The Role of Connection in Overcoming Addiction

Connection is the antidote to addiction, as isolation breeds emptiness and dependence.

### The Root of Addiction: Isolation and Connection
* 💊 The speaker argues that the root of addiction is **isolation**, and the antidote is **connection**, not just in neuroscience but in human relationships.
* 🧠 The example of the rat experiment highlights that **addiction depends on the environment and the presence of other rats**.
* 👨 The speaker, a psychiatrist, emphasizes that in working with addiction patients, there is often a **deep sense of emptiness and lack of connection** in their lives.
* 👫 The solution to addiction is seen historically in programs like Alcoholics Anonymous, which focus on **community and connection** rather than neuroscience or therapy.
* 🚹 Men are highlighted as a particularly vulnerable group to addiction due to **societal factors leading to isolation and lack of connection**.
* 🤗 The speaker suggests a simple solution to this problem: "**hug a man**," as a way to offer kindness and connection to those who may be starved for it.
* 🤔 The text also delves into the complex societal norms that prevent men from connecting with each other, such as the "**no homo**" phrase and the fear of being perceived as **inappropriate or predatory**.
* 🙋 The speaker also addresses the responsibility of men to **not overburden those who offer kindness**, suggesting techniques to **moderate feelings and express gratitude without creating undue expectations**.

so many men out there are starved for any kind of attention, any kind of affection, any kind of human contact. And it's like, if you feed a cat, the cat will come back. If you're kind to a man, the man will come back just like an animal. Because we don't have love, we don't have friendship, we don't have touch, we don't have respect, we don't have kindness, we don't have compassion. So anytime someone gives us just a little bit of kindness and compassion, we latch on to them. Today we're going to talk about the root of addiction, and there's been an explosion of neuroscience and psychiatric research all on addictions. We're seeing a rise in behavioral addictions like video game addiction, pornography addiction, and we're also seeing an increase in substance use disorders like alcoholism, and especially things like marijuana use. We're breeding strains of marijuana that are higher potency in THC and therefore appear to have more addictive effects. But even though there's all of this research in

all these neuroscience circuits and sort of advanced things about neurotransmitters and receptors. It turns out that the root of addiction is far simpler than that. The root of addiction is isolation, and the antidote to addiction is actually connection. So, there's a great TED talk about this where someone talks about this experiment where there's a rat who's in this cage, and in the cage they can have some cocaine. So, they press a lever, and they get some cocaine. And what we sort of find is that when they're stuck in this cage and then there's this cocaine kind of sitting in front of them, what they end up doing is using so much cocaine that they'll induce a heart attack and die. Boom, cocaine is addictive. But if you look at more clear research, a little bit research that's a little bit more well-crafted, what we begin to realize is that the dependency of the rat on the cocaine depends on the rat's environment, depends on the other kinds of stimulation the rat has, and

most importantly, depends on the presence of other rats. Two of the biggest problems I see in our community are that people have fallen behind in life or they're burnt out and looking to make a career pivot. And we offer a lot of great advice about what to do in your mind or how to meditate your anxiety away, but the practical matter of how to actually catch up or make a change still remains, and that's where Triple 10 comes in. Triple 10 is an online educational platform that offers various curricula through a boot camp format, and they have some of the best outcomes in the industry. 87% of their graduates have a job within 6 months of graduating, and this is unheard of. Triple 10 actually offers a refund if you're not able to find a job, so you can just control Z that tuition away, which is insane in this day and age, but that's how much they believe in their curriculum, and that's how good their outcomes are. Feeling frustrated at work can take a toll on your body and mind. Research

shows that finding the right job that fits you can significantly enhance your overall satisfaction with life. So, if y'all are actually interested in making a career change instead of thinking about making a career change, they offer free consultations where you can actually speak to a human being to see if this is the right fit for you. Use the link in the description below to get 30% off, valid on all of their programs. Now, what I've seen as a psychiatrist working primarily in addiction is anytime I'm working with someone with an addiction. Sure, there's neurotransmitter stuff going on, there's trauma stuff going on, there's brain circuitry stuff going on, but undoubtedly in these lives of the people who are struggling with these addictions, there's something empty and missing. There's a lack of motivation, there's a lack of purpose, most often there's a lack of connection, and the more that I work with these people, the more that I realize that the lack of motivation and purpose is also due to a lack of connection. So, when I work with

