Session 0032 - Joe Griffin on Addiction/Depression

Joe Griffin generously shares his expertise in the world of Psychology providing practical strategies that therapists and non-therapists can implement within a very short time frame and see them have a positive outcome.  In this episode, you are taught many important lessons to help you in the areas of addiction and depression and compulsive behaviours.

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Transcript

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I. Introduction
- Brief introduction of Aidan Noone and Joe Griffin
- Overview of the episode on addiction and the key facts covered

II. Understanding Addiction
- Causes of addiction, including deficits in social skills and relationship issues
- The three elements needed for recovery from addiction

III. Hypnotherapy and Addiction
- How hypnotherapy can help in recovering from addiction
- The role of hypnotherapy in reversing unrealistic expectations associated with addictive habits
- Hypnotherapy's effectiveness in quitting smoking

IV. Beliefs and Addiction
- The role of beliefs in addiction
- The argument that smoking is not an addiction

V. Overcoming Addiction
- The importance of recognizing the negative effects of addiction
- The role of friends and family in supporting the person with addiction
- The determination phase and psyching oneself up to take action
- Strategies for taking action and seeking professional help
- Dealing with relapse during recovery

VI. Supporting Individuals with Addiction
- The importance of asking nonthreatening questions and offering support
- The story of a woman who put her craving for a cigarette in perspective
- The benefits and appropriate use of hypnotherapy in treating addiction

VII. Challenging Traditional Views of Addiction
- The belief that addiction is not a lifelong biological illness
- A success story of an individual overcoming heroin and alcohol addiction

VIII. The Human Givens Approach
- The book coauthored by Joe Griffin and Ivan Turrell about addiction
- The inspiration behind writing the book
- The role of relationships and community resources in recovery
- The Human Givens Institute and its focus on hypnotherapy
- The therapeutic model of meeting needs and the environment in treating addiction

IX. Environment and Psychological Factors
- The impact of the environment and psychological damage on addiction
- Examples of psychological damage contributing to addiction
- The importance of acquiring key life skills

X. Utilizing Dreaming and Guided Imagery
- How dreaming helps suppress impulses and redirect lives
- The power of guided imagery and imagination in overcoming addiction

XI. Connection Between Addiction and Mental Health
- The coexistence of addiction and depression
- Relationship difficulties and loss of emotional intimacy due to addiction
- Addressing suicidal thoughts and providing hope for recovery

XII. Strategies for Overcoming Compulsive Behavior
- Understanding the two-stage process of withdrawal symptoms
- Controlling cravings through emotional understanding and negative imagery
- Brief solution-focused therapy as an effective treatment for addiction

XIII. Debate on Antidepressants
- The evidence showing that antidepressants are not more effective than placebo

XIV. The Role of Dreams and Hot Bloodedness
- The connection between dreams and hypnosis in treating addiction
- How hot bloodedness led to the development of energy conservation methods in the brain

XV. Conclusion
- Recap of key topics covered in the episode
- Final thoughts from Aidan Noone and Joe Griffin.

Transcript

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Aidan Noone: Joe Griffin. Thank you so much for joining me to day on the professional hypnotherapist podcast

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joegriffin: delighted to be here amy.

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Aidan Noone: And today we're going to talk about your Co. Authored book with Ivan Terrell, which is this one very well known book? A very, very a book that every therapist, and indeed, non therapist should have in their library. What was your inspiration, Joe, for writing this book?

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joegriffin: Well, my my inspiration was that the whole atmosphere, and the whole theoretical world of addiction, 2025 years ago was very depressing.

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joegriffin: very full of foreboding. Addiction was a biological illness. You had it for life. You know you were somehow born to be a damaged human being. II just found that very depressing. And and II there wasn't any real basis for it.

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joegriffin: because if we looked at

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joegriffin: the the fulfill the data, people were recovering from addictions all the time who was massing their. And there are hundreds of thousands that were recovering from them.

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joegriffin: The ones who were slow to recover were the ones who were going into full time therapy and going into residential treatment centers. At that time they were recovering at a much slower rate than people who did never went into therapy, but somehow found the resources within their relationships in their community to get on top of addiction.

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joegriffin: So the the field of therapy was hopelessly deterministic and depressed, and really didn't reflect reality.

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joegriffin: There was always Joel, almost as though that, you know. If you had this addiction, as you say, you had it for life. Yes, you know. Yeah. And the truth was, people have always been and all, and continue to recover from addiction. Yeah, yeah, so

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Aidan Noone: can you explain your your central approach to overcoming addiction.

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How it differs from what

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Aidan Noone: we're heretofore I used to.

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joegriffin: Yes, rather than seeing addiction as something that you're genetically predisposed to get. It was almost a certainty. It was a disease that was programmed into your genetic inheritance rather than seeing it that way.

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joegriffin: We know, for example, the way our genetic inheritance works. Aiden is that virtually all human behaviour is about 50%. Genetically influenced and 50%. Learned. So yes, of course, there is a genetic contribution to addiction.

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joegriffin: But it doesn't mean that nature wants us to get addiction. So, for example, some people may be genetically more predisposed to to risk taking than others.

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joegriffin: but they turned that predisposition into successful entrepreneurship and become successful business people, whereas some other people will turn it into a gambling addiction and destroy their lives with it. But it's the same genetic inheritance. So the genetic inheritance is not destiny. It's how we utilize it. And the key

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joegriffin: central idea here, Aiden, is this. is that

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joegriffin: the reason people become addicts is the same reason people develop mental illness.

