 The Thoughty Autie podcast. One thing that we've tried about before was, like, the difference between, like, substance and process addiction because that's really interesting for me because, you know, they obviously carry with them different things and different similarities in different ways. So it'd be interesting to know, like, what is the kind of, like, the difference between them. Sure. So talking about substances, I think it's easy to identify, right, because we're talking about nicotine, caffeine, methamphetamine, opiates, alcohol, marijuana, substances that get ingested by the body, then the body then processes them into the bloodstream, into the brain. You start to send out different chemicals throughout the body to have different reactions, whether one's going to speed you up, whether one's going to mellow you out and slow you down. So it's quite easy to talk about substance use in that way and that lens. The process addiction piece is difficult for some people to comprehend because gambling, compulsive shopping, sex addiction, we could compulsive eating. There are lots of different processes that we could talk about, but specifically you can talk about gambling because I have first-hand experience. Yeah, it would be good to take care about your experiences with them. So gambling addiction, right? So for any process addiction, the act of placing the bet is not the addictive piece of the puzzle. The addictive portion is the process, the lead-up, the build-up and anticipation to placing the bet. So the addiction comes in when it's talking about making the decision to go drive to the casino at two in the morning during a blizzard in upstate New York, flipping a coin to decide whether or not you should go to the casino at two in the morning. Deciding when you get your test back in college, if you get above 75, if you are going to go to the casino, then it's the drive to the casino. It's the adrenaline that's coursing through the body in that moment. It's the heightened sense of anxiety. It's the anticipation. It's the excitement of placing the bet. It's the excitement of getting there. All of these things are happening simultaneously. You start to think about compulsive behaviors when you're starting to look at your dashboard and say, whichever number is on my odometer is the number that I'm going to play at the roulette table when I walk in the door. Whatever speed limit sign I see is the number of the roulette table that I'm going to play when I walk in the door. Those are the compulsive actions that are behind the behavior. But process addiction is really about the culmination and the build-up of anticipation as we move into the act. Once you place that first bet, it's almost like this calming feeling comes over you where you're like, oh, what am I doing here? What am I? It's a fugue state in some ways where you don't even really realize the impulsivity and the danger behind some of the decisions that you're making because your whole entire state and mind and brain are kind of taken over by this psychological dependency and need to participate in that action. Once that would happen, that kind of fades away. That's where the hopelessness, the despair, the despondence takes over. There is a very, very, very high comorbidity with gambling addiction and suicidality because of the financial destruction that is essentially created. And because gambling is legal in most areas of the world for the most part, and it's not a substance, there's almost an extra additional layer of shamefulness around saying, I can't stop doing this because it's not something that I'm putting into my body. It's just an act that I cannot stop. We see a lot of risk there when we're assessing as mental health professionals because we have to look at bank accounts. We have to get an idea of financial destruction. Most people are lying to their partners or their families about the financial destruction. A lot of people are going to ultimately put second mortgages on their homes, get into deep, deep credit card debt that they cannot get out of, borrow money from dangerous people like bookies, loan sharks, etc. And then eventually when the problem gets really, really, really bad, then the criminal behavior takes over for a lot of people where it's robbing, stealing, all sorts of things like that. So it's a very, very destructive process and I've seen some horror stories unfortunately and it can be very, very damaging. You just kind of like, you know, you explained it to me very well. So I was kind of like picturing myself like in the situation that you were talking about. I can understand that the fact that it is such an anxiety-provoking experience, like it is kind of like this, like it's like the journey rather than the result, am I right? Like it kind of like, I imagine that the more that you are in debt, the more that is riding on something going well, the more intense that feeling must feel that desperation really, really increases in that moment. Yeah. And what you were saying about like, you know, the dopamine that you got, like, am I right in thinking that kind of dopamine is like the motivating hormone that kind of the neurotransmitter that like encourages you to do something like. Makes you feel kind of good too. So you want to chase that feeling. And there's an adrenaline rush to this. There's an endorphin rush when we're talking about risk-taking behavior. Coursing through your body. So people are chasing that feeling. So when we say like gambling is strictly psychological, it's