James Arthur: Living w/Depression & Panic Attacks w/Dr. Adi Jaffe (Psychologist, The Abstinence Myth)

Mari Fong interviews singer-songwriter James Arthur and Dr. Adi Jaffe, mental health and addiction specialist, author of The Abstinence Myth: A New Approach For Overcoming Addiction Without Shame, Judgment, Or Rules.
 
James Arthur shares how living with depression and panic attacks along with a troublesome childhood led him to a life of partying out of bounds. Winning the X Factor UK in 2012 and his hit single, “Say You Won’t Let Go” took his fame into the stratosphere, yet controversies made fame a rocky road. James Arthur shares his real-world solutions for mood disorders and addiction recovery. We play a clip of “Emily” from his new album, It’ll All Make Sense In The End.

Next, mental health and addiction specialist Dr. Adi Jaffe explains his unique recovery perspective from his book,The Abstinence Myth. Dr. Jaffe also shares his story of hardcore addiction and the trials of his recovery which helped him develop his personalized recovery plan called IGNTD.

“Be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental help that you need.” For free and affordable solutions for mental health and addiction recovery, visit: http://checkyourheadpodcast.com/

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Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to the Check Your Head podcast, a podcast where notable musicians and experts share their stories and solutions for mental health and wellness. I'm your host, Mari Fong, a music journalist and life coach for musicians, and today I'm thrilled to feature a musical guest who's a multi-platinum artist, a British singer-songwriter whose first taste of fame was winning the X Factor UK in 2012. He then shot to mega fame with his number one hit, Say You Won't Let Go, a beautiful ballad which has garnered over 1.8 billion streams on Spotify, helped him sell over 30 million albums worldwide, and was also the song played at my daughter Jade's wedding as a first dance with her husband Garrett. Our featured musical guest is James Arthur, who's dropping a new album today, November 5th, 2021, entitled It'll All Make Sense in the End. Although James Arthur has had great success, he's also had a rollercoaster of a life, with a childhood that included his parents divorcing and James spending time in foster care, often feeling like he didn't belong anywhere. James lives with depression and panic attacks. In fact, he experienced a panic attack during an X Factor live show where paramedics were called shortly after his performance. Throughout the ups and downs of his career and his life, James Arthur has persevered and will share his solutions for mood disorders and addiction recovery, along with his work as an ambassador for the UK mental health charity, SANE. Next, our featured expert is a world-renowned mental health and addiction specialist and author of the book, The Abstinence Myth, a new approach for overcoming addiction without shame, judgment, or rules. Our featured expert is Dr. Adi Jaffe, who will explain his alternative, unique approach to addiction recovery with his program called Ignited, a personalized and virtual recovery plan. Dr. Jaffe also shares his story of hardcore addiction, which included a stint as a drug dealer and a year-long jail sentence. But first, let's hear singer-songwriter James Arthur share his story. One thing that I'm really excited about is that you have been outspoken about your mental health and you've also become a ambassador for the UK mental health charity SANE. So thank you so much for that. And I know that you've had anxiety and depression, but looking back, when did you first start to notice that there were some issues with your mental health?

SPEAKER_02 2:45

Well, It's an interesting question because I guess I always carried around a little bit of an anxious predisposition. I had a lot of nervous energy from a young age and I was able to channel that into playing sports and football and listening to music and things like that. But before I was thrust into the spotlight, there was always a way to escape having a full-blown anxiety attack or a breakdown, if you will. And that's kind of what happened when I was on the X Factor in the UK. Issues that maybe I hadn't addressed from childhood and it all came to fruition and came to a head once I was in the spotlight being judged by lots of people. And it just didn't work out very well for me. And I sort of lashed out at the world and my reflex was to fight back and to self-sabotage. And all that really didn't come with many consequences in my life. previous life, if that makes sense. So when you're doing that in the public eye and the spotlight kind of falling apart, it has a lot of consequences. And I then lost my record deal and went through a really bad time with mental health. And it wasn't until I kind of expressed, look, I feel like I'm dying all the time. Yeah, I just felt like I was dying. That was basically the best way I could describe it. Every day was just a battle and I couldn't make sense of all of the negative chatter that was in my head until one day I just started to try and explain it. And that first step of trying to speak about it, trying to explain how I felt and verbalizing things and not internalizing everything was the biggest step I ever took. And that's why I am now happy to speak about my mental health struggles publicly because if I can do anything to raise awareness and to encourage young men, women, Anybody struggling with mental health issues to just speak up, then it's worth it. If it helps one person, it's absolutely worth it. I don't claim to have all the answers. I definitely am not a guru or anything like that. I mean, who does have all the answers? I've definitely got my own techniques with dealing with stress and anxiety and depression. But yeah, I just think speaking about it is the best thing. So that would be my advice to anyone.

SPEAKER_00 5:06

Well, thank you so much for that, because I know sometimes it's hard to talk about things in your past. When you sort of grow up in the public eye, we all go through times while we're teenagers, while we're young adults, where we crash and fall. But most people don't do that in the public eye. But you had to navigate that. But one thing I read is that you were being treated for depression in your teens. Yeah. Were you diagnosed with depression or what was the incident that happened that brought you in for treatment?