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joegriffin: and the reason is quite simply they cannot put together a life that works, they cannot get essential emotional needs met.

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joegriffin: So they are suffering psychologically and emotionally, and they turn to addiction as a form of medication to get away from the terrible feelings that are having, of of being useless, and not being of loneliness and isolation, and having no control and things on top of them.

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joegriffin: Addiction is an attempt at self-medication.

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Aidan Noone: Yeah. And you touched on a terrajo the whole area of human needs. And you yourself, with Ivan Terrell formed the Human Giffens Institute, and they tell us about that.

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joegriffin: Well, we formed the human Givens industry about 20 years ago, and it was it we really felt that the whole field of psychotherapy at the time

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joegriffin: really was stuck in the past, in theories that were no longer scientifically validated.

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joegriffin: and tools, for example, like hypnosis, which are perhaps the the single, most powerful psychotic beauty tool in existence, was not a powerful, most treatment, and that appalled us. And so we felt, in fact, to be absolutely honest with you. My motivation was to get hypnoty into the treatment of mental illness in the Nhs. In Britain, and I knew no way we could go into front door and say, We want to teach you how to use hypnosis. So they they were. They were terrified of it because they didn't understand it.

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joegriffin: So we had the red guided imagery, and we had to build a therapeutic model around it, and the therapeutic model was human givens that illnesses and mental disorders arise because people not getting their needs met. Now that just that's just logically, that's just logical. If you take any organism like, say, a sun flower, and you plant it in the right area, where it can draw the right nourishment from the soil, where I get the right amount of sunlight, etc. It'll try.

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joegriffin: You put it into an environment where it can't get his needs met. It won't try. Just as true as a flower is true of a human being.

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joegriffin: so the environment is important, for the environment is all important. In fact, there was a tremendous naturalistic experiment that occurred in 1,975 way back as far as that.

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joegriffin: And that was the end of the Vietnam war, I'm sure. Do you know. I'm sure you're familiar with this tens of thousands heavily addicted to heroin. The American Government paralyzed with fear. Oh, my God, we're bringing these terrible people home. They will take over the mafia, they will, they will destroy our society. They were terrified.

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joegriffin: so they monitored them for the next couple of years, and, as you know, ez he perspented him, give up heroin

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joegriffin: is not possible. You cannot give up heroin. You're a heroin addict for life, but they just give it up. And why did they give it up? They gave it up because they had a an environment wherein their needs could be met. Loving families, supportive relationships jobs. It'll go into special programs for the Gis to go to university special race, etc. And the ones who didn't give it up were the ones who couldn't get their needs met. They had Ptsd, they came from broken families. They had psychological. That's other psychological problems.

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joegriffin: So it's just

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joegriffin: obviously true and borne up by the evidence that is, the environment holds the key

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joegriffin: to mental illness, holds the key to addiction. Now

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joegriffin: there are. The environment is is one of 3 factors in a toxic, an environment when you can't get your needs met with predisp addiction or depression or anxiety disorders.

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joegriffin: But the second factor is that a person may be suffering from some form of damage

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joegriffin: that's preventing them from getting their needs met. Now, this could be a that could be a damage to a brain, a car accident, it could be dementia.

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joegriffin: But when I worked in rehab supervising the training of addiction counsellors, I often found that the damage was most often psychological.

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joegriffin: They were suffering either from undiagnosed bipolar disorder, which was surprisingly common, and the people were drinking to try and regulate their moods they were suffering from untreated post traumatic stress disorder.

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joegriffin: This could be from the results of car accidents. It could be from the results of being bullied at work. It could be the result of being an abusive relationshipers, or sexually or sexually attacked, or whatever.

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joegriffin: But they were, had a major trauma, and the addiction was an attempt to cope with that. So.

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joegriffin: and in some cases people were missing key life skills that prevented him getting on with their life.

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joegriffin: Now these people, for example, might, might might might be say, have a neuro might be might have a dur, as we now call a neuro diversion personality. But

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joegriffin: our brain organization, but very often that can be accompanied with certain deficits, say, in social skills and being able to read people in being able to have the skills to form relationships.

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joegriffin: and that was their vulnerability to addiction. So we have to look at what is it is preventing this people from getting their needs met and remove those barriers to the right form of therapy.

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joegriffin: Now, when we get into specifically what's required for addition, there's an additional component that's required

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joegriffin: which hypnotists would be brilliant at. That's laughing. You're ready.

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Aidan Noone: Right? Well, no, let's let's let's go there, Joe, because in terms of of hypnotherapy. And indeed, you know you you mentioned that it was. It was precisely because you knew the benefits of hypnotherapy that you wanted to get it into the Nhs in the UK. So maybe you continue with with that through with that train piece

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joegriffin: to be able to help a person

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joegriffin: recover from addiction, we need a plan, and there's 3 elements to the plan for it to work. 1 one of those elements is that

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joegriffin: we have to. We have to be able to get help them remove the barriers. So them getting their needs met. Whether that is a lack of certain form of social skills, whether that is a form of trauma needs treatment, whatever it might be. We have to first help them get treatment for bipolar disorder.

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joegriffin: but we have to. We have to remove the barrier. The second thing we have to do is

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joegriffin: we have to help them to identify high risk situations because the desire for a cigarette could be triggered, or or drink, or whatever might be cocaine, can be triggered off so fast in the brain that you are overwhelmed by it. So we have to be able to anticipate these high risk situations and go into them with raised consciousness and having a plan to deal with it.

