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The Hidden Link Between Autism and Addiction
834 Plays1 year ago
Why are Autistic people more prone to addiction? What is the difference between substance addiction and process addiction? How can you recover from addiction?
Patrick Casale (@allthingsprivatepractice) is a licensed clinical mental health counselor and addiction specialist in Asheville North Carolina (USA), diagnosed Autistic at the age of 35 years old. Patrick runs group psychotherapy sessions and retreats for LGBTQIA+ and Autism individuals but also coaches mental health practitioners on how to grow their businesses.
My Links - https://linktr.ee/thomashenleyUK // Patrick's Links - https://beacons.ai/allthingsprivatepractice
Dbud Noise Cancelling Adjustable Ear Buds (20% OFF with code: THOUGHTYAUTI) - https://dbud.io/thoughtyautipodcast
Thomas start's the conversation fanboying about the recent Divergent Conversations podcast episode they recorded with Dr. Megan Neff from @neurodivergent_insights where they talked about Thomas' favourite topic... Autistic alexithymia!
Patrick soon goes into the basics behind understanding addiction through a bio-psycho-social lens, highlighting that addiction is caused by a loop of obsessions and compulsions. He provides some clarity by distinguishing between the mechanisms behind process addiction VS substance addiction, and addiction VS dependency.
Thomas speaks on his experience with nicotine addiction and alcoholism which took place during his university years, as well as his rabbit hole of research into the recreational substances that were taken by those around his dormitory. Nicotine and caffeine are perhaps some of the most readily available and addictive substances, being particularly enjoyable at first before becoming an expensive and boring habit.
Many people who become addicted often have a naive illusion of control, hiding their dependency from others due to feelings of shame and making deals with themselves that will soon be broken during the height of addiction. Thomas highlights that motivation is often idolised, but tends to be inherently fleeting in nature... humans are, after all, creatures of habit!
Patrick opens up to Thomas about the destructive nature of his gambling addiction, illuminating that the process or lead-up before placing the bet was the most addictive part for him. The level of shame and depression he felt leaving the casino early in the morning is a common feeling for most addicts and leads to a high rate of suicidality.
Lies, financial destruction, personality changes, impulsive action, desperation, and extreme lows... are all the parts of addiction that ravage the lives of addicts and those around them.
Thomas and Patrick contemplate and discuss the reasons why Autistic people may be more prone to addiction in any form. Some use it as a form of reliable regulation, some seek those good feelings to replace their need for connection, and others lack self-care due to the overlap between <
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Transcript
Introduction and Podcast Setup
00:00:06
Speaker
Good day, and welcome back to the VortiOG podcast with your host, Mr. Thomas Anley, of course. And for any of you who are tuning in on YouTube, you will see that possibly the video might look a bit clearer, might look a bit better. I'm using a new editing recording software, which I'm trialing today. So if it goes well, and if it looks good, we're gonna stick with that.
Exploring Autism and Addiction
00:00:33
Speaker
But before we sort of get started with the topic of the podcast, which is autism and addiction, which I think is something very important to be talking about, something that I think affects a lot of autistic people, we will obviously get into the details of it.
00:00:53
Speaker
I do want to point out that, you know, just give you a bit of a fill in on what's happening with me at the moment. You may have heard from even my socials or my podcast stuff that I'm kind of going for a burnout.
00:01:09
Speaker
and it's very much something which is affecting me a lot at the moment and it's been quite hard but I'm trying to find the adjustments to making my life that will, I guess, make an impact and help me get back on track. As you may know with burnouts, it's not always a clear way back to normality. It can take some time.
Guest Introduction: Patrick Casal
00:01:39
Speaker
So with that little sort of personal disclaimer out of the way, I want to introduce my guest, Patrick Casal. How are you doing? I'm good, Thomas. I appreciate you having me on and appreciate you sharing how you're doing. I think we too often shy away from being really vulnerable and authentic and real in terms of how our experiences are. So I feel for you for sure. I know that. How are you doing at the moment?
00:02:08
Speaker
How am I doing at the moment? I'm, I'm okay. I think my default response is always I'm okay. Um, I don't know. I'm, I'm tired. I've, I've been sick getting over a virus and had to go speak at a conference yesterday. And these things just take a lot out of me. So got back late last night and haven't done a whole lot today, which has felt really good. Cool.
00:02:35
Speaker
Cool. Having a chill day to relax, refresh your mind. Re-watching The Witcher on Netflix to jog my memory because I don't remember anything that happened in the prior season. Yeah, I need to do that as well. I do kind of want to watch it, but I've seen lots of negative reviews around it.
00:02:57
Speaker
A bit apprehensive, like I actually watched a lot of Game of Thrones when it was sort of coming out. Never watched the last season because everyone said it was so bad I was just like save myself the pain. Game of Thrones is one of my special interests and I watched it
00:03:17
Speaker
If I had to conservatively guess, I would say 30 times in total. Wow. But I never like long series like long episodes as well. Yeah. My wife kind of knows at this time that if I'm just laying in bed or on the couch watching Game of Thrones, that like I'm at my limit. I'm beyond it. And I'm just going to sink into that for a while. And but I never watched season eight. I just turn it off after season seven and just once was enough for me. It was terrible.
00:03:47
Speaker
Sure, sure. Well, I'm feeling quite comfortable with we're not watching it. It was good up until that point and it kind of sort of felt like a little bit of an ending. That was cool. That was good. But.
00:04:00
Speaker
Yeah, so I, like, this isn't the first time we've done sort of a podcasty situation before. I saw recently that you put out some of the clips that we did on your podcast with Dr. Megan Neff, which is really cool. We got to talk all about Alexa Fimier, which is sort of my focus when it comes to autism related things.
00:04:26
Speaker
very impactful. But just for anybody who hasn't kind of tuned in from that podcast, would you like to give everybody a little bit of a background to who you are, what you do, a little bit about the podcast as well?
Patrick's Professional Journey
00:04:40
Speaker
I'll be cool. Sure. I'm one of those people who absolutely hates bios in general. I always cringe when someone reads mine.
00:04:48
Speaker
My name's Patrick Casal. I'm a licensed clinical mental health counselor and addiction specialist in Asheville, North Carolina in the States. I own a group psychotherapy practice here, which specializes in working with neurodivergent adults and the LGBTQIA communities. We have 15 therapists who work at the practice. And then I also own a separate business called All Things Private Practice, where I help mental health professionals start and grow their businesses.
00:05:17
Speaker
I have a podcast, All Things Private Practice. I host entrepreneurial retreats all throughout the world and have multiple coaching programs where I work with mental health professionals.
00:05:28
Speaker
The podcast Thomas is mentioning is called divergent conversations that I co-host with Dr. Megan Neff, um, all about a autistic ADHD adult experiences from both a personal and clinical perspective. So really trying to share our own stories and experiences while also kind of processing the information as we're talking from a clinical lens, which I think is pretty unique to be able to do that.
00:05:54
Speaker
Um, we have 10 episodes out. You are episode number 10 and it's going really well. We're really excited about it. Also, also the year that the age at which I was diagnosed. So, um, meaning meaning synchronicity and all that. I appreciate you having me on and, uh, I'm someone who was late diagnosed at I'm 36 years old now, but I was diagnosed at 35. So it's been, uh, yeah, an interesting, probably 18 months of exploration.
00:06:24
Speaker
Yeah, I think one of the things that definitely drew me to neurodivergent insights, Megan Neff's work was that I find the autistic community to be very, very useful in terms of
00:06:43
Speaker
experiential knowledge, knowledge from the experiences of living as an adult. But also, I think what kind of catches my attention from Megan and your work is that you do kind of incorporate some of the more science-y kind of psychology-based stuff, which I think is really, really important and useful.
