SUMMARY KEYWORDS
people, feel, behaviour, addict, meditation, addiction, grateful, steps, realised, weeks, work, day, england, met, struggle, find, benefits, meditating, trauma, Gabor Mate, Ayahuasca, addiction, recovery, addiction psychologist, rehab, clinical psychologist, destination treatment, sober, revered addict, treatment, treatment centre
SPEAKERS
Martin O'Toole, Terry Spokes
Martin O'Toole 00:19
Terry Spokes as I live and breathe. How are you sir?
Terry Spokes 00:22
I'm good, Thanks for having me. I was really enjoying just listening to that jingle.
Martin O'Toole 00:26
Well, I'm very glad you were that. That was written for our show as well. It's it's the instrumental version of the how to die happy theme tune was written and recorded by a wonderful man called Dwayne forest.
Terry Spokes 00:40
Yeah, I think he's nailed it. very cheery.
Martin O'Toole 00:44
Yeah, he has well, he's he's done a few more songs, which will, he'll continue hopefully to do them, which will be interspersing in the episodes, but yeah, nice musical interludes. So Terry, I haven't spoken to you for a long, long time since you're in Bali, and you are no longer in Bali.
Terry Spokes 01:04
Yeah. Strange couple of years. Yeah. Same for people all around the world. We're very settled in Bali. I really enjoyed it in Bali. But the work that I was doing out there got scuppered by COVID. So we moved back to Europe who've been in France for a bit. We've been in England for a bit. And, yeah, we've just just settled in a lovely part of rural North England. Only for the last month or two, but it's been lovely.
Martin O'Toole 01:32
Nice. So well, perhaps you might want to just talk for a minute about what you were doing in Bali.
Terry Spokes 01:40
Yeah, so I'm a clinical psychologist, by background. And I had some training in neuro psychology. So how the brain works, how the brain is affected by injury or neurological conditions or substances. And in Bali, I was working as the clinical director of a residential addiction treatment centre. So one of these treatment centres that comes under the umbrella of destination treatment. So typically, people fly from their home country to the treatment centre and then fly back afterwards. And it was it was working really well created a really beautiful treatment centre there with a wonderful team. But as soon as soon as COVID came along and scuppered the flights, people couldn't fly to us. And then we had to fly home. And so we had to close down pretty much overnight. And you
Martin O'Toole 02:33
had the majority of your clients were Australians. Is that right?
Terry Spokes 02:39
Yeah, that's right. Yeah. So I would say probably going on for three quarters a little bit more. So we had some people from America, some people from England and other parts of Europe, but mostly Australians. Just because it's easier to nip across from Australia to barley. And treatment centres in barley, they have less overheads. So they can offer really good quality treatment, but for for a lower cost than than what people would pay in Australia. So yeah, most Australians.
Martin O'Toole 03:05
Well, here's hoping everyone opens a borders again soon. And you can you and the family can fly back and you can get back to doing the wonderful work you were doing. So you and I met through our shared friend, Richie, who was actually on the podcast recently, Richie and I were talking about our first Ayahuasca or experience. And of course, actually, I think that's how you and I met wasn't it is now we just started talking on the beach.
Terry Spokes 03:32
That's it. Yeah. When we were trying to get into surfing.
Martin O'Toole 03:35
Yeah, that's right. And here's this guy. Hi, I'm Martin. I'm a recovered addict. I don't think I said that. Well, I might have done I don't know.
Terry Spokes 03:44
Yeah, I can't remember. I just remember the three of us trying to get into surfing middle age.
Martin O'Toole 03:52
Well, you did better than I did. You took to it like a duck to water didn't I? On the other hand, and Richie, it's safe to say we struggled a little bit more.
Terry Spokes 04:00
I loved it actually rich. He's still got my surfboard. But I don't think he's used it.
Martin O'Toole 04:04
Now. I don't believe he has either. So it'll be nice and dusty and ready for your return. But when we met we, I think we safe to say we fell into an incredibly deep conversation about addiction and addiction treatment fairly quickly. didn't wait.
Terry Spokes 04:23
Yeah, I would think so. Yeah. I tend to do that with most people that I start talking to.
Martin O'Toole 04:29
Well, me too. These days. I don't do small talk. I'm not interested in the weather. I'd much rather much rather talk about things that matter. And as I recall, I think when you told me what you did, it struck a chord for me because I was fairly early on into my into my journey of sobriety. I think I'd been sober for a year, maybe a year and a half. I just very recently done two incredibly intense IO Alaska journeys and San Pedro journeys and was probably unnaturally confident that I had, I had cured myself of my addiction. But actually, February the ninth will mark my fourth year of sobriety. So, so it worked.
Terry Spokes 05:25
Yeah, well, it's working.
Martin O'Toole 05:27
Yeah, that's a good, it's working. Yeah, that's a good attitude to take.
