Bitten Jonsson: Embracing Abstinence as a Joyful Path to Sugar Freedom

Bitten Jonsson has been involved in the field of addiction medicine for over 30 years. She is currently a leader in training and certifying new generations of sugar addiction coaches. In our interview today, we talk about the difference between harmful use versus addiction (how to tell the difference) and how to find the deep sweet surrender all addicts need to find to embrace abstinence as a joyful path to freedom. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:04

Welcome to the Kick Sugar Coach Podcast. Join me each week as I interview experts who will share the science of sugar, sugar addiction, and different approaches to recovery. We hope to empower you with the information and inspiration, insights, and strategies you need to break up with sugar. We fall in love with healthy Whole Foods so you can prevent and reverse chronic disease, lose weight, boost your mood and energy. Feel free to go to my website for details on my coaching programs and to access free resources. Kicksugarcoach.com. Hello and welcome everybody. I have with me today Bitten Johnson, and I'm just going to read her bio. She is an RN and a US trained expert on food addiction and sugar addiction, and she teaches people how to unhook from unhealthy relationships to processed food. She's on the board of directors for the Food Addiction Institute since 2010, by the way, and she has decades of experience. She's like an early pioneer in this space. She hails from Sweden and was doing stuff in Sweden that we still can't make happen in other parts of the world yet. Treating patients with food addiction, she used to actually have like an inpatient treatment center and program. And it was paid for by the government because Sweden at some point really had the light bulbs go on in their heads, right? Like if the whole world actually followed the World Health Organization's mandate, let's get this together around the sugar problem. Man, we have much happier, healthier people and smaller healthcare budgets. She offers professionals, both in Sweden and online and around the world, how to help other people recover from food addiction. She's developed a self-diagnosis test, which helps clients learn if they're suffering from harmful use or actually addiction, like where they fall in the spectrum. Do you have a really bad habit or do you actually have an addiction? And what's the difference? Maybe we could explore that a little bit today with bitten. And her bio goes on and on and on. So uh if you want to find more information about bitten, tell us your website, Bitten. Uh bittensaddiction.com. Okay. B-I-T-T-E-N-S addictions.com. Welcome, Bitten. Thank you, Florence. Great to see you again. We were talking a little bit before we got on camera about maybe what our focus could be. But first of all, let's talk a little bit about what's the difference between harmful use and addiction. And then we'll go into the topic of how do we facilitate that surrender to the idea I'm addicted and I need to walk the path of abstinence. So let's start with the difference. Okay.