00:07:09
Speaker
Because not only because it's good to learn, I suppose, about those different things, but also because I feel like to a certain extent with scientific literature, well, any science in general, it's a very slow process. And sometimes a lot of the really key information and important things that we can take away from
00:07:36
Speaker
Um, over, over autistic people that they're not necessarily always talked about within the literature or at least they're not, they don't seem to be, um, within kind of GP practices, healthcare, social care. It all seems to be like lagging behind by like a massive amount, like, yeah, it's, it's like, there's such a gap in knowledge and, and service. Um, I think we're seeing,
00:08:04
Speaker
much more of a neurodivergent affirmative movement right now. But I do think that we're still using outdated language. We're still using outdated terminology. We're still talking about autism from a very archaic perspective. And I'll give Megan a big shout out because Megan is a genius when it comes to the clinical side of things. And I'm just like in this podcast feeling like I'm punching above my weight, maybe.
00:08:32
Speaker
But, you know, it's, it's, she is definitely someone, if y'all are listening, like her stuff is amazing. And I think it's really important, like you said, Thomas, to have statistics and research and information and, and that, that sort of guidance as well, in addition.
00:08:49
Speaker
finding those crossovers between. I don't tend to have a lot of role models, especially when I was growing up. I didn't really have anyone that I saw within the world or media that I could really model
00:09:08
Speaker
To improve myself from or like strive tries strive towards something But I am like a massive fanboy of like Megan F like Like absolutely amazing like Instagram account and and person and just like filling like the gap to some degree of like psychology and therapy that's just
00:09:39
Speaker
like just often not just so untailored for autistic people. It's such a like, um, she's such an amazing person in my opinion. Megan, if you're listening, we're just going to have a whole episode about you. You know, it's interesting because everyone knows Megan and even in my circles in North Carolina, in a Facebook thread in therapist communities,
00:10:03
Speaker
Hey, does anyone have any resources for ADHD, autism, uh, resources? And everyone's like, Oh, Megan Naff, Megan Naff, Megan Naff. And I'm like, yeah, I'm, I do a podcast with Megan. Like we, we share space together. I, I just want everyone to know, like I am also the co-host I'm here to like, thank you so much for recognizing it. Um, no, Megan's amazing. And, um, you know, we, we need,
00:10:27
Speaker
autistic content creators like yourself out there too, because the more we can speak about our experiences, the more advocacy that can be done. And the power of social media is just one that amplifies the message. So it's really awesome to see how much of an audience you've created for yourself and the work that you've done and that you're doing. So really give you a lot of credit for that.
00:10:53
Speaker
Thank you. It always seems a bit weird because it's very hard to, I guess, like translate in your brain what numbers on the screen mean to you and like what like because this is not like the entire like following that you have on social media is like tuning into all of your live streams.
00:11:18
Speaker
and commenting on everything and liking everything. So it's very hard sometimes to be like, like, like, where is my stuff going? Are people seeing it? Absolutely. I mean, think about podcasting, right? Like, I don't know. How long have you been doing this for?
00:11:36
Speaker
Probably, probably over two years, to be honest. I mean, it's kind of been a bit on and off. It's only recently that I started doing like weekly episodes. So it's. So I imagine you've you know, you've had a ripple effect, right? And starting to think about it that way in terms of countries where people are turning tuning into and and where people are listening to your voice, it's.
Understanding Addiction
00:11:55
Speaker
It's really a surreal experience. If you ever think about it, like I shared the analytics with Megan about our podcast all the time. And I'm like, look at like 1000 people have, have listened to us in Australia. And she's like, really? Like people are listening to my voice and like, yeah, like this is pretty freaking cool. So I think you're right. Like numbers don't always tell the story.
00:12:17
Speaker
I think it's more about the quality of the numbers and the engagement that that's received. But I also think there's a trickle down and ripple effect. Like you probably have no idea of how many people have shared your stuff with other people who may not have a direct association to your Instagram account or following in general. So it is really cool once you start to think about the chain reaction to definitely.
00:12:40
Speaker
And it's I'm feeling quite like I don't tend to feel like very positive about things but you know the past like eight months or so I've been trying to take it a bit more seriously and it's starting to kind of pay off a little bit so feeling good about it but um
00:12:58
Speaker
probably should start talking a little bit about the topic of the podcast today and that that is autism and addiction. And, you know, I think of a better person to talk to about this. I really found a lot of the insights even in our kind of pre-podcast chat to be very useful.
00:13:18
Speaker
So I guess a good place to start off with is, you know, what is addiction? What kind of behaviors occur around it? And also, what kind of happens to the brain in addiction?
00:13:35
Speaker
I'm sure you're sure. Well, obviously, you know, but it's although it is a kind of psychological thing. In some cases, there are sometimes there's substance sort of interactions and different changes to the brain over time of, you know, being engaged in it and stuff. So it'd be really, really cool to to hear your thoughts on it.
00:13:56
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So, you know, if we're going to lay the foundation in the groundwork, we're going to, if we talk about addiction as a, I like to look at it from a biopsychosocial model, you know, some people would say it's behavioral, some people would say, and argue like, no, this is genetic. And I think there are components of all of those things. However, I do think there's a lot of
00:14:16
Speaker
Outside influences aside from genetics that influence whether or not you're susceptible to addiction and dependency and if we're gonna define addiction we're talking about not just substances like alcohol opiates methamphetamine marijuana nicotine etc.
00:14:32
Speaker
We're talking about processes to gambling, sex, shopping, et cetera. And when we started to look at addiction, we're talking about both obsessions and compulsions. So obsessing over something over and over and over, and then the compulsive desire to do something, to take action on that obsession. And we're talking about
00:14:54
Speaker
a process that completely changes your brain chemistry, the way that you interact with the world, the way that you take care of yourself, and completely shifts the way that you're kind of moving through your existence.
00:15:09
Speaker
And this stuff is really really damaging and oftentimes unfortunately life threatening and we have such a large number of comorbidity which means that there can be a both a mental health diagnosis and an addiction that go hand in hand.
00:15:26
Speaker
And if we're talking about autistic people, then we're talking about a higher prevalence for addiction and comorbidity because of all of the experiences that we have that negatively impact our mental health. And yeah, I can think of many, you know, you only have to give it a quick Google search to see all the horrible stats that are out there.
00:15:52
Speaker
It's unfortunate, but it also makes a lot of sense because addiction doesn't, and I always say this, I used to say this to my clients who would come to me for addiction support. You didn't, you weren't born addicted to heroin. You weren't born addicted to alcohol.
00:16:09
Speaker
Things happen throughout your life where you started to lean on a substance or a process because it was comforting, because it took away the pain, because it masked how you were feeling, because it made you feel more social.
00:16:23
Speaker
That's where addiction starts and that's where dependency starts. So if we're going to define dependency, it is either the psychological or physiological dependency on a substance or a process. You're relying on something to help you navigate A, B, C, D, E.
00:16:42
Speaker
And then that dependency turns into a tolerance. So you may have used to been able to drink a beer and get intoxicated over the course of a continued behavior. Now it takes eight beers to get intoxicated and that, that ceiling keeps raising that dependency and that tolerance keeps increasing. And then we reached the stage of addiction where it completely consumes and takes over your life. And it's now,
00:17:08
Speaker
kind of dictating how you make your own choices and how you plan your day, how you spend your time. You're often spending a majority of your day and time trying to obtain the substance or trying to figure out how to obtain the resource for the process to continue the behavior. And that's when you get into that repetitive cyclical behavior where it almost feels like you're digging a hole and digging a hole and digging a hole that you cannot get out of.
