, is that idea of freedom
Speaker 1: or choice and how much freedom and choice do we
Speaker 1: really have in certain situations. To start off, I would
Speaker 1: like to just read a paragraph from very early in
Speaker 1: the book um to give people a sense of of
Speaker 1: what the title of the book means. And I think
Speaker 1: it's a really beautiful description of a really awful state.
Speaker 1: You say, the inhabitants of the Hungry Ghost realm are
Speaker 1: depicted as creatures with scrawny necks, small mouths, emaciated limbs,
Speaker 1: and large, bloated empty bellies. This is the domain of
Speaker 1: addiction where we constantly seek something outside ourselves to curb
Speaker 1: and insatiable yearning for relief or fulfillment. The aching emptiness
Speaker 1: is perpetual because the substances objects are pursuits we hope
Speaker 1: will soothe it, are not what we really need. And
Speaker 1: I think that is a great description of a really
Speaker 1: awful state, and UH paints a real picture of addiction.
Speaker 1: But the first question I'd like to ask you is
Speaker 1: what is addiction. That's a widely disputed UH topic and
Speaker 1: there's lots of different ideas on it, but I like
Speaker 1: to see if we can come up with a working
Speaker 1: definition for the rest of this conversation. That's great, and
Speaker 1: that will also allow me to go back to your
Speaker 1: code but anger ghosts and and make a comment about it.
Speaker 1: So addiction for me is what It's a complex physiological, psychological, neurobiological, social,
Speaker 1: cultural phenomena. But the essence of it shows up in
Speaker 1: behaviors which may have to do with substances, but it
Speaker 1: could also be non substance related like sex or gambling, food,
Speaker 1: and so much as I've said before, So any behavior
Speaker 1: that a person craves finds temporary pleasure or relief in
Speaker 1: and then suffers long term negative consequences as the result of,
Speaker 1: but is incapable of giving up despite those negative consequences.
Speaker 1: So the features of addiction are craving, relief, temporary pleasure,
Speaker 1: negative along to consequence, inability to give it up. That's
Speaker 1: what eviction is. Any addiction, and I don't care again
Speaker 1: whether it's the substances to what it's to. That's what
Speaker 1: the essence of addiction is. Then, now, if you ask
Speaker 1: yourself this question, and you know you've talked about your
Speaker 1: own substance addiction, let me ask you a question if
Speaker 1: I may. If I asked you know what was wrong
Speaker 1: with your heroin addiction? And what else did you mention?
Speaker 1: Was it cocaine you said? Or alcohol? Alcohol, alcohol and heroin? Okay?
Speaker 1: If you ask if I asked you not, what what
Speaker 1: was wrong with those behaviors? Which we all we know
Speaker 1: we don't have to spell it out, everybody knows. But
Speaker 1: what was right about it? What did it do for you?
Speaker 1: What did it give you in a short term? What
Speaker 1: was the value of it in your life? Can you
Speaker 1: tell me that sure. I mean, I think the value
Speaker 1: in it for me was it changed the way I
Speaker 1: felt in any given moment, and I was not really
Speaker 1: capable of feeling anything. I think originally the drugs and
Speaker 1: alcohol brought me to life in a way. And you
Speaker 1: you talk about that in your book about the emotional
Speaker 1: deadening that a lot of us do. So I think
Speaker 1: it brought me to life initially, and then I think
Speaker 1: after enough time it was also then used to kill
Speaker 1: the pain that was, you know, continuing to rise. Okay,
Speaker 1: so it did two really important things for you. It
Speaker 1: gives you a sense of vitality, aliveness, vivacity, and secondly
Speaker 1: it's soothe your pain. Now those are are they not
Speaker 1: perfectly normal human aspirations? Absolutely? Who does not want to
Speaker 1: feel a life? Who does not want to have a
Speaker 1: pain relief? And so therefore the real question is what
Speaker 1: realm were you escaping from? Now? The in order to
Speaker 1: get into the under ghost from which is the addiction realm.
Speaker 1: Now this is a Buddhist concept, These these separate realms,
Speaker 1: you know, one of them is the under ghost, from
Speaker 1: another is the hell realm where we experience fear and
Speaker 1: dread and pain and terror and isolation. In other words,
Speaker 1: Dona ghost roun served their role for you. So the
Speaker 1: purpose for you you're entering the ghost round into in
Speaker 1: the words, into the addiction, was you attend to escape
Speaker 1: the pain of being in the hell realm of pain
Speaker 1: and isolation and fear and deadness. In other words, the
Speaker 1: addiction served the purpose. And so that to call it
Speaker 1: a bad wolf, it's to miss the fact that already
Speaker 1: there was suffering before that so called bad wolf came along.
