There is an Addiction Epidemic | MENtality with Ebuka, Banky W & Aproko Doctor.

In this episode of MENtality with Ebuka, host Ebuka Obi-Uchendu is joined by co-host Banky Wellington, alongside medical doctor, health advocate and digital creator Aproko Doctor, for a deeply insightful conversation on addiction and the hidden ways men cope with pressure, pain and emotional overwhelm.

The discussion explores how addiction, whether to alcohol, drugs, gambling, work, sex, social media, success, or validation, often hides beneath the surface of male coping mechanisms. For many men, addiction is not always loud or obvious; sometimes, it looks like overworking, emotional avoidance, chasing constant approval, or using substances and distractions to escape unresolved pain.

Against the backdrop of Nigeria’s growing substance abuse challenge, with about 14.4% of Nigerians aged 15–64 reportedly using drugs, nearly three times the global average, the episode examines addiction not simply as a moral failure, but as a response to pressure, silence, trauma, loneliness, and the expectations placed on men to “be strong” without support.

Together, the conversation unpacks the relationship between masculinity and escapism, the shame that prevents men from seeking help, and the importance of recovery, accountability, honesty, and healthier coping systems. The episode also challenges men to confront the things they run to when they are unable to speak about what they are running from.

Connect with the Hosts:

• Ebuka – Instagram, X
• Banky W – Instagram
• Aproko Doctor – Instagram
• MENtality Podcast – Instagram

Listen & Subscribe:

• YouTube – Link
• Apple Podcasts – Link
• Spotify – Link

Join the Conversation:

• Use #MENtalityWithEbuka
• Rate & Review the show

MENtality With Ebuka is a production of Knight & Sheriff and EME.

Transcript

SPEAKER_03 0:00

On today's episode of Mentality with Abuka, whether it's alcohol, drugs, gambling, work, or validation, addiction often hides beneath the surface of male coping mechanisms. I'm joined, of course, by my co-host Banky W, as well as health influencer and medical doctor, a pro co-doctor, as we discuss masculinity and addiction. This season of mentality with Abuka is brought to you by Schweppes and the Glenn Leavett. No, but I love what you do. I really do. Thank you. I really do. I think it's how did that even come about?

SPEAKER_02 0:35

Introduce him first now. Make people know the just like Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 0:39

I know, I know, I know, I know, I know, I know. Well, anyway, good day, ladies and gentlemen. Um, it's mentality with Abuka, and of course, my co-host here, back in Dub. Yes, sir. I have a special guest. Um, the English will say he's a gossip doctor, which is what a proco means. Basically, a proco doctor, he's an online uh guru when it comes to health uh situations, and um, probably the biggest health influencer. I think that's fairly. Yeah, that's fairly saying thanks for being here, man.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Thank you.

SPEAKER_03 1:12

Thank you. Thanks for coming on the show. What a very interesting day because we're talking addiction today, and uh we felt like nobody knows this better than someone who's been addicted to things in the world. School laws come and teach us. Wait, like I said, how did you get into this? Funny enough, but like why?

SPEAKER_00 1:30

Why, yes, why? Because I practiced in very rural areas before I came to Lagos, right? And I saw people do different things. I saw a woman whose child was having a fever, and what she thought was the right thing to do was to take her urine and put it in the baby's eyes. Yes, yes. And at some point, wait, wait, wait. Hold on, wait, hold on, hold on. What? At some point, the child started having convulsions, and this same woman took the baby's feet and placed them in coal, hot coal. Jesus. Now, to her, she's trying to take care of that child because that's all she knows. So that's what she's been taught. And that's what she's been taught. That's what you know, they've told them that this is what our ancestors did, this is what works. And I spent a long time trying to educate her, only for me to understand that she was not the only one. The entire community believed the same thing. So I started to, you know, educate. And after a while, I felt, well, I don't think this education here is good enough. Yeah, let's try to get it into radio. So I auditioned for three radio stations around that exists, rejected for all three of them. You know, I was I was told what I was trying to do was not interesting enough for radio, right? And I admit, if I had interviewed myself, then I would have probably said, you know what, just come and begin. But you know, um, over time, the more we did it, the more we realized that a lot of people did not know about their health care. They thought they did, but they did not know. So we have a lot of people who have gone to school, but their health illiterate. So the best way was to now start educating in a way that people could relate to. Because at first it was not like this. I mean, they speak English. Hi, guys, coming to teach you about hepatitis. Nobody paid attention. Ah, they're good.

SPEAKER_02 3:22

They're not gonna understand you, but it's still going to hear stories like this.

SPEAKER_03 3:25

You realize the beauty of what the internet has done, how the internet has democratized spaces to information, yeah. Um, for a lot of things, you know. In the past, you've been writing proposals because you want people to hear you, like you said, researchers don't give you the time of day. And now everybody just does their thing. And look at you, man, terrorizing us and stressing our lives. Anyway, welcome. Thank you. Welcome to the show. And thanks for deciding to do what you do. Because I I see a lot of your videos constantly, whether it's on YouTube, on Twitter, wherever it is, and you are very intentional, and I think it's very, very um hard in this day and age to do the kind of things you do and still remain credible. I mean, but I've had pitfalls here and there. Everybody will have like one or two small, but generally people still come to you because they know. And in a time like this, where people are looking for reasons to call you out, it means you're definitely seeing some things that are yeah, or more than some that are right. So, like I said, we're talking addiction today, and I was trying to get the right definition of this thing because I was thinking, uh, am I what am I addicted to? And what part of my lifestyle might fit into the final. Let me go check the definition before I start um going that far. And it says addiction is a chronic relapsing disorder marked by a compulsive need for a substance or behavior, sometimes in spite of negative consequences. So basically, something has power over you. I guess it's what it is thinking about it now. The closest it could be for me will be coffee, but I don't know that I can't control it.

SPEAKER_02 5:20

It's not something that's one way to know if you can control it or no, it's to take a break, is to quit and see if you should have a lot of things. I have taken long breaks. Okay, so then you're good.

SPEAKER_03 5:28

I have taken long breaks. There are times when I give it up for Lent, and I'm just like, okay, I mean the first couple of days you'll be like, oh my.

SPEAKER_00 5:34

Can I can I edit that definition a bit? Okay, I would say the only time I am I can say it becomes an addiction is if it disrupts your daily life or your ability to function. That part because there are a lot of people who do a lot of things that doesn't disrupt. But it's just more habits than an addiction, more on habits than it is an addiction. Okay, because yes, because the brain coffee is more for some people, it's more of a habit, right?

SPEAKER_02 6:04

So and are you saying this because you are addicted to coffee?

SPEAKER_03 6:11

But this is water, yes, yes, this is all this is water, this is water, but that's the colour of vodka.

