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00:00:08:05 – 00:00:32:26
Elliott Wald
Hello. I’m Elliot Ward, addiction specialist. And welcome to another episode of Coming Clean with me. And today my guest is Doctor David McLaughlin. So David is currently a consultant psychiatrist at The Priory in Roehampton. He possesses over a decade worth of experience working within both the NHS and the private sector hospitals, specializing in the assessment and treatment of numerous addiction and mental health disorders.

00:00:32:29 – 00:01:00:28
Elliott Wald
He’s also the co-founder of curb and That’s which deals with your health. And you’ll go on to talk about that in more detail. David managed his own mental wellbeing by swimming, both for leisure and competitively. He’s a three time gold medalist at the British Masters in Relay. His told me swimming championships. what else? and he’s done a wide range of psychiatric conditions, including addictions, substance abuse, psychosis, ADHD, depression, anxiety.

00:01:01:00 – 00:01:13:06
Elliott Wald
so welcome, David. Thank you for joining me. Let’s just dive straight in. So tell me about your upbringing that led you to make a choice to go into specializing in addictions.

00:01:13:08 – 00:01:35:10
Dr David McLaughlan
so I guess it’s interesting. So my mum and dad came from kind of a regular background. My dad worked in construction, and my mum was originally a health care assistant working in a nursing home. But then she became, secretary for, psychiatrist. And I remember the kind of the respect that my mum had for the psychiatrist and the kind of the pride that she took in her job as a as a secretary.

00:01:35:12 – 00:01:58:05
Dr David McLaughlan
and that really inspired me to go to medical school. And of the whole body, the thing that I found the most interesting was the brain. and I was really lucky. I had really great mentors. They took me under their wing. I did an extra degree in neuroscience as well. And again, the thing that really fascinated me about the way that the brain works was how it interacts with its environment, how it interacts with substances.

00:01:58:05 – 00:02:11:25
Dr David McLaughlan
We we, we put into our bodies and behaviors like kind of gambling or sex or, shopping, these kind of compulsive behaviors. And I just thought it was fascinating. So that’s why I ended up with it.

00:02:11:29 – 00:02:21:13
Elliott Wald
That was that was your your lead into your journey of dealing with addiction. Okay. what do you think is the number one commonality between people who have addictions?

00:02:21:16 – 00:02:25:06
Dr David McLaughlan
So I think there’s always that there’s often an underlying cause.

00:02:25:13 – 00:02:26:06
Elliott Wald

00:02:26:09 – 00:02:47:07
Dr David McLaughlan
People use substances or behaviors to meet an unmet need. So there’s a professor called Professor David not to, talk about the four different reasons why people drink alcohol and that’s to cope. So that might be because of underlying anxiety, insomnia low mood. It could be for social cohesion. So they have like a shared experience with other people around them.

00:02:47:10 – 00:03:01:15
Dr David McLaughlan
The third reason it could be for, social conformity so that you just blend in with others that are in your peer group that are all doing the same thing. So if all of your friends are smoking and you just want to, you don’t understand how it’s been in person, it’s not smoking. And then the final reason is to enhance an existing experience.

00:03:01:15 – 00:03:17:21
Dr David McLaughlan
So for example, if you’re, already having a great time, you’re at a concert or you’re doing something that’s fun and you want to be even more disinhibited and to enhance that already fun experience. So those are the four reasons to cope for social cohesion, for social conformity, and then also to enhance with.

00:03:17:21 – 00:03:21:00
Elliott Wald
Any with any addiction that is a substance.

00:03:21:02 – 00:03:30:25
Dr David McLaughlan
substance. But you can actually what’s really interesting about addictions is there’s so much of it is really transferable across all substances and actually even behaviors as well.

00:03:30:27 – 00:03:50:14
Elliott Wald
Okay. there’s a can that talks about nature and nurture. you know, what do you think? You know, I had Professor John Marsden, who’s the head of addictions, and he’s also the editor in chief of the Addiction Journal. Yeah. And we had this discussion about nature and nurture, you know, so for people at home who who.

00:03:50:14 – 00:03:55:26
Elliott Wald
Not sure what that means, actually, why don’t you explain you’re the doctor. Okay. Explain nature. Nurture to them.

00:03:55:28 – 00:04:19:05
Dr David McLaughlan
okay. So I guess it’s it’s, we we talk about nature versus nurture for physical health conditions as well as mental health conditions as well. And it’s thinking about how much of, the reason why we have kind of conditions is because of our genes. And how much of that is because of our environments. A psychiatrist, we often talk about the bio psychosocial model as well.

00:04:19:05 – 00:04:39:16
Dr David McLaughlan
So the biology is obviously there are genes that we inherit. the sociology is kind of the environment. So the, our, you know, our occupation, our, our housing. and then the psychology is kind of the way in which we think in the patterns of styles thinking that we think with addiction, there’s a huge, huge genetic component to it.

00:04:39:18 – 00:04:56:08
Dr David McLaughlan
so, with alcohol use disorders, for example, people who have, less of the enzyme that breaks down alcohol, tend to be less likely to, to drink. People who have blue eyes are more likely to develop an alcohol use disorder.

00:04:56:08 – 00:05:00:28
Elliott Wald
I didn’t know that. I’ve learned something today. He blue eyes are more likely to have an alcohol addiction.

00:05:01:04 – 00:05:04:21
Dr David McLaughlan
They’re more likely to. Yeah, they’re more likely to misuse alcohol. And it’s because the gene.

00:05:04:21 – 00:05:05:25
Elliott Wald
What color? Neurons. My eyes.

00:05:05:25 – 00:05:06:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Are blue.

00:05:06:11 – 00:05:09:08
Elliott Wald
Was. I’m just staring me I’m thinking yeah. Okay.

00:05:09:10 – 00:05:10:10
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. So what.

00:05:10:10 – 00:05:11:06
Elliott Wald
About green.

00:05:11:08 – 00:05:32:21
Dr David McLaughlan
green I’m not so sure actually. you might, they might, you might fall somewhere in between the kind of light eyes and dark eyes. Okay. But it’s, it’s because the gene that codes for blue eyes sits right next to the gene that codes for the enzyme that digests and breaks down alcohol. so there’s a there’s a huge kind of genetic component to, kind of alcohol use disorders.

00:05:32:28 – 00:05:51:27
Dr David McLaughlan
But of course, your environment affects as well. So if you imagine people that have very stressful jobs, people who have who were exposed to alcohol from an early age where it’s normalized within their communities or cultures, and kind of people who are engaged in very stressful environments, who are desperately looking for other coping mechanisms, you know, ways in which to to self-medicate.

00:05:52:00 – 00:06:00:01
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. so there is, of course, it’s a kind of, it’s kind of genetic component. But there’s also the environment that you live in that has a huge influence.

00:06:00:01 – 00:06:04:01
Elliott Wald
And you mentioned alcohol, but I think it’s exactly the same for cocaine as well. Right.

