How to Overcome Addiction & Take Back Control of Your Life

Episode Title: Breaking Addictions & Facing Resistance with James Banks

In this deeply honest and transformative episode of Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, I’m joined by James Banks — a recovery coach, group facilitator, and man who has walked the path from addiction to awakening. With over a decade of sobriety behind him, James opens up about his journey through alcohol and drug addiction, the impact of childhood trauma, and the resistance we all face when stepping into growth and change.

We explore the root causes of addiction — not just the substances or behaviours themselves but the emotional pain, disconnection, and shame that often lie beneath. James shares how he came to realize that his addictions were rooted in unresolved childhood wounds and how the power of connection, community, and the 12-step program helped him heal.

You’ll learn why resistance shows us exactly where the work is, how anxiety can become a compass, and why doing the things we fear the most is the key to transformation. We also discuss the role of introspection, honesty, and willingness in personal growth and how shame and guilt can be healed through vulnerability and community support.

Whether you’re battling addiction, stuck in a self-sabotaging habit, or feeling resistance around a relationship or personal goal, this episode will give you insight, inspiration, and tools to move forward.

What you’ll learn in this episode:

• The hidden roots of addiction and why trauma plays a major role
• The power of community and connection in healing
• How to face resistance and anxiety with courage
• The importance of introspection, honesty, and openness
• How to begin letting go of shame and guilt
• Practical first steps to recovery and personal transformation

About James Banks:

With over a decade of experience as an addiction support worker,James has dedicated his life to helping others break free from the cycle of addiction. Having personally overcome addiction 12 years ago, he draws from his own journey of recovery to offer empathy, understanding, and practical support to those ready to make a change. His work in group settings fosters community, accountability, and healing for individuals who seek a path to recovery.

James is not only a seasoned addiction support worker but also a trained bodyworker and practitioner of plant-based medicine, incorporating both physical and holistic healing methods into his practice. He believes in the power of plants as allies and tools for emotional and spiritual growth.

In his commitment to making recovery accessible to all, James offers free support groups for individuals who may face financial barriers, as well as online support for those who can access paid services. His approach is rooted in the belief that recovery is possible for everyone, and he actively models a healthy, balanced lifestyle by staying fit and active, showing others that lasting change is achievable. Through his work, James inspires and empowers others to take the first step towards their own healing.

E-mail: Jamesbanksaddiction@gmail.com

Instagram: Jamesbanksaddiction 

Transcript

0:00

In this week's episode, we talk about addiction and how conscious awareness is crucial to change how childhood trauma tends to be the root of addiction and how you can explore this, the power of community, and how connection is the key to addiction. And leaning into resistance and discomfort and doing what you least want to do is where the growth happens. Welcome to Man: A Quest to Find Meaning, where we help men navigate modern life, find their true purpose, and redefine manhood. I'm your host, James, and each week, inspiring guests share their journeys of overcoming fear Embracing vulnerability and finding success. From experts to everyday heroes. Get practical advice and powerful insights. Struggling with career, relationships or personal growth? We've got you covered. Join us on Man Quest to Find Meaning. Now, let's dive in.

James: 1:05

Good morning, James. Tell me about yourself.

James Banks (Guest): 1:10

Where do we even start with that question? In the terms of us meeting on this podcast, so myself now, is someone that has been in recovery for 12 to 13 years. So I've removed myself from alcohol, primarily alcohol, cocaine, and any other drugs that came with it. And after a lifetime of abuse. So this version currently of me now is someone who's in recovery and does his very best to be aware of his behaviors on the outside world and on my relationships opposed to me. So I am trying very hard to be a conscious being. That's who I am.

James: 2:05

So let's start there, actually, because I'm interested because two I feel when you've got addictions or habits which perhaps particularly aren't particularly good for you, to become conscious of them. Can be a big ask for a lot of people. How did you start to become conscious of your addictions?

James Banks (Guest): 2:29

I started drinking and using substances like at a young age. Not addictively, not too damaging. But it was like from 13, like drinking. Cider in the park, all that. Smoking spliffs. LSD, 14, 15. And it's been a while since I've spoken about this. Because when I stopped drinking and doing what I was doing, my daughter was 13, which is the age that I was thinking when I was drinking in a park up to no good. Smoking cannabis LSD. I was thinking, wow, 13, that's not really an age to be experimenting the way I was, but that's the way it was. Where I was and where it is for a lot of people, but being consciously aware of my addictions, I don't think that was ever the case. I knew it was a problem for a long time. So I stopped, I'm now 49. I stopped drinking when I was 36. Yeah. For the last, oh God, from my twenties. It was a problem from my, yeah, late teens, twenties. So I've been aware that I had a problem for a long time. A long time. Didn't do anything about it though, till I was 36.