SPEAKER_02 5:42

Yeah, no, I was diagnosed with anxiety and depression because doing a lot of partying, to be honest, and like using drugs or alcohol to quieten the demons, if you like. When that kind of went away, I had just a little bit of a period of like, couldn't get out of bed at all. I didn't want to leave my house. I think I had a bit of agoraphobia and just felt very much like, couldn't be out in the world I just couldn't do it I couldn't get out of my house or my flat where I was living in and I went to the doctor and I explained I'm just I don't feel anything I feel numb I feel down I feel like not good enough and very paranoid and all that kind of stuff and yeah they diagnosed me with depression and anxiety and they put me on a drug called Zoloft in America and actually it did help me it got me through it a period of time where I definitely had some epiphanies in the time that I was taking medication. I had some breakthroughs and I managed to get out of that funk. But unfortunately for me, I don't think that was the best treatment for me long term because I had an addictive personality and I would experiment with different medications and stuff like that. I would always worry about whether or not it changed me or it made me less creative. There was days when I felt indifferent to things. Even if it was just in my head, it concerned me enough to just try and go it alone. And for many years after, I was on and off medication.

SPEAKER_00 7:12

Okay. So a lot that you described right there, like not being able to get out of bed and having these negative thoughts about yourself, all of that is signs and symptoms of depression. And anxiety can also spiral into depression to the point where you have So much fear along with this negative feeling that you don't want to go out of your house. You're afraid to go out of your house. But you also mentioned that you were partying around that time. And sometimes drugs and alcohol can be used to kind of soothe your soul for the moment. But sometimes when you go too far down, it can actually cause mental issues. Did that play a part at all, the partying?

SPEAKER_02 7:53

Yeah, for sure. You know, me and my friends at the time, we were doing a lot of experimenting. We were just young people trying to get our kicks, you know what I mean? So we were doing stuff to excess, in all honesty. And of course, I would never condone that or encourage anyone to do that. It was just a path that I was on. I was kind of in a circle of friends that were sort of outcasts. And the thing we all had in common is that we came from broken families. So we were just trying to get a buzz from something, you know?

SPEAKER_00 8:24

Right. And I think at that age too, you know, people experiment, they try to take things and see what happens. And you're also in a point of life where you feel like nothing bad is ever going to happen to you. Did you want to explain some of the things that you tried?

SPEAKER_02 8:39

I mean, we tried a lot of stuff, barring the hard stuff. It was a period of time right into my 20s. But again, there was no consequences. I wasn't living with my parents. I lived on my own from the age of 15, 16. So my place was always the place to go for the parties. In answer to your question, I definitely feel as though that played a part. I think brain chemistry is obviously a factor in all those things, and your serotonin levels. can be affected by taking things like ecstasy or MDMA or cocaine, smoking a lot of weed and just not being healthy in general either. Probably wasn't drinking a lot of water back then or eating much avocado. So yeah, it definitely led me to going, all right, I need to go and get some help. But to be honest, the depression and the anxiety, I was always predisposed to those things because my mom went through those things and all of my sisters have a tendency to get depressed. My dad does as well. And the fact that things that happened in my childhood led me to feel like I didn't belong and things like that.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Well, yeah, there's definitely a genetic link to mental health conditions. So yeah, definitely can be in your DNA and passed down. But you're talking about your rough childhood. And I know that there was some chaos there and you actually put yourself in foster care. Looking back, what was the toughest part as you were growing up that you kind of had to be challenged with?

SPEAKER_02 10:12

In all honesty, the hardest part was the fact that I didn't really feel as though I belonged anywhere. That's honestly it. I felt different. I felt like an outcast. I felt like there was something wrong with me. That was the thing that I struggled with. I think I have a bit of ADHD. I'm a creative person, so... My attention span is not good and probably just to some people a little bit odd. I think I just had that in me, to be honest, if that makes sense. I just had that thing of I'm different to everyone. I just felt I felt different, to be honest. I don't really know how else to describe it.

SPEAKER_00 10:46

I mentioned that you put yourself into foster care. What was going on there? So

SPEAKER_02 10:53

basically, my mom was going through a divorce. My mom had four kids, three sisters. We lived in a two-bedroom house. As you can imagine, there wasn't a lot of room in the house. So that didn't really work out. Sleeping on the sofa or sleeping at friends' houses at times. And I think all of that contributed to me feeling like a bit of the black sheep of the family. And my mom was naturally going through a hard time. Very young mom, four kids, going through a divorce. I was getting in trouble at school. And so the foster care conversation came into it. And we all agreed, you know, but I was kind of pushing for it because I just wanted somewhere to be, even if it was with another family, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 11:37

Just going back to when you were having problems with your depression and you got to a point where you went to go get help, if you decided to get off of medication, the depression can still be there and still creep back. When you decided to get off the medication, how did you choose to cope with those feelings of depression and anxiety?

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Well, to be honest, I didn't. I didn't cope with them. The thing is, is when I decided to completely get off medication, I'd lost everything at that point. I'd won this competition, which changed my life financially and everything. But I wasn't happy. I was numb. I didn't care whether I lived or died. And I was smoking a lot of cannabis. That was one of the things that I thought was helping me with the anxiety and the pressure of everything. I was taking medication. I was smoking cigarettes. I was drinking. I was doing all those things. And I just made a decision one day because I just had enough. And I said, I'm stopping everything. I'm not doing anything anymore. And that was probably the strongest moment of my life, to be honest. Just saying, I'm going cold turkey, if you like. I don't care what happens. I'm sick of this Groundhog Day. I've lost everything. My logic was, Let me go back to the most authentic version of me with no medication, no drugs, nothing. And for a year, it was so hard, so, so hard. I felt like I constantly was being followed around by this dark cloud. There's a lot of black spots in my memory. It was just a really weird, dark time. And every day I fought with the idea, just go back on the meds, go back on the meds. But it was like a fight. mechanism in me that was like that day will come where everything feels better again and you'll stop having the anxiety you'll stop having the panic attacks it's going to end just keep doing the right things I went totally sober I wasn't doing anything except just kind of living with a feeling of darkness really I did get to the light at the end of the tunnel and I found a place where I was able to deal much better with the anxiety than I ever was with the medication by doing things like exercising, by going for walks, by talking. In that period of time, Cold Turkey as I called it, I really discovered how profoundly important talking is and how powerful it can be.

