May 24, 2025 • 57 mins
Abandoned at birth and adopted at 5 days old, Dan Berger spent his life battling deep-rooted abandonment trauma and identity struggles. That pain eventually led him into drug and sex addiction—but his story didn’t end there.
In this emotional and honest interview, Dan opens up about:
- Growing up feeling unwanted and misplaced
- How unresolved trauma fueled his addiction
- The moment he hit rock bottom
- Finding healing and hope through the 12-step recovery program
- What life looks like now in recovery
His book, "The Quest: The Definitive Guide to Finding Belonging" is available on now
This is a powerful episode for anyone struggling with abandonment issues, addiction, trauma, recovery, or healing. If you've ever felt like you don't belong — this one’s for you.
Additionally, you can now also watch the full video version of your favourite episode here on YouTube. Please subscribe, like or drop a comment letting us know your thoughts on the episode and if you'd like more stories going forward!
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- Website: www.multispective.org
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Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/multispective
Producer & Host: Jennica Sadhwani
Editing: Stephan Menzel
Marketing: Lucas Phiri
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
SPEAKER_01 (00:00):
I'm recently diagnosed bipolar, bipolar 2,
and I'm in recovery for sexaddiction.
So just to be clear, I was twodays old when I was given up.
I was five days old when I wasadopted.
You're essentially told youdon't belong in that family
(00:21):
that's supposed to have you.
Our biological mom gave us away.
And then the resentment we havetowards that mom, we take on on
the adoptive family.
But really for me, at the rootof resentment is anger, like you
said.
And at the root of anger issadness.
And at the root of sadness isfear.
(00:43):
50% of your happiness is yourgenetic set point.
40% is activities that areintentional.
10% is circumstances.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Hi, Dan.
Welcome to Multispective.
I'm so excited to have you here.
Thanks for having me, Jenica.
Dan, you've done a lot ofepisodes, so you've shared your
story on various differentplatforms.
It's going to
SPEAKER_01 (01:08):
be the best one.
This is going to be the best
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
one.
You must be a pro at this,though.
Do you find that when you shareyour story, it gets easier?
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
100%.
I think that, you know, it'slike I once heard that every...
The best tests you take are theones you learn from.
It's the same way for publicspeaking.
If I'm not having a good timeand I'm not learning, then I'm
bored.
I enjoy speaking about the samething a lot of times because
then I just become moreeffective in communicating that
(01:37):
message.
I've heard it referred to asdata density.
I'm able to say more with less.
So yeah, I love doing it.
And if I get my message in frontof people, then that's
wonderful.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
All right, Dan, why don't we begin with your story
Tell us a little bit about whereit begins for you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
So my story begins in my biological mom's womb, and
that's because I'm adopted.
So I was adopted when I was twodays old.
And with adoptees, shout outadoptees, for any adoptees who
may know, it's like you'reessentially told you don't
belong in that family that'ssupposed to have you.
So these kinds of cortisol andthe stress hormones are
(02:17):
essentially moving through thewoman's body into the fetus, and
you're essentially born andgiven away even before that
event.
So the author, Nancy Verriercalls this a primal wound.
So that's my first kind of likethe first, I would say headline.
And then soon thereafter, when Iwas two years old, you know,
(02:38):
there's like this, my mom, Idon't know how true this is.
It's probably glorified, but mymom tells this story about how
she was on the waiting list forlike almost 10 years waiting for
the call that there's a babyready.
So she drive around, we were inTel Aviv at the time.
She drive around Tel Aviv,Israel with like diapers in her
car and the waiting for thatcall and then when she got the
call she like ran up and downthe building she was living in
(03:01):
like knocking on doors askingfor baby supplies because you
don't know when the baby's goingto arrive it's not like you're
it's not like a butcher shopwhere you get like a number or
like the DMV you know so anywayand then They had waited so long
to have me that by the time Iarrived into that family, my dad
was ready to quit.
So they divorced when I was two,and he basically abandoned me.
(03:24):
I haven't spent too much timewith him ever since.
I'm 43, so that's been almostfour decades, or more than four
decades.
And then I would say the thirdkind of pillar in my traumatic
childhood was immigration.
You know, coming to thiscountry, not speaking a word of
English, having to negotiatecultures, negotiate identities
was really tough for me.
nine-year-old.
(03:45):
So those are kind of the three,I think...
Biggest, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:19):
so you know you know you're also wanted you're just
wanted by the right the rightkinds of people right um first
can we just talk a little bitabout your biological mother
what was the reason for why shedecided she didn't want you from
the beginning
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
uh yeah so the story goat i actually met her eight
years ago and um i did i wasable to track her down met her
uh flew to israel to meet her inperson um and then learned that
only my aunt her sister one ofeight knew of me um and the
reason she gave me up wasbecause the man she was with it
(04:54):
was like she was in atraditional family she wasn't
supposed to have kids out ofwedlock she kind of fooled
around with a guy and then shewas pregnant with me so she
lived with that sister until Iwas born so that's the reason I
mean listen I am not I can'tthink of anything I'm more
grateful for than her decisionto give me up.
(05:15):
And I say that because my motheris very mentally ill.
The four other siblings I haveare, each one is in a worse
position than the other.
One is in jail, one's ondisability, one's all broken.
I'd be in prison right now if Iwas with her
SPEAKER_02 (05:30):
and
SPEAKER_01 (05:31):
that family.
I mean, yeah, like childprotective services, took the
kids, put them in foster, likecrazy stuff.
So yeah, I mean, and then youtalk, you mentioned like this
idea of like, well, you weren'twanted by these people, but you
were wanted by that people.
That makes a lot of sense,Jenica.
But the reality is that as youngas children, we can't
(05:52):
rationalize that.
And even when we, I've heardthat so many times where people
are like, well, you're special,you know, you know, like my mom
wasn't religious at all, butshe's like, you were meant for
me.
Kind of that kind of language isjust completely comes off
inauthentic to adoptees.
It's like, It just, it's notgood enough because our
(06:13):
biological mom gave us away.
SPEAKER_02 (06:17):
And
SPEAKER_01 (06:18):
then the resentment we have towards that mom, we
take on the adoptive family.
This transference that youtouched on, it happens towards
the wrong person.
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
That's interesting.
And it totally makes sense withsomeone who's young and maybe
not able to sort of understand,rationalize and have that
maturity to be able to put abigger picture, to step away
from it, from that personalsense and remove that anger from
the situation and just sort ofsee like, hey, look, given the
circumstances, given everythingthat I can see and know, I
actually am better off.
(06:51):
You're able to say this todaythat I'm so much better off and
I'm so glad I And maybe thathelped to have the opportunity
to meet your mom, to be able tosay, like, why did you leave me?
And then hear her side and belike, okay, it's not necessarily
that she didn't want me.
It was, she genuinely couldn'thandle it.
Technically, she really saved mefrom something that could have
(07:11):
been very, very disastrous lifeof mine.
But do you feel like if you hadmet your biological mom younger,
you would be able to understandthis?
And you heard about her story,you knew about her story, you
knew that she was mentallyunwell and everything.
Do you feel like you would havebeen able to sort of let it go
quite in the way you have now?
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
I, no matter what, like how successful I've been,
no matter how many gifts I'vehad, no matter how the cookie
crumbled in the right way forme, I'm never going to be, I
don't think I'll ever forgivefor that.
You know, it's like, I mean, Ican have empathy.
I can have gratitude.
I can also have resentment.
(07:49):
And I can hold all those thingsat the same time.
And the idea that the only wayfor me to have a biological
family is to have a daughter.
That's the first time I everhung out with a biological
thing.
So, yeah, I can hold all thosefeelings at the same time.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
That's interesting.
What is the specific area orelement that makes you feel
like, I just can't forgive it?
It's
SPEAKER_01 (08:19):
like an experience that I was robbed of.
When I met my bio mom, Iinstantly loved her.
The way I think about it is...
There's biological love and thenthere's synthetic love.
And biological love is like aschool shooter's parents are
still going to love that kid.
(08:40):
You know what I'm saying?
Because that's the bio love.
Synthetic love is I meetsomebody and then I fall in love
with them and then it candisappear.
It can be over.
SPEAKER_00 (08:50):
That's a really, really interesting way to look
at this.
Thanks.
Do you feel like not being ableto forgive your mom has affected
you.
And in what ways do you feellike it's
SPEAKER_01 (09:04):
affected you?
Oh my God, innumerable.
I'll give you an example.
Let me start like, I'mpre-diabetic, okay?
So basically a couple morecookies, I'm going to be type
two.
And that's because of myadoptive mom, because she would
pack, I mean, my mom, I call hermy mom, but just for the
audience, my adoptive mom,because I was adopted when I was
five days old.
(09:25):
So that's because of my adoptivemom.
Now, why is it because of myadoptive mom?
It's because she would pack mylunch with fruit roll-ups and
gushers and Ritz crackers andlike crap because I wouldn't eat
anything else now there'sprobably a part of her that did
that because she wanted toplease me because she saw me as
(09:47):
special and waited so long Sothat's an example.
Am I pulling things out of thinair?
Maybe.
But here's another example.
I didn't have the Americancollege experience.
I went to a city college.
I ended up going to grad schoolin a somewhat traditional
American campus, but myundergrad was in New York City.
And I blame my mom for thatbecause she didn't really do
(10:08):
much to help me find a college.
She didn't really push me tolook at different colleges
because she didn't want me toleave the house.
Because she developed this likewe were codependent.
We were enmeshed as a resultbecause I'm an only child.
And then my adoptive dad and mymom, both my parents are only
children.
So they have no siblings.
So I got no cousins.
(10:29):
So it's just me and my mom.
So we were just enmeshed andcodependent.
The list goes on.
like how the impact it's had onme.
Yeah.
I mean, also like, for example,I'm recently diagnosed bipolar,
bipolar two, and, um, I'm inrecovery for sex addiction.
And, um, That compulsion isrelated to that feeling of
(10:55):
brokenness addiction is.
And then bipolar is somethingthat's been undiagnosed.
I can go on and on with allthese mental illness that I
have.
But I resent my mom for notputting me in...
My mom's a fucking socialworker, okay?
She's a therapist who teachespost-doc doctorate you know,
people in family therapy andpost-traumatic growth.
(11:18):
And yet, she never thought aboutputting me in fucking therapy.
Like, after everything I'vedescribed.
She was like, oh, he's actingout.
He got arrested.
Oh, he's acting out.
I got suspended.
Oh, he's acting out.
Everything will be okay.
You know?
Oh, the cops are home.
The FBI's here.
It's fine.
It's going to be okay.
I was crying for help.
(11:41):
So I had to get all this helpwhen I'm an adult.
SPEAKER_00 (11:43):
Now, we will touch on all of the stuff that
happened later on in your lifeand the way that it did affect
you.
But I do still want to go alittle bit back to the
childhood.
So you then meet your mother atage two.
She's really excited to have youin.
You move into this new place.
At what point are you made awarethat you're now living in an
(12:05):
adopted home, not with yourbiological mom?
How did you respond when youwere kind of informed this?
Did you know this at the time?
Do you remember?
When you were moved in?
Yeah, all of that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:15):
So just to be clear, I was two days old when I was
given up.
I was five days old when I wasadopted.
Five days?
Yeah, it was hot off the press.
I'm still warm.
I still got liquid on me.
I'm kidding.
But yeah, so I'm like baby.
And my mom from day one told meI'm adopted.
That's one thing of many she gotright.
(12:38):
My mom actually wrote a bookabout adopting me.
It's a children's book.
It's an illustrated book toexplain to children what
adoption means.
SPEAKER_02 (12:47):
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
I'll give you an example.
I was so resentful of this wholething that I refused.
She wanted to name the book MyDamn.
And I refused.
So she had to rename itsomething else.
Yeah, it wasn't like a
SPEAKER_00 (13:08):
ceremony.
Yeah, yeah.
(13:31):
were adopted.
SPEAKER_01 (13:32):
So I think obviously there are two schools of
thought.
First school of thought is tonot say a thing.
and then you end up getting aton of resentment later.
