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May 27, 2011 - Freedomain Radio - Stefan Molyneux
01:00:37
1920 Addiction, Binging, Lazing - A Listener Conversation

Mania, depression, binging, lazing - the highs and lows of an un-processed history.

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Time Text
Oh, hi. Sorry, I have my mic off.
Oh, no, no problem at all. Sorry about that.
I'm still waking up. It's a bit past 3 am.
I had to set my alarm. Oh, no problem at all.
So, how can I help you, man? Well, I was hoping to maybe chat with you a little bit about, like I mentioned in my email, I kind of have this problem with, I mentioned binge eating, but it's kind of like this cycle of, I guess I could describe it as hyperactivity followed by a cycle through of lethargism.
I'll be really, really active and I'll go to the gym, and I'll go play sports, and I'll wake up early and go study before work.
I'm unstoppable one week, and then I just hit this wall, and then I just get really lethargic.
All I can do is think about coming home and eating a bunch of junk food and relaxing the next week.
I've been going through this cycle for a long time.
I'm having trouble figuring out how to break it because it's really starting to bother me.
Sometimes it really consumes me in terms of what I'm thinking and it interferes with other things I want to do.
I've been trying to figure out where it's coming from and I'm having a little trouble with it.
I was wondering if you might be able to help me out.
Vaguely possible, I suppose.
Have you looked at medical issues?
Have I looked at medical issues?
Yeah. No, I mean, I don't feel it's a medical issue.
Actually, last time I was back in the States, I mentioned it to my doctor.
You know, about that.
And he said, he basically told me, he said, well, I mean, he said, a lot of that's normal.
He said, as long as you're staying active, you know, it shouldn't be a concern as far as, like, health problems or weight loss or diabetes or, you know, anything like that.
Because I kind of expressed my concern about the eating.
And he said, he told me more or less not to worry about that.
And that was about a year and a half ago.
So I don't usually go to doctors in Japan unless I'm sick.
Right, right. Okay.
And how long has this been going on?
I'd say, well, off and on for quite a few years.
I think since I was in college, I would have been about a junior in college, so about five years.
Sorry, just before we continue, I'm getting a bit of an echo.
Do you have speakers on?
No, actually, I have a headset on.
I'm getting a bit too. All right.
Let's see. How about Telling me a little bit about, so let's assume that it's not medical, right?
I mean, what the hell do I know? I'm just some idiot on the internet with a bunch of amateur opinions, but let's assume that it's not medical.
Are there any patterns to the cycle that you know of, right?
Because, I mean, not that I'm competent to diagnose in any way, shape, or form, but the typical thing I'm sure you've thought about is this sort of manic depression kind of thing, right?
Right, right, of course. But my understanding of manic depression is that Doesn't it tend to happen more in longer periods like the cycle tends to happen in longer time periods?
It isn't typically like from week to week, isn't it more like months at a time or can it be in that short of a time period?
I really don't have enough expertise to tell but I'm sure you can find that out online.
Yeah, because I remember checking it and it said it's typically the mood swings last for months at a time and can be...
I don't feel they're that excessive, or not excessive, but that...
Lengthy. Yeah, that lengthy and that extreme.
Right. Because it's not like I'm immobile, like I enjoy going to work and everything like that, so it's not like I'm not enjoying work even when I'm in kind of my lethargic stage.
Right, right. Okay. Have you noticed if there are any particular events or situations that seem to be a trigger for the change in energy levels?
Yeah, actually.
Before... I mean, particularly since I came to Japan, I think it's been stress, but also, like the last time I kind of,
like I've been really lethargic this week, but last week I was just kind of, like I said, I was kind of unstoppable, but I just, I went really hard, and then Sunday, I just had this overwhelming urge to relax, which is fine.
But whenever I get this really strong urge to relax, I also get this really strong urge to eat, too.
And I always kind of couple eating and stuff with video games.
It always kind of goes hand-in-hand.
It's not just eating.
It's just kind of lounging around, laying in bed, doing nothing but watching TV or playing video games at the same time.
And like I said, the trigger, it's more this kind of like, I just want to relax, and when I think of relaxing, that's kind of all I can think of.
It's hard for me to think of relaxing without those kind of things.
It's not so much stress eating anymore because I've kind of recognized...
I'll have a really frustrating day when my kids really frustrate me and I'll feel really frustrated and I'll just be kind of like, ah, screw it.
I don't care. When I feel like that, I have a really strong urge to eat as well.
But I've been able...
Lately, more to recognize that and to kind of not do so much stress eating.
But I think part of that, too, is stress triggers.
Right, right. Well, how familiar are you with the show and the way that I sort of ask questions about these kinds of issues?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I've listened to a lot of listener conversations.
Okay, so you know what my next question is going to be, right?
I have a vague idea.
All right, well, I'll ask it and you can tell me if it makes any sense.
What were your parents' relationships to food and to stress and to relaxing?
Well, as far as food...
When I was younger, I don't have as much of a memory as a food, but I do remember whenever my dad would come home from work, my dad's been a daily drinker since I can remember, so I think that's always kind of been his way of relaxing, is I always remember him coming home and basically having a few beers the rest of the night.
And, you know, and he'd always have a few beers and then he'd just be kind of eating handfuls of, you know, chips and, you know, more recently he'll just kind of have a go at a box of cookies and everything like that.
As for my mom, I don't remember seeing my mom Kind of do anything like that that I can recall as far as, you know, kind of like relaxing and just kind of, you know, having a bunch of food or anything like that.
