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00:00:00:20 – 00:00:27:15
Elliott Wald
Hello. I’m Elliott Wald, addiction specialist. And welcome to another episode of Coming Clean with me. Buckle up – because today’s guest has overcome addictions. Covered some of the world’s toughest terrains. He’s run across deserts, planets, frozen peaks, and even navigated challenges beyond the wilderness. Welcome, Charlie. And how are you doing, Charlie?

00:00:27:17 – 00:00:30:00
Dr David McLaughlan
You look great, my friend. Thank you.

00:00:30:02 – 00:00:43:11
Elliott Wald
Well, thank you for coming. Thank you for being here. And thank you to be my guest today. I’m going to jump starting with some of these questions. so it’s in Glasgow. Life was growing up for you and how that manifested in getting an addiction.

00:00:43:13 – 00:01:10:15
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. I mean, for me, I don’t know if it was pre-ordained or not, but, I grew up with my parents were 18 years old, and they were college students, here in North Carolina, where I live today. And it was a very bohemian upbringing. I was an only child. My my mother was, theater major and parties at my house pretty much every, every evening.

00:01:10:17 – 00:01:30:05
Dr David McLaughlan
and I loved it as a kid. I thought it was amazing. It was, it was fun and interesting and weird. And I’m old enough that it was the 1960s. So, you know, I witnessed pretty much all manner of everything. And everyone wore, tie dyed, you know, so it was, it was a pretty good upbringing and.

00:01:30:10 – 00:01:55:02
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, you know, certainly as a kid, you don’t really know that you’re poor. I don’t think you know, but maybe we didn’t have a lot. My my parents were just college kids. But I do remember distinctly, being nine years old, and, you know, there was another party at my house, and everybody’s dancing on the front lawn, and, you know, there’s nothing in the fridge.

00:01:55:02 – 00:02:19:17
Dr David McLaughlan
And, you know, I that was the first time I decided I was going to pick up, you know, a beer that somebody had left on the table and, and, you know, I drained that beer and it changed everything for me in an unexpected way. I saw, you know what a lot of people understand? this feeling there’s very warm, cozy feeling.

00:02:19:17 – 00:02:42:22
Dr David McLaughlan
And it’s like, it’s like somebody gave me a big hug, and. And what I like to say is that, you know, alcohol planted a flag in my brain that day and conquered that territory and claimed it for itself. And, you know, it’s not like I got up the next day as a nine year old and started drinking, but I just I sort of knew that that was always going to be part of my life, and it was going to be there for me when I needed it.

00:02:42:22 – 00:03:07:08
Dr David McLaughlan
And, you know, flash forward to my college days. you know, I went to college as a 17 year old freshman in North Carolina, and, I had a great high school career, you know, good grades, good sports, dating, student body president, you know, all this stuff. And I get to college, and I think that that’s going to be the same life I’m going to have there.

00:03:07:10 – 00:03:30:15
Dr David McLaughlan
And I find out in college that I’m, incredibly average. It takes about, you know, a week to understand that I’m not particularly special. And and where I was, where I was a standout, though, was driving, you know, the drinking age was 18, in North Carolina and, and, I took full advantage of that. And I began to distinguish myself in that way.

00:03:30:15 – 00:03:56:14
Dr David McLaughlan
And the 80s, I don’t know about where you were, but where where are we to where I was the 80s were, you know, I call them the cocaine decade. I would see this as a lot of your expertise. And, I’ve been in the cocaine decade and, you know, and I found myself really deep into it within a very short period of time, you know, within a year.

00:03:56:16 – 00:03:59:22
Elliott Wald
Yeah, within a year, your addiction has spiraled.

00:04:00:00 – 00:04:19:19
Dr David McLaughlan
Very much so. You know, I it’s not like I know you know this. I always like to say that addicts are the best salespeople in the world. You know, you know, a sober addict is someone that can sell anything because we spend half our life telling other people, convincing other people like, I’ll never do that again, I promise.

00:04:19:19 – 00:04:41:06
Dr David McLaughlan
And you have people actually believe us. And, you know, but what I from the beginning, from the very first time I did called, I did it until there was no more money, until there was no more drugs, until there was no more access the very first time I did it. And I did it that way every single time.

00:04:41:06 – 00:04:44:00
Dr David McLaughlan
I did it for ten years. You know what I.

00:04:44:00 – 00:04:51:18
Elliott Wald
Called or nothing until I say it’s like I’m not doing it. If I’m doing it, I’m calling and I’m using it all.

00:04:51:20 – 00:05:10:14
Dr David McLaughlan
100% right there. You know, that’s what I was like. Yeah. And again, like, look, man, I got I flunked out of college my junior year. But you know, I went on to got, you know, many sales jobs because I moved around a lot because that’s what addicts do. The problem is always the city or the job or or whatever.

00:05:10:15 – 00:05:33:06
Dr David McLaughlan
So, you know, you moved to another city, you do it all over again. but I never failed to be, you know, the top salesperson. And I would I would kick some ass for a six months, and then I would just, flush it all down the toilet, you know, by, beginning to use again. And, you know, this time will be different than, you know, all the language that we know.

00:05:33:07 – 00:05:49:01
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, I just never, you know, I never had even with drinking, I, I rarely did. I just have two beers or something like that with friends. I mean, generally speaking, anytime I started, I didn’t stop until I was done.

00:05:49:03 – 00:05:53:14
Elliott Wald
But, when you, when you use alcohol, was that the gateway for you using. Totally.

00:05:53:16 – 00:06:16:04
Dr David McLaughlan
Absolutely. Yeah. I never it’s a great question because I, you know, I also work with a lot of people in sobriety. And I asked them, you did you did you have strong willed willpower to not do coke or other drugs? And then you drank and they’re like, yes. And, you know, two beers in three beers, like all those promises you made to yourself are long gone.

00:06:16:04 – 00:06:27:06
Dr David McLaughlan
Whereas for me, the opposite was not true. I never started with cocaine like that, just not how I did it. I know some people do. They. They do cocaine.

00:06:27:08 – 00:06:28:21
Elliott Wald
We call that dry snap.

00:06:28:23 – 00:06:42:11
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, exactly. And I just, I that wasn’t, you know, for me I liked the combination. Well liked is a complicated word but I, I that’s how I did. It was always a combination of drinking and and drugs.

00:06:42:13 – 00:06:59:19
Elliott Wald
You know it’s an interesting word. You, you, you used earlier when you said, when I talk to people that you’ll be I will tell the artists I have explosive training. I will, I don’t believe it exists. I believe in willpower is a label that we place on something we predetermined for us is going to be difficult.

00:06:59:23 – 00:07:17:08
Elliott Wald
Like I say, use an example. Why do not you do what I should on run? I will come on to that in a minute. And you do some crazy, crazy runs by the sounds of things not, you know, ultra phones. You run the Sahara desert. We’ll cover that a little bit more that, you know, you you running. So clearly running is a question for you.

00:07:17:08 – 00:07:37:03
Elliott Wald
You enjoy it, right? Whereas for me, I can’t do anything worse than running, right? It’s just just it’s just like, not my thing. So there’s someone to say to me, terminal l don’t run. That would require water, right? But I go to the gym 5 or 6 days a week. I’ve trained for 39, 39 years to system eight, and I love being involved.

