62: Abstinence- An Inappropriate Way to Measure Recovery with Dr. Adi Jaffe
“It’s never too late. And it’s never really hopeless, ever.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
Recovery is not a “fix” and neither is it measured by mere abstinence. The impression we get must go beyond what the eyes can see. To really work out the issue, a solid connection and understanding must be established. No one is better than the other. Some just had a better circumstance; thus, sympathy plays a major role in recovery. Discover the epigenetics of addiction and how shaming becomes a destroyer in a deeper sense. Travel through the untold stories behind why people become hesitant to undergo treatment and how to effectively address them. Today’s episode serves as a testimony that it’s never too late. There’s always a light at the end of the tunnel and it gets brighter every step you take. So go on and don’t lose hope.
Highlights:
02:45 From Jailed to Hailed
10:25 5 Reasons Why People Shun Treatment and How To Address Them
16:40 Give Unconditional Help and Eliminate Shaming
21:16 Where the Problem is Lies
26:48 Epigenetics- When the Environment Controls Biology
31:26 The Inappropriate Way to Measure Recovery
39:09 Give Them A Break
42:24 It’s Never Too Late- Ever!
The idea of sobriety is surrounded by many myths and misleading facts. Join @TFRSolution and @DrAdiJaffe as they discuss one of these misconceptions around measuring recovery.#addiction #hope #connection #epigenetics #shaming #pause #takeabreak… Share on X
Resources:
Quotes:
“We shouldn’t put roadblocks to somebody asking for help.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“It’s not easy for people to reach out for help, when they want some help.” –Jeff Jones
“The element that’s missing is the actual connection between you and that person.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“Understand that they got to the point they got to because of a human experience. If you can relate to that and connect to their actual experience, you are much more likely to be able to support their way coming out of it.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“Let’s have the tough conversations… because at the end of those really tough conversations, sometimes we actually get solutions.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“It’s never too late. And it’s never really hopeless, ever.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“There’s no hole too deep for a person to dig themselves out of with the right support, with the right help, with the right tools and with the right self-belief.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“Whatever is happening for you right now that feels insurmountable, unavoidable, hopeless, helpless, endless. … just pause, take a deep breath and recognize there’s a way out.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“Don’t buy into the quick fix… it doesn’t work.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“Get deep. Understand what’s really going on. Go fix that. And then whatever you’re struggling with right now is going to be like some weird distant memory.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe
“There’s always hope for an individual, for a family, to build connection, to build relationship, to recreate what family means to someone.” –Jeff Jones
About Dr. Adi Jaffe
Dr. Adi Jaffe is known by many titles that centers particularly on Mental Health. He is a powerful TEDx Speaker, Coach, Leadership Consultant, #1 Best-Selling Author, Transformation, Rebranding and Mental Health Expert, Media Expert, and the CEO of IGNTD, LCC. But behind all these achievements is the story of a troubled young adult who struggled with social anxiety and pressure to fit in. As a result, he fell into the lure of addiction and was eventually arrested and jailed. When there seems to be no hope left, his family supported him, despite the relapses. More than ever, Dr. Adi Jaffe was motivated and determined to turn his life around. His experiences became bullets of sympathy for those who, like him, fell victim to addiction. He believes that there is always hope and he helps others see the truth of his words in their lives.
Website: https://www.adijaffe.com/
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/dradijaffe
Twitter: https://twitter.com/DrAdiJaffe
Instagram: http://instagram.com/dradijaffe
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dradijaffe/
Got ideas? Perhaps a future podcast? Schedule time with Jeff here: https://meetme.so/jeffjones
Transcriptions:
Jeff Jones: So welcome everyone, this is Jeff Jones, and today I am here with Dr. Adi Jaffe. I have spoken with him over the years, and I am very excited to have a conversation with him. He is the author of the book, The Abstinence Myth. And so, in this conversation I’m going to be asking him questions about that book, and about himself, and how he got into what he’s doing. He also has a really great TED Talks out there about labels that I know is very wordy, but anyhow, welcome Adi.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Thank you. Thank you so much for having me, Jeff.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, how about if we start with, if you could just talk a little bit about who you are so people can start to get an idea of who they’re listening to here.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Sure, sure. You know, look, I mean, I think in the context of what we’re talking about here, what’s relevant for a lot of people to know is that, I came to this field because of my own struggles. I was an upper middle class kid who got into alcohol and cannabis in high school, really partially as a way to deal with my social anxiety. But on top of that as a way to fit in, I moved around a bit, and it was just the easiest route of how to get in with people. People who drank, like, other people who drank the first time they offered it to me. I was too socially anxious and unsure of myself to say: “No, thank you. I had some.” I then, like, the feeling that went along with it because I became less socially anxious, so I kept drinking and now I was invited to all the parties where everybody drank, and they already had those parties, but I was never invited because I wasn’t a drinker yet. So that started and the cannabis came in. And to make a long story short into my own experience, that led to heavier and heavier drug use all the way to a meth addiction. Somewhere between the age of 19 – 20 to 25, and I was very heavily addicted to meth, and to support my drug havens, or my lifestyle, I became a drug dealer as well. I’ve sold drugs to be able to afford my drugs and to have money, and did well in that business as well. But then I got arrested, I’ve been arrested a few times. This was a serious, a Swat team arrest in my house and I ended up in jail, I spent a year in jail. I was looking in a lot more time, but I got sober during that time. I have family support, thank God for that.
