An Interview with Dr. David Rubenstein
Let's talk about addiction. My favorite mentor in the area of addiction is Dr. Mays. He taught me in 2007 that the primary driving force behind addiction is the drive to feel “right or normal” as it is defined by each individual. No one can tell us what that is, except ourselves. When we are unable to feel normal and the painful suffering this brings, we turn to an experience like sex or a substances like drugs and alcohol in order to achieve and relieve this primary drive within us. More specifically, our innate drives:
1) To find pleasure satisfaction and fulfillment (PSF) or meaning
2) The innate drive to avoid pain and suffering are ever-present and cannot be extracted from a human being as it is our root programming
It is biology manifested as psychology. Therefore, it is a powerful force within our lives only superseded by the drive to survive.
It is critical to understand the stress element of this problem. Although we experience stress through its anguish mentally and emotionally, it must be made absolutely clear that stress is produced in the brain electro-chemically. No stress occurs without the electro-chemical forces within us, period. The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol precede the stress experience without a single exception. As much as you might have an adverse reaction to that statement, it is nonetheless 100% true. Part of why it may seem foreign to you is that the addiction industry seeks the psychological methodology as demonstrated by the dominance of talk therapies as the backbone of treatment.
When I have lectured on this topic to staff and/or patients it is shocking to them because it matches their direct experience – that stress drives addiction. To say it another way, not being able to find a personal sense of our “normal” is too much stress and suffering to bear. This phenomenon in part drives the brain to seek out a substitute for being normal and managing our stress leading inexorably to addiction.
The good news is the fact that although addiction tends to be a thorny problem with tentacles of horror involving the destruction of most (if not all) of our primary relationships, the destruction of our health and financial lives, etc., the insight provided herein about stress driving this complex problem – has a simple solution. From this viewpoint or perspective, addiction becomes a clarified battle around determining the root causes to stress and ending these issues permanently.
Here is an example:
100% of addicts cannot utilize their diaphragm muscle no matter what they tell you! No matter how much ‘education’ they may have been through for breathing techniques – it remains biologically impossible to breathe effectively with this primary breathing muscle. What that means is that getting adequate oxygen to the brain is unlikely to ever occur leaving you with a slightly hypoxic body/brain 24/7. That disables the calmer brain areas and stimulates the primitive brain regions.
This, in part, explains the mammoth undertaking it is for recovery. It is an overwhelming experience because the system is hard wired (unable to alter or modify) to trigger stress or fight/flight/freeze reactions in the presence of decreased oxygen, even small amounts of less oxygen places the system into chronic hypoxia or the ongoing lack of oxygen to the brain/body.
In 2007, a former client in the sixth week of seeing me, asked if calibration could help with addiction. I did not know at the time that he had an addiction, which was alcohol. I asked what happened and he said he lost the desire to drink. I said, "You mean it went away, is that what you're saying?" He replied, "Yes, but that's not all." He said he thought that he should try to drink again, and it made him sick, as in he threw up after only a few minutes from the first drink. He never went back to drinking again!
After some education and a few years, I started working in two different in-patient and out-patient facilities in Los Angeles California. My team and I documented nearly 40,000 treatments inside these facilities. It is a statistically strong sample size from which many breakthrough understandings and results were captured and heavily validated.
It became clear to me that the driving force behind addiction is stress born of an unrecovered trauma. These types of trauma’s change the physiology of the body, especially breathing and sleeping – the keys to recovery from anything in life not just addiction. You may recall that if you get a cut say on your hand and check the healing progress during the day, you will find it does not change. However, the next morning it appears significantly healed! This phenomenon is from the fact that recovery from all things physical and mental occurs with and because of sleep.
When evaluating the addiction population, you will find always find memory of significant trauma. A year or so after the earlier trauma, they start using and become addicted. And from the trauma their breathing system has become compromised or contaminated and unable to breathe properly. This link in the chain causes the most destructive part of addiction: the inability to get good sleep! The brain literally breaks down absent of sleep setting the stage for active addiction.
When that happens, active addiction, the machinery of the brain changes in a radical way. Most people will say that once that happens, the shift is permanent, and you don't come back. I believe that this is basically true, however, stress being the driving issue that causes people to use and getting that down to minimal levels makes this brain change malleable and recoverable. Another reason I know that stress is the driving issue behind addiction is after thousands of patients who have gone through calibration in just a limited fashion, the stress comes down so far and so fast that they can no longer see themselves using.
Think about that for a moment. If you ask an addict who has been in recovery for six months with no calibration if they can see themselves using and if they are afraid that might happen, universally it's "yes". By contrast a calibrated person in recovery, cannot relate to that lifestyle anymore. This highlights the need for stress reduction and management through natural means like calibration.
If you or someone you love is in the throes of addiction and you think you've tried everything, there really is a resource out there that has proven effective case after case, and it's not too good to be true. Please fill out our online assessment form and we'll contact you to schedule a complimentary consultation with Dr. Rubenstein.
