Speaker 1Hello everybody and welcome to Recovering Out Loud, a podcast where we talk about addiction and mental health recovery. Today's guest is Scott Graham, a licensed clinician who's been working in the addiction and mental health, including corrections, since 1988. In addition to being a psychotherapist and life coach, Scott is the author of 28 books. His work spans topics like marijuana legalization, grief, psychedelics, behavioral change, and recovery, all approached with a practical, no BS style. He's also spent over 260 days in silent meditation, bringing a unique depth to his perspective. Today, we'll explore the messy, meaningful realities of healing without the sugar coat. Scott tells us his story and how he got into the addiction and mental health field. We talk about marijuana legalization and practical realities. We discuss grief and healing and life after loss, psychedelics and behavioral change. We talk about meditation and the Buddhist and deep presence. I had a blast today with Scott and I hope you get something out of it too. Enjoy
Speaker 2the show. Scott Graham, how are you doing today? I am doing great. It's really raining here, but I am still doing great. I don't know if the rain is ever going to stop, but I am doing great.
Speaker 1You're calling in from Boston. I was about to say Baston. I'm saying it like you. Boston, Massachusetts. I appreciate you coming on and taking the time. It's amazing how the internet works these days. I truly believe the universe, God, whatever you want to call it, puts people in my path and I can choose whether or not to accept those messages or decline them. You came into my path and I'm grateful for that because I'm very grateful for that. I'm very grateful for that. I'm very interested to learn what you have to talk about with regards to addiction, but also mental health as a broad spectrum. Why don't you get started and tell us a little bit about yourself, your story, and how you got into this field? I'm actually in a lot of different fields.
Speaker 2I've been working initially as a therapist, substance abuse counselor since 1987 and started working in a collaborative program between Outward Bound, which is kind of like early hoods in the woods type stuff, and Beach Hill Hospital, which ran a substance use program looking for people who have wilderness skills and substance abuse stuff. And from there, I worked and managed an outpatient program for 400 and some people with the Vermont Department of Corrections and then launched my own coaching practice and then started writing books in 2015. And it's been like a roller coaster of books. I'm now working on my 29th book. I just published my 28th book and they are on every single possible topic you can possibly imagine. I'm not kidding. Really, really. And so there's a lot of different things we can talk about. And if you're even bored about, we're not wanting to talk about addictions. One of my most recent books is Suck With Your Pup. Those are my two dogs. I taught my dogs how to suck with your pup. How to paddleboard. What? No information on how to do paddleboarding on the internet. And so I ended up writing a book about that. And so I'm just, it's on, I write everything.
Speaker 1That's amazing. I love paddleboarding. It's one of my favorite things. My wife and I go paddleboarding on Lake Ontario here. And it's right. It's true. There's no instruction manual on how to paddleboard for anybody. Like it's a, it's a pretty steep learning curve at the beginning, right? You get up and you fall a few times and everyone's watching and laughing at you. Yeah. But it's, it's fun. It's a lot of fun. I love the idea of being out in the ocean with nature. There's something very special and calming about that. Yeah. Huge, huge. And there's not,
Speaker 2and there's very few things to keep you separated from your foolhardy decisions when you're out there. You have to be prepared. So I've learned interestingly enough, you'll be this. I learned how to paddleboard at the same time. I taught my dogs how to paddleboard with no information on anything. And there we're pros. Now we're paddleboarding pros.
Speaker 1Yeah. I love it. That's amazing. So what, uh, what inspired you to enter the field of addiction or mental health back in, uh, 88, you said? Yeah, it was actually Anthony, I was working
Speaker 2as a bartender and I'd gotten a degree in psychology and I was looking for someone came up to me and said, you can, you, you got your, these degrees, you get to do something with it. And that got me involved in working in a, in a, uh, alternative school program. And so I got a job at the Appalachian trail and I was a big outdoors person. And I had all these wilderness skills and this program, which was substance abuse in the woods for 21 days year round year round. So we were out for 21 days in the middle of the winter. Uh, and you only had to know what you were doing. And so they had trouble finding people that had, you know, both skillsets. They could find people that had a good wilderness skillset and knew nothing about substance abuse and counseling. And then they had, could find people that were really good with substance abuse and counseling, but there was no way. I was saying that the place that I, you know, I started, I started working with inner city kids, you know, an alternative school program. That's how I first started working in substance use. And then this opportunity came about for an abound program that was looking for therapists. And their dilemma was that they had wilderness instructors who had no counseling skills, no substance abuse skills. And at the same time, they could find substance abuse counselors that had no wilderness skills. And I was at the start of my profession in substance abuse counseling, had hiked the Appalachian trail, had done a lot of wilderness canoeing. I had both skills in the pieces that they really needed. So they reached out to me and boom, that's how I got started.