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joegriffin: What happens if now, if I go into the pub and I'm off a drink, what am I going to do? And it's not persuaded. Try to persuade me to have a drink. What's my plan?

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joegriffin: So we need a plan for hybrid situations

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joegriffin: that the third element is threatened. Therapy comes in. The third element. Is this.

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joegriffin: a person who has an addictive habit

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joegriffin: has programmed a set of expectations into their brain about the joy and the good feelings and the euphoria

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joegriffin: that the addictive habit is going to give them, whether it is buying or purchasing out of control, or just drinking water. Just cocaine, whereas cigarettes doesn't matter gambling whatever. But

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joegriffin: but they have a set of expectations that this is going to give them great feelings.

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joegriffin: and these set of expectations are completely unrealistic, because they are the result of what's called euphoric recall. That is, the addiction circuit in the brain edits our experiences, and it cuts out all the bad side of the addictive habit

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joegriffin: if we want to remember, you know, all the times when we went out and got drunk, and we think about and we talk about it. Our friends. We only remember the laughter and that kind of crack we had, and all the rest of it. We we forget about the fact that we fell down into a bush in the way home, and tore our best suit. We forget about the fact that we went to kiss our child good night and bounce it all over them. We we

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joegriffin: we forget about the fact that waking up in the morning, trembling and shaking, can't remember what we did. Pray into God that we haven't done some terrible or said some terribly ruined the rest of our lives. Oh, shame and bad stuff is cut out! We just get to euphoric home or thinking of it. And

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joegriffin: what hypnotic can do is we have to reverse those expectations

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joegriffin: we have to program in pain expectations. If we indulge in the addiction.

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joegriffin: Great ex positive expectations. If we stop doing it, we have to fix the expectations. And it's okay doing cognitive talking about it. But it doesn't get anywhere near the effectiveness of going into the imagination, going into the rem state, the brains, natural programming state

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joegriffin: programming in real powerful negative expectations. So can I give you an example of what I mean by that? Absolutely. Yeah, please. Yeah, if somebody wants to give up smoking now, smoking is incredibly powerful addiction, and it really can strike someone's life.

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joegriffin: I mean, we a dozen all the time. Tens of thousands of people die from it. Now people have positive expectations associated with smoking. But in the

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joegriffin: hypnotic state we can start to reprogram that we could say, and language is going to be very important here because we don't want to say that somebody's going to get cancer, because that would be that that would be anti-teraput would be wrong.

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joegriffin: All we can say, is a lot of people who who smoke continually.

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joegriffin: Yet cancer is the result of it. Now, I'd like you to imagine what could not, what will happen. What could have happened to you had you continued to smoke?

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joegriffin: Had you continued to smoke, you could have found yourself in the future in a hospital bed seriously ill from the effects of smoking.

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joegriffin: Your life

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joegriffin: is in danger. You may have a terminal illness, it may be lung cancer, it could be heart disease.

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joegriffin: and your children, the people you love have gathered around your bed. and they're dared to say goodbye to you.

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joegriffin: and your children'll come over and they're hugging you, and they're saying, Please don't die, Dad, please don't die. We don't want you to die, Dad, and you know there's nothing you can do about it. Cigarettes are packed you in. It's over. You love, far as the children are concerned. You love the facts more than you love them.

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joegriffin: You're never going to be. See them go to school. You're never going to see them get their first jobs. You're never going to be there to see them get married, and all those wonderful experiences that they wanted to share with you have been stolen off yo by these cigarettes.

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joegriffin: So I want you to say no to smoking, because that doesn't have to happen. It does not have to be that way.

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joegriffin: You can live for years, if not decades longer. Once you quit smoking, and all these wonderful experiences can be yours, waking up in the morning to in a deep breath, and feeling more alive because you're a non smoker, be able to think more clearly about your brain polluted, having more energy and fitness.

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joegriffin: more self esteem, because most intelligent people, people like that, most intelligent people don't smoke anymore.

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joegriffin: for if you're an intelligent person you wouldn't be here right away, and all that guilt about smoke

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joegriffin: luck, start counting the tens of thousands of pounds you're going to save over the next number of years by being a non smoker. So we reverse that condition. You see, if even the part of a flag comes into your mind. I want you to immediately see yourself coughing and wheezing, and mouthfuls of snot coming up and see yourself in that hospital bed dying, and your children begging you to come home and say No, no to smoking, and if you do that in hypnosis, in, isn't that 10 times more powerful.

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joegriffin: Yes, yes, it's an acceleration there. Oh, yes, and it just becomes more emotionally real to them. And I don't mind if I see tears coming down the rise cause I'm trying to save this person's life. Yes, of course.

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Aidan Noone: And and just on that Joe, with regard to, you know, beyond the importance of beliefs. and what we believe is almost like a wish fulfilment. And you know II come back to

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Aidan Noone: II come back to that what? What we actually believe actually happens. So what do you say to someone who? Th, there's a there's a there's a a train of a school of thought, or there what I want to call it that you know. They say that what smoking isn't isn't an addiction.

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joegriffin: Well, of course the word addiction is is is an abstraction, and then we have to pack of what we actually mean by it, and I never get into arguments about whether something is an addiction or not, you have, at the moment itself immediately got a compulsive behavior that is interfering with the quality of your life, and likely to do you immense damage in the future. But you want to call it a habit or an addiction is neither here nor there. I want to help you that control.

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joegriffin: Yeah, you know.