not true. You're actually creating this physiological response to the anticipation of the act and then chasing that feeling because it feels good. It might make you feel alive. You might be lying to your partner. You might be sneaking out at night. You might be stealing from your job. Those are things that are very, very common with gambling addiction. And you it's unfortunate because there's so much accessibility there. I know when I was struggling, casinos in the United States will actually allow you to withdraw money from your debit card and bank account that you don't actually have. So they have the ability to take out X amount of money more than what's in your account. So there were plenty of nights where I left the casino having overdrawn my bank account by thousands of dollars. And I'm feeling when you're leaving and you're driving home at six in the morning and you are replaying everything that just happened in your head. That's where the deep, dark, sinister thoughts come in for most people. Yeah, so it's like you experience the high and then you experience like the the low of it and you want it, you want to. Yeah, it makes it makes sense why that that would be. Hard like to break that kind of cycle because, you know, what do you want when you're feeling low? You want to feel good or you just don't want to feel good anymore. Yeah. Mm hmm. And there's never enough money. I'll say that very honestly. There were nights where I won probably $10,000 to $20,000 in a night and the rush is I've never experienced a rush like that in my life. There's never enough money. You'll just gamble it away and you kind of have this internal dialogue where you're like, if I just want X amount and I could just get out of the hole that I've created, I would stop. You kind of plead with yourself that way. But in reality that I don't think that would ever be true. I just don't think there's ever enough because it just consumes everything about what you're doing and what you're what you're thinking and how you're experiencing things. Well, I've kind of thinking about the sort of the the other kind of processes. Like, like I can imagine that, you know, for example, someone who had like a sex addiction or something that, you know, perhaps having unprotected sex was the kind of the the anxiety around it of like going and meeting someone that, you know, is like, you know, may have like a disease that you could get. And like, I have I've watched a couple of documentaries about like, like people who are like bug chasers and people who do that kind of behavior, which is, you know, I think to a lot of people, it just feels like it could be like it just seems just like such a negative thing. Like there's no positives to this thing. But like the way that you're explaining it about like the the anxiety and like the whole experience about doing something that is inherently damaging to you or could be could could possibly be very damaging to you. Like, like I can imagine someone getting kind of hooked on on that feeling. You know, I've only really experienced like a sense of process addiction with like, as I said, with like video games and stuff. But I think like, even when it comes to like things like alcohol, like there is sometimes like a process involved in that, because, you know, I don't want to be keeping like a crate of alcohol in my house that I can just get upon. And so like, there was always kind of a process after university, I was like, oh, this is this is just not feeling good. I didn't have a good day. Good to the shops, you know that you get the anxiety rush of buying like a four pack of cider every day from the same shop that you've been to multiple times. And you kind of it's like a process. And then like actually having the alcohol just didn't tend to make me feel good at all. Like it made me feel so much worse. I was like, you know, because it's like an emotional amplifier. And so I didn't actually enjoy it. Like I didn't, it didn't feel good to be in that dissociated state. It didn't feel like I was escaping from anything. It just made everything feel worse. But it was kind of like that, that anxiety around that. I know that I shouldn't be doing this. That was like a little bit like attracting in a way. I think that's why a lot of the programs that are implemented into school systems, I don't know if there are any in the UK, but in the States when we had the DARE program, like the just say noted drugs that you get introduced to as a child and a teenager, they don't work because the more you villainize something, the more likely it is that people are going to want to try it. And that's where risk taking behavior comes in. And that's why, you know, teens and adolescents, young adults are so susceptible to becoming addicted to cigarettes and to marijuana and to alcohol. Because it's that kind of like, oh, it's not, we're not supposed to do this. So that looks fun or that looks dangerous or that looks exciting. And then before you know it, a decade goes by and things are not so fun anymore. And the flip side with the dopamine creation in these situations is the dopamine crash. And then your brain is just constantly trying to replenish and it's constantly trying to pull from these reserves that you do not have. And to create these feelings that you can no longer organically create. And that's a big struggle with opiate addiction as well, because you're natural opiate receptors that are impacted by opiate addiction. You're muse, you're muse and the cappers and epsilon's.