Speaker 1Wow. And the wilderness program, can you describe that a little bit? Because I know a little bit about it just from when I was in rehab, there were some guys that had, had gone to it. What,
Speaker 2what is the wilderness program? So this, this program is not like the hoods in the woods stuff that you would see, like, okay. That's what I'm thinking of to get out and force them to eat maggots and we're all neat. And, you know, it wasn't like that. It was a traditional outward bound program that was broken up into training, main and final expedition had a rock climbing element, had a solo element, had a race at the end of one that you did at the end, just like all outward bound courses. But it included a substance abuse, substance treatment, substance counseling, focus, mental health counseling, focus. And we would go out for 21 days at a time. And then we would go out for 21 days at a time. And we would and it had a family component. So families could kind of get what was going on with their kids. And we would go camping for seven days and then come back in and resupply. And then in the summertime, we'd go canoeing in the middle of the thing. And then there would be a final expedition. And the, the, the strategy, general strategy about we're bound is two things to put somebody in a outside their comfort zone so that they have to grow and expand and to build their competencies so that by the end of the course on the courses that went really well, those last kind of four days of the course, the students were kind of on their own. We were with them. We were trailing along behind them. They could reach out, but the goal was that they had built enough skillset that they could cook together as a group, work together as a group, make their decisions as a
Speaker 1group and get from point A to point B. Right. So really giving them life usable life skills, right?
Speaker 2Yeah. And more than just, you know, the canoeing piece or the, or the camping piece really understanding, you know, planning, living in the moment, taking things a day at a time, communicating with other folks, trusting what they're doing is, I mean, all these pieces are really critical skills that they got. So definitely not this drag them off, you know, beat them down type, crush them. It was not like that at all. Very empowering.
Speaker 1Yeah. I love that. Yeah. That's the one I was referring to because those are the ones that I heard of for, uh, you know, troubled kids. Let's let's call it troubled youth. Um, was there a moment you would say, Scott, where that really shaped your approach early on like a moment or a
Speaker 2case, a case that you worked with, you know, what really shaped my approach on my own life was that I was a student on an outward bound course in 1984. It was a 10 day course in the Florida Everglades. It wasn't geared for youth at risk. It was an adult course there. I was in college at that time. And, you know, in my early twenties and the philosophy of outward bound, which is really summed up in their, their motto, which is to strive to serve and not to yield really has shaped my, and I think it's really shaped my entire, it's really shaped my entire life, even to this day.
Speaker 1Awesome. I want to get into the marijuana legalization because that was big here in Canada when that happened. For a lot of reasons, dispensaries started popping up all over the place. And, you know, we started knowing a little bit more about what we were putting in our bodies in terms of THC. Love it. Determining marijuana. Yeah. Love it. From your clinical perspective, what do you think the most misunderstood aspects of the legalization of marijuana is today?
Speaker 2Well, there's a couple of pieces. It's gone too fast. It has gone too fast. And so we now have had this proliferation of... Of marijuana stores, which without any consistency among marijuana products. And one of the biggest issues, I think you just hit on it. You said, what do we call these places around Canada? They are called marijuana... Dispensaries. Dispensaries. There's all of this medical terminology that goes along with it. And it's not by accident. It is not. It's strategic. So we talk about doses. We talk about dispensaries. It's this medicalization. And that's going to be a problem. I'm not saying that people are working toward that problem. But the consequence of that is that someday, if it hasn't happened already, you're going to have somebody say, I need to be stoned all the time because I have to take my medicine. I need to take my medicine. And that's going to be helping me get stoned all the day. Stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned.
Speaker 1That's what I have to do to get stoned.
Speaker 2That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned.
Speaker 1That's what I have to do to get stoned.
Speaker 2That's what I have to do to get stoned.
Speaker 1That's what I have to do to get stoned.
