Addiction Makes Sense. So How Do You Move Forward?

Recovery Can Be Rebuilt

SPEAKER_00 0:00

A lot of these things that you're struggling with can be reversed or made better. And you know that. You know that diabetes and heart disease and obesity, these things can be managed and in a lot of cases reversed through nutrition and exercise alone. I would say that addiction is not an indication of your psychology and your physiology gone wrong. Addiction, in the for the majority of cases, is the appropriate and predicted response that your physiology and psychology is having to environments gone terribly wrong. But I called my dad and I was nervous. I was like, is he going to be a hypercritical bully or is he going to be the person I need to talk to in this moment? And thankfully, he was exactly the person I needed to talk to in this moment. Rather than trying to outcompete a toxic environment with willpower and determination, build an environment where your willpower is no longer necessary. Build an environment that looks so much like the life you would want to live that simply by being there, it encourages the outcomes you're looking for.

Welcome And Guest Introduction

SPEAKER_01 0:55

Welcome to the Yog Nation, the Spread of Gratitude podcast on the OneTegration platform. Hello, friends. My name is Yogesh Patel, and this podcast explores the themes of bullying, self-awareness, and the power of our inner spirit, including the silent battles we all face. Join me every week as I invite high-profile guests as we explore how adversity shapes us, how gratitude lifts us, and how we can all uncover the inner strength that we all have within ourselves. Join the conversation. I appreciate you listening in.

SPEAKER_02 1:26

And for those struggling with addiction or watching someone they love face their own inner demons, today's guest embodies the central theme of this podcast, How Adversity Shapes Success. Adam Sudd is a nutrition and addiction behavior researcher whose story is one of extraordinary transformation. At 350 pounds, struggling with drug addiction, type 2 diabetes, and depression, Adam nearly lost his life. He ultimately rebuilt it from the ground up, transforming not only his health, but his purpose and the work he now does to help others. Adam has now become one of the most sought-after voices in recovery, sharing the stage with organizations like the Matthew Perry Foundation, Rest in Peace, Chandler Bing, and his previous work pioneering research on nutrition's role in addiction recovery. Today, Adam is going to challenge us the way we think about healing, emotionally, mentally, physically. He'll explore why simply being heard isn't always enough to change your life. Very true. And what it truly takes to build a blueprint for lasting success. And with gratitude, it is my honor to welcome you to the podcast, Adam.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Oh, thank you so much. That's a wonderful introduction. And I'm I'm I'm grateful to be here and have this conversation with you.

SPEAKER_02 2:33

Oh, uh likewise. Well, curious. Let's get started.

Defining Addiction As Disconnection

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Yeah. What is your definition of addiction?

SPEAKER_00 2:40

Oh, that is that is such a tough question because, you know, interestingly, when uh when we were doing the research study that you mentioned, we kind of looked at what is addiction? How do we define it? And at the time there was no singular definition for addiction. The definition that I really like um is it comes from a British journalist named Johan Hari. Johan Hari wrote a phenomenal book called Lost Connections. Um probably one of the best books on the social impact of depression and anxiety and addiction that I've ever read. And he said addiction is about not wanting to be present in your life because your life has become too painful a place to be. And so what I think about addiction, yes, of course, there is a physiological and neurochemical aspect. Of course, uh, we are physical beings and we have neurochemistry that that dictates a lot of the way that things happen inside of our head and the way that we think and feel and respond to life. But in my opinion, addiction is far more uh I would say that addiction is not an indication of your psychology and your physiology gone wrong. Addiction, in the for the majority of cases, is the appropriate and predicted response that your physiology and psychology is having to environments gone terribly wrong. So social environments, caloric environments, chemical environments, um, physical environments, that this is economic environments, we have to economic environments 1000%. Yeah. Yeah. This is the that this is if you were to take nine out of ten, if you were to take ten people and put them in the same environment and the same social experiences that the person who is struggling with addiction is having, nine out of ten of those people would end up in the same situation.

SPEAKER_02 4:24

Really?

SPEAKER_00 4:25

That's that's my that's my feeling. Uh and when you look at the data on addiction, in my opinion, it addiction makes complete sense. It isn't a person gone crazy.

SPEAKER_02 4:36

Wow, that's a lot to unpack. Um, again, there's so many different levels and dimensions to what you just mentioned, but I wanted to double-click on on

Validation, Compassion, And Being Believed

SPEAKER_02 4:45

one aspect. And you mentioned, or how does understanding what why addiction makes sense biologically and emotionally build more compassion than just saying, I'm sorry you're struggling, and this coming from the person that is on the receiving end of what that addiction person is going through?