00:07:37:03 – 00:07:50:19
Elliott Wald
I try to, so when somebody says, oh, you must need and you also have to go to the gym, I always try to go, no, I enjoy it the same way as you probably enjoy running. Do you want to walk? I said, we treat it certainly to the label, so that shouldn’t be difficult. What do you think of that?

00:07:50:21 – 00:08:08:16
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, I think you’re absolutely right. And I would make it even more, so I talk to a lot of kids. I talk to a lot of grown ups, who want to want to run. They want to run a marathon. They want to do this and more of that. But of course, they’ll say, I want to run a marathon, but I hate running.

00:08:08:18 – 00:08:32:07
Dr David McLaughlan
I like, okay, I get it, I get it. Remember this, though, when you were a child like, what is the thing that you did the moment that you could run? You did run like you every everybody. You know, when you’re three years old, you want to run everywhere. And there’s so much joy and happiness and moving your body and feeling free.

00:08:32:09 – 00:08:53:06
Dr David McLaughlan
like, those are the memories that I had and that I remind people the, the, the mistake that they make most of the time is that they run too hard. I mean, it would be like you would hate going to the gym. Is the first time that you went, you know, you maxed out and, you know, a hundred sets on the bench prowess.

00:08:53:06 – 00:09:11:16
Dr David McLaughlan
And then you went back again the next day and try to do it again. Like when you don’t kind of know what you’re doing. People find themselves in great distress. But the but the mentality is the thing. I always say, okay, with your marriage, are you happy in your marriage? It’s like you don’t wake up every day and say, God, I fucking hate me.

00:09:11:16 – 00:09:29:20
Dr David McLaughlan
And marriage is, you know, or you know, I hate my job. Even though we do these things every day, a lot of people do wake up every day and they say, I hate my job. Well, they’ve already made it impossible for them to go into their job and have a good day today because it’s I’m.

00:09:29:22 – 00:09:31:19
Elliott Wald
They’re in the wrong job. They’re in the wrong job.

00:09:31:20 – 00:09:51:02
Dr David McLaughlan
Exactly. So I just I think with running with with fitness, I mean, I’m a gym guy also and I sort of mix it up and write it. Yes. I tell people all the time, I use the best example for me currently I have a cold plunge, you know, I have no idea. I tell me about them. I have no idea if this thing does mean are you good?

00:09:51:02 – 00:10:12:18
Dr David McLaughlan
But the mentality of it because I don’t like being cold. So for me, five minutes a day I say, okay, I’m getting in that cold ones today. And so just the the strength of mind that it takes for me to say, okay, I’m going to get down, I’m going to get in this really cold water for five minutes, and then I’m going to get out again.

00:10:12:20 – 00:10:20:22
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s the power of actually fulfilling the the commitment that’s more important than whatever it’s doing for me physiologically.

00:10:21:00 – 00:10:40:09
Elliott Wald
Yeah. It’s funny you say that because I remember reading a book, written by Jesse. It’s like avoiding going out of that. You write a book called living with a CEO. This was before David Goldman’s got famous. And, in this book, he’s he’s fired daily statin therapy to get him through these marathons that he wants to run, and he wants to do an ultra form.

00:10:40:10 – 00:10:57:12
Elliott Wald
I think he was in ultramarathon. I think that’s what the book’s about. And he hires David. You I mean, before he was famous is Navy Seal to pushing and pushing and pushing and the really interesting part in the book where David go to Jesse says, I want you to sit on this channel. The film is chair, right? And I want to sleep on this chair.

00:10:57:14 – 00:11:13:14
Elliott Wald
I just yesterday I was going to go, why? Why would I sleep on a chair when I’m beautiful in my bedroom? Right. And, this was a classic. There we go. Michelle, you’re on this because you got to get comfortable. Real uncomfortable. Yeah, motherfucker. Right. And that’s what you’re saying, right? You’re going to get you’re going to stretch it.

00:11:13:17 – 00:11:17:17
Elliott Wald
So you should be comfortable with things that are uncomfortable.

00:11:17:18 – 00:11:37:07
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, I know both of those guys probably. Well and so do you. it’s a it’s a funny. yes. And now I would even I would argue I’d be curious of your opinion. I agree with everything you said. I what I am. There’s a weird I don’t know if I’m famous for it, but there’s a line that even came up again yesterday.

00:11:37:09 – 00:11:57:22
Dr David McLaughlan
So I’m friends with Matt Damon, and he was the producer of my film, running across the Sahara Desert. And Matt and I went for a run for ten miles. When we first met many years ago, we went for a run for ten miles together in New York City. we finished the run, and, he’s, you know, he’s wasted life.

00:11:57:22 – 00:12:18:20
Dr David McLaughlan
He’s done. We didn’t we didn’t go that fast. And he’s a good athlete. But, like, you know, ten miles is a long way for a no. One, right? So we finished and he says I couldn’t run another step. He said, I have no idea how you do it. And I and I did with no forethought. I looked at him and I said, well, Matt, you know, you just have to change your relationship to pain and edit.

00:12:19:02 – 00:12:41:09
Dr David McLaughlan
And it shifted. He quoted me and, like literally at the United Nations, he quoted me. And like, he still quotes me on that today because it is, it is a mentality that we all and you, you understand this extremely well better than anyone else is. You know, our what we tell ourselves, the story that we tell ourselves and how we relate to pain.

00:12:41:09 – 00:12:52:14
Dr David McLaughlan
Whatever form that pain comes, whether it’s emotional pain or physical pain, what you think it is, is almost certainly what it is.

00:12:52:16 – 00:13:09:05
Elliott Wald
Yeah, yeah. Now it’s interesting because when I talk about dealing with, I’m going to use this. I’ll use the word coach enemies. When. Because when I transfer some attention to social media, for example, on Tik Tok, they have a bit of an issue using that word. I’m researching that as a pocket rise from here on this in traffic.

00:13:09:05 – 00:13:25:21
Elliott Wald
But when I talk to people about getting off the parking, dealing with their addiction, I talk about fighting and it’s all about pleasure in a slightly different way. This is what I say in nature. He’s about avoiding pain. Right? So if you put your hand up and you burn yourself, that is a physical pain. You’re going to go, oh, I’m not going to do that again.

00:13:25:22 – 00:13:46:03
Elliott Wald
Right. So simulation is about avoiding kind and seeking pleasure. Now, most things in life require an element of time. Before we get pleasure, we go to work to earn an income, to buy my same pleasure. I’m so they won’t find pleasure. Right? We, let’s grab a car. Repeating the process overnight or trying to get the freedom to get from A to B pleasure.

00:13:46:04 – 00:14:04:09
Elliott Wald
Right. So that’s how it works. It’s a bit of time before we get pleasure. That’s not like normal things working on. But without the hustle and with the practice, it is the wrong way around. The perception of pleasure starts when the change comes later. All right. Whereas pain and pleasure. And that’s why a lot of people have a problem, because they’ve forgotten about a time it comes way later.