Speaker 2That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. That's what I have to do to get stoned. driving the school bus into a building yeah right they have there's no exception it's black and white no gray area yeah yeah what in your opinion what
Speaker 1do you think if there is one what what is the solution or a possible solution
Speaker 2we need to I'm not saying not legalize marijuana we need to have a consistent measurement piece across we've got the science to send people to them move geez Louise we should be able to figure out a consistent piece every single legislator should require they don't they don't have to as a legislator they don't have to even say what it needs they should they all they have to say is there needs to be consistent labeling on marijuana across all products across all of Canada so that every single person knows what it's taking and how much THC and is that is in there and how long it's gonna last they just have to write that in and people are gonna have to figure that out they should stop using medical terms for marijuana we should not be going to the marijuana dispensary with a grocery store liquor store there's a hardware store there's a marijuana dispensary like they should be like no it's no medical terms for marijuana in your in your publications your marketing you're this it's the
Speaker 1marijuana store yeah yeah yeah sometimes it's too simple right it's too simple we over complicate things what what guidance would you give somebody that's struggling with marijuana maybe all drugs but what guidance would you what would you say to someone struggling with this it's if you're struggling with
Speaker 2marijuana you are these days it's a tough place to be because you have the marijuana industry saying it's not a problem you have people that don't even know what what what constitutes a problem right if if if you went up at this true story I'm getting a hip replacement on July 7 I've already had two knee replacements I had to go for like your pre intake whatever the hell it is they asked me all kinds of questions you know how much they wanted to know how many you know how much junk food I was eating and what my exercise was question about alcohol how much alcohol do you take and you know I gave them an answer to that and and I you know said asked them after I gave them that answer is that good or bad right I guess I said you know maybe I'll have a beer a week and so I was just making these up I know I was lying to them I was just make out because I wanted to see what they it's just a stupid intake and so he said oh no that's that's that's fine we want to be concerned about many went off something you know you're drinking every day or you're doing this not even you know in substance abuse what we used to talk call you know relief drinking there's a point in your addiction cycle where let's think about this is just why when they yeah that's I'm thinking about this you just add there's a point in your addiction cycle where you move into relief drinking or so it's just talking about alcohol you're drinking beer on a regular basis and it's fun and suddenly it switches where it's you're not just drinking for fun you're drinking to get relief from your day so alcohol becomes a coping skill well geez Louise marijuana is marketed as a coping skill you should microdose. Oh, you've already skipped that piece. Anyway, I said to the doctor, she says, well, how are you managing pain? And I said, well, because she didn't ask about marijuana, even though it's legal. It's crazy. I said to this person, I gave him this obnoxious number. I said, I'm doing, I'm doing a milligram every hour from when I wake up. And then at five o'clock, I do two milligrams. At seven o'clock, I do another two milligrams. When I'm getting ready to go to bed at night, I do, I just made this up. Nine milligrams. At nine o'clock, I do five milligrams. At 10 o'clock, I do five milligrams when I go to bed. She's writing this down here in the headlights, right? And I said to him, I said to the intake person, I'm like, is that good or bad? They just looked at me like this. I'm like, I got to know. Is that too much? Can I do more? Clueless. Clueless. Can you just think about that? There's this substance that people are putting in their body and the medical profession is clueless as to whether this much is good, that much is good, this way is clueless. And it's legal. I'm not saying make it illegal. I'm not saying that at
Speaker 1all. I'm saying we shouldn't be clueless. Yeah. Well, especially too, and this leads me into the next point. I want to talk about this. I want to talk about this. I want to talk about this. I want to talk about with this upcoming psychedelic trend, right? This psychedelic treatment process that they're doing, right? It's very possible that this could also too become legal one day. We don't know mushrooms. I'm blanking on the proper name of them now. Psilocybin. Thank you. Psilocybin. There's one here. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2Four bucks on psychedelics.
Speaker 1So what's your take on current interest in psychedelics for mental health and addiction?