Terry Spokes 05:33
That attitude is probably one of the most important things for people in the earliest stages of recovery of sobriety. To reconcile to make peace with, so I still work in residential addiction treatment centres, just in the UK at the moment. But it's quite natural, and it's quite understandable for people to, to to ring fence a few weeks to come away from their life to cure themselves to heal themselves from the addictive patterns. And one of the conversations I have every day is that this is an ongoing process. This is this is something that you need to keep investing in, keep, keep cultivating. Not something that you come away for a few weeks. And and you sign off. What's your take on that? Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 06:25
well, I would totally agree. One thing I've learned about this whole process, having finally admitted that I was an addict, is that without a personally speaking without a mindfulness practice, without the ability to constantly observe my thoughts and feelings, and my behaviour. i Yeah. I've never felt the need. I've never felt the craving to drink or do drugs again, I must say, but I have lost my, my Zen level a few times over the last couple of years. Probably like, everybody on the damn planet. Because the last two years have been supremely unique for anybody and everybody around. certainly been a test. But yeah, I think what I realised having been quite cocky, early days about my recovery, was that the new challenge for me, it was to, to never let it slide. And was to always to retain my mindfulness practice to always maintain some some movement, be yoga, Qigong running, yeah, lifting weights, whatever works for you. breath work. And the primary thing for me is, is meditation. Yeah, which I think we've discussed a million times. So yeah, I agree with you. It's not something it's not something where you can never really let your guard down. And also, I have on enough notice that I've had unhealthy screentime, for example, you know, like binge watching Netflix shows or, or movies. And I've often I've often asked myself, hang on a minute, is this just because this is a really good show? Or, actually, is this some of your obsessive behaviour? Coming? shining through again? I don't know. Have you? Have you come across that particular aspect? Yeah, it's
Terry Spokes 08:31
absolutely. So I'm just sitting here nodding as I'm listening to you. Because you were saying part part of you, what keeps you feeling well, and content? Is this this mindfulness, this this self observation of self awareness? And it feels to me working in this field, that that's probably the most important part of longer term recovery, the self awareness, being able to keep checking in with yourself, how am I doing? What do I need, because from everybody's story is different, of course, but for lots of people, addictive behaviour develops as a way of trying to balance things as perhaps trying to seek relief from pain or to kind of medicate for some sort of pain. And if you're aware of what's going on inside, then you can take the steps that you might need to do that before you find you have to escape from it. So whatever it is, that that works for, for a particular person, that that grounds them in themselves, that brings them back to themselves, help them to attune and understand what's going on for them is a really important part of of maintaining recovery.
Martin O'Toole 09:38
Yeah, I totally agree. And the problem we have, of course, as human beings is that it's very, it's all too easy to become busy. And forget all of this great work we've done and I think the same could be said for for anything. In fact, a really obvious example would be someone who Losing the city takes themselves away for a weekend into the countryside, and has this phenomenal experience. Just one with the nature comes back and says, Wow, that was awesome. I've had a phenomenal weekend have just been trampling around in the in the field and the grass in the hills, whatever. And and I feel significantly better. And then of course we get back into the rat race onto the hamster wheel. And we forget how that really simple thing made, how great it made us feel. And then of course, if we're not careful, we might spend weeks and weeks and weeks on the hamster wheel and feeling feeling bad and not remembering actually all we needed to do was to go back and do that one thing to make ourselves feel better. And I think that's that was the realisation I had was actually meditation makes me feel great. Yoga makes me feel great Qigong, which I've just started to dabble in, also makes me feel great. So I must, must must try to bake it into a practice now that the only thing I regularly do is meditate the other things that unfortunately fall by the wayside. If I'm if I'm too busy making podcasts or writing a book or a screenplay, or binge watching some TV shows to sort of give myself some relief from from all the noise. So it is it's it is very much just about finding what works as a as a daily practice and then sticking to that religiously. I think that's the key or certainly is for me.
Terry Spokes 11:37
That's it that that bringing it to the daily practice, because I think we were not wired to, to be to ground ourselves in the present, to be grateful for what we've got. We're wired to think about what's next. What do we need? What was someone else got that I haven't got? And if you think of I heard an interesting take on this about sort of evolutionary perspective that, you know, for the for the benefit of our species, it makes sense to always be thinking about what's next, what we haven't got what we need, that's great for survival, but it's not so good for well being asked for us to cultivate these, these practices that that for our well being it has to be a daily practice. I love it. You said bake it into practice, we have to remind ourselves and encourage ourselves to to to check in how am I doing? How am I doing right now? What's what's bothering me right now? What can I be grateful for right now? Because I think for our survival, it makes more sense to be thinking about what's what might have gone wrong in the past? Or what might go wrong in the future, as opposed to how we're doing in the present moment. So that's something that I would say goes against how we're wired, which is why we have to keep working on it.
