Do you struggle with an addiction?
Most of the time when we think about addiction, we think of addictions to hard drugs. But there are many "drugs" with addictive properties that are also legal.
For example:
But addiction can also be a behavior. The most common behavioral addictions include:
Most addictions have a serious impact on finances. In fact, financial problems are even cited as a possible symptom of addiction for substance dependence and compulsive gambling in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) used to diagnose mental health problems.
So how do we manage our money when we're recovering from an addiction or helping someone else?
Do you struggle with an addiction?
Most of the time when we think about addiction, we think of addictions to hard drugs. But there are many "drugs" with addictive properties that are also legal.
For example:
But addiction can also be a behavior. The most common behavioral addictions include:
Most addictions have a serious impact on finances. In fact, financial problems are even cited as a possible symptom of addiction for substance dependence and compulsive gambling in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM-IV) used to diagnose mental health problems.
So how do we manage our money when we're recovering from an addiction or helping someone else?
Welcome to Talk Wealth to Me, a safe space podcast where we chat about anything and everything related to personal finance.
Felipe Arevalo:The information contained in this podcast is for educational and entertainment purposes only. It does not constitute as accounting, legal, tax or other professional advice.
Chase Peckham:Hello and welcome to a new edition of Talk Wealth to Me where Phil, Katie and I sit around the table and talk everything finance. But in this case we're going to talk about all kinds of different things and instead of us doing that after the interview that had precluded us, we're going to break it into two. And as one of our listeners wrote in saying, you know, it sounds so comfortable that you guys are just sitting around shooting the blank. So here it is our first edition of Shootin' the Financial Shit. We talked with her, that night. I went home and thought, man an ice cold beer sure, sounds good. And then I went thinking back to her. I'm going, it's Tuesday. Yeah, maybe I shouldn't have a beer. But.
Katie Utterback:Thank you for saying that though because I want to go back.
Chase Peckham:I felt all I'm like, why am I all subconscious all of a sudden?
Katie Utterback:So just like the topic of addiction, I think a lot of times when you think about an addiction, it's like a very serious thing. And you're maybe picturing somebody who's maybe not clean or like they've lost every single penny they've spent it on this vice. You don't necessarily see yourself as someone who is susceptible to addiction.
Chase Peckham:I know I'm susceptible.
Katie Utterback:I, I am too. And that's why I brought up the chocolate thing cause it's kind of humorous to be addicted to chocolate, but at the same time, these are some of the things, uh, that made me realize I was addicted to it. Now I have it under control now, but there's just little things like is it in the house? I can tell you if there's chocolate in my house or not. Like I know and I know how long it's been since like I've had chocolate.
Chase Peckham:Wow.
Katie Utterback:Which is not a normal.
Chase Peckham:Is that from an internal clock or you're just body is, your mind is like, yup, I know it's there.
Katie Utterback:So it comes from a comorbidity of having mental health issues. So I, I'm not unique in this, but um, I found a statistic, um, I'm looking for that, but genetics play a role 40 to 60% of whether or not you're going to become addiction prone or have like an addictive personality. It's based on your DNA.
Chase Peckham:Sure.
Katie Utterback:The rest of it is all nurture. But about 78% of people with an alcohol or substance abuse disorder have some sort of depression, anxiety, mental health disorder. So for me, chocolate was a way to soothe like a depression or like anxious state of mind.
Chase Peckham:So you know what's funny about that is I, when I went through, when my mom passed and about two months after my mom passed, and I don't know if I've talked about it on this show before, but I went through major, what.
Katie Utterback:major grief major depression.