She wasn't much of a drinker when I was younger.
But that changed?
Yeah. About the time I think I was in college, she started drinking every day.
Sorry, just interrupt.
What else did you say started in college?
What else? For my parents?
No, for you. Oh, for me?
Well, that's when the binge eating started to become a problem.
It actually happened around the time after I got really into working out.
Well, sorry, let me just connect the dots, which may not be valid, but it's just what struck me that you said that these issues began for you at college.
And I think we talked about the mood swings, that they began to occur for you around college, and then you said that your mom started drinking daily around the college age for you as well.
Right. Were they at all similar in time frames?
Right. I'm trying to think.
Because I was living at college.
I wasn't home very much when I started binge eating, but I think I remember seeing my mom drink when I would go home for the weekends and stuff like that.
Well, college is three or four years, right?
So my question is, around the mood swings, did it coincide at all with your mom starting to drink more, like in terms of them starting?
Oh, yeah. They both would have started, yeah, in college.
Well, I'm sorry, let me rephrase this, because college is a long time, right?
Yeah. So were they close in time?
Like, if it was your first year in college versus your fourth year in college, then they're four years apart, both in your first year, then it's closer together, right?
Right, well, at the later stages of college.
All right, so third or fourth year, so it was relatively close that your mood swings began.
I'm not saying it's causal. I mean, I don't know, right?
But I'm just saying that it's an interesting thing, right, that these things occurred at sort of the same time, right?
Yeah. Yeah. You don't seem convinced.
Well, no, no, no.
They do, the timing.
I'm trying to remember more the specific timing, but it definitely coincides.
Definitively, I know within a year.
Because when it started, that was when I was a junior, and I went to Japan for the first time when I was a senior, and I definitely remember my mom beginning to have her daily rum and coke before I went to Japan.
So it was definitely, I think, within the same school year.
Okay, and I don't know what the cause and effect is of that, if there's any, but that would be something to my lover.
Why do you think your mom began to drink?
drink?
Why she began to drink?
Dealing with stress, I suppose, would be my only guess.
When she was younger, When I was a bit younger, she didn't drink, but she smokes pot pretty regularly, almost daily, and she did that when I was in high school.
She would smoke pot every day, and she was always a clear mood changer, so she'd be in a really, really foul mood, and then she'd go in her room, and she'd come out smelling a pot and be in a calm-down mood, and I think...
She kind of changed over to...
Well, she still does that, but she drinks now too, I think, as more of a relaxant and a de-stressor, I suppose.
Right, okay. And so when she was younger, it was pot.
When she got older, it was more drinking.
Did she curtail the pot use at that time?
No, she still smokes every day, as far as I know.
Wow, okay. Yeah.
So, look, I mean...
Again, I just want to reiterate, I won't keep repeating this, I'm not an expert, but it would seem to me that there's lots of addictions going on, right?
Oh yeah, the addiction's rampant in my family.
Okay, go on. Well, I mean, my sister, I'm the fourth of five siblings.
I've got three sisters and a brother.
My brother is an alcoholic.
He smokes pot daily.
I would say he's certainly overweight, borderline obese.
My middle sister almost killed herself drinking last year because her liver was shutting down and she had to go into rehab.
She's done hard drugs and pot and everything like that.
My dad, like I said, he's been a daily drinker as long as I can remember.
We're talking like 12-pack a day kind of thing and my mom Like I said, she smoked cigarettes for a while and she quit when I was younger.
But then once I was able to recognize the smell of pot, I realized she was smoking pot too.
My sister told me that she remembers my mom smoking pot in front of the kids when she was three.
So I would have been like a baby.
But apparently she quit after that.
Smoking in front of us.
And then my younger sister, she got fired for stealing prescription drugs.
She's pretty much on the same path of drinking and she smokes pot all the time too.
So the only one who isn't a drug or alcohol person is my oldest sister.
So yeah, it's pretty rampant to my family.
And do you have any theories as to why that may be the case?
Or do you think it's just one of these cycles, like, just goes through intergenerationally?
You mean in terms of, like, more environmental or more biological kind of thing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Do you have any sort of theories?
Do you think it's biological or environmental or, I guess, some mixture?
I mean, I think just from my observations, I think it seems to be more in response to...
Well, basically, I think it's more environmental just based on my observations.
questions.
I think it's hard not to get into that stuff.
Between the way my parents treated us when we were younger and the fact that my dad drank all the time and stuff like that.
It doesn't really surprise me that everybody else turned out that way.
Right. Have you done much reading up on addiction and its causes or its theories about it?
I've looked a little bit at it.
In fact, I mentioned I just started therapy.
During my first couple sessions, I mentioned it as a concern to my therapist.
And he said, okay, well, he said we can kind of talk about that, but he said generally, you know, he said an addiction is defined as something that is going to interfere with, you significantly interfere with your life.
You know, you're going to take time off.
You're going to call in sick to work when you're not so you can stay at home and binge eat or drink or whatever.
You know, things like that.
So, I mean, he didn't really define it as addiction.
But I haven't looked too much online or anything like that on what exactly addiction would be.
But it certainly feels like it at times.
I'll have a binge one day and then the next day at work, I'm just consumed with these thoughts of like, you did this yesterday, you can't do it again.
But at the same time, I'm fighting with myself about I just want to go home and buy.
I'm thinking of the food I want to buy and just sit there and eat.
It's really starting to frustrate me.
To me, it feels like an addiction of sorts.
I feel like it's out of my control at times.