Jeff Jones: Aha.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: My mom hired an attorney. My parents who were in New York at the time I was in LA, they really stepped up when that happened. One of the reasons, I’m not a believer in the tough love, you know, you got yourself in this mess, you better get yourself out of it kind of notion. If my parents had done that for me back then, I’d probably be in prison right now.
Jeff Jones: Hmm.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: They really had to step in. Now I have to be willing to take the help and do good things with it, but they had to be willing to step in, so everything was taken away from me. They paid for my attorney, found me Rehab. I relapsed in that Rehab, and then realized how serious my problem was, I got myself into another one. And really by the time I went to jail I was there almost a year, and we’ll stayed sober in jail. And when I got out I had to find out what I was going to do, and I didn’t know. I had no idea, I hadn’t done anything constructive in a long time. But I decided to go look for a job. And this might not be a surprise to a lot of people listening right now. A lot of companies don’t want to hire nine-time convicted felons. So you go to the job interview and it looks all great, they love you, and they fill out the application, and you can check that little box, and you give an explanation of why you’ve been convicted of a felony, and then you never have your back. And that lasted about nine months, I just could not get a job, not even at the mall, out at a restaurant, nowhere. And so, I almost got a job at a pizzeria through the sober living house that I was working out, but then the manager moved to another pizzeria, and that dry them. So I just literally couldn’t get a job, and I, so you know what, I’ll go to school and I found a school that didn’t ask that question.
Jeff Jones: (laughs).
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Sadly they do now, so it’s, you know, circumstances change all the time. But they didn’t ask the question. I got in, I had no idea how to be a good student, but I was really, really motivated to not go back to jail or prison. And so, I became a really good student, and in the middle of that work through an advisor found, it sounds serendipitous and logical now, but it was only in that first school experience that I found that I really liked working with people who had drug addiction problems, and I was apparently pretty good at it, and I was super motivated.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: I did really well in that school. And so I got a scholarship which actually made it easier for my parents finally, cause there was the first time I could do something. And now I had a job in the school, and I was starting to support myself, had a full ride bent to this, to this university, California State University Long Beach. And then actually got into a phd program at UCLA where I continued studying addiction, got a full ride there too, and worked my butt off. Became a really good student. Really successful. Really driven to find out what is addiction? How did I get there? What happened? How did I get out? Why did I get out? Etc. And learning all this stuff, I found out some things that irritated me quite a bit about the way most people address addiction and so–
Jeff Jones: Sure.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: –got my phd, continued doing the research and stay in teaching for a few years, but then also started seeing clients outside of UCLA. Eventually opening up my own rehab, and now ending up with my book, and with an online self-help mental health platform where I try to help people who struggle with mental health and addiction issues, find their way in the world.
Jeff Jones: And you do this now completely online.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: I have six or seven clients that I still see in person who are local that I’ve had for years.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: 90% of my work is now online, yeah.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, congratulations, wow. Thank you for that story, I appreciate it. There was a couple things that I wanted to go back to specifically. One, you were saying there are some things that you noticed in the addiction world with the way addiction is approach. That was, I forget exactly what you said, an aggravation, or that you didn’t necessarily agree with, or can you say just a little bit about what those things are?
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Certainly, certainly. So one of the first things that happened when I started looking around the industry, quote unquote, was what I noticed was nobody takes part in it. That was the first thing I noticed was that nobody in the field noticed that the solution we were offering at the time were still offering primarily wasn’t being taken up. So this statistic that really upset me around this was the fact that 90, or 70% of people who need addiction help, or who meet the criteria for addition problems don’t actually get the help.
Jeff Jones: Right, yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And you know, I’m sitting there as a Grad student and eventually a postdoctoral student looking at this and going, I don’t understand, here we are sort of arguing, fighting, whatever you want to call it about the best way to treat people. Right? Like essentially what sort of treatments should they be doing?
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: But the reality is nobody’s getting treatment.