Chase Peckham:was a anxiety. All I know is it was the worst feeling I've ever felt. I felt like my body was completely on pins and needles at all times. I felt like the world was looking at me. I felt very vulnerable. I felt like my heart was racing at a hundred miles an hour all the time. It was like stuck in a, in a giant panic attack. And, um, at the time, like I have what is happening to me and I'm the kind of person who is very anti-drugs, very don't like to take prescription drugs, don't I want to be as healthy as possible. And it was like, it was like nothing I'd ever experienced. And you, and I've had this conversation before. It ends up that I unknowingly through my mom's whole four year demise, you know, from the beginning of seeing issues to the time of her death, which was incredibly painful, that I was in survival mode for all that time and didn't know it. And apparently, and it was my wife that said, you know, I was snapping at the family a lot. I was, you know, little things that would never upset me before would just kind of set me off. My kids would look at me and, um, and, and that is not my personality, right? I am a very laid back, nothing bothers me kind of person. And yet here I was and it ends up that I had depression without unknowingly because it wasn't depression in the sense that I think of depression as just being sad and curled up on a couch, which is not necessarily what depression is all about. And there's so many different forms of it and, and that having depression can bring on anxiety, anxiety can bring on depression. They're, they're very closely related. Uh, two separate things, but very intertwined and can cause each other those things. And the reason I bring that up is because for a person who has been a social drinker my whole life, I don't drink hard alcohol. I don't drink. I mean, I don't like sugary drinks. I mean, I really just like my Coors light. Um, I have really learned, it's a joke with Felipe is,
Felipe Arevalo:I mean, his secret Santa asked what kind of beer does he like? I was like just get him Coors Light, I'm not gonna get him Coors Light.
Chase Peckham:Well, the funny thing is, is that 394, she got me and I love it, but it's, you know, 350 calories of beer. So there's three of them still sitting in my fridge. Um, and I, even though I love them and I've really, you know, living in San Diego, we've gotten the craft beer, the craft brewery scene here. It's like basically the birthplace this in Colorado, but it is giant here. And I love it. I really do. But it's just the caloric intake is just off the charts. Um, but when I was going through that, I never ever went, God, I'd like, I need a drink, I need a beer, I need this to calm down. It was just the opposite. In fact, it was like my brain said, I am going to get through this, whatever it is without a crutch. I don't want a drug. I don't want, um, you know, and I was at a point where I was like, I mean, is there some kind of, you know, depression or anxiety drug that or, or medicine that you can give me for the time being that'll relieve something. Um, and it turned out I didn't need it. It, well, we actually tried one anti-depression drug and it's, it set me off even worse.
Katie Utterback:Well, and that's a great point because so many people that um, have been talking about addiction recently, they talk about opioids and those pain killers and there's a study out of the University of Arkansas. If you're given an 11 day prescription for an opioid, 11 days, just one prescription, you have a 25% chance of being addicted to opioids in a year.
Felipe Arevalo:Oh Wow. Just from an 11 day prescription?
Katie Utterback:Just from 11 days.
Chase Peckham:Well, I mean I can understand it though so much because if you are in that state at that time, you feel like you're never going to get out of it. I mean, you literally feel like even though 99.999% of my life, I've never felt like that, that one point when you're deep into it, you feel like I am never going to feel normal again and you feel helpless and you feel like, you know, I fought. I thought that maybe I just, there was something in my family, Dina, and I'm going crazy and until you really learn about it and therapy helped a lot, I still go, I recommend therapy for people that don't even go through those things because life's hard enough as it is and you can lose sight of who you are. And that's a whole different podcast. But[inaudible] the one thing where I really knew, okay, I'm, I really am not, cause I've thought about it before, you know, long weekend of, you know, a couple birthday parties, you know, whatever reason where you're drinking three or four days in a row. And because it's been fun, I had never been a guy that drinks during the week, but still it's been in my mind that, Oh well by definition am I and you know, all those kinds of things. And when I went through that, I realized that I did not reach for a crutch for a outside entity to make me feel better. I want it to organically beat or, or, or learn how to deal with whatever I was dealing with. Um, yeah, I didn't have a beer for three months, didn't have a alcoholic drink for three months. And for me three months is a long time cause Friday night comes around I'll have two or three beers with my wife. We have a relaxing time. It's just.
Katie Utterback:that's your routine.
Chase Peckham:That's our routine. It is of a routine. Yeah. And then it's social aspect too when we're with friends. I mean we just relax and have some drinks and, and you know, not party time like it was when we were in college, but relaxing. And it just, I think if anything that I kept when I came out of all of that and I still have learned today that as much as I am an addictive personality with things like, you know, whether it be diet Coke or I just get into whatever I get into, it becomes a routine. Alcohol hasn't been one of them. And drugs never have. Man. I've, I think I smoked pot once in my entire life. Um, but I'd always been worried about that because addiction does run in my family. My grandfather, uh, was a, was an alcoholic. He drank every single day. I mean, if you asked him, he would have said, no I wasn't. But if you asked my grandma, she'd say, just watch him. He's loud as hell at certain times of the night. My dad said that, you know, there's dependency issues and it turns out that, you know, there were, you know, others in my family that I didn't know about that were also, um, dependent. And so that's always been on the top of my mind and, and concerning to me, but at least I, I'm aware of it.