00:17:38
Speaker
And it's really, really interesting like, so I've read upon a lot of, I went through kind of like a phase at university where, you know, I was sort of like introduced to the idea of, of like recreational drugs.
00:17:56
Speaker
Not that I took them, just that it was kind of, you know, Manchester, uni life, people, people are very much like engaging in all these things. And I was like, hey, I actually don't know much about these, like, and some and even some of the some of the ones that I used to have such a like a negative regard for.
00:18:15
Speaker
things that you know now I kind of see as you know in a true light like I'm talking about things like marijuana and things like sometimes you know before I would have you know stopped being friends with someone because they like smoke cigarettes or they you know they they smoke marijuana or something like that and I was like yeah
00:18:39
Speaker
It's not good. It's not good. It's going to damage your brain. And it's going to do all these horrible things. And so I kind of went down a rabbit hole of just trying to understand what these things were. There was this YouTube channel called CG Kid that I used to watch, who was a person who had many kind of addictions to lots of different
00:19:04
Speaker
drugs. His drug of choice was methamphetamine, which kind of destroyed his life in lots of different ways. So I kind of looked into the signs of it and also the experiences of people who were experiencing that.
00:19:27
Speaker
It's it's tough. And, you know, for me, just kind of giving a bit of a background, I mean, I, you know, at the moment, for me, like I started vaping like three or four years ago. It's not something that I've talked about on the podcast before.
00:19:47
Speaker
I'm trying at the moment to kind of kick my nicotine dependency which is obviously like very very difficult when you have such like an anxiety prone brain you know coming off that substance it's it's it's tough and so
00:20:04
Speaker
I have experience with that side of things. I've got a very big history of it within my family.
Personal Stories of Addiction
00:20:14
Speaker
And so I'm very, I suppose I'm quite cautious and careful around things, which to some degree has been bad for me socially in terms of making friends, but also quite protective, I think, to come through university with that kind of mindset.
00:20:35
Speaker
Yeah, I think that takes a lot of discipline and self restraint, especially when you're in that influential age. Um, when we're talking about teenage and adolescent years up to young adulthood, where there is a lot of peer pressure, when there is a lot of experimentation going on behind the scenes. And, and for those of us who have had family members who are, who have a history of addiction, we are then predisposed to being, to having increasing likelihood to, to then become addicted to something as well. So it is important.
00:21:03
Speaker
to pay attention to behavior. Because oftentimes if we're looking back on a timeline and someone's in active addiction or in recovery, they can point out how when they were adolescents or young adults and they were drinking or smoking, how they were the one in the friend group who always had a problem kind of turning off the switch when certain people could hit a certain threshold and say, okay, I'm at my limit. Oftentimes,
00:21:30
Speaker
they're going to be the people who are like, no, I'll do another one. No, I'll have another one. No, I'll have another one. And yeah, it just starts to snowball so quickly when you don't have the coping skills to manage what's going on or even the understanding of the behind the scenes in terms of what's happening to the brain and the body. Sure. Sure.
00:21:51
Speaker
And it's quite interesting sort of my experience with nicotine because I have come off it once. Very, very tough. I came off cold turkey for like a couple of weeks. It was not very fun. And, you know, at the start, it kind of it's something that I've seen in a lot of other people who have started to like or wanted to experiment with nicotine.
00:22:15
Speaker
They kind of had this idea that, you know, they're going to be the different one. They're going to be able to have it and they're just going to be able to kick it and it's not going to be an issue for them. You know, they say, oh, well, I'll have some at the end of the day and the night. It's going to be a nice treat that I'm just going to have. You know, eventually after a while, they start like bringing it to work and start having it in the breaks. And then they have it. Oh, I'm feeling it sluggish this morning. I'm going to have it in the morning as well.
00:22:40
Speaker
And then they just find that they just can't stop like puffing on this vape device. This is a bit crazy and it's something that not a lot of people I've heard talk about in terms of like the tolerance of it as well because when you start it feels really nice and it feels really good.
00:23:03
Speaker
It doesn't take long to get to a point where you're literally just satisfying this negative urge that's building up in the back of your head. It's almost like a different form of being thirsty or hungry. You just have this craving for some nicotine.
00:23:23
Speaker
And it doesn't necessarily make you feel good. It kind of might give you a buzz after a tiny bit of a buzz, after you've been to sleep and you've waken up and your tolerance has gone down a little bit. But it's very much like not exciting, not fun. It's pretty boring. It's annoying. And you have to pay. And it comes out of your bank account. And it's just like one of those kind of expenses.
00:23:51
Speaker
starts off as kind of a fun curious thing and just turns into like a very sort of negative habit like
00:24:03
Speaker
So what you're, what you're describing, right? Like it, I mean, one, I want to notate that nicotine and caffeine are two of the hardest things to stop once you start because of how addicting both of those substances are. So coffee drinkers, tea drinkers, uh, some, whether you're smoking a vape, cigarette, you know, cigar, et cetera. These things are very hard and they're designed to be hard. Um, and a lot of people have a lot of shame around saying like, I just can't stop even though I'm not enjoying this anymore. Sure.
00:24:28
Speaker
One thing to particularly notate is the fact that you're saying, I don't enjoy this, right? Like it's causing all this negative reaction and I can't stop it. That's what addiction is. Like that is the, the, the, the textbook definition of addiction. And, and I think that's what's so hard for people who, who have not experienced that to understand because from the outside looking in, it's like, just stop. Like this is, yeah.
00:24:50
Speaker
Oh, damaging. And, you know, I'm happy to, to dive into this portion of my life. And I don't know if you want to go there, but I talked to you on our, um, before the podcast that I had a gambling addiction for a very long time in my life. And that's what everyone would say from the outside, looking at family members, friends, et cetera, just stop. Like this is destroying you. This can't you see how damaging this is. And the person who is experiencing active addiction,
00:25:19
Speaker
knows how damaging it is, and that is the torturous experience of saying it is destroying me and I cannot control it. I cannot stop the behavior. Yes. And it's a bit of an it's an interesting one, isn't it? Because like I sometimes have this experience, even like when I'm having meltdowns that I feel like I can not do this. I'm not I'm not you know, I could just not do it.
00:25:44
Speaker
But from my understanding of motivation, we talk a lot about how you've got to be motivated to do stuff. Motivation can be good, but it's a very fleeting feeling. There might be some crazy people out there who just feel motivated 24-7.
00:26:07
Speaker
which is really cool. Props to you. I don't think everybody kind of experiences life that way. Like, even with things like going to the gym, it's like, I'm not motivated to go to the gym. I'm just doing it because it's like I've managed to get it into my routine to some degree. And I feel bad if I don't go. So, yeah, go on.
00:26:34
Speaker
Well, I was just saying that yeah, that that's your spot on. And we're talking about reinforcement behavior, right? So like, when you first take a you first smoke your vape, or anything in general, it sends that little dopamine hit to your brain.
00:26:51
Speaker
And it's exciting or it feels good temporarily. But then that feeling wears off very quickly. And then then you have to try to recapture that and recapture that. And it's almost like playing a slot machine and pulling the lever over and over and over because you're looking for that positive reinforcement behavior. You're looking and chasing that feeling again and again and again. And then it just becomes insurmountable to obtain and it just gets more and more increasingly difficult to
00:27:20
Speaker
Yeah. And it's, it's a very, it's a very strange experience being like, cause I think, am I right in thinking like, cause my, my idea of like dependency and addiction was that like, I am like dependent on my, uh, medications that I take my SSR eyes, my anti-anxiety meds. I don't feel necessarily like.
