The only way you're going to be disciplined is by taking
responsibility if you were a slave to whatever your brain
demanded in the moment. I think it's so important that
people understand feelings are terrible decision makers.
The most successful people in the study in recovery, they
found, were the ones that would do it regardless of how they
feel. I don't think addiction so much
about the substance. It is about total inability to
say no. I don't have any integrated
aggression in my addiction. It was very easy.
And even in early sobriety. Guys, we're here today.
What's up, Dwayne? How's it going?
Well, good. We're talking about the one
thing I think that separates people who stay sober from
people who don't. It's not what a lot of people
think it is. I bought into the narrative that
addiction was this mysterious disease that just happened to
me. And when you it's not.
I don't want to get into an argument of rewards, disease or
not. What I want to get into and what
I want us to talk about is this belief that I was a victim to it
and that I was powerless and that recovery was just about
managing symptoms. There wasn't like life skill
that I needed to understand. And this is what I'll hand it
over to you, but there wasn't this like, life skill of
self-discipline. And I don't think addiction so
much about the substance as it is about my complete and total
inability to say no to myself, if that makes sense.
Absolutely makes perfect sense. I can't say no.
I don't have any integrated aggression in my addiction.
It was. Very easy.
And even in early sobriety. I want to this is really
interesting. I don't know if you ever heard
of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
It's called the NIH. It's really popular government
and everything else. They had a neuroscientist study
this and this is so interesting and this is from 2025 and it
said your brain plasticity means addiction creates specific neuro
adaptations. But this is crazy that they
found out these same narrow adaptations can be rewired.
Just like they got rewired through your addiction, they can
be rewired through consistent discipline, behavioral changes.
So 50 here we are sitting 5051. I can go into my addiction,
rewire my neuroplasticity into addiction, and then I'm addict,
addict, do drugs, alcohol, whatever it is.
Or I can go this way and then I'm disciplined, going to the
gym everyday, eating clean, being self aware with my anger.
You see what I'm saying? But the same neuroplasque
working either or away right? But though he that's where the I
mean that that's where not having balls enough to to
understand the fear. I think there's a lot of people
that don't know how to get discipline sounds great, but I
don't know how to get past the fear part.
I don't want to go into to church and go to confession.
I don't want to go into the gym and get the membership because
I'm back. What I'm saying, it's like this
narcissistic fear. I don't know.
I always go into the grocery store and I'd just go in those
middle aisles, buy the box stuff and just eat that because it's
easy. I don't know.
I don't know how to make our meal prep.
Or did you? It's like that beginning stages
of the discipline where people don't know how to address their
fear. Yes, yes, 100%.
And I think it starts with the comfortable lie.
And I know I'm gonna, I'm gonna be controversial here and hit
the elephant in the room. If that's fine, we've got some
dishes over. But the recovery industrial
complex, that's what I like to call it, recovery industrial
complex, any industrial complex always wants to make you the
victim because there's billions and billions of dollars at
stake. They've built this entire
business model around this one central lie where addiction is
this chronic progressive disease that you manage rather than this
learned behavior that you can change.
Because we need you to understand that if you have this
chronic progressive disease, then you get a get out of jail
free card. Every bad decision, every
relapse, every moment you choose the easy path over the right
path, the discipline path, then what does that cause you to do?
It causes you to be able to never take responsibility.
And the only way you're going to be disciplined is by taking
responsibility, if that makes sense.
You have to because you recognize as much as I do,
especially for addiction, is the physical is the gateway to the
emotion. It makes your body look good.
People give you compliments like I'm 52 and people are like, Oh
my God, you look great for 52. OK, whatever, let's get that
passed. The emotional and the mental
aspects of having that disciplined physical exercise
daily is what keeps me sane. Because addicts, we have were
wired a little bit. Like I said before, we're for
our, we've got to get tuned all the time.
This is really interesting. In that study, they talked about
relapse statistics and this is crazy, Dwayne. 6 sort of people
treated for substance use disorders will relapse at least
once. And I think it's a lot higher.
I think a lot of people don't admit that they relapse, but you
know what the difference is between the people that don't
relapse and people that relapse. It's not the severity of their
addiction. It's not their trauma history
because they looked into all that.
