Ep74_OvercomeAddiction_full
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Adam Gragg: [00:00:00] So, I hate to say it, but I can be a grouchy person at times and people that know me that are close to me know that I can have, I can be moody and I don't like that about myself. It's something that I feel comes over me at times and I just have to apologize. I don't wanna apologize all the time, but you know, I'll just have a smirk on my face.

I'll will say something negative. I [00:01:00] will be critical. I will do something and respond in a way that I think is really discouraging to people. And I do. I could say that's an addiction that I have. It just kind of comes over me and there's no excuse for that whatsoever. And the more I apologize and own it, it has to be real.

I really am starting to realize it maybe for the first time that, gosh, you know, I can come across the wrong way. And today we're gonna talk about addiction, whatever that might be in your life. Cause I can get addicted pretty much anything. And addiction comes in all kinds of different forms, but addiction is something that I want you to understand better and then learn ways to overcome it.

So we're gonna talk about four ways to overcome addiction today. So welcome to the Decide Your Legacy podcast. If you've found this podcast helpful and haven't already done so, subscribe so you won't miss another episode. Pull out your phones. Take 15 seconds, give it a rating interview on Apple or Spotify, wherever you get your podcast content.

This helps it to reach more people and help more people organically. So here's two risks that I've taken recently. I share these cause I wanna challenge you to do the same. Not much is more important [00:02:00] to good mental health than facing your fears and not much is more damaging to your mental health and playing it safe.

One thing I did is I went to a graduation party of a friend's son who, it was high school, and I knew that at this party I was gonna see a lot of people I hadn't seen before. So I was anxious about it and I. For some reason I was talking to myself about all the negative stuff because the reality is the negative sticks a lot easier.

It's so much more easy to be negative than it is to be grateful. It's natural. It's so much easier to be to see the worst thing that could happen to be afraid than it is to be hopeful and to have faith. But I. It's the way we actually can live a great life by stepping into that, by believing and then moving forward, facing those fears.

So another thing I did is that I was getting ready to step into a yoga class. It was like five minutes before the class last Saturday, eight o'clock. And my buddy, who I hadn't talked to in probably oh eight months, called. His name's Aaron and I didn't wanna answer the call cause I was gonna go to into yoga class and I was gonna not answer the call.

Cause I had an excuse basically, but I decided, [00:03:00] nope, I don't want to avoid this. I wanna talk to him. He's a great friend, but he shared with me, which I didn't know, in fact I haven't talked to him in eight months, but he just had like, days before a little girl, and that's his third kid, Evelyn.

Congratulations Aaron and your wife. And that's so cool. And so he's my age, so gives me a little bit of hope. Well, he's a year younger than me, so he's probably 48, 49. So anyway, that I just answered, the phone talked and that was facing a fear. So I don't know what the fear is for you. It's gonna be something different for everybody, but we gotta get out there and face our fear.

So I'm Adam Gragg. I am a legacy coach, a speaker mental health professional for almost 25 years. My life purpose is helping people find transformational clarity that propels them forward to face their biggest fears, emotional fears, so they can live and leave their desired legacy. I talk about stuff you can describe to your six-year-old, and they're going to understand and grasp these concepts.

I also talk about things that I struggle with myself, so I am a fellow traveler. Everything I talk about, I struggle with myself. It's. [00:04:00] I make podcasts to help me as well as helping other people. So, and anyway, if you wanna get the most outta this podcast, I would challenge you to listen as a teacher, that you're gonna teach something that you learn and grasp today to somebody else.

Not in a weird kind of way. Like, oh, I want to teach you something I learned on a podcast. Just talk about it. Just say, Hey, I got some insight. I just learned this new thing. And this is the podcast that you do not just listen to. Let's start with an action right now. I want you to write down something or speak into your phone, something that you can't stop doing.

It's probably in the category of an addiction. And this doesn't have to be like a life damaging addiction, like biting your nails is not gonna kill you. It could be an addiction that you wanna break though or picking your ear or who knows what it might be.

It could be worry, it could be that you do have a substance abuse issue. It could be nicotine, it could be binging, whatever it is that you wanna stop. It could be procrastination or being late to meetings, or actually talking too much and not listening enough and you know, that's something that you're compelled to [00:05:00] actually do.