Speaker 1: And I'm saying that the first question in addiction is
Speaker 1: never why the addiction, will why the pain? Because all addictions, ultimately,
Speaker 1: and again I don't care what they're too. They could
Speaker 1: be the power to profit, to relationships, to physical looks,
Speaker 1: to anything in the world. All addictions are matter of
Speaker 1: escaping pain. And so the mantra that I proposes not
Speaker 1: why the addiction, but why the pain? In order to
Speaker 1: look at why the pain, you have to look at
Speaker 1: people's lives and what actually happened to them. And then
Speaker 1: we can see once we do that that it really
Speaker 1: wasn't a matter of choice at all. You say that
Speaker 1: hurt is at the center of all addiction. Let's talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about what that hurt is where it
Speaker 1: comes from. Um, the things that has in common with everybody,
Speaker 1: depending on where you are on an addiction scale, so
Speaker 1: to speak, from being extremely addicted to something very harmful
Speaker 1: to um moderately, Uh, you know, obsessed with something less harmful.
Speaker 1: Where is this coming from? What's what's the root of it? Well,
Speaker 1: first of all, it's important what you just said, because
Speaker 1: what you just pointed up was that addiction exists on
Speaker 1: a spectrum, on a on a continuum. So it's not
Speaker 1: that there are the addicts over there and the rest
Speaker 1: of us over here. Is that most of us should
Speaker 1: look at my definition and we'll find ourselves somewhere on
Speaker 1: that continuum. However, they fundamental source it's always in some
Speaker 1: life experience of pain, and always in childhood. And that
Speaker 1: pain can be caused, broadly speaking, by two types of experiences.
Speaker 1: One is direct trauma, such as sexual abuse. Parents would
Speaker 1: beat you, parents are abandoned you, parents have screamed at you,
Speaker 1: parents who were absent because they were jailed or because
Speaker 1: they were mentally ill, or because there was a lot
Speaker 1: of fighting amongst the parents and a child felt alone.
Speaker 1: And fighting is in a case of a bad divorce
Speaker 1: or a parent dying, it's any number of these traumas,
Speaker 1: and and there's been a lot of research on this,
Speaker 1: so I mean, I'm not making this stuff up. This
Speaker 1: is just what the research shows. And it's astonishing to
Speaker 1: me that the addiction ruled in general, including the twelve
Speaker 1: step cruse, which I in many ways support and respect,
Speaker 1: and including most addiction to eating programs, have got no
Speaker 1: concept of trauma whatsoever. So that's one kind of way
Speaker 1: of being heard. Not in the way of being heard
Speaker 1: is more subtle. It's what's called developmental trauma. This is
Speaker 1: not a question of bad things happening, but if good
Speaker 1: things not happening. The child has certain needs, and the
Speaker 1: greatest need for the child is to be emotionally held
Speaker 1: and met and understood, and to be communicated with in
Speaker 1: such a way that the child's feelings are received and
Speaker 1: respected and held by the parents. Now, all kinds of
Speaker 1: really good parents who love their kids, who do their best,
Speaker 1: can't do that for their children because they're to stress themselves.
Speaker 1: They can't be emotionally pleasant for the child. It's not
Speaker 1: a question do they love the child. It's a question
Speaker 1: of our day from the moment to moment. In that
Speaker 1: interaction with the infant and a small child. Are they
Speaker 1: able to be present emotionally in such a way that
Speaker 1: the child is received and seen and heard and understood
Speaker 1: and accepted for who they are? And art stress society,
Speaker 1: a lot of parents are incapable as much as they
Speaker 1: want to provide most qualities of the child. And that's
Speaker 1: called developmental trauma. So that's got nothing to do with
Speaker 1: bad things happening. It's just the necessary good things not happening. Now,
Speaker 1: the more sensitive you are, and there could be genetic
Speaker 1: sensitivities here. Addiction is not caused by genes contragy to
Speaker 1: all the nonsense that a lot of people speak about that,
Speaker 1: but the sensitivity could be genetic. And the more sensitive
Speaker 1: you are, the more you will be hurt by the
Speaker 1: bad things that happen or by the good things that
Speaker 1: don't happen. Now, if you look at populations of severely
Speaker 1: addictive people such as I worked within Vancouver, British Columbia,
Speaker 1: and the Downtowny Side is North America's most notorious and
Speaker 1: contributed the area drug use. By the way, there was
Speaker 1: nobody there who wasn't hurt in that first since there's
Speaker 1: not a single female patient, as I keep saying, who
Speaker 1: had not been sexually abused. I didn't meet single one
Speaker 1: in twelve years. All the men have been similarly traumatized,
Speaker 1: some of them sexually, some in other ways. And that's
Speaker 1: also what a large scale study shows again is that
Speaker 1: the more trauma there is, the greater risk of addiction.