00:06:04:04 – 00:06:26:03
Dr David McLaughlan
Exactly. Yeah. It’s the same for kind of any, any substance, I think. I actually think all of us have a vulnerability to kind of substance misuse and kind of all of us have a, have a threshold. It’s just what happens in the environment around us that triggers that. And it’s the same for any substance, for cocaine, for nicotine, for for opiates.

00:06:26:05 – 00:06:30:24
Dr David McLaughlan
it’s, it’s it’s really kind of the same principles across all the substances.

00:06:30:27 – 00:06:42:20
Elliott Wald
I think everybody who’s familiar with addiction has heard about the fact that we’re dopamine seekers. So can you describe, you know we use dopamine as a currency. Can you describe what dopamine is and why are we dopamine seekers etc..

00:06:42:24 – 00:07:03:25
Dr David McLaughlan
Yep. Okay. So dopamine it’s a neurotransmitter that is active in your brain. But it’s also active in other parts of your your body as well. and there’s lots of different neurotransmitters like serotonin, glutamate. but dopamine is one that people often hear about, and they often associate this with this being the kind of the reward or the reward neurotransmitter, the feel good neurotransmitter.

00:07:03:27 – 00:07:15:13
Dr David McLaughlan
It does different things in different parts of your brain. That’s important things. It does different things in different parts of your brain. There’s a part of your brain called the amygdala. and the nucleus accumbens. Yes.

00:07:15:16 – 00:07:17:07
Elliott Wald
A little triangle, the way it goes, right?

00:07:17:08 – 00:07:37:22
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, yeah. So it’s kind of it’s kind of like in the center of the of your brain. And that’s kind of the reward epicenter. So when you have something that feels good, whether that’s kind of bar of chocolate or sex or cocaine or, even getting a notification on Instagram or an app, something that makes you feel good, that’s when you get this little spike of dopamine.

00:07:37:24 – 00:07:46:29
Dr David McLaughlan
but also you also get a little rise in dopamine in the anticipation of something that feels good. and that’s something that, a lot of us kind of forget as well. Even the neuroscientists.

00:07:47:02 – 00:08:04:22
Elliott Wald
I’m going to cut you off for two seconds because I want to just share something with you when you talk about, so there was a research, and they took these rats, and they, they went up a light bulb and they would turn the light bulb on, and they would give the rat an injection of dopamine. And then they would measure the dopamine levels, and the rat got a spike.

00:08:04:24 – 00:08:16:12
Elliott Wald
they do this every day for 90 days. After 90 days, I turned the light bulb on. Did not give the rat an injection. Dopamine measured the dopamine level. It’s still got a spike, which is? The anticipation is exactly what you’re talking about.

00:08:16:15 – 00:08:20:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, yeah. And actually, with that experiments, I know these experiments.

00:08:20:09 – 00:08:21:17
Elliott Wald
Okay, course you do.

00:08:21:19 – 00:08:38:15
Dr David McLaughlan
and, and actually, the thing that creates the biggest spikes as well is when, when the reward is variable. So it’s not just a rake. So every time you press a lever, the reward that you get isn’t it’s not always consistent. Right. Because it’s that kind of inconsistency that creates the increased level of excitement. It’s a drive.

00:08:38:15 – 00:08:39:20
Elliott Wald
To want more.

00:08:39:22 – 00:08:52:20
Dr David McLaughlan
Exactly. So if you imagine, like the kind of machines that you’d see, the kind of the puggy machines or kind of fruit machines, it’s the fact that you just don’t know when the reward is going to happen. It could be this time. It could be next time. It could be in ten, ten pools of the of the machine.

00:08:52:23 – 00:08:54:05
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s that kind of,

00:08:54:08 – 00:09:01:27
Elliott Wald
So it’s giving you a different quantity of dopamine so that you don’t know how much you’re going to get the next time. So you want to go and get more and more and more.

00:09:02:00 – 00:09:10:01
Dr David McLaughlan
And the variability of when it’s going to happen as well. That’s what kind of increases the, the addictive quality of, of the behavior.

00:09:10:04 – 00:09:33:06
Elliott Wald
Okay. Okay. I often talk about pain and pleasure. I’m, I’m, I’m a great advocate of doctor, an Olympic who wrote dopamine Nation. Yeah. pain and pleasure. And the way that the research lately, lately and the last decade has shown that the co-located in the brain. just for the listeners, can you explain about how pain and pleasure, how that relates to addiction?

00:09:33:09 – 00:10:00:15
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. It’s interesting. So in my clinical practice, people often the things that they’re addicted to I don’t know if it was pleasure, but it fills some sort of a need for them. And then they also have this awareness that it’s causing them pain. Yeah. so in that kind of context, it’s interesting when I mean, that’s actually one of the diagnostic criteria for an addiction is when people have continued use of the substance despite nodes of harm.

00:10:00:15 – 00:10:18:27
Dr David McLaughlan
So, for example, with cocaine, despite the knowledge that it’s it’s costing them loads of money and it’s causing financial harm. Yeah. They know that. It’s it’s kind of having a kind of raising their blood pressure and increasing the risk of having heart attacks or strokes. but they still continue to use it and they know that it’s causing harm to their relationships with their partner and, you know, loss of trust, but they still continue to do it.

00:10:19:02 – 00:10:47:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. and so that’s actually one of the diagnostic criteria of addiction. So continued use despite knowledge of harm. But it’s because when you are addicted to a substance sort of behavior, the, the kind of your, the neuroplasticity of your brain, it changes. Yes. So that actually you, you kind of it changes what you think of the substance or the behavior or the action, where you’re actually not really weighing up the pros and the cons in an effective way.

00:10:47:12 – 00:10:53:13
Dr David McLaughlan
And so even though you know that this is really bad for you, you still continue to do it. So, so the.

00:10:53:14 – 00:11:10:09
Elliott Wald
You’re quite impulsive, though. There’s an impulsivity to that. Correct. So people who know that there is research that shows that people who are I’m talking about cocaine now, people who are more dates of cocaine have, more or more impulsive than other people. They make decisions without thinking about them more quickly.

00:11:10:11 – 00:11:35:22
Dr David McLaughlan
And that’s actually something that I definitely see in my my clinics at The Priory. Actually, a lot of my patients who have substance misuse issues and especially cocaine use, they’re often people who are very, very impulsive. And that’s why you often see this correlation between substance misuse, addiction, cocaine misuse and ADHD, because people who have ADHD, one of the core features of ADHD in that I again, diagnostic criteria is impulsivity.

00:11:35:29 – 00:11:36:14
Elliott Wald

00:11:36:27 – 00:11:47:07
Dr David McLaughlan
yeah. And often that can the degree of can of self-medication. But there’s a, there’s a famous quote about people with ADHD is that they have Ferrari brains but bicycle brakes.

00:11:47:10 – 00:11:50:21
Elliott Wald
Ferrari brains and bicycle brakes.

00:11:50:23 – 00:12:11:13
Dr David McLaughlan
So that’s the impulsivity, right? That’s the kind of like like they’re rushing to do something. The impulse to touch something or to see something, not being able to stop yourself. And so, and I guess that’s kind of you can, you can see that and you can understand that in the context of somebody using a substance like cocaine or making a bad decision to go and do something which if they were able to slow down that Ferrari brain.