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Aidan Noone: yeah, that that II like that because you know, th, when you talk about compulsive behavior, it it gives it a different slant, you know again, and thank you for that. Now, on page 82, you mentioned that logic never cured addiction. But your emotions can.

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joegriffin: Yes.

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joegriffin: exactly that exactly that. Every person who's smoking a packet, in fact, a day knows they shouldn't smoke. They know other reasons why they shouldn't smoke logically. They want to stop, cause their service show that most of them want to stop. But they can't

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joegriffin: just plain logic won't do it

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joegriffin: and and the main reason, I won't do it is we have to understand how cravings are set off. That's one of the things we have to understand is a really powerful piece of knowledge around cravings, because a lot of people are terrified to give up their drink or excessive drinking, or their cocaine or their cigarettes, whatever it might be.

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joegriffin: because they think they're going to suffer terrible withdrawal symptoms.

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joegriffin: And the really important piece of knowledge is, you do not have to have severe withdrawal symptoms. They're completely controlled.

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joegriffin: All you have to do is have a mild piece of discomfort, because withdrawal symptoms come in 2 stages. The first stage is a physiological.

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joegriffin: a piece of discomfort. Now this is mild. the strongest piece of physiological discomfort you can have. but as a withdrawal symptom is a hunger pack, because without food we die.

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joegriffin: and yet niche will not allow you to get a lot of pain with a hunger pan, because if food is not available to it, you have to have a clear head to go out and hunt for it and find you can't do that if you're consumed with emotional pain, so we're not designed, we shouldn't be getting strong withdrawal symptoms, but we can get them.

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joegriffin: And it's because of this two-stage process. The first stage is just a feeling of discomfort like you get. Oh, yeah, maybe I got cup of tea or sang. That's mired.

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joegriffin: But the next stage is, if you now indulge a fantasy about oh, how I'd love to have a cigarette. No, God, I'm really going to have a cigarette that triggers off a massive dopamine release

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joegriffin: which creates a really powerful craving

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joegriffin: which is almost impossible to suppress, and even if you do suppress it once, the next time you indulge that fantasy, your willpower has erode it a bit more and bit more, and you will inevitably go back. You cannot do it just through logic. You have to understand how to stop triggering off the withdrawal symptoms, the cravings. And you do that.

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joegriffin: Buy as soon as you get the feeling of discomfort, a bit of awareness in here that you want to fag. Are you like some cocaine, or you'd like a drink of alcohol? Is half as 4 usually have a drink at half as far as the client said to me yesterday,

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joegriffin: as soon as you get that awareness coming comes into your body, you must immediately knock it on the head with negative imagery

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joegriffin: that you will have programmed into your ideally in the hypnotary session, and you'll immediately see if it's a cigarette. See yourself wheezing and coughing up snot and wheezing, and not able to breathe, and struggling for breath, and your children crying, and all the rest, and you just knock it on the head.

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joegriffin: The price of recovery is, you must never allow a positive fantasy to go unchanged. That's the price of recovery over time. Those fantasies will come less and less, and just wear out.

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Aidan Noone: Yes, yeah. yeah. All very valuable information, Joan. Thank you for that.

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Aidan Noone: in in terms of the work on the research you've done. I mean, it has been, you know.

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Aidan Noone: groundbreaking work research that you have published.

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joegriffin: Indeed.

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joegriffin: indeed, we have shown

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joegriffin: that the human given sarity, which is a brief solution focused therapy

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joegriffin: focused upon direct, directly solving the problems are getting in the way of people having a life and using the most powerful tools available, including guided imagery, and using reason as well as as you would in cognitive characters, using those tools that

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joegriffin: you can help most people who are in distress in a handful recessions.

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joegriffin: It doesn't have to be years of therapy. It's not practical any more. There's so many people who are mentally ill. It's just not practical, and we got people waiting 6 and 9 months before their before their GP. Can send him to a therapist.

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joegriffin: Just so wrong.

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joegriffin: Yeah, yeah. Now have the evidence. Antidepressants don't work. don't work any better than placebo.

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joegriffin: and it's about one in 3. People get some benefit from them. That's not the answer.

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Aidan Noone: No, no, yeah.

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Aidan Noone: In your book. I think you you talk about the expectation, fulfillment of dreams in that

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Aidan Noone: can explain how that relates to addiction, or, if if possible.

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joegriffin: Well.

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joegriffin: the reason why we dream is that in the course of every day we have expectation. Now, expectations are not wishes like Freud would have said, and expectation is something that physiologically arouses you or anticipate. Something is going to happen.

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joegriffin: or you have a desire to do something.

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joegriffin: and either this thing doesn't happen, or you suppress desire to do it. You want to hit your butt at boss. Chatter in the face for his ways. Disrespect disrespected you, and I marginalized your work, and you'd love to hear it. Of course you don't

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joegriffin: no drop and end up in jail. But that update

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joegriffin: students has your nervous system, wanting to get out suppressed impulses to build up day after day

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joegriffin: we will go and say so. Nature takes the brain offline in our sleep.

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joegriffin: When dream state takes the brain off line, the body is paralyzed, and the suppressed impulses from waking

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joegriffin: are now acted out metaphorically packed by pattern match. So why is reality react them out and they're switched off most of our dreams. We don't even remember.

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joegriffin: Now, this pertains addictions in 2 ways. If you suppress a desire for a cigarette. You may well have a dream, and you may remember it

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joegriffin: that night where you smoke a cigar, but don't be bothered about it.

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joegriffin: because that is your brain getting rid of that addictive impulse. filling it and then switching it off online, just getting clearing it out of the brain.

