Health
Loneliness, Addiction and Connection with Niklas Jonnson
In this episode of Hacken Your ADHD, host William Purb speaks with Niklas Jonnson, a best-selling author and executive coach, about the intersections of loneliness, addiction, and the importance of co...
Loneliness, Addiction and Connection with Niklas Jonnson
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Interactive Transcript
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Welcome to Hacken your ADHD. I'm your host, William Purb, and I have ADHD. On this podcast,
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I dig into the tools, tactics, and best practices to help you work with your ADHD brain.
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Hey team, today I'm talking with Nick Johnson, a best-selling author, executive coach, and
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co-founder of Executives Global Network. Nick is the author of Executive Loan Linus,
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the five pathways to overcome an isolation, stress, anxiety, and depression in the modern
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business world. His work focuses on helping leaders tackle isolation, burnout, and addiction,
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while finding healthier, more sustainable ways to succeed. Now, I realize that doesn't seem
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particularly ADHD-focused, or what I usually cover in the podcast. But I thought this would be a
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good interview to take on, because adults with ADHD have a substantially increased risk of substance use
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disorder. And so while Nick's work doesn't specifically cover ADHD, there is still a lot that I
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think we can glean from this. In our conversation, Nick shares his own journey through loneliness,
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denial, and alcohol addiction, and how vulnerability and connection became essential tools for his
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recovery. We dig into practical strategies for opening up and safe spaces, however replace harmful
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coping mechanisms with meaningful activities, and creating accountability systems that support
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long-term well-being. We also touch on how social media and other modern habits can quietly feed
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into our loan lilies, and what it takes to build resilience against them. If you'd like to follow
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along on the show notes page, you can find that at hackingradHD.com slash 248.
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All right, keep on listening as we explore the hidden cost of loneliness.
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I would love to hear start with just some of your story and about this idea of loneliness that I
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think is really prevalent for a lot of people nowadays. Well, I suffered from loneliness myself,
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and if you ask me when I was right in it, I would be full-blown denial about it. I wouldn't admit
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that I was lonely. It's now looking back at it, and it was about 10 years ago. I isolated my
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end of workplace, and then I withdraw from home. So I resigned from a job and filed for my divorce.
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That was some of the issues that happened to me when I went into that dark hole you could say.
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I mean, I think it's really interesting too that you say that in reflection that it's like,
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you're like, oh, I was in this pit of loneliness, but at the time, I didn't realize it.
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Because it feels like something that you should like, oh, yeah, I know when I'm lonely,
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but oftentimes it's when we feel alone, it feels like there's a reason for it. It's not like,
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we're like, oh, I'm not seeking connections. It's just like, this is, it's shame, and all these
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other things that are piled on and like, oh, I deserve this kind of fate. Yeah, certainly.
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And I think many times loneliness is built from perhaps a lack of connection, perhaps a lack of trust.
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It could be in the workplace, for example, if we have some challenges and a lot of my work is
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touching on addictions, especially alcoholism and so on. And if someone is suffering from an alcohol
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addiction, naturally in the workplace, then you do everything you can to hide that. You're trying
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to show that you're functioning. You want to show up, you want to deliver and so on. And therefore,
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you know, maybe you withdraw your distance and you isolate yourself and you're avoiding all the
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conversations, perhaps with your colleagues and direct reports and bosses because you've worried
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that they will find out. Therefore, you become further withdrawn and isolated. It can be any addiction
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or any mental health issues that we suffer from. I see the similar behavior in withdrawing and
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isolating oneself as a form of protecting ourselves. I've seen a lot of parallels here with this idea
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of masking that a lot of people with mental health conditions do where they just pretend that
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they're like, everything's fine. And you know, you have two phases that you show and it's
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incredibly draining to have that be where this is who I am on the outside, but on the inside,
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I'm feeling completely different. Yeah, it's so true. And I can remember in the job I was referring
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that I resigned from actually had a very good connection with my boss. We used to have barbecue
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at her place on Sundays, but I was going through some challenges at the time and I didn't open
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up about those. Looking back at it, you know, if I would have come and knocked the door and shared
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what I was going through, I'm 100% sure she would have supported me, but that was not how I saw it.
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I was right in it and I couldn't see that I should have just asked for help, I should have asked
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for support and I should have dared to be bit vulnerable. And these days, I'm talking a lot about
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vulnerability that we can build up some trust and we don't have to be too worried about being judged.