SPEAKER_00 14:04

You're absolutely right. I mean, sometimes we talk about therapy, which is talking with somebody, a professional, but therapy can really be with anybody. It's venting those emotions, letting that out and getting maybe advice or You know, someone just to listen and respond to what's going on. You know, people have mentors sometimes where you admire somebody who's living successfully or somebody you look up to. Was there somebody in particular that you would turn to when you really wanted an open ear to talk with?

SPEAKER_02 14:37

To be honest, I've never had that. I've never had that. I've kind of dealt with it on my own, to be honest. There's certainly conversations that I've had with my mom and my dad or friends. or partners that have been super helpful, but never regularly had someone or looked up to someone. I've gotten used to being kind of a lone wolf and fighting on by myself. That might not be the most healthy way to go about it, but that's kind of the way I've always been. Just going back to the medication stuff, by no means am I saying the way to do it is to come off the meds and fight. That was just my path at the time. So please, anybody listening that takes medication and feels better don't think that that's the answer

SPEAKER_00 15:20

well people do do that they go cold turkey but you went cold turkey on a lot of things but sometimes you can have withdrawals or you can have negative effects from a drug or something being taken out of your system immediately do you feel like you had any of that backlash

SPEAKER_02 15:39

no no that was absolutely what I'm talking about when I said that kind of darkness those black spots I mean that was withdrawals 100% yeah That was definitely the withdrawals from the cannabis and smoking and the medication.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

During that time, sometimes people have like a psychosis or they have changes in behavior. Sometimes they can go manic or they can sink into a depression. And you already mentioned that there was a black cloud that was following you. Were there any other behaviors that happened during that time that maybe even scared you?

SPEAKER_02 16:13

Yeah, the anxiety attacks were... the scariest thing for me. I was calling ambulances on a daily basis because I was convinced I was having a heart attack. I'd convinced myself I was having a heart attack every day. I'd have these episodes, I guess like a PTSD episode I would have where nothing made sense and the negative chatter was getting too much in my head. The panic attacks really, anyone who suffers with them will understand what I'm talking about when I say You literally feel like you're going to die.

SPEAKER_00 16:48

That description is exactly what a panic attack is all about. I mean, we've had musicians come on and say that they feel like they can't breathe. They're trying to catch their breath and they feel convinced that they're going to die. And, you know, it could happen right before a show. It could happen at any time. And most anything can trigger it or sometimes nothing triggers it. I mean, we've had people that have had agoraphobia saying that they couldn't leave their house. But what have you been able to do in order to quell those? Because that can be very debilitating.

SPEAKER_02 17:21

It's amazing, actually, that I'm sitting here today because for a good few years, I thought that I was never going to be free from regular anxiety attacks, daily anxiety attacks, to be honest. So I think the more that I... I spoke to people about anxiety and found out how common panic attacks were and got a better understanding of them, understood my triggers. I understood that I was setting myself up to fail with a lot of my behaviors. I took some cognitive behavioral therapy and that was really helpful. Exercise is really helpful for me. And people like Eckhart Tolle, reading his book, speaking about being present. I've been practicing that for a long time now. Being mindful and... in the moment and being the watcher of my thoughts making sure that I don't let those negative thoughts get out of hand just practicing being calm and not letting things get on top of me has really helped me because I think that at times when I was put in high pressure situations the cortisol that was flooding my brain was just way too much for me to handle and way too confusing for me at one time but now I've found my coping mechanisms and I have anxiety but it's It sort of operates at a subterranean level rather than being in control of my life now.

SPEAKER_00 18:44

Well, thank you so much for mentioning cognitive behavioral therapy because when we talk about therapy, sometimes people think you're there just talking with somebody and letting everything out, but there's also an educational part of therapy where you can learn different skills that can really help you on the day-to-day and if you choose not to be on medication. What were some of the things that you learned in cognitive behavioral therapy that are really working for you today? The

SPEAKER_02 19:12

major mistake or error that I was making was setting myself up to fail. So I was avoiding a lot of situations that could possibly give me anxiety. You mentioned aboraphobia. You know, in those days where I didn't feel like going outside and putting myself out there and making myself vulnerable, tried to lean into those things. I tried to get more structure in my life. Cognitive behavioral therapy taught me about triggers and fear of things. There's an amazing lady that I listen to. I'm sure you're aware of her, Brené Brown. Listening to her and watching her stuff is helpful as well. The vulnerability is courage thing. I always saw being vulnerable as weakness. Where I come from, there's a lot of machismo and there's a lot of stiff upper lip, like Can't talk about your feelings. So I always saw talking about my feelings and being vulnerable as a weakness. And when I realized, actually, it takes a lot of courage to talk about how you're feeling and your depression or your anxiety. Nobody dislikes someone who's honest and authentic. You know, you can't hate that person. So I decided to start living like that instead of being afraid of who I am.

SPEAKER_00 20:26

And it also feels good to be honest.

SPEAKER_02 20:29

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:30

It's funny because you talk about machismo, which a lot of people put on these images to appear a certain way, maybe to fit into a gender role. But in music, it seems to be the place where you can really release yourself, release all those beautiful emotions and all that beautiful vulnerability. And all of those, gosh, your lyrics, your melodies, they just kind of cut to the soul.

SPEAKER_02 20:56

Thank you very much. Yeah, it's bizarre, really, because I was always able to channel that into my music and be vulnerable in my music. But the challenge for me was always being able to take that into my everyday life outside of the music.

SPEAKER_00 21:12

Well, this is kind of curious to me. Why is that? Do you feel it's okay to be that vulnerable and that open in your music, but you're not able to do that in your everyday life?