Speaker 2I would say that psychedelics are following the same trajectory like marijuana. It's being promoted as you hear people say, I have to take my medicine. Medicine. It's even, they're not saying dosage. They're saying, this is my medicine, my sacred medicine they have to take. And the, the, but there's some focus around micro dosing, but the real focus is doing these for the average person as it's unfolding is doing these psychedelic experiences. So I've never done psychedelics before. I'm looking for a thing that's going to pick a topic, help me be a better manager, help me be a better husband, help me deal with anxiety, help me deal with depression, help me grow my bald hair back, help me, you know, know, it goes on and on and on and on and on. And so what you do is you do this psychedelic experience, which is to take this, you know, in a two hour block, and then apply it to your life. We now here's the here's the step. Now I've written two books on this. Got to show these hold on. No problem. What happens when you write a lot of books, right? So we've got the psychedelic preparation workbook. Now, interestingly, I've written 28 books. This is the number one bestseller right now. People are selling like hotcakes.
Speaker 1Yeah, it says a lot. It says a lot about society.
Speaker 2Nobody's nobody's buying the Buddhist book on how to be better, live a better life. That's an alignment with Buddhist ethical principle.
Speaker 1We want shortcuts.
Speaker 2Yeah, that's exactly that's the world we live in. We want shortcuts. And then this is the other book, which is the psychedelic. integration workbook. This is so one's a before and one's an after. And I wrote them and have done this stuff. Because if the psychedelic wave hits, I want to be ready to paddleboard on top of it. I'm just sitting on the paddleboard in the ocean now waiting, ready to go on geared up with the true docs. But I'm the the, the truth is that I don't want I'm going to minimize this. So we talked about outward bound earlier. My that was my experience. And so outward bound did would do these one day programs, three day programs, an outgrowth of outward bound called project adventure doing ropes courses would do these experiences, push people outside of their comfort zone, challenge them in ways and what they would do before they did these intense weekend or even one day experience. experiences, they would do all this preparation. What kind of person do you want to be? What's going to be important to you? Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. They do this. And there'd be this almost therapeutic element around the experience. Oh, my God, I said I didn't want to be I wanted I need to listen to people more. And I just spent half the day not listening. Right? Ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, ding, then they would do integration afterwards. And say, Alright, so now that you know this about yourself, how are you going to do this? How are you going to change your life? Let's come up with a plan. Now that you've had this big insight from this peak experience, that this is the thing prepared. Let's talk about how you can change your life, take action. That's, it's the same damn thing as psychedelics. And then psychedelic people are gonna be like, No, no, no, no, no, no, it really, it's the exact, there's this, this experience that you have, that gets wrapped up with some pre work, and some post work. And how's your life
Speaker 1going to be different? That is the model for psychedelic says it's going out there. It's the same thing we did an hour bounce just wrapped in a different wrapping paper. Yeah, an easier, softer way, if you will. Right? Yeah. For some people. Anyway, so I heard some people have some very i've never done psychedelics um my experience with them and this is just my experience right i'm not an expert in the field but i was very close to doing an ayahuasca retreat i signed up i paid the money um you know some uh shaman is it i believe they're called yeah she she was gonna she takes a group of people up north i was recommended by a friend who had some something had changed about him i had seen some some sort of uh serenity in this guy and i was very interested i wanted to find god i wanted to find spirituality and i was talking to my therapist one day she's uh an addict as well herself and she said to me something that that changed my perspective of it she said do you know anybody that has done one one psychedelic trip one psychedelic experience one and i thought about it for a while and in my circle my experience no it's i i've never met somebody that's done one and she said to me well what's the chances what are the chances that you're just going to stop at one what how do you know that you're going to stop at one how do you know this isn't going to become your addiction and that's why i say from my perspective i know today that that it's not for me there's other ways to to find a spiritual experience to find god for me um but it's a slippery slope this psychedelic thing for me although i'm very intrigued in it i'm i've i believe it helps a lot of people and the the data and the studies that are coming out are very promising i'm excited to see where it goes but for this addict and alcoholic i don't touch it today because i don't know what's going to happen if i do right so let me let me ask
Speaker 2one more piece to think about this before you answer this why are you intrigued what is the what is the intrigue about what is because you use that word specifically yeah you're intrigued yeah what's and and and it's important this your answer is important because i think it's going to
