 We are joined today by a legend when it comes to relationships between men and women John Gray the author of The famous or infamous whichever way you want to call it men are from Mars women are from Venus It sold more than 50 million copies and today we're going to be talking about addiction John obviously talked about relationships between men and women in his book Venus, but there's also some differences between the sexes when it comes to addiction and obviously we're talking about alcohol and alcoholism Right here in this particular subject. So John's going to explain how Alcohol affects men and women Differently and what can be done to remedy that so John Gray welcome sir great to have you here Well, thanks so much and while we are going to focus on alcohol today. It's certainly not the only addiction What's ironic is some people can be addicted to dysfunctional relationships Some people can be addicted to complaining some people can be addicted to always seeing that the That the dark side of things and this is very interesting like Debbie Downer on Saturday night live She always has to bring in something to down everybody that actually Stimulates some of the same brain chemicals that alcohol stimulates and that's what we're going to understand It's where the brain works differently and how many women's brains are different how we affect how we're affected by alcohol differently Yeah, absolutely and so You know you how are men and women different when it comes to Addictions in general just before we get into alcohol Addictions, you know, what is addictions and how do men and women respond to addictions differently? Well, I explored this in great detail in my book staying focused in a hyper world natural solutions for ADHD memory and brain performance now in that book I focus on ADHD and the irony is Addictions can cause ADHD and always underneath every addiction is the ADHD brain So that's like really if you ask me what's ADHD, it's the same answer as what is an addictive brain It's just that ADHD is more broad But when you come to addiction Understand the way the brain becomes addicted to something and and there's nothing wrong with being addicted to healthy food say That will be called a healthy need Addictive to positive relationships, but an addiction is when you hold on to something when we call an addiction It's we're holding on to something that's not useful for us Something we like to let go of something that's having a negative effect in our lives Yes, and why do we hold on to something that doesn't serve us? You know, I mean in beginning with an addiction you take something you feel good if you feel high This is wonderful, but then you realize afterwards it brings you down So anything that any substance that brings its way up tends to leave us down and numbed out To where life is flat and then we crave it again And it brings us up and then we go down and after that cycle repeats itself life Becomes more and more flat Unenjoyable dissatisfying more difficult more irritable, you know unhappy producing feelings. So What's going on is at a certain point you now depend upon your addiction just to feel normal It doesn't even bring you high you hate the drug But nothing else can make you even feel somewhat alive because life makes you feel flat So it's it's very useful to understand what's happening in the brain So there's this feel-good brain chemical called dopamine and dopamine is like the accelerator when you're driving your car fast Dopamine gets produced for those who like to drive their car fast And if you eat white sugar white sugar, you know, you just I was in my grandkids yesterday And I gave them I had some granola that had a little sugar in it And they kept it was just dry, but they kept coming back like little birds for food Oh, give me more and I felt a little guilty because I was winning their favor Because you give someone sugar they want more of it. Why is that sugar? Stimulates the same part of the brain that we found cocaine Stimulates and for people who get addicted to alcohol that same part of the brain It's a pleasure part of the brain is called the nucleus of cumbers and that part of the brain motivates us to do things So let's say you've never had sugar and you've never had alcohol or you've never taken methamphetamines And you've never seen a TV set. You're just a kind of an indigenous person The most important driving need that these people have is the approval of their parents the approval of their community So this is because when somebody's happy with you We all like people to be happy with you if I give a talk and people clap I go. Yeah, I did a good job That feels really good. Yeah, if it's 50 people, it feels really good if it's 5,000 people It's like taking cocaine. Okay, and this is why you see so many of the superstars Movie stars very famous influential people end up having drug problems and going to rehab all the time because going getting that much dopamine stimulation is like a drug and always when it overstimulates you will go down and I found it most useful to have this extra insight is well, why do you go down? Can't you just go up and stay up the body won't let you what's happening is You have a basic set point and when something overstimulates you your brain goes wow that feels good But it's too much when it's too much stimulation then these receptor sites dopamine goes into a receptor site And if there's too much dopamine the receptor sites begin to close down and they disappear and you lose