How I drank more to overcome alcholism | Claudi Christian Tedx LondonBusiness School

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6EghiY_s2ts

Transcript


When i finally realized that i was not in the driver's seat
that the monster was i sought out every single treatment

I could possibly find or afford
I went to rehab for 30,000$ to basically drink wheat grass
and do Tai Chi.

I went to talk therapy for over two and a half years
for two hundred bucks obsession.
I actually sought out a hypnotherapist who claimed that
he had cured a member of Grateful Dead
that was 400 bucks an hour.
I went to 12 different meetings
ave in two different countries
I went macrobiotic
I got my chakras aligned
I tried veganism

I you name it i tried it
and I prayed until my knees were black and blue

relapsing time and time again
I mean i think that in the years
that i was suffering from
and really battling and i
probably relapsed close to 20 times
and each relapse became more difficult to recover
from they got worse and worse and worse
and here's the thing
I wasn't drinking
because i had a crummy childhood
or because i was suffering from any personal trauma
I mean if you look at it from the outside
I had a great life
I was in my chosen career
I had a beautiful home
I had friends and family who loved me and supported me
I was drinking because I was physically addicted
thats it once I started
I could not stop drinking
I have addiction on both sides of my family in the genetics
predisposition coulpled with engaging in the behavior
which for me is drinking made me an addict

I know one thing for sure after trying all of these
treatments and this became very clear doing a quine therapry or
Tai chi and some swanky beachfront expensive
rehabilitation facility was not going fix my biological
addiction by end of 2008
I had six months of sobriety  under my belt and
that when the attic started  started to talk to me in my
head thats the insidious thing about addiction  is once
you have a little bit of sobriety and your belt you go
hey  Im not an addict
it whispers to you
go ahead have a drink
youll be able to control it just one drink
so i listened to that idiot in my head and
i went out to dinner that  night and i had a glass
of wine and i came home and i was so chuffed
well look the idiots right
I'm not an addict I only had one glass right
day two, I had two glasses
day three, I had three glasses
plus i picked up a bottle to bring home
drink on the way

day 5, i was in a full-blown bench
I was drinking anything and everything
I would have probably drunk vanilla extract if I had
it
When i was finally too ill to  drink one more drop
of alcohol

I did what i always did
went cold turkey and tried to detox
this time something went very wrong
I started to suffer from seizures in my body
I lot all control of motor controls
I couldn't stand up
I couldn't get dressed
so i called a friend and
she took me to my one and only medical detox
where I gotta tell you I was not treated very well
In fact until they had my 3000 dollars
They finally gave me my medication that
I needed to stop shaking at that point
I felt so humiliated and so down and so embarrased
by whole experience that  I checked myself out
my left on the way out there was this little stack of flyers
 ..
treatments for aud one of them was for a shot in
this shot promise to eliminate all craving for alchol
the shot was over a 1000$ a month that  at this point
I would have sold my sould to get better when
I got home I googled that shot
it turns out that the main ingredient in  it is now
tracks own an fda-approved non-addictive safe medication

thats been used to treat aud since 1994
as i was searching a book popped up the rather boldly
named cure for alcholism by dr. Roya Scapa
there was this little sample chapter there so
i read the chapter  i was absolutely  hooked
 this made complete sense to the  science lover in my head
it described a treatment  called the Sinclair method
for TSM where
one takes an opiate blocker  you wait for an hour to
the medication can get into your bloodstream and brain
and then you drink alcohol sounds counterintuitive
I know but hear me out
usually when an addict drinks
They get a huge reward  from alcohol and
thats what makes them want more and more  and more
but if you drink got an opiate blocker like now
tracks on  or now machine if you're here in the UK
instead of the alcohol reinforcing the addictive synapses
in the brain

the opiate blocker blocks the endorphins from  activating
the part of the brain responsible for addiction

Its as if you have a huge room of endorphins living
in your brain  right and
every time you drink alcohol those endorphins rush
through the door and they raise hell in your brain
and your neural pathways

The opiate blocker stops those endorphins  from even
leaving the room
It slams that door  and  it locks
It so they cant even get out
and play over
the course of a couple  days  or weeks for
some people the body is slowly detox drinking
levels dramatically decrease
because your cravings for alcohol subside

I didn't have a doctor that would prescribe an
EI trakcs on back then in fact when I mentioned
it to anybody they said what  so
I ordered my pills from an Indian pharmacy online
50 milligrams of hope took a couple of weeks for the pills
to come to me and when  they did I gotta
tell you I scared out of my mind
because I though what if it doesn't work
what if it make me relapse again
what if its worse relapse in the last one
but at this point I was so  desperate
I took my chance so I took the pill
I waited the hour
I poured myself a glass of  wine and
I was a miracle
I mean the wine just SAT there well
I ate my dinner
There was no head games
no compulsion
no I want more
and more and more nothing
I took a couple of sips
and
I went when i'm done it
it was a complete miracle
3 months into TSM
I had to my true
aha moment
there was this billboard
hate this billboard
near where i lived in LosAngeles
and every time  I drove by it
had a huge glass of red wine on it which
was my particular poison massive
glass of red wine
every time I drove by that
billboard  it would trigger  me if
I was in drink mode
it would trigger me
I go I want more

If i was in sober more
I would drive by that billboard not go
can't  have a glass of wine  this
particular  day
I drove by that billboard and
my brain said to me thats
just a billboard

I can't even explain to you what
a profound moment this was
because it meant that my thought
processes were normal  again
it meant that my brain  was fixed
it meant that I was  me again six
months into TSM  i was mostly
sober except for occasional planned
drink one  hour after taking
now trick some TSM works so well
for me that
I decided to contact dr.Royce coppin
thank him for writting his book
I also asked  him to thank the
American researcher dr.David Sinclair
whose life's work quite literally saved
my life

I asked him what can i do to help
spread the word about this treatment
he said why don't you write a book
so  I did that's when my journey of
discovery really began

I found out the world health organizations
estimate that a person dies 3.3 million
people  die every single year from
alcohol related causes thats  more than
malaria tuberculosis , aids

I also found out that multiple
researchers estimate  that eighty to ninety
percent of people suffering from aud
do not seek  treatment and many of these
people don't seek treatment
because they've been falsely
led to believe that
they have to  give up alcohol for the
rest of the their lives
which  to a 20 or  30 year old
can be utterly daunting  not to mention
kind  of unrealistic
I also found  out that of
the ten percent
who do seek  treatment  up to
ninety percent  of those people
are relapsing  within the first  four years

I mean what other treatable disease
can you think of  

studies show that tough love
and humiliating an addict for making