Rabbi Shais Taub & Sony Perlman - How did we get here

all right so let me just begin by saying that this is a talk that I really actually don't want to give and when Gedaliah told me he wanted me to address the top of a topic of addiction actually what I told him is that it's been many years that I've spoken publicly about the subject and I actually don't like to speak about it and I pretty much tried to get out of it and then I saw the program printed in that so I guess I guess I'm they had other ideas oh now you're starting okay so let me stay for the video I'm giving a topic because I'm giving a speech on a topic that I don't want to talk about I was asked to speak about addiction and I don't want to speak about it it's been actually a number of years that I haven't spoken publicly on this subject and after I'm finished you might have an idea of why it's something that I don't like to speak about anymore I wrote a book on it it's called god of our understanding and everything I have to say about the topic is in that book and you know whenever whenever I have to offer it's already there and but for those I want to taste or a sample of what the idea is over there let me let me say like this you know there are certain situations where all of a sudden everybody actually becomes religious where they really start talking about God certain junctures in life Lamar Felton comes to [ __ ] looking and making [ __ ] looking for the kids all of a sudden everybody starts talking about a munechika practice why because it's Kaushik increase chance of course might be dealing with the partial in life that is that feels controllable right even though we know how killed me the shaman puts me at a shaman we control nothing but our own reactions but Cole's mind everything seems normal so it's like a mr. don't worry I got this one right I can handle it and then when we start to deal with something that's so clearly out of our control all of a sudden we start to think so spiritually or god forbid somebody has a life-threatening illness all of a sudden now along with whatever but that had damage established there is all of a sudden is the tell him there's the Mitzvahs distant everyone's getting spiritual so it happens to be that when it comes to parshas addiction it's the one issue that even in the veldt when I say the veldt I mean even outside of the Jewish world it's so it be littles and humbles and crushes the sense of power and control of everyone in its path to the point where they have no choice but to give up on the illusion of human power and to finally start looking to God it's the one issue where you pretty much have in the vault I'm saying an accepted spiritual approach to a problem and it's because it's a problem that just beats people down so much where they say you know what I can't handle it let me explain one thing there's a major difference between chemical dependence and addiction chemical dependence is easy and by the way my disclaimer I want to explain something to you not a doctor not a mental health professional I'm a rabbi anything I say I'm just speaking as a rabbi my experience that's all I'm drawing upon if you don't agree that's no problem I'm just putting it out there based on my personal experience [Music] chemical dependence is easy you know what the you know what the cure the treatment for chemical dependence is detox it's called detox you know where most people detox on a bathroom floor it's very easy I mean it's dangerous depending on the drug but it's very easy to detox question is what happens when somebody has deep aksed over and over and over again chemically there's no dependence anymore so where's the issue coming from where's it coming from and somebody's no longer chemically dependent I think that's one of the big illusion oh he started using and he got hooked on it okay so then how come he was abstinent for a month for a year for two years and he went back to it clearly wasn't something physical so I don't have a long time to speak about this what I'm going to talk to you about is that the addiction is not the addict problem the addiction is the addict best attempt at a solution and in order to replace that solution with a real solution the false solution needs to be replaced with a genuine solution you have to understand the problem and I'm going to explain you the problem very simple and we explain it to you like a rabbi there once was someone called autumn arecia and the first man they had a wife and father and the first day they were created they made a mistake and they ate from the ate sawdust what was the eight Sadat's we call it the tree of knowledge what kind of knowledge when you eat it you become Wikipedia what was the knowledge immediately what was the first symptom of eating from the tree of knowledge self-awareness they knew that they were naked they didn't know they were naked before of course they knew but it didn't mean anything like a one-year-old crawls around without a diaper on it doesn't mean anything there's a word from the Obama to that baby says before the head ate Sadat's a person would be no more self-conscious of his other than the arm on which you put filling because it's just a body part that you use for a mitzvah so who cares right there's no self-consciousness involved then the eight Sadat's comes and gives that Staver app which you see this explains means hogwash assad's my self-consciousness self-consciousness is the killer that doesn't let you live the awareness of self that will not allow you to simply just have an experience and be in the moment I can't be in the moment because I'm up here I'm in I'm in my own head narrating my experience self-consciousness