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What Do You Mean We Are All Addicts? | A Christian Approach to Human Nature | TLTS014 CWP079
Unlock the science behind addiction and the spiritual pathway to recovery with our special episode, "Orthodoxy and Recovery." Join us as Dr. Daniel Ageze, an expert in addiction medicine, David Carlson, who brings ten years of sobriety and deep involvement in Alcoholics Anonymous, and Robert Fortuin, an Orthodox Christian professor, come together to offer a comprehensive look at substance use disorder. Learn how a spiritual awakening can significantly alter dopamine release in the brain, potentially offering more fulfillment than substance abuse itself.
Listen to real-life experiences of addiction and recovery, illustrating the monumental challenges faced by those struggling with substance use. Our guests discuss the brain's extensive rewiring during addiction and how understanding these changes can aid in the recovery process. Discover how combining medical knowledge with spiritual guidance can provide a holistic path to overcoming addiction. This episode is not just an exploration; it's a message of hope and a guide for anyone affected by or interested in understanding addiction from both a medical and spiritual perspective.
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Substance abuse is rampant.
Speaker 2:Free the UIs and multiple stories. I mean, I could tell you war stories forever.
Speaker 1:Half of people 12 years and older have used drugs.
Speaker 3:When people have what we call spiritual awakening, you actually have higher dopamine release than drugs, right?
Speaker 4:And sin as being disordered passion.
Speaker 1:Someone who is addicted. It's like telling somebody don't be hungry.
Speaker 3:All across the board, right, I see patients, doctors, all kinds of profession, all races.
Speaker 2:The last decade of my drinking and using, I saw that God had been with me the entire time.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'm anxious, let me use alcohol or different reasons. People may get into that initially. What is substance use disorder? What are we talking about here today? Yeah, I'm anxious, Let me use alcohol or different reasons.
Speaker 1:People may get into that initially. What is substance use disorder? What are we talking about here today?
Speaker 2:You're supposed to do them in order. You're not supposed to skip around and hop around and buffet them If you can't do step one.
Speaker 1:Very excited about today's episode. We are doing a special episode. We're calling it Orthodoxy and Recovery. We have with us a special guest, dr Daniel Ageza. He's an Orthodox Christian. He's an expert related to addiction medicine. We also have with us David Carlson. He's an Orthodox Christian. He's 10 years sober, extensive personal experience with the big book, aa, alcoholics Anonymous and the 12-step program. Also joining us Robert Fortine. Robert is an Orthodox Christian professor.
Speaker 3:When you're taking substance, especially the main ones, right? They actually they make you release a lot of dopamine, so your brain starts to register that as it's important. I need to have it even more than you know. Food more than anything, right, even despite consequences. But inside their brain is getting rewired, right. So an addiction if you have history of addiction, your chance of having addiction is 50%. It's even higher, right?
Speaker 1:Dave, you told me one time someone who is addicted.
Speaker 2:it's like telling somebody don't be hungry and I heard it described as like telling a fish not to swallow water. Once I crossed that line in good times or bad times, or celebrating or funerals, whatever it was it had become my solution.
Speaker 1:That makes perfect sense, you know, and I think it does. It ties into what the doctor was saying about this rewiring in the brain.
Speaker 2:It's in the way of best. And I had been walking around telling people at the rehab I was in that I was going to quit drinking and I was going to quit doing you know I've seen some other drugs but I said I was going to smoke some weed. You know I was going to quit drinking and I was going to quit doing you know I've seen some other drugs. But I said I was going to smoke some weed. You know I was going to. You know, still keep doing marijuana and I'd be good, I'll be good. And then I heard him say good gets in the way of that. And I had realized, man, I am 40 years old and I don't think I've ever, ever tried to be my best.
Speaker 3:I had always been absolutely okay with just mediocre, just getting by, just paying the bills, just covering the rent. Coming back to the addiction component, you know your brain is rewired and we have different brain areas that initially you may start for a specific reason. You know I'm anxious, let me use alcohol or different reasons, for a specific reason. You know I'm anxious, let me use alcohol or different reasons. People may get into that initially. But once your brain starts to rewire and your genetic component also kind of fires up, then you're, you're start to go in the same circle, right, you're you, you get relief and eventually you actually start having a bit of relief. Right, you're just using, just like David was saying, it's just like water for fish. Right, it's like it makes you feel quote unquote maybe normal and not. You know, sometimes people are not trying to get high, they're trying to get back to that level of like normal.