Martin O'Toole 12:56
Yeah, well, that's the lizard brain, isn't it. So we're constantly in fight or flight. And it takes some practice to change those synaptic pathways. But we can do it of course, going, scientifically speaking, we can, we can fire off new neurons, anytime we put literally put our minds to it. But we do have to put our minds to it, which I think is the key point. Yeah,
Terry Spokes 13:23
we do have to check in. It's, you know, like you say, our brains are used dependent, they respond to how we use them. If we're going to change any behaviour or strengthen any behaviour comes from repetition. If you think about you could apply this to fitness, to nutrition. It's not that we work out once and then we're we're physically healthy from then on, or we eat well for a day. And then we're physically healthy is this something that we have to keep doing on a daily basis consistently to feel the benefit. And it's the same with mindfulness or, or self awareness, it's something that we have to keep in cultivating, in order to feel the benefits. I have. Just as a quick aside, I work with lots of people in various settings. And often we'll talk about the importance and the benefits or the potential benefits of mindfulness and meditation. And people will often be very interested and then we might try it, try something together in session, and then they will go off. And the sort of the invitation is to do that at home between the sessions. And very often people will come back to me the following week and say, Yeah, I tried it, but it's not for me. I don't think it really works for me. I always say Well, that's because it's you know, this is this is something that you need to give it a chance to see if it will work for you. It's just like going to the gym once if you never exercise and you go to the gym once you're going to feel achy and a bit tired the next day you're not going to feel fit and energised. But if you work that into your life, a few months down the line you might just feel it feel it a bit better for it says it's the same I think we've we've, we've self awareness is something that you that you practice and gradually start to feel the benefits. It's not not a short term fix.
Martin O'Toole 15:14
No, it's not. But I talk about this on episodes all of the time, this society of hacking that we have now, where everything is a hack, everyone's looking for the next hack, because we're so time and attention poor. And I don't know, perhaps, as an aside, as we move away from in some respects, and in some societies, we move away from more ancient and accepted Eastern philosophies for example, and more towards technology and, well, distraction. I wonder where we might be in five and 10 years, if that continues. On the flip side, I was talking about this actually two jewels earlier on, I do genuinely feel certainly from the feedback we have from listeners to the show, and these incredible guests that keep coming on how to die happy that, that on the other side there is there is a huge upwelling of of people significantly keen to understand their mind and body. And also many, many people who are now seeing the bridge. Sorry, the gap being bridged between science and spirituality. So this, you know, these old, ancient, old ancient, these ancient Eastern philosophies, actually turns out, are worth listening to and worth considering. When people say to me, I've tried meditation wasn't for me, I always, always, obviously, I love them for saying it. But from my perspective, meditation is for everyone. And, and if we could just understand it as a collective consciousness a little bit better than it would do wonders for for humanity, and the mental health of humanity, in my opinion.
Terry Spokes 17:24
Yeah, I share that. Yeah, it's the tricky the hurdle is that it takes time for most people to feel the benefits of it. So you know, when you start to meditate, it's difficult and you want to, you feel distracted, and it's hard to concentrate. And it's hard to feel benefit from. But it's the sort of thing that we mentioned that if you if you make time for it, and if you keep making time for it over several weeks, a few months, you might just start to feel a bit more settled, a bit more self aware. But it's getting over that hurdle. I just compared it to exercise, like I say, Well, if you start a new diet or new exercise, there's going to be several weeks where actually you don't feel the benefits just yet, you might feel more hungry, or you might be craving sugar as you change your diet. Or you might feel you might have achy muscles from the exercise that you're doing. But when you get a few months down the line, that's when you might start to feel better. And there's some really compelling research that takes it takes sort of theirs brings to mind a study for me about people who did a compassion focus meditation daily, and the beginning of a period of time. And then I think it was 12 weeks later, they looked at their disk brain imagery scanning. And there were structures in the brain that were more dense at the 12 week stage as people have done this compassion focus meditation. So it shows us that the brain physically changes depending on how we use it. But it doesn't happen overnight to this particular study, it was 12 weeks of daily meditation for that to happen. So that's the hurdle. I think for a lot of people that in the in the very short term, you might not get the relief or might not get the benefit. It takes a bit of sticking with.