Jeff Jones: No one’s stepping up.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: You look at things like cancer with diabetes and the equation is flipped. When somebody meets criteria, or is told they have cancer. When somebody meets criteria, or is told they have diabetes, 80 to 90% of people get a course of treatment. In addiction, when somebody meets criteria and was told they have a problem, 80 to 90% of people don’t go get help. And then it made me realize, it almost doesn’t matter what we do in the treatment.
Jeff Jones: Aha.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: If we can’t get people in, then this is all for not and we’re not going to end up helping anybody. And so, that was a huge thing that bothered me.
Jeff Jones: Wow, yeah, that’s like global (laughs) right there. And yeah, that’s 90% of the people that have addiction don’t ever get help, and they don’t get help largely because they don’t reach out,- or they’re not willing to do what they’re told to do once they get the diagnosis.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yes. So actually, because I hated this so much, I did a study to figure out what the reasons were, and we found four primary reasons. Then there’s a fifth one that shows up in the literature that didn’t show up in ours too much. But you know, I’ll take it as a, as a strong potential given where it’s showing up, otherwise. You know, I don’t think I know everything in the world. So the four reasons we found were cost and logistics. It makes sense, I’m sure it makes sense to a lot of people listening right now. Rehab can be expensive and it’s hard, it takes a toll. I joke with people when I give talks, how many people would leave? Even if I had an amazing, groundbreaking, life-changing adventure for you for the next 60 days, how many people would take out the pocketbook? Give me $50,000, and embark on this adventure with me today. Not many, and yet we have costs a lot of money, and takes a lot of time, and you have to go and do it. So that’s a big one, cost and logistics were big.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: The next one is shame and stigma. We now know from the JAMA article that came out a year and a half, two years ago, but I saw this 15 years ago. People don’t like the alcoholic label. They don’t like the addict label. They don’t like a lot of that shaming language and so they stay away, and they would rather deal with things on their own than be in that network, in that context of shame and stigma are another, there’s another really big one. And then the other one that was of unique to the way I look at things I think is, more than 50% of people said that one of the things that was keeping them out of getting help is that they like drinking and using too much to quit. And a lot of people scoffed or laughed at that and they said: “Well, you know, those people aren’t serious about getting help.” And I, honestly, that kind of made me angry because that’s not what I saw. What I saw somebody saying: “Hey, I want help and I want to be better, but I like drinking and using too much to stop. I want to get better without stopping.” Essentially, kind of what they were saying.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And the fact that everybody just assumed offhand that those people don’t really want help, or are not serious about it felt to me like, wait, what if this is one of those really big things that is keeping people out. So, that’s also, you know, that ended up in the book The Abstinence Myth. But the idea that in order for people to get help, they have to be willing to commit to at the outset.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Waiting forever, to me is another huge roadblock in our recovery world. And so what I tried to do in creating ignited now is, create a help opportunity that doesn’t have any of those barriers. It’s cheap, you know, our flagship program is $97 a month for 12 months, $3 a day.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Our scheduling is easy, so the logistics are simple. You don’t have to leave work, you don’t have to leave home. You don’t even have to tell anybody that you’re doing it. We have people who do our program from their phone on lunch break, or before or after work, or from the gym.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: They kind of take care of logistics. The shame and stigma are easy because even when they do see us in the groups, everybody has their cameras off. They type if they don’t want to speak, so they don’t have to be vocal. I try to minimize shame and stigma, and the language, and everything that I do in the work that I use with these clients.
Jeff Jones: Sure.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And then finally, idle dictate to them that they have to either be willing to quit, or that they have to quit before starting my program. I say: “If you want help, come on and let’s help you.” And I love that I get to do that now, I only get to do that really because of technology. Cause no rehab would let me run them like this.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And it’s a beautiful, beautiful thing.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, wow. I liked the way you just talked about that sequence of four problems, and then how you have addressed them with what you’re doing now online. Address the costs, the logistics, and you know, changing the, a lot of the shame based language, and not really having the expectations of, you need to be abstinence in order to be in this program. And if you won’t, that means something negative about you.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Hmm, yes.
Jeff Jones: So when, what you’ve read there, like in the research was, you know, that people still wanted to use, they wanted to get help. But they liked the feeling they were getting from what they were using enough to still want to engage in that, or to at least see if they could, still like, this is all the harm reduction kind of approach is kind of what–
Dr. Adi Jaffe: It is, absolutely. And I think something that speaks to what you were just saying is, you know, they said I like drinking and using too much to quit right now. But that’s because that was answer choice we give them.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: I think a lot of what they’re saying is, this stuff is too important in my life right now. That place too big of a role for me to just give it up like this. And we know that, you know, the people who come to us to get help with these things, they’re in pain.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And so, the idea of saying to them: “Hey, I’ll give you help. You just have to put down your medicine first.”