SPEAKER_02 21:26

Well, I suppose in a way I'd seen the instant gratification that I got from music and how I could move people with my singing or my songs. And that's very instant. You get validation from that very quickly. If I'm in a room and I start playing a song and I start seeing people crying and I'm seeing it evoke emotion and people are enjoying what I'm doing, then I feel validated. But then for your actual personality, the way you look and all those other things, It's a little bit more of a process to getting proof that you're okay as a human, just as you, and not the artist. I think there's a little bit of a difference there.

SPEAKER_00 22:10

You know, one thing I found really interesting is that you wrote an autobiography at a pretty young age. I was wondering, what was it that you wanted to get out by writing that autobiography?

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Yeah, well... I wrote that at a time when there's a huge amount of noise going on. And actually, in hindsight, I would have taken more time with that because the goal was to make a self-help book and to try and help people who were going through the same thing that I was, dealing with childhood trauma and mental health issues. But of course, in order to impact on people, I had to share my own story. But yeah, the goal is a self-help book. I'd read self-help books by Matt Haig. Reasons to Stay Alive was a book that really had a huge effect on me. It was really helpful because he described panic attacks more viscerally. He described exactly what I was feeling and it really, really helped me. And I thought, I don't really want to do the usual autobiography success story. Look at me. I came from nothing and ended up with achieving my dreams and stuff. That felt a little bit self-celebratory to me.

SPEAKER_00 23:22

There was a time when things got very low for you and you were starting to have suicidal thoughts. Things were kind of crumbling around you. There was some controversy. Tell me about that time and how you survived it.

SPEAKER_02 23:38

Well, to be completely honest, this has been, sadly, has been the wall that I've hit. That feeling of not so much an intention to take my own life, but almost like not caring whether I lived or died. to be honest. I'm still trying to figure out why I get to those places. The only thing I can think is that I'm still on a journey of being okay with me and some of the mistakes that I've made and how that's impacted my life. I've always been very hungry to achieve the highest of heights in my field in music. When I was younger, my mum really filled me with a lot of confidence and made me think I was listening to the greats. And I always thought, I'm going to be a great. I'm going to be like Elvis Presley. I'm going to be like David Bowie. I thought I was going to be one of those guys. Obviously, I won the X Factor and I'm like, oh my God, I'm the biggest thing in Britain right now. I'm on my way to being a great. I thought I've arrived. This is it. And then a couple of years later, I found myself on the scrap heap and in a position that nobody would have ever thought I would be able to come back from because it's just impossible. It doesn't happen. You don't win a show like The X Factor, get dropped from your record label and then get re-signed and then have a hit song and make this huge comeback. So I guess at that time it felt like, oh, well, there goes the opportunity to be great, you know. And that really made me sad because I'd never had any of the focus in my life. There's never a plan B for me. And there still isn't to a certain extent. I really have auditions that might seem unrealistic at times. And that sometimes gets me down, especially when I look around my life and I've sacrificed a lot. I've moved to the south of England and all my family and friends are in the north of England. And I made that move for my career. And when that doesn't pay off, I can fall into a dark place.

SPEAKER_00 25:37

Well, having suicidal thoughts sometimes comes with depression. It actually is part of the condition, and it's a tough place to be, and it's scary because it may be thoughts that you may not normally think of.

SPEAKER_05 25:51

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:52

But at that time, I mean, depression is still mobilizing. Even if you want to do something, you can't, right? Everything seems very hard and difficult, even to make a phone call. Did you ever decide to turn back to medication or therapy or getting back into the music? What was it for you that kind of got you out of that hole? Because shortly after that, Say You Won't Let Go came pretty much after that, right? It

SPEAKER_02 26:20

did, yeah, it did. It was a little bit of CBT. Did a little bit of that, but not very much at that time. It's more so been in the last couple of years, actually, that I've done more of the CBT stuff. I just kept pushing. I just kept working hard. And music has always been my escape. So it's always been a friend to me in those dark times. I'm very fortunate that I've always got the ability to pick up a guitar and write a song and that can really go a long way with me. And I made an album in this lockdown where there was the potential for me to really spiral.

SPEAKER_00 26:53

Yeah, the pandemic has been a really isolating time. I feel like albums are... kind of a representative of the time of that musician's life. How would you describe this upcoming album? How would you explain that chapter in your life?

SPEAKER_02 27:12

I would say that this particular album is very honest. The first song I wrote for this album was a song called Medicine. And it's kind of an uplifting song about someone or something that lifts you out of a dark time. And that was very honest. I talk about being suicidal on that particular track. And on a song called Running Away, the first line is, I want to smoke till I can't wake up. And that's because I found myself back in that place in 2020. I found myself back in depression and anxiety and all that. And it was kind of illuminating to me that I need to figure some stuff out. So this album is very much a, it's a very reflective and very introspective and honest. I'm literally talking about a moment in time.

SPEAKER_00 27:54

Yeah, I really appreciate that. I know you've had a girlfriend from the past on and off for a long time. And she was sort of like your muse, which is great to have an inspiration for music and for lyrics. When you look back on that relationship, what do you feel you learned from it?

SPEAKER_02 28:13

That's someone who's very, very important to me and is still in my life. And I'd rather not talk too much about my personal relationships and my love life. But what I will say is that I think it's really important to have someone and she really saved my life in a time when I had nobody or felt like I had no one. I owe her my life, I really do. She has been a muse for some great songs as well, one of my best friends in the world.