00:27:49
Speaker
Like that dependency for me feels more of like a state of mind rather than like a compelling thing. Whereas like an addiction in my head is like, I, you know, as you were saying, like this kind of cycle, this thing is not actually helping me at all. And I'm just continuing to do it. I don't know. I'm not sure on like exactly the terminology, like the differences between the two words.
00:28:18
Speaker
Yeah, and and and I think that's that's quite common. So, you know, I think when we're talking dependency tolerance and addiction Those are the words that get thrown around a lot and we all start somewhere, right? So when I started gambling, it was just like going to the casino. I had I had $50. Okay
00:28:35
Speaker
The next time you're figuring out ways to bring more money, it's harder to step away from. You lose money, you overdraw your bank account. You ask friends for money. It starts to build. That's where the dependency comes in where it feels like my body and my brain are telling me, I need to do this. Like I have to do this and I have to incorporate it into my schedule. I have to do it to feel good. Then all of a sudden once it becomes an addiction, you cross that line. The dependency to addiction line is this very fine line.
00:29:02
Speaker
Once you cross over that dependency threshold and an active addiction takes over, that's where the control goes out the window. And that's where the rational decision making and impulse control goes out the window. And that's when you start to do things that
00:29:20
Speaker
are quite shameful to do. That's where you start to see criminal behavior. Um, that's where you start to see manipulation. Um, that's where you start to see a lot of sense of self completely shift, um, in terms of personality. And it's a very fine line. And once you cross it, I mean, at least research would say, you can't really go back. You can't go from active gambling addiction to then saying, like you mentioned before in uni, like,
00:29:49
Speaker
Oh, I'll just go like once in a while to the casino and like, I'll only bring a hundred dollars and I won't bring my debit card. And you start setting all these rules for yourself. But in reality, it's like a chain reaction. You go once and you're like, okay, that was really exciting. I might want to do it more and more and more. And then all of a sudden you're back to where you started. And it's very quick for that to happen. It's, it's in the blink of an eye and it's just so, so, so, so damaging.
00:30:17
Speaker
And I think what you said about the shame aspect of it is quite, sometimes the shame can be a really big driver for it. I don't know, there's something about doing something that you feel a lot of shame about and then continuing to do the thing that you feel shame about that has some kind of disconnect in your brain that you're like,
00:30:43
Speaker
you know it's almost like you're just you're doing something that's completely the opposite of like how you feel you should be and how you want to be and and everything and you just kind of get into a like a bit of like a pit you're just like i don't even care about all of that stuff this is like
00:31:01
Speaker
this is this is all that I need and if I can just have this then I'll be good and if I think as well like that the shame around it it stops you from kind of understanding it for what for what it is like and because you don't want to really think about it you do you know it is and in the back of your head you're like this is not good I don't like that there's no part of this that is good
00:31:28
Speaker
other than satisfying or like removing the negative feelings that i have when i'm when i'm not having it but you just don't want to dive in to think about it because you know that it's so like shameful to to think about yourself not being able to have control over who you are or what you do or you know or even talk to other people about it
00:31:53
Speaker
Yeah connect that's a common part of denial which is a common part of the addiction. Is we're going to deny deny deny this is not problematic as people think this is not problematic as i sometimes i think it is when i'm thinking clear headed. Minimization is very is a big part of addiction because. The shame is so real the shame is the emotion behind it that leads to the increasing number of suicides that come with addiction.
00:32:20
Speaker
The shame is what leads to people pushing their support systems away. The shame is the stuff that
00:32:29
Speaker
continues to kind of propel and perpetuate the issue. And it's, in my opinion, it's one of the most painful emotions that we experience because it comes with self loathing and it comes with that, just that self deprecating behavior. And it's, that can be so hard to get out to, uh, especially when you're, when you're trying to do so on your own.
00:32:51
Speaker
And you can spiral with it as well, can't you? It's like, once you're in that kind of mindset of, you know, I don't like myself, I don't like this, I'm still doing this thing, I could just try something else as well. Like, what's the point?
00:33:10
Speaker
Usually for me it has come about due to mental health as you mentioned at the start. So it tends to be when I found nicotine and when I went through kind of a stage at university where I was drinking every night. It was very much, where was I going with that?
00:33:36
Speaker
I think if I'm reading your mind correctly, it's that when you're in that space mentally, it's a lot easier to say, can I curse on here?
00:33:44
Speaker
Uh, no. It's a lot easier to say like effort. Yeah, screw it. Like it's a lot easier to make decisions that you would not typically make when you are in a good head space or when your mental health is at a baseline level of feeling optimal because when you're in that space, right? When you're in depression, when you're in major anxiety, when you're experiencing major trauma,
00:34:08
Speaker
your inhibition shut down your body and your brain and your nervous system are just saying help regulate me make me feel okay for right now and it is a lot easier to say yes to things or try new things that you would not typically engage in because you're kind of in this ambivalent mindset of like
00:34:28
Speaker
I just don't care. I just don't care anymore. And that decision gets easier and easier to make every time that you reach for that, that substance or that process.
00:34:39
Speaker
Yeah, there is something about the impulsive nature of that. It's weird because for me, I don't like being impulsive, I like routine, things like that. But sometimes I think, obviously, the monotony of life can sometimes be
00:34:59
Speaker
You know hard and if you if you're filling up all of your time like myself with like work and studying or Lots of productive things. It's like wait, where am I getting any enjoyment from this? And so it's like oh I just have my vape on me while I do editing and I'll just puff on that and and I'll get some sort of Body feeling that some somehow feels slightly nice
00:35:27
Speaker
So when you're puffing on your vape because you know it becomes part of routine and it becomes easier to reach for you know what's happening in the body is that.
00:35:37
Speaker
chemicals and hormone or chemicals and Like dopamine and serotonin and adrenaline are being created and these are feel-good chemicals So those feel-good chemicals though are only taking over very temporarily and that's why you have to hit hit the vape again That's why you have to hit the vape again. That's why you have to hit the vape again and that's the same thing with anything like alcohol, right like and
00:36:00
Speaker
OK, I'll have a drink while I do my my studies. Then all of a sudden it's like, I'll have another one. Oh, I'll have another one. Oh, I like how this is making me feel in the moment. And then you cross over that threshold once again. And it's like, oh, I lost control here. And that I feel like that that feeling of just saying, screw it, I'm going to do this. Like, I'm just going to do this. Like, I feel like that transfers into a lot of different areas of life once you start to like incorporate that as just something that you do.
00:36:29
Speaker
Like it could be as simple as like, I think I saw some study about like the idea behind like video games that want to get you to make like micro payments and stuff. It's like, they make the first payment really worthwhile and really easy and just very cheap. But once you have that kind of feeling of, you know, I don't care, let's just do this.
00:36:56
Speaker
It's very easy to do that again, and again, and again. And that can be with anything. It's just like, and then that kind of crosses over into other areas of your life. You have that behavior about, oh, should I do this work? Or no, screw it. Just screw it for now. And then you're just like, oh, I haven't done this today.
00:37:24
Speaker
I just, you know, like you just sort of get really comfortable with just doing that, even though it's completely like counterproductive to any of everything in your life.
00:37:39
Speaker
And when I kind of get myself into those states where I'm in that mood, when I
Substance vs. Process Addiction
00:37:48
Speaker
actually give myself some distance from those things that I am being so flippant around doing, it becomes a lot easier to engage my prefrontal cortex and be like,
00:38:04
Speaker
Do I want to do that or not? No, I don't. I just want to do it then. I think that there are a lot of aspects.
