Episode 36 The Gamble of Hunter...Payoff of Addiction 10-22-2023

Sat, Nov 04, 2023 10:08AM • 24:25

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

payoff, good, feel, sense, win, excitement, behavior, novelty, gambling, skill, big, survival, realize, lottery ticket, food, seek, engagement, life, hunting, emotions

Welcome back, folks to Episode 36 of the Running Man self regulation skills and self improvement project podcast. With me your host, Dr. Armando Dominguez, PhD in health psychology, a licensed professional counselor and an adjunct professor of the local community college, and we'll be discussing today is something that parallels a number of things we've been discussing up until now. And that has to do with variable schedule payoff, something that we talk about often whenever we have things along the lines of gambling, addiction, process addictions, whoever we're doing ritual things to do, and get things to help relieve anxiety, pressure and stress this sort of thing. But also, there's a payoff at the end. Often this happens whenever there's drug use anything where there is a payoff that too big, sometimes that does not happen often. And unlike drug use, wherever you get an expected result, that is the payoff. The gambling is a variable. payoffs get on the center, you don't know when you're going to get the payout. But if you've ever gotten the big payoff, you understand that that drives the behavior in the sense that there's an expectation of that possibility, because it can happen, you can get the big one. And then after that, often we see a deterioration of behavior, wherever there's the seek behavior, or seeking behavior to pursue and continue to repeat that behavior, because we know the payoffs available. And we're going to get it on the next one. If I do it right, this next time, it's going to happen again. So for today's discussion, the parallel is going to be how does this pay off not unlike gambling, serve for survival purposes? And why is it that we can become so accustomed, and so addicted to a behavior that we can't stop to the point where we start getting rid of all of our worldly goods that we've worked so hard for, and then try to continue to pursue this behavior? And what does that have to do with self regulation and survival? So that's kind of the underlying question that we're going to be addressing today. So how is gambling a parallel to survival? How is doing something that there's a variable payoff or there's a thrill seek, wherever you get some payoff or some sort of, there's no guarantee of payoff, or maybe the risk is really high? Well, we're going to use the term novelty to start this discussion. And novelty is something that does not occur in your every day, but may occur once in a while, or may see that it catches your attention and fancy. And this is akin to times whenever we have low energy, things going on in our life where things are. So I don't know routine, if you will, or may be so common and frequent that we become a little bored, they become easy, almost. And that boredom is a very physical thing, it is not merely an idea, it is not a lack of wherewithal or engagement is just that the things that we're experiencing, most frequently do not raise our eyebrow, they don't raise our attention. And we may do them, but it's become something that we engage in less effectively, because it feels less. Sometimes whenever you work out. Sometimes you have to change how the workout is going, and the type of workout because the body becomes accustomed. And that is a physical aspect that is not akin to boredom, but skill. But it can lead to boredom in the workout where somebody may lead doing that, versus realizing that maybe they need to change the type of behavior, workout behavior, to keep that engagement than interest sometimes. And those adjustments do make a big difference. Now, novelty tells us this is interesting, this is new and gathers our attention. Nine, every novel thing that is interesting to us is good for our health or good for our long term survival, or even our immediate survival such as that really critical pretty colored snake, not the king snake, but rather the coral snake that looks really shiny and pretty. But that is interesting looking if you have no experience or exposure to it, but also that brightness is supposed to get our attention because they are venomous. And unless we know that maybe the first person that experienced that realized very quickly, shiny is deadly. And those kinds of things we learn in a survival sense. And that was a gamble Was it not to be able to reach out and touch that snake so we take a risk So within the gambling of the novelty, there is a quality of unspoken risk sometimes, but definitely a feel for what it is that we consider not only interesting, but engaging. And it gives you that sense of excitement, that sense of Chase and pursuit, whenever something has been really boring in your life or life has been rather boring. And then all of a sudden, wow, that's new. That's exciting. And that can also be a trap. That could be a bait into things that you don't know could occur. And rarely is it a nefarious thing, because being able to play a game that promises some pay out is not evil by nature. But the fact is, we're wired to seek that sort of pleasure. We're hidden on it by nature, and those things that give us pleasure, but we play with all the lights like those slot machines, they used to pull the arm back and put a quarter in Las Vegas years back, those have been since replaced, I understand by the electronic ones that are push button. But it also kind of speeds up how frequently you want to engage with machines, coupled with oxygen, giving you that sense of not only mild euphoria, but awareness, and engagement. So a little bit of a false environment, not as it would be out in the woods, per se, if you were hunting for food. But some things we have to look at from the perspective of somebody who knows what our wiring is about what it does, where he died. So therefore, they gave us free drinks and all the lights and the sounds and music and excitement. And there's always this upbeat entertaining sound in the background called music. And then we have

