109 - Dr. Kevin Alderson-Discussing Addiction From the Point of View of Both Recovering Addict and Counselor.mp3 - powered by Happy Scribe

Ruthless Compassion is a podcast about how you can turn your emotional shit into fertilizer for success and see your darkest moments as opportunities to transform into a powerful kindness warrior. If you enjoy this podcast, please leave a review wherever you listen. Welcome

Dr. Kevin Alderson to the Ruthless Compassion podcast.

Thank you for having me today.

Well, I was reading through your bio, and I just think you're a very interesting person because you've got your hands in a few different pies a little blueberry on one side, a little cherry on the other. So I thought it would be fun to talk to you about the things that you're passionate about, because it's always inspiring to talk to people about the things that they really feel strongly about, because that's when we really feel uplifted, right?

Absolutely. And you're right. I'm quite diversified in my interest. I really began when I was a university professor. I studied mostly LGBTQ psychology and their issues and continued in private practice at that time, mostly those who identified as part of the community. And since retiring as a professor, I have focused more in the addictions area and have now written two books in the addiction field. And I'm currently working on yet another project.

Yes, I can see that you're very prolific. What got you into the addictions area? How did you pivot?

That's an interesting story. It began soon after, I wrote a small textbook for Sage called Counseling LGBTI Clients the Eye Standing for Intersex. And at the end of that, I thought, I would like to write more textbooks. So I asked my publisher, what are they interested in? And they said, sexuality and addictions. And I thought, well, I've already written and done quite a bit in the sexuality area, so addictions would be interesting. And then I sat on it. I sat on it. My spouse left me around that time, and I fell into quite a depression and started getting heavily into cannabis use until I became actually fully addicted. And so quitting cannabis became simple, not as simple, but a very complex nightmare, actually, in my life. So when I got through that and I'd had the contract to write this addiction book, and I realized that, my goodness, I was myself an addict. It was very interesting because I used to wonder during that year and a half, how am I going to write this textbook when I can't really relate to it? Denial is a very interesting thing, as you know, and denial keeps us from seeing something that is so obvious that it's remarkable. The defense mechanism is as powerful as it is.

Yeah, I always say, never underestimate our capacity for denial.

That's exactly right.

When was this? When your spouse left you and you fell into cannabis addiction?

So I had the contract with Sage to write the addictions counseling textbook January 2013, and he left on March 2, 2013. So just like, two months later.

Wow.

And I was not expecting that. And so I was completely just rattled. And the very first thing I remember doing is phoning my brother to say, can you give me a joint? Just one joint. And you know something? One joint is sometimes too many.

Yeah. You fell down the rabbit hole.

Oh, I sure did. So I'm sure some of your listeners are addicted people, or they know addicted people. Maybe they're addicts in recovery as I am, and it's just a living nightmare.

Yes, I was actually talking to one of my patients yesterday who in almost every other way of their life, they are so health oriented, and they have a cannabis addiction, and they have quit for periods of time and felt so much better. And they know it doesn't make them happy, and they know it drags them down and makes them antisocial and depressed, but they keep going back to it. So we are constantly in the struggle because this person wants to be well, wants to be healthy, but they have a tremendous amount of childhood trauma, really very profound trauma, and it's very hard for them to extricate themselves. So we have to work with a lot of compassion. But I'm very aware of the struggles that people have around addiction, and in this case, it was cannabis addiction, too.

Well, it's interesting because while I was cannabis addicted, I was also working out six days a week and actually was looking better, I think, than I have ever looked. For some people, smoking cannabis really triggers their appetite, but for me, I guess I really learned to suppress my appetite when I was using, and instead I would go to the gym and have these incredible workouts. I mean, I think what partly motivated me was music just for me was really enhanced when I was high, and they would always play great music at the gym. So I was just going like crazy working out and kind of wish I kept that part after I gave up cannabis. I seemed to give up that level of working out, too.