The second school of thought issay it right away, and then you
get resentment over time.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
There's no right or wrong.
I think that it worked out.
It worked out for me, and Ithink it's what feels right for
the parents.
I mean, I always think that thekid's going to ask, where am I
from, what happened, whatever.
I'll give you an example.
When I'm with my dad's family,Um, who I rarely see, but like
(14:08):
he's Austrian, uh, and my, and,and, uh, And his wife is Polish.
So between the two of them,their children are like Aryan,
you know?
So they're like blonde, blueeyes.
Like my brother, my, my half,my, he's my half adopted
brother.
He's like literally a model.
And then like the other one,they're just all tall and
(14:30):
fucking beautiful.
And I'm like this black sheep,you know?
Cause I'm, I'm like NorthAfrican and Middle Eastern and
Italian.
And I, there's a picture of meand them and I look like, I look
like I'm going to rob them.
It's so bad.
So the jig would have been up.
(14:50):
You know what I'm saying?
If you wouldn't have told me,then I'd be like, this does not
make sense.
So I don't know.
I mean, I think honesty is thebest policy in these kinds of
things.
And I think it's better to tell.
Okay, I'll tell you the answer.
It's better to tell, but put intherapy right away.
But don't just tell and thinkyou know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
You can try to use the right, you know, by the book
kind of terms, but you justnever know how that individual
is going to react, especiallywhen they're young and they're
raging hormones and they're, youknow, growing and coming into
themselves at this point.
So walk me through, you know,you've kind of are being raised
by parents you knew that youwere adopted all along, right?
(15:33):
At what point did you start yourkind of like curiosity search
for like your biological mother,this kind of urge to find out
your
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
home birth place?
So my mom has always kind oflike downplayed the importance
of finding that.
So she kind of like said, well,I'm your mom.
That's what matters, you know.
But I always had this likequestion mark thing.
I wanted to see where the helldid my awful bunions come from?
(16:00):
Like, where is this?
Who's responsible for these feetthat I have?
No, I'm kidding.
But yeah, so my mom has alwayskind of pushed me away from
finding out.
And then as a result, I kind ofstarted thinking, like, I don't
want to offend her.
Like I really thought I'd belike hurtful to my mom if she
knew that I was looking.
(16:20):
And I remember to this day whenI told her and I called her and
let her know I found them andI'll explain how I did in a
second.
She was like, well, what are yougoing to do?
And then she said to me, she'slike, most adoptees who meet
their folks, they haveexpectations and they're usually
shattered and they learn thingsthey didn't want to know.
And then the relationship is notwhat they wanted.
(16:43):
In recovery, we say expectationsare future resentments.
So she was like, whatever.
And I was like, okay, thanks.
So I had bought a 23andMe kit.
uh, the DNA test and it sat inmy closet.
I'm not kidding for three years.
And then one day I was like,fuck it.
(17:03):
Take the thing, spit in thetest.
You mail it out, get an email.
You know, we got some relativesfor you.
I check it out.
I got a 13.5% connection.
I'm like, that's a cousin.
SPEAKER_02 (17:17):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
that's a cousin.
So, um, And then I had to figureout if it was mom's side or
dad's side.
At the same time, I was parallelpathing opening up my adoption
file in Israel, which I imaginethey have to go to subseller C
to get the file from 1981.
But they sent me the document,and then I was able to
(17:40):
triangulate her last name andthis dude's last name and found
out it was the mother's side.
So then...
I was like, listen, chill.
Don't tell anyone.
Let me figure out what I want todo.
Within 24 hours, there's like afive-way FaceTime.
Like, hey, what's up?
It's your mom and your brother.
I'm like, Jesus.
Yeah, it's wild.
(18:01):
That's what happened.
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Did you find in your life a running theme of slowly
just discovering and finding outparts of yourself that a person
who's just raised by their ownbiological mother wouldn't have
to figure out along the way?
So you mentioned things like,you know, diabetic or having any
kind of like tendencies, beingprone genetically to certain
(18:25):
things, or just even thingsabout your personality that you
kind of discovered along theway.
SPEAKER_01 (18:31):
Yeah, fucking awesome question.
So basically, for my book, I dida lot of research on how, this
will make sense in a second.
I did research on how do people,what determines happiness?
And like, it's kind of peoplefind us now, 50% of your
happiness is your genetic setpoint basically means it's what
you're born with and the otherstuff is 40 percent of is is uh
(18:55):
activities that are intentionaluh and so voluntary activities
the other 10 is circumstances sobasically it's 50 50 you control
50 you can't control 50 yeah andi was just like wondering like
why you know why i am the way iam in terms of like Why am I
loud?
(19:15):
Why don't I have a filter?
Why am I inappropriate?
You know, like, why do I have adark sense of humor?
I mean, why am I knock-kneed?
Why do my feet look the way theydo?
I mean, why do I have this,like, hairline?
It's like all this stuff.
And then you just realize, like,look, I gotta know where I'm
(19:36):
from.
Because, like, everybody'sexperience.
You go to the doctor, they say,hey, any medical history in your
family for XYZ?
I can't ever answer that.
So, I just needed, like...
On one hand, it's closure.
On the other hand, it's anopener.
It's closure in the sense ofwhat happened.
Tell me the stuff.
An opener.
(19:57):
Maybe there's an opportunity forrelationships here.
For expanding my family, whichwas very small.
Nowadays, being adopted actuallyis a really great opportunity to
blame your biological parentsfor the shit you don't like
about yourself.
For example, one of the storiesI've made up, my narrative, is
(20:18):
that my addiction is because ofmy dad, my biological dad.
I'll never know that.
But what I've learned inrecovery is that a lot of people
have those kinds of addictionspassed on over generations.
So maybe my dad was, my biologyguy was a womanizer and he had
an addiction and never reallytreated it.
(20:40):
And I know for a fact that mymom is very sick.
She's bipolar.
She's got OCD.
She's manic.
I can go on.
And I was like, wow, I'm alsomentally ill.
And as a result, I'm on amedication to help me.
I'm in recovery.
But all this stuff is new.
It's been part of my healingjourney for the past five years.
SPEAKER_00 (21:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
(21:33):
It does us benefit to be able tosort of have that feeling of
anger because it allows us tokind of go through the
processing, go through themotions of like really spending
some time with that thought oflike, okay, what really
happened?
Why did this happen?
But it's also very, veryimportant.
I think a lot of people findcomfort in that blaming of
someone else.
And so they hold onto it andthey drag it and drag it.
(21:55):
And the longer you drag it, themore it becomes a part of you.
It starts to kind of be like whoyou are.
I'm Dan and I'm an angry personand I'm angry because of these
these people.
But then it's also somethingthat is really important to let
go at some point in your life,because at the end of the day,
it's going to benefit nobody.
And you're the only one that'sgoing to go through all this,
(22:15):
your whole lifetime of anger andpain.
And like you mentioned, itmanifested very, very physically
for you.
I
SPEAKER_01 (22:21):
do the miracle morning, like affirmations.
It's different than like, I'mgood enough, I'm strong enough.
It's like, it's pretty like deepaffirmations.
And I have one around aroundresentment.
And what I write is, I'm notgoing to read everything, but
I'm committed to becoming lessjudgmental because I don't want
to create more resentments.
(22:41):
So I think it's interesting whatyou raise.
Obviously, incredibly easy tosay, don't hold resentments, let
them go.
And I think it's reallyimportant to understand what the
root of the resentment is.
And for me, it's judgmentalness.
If I judge somebody, then I endup Assuming the narrative,
assuming what they were up to,making assumptions, and then not
(23:03):
really being curious as aresult, and then kind of holding
on to my narrative.
But really, for me, at the rootof resentment is anger, like you
said.
And at the root of anger issadness.
And at the root of sadness isfear.
And it starts with like, I don'twant to be alone.
I'm scared of being alone.
I'm scared of being abandonedlike I was as a kid.
(23:24):
And then it's like, oh my God,that's like really sad.
Like I'm actually a sad boy.
And then it's like, well, I'mnot going to go walk around
crying.
So I'll walk around angrybecause that's like the
masculine, you know, ideals.
I'm going to be angry.
And then anybody who kind oflike threatens me, I'll resent
them.
So that's kind of like how I'vebuilt it.
And it's only taken me like, Ijust, you know, I've done a lot
(23:45):
of work and it's not me showingoff.
It's just my commitment.
I've done everything from theHoffman process, which is a
week-long spiritual thing, topsychological counseling
services, which is essentiallyinpatient, Western psychology.
And I did PCS a year ago, lessthan a year ago, and I just
(24:07):
realized how sad I was.
Not sad like depressed.
I was just sad inside.
And it started with, I'm justangry.
And then I'm like, I'm actuallysad.
SPEAKER_02 (24:18):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
it's a huge step that you've even gotten to this
place of like awareness of beingable to break it down from anger
to sad to fear and where thatroot fear root of the fear is
because it's from that very veryroot base that you can start to
kind of work backwards like heyif that fear of loneliness let
me maybe try to experienceloneliness for a little while
and see how actually maybe it'snot all that bad and it's it's
(24:40):
actually i'm really happy in myown company and i can really
enjoy some self-time and i canbe self-sufficient and and then
you kind of work backwards somepeople they do they do a lot of
like inner healing work theywrite letters to their inner
child they have conversationswith their inner child they
actually go into those momentswhere they felt like ultimate
fear and anger and kind of workbackwards from there changing
(25:01):
that narrative but yeah younever really know it's one of
those things you just trial anderror you try this you try that
until something really clicks
SPEAKER_01 (25:08):
one of the things we did at PCS was something called
psychodrama and it's basicallylike reenacting these like
seminal points in your life andwe did the scene that we did for
me was like me sitting there Andyou're not in it.
You watch it.
So other people in the groupplay characters in the story.
So somebody else played me as achild.
(25:30):
Then somebody else played me asa teenager.
And then I had to go talk.
It was wild.
So yes, resentments arebasically unresolved anger.
That's the connection for me,which is why I went resentment,
anger, sadness, and fear.
And for me, the turning point...
was when i did psilocybinjourney with this incredible
(25:53):
woman named juliet of berkeleyand during my that journey um i
basically uh found myselflooking into like this big black
well this hole and it was likethis basket at the bottom and it
was like a wicker basket sothere was like light beams
coming out of it and then ifound this like courage to open
up um this basket, which Irealized was holding all my
(26:19):
traumas, and I opened them, andmy traumas were actually full of
light.
And then that's when I realizedthat I'm no longer broken.
And that's why I got thistattoo, which is the Japanese
art form of Dunigi.
And basically, it's the ideathat even broken things are part
of the story.
They can always be put together.
SPEAKER_02 (26:39):
And
SPEAKER_01 (26:42):
for me, it's really always been a question of
belonging.
I didn't belong in my mom'swomb.
I didn't belong in this newfamily.
I didn't belong in this newcountry.
How do I find belonging?
And that's what led me to thisfive-year kind of path of
creating my own sense ofbelonging and taking ownership
of that.
But you have to understand yourbiochemical set point before you
(27:03):
can do any of that shit.
SPEAKER_00 (27:05):
Would you say that happiness then is knowing
yourself?
SPEAKER_01 (27:11):
Well, the Stoics said famously, know thyself.
And I always think that's alwayspart of tapping into is like,
you know, your inner spirit andlike your gut and in your
tuition and the storehouseknowledge that exists all around
us in this consciousness.
Like, I do think that knowingyourself and being aligned is
really important.
(27:32):
And I think about it like aboard meeting.
You know, the chairman of myboard is my spiritual self.
And then we got like the headsof different units, business
units.
We got the intellect, the thingthat doesn't shut off.
We got the emotional self, whichis like, you got to tap into
that inner child or whateversometimes.
And then you got your body,like, and our pain, as you
(27:53):
mentioned, like sits somewherein the body.
So it's about getting everybodyaround the table under the
leadership of the spiritualchair to like agree.
You know how I think about it?
And so yeah, but you gottafucking know yourself if you
want to be happy, you want tofind belonging, you know
anything.
