Psychology Series 5: Chris Collins

0:01 Welcome to another episode of Come Together. How old are you? And you moved out to Florida? Chris, Welcome. Thank you. Easiest way to start. I I was 26 years old, 26 going on 18. 26 going on 18. I feel like a lot of people today are like that, right? You live in the age of delayed adolescence. Yeah, and I tried my best to delay it as much as possible, yeah. I think that there's like a split between.

0:41 I, I, I tried, I'm always trying to find this line between, I call it like straddling the line between responsibility and fun, you know, and like, it's such a delicate slope, but like, I feel like a life well lived, like is, has that perfect balance of like, listen, I know a time and place to be responsible and I know a time and place to just like enjoy, by the way, even while you're engaging your responsibilities, you could like turn that into fun or enjoyable events as long as they're not coming at the sacrifice of the other. And I think that a lot of times people have the hardest time balancing those two. I can never remember this book, but I remember this part where he talked about like if the United States was really balanced, if you had the Statue of Liberty on one side, like somewhere in California, you need the the Statue of Responsibility.

1:31 That's such a good line. Right, because liberty without responsibility is chaos, and responsibility without some liberty is really boring. Yeah. So I it's crushing. Crushing. Totally, totally. So you moved down to Florida 26th going on 18. Why'd you move down? I I moved down here, it was November of 2014 to get sober. To get sober. To get sober I I had been in and out of treatment centers through most of my like early 20s and teens. Starting teens.

2:12 Yeah, I was 1415 years old when I went to my first treatment center and I had been trying to get sober for a really long time. And I just being around the same people, places and things being around Philadelphia, I would get, I had a year once I would get like 30 days or 90 days, but something inevitably would happen or I'd run into that person at the store and then I was off again. Yeah. And it's, it's interesting. I actually had this conversation with my my mom and dad when I had three years sober. They came and gave me my medallion. That's beautiful. It was. It was, it was a really beautiful night. My mom told me, she said when you went down there, we knew that you could die.

2:59 And she's like, that's not what we ever wanted. But we we knew it wasn't up to us anymore. And I think as, like, I had hit my bottom spiritually, emotionally, physically, all the stuff, they had reached their bottom as enablers at the same time. Yeah. And I think that they finally let go. And yeah. And then I finally stood up and grew up. Yeah. It's really beautiful. You think it happened that necessity? You think it was just changing of your settings? Stuff like that? I think it was both. I think, yeah, I well, there was a lot of it was a perfect storm of things. It was my parents had stop enabling me like, because I remember I called them.

3:51 I had 90 days and I was like, I'm ready to come home. And my mom sent me a list of homeless shelters like West Palm Beach. And she's like, OK, you're not coming back. Like, thank God she did that. At the time, I did not feel that way. I was really angry, but I'd imagine so. I think it was, it was that I had started working with therapist who had finally talked about like the big T word, which no one had ever really talked to me about that before, which was trauma. I think that made all the difference. I had also made a group of friends who were also sober and became my family and, and just that like beautiful connection. And that was a huge part of it.

4:40 And, and honesty, I think for a long time, like I just was hiding from everything and everyone. So yeah, it was this really beautiful storm of events. I finally had like really good treatment coupled with parents who were done and a group of friends and a new place where I was away from all my triggers and to even to like, I think geographical locations to run away from your problems doesn't work, but I think geographical relocations for recovery does because I even remember going home at six months a year and like the dark cloud would come over me.

5:20 Again, I could imagine. And then I would come back to South Florida and I was like, I can like breathe. So my body would remember, which is really interesting. Yeah, yeah, yeah, definitely. I've had, I've had very similar experiences for sure. And I've also, it's funny that you say that you can't run away from like yourself, your state. I guess I used to, I used to go before while I was still trying to figure out what I was trying to do with myself before I was married, before I had any kind of direction in terms of work, a creative outlet or anything like that. I knew what I, I knew I wanted to find that. I just didn't know how to. And a lot of times it manifested by me just feel like I had to just break out and go somewhere and I would just just and I would just go for cross country drives New York to Florida, NY to Washington, excuse me and, and sometimes it would be beneficial.

6:12 I remember one time I did it and I was driving down to Florida and like I was over the, I was driving to the Carolinas and like, I was driving into like a, like a tornado or a tropical storm or something like that. And I just felt like the storm inside and outside matching up. And I was like, I am not doing this out of a healthy place. I'm running away from something and I don't even know what. I'm like, I, I remember the, the, the, the realization washed over me like so succinctly. And I was like, I don't know, I, I'm just trying to run to get out of my own skin. And I don't, and that's not, this isn't the way to do it. You know, this isn't the way to solve my problem. You know, sometimes getting away isn't, you know, there's, there's something to accomplish by that. But that particular problem I was like, this isn't going to solve.

7:01 And I ended up writing about that. I'll show you the poem I wrote after. Yeah. It's called Driving Into a Hurricane. And it's, yeah, I have, I have ambitions to turn into a song, but I, I'm not creative enough yet with my guitar to, to do that. So, so I wanted it. So I want this episode for this particular podcast to be something that is informative, educational and relevant to anyone that's potentially listening to it. Because I think that I the topic of porn addiction and sex addiction is taboo, even though very taboo for a lot of people, even though it's an issue that everyone, everyone struggles with.

7:51 And I want to hear about your experience. And I kind of want to, you know, you could you kind of start by telling me how you got into this space and you know what you see and we can kind of direct the conversation from there. That's. Yeah, absolutely. So I, I came down here, I got sober and I got my year of sobriety, I mean. How hard is that? Honestly, like, I mean, it was hard looking back and I can, I can say this in retrospect, like, but it just seemed like things just aligned perfectly. So at the same time it was kind of easy. I mean, I think emotionally it was really hard, but I didn't even have the words to like or they understanding until years later in like, retrospect.

8:43 Yeah, yeah. That first year was like just stay sober and like get a pack of cigarettes and a nice coffee like every day did. Your, your, your, your new group of friends. Were they instrumental in that? Yeah. Like would you you guys would call each other and support each other if you felt you were having a hard time and? All the time. And what would? What were some, what were some, I guess, words of condolence or support that worked and what are some words, what are the ideas that don't work that for you at least? Especially during that first year, I think, and I've, I've learned this lesson over the last 10 years, is that the people who helped the most are the ones who were just willing to sit with you in it.

9:30 And I, I had found people who like didn't try to fix me, didn't try to change me how I felt wasn't wrong. It was just, it just was what it was and, and really taught me how to do that as well, which made all the difference. And it's, you know, especially down here in South Florida, it's you can't throw a rock without hitting a treatment center. Halfway house. Yeah. And we just, we're kind of all in the same boat. And I, I'd say this all the time. Like, I remember the halfway house that I lived in, I found a group of men that I didn't know I needed, which made all the difference, you know? So yeah, I think people's willingness to just sit with you in it and not try to change you or what's going on because you can't.

10:20 It's just you have to kind of go through it. Yeah. So you have to so you think being understood or being, you know, like just someone sharing in like being able to express that you're having a hard time with someone and someone just being listening, you know, just receiving end. Absolutely. And I think it's really hard to like develop that as a skill because we want to like we want to fix it. We want. I remember I heard someone talk about fixing bias. Like, you'll listen to someone's problem for 40 seconds and you already have the plan how they're going to get out of it, not realizing that. Like, it's like you needed another 10 minutes to really understand what was going on. And then also that they didn't really want you to fix it. They just wanted you to know, yeah, you know, and that is that's such a powerful tool for connection. Yeah, yeah, it's something I struggle with, by the way, 'cause I get so excited about ideas and conversation that I end up being like, Oh my goodness, you know, and I got it's, it's hard for me, but I'm working on it. I.

11:19 Like, I have to bite my tongue sometimes. And then I'll have like, friends of mine who are just like, hey, like, I don't need a therapist right now. Yeah, you could talk back to me. But yeah, it's I think that was something that really changed everything in the beginning. Gotcha. So you're so you're sober? You're sober. I started working in treatment. I I was a overnight tech at a adolescent male facility. I did that for a while. Then I got in. Then I went to the treatment center. I worked at the treatment center that I went to. Was that weird? It was. It was like full circle, you know, I'm really grateful that I, I got to work there. I, I worked there for five years. Wow.

12:07 And I kind of like grew up clinically there. There was phenomenal therapist there at the time that just really taught me a lot of things. I, I know. And what I started to notice was that people would come in for substance use and that they would put down the bottle and they were picking up the phone or they would put down the needle and they were picking up massage parlors. And yeah, I started noticing that a lot. Or, you know, you would hear friends who had, like, five years sober who are suicidal and, like, can't stop going to the Hard Rock, you know?

12:51 So yeah, I started becoming aware that, like, process addictions existed. Can you? Explain what a process addiction is. So basically it's, I, I look at them, it's things outside of substance use. It's the process of it, you know, So I, I look at like gambling, the goal isn't to win or lose. The goal is to keep playing. And it takes people some time to kind of figure that out. In fact, I I was watching this one thing and they were showing that it's kind of anti climatic after you pull the lever. It's like everything leading up to it. It's driving to the Hard Rock, it's fantasizing about buying my mom a new house. It's all of those kind of things. So then when you actually do it, it's the brains. Like I want to go back to the fantasy and everything that was leading up to it.

13:43 Sex addiction, compulsive sexual behaviours, pornography addiction, food is in there, intulsive eating, things like that. There's some people who shopping, shopping 100%. I need to get Amazon off my phone. It's. Slow, I can imagine unlike that with craft beer. And there's there's an app that I use called Tavor. And this app was so dangerous. And basically the way it works is you put in your credit card and and they would make a compilation of the top brew like micro breweries from around the country that ordinarily you wouldn't be able to access if I live here. And there's brewery in Wyoming or Seattle or California and you create your own crate and they basically have a big warehouse to get all the beer in from these places. And you could pick this collection and then they, for A1 set price, they send you everything, but you pay at the time that you add it to your cart, right. So, for example, if there's a can of an IPA that is, you know, $6, I pay, I, I, I swipe, I want it, I pay that $6 now and then as to my car.

14:58 And I don't think about it later because I've, you know, so it's, it's, it's a very interesting, you pay in small increments, but then you get one big shipment, you know, and one big kind of dopamine release, you know. And also this little dope of. Being yeah, all along the way, you know, and then, then there's the notification to push notifications. New one came out and I'm like, and I looked at my credit card bill a month. I was like, this is what I spend on beer. This is, this is out of control. So I had to delete the app. I never looked back. But I I really it's, it's, it's slippery. And there's no doubt in my mind that the creators of that app knew exactly what they were doing with the reward system of their brain. So yeah. Yeah, that just like a little pieces along the way and then when you get the big one. Definitely, definitely.