And it's driven by insecurity, potentially. I don't know what it is, but just identify that and we're gonna work this thing out. And you're gonna figure out some tips and tools and strategies to overcome this addiction. And one of the most important things to remember is that self-sufficiency is a fallacy.

We can't go it alone. We can't do it just on our own. So that's why we gain insight, information, and that information can turn into inspiration. So we're gonna go out and do something with it. So that's my hope for you today. You're gonna be inspired to do something different. The consequences of addiction are great.

I know biting your nails not so much, but for many addictions, They're fatal long term. I mean, they're a progressive disease. Alcohol, nicotine, things like, I mean, they cost people their lives. Food addiction. Sex addiction can cost people their marriage can cost people significant. I mean, they can end up in prison.

They can end up with some significant consequences and avoiding [00:06:00] can be an addiction. If anything, I mean, I'm gonna talk about it more, but self-sabotage. The consequences of living with an addiction, not doing something about it is you don't make progress. You sabotage the things you could have gotten done.

You end up with regret. You end up saying, I could have done so much more with my life. And then you have to say, okay, I gotta start now. And it becomes more and more painful the longer you wait. The benefits of overcoming addiction, and I've heard this again and again and again, is that I would not give up my addiction for anything because I've learned and grown and overcome, and I've seen the potential, and I've learned to trust and have faith.

And so they use it and see it as something that can propel them forward. And that's a great benefit of having an addiction because we can see that we got through it and then it becomes something, and I see this again and again, that people that have overcome a significant addiction in their life. They have so much gratitude for every day that they live.

And I sit in open Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and I see these people talk about what they've gone through. And I go to Al-Anon meetings and I see people as they've [00:07:00] overcome and I've seen this again, and they, I've this value of life that other people don't have because they've been near the bottom.

It's kind of like if you've been in a plane crash like my cousin's husband, I mean, near fatal plane crash when you survive. And I mean, your life can just change forever. You're like, I'm not taking anything for granted from this point forward. And that's the same benefit with addiction. Why do we become addicted?

Well, for the main reason you become addicted is because it is effective. All right. There's a benefit to it in your life or else you wouldn't do it. That's one of the hardest things for my clients to grasp. They do everything. They think everything. There is a reason why they do things they do. They may say, I don't want to avoid looking for a job, but I do it anyway.

Or, I don't wanna avoid having conflict, but I do it anyway. They know because it keeps 'em safe. There's a benefit. It takes your nervous system from a sympathetic state to a parasympathetic state. Sympathetic state is when you have tunnel vision, you're in fight or flight mode. Your cortisol level escalated, your heart [00:08:00] rate increases, your blood oxygenation level increases.

You have blood flow to your extremities cuz you're ready to fight. And your brain doesn't function well. You're not creative, you don't solve problems. You don't do anything really productive except keep yourself safe, and that can be very productive when you have somebody coming at you with a gun or a knife or a pitchfork.

I mean, that'd be kinda scary having someone come at you with a pitchfork, but whatever it is, there's times when you wanna activate your sympathetic nervous system. Parasympathetic is when you're resting and you're breathing and you're relaxing and you want to be in that state. And diction brings us from sympathetic, which is uncomfortable to parasympathetic.

So there's a reason why we're avoiding, and a reason why we're running, and the reason why we're drinking, and the reason why we're smoking, and the reason why we're, you know, smoking Pohto. All the time, or we're using, you know, illegal drugs, like whatever, who knows? I could go, the list goes on and on. We do things, sex cutting, eating disorders.

The list goes on. It does bring you from a sympathetic state [00:09:00] temporarily to a parasympathetic state, but not long term. In fact, the next day, the, when you come out of it, then you're more in a position where your sympathetics nervous system can be triggered. Like mine can be triggered when I'm grouchy. So number one.

First thing you wanna do, identify what you're avoiding. Okay? So what are you avoiding by engaging in this specific addictive type behavior? Are you avoiding making progress in your job? Are you avoiding being intimate with somebody? And I don't mean anything sexual, like getting closer to somebody. Are you avoiding dressing a concern, having a tough conversation, potentially getting a reaction you don't want?