SPEAKER_00: 2:44

First of all, uh, I like to say that I'm no longer on the board of directors of Food Addiction Institute. I choose to go down to advisory board. Um, you know, I've done 11 years, so I think that's more than enough. I'm very grateful for that. Thank you. Uh and also another thing I thought about, you know, we often say sugar addiction, food addiction, you know, we we use those words very similarly. And um lately I've been thinking a lot about that. And I decided sugar addiction is the correct word for me, in the way that uh I used to joke and say that butter seared cod never hit my reward center, but uh certainly sugar in all shapes and forms does. So that's another thing I like to distinguish between. And uh the difference between um uh you mentioned that I've done a self uh self-test. It's not a self-test, it's a highly advanced diagnostic tool, the only one in the world. There is a self-tested screening tool, which is only six questions called the UNCOPE, and that's spread very much today. But um, the the tool where you distinguish between harmful use and addiction is a diagnostic tool. So that's a big, big difference between a screening tool and a diagnostic tool. And it's you know built up on uh DSM5 and ICD 10, the diagnostic manuals. Uh, and the difference is uh harmful use is uh I think one simple thing can clarify it. Um uh, you know, when you see harmful use, you can ask why do you overeat? Why do you eat these things? Why do you do this to yourself? There is a correct thing to ask why, because then there is a reason. Emotional eating, party eating, uh cultural eating, uh, stress eating, da da da. So, you know, you can ask a why when you see harmful use, and uh and harmful user does not have the loss of control over certain foods that an addict has. So an addict will eat even though they don't want to. They are like uh, you know, a missile locked on target, and that is due to a severe um uh biological, physical uh rebuild of the reward center. And uh, you know, in order to develop an addiction, there has to be several things, you know, genetic, uh, the environment you live in, you know, uh the cultural thing around that food, and the access to addictive foods. So it's very important to understand that. Then people can say addictive foods, well, you know, it's nuts really addictive food. So, okay, there is a correct uh way of talking about trigger foods. You know, you have all the sugars, sugar, flour, sweeteners, processed food, ultra-processed food, da-da-da-da-da. Those are psychoactive drugs, and then people can also overeat, you know, other types of foods, but that is because of the sugar addiction. So, you know, you start having uh strange eating behaviors due to the addiction. But let's go back to the harmful use. Uh, so that is uh you wouldn't say a milder form. You can get severe negative consequences of harmful use, but there is always going to find a reason. And if you deal with the reason, these people can eat in moderation. You can help them with a moderation diet because you can deal with the stress, with the emotions, with the culture you grew up in, you know, knowledge about food and your body, and on and on and on. So then we solve that. When it comes to addiction, which is a severe brain illness, you know, uh with physical, psychological, social, and spiritual consequences. The problem is today that a lot of people don't understand to put the horse in front of the wagon. So they think they eat because they are unhappy, but they are unhappy because they eat and are addicted to the food, and food would rewire and hamper the brain and make you depressed, uh, you know, give you anxiety, sicken your body, sicken your brain in all these ways. And then you think that you keep eating in this way because of those problems, but actually the food caused the problems. You see, it's a vicious circle. So that's why it's incredibly important to do this diagnostic tool, sugar, to see do I have harmful use so I get the correct treatment, or is it an addiction, which is a totally different ball game, because there you have to quit the psychoactive drug foods. There's no other way to recover. You cannot eat in moderation, you cannot, you know, fool around with food. Uh, you are like uh somebody, you know, with severe, severe nut allergy. You can't have one little nut, it's absolutely impossible because that's going to trigger a physiological reaction in your brain. No way power can handle that. So, you know, you're just fooling yourself. And of course, uh, when we do the sugar interview, which takes a total of three to four hours, which is a very advanced assessment of your whole life, your whole life story, all the consequences. I used to say simply like this: in order to go where you want to go, you have to know where you've been, you have to understand your story, you have to see what the drug has cost in your life, you know, the consequences that have happened in your life. So you get a whole chronological map over your life and the progression of the illness because addiction is a progressive illness, it doesn't go backwards, it doesn't, it can't be cured, you can't, you know, back, you can't go backwards and and fix things. You have to only go forward. And the treat whole treatment program is helping you to see, okay, here's where I've been. This happened to me, and that's you know, many times a huge grief and pain to see all those years wasted, all the diets I've tried, all the methods I've tried, all the therapy I've tried, all the money spent, all the hours spent, all the consequences, what it cost me in relationship, in work progress, in family. I mean, I could go on and on and on. Uh, you know, and that is uh I think that to see that clearly, to dare see that, to have a good counselor helping you see that whole life of yours, what happened to you, is one of the pieces that we can use in what you and I were talking about now. You know, uh, how do we create a good recovery? Uh, how do we surrender? I think surrender is a very beautiful word. You know, it's not so good to translate into Swedish. We don't even have it, so I will steal it from you guys. I think it sounds beautiful. Surrender. What this means is accepting on a very, very deep level in you that this is, you know, me, this is my body, I can't handle these things. If I do, I'm gonna kill myself. And of course, you could cry over that, you know, and always there is a part of the addictive part of the brain that's gonna whisper very seductively in your ear and say, Oh no, it can't be true, it can't be that bad. I can be good for a while and you know, eat better for a while, but sometime in the future I might go back and have these foods that I love more than anything. So you always want to keep a backdoor, and that is very dangerous because you know, if you have that backdoor, things are gonna trigger that along the way. So, you okay, maybe I should try it now, maybe I should not. So, you know, how do we help people to really, really, really surrender to dare go into a recovery program, dare stick to it? Well, uh, there's two things actually, two pillars, and one is education and knowledge because if you would tell me, why don't you eat like this, and I tell you, why should I do that? And you don't give me a good, very good scientific or experience from you know, life, good answer. You know, I'm gonna say, Why not? Why, why should I do it? So that's one thing, and