00:12:11:13 – 00:12:18:17
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Or have better than bicycle brakes. Yes, they might make different decisions and maybe they wouldn’t be using substances as much.

00:12:18:21 – 00:12:36:01
Elliott Wald
Yeah, that’s very true. That’s very true indeed. where was I on my questions? Oh, yeah. you’ve written articles spoken about cocaine usage becoming normalized and socially acceptable as drinking alcohol, especially in recent years. Can you share with us why you think this and and explain that to the listeners?

00:12:36:03 – 00:12:58:16
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. I mean, this is my this is my personal opinion. I grew up in the northeast of Scotland. And I remember thinking, cocaine. Is this like class a drug that was on a par with with heroin? And, I then I moved down to London. And I started seeing people in bars and nightclubs using cocaine. almost quite openly.

00:12:58:16 – 00:13:19:24
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And I remember being quite shocked by that. And then even the way that, a lot of my patients talk about cocaine, it’s almost it’s almost seen as and it’s people from all different demographics, the way it’s not kind of just middle class people. It’s not working class people. It’s everybody. it’s almost just normalized. and and so, yeah.

00:13:19:24 – 00:13:44:19
Dr David McLaughlan
So I wrote an article that was in front page of a national newspaper, just talking about how it it really shocked me. The cocaine, a drug which causes so much social harm and so much physical harm to our bodies, is so normalized. and actually the rates, there was this article came to light because they tested the water in the Thames.

00:13:44:21 – 00:13:50:11
Elliott Wald
Sewage water. The water in the term. Yes. Go on, I know this share. This is interesting.

00:13:50:13 – 00:13:59:03
Dr David McLaughlan
I mean, you probably you probably remember the numbers because, I mean, but the what they found when they tested the water in the Thames was that the amount of cocaine metabolites of the breakdown substances.

00:13:59:05 – 00:13:59:25
Elliott Wald
Exactly.

00:13:59:27 – 00:14:05:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Had absolutely soared. and it was just a really kind of they.

00:14:05:00 – 00:14:06:06
Elliott Wald
Found it in all the fish.

00:14:06:09 – 00:14:06:26
Dr David McLaughlan
And the fish. Yeah.

00:14:06:27 – 00:14:26:20
Elliott Wald
For the fish, they cut them open. They found that the traces of cocaine in the fish, which is quite, quite interesting. it’s interesting with addiction because, you know, especially with cocaine addiction, people don’t see it coming do that. They start off and they think, yes, life is sociable. Do it, my friends. They recover because they’re young. Yeah.

00:14:26:23 – 00:14:44:08
Elliott Wald
And then somewhere along the line, it goes from sociable to antisocial. It’s a narrowing of their life. So they often they end up doing it on their own. Yeah. And avoiding social things. Describe why you think that that is the case.

00:14:44:11 – 00:15:04:00
Dr David McLaughlan
so I think with, with any addiction. but, but take cocaine for example. It always starts off in this very insidious way. You know nobody wakes up one day and decides to have vodka for breakfast and then jump in the car with the kids and drive them to school. When you’re drunk or with cocaine, nobody wakes up one day kind of and thinks, you know, it happens with it always happens gradually.

00:15:04:03 – 00:15:28:15
Dr David McLaughlan
And I think it is because of this perceived perception that it’s not that harmful. It’s not that bad. everybody’s doing it. It’s almost been glamorized. you know, I’ve talked about whoever’s been doing the PR for cocaine has done a fantastic job because they’ve made it seem luxury when it’s actually a really dirty habit. You know? you know, you can imagine how that cocaine is in smuggled into the country and the people that have been abused and exploited on.

00:15:28:15 – 00:15:52:12
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s on its way here. and the harm that it does for your body. But it’s been glamorized through kind of media, TV. kind of. It’s apparent celebrity use. Yeah. but but it’s it’s something that really creeps up on you. And that’s again, that’s what I’ve seen in my patients. it seems harmless at first. but drug dealers and all your friends, you know, they just want your money.

00:15:52:13 – 00:16:10:05
Dr David McLaughlan
They don’t really care about you. And cocaine, I always, I sometimes with with substances that cause harm, I actually can then personify them. So I ask people to give the substance of harm. A name. And that little voice in your head that you hear is telling you, oh, you deserve this. or just a one line. It’s just a cheeky line.

00:16:10:07 – 00:16:31:08
Dr David McLaughlan
I ask people to give that a kind of a character or name. Some people use to call it like a lizard. The lizard or the the car salesman. Okay. This person, this little voice is telling you that it’s okay. It’s just won or you deserve this, or, that’s not your friend. And you have to be able to kind of recognize that voice and dismiss it and tell it to go away or.

00:16:31:13 – 00:16:46:28
Elliott Wald
Yeah, I think it’s also related to a lot of the associations you have with it. It’s like, you know, you can be driving past one of your dealer’s house. That association is, you know, you think about, you go to the pub, you think about it, you know, you have a bit of stress, you think about it, you know, you get a bonus at work, you think about it.

00:16:46:28 – 00:16:52:29
Elliott Wald
It’s just it’s a reward. It’s a commiseration. It’s, it deals with your emotions. It’s an escape, right?

00:16:53:02 – 00:17:09:05
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And all of those things that you described actually are, what I call a conditioned stimuli. It’s because something in your environment that you associate with, with that substance. And so it’s like, if other people have heard of Pavlov’s dogs. Yes. You know, the famous experiment.

00:17:09:05 – 00:17:10:24
Elliott Wald
With the conditioned response, condition.

00:17:10:24 – 00:17:38:20
Dr David McLaughlan
Response. Yeah. So you hear that the the dogs were hearing the bells ringing and they start silent, you know, and then even when they’re not getting fed, they still salivate. And so, you know, we’re we’re kind of similar as people, you know, like it could be certain environments that trigger that kind of that thought because you associate those environments or those people or those kind of places, those emotions with, this is your coping mechanism, or this is the kind of the behavior that kind of follows.

00:17:38:22 – 00:17:57:01
Dr David McLaughlan
and so one of the things I do with my patients is I get them to identify, so say take cocaine, for example. I asked them, like where, when, why, with whom do you use cocaine? and identifying those triggers and then coming up with a way to either manage those triggers or those environments or those situations.

00:17:57:03 – 00:18:00:25
Dr David McLaughlan
And if they can’t manage them then actually maybe in the short term just avoiding.

00:18:00:25 – 00:18:19:02
Elliott Wald
Them I, I’m full of avoiding you know, I have this expression, I say if you sit in a barber’s long enough, you’re going to get your haircut. Yeah. You know, if you sit in that environment with other people that use sooner or later, eventually the likelihood is you’re more likely to use. Yeah. And that’s as simple as that.

00:18:19:05 – 00:18:26:17
Elliott Wald
Is there a particular demographic that you’ve assessed and treated that’s more associated with social cocaine use?

00:18:26:20 – 00:18:43:18
Dr David McLaughlan
Honestly, I think it applies to everybody. I went to a panel talk the other week, and it was talking about workplace wellness. And, we were talking about cocaine use in the city. And everybody had this assumption that the only people that use cocaine are bankers and lawyers. But now I can tell you, I can tell you for a fact that that’s absolutely not true.

