March 10, 2026 • 35 mins
Before Dr. Scott Lyons became an expert on drama addiction, he was living it – weaponizing empathy, chasing crisis to feel alive, and mistaking stress for connection.
Now a clinical psychologist, body-based trauma expert, and author of Addicted to Drama, Scott joins hosts Martin Luther King III, Arndrea Waters King, Marc Kielburger, and Craig Kielburger for a fearless and deeply personal conversation about chaos, trauma, and the hidden ways we keep ourselves stuck.
Joined by his best friend of over 20 years, Nicole Asselin, Scott reflects on the childhood trauma, shame, thrill-seeking, and relational patterns that shaped his life – and how he ultimately broke free.
Together they explore:
- The science behind addiction to stress (and how endorphins keep us hooked)
- Trauma bonding vs. drama bonding
- Why chaos can feel safer than peace
- How to build connection without crisis
- Turning thrill-seeking into growth instead of self-sabotage
Note: This episode includes discussion of suicide and mental health. Viewer discretion advised.
Don’t miss Part 2, airing Tuesday, March 17. Subscribe for conversations that challenge, heal, and inspire.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Turn on your Instagram right now? What is the imagery?
You are literally being fed, and I mean fed into
your body. All the circumstances that make an individual likely
to become addicted to drama, we are experiencing on a
mass level.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Doctor Stott Lyons is the clinical psychologist and body based
trauma expert behind Addicted to Drama, the groundbreaking book that
finally explained why so many of us can't stop creating
the very chaos we say we want to escape.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And then I would ask the hard question, who here
is addicted to drama? How is it that everyone knows someone,
but no one is that person.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But before he became the expert, he was the case study.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I was toxic, He was toxic. We were toxic, and
I needed those fights or some type of drama or
crisis to feel anything at all.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And he's brought along the person who's known him through
all of it is best friend of over twenty years,
Nicole Aslin.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
You've talked about the difference between trauma bonding and drama bonding.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, laughing because I'm seeing Nicky smile. Probably the amount
of times I've tried to rope her in for my drama.
She could write her own book on.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
The join hosts Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King,
Mark Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger for a fearlessly honest and
often hilarious conversation about the chaos we can't quit and
what it takes to finally break free.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And I felt so much shame, you know, as I
was walking down the streets in New York City, and
I was like, FA, what if I'm on a runway
and I walked to them.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Before today's episode begins, please be advised this conversation includes
discussions about suicide and mental health. Some of the content
may be distressing. If you or someone you know is struggling,
help is available. Call the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
at nine eight eight or text home to seven four
one seven four one to reach the crisis text line.
(01:55):
These services are free and available twenty four to seven.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Welcome to My Legacy. Our guest today is doctor Scott Lyons,
a clinical psychologist, educator, and body based trauma expert who
has helped people around the world break free from cycles
of pain and chaos. Scott, welcome. We're so honored to
have you with us today and as our audience knows.
(02:20):
On this podcast, our extraordinary guests are joined by someone
of their choosing who has played a meaningful role in
their life. Scott, would you do us the honor of
introducing your guests today?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh my gosh, it's happy to and thank you so
much for having me on the show. This is my
dearest oldest friend, Nicole Asen or Nicky Asen or Nicki
Lou however you want to address her. And we have
been friends since high school. The moment we met, we
were siblings, we were best friends. And she is an
(02:55):
artist extraordinaire. She's an academic. She is one of the
funniest people I know, and one of the kindest human beings.
She is true Minnesota blood and in that sense of
just like sweet, sweet, loving human being. And yeah, I'm
so excited to do the show. It was the first
(03:16):
person I thought of immediately when I was asked to
bring in plus one.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
How beautiful.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So Nicole, let's start with you.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
So obviously there's that connection, But when you all first
met on that day in high school, how did you
know that Scott was going to be someone that would
have eternal placement in your life?
Speaker 6 (03:39):
When I saw Scott. It was pretty much a vision,
and I think that's the only word that I could
use to describe. So I came. You know, we went
to a very special high school. It was an arts
based school, and we were both in the theater department.
And I had left my small town in Minnesota to
(04:03):
you know, to this, to go to the city, to
be in this very alternative environment. And I was so excited.
And my parents had just dropped me off at the
dorm and were like, Okay, see you later, good luck.
And I turn around and there is Scott in it too.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Too, and the move tap with the whoop.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
Saying hello, welcome to Double D Heaven, and our dorm
was called Delta Dorm. And I just knew that I
was going to be okay because I was surrounded by
people like Scott.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I still have that too, too, just so we're clear.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I love that all these years later, the friendship remains
as strong as ever. And Nicole, I actually love that
you brought this to Scott's high school days because I
think so often we see incredibly successful individuals like Scott,
and we see them that today, you know, the doctor,
the host, the the extinem leader in the field, and Scott,
can we actually go back to your origin, because this
(05:12):
is what we do on the show. We go all
the way back, including to your high school days, because
you've talked about how the teachers were calling you stupid
and other classmates and like shoving you into lockers, and
they're not mistaken. I think you had talked about I
remember reading that that you were so desperate you faked
your own suicide not once, but multiple times. And so
can we actually go back like before the success that
(05:33):
you are now, can we actually go back to that time? Like,
can you really take us back to that origin? And
what were you really crying out for at that time?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, the school that Nikki and I met at was
was not the school that where I was getting beat
up and okay sort of accosted by fact by teachers
as well. That was my freshman year and I wasn't
out as a gay man then, but it certainly was
getting quite a bit of flack for it. And I
(06:02):
had an IEP and Individual Education Plan for my learning disabilities,
and it supposedly hadn't transferred over to the high school,
so the teachers didn't know couldn't understand my unique way
of learning. And processing. Teachers were calling me stupid. They
were telling my parents I would be lucky if I
could even graduate high school. I was being shoved in
(06:25):
lockers and beat up and people weren't believing me. I
went to teachers to try to get help, and they
would just say they would give me advice as to
what I could do differently. And it was a hard
experience for my parents to believe that this could be
happening to them, because I had a very fruitful experience
(06:47):
in junior high school and I just was so desperate.
I was so desperate, and I didn't at the time
know what else to do besides kind of kind of
create a drama, a scene in which people could maybe
understand the pain that I was in to help me
(07:08):
make changes in my life that I was really desperately seeking.
And I mean, I was depressed and I and you know,
it's a it's kind of an embarrassing thing to even hear.