Speaker 1: Exponentially the greater risk of addiction. And then there's a
Speaker 1: lot of other people who whose addictions may not be
Speaker 1: quite so severe, or who cannot look back on a
Speaker 1: childhood realise terrible things happened. In every case, though, you'll
Speaker 1: find that those good things that should have happened didn't happen,
Speaker 1: and a very sensitive person was hurt by that. So
Speaker 1: that's that's at the heart of it. And here's the
Speaker 1: rest of the interview with Gabor Matte. You mentioned how
Speaker 1: critical these developmental stages are, um even all the way
Speaker 1: back to being in the womb, and you make it
Speaker 1: more concrete than oh, you know, somebody's feelings were neglected.
Speaker 1: You talk about the actual parts of the brain that
Speaker 1: do not develop, where you end up with various systems
Speaker 1: in the brain that aren't functioning properly, and those tend
Speaker 1: to be a lot of the systems that are directly
Speaker 1: affected by addiction. Well, there's a new film note directed
Speaker 1: by um Cathy Gillian Hall, who's married to Stephen Gillian Hall,
Speaker 1: who's the father of the two very famous actors, and
Speaker 1: it's called In Usual, and it's all about the impact
Speaker 1: of stress in the womb on the developing fetus. So
Speaker 1: already stresses on the mother why she's pregnant, carrying the
Speaker 1: infant will in fact, in fact affect the child's brain development.
Speaker 1: And then during the first few years the essential brain
Speaker 1: circuits that are implicated in the addiction such as stress
Speaker 1: regulation and the body is the internal opioid and doorphin regulation,
Speaker 1: and the emotional self regulation and attention and the sense
Speaker 1: of aliveness, reward motivation, the circuits that have to do
Speaker 1: with the chemicals dopamine, or the circuits or their chemicals
Speaker 1: and doorphins, or the chemical serotonin which is implicated in
Speaker 1: the mood regulation. All these key circuits developed actually an
Speaker 1: interaction with the environment. And as an article from Harvard
Speaker 1: published in two thowelve showed or or you know, summarized
Speaker 1: it up that the most important quality of the environment
Speaker 1: in shaping these brain circuits is the mutual responsiveness of
Speaker 1: adult child interactions. So whenever parents are stressed and unable
Speaker 1: to be emotionally present for their children, these circuits are
Speaker 1: impaired within their development, let alone a child was actually traumatized.
Speaker 1: So it's not a question of just emotional heard. It's
Speaker 1: also a question of that key brain circuits that later
Speaker 1: on become enrolled in the service of addiction. I just
Speaker 1: don't develop properly, and then when the addictive behavior or
Speaker 1: substance comes along, it feels like a huge relief. As
Speaker 1: a matter of fact, I would wager that for somebody
Speaker 1: like yourself, probably when you did alcohol or error, you
Speaker 1: probably felt normal for the first time in your life.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I always say that, you know, two drinks
Speaker 1: was the best antidepressant I ever found. Unfortunately it never
Speaker 1: stayed at two drinks, but it was. It was definitely worked.
Speaker 1: In other words, what what what the substances were doing
Speaker 1: for you? Was giving you what your own brain chemistry
Speaker 1: should have given you had the circumstances being the appropriate
Speaker 1: ones for your brain developed, But clearly they weren't. And
Speaker 1: I don't know what happened to you, and I don't
Speaker 1: I don't know what you want to talk about it.
Speaker 1: But I I can just from the fact that you
Speaker 1: were I think that to alcohol and out, and I
Speaker 1: can tell you what kind of should I do you had?
Speaker 1: Now I I've got a pretty good idea of that.
Speaker 1: The other thing that I think happens as addiction goes
Speaker 1: on is we start out with these chemical issues in
Speaker 1: our brain, let's call them that, And so then we
Speaker 1: start taking drugs or alcohol that make us feel better.
Speaker 1: But those very drugs and alcohol begin to further erode
Speaker 1: both the um ability of our brain to make the
Speaker 1: chemicals that make us feel good, as well as the
Speaker 1: parts of the brain that are able to exercise impulse control.
Speaker 1: So we're taking a bad situation, and the actual physical
Speaker 1: changes that happen as we uh move into addiction and
Speaker 1: alcoholism make this situation worse in regards to our brain's
Speaker 1: ability to even stop what it's doing. That's exactly how
Speaker 1: it works. And you know who said it best. It
Speaker 1: was Jesus when he said the rich get richer in
Speaker 1: the poet Poor. You know that that that that those
Speaker 1: that have more shall be given to them, and those
Speaker 1: that have little, even a little to have, will be
Speaker 1: taken away. And that's what addiction does. So that um,
Speaker 1: just as you stated it. If you do brain scans
Speaker 1: a lot of adults, and you know, medicine plays a
Speaker 1: lot of attention these days to these brain scan studies,
Speaker 1: and we look at the abnormal brains and we think, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's biological, therefore it's going to be genetic. No, it's
Speaker 1: not true. The biology is actually shaped by the environment,
Speaker 1: so it is. Yes, it's biological, that doesn't make it genetic.
Speaker 1: Then when you add the burden of addictive substances, but
Speaker 1: you know, not just addictive substances, even addictive behaviors like
Speaker 1: if you are, let's say, um, shopping headicte and the
Speaker 1: reason you're shopping at it because because your your brain
Speaker 1: lax and of dopamine, which is the incentive motivation chemical.