In what way? Even when I try to tell myself, okay, you worked really hard this week, you've earned one day of rest, and who cares if you go ahead and Pig out one day, whatever. It's fine. Don't feel guilty about that.
Just let yourself have this day.
I try to rationalize it to myself.
But then the next day, I'm just like...
I just can't stop thinking about, okay, okay, you can't do this two days in a row.
You can't do this two days in a row.
I just have this mantra of, you can't do this two days in a row.
You've got to eat healthy today.
You've got to bounce back.
You've got to do this.
I just want to tell myself to shut up, but I can't stop thinking.
Like I said, I can be in the middle of teaching my lesson and I'm not focused on the lesson.
I'm focused on food and trying not to do the same thing.
Look, I understand.
I really do. I understand how they sympathize.
At least I think I do. I certainly sympathize and I think I understand.
Was there any religion in your upbringing?
Oh yeah, I was raised Roman Catholic.
I went to a Catholic grade school until 8th grade.
I went to a Catholic grade school and then I went to a public high school.
Right. Do you see any similarities or overlap in how you're talking about food and its relationship to you and the sort of sin and punishment and all that?
Yeah, I mean, I can definitely see the repentance kind of aspect of it.
You know, you have to repent for the sin of binge eating.
You can't do it again, you know, kind of like shame on you kind of thing.
Yeah, I can definitely see that.
Right, right. Well...
How would you like to proceed?
Do you want me to keep asking questions?
Because I can always ask more questions, or in the interest of it being three God-knows-what in the morning for you, I can give you some thoughts, and you can tell me if they make any sense.
I'm fine with whatever approach you think might be a little more helpful in helping me figure this out.
All right. Well...
I'll share with you my thoughts, and then you can tell me whether they make even the slightest bit of sense or not.
Okay. Obsessive or repetitive thoughts around self-management.
Because I think this is, in some ways, the essence of what is going on for you.
Is this a kind of self-management?
Yeah, I think so.
Right. And my view on addiction is that it's a kind of self-management.
Okay. And what I mean by that is that there's two ways in which addiction self-manages or self-medicates.
The first is that it's a huge distraction in your life, right?
Oh yeah, absolutely. Like if you could add up the amount of time that you've spent thinking about should you or shouldn't you, have you earned your rest, have you not earned your rest, and so on, I mean, you'd get to live to be 500, right?
Yeah. Exactly, yeah.
And so it's frustrating, right?
Then you're like, damn it, I don't want to think about this anymore.
But then the thoughts come back, right?
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it also becomes a...
It wears a groove in your brain, right?
So you're thinking about these things over and over, and what happens then is your mind in a state of rest, or when you're not distracted by something external, your mind circles these things again, right?
Yeah, absolutely. It's like that becomes, in a sense, your default mental state, is to think about these things.
Maybe the word obsession is too strong, maybe it's not, but to think repetitively about these issues, that becomes your set or your default mental position.
Yeah, absolutely.
Now I'm kind of at this stage where I feel like I'm not able to dissociate the binge eating from the relaxing.
I can't separate them.
It's like when I think about how am I going to relax tonight?
That's the only thing that comes to mind.
I can't get out of that mode.
I feel like I have to constantly keep myself busy so I don't have time to relax because I'm afraid if I'm going to relax I can't just stay at home and do nothing.
I have to eat too.
I think that's why I try to keep myself so busy.
If I'm busy then I don't have time to binge eat or whatever.
Or think about whether you should or shouldn't be doing X, Y, and Z, right?
Exactly, yeah. Right.
Now, I mean, I wasn't shocked when you said religion, and I was less shocked when you said Catholicism, because really what you're talking about in some ways is a punishment and reward system for yourself, right?
Yeah, definitely.
Right, so if you work hard enough, then you have earned a night of, you know, junk food and video games and TV, right?
Right. But then when you've had that night, You may want more, but you then feel guilty, and you have to not do that, and you have to go and work and so on, right?
Right. And in fact, that's kind of the system that I had growing up as a child.
Go on. Well, when I was in grade school, and even in high school...
Like, my mom had a strict policy of no video games Monday through Thursday and she took the controllers and she'd hide the controllers and I remember a couple of times I tried to negotiate with her and I tried to say, well, mom, you let me come home and watch an hour of TV after school and then you make me do my homework and then I have another hour or two of free time to watch TV. And I said, I'd rather play video games because I really like video games.
So what if I come home and I do all my homework first?
I don't even come home and watch TV first.
And I show you that I've done all my homework, then can I have the controllers back and I'll give them back at the end of the night?
She said, no. And I said, well, why?
I've done all my homework. Because her excuse was always, well, it's going to interfere with your studies and it's bad for you during the week because you're going to get distracted.
And I said, but if I'm doing all my homework first, and you let me watch TV anyway.
So she said, well, no, because that's my rule.
Sorry, just let me interrupt you for a sec.
I don't know if you know how bizarre this sounds to me.
Okay. I mean, not you.
Not you. You're just telling me what you're telling me.
Right. But do you know why this sounds so bizarre to me?
Uh, no.
Well, you know, again, correct me if I'm wrong.
Yeah. But your mom is creating all of these rules around discipline and self-control and having things not interfere with what you need to do.
Yeah. Why is that surprising to me?
That's what I'm having problems with now, right?
No, no. Wasn't your mom smoking pot every day?
Oh, yeah. No, seriously.
It's not funny.
It's bizarre. Yeah, it is.
That's true. Tell me about that.
