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The Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast
Bringing all things health and wellness to Tampa Bay, FL from your very own family and obesity medicine physician, Dr. Kerry Reller, MD, MS. We will discuss general medical topics, weight management, and local spots and events focusing on health, wellness, and nutrition in an interview and solo-cast format. Published weekly.
The Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast
E98: A Holistic Approach to Breaking Down Addiction with Dr. Daniel Hochman
Welcome to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast with Dr. Kerry Reller! This week, I’m joined by Dr. Daniel Hochman, a psychiatrist and founder of Self Recovery. In this episode, we dive into his holistic approach to addiction, focusing on its root causes and sustainable recovery.
Dr. Hochman shares how his online program, Self Recovery, empowers individuals to overcome addiction using evidence-based therapies and practical tools. Whether you’re curious about addiction’s psychological roots or seeking a fresh perspective on recovery, this episode offers valuable insights. Tune in for a thoughtful and inspiring conversation!
Daniel Hochman, M.D. is a board certified Psychiatrist, and creator of a revolutionary online addiction recovery program, selfrecovery.org. His treatment philosophy cuts through the confusion around addiction, and has helped thousands of people finally solve their addiction puzzle.
0:28 - Introduction and Welcome to Dr. Hochman
0:56 - Dr. Hochman’s Approach to Psychiatry
3:20 - Therapy Training for Psychiatrists
4:46 - Why Focus on Addiction?
7:27 - Defining Addiction in Simple Terms
10:28 - Behavioral vs. Substance Addictions
19:16 - Inside the Self Recovery Program
22:21 - Differences from 12-Step Programs
27:17 - Debunking Addiction Myths
37:43 - How to Connect with Dr. Hochman and Self Recovery
Connect with Dr. Hochman
Website: https://www.selfrecovery.org/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielhochmanmd/
FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/Selfrecoveryhealth
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/selfrecoveryhealth/
YouTube: https://youtube.com/@selfrecovery
Yelp: https://www.yelp.com/biz/self-recovery-austin
TrustPilot: https://www.trustpilot.com/review/selfrecovery.org
Connect with Dr. Kerry Reller
Podcast website: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprou...
My linktree: linktr.ee/kerryrellermd
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kerryrellermd/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/ClearwaterFamilyMedicine
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/clearwaterfamilymedicine/
Tiktok: https://www.tiktok.com/@kerryrellermd
Clearwater Family Medicine and Allergy website: https://sites.google.com/view/clearwa...
Podcast: https://gethealthytbpodcast.buzzsprou...
Subscribe to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay Podcast on Apple podcasts, Spotify, Amazon music, Stitcher, Google Podcasts, Pandora.
Hi, everybody. Welcome back to the Get Healthy Tampa Bay podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Kerry Reller. And today we have a special guest, Dr. Daniel Hochman. Welcome to the podcast.
Daniel:Thanks for having me.
Kerry:Yeah, we're excited to hear all about who you are and what you do. And you mentioned you have a private practice in Texas, and then you have this other program that we're going to talk about, but why don't you tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do and how you got into psychiatry or everything else.
Daniel:Yeah I'm a psychiatrist and I have a private practice where I see patients in person still. And my setup is to only see patients that want to do psychotherapy. So while I do med management I never see cases for meds only, because I believe very strongly in a more holistic approach. And I use several different therapy modalities, but I really like being able to make sure that people are accessing all the different ways they can to improve. That's the bulk of what I do and then separately, so not part of my practice, but I built a program for addiction and enjoyed creating that. That was out of a need out there for a sensible approach to addiction that I wanted to make sure that people could access and not fight so hard or go through so many years to find something like that. So the two of those things take up my week.
Kerry:Yeah, well already from what you've said, like the holistic approach to psychiatry is something I don't hear as much about. I feel like most people are just really doing medication management. So it's nice to see that. You know, there's practices like yours that still exist. I don't know if I just don't know how to find them in my area, but I feel like it's really have turned to medication management lately, so that's great about your practice.
