April 11, 2025 • 24 mins
Your brain and mental health changes when you start your journey into getting clean and sober.
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
I'm here to help.
If you're in search of help totry to get your life back
together, join me here atDocShock, your addiction
(00:21):
lifeguard, the addictionrecovery podcast.
to be real clear about what thispodcast is intended for.
It is intended for entertainmentand informational purposes, but
(00:45):
not considered help.
If you actually need real helpand you're in need of help,
please seek that out.
If you're in dire need of help,you can go to your nearest
emergency room or you can checkinto a rehab center or call a
counselor like me and talk aboutyour problems and work through
them.
But don't rely on a podcast tobe that form of help.
(01:06):
It's not.
It's just a podcast it's forentertainment and information
only so let's keep it in thatlight all right have a good time
learn something and then get thereal help that you need from a
professional Wow, man, thatintro was very dramatic.
(01:31):
So there's a thing that happenswhen people go into rehabs, and
that is that they go in crazy.
So you check into your rehab andyou're out of your mind.
Many times the people that Ihave taken to rehab, they
usually are high as a kite,drunk, crazy, out of their mind
(01:52):
because of their addiction.
They're using their drugs ofchoice and, man, just out of
their minds.
So it's hard to say what's goingon because they've become so, so
dysregulated and they're so outof control because they're high
on whatever their drug.
of choice is because that'stheir last hurrah.
(02:12):
That's the thing that peopleusually do is they get their
last high because this is it,right?
I'm giving it up.
And so then they quit using.
And so they're going to useeverything that they possibly
can at the very end.
And in fact, what happens isyou're crazy.
You're acting crazy, right?
So is the crazy the drug ofchoice or is it you?
(02:37):
Like, are you actually mentallyill?
Now, there's a lot to say aboutpeople who have mental illness.
They tend to self-medicate ifthey can't get proper mental
health care.
And in this country, in theUnited States, we do a really,
really poor job of that.
And we don't give people theavenue, the options to be able
(02:57):
to seek out that help.
And it's sad because we throwthem out on the streets and say,
hey, you know, we shouldn't beimprisoning you in some kind of
institution.
So we're going to let you runaround on the streets just crazy
out of your mind and gettinghigh on drugs or alcohol because
that's all you have.
And so that's what happens.
(03:17):
So we see the outcomes of thatin Kensington.
outside of Philadelphia and inLos Angeles and San Francisco,
places like that, we see lots ofhomeless people.
And by lots, I mean tens ofthousands of homeless people.
And every single one of them hassome kind of mental health
issue.
That's probably why they'rehomeless and they're untreated.
(03:40):
And so their version of treatingthemselves with the discomfort
and the mental illness isthrough drugs and alcohol.
that they get that they'reusing.
So you see somebody and they'rehomeless and they're drunk.
Just keep that in mind.
If you're not in that world oryou're not familiar with it and
you see people that arehomeless, understand, man.
(04:00):
They're probably reallysuffering and they're not
getting treatment.
Treatment's not even availableto them a lot of times.
And then they're not going toavail themselves of that
treatment because that's notwhere their head is, right?
So...
In any case, so you come intorehab, you check into rehab, or
you go into a hospital, andyou're high or drunk or both,
(04:23):
and you're acting crazy.
So you get a mental assessment,a mental health assessment.
You can do the assessment forusage of drugs and alcohol.
You can do a blood test or aurine test or something like
that, and you're going to comeup with positives for different
drugs and alcohol.
Yeah, okay, that's easy, right?
But mental health is a wholedifferent thing.
(04:44):
because there's no blood testfor that.
There's no breathalyzer forthat.
So you're going on the opinionsof evaluating clinicians,
whether it's a doctor,psychiatrist, or even a medical
doctor for that matter, but apsychiatrist or a psychologist.
(05:06):
And then we start moving our waydown the line, and we get to
where a social worker is doing amental health assessment And,
you know, it's like, you know,you can get specialized training
for that, but unfortunately manytimes those clinicians are not
given that training, and yetthey're given that
responsibility.
So whether you're a licensedprofessional counselor or a
(05:26):
social worker or a licensedmarriage family therapist,
whatever the case may be, youmay or may not have had enough
formalized training toaccurately diagnose.
But even then, my argument isthat even with that, If the
person is taking drugs andalcohol, you're not seeing a
real picture of who they are.
(05:47):
So when you go to rehab or yougo into a rehab or some kind of
recovery setting and somebody isdoing an assessment of you, what
you're going to run into isyou're going to get a diagnosis.
And the diagnosis is going to besomething that's probably not
complementary to you.
So you might get bipolardisorder or psychotic or
(06:10):
something like that.
And it's like, wow, that justscares you.
Because he's like, I did allthese drugs and I was drinking.
Am I really now crazy?
Did I do that to myself?
And so you get on a bunch ofmedications.