Are you avoiding getting. Finding out something you don't wanna learn about. You know, potentially like finding out that you have a health problem that needs to be fixed, so you're avoiding going to the doctor. There's going to be triggers in your life that are clues to what you're avoiding because those triggers which trigger your sympathetic nervous system are going to be potentially connected to whatever it is you're not.

Facing in [00:10:00] your life. And so they're people. They're places. They're things. Things like events or circumstances or activities that you engage in that you wanna avoid. So you could potentially be avoiding golf because golf is connected to situations growing up where your parents put tremendous pressure on you to be.

A professional golfer, and so you avoid it, although you enjoy it, but every time you go by a golf course, it triggers you. Every time you hear somebody talking about golf, it triggers you. Every time that you see golf on tv, it's gonna be a trigger for you, but we have to gain insight into ourselves to see what these actual triggers are.

That insight is tremendously valuable. Tremendously valuable. And if you can't identify that you're avoiding some things and what those might be, we'll do a timeline of your life and figure out, well, what things happened since my first memory that were negative in my life? And you can even do positive in my life too, but significant situations in your life that can give you some insight in what you might be avoiding.

Talk to a counselor to get some insight, talk to your friends, to get [00:11:00] some insight. Good friends who are gonna ask you the hard questions, who are not gonna let you out, they're gonna knock on those doors that you don't wanna open. That kind of thing. Those are good friends, and I've talked about that before.

And I'll actually link to a video about what makes a good friend in this podcast as well. Have that link in there. So if you have any kind of addiction, I mean, I had a client ask me before too, like, is all addiction related to medicating some kind of pain in your life? And I thought about that for a little bit and I thought, well, yes it is.

I mean, but pain, we have to define pain. Pain is something that we're not facing. It may not feel exactly painful. It may be something we're subconsciously avoiding. We don't even, I identify that that causes any discomfort cuz we don't actually go there. But when a counselor or coach or a friend or somebody asks you about it, it triggers up some pain.

So yes, if the answer to that is okay, I, I would suggest that even something like nail biting, which is, could be an addictive compulsive type thing, it has an. Control element to it. So I can control that in a conversation. I'm gonna bite my nails and not look at somebody and I'm gonna actually be jittery or [00:12:00] shake my leg or be nervous.

It is a form, it may not be a clinical level form of obsessive compulsive disorder, so it, I wouldn't call it a disorder, but an obsession is technically something that we can't stop doing. Just do it. Obsession is a thought. Something we just think about, you know, worry would be an obsession.

A compulsion is something that we have lost some level of control of engaging in, and that would be biting your nails. But it all relates to control. So I've had one client, and I've had many clients with ocd, like clinical level ocd, and they will have to do things in order to feel safe. So like step over cracks or say prayers at night the same way all the time, which, or say and tuck their kids in a certain way or eat.

Eat food in a certain way, and maybe they can't eat it all at one time, or they have to eat it all at one time, or they have to finish everything on their plate. But there's rituals along with that compulsive type behavior. And if you can identify it, you're noticing that you're triggered by something and you're avoiding something.

It takes some insight. I [00:13:00] get it. But notice ways that you numb. Notice how that you not like, is it? Cuz some people have multiple ways that they may numb for a certain trigger in their life, but it's the same trigger. It's the same thing that they're actually avoiding. They're just using multiple ways to avoid facing whatever that might be.

It could be past abuse, it could be that you were adopted potentially, and maybe you've never actually gotten information on your adoptive family. And as a clinic clinician, I mean, I know that. Nine times outta 10. That's very helpful. Even if they get bad news about their adoptive family, that they've gotten some information because it creates a situation in their mind when they don't actually get some answers where they're just spinning, they're wondering, you know, why didn't they choose me?

Or was there some situation that I didn't know about? Are they alive? Are they healthy? What are their health issues? So if you can get any kind of information there, I find as hard as that is, and as hard as that can be to really wonderful adoptive parents, I can find out extremely helpful to the person to get that kind of information.

To understand, and so I'm gonna link in the show notes as well to a podcast. This is number 52 and it's on Pain is the [00:14:00] Price of Freedom, and it's gonna talk about a lot of this stuff in more depth about avoidance and facing things that are emotional triggers for you. So number two. Number two is you gotta admit that you have a problem.