15:43 Yeah. So I'm sorry to interrupt you though. So, yeah, so continue. So anyway, so you were saying so, so process. So process addiction is that people are addicted to whatever process it is and then getting that result in the subsequent hit, dopamine hit, I guess. Yeah, and the, and the ones along the way, you know, it's I, I, I think about someone who's struggling with sex addiction that it's, it's going to the gas station, it's taking money out or going to your bank, taking money out. The drive. The now I'm on the, the Internet and I'm looking at reviews for massage parlors and then I'm pulling up to one.

16:23 It's, it's the whole thing leading up to the very end. And or it's the I'm jumping on a dating app and I'm swiping and texting for upwards of eight hours and sometimes not even meeting a human, like, because their, their brain is more interested in that 8 hours. And then when you look at that in retrospect, like I've worked with people who are like, I was doing that like 8 hours a day at work, like at home, sitting at the table with my friends and family. I remember I had a professor once who said like the, and he was quoting somebody else. The mistress lives in your pocket. Yeah, you know.

17:08 Scary. Yeah, it's it is scary, but it's in the brain can kind of just disassociate like that and you blink and hours have gone by. And the same with pornography, you know, it's that looking for the perfect video and you start at 9:00 PM and you say, well, I have work at six, so I'm going to bed at 11. And then before you know it, it's like 4 in the morning and you can hear the birds. Out. Do you hear that a lot? You hear stories about that a lot. All the time. Really. All the time that they start going and like can't stop and then are sometimes they're like, OK, I'm going to chug a Red Bull. No way. Take a shower and I'm going to go to work and I haven't slept.

17:50 Oh, man, absolutely. So what is that? What? What? What? What? Because listen, I, I and I, yeah, maybe cannot even pretend to videos otherwise. When I was in high school, I was definitely addicted to the point, you know, especially because the first two years I was in high school, I was in all boys school and I just felt. And there was no, and we could talk about this too. There was no conversation about sexuality or what is going on or what you're feeling. You're like, I'm just like this, like incredibly hormonal 131415 year old that feels a tremendous sense of guilt every time this happens and at the same time can't pull myself away and actually got to the point I was I was I was mortally embarrassed, but I'm so happy I did it.

18:40 When I went to my mom and I told her to put a block on my phone. I was, I think I was 14 and I was like, I didn't get I didn't go into any more details. I needed to. I'm like mom, I'm like mom, I'm looking at things that I don't want to be looking at my phone. Can you please just put a block on it? And I found ways like 6 months or a year later to even get around those blocks. But just the fact that it was there for me kind of help keep me like anchor me down a little bit to like have that sense of like, even if you're going to engage in this, like limited guilt wrong, you know, and like, and it was a struggle. It struggles for legitimately struggle probably four or five years after that, you know, and I don't think it's ever kicked 100%, but it's kicked 90%, you know, 8090% or whatever it is.

19:30 But what there's so much that goes into it. You know, there's so much that goes into it. Do you want to you? So what do you notice? What do people describe when they say you know when? When they're just painting the picture you just painted? So it's if I have 12 different clients in a room, like there's 12 different stories, OK. And I, I really do look at like, like whatever the behavior is, whether it's porn, sex, that that is the like the end of the story. I look at everything from an attachment lens. So how we we learn to connect from zero to three, how we connect with our caregivers. Sometimes things can happen.

20:16 And I I think especially like in today's day and age when. You know, and I see this all the time, like you see a baby, like reaching for like mom or dad and mom and dad are like looking at a phone, you know? And I, one of my favorite writers, therapist Diane Paul Heller, she talks about it and how the number of securely attached people has been going down over the years. And I think that we're going to see that get worse because of the screens and our relationship with screens. But it could be like my. Attachment have to do with it though, I'm sorry. Just with, with. So let's say let's say that I I develop an anxious attachment. Which I definitely have, yeah.

21:06 OK. I have my own, yes. OK, so let's say I have anxious attachment to my phone, which I have, OK. Yeah. Well, and it's, there's a fear of abandonment or there's a fear of disconnection, right? This, this kind of wounds that was created. And then let's say you go to school and you've had some events that kind of reinforce that, right. Like maybe the kids were mean to me, maybe I was bullied, things like that. And then one day I turn on the computer at a friend's house and I see whatever it is in front of me. Yeah, the brain doesn't differentiate between what is real and what is imagined. Like the brain thinks that those are real people in the room. OK.

21:51 And porn won't reject me. Porn won't leave me, right? You're the hero. All the time, yeah. And then I think of like, let's say, let's say like you have more of an avoidant attachment and you've been really struggling to connect with other humans throughout your life. And then you find like campsites where you really, you get to play a role and you get to be that hero, right. With these people. It's. Yeah, it's, it makes sense when you kind of line it all up like that with each person that I work with. So generally filling a void. Filling a void, but also doing your best to connect. And especially when I see it become really addictive, it's I think it becomes a form of connection and intimacy that is a lot easier and safer than going on a date with a person possibly getting rejected.

22:53 Sure. And especially like, like how you were sharing that growing up and nobody kind of sitting down with you and saying like, hey, there's a lot of things going on with your body right now, right. And this is what all this stuff is. I don't think I, I've said this to you last week. I don't think I've ever had a client who or somebody explained to them what was happening with their body and sex and all these things. And we all turn to the Internet. Yeah. Which is the least healthy place to learn about what that is? Exactly. Right, right, right. And I mean, have you ever heard Scott Galloway talk about the loneliness epidemic that's been happening with men?

23:39 I mean, you know, I want to actually ask you about your experience in terms of men and men versus female, men versus women in terms of their addiction and even maybe their patterns or like the root causes of like, you know, are there certain things that men are more inclined towards as opposed to women? Or are men trying to look for a different thing than women are? You know, I mean, I think that and also by the way, like what you said about the potential, not rejection. I feel like porn as a virtual space as opposed to an in person sexual addiction is 2 very different forms of like, even though they're both sexual, they're both very different manifestations of a way to kind of get your high, I guess, or get your, you know, yeah.

24:27 I, I, I agree. Like, so connecting with someone versus just watching a video. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Like you're having another human being there and like, whether or not like you're, you know, whether you have a relationship with them or not, or, you know, to what extent you will in the future or not. Like there's another person here right now that you're, that you're with, you know, in an intimate way as opposed to I'm in my bathroom alone with a blue screen, you know, and that's a totally different world. And I feel like 1 tends to, like, I feel like the sitting alone in the bathroom with the blue screen tends to lend itself towards guilt and shame far more. I don't know more, but I would imagine I'd be more than if I had like an interconnected relationship, you know, like something that's physical. I don't know. I mean, I, you know, I'm asking.

25:07 I'm just, I'm just spitballing. Yeah. Well, and I think of like, how like that becomes part of it. Like we can, we can eroticize emotions in the sense that like, you know, here I am in the bathroom and I'm feeling guilt and shame and I'm having, I'm not having relational sex because I'm with like, I'm having some like a relationship with a scream. But the emotions of guilt and shame that come up can sometimes become part of the process. Yeah. And it's because it's happening over and over again where like that actually becomes eroticized, right. And then when I have relational sex with like a partner or something and like those don't exist. It's, it's like my, my brain and my body kind of want to go back to the thing that we've been.

26:00 Doing Oh interesting. So you're associating some, you're associating that particular activity with the emotions of guilt or private or shame or, you know, isolation as opposed to sharing and loving and, you know, in connection. Yeah, it's, I see that all the time where like that becomes sexualized and wanted at least, like unconsciously and then sometimes consciously. And you kind of get into all these other categories of like power exchange and things like that where people are just kind of trying to recreate the thing that got wired into the nasal template.

26:41 Like I use this example a lot is like, you know, sometimes people can get caught masturbating when they're, when they're young or their parents explain sex in a really shameful way and then they find themselves exploring sex in a really shameful way. Right, because that's the ground work that that was the foundation that was that was laid. Yeah, absolutely. And I, I think of, you know, if my first, if my, I, I, I'm going through puberty and my first experiences of being sexual are with screens. How like, and I think of an arousal template as like a, a dark room. All I'm doing is shining the light on the corner, which is screens and pornography, not realizing there's this whole other part of my sexuality and I'm just reinforcing it over and over and over again.

27:33 And it just becomes bigger and bigger and bigger and escalates and yeah, not realizing. And I get people who are no longer like even attracted to real humans or relational sex because it has taken a hold. I hope that I I feel like I went a lot of different. Places No, no, that's OK Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it is. I, I, I remember actually hearing for the first time in high school about something like that, where there's a guy that, you know, was that spent so much time watching porn that like, and there was a girl in the school that was known to be very, very attractive. And, you know, they ended up trying, you know, hooking up or whatever. And like he just couldn't, he couldn't did it, it didn't work, you know, and, and, you know, and that's when I was like, and I heard about that.

28:18 And I think I was, I was either junior or senior in high school and I was like, This is why I'm scared of that stuff. You know, like, and I remember it's striking me like, I don't want that to be the case. And also, I've noticed that especially in high school, it creates an unhealthy association relationship with just women in general. You know, that like, you walk around, you walk around school and like every girl isn't just a girl. They become a potential for some kind of manifestation representation of some kind of sick, unhealthy sexual fantasy that is drawn up again based on your relationship with the screen. That is no correlation to reality. Absolutely. Yeah, man. And.

29:00 I cannot tell you how many times like in couples work, we're like those conversations needed to be had of like, I am a human. I am your wife or I am your husband. Yeah. And I know that like you had this expectation that our sex life would match this thing that is curated produce. Seriously, people in it don't even look like that in real life. And it is marathon Olympic style sex. Yeah. And now here we are as like 2 humans who do not match that and are falling short and that. And it's like, you know, it's an intimacy killer.

29:41 Yeah, absolutely. And it's, it dehumanizes the partner as because you're not this thing that I've been watching all this time. And then I think it it like moves people away from intimacy, connection, being seen, authenticity, all those things which are vital in in that process. Do you want to continue down the couple's road or do you want to go back to men versus female in terms of their we'll get to both men and female, men and female. Cool. Talk to me. Yeah, it's, it's interesting because I, I've seen men and women experience. Do men have a higher tendency to be just to porn as opposed to sexual like physical encounters?