Martin O'Toole 19:12
Yeah, I think it's it well, the message is trust the process. When I first started meditating, I was terrible at meditating, because I was always in my head. And I think that's the primary complaint that most people new to meditating will have. I can't meditate because I can't clear my mind. I'm always thinking about stuff. And, you know, the, the longer I sit there, the more things run through my mind. And then it makes me restless and then I get frustrated, because then I'm not, then I'm not meditating. And then I'm angry with myself. So that's obviously not mindful. And then that's just another voice and so on and so forth. And then people pack it in. But I completely and utterly relate to that. And I remember the first time I ever tried to meditate, I don't you know, It's funny because it wasn't really that long ago, I must have been in my 30s. And I sat in a bath to try and do it and, and I failed miserably. And that's exactly what happened to me, I became annoyed with myself because because the voice wouldn't quieten down. Fast forward to my meditation practice now, and obviously, that's not an issue. But that's years on. Not I'm not saying it takes years, as you say, actually, you can, you can be quite accomplished at? Well, some of them are some of the most basic forms of meditation quite quickly, once you learn to quiet the mind. But then also, to not judge the mind when when the mind does throw up thoughts and images and memories. And I think that's, that's probably my best piece of advice to someone new to meditating is, when the thought comes past all comes at you. Don't judge it. Don't be frustrated with it for being there. But also don't interact with it up the mountain, and let the thought be a cloud. And it will pass if you just breathe through it. So every time the every time the thoughts start to distract you from the silence, then refocus on the breath in, out. That's it. And if you focus back on the breath, you'll find that before you know it, you're emptying your mind. Anyway, well, yeah, that's meditation. I was interested to talk to you about addiction. In more general terms, I think as well, I was actually as well, as is often the case, you know, we use words, hundreds, if not 1000s of times in a week. And an often we never actually look into the etymology of a word. I looked into the root word of addict, which comes from the Latin addictiveness, which means to devote sacrifice, sell out, betray or abandoned. That's a lot of lot of stuff to crawl through in the definition, but apparently, in the Roman law, and addiction, was a person that became enslaved through a court ruling. Isn't that interesting?
Terry Spokes 22:24
Isn't that interesting? Yeah. Yeah, that particularly the last word that use enslaved because I think a lot of people would describe it similarly, that there's, there's something a substance or behaviour that they feel that they can't, they can't stop, they can't move away from they can't create distance between themselves and even though they even though at least part of them wants to. Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 22:52
and I suppose it's, it's something they can't do without as well. Is that safe to say?
Terry Spokes 22:59
You will very often exploring that is exploring the whys. Why can't you do without it? Or to turn that on its head? What does it bring to your life? To paraphrase Gabor Mate, and his wonderful book in the realm of the hungry ghosts? Which for me, is the best description of addiction. What do you like about it? Because when you can work out what this thing brings to your life, this substance or this behaviour, then it frees you up to think about, what is it about my experiences my current life, that means that it's difficult for me to feel at peace or content without this thing? And then that, oh, that opens up the discussion to if we're going to take this thing away, if you're really serious about not having this in your life, what are we going what what needs to be there instead? What do we need to bring in? Or what do we need to heal in order for you to feel comfortable without this thing?
Martin O'Toole 24:05
Yeah, I'm on board with that. But I think also, that definition that you just rolled out from Gabor Ma Tei makes me think and this is something I've thought for a while now that we actually more of society, have addictive tendencies than I personally believe anyone would care to admit. And I'm personally very keen to always try to tackle the stigma around addiction and the stigma around addicts, these people who are are frankly, dehumanised in so many ways, by people's judgmental perspective of of what an addict is, what these people are doing at the same time is they very conveniently forget that they are are chained smoking 20 cigarettes a day or drinking two or three pints a night are, must have a drink to relieve themselves from that stressful day that they had, or they are using cocaine or the recreational drugs, maybe a couple of times a week, or they're eating a lot of chocolate or cake, their their way stuck into their social media and they attack and need the fix of the like and the interaction on social media to get that dopamine fix. I wonder what you think about that?
Terry Spokes 25:39
It makes me again, it brings me back to Gabor Mate's take on this, which is you can think of addiction very simply as something that gives you a temporary relief that has negative consequences that you can't seem to stop doing. Now, when when you in if we invite people to think does that apply to you? Does that apply to any behaviours in your life? I think the majority of people will say yes, it does. There are things in my life that give me a temporary something a temporary relief. There are negative consequences to it. But even though I've tried I don't seem to be able to stop doing that. So whether that's applying it to smartphones or chocolate, or or smoking, to me it feels like a far less stigmatising lens to view addiction from and I think that that brings it to the level of something that we can all recognise is show me somebody that doesn't recognise that pattern in their life.
Martin O'Toole 26:42
I love it. I love everything you just said and coincidentally, I also have Gabor Mate's in the realm of hungry ghosts on my desk and I'd like to read a short paragraph from that. In Canada, my book has been praised as humanising the hardcore addicted people I work with, I find that a revealing overstatement, how can human beings be humanised and who says that addicts aren't human to begin with? At best, I show the humanity of drug addicts. In our materialist society with our attachment to ego gratification. Few of us escape the layer of addictive behaviours. Only our blindness and self flattery stand in the way of seeing that the severely addicted are people who have suffered more than the rest of us, but who share a profound commonality with the majority of respectable citizens.
Terry Spokes 27:39
And I think sometimes that commonality feels threatening. It's easier to categorise addicts as other as some as people who are somehow qualitatively different from From you. From my it's easier to categorise them as other as a as a as opposed to the confrontation of the commonality in in addictive patterns.