patients, for example, that have dealt with addictions even on their own. And I ask them, Oh, you've been drinking alcohol for 15 years. How were you able to stop? The answers are things like, Well, I had a 2-year-old kid, and I realized one day that enough was enough, and I had to stop drinking because I have a 2-year-old now, and I can't be doing that. I can't have a dad who's hungover. I can't be drunk when they're sort of, you know, wanting to play with me and things like that. This was unacceptable. So, they were able to attain sobriety on their own without clinical help. I was meeting with them for other reasons, but still, if you tunnel down into what is driving this, it is a relationship with another human being. And if we look at sort of what motivates us, what gives us purpose in life, purpose is rarely found in isolation. So, you could argue that my purpose is to help this generation with their mental health. That's still still

about other people. There are people whose purpose it is in life to develop renewable energy, and what's that for? That's for the benefit of humanity. So, even a lot of our motivation, our purpose, you know, we'll get particular jobs to make our spouses happy. We want to make sacrifices for the people that we love. And so, in the absence of these connections, we are empty inside. And when we are empty inside, addiction comes in and fills the gap. Addictions give us a reason to wake up in the morning. Addictions give us a reason to look forward to the weekend. Addictions take literally the numbness and emptiness that we feel and fill it with some kind of joy. And so, the research predominantly states that the solution to addiction is actually connection. And we've seen that historically because what is the historically most effective route for people who are addicted to a substance to become sober? It's something called Alcoholics Anonymous. And what is Alcoholics Anonymous about, right? What do they actually do? Do they teach people

principles of Neuroscience. Do they do cognitive behavioral therapy? No, none of those things. It's about connection. We show up every week together, and we just share stories about our struggle. We don't even try to help each other out. We don't give each other answers. We don't give each other advice. We just share our experiences. It's about having a sponsor, someone you can call 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. They're not even a trained mental health professional, but they are available for you to form a connection. Sponsors have done more good in this world than probably any other group out there. And so, we see that connection that is fostered through community support, through things like sponsors, people who are available to you when you are struggling, has good outcomes when it comes to addiction. And that's because the human mind is the only organ of the body that requires things outside of itself to be healthy, right? In order for my heart health, I have to exercise, and I have to eat right. In order for my gut health, I can take

prob probiotics. I can eat kimchi. I can eat right. I can make sure that I poop in the appropriate squatting position. There are all kinds of things that I can do to help my muscles, help my bones, help my organs. But the mind is the only organ that you can't fix on your own because the mind requires human contact. And so if we sort of say, Okay, connection is the antidote to addiction, and that isolation and emptiness are the roots of addiction, then it would follow that if there is a vulnerable population to isolation and the lack of connection, that this population would be more prone to addiction. And that's exactly what we see. So men are more likely, three to four times more likely to develop an addiction than women. And if we sort of look at the roots of what men really struggle with today, it's about isolation and a lack of connection. So we even see large-scale demographic and epidemiologic data to support this idea that if one group struggles to connect, and we'll talk about why that is in a

second that this group is more vulnerable to addiction, and that's exactly what we see. Now, let's talk for a second about why men are more likely to get addicted. So, this was something that I shared publicly. I talked a little bit about how men struggle with isolation and loneliness. And by the way, this problem is changing very quickly. The Surgeon General of the United States recently released a report on isolation and loneliness, where it seems like women actually feel more isolated and lonely in today's society than men do. And I think what we're going to see as a consequence of that is in 5 to 10 years, the rates of addiction between men and women are going to even out. But going back to why are men struggling to have connection. So, I did something silly, which is I talked about this on a podcast. And I said part of the problem that men really face is that they struggle with isolation and connection because men are faced in a society today where there are historically and even today, there are