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joegriffin: So it's not happy the next day as much strongly. That's one thing. The other thing is.

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joegriffin: as you know, as you know, know, of course, in that we now have a scientific explanation for hypnosis, and it's getting people into the Rem state where M. State was. The brains originally used to program the fetus in his mother's womb.

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joegriffin: with the templates for being human, how to suck a breast, how to swallow, how to.

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joegriffin: how, how templates for walking templates, for language which all come out in their own time when they're due.

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joegriffin: And it's the brain's programming state and true hypnosis. We can access that state. And that's why we can reprogram the expectations it hasn't.

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joegriffin: We're giving up the addiction negative with continuing it

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joegriffin: so because the expectations here your dreaming board explains hypnosis and also explains it not to be rattled. If you do have a dream in which we relapse, just the brain clearing out that impulse that you successfully suppress the previous days of stuff to clap in the back. That's great. I'm just getting my brain getting rid of it.

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Aidan Noone: So so we have. You know, we have in built on us that that mechanism to reconcile something that is gone awry within us.

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joegriffin: Yes, yeah, absolutely. It's and all it all. It all come about true hot loveliness.

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joegriffin: Before we got hot blooded we had to wait for the sun to warm us up me to fly in a rock or hang around until we we got the energy. Now we weren't human beings back then.

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joegriffin: but once hot bloodedness come into being. creatures would run around, do all kinds of things, go and hunt at night and do all kinds of things. But that required massive energy.

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joegriffin: and the brain had to work out an energy conservation method that we didn't waste energy. So it increased the cortex, and all animals have learned to dream

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joegriffin: so that the cortex could take a second look at an impulse and say, Is that really a rabbit that's in the bush there, or is that just something that's blowing there? And it stopped us, acting out every impulse we got, because once we had hot bloodlines we could give, invent every impulse. What we started, you know, we burned all those calories so the hot bloodliness and and the expectation of dreams came about so the brain could suppress impulses that weren't going to be advent like life enhancing.

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joegriffin: But then you had to get them out of the brain, and then, dreaming, became the mechanism to get them safely out of the brain.

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Aidan Noone: And that's it's a one, you know we we it's fascinating, and I'm not telling you something. You don't know, Joey, you know more than I, but did the capacity that the human beings have within our within, our, within our heads, to, you know, heal ourselves, and indeed, how that healing, if you want to call it, or that bring in things the resolution can actually be

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accelerated using.

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joegriffin: I should say, guided imagery are using at the formal hypnosis or the self hypnosis tool in our in our armory.

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joegriffin: the the use, the guided use of our own imaginations, to redirect our lives away from

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joegriffin: harmful negative impulses, and to motivate us to do things that will be life-enhancing for us. It's fantastic.

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Aidan Noone: Yeah, thank you, Joe. Thank you very much for all this very really valuable stuff we're talking about. And I know our listeners and our viewers will find it hugely beneficial and benefiting from from your experience and your knowledge and your teaching. Would you comment, Joe, if you could, on

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Aidan Noone: the correlation upon it. One call is correct, to use the correct term, the comorbidity, we say, of depression and addiction.

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joegriffin: well. and a client I had yesterday has worked on an alcohol addiction and is on antidepressants. Yeah. And

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joegriffin: so they're quite often comorbid and quite often correspondent, and it was clear from my when I, when I got all the background information from my client yesterday that this person, prior to their addiction, had been struggling with negative moods.

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joegriffin: I mean, since childhood impact, I've been struggling with negative, with negative moods, had did not have great anxiety management skills. But practically none of them no exactly 0, and a anxiety, anxiety, management skills. There were problems at home, his father being an alcoholic, etcetera.

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joegriffin: and he had been

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joegriffin: depressed from a young age. So when he discovered alcohol it seemed like an answer to a problem. It got him away from all the negative rumination. It got him. It lured the anxiety, and it seemed like a a miracle drug to him.

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joegriffin: But very often, as you know, tolerance gets up to it. So you have to take more and more of it.

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joegriffin: and then he gets married in his young family. His wife doesn't want to see somebody who's out of it sitting, and says beside her, trying to watch television. She takes a look at him and she can see he's out of it.

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joegriffin: That's why you end up my office. Because, she said, I'm not going to blow up this with the next 30 years. Either you get started or this is over.

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joegriffin: 1 one of the things that came as a revelation to him is that

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joegriffin: when I explained to you an addiction like alcohol.

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joegriffin: the reason why your partner will

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joegriffin: very often in the end end. The relationship is because

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joegriffin: your relationship has ceased to be with your partner. Your relationship is now without God.

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joegriffin: It's alcohol that you think about all the time when you're under stress, it's alcohol that you're looking for secret and solace. And so you, the alcohol has stolen your relationship. You're no longer emotionally intimate with your partner. Your emotional intimacy is with the addictive habit.

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joegriffin: and so the partner feels belittles

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joegriffin: and eventually won't be able to take it. And that was a revelation. Nobody ever explained to me that the alcohol was stealing the intimacy intimacy for my wife. I was destroying that reason. So it's interesting. So, and the alcoholism go back to your question. Aid car bought a car for the same reason as an attempt. The

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joegriffin: The depression is the consequence, not getting needs met, and excessive rumination leading to excessive dreaming, leading to brain exhaustion, and the other part, it's an attempt to try and manipulate that. So from the same place, in a way.

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Aidan Noone: absolutely. And if if I could stretch the envelope, Joe, if I could. You know so many young people nowadays are, you know, doing suicide? Would you comment on that? And how we could.