SPEAKER_00 5:01

Yeah. Um I I'm a huge fan, of course. I I I'm I'm a big fan of validation. I do think that validation is important because the the number one thing the validation uh does for the person who's struggling is that it gives you evidence that there's someone who believes you that your life is tough. And that's important.

SPEAKER_02 5:21

Is that empathy? Is it beyond empathy and compassion?

SPEAKER_00 5:23

Well, so empathy and compassion um are born out of uh feeling believed, in my opinion. Someone has to, you have to, you have to trust that the person who's listening to you and who's witnessing you believes your story. Okay. And therefore, that you can trust that they're empathetic and compassionate to your situation. Yes. I can't trust that they're empathetic and compassionate towards me unless I believe that they actually, you know, unless I'm confident they believe my situation is what I think it is. They may not have to believe that the outcomes are the same or that the destiny is the same, but they have to believe that I think it is. And if I trust that they believe that, then I can trust that there's compassion and empathy coming from that person. And then I can trust that there's that I I can give myself compassion and empathy. If the world demonstrates compassion and empathy towards me, then perhaps I'm I can start to do that myself, that there's evidence that it's that it's uh reasonable for for me. But beyond that, um, we have this unfortunate story about addiction that has penetrated every aspect of our culture. And that is that the chemical hooks in the substance cause the addiction, and that if the person were to just stop, they would no longer struggle. That if they could just divorce themselves from their substance long enough, the struggle would be over. And so, you know, the the idea is that if a person who's never struggled with addiction is watching someone struggle with addiction, they might make a reasonable assumption. They'll go, well, you know, I know the hardest days of my life, and they were hard. And I never once used that as an excuse to go get high the way that person's getting high. How selfish must that person be? Right? That's that's could you could consider that a reasonable assumption that society would make towards the person who's struggling. And from an evolutionary uh uh psychology perspective, it's a way of demonstrating to the village that I would never do that. You don't ever have to worry about me being like that. But the much more reasonable way to think about it is I know how hard the hardest days of my life were. And I never had to struggle with use. I can't imagine what that person's going through. Right. It must be something I can't comprehend. And so what we would what we would do is we would give ourselves credit that we don't understand how difficult life is for them, but it must be very hard. So compassion and empathy there. But the story that the chemical hooks creates a problem. It tells the the person who loving someone who's using that their problem is their use. And that's an issue.

SPEAKER_02 8:02

Ah, okay. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 8:03

The reason why I find that an issue is because if you were to look at addiction the way that I look at addiction, the way that people like Johan Hari look at addiction, uh people like Gabor Mate, uh Jordan Peterson, people who look at addiction as something missing from the meaningful experience of being alive.

unknown 8:20

Sure.

SPEAKER_00 8:21

That the loving and meaningful bonds in this person's life that give them the interest in showing up and being present in their lives have been severed. And they've been severed greatly. When you tell them that the reason why they're using is the chemical hooks, what you've told them is also what matters to you that is no longer there means nothing. That's harmful, that's dangerous. What we have to do is we have to sit with this person who's struggling, we have to listen to their story. Right. Say, I would love to know why this makes sense. I don't know why, but I love you. Uh one of the best things that ever happened to me.

SPEAKER_02 8:58

Traditionally, though, as well, correct?