30:30 Do you notice that one is is more likely than the other in terms of genders? I I'm speaking mostly just out of my practice. That's all you can do. Well, and it's, I'm sure there's like tons of research on this and I, I, in fact, I know there is, I just, I, I, that's all right. I don't have anything to bring up for you. I just know in my practice that I I tend to see men more in the sex and pornography addiction and then I see women more in like the love addiction. The categories love addiction is that is the but I also see them it's in both genders. A lot of work that like PM Melody did, really explores this.

31:16 It is born out of attachment. You will have sometimes like an obsession develop around another human. I keep going into these relationships with the same type of person and it is really toxic and it is harmful to me. I'm praying that they're going to change. It's it's interesting how it, like it sets up in the brain. Do you know how like slot machines work? In terms of. What, Winning and losing? No. So if you with a slot machine, if somebody like wins every five tries, they're going to stop playing because it's like no longer exciting.

32:02 The win needs to be random. Got you. So you'll win on your 20th time or your fifth time. Yeah, it gets boring and people will stop playing. I think love addiction works the same way as in like, my partner is going to be so kind to me and loving on a Tuesday night and then I'm going to have three weeks of like. I see what you're saying. And then they get and then and then he comes home one night with flowers and you're like, this is the best thing ever. Yes. And he's like, or she is, yeah, you know, doing the bare minimum. And then it's like weeks of like awfulness. And so you can see a pattern like that develop sometimes. That would be called the love addiction. I, I, I would put it in that category. I have, I've seen it work in where people are, you know, they're interested in, in several partners and it's, it's more for the like the emotional and the romantic part or they're, they've never actually been single. They kind of jump from relationship to relationship. Sure.

33:11 I see a lot of like anxious attachment wounds that get triggered in that. It seems more emotional based, like a more like in search of like an emotional dope mean hit as opposed to as opposed to, you know, what porn would provide, which would be just more like a physical like getting it out, just get it out there kind of thing. I also like to give you other examples of it is like there can be screens involved because it's the I texted you 50 times today and I just want you to text me back. And that's the like, please see me, see me, see me, see me, see me, see me. Or I'm stalking your social media and I'm, I'm downloading these apps where I can look at your social media without you knowing I looked at it or people who are putting like it, it. There's a whole spectrum of it, but it can be really, really just as devastating as sex and porn too. I could imagine, right, because it just completely unravels you. Absolutely, yeah.

34:11 And you lose yourself and then the the betraying myself over and over and over, like for, to get that dopamine hit of like, OK, they're coming home with flowers today, you know, or I develop a fantasy that isn't really true. You know, there's, there's another part of this limerence, which is I develop feelings and I I fall in love with a fantasy and potential versus who the person really is. And that it's like unrequited love. It's not being returned. And like I said, the brain doesn't know the difference between what's real and imagined. And if I spent all day daydreaming about all these beautiful magical qualities of a partner, that doesn't really exist.

34:56 And I become addicted to that, Right. Yeah. It's, it's, I remember someone told me this. I loved how they said it. They said falling in love with someone's potential is really horrible because first of all, it's a future version of them that doesn't exist, correct? And it's more about your value system that you're placing on them, correct? So I see that a lot sometimes in love addiction too, which is like I'm assigning all these magical qualities to somebody and I'm falling in love with the version in my head versus who they actually are. You don't think we all kind of do that to different degrees, or you think that there's just healthier ways and unhealthier ways to do that. I think we do. And I and I don't want to pathologize that for everybody. It's, you know, when it becomes something else, like when it goes to that next level.

35:44 Yeah. And it's like, OK, I've had five of the same relationships and this feels really compulsive at this time. And I'm doing the same thing over and over again where like I am getting high off of fantasy and not who this person actually is, right? Or I find myself like dating the same kind of person over and over and over again because I'm recreating A traumatic thing that happened before and now it's become compulsive and this person is not that great. And I'm still I'm going back to get that hit. Yeah, if that makes. Sense. Yeah. So what? So what are some techniques that you do to help these people if you can?

36:25 So it's there's a lot, yeah. I know it's a loaded. Question yeah, you know, so I'm an EMDR certified therapist. I'm working, I'm in training right now for somatic experiencing and I love IFS and I. What's ifs? Internal Family Systems. OK, Schwartz It's parts work. It's one session. I might have somebody sitting across from their addiction having like a real conversation with it. Another session I might be targeting traumatic memories that play a role in this as well. There's also a really interesting protocol in EMDR that I, I've been playing around to with especially porn addiction, where you can kind of desensitize the like somebody who is experiencing like the good aspects of what they're doing. And it's like, so sometimes with the MDR, we look at it like, OK, you're, you're desensitizing, you know, in the body, all of these things that come up with negative memories. But then like I look at my addiction and we can kind of, we can go.

37:39 It's pearls her, her she developed a whole procedure for doing it where you can go in and and start to desensitize some of the stuff around the addiction. Meaning desensitize what is attractive about the addiction or gotcha so you can push yourself away. Is it? Is it so it's kind of getting yourself repulsed to buy or desensitize to what it is that you're? Not repulsed, but like desensitizing like the reactions in the body interesting and like the triggers that come around with that. I'm also, I'm somebody who does a lot of work with attachment, meaning like I, we have a blueprint for what our insecure attachment is and how that plays out. And it takes a while, but it's developing that blueprint of what more functional attachment looks like. You know, an example is like, if I'm working with somebody who is kind of more in the love addiction area and they come in and they're like, you know, I, I don't think they're that interested in me anymore.

38:52 And I want to like, you know, text and call a million times and confront them. And I'm like, well, how do you know that? And like, let's really sit with that. And what you discover is like, Hey, maybe this is more of your perception versus like the facts that you presented, you know, or if I'm working with someone who's like on the avoidance spectrum and they're like, Hey, I'm really overwhelmed and I got the ick by this person and I'd rather go watch porn because that doesn't give me the ick and it's safe. I'm like, well, are they really over? Like is what they're doing like grounds for that? Or like, are you just having a reaction to old ones, Right. So it's kind of doing that work too. I also work with a 30 task model. 30 you said 3030. Task model which Karns developed. He had noticed that when he worked with addicts, the ones who had done all these tasks stayed sober and had a great life.

39:49 Cool. The ones who didn't? Really. What is? What are some of them on there? In the beginning it's it's breaking through denial. It's one of the reasons why I love assessments so much. So I'll sign somebody an assessment. And it's, we have a, the SDMI, which is the sexual digital media inventory, the SDI which is the sexual dependency inventory. These paint this really beautiful picture that we can't argue anymore. One of the things about addiction is compartmentalization, which is I can act out on my addiction on a Tuesday and like completely disassociate it, like from it on a Thursday.

40:31 It is when people who would sit there and say I never want to do this again, I have all the motivation in the world and then a week later they cannot recall that. They cannot recall that that that regret. Yeah, or that like I want this, I can't pull up, you know, it's, we call it like a built in forgetter because the brain in that reward system is going to make us remember the 12 good times and not the 50,000 horrific times. So I think it's a really wonderful tool to start breaking through that denial. There are aspects of it we're like we're working through the trauma, we're looking at the arousal template and then the really beautiful parts towards the end. We're like, we're working on like, what is healthy dating look like?

41:17 What is, What is healthy sex look like? What is, you know, what feels healthy, what doesn't feel healthy to me? I remember someone said this to me a long time ago, Like what is a spiritual orgasm? And that is when my my orgasm aligns with my beliefs, my values. I'm not using it to disassociate. I'm not using it to get away from my feelings. It's not nothing. It's a, it's a combination of experiences, absolutely. And that is my favorite part about this work, is helping people get to a place where they then can have a really beautiful, healthy sex life. Yeah, whatever that looks like.

41:58 Yeah, yeah, yeah. How much of it is? And I know that this happens by my own, like myself. And I think that, you know, this is actually for different vices at different points of my life, you know, but sometimes something will just happen back. I just need to go, like, smoke a cigar. I need to just go have a beer. I need to go like, you know, smoke a Jay or, you know, and then a lot of times I will re channel I'll I'll, I'll take, I'll make the effort to re channel my response to a negative event into something a little bit more healthier, productive. Right. So, for example, I used to, I used to, I started forcing myself to wash dishes when I got frustrated, you know, so like, if I had like a bad argument with someone instead of going out, you know, instead of going and taking two or three shots, I, you know, which I didn't do, I got, you know, on a regular basis. But like, you know, instead of doing that, I go to the guy, you know, like I'm having a conversation. I can't believe this guy's such a douche. I hate this guy, you know, And I hang up the phone and this customer sucks and I'm pissed off at my boss or my dad or whatever it is.

43:01 I hang up and I go to the sink. I just watch every edition to sink, you know, And I'm like, OK, like, you know, like it wasn't that bad. You're fine, you know, but like, at least that's a behavior that I feel like I could kind of like redirect my frustration towards something that's a little healthy. Do you spend a lot of time trying to redirect people's associations from, you know, like there? I feel like part of what an addiction is, is that there's almost like a breakdown in your day or in your schedule. That is that's not that you don't expect, but not foreseen. And then you have to fall back to something familiar or comfortable that to respond to that, unless I'm making that up. But that's how I feel like I experienced personally. Well, and it's, it's looking at that's such a that's I really loved how you framed all that.

43:49 I'm gonna start washing dishes when I get you could vacuum too. There's a lot of things to that. So one of the things that I do in the sex, love and pornography realm is we come up with this thing called a three ring circle. And in the middle in this 3 ring circle, it is a live document. It changes what is red today might be yellow tomorrow. What is green today might be might be yellow tomorrow. And it's something that I, I am constantly working with people on and revising. But red is essentially like these are the behaviours that I need to stay away from, like looking at pornography, calling escorts, like whatever the thing it's are right, your yellow is proceed with caution.

44:40 Like I have to have a plan right now going to the gym. It's it's not a red, but like it could be because there's a lot of, there's a lot of attractive people, there's pheromones in the air, right? Like I've had people who are like, you know what, I can only go to a women's gym or I can only go to a men's gym. And right now a Coed gym is red for me. Yeah, absolutely. Because like I go there and then the process starts and then I'm like back at home and I'm very interesting. Right, right, right. I can't help myself. So it's looking at being very real with yourself. In six months you might be like, you know what? I've really de sexualized the gym and I feel really safe. So gyms would be more into a yellow or Green Zone.

