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Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to this episode of the Stable Parenting Podcast. My name is Shane Jacob, your host, and I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.
Today, today we've got a serious topic, a big topic that we're going to tackle, and that is the topic of addiction.
According to a report by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 74% of adults participating in a substance abuse treatment program started using alcohol or drugs before the age of 17.
What that means is is that three-quarters of adults that are in substance abuse treatment programs started using those substances before they were 17 years old. Okay, that's just the people in treatment programs. Okay, three-quarters of them.
Next, according to a study published in 2023, adolescents with substance abuse disorders were about five times more likely to attempt suicide. Okay. Between suicide and overdoses, substance abuse and addiction is a serious matter, to say the least.
A friend of mine that actually works here in Las Vegas for us at our horse feed company, Sterling, said, I don't remember the exact number, but he gave an extremely high number of the kids in his graduating class that had died of a drug overdose within the last three years. It was something, it was in the teens, in the teens. I think it was in the mid-teens.
And his thought on drugs were that, on drugs and alcohol were that if you're not able to end the addiction, the only other ways out are either prison or death. I mean, death in a bad way, not, you know, death after a full and joyful life, but a premature death, we'll call it, or prison. And I agree with that.
The thing about addiction is, hey, it's everywhere. It's all around us. And if you're not seeing it, I don't think you're paying attention.
The use of drugs and alcohol is, it’s commonplace among teenagers and in our schools.
Nearly all of us are either addicted, we have been addicted, we're closely related to somebody who's addicted, or we’ve got a close friend or relative who's addicted.
You know, but we still, even with all that all around us, we just don't like to talk about it much. You know, that's kind of we just kind of brush that under the, under the rug over there. We kind of shun people who are addicted. We try to, also try to hide it.
We don't want to tell anybody. I mean, what would everybody think if they knew? And I mean, I understand that completely, but that's what we do. We kind of hide it. We try to whisper about it and such.
And why? What does all that mean? What are we doing? I mean, are we aware of what's going on about this? What does all this mean?
What do you think about addiction? What do you think about people that are addicted? Or yourself, if you're addicted to this and that and the other?
Okay, because I think that we've been socialized to believe that if someone is addicted, they're a bit defective. Okay. They're just a little bit less than the rest of us. You know, they’re kind of messed up over there and all that, right?
But here's the thing whether you're somebody who's addicted, they're exactly the same value as you and I and every other human being on this planet. Okay. They're not less than, they're not stupid, they didn't set out to be an addict, most of the time.
And, the condemnation that we give them is not helping, is not gonna help anything. They feel bad enough as it is. Okay. About themselves and what they're doing. Self-belief and self-image and self-confidence and what people that are involved in addictions think about themselves is staggeringly sad.
Okay, and we're not helping by adding to the stigma that there's something wrong with them. Okay? Something's wrong with what they're doing, probably. Okay, but not them as human beings as one of God's sons and daughters like you and I. Same as. Okay.
Drugs and alcohol get a lot of the press, as well they should. But there's also sex addiction and pornography, overeating, okay, or food addiction, media, gaming addiction, tobacco and vaping, caffeine and that's not all. There's so many other things.
And what I'm talking about is anything that we do in an attempt to feel better, to get a shot of dopamine, to give us a little high, if you will, that has a net negative or a long-term negative impact or result in our life. Okay.
Anything that we do to change our state, to try to feel better, that gives us a net negative result.
Okay. So how do we get involved in this, and why would we anyway? Because they feel good. I mean, we're going for the feel-good.
It seems natural that there would be a lot of addiction and that we would be driven to do these behaviors. There's lots of reasons why we begin or we experiment with these behaviors before they get formed into a habit.
And here's what they are, some of them, to consider.
And that is that our friends who we're with. Okay. I mean, everybody's doing it. Okay. Our friends are doing it, and so we feel pressure. We feel this pressure because we want to be accepted.
Okay, school or performance or we think we can't keep up and so it's just like it's too much, so we escape to feel better because of this pressure to perform in school or sports.