Now, if you're in a rehabsetting, they're going to say,
the prescribing physician, andit's almost always a
psychiatrist, he's going to say,okay, well, you need to take
(06:30):
some Risperidone, you need totake some Wellbutrin, and you
need to, you know, and so thenyou're medicated with, you know,
three, four, five differentmedications.
And that's pretty common.
And when I'm working with myclients who are going to rehab,
I warn them about that.
I say, hey, look, man, they'regoing to give you a bunch of
medications.
But understand that what they'retrying to do is they're trying
(06:52):
to treat the presentingsymptoms, right?
They're trying to treat thesymptoms, which is an indicator
of your diagnostic condition.
In other words, they have to putsomething down and it's based on
verbal statements that you makeand then their observations of
your behavior.
And so they give you somemedications.
(07:14):
And you're going to be on thosemedications.
And they're going to address thepresenting symptoms.
They're going to calm you down.
They're going to flatten youout.
They're going to keep you morestable while you're in a
clinical setting like that, ahospital or a rehab.
And that's okay.
It doesn't mean that you arebipolar for the rest of your
(07:38):
life.
It just means that you're...
You're acting like that andyou're making statements and
you've been living like thatbased on your description.
It doesn't mean that that's whatyou actually are for sure.
It just means that's what thatis in that particular time and
space and setting.
So what I have happen is myclient goes in or somebody I've
(07:59):
done an intervention with andI've done a lot of interventions
where the people are just reallyout of their mind crazy.
in that moment.
So you go, you get theassessment, they figure out,
okay, yeah, you can come in andthen you get the diagnosis.
And we need you to start doingthese medications.
And then you discharge from thatfacility.
(08:20):
You get out, right?
You leave the treatment programand you leave with a handful of
prescription medications thatthey've given you.
And usually it's a 30, maybe a60 day supply of the
medications, right?
Hopefully, if they are acompetent, well-run facility,
(08:40):
they will have already workedout an aftercare program with
you, and you already haveidentified a psychiatrist to
then go see when you leave thefacility.
And you must do that.
You've got to do that.
And you go see the psychiatrist,and the psychiatrist says, hey,
okay, you're on thesemedications.
I'm looking at your report.
(09:01):
We're going to keep you onthose, and...
And then because you've been offof these illicit drugs that
you've been taking and thealcohol, those symptoms go away,
which is kind of puzzling topeople because it's like, wait,
I thought I had bipolardisorder.
That's a very common one.
(09:22):
No, you're sleeping normally nowbecause you're not using...
cocaine all the time you're notsuper paranoid you're not really
agitated and hyperactive hypervigilant because you're not
doing cocaine anymore so youseem kind of okay like you're
you seem to have calmed downquite a bit and you're eating
(09:45):
food you're not super paranoidyou're not staying up for days
at a time and so now if you if iwere to look at you after you've
discharged and after you've beenliving a clean life for a couple
of months, I'd say, yeah,there's no indication whatsoever
that you are bipolar.
And so maybe we need to take youoff the bipolar medication.
(10:09):
uh, or titrate you down.
So what I try to get my clientsto do is to listen to their
psychiatrist.
But I also, as, as a clinician,I will, it is my responsibility
to reach out to yourpsychiatrist, uh, who's
prescribing the medications togive my impressions of what I'm
experiencing with you on aweekly basis for an hour or two
(10:30):
or three, sometimes with myclients when they're in their
recovery.
And so hopefully, um, me as aclinician if I was your
therapist I'm able to give myimpressions my clinical
impressions of what you seem tobe experiencing and I will work
with the psychiatrist to helpyou either to titrate down off
(10:51):
your medications or or toperhaps change the medication to
fit more of what the profile ofwhat you're presenting with.
And so it's a team effort.
And I'm telling you all thisbecause I want you to
understand, no matter where youare, even if you're in another
country listening to thispodcast, listen, man, your
(11:11):
mental health changes when youget into recovery.
It just changes.
Your mental stability changeswhen you're in recovery.
You are not the same person.
Now, That's not to say that it'salways a positive thing.
Sometimes if you are using somedrugs, they can alter your
personality permanently.
(11:32):
PCP can do that.
LSD can do that.
There are different drugs thathave some permanency to the
changes in the brain, and it'snot always for a positive.
On the other hand, if you areoff the stimulants regularly,
You're not going to bestimulated.
You're not going to be, like Isaid, staying up for days at a
time.
(11:52):
You're going to be eating food.
So you're not going to beanorexic.
So your health changes.
So I can promise you inrecovery, once you have stopped
taking a drug of choice andyou're getting clean, you're
getting sober, you will change.
And you will change most likelyfor the positive.
I usually see...
(12:14):
almost exclusively positivechanges in people.
They become more aware.
They're more focused.
They're more present.
They have cognitive functioningthey didn't have before.
Their sleep has changed.
It's improved.
Their diet's changed.
It's improved.