SPEAKER_00 6:23

Sorry, girl. But you see, you see people trying to do, you know, when when when you have somebody who's going to work and then finds a way to sneak in vodka into their bottle, yeah, just so that you know they can get through the day. Because that's the only way they can go through the day. Yeah, that's a problem. That's a problem, yeah. Yeah, but if you if if that same person is able to, you know, write it off and say, okay, you know what, this is not a good time for it. So addiction generally, it's when it starts to mess up your your life, your life, your part of your life, your flow, your part of it.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

I think I think I've had that. Mine was definitely nicotine, cigarettes. I had a cigarette. Oh god, my parents cannot do anything. I'll die in that. But I started smoking in GS3. Wow, which is crazy young. Really? Yes, and it was basically peer pressure. Yeah, we've written junior whyak, you know, that long, that small long holiday between junior yek and you're entering SS1. And now you just because then you are and I was the youngest in my class, so there was a need to show up a certain way so that you're not taking for granted. Boys around me have started experimenting with cigarettes, and then just to prove that I could do it, I took a stick. And it's so funny because that day I smoked, my mom almost caught me because I were literally by the malam smoking and everything and trying to walk away. And I saw my mom driving down. So it was like, this should have been a sign that the first day you're trying this thing anyway. And then I how did you mask it from? Didn't she smell it? She didn't, she knows she drove past. So she wasn't walking too much, she was driving past, and then I would dabble here and there. But by the time I was done with secondary school, I had become full on, got into university, and by university, I was doing about two packs a day. Wow. So I was smoking that much. That's about 46 of cigarettes every single day. And I smoked for 13 years. Wow. And like you say, I never knew this about you. I know because I stopped the last stick of cigarette I had was in 2008, February. So it's been a while.

SPEAKER_05 8:30

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 8:31

How did people are calculating my age now? I smoked for 13 years, 2008. Yeah, I gave it up for Lent, interestingly, and I just never went back.

SPEAKER_05 8:40

That's amazing.

SPEAKER_03 8:41

I didn't quit, I just kept saying, Let me see how much longer I'll hold out for. And now it's been what almost 18 years, right? Yeah. Was there was there any life event that happened or you just decided you know? So I had given it up for Lent the year before, and I did the 40 days, and I was like, but I couldn't wait for it. To come. And I to the automatic resurrection with it. And then the next year I did 40 days, and I was like, okay, let me see if I can go how much longer I can hold out for with this thing. Because you know, it's one of those things, I guess, because you actually know this one is bad. Yeah, you do. I'm like, this, my lungs, I'm so young. Yeah, and I was getting into the gym at that time. I knew I couldn't really do cardio, I knew things were happening. Yeah, so it was more because I could already see the signs. Yeah, so I just kept saying, Okay, let me see if I can go another month, another month, and then I just kind of stopped craving it. So cold turkey was what it was, and I don't, I'm very grateful that that was the way mine worked. Wow. But I smoked heavily, and like you said, it's the kind of thing where I'm in class, lectures are going on, and that's what I'm thinking about. Yeah, make a good bass, make a good bass. Yeah, it's and neuronicotine is one of the strongest of all of this. So that's probably the one thing I know held me hostage for years.

unknown 9:57

Wow.

SPEAKER_02 9:58

I don't think anybody has any experience. I think a lot of people have similar experiences with whatever it is that they end up addicted to. Sometimes it starts from a very young age. You get introduced to something that you then have a taste for, and then as you get older and you indulge in the tastes, you know, it starts from just the curiosity of it, um, and then the pleasure and the dopamine of it, and then all of a sudden, you over time you're rewiring your brain to think that man, I really need this thing.

SPEAKER_00 10:29

Yeah, I'm so I'm so glad that he mentioned rewiring the brain. Yes, go ahead, because that's the entire thing around addiction. Yeah, a lot of people think you know what, I can start it, I can stop it. That's actually why we disagree with ourselves. I go banana something, I'll start that my feet stop them. Yeah, but what we fail to realize is at some point it's your brain that is craving that substance, yeah, not you as a person. I don't know how to do that. Explain that. Explain that. So most of the items that are addictive, you know, addictive have a way of triggering the pleasure sensors of your brain, right? And the human body has a has a very innate skill of ensuring that if I take this cup today, this cup is all I need in order to get the effect I want. The next day, I take that cup and it feels like it's no longer enough. So I have to add one cup and maybe just half to get the original effect, and then the next day two cups and three cups, and before you get it.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

When they say like your tolerance for alcohol keeps increasing because it takes more and more of it to explain, explains why he was able to do 46.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, because on the first day, you probably got that effect from one stick. One stick got you there, then you're doing 46 to get the same effect you're getting the first day. Now, because that has become a loop, the brain now always wants that to trigger that same effect, then it's now the brain that's requesting for it. So, which is where that compulsive behavior usually starts from. So the brain has been rewired to crave that in order to get a certain effect. Because at some point, even if the effect is let's imagine somebody takes something to feel happy, right? Addiction to have to this item to feel a level of happiness. If the person's level of happiness starts here and they start doing that, after a while, their baseline level for happiness drops. So without it, they're a bit depressed and sad. And they now take it to just come to baseline. It's not necessarily a spike anyway. Just more, just like baseline that you were fine with on a normal day. Now, because it has rewired your brain, it's now a lot lower. So when people say I can stop by myself, like you really don't know what's happening with addiction. Yeah, like you, you, you literally cannot. This is this is no longer something around willpower. Yeah, because there are people who know what to do, yeah, but they're stuck to it. Yeah, and when we say addiction, a lot of people just think, okay, drugs, nicotine, this, that. Some people can get addicted to work. Yeah, especially our kind.

SPEAKER_03 13:17

The funny thing is, I was looking at the top 10 addictions in Nigeria.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

Point and gambling must be inside.

SPEAKER_03 13:24

No, it's interesting because work is actually number six. Yeah, is it work the hustle? Yeah, Nigerians are yeah, number one is sports. No, I don't think anybody's surprised about us. Sports, betting, and gambling, 65 million Nigerians gamble daily. 65 million gambling daily, daily, 65 million Nigerians gamble daily. So when you see this love for football now, it's not really the football look. So it's the aye aye. A lot of it is my ticket. When your bets no enter. When they abuse you, you caught my ticket, kept laughing, but it's like too soon. It's too soon. But it's sports betting one, and I know that it's not it's not just a Nigerian problem because I've seen conversations in South Africa and Ghana, Africa-wide, I think globally, but Africa-wide is a big problem with young men and sports betting. Have the adverts we see on TV now. Yeah, it's you know, sports betting or detailed. Number two is illicit drugs, cannabis, and all of that. Number three, alcohol, number four, social media and the internet. Number five, prescription drugs.

SPEAKER_02 14:33

I guess the coding is media is such an important, it's such an interesting thing. People don't know.