Speaker 1: But when you go shopping, your dopamine levels go really high.
Speaker 1: That's that's the incentive. That means you're artificially increasing your
Speaker 1: dopamine levels. And that also means when you're not shopping,
Speaker 1: your own withdrawal, not to the same degree, of course,
Speaker 1: but in the same way as if you were a
Speaker 1: cocaine addict and increasing your dopamine levels through the stimulant cocaine,
Speaker 1: so yes. In the long term, addictive behaviors and especially
Speaker 1: addictive substances. Of course, especially addictive substances, they further erode
Speaker 1: the ability of the individual to make rational choices, to
Speaker 1: hold onto relationships, to regulate impulses, to deal with their emotions,
Speaker 1: to handle stress in a healthy way. So that these
Speaker 1: things were impaired to start with because of maldevelopment in childhood,
Speaker 1: and now they're further impaired by the addictive behaviors and
Speaker 1: stuffstances themselves. So it's a double lammy. And then again,
Speaker 1: so when we come back to the question which wolf
Speaker 1: be a feed, well, that so called bad wolf, which
Speaker 1: came out of deficiency and came out of a desperate
Speaker 1: attempt to feel better for a short time, has become very,
Speaker 1: very powerful. You mentioned genetics, and so I was, you know,
Speaker 1: one of the things that I read your book that
Speaker 1: I really found comforting, and I'm curious if the science
Speaker 1: sent since you wrote the book continues to support it
Speaker 1: is that there isn't such a genetic basin. I have
Speaker 1: a son who I'm an addict, his mother is an addict,
Speaker 1: and I've always worried about his genetic predisposition. But based
Speaker 1: on what you're saying, it's really more about the environment
Speaker 1: that we've raised him in and the way we've raised
Speaker 1: him than a particular set of genes that he inherited. Yeah,
Speaker 1: there are no addiction genes. There are genes that make
Speaker 1: it more likely that a person might become addicted simply
Speaker 1: because certain chemicals are not hand there the same way
Speaker 1: as the average person, or because the child is more sensitive.
Speaker 1: But here's the study from the Journal of Consulting Clinical
Speaker 1: Psychology two thousand and nine February. They looked at the
Speaker 1: long term study in Georgia African American news residing in
Speaker 1: rural Georgia, and they looked at certain their genes from
Speaker 1: you know, looking they looked at the ANA analysis of
Speaker 1: their saliva and there was a couple of genes that
Speaker 1: were increased. They were linked with increased substance use over time.
Speaker 1: But look at what it says here. However, this association
Speaker 1: was greatly reduced when used to receive high levels of
Speaker 1: involved supportive parenting. This study demonstrates that parenting processes have
Speaker 1: the potential to ameliorate genetic risk. And I would say
Speaker 1: that when children received the parenting, they need. You don't
Speaker 1: just familiarate, you actually eliminate any genetic risk called together.
Speaker 1: And even in children where things didn't go well in
Speaker 1: the beginning, if you then provide the right kind of parenting,
Speaker 1: you can still greatly reduce that risk. So jeans made
Speaker 1: pros an increased risk, but they cannot determine a predisposition
Speaker 1: is not the same as the predetermination and the insistence
Speaker 1: of the medical profession and addiction specialists and the trust
Speaker 1: up goose that you've got this genetic disease. It's just
Speaker 1: bad science. Well, like I said, I find that to
Speaker 1: be comforting in the section in your book where you
Speaker 1: talk about that we don't have time to go into
Speaker 1: but the way that you explore where people have thought
Speaker 1: that it's genetic um and the way they arrive at
Speaker 1: those through a variety of twin studies and different things.
Speaker 1: You really talk about how that's not an effective mechanism,
Speaker 1: and so if people are interested in that, that would
Speaker 1: be a great, great part of the book to check out.