00:14:04:12 – 00:14:16:20
Elliott Wald
They’re just thinking about the momentary pleasure and the perceptions that shift, you know, they need in order to successfully start suddenly. One of the things I absolutely agree with is you have to shift pain and pleasure around in the restaurant. What do you think of that?

00:14:16:22 – 00:14:40:20
Dr David McLaughlan
I mean, I, I couldn’t agree more with you and I and I also think, you know, we there’s this very complicated relationship with trauma. you know, I understand it myself. And I know we’re going to talk about this, you know, my my running. You know, I’m, I have 31 years clean and sober at this point, but my running in the early years, I ran.

00:14:40:22 – 00:15:07:15
Dr David McLaughlan
Thank you. I ran partly for pleasure. You know, I ran because it was a release for me. But I also ran because I could put myself into physical pain and suffering very quickly, and I could control it, you know? So it was another way, in a sense, of, I don’t want to say punishing myself, but I still felt very unworthy, being me.

00:15:07:17 – 00:15:09:05
Elliott Wald
And I’ve no idea what I was.

00:15:09:05 – 00:15:31:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Doing through this long transitional phase of getting past my, drug addictions and finding my way into this new life, and I and I. So I think it’s a it’s interesting. I could actually toggle that switch back and forth between, like, really enjoying, you know, running as a meditation for me, most of the time there’s almost no pain involved.

00:15:31:09 – 00:15:56:11
Dr David McLaughlan
I’m just I’m just out there flowing and my body feels good even when it doesn’t feel good, like I’m flowing. But I could I could tap into that pain part of what I was looking for, to sort of punish myself along the way because I felt unworthy of even the opportunities that I had. I felt lucky to be alive and insecure about my life.

00:15:56:11 – 00:16:15:12
Dr David McLaughlan
And, you know, and I think alcohol does the same. I think some people, they know that pain is coming from the hangover or, or maybe the other problems they’ve caused in their life because of the drinking. But it’s, you know, in the moment it’s all worth it because all they want is that release, you know, that that escape.

00:16:15:13 – 00:16:17:12
Elliott Wald
Escape. Yeah.

00:16:17:13 – 00:16:19:01
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Exactly.

00:16:19:03 – 00:16:37:14
Elliott Wald
Yeah. The great this is, this is home in on a couple of things because you talk about the struggles with alcohol, the passage in college. can you elaborate on on what it was in college? I know you touched on it slightly, but elaborate on what it was and how that got you. So your first years in the pursuit, for example.

00:16:37:14 – 00:16:38:04
Elliott Wald
Let’s talk about.

00:16:38:04 – 00:17:00:23
Dr David McLaughlan
That. Yeah. I mean, it’s it’s really interesting. You know, I when I went to college, you know, and I, and I began to drink right in earnest, I, I had done some drinking in high school, but I was I was busy in high school and I loved athletics. I love like I was I felt like I was a big man on campus and I, I, you know, I didn’t understand my insecurities at that point.

00:17:00:23 – 00:17:29:23
Dr David McLaughlan
I didn’t understand my, my trauma, and therefore I just took the good, reflected emotions that I got from other people. And then when I go to college, of course, there’s 4000 other freshmen that have the same, you know, resume that I have. And and when I was first introduced to the packet, I remember distinctly taking those first couple of lines and, the it’s almost like, our klieg light went off.

00:17:29:23 – 00:17:51:20
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s a, you know, this these not alarm bells, but this like, you know, I was going to cure cancer. I was going to save the kids. I was going to I was going to make straight A’s for my father. I was going to like it. It opened up this world for me, that I thought everything was possible. And it was the only place in my life where I felt that way.

00:17:51:22 – 00:18:18:17
Dr David McLaughlan
You know, when I was using, I felt anxiety, I felt insecurity, I felt all of these other negative, you know, feelings because I just didn’t feel like I was ever going to measure up to my father’s expectations, my own expectation and society’s expectations. But man, when I had to pack it in, sometimes just in my pocket, sometimes it wasn’t even in my body.

00:18:18:17 – 00:18:31:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, but just the power of having it, you know, on me and knowing that this is going to happen was enough to just, like, generate this whole different version of Charlie.

00:18:31:01 – 00:18:47:01
Elliott Wald
Yeah. I’m going to stop you there one second. At the very beginning of this, of this interview, you said to me you were talking about alcohol and you said, the beer being when I needed it wouldn’t let me down. And then you just said not even using the pack in the family in my pocket was the worst I’ve ever known it.

00:18:47:01 – 00:19:05:22
Elliott Wald
It’s there. She Geraghty. Even if I’m not using it, I got it. Besides, I don’t want to be alone with that offset. I’m. I’ll tell you something. In the 1940s, there was a brand of cigarets. The United Kingdom. I don’t know if they were there in America, but the British Cigarets called the strand. And in the 1940s there was a radio commercial, the radio commercial.

00:19:05:22 – 00:19:11:07
Elliott Wald
When you’re never alone with the strand. And that’s what you’re saying, right?

00:19:11:09 – 00:19:32:14
Dr David McLaughlan
That’s exactly it. You know, I mean, I there’s no I, I used to always say, I mean, I still say it. There’s no the only greater power. And in doing that drive is having the drug the out for an alcoholic, the only greater power than drinking the beer is to have a freaking case of beer in your refrigerator.

00:19:32:16 – 00:20:17:03
Dr David McLaughlan
Because that feels like, man, here. You know I’m in control. It’s a powerful thing, and it’s almost like the minute that those 24 beers, the minute you cross over and you’ve you’ve you’ve had 13 of them and now you have less than a half like this. This thing starts to happen inside you, this fear of like, oh, no, you know, I’m gonna run out and, you know, I remember, you know, the getting the packet, having the packet doing it, the, the acquisition, all of that would end up taking out the vast majority of my time, the planning for the next time I was going to get to do it would take up the

00:20:17:03 – 00:20:40:20
Dr David McLaughlan
majority of my free time, you know? So when I wasn’t using, I might even go a week between having, you know, drugs in my pocket and not, you know, and getting it again, but that whole week would end up being consumed, by the plotting and planning and negotiating and acquiring and then getting ready for the next time.

00:20:40:22 – 00:21:08:21
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, that relief. Yeah, it was just. And if I. So what I say all the time, it’s like, addiction is a superpower. Like, it’s a frickin superpower. But if you can take if I could take that same energy I used to put into just acquiring drugs and point that towards, you know, solving world hunger or some other more noble, you know, thing that I could do, I could do anything.

00:21:08:21 – 00:21:21:18
Dr David McLaughlan
And that is the mentality that I took for running. I was like, okay, you know, all the energy into this other thing, if I can take that energy and put it into something that I love to do, then there’s not anything that’s not possible.

00:21:21:20 – 00:21:46:02
Elliott Wald
Yeah, I agree, I mean, I help some of the clients every year, probably just under a thousand clients I see personally every year and various my workloads. And one of the great things I manage, cross pollination is what you talk about. And I advocate in either one instance, I wish I could go to the gym once. Are you enjoy doing that night, not enjoy doing it and pushing yourself and everything you do in the gym or running or everything, you know.

00:21:46:07 – 00:21:54:10
Elliott Wald
That’s why that’s all areas of your life. You care about your business, your personal life, your relationships, everything. Right? Actually, you’re talking about cross pollination.