Yeah, well, the dopamine settled down in your brain, so you didn't crave it as much anymore, right?

Well, I hate to look at it that way, but I think you're absolutely right. And you mentioned one of the primary causes of addiction, really adverse experiences, especially any kind of trauma, and it seems particularly powerful addictive capacity potential if one has had childhood adverse experiences. But that is only one of the pathways to addiction. And so I think it's important for people to know there's many factors. I call them risk factors, because, as you know, we can't tease out causation in so much of our functioning, whether it's physical or mental health. So we have to look at risk factors, but we also need to look at protective factors, because that's how we can help insulate ourselves and insulate our children and other people we care about. Is by activating as many of these protective factors as we can.

Well, I love this concept of risk factors and protective factors. Would you be able to enumerate some of each, please?

Absolutely. I created a list, and so everything I'm going to say here is based on research. So it's empirical evidence is not just something I've come up with, although some of these will seem very obvious. So first and foremost, our adverse childhood experiences, which we sometimes abbreviate as ACE. Other negative family factors can also contribute. Parents who are not getting along and doing a fair amount of fighting you. But if none of that is directed at the child, that still acts to increase one's likelihood of addiction. Some children have some rather negative traits. So children who seem to be naturally more aggressive than others are more likely to become addicted later in life. Those who were raised in adverse social environments where there was neighborhood adversity. So if you're being raised in a poor neighborhood, even that can increase our risk of addiction. If you are surrounded by drug abusing peers and drugs are readily available, then that increases your risk. The method of administration that those who are injecting drugs have a far higher likelihood of becoming addicted to a drug compared to those who are smoking the drug or swallowing the drug. People that experience a lot of intense negative emotions are more likely to become addicted.

Those who are experiencing a spiritual void, they feel empty inside. That puts you at risk of all kinds of things. Right. Also those who pursue intense positive emotions. So we have the risk takers and the thrill seekers. They're more likely to become addicted. Those who have a need to escape for whatever the reason more likely to become addicted. Those who have poly addictions who are addicted to different things at the same time, or those who have a mental health issue, co-morbidity is a factor in addiction. Those who are preoccupied with addictive behavior for whatever the reason. Some people are fascinated. That one I find little harder to believe from my own vantage point. I was never fascinated by it. And then lastly, neurobiological factors with alcoholism, for example, there's about a 50% heritability factor at work, and that may be true for some other drug addictions as well. So those are the main risk factors. That my extensive search that I've come up with. And then do you want to hear the flip side?

Absolutely. Yeah. Before you go there, I just want to comment and say that, number one, there seemed like an awful lot of risk factors. So that's kind of concerning, right? Because there's a lot of different routes that you can get into addiction, which might explain why there are so many people who are in the throes of addiction today.

I know it's kind of depressing hearing about the risk factors. It makes me want to drink and smoke cannabis. So that's why it's important that I talk about the protective factors.

Go ahead, let's hear those now.

And some of these are kind of the flip side, by the way, of risk factors. So if you have a positive childhood, good upbringing, you have positive experiences as a child, these actors protective factors. If you can create intimacy, if you had intimacy and a sense of belonging as a child, this is really important. Many LGBTQ children, for example, did not feel a sense of belonging, especially traditionally where there was so much oppression and derogation that those who are LGBTQ. So the more you felt like you belonged in your family and were supported and felt close to your parents and siblings, that acts as a very strong protective factor. Developing a well rounded life and so one of the treatments in terms of working with addicted people is to help them build this well rounded life. If your interests are too narrow or you have too much free time on your hands, we all become at risk of something and often something that's negative. Developing a positive view of life and having a good sense of well being as a protective factor. So positive thinking, empowering thinking, as some people call it, is pretty critical having positive character traits.