Speaker 1: You've talked a lot about the role of the parents
Speaker 1: and and that the parents can be stressed, or they
Speaker 1: can be depressed, or lots of different things, and that
Speaker 1: sort of leads us into cultural issues. And the book
Speaker 1: that you're working on that will be coming out is
Speaker 1: really about the culture that we live in and how
Speaker 1: that culture breeds unction dysfunction. And so I'm going to
Speaker 1: read something else that you wrote and then maybe let
Speaker 1: you take it from there. You say, a sense of
Speaker 1: deficient emptiness pervades our entire culture. The drug addict is
Speaker 1: more painfully conscious, is void than most people, and has
Speaker 1: limited means of escaping it. The rest of us find
Speaker 1: other ways of suppressing our fear of emptiness or of
Speaker 1: distracting ourselves from it. So what what's happening in our
Speaker 1: culture that you think is breeding this dysfunction? Well, if
Speaker 1: you permit me to be self referential here, um, I'd
Speaker 1: like you to make your way of another book I wrote, Core,
Speaker 1: What got hold onto your Kids? Why? Apparently to matter
Speaker 1: more than peers. So one of the things that we
Speaker 1: point out in that book. In fact, what we do
Speaker 1: point out in that book is that children have this
Speaker 1: primary need to attach to a parent, to to to
Speaker 1: attach to nurturing adults. That's just the need of all
Speaker 1: mammals and birds for that matter. Below that the child
Speaker 1: doesn't survive, so as long as the culture provides an
Speaker 1: environment in which children are related to nurturing adults, especially
Speaker 1: in a village or clan or or or community setting,
Speaker 1: that child is very secure. One of the things that
Speaker 1: our culture has done is it as broken up the clan,
Speaker 1: that tribe, the community, the neighborhood. And it has also
Speaker 1: put to mendous stress in the nuclear family, so that
Speaker 1: the parents don't see their chis most of the most
Speaker 1: of the day, and very often, of course, children come
Speaker 1: from broken families where it's not even two parents. Children
Speaker 1: have to attach to somebody. They cannot handle life without
Speaker 1: being connected to somebody. And who do they attached to?
Speaker 1: Who do they connect to? They connect to the peer group.
Speaker 1: So now you have this phenomenal peer attachment which children
Speaker 1: are not getting their modeling and their values, and they're
Speaker 1: mentoring and their emotional nurture and such as it is
Speaker 1: not from adults in their life anymore, but from other children.
Speaker 1: And of course immature creatures cannot lead one another to maturity.
Speaker 1: So this is all kinds of negative consequences. So any
Speaker 1: parent who's bringing up kids at lescent or at any
Speaker 1: age or or below, that's just the book that I
Speaker 1: think it's important to read, and it's not my work.
Speaker 1: Actually is the work of a psychologist friend of mine,
Speaker 1: a billion man called Gordon you Felt. I did the
Speaker 1: writing with him. But one of the things that happens
Speaker 1: in our culture is the bake up of family and
Speaker 1: community and clan, and that leaves children without the proper modeling,
Speaker 1: mentoring and cultural guidance. Talk about a depressed mother for example, um,
Speaker 1: who you know, postpartum depression, whatever, You make the point
Speaker 1: that in in the past, when they're was more as
Speaker 1: you said, clan or village or bigger family, there would
Speaker 1: be other people to pick up that slack, so to speak.
Speaker 1: There would be other people to help give the child
Speaker 1: maybe what they weren't able to get in that period
Speaker 1: with the mother. But in what again, in the culture
Speaker 1: we live in, sometimes that's the only person. It goes
Speaker 1: beyond that. First of all, we know that postpone depression
Speaker 1: and the mother is associated with an increased risk of
Speaker 1: behavior problems, a d h D and a whole lot
Speaker 1: of other things that are predisupposed to addiction in the child.
Speaker 1: But it goes beyond that because in a society, with
Speaker 1: his private support from others, you don't have the risk
Speaker 1: of postpone depression. Post on depression is not an automatic
Speaker 1: biological thing that happens to women. It happens in a context.
Speaker 1: And the context is lack of emotional support. And I
Speaker 1: can tell you that as a husband whose wife had
Speaker 1: a postpone depression and at a time when I was
Speaker 1: a workhalic doctor who was not available to support her,
Speaker 1: so and and and so, and that an impact on
Speaker 1: our children. And so even the risk of postpartum depression
Speaker 1: and and the rates of which is going higher and
Speaker 1: higher in our culture has to do with cultural factors.
Speaker 1: And the book I'm working on and I don't have
Speaker 1: a working title for it yet, but the general theme
Speaker 1: is toxic culture. And what I mean by that is
Speaker 1: that a culture is the context in which we live,
Speaker 1: the social, emotional, relational interactions that we have, the work
Speaker 1: that we do, the entertainment that we pursue, the practices
Speaker 1: that we engage in. And that's, broadly speaking, is what
Speaker 1: means to have a culture. There's another meaning for the
Speaker 1: world culture, which is simply a laboratory broth in which
Speaker 1: you image, you rear or or or your nurture micro organisms.
Speaker 1: And what would you call a laboratory culture in which
Speaker 1: many of the micro organisms were sick. You would call
Speaker 1: it a toxic culture. I'm suggesting that our culture, if
Speaker 1: you look at the rates of disease take of American
Speaker 1: adults are some kind of at least on one medication
Speaker 1: or another. This isn't the richest and the most medically
Speaker 1: advanced society and is to the world what's going on.