predatory men and one out of three women has been sexually assaulted. And I want y'all to really think about this for a second, how large this number is. So if we take our standard family of Grandmother, mother, daughter, one of one person in that nuclear family has been sexually assaulted. So this isn't like, Oh, my second cousin has been sexually assaulted, Oh, this one girl I knew got sexually assaulted. This is literally statistically within just about every household in the world and in the United States. Chances are one person has been sexually assaulted. But between your grandma, your mom, and if you're a girl, you, one of y'all has been sexually assaulted. If you've got two sisters, chances are one of the three y'all will get sexually assaulted in your lifetime. So this is an incredibly common problem. So what ends up happening is that women are afraid of men. And one of the problems that I sort of emphasized is that, like, I think the problem in the world today is that men can't fix their

own loneliness, right? So, this is the problem: loneliness is the one thing that I can't develop a protocol to fix. Like, I can't take more testosterone or meditate more or do more yoga or hit the gym more. There's nothing I can do to fix my own loneliness. Loneliness is something that someone else has to do for you. Someone else has to extend a kind hand to you. Now, I mentioned this, and then something very interesting happened. So, I heard something on a podcast that shifted my reality. Some men go months without being hugged, the guest said. Men can't solve loneliness, touch starvation, or isolation on their own. Unless everyone who's listening to this goes out and hugs a man, no one will. The second I heard this, I kid you not, I decided to hug as many people as possible at the weekly event I host, especially men I feel subtle resistance towards when I meet them for the first time. You know that flickering moment when your gut whispers, I don't want to hug this person, and you shake

your hand, their hand instead, or avoid contact entirely. I push past that moment of resistance and try to greet them like a good friend. But if I have, because if I have such an open heart and spirit, and even if I don't want to hug this person who will, I'll never know if I'm making a difference with this small seconds-long gesture. But I can rest easier knowing that the men in my space don't go months without a hug, which seriously made me tear up when I first heard it. We talk a lot about the loneliness crisis, so what if we all decide to play a small role in making small seconds-long gestures towards a kinder and more connected world? It really can be as simple as hugging people more freely. So, this person started hugging people. So, now we get to the second response, right? So, especially men, I feel subtle resistance towards when I meet them for the first time. You know that flickering moment when your gut whispers, I don't want to hug this person. You shake your

hand avoid contact grooming. Let women have boundaries, right? So, here is a human being who said, Oh my goodness, there are lonely people in the world. Let me try to do a small kindness. And like the second tweet is like accusing of grooming, right? So, I'mma hug the homies a little more often now. Awesome. I think you should do that. Please do. If one person hugs men more often because of this tweet, we win. I completely agree. Okay, I have had the exact attitude as you, but I learned the hard way that you have to be very careful about becoming someone's emotional crutch. Fair enough, right? There was a survey of prisoners that the number one thing they said they missed the most was simply being hugged. I think many kids 8 to 16 don't get touched much and leads to many problems. I completely agree. Also, this is why dogs are really good to live with, and they demand touching. They also increase lifespan and improve mental health outcomes. Okay, right. I still feel the couple hugs I had in high school. The last hug I had was a

fling a couple of years ago, and before that, it was a dude I used to work with back in 2020. When we knew we'd never work with each other again, didn't realize hugging was a casual thing people just did with each other until I was 22. Plus, that's what 40K hours of gaming and internet addiction since 10 does to you, okay? You know this person goes out there and says, I'm going to try to start hugging people because people need hugs, and the internet, like, I didn't share most of the negative comments, but at the very beginning, people are like, Wow, this is so great. Thank you for doing this. You know, I haven't had a hug since 2020. And then people start coming out of the woodwork, right? They're like, Oh my God, you're ignoring your instincts like that's grooming. So people will start saying, Oh, like, it's not your responsibility. Like, why can't men hug each other? We'll get to that in a second.