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Aidan Noone: you know, hub or as therapists, what we need to do?

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joegriffin: It is so sad, so sad. When a person commits suicide almost even more sad when it's a young person with a whole attention legitimate.

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joegriffin: Now.

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joegriffin: the reason people

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joegriffin: comm commit suicide. You can get books that was stretched from one end of my office to the other, all putting forward to why people commit suicide on all kinds of things. But there was ever only one reason that will ever be only one reason why a person gets success.

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joegriffin: and that reason is they have no hope, a better future.

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joegriffin: That's the reason.

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joegriffin: It's not that they want out of this life. It's that they want out of the pain. They have no hope that they can cure. If they could see that there was a possibility in the future getting rid of the emotional distress during they wouldn't kill themselves. It's because they got no hope of a better future

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joegriffin: key. Life needs not being met. and they've got no hope. So the most important job when we're with somebody was suicidal in that first session is we've got to build whole. That recovery is faster

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joegriffin: during now is temporary, and that it can change. That's the most important thing in therefore session, because otherwise they may kill themselves or single session

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joegriffin: we got. We got the best hope of recovery.

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joegriffin: and then we have to take a look at? What is it that they're missing? Are they missing key life skills? Are they missing emotional management skills? Are they missing communication skills.

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joegriffin: What is it? Had they got untreated? Ptsd.

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joegriffin: what is it that's stopping them, making their life work? I mean, you have to work

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joegriffin: removing those barriers.

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joegriffin: But I do need clear thinking the other tip I can give you. If you're dealing with some of your suicidal.

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joegriffin: don't try and get them to sign a contract that they won't kill themselves. because that's just depressing to me anymore.

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joegriffin: Yeah, the moment they see their suicide as one solution to their problems. And you're taking that away from them.

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joegriffin: Yeah, no, no, that's that's not a good place to go at all. But instead, what you do is you ask them to agree to a postball.

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joegriffin: I will you agree to postpone killing yourself? Say on. Let me do 5 sessions together, 3 sessions together, and then see how you feel, would you be able to make that for you recommend beyond reasonable, should never do. But would you be willing to postpone, and that seems much more accessible to them.

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Aidan Noone: Hmm.

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Aidan Noone: Was involved with a very well known Uk. Ireland charity.

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And one of the questions we would have asked people is, do you really want to die, or do you just want the pain to go away?

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joegriffin: Love it.

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Aidan Noone: you know.

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Aidan Noone: and that that I think that can combine what you're saying, I think puts in somewhat into perspective.

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joegriffin: Yes.

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for them.

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joegriffin: as a suicide has been beautifully described as a permanent solution to a temporary problem. Yeah, yeah, that's the problem with suicide is permanent. But your problems are temporary. They can be solved because you get yourself into this emotional state.

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joegriffin: But you can only do catastrophic thinking because all your all your higher intelligence is inhibited by the high levels of stress you're experiencing.

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joegriffin: you are convinced that there's no solution possible. Convinced that your reality can change. And that's why, if we do, relaxation and guide, damage your hypnosis with him, get their down.

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joegriffin: talk to them about the resources that they have, and open up the possibility of change

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very often get them out of that suicidal state.

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Aidan Noone: Yeah, very powerful statement there, jaw opening up. Because, you know, as we know.

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clients are present with, with many issues to have this fulfilled vision.

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joegriffin: and they're focused in a one single point, the exclusion of everything else. And it's it's, I suppose it's it's our. It's our job, or to help people to, you know, get in touch with that the power sympathetic, they, they that part of the brain that enables us to see things in in right perspective. Yeah. Perspective.

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joegriffin: Yes.

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Aidan Noone: yeah. no.

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Aidan Noone: You may have answered this, Joe, and again I'm in all of not just because you're sitting in front of me here on the screen. But I'm in all of the work that you've done because you you've revolutionized in my mind many areas of working with with clients.

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Aidan Noone:  the just to perhaps highlight again

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Aidan Noone: your book. What could you say that? What are the common misconceptions about addiction? Again, just to focus in again? If you don't mind that your book aimed to correct.

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joegriffin: Well, firstly, that addiction is a biological illness that you're stuck with for the rest of your life. That is a very depressing thought

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joegriffin: and holy. Now, some people, some people benefit from the idea that they've got a disease and and helps relieve guilt and helps their people around, and to treat them better. So there's a certain humanity was bought about because people started saying it was a disease, but it also bought about a certain hopelessness. You're stuck with the rest of your life. You had to stay continual therapy and support groups for the rest of your life. And it's just not true.

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joegriffin: It's just not true. I'm I'm just right now. I'm just thinking of a man who can see me. A number of years ago he was given a life expectancy of 2 years he was. He was in his forties, a life expectant. He'd been trying out of every rehab in Ireland.

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joegriffin: He was heavily using

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joegriffin: heroin and alcohol. He couldn't leave his house until afternoon, because he wouldn't be able to get the shakes under control. You have to get that much alcohol into him.

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joegriffin: and III worked with him.

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joegriffin: and you would think you know that. Well, this guy is definitely got a biological illness. He's going to be an addict for the rest of his life. He's going to have been therapy for the rest of his life.

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joegriffin: But actually that guy still alive 20 years later

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joegriffin: it happily is happily married.

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joegriffin: He chose not to drink again, because he felt that was the right thing for him.

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joegriffin: but he's not giant in in in a support group or a, or whatever he developed a whole career, went back, went to university in his forties, got qualifications, developed a career for himself, got into his. His previous marriage had been destroyed by his.