Speaker 4:Sex or pleasure, pleasurable things. It's normal right. I mean it's it's, it's okay to eat, it's okay to have a beer and a glass of wine and whatnot, but at what point does it become addiction? At what point this trigger mechanism or this dopamine takes over or one is out of control. Where is that point?
Speaker 3:Yeah. So that's a great question and definitely need to know about your genetic history, right. There's also how many times you do it. Right. And then there's also how young you are. Right. A lot of times we're seeing kids starting early on. Right, brain is still developing. Right, by age 25 is when you're fully maturing, even though you're, you know, grown up and you're tall and you have all the features that make you look like an adult. You need to make sure you abstain from substances that you know freely goes to your brain, right, it does not. There's no limit and that's where it can trigger, right. And and you are at risk. And it also depends on the potency of the drug, right. If your meth is that you know, for example, is that it releases the highest amount of dopamine, so if your risk of, you know, getting addicted is way higher in that sense, right.
Speaker 4:Wondering is there a history in my family lineage that has, you know, clear signs?
Speaker 3:Yeah, so in a sense it's not a one-to-one gene where you're like, okay, I know specifically this gene does this? It's more like a composition of multiple genes, right? And it's more like, if you see it, you know, like in your family side we always ask you know mom side, dad side, anyone with substance use disorder, right?
Speaker 2:Let's do this. I was raised in a very religious household. I went to church every Sunday with my parents. Growing up, drinking and doing drugs was like not on the radar at all. Drinking and doing drugs was like not on the radar at all, and I um be going to public school. My sophomore year in high school didn't do anything for that first year, and then I've had my first drink the summer before my junior year.
Speaker 2:It was amazing to me. I thought why is this such a bad thing? Why does this have such a stigma around it? This is a really good thing. I had a lot of fun, we laughed a lot. Um, yeah, it made the situation more memorable to me and I just thought, man, well, this, if this is so good about the rest of it. I went, I did, I crossed the board. It was you know lsd, it was you know f, it was cocaine, and we'll see. You know, I figured I needed to have an opinion on everything. I couldn't have an opinion if I didn't know firsthand, right, doesn't see anything. And then, and after a while I mean after a prolonged amount you start to see some, start to get some what they call consequences. Even then, at that moment. It's not like you think there's a problem. You know what I mean, because you're with friends that are doing the same thing that you're doing. Really masked it a little bit.
Speaker 3:So in a sense, it does not discriminate and there's no bad people doing bad drugs, it's all across the board. Right, I see patients, you know doctors, all kinds of profession, all races, everyone is affected. I've had patients where they went to their first dental appointment and they had the laughing gas, and that's you know where they're described. They're like I had that boom, an opening, like, oh, that feels really good. You know that's, there's a commonality, right so? And then, all of a sudden, you're like, whoa, this just feels different. Right, so the substances are changing. Right, you're seeing opiate spike and you're like, all of a sudden, and you're like, oh, my goodness, opiate crisis.
Speaker 3:But truly, the substances are changing and even now we're having new substances, more potent ones, different ones. But it's not a new thing, right, it's more that medicine is catching up to it and saying, hey, you know they're stopping to stigmatize it. Right, it's more like one family member who's suffering, you know just, he's not doing anything with his life, blah, blah, blah. You know it's just all stigmatized because they're saying, okay, this is actually a different realm. Right, it's not just psychiatry, it has to be treated as its own, which is why you're seeing a lot more focus on it. It's like, oh, this is not enough, this is not enough. Now you're trying different things, but there's that emptiness that we're trying to fill.
Speaker 4:Drugs have become more potent, more prevalent, more ubiquitous. They're everywhere easy, cheap, more prevalent, more ubiquitous. It's all you know. They're everywhere easy, cheap and whatnot. But in on the other, on the other side of the flip side of that is that this is a spiritual condition, this is a human condition. You know what's going on with us, what's going on with people throughout, throughout our human history, right?