James: 4:02

Regards to you now every day.'cause what I find is, I've realized that I've got addictions to social media. I've got addictions to porn as an example, and. But it's one thing going from doing it automatically to stepping into that version yourself where you actually, you start to realize that, oh, even before you, you actually do it, that you're about to do it. What was it that actually led to that point where you decided, you know what, I'm putting it completely?

James Banks (Guest): 4:46

So there was lots of, there was lots of reasons why, physically it weren't happening. My body was giving up, my body was giving up. I was like, I was bloated. It was yellow. I was physically, withdrawn a lot of times, DTs and all that. So physically it weren't sustainable, so that was, it gave him emotionally. One of the big turning points for me was was the damage it was doing to me mum. That I was physically watching her. Because I'd put a lot of it on her. I lived about three, four miles away. But I'd burn all my bridges and I'd spend all my money and burn the mines. I'm a grown, I'm a grown man. You know what I mean? I've been working and all, I was a chef for a long time, which didn't really help with the drinking because we used to drink in the kitchen and then we'd drink after work and so on and all that. But I used to go down to my mum's for food, that's what it was really, and a bit of respite away from my flat because it was dirty, so I'd go down. But then, towards the end, I was, I was manipulating her to for money. Saying, if I don't, if I don't get her a drink, this can happen, it's really dangerous, because it was alcohol dependent. This was true, but it was manipulation, and it was, that's what it was. But my mum came home one morning and I was all like that. And she refused to go to shop to to buy alcohol, which I'd never asked her to do before, but she'd never refused me anything ever. And that was a, that was a moment, even while I was, Under the influence, DTs and all that was a moment was like, I have pushed this, whatever this is, this lifestyle to the, to its very edge. And for my mum to turn around and say no to me, there was a sign that this has come to, you can't even get that person who would do anything for you to do that. It's it's over. It is over. And there was an internal. change there and then that helped me. It didn't, it wasn't instant. You know what I mean? I was still an alcoholic and an addict and I hadn't sorted my life out at all, but there was something in there that made me go ah no. So there was a decline then and a look towards recovery, which you didn't know. I knew one person from my field, It would come in, gone into Sorted recovery like into these groups in Leal City Center that like would do arts and maybe like day GA and computers and stuff like that. So we knew it was on the horizon, and that was like the beginning. That was like 2000,

7:41

2012, 2012, 2013.

James: 7:47

First thing congratulations. for so many years of being sober and breaking addictions. With regards to the people you have worked with, what do you believe is the root cause of addiction?

James Banks (Guest): 8:01

Or

James: 8:04

is there one, shall I say? Or are there many?