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The direct report and the boss is there to help us and I think we can have a chance to strengthen
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our relationship by being a little bit vulnerable. I'm not at all advocating for oversharing here
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but if we are going through some challenges and it's work related and can affect how we perform,
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then it's better to flag that and say how can we solve this together?
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Yeah, absolutely because it does seem that there's these issues that we, if we vary them,
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it's not going to get better. It's going to fester instead.
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Yeah, absolutely. I think everything does that if we just leave it there.
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Because there are certain things in life you're like, oh, I just I put that off and it got better,
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but this does not feel like one of those issues where we're ever going to get out of it by not
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actually addressing it. We're fully aligned then and that was the issue, and I went around with
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having that same issue played on my head for one year. In fact, it was some issues related to my work
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that started this. I was doing really well in business development, great in sales,
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that on the back of that we had to pitch for a lot of projects. There were also a lot of numbers,
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a lot of spreadsheets and I'm not very good with numbers. So I might have done some mistakes there.
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It might be some issues, some challenges in there that I might have missed. And Robert,
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by then open up to my team and share that with them and asking them to please double check it,
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have my back go to my boss and ask for extra resources to someone check it. I didn't want to open
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up about that because I would thought that this might be seen as a weakness. So instead I
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signed off things that I wasn't overly confident that it was correct. And even until today,
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I don't know if there was some mistakes in there. But just the fact that I didn't share openly
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about those mistakes, that started to play on my head and I thought maybe there's some issues there.
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And it went as far as as soon as my phone rang in the office. I was certain that it was my boss
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calling me and telling me to come over to the office and terminate me. As soon as there's an email
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coming in from my boss, I started to think that this must be it, there was something bad. So I
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in the end, it went so far in my own head that I resigned from the job because I thought at
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least then I'm in charge of this situation rather than be caught out. And it was all just things
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I made up in my mind. There was no reality to it. The stories we say in our head become
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feel like the reality. And then you can go talk to the person and they're like, oh, this is what
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the story I've been telling and then they go, that is not the story that I have.
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Thinking this through, what are some of the ways that people can start kind of moving into the
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direction of correcting for this? Because it's easy to be like, yeah, we should open up with
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vulnerability to people. That's also something that it's incredibly hard to just do off the bat.
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It feels a lot of people are just going to feel overwhelmed by that idea of like, oh, I know what
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to do, but I have no idea how to do it. Yes. And we need to start small and we need to start in
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a safe space and a starting point can be just in a relationship one on one where we can practice
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that vulnerability muscle just like we train our muscles into gym and they get bigger. The vulnerability
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is the same. We start small and then we expand from there and do it in a safe space and think about
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if you have a friend who you trust or do you have a colleague you trust or do you have someone
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you worked with before perhaps someone externally who you look up to perhaps someone who is
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sort of a mentor someone a few years older than you then ask for their permission to meet up for
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a coffee or go for a walk and say that you know you have something on your mind that you would like
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to share something that you're going through and ask them if they would be there for you. So you're
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setting the scene and then once you have that you know say that you know this is something that is
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confidential please keep it between us. So you're actually setting those parameters so they
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understand that this is something sensitive so it doesn't leak out and then you can start sharing
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and I'm a big believer in starting this vulnerability and building our relationships a bit deeper
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in the good times so that when the bad times come and they come to all of us we will experience
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loss in our lives and therefore if we have established and built these relationships in the good
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times we are ready for the tougher times and especially for us men who are so bad at this in general
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we intend to be a bit more open a bit more vulnerable they tend to have perhaps two three friends who
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there have quite closer themselves who they will call and they will share them they going through
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something but as men typically we just isolate when we face a crisis and we don't haven't picked up
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those connections naturally so therefore we don't have the natural tendency to pick up the phone
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and call someone in the same way so therefore I would say that we need to be proactive about this and
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that's what I'm advocating for and why I'm sharing that here today and if someone doesn't have a
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friend then there are you know all these hotlines help lines you have a 12-step programs if someone
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is suffering from addiction there is something for everyone there full of volunteers ready to help
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of course you also have coaches and therapists and so on who you can talk to and of course they will
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be confidential and there will be a safe space to share yeah and I know also with approaching things
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from like online groups can also be helpful too because you do have that aspect of being anonymous
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that can be really helpful for people that are like because often a lot of these things they feel
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like so much shame around it because it just feels that I should be able to do this I shouldn't be
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feeling these feelings and those are kind of dangerous because it makes it so much harder to open
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up when you feel you shouldn't be feeling the feelings in but you can't actively control how
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you're feeling about a situation that easily yeah and it's so true and especially if we grown up by
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being told you know that we shouldn't cry many boys perhaps at least our generation have grown up
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they you know a big boys don't cry and you know be a man and it's still still those kind of you
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know saying so still around today even though they fortunately are getting outdated and it is okay
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to show our feelings and to open up increasingly which is a blessing and I see that in a younger
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generation I have a teenage son and we can discuss quite openly about his feelings and thoughts and
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while I've hardly ever had such a conversation with my dad who is a 70 plus now.