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Is sometimes potentially too big of an undertaking.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah. And if we see that you have that, or sneak in here, we’re going to kick you out of the whole program.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yes. As you’re like, if you tell us that you need help, we’re going to kick you out.
Jeff Jones: Right, right, right, yeah. So I mean, one of the things that I’m struck with here is the approach that you’re talking about really, that people can engage in earlier, and earlier, and earlier. They don’t have to wait until, you know, that things are so out of control in their life.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: You know, that’s a great point you make. The way I look at it, we shouldn’t, and I mean this very seriously. We shouldn’t put roadblocks to somebody asking for help.
“We shouldn't put roadblocks to somebody asking for help.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: So if somebody is telling us: “Hey, I’m struggling, I need help.” We shouldn’t say: “Well, are you really serious about it though? Are you serious enough to totally give everything up right now? Or do you just want help?” They want help. They’re telling us they want help.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Let’s give them the help without preconditions. That’s kind of the thing that I’m saying.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. It’s like unconditional help in a way. You know, and I also think of, like, the stages of change, and how difficult it is at the beginning just to one, you know, recognize the problem. And then in the contemplation stage it’s like, they can be in the contemplation stage for years.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: You know, or decades really.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Oh yeah, sure.
Jeff Jones: And I really understand why they can because of exactly what you’re saying. You know, it’s not easy for people to reach out for help when they want some help, you know, the–
“It's not easy for people to reach out for help, when they want some help.” –Jeff Jones Share on XDr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah. And it doesn’t make it easier when the people who are trying to help you purportedly are speaking down at you, or–
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: –or making you feel badly about the choices you’re making along the way while you’re asking for help.
Jeff Jones: And so, you know, shame is a really big part of this whole thing. Shame for the individual with addiction. But then shame also for, you know, the family. The family, they don’t reach out for help very easily either, and a lot for the same reason.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Sure.
Jeff Jones: You know, so I mean in some ways when I read your book, and in the conversations that I’ve had with you, and listening to your Ted Talk, I really, I mean, there are some things that you’re saying that I think you’re doing that can really start to address this situation earlier. And so, one of the reasons why I say earlier is for, you know, families who may be listening to this, like your program is a resource that someone can start to learn something what it might be like to be in an online program. And what I heard you say is like $97 a month, or something like that to check out something, like, I mean that’s less than a counseling session, kind of.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And in that you get not only the content, but you get actually two weekly groups for a month, and you get a weekly call from our accountability coach to check in with you and see that you’re doing what needs to be done.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, wow. And you know, just from the standpoint of shame, like, I obviously I really liked the whole online thing because I’ve been doing that myself for awhile. But I think there’s so much potential to incrementally allow the person who wants to learn more and more to manage their shame themselves, and having someone that they’re working with who, you know, isn’t using the normal, you know, the historic labels that we have used for so long to identify people with an addiction. You know, when people can start to feel accepted, and as humans, I mean that’s a really big deal. And I’ve talked to some people and it seems like, you know, I don’t know, like that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal. I think people that work in treatment, you know, that doesn’t seem like that big of a deal because they have a quote unquote captive audience there.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: That’s possible. And I get the cynical look at people in the industry. I think there are insane people who are taken advantage of the situation. But I think for the most part, a lot of people are actually trying to help. But the way they’re looking at the problem is, they really believe that the problem is in the individual, that there’s something wrong with the person and that’s why this is happening, and what I talk about in the book, and this will speak to any family who’s struggling with this. Look, most families who started struggling with this being right away jump to the conclusions that then they found online, or were told by other experts about what’s going on. They didn’t look at their 14 year old, a 15 year old kid is having some disease that is magical and showed up randomly. I talk in the book about four factors, biology, psychology, environment and spirituality, and a few look at anybody’s, any kids, any adults problem with these things. When I understand somebody’s biology, psychology, environment and spirituality, and the journey they have been through in life to get to this moment. I haven’t had a client yet, no that’s not true, I might have had one or two clients where I don’t understand directly why they ended up with the problem that they ended up with.
Jeff Jones: Aha.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And so, the problem is not in them. It’s not that there’s something crazy about who they are.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: You know, they’re not magically part of another human being group. They’re like the normal people, and then the addict people, that’s just not true. What happened is, they’ve got this mix of risk factors, things that happened in their life that led to this place, and you know, for the families dealing with this right now, this is the issue is, when you do those interventions where they sit everybody around, and you tell the person how they hurt you, and how they’ve damaged you, and how, unless they go to treatment right now you have to cut them off because it’s tough love and all this stuff. There’s an element missing, and the element that’s missing is the actual connection between you and that person, right? The real transparent conversation, which is, I’m going in a lost, I don’t know what to do, this scares the crap out of me.