James Banks (Guest): 8:10

So my, my, my outlook, my, my ways around recovery have changed massively over the years. Over the years. So I came through, I went to rehab for 12 weeks. And whilst in rehab, we were encouraged, my rehab was a Monday to Friday, nine to five. So you were locked in ish for those times. And then of an evening you were required to go to a meeting, a mutual aid meeting. So that would be Alcoholics Anonymous, Cocaine Anonymous, Narcotics Anonymous. So within those 12 weeks I started going to meetings. Which was the transformative. catapult for me, just the 12 steps. That's what changed me. So I was very studious. I was completely engaged in the program. I lived from the book of Alcoholics Anonymous. Every single word in it spoke to me, for me. I've done it to the letter. It says if you don't want to drink and use again, then follow these principles. And I've done that because I didn't want, not want to go back. Fast forward again five years ago. I went down plant medicine. Iboga initially ayahuasca, a couple of sittings, mushrooms, yeah, cannabis, psychedelic. I've used all these modules to further my understanding of myself and the world, not necessarily addiction. I've come more towards Gaba Mati. If any of you are familiar with his work, or Gab and Mate, as they call him in Liverpool, Gab and Mate. He's, he will say, show me an addict, an alcoholic, and I will show you someone who didn't have a happy childhood. And I initially, I was like, nah, not having that. I had a happy childhood, I had this and this. And there was a friend of ours, she's a doctor. And she trains in Compassionate Inquiry, which is Gabba Maté's module. And the opening question for the Compassionate Inquiry, which I knew this because I've worked with this woman and was on a retreat with her and it took the full hit, so I knew it was coming. So the opening question is, Simply tell me about your happy childhood. So I knew that was coming And I rushed we live up on the north coast here you can't see in terms of showing up to Windsor. There's the atlantic ocean. It's amazing, but it doesn't go any further so we're rushing back up for this appointment with this woman that I was sat down on zoom again and all the zoom gremlins couldn't get in and She said okay james. Come on. Just close yourself breathe with me. I'm into the So I sat down, and she said, Tell me about your happy childhood. So I'm inside my head, just went, Let me get a I'm on a, an old fashioned workman's desk, that with all the numbers, that. But all the, like a roller desk and I had all these images going around my brain like, and I cried. Something came in from in there. You can't see where the press, I'm writing my soul up like, it came from there. This sadness. I was uncontrollable. I didn't have one. I didn't have one. And so that was the beginning of me. understanding trauma and early events. I think we spoke about this when I was walking the dog. It's about my dad left when I was, I can't remember, I always say about two. I don't even know if that's right. So I can't remember him being there, but I spent a lifetime searching. The stories I got told coming down, shaving, there was a shaver, a little bit of tissue paper on my face. I was copying, we weren't there. I used to go out, we lived on a housing estate, a bit like Shameless, a little city centre just on the outskirts. I used to go knock for fellas, other dads, and they'd come in and go, Jimmy there, I'm gonna do that. I used to go and sit in the butchers, used to go to work men. I was searching for my dad, do you know what I mean? I was missing something. And my template was a lot of olive. From a long line of alcoholics, pub alcoholics, whatever, it doesn't matter. So I became him, even though we weren't there, because that was my genetic template. But I do believe, I mean, I can speak for myself, I can only ever speak for myself. Obviously it's hard to ignore the hundreds of people, maybe more, thousands of people I've sat and worked with that have all come, I can't generalise, but childhood trauma, you would not do these things if you were happy, stable

13:38

and

James Banks (Guest): 13:39

cared for and loved and you just wouldn't, so early childhood trauma has the massive impact on

James: 13:49

people's self esteem. Do you find that's quite a common thing with the people that you work with?

James Banks (Guest): 13:56

I can pretty much go straight there with people. I can buy, I can do, I can work with people however they want to work, but if you want to go straight to the source, there's a great, there's a great saying the treasures we seek. Yeah, hidden by the dragons we fear, so there's that as well, if you, with addictions, if you want to move away from it, then be prepared to do the things you don't want to do. And I can say to people, what is it you don't want to do to get clean and sober? In those terms what are the things you don't want to do to stop drinking? So what do you, and then I go okay, that's what, that's what you need to do then.

James: 14:37

Funny thing is the last couple of days I read this small piece within this work that I'm doing and it said that for us to get the biggest transformation or the biggest growth We've gotta do the things that we assist the most. And so the sense in there, it doesn't necessarily have to be within diction, it could be within the business or relationships or any area of a life, but there's so many things that we resist. And the funny thing is, I yesterday I got back onto Bumble and I've got a match. And suddenly all these insecurities came in thinking you're not good enough kind of thing and all these different stuff. And what I realized was that was bang on. That's my resistance is because quite often when my insecurities pop up, I pull back and don't do anything about it. So it was that realization that in order to pass that. to get through that resistance, I've got to hit that head on and I've got to do something different what I wouldn't normally wouldn't do. And so it's conversation interaction.

James Banks (Guest): 15:46

Yeah, most definitely. Just be prepared to do the things you don't want to do. That's where that's so well. So my role in, in recovery, I went From rehab straight into volunteering for every, because it was all the poor city center. So it was like volunteering with the homeless, the YMCA any mental health addiction rehabs, detox units, all that. Do you know that? And then I went into the becoming a grief worker. Sort of lost my, I was saying that, what were we saying there, what were we talking about at the beginning?

James: 16:25

We were talking about resistance and stepping into resistance and about you going and volunteering.

James Banks (Guest): 16:30

That's right. That's right. So I'd say to people, whatever it is that you don't want to do, that's what it is we need to do. So everyone that came into my group, or we've done assessments on for every alcoholic and addict. And this is like a 10 year career. Everyone's put down anxiety and depression, right? The thing is with anxiety, this is what was thinking about, is that, and the resistance, like being on Bumble, is that I've got a level of where my anxiety will come up to like water coming up a beach, leaving a mark, leave a little mark, and then it'll go back down. But if it comes up, To where I know it comes up to and I just allow it to sink back again. I haven't moved. I haven't moved forward. So the next time that match comes on Bumble, I'm going to get up to that point. I'm going to go and let it go. But what I encourage and what I encourage for myself, let it come up and walk through with it. I go against it, because I say to people, no one's died from anxiety. Not that I know of. It's not physically you've gotten overly anxious and created the massive cardiac arrest. It's just your body telling you that there's something not quite right here. Have a little nose and you can go, do you know what? There's nothing happening apart from what I'm thinking. Let's go through it.