your receptor sites So now something that would normally stimulate dopamine 30 people in audience clapping you It doesn't do anything for you or your parental approval doesn't do much for you either way Parents today are often saying to their kids, you know, okay I want you to do this and if you do this then I'll give you your treat Yeah, sugar to motivate our children or you'll get this much time on your iPad Or you get this much time on your computer, which is a major dopamine stimulator So we bring all this back to alcohol 50% of the population has a gene that will convert alcohol into dopamine. Wow, so I you know when they say I'm an alcoholic I'm always an alcoholic. Well people who are alcoholics have the potential to be alcoholics always But they don't have to have the addiction and and that's important But they do have the potential for it other people the other half of the population that doesn't drink But occasional drink here or there they don't even have the potential to be an alcoholic They just drink alcohol and get a little sleepy Yeah, and so it's literally they don't have the gene that will convert alcohol into this high level of dopamine So it's interesting what you were saying there the dopamine that that is released when you get a sugar hit a Lot of people after a strenuous day at work They come home they sit down on the sofa They turn on the TV and all they want to do is just pour a glass of wine or open up a beer and just sit there And it and they feel like it takes the edge off. Is that the dopamine rush that you're talking about kind of Exactly, and it's not just dopamine. What's what's interesting is for women. It produces serotonin it you know for men it will produce if you don't have the gene that converts it to dopamine and Alcohol will make serotonin, which is why I don't have that gene to make me an alcoholic I can still be addicted to things but not alcohol now alcohol doesn't stimulate a dopamine for me It will make serotonin for me. Wow. So serotonin is this laid-back. I'm relaxed and whatever Yeah, the gene to make dopamine it would first make me laid-back relaxed because that happens for everybody But then if you take more it makes you sleepy, okay? That's too much serotonin everything's so good. I don't have anything to think about so we just zone out But while you're relaxing, which is what alcohol does if you also have the gene to make dopamine then you're able to relax and Experiences surge of focus and interest and motivation and it produces way more pleasure So I mean you can you know other things like sugar gives you this pleasure, which is different from drinking alcohol for me But for an alcoholic they had the gene that gets the pleasure and the relaxation so Someone might be watching this now John a man or a woman and he or she is Convinced that he or she is not an alcoholic. Okay, but they're exploring their relationship with alcohol Maybe they drink a bit too much on occasion. Maybe they say the wrong thing Maybe they're tired of being 20 pounds overweight. Maybe they're tired of not sleeping well They want a lot more clarity and to be more productive For those people for that person How Does alcohol affect them differently? Let's deal with the man first and then with a woman. This is again This is someone who's pretty who's convinced almost certainly that they're not an alcoholic, but you know They know that they maybe they've got into habits social habits where drinking is part of their culture drinking is part of their Day-to-day routine and they want to break that habit. Well, let me you know, this is such a subjective thing here Well, first of all, you said you want to break the habit. That's different But if you look at the standards of many Americans and what's an alcoholic you could say all of Europe is an alcoholic Because you know it's it children are drinking wine at the dinner table there I mean it's acceptable you drink a little wine the difference is when you drink too much and what is too much It's a very subjective Evaluation you're right. Yeah, you know and to know that you're addicted to something It just is if you were to go off of it for you know a month Is it easy? Can you do it easily and that if you can't do it easily there's some form of addiction now What does it mean to have some form of addiction if you keep your mind? You say I kind of stop that and then late at night you go I just want that or I really want that and you go back on your will you say I'm gonna stop I'm an experiment stop for for a month Can I do it? Do I keep going back and they might sound not addicted as one of my friends said he was a I pointed out He was addicted to marijuana, which you can be addicted to marijuana too, although people think you can't you can and It doesn't have the same dopamine grip Marijuana, but it does this is hate what he said to me. I said you're addicted to it He does it every day all the time. He lives in the state of marijuana I said well just go off of it. He says I can go off of it. I've gone off of it. It's just my life isn't fun Okay, you know life should be fun life should be positive And if we're dependent upon Substances to alter our state then our normal state isn't providing happiness Yeah, when our normal state isn't providing happiness that means we have to look at how we're coping with stress Yes, one way to cope with stress. See stress is producing these disturbing emotions inside Now there's ways to process that there's ways to meditate. There's ways to