They begin socializing and theybegin to exercise.
All the things that like, andI'm using my little finger
(12:35):
quotes here, normal people do.
And they find that their livesare improved for the better.
So I think the expectation thatwhen you get into recovery that
life's going to go back to theway it was, I'm here to tell
you, man, it's not going to belike it was because what it was
before was a chaotic mess.
(12:56):
If you really do take youraftercare seriously and if you
take your recovery seriously, Ialways worry about the people
that it's generally the weed...
and the alcohol people thatbounce back and forth between
(13:16):
the two drugs.
So they're an alcoholic, butthey still smoke weed.
And they say, oh, yeah, no, I'msober.
And I'm like, no, you're not.
Or they're smoking weed all thetime, and then they start
ramping up the drinking.
And they go, yeah, man, I'm soproud of myself because I've cut
back my weed usage, you know,and I'm clean.
(13:36):
And I'm like, are you?
I don't think so.
No, you're not.
Because all you're doing is justfilling that space, that void of
one drug with the other.
But again, depending on whereyou live in this country, the
state may have deemed weed aslegal.
And alcohol is as legaleverywhere.
(13:59):
There may be a dry county hereor there where there's no hard
liquor, but there's always beerand wine.
Um, unless I'm mistaken aboutthat, but that's been my
experience.
Um, so all, you know, it's like,yeah, but it's legal and, you
know, it just kind of helps methrough.
And I hear that a lot from theweed people.
So had, have they changed?
(14:21):
Uh, not really.
Um, there's still, there's stillissues.
Uh, they still got the cognitiveissues and the, presenting as a
different kind of person issues.
And, you know, so getting,getting there means that you're
going to be changed.
Now there's a lot of debate andquestion that everybody has.
(14:41):
And I have it clearly in mypractice.
It's always, there's like theidea of, but I don't like being
on medications.
Okay.
Um, and why?
Well, because I don't like thenegative effects of medications
or I don't want to be dependenton it, which is that one always
(15:03):
gets me.
That makes me laugh every timebecause you were an alcoholic
for 12 years and now there's amedication that can help
stabilize your mood for the nextyear or two and you don't want
to be dependent on it.
What happened to that thinking?
I, where, why didn't that applywith alcohol or weed or what?
(15:23):
You know, it's like, seriously,are you kidding?
Um, so that, that, I just alwayslaugh sometimes out loud,
sometimes only in my head, butI'm always laughing when I hear
that.
Um, in any case, the, so I don'tlike the effects.
All right.
Well, and I, I've said this inthe past in these podcasts,
whatever I've done, 120, 130 ofthem.
(15:45):
Um, Listen, medications that aremental health-oriented
medications typically are notmeant for lifelong usage.
There are exceptions, of course.
If you have schizophrenia,schizoaffective disorder, if you
have OCD, no, you're probablygoing to be on that forever.
And that's okay.
that's fine uh that's that'slike having a heart medication
(16:07):
or you had an organ transplantso you have the the uh the
anti-rejection drug you know youwouldn't bat an eye at taking
those but you know god forbidyou should be taking you know
lithium uh to help you so thatyou don't go spinning off and
writing a manifesto and throwingit over the fence of the white
house can't do that you know nono no i don't want to take that
(16:28):
forever which is crazy um Andyou see what I did there?
I said crazy.
So it's like medications help,but they're typically not meant
for long-term usage.
So I don't want to be on thisforever.
Okay, well, you're probably notgoing to be if you have a doctor
(16:49):
that actually buys into the ideathat mental health is one of a
consistent change.
And so...
Medication is meant to stabilizeso you can treat.
It's not the treatment.
It's the stabilizer so that youcan go through a therapeutic
process to improve yoursituation.
So it's not long term.
But again, you know, it's aboutchange.
(17:12):
So when you enter intotreatment, you've begun a
process where you are kind ofout of your mind, maybe really
out of your mind.
Maybe you're hallucinating.
You know, maybe you're Hearingthings.
Seeing things.
Maybe.
Maybe you can't sleep.
(17:32):
You know.
It's like that can drive youcrazy.
Try staying up for four days ina row.
But you're probably very verymentally unstable.
That doesn't mean permanentlymentally sick.
Or ill.
But you're unstable.
And so what we're going to dowhen we treat you.
Is we're going to stabilize you.
(17:52):
And then we're going to treatyou.
And so the treatment is.
As if you've been listening tomy podcasts and many other
podcasts and places where youcan get recovery information and
have this recovery is a year anda half to two year long process.
So we're going to enter into aphase where you're going to
start changing mentally, butit's going to take a year and a
(18:15):
half, a year minimum before youstart realizing how different
you are, but a year and a halfto two years before you're
actually there.
You're at the point of, I feellike I'm in recovery.
And during that time, there'sgoing to be a lot of mental
health changes.