SPEAKER_00 (28:08):
What if you open that can of worms, you know
yourself, you know exactly whereyou're from, all of the things
that make you and you find outlike my gosh, like I don't like
myself.
SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
Hoffman will call that the dark side.
I mean, for me, that's part ofthe 12-step program.
And in the 12-step program, youknow, step number four is made
an inventory of our defects.
And I'm currently on step four,and that's literally sitting
down in a spreadsheet andwriting down every single one of
your defects.
I think I'm at like 32 for meright now.
And then you got to write downall your resentments and you
(28:42):
write down all your, like, sothat's, and then step five is
about admitting to like oneperson the nature of our wrongs
and then step six is aboutturning those defects over to
the care of God and basicallythat's the surrender it's just
basically the 12 step program isbasically a program for people
(29:04):
who are spiritually anorexic andthat's Turning that over to God,
the care of God, carrying thosedefects over, is surrendering
the shit you don't like.
And I've always felt, to thisday probably, I've felt
worthless from the moment I wasgiven up.
And that's always going to be mychallenge.
(29:25):
I used to fucking hate myself.
SPEAKER_00 (29:26):
So walk me through it.
Let's go through that from thatvery, very first moment when you
start to spiral.
What's happening in your life?
SPEAKER_01 (29:33):
You know, a bit of sadness kind of came over me
when you asked that questionbecause I kind of realized, wow,
shit's spiraling.
I started spiraling out when Iwas like...
you know, 13.
But certainly in my 20s, Ibecame a love addict.
And basically in order toaddress my worthlessness, I
turned to women to fall in lovewith and feel better about
(29:57):
myself and manipulate to kind ofget to that point.
And then, you know, move on onceI got that.
So that was in my 20s.
And then into my 30s, it becamea sex addiction.
Because like any addiction, itjust gets, you kind of have to
drink another shot, anotherdrink, and you have to shoot up
(30:18):
another time or whatever, takeanother hit.
So then it became a sexaddiction where that was the way
I felt good about myself.
And then, you know, that's notenough.
So then he started doing drugs.
And then you get married andyou're like, well, shit, I can't
do this stuff.
So then he turned topornography.
(30:38):
And it just gets worse.
It just gets worse.
And until you realize you have aproblem and that your life's
unmanageable and it'scontrolling you, that's kind of
like what I went through.
And this addiction lasted forlike...
30 years.
I mean, this goes back all theway to high school when I was
(30:59):
like trying to make out with themost amount of girls at summer
camp.
So when you say that, it soundsinnocuous, but it's just the
beginning of it.
So that's kind of how Iself-soothed and tried to
address my worthlessness that Ifelt.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
How much of this would you say was like the
mania, potentially the mania orthe bipolar that was acting up?
And how much of this would yousay is a result of feeling
sadness?
SPEAKER_01 (31:24):
Well, you know, being bipolar doesn't help
because you have these swingsbetween hypo and hyper arousal
states.
So when you're in a hyperarousal state, you're trying to
like do more and you're tryingto like, certainly fuels kind of
like this like manic compulsion.
And when you're in a hypoarousal state, you're trying to
like do more.
You need to pick me up.
(31:44):
You're like, oh, let me turn tolike, you know, love and feeling
good.
So like something pulls me outof it.
So I never thought about thatconnection, but it certainly is
a part of it.
That's a great point.
SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
What made you choose your wife to be the one to marry
versus why was she not justanother person that you were,
for example, sleeping with?
SPEAKER_01 (32:04):
Wow, that's a great question.
So she's fine with me talkingabout all this stuff.
I don't know if she's fine withme talking about this.
I'll take a chance.
So the story I was tellingmyself is that I was dating with
the intention of meetingsomeone.
And if they weren't the one,then I'll just have fun.
But as I was getting older, whenI moved to Boise, Idaho, where I
(32:24):
live now, Five years ago, I kindof decided that this was the
point in my life where I'm goingto normalize things.
I was still acting out.
I was still in my addiction.
But it became more and moreclear to me that I needed to...
really get married or start afamily or settle down.
So it was kind of like aprocess.
(32:45):
And I always joke that my lifewas on tape delay, but I bought
a house.
It was the first house I everlived in.
I got a car.
I never drove a car before.
I get all this adult shit aslike a 40 year old man or
whatever.
Um, but I met my wife at anightclub in New York city at
like two in the morning.
And we were, we acted out and,uh, I literally said, I'm going
to marry this woman.
And she came to Boise.
(33:07):
I tried to impress her.
I was still trying to juggleother things going on, like
closing the loop here, keepingthis one open, you know, just
like risk mitigation.
But yeah, so, but I just...
I was attracted first to her,obviously, but then to her
independence, to herintelligence.
But she didn't know the natureof my wrongs and my addiction
(33:28):
until a year ago.
We call that D-Day in recovery,or it's not really D-Day for me
because I told her.
So it wasn't Discovery Day, butit was divulging day where I
divulged my issues.
Two years ago, she asked me,she's like, I think you're a sex
addict.
I was like, what the fuck
SPEAKER_00 (33:45):
is that?
I mean, so you would say thatyou were quite a functional
addict in the sense that it wasnot real.
taking over your life you wereable to
SPEAKER_01 (33:53):
totally wrong this this addiction is definitely
takes over your life it takesover your life because it's like
my friends who go on trips withme and like it'll preoccupy my
mind to like meet someone likeI'd be sitting down and like on
an app you know I'd be on thephone with my boys like war
(34:15):
storing I would Think about whento take my dog out in case I run
into somebody.
It does take your life over.
SPEAKER_02 (34:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:29):
It controls your life.
You have to, like, you know,manage where you go out on a
date in order, like, where yougo, where you'll be seen with,
like...
Your schedule.
It runs your life.
SPEAKER_00 (34:42):
And you said then at some point you moved from love
addiction to sex addiction todrug addiction.
Walk me through that part.
When did the drugs...
Well,
SPEAKER_01 (34:52):
I mean, it's just kind of like...
You keep wanting to get higherand higher.
I mean, I always did drugs.
I haven't done drugs in severalyears.
But I've always done drugs.
And it's just part of it.
It's part of the partying.
It's part of like...
part of the scene.
It's just got, you know, likeany kind of addiction just gets
riskier and riskier, chase thathigh.
SPEAKER_00 (35:12):
So, you know, it seems like you were kind of
really moving from one, one toanother because you needed to
have that sort of validation.
It stopped even becoming aboutlove and filling that void with
love.
It was like, just whatever I canget my hands on.
What point did that wordaddiction kind of come to you?
Like,
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
yeah, I mean, so, so at that point you made a really
good point that I haven't reallyconsidered.
Um, But what you're basicallysaying is, dude, if you feel
worthless and like, you know,you're in security validation,
you should find somebody andthen you'll get that because
you'll be in a securely attachedrelationship.
So a key piece of, I think,recovery for me or healing is
(35:49):
having a secure attachment,developing secure attachment.
And that means that you have ahealthy functioning relationship
that's interdependent withsomebody and your life doesn't
revolve around theirs and viceversa.
You can differentiate.
You know, You know they'll bethere for you.
You know it's not a quid proquo.
So I was just now ready to havea secure, attached relationship.
(36:12):
And that was the difference, Ithink, part of it.
And that's part of the healing alot of people need to go through
because your attachment stylerelates to how you find
belonging.
And if you have an insecureattachment style, it's harder to
find belonging and you need morethings that fill up your
belonging tank because you'reinsecure in how you attach to
(36:34):
other people.
SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
I find that to be really fascinating as well
because you mentioned that therewas such a dependency between
you and your adopted mother.
Maybe your adopted mother toohad a very insecure attachment
style.
And that was something that youwere also mirroring.
So it was, you know, you wentfrom being separated from your
biological mother to being witha mother who had a really
insecure attachment style.
And so that's really what you'relearning just throughout your
(36:58):
entire pathway, your entirelife.
SPEAKER_01 (37:00):
That's a great point.
I mean, I would imagine she didbecause, you know, my mom
basically had one man her wholelife, my dad.
They were together for like 20or so years.
He most likely...
had affairs.
His dad had affairs.
And my mom was just verydevoted.
I probably saw that.
(37:22):
Your question was aroundaddiction.
Before I learned about that, Iwant to make sure I answer.
You know, it took me a while.
Look, I think, first of all, Ithink everybody's an addict.
I think there are very fewpeople who are not addicted to
something.
The gym, working out, collectingcomic books.
I don't know what it...
Everybody's a fucking addict.
Everybody's got a compulsion.
Yeah.
(37:42):
you know, eating.
So I guess I always thoughtabout it conceptually and I knew
that there was an addictionthing, but I just didn't know
that it was applied to myexperience as well.
So I didn't only learn aboutthat term until I was a PCS 10
months ago.
SPEAKER_00 (37:59):
Once it kind of really, really came to your
understanding that like, this isa problem and it's got all the
control over me, I've lostcontrol over this, what'd you
start doing?
I
SPEAKER_01 (38:08):
went to a 12-step meeting.
You work with nine differenttherapists.
through 62 hours in one week.
But yeah, I went to a meetingand I was like, went around and
said, hi, my name is Don.
I'm a sex addict.
SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
Walk me through any concept of shame that might've
existed regarding any of theaddictions.
SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
Shame.
So at PCS, they taught us thatwe need to reframe shame as
healthy guilt.
And that, I really liked thatreframe.
because shame is like disgustwith ourselves, where guilt is
like acknowledgement ofourselves.
So healthy guilt is a littlemore curious.
(38:48):
But yeah, shame and addictionare very well connected because
it's what we do in the shadows.
And our addiction is in theshadows and it's not in
daylight.
And that means that we do itwith the hope that nobody finds
out.
But light's the bestdisinfectant.
Yeah, I like that.
(39:09):
So yeah, I carried a lot ofshame around.
And I don't know, like, I mean,for me, it was just like, it's
not, to me, it's not thatcomplicated of a formula.
It's like, you know, neglectedas a child, I mean, faced
abandonment, neglect, whatever.
Okay?
So...
Didn't have a sense of belongingbiologically, culturally,
familially.
(39:30):
And okay, so I need to findbelonging because I thought it
was broken.
So I found it throughinterpersonal relationships and
kind of started a downwardspiral.
SPEAKER_00 (39:39):
Yeah.
It sounds really straightforwardwhen you put it that way.
How did your relationship withyour adopted mother evolve over
the years as you started to comeinto adulthood?
What is your relationship withher right now?
SPEAKER_01 (39:51):
Yeah.
We talk.
She She helps me.
I have some marital challengesat times.
She helps me.
She's always got my back.
And we see her.
I live in Idaho, so she lives inNew York City.
It's a little hard to...
spend time but you know having agranddaughter has really given
her a new purpose and that'sbeautiful to see and it makes me
see such a soft side of my mom
SPEAKER_00 (40:12):
I can kind of really see like that you know it sounds
like your relationship with yourmom is a little bit complicated
there's bits and pieces yeahexactly exactly but there is so
much love there and again thisgoes back to what you said
originally at the very beginningabout you know biological love
versus synthetic love do youtruly believe that your love
with your mom is synthetic or Alove that's going to be there
(40:36):
forever.
There's a sense of security Ican hear when you're talking
about the love from your mom,right?
That you know she's always goingto be there.
SPEAKER_01 (40:43):
I do think this synthetic love idea crosses over
to biological love eventually.
I love my adoptive momunconditionally.
I love my biological momunconditionally.
It took me a really long time toget there, I think, with my
adoptive mom.
And I'm working on havingunconditional love for my wife.
SPEAKER_00 (41:03):
It's like, you know, there's a difference between
between like a chosen love and alove that's just, you know,
innately in us, right?
Which is the biological one.
The chosen love is somethingthat we choose with experience
and with time spent with aperson to love that person.
SPEAKER_02 (41:18):
But
SPEAKER_00 (41:19):
they kind of need to prove that they're worthy of
that love, I guess, in a sense.
And that's why we choose it.