SPEAKER_00 9:00

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:01

One of the things, the best things that happened to me when I was

Suicide Attempt And Family Support

SPEAKER_00 9:03

at my worst. Um, on and funny enough, uh, yogesh, this is actually quite um cosmic right now. But um today is the 14th anniversary of the day that I uh attempted suicide. Oh my goodness. And so it was on August 21st of 2012 when I was over 300 pounds. I was doing about 400 to milligrams to a thousand milligrams a day of Adderall. And I would be up for six days straight. I wouldn't eat or sleep, and then I would do opiates and fast food for 14 days, and then I'd get more stimulants and I would do that, and I was broke, and I was stealing from people, and I was an absolute mess. Um, a lot of my family had not given up on me, but I had given up on them. And so I tried to end my own life by intentional overdose. And I can remember when I survived that experience, thankfully. Um, and you know, I I can tell you that uh I may not know what it feels like to die, but I do know what it feels like to believe that you're dying with a life full of regret. Right. And death may not be worth your fear, but that absolutely is. And um I remember I called my family after I had uh survived the experience, and I was I was very afraid of what was gonna happen on the other side of that phone. I was very afraid of the judgment that I thought was gonna be coming towards me. But we've been trying to get you to do this for years. Why should we believe you now? You know, how much money have you blown? All that stuff. And my my parents essentially said to me, Um, Adam, we love you. We love you whether you're using or you're not. And we love you whatever state you're in. And you know what? We don't know what to do. However, we would love it if you would come home so that we can figure that out together. What happened in that moment was that they reminded me that I mattered. Right. They reminded me that there was a place within that community of loving and shared respect that I call family that was saved just for me and wasn't going anywhere. And whenever the moment came when I was ready to take on the extraordinary effort of wanting my life to be different, that they would welcome me with open arms. That is the most powerful thing that ever happened to me in my recovery journey because that gave me permission to say, I have no idea what's going on. I don't know how it got this bad. Um I I remember it getting out of control, but there was this sort of slight, subtle, imperceptible slide into this life that I don't even recognize anymore. And I don't know how to get out of it, and I'm afraid. Um that's the kind of that's the kind of uh of approach that we need to have to people who are struggling, is that they aren't an addict that you have to deal with. You have to deal with their addiction. Right. But they are a person of loving respect who is struggling and in pain, and we need to figure out why their pain makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 12:02

Because it's so this is kind of uh one size doesn't fit all then.

Why Abstinence Alone Often Fails

SPEAKER_02 12:06

That's right, absolutely. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:08

1000%. I think you know, when you look at um, because you know, we've we've kind of lumped addiction into all sorts of what we would call compulsive behavior.

SPEAKER_02 12:16

Yes, you know, um person is what are the latest stats on folks that are that are addicted in this country? I mean, I was reading stats about 22 million were facing drug addiction, another 22 were facing alcohol or yeah, that's 45 million Americans.

SPEAKER_00 12:33

That's yeah, it's uh it's about it's it's a very high percentage. Yeah, look at across the entire uh spectrum of substances, it gets it gets pretty bad. And you know, the worst uh than that is is uh is the fact that um we have a recidivism rate of of a what rate? Recidivism, that's repeat offender.

SPEAKER_02 12:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Um so um if you were to take uh the average person who is struggling with addiction and they come to the point where they say, I need help, I'm gonna go check into treatment. Yeah, that person has a 70 to 80 percent chance of being back in treatment within one year. Now, here's the thing. Wow. That number is artificially lowered because it doesn't account for the number of people who die within one year of leaving treatment. Oh gosh. So that number is closer to 85%. So we have an 85% recidivism rate of people seeking help, which means that the system that we're using to support these individuals is not that supportive. And the reason I believe is because it's built on the idea that their problem is their substance. Their substance is a problem, but that's the obvious. Right. Yes. What we what we want to do for people is not help them never use again. We want to help them build a life where their use is no longer necessary. That's recovery, right? Abstinence as a model for addiction. Abstinence as a model for addiction doesn't work because it's a passive approach. It says, don't do this today. Well, you can't not do something. Like you and I didn't decide to not stand for this recording. Right. We chose to sit. So you can't passively abstain from use and expect your life to change. It will just be as it is, absent of the thing that made it tolerable. And you will grit your way through that first year of recovery and it will feel overwhelming and it will be overwhelming. What we what I think is a far more successful approach to addiction recovery, and it's certainly not easy, is an active approach, which is what do I actively replace my use with that looks more like the life I would want to live and the life that I deserve? What do I organize my day around? What do I organize my priorities and my values around that I could actively participate in every day that that drives me towards a life I'm far more interested in?

SPEAKER_02 14:50

That's what are the baby steps

Rehab Steps And The Right Environment

SPEAKER_02 14:52

though?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Yeah. So obviously the baby steps are first, depending on your degree of uh uh severity. Yeah, you would more than likely you're gonna check into a rehab hospital. And the reason why you check into rehab hospital is because stopping your use can be dangerous. And so these hospitals are very successful at being medical hospitals that successfully separate you from your use to make sure that you're safe. They medicate you if necessary, and they get you to understand what it is that's going on for you psychologically, emotionally, physically, that also might need to be accounted for in your road to recovery. And uh the the next stage is not to just leave rehab. Uh, unfortunately, this is where it gets difficult because none of this stuff is covered by very few of the stuff is covered by insurance. But it's very important that you step down from a rehab hospital into an environment that is conducive to helping you build a life that looks more like the life you would be interested in if use was no longer available to you. Right? What would what would you want to do and why would you be interested in it? You have to become very curious, and that's hard to do.

SPEAKER_02 16:00

And so I was very that takes time though, because I'm just imagining the hell that these people are trying to break away through. Yes. Right? It does take time, but also concentrated effort to willingly know that you want to change. And you know, I would have to believe that uh it would be being vulnerable, which I don't know if that's part of the validation uh therapy that that you speak of.