00:18:43:18 – 00:18:54:17
Dr David McLaughlan
I’ve got, I’ve got builders, I’ve got hairdressers, I’ve got nurses. the that use or have used cocaine. it can be, it could be anybody.

00:18:54:19 – 00:19:16:17
Elliott Wald
you’re so right, David. I have let me just run through this. Plasterers, bricklayers, plumbers, electricians, dry line warders. Judge. Yes, I have, doctors, I have surgeons, solicitors. Yeah, it’s just crossed every demographic, hasn’t it?

00:19:16:17 – 00:19:23:01
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Drug dealers don’t care if what you do for a living, you know? And actually, addiction doesn’t discriminate. it will take anyone.

00:19:23:01 – 00:19:39:24
Elliott Wald
Yeah. And a lot of people don’t understand because a lot people will drink alcohol. That will be a gateway to using cocaine. Yeah. So they’re using both those substance which creates that third chemical compound so they get cocoa ethylene. Yes. And people don’t even understand what cocaine is and they don’t realize the cardio toxic nature of it. So so maybe you can share about what cocoa ethylene is.

00:19:39:27 – 00:19:41:08
Dr David McLaughlan
Oh gosh.

00:19:41:11 – 00:19:41:29
Elliott Wald
When you’re.

00:19:42:01 – 00:19:47:14
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. You are. I mean, I mean, I think you probably know as much as I do. Probably more actually. But but again, when.

00:19:47:14 – 00:20:01:20
Elliott Wald
You see that third chemical compound, when you mix alcohol and you mix cocaine, right, you have cocoa easily. And the problem is this alcohol comes out of your system within quite a short period of time. Yeah. And alcohol and sorry. And cocaine comes within out of your system a fairly short period of time. The problem is the cocoa.

00:20:01:20 – 00:20:16:18
Elliott Wald
Ethylene lives in your system much longer. So if you’re then going to go and use again and drink again, your cocoa is building up more and more. And cocoa eating is ten times more cardio toxic than any of the other two substances. Yeah. So Ukraine greater and greater damage.

00:20:16:20 – 00:20:25:24
Dr David McLaughlan
And and people do tend to use the two hand in hand very often. and so with that, a lot of my patients who they’re trying to quit their use of cocaine.

00:20:26:00 – 00:20:26:21
Elliott Wald

00:20:26:23 – 00:20:47:15
Dr David McLaughlan
I’ll also ask them to at least consider the idea of also giving up drinking. Yeah. Because when you drink alcohol, you become disinhibited. You actually you down regulate your frontal lobe. and so you’re, you’re more likely to become disinhibited and you’re, you’re kind of willpower is much less kind of.

00:20:47:16 – 00:21:05:18
Elliott Wald
I’m going to I’m going to put this back into context. This is how I would say, I think when you drink more and more, yeah, you make stupid decisions. Yeah. People drive cars when they shouldn’t. People make phone calls, you know? Shouldn’t people get into arguments? They shouldn’t. People get into fractionation because they’ve drunk too much. And I think you make silly decisions.

00:21:05:18 – 00:21:12:06
Elliott Wald
And I think if you make a silly decision, you can’t make a decision. You can have fun. You do. You learn before you know, you really racking up a line. That’s how I put it.

00:21:12:07 – 00:21:12:26
Dr David McLaughlan
That’s it.

00:21:12:28 – 00:21:24:28
Elliott Wald
Yeah. Okay. let’s have a look what we’ve got here. Research has been busy. Okay. When assessing patients what mental health issues or disorders are commonly associated with cocaine and alcohol.

00:21:25:00 – 00:21:49:25
Dr David McLaughlan
Okay. definitely anxiety disorders. people use alcohol, cocaine to give them this kind of, like, false sense of confidence, to make them kind of disinhibited. And in the short term, it’s actually really good at that. and to manage stress. What’s interesting actually, is, alcohol actually raises your cortisol levels. and so long term, it makes it much more difficult for you to manage stress.

00:21:49:27 – 00:22:14:26
Dr David McLaughlan
also alcohol binds the receptor called the Gabbar receptor. and so temporarily you do get this kind of, relief of anxiety. But as soon as the alcohol unwinds from the Gaba receptor, you get this rebound excitation, this rebound kind of, anxiety experience of anxiety, which is why people can probably relate to this experience of having ZT, you know, feeling anxious the more the morning after once the alcohol’s wearing off.

00:22:14:29 – 00:22:27:11
Dr David McLaughlan
But yeah, there’s definitely a huge association with, anxiety disorders and alcohol use, cocaine use and actually probably depression as well, because cocaine does actually make you feel it can make you feel kind of good as well. So it’s this again, this is very you didn’t.

00:22:27:11 – 00:22:29:21
Elliott Wald
Make you feel good. I don’t think people would have used it in the beginning. Exactly.

00:22:29:21 – 00:22:33:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. I mean, I think we have to acknowledge like what is it.

00:22:33:06 – 00:22:46:29
Elliott Wald
That it does? Its job in the beginning. Yeah, right. Unfortunately does its job so well that we want it more and more. Yeah. You know, human nature is this if you do something and you get pleasure from it, you want to repeat if you go out to a nice restaurant, David. Yeah. And you go for a beautiful meal.

00:22:46:29 – 00:23:03:05
Elliott Wald
I don’t know what your thing is, but you go for the most amazing meal, right? Yeah. And you think that was pretty reasonably priced. And I love that meal. And it tastes so good. You’re going to want to go back. Yeah. And that is exactly what it is. Yeah. It felt so good that you want to go return until eventually it’s detrimental to your wellbeing.

00:23:03:05 – 00:23:04:07
Elliott Wald
But you still keep going back.

00:23:04:11 – 00:23:24:27
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And then I actually really love that analogy because what then happens is people think this must be the only restaurant that I can go to. and so they become kind of habituated and they just keep going back to the same restaurant. Yeah. But when I’m working with my patients who are kind of that restaurant is meeting their need to kind of satisfy that hunger, that kind of kind of that desire for good food.

00:23:24:29 – 00:23:35:18
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s about getting them to explore and actually be open minded, trying, trying different restaurants, trying different ways of meeting whatever need that substances is, is addressing. Yeah.

00:23:35:21 – 00:24:04:22
Elliott Wald
I think, I think you’re right. I remember, Professor Marston was saying to me about, oh, people just become so focused in this that it narrows down their life so much. Now, if we were to go back, let’s say we went back 50 years, 70 years, 100 years, 150 years. There would be no need for that because we’d need to go out and find our own food, create our own fires, find our own water.

00:24:04:22 – 00:24:19:03
Elliott Wald
We’d be so busy doing all this. We don’t sit back, come home and we’re bored. So many of the people that I see say are used because I’m bored. Yeah, you got to hear that all the time, right? I’m bored. What do I do without using? I’m bored. Yeah. What do you say?