SPEAKER_00 28:49

Well, I think that's wonderful to know that the friendship is still there. And we do have special people in our lives that really help us through difficult times. Those are people that we never end up forgetting. One thing that you mentioned was an addictive personality. You also have the song Running Away, which to me makes a connection because oftentimes when we turn to addictions, we're running away from something, maybe in our past, or maybe it's an emotion that we're running away from. What do you feel like it was for you as far as triggers that can make you go into something that can be addictive?

SPEAKER_02 29:27

That's a really good question. Yeah, I do have that thing in me where when things get a little bit too much, if I find a vice, whether it be drinking or sex or whatever it might be, I definitely have... Yeah, I would describe that as running away from me, from a better version of me that's able to mentally... and emotionally deal with the pressures that come with life. It's running away from making the right choices. It's running away from making good decisions, I think, and making sure that you're surrounded by positive people and people that are allowing you to be the best version of yourself. When you have depression, sometimes even picking up the phone, you can't even do that. You feel like you're not good enough for anything. You feel like you're no use to anyone, and that's a really debilitating feeling. Sometimes the only thing that makes sense is, Alcohol reminds me of when I was a kid and I was carefree and I was a bit more immature and didn't give a shit. And then that's okay once or twice, but then when it becomes three, four, five times a week, it's not healthy. So when I talk about running away in that song, that's me saying I'm always putting the right thing to do and the right path to go down. I'm always putting that on hold to just kind of hold on to... a more hedonistic lifestyle or an immature life, probably.

SPEAKER_00 30:54

Well, it sounds like you've been really introspective, and you're kind of on that road to being even more introspective. But, you know, you have had a journey where you kind of went into a trajectory of fame so quickly. You probably didn't have anyone to really guide you. I mean, who gets guidance through this trajectory that's so unexpected? If you were to give advice to a rising star that you felt was going to be on that path, what kind of advice would you give them?

SPEAKER_02 31:24

I'd make sure that they had good friends around them. You mentioned a mentor. That's not something that I had too much growing up. It's not something I've become accustomed to, but anytime anyone's ever come into my life and given me advice, it's been so welcome and so helpful and well-received. So I think a young artist coming into a business like this, which is very much based on validation and there's a lot of ups and downs, I'd say make sure you've got good people around you that are positive, that allow you to be yourself and that you feel comfortable around. I'd say stay true to you, be authentic. Authenticity is the key to everything for me. That is the absolute key. If it doesn't feel right, then don't do it. Don't do it. Be brave, take risks. But if it doesn't feel true to you, then I would say follow your heart, follow your intuition and your gut.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Well, you know, that sounds like somebody who's really gone through the trenches in order to get to where you are now. And today it sounds like you've taken more control over your career. I mean, we talked about James Arthur back then, but how would you describe yourself today as far as who you are today, your authentic self?

SPEAKER_02 32:38

My authentic self, I am unfiltered. I'm completely 100%. myself and that is tough too because that leads to days of crippling anxiety I'm having a day where I'm a bit manic or I'm a bit just talking shit to be quite honest with you and then you've got to deal with the shame and the regret of that sometimes but I'm someone who leans into everything now and just kind of takes everything with a pinch of salt I'm still that same hungry person just looking for inspiration really that's who I am and trying to better myself and better the people around me as well

SPEAKER_00 33:16

Well, one thing that you're doing to better people is you're involved with this UK charity called SANE. Can you tell me how you got involved with that and what the mission is there for you?

SPEAKER_02 33:27

I'd like to help raise awareness about what they do and to point people in that direction because at one time in my career, I went to... see the work that they do. They have a call center where volunteers will go for a few hours on an evening, and they're purely volunteering. And the work that I saw them do, I watched some of these people talk people down from roots, people that were having suicidal thoughts and thinking about taking their own lives. These amazing volunteers, they gave up their time to try and help those people. So I thought, I just want to be a part of this, and I want to point people in the direction of sin.

SPEAKER_00 34:06

You know, you've gotten to this level of fame that a lot of people may never reach. And some people say it's lonely at the top. Do you find that true? Or do you find that not so true with you? It

SPEAKER_02 34:19

can be. It has been very lonely for me at times. I mean, it's very difficult for... It's quite a unique experience. For me, coming from nothing, it felt like I'd won the golden ticket. I was Willy Wonka. And that's how I would describe it. It's like... This is all crazy. This is mental. And then other people who don't understand the pressures and how intense the attention can be, they're just like, oh, it must be great. Like, oh, you've got everything you want. It must be the best thing ever. And you're just like, yeah, I don't want to seem ungrateful, but it actually can be very intense and it can be a lot. And also people expect things from you. You know, I won the X Factor and the winner of the x factor is voted for by the public so some of the public feel as though that you have to behave in a way that they approve of or that you have to be a role model or that your public property somehow because they voted for you and and and sometimes that level of judgment for me made me feel uncomfortable and uh so yeah it was lonely at times you know this the two two long long tours and long promo uh schedules at times can be overwhelming and If you haven't got your friends from home around you, sometimes you can feel like you're experiencing things that are absolutely amazing and you should be really excited about, but you haven't got anyone that you grew up with or that really knows you around you. So those times can be lonely for anyone who's kind of experiencing fame for the first time and hasn't maybe curated a sort of life around them.

SPEAKER_00 35:57

It reminds me of the song that you have called Wolves, which talk about people kind of on the gravy train. Yeah. that is also a really new world to be in and also something to watch out for, right?

SPEAKER_02 36:11

Totally. Well, that's a really good example of how I think how it can be lonely because all of a sudden you have got attention from people. You wonder what people's intentions are and whether they like you for you or they're interested in spending time with you because they're interested in knowing who you are or whether they're hoping a little bit of your success rubs off on them. You know, it's something that they can gain. You know, it's quite tiring second-guessing people's motives.