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The Amtrakathika if I had any of those conversations with my dad as an adult probably as a
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child there were some in there but he has an adult I don't think that was something we ever
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really went through because that was just not something that was on the radar of important
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conversations but it is and the simile I with my children I always try to be very open but like hey
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I'm amazed how just giving more communication of like how I'm feeling in a situation when I'm like
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hey you need to be I'm feeling very on edge right now if you could like back off from this thing
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you're trying to do it'd be great and then being like oh yeah that's and I understand the situation
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rather than just letting it escalate it goes much smoother usually and I believe that's the
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right place to be to be present to try to understand asking some open question and just be curious
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to understand what's there and then when we lead by example and explaining also if we are
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feeling a bit stressed and if we're feeling some challenges then share those in front of the
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people around us who love us and and you know just be a bit open and say I'm not feeling my best
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today you know I have this test coming up or I have this assignment I'm working on I'm a little
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bit stressed about it but then say oh but what I'm gonna do I'm gonna go for a walk in the forest
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now and then when we come back we can show I feel much better now so they can see the progress
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and I think at least for kids they will they will copy us as adults I do quite a lot of sport
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myself and I never have to tell my son to go and do his exercise because he's seen me exercising
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most of the days when we are together for example yeah it is buddy how much that kids pick up from
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you without you saying anything at all and just being like oh if I'm the example that's I become
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the blueprint for how they think you should live and then I'm being like oh well that's how it is
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I really need to be making sure I'm telling a good example here absolutely one of the things I
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was also thinking about here because we talked a little bit about alcoholism earlier and addiction
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as being often a coping mechanism for these feelings when they don't being like I don't want to feel
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these feelings that I'm feeling so I'm gonna turn to alcohol or any number of other addictions
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where it's like I can just kind of space myself out from what I'm feeling tell me a little bit about
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going through addiction and coming back from that like I was said something that
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yeah just give it to you there yeah so if I'm looking at my own life the case I spoke through before
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when I started to get some challenges mentally about my workplace when I isolated myself
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because I didn't speak up because I didn't ask for help I needed some way to cope with it and
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what I did was basically trading my gym membership for a bar stool and the healthy diet of fast food
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and pizza and I started to drink off the work and needed to you know have a few drinks off the
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work to wind down to forget about the challenges and issues and the pain that I had in the workplace
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and I started to understand well oh this is working you know I go to the bar off to have a few
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drinks and I feel a bit better but of course having done that then up to a year almost every day
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more or less then you know I had gained a lot of weight I lost all my fitness and this starts to
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become a very bad habit for me that eventually it tipped over to an addiction and I was in full
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blown denial about it and you know we hear so many people saying that you know I need a drink to
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wind down off the work why deserve it I worked hard and but in the end it seems like we then are
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drinking over the challenges we're drinking over the stress we're drinking then we celebrate some
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contract with in the end it just become full circle and as we know alcohol is the depressions
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more is happening than to the mornings is that you're starting to have you know hangovers and they
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get worse and worse and worse and more anxiety and in the end then you know we clearly are not
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drinking to be happy but we're drinking to medicate ourselves to just go through life and that's
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the stage I reached eventually I had become addicted just like someone can become addicted to coffee
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or cigarettes I had become addicted to alcohol but in this world in this society that's full of
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stigma there someone to admit that I have a problem with alcohol people are wondering what's wrong
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with that person so that is the issue that I was going through and facing and that's what I see in
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so many hours as well it's the it's easy to step out and say that you know I'm a smoker and I'm
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addicted to the struggle to quit then to say that I'm struggling to quit with alcohol that's at
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least what I see yeah there's always seems to be some sort of hierarchy to addiction where like
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people are like oh this is a problem that you have because of this but there's the what people
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often feel is the very like self-inflicted thing where it's just like well if you know it's a problem
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you should quit but it's of course not that easy it's definitely not that easy and the
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without alcohol for example it's a highly addicted drug and once you train your body to get used to
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medicating yourself with it to calm yourself down then you know once you have trained your body to