00:21:54:12 – 00:22:10:12
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s exactly. Yeah. And I mean, because it does translate very well, you know, I know we’re going to talk to them about running, but I’ll jump I’ll skip the on one thing. You know, I today I mean I’m 61 and I still love running. You know I have 100 miler coming up in a couple of months.

00:22:10:14 – 00:22:12:09
Elliott Wald
I no longer realize.

00:22:12:11 – 00:22:17:00
Dr David McLaughlan
I’ve done that. I’ve done that like more than 50 times. So like a.

00:22:17:00 – 00:22:18:12
Elliott Wald
Hundred miles law 50 times.

00:22:18:14 – 00:22:36:07
Dr David McLaughlan
Have I have. So. And the thing about it is I you know what? I always tell people that I get laughs and when I’m on stage from there. So I’m like, I don’t need to like the ride all that much. But what I, what I like is how running makes me feel. And those are two very different things.

00:22:36:07 – 00:23:02:08
Dr David McLaughlan
You know, there’s running for me is a, it’s a, it’s a vehicle. You know, I run across over 40 countries and so I get a chance to see a country, a country, you name it, you know, from ground level in slow motion, not from the back of a car, you know, and I’m running through villages and I’m seeing the nature and I’m seeing all of these things, you know, in a, in a way that almost nobody gets to see it.

00:23:02:08 – 00:23:26:09
Dr David McLaughlan
And that’s the power of it for me. But you know what I say about, running a hundred miles is that I’m going to I’m going to want to quit at least five times, you know, during that hundred miler, because we forget the pay. Even I forget the pay. I’ll start a 100 miler and everything is great for the first, you know, 50 miles, 60 miles.

00:23:26:09 – 00:23:48:20
Dr David McLaughlan
It like it feels good. And then all of a sudden the wheels come off and I’m like, what the fuck is wrong with you? Like, why did you think this was a good idea? You’ve done this so many times, it sucks. And Rita, you know, and I get in this spiral of negative, you know, thinking, why? Just to just to rein it back in like that is the moment that matters.

00:23:49:01 – 00:24:14:17
Dr David McLaughlan
Like my life to me is about getting through moments, not not periods of time. Typically, we all have terrible moments and we take that terrible moment and we project it into the future forever. You know, we have a bad argument with our spouse or our boss, and we take how it feels in that moment, and we think it’s always going to feel that way in the future.

00:24:14:23 – 00:24:41:03
Dr David McLaughlan
So to bring it back to running, if I’m at 61 miles, my brain is like going, oh my God, I have 39 miles to run and I and I can’t, I can’t go any farther. And what I have to do is focus just on that moment. And I know that I need to eat, I need to drink, I need to walk, I need to like, just I need to bring my pain level down some and just try to keep moving.

00:24:41:03 – 00:25:03:14
Dr David McLaughlan
And if I can do that, I can get through it. That is very translatable to my business, to my marriage, to, because it’s all about getting past a moment and not overreacting. Not quitting, not not like dropping an atomic bomb on the whole situation because we just want it to go away. Just let that moment I.

00:25:03:15 – 00:25:19:05
Elliott Wald
Was busy reinforcing your sobriety and breaking free from your addiction continually. Each time you try to push yourself. I mean, you almost remind yourself that. That I’m pushing myself, that I’m pushing through, that I’m capable, that I want it. I’m not getting it for it.

00:25:19:06 – 00:25:44:12
Dr David McLaughlan
No, it’s exactly right. I mean, because, again, the more often we put ourselves voluntarily into a situation of some suffering because life as we all know, we have a lot of involuntary suffering. I mean, things come at us from everywhere, and that’s just being human. So the more often we can challenge ourselves in ways that like, yeah, I got through that.

00:25:44:12 – 00:26:05:21
Dr David McLaughlan
Or occasionally you fail. I haven’t finished every race I ever started, I quit, I just absolutely quit a few times. Not very often, but a few times. I’m just absolutely sad I can’t do this. I quit today, you know, an hour later, once I recovered a little bit, I feel great. And I’m like going, why did I quit?

00:26:06:00 – 00:26:31:11
Dr David McLaughlan
Because I didn’t need to quit. I just needed to take a little break. And and those are the those are the things I remind people that I work with all the time is like, don’t don’t pull a pin on the hand grenade and throw it like, just, just like you can open the drawer and look at that hand grenade, but then close the drawer again, let it stay there because you can always pull that option out again later.

00:26:31:13 – 00:26:40:20
Dr David McLaughlan
But if you start with, if you start with like, exploding your life, the minute things go wrong, then you can’t go back from that.

00:26:40:22 – 00:26:52:01
Elliott Wald
Yeah. Try to to take me back to to the very of your usage of a party, an alcohol. What constitutes organized and how frequently to get an idea.

00:26:52:03 – 00:27:13:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. So for me, I drank every day, so drinking for that ten year period was pretty much, you know, I mean, I might have had the occasional day off, but generally speaking, I drank every day. No, I didn’t drink. Like to get obliterated every day. But, you know, just to put it in perspective, I probably drank, you know, a six pack every day.

00:27:13:11 – 00:27:30:15
Dr David McLaughlan
And I like tequila. So I would drink some of that. The, the packet, which in the first 5 or 6 years the packet was in powder one, you know, in the last 3 or 4 years the packet was very much in rock form. Oh, I.

00:27:30:17 – 00:27:35:17
Elliott Wald
That’s that sweet. I know exactly we should use a word that we can use that word. Okay. Yeah guys.

00:27:35:20 – 00:28:00:03
Dr David McLaughlan
So I got addicted to crack. And part of it was because I mean, really, it was it’s easy to get mad at. I traveled a lot for my business. I had a, I had so I could go to any I mean, dude, I was an expert. It didn’t matter. LA, Denver, Seattle, Atlanta, any city in this country, you within 30 minutes I would find the neighborhood where, you know, I could score.

00:28:00:05 – 00:28:23:03
Dr David McLaughlan
And it was so easy and it was cheap. And once I was you know, when I first did crack, I was not seeking it. I was seeking the packet. I was in Denver to my Bach, like, I’m in Denver and like the person that I that I pick up off the street to score for me, you know, she comes back into the car and she hands me these rocks and I’m like, what is this?

00:28:23:03 – 00:28:41:18
Dr David McLaughlan
That’s that’s not what I asked for. She says, trust me. I mean, I’m already drunk at that point. And I, you know, I try it and, you know, from that point on, that’s all I ever wanted to do. And so that was, you know, I mean, look, I was a bender. You actually said this from the very beginning, and you identified me.

00:28:41:18 – 00:29:00:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, I was a guy. I could go periods of time without doing it. I mean, I mean, weeks, months, whatever. I would straighten up and I would. I never stopped drinking, but I would straighten up and I would stop doing the other stuff. And, but once I started, I couldn’t stop. But.

00:29:00:02 – 00:29:03:07
Elliott Wald
You know, I was out 2 to 3 days, I mean, so.

00:29:03:09 – 00:29:06:13
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah, I mean, six, seven days sometimes. Oh, I come.

00:29:06:15 – 00:29:07:16
Elliott Wald
To my last.