SPEAKER_00 36:40

Yeah, I would think so. You know, you've been so open. I really appreciate that. And thank you again for being an advocate for mental health. Is there anything else that you would like to say about your upcoming album or about mental health in general?

SPEAKER_02 36:54

Well, first of all, I'd just like to say thank you for giving me a platform to waffle about myself and hopefully it's being helpful but I think what you do is incredible thank you for being someone who cares about people in the music industry and people's mental health in all facets of music so thank you for that just like to say my album is coming out on the 5th of November so check it out if you want to hear it go and get it on the 5th of November

SPEAKER_00 37:23

well thank you so much James Arthur you know what you are right now is you're a check your head superhero You've spoken out on mental health, and through that, you're helping so many people and your fans. So much appreciation to you. And keep going. Keep going. You're doing great. And you've gone through some major bumps in the road, and you have learned to steer your car much better. So props to you for that.

SPEAKER_02 37:48

Thank you again for having me. I really enjoyed talking to you.

SPEAKER_00 37:53

Thank you, James.

SPEAKER_02 37:54

Take care now.

UNKNOWN 37:55

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 37:57

Next up, we have an authority on mental health and addiction, Dr. Adi Jaffe. Dr. Jaffe lectures at UCLA's psychology department, is a national speaker, and wants to change the way Americans think about mental health and addiction. His book, The Abstinence Myth, a new approach for overcoming addiction without shame, judgment, or rules, has challenged traditional addiction recovery with a more personalized approach called IGNITED, which focuses on finding the underlying causes of addiction. Dr. Jaffe speaks from experience since his own mood disorders led him to his own addiction and subsequent recovery. Now let's hear Dr. Adi Jaffe share his knowledge and advice. Well, you know, we just listened to James Arthur's interview and he talked about drugs and alcohol, but there's all different kinds of addictions. As a specialist, you've also gone through your journey. Can you just briefly explain what your story is with addiction?

SPEAKER_01 39:00

Sure. Interestingly, I moved out to LA to make music. That was the original idea behind me coming out to LA and going to school out here. Looking back now, I've been struggling with anxiety and attention issues and impulsivity since I was young. But nobody gave a name to those things, right? I would be doubled over in pain, stomach aches when I was in school and we kept looking for a biological reason, but odds are it was just anxiety and I was just really having these somatic experiences because of emotions. And so I kept moving through the world that way really until my early teens, 13, 14 years old. We moved to the States when I was 14. And so talk about feeling out of sorts, literally taken out of the only place you've known how to live and moved to a completely different country, different languages. And so now I felt very much like I didn't belong. My anxiety was even heightened. I felt less than. I felt like I wasn't part of anything else. And so I found connection when alcohol got introduced to me for the first time. And I was 14 years old. Somebody handed me a bottle at a sleepaway camp. And I didn't know I was looking for the effect of alcohol. But the moment I got drunk for the first time, I knew something was powerful. I knew I'd found something really, really powerful. My anxiety went away. I could talk to girls. I didn't care what the guys thought about me. It was a very liberating experience. I kept doing it because I didn't know I had anxiety, but I knew alcohol made me feel better than I had in a very long time. Now, I was drinking pretty much every weekend that I could with friends. Pretty much the same thing happened at 16 years old with cannabis, with weed. A girl I really liked handed me a joint. I wasn't going to say no because I don't want to And so I started smoking weed with those friends. And slowly, alcohol and marijuana became a huge part of my life. Still no massive issues, but I'm smoking and drinking near daily by the time I went to college. Had a bad breakup. And that was my first acknowledged experience with problematic mental health. I went into a deep state of depression about three to six months of really not getting out of bed. staying up all night, drinking, using drugs, and just not at all connected. Now I knew. Unlike when I was younger, I knew now that I was struggling mentally. But alcohol and drugs made me numb out and made it all better. And when the alcohol and the weed didn't do it, I tried harder drugs and I kept experimenting with more and more things that would. Eventually, I found meth. And by that point, I moved to LA, again, to make music. But really what ended up happening is I half went to school and half just kept using drugs. And I was using meth every day. About five years in, I was smoking all day, every day. In order to support my own habit, I started selling drugs. And I actually ended up beating my addiction, not just in rehab, but by being arrested and going to jail and serving a year in jail. So that's my experience with the actual severity and the consequences that mental health and addiction struggles can lead you down.

SPEAKER_00 42:04

I was just curious. You said you moved from another country. What country was that? And also, what kind of music were you wanting to get involved in?

SPEAKER_01 42:12

I moved from Israel. I was in a punk band when I was in high school. And that morphed into sort of like industrial music by the time I was in college. I'm 45 years old now. So think Nine Inch Nails, Tool, that sort of world, right? And I loved it. When I moved out to LA, definitely a big part of my world became making music. That was my realm, which, by the way, when you're struggling with mental health and depression and things like that, industrial music allowed me a massive amount of release in that way.

SPEAKER_00 42:44

Absolutely. I mean, a lot of music is about release, not just for the fans, but also for the artist. It's really a great healing thing.

SPEAKER_01 42:52

Yeah, it's interesting, right? The healing came in the ability to channel the feelings into something else, like writing, essentially poetry and lyrics. and then fitting them to music and play created very cathartic experiences. I

SPEAKER_00 43:09

mean, you were able to find your solutions. After you got out of jail, was the motivation for you more the fear of going back to jail? Did you do it for yourself? Did you do it for somebody else? What brought you into treatment?