00:24:19:10 – 00:24:42:11
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s, It’s really true. So that’s brilliant, though. If you’ve got people who they actually understand, why is that? They’re using a. And it takes some people a while to actually realize what is what’s driving you to use what what’s the emotion that you’re feeling that you’re experiencing just before you use a substance? And for some people it might be anxiety, it might be anger, it might be loneliness, and it might be boredom.

00:24:42:16 – 00:25:01:22
Dr David McLaughlan
But, you know, like even just getting to that point where you understand what the emotion is that drives your use of the substance of behavior, you’re already kind of like one two steps up the ladder. Yeah. and then and then that’s great. Then we can say, well, okay, let’s experiment. Let’s try different activities. that will manage that boredom.

00:25:01:22 – 00:25:23:12
Dr David McLaughlan
One of the things I get people to do, actually, is to do something that’s active. So, that creates this, this kind of, there’s a kind of word that people talk about, which is flow. Yeah. and that’s something that’s generated when you were actively participated in an activity. So for example, watching television, or it doesn’t generate flow because you’re not really active.

00:25:23:12 – 00:25:36:16
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s not an active kind of, state of mind. Whereas if you’re in a conversation with somebody, if you’re playing the guitar, if you are learning a new language, speaking somebody in French or something, something that kind of requires your active participation.

00:25:36:18 – 00:25:37:15
Elliott Wald
That exercise.

00:25:37:15 – 00:25:45:21
Dr David McLaughlan
Exercise, doing something that requires a bit of concentration, that’s a really good way to beat boredom. Yeah. Because you’re you’re actively engaged.

00:25:45:24 – 00:26:02:18
Elliott Wald
I would say structure as well. I think structure is a big one. If you, if you’re used to coming home at 5:00 in the evening, if you’re a person that uses every evening and you come out at 5:00, you don’t use junior working day and you come home and that’s the thing you do. You pick up your dealer when you’re coming home to use, and you might drink some alcohol and you might do some gear.

00:26:02:21 – 00:26:11:00
Elliott Wald
I would say some. We don’t go home, go go to the gym, go do something different. You gotta have some structure in life. You don’t have any structure. It’s so much more challenging to break the addiction.

00:26:11:05 – 00:26:29:13
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And actually I can actually with this advice that you’re getting as well, it’s about having a plan. Yes. if you don’t have a plan you’re going to go back to the default and if your default is to just go to the pub and have a couple of pints and then maybe a line or two or a bag or two, you’re going to go back to your default.

00:26:29:18 – 00:26:33:21
Dr David McLaughlan
So in order to change that situation you need to actually have an active plan.

00:26:33:28 – 00:26:50:04
Elliott Wald
Yes I agree. Yeah. It’s funny because I had a client the other day and we were having this conversation and he was saying to me, look, I’m really redoing well during the week. I’m finding that pretty easy. He’s a seven day week user. Yeah. He’s like, I’m finding that okay. I’m I’m all right. I’m dealing with it. But the Saturday in the Sunday, he said, it’s like I’m not at work.

00:26:50:04 – 00:27:05:27
Elliott Wald
I’ve got no structure. What he didn’t use was your idea. I’m not doing anything. And that’s the. And I said to him, how about how much do you spend on a Saturday, Sunday? And he said, oh, I spent about 200, 300 pounds. Yeah. I was like, right, download your app Airbnb right now in front of me. You download this out.

00:27:06:00 – 00:27:20:18
Elliott Wald
I said, I know he has a partner. And I said, right, let’s go on there. Where are we going on Saturday? And we looked up and he was like, Norfolk, right? And it was 175 pounds to stay in Airbnb and take his girlfriend for two nights. In fact, listen, he wasn’t gonna have a weekend away. That’s what you need.

00:27:20:18 – 00:27:21:16
Elliott Wald
You need some structure.

00:27:21:22 – 00:27:38:24
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, yeah. And actually, probably putting yourself in an environment where it’s a little bit more difficult to get access to the booking. You’re putting in these kind of roadblocks. These are almost like speed bumps that will slow down the the ease at which you can go back to that default behavior. Yeah. and interrupting that cycle as well.

00:27:38:27 – 00:27:41:29
Dr David McLaughlan
And over time that does become easier and easier.

00:27:42:06 – 00:28:01:22
Elliott Wald
Okay. It’s interesting because I have a lot of people make comments, especially on my tick tock, because I think there’s some anonymity. I’m minimizing in tick tock that people don’t really tend to use. They don’t use their own name, so they can use a particular name. So they’ve quite freely make comments on my tick tock. I probably get an average about 4000 comments a week, just to put it in context.

00:28:01:24 – 00:28:17:05
Elliott Wald
And so often I see the comment I have ADHD so I need to use. I have ADHD, which you touched on. I have ADHD, so that’s why I use I have ADHD and this cocaine helps me deal with my ADHD. Can you put that into some context of my ADHD?

00:28:17:07 – 00:28:41:26
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. It’s interesting. I mean, it’s I, I’ve definitely this is anecdotal, but in my clinics I definitely see an overlap with people who misuse cocaine. And then I probably have an underlying diagnosis of, of ADHD. I think if you’re in that situation, then I think you need support with the cocaine misuse. And then thereafter, once you’re off cocaine, then you could seek a diagnosis of ADHD.

00:28:41:26 – 00:29:00:16
Dr David McLaughlan
The guy the guidelines for for psychiatrists say that we have we can’t really start treatment for somebody if they’re actively using cocaine. Yeah. Which actually I understand that’s that’s really difficult people to give up one substance before they can get help, before they can get home. And I actually I do I actually really sympathize with that. but there’s reasons why because obviously the interactions with the medication and.

00:29:00:17 – 00:29:07:00
Elliott Wald
Yeah. And the get them the people. But just clarify because people say using cocaine helps me with my ADHD.

00:29:07:02 – 00:29:27:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Again, it’s interesting. I have heard anecdotally, people who who have a diagnosis of ADHD and using cocaine, they, they I have heard people say that it it helps them to feel calm. the only thing I would say though, is, is, definitely don’t do that because you don’t know what you’re buying. You don’t know what it’s cut with.

00:29:27:00 – 00:29:43:18
Dr David McLaughlan
You know, it could have it could have like, opiates or ketamine. It could be it could be anything. And actually, you know, what you really need is you need an assessment for ADHD, and you need to get, treatment for ADHD where you can, you know, it’s it’s pharmaceutical grade. Absolutely. And it’s evidence based. They’ve done research trials on on and.

00:29:43:23 – 00:30:01:14
Elliott Wald
Here’s no I always say David, I always say listen, if you if you have ADHD and you have an addiction, you got to keep in mind that that addiction is going to be detrimental to your wellbeing, okay. It’s going to affect your family dynamics. It’s going to affect your work. You may end up taking days off work. So how is that helping you ADHD when is detrimentally affecting you?

00:30:01:17 – 00:30:10:17
Elliott Wald
So let’s deal with that is deal with your addiction. And then as you said, go and get you for the ADHD because using is not the solution for ADHD. It’s not like well I have ADHD so I can use.

