Transcription
This is a great comment. If you have an addiction, you are, and I say this as someone who's struggled with addiction, you're like a little bit more screwed for the rest of your life.
Understanding what an addiction is leads to depression. It's not just addiction. So there's this great trial called the Insight trial where they were looking at people who had like bad diagnoses, things like ALS, Lou Gehrig's disease. That's what Stephen Hawking had, you know, or like these other like Parkinson's and stuff like that. So these are like diagnoses that are bad for you and what they discovered is the smarter someone is, the more insight they have, the more depressed they become.
That is correct. That's what leads to depression. And that's why our job is to work through that depression on the other side. But like this is so subtle, but it is, it's really. It's like, oh yeah, I have this addiction and if I realize that I have to resist it every day for the rest of my life, then I'm depressed and it's like, yes. And does that suck? Is that fair? No. Does that make you even more depressed when I say yes, you are correct. Once you realize what an addiction truly is, you will be more depressed. And here I am telling you that and then you're like, oh my god, then I'm even more depressed. Right? Cuz this guy is saying depression is inevitable.
But here's the thing, all of these problems can be worked through. And the biggest mistake that we make is that we think our life should be what we envision other people's lives to be. Other people don't struggle with addiction. They don't struggle with depression. Other people out there and they're having a happy life. They get to do things freely and sometimes the really thing is that's true. This is my experience as a psychiatrist, not everyone has an equally crappy life and things are drastically unfair. The question is what are you going to do about it?