And I know I wrote that in my book that
I had faked a suicide and it was I didn't
know what else to do. You know, when a child
(07:28):
cries out and no one listens, they just have to
get louder and louder and louder, and I think the
same is true with not just children, but when in
systems that are so broken, like how do we start
to get heard in ecosystems that choose to keep us
down and hurt, keeping keep us in the pain that
(07:50):
we're in, intentionally or unintentionally. And so yeah, that was
that was a very difficult time. I left that school
after after these experiences and went to a second high
school where I spent the year. I said maybe five
words the entire year. I figured that the safest way
(08:13):
to exist was to not exist in that second high school.
And you know, even as I say that it's it's
it brings up a lot of pain and ache of
that that any child would have to do that hide
themselves to stay safe. And so yeah, when I got
accepted into this arts high school where Nicky and I
(08:35):
first met, it was like it was such a liberation.
It was an incredible experience to know that I was safe,
that there were people who were as weird as I was,
and and diverse and learning styles as I was just
thriving academically, thriving artistically. It makes such it makes such
(08:56):
an impact what an environment will.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Do oh, Scott, now my heart as a father of
three boys, just hearing you speak his way, it was
just a tight thing as you were describing that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yes, you call what you were doing back then weaponizing empathy. Yeah,
when we can't receive love, so we make others feel pain,
it's dead. Can you explain what weaponized empathy is and
how do we recognize when we're doing that or when
(09:27):
it's being done to us?
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah? I think so many of us are familiar with
the phrase and eye for an eye, And there's a
way not only can we not receive an apology or
validation or love, that when we can't receive something, we
can't actually do a process of repair. Right. So if
(09:51):
I say to you, I'm so sorry, but you're in
such embracing a defense mode that you can't receive the
sorry or the accountability statements, it never lands. And so
while someone might say I'm sorry, you never get to
experience the repair in the same way that I could
say to someone I love you. But if they're bracing,
(10:12):
if they're holding, if they've had trauma, and literally their
oxytocin receptors have shrunk down in response to the trauma,
they can't receive the love. And so what do we
do as a way of making sure someone understands us,
or feels us, or truly gets our experience. Is we
make them have a similar experience. We evoke an emotional
(10:35):
response to hope that they understand at the experiential level
what we're going through. So, if Nikki and I were
in a fight and I am a person who has
had a significant amount of trauma and is bracing, and
she says or doesn't say sorry, what weaponized empathy is
is I'm going to bring back hate that thing that
(10:57):
you did five years ago, or I'm going to talk
about something else that makes you feel a level of
shame and hurt and pain so that you understand the
level of pain I am in. And that's something I
had discovered was happening in myself, having navigated a lot
(11:20):
of trauma. Was like, there would be people in my
life who would try to make repair, but I didn't
believe them until they would be in some level of
hurt and pain themselves. Then I would say, okay, now
we're on the same plane. Now we can start to repair.
But at that point they're too hurt to even be
in a process of repair. I've hurt them too far,
(11:41):
and I've seen that in so many clients I've worked with,
their groups that I've worked with, is that the bracing
and the ways in which we have survived to not
take in more experience, more pain, more trauma, prevents us
from actually doing the really important human relational work, which
(12:02):
is repair, and instead, I project that you need to
be in some type of discomfort in order for us
to be on an equal playing field.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Hurt people, hurt people, hurt.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
People, hurt people because they have to to be in
the same level of human experience.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Wow, Nicole, and I know you met him after that
extremely difficult time in high school. What did he share
about that? Do you remember conversations and how you were
best able to support him on that journey?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
You know, I think during those times in our lives,
especially in mid late high school, we I think there
are times of great openness. People are willing to share
bits and pieces of themselves. It's a very emotional time.
There's definitely a lot of hormones going to say hormones.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yeah, we have a seventeen year almost eighteen year old, and.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
So there does there is like this moment especially because
we you know, we were going to a boarding school,
so there's a lot of time that we got to
spend with one another, and of course the stories emerged,
and you know, Scott shared stories of you know, the
trauma of his past, and it was for me really
more of a witnessing and a hearing and and acknowledging
(13:19):
then oh, I have something to fix or you know,
we we can work through this, you know. For I
think at that time, it was just being heard and
being seen and being okay for who you were. And
the other lair is the creative lair. And I would
say most of the youth that were in our program
had experienced trauma of various kinds and embodied work like
(13:44):
improv and uh, you know, we were even doing dance theater,
and that those sorts of things can really help build
new pathways.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
But I think one of the things that's often missed
from real trauma therapy is a and laughter and humor,
And that's certainly been one of the things I tried
to bring back as a traumatologist is hey, we don't
have it doesn't all have to be intense. That we
(14:16):
build a garden of different experiences like play like laughing again,
that allows for a significant process of healing to actually
do more the heavy work of contacting and touching into
the more painful experiences. So the fact that Nikki was
assigned my improv partner for most of high school because
no one else wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Or could be that you were hard to improv with,
like you had to she had to go big and
go home in.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Order to.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Nicole could go big, And I was always very exaggerated
and intensified, like I had no fear, which was part
of the change there. This is why we love.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
The Plus he has no filter. Yeah, Martin has no filter.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
How does that show up no filter for you?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Can I answer on your back?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Yeah, because I'm not sure about.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Just say like sometimes even when we are we're together
and with my sisters, he'll say something that even as
supposed to be like a compliment, compliment or telling a
story that that you know about I don't know ex
girlfriend or just anything, and then he'll keep going down
(15:40):
a hill that he should not go. And my sisters
would even they'll tell him, like bro, stop like sometimes
like he'll give a compliment and just as as opposed
to stopping with the compliment like, oh, you look nice today,
beautiful compliment because yesterday what you had on not like
(16:00):
that's what I'm like, That's what I mean. Yeah. Also,
I'm reminded as when you're talking about trauma and the
importance of joy, one of the things that stirred up
for me is thinking about your father, because what people
don't know is how funny not only that he was
(16:23):
and how funny you are, but how that humor was
used at such difficult times. After you've been stabbed within
an inch of your and literally within an inch of
your life, you know, they would go back sometimes to
the hotel and have pillow fights because of the fact
that you are facing death right, So the trauma of
(16:44):
dealing with that.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I love that capacity and like that that that's so
moving actually to hear in the face of what he's
navigated to be able to find the playfulness to sort
of balance out the significant heaviness that most of us
I don't think we'll ever know. Absolutely, and yes to pillow.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Fights, and when you all work together again, you also
have a pillow fight.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
In honor of Martin Luther King, I spent the first
couple of years as a therapist having pillow fights in
my office with class Wow, and people thought I was wild.