Right, so it's their problem. Men have this problem; it's their problem. They should deal with it. It's not our responsibility. Women have been made responsible for men's problems for long enough, and by the way, that's a fair argument. These people are not wrong, right? Let's be subtle, let's be nuanced, let's be critical thinkers. So, I loved the response that this person had to the person who was like, This is going to result in grooming. So, this is so beautiful, right? So, Hi, Serena. Thank you for sharing your respect, perspective. To be clear, I do not want anyone, especially women, to ignore their intuition or interact with people who feel unsafe. I do not want anyone to hug, touch, or even talk to strangers who feel unsafe. I do not hug random strangers and men who feel unsafe. Now, this is the truly brilliant part. What I didn't explain thoroughly because this is Twitter, because my tweets typically go to a smaller audience who is familiar with my work in my weekly event, a community walk for meaningful.

conversations is that I'm not overriding my intuitive voice in these scenarios. The men I'm hugging at my event do not feel unsafe to me but are rather just socially awkward and/or anxious while attending the event for the first time. I've noticed, and this is brilliant neuroscience by the way, I've noticed that when someone new shows up at my event with heavy social awkwardness, men and women but especially men, that energy boomerangs to me. And despite me being very friendly by nature, I hold off on hugging or handshaking them. My intuitive voice does not say danger, it says, Oh geez, this is really awkward, and I'd rather not encourage them to come back by being welcoming, so I withhold the shake or the hug. Okay, to be honest, my behavior here makes me really sad because I've seen after hosting 104 events that socially awkward people are almost always good people with good hearts. They don't realize how they're coming across and they consistently get ignored or dismissed. This is what compassion is, ladies and

gentlemen and everything in between. I don't want to treat them differently because they're awkward. The podcast episode that inspired my tweet made me realize my bias months ago, blah blah blah, especially men, because what I learned in the podcast. But I also push past that same awkward resistance with women. Now we're going to talk about this, okay? So like there's one more response. I know I'm just like reading Twitter stuff, but like this is honestly like this is what happens. I think this is what we really need to understand. At first, people said I'm going to hug the homies more and retweeted with gratitude, and then negative replies poured in. After one person with a large following quote tweeted me in all caps and said grooming. After that one tweet, the insults began. You're welcome to read them. They say I have no survival instincts and I'm foolish for ignoring my intuition and that I will be violated for hugging men right at the weekly walk. I host at 8:00 a.m. surrounded by 50

plus book good people and that I a pick me who's doing emotional labor for hugging men because they can just hug each other instead. To be honest with you, I wrote this tweet before I went to bed, and then this is what I really want you all to pay attention to. There are a lot of things that I could dive into because it's a case study in how we all project our own emotions and experiences onto other people's words, but I'm going to focus on comments that accused me of putting women in danger for suggesting that they should hug stranger men. So, this is really important. The most interesting thing about this, I never said it. Reread my tweet. I never once said that women or suggested that women should hug stranger men. I also never said the words hug stranger men. Yet, because I am a woman who wrote about my personal decision to, and this is a direct quote from the Tweet, hug as many people as possible at my weekly Community event, people invented the claim and then started in

insulting me for it. This person never said, Hey, it is our responsibility as women to hug men. This person never said, Hey, you should ignore all of the danger signals and put yourself in danger. This person never actually said any of those things, but this is how we respond to the situation. The person said, Hey, I've realized there's loneliness going on. I'm going to try to hug as many people as possible. This person also examined their intuition, and this is something I'll say as a psychiatrist, so you should trust your intuition. But is intuition logical correctness by definition? No. Intuition is the thing that human beings get wrong the most, right? Because it is not critical thinking; it is an instinctive response. And the more that you've been traumatized, if you've been abused, your intuition is that other people are better than you. Your intuition is that you're in danger all the time. Your intuition is that you can't trust other people. If you've been cheated on, your intuition is that the

next person will cheat on you, so it's not that intuition should not be taken seriously, but intuition literally in my day job as a psychiatrist. The thing that I work on the most with my patients is to critically examine their intuition, and when this person critically examines their intuition, what they discover is a really interesting principle, which is when someone shows up and is socially awkward. The more social you are, the more fine-tuned your empathic circuitry is. The more fine-tuned your empathic circuitry is, the more you share their awkwardness, right? So, if I have a socially awkward person with another socially awkward person, this actually works out. This is why we have Magic: The Gathering tournaments that are very successful because no one [__] is socially aware, right? So, no insult to the Magic: The Gathering community. I'm more talking about myself when I participated in them, okay? But the problem is that if you're socially awkward and you're socially inept, you can't read other