So being self compassionate is so critical. Addicts are generally so hard on themselves, they feel their head with shame and guilt. And this kind of floods them in abundance when they try to stop using whatever they're addicted to. And so if you have a positive qualities in your character, that really help, if you have some rather spiritual properties or traits, I guess, of being an honest person, being responsible, developing a sense of community, this acts as a protective factor. And having either religious use, having a religion, or being very spiritual and providing your life with deep meaning and purpose, this acts as a protective factor. If you're a resilient individual, then resiliency is something that we can develop to some degree. More resilient people are less likely to become addicted. If you develop positive health enhancing habits, these act as protective factors too. So it's very common in addiction treatment centers that they're going to get you exercising and hopefully adopting exercise as an ongoing part of your lifestyle because this helps insulate you from using.

Those are great factors. I wanted to touch on one of them, which was about self compassion, because right now I have a very small psychotherapy practice. I have about eleven regular people I see, I see each of them every two weeks. And what I work on with every single one of them is having more self-compassion. Whether they're having struggles with addiction or just whatever issues in their life. I feel like more self-compassion is always needed.

Absolutely. Such a critical piece. Not just if you're an addict already in recovery, but if you can be compassionate to yourself that maybe you won't have to go down the route to begin with. Like, for example, in my case, the spouse leaving me had little to do with me. And yet the blame I put on myself and the blame and the feeling of absolute betrayal and rejection, it's too bad I wasn't compassionate to realize it's not about me. It's about the other. Marriages take hard work, as most of your listeners know, and most people have to make the effort, not just one. In retrospect, I was doing 90% of the work in that marriage, and that just does not work.

It's so easy to blame ourselves, right? And I put it down to that inner child who feels like, if it's about me, then I can control it. If it's about me, then I can change it. So if I make everything about me, I have the ability to alter the situation. The problem is you don't have the ability to alter the situation because it's not about you. And then it just ends up with self blame and self criticism.

Absolutely. And you might recall back in the 1970s, think it was primarily where inner child work became the new buzzword in psychology and psychiatry. And there were a few books written about inner child work. And then many of us saw the movie Rocketman about Elton John's story. And I was particularly moved in that sequence near the end where he was sort of hugging himself as a young boy, kind of embracing his inner child. Say you were an innocent little boy, you didn't deserve the treatment that you received and the way you were received because you were gay as a child. You didn't deserve that. And now you have to embrace self-compassion and really learn to love the essence of what makes you the person you are. And our sexuality is such an important part of what makes us who we are. You know that when you go to work and people talk about their children, they talk about their opposite sex houses. But traditionally gay people and lesbian individuals and bisexual people didn't talk. We were silent. And then we all had a code of silence and we knew that to come out was going to bring very negative consequences.

Yeah, there's a real deep and serious pain about being seen as different and being othered. And I think othering is another risk for addiction. Right. Just feeling like if you show your authentic self, it will be denigrated.

Yeah, it kind of fits in with that not having a sense of belonging, feeling like you're so different. And what does make so many of the LGBTQ individuals unique is that generally their families, their parents and their siblings do not share the same LGBTQ status that they do. So that's not saying that it's easy growing up black. If you're black American, black Canadian, at least you have parents who are also black. And that does act as a protective factor. And we certainly know that our Indigenous communities have suffered tremendously, and they're suffering. I mean, there's just no comparison. I won't even compare LGBTQ to that.

Well, but also a lot of these children were taken from their families and put into households where they weren't looking at caregivers who were Indigenous either. So it's the same kind of othering.

Right and having their culture and their language taken from them while in residential schools. And so it's not difficult to understand why there is such a problem with active substance abuse and addiction in Indigenous communities. So we also see the same thing in LGBTQ communities. The amount of substance use and abuse is just really high. And it's unfortunate. If you're in practice as a counselor or psychologist, psychiatrist, when you see LGBTQ clients, it's something you really have to look at. Let's talk about your substance use, because many times it's an issue.

Absolutely. I remember I had one young woman who was also very heavily into marijuana, and she was struggling with coming out to her family in her early 20s. So I remember her well, and it was a big struggle for her.