(18:36):
The other thing that's quiteinteresting is, I've found this
interesting when I'm treatingpeople, is that they will come
in and there will be a hiddenmental health issue that they
didn't know was there.
Imagine you're like 15 yearsold, 14 years old, you start
smoking pot, then you graduateto something else and you're
dropping acid and you're doingcocaine and you're smoking weed
(19:00):
and you're drinking and you're,you know, 14, 15.
And I have these clients thatcome in all the time like this
and they're 14 and 15 when theystart.
And so your brain is, you know,continuing to mature and develop
and change from that point untilyou're 23, 24, 25 years old.
And they come to me and they're,they're like 34 and, And they've
(19:24):
never in their life as an adultor an older teen ever not been
under the influence of somethingpretty consistently.
And they get off and there was ahidden mental health issue that
was masked by their use ofdrugs.
And it was never diagnosedbecause it was never understood
that it was present because itwas constantly, you know, you're
(19:49):
constantly under the influenceof something enough where it was
not real clear understood thatyou have actually like OCD
tendencies or you have adepression.
You've got like legitimatedepression, but it was all
hidden.
bipolar disorder that was hiddenand it then suddenly starts
(20:10):
manifesting when you startgetting into recovery and that
can be really unsettling andmake my clients really unhappy
because it's like man I'm justdepressed all the time and I you
know and now I've got now me asa clinician I have to figure out
how do I get a treatingphysician a psychiatrist or
somebody else to listen to thatand see it for what it actually
(20:33):
is which is this is a legitimatemental health issue that was not
brought on by the drugs ofchoice, but masked by the drugs
of choice.
So perhaps when you get donewith your treatment and let's
say a year goes by and you justare really feeling whatever it
is you're feeling, right?
(20:54):
And you're kind of paranoid oryou're mildly depressed all the
time or you're anxious, right?
You just, you have anxiety.
You just feel it.
And it's not, you know, youthought it would go away and it
didn't.
So now you're, you know, cominginto a year into it and you feel
that way.
It's okay.
You know, I mean, that's kind ofwhere your brain was, you know,
(21:17):
even without the use of drugsand alcohol.
So it's okay that you're at thatplace.
But that does happen.
And then, you know, which,depending on how you look at it,
like, oh, wow, you, you know,you were masking it with the
drugs and alcohol or whateveryou're doing, and now it's
there.
Now what?
That's terrible.
That's terrible.
No, actually, it's really goodbecause now you can treat the
(21:42):
thing that was there before thatyou didn't know, and maybe the
thing that you're treatingactually is making your life now
better because you're treatingsomething that was underlying.
I mean, it was co-occurring, andit's separate from the usage.
That's a good thing.
It's kind of like somebody, youknow, they, I don't know, they
(22:03):
get in a car accident and in themiddle of, you know, going to
the hospital, they've got a, youknow, shattered leg.
The doctor comes in and says,well, I've got good news and
I've got bad news.
The good news is we were ableto, you know, repair your leg.
But the bad news is wediscovered you have cancer.
And it's in the early stages.
Had you not been in that caraccident, you would never know
(22:24):
that you had cancer.
Certainly not something youreally want to hear, but you do
really need to hear that, right?
So it saved your life.
And I think the same thing istrue with addiction.
It can uncover things that youdidn't know were there, that
were hidden.
And I think in the recoveryprocess, it's good to have that
revealing because now you'regetting your life in order,
(22:45):
right?
So the tragedy of one thing canlead you to the success and the
revealing of a life-threateningsomething else.
And that's okay too.
Listen, getting into recovery isnot for the weak.
You really got to be a strongperson to be able to go through
recovery.
And if you're being hamstrung bythe idea that everything should
(23:10):
be fine because you just stoppedusing your drug of choice and
now everything's great, that'snot how it works.
And I don't know how many timesI've said that in these
podcasts, but it's true.
Things get worse before they getbetter.
They don't go from really bad tojust an upward trajectory.
It's usually they get worse,then they start getting better.
And I think the revealing ofunderlying mental health issues
(23:33):
that were hidden or masked isone of those examples.
But the other one is, hey, whenyou go into that, you have lost
your mind and you are not ofright mind.
And so getting off the drugs andalcohol allows you to get back
onto even, stable footing.
(23:54):
Well, that's this episode of DocShock, Your Addiction Lifeguard.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
If you have, like, subscribe,comment, send me some
information about you or whatyou're going through, and let me
know if I can help you.
If I can, reach out to methrough my website,
wellspringmindbody.com.
I've got to get a Doc Shockwebsite.
(24:15):
But send me a message.
Let me know what's happeningwith you.
And get help.
Go to rehab.
Go to a hospital.
Get some help.
It's not worth ending your lifebecause you're trying to save
your addiction.
It should be the other wayaround.
Like, save your life by endingyour addiction.
Do it the other way.
But please, get the help.
And if you need help, I'm therefor you.
(24:37):
But in the meantime, until nexttime, this is Doc Shock saying,
see ya.