I mean I am wild, but like, but the significant
discharge and release of all of that activation through some
type of vehicle movement is essential for healing, right that
(17:34):
it has to go somewhere, And it's just about like
being able to still feel it and channel it into
some type of whether it's a run or a laugh
or a cry, these are all just vehicles for emotion
to come back into motion.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
And Scott, in fact, if I can move into that area,
because you talked about the idea of needing to get
it out, you know, and and I mean I'm move
a little bit further into your twenties. You were in
grad school, broke up with the long term partner, lost
the big job, lost your health insurance, you know, all
ones like you shared that rock Bod period you call
your axent purposely get into fights. Yeah, And I'm like, oh,
(18:14):
I was got to relate to that a little bit.
And so when did you realize it wasn't grief like
you were feeling something else? Like maybe it was this
this needs to channel emotions or how would you describe that?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I think so many of us might feel a flatness
in our life or can relate to a certain time
period where we felt flat or I think the more
popular saying would be like a little dead inside, a
little underwhelmed by life. And you know there are certain
activities or things that we might need to rise above
(18:48):
the threshold to feel again right. And if you've gone
through depression, you might know that experience. And you know,
one of the caveats of trauma is that there's so
much that has had to be suppressed and repressed and
can't be felt as a means of survival, and so
you need experiences that rise above that level of the
(19:11):
decibel of numbness to experience again. And for me getting
into fights and to go do shows in front of
five thousand people and to go do improv on the
street with Nicki Wu in the middle of Times Square.
You know that those type of like very high octane
experiences were the ways I could know I was alive
(19:36):
and when I was out of this relationship that Nicki
knows quite well that that was just like it was
I was toxic, he was toxic. We were toxic. Whatever
that means, it just means that we were playing each
other's traumas out to the max degree right and staying
(19:59):
in it as opposed to realizing that we could do
we could separate or do something differently. And I, like
I realized in retrospect, I needed that level of chaos
and crisis to actually both because it was familiar to
the ecosystem I grew up in, so it felt somewhat
quote unquote safe, but it also gave me a sense
(20:21):
of like a liveness. It was adventure, and without it
when I we separated, I was like, oh, it's too quiet,
and and I needed those fights or some type of
drama or crisis to feel anything at all. You know,
when I give this example, when I lecture a lot,
(20:45):
like if you're used to salting your vegetables, right then
you know vegetables as this like salted experience. And let's
say your doctor says, okay, you got to cut your
salt out. You got you got some hypertension issue use
and you start to eat that vegetable and you're like,
this is disgusting. There's no spice, there's no flavor, there's
(21:07):
nothing here. And so you take some time and you
have to maintain the doctor's orders, and over time, the
taste of the vegetables gets to come back, right, The
nuances of the flavors, the textures, all of that returns.
But there's this gap period that has to happen between
over salting your food and only knowing vegetables as this
(21:29):
extreme salted, crispy thing that you fry or whatever, to
the flavors of life that actually exist, and when you've
experienced trauma, those nuances of flavors cannot exist.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
If we were to experience the many, many flavors of
life and have to be that exposed and fragmented, we
wouldn't be able to survive.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Nicole, you were watching your best fan self destruct. What's
the hardest part about loving someone who's using drama to survive?
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I will I will say it is super hard to see.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Did you know I was dramatic, Nikki?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, now it's hard.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
I think the hardest thing is really realizing that, like
the pain and the energy could be channeled into something
else that like, it doesn't like, it doesn't have to
hurt like this, it doesn't have to be like this.
I think the hardest part was, you know, finding you know,
it's like finding the right.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Level of.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
Compassion and care and how to be heard and also
just really realizing that, you know, for me, it's like, oh, Scott,
you're an amazing person.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
You know, just just move on, you know.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
But alternatively, I will say, you know, the thrills seeking
or the desire for all those salty vegetables or Scott
has always been a thrill seeker in all areas of
his life. But it has been a really beautiful thing
to see the milestones shift and into oh, these these
big thrills and these big bumps of drama have to
happen in my relationships to Hey, Nikki, why don't we
(23:18):
go hang gliding?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Why don't we go get seeing?
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Why don't we you know, do all these like why
don't you come to Greece and we'll like go on
this yacht okay and jump off the back the back,
flip off the back of this thing. You know. It's like, Okay,
how can we channel that desire for extreme experience into
something that is productive and generative instead of how can
(23:41):
I feed the drama cycle into relationships that.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Aren't going to benefit anyone?
Speaker 6 (23:48):
Yeah, So that's been a beautiful evolution. I still get
scared Scott to do the White Water tubing, you know, but.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
I took white and it didn't go well.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
It did end up with me crying and saying I
need acupuncture.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I was bringing the drama, you guys.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
It was well, you know, we all have friends who
want to do extreme things, and when do you draw
the line? Like, you know, I have friends who swim
with sharks, and I'm like, okay, I love you.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's a great question of like where do we know
the line for? You know, because novelty is a way
in which we experience zest right, it's the we need novelty.
It's the ways, you know. There's this interesting research on
time that most of us often say, like where did
time go? I feel like it's just passing me by,
(24:52):
And and the research shows that our ability to be
able to focus and our ability to experience novelty is
what gives us a sense that time is actually slow
enough for us to marinate in and let life is
slow enough for us to marinate in and experience it.
And so we need novelty. We need new experiences. But
(25:13):
do they have to be swimming with sharks? Is the question? Yes.
Sometimes I think that if we can find newness in
a beautiful conversation. That's great. And if we can find
it in sharks, that's great. But do we The question
is can we only find it in the extremes? You know,
(25:34):
it's like if I can't go and try some a
new dish that he has and really taste the flavors
of that and sit and have a discussion and a meal,
you know that's really special by candlelight or whatever, and
that gets me and I'm bored by that, And I'm
not bored when I'm jumping out of a plane and
(25:55):
with a parachute. Then that's really good information.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Wow, something that you want that doesn't require her shark.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Like just that Like what like can you find that
that same fulfillment? Yeah, in a candlelight dinner with the
loved one, as you know, jumping out of a plane.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
That Alga, there's the stage in my life I remember Like,
so I did the running with the bulls, the learning
how to do solo skydiving, the Nitrix underwater deep set
like all that stuff, climbing mountains, et cetera. And then
I met my wife and then suddenly like no, that
was like a great adventure of life. Well, you never
needed to do it again. Like to your point, like kids,
oh my god, all these other things that became like
(26:40):
no desire to go, you know, throw myself in the
middle of a deathifying state to your point, those other
things that fill us.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Wow, Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
If someone didn't invite me to hike Kilmanjaro on the
second date, I probably there was a time period whe
I probably wouldn't have gone out with them on the
second or third date, and that only changed since last week.