James: 18:09

At the end of the day, it's just energy, isn't it? Anxiety, emotions, just energy. So if you just allow, almost sit with that energy and just breathe through it, that energy is going to dissipate. And I find, because I must admit my general feeling can quite often be anxiousness. But at the same time, I don't allow it to affect me because I allow myself to breathe through it. And then I allow myself to feel the love that I have for myself, and for the people around me. And that allows me to step through it. Rather than, for me to overtake you. I saw also in the same piece that quite often when people have emotions, they allow the emotions to control what they do. Rather than, emotions are there, we should be allowing ourselves to use our emotions in a healthy way. Rather than allowing the emotions to use us. So if you've got, say for example, I saw on TV that there's 200, there's 2 million people of sick from work. And a lot of them they'll say it's anxiety attacks. But if you allow yourself to go into that anxiety and to feel that rather than allowing it to use you and to perhaps keep you in your house, step into it, breathe, and then just A small, tiny step of what the anxiety is coming up with.

James Banks (Guest): 19:42

This is exactly what I what I come up when I was teaching people in groups, is that line. You're only ever going to get to there and then go back, but get up to there. And I used to say to people, I would hold, I will hold your hand. Genuinely or figuratively or metaphorically to get you across, right? Because you're caught in recovery. So with me working my motivational or my experience or my skills, whatever you want in group, all I'm doing is, at best, I can lead people to what we call a bridge of reason. So I'll take them from one, we'll stay in this pen, and Right, and I'll bring them over to a bridge and I'll go look at that over there, isn't that amazing? Look at that greenery, look at that peace, look at that fun that's possible, look at that future. People are terrified to cross over the bridge into sobriety into unknown, into, This oh, newness. So it's a bridge of reason, but that's your anxiety, that's, that stops you from crossing. But it's you know what, no. Once you come over you'll be all right. Even just a little step, get onto the bridge, come back, and so on. So you are, we know this and, but it's took me so many years. We know this, but for the average person, it's like the body is in control, like the emotion. No. I feel it. It must be real. I think it. It must be

James: 21:24

real.

21:25

No.

James: 21:25

So how can people take that first step to realize that their emotions are controlling them?

James Banks (Guest): 21:33

I'm a great believer and not just a great believer, right? Connection, connection. We don't know if I don't know how to do something, I'm going to look at someone. This is how I've managed to get where I am. I looked at someone else who'd done what it is I needed to do. And I copied that and I'd done it. So when I was surrounded by people to choose from, to look at, to emulate, ape, we're just apes. That's what we do. But a species that can learn by watching others as well, and feeling safe and connected, not feeling like a feel.'cause other people have made the mistakes for me, I can say, ah, do you know what I mean? I'm not gonna do that because he done that. But he told me, never shown anything they gave me. We had this. Conversation. I was never shown how to be a man, how to be whatever that means, to be courageous. And I know women can be courageous, but I never seen it in myself. How to emulate and do all these things. I had a lot, I was starting from scratch in a lot of areas.

James: 22:39

Yeah. I've, I, since last, 2022, I went to the Mankind Project, have you heard of the Mankind Project? I did my warrior training back then. And, basically, you are thrown amongst 40 other people. And you were held by 40 other men who have been through the process and within that weekend, the warrior training, you get to witness yourself and others go through a process of completely transforming their lives from understanding who they are. Allowing yourself to go into your emotional self. You're able to look other men in the eyes and really connect for the very first time. And within that weekend, I had quite a profound realization that when you are around other people who, where, or where you want to be, there's a sense of really stepping into that version of yourself. And so you're right, having that connection with people who are where you want to be, but also taking yourself away from perhaps your environment that you're already in and stepping in, just seeing perhaps a person in the distance, how he's acting. And so I think it's even more important that us who are more conscious of these these traits, these addictions, everything that happens in our normal lives, we can really step into who we're meant to be so that we can help others to do the same at the same time.