00:38:14
Speaker
you know, obviously different to behavior, like with things like nicotine for me. But all the other things like the video games and things like that, it's like I feel like once I can just get out of the habit of doing that behavior, I feel like I kind of return to normal normality to some degree. But with things like nicotine, like the physical chemical withdrawal from it is like the reason why I just don't stop.
00:38:45
Speaker
So I guess one thing that we chatted about before was the difference between substance and process addiction, because that's really interesting for me, because they obviously carry with them different things and different similarities in different ways. So it'd be interesting to know what is the difference between them.
00:39:11
Speaker
Sure. So when we're talking about substances, I think it's, it's easy to identify, right? Because we're talking about nicotine, caffeine, methamphetamine, opiates, alcohol, marijuana, substances that get ingested by the body. Then the body then processes them into the bloodstream, into the brain. You start to send out different chemicals throughout the body to have different reactions, whether one's going to speed you up, whether one's going to mellow you out and slow you down.
00:39:37
Speaker
Um, so it's, it's quite easy to, to talk about substance use in that way. And that lens, the process addiction piece is difficult for some people to comprehend because gambling, compulsive shopping, sex addiction. Um, we could compulsive eating. There are lots of different processes that we could talk about, but specifically can talk, talk about gambling because I have first time. It would be good to, to, to hear about your experiences with that.
00:40:04
Speaker
So gambling addiction, right? Any process addiction, the act of placing the bet is not the addictive piece of the puzzle. The addictive portion is the process, the lead up, the buildup and anticipation to placing the bet. So the addiction comes in when it's talking about making the decision to go drive to the casino at two in the morning during a blizzard in upstate New York.
00:40:31
Speaker
Um, flipping a coin to decide whether or not you should go to the casino at two in the morning, deciding when you get your test back in college, if you get above eight 75, if you are going to go to the casino, then it's the drive to the casino. It's the adrenaline that's coursing through the body in that moment. It's the heightened sense of anxiety. It's the anticipation. It's the excitement of placing the bet. It's the excitement of getting there. All of these things are happening simultaneously.
00:41:00
Speaker
You start to think about compulsive behaviors when you're starting to look at your dashboard and say whichever number is on my odometer is the number that i'm going to play at the roulette table when i walk in the door. Whatever speed limit sign i see is the number of the roulette table that i'm gonna play when i walk in the door.
00:41:18
Speaker
Those are the compulsive actions that are behind the behavior, but process addiction is really about the culmination and the buildup of anticipation as we move into the act. Once you place that first bet, it's almost like this calming feeling comes over you where you're like, Oh,
00:41:35
Speaker
What am I doing here? Like what am I, it's almost like you, it's a fugue state in some ways where you don't even really realize the impulsivity and the danger behind some of the decisions that you're making because your, your whole entire state and mind and brain are kind of taken over by this
00:41:55
Speaker
psychological dependency and need to, to, um, participate in that action. So once that would happen, that kind of fades away. And that's where the hopelessness, the despair, the despondent takes over. Um, there's a very, very, very high comorbidity with gambling addiction and suicidality because of the financial, uh, destruction that is
00:42:23
Speaker
uh, essentially created. So, and because gambling's legal in most areas, uh, the world for the most part, um, and it's not a substance. There's almost an extra additional layer of shamefulness around saying I can't stop doing this because it's not something that I'm putting into my body, right? Like it's just an act that I cannot stop. So we see a lot of,
00:42:51
Speaker
risk there when we're assessing as mental health professionals because we have to look at bank accounts. We have to get an idea of financial destruction. Most people are lying to their partners or their families about the financial destruction. A lot of people are going to ultimately put second mortgages on their homes, get into deep, deep credit card debt that they cannot get out of, borrow money from dangerous people like bookies, loan sharks, et cetera. And then eventually
00:43:20
Speaker
when the problem gets really, really, really bad, then the criminal behavior takes over for a lot of people where it's robbing, stealing, um, all sorts of things like that. So it's a very, very destructive process. And I, I, I've seen some horror stories on, unfortunately, and, um, it, it can be very, very damaging.
00:43:44
Speaker
Like just kind of like, you know, you explained it to me very well. So I was kind of like picturing myself, like in, in the situation that you were talking about. Like I can understand that the fact that it is such a anxiety provoking experience, like it is kind of like this. Like it's, it's, it's like the journey rather than the result. Am I right? Like it kind of like.
00:44:12
Speaker
And I imagine that if the more that you are in debt, the more that is riding on something going well, the more intense that feeling must feel. The desperation really, really increases in that moment.
00:44:26
Speaker
Yeah. Um, and what you were saying about like, you know, the dopamine that you got, like, I, I, am I right in thinking that kind of dopamine is like the motivating hormone that kind of, um, the new returns meta that like encourages you to do something like, it's, you feel kind of good too. So you want to chase that feeling.
00:44:51
Speaker
There's an adrenaline rush to this there's an endorphin rush when we're talking about risk taking behavior. Course in through your body so. People are chasing that feeling so when we say like gambling is strictly psychological it's not true you're actually creating this physiological response.
00:45:10
Speaker
To the anticipation of the act and then chasing that feeling because it feels good it might make you feel alive you might be lying to your partner you might be sneaking out at night you might be stealing from your job. Those are things that are very very common with gambling addiction and.
00:45:28
Speaker
You, it's unfortunate because there's so much accessibility there. I know when I was struggling casinos in the United States will actually allow you to withdraw money from your debit card and bank account that you don't actually have.
00:45:43
Speaker
So they have the ability to take out X amount of money more than what's in your account. So there were plenty of nights where I left the casino having overdrawn my bank account by thousands of dollars. And then feeling when you're leaving and you're driving home at six in the morning and you are replaying everything that just happened in your head. That's where the deep, dark, sinister thoughts come in for most people. Yeah.
00:46:12
Speaker
So it's like you experience the high and then you experience like the, the low of it and you want it, you want to, yeah, it makes, it makes sense why that, that would be hard, like to, to break that kind of cycle. Cause you know, what, what, what do you want when you feeling low, you want to feel good or maybe what makes you feel good. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
00:46:40
Speaker
And there's never enough money. I'll say that very honestly. There were nights where I won, um, probably 10 to $20,000 in a night. And the rush is, I've never experienced a rush like that in my life. There's never enough money. You'll just gamble it away. And you kind of have this internal dialogue where you're like, if I just won X amount and I could just get out of the hole that I've created, I would stop. You kind of plead with yourself that way.
00:47:07
Speaker
But in reality that I don't think that would ever be true. I just don't think there's ever enough because it just consumes everything about what you're doing and what you're what you're thinking and how you're experiencing things. I was kind of thinking about the sort of the the other kind of processes like like I can imagine the you know for example someone who had like a sex addiction or something that you know perhaps
00:47:37
Speaker
Having unprotected sex was kind of the anxiety around it, of going and meeting someone that you know may have a disease that you could get.
00:47:52
Speaker
I have I've watched a couple of documentaries about like them like people who are like bug chasers and people who do that kind of behavior which is you know I think to a lot of people it just feels like it could be
00:48:09
Speaker
Like it just seems just like such a negative thing that there's no positives to this thing. But like the way that you explaining about like the the anxiety and like the whole experience about doing something that is inherently damaging to you or could be could could possibly be very damaging to you. Like. Like I can imagine someone getting kind of hooked on on that feeling.
00:48:38
Speaker
you know I've only really experienced like a sense of process addiction with like as I said with live video games and stuff but I think
00:48:49
Speaker
Even when it comes to things like alcohol, there is sometimes a process involved in that because I don't want to be keeping a crate of alcohol in my house that I can just get upon. There was always a process after university. I was like, oh, this is just not feeling good. I didn't have a good day.