00:30:10:17 – 00:30:19:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, I think it’s funny. I think that kind of sounds like a bit of an excuse because cocaine is incredibly well, I think it’s expensive from what I hear. So it’s a very.

00:30:19:03 – 00:30:20:04
Elliott Wald
A point.

00:30:20:06 – 00:30:21:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Ten point line is I.

00:30:21:00 – 00:30:36:15
Elliott Wald
Know. Well, well, the average line is around about a point one to point to somewhere between 10 and 20 pounds a line. If you think about buying a gram, a full gram at 100 pounds and you break that down, that’s, that’s, a pound of a 10 pound a point. So that’s how it works.

00:30:36:16 – 00:30:40:22
Dr David McLaughlan
So that’s, that’s a lot of money. And, it’s a lot cheaper to get treatment for it.

00:30:40:22 – 00:31:01:21
Elliott Wald
Yes, it is, it is. But I think the problem is this that people go originally start. Listen, if I look at myself and over the years. Yeah, you know, when I had an active addiction, and you start off spending £50, it’s not such a big amount on a Friday night when I would hardly ever drinking alcohol. I might have two drinks if that, but I’m spending 50 because I’m relative.

00:31:01:21 – 00:31:16:06
Elliott Wald
I’m spending the same quantity. The problem is when that becomes a full gram of 100 pounds and it becomes 100 pounds on a Friday and a Saturday, and then it becomes 100 pounds on a Friday to Sunday and a Wednesday, and it becomes hundred pound on Friday. Saturday, Wednesday and Thursday. That’s the problem. That’s where you get to.

00:31:16:11 – 00:31:32:21
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. It’s also it’s like, you know, if you were to think about how much that is over the course of the month or over the course of the year. but I think the problem is people don’t think in that kind of way. Imagine imagine if you’ve got a bill at the end of the year for all the cocaine that you’d use at the end of that year, you think, oh my gosh, or that’s a lot of money.

00:31:32:21 – 00:31:33:13
Dr David McLaughlan
But I think people.

00:31:33:18 – 00:31:58:16
Elliott Wald
I often put on my tick tock questions. So like, I like the feedback. So so I get to understand and get more knowledge because, you know, if I’m in touch with almost 200,000 people on my tick tock alone who have addiction, you know, I’m getting a lot of research. It’s like you’re like raw data. And one of the things that I asked is in the years that you had an addiction or still have an addiction, cocaine, this is specific to how much money do you think you spent in that lifetime of usage?

00:31:58:18 – 00:32:23:19
Elliott Wald
Yeah, and I must have had I would say there was around about 500 comments, let’s say, on that one post. Right? Yeah. And if I go through it and if you take an average, we’re looking at people spending 50, 100 and 200,000 pounds over a ten year addiction. Yeah. You know, which you never thought there’s not a single person with addiction who thought to themselves, when I first use it, I’m going to end up with an addiction.

00:32:23:24 – 00:32:46:09
Dr David McLaughlan
No, no, I agree, I agree and that’s, that is, that’s a sickening amount of money because, for a lot of people, especially in the climate that we’re living in just now, money’s money is not easy to come by. People have to work really hard for that money. and that’s money that they can be using to. I don’t know, get a deposit on a house or buy a new car or take their families on holiday.

00:32:46:12 – 00:32:52:17
Dr David McLaughlan
it is, it is a sickening amount of money that it doesn’t actually ultimately make you happy.

00:32:52:19 – 00:33:07:18
Elliott Wald
I think the problem is this, right? When I spoke about pain and pleasure earlier on, I think human nature is about avoiding pain, of seeking pleasure. Yeah. If you put your hand to a red hovering, you burn yourself. That equates to a pain and you’re going to avoid doing it right. And in life, there’s a smaller element of pain.

00:33:07:20 – 00:33:23:17
Elliott Wald
you go to work with that pain to get paid to buy nice things. We call that pleasure. But the problem is they don’t see the pain of the money at that given point. Yeah, the pain of the money doesn’t come for a long time in the future. And at that point they’re like, yeah, but I’m this far deep.

00:33:23:17 – 00:33:24:14
Elliott Wald
How do I get out?

00:33:24:19 – 00:33:48:04
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Do you know, actually that reminds me of I’ve got a patient who I’m, you know, he’s a great patient and once described kind of, alcohol. But you can apply this to any symptoms as a bit like a warm fire. And this kind of the pain of being. So the pleasure of being close to the warm fire, but actually you end up kind of getting a bit too close and you burn your hands, but still wanting to be close to the fire.

00:33:48:04 – 00:34:11:20
Dr David McLaughlan
And actually, sometimes we have this discussion where actually, sometimes you just need to step away from the fire. Don’t try and keep your hands warm because it’s is too difficult to to tread that fine line between the benefits of the substance with alcohol, what it’s giving you, and actually the harms. And, you know, when you keep getting burnt, it’s a kind of maybe that’s a sign that you need to kind of step away completely and, you know, just go for abstinence because.

00:34:11:23 – 00:34:30:18
Elliott Wald
It’s very hard to, to, to be in it and see it. Yeah. I mean, I remember for myself, if I go back to like 2004 and I wrote my first book that’s on Amazon, when I wrote my first book, which was on smoking, stopping smoking, and I was using at the time Coke. And it was really weird because I had all these ideas.

00:34:30:18 – 00:34:41:11
Elliott Wald
Right. And, and I, and I wrote them all down. And then I thought, this is the middle of the night, by the way. And I woke up and I didn’t even sleep. But you what, you get up in the morning, you think, oh, that’s going to be a lot of rubbish. And actually it was good. And I wrote my book in three months.

00:34:41:15 – 00:34:53:29
Elliott Wald
So now you think to yourself, oh, I’m getting a benefit of using them. But eventually it became muddled. It became mush. It became I wasn’t able to do anything and get an end result from it. But people don’t see that.

00:34:54:06 – 00:35:14:12
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, a lot of people think that they can they can moderate, they can, they can cut down, they can use a substance just a little bit. And, you know, they’re not addicted. but actually I again, actually when you, when you listen to this objectively and you see enough people over time, you kind of you realize that actually it’s really hard to use any, any addictive substance.

00:35:14:12 – 00:35:25:18
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s really difficult to use it in moderation. And for a lot of people, they have to make that really difficult decision of complete abstinence and just stopping quitting altogether. And that’s the only way for.

00:35:25:18 – 00:35:44:27
Elliott Wald
Yeah, I agree with you. I agree, I don’t I don’t think there’s a middle ground. I think because you never know at what point you would become that addict. So why get there? Yeah. so I’ve, I’ve read a lot of people’s definitions of addictions. I’m going to give you my favorite definition of addiction that I’ve come across and everything I’ve written, everything I’ve researched.

00:35:45:00 – 00:36:03:19
Elliott Wald
And it says that an addiction is a behavior, is a compulsion to a behavior, a substance that has a temporary relief but has a negative consequence. That’s probably my favorite. how you sum up addiction. what would you say? How would you define addiction?

00:36:03:21 – 00:36:25:06
Dr David McLaughlan
I would say addiction is, a state whereby there is, uncontrolled use of a substance. So you, you can’t, you know, once you start, you can’t stop it like Pringles. Once you pop, you can’t stop uncontrolled use. continued use of the substance despite the knowledge of harm. what else can of a tolerance as well?