SPEAKER_03 14:37

People don't think it's an addiction. How many of us actually are addicted to it? Yeah, but you watch people sometimes when you say, keep your phone down, let's have a conversation. Yeah, and it's impulsive after two minutes. You are and you don't even know that you've done it.

SPEAKER_02 14:50

But what's the first thing you do when you wake up in the morning? Ah, you have to check uh what's trending.

SPEAKER_03 14:55

What's the last thing you do before you go to sleep at night? I'm watching TikToks.

SPEAKER_02 14:58

Have you ever tried to be like this morning? I'm going to wake up, I'm not going to open it.

SPEAKER_03 15:02

Yeah, no, it can't.

SPEAKER_02 15:03

And it's like your you're it's just have you ever had that moment where you feel like, oh, I've been scrolling too long, I should put this down. Yeah, and then before you know it, you've picked it up.

SPEAKER_03 15:12

Yeah, right after. The phone one, the internet one and social media is very bad.

SPEAKER_02 15:15

It's really bad.

SPEAKER_03 15:16

I have a way around the internet one. Works for me. We'll get to solutions.

SPEAKER_00 15:20

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's be honest, let's put the problem on the table. You know, the the the the entire thing around the internet, right, is still the dopamine fix that your brain is looking for. Yeah. The novelty of the of social media right now is your brain is searching for something new. Something it has not seen before. So that scrolling effect is it's like you're smoking, but you're scrolling. Because your brain is searching for something new. When you find some, which is why a lot of people don't watch videos for more than you see people telling, telling you, oh, you have the first three seconds to catch the attention. It never used to be that way. Yeah, because right now they're all three seconds.

SPEAKER_02 16:02

We have rewired our whole thing. Yes. Do you know there was a time that social media on Instagram need to tell you, oh, you're all caught up, meaning you have seen everything. Everything's not they don't they don't even tell you that anymore.

SPEAKER_00 16:13

No, they just keep finding you something to feed you. They fought they fought the social media companies for having something called the endless scroll, which means you just keep scrolling and never stop. And they said it was creating habitual addiction and all of those things. And here's what these guys did they said, okay, we're going to stop it. So you could now get to the end of your social media feed. But the fact that you even get it to the end of your social media feed shows that there's a problem.

SPEAKER_02 16:40

I don't even think you can get to the end now, because they'll just keep giving you new things.

SPEAKER_00 16:44

You can, because of the laws, they have to get to the end. But what some people do is the moment they get to the end, they refresh.

SPEAKER_02 16:51

See, the thing about it is that because they because there used to be a time, right? When you couldn't get to the end. No, no, now they even like there's no end because half the things on your feed are not people that you follow.

SPEAKER_03 17:03

Yes, we are just feeding you things they think you're doing.

SPEAKER_02 17:07

Oh, I think you like these kinds of things. So it just keeps feeding your timeline with different yeah, with different things.

SPEAKER_03 17:14

I get the social media one is a completely different beast, right? Because it's one of those ones where I don't know that we are in we how do I put it? I I started smoking because of peer pressure. Yeah, people do drugs because they're hanging around, whatever. Social media and the phones are just sort of it's part of our lives, part of our, yeah, it's part of our lives. These are the ones now.

SPEAKER_02 17:34

Before we get to social media, how much of a sorry, you didn't get to porn, porn must be on this list.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

Oh, I didn't finish reading. Sorry, that was a big one.

SPEAKER_02 17:40

I know say, and wherever it is, it's ranked too low because people are people are not honest about it.

SPEAKER_03 17:48

Prescription drugs, six to work and also seven is at least sex and pornography. Now lie, I doubt it's too low, but it's also because people they actually said in the next line, they said it's really openly disgusting. Exactly. Okay, add the disclaimer that's like number two. Yeah, so yeah, you know, but when you see all these porn sites when they release their data every year, Nigeria is always one or two. Yeah, we're number one or number two, yeah. We're always up there in the globally. There's a reason why. He said it's linked to smartphone access, which Nigeria increasingly has, and it's tied to loneliness, stress, and identity struggles. Yeah, and it's a quiet addiction with psychological effects, and it often coexists with other addictions, yeah, whatever that means.

SPEAKER_01 18:30

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 18:31

Um, I was gonna ask about peer pressure and what makes people even fall into these things, but this one doesn't need this one needs peer pressure.

SPEAKER_02 18:40

So so this so that one I I'm familiar and I've preached about this before. Like I've spoken about porn and and my own battles with it. And for me, it came from a place of one getting introduced to certain things at a younger age. So I I still remember the first day that I saw something illicit, and just that that the rush, that rush that you feel like, oh, I'm looking at a woman in a certain way.

SPEAKER_01 19:06

How old were you then?

SPEAKER_02 19:08

Funny enough, I was a bit further along. I think I would I'd had one or two brushes with it in my early teenage years, but the first day that I actually looked at it for real, I was probably 17 or 18 years old.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

So I was pretty late in the game.

SPEAKER_02 19:22

Yeah, I know most people you you start watching porn much earlier. I was about 17, 18 years old. Wow. But the the um the thing with the thing with mine was like the the seats. I remember I had seen something, and then I I went to university, and I was in university in New York, and there was a guy, this Asian kid, who like had all the porn in the world. And we were all and this was a yeah, no, not even a stash, like on his computer, he had like hard drives of hard drives. He was like one of these hacker kids that maybe hacked porn websites and had everything, and then he now made his computer open, like one day he just made it open share for the whole univers, the whole freshman dorm for everybody. You can just go into his computer and access everything.

SPEAKER_03 20:11

Wow, for a boy university, that's heaven, bro.

SPEAKER_02 20:15

Before you know it, the entire everybody have you seen this guy's of the and the what you know university. Now the word spreads around. If that had contested for president, honestly, we would have won straight straight up in that one fell swoop. I wonder how many of us got trapped, got that, got ensnared in that moment. So, with me, as I now became unfortunately kind of sexually active, you know, messing with women in the wrong way and all of that, it now got to the point where I was trying to battle promiscuity. And I now said, you know what? Make I just they watch pornography instead of walking and moving. Instead of moving from woman to woman, let me just, you know, watch this at least a little bit.

SPEAKER_03 21:00

That's a justification a lot of people use.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

And then the problem was I didn't realize I was going from frying pan to fire because, like you said, you're rewiring your brain, yeah, and you need to see a new woman every 10 seconds, and da da da. And then, and then when it's now time to stop, you now realize that you're dealing with demons that are much stronger than you. And that was where the reality like dawned on me, and it now took a whole journey to kind of walk back from that place where now I'm like completely free. And there's and I've preached about this in church so many times because I think we're just now getting to the point where there are some pastors that are comfortable tackling these kinds of issues. All my years growing up in church, I'd never heard a pastor preach about pornography. Like, I'd never heard it's almost taboo. It's like taboo to talk about. So I didn't really have the the tools. Like, how do I extricate myself from this? What's the what does the journey to freedom look like? So it now took a long time. So now that I've I've started Started, I've started talking about it from time to time when given the opportunity. And so many young men are in this addiction, in this battle, in this bondage to something on the surface, it looks like it looks like ah, you just, you know, you're not doing anything to anybody, but you don't realize that you're you're trapped. And it's when you are now trying to be free that it dawns on you.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

I remember, I think mine was around 12 years.

