Bonus: Finding the Treatment That Works for You with David Poses

03/03/22 • 54 min

1 Listener

The stigma of addiction is so bad that people who are struggling with it choose to hide it. However, addiction is not the real problem, but rather the symptom of all these underlying hurts, pains, and suffering.

Today’s episode is a replay of an interview with David Poses, who recently passed away, in honor of his life and legacy. A writer, speaker, and activist, David was a tireless advocate for all who struggled with mental health or addiction issues. David is the author of The Weight of Air: A Story About the Lies of Addiction and the Truth of Recovery.

David struggled with addiction, which he chose to hide for a long time. After trying to find a treatment that worked for him, he soon discovered buprenorphine, an opioid used to treat opioid-use disorders, which also saved his life from heroin. David also realized that being sober only means abstaining from whatever it is you’re addicted to, while recovery happens only when you’ve healed the wounds that led you to addiction in the first place.

That being said, there are different ways to treat addiction, and so, ultimately, you have to find one that works for you.

In this episode, you will hear:

Resorting to heroin due to depression but it was also heroin that caused his depression
Why AA wasn’t the right solution for him
Finding the treatment and recovery method that works for us
How opioids affect the brain
Two medications that have been proven to dramatically reduce your risk of death, relapse, and overdose
How buprenorphine saved David’s life
Achieving recovery through healing the wounds that led you to addiction
The stigma of addiction

Key Quotes:

[13:58] - "For every kind of vice or addiction, your neurotransmitters rewire, and they seek out the next hit. There’s the idea that sobriety gets easier with time and your brain heals in time and things go back to normal... But there have been a lot of studies about opioids that show that it doesn't necessarily go back."

[21:12] - "There are two medications that are proven to dramatically reduce your risk of death, relapse, and overdose: methadone and buprenorphine. All other forms of treatment or medications do not, and many others actually do the exact opposite."

[21:31] - “Any kind of abstinence-based treatment, whether it's forced or voluntary, increases your risk of overdose because you come out of it, you have no tolerance, and that's when people die.”

[23:10] - "Addiction has been so siloed off away from medicine for so long. Even with doctors, I tell the doctor the history and they assume I'm in there looking for drugs."

[35:03] - "If sobriety is I'm not taking drugs anymore or abstinence. Recovery is healing the wounds that led you to drugs in the first place."

[39:09] - "The stigma of addiction is so bad that I was seriously contemplating suicide."

[41:02] - "Addiction is not the problem. Addiction is definitely a problem but drugs are a form of self-medication."

[47:12] - "With any physical or psychological thing, we identify the source of pain, and we treat it so you can heal. With addiction, we explicitly tell you to ignore the source of pain because it's an excuse."

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

GoFundMe campaign to support David Poses’ family

https://www.gofundme.com/f/we-love-you-david-posesand-love-your-family

The Weight of Air: A Story About the Lies of Addiction and the Truth of Recovery

https://davidposes.com/the-weight-of-air

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Emerald City Productions. They helped me grow and produce the podcast you are listening to right now. Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Let them know we sent you.

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

That being said, there are different ways to treat addiction, and so, ultimately, you have to find one that works for you.

In this episode, you will hear:

Resorting to heroin due to depression but it was also heroin that caused his depression
Why AA wasn’t the right solution for him
Finding the treatment and recovery method that works for us
How opioids affect the brain
Two medications that have been proven to dramatically reduce your risk of death, relapse, and overdose
How buprenorphine saved David’s life
Achieving recovery through healing the wounds that led you to addiction
The stigma of addiction

Key Quotes:

[23:10] - "Addiction has been so siloed off away from medicine for so long. Even with doctors, I tell the doctor the history and they assume I'm in there looking for drugs."

[35:03] - "If sobriety is I'm not taking drugs anymore or abstinence. Recovery is healing the wounds that led you to drugs in the first place."

[39:09] - "The stigma of addiction is so bad that I was seriously contemplating suicide."

[41:02] - "Addiction is not the problem. Addiction is definitely a problem but drugs are a form of self-medication."

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

GoFundMe campaign to support David Poses’ family

https://www.gofundme.com/f/we-love-you-david-posesand-love-your-family

The Weight of Air: A Story About the Lies of Addiction and the Truth of Recovery

https://davidposes.com/the-weight-of-air

Episode Credits

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Previous Episode

170: Healing the Adult Child with Andrea Ashley

A lot of people are oblivious to recurring issues they encounter in life when those are actually the result of some unresolved childhood trauma manifesting in different ways. Whether it’s addiction, alcoholism, a toxic romantic relationship, a dysfunctional family, people-pleasing, impulsiveness, or you’re struggling with saying no – all these can be telltale signs of an inner wound that needs to be healed.

In this episode, Duane speaks with Andrea Ashley, host of The Adult Child Podcast, about her own journey of recovery and how she went deeper in recovery when she started to deal with her adult child issues. Andrea shares what it took her to finally find some deeper healing purpose and meaning in her life.