45:22 It can move, right, right. And then it's, you know, you're two years in the sobriety and you are going through a lot of things. That's a fascinating tactic. That's a really, really cool tactic. I love the sound of that actually. Yeah, well, and let's say cuz. Organized and it let's and, and, and there's like different zones where like you can like, at least no proceed with caution, you know, or like hey, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You could really, really you could plan around that. Like, it's really, really interesting. 100% and, and it moves and I look at the Green Zone as like these are things that are really healthy. These are things that support my recovery. I look at them in different sections. Like you think of sex and food, right?

46:04 They are. They're very sensual addictions. The way things look, smell here, like all the sizzle, when these are very sensual addictions, how am I going to experience my senses now in a healthy way? Because I'm not just like, I just gave up the thing that hijacks my brain, you know? And I've had clients who are like, practicing mindful mindfulness at the beach and they're touching the sand and like, they're smelling new candles and like just really getting into, yeah, I have these God-given senses that like got hijacked by this thing. But there's so much in this world that I want to experience that's really safe.

46:44 You know, I'm going to go to football games now and use my site in a way that is really exciting and fun. And I'm with my friends. You know, maybe I'll go to the bathroom during the cheerleader part. But yeah. Yeah. And even, like, I that gym example of it being becoming green, you know, let's say you go through a really traumatic event, like a parent dies, and all of a sudden you're like, you know what? I have to put this back into the yellow because right now I have all this stuff going on. Interesting. And that's a couple years in the sobriety. And I'm, I'm using that as like a loose example. Yes, it's it's an honest self appraisal of where you're at and knowing yourself that things need to move and then having a plan for when they do.

47:26 I think that one of the biggest challenges in this particular realm of addiction is honesty. We wanted to talk about not only honesty. Can you define or at least tell me what you think the difference between shame and guilt? And then why we have such a hard, why you think, or why based on your, you know, what you've seen, We have, we have such a hard time being honest about this as opposed to anything else, you know, because like shame and guilt are definitely enormous components of it. And I just, and I've had so many times in my own life where it's felt like it's built up and I felt like I had to say something. And when I haven't, it's terrible. And when I have, it's like just a massive release and just like a break.

48:10 And like I got that off my chest and the world didn't end then. Like I could say that I was, I was having a hard time with this. And like people understood. Like, you know, I, I feel like it's such an isolating. And I think just because the action itself is like so private and so isolated that you feel like you don't want to ever express it. You want to talk a little about that? Yeah. Absolutely. And I, I think that this is something that addiction does across the board. It convinces not only the person addicted, but the entire system around them that you were the only ones in the world that are struggling with this. And nobody can know. Because if they do know, what are they going to think of, you know, I'm going to get rejected. I'm going to be pushed out of a group, right? It's interesting that the same part of your brain that lights up if you break your leg is the same part of your brain that lights up if you are pushed out of a group. If you are really.

49:03 And it's like from an evolutionary standpoint, it's we needed to be part of a group in order to survive. So I think in some ways it can be pro social, like guilt can be very pro social. Shame is not something I shame gets people into the room with me sometimes where it like it. The guilt and shame from this has built up so much that they're like, I have to do something right. I also believe that if it's not managed and and shame isn't reduced eventually that these things can build up until you use again. Because it'll like, if I feel crappy enough, long enough, I'm going to give myself permission to do what I know is going to provide relief, even temporarily, you know? Yeah, succinctly.

49:50 But so and I, I take this from like the work of Bren�� Brown, like Gil is I've done something bad and shame is I am bad. And if you knew this thing about me, you would know that I was bad too, and you wouldn't want to be around. Fascinating. Yeah. Fascinating. So guilt is kind of what other people think. What would other people think if I, if they knew I did this? And shame is like I don't want anyone to know this really who I am. I would put both of those on shame. Oh, really? Yeah. And like, guilt too. Of like so. What guilt? So like, you know, the, the stereotypical example of guilt is Jewish guilt. You know, you know, you got Jewish mothers and grandparents and guilt and stuff like that. How? How do you define guilt like that?

50:32 So I had Catholic guilt. Yeah. OK. There you go. So I'm sure, I'm sure it is that way. So do you still have it, you think? Yeah, I will always have that ingrained in me. I it's not, it doesn't run my life anymore. I'm trying. To fight it, I try to fight it so hard. It's so hard to freaking fight. And like the times you just when you think you cleared the hump, you know, you're like, oh, man, it's still there, you know? It's so I think naming things is really important in this work because there are so many like you can get the same feeling for so many different things like guilt. I'll break that down. Like there's maximizing guilt, which I think Jewish and Catholic guilt come along in that, which is I'm going to, I'm going to beat myself up consistently as a way to atone for what I did.

51:24 And if I'm not beating myself up, it's almost like what I did was OK. Then there's minimizing guilt, which is like, I feel really guilty for what I did and I'm going to like, I'm going to go watch 12 hours of Netflix and eat a bag of chips, or I'm going to go drink or I'm going to go use or I'm going to go look at porn. And then I don't have to feel it. There's weapon. Yeah, numbing it. OK. There's weaponized guilt, which is fascinating and exists in a lot of family systems, which is. And that's where score keeping comes along. Like, hey, I'm going to remind you of all the things I've ever done for you. Sometimes moms lovingly. Do that. Where it's like you're setting a boundary with me, but I gave birth to you.

52:04 Right. So I think we're, we're taught that. And it's also it's, it's a manipulation tactic where like I'm gonna get you to change your mind. So I'll bring up not only all the things I've ever done for you, but all the things that you messed up on in the last year. That's why I don't take favors from anyone unless I trust them. Like if you're not, if you're not a very, very close friend, I will never, I'll never ask you for anything. You know, I'll never ask you how do I look? I'll never ask you what you think it is. I'll never ask you to, you know, do you mind grab me a bag of ice oil while you're while you're in Publix, You know, like I will never ask anythings I don't want to hold over my head. You know, I don't want that being weaponized, like you said, you know, it's such a yeah.

52:45 OK, so there's weapon. Which shows that like you've had that happen. You know what's funny? I actually don't know if I did. I actually think so. So it's interesting. I spent a lot of time thinking about this. I think that the root of my of that particular type of guilt is that I not guilt, but I guess that particular type of avoidance. I don't want to like ask favors and stuff is because I used to depend on other people to to tell me to tell me I'm good enough to validate me. And at a certain point I was so sickened to myself how little self esteem I had in myself and how much I depend on other people that I did the full 180 turn. I'm like, I don't need anyone. Like I'm only depending on myself.

53:26 And then I'm trying to get back and talk about like the obviously the healthier place is to be in the middle ground, you know. But yeah, I don't think I've really, my parents both try extremely, extremely hard to let us beat us and, you know, do what they do as parents because they want to do it as parents and not because it's an exchange. So I grew up with a pretty healthy perspective attitude in terms of that. But I think I just saw it a lot around a lot and I was like, this is not something that. I want to be a part of. No, very far from me. Very far from me. Yeah, absolutely. And I don't want to like put that on moms. Like I see dads do it.

54:08 Doesn't. Yeah, but moms are stereotypical. Yeah, Example. And and then there's survivor skill, which is very simply like, I'm OK and you're not. I saw that come up so many times when I used to do a lot of work with first responders and veterans, just that like I'm OK and they're not in the guilt that comes along with that. There's these other things that feel like guilt and shame. Humiliation can feel like that, and embarrassment can feel like that. I've I've seen a lot where a client will be like, yeah, I'm feeling really embarrassed. And then when we really dive into it, it's like, no, it's actually shame.

54:49 So. What would be the difference? What's embarrassed as opposed to shame? So embarrassment is like, I've walked in here, I tripped and fell. We both laugh. I know I'm not the only person that's ever happened to pretty quickly, yeah. Shame is I walked in here, I tripped, and I'm like, you're an idiot, right? And humiliation, as I walk in here, I trip, I fall, you make fun of me and there's an audience. And all of those can kind of register the same way in the body. But all that different forms of guilt. And so naming things, I think is like one of the most powerful tools we have. It's such an important technique because it also creates.

55:30 I think words are so amazing because they contain context to them. You know, you can use a word and like, you can use one word and everyone imagines a scene that goes with it. Like they got like, you could say one word captures an entire, you know, it could be minutes or months or years of an experience that are, like, boiled down into one word. And the more new ones to get with them, the more specific we could be. It's really, really cool. Absolutely. Yeah. I love language because because of that, I observe a lot of that like the roots worth like impressed. If you're impressed by someone, it means they've literally pressed themselves into you and you are now and you are now aware of that, you know, or delighted is like you are now feeling light and you know the emphasis, the emphasis on the on the root word of like light and or awesome or awesome. Yes, be in awe of something correct Yeah, exactly. There's yeah.

56:26 When I've spoken to people like you're awesome, I'm like, and not in like the, not in the lazy way and like I am like in awe of, in awe of what you've done. You know, it's such a, it's such a more beautiful way of putting it. I feel like, you know, even though awesome is fun. So I'm sorry to interrupt. Yeah. So you have all these different types of of guilt. Guilt, right? Yeah. Yeah. And then I think like what you mentioned, which is, you know, the shame is trying to convince me that like I'm the only person in the world who has this and I can't talk about it because if I talk about it, then what are people going to think? All the stuff, right? The the fear of rejection, all those things.

57:07 And then I do talk about it and the relief I feel when I'm met with like love and kindness. That's why I love like 12 step Fellowship so much, because they, they exist. And you can go in thinking that you were the most horrible person in the world and then there's a woman or a man sitting next to you and they're like, yeah, I did the same thing, dude. Like you're fine. And the relief that comes with that, you know, I, I, I've had so many times in sessions where someone comes in with a very specific compulsive behavior, sexual behavior, and they think that they're the only person in the world who has done that. And I'm like, hey, like, there are a lot of other people who've struggled with this very specific thing too.

57:49 And it's such a relief. And then when you're like, we jump into Google and you're like, yeah, see, there's like this whole world out there. Yeah. Yeah. You know, so that starts to, to reduce the shame. I also look at like, where's the shame coming from? Is it, was it ever really mine to begin with? Did I inherit it from society? Did I inherit it from my parents? You know, I have a lot of shame around sex. And then you start diving into sexual history and then like a genogram of like the sexual history and family members that's like, actually my grandparents, my parents, they've all felt a lot of shame around sex because of how, like, that's what they taught me. How would you know that though?