SPEAKER_02 22:26

12 years ago.

SPEAKER_00 22:27

Addiction to porn. 12 years. I grew up around a lot of thugs.

SPEAKER_02 22:31

As in 12 years old, or I was 12 years old. 12 years old, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:35

I was 12 years old. Um, grew up around a lot of thugs, and there was this particular guy whose elder brother owned one of these shops that they sell CDs. That was when porn was not available on the internet, so it was more blue theme. That was what it was called. It was called blue theme at that point. So he got one of the CDs, slotted it in, and I remember us watching it in turns. So we're like four four boys who would watch, one will stand watch. One is standing watch at the door, one is standing watch at the door. It's funny, but it's not funny. It's a collaboration. So after every five minutes, it's my person. Because if you're caught watching it, it's a problem. Of course. Then it got to a point we started getting enough of the CDs to share around. Right? And I get what you say where your brain is now looking for a new woman, at some points it gets beyond just woman. It now starts becoming the quote unquote the styles of the sex. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. The people the fetishes. Yeah. Because you remember your brain is looking for something new. Yeah. Your brain is always looking for something new. Yeah. At some point, you no longer want to see quote unquote missionary. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It becomes very boring. Yeah. You know. But then again, people start to go in deep. Yeah. And the guys who are behind this entire corporation who are making money off it. Yeah. Know that they need to continue feeding this young people. Yeah. Which is why, if you go to an average porn site, there are things being marketed to people, quote unquote. If it's not a penis enlargement screen, especially for Nigerians, it's even betting. You find a lot of because you mentioned that there are you know coexisting. So they all sort of that ecosystem. So if it's not betting, and then if you now do it in a way where you're in the dark web, where you're, you know, you're trying to find drugs, it's easy to do that. It's easy to find a lot of things, especially when you don't have and loneliness, which is which is where also mentioned, people don't have a lot of wholesome relationships with other men. Because of this as well.

SPEAKER_03 24:57

This is keeping us even more apart, more isolated. Yeah, yes. How much of this, yeah, you're not a government official, but how much of this is tied to the kind of country we are in now where people say they are betting because they find money, and they've heard about that guy down the street who made four million last week on top how many odds you can beat them this week. The economy is also people are unemployed, so there's a little too much free time and loneliness and boredom, which makes you addicted to things like social media. Um, there's a culture now, they always tell you that Gen Zs are the first generation who are going to drink less than the generation before them ever. But that's also because they are doing more illicit drugs than alcohol. Yeah, yeah. They are more wired to do things that uh that don't take time. I don't know if it's also the attention span thing. To drink alcohol and get high or get drunk, you need a process of poor drink, poor drink. But when you do pop, pop. That's it. So it's also like the world is just sort of shaping. And I guess my question is can young men survive this onslaught? Whether it's the porn industry that has understood what young boys I wanted to say need, but it's how to hold young men, young men hostage, whether it's social media algorithms, whether it's the gambling guys who know how to entice you, whether it's the drug guys who are making some of these pills even more colorful and sexy, and they are throwing all of these parties and they show you images of what a party that is themed by whatever drug looks like. They call them raves, but what kind of rave is it? So can is it a lost battle? Because it does feel very daunting.

SPEAKER_02 26:46

It is, it is daunting.

SPEAKER_00 26:47

Realistically, I don't think young people are winning the battle anytime soon. And I feel it's because the world is changing at a level, at a speed that is faster than they are ever able to comprehend. I mean, if you look at the generation I grew up in, things looked a bit stable. The changes were not that frequent. I mean, you were told become a doctor because that was one of the pathways to make money. It was easier. You could spend your time because you know that there's a reward at the end. It was kind of guaranteed, it was kind of guaranteed. So you sort of had an idea of what your life was going to look like, and then the changes are happening so fast that people things that people have studied for their entire life, wiped off with one update from an app. That's it, all your entire skill set's gone. Now, this is happening, the world is in a place of turmoil, nothing feels guaranteed anymore. You have to figure out your way, bearing in fact that you also did not were not equipped with the necessary skill sets. And I don't mean skill sets as for hard skills, I mean skill sets as for you need to first believe in yourself, you know, you need to have a spiritual ankle, sort of. What is your emotional anchor? Who are your friends, all of those things. We grew up in a situation where children played around with each other, and in playing around, we figured out human beings. Now, children don't even play around with each other. They're in class, from class, they're back home with their parents. I'm not allowed to interact with another child on the streets. You know, I don't know how to figure people out. And then you now throw me into the workforce. There's no human connection, there's no human connection anymore. But it feels like we are connected because I can easily send you a message, but that's not connection. Connection is spending time with you over and over and over and over again until we're able to create some sort of relationship that goes beyond you know social media. I tell people, how do you know someone is your friend? Delete all your social media apps. You used to feel as close to that person. Oh man, shake that table. Yeah, someone say, Oh, this person is my friend. Delete all your social media apps, and let's see how much of that relationship still remains. So I don't think we're winning that war anytime soon.

SPEAKER_03 29:12

This is me being realistic because just just to put it in context, the sports betting industry in Nigeria is worth about 600 billion naira. Nobody wants to let that money go. Nope, is my point. I mean, if the industry is that big, that's close to a trillion naira now. Yeah, they're not about to say, oh, let's taper down and free the boys. Yeah, not it's not funny, but it's funny. It's not free to anybody. Yeah, yeah. Online gaming is also another one that I find quite. And there are people who tell you there's money to be made there, but there's money to be made in everything, you know. But it's also one of those places now where I know a lot of parents who have kids and are battling how that's affecting academics or just their focus generally. Because gaming is also very, very addicting. Um, over 90% of bets are placed online. So you never have you don't even need to stress yourself to go to a what was your older guy that had those kiosks. You had to go and bet. Now you just in the comfort of your home, yeah, from your fintech up to exactly 18 to 40 percent actively participates. 40 to 66 percent of Nigerians have placed a bed at some point in their life. Men are more likely than women. This is away from sports betting now. Men are more likely than women to use drugs and suffer an addiction. Uh, drug use in Nigeria is 14.4 percent, and that's higher than the global average. And that's still underreported. If you are. Still underreported. Um, a lot of these things, there are lots of things that you see, and you just say you kind of feel like Nigeria is not a part of these conversations. You know, people are doing drugs, and but we we tend to believe we're we're in control for some reason in this part. Now, you both people they get that kind of problem, but this is higher than the global average. Now, this is not even sports betting you can attribute to poverty. This is drug use now, and it's increasing daily. Um, I don't know if you deal with people who have who are going through uh addictions, what kind of conversations do you have with them? How do they get into it? How prevalent is it? Is there even a what do they call them again? The police, there's a security angle to how this thing is even being tackled. Um, you hear once in a while they raided one place because they're smoking weed, but this is more than a weed problem. Let's be honest with ourselves. Like, how deep do you find that this is the drug use in particular? Because that one also now goes to a lot more.