Katie Utterback:Well, but that's interesting though, that you mentioned that your, your grandfather would maybe classify as somebody who had an alcohol, um, issue.
Chase Peckham:also his generation where you just had a drink every, every.
Felipe Arevalo:Every morning?
Chase Peckham:No, no, no, no. But when you get home from work, six o'clock, it's, you know, he called it cocktail hour, you know, they didn't call it happy hour in those days. It was cocktail hour and that was just, you know, whether it was scotch was your drink or bourbon or whatever, it's vodka, whatever it was. Um, there'd be a couple of drinks before dinner and that was it. But his tolerance I think was just never very good. And that's why his person, and he was a loud personality anyway. So alcohol just didn't agree with him. Um, at least for everybody else around him, it agreed with him. Just didn't agree with anybody around him. Um,
Katie Utterback:but it's interesting because you, um, when we're talking about the generations and like the impact, you mentioned that your grandfather was very much so frugal because of growing up in the depression. So it's interesting to me the amount of money that we're willing to spend on a vice, but then maybe we're frugal in other areas where you don't need to be so tight with your money.
Chase Peckham:for sure.
Felipe Arevalo:Well, I was presenting yesterday, um, at Mesa college as part of the speaker series that they do up there. Uh, and I had at the end, I like to leave time for questions and I had a young guy in the back raised his hand and said, Hey, uh, how do you, um, can you budget if you have like an addiction? I was like, well, that's interesting that you say that. The podcast I mentioned in the last slide, we're going to talk about that in a few weeks. Um, I dunno if he's listening, but I let them know you can still budget. I mean ideally, depending on your addiction, you want to try and cut back and financially that's going to be a big help along with health depending on whatever the addiction he was referring to. But you're right, it, it, it could be some people's biggest expense on their budget.
Chase Peckham:She talked about that very thing. I mean there, there's so many aspects to dependency and you know, thinking about everybody losing everything and the super wealthy.
Katie Utterback:Well and I think people mistakenly think that when you're talking about addiction, you're talking about hard drug you're talking about heroin, but heroin is actually cheaper than opioids on the black market, which is why-
Felipe Arevalo:I read that in the reader just last week here in San Diego, it's significantly cheaper. Sales in San Diego unfortunately are increasing because they've cracked down more on the opioids. It makes them harder to get, so they're the more expensive drug. There's a cool story in the reader this week.
Chase Peckham:Well you listen to Dax Shepard's armchair expert and, and he talks about, you know, his addictions all the time and he, there was nothing that guy didn't love, you know, love. And he talks about how just in the last one he was talking about how um, his people were upset with his wife because she would smoke pot every once in a while socially with people around and, but she's got a, she uses it for.
Katie Utterback:anxiety and depression.
Chase Peckham:anxiety and depression, um, which she is very vocal about. We're not saying anything that she doesn't say publicly and people are like, Oh, how can she do that when you are a w when you've been in AA and sober for so long? And he's like, you know, I don't want people to stop living their lives around me because that's not a them problem. That's a me problem. And if I'm the one that's craving these things, then I need to do something about it. Now I have asked her, she doesn't do hard drugs anyway. You know, she's an alcohol and pot and he's like, but if somebody would have brought brain cocaine around me, I would probably most certainly start salivating. And I know that I've got to stay away from that scenario. Um, and that, you know, he was spending, he told the story of, you know, a blackout for like four days and he had more an old diet drug apparently, like diet pills that were super. Now I don't think they even make them anymore, but at the time, I think this was the mid, mid two thousands, early two thousands and he was using them and he said, I would spen- I was broke, but I'd spent every last penny on all of this stuff. You know, I made just enough money to pay my rent, put money in my motorcycle, and do those drugs. And he's like, how I'm still alive today. It, it's a, it's an amazing thing. And I look at that and I hear that and I go, Oh my God, I've never put myself in anything close to that. I'm scared to death of drugs.
Katie Utterback:Yeah. And I would say that with you that I'm afraid of too. But then I start looking at what is technically classified as a drug. I can't say that because on this list.
Felipe Arevalo:it's not chocolate is it?
Katie Utterback:Yes, there's chocolate because caffeine, coffee, tea, sports drinks, Xanax. How many people do you know that have mental health issues or extreme anxiety? They take Xanax or Valium and.