Vulnerability, Shame, And Agency

SPEAKER_00 16:28

Absolutely. You know, I think one of the things I really like to think about is vulnerability isn't about what you share, it's about what you risk by sharing it. And so if you're willing to risk being truly seen, if you're really willing to risk showing all of you that's vulnerability. Like, for example, my parents knew I was struggling with addiction, and it wouldn't be very risky for me to say that, yeah, I have a problem, I have a problem, I'm struggling with addiction. What would be risky, what would be vulnerable, is to tell them what my use looked like. I sat would be risky. Because if I showed them all the things I was doing and how I was doing it and the ways I was doing it, what if they don't love me anymore? What if it's too much for them to hear and they cast me away? That's the vulnerable thing, is to say, I'm willing to take on the risk of sharing who I truly am with the people closest to me and believe that they'll love me anyways. That's vulnerability. That's risky. And so when you get into treatment, you have to get to that point where you're really willing to share those parts of yourself in the presence of people maybe you don't know very well, but are living examples of those who have made it and go, I trust that this person has seen this type of thing before. They're not going to be repulsed by it. They're going to welcome it, they're going to listen to it, and they're going to help me. So to find yourself in that environment, if you do, you're lucky. And that's where you can be truly vulnerable. That's where validation does matter because that's where the person says, I want you to know I'm really glad you shared that. I believe you that that's those situations were tough. I believe you that if you could have done it differently, you would have. Right. You're safe. Let's talk about it. That matters because now that gives that person permission to build agency and competence around those shameful parts of themselves. And I'm sorry, agency stands for the ability to change your life. Okay. Thank you. Yeah. Uh, because in order to truly build agency and competence out of addiction, you have to build it around the parts of yourself you're ashamed to talk about. And so I have to be willing to just being brave. Yes. And so I have to say those things. I have to say, yeah, I was stealing from my family and selling things on the street and buying and selling drugs on the street. And I was doing X, Y, and Z in order to make it like that's the part of me that I have to be open about and say, now how do I go from there forward? Because if I say, yeah, you know, I was just, you know, going through my prescriptions really, you know, really quickly, it would go, okay. So, you know, this person just has to reorganize their values a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 19:01

And I think a lot of it, uh, Adam, is fear of judgment, right? I think that's where um it it stops for many individuals. And I always, you know, like to believe in this. I believe it was more of a Christian. I mean, I'm not Christian, but nonetheless, from the Christian faith, it's like lean not to your understanding. Yes, your understanding is wrong sometimes.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Yeah, it's uh there's a saying in addiction recovery which is your best thinking got you here. Love it. It's like, you know, maybe you need to stop acting like you know everything and listen to the people in the room who are leading this discussion because your best thinking got you into this situation. Which uh, you know, it I mean, that's that's an act of of uh honestly, that that's a that's a vulnerable act to be honest with yourself about that, which is to say, you know what, I have I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, and I don't know any other way to do it. Yeah. That kind of surrender moment is where everything changes. But I think you know, what we need to do is um like I mentioned before, that passive the counting days of not use, that's an aimless approach. And this is important Wait, I'm sorry, go back one more time. That the the approach of of uh of uh of passively counting the days where we're not using how many days have you made it? You know, I've got 90 days, and that as if that's evidence that you have developed anything, right? That's that's not evidence of development, that's just evidence of passivity. Like I just didn't use for 90 days.

SPEAKER_02 20:32

Well, why don't that give you more motivation not to do it though? Right?

SPEAKER_00 20:35

Oh well, yes, it can, but it doesn't, but it doesn't build capacity beyond I'm in a sober living facility and I spent these 90 days here not using. Like I don't have any evidence that you've developed anything. I see. I just know that you surrounded yourself with people who wouldn't let you use. Right. Which is like that could be you know, you

Aimlessness, Anxiety, And Clear Targets

SPEAKER_00 20:50

could have developed a lot of stuff, but it isn't evidence of everything, right? Sure. And and I think the reason that that that's important is because I really believe that aimlessness is a major driver of what we call generalized anxiety disorder. Um, so aimlessness not meaning not having direction? Yes, meaning not having something to get up and aim your efforts at every single day. The reason why uh we can talk about this really really simply, which is if I was to take you and we were I was to drop you in the middle of a desert. Oh boy, you have no idea where you are, you have no idea where you are. Okay, you don't know which desert it is, you can't see anything in any direction. Why do you think you would be scared? Why do you think you would be anxious in that moment?