exercise There's ways to talk to therapists. There's ways to journal your feelings all kinds of good ways to cope with stress And you can also just drink a glass of wine or you could also drink five glasses of wine Now I have no problem with people drinking one glass of wine because it's not a major addiction It's a little one and it okay little ones is no big deal. You want to you know Take the edge off you want to be able to forget what's bothering you no problem and in a sense I I don't think there's anything wrong with that It's just when you when you finish the the glass of wine and now you start feeling unhappy again You have to have another one and another one. That's when it becomes a problem and particularly for alcohol It's it's you know, many people say has benefits for you one glass, but as soon as you have two glasses now You're getting to the zone where you could be causing liver problems over the long haul Yeah, and you know, I outlined this in my book a lot. It's a lot of science, but I'll try to shorten it It's pretty easy to understand, but it just takes too long But the liver is necessary producing a protein called glutathione Glutathione makes brain chemicals So if you're not making enough dopamine during the day or at the end of the day you've used it up You want to make some more dopamine to feel good if life doesn't do it Then you need a stimulant to do it and that just depletes you more of dopamine and more of dopamine Yeah, yeah problem with with alcohol is that over time alcohol damages injures the liver The liver then can't make enough glutathione and glutathione makes dopamine It's all connected. It's all connected. It's all connected. So a good alcoholic over time The alcohol doesn't do it for them Their body just doesn't make enough dopamine when they drink their alcohol as well as it repeated Surges of alcohol causes surges of dopamine cause the receptor sites to go down down down So now life is even more sort of flat and boring So you want that extra stimulation and that's the addiction going back to it again and again I am I haven't drunk alcohol in in five years John I gave up in March of 2010 and I didn't drink excessively although when I did drink Excessively I got I got hungover. So what I mean by that is that I was a good binge drinker I drank on a Friday and Saturday night and I rarely drank during the week, but I do remember Feeling quite stressed on occasions on a Friday after a long week at work and really looking forward to having a few beers or A bottle of red wine on a Friday night and it was only when I Took a 30 day break from alcohol all together. I did my own 30 day No alcohol challenge which turned into five years Did I find other ways to cope with stress and some of the ways was what you just were just what you referred to which was exercise meditation I've spoken to a therapist on occasion although I didn't do it with any great regularity But I found for me I the exercise really gave me a great amount of What I would consider dopamine rush or serotonin or the endorphins that were that I released from exercise Was more than enough for me to handle my my stress levels Does that make sense from a physiological point of view that exercise might be You could get the same high from something like exercise than what someone is getting from having, you know One or two or three glasses of wine Well Maybe some people get the same high But I don't think you need the same high what you want to do is come back to where you don't need that super high But you're just feeling good See that need to get high is showing that you're too low So when you're stressed exercise is one of the most powerful ways to lower stress When you but you can become addicted to exercise as you just mentioned the high Yeah, I think I became addicted to exercise I'm not gonna look white So I'm just swapping one addiction for the next one. That's exactly right, but it's a better addiction. Okay You know if you go to an alcoholic AA meeting quite often you see everybody in the old days They'd all go from alcohol to smoking which also produced high dopamine So they replaced one addiction with another now it's at least in california You can't smoke that much here people. It's not like socially acceptable smoke that much. So they go from alcohol to donuts and coffee And in america really alcohol has gone way down in america, but coffee has gone way up Yeah, coffee stimulates high levels of dopamine as well. So you replace one thing with another thing. Yeah And Ironically you can you mix those two things together coffee and alcohol you have the best solution of all for them You can drink get a little get a little too much serotonin and too much alcohol Then you you take your dopamine from coffee. It then sobers you up a bit so you can drink some more. I mean This is a life where you're just depending on the outside stimulation as your major source of happiness And you go out of balance because it disconnects us from our inner source of happiness That's the key to it is you want to find the inner source along with the outer source So you're talking about the inner source and the outer source. So what's the solution here? If we were going to just round this up john, uh, and I just actually just before we do You suggest the solution here. Um, how do the women digest? Or break down alcohol differently than men because I've read somewhere that because men are obviously bigger Physically And they don't store as much fat as women. They're they