James Banks (Guest): 24:28

Exactly. Everyone is our teacher, everyone. So all the ceremonies I've been to, all the courses and the retreats and, anything like the self help programs and whatever, every single person I come across. is there to teach me something. Everyone knows something I don't. Everyone. I never, I will always learn from everyone, and I need to get on my own way. That that's the big thing. Get out my own way. So I've done those, the archetypal training, the men's groups, and I can watch someone else. maybe dance in the distance a bit more freely and not self conscious, it's only me that judges me. I'm not judging him, but he's giving me permission to dance as well, and then I'm off then. And whilst I'm doing That loop of all this, me watching him dance and going, no, it's all right. I can dance too. Yeah. Yeah. Someone else is watching me going, you know what maybe I can do what they're doing, cause that's how it works. Always the, like in the gym, you're always looking at the. You want to be someone over there. Someone else is watching you. They want to be where you are because they haven't got that far, and that's how it works. And it's only me that's in the way. Yeah,

James: 26:04

it's nicely put. We are our biggest block. It's funny thing was I was at dance a couple of Sundays ago. And it's a static dance, and within that static dance, there was, I was just dancing there's no tomorrow. I don't know what it is about the music, but I literally just lose myself, and I dance like a complete nutter. That's the best way to put it, a complete nutter. But, you, when you look around, what I'm noticing is that people are smiling at how I dance, because I'm so free. And, it's that realization that in that moment you are allowing Other people to be just as free as you and then there'll be people who I look up to who can allow me to be as completely free as them.

James Banks (Guest): 27:05

Yeah, a lot of goals. Yeah. and all it goes. So I wouldn't be one of those people smiling at you dancing so freely. That's one of the restrictions I've still attached to myself. You wouldn't know it in public or if you're in an ecstatic dance together, you wouldn't know it, but I still restrict. Myself, and then I'd watch because we've got where we are in They're on the north coast post, but we've got like a space in belfast Called body conscious on a place called botanic avenue, which is just like the students area of belfast. It's a real cool It's a nice area like botanic park at the end, but we're all events in there, and one of them is contact improv, I'm sure you, but there's a girl in there she's a musician, she's contact improv, she's singers, she's a practitioner, a body worker, and she's so talented, but I watch her do all these things and she's just, I think maybe she does a little bit, you know what I mean? But it's just like no Fs given, that is like freedom. That is freedom, because no one's asked. No one's asked apart from myself. I love it.

James: 28:24

It's taken me, it took me, it's taken me three years to get to this point where I can, and there's still Now and again, get into my head, but it's a long process of really going to the events like this. And so it's this tails quite nicely back into addictions, because obviously, once you start to overcome addictions, it's not going to be a straight path. There's going to be bumps in the road. And It's this idea that if I use the idea of watching porn, I might have four or five, maybe a week of not doing anything, and then I'll get thrown back into it all. And that's okay, because that's part of the process, and it's becoming conscious in that moment, maybe after it's happened, that, um, what was it that actually made me do that?

29:19

And then

James: 29:19

eventually you'll just keep moving on to the next thing. And I've come to, I'm going to do Graham Waterfield's course on sexual energy and all that kind of stuff. Cause I feel that's the next stage for me. But it's that realization that when you hit a bump. You, it's okay, but it's about getting back up again and going again. So it's quite easy at that point to say, do you know what? I can't, I'm going to stop. I can't be bothered. I've fallen. I'm going to stop. But as a baby, if you fall over when you're trying to walk, are you going to stop? No, you're going to carry on. So why does adults, why do we stop when we should be carrying a train again and again?

James Banks (Guest): 30:00

I feel that if we're doing any of this on our own, if we have identified the problem, and then try and figure it out on our own, then that seems to be the pattern, because if we haven't identified why we're doing this subjectively and brought in other people to look at it and that full 360 trained people as well. Then we're never going to get out of the loop that we put ourselves in. It's like one of the Einstein and so on said, we can't think ourselves out of a problem that our minds has created. The same mind can't come out that created the problem. We need to be around others.

James: 30:50

So that's why AA and other ones and other groups are so powerful. Definitely. Definitely.