I'm here to help.
If you're in search of help totry to get your life back
together, join me here atDocShock, your addiction
(00:21):
lifeguard, the addictionrecovery podcast.
to be real clear about what thispodcast is intended for.
It is intended for entertainmentand informational purposes, but
(00:45):
not considered help.
If you actually need real helpand you're in need of help,
please seek that out.
If you're in dire need of help,you can go to your nearest
emergency room or you can checkinto a rehab center or call a
counselor like me and talk aboutyour problems and work through
them.
But don't rely on a podcast tobe that form of help.
(01:06):
It's not.
It's just a podcast it's forentertainment and information
only so let's keep it in thatlight all right have a good time
learn something and then get thereal help that you need from a
professional Wow, man, thatintro was very dramatic.
(01:31):
So there's a thing that happenswhen people go into rehabs, and
that is that they go in crazy.
So you check into your rehab andyou're out of your mind.
Many times the people that Ihave taken to rehab, they
usually are high as a kite,drunk, crazy, out of their mind
(01:52):
because of their addiction.
They're using their drugs ofchoice and, man, just out of
their minds.
So it's hard to say what's goingon because they've become so, so
dysregulated and they're so outof control because they're high
on whatever their drug.
of choice is because that'stheir last hurrah.
(02:12):
That's the thing that peopleusually do is they get their
last high because this is it,right?
I'm giving it up.
And so then they quit using.
And so they're going to useeverything that they possibly
can at the very end.
And in fact, what happens isyou're crazy.
You're acting crazy, right?
So is the crazy the drug ofchoice or is it you?
(02:37):
Like, are you actually mentallyill?
Now, there's a lot to say aboutpeople who have mental illness.
They tend to self-medicate ifthey can't get proper mental
health care.
And in this country, in theUnited States, we do a really,
really poor job of that.
And we don't give people theavenue, the options to be able
(02:57):
to seek out that help.
And it's sad because we throwthem out on the streets and say,
hey, you know, we shouldn't beimprisoning you in some kind of
institution.
So we're going to let you runaround on the streets just crazy
out of your mind and gettinghigh on drugs or alcohol because
that's all you have.
And so that's what happens.
(03:17):
So we see the outcomes of thatin Kensington.
outside of Philadelphia and inLos Angeles and San Francisco,
places like that, we see lots ofhomeless people.
And by lots, I mean tens ofthousands of homeless people.
And every single one of them hassome kind of mental health
issue.
That's probably why they'rehomeless and they're untreated.
(03:40):
And so their version of treatingthemselves with the discomfort
and the mental illness isthrough drugs and alcohol.
that they get that they'reusing.
So you see somebody and they'rehomeless and they're drunk.
Just keep that in mind.
If you're not in that world oryou're not familiar with it and
you see people that arehomeless, understand, man.
(04:00):
They're probably reallysuffering and they're not
getting treatment.
Treatment's not even availableto them a lot of times.
And then they're not going toavail themselves of that
treatment because that's notwhere their head is, right?
So...
In any case, so you come intorehab, you check into rehab, or
you go into a hospital, andyou're high or drunk or both,
(04:23):
and you're acting crazy.
So you get a mental assessment,a mental health assessment.
You can do the assessment forusage of drugs and alcohol.
You can do a blood test or aurine test or something like
that, and you're going to comeup with positives for different
drugs and alcohol.
Yeah, okay, that's easy, right?
But mental health is a wholedifferent thing.
(04:44):
because there's no blood testfor that.
There's no breathalyzer forthat.
So you're going on the opinionsof evaluating clinicians,
whether it's a doctor,psychiatrist, or even a medical
doctor for that matter, but apsychiatrist or a psychologist.
(05:06):
And then we start moving our waydown the line, and we get to
where a social worker is doing amental health assessment And,
you know, it's like, you know,you can get specialized training
for that, but unfortunately manytimes those clinicians are not
given that training, and yetthey're given that
responsibility.
So whether you're a licensedprofessional counselor or a
(05:26):
social worker or a licensedmarriage family therapist,
whatever the case may be, youmay or may not have had enough
formalized training toaccurately diagnose.
But even then, my argument isthat even with that, If the
person is taking drugs andalcohol, you're not seeing a
real picture of who they are.
(05:47):
So when you go to rehab or yougo into a rehab or some kind of
recovery setting and somebody isdoing an assessment of you, what
you're going to run into isyou're going to get a diagnosis.
And the diagnosis is going to besomething that's probably not
complementary to you.
So you might get bipolardisorder or psychotic or
(06:10):
something like that.
And it's like, wow, that justscares you.
Because he's like, I did allthese drugs and I was drinking.
Am I really now crazy?
Did I do that to myself?
And so you get on a bunch ofmedications.