Chase Peckham:Xanax is extremely dangerous if you drink alcohol at all.
Katie Utterback:Incredibly dangerous.
Chase Peckham:Uh, so I was given, they prescribed Xanax to me.[inaudible] and uh, I took a half a one to go to sleep that first time and because I'm a normal, really, really very good sleeper. And during that time sleeping was difficult for me at that point. And so my uh, somebody told I only took a half cause I didn't want to take a whole, I did it for two nights. And it just, the idea of having, just for me, the idea of having to use something to sleep and this isn't to say that people that need to use things to sleep. Me personally where how my brain works. I did not want to use something foreign to make me go to sleep and I didn't want. And besides the fact that Xanax is something that makes you feel basically nothing, it just kind of makes you feel flat. Some people get a high off it now I'm guessing that's a body chemistry thing. When I took it, I didn't notice anything. Although I only took a half of a very low dosage, but I've got the pills sitting in my and I don't, I've never used them since that to basically the total of one pill.
Katie Utterback:And it sounds like you have a very healthy respect for this drug.
Chase Peckham:I do. I'm scared to death of what they can do and they've done it to very strong minded people. Yes. And they have, I, I never wanted to, I wanted to say I can beat whatever's in front of me without it. Now, does that mean that if I had cancer, would I say I can beat this cancer without chemotherapy? No, probably not. I would, I would follow the direction of my doctor. But when it comes to those psycho analytic drugs, as, as, as a a, a, my doctor has talked to me about and I've talked to other things, they react differently to everybody. Everybody's body chemistry reacts differently to all kinds of things. So it's a lot of trial and error and I was just too scared myself to do it. And for me, therapy worked better than anything. And I'm, I'm a better human being today. I'm way more open minded. I'm much more happy from within and don't need other things to make me happy in through all this very difficult time, I had found out that, okay, I am, I am not, my alcohol usage is very social and not because I need it because that was something I was scared of. Did am I drinking because I feel like I need it. Um, I need it to relax, I need it to, and that's never been the case. And so, but I was scared of that for a long time. And beyond that, well, the cost of all this,
Katie Utterback:I wanted to ask you socially, have you ever felt pressured to spend more money than you maybe had?
Chase Peckham:Yes, but that's going out to dinner. Carrie and I talked about it last night. There are times, and it's not that we can't afford to go out to dinner, but it's just do we want to, and that comes down to, we have friends like we're at finished with a baseball game at a nine o'clock at night on a Tuesday and they go, Hey, we're going to such and such place. Do you guys want to go out? Oh sure. But the place we go to ends up being$110 for the four of us on a Tuesday night when I gotta wake. Why? Why do that?
Felipe Arevalo:I tell people all the time when I present, just because you're good at budgeting, it does. You're not going to go out and buy something sometime that you have no business buying. Yeah. And because you're right, it's, and it's human nature. You know, you're walking through a store and go, Oh wow, look at that. I didn't need this. Or like you mentioned, you know, your friends say, Hey, do you want to go out and get sushi? For me it's sushi because Sarah doesn't like sushi. So my friends call me and say, do you want to go get sushi? The answer's almost always going to be yes because I'm deprived of it. When I used to eat it all the time.
Chase Peckham:Sarah, learn to eat fish. It's good for you- Omega threes,
Felipe Arevalo:Omega threes. Yeah. But, but it was interesting that you mentioned coffee because I sit next to you Katie, and you probably noticed, I drink a lot of coffee. Um, at least two cups a day.
Chase Peckham:Two Eight ounce cups? Yeah. It's not a lot.
Felipe Arevalo:It's not horrible, sometimes three. Um, and that doesn't even include the caffeine I may have in the afternoon from an ice tea. I do like ice-tea also.
Chase Peckham:You don't realize how much caffeine you're taking in.
Felipe Arevalo:no, I drink four or five caffeinated beverages a day.
Chase Peckham:Wow.
Katie Utterback:But see, it sneaks up on you. And then Felipe, do you ever notice the days that you don't have coffee, you don't have your ice tea? Maybe you get a headache, maybe you're a little bit jittery.
Felipe Arevalo:It's funny though, I don't drink it on the weekends all the time. Especially if we're out on the go. If I'm at,
Chase Peckham:it's not habit. It's not a habit. You're not sitting at your desk.