SPEAKER_01 43:25

I mean, certainly the motivation to get started reestablishing a new path came from not wanting to spend the rest of my life in prison. There's no doubt about that. I was facing somewhere between 13 and 18 years in prison. So I knew I was going to do anything I could while I was on trial to minimize the amount of time I had to spend. And I ended up getting a year, which was minimal amount considering what it was that I was caught with, the amount of drugs and just everything that they found on me. So at some point, it had to turn after I left jail to wanting to stay on track. And so the first time that I really put you know, my nose down and just kept working and did what I needed to do to stay on path was because there was a looming threat of going to jail or even prison on the other side. And so, yeah, it kept me very motivated and very focused for a number of years.

SPEAKER_00 44:20

So when you went into treatment at that time, traditionally, there's the 12 steps. And there's other programs. What did you see as the obstacles or challenges or reasons why people can relapse in those more traditional programs?

SPEAKER_01 44:38

Yeah, so this was early 2000s. And to be perfectly honest, there was nothing else except for AA. No other options were presented. It was like, hey, you go here, we go to AA meetings. That's all there was. Still, traditionally, that is all you get offered. I'm trying to change that now in the world to some extent. But there were a lot of things that were blocks for me. So I got kicked out of my first rehab for using. I was there for three months. For the first month, I was still using Tylenol PM to help me fall asleep because I was really anxious and uncomfortable. But if they had known, they wouldn't consider me sober for that month. But about a month in, I got to going to work. And then I started finding drugs hidden in my studio. And I was just, I was using right away pretty much. And the sex addiction is also part of my history. So there was a porn use and things like that. But got kicked out of that rehab after they found that out two months later. And so then I went and found another facility. I can talk about what that process was like a little bit because a lot of people on their journey to recovery, I'm putting this in air quotes, but fail. It's more like stumble, right? A lot of us stumble There are rarely endeavors you try and then it just works from the outset. I mean, songwriters who wrote a single song and it became a number one billboard hit, right? That doesn't happen. You try, it sucks. You try again, it sucks less. And then eventually you try and it's kind of good and then maybe it gets better than that. So my first try at rehab was not that great, but there were a lot of issues. I'm agnostic. I don't believe in God. And so having to pray and not just that, I'm Jewish. And then every day I would have to go to a meeting and it's Gee, recite Christian prayers. The other part was powerlessness. One of the issues that I have with AA being the only method of treatment is you have to be able to, first of all, commit to lifelong abstinence from beginning. Secondly, that admission of powerlessness, I know it's a first step in AA and it's a big part of the process. It's a huge hurdle for a lot of people. I'll tell you, for me, there was a lot of potential downfall to not committing. I could have ended up in prison for a very long time. So I had all the motivation in the world to do better. But I did it because I was forced to do it. I didn't do it because it was connected for me. And my belief is in order to do the things that really end up benefiting you long term, you have to have buy-in. You have to care. You have to want them. And I think it's a mistake to put up hurdles and put up barriers for people to engage as a way to test how motivated they truly are. I think that's a mistake. So I... Got kicked out of that first rehab, was kind of homeless. I was in between my car and sleeping on this girl's couch for about two weeks and using meth every single day. And then I found another facility who was still traditional, still AA, still the same exact stuff, but I'd figured out the game a little bit better now. And so I knew how to operate within their rules and spent another year in that second rehab, which is when I went to court and then eventually got my year and served my year in jail.

SPEAKER_00 47:39

So after you got out and decided to go back to school and get your degree.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Just to be fair, I didn't decide to go back to school. When you have nine felonies on your record, which is what I ended up with when I got out of jail, you can't get hired for any job. So I tried to look for work for about six to nine months. I said, look, I'm not getting jobs. And I got to do something else. And so I went to school because that seemed like the only available option.

SPEAKER_00 48:07

When you talked about the anxiety that you felt coming to this country and just the uncomfortability of socializing, we haven't really talked about how the mental health aspect was dealt with during this whole time in rehab and treatment. Was that ever a focus?

SPEAKER_01 48:25

Nobody talked about it. Nobody mentioned it. Nobody cared. Actually, it was even crazier than that, if I can just say this. So I had a very heavy meth addiction. I was selling a ton of it and I was smoking meth all day, every day, like$300 to$400 of meth a day. And because the rehab that I went to was AA-centric, they made me go to AA meetings. I hadn't had a drink in five or six years because when I was using meth, I used cocaine and I used MDMA and I used a lot of other drugs and acid and psilocybin and all these other things. I hadn't touched a drink like It was kind of a joke in my recording studio. You can leave a 12-pack, come back a week later, the 12-pack will still be there. I was using every other drug but alcohol. But I had to go to AA meetings because that's what this rehab did. So not only did nobody talk to me about mental health and didn't care about it, they would essentially say, look, it doesn't matter how you got here. All you need to know is that you're an alcoholic. I ended up doing it because I had to do it. But as soon as I could and as soon as I had my wits about me and was back into life, I left to start something different. I don't believe at all in this once an addict, always an addict BS. I think it's a totally false narrative. I'm not saying there are not people who get stuck in addiction forever, but I am saying that the language, the idea that if you are an addict, that you will be an addict forever, I think it's bullshit.

SPEAKER_00 49:47

The whole idea of that, I think, is more about there's always the possibility of relapse. of getting back into using again or saying, okay, you know, I think I can do this cocaine one night with my buddies and I'll be fine the next day. But sometimes you can, but sometimes it opens the door to starting up again. Almost like being on a diet and then finally saying, you know, I lost all this weight. Hey, let's go party and go to McDonald's.