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know well if I have two three drinks I feel better and the body will certainly remember that then
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you have that physical craving kicking in and then before you know it you know you go to that space
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to the feel better than the issue is after two three drinks if you become addicted you can't really
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stop and that was in my case so the last sort of two years until I hit my rock button in 2018 I had
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had also become you know a day drink I needed to have a drink during the day to calm my nerves to
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be able to just function I didn't and party or drink to have fun anymore you know it was no fun in it
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with any yeah addiction it's becomes just life it doesn't become why you started and it's something I
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know with ADHD is very common to have there's a lot of addictions that people go through because of
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the dopamine cycles where they're like oh I need to feel good and then it can quickly spiral out
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of control where it's just like yeah this is now who I am and the first step I always have to
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admit see is that you have to acknowledge that there's some sort of problem and how do we
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someone get to that point where they're like oh yeah this is a problem yeah and that is the
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challenge because most people would be in full blown denial because if addiction is running the
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life you know controlling us then it's only perhaps when we're so sick and tired of being sick
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and tired that we desperately ask for help and we're talking about the rock button here and rock
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button is different for everyone you know and most people are not willing to make that big switch
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until something catastrophic happen typically it's perhaps a loss of health or like in my case or
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perhaps you know they've done some serious damage to themselves the body or they lost a
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job of finances so it's divorce it's very very common that it's the partner that jumps in I used
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to have the AA which is alcoholics anonymous hotline in Singapore where people would call in
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you know if they had issues with alcohol but nine out of ten calls would be the partner and
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typically the woman the wife then calling and about the husband drinking too much you know and
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crying and begging and asking for help how can I make him stop and and that's normally the wake-up
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call and then it's about you know asking that person to come together both of them to come to
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a meeting and getting the help they need because once you come into the first meeting which is what
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I found then the doors to recovery is open it's that first step that is so difficult and we do
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everything we can to avoid it and it doesn't have to be alcohol can be for any addiction and issues
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in the world I mean we have drug addictions but also we have growing trends of social media addictions
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we have gambling addictions and so on and it's the same for all of them once we meet like
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minded who've gone through it before and we get that support and we start to just open up and
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release it that's where the path to recover your lies yeah and so one of the questions that's
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coming up for me here is so yeah rock bottom is a very easy place for people to be like oh yeah this
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is a problem are there ways people can like kind of self-reflect and kind of get there before they
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hit those points where they're like because obviously we don't want to go to rock bottom for
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digging yourself out of a hole we'd like to come up from a better place
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so I have myself actually educating myself in London at the sober club where I'm now a sober coach
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working with people who are sort of in the grey zone let's say that we can call them grey zone
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so it's someone who's perhaps want to challenge their relationship with alcohol perhaps it's
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doing some damage to the health the finances of the relationships and they want to take
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ownership for this and then it doesn't have to be as most of the 12 step programs is set up on
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a hundred percent abstinence hundred percent stop and that step can be quite big and especially
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for someone who perhaps is not there and if you're having a little bit of problem why would you
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come into a recovery meeting to say hi my name is an almond alcoholic if you're not sure you are
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and maybe it's not that big of a problem the issue is that there's not much support in that middle
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space so that's why now we have these sober coaches which I've educated myself and I'm working
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with quite a lot of men and women to help them that just like someone want to pick up a fitness
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habit they want to eat healthier and we can go and see nutritionist now there's also the help for
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anyone in that grey zone and then it's about mapping out you know what is the the pros and cons
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of that you're getting from alcohol and getting an understanding and setting some goals and milestones
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and just measure it and look after it and and making that positive switch what I say is the most
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important here is if you want to remove something from your life and let's say in alcohol for example
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alcohol might give you the social life it might give you the social connection and it also give
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you some stimulants so you need to then before you remove it map out what is it that you love to do
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instead what are your activities that you can do with some sober friends and it can be anything
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from switching that after work drink to perhaps a tennis game with a friend or some other healthy
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activity so it's about being conscious about that and that is one way to prevent us from going