Speaker 1: What's going on is that the culture that we live
Speaker 1: in and in a whole lot of ways, some of
Speaker 1: which we've talked about, others of which I'm writing about,
Speaker 1: actually undermines people's health. And so that when we look
Speaker 1: at individual disease, individual addiction, whether we're looking at mental
Speaker 1: health issues, childhood deveonal issues like a d h D
Speaker 1: or so called opposition and defined disorder, or depression and anxiety,
Speaker 1: whether we're looking at cancer, autoimmune disease, we're actually looking
Speaker 1: at the impact of the culture on the individual. Because
Speaker 1: you cannot separate the individual from the environment, and you
Speaker 1: cannot separate the mind from the body. And so when
Speaker 1: people are living in a stressed culture, they have stressed minds,
Speaker 1: and stressed minds result in stressed bodies. In the book
Speaker 1: that you're working on and in the research that you do,
Speaker 1: do you have recommendations for those of us who live
Speaker 1: within that culture today of how we can be more
Speaker 1: immune to it or how we can avoid some of
Speaker 1: the more toxic parts of the culture. The first point,
Speaker 1: of course, is to recognize the culture that we're living in,
Speaker 1: to see it, not to absorb it uncritically, but to
Speaker 1: see in what ways it actually undermines human needs. As
Speaker 1: much as it has provided and as is creative and
Speaker 1: economically dynamic and scientifically advanced, this culture has been, at
Speaker 1: the same time, in some ways it significantly ignores and
Speaker 1: even insults some deep human needs, and so we have
Speaker 1: to understand that and not buy into it. Now, the
Speaker 1: various books that have written, whether it's an A d
Speaker 1: h D or stress and physical health like cancer or
Speaker 1: immune disease and so on, there's recommendations. Are my prediction
Speaker 1: book that you've been mentioning, there's recommendations in each of them, um,
Speaker 1: and the new book will be more focused on, yes,
Speaker 1: what we can actually do because we can't, you know, obviously,
Speaker 1: just because I publish a book, where anybody publishes a book,
Speaker 1: that's not going to change the culture. So we're gonna
Speaker 1: have to live with this for a long time, surely
Speaker 1: in my lifetime. But the more a where we are,
Speaker 1: the more we set up conscious practices that in our
Speaker 1: lives that do not feed the bad wolf. That move
Speaker 1: back to your analogen. Now in a positive sense, The
Speaker 1: more mindful of you where we are, the more we
Speaker 1: recognize that our value and our ritish human beings is
Speaker 1: not depending on what other people think of us. It's
Speaker 1: not depending on how good we look. It doesn't depend
Speaker 1: on how much we own or what we can do.
Speaker 1: The more we can actually respect and on our own value,
Speaker 1: the more immune we are to the blandishments of our
Speaker 1: culture that for the most part, woe us believe that
Speaker 1: our value depends on externals. And of course what is
Speaker 1: addiction but a desperate way to fill in from the
Speaker 1: outside that emptiness that you mentioned that we experience from within.
Speaker 1: So um, what I'm saying also has of course social
Speaker 1: and cultural implications, poll co implications. I will talk about
Speaker 1: that in my new book, but probably that's a discussion
Speaker 1: that would differ for some other time. Sure, you talk
Speaker 1: about how important conscious awareness is, and that's sort of
Speaker 1: what you were just saying. They're being aware of what
Speaker 1: the culture is. Being aware of our decisions. You say
Speaker 1: that when not governed by conscious awareness, our mind tends
Speaker 1: to run on automatic pilot. It is scarcely more free
Speaker 1: than a computer that pref that performs pre programmed tasks
Speaker 1: in response to a button being pushed exactly. So that
Speaker 1: question of freedom has to do with levels of consciousness.
Speaker 1: People who are not conscious simply have no freedom. They
Speaker 1: may believe they do, but they don't make decisions. The
Speaker 1: decisions are made for them by automatic emotional reactions that
Speaker 1: are the result of early experiences. So there's a I
Speaker 1: think Austrian Swiss or German Swiss m writer and psychologists
Speaker 1: called Alis Miller, who was one of the first ones
Speaker 1: who wrote about the impact of childood trauma an adult dysfunction,
Speaker 1: and her most famous book is called The Drama of
Speaker 1: the Gifted Child, but the original title of the German
Speaker 1: pedal that book was actually much better. It was called
Speaker 1: The Prisoners of Childhood. And what she was implying is
Speaker 1: that until we are aware and create some gap between
Speaker 1: our emotional reactions and our behavior, were actually held prisoner
Speaker 1: by what happened to us in childhood. And I find
Speaker 1: myself at age seventy two, still very often reacting like
Speaker 1: I was a two year old child unless I create
Speaker 1: that gap of consciousness in which I have a moment
Speaker 1: to reflect upon and make a conscious decision. And in
Speaker 1: our society which makes this unconsciousness so many ways, that's
Speaker 1: constant work. That's for most of us. I would say,
Speaker 1: that's significant work. And that's why I think so many
Speaker 1: people are increasingly drawn to practices that support mindful of
Speaker 1: warenness because they don't want to be free that are
Speaker 1: only automatons. And and and even for me, you know,
Speaker 1: as a you know, a middle class, successful person, I
Speaker 1: cannot claim freedom as long as my reactions and behaviors
Speaker 1: and preferences are governed by unconscious factors that come out
Speaker 1: of a childhood sense of insufficiency that goes back to
Speaker 1: my first year of life. So freedom does demand consciousness.
