My father was an alcoholic and was abusive to my mother. I hated him for that. The memories stay with me. And now I’m an alcoholic and it’s affecting my son. I never wanted that. I swore I would never be like him. Even though my mother always told me I was just like my father. That hurt burned me too the core. And now look at me. And I married a man with the same temper. It’s a cycle. I want to break it now

I drink or in the past used drugs to escape but at some point my trauma surfaces and then I just keep chasing it too numb myself. It is a vicious cycle.

Addiction comes in many forms. Depression and trauma can cause food addiction (obesity on the rise) as well.

Congratulations Russell on your 20 years of sobriety & loving yourself!!❤🌹❤

Good for you - 21 years here !

This man is spot on. Spread the word.

He's so right on the addiction cause... and our "justice" system. 👊❤

It's crazy how addiction exploded in my own family after Covid. It seems like too much of a coincidence to be an accident. I grown and married now, but come from an upper-middle class background. Alcoholism and drug use though came with a vengeance the last 3 years and has ruined several of my male family members.

My mother, who was my emotional lighthouse, died on Feb 4th of last year. Now we're coming up on that one-year anniversary. My dad just turned 93. If it weren't for me living with him, he'd have to go into assisted living, and he'd die there hating his life depending on other people to help him. My third wife (and still my best friend) has MS and needs my financial assistance because she now has to be in a home where they can take better care of her than I can. But they need my monthly money to take care of her. Only my obligations keep me alive now. This year, for the first time in my entire life, I couldn't put my mother as my emergency contact for my job. I get drunk daily just to try to sleep and keep the demons away. In fact, I'm drunk right now. When all my obligations are gone, I want to buy myself an extravagant barbecue meal, get really plastered, put on my headphones, and lie across some railroad tracks in the middle of nowhere, where no one will ever find me. After almost sixty years of life, I'll ultimately be a smudge.

Emotional Trauma from my cold parents almost tore me to shreds when I was 15, no doubt identifying it was a huge step in my self healing journey. Worst part about trauma is just how hard it is to identify, I managed to swallow my self doubt and record myself talking about trauma and how it affected me in the first video you'll come across after clicking my channel. Hope everyone here can overcome their inner demons ❤‍🩹

RUSSELL I NEED YOUR HELP, YOU'RE THE ONLY MAN I TRUST!

Gabor mate is the best at explaining it. Not why the addiction ,but why the pain?Addiction only becomes a problem when it has negative consequences(work,home life, finances,crime,prison etc)and you're life becomes unmanageable not looking after yourself, poor health, diet ,missing appointments, debt with dealers, family responsibilities. )

So much truth. Stay free.

Gabor blows my mind every time I hear him speak. He's so brilliant with trauma.

My trauma therapist has helped me see this.

Trauma leads to Shame leads to addiction. You can't erase the trauma but you can heal the shame you have formed. Bless you all. It's hard work but you re worthy. "Take care of your body, it is the most special possession you'll ever own."

Thank you so much🙏🏼❤️

Great description of our " common " plight , dealing with life in so many ways

I was going down a dark path at one time met gd friends ate healthy went gym realised how grateful I was for my family I was one of the lucky ones Genuinely feel for everyone struggling with addiction They just need someone gd or find strength in themselves to help them focus on the light and fight to make it a bigger part of their life ✊

Thank you.

Great video and an amazing conversation

Sending Love and Thanks. 🥰

Stay clean. Stay free. Love to you.

Biggest pet peeve- blaming addiction or addicts. Most have been S.A, or have had horrific circumstances come to a ptsd. Addiction is hard. 20 years! Good job Russel. Time to celebrate and be proud!

Dr. Mate just gets it right every time.🥰

Very true words. Thankyou Russell ❤️

Wow. Thanx. Good.

Love and appreciation Russell, from the state of Indiana 🇺🇸

I'm so glad you're still sober! You're showing people that it is possible. Even someone crazy like you can do it.

I've dealt with pain used things to block said memories and fall out but have been a survivor I pray and think of the walking Injured from sufferings can come a good and inlightend human blessings to all

Thanks for representing success over addiction. I'm still praying over my addicted husband. He is so afflicted, he doesn't remember reality as it happens. He has memories (stories/excuses) that never happened.

I think we’re judging people who don’t take seriously the severe side effects of some of these addictions like alcoholism. For instance, some alcoholics are drinking and driving and killing people they’re terrorizing their own children. They’re destroying their relationships, they’re making themselves homeless. That’s what we’re judging.