You're telling me all of this stuff and I'm like, my jaw is hanging down by my kneecaps.
Now that I think about it, yeah, that's...
I didn't make that connection before.
Thanks for pointing that out, yeah.
But so, yeah, she would have this rule.
And like I said, even through high school, like, I'd be a sophomore, junior in high school.
You know, I'm 16 years old, and it's like, I come home, like, I'm in honors classes, like, I'm doing well in school.
You know, and it's like, I do my homework, I do a little studying, and then I just want to go down and play, you know, like some shooter games.
Like, I know you were into Unreal Tournament.
I was also in Counter-Strike.
I was into Counter-Strike. Oh, yeah, yeah, I played that once at work.
It was fun. Yeah, so I was loving Counter-Strike.
I used to play that, you know, but I was, like, terrorized because, like, I was afraid.
Because if my mom came down and saw me playing video games or, you know...
Ah, you know, I bet the extra adrenaline helped, but anyway, go on.
Probably I was, oh man, I had that trigger finger ready.
She'd come down and she'd light me up.
She'd be really pissed off about, what did I say about my rule Monday through Thursday?
Did you ever get a rule saying, mom, could you please not smoke pot?
I think it's interfering with your parenting.
I think it's interfering with your life.
I think it's interfering with my health, having secondhand smoke in the house all day.
Did you ever think that as your kid?
No, I mean, I didn't.
I thought it was irrational, like I said.
I mean, I didn't think about it that way, but I thought about, well, surely if my mom allows me to watch two to three hours of TV a night, I can just substitute that for video games.
Because her issue was, it's going to interfere through schoolwork, but my argument for that was not the pot thing.
But if I can show you that I'm getting the same amount of work done...
Okay, sorry, you're still, and I don't blame you for this, but you're still thinking within the paradigm.
I'm asking you to take a step back from that.
How did you feel about your mom smoking pot every day?
I wasn't comfortable with it at all.
I didn't like it. Especially in high school, I never went drinking at parties.
Good for you for that.
Congratulations. I was a good kid.
I was never into the party scene.
I played basketball and volleyball in high school.
There were guys who would smoke pot every day before practice.
They'd smoke after school. I don't know where they would smoke it, but they'd smoke it after school and before practice and they just reeked a pot.
I never really liked that.
It really made me uncomfortable.
Just the whole idea of smoking pot and everything like that.
So yeah, of course I didn't like it that my mom did it.
What was that like for your social life?
Did you have friends come over and the swell of sweet Bob Marley herb is floating through the house?
What happened? No, here's the weird thing about my...
I had a... I didn't really have much of a social life.
And this is where I've kind of wondered if my weekdays and weekends are a reflection of the cycle I'm going through now.
Because during the weekday, my parents were super strict.
It's like, alright, you've got homework and you've got basketball.
This is what you have to do all week.
My dad was always writing my case about basketball.
And my mom was always writing my case about school.
But then on the weekends, it's like freedom.
Like, they don't even really, like, they don't even really, well, not care, but they just kind of like, okay, here's the controllers.
And I just spent my entire weekend playing video games.
And that was a lot of my social life.
I would turn away my friends.
You know, my friends would say, hey, John, let's go out and do this this weekend.
And I'd say, ah, No, I'm going to stay in this weekend.
So I spent a lot of my weekends just playing video games until I got a girlfriend and then I would spend time with my girlfriend.
But if I wasn't with my girlfriend, I was pretty much playing video games all weekend.
I just had this urge built up and I just got it out all weekend and that was pretty much my social life more or less.
I didn't go out with friends very much.
Right, right. And why do you think you played video games so much?
I mean, I'm not sure if it's right or not, but I mean, just because I felt like that was the only time...
I really enjoyed playing them, so that was the only time I was allowed to, so I felt like I had to cram in as much time Which is the same kind of reward mechanism that we've talked about before,
right? I mean, well-designed video games are psychologically set up to have the right pace of reward system to keep you, quote, hooked, right?
Right, of course. Now, the one thing that I think is true about video games and other forms of addictions—I mean, again, I'm not competent to say whether it was or wasn't, but it seems that way—is that they are, in a sense—and I don't mean this in a bad way—they are an obliteration of the self, of the natural, peaceful, thoughtful, reflective, spontaneous self.
And I don't think that's a bad thing.
I mean, if I'm going through a stressful period— I'll sometimes play a little bit.
I haven't really had a chance to play video games since Izzy was born, but every now and then I'll sit down.
And what's great about it is for like 20 minutes, if I'm online playing Capture the Flag or something, for like 20 minutes, all I'm thinking about is the game.
Yeah, yeah. Right?
There's no worry or big picture stuff or reflective stuff or stressful stuff.
The game is all-consuming, right?
Right, of course. Yeah, definitely.
And so it kind of empties you out of yourself.
And again, I don't mean that's a bad thing.
I mean, if you're seeing a great play or a great movie or you're listening to a great piece of music, you're just appreciating that at the moment and there's not a self there in a way, right?
Right. An identity.
Does that make any sense? No, absolutely.
It makes sense. In fact, it's interesting that you mention that because I can actually...
Step back and witness myself experiencing that when I do play video games, that I'm turning myself off, so to speak.
Right, right. And it's not turning yourself off through yoga or meditation or whatever.
It's an excess, so to speak, of external stimuli.
Right, yeah. I used to go clubbing when I was a teenager.
I used to think this even at the time about nightclubs, you know, they're so loud, they're so bright, you know, people are dressed to be hot and all that.