You know, just to cope. To cope with trauma, to cope with anxiety, the noise in our head that we can't stop, to cope with depression or other underlying mental health issues.
Okay, we're just driven to do something to go to feel better because of these things.
What about the influence of media? Studies show that teens who watch movies that depict these kinds of behaviors have, are more likely to engage in those behaviors themselves.
So the point here is, you don't just have to be around live human beings that are doing this behavior to feel the pressure. You are more likely to do these behaviors if you're seeing in media whatever all the media that you're consuming these kinds of behaviors.
So there's that. Okay. Really, you know what it comes down to? To feel better.
The reason that we do it to start with is to feel better, right? Before, when we're experimenting for whatever reason, we're driven to do it to feel better. So why wouldn't we?
Okay. Why wouldn't we escape the discomfort, the harshness, the sadness, the pain, to get to a place to feel better?
Okay. Really, there's a plus side, okay, and that is that we get to feel better. That's the upside.
I want to talk a little bit about the idea there's ongoing research that is making an attempt to research to find out if addiction is genetic. And maybe there are components of genetic, addiction, excuse me, that are genetic.
And I will just say this that I, believe that the results of this research may be helpful and maybe in preventing addiction and preventing a lot of bad results if they can identify this and that and the other.
Here's what I think. When I hear that, one of the things I think the first thing I think is, okay, if they prove it, that it's your DNA, then the first thing that's going to happen is everybody's going to say, “Well, there's nothing I can do. It was my DNA. Hey, wasn't me. I mean, for hell's sakes, don't you know I have the gene? Hello? Of course I'm an addict. I have the gene.”
The thing of it is, is I believe that regardless of what the conclusion is of all this research, that between, that there could be a tendency it’s more likely, not that we're determined.
I don't believe that we're determined to be an addict because of our DNA. I believe that we may have a tendency that may lead us to that, but in between that tendency and doing that the action of doing that behavior is a conscious choice that we get to make. Okay.
And so regardless of what the result of the research is about DNA, my belief is that we should not be using the results of research to absolve ourselves or anyone else of responsibility for our actions.
Okay, end of story for that. Just my thoughts on that.
And here's the thing, okay, I'm not a doctor. Okay, I am not a doctor.
And so here's what I am: I have my own many decades of experience of being addicted myself. And I have my own experience of ending addiction multiple addictions. And I have also worked with and seen the results and helped people overcome addiction again and again and again.
My decades’ worth of my own experience in working with other people is where I'm coming from. That alone. Okay. So I just want to give you that before I go on. And I'll tell you a little bit more about my story, just in case you haven't listened much to the podcast or other podcasts I've been on, or you just didn't know me all that well, because here I go.
Okay. As a young man, and I'll say what I mean by that is in my teens and even up into my young adult, okay, I just had this noise in my head that told me that I wasn't something’s wrong. I just wasn't the same. I wasn’t as good as. I was less than. I was deficient in some way. I was inadequate. I just wasn't as good as everybody else.
I don't know why. Okay. And really, at this point, I don't care why. What I mean by that is, I don't have any trauma to pin it on. I had a pretty good, what I consider a great upbringing, and I couldn't think of any other reason or thing that happened to trigger this, all this noise inside of my head.
I think that it may just have been the natural part of me learning my own identity. I don't know why. I don't know why.
But I was very uncomfortable and had this massive, I really wanted to fit in and I couldn't fit in, but I was driven to try to do it. And I tried to fit into all the groups and do good in sports and school. And I did pretty good. But still, I just was so kind of not kind of so awkward and felt just, hard to get to know people, and terrible in groups, very challenging for me because it just felt so awful a lot of the time.
And then long about when I was 16-ish, I think, right before a high school dance. In high school that year, I found a solution to this discomfort. And I found it through alcohol. Hey, I felt better. I mean, it was great!
No more, you know, none of this stuff going on, these feelings, boom, gone. I mean, that was really nice. That was really helpful.