00:29:07:16 – 00:29:22:16
Dr David McLaughlan
Binge before I finally got sober is a very kind of it’s famous because I talk about it in my book and I talk about it on stage a lot, but, I mean, it was a six day binge with, you know, bullet holes in my car and the police, I built that.

00:29:22:16 – 00:29:32:19
Elliott Wald
I made it, you know what would judge what I just let me just say I, I read somewhere that your addiction landed you in jail after having a life. Well, it’s flooded you tell me about this.

00:29:32:21 – 00:29:52:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. So this was. I mean, it was, I think so much of this will resonate with you because you work with so many people who. I mean, look, all our stories are basically the same. They’re just packaged differently. you know, I’m. This was a little more extreme. You know, I, my son was two months old, my first son.

00:29:52:09 – 00:30:12:18
Dr David McLaughlan
And, like, I had already been to rehab. I’ve been to a I’ve been to church. I’ve been to a shaman. Like, anything you can think of, I had tried and in my mind, none of it had worked. Of course, now, in hindsight, I know none of it worked because I wasn’t ready. Yeah. You know, I just was. It could have worked, but I didn’t work it.

00:30:12:20 – 00:30:44:22
Dr David McLaughlan
So my son’s born and like, I’m done, like I’m finished. I’m not going to drink any more Mario drug any more of my son’s going to like, saved my life. And, which was a lot of pressure for, you know, a baby, and a couple months into his life, you know, nothing happened. I didn’t have no my wife or my boss, but I found myself drive into the worst neighborhood in town, and I spent six days smoking crack and drinking and just destroy everything I had built over the previous couple of months.

00:30:45:00 – 00:31:09:04
Dr David McLaughlan
All the trust, you know, all of that. And. And that binge ended with me handcuffed on the ground, you know, sitting outside of dumpy motel, you know, watching this policeman search my car and he’s finding, you know, cans and bottles and, you know, I, I always knew the driver’s seat, and he pulls out this little crack pipe, right?

00:31:09:04 – 00:31:28:20
Dr David McLaughlan
And he’s, you know, he’s holding this crack by me, looking at me on the ground. And it’s like any, any rational person in any way would have been thinking to themselves, I’m in some trouble. Like this is this is going to be bad. Like, what’s going to happen to me? And all I could think in that moment was so that’s where that was.

00:31:28:22 – 00:31:48:20
Dr David McLaughlan
It was like, because I looked for that crack pipe for like two days, right? I couldn’t find it. I hid it from myself because that’s what drug addicts do. And and it was. And in a serious moment here, that’s when everything changed for me. And I literally had the words hit me in the head, you know, nobody’s coming to save you.

00:31:48:22 – 00:32:10:14
Dr David McLaughlan
Like, certainly my my baby son couldn’t save me. My wife couldn’t. My boss couldn’t. Like, nobody could see. Everyone would support me if I would just finally take that first step to say, you know, I don’t want to do this anymore. Please help me. And I did that on that day. And I went to an AA meeting that night.

00:32:10:14 – 00:32:31:17
Dr David McLaughlan
I’d been to hundreds of AA meetings by that point. you know, I but I never really s and I went because I thought if I just showed up, you know, it would stick. But I never opened my heart or my mind and to the curiosity of what is there for me, like, what could I find? How can I create a different life?

00:32:31:19 – 00:32:48:23
Dr David McLaughlan
And then I got up the next day and I went for a run and and you know, I did those two things, Elliot, for three straight years without missing a day, I went to a meeting and I went for a run every day for three years without missing a single day. And I just made it the most important thing in my life.

00:32:48:23 – 00:33:09:21
Dr David McLaughlan
I recognized that, I mean, it was more important than my my kids and I, a lot of people would be like, whoa, really? Well, yeah. Because if I didn’t stay sober, my there were no kids, you know, my kids, I would be dead. They’d be on their own. like, I had to prioritize. I prioritize this part of my life.

00:33:09:21 – 00:33:13:13
Dr David McLaughlan
Then, you know, that day changed everything for me.

00:33:13:15 – 00:33:16:16
Elliott Wald
That was the one design environment. The relents you’re getting.

00:33:16:16 – 00:33:38:21
Dr David McLaughlan
Say it was. But, you know, I’m. You know how addicts are. I had had dozens of similar moments. So why was that one different than other ones? I can’t tell you that. Maybe it was because my son was in the world, and I felt this additional responsibility, but I don’t I don’t know that I was that good a human being.

00:33:38:21 – 00:33:50:07
Dr David McLaughlan
Like, I don’t, you know, I don’t I try to look at it as obviously, I don’t know that I was so amazing that all of a sudden I’m gonna, like, just think about my son. I mean, because I.

00:33:50:09 – 00:34:05:22
Elliott Wald
I think a lot of people would say that they would do what you did. But when it comes to I think there’s another excuse. I think that’s what happens. I think you had great extension and you followed through, but I think a lot of the other great age, they go, well, I’ve got a young child and I’ve got somebody dependent on the idea that they then get that all.

00:34:06:01 – 00:34:15:05
Elliott Wald
They look like that estate. I want to do a, you know, commiseration and they get a bonus. All of those reasons around hooks that we don’t use. But you follow through.

00:34:15:07 – 00:34:30:22
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, we also tell ourselves that we’re going to control it this time. This time is going to be different. You know, I’m only going to I’m only going to drink three beers. I’m only going to drink on the weekends. I’m only going to I’m only going to do drugs, you know, on Thursdays of a full moon. And I’m always thinking about what?

00:34:31:01 – 00:34:51:16
Dr David McLaughlan
Whatever way that we can kind of, manipulate this thing into a shape that we can justify. and, you know, and I, again, I don’t work with people anything like you work with people. You’re you’re a professional. I’m an amateur. But I tell people, I get the question all the time. How do I know if I’m an addict?

00:34:51:18 – 00:35:12:20
Dr David McLaughlan
How do I know? Like, here’s my habits. Like, am I a drug addict? I’m an alcoholic. I’m like, you’re asking the wrong question. It doesn’t really matter whether you are or aren’t. All that matters is this question how is this behavior serving me right? How is that? How is it affecting my life? Whatever. It could be one beer a day.

00:35:12:20 – 00:35:30:18
Dr David McLaughlan
If you think that I get that one beer a day is somehow screwing up your life, well, it doesn’t sound like very much alcohol. But why would you keep doing it if it is the source of of so much pain in your life? Find a way to eliminate that from your life.

00:35:30:20 – 00:35:37:14
Elliott Wald
You know things are. You hit the nail on the head. Let me ask you. So I know you’ve been sober for 31 years, I correct?

00:35:37:16 – 00:35:38:14
Dr David McLaughlan
Yes.

00:35:38:16 – 00:35:54:16
Elliott Wald
And so tell the people listening because I I’ll be this when I read this in the research. Tell the listeners I think it’s June or July. Is it June, July. Maryland. Yeah. July 27th, July 23rd. You go for it. So the listener and what you do every year on the 23rd of July.

00:35:54:18 – 00:36:20:16
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Because clearly I have my addiction issues completely under control. but that and so on my sober birthday every year and this started over 20 years ago, I decided that I would run for the same number of hours to equal the years that I’ve been sober. So I started this at ten years, roughly, and I think I missed a year or two here and there because I hadn’t made it like a thing yet.

00:36:20:16 – 00:36:40:20
Dr David McLaughlan
But like, I just did it for ten years and I picked up. But so at ten years, that meant I ran for ten hours and I was I was pretty fast back then. So ten hours I probably ran. You’re 75 miles in ten hours, so that was pretty good. You. But what what’s happening is of course, now I’m 61 years old, so I’ll run this July.

00:36:40:20 – 00:36:59:03
Dr David McLaughlan
I’ll run for 32 consecutive hours on a two mile loop. I do it at, an addiction treatment center. And like, there will be 500 people that will come out and spend the day with me and maybe 30 or 40 of them will will go the entire time.

00:36:59:05 – 00:37:04:14
Elliott Wald
sorry. Sorry, dude. Sorry. I just want to tell you, how do you do this, a charity, this for charity?

00:37:04:19 – 00:37:30:21
Dr David McLaughlan
I do. So I actually raise money for, scholarships to go to rehab. so, you know, I raise typically 2 to 300,000 every year. and, you know, and again, I’m like, man, this is just what I tell people all the time, though, is and I and again, I know enough about you and the research I’ve done on that, on how you go about things.

00:37:30:23 – 00:37:56:05
Dr David McLaughlan
First and foremost, I am the charity that needs the most attention. And I tell people all the time, it’s not, you know, selfish. The word selfish gets a bad rap because you you must be selfish about your own self care and your growth and like, put that, I had a pretty much everything else. And if you don’t do that, you can’t be of service to other people.

00:37:56:07 – 00:38:16:03
Dr David McLaughlan
Not not in a true way that you want to. And so I look at something like I call the I call the event the Penguin. So it’s actually called the penguin, which is funny because I at my age I feel like I’m running like a penguin these days. but I think, you know, removing the ego. I was never a particularly egotistical runner.

00:38:16:03 – 00:38:42:16
Dr David McLaughlan
Anyway, you know, I love I love running, I won races sometimes, I lost sometimes, but but somehow I always knew, even in the early years that the important part of it wasn’t, did I win or, you know, are people looking at me? The important part was, you know, am I still growing as you know, as a person? and most of the time I could say yes to that.

00:38:42:18 – 00:39:01:21
Elliott Wald
I sort of probably get from you. You said running, saying my life then gave me a life. Can you elaborate on how you redirected your addictive drugs by switching the the alcohol and the party and the other issues with drugs for it to that extreme endurance? You know, you we kind of touched on that. Do you like the pain?

00:39:01:21 – 00:39:08:19
Elliott Wald
But. What? You know, what is it? That morning saved your life, you know, what do you see without it?

00:39:08:21 – 00:39:34:09
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. You know, I don’t think. And I’ll try to keep this, you know, brief. But I for me just going to like 12 step recovery or, you know, some of the, you know, the therapeutic, modalities wouldn’t have been enough for me. I needed the physical release. Just the physical release of running also wouldn’t have been enough for me.

00:39:34:11 – 00:39:58:18
Dr David McLaughlan
And so the combination of those two things, but more importantly, the community that came with both of those things were not meant to be alone. A lot of people, you know, quit drugs on their own, so to speak, or whatever. But you can quit doing the the act, and it doesn’t fill that hole that caused you to want to use the drugs to begin with.

00:39:58:18 – 00:40:21:13
Dr David McLaughlan
So for me, I recognized early on I needed the running community, I needed the sober community. And I mean, I’m also a writer, so I like my writing community. But when I say running saved my life, I mean, I it’s such an easy thing to do. Like every single day, there’s 30 minutes or an hour or two hours.

00:40:21:13 – 00:40:48:00
Dr David McLaughlan
I just put on my shoes and my shorts and I went out the door and it was like the pressure would just come off, and I had to have that. When I say it gave me a life. When I got sober, I had this crazy business. I chased hailstorms around the world. And so, I had about 50 employees and we would repair hail damaged cars all over the US, Australia, in the UK sometimes.

00:40:48:01 – 00:41:09:06
Dr David McLaughlan
And everywhere there’s hail damage all over the world. And so this crazy business and I, you know, I make great money at it, but I, I don’t I don’t want to say I hated it, I appreciated it, but it certainly didn’t do anything other than pay the bills. Right. So I didn’t look forward to my job. I loved running, and I started to get sponsorships because I was running well.

00:41:09:06 – 00:41:27:17
Dr David McLaughlan
And so I actually was making a little bit of money, at running. And I had the mentality and I said to myself all the time, I’m going to somehow I’m going to figure out how to make this my living. I’m going to I’m going to do this all the time. And how much money I make is how much money I make.

00:41:27:19 – 00:41:55:07
Dr David McLaughlan
Slowly but surely, you know, I found my way into sponsorships. And then when I did my Sahara run, I was able to quit my job, and. And I made good money. And that that got me a speaking agent. So I started speaking for a living, and then I, you know, I wrote a book, and then I did other things and, you know, and so I will I will say that running enabled me to expand way beyond.

00:41:55:09 – 00:42:11:04
Dr David McLaughlan
And I don’t mean financially, I would have made a lot more money had I just stuck with my hell repair business, because it’s just it was a great business, but I knew it was never going to feed the part of me that needed to be sad. But running during the.

00:42:11:06 – 00:42:25:09
Elliott Wald
It’s interesting because I hadn’t really thought about it, like you just said, until you mentioned it. You know, as I said, I’m a great advocate going to the gym. For me, it’s my way of of still owning everything. I go first thing in the morning before I start my day. like you said earlier, you got to take care of yourself in the shell.

00:42:25:09 – 00:42:41:13
Elliott Wald
Fish oil learned like the pilot says, put your oxygen mask on yourself before you put it on someone else. Right. So I get that, but I’m sure you said it and it resonated with me. And you said, it’s like you go, you’ve got to send me there, because I know when I go to the gym, it’s for ten, 12, 13 different people that I see.

00:42:41:13 – 00:42:56:05
Elliott Wald
Like, how are you doing? Yeah, you’re right. It’s five minutes before I get on the training. That is a community. And I read it and even then I still want. So you mentioned it when you need that community, maybe multiple communities in different areas of your life, but that is very much the learning community was helping it.

00:42:56:07 – 00:43:19:19
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, yeah. And think about this. And I say this to people regularly, if you don’t belong to I don’t belong is whatever you belong to your gym, but the community you’re talking about are just people that over time, you guys see each other at the gym every day and whatever. If you don’t belong to something that people would miss you if you stopped showing up, then that’s a problem.

00:43:19:19 – 00:43:38:11
Dr David McLaughlan
It’s a problem for someone in sobriety. You know, I what it was was if I didn’t go, if I didn’t show up at a particular 12 step meeting, or if I didn’t show up at the Wednesday night running group, you know, for a week or two, somebody is calling me and they’re saying, hey, Charlie, what’s going up?

00:43:38:11 – 00:44:06:06
Dr David McLaughlan
Just checking in on you. Like, that’s community. And, and and that begins to create this thing where you, you know, you know, even a handful of them, you can say, hey, you know, you want to get a cup of coffee after the gym today and or have marched and you can sit down and talk to somebody and that there’s just such great power in commiseration, around positivity too.