But those ones that we choosepersonally, this is my opinion,
is if I'm choosing to love aperson because that person has
time and time again been therefor me and proven themselves
maybe kind of worthy of my lovein a sense, then I'm going to
(41:40):
choose to love youwholeheartedly.
I'm going to give all of my lovethat I can possibly give to you.
And the only circumstance thatmight make me stop loving you is
if you completely back away andyou cheat me and you hurt me
again and again and again.
When you kind of reverse thatand you start taking away that
(42:00):
value of that love there, thenthat's kind of when I have to
start to protect and preserve ofmyself but you know it's a
painful journey because you knowchoosing to love someone is is a
very intentional kind of act asopposed to it being biological
but the love that webiologically like we're born
into innately it's like withwe're tethered to that person
(42:21):
right something that is beyondus so it's not really a choice
so it's sometimes it's a littleharder but if that person has
again been bad to you over andover and over and over again
it's it's it's weird Becauseit's like you harder to unlove a
person that you are tethered toby birth versus, you know.
So it's an interesting kind ofparadox.
(42:44):
It's a
SPEAKER_01 (42:45):
great word, tethered.
The wonderful marriage counselorStan Tatkin talks about how
couples should be tethered.
And it's this idea, I imaginealmost kind of like this...
this rubber band, bungee cord,where we're tethered.
You can go as far as you want,but like, you know...
(43:05):
We're still connected.
The way I think about that isthrough this framework of a
bunch of, and this is PCS work,it's a bunch of concentric
circles where the number onecircle in the middle is you and
God.
And you have to love yourselfand God.
And only if you have that, youcan go to the next circle, which
is your partner.
And that's your 2A.
(43:26):
And then your 2B is yourchildren.
And then three is your parents,four is whatever, and it can go
on.
But that is so important to getone, two, A and two, B, right?
And so many people have thatflipped over.
I love my children.
Well, guess what?
If you don't have a healthyrelationship with your spouse
and you are like not puttingthem first, you're not going to
be able, it has to be thatsequence.
(43:50):
So God and you, partner andchildren, one, two, A, two, B.
SPEAKER_00 (43:56):
Right.
And now we're starting to see alot less of individuals choosing
to be in relationships.
A lot less of that happeningmaybe because of technology and
whatever.
Right.
So people are becoming lonelierand lonelier and that circle is
getting smaller and smaller.
And, you know, the more wedetach from, you know,
relationships, partners, kids,all of that, like the more we
push that kind of lifestyle awayfrom us and we go through our
(44:18):
lives being very lonely.
I wonder whether that wouldchange over time, whether that
form of therapy even wouldchange.
SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
Okay.
So this, I mean, okay.
So first of all, like there wasnow, there was an article in the
Atlantic the other day about howmen are going to start
preferring pornography over sexbecause that is going to be so
high-tech.
And we see that already.
I don't know if anybody'swatched the show about
(44:47):
adolescence.
And adolescence is all about aboy who's essentially part of
the 80, not the 20.
And the 80% are the kids whodon't match with pretty girls.
And the 20 is the ones that do.
It's the same thing on Tinderand stuff.
10% get 90% of the swipes.
So it's all these problems.
The age of marriage is gettinglater in life.
(45:08):
People are having kids laterthan back in the 70s.
used to be like mid-20s.
Now it's like early 30s.
And all this stuff is gettingpushed out.
And men are isolated.
There's an incel movement.
I really worry about men andtheir future as all these things
happen around them.
Nothing wrong with all theseother people having rights and
(45:30):
all these identities gettingrecognized.
But in my opinion, it should nothappen to replace their rights.
I mean, the whole thing withlike charlottesville people the
jews will not replace us likethat would tell those terrible
pieces of shit whitesupremacists are worried about
that and like as much as i hatethem as a jew and just like as a
(45:56):
normal person they havesomething to say and they're
scared and being scared leadspeople to dumb shit school
shootings violence, drugs,incarceration, suicide, and it's
happening more and more.
These deaths of despair areeverywhere.
We have to do something aboutit.
(46:17):
And my opinion is that we solveit through helping each person
find their sense of belonging.
And that's where my work comesin because I don't think it's
going to be some leader, somepresident who's going to have
like a JFK moment of like, youknow, not like an ask, don't ask
what your country could do foryou.
Ask what you could do for yourcountry.
(46:37):
It's not one of those speeches.
It's not going to be Jake Paulsolving your fucking loneliness,
dude.
It's not going to be Andrewfucking Tate.
It's not going to be Joe Rogan.
It's going to be you digging inand and finding it.
That's my...
SPEAKER_00 (46:58):
Talk to me about your work.
SPEAKER_01 (46:59):
That's
SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
my soapbox.
I want to hear about your book.
I want to hear about the workthat you're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (47:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, so basically, I mean, Ido a lot of the things I just
did.
I summarized my book.
I think my book is a littledifferent than most self-help
books because it is, it's citedby 100, it has 120 works cited.
So it's very academic.
It's very rigorous.
And it's basically a process, aframework that I developed to
help people find their sense ofbelonging.
(47:22):
And it's a very simple process.
For the listeners by now, theyknow I like a good process so
you know step one isunderstanding where you
currently get your belongingimagining a fuel tank seeing
what different fuels get inthere and how you you know maybe
it's um your partner maybe it'syour your best friend maybe it's
your favorite anime show butdifferent people find their
(47:44):
belonging differently so let'ssee what's in your belonging
tank then it's okay well nowthat we know what's in your
belonging tank let's know what'syour belonging persona there are
four belonging personas achimpanzee which is the eager
belonger a meerkat, which is theanxious belonger, a snow
leopard, which is the reluctantbelonger, and the wolf, which is
the independent belonger.
(48:05):
And that decides based off ofyour need to belong scale score
and your attachment style.
And different animals, differentpersonas need find belonging
differently.
So now that you know that, youcan go ahead and back to our
fuel tank and figure out, well,does this work for me?
Does this align with me?
Does this align with me?
(48:25):
And I ask a That's really cool.
(48:49):
that are marked by secureattachment.
So that's your close family,your immediate family, your
kids, your spouse, maybe yourbest friend.
Then you have what I refer to ascasual encounters or the
literature refers to them asExcuse me, micro-interactions.
This is your acquaintances.
This is your barista.
This is your neighbor that youwave to.
(49:09):
These are the people you give afriendly honk to.
These are the people you chatwith at the water cooler at
work.
Those are micro-interactions,three.
The second.
Third is group membership.
Group membership can be as wideas going to an event and
experiencing this kind ofcollective effervescence that we
have, that higher energy fieldamongst other people.
Concert, festival, church,singing in a choir going to a
(49:34):
meetup.
whatever, anythinggroup-related.
Those are traditional fuels.
Then the non-traditional fuelsare symbolic bonds.
Those are connections that wehave with people that we don't
know.
Our relationship with aninfluencer, like your listeners,
for example.
SPEAKER_02 (49:52):
Maybe a connection to a television character, or
maybe your favorite character ina fictional movie or fictional
book.
SPEAKER_01 (50:00):
Those are symbolic bonds.
The next is self-esteem.
Those are things that boost ourconfidence it's getting
recognized it's being aninfluencer having a following um
flying a flag wearing a luxurybrand wearing a driving a sports
car um all those things areself-esteem related doing a
podcast for me um and thenfinally um is contemplative
(50:26):
practices that's stargazing andrealize we're part of a bigger
thing it's um uh seeing thewonder around the world.
It's praying.
It's meditating.
It's going deep inside of you.
And I keep looking at that signyou have behind you is we must
take adventures in order to knowwhere we truly belong.
(50:48):
That's step six.
It's that contemplativepractice.
And for me, where I think a lotof the literature has gone
wrong, where Elizabeth Gilbertcomes to mind and she's like, go
to Italy, go to India, and go towherever, and you'll figure it
out.
No, dude, you won't.
That's only a A lot of leaderswill try to say, well, you
should get belonging at work.
(51:09):
You know, diversity, equity,inclusion, belonging.
No, work is work.
And work is a platform forfinding belonging.
You can meet friends, you canmeet romantic partners, but work
is a platform for belonging.
It's not the end-all be-all forbelonging.
And like Brene Brown is like,oh, you know, go run around in
the wilderness and you'll figureit out.
That's not the answer.
That's part of the answer.
So those are the six paths,again, for the listeners,
(51:32):
interpersonal relationships,casual encounters, group
membership, symbolic bonds,self-esteem, and contemplative
practices.
SPEAKER_00 (51:39):
So you said that you kind of need to have a bit of a
balance of all.
We find that one is not enough.
Maybe you don't have enough ofthat self-esteem or you don't
have enough of that.
Do you think it's necessary tokind of go out and seek that or
sort of just process what youare already in?
SPEAKER_01 (51:53):
It depends.
It depends on your belongingpersona.
So if your belonging persona isa chimpanzee, you're an eager
belonger, which means you need alot of friends You need to be in
a lot of groups.
So that's if you're a chimp.
If you're a meerkat, which isinsecure, anxious belonging,
then you need a lot ofself-esteem stuff.
If you're a snow leopard andyou're alone, you're a reluctant
(52:15):
belonger, you need a lot ofcontemplative practices.
And if you're a wolf, you can dowhatever you want because you're
securely attached and you don'thave a high need to belong.
So you can kind of like, you cango, do you be part of the wolf
pack or you can go be a lonewolf?
Doesn't matter.
So the answer is, it depends.
A lot of people, Jenica, dothings that have nothing to do
with who they are.
They think they get belongingfrom shit.
(52:36):
Like I call one, one, one, Icall this hand me down
belonging.
They do it because their parentsdid it as, um, misconceived
belonging.
We think we have belonging andwe don't.
Um, for example, like that groupof friends that just sends
around memes, like this is dumb.
Why am I doing this?
Like, so we just have to thinkabout it critically.
And that's why I like abelonging mindset comes in.
(52:57):
And I run people through a fivestep like framework of how to
analyze each fuel.
And I don't remember all of it,but it's basically in your gut
do you get belonging does itgive you energy another one is
like do you do you uh publicizeyou're a part of it like them
where you're proud of it sothere's five things and if you
guys say yes to all them keep itif you say no to one of them get
(53:18):
it out of there your belongingtank has got a capacity just any
anytime it's not full to 100 youhave opportunity
SPEAKER_00 (53:26):
right is it possible that that can change in
different phases of your life
SPEAKER_01 (53:30):
absolutely absolutely like i got married i
have a kid i'm like you know notas interested in stuff
SPEAKER_00 (53:34):
last uh final final points that you want to make
final insights you want to givebefore we end this uh
SPEAKER_01 (53:41):
well um i think this was the best interview i've done
of the last uh three dozen umYou're a really wonderful
interviewer.
I will plug that my nextventure, after I stole my last
business, I took some time towrite the book.
My next venture is going to be anew lodging concept for retreat
venues.
(54:02):
So basically, venues all acrossthe United States for hosting
retreats and off-sites.
And it's called AssembleHospitality.
The first one is opening October1st.
Six months.
SPEAKER_00 (54:12):
Wow.
be keeping you pretty busy.
SPEAKER_01 (54:15):
Oh, I'm not there building it, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (54:18):
Yeah, yeah, no.
Planning it and stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01 (54:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we just, we broke ground.
Thank you
SPEAKER_00 (54:24):
so much for the opportunity.
Thank you so much for being onthis podcast and sharing your
story.
I mean, yeah, really, reallyappreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (54:30):
Appreciate
SPEAKER_00 (54:35):
you.
If you enjoyed the episode andwould like to help support the
show, please follow andsubscribe.
You can rate and review yourfeedback on any of our platforms
listed in the description I'dlike to recognize our guests who
are vulnerable and open to sharetheir life experiences with us.
Thank you for showing us we'rehuman.
Also, a thank you to our teamwho worked so hard behind the
scenes to make it happen.
SPEAKER_01 (54:56):
The
SPEAKER_00 (54:59):
show would be nothing without you.
I'm Jenica, host and writer ofthe show, and you're listening
to Multispective.