I'm gonna I will get back to that because that's my pet peeve, as we say. That's my thing that I, you know, I'm I'm so enthusiastic about to give clients the right knowledge uh in a way that they understand it, in a simple way that they understand what is going on in my brain, in my body. So you can make the right decision about your life. But you need correct information. And I think there is still a lot lacking in the addiction neuroscience field. The other one is support. You have to hang around with friends that are like-minded, that understand you without words. You know, you can't go to a professional, even if they are the most skilled professional in the world, but they don't understand in the depth of their stomach what this is all about. You have to have somebody that really understands the power of the addiction in you, your enemy, how big it is, how nasty it is, how cunning and baffling and powerful it is. You have to understand that. Because you have to have a group of people where you can be brutally honest. If you're not brutally honest with yourself and those people, you know, the addiction is going to fool you. It is so cunning. And I tell you what, it becomes more cunning the more you get into recovery because it's like it has to come up with more sneaky ways of tripping you. So you have to be on target all the time, you have to be on top of it. So those are some of the things that I uh use, you know, the education. So uh I've stopped saying that I treat clients. Well, I stopped taking clients uh three years ago because uh, you know, I've done my share, fair share, thousands of clients, that's it. And the other thing is that I feel I can do more by uh teaching other people to take clients and coach them and guide them to do it. Uh so uh, you know, uh I like to say that I educate my clients instead of treating them. So I like to change it from treating to education. So if we do that, and you know, some of the things that I've done through the years, many, many years ago, I met people in the orthomolecular medicine field. I read about Abraham Hofer, uh, I read about the story behind all this. Uh, I met nathropathic doctors, integrative functional medicine doctors like Jeffrey Bland, Peter Willemson in Sweden, and others here in Sweden. And they were very curious about uh sugar addiction. They said to me, you know, we know we can cure it. And I said, cure? There is no such thing when it comes to addiction, it's a chronic illness, progressive illness. We know that from research. So, I mean, that's uh, you know, done. We know that already. Well, it's no, no, no, no, it's all about nutrition, and we could use this herb and these supplements and this and that. And I said, sure, babe, prove it to me. They couldn't prove it, of course. But I realized, coming from a traditional nursing background, you know, with that training, which is great, into the world of orthomolecular medicine where you can start healing people with natural foods, supplements, sleep training, physical activity, breathing, stress coping, I mean, all these things, holistic things, you know, and dealing with the body in that natural way. And of course, that doesn't mean that we don't need prescription pills. We do, they can save lives. So one is not taking away the other. I like the word complementary medicine, we complement each other. But you know, I feel that every trained doctor and nurse in a traditional way should be trained in orthomolecular medicine. That's my view. Because when I started reading these books, you know, like uh biological individuality that was written in 1956. Can you imagine how far have we come? We haven't gotten anywhere. Come on. So uh, you know, I started to apply these methods and thinking, of course, we can heal people with food, with you know, de-stressing, breathing. Breathing is one of the most important things on earth. You know that 60% of all the natural detox your body needs all the time, every minute, is the way you breathe. Of course, we must breathe. You know, you can't stop that. So just simple things like that. And then, you know, what I found out as a nurse is that if you look at it, every discipline, you know, has its own walls around it. So doctors knowing about metabolic syndrome, they know nothing about addiction. You know, people that are trained in addiction don't know anything about metabolic syndrome. And I could take hundreds of those examples, right? Inflammation, addiction, and on and on. So that's one of the things that I realized that addiction is a multifaceted illness, which has problems in all areas in lives. So you have to have experts involved from everywhere. So I started to hang out with these people and to do what we call multidisciplinary teams. And, you know, I taught them about addiction and they taught me about orthomolecular medicine, and I loved it. I used to joke and say, okay, let's marry. Can we be married, please? You know, so on. And then 2005, when the low-carb movement came in Sweden with the Swedish doctor Annika Dahlqvist, you know, she built a really huge movement here in Sweden. And then Andrea Sienfeldt, you know, diet doctor, he took over and got big there and so forth. But there was a huge movement, there's still a movement here, but you know, we started to understand even more how wrong we were eating with all these carbs. And they started to put in information about insulin and insulin resistance and you know, all these kind of things. But all uh the funny thing was that they said to me, uh, well, you know, if we just fix people's blood sugar, they will be cured from sugar addiction. And I go, Oh my god, you blue-eyed little cutie pies. That's what I said to them. So I told them, you know, and also they said, uh, you know, well, sugar addiction is just a smaller, minor addiction. And I said, What? Are you crazy? It's the worst addiction of all. Because, you know, first of all, the exposure to the drug when you're a baby and a child, that's one thing. You know, the brain is not ready yet, and you expose it to these dangerous toxic foods. That's one thing. Okay, the other thing, there's constant exposure. The third thing, I mean, you know, every most people don't understand that it is so dangerous. So they would said they would push it, you know. Well, have a cookie, we're gonna have party, we have tort, we have cakes, we do this, but I mean, you know, you can't go anywhere in Sweden without people pushing sugar at you. And I know it's the same in the US. So anyway, you know, uh, and the more people uh you know something called normalizing principle, the normalizing principle, yeah, that's what's happening, you know. So the sick part of this is sort of the normal today. People still ask me, how long are you gonna eat that crazy food plan? And I said, sorry, I eat the proper human diet. Well, I don't like the word diet either. So I eat the proper human food the way we ate in the old days, you know, before all the processed food was here. So I'm the one eating, you know, the good food and you guys eating the crazy food. Uh but you know, they think still I'm crazy, most people think. And you know, it's like, what? Quit sugar, why? You know, if it was dangerous, it would be forbidden. That's another argument I hear all the time, as I'm sure. Uh, but anyway, so you know, to live. In that world and have this illness to because it's like water around the ship looking for a leak all the time. So