Speaker 1: And Eckard totally it was a great spiritual teacher. He
Speaker 1: probably knew of his work, and he lives here in
Speaker 1: Vancouver as well. You know, he says as much. He
Speaker 1: says that you can't talk about freedom without consciousness. He says, no,
Speaker 1: there's no freedom without consciousness. So again that feeding the
Speaker 1: good Wolf takes a lot of consciousness, and I think
Speaker 1: for me that's what the pair of mostly speaks to.
Speaker 1: I mean, I I there's all sorts of reasons why
Speaker 1: it's a it's a story and not a not a truth.
Speaker 1: But I think for me the story is about is
Speaker 1: about having that awareness what am I doing? You know, like,
Speaker 1: moment to moment, day to day? What am I doing?
Speaker 1: What am I thinking? What am I acting? What am
Speaker 1: I Because I love your description of um being on autopilot.
Speaker 1: That's such a great description of of the way I get.
Speaker 1: I just sort of I just go. I do what's
Speaker 1: in front of me and not necessarily thinking about what's
Speaker 1: important to me or who I want to be or
Speaker 1: all those things that that consciousness implies. Yes, what am
Speaker 1: I doing? And also who am I being? Like? Who? Right?
Speaker 1: I'm going to give a talk in Vancouver in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks called who do I Think? Who do
Speaker 1: you think you are? Or who do I think I am?
Speaker 1: Who do we think we are? So let me give
Speaker 1: a cook example. Are at home from speaking to from
Speaker 1: Baltimore to Vancouver four months ago. I give a great talk,
Speaker 1: well received. I think I'm just I think I'm just
Speaker 1: great arrived in Vancouver. I get a text from my wife,
Speaker 1: who had says she picked me up, that she hasn't
Speaker 1: left home yet. I immediately feel hurt, rejected, and I
Speaker 1: go into her rage. Ye, why, what's the problem? I
Speaker 1: was seventy one years old at the time. I can't
Speaker 1: take a taxi home? What's the big deal here? Right?
Speaker 1: Or can't I understand that my wife maybe got caught
Speaker 1: up in her paints and artists and she got caught
Speaker 1: up in her painting. Which artists do that they get
Speaker 1: caught up in their painting or there or this decreative
Speaker 1: work and the time to schools? You know what? Am
Speaker 1: I so upset about? Who do I think I am
Speaker 1: at that moment? Well, the upset part of me and
Speaker 1: you might call that the bad wolf because it's full
Speaker 1: of rage at that moment, But who it actually is?
Speaker 1: He thinks he's a one year old child? Who is
Speaker 1: who's being abandoned? My mommy? So this constant question of
Speaker 1: who do I think I am? It needs to come
Speaker 1: up at every moment, almost right Where am I coming
Speaker 1: from at this particular moment? And just because I answered
Speaker 1: the question appropriately one time, it doesn't mean that five
Speaker 1: minutes later, the same question does not arise again in
Speaker 1: a different way. So that awareness and ultimately, I think
Speaker 1: whatever people have to do to overcome their addiction, I
Speaker 1: would say, first of all, get in touch with your pain.
Speaker 1: Don't run away from your pain. Your old addiction is
Speaker 1: an attempt to run away from pain, and it just
Speaker 1: creates more pain. So don't be afraid of it. And
Speaker 1: if you're one of these people that you think it
Speaker 1: had a really happy childhood, let me tell you. If
Speaker 1: you're addicted, that tells me you didn't, which doesn't mean
Speaker 1: that happy things didn't happen. It just means that you've repressed.
Speaker 1: You've you haven't dealt with you haven't allowed yourself to
Speaker 1: experience the child's feelings that you distance yourself from as
Speaker 1: a way of surviving it. Uh So, So be aware
Speaker 1: of your pain and and help get some help with it,
Speaker 1: and have compassion for yourself. Don't judge yourself. Don't metaphorically.
Speaker 1: It's fine to talk about the bad wolf, but don't
Speaker 1: reject the bad wolf part of you. Have compassion for it.
Speaker 1: Understand that it came along really to meet needs that
Speaker 1: otherwise we're not being met, and then create that gap
Speaker 1: of awareness, that mindfulness that you and I have been
Speaker 1: talking about, in which you can make free choices to
Speaker 1: feed that good wolf. So last question. We're nearly out
Speaker 1: of time, and this is the last and hardest question.