I'm recently diagnosed bipolar, bipolar 2,
and I'm in recovery for sexaddiction.
So just to be clear, I was twodays old when I was given up.
I was five days old when I wasadopted.
You're essentially told youdon't belong in that family
(00:21):
that's supposed to have you.
Our biological mom gave us away.
And then the resentment we havetowards that mom, we take on on
the adoptive family.
But really for me, at the rootof resentment is anger, like you
said.
And at the root of anger issadness.
And at the root of sadness isfear.
(00:43):
50% of your happiness is yourgenetic set point.
40% is activities that areintentional.
10% is circumstances.
SPEAKER_00 (00:57):
Hi, Dan.
Welcome to Multispective.
I'm so excited to have you here.
Thanks for having me, Jenica.
Dan, you've done a lot ofepisodes, so you've shared your
story on various differentplatforms.
It's going to
SPEAKER_01 (01:08):
be the best one.
This is going to be the best
SPEAKER_00 (01:10):
one.
You must be a pro at this,though.
Do you find that when you shareyour story, it gets easier?
SPEAKER_01 (01:15):
100%.
I think that, you know, it'slike I once heard that every...
The best tests you take are theones you learn from.
It's the same way for publicspeaking.
If I'm not having a good timeand I'm not learning, then I'm
bored.
I enjoy speaking about the samething a lot of times because
then I just become moreeffective in communicating that
(01:37):
message.
I've heard it referred to asdata density.
I'm able to say more with less.
So yeah, I love doing it.
And if I get my message in frontof people, then that's
wonderful.
SPEAKER_00 (01:49):
All right, Dan, why don't we begin with your story
Tell us a little bit about whereit begins for you.
SPEAKER_01 (01:55):
So my story begins in my biological mom's womb, and
that's because I'm adopted.
So I was adopted when I was twodays old.
And with adoptees, shout outadoptees, for any adoptees who
may know, it's like you'reessentially told you don't
belong in that family that'ssupposed to have you.
So these kinds of cortisol andthe stress hormones are
(02:17):
essentially moving through thewoman's body into the fetus, and
you're essentially born andgiven away even before that
event.
So the author, Nancy Verriercalls this a primal wound.
So that's my first kind of likethe first, I would say headline.
And then soon thereafter, when Iwas two years old, you know,
(02:38):
there's like this, my mom, Idon't know how true this is.
It's probably glorified, but mymom tells this story about how
she was on the waiting list forlike almost 10 years waiting for
the call that there's a babyready.
So she drive around, we were inTel Aviv at the time.
She drive around Tel Aviv,Israel with like diapers in her
car and the waiting for thatcall and then when she got the
call she like ran up and downthe building she was living in
(03:01):
like knocking on doors askingfor baby supplies because you
don't know when the baby's goingto arrive it's not like you're
it's not like a butcher shopwhere you get like a number or
like the DMV you know so anywayand then They had waited so long
to have me that by the time Iarrived into that family, my dad
was ready to quit.
So they divorced when I was two,and he basically abandoned me.
(03:24):
I haven't spent too much timewith him ever since.
I'm 43, so that's been almostfour decades, or more than four
decades.
And then I would say the thirdkind of pillar in my traumatic
childhood was immigration.
You know, coming to thiscountry, not speaking a word of
English, having to negotiatecultures, negotiate identities
was really tough for me.
nine-year-old.
(03:45):
So those are kind of the three,I think...
Biggest, yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (04:19):
so you know you know you're also wanted you're just
wanted by the right the rightkinds of people right um first
can we just talk a little bitabout your biological mother
what was the reason for why shedecided she didn't want you from
the beginning
SPEAKER_01 (04:32):
uh yeah so the story goat i actually met her eight
years ago and um i did i wasable to track her down met her
uh flew to israel to meet her inperson um and then learned that
only my aunt her sister one ofeight knew of me um and the
reason she gave me up wasbecause the man she was with it
(04:54):
was like she was in atraditional family she wasn't
supposed to have kids out ofwedlock she kind of fooled
around with a guy and then shewas pregnant with me so she
lived with that sister until Iwas born so that's the reason I
mean listen I am not I can'tthink of anything I'm more
grateful for than her decisionto give me up.
(05:15):
And I say that because my motheris very mentally ill.
The four other siblings I haveare, each one is in a worse
position than the other.
One is in jail, one's ondisability, one's all broken.
I'd be in prison right now if Iwas with her
SPEAKER_02 (05:30):
and
SPEAKER_01 (05:31):
that family.
I mean, yeah, like childprotective services, took the
kids, put them in foster, likecrazy stuff.
So yeah, I mean, and then youtalk, you mentioned like this
idea of like, well, you weren'twanted by these people, but you
were wanted by that people.
That makes a lot of sense,Jenica.
But the reality is that as youngas children, we can't
(05:52):
rationalize that.
And even when we, I've heardthat so many times where people
are like, well, you're special,you know, you know, like my mom
wasn't religious at all, butshe's like, you were meant for
me.
Kind of that kind of language isjust completely comes off
inauthentic to adoptees.
It's like, It just, it's notgood enough because our
(06:13):
biological mom gave us away.
SPEAKER_02 (06:17):
And
SPEAKER_01 (06:18):
then the resentment we have towards that mom, we
take on the adoptive family.
This transference that youtouched on, it happens towards
the wrong person.
SPEAKER_00 (06:31):
That's interesting.
And it totally makes sense withsomeone who's young and maybe
not able to sort of understand,rationalize and have that
maturity to be able to put abigger picture, to step away
from it, from that personalsense and remove that anger from
the situation and just sort ofsee like, hey, look, given the
circumstances, given everythingthat I can see and know, I
actually am better off.
(06:51):
You're able to say this todaythat I'm so much better off and
I'm so glad I And maybe thathelped to have the opportunity
to meet your mom, to be able tosay, like, why did you leave me?
And then hear her side and belike, okay, it's not necessarily
that she didn't want me.
It was, she genuinely couldn'thandle it.
Technically, she really saved mefrom something that could have
(07:11):
been very, very disastrous lifeof mine.
But do you feel like if you hadmet your biological mom younger,
you would be able to understandthis?
And you heard about her story,you knew about her story, you
knew that she was mentallyunwell and everything.
Do you feel like you would havebeen able to sort of let it go
quite in the way you have now?
SPEAKER_01 (07:28):
I, no matter what, like how successful I've been,
no matter how many gifts I'vehad, no matter how the cookie
crumbled in the right way forme, I'm never going to be, I
don't think I'll ever forgivefor that.
You know, it's like, I mean, Ican have empathy.
I can have gratitude.
I can also have resentment.
(07:49):
And I can hold all those thingsat the same time.
And the idea that the only wayfor me to have a biological
family is to have a daughter.
That's the first time I everhung out with a biological
thing.
So, yeah, I can hold all thosefeelings at the same time.
SPEAKER_00 (08:11):
That's interesting.
What is the specific area orelement that makes you feel
like, I just can't forgive it?
It's
SPEAKER_01 (08:19):
like an experience that I was robbed of.
When I met my bio mom, Iinstantly loved her.
The way I think about it is...
There's biological love and thenthere's synthetic love.
And biological love is like aschool shooter's parents are
still going to love that kid.
(08:40):
You know what I'm saying?
Because that's the bio love.
Synthetic love is I meetsomebody and then I fall in love
with them and then it candisappear.
It can be over.
SPEAKER_00 (08:50):
That's a really, really interesting way to look
at this.
Thanks.
Do you feel like not being ableto forgive your mom has affected
you.
And in what ways do you feellike it's
SPEAKER_01 (09:04):
affected you?
Oh my God, innumerable.
I'll give you an example.
Let me start like, I'mpre-diabetic, okay?
So basically a couple morecookies, I'm going to be type
two.
And that's because of myadoptive mom, because she would
pack, I mean, my mom, I call hermy mom, but just for the
audience, my adoptive mom,because I was adopted when I was
five days old.
(09:25):
So that's because of my adoptivemom.
Now, why is it because of myadoptive mom?
It's because she would pack mylunch with fruit roll-ups and
gushers and Ritz crackers andlike crap because I wouldn't eat
anything else now there'sprobably a part of her that did
that because she wanted toplease me because she saw me as
(09:47):
special and waited so long Sothat's an example.
Am I pulling things out of thinair?
Maybe.
But here's another example.
I didn't have the Americancollege experience.
I went to a city college.
I ended up going to grad schoolin a somewhat traditional
American campus, but myundergrad was in New York City.
And I blame my mom for thatbecause she didn't really do
(10:08):
much to help me find a college.
She didn't really push me tolook at different colleges
because she didn't want me toleave the house.
Because she developed this likewe were codependent.
We were enmeshed as a resultbecause I'm an only child.
And then my adoptive dad and mymom, both my parents are only
children.
So they have no siblings.
So I got no cousins.
(10:29):
So it's just me and my mom.
So we were just enmeshed andcodependent.
The list goes on.
like how the impact it's had onme.
Yeah.
I mean, also like, for example,I'm recently diagnosed bipolar,
bipolar two, and, um, I'm inrecovery for sex addiction.
And, um, That compulsion isrelated to that feeling of
(10:55):
brokenness addiction is.
And then bipolar is somethingthat's been undiagnosed.
I can go on and on with allthese mental illness that I
have.
But I resent my mom for notputting me in...
My mom's a fucking socialworker, okay?
She's a therapist who teachespost-doc doctorate you know,
people in family therapy andpost-traumatic growth.
(11:18):
And yet, she never thought aboutputting me in fucking therapy.
Like, after everything I'vedescribed.
She was like, oh, he's actingout.
He got arrested.
Oh, he's acting out.
I got suspended.
Oh, he's acting out.
Everything will be okay.
You know?
Oh, the cops are home.
The FBI's here.
It's fine.
It's going to be okay.
I was crying for help.
(11:41):
So I had to get all this helpwhen I'm an adult.
SPEAKER_00 (11:43):
Now, we will touch on all of the stuff that
happened later on in your lifeand the way that it did affect
you.
But I do still want to go alittle bit back to the
childhood.
So you then meet your mother atage two.
She's really excited to have youin.
You move into this new place.
At what point are you made awarethat you're now living in an
(12:05):
adopted home, not with yourbiological mom?
How did you respond when youwere kind of informed this?
Did you know this at the time?
Do you remember?
When you were moved in?
Yeah, all of that.
SPEAKER_01 (12:15):
So just to be clear, I was two days old when I was
given up.
I was five days old when I wasadopted.
Five days?
Yeah, it was hot off the press.
I'm still warm.
I still got liquid on me.
I'm kidding.
But yeah, so I'm like baby.
And my mom from day one told meI'm adopted.
That's one thing of many she gotright.
(12:38):
My mom actually wrote a bookabout adopting me.
It's a children's book.
It's an illustrated book toexplain to children what
adoption means.
SPEAKER_02 (12:47):
Wow.
SPEAKER_01 (12:48):
I'll give you an example.
I was so resentful of this wholething that I refused.
She wanted to name the book MyDamn.
And I refused.
So she had to rename itsomething else.
Yeah, it wasn't like a
SPEAKER_00 (13:08):
ceremony.
Yeah, yeah.
(13:31):
were adopted.
SPEAKER_01 (13:32):
So I think obviously there are two schools of
thought.
First school of thought is tonot say a thing.
and then you end up getting aton of resentment later.
The second school of thought issay it right away, and then you
get resentment over time.
SPEAKER_00 (13:47):
Right.
SPEAKER_01 (13:48):
There's no right or wrong.
I think that it worked out.
It worked out for me, and Ithink it's what feels right for
the parents.
I mean, I always think that thekid's going to ask, where am I
from, what happened, whatever.
I'll give you an example.
When I'm with my dad's family,Um, who I rarely see, but like
(14:08):
he's Austrian, uh, and my, and,and, uh, And his wife is Polish.
So between the two of them,their children are like Aryan,
you know?
So they're like blonde, blueeyes.
Like my brother, my, my half,my, he's my half adopted
brother.
He's like literally a model.