SPEAKER_01 50:19

I think that's actually a great analogy. A couple of things you just said. You said sometimes you can and sometimes you can't. So here's the thing. When can you and when can you not? Because this black and white thinking of, well, you just never can, I believe personally that it's driving people to not even get any help because they believe they're hopeless. So why even try? Once an addict, always an addict sounds to me and to a lot of other people I talk to, at least, like a very defeatist way of looking at the world. So let me just explain a concept around this. And you talked about this around dieting, right? A lot of people who go through very strict, very, very strict diets, like they calorie restrict or they do fasts or anything like that. Historically, that is not a great way to actually get healthy and lose weight. Why? Because that concept of I will fast or heavily calorie restrict for a month, lose my 15 pounds, and then I'll be okay is a terrible way to reintegrate back into normal eating habits. So what happens to a lot of people? They calorie restrict on a really heavy level for a while, and then they binge like crazy and gain almost all that weight back and a lot of it further, right? What works much better is to actually adjust your normal eating and create dietary standards by which you live that support healthy living. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_00 51:41

Yes, it does.

SPEAKER_01 51:43

Okay, great. In alcohol and drugs, we imagine that the solution is with a thing that hasn't ever been working with diets. There is no fad diet that just helps people all the time. But what happens to a lot of people is they believe that the not drinking is the solution. That's why I wrote a book called The Abstinence Myth. They think, look, my life is terrible and I drink too much. If I stop drinking, my life will get better. That's not at all true. If you stop drinking, the consequences related to your over-drinking will stop. But everything else that was behind the scenes before is still there. All of it.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

That's why I want to get into your program because you have a whole different approach.

SPEAKER_01 52:25

I come from the orientation that different people need different solutions for their addiction problems. There is never going to be a one-size-fits-all, silver bullet fix for addiction. The way I talk about it in the book is there are four areas that are the major contributing factors in mental health as well. Biology, psychology, environment, and spirituality. And what I tell people is, Every single person that I talk to has a different mix of those. So if your problem is primarily biological, then maybe a medication will help alone. So first of all, we need to understand people's balance on all four of those things. So at Ignited, one of the things that we first do is we actually do assessments. And then the good news is there are a lot of therapies that can help in each one of those arenas. And then you have to play a game, though, with the client. And that is you have to create your best idea of what their roadmap is for help. You have to give them the help that you think will help on the front end. You have to assess and see if what you did helped or not. And if it did, keep going and try to add some new things if we're not there yet. But if it didn't, you have to change it. You have to give them different help. And this is where most treatment fails. Most treatment in the addiction space right now believes that if it's not working, then the client isn't trying hard enough. And I've got to say, there's no other field where we blame the client or the patient for treatment not working. Like no therapist in their right mind would say, look, I will work on your depression and we can try some medication. But you can't get depressed while we work together. If we're going to work on depression, you're not allowed to get depressed. It sounds crazy making when I say it about another problem, but that's what we do in the addiction space to people all the time. And I think it's killing people.

SPEAKER_00 54:11

Okay, so with your program, is it, like a tapering down or is it like teaching people what moderation is? Is it at the same time doing cognitive behavioral therapy or talk therapy? What are the steps there?

SPEAKER_01 54:25

So people come in, they get assessed and then they get walked through essentially an educational experience that exposes them to different tools that are relevant to their problems for them to be able to sample them. Again, we're not treatment. All I offer is a very affordable, very easy to access online program You can try different things. So yes, cognitive behavioral therapy, yes, meditation, yes, mindfulness, yes, introduction to EMDR, to medications, to somatic experiencing. We introduce people to habit learning tips and tricks, just little hacks to change the way you behave on a day-to-day basis. We introduce them to ways to enhance relationships so they can become more connected to supportive relationships and let go of toxic relationships in their life. So we use a lot of generally accepted practices within the addiction field. We just don't tell people on the front of what will work for them. We give them suggestions where we let them test and we see how it works. We ask an important question. Look, the vast majority of people come to me because they're not ready to quit right now. They're interested in either finding out how to control their use, how to reduce it to moderation, or potentially how to stop. Those are the three areas that people come to us for. But the beautiful thing about it is something like 40% of our users end up deciding that they want to abstain. And so I wouldn't say we teach moderation. But what I tell people is this. Drinking, which is the reason most of them come to me, or their other drug use, is hiding the true reason why you're really here. All the addiction is is a coping strategy and a symptom of the actual underlying issue. So if you keep addressing... The alcohol or the gambling or the drugs or the sex, it's like playing whack-a-mole. Really, what you're getting at is a symptom. And what we need to do is we need to get honest. Exploration is the first part of what we do. We explore why you're really here. A

SPEAKER_00 56:17

big thank you to our musical guest, James Arthur, and our mental health and addiction specialist, Dr. Adi Jaffe. Stay tuned for part two of Dr. Adi Jaffe's interview on an upcoming Check Your Head podcast episode. For more information on James Arthur, visit jamesarthurofficial.com. There you can purchase his new album, It'll All Make Sense in the End, and tickets to his upcoming tour. Follow James Arthur on his socials, at JamesArthur and at JamesArthur23, and stay tuned to listen to a clip of his new single, Emily, from his new album, It'll All Make Sense in the End. For more information on Dr. Adi Jaffe and his Ignited program, visit ignited.com, that's I-G-N-T-D dot com, and listen to his Ignited podcasts on relationships, motivation, and recovery on all podcast platforms. Also, be sure to follow Dr. Jaffe on his socials at Dr. Adi Jaffe. So until next time, be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental health

SPEAKER_04 57:29

that you

SPEAKER_03 57:31

need. Check

SPEAKER_00 58:02

Your Head Podcast is kindly supported and partnered with Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, DBSA San Gabriel Valley, Earshot Media, and Lemon Tree Studios in Los Angeles. Visit checkyourheadpodcast.com where we have over 100 solutions for mental health. Be our friends on social media at Check Your Head Podcast. Watch us on YouTube and support us with a kind donation on checkyourheadpodcast.com. Check Your Head Podcast is sponsored by a 501c3 nonprofit with all donations being tax deductible. Thank you for your support and thank you for listening.