Martin O'Toole 28:10
Yeah, I suppose in that regard, and actually addicts are more accentuated examples of perhaps some of the unhealthy behaviours that we know we have. And therefore we are presented with the with, with the shame. I don't know. It's a it's a it's a it's a good theory, I suppose. Certainly, from my perspective, it has to change the society's perspective on addiction and stigmatisation of, well, not just addicts of mental illness and of suicide, it's something I'm constantly banging the drum for also is, is to ensure that wherever possible, we're having more open and authentic and vulnerable conversations about suicidal tendencies. Because these are all mental illnesses. And I think this rounds up nicely to to the idea that I don't think I've ever met anyone who didn't have some sort of mental illness. Now, I should probably explain that a little bit better. I don't mean that we're all everyone I meet is carrying, you know, a big old bag of depression or that or they've got some addiction issues or narcissistic personality disorder or low self esteem or whatever. But the point is, all of us on one level are we're all human, and we're all dealing with something and we all have a past and we all had eight years or whatever the I think is a isn't it the formative years where mom and dad might not perhaps have been The best role models and they they gave us some conditioning and then society gave us some conditioning. Does that make any sense?
Terry Spokes 30:09
It makes perfect sense to me. Yeah, we will you will know what it feels like to be hurt to have her other people to feel insecure or to feel confused. And coming back to this idea of trying to or to humanise, I suppose D stigmatise addiction. I've worked in this field for a while now. And I've never met a person where there isn't at least some intelligence in the behaviour at some point. So very often these these addictive patterns that we fall into serve a purpose, at least initially, they help us to feel more something or to feel less of something or to escape from something or to connect with something, at least initially, that's the caveat. Typically addictive behaviour starts to bring its own problems later down the line. But at least initially, that for me, I've never met someone where there isn't it doesn't serve a function doesn't meet an unmet need, it doesn't have some intelligence.
Martin O'Toole 31:10
Yeah. So by that rationality, you often find yourself with your clients, essentially, subtly, and compassionately leading them down the track behind them. So once you dealt with the immediate issues, that obviously quite severe addiction can cause physically and mentally, is it not the case, then that you're very keen to help them go back in time and start to analyse what happened to them in the first place? What trauma was it that caused this behaviour?
Terry Spokes 31:47
I think that's where the healing comes from. That's where the freedom comes from. So, you know, there's this kind of historical approach, drugs are bad, don't do drugs. But let's for the sake of keeping it simple, let's just talk about drugs for a moment. If if somebody has found that using something external, like an illicit substance, is meeting some sort of internal need, then we need to think about what that internal need is, if we're going to take the drugs away. Because let's, let's think of a simple example. Okay? Let's say if if, if you feel very, very insecure, very struggle to feel a sense of self worth or value, you've always struggling through feelings of inferiority, it might be that a substance helps you to feel more confident, more at peace, more able to connect with other people. If you take away this thing that you're using as a tool to help you feel a bit better about yourself and connect with others, then you need to work up you need to think about how do we replace that? Or, or what do we need to work on? Otherwise, you leave people in a tricky position where you take away something has been part of their coping strategy and leave them without a replacement. So we need to think about what's the intelligence in this behaviour when it initially developed, what need Did it meet in your life, because if we're going to take this behaviour way, we're going to have to think of other ways of meeting that need. And inevitably, they're not they didn't provide a short term fix as, as addictive behaviours, but longer term that needs to be the focus for us. That's, that's the part that we need to heal, to allow you to really feel freedom from this from this behaviour.
Martin O'Toole 33:32
Yeah, from this slavery, and that therein lies the work right? I think it's, we've had a couple of guests on the show, who I can think of one being Liam Farquhar, who is a certified psilocybin guide. And he is a trauma informed psilocybin guide. And of course, we've had Kartika Alexandra, who's a trauma informed hypnotherapist and we did have a lady called Rebecca Jackson, who was who's also a she's a, a grief and loss mentor, also, obviously dealing with trauma. So we talked about trauma, an awful lot in this in this podcast so far, and actually, I'm very pleased we have because, as she between us we're referring to Gabor Ma Tei a lot in this episode, but did you see Gabor Matta, his documentary about trauma? I did?
Terry Spokes 34:30
Yeah. Yeah, I consume anything that he throws out, books, documentaries. Anything
Martin O'Toole 34:39
that the guy knows the guy knows a thing or two about trauma. But what a wonderful documentary that was because that it shone a light not on the symptoms, which society does tend to focus on the symptoms of an addict. It shone a light on the human and what happened to that human In the first place to, to send them on this path, and I think he does it in such a wonderfully compassionate way as well to remind us that we must, must must try when we see this person with these addictive tendencies, which which are likely causing an awful lot of pain for friends, family, colleagues, whatever, you know, not to do it downs, obviously, it can have terrible ramifications on on other people but, but if we can just compassionately remember that they are behaving in this way. And it's out of their control and the dates back to a trauma. And in that documentary, I don't know about you whether it brought tears to my eyes was when I was watching a ring of prisoners standing in American, maybe the Canadian prisoners standing in the yard. And these hardened criminals, were just one by one, just expressing all the vulnerability you could possibly imagine, by talking about their trauma, what happened to them as a child in front of, I don't know, maybe 20, maybe 50 other hard as nails, guys. And they all just owned it. And man that has stood up on my arms and the back of my neck when I watched it beautiful.