that means in order to build recovery, we have to uh you know to go together, many of us, and we do today. When I started, I was totally alone, no network, no colleagues. Uh and today, you know, we have I have colleagues all over the world, uh, and I have tons of them, and I have friends all over the world, and people like you, I mean, could hook up with you anytime if I want in a chat and said, please can we talk? Because we can talk without words almost. So uh, so that is one thing, uh, and we owe it, you know, to the people that are still out in the dark to uh get the light in the dark, and that's what we're doing. We are light spreaders, and we can't save everybody, and that's why I love this starfish story, and I've told it so many times, but I'm gonna take it again because uh, you know, there is a story that there is this little girl walking on the beach, and there's tons and thousands of starfish blown up through a storm, and she's throwing one-on-one back, you know, and somebody comes by and says, Well, you know, you can't save all of these, so it's not gonna make a difference. And she picks up one more and she's saying, It's gonna make a difference for this one, and she throws that back. So that's what we're doing together, and that's gonna be a lot of thrown back starfish. So, knowledge and education. So, now, okay, uh the field of orthomolecular medicine and neuroscience are finally sort of they're at least dating heavily, even if they're not really married yet, they're dating heavily. I love that. So, that's why you know I have that in my holistic medicine for addiction training, which is called biochemical repair. And uh today I spoke to one of my favorite teachers, Bigitta Brunes, she's an orthomolecular doctor, and she's gonna lecture tomorrow about neurotransmitters and the brain and you know how to heal microbiome, sleep, and brain and all that. So uh that is beautiful. I love that, and I work on developing that even more and having more teachers that could provide more training for the next generation counselors to do biochemical repair because it does make sense, you know, to think about it. Before you start doing any heavy duty lifting, you have to have a strong body. I like what Daniel Eyman, the psychiatrist, said once. We have to have people help people to get mental horsepower before we have them do therapy and other, you know, um heavy duty uh recovery work. So that's why I say, you know, have you I don't work with uh helping people lose weight, uh I don't work with repairing a lot of stuff, but I heal brains, you know, that's what I have people to do to restore energy. And you remember the days when we wrote the food journal and we wrote what we ate and how we felt, all this focus on feelings. And you know, the funny thing coming off the drug is that we have false negative thoughts and false feelings, and that's what we were messing around with. No wonder we didn't make it. I mean, we were just you know flopping around with all that junk and uh you know, talking about all these feelings and all that, and they were false, caused by the drug and by the brain that was hampered in its development. It is sad thinking back on it, how we were doing. So today, I would never do that. I would just say, okay, why don't you keep track of your energy level? Eat, check energy. What did you eat? Eat again, check energy. All we do now is you know, building energy. And what is going to build your energy uh investment in you? What will drain you? Start focusing there and start rebuilding yourself. Once you have energy, what are you gonna do, Florence? You're gonna have fun and start living. If you have no energy, nothing is fun, right? So you feel depressed, but maybe you're not really depressed, maybe you're just very low on energy. So, you know, now we need to marry the metabolic field. So that's my latest crusade to get all the people in working in the low-carb keto metabolic movement to be uh falling in love with addiction, neuroscience medicine. Uh, and then the harder part, they are more open, I would say, than the traditional addiction specialist neuroscience learning about metabolic, uh, you know, they they are okay with the neurotransmitters in the brain because you know it's a brain illness, but you know, to learn about the pancreas and learn about enzymes and hydrochloric acid and microbiome, they feel a little, wait a minute, should we should we work with that? And yeah, we need to know that. So that's the next big thing. So if you can explain to your clients what insulin is, what it does to your body, why it is dangerous to have hyperinsulinemia, all the illnesses hyperinsulinemia will cause, uh I promise you, they're gonna be much more motivated to you know uh stick to the kind of food that's gonna heal you versus the food that's gonna make you sick. And I think you know it would be very good to use uh like a keto moyo, you know, a ketometer. I used to be very afraid of that because addictive people are so obsessed with numbers and they can obsess about everything. But I found one thing if we teach them in the right way and how to use it as a crutch, you know, not as you know, something that is your whole life, you know, if you if you we use it as a crutch and see, okay, you might want to check this for a while and see what does the food, this food do to your body, what happened when you do this, what is going to happen when you sleep less, what happens when you stress? We check these uh parables, you know. We see that people are more and more motivated and thinking, well, that was you know bad. If I do that, you know, this happens and I get sicker. Okay, so what can I do to become healthier? And also, you know, we have to be aware of not being perfectionistic and fanatic because that's very easy for addicts because they always can turn anything into a new addiction and be totally obsessed with it. Uh so you know, so uh I don't advise people, but I do think we should use those tools under supervision of trained sugar addiction counselors, they can say, okay, now you do it here today, and then you don't do it. Like I've said to clients for years, don't use the scale, because if you're obsessed with scale, you know, people weigh themselves five times a day, you know, they take diuretics, they take laxatives and and go to the bathroom and then weigh themselves again. That is incredible. Sick, can you imagine the energy leak that is in a human being? What energy is it left to have fun with? Right. So so so if I go back to try to summarize all this, you know, it's I have a tendency to hop here and hop there, but I think you know, I had some red thread anyway. So good education, good knowledge, uh, be open about it, be honest, support. Uh, and then I think you know, one day you will fall in love with yourself, your brain and your body, and you don't want to hurt it. Uh, and that's the best thing that can happen. And then you be aware of well, it's like you know, you have a bank account. If I take out too much, it's gonna be minus. So, okay, if if I take out 10, I need to add 10. Uh, you know, how do I do that? What will do that? And that we talk about recovery factors, like you know, I would ask you, what is your favorite uh recovery tools? And I said, Wow, I didn't think of that. I'm gonna try that too. And and then I share mine, and we share those. Uh, I think the that's a way to go to surrender and share the tools and focus on that.

SPEAKER_01: 28:45

Yeah, and I think the the core thing that you're also bringing up is that the the fear of surrender is complex for sure. And there is grief and there's terror there, right? What am I giving up? And am I going to be okay? And can I do this? And do I want to do this? And all those questions naturally come up when we're talking about giving up something that our brains get lit up on. But what you're talking about is these other tools that you're bringing in actually guide you to a life that's better. That if you want to feel good, walk the path of abstinence, find recovery that will take you to the real good, right? Like you're talking about false negative emotions. Well, there's false positive emotions. And the false positive emotions are when we're high on our drug. They're not real. They're fake.

SPEAKER_00: 29:33

You're you feel like you don't feel good.

SPEAKER_01: 29:36

Your life isn't okay. Like nothing's good. This moment is happier than it should be. It's fake, it's fake high.

SPEAKER_00: 29:43

It's fake feelings, right? Yeah, because what comes up must come down.

unknown: 29:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 29:48

So, you know, you always pay a price. This is what I mean with the count. You know, if you take out too much, you know, it's going to be minus and you're going to be in pain. And then you want to, you know, have a painkiller again. But I tell you, that is a vicious circle down to health.

SPEAKER_01: 30:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 30:04

You know, and then you have diabetes, and then you have inflammation, and then you have all these illnesses. And there you are, you know, in the trap with lots of medications, and you have no choice nowhere because you're totally depleted on energy.

SPEAKER_01: 30:17

Yes.

SPEAKER_00: 30:18

And it's not the life you will choose in.