And so, you know, as a result of that, over time and over a progression that didn't take all that long, I got to where I drank to excess. And I don't mean a little bit, a few too many, or… I mean drank to excess. And I mean sloppy-ass drunk every single day for over two decades.
That's what I'm talking about. And I don't mean some days. I'm talking about every day. Okay. Without fail.
I'll give you the exceptions, and those were two days in a 22-plus year period where I was hospitalized. That's it. I'm a hundred percenter. I'm going all in, is what I'm telling you. And I went all in on this.
And you know what happened? I did feel better in those moments. I guarantee every single day, every single time. Okay? And then I would feel worse because of what I had done.
And then I'd feel worse, and then I'd drink to feel better. And I'd feel better, and then I'd sober up. And I'd think about it and realize what I'd done, and I'd feel worse about myself and about everything in my life. And so I'd feel terrible, and so I'd drink and I'd feel better.
And I lived in that cycle for a long time, and that cycle right there, the results for me, the results… Let’s just talk about the results for other people. There were permanent results that can't be fixed.
Okay, lots of the pain, the suffering, the, the endings. There are real consequences to not being able to manage what's going on inside of our minds. And the stuff that, the damage that I caused was tremendous. Tremendous, okay? Like I said, some things can't be fixed.
The, I just lived in an alcoholic case.
And this cycle continued. I made things bad, and then I felt worse. And so I drank to feel better, and it was bad news.
The unavailability, the emotional disconnection, just all the dynamics that got created. Bad time. It's a bad time, and it spanned. Now this isn't just about me. This is about a lot of people that I'm affecting and influencing, okay? My wife, children, and all the other people. Okay, and I'm not going to go into all of the details, but I will, I'm here to tell you, not a good time. Okay? For those people or for me.
And at one point, you know, and I had thought multiple times about suicide. And at one point, at the end, I got to where, I got to where I got out. And I figured out what needed to happen to me to make the change, and I made the change.
One day, after drinking every single day to excess, okay. Extreme excess. I drove myself to a detox because I didn't want to die of withdrawal from alcohol and have the seizure and die. I didn't want to die, so I drove myself to a detox place. And I stayed there for three days and two nights, and I drove out of there, and I never went back.
I never have touched one sip of alcohol since I left there, okay?
And coming up right now, it's October, and coming up this next second Saturday in January upcoming will be ten years that I haven't went back.
And so I know, and I've went back and I've studied. I also studied human behavior for a couple of decades now. I'm also a certified life coach, and so understanding how the mind operates, and the thoughts, and all the noise inside of our minds, and how we handle our emotions, and so on and so forth. And that's where I'm coming to you from.
Okay. But what I learned is why I'm here. I went through all that so so many other people don't have to. Because I now have the system to be able to change what is going on in here what we believe about ourselves so that you and other people that you love and know don't need to.
Okay? So let's talk more about that.
What is going to keep you or somebody you know from being addicted? And why should people just say no when there's such a big plus to it, when there's such a big upside? Hell, you feel better, right?
“Hey, mom and dad, everybody else is doing it. I mean, look, I mean, everybody I know in my class, and they're having a blast. You telling me not to have fun in my life?” Okay. Why would I not want to do that if I was a teenager?
And the thing about it is most people don't learn from other people's experience. We can't just look at somebody else and say, it's an effective way of learning. Just, most of us, including me, do not accept that.
We think that we're different. We're not going to get the same result as they did doing the same things because, you know, we think we're kind of bulletproof. We think that we're above, we think we're different. It's not gonna happen to us. We got plenty of time. We got lots of life to live and we're gonna be okay, and it's not gonna be that big of a deal. And so we do it anyway.
There's a few people I know into young adults. My nephew is one of them, Clancy. He learned through other people's experiences up close that, that of how he wanted his life to be, and he did not participate in some of those things that he saw that he didn't want to have because he saw the result.
But that's rare, okay? Not me. I saw the result and said, I can do the same thing and not have it. And that's what most of us do, in my experience. Okay, we think we're different.
Here's the thing, okay? If it's so hard not to because we feel better, how about considering this idea that feeling better might not should be the goal.