Terry Spokes 36:22
Yeah, I know the scene that you're referring to. It's really beautiful. And it speaks to this this question that you just raised, which is not what's wrong with you. But what happened to you. You mentioned earlier about sort of prevalence of mental struggle with mental illness. They've very often the things that we struggle with are ways that we've tried to cope ways that we've had to adapt to survive. I tell you, an anecdote I used to quite a few years ago, now I worked in a big inpatient psychiatric hospital in England. And each new person that was brought into the hospital, usually for a fairly short term stay at a point in their lives, when that things have become really unsettled for them for whatever reason, they would have a list of diagnostic labels, if anybody's familiar with this diagnosis of a personality disorder, lots of different types of personality disorder. For ease, I often think of this, this concept of personality disorders, which I could talk about, but perhaps that's for another day, is that it's somebody, it describes somebody who struggles to regulate their emotions, and it disrupted describe somebody that struggles to create and maintain relationships with other people. Now, I didn't meet one person where I'd sit down with them and start to understand why they might be struggling to regulate their emotions, why they might be struggling to create and maintain relationships. Where that didn't make sense, where that wasn't understandable, that there's always or in my opinion, at least in my experience, is that these things make sense in the story of people's lives. As opposed to this is just some inherent defect that's part of your DNA. The diagnostic labels that lots of people are given. When you unpick them, they often the the sort of core components of them often make perfect sense in how someone has had to adapt has had to learn how to survive, or in terms of what might have been missing from their environment, from their relationships, to explain why they struggle to regulate their emotions, or why they struggle to feel safe in relationships.
Martin O'Toole 38:44
Yeah, so by that rationale, it actually makes perfect sense that people would have those disorders. And actually, so instead of as then pigeonholing and stigmatising, we ought to want to get to the bottom of, of, of what's caused those, that lack of emotional development for want of a better expression. That was a big lesson for me. It was realising I had personality disorders coming out of my eyes and ears. And I was very violent, very volatile. I was narcissistic, very dishonest. I obviously was drinking and doing a lot of drugs. But that was that was just part and parcel of a much larger smorgasbord of, of dysfunction. And I think for many years, I knew it was happening, or sometimes even congratulated myself for it for my Machiavellian ways as this does the narcissist at full play and obviously enjoying the gaslighting behaviour, which is bizarre. I look back at that guy now. But it was in finally realising that I was the common denominator With all of these explosive relationships, actually, I was the I was the one that kept ending all of these things and causing all these problems. But then also, as you and I have discussed previously, it was when my mom died, who was an alcoholic, that that the whole lesson began to present itself and unfold, albeit very slowly. But then I was able to see the root causes of these dysfunctions.
Terry Spokes 40:27
And, and that, and that's it might, and these things don't just come out of nowhere. And for me, freedom comes initially, from making sense of them, there would have been really good reasons why you were ending relationships, causing problems in relationships, there might not have been easy for you to, you might not have been consciously aware of them. But there would have been intelligence in those patterns, probably to try and keep yourself safe in some way. And I think when when we start to try to tell the story to unpick the story to make sense of the patterns that we find ourselves falling into, it then creates an opportunity to move forward differently. But it's very difficult to move forward differently if there isn't that initial understanding of how these patterns developed in the first place.
Martin O'Toole 41:13
And so that's where we must start. Yeah,
Terry Spokes 41:17
you made a good point that sometimes, there needs to be a pattern of sort of stabilisation. First of all, first of all, people need to be safe. And it takes time sometimes for people to then be able to get to a place where they feel settled enough and safe enough to start doing this work to start opening boxes that might have been closed for a while to start looking backwards. But ultimately, that can be a really healing healthy part of the process, understanding where this came from in the first place, because it gives clues to how you might move forward differently.
Martin O'Toole 41:52
So if someone's listening to this podcast, who feels as though they might be they might have some problems now, and actually, less, let's say that the addictive behaviour is is actually beginning to affect their lives and the lives of others around them. So they are marginally aware that this that they have a problem? What What can we tell them? To get on the pardon the pun, I was gonna say, get on the first step. But what can we what can we what can we give them to chew over?