people's signals. If you're socially adept, you can read other people's signals, and you feel what other people feel, right? You share their sadness, you share their joy, and you share their social awkwardness. So when someone shows up and feels socially awkward, you receive that socially awkwardness. You start to feel like, Oh my God, this is scary, and you push them away, and they push you away, and this is what happens. This person did the brilliant and compassionate thing to examine their instinct and think about it critically instead of projecting all of these things onto it. And as a result, they've started hugging more people. I sincerely hope they stay safe. Now, a lot of people out there have said, Oh, like, this isn't your responsibility as a woman. Fair enough, right? So I'd say it is a human being's responsibility to help human beings. Let's remove gender from the equation, and there's a great example of this right now. Right now in the United States, there's a lot of restriction on women's reproductive rights. This is not

a women's issue, right? So, organizations like the American Medical Association are like, Hey, this is bad. This is not a... I mean, it affects women, but I view this as a human issue. Human beings should have reproductive rights, right? So, we, all of the male doctors, all of the female doctors, everyone should fight for this safety for all human beings, even though it predominantly affects one gender, right? That's how it should work. We should all be helping each other instead of having each gender solve their problems in isolation. That's how it works, right? So, when we liberated the slaves in the United States, a lot of white people helped out, right? We went to war for that. When there were women's rights and civil rights, like, we had a lot of white people, we had a lot of men, like, who were helping out. That's what it takes when we want progress in society. We cannot place the burden of progress just on one demographic. The whole point is we should all be helping each other out. Now, we still have to think critically about some of these

negative responses, and let's dive into them and think about them a little bit more, right? So, I think it's completely reasonable. I've worked with plenty of patients who have been sexually assaulted, things harassed, things like that. So, they are skeptical about men. Fair enough. There's this whole like man versus bear thing in the forest, and like we like this is a fair way to look at the world. I think it's not going to work if someone tries to be kind and compassionate and safe and examine themselves and extend a helping hand when the rest of the internet is like screw you, stop what you're doing, right? So, that is bad. So, when one person is trying to make a positive change in the world, I think we should do our best to try to support that person. Now, there's one really great argument here, which is like why don't men hug each other, right? And so, people would, you know, there's that one statistic, I don't know if it's true or not, but that if you look

back and what do prisoners miss the most? It's hugs. But they can hug each other; there's a bunch of prisoners there. Why don't men hug each other? Very simple: because we've been taught not to. We've been conditioned; we've been punished, right? And this may sound so crazy, but we have this phrase. If you're a dude, you know the phrase: it's no homo. Why do we have this phrase? Why do we need to say, isn't it clear when I hug you that this is not a homosexual activity? We're not playing swords; it's not like we're naked and kissing and engaging in sexual relations. I'm hugging you; that's all I'm doing. All of our clothes are on, and yet we say no homo when a boy touches another boy. When I was growing up, if you hug or you kiss, you get made fun of, you get bullied, you get punished. Even teachers and adults will tell you that's not appropriate, even if you have like my dad, right? So, I remember when I was 18.

old 18 years old. I got really sick, and my dad held me because I had a fever, and we were in a place where there were no blankets, so he held me. I got held by my dad when I was 18 years old. I can't, I couldn't remember the last time he held me, literally. I have one memory of my dad holding me, and it was when I was 18 years old. So, this is the way that we've been conditioned. We've been taught not to touch each other. We've been punished for touching each other. And the worst cases of this that I've ever seen are actually male teachers. So, male teachers, you know, like sometimes you have a kid that wants to cry, and when they cry, your instinct when there is a crying child is to hug them, unless you're a man. If I'm a 42-year-old man at a playground, and I hug someone else's child, especially a boy, no, no, no, no, no. That's how a pedophile is born. That's how the