“The element that's missing is the actual connection between you and that person.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: I remember you as a cute little boy who ran around and play with a ball, and I don’t understand how we got to this place where you’re stealing from me now. You must be in so much pain, there must be so much suffering for you inside. And my guess is that I’m at least partially responsible for that pain because it didn’t just happen in a vacuum. But I love you, and I want the best for you. And so I will sit in this room, and I will talk for four weeks until I’m blue in the face and I can’t see straight anymore because I care about you so much.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: People don’t do that. They do the other thing, which was like, if you don’t do this, we’ll never talk to you again and you’ll be pushed out. And it’s out of fear, it’s out of a place of lack of acknowledgement, of personal responsibility and this false, crazy belief that you can somehow force a person to become somebody else.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And you know, my guess is, because we talked about this a little bit before we started recording. You know, the stats are kind of staggering. I don’t remember the last time I looked at this, but it’s been awhile. I, when I wrote a, I wrote an article about the show intervention versus other models of interventions, and you know the Johnson Model of intervention, the one that everybody knows as an intervention, the classic one.
Jeff Jones: The surprise model.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah, the circle with the surprise with the letters, you know something like 60 to 70% of the people who agree to do an intervention don’t go through with it. Once it comes time to prepare for it, so taxing. And then a huge percentage of people who have the intervention done on them and decide to go to treatment, they don’t even complete their first course of treatment because they were coerced, they were forced into doing it. They were cornered into doing it instead of connected, to spoken to with respect, and you know, fill in whatever else you want to fill out.
Jeff Jones: And stayed connected over time. Not that it’s just one big old one shot deal and then, you know, with the expectation that they’re going to change and go into treatment right then, kind of thing. And then everybody goes back to their life, and they go away, and they don’t really connect with the person too much. They just know they’re in treatment and have this expectation that they’re going to get fixed, that they’re going to be–
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah, exactly that they’ll get fixed.
Jeff Jones: If they don’t, you know, then it’s on them.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah. That’s the language a lot of people use, right. Like they’ll fix you in rehab. Well, good luck with that.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, I mean, the other piece, and you haven’t mentioned it directly, but I think indirectly you have, is that the environment plays such a strong role in shaping, I know for little children shaping how the brain develops, but then for all of us, the environment plays a huge role on, you know, what genes are turned on? And what genes are turned off?
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah. Just talked about to sit another interview today, and you know, epigenetics, which is this thing that you’re talking about is, the way in which the environment controls your biology. And so we were told before, 10, 15, 20 years ago, well, you know, you inherited your dad’s genes and your dad’s an alcoholic, so you’ll be an alcoholic. Pay attention really carefully to the thing I’m about to say, it’s a lie, that was a lie. Your genetics are important, but even within that, your genetics get turned on and turned off in different ways based on what’s happening to you in life. And so, if you’d dad drank a lot, and came from a really troubled background, and had a lot of stress and anxiety, and didn’t know how to deal with his feelings, that stress and anxiety creates an unhealthy biological environment for the genes. And so the genes become more problematic even for your dad. But you know what? If your dad found meditation and discovered a good therapist that he could talk to so that you wouldn’t feel like his failure, and failures with his family and everything that he felt he hadn’t gotten done, and the conflict he had with his wife regularly, and the kids, and the fact that they were unruly and difficult to manage. If he didn’t let that all build up and just use alcohol as a way to cope with it, and find other ways of coping. Odds are, he would have either drank less or stop drinking, and then you would have grown up in a more supportive environment where you were shown love and showing appreciation, and had you grown up in that environment, your little genes would reflect differently.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: They would be turned on differently, and that means the experience you would have as an adult would change. Now, if you understand that lesson, and you understand therefore that your biology interacts with your psychology and your environment to create the reality you live in, then when you’re now stuck in a place you don’t like, or when your kid is now stuck in a place you don’t like, let’s be clear. Putting more stress, and more tension, and more fear, and more anxiety on them does the opposite of what you want to do. It creates a bigger problem for them. They already feel crappy enough about what’s going on. Trust me, they’re not happy with it.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: You making them feel crappier and worse about it will not improve their situation, it just won’t. And so, boundaries are important, I’m not saying it’s a free for all. You have to have clear boundaries, I know you do this work a lot with people, but you know, let’s get rid of the tough love context. It’s not tough love, it’s just love. It’s just real caring and appreciation for the people in your family and saying: “Look, this can’t go on, we can’t live in this way. Let’s have an understanding of what you need, what we need, and whether we can all meet each other’s needs in the middle.” And have a real caring, connected conversation over time, as you pointed out. And then what we see, and this is the basis of the craft method, and motivationally being, and all that. When you start having that conversation with people, they rise to the occasion, they change the way they behave because you now gave them their respect and started expecting it from them.