7:40 - 8:10 That blows my mind, so TRUE❣

After so many surgeries, my doctors kept giving me crap til I thought it was killing me!! I weaned off and now can get zero help for pain. 120mg of OxyContin 3 x day plus 5-6 dialaudid for break through pain, flexeril, 3antidepressants, soma, I can’t remember them all.. oh benzo!s lucky I’m alive. I never went over dosage!! Eventually didn’t help with pain, really scary part!!! Not ONE dr told me anything about OxyContin!!

Gabor Mate is amazing, I wish more people took on these more open perspectives. I still wish you would stop saying "an addict" though.

Good video. I have a family member whose a recovering addict and who has gone thru hell.

Smart guy. An honest assessment of myself indicates the trauma of my life occurred in the depths of despair cased by an inability to control my drug use. I believe trauma to be the catalyst that set me free. I’m thankful my life turned to shit.

Hello Russell Brand ⚘

Great video, it's not always evident to an individual that there diminishing their productivity, fulfillment, and life in general due to cognitive distress 😢

Poverty is traumatic. Look at the communities that suffer the most with crime and addiction, they are usually the most poor.

Hi Russell I am very impressed you nearly made it to twenty years of being free from things that destroy you….you the second person I know my father go 37.years being his own best friend.🌸🌈🧚‍♀️✨

The solution in my opinion is spiritual principles - most professionals don’t believe that until the become addicted - and look for the solution !

Spirituality 🕉️🙏

it's just so hard.... knowing the struggles, as a recovering food addict, and trying to love an unconscious addict... where's the hope????

Once upon a time we people were frugal for times were tight…we were grateful and appreciative for the food on the plate just enough each day to survive healthy..and a time when holidays meant something…then into a Peter Pan temptation island world where you could have anything you wanted anytime you wanted it..once your friend then it become your enemy I call it too much of the good thing..that the thing one likes best…will do you in…in the end but fun and laughter when it be your friend but makes bad enemy..

Everybody has addictions the definition partially being repetitive behaviour whilst we are also creatures of habit suggesting we do repetitive behaviours our entire lives..so what I’m saying is that maybe people should sit down and give much thought to just the word addiction and soon will see the world be full of things we are addicted to…basically if we like it we keep doing it …the pleasure principle and if we don’t like it we may or may not be into the pain principle some like that one called gluttons for punishment most of them for who wants to be in pain? Which brings up the topic of learning new ways of behaving this one so hard no matter the behaviour one is trying to break..so routine vs change food for thought.

Congrats on your battle.🎉I’ve beaten most of mine but I can’t get rid of my cig crutch😢

🙏

It's all a mental health issue and my sister and I know alot about addiction because we have a loved one who has been addicted since the sixties. We have witnessed this our whole lives. We call it drug brain and have to constantly remember why they are saying and behaving the way they do. They're in really deep pain. Most humans are somewhat addicted. We all do it to some degree.

I personally have never met a happy person that decided to destroy their lives with drugs and alcohol it's always been someone who has dealt with some type of trauma.

Congrats on almost two decades of being sober Russell 👏

🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻Hare krishna

Requested to hold his book The Myth of Normal at my local library when it gets returned. Looking forward to what looks and sounds to be a good read

This was very true it was self medication for my mental illness for me. Since many anti depressants didn't work and made me worse infact. Now, I'm just living in depression, but don't do drugs.. illegal or legal..

Trauma!

lovedv Russel`s reaction

😭

Authoritative dictation leads to addiction to compensate. Rules devoid of wisdom make humans intuitively turn to drugs to turn inward for compassionate existential answers when none are available through corrupt mind based systems devoid of true intelligence. In a world devoid of any deep meaning how else can we transcend the madness of politics and war? Meditation, creativity, love and entheogens are the only answers. How could anyone with those values cause suffering to themselves or others? No one has ever made a weapon of mass destruction from genuine peace and wisdom within themselves.

Guess you're right

Is meditation an addiction ?

❤️❤️❤️

I hate pay walls.

I enjoy watching you Russel I would very much enjoy more content on this channel maybe talking about spiritual and philosophical issues/topics

Russel let me see better do you say that my vigorexia is a trauma and how is it related with a patology in psicology?