But I am proud of this thing.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
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Let's keep going through your life. This you didn't realize
this was going to be this is your life. Yeah,
you got a PhD in clinical psychology, which was a
(27:26):
complete career change from directing choreography. But then you chose
to study addiction to drama. And I've heard the saying
a lot of times that research really is mesearch. So
when did you realize that you were onto something with
this the study of drama.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I've done a lot of one eighties in my life.
I like to think of myself kind of like Madonna
in a constant revolution, Like I'm a CEO of you know,
those of the tech company now and I'm you know,
it's still see clients, But I like reinvention tours.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Young listeners who maybe are not, as you know, schooled
in Madonna from the eighties and nineties. I guess the
closest would be maybe Taylor Swift in her eras, but
those of us who know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I was directing a big rock band and in a show. Wow,
And I just remember going, oh, my gosh, this is
the pinnacle of my career. I have more money as
a budget than I could ever even fathom. I the
kind of remember around my first meeting around the show,
(28:33):
They're like, you can have penguins on stage if you want.
That's that's how big it is. And I was like, oh,
I'm definitely getting penguins. And I was in the middle
of the show and I was like, I'm not happy.
And if i'm if I'm working in this way, and
I'm I feel like I'm everyone's therapist. Anyways, I might
(28:56):
as well go back to school for it. And I
so yeah. I started doing my master's in PhD in
clinical psychology, and I was like, well, it's a long shot,
but maybe I can study drama. And one of the
interesting things as I started to do research was everyone
(29:19):
I ever spoke to about it, They're like, oh, I
know someone like that. And when I started lecturing about it,
I would start with the question who here knows someone
addicted to drama? Not defining it at all, right, every
single person in that audience would raise their hand, and
then I would ask the hard question, which was who
here is addicted to drama? And maybe one or two
(29:42):
people would raise their hand, and I was like, well,
this is really interesting. It's you know, this concept of
addiction to drama is so in the general understanding, and
yet it's not in any of the literature. It's not
in the DSM, the Diagnostics Statistical Manual which therapists used
to I knows or some do. And so how is
(30:04):
it something that everyone knows but hasn't been unpacked And
how is it that everyone knows someone but no one
is that person? Which taught me a lot about typically
those who are addicted are the last to know, which
is when I made the joke earlier about Nikki, did
you know I was dramatic? And she, you know, Colely responded,
(30:27):
you know I was the last to know, certainly, and
especially with behavioral addictions, because they integrate into our identity,
our perception of life, and truly become part of our
survival mechanism, so we don't see them as quote unquote
an addiction. The research was really exciting for me because
(30:48):
I was like, Okay, everyone knows someone or everyone knows
this concept, so at least that's a starting point to
really dive in and go, well, what does stress, what
does rama, stress, chaos, crisis actually do for us? Because
all addictions, all every single addiction has a purpose. It
(31:08):
does something, and what it does is it relieves us
of pain. Fundamentally, that is what it does. It distracts us.
It takes us out of an underlying pain. And so
I asked The question I had was, Okay, well, if
every addiction relieves pain at some level, how does drama
(31:33):
how to stress, which is the very thing we're inducing
more of an addiction to drama possibly give us some
type of support or sense of relief from pain. And
it does. The science is really really clear that like
when we get stressed out right, let's say our video
equipment's not working right now or any minute. Stress to
(31:58):
any maximum stress, you release endorphins. Just like when you
go for a run, you get that runners high, right,
So we naturally produce pain relievers in our body or
blockers to pain when we are in a stress response.
But here's the kicker. If you're familiar with addictions, you
(32:18):
might know that in order for it to qualify for
an addiction, you need more to get high. Right, there's
a threshold, there's a tolerance level. The word is tolerance.
And so like if I'm alcohol, for example, I will
need more alcohol each time, progressively over time to get
drunk or to have the pain relief effect of it,
the numbing effect of it, the same is true with
(32:40):
stress and endorphins. So if I'm naturally getting some type
of pain relief and energy by the way, because there's
an energy boost every time you get stressed, like drinking
a cup of coffee, except a little bit more powerful. Actually,
then what happens is I get that pain relief and
(33:02):
it feels good. I feel better. I literally feel less pain,
and so I might go towards the things that keep
relieving me a pain, even though they're stressful, the situations,
the relationships, the circumstances, the jobs, all of that, even
though we complain about it, we are simultaneously getting an
(33:23):
endorphin release. And the challenge of that is I need
more endorphins over time to maintain the pain relief. So
I become stuck in that cycle of needing more stress
to get more pain relief. That's the physiology that we're
actually talking about, which is so interesting. And stress is
(33:46):
not only the most contagious emotional state, but it also
creates the most emotional bonding. So when I was I
moved to New York a few days before nine to
eleven September eleventh, two thousand and one, before the towers
went down. And there's been a lot of research about this,
(34:10):
but this was also my personal experience of like the
first couple of days in New York, and I remember
calling NICKI and being like, nobody's nice here. We're from Minnesota.
We're so nice, you know, like we grew up in
these small towns. We like talk to each other, you
talk to your neighbors. And I was like, I went
to a yoga studio and some guy told me that
my accent was stupid. And a yoga studio in New
(34:32):
York City and only New York, Only in New York City,
my brother and a few days later, after this catastrophic experience,
the proximity, the sense of connection I had to strangers.
I would literally hold people on the bus and cry
with them. We would talk about our lives with each other.
(34:54):
There was an openness, there was a connectivity, and you
know that. That's say New York Straw came out of that.
And what they mean is relationally stronger. And there's lots
of interesting studies that show that groups of individuals who
go through a stressful experience, even like sticking their hand
in cold water, as a group where they feel at
(35:16):
some level of stress and pain, not only are closer,
but perform better and challenging tasks. So stress does these
wild things. It gives us pain relief, It gives us energy,
It makes us feel closer in relationships when we have
a shared stressful experience, and all of these things accumulate
(35:39):
into a need for it, it becomes part of a
cycle or what we call an addiction.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Thank you for joining us. New episodes drop every Tuesday
with bonus content every Thursday. Don't forget to subscribe so
you never miss a moment.
Turn on your Instagram right now? What is the imagery?
You are literally being fed, and I mean fed into
your body. All the circumstances that make an individual likely
to become addicted to drama, we are experiencing on a
mass level.
Speaker 2 (00:14):
Doctor Stott Lyons is the clinical psychologist and body based
trauma expert behind Addicted to Drama, the groundbreaking book that
finally explained why so many of us can't stop creating
the very chaos we say we want to escape.