00:36:25:06 – 00:36:46:24
Dr David McLaughlan
So that’s a kind of one of the diagnostic criteria that you see. with people who’ve got alcohol addiction, so they can drink more and more and they, you know, it takes more of that substance to kind of to reach the same state that they would previously, have acquired. what else? kind of narrowing of interest and repertoire.

00:36:46:24 – 00:37:14:22
Dr David McLaughlan
So kind of and something we called primacy. So for example, in the NHS, I work with people who’ve got heroin addictions and they might have 10 pounds left and they spend they spend their last 10 pounds on buying a pack of heroin instead of baby formula. So there’s that kind of, primacy. There’s that kind of prioritization that this feeding, this habit is more important than feeding your children, which sounds it sounds crazy, but that’s that’s what addiction does to you.

00:37:14:22 – 00:37:39:12
Dr David McLaughlan
It changes the wiring of your brain, and it makes it more difficult to kind of make, measured decisions. and it’s what’s so interesting is there’s so many of these kind of qualities, the kind of the loss of control, the primacy, the, the tolerance. The other thing actually withdrawal symptoms as well. So when you don’t have the substance, you can start to get physical or emotional kind of, kind of distress.

00:37:39:15 – 00:37:46:06
Dr David McLaughlan
A lot of these kind of qualities, they’re, they’re true of all of the addictive substances and, and even the addictive behaviors.

00:37:46:06 – 00:38:06:23
Elliott Wald
You know, what about the people who, let’s say this is someone who uses, like four times a week, right? They’ve got an addiction and they go on holiday for two weeks somewhere where they can’t get it and they don’t even think about it. They just it’s almost an acceptance. Yeah. The moment they fly back, they land and they’re luggage going around the carousel and they’re making their phone call to their dealer.

00:38:06:29 – 00:38:15:12
Elliott Wald
How come in that two weeks they didn’t have a physical withdrawal? They didn’t have any bad effects. They didn’t. They just accepted it. Well, why is that?

00:38:15:15 – 00:38:35:20
Dr David McLaughlan
I guess it’s back to that kind of that conversation. But nurture nature, and the interaction with our environment. So in some environments, if you’re, you know, you’re away from work, you’re away from the pub, you’re away from your, your, your friend Bob, you’re away from all of these triggers that you normally associate with your use of the substance, like cocaine or alcohol.

00:38:35:26 – 00:38:51:19
Dr David McLaughlan
And you’re in a totally different environment where there’s none of those usual kind of triggers, that might kind of lead to you using the substance. And actually it’s interesting. So I’ve, I go, I’ve got, I’ve got patients who will tell me this, they’ve been in holding, they’ve not you used or they’ve not drunk, they’ve not used cocaine.

00:38:51:19 – 00:39:12:03
Dr David McLaughlan
Whatever. And then they qualify that in their head and they justify their has they. We’ll see. This is evidence that I’m not an addict. This is evidence I don’t have a problem because I’ve managed to go for a week or because I’ve managed to go for two weeks without using cocaine. And so it’s almost like that devil in their shoulder again, that kind of just whispering, saying, see, you’re not an addict.

00:39:12:03 – 00:39:13:22
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s okay. You can go back to.

00:39:13:22 – 00:39:24:12
Elliott Wald
Yes, sir. I just have another one. Yeah. Right. So next week, you know, and yeah, but you are, you know, but I’m not giving you up. No, no, no I use once a week. Yeah, but you’re still an addict. No, I’m not.

00:39:24:15 – 00:39:31:24
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And actually is recognizing that little voice. Yeah. Justifying why this is okay for you to do and why you deserve to do this.

00:39:31:24 – 00:39:43:28
Elliott Wald
And I put a video out. I’ve put a video out a couple of times on the same subject. And I’ve always said, even if you use once a week or twice a week, you still have an addiction. Yeah. And do you know how many comments I get from people who don’t want to accept they have an addiction?

00:39:43:28 – 00:40:02:29
Elliott Wald
They go, well, brushing my teeth, I have an addiction, or I eat chocolate, have an addiction, or if I have a beer once a year of my an addict, you know, they just can’t comprehend. Yeah, that that even if they use once a week, it’s not about somebody who’s using every day has an addiction. Yes they do, but even somebody usually once a week or once a fortnight, that’s an addiction, right?

00:40:03:00 – 00:40:24:15
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Again it’s weird, like, you know, I apply those principles. Is it something is it something that you’re craving and thinking about an awful lot? Kind of. it’s on your mind. Is it something where you, you know, your use of it is out of control. And, you know, even when you tried to cut back or or other people have told you to cut back, you’re not able to do, and you’ve, you know, you’ve got that kind of primacy where it becomes the most important thing in your life.

00:40:24:18 – 00:40:32:26
Dr David McLaughlan
If you if you think about it in those concepts rather than, you know, just thinking like it being a habit that you do, like brushing your teeth, nobody’s addicted to brushing teeth.

00:40:32:29 – 00:40:45:27
Elliott Wald
exactly. you know, just because you have a beer once a month, that doesn’t mean you have an addiction, right? But if you have if you if it has a negative consequence in your life, do you have a beer once a month, then it’s an addiction. Yeah.

00:40:45:27 – 00:41:07:17
Dr David McLaughlan
And you know, if you’re if it’s causing you harm, but you exactly to do it and, if you’re building up a tolerance and starting and, you know, each month it’s not just one beer, maybe it’s two years, then three beers. yeah. It’s interesting. It’s such an interesting conversation. The, you know, the I guess people have this with you, with your clients as well, kind of how people identify and whether they identify as being an addict.

00:41:07:17 – 00:41:22:07
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And for a lot of people, that word is really important for them as part of their identity. Like kind of a model and a model. that’s really important for people to use that language in that word. But again, what I find in my patients is for some people that’s really inflammatory. They do not want it is.

00:41:22:07 – 00:41:28:28
Dr David McLaughlan
And actually they, they would walk away from me in clinic if I, if I use that kind of language. But it’s, it’s such an individual thing.

00:41:28:28 – 00:41:44:21
Elliott Wald
Yeah. I think I’m quite raw because I just turn around and go, well, if you don’t think you have an addiction, don’t use for three months. Yeah, I don’t have an addiction. I don’t use it three months. Come back to see me in three months. If you haven’t used. I’ll agree with you. Yeah, it’s quite raw. what about the families of people who have addictions?

00:41:44:21 – 00:41:55:24
Elliott Wald
You know, what can you what advice can you offer to family members who have a a son, a daughter, her brother, the cousin, her husband, the wife that struggling with addiction? What would you recommend? What would you say to them?

00:41:56:00 – 00:42:12:18
Dr David McLaughlan
Oh, gosh. It’s, it’s really, really difficult. I think, for family members of people who have addiction because I think a lot of the time they feel very isolated or alone. There’s a lot of guilt or shame, and they don’t feel that they’re able to talk to kind of their colleagues about this or their neighbors, and they don’t know where to turn.