James Banks (Guest): 30:58

Yeah. Yeah. And not all, quite contentious for some people, AA and CA they'll always go on about it's religious. It's not. The book was wrote by an atheist, an agnostic, and it clearly states in the book that it uses the word God as a term of convenience for you to change, talk about the spiritual experience that Carl Jung spoke about in order to be transformative with an alcoholic. When someone else with other behavioral issues, you have to have a spiritual experience, and he doesn't talk about a religious one, he talks about a spiritual experience, where you see things, instead of looking, like, where you become conscious, instead of just looking out, where you're looking, or sorry, you're looking in at how everything's affecting you. Like that, your eyes need to turn and start looking completely, how things are affecting others, how that internally is affecting outside, as we're in, so we're out. Not everyone in AA is well. That's the, that's the nature of the, not everyone in AA or CA or NA understands the program the scripture of your life the rules that people are playing by. So it becomes dogmatic and people bring their own nonsense in. So it can become a bit murky. But the teachings themselves the 12 steps or life saving, the transformative like a baptism. That format is used in civilizations way before it was picked up by AA and before they acquired it from the 12th century Oxford group, which was like a branch off of Christianity. They got it from somewhere. This is human beings make mistakes. We want to be better versions of ourselves. That's what the 12 steps is. And that format is in civilizations. So we, like a baptism, we come through it, we repent and we want to be better,

James: 33:08

yeah. can you tell us the first couple of steps that you are in the aa?

James Banks (Guest): 33:14

Yeah, so step one, you admitted you were powerless over alcohol or other substances and your life have become unmanageable. I mean it's pretty easy to, if you're at that point, you're looking at aa, you, your life has become pretty much unmanageable. Set to keen to believe that a power greater than us can restore us to sanity. Okay.'cause I can't. My mind and the love of my child, my mom, my partner, the people who were like really directly linked to you, inside your little small hula hoop of people. They can't change you, but they can't say, you're drinking, you're drug using, it's too bad. If you're going to stop. We are gonna leave and all that. None of that works. None of that works. If you could just go up and tell someone, stop. They'd be all right. Are you keen to believe that a power greater than us am I willing to believe that a power greater than me can restore me to sanity? Yes, I am. I, that's exactly what I need. I need restoring to sanity because I haven't been seen, for me. The steps were easy to digest. I think if you're still close enough to your carnage in the past, it's still like we're in living distance that you can use that as a catalyst to move forward. A lot of people won't do that. They won't look back. I've had a little bit of grace now. Life seems to be a little bit better. I'll carry on. He's going even towards the inevitable. It's awful.

James: 35:08

Looking back can be painful, but only when you look back can you see where you have made mistakes, but also if you blame others for the things that happened in your life, you were given your power away. So what I was going to bring in as well here was that you can perhaps own your part, whether it's something big or small in what other people's mistakes. So then suddenly you bring the power back to you.

James Banks (Guest): 35:46

Yeah. Within the 12 steps in the book, it talks about only ever cleaning your side of the street. There's no point in saying, and it also says, if you step on the toes of fellows, they will react. So have a look for whatever you've done to me, right? Let me see how that came about. So I'm not focusing on what you've done to me. Did I step on your toes in some way? Have I provoked that? Is my behavior warranted someone else's? reaction, response, in my case, pretty much all the time. And I know the people's cases, if you stop and have a look where was I to blame? Where was I at fault? It'll be there somewhere. But you need, but again, it's guidance. from others on how to do this process, how it's done in the past, and patience as well. Kind of just, just start this thing and it's going to be, if I do all this, then everything's going to be all right because it doesn't work like that. There's a long period. A lot of people don't forget as well and your life changes in so many different ways.

James: 37:01

You talked about a good point. A minute ago about the owning your part, just your part. So that brings in the idea of introspection. And how can people start to do a little bit more of introspection in their life? So just for the audience here, what I mean by introspection is how can you look at yourself and figure out or journal down Areas that you can improve on or areas that you might have done people wrong that you can own. So how can people start to really step into introspecting their own life?

James Banks (Guest): 37:43

There's three indispensable it's like a bullet point that I I stress for anyone that wants to make changes, right? And number one is honesty. And I've sat, we've done groups, I've sat with people and done groups and just came in and we put honesty on the board and we spent an hour, like nothing else. And that just opens up it. So for the honesty that is required to move forward, I, an analogy for me is, so the honesty we're after is pitch black. So I was to put my head in a box, complete airtight, no gaps whatsoever, it's just pitch black, I can't even see anything. If I'm 99. 9. 9 honest that allows Bear in mind it's really sunny outside, okay? So that point, point one just pricks the corner and there's a beam It's a tiny beam, but there's a beam of light coming to my box now. The level of honesty because you cannot kid yourself because you're the only one who's seeing that beam. This is the battle. It's for yourself. So if you want to be introspective You've got to be honest. You have to be honest, you've got to be open minded this is number two on the three. You've got to be open minded. You've got to be willing. That's number three. So if you get given something, like, why don't you take this wild weekend with all these men? Why don't you try this ecstatic dance? Why don't you try this formula? If your go to is nah no, then you've lost. You can't move forward from that, you've got to be willing to try new things. You've got to open your mind. You've got to be honest, and you can stick to them. You'll move forward, pen and paper, write yourself some honest questions. What do I not what does I want to do? And then if you can't put down what it is you don't want to do, then you're not being honest to yourself. And there's your sticking point straight away. What was the third one?

