Valuetainment - April 21, 2021


How to Overcome Alcohol Addiction - Claudia Christian


Episode Stats

Length

50 minutes

Words per Minute

195.33855

Word Count

9,803

Sentence Count

670

Misogynist Sentences

10

Hate Speech Sentences

1


Summary


Transcript

00:00:00.000 And when I became a binge drinker, my life was literally broken down into how many binges did
00:00:04.660 I have that year. What does a loved one do to help that person transition out and be free?
00:00:10.700 So when a person says, my husband is choosing to drink over our relationship, you have to
00:00:15.880 eliminate that from your thought process because the people who've gone through addiction,
00:00:20.440 this is not a choice. Nobody is asked for this to happen. This is not his fault.
00:00:26.240 We're driving home and he says, hey, Pat, how come you're not saying anything to me? I said,
00:00:30.620 you know, just to be honest with me, I just see you being a pain and I hope you realize there's
00:00:34.260 value to life. I don't know how to help you. That is the best and most honest and supportive
00:00:39.640 thing you can do to a loved one who's suffering. Is alcohol adversely affecting any part of your
00:00:46.940 life? If the answer is yes, then you need to address it.
00:00:56.060 My guest today is Claudia Christian, which by the way, if you go in there and do research
00:01:01.020 on her story as an actress and what she's done in the life she's lived, you will be so curious
00:01:06.400 on what we can learn from her because she did a TEDx talk a few years ago. I don't know if it was
00:01:12.940 two years ago, three years ago on how she dealt openly. She came out and talked about how she dealt
00:01:18.020 with AUD and how she relapsed 20 times and how she even went and tried a lot of different programs
00:01:25.400 and even once she spent $30,000 on a program. And this is very close to me because I've dealt
00:01:30.200 with many close friends and family of mine who have struggled with this. But prior to getting into the
00:01:36.160 interview, let me just read to you what her book, Babylon Confidential, a memoir of love, sex,
00:01:41.180 and addiction, how it describes her life, then you're going to see where we're going to go with
00:01:46.160 this. So from the set of Dallas to her starring role on the sci-fi series Babylon 5, Claudia's
00:01:51.840 affairs with billionaires, supermodels, rock stars, and celebrities are mixed with shooting, stalking,
00:01:57.000 heartbreak, and betrayal, on set and off. Drama follows Claudia, an alcohol-fueled coke run and
00:02:02.940 make-out session with a bridesmaid on her wedding day. Her love-hate relationship with actor Agnes
00:02:10.240 McFadden, the conspiracy theory surrounding her ex-husband, and her relationship with billionaire
00:02:16.680 Dottie Fite, who's from Egypt, Middle Eastern, before he dated Princess Diana. Hollywood life
00:02:21.980 takes on a toll on Claudia as she descends into alcohol addiction and desperate battle to reclaim
00:02:26.620 her life. The reason why I'm reading this is because I asked permission before I read this.
00:02:31.080 I spent going article after article after article, and I think who we have today is somebody that can
00:02:37.580 save many people's lives. Every year, 100,000 people in America die due to alcoholism. Worldwide,
00:02:43.880 3 million. And that's a real number. That's 5.3% of all cause of death around the world every year is
00:02:50.840 due to alcoholism. And she's doing something about it. With that being said, Claudia, thank you so much
00:02:54.960 for being a guest on Valuetainment. It is my absolute pleasure. Thank you.
00:02:58.660 Yes. And I appreciate you going out there, you know, talking about it years ago when,
00:03:06.100 who was it? I think it was Gerald Ford's wife when she came out. And she used to be Betty Ford when it
00:03:12.840 was very much of a secret thing that nobody would talk about. And she has a facility in Palm Desert.
00:03:20.580 I think it's in Palm Desert or Indian Wells. And people swear by it. So for you to be able to do
00:03:26.820 that, I know it's been a positive impact on many other people's lives. But before we go into that,
00:03:31.480 why don't we kind of go into your story? Because your story is so, so many different angles, we can
00:03:36.300 go with your story. So before anything, I'll just let you tell us, Claudia, if I was in high school with
00:03:41.880 you, and we were 14 years old, if I'm sitting next to you in high school, and I'm classmates with you,
00:03:48.980 who was Claudia in high school? Claudia in high school was a 45 year old trapped in a 14 year
00:03:57.820 old's body desperate to get out of high school. She took extra courses, worked five jobs, sold sports
00:04:07.660 equipment, worked in a cafe, getting her butt pinched by the manager, just to make enough money to move
00:04:13.580 the hell out of the house and become an actress in LA. So my impetus as a 14 year old, my virginity