SPEAKER_02 21:31

Well, for those listeners, I live in the desert here in. But no, it's the it's that fear of the unknown. I mean, there's rattlesnakes, there's bears, there's plenty of uh needles on a cactus that can poke you every which way, right? So it becomes a survival mechanism for me to become fearful.

SPEAKER_00 21:53

Not only that, you're not anxious because you don't know where to go and you don't know what's gonna what could happen to you. You're anxious. Just because there's too many directions to go and too many things that could happen to you. And you can't identify where to aim. That's why you're anxious. If I was to say to you, okay, if I was to say to you, hey, listen, I'm not really sure where it is, but if you head west, that's the direction to go. All of a sudden, you're 75% less anxious. You narrowed your aim to something that seems like a good thing to do and seems like a perceived probability of success and safety. And so you're headed in that direction. And so when we think about anxiety, um human nervous system is built to pursue. It orients around goals the way uh gyroscope orients around its axis. If you remove the goal, the system doesn't go quiet, it goes haywire. You start treating everything as a potential threat because you have no hierarchy that tells you what actually matters. Aimlessness is destabilizing. You need a purpose because without one, you drift. And when you drift, everything hurts. So your brain runs on prediction. The dopaminergic system, often mislabeled as the pleasure chemical, is really a goal pursuit system. Dopamine spikes not when you get the reward, but when you're moving towards a reward that matters to you. Progress is the drug. Ambiguity is the withdrawal. So the standard advice for anxiety is to do less, meditate, take a bath, lower the stakes, something that helps. Often it doesn't. Yeah, but if your anxiety is coming from a lack of direction, rest won't fix it. Rest without a target is just more drift. You'll finish the meditation, you'll close the app, and the hum will still be there because you haven't given the system what it's actually asking for, something to move towards. So in addiction recovery, we have to give people that target. We have to give them something to aim at. And not using isn't an aim. What you replace the use with is the aim. And that's where agency and direction come in post-validation, which is like we have to make sure that you believe that you know you're believed, that we have compassion and empathy for your situation, and that you're grateful that you're in a situation where people believe you. Great, fantastic. You're there. From that point on, we have to figure out what you're going to aim at every single day. And here's why. Hold on.

SPEAKER_02 24:25

I just you just triggered a thought in me. What you speak is just beyond willpower.

SPEAKER_00 24:31

Yes. Yes. In fact, it it it it uh it retires your willpower. That's what I'm saying. Without an aim, you have to will yourself through your day of not use, right? Because you have to tolerate that your life is as it was when you were using now minus the use. Right?

SPEAKER_02 24:52

So also like

A Father’s Call And The Spark

SPEAKER_02 24:54

for you, though. I mean, going through your transformation.

SPEAKER_00 24:56

I mean when I checked into rehab um and got diagnosed with all these psychological and and physical uh chronic diseases, um, I was really shattered. Like I really thought that my my goal was that I was gonna spend 28 days in rehab and go home and just use better. Like I was a walking cliche. Um thankfully I got all these terrible diagnoses, and these doctors were telling me right it the story for me, saying, you know, you you're at risk of having a cardiovascular event in the next five years. Uh, you're gonna go on insulin, uh, you could lose your sight, your hearing, and uh, but you have to stop using drugs. And I remember thinking to myself, well, that might have been the worst prescription for change I've ever heard in my life.

SPEAKER_02 25:35

Like, do you paint I'm laughing with you now?

SPEAKER_00 25:38

No, it's it's worth laughing at. Uh I said, you know, you just painted a few a picture of a future that I had no idea was gonna be that difficult. And then you said, there's nothing you can do about it. So, what urgency now do I have to change anything about the way that I live my life today? If anything, that future is not a place I want to be a part of. I have no interest in living to five years if it's gonna be that difficult. And I certainly have no interest in showing up showing up in my life and putting forth more effort if it's gonna lead me to doom, anyways. So why don't I just keep using? And that really got me to rethink and reconsider what it is I was actually attempting, which is I didn't want to attempt spending the rest of my life not using drugs. I wanted to be the architect of a life where use was no longer necessary. So I started to think about what were the problems that I could start solving immediately. And the first ones were the physical health, because I didn't really know much about mental health and addiction at the time. But I I I figured I figured I I can change what I put on my plate. That's an easy thing to aim at. And it's measurable.

SPEAKER_02 26:38

But you had to have intention to do that, though. You had to be willing to change.

SPEAKER_00 26:42

Yes, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 26:43

What was that spark like for you?