Now, if you're in a rehabsetting, they're going to say,
the prescribing physician, andit's almost always a
psychiatrist, he's going to say,okay, well, you need to take
(06:30):
some Risperidone, you need totake some Wellbutrin, and you
need to, you know, and so thenyou're medicated with, you know,
three, four, five differentmedications.
And that's pretty common.
And when I'm working with myclients who are going to rehab,
I warn them about that.
I say, hey, look, man, they'regoing to give you a bunch of
medications.
But understand that what they'retrying to do is they're trying
(06:52):
to treat the presentingsymptoms, right?
They're trying to treat thesymptoms, which is an indicator
of your diagnostic condition.
In other words, they have to putsomething down and it's based on
verbal statements that you makeand then their observations of
your behavior.
And so they give you somemedications.
(07:14):
And you're going to be on thosemedications.
And they're going to address thepresenting symptoms.
They're going to calm you down.
They're going to flatten youout.
They're going to keep you morestable while you're in a
clinical setting like that, ahospital or a rehab.
And that's okay.
It doesn't mean that you arebipolar for the rest of your
(07:38):
life.
It just means that you're...
You're acting like that andyou're making statements and
you've been living like thatbased on your description.
It doesn't mean that that's whatyou actually are for sure.
It just means that's what thatis in that particular time and
space and setting.
So what I have happen is myclient goes in or somebody I've
(07:59):
done an intervention with andI've done a lot of interventions
where the people are just reallyout of their mind crazy.
in that moment.
So you go, you get theassessment, they figure out,
okay, yeah, you can come in andthen you get the diagnosis.
And we need you to start doingthese medications.
And then you discharge from thatfacility.
(08:20):
You get out, right?
You leave the treatment programand you leave with a handful of
prescription medications thatthey've given you.
And usually it's a 30, maybe a60 day supply of the
medications, right?
Hopefully, if they are acompetent, well-run facility,
(08:40):
they will have already workedout an aftercare program with
you, and you already haveidentified a psychiatrist to
then go see when you leave thefacility.
And you must do that.
You've got to do that.
And you go see the psychiatrist,and the psychiatrist says, hey,
okay, you're on thesemedications.
I'm looking at your report.
(09:01):
We're going to keep you onthose, and...
And then because you've been offof these illicit drugs that
you've been taking and thealcohol, those symptoms go away,
which is kind of puzzling topeople because it's like, wait,
I thought I had bipolardisorder.
That's a very common one.
(09:22):
No, you're sleeping normally nowbecause you're not using...
cocaine all the time you're notsuper paranoid you're not really
agitated and hyperactive hypervigilant because you're not
doing cocaine anymore so youseem kind of okay like you're
you seem to have calmed downquite a bit and you're eating
(09:45):
food you're not super paranoidyou're not staying up for days
at a time and so now if you if iwere to look at you after you've
discharged and after you've beenliving a clean life for a couple
of months, I'd say, yeah,there's no indication whatsoever
that you are bipolar.
And so maybe we need to take youoff the bipolar medication.
(10:09):
uh, or titrate you down.
So what I try to get my clientsto do is to listen to their
psychiatrist.
But I also, as, as a clinician,I will, it is my responsibility
to reach out to yourpsychiatrist, uh, who's
prescribing the medications togive my impressions of what I'm
experiencing with you on aweekly basis for an hour or two
(10:30):
or three, sometimes with myclients when they're in their
recovery.
And so hopefully, um, me as aclinician if I was your
therapist I'm able to give myimpressions my clinical
impressions of what you seem tobe experiencing and I will work
with the psychiatrist to helpyou either to titrate down off
(10:51):
your medications or or toperhaps change the medication to
fit more of what the profile ofwhat you're presenting with.
And so it's a team effort.
And I'm telling you all thisbecause I want you to
understand, no matter where youare, even if you're in another
country listening to thispodcast, listen, man, your
(11:11):
mental health changes when youget into recovery.
It just changes.
Your mental stability changeswhen you're in recovery.
You are not the same person.
Now, That's not to say that it'salways a positive thing.
Sometimes if you are using somedrugs, they can alter your
personality permanently.
(11:32):
PCP can do that.
LSD can do that.
There are different drugs thathave some permanency to the
changes in the brain, and it'snot always for a positive.
On the other hand, if you areoff the stimulants regularly,
You're not going to bestimulated.
You're not going to be, like Isaid, staying up for days at a
time.
(11:52):
You're going to be eating food.
So you're not going to beanorexic.
So your health changes.
So I can promise you inrecovery, once you have stopped
taking a drug of choice andyou're getting clean, you're
getting sober, you will change.
And you will change most likelyfor the positive.
I usually see...
(12:14):
almost exclusively positivechanges in people.
They become more aware.
They're more focused.
They're more present.
They have cognitive functioningthey didn't have before.
Their sleep has changed.
It's improved.
Their diet's changed.
It's improved.
They begin socializing and theybegin to exercise.