00:44:06:07 – 00:44:36:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Because think about this. How much community is there in the local pub? A lot, actually. I said, the problem is what is, what it is built around. It’s built around drinking. And so it’s very unreliable. You know, that kind of community is not one that you can really count on because people, you know, sitting around drinking and getting drunk and commiserating creates a certain kind of community that seems like it feels good.

00:44:36:06 – 00:45:00:03
Dr David McLaughlan
The difference is most of those people you couldn’t call, you know, the next day, if you had, you know, you needed a ride to the airport. you know, it’s it’s just something about the, the community and the love that comes from mutual suffering. In a way. You go, yeah, yeah, work out around people. They see you working out, and they you get a if you watch somebody just work out.

00:45:00:03 – 00:45:06:21
Dr David McLaughlan
And I could tell, you know, talking to you, you know, I would, I would guess that you’re pretty intense and your workout.

00:45:06:23 – 00:45:10:01
Elliott Wald
yeah. I’m I’m almost to the wall, Charlie. Yeah.

00:45:10:03 – 00:45:24:10
Dr David McLaughlan
Hell, yeah. Because why do it otherwise? Why? I mean, if you’re if you’re on your phone and you’re doing this and I, I can’t tell you how annoyed I get watching somebody sit on a piece of equipment with their phone in their hand.

00:45:24:12 – 00:45:28:23
Elliott Wald
Do you know what the solution is? My gym. There’s no phone signal.

00:45:29:01 – 00:45:31:20
Dr David McLaughlan
Oh that’s fantastic. Yeah.

00:45:31:22 – 00:45:45:20
Elliott Wald
There you go. See? Question. One of your most iconic feats was crossing the Sahara desert on foot 7200km. Jeté. What is inside of you that pushes you to these extremes? And what was that experience like? See you.

00:45:45:22 – 00:45:49:12
Dr David McLaughlan
Is stupidity a fair answer?

00:45:49:14 – 00:45:53:07
Elliott Wald
I think it’s I strongly I don’t want to offend my guests.

00:45:53:09 – 00:46:21:17
Dr David McLaughlan
you can offend me. You you have a hard time offending me. I can offend myself. so, look, I will freely admit that there is. That was part ego when I began. You know, at that point, I came up with the idea I was maybe 13, 14 years sober. I was the senior producer for a TV show called, Extreme Makeover Home Edition back then, which you guys probably had it.

00:46:21:19 – 00:46:40:09
Dr David McLaughlan
You know that show there was a number one show on TV for a few years, and, like, life was good. You know, I was I had a job that I liked. I was running around the world, and, I went to a race in the Amazon jungle that was, 200 mile race across a big portion of the Amazon.

00:46:40:11 – 00:47:05:21
Dr David McLaughlan
And during that race, another guy who I didn’t know, he just blurted out this idea. He’s like, have you ever thought about running across the Sahara Desert? And I’m like, no, that’s a stupid idea. Like, why would anybody do that? It’s not possible. But but I like to say that, you know, words said to us by a stranger can change the entire course of your life if you’re if you’re paying attention, because that’s the way the universe works.

00:47:05:21 – 00:47:34:21
Dr David McLaughlan
You don’t know where that nugget is going to come from. And so what I found was when I got back to the US, I couldn’t stop thinking about this idea. And, you know, firsts in the adventure world are really hard to come by. Like it’s difficult to find something that hasn’t been done before. So I just started to tell people that I was going to be the first person to run across the Sahara like, no, no proof, no plan, no money, no nothing.

00:47:34:23 – 00:47:53:00
Dr David McLaughlan
I took possession of this idea. I think I was a big fan of Paulo Coelho and, you know, The Alchemist at that point in my life. And like me and, you know, we all know the story. But this idea that the universe, if you put it out there, the universe will conspire to help you achieve this thing.

00:47:53:02 – 00:48:18:14
Dr David McLaughlan
And sure enough, you know, I end up, I’m from a friend of mine. I got a meeting with the director, in Hollywood, and he had won the Academy Award for best documentary. A couple of years before. And like I pitch him, he loves the idea. He says, let’s do this. A week later, I get a call from him and he’s like, hey, Matt, Damon wants to meet the executive producer of this project, and he wants to narrate this film, you know, is that okay with you?

00:48:18:16 – 00:48:24:16
Dr David McLaughlan
And, I told him, actually, I was really hoping for somebody better, but yeah, if not, then what’s.

00:48:24:16 – 00:48:26:20
Elliott Wald
The name of the film? Charlie Watts. And then listen to his.

00:48:26:20 – 00:48:38:11
Dr David McLaughlan
Very ingenious name. It’s called Running the Sahara. and, I’m very creative, just like my book is called Running Man. So very creative on my.

00:48:38:13 – 00:48:40:07
Elliott Wald
A bit of a thing I’ve been on here, Jerry.

00:48:40:09 – 00:49:04:14
Dr David McLaughlan
Is there. So, I’ll wrap it up and just say, you know, a guy named Hans Zimmer actually signed on to do the score for the film, and he’s the biggest guy in Hollywood. So to be clear, though, I now have three. This goes back to, something I said earlier. Addicts are the best salespeople in the world because I now had three Academy Award winners attached to a project about me.

00:49:04:14 – 00:49:25:02
Dr David McLaughlan
Like running across sand, like riveting stuff. And, and everyone looked at me as if I knew what I was doing because I told them I knew what I was doing. Like a year and a half later, we’re on the coast of Senegal, and I’m surrounded by a bunch of people. Everybody’s excited. We’re we’re going to start the next day.

00:49:25:04 – 00:49:50:02
Dr David McLaughlan
And all I can think is, you know, I have suckered all of these people out here this year, and we’re all going to die. And, you know, and and look, very quickly, things fell apart like it’s 140 Fahrenheit, ground temperatures every day. It’s support vehicles are blowing up. My team is quitting, like, all kinds of problems.

00:49:50:02 – 00:50:18:08
Dr David McLaughlan
And I recognize. And I think this is a, I’ll be interested in your take on this. What I recognize is something I talk about a lot today, which is how attached we get to outcomes where we, especially young people, because there’s this whole different process with young people these days. They look at the outcome and they judge whether or not they’re going to do this thing based on what they think they’re going to get when it’s over.

00:50:18:10 – 00:50:52:04
Dr David McLaughlan
You know, we’re old enough to know that the journey, of course, really is the power. but anyway, I was so attached to the outcome because I, I felt a lot of pressure. There was money invested. There were a lot of people watching me and counting on me and sponsors, and I recognized that, on, like, a weekend of this thing, that what I needed to do was get back to basics and focus on the day on today, and so on day I woke up, I focused on running a marathon in the morning.

00:50:52:06 – 00:51:13:15
Dr David McLaughlan
I took a little break. At lunch, I got up, I focused on running a second marathon in the afternoon, and I went, you know, lay down and had my sleep on the sand. And I got up and I did it again the next day. And in that way, just focusing on this one mantra, you know, the only miles that you can run are the ones like right in front of you.