SPEAKER_00 26:45

The spark was um I called my dad uh after that meeting with the doctor at the rehab, and uh, and I basically told him I was leaving rehab. And my dad uh is a really remarkable human being. Um he's one of the founders of Whole Foods Market, and he uh had connected me with your father was one of the founders of Whole Foods Market? Yeah, and about a year before I checked into rehab, he gave me the opportunity to attend a six-day retreat with a man named Rip Esslon, who's a pioneer in the health and wellness world. Uh his father is Dr. Caldwell Essleston, who was Bill Clinton's cardiologist that helped him reverse his heart disease. And so I learned I heard this message about health and wellness from Rip, but at the time I only did it because my dad wanted me to go. I was like, well, I'll go, so my dad will keep giving me money. Like I was just being a total addicted loser. But um uh I remember calling my dad and telling him, you know, I got diagnosed with diabetes and heart disease, and I had all these psychological conditions, and and I can't do this anymore. Like I was like, I I thought I was just coming here to give up drugs. Now I have all these other problems. Like, I can't do this. And my dad, you know, at the time my dad and I had a very difficult relationship. We were very adversarial. Um my dad could be very hypercritical growing up. Uh a lot of the times he felt like a bully to me. Um, and the biggest thing was sometimes he felt like my hero, and it was like I had no idea which person was gonna walk in the room, and that's very destabilizing. Um but I called my dad and I was nervous. I was like, is he gonna be a hypercritical bully or is he gonna be the person I need to talk to in this moment? And thankfully he was exactly the person I needed to talk to in this moment. And I said, Adam, you know what? I have no idea if you know what you can if if what these doctors have to have diagnosed you with. I'm not a doctor, I don't know any of that stuff, but I'm sure it's really, really overwhelming to you. Here's what I can tell you a lot of these things that you're struggling with can be reversed or made better. And you know that. You went to that retreat with Rip Esslon, you know that diabetes and heart disease and obesity, these things can be managed and in a lot of cases reversed through nutrition and exercise alone. When it comes to your depression, your anxiety, and all those psychological conditions they diagnose you with. I don't know. I'm not an expert in that, but here's what I can tell you if there's something about your life that's painful and you can do something about it, then it isn't a problem. Right. And if there's something in your life that's painful and you can't do anything about it, you also don't have a problem, it's just the way things are. What that means is perhaps you're that's hard to accept and internalize, Adam. Very hard. He said, but maybe you, your care team, your mother and I can help so that the things that we can't change can seem less overwhelming to you over the course of time. And I remember thinking, man, my dad just gave me permission to be the superhero of my own life. My dad just told me, if I want to change my life, I have to do one thing, except that the problems that in my life are result because I was doing things and I didn't know any other way to do it. Okay. I don't know any other way to go except listen to those who have told me to try this thing here. Do this, go that direction. Right. And if I do, I can change my situation. I just have to be willing to be comfortable being uncomfortable, take on that extraordinary effort and see what happens. Are you willing to do it? And in that moment, I don't know what it was. Maybe it was hearing my dad like fully like rally behind me and suit me up in armor and say, go get them. But I was like, that's what I'm gonna do. I am going to solve this problem. I'm like, that is my singular effort. It was not to stop using drugs, it was to solve the things that were making my life difficult. And I wanted to do it with ease and repeatability.

SPEAKER_02 30:40

And so are these external factors or are they related to the personality of the of the of the individual?

SPEAKER_00 30:46

So they're they're very likely both. Um and so you know, I have a I'm gifted because I have a little bit of a gift here because um I I I'm on the uh neurodivergent spectrum, and so I have a hyperlitical, literal way of looking at things, um, which is I guess a blessing in in some way, but I it also makes me incredibly stubborn, which can be a blessing in certain ways also.

SPEAKER_02 31:10

Um so are you an Aries like me?

Systems Over Goals And Environment Design

SPEAKER_00 31:13

Yeah, and so I became very interested in the mechanisms and behaviors that can move me out of the situation and less interested in how I felt about it. Wow. And so I knew that my thinking and feeling was wrong or certainly not valuable, and that I was willing to cast it aside and go, just give me a better blueprint. Tell me what to do, and I'll run this experiment and see what happens. And if the experiment turns out to look like it's gonna work, I'm gonna say to myself, wow, seems like I might have figured something out here. That's interesting. Not sure if it's the solution, but it sure looks like a good direction to go for another two weeks. Let's keep going. And if it doesn't seem to work, I look for the opportunities to refine the system so that the the uh the outcomes that I'm looking for either change or you know, I achieve the outcomes that I'm looking for.