terminal uniqueness lonely in a crowded room uncomfortable in my own skin and nothing gives me any comfort because my problem is me I'm allergic to me or a feelin me feelin himself and that's been the the blight of humanity since the first day so ten generations later came this covered on mine his name was Noah Noah each Sadiq Tommen the data Asaph Noah got off the TAVR and what did he do he got drunk why would an east-side that could get drunk was he some frat boy celebrating woohoo we survived the mob let's print t-shirts and have a keg party and we'll get drunk synthesis planes the mayor of each Sadiq had a plan he understood good and well that the problem with human he with the human experience since day one became the introduction of self-awareness self-consciousness so he sought he saw a new world Elam Harnish the mob was the reset button so he said just like the world was set new we're gonna set a new paradigm for human consciousness free of ego free of self-awareness and he's in ease and he said themself well how will I do that how will I escape self and very very purposefully deliberately he went and he self medicated he knew exactly what he was doing in fact passing out naked in the living room it was also by design what's the sheer how how much do you have to obliterate self-awareness if you're not how do you know when you went far enough it's very simple when alderman kava became self-aware what was the first sign of self-awareness they knew that they were naked so how do you know that you got rid of self-consciousness when you don't know that you're naked now obviously Nate's attempt was a failure because although he blotted out self-consciousness he had all these side effects that he didn't expect or he didn't want he didn't want to cause a rift in his family he didn't want to cause humiliation embarrassment trauma all you know that that of that event that happened that day until today all the divide between humanity comes from it stems from that from that moment of humiliation but that's what though that's not what he wanted that what he wanted to happen was to be totally obliterated like any good addict right I want to be numb I want to get trashed I'm gonna get wasted why would you speak that way what normal person from what I'm telling you is I want to destroy self and that's why it's so cute when you say you're killing yourself yeah no kidding I'm trying to kill self that's right I don't want to feel other side effects yeah there are side effects what's my choice so then you have the one you know one option or the other one option is or the min cava crippling self-consciousness I can't function I can't function the other option is no self obliteration now I can function except all these unwanted consequences start happening all this stuff has starts happening because of the self obliteration and then the consequence has become too much and what am i forced to do okay so then I leave alone I'll leave my self medication alone I won't numb myself I won't distract myself and I go back to other uncommon situation which is a self-consciousness and then the self-consciousness becomes too much to bear that absolutely devastating sense of I cannot be comfortable I cannot be at peace and it's not because of anything that's going on around me it's just my whole system has been for whatever reason we'll get into it in a second I only want to speak for three more minutes my whole system is off kilter I cannot be at rest unless I'm feeling nothing if I'm feeling anything I'm feeling discomfort I feel too much so therefore I go back to the knife paradigm and basically I go back and forth between self-consciousness and self obliteration and and the there both of them absolutely unsubtle unbearable torment so what's the option I can't live within myself the consequences are too much for getting out of myself and finally there's a third option which is called getting over myself self-transcendence spirituality we call it bit tol bit till is not thinking less of yourself bit till is thinking of yourself less bit till is not destroyed self-esteem bindle is not when I think that I'm worthless bindle is what I'm free of having to obsess on myself I don't have to think about self you know why because now I'm free to just be there to be present when self consciousness is my disease when I'm suffering from an acute case of hadass and self-consciousness makes me unable to function like a normal person what do I need I need to be free of that I need to just be able to experience life is to be able to be instead of always feeling apart from I want to be a part of and I can't do that because of all these things I'm feeling so acutely and so strongly and so I'm always in my head but the deep thinker and the over analyser no wonder I need to self medicate right until I finally find the real solution the false solution was a self medication of self stimulation stealth self distraction with but the real solution was libitum got consciousness release from self-obsession and now I can function that's two more minutes I want to explain something and there's much more to be said about this obviously I'm summarizing extremely quickly and I said at the beginning I don't like to talk about this topic precisely because it's a very very very deep Saudia and it's always misunderstood it's always misunderstood well except for people who actually live it then they say yeah yeah of course that's what you're talking about but that's why I don't like to talk about okay how do people become I'll give I'll tell you the term you know there's an idiom called the canary in the coal mine when miners go into a new area of the mind