Daniel:Yeah, and, a lot of people don't know, so I'll explain for just a second psychiatrists are doctors, so we go through med school, we rotate in surgery, ICU, and then the first year of our residency, which is four years in psychiatry, just like other medical specialties you know, we're still sometimes working in the ER you know, medical floors. So we have a good medical background and then only some psychiatrists then go to programs where they offer very good training in psychotherapy. so some psychiatrists are doing very in depth therapy. Others are just doing, I call med mill, you know, you just go in and get tweaked and adjusted. That's it. so psychiatrists really run the gamut there and I just, I never had an interest in the med management part solo, but yeah, so it is unusual. There's a lot of psychiatrists who do therapy alongside med management but it's very rare to find, at least in the South sometimes in the Northeast, you get that older styles more frequently. But in the South, it's very infrequent to have a psychiatrist only see people who want to do therapy. That is more rare now.
Kerry:Yeah. So you had to do extra training for that. Is that what you're saying?
Daniel:Yeah, well, so I've done extra training in therapy when a psychiatrist goes to a program and is interested in learning psychotherapy. The training is the, the tops that there is, so like the number of cases, supervision hours and teaching and mentorship is many, many, many times what you'd get, compared to like a psychologist, which is then many, many times higher than what you'd get a social worker or someone else. So if the psychiatrist really seeks that out, it's great training. But the sad fact is that's really fallen away and there's a lot of residency programs. That are just biological so a lot of psychiatrists are coming out with very little experience doing therapy or they have little exposure to the different modalities. so it was part of my training. It's why I chose the program I did and I got to train under like the greats that I admire and had a wonderful experience, but that's, that's something I had to seek out that, that's not a usual kind of residency program.
Kerry:you're teaching me cause I didn't know that either, but, we could have probably a whole podcast on that topic itself, but I did want to ask you obviously more about this what inspired you really to focus on addiction and create this program that you call self recovery.
Daniel:mental health in general, I always want to just get to the root of whatever I'm treating. So, I don't end treatments at, okay, we have our diagnosis of depression, so then here's your antidepressant. Not only is that boring to me, but it cuts short so many opportunities for actually helping them so much more fully. to me those are just the beginnings. And For that reason, you know, addiction to me is just fascinating, it's just the beginning to understand, okay, this person has a compulsion, they have some, you know, terrible pattern in place now, and it's just, I like what I do because I always find it fascinating to try and discover, why they're actually doing that thing. And so a lot of other people not just psychiatrists, just any kind of therapist is a lot of them are really disgusted by addiction or they just don't have the experience with it. And it's easy to be disgusted when you're really just ending the treatment at the behavior, right? They're presenting and they talk about all this self destructive stuff. And then it just seems like it doesn't make sense. Why on earth are you doing this? And then if you leave it at that, it is disgusting. And you don't want to see that all day. But yeah, you know, for me I always want to follow things down to the source and the root and learn the beginnings and when you do that, it's just a joy to sit there and understand how someone's life has unfolded and then in the process of that, they feel more human, and an addiction in particular, that's very necessary. I would say it's necessary in any mental health issue, but with addiction in particular, there's just such an incredible shame that it makes a bigger difference than other conditions for someone to begin to have validated and understand and actually believe in the course of therapy that they're a decent human being who has been trained in a bad way. And where did that come from? To piece that story together, you know, makes the person whole again. They can feel like they're a decent human being that is salvageable.
Kerry:Yeah. So you're really getting at the root cause and why they are having these, you know, patterns of behavior of whatever they're addicted to. And I think. some doctors out there are starting to realize that even for a different profession or a different specialty, sorry, are really trying to focus on the root cause of things rather than like you were saying, just manage a medicine. Here you go. See you later. Right? So this is, I mean, I like, I love that approach as well. So how would you like define addiction? What do you think is missing from traditional approaches? If you didn't already just answer that? Okay. That could help people in like a deeper, deeper sustainable way.