58:32 How did someone figure that out? So it's what happened when you first talked about sex with a parent, right? They yelled at me, Right? And then when I got older and these topics were safer because we were adults, they told me that their parents yelled at them. Right. And how this I see? Yeah. It gets passed down. Yeah. So it's a form of education and it's a bad form of education, absolutely. And you, you begin to realize like this shame that I have struggled with was never mine. It was just given to each new generation. Yeah, because that's what they thought was the best thing to do.

59:15 But even that is still a tall hill to get over, you know, like you could, you know, there's one thing I it's one thing to understand, you know, the root of it. And there's another thing to conquer the root of it, you know, and I feel like a lot of times we give ourselves a license to because we understand the root of something like, oh, now I understand myself and you kind of keep on going. I've been doing, now that you understand why you're doing what you're doing, you know, my dad, you know, my dad didn't have a dad. So, you know, he did XY and Z, you know, and so, and so now I'm pissed off my I'm not going to do anything about it. I just know that that's the root of it. And that's why he's and that's why he's such a Dick to me, you know, and you're like, well, that doesn't really help, you know, get get you from point A to point B necessarily. And that's when the work comes in. And the work does and, and sometimes it's, you know, building insight into it.

1:00:07 And then also like another part of EMDR, which I really love, like Part 1 is we're going to desensitize traumatic memories in the body. And Part 2 is like these negative beliefs or cognitions, we weren't born with them, that they're usually attached to memories. And Part 2 of EMDR is we want to go in and we want to help adaptive information in the brain kind of sink in. So like you ever had that experience where like, I know I'm a good person cognitively, but sometimes my body feels like I'm not good. Enough all the time. I have watched EMDR connect the brain and the body in a way where it's like people will look at me after we're done reprocessing the memory. Right before they would have told me that's not true, I am not good enough.

1:00:52 And then after the session, they're looking at me and they're like, I can bring up that memory now and know that I'm good enough. Like it, it switches in the brain and the body. So I think that there's, yes, there's a lot of work and talking about it and having insight about it can be great. And it's half the battle. We can't do anything if we don't know about it. But there's also a lot of interventions and different modalities that can kind of go in and and really help that go along. So it's not just cognitive, it's like, I feel that too. Yeah, I wonder, I wonder how breath work would kind of help. And the thing that the breath work can help open up those neural, those neural connections that you can kind of help reassociate.

1:01:33 I wonder if breath work, you know, to reassociate memories and stuff like that to reassociate your experiences would be something beneficial to implement. You know, because it's not only because, I mean, what essential out of this is, is associating with, you know, memory or activity. You just said, you know, and so and part of the hardest part with the hardest part of all this stuff is the rewiring, right? That's the PTSD, that's the trauma, that's the that's all this stuff is like you have all these connections that are all starting from one place and ending in another that are rude and unhealthiness. But you could just kind of retrace that road, you know, the road and make it, you know, have it lead somewhere else. Absolutely.

1:02:13 I'm not as knowledgeable as in breath work as I I wish I was I'll. Try it out. Have you ever tried it? I have tried it, I know a couple really amazing practitioners. It's something that I like. I I want to do more of in my in my journey but I'm a huge fan and open to anything that will help people rewire their nervous system. I love that. Yeah. And I, whatever that looks like. And I've had clients who've gone to breath work practitioners and loved it. Yeah. Thought it was amazing. Yeah. So yeah, I I'm a huge fan of anything that can help require us. Cool. Yeah. Do you want to take a bathroom break for two seconds before we continue? I'm OK. Do you need to? Yeah, I'm. Going to take a two second break. Yeah, that the other thing that you mentioned we're back is the other thing that we were talking about or that I want to bring up before we talk about couples is your experience with different age groups.

1:03:06 And like, you know what, you know, you know, what are I guess common themes, I guess would be between like teenagers or kids that are just getting, you know, exposed to this as opposed to young adults, as opposed to like, you know, adults dwell into their marriages and relationships and stuff like that. And do you find that that the motivations, I guess are different as as people go through different phases in life or the way that it manifests is different as they go through different phases in life? Like what have you? What have you noticed from your practice? SO1II generally like I don't work with people under 18 is. That for a reason.

1:03:49 Well, especially with like this stuff, one of the things that they kind of really put into me during when I was training to become AC stat was like, we don't want to pathologize or like especially someone who's going through learning about their sexuality, you know, it's a lot of it is like normal exploration. So it's a, it's an area of like we're especially under 18, It's we don't want to over pathologize things because they're still trying to figure it out. I know people who do work with people under 18 and I think that they are the most patient and amazing people in the world. You have to be because imagine an 11 year old or a 12 year old getting a hold of a smartphone for I think the average age that people are starting to be exposed to porn is like. Yeah, absolutely.

1:04:40 And see this, I remember in one of the trainings, I was Patrick Carnes was was leading it and he was talking about how criteria for addiction is now being developed for like preview Vessel, whereas before like we have criteria for addiction for teenagers, for adults, things like that. And I, I think I told you this, I remember he said this and it blew my mind. You know, we've had more mass shootings in the 21st century than we've had in the entirety of the 20th century. And they are almost exclusively done by children. It's the sickest and saddest statistic I've heard in a very, very, very long time. And it kind of wakes you up to like never before have we seen this and it you. Know you think it's the violence that we're exposed to at an early age.

1:05:27 You think it's the loneliness. You think it's the wait, what do we like? I know it's a packed question. I know that you've been trying to answer like in one bit and not getting the whole picture obviously will get you into fire. I don't want to get into fire, you know, but like. Yeah, it well, it's such a good question. And I the truth is, I don't know, right? Like, but like what comes up for me when I sit with it is never before. Like we now have kids who do not remember what life was like before screens. Like we have humans on this planet who do not remember we have secure attachment kind of steadily going down. I saw this Johann Lahiri, his Ted talk, he cites a couple things.

1:06:16 He said the amount of floor space. He was citing a study, the amount of floor space that a person has in their home has been steadily increasing since the 1950s. And the amount of face to face connections that people have has been steadily decreasing. So I look at it kind of from a macro point of view of like there's so many different things going on, right? Like growing up, like people with knock up for you right now, sometimes someone calls me and I'm like, yeah, why didn't you text first? You know what I mean? So I think the way that we and we are a social species that is neurologically wired for connection. And I think for a lot of us, like it's really hard nowadays and these things that were supposed to be agents or vehicles of connection, I think actually are taking us further away from each other. I know it kind of scares me that Mark Zuckerberg is still standing by it so strongly.

1:07:11 Like, I've heard an interview from him recently. I think he's of Theo Von. And one of the things he just kept, like he's been saying the same thing for. Like I've heard him speak about, you know, a bunch of podcasts in the last 5-10 years and he's been saying the same thing every time. And he just keeps on demanding and, and insisting that like his apps and his companies are used to connect people and that this is like the way the future and this was healthiest and best for people. And like, sure, you people used to have a group of five friends and now they have 250 friends on Facebook. You're like, that doesn't mean that you have like friends, you know, doesn't mean that you're getting what you need as a human being in terms of attachment, in terms of relationships, you know, and, and it scares me that he's going to he and everyone else that's developing all these, you know, technologies are just marching forward on that presumption that this is all good. And so we're just going to keep on building on that foundation. When I don't, I, I'm skeptical as to the initial hypothesis even, you know, like I'm skeptical as to the fact that that that is that, that that's a good, that's a valid substitute, you know.

1:08:16 My first thought with that is, you know, Philip Morris told us along for a long time that cigarettes are healthy for us. Yeah. You know, and when your product is the people who are the eyes of the people who are watching or like the like, you're not using a product, you are the product, correct. When it comes to Facebook, they are selling your eyes and your gaze to advertisers. So of course it's like, yeah, this is let's let's build this on the whole thing of connection and, and really kind of sell that lie. Yeah. You know, and and don't get me wrong, I think that they're like, I've seen amazing things where like people were reunited through social media and all those things.

1:08:57 But, you know, that's not why people come to therapy. You know, people come to therapy because they're like, hey, I'm comparing myself to all these curated beautiful pictures. Yeah, of other people's lives that aren't even real. Yeah. And I feel less than, you know, and I, yeah, I have all this social media and I have all these friends and followers, but I'm profoundly lonely in my life. Or I use social media and I'll be vulnerable on it. And I'll tell people all of my like horrific stuff that's going on. And like to me that looks more like a drive by shooting. Like that's not vulnerability. That's like, let me dump and get some likes because like that real vulnerability is like 2 humans sitting together, connecting, responding mirror neurons going off, like all the things that you know, and that can happen through screen and zooms as as well.

1:09:51 But yeah, I think it's, it's this weird substitute that people are using and and I think COVID is like a really good example of why connection and being around each other is so important because 2020 like the world got weird. It got. Really weird. The world's got, the world's got. And I'm grateful for these platforms, right? Because they, I think they did connect us in a way. But at the same time, it's like it's a perfect case study of what happens when we're not around each other. Substance use went through the roof, depression went through the roof. It was a completed suicide went through the roof. You know, I, there wasn't a therapist at that time that I knew who wasn't full, like completely full their practice. And yeah, it's.

1:10:43 I hope that answers that. It does, it does, it does, it does. So, so back to the so, so you, you typically don't treat people young. So let's say 18 to to adulthood or even later, you know, let's say more mature adults, you know, older adults. What do you are, are, are there things in common? Like are there underlying consistencies in terms of the addiction? Are they kind of based on like what phase in life are you in? Like how does that, how does that work that you've seen? And once again, this is more for my practice and not like statistics and research. I find that my men and women who are in their 20s, it is a lot more of pornography addiction. Although I have people later in life who have it too that like the way they experience sex is not relational. It is it is very much through a screen and then some of the older clients that I have, I see that more of like the classic sex addiction of like I'm I'm using escorts or infidelity or do you?

1:11:46 Think it's because of what they grew up with? Do you think it's just like it's just different? Like culture. Yeah. Culture, preference, accessibility, you know, like I, I'm working with someone who's, you know, later in life and they're like, yeah, when I looked at porn, it was like the Playboy that you stole from the store down the street. Yeah, And it was this, like, physical thing, you know? And then you talk to someone who's like 22 and they're like, I have this magical box in my pocket that shows. Anything. Anything. Any possible thing that I can think of, What's it's like? Roll something, if you can think about it, Porn's already made it. Yeah, it's. The most creative industry out there, seriously, Hollywood, There's no there's no big studios that are turning down any scripts or any projects or anything like that.