SPEAKER_00 31:50

So, in um in 20, this is 2026, yeah? In 2023, we had an event called um the Aproconation Fiesta. Okay, right? And the original idea behind it was we looked at drugs and realized that it's almost impossible to have a party where young people are gathered without having drugs inside. So we're like, okay, let's turn the narrative on its head. This time we're going to have a party, no drugs, no alcohol, nothing. Just come and play the way you used to play when you were a child. Now, exactly. And the first nothing, nothing. Just a literal, no, not even a literal, you know, let's come and have fun, quote unquote. And the reaction I got when we announced that almost felt like we were fighting me. Like it is never going to happen. Aprocon, no waste your time. It is never going to happen. We did it. We had um we had people, we had almost 5,000 people on the first year. And then last year we decided to try it again. And because we already had success in the first one, we tried it again the second one, and we could see that there were actually a group of young people who actually wanted something clean. And after the party, we're we're getting reports that look, this is the first party I've gone to in Lagos where I couldn't quote an uncle's mellic book, where I'm not worried about being, you know, robbed or something. Exactly. Which shows that the demand is there. Human beings, if you if you understand human beings, you understand why drugs is a problem. The human being has two ambitions. The first is to avoid pain, the second is to chase pleasure. A lot of drug use comes because a lot of people are trying to avoid pain. Yeah, and pain can come in different forms. It can come, there's a pain of loneliness, there's a pain of frustration, there's a pain of embarrassment, there's this pain on every somebody just got jilted. That's pain. Yeah, I don't want to feel pain, it's uncomfortable. Yeah, so in order to avoid that pain, this is something that gives you pleasure. Yeah, so that's why it's very easy to get into drugs. I know we can say it's you know peer pressure, I agree, but peer pressure serves more as a trigger, but it's not a gun in itself, it's not the bullet, it's not the actual cause. Because if somebody is completely whole and you offer them drugs, they might take it.

SPEAKER_02 34:31

That's such a good point. Because peer pressure, in and of itself, is really just showing you that you are trying to avoid the pain of rejection, right? Like you don't want them to look at you a certain way, you don't want to feel the pain of feeling like you are lesser than the group of people you're trying to be a part of, which is why peer pressure happens most at a certain age.

SPEAKER_03 34:56

Age where you're susceptible to it. Yeah, so like maybe 20, yeah. Where you are adolescents, you are trying to, you don't even know who you are, you're finding yourself, you're looking for a community, a group. Yeah, and what does it take to be in that group? Ah, this is what we are doing. Yeah, are you with us or not? And it's easy to fall into it because and that is why it's always young people, yeah, who you find in this. You see, it's they tell you, oh, this child was so bright in school, and then in ninth grade, we don't know what happened. Something happened. He or she was looking for acceptance somewhere, and like it's coming, something else was happening, yes, but then that community said, This is your entry tickets into this, and then very, very interesting. The the my worry now is it feels like there's more accessibility to a lot of these things now, which is what I was talking about. It is this a lost battle, and we even live in a country where there isn't enough fixes. I know there's rehab spaces here, not enough, but it's not even close to enough, so we don't even have the cure, but the way prevention is more important. But we live in a world now where it's even harder to prevent it. I don't tell you Nigeria has so many problems. It is what problems is to be fighting drug abuse or betting when it's they're paying taxes. Hey, you know what I mean. So when you meet these people now, like you're saying, this your one-on-one encounters, and someone comes to tell you, I'm addicted to this, especially one of nicotine, cocaine, there are some things that they won't pull in is on a different level, like it goes more than your brain. Yeah how do you what do you tell them? Because some people actually want to stop it, yeah, but now they've lost control, yeah. And it's not a one-day fix. Not everybody can do it, gango called Turkey or whatever it is, but it's a lot of people look for answers, but they don't know how.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

I think I think when it comes to drugs, one of the first mistakes people make is trying to attack the symptom in itself. Because the drug uses a symptom, yeah. It's just medication for something, there's something that person is compensating for. Yeah, and your job, if you're trying to get that person out, is to find out exactly what that void that person is trying to fill. Yeah, but once you're able to find it and you can find a healthier way, because you cannot remove addictions, quote unquote. You can only replace them. Yeah, there's a people who are addicted to running, yeah, they're addicted to the gym. Because that's their way of, we don't we don't talk about these things because that's their way of dealing with whatever is happening. We'll always deal with whatever is happening, that's fine. But the one of the first steps is to find out exactly what's happening. Because if we say rehab is the is the source in and of itself, there are people who are in rehab centers. Well, from there was a story of this particular man who took his child to a rehab center because he wanted the boy to be free from drugs. And he comes to visit the child over and over again. And one day he came, visited the child, and he was happy that the child had started to learn a skill, which was barbing. So he sat down, the child barbed his hair as part of one of my visits, and then rubbed methylated spirits. But then he noticed that the metilated spirit was not. You know when they rub methylated spirit on your hair, it was not catching. It was not catching. Came the second time, the same thing. Methylated spirit was not catching. And they found out that the boys who were in that rehab center had found a way to remove the metilated spirit from the bottle and replace it with water, with just a few metilated spirits. So they're not sniffing the sniffing the methylated spirit and finding ways to get high from it. So these boys are in rehab, but they found a way to completely hide their addiction because you have not solved what the real problem is. Whether we like it.

SPEAKER_03 38:54

It's funny, I have a friend, a younger friend who just came out of rehab um at the end of 2025. He checked himself in for like three months, and he's only came from heartbreak, which is very interesting. And he went on this spiral after a girl broke his heart. And he told me, this guy is 32. He said, I've not seen as much drugs in my life as I saw in rehab.

SPEAKER_01 39:19

Yep. What?

SPEAKER_03 39:21

This is in Nigeria, by the way. Yep. Because, and he says it's not the conventional drugs, you know, people are making things, making things. They bring things that even the people in rehab don't even know that it's contraband. Yeah.

SPEAKER_04 39:34

Wow.