Hm. I see there being so few ppl actually adressing the real issues that I'm even surprising miself how humbly I don't feel the Internal need of arguing about it😏 bcuz yea neutralizing the behaviour is like sitting at same eye&soul lvl when addressing a child🙄 yeayea but we adults..=kids(grown or not really) with power. Nd I ve also found when studying my personal case how accepting/allowing it works in same way, how saturation takes one there and few other triggers or nontriggers that work on deactivating the need of the bahaviour I see em as a straight line goin in circles, but so clear. And I can't help on wandering is it for real that doctors specialists scientists with whom us..the majority r dealing with r they for real when keeping the addictive behaviour never ending and supplying it even, bcuz I'm telling u how much support I have received from the ones to offer it to me when quitting?...zero+ them opposing me, luckly I get stubborn also in all surprising them ways. Nd then I remember during the pandemic enjoying outside by miself all-day wandering again how is it possible 4 them to sustain and apply such shiets nd be so convinced I couldn't understand..the only depression I got 4 humanity u is more wacked then I believe miself being..where wass the natural logic and I'm addressing the ones studying& researching shiet...unbelievable that only the money&the power greed guides em to guide us...the population and from the neighborhoods point of view, usual ppl like..it's heartbreaking and insane 4 me being 1 that I see what they doing nd how easily such a destructive behaviour as drug addiction can be reversed/stopped, not that not all the other types of addictions r any better from one particular human to the society lvl. The system does NOT want to let ppl getting out nor support them in such matters. The saddest part in all this when leaving from and dealing with it from the family lvl of regular ppl..my conclusion after goin through it in the systems of 2 countries more or less related, but taking it from 1 particle to the whole...I can easily assume it's available for most of the world, just bcuz I luv believing in the element of surprising, or let me call it undeniable hope Uuuf life's difficult in the hood 💓

Great thank you Russell❤️🌞😄congrats on your 20 anniversary❤️🌞😄

Love Light Peace 🌺🍃🌸🍃🌺🌱🌹✨✨✨✨✨✨💫

Tyrannically imposed trauma which can only be corrected via breaking the delusion of human exceptionalism (pride/free-will). We need humility enough to admit we are generic life. Patience be with each ego of this universe-comprising physical singularity which all that exists is an extension. We are literally angels. Crazy crazy angels.

I only vape after I drink a few drinks.. so maybe 5 or 6 nights a week?!! 😤

I got some serious trauma into..Day 10 Watching Rainbow lorikeet doing every gum nut on the branch at my window in the hope of one droplet of sweet nectar..behaviour becoming erratic and starting to look quite feral with crazzee look in eye that’s how close up I can now film them..in fact they even have a tweet lol to let me know one of them is on the branch..they all want to be a star ⭐️ clever

I think it's a personality that causes addiction. It's always going to the easier thing. I don't do drugs but if I did drink with people in college to not be antisocial but I would I would eat a ton, and then drink a ton to throw up really quick and then no one would to drink with me because they're doing it to relax. People are trying to get you to drink all of the time in college so instead of saying now I would make them relatively sober and try to get them to drink and they hate that. That's what the addiction personality is too. You're either sober, an addict, or dead. It's like the goldie lox and the three bears. When you get addicted to heroin sober feels worse. Addiction is a personality of always trying to make things easy. Then everyone is a new age hippy taking drugs to talk to God. You don't do it the Catholic or Buddhist way. Catholics do it through torturous hard work. Or they used to. Now it's fake tv shit. It's tailored to the same people that want to drink wine coolers, or mikes hard lemonade instead of brandy. Just like people switch to weed instead of alcohol. that's pussification. When people say their addicts that means pussy alcoholic to me. I hate drug addicts more than I hate alcoholics. At least Alcoholic have spirit and will work. you can motivate alcoholics to do shit. You can smack them in the face and they won't sue you. If you do that shit to a pothead you get a loser dead response.

Portugal ended drugs criminalization years ago and treat these people as having a desiese providing medical care. May be you could investigate this because its a sucess the results here

✌😎

I am a middle pather with very little… I think it’s called everything in moderation…I am my own best Frenemy…Buddha teaches the middle path, 4 noble truths and eightfold path which is very helpful to the recovering person…333 I was born on the 3rd and 33 was my last birthday party of any meaning cos I began the journey to QUIT firstly alcohol and then a long list…Still Alive…Rainbow lorikeets on sweet sugar nectar of the tree turn into Rainbow bullets in the sky…one during filming I wanted to test decibels of the screeching = to a rock concert and two radar gun to clock them shooting through my back yard🌈= to shit unseen

Life is much easier when you're rich and famous .. not everyone has the same opportunities for recovery sadly

My husband has been an alcoholic for over 13 years. It escalated when his father died in 2007. Unfortunately after 20 years married I feel I can no longer hang on! 😕 It's also true during the pandemic he got worse. I have also asked him if something happened to him when he was little. But he says nothing. 😐 I'm now starting to learn how to meditate 🧘‍♀️ Thank you for this content!

"Physian, heal thyself" Never so more is rhat relevant than these times we live in. I have never seen a counsellor or received therapy for the abuse, trauma, drug addiction and am only now emerging from it with rhe sobre and sombre strength which there is no going back on. Happiness is as fallacy that homeostasis would rrecognize by a bout of depression, so as to regulate a cultivated compromise which at worst(for me now)makes life without drugs manageable. Got a lot to say on the topic in the Gestalt recognition of how abuse,trauma and drug use in no particular order are invariably linked. Check me out on the link which I am waiting for Russell to give me!