I wrote in my addictions counseling textbook about how Canada is really now the big experiment when it comes to cannabis because it's still illegal in most countries. So we are now the guinea pigs. People are watching us. And what people don't realize is that the studies that were done on cannabis were on studies where the THC percentages was only about 3%, which was typical of the weed that people smoked in 60s and 70s but the weed on the street and in these dispensaries, it's a much higher percentage. It's easy to get 20% THC content in your cannabis product if you go to a dispensary and if you buy from a dealer. And lots of people are still using dealers. Why? Because dealers sometimes are cheaper and they come to your door, which is kind of a real convenience. And I think that that's something that dispensaries ought to be considering. It would be nice to put the dealers out of business because we don't know the quality of the product that they're selling. Now here's something that's really important for listeners to know. There's still lots of research being done in this area, but it appears to be the case that if the CBD percentage is similar or higher than the THC percentage in the product a person is using, it helps protect our brain from addiction and from psychosis.

That's important to know. So go up on the CBD if you're using and go lower on the THC.

That's a really good point to make. Since you're a counselor and counseling people on addictions, what have you learned over the years that can be helpful? Because I struggle with helping people who are addicted. I've gotten some people off drugs, but I haven't been successful with everyone. So I would always be grateful for tips and strategies for helping people who are struggling with addiction. So what have you learned that can be helpful for individuals who are in the throoes of addiction?

Right? So first I'm going to look at the research and then I'm going to look at what I'm finding in my practice. And so in empirical research, some of the statistical techniques that are used are called regression analysis as well as meta-analysis. And these kinds of procedures are really good methods to try to begin to get a sense of cause and also to get a sense of what maybe is the biggest contributing factor. And it doesn't seem to be answering the questions so far, these analyses or the research in terms of what works the best. So it's a bit of a one off. So this is perhaps why you have also found that what you do doesn't really help everybody, and it doesn't help everybody to the same degree. So I'm hoping that over time we're going to have bigger answers to these questions. What I have found in my practice is that the more that people are willing to dedicate time to their recovery, that seems very important, I guess, because it's an indicator of their motivation, partly. But if someone is only trying to go cold turkey, for example, they're not going to be likely as successful as someone who's going to mutual support meetings on a nightly basis, who are journaling, who have a sponsor, who, if they're opioid addicted or taking medication, assisted therapies and perhaps going to group therapy, individual therapy.

So to me that seems more predictive of who's going to be successful is those who really absorb themselves and become preoccupied with recovery, if you will, and those who become later, who themselves become sponsors to someone else. That giving back. It strikes me as very spiritual, first of all, but it also seems to be very helpful to people because to give back, there's something remarkably healing about that. And to give back in any capacity, it's healing. Whether you have mental health issues or addiction issues, giving is just so, I think, rewarding for people and helps insulate them also from the effects of stress and depression and so forth. I've been watching the series Mom, on Netflix and love this series because it's all about addiction. It's a comedy and I laugh and laugh and laugh, but they're saying so many things that are accurate in the addictions field, one of which is you can't make someone change. You and I know that from our practices, right, we can't make anyone change even if they want to change, it's not easy for them. But many times we're a loved one if someone who's addicted, we're literally banging our head on the wall if we're trying to force them into treatment because until they're ready, they're going to be a stubborn mule. They're not going to listen so as therapists, if we're working with people in those early stages, it's all about trying to build some of that motivation to change.

And how do you do that? How do you build the motivation? Because I found that it's hard to get people motivated too.

Yeah. So? I think his name is W R miller. Someone else created motivational interviewing, and it's a way of kind of, in a way, seizing the moments in conversation where it looks like the client might be talking about change and then focusing more of our therapeutic conversation towards the direction of change and less so toward staying the way one is. So that's one of it. So looking for those glimmering moments of hope and really trying to enhance those for the client, that would be one thing. Teaching them, giving them information about their addiction can be very helpful. I even recommend sometimes watching certain movies that kind of portray that person's addiction. Not in a good light, obviously, but to show it for what it is. Addiction is a destruction of the soul. It really is.