00:04:21.380 at 14 had just been taken by a molester who lived next door to us, we moved to a new high school. So
00:04:28.960 I was 15 in a new high school and away from that rapist. So I was in probably a very vulnerable
00:04:35.160 position, but I was extremely focused and a very tough kid. So I'm really never dealt with that trauma,
00:04:42.460 I went straight into the next school. And my plan was to get out as soon as possible. I had an
00:04:47.820 amazing guidance counselor, who got me a scholarship and got me enough credits to graduate with a GED
00:04:53.060 by the time I was 16 and a half years old when I moved to Los Angeles. So if you had met me in high
00:04:58.340 school, I wanted nothing to do with anybody, I wanted to get out. I didn't want anything to do with
00:05:03.060 the high school experience. I was an adult, I had a checking account, I had a plan, I wanted to be on TV,
00:05:08.100 and I was focused as hell. When did that happen? When did you know what you wanted to do?
00:05:13.500 Very, very young in life. I did some theater as a little child, and I was very shy, I had tinnitus,
00:05:19.960 I had difficulties with my hearing. And I remember being on stage and everything disappeared.
00:05:26.100 And I was focused and I was, I felt that I could move people. I was a really highly sensitive child.
00:05:31.360 So when I saw people listening or laughing or even shedding a tear when during the production,
00:05:37.740 I was, I was really, that was it for me. I thought, well, I can communicate this way with people.
00:05:43.840 So I fell in love with performing as a child. And then subsequently, really didn't know how that
00:05:50.440 would transform my life or how I would get into it. And then we were transferred to California. And I
00:05:55.320 thought, well, this is God's plan to put me near Los Angeles, because it wasn't going to happen in
00:06:00.700 Westport, Connecticut. But yeah, so that sounds very myopic and kind of conceited. But, but, you
00:06:07.620 know, children don't have that, in general, don't have that fear of failure. All I knew was, this is
00:06:13.840 what I wanted to do. So I'm going to make it happen. And I, you know, I think that that's probably why I
00:06:19.520 succeeded is because I didn't really know I could fail. You know, this was my dream. And I wanted to do
00:06:26.620 it. Amazing. And wasn't, wasn't Marilyn Monroe also known as being highly sensitive as well. Like
00:06:32.360 she could, you know, she would move and feel and, you know, respond to all the different reactions
00:06:37.600 people were having. Do you, do you see that as a common trait with those who become very good actors
00:06:43.180 and actresses? I think that a lot of artists are empaths and that we absorb pain from other people.
00:06:49.420 And we can sense when someone is uncomfortable. I mean, and we can read people. So I would agree
00:06:54.040 that I, a lot of my, my actor friends and writer friends are very sensitive people.
00:06:59.780 Does that necessarily equate to being a good actor? No, not necessarily, but it's, it definitely
00:07:06.220 tends to also make you take a lot on. And I, and I think artists are drawn to that. We have pain and,
00:07:13.780 you know, this is an expression of our, our need to communicate, our need to show our pain. So it's,
00:07:19.920 it's quite exquisite when you get a role, for instance, that you can dive into that,
00:07:24.040 that madness or that shame or something because it's cathartic. So, so this is almost therapy.
00:07:31.060 You know, it's when you get a really good role, it's, it's therapeutic on a daily basis.
00:07:36.620 Perform. So when you left at 16 and you're deciding to go pursue your dreams and be an actress
00:07:43.760 yourself, you know, when, what, when did you land something when you said, I think, I think I'm in
00:07:49.600 this thing now, which one was it when you're like, I think, I think this could lead into a real
00:07:53.560 career. I, I was so fortunate. I met a manager and I talked her into signing me for a three-year
00:08:00.800 deal. I did all these things, which used to be called in the industry, go sees back in the old
00:08:06.440 days, the eighties, they casting directors would see new actresses and have take meetings with them
00:08:12.640 to see if they could cast them in the future. So I was lucky. I made the rounds in, in Los Angeles
00:08:17.940 through the work of this manager. And eventually when I turned 18, because I looked much older,
00:08:24.260 I was very tall. I had a deep voice still, even then. So I had to wait till I was 18 to play,
00:08:29.560 you know, 18. Yeah. Second, I turned 18, I had a job lined up on Dallas. I mean, five and under.
00:08:36.540 And then the next thing I had Falcon Crest. And then I had a TV series called Behringers. By the time
00:08:40.600 I was 18, I was making six figures. Wow. It happened. Yeah. And I mean, Dallas for everybody
00:08:47.360 to, you know, I remember watching Dallas when we were in Germany and Dallas was like, if you're on