Andrea grew up in an alcoholic home and was the only child of an alcoholic mom and alcoholic dad. She turned to drugs and alcohol at 12 and became the focus of the family for the next seven years. She got sent to rehab for the first time in eighth grade. For seven years, she was in and out of rehabs and boarding schools. It did work in saving her family because her mom stopped drinking as much and her parents stopped fighting as much since they had to come together to deal with the nightmare that she was.

At 19, Andrea got sober. But that was only the beginning of yet another journey through a deeper recovery of healing her adult child. Seven years sober, she found herself in a toxic relationship. Dating for less than a month and she reacted as if her life was over. She became a non-functioning human. But she had an aha moment realizing that her feeling wasn’t actually connected to the heartbreak but it was rooted in her childhood.

Nine years sober, she found herself again in another toxic relationship that was associated with feelings of shame and powerlessness. When that relationship ended, she knew she had to treat it just as seriously as her alcoholism.

It has been four years and the transformation has been mind-blowing. Her journey to healing her unresolved childhood pain led Andrea to launch the Adult Child Podcast, which now impacts thousands of people who are also dealing with their own adult children.

In this episode, you will hear:

The concept of the adult child
Her journey recovering from toxic relationships
Andrea’s childhood memories of having alcoholic parents
The manifestations of complex trauma
Addiction to excitement
Finding a therapist that can help you
Healing the little “t” trauma
Embracing the pain

Key Quotes:

[18:17] - "As soon as I decided I like the guy, my peace of mind would just be hijacked in a second... and I had no idea that I was suffering from complex trauma."

[20:49] - "Complex trauma doesn't have to be like big events, but recurring incidents. It doesn't even have to be big, but just a parent being hypercritical of you over and over."

[24:16] - "Our template for relationship and love is developed during childhood."

[24:37] - "One of the characteristics of an adult child is that we become addicted to excitement."

[29:04] - “The core wound is all of this faulty programming that occurred during childhood.”

[39:30] - “We don't grow unless we're in pain... I can get sober and never feel pain again. But it's not really presenting very many opportunities for growth."

[41:46] - "There's nothing shameful or embarrassing about growing up in a dysfunctional family. Change is possible and you don't have to do it alone."

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

The Adult Child Podcast

Adult Children of Alcoholics/Dysfunctional Families

The Addictions Institute with Stephanie Brown

The ACA laundry list - the 14 common characteristics of an adult child

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Next Episode

171: Addiction and His Personal Struggles in a Post-9/11 World with Shahjehan Khan

On today’s episode, Duane speaks with Shahjehan Khan, a voiceover artist, actor, and musician based in Boston. He is the host of the King of the World podcast, which explores his life as a Pakistani American Muslim in the post-9/11 era, 20 years later. Shahjehan shares how he weaved his struggle with addiction to cannabis, how all of that came together for him, and how he got into recovery.

Son of Pakistani American immigrants, Shahjehan grew up as an average American young person in the suburbs of Massachusetts. When 9/11 happened, he remembers being a senior in high school, sitting in a calculus class. At that time, he was already a struggling teenager, which also marked the beginnings of heavy substance use. By the time he got to college, he dropped out after a year, came home, and had his first suicide attempt.

He was then introduced to AA, but it really didn’t resonate with him. He had a relapse a year after he joined a band. Until he realized he had to make that change. Now eleven years sober, Shahjehan found therapy to be the one thing that has helped him through his recovery journey. During the pandemic, he also found a community of recovering folks he could relate with.

It also made him realize it was okay to be a multifaceted person. At the time, he felt like there were a bunch of little pieces that never felt like a cohesive whole. When he was first approached to tell his story, he didn't want to tell another 9/11-centered Muslim story because he was sick of it. Then he realized he could frame it in a coming-of-age way, being able to show the parallels of his own personal struggles with what was happening in his outer world post 9/11.

The King of the World podcast is shining light on the American Muslim experience. And seeing the impact it had on him and the people he interviewed is also important for us to understand and grow as a society.

In this episode, you will hear:

Shahjehan’s addiction and recovery journey
His experience the next day after 9/11
The moment he decided he needed change
Experiencing a relapse being in a band
Finding the right method of recovery for yourself
Why he stopped attending meetings and focused on therapy
The impact of the King of the World podcast on other people
His recovery process

Key Quotes:

[11:28] - "Doing the podcast in itself was an act of realizing that it's okay to be this multifaceted person... there were all these little pieces that never felt like a cohesive whole."

[11:40] - "A lot of people in early recovery feel like fragmented people.. it's that process of that exploration."

[14:43] - "9/11 made it so that we would always be responsible for something we never did."

[21:09] - "We're starting to finally become a voice for people in a way but it's this complicated thing where I myself inside, I'm sort of using that as a crutch almost."

[26:43] - "It's not that it just happened overnight. It is a continuous process for sure."

[27:30] - "You're so used to being that 'other' in the room that you almost welcome it in a way."

[43:12] - “You should always be redefining success for yourself.”

[48:18] - "Find one person that you can be brutally honest with... and that can hear you out. And that's where the healing can start."

If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.

Supporting Resources:

King of the World Podcast

Immigrantly Podcast

www.shahjehankhan.com

Episode Credits

Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices