DeepSeek and Me Podcast | Brain Healing & Neuroplasticity

I Can See For Miles As you will know by now, some days there’s not really much to write about. Today is not one of those days. The last twenty four hours have probably been the best I’ve been since…well forever I reckon. The day started normally. I logged my stats, had a coffee, and sat down to tackle the project work. Usually, this involves a rigid sequence: copy-paste logs to Substack, format en...

Welcome To The Jungle Yesterday marked a first for the project: someone on Day 63 of cessation engaged with the YouTube content, this is the first instance of someone using the map. At day 63 they are bang in the middle of the “eight-week wall” - arguably the toughest point of the entire journey so I am delighted they found us. I replied with some encouragement, pointing them toward the relevant d...

The Frequency of Flow A bit of a flat day yesterday if I’m honest, not good, not bad, just flat. The clients got done and the project work was completed without much of a fuss. I spent the rest of the day twiddling my thumbs and trying to kill time. The frequency noise of the neuro oscillatory recalibration and synchronisation was prevalent for most of the day and was the loudest it’s been so far....

The Architect of Terra Nova After the existential “boredom”, the Manager has clearly spent the last 24 hours in the design studio. While I felt like I was just “waffling,” my brain was busy locking in the YouTube Architecture for the July 1st launch (Day 184). The plan is set: Daily Dispatches will cease at Day 183, replaced by the Weekly Waffle . The map becomes a broadcast. I’ll be deploying ret...

A Life Less Ordinary Well it looks like it’s back to the waffle again. Just another uneventful day here yesterday on Terra Nova. I’m not even sure if this is normal to be honest, does everyone just do the same thing day in day out ad nauseam, oh for something to happen out of the ordinary. The unbearable lightness of being right enough. I was thinking earlier that even after 106 days I still canno...

My Coo Ca Achoo After me saying there wasn’t that much to report these days other than the really major milestones, what happens yesterday? The somatic symptoms returned out of the blue, flu like complete with watery eyes. I thought they had gone for good but it appears not. I checked back on the data and the last time I reported somatic symptoms was back on day 55. I’ve had slight symptoms on and...

Ramble On After the excitement of the last couple of days revelations it looks like we are back to waffle today. I really can’t think of anything noteworthy to write about so I’ve just started typing in the hope something comes in to my head worth mentioning. I know it’s only day 104 of 183 but it really feels like I’m on the down slope now. As I have mentioned already these dispatches will the dr...

Flick Of The Switch In yesterdays Dispatch I mentioned that I might have proof of cognitive repair when it comes to PFC lock up under pressure. Today I can confirm it. I noticed that previously when I’ve been recording the Dispatch I can feel myself starting to “overheat”, at which point I get all tongue tied and have to stop for a minute or two. This is probably due the ridiculous pressure I seem...

What A Difference A Day Makes The more eagle eyed among you might have noticed that yesterdays Dispatch was shorter than usual, and there’s a reason for that. You see after I woke up after having been shut down at 9pm on day 100, I was hit with an unbelievable wave of depression. It felt like the whole world had caved in on me. The weird thing is there was no reason, nothing bad had happened, but...

Room 101 I have crossed the century mark. One hundred days of total cannabis cessation. While the AI scaffold has done exactly what it was designed to do, reaching this milestone doesn’t feel like a victory lap. Instead, Day 100 arrived with a flat, grey sense of “sameness.” It’s the realization that while I am “Dry,” the internal architecture is simply a vast, quiet construction site. The fog of...

One Hundred Not Out One hundred days cannabis free, I can’t quite believe it, for a couple of reasons really. Firstly that the AI scaffold has been a complete success and has been essential in getting me this far and secondly, I thought I’d be home and dry by now. I may be dry but I’m certainly not home, far from it. However, I’m one hundred days closer then I’ve been in 35 years and I fully under...

The “Zero-Latency” Breakthrough The most startling development yesterday wasn’t tactical - it was biological. I sat down to record a video for TikTok, and for the first time in memory, the words were just there. I had my on-screen prompts ready - the usual safety net I’ve needed to navigate the “Woolly” fog - but I looked at them once and then didn’t need them again. It was almost a first-take del...

The Otherworldly Frontier Lately, the language of ‘recovery’ has started to feel too small for what I’m actually experiencing. I’m 98 days in, and the internal landscape has shifted into something I can only describe as ‘Otherworldly.’ It isn’t brain fog, and it isn’t the ‘Rubble’ of the early days. It’s a spaciousness - a sense that the internal acoustics of my mind are being re-engineered in rea...