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to rock bottom yeah and I love the idea that yeah we want to know what we're replacing the activity
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with because if we're just like I'm just not going to do this thing and then you get to the
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situation where it's like well I have a choice of go into the bar or I don't know and in that moment
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it's very hard to come up with that solution that you want yeah absolutely and I also see that
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as something where it's like yeah also it needs to be something that I want to do I see this when
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I've talked to people about dieting things where they're like trying to remove bad foods from their
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or not bad but foods that they don't want to eat from their diet and that their options for what
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they're changing it to are not things they actually want to eat and so that that's a road to failure
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because it's going to be really hard to push your way through always making a choice from something
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you want to do to something you don't want to do yeah absolutely and in the work as a sober coach
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what I do is actually starting already as a childhood mapping out what did activities did you
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use to love as a child you know what sports did you participate in what are some other activities
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perhaps you stopped over the years and you might find that someone was you know an avid swimmer
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in the teens but then the career and job and marriage came in the way and they stopped swimming
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and then it's about being curious about those activities perhaps you can join you know a swim
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squad again as an adult and reconnect then a bit with your younger self your purpose and meeting
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some friends and getting that connection there so you're replacing some unhealthy habits with
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positive habits and I was supporting one gentleman who during the Covid pandemic he lost his
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partner and he lost both his parents so he isolated himself naturally and felt very very lonely there
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was so much loss in his life and as I coached him through this he also had both a dragon alcohol
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addiction actually and then we were looking at what to replace it with and he was just that he
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was a swimmer as a young person and now being almost approaching 70 years of age when we spoke
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when we found out his love for swimming we looked up a swim academy for him for adults and despite
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his age he joined and he's now joining swim competitions around the world he's swimming in the ocean man
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and he he just was on the podium at a 5 kilometer ocean swim competition and you know he's living
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the life like a teenager again and he's so full of life so he really instead of looking at
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something negative he turned it into something very positive for himself yeah and I see this
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physical movement and physical activities as a great way to start moving yourself into a direction
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that you want to go because often sedentary lifestyle doesn't really grant a lot of the things
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that make us feel good and so that is a primary way we might move towards doing some of these more
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addictive activities I have this like instant gratification feeling to them yeah and especially of
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everything online and social media and apps and so on is the big issue of the younger generation
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I did a take dex talk last year and it was about sleep because what we are finding is at
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money university students are keeping the mobile devices and vibration under the pillow you know
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they want to wake up when they get messages and so they're not sleeping and that is the full
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blown addiction by so many young people and that's going to be a major issue for the future and for
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them so it's about again same circle there it's about taking ownership I agree to that this is
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an issue and what can I do instead to replace this and sort it out and having an open conversation
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about it which we need to have in our families and with our friends and also in the workplaces
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and I could not imagine leaving my phone right next to my head to wake me up that would be
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I would feel awful all day sleep is always something I'm working on because I know how important it
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is but it is amazing what I like hear other people talking about these habits that they have that
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are so antithetical to getting good sleep especially around phone usage and stuff because
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that's in another completely other addiction category to talk about because it is something that
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we can't really go without at this point in modern society but it is something that we can set a lot
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of limits on that and it's important that we do 100% about putting boundaries and be quite
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discipline there just like with alcohol you know for someone who's a social drink it's about
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when you start as a young person to learn quickly to put some boundaries around yourself and control
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it's same goes with social media but just like someone can be addicted to alcohol you can be
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addicted to social media as well so there is when the vulnerability comes in and the you know
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their awareness and the self awareness and their ownership of what's actually happening here
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and just being open for it and many times someone who's addicted to alcohol many times
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probably heard from people that you're doing it too much and so on but they would do everything
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to defend it and maybe even at the Shane's friends so stop seeing the people who complain to them
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and instead move to people who are behaving like them so that's the issue we're dealing with here.