Daniel:Yeah, I like to define addiction in a way that's just really plain and cut straight to what it is, and I like definitions that give us a chance to look at any part of that definition and understand what action to take out of that. So NIDA is like the government sort of arm of like research on addiction. And I, I don't know if I have it in front of me, but it's something along the lines of, you know, this person is just compulsively using this thing over and over again, despite harmful consequences and it's a fine enough definition, but it, it doesn't actually describe what's happening. And it is much more biological in its definition. So you would read it as someone who's addicted and just think, okay, well, I'm screwed. You know, I'm, I have this compulsion and you know, the idea is you're just stuck in this dopamine cycle and you're like a rat, you know, trapped using this thing. My definition is more psychological. And so I say that it's seeking pleasure to escape an intolerable emotion. And so I'm very biased towards helping people to understand what's actually happening on that psychological, emotional level. And so if we break it down, if we're seeking pleasure, well, that kind of humanizes and not just, I'm not just saying it to be nice. It's, it's actually what's happening. Why is that person using? Well, it makes perfect sense if we understand that they're just trying to seek pleasure, So they're trying to either numb or escape, you know, from an intolerable emotion. And I say intolerable emotion because people always miss, like now there's this big thing, it's like trauma informed care. And so we've got rehabs and treatment centers, you know, oh, we do, you know, trauma based approach. There are many addicted patients who, you know, struggle because of, you know, some form of trauma. They were raped, they were beaten, molested. That, that is a lot of people, but that's actually not most. And trauma is a loose term as well. And so no, there's a lot of people who were incredibly fortunate Yeah. In their early life, and they had everything they wanted, and they have terrible addiction, and so intolerable emotion doesn't necessarily mean trauma or major depressive disorder. It can mean that you have shame. It can be that you don't like that. You haven't applied yourself very well. You don't like where you are in life. You don't like your marriage. You don't like your career path that you're bored. There's all kinds of other negative states that we look to manage. It And so for people with addiction intolerable is the operative part, is that they don't tolerate the emotion. So there's a lot of people that have depression, anxiety, all kinds of bad feelings. In addiction, the idea to understand is that people don't tolerate that state, and so they use something, some kind of chemical, and it also can be a behavior to escape that, because they can't tolerate the feeling.
Kerry:Mm-Hmm. So, well, can you gimme some examples of like, addiction behavior? You mentioned behavior and product substances and things like that. What, what are you referring to?
Daniel:so one thing to start with, like when people say addiction, you know, that's not a clinical term or like a diagnosis. So we would call that a substance use disorder and substance can be drugs. It can be prescriptions or street drugs. It can be tobacco. It can be so like, you know, smoking and it includes alcohol as well. So substance use disorder encompasses any of those. Then what is not a clinical diagnosis that we, separately recognize in some circles that people are addicted to behaviors or other things that aren't chemicals. So we call them either behavioral addictions. But we also call them process addictions that's addicted to the process of some sort. Those are interchangeable, those two, and those can be things like sugar. So like eating in the pantry, you know, through your feelings retail therapy, they call that, you're addicted to just buying and shopping and materially escaping. It can be, of course, with the internet, with video games. With sex and porn. So porn is very common. So it can be behaviors that help you to escape a bad feeling. So those would, those would be the common ones.
Kerry:yeah, I'm glad you mentioned the sugar one, because I guess there's some debate whether it is a true addiction or not, but I definitely discuss that with patients and follow certain people who are definitely speaking about sugar addiction and that it's a real thing. And yeah, I'm just glad you included that in, cause I also do obesity medicine and that can be a real hindrance to helping somebody if they are having the tendencies for that.