I remember going to the Toronto Film Festival several years ago, and I saw this movie, and it was entitled Leaving Las Vegas. So I thought, oh, this is going to be a fun movie. Well, it turned out to be a movie starring Nicholas Cage. And the whole premise was this was a character who went to Las Vegas to drink himself to death. He was an alcoholic. His soul was completely obliterated, and he was going to spend the weekend in a fancy hotel drinking himself to death. And he happened to meet this woman and she fell for him and she spent the time with him, and she tried to talk him out of it, but he was determined. And at the end of the movie, he succeeded in drinking himself to death regardless of even this woman who loved him and who was going to stand by him. And it was the most depressing movie. And I walked out of there and I was kind of in shock because first of all, I went in not expecting that. But second of all, it was just so powerful in depicting this person whose addiction had really destroyed him and had gotten him to the point where he chose to die from it. It was really a tough movie, but very, I think, authentic.

Absolutely. In fact, it is one of the movies that I recommended in my textbook for people dealing with alcoholism who are in what we call the pre contemplation stage, which is really the stage of denial, where an individual doesn't realize that they have a problem or they at least minimize the problem to like, I can control this. It's not a big issue. Don't be on my back. I can stop any day I want. And of course they can't. And I think that movie just shows you that being caring and compassionate is not enough for someone who's just not willing to work on their stuff. And so another, I guess, piece of recovery is we have to become tenacious in our recovery. We have to do whatever it takes. We have to develop discipline. We have to work hard. We have to work harder than maybe we've ever worked in our life on something, because especially the chemical addictions, they can kill you. And the opioid crisis is a testimonial of just how quick a death can occur to someone, even who is a heroin addict who has developed high tolerance. And yet, because these dealers and such, the people that are getting the product on the street, they don't care about people. They care about profit. And they don't mind putting fentanyl in, which is so much more powerful than heroin, that this is what caused so much of our opioid crisis. And we have the crisis, huge, really, around the world, in the developed world, people are dying from fentanyl, mostly.

It's so incredibly tragic and it just breaks my heart.

I wrote a book called Concise Guide to Opioid Addiction for Counselors. I had to grab a copy so I could remind myself I co-authored it with famous American counselor who actually just recently passed away. But the book really makes it clear that we need to use comprehensive approach to work with opioid addicts. The majority of heroin addicts are not going to be able to go cold turkey and stay clean. They're going to need to be maintained on either Methadone or TREXone Naloxone. There's another drug, too, that I can never pronounce, but Suboxone is the drug that contains Naloxone and this other one that really does help, but few are going to be able to do it without medications.

Their bodies become so addicted physiologically to the substance.

And I think a lot of people don't perhaps appreciate that addictions, it changes the way our brains work. It can change structures in our brain. It can change the flow of neurotransmitters, the re-uptake of neurotransmitters, and so forth. And so it creates actual physical changes within the brain. And so most brains recover, but not all brains. So it's not just the opioids that can have a longstanding lifelong effects, but also some of the stimulant addictions are also equally horrifying. In most cities. If you hang around near the downtown, you're probably going to see some methamphetamine, crystal meth addicts. And they have a characteristic way of kind of twitching as they move and just how incredibly destructive the Stimulants are in people's lives. It's scary.

And then of course, alcohol, which causes dementia in the long run if you drink for too much for too long, exactly.

Dementia. And not to mention just the wide host of medical diseases, right? The physical diseases from cirrhosis to cancers to you name it. Probably alcohol is a risk factor.

Well, since we've gone through all the really depressing stuff, let's talk about something hopeful. What can you say that is in a positive light in your work in dealing with the LGBTQ plus community? And your work dealing with addiction. Tell me some hopeful stories, perhaps.