It's not their genetics or their family history.
This study hit all those things. So it's not severity that they
did. It's not the trauma history,
it's not the genetics, not the family history.
You know what the studies found? Self regulation that or was what
positive related to length of abstinence and so that's
interesting to me because that's disciplined self regulation is
disciplined pure and simple yes the interesting part to doing on
this could you just said it that fear art with evolutionary
psychology. They found that fear causes you
to get tunnel vision. Your amygdala causes you to do
that. So if you're getting chased in
the jungle by a tiger thousands of years ago, you're not going
to stop and look at the pretty flower.
Your vision doesn't open up. See, Oh no, this is so
beautiful. You're going to be so tunnel
vision. And that's what the addiction
does too. It creates the same amygdala
fear response and causes you to have tunnel vision.
And when you have tunnel vision, you're not able to even
understand or know through this fear fighter fight response to
take the breath, to take the time to relax, to say, you know
what? I can choose my thoughts.
And that's what you're saying when you begin to have that
realization that God gave you to be like, you know what, Joanne?
You can choose your thoughts. You can choose your actions.
You can choose your response, and you can choose it every
single time because it's that choice.
And here's the magic, the moment between stimulus and response,
that's where the discipline and the power lives.
And that is, I believe, between stimulus and response.
That's where recovery happens. And as Jocko calls it, that's
where freedom lives. Yeah, yes, yes.
That's so good. And the discipline doesn't
restrict freedom. A lot of people think that,
especially in your addiction, like you said, it actually
creates it. But when you're using, when
you're caught up in your addiction, you think you're
free. You were saying this earlier.
I can do whatever the fuck I want, whenever I want.
I have no rules, no structure, no one telling me what to do.
But really, that's a lie. You weren't free at all.
You were a slave pulse, you were a slave to crazy, you were a
slave to whatever your brain demanded in the moment, and you
had zero choice. So that means zero choice means
0 freedom. When you're controlled by your
impulses, you're not free. And real freedom to me is being
able to choose your response of being controlled instead of
being controlled like reactions. And what does that look like?
I want people to understand this, and I'll bish it back over
to you, but every discipline moment is a vote for your
recovery, and recovery is won by votes, not by feelings.
When you have an undisciplined moment, that is a vote for your
addiction, if that makes sense. Yeah.
And, and I think it's so
important that people understand feelings are terrible decision
makers. But addicts, we're all just
living off our feelings. And the most successful people
in the study and recovery they found were the ones that would
do it regardless of how they feel.
Because when you regularize, if you tell if you said President
Biden or President Trump and you're like, hey, make the
decision on World War 3 based off your feelings in the moment.
No, you want to be logic and data and a bunch of people in
Congress and Senate and all this, but you want like a
committees of people looking at all this.
You don't want somebody just making feelings in ring are not
real either, you know, and I don't want to get into that
part, but I do want to take the next few minutes that we have
and get into if we can call it 4 pillars or whatever you want to
call it. But what discipline actually
looks like in recovery like specifically and number one,
pillar one, and we'll talk about this as the neural discipline.
And the research shows us that social support and reduced
impulsivity predict fewer relapses.
This means daily practices that strengthen your prefrontal
cortex. Because alcohol changes your
prefrontal cortex. When you drink and you do risky
behavior, that's a change of the prefrontal cortex.
So now you've got to do daily practices that strengthen your
prefrontal cortex. That's mindfulness, breathing,
going to the gym, eating clean. You have to understand this
neural discipline is brain training.
You're building a part of your brain that's responsible for
self-control, that addicts, they're at A1 on a scale of 1 to
10. Some people are born with like,
really good self-control and other people are at a 1.
And I think a lot of addicts can be more risky and less
self-control. But then also when it becomes
disciplined, allows you to be entrepreneurial.
Yeah, I, I love that. And that's pillar one at the
neural side of things. Pillar two, you're an expert on
this side is the physical discipline.
Exercise literally creates new brain cells through a process
called neurogenesis. So proper nutrition supports
neurotransmare production. And one of the things that I
love to do and that it's great for addicts, it's cold showers
in the morning. And I know people think it's
crazy, but it's discipline training.