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Yeah absolutely it's a cycle that just reinforces itself when you're trying to find those things
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that are going to help you reinforce the things that you know you shouldn't be doing but you want
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to be doing. I feel a little remiss saying no that you shouldn't be doing because I know the
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self talk I've had whenever I've been dealing with some activity like that where it's just like oh
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I I just need to do this right now otherwise I won't be able to focus or something and it is
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in my head something that's going to help me along in the long term whereas I know it's not
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but it's but the the self talk tells me it is. Yeah and I think it's very important that in this
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BC world we live in this online world we spend so much time with our devices that we are very
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disciplined to have some what I call white space time every day. May that be some time for meditation
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or walk around the block or walk in the forest even better or a bike ride or something we do when
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we just get out and we leave the devices behind and they are mute and we spend that time
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just to really focus on grounding ourselves. I do that in my calendar and I actually put my calendar
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on on recurrence for the rest of my life I block a few hours every morning and should it be that
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somehow those hours are gone then I negotiate with myself and move something up to the lunch break
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to go out for lunch and then in the evening just to really remind myself without need that because
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otherwise I know I just going to start losing myself and feeling stressed out and not feeling good
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about it then it is something special with reconnecting into forest if we have the beauty of
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having a nature nearby. Luckily I can go for a walk in the forest in five minutes for my house it's
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great not forest forest but pretty green space but yeah and it is this idea that we do need this
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regular maintenance on ourselves this is not something we can go oh I took a five minute walk
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beginning of this month and that's going to keep me going it's like no I need to keep doing this
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everything else that's going on in life is chipping away at that mental or mental health.
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Absolutely just like we need to sleep every day I believe that we need to reconnect with nature
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every day I don't think we are made to live in in in in houses and in in all the development that
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is they are believed that we are born to be closer to nature and I can certainly feel very
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different when I have skipped being in the nature even for a day or two. Yeah and it's so easy to
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let it if you're not scheduling the time like you suggested it's so easy to be like well do that
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I'll get to it and I know especially with ADHD where I have those intentions and I'm like I'm
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going to do that and then I don't create where the reminders that I need to do it and then it's
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before I know it's a month's gone by and I'm been like I thought I was going to do that.
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Yeah it's about that discipline but also the accountability and being proactive about it then
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I love the book atomic habits because it's just so clear in there right about making the
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prompts and the accountability to set yourself up for it. I think if we believe that you know if
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we go to bed tonight believing that I'm going to go for a jog tomorrow but if we haven't put the
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clothes next to the bed table if there's not the alarm is there if we don't have a friend who's
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waiting for us around the block if we haven't done all those things in preparation then we'll do
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everything we can to tell ourselves that the weather is bad and oh I'm making up with a bit of
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pain in my neck so it's not going to happen right so we we need to be proactive just like we
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would be if it was an important business pitch we would prepare everything before when we show up
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at our best we deserve to also do that for ourselves even for a walk in the forest that's how serious
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I think we need to take it. Yeah doing all those little things that are going to make the in the
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moment you follow through with your intentions because in the moment me often has different ideas
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of what future me should be doing. It's like future me as they can do all those things and it's
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like we know but I need to do it. I can't just put it this off forever even though I could but
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it that's going to be that's not what I really want. Before we finish up I just was thinking like
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what are some like habits and routines that you've personally set up that have been helping you
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maintain these habits to you know fight off loneliness keep out addiction away what are some
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of the things that are you found most important for yourself. Yeah so we spoke a little bit about
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before having some one-on-one conversations with people we trust at work and at home and so on
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but equally it's important for us as human beings to find our tribe. I talk a lot about safe places
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also in groups and again doubling down on our hobbies and the things we love the courses we love
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the sports clubs the associations the charities and the things that we are passionate about
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it's about doubling down on them and really joining clubs and society where we can you know meet
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other people where we can be ourselves and speak our language with our tribe and I also say that
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you know whatever we are suffer from or whatever challenges we have in our life that could be our
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gold that can be our strength. In my case yes I went through some struggle with alcohol and
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while that was painful and challenging until today I keep giving back and helping
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others to go in through it so I'm coming up to 80 years sobriety and I've been supporting at
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least a thousand recovery meeting as a share as a volunteer as a sponsor to help newcomers to find
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their path as well and I keep doing that also this weekend it's always in my calendar to come
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giving back then getting that connection to remind myself also where I was and I say this for
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anyone it doesn't matter if you know someone has diabetes or cancer or whatever it has one
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whatever we have then look up that tribe look up that community and connect with them and you as
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a newcomer will be welcome and you will feel that you speak the same language that they will be there
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to support you and then you can be there to support others who who will suffer and you you only
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newcomer the first day the next day you're already there to help someone else so that is where I find