Absolutely, because some of it is pretty frightening, but we're all aware of that side. I really embrace a lot of what positive psychology is about, and so it's wonderful to know that there is hope for people. And if we can help them begin to feel some of that hope, then that might even begin to act as a catalyst toward change. And so I see change all the time. I have been working with for two years, actually, and having hard time getting through the and a lot of cocaine addicts, they don't just get cocaine. They first drink, and then after they've had several drinks, they use cocaine to keep the party going and to keep them awake and alert and so forth, and then to go on a cocaine run that could go on for days. But this client would also be using crystal meth and engaging in big sex parties and so forth. A gay man. And what was wonderful to see is the trigger for him to change was actually getting together with a friend of his who was very active in AA. He ended up listening to the friend, in truth, more than me.

Now the friend is acting as a sponsor, and he's going regularly the meetings, and he's not drinking or using cocaine or using math any longer. And he's beginning to get more in touch again with his spiritual side. He was Buddhist before getting involved in these drugs, and he's coming back to that place of feeling more in the Zen place, I suppose, is what you could call it. He smiles now when I see him, and what a joy it is to see an addict in recovery smile for sure.

And when you said it was his friend more than you. There have been so many times where I have heard of patients come to me and they say, you know, so and so told me this, and it really woke me up. Or I heard it on the TV and it really woke me up. And I had been telling them the same exact thing for, I don't know, five years, ten years, but they heard it from somebody out there and it clicked. And I said, I don't care. I don't need to take the credit. As long as it clicked, I'm happy if you're doing better. So, yeah, wherever the source of inspiration comes from, it's all good, right?

That's right. And so we don't know in any individual's case what will be that moment. Sometimes it's a metanoia moment, being a real, almost conversion experience for me. For me, it was waking up in October of 2014, I guess that was. I woke up, realized a year and a half had gone by since I had the contract. I hadn't written one word. I kept telling myself I was going to start tomorrow. Many addicts do that. We're going to start this tomorrow. But I realized right then I had to save myself. I was also developing sleep issues, so I quit cold turkey, which triggered some really negative emotional states for me. And eventually I got through that, and now I'm smiling too. And I'm really happy that I have an increased wisdom and knowledge and experience to be of greater help to the people I see. Because, as you know, when we came to these helping professions, often because we ourselves were wounded healers, and we have to eventually work through all those wounds ourselves or with the help of others.

Absolutely. I totally agree. I think every therapist should have their own therapist.

Yeah. I've long believed that. I'm going back to my therapist, actually, in a couple of weeks. I thought, it's time to check in. It's been three years.

Yeah. I have patients who I used to see on a regular basis years ago, and they call me up periodically for a tune up, and I say, my door is always open, I'm always available. And I'll see them five years later. I'll see them two years later, I'll see them seven years later. But I'm always happy to say hello. And sometimes they have a problem. Sometimes they just want to run something by me. But I think it's wonderful that they can do that, right? They can check in and get some support.

Yeah, it's the greatest privilege. I remember working with this ten year old boy, and then I became Facebook friends with his mother. And about six months ago I saw that this ten year old boy is now a father of a child, and he's like 28 years old. And I thought, oh, my God. I just felt this rush of just compassion and positive feelings, knowing I helped this boy when he needed it. Now he's a man raising a family. I have one client who comes to see me every January for his mental health checkup. He's been doing that for twelve years, and I think what an excellent suggestion. We go for a physical we should, once a year, and I'd recommend you go for your mental health check up once a year. It's good. As therapists, we can spot a lot of things going on when we dig that you might not be aware of for sure.