If I can get up out of the hour and not lay there, not check my
phone and choose discomfort first thing in the morning,
first thing I'm going to hit is the cold shower.
And I know from the minute that I'm laying in bed, when I wake
up, my brain starts saying, no, I don't want to do that.
No, we're not going to do that. So.
And I can overcome that if I can choose discomfort when I'm
triggered, I win every time. Yeah.
It's so interesting. You know, this leads to Pillar
3, and that's the emotional discipline.
And obviously, in the study, Dwayne, experiencing closeness
with others predicts not only positive emotional states.
We all knew that. But guess what?
It reduces impulsive behavior. So you going to a meeting when
you don't feel like it reduces impulsive behavior.
Isn't that crazy? Like having closeness with other
people that you're struggling with in neuroscience reduces you
wanting to use. There's a reason there's a sign
everybody, it's not just woo going to the meeting.
There's actually science backing why you should be close with
others and why you should go to meetings.
Isn't that crazy? Yeah, the sex Edison security is
interesting. Something that I've been
learning, that my higher self has been teaching me is what is
looking at somebody else in higher self sex.
Let's say you find an attractive man or woman or whatever one,
they're going to get old. I'm getting all of them, getting
wrinkles all over my face. But 52 and #2 the biggest thing
is that person is having, no matter how beautiful they look,
they're having issues inside of them.
They're learning. There's learning lessons that
are happening inside of them. So how can I with closeness
without having that sexual abstraction?
You're going to have that, that, that if somebody's beautiful,
they're beautiful, whatever. And you can appreciate that and
understand that. But then at the same time, how
can I operate? Am I going to operate in my
monkey mind, my reptilian break? I'm going to operate in my
higher self. And what does my higher self
look like? And I think Jesus had tons of
interactions with women constantly.
Some people say he was married, some people say he wasn't.
Whatever doesn't matter. But we can see him always
elevating women, going against the norm, going against the
societal pressures that were put on women.
And he always made them feel knowledgeable and honored and
accepted and allowed to be in with the disciples and listen to
the teachings. And he honored them and, and you
can see that. But the story with him being
with his mother over and over again and the conversations that
they had together, how he loved his mom and honored his mom.
And we have Mary and the status of feminism for that.
And I think on the sexual side, I think that's really important.
But the status side, it's like my higher self, I have so much
power that I can create worlds. Abraham Hicks taught us that.
So what the fuck? I worried about what watch I
have on in the moment or What Car am I driving?
I'm 6 foot two. I can't even fit in a sports
car, you know what I mean? I've put my knees up to the
front. So it's like at the end of the
day, those things are nice. If you have zeros in your bank
account, great, purchase those things.
At the end of the day, that's not what I live for.
I'm not concerned about what vehicle I have the same vehicle
I've had for five years, but I never have any dead and
everything's paid off. I don't have to worry about
these things because I'm not worried about status.
What is it recognizing? And then this is where I like
the stoic mentality is I'm going to die.
There's no way around, there's no way I'm going to go around
that. But Marcus Aurelius talked about
that. Like, imagine your death and
what that looks like. So when you begin to imagine
your death, what becomes important, your family, your
children is leaving a legacy. What does that look like?
Why would I even get your podcast?
You know, we're not getting paid.
I, we both of us get paid. We're both successful.
So our time is worth a lot of money.
An hour of your time, an hour my time is worth a lot of fucking
money. And all I'm doing this is
because this goes out forever. My children are going to be able
to listen to this when I'm gone, my loved one, everybody that I
know, and I'm leaving a legacy. And also there are some of you
that DM us saying how the podcast is changing your life.
And that's what it means to me. That's the status I want.
That's the success. That's the security I want was
to leave a legacy. Yeah.
And I know this third pillar on emotions, the lotions don't kill
you, but running from the mic, you know, So I want to get into
pillar 4, the last pillar, and that's environmental discipline
and ruthlessly eliminating triggers and consciously
choosing your relationships and then creating systems that make
good choices automatic and bad choices harder.
Why do you still have your dealer or plugs number in your
phone, Junior? I'm serious about recovery.
If you still have that in there. What and how simple?
How long does it take to delete those fucking numbers out of
your phone? 30 seconds, I guess.
Why haven't you done that? That's environmental discipline.