SPEAKER_02 31:59

So is this the process of your recovery blueprint?

SPEAKER_00 32:02

Yes. Yeah. Which is if we were to tell you, like there's a great, there's a great uh quote by um uh James Clear. He said, people don't rise to the level of their goals, they fall to the level of their systems, which is um if we were to tell you that your goal is to stay sober and you're trying to achieve that goal every day, that's not going to be very good. You're not you don't know what to aim at. You're just aiming at sobriety. Sobriety is an outcome. Sure. It's not a behavior. And so what are the behaviors that look like a sober productive life? Let's start building those things. Let's build a system that allows you to behave in that way so that the environment encourages the outcomes you're looking for with ease. Right. So I created a caloric environment that looked exactly like my goal. That's what a caloric environment is. Mean like your a dietary pattern, but like the calories that surrounded me. The one things that came into my into my area were the ones that looked like my goals. And um, I surrounded myself with a social environment that looked like recovery. I surrounded myself with people who are interested in recovery. That way, when I was around them, they would give me the opportunity to engage in recovery-like behavior, right?

SPEAKER_02 33:04

Rising padlifts all boats.

SPEAKER_00 33:06

Yes, exactly. Uh, I would go to the gym uh and and and exercise with friends. I would go for walks, I would go to recovery meetings, I would go to my DBT groups.

SPEAKER_02 33:15

Find your tribe. That's one of the consistent uh themes of this podcast in terms of the spectrum of guests that I've had on. Find your tribe. Find your tribe.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yes, find you know what? It it is so important. You can't um there's a quote by a guy named Dan Butner. Dan Butner uh is the guy who created the blue zones uh and did all the research on the blue zones. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

That's the the longevity uh that's right. Yeah. Uh not experiments, but observations from going to different countries.

SPEAKER_00 33:46

Yeah, the uh multiple generational studies of uh centenarians. Very, I'm very, very lucky to call Dan, a good friend of mine. He has a great quote. He says, Nothing will encourage your health and happiness more so than your environment. So what I what so, in my opinion, is uh rather than trying to outcompete a toxic environment with willpower and determination, build an environment where your willpower is no longer necessary. Build an environment that looks so much like the life you would want to live that simply by being there, it encourages the outcomes you're looking for. That takes interest and attention and it takes clarity. And it actually takes you what you would want to do is you want to say, all right, if I was to design the life of my dreams, the life I feel like I deserve from, you know, at that point, I was like, well, just let's just make sure life doesn't suck. That was like that was that's all I wanted, like just let it don't suck. And so, okay, so I have this long-term goal, let's say one year, and I can kind of look at what that looks like. What would be the things I could do for the next 14 days that would move me towards that purposeful and meaningful place? What would be the efforts that if I were to engage in them well would likely move me from here to closer to that outcome and be singularly focused on building these systems and agency that allow me to do that with ease, right? Because I don't want to.

SPEAKER_02 35:12

I think you need some sort of accountability for another person to make sure that you're on the you're on the right path.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

Yes. Um, and you know, the thing is like I I I completely realized that I was able to achieve this while living in a sober living facility, which is, you know, not everybody has the ability to do that. So I was I was in an environment where everyone was interested in knowing if people were doing better than they were the day before. Sure. Which is not common. But I feel like if you were to look at addiction recovery more so as a um as an act of building and designing the life you would want rather than passively avoiding use, that's a much better prescription for change. And right now we have an abstinence-based approach. And the abstinence-based approach is telling the addict that their problem is their drug, that that's what they need to be focused on is not using their drug. It's like, and if you just didn't use drugs, your life would be better. It's like every addict knows that the reason why they use is because they can't be present in their life. Right? Every single, it's uh there's a great quote. I think uh Rich Roll told me this. He goes, um, every addict realizes that the minute they stop using, that all their problems are still there.

SPEAKER_02 36:24

Curious, Adam, where does gratitude actually fit into this recovery blueprint that you mentioned?

Gratitude As Course Correction

SPEAKER_02 36:30

And is it a starting point or something that only becomes possible once things are already in motion?