they bring a canary why do they bring the canary because there's poison gas that's tasteless and odorless and invisible and you don't know it until you start passing out and dying so they bring a canary and the canary is chirping away in the cage and if the canary stops chirping you realize that canary is getting poisoned by the gas and then you clear out of the mine so canary in the coal mine is an expression in English the canary in the coal mine means the first symptom Bearer the one who feels the symptom first the canary is not a toxicologist the canary is just sensitive to the same thing that destroys everybody else so the badness self-consciousness ruins everything for everybody and that's why we all need to get get out of self-consciousness we need to become God conscious that's for everybody but for most people spirituality is a luxury for most people spirituality is a luxury it's not going to kill them if they don't become God conscious and that's why most people never will really become even religious people don't know what do I have to think about god I doubt when three times a day so they're never really then there are the spiritual Canaries and the self-consciousness is killing them it's killing them and the question how do people become spiritual Canaries and my answer is I don't know maybe some of us are born that way but what I do know what I do know is the trauma specifically trauma that touches your deepest sense of self your sexual identity forces you to become uncomfortably acutely way too aware of self why am I saying such a crazy thing that our deepest sense of self a sexual identity maybe I'm a perfect why do I say something like that because I'm just telling you the story of braziers self awareness from the first moment meant the sense of shame of my body of my reproductive parts from day one the first sense of self awareness when somebody is sexually traumatized they become immediately way too aware of self and self consciousness is a killer it's a killer for everybody but if you have an acute case a heavy case a chronic case of self consciousness then you're the canary you're the one who dies first you want to know how this all fits into T P and I've got 30 seconds I'm making up these numbers by the way but I say three minutes two minutes I have no I don't even there's no clock in the room I have no idea I'm just doing it to make you guys not get up and run hotter no by the way I just wanted to put this is serious did you know this seventy three point four percent of all statistics cited by rabbis and speeches were made up on the spot seventy three point seven okay I'm sorry maybe that's a late you maybe you saw more recent study but I'm gonna get down to ten seconds no this is a real ten sex I think I hope bringing the watch up will take all of the ten seconds I want to understand I want I I want to explain and understand you I spoke with avi about this I said how do we reconcile the recovery approach and the teepee approach and we had a long discussion about it and basically because because I said you know I'm a firm believer that the whole mechanics of recovery is based on the fact that human power doesn't work only God power you know that's the whole point that's what I started with human power doesn't work and I want to tell you something I still believe that I still believe that human power doesn't work so what's with the love bombs and all the way what are we doing that I want to explain something to you only God can heal this problem the only solution for self consciousness is God consciousness the problem is when a person has their path to God blocked a Jewish person exists as a link on a golden chain going back to avril lavigne oh and sorry manor you are their link you as their parents you are facilitators to enable them to give them the opportunity to get back in touch with the god that was robbed from them so ah be and I both agreed in the end that it is all God we play the shotgun Whitworth the marriage broker and that's why miracles happen because this is a power greater than human power we do our part to make that reconciliation between this neshama and its maker possible okay okay I was under the impression this is a question answer session and they're up CheY stabbed outside I think it's because he all he does is answer questions he's like I don't want to answer questions I'm just gonna talk and I said I have nothing to say so I figured I'd write some notes figure something on the spot and I looked at my notes and I thought kind of want to say any things either so he wants to thank tar any time for recording all those sessions hi I would like to also think that this will be available on to her anytime you'll see that Hunter anytime so I was thinking of some of the sessions I went to over this incredible I don't know what to call it I'm just gonna call it a great javis he was called a conference it's gonna get together but Sabaton but it was fabulous I haven't gone to one thing that I didn't absolutely love that didn't rock me somewhere inside from doing all the work I do and from being a parent myself you know I thought I was coming here as SuperDuper professional and I came out wanting to change how I parent my children even though I preach this all the time I'm seeing the inspiration and you guys are to us and should be to the rest of the world on how to raise so I'm supposed to talk about addiction and I did there was a question that was asked at one of the question answer sessions which I should have been that because I'm supposed to be had a question answer session but the question was about codependency and it's a it's a it's an amazing question for people