It's such an excess of external stimuli, it's like the empty people inside, right?
There's nobody there because there's so much external stimuli.
Yeah, yeah. And so, self-management through external stimuli seems to me to be kind of important in this life of yours.
And this, of course, is the problem with rewards-based religions, right?
Well, one of the many problems, right?
Which is that you're good to go to heaven, and if you're bad, you go to hell, right?
But that's not internalizing virtue.
That's just punishment and reward, right?
And it's the same thing with your mom nagging you about homework, right?
It's not like the homework has value.
I'm going to explain to you the value the homework has so that you understand it so that you can internalize this value set and make your own decisions, right?
Right. It's like, do it because I'm telling you to.
It has value because I'm ordering you to do it.
In other words, the only thing that has value is me bugging you or bullying you to do it.
Exactly, yeah. Your values were not internalized to the point where you're playing video games afraid of being caught.
That's how little respect you have for your mom's values, right?
Right. And, you know, I'm not criticizing that.
I'm just simply pointing it out that you don't...
You weren't like, well, I shouldn't be playing video games.
You were like, I shouldn't get caught playing video games, right?
Right, that's true, yeah.
So that's not internalizing values.
Okay, so having kind of, having my, because it wasn't just my mom, it was my dad, you know, but just having their values imposed on me externally and just me kind of following, having to follow that or be punished was kind of, Yeah, it's punishment and reward, right?
And it's mostly punishment. As you get older, it gets more punishment and less reward, right?
Right, yeah. And so what happens is you then end up with An external source of behavior modification.
And so because you haven't internalized your values, you've internalized bullies and rewarders, which is, you know, your parents, your school, your priests, all that kind of stuff, right?
Yeah. And so for you, it's not like, do I want junk food?
It's more like, am I allowed to have junk food?
Have I earned it? Ah, no, that makes perfect sense.
Exactly, yeah. So when people say ah, I stop talking, so go ahead.
Well, no, because that's actually what I do struggle with.
It's like... I like to go study at Starbucks.
When I go to Starbucks, I even have this internal struggle of, I want a Frappuccino, but that's just sugar.
That's empty calories and sugar.
You should just get tea, John, because that's no calorie.
That's better for you.
You shouldn't have the Frappuccino.
Even something as simple, I could eat salads and fruits and I could eat just a perfect diet for a week and then I think about going to Starbucks and I'm like, but you can't have that frappuccino because that's not good.
I have to actually convince myself that something like that is okay.
And you see what's missing there, and this is the problem with externally enforced standards, what's missing there is an ego.
What fails to develop, and again, I'm using extreme terms, so forgive me if I don't mean you don't have an ego.
I just mean that in terms of judgment about these kinds of things, if you're just battling external influences that you don't respect, so you obviously didn't have a huge amount of respect for your mom's rules, maybe not even your dad's.
I assume you're not particularly religious anymore, so your priests and your teachers probably had a whole bunch of dumbass rules as well.
So what happens is you obey the rules, and you resist the rules, and Like a fugitive in a dictatorship, you trade on the black market of personal pleasures while fearing getting caught at all times, right?
But you still don't internalize your values because you're trying to sneak some satisfaction in a system of values you don't respect that are imposed.
And there's no appeal to your self-interest here.
There's just like, you do it because I say so, right?
So you don't internalize your choices.
You don't Try and see if you like it and then not like it or try something different.
Have three cappuccinos and it's like, I don't feel so good, right?
Yeah. Develop your own internal values in these areas, but you manipulate yourself, you manage yourself, you bully yourself, you reward yourself like you're some sort of damn puppy who's learning not to shit on the rug.
Right, yeah. Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, exactly. That's what it feels like.
Right. Right.
It almost seems like the cycle of, like you said, the reward and punishment.
Like I said, for a week, I'll go to the gym three nights, I'll play volleyball one night, I'll play basketball one night, I'll study...
Five out of the seven days, you know, and I'm working, like I said, I'm unstoppable.
So then, like, you know, my reward to that is, well, I guess, you know, and I don't even think it's conscious, but, you know, I guess my reward to that is, well, I guess you can sit on your ass and not do anything for the next few days to a week, and then I get guilty about that, and it's like, okay, well, your punishment for being lazy all week is you got to do it all over again.
You got to go back and you got to work off everything you just...
You just did. You've got to make up for everything.
You just wasted all your time.
I would argue that this has occurred.
What do I know? It's just my theory.
I would argue that this has occurred because it was unthinkable for you to say, listen, Mom, you're talking to me about a half hour of schoolwork.
You're smoking pot every day.
Could you say that one more time?
I'm sorry, you kind of cut out.
Well, to say to your mom, like it didn't even occur to you to say to your mom, look, you're talking to me about 20 or 30 minutes of homework a day, but you're smoking pot every day.
You know, let's focus on that.
You know, we'll get back to my homework tomorrow, but let's focus on that issue, the big elephant in the room, that dad's drinking every night, eating crap.
You're smoking pot every day.
Do you really think that you're in a good position to teach me about discipline?
That's true, yeah.
And just putting off immediate gratification for the sake of the greater good.
Do you think that you have a lot of credibility in that, Mom?
In other words, who are you to tell me about the deferral of gratification?
Right. So, why was that unthinkable?
I don't blame you. You're obviously a very, very smart guy.
But the question to ask is, since it's so obvious, and you were telling me like it would never occur to me.
Of course, it occurs to anyone.
I'm sure you tell this to. Why was it unthinkable to have that conversation?