Jeff Jones: Right, right. And it’s like, you know, working with the whole group of people, like, the whole family as opposed to just the individual because when the family can start to regulate their own nervous system, or when the family can, you know, start to deal with, manage, cope with their own shame in a different way. When they start doing their own work essentially that shows, you know, and that creates an environment of change for the individual that has the biggest problem, or the individual with the addiction, or whatever.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: Yeah. So, and I want to come back to something that I heard you say earlier, and maybe even before we turned on the recording, and that was every recovery journey is different. And expecting, you know, people to go into abstinence right away is inappropriate, or like, doesn’t allow for other strengths, or resources to come forward. But it’s an inappropriate way to measure recovery.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah. I mean, look, this is tough because we get told this story right in the movies and in the media, and that story is typically the one we pay attention to is, hey, that person was in trouble. Then they went to rehab, or they did this thing, and now they’re sober and they’re better. That’s the story we get and so the expectation is, hey, you have a problem with drugs and alcohol. Robert Downey, Jr. got better because you went to AA and Rehab, you should go to rehab and AA so you can be good like Robert Downey, Jr., that’s the idea.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, that’s the thinking.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And here’s the thing, I’m really happy for Robert Downey, Jr., I’m really happy for Brad Pitt, it seems like he just got his year of sobriety or something. That’s amazing, that’s great.
Jeff Jones: I saw that.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Wonderful. Love it, all the more power to them. If they’re happy doing what they’re doing, please, please, please keep going. What you miss is the picture of what the 90%, 95%, 85% whatever number you want to pick people who go to those programs and it doesn’t work for them. And so because the highly visible people are the ones who pay attention to, you think that’s the story. And the flip side there is the, like, what Robert Downey Jr. by the way, was in the 90’s for all of us, or Lindsay Lohan, afterwards. You see the people who are disasters, you see? You see? That’s what an alcoholic, or an addict looks like. So they’re either these crazy people will get arrested all the time and throw everything away, or they’re homeless, unshaven, unemployed, unmotivated, lazy, you know, just vagabonds.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Is it, in both the success version of the story, and the failure quote unquote version of the story. That’s just one version of the story, I deal with, and I’m putting “alcoholics” and “addicts” in quotation marks, because I hate that term, but I deal with people who struggle, and they’re CEOs of large companies, they’re executive producers of TV shows you probably watch, they are well-functioning parents, they’re loving husbands and wives, being, and again I’m putting “alcoholic” in quotes because I hate the term, but people get it and understand it. Having a problem with alcohol pretty much means one thing, do you have a problem with alcohol? Other than that, there doesn’t have to be anything in common between you and other people who struggle with alcohol, and just because AA and rehab work for somebody doesn’t mean it’ll work for somebody else. Now, that doesn’t mean they shouldn’t try it, let them try it.
Jeff Jones: Absolutely.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: But then listen to them when they tell you: “I don’t connect to those people.” And don’t say: “We’ll shut up and go connect.” Say that, what doesn’t allow you to connect? Have the conversation, and if you feel like it’s too big of a cross. Say: “Hey, there’s this other thing. There’s a smart meeting. I heard those were pretty cool. Let’s go to one of those.”
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: There’s an SLS meeting, let’s go to one of those. There’s a moderation management, let’s go to one of those. There’s online meeting, let’s find one of those. There’s this ignited thing. I heard, start listening to these people as they’re telling you what they’re going through and don’t write it off as resentful, in denial, broken people, and understand that they got to the point they got to because of a human experience. If you can relate to that and connect to their actual experience, you are much more likely to be able to support their way coming out of it. And I’m a big fan, you said this before, so I’ll say it again so people hear it. I’m a big fan of, catching the problem as early as possible and dealing with it with the softest gloves possible. Not waiting for it to get so bad that abducting your kid, and taking them to wilderness camp seems like a good solution because that kid is creating so much havoc in your life that you’d rather do just be gone, and somebody else would take care of them.
“Understand that they got to the point they got to because of a human experience. If you can relate to that and connect to their actual experience, you are much more likely to be able to support their way coming out of it.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Right, right, right. Just in this conversation a while ago, I thought of, just within the last couple of weeks I saw the old movie Amy, Amy Winehouse.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Oh my God, yeah. I saw that movie.
Jeff Jones: Old, old movie. But that, you know, just in going back and looking at that movie, it really caught my attention how obvious the problem was for, I mean, she even had a song that all the lyrics were, like, I’m not going to go to rehab. My daddy doesn’t, I should go, so I’m not gonna go, kind of thing. And it’s like glorifying that, and you know, she died before she was 30, or something.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah. And, you know, you see, if anybody hasn’t watched that movie, go watch it. You see a woman in pain.