accusations of a pedophile is born. I've literally talked to a teacher who was, you know, a great teacher, an English literature teacher. He had a student come into his office one day because they trusted this teacher. This student is gifted, and so she's getting bullied. And so, of course, like the natural instinct, this is someone that you care about. I'd even say that this teacher loves his students, really fantastic teacher. Can't hug her, can't hug, can't touch men, can't touch anyone because we're creeps, because we're groomers, because you'd rather have a bear in the forest than us. So even some kind of remotely kind or touching gesture gets punished. That's why you guys say like, Okay, why don't you all hug each other? Well, just answer that, right? It seems like such a simple thing. Why don't we hug each other? Like, such a simple thing. What would have to happen to a race of people to not be able to hug each other? A lot is the answer, and

this is why men don't hug men. Should this change? Absolutely. Are we trying to make it change? Absolutely. That's why I talk about things like this. So, I think if you feel comfortable hugging someone, you should feel comfortable. Now, there's another elephant in the room that we need to address because we, as men, need to learn something else. So, when a woman is kind to us and they give us some kind of kindness, unfortunately, so many men out there are starved for any kind of attention, any kind of affection, any kind of human contact. We are so hungry in so many ways, and it's like if you feed a cat, the cat will come back, right? That's what cats do. If you're kind to a man, the man will come back just like an animal. We are so starved for this stuff that we'll come back to you like an animal. We'll lose control because we don't have love, we don't have friendship, we don't have touch, we don't have respect, we don't have kindness. We

don't have compassion, so anytime someone gives us just a little bit of kindness and compassion, we latch on to them. We're like sailors lost in the ocean that grab some bit of wood, and then we're never letting go for dear life. Now, this creates a problem because when we exhibit behaviors like this, we end up not respecting other people's boundaries, which is not okay. So, we as men need to learn something about how to handle this, so we're going to teach y'all a couple of techniques. So, on the one, what I would love to do is if people started hugging people more. Now, the problem is that when people do that, sometimes it ends up unsafe. So, we, if we want people to hug us and we want to reward that behavior, we don't want to creep people out, we don't want to violate boundaries. We need to understand why we end up doing that and what we can do to change it. So, the first thing is if you're a dude and a woman is kind to you.

treat them like a human, not like a romantic partner, right? So, if romance is there, it'll float to the surface eventually, or you'll realize it years later because you were oblivious. Fair enough, that's a good price to pay in my book. The first thing is to treat them as humans. The second thing is to recognize that not all kindness is indicative of lust, okay? That's how it is. The third thing, we should respect boundaries. So, let's say, you know, you're like a gamer on the internet, and you are playing a video game where there's voice comms, and there is a girl on your team. So, obviously, don't be toxic to them, but secondly, don't be overly nice to them. Don't friend them afterward. Don't DM them all the time. Don't say like, Hey, like, you know, like, just, they're just like any other gamer. Treat them like any other gamer. If they play like [ __ ], flame them, right? Doesn't have to be a gender-based flame. You can flame them for their

shitty play right. If you're going to be toxic, equal toxicity. Don't give them special treatment. Don't stay attached to them. Now, this is what's really tricky, is when someone who is starved for kindness receives kindness from another human being. There's a tendency to latch on because we, as human beings, our minds require connection, right? It's something that we need for survival. So, when someone offers us connection, just like hunger or thirst, we latch on to them. So, now what we're going to do is teach y'all a technique to not latch on, okay? So, receive their kindness, and then we don't want to escalate things. If they offer another kindness, that's fine, and then the Friendship can organically grow, but we don't want to sabotage this relationship by running too fast because we're too hungry or thirsty, okay? So, here's what I want y'all to do. I want y'all to express appreciation and gratitude for the person. This is a very powerful psychological technique that I have no scientific papers to cite. I'm sure I can

find some. If I looked, see anytime a human being does something to us, anytime someone does a kindness to us, we feel indebted. And that feeling of debt is like a kic bind, right? Like this is uneven. You did something nice for me. I can't let you go until we're even. This is a very primitive Circuit of the human brain, right? So a great example of this is someone compliments you. You feel uncomfortable until you do what? Compliment them back. Oh, your dress looks so nice. Oh, your shirt looks so nice. Ah, now we're even Stephen. Now I can walk away. But if I don't compliment them back, then I feel like really uncomfortable and like, stop saying nice things to me. An unreciprocated kindness creates some kind of tension within us. And then sometimes what we end up doing is we're like, oh my God, this person is so great. They love me. They're amazing. They're the perfect angel. Oh my God, let me do this and do this and do this and do this.