00:49:12
Speaker
Go to the shops You know that you get the anxiety rush of buying like a full pack of cider every day from the same shop that you've been to multiple times and you kind of it's like a process and then Like actually having the alcohol just didn't tend to make me feel good at all like it made me feel so much worse I was like
00:49:32
Speaker
you know because it's like an emotional amp of fire and so i i didn't actually enjoy it like to us like i didn't it didn't feel good to be in that dissociated state it didn't feel like i was escaping from anything it just made everything feel worse but it was kind of like that that anxiety around it that i know that i shouldn't be doing this that was like a little bit attract like attracting in a way
00:49:59
Speaker
I think that's why a lot of the programs that are implemented into school systems, I don't know if there are any in the UK, but in the States when we had the dare program, like the just say no to drugs that you get introduced to as a child and a teenager, they don't work because the more you villainize something, the more likely it is that people are going to want to try it.
00:50:17
Speaker
Um, and that's where risk taking behavior comes in. And that's why, you know, teens and adolescents, young adults are so susceptible to becoming addicted to cigarettes and to marijuana and to alcohol, because it's that kind of like, Ooh, it's not, we're not supposed to do this. So that looks fun or that looks dangerous or that looks exciting. And then before you know it, a decade goes by and.
00:50:39
Speaker
Things are not so fun anymore. And the flip side with the dopamine creation in these situations is the dopamine crash. And then your brain is just constantly trying to replenish and it's constantly trying to pull from these reserves that you do not have and to create these feelings that you can no longer organically create. And that's a big struggle with opiate addiction as well because your natural opiate receptors that are impacted by opiate addiction.
00:51:08
Speaker
you mean using the kappas and epsilons? Yep. And I think if we're going to tie in the autistic piece to this, which I think is the important component for this podcast,
00:51:26
Speaker
Is the, is the association and reliance upon something to feel a different way?
Autism and Addiction
00:51:33
Speaker
Because so often, uh, our autistic people like ourselves are struggling with our nervous system or our anxiety or sensory overload or being able to feel social or feeling connected.
00:51:48
Speaker
or feeling too tired or whatever we are feeling on a magnified level. And reaching for something that can quickly soothe how we're feeling or help us feel social in the moment or able to unmask in the moment because you've had a few drinks and now you feel more comfortable.
00:52:07
Speaker
That's why the stuff can get out of hand so quickly and become problematic so quickly. And I'm a firm believer that addiction is the opposite of connection. That the more connection we have, the more security we have, the more healthy relationships that we have, the less susceptible we are to these things.
00:52:29
Speaker
But as we know, autistic folks and social struggles and isolation and bullying and all the things that come with it, the experience, you know, I think it really pushes in the other direction to to create a lot of destruction and damaging behavior. You know, I don't think the fact that some substances are promoted socially is obvious, like
00:52:54
Speaker
isn't like a good thing like there is a big culture I know that you know the US does have but in the UK there is like a just a ridiculous lack of awareness about like the effects of like alcohol like even in the short term because people think oh just don't have it a lot and you won't get
00:53:13
Speaker
fatty liver disease and you won't, you know, get all of these kind of dependencies and you won't have to drink it to feel like to not get ill. Um, but actually like with like the binge drinking of it, like, um, I didn't know that you could die from having too much alcohol. Like it's served in a pub and a restaurant. I can just have it. I can just get it from Tesco's. I can like, yeah. And it's what's the latest age in UK 18.
00:53:44
Speaker
Yes, 18, which, you know, you have all those those things of, you know, your brain developing and stuff and that just kind of magnifies the neural effects that that kind of stuff can have even like things like marijuana is, I think can have impacts on your brain's development up to a point on nicotine, I think as well.
00:54:06
Speaker
Ay up, just popping on to say thank you for listening to this podcast thus far. If you could do me a real solid, please make sure to rate the podcast if you're in a podcasting streaming service and do all that like, subscribe, comment stuff on YouTube. Damn, even send a heart in the comments if you don't feel like typing.
00:54:26
Speaker
Make sure to check out my link tree, which is always down below in the description or head over to my Instagram page at Thomas Henley UK for daily blogs, podcast updates and weekly lives. This podcast is sponsored by my favorite noise cancelling noise reducing earbuds that you can adjust the volume on. Really, really great thing. They're called D buds. And you can find the affiliate link down in the description of this podcast for a 15 percent off discount.
00:54:55
Speaker
Anyway, I hope you enjoy the rest of the podcast. That's all from me. I think, you know, definitely one of the kind of the negative life experiences that I feel very, very strongly about is the social isolation aspect of being autistic, like.
00:55:14
Speaker
To a certain extent, we struggle with isolation at school, being isolated from groups and people. But in adulthood, especially that transition from school to adulthood or school to university, you will not put in scenarios where you're around people like you used to. It's such a difficult experience. You're like, OK, I need to find people.
00:55:43
Speaker
And when you've had all these negative experiences with people in general, when you're younger and even in adulthood, it's very, very difficult to feel like, one, people will like you, or you couldn't find a friend or someone. But also,
00:56:11
Speaker
that there are those people out there. I remember for the longest time, I didn't think anybody was worth investing in because I just had such a negative bias on my experiences with other humans. So I was like,
00:56:30
Speaker
I can never talk to them. I can never have any kind of trust in them at all. And it was only until I kind of started to push myself to kind of get out and in the world that I experienced some like positive experience with it.
00:56:48
Speaker
But I consider myself quite a driven and motivated person, despite my mental health conditions. I just can't fathom just how difficult it could be for a lot of people to find that sense of connection and fun and doing activities with people.
00:57:15
Speaker
It's so easy just to have a dependency on something, like instead, than doing that.
00:57:25
Speaker
Yep. I think that's, that's really the crux of the issue. Um, is that it's a lot easier to rely on something that you can easily access to make you, to change how you feel. And people, you can't always, like, even if you organize something, but it could be delayed, it could go, it could change like some could happen. Like you just don't want to like invest yourself emotionally and stuff. And it's like,
00:57:52
Speaker
Or I could just have this thing, and then so I don't feel bad about the other things. I can just always have this when I want. It's much easier to slip into that when you are.
00:58:10
Speaker
isolated, you don't have friends, you don't really talk to your family much. Absolutely. And I think you're spot on. And I think that if we polled people and looked at research, that you would see that the statistics would be alarmingly high for those of us who are neurodivergent or those of us who really struggle socially in relationship and the correlation between substance use
00:58:36
Speaker
Um, and it's just increasingly high. And because what you're describing, right? And, and so many of us experiences that loneliness that in that a constant longing for belonging, but the inability to access it.
00:58:53
Speaker
It's a lot easier to drink a four pack of cider and dissociate from that or disconnect from that or numb that out temporarily and then not acknowledge the physiological and psychological effects of relying on something to feel differently. Definitely.
00:59:13
Speaker
And I think as you said about like the mental health aspects of it, I mean, there's like a ton of crossovers between autism, ADHD, mental health, like, and also mental health and addiction. So it's like,
00:59:28
Speaker
But, you know, and then I suppose you also have like the aspect of routine to things. That was a big thing for me, like with alcohol. I had a routine that I did each each night that, you know, even even when I wanted to stop doing it, it just felt wrong and it caused me anxiety to not do the thing like not necessarily just because of like the feeling that it gave me.
00:59:53
Speaker
or anything like that, just the fact that I was changing my routine from something that had been a part of me for like months. That was so much harder. And then, you know, obviously going with the withdrawal and stuff from having those things, it's like a double whammy.