Jeff Jones: Huge pain.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And I’ve worked with some celebrities and some performers on that scale, like people who are famous.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And for people who struggle with depression, and anxiety, and feelings of low self esteem, and hopelessness, I gotta say the entertainment business is like the worst place on the face of the earth for these people. And yet they can be magical artists who are amazing at what they do, and so we all love the music. I mean, like that song, the way, I mean, that song was so sad, but it was also catchy, so everybody loved it.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: But that’s not the woman saying, I’m probably going to die like this. Like, I’m not going to get this help, you guys tell me I need help. My daddy thinks I’m fine, so let’s keep going. When you see what was going on behind the scenes during that same time, and her boyfriend, and everything, it’s like, it’s hard to make somebody change. We talked biology, psychology, environment, and spirituality. When their environment is almost willfully pushing them to the brink of their existence, right?. I feel like I can talk about this now, I don’t know, I keep looking it up in terms of ethics. I won’t say the name, but I worked with an artist who, he didn’t make it, and he didn’t make it two, three years after he and I worked together. But my first question to him when we and I worked together the first day, and I could tell it was one of those meetings where he had told his assistant: “Hey, I might signal to you in 15 minutes that I want this guy out of here, and then just get him out of here.” I could just tell, it was one of those meetings, but I stuck around for two and a half, three hours, and we talked. And one of my first questions to him was: “When are you going to stop doing this?” And he looked at me like I was crazy. And he looked at me like I was crazy, cause first of all, he was making millions of dollars sometimes a month.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Secondly, he had an entire structure around him, including his family who wanted this to keep going because they saw success.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: His manager, his road manager, his assistant, his photographer, his bodyguard, his personal trainer, his tour managers, his mom, his dad, right? All his friends who, kind of, were benefiting from this as well. And I’m not calling any of them bad people. They were all going along for the ride, but the ride was killing him, and it ended up killing him. And he ended up, ironically almost finding the right answer just a few months before he ended up actually taking his own life. So it didn’t show up fast enough for him.
Jeff Jones: Oh, my gosh.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And the reason I tell the story is, we would have meetings with his manager in the room, his assistant in the room, his best friend who was like, also a photographer for him in the room, all these people. And we’d all be trying to figure this stuff out. And the real answer was, hey, he needs a break from all of this for a long time, and he might not come back to it, but nobody wanted that answer. So if you have a family member who’s struggling with this right now, pause for a second. Take your eye off of them for a minute.
Jeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And start looking around the room. What’s going on? Is there a conflict between you and your wife, or husband that’s been going on for 12 years, and you don’t talk about it and you just scream at each other every once in awhile, and pretend like everything is okay after. Are you divorced, and constantly blaming the kids, or blaming the other person for the pain that you’re in, and not getting your own help, and that transmits you children? Are Your kids having a really tough time at school, or with their friends? Like start taking a deep look at what’s going on across all of these different areas of life.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: And odds are, if you do that and you do it carefully, you’ll start identifying exactly why this is happening. And I’m not saying there isn’t something going on with the target person. I’m not saying that they don’t have their own problems, I’m sure they do.
Jeff Jones: Right.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: But that’s not the whole picture. And as long as you keep lying to yourself and saying: “Hey you go get fixed. Cause once you get fixed, everything will be fine.” They know it’s a lie, ou know it’s a lie. You might be covering it up, but you know, it’s not all about them. And then we wonder why it feels disingenuous and nobody shares the experience. Let’s get more real about this, let’s get more honest. Let’s have the tough conversations, not because they’re easy to have, they’re really hard to have, but because at the end of those really tough conversations, sometimes we actually get solutions instead of what we get the rest of the time, which is just hate, and blaming, and shame, and anxiety, and more distress.
“Let's have the tough conversations… because at the end of those really tough conversations, sometimes we actually get solutions.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Right, right., yeah. I really like the way that you just kind of said: “Hey, let’s take a pause, and look around the room on what is going on around you.” Kind of thing, you know, and that I think, that right there in itself, I really want to underline that what you said that’s so important for people to, you know, stop, take a breath, several breaths, you know, get grounded in themself and expand their perspective. What they see, like around that one person who has the biggest problem. And I think often, and oftentimes that person can be, kind of like, the canary in the coal mine, kind of thing. But yeah, this has been a great conversation. I really appreciate your, kind of, casual approach, and language, and seeing, you know, humans as humans as opposed to a diagnosis, or a label, or you know, the problem person kind of thing. So has there been something that you wanted to share here that we haven’t gone into?