they're able to metabolize alcohol A lot quicker or a lot more effectively Than a woman. Um, who's smaller and maybe you've got more fat. Maybe I'm getting that wrong There's a difference and and our metabolism for men and women and also The reasons when we get to alcoholism Most the research shows that most women become alcoholics because they're treating their depression Most men become alcoholics because they were exposed to alcohol and they weren't feeling that good You don't have to be depressed to become an alcoholic if you're a guy But it will eventually lead you to depression because it eventually changes the brain down regulates receptor sites inhibits Glutathione to make more dopamine So then you start moving down in a sense It's really not fair to say that men don't drink too much out of depression. But really from our experience If I understand it if I want to look at male female physiology Depression is different for men and women the first stage of depression for men is just boredom Okay, I'm kind of bored the first stage of depression for women is I feel uh despair Women go right to despair men start out with kind of a boredom a flat but we're content You know, we're just kind of like laid back, you know, these guys that don't do anything when they're lives They're actually the first stage of depression and alcohol will take you out of that pretty easily So will sugar so will tv and various things but you become overly passive and you don't use your muscles So to speak you're not doing things. You don't have a sense of purpose and mission So that's the first stage for men is they sort of hit this boredom flatness Then the next stage is they go into a lack of serotonin And they go into despair Women start out in despair The women are depressed. They just they don't go through the boredom's days. They're just really unhappy Then they get into Flatness and lack of motivation and so forth. So it's different because of our different brain Preferences in the brain and so men tend to be More dopamine oriented we run out of dopamine very quickly. So at the end of the day, okay So here's a work there. I work really really hard. I will have run out of dopamine women don't So I sit home and I have no dopamine motivates you. So I'll come home and I'm just like ready to be sitting here But men have plenty of serotonin. We don't run out of serotonin very quickly So I got all this serotonin which says everything's okay My dopamine levels are low which says there's nothing to do So I'm sitting there and I'm happy And and a woman said what are you sitting there for we've got this to do this to do We've got to do it now because she's run out of serotonin Which creates emergency danger danger and she has plenty of dopamine to get things done So women are over active men become under active and this is our natural tendencies Due to our different body shapes. Okay. Now. Why is that is Men have more muscle mass. So when you have more muscle mass What happens is your muscles can absorb all of the amino acids in your protein Okay, brain chemicals come from glutathione and amino acids in your protein So our muscle mass absorbs the long chain amino acids into the muscles except for one And that's called tryptophan tryptophan then shoots into the brain and makes serotonin So all men have to do is physically use their body Use their muscles to absorb muscle the absorb amino acids and tryptophan shoots into the brain And we have plenty of serotonin, but we do run out of dopamine Women on the other hand don't run out of dopamine as quickly as men and they typically never run out of it They're always like when women are pretty much depressed. They're busy thinking. What do I have to do? What do I have to do thinking about this and this and this? They've run out of serotonin and the reason they run out of serotonin is they don't have the muscle mass To absorb the long chain amino acids. Therefore Tryptophan doesn't get into the brain. It's a short chain amino acid So it's the last to get into the brain So that's why women can feel really good if they exercise Because then our body of their absorbs the long chain amino acids and tryptophan goes into the brain But it's much easier for men because we get way way more serotonin and men's brains have adapted over millions of years To where the canadians did a study showing that men's brains Store 50 percent more serotonin. So we just have this backup system Which is an adaptation because we're the ones that would go into danger So when you're going into danger, you have to be thinking positive thoughts, you know, you have to be thinking Well, if I die, they'll have a statue for me So have to be something positive So women are often drinking the alcohol in order to pump up their serotonin Men are often drinking the alcohol to pump up their dopamine and that's that's a tendency towards addiction. Yeah That's fascinating stuff. I mean if we were If the person watching right now has never heard of serotonin or dopamine or what was the other word tripped or tryptophan Tryptophan. There you go. I can't even pronounce it. Amino acid tryptophan. Yeah, okay, so Um Bottom line If someone is feels that they've got an addiction towards alcohol based on all the science We know based on everything that you've just spoken about What can they do a man or a woman to try and break this? Break this addiction based on what you have studied and what you've written about extensively in your books Okay, first thing is start start being