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joegriffin: Don't have it. But he got into a new relationship that has survived for 20 years.

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joegriffin: and Kai is happy, a well functioning member of society.

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joegriffin: and

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joegriffin: feel that he's been so much more empowered by the idea that you can recover from an addiction and take back control over your life

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joegriffin: rather than feeling that you have to be supportive for the rest of your life

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joegriffin: outside of your family and your friends. So it's it's empowering self empowering. It is self-empowering.

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Aidan Noone: you know. I've got nothing against a or something like that. If people benefit from them, I would never dream of interfering with their approach.

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joegriffin: But if people don't want to go to a magazine, it's perfectly possible to recover

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joegriffin: and take back control of your life.

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joegriffin: and you can do that if you learn the skills that you will need to be sober and get your life going. And you went to work with me on this incredibly boss

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Aidan Noone: the human given skills. As you mentioned, we mentioned earlier.

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Aidan Noone: One quote from the book that struck me was, you won't pursue a behaviour that threatens your health and your life unless you believe it also offers something that you value highly.

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joegriffin: Yes, yes, that is that that is so true.

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joegriffin: I mean addiction.

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joegriffin: It's so destructive. So there has to be some really positive gain.

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joegriffin: And that's why I don't really

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joegriffin: hold

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joegriffin: with therapeutic approaches say the addiction does nothing for you.

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joegriffin: It is doing something for you. If we don't, what the person thinks they're getting out of their addiction, they may not be getting. They think the expectation to believe the addiction is doing this for them. If we don't tackle that head on

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joegriffin: and dismantle it, take it apart

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joegriffin: and show that you know it's not really doing what you think it is in the short term. It can relieve emotional pain and distress known of exacerbating those conditions. And that's what we have to help them to see.

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joegriffin: Yeah, we have to not see that, but also help them create ways. You see

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joegriffin: what addiction the vulnerability to addiction arises, because it's tapping into something that's really powerful in our human brain, and that is.

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joegriffin: we have the capacity to get natural heights.

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joegriffin: Nature never intended us to be on an eve and sober boring keel for 24, 7 a day. Nature wanted us to get excited and passionate and delighted and chill.

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joegriffin: and nature gives us natural highs, especially when we achieve something.

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joegriffin: When we do something, achieve something, learn something, we get naturalized.

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joegriffin: Yeah. And those feelings make life meaningful and worthwhile.

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joegriffin: This achievement, stretching, challenging, learning.

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joegriffin: But addiction hijacks that circle that circle releases dopamine, which is what addiction hijacks. and the person is now getting heis. at least nearly stages of addiction

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joegriffin: artificially from their drug or their gambling, or whatever sex diction, whatever it is

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joegriffin: over time. Of course, the highest get worn out. And yeah, and you're just. And you're just trying to control the low feelings. So yet the person believes they're getting something from it, and we have to help them to see that it is an illusion. That is a temporary relief.

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joegriffin: It's like buying money from a loan shark. You kind of get a very short term bit of relief. But they're going to be back demanding so much payment and interest off you. It's gonna make you like 10 times worse.

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Aidan Noone: Yes, yeah, absolutely. And what advice, Joe, would you give to family members or friends who are trying to support some one who is in addiction.

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joegriffin: Now, isn't that really really good? Because people so often go about it their own way? First thing we have to recognize is

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joegriffin: that recovery from addiction?

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joegriffin: It's not something the person just wakes up one morning says, that's it. I never drink again. I'm sober, doesn't happen, or I never smoke again. It doesn't happen, although people who have recovered love to invent a a retrospective story whereby they just decided to do it on their own, and they did it. 90'clock on the 20 to June I become a non smoker.

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joegriffin: In reality we know from research that there's a long term process that the person undergoes before they get control over an addictive habit.

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joegriffin: and that process first of all, starts with being in nobody. Addiction.

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joegriffin: Person is literally in love. This is fantastic. I get rid of all my shyness, my and my my inhibitions. When I when I when I when I snark cocaine, or I drink the alcohol or the facts really help me to relax, and they give me confidence.

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joegriffin: So at first the person is in love. Pre contemplation are denial, as we say in the old days.

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joegriffin: Then the person starts over. Time starts around. That is a bit of a costume, and I'm getting hangovers now worse than I used to get, and it's starting to cost me more and more money. And so, and I've been going into work or a bit hungover. So the person starts to notice the negative bit. So now there's a weighing scales in their brain, and they're saying.

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joegriffin: This is the price. This is the pain that addiction caused me. But this is the pleasure.

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joegriffin: Now, at this stage relatives and friends are noticing this person's drinking, or whatever is out of control, and they think they want to put pressure on to stop controlling it.

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joegriffin: But in a way that's only adding. that's that's that's at

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joegriffin: puts them back into denial, because they know that they're getting pleasure out of and is helping them cope with life.

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joegriffin: and it's going to make them feel resistant.

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joegriffin: resistant. And you don't want them to be resistant. You want them to be able to look objectively at what they're doing.

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joegriffin: So you could at this stage

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joegriffin: ask meaningful questions so that are non-treating, and ask them, Are you happy with what's happening, do you? How how do you feel after it? Do you have any concerns about the money.

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joegriffin: Is this causing any problems for your work? You could ask questions, but no advice, and, above all, no criticism. If you want to help.

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joegriffin: you want to have the process along. So they start to review their behavior.