Felipe Arevalo:unless I'm sitting. Unless I'm at home and Sarah drinks her coffee, then I get that coffee smell. Then I see her enjoying the coffee. Oh, I want one too. But if I'm out and about like we have baseball practice in the morning. Okay, maybe I do bring it to baseball practice, but if we're out and about doing other things, cause at baseball practice, I'm just sitting this season, I'm not coaching. So I grabbed a book, I grabbed a coffee and then I go to practice and I sit there and read, read and drink coffee for the most part on the weekends I skip it and I really miss it. I don't think I'll pay more attention to it.
Katie Utterback:It's not an addiction then.
Chase Peckham:Yeah,
Felipe Arevalo:it's close.
Chase Peckham:Shoot. I went, I drank diet sodas, PEPs, diet Pepsi, diet Coke for, for years. I mean it started with my mom drinking tab when I was a kid.
Katie Utterback:Did you have withdrawals when you stopped drinking?
Chase Peckham:I didn't. It was interesting. It was more the, um, the bubbles and the, and something to do while I was in the car. And I've replaced that. I've replaced it with, um, carbonated water. Uh, it took a while cause the taste is completely different, but it was just more or less that I was realizing how much I was spending on, on the amount of diet Cokes and soft drinks that I, you know, I would buy these 32 ounce diet Cokes with extra ice and I would stop every time after I was presenting or if I.
Felipe Arevalo:he always had one with him.
Chase Peckham:always, it was like a joke. Everybody would always go, where's your cup? Where's your, where's your big gulp? Or whatever it was. And it was always a diet soda. But I realized I was, you know, we were, my wife and I, when Clay was I think right around one and we were pregnant with Avery. Um, you know, we started really watching our finances and tracking what we were spending. I was spending close to$300 a month just in stopping by and getting my 32 ounce diet Cokes. And if you think about it, you know, you go at a Wendy's or you go to any of those fast food joints, they're all$2 and 19 cents or so, you go five or six times a day, uh, and you know, 7-11, they have those dollars. But you know, for some reason I didn't like to get out of my car and go walk into 7-11. Um, then, then I knew where every McDonald's was from the orange County down to the border. Uh Oh yeah, I can stop on that. It's on this side of the road and it's only a dollar right at their having their dollar for any size soda now. And it just, it shocked me that I was spending that much money on something like that. And I, my wife freaked out and we stopped and I got$40 cash in. I, I was sticking to it because I realized how one, how much money I was spending on it and two the chemicals and everything that are in those diet Cokes and diet Pepsi's can't be good for my system. So I just started weaning them out and eventually it just, I stopped drinking altogether.
Katie Utterback:That's an interesting word though. Weaning yourself off of it.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. I had to wean because I only had$40. So there was only so much of it I could drink, um, without running out of[inaudible] running out of money. And, and I have this in my personality that I'm, I'm not a rule breaker, even though my wife's not giving me rules. If we made a pack together to try to follow a budget, then I'm going to, and I would feel, I would feel very guilty if I didn't. Um, and that's my own issues or my own whatever, you know? I don't know.
Katie Utterback:I get what you're saying.
Chase Peckham:Yeah. I don't know what the right word is for it.
Katie Utterback:Well, I, I want to kind of switch a little bit. I found, um, there are some movies now talking about addiction and kind of the impact it has on parents. So there are two Hollywood movies. Um, one of the movies is called Beautiful Boy. It stars, um, who is the guy that was in the office, I'm blanking on his name. So it starts Steve Carrell as the dad and then Timothee Chalamet is the son and it's based on a real life father and son. Uh, the, the father I believe was a writer or a freelance journalist. And then his son developed, I believe in addiction to heroin. Um, but he, he made a, uh, I have a quote from him and he said, sending money to a drug addict is like giving a loaded gun to someone who is suicidal cause I wanted to bring up,
Chase Peckham:That's powerful.
Katie Utterback:It's very powerful. But the reason I wanted to bring it up, because we kind of talked about the financial one two punch of addiction of you may lose all of your money before you even get treatment or get help and then that debt doesn't just go away. And I bring this up because, um, I was looking through some forums on addiction and it sounds like a lot of people were recommending to fellow addicts in recovery to just try to declare bankruptcy, but I guess not all of your debts that are tied to addiction can be wiped away. Um, for example, alimony and child support, if your addiction ends up resulting in the end of your marriage, you're going to be, you know, responsible for taking care of that. And then, yeah, any debt that I guess you incurred as a result of that addiction also cannot be wiped clean.