Speaker 2:but as far as the recovery sites, 12 staff program in aa blew up because they just didn't have an answer for it. There were a lot of people that if you had alcoholism in the early 1900s they would just put you with it, just medicate you and find you. It's all like that. There was really no solution. So this was a very amazing thing to have happen.
Speaker 3:The founders found the spiritual component of like this gap and there was no solution. Man could not find solution. The only solution you can find was in in the spiritual realm and that is why aa and na and all those blew up. And even in medicine, medicine did not want to accept a a and a, even to this day, like there had to be a lot of evidence. All that stuff right. Even after 100 years, 100 years of seeing how it's helping people stay in recovery, right. So there's that big component of like that void that we've been just ignoring.
Speaker 4:Especially from the Eastern Orthodox perspective, there's this understanding of spirituality and spiritual discipline and sin as being disordered passions. So passions are not necessarily by themselves per se evil or bad, for instance a passion for food or drink or whatnot, sexual pleasure or stimulation in other ways but it's when it becomes disordered that then they take over and they are harmful. They then take over and actually are detrimental to a person. So from the Christian perspective it's very interesting to hear you guys talk about how these things take over and how they affect people to a point where they can't do without these substances.
Speaker 2:A little thing would be about step six and seven of the 12 steps, and it's talking about our character defects. And it's phenomenal because that's exactly it. It's our character defects like fear. Fear is a good thing, but too much fear detrimental.
Speaker 4:Christian spirituality. There is centuries, almost two millennia of history on how to deal with the disordered passions. Right? How have the church fathers, how has the church mothers, how have they looked at this, at the Christian discipline? You know, we're pulled to that. I think everybody's pulled to that in one way or another. Like you said, whether it's fear or lust or money. You know the prestige or social status. You know all the beauty, all of these things. Right is the story about Satan's fall because he saw himself as beautiful and he thought then he was God. Right.
Speaker 1:Our hearts are restless until they find their rest in him, and you know it's been kind of put into modern parlance we have a God-shaped hole within us. That is not just related to substances, but that is related to as you were touching on, robert the passions, including in the modern day, sexual addiction, pornography addiction, things of this nature.
Speaker 3:Porn hidden right. There's sexual addiction, which are hidden. No one sees it, so no one is blaming you telling you hey, you know all that stuff. There's gaming, there's Facebook, there's scrolling. You're wasting away your life, in a sense, right. When people have what we call spiritual awakening, that's where you actually have higher dopamine release than drugs, right, that's where you actually have higher dopamine release than drugs, right. So so where there's you know more of a, where you're, that hole is being filled in a sense, right.
Speaker 2:That's kind of like a medical perspective of like seeing I had nowhere else to go and I was uh, I found myself at 40 years old, um, bliss, and homeless and without a car, without a job, without a relationship of any kind, and in a rehab. And still, even then, with all the consequences, the 3D UIs and multiple stories I mean, I could tell you war stories forever, taking, you know, four hours to talk more. Even with all of that background, I'm in a rehab, tiny, but well, I really don't want to give up everything and so what?
Speaker 4:when did that change? When you, when you went from like I really don't need help, I can deal with it to like my gosh, I gotta change.
Speaker 2:I'll be honest, it wasn't my idea interesting. A very dear friend of mine called me up and said, hey, do you want help? And I said yeah, yeah. What I thought meant was that I'm going to give you a place to stay where you can get on your feet. You know what I mean, fill out your applications.
Speaker 2:She picked me up and said I'm taking you to rehab. I was like what? And she said if you don't want to go, then get out of the car, went into a five-day detox and then transferred into a recovery center, and so that started it. A clear head somewhat is when I had that epiphany about that meeting where the guy said, good, get to the way of best. And then I started going okay, aa was not attractive to me, it wasn't. You know. I just had all these people coming in saying, oh, we had a time, and keep coming back and all these little catchphrases that used to just Like it wasn't your willpower going like.
Speaker 4:Now I'm going to change.