infrequent wins, but such that we get some payoff that makes us believe, hey, I can do this somehow, as if it's a skill of sorts. And even though there's very little skill involved, and more so luck, as as it were. But it's also a matter of probability versus possibility. And the probability is, of course, always going to be in the favor of the house, they will lose some money, but they're going to win most of yours. And they're going to take most of yours. Versus you taken there's and every once in a while, yes, they do have big payouts. But these are the probabilities that we're working against, but also the possibility of winning the big pot, it's there, it's not like a never going to happen in this lifetime. It's not like a lightning strike versus one of the lottery, for instance, the changes aren't so bad, and that you could walk away with some small pocket change a couple 100 bucks, anything. But we have to realize that these are playing on the wiring. And these casinos have been into research, a lot of research that we'll never see in public that has to do with well, how can we wake these people up? How can we keep them engaged? How can we keep them spending into the wee hours versus going to sleep for eight hours and resting and free food on top of that. So that's another area wherever they become ingratiate it to us with them rather, because they're given us food. Sometimes you get free food, free breakfast, and it's incredibly good food. Like at a four star restaurant, this sort of thing in some cases, and for very little money. And even sometimes accommodations are given to you for free if you return. So why am I speaking about this? That's called stacking, we're stacking the sense of those that are the casinos all the pleasurable biomes or firings that will work together having to do with food, GO Station drink, and alcohol, those things that make us feel really good and relaxed. And also fun and novelty and interest in engagement. On top of feeling very alert and awake more so than you do in your regular life. Not that they're punching but pushing rather oxygen into the vent, to make sure that you breathe more air. And all of these things are stroking all of our pleasure centers. And when we leave there, many people come back exhausted, not realizing it wasn't the life of being busy, busy busy. What it was is the engagement and we're depleting ourselves of neurotransmitter in our nutrients that keep us awake. And the higher arousal make things exciting would tire ourselves out. So novelty is a very important thing. So what's the next important thing, realizing that whenever we have novelty, we have the potential for developing dependence or addiction because we've now found out how to make ourselves feel good. These people know how to make us feel good, and they've systemized it and they make money. Whenever we engage in it. It's almost like we ran into that one patch of strawberries, when we're okay people long time ago and man, we're lucky. And you know what I'm going back there, why those are good. And if we know that, we're going to remember not only how to go back there, we're going to remember where it's at. And we may even engage by eating a little more maybe taking a few with us start developing a status And this starts resembling what we would see with drug seeking behavior where we start having people hiding money, hiding food, hiding drugs, or hiding those extras for other people, so that way you can trip your triggers more frequently, and continue to revisit that heightened state of not only awareness, but pleasure, and maybe even to mitigate those effects of negative or uncomfortable or bad feelings or upset. And we may even be more apt to isolate, to do these behaviors, because we don't want anyone to stop us from tripping our own triggers. And it doesn't necessarily mean drugs alone, but doing things that make us feel good that we learn how to feel good. And many people will say things along the lines of doing things like exercising or ideas in a way that it may not be true, but it makes us feel good. They call that mental masturbation. And there's often a very physical sense to it that's in a non sexual way, doing things that are tripping our triggers that aren't so far from the truth. They're not so far from that either. But we are just seeking to pleasure ourselves, whether by food, whether by music, by touch, by sound, and leaving those things that we may ingest, that are mind altering substances, and they take us out of our normal range and put us into a place that we feel better, or we stop feeling that negative or maybe our anxiety is reduced, or depression goes away for a little bit. They're definitely problem solvers. And very effective, they're very efficient. And we pursue those and seek those because there is a benefit. It's not because you know that drugs are bad for you, for instance, or gambling is bad for you, or even internet. Excessive use is bad for you, we get something out of it. And everything is designed to keep us engaged. And if we know that we can limit some of those things, and keep them within a healthy range. I'm not here to say don't do this. I'm here to say let's be aware of why we do those things and why it becomes excess. And know that it's not because there's something wrong with you or because you're broken. It's not because of a lack of moral or ethical fiber in your body and your mind and spirit. It's neither of these things. We are wired. And whenever we figure out that things