Okay, so admitting you have a problem is huge. I mean this, this fallacy of self-sufficiency, it's like we have to admit that we can't do this all alone. And so if you look at the 12 steps, like admitted, we were powerless in that case over alcohol. But I mean, I consider myself an addict, not a substance abuse addict, but admitted that I'm powerless over workaholism, admitted that I'm powerless over worry, admitted, admitting that I'm powerless over.

My desire to control, which by the way, addictions do give us some control. We can control some kind of aspect of our life when we can't control these other areas. So we engage in this one addictive bay behavior to avoid that other area and facing and getting some resolution on that other area of our life.

And so we do this thing that we can actually [00:15:00] control. It's maybe an over simpli simplification, but I don't think it actually is. It's about control. And so an eating disorder, very much we can control our food intake, yet parts of our life just feel very much outta control. So we can binge and then we can, or we can just, you know, not eat enough.

So low calorie intake, but we can control that, you know. But admitting we have a problem often takes hitting a bottom. So, such. Yeah, we have to get to a place where we say this is a problem, and if I continue this, it's gonna cause significant issues in my life. You know, I had a good friend who has a parent who got his fifth dui, all right?

Didn't know that was impossible to get a fifth dui, but it is all right. You can get a fifth DUI because you've spent time in jail. You've done, I mean, anyway, fifth time they've been to treatment six times. And even then they have gone back to drinking. I mean, they're not at the [00:16:00] bottom. And if that's not a bottom, they're gonna get to a point where the bottom could be death.

And sometimes it actually is. But hopefully in that kind of situation, when you get there, you're able to say, I can't do this alone. And for me, it's my faith. I mean, I can't do it without my spirituality. I can't do it without my faith. I can't go along without that. And I've tried and I've tried and it hasn't worked for me.

So I was talking to my buddy. And we were talking about some of my goals. He wanted to see a list of my goals by the time I turned 50. And so I emailed him this list. You know, I turn 50 in a little less than six months. Well, yeah, actually six, five and a half months. And anyway, we were just talking about it at Starbucks and bantering on this and everything.

And then he asked me, well, what category would you put each of these goals in? And so I looked at all the seven life areas that I liked. To think about spiritual, financial, career, intellectual, family, friends, fun. And he said, well, what are you neglecting here? What's the one that is the hardest for you to set goals in and what would [00:17:00] make the biggest difference in your life?

And I said, I said, my faith. My faith. And, and, and making that a priority and doing the things that I know I wanna do and things that I have, have neglected. And so I had to admit in that moment that, you know what? I'm powerless in the sense that I can't do it without. My faith without God in my life and I can't do it without my friends in my life and what I'm trying to do isn't fully working for me because I was talking to him about how I doubt that I can get there and some of my self-worth issues and some of the things that I'm struggling with right now.

Cuz I, like I said, I'm a fellow traveler. I struggle just like everyone else. That to me was very helpful. So if you found this podcast helpful, hit the link to shatterproof yourself. Seven Simple Steps to Better Mental Health. You'll only get it through hitting that link. You won't wanna miss it. It's a brief video and workbook.

It's gonna be. Drinking from a fire hose, excellent material. You're only gonna get by watching that video and going through that workbook. So the third thing you can do to overcome addiction, kind of a strange thing, but have a, [00:18:00] have a schedule, right? Sounds very basic. I mean, it's not strange, but it seems kind of basic.

But have a schedule. You know, I've heard. In alcoholics synonymous, it mentioned many times they encourage people when they first get in to go to 90 meetings in 90 days, and so they're plugging those things in their schedule. Maybe it's at the same time every day of the week. Maybe it's at different times on different days, but it's the same meeting on that specific day.

But they're getting it on their schedule. They're determining how they're gonna spend their 168 hours of the week, which I encourage all of my clients to do. An assessment at the beginning of coaching, if I remember, although I, I'm sure I got some clients listening saying, you didn't do that with me, but that's okay.

I'm not perfect. Like I said, make it a seven. And I like to have clients look at their week and say, okay, here's how I'm spending the 168 hours right now. And then they start tracking it for a couple weeks. How am I really spending my 168 hours? Am I spending eight hours in bed? Am I spending this amount of time working or is it a lot more, am I spending 80 hours working?