aware of replacing the your addiction with another addiction Even if it's destructive like you mentioned going to exercise over alcohol. Oh my god That's such a better addiction get a trainer if you can afford one and have me out there So you're starting to pump higher levels of dopamine and endorphins and suddenly you get addicted to that That's a much better addiction Uh, that's what actually a is it's a you know, I hesitate to say it this way But people get addicted to talking about how long they've been alcoholics, you know It's like see whenever you say how what I've done I did this A statue for me. I got a medal of honor dopamine goes up So they go to the leadings to get their dopamine surge by it's been this long for me and and god bless them if it works For them, that's great. It's also being able to hear other people's problems You know if you're a man and this is for men If you hear another man's problem and you solve that problem That gives you another dopamine lift just hearing other people's problems that you've handled Makes you feel stronger So there's a whole sense of community and community is a dopamine stimulator where people know your name They acknowledge you look what you've done. I'm one of you. I've been there all this stuff. So, you know, that's what therapy could give That's what group settings can give. That's what friendships give Uh, so it's a big dopamine stimulator There's a book that I've just read called social by matthew Lieberman who's a very he's a leading social scientist, I guess you would say and he was saying that social pain and that is being, um, you know ridiculed in public or Being ostracized from a group of people can be Many times worse a worse pain than the pain of say suffering a broken arm or a broken leg And that the pain of having your heart broken, you know Figuratively speaking. Yes is a lot more painful than someone putting your head in a ringer, you know Or someone like literally Like giving you a chinese burn like from physical pain. So it's true, isn't it? I mean you're talking about the dopamine release It stands to reason that people who get uh, who are very social and who are admired or who are able to solve problems for others Would get the opposite of that which is a huge euphoria that dopamine rush that you're referring to Well, that's what we're both getting right now as we're talking and being so brilliant You know, I started writing this uh I just got back into a writing mode and I walked up to the house and my wife said to me the other day She says, oh, you started another book. I went. Yeah. Yeah, she said you look so happy It's actually those when you do something you're good at you feel good at you feel dopamine The flip side of this is the same group meetings if you look for women When women tell their story about how life has been bad and what happened to them and what something happened to them Whenever you're showing sort of that you're you're At the effect of unpleasant things Then serotonin gets produced people give you empathy people give you sympathy You get to tell your story and you get to share sharing about what you feel is important for men 10 times more important for women. It's a serotonin producer So the same meeting structure where men are hearing other people's problems. Men feel better Women having other people hear their feelings. The woman feels better. So it's all about sharing So that's one form of support now. Let me say that My own experience is a lot of these I have lots of people I know been in these groups and so forth and they feel Addicted to the group and I say, you know, you need to like move beyond that But it's very hard for them to and and some people say I shouldn't say that but When people tell me they continue to crave the alcohol They continue to crave the cocaine they continue to crave that abusive lover that they had They continue to whine about that loss That's an addiction And what they want to do it hasn't healed in the brain They may have replaced it somewhat with something but to heal it in the brain You have to help the receptor sites go back up and that's an additional piece of information Which is to increase the glutathione and the liver, which is by taking a supplement NLC at all Sistine NAC Which which people give to avoid hangover as well It up regulates the receptor sites in the brain Another one is lithium orate lithium orate protects the brain receptor sites and allows them To up regulate so lithium orate and NAC and vitamin C all very very Helpful to up regulate those receptor sites and and those are probably the most powerful Things so you could be doing trying to give up doing all the right things But if your brain doesn't get the extra nutrition it needs More than normal it needs for a while for several months You need to flood your body with 4,000 milligrams of NAC with 1,000 milligrams of liposomal vitamin C With 25 milligrams of lithium orate, you know, these are more than normal doses There's no toxic side effect of what i've just described and oh my gosh It will help the brain get what it needs to up regulate those receptor sites So is that uh just so i'm get this clear is it NAC Vitamin C and lithium orate is that yes, yes, and where can one Purchase these these all those things are available In some health food stores always available online And you know there's there's a there's how to take them and so forth and at my website I do have videos for each of those supplements on how to take them where to get them