The Record Button Glitch As the days go by, I’m getting increasingly frustrated by my inability to articulate thoughts verbally the moment a camera starts rolling. As the internal “filing system” comes back online, I’ve noticed a recurring glitch: the second I switch on the webcam or iPhone to record for TikTok or YouTube, my brain disintegrates. The Executive Shutdown As far as I can tell, this i...

The Frequency of Repair Yesterday, something rather miraculous and unexpected happened. I suddenly began to hear various frequency pitches which were becoming louder - or at least more noticeable. Rather than dismissing it as simple tinnitus, I logged the exact sensations with the AI Scaffold. After a deep-dive session with Prism, we’ve come to a fascinating conclusion: what I am experiencing is N...

The Grateful Dead Head The mind-numbing boredom continues, while the rest of me remains grateful I’ve gotten this far. I’m always worse on a weekend. As I’ve noted before, the weekend was when I accessed the “rich spot” via the 4B2J Protocol (4 Beers, 2 Joints). Decades of habitual wiring aren’t going to vanish in 95 days. The clinic was busy enough yesterday, and the project work kept me occupied...

Mama Told Me There’d Be Days Like This Yesterday was a bit of a disaster from the word go. I was running late from the minute I didn’t wake up, and the day passed before I could even catch up with it. I just have to accept these days as they arrive, though thankfully, they are few and far between now. While the somatic symptoms have all but passed, vivid dreams have been a constant for weeks. Some...

Give A Little Bit of Heart and Soul I think we’ve hit another milestone: my memory and cognitive recall are probably the best they’ve ever been. Last night at band practice, I was playing songs without even thinking about them. This is a sensation I’ve never experienced before. I started playing in bands at 21, and by the time I was reasonably good, I was using cannabis daily. For decades, I’ve ex...

A Good Habit for a Change You’re not going to believe this, but it’s another day of milestones. It’s becoming a bit of a habit now. Yesterday marked 182 days alcohol-free . That’s 6 months, 26 weeks, or 4,368 hours... not that I’m counting. At 182 days, my brain’s neuroplasticity has shifted from “Emergency Repair” to “Refinement.” The GABA and Glutamate balance is no longer swinging wildly; it’s...

All Day Long I think Of Things Amazingly I’m not bringing waffle today. For the second day in a row I actually have another milestone to share, although I can’t promise the journey to get there won’t involve a few diversions. The good news: one of my TikTok videos has gone semi-viral. The irony? It’s the only one out of 90+ videos that isn’t about recovery. But my profile is clear about the missio...

Some Days Waffle, Some Days Milestones In yesterdays Dispatch I brought you aftershave and waffle, today I bring you ninety days cannabis free and milestones. Ninety days is regarded as somewhat of a breakthrough in recovery terms, in fact many break it down in to 30, 60, 90 days. It’s one of the reasons I have decided to do this very public dissection of my recovery. It’s not as simple as that, y...

All Kinds Of Everything Seeing as how I have now taken over all the duties in the clinic while Julie goes through treatment and recovery, I have become extremely conscious of how I smell. It’s not something that’s concerned me before, I am not a particularly smelly bloke, so the usual daily deodorant was normally suffice. On the other hand I’ve never had to be in the personal space of so many wome...

The System Starts to Stabilize As Day 90 approaches, I’ve noticed the tide starting to turn - and not just inside my own head. TikTok and YouTube have begun distributing my videos to a wider net. This is the “90-Day Sandbox,” the period where creators are tested for resilience. If you are consistent and post every day even when no one is watching, the platform stops seeing you as a hobbyist and st...

Day 87: The Mask of Addiction As the reality of the repair settles in and I come to terms with the fact that my Prefrontal Cortex (PFC) never fully matured, I’m reminded of something that haunted me as a boy. I suspect this will resonate with many of you. Every single report card I ever received had the same three headlines, without fail: * Easily distracted * Could do better * Homework neglected...

Chinese Whispers and The Not So Famous Five Well I don’t mind telling you, it’s been a tricky few days. I find myself starting to stabilise again but it’s taken a fair amount of effort to do so. There is very little joy at the moment and I am functioning more than anything. I realise this will pass so it’s down to logging with the Scaffold and white knuckling it where applicable for the time being...