Daniel:Yeah. And that's actually part of how I came into psychiatry. I, I actually in med school was set on treating obesity because I, It was kind of the epidemiologist in me said, well, if I'm going to go practice medicine, I want to make a big impact. And at the time I'm not that old, but it was still before, you know, much use of the internet. And my idea was to leave med school and create a bunch of DVDs on how to live a healthy lifestyle and help obese patients. That was naive and I, you know, stayed in med school fortunately and didn't pursue that because that doesn't work, right. It doesn't help just to advise people. What's healthy, you know, we usually have to offer something along with that to, to work on all the other parts that are way more difficult than just knowing a diet plan. So that's kind of how I wound up in psychiatry actually was, you know, really wanted to understand why people don't do what they already know they should do even for depression. So it's for substances. It's for eating. It's for not exercising, but it's also in depression. I mean, people know they should get out. They should, make more friends and have some activities or choose a career they enjoy. I mean, people know exactly what they're supposed to do, but they don't. And so that fascinates me. So, so back to like, there's a good illustration to look at with eating. Because it's so common and also your population that you like treating. Yeah, so I, for me, going back to the definition, I don't really care whether that patient or the doctor wants to call it an addiction or not. The only people that should be so concerned about what to call it are, you know, insurance companies need to decide how diagnoses classify because they need to know whether they should or shouldn't reimburse for something. It's useful in research because we need to know When we're doing a study on a new, you know, GLP one we need to know what we're talking about when we say, you know, does it help food addiction? So we have to define it and be able to diagnose it for research, but on an individual basis, Who cares, If you know you eat to escape bad feelings, then just call it that. You don't need to define it, actually. You can just restate that very plainly, because that's the actual thing operating, you know, is that you're eating to escape bad feelings. And remember, even including boredom. So if that's what's happening, just say that. why try to decide whether that's an addiction or not? it's going to take you down a wrong framework.
Kerry:Yeah. No, I agree that it really doesn't matter. I think for, for me, sometimes if I'm counseling patients going back to like the eating thing It helps me to think whether they can include things, or if it's going to be a problem if they include it. And I know you have like a we talk about the word abstinence, right? And, I want to get your opinion and what you think about that. If it's a myth or understanding, or if you use that word, if there's an overemphasis on it or anything like that, because, you know, from these other people that I was talking about that talk about sugar addiction and things like that, they have to be abstinent, In order to not have those feelings, I'll come back. So I guess for me helping realize if the patient is quote addicted to sugar, Then I could say, okay, well, Maybe I need someone like you, first of all, but one, maybe they need to not include it versus, okay, you can include it here's a little bit every now and then, you know what I mean? So like from, from from my perspective, I don't know what to be counseling or how to engage the conversation to go forward to help them the best way without kind of labeling it. Tell me about that.
Daniel:Yeah, well, I'd still push a little on, you know, I don't know that we need to label Let's just pick our, literally closet eater just as our example that we're playing with here for sake of illustration. I, you know, I'd still push on, I don't know that we need to classify it as addiction or not, to still say if you're eating yourself silly at night once everyone's gone upstairs in the pantry because you've had a bad day, or you hate your boss, or you hate your life, or whatever or you don't have people to talk to, you know, whatever that feeling is, just call it that. You can still decide based on just simply stating that you're eating to get through your feelings. You can still, out of that, try to come up with a thoughtful plan for whether you need to be abstinent from that. Or not, right? Like it doesn't need to have been called addiction to then all of a sudden realize that, oh, oh, well, if this is an addiction, then I need sobriety from it. You know, we should still be able to navigate that out of the plain fact that we're eating ourselves into oblivion to escape the feeling. but yeah, I mean, at the term, you know, I can straw man my own case here and say, like, there are reasons that it's good to call some something an addiction. If someone is failing to appreciate how big a deal something is, or that it's destructive, sometimes that terminology can kind of shake them straight and say, oh, oh, whoa. Yeah. If I think of this eating like an addiction. Yeah, then I'll take it more seriously, and I need to frame it that way. Yeah, there's some people who might benefit from being able to take it more seriously. But even then, you know, I would still make the case that, you know, you ought to be able to take it seriously, just based on that plain fact that, you know, if you don't know how to manage your feelings another way, or you've been eating so much that now you have, like, real medical issues from that that's a serious issue, whatever you call it.
Kerry:Have you heard of the Yale food addiction scale? I'm sure
Daniel:Yeah.
Kerry:Do you use that or no?