Breaking the Cycle of Addiction
01:00:12
Speaker
Like you're dysregulated and also you don't have your regulating thing.
01:00:19
Speaker
I think you just explained that pretty perfectly. We all know how important routine and structure and sense of familiarity is for autistic folks. And it can be a routine that revolves around something that you know is not healthy for you. And that can make it even more complicated to
01:00:42
Speaker
change that behavior because it's just an extra layer and challenge to making any sort of adaptation or change to that because of the transition, the structure. I know at 4 p.m. I do this thing. I know at 4 p.m. I go to this place. And that for a lot of us is very comforting, even when it's something that isn't useful or healthy.
01:01:10
Speaker
I think that there definitely is another element which, you know, I think we talked a bit about on a new pod, about like AlexaFimer and stuff. It's very much the case that...
01:01:25
Speaker
I feel like a lot of autistic people we tend to gravitate towards these like blanket regulation methods like Some of them are good. Some of them are bad. Obviously like for me Blanket regulation would look like going to the gym, you know, like just regulates me something I do not necessarily bad for me and actually quite good for me but it's
01:01:52
Speaker
If I'm feeling something that's negative or experiencing something that's negative, it's not like I'm tackling that at the cause or identifying. How do I feel about that? How do I feel? And what is causing me to feel this way? And being able to make that connection between them to like process things and do things that actively will make my situation or my feelings about it better. Like it just sometimes feels
01:02:22
Speaker
easier just to have all of these different blanket regulation methods that I can use to make myself feel better. You know, it could even be things like stimming or like eating some food that I like or, you know, all of these things that make me feel better, but not necessarily like, it's not necessarily like taking time aside to process and get through things.
01:02:49
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's where the the really deep challenging work Happens right is when we're really getting into the what's happening behind the scenes. Why am I feeling this way? How can I change this behavior? Hmm
01:03:04
Speaker
That's a lot of mental energy. And I think it's a lot easier to default to just what you're saying blanket behavior to say, I know this works. You know, like I don't have to think much about it. I know it makes me feel better. I know it makes me feel different than I'm feeling right now. And life is so hard that I think it's always a lot easier to reach for the thing that we don't have to exert the extra effort or mental energy into.
01:03:32
Speaker
Yeah, it's like having a button. Like, you can just push this button, feel good. Yeah.
01:03:39
Speaker
Yeah. Just keep pushing that button when you feel bad. Like, you know, it might make you feel good and you might have a good, like, feel like you have a good life. Um, but like you're pressing that button all the time and it's for everything and you're not like letting yourself feel bad about things. You're not like, you know, um, really tackling things at the root. Um,
01:04:04
Speaker
I think as well, one of the things that kind of drew me into alcohol, I know you're saying that addiction can cause suicidal feelings, especially when it's impacting your life a lot and you feel a lot of shame about it.
01:04:22
Speaker
But also, I think there was a point in my life where I was using my ideation for it as a crutch. It's like, OK, this is going bad. I can always just not be here if I want to.
01:04:44
Speaker
As soon as I stopped doing that, like, obviously that's great. Like, I'm not complaining about that. But then there's like, OK. There's other options like I could drink instead of like I have this crux gone now, even though it's a negative crux. It's like, but now what? Like, now what do I do to if I don't have that option? How do I feel good? And it's like.
01:05:13
Speaker
You know, if you're kind of in deep depression and you don't have the energy to do things and you don't really feel like you have the supports around you, you don't feel positive about things in your life, you don't experience pleasure from things, it's like supplementing with different neurotransmitters via the form of substances or processes, it's just very attractive, like as something else.
01:05:39
Speaker
other, you know, obviously mental health, like you generally just don't care about yourself as much as you should as well. So it makes it quite easy to damage yourself, I guess.
01:05:55
Speaker
Yeah, that kind of circles back to what you were saying before of when you're in a bad mindset, when it's easier to just say, screw it, I'm going to do this thing. And, um, I think we so often, not just autistic people, just people in general, just want to change how they feel. Um,
01:06:14
Speaker
We don't, you kind of just alluded to that. Like a lot of us, myself included, like we don't want to feel bad. We don't want to feel pain. We don't want to sit with a negative emotion and we want to change that very quickly. And I know that's a generalizing statement. I think a lot of people would, would opt to not sit with the discomfort. And sometimes we do just have to, to sit with how it, how bad and how painful things can be.
01:06:43
Speaker
because trying to alter how you feel with a substance, it's just a band-aid fix. It's not something that's a long-term solution. It is a very temporary short-term solution to an experience. And I think we lose sight over that because we just have such a hard time in those spaces. And I suppose that kind of goes around to this idea of delayed gratification and stuff.
01:07:10
Speaker
You know, pretty much everything in our life is like kind of designed to hook us in and like get us to say, like, screw it and do something. It's like you have all these adverts that say, oh, be impulsive, do these things and just go on holiday. Even like you might not be financially sound. Just do this, just do that. You'll feel good from having this and eating this and, you know,
01:07:37
Speaker
Like, I don't think it's a sort of illogical assertion to say that, you know, people don't want to feel bad. Like, it's, you know, I don't think anybody likes the nature of it is that we don't like it, but.
01:07:54
Speaker
You know, I think there is a lot of use in having that kind of delayed gratification mindset to things about, you know, life, you know, life is not a movie all the time. You know, you go to the bathroom, you have times where you can't do things. Yeah.
01:08:13
Speaker
You have to brush your teeth, you have to get up in the morning, you have to go to sleep every night. There's all of these kind of boring monotonous self-care things that you do that just don't have any like apparent benefit in the short term.
01:08:31
Speaker
And like, you know, it's difficult. And I think, you know, in a lot of areas of life, people can kind of get fed up with things and not having this kind of glamorized idea of what life should be like. You know, it should be your kind of default mode. Your default kind of feeling should be
01:08:58
Speaker
just feeling meh, I guess, just normal. Like, and that's not fun. Yeah, it's not good. Like sometimes you want to feel high and you'll feel great and you want to feel lovely. And usually doing that kind of thing, even if it's something like innate, like socializing with people, like you are watching some watching a movie, like once that goes down, you still you always feel worse than you did.
01:09:26
Speaker
like after so it's
01:09:29
Speaker
I don't know. I think there's a lot to do with expectations and kind of like the culture that's that's formed at the moment around that kind of mentality of, you know, just screw it and have fun. And, you know, it's it's it's fun. It's exciting. And it's nice to think about that. But it's not like it's not going to like change your life, like it's not going to impact it negatively.
01:09:58
Speaker
Yeah, well, yeah, because then you're always chasing the next thing, right? Like that vacations never as good as the next vacation that's coming up. And that meal is never as good as the next meal that you're romanticizing. And I think we want to do that. Like we want to escape. I think that's reality. Um, we were right. I mean, I think, I think a lot of existence is just like, like existence and yeah. And I think for autistic people who are deep thinkers and like,
01:10:27
Speaker
analyze a lot and feel at a very intense level that existence is not always a pleasant place to be. So it's kind of like, how the hell do I change what's happening for me if this is kind of how I feel all the time?
01:10:45
Speaker
It's like, oh, I could get better, but then, you know, why, why would I get better if it's just like this all the time? It's, you know, you see on social media, people posting like all the highlights of their life. You know, you only see the the the athletes on the podium. You don't see like the getting up in the morning and going to training and waiting for things like.