SPEAKER_03 39:34

So they have all of these things, like maybe the meteorite spirits, one small bottle of orange juice or lime. They think they're just bringing provisions for them, but they know how to make people are sniffing that people leave rehab worse because now they're even sniffing things that they make under their beds.

SPEAKER_00 39:50

Sorry, go on. It's crazy. So he found out that this guy and his friends have found a way to continue getting off the drugs, right? Getting off drugs, and that's because we focus so much on treating the symptoms. Let's get this person off drugs, but you've not filled that void. Yeah, it could be because this guy has been trying to connect, right? I know it's not a Nigerian problem, it's more, you would find this more in men. Yeah. And a lot of the reason is because we were not designed for life in the right way. The world has changed. There was a world where your worth as a man was how strong you were. Now, strength alone doesn't cut it. You have to be strong, you have to be crafty, you have to be cunning, you have to learn this. At the same time, you have to be humble. There are too many demands pulling you in 20 different directions, and nobody prepared you for it. So you're thrown into the world and you're just told to fix things by yourself. I know of a particular child. This child actually, it was his parents actually brought them to me. Right? This boy had just started, you know, going into drugs. But he had he had a good life. So why are you doing drugs? These are the questions that we haven't asked. Because we agree peer pressure is a thing, but until we have, and then Nigeria doesn't have enough mental therapists, we don't have enough psychiatrists, we don't have enough people who can actually help treat the mind. So we are fighting a lost battle in a way, I guess a hydra-headed problem. Yes, yeah, because the capitalists, no, let me let me not use the word capitalists. The people who are benefiting from the drug sales are not going to stop. Yeah, yeah. They you you are never going to appeal to their conscience and say, oh, this is destroyed. They don't care. It's a business. Their major interest in this business is to make it addicted to the money, so they're not going to be able to do it. They're addicted to the money. So they will continue to fit it, they will continue to find ways to get into the hand of young people, and which is why it's very dangerous for younger people, because at a very young age, your big your brain is still trying to form pathways. If those pathways get locked in at an early age, it's very difficult. That person is going to fight addiction for the rest of their life. Yeah. But as an adult, quote ununquote, somebody who has seen life, it's very easy for you to modify don't tire me. It's easy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 42:24

I'm done. In some cases, it's not even easy for an adult, but yes, it's you have a better chance. Yes, you have a better chance. If it gets into it's like writing in the cement when it's still wet. Thank you. When it dries, you have to break the whole thing down because you're gonna get it out of there. Yeah, because I don't, I don't, I don't see something.

SPEAKER_06 42:46

I don't see I don't see something for this life.

SPEAKER_02 42:49

For me, there's a there's uh, you know, and I you know, I know some people uh they know once they once I start talking, you know say the spiritual angle must enter. But the Bible actually is very clear about what bondage looks like from a spiritual perspective, and how it actually corroborates this idea of you can't just remove the bondage or the addiction or the problem, you have to replace it with something. So Jesus tells the story. He says, When an evil spirit leaves a man, it goes into different places seeking rest, and then it says, I'll go back to the house from which I came, and it finds the spirit comes back and finds the house uh swept, put in order, and empty. And then it brings seven more spirits, more wicked than itself, and says, Let's go back into this place. And this was actually the scripture that got me free from a lot of the things that held me bound. Because the key word that I never and I'd seen the scripture many times, but the key word for me was empty. Because swept means, you know, you've given your life to Christ, you know, you're it God has cleaned you up. Put in order means God is starting to reorder your priorities, the things that you like, the people. Places that you used to go to, if it doesn't serve the best purpose for you, you don't really want to do those things anymore. So your priorities change. But empty was always the key. And I never, the day that it dawned on me that you are trying to break free from these things, but you're leaving the house empty. You have to fill the house with something. And then I started saying, okay, I started finding scriptures that say, you know, when the enemy comes in like a flood, the spirit of God will raise a standard against him. So it was like, I just need to fill my house with the word of God. And that, you know, people see me now, you know, and I'm pastoring and I'm doing all of these things, but it didn't start from a desire to be in ministry. It was the furthest thing from my mind. It started from a desire to be free from the things that had held me bound. And I said, okay, if it's the Bible, if it's the scripture that I need to fill myself with. So I replaced those desires by just consuming the word so much, like reading the Bible, watching sermons, I would watch a sermon till today. If I watch a sermon at all, I may watch it 10 times because I wanted I want the wisdom in it. So I would fill myself so much with it so that by the time the spirit or the addiction or the bondage tries to come back, it meets a resistance of the word of God. And that's a spiritual way of saying the same thing that you're saying. It's like willpower is not enough. You have to replace it with something. You have to, you know, for you, it was like the desire to be maybe healthy living, and then to say, I'm going on a fast for length and I'm going to cut this thing off. So you you've given your brain a rewiring moment to say, we're going to replace this thing with something else. And I think that that is really it gets at this idea of how do we rewire ourselves. And you have to understand that your brain, like you've explained, has been wired to seek certain things. The Bible says every man is tempted when he's drawn away by his own desire. So it's like you've you had a taste for something, and that taste has started to rewire yourself. So now your brain tells you that this thing is what you need. So when you are stressed out, if you don't smoke the boo or do the drugs or whatever it the case may be, or if you're lonely, if you don't go and watch the porn, it's medication for something. But if you now start to replace it with something else, and in my experience, there's nothing as great as the word of God, and that's what I use. So being entering into ministry was almost like a byproduct of the freedom that I was chasing. And it was in finding that freedom that eventually got to the point where God was like, you know, you know, this is this is where I want you to go. Eventually, but in the beginning, it was the furthest thing from my mind. I was just trying to be free.

SPEAKER_03 46:47

When you were speaking on that, it was sorry, you I I know that when I stopped smoking was around the same time I started drinking coffee.

SPEAKER_01 47:01

Okay.

SPEAKER_03 47:02

And I've been on that coffee, and I have a whole ritual every morning. I wake up, I get my beans, I grind it. It's like a ritual for me now. Okay. But I'm also consoled by the fact that coffee has benefits. So exactly. So for me, it's like I guess my question now is first of all, are there good addictions? Um, and is that also a way to break an addiction, to replace, to find something? Like you said, the word of God is now sort of your own thing. Yeah, is it important to find something? Because maybe that's why people struggle to just stop this thing and not just be there. Yeah. What am I supposed to be doing with all of this time? Now, if I drop porn, is TikTok better? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Oh, people are uh I was gonna that's why I did that because I don't TikTok now, you know, TikTok banned lives in Nigeria at some point from midnight. Yeah, because it turned midnight tick tock into porn hub. It turned midnight into it I saw a very interesting one. Very porn hub, a very interesting quote that jumped at me when you were talking about you know the symptoms, treating the symptoms instead of the cause, actually. Yeah, and it said people men get addicted not because they are in pain, but because they were never taught to process pain.