Speaker 2:it sounded like I truly believe it, because at that point in my life I had kind of walked away from god and look at it, I see some white atheist and I had thought that religion was a man-made situation. I'm kind of jumping into it and going to these meetings because that's what we're supposed to do and, um, the first time in my life I'm like walking into these rooms that are full of hope. I hadn't been hanging out with a lot of hope in my life at all. You know what I mean. I had been hanging out with some friends and you know some dark places and there was no hope there.
Speaker 2:And now I'm hanging out with hope and so it's very attractive to me. I don't want to be calling somebody every day. I don't like that job, you know what I mean. It wasn't until about four or five months in that I finally was like, okay, respond to it. And then when that sponsor just started to do the steps and that's where the recovery starts to come in there's a viewer out about the difference of what is recovery.
Speaker 3:It's not like, oh, you stopped drinking, alcohol using and now you're good. Now you can think you're always constantly actively staying in recovery and God cares about matter, our physical body, our fallen nature. That needs to be. It's not only spiritual, there's a spiritual component which comes after. But initially you have to get that chemicals under control so that you have that 20 days or whichever days that you're mentioning, right, and for some people it's longer. But first it's like I don't need help, I can do it. No, maybe I need help. And then they're like, oh, I really need help, but but I need help in my terms. And then eventually, right. And eventually is when they say, okay, I give in, I'll do whatever you say to do. Right, and I always say you know, I can help you physically. Right, you're in recovery physically, but spiritually you're not there. Right, you don't have spiritual recovery. It kind of ties back to my passion, is like I don't want to just heal your body, I want to also make sure I prevent spiritual death. Right, that's the ultimate.
Speaker 4:The Christian discipline, the Christian faith. The spiritual aspect includes the body. Christ came in the flesh right. God came in the flesh Well that tells us something that the body, our human body, are super important for God to come in the flesh.
Speaker 3:And to add to that, robert, that's more specific to orthodoxy, that depth of acknowledgement of the body comes in orthodoxy. Christianity has that, but orthodoxy gives it even a special understanding that acknowledges the body too, which is your doctrine, has to support that and your theology the fall included the body, but so with salvation will include the body as well.
Speaker 3:That's what I believe as christians that christ rose from the dead bodily and also kind of ties back to what I was saying there's I said there's no cure, right and and, from an orthodoxy perspective that your body is going to be fully restored when Christ comes. You're following nature, so in a sense we have to stay vigilant in that.
Speaker 1:But what I'm hearing here in these 12 steps, is a treatment. You're treating a condition that doesn't go away. You're not curing it, but rather you're addressing how to deal with it on a day-to-day basis, something of that nature.
Speaker 2:Two different times and in a few different ways, but basically it says point of this book is to introduce you to a power greater than yourself. It can solve all your problems. There are atheists in Alcoholics Anonymous and some people will use god as a synonym for the, a group of drunks. Um, use the already group and, and so you know I don't go out of the way is that there's a phenomenal chapter in the book that talks about called we, we agnostic, and it addresses face, and it does it so masterfully.
Speaker 3:What you put into it is what you get. But majority, as David is saying, if you're doing the steps you have really thought about. First step for sure, and you've seen it in your life demonstrated You've had so many consequences. You've become, whether you like it or not, powerless over your substance.
Speaker 2:And then your life has become unmanageable. There's really, if you can't do step one. And now, like like dr daniel mentioned, steps are order. You are, you're supposed to do them in order. You're not supposed to skip around and hop around and and buffet on like I I've been to do for a little while, 10 or 12 days into it and they'll go oh hey, I got this and that doesn't protect you. You stopped. They say if you don't, there's really no point in going any further with anything else in those gaps. So it's a critical step Enabled me to get as much time as I have underneath myself, because I know that I have this thing called alcoholism and I know that like thing called alcoholism and I know that it would take today as one bad idea and I might go out and have a drink and it's all over. It's all over. And that would be me doing my first step, saying nope, I don't think I have a problem, I think I can take care of this.
Speaker 1:I can, that's how I approached christianity. For many years it was kind of like I'm at church. One of the things I love about orthodoxy is orthodoxy is about the work, it's about the process, it's about the steps. Yes, yes and and I need the steps. That's what I've come to realize by God's grace.