and so forth You just go to my health blogs. Yeah terrific. Um, okay So we're just summarizing here that the you know the end Goal of this I guess or the end strategy So we're saying obviously if you're going to replace one addiction with another addiction make the addiction Something healthy and good for you like exercise or meditation The second one was you were talking about some supplementation there like NAC vitamin C lithium orate Uh, what else what else john just to know that managing stress effectively Yeah, we just have to have ways to manage stress and ultimately we we have to realize that inside of stress There's emotions emotions. We don't want to look at you know We talked about physical pain emotions are the expression of non physical pain But emotional pain it's somewhere when you're when your pain is there you have to feel it You have to communicate it. You have to give it words and let me explain why this happens And nobody's ever heard this explanation before and it's so simple I've been doing this for 45 years And it's the middle part of the brain the limbic system is where all these emotions live Okay, anger and hurt and fear and and you're scared and defensive. It's all in the middle part of the brain Then there's the prefrontal cortex. This is where we're able to make decisions. This is where we can actually stop an addiction When you're under stress if your stress blood flow stops to the front part of the brain Which allows you to control your life and suddenly you're in the back part of the brain, which is your history You're no longer living in present time. You're reacting in the past So what we have to do is effectively manage stress so we can get out of the middle brain Or we're in the middle brain, but let the front brain be active as well And that's by learning to connect these emotions back in the middle brain to the front brain And that's done by being able to feel your emotions and not act on them That's the first step feel your emotions and not act on them That means you're who's acting then who's make who's in charge is the front part of your brain The second thing is feel your emotions don't act on them and now identify the emotions That's using the front part of the brain can give language to the middle part of the brain Which is sort of these urges that we feel we get mad. We're sad. We grieve or cry And i'm not saying to suppress those feelings But to simply identify them without acting on them and that could be done by writing them out So i've got a lot of tools and techniques, but ultimately just when you're upset with somebody write them a letter But don't give them the letter and identify the emotions I did a 10 day silent meditation called vipassana in the joshua tree in california And that's one of the way one of the things that they teach which is Obviously breathed and just and you know and meditate but i identify your emotions Look at them say, oh, yeah, i'm feeling sad or i'm feeling angry or i'm feeling joyous or whatever And then when you do that those feelings tend to subside and that's that's the point. I think you're you're you're making there Identifying your emotions in your case writing them out Helps you then manage your emotions a lot more effectively A lot of us feel we want to do something and when you write them out You actually are doing something with both parts of your brain But the idea here is to let the front part of the brain control the middle part Well instead of letting the middle part of the brain control the front part And when you're doing vipassana the ultimate benefit there you're sitting there You're not doing anything based on those emotions because the emotions are telling you to get upset or leave or go do something else You stay seated so you're not letting your emotions control yourself The next step is then to identify the emotions. The next step is to transform the emotions By getting in touch with what is the frustrated desire? What is it? You're wanting this frustrated you feel disappointed about you feel scared You're not going to get it feel the desire Because inside the desire is the seed of wisdom knowing that you have what you need to get what you want That's all within us But it's a matter of going inside as opposed to using addictions on the outside To sort of make us feel good when really the feeling is not coming from within our soul My favorite example of this is heroin Heroin comes from the german root word hero when you don't feel like a hero take heroin It will make you feel like a hero without having to do anything But it's a loser's approach and your life only goes downhill So so manage stress effectively The first one was obviously replace your addiction with something else like exercise Second one was supplementation n a c vitamin c lithium orate The third one is manage stress effectively which includes feeling your emotions Don't act on them identify your emotions such as writing them out Is there one more one more tip john before we wrap this up? No, I think those are really great suggestions Okay, terrific surround yourself with people who don't have the addiction that you were afflicted with that's probably the most important thing Yeah, you know you're a heroin addict or an alcoholic. You've got a lot of friends who go out and drink You don't go out with them if they're drinking. That's all there is to it It's amazing actually and i'll tell you one thing john when I quit alcohol um I made new friends. I made and not only did I make new