1:12:30 They just make everything. Everything. Anything you can think of? So I, I see that that vast difference. I will say a lot of my my older, I don't want to call them older, but people like 30s and above usually come into treatment because of like infidelity. And they got caught or because they chose. There was discoveries sometimes because they chose to, but a lot of time, like there's like this thing that happened, a discovery getting caught, which for a lot of people like can sometimes be a relief. Like I can finally like. Stop. You want, you almost want to get caught. Yeah.

1:13:10 Whereas like my younger clients are like, hey, I'm getting older and it's, I'm really struggling to find a partner. And, you know, right now my partner is my screen, you know, so I see like that difference a lot. And yeah. And then I also work a lot with like betrayed partners. Those are people that have been cheated on. And that can look that can because my my partner never cheated on me with a person but has spent hours a day looking at pornography. So I want to, I want to talk about that. I literally wrote cheating immorality right here. How is that defined? Let's yeah, let's talk about that. What do you, what do you think personally? And then you could tell me, you know, clinically or personally, personally, what you think.

1:13:59 And then yeah, because I'm curious what you think about this. Do you think that someone watching is watching porn is a level of cheating? Like let's say cheating is you have a scale from one to 10 you know, and you have like kids would be a 2A4 and you know sex is A10 and a whole life together is A10 and say maybe you know sex is A7 or an 8. Would porn be like a 3A4? Is that considered even cheating? Like what do you think? It's I love that scale because it's like like am IA little bit cheating. Yeah, because it's not a bit cheating. It's not. It's not. People don't look at things like they're yes or no. They're not. What's the word for it, 01?

1:14:43 It's not, it's not one or the other. I feel like everything, all this stuff is a scale, especially when it comes to subjective relationships, right? Like everyone. Everyone's really. So what do you think? If I it's, it's hard for me to answer what it is. For me personally, that's a vulnerable thing to answer. Sure, if I have 10 couples in a room, I have 10 different definitions of it. Like one couple might like say, porn's a zero. Like, that doesn't bother me. But another couple is like, you know what porn's A10 because they know that when we're actually making love, you're not thinking of me. You're disassociated. And in order to reach orgasm, you have to think about past videos and the disconnect that that has and the way that that can make a partner feel of like I'm not good enough. And the way like self blame comes in of like I'm not good enough to entice you sexually, not realizing that it has nothing to do with you.

1:15:35 It is the reward center of the brain has been completely hijacked. You know, so like I I've seen that and then times, you know, you work with couples who have open marriages and cheating was really like the dishonesty that came along with it, right? So. They'd be OK with being open, but as long as you're not lying to me about it. Yeah, absolutely. There's so many, so many different things, you know, or yeah, infidelity. I I don't care that you're with somebody, but if you cross an emotional line. Oh. It's so interesting. You know, or you looking at somebody and objectifying them is like that to me. Is she?

1:16:18 Sure, right people. My wife makes me look away when we're watching an HBO show, you know, and, and, you know, watching The Sopranos and they're in the strip club and all of a sudden she's like, hey, yeah, what are you doing? I'm like, and then she looks over and I'm already looking away because I already know that she's going to be pissed off at me, you know like I haven't, I didn't tell you I watched the show 4 times already, you know, but and I noticed I know when to look away already before it even happens, you know, but. Well, and that like my desire, my attract, like attraction, yes, these are really sacred beautiful things. And like, do I have an agreement with my partner that my desire and attraction is for them, right? To think of communication needs to be 100 like so you have to have a conversation and say this is what's acceptable to me and this isn't and that could be responded to.

1:17:05 I say, well, you know, I counter this. I counter that this is, you know, I don't, you know, why did I think it should just be a conversation as opposed to naive? Again, no talks about it. My wife and I did not talk about porn. No, before we got married. Yeah, we did not talk about it. We actually, it actually came up because another one of her friends was dealing with something else with someone else that they knew. And and then they kind of just came up and got, oh, oh, is that, you know, is that a thing? And like, you know, but like we're already married, we already have a kid, you know, like, you know, like this is not like, and I blame my, you know, I mean, I, I, I take responsibility for the fact that it should have been a conversation that I had earlier that I probably was not man enough to have. I had a lot of other hard conversations, but I think it's important.

1:17:52 Yeah. And I, I kind of going back to like the love addiction stuff we were talking about too. Like I've had clients like, and you've seen this in the news a lot where a person will like slowly drain their entire retirement and gift cards to another person that they met on the Internet. Like that's how powerful fantasy is, right? And I've never met up with them. I've never, yes, I've never seen them. It's pictures. Sometimes it's phone calls, but like, is that cheating that I've had this entire emotional affair with this other human and we've never even met? I think yes, personally, I would say yes, personally.

1:18:32 There's a show called Traffic. Do you ever hear of it? I have not. It's on Hulu. It's it's a woman, she's been a Rogan a couple of times. Mariana Van Steller, I think is her name. And she does the show's called trafficked and it's she's an investigative journalist and she she goes to the underground all this Four Seasons. Each one is a 45 minutes, an hour long episode on the underground world. So, and one of the big things that she did was love scandals was that people apparently Ghana has a huge culture of they have scripts and and books and videos and they get in it and they W pump is a huge location for wealthy, lonely older people that are on dating sites. You get someone and, and, and a lot of times, you know, when based on the, you know, the, the show, they'd say, like we'd even give these people money and buy them gift cards and give them little things of love and send them flowers and stuff to develop that kind of sense of trust, which is actually, I think I remember we were talking on camera or not about it, but like to lie to tell the little bit of the truth in order to get away with a bigger lie, you know, to like give, to throw you a bone so that you could take something a whole lot bigger than that, you know, while you're playing with the bone. And I think that that happens a lot. Yeah, it does.

1:19:51 And that is like, you know, when I bring up like how devastating like love addiction can be where like here I am, I'm being scammed. And sometimes I paint green or I paint red flags green because like, it felt really good when like, you did show up for me, right? Like when I got that bone and, and just how that plays out, right? And it's kind of going back to, you know, me. I'm married for 50 years and we're kind of roommates at this point. We still love each other, but now I've I've met one of these people online and I'm having this entire thing that's only exists in my mind. Like did I?

1:20:38 Did I treat them? That's one of the most complicated. That's one of the most complicated. Would you do you get cases like that? Yeah, yeah. Where people come in and they say we are just roommates. It feels like. I really, I feel like I just like live with this person. Our relationship is not where it should be. And where do you, what do you expect me to do? Sometimes, yeah, absolutely. And and sometimes it can, it can be like a catalyst that propels this couple into like a completely different relationship, which I've seen be really beautiful too. Oh, really? Yeah, absolutely. I think like I like I have all these like I'm a I'm a seaside, I'm MDR. I do all these things. But like at my core, like I am a therapist who specializes in connection and into the city and whether that's building more connection with myself, with God, with the world around me, with my partner, with parts of me, my sexuality, my desire, all these different things. Like that is I am so excited that I get to do that with people because I see a lot of people do the work and it start to experience connection to all these different things in really new and beautiful ways.

1:21:45 Yeah. So that like, yeah, I, I kind of, I get all types of stuff. But really at its core, it's it's all about. So tell me about the couple dynamics now that we now that now that we're here, I love this. I'm excited because this is I feel like this is like it's all I don't want to call it fun, but there's more, there's more dynamic. It's when you have two living, breathing, conscious parties that are involved, the emergent potential of like what could happen or the potential toolbox that you have to like pull out has to be so much more complicated, so much more diverse, right? Because this is an 18 year old kid that's sitting across from me.

1:22:27 There's a couple that's been married with four kids for 20 years or for 30 years, something like that. But there's a couple that's been together for five years, you know, and it's just starting out their lives together, you know, what do you find? What, what, what? What do you think? It's funny, like I, I love doing it, but I also like I get a lot of anxiety about it too. IA friend of mine used to say this to me all the time back in the day. He said if you want to know what's wrong with you getting a relationship And I do believe that. I think I kind of see it in like through a spiritual ends. I feel like whoever we're partnered with, whether that person is there for life or for a season, I see it in the sense of like we are drawn to the people who are going to teach us a lot about ourselves.

1:23:15 We are going to trigger each other like talking about attachment like anxious and avoid and always tend to find each other. Anxious and avoid and tend to find each other. Tend to find each other. That's interesting. Yeah. What other, what other, what other kind of opposing traits tend to find each other? Well, I think too, it's like we can sometimes we can recreate like things from our childhood. We can like fall in love with the things we swore we'd never fall in love with that were in our caregivers. Or we can do like their reaction formation of like, I'm going to go to the opposite. Yeah. Which is still being controlled by it. Sure. Right.

1:23:57 Yeah. Like, and I'm not an imago therapist, but I think that they do a really good job of exploring that kind of stuff. I've noticed that especially in like in the sex addiction world, that like when you start to kind of peel back the layers, it's like, Oh my gosh, you guys were like always meant to find each other. Oh, really? Yeah. And, and the sense of like, you know, you can have like one of the, the person who's you find out later in sessions that like, oh, yeah. Like my, my parent was a sex addict, you know, and like unconsciously fell in love with a sex addict, right? There's stuff like that that really blows my mind. I was in, so I was in high school. This is my first exposure something like this. And when I was in middle school, this is a firt like the world I grew up in was very sheltered, very wholesome, but and I'm sure an enormous part done by my parents, right, that they purposely, intentionally kept me very innocent, which I really like.

1:24:56 I had no idea how much I appreciate it until I lost that innocence. And I was like, wow, that was amazing, you know, but my, I remember in 7th or 8th grade, there was two kids. The class was small, a small Jewish school. And then maybe there's 10:15 kids in the class, two kids, one kids, mom, something other kids dad. And they ended up getting divorced and then the parents end up getting married, right. And I was good friends with actually both kids. And it was very, it was incredibly difficult for the, because they were friends. They were in the basketball team together. They were buddies there, you know, they knew each other and this is big. This is like public news. This was not like just kind of whispers. This was verified, you know, divorced and like they're living in a house together. Remarried, you know, I'm like, and then years late in high school, you know, I think 12th grade, he was having a hard time with whatever and he cheated on his girlfriend and, you know, and a bunch of his friends abandoned him for that.

1:25:54 And I remember this was towards the end of the year and like, we're like, especially 12th grade and like, you don't know what life is going to be happening. You're mature enough to know that. Like you got to be mature, but you're not mature enough to know what that means. And so we're sitting around a bonfire kind of just a contemplating life. I'm always have my heart broken. I think my heart broken. My heart was broken at that point. And I was like, why? Like you saw what your, what your, what one parent did to the other, Like, how can you, how can you do that? And he's like, I, he's like, hey, you look at me, he goes, I've no, I, I've swear to God, he goes, I've no idea. I just felt like this incredible, just like pull, just like I just needed to do it. And like you're just something like, it was like, like I just had to make it just had to happen.