Daniel:Personally I don't, I think that can be an okay thing to use as a, as a measure. You know, like scales are good when we're comparing to ourselves. So, you know, to see if we're progressing in a treatment or just kind of where we stand that objective data can be useful. So, I actually don't have a strong opinion either way. I would say it's just kind of. It needs to be used in the right way. so back to the example of that. If that patient that eats in the closet at night wants to use it to see how they're progressing, thumbs up. If they want to do that just to have an idea of where they stand, even at the outset, like on initial assessment, thumbs up. But if you're using it to decide if it's a problem or not, Thumbs down. Now, if you know it's a problem, it's a problem, it's like when we order as doctors, we order labs and we should know when we're ordering a lab. Don't just order labs willy nilly. You have to know if I ordered this lab, why did I order it? And what am I going to do based on a positive or negative result? So same thing with that. You know, I, I don't necessarily endorse just using it, you know, willy nilly, but if it's, if you know what you're going to do with it in that patient and why then that's useful.
Kerry:Interesting. Yeah. I figured I'd bring that up just to see what you would say. You really focus on like self recovery is kind of a revolutionary approach. Can you tell us about The program and everything that I guess encompasses that how is it different really.
Daniel:Yeah, well, it is built on the definition that I shared out of that comes a model where we break down in the program everything from the origins and where it starts to how to handle them very natural cravings that come up because when we feel that we want to get out of that and then it breaks down also, that next step of when we actually partake in the thing and how to interrupt and think about that. And then there's the last phase. Dealing with that. We obviously are doing whatever we're doing because it brings us to some pleasurable state, but I frame that as a false pleasure. The program breaks all those down and explores everything you need to in each of those areas. And plus it teaches then, then what is a healthy life? What is a healthy way of handling myself? Because people with addiction tend to not, they innocently don't even know, okay, what am I trying to do if not feel better? so it provides answers that are very meaningful. And so the program it goes through not only those different aspects of how addiction unfolds on a macro level, but also even minute to minute level of how that really progresses in someone psychologically and emotionally. it's doing that via different therapeutic modalities. And so there's like, most people have heard of CBT, cognitive behavioral therapy. There's also cognitive processing therapy. My style tends to be psychodynamic. And so there's a lot of psychodynamic style in there. There's behavioral approaches, like behavioral activation there's contingency management. So there's a lot of wonderful evidence we already have on how to approach addiction. And I put all of those, I weave them seamlessly into those different aspects of addiction. So if you go through the program, you know, then that you're accessing all of the proven and helpful strategies for addiction. So that's the main thing that it does, but it does it in a very natural progression. So it starts with some basic. Myth busting and then goes more and more and all the way down to very, very deep psychological and philosophical concepts about life. So it really takes you on a full journey and that's, that's what it provides. People are just looking for just an accountability person that's just going to give them advice on, you know, go to the gym and change these friends, take these people out of your phone. It doesn't do that. I'm much more interested in helping people really discover how they wound up where they are and make sense of the illogic, of doing something self destructive. So that, so it's entirely geared much like I do with my own practice. It's geared to really help that person know how they're operating, give them some mastery over that and come away with the skills needed not only to get over that, but people go through the program and realize all the things that they're doing in general in life that they can clean up. So, generally they're improving other underlying mental health issues. They're improving sleep. They're improving what they want to do with themselves, how they spend their time, you know, all kinds of other things. So that's, what I aim to do
Kerry:Yeah, I mean it sounds really all encompassing how would you say it's different than the traditional like 12 step methods.