All the things that like, andI'm using my little finger
(12:35):
quotes here, normal people do.
And they find that their livesare improved for the better.
So I think the expectation thatwhen you get into recovery that
life's going to go back to theway it was, I'm here to tell
you, man, it's not going to belike it was because what it was
before was a chaotic mess.
(12:56):
If you really do take youraftercare seriously and if you
take your recovery seriously, Ialways worry about the people
that it's generally the weed...
and the alcohol people thatbounce back and forth between
(13:16):
the two drugs.
So they're an alcoholic, butthey still smoke weed.
And they say, oh, yeah, no, I'msober.
And I'm like, no, you're not.
Or they're smoking weed all thetime, and then they start
ramping up the drinking.
And they go, yeah, man, I'm soproud of myself because I've cut
back my weed usage, you know,and I'm clean.
(13:36):
And I'm like, are you?
I don't think so.
No, you're not.
Because all you're doing is justfilling that space, that void of
one drug with the other.
But again, depending on whereyou live in this country, the
state may have deemed weed aslegal.
And alcohol is as legaleverywhere.
(13:59):
There may be a dry county hereor there where there's no hard
liquor, but there's always beerand wine.
Um, unless I'm mistaken aboutthat, but that's been my
experience.
Um, so all, you know, it's like,yeah, but it's legal and, you
know, it just kind of helps methrough.
And I hear that a lot from theweed people.
So had, have they changed?
(14:21):
Uh, not really.
Um, there's still, there's stillissues.
Uh, they still got the cognitiveissues and the, presenting as a
different kind of person issues.
And, you know, so getting,getting there means that you're
going to be changed.
Now there's a lot of debate andquestion that everybody has.
(14:41):
And I have it clearly in mypractice.
It's always, there's like theidea of, but I don't like being
on medications.
Okay.
Um, and why?
Well, because I don't like thenegative effects of medications
or I don't want to be dependenton it, which is that one always
(15:03):
gets me.
That makes me laugh every timebecause you were an alcoholic
for 12 years and now there's amedication that can help
stabilize your mood for the nextyear or two and you don't want
to be dependent on it.
What happened to that thinking?
I, where, why didn't that applywith alcohol or weed or what?
(15:23):
You know, it's like, seriously,are you kidding?
Um, so that, that, I just alwayslaugh sometimes out loud,
sometimes only in my head, butI'm always laughing when I hear
that.
Um, in any case, the, so I don'tlike the effects.
All right.
Well, and I, I've said this inthe past in these podcasts,
whatever I've done, 120, 130 ofthem.
(15:45):
Um, Listen, medications that aremental health-oriented
medications typically are notmeant for lifelong usage.
There are exceptions, of course.
If you have schizophrenia,schizoaffective disorder, if you
have OCD, no, you're probablygoing to be on that forever.
And that's okay.
that's fine uh that's that'slike having a heart medication
(16:07):
or you had an organ transplantso you have the the uh the
anti-rejection drug you know youwouldn't bat an eye at taking
those but you know god forbidyou should be taking you know
lithium uh to help you so thatyou don't go spinning off and
writing a manifesto and throwingit over the fence of the white
house can't do that you know nono no i don't want to take that
(16:28):
forever which is crazy um Andyou see what I did there?
I said crazy.
So it's like medications help,but they're typically not meant
for long-term usage.
So I don't want to be on thisforever.
Okay, well, you're probably notgoing to be if you have a doctor
(16:49):
that actually buys into the ideathat mental health is one of a
consistent change.
And so...
Medication is meant to stabilizeso you can treat.
It's not the treatment.
It's the stabilizer so that youcan go through a therapeutic
process to improve yoursituation.
So it's not long term.
But again, you know, it's aboutchange.
(17:12):
So when you enter intotreatment, you've begun a
process where you are kind ofout of your mind, maybe really
out of your mind.
Maybe you're hallucinating.
You know, maybe you're Hearingthings.
Seeing things.
Maybe.
Maybe you can't sleep.
(17:32):
You know.
It's like that can drive youcrazy.
Try staying up for four days ina row.
But you're probably very verymentally unstable.
That doesn't mean permanentlymentally sick.
Or ill.
But you're unstable.
And so what we're going to dowhen we treat you.
Is we're going to stabilize you.
(17:52):
And then we're going to treatyou.
And so the treatment is.
As if you've been listening tomy podcasts and many other
podcasts and places where youcan get recovery information and
have this recovery is a year anda half to two year long process.
So we're going to enter into aphase where you're going to
start changing mentally, butit's going to take a year and a
(18:15):
half, a year minimum before youstart realizing how different
you are, but a year and a halfto two years before you're
actually there.
You're at the point of, I feellike I'm in recovery.
And during that time, there'sgoing to be a lot of mental
health changes.
(18:36):
The other thing that's quiteinteresting is, I've found this
interesting when I'm treatingpeople, is that they will come
in and there will be a hiddenmental health issue that they
didn't know was there.