James: 40:05

So it's honesty, open mindedness and willingness. Very good. Willingness. Okay. You put open mindedness and willingness together. That's fine. Yeah. That makes complete sense because I'm very good at introspection. One of my strong points trying to relay sometimes what I know is quite difficult for people who perhaps aren't quite as introspective as myself. And so getting another point of view and another way of introspecting is always a good thing.

James Banks (Guest): 40:38

Definitely. Don't go on your own. You can, you obviously, you can take your own advice, but at the beginning, if you're unsure and you're looking to make changes, then there's plenty of people doubt there. Obviously, you've gotta find someone you can trust. That going back to what I said at the beginning, there's always someone who knows something I don't. It's got lived experience of that and I need that, there's a great analogy, which I am going to put to animation, I suppose there's friends of mine and a few people who do animation, but this was told to me a few, a good few years ago. It's that being an addiction. It's like being in one of those really old fashioned wells, like a fairy tale, like the circle ones with the wheel at the top. But you're right at the bottom, in the dark, again, like that, just surrounded by your own misery that you've created. And then there's the gap at the top and you can just see sunlight and then people will come over, your friends will come over because you're in a bad way and they'll pop their heads over and you'll see them and they'll either throw a little bag in of something if you're lucky, lucky some cans and or just share a few jokes. But they're off, and then the drinking drugs are gone again. You're still there, doctors will come, and look over. You might get, might float a little prescription down, you know, it's antidepressants or whatever. It's just pointless the amount of people on antidepressants and still drinking copious amounts of alcohol. That's another point. Psychiatrists will come over and, they'll look over and maybe drop a formula in or something for you to, keep thinking about, but you're still stuck. But when another addict or alcoholic, clear and sober, they can jump in and then initially you think that's a screw now, because the two of us stuck. The other one says, no it's not, because I know the way out. It can shine a little torch on the foothold here, another one there, Come with me, hold on tight, trust me, let's go up together and let's come out. I know you come out, it's all bright and scary and there's too many people and you don't know where to put your hands and, but that's another journey, that's another journey. But initially we need, I need someone to show me the way out, show me how they've done it. And then I go, because I, we all know how to do lots of things, we're very capable, but when we don't know how to do being stupid, doing it for me, self conscious, being judged, all these entail judgments come up, but when someone else is carrying me and showing me it, I can relax a little bit then and say thank you,

43:31

And then

James Banks (Guest): 43:31

I can start helping others from the little journey I've done that they don't know, pull them forward, and then people pull me forward, and I keep pulling them forward, and then so on, until we're like, They're out of sight.

James: 43:47

So in regards to emotions like shame and guilt, what kind of role do they play in addictions? And if somebody does have shame and guilt, how can they move past them?

James Banks (Guest): 44:03

So in my experience again, I'll try and only speak for myself. The formula is in within the 12 steps. You have to confront, confront being like a strong word. You have to But you've got to look at what it is that you're guilty, your guilt's come from, your shame is. There's no point in just, it's there, let's look at it correctly, let's figure this out, don't avoid it. Yes, I have done, I have been in so many situations, I have done so many things where people will just go, and I mentioned them, like I've lost control of my bowels. I was a fully functioning alcoholic, alcohol dependent for a long time Drinking the nastiest cider. It's just goes right through your guts right through, even the smell of It's like that frosty jack. It's just So i've done things that people are just die of shame even when I speak about them, But if you can't go back and look at it it's that resentment or that, that emotion. So it's that motion like it's in, in circular motion, it's emotion, isn't it? So it's on. If I don't go look at it, every time I think about it, I'm going to feel it. but the more I do it, the less and less it gets. Do you know what I mean? I think there's people around. Yeah,

James: 45:27

that relates because as, as long as you have shame and guilt and you do nothing about it, every time you, something like that happens, it's going to have complete power over you. It's going to feel, it's going to feel a gut wrench maybe in your stomach or that sense of, oh, I'm going to hide away. But if you approach it. and look at it in a deep way, then it loses its power. Perfect example is you can sit here there and talk about all this and not have a not flinch. And I feel as though I'm very similar with regards to myself with the idea of porn before perhaps six, 10 weeks ago, I couldn't mention the word without feeling guilt and shame. But now that I've, I'm looking deep into it. That guilt and shame no longer has any power. I can talk about it and it might be a little bit of embarrassment but that guilt and shame of doing it is gone which is why I can talk about it so openly.