I think I knew my mom would explode.
I knew what her reaction would be.
I knew I couldn't challenge her because she just beat me down in terms of...
She was just having an extremely strong emotional backlash.
I mean, we could either try role-playing it, or you could just tell me what that would look like.
Well, I mean, like I said, even when I tried to negotiate, not even challenge that idea, even just say, well, this doesn't make sense.
I mean, she got extremely aggressive and said, look, this is my rule, Monday through Thursday, no video games.
You're not getting the controllers.
That's because that's my rule.
Okay, but let's just say, right, and I'm not blaming you, and I'm sure what you did was entirely right in this situation, but what would happen if you were to just say, well, no, Mom, look, I mean, if you have rules, you have to live by them.
Otherwise, it's just complete hypocrisy, and I should never have to listen to you.
So if you have rules called discipline, called self-control, called the deferral of gratification, then put out the goddamn doobie once in a while and then you'll gain my respect for your rules.
But I'm not going to follow your rules if you're not even going to be bothered to follow them yourself in a matter that is far more important than a half hour of homework.
Yeah. What happens then?
Well, I can definitely tell you my mom would have her crying fit, make me feel like an asshole, and then my dad would get on my case for making my mom cry.
So I would be attacked for pointing out the hypocrisy.
Right, and then you say, "Well, I'm sorry that everybody's so upset, but I think it's time as a family that we started dealing with the various addictions that are floating around here and stop pretending that whether I scribble down some math answers, this is the only goddamn thing we have to deal with as a family." And I actually kind of tried to point those kind of things out last year with my family.
I actually had a conversation on the phone with my parents.
Because they were expecting me to come home for Christmas.
And I told them I didn't want to come home.
And I told them why. And I told them because of stuff like that.
And they just kind of shit all over my middle sister.
And they're just extremely abusive.
And I just told them, I said, look, I can't go home and just have everybody just...
I can't take all the drinking.
I can't take all the drugs. I can't take how you guys treat each other.
It just drives me nuts.
I can't enjoy being home.
My mom's response to that was, well, that's just the way it is.
Every family has problems, but we love each other.
So she completely shut that down.
So I can't imagine what it would have been like when I was younger and I challenged them.
Their values, you know, I can't imagine what kind of backlash I would get for that.
Well, sure you can. Well, yeah, of course, yeah, actually.
So what would have happened? I'd get completely just demolished in terms of, I mean, they would just completely attack me and just, like...
I mean, basically they would just beat me down even more strongly with their authoritative arguments.
Right. And not recognize or accept or talk about any of the hypocrisies of this, right?
Oh, absolutely. They'd probably just say something like, well, my mom would probably just nod.
She'd probably say, well, how do you know what pot smells like?
Exposed to it every single day of my life.
How do you know?
Are you doing it? She'd probably try to accuse me of doing something wrong.
Well, of course, if me doing part is wrong, then you should stop doing it.
If me doing part is not wrong, then you have nothing to complain about.
Yeah, exactly.
Look, and I say this like I'm not your family, I'm not 15, right?
So, I mean, I'm all kinds of glib, though I would be exactly the same as you in your situation, right?
I mean, we all know instinctively how far we can self-actualize or self-manifest or be in a relationship before we step on a landmine that could blow our leg off, right?
Yeah, yeah, and now that I think about it, I think I definitely understood that line as far as I could go, you know.
Yeah, and I mean, again, I'm no expert, but as far as I understand it, you know, if you're interacting with a drug addict, you're just talking to the drug, you're not talking to the person.
Yeah. You're just talking to all the defense mechanisms and self-justifications, and there's no, right?
Yeah. You know, to me, addictions, you're not allowed to develop much of a self, and then you develop addictions to hide that from yourself, so to speak, right?
Okay, yeah, yeah. Okay, yeah, that makes sense.
Right, so I would suggest that there were sort of steps in your development that were missing, were lacking.
Okay. Right?
And, you know, I say this through the lens of my own parenting, so God knows whether it You know, fits or not.
Yeah. But my daughter is going through an extremely bossy phase.
Okay. And she's almost two and a half now.
And she's like, if I'm humming, it's like, no data sing.
If she's got some boppy music on and I come in dancing, no data dance.
Right? Yeah. Even if I sort of rest my arm on something, no, no data rest your arm.
No data, sit. Sit over there.
Jump from here. Jump with me.
Jump with me now. Here. Not there.
No. Stand like this.
Then we're going to count one, two, three. Then we're going to jump.
She's very bossy. And I sort of make a joke.
Who's being bossy? Isabel.
So I don't know whether this is common.
I think it's probably pretty common.
She is exercising her willpower and she's exercising her sense of command.
She's now able to command her body.
So that phase is done. She can do pretty much anything she wants to do, height restrictions notwithstanding.
So she's practicing her degree of control over others.
Right. And, you know, for the most part, it doesn't matter to me whether I'm singing or not fundamentally, and it doesn't matter to me whether I'm dancing or not, and it doesn't matter to me if I jump from this cushion or this cushion, so I'm fine with it.
I mean, occasionally I'll say no if I don't really feel like it.
Right. But she is exercising her will over others, and I think that's a healthy thing, and I think it's a natural thing.
Yeah. This is what's called the terrible twos.
They don't seem too terrible to me, but this is what they're called.
Now, if there were things that you didn't like, and you weren't allowed to express things that you didn't like for fear of attack or abuse or whatever, then I think a pretty essential phase of development is bypassed.