00:08:52.860 Dallas, everybody followed Dallas. How would you compare what Dallas is today? Because everybody
00:08:58.980 in the world was following Dallas. It's like, it's as iconic as Friends or Seinfeld. I mean,
00:09:04.520 everybody watched Dallas. Everybody was riveted to it. I had a very small scene, but it was the top
00:09:12.060 of its game. I mean, Larry Hagman directed it. It was the very first television show I ever did.
00:09:17.420 So, you know, the catering was, was, it was amazing. You know, it was like steak and lobster. I mean,
00:09:22.420 everything was, to start there, was kind of rough because subsequently over the years doing indie films
00:09:29.480 in, in, you know, in, in Eastern European countries and so forth, you know, you have to get,
00:09:35.440 you have to sort of take, take, take everything with a grain of salt and know that nothing would
00:09:39.840 be quite that glamorous as that first job. Out of all the work you did and all the different kinds
00:09:44.600 of movies you did, what, what format was your favorite? Was it more doing the two hour feature
00:09:50.400 where you're going out, you're going to be with your team for a while? Was it more the sitcoms where
00:09:53.780 you're kind of going in and how that format was, was it more the independent film side?
00:09:58.300 Which one was your favorite? When you got a job, you're like, I'm excited about this one here.
00:10:02.140 I was always excited to get a studio film or something, but to be honest with you,
00:10:07.760 I love being on a series because it's, it becomes your family and, and it's, it gives your life
00:10:14.600 structure. You don't, you're not looking for a job anymore. You're, you're, you're home,
00:10:19.820 you know, you know where you're going to work this day, this day of that week, you've got your
00:10:23.840 script, you have, you fall in love with your character, you work on your correct character,
00:10:27.600 you develop it through the seasons. So for me, series work has always been the most gratifying.
00:10:32.860 And, but I mean, I'm, I'm a person who, who likes that regular work. You know, and it's, it's, it's,
00:10:39.560 I'm, I've done a lot of television. So I think that's my, my wheelhouse, my, you know, I'm not,
00:10:45.740 not to say that I didn't love doing a movie of the week or a feature and going to, you know,
00:10:50.320 someplace and shooting a film. It was marvelous. Get to know people and you're out in a month
00:10:54.440 or a 45 day shoot or a 20 day shoot. Yeah. That's fun too. But I like, I like coming
00:10:59.720 home every day to the same crew, the same makeup artist, you know, shooting the breeze
00:11:05.020 with the same people because it really does. I'm still friends with people that I did series
00:11:09.540 with in the nineties because we became so close. Pre-cell phone days, of course.
00:11:14.640 Pre-cell phone days.
00:11:15.880 Pre-cell phone days.
00:11:17.080 People talked.
00:11:17.680 The days where we were free because now you have to stay on top of everything and everything's
00:11:25.020 being documented today. So whatever you're doing, there's 330 million cameras around you,
00:11:29.780 nonstop recording everything you're doing. It's a different time we're living in.
00:11:32.820 Let me tell you how grateful I am that I didn't have the worst of my alcohol problem
00:11:37.140 nowadays, where there's a camera on you everywhere because people would have
00:11:41.940 shame, shame inducing video on me. I'm sure because, you know, but luckily I didn't,
00:11:47.820 they didn't have smartphones when I was really suffering. So that's something I think about
00:11:51.980 a lot because it's such an invasion to people who are suffering right now. We don't need to
00:11:56.180 see a picture of them walking into the rehab facility. It's really not our business, you know,
00:12:00.440 and everything is so public now and seeing people, you know, coming out of surgery or out of hospital
00:12:05.860 or out of detox. It's really unfair. It's such an invasion and it's just normal now. We make fun of
00:12:12.700 people going into treatment, you know, late night comedians sit there and say, oh, it's the eighth
00:12:18.700 time they've gone in. That's not funny. It's not funny. They're dying. They're suffering. You know,
00:12:24.220 you wouldn't laugh at people who have eight rounds of chemo, you know, but we laugh at people who
00:12:30.460 consistently seek treatment and it's not, it's really not funny and it's because it's so public
00:12:36.760 and it's so, it's so, um, acceptable to shame people nowadays with photos, video, with, with
00:12:43.080 articles. I totally agree with you. I totally agree with you. And it's, um, I mean, I go back to the
00:12:48.980 army and I think about myself when guys say, so Pat, you know, you, you don't drink a lot. How come
00:12:53.300 you're not a guy that drinks, you know, I'll have an old fashioned every other week. If I'm sitting