feel good, we are apt to and more than likely will turn to those things that are easier to do to make this feel good. It's a hard sell to do exercise and to get a runner's high. It's not a hard sell to be sitting around playing Xbox smoking, or drawing, or doing some sort of weed or kratom, or whatever, that's too easy. You just sit there on your backside and almost do nothing. And there is a big disparity in the amount of energy and effort required to feel good to get a runner's high, that may or may not happen, that becomes a variable pay off. But if I know I can get very similar with less, and not having to expend as much energy, maybe just a few bucks, and I could do it in the privacy of my home don't don't have to go out in the heat or the cold or the rain Well, which one of those do you think is going to win? We are he hedonic by nature, and we don't have to do anything hard to feel good, I'm doing that. And that's just our natural tendency. Now there are those that are disciplined and choose to go the route of I'm going to work for this. And that's okay, too. And we do get payoff from them. And there's definitely a sense of satisfaction there as well. I'm not saying the easy route is the best, what I'm saying is that we can turn to these around so much more easily. If we have had that variable payoff, like having the big one, if we want to a lottery ticket that was worth 5000 or $10,000, that's a pretty big hit. And more than likely that person is going to be more than likely buying more lottery tickets, probably beyond what the cost of the payout was over a lifetime. And if they really want a big one, forget it. I know a number of people that I've met that have won big lottery winnings went into the multi millions. And because it was a lottery ticket, they played daily. And they may have the money to do that now. But they run the risk and they never win as big as it seems. Now there are very few people that are recorded to have done that. But that's like getting struck by lightning twice. And that's very rare. We can almost say unique, so keeping things in context. So why is this important to our survival and self regulation. One is recognizing that we aren't wired to seek those things that are negative to prevent hurt, but also to seek those things that pleasure us and give us a sense of relief from the stress of life or the stress of hunting. Whenever we used to be cave people this sort of thing and the equivalents of hunting is working to make the little green tickets that we call money and that is also quite a stress over time it is a survival equivalent. Now you may not die in the process of earning your dollars at the office but there is a stress that is very similar to that whenever you run the risk of getting fired and losing your job, or getting laid off, so there is a survival level stress there. So this gambling idea that I started in with, the reason I pointed that out was because that's the most stark, because we know that you won't win every time you gamble. But if you do take that big one, that's a huge conditioning that says, hey, this is possible. So does this mean that you're all of a sudden, what are the positive thinking coaches, that you can do this in quotes? As if that required some sort of skill? The only skill required was he put your dollar down and you won the lottery? By getting the right ticket number? And you may have not guessed him, it'd been auto generated? Who knows? That's not skill. That's rather serendipitous. And how do you measure that as a school, you can't learn to win more in that sense. So why is this a self regulatory skill, one is recognizing it first. And knowing that not going into the direction of where you might repeat it behavior if

you win. Or if you do win, recognizing that it's probably not going to happen again. This doesn't mean being the Debbie Downer and branding on somebody's parade. But in a very practical sense of recognizing that this isn't a win every time you put your money down. And if there is a recognition of that, we're more apt to be able to defend against the negative states that come from not winning, because that can become very depressing if we're really trying hard. And nobody's remembering that big win. And we're believing as a result of the feelings that we get that it's going to happen on the next one, I just had to get my right pencil to pencil in the numbers, I have to wear these shoes, these are my lucky shoes, or socks. And I have to say a certain pair and do this, that or whatever we start ritualizing behaviors as if to somehow capture quality of response, in my sense, what I'm doing to be able to get the outcome, the wind that I'm expecting that I've had once before, and we equate it with skill. And having done certain things, right, when in actuality is just one of those things that we can't measure, as one thing that we can develop over time by repeating, we may repeat the behavior, but we're not necessarily going to gain a skill that will run the risk of improving our chances of winning something that is variable schedule. And there's no guarantee of a frequent paid like you would have with let's say, a steady job where you get a paycheck every week, or every two weeks or every month that you can count on. So why is this a self regulatory school discussion, because understanding this and being aware of this propensity makes us safer in the way we work move forward, especially whenever we run the risk of novelty and interest. And know that whenever we buy sometimes even when we're shopping, we might buy something out of excitement. And then shortly thereafter, 24 to 48 hours. If you're buying a car, they used to give you a week called the cool off period. Because once the endorphins run through your system, and the adrenaline rushes down within 4872 hours after that's been metabolized, the longer the