01:11:10
Speaker
I'm failing and struggling too. Yeah. Yeah. Which is like 90% of the battle to get onto that podium. Yeah. It's an interesting topic, you know, and I don't know. I think that we could explore this in so many different arenas and vantage points. And it's something to just be mindful for to your listeners, like,
01:11:39
Speaker
really pay attention to when you reach for something, why you're doing so, the why behind the action is important, what it's making you feel like during the experience and how you feel after 90% of the time, 99% of the time, the after effect is not good. Um, we're talking about a lot of regret and shame and depression and all sorts of stuff that we're trying to run from or avoid or change that actually get amplified, um, post,
01:12:10
Speaker
substance use or post drinking or post gambling and all of that stuff comes flooding back. And that's, that's again, why you have to reach for it again, because you're like, Oh, wow. Wow. That this is even worse than before. Let me try again.
01:12:24
Speaker
I think not that I don't want to leave on a message of hope but I do want to just be really honest that you know this is very this is cyclical behavior it's just it exists in a loop a lot of the time so it's really about really examining this stuff and stepping back and
01:12:41
Speaker
talking to someone and getting some support around it. If you feel like you are struggling, if you feel like you have behaviors that feel like they're out of your control, or you start to notice that they're becoming harder to resist, I think be proactive, you know, like reaching for support before it gets to be too late because once you're in the thick of it, it's very hard to climb out of. Hmm. Definitely. Definitely.
01:13:06
Speaker
I suppose we've talked a lot about the negative effects and you've mentioned a brief idea of how you can get past things.
Podcast Conclusion and Resources
01:13:21
Speaker
We've talked about some of the negative, short-term, long-term consequences of different
01:13:26
Speaker
types of addiction, different possible connectors between being autistic, ADHD and addiction, what it actually is, the dependence, substances versus processes. I think we've talked about a lot. I think it would be good to kind of maybe wrap things up. Do you have your song of the day?
01:13:50
Speaker
You forgot you're so good today. Oh, man. So good. So good. I know. Yeah, I'm so sorry. I don't have a song of the day, I think. I've got I've got good one. I got good. Maybe. Thank you. Can I just point something real quick that could be helpful for people? Yeah, yeah, that would be amazing.
01:14:14
Speaker
I come from the background of not really aligning with the 12-step mentality, which is very firmly rooted in religious components for recovery for those of you out there who are struggling with any process or substance.
01:14:30
Speaker
Smart recovery is all is worldwide i really think it's a great tool it. Is science and evidence based there are facilitators that actually have to get train to run the meetings. And it's not a shame based program and they actually teach you coping skills to deal with triggers and urges and warnings and.
01:14:51
Speaker
I think it's a really really useful recovery tool to implement they have both online and in person meeting so. I think smart recovery stands for self management regulation tools and essentially can be really useful for those of you who are listening who are maybe struggling with any of the things we talked about who just want some support.
01:15:13
Speaker
who want people to talk to, bounce ideas off of, have common experiences with. So I just want to offer that as a resource in addition to the most commonly thought of resources around substance use and addiction.
01:15:28
Speaker
Awesome. Awesome. I was kind of thinking when you, when you said smart, I was thinking small, measurable, achievable, realistic time bang goals. We're using sports, sports science to. We're also going to incorporate smart goals here. I mean, smart goals could be useful too for, for substances and addiction, but.
01:15:50
Speaker
Yeah. Smart recovery. I just, I don't think he gets enough eyes on it because a lot of people don't know it exists. And if you just take a look and there, there's probably meetings in your area, if not, there are online accessible meetings. And I think just having another resource to just, I really do believe you can get out of this. Like I'm living proof that recovery is possible. So having gambled since June of 2012, it's almost coming on, I guess this June is or last June.
01:16:17
Speaker
month was 11 years so i know that when i was in the thick of that there was never a chance or thought in my mind that i thought that was going to be a possibility for me and so i do want to just really say that therapy works if therapy is an affordable like smart recovery meetings having camaraderie just allowing yourself to ask for help is really more than half the battle
01:16:43
Speaker
I think it's also good to remember that it's not always a clear path as well. There will be times where you can relapse and you can do all of these things. Oh, yes.
01:17:02
Speaker
You know, the times where I put all the most pressure on myself to like quit something is the times that it just hasn't really worked for me. Like, um, I think sometimes just being.
01:17:16
Speaker
kind and trying to remove that shame to some degree and just finding different ways to satisfy your needs or redirect your focus. It was massive for me with the gem and my binge disorder.
01:17:38
Speaker
Whereas sometimes I might, you know, trying to stop binging was hard, but trying to eat healthy, protein rich foods constantly throughout the day kind of just naturally kind of reduced it. But I wasn't like focusing like, I'm not going to binge. I'm not going to binge. And like, you know, it's it's just kind of having like a different
01:18:02
Speaker
a different kind of mode of living which helped me in the most. I like that a lot.
01:18:08
Speaker
Well, it's kind of come to the Song of the Day segment, which I know that you don't have your song, but we've got a song that I really like. I'm not sure if it's particularly about addiction or not, but I really like the song. It's called Medicine by Daughter, which I think is quite apt. And I'm gonna add that to our Song of the Day playlist.
01:18:36
Speaker
I'm going to find it. Here it is. It's going to go in that. And Patrick, where can people find you if they want to look more into your podcast, the stuff that you do online, these social medias? What places can people find you?
01:18:58
Speaker
Thank you, and thanks for having me on. So if you are interested in the entrepreneurial side of my business, you can find me at allthingspractice.com and listen to the All Things Private Practice podcast and follow me on Instagram at All Things Private Practice.
01:19:15
Speaker
and if you want to listen to the podcast that doctor megan-neff and i have. You can follow us on divergent conversations on instagram or go to any major platform that podcasts are on and listen to the divergent conversations podcast which again is all about autistic eighty hd life experience and we've had thomas on as a guest. Go watch the episodes of alex five is a good one.
01:19:41
Speaker
I haven't really done like multiple people. I haven't done many multiple people podcasts before. It's always been like a one to one thing most of the time, but it was good. It's really nice. And it's nice to talk to you and also talk to Megan again.
01:19:57
Speaker
Yeah, I definitely encourage you guys to check that out. And I will put, I hoping you have a link tree. I will put the link tree down in the description, which you can find pretty much the same place as all episodes and podcasts and videos that I put out. Go check that out. And of course, if you have enjoyed the podcast, make sure to rate it and give it a follow or give it a
01:20:25
Speaker
A different terminology. I can't remember what the apple one was like.
01:20:30
Speaker
something like follow, subscribe, something like that to get notified of when new podcasts come out. If you want to go see some of the other stuff that I do, I have a YouTube channel, if you're not listening on that, where I do podcast clips from different episodes, as well as reels, TikToks, YouTube Shorts of the podcast, and also individual original content that I've made.
01:20:58
Speaker
And if you want to stay up to date with my life, what I've been doing, Instagram is always the best place to go. That's at Tom Sandler UK, down in the description. And you'll be able to find lots of different daily blogs and articles and things that I put up there. So yeah, I hope you have very much enjoyed this. Make sure to rate it if you have. And yeah, I mean, what have you got anything planned for the rest of the day, Patrick?
01:21:27
Speaker
It is 5 p.m. here in the eastern part of the United States. I have soccer at 8. So now I'm going to go eat something very small so that I am able to run around for an hour and a half at 8 o'clock. Awesome. Awesome. Sounds very blanket regulation of you.
01:21:43
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. And I hope you have a good weekend as well, Thomas. And it was great to be on here and connect. Thank you, Patrick. And to everyone else, hope you've enjoyed this. Hope you found it useful. And I will see you in another episode of the 40 Audi podcast next week. See you later, guys.