Terry Spokes 42:32
I'd say the, one of the most important things to know is that you're not alone, that we all struggle. And we all find ourselves trying to find relief, it's a very natural response to try and escape or avoid pain. And so if there's, if there's something that you're struggling, if you're not feeling happy, and then your brain is doing exactly what it's supposed to do, which is to help you find a relief from that. And that's common to all of us, that's just part of being human. The second thing is, and it ties in very nicely to what you said there about the first step, there are so many people, huge communities of people that you can connect with immediately, who are working or who are experiencing and working through similar issues. So you can tie into any of the 12 step fellowships AE Na, there were the groups, smart groups that you can tie into. So these are all communities of people who have found that addictive patterns have become problematic in their life. And they're finding their way through this. And so the first thing I would say is, is reach out, just start having conversations, because those conversations might help you to better understand what you're struggling with. And then through that understanding, you'll start to get you'll start to get clues as to what might help how you might move forward differently. Yeah,
Martin O'Toole 43:56
I think that's great advice. And I would just add to that, that, because ever since I've mentioned the 12 steps to various people over the last couple of years I have been met with what's the word? Not so much doubt more a margin of mockery. I don't know if it's, I don't know if it's Hollywood or just complete misconception, or perhaps, because the organisation dates back a fair while but a lot of people tend to think Well, isn't that old gods stuff and I'm very keen to say new, it's not. And by my own admission, I probably had the same misconception. Of course, a higher power, higher awareness, higher consciousness is is discussed in the 12 steps and shit and so it ought to be. Well, if the Buddhists created the 12 steps, it would still be talking about higher power and higher consciousness, right? So don't be put off by any of this. You know, the, the the reputation that the 12 steps might have, because actually, I've fundamentally believed that every human being on the planet would benefit from going through the 12 steps. Regardless of whether or not they're displaying signs of addiction,
Terry Spokes 45:14
it because it's largely about self awareness and healing and connection with others. Just a quick tip, there's there's a great book that I think makes some of the more traditional 12 Step language a bit more accessible. I don't know, if you come across this book by Russell Brand, I think it's called recovery. And it's, it's, I often recommend it to people, because it's a presents a slightly, I think, more accessible way of understanding the 12 steps because he uses different language. So it I would say, for anybody who is interested to find out more about the 12 step approach, but finds themselves being put off by like you said, the old code stuff to have a look at that book was very, very readable, really engaging, really interesting, but
Martin O'Toole 46:03
yeah, well, it was you that put me on to that book. Interestingly enough, and I I couldn't agree more I thoroughly enjoyed reading it. Russell Brand has his own incredibly unique, insightful and entertaining turn of phrase, doesn't he? And actually, I also I wrote an article inspired by Russell Brand's book, it's called unfuck yourself with Russell Brand's 12 steps. And it's on elephant journal.com. Feel free to read that article. And I've no doubt you'll go at your go into the book because it's it's a really wonderful read. And as you say, it makes makes the whole concept accessible is the guys are a master word Smith. No doubt about it. Well, Terry, I am hoping that this is the first of many chin Wags with Dr. Terry spokes. Assuming you enjoyed yourself,
Terry Spokes 47:03
I did. Yeah. And I just glanced at the time when you said that I can't believe the way that we've been speaking for the best part of an hour. I think I can keep going for another hour. That's good. Yeah, really interesting. And I love I love what you're doing here. I love how you are talking about the nuts and bolts of what it is to be human and what it is to be happy. Because this is something that we all need to work
Martin O'Toole 47:27
on. Thanks, man. I guess this is me doing the 12 step. Yeah, I get that in my own way. And I'm incredibly keen to ensure that on a regular basis where we're talking about mental health, the whole point of how to die happy is to, is to present hopefully, a really wide spectrum of of options for people to give them an opportunity to look at different arts of living well. And that's really the whole point because the the top 10 Common deathbed regrets list is incredibly sad. And the first time I read it, it really did it made me super, super sad i to sit for a while and just contemplate how this list represented the majority of people dying, at least in the West. Because it was a huge study that they did. And it's it's, for me, it was just things that I realised that I had thankfully addressed already age, whatever, what am I now 46. And people are getting right to their deathbed. And still they're saying, I wish I'd learned to express myself more authentically, I wish I'd had the courage to live my dreams. I wish I'd said I love you more. Man, there are well, there are 10 and they're on the website if anybody's interested on how to die happy podcast.com. But it's it's something I want us to tackle in this show on a on a weekly basis.
Terry Spokes 49:04
Yeah, I love that. Because I think this idea of living well, doesn't come that naturally to us. I think like I mentioned earlier, we're wired for survival. You're wired for safety. That's our default mode. And you mentioned one of the grits there about expression expressing myself more authentically, that's that can often make us feel very vulnerable. That's taken a risk. And that goes against keeping ourselves safe. So this this concept of living well I genuinely think doesn't come naturally to us, which is why we have to keep chipping away at it. Keep bringing our awareness to it. Keep investing in it and cultivating a sense of living well.