Speaker 1 (00:28):
And then I would ask the hard question, who here
is addicted to drama? How is it that everyone knows someone,
but no one is that person.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
But before he became the expert, he was the case study.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
I was toxic, He was toxic. We were toxic, and
I needed those fights or some type of drama or
crisis to feel anything at all.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
And he's brought along the person who's known him through
all of it is best friend of over twenty years,
Nicole Aslin.
Speaker 3 (00:53):
You've talked about the difference between trauma bonding and drama bonding.
Speaker 1 (00:58):
Yeah, laughing because I'm seeing Nicky smile. Probably the amount
of times I've tried to rope her in for my drama.
She could write her own book on.
Speaker 2 (01:06):
The join hosts Martin Luther King the Third, Andrea Waters, King,
Mark Kilberger, and Craig Kilberger for a fearlessly honest and
often hilarious conversation about the chaos we can't quit and
what it takes to finally break free.
Speaker 1 (01:19):
And I felt so much shame, you know, as I
was walking down the streets in New York City, and
I was like, FA, what if I'm on a runway
and I walked to them.
Speaker 2 (01:33):
Before today's episode begins, please be advised this conversation includes
discussions about suicide and mental health. Some of the content
may be distressing. If you or someone you know is struggling,
help is available. Call the National Suicide and Crisis Lifeline
at nine eight eight or text home to seven four
one seven four one to reach the crisis text line.
(01:55):
These services are free and available twenty four to seven.
Speaker 4 (01:59):
Welcome to My Legacy. Our guest today is doctor Scott Lyons,
a clinical psychologist, educator, and body based trauma expert who
has helped people around the world break free from cycles
of pain and chaos. Scott, welcome. We're so honored to
have you with us today and as our audience knows.
(02:20):
On this podcast, our extraordinary guests are joined by someone
of their choosing who has played a meaningful role in
their life. Scott, would you do us the honor of
introducing your guests today?
Speaker 1 (02:33):
Oh my gosh, it's happy to and thank you so
much for having me on the show. This is my
dearest oldest friend, Nicole Asen or Nicky Asen or Nicki
Lou however you want to address her. And we have
been friends since high school. The moment we met, we
were siblings, we were best friends. And she is an
(02:55):
artist extraordinaire. She's an academic. She is one of the
funniest people I know, and one of the kindest human beings.
She is true Minnesota blood and in that sense of
just like sweet, sweet, loving human being. And yeah, I'm
so excited to do the show. It was the first
(03:16):
person I thought of immediately when I was asked to
bring in plus one.
Speaker 5 (03:22):
How beautiful.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
So Nicole, let's start with you.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
So obviously there's that connection, But when you all first
met on that day in high school, how did you
know that Scott was going to be someone that would
have eternal placement in your life?
Speaker 6 (03:39):
When I saw Scott. It was pretty much a vision,
and I think that's the only word that I could
use to describe. So I came. You know, we went
to a very special high school. It was an arts
based school, and we were both in the theater department.
And I had left my small town in Minnesota to
(04:03):
you know, to this, to go to the city, to
be in this very alternative environment. And I was so excited.
And my parents had just dropped me off at the
dorm and were like, Okay, see you later, good luck.
And I turn around and there is Scott in it too.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
Too, and the move tap with the whoop.
Speaker 6 (04:28):
Saying hello, welcome to Double D Heaven, and our dorm
was called Delta Dorm. And I just knew that I
was going to be okay because I was surrounded by
people like Scott.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
I still have that too, too, just so we're clear.
Speaker 5 (04:50):
I love that all these years later, the friendship remains
as strong as ever. And Nicole, I actually love that
you brought this to Scott's high school days because I
think so often we see incredibly successful individuals like Scott,
and we see them that today, you know, the doctor,
the host, the the extinem leader in the field, and Scott,
can we actually go back to your origin, because this
(05:12):
is what we do on the show. We go all
the way back, including to your high school days, because
you've talked about how the teachers were calling you stupid
and other classmates and like shoving you into lockers, and
they're not mistaken. I think you had talked about I
remember reading that that you were so desperate you faked
your own suicide not once, but multiple times. And so
can we actually go back like before the success that
(05:33):
you are now, can we actually go back to that time? Like,
can you really take us back to that origin? And
what were you really crying out for at that time?
Speaker 1 (05:41):
Yeah, the school that Nikki and I met at was
was not the school that where I was getting beat
up and okay sort of accosted by fact by teachers
as well. That was my freshman year and I wasn't
out as a gay man then, but it certainly was
getting quite a bit of flack for it. And I
(06:02):
had an IEP and Individual Education Plan for my learning disabilities,
and it supposedly hadn't transferred over to the high school,
so the teachers didn't know couldn't understand my unique way
of learning. And processing. Teachers were calling me stupid. They
were telling my parents I would be lucky if I
could even graduate high school. I was being shoved in
(06:25):
lockers and beat up and people weren't believing me. I
went to teachers to try to get help, and they
would just say they would give me advice as to
what I could do differently. And it was a hard
experience for my parents to believe that this could be
happening to them, because I had a very fruitful experience
(06:47):
in junior high school and I just was so desperate.
I was so desperate, and I didn't at the time
know what else to do besides kind of kind of
create a drama, a scene in which people could maybe
understand the pain that I was in to help me
(07:08):
make changes in my life that I was really desperately seeking.
And I mean, I was depressed and I and you know,
it's a it's kind of an embarrassing thing to even hear.
And I know I wrote that in my book that
I had faked a suicide and it was I didn't
know what else to do. You know, when a child
(07:28):
cries out and no one listens, they just have to
get louder and louder and louder, and I think the
same is true with not just children, but when in
systems that are so broken, like how do we start
to get heard in ecosystems that choose to keep us
down and hurt, keeping keep us in the pain that
(07:50):
we're in, intentionally or unintentionally. And so yeah, that was
that was a very difficult time. I left that school
after after these experiences and went to a second high
school where I spent the year. I said maybe five
words the entire year. I figured that the safest way
(08:13):
to exist was to not exist in that second high school.
And you know, even as I say that it's it's
it brings up a lot of pain and ache of
that that any child would have to do that hide
themselves to stay safe. And so yeah, when I got
accepted into this arts high school where Nicky and I
(08:35):
first met, it was like it was such a liberation.
It was an incredible experience to know that I was safe,
that there were people who were as weird as I was,
and and diverse and learning styles as I was just
thriving academically, thriving artistically. It makes such it makes such
(08:56):
an impact what an environment will.
Speaker 5 (08:58):
Do oh, Scott, now my heart as a father of
three boys, just hearing you speak his way, it was
just a tight thing as you were describing that.