And how addiction leads to trauma...

Noice! ... thanks Gabor 'n Russell!

this room is beautiful does anyone know where it is?

🦋💗🦋

Neat post man, Dr. Mate sure knows what he's talking about...Blessings

Yeah, trauma is at the root of addiction. Kind of unfair isn’t it, but it’s very logical. There is a need to have relief that others don’t have, that can’t really be attained otherwise.

This is a great insight, and thank you. My brother who suffers from addiction is coming to stay with me soon and it may be that I will help him. My concern is you mention Jordan Peterson. Isn't he the chap who promoted really sexist programmes? Please correct me of I'm mistaken, but I'm really hoping moving my brother away from some of those horrible negative male stereotypes will help him in his recovery. I really don't want to send him towards things I think would be more destructive longterm.

🦝

💘 p̲r̲o̲m̲o̲s̲m̲

I am watching this only because I am drinking myself to death, and I can't stop. I don't drink daily, but when I drink I ingest anything with ethyl alcohol in it and say fard the consequences. Then it takes two weeks to heal. So thats the pattern now, one night drunk followed by two weeks dry. After decades of trying ro stop and much more drug and alcohol abuse. Nobody drinks around me but my household is stressful as Hell.

I think Trauma is only a catalyst for change. You can learn from it and improve or see it as a burden to shape how you view your reality. Positive or Negative.

Without a doubt trauma leads to addiction. Not acknowledging this is a viscous cycle of abuse to ourselves and others. Thank you, RB for this interview with Gabor Mate.

Heal the trauma, stop the addiction.

ALICE MILLER AND ERIC FROMME SPOKE ABOUT HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO FEEL********** YOU ARE HERE YOU THAT RUNNING WE ALL DO TO GET THERE IS ONLY FEAR/GUILT WE CAN'T BE RESPONSIBLE FOR EVERYONE WE AREN'T GODS GUILT IS A KILLER OF ALL OF US HEART ATTACKS CANCER AND OTHER DISEASE ARE ALSO FROM GUILT

Disagree on most every level

No not Gabor Mate ….he advocates Ayhuasca and he really DOES NOT KNOW the long term effects of taking psychedelics whatever he sees as apparent short term effects. Good meditation with teachers who really know ..GM dies not and is causing himself and others a lot of harm. I am not saying he is all bad just HUGELY MISGUIDED on this aspect. Please look at Byron Katie or Vipassana meditation as these are authentic ways that can get you out of addiction WITHOUT long term repercussions…..I know many will not agree and so sorry about that ..I won’t post again so no need to respond…my only motivation in writing this is I truly do not wish others to suffer unnecessarily and I understand that GM and many others are really promoting these psychedelics at the moment.

I personally don't agree with Dr. G. Mute said, we are living in a dominated and demanding world and people wants to be recognise from this insane world and it doesn't surprise me why people used substances for comfort😔. Blessings 🙏 be at peace ➕ ❤️

With all of the mental/physical trauma that I myself have suffered in my life (alcoholic vuolent parents/siblings, constant yelling and screaming throughout my childhood, bullied by siblings/other children), yet I've never struggled with any addictions, and quite opposite, have actively AVOIDED addictive substances and activities that could have potentially been "addictive." Sounds to me like it's not the TRAUMA itself that is the problem, but just another EXCUSE created by addicts/drug counselors use to be forgiven for their actions?

I like late night IPAs and the new cannabis products that are available. I'm a second shift guy, so to have a good snack, IPAs and some cannabis while exploring the interwebs is my thing. Sometimes research with different search engines, read the latest articles, watch different vloggers from around the world and maintain a prepper readiness in case of the zombie apocalypse. I prefer "he" or "him". Currently and happily single. Enjoy women best close to my age which is AARP years. Ah dang! This isn't a dating site. Ooops!

OUCH! AHHHH! OOOOOOH! MORPHINE! UMMMMMM! UMMMMMMM UMMMMM GULP UMMMMMMMM SHOT! UMMMMMMM.M WITHRAWALS...OUCH! LOL...NOT! 🖖😎❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

I respect your work. But I will not follow Gabor Mate 🙏🏻

I have seen studies that have said those with antisocial personality disorder (sociopaths) have higher rates of addiction to drugs/alcohol. Are these people able to be helped with Gabor mate’s theories? I have read they are hopeless causes essentially who harm other people

I mostly agree. Disagree with the end. Blaming race? Nice excuse. How many of those people were raised with both parents? Probably under 10%. Also Asians are the top earners in every western country. Stop blaming race. The soft bigotry of low expectations