Chase Peckham:Oh wow. Yeah. So how do they determine that?
Katie Utterback:I don't know, I'd be interested. Great question for a legal team. Yeah. Um, but just on top of that too, this is a huge issue. So the cost of recovery is estimated. That would take about$50,000 is like the average cost for one like 30 day rehab treatment type. And these are not those fancy celebrity rehab mansions on the beach. And I guess the cost of the rehab that you go to, they have, there's zero research proving that the more you pay equals a better treatment. So it's a complete shot in the dark if it's going to work for you. Wow. Um, yeah. So there's an, this is from 2017, 20. 7 million people age 12 and older needed treatment for some sort of addiction. Only 4 million of the, almost 20 million people got treatment. So that's 19%. And then of the, uh, 18 million people who did not receive treatment but needed it, only 1 million said that they felt that they needed help or treatment.
Felipe Arevalo:So there might, they may not even be out looking for no.
Katie Utterback:So there's, yeah, there's a lack of kind of self awareness and I think tied into that, we were talking about coffee, we're talking about alcohol, some of these common, you know, drugs that we don't necessarily consider drugs. Cigarettes is a huge one, you know, like if you smoke a pack a day, your budget busters for sure. Right? Like how much is that going to take away? And then.
Chase Peckham:California, I mean especially, I mean we, they tax the heck out of out of cigarettes. It's, it's crazy. And people, it's just, they, that that is a part of their budget and then they've got to make it work.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. And it's something where it's so hard for them to, to quit. It's interesting. All the numbers and I wonder how much aid or assistance is out there that is under utilized because the individuals don't feel the need to go out and, and necessarily find the help. You know, I'm thinking like all the years they come out with the statistics of the amount of scholarships that aren't claimed by students. I wonder how much assistance is out there for people suffering from an addiction that goes unused every single year because people aren't out looking for those resources. That'd be very interesting to see.
Katie Utterback:Yeah, I would be interested too, especially since it sounds like, um, a lot of rehabilitation treatments are not, uh, covered by insurance. So a lot of it's coming out of pocket.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. I wonder if there's also like court mandated ones.
Chase Peckham:Oh, for sure.
Felipe Arevalo:Individuals. And do they have to pay for those?
Chase Peckham:For sure.
Katie Utterback:I believe so, but I believe if you're an adult, you can check yourself out at any time. So I don't know how that[inaudible]
Felipe Arevalo:unless you're, unless you're court mandated. Yeah. I mean, I know that when there are DUI infractions or you know, things like that, that the court will, you, you, yeah. You've got to go to a treatment program of some kind.
Katie Utterback:Yeah. So addiction, um, across the US um, an estimated, so$740 billion has been lost annually in the workplace. Um, as well as with healthcare expenses and crime related costs. That's the impact of addiction.$740 billion. And then on top of that, overdose deaths are skyrocketing. So, um, there was a report that 60,000 people, uh, died due to overdose deaths last year, which is more than the amount of people that died in Vietnam and the Korean war.
Chase Peckham:combined?
Katie Utterback:I don't know if it's combined to be quite transparent. I didn't look up the exact number of how many people lost their lives in Vietnam and the Korean war. Um, but yes.
Felipe Arevalo:Wow, that's a lot.
Chase Peckham:It is.
Felipe Arevalo:And that was in one year?
Katie Utterback:One year.
Chase Peckham:It is. There's so many, there's so many different avenues in the definition of addiction, uh, let alone how many avenues and definitions there are to personal finance and addiction would include things like someone could be addicted to a non substance. Would that still be included in addiction, for example, television, video games?
Katie Utterback:Yes. So you can be addicted to the internet, video games, um, cyber sexing, online gambling, social networking sites. I mean, we joked about it when Facebook and Twitter and all of those social media sites came out, but there were real addictions and people started putting timers on their phones that would kick them off those sites. Um, eating, there's overeating, bingeing. You can be addicted to, um, exercise. I mean, you've, you've seen those people, they just cannot stop. Um, we mentioned gambling, casinos, slot machines,
Chase Peckham:that's a deeper rooted problem probably.
Katie Utterback:Yeah. Um, you can have a sex addiction. Um, shopping addiction, work, addictions. I think it's.