00:42:12:18 – 00:42:25:00
Dr David McLaughlan
And there aren’t an awful lot of resources that are available. There’s an incredible charity which I love called Aid FAM and yeah, they’re at farm are just a wonderful charity. And so if anybody wants to donate to them, that’d be that’d be great.

00:42:25:03 – 00:42:28:05
Elliott Wald
You money off Red farm. Yeah.

00:42:28:07 – 00:42:44:12
Dr David McLaughlan
but one of the really great things about charities, like at times it’s they provide a support network for the families of people who have addiction. I think. I think that’s where, you know, for any kind of, problem that you face, knowing that there’s other people that are going through the same thing is really helpful. So you don’t feel so isolated.

00:42:44:20 – 00:43:04:00
Dr David McLaughlan
And then also there must be there’s so many questions that the family and friends can struggle with, like, you know, one scenario that I’ve heard is, you know, having, you know, imagine your daughter or your sister phones you up saying, David, I need to borrow 100 pounds. It’s for, let’s get my my car motd. But you’re kind of thinking.

00:43:04:00 – 00:43:17:15
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Is it really? Is it really for the car? Is it really for the like? And what do you do. Yeah, it’s because you’re are you, are you feeding the habit to them. You know, are you, are you kind of enabling them to kind of that money, is that money going to go straight to the drug dealer.

00:43:17:15 – 00:43:42:18
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. It’s really it’s really difficult. And so those are the kind of problems that family and friends struggle with. I guess ultimately there’s there’s things that you can, you can do to support the person. I think always be, compassionate, empathetic, try not to be judgmental with your family member. Try to understand why is that they’re using this substance and create this kind of a space for them where they can talk to you.

00:43:42:18 – 00:43:48:02
Dr David McLaughlan
They don’t feel fear. They don’t feel frightened to be to be open because, but I know that’s that’s very difficult.

00:43:48:05 – 00:44:07:05
Elliott Wald
On my YouTube channel, I actually have a playlist how to influence a loved one to seek help. and that’s aimed at parents, husbands, wives that they can watch these videos, this five part playlist, only about 5 or 6 minutes. It just gives them advice of how they can do things to get their partner on board, to then seek help.

00:44:07:06 – 00:44:14:19
Elliott Wald
Yeah, and that’s quite useful because I don’t think a lot of people have looked at the angle of helping people who have a loved one that have an addiction. And what do you do them.

00:44:14:19 – 00:44:24:24
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, yeah. It’s I think also recognizing that the, the love, the family members for them actually can be really stressful. And actually they have their own mental health needs.

00:44:24:24 – 00:44:39:27
Elliott Wald
Yeah. I mean I’ve, I’ve, I’ve got two podcast with the family of the person that had the addiction. I’ve spoken to the person of the addiction, the mother, the sister. She had them all in the same dynamics of the podcast. That’s very interesting. Yeah. So my, just tell me about curb.

00:44:39:29 – 00:45:01:05
Dr David McLaughlan
Okay. So, curb is, a mobile app, which I’ve been, building now for a couple of years. We are funded by innovate UK. they’ve been taught and we’ve been awarded about 200,000 pounds worth of innovate UK grant money, which is, incredible. We’ve, built to, to pilot. We’ve had two pilot studies, essentially.

00:45:01:07 – 00:45:04:08
Dr David McLaughlan
So I’ve not really described that very well. Curbs an app that helps people too.

00:45:04:08 – 00:45:07:28
Elliott Wald
It’s an app we’ve got that comes in. We’ve got that. what does the app do?

00:45:08:02 – 00:45:10:24
Dr David McLaughlan
We help people to reduce, or quit drinking.

00:45:11:00 – 00:45:17:09
Elliott Wald
Okay. So you’ve got an app called curb that is for alcohol to reduce the quantity and to quit. Is that my understanding?

00:45:17:12 – 00:45:40:14
Dr David McLaughlan
That’s right. We help people to reduce their drinking or quit drinking. Okay. and, initially we, we, we have different types of interventions, like breathing exercises. we did a research study where we, we took data from people’s wearable devices, like their Fitbits. Right. And we integrated that with, the app and also with kind of information that we were getting from Apple Health, things like kind of how much you were sleeping, your step count.

00:45:40:16 – 00:45:53:08
Dr David McLaughlan
And what we should do was to build predictive technology to predict when it was that you were most likely to drink, and why it was that you were going to drink, and to understand how we could meet that need with, what we called just in time, adaptive interventions.

00:45:53:09 – 00:45:54:09
Elliott Wald
Just in time.

00:45:54:13 – 00:45:54:22
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah.

00:45:54:22 – 00:45:57:00
Elliott Wald
So if you’re dealing with it before it happens.

00:45:57:02 – 00:46:13:13
Dr David McLaughlan
That’s it. So it was it was quite it’s quite clever technology. That was that was a research project. We’re about to launch the, the commercial product which is a bit less complicated, a bit less sophisticated, but it still meets kind of a lot of the basic needs, providing people with support on that journey.

00:46:13:15 – 00:46:24:17
Elliott Wald
Fantastic. the last question I ask every single gets the same question at the end. What advice would you give to somebody who’s listening right now who is struggling with addiction?

00:46:24:19 – 00:46:56:21
Dr David McLaughlan
I think, take stock, just sit back and actually reflect on how much you’re using, why you’re using, and be really honest with yourself. don’t don’t trick yourself into kind of thinking that this isn’t an issue. and I guess seek help. I know it’s easier said than done. but. I think, you know, there are resources out there.

00:46:56:21 – 00:47:00:25
Dr David McLaughlan
If you’re, if you, if you want to change. Yeah. But actually you.

00:47:00:25 – 00:47:02:08
Elliott Wald
Have starts on the inside, right.

00:47:02:11 – 00:47:21:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. And you have to you have to actually want to and you have to commit to it. and you have to have people that are going to hold you accountable. Yeah. So do that kind of reflective exercise, take stock of where you are, how things are going. Is this substance, is it benefiting you? How is it causing harm weighing that up and thinking about, well, are you happy with the status quo?

00:47:21:09 – 00:47:36:24
Dr David McLaughlan
Are you happy with the way that things are going just now and the path that you’re on and what what’s it going to cost you to change, you know, and what is it going to cost you actually, if you stay the same. So and if you do want to change, coming up with a plan, how are you going to do that?

00:47:36:27 – 00:47:46:20
Dr David McLaughlan
And then who’s going to hold you accountable, you know, to that, to, to that change and it’s different for everybody. But those are the kind of questions that I would be I would be asking somebody when I first meet them.

00:47:46:23 – 00:48:01:29
Elliott Wald
And for all those listening every Sunday on every one of my social media platforms, or I have a Sunday check in and people just check in with a thumbs up, I’ve been alright this week, or a thumbs down, or they put a period of time they’ve been abstinence from, and that accountability itself helps a lot of people. Yeah.

00:48:02:02 – 00:48:07:03
Elliott Wald
doctor Dave McLaughlin, thank you for coming clean with me. It’s been a pleasure. Appreciate you coming. Thank you.