I don't know what it might be, but you're tracking it. [00:19:00] And then you're creating this kind of realistic, healthy schedule for yourself. So when am I waking up? When am I going to bed? When am I going to church? When am I going to meetings? If I'm going to whatever, 12 step meetings, when am I engaging in my hobbies?

What days am I hitting golf balls after work? When am I getting exercise? When am I relaxing and chilling? And what am I, when am I cooking? I mean, you're, you're not being rigid about it, but you're making this schedule. In a way that you're gonna, it's gonna take faith to live it. And what I mean by that is to live by a schedule, not perfectly, but consistently.

Then you're gonna have to say no to people. You're gonna have to say no to projects. You're gonna have to say no to good things because you're gonna do the best. Good is the enemy of the best in your life. Good will destroy your life and your career if you're not careful, especially if you're highly intelligent and functional, because you will have people always wanting your time and you will have situations you have to say no to, including family, to have a boundary, but that is a very much [00:20:00] letting go kind of activity.

Living by a schedule requires that you'd let go. And a lot of people, they think, well, that's gonna be so rigid and it's gonna make my life so difficult, and I'm gonna have to actually follow through with things and I'm gonna have to actually, but no, it's not. Constraint creates creativity. Without constraint, there is no creativity.

If you're an artist and you have constraints, it could be financially, it could be the medium, or you're a business that has constraints. It could be the number of employees or the amount of expertise you have. That creates this creative process where you have to figure out how to make something, work with a limited amount of ingredients, and that's all you have during your day, you know?

I see people become great cooks when they realize that, you know, I don't have to run to the grocery store. I can become creative with what I have in my house right now. It's not perfect, okay? They're missing one of the parts of the recipe, but they still make it work and they tweak it and it's even better than it would've been had they followed the recipe.

Constraint is your friend. And then you let go and you live [00:21:00] that schedule. And so again, it's a seven out, seven out of 10, but that's gonna be a lot of, I'm gonna make this work. I'm committed here, I'm gonna move forward with this. I. Something you can do to practice letting go, I would suggest is taking some kind of action.

And so if that action is, it's like the least level of progress that's facing a fear, so you can do something that could be as simple as maybe, I don't really wanna start reaching out to people in marketing myself, so I'm making a list of 20 people I would reach out to if I was marketing my YouTube channel or if I was looking for a new job.

These are the people I would connect with. On my list, they're like my good people that believe in me kind of list. Or it could be, you know, giving somebody a gift that you normally wouldn't give a gift to that is a coworker cuz you know that they like some kind of coffee or some kind of restaurant or they have a favorite sports team and you're like, Hey, I was just thinking about you.

I got you this hat, or I got you this shirt, or [00:22:00] whatever you, that's a risk, emotional risk. Something that I like to practice doing is, A letting go activity is to not, cuz there's this, there's this thing in my head sometimes it's like, don't think about yourself and help other people, but think about yourself and focus on yourself.

It's kind of a paradox. It's a very big paradox cuz it's very healthy to not be focusing on everyone else around you. That's not healthy and it's very healthy to be focusing on improving yourself. It's also very healthy to be helpful to other people around you, as long as you're having boundaries and living within those constraints.

So letting go can be, I'm gonna go to a social, social situation, like I went to go into this graduation party and I'm going to try my best. I. To focus on the people in front of me, to be present on the people in front of me, to not focus on how I feel in that situation, but to focus on them. Be curious, find more information out.

Don't be looking around the room while these people here who might be there that I'm gonna be uncomfortable around. I'm gonna force myself to zone into that person. That's an act of letting go. It's an act of faith. So the fourth thing can do is to [00:23:00] get support. Nobody goes it alone successfully. You look at highly successful people, comedians, athletes.

I loved watching this new movie on Amazon called Air, and it's about Michael Jordan and his involvement with Nike and everything. I mean, you know, you've probably seen it, I've probably listened to it or whatever, but one of the aspects of that movie that I thought was so excellent was how in the organization of Nike, I thought at least there were so many contributors to making this contract work and so much effort and a team effort from.