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a lot of the connection also a lot of their belongingness and to do it in a way where we don't
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need drugs or alcohol or any other addictions that is what I find is working awesome yeah and great
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on you for supporting all those people that I know super important work now have one more thing that
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is this people turning to AI for this connection for loneliness and talking with AI has been like yeah
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that and I've heard people being like yeah this is super helpful for me but I just kind of curious
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on your take on that because it seems I know whenever I've talked to Chad with computers I've never
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felt any sort of connection and it's never like I'm gonna yeah I can just walk away and it won't
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care yeah I have also heard this from quite some people and I've seen some bad examples of it
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and I think good examples of it when it's a bad example is this someone stops there if all they do
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is asking AI and maybe give it some advice and then they go and do that then it doesn't work and
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then they isolate further and they get more depressed or whatever issue they have gets worse
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when they're using it in a good way is to ask AI and brief AI and say I'm living in this
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city I have this issue what are the communities that I can join what are the resources that I can
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join are there any coaches or mentors or therapists who are specialists in ADHD in my town and
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area please give me those details and then are there any communities are there any support groups
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who are supporting ADHD in my city and give me those details and then when you get them you can
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ask with they are okay how do I join them what's the contact details and then reaching out and I
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have a good example there I'm running also a men's group for men who are going through a
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challenging time most of the men have either lost a job or going through divorce or some issues
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are happening in their life and they need some supporting guidance and rather than me only working
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one one with all of these because I would run out of capacity to support I created a group where we
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have groups together we have a group are we helping each other and there's also many of these groups
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around there's mastermind this groups this or men's group women's group and I would encourage
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everyone to reach out and join those to build that connection to be closer to one another and
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ask for support and advice there and combine that with AI so use the best of both worlds that's
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where I see it's working and one of the latest guys as I mentioned he joined a men's group three
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months ago when he went through a very difficult time and what happened just three weeks ago now was
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that his mother sadly passed away and the fact that he had been in the men's group and opened up
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for a few months about his challenges and been vulnerable for the first time in his life is talking
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about some feelings and emotions he was able to show up for that event by naming his feelings and
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going through it rather than bottling up and being in denial about it he was there and not only
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for himself but he could also show up for his sister he even was strong enough to write a letter
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for the funeral something that he said three months before there's no way he would ever manage that
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he would just have tried to hold on a happy face and acting like everything is good now he let it
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all flow out he learned to cry by being vulnerable step by step I think when people try to replace
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that connection they're not going to quite find what they're looking for because AI isn't there yet
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and two is there's no no accountability with AI I find it's say if I leave it it can be a great
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tool for helping me move along and get to the place I need to be but it can't be that end location
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where I'm like oh yeah I'm just this AI is going to be my new therapist and best friend and tell
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me everything I want to hear absolutely all right so I was wondering if you had any final thoughts
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that you wanted to leave the audience with yeah my final thoughts would be in line with our
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discussion if someone has something on their mind if there is a challenge if there is an issue if
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they know that you know perhaps they are drinking too much they're spending too much time on
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social media then I would encourage everyone to you know take ownership for that and reach out to
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community and ask for help and work on it then because once we take ownership and once we
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have that acceptance and walk into the beautiful world of recovery then we can make wonders so that
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would be my final note to everyone all right well thank you so much for coming on the show I know
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people really appreciate everything you've had to say because yeah this is an issue that I think
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most people have dealt with with loneliness and then not addiction themselves as someone they know
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thank you so much
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thanks again to Nick for coming on the show and thank you for sticking with us all the way to the end
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before you go though let's do a quick rundown of today's top tips one frame recovery as replacement
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not deprivation when looking to break out of unhealthy coping mechanisms be they alcohol social
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media or some other addiction deliberately plan what will give you that same connection without
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the negative costs easier said than done having planned positive alternatives like exercise hobbies
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or other group activities can make all the difference and following through with your intentions
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too watch out for grey zones of addiction you don't need to wait until heading rock bottom to
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start changing habits if you are questioning your relationship with alcohol social media or
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other damaging habits take the time to reflect on what is really driving those habits remember you
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don't have to make something worse before making it better three when you can volunteering and support
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groups or mentoring others not only helps them but it can also reinforce your own sense of belonging
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and purpose and submit the stuff that you know you need to do most all right that's it thanks for
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listening I'd love to hear what you thought of this episode feel free to connect with me over at
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hackingradhd.com slash contact if you'd like links or to read this episode's transcript you can
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go to the show notes page at hackingradhd.com slash 248 and if you'd like even more hacking your
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and now for your moment of dad what's brown and sounds like a bell done