What? No, I'm serious. What if the goal of life, this never occurred to me for a long time in my life, and certainly not when I was a young man or a teenager, that the idea of life or the goal, I just wanted to feel good all the time.
But what if we looked at life and said, feeling good all the time maybe shouldn't be the goal? Okay. That we don't need to feel good all the time. And we're not going to regardless of if we go do one of these negative behaviors and feel good for a minute. We're still not going to feel good all the time.
So if we're not going to feel good all the time, okay, what about considering the idea of how to manage or how to, what to do with the don't-feel-good part? Okay. Which is going to end up being half our life, about-ish.
So how are we going to get through those times? Okay. We supposed to just feel bad and then let that be okay? Just feel bad on purpose without wanting to change it?
Okay, but I'm saying maybe so. What about the idea of just feeling life? Just feeling what it feels like in those times that we don't feel good, okay? And then what if at the end, when we get through it or when it passes, when we get through it, to have a little pride in the fact that, “Hey, I am present in this life and I can feel feelings. I'm not afraid of feeling. I'm not afraid to feel bad!”
You know, it's kind of that where confidence comes. It reminds me of self-confidence. Self-confidence is not being afraid of certain feelings. It's not being afraid of embarrassment. It's not being afraid of failure.
It's just saying, “Hey, I'm going for it. I'm going all in. And if I fail or if I fall down, or if it's embarrassing, I will feel it and I will continue on because that is what I am. And that's how I roll.” Okay.
But at the core of confidence is an acceptance of a willingness to feel any emotion.
Now, back to addiction. What if we could sell the idea to ourselves and others that feeling bad or feeling good all the time might not be the goal. And that feeling bad, being able to handle that, could be a feather in our cap or a badge of honor or something that could provide actually not the high-intensity dose of dopamine, but a little drip over a longer period of time that's called joy and pride in being able to be present and live life. Okay.
And in addition to that, of how to get through those hard times is to sell connection, connection to other human beings. Okay, other human beings that are good for our souls, that are good examples for us, that are living life like we want to live.
Now, we can't, we cannot change, we can't make other people's decisions. As much as I want to, I can't control other people. I try still, but I don't get it done too often. And it doesn't have a net positive result when I'm trying to control people most of the time anyway.
But we have a tremendous influence on other people, people that are close in our lives and certainly our kids.
And here’s the top three things that you can do to be a positive influence when it comes to addiction.
Number one is to take a look right here. Okay. And if you're listening, not watching, I'm pointing to me. The first thing that you can do is be who they want to be if you're a parent, okay. Don't have them be the, “Hey, better stop smoking that weed as much as you do. You're gonna, you know, that stuff's poison. You're gonna have a terrible life.”
And in their head, they're going, “Yeah, like your miserable ass?” Because you're not being all you can be. Okay, you're not looking inside and being as good as you can be and presenting to them an example.
And that doesn't mean that you're perfect or any of that. It just means that you accept you and you accept them, and it means that you love them unconditionally. And that begins with loving yourself unconditionally.
Okay. But that's another podcast. It's many of them. Check them out.
Be who they want to be. Take a look at yourself first. That's what I'm suggesting. I'm suggesting that that is the first thing that we can do in the three things that we can do to have the most positive influence on the people we love when it comes to addiction.
Number two is to keep connected. Now, if we're talking about kids, we know that with our children, the idea is to eventually disconnect sad as it sounds. Okay, they're gonna get up and out and they're gonna go and they're gonna create their own family, right?
But I'm not talking about that. What I'm talking about is stay emotionally connected. Okay, that doesn't mean not the amount of time that you're with them necessarily all the time, but that you're staying emotionally close, okay?
When they feel disdain, when they and I'm talking about anybody, and especially when it comes to addiction, okay. Or these behaviors that people are driven to do to feel better if they have a net negative result and they get some condemnation or some disdain or they feel that from you, guess what they feel? Disconnected.
They feel worse, and hey, let me tell you something, they feel bad about themselves already, okay? Specifically if they're addicted. Okay. They already feel terrible about themselves.
