The Addicted Mind Podcast

What most people don't realize about addiction, whether it’s to alcohol, drugs, shopping, overeating, or porn, is that it’s not the core of the problem. The addicted person just uses it to cope with their real problem: their addicted mind or funky brain. For recovery to happen, people need to change their thinking to grow to new levels of awareness. On this episode, Duane talks with Dennis Berry,...

When a partner has a substance use disorder, there's a lot of mistrust. There's a lot of lying and hiding which damages the intimacy, connection, and faith in the relationship. Afterward, all of that has to be repaired. On today’s episode, Duane talks with international corporate attorney Chantal Jauvin about her journey to recovery as a partner of someone with a substance abuse disorder. As an in...

You could be suffering from chronic stress without knowing it. Alternatively, you might know it but are just so used to it that you think it’s normal. Well, it’s not normal. You have to act on it before it takes a toll on your health and happiness. We have many different stressors in life. The human alarm is in the brain but we are wired to ignore it because we're wired for fight or flight. Humans...

Addiction is a response to pain and trauma. Reaching out and making yourself vulnerable is challenging when you've been traumatized. You may not trust people and you may not trust the process. So what needs to be done to discharge the trauma off your body and break free from the symptoms – addiction being one of them? In this episode, Duane talks with Mike Govoni, an integrative holistic recovery...

You’ve probably heard of someone who’s suffered from chronic pain, gone to doctors, ran all the tests necessary, and surprisingly, none of the doctors could actually diagnose the problem.  Andrew Hahn, Founder of Life Centered Therapy, joins today’s episode to explain how chronic pain, limiting beliefs, and even addictions are not physical in nature, but energetic.  Hahn is a licensed clinical psy...

You could be raised by parents who are very nice people and they may not have any drinking or drug use issues. They could be super religious. But that doesn’t guarantee it’s going to save you from drug addiction or alcoholism. It's perfectly acceptable to ask for prayers if somebody is sick. But what happens when you do a repeated bad behavior that you can't seem to control? As children, we don’t...

Recovery is not one size fits all. It is also not a one-and-done situation. Rather, recovery is a process and a journey.  When someone gets sober and begins recovery, they are just starting to walk down the path of healing. Many of their previous feelings and temptations may continue to come up. However, they are gradually learning the tools they need to stay on their new path.  Shelby John is pas...

Sometimes you have to fight fire with fire. That cliche is true even (and sometimes especially) when dealing with addiction. Today’s guest is a prime example. David Poses is the author of The Weight of Air: A Story About the Lies of Addiction and the Truth of Recovery . In this memoir, David covers his heroin addiction and how he used buprenorphine to help him overcome it.  Throughout the show, Da...

When we’ve had trauma in our life, we can get really disconnected from our emotions. We don’t know how to express them or how to use them. Often, we turn to the only thing that we think will work: a substance or behavior that helps us escape or avoid those emotions. However, what if we tried something different? Journaling has grown in popularity over the past few years. People have found its powe...

Hiding--many addicts do it. It’s what keeps them locked in prisons of guilt and shame. It’s how they convince even themselves that they don’t have a problem. It’s the very thing that prevents them from getting the help that they so desperately need. Today’s guest, Wanja Joy, has experience with hiding. She hid her alcohol addiction from everyone in her life. Even after she reached out for help and...

Addiction is often the result of pain in our early years of life. Whether it’s passed down through genetics or an attempt to escape the pain, many addicts can point to a hard childhood as the source of their addiction. This is why it’s so important to recognize our family patterns and root out the disease of addiction while we still can.  Today’s guest, Kate Russell, grew up in just such an unheal...

When we go through extreme pain, it’s easy to feel like we’re all alone. We doubt that anybody has felt the level of pain that we are currently experiencing. Life begins to feel hopeless and we start believing that there is just no reason to carry on. However, there is always some good ahead. Think of the countless stories of those who have survived unimaginable circumstances and lived to tell abo...