Speaker 1relate to a lot of the listeners out there why are you intrigued yeah it's a great question it is a it's a fabulous question i think originally having i i remember there was a point in my life where um psychedelics kept coming up in social media in it was showing itself to me i had another therapist that was talking about her psychedelic experience and so it started opening these doors to my mind where these people were talking about it with such vigor and such enthusiasm and how it really helped them it was very hard and they talked about you know meeting the devil and meeting god and all these things i think for me ultimately i wake up every morning and my my goal maybe not every morning but my ultimate goal is to find this this god this higher power i think i've found it you know through through recovery work through 12-step work and other stuff like that but i think for me i i want that shortcut if i'm being honest i want the shortcut to spirituality to god to spiritual experience and i want this this experience that i don't have to work for
Speaker 2essentially yeah no you hit it i i knew you were going to say that in our just brief time of knowing your history and your experience you would get it so there's two piece two pieces to that the intrigue is almost grounded in addictive thinking right there's this magical thing on the other side right once i have this yeah once i've gotten to that point i'm awesome i've got it all it's awesome bullshit it's the same thing you see somebody somebody gets in recovery and then they're buying trucks and cars and planes and boats and everything because once i get that or you know they they get clean and sober and then they're struggling in their relationships because they're bouncing from person to person grasping all these things and the second piece that you talked about is this shortcut mentality it is it is the you know nutrisystem version of losing weight right like come on weight loss is easy it's not it's not it's it's not it's difficult to do it's challenging it's but the solution is easy it's it's simple but you know we get these cans of shit boxes of that pills take this pill that i i have i now have to take um you know um uh i'm pensick or i don't even know what it is but something like glp1 yeah yeah it's this will solve my problem no no no no no you know what's going to solve your problem there's only one thing there is only one person who's going to solve the problem this guy that's you that's you you you cannot even if you go even if you go work some sort of recovery program go to any of the pick pick up a recovery program you just can't stroll in the door and be a rock you have to do the work
Speaker 1surprise yeah as they say you can't get sober through osmosis as one of my friends just to say i can't go to the gym i can't go to the gym and just get muscles by by being at the gym and sitting in the sauna all day i love it it's a great point i think that's a society that
Speaker 2wants to get happiness yeah through osmosis right i've done a shit ton of meditation that's hard work to do that meditation it is and we are inundated with apps programs little me me thing i just where you can like meditate like a buddhist monk with 60 seconds of your life i know the secret
Speaker 1yeah yeah take these five steps right five five steps to be a good meditator or a happy person or
Speaker 2a better wife or husband right right it's the same thing with psychedelics it's the same they're pitching that piece and once psychedelics is gone i don't know it's going to be you know medicinal it's just a long list of bullshit um yeah i love it the work comes from within right and i i have
Speaker 1to learn to love myself to know myself i have to know myself first i have to find out who i am what i'm about what drives me what makes me do things and then i have to love that self right you you talked about meditation um and i it's an interesting subject for me too let's pivot into meditation and buddhism and how that helps you you you spent um 260 days in silent meditation
Speaker 2is that yeah not all at once not all at once if you like to be like oops i didn't eat for 260 days yeah um i've i you know 10 days 12 days 11 14 days at a time wow and then added them added them all up and what was that like meditation and recovery meditation and sobriety are like this form of meditation and sobriety are kind of interformed um and i'll give you the shortcut piece of this the reason that one of those things that you discover in um the people first of all forget they think that meditation is supposed to make them farting rainbows and being on a cloud that is not the purpose of meditation absolutely not never has been ever ever ever if you are hearing that from someone they are filling you a line of bs meditation is like you talked about going to the gym meditation is like going to a gym meditation is like working a recovery program meditation is like monitoring your food and eating well meditate you you monitor your food and eating well not because you're looking for something in that piece you go to the gym not because you love you know sweating and pumping weights and being uncomfortable you go to the gym because you don't have a heart attack you want to be able to go play the stairs better you want to be able to do your life better you all these things are geared towards this outcome that's this far away steps yes yes you work a recovery program not because you say god since i was a little boy and people said what do you want to do when you grow up i said i'd like to work a recovery program people and and and talk about i i want to talk about all my issues and get um you work on republic program because it helps you become the person you want to be there's it's some recovery program that can there's there's in page where they talk about promises this is why we're doing it this is what we're going to get that's why you work the recovery program same thing with meditation and what happens that's the truth if someone's telling you it's going to make you fart rainbows they're lying to you um so then what do you what happens after you work this what you start to realize is that we have these um sensations on our body so you start off with like breathing and then you focus on sensations and that's it it's very simple you're focusing on your sensations going all the way down but then what happens is while you're doing this piece your relationship with your mind comes to play and what you discover is that we're in this on just basic sensations there's pleasant