Mr. Knight, who was the CEO and to the head sports management guy, to Michael Jordan's mother, and nobody did it all alone. And I don't think Michael Jordan would say, and you look at his Hall of Fame speech, he wouldn't say I did it alone. I mean, he gives credit to people in his life that have loved him and supported him, and believed in him.

And I mean, he had a obviously great relationship, in my opinion, with his mom. Regardless of what you think about people, people don't become successful as renegades. People don't co become successful without a team. I dunno what that [00:24:00] team exactly looks like, but they have people behind them backing them up.

So you find ways to get support in your life. I call those my monkeys. I. It requires being honest with people, with telling 'em the truth about your behaviors, and that's gonna mean as you learn in any kind of 12 step meeting that anyone has the capacity to get better if they're willing to be honest with themselves, which is also, which is often harder than it is to be honest with other people, being honest with other people about your behaviors and about addictions and about your triggers.

Is excruciatingly painful for many people in many situations. Being honest with yourself is that I've admitted that I have a problem and I've admitted that I got something I gotta work on here and I'm committing to working on it, and I'm willing to let go even if I don't feel like it had a client who was.

Dreading a situation. You know, she was gonna go to an old church that she had went, gone to for a long time, in fact, grew up in, and the only reason she was gonna go there is because one of her son's [00:25:00] friends was getting married in this church and she knew that there would be a bunch of people that she hadn't seen for years and years at this church and didn't leave it on good terms.

So she decided to go to the wedding and then I had a session with his client and she was very well excited about having gone to the wedding, which I was actually shocked about because she connected with some old friends and she was getting coffee with some old friends and she had, I. A very negative attitude about going to do this thing and was gonna try to be in and out.

And then I was challenging her to just get to know people. Just be curious. Don't worry about what they think. And that's harder. Easier said than done. I mean, cuz you're gonna have that temptation. It is a temptation, you know? But we can feed her temptations or we can start to express in healthy ways.

That we have this temptation through journaling and talking to a friend and facing whatever that fear is that we're avoiding instead. So how can you get more support? Do you need to join a church? You need to go to a church group, like a men's group, a women's group, Al-Anon meetings, [00:26:00] 12 step meetings, weight Watchers, some kinda running club.

Do you need to engage with old college friends and maybe have a Zoom meeting every once in a while as I have. And Covid really triggered a lot of that. Do you need to go or not need? I take that word out of my vocabulary. Hey, I'm being a hypocrite. I don't like the word need and I don't like, I can't. So do you want to want, is the key here?

Do you want to go and engage a new book club? Do you want to go and engage some kind of hobby and a group involved with that hobby? So I don't know what it is for you, but that's something you can engage in and do. So let's go ahead and review overcoming addiction. You can't overpower addiction, but you can't overcome it, and it's one day at a time.

So what are you avoiding? Identify what you're avoiding. Admit that you have a problem. Admit that you're powerless over this situation and it's not working. You're admitting you're powerless, and you're saying, Hey, I, I believe that something can help me, but it's not me. I can't do it on willpower alone.

Have a schedule and live by it. Take that time [00:27:00] to create and do the exercise of creating a schedule and then committing to living by it. Be honest. Get support. Get support, and be honest with that support. Be vulnerable with that support. So what have you learned from today? What resonates most with you from today?

I. I want you to remember my rule. 30 70 rule. 30% of transformational change is going to be insight. You're gaining insight from reading a good book. You're gaining insight from actually listening to this podcast. 70% of transformational change is going to be action. It's going to be action. I heard a song recently and it was about, and I was just thinking here, I'm gonna share with you sometimes some songs.

A band I like is called The Killers, and they have a song from one of their later albums, and it's about the mic. Tyson Buster Douglass fight, which I wanna link in the podcast to that knockout that for some reason encourages me. Not that I'm a, I'm a fan of. I mean, that kind of shocked me big time, but there was a song on one of their albums about [00:28:00] that.

I think it's called Tyson versus Douglas. Anyway, I want you to apply something that you learned today. Have me out to speak live or over zoom. Hire me or someone on my team of legacy coaches to help you find transformational clarity, and I'm gonna sign off the way that I always do. Make it your mission to live the life now that you want to be remembered for 10 years after you're gone, you decide your legacy.

No one else. I appreciate you greatly and I'll see you next time.