And then like the other one,they're just all tall and
(14:30):
fucking beautiful.
And I'm like this black sheep,you know?
Cause I'm, I'm like NorthAfrican and Middle Eastern and
Italian.
And I, there's a picture of meand them and I look like, I look
like I'm going to rob them.
It's so bad.
So the jig would have been up.
(14:50):
You know what I'm saying?
If you wouldn't have told me,then I'd be like, this does not
make sense.
So I don't know.
I mean, I think honesty is thebest policy in these kinds of
things.
And I think it's better to tell.
Okay, I'll tell you the answer.
It's better to tell, but put intherapy right away.
But don't just tell and thinkyou know what you're doing.
SPEAKER_00 (15:10):
You can try to use the right, you know, by the book
kind of terms, but you justnever know how that individual
is going to react, especiallywhen they're young and they're
raging hormones and they're, youknow, growing and coming into
themselves at this point.
So walk me through, you know,you've kind of are being raised
by parents you knew that youwere adopted all along, right?
(15:33):
At what point did you start yourkind of like curiosity search
for like your biological mother,this kind of urge to find out
your
SPEAKER_01 (15:40):
home birth place?
So my mom has always kind oflike downplayed the importance
of finding that.
So she kind of like said, well,I'm your mom.
That's what matters, you know.
But I always had this likequestion mark thing.
I wanted to see where the helldid my awful bunions come from?
(16:00):
Like, where is this?
Who's responsible for these feetthat I have?
No, I'm kidding.
But yeah, so my mom has alwayskind of pushed me away from
finding out.
And then as a result, I kind ofstarted thinking, like, I don't
want to offend her.
Like I really thought I'd belike hurtful to my mom if she
knew that I was looking.
(16:20):
And I remember to this day whenI told her and I called her and
let her know I found them andI'll explain how I did in a
second.
She was like, well, what are yougoing to do?
And then she said to me, she'slike, most adoptees who meet
their folks, they haveexpectations and they're usually
shattered and they learn thingsthey didn't want to know.
And then the relationship is notwhat they wanted.
(16:43):
In recovery, we say expectationsare future resentments.
So she was like, whatever.
And I was like, okay, thanks.
So I had bought a 23andMe kit.
uh, the DNA test and it sat inmy closet.
I'm not kidding for three years.
And then one day I was like,fuck it.
(17:03):
Take the thing, spit in thetest.
You mail it out, get an email.
You know, we got some relativesfor you.
I check it out.
I got a 13.5% connection.
I'm like, that's a cousin.
SPEAKER_02 (17:17):
Yeah,
SPEAKER_01 (17:17):
that's a cousin.
So, um, And then I had to figureout if it was mom's side or
dad's side.
At the same time, I was parallelpathing opening up my adoption
file in Israel, which I imaginethey have to go to subseller C
to get the file from 1981.
But they sent me the document,and then I was able to
(17:40):
triangulate her last name andthis dude's last name and found
out it was the mother's side.
So then...
I was like, listen, chill.
Don't tell anyone.
Let me figure out what I want todo.
Within 24 hours, there's like afive-way FaceTime.
Like, hey, what's up?
It's your mom and your brother.
I'm like, Jesus.
Yeah, it's wild.
(18:01):
That's what happened.
SPEAKER_00 (18:04):
Did you find in your life a running theme of slowly
just discovering and finding outparts of yourself that a person
who's just raised by their ownbiological mother wouldn't have
to figure out along the way?
So you mentioned things like,you know, diabetic or having any
kind of like tendencies, beingprone genetically to certain
(18:25):
things, or just even thingsabout your personality that you
kind of discovered along theway.
SPEAKER_01 (18:31):
Yeah, fucking awesome question.
So basically, for my book, I dida lot of research on how, this
will make sense in a second.
I did research on how do people,what determines happiness?
And like, it's kind of peoplefind us now, 50% of your
happiness is your genetic setpoint basically means it's what
you're born with and the otherstuff is 40 percent of is is uh
(18:55):
activities that are intentionaluh and so voluntary activities
the other 10 is circumstances sobasically it's 50 50 you control
50 you can't control 50 yeah andi was just like wondering like
why you know why i am the way iam in terms of like Why am I
loud?
(19:15):
Why don't I have a filter?
Why am I inappropriate?
You know, like, why do I have adark sense of humor?
I mean, why am I knock-kneed?
Why do my feet look the way theydo?
I mean, why do I have this,like, hairline?
It's like all this stuff.
And then you just realize, like,look, I gotta know where I'm
(19:36):
from.
Because, like, everybody'sexperience.
You go to the doctor, they say,hey, any medical history in your
family for XYZ?
I can't ever answer that.
So, I just needed, like...
On one hand, it's closure.
On the other hand, it's anopener.
It's closure in the sense ofwhat happened.
Tell me the stuff.
An opener.
(19:57):
Maybe there's an opportunity forrelationships here.
For expanding my family, whichwas very small.
Nowadays, being adopted actuallyis a really great opportunity to
blame your biological parentsfor the shit you don't like
about yourself.
For example, one of the storiesI've made up, my narrative, is
(20:18):
that my addiction is because ofmy dad, my biological dad.
I'll never know that.
But what I've learned inrecovery is that a lot of people
have those kinds of addictionspassed on over generations.
So maybe my dad was, my biologyguy was a womanizer and he had
an addiction and never reallytreated it.
(20:40):
And I know for a fact that mymom is very sick.
She's bipolar.
She's got OCD.
She's manic.
I can go on.
And I was like, wow, I'm alsomentally ill.
And as a result, I'm on amedication to help me.
I'm in recovery.
But all this stuff is new.
It's been part of my healingjourney for the past five years.
SPEAKER_00 (21:03):
Yeah, absolutely.
(21:33):
It does us benefit to be able tosort of have that feeling of
anger because it allows us tokind of go through the
processing, go through themotions of like really spending
some time with that thought oflike, okay, what really
happened?
Why did this happen?
But it's also very, veryimportant.
I think a lot of people findcomfort in that blaming of
someone else.
And so they hold onto it andthey drag it and drag it.
(21:55):
And the longer you drag it, themore it becomes a part of you.
It starts to kind of be like whoyou are.
I'm Dan and I'm an angry personand I'm angry because of these
these people.
But then it's also somethingthat is really important to let
go at some point in your life,because at the end of the day,
it's going to benefit nobody.
And you're the only one that'sgoing to go through all this,
(22:15):
your whole lifetime of anger andpain.
And like you mentioned, itmanifested very, very physically
for you.
I
SPEAKER_01 (22:21):
do the miracle morning, like affirmations.
It's different than like, I'mgood enough, I'm strong enough.
It's like, it's pretty like deepaffirmations.
And I have one around aroundresentment.
And what I write is, I'm notgoing to read everything, but
I'm committed to becoming lessjudgmental because I don't want
to create more resentments.
(22:41):
So I think it's interesting whatyou raise.
Obviously, incredibly easy tosay, don't hold resentments, let
them go.
And I think it's reallyimportant to understand what the
root of the resentment is.
And for me, it's judgmentalness.
If I judge somebody, then I endup Assuming the narrative,
assuming what they were up to,making assumptions, and then not
(23:03):
really being curious as aresult, and then kind of holding
on to my narrative.
But really, for me, at the rootof resentment is anger, like you
said.
And at the root of anger issadness.
And at the root of sadness isfear.
And it starts with like, I don'twant to be alone.
I'm scared of being alone.
I'm scared of being abandonedlike I was as a kid.
(23:24):
And then it's like, oh my God,that's like really sad.
Like I'm actually a sad boy.
And then it's like, well, I'mnot going to go walk around
crying.
So I'll walk around angrybecause that's like the
masculine, you know, ideals.
I'm going to be angry.
And then anybody who kind oflike threatens me, I'll resent
them.
So that's kind of like how I'vebuilt it.
And it's only taken me like, Ijust, you know, I've done a lot
(23:45):
of work and it's not me showingoff.
It's just my commitment.
I've done everything from theHoffman process, which is a
week-long spiritual thing, topsychological counseling
services, which is essentiallyinpatient, Western psychology.
And I did PCS a year ago, lessthan a year ago, and I just
(24:07):
realized how sad I was.
Not sad like depressed.
I was just sad inside.
And it started with, I'm justangry.
And then I'm like, I'm actuallysad.
SPEAKER_02 (24:18):
No.
SPEAKER_00 (24:20):
it's a huge step that you've even gotten to this
place of like awareness of beingable to break it down from anger
to sad to fear and where thatroot fear root of the fear is
because it's from that very veryroot base that you can start to
kind of work backwards like heyif that fear of loneliness let
me maybe try to experienceloneliness for a little while
and see how actually maybe it'snot all that bad and it's it's
(24:40):
actually i'm really happy in myown company and i can really
enjoy some self-time and i canbe self-sufficient and and then
you kind of work backwards somepeople they do they do a lot of
like inner healing work theywrite letters to their inner
child they have conversationswith their inner child they
actually go into those momentswhere they felt like ultimate
fear and anger and kind of workbackwards from there changing
(25:01):
that narrative but yeah younever really know it's one of
those things you just trial anderror you try this you try that
until something really clicks
SPEAKER_01 (25:08):
one of the things we did at PCS was something called
psychodrama and it's basicallylike reenacting these like
seminal points in your life andwe did the scene that we did for
me was like me sitting there Andyou're not in it.
You watch it.
So other people in the groupplay characters in the story.
So somebody else played me as achild.
(25:30):
Then somebody else played me asa teenager.
And then I had to go talk.
It was wild.
So yes, resentments arebasically unresolved anger.
That's the connection for me,which is why I went resentment,
anger, sadness, and fear.
And for me, the turning point...
was when i did psilocybinjourney with this incredible
(25:53):
woman named juliet of berkeleyand during my that journey um i
basically uh found myselflooking into like this big black
well this hole and it was likethis basket at the bottom and it
was like a wicker basket sothere was like light beams
coming out of it and then ifound this like courage to open
up um this basket, which Irealized was holding all my
(26:19):
traumas, and I opened them, andmy traumas were actually full of
light.
And then that's when I realizedthat I'm no longer broken.
And that's why I got thistattoo, which is the Japanese
art form of Dunigi.
And basically, it's the ideathat even broken things are part
of the story.
They can always be put together.
SPEAKER_02 (26:39):
And
SPEAKER_01 (26:42):
for me, it's really always been a question of
belonging.
I didn't belong in my mom'swomb.
I didn't belong in this newfamily.
I didn't belong in this newcountry.
How do I find belonging?
And that's what led me to thisfive-year kind of path of
creating my own sense ofbelonging and taking ownership
of that.
But you have to understand yourbiochemical set point before you
(27:03):
can do any of that shit.
SPEAKER_00 (27:05):
Would you say that happiness then is knowing
yourself?
SPEAKER_01 (27:11):
Well, the Stoics said famously, know thyself.
And I always think that's alwayspart of tapping into is like,
you know, your inner spirit andlike your gut and in your
tuition and the storehouseknowledge that exists all around
us in this consciousness.
Like, I do think that knowingyourself and being aligned is
really important.
(27:32):
And I think about it like aboard meeting.
You know, the chairman of myboard is my spiritual self.
And then we got like the headsof different units, business
units.
We got the intellect, the thingthat doesn't shut off.
We got the emotional self, whichis like, you got to tap into
that inner child or whateversometimes.
And then you got your body,like, and our pain, as you
(27:53):
mentioned, like sits somewherein the body.
So it's about getting everybodyaround the table under the
leadership of the spiritualchair to like agree.
You know how I think about it?
And so yeah, but you gottafucking know yourself if you
want to be happy, you want tofind belonging, you know
anything.
SPEAKER_00 (28:08):
What if you open that can of worms, you know
yourself, you know exactly whereyou're from, all of the things
that make you and you find outlike my gosh, like I don't like
myself.
SPEAKER_01 (28:20):
Hoffman will call that the dark side.
I mean, for me, that's part ofthe 12-step program.
And in the 12-step program, youknow, step number four is made
an inventory of our defects.