Speaker 1 (09:06):
Oh my god.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Yes, you call what you were doing back then weaponizing empathy. Yeah,
when we can't receive love, so we make others feel pain,
it's dead. Can you explain what weaponized empathy is and
how do we recognize when we're doing that or when
(09:27):
it's being done to us?
Speaker 1 (09:29):
Yeah? I think so many of us are familiar with
the phrase and eye for an eye, And there's a
way not only can we not receive an apology or
validation or love, that when we can't receive something, we
can't actually do a process of repair. Right. So if
(09:51):
I say to you, I'm so sorry, but you're in
such embracing a defense mode that you can't receive the
sorry or the accountability statements, it never lands. And so
while someone might say I'm sorry, you never get to
experience the repair in the same way that I could
say to someone I love you. But if they're bracing,
(10:12):
if they're holding, if they've had trauma, and literally their
oxytocin receptors have shrunk down in response to the trauma,
they can't receive the love. And so what do we
do as a way of making sure someone understands us,
or feels us, or truly gets our experience. Is we
make them have a similar experience. We evoke an emotional
(10:35):
response to hope that they understand at the experiential level
what we're going through. So, if Nikki and I were
in a fight and I am a person who has
had a significant amount of trauma and is bracing, and
she says or doesn't say sorry, what weaponized empathy is
is I'm going to bring back hate that thing that
(10:57):
you did five years ago, or I'm going to talk
about something else that makes you feel a level of
shame and hurt and pain so that you understand the
level of pain I am in. And that's something I
had discovered was happening in myself, having navigated a lot
(11:20):
of trauma. Was like, there would be people in my
life who would try to make repair, but I didn't
believe them until they would be in some level of
hurt and pain themselves. Then I would say, okay, now
we're on the same plane. Now we can start to repair.
But at that point they're too hurt to even be
in a process of repair. I've hurt them too far,
(11:41):
and I've seen that in so many clients I've worked with,
their groups that I've worked with, is that the bracing
and the ways in which we have survived to not
take in more experience, more pain, more trauma, prevents us
from actually doing the really important human relational work, which
(12:02):
is repair, and instead, I project that you need to
be in some type of discomfort in order for us
to be on an equal playing field.
Speaker 4 (12:10):
Hurt people, hurt people, hurt.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
People, hurt people because they have to to be in
the same level of human experience.
Speaker 5 (12:18):
Wow, Nicole, and I know you met him after that
extremely difficult time in high school. What did he share
about that? Do you remember conversations and how you were
best able to support him on that journey?
Speaker 6 (12:34):
You know, I think during those times in our lives,
especially in mid late high school, we I think there
are times of great openness. People are willing to share
bits and pieces of themselves. It's a very emotional time.
There's definitely a lot of hormones going to say hormones.
Speaker 4 (12:52):
Yeah, we have a seventeen year almost eighteen year old, and.
Speaker 6 (12:57):
So there does there is like this moment especially because
we you know, we were going to a boarding school,
so there's a lot of time that we got to
spend with one another, and of course the stories emerged,
and you know, Scott shared stories of you know, the
trauma of his past, and it was for me really
more of a witnessing and a hearing and and acknowledging
(13:19):
then oh, I have something to fix or you know,
we we can work through this, you know. For I
think at that time, it was just being heard and
being seen and being okay for who you were. And
the other lair is the creative lair. And I would
say most of the youth that were in our program
had experienced trauma of various kinds and embodied work like
(13:44):
improv and uh, you know, we were even doing dance theater,
and that those sorts of things can really help build
new pathways.
Speaker 1 (13:53):
But I think one of the things that's often missed
from real trauma therapy is a and laughter and humor,
And that's certainly been one of the things I tried
to bring back as a traumatologist is hey, we don't
have it doesn't all have to be intense. That we
(14:16):
build a garden of different experiences like play like laughing again,
that allows for a significant process of healing to actually
do more the heavy work of contacting and touching into
the more painful experiences. So the fact that Nikki was
assigned my improv partner for most of high school because
no one else wanted to be.
Speaker 4 (14:39):
Or could be that you were hard to improv with,
like you had to she had to go big and
go home in.
Speaker 2 (14:46):
Order to.
Speaker 1 (14:49):
Nicole could go big, And I was always very exaggerated
and intensified, like I had no fear, which was part
of the change there. This is why we love.
Speaker 4 (15:04):
The Plus he has no filter. Yeah, Martin has no filter.
Speaker 1 (15:10):
How does that show up no filter for you?
Speaker 4 (15:13):
Can I answer on your back?
Speaker 3 (15:14):
Yeah, because I'm not sure about.
Speaker 4 (15:20):
Just say like sometimes even when we are we're together
and with my sisters, he'll say something that even as
supposed to be like a compliment, compliment or telling a
story that that you know about I don't know ex
girlfriend or just anything, and then he'll keep going down
(15:40):
a hill that he should not go. And my sisters
would even they'll tell him, like bro, stop like sometimes
like he'll give a compliment and just as as opposed
to stopping with the compliment like, oh, you look nice today,
beautiful compliment because yesterday what you had on not like
(16:00):
that's what I'm like, That's what I mean. Yeah. Also,
I'm reminded as when you're talking about trauma and the
importance of joy, one of the things that stirred up
for me is thinking about your father, because what people
don't know is how funny not only that he was
(16:23):
and how funny you are, but how that humor was
used at such difficult times. After you've been stabbed within
an inch of your and literally within an inch of
your life, you know, they would go back sometimes to
the hotel and have pillow fights because of the fact
that you are facing death right, So the trauma of
(16:44):
dealing with that.
Speaker 1 (16:45):
I love that capacity and like that that that's so
moving actually to hear in the face of what he's
navigated to be able to find the playfulness to sort
of balance out the significant heaviness that most of us
I don't think we'll ever know. Absolutely, and yes to pillow.
Speaker 4 (17:06):
Fights, and when you all work together again, you also
have a pillow fight.
Speaker 1 (17:11):
In honor of Martin Luther King, I spent the first
couple of years as a therapist having pillow fights in
my office with class Wow, and people thought I was wild.
I mean I am wild, but like, but the significant
discharge and release of all of that activation through some
type of vehicle movement is essential for healing, right that
(17:34):
it has to go somewhere, And it's just about like
being able to still feel it and channel it into
some type of whether it's a run or a laugh
or a cry, these are all just vehicles for emotion
to come back into motion.
Speaker 5 (17:51):
And Scott, in fact, if I can move into that area,
because you talked about the idea of needing to get
it out, you know, and and I mean I'm move
a little bit further into your twenties. You were in
grad school, broke up with the long term partner, lost
the big job, lost your health insurance, you know, all
ones like you shared that rock Bod period you call
your axent purposely get into fights. Yeah, And I'm like, oh,
(18:14):
I was got to relate to that a little bit.