sensations and shitty sensations but that's what you're doing and you're focusing on your sensations good sensations and bad sensations we respond with grasping for the good sensations we want them we chase them we can't stand the bad sensations we can't wait for the pain and we build all this drama in our head huge amounts of drama huge amounts of people around those these sensations and one of the things that you discover is that this is huge insights for people in recovery is that you're not addicted to alcohol you're not addicted to marijuana you're not addicted to cocaine you're not addicted to heroin you're addicted to the sensations the pleasant sensations that come and so it doesn't matter what the thing is there's a pleasant sensation that comes when you buy a car there's a pleasant sensation that comes when you're you're you're chasing after something right you're you're you're and when and you get that car and then it comes home and it's like yeah yeah yeah and now i need a now i need a speedboat right now that's what you're chasing or or relationships or sex right there's a pleasant sensation you're surfing around your internet porn whatever and then boom it's over and and then you're chasing the next piece right you start off with you know internet porn just watching cute people have sex and the next thing you know you're like watching like god i didn't even know this was possible yet you just become desensitized to that stuff down here and then it's addiction
Speaker 1you just need more you need yeah chasing that dopamine right it's dopamine you're chasing the
Speaker 2sensation um and that was such an insight for me the other piece that happens is that all of these things are in the present moment this is not some bullshit somebody telling you this is not some book you're reading your experience yourself is that there are pieces on the on a 10-day course it's that you experience balance around but you're not chasing the present you're not chasing that and you change and that balance comes when you are completely in the present moment right where do we hear that from one day at a time stay in the present moment live in today not tomorrow not this not yesterday stay in today that's where you're going to find happiness but in the actual micro application of physical sensations on the body you find that your coolest your chillest your most awesomeness comes when you're not chasing them and that happens when you're totally accepting what it as it is as it is not as you would like it to be right i love that this is my favorite buddhist race i talk about it in my books it is yata buta um and that is that translates to as it is as it is people get sober what do they hear accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do accept things as they are right not not what they want to do not like you want it to be you're not the king of the world right right yeah i'm not the i love that
Speaker 1i'm not the sheriff of the universe right just because somebody's not living according to my plan it's okay i don't need to judge things i don't need to judge thoughts i can just accept them kind of laugh at them sometimes because there are some crazy ones i go through my mind to me today it's like oh i'm doing that thing again you know oh well like what what is this about right and just accepting it and moving on i love that i love that you you know you write scott you read a lot about grief and healing from grief and life after loss what is uh what's your
Speaker 2experience with that so i'm gonna find this book where's this book uh here's the other book i just wrote this so there's as you are come as you are i've written four books on grief and this is the fourth one and they're they're all there's come they're all come as you are couldn't decide on the title the first one i wrote during covid was called come as you are medicine and grief and then three years later i wrote another one i couldn't think of what to call it so i called it come as you are three years later uh and and now i just wrote this one called come as you are five years later kind of different snapshots at different places and i have to tell you that um i and i've confessed this on other places before i have as a therapist i have screwed a lot of people up by telling them falsities about grief um telling them that you know grief is a problem that you have to solve telling them things like you'll get better what the fuck you'll get better says that grief's a problem right oh you just have more work to do says that grief's something that got has to be fixed um i told people in and and this has been this model has been hijacked and applied to everything including addictions i remember teaching people in this addiction you know alcohol is your friend and you have to go through a griefing process with your alcohol and you have so right now you're working through the stages of grief anger denial bargaining depression some you'll get through acceptance and you have to work through those stages because that's that's what's going to help you clean stay clean and sober all bullshit all bullshit in fact the person who came up with this this model that has been hijacked even including about grief she wrote on death and dying elizabeth kubler-ross wrote this book and her focus was people who had terminal illnesses people who are dying of cancer or some other horrible thing they're in hospice right and the process these people went through dealing with their own lack of immortality their own fallibility their own problems and how they get to the point of kind of being at peace knowing that they're going to die that's what this was written about she actually was interviewed in an article many many years later and they asked her about you know what do you think about your model that's used in all these griefs she said it was it's horrible she doesn't want to give up mom she said it's horrible this is not what the intention was this is not how that grief process works if you're grieving i'm gonna i want you to think about that and i want you to think about it i want you to know this one really