Daniel:12 step has a lot of things right to it You know it's it's powerful and that you can show up in really any even small town and there's people that are gonna immediately get you and the power of just having some community And then, you know, without us, that's because that's another discussion going through the steps, but the most steps, I think, make decent sense. There's some steps that I very, very commonly see patients actually take steps back because of. And so they don't necessarily all make a good sense coming from a clinical perspective or even a philosophical one. So it is, it's just different altogether, although, you know, with 12 steps, of course, some of those are things I highly endorse and those would be concepts that should be a part of any treatment. In my program, I start from what we call first principles thinking, which means, you know, there's, there's no, I don't ask people to come in with any notions or preconceptions. At all. I don't expect that people could use their spirituality or other assumptions to get better. We, we go at it from the ground up. And so I try to make cases in wonderful, logical fashion for how addiction works and how they came to it, and then how they can get out and so at every step of the way, you're not ever expected to accept any dogma or other people's conclusions. I help people to arrive at their own, and you can do that through a Socratic method. So I bring a lot of, philosophical Socratic method to the program, as any good therapist should as well. so yeah, Twelve Step is more prescriptive, you know, where there's steps to follow, you do these, if you don't do them, you're not going to do well. And that's putting it lightly, you know, sometimes you're outright kicked out or shunned and all sorts of things, but we don't have to get into that. But yeah, my program there's not even anything to, to wrestle with or accept because it's all, I only lay cases out that just make perfect sense.
Kerry:So there's like I think a lot of the 12 step things have like a spiritual component or religious component and you're saying this doesn't have to include that you do more of the you said right. Mm
Daniel:Yeah. And part of that, you know, it can get spiritual, and there's a part towards the end of the program, where I help tee that up for people. But that's still secular, you know, we can still be extremely spiritual and, you know, kind of woo woo, but in a secular fashion where you're not accepting dogma or old tradition, you're doing it via your own experiences and your own questions about how to handle difficult situations. Life dilemmas. And so I like people to arrive at those and it can still get highly spiritual and connected and then people can even use their own religion that they've been using their whole life or even coming to there's, there's nothing I ever teach or say that would be contradictory with using religion to improve or do really well in life and turn to for values and so on. So it's completely complimentary. with religion and spirituality, and in fact encourages a deeper look at your connection to the world. But that's, that's up to the person going through it, you know, how, how to do that. But I try to lay out the ingredients, you could say.
Kerry:You mentioned some myths and stuff that you kind of do at the beginning, can you shed some light on what you're referring to or what some of the myths that you mentioned.
Daniel:There's several one of the more important ones is that it's genetic. And so most, people who call themselves scientists and researchers say that it's 50 percent genetic, life experience, so, you know, nature, nurture and that that's based on very weak or bad or overturned studies. So you know, layout and in the program, I actually put links to everything that I say, there's citations beneath every single lesson. And so people can always go check out for themselves, but yeah, I mean, at best, addiction is like 10 percent genetic, but even if you thought that, you know, I help people try and think, well, we have genes for you know, certain, like, like eye color, right? But we don't have genes to determine our choices and behaviors. So there's genes that help us, say, process alcohol faster or slower. that actually makes no prediction on whether you're going to be addicted or not. so some people conflate and confuse some genetic components of addiction or drinking or Enzymes that process opiates or things with the behavior and the psychology of the choice. So there's actually no correlation there. so dispelling that is very important to me up front in the program because if you believe it's genetic, then you might just believe you're screwed.
Kerry:Mm
Daniel:you know, if both your parents drank themselves silly and Gramps also did, well, way more likely than that it's genetic is that there's something being transferred emotionally and psychologically in the family. So that's what I like people to pay attention to. You know, there's several others. So another one would be that you're just like born with an addiction brain. same kind of ideas as genes, but that there's like some kind of wiring and I like to explain that we're all wired for addiction. There's no addict brain and then there's a separate brain regular brain. There's a lot of good studies to show that the imaging that led people to to conclude that were very very bad conclusions to make because there are differences in the imaging. Like, if you were, you know, completely clean and sober, and I was a heavy addict, our brains would image differently. But the question isn't would they image differently. The question is, was I born with a different kind of brain that like predetermined that I'd be an addict. And the science is already in on that. The answer is no. so it's more that there's changes in the brain that follow, but that doesn't explain how it started. So it's not like we're born with an addict brain. Addiction is simply a circuit that any of us use to know what feels good and better. Now that's hijacked in today's society, but, you know, animals need a way to know that this food is good, right? So it tastes good. It's a good calorie dense thing that I should eat. It's Or it feels good to construct a good burrow or something where I'm safe, and this feels cozy and warm and nice, or it feels so nice to be cuddled up next to someone, and that's safe and protective, so we have feelings that get generated. Those feelings are there to confirm for us that we're on the right track. So that's all addiction is. You know, it's just, it goes, it goes wrong when you have too easy and convenient access to things. It'll kill you. but yeah, I mean, there's that circuit is totally alive in every single one of us,
Kerry:Yeah, I mean I think what you're referring to is like functional MRI right and imaging the brains and things like that and like I think we're saying before being on here is just like, you know, the, the brains light up in certain ways that we can see that the pattern is I guess more ingrained in somebody with that and with different substances, what happens in the brain?