And so when did you realize it wasn't grief like
you were feeling something else? Like maybe it was this
this needs to channel emotions or how would you describe that?
Speaker 1 (18:27):
I think so many of us might feel a flatness
in our life or can relate to a certain time
period where we felt flat or I think the more
popular saying would be like a little dead inside, a
little underwhelmed by life. And you know there are certain
activities or things that we might need to rise above
(18:48):
the threshold to feel again right. And if you've gone
through depression, you might know that experience. And you know,
one of the caveats of trauma is that there's so
much that has had to be suppressed and repressed and
can't be felt as a means of survival, and so
you need experiences that rise above that level of the
(19:11):
decibel of numbness to experience again. And for me getting
into fights and to go do shows in front of
five thousand people and to go do improv on the
street with Nicki Wu in the middle of Times Square.
You know that those type of like very high octane
experiences were the ways I could know I was alive
(19:36):
and when I was out of this relationship that Nicki
knows quite well that that was just like it was
I was toxic, he was toxic. We were toxic. Whatever
that means, it just means that we were playing each
other's traumas out to the max degree right and staying
(19:59):
in it as opposed to realizing that we could do
we could separate or do something differently. And I, like
I realized in retrospect, I needed that level of chaos
and crisis to actually both because it was familiar to
the ecosystem I grew up in, so it felt somewhat
quote unquote safe, but it also gave me a sense
(20:21):
of like a liveness. It was adventure, and without it
when I we separated, I was like, oh, it's too quiet,
and and I needed those fights or some type of
drama or crisis to feel anything at all. You know,
when I give this example, when I lecture a lot,
(20:45):
like if you're used to salting your vegetables, right then
you know vegetables as this like salted experience. And let's
say your doctor says, okay, you got to cut your
salt out. You got you got some hypertension issue use
and you start to eat that vegetable and you're like,
this is disgusting. There's no spice, there's no flavor, there's
(21:07):
nothing here. And so you take some time and you
have to maintain the doctor's orders, and over time, the
taste of the vegetables gets to come back, right, The
nuances of the flavors, the textures, all of that returns.
But there's this gap period that has to happen between
over salting your food and only knowing vegetables as this
(21:29):
extreme salted, crispy thing that you fry or whatever, to
the flavors of life that actually exist, and when you've
experienced trauma, those nuances of flavors cannot exist.
Speaker 3 (21:46):
Right.
Speaker 1 (21:47):
If we were to experience the many, many flavors of
life and have to be that exposed and fragmented, we
wouldn't be able to survive.
Speaker 3 (21:58):
Nicole, you were watching your best fan self destruct. What's
the hardest part about loving someone who's using drama to survive?
Speaker 6 (22:09):
I will I will say it is super hard to see.
Speaker 1 (22:14):
Did you know I was dramatic, Nikki?
Speaker 2 (22:23):
Yeah, now it's hard.
Speaker 6 (22:24):
I think the hardest thing is really realizing that, like
the pain and the energy could be channeled into something
else that like, it doesn't like, it doesn't have to
hurt like this, it doesn't have to be like this.
I think the hardest part was, you know, finding you know,
it's like finding the right.
Speaker 4 (22:42):
Level of.
Speaker 6 (22:45):
Compassion and care and how to be heard and also
just really realizing that, you know, for me, it's like, oh, Scott,
you're an amazing person.
Speaker 2 (22:53):
You know, just just move on, you know.
Speaker 6 (22:56):
But alternatively, I will say, you know, the thrills seeking
or the desire for all those salty vegetables or Scott
has always been a thrill seeker in all areas of
his life. But it has been a really beautiful thing
to see the milestones shift and into oh, these these
big thrills and these big bumps of drama have to
happen in my relationships to Hey, Nikki, why don't we
(23:18):
go hang gliding?
Speaker 2 (23:19):
Why don't we go get seeing?
Speaker 6 (23:20):
Why don't we you know, do all these like why
don't you come to Greece and we'll like go on
this yacht okay and jump off the back the back,
flip off the back of this thing. You know. It's like, Okay,
how can we channel that desire for extreme experience into
something that is productive and generative instead of how can
(23:41):
I feed the drama cycle into relationships that.
Speaker 2 (23:46):
Aren't going to benefit anyone?
Speaker 6 (23:48):
Yeah, So that's been a beautiful evolution. I still get
scared Scott to do the White Water tubing, you know, but.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
I took white and it didn't go well.
Speaker 6 (24:04):
It did end up with me crying and saying I
need acupuncture.
Speaker 2 (24:10):
I was bringing the drama, you guys.
Speaker 3 (24:12):
It was well, you know, we all have friends who
want to do extreme things, and when do you draw
the line? Like, you know, I have friends who swim
with sharks, and I'm like, okay, I love you.
Speaker 1 (24:29):
It's a great question of like where do we know
the line for? You know, because novelty is a way
in which we experience zest right, it's the we need novelty.
It's the ways, you know. There's this interesting research on
time that most of us often say, like where did
time go? I feel like it's just passing me by,
(24:52):
And and the research shows that our ability to be
able to focus and our ability to experience novelty is
what gives us a sense that time is actually slow
enough for us to marinate in and let life is
slow enough for us to marinate in and experience it.
And so we need novelty. We need new experiences. But
(25:13):
do they have to be swimming with sharks? Is the question? Yes.
Sometimes I think that if we can find newness in
a beautiful conversation. That's great. And if we can find
it in sharks, that's great. But do we The question
is can we only find it in the extremes? You know,
(25:34):
it's like if I can't go and try some a
new dish that he has and really taste the flavors
of that and sit and have a discussion and a meal,
you know that's really special by candlelight or whatever, and
that gets me and I'm bored by that, And I'm
not bored when I'm jumping out of a plane and
(25:55):
with a parachute. Then that's really good information.
Speaker 2 (26:00):
Wow, something that you want that doesn't require her shark.
Speaker 4 (26:08):
Like just that Like what like can you find that
that same fulfillment? Yeah, in a candlelight dinner with the
loved one, as you know, jumping out of a plane.
Speaker 5 (26:18):
That Alga, there's the stage in my life I remember Like,
so I did the running with the bulls, the learning
how to do solo skydiving, the Nitrix underwater deep set
like all that stuff, climbing mountains, et cetera. And then
I met my wife and then suddenly like no, that
was like a great adventure of life. Well, you never
needed to do it again. Like to your point, like kids,
oh my god, all these other things that became like
(26:40):
no desire to go, you know, throw myself in the
middle of a deathifying state to your point, those other
things that fill us.