1:26:36 And he goes and I felt like piece of shit about it, you know, but I just like I just couldn't pull myself away from like that's the thing I needed to do. And I don't know where you know, and and you know, I hope he's the truth is I haven't kept in touch with him and I hope he's doing well, but I feel like that's like that's a lot of people where you end up, you know, but you go through something that hurts you. It's something that like you see, has such detrimental effects, Like what pulls us to like pursue that ourselves? I don't know, you know, and it's scary because until we figure that out, we're kind of doomed to keep on repeating the same thing, right? I. Think Life has this really amazing way of bringing up the same stuff.

1:27:17 The script's different, the characters are different, but the themes are the same until we, like, figure it out. Yeah, you know, And like, I hear that. And it's. Yeah, I. Because I see that thing happen all the time, right? Like I grew up with an alcoholic parent and I swore that I would never. Drink. And then I'm in my 20s, and I'm going to rehab because now I'm an alcoholic. Right? Like, we become the thing that we resist. Yeah. And I think part of it, you know, two things came up for me while you were sharing that. And 1 was like, sometimes, like, we revisit the scene of the crime and we, like, play different roles. And I think the other thing that comes up for me is like the carbon triangle, which is especially like you see it kind of, I see it a lot in, in divorce where you have the perpetrator, the victim and the savior, right?

1:28:11 And one parent cheats, they become the perpetrator, right? The parent who was not cheating, they're the victim, right? And then the kid is forced to pick a side. So they become the savior to the victim, right? And then it's this dance that people kind of go back and forth in. And I think a lot of us can get trained in that relationally as children, as teenagers. And and then here we are in our relationship in our, you know, when we're 1920 and we shifted into the 30 or 40 what? Do you hope, you know hope or not I can grab that you hope not. And we can find ourselves like doing the same roles that were taught to us as kids switching around. And I remember I heard someone say this like, I can play all three roles in an afternoon.

1:28:55 Like especially with shame, like I can release talk negatively to myself, which I'm the perpetrator, Then you know, the beer becomes my savior. Yeah. And I'm really my own victim. So it's, it's, I know that came up for me as, as you were saying that as we kind of get trained in that and then dance around in different roles and bring that into future relationships until those things are healed, right, You know, and even after they're healed, it still takes a lot. Of work, you know, do you hear a couple stories usually end up well, usually. Yeah, most of the time, yeah. And that's not to say like, you know, divorce doesn't happen and and people don't separate it, but for the most part, most people come in because they want to stay together.

1:29:39 It feels like it feels like cheating is like the ultimate abandonment of a relationship, right? Like, I feel like, you know, you could take a bad husband or wife can get away with a lot of things. You know, they can get away with not being present, with spending money recklessly, with not being emotionally active or invested. They can get away with like bad friends or bad community. And like, you know, there's like a line with like cheating that like you can't like it's very, very difficult to get trust back. What do you, what do people do to do? How do you frame it in such a way that people can try and get trust back after, you know, especially when you're putting in the lens of some kind of addiction like porn or sex addiction or process addiction like that? Well, firstly, like I remind people that like trust is yours to give somebody like it's not theirs to have like that's yours.

1:30:38 Because I think it's like, that's like one of the first things is like, oh, this is my thing that I have in a relationship and I need to protect it. You know, I at 1st and kind of what you were saying earlier, I think of like Esther Perrell when she talks about like how the old shame was divorce and now the new shame is staying in a marriage when you can leave, right? And I've, we've seen that kind of shift in culture. It is. So first to kind of go through like a bunch of stuff to answer your question.

1:31:23 Yes, trust. Let's do it. So first thing is, especially with sex addiction, there's a couple of ways that people find out. There are discoveries, which is I saw the lipstick on the collar, I went through my wife's phone and I saw the text messages. You forgot to delete your browser history. Like all the things. And these discoveries can be incredibly painful. And they're usually followed by like a short disclosure. That's not a whole disclosure, but it's enough to like let you know like, hey, this is what happened.

1:32:05 And you see this with a lot of couples that they will go through so many of those and it becomes like this death by 1000 cuts. We know that it is. It is a horrific thing to keep experiencing that every couple of months. Yeah, it's heartbreaking. To want to believe your spouse and, and on top of that, then there's like things like the gaslighting, right? Where like there's the lipstick on the collar and I'm convincing you that it's yours, you know, or I know you saw the browser history, but that was from before and where you get somebody who loves you to question their own reality and and then start to go crazy from it. That's the meat. I feel like that's the most terrible thing that you could do to someone.

1:32:47 Yeah, it's a form of abuse. It's yeah, but it's more than it's like, because not only are you shouting because I think there's like any kind of relationship, there's the individual components and then there's the relationship at large. And you're shattering the relationship at large and the other individual at the same time. And that is like, like, it's one thing if you're going to break your relationship and that is sad and, you know, terrible in its own, you know, for its own reasons in its own way. But like to make someone else think for years that they're delusional from, you know, just like just constantly feed them half truths that make them doubt themselves. Every step along the way is like such an unnecessary harm. And Neo Mitting. Yeah. Because I'll let you develop a story that I know is not true. And and to kind of come over onto the attic side a little bit.

1:33:33 It's it's survival. It's I am in this constant state of survival. This thing that I do is the way that I cope with life. I'm terrified of losing my, my partner. I'm in this fight or flight all the time. And so I use gaslighting and I use lying. And I'm not saying this is OK. I'm just saying like it's, it becomes a tool and where it almost it becomes unconscious too, where like I just lie so much. I don't even know what the truth is anymore, you know, So it's, I have like compassion for both sides. Because when the especially when I'm sitting with the addict and we're doing that work, like the amount of shame and guilt and self hatred that comes along with realizing like, I did this thing compulsively and I couldn't stop. It breaks your heart.

1:34:21 And then you sit with the betrayed partner who's like, I don't know what's real anymore, you know, and I've lost my mind, you know, And this isn't just with sex addiction. This is with substance use. Yeah. With, you know, a parent loving a child who's addicted to heroin. Like this is it's these dynamics kind of they, they play out a lot. And then how do you build trust when that, when these things are happening and you've had a death by 1000 cuts. So usually somebody comes in to treatment and like some sobriety is, is established. I So what we do next is what you would call formal disclosure. And usually the partners working with a CSAT and the, the betrayed partner and the, the sex sex addict is also working with the CSAT and you roughly begin to do that work or you roughly have a disclosure around the three to six month part. Like anymore, it's can be really cruel to the betrayed partner who's like, I'm just trying to like get some clarity, you know, And it's, it is a, it is a really rough process because it's, it's really like the betrayed partners, like they come up with the questions.

1:35:36 What's the room like? What's it like being in that room? Is it like, is it like there's a blanket on the room? Is it, is it crying? Is it dark? Is it exhausted with, you know, like, hopefully? Above but like then also at times where it's like really vulnerable and connecting and beautiful, you know, it's like. Is that weigh on you at any point? Yeah, it does. Yeah. I, I can overempathize. That's like my sure. And I, I have to like constantly work on that where I'm like, hey, Chris, this is not yours to feel. And it's it can be. What do you, what do you do to to read the channel, I guess to kind of shift away from that it's.

1:36:19 My own work, you know, I I see a therapist and there. You go. That's helpful. I do a lot of. Consultation and I do a lot of supervision with other therapists. Right. Do you exercise? Do you do things like that? Exercise. I try to eat healthy. I I've been doing this like where I go to Delray Beach every morning and I watch the sunrise and I go for a walk there. Nice. And you could probably do it at a decent time too, right? It's like 7730. I could go around like 536. I like it. Like when it's dark. Nice, you know, I like what am I doing to feed my soul and then the boundaries that I have like I'm not answering calls or emails after a certain time. I'm not working on these days, no matter what. I'm saying yes to things even when, like, my nervous systems, like I want to lay in bed and watch TikTok for an hour, like just bedrock, you know?

1:37:15 And instead, I'm like, I'm going to go out with my friends and I'm going to, like, talk about, you know, things that are not super traumatic. Yeah, for. Other people and then oscillating back and forth of like dealing with the stuff that comes up for me, and then like, yeah, I'm going to go have the cheesecake. Nice. You know. Yeah. And yeah, just like a lot of regulation, a lot of grounding, a lot of that kind of stuff. Gotcha, gotcha, gotcha. Anyway, yeah, so, so we're talking so relationship trust, that room's heavy a lot of times. Once that happened once. So I guess, yeah, I guess when people are going to therapy, it shows that it shows that they want to try, right?

1:37:57 It shows that they want their relation to work. Do a lot of people come to you after they're ready, after their marriage has already fallen apart and they're like, well, now I need to get this off because I don't want this to be my life. Yeah, like in all stages, you know, if people who've already separated but like, want a Full disclosure. Yeah. Oh, that's interesting. Like so that they can like, stop questioning themselves all the time. I think the partner probably owes it to them, right? Yeah, absolutely. And like, and then there's these other parts of it which are like the impact. Yeah. And we're the betrayed partner. Like it's to say, like, hey, this discovery impacted me like this. My relationship with my own sexuality has changed because of this, like me not feeling good enough sexually, like I could ever compete with whatever the thing was and thinking that was mine.

1:38:51 I inherited that from you, right? The self blame that comes with it. There's there's all these kind of domains that are really interesting to explore and the the betrayed partner really gets to own that. And then there's restitution where the addict is like, Hey, I'm going to validate you and I'm going to, you know, you're absolutely right. This is what I did too. This is what my gaslighting did too. And I see that that can be such a powerful process. And the the goal is to make it as least traumatic as possible. Even though it is it, it can be a really traumatic process. Totally, totally. Last question, 222. Last questions, everyone.

1:39:33 We talked about a little bit in passing. You actually brought it up before I did, but I'm happy you did when you met kosher phones. Yeah. And social media. So I want to just talk about that and then I want to ask you about what's next for you. But let's, that'll be the last question. So let's, let's talk about kosher phones and to explain what a kosher phone is because you brought it up to me. So you educate me and, and, and then social media and stuff like that. Because I know for myself again, that I mentioned to this here when we met last week, that the sometimes the, the biggest triggers for me, the biggest challenges that I have will be 1/2 a second social media clip on. Instagram or Twitter or, you know, whatever it is where like something just like flashes across the screen, trigger them, triggers my like, boom, that's, you know, attractive, that's whatever, blah, blah.