00:12:57.040 with somebody and I'll have a cigar with a friend or something like that, but in the army,
00:13:01.640 let me tell you, I was competing. I was trying to see if I can finish all the Jack and Coke in the
00:13:06.780 world and see if I can do it all by myself. And I was hanging out with Jose, uh, on Friday night and
00:13:11.920 Saturday for two and a half years straight. And, uh, in my family in the middle East, growing up in
00:13:17.340 Iran, alcohol was like a cool thing. You drank because you were cool and everybody was doing it.
00:13:21.960 And then eventually you saw how it took some people's lives, personal lives, their sanity,
00:13:27.540 their freedoms, and some couldn't even drop it. You know, I can't tell you how many times I've gone
00:13:32.220 to friends, uh, where the first time, even when I was going through it with one of my friends,
00:13:38.300 he couldn't stop drinking alcohol. I said, why don't you just quit? What's the big deal? Right.
00:13:42.560 You kind of say comments like that. You don't know their pain. So eventually one of my friends who was
00:13:46.780 going through it bad, I was at the prison to pick him up. I'm sitting outside till three o'clock in the
00:13:51.280 morning. Finally, he gets out, gets in a car. This was like his fourth or fifth UI and we're driving
00:13:59.420 home and I don't say anything to him. And he says, uh, Hey Pat, how come you're not saying anything to
00:14:05.280 me? I said, I said, you know, just to be honest with me, I just see you being in pain. I just want
00:14:09.880 to see you get out of this thing. I don't know what you're going through, but you're in pain and I hope
00:14:13.420 you realize there's value to life. I don't know how to help you. I don't have a method. The only
00:14:18.400 thing I know is what I've seen others go through, whether it's AA and all these other programs,
00:14:23.240 but, uh, I hope you figure out a way to get through this. And eventually he figured out a way to get
00:14:27.820 through it and he's doing great. He's changed his life, you know, in a complete different way,
00:14:31.460 but many people don't get to that point. Yeah. But what you said to him, people should be aware of
00:14:36.620 that. That is love and support. And what most people do is say, why can't you just stop? Well,
00:14:42.260 ask somebody, why can't you stop breathing? When you have a compulsive disorder of the brain,
00:14:47.140 it's not logical. Why would I put a poison into my body that is ruining my life? That's
00:14:53.320 not logical. So to tell me to stop is not, doesn't make sense. Clearly there's something
00:14:58.740 wrong with my brain. I've learned this compulsive disorder. So for you to say to your friend,
00:15:04.080 you know, I see that you're in pain and I just want to support you. That is, that is the best
00:15:09.060 and most honest and supportive thing you can do to a loved one who's suffering. That is,
00:15:13.660 that is wonderful. And you did, and you were honest, you didn't know how to help him.
00:15:17.140 But you were there as a friend, you picked him up, you didn't shame him, you didn't judge him. That's
00:15:20.980 wonderful. What, Claudia, what was that movie where the husband, his wife was an alcoholic and she
00:15:29.520 couldn't help himself. And the husband was a sweet husband and she kept relapsing.
00:15:34.600 Meg Ryan. Andy Garcia.
00:15:37.320 Meg Ryan. And when a man loves a woman, she's the one. Yeah. Oh my boy. The clink,
00:15:44.500 throwing the bottles out and the recycling and the door locks behind her. Boy, whoo. That was
00:15:50.500 anybody who's, who's suffered through alcohol use disorder will know that we'll know those
00:15:55.380 little signs. No, it's very sad because most people are shared that this, this, all they know
00:16:01.860 is the 12 step world. And because that is what is predominantly used, despite the fact that alcohol
00:16:08.920 deaths are increasing, COVID has seen a massive uptick of alcohol use disorders, especially amongst
00:16:14.360 women. We still lose a hundred thousand people a day, three and a half million in the world every
00:16:19.140 year. It still costs the U S $225 billion a year, alcohol misuse. And we're still using this
00:16:25.020 antiquated peer support, which is not a medical treatment, even though we sex six medicines that
00:16:31.540 address alcohol use disorder. So when people say, you know, well, I don't just go to a meeting or do
00:16:37.360 this or just quit or just say, no, it's flying in the face of everything we know about addiction,
00:16:43.080 which it is, it is not something you can control or be mindful or willpower your way through it or
00:16:48.940 white knuckle your way through it. A very small percentage of individuals in the world can quit
00:16:53.400 anything on their own. That's about 8% of the population. And if you look at the success rates
00:16:58.580 of 12 step programs, it's about less than 5%. But the really sad statistic is that only 10% of people