Martin O'Toole 49:42
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I spent 44 years not living well either. I thought I was living well because it did I had all the you know had the trappings and all the nice things and the nice home and the nice cars and the nice businesses and the money and So on and so forth, but I wasn't living well at all I was I was utterly miserable. And I'm just grateful to myself for putting me where I am now where I've where I've managed to do some of this work, to, to reframe my perspective on on what it is to live. And you mentioned the word gratitude earlier on that. That's something. Wow, that's an totally underrated concept by humanity. And actually, if anybody's interested in in a way to have a, an immediate response to meditation, I would urge you to go and check out some gratitude meditations. Because the moment you check out and become aware of yourself, even if even if it's for three minutes, and then you and you can do guided meditations, as well, of course, so that makes it easy for you entry level, you will be invited to ask yourself, what what have you got in your life that you're grateful for, and hopefully, the lion's share of you will have at least one if not more, and that's where to focus, because it's a heart opening meditation, it does something completely different to your emotional spectrum. It changes the energy in your body. And it's a it's a wonderful way to, to see some early response to meditation.
Terry Spokes 51:23
And might be more than that evidence based as well. So I can't help myself but five studies, you remind me of a really lovely study that I read a few years ago now. So there's a whole branch of psychology and well being called positive psychology. So sometimes it's talked about as the the science of what makes us happy. And there was a really large scale study where groups of people were asked to do different exercises on a daily basis for a number of weeks, I think even months. And then the the researchers tried to capture the positive change associated with each exercise. And the exercise that came out on top repeatedly was gratitude was was great daily gratitude practice. And the way that they did it, they asked people to spend some time at some point in their day, thinking about three things from that day that they could be grateful for. And they were, they were sort of at pains to explain that. Try to make it as as nuanced and as specific to your day as possible. So rather than just saying, Okay, I'm gonna sit down to do my gratitude practice. I'm grateful that I'm alive. And I'm grateful for my family. And I'm grateful for some of the huge thing to try to think about really specific experiences from your day. So I'm grateful for that moment that a friend of mine reached out to me because I needed that today. I'm grateful for that moment of peace I found when something was cancelled, and it created a bit of space in my day. I'm grateful for the moment that before I left work, my daughter gave me a cuddle and a kiss before I walked out the door. So trying to make the trend to try and to focus the gratitude practice on really specific things through your day. That's where people seem to get the most meaningful output from it.
Martin O'Toole 53:25
Incidentally, this is one of the things I'm going to love about doing chin Wags with you, of course, because you're gonna you're gonna hit us with lots of evidence based stuff, which, which supports what I'm saying. So long made that, that in that kind of interaction rain, but I suppose if you think about it, when we take ourselves back to that moment, I was just thinking, I'm grateful for the beautiful walk I have with Julia and my two dogs every day now in the new place we live because we we walk on a beaten, beaten track, and it's surrounded by palm trees all manner of palm trees and jungle. And we have the huge volcano Mount a gun, literally towering over us, and we walk down to the beach every day, we just do this really simple walk and we happen upon the odd Balinese person peppering the lane, and every time you say, Hello, or Selamat Pagi, which for those of you who don't understand Indonesia means Good morning, and suddenly, this huge smile breaks out on the Balinese people's face, and they say Selamat Pagi back. I'm grateful for that. And I think when you do that, practice it, it takes you back to that moment, doesn't it? And you can remember the emotions that you had during that during that moment.
Terry Spokes 54:50
Absolutely. And, and you know, like I say, our brains are designed to focus on negativity and threat because that's great for survival. So this is a practice to come motivate to move your attention to things that have been lovely in your day things that you can be grateful for. I had a lovely moment this morning. So for whatever reason in the north of England today, huge, huge wind storms is really unusual for England but they woke my son up at 6am this morning. So he came and climbed into he came in climbed into my bed because he was a bit nervous, I think about the sound of the wind. And it's just his little body or warmth and his pyjamas when it was still dark and windy outside, you know that that's the really good stuff. And I'm so grateful I in the moment, I was really enjoying it and I can anytime I bring my attention to that today or tomorrow or next week, you see it will give me just a lovely feeling. And a lovely reminder of how lucky I am.
Martin O'Toole 55:50
Yeah, that that warm, fuzzy feeling inside. I'm not sure about windstorms been a rarity in the north of England.
Terry Spokes 56:00
I've just moved in the last couple of months. Yeah, it's unusual for me, but maybe it means the norm. Well,
Martin O'Toole 56:08
I'm a former northerner, although granted, I've not been I've not been to England for a few years now. And that's one of the reasons why I'm not going to be rushing back. But Terry, I really, really enjoyed our conversation. I think we should do this again. Hopefully, we'll we'll get some feedback from our listeners. But I think it'd be nice if we if we picked on various areas of mental health and see if we can throw out a few utilities here in there and help people you know, get through their day.
Terry Spokes 56:40
Yeah, sounds good. Yeah, I really enjoyed it, too. Thanks for having me on.
Martin O'Toole 56:44
Thanks for coming. See you soon.
Terry Spokes 56:46
See you buddy.