1:40:22 And I just like, I feel the hijack just happened, you know? And that's when like social media is like, is that in my red or is that in my yellow? Like it is in a hard red and unfortunately it's still there. Yeah, or like what? What do I have in place? Another seaside actually. And I've been meaning to do this with my phone. She does it where her iPhone if she's on an app for 15 minutes, you can set a timer. Yes, it'll kick you off And I didn't know that existed so I I need to use it. Yeah, I use that. I, I had that for when I had Twitter and I had X on my phone, I put 45 minutes a day for X and Instagram. And but the problem is that you could still like just go back, you could ignore it if you want, like you could be like. And that kind of also feeds into the whole like, shame, you know, process.

1:41:11 You're like, I'm such an idiot. And you just keep on clicking like, okay, another 15 minutes, another 15 minutes, you know, and. And what's interesting in that is like, I know it's 15 minutes of disassociation followed by like a couple second break. I would invite people to notice what it's like in their body, in their mind when they're kicked off, what it's like wanting to get back on, and then what it's like when they get back on and it's too challenging. But it's like I felt my cortisol rise. Yeah, and. I felt it go down. Yeah, it's that's, that's such an interesting process. I so I've worked, I've worked at a couple different treatment centers. I've worked a lot with Jewish communities, Orthodox communities, acidic communities, with these issues with mental health, with substance use.

1:42:03 And kosher phones came up like a while ago and I love them. Yeah, because it's. Explain what they are if you don't mind. Where I don't have access to the Internet, it's could be a flip phone. I know that there's like, I have really smart clients who are like, I can get pictures still. Yeah, you know when I can like do things like that, but it is like I look at it as. Even that at that point, the degree of the damage done is similar to like having to run down the block to go to Playboy magazine as opposed to going on your phone and watching a hardcore a hardcore pornography video. Yeah, I'm. And I'm a huge fan of, like, putting as many barriers between me and the thing as possible. Yeah. Because yeah, like, I can't just reach for it in my phone anymore.

1:42:45 I have to walk downstairs to the computer. Correct. Right. So it's for some of my clients and this is like a really difficult thing to navigate because these are so addictive and I'm holding my phone right now. I've few phones, yeah. Which is, you know. I've I've contemplated getting a second phone and I can't bring myself to do it. I mean. I did it to separate like work and. Do you find that it works well? Yeah. You, you, you have a good job. You can do a good job compartmentalizing it. Because I, I put my work phone on the charger and then I'm like cut off from it and where it was when it was on my phone, it was just constantly texts, things like that. Cool.

1:43:27 And now I can like, really take a break. But having that conversation with like, hey, you know, is your smartphone like something that we need to put in the red circle? No. It's not, it's such a hard sell, right? It's such a how do you how do you sell it? I I let it play out. Everything I do is invitation. Although I did find out that suggestion when you look it up, one of the definitions is subtle command. Oh man, but you're just a propaganda artist. Everything I do is invitation. And it's really like in a non judgmental way of like letting people kind of come to the on their own and like, hey, this isn't forever like right now to establish like sobriety, like maybe we need to switch phones.

1:44:12 And I've had a lot of people who like where like that will never happen and then come into my office 3 months later, they're like, yeah, I had to get rid. Of that I really want to do it yeah, I really really want to do it and I tell myself I can't because I work for my phone and emails and blah blah but 95% of the time whoever my phone is, my laptop is and I don't necessarily need for that to be the case and and. When you're not doing it on a smartphone like I've people become like amazingly, like they can get their emails done and like they can answer them from this time on my computer and. But even I'll even enjoy going to the supermarket more. I'll even enjoy going to the, you know, driving, driving to the gym in the morning, Like when I'm driving to the gym in the morning and I'm not scrolling on Twitter.

1:44:55 I'm not, you know, checking to see, you know, the next text or notification that I'm getting. And I can just enjoy the drive for the drive and I can just enjoy the activity of being in the supermarket. I when when you talk to a cashier, when you say hi to someone that's like get, you're reaching for the same thing as you. Like, those are like sparks that make that, that make your day. You know, that like that make us human and, and it's, and our phone separates us from those. I, I know for myself, like I got my headphones and I got my podcast, I'm listening to, I got the music I'm jamming out to, you know, I'm on the phone talking to whoever it is and I'm ignoring the entire world's around me. I don't, I never feel better about doing that. Like I don't walk out, you know, I don't walk away and be like, that was a full experience.

1:45:35 I walk away and I'm like, what? What did I just do? Like where did the time just go? Yeah, absolutely. And I I think of the study I was reading not that long ago where they show cortisol raising, rising in people's bodies the minute they put their phone down. And then when they pick it up, the cortisol starts to lower. Yeah. Right. And to be that physically addicted to something terrifies me. So yeah, that's the that's the first thing that comes up. And then I, I think about, I went to this retreat like six or seven months ago where we were not allowed to have our phones for six days. It's a long time. It was a long time. What was day 2 like? Or three? Because I feel like after that it gets easier, right?

1:46:16 It did. I like the phantom vibrate. I could feel my thigh vibrate all the time. I would reach for it all the time. Someone would bring up something I didn't understand. And I'm like, oh, I want to Google that. Like it's there's just so many things throughout the day. By the last day, they gave us our phones back that night. And I had just connected with these complete strangers who, like, became my family in six days. There was like this really deep therapy retreat thing. And we all were like, I don't even want this. Yeah. And the amount of connection that came as a result of not having it and all the work that everybody was doing was absolutely phenomenal. And I admittedly, I feel like I'm, I'm, I'm in a good place.

1:47:02 You're going to get you keep you keep a smartphone from work and you get a kosher phone for for your own life. Yeah, but. No, it's it's. You do it, I'll do it. OK, We'll hold each other responsible for that. OK, We'll both, we'll get, we'll go to AT&T, we'll get one of those phones or Verizon with Waze on it. So that's because that's all you really need. And then you then you got your your work phone for work and you got your kosher phone for deliver a healthy life. And what's so sick is like. You're not going to do. It no, no, like I understand with you. Yeah, 100%. I know that doing what you just suggested would make my life so much better. Yeah, right. Than my relationship with things. And there's a part of me that's like, don't don't even look at it. Yeah, don't look at my phone.

1:47:49 It's and there's a part of me that recognizes that like that is totally valid and I I'm going to sit with it and really think about it. So take me up on it if you if you decide I. Will, I will, because that is that is. Yeah. It's yeah. I love that I have to really sit with those two parts of myself and then fight it out. I'm sure it'll be fun, I'm sure I'm sure it'll be quite do do in the morning. Do it you know, in your in your sunset, sunrise, sunrise hangout, you know, just think about. That I try to that's actually like one of my best friends. She turned me on to it. Like slow mornings where I'm not looking at a screen, I'm not checking emails, The first thing I'm doing is not picking up my phone. I'm making coffee, I'm going to the beach to watch the sunrise and talking to God.

1:48:35 Like I'm doing all these things that like really center me for the day. And then I had the mornings where I pick this up and I want to look at TikTok and I'm like, and that wakes me up, you know, and, and the way that it messes with my cortisol through the day, like it's, that's a noticeable difference. I kind of feel like I use it. I, I, if I know I have to get up and like be up and about, I'll jump on my phone for a thing. And if I know that like I have a long morning ahead of me or like it's OK, then I'll leave it on the side. And also that'll take my time. But like, I try to go to jujitsu two or three times a week and like, those mornings where the alarm goes off at six and like, I don't want to get up. And I know that I know that I really do want to get up. And so like, I'll hop my phone and check my notifications. It just, it just flips my brain right on, you know, And I know it's probably not even a healthy fee. Yeah, it's crazy.

1:49:23 It's crazy. But I don't even know if it's a healthy acceleration, you know, to go from just waking up, wanting to go back to sleep, rolling over. And they'd be like, like, you know, what notifications did I get? What's happening on what's happening in the world on Twitter, you know, and like, but yeah, I think I prefer for it to not be the case. So what's next for you? What do we hope? What do we hope? Is it going to be the case in a year or five or ten? What are we? What are we generally generally hoping for? I that's such a good question. I like, I think I, I will always in some way have like a private practice. Like I love that I get to do this.

1:50:06 I think I said earlier, I'm training in somatic experiencing and psychodrama right now. Like there are two modalities that I find so exciting, especially with doing this work. So I know that those are my next kind of like credential accomplishments. I want to go back to school. Yeah, I want to, I want to go back to school, either APHD or a DSWI want to do research and practice. I want to do research around arousal template. I just this fascinating endlessly fascinates me. And yeah, and I, I would also one day, like I, I wanna, I wanna teach. You want to teach.

1:50:51 I do. Teaching is awesome, by the way. I love it. Yeah, I, I've done it in like group therapy where I'm like teaching concepts and things like that. But like to, I had a professor who said to me, he's like, I knew I wanted to help people and I wanted to teach people how to help people. And I was like that you just articulated exactly what I want. Yeah, so. Beautiful. Yeah. Well, I think it'd be a great teacher. I think, I think it'd be, I think it'd be. I think it'd be wonderful. Even just based on this conversation. There's a class, you know, there's a 2 hour, it's 2 hour master class. So master class, it's a 2 hour class on, on all this. I think it's really, I think that these conversations help with the feeling of loneliness and isolation and that I'm the only person in the world that has this problem. And I'm the only person in the world that no one gets what it's like to, you know, to like, have these urges. And like, you're just a person.

1:51:45 You're just a guy, you're just a girl, you're just a man, you're just a woman. You're just, you're just an adult. You're just, you're just a human being. And like we have that. And like, you can like, like, I know that, you know, I know that it's hard, you know that it's hard, you know, and we can work through it together. And I think that bit of hope is just so valuable. Absolutely. And I, yeah, I love that. Thank you. Chris, thanks so much for coming on now. I really appreciate it. It's such a pleasure and I hope we use this again. We will do this again, I'm sure. And as we're going different points, you know, different points in life and as you're up to different things and learning new things and hope you text me and be like, Hey, I just you know, I got some fun new things that I want to do.

1:52:27 I want to talk about. We can do podcast again. I would love, but this will be next time, next time I have to come up to you make that trip up to West Palm. But thanks so much for doing this. I really appreciate it. Thank you so much. Bye everyone.