SPEAKER_01: 30:20

One of the things that you said that I know my addict brain has played with and been cunning and baffling with, and I hear to my clients all the time as well. But Biton said we shouldn't be perfectionistic about this. So, you know, stevia doesn't trigger me, Florence. Monk fruit's no problem for me. I don't binge eat monk fruit. What would you say to that?

SPEAKER_00: 30:42

I would say that it is a very tricky road to go because, you know, it sounds like you want to keep this backdoor. And I tell you what, you know, if you keep that long enough, you know, you're gonna start adding the next thing and the next thing and the next thing. And before you know it, you have chocolate sauce up to your ears, is what I used to call it. So do you do not made we're not made for eating artificial stuff? Can't we just keep it that simple? We should have totally natural, plain food. I mean, that's what our bodies are made for. And and when you learn a lot about you know how a neurotransmitter is made in your body, how electricity works in your brain and in your rest of your body, you learn about your stomach, what an incredible thing it is, how it communicates with your brain all the time. I mean, when you start learning about these things in a you know simple way, uh it is so it's amazing. It's like looking up at the stars one night and be totally in awe over what you see, and that's what you want to feel about your body and care for it. And of course, you should not be perfectionistic because you know the disease loves that, that you set up a rigid uh to be rigid is very dangerous, a rigid recovery plan which has no room for life, so then you know, you're gonna go somewhere and it's a snowstorm, and that's gonna give you an excuse to glue your thing. That's what perfectionism is. Uh, you have to be smart enough to replan, plan, and replan and replan again all the time. That's what I mean with being rigorous but not rigid. It's a heck of a difference between those two. Yeah, you should not be perfectionistic. You know why? You can, because there is no such thing. Right. Yeah, so that's how simple that is.

SPEAKER_01: 32:41

Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely. Except when it comes to abstinence, except when it comes to not eating peanuts, if you're allergic to peanuts, right?

SPEAKER_00: 32:50

Yeah, but but that is not being perfectionistic, it's being real realistic, is being understanding and respecting life and limits and boundaries. That's what that is all about. That's not perfectionist, it's a serious acceptance of reality. I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 33:11

Because I have clients say, but I'm making progress, Florence. Like, you know, I'm eating less sugar than before. And I keep saying, I know you want me to say, Oh, you're doing great, but you're not abstinent. You're not healing your brain yet. You're not, and they're like, but who can be that addict? Who can who cannot eat sugar and flour for the rest of their life?

SPEAKER_00: 33:28

Like they must be crazy. No, and and you know, that's why uh being a recovering alcoholic, there is no way you drink a little bit. No way, that's killing yourself or a drug addict. I mean, there's no, you can't take a little bit of heroin on Saturday, it's gonna kill you, right? So, you know, that's why the reason is too that I many times say drug free instead of abstinence, because I think abstinence is a very fussy word. Yes, it's really it's hard to comprehend, you know, if you taste it, it doesn't taste good in me. It tastes fussy.

SPEAKER_01: 34:05

With respect to people who do uh relapse, so they've they've got it. I'm an addict, I've done your your assessment, it's official, and I'm struggling. I'm I'm in alignment with the idea that abstinence is is freedom, it's joy, it'll repair my brain, it'll bring me everything I want in life. Yeah. But I still have these moments of resistance where I think, uh no, right? That doubt comes in. What tool, what would you say to help them move through those doubts that they have to do this and that it will benefit them?

SPEAKER_00: 34:38

Well, you know, that's part of any journey. Doubt is part of life. I mean, it's just some clown coming in, passing by. You know, I don't pay attention to it in the way that I start, you know, playing around with it. And, you know, I know it's gonna come. I know it's part of life of the illness. I don't, I think, you know, whatever you do in life, you you get your top job, you're married to your dream man, you have, you know, this and that. There are moments of doubt. That's part of life. That's growing as a human being to be doubting things. People that have, you know, very, very, I've talked to people that have a religious belief, you know, they really believe in God and you know, very religious, and they say, I have moments of doubt, that's part of life. So, you know, the thing is what you do about it. To have those thoughts, I think everybody, all of us, should tell us that we are weak at times, we have doubt at times. Life is not hunky-dory all the time, that's how we grow, that's normal, you know. There is no dance on roses all the time, it's not enough roses, but anyway, so uh, you know, but you know, but deep down I know there is no other way, and that is accepting, accepting life on life's terms. That's um that's a spiritual experience to come to that point where you know that this is it, you know, I can't eat peanuts, or um, I can't drink, or I don't want to drink. First of all, you know, we say, okay, I can't eat this, or we say, somebody tells you I can't eat this, and then we realize um that, you know, and first of all, we say, you know, somebody told me it's forbidden to do this, and then we do it anyway, and we get horribly sick, and we said, okay, I realize I can't eat it because I become sick. And the third stage become, I'm so happy I don't have to have that. You know, that's freedom. And also, I think that so many of us uh make it such a dramatic thing. I mean, I know as a nurse, I know so many people with many, many other illnesses that they can't do certain things because it's going to kill them or they're gonna become very sick. So, what's the halabaloo about? I mean, come on. We have an illness where we don't have to take very dangerous medication, uh, we don't have to do certain procedures that can be very dangerous. All we have to do is sobriety-based treatment. What's so bad about that? There is a lot of moaning and groaning unnecessarily, I think. Come on.