Check out Dr. Rubenstein's published article on rehabs.com.
Let's talk about addiction. My favorite mentor in the area of addiction is Dr. Mays. He taught me in 2007 that the primary driving force behind addiction is the drive to feel “right or normal” as it is defined by each individual. No one can tell us what that is, except ourselves. When we are unable to feel normal and the painful suffering this brings, we turn to an experience like sex or a substances like drugs and alcohol in order to achieve and relieve this primary drive within us. More specifically, our innate drives:
1) To find pleasure satisfaction and fulfillment (PSF) or meaning
2) The innate drive to avoid pain and suffering are ever-present and cannot be extracted from a human being as it is our root programming
It is biology manifested as psychology. Therefore, it is a powerful force within our lives only superseded by the drive to survive.
It is critical to understand the stress element of this problem. Although we experience stress through its anguish mentally and emotionally, it must be made absolutely clear that stress is produced in the brain electro-chemically. No stress occurs without the electro-chemical forces within us, period. The stress hormones adrenaline and cortisol precede the stress experience without a single exception. As much as you might have an adverse reaction to that statement, it is nonetheless 100% true. Part of why it may seem foreign to you is that the addiction industry seeks the psychological methodology as demonstrated by the dominance of talk therapies as the backbone of treatment.
When I have lectured on this topic to staff and/or patients it is shocking to them because it matches their direct experience – that stress drives addiction. To say it another way, not being able to find a personal sense of our “normal” is too much stress and suffering to bear. This phenomenon in part drives the brain to seek out a substitute for being normal and managing our stress leading inexorably to addiction.
The good news is the fact that although addiction tends to be a thorny problem with tentacles of horror involving the destruction of most (if not all) of our primary relationships, the destruction of our health and financial lives, etc., the insight provided herein about stress driving this complex problem – has a simple solution. From this viewpoint or perspective, addiction becomes a clarified battle around determining the root causes to stress and ending these issues permanently.
Here is an example:
100% of addicts cannot utilize their diaphragm muscle no matter what they tell you! No matter how much ‘education’ they may have been through for breathing techniques – it remains biologically impossible to breathe effectively with this primary breathing muscle. What that means is that getting adequate oxygen to the brain is unlikely to ever occur leaving you with a slightly hypoxic body/brain 24/7. That disables the calmer brain areas and stimulates the primitive brain regions.
This, in part, explains the mammoth undertaking it is for recovery. It is an overwhelming experience because the system is hard wired (unable to alter or modify) to trigger stress or fight/flight/freeze reactions in the presence of decreased oxygen, even small amounts of less oxygen places the system into chronic hypoxia or the ongoing lack of oxygen to the brain/body.
In 2007, a former client in the sixth week of seeing me, asked if calibration could help with addiction. I did not know at the time that he had an addiction, which was alcohol. I asked what happened and he said he lost the desire to drink. I said, "You mean it went away, is that what you're saying?" He replied, "Yes, but that's not all." He said he thought that he should try to drink again, and it made him sick, as in he threw up after only a few minutes from the first drink. He never went back to drinking again!
It became clear to me that the driving force behind addiction is stress born of an unrecovered trauma. These types of trauma’s change the physiology of the body, especially breathing and sleeping – the keys to recovery from anything in life not just addiction. You may recall that if you get a cut say on your hand and check the healing progress during the day, you will find it does not change. However, the next morning it appears significantly healed! This phenomenon is from the fact that recovery from all things physical and mental occurs with and because of sleep.
When evaluating the addiction population, you will find always find memory of significant trauma. A year or so after the earlier trauma, they start using and become addicted. And from the trauma their breathing system has become compromised or contaminated and unable to breathe properly. This link in the chain causes the most destructive part of addiction: the inability to get good sleep! The brain literally breaks down absent of sleep setting the stage for active addiction.
When that happens, active addiction, the machinery of the brain changes in a radical way. Most people will say that once that happens, the shift is permanent, and you don't come back. I believe that this is basically true, however, stress being the driving issue that causes people to use and getting that down to minimal levels makes this brain change malleable and recoverable. Another reason I know that stress is the driving issue behind addiction is after thousands of patients who have gone through calibration in just a limited fashion, the stress comes down so far and so fast that they can no longer see themselves using.
Think about that for a moment. If you ask an addict who has been in recovery for six months with no calibration if they can see themselves using and if they are afraid that might happen, universally it's "yes". By contrast a calibrated person in recovery, cannot relate to that lifestyle anymore. This highlights the need for stress reduction and management through natural means like calibration.
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If you or someone you love is in the throes of addiction and you think you've tried everything, there really is a resource out there that has proven effective case after case, and it's not too good to be true. Please fill out our online assessment form and we'll contact you to schedule a complimentary consultation with Dr. Rubenstein.
Check out Dr. Rubenstein's published article on rehabs.com.
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