00:17:06.140 suffering from an alcohol use disorder seek treatment. And out of that 10, out of those 10%
00:17:13.160 of the people, only one will have any form of long-term success.
00:17:17.900 Out of 10% only one will have success.
00:17:22.700 Yes. And that means 90% of people who are suffering right now, aren't going to seek treatment. And you
00:17:27.640 know why they're not going to seek treatment and told that all they can do is quit and go to meetings
00:17:33.120 for the rest of their life. And that doesn't appeal to a 30 year old or a 20 year old or anybody. I mean,
00:17:39.280 the majority of people, they want their life back. They don't want to be told that this is what they
00:17:44.160 have to do. And they don't want to live with cravings for the rest of their life.
00:17:47.300 Claudia, do you mind sharing with the audience how it happened? Because the way you described it in
00:17:52.480 my 20s, it was just what, in my 30s, later in my 40s, I'm like, I'm the last guy. Can you kind of go
00:17:57.260 through your experience, how that happened to you?
00:17:59.560 Sure. It is a learned behavior. So most people don't just go to a bar and have a drink and suddenly
00:18:05.760 they're addicted to alcohol. And it's clearly not a choice. You don't say, well, I want to wake up and
00:18:10.400 be an alcoholic. So what happens is if you have the genetic predisposition and you engage in the
00:18:15.340 behavior, you have a higher chance of developing an alcohol use disorder over time, especially if
00:18:21.220 you start drinking before your brain is fully developed around your early 20s. So here we have
00:18:26.360 me, I'm drinking in my 20s very lightly. I mean, for my, like for me to split a bottle of wine with
00:18:33.200 somebody was a big Saturday night of drinking. That's two glasses. I mean, then that was like, wow,
00:18:38.600 I've had enough. So I was normal. And then in my 30s, I was normal until my late 30s. It started
00:18:46.720 escalating. I was hanging around with a lot of wine collectors. You know, it was that time of
00:18:51.240 in society when people were smoking cigars and drinking wine. And, and, you know, it was,
00:18:56.480 it was very acceptable. I had a lot of friends who you would now call partiers. I had a wine
00:19:01.540 collection and it escalated from a couple of times a month to a couple of times a week to now four
00:19:07.760 four nights a week. I was drinking too much. And so it was brought to my attention by a boyfriend
00:19:13.960 and also by family members. You know, we think you're drinking too much. So I quit, which is
00:19:19.080 logically the thing you're supposed to do, right? You're supposed to quit drinking when you're
00:19:23.200 drinking too much. But what I didn't know is that causes what's known as the alcohol deprivation
00:19:28.520 effect. So your brain is now deprived of something. You've been feeding it on a regular basis.
00:19:33.400 Your neural pathways are engorged. It's used to getting ethanol on a certain regular pattern.
00:19:39.980 And now it's not getting it. So what does it do? First month or so you're fine. You know,
00:19:45.360 you're, you're saying, well, I feel great at being sober. This is something that can work.
00:19:49.600 Then the cravings start coming in the thoughts about alcohol. You know, you see your friend drinking,
00:19:54.820 you smell it, you, you see a movie where someone's drinking red wine or whatever.
00:19:58.480 Then you start physically craving. Like now you can't get it off your mind and you're,
00:20:03.160 you're uncomfortable in your skin. So you say to yourself, well, I've been sober for two months.
00:20:08.340 I don't have a problem. And you have a drink. That's what this little trickster in your brain
00:20:12.340 tells you. You're fine. You've been sober for two months. You don't have an alcohol problem.
00:20:16.560 Have one. And then that one turns into you coming home with a bottle two nights later. And that comes
00:20:24.260 into you opening up your wine cellar again. That's what happened to me and now drinking heavier than
00:20:30.620 you did before. So I went from being a light drinker to a social drinker, to a heavier drinker,
00:20:36.320 to a binge drinker. And when I became a binge drinker at that point in my late thirties,
00:20:42.940 my life was broken down until I found the Sinclair method in 2009. My life was literally broken down
00:20:48.880 into how many binges did I have that year? How long did I manage to have sobriety? And so that is
00:20:55.140 not a pleasant place to live because while you're sober, you're craving while you're binging, you're
00:20:59.960 miserable. So Claudia, let me ask you this. I see two things here. One, I see the, the, the, if we,
00:21:07.060 if we're running a company, you want to get to the deepest issue. The deepest issue is what started
00:21:11.000 it. And then once you're into deep, then how do you address it at that point? So let's go back to