SPEAKER_01: 37:39

That's not the worst thing to happen, right? We we uh we get to not eat any processed junk foods that are toxic. You don't have to, you don't have to. Lucky you, lucky me, lucky us. Lucky, I really feel that way. I totally hear you. Is there any final words that you'd like to share with our audience today on the topic of surrender and and how to get to that place where we where we embrace it with gratitude and with excitement?

SPEAKER_00: 38:08

I think it is a maturity process, and we have to realize it's gonna take time. It takes a long time to come to that point, but you know, the the thing is to uh stay on the bus, the scenery will change. That's one of the expressions I love. Um, no matter how you feel, stick to it. You know, the something we addicts have a hard time with is delayed gratification, and that is something we have to learn, and we have to also start seeing gratification where we maybe didn't see it before. Like I'm thinking one picture that came to mind uh I had a client that was addicted to benzodiazepines, which is a horrible, horrible prescription drug, tranquilizer sleeping pill. And so uh she got into a medical uh detox place, and she had been on those pills for years, and she had lived in a bubble. And uh, you know, she came out of there, and I met her uh after treatment here in town, and she said to me, Um, I have to tell you, the day where I could pick up my garbage bag and tie it and be part of, you know, knowing every part of what I was doing, lifting it out of the bucket, tying it together, carrying it out to the garbage can, that was a day of joy because I was aware. I mean, that gives you the shivers to think about. Can you think about how strong that was? She had been in a bubble for years. And, you know, that teaches me, and she was going through a dark, dark desert walk for a long time, healing from those strikes before her brain started functioning. But she never gave up hope and she kept sticking. It she kept going to meetings, she kept doing what she was supposed to do, but she didn't still feel anything. And one day she felt it, it came, you know, because she believed in that her brain, her body could heal. So I don't know how many months she was walking in that darkness, but uh I never forget her eyes, how they lit up when she stood there in the street when I met her, and she told me these things, and that is the memory I carry with me. So when times are dark, you know, uh what we should do is open our eyes, go to somebody, connect with somebody, pray, uh, take a walk, do anything, but don't give up, stick to it. You will come to a better place.

SPEAKER_01: 40:46

So uh persistence, beautiful, absolutely. I I have this vision of the Lion King, where the little Lion King gets caught up in the dark lands where it's all gray and there's hyenas and there's trouble, it's darkness and despair, and it's scary. We've wandered as addicts into that world, and we don't even know that if we just can turn back around and you know, we'll head home where the light will get greener and lusher and love, and you know, but who knows how long we've been walking that way. We have to walk back this way. We don't know how long it'll take, but you're heading in the right direction every day. You choose abstinence.

SPEAKER_00: 41:25

Yeah, yeah. And I mean, I have so many clients, you know, texting me, emailing me, calling me through the years, telling me, you know, I've never seen a spring like this, you know, I've never seen spring flowers like that. I I I forgot how roses smelled. I mean, all these little things, those are the things that are important to us, you know, here and now in life, you know, how much love you feel for your loved ones, you know, to feel that, to be aware and live life. That's what we want.

SPEAKER_01: 41:58

Indeed, we do. And it's all there for the taking. Thank you so much for this fabulous interview. I appreciate it. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in this week. If you would like more interviews, more information, and more inspiration on how to break up a sugar, go to my YouTube channel, Kick Sugar Coach, or my website, kicksugarcoach.com. See you next week.