who are struggling in this parsha and have found TP or RV and they have decided to do this absolutely insane method of the opposite of what every professional out there says and most rough on them say they all say give a little pot should be alright they say different ways of saying that you know lock the door give them very strong boundaries but over this weekend everybody here and everybody who has lived through this who has been doing this for a while knows that all that doesn't work and you see a success of understanding what is really the problem that these kids are in tremendous amounts of pain and they have no idea how to deal with that pain and the only way we could do it like I've chased out says is I say it a little differently we are giving them a muscle to Hashem when a child is born they don't know what a sham is they look up from the crib and they say what's the higher power and the higher power is us they see these giants and when they're hungry they're fed and when they died for his dirty it's clean and they look up and they say that must be God that's their first experience with God I once heard that the difference between dogs and cats is that a dog looks up at his owner he says this person feeds me takes care of me he's always hugging me this must be God and the cat says this person feeds me this person takes care of me this person loves me I must be God so that's what child looks up and he sees he sees his parents and he says this is God hey why is it so important for us to be great parents so that our children when they have this self-consciousness are able with the muscle you gave them in this world of what a God is to use that to connect to God the real God and when you make that connection healing could happen and when we have situations like we're all in within doing TP you're showing them hey they stopped believing that there's a higher power they stopped believing that anything's gonna sue them or give them the power to help they're completely powerless and that you given the Marshall again because something happened that put him back in a place where they didn't believe that there's a god and now they're looking up from their cribs they're not cribs anymore actually in some of the places they call them cribs and you know apartments are cribs but they look it up and they say is I could be loved again there could be a god that's all you're doing is you're telling them there could be a god and if there could be a god I could be saved and if I could be saved I could do this next thing and I could live through the next day and I could live through the next week and I could marry this woman or marry this man and I could have children and raise them and be good because that hope that there is a God gives us a chance to make a connection to God so that understanding I mean this is this is a very important thing but the question that was asked is the whole world keeps telling us that were codependent with her enabling enabling is the big word I remember a 13 years ago people I got like 50 phone calls about we're nailing the kids I run Howard place is a drop-in center for teens in Brooklyn and and we used to think we were the craziest people in town and the way we took care of these kids with so much love and then we met avi and he's crazy but at that point we were the we were the guys to get picked on we were the enablers and I have a gettin in it was it was one week we I was getting like ten phone calls so I got an abling you're doing this you're in abling enabling an island I didn't have the words of avi that's the truth I didn't know how to answer them I just knew it was working so I on the letterhead I said that's it we're changing the letterhead I didn't ask anybody on the staff I just went and changed our place and neighboring resilience that was what we call it and luckily nobody I don't think anybody ever looks at that bottom line so nobody said anything to me but it was my passive-aggressive way of getting back at them so so is that passive-aggressive or aggressive anyway so the question was codependency and and all we being codependent with these kids and it's a and I believe in a lot of times it comes up every time he's dealing with addiction I'm dealing with my clients and the people in our place you deal with addicts every addict has a codependent relationship they all have co-dependent relationships they've all heard the word codependency and people throw the word codependency around and my addicts and these young people in our place so always they throw the word remember they have no idea what it is and so I'm going to explain the way I see codependency and hopefully like 30 seconds left narmer's connects 30 seconds for codependency explanation okay I'm kidding I don't have 30 seconds so so the way I explain codependency there's this is a great red book I call a rabbit his name is Steven Kobe he wrote the famous book is seven Habits how the successful people something like that anyway he's a rapper because he says such wisdoms and I and I absolutely love the things he says and he teaches people to really do their life but some of his teachings are you don't even realize how great they are and I think this is one of them and he just throws us out I don't think it's in seven Habits it's another one of his books if they're alternative and he has this he says didn't life there are three stages it's so simple everything he says is so simple that's why it's so amazing he says alight the three stages you have dependence independence and interdependence so dependence especially all of you have dealt with addicts you know dependence is someone who is not capable of taking care of themselves so in the real sense babies are dependent they don't have if you love the baby in the world they would just die cause it's like a science fiction novel or something and they figure out a way that he makes it but a baby would not make it in this world he wouldn't be able to function physically emotionally spiritually he wouldn't figure out any of this stuff so that's a dependent person and then you have independent so when you conquer dependence and you go into independence you now could deal with yourself and this is the goal recovery and you're trying to get to the place where you could now function as a person how to do that that's part of what O'Shea stops talking about but you've got to get to a place of independence and then when you hit an independent person when one person independent and another person independent and they have a relationship with each other that relationship is an interdependent relationship an interdependent relationship and Riven was talking about relations long-term relationship is what we need in our lives we need long-term interdependent relationships interdependent relationship is I am good by myself I am happy Who I am I'm good and the other person is also good and happy by themselves they both could stand up tall and then they choose it choosen because they don't need it they choose another person to share that experience with when you share those experiences together you reach it increases exponentially it's not the need for each other it's the sharing with each other and when we share with each other we have these relationships that are healthy relationships called interdependent relationships now the truth is I haven't met anybody who has an interdependent relationship completely but I'm sure there's someone out that has the perfect interdependent relationship we are always constantly working on becoming independent people do we say you know people come to me and kids come to me and ask me am I ready to get married you know I had 23 years old am I ready to get married come on and the answer is no you're not independent and but if you come to me when you're 40 I'm gonna say the exact same thing to you the answer is still no you're not gonna be so healthy that you have the perfect end to defend the relationship but that's what our goal is our goal is to be independent people that are connected with each other making this relationship into a healthy relationship and then we can have kids and grow families and it'll be a healthier situation now what if somebody is fully in the dependent zone and he says I would like to have a relationship now if a dependent person tries to have a relationship with an independent person and I see this all the time with addicts and they say to me I found that one girl and she was so healthy and so good and that and all that stuff and I'm like and she dumped you right and they said they said yeah I don't understand why I said because she is healthy the only way to know that's how I knew she told you but if she didn't don't you that she's not enough now the explanation for that is if I'm a healthy person who doesn't need a relationship and I get into a relationship with you and you're like mom to four o'clock in the morning do whatever I want and because I got to fill my deep my deep hole in my body and I'm suffering it and the other person and the relationship when it's going this way it's a back and forth she's a healthy person now I want a relationship where makes sense you don't go out to four o'clock in the morning you don't - all these things to fill your void I want you to want me I don't need you to need to fill your hole I don't want to deal with that so independent healthy people will dump dependent people like a sack of potatoes superfast the way we know that they're defending people also is because they're getting something out of this relationship yeah so if to depend - dependent people have a relationship with each other then that is what we call codependency I'm gonna get a little bit in more into I'm sure most you're already getting it but the idea is I mean I was I was younger I was a lifeguard and lifeguards are notoriously lazy people time to tell you that it wasn't just me it was it's all lifeguards but the story is that that I once watched a dual drowning and when I say I watched a dual drowning it's really what I did I was I it was up the whole night before trying to feed my dependents and I was watching this happen and and then there was a lifeguard in the office who was really excited about being a lifeguard and I was and I I just wanted the best job where I could sit in a chair and get a suntan and that was pretty much but I was no plan on saving anybody at any point and I go this guy's fully dressed in the office I'm sitting in the lifeguard chair I scream his name we call him that there's a dude drowning happening in the deep end and he came out throwing his clothes off i sat and watched the whole spectacle is gorgeous okay I probably shouldn't have said that on tour anytime because that come back for me and I went up but I knew Bruno was a very good lifeguard and and and as lifeguards know do drownings are the worst drownings now why well when one guy is drowning all you gotta do is get wrap them up and take them out it's not that hard especially in a pool because bull you you swim 20 feet in any direction you got the guy out it's not it's really easy right if you're a decent swimmer you could save anybody what happens with children is that one guy starts drowning and then second guy and then he grabs the thing that's gonna pick him up when you're drowning you automatically think something's got to save me