00:21:15.660 the start, the, how it got started. And then we'll go into the deeper issue. So, so social light,
00:21:21.400 heavy binge, social light, heavy binge. When you started going through the phase of collecting the
00:21:26.840 wines and you got your own collection and partiers and all this stuff, how much of it was due to
00:21:31.760 association? How much of it was due to industry? And how much of it was it? Because you're a star,
00:21:36.660 you're on TV, you're everywhere, you're making money, your lifestyle is different. So there are certain
00:21:40.600 things that comes with, Hey, I'm making money and let me kind of a, this is what rich people do.
00:21:45.660 And the reason why I ask this is because, you know, most of our audience, they're entrepreneurs,
00:21:49.740 they're business people. So these are folks that are also experienced in the same thing. You start
00:21:53.020 off early, then you got a little bit of success. Then you got some neighbors, they got some newer
00:21:58.140 things. So how do you think most people who get into this and get addicted, how do you think that
00:22:03.880 habit begins? I, well, I believe that you just nailed it. It's a habit. So what happens is you,
00:22:10.060 you start partying with your friends, but you notice that your friends stop and switch to
00:22:15.620 coffee at 11 o'clock at night. Or maybe your friend goes, no, you know what? I've had enough.
00:22:19.740 I'm going to have a glass of water, but you, you don't stop. I was the last girl at the bar going,
00:22:24.700 come on, let's have Zambuca shots at this point. I didn't know what an end was. An end was
00:22:29.880 me just going to bed. And so that's not normal, but nobody in those days pointed out, you know,
00:22:36.740 Hey, Claudia, we've all stopped drinking. Now you don't need another drink because nobody really
00:22:43.080 noticed. It was just, she's the girl who keeps drinking. And there's always another guy who
00:22:48.160 keeps drinking. So then I'm drinking with that guy. It wasn't like I was the only one that didn't have
00:22:53.440 an off button. So, so that it normalizes it. And now of course, hindsight is always clearer. It's
00:23:00.520 completely not normal to drink four nights a week, two bottles of wine. That's not normal use of
00:23:07.600 alcohol. That's just not normal, especially alone drinking alone. Well, then you can justify it and
00:23:13.620 say, well, I I'm a wine connoisseur or, you know, this is what they do in Europe. Well, no, it's not
00:23:19.760 what they do in Europe and Europe. They have small glasses of wine with meal. You know, in America,
00:23:25.300 we have these large pours of, you know, of, of, of wine and for every occasion for a baby shower,
00:23:32.260 for this, for that. There's alcohol everywhere in the United States. Always. You know, we call
00:23:37.300 England and Australia drinking cultures. We are a drinking culture. So for me, it didn't seem like
00:23:44.080 it was terribly obvious until somebody said to me, you know, you drink really quickly. Now, mind you,
00:23:49.200 this is coming from a boyfriend I'm dating who drinks a ton himself. So once again, the defensiveness
00:23:55.940 of somebody saying, well, wait a minute, you're drinking as much as I am. And he's saying, well,
00:24:00.540 yeah, but I drink slower than you and I'm bigger than you. And you, you keep up with me. And it's,
00:24:05.100 it's kind of weird. I've never seen a woman drink as much as you. And I'm like, well,
00:24:08.060 I have a big tolerance. I'm Irish and German, you know, all of these things, when you're in it,
00:24:14.640 there's no way you can look outside yourself and say, oh, that's the hallmark of alcoholism.
00:24:19.980 Claudia, you need help. You know, you don't, you you're defensive, you're justifying it.
00:24:24.600 You know, I can look back now and say, wow. Okay. There were clear signs, but of course you don't see
00:24:29.340 them yourself. That's where people are right now. The thing I ask people is this is alcohol
00:24:35.760 adversely affecting any part of your life. That can mean anything from your relationships to
00:24:43.480 working out in the morning. Is it affecting adversely affecting any part of your life? If
00:24:48.940 the answer is yes, then you need to address it. If it's affecting your work, your health,
00:24:54.880 your family, anything, if you have lots of fights with your loved one, you've got to look at what
00:24:59.900 you're consuming and how much, and how is it serving you? How is alcohol serving you? If you
00:25:06.300 don't ask yourself questions, you're never going to be able to identify if you have a problem or not.
00:25:11.120 The challenge is, you know, if you're aware of it when you're in it. So let me, let me ask a
00:25:15.320 different question from you, since this is your world that you've spent a lot of time studying,
00:25:18.820 and you said 20 times relapsing, and you tried every single method that you went through, even
00:25:23.980 some of the methods you went through where one of them was shaming you and they finally gave you the