A lot of my work these days, I do independent psychiatric assessments for people who are off work for mental health reasons. And so often in my assessment, I find out things that their family doctor who has been seeing them for many years doesn't know about. So I'll be talking to the doctor and I'll say, do you know this person is engaging in self-harm? No, I had no idea. Do you know this person is misusing alcohol? No, they didn't tell me about it. Do you know this person is experiencing marital abuse? No, I don't know. Obviously, they don't have the time to go deep because they're busy with so many other patients, but having this leisure to spend doing this assessment, I get to really do that kind of mental health check up and really find out what's going on. Now, obviously, I do it after the person has decompensated, but it would be lovely if people COVID get those kinds of mental health checkups before they fall apart and have to go off work.

Absolutely. If you see us as therapist, if we were to see you once a year, then we're going to have our notes. We're going to be able to see, okay, how are you doing compared to how you were doing a year ago? And that's often an indicator of, is this person heading for trouble or not? Working with addicts is interesting, by the way, because they lie. Addicts have learned to become professional liars. They first learned, I think, to lie to themselves about their addiction and likely about other things that they're not dealing with in their life. I lied to myself, pretending I was not grieving. How stupid. We should know better as therapists, right? But no, we're just humans, too, and we all experience deep senses of loss. When things happen to us, we lose someone. That's very important to us. But we learn to lie as addicts, and part of our recovery is learning to tell the truth and insisting on truth. And so when I see addicts, I'm constantly having to remind them that I know that most of us lie. So let's talk about how it really is for you. And if you happen to drank 15 drinks instead of the two that you said you were going to try and drink, then let's talk about the 15 drinks, which is your reality, instead of this wish for fantasy that doesn't exist.

Right. And I always tell them when I'm doing the assessment, I say, I'm not here to judge you, I'm here to help you. So if you don't tell me the truth, it's harder for me to help you. So then they said, yeah, it's actually 15, and it's not three. Okay, great. That's good to know. So now I understand how you are affected by this situation.

It's important as therapists that we remind people that they're addicted. They often lie. Well, I had a psychiatrist back then, even before I really started falling to pieces, and I never told the psychiatrist about my cannabis use. And when he asked, I would lie because I just didn't seem to trust him with that particular sharing, I guess because I wasn't ready to recover. I wasn't ready to face it. I didn't want someone looking at me with that look of, wow, you really should do something about that. I wasn't ready to hear that. But if he'd really called me on it, I think I would have said, yeah, you're right. I have been abusing.

Yeah. I think it's also a responsibility of the therapist to understand that it's hard for people to admit to certain things. It's hard for people to admit to sexual issues. It's hard for people to admit to addictive issues. It's hard for people to admit to certain relationship issues. So you have to probe a little bit more aggressively. I don't want to say aggressively, but more assiduously into those areas if you want to get real answers.

I see quite a few clients for sexual issues as well. Sexuality is still one of my specialty areas, and I always prefaced when we first started working together, on a scale of zero to ten, how comfortable are you talking to me openly about sexuality? I like to give them a chance to gauge it, because if they're sitting at a one or a two, then I'm going to have to work on building our working alliance a lot more before I dig into some of the questions that I ask, which probably to some people are really shocking. And to me, it's like asking someone to pass the salt and pepper at a dinner table.

Depends what we're habituated to, right?

That's so true. So as therapists, we have to become very comfortable in our own skin to ask the right questions. It was a bit shocking. A few years ago, I gave an in-service to some clinical psychology students, the University of Calgary for women, all probably close to 30 years of age. And I began by asking them how comfortable they are talking about sexuality openly with me. And they gave ratings of about a six on average. And I asked, what about with your patients eventually? And they actually had much lower numbers. And it's a bit shocking, but it's true. As therapists, we have to move into the terrain that a lot of people are uncomfortable talking about. So relationship issues, sexuality issues, religious issues, spiritual issues, we have to be able to go there. And I think each of us as humans, quite apart from those of us who are therapists, we all have to be able to be honest with ourselves in those areas. We all have to look at what relationship issues am I facing right now? Am I comfortable with the sexuality, the way I'm expressing it in my relationship, or by myself, whatever the case might be?