important fact if you're grieving you should be proud of that fact absolutely proud of the pain that you're carrying because that means that you exposed yourself and courageously you exposed yourself honestly and you lived you lived your life in such a way that you loved so deeply that you now have this pain that you're carrying around with you you should be excited that you live that way not trying to get that i don't want anybody to take away my grief because that's the flip side of the coin you cannot have light without darkness you can't have spring and summer without fall and winter it just doesn't work you can't have spring and summer without fall and winter it just doesn't work that nothing works that way um you have to have that peace and to push that away and for someone to say get over it or you're still grieving is totally disrespectful to the life that somebody chose to have with another person or the or the or the heart that they had for their kid who was shot in school or killed in an accident right that's huge um to be like oh you just have to work through it you haven't done it yet
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Speaker 4this episode is brought to you by txu energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four
Speaker 1oh i love that yeah and thanks for sharing that um i know that that you know it's everybody has grief but uh yeah for some of us it hits a little bit harder so i appreciate your vulnerability there and sharing that um what what does it look like on the other side though like what is it what is it grief is still here if there is an other side there is no other side there's an integration
Speaker 2you just heard it you just heard it in my voice yeah it's there so here's the piece and this is this is this is the important piece to be aware of and i want people to hear this clearly the problem is not grief it's the fueling of the grief the just like the problem is not anger it's the fueling of the anger with resentments and other shit right the problem is not self-pity poor me it's the point where you get to poor me poor me another drink that doesn't happen overnight right and that that that there's a fueling that happens there right the the problems is the problem is in the fueling that that you you here's a here's a great example of kind of and we know we know we don't freak out when people do this think of a funny movie you saw and you watch that funny movie again or you tell somebody about that funny movie and it's hysterical and you laugh right i've seen the big lebowski like great film right love that movie yeah every time at the very end i know it's going to happen and just the look on on on his face when when his buddy's ashes come flying all over him right you're laughing now right yeah right that's great it's it's he looks at him fucking walter all the time why i mean just that it's hysterical um people don't look and say are you still laughing about that you need therapy to get over that you're still laughing about that piece that you saw in that fucking movie come on you have a problem it's a problem you gotta work through that right no it's not you're being a human right it's a funny thing you're laughing about it it's not a problem you're being a human you've loved deeply now you're talking about it it's in the it's in the front of your mind and you're feeling grief celebrate that fact don't medicate that fact that's the same bullshit that the osmosis car salesmen psychedelic people and and timeshare people want you to do buy this timeshare and you'll have the best thing you know if you've ever gone to a timeshare presentation they pull out these albums of like everybody's happy no one's fighting over the fact everybody's happy well look at all the juice is what you're gonna get when you buy the timeshare um and and that just fuels that piece it's crazy oh yeah i love it i love it oh man yeah you know
Speaker 1what scott i i appreciate you man i i learned a lot today i hopefully um my listeners and i'm sure they will we'll get something out of it um where can we find you scott where can people find you social media books how do we buy your books so the easiest way to find me is to just google
Speaker 2like at the bottom of my books it says g scott graham if you google g scott graham author google will give you or g scott graham books you'll get a ton of links they're available everywhere in print on amazon on barnes and noble on nook on apple on google play they're everywhere and and a number of them are free a number of them are free oh wow awesome amazing well i had
Speaker 1a great time thank you so much for uh coming on and and making time for me and my listeners i appreciate you and keep doing the the good work we do we're gonna have to come back we didn't even
Speaker 2talk about the buddhist book here yeah we'll do another one yeah and then i wrote a book on the bucket list i'm using a bucket list because people are grasping things right you use the bucket list to reverse engineer your life so that you're living a life that's in alignment with your bucket list it's for people who say i don't know what the hell i want to do with my life well you have a bucket list let's come up with a bucket list and then work backwards and design your life and then you don't need the bucket list because you're totally living a life that's
Speaker 1perfect love that love that perfect for you right perfect for you and it's exactly perfect for you yeah yeah amazing well thanks scott i appreciate you this episode is
Speaker 4brought to you by txu energy for the first time ever texans have an energy plan that combines free nights all year with daytime summer savings it's called free nights and cool summer you get free nights every night all year long plus a 25 bonus toward your daytime use all summer it's a first of its kind plan created for how texans actually use energy discover how much more you could save with free nights and cool summer txu energy energy for everything visit txu.com for more information rep number one zero zero zero four
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