It is so essential in our families to be able to say, I don't like this.
To say no. To say, I don't want it.
I don't like it. Kids will do it with food, right?
I mean, they'll say, I'm just not going to eat this.
If they feel control, right?
Well, I don't know if it would be related, but I was an extremely picky eater.
Of course you were! Of course you were, because your parents can order you to do anything except eat.
Yeah. And all they can do is punish you for not eating or reward you for eating, but...
Right? Yeah. This is why parents and children get into such fights over food.
Yeah. It's not about food, right?
Right. Yeah, I mean, it certainly feels like I wasn't able to challenge anything...
With my mom, I mean, even as long as I can remember, you know, even when I was very young, I just remember, like, if what I didn't, like, if my preferences conflicted with my mom, then they just got shut down, or they, like, I was just made to feel guilty,
you know, like, you know, that's, like, you know, basically, like, I was wrong for having that opinion, and I should adjust my Myself, my behavior accordingly, you know, because what I wanted and what I liked didn't coincide with what my mom liked.
Which is a total UPB violation, right?
Right. Oh, absolutely. Your preferences are bad.
So my preference is that you shouldn't have any preferences.
It's like, well, wait a sec, you have preferences, so, right?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so, yeah, so look, let's say that there's a possibility that there's like a hole in your development, a void in your development, where you get to exercise and act on your own preferences, but instead that was replaced by externalities, religious, school-based, familial-based, familial-based, right?
Where your relationship to rules is like an atheist relationship to God, if he lives in a really religious town.
He may conform, but he doesn't believe, right?
Right, yeah. So you're like, okay, so rules are just punishment and reward systems.
They have nothing to do with any intrinsic value or self-interest.
Right. So you have a reward-punishment system rather than a virtue system.
Yeah, I would definitely agree.
And the reward-punishment system is there...
To help you avoid the fact that you have a reward-punishment system, because it keeps you distracted with rewards and punishments, right?
Yeah. To avoid the lack of expression of preference and lack of ability to act on preference in your life.
Yeah. Right, so you said when your kids are bugging you, right?
Yeah, yeah, when my kids might have a frustrating day.
Right, right. And...
You know, so often our children seem like our parents at times, right?
Right, yeah, absolutely. Because they, especially if we had immature parents, right?
Our children will remind us of our parents, right?
And so it could be that you don't feel that you have the capacity to sit down with your kids and say, oh, you know, I had a tough day with you guys.
You know, it started here and then this happened.
I don't know how old your kids are, but I have these conversations with Isabella, you know, on the occasion, right?
So... I should correct, sorry to interrupt, but I shouldn't have said my kids, my students.
Sorry. But I think you can still have these sorts of conversations with your kids.
Yeah, and I try to when I'm feeling frustrated.
I've even sat down with them and said, guys, I'm feeling really frustrated.
And I said, do you guys notice what's going on?
I mean, do you guys see that I'm feeling frustrated?
And usually they say no, and I'll kind of explain, you know, kind of like, You know, I always try to have them make a promise before class, you know, and say, okay, you know, like, here's what I'd like to do, and here's, you know, like, if we can get everything done on time, you know, we have this free time at the end, you guys can play with toys, you can draw on the board, or whatever.
Is this okay? Can we do this first?
You know, and I have them, if this is okay, then let's make a promise to work hard, and we can have this at the end.
So then when they're not, you know, like, following that, and they're just kind of, you Doing their own thing.
But you see, you still have a punishment and reward system.
Yeah, now that I think about that, yeah, it's a reward and punishment.
And look, I think there's some aspect of that with kids.
I think there is some aspect of punishment and reward system with kids, but only when they genuinely can't understand or empathize.
So I think it's really only appropriate when they're very young and to a very small degree.
But I think you need to start to step back from the punishment and reward system, because that is...
It's training yourself like a bad puppy.
It's not a way of dealing with yourself with respect.
Right. Right?
Because it's like kibbles and sticks, kibbles and sticks.
That's your whole damn day, right?
Yeah, yeah. You know, if I push the red button, I get a slap.
If I push the green button, I get a pellet of sweet juice, right?
Yeah, you don't want that.
You don't want that. That's not a way of dealing with yourself with respect.
And that, of course, is to some degree a Catholic thing, that we are dangerous and we need to be managed, right?
Right. Which is the same thing the government has.
We are dangerous. We need to be controlled, right?
Punishment and reward system, right?
Stay out of jail or whatever.
I get a check from the government. And so I think it's important to step back from the punishment and reward system with yourself and to say, I want to treat myself with more dignity and respect than kibbles and sticks.
And that's not saying don't eat a bag of chips.
Because it doesn't have anything to do with the bag of chips.
It doesn't have anything to do with when you go to the gym.
It has to do with I have to want something other than kibbles and sticks.
Okay. Because that is not the same as wanting something.
Punishment and reward is not the same as desire.
Okay. Do I want to go to the gym?
Whether I punish myself or not.
Whether I reward myself or not.
Let's pretend I'm not going to punish myself.
I'm not going to reward myself in any way.
We're done with that. Do I want to go to the gym?
Do I want to play a video game?
Forget punishment and reward, right?
Yeah. If I want to go to the gym, absence of punishment, reward, then I can go to the gym.
If I want to play a video game, absence of punishment, reward, if I want to do it all weekend.
But I'm not going to punish myself afterwards.
And I'm not going to reward myself by going to the gym.
Because otherwise, these things are, you're no longer living in the moment.
You're living in the future. Fork of kibbles and sticks, right?