Felipe Arevalo:anything. Yeah, pretty much even good things.
Chase Peckham:Well, I mean, look, here's the deal.
Katie Utterback:Too much of a good thing. Yeah.
Chase Peckham:Even, you know, very healthy minded people could be diagnosed with some form of mental health or addiction or whatever it might be in certain areas. It's just we're all prone. We're all different and unique, but we're all prone to certain aspects. I mean, you could still be a healthy person, but for, my wife, I'm not to throw her under the bus, but she is a little bit obsessive compulsive with certain things that she has to make sure that that is a certain way or it really just makes her feel uncomfortable. Now, does that obstruct her life or make our life, you know, unbearable? Absolutely not. It's just a little bit of a thing and we just say, Oh, that's just in her personality.
Felipe Arevalo:Don't leave the shoes in the wrong spot type of thing. Like putting the house in order type of thing.
Chase Peckham:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Katie Utterback:I think I just, I remember what Kathy was saying though about the personality thing. I think the only thing you have to be careful about, not necessarily in Keri's case, but just, you know, if you're like, you know, grandma has to have her juice before everybody goes to bed. Like sometimes you kind of normalize the addiction and then you're not, um, you kind of become an enabler instead of helping them. Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:Then you think about it. I don't know about you guys. In my early twenties, I drank a lot of alcohol.
Chase Peckham:Um, what is your definition of a lot?
Felipe Arevalo:A lot.
Chase Peckham:See, I would never know that, but the in nowadays,
Felipe Arevalo:but I followed my own little drinking rules. I never got in trouble and it's, if I drank half the alcohol now I'd be, Whoa, what an alcoholic. But at the time I was in college, it was everyone doing it and it was social because there was always someone to drink with. There's always a drinking event. Uh, never missed work school or anything else due to the drinking. But it was,
Chase Peckham:If you live that life now somebody would call the cops on you.
Felipe Arevalo:I would probably call the cops on myself. Right, right. I, I'd have to look in the mirror and say, what are you doing? So I think it also takes into play. You mentioned video games. I played a ton of video games.
Chase Peckham:in Korea, there's an epidemic, like they literally have to put people in video game rehab.
Katie Utterback:They have video game rehab here too.
Chase Peckham:I didn't know. I just know well I'm sure. I just know it was a big story in Korea that South Korea that that's big to me.
Felipe Arevalo:See for me video games went away when I just didn't have the time to play em anymore. I if I, I'd still love to sit down and play video games for hours. It's just, I don't really.
Chase Peckham:remember I told you guys, my wife, my son wasn't not into Fortnite and just didn't play anymore. Literally. I think I said that two or three weeks ago. Yeah. Yeah. He's playing again because it's social cause there's other buddies are playing. Not that he loves that game. He's just playing it because he wants to have the crowd talk with his friends about it.
Felipe Arevalo:That game I haven't played yet, but it doesn't seem appealing anymore.
Chase Peckham:You have to play. I get sucked into it. Friends of mine, friends of mine, I started playing it with their kids and now they're kind of not addicted, but, but they really like playing.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah, no, I, at this point I would play FIFA if I had time, but I just, I bought the, an old FIFA game from last year's version over Thanksgiving, so I got it for 15 bucks or something. I thought Oh, I'm going to play again. I played it twice. That was black Friday,
Chase Peckham:$7 and 50 cents a time.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah. You know that and I was so excited to get, Oh, I haven't bought a FIFA game in years. I'm going to play it so much and twice and it's been four months.
Chase Peckham:Well, I will tell you that through eating, whatever it might be, the both Kari and I when we plan out our meals and we know what we're going to eat during the week, not only is it making us healthier and sit as a family and talk and do all those things that we have noticed that we save literally hundreds and hundreds of dollars if not$1,000 every month by not eating out. And you know, we get so in tune with getting busy and all those things. Why? Because there are people that are addicted just that's all they want to do is eat out. Like they literally think that food from home sucks because they the food of whatever's in the food that they eat out. Not, not saying that if you eat at night place nice places, but you know, those foods are so filled with crap and they do something to the taste buds. My kids just- Kari and I have to be really hard on them now and be like, no, just because you're hungry doesn't mean we go to Chick-fil-A or we go get a sandwich from Jersey Mike's or whatever it might be. You'll go home and if you're hungry enough, you'll make something. And if that's an Apple or a banana and, but I don't have anything at home. That's always an excuse. But If I don't eat, I'll starve, as sad as it sounds, kids starve. We know they're not going to starve because they will find something. They just want that. They want to to satisfy those taste buds that they have for whatever they have in their mind.