Speaker 2 (26:47):
Wow, Yeah, very interesting.
Speaker 1 (26:49):
If someone didn't invite me to hike Kilmanjaro on the
second date, I probably there was a time period whe
I probably wouldn't have gone out with them on the
second or third date, and that only changed since last week.
But I am proud of this thing.
Speaker 4 (27:03):
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Let's keep going through your life. This you didn't realize
this was going to be this is your life. Yeah,
you got a PhD in clinical psychology, which was a
(27:26):
complete career change from directing choreography. But then you chose
to study addiction to drama. And I've heard the saying
a lot of times that research really is mesearch. So
when did you realize that you were onto something with
this the study of drama.
Speaker 1 (27:46):
I've done a lot of one eighties in my life.
I like to think of myself kind of like Madonna
in a constant revolution, Like I'm a CEO of you know,
those of the tech company now and I'm you know,
it's still see clients, But I like reinvention tours.
Speaker 4 (28:00):
Young listeners who maybe are not, as you know, schooled
in Madonna from the eighties and nineties. I guess the
closest would be maybe Taylor Swift in her eras, but
those of us who know, Yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:13):
I was directing a big rock band and in a show. Wow,
And I just remember going, oh, my gosh, this is
the pinnacle of my career. I have more money as
a budget than I could ever even fathom. I the
kind of remember around my first meeting around the show,
(28:33):
They're like, you can have penguins on stage if you want.
That's that's how big it is. And I was like, oh,
I'm definitely getting penguins. And I was in the middle
of the show and I was like, I'm not happy.
And if i'm if I'm working in this way, and
I'm I feel like I'm everyone's therapist. Anyways, I might
(28:56):
as well go back to school for it. And I
so yeah. I started doing my master's in PhD in
clinical psychology, and I was like, well, it's a long shot,
but maybe I can study drama. And one of the
interesting things as I started to do research was everyone
(29:19):
I ever spoke to about it, They're like, oh, I
know someone like that. And when I started lecturing about it,
I would start with the question who here knows someone
addicted to drama? Not defining it at all, right, every
single person in that audience would raise their hand, and
then I would ask the hard question, which was who
here is addicted to drama? And maybe one or two
(29:42):
people would raise their hand, and I was like, well,
this is really interesting. It's you know, this concept of
addiction to drama is so in the general understanding, and
yet it's not in any of the literature. It's not
in the DSM, the Diagnostics Statistical Manual which therapists used
to I knows or some do. And so how is
(30:04):
it something that everyone knows but hasn't been unpacked And
how is it that everyone knows someone but no one
is that person? Which taught me a lot about typically
those who are addicted are the last to know, which
is when I made the joke earlier about Nikki, did
you know I was dramatic? And she, you know, Colely responded,
(30:27):
you know I was the last to know, certainly, and
especially with behavioral addictions, because they integrate into our identity,
our perception of life, and truly become part of our
survival mechanism, so we don't see them as quote unquote
an addiction. The research was really exciting for me because
(30:48):
I was like, Okay, everyone knows someone or everyone knows
this concept, so at least that's a starting point to
really dive in and go, well, what does stress, what
does rama, stress, chaos, crisis actually do for us? Because
all addictions, all every single addiction has a purpose. It
(31:08):
does something, and what it does is it relieves us
of pain. Fundamentally, that is what it does. It distracts us.
It takes us out of an underlying pain. And so
I asked The question I had was, Okay, well, if
every addiction relieves pain at some level, how does drama
(31:33):
how to stress, which is the very thing we're inducing
more of an addiction to drama possibly give us some
type of support or sense of relief from pain. And
it does. The science is really really clear that like
when we get stressed out right, let's say our video
equipment's not working right now or any minute. Stress to
(31:58):
any maximum stress, you release endorphins. Just like when you
go for a run, you get that runners high, right,
So we naturally produce pain relievers in our body or
blockers to pain when we are in a stress response.
But here's the kicker. If you're familiar with addictions, you
(32:18):
might know that in order for it to qualify for
an addiction, you need more to get high. Right, there's
a threshold, there's a tolerance level. The word is tolerance.
And so like if I'm alcohol, for example, I will
need more alcohol each time, progressively over time to get
drunk or to have the pain relief effect of it,
the numbing effect of it, the same is true with
(32:40):
stress and endorphins. So if I'm naturally getting some type
of pain relief and energy by the way, because there's
an energy boost every time you get stressed, like drinking
a cup of coffee, except a little bit more powerful. Actually,
then what happens is I get that pain relief and
(33:02):
it feels good. I feel better. I literally feel less pain,
and so I might go towards the things that keep
relieving me a pain, even though they're stressful, the situations,
the relationships, the circumstances, the jobs, all of that, even
though we complain about it, we are simultaneously getting an
(33:23):
endorphin release. And the challenge of that is I need
more endorphins over time to maintain the pain relief. So
I become stuck in that cycle of needing more stress
to get more pain relief. That's the physiology that we're
actually talking about, which is so interesting. And stress is
(33:46):
not only the most contagious emotional state, but it also
creates the most emotional bonding. So when I was I
moved to New York a few days before nine to
eleven September eleventh, two thousand and one, before the towers
went down. And there's been a lot of research about this,
(34:10):
but this was also my personal experience of like the
first couple of days in New York, and I remember
calling NICKI and being like, nobody's nice here. We're from Minnesota.
We're so nice, you know, like we grew up in
these small towns. We like talk to each other, you
talk to your neighbors. And I was like, I went
to a yoga studio and some guy told me that
my accent was stupid. And a yoga studio in New
(34:32):
York City and only New York, Only in New York City,
my brother and a few days later, after this catastrophic experience,
the proximity, the sense of connection I had to strangers.
I would literally hold people on the bus and cry
with them. We would talk about our lives with each other.
(34:54):
There was an openness, there was a connectivity, and you
know that. That's say New York Straw came out of that.
And what they mean is relationally stronger. And there's lots
of interesting studies that show that groups of individuals who
go through a stressful experience, even like sticking their hand
in cold water, as a group where they feel at
(35:16):
some level of stress and pain, not only are closer,
but perform better and challenging tasks. So stress does these
wild things. It gives us pain relief, It gives us energy,
It makes us feel closer in relationships when we have
a shared stressful experience, and all of these things accumulate
(35:39):
into a need for it, it becomes part of a
cycle or what we call an addiction.
Speaker 2 (35:47):
Thank you for joining us. New episodes drop every Tuesday
with bonus content every Thursday. Don't forget to subscribe so
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Hosts And Creators
Craig Kielburger
Marc Kielburger
Martin Luther King III
Arndrea Waters King
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