that's how we end up as nice guys. We start investing way more into this relationship than what this person is willing to give. We do more and more and more because we feel indebted, because we start to like them, we start to create fantasies in our mind. Don't do that. Instead, do something very simple. Express appreciation, say thank you, return the favor, say, Hey, thank you so much for that hug. Honestly, it's been a rough couple of weeks, and I'm so grateful for your kindness, right? You just say that because what it'll do psychologically, I hope, is it'll close that loop, and that's really the thing that keeps us bound. It'll help us, right? There's still all of that other stuff that we may be hungry for, but let's close this social loop. A hug is a hug; it doesn't need to be anything else. And if we look at some of the experiences of women who say, Hey, this is a problem, because then you'll become someone's emotional crutch, right?

so we don't want to put people in that situation. So, when someone is kind to you, you don't have to repay the kindness in kind. Instead, what can work incredibly well is expressing gratitude, right? I acknowledge what you've done for me. Thank you so much. And even in English, we have thank you. And what do you say when someone says thank you? There is a debt. Instead, you say you're welcome, right? So, this closes the loop. We, as human beings, have this powerful circuitry about closing the loop and tying things off. And one of the best things that you can do if someone does a kindness to you is simply express appreciation to them. Express gratitude for them. You will feel that debt close off some. Now, if you still have some feeling of debt there, I would say go and do something kind for someone else, right? Pay it forward. Don't necessarily focus on this person because the last thing we want to do as touch-starved, lonely people is overburden the people who are extending a kind hand, right? Let's acknowledge them. Let's give

them some positive behavioral reinforcement. Thank you so much for doing this. And then we're going to move on. Now I know we started talking about addiction, and I know it's weird, right? Because most of the time addiction is like neuroscience and this and that. We're going to talk about other reasons why men get addicted, why women get addicted. You know, there are things like men are instrumental problem solvers. So just give you all a quick heads up. So what that means is that when we feel bad a certain way, we fix something in our environment. So if you're feeling ashamed of yourself, go lift, right? If you're feeling ashamed of yourself, start intermittent fasting. Do something in the outside world to make yourself feel better. If someone is disappointed in how much money you make, make more money. That's what we do, right? As men, we're taught to be instrumental problem solvers. And so the problem with addictions is they are the perfect instrument to solve your problems. When I feel bad, let me drink alcohol. When I feel bad, let me have

marijuana when I feel bad. Let me watch pornography. I'm going to do something outside of myself that will change something in here, and nothing is better than that than a substance. But the same drive that we have to make more money, get in shape, all of those kinds of things, that same drive is what the addict takes advantage of. Because the idea here is that this is a problem. In order to solve this, I need to change something outside of me. I can't sit with this. I can't let this go, right? That's impossible. I can't manage this in here. I can't change my expectations. I can't change my outlook. I can't critically think about the way that people judge me. Instead, I just receive their judgment completely. There's all kinds of other stuff that we're going to get into, but if you look at it really at its root, addiction is a disease of isolation. The oldest historically successful treatment is an intervention of connection. There's no neuroscience, there's none of that psychiatry, no evidence-based anything. It's humans

working with humans, and right now what's going on in our society is we have men that get addicted three to four times as much as women because they're isolated, because they have no reason to stop, they have no one in their lives who cares about them, or no one who is worth the sacrifice. And now we have a real problem 'cause we expect men to be independent, we expect men to solve their own problems. We see it on Twitter, right? If there's a problem for women, no one is saying, Oh yeah, women should fix it on their own. I've never seen that, maybe in like men's rights activists groups or people who are very resentful. I'm sure it's been said somewhere, but generally speaking, we don't say that. We say like, Hey, we should help women. I agree, we should also help men because the problem is this is the one problem we can't solve on our own. This is why if you look at things like, you know, income, right? So men will outperform women on average on income. I