Yeah. Discipline.
Yes. Yeah, that's so good.
Another way to say it is your environment is stronger than
your willpower every time. So in Stanford, if you look at
the Stanford study where they had this was like an old study a
long time ago where they had people being prison guards and
people be prisoners. And then this shows you your
environment is strawberry than your willpower every time.
What had happened was they made people pretend like they were in
like it looked like a prison, but they just pretending to be
prisoners and prison guards. After about a week, it got
pretty serious and so then the prisoner started trying to
revolve to get the prison guards.
The prisoner guards had to clamp down more and more and they were
being abusive. It just turned into this
terrific environment. So then on the study, they
decided to switch everybody the next week.
So get all hell broke loose then 'cause there's fuck these prison
guards. I'm going to take, they're
prisoners now, so I'm going to get my revenge.
This is why we have to be ruthless on eliminating these
triggers by choosing good relationships, creating systems,
you know, and making these choices because, and this is
what nobody tells you. And I believe every time you
choose discipline over impulse, you literally, we said this
earlier and it's a study, you literally are growing new neuro
pathways. So what does this mean?
This is going to be controversial to help.
Everybody listens to this. You're not managing a disease,
you're building a new brain. And the beautiful thing is it
gets easier. And I want you to talk on this.
Discipline builds on itself. The more you practice, the
stronger it gets. It's like a muscle.
It's use or lose it. I want to kind of get into
discipline destroyers and three of them real clear.
I want you to comment on each of these.
I think destroyer #1, discipline, destroyer #1 is
this. And you hear of this in recovery
circles one day at a time. The phrase is awesome and it's
supposed to be our presence. It's supposed to be about
focusing on what you can control today and not being overwhelmed
by the enormity of forever, but end up using this one day at a
time where somewhere along the way it becomes an excuse for not
planning. It becomes an excuse for not
building long term discipline. It becomes an excuse.
You're taking responsibility for your future.
And a lot of times it's, I don't have to be disciplined about my
future 'cause I'm just taking it one day at a time.
I don't need to have systems or structure or plan for next week,
tomorrow break, 'cause I'm just taking it, just trying to do it
now. Do you see what I'm saying?
Instead of understanding one day at a time is the present moment
or avoiding light destroyer #2 the powerless programming.
A lot of programs, they'll say that your power was over alcohol
and somehow because you're a powerless over alcohol, but
somehow it gets twisted into I'm powerless over everything.
That's not what it means when it says you're powerless over
alcohol. Yes, you are powerless over the
fact that you have addiction. You're powerless over that, but
you're not powerless over what you do about it.
You won't control whether you're an addict, but you can
absolutely control whether you're a using addict or not.
There's a huge difference between accepting that you have
a condition and expecting that you're helpless to change your
life, if that makes sense. I want to kind of get into
destroyer #3 this will be our last one, and we'll close in
this one. And this is a sensitive one, but
it's this when understanding becomes enabling, when your
family or your group becomes more invested in your victim
story than your victory story. And I see this all the time,
people who've been going to the same meetings for years, telling
the same stories, getting the same sympathy, making the same
excuses. They're never growing, never
changing. But growth requires having the
comfort of being understood for your problems and then moving
into the discomfort of being responsible for your solutions.
The question is of whether you can recover.
We talked to you today about neuroscience, and science has
answered that you absolutely can't.
And we're living examples of it. The question is whether you're
willing to do what it takes to recover what it actually
requires. And that's becoming the most
disciplined version of yourself. You have to, as an addict's
brain, we want to look for shortcuts.
We want to wait for motivation, like you said earlier, and then
or else you want to play the victim and expect someone else
to save us. Those are all excuses.
Those are all us staying comfortable in our dysfunction.
And I, I want to encourage everyone that I'm pass it over
to you for last comments, Dwayne, is that we need to start
building discipline and we need to start today.
And we can start with one small choice and let it compound.
You don't go to the gym and pick up the 45 LB weights and start
doing curls. You could do those curls in a
year or two. You start with the 10 lbs or the
5 lbs, whatever you need to do to start building that muscle
bowl. And discipline is the bridge
between where you are and where you want to be.
And we've given you the blueprint today.
So now it's your choice to build the bridge.
Thank you.