Dr. Adi Jaffe: I mean, I think, as I mentioned to you earlier, my biggest message to everybody I work with is, “It’s never too late, and it’s never really hopeless, ever.” Period, point blank, no buts, no ifs, none of that. You’re talking to a guy who was looking at 18 years in prison, was a five-year daily user of Meth, couldn’t get a job, had a conviction record. And Trust me, I just, if you don’t believe me on this, listened to a podcast episode I did with my sister on my own podcast. When we talk about that time frame, nobody, when I was starting to go on the up swing trusted that I would keep my head on straight, nobody, not a single person in my life because I’d never proven it.
“It's never too late. And it's never really hopeless, ever.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: There’s no hole too deep for a person to dig themselves out of with the right support, with the right help, with the right tools, and what the right self-belief. So whatever you’re struggling with right now, whatever’s happening for you right now that feels insurmountable, unavoidable, hopeless, helpless, endless. I want you to just, like we said before: “Just pause, take a deep breath, and recognize there’s a way out.” You haven’t found it yet, but there’s a way out for you and for everybody else involved in it. And with that mindset, I want you to set out on this, as we talked about before, as a journey. This is going to be a process, and it’s going to be a process of discovery and rediscovery. This thing works, but this one doesn’t. This one works a little bit, and this works a lot. What unique combination of tools will work for you, for your family, for your loved ones to completely alter and change the upsetting reality that you live in right now. And I’ve so many stories, but I’ll tell you of a story of a woman who, cause that was my, my story. But there was a woman who came to me, and when she came to me, this was about six, seven years ago in my old rehab, she had six clinical diagnoses, bipolar disorder, borderline generalized anxiety disorder, alcohol dependence, and drug dependence, not otherwise was classified which was for a nitrous oxide. Over eight years, she had been the full rehabs, the best rehabs in the world. Her parents are wealthy, they spend about a million dollars on her treatment over the last six, seven, eight years before seeing, she could not live outside of a rehab, sober living, or at her parents’ house without just going off the rails. And nobody really thought that she ever would be able to, and I could have walked you through the work we did, but that woman just sat in my office for the first time. I haven’t seen her in person in five years. Six, six years ago when I first saw her, we worked together for a year. I haven’t seen her in person in five years in the process, she’s applying to graduate school on the other side of the country. Finished graduate school, she’s now applying for work given her master’s degree. Doesn’t struggle with alcohol, doesn’t struggle with cannabis, doesn’t use nitrous oxide ever, has no borderline tendencies to speak of, does not take any medication for bipolar, and she’s a little anxious, not gonna lie, but fully functional human being who just deals with the ups and downs of life.
“Whatever is happening for you right now that feels insurmountable, unavoidable, hopeless, helpless, endless. … just pause, take a deep breath and recognize there's a way out.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah.
“Don't buy into the quick fix… it doesn't work.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XDr. Adi Jaffe: Her family did not believe that that was even possible for her anymore given what she was told in all these rehabs, I’ve seen magical transformations. Your family can have one. I’m not saying it’s quick, it took her two to three years to get to the place where it felt safe. Don’t buy into the quick fix bullshit, it doesn’t work. Get deep, understand what’s really going on. Go fix that, and then whatever your struggle is right now is going to be like some weird distant memory that you will talk about around Christmas table, as like, oh my God, do you remember when life was insane, and you were addicted to blah, blah, blah. It’ll be one of the oldest stories in your life.
“There's no hole too deep for a person to dig themselves out of with the right support, with the right help, with the right tools and with the right self-belief.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XJeff Jones: Yeah, yeah, wow. Thank you. So, it’s like, the message here is there’s always hope, regardless of intuition, there’s always hope for an individual, for a family to build connections, to build relationships, to recreate what family means to someone. So how can people get Ahold of you? How would you like them to do that?
“Get deep. Understand what's really going on. Go fix that. And then whatever you're struggling with right now is going to be like some weird distant memory.” –Dr. Adi Jaffe Share on XDr. Adi Jaffe: So one of the easy ways is just the adijaffe.com website that exists now. We created that because I would get this question at the end of the podcast, and I didn’t have a place to send people. So that’s the easiest one, adijaffe.com, I’m all over social media at Dr. Adi Jaffe, so Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, whatever it linkedin. And I think in all of them it’s the same exact handle. And then if you want to hear more about what we’re doing with the recovery, you can find that on adijaffe.com, you can find my book at theabstinencemyth.com, et Cetera, et Cetera.
“There's always hope for an individual, for a family, to build connection, to build relationship, to recreate what family means to someone.” –Jeff Jones Share on XJeff Jones: And your Ted Talk.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Yeah.
Jeff Jones: I really want to emphasize the Ted Talk. I thought that was really great.
Dr. Adi Jaffe: Thank you, thank you so much.
Jeff Jones: Yeah, so thank you very much for this conversation. It was great.