So we have to be open to our own experience. Very important. And the addicts are not very open until they're in that path of recovery.

Before we go, I'd love to know what projects are you currently working on?

Well, you know, during the pandemic, like most of us, I was feeling very isolated and very close, bonds with family and lots of friends, probably too many, but I feel good. It's really healing. But I wrote a novel which I'm looking out for a publisher called West Haven, and it's actually a novel about recovery from someone who lost his life and then became a drug addict and goes off to this fictitious place in Hawaii where he goes to a recovery center called West Haven. So that piece hopefully will get published. But the piece I'm currently working on is another textbook, this time for Cognally Publications in California, and it's a generic textbook called Counseling Today Bridging Art, Science, and Practice. So I'm having great fun writing this book, and it's taking me back to 36 years of being a psychologist. And I'm able to use a lot of things I've developed over the years for my own practice, to be able to put it into the textbook, to be of help to counselors in training. And so it's richly rewarding to be able to give back in this way.

That's lovely. And if people are looking to find more about you, where can they find you?

They just type in Kevin Alderson CA. That brings up my web page, and there's an about section. And I list my books in there and a bit about myself. And I am an active therapist. I don't have a long waiting list, so I generally work fairly quickly with people at this stage of the game. I know what I'm doing, and I'm a licensed throughout Alberta, throughout Ontario. Of course, I'm doing only video sessions throughout Ontario, but I'm also licensed throughout the territories. So I'm getting clients from all over the place. I feel richly rewarded with the diversity of my life and my practice. It's funny, we have the same number of psychologists in Alberta as we have in Ontario, and yet Ontario has three times the population. So most psychologists in Ontario have long waiting lists. And that's truly unfortunate because the mental health crisis is severe right now, and some of what I'm seeing now is what I would call post pandemic trauma. But it's not really post pandemic because we're still in the pandemic I'm afraid. The need is real, and I'm happy to take more clients on.

Well, before we end, I'd love you to give a call to action, to the listeners, something that they could consider trying moving forward.

I want you to remember an acronym that I coined, which I called BRAD. And Brad is a way of raising our children and treating others, even treating employees if you're an employer. But Brad stands for B belonging. We thrive, having a sense of belonging. So nurture people and let them know that they matter. The R stands for recognition, and people need to be recognized. So many times in the employment I had in the past, I never felt much recognition, not even as a full professor. It was part of the reason I decided to leave. It's like I'd rather do something that feeds my spirit. So recognize people, recognize your children for all the positive things they're doing. Make your emphasis on the positive when raising children. The A stands for acceptance. My goodness, you might have an LGBTQ child, and that child doesn't even know it yet. So be careful what you say around your child, show that you embrace diversity and you embrace people of all kinds. This is what the world is made of. We're all unique, so in that way, every one of us is diverse. And the D, we cannot remember the D, which is discipline, which means for children setting age appropriate rules, that are flexible.

So it's not a good parenting practice to let kids do whatever they damn well please. They do not learn how to be self-disciplined. If they do that, they won't have control over their emotions either. If they're angry, they're going to rage out on innocent others. And so we need to discipline our children in age appropriate ways, give them more freedoms as they get older. And discipline really is built into our system of having laws that regulate our behavior. So discipline is important. So don't forget BRAD. Implement BRAD. Remember BRAD.

That's a wonderful call to action. And I'm written them down to remind myself because I think they're very special. Thank you so much, Kevin Alderson, for coming on the Ruthless Compassion podcast. Your BRAD sounds a lot like Ruthless Compassion, so I think we're a bit aligned. It's been really a very enjoyable conversation today.

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It's been quite an honor.

This is Dr. Marcia, sirota. Thank you for listening. Please leave a review and your comments wherever you listen to podcasts. And don't forget to sign up for my free newsletter at marciasirotamd.com, where you'll learn about upcoming online events as well. Also, we love getting referrals from our listeners about future podcast guests, so please email us at info@marciasirotamd.com