00:25:27.540 medicine. Like, I can't wait to get the hell out of here. You eventually leave. So you know the
00:25:31.020 different formats on what people are saying. The question becomes the following. How much,
00:25:36.280 like when I look at my personality, my wiring, I'm very obsessive. I know my wiring. Like I know
00:25:43.300 I have to sit in a certain place if I go to a restaurant, and if I don't sit there,
00:25:47.060 I'm not going to eat at the restaurant, I leave. That's my wiring. I can't help myself. I've been
00:25:50.420 like this since, since I was a kid. So how much of, how much of the individual getting addicted
00:25:59.520 has to do with them as their personality and wiring? How much of it is an upbringing? And how
00:26:07.840 much of it is escaping reality? So, so DNA, upbringing, escaping reality.
00:26:14.220 I think genetics play a big part of it. But to give you an example, out of three siblings in my
00:26:20.820 family, two became addicts and one did not. So how do you explain? We have the same genetics
00:26:27.280 and one escaped it. Was it because he's stronger or has more willpower? Or is it because he didn't
00:26:35.460 actually get that particular gene? Or is it because he was so busy with his particular line of work
00:26:43.480 that he could not engage in drinking as much as I did. So he didn't develop an alcohol use
00:26:48.980 disorder. This is the engineer? This is the engineer? Yeah. So, so, so you have two siblings
00:26:56.220 with the same child, sort of the same childhood. They're older than me. So they had different
00:27:00.220 experiences. And I left home earlier, but a similar upbringing and similar genetics.
00:27:05.500 My belief is definitely that socio influences are huge. Okay. Also trauma. My brothers weren't
00:27:13.500 raped, you know, but one of my brothers watched my other brother die. That's major trauma.
00:27:19.440 Wow. Major trauma. The third sibling perhaps didn't have as much trauma. Who knows? You know,
00:27:26.680 I mean, so, so you have, you have somebody who witnessed a death at a very young age. You have
00:27:31.100 somebody who was molested at a very young age. And then you have somebody who had, you know,
00:27:35.640 a rough time with his interpersonal relationships within his family, but didn't have that kind of
00:27:41.400 that raw trauma. So maybe that's why he dodged the bullet. I don't know. This is something that
00:27:48.800 I've certainly been observant. And I always ask people, by the way, speaking of your, your obsessive
00:27:54.280 need to sit places, it's interesting because people with OCD and eating disorders quite often do develop
00:28:00.280 a substance use disorder as well, because it is their way to control the circumstances. They
00:28:06.560 cannot control what's going on in their life. So they self-medicate or they purge or they starve
00:28:11.860 themselves in order to control their surroundings. It's a very easy thing to say, oh, that person drank
00:28:18.500 because they, they lived through a war. PTSD. Yes, absolutely. Trauma. Yes, absolutely. People do
00:28:26.160 self-medicate for those reasons, but it's not that cut and dry. There are people who are biological
00:28:31.920 addicts, meaning that they simply have the genetics, they engaged in the behavior and now they're
00:28:37.380 addicted. Now I always search for something more, but quite honestly, I've met people who once they
00:28:42.780 take this, they use this method and they get rid of the biological issue. They're, they're pretty good.
00:28:48.160 I mean, they move on in their life. They used to have a drinking issue. They're not
00:28:51.300 self-medicating for trauma or anything like that. But, but, you know, each individual is different.
00:28:57.120 Every single person drinks for a different reason and they're wired differently. So you can't,
00:29:00.840 there's no one fixed treatment for every single person. And I'm not here to espouse one treatment
00:29:05.840 or say that this doesn't work. Sure, of course. I'm a firm believer in whatever works for you,
00:29:11.440 it's the right method for you. The only thing for me, it's, it's just what triggers it. That,
00:29:16.080 that's what I'm curious about. Is there, is there a vision of things? I mean, it's also, it's also
00:29:21.400 the, every time you drink, you are learning the behavior, your neural pathways become more and more
00:29:26.900 engorged and wider and wider and bigger and bigger until they're super highways. And now you're
00:29:31.760 physically dependent on alcohol. That's the course. So you've got people walking around with little
00:29:38.300 country roads for neural pathways. And when they take a drink, they don't get that massive endorphin
00:29:45.260 reinforcement that alcoholics do. Yeah. So of course you don't want to stop drinking because
00:29:51.620 it feels so good. Some people take a drink of alcohol and they go, I don't know what the big