SPEAKER_00 48:19

Yeah, I was just about to say that. That's very true. That I think one of the biggest confusions is people don't know how to compartmentalize what they are feeling. Because if you don't know how to process what you're feeling, everything just becomes a solution for that feeling. It's like using a hammer, everything becomes a nail. Yeah, right now, there are some times that what you're feeling is frustration, there are other times is loneliness. We need as men to be able to identify properly what we're feeling. If you're lonely, admit that I'm lonely. Yeah, ah, men can't be able to do that.

SPEAKER_03 48:57

So you know the problem, you know the problem, you know the problem, and it's almost a uniquely Nigerian thing. It's like uh-uh.

SPEAKER_02 49:02

In in the thing with with the way that we've been conditioned or conditioned is that we're trained to say, number one, men don't cry. We don't seek help and just figure it out. Yeah, it's like that's that's as a man, it's like you from an from an early age, when they beat you, they say men don't cry. Don't cry.

SPEAKER_00 49:23

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 49:25

And then just and then just figure it out. And then we're now taught, you know, like when I was in secondary school, when they're beating you and you don't cry and you chest it as they used to say, that was like that was showing strength, right? That's how you showed your classmates and the school that you were a strong person. So somehow, some way, that thought of silence is strength, is what has now taken root in our minds. And we've now believed this thing that man, I can be going through something, but because I'm trying to be a strong man, I'm not gonna talk about it, I'm not gonna cry about it, I'm not gonna show it, I'm just going to test it. Yeah, but in chesting it, you are sinking deeper and deeper. And it and that's the problem, is like it brings this, especially if it's an addiction like drugs or porn or compulsive gambling or whatever, it brings with it this cycle of shame. And the devil thrives in that shame. So the the sin brings the shame, the shame brings more, and then it just you're just sinking lower and lower and lower and lower, and before you know it, you've sunk so deep that you can't even see any hope of getting of seeking help when you're gonna be able to do it. Trying to even get out of it, yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 50:35

Yes, because it takes you admitting that first of all, I need help, yeah. Which a lot of men have not been trained to say. Yeah, it's very hard. Yeah, so we first we first need to go back to the drawing board. I mean, it's very easy for us to blame our parents and say, you know, nobody showed me the right way to love, nobody showed me the right way to process my feelings, but now you know better. Yeah, what are you doing? I'm not saying that transformation is going to come almost immediately, but it starts with you being honest about your feelings. Absolutely. There are times I sit down with myself and I'm like, forgive my French, I don't know what the F I'm doing right now. I need a mentor. That void will always be there. Yeah, yeah. So I've found one that's able to fill that void. So at times when I'm confused, I reach out and I say, Could you help me with this? And he's like, Okay, maybe not now. Give me five minutes, I'll call you back. And in five minutes, we've had a conversation and I'm able to come out of that confusion, quote unquote. Now, this is him feeling one aspect of that pain. Most of what we feel, especially when it comes to human beings, can be feel by other human beings. If it's the pain of loneliness, for instance, who do I need company from? Whose company do I need? Is it the company of a loved one? Is it a company of my wife? Is it a company of a brother? Is it a company of a friend? Somebody was strong enough to be able to deal with this.

SPEAKER_01 52:10

So, what about the people that would tell you that they don't have somebody? What does that person do?

SPEAKER_00 52:16

They don't have somebody.

SPEAKER_02 52:17

So, in other words, a man is feeling lonely, a young man is feeling lonely, he's feeling isolated for whatever reason, and he's dealing with that isolation and that loneliness with addiction to something. It could be drugs, it could be porn, it could be whatever. And he's watching you speak now. What do we tell that young person to do who maybe doesn't have a wife or a parent or a friend that he can open up to? Where do they start from?

SPEAKER_00 52:47

I think that it starts from actually being strong enough or brave enough putting yourself out there. Yeah. Because you cannot meet people if you don't put yourself out there. Yeah. Like we said, sometimes you just need to drop the phone and connect with actual people. Yeah. What field are you in? If it's if it's your workplace, one of the best places to actually meet people are during workshops or conferences. Yeah. Go there. Yeah. Meet people who are in the same, you know, like who have the same interests. And sometimes, even when it comes to chasing a romantic partner, quote unquote, my point of view, the best romantic partners come from people who actually share the same, you know, interests.

SPEAKER_01 53:34

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 53:34

Okay. Like you. Because it's easier to first form a friendship. Yeah. But then we now live in a world where uh mates and dance has turned into how much can you impress me on the first dates? Rather than sharing.

SPEAKER_02 53:48

I'm so glad I'm not single in this, in this era. In this era, really.

SPEAKER_00 53:52

The streets are rough. Hey, Baba. You know, and then social media is not making it easy. No. So the pressure is still falling back on the young man who is confused, who is looking at all those things and thinks, hmm, the only way for me to impress a babe right now is to have a million dollars in the bank and have drive a Ferrari or drive a McLaren. Meanwhile, another set of people are waiting to impress those young men and make them incels. That's the other part of this.

SPEAKER_04 54:27

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 54:28

Because now they're telling you you don't need to race these people. They are not worth your time, they're not worth your attention. That young man who is already frustrated sees that and thinks is the solution to this and does not build healthy relationships wherever he is. Yeah. So the person who is confused needs to first start from putting himself out there and developing relationships with other people. We don't need to rush it. And one thing I've learned when it comes to putting yourself out there is that the price for community is annoyance.

SPEAKER_04 55:00

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 55:01

You cannot say that. You cannot say you want a community and not be willing to pay that price of annoyance and irritation. Yeah. Sometimes my best friends irritate me. I'm like, can't you just make it on time for once? Yeah. Yeah. I hope they're watching the show. They are talking to someone in particular.

SPEAKER_02 55:24

But yeah, but that does not remove him from being my friend. Yeah, I think you've you raised a very good point because the cure, the antidote for addiction is not just discipline, it's discipline and connection. Yes. So it's it's more than just saying, I want to use my willpower to stop this behavior. It's about saying, yes, you're going to be disciplined, but you need connection, you need community, you need people, you need relationships, you need, I would say you need God as well. You need a spiritual anchor. There's a reason the cross is like this and like this. So you need a connection like this, but you also need a connection like this. You need people around you that can be your accountability partners, people that you can depend on, people that you can be honest and vulnerable with. And it's not going to be everybody, but there does there's got to be some people in your life that you can, and that's why I think that's one of the powerful things about going to a spiritual setting like a church, you said work, somewhere where there are other people that you can connect to and talk with and just build relationships with.

SPEAKER_03 56:39

You can't design for you to run it in that we've gotten some sort of it's not very often on this show that we're actually have solutions.

SPEAKER_02 56:48

We don't dare inside the trenches, so we don't see daylight.