Imagine you're like 15 yearsold, 14 years old, you start
smoking pot, then you graduateto something else and you're
dropping acid and you're doingcocaine and you're smoking weed
(19:00):
and you're drinking and you're,you know, 14, 15.
And I have these clients thatcome in all the time like this
and they're 14 and 15 when theystart.
And so your brain is, you know,continuing to mature and develop
and change from that point untilyou're 23, 24, 25 years old.
And they come to me and they're,they're like 34 and, And they've
(19:24):
never in their life as an adultor an older teen ever not been
under the influence of somethingpretty consistently.
And they get off and there was ahidden mental health issue that
was masked by their use ofdrugs.
And it was never diagnosedbecause it was never understood
that it was present because itwas constantly, you know, you're
(19:49):
constantly under the influenceof something enough where it was
not real clear understood thatyou have actually like OCD
tendencies or you have adepression.
You've got like legitimatedepression, but it was all
hidden.
bipolar disorder that was hiddenand it then suddenly starts
(20:10):
manifesting when you startgetting into recovery and that
can be really unsettling andmake my clients really unhappy
because it's like man I'm justdepressed all the time and I you
know and now I've got now me asa clinician I have to figure out
how do I get a treatingphysician a psychiatrist or
somebody else to listen to thatand see it for what it actually
(20:33):
is which is this is a legitimatemental health issue that was not
brought on by the drugs ofchoice, but masked by the drugs
of choice.
So perhaps when you get donewith your treatment and let's
say a year goes by and you justare really feeling whatever it
is you're feeling, right?
(20:54):
And you're kind of paranoid oryou're mildly depressed all the
time or you're anxious, right?
You just, you have anxiety.
You just feel it.
And it's not, you know, youthought it would go away and it
didn't.
So now you're, you know, cominginto a year into it and you feel
that way.
It's okay.
You know, I mean, that's kind ofwhere your brain was, you know,
(21:17):
even without the use of drugsand alcohol.
So it's okay that you're at thatplace.
But that does happen.
And then, you know, which,depending on how you look at it,
like, oh, wow, you, you know,you were masking it with the
drugs and alcohol or whateveryou're doing, and now it's
there.
Now what?
That's terrible.
That's terrible.
No, actually, it's really goodbecause now you can treat the
(21:42):
thing that was there before thatyou didn't know, and maybe the
thing that you're treatingactually is making your life now
better because you're treatingsomething that was underlying.
I mean, it was co-occurring, andit's separate from the usage.
That's a good thing.
It's kind of like somebody, youknow, they, I don't know, they
(22:03):
get in a car accident and in themiddle of, you know, going to
the hospital, they've got a, youknow, shattered leg.
The doctor comes in and says,well, I've got good news and
I've got bad news.
The good news is we were ableto, you know, repair your leg.
But the bad news is wediscovered you have cancer.
And it's in the early stages.
Had you not been in that caraccident, you would never know
(22:24):
that you had cancer.
Certainly not something youreally want to hear, but you do
really need to hear that, right?
So it saved your life.
And I think the same thing istrue with addiction.
It can uncover things that youdidn't know were there, that
were hidden.
And I think in the recoveryprocess, it's good to have that
revealing because now you'regetting your life in order,
(22:45):
right?
So the tragedy of one thing canlead you to the success and the
revealing of a life-threateningsomething else.
And that's okay too.
Listen, getting into recovery isnot for the weak.
You really got to be a strongperson to be able to go through
recovery.
And if you're being hamstrung bythe idea that everything should
(23:10):
be fine because you just stoppedusing your drug of choice and
now everything's great, that'snot how it works.
And I don't know how many timesI've said that in these
podcasts, but it's true.
Things get worse before they getbetter.
They don't go from really bad tojust an upward trajectory.
It's usually they get worse,then they start getting better.
And I think the revealing ofunderlying mental health issues
(23:33):
that were hidden or masked isone of those examples.
But the other one is, hey, whenyou go into that, you have lost
your mind and you are not ofright mind.
And so getting off the drugs andalcohol allows you to get back
onto even, stable footing.
(23:54):
Well, that's this episode of DocShock, Your Addiction Lifeguard.
I hope you've enjoyed it.
If you have, like, subscribe,comment, send me some
information about you or whatyou're going through, and let me
know if I can help you.
If I can, reach out to methrough my website,
wellspringmindbody.com.
I've got to get a Doc Shockwebsite.
(24:15):
But send me a message.
Let me know what's happeningwith you.
And get help.
Go to rehab.
Go to a hospital.
Get some help.
It's not worth ending your lifebecause you're trying to save
your addiction.
It should be the other wayaround.
Like, save your life by endingyour addiction.
Do it the other way.
But please, get the help.
And if you need help, I'm therefor you.
(24:37):
But in the meantime, until nexttime, this is Doc Shock saying,
see ya.
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