And I'm currently on step four,and that's literally sitting
down in a spreadsheet andwriting down every single one of
your defects.
I think I'm at like 32 for meright now.
And then you got to write downall your resentments and you
(28:42):
write down all your, like, sothat's, and then step five is
about admitting to like oneperson the nature of our wrongs
and then step six is aboutturning those defects over to
the care of God and basicallythat's the surrender it's just
basically the 12 step program isbasically a program for people
(29:04):
who are spiritually anorexic andthat's Turning that over to God,
the care of God, carrying thosedefects over, is surrendering
the shit you don't like.
And I've always felt, to thisday probably, I've felt
worthless from the moment I wasgiven up.
And that's always going to be mychallenge.
(29:25):
I used to fucking hate myself.
SPEAKER_00 (29:26):
So walk me through it.
Let's go through that from thatvery, very first moment when you
start to spiral.
What's happening in your life?
SPEAKER_01 (29:33):
You know, a bit of sadness kind of came over me
when you asked that questionbecause I kind of realized, wow,
shit's spiraling.
I started spiraling out when Iwas like...
you know, 13.
But certainly in my 20s, Ibecame a love addict.
And basically in order toaddress my worthlessness, I
turned to women to fall in lovewith and feel better about
(29:57):
myself and manipulate to kind ofget to that point.
And then, you know, move on onceI got that.
So that was in my 20s.
And then into my 30s, it becamea sex addiction.
Because like any addiction, itjust gets, you kind of have to
drink another shot, anotherdrink, and you have to shoot up
(30:18):
another time or whatever, takeanother hit.
So then it became a sexaddiction where that was the way
I felt good about myself.
And then, you know, that's notenough.
So then he started doing drugs.
And then you get married andyou're like, well, shit, I can't
do this stuff.
So then he turned topornography.
(30:38):
And it just gets worse.
It just gets worse.
And until you realize you have aproblem and that your life's
unmanageable and it'scontrolling you, that's kind of
like what I went through.
And this addiction lasted forlike...
30 years.
I mean, this goes back all theway to high school when I was
(30:59):
like trying to make out with themost amount of girls at summer
camp.
So when you say that, it soundsinnocuous, but it's just the
beginning of it.
So that's kind of how Iself-soothed and tried to
address my worthlessness that Ifelt.
SPEAKER_00 (31:13):
How much of this would you say was like the
mania, potentially the mania orthe bipolar that was acting up?
And how much of this would yousay is a result of feeling
sadness?
SPEAKER_01 (31:24):
Well, you know, being bipolar doesn't help
because you have these swingsbetween hypo and hyper arousal
states.
So when you're in a hyperarousal state, you're trying to
like do more and you're tryingto like, certainly fuels kind of
like this like manic compulsion.
And when you're in a hypoarousal state, you're trying to
like do more.
You need to pick me up.
(31:44):
You're like, oh, let me turn tolike, you know, love and feeling
good.
So like something pulls me outof it.
So I never thought about thatconnection, but it certainly is
a part of it.
That's a great point.
SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
What made you choose your wife to be the one to marry
versus why was she not justanother person that you were,
for example, sleeping with?
SPEAKER_01 (32:04):
Wow, that's a great question.
So she's fine with me talkingabout all this stuff.
I don't know if she's fine withme talking about this.
I'll take a chance.
So the story I was tellingmyself is that I was dating with
the intention of meetingsomeone.
And if they weren't the one,then I'll just have fun.
But as I was getting older, whenI moved to Boise, Idaho, where I
(32:24):
live now, Five years ago, I kindof decided that this was the
point in my life where I'm goingto normalize things.
I was still acting out.
I was still in my addiction.
But it became more and moreclear to me that I needed to...
really get married or start afamily or settle down.
So it was kind of like aprocess.
(32:45):
And I always joke that my lifewas on tape delay, but I bought
a house.
It was the first house I everlived in.
I got a car.
I never drove a car before.
I get all this adult shit aslike a 40 year old man or
whatever.
Um, but I met my wife at anightclub in New York city at
like two in the morning.
And we were, we acted out and,uh, I literally said, I'm going
to marry this woman.
And she came to Boise.
(33:07):
I tried to impress her.
I was still trying to juggleother things going on, like
closing the loop here, keepingthis one open, you know, just
like risk mitigation.
But yeah, so, but I just...
I was attracted first to her,obviously, but then to her
independence, to herintelligence.
But she didn't know the natureof my wrongs and my addiction
(33:28):
until a year ago.
We call that D-Day in recovery,or it's not really D-Day for me
because I told her.
So it wasn't Discovery Day, butit was divulging day where I
divulged my issues.
Two years ago, she asked me,she's like, I think you're a sex
addict.
I was like, what the fuck
SPEAKER_00 (33:45):
is that?
I mean, so you would say thatyou were quite a functional
addict in the sense that it wasnot real.
taking over your life you wereable to
SPEAKER_01 (33:53):
totally wrong this this addiction is definitely
takes over your life it takesover your life because it's like
my friends who go on trips withme and like it'll preoccupy my
mind to like meet someone likeI'd be sitting down and like on
an app you know I'd be on thephone with my boys like war
(34:15):
storing I would Think about whento take my dog out in case I run
into somebody.
It does take your life over.
SPEAKER_02 (34:28):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_01 (34:29):
It controls your life.
You have to, like, you know,manage where you go out on a
date in order, like, where yougo, where you'll be seen with,
like...
Your schedule.
It runs your life.
SPEAKER_00 (34:42):
And you said then at some point you moved from love
addiction to sex addiction todrug addiction.
Walk me through that part.
When did the drugs...
Well,
SPEAKER_01 (34:52):
I mean, it's just kind of like...
You keep wanting to get higherand higher.
I mean, I always did drugs.
I haven't done drugs in severalyears.
But I've always done drugs.
And it's just part of it.
It's part of the partying.
It's part of like...
part of the scene.
It's just got, you know, likeany kind of addiction just gets
riskier and riskier, chase thathigh.
SPEAKER_00 (35:12):
So, you know, it seems like you were kind of
really moving from one, one toanother because you needed to
have that sort of validation.
It stopped even becoming aboutlove and filling that void with
love.
It was like, just whatever I canget my hands on.
What point did that wordaddiction kind of come to you?
Like,
SPEAKER_01 (35:28):
yeah, I mean, so, so at that point you made a really
good point that I haven't reallyconsidered.
Um, But what you're basicallysaying is, dude, if you feel
worthless and like, you know,you're in security validation,
you should find somebody andthen you'll get that because
you'll be in a securely attachedrelationship.
So a key piece of, I think,recovery for me or healing is
(35:49):
having a secure attachment,developing secure attachment.
And that means that you have ahealthy functioning relationship
that's interdependent withsomebody and your life doesn't
revolve around theirs and viceversa.
You can differentiate.
You know, You know they'll bethere for you.
You know it's not a quid proquo.
So I was just now ready to havea secure, attached relationship.
(36:12):
And that was the difference, Ithink, part of it.
And that's part of the healing alot of people need to go through
because your attachment stylerelates to how you find
belonging.
And if you have an insecureattachment style, it's harder to
find belonging and you need morethings that fill up your
belonging tank because you'reinsecure in how you attach to
(36:34):
other people.
SPEAKER_00 (36:35):
I find that to be really fascinating as well
because you mentioned that therewas such a dependency between
you and your adopted mother.
Maybe your adopted mother toohad a very insecure attachment
style.
And that was something that youwere also mirroring.
So it was, you know, you wentfrom being separated from your
biological mother to being witha mother who had a really
insecure attachment style.
And so that's really what you'relearning just throughout your
(36:58):
entire pathway, your entirelife.
SPEAKER_01 (37:00):
That's a great point.
I mean, I would imagine she didbecause, you know, my mom
basically had one man her wholelife, my dad.
They were together for like 20or so years.
He most likely...
had affairs.
His dad had affairs.
And my mom was just verydevoted.
I probably saw that.
(37:22):
Your question was aroundaddiction.
Before I learned about that, Iwant to make sure I answer.
You know, it took me a while.
Look, I think, first of all, Ithink everybody's an addict.
I think there are very fewpeople who are not addicted to
something.
The gym, working out, collectingcomic books.
I don't know what it...
Everybody's a fucking addict.
Everybody's got a compulsion.
Yeah.
(37:42):
you know, eating.
So I guess I always thoughtabout it conceptually and I knew
that there was an addictionthing, but I just didn't know
that it was applied to myexperience as well.
So I didn't only learn aboutthat term until I was a PCS 10
months ago.
SPEAKER_00 (37:59):
Once it kind of really, really came to your
understanding that like, this isa problem and it's got all the
control over me, I've lostcontrol over this, what'd you
start doing?
I
SPEAKER_01 (38:08):
went to a 12-step meeting.
You work with nine differenttherapists.
through 62 hours in one week.
But yeah, I went to a meetingand I was like, went around and
said, hi, my name is Don.
I'm a sex addict.
SPEAKER_00 (38:20):
Walk me through any concept of shame that might've
existed regarding any of theaddictions.
SPEAKER_01 (38:26):
Shame.
So at PCS, they taught us thatwe need to reframe shame as
healthy guilt.
And that, I really liked thatreframe.
because shame is like disgustwith ourselves, where guilt is
like acknowledgement ofourselves.
So healthy guilt is a littlemore curious.
(38:48):
But yeah, shame and addictionare very well connected because
it's what we do in the shadows.
And our addiction is in theshadows and it's not in
daylight.
And that means that we do itwith the hope that nobody finds
out.
But light's the bestdisinfectant.
Yeah, I like that.
(39:09):
So yeah, I carried a lot ofshame around.
And I don't know, like, I mean,for me, it was just like, it's
not, to me, it's not thatcomplicated of a formula.
It's like, you know, neglectedas a child, I mean, faced
abandonment, neglect, whatever.
Okay?
So...
Didn't have a sense of belongingbiologically, culturally,
familially.
(39:30):
And okay, so I need to findbelonging because I thought it
was broken.
So I found it throughinterpersonal relationships and
kind of started a downwardspiral.
SPEAKER_00 (39:39):
Yeah.
It sounds really straightforwardwhen you put it that way.
How did your relationship withyour adopted mother evolve over
the years as you started to comeinto adulthood?
What is your relationship withher right now?
SPEAKER_01 (39:51):
Yeah.
We talk.
She She helps me.
I have some marital challengesat times.
She helps me.
She's always got my back.
And we see her.
I live in Idaho, so she lives inNew York City.
It's a little hard to...
spend time but you know having agranddaughter has really given
her a new purpose and that'sbeautiful to see and it makes me
see such a soft side of my mom
SPEAKER_00 (40:12):
I can kind of really see like that you know it sounds
like your relationship with yourmom is a little bit complicated
there's bits and pieces yeahexactly exactly but there is so
much love there and again thisgoes back to what you said
originally at the very beginningabout you know biological love
versus synthetic love do youtruly believe that your love
with your mom is synthetic or Alove that's going to be there
(40:36):
forever.
There's a sense of security Ican hear when you're talking
about the love from your mom,right?
That you know she's always goingto be there.
SPEAKER_01 (40:43):
I do think this synthetic love idea crosses over
to biological love eventually.
I love my adoptive momunconditionally.
I love my biological momunconditionally.
It took me a really long time toget there, I think, with my
adoptive mom.
And I'm working on havingunconditional love for my wife.
SPEAKER_00 (41:03):
It's like, you know, there's a difference between
between like a chosen love and alove that's just, you know,
innately in us, right?
Which is the biological one.
The chosen love is somethingthat we choose with experience
and with time spent with aperson to love that person.
SPEAKER_02 (41:18):
But
SPEAKER_00 (41:19):
they kind of need to prove that they're worthy of
that love, I guess, in a sense.
And that's why we choose it.
But those ones that we choosepersonally, this is my opinion,
is if I'm choosing to love aperson because that person has
time and time again been therefor me and proven themselves
maybe kind of worthy of my lovein a sense, then I'm going to
(41:40):
choose to love youwholeheartedly.