and you grab something higher than you this is a real marshal if you think that's what I'm saying it as a marshal but as I'm saying I'm like it's a better marshal because you're looking high right so you grab something higher than you I think what's harder than you another kid and he's higher he's up there and I'm going down so you cleared the guy up now the guy uh he starts Charlie and he's being pushed down so he goes I'm drowning I need to save myself so he reaches up grabs the highest thing he could find that's close by and that's the kid who's drowning him so he grabs that guy if pushes in them and then the other guy pushes and so on and so forth and the reason they're the worst drowning is because they end up in the bottom of the pool they don't float there's a key pushing each other down this is all unconscious they don't realize that they're killing each other but that's just happening he pushed the other is it's hard it's cuz it's two people and not one person you guys went with both which was a lot of fun to watch Bruno do I'm just saying it was was good and to be fair to myself there's a lot of paperwork for a drowning and he had to do for two people and I knew I wasn't up for that so so this is the perfect explanation of codependency codependency is I have a hole in me it's a god-sized hole it's huge I need to fill it with things that make me feel better and then they look and they see a beautiful person you guys he's beautiful woman she's gonna save me oh this is what's gonna make me better I'm dependent I knee and she's gonna save me and I'm gonna he's gonna pull me out of this and then the girl goes I feel terrible about myself but you know it makes me feel really good making him feel good when he feels really good I feel good so I'm gonna save him and so essentially she's grabbing to get ahold of him I need to fix him and he's grabbing and it doesn't always work guy girl that's where I'm just using him for the example but she he's grabbing her she's gonna save him and she's saying I could save him and they're both trying to fill the hole with each other that's a codependent relationship and it's dude a codependent relationship is doomed because what ends up happening is it doesn't work just like drugs don't work a codependent relationship doesn't work nothing fills a god-sized hole besides for God you can't use drugs you can use people you can use things and you can't use behaviors nothing works and we'll try everything so we dependent person is gonna grab someone else so now that is codependency now I can tell you also in general when I explain this I do with a diagram that I draw and a very proud of my diet and if probably took me ten extra minutes to say it because I don't know my diagrams but so so be patient with me but for the answer to the question of if I am doing this love love method a teepee if my doing this aren't I being codependent with my child he's a dependent person and I'm helping them and therefore we have this pond healthy relationship where they're just gonna keep using us and then we're going to keep using them the answer is to help these things you can be with your kid is annoyed by them because if you're getting something out of help and you're giving their this is sick and you're like it makes me feel great I can't I can't watch him in pain I have to give him more cars and stuff and if you did that naturally you're probably in the same boat as you're kidding that's go dependency every parent here I speaking to them they're like I don't want to do it I don't want to help my kid I don't want to help these kids that's the healthiest thing you could say that how these thing is this kid is so annoying if you were like I'm loving this I get that help my kid and the poor kitty suffering anybody who says it's easy that person has got to get to a treatment program the reason why this is not go dependency is because the only person that can have a relationship with a dependent person is someone on the next rung of the relationship we're not equal relationships with our kids God is not on equal relationships with us he can love us no matter how sick we are because it's not a back and forth relationship like a sibling or like a marriage it's your knock down relationship and a parent could look past the dependency of a child and say I'm going to help you get there not because I need it I'm an independent person if I was dating my child I would have dumped him a long time ago the only way it could be done is this way and there were so many answers but I really think understanding the topic of codependency and understanding the struggle and every time you struggle and every time you want to pull your hair out and say I can't believe how dependent this kid is I can't deal with it it's just a way of showing you that you are independent you don't need this you're doing it because you love and we're doing it because we're imitating God only God could really do this God doesn't feel pain by doing this God loves doing this God could do it because he's on the highest level of Independence we are trying to figure it like God we want to be godlike we want to help a dependent child so that that's the answer somebody asks you are you mean codependent a child you say you Sonique Rama Tomy will call dependencies you don't know I'm called feminist yes so go back to your books and maybe goes on I'll write your diagram and all understand that I am NOT codependent I'm a super-healthy parent who realizes that my kid for one reason or another and we've all heard reasons over the weekend for one reason another slip back into a place of dependence and is in desperate need of help thank you [Applause]