Speaker 1: But I'm just I don't think there's an answer, but
Speaker 1: I'm interested in your thoughts on it. And as someone
Speaker 1: who is recovering, I've been around recovery for a long
Speaker 1: time now, most of my adult life, and I see
Speaker 1: a lot of people who get sober, and I see
Speaker 1: lot of people who never do, and I see people
Speaker 1: that die, and and I can't help but have that
Speaker 1: why And I know there's not a simple answer for that,
Speaker 1: But do you have any thoughts on on Is it
Speaker 1: simply level of traumas some people are so damaged that
Speaker 1: the recovery processes is too much? Do you have I
Speaker 1: guess what do you think? Well, yeah, you're right, it's
Speaker 1: a very difficult question. Um, I don't think anybody is
Speaker 1: still trauma. Does that they beyond redemption? Um, we've seen
Speaker 1: examples of people who have endured trauma is that we
Speaker 1: can't even comprehend, and yet they they find redemption in
Speaker 1: one way or another. So there's nobody beyond redemption. At
Speaker 1: the same time, the greater degree of trauma and the
Speaker 1: greater the defenses that you've erected against the trauma, the
Speaker 1: more you've had to escape from that hell round, the
Speaker 1: more difficult will be for you to to recover. That.
Speaker 1: That's totally true, I believe. Ultimately the question is compassion.
Speaker 1: And I everybody I know and I I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: a guess here that at some point or another in
Speaker 1: your recovery process, you either encountered people that treated you
Speaker 1: with compassion despite all the steff bothing you might have had,
Speaker 1: or somehow you find you find a way to develop
Speaker 1: compassion for yourself, or maybe both. I think it's definitely both.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's the at the heart of
Speaker 1: twelve step recovery. For me, that's that's the heart of
Speaker 1: it right there. Is that is that the community that
Speaker 1: one alcoholic talking to another, that that ability to see like,
Speaker 1: oh I'm not I'm not the only person that's like
Speaker 1: this exactly. And I think that is the strength of
Speaker 1: the twist step groups. I'm among the specific strengths. So
Speaker 1: they're the twist steps themselves, which I think are just
Speaker 1: steps for a healthy life. Addiction or addiction. But but
Speaker 1: quite apart from that, it's that being received and heard
Speaker 1: and not judged that compassion. And I think some people
Speaker 1: just don't meet that. And unfortunately it's even two that
Speaker 1: depending on where you go to the toss step group,
Speaker 1: you may or may not find that compassion. You you
Speaker 1: may come across a lot of judgment and and and rejection.
Speaker 1: Not that's not the intention, but that's where you're going
Speaker 1: to receive. So to go back to the original question,
Speaker 1: I think the people that have been redeemed and and
Speaker 1: have recovered, I think they're the ones who find some
Speaker 1: compassion along the way which ultimately led them to some
Speaker 1: self compassion. That doesn't fully answer your question, because as
Speaker 1: you said, there is no full answer to your question.
Speaker 1: But but as as a way to move forward, compassion
Speaker 1: is it. If you imagine if the prison system, if
Speaker 1: the legal system never might, the business system, the legal system,
Speaker 1: the educational system with all these troubled kids, the medical system,
Speaker 1: the addition treatment industry, what if they had this huge
Speaker 1: infusion of compassion, how many more people could be redeemed?
Speaker 1: The numbers are infinite. Well, I think that is a
Speaker 1: beautiful place to end. I agree with you, and you know,
Speaker 1: my hope is that you know part of what certainly
Speaker 1: not everybody listening to this identifies in it is an addict.
Speaker 1: But we all know people who are, and to your point,
Speaker 1: a lot of us have that in ourselves. And I
Speaker 1: think that idea of um compassion you say that the
Speaker 1: best attitude is one of compassionate curiosity towards ourselves. Why
Speaker 1: did I do that? Why did I? Um? You know,
Speaker 1: instead of instead of judgment, well, you know, and and
Speaker 1: the why did they do that? You can ask it
Speaker 1: in two ways. You can say why did I do that?
Speaker 1: Which is not a question at all, it's just st right,
Speaker 1: you know, but you can actually say, huh, why did
Speaker 1: I do that? Right? And then that's the way to
Speaker 1: ask it. Incidentally, as to your reference about many people,
Speaker 1: not all of your listeners may have stuff by identified addicts.
Speaker 1: I just wonder if they tried on that definition of
Speaker 1: addiction that we proposed the Earleader, how many really are
Speaker 1: we've never had those kind of patterns in their life.
Speaker 1: I'll grant you that song, but I don't you too many, no,
Speaker 1: particularly not people who listen to this show any any
Speaker 1: shown Yeah, I mean, yeah, the fact that they you
Speaker 1: know that we relate to these concepts and people come
Speaker 1: back is a is a sign that you know, we're
Speaker 1: recognizing some degree of of wishing we were more conscious
Speaker 1: and in control of our lives. Well, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: I really enjoyed um talking with you. I loved your book.
Speaker 1: I'm looking forward to the new one and maybe we'll
Speaker 1: get a chance to talk more than I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Thank you very much, Thank you, Bye bye. M H.
Speaker 1: You can learn more about Gabor Morte and this podcast
Speaker 1: at one you Feed on night Slash Gabor