I'm going to give all of my lovethat I can possibly give to you.
And the only circumstance thatmight make me stop loving you is
if you completely back away andyou cheat me and you hurt me
again and again and again.
When you kind of reverse thatand you start taking away that
(42:00):
value of that love there, thenthat's kind of when I have to
start to protect and preserve ofmyself but you know it's a
painful journey because you knowchoosing to love someone is is a
very intentional kind of act asopposed to it being biological
but the love that webiologically like we're born
into innately it's like withwe're tethered to that person
(42:21):
right something that is beyondus so it's not really a choice
so it's sometimes it's a littleharder but if that person has
again been bad to you over andover and over and over again
it's it's it's weird Becauseit's like you harder to unlove a
person that you are tethered toby birth versus, you know.
So it's an interesting kind ofparadox.
(42:44):
It's a
SPEAKER_01 (42:45):
great word, tethered.
The wonderful marriage counselorStan Tatkin talks about how
couples should be tethered.
And it's this idea, I imaginealmost kind of like this...
this rubber band, bungee cord,where we're tethered.
You can go as far as you want,but like, you know...
(43:05):
We're still connected.
The way I think about that isthrough this framework of a
bunch of, and this is PCS work,it's a bunch of concentric
circles where the number onecircle in the middle is you and
God.
And you have to love yourselfand God.
And only if you have that, youcan go to the next circle, which
is your partner.
And that's your 2A.
(43:26):
And then your 2B is yourchildren.
And then three is your parents,four is whatever, and it can go
on.
But that is so important to getone, two, A and two, B, right?
And so many people have thatflipped over.
I love my children.
Well, guess what?
If you don't have a healthyrelationship with your spouse
and you are like not puttingthem first, you're not going to
be able, it has to be thatsequence.
(43:50):
So God and you, partner andchildren, one, two, A, two, B.
SPEAKER_00 (43:56):
Right.
And now we're starting to see alot less of individuals choosing
to be in relationships.
A lot less of that happeningmaybe because of technology and
whatever.
Right.
So people are becoming lonelierand lonelier and that circle is
getting smaller and smaller.
And, you know, the more wedetach from, you know,
relationships, partners, kids,all of that, like the more we
push that kind of lifestyle awayfrom us and we go through our
(44:18):
lives being very lonely.
I wonder whether that wouldchange over time, whether that
form of therapy even wouldchange.
SPEAKER_01 (44:26):
Okay.
So this, I mean, okay.
So first of all, like there wasnow, there was an article in the
Atlantic the other day about howmen are going to start
preferring pornography over sexbecause that is going to be so
high-tech.
And we see that already.
I don't know if anybody'swatched the show about
(44:47):
adolescence.
And adolescence is all about aboy who's essentially part of
the 80, not the 20.
And the 80% are the kids whodon't match with pretty girls.
And the 20 is the ones that do.
It's the same thing on Tinderand stuff.
10% get 90% of the swipes.
So it's all these problems.
The age of marriage is gettinglater in life.
(45:08):
People are having kids laterthan back in the 70s.
used to be like mid-20s.
Now it's like early 30s.
And all this stuff is gettingpushed out.
And men are isolated.
There's an incel movement.
I really worry about men andtheir future as all these things
happen around them.
Nothing wrong with all theseother people having rights and
(45:30):
all these identities gettingrecognized.
But in my opinion, it should nothappen to replace their rights.
I mean, the whole thing withlike charlottesville people the
jews will not replace us likethat would tell those terrible
pieces of shit whitesupremacists are worried about
that and like as much as i hatethem as a jew and just like as a
(45:56):
normal person they havesomething to say and they're
scared and being scared leadspeople to dumb shit school
shootings violence, drugs,incarceration, suicide, and it's
happening more and more.
These deaths of despair areeverywhere.
We have to do something aboutit.
(46:17):
And my opinion is that we solveit through helping each person
find their sense of belonging.
And that's where my work comesin because I don't think it's
going to be some leader, somepresident who's going to have
like a JFK moment of like, youknow, not like an ask, don't ask
what your country could do foryou.
Ask what you could do for yourcountry.
(46:37):
It's not one of those speeches.
It's not going to be Jake Paulsolving your fucking loneliness,
dude.
It's not going to be Andrewfucking Tate.
It's not going to be Joe Rogan.
It's going to be you digging inand and finding it.
That's my...
SPEAKER_00 (46:58):
Talk to me about your work.
SPEAKER_01 (46:59):
That's
SPEAKER_00 (46:59):
my soapbox.
I want to hear about your book.
I want to hear about the workthat you're doing.
SPEAKER_01 (47:02):
Yeah, yeah.
I mean, so basically, I mean, Ido a lot of the things I just
did.
I summarized my book.
I think my book is a littledifferent than most self-help
books because it is, it's citedby 100, it has 120 works cited.
So it's very academic.
It's very rigorous.
And it's basically a process, aframework that I developed to
help people find their sense ofbelonging.
(47:22):
And it's a very simple process.
For the listeners by now, theyknow I like a good process so
you know step one isunderstanding where you
currently get your belongingimagining a fuel tank seeing
what different fuels get inthere and how you you know maybe
it's um your partner maybe it'syour your best friend maybe it's
your favorite anime show butdifferent people find their
(47:44):
belonging differently so let'ssee what's in your belonging
tank then it's okay well nowthat we know what's in your
belonging tank let's know what'syour belonging persona there are
four belonging personas achimpanzee which is the eager
belonger a meerkat, which is theanxious belonger, a snow
leopard, which is the reluctantbelonger, and the wolf, which is
the independent belonger.
(48:05):
And that decides based off ofyour need to belong scale score
and your attachment style.
And different animals, differentpersonas need find belonging
differently.
So now that you know that, youcan go ahead and back to our
fuel tank and figure out, well,does this work for me?
Does this align with me?
Does this align with me?
(48:25):
And I ask a That's really cool.
(48:49):
that are marked by secureattachment.
So that's your close family,your immediate family, your
kids, your spouse, maybe yourbest friend.
Then you have what I refer to ascasual encounters or the
literature refers to them asExcuse me, micro-interactions.
This is your acquaintances.
This is your barista.
This is your neighbor that youwave to.
(49:09):
These are the people you give afriendly honk to.
These are the people you chatwith at the water cooler at
work.
Those are micro-interactions,three.
The second.
Third is group membership.
Group membership can be as wideas going to an event and
experiencing this kind ofcollective effervescence that we
have, that higher energy fieldamongst other people.
Concert, festival, church,singing in a choir going to a
(49:34):
meetup.
whatever, anythinggroup-related.
Those are traditional fuels.
Then the non-traditional fuelsare symbolic bonds.
Those are connections that wehave with people that we don't
know.
Our relationship with aninfluencer, like your listeners,
for example.
SPEAKER_02 (49:52):
Maybe a connection to a television character, or
maybe your favorite character ina fictional movie or fictional
book.
SPEAKER_01 (50:00):
Those are symbolic bonds.
The next is self-esteem.
Those are things that boost ourconfidence it's getting
recognized it's being aninfluencer having a following um
flying a flag wearing a luxurybrand wearing a driving a sports
car um all those things areself-esteem related doing a
podcast for me um and thenfinally um is contemplative
(50:26):
practices that's stargazing andrealize we're part of a bigger
thing it's um uh seeing thewonder around the world.
It's praying.
It's meditating.
It's going deep inside of you.
And I keep looking at that signyou have behind you is we must
take adventures in order to knowwhere we truly belong.
(50:48):
That's step six.
It's that contemplativepractice.
And for me, where I think a lotof the literature has gone
wrong, where Elizabeth Gilbertcomes to mind and she's like, go
to Italy, go to India, and go towherever, and you'll figure it
out.
No, dude, you won't.
That's only a A lot of leaderswill try to say, well, you
should get belonging at work.
(51:09):
You know, diversity, equity,inclusion, belonging.
No, work is work.
And work is a platform forfinding belonging.
You can meet friends, you canmeet romantic partners, but work
is a platform for belonging.
It's not the end-all be-all forbelonging.
And like Brene Brown is like,oh, you know, go run around in
the wilderness and you'll figureit out.
That's not the answer.
That's part of the answer.
So those are the six paths,again, for the listeners,
(51:32):
interpersonal relationships,casual encounters, group
membership, symbolic bonds,self-esteem, and contemplative
practices.
SPEAKER_00 (51:39):
So you said that you kind of need to have a bit of a
balance of all.
We find that one is not enough.
Maybe you don't have enough ofthat self-esteem or you don't
have enough of that.
Do you think it's necessary tokind of go out and seek that or
sort of just process what youare already in?
SPEAKER_01 (51:53):
It depends.
It depends on your belongingpersona.
So if your belonging persona isa chimpanzee, you're an eager
belonger, which means you need alot of friends You need to be in
a lot of groups.
So that's if you're a chimp.
If you're a meerkat, which isinsecure, anxious belonging,
then you need a lot ofself-esteem stuff.
If you're a snow leopard andyou're alone, you're a reluctant
(52:15):
belonger, you need a lot ofcontemplative practices.
And if you're a wolf, you can dowhatever you want because you're
securely attached and you don'thave a high need to belong.
So you can kind of like, you cango, do you be part of the wolf
pack or you can go be a lonewolf?
Doesn't matter.
So the answer is, it depends.
A lot of people, Jenica, dothings that have nothing to do
with who they are.
They think they get belongingfrom shit.
(52:36):
Like I call one, one, one, Icall this hand me down
belonging.
They do it because their parentsdid it as, um, misconceived
belonging.
We think we have belonging andwe don't.
Um, for example, like that groupof friends that just sends
around memes, like this is dumb.
Why am I doing this?
Like, so we just have to thinkabout it critically.
And that's why I like abelonging mindset comes in.
(52:57):
And I run people through a fivestep like framework of how to
analyze each fuel.
And I don't remember all of it,but it's basically in your gut
do you get belonging does itgive you energy another one is
like do you do you uh publicizeyou're a part of it like them
where you're proud of it sothere's five things and if you
guys say yes to all them keep itif you say no to one of them get
(53:18):
it out of there your belongingtank has got a capacity just any
anytime it's not full to 100 youhave opportunity
SPEAKER_00 (53:26):
right is it possible that that can change in
different phases of your life
SPEAKER_01 (53:30):
absolutely absolutely like i got married i
have a kid i'm like you know notas interested in stuff
SPEAKER_00 (53:34):
last uh final final points that you want to make
final insights you want to givebefore we end this uh
SPEAKER_01 (53:41):
well um i think this was the best interview i've done
of the last uh three dozen umYou're a really wonderful
interviewer.
I will plug that my nextventure, after I stole my last
business, I took some time towrite the book.
My next venture is going to be anew lodging concept for retreat
venues.
(54:02):
So basically, venues all acrossthe United States for hosting
retreats and off-sites.
And it's called AssembleHospitality.
The first one is opening October1st.
Six months.
SPEAKER_00 (54:12):
Wow.
be keeping you pretty busy.
SPEAKER_01 (54:15):
Oh, I'm not there building it, but yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (54:18):
Yeah, yeah, no.
Planning it and stuff, right?
SPEAKER_01 (54:21):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, we just, we broke ground.
Thank you
SPEAKER_00 (54:24):
so much for the opportunity.
Thank you so much for being onthis podcast and sharing your
story.
I mean, yeah, really, reallyappreciate it.
SPEAKER_01 (54:30):
Appreciate
SPEAKER_00 (54:35):
you.
If you enjoyed the episode andwould like to help support the
show, please follow andsubscribe.
You can rate and review yourfeedback on any of our platforms
listed in the description I'dlike to recognize our guests who
are vulnerable and open to sharetheir life experiences with us.
Thank you for showing us we'rehuman.
Also, a thank you to our teamwho worked so hard behind the
scenes to make it happen.
SPEAKER_01 (54:56):
The
SPEAKER_00 (54:59):
show would be nothing without you.
I'm Jenica, host and writer ofthe show, and you're listening
to Multispective.
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