Daniel:And that's where I think a lot of addiction research gets confused as yes, there is this dopamine, you know, kind of, bad wiring. And yes, you can see it on imaging, but that's after the fact. It does not explain what we need to answer, which is, well, but why to begin with? And there are big differences. someone who's going to go on to have an addiction their first experience with the substance that takes them to another place is very different from someone that will never have an addiction. their felt experience with that, is really different. And that's not you know, based on wiring or genes that that's based on all kinds of things that have happened that set that up to be the case that have to do with life experiences.
Kerry:Are there some common habits or mindsets that people struggle with in recovery?
Daniel:Tons. Yeah. And that's actually what the program addresses is, you know, Of course, because you say, well, how do you know what that person needs to get better? Aren't we all different? You know, you have one silver spoon, you know, addict and the other ones like homeless and you know, aren't they very different? Yeah, but there's common themes that occur and I would never claim out of the few hundred lessons that are in the program. That every lesson is going to totally hit home. You know, there's some that are like, Oh, well, that's interesting. And then the other one, you know, we'll, we'll just break it down and make you cry and make you, sit in something that's all too true. and so, yeah, there's, you know, there's a lot of themes. There's an addiction, you know, a lot of shame, a lot of not belonging. And that lack of belonging can either be logistical, like, like you look around and you like don't have that many friends, but it can also mean, no, you got, you know, friends at work, got friends, you know, in personal life, but, but you just don't feel like you're either accepted or like you fit in. So, so lack of belonging an impulse control problem. People with a heroin addiction will typically also struggle, like if they have candy sitting next to them or, or porn or other things. So, so the rate of another addiction. Is extremely high once you know there's one and the reason is not because their brains so screwed But there's a style that they have so so impulsivity is almost always a problem, attentional issues. People pleasing is a very common one. Out of that lack of acceptance or lack of belonging people generally adapt by trying to make people like them and compensate, compensate for it in other ways. Very common to have cycles, right, where we, where we do these things and then we don't end up getting where we want. And then especially, you know, when addiction is, is further progressed. And so then there's the shame, and then out of that, then there's often deceit and lying, And then you can imagine where that goes, which is, you know, now more shame, but also now you get to be identified in your system, generally a family, but could be a friend group as the addict who's lying and just, you know, really off the black sheep. So there's a lot of black sheep kinds of themes in addiction. So yeah, you know, the list goes on and, and those, Always have to be addressed. You know, like all of them, all of those need to be addressed to fully treat addiction.
Kerry:Is there a certain who is it for? Right. Your program and who is it not for
Daniel:so I think less about like demographic and more about the style or kind of readiness of someone. So it is not for someone that wants their handheld and it's not for someone that just wants kind of big brother rules. Like if you want that and you want the accountability of someone, you know, texting and calling you every day and kind of micromanaging you like 12 steps away, better for that. And don't, don't do self recovery. Also, you know, if you need, like, in person detox. So, so this program is all on demand and access, you know, from anywhere. Because it's, it's online. So so it's not for people that need like a high level of medical detox not to say this couldn't complement it. There's some places that use this while their patients are in detox, but it should not be used, you know, standalone if you really need, like, a lot of medical help right away. But yeah, and so then who it's for would be people who really are introspective or curious or want to learn or have generally just good questions that have not been answered. They're extremely excited and and find this process very fulfilling and rewarding to go through because they learned so much about themselves. So, so people who want to learn about themselves do do extremely well at the program. Interestingly, and this is true even outside of self recovery. It's just in general with programs even if you're reluctant, but You start a program, generally people will, will find something to gain from it. So, so it doesn't have to be that someone already decides in advance that it's like totally the program for them. so that's, in a nutshell, I think people who are curious, it's best suited for. But demographics doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, I do have homeless, you know, single overwhelmed mothers or people just totally poor, you know, take it because it's just way, way cheaper than anything else they can do. And it's accessible and they can do it in the evenings or weekends and all that. But there's also doctors, lawyers and politicians and people like that that take it because they either want the total privacy, where it's not even on their medical record or because of the convenience. so people take advantage of the way the program's delivered in, in very different ways.