SPEAKER_00 36:36

Uh that's a really great question. Um, you know, I think if you were to uh uh try to identify where gratitude fits in, it should fits in everywhere. Gratitude is a way of returning to being present with what you're actually trying to achieve. So if you're feeling overwhelmed in your efforts, if you're feeling angry, if you're feeling upset, then a practice of gratitude is how you get back to seeing the goal clearly, which is to say this feeling is exactly what I was hoping to feel. This is the work I was looking for. If you're trying to get sober and the day is difficult and you're you're upset because you're not sure how to get through this next feeling, that is the work you're looking for in recovery. The days where things are easy, those are the ones meaning you're running a system you've already figured out. And be grateful you figured it out, right? There's evidence right there. Be grateful. I've got this one. Yes, fantastic. But when but when it's when the temptations are high and the cravings are yelling at you, that's the work you're looking for. And to practice gratitude in that moment is how you separate yourself from feeling like those feelings are evidence of failure. They're not evidence of failure, they're evidence of figuring it out. I like to think of it uh in 1969, we had the Apollo mission to the moon. Okay, so we took human beings, we trained them as astronauts. You interestingly were mentioned that you just had an astronaut on your show, um, uh, and we put them into a uh a space shuttle and we launched them into space, they navigated through space, landed on the moon, and then walked on the moon. Okay, this is and we'd never done this before, so this is an extraordinarily dangerous effort. And you would think if they were going to do something that dangerous, that they must have known how to get there. They must have had some really good sense of how to get to the moon. So, Yogesh, you might know the answer to this question, but do you know what percentage of the flight time they were on course to the moon? Uh no, I don't know. It was 2%. So they were on course 2% of the time. And so if you were to look at that from an objective point of view, you go, they were going the wrong way 98% of the time? What an absolute failure. I mean, it must have been sheer luck that they landed on the moon. How in the world did this thing ever become successful? However, if you were to pause and consider from the subjective point of view of the astronauts with a singular interest in mind figuring this thing out, they spent 98% of the time course correcting. That's what they were doing. Oh my darn. They spent 98% of the time figuring out how to get there safely. So if you were to apply that to anything in your life, which is they could have let the emotions of going, we're 98% of the time, we're going the wrong way. They could have let the emotions of that dictate how they uh perceive the mission. They probably maybe would have abandoned ship. But instead, if they practice gratitude, be like, we're the ones who are on this extraordinary journey. This is exactly the effort I was looking for. Let's figure this out and course correct and not give up. They make it to the moon and they land there safely. So it's only through gratitude that you get to that place of centering yourself, going, no, this is exactly what I was hoping for. Let's course correct. This is exactly the evidence I was looking for. This is not the way to go. Let's course correct. I now know that fantastic. So if you think about where gratitude fits in, fits in everywhere.

Final Message And Where To Find Adam

SPEAKER_02 40:03

Well, Adam, my goodness, we could go on for two hours, but uh, you know, as all things uh must come to an end, all good things must come to an end on today's podcast episode, at least.

SPEAKER_00 40:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 40:14

Um again, thank you for your time. And I'll give you the final word, Adam. Is there anything that I missed in this conversation that you would like to share to the audience who I like to call the citizens of Yog Nation?

SPEAKER_00 40:25

Yeah, so um, for people out there who are struggling, I want you to know if you are struggling, that your struggle makes sense and you make complete sense. You are not psychology and biology gone wrong. There is a reasonable and appropriate explanation for why your life feels difficult, which means there is a reasonable and appropriate prescription for how to change your life. You may not be able to see it yet, but it does exist. The goal for a person out there is to either find the place and people that can help you figure that out so that you can move your life in the direction that feels meaningful to you. Because meaning is the building block of psychological and emotional resilience. Purposeful meaning is how you make the struggles of your day no longer pointless. Without it, everything will collapse under the weight of its own difficulty. And so think of your mental health as the harmony of your existence. A person's capacity to perceive and receive that harmony can be damaged. When it is, internal work becomes necessary, not as the destination, but as the restoration of the ability to feel what's actually there. The goal is always the harmony. And the internal work is what sometimes has to happen in order to be able to feel it, even if it's there and you can't. I believe in you, and I believe in anyone who's trying to take on this extraordinary effort.

SPEAKER_02 42:06

Incredibly standard. Adam, thank you so kindly for coming on the podcast. And for the citizens, you know, again, my goodness, as I mentioned, we could have gone on for another two hours. There are so many different angles and avenues to explore in terms of the subconscious mind and what it means from a healing standpoint. We didn't get into that. Perhaps if I if I'm lucky enough to have Adam on another future episode, would love to explore that. But there's just so many dimensions. Again, you can find all of his work. Adam, where can people find you?

SPEAKER_00 42:34

Yeah, uh you can find me at my website, adamsud.com. I have an Instagram account called Plant BasedAddict. Uh, you can follow me there. Um, and uh uh I have a Facebook account for this uh with the same name, Plant Based Addict, but mostly it's Instagram and my website. Thank you so much. Thank you.