excitement, then you realize, oh my God, I've got a payment that I've got to pay next month rent to do here pretty soon. And the shock of that sets. And so often whenever there is a car deal, the state I'm living, we have this cool off period, that allows you to realize that once you do this, it's done. After this period of time, it's a done deal. And you can't return the car because you acted impulsively and you and you were in love with the excitement of having the hunt, and getting the car that acquisition, you take the picture, like you would have with a deer that maybe you've hunted, and you get the rack over the horns and then you mount them on your wall and you get excited this is what I did. This is where often there's an entanglement of how I see myself in the situation, versus how I am in the situation. Am I right in this? Am I in control of it? Or do I feel like I'm riding the wave of emotions? Am I on that emotional roller coaster, like we mentioned on episode 35 that actually changes how we believe and sometimes what I'm having is not necessarily a euphoric recall, but I'm having an experience that will in the future become a euphoric recall, until after that seven day cooling off period where it's like, oh my God, I've got to pay this car payment now. And that's the dysphoric aspect of that memory that wants to recollect it is not nearly as fun and brings us bad feelings, and may drive us to drink and, and I'm saying that jokingly, but it's not so far from the truth. So the reason I brought this up today is that there are a number of things that in a human life, we have stress and it will repeat even when they're not good for us and we can make all kinds of rational and reasonable sense as to why and no, I'm not supposed to do this. It's not good. For me, and that's the higher prefrontal cortical thinking. But whenever we have our emotions driving, and we have that payoff, and we get that arousal that we might experience at the casino, for instance, or gambling or excitement, whenever we're on the hunt, buying a new car or doing some shopping, then we want to return things because it doesn't feel as good anymore. And it wasn't that there's anything wrong with the items that we got, it's just that the feelings went away. And we were riding that physical bodies emotional roller coaster, we're writing or surfing that wave of emotion and excitement, because we're getting away from the novelty, possibly the border. And that is not a cognitive process. But there is a physical sense of I need to move and do. That often happens with people that do exercise and leave their exercise programs or diet programs. Because there is boredom, there's bland there is blah, and we get tired of and these are the descriptions that we add words to at the gut feel level. And often it has to do with nutrient deficiency, wherever I'm not getting all the nutrients I need or maybe less, but I'm not eating nutrient dense in a good way, eating clean. And once you cleanse your palate, you realize that even the simple foods are really good. And often we don't have enough of that cleansed palate not only in the food that we eat, but in the behaviors that we do that may not be so good for us. So that we can get a sense or lens that is cleaner and clearer, that we may make better decisions not only for ourselves, but for our lives, or our jobs and our loved ones, those that are nearest. And the impulse often happens whenever we get that, that memory that that promise of excitement, and the fast impulse. Whenever we remember such things if we remember the pictures, the sights and sounds of the perceptual level, we're talking about 150 300 milliseconds, and boom, you got emotions, now it feels real. So as long as you know that those things happen, it's okay to have the excitement. The idea is to give yourself a little distance, have a little pause. And a little distance equals time when it comes to the physical environment. And sometimes we just need to walk away from it from come back. But the excitement settled down. And we can make a better better decision without necessarily having to stop or avoid things altogether, such as family gathering, where we're be, or gambling is happening, this sort of thing. And you'll feel better as a result of it. I'm not telling you deprive yourself. But if you get to the point where it's pretty exciting, if you stay away from it, you will feel a sense of deprivation. So the idea is to realize that the body is going to feel that if it's ever felt the boom or the excitement of a big win. And know that you're not depriving yourself that's just your body remembering what it feels like whenever you're on the level of divine or kissing the sky like Jimi Hendrix used to sing about. So for today, we're going to end the discussion on this aspect of self regulation having to do with gambling invariable scheduled payoff versus a regular scheduled payoff, like having a job that pays you every week. And knowing that our body can guide us into something falsely, that could get us into really big trouble. If we don't learn how to regulate those emotions. That doesn't mean stopping them, but actually means how we guide them while we experience them. So that way we don't build ourselves over and make decisions that at some point later, we do the facepalm and wish we could have that back. So on that note, I want to tell you, thank you for sharing this evening with me certainly good talking to you. And like follow and share and share this podcast with people that you think may be able to benefit or maybe give it to even people that couldn't benefit from it that might find it interesting, at least maybe even entertaining. So it's been good talking to you. If you have any comments or even feedback, send them to the email at groaning man get skills project at Gmail and we'll talk to you soon. Walk well