think. Although I'm sure that'll change in the next few years, I think everything's even out. But the problem is that this is the one problem that requires other human beings. Isolation is not something you can fix on your own. It requires help. It requires connection from someone else. And that's what I would recommend you all do, right? Because you can't solve all of your own problems, but you may be able to help someone else's. And if you do that, hopefully the world becomes a better place. Now, on the flip side, I think we as dudes need to take responsibility for the lack of control over giving, you know, attaching, and like leeching off of someone else, right? So we are so starved, we can't be like cats and just keep circling back to the same person over and over and over again. You'll drive the person crazy. So we need some techniques to moderate our feelings. It doesn't mean we can fix everything on our own, but if we are asking people outside of us to help bridge the gap to connection, fair.

enough. We should still take responsibility for what we can do, which is not punish them for their kind with obsessive behavior. So, if you're addicted to stuff, get connected. More importantly, you can't get connected because you can't do it on your own. If you're addicted to stuff, connect to someone else. Offer someone else kindness, right? This is the one video where I can't tell you what to do for yourself beyond what I said. The majority of this is what you can do for someone else. So, even if you're struggling, kindness towards another human being, compassion towards another human being, and get the hell off the internet. B [Music]

How Loneliness Makes Men More Addicted

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Many men struggle with a lack of attention, affection, and human contact, leading them to latch onto those who show them kindness.

The rise in behavioral and substance addictions is linked to isolation, with the antidote being connection with others.

Research shows that a rat's dependency on cocaine is influenced by its environment and the presence of other rats, highlighting the importance of social connection in overcoming addiction.

Connection is essential for human well-being, and its absence can lead to addiction as a way to fill the emptiness.

Alcoholics Anonymous demonstrates that sharing experiences and forming connections is more effective in helping individuals overcome addiction than traditional therapy.

Men are more prone to addiction due to isolation and a lack of connection, a problem that is now shifting as women increasingly report feelings of loneliness and isolation.

Loneliness is a challenge that can't be solved alone; it requires the kindness of others.

The speaker started hugging people, especially men, to combat the common issue of touch starvation and isolation.

The response to this gesture was mixed, with some people appreciating the effort while others criticized it, highlighting the complexity of addressing loneliness and the importance of respecting personal boundaries.

The speaker reflects on their experience of hosting events and how they navigate interactions with socially awkward attendees, particularly men.

They express compassion for these individuals, recognizing that their awkwardness often leads to being ignored or dismissed.

The speaker's tweet about hugging people at their event received mixed reactions, with some accusing them of putting women in danger, despite never suggesting that women should hug stranger men.

They emphasize the importance of critically examining intuition and the shared awkwardness between socially inept individuals.

The Importance of Human Connection and Support

Socially adept individuals can easily read and share the emotions of others, leading to a cycle of social awkwardness.

The responsibility to help one another and fight for human rights should be shared by all, regardless of gender.

Societal conditioning has taught men not to hug or touch each other, leading to a lack of emotional support and connection.

The Impact of Kindness and Boundaries in Male-Female Interactions

Accusations against men have led to a fear of physical affection, causing men to avoid hugging or touching others.

Many men, starved for attention and affection, may latch onto kindness from women, leading to boundary violations.

To address this, men should treat women as equals, recognize that kindness doesn't always indicate romantic interest, and respect boundaries to foster healthy relationships.

Human beings often feel indebted when someone does something nice for them, creating a tension that drives the need to reciprocate.

This feeling of debt can lead to over-investing in a relationship, as one person tries to balance the scales.

To break the cycle, expressing gratitude and appreciation is key, and if the debt still lingers, paying it forward by doing something kind for someone else can help.

Addiction is driven by a desire to change something external, often leading to isolation, particularly in men.

The most effective treatment for addiction is human connection, as it requires support from others to overcome.

Taking responsibility for one's actions and offering kindness to others can help bridge the gap to connection and create a positive impact.