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Politics The war on Joe Rogan

Dr. Gabor Mate. Has books on addiction, stress, and childhood development. Says a lot of good stuff I agree with, but...he says every single case of addiction ever is rooted in trauma. At the same time, he says the entire collection of scientists and Dr's are wrong that there is an "addiction gene". He does admit there are genes that make one genetically predispositioned to addiction.

Not sure how I feel about that. He may be right. But there are also scientific studies that show that a certain % of alcoholics have a chemical production issue in the brain that substances serve as a replacement and that can be genetic. So I think we're getting into semantics on whether or not that %/chemical issue "causes" addiction.

But this I think I can say with certainty: He's wrong that every single case of addiction is a result of trauma. His own admission that certain people are far more susceptible to addiction would indicate that some people who have that can fall into addiction through bad habits, partying for fun, or consuming from peer pressure that triggers the susceptibility without suffering trauma.

Of course, he also says anyone who is left in their crib to cry instead of being picked up has been traumatized, so....
 
yeah that sounds dumb. Like anything else there its a mix of nature vs. nurture. We all know people who had horrific childhoods who don't end up being violent or criminal but being great people; and those that end up having issues as an adult who had as close to ideal childhoods as possible.

My aunt and uncle were the kindest people and most stabilizing humans in my childhood, and their son, who was good looking successful and popular with wonderful kids, drank himself to death.

but I think you're on to something different people are able to handle different types of trauma differently. Look at how many WW2 vets experienced horrors but ended up appearing at least to lead successful happy lives.
 
Evil gator said:
but I think you're on to something different people are able to handle different types of trauma differently. Look at how many WW2 vets experienced horrors but ended up appearing at least to lead successful happy lives.
I've thought about this before. My best theory is that fighting in WW II was truly a just cause and to my knowledge, killing was pretty much kept to soldiers. A far cry from Vietnam where no one wanted to be there getting killed for no real reason and they met with an enemy where killing women and children did happen. The wars themselves are night and day and I wonder how much of a factor that played in the PTSD issue. I'm sure there was still plenty of PTSD from WW II that just wasn't talked about.

Nurture does play a part in it though, if you lump emotional expression in with nurture. A huge reason I struggled with alcoholism for so long was because I refused to acknowledge or face my emotions and PTSD from being painfully killed by anaphylaxis. I suppressed it and fed the fight or flight system that was permanently stuck in flight mode. In a rural country culture, men don't show weakness or express emotions outside of telling a spouse they love them or outright anger. I've wondered, if I were raised to process emotions in a healthy manner instead of letting them fester inside, would I have fallen into alcoholism or at the least, gotten sober much sooner than I did.

Unfortunately, I think an awful lot of addiction cause is "coulda, woulda, shoulda". It's damn hard to point to a root cause after the fact in some cases.
 
yeah I agree its very complicated. The doctor saying its all one thing shows once again you can be very educated and completely lacking in common sense.
 
Ugh. Now he says all kids who got spanked are traumatized. And Rogan chimes in with, he heard a friend say they spanked their child and he wasn't sure if he should tell them that they shouldn't do that. It's never ok to spank your child.

Oh fuck off. Why is it impossible for anyone who's anti-spanking to refuse to acknowledge that there's a difference between spanking and beating, as well as one method may not work for another. I got a belt or hair brush more times than I can remember and I earned every one of them.
 
I do know trauma / ptsd @ a young age (I was 8), alters your brain in a potentially irreversible way. I think a lot of addiction is rooted in trauma that’s been left to fester, if that makes sense, but w you Juggs, don’t think ALL addiction is rooted in trauma, and not all trauma victims are alcoholic. FFS, who hasn’t experienced trauma?? But back to it happening early in brain development, especially when the child doesn’t tell anyone, because they don’t know wtf just happened, I can tell you that’s life altering. I couldn’t figure out wtf my problem was, I seemingly had a great childhood, but buried deep was the trauma. I don’t remember having a single thought about it until 4 or so years of sobriety, then it hit me like a bolt of lightning, and I started recalling. Thought I was f’n crz, but went to counseling every week for 18 mths to wash as much of that shit out. Seems bizarre I know
 
Not bizarre at all. Suppressing trauma is a survival mechanism, I think. Some people can bury shit so far down it's like amnesia. Especially as a kid.

Even though my event happened when I was like 25, there were details I didn't remember until 3 years ago also, some of it when I started therapy. Then it brought up so much, I relapsed more often because I couldn't handle it until I developed the skills to do so. I can't imagine how deep that has to go when it happens as a child.

Speaking of the brain, to support my theory, I'll use anecdotal. There are people who only got physically addicted through habits/circumstances. RIP can tell me if I'm wrong, but it sounded like RIP had gotten addicted physically because of his life style and habits. It made it easier for him to get sober because it was his body that was hooked on it, but his brain hadn't actually been "broken" that required a serious deep dive to address.
 
yeah that makes sense. if you're not self medicating for some reason its easier to change.

on a related note, one of my friends thinks that she and I are less fucked up than our older (less functional) siblings because we started smoking pot earlier and it did us good LOL
 
Evil gator said:
yeah that makes sense. if you're not self medicating for some reason its easier to change.

on a related note, one of my friends thinks that she and I are less fucked up than our older (less functional) siblings because we started smoking pot earlier and it did us good LOL
If it were mushrooms or some kind of psychedelics, science is starting to support that theory. Weed, not so much :lol:
 
Evil gator said:
if you ever had a bad trip you'd know that's bullshit.

i took mushrooms before a flight once, that was dumb lol
Psychedelics' are increasingly becoming popular for helping with PTSD. But these aren't taking a random amount of shrooms a friend gave you. It's dosed and administered/supervised properly and studies are showing a considerably high success rate. And that's whether it's taking DMT and having 5 minutes of fucking up visions or micro dosing. Supposedly DMT, Ketamine, etc. make you face issues you've suppressed or have some kind of mental epiphany about the trauma. :beatsme:
 
Since it's illegal in America, there are fewer studies on Ayahuasca and DMT, but a lot of people swear by it. There's a lot of anecdotal testimonies and a small handful of studies that show they can cure PTSD as well as substance abuse.

The one that has more evidence behind it is Ketamine, which you can get here and even do at your own home. That has shown a very high rate of success in PTSD of veterans. I was considering trying that before my breakthrough.
 
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