Speaker 2:Yes, yes, twelve Steps is a program of action. You cannot just sit in a room and observe it. You know what I mean. You have to be involved, you have to go to liturgies, you have to make confession. You have to take part in the Euphorus. You have to make confession. You have to take part in the euphorist. You have to worship and you have to pray. And you know what I mean it is.
Speaker 4:You know liturgy. What is liturgy? It means liturgia. Liturgy comes from the word liturgia, which means the work, it's work of the people.
Speaker 3:Right. You don't just do it by yourself. There's someone who's done it, who's there shepherding you, who can speak to it, and you're admitting to someone. You're powerless, and that parallels with orthodoxy. You're going to your priest and saying or you know, you've dealt with your sin so many times. You're like I can't do it, I am powerless. I need you know. It's not just my willpower. I need to come there, I need to take communion. I need to come there, I need to take communion, I need forgiveness. All those things play a big component and that's where you're seeing what the church has had for 2,000 years and 100 years ago is when you're coming up with the solution. We've kind of forgotten God, in a sense right For many years, but the solution is there.
Speaker 2:Okay, so let's get into this. There's no physical proof that you've done the first step, say that you did it right. No physical proof that you've done the second step either. You can kind of just go. I know what I did, to be honest with you.
Speaker 4:You know what I mean.
Speaker 2:You're honest with you, kind of fake it. You know what I mean. You're starting to feel good now, you're sleeping normal, you've got a job. You know what I mean. Yeah, you've cleaned up your head's, clearing out I don't know. For me it was like I was talking to my family members again. I was back in their lives and certain friendships that developed that were just blossoming and certain friendships that developed that were just blossoming, and it was like, man, this feels so good. There's a certain optimism that came with that, and I don't know if it was for the last decade of my drinking and using. I saw that God had been with me the entire time. It's acting me, keeping me safe, keeping me to this point in my life. It was that I was like, wow, at a point I couldn't once you see that. You can't unsee it. Just can't unsee it because I've been in some very dark places, been in some very, very dark places. To look back and see that he had been there the whole time was just like absolutely amazing.
Speaker 4:We need to surround ourselves with people that we can trust and who truly love us. Spiritual manipulation, misuse of spiritual authority, toxic perhaps the worst of all type of toxicity and abuse right, a lot of spiritual abuse happens. So I think I want to make clear that you know what I see in the, in the what, david, when you said that the sponsoring you pray with your sponsor. That tells me of a beautiful relationship where you can trust this person, and this person is looking for you and for the best of you, and I think this is so important. Oh, my goodness, we cannot go through life without people that we can trust.
Speaker 3:They may have done this, which I guess the next other steps we'll talk about, right, david? But this is a big step and there's a lot of emotions involved. Right, there's the fear. All that gets replayed. So it takes months. Right, this is not a one, you know, small step that you just do. You're really unpacking. It's like you're cleaning out your whole house, multiple houses, right, it's not over the years. So it's a it's a big step and people will need to be supported at this step and I see some overlap there with this step.
Speaker 1:You know, like you said, dave, it's, it's about there to work on yourself. You're not there to, and I'm going to tell you all these stories of all these people that wronged me.
Speaker 2:You'll hear it, I've heard it in rooms where a lot of people will say, oh, they're speaking victimese, and you know, they're young, they're new into the program, because they're still pointing fingers instead of owning what it is that God needs in that situation. Also, when I started preparing for my first confession, it was exactly the same. It was exactly the same because I'm having a look and these dark, so pretty sides of myself and admit that there is a way out. Um, I improved and I am not perfect by any means, but, um, there is a solution. There is a solution and like to thank you for watching as much as you have and and and ask the. If you really feel you that reach out, it should help. You are loved or loved, and there is a solution yeah, perhaps our audience.
Speaker 4:If the audience have questions for, uh, dr daniel or david, leave them in the comments below and then in part two, we can dedicate a section to answering your questions. Perhaps you have some thoughts, suggestions, critique, critique and we'd love to address those for you. So please participate in that, if you will.
Speaker 1:To our guests. Thank you, guys, god bless and we're signing off.
Speaker 3:Take care.
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