Now, if you're not an addict and you want to feel better, you want to feel better the same as everybody else. So there's no difference here between them and you. So I discourage the idea of just coming down on people with disdain and condemnation. Okay.
No one, addicted or not you're not any better. They're not addicts and you're just over here not. Okay. They just happen to be a human being who's addicted, and you happen to not be. Or you're addicted to something that you don't think that serious or whatever. Maybe you're not, that's fine. I'm happy for you, but that doesn't make any difference.
What people do and their value as human beings are, there are a couple of different, our value is the same regardless. We don't even get to choose that. It doesn't matter what we do. It's just not up for debate. Okay.
We're all the same and equally perfect. Equally perfect in the eye of God regardless of what we do.
So the idea is is to stay, to love them. That's what it is: to stay connected and love them.
That's the main idea of number two to stay connected by unconditionally loving them. That's what it comes down to. And to stay, to keep the emotional bond and the openness and the, you know, to hear them, to hear them, to listen to them.
I mean, literally to hear them. Okay. You don't have to agree with them. Just listen to what they have to say. Okay. You don't have to, it's like Joe Caruso said, “Honor their perspective.”
Value their words. Okay. Even if you're just in your mind, you're going, “That is not the way it is, kid,” or whoever you're talking to. But you value their time, and you take it, and you try to look at them from where they're coming from. You stay emotionally connected. Okay.
That's what's going to help them. Because if you stay connected, you may be able to help them through the times when they don't feel good, rather than have them go to something that feels good that has a net negative result.
Number three is mentorship. Now, mentorship is something that we provide at Stable Living Coaching just because of the interaction and the support that we have there. But mentorships are important and have excellent results.
If I look up to somebody, I do this in my own life I have a group of people that I hang around that I look up to, and a few groups of people. I’m thinking of too specifically right now.
If our kids or adults or whoever it is, if we have somebody that we look up to, and that's our circle of influence, that is, that has, it’s research, it’s proven, I see it all the time mentorship is a big thing.
These are the three things that we can give as influence that's going to have the top impacts on addiction and on these substances. These behaviors are real. Okay?
The consequences are real. I promise you the consequences are real. Getting out of prison and seeing ongoing effects of my own addiction after decades of drinking, I can assure you that the consequences are real. Okay.
And it's all around us. It's all around us. It's just something I mean, we need to have some healthy fear about it but it's something that we need to recognize and not push aside and not be afraid of.
The lasting way out of addiction and the prevention of addiction is changing what individuals believe to be true about themselves. And that is at the core foundation of how to prevent and how to get out of an addiction.
And that's the system that we've created, that I've created in Stable Living Coaching from my own experience and the experience of others.
I will tell you right now, I would still be addicted right this minute had I not been able to change what I believed about me at the core of the foundation.
Those are what they call these limiting beliefs that hold us back. We, when we're trying to do something, we're trying to relapse and we can't change, or we're doing the behavior and we're not yet addicted to becoming a habit but we keep doing the same thing and we want to change, we know it's bad, and we keep doing it.
And this cycle goes on and on and on, and sometimes a lot of times it has an unhappy ending, okay? Sometimes it just has a, I don't know what I would call it, a very sad, I guess is the best way I can describe it, ending. When it comes to my own endings, okay, some of them.
But I have been through this so that so many other people don't need to, and that's what I'm here to talk about. It's what I'm here for. Okay? One of the things.
In Stable Living Coaching, one of the things that we do is prevention and overcoming addiction. We teach people the system to understand self-beliefs, their own self-beliefs what they are, to develop new beliefs intentionally that will serve them better, and then to be able to make the change and really believe those new things about themselves that'll change their life. Okay.
Now, I encourage you to join us at stablelivingcoaching.com. You don't have to have an addiction challenge it's just one of the things we do.
And I also encourage you, if you will, hey, give us a review on whatever platform you listen to or watch.
I thank you for taking your time to be here with me today.
Remember, my friends, you cannot fail as long as you Don’t Ever Stop Chasin’ It.