Ever seen or heard of people who would come in for addiction treatment over and over again – like they almost always come in for the same problem with the same sense of empowerment? You could throw as many drugs at them or do all kinds of physical interventions but nothing changes.  If you're just living in your physical body, doctors can help you just fine. But if you're living in your physical b...

Children who grow up in an addictive home internalize a lot of toxic shame where they lose the ability to believe in their own worth and value. For some people, it has never been instilled in them, to begin with. But there is an emotional connection between the addict and their family. Regardless of how old you are – if you were raised with addiction, you deserve to be acknowledged. On today’s epi...

A lot of times, parents out there have kids struggling with addiction and they don’t know what to do or how to notice it. Unfortunately, adolescent addiction is oftentimes written off by a lot of parents because they think what they see as some crazy teenage behavior is just a normal developmental issue – but that may not be the case.  Let’s add the fact that kids hardly tell their parents about t...

Substance abuse disorder is something that people don't always discuss, and what you don't know, is where you can go awry. On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks to Cathy Ferree, the CEO of the Indiana State Museum, about their exhibit called FIX: Heartbreak and Hope Inside Our Opioid Crisis.  It's an amazing exhibit that really delves into the opioid crisis from a human pers...

Opium has been around but what many people don't realize is how much it has shaped society and culture. The United States has spent over $1 trillion on drug enforcement since President Nixon declared a war on drugs. And by any measure, that crisis has become worse. Could we ever imagine a time where humanity is finally free of these substances?  On today's episode, Duane talks with John Halpern an...

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane speaks with mother and son, Laura and Tom Boldt, authors of Unraveled, A Mother and Son Story of Addiction and Redemption . They talk about their story of recovery and how they worked together to get recovery. They each share how their recovery impacts each other, and how they were able to do it. It is a great story of hope, compassion, and gr...

On this episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane sits down with Jeff Nash to talk about addiction, recovery, and the importance of finding and engaging in a recovery community. Jeff is the executive director at Habilitat in Hawaii. Raised in Dallas, Jeff struggled with drug addiction for most of his adult life. By the time he was sixteen, Jeff was shooting heroin and other drugs. By 30, he fina...

On this episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks to Dylan Beynon, founder, and CEO of Mindbloom, a health and well-being company that provides physician-prescribed psychedelics and guided ketamine therapy. Dylan describes the time he first experienced MDMA at the suggestion of a friend who thought he needed to break out of his shell. Having an enlightening experience, Dylan sought to figu...

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane speaks with author, teacher, and mother Mary Burns. During their discussion, Mary meditates on grief, loss, and her son’s struggle with addiction and mental illness. As early as seven, Mary’s son, Eric, started to have something like screaming fits. She believed it was a phase that would pass. By the time he was a teenager, the screaming fits...

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks with author, speaker, and teacher Jenna Riemersma about internal family systems, or IFS. Jenna describes how IFS can help to transform your feelings about addictions and past trauma. Jenna talks about how IFS argues that all of our parts are good. And as counterintuitive as that is, it’s important to understand that the core of your Self...

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks to hip-hop artist Chris Hamilton (aka “ILL TONE”) about the struggle of addiction and the joy of recovery. He struggled with social anxiety and wrestling with his sexual identity while amongst conservatives on Vancouver Island. He found hip hop after getting expelled from school and identified with the fact that they talked about struggl...

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks to author Marques Marchand about addiction, dual diagnoses, and understanding your past. Christmas 2009, Marques was working at a restaurant and woke up with flu-like symptoms. He hit rock bottom a year later, and decided to quit everything cold, right after Thanksgiving. He struggled to keep friendships and work, and eventually he snapp...

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane sits down with Tracy Kenela about “calming the chaos” and creating peace and calm in our lives. Therapist and podcast host, Tracy discusses how she came to start studying “overwhelm” as a psychological concept. An expert in chaos, Tracy explains how chaotic factors contribute to our being overwhelmed. Calming The Addicted Mind - 6 Day Mindfuln...