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joegriffin: and at a certain point, in time they will say to themselves, the pain is worse than the gain. It's not worth it any more to string.

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joegriffin: I'm sick of smoking, that's the truth. I'm sick of smoke. Yeah. But now they move into what's called the determination phase. They are now getting determined or psyching themselves up, to really do something about it.

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joegriffin: At that stage we can ask them, you know. What plan do you have? How? How might you go about it? And then the next stage is day. They actually do something, take action. They quit smoking on that Monday morning they go to rehab. They go see hypotenuse, they do something.

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joegriffin: They undertake action. As a result of that action div either cut down, or they have cut out the dictor habits.

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joegriffin: So that means they move into maintenance. And that's the really tricky face. But there's something really powerful to know here, and that is

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joegriffin: that most addicts I'm using inverter comments for that most addicts

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joegriffin: first attempt, maybe even a second or third attempt at getting on top of an addiction are going to relapse. Relapse is part of the journey of recovery. So when you have somebody in front of you saying, I've got no willpower. I've tried to quit smoking 5 times. I've always gone back and say, Oh, hang on! Hang on! Tell me how long. Tell me about it. How long, you know? Why did you stop? How long? Just? Oh, I sit off at once for 2 weeks. Wow! That is fantastic. That is a great achievement.

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joegriffin: People who succeed ultimately have had a number of attempts, and the ones who succeed learn from the attempts. Why did I go back? I went into a I went into a high risk situation. I had no plan.

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joegriffin: Why did I go back? I was under pressure at work, and I didn't have any other coping skills until I went back.

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joegriffin: So you learn to build into your recovery plan strategies for dealing with those high risk situations in the future. So we do not argue. You make up. If you argue with somebody who's not it, you're going to make them worse. You're going to make them more defensive.

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joegriffin: but we can ask questions, helping them to explore. Where are they at? We can. if they, if they've moved where they say I'm sick of this, I really, I really want to quit. We can explore. Well, how do you think you might go about it? Do you think you might need professional health

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joegriffin: and maybe help them create some options here to get some professional help. That's an avenue they're willing to explore. but it has to be done supportively and not aggressively and not attacking him, because you'd only make the addiction worse.

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Aidan Noone: Excellent and accent just just to sort of lighten it up a bit. Can you tell us the story, Joe, if you don't mind of the lady with the toothache.

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joegriffin: Yes. Do you remember this lady really, really, really well? She came to see me, and done the routine which I had her give up smoking. I was taking it back, and she rang me the next day.

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joegriffin: and she said Jo, she said, I am desperate for a cigarette, she said. I am so desperate for a cigarette. I am ready to murder my children.

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joegriffin: I am ready to kill my children, Jo. So what should I do? Yeah. So to answer a couple of questions for me. she said, yes, yes, good armoured. Yes. I said. Have you ever had

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joegriffin: a bad toothache?

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joegriffin: She said. Yes, now remember what the pain of a bat, too, Dick, and you remember it said yes. Now tell me honestly, which is worse.

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joegriffin: bad, tootic your desire for cigarettes. Hold it back to

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joegriffin: said, Okay, let me ask you another question. Have you ever had a mile nagging Tuesday.

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joegriffin: Wouldn't go away.

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joegriffin: said yes. Can you one just remember a time when you had that

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joegriffin: frustrating? It wasn't how it upset you.

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joegriffin: Now tell me honestly, which is worse, that my nagging won't go away, Toota, for your desire for it back.

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joegriffin: So what I suppose that might not intrude is worse.

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joegriffin: So answer me one more question

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joegriffin: when you get the desire for a fact. How long does it last? With that advice perked up a little bit, and she said, Oh, I'm not telling you a word of a life. Is that standing up to 5 min? I said, Okay, let me get this right now. You are ready to murder your children

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joegriffin: for a piece of discomfort that's milder than a miletot, and it's going to be gone in a few minutes

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joegriffin: which just forced out laughing. And

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joegriffin: and what happened inside her brain was she had released the big dope memories, fantasizing about the cigarette, craving her that she couldn't cope with it but once I can. The down took a mind away from the craving cause that's going to go on more objectively. She could see that she was being full.

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joegriffin: Been taking it.

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Aidan Noone: Yeah. excellent. That's a wonderful demonstration of how we can, you know, dissipate

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th the the anxiety or whatever that's causing the the stress at the moment.

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Aidan Noone: In in conclusion, Joel, if there was something finally, you would just like to impart to our audience. Her listening book. But

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Aidan Noone: what would you say finally, to people listening and watching?

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joegriffin: I would, I would say

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joegriffin: III think that most of your viewers are going to hit the terrorists. Am I right? Assuming that? Yes, yes. I would say that

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joegriffin: hypnoty is potentially one of the most effective and most powerful tools in existence for helping people with distress. but it is imperative that we learned to use it

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joegriffin: with the right psychological understandings and not be captured into out-of-date understandings which could actually fascinate

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Aidan Noone: absolutely. Yeah, excellent. And that's

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mean II can't make that any better than or say it any expressive better than you've done to you. It was eminently expressed and very well expressed, and thank you so much for

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Aidan Noone: all was your generosity in talking to me and giving of your valuable time. and I urge anyone out there therapist non therapists to go and buy your books because they they are. They do speak, practical truth.

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knowledge and stuff that it can be implemented and actioned in a very short period of time. Joe Griffin, eminent

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Aidan Noone: psychologists, thank you so much for your time. Take care.

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joegriffin: thank you, Amy.

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joegriffin: Bye, bye, for now bye, now.