James Banks (Guest): 46:34

Yeah and then once you start talking about it openly you realise you're helping others and you're moving away. And you're moving away. You go, Oh my God, that's all it was. One of the big learnings for me at the beginning of in recovery is someone actually said to me, do you know what? You're not that important. I was like, oh what, it's no, people will, people aren't asked really about what's going on for you. You are it's shame for you and maybe close circle or something like that, but people have got their own shit going on and people are going to be getting on with their own lives. And they're not going to be dwelling on what you did or didn't do or what, how you feel because of this and that. It's yes, today's headlines is tomorrow's fish and chip paper wrapper, it's just, it doesn't matter. So once I got over that, it did take me a little bit of, oh, you cheeky bastard. Do you know who I think I am?

James: 47:34

So for those people who perhaps are alone, And are going through addictions at this moment in time, and are willing to step maybe are willing to take that first step. What can they do?

James Banks (Guest): 47:49

Great question. Reach out, have to reach out. I have been working within this field since 2013, 2014. I have never seen, come across anyone that's managed to pull themself out of it on their own. I have witnessed some really sturdy people that have pulled themselves to places where they're no longer doing as bad as what they did previously. But unless you unearth, go back to source, the inevitability of creating that same problem again and again will happen. Reach out. I would say reach out. Reach out, find someone, reach out, open up, we're only as, we're only as safe as our secrets. That's it. And they can only flourish in the dark. It's like mushrooms. They'll grow in the dark. But you say you feed them shit, keep them in the dark and then they flourish. That's what happens.

James: 49:04

I don't know about you, but I find with, I, I know I have the such porn and social media addictions, for me quite often it's to do with numbing numbing pain. How can somebody lean? And learn to sit with this pain. Because I think sometimes within pain, there's this discomfort. So how can people start to really sit with that discomfort?

James Banks (Guest): 49:28

Compassionately, I feel, to be around others who understand, is the beginning of being able to sit with it, so you can see others. When now you're talking about porn addiction, coming away from it, and the embarrassment and the, or the less embarrassment and, Again, as I said, when we're looking towards I wanna be him, someone's looking towards wanting to be us. So it's that collective, that support, because we're all one, no one does things that I haven't done before. We've all done porn addiction. We've all, not addiction. We all go to the toilet. We all do the same things. We're all one.

James: 50:14

So the key message is to reach out. And define a community who can help and support you through it.

James Banks (Guest): 50:20

Connection, Definitely.

James: 50:24

So for those who don't know you, how can they? What do you do and how can they get in contact with you?

James Banks (Guest): 50:32

So I will help people online. You can find me at jamesbanksaddiction at gmail. com. Jamesbanksaddiction on Instagram. People in Belfast, I run a free support group every two weeks. Just inviting anyone to come along and start the journey. I work with people online, if people want to work with me, I can work with online. Do discount rates, do all that. My style is I always encourage people to get out and find the community, their tribe. I'm not about working with people. Like a cash cow. I don't want to work with people for money. That's never been my objective. In recovery, I want people to get better and just find their own tribe. And they're out there, no matter where you are. There's people out there, there's always AA and CA, but there's men's groups, there's women's groups, there's support groups, sports groups, there's singing, there's ecstatic dance, there's so many different things. Because the addiction is just It's just the, it's the lowest form of the Russian doll. That's what that is. It's that or it's whatever you do. It's that I'm just encouraging you to come out and coming out. This is where you learn how to be all the things you can't do in life. You learn how to do them in safe environments. Eventually you become fully Russian. So you'd be that vision, which can still go down. If you start being dishonest, that's the big one. It comes out. But you could be honest and then come back home. But if people wanna work with me, they can find me at James Bank Station. That's fine. But that's how, that's my style of your life. Yeah. Encourage people to go and go get it. Get it in the world. Don't sit with me. You know what I mean? I'll give you, I'll bring you to the place where you can do it on your own. And then take the stabilizers off and go. Come back again if you need me. Go.

James: 52:27

Yeah.

James Banks (Guest): 52:28

That's what life is.

James: 52:30

Thank you James. Thank you, James.