Kerry:how do you know, do you take a survey of. What they who they are, or
Daniel:Yeah, so not, like, if you go to sign up, there's no survey, and I don't have eyes on that. that was done through a sampling. So, so there was a period and some people, you know, where I could collect that information. But yeah, no, I don't yeah, there's no survey. And that's part of the point. You know, it's, it's fully private. The only thing you have to share is a username and, and email. It's just like signing up, you know, for, any kind of discreet app, you know, and you can use a junk email and that's fine. And then you enter card information, but you can even do that through PayPal or, through another kind of intermediary. So, so it can be, you know, very private and no one needs to know that you, you've accessed it.
Kerry:Great. My last question is, do you have any success stories or transformations that kind of stand out to you using your program?
Daniel:Ooh, yeah, I mean, all, all the time, I trying to think of a more recent one yeah, I mean, there's, there's a guy who took it, he's he, mostly meth, and he had been through lots of treatments, different varieties of interventions and things. And at no point in there did it ever click for him that his past experiences led to that. He just viewed it as, I just love meth. And he would pair meth with sex as well. You know, that's what he left it out and no one ever took him down that any further. And yeah, he went through the program and he reached out and it's just like ecstatic that it made sense to him finally, not just a vague notion that, oh, okay, probably like if some stuff happened when I was young, like that probably affects me. No, he like really, really pieced it together and he's. Like, he's doing exceedingly well now, and with that, you know, he's changed careers. He went and communicated a lot of things he needed to communicate with close people in his life, and it's just completely different now, So that's the kind of thing that does, right? It's not just dropping a habit. You really change everything about you.
Kerry:I'm sorry. Did you say he is addicted to math? Math.
Daniel:like methamphetamine. Yeah.
Kerry:not hear meth. I heard math. And I'm like, how is this related? But okay. Thank you.
Daniel:That's funny.
Kerry:I will relisten to that. That is so funny. Okay. So. Now that I'm clear on what that was, that's a, that's a very amazing story. Other than the map. Oh my goodness.
Daniel:The seventh grader just wouldn't stop with the math. Okay.
Kerry:I need to get my hearing checked. Anyway. Okay. So tell me, tell people how can they find your program or you, if they want to work with you or follow you?
Daniel:That's what I like is all you have to do is go to selfrecovery. org And, just a button, a click and get in there. You can sign up in literally a minute. So, that's how to find the program. I'm not real big on social media, so I, I apologize. I don't even know all the handles. I'll, I'll send them to you to include in the notes. But yeah, I apologize to everyone. I'm, I'm not so active on there. But yeah, at self recovery dot org. And there's also a money back guarantee on the program as well. That's how much I just want people to realize there's better ways to do everything and just get in there and see for yourself. And so there's that. And for my private practice, if you're in Texas and interested, it's at Hochman health. com. So it's H O C H M a N health.
Kerry:Awesome. Well, thank you so much for your expertise and being a guest today and telling us everything about your program and addiction. And I feel like I learned a lot, so I'm sure everybody else did too.
Daniel:Yeah, I really appreciate you having me, the attention to addiction and the, the good questions. Yeah. Thanks.
Kerry:Yeah. Thanks everybody for listening and tune in next week.