SPEAKER_03 57:00

Did we touch on the good addiction bit? If that's a thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 57:04

So if you can if you can oxymoron, if you can, if you can find some maybe, maybe the word is not good addiction, yeah, but good replacements because the moment it starts to disrupt your life, yeah. I love coffee. I love coffee, yeah, but that does not mean I can't function without coffee, yeah. It does not mean that yeah, freaking same same it here first. So that today somebody sees me with black. But you know, um the moment it feels like I did not grind my bins that morning, my entire life has fallen out of you know the hinges, then it becomes a problem. Okay, right? It also does not mean that because coffee just helps me interact better with people, to be honest. Yeah, so but if if I've not had it, doesn't mean I can't vote for Jesus.

SPEAKER_06 58:00

Well, yeah, allow me.

SPEAKER_02 58:07

You know when you call me to come on your show, allow me.

SPEAKER_07 58:11

It's fine, it's fine. We vote for Jesus.

SPEAKER_03 58:25

Anyway, let's get to our live original moment. And we got this very interesting email. Since I've been thinking a lot about something I'd love your perspective on. What is the hardest part about being truly honest with yourself when it comes to addiction? Because for me, it feels like the moment I admit it, I will lose my big boy card and my image of being in control and with everything put together. It almost feels like it almost feels like I'll be stripping away part of my identity by admitting it. And that fear sometimes feels bigger than the habit itself. So, how do you get past that mental block? How do you face the truth without feeling like you've diminished yourself in the process? I'd really appreciate your thoughts on this. Back to the ego conversation. Yeah, a lot of sorry, a lot of the conversations we have on this show dealing with men's issues comes back to the ego of men. Because what he's just said here now is admitting it is a bigger problem than the addiction. And that's because you don't want to feel like I'm weak, right? Or I'm addicted to porn. It's one of those things people can't say because even if a gazelle of people are going through it, yeah, you admitting it are laughed at or sin as we're on a wow. Yeah. Because we like to deceive ourselves, like you said, that we're in control. Yeah. But go on. Yeah. So uh I did you want to say something?

SPEAKER_01 59:47

No, no, I'll say him.

SPEAKER_00 59:48

Yeah, so I'd say that people have three faces. Okay, right? There's a face that's showing to the public. That's if you're a public-facing individual, that's the one people know. Right. That's the one people know at your work. That's one people even know at your church, right? Your religious center, your mosque. That's the one people are seeing. There's a face you show to the people who are your in people. Those are the things that people in your family have seen. They've seen an ugly side, they've seen your impatience, but they still decide to, you know what, to love you. Respective. And then there's the face that no one knows except you. Only you. Only you. Yeah. Only you know that. Yeah. Some people would never admit anything to their therapists, their pastors, their religious leaders, their moms would never admit it, right? But you see, real progress comes from being honest with that person who is just you.

SPEAKER_04 1:00:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 1:00:54

And admitting, so rather than make setting things your identity, it is easier to say, I am weak in this part. Does not make me a weak man generally. Yeah, I am struggling with this does not mean I am bad generally. Yeah. It's separating what I call your inadequacies from your identity. They are two different things. So your identity can still be intact and still be honest about because if you don't admit that you are deficient in a particular area, it's very difficult for you to now take steps to be good in that area. It's like running. The first day I ran, I was embarrassed. Same me too.

SPEAKER_02 1:01:40

Because you said you can run, it was terrible. Because I've been a few times. My wife had a follow run, and two minutes in, I was like, eh.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:47

I always see this thing where someone says my toxic, my toxic traits is that whenever I watch the Olympics, I feel like I can do whatever you try it, first the the first day I tried it, my heap.

SPEAKER_00 1:02:07

Your luck dislocate, first of all, right? So, and yeah, if I was someone who wanted to stop running, that entire experience is to now look at it and say, Okay, I'm bad at running. Everything will first blow. Everything will first blow first. What are the steps I can take in order to become a better runner? Yeah, yeah. And then I slowly start to make those steps. Yeah, there's some people who it could be that okay, I don't know how to connect really with people, and then you start to learn. But if you're not willing to underto be to admit that, then it means that your ego is standing in the way of your learning. Yeah, and so long as that happens, it's not be me go tell you how to commo your ego. Yeah, it's you that have to admit that this is my problem.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:52

Yeah, a man, a man is not weak because he needs help in an area. A man is weak if he allows his pride to keep him from addressing the thing that is trying to destroy him. And so for this person is really a reframing of your mindset to say if this thing is is chipping away at who you are, then strength is owning up to it and starting to take steps, like you've said, to address it, to unpack it, to stop hiding from it and start healing from it. Otherwise, that addiction is actually there to take your life. Well, it can be.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:46

About 80-something percent of that age range is struggling with some form of addiction or the other, compared to 26% with women. So it shows you this is one of those situations where this the data is so skewed heavily to guys. I don't know if you know women who are who are into sports betting, but I think that one, for example, just tells you you know, most times when you hear sports betting, you know it's guys that are targeted. So it's just it's it was about 83. I was trying to say, I can't find it, but about 83 to 26. For 15 years old to 23, it just shows you what we're dealing with and how big this this um this fight is. Um this is one of those topics where I I know is at the core of what we do here because there's a lot of people going through things. And as much as we know the consequences of like drug use and all of these things, sometimes I wonder if those silent addictions are scarier. The sports betting. It could be a people who have gambling addictions for decades, and their spouse doesn't even know. And then one day the man just shows you his finances, and you're like, I've been living with a debtor for 30 years. That's those are very silent addictions, the porn addiction you mentioned, what social media algorithms are doing to young boys and maybe even more women with that one. So those silent ones, I feel like it's more, they're scarier because you can't smell it in the person's breath, you can't see it in the person's behavior. It's in those, I'm in my room. What are you really doing in your room? You know, so there's a huge burden on parents to be a lot more attentive. There's only so much you can do, but at the same time, there's a need to be more attentive to your parents, whether to your kids, whether you like it or not. And um seek help. As a parent, as a person, there's not nobody has all the answers. An addiction is not very often that you find people who can break an addiction on their own. People go to rehab multiple times and still go back to it. So seek help. Um, you can't go it alone. Um, but most importantly, like he has said, find your community. You never know what's sometimes just a conversation. Can do for you. Yep. Or for your situation. And um on the final note, share with us your thoughts. We don't know everything. So please drop your comments and share this with people around you so that they can also help us with advice. Because we need all the help we have. And finally, thank you, Aproco Doctor. Thank you. You know what his name is his name means? My God is close. Come on. I know you like that one. Thanks for coming on the room, man. Thank you. One of the most appropriate guests to have for the talk.

SPEAKER_00 1:06:32

Listen, X Fats.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:34

Oh see. This season of mentality with Abuka is brought to you by Schweppes and the Glen Event.