Felipe Arevalo:Even Barrington who is six. Sometimes he'll be like, well, there's nothing to eat at home. And then we'll get home. Like, look, there's some bananas. Look, there's grapes. Look, there's this. Oh, well I don't, that's not what I want. Well then don't eat anything. You'd be all right. Yup. And then a little bit later, you'll see, you'll hear him in the fridge trying to get something. Eventually he, he won't, he won't starve. He'll, he just doesn't want what's there at the moment and.
Chase Peckham:he wants whatever those that's going to satisfy his tastebuds.
Felipe Arevalo:Yeah he wants Jack in the Box..
Chase Peckham:Yeah. Well, we'll come back to this again, uh, in another show because this, and I want to, we didn't even come close to this dissecting it.
Katie Utterback:It's a huge topic.
Chase Peckham:It really is. And it can go in so many different ways. I mean, just our conversation here, you know, the addiction is not just the high end and, and strong drug.
Katie Utterback:It's not the hard drugs.
Chase Peckham:You can spend money on a lot of different habitual type stuff.
Katie Utterback:Yeah.
Felipe Arevalo:So Katie I'm not going to eat chocolate at my desk anymore- I'm gonna help you out.
Katie Utterback:No, no, no. It's fine. It's fine.
Chase Peckham:Dark chocolate? Milk chocolate? Chocolate with almonds? Peanut butter?
Katie Utterback:Milk chocolate. Like it's specific milk chocolate.
Chase Peckham:Hersheys?
Katie Utterback:Actually. Yes. I don't like the fancy chocolate. Like it doesn't have the same, I don't, I really have no idea what it is. But the cheap Hershey chocolate is my favorite.
Felipe Arevalo:Like a Hershey bar?
Katie Utterback:Hershey bar? I'm So content. So content. Oh see that's why I like smores. You know,
Felipe Arevalo:it makes sense.
Chase Peckham:So what's wrong with having just the square of it or something and just kind of sucking on them?
Katie Utterback:No no no and that's fine. And so that's what I kind of do now. Right. Cause we were talking about like recovery journeys, it's kind of like the rest of your life kind of a deal. So I know for me that I have some pretty intense triggers, I guess you could call them. So there are, um, things that could just kind of put me, um, mentally into a whole different state of mind. So why I look like I'm physically here, I'm not here. So those little moments kind of trigger an anxiety insecurity in me that doesn't feel great.
Chase Peckham:So chocolate's kind of like your blanket.
Katie Utterback:It is. I soothe it with chocolate.
Chase Peckham:or sucking your thumb. Right. Which I've been with my daughter. We took forever for her to stop doing that. Right. And we found out because she had her blankie when she had her blankie she sucked her thumb. Interesting. And when we took away the blankie didn't sucker them.
Katie Utterback:Yeah. So I, um, I do have chocolate almost every day, but I very much so limit it. So that's why sometimes I'll tell you like, no, I don't want chocolate during the day. It's because I limit it to after dinner. Like, it's my before bedtime treat through kind of a thing. Yeah. But because of that, now I'm very aware. I have that addictive personality. I do make conscious decisions about different things knowing that.
Chase Peckham:I think that's a, I think that's smart. I think that's very, very smart for you. Be in knowing yourself. I mean, gosh, life's a journey, isn't it? Yeah. You think you, you think you've got yourself figured out, you think you've got the whole world figured out and then life just smacks you in the face and you go, okay, well cause it constantly learning. That's where my journey has been. The therapy has been the, and it's not therapy and it's just looking at things from another lens and learning.
Felipe Arevalo:I think it's having a non bias, professional opinion, who's not judging you adds that extra level of benefit.
Chase Peckham:because you don't know what you don't know. Right? Yeah. You really don't. And you can conjure up so many things in your mind and think you know what you're doing. And realistically you have yourself, first of all, self-diagnosed completely wrong. So don't ever, you're doing go on web MD. Oh gosh, no, that is, that is a bad news for me. No way.
Katie Utterback:Because to your point, when you are talking to a therapist, you're not only having someone you know, kind of give you insight into your mind, but they're validating things that you may have never had validated before.
Chase Peckham:Well, until next time.