00:51:13:17 – 00:51:32:14
Dr David McLaughlan
I couldn’t worry about all the other problems. And when I did that, we slowly began making our way across six African countries. And when it was over, you know, I ran basically two marathons every single day for 111 days as well.

00:51:32:16 – 00:51:35:10
Elliott Wald
Two marathons a day for 111 days.

00:51:35:10 – 00:51:38:06
Dr David McLaughlan
Across this area, across the heart, across the.

00:51:38:06 – 00:51:40:10
Elliott Wald
Desert with 140 Fahrenheit floor.

00:51:40:12 – 00:51:48:06
Dr David McLaughlan
It was a town. No idea. Terrible idea. But you know it. But it. But it was wonderful to.

00:51:48:08 – 00:52:02:21
Elliott Wald
What they were saying. You said. You said you said something like, I went to do. I want to sit down and say cooperate. You can only run with sand in front of you. And I’d say I kind of, you know, the ball was in front of you. And I said, no, that right back to addiction because you can already deal with today.

00:52:02:21 – 00:52:19:16
Elliott Wald
Yeah. And then do it tomorrow and then do it the day after. You know, if you try and out, how am I going to do with my sobriety? I’m going to do with being clean. So in six months when I’m supposed to go here with such and such, you know, such do this in a year’s time, you just got to focus on the miles in front of you once a day, right?

00:52:19:18 – 00:52:45:10
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, the one day at a time mantra really is, you know, I hate cliches. You probably do too, but that’s one that I can get behind. You know, it’s, it’s a great way to do it. And just like we talked about earlier, very often in the desert running, I didn’t even have to focus on the miles. I had to focus on that minute because in this, in that single moment, I was so scared that I couldn’t do this.

00:52:45:10 – 00:53:09:06
Dr David McLaughlan
I was so worried that I was the pain was going to stay like this the whole time. I was like, all these things happen to our brain when we go into this fear mode. And so learning how to breathe, how to do a little meditation, how to slow things down and just say, okay, let’s just take this. Let me just think about running the next mile.

00:53:09:08 – 00:53:27:00
Dr David McLaughlan
Let’s not present. Yeah. The present. Yeah. Because we’re never present. I mean, I have to force myself and focus on being present yet still today, because that’s that’s the way my brain works. I think it’s the way most of us operate.

00:53:27:02 – 00:53:40:19
Elliott Wald
I think we live in such a such a world and such a society where we have we have TV, just the buttons, you know, we can have storms, we have anything we want. We can order extra wine. You know, we just live in a world with everything is there. We know it’s going to be with us for an hour.

00:53:40:22 – 00:53:59:15
Elliott Wald
We don’t have to go and look for food. So we are slightly bored and therefore we look for an external thing to to be really, really present when you realize will be in the present. What’s about for that 111 days at Sea Marathon? The day I got to say, Charlie, that is absolutely nuts, but I love it. Thank you so much that.

00:53:59:17 – 00:54:22:17
Dr David McLaughlan
Well, I just I have to add one thing. I just came back a couple weeks ago from visiting a tribe in the Amazon jungle in Ecuador, and a small group, 3 or 4 of us went down. And, we’re trying to help this tribe. But it’s weird to say this because we’re trying to help the tribe stay isolated and not have too much exposure to the outside world.

00:54:22:17 – 00:54:45:02
Dr David McLaughlan
Yet. Of course, we are going there and exposing them to us and the outside world. But the most disheartening thing that I saw, this is a tribe that’s been there in the Amazon for hundreds of years. No electricity, no internet, you know, no nothing. and a couple lovely young people, there’s about 200 people in the tribe.

00:54:45:02 – 00:55:22:20
Dr David McLaughlan
A couple of the teenagers had they didn’t have phones, but they had handheld video games, and they were. They were the members of the tribe, just like teenagers here. They were totally isolated. They were off in a corner playing their games, and they were disengaged with the group. They weren’t interested. And like, it’s such a an experiment, a bad one in a way, because we watch people when they get all of these distractions, when you didn’t have those distractions, and every day you have to hunt because you need to eat, you have to fish because you need to eat.

00:55:22:20 – 00:55:49:15
Dr David McLaughlan
You have to find clean water. You know, all of these things. That was your way of life. And, the love and the joy and the power of how they live their lives was so amazing. And I watched that electronics beginning to, invade their lives. And I worry for what that’s going to look like, you know, five years from now, even I remember reading our, I.

00:55:49:17 – 00:56:13:13
Elliott Wald
I kind of think it was in a book called You Mean Nation. Why? Let me say I think it was in this church. And she talks about these, these these these Indian tribe. I think it was America or Canada, I can’t quite remember. And there’s this tribe, and they were isolated from society. and then society began to move closer and closer to society.

00:56:13:15 – 00:56:31:17
Elliott Wald
We came in, introduced into the tribe, and they lost their land and everything, and and all of a sudden, drums are introduced into the tribe. Now, none of these people would ever take a drug before. I think it turned out that 90% of this tribe ended up having addiction, because before they had to hunt, there is a fish.

00:56:31:17 – 00:56:38:19
Elliott Wald
They had to do what you just said. All of a sudden all those things have been taken care of. What do they do? They go in and in turn around.

00:56:38:21 – 00:57:00:04
Dr David McLaughlan
Yeah. Well, and that is, you know, it’s, we are all, long, life long experiment of one each of us as human beings. And, you know, it is it is true, as they say. You know, the older I get, the more I do think I have a lot more wisdom now, that wisdom would have done me a lot of good when I was 25.

00:57:00:06 – 00:57:02:19
Dr David McLaughlan
I really would have. But, you know, that’s just not the way.

00:57:03:00 – 00:57:22:05
Elliott Wald
And I really appreciate your time. with everyone on my guests, I always finished with them. And I’ll ask, asking the question, what words of encouragement would you give to somebody listening who has an addiction to alcohol, to cocaine, to to anything else that they are looking for? Help seek? You know, what? What words and character would you give them?

00:57:22:07 – 00:57:40:17
Dr David McLaughlan
Man? Thank you. This has been amazing. I mean, I think first and foremost what pops into my head and I try to go and just what happens in this brain, is what happens to us isn’t nearly as important as what we do about it. And we carry the shame of, of our behavior and what’s happened up to this moment.

00:57:40:17 – 00:58:07:16
Dr David McLaughlan
And we do for. Yeah, despite the damage and collateral damage we may have done, all of that is not even remotely relevant to the moment that we’re in right now and what we can achieve going forward. You can’t stop a negative addiction. And because that’s a big part of who we are when you’re in active addiction, you can’t stop it and not still that was something else.

00:58:07:18 – 00:58:36:00
Dr David McLaughlan
So listen to professionals, see someone like you and and find a way to fill that hole. Let someone help you. Let someone love you until you can love yourself. As we like to say and like. Find a way to just not be afraid of what’s coming. Because the you know, the best part truly is yet to come. But what happens to us isn’t as important as what we do about it.

00:58:36:00 – 00:58:39:14
Dr David McLaughlan
So make that change today. Don’t do it tomorrow. Do it today.

00:58:39:16 – 00:58:43:22
Elliott Wald
That’s brilliant. Thank you. Charlie, I really appreciate your time. Thank you for being on coming clean with me.