You're living in the future. You're not living in the now.
You're just always looking down the road for whether you're getting kibbles and sticks around the bend, right?
Right, yeah. It's constantly, like you said, looking around the bend, kind of, what's going to occur after this?
You know, kind of like, where do I go after this is finished or whatever kind of thing.
Right, so yeah, if you play video games all weekend, then play video games all weekend.
But not for the sake of building up stored credits or bleeding off an excess of virtue or whatever, right?
Yeah. But because you want to or don't want to.
Yeah, I've actually been trying to take that approach, I would say probably since I started therapy, I've been trying to take that approach of, I'll ask myself, you know, because let's say I'll originally plan to go to the gym, and then it's just like, well, I'm exhausted.
I was really busy at work, and I didn't sleep well last night, and I'm just really exhausted, so...
I try to tell myself, you know what, John, it's okay.
You don't have to go to the gym.
You don't have to feel guilty about that.
You don't have to feel bad.
Just listen to your body and just follow what you want to do and not what you feel like you have to commit to or what you have to do.
Right, because every time you do the punishment and reward, you lower your capacity to experience genuine desire or aversion next time.
It has a cost down the road every time you do it.
Yeah. Even if you say, I think everybody who works out faces the same thing.
I'm tired or whatever, right?
And to me, it's like, okay, so I'm not going to.
It's not going to be a black mark against me that I have to work off.
If I go to the gym, it's not going to be a tick mark that I get to earn that I can use credit, like some sort of monopoly money to buy and sell favors for myself.
I mean, this is crazy, right? It feels like that system sometimes.
Yeah, no, I got it. I got it.
I got it. It's like a black market of the self, right?
Or the selfless. It is.
How many stars do you have?
Yeah, no, and that is not, you know, that's maybe fine for toilet training two-year-olds, but that's not the way that we want to live as adults, right?
Yeah. So, yeah, you don't punish or reward yourself so that you can have a genuine experience of desire or aversion for the thing itself.
And so that you can establish boundaries because, of course, people around us will constantly sense whether we work on the punishment and reward system and will attempt to try and hook into that to control us.
So if you've got kibbles and sticks in your arsenal, then other people will constantly try and push those buttons for you if they're not mature people, and Lord knows there's enough people in the world to keep worrying about that.
It lends you to be susceptible to the manipulations of others if you're on a punishment and reward system yourself.
Because those buttons go two ways.
They go outside of you as well as inside of you.
Yeah, I would say I definitely experienced that at least in my last relationship hardcore.
I feel like I was manipulated a lot by my last girlfriend.
I definitely can see that playing out.
And so my suggestion, you know, and I don't want to keep you, you know, you've got to get some sleep before school, but my suggestion would be, first of all, I mean, thank you for bringing this up.
I know it's a really tough topic. Thank you for getting up at three in the morning.
I know that's a hell of a thing to do.
Oh, thank you for taking the time to talk with me about it.
I really appreciate it. Oh, my pleasure.
I would go into therapy next time you talk about therapy and talk about what you couldn't say in your family.
What was verboten?
What was absolutely forbidden to say in your family about things that you didn't like in your family?
I think that's a huge phase of development that so many of us don't get to experience.
And I think that in there is the root of undoing the addiction to punishment and reward.
Because to me, all addictions are about punishment and reward.
And what happens is the punishments grow and the rewards diminish over time, right?
Because you just get worn out.
So I would focus on that.
Look, maybe it'll lead nowhere. What do I know, right?
But my gut tells me that that's a very fertile place to go because there's a lot of unspokenness, a lot of unspoken assertiveness, a lot of unspoken preferences that are very important for you that you did not get to express in your family, that you didn't get to express in your last relationship.
And of course, you've ended up in a culture which is entirely driven by punishment and reward, right?
Oh, yeah. It's crazy here sometimes.
Right. So anyway, that would be my suggestion.
But tell me, was this useful?
Did we go down a useful path?
Is there anything I could have done better? Oh, no.
You provided me with some really great insight.
I had never really... I mean, I kind of had a vague kind of feeling that it was kind of that reward and punishment just because, like I said, it was kind of cyclical.
But I didn't make that connection...
You pointing out with my mom and her smoking pot and the hypocrisy and how my values were imposed on me externally and how I never got a chance to kind of develop my own.
And that definitely made me think about what steps I need to take in terms of developing my own preference system and kind of avoiding the system that I've placed myself in.
Right, and that's why I constantly say to people, do not turn philosophy into a punishment and reward system, because I think a lot of people are drawn to philosophy because they didn't go through that phase of self-expression in terms of preferences, and therefore we kind of need rules in the absence of a self.
And so it's always been my goal to help people avoid turning philosophy into punishment and reward, but rather into self-knowledge, which I think undoes that in a much more generic and natural way.
Yeah, definitely. And that's even what, you know, I even struggle with that too, you know, of not turning, you know, philosophy into, you know, that of like, you know, meet the new boss, same as the old boss.
Yeah. Oh, yeah.
All right, listen, man, go get some sleep.
And drop me a line if you do.
Let me know. If you've had a chance to talk to your therapist at some point, just drop me a line.
Let me know if it was fertile ground to cover.
And I really, really appreciate the conversation.
Oh no, I really appreciate it.
Can I ask if this was recorded and if so, if I would be able to receive a copy of the recording so I could go through it?
Yeah, I will have a look and I will send it off in a day or so.
Okay, thank you very much. I really appreciate it.
Okay, get some sleep.
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