friends, but I made amazing New friends like people with different interests and different hobbies exposing me the different ways of seeing the world and some it's true some of my old friends got left behind because I just didn't want to party anymore It wasn't because I thought that they were bad people or thought any worse of them or any less of them it's just I was exposed to something new something interesting something More in line with with my with my interests some of my friends who I kept and who have remained my friends Who still drink heavily will always be my friends It's just I don't tend to go out on the town with them and party like I once did when I When I drank so it's an excellent point you make there john which is you know Don't surround yourself with people who drink a lot or don't put yourself in environments where um everybody is drinking heavily and going crazy Unless of course, you know, you've got the self-discipline enough to be able to enjoy yourself without You know fear of of reaching for the wine or reaching reaching for the beer It just is a little side benefit to this conversation when people do drink even if they're drinking moderately Those supplements to take them that night will prevent hangover. Is that right? Okay. Well, there you go so if you're watching this now and Your 30 day challenge is coming to an end and you've done then now you want to go back and just drink Not so heavily but every now and again you want to have a blowout like you go to a wedding or you're celebrating a child's birth or I don't know whatever it is That's the word from john gray. Make sure you take n a c vitamin c or lithium orate and your hangover won't be nearly as bad I know that was a great ending, but I have one other thought if I can share it Yeah, please something so brilliant If you're going to a wedding if you're going to a party You're already feeling good then it's okay to drink a bit more because it's only going to take you higher But when you come down you come back to feeling good The danger of alcohol is when you use alcohol when you're feeling down And you're using alcohol to bring you up It will always leave you further down and that creates the addiction But if you're feeling good and you drink a bit Or you're just a little stressed, but you want to feel a little good Then you're not going to come further down You're just going to kind of come back down a little bit down and then easily come back up Does that make sense? Don't use it to take you out of your depression John you've just given us all a license to drink heavily at any wedding or future party that we go to Thank you very much that everyone who's watching wants to give you a virtual high five high five Dr. John gray, thank you very much for being a wealth of knowledge a wealth of information I appreciate that very much just tell our our viewer right now where they can find your books specifically on on these topics Of course, they know men are from mars women are from venus, but where can they find more about you know this kind of thing in addiction The the great all the topics we talked about are in my book staying focused in a hyper world It's at amazon natural solutions for adhd memory and brain performance Addictions aren't in the title, but all the explanations are in there And so that's a place they can find out or they can just go to my website And there's tons of video blogs on this subject. It is at mars venus.com Dr. John gray, thank you very much, sir I really appreciate your advice your knowledge and all of the great information that you've been able to give me And to the viewer and listener right now. So thank you so much sir. Thank you Thanks for listening to the alcohol free lifestyle podcast. I want to load you up with some free stuff right now So if you want to go to James swanick.com slash guide, I will send you my quit alcohol guide Which has helped six figure entrepreneurs and top professionals reduce or quit drinking You can also text the word quit guide to the number 4 4 2 2 2 if you're in the us Of course, it doesn't really work anywhere outside of the us But if you're in the us on your mobile phone and you'd like that guide Text the word quit guide to the number 4 4 2 2 2 or you can go to James swanick.com slash guide If you'd like to schedule a free 15 minute call with one of my top coaches Just an exploratory call to see if or how we can help you then you can go to James swanick.com slash schedule Or you can text the word project 90 to the number 4 4 2 2 2 if you're listening in the us on a mobile phone That's James swanick.com slash schedule or you can text the word project 90 That's one word project 90 to the number 4 4 2 2 2 Feel free to send me a direct message over on my instagram account, which is at James swanick You can also watch video episodes of this podcast and a series of other educational videos on my youtube channel Which is James swanick one or you can direct message me on facebook at James swanick official And finally a request would you please now write a short review of the podcast inside of the apple podcast app on your phone Or on itunes on your desktop computer Would you please give the show five stars and write a quick one or two sentence review? This will help the show get in front of even more listeners potentially transforming someone's life You can rate and review the show inside of your apple podcast app on your phone or over on itunes on your desktop Thank you so much and i'll catch you next time