00:29:56.400 deal is. I don't, I mean, I like the taste of beer, but I don't, I don't, they don't get a
00:30:01.220 reinforcement. They don't get the reward that addicts do. Does that make sense? Of course it does.
00:30:07.900 Of course it does. So, but I know your father, I believe your father was a surgeon, but was,
00:30:13.220 was your father a surgeon? No, no, that's wrong on Wikipedia or wherever the hell that is on that
00:30:19.220 was some, somebody put misinformation out there. No, my grandfather was a surgeon and a cancer
00:30:24.160 researcher. Um, and I have a lot of doctors in my family, but my father was, uh, with shallow oil
00:30:30.040 company actually, uh, for the majority of his career, he was in oil business. How about your mom?
00:30:36.080 My mother was in retail and, uh, uh, fashion her whole life. Um, uh, and had her own store
00:30:44.780 and worked at Giorgio's and Beverly Hills and, um, very successful in that world, very into clothes
00:30:50.420 and so forth. Um, so home was pretty stable. Your, your home was pretty stable where you were
00:30:55.700 home wasn't stable at all. When I was eight years old, my brother was killed. I mean that, that doesn't,
00:31:00.540 and it resulted in my parents' divorce. I mean, uh, the, you know, so that fractured our family
00:31:06.200 intensely. Plus we moved around all the time. My dad transferred constantly. So I had no,
00:31:11.740 you know, friends I had, it was always the new girl, uh, you know, and there was, um, you know,
00:31:17.520 I, I lost my father last year and I loved him to pieces, but he was a, and he will admit it. He was
00:31:24.620 a tough, tough father. And there was no love lost between my parents. There were, you know,
00:31:30.340 affairs and so forth. So it's, it's, it was not an idyllic childhood at all, but did I have a roof
00:31:36.520 over my head and braces on my teeth? Absolutely. And do I, do I say that I'm better off than,
00:31:41.800 than most children out there? Absolutely. I had, I had a home and I got to go to school and,
00:31:47.380 and I was fed. That's huge. So I'm sorry. Sorry for your loss. I mean, you know,
00:31:52.620 when it's a year, it's a year and it's, it's, uh, uh, my condolences goes out to you and your
00:31:57.740 family. But, uh, you know, there's a movie that when you were painting a picture, just took me to
00:32:03.140 straight to a movie. I had my, I watched certain movies with my boys, my nine-year-old and my seven
00:32:09.120 year old son, my daughter's forced. I don't watch some of the movies with them. We watched two weeks
00:32:13.780 ago, walk the line. And I'm sure you've seen walk the line, you know, the walking Phoenix and the
00:32:18.540 story of Johnny Cash. And, and you see how Johnny in the story, how he had that one traumatic event
00:32:25.460 with his brother on what happened there and then how it haunted him for the rest of his life until
00:32:30.720 eventually he was free and he was able to move on from it. Most people don't know everybody's story.
00:32:35.680 So this is why sometimes I wonder if there is a connection to a place that if you don't address
00:32:41.080 that, you're going to constantly be escaping to something, whether your source is going to be
00:32:45.620 alcohol, sex, cocaine, pot, drugs, ecstasy, whatever it may be to have some kind of an
00:32:52.440 escape. Uh, uh, uh, you know, and that's one of the reasons why I was asking a question where
00:32:56.580 there's a person need to go to a place where you accept your life. Listen, I've had a screwed
00:33:01.740 up life. There's nothing to be embarrassed of. Having said that there's no need to escape this.
00:33:05.400 And if I do, there's a different way of escaping it so I can move on. So does that come first
00:33:09.760 or is a medicine I need to take to figure out a way to drop alcohol or whatever other addiction
00:33:13.980 that I have? That's a great question. I, my belief is let's get rid of the cravings so that
00:33:19.540 you can focus on therapy. You know, let's take the medicines to reduce the drinking. So you're
00:33:24.600 clear minded. You can listen to your therapist. You can let those feelings bubble over you. You
00:33:29.900 can let the emotions come up. If you're still drinking, actively drinking and self-medicating
00:33:34.220 with drugs or alcohol, how are you going to grow as a human being? So let's address the biological
00:33:39.600 issue of addiction first and concurrently at the same time, work on the emotional reasons
00:33:45.540 and the traumatic reasons why the person drank. But first we need to get them out of the state
00:33:50.820 of being actively in the disease. Got it. So let's get into the, you know, different methods
00:33:57.180 that you had. And then if you can tell us more about the Sinclair method, so maybe walk us through,
00:34:02.040 you know, when you said, I tried this, I tried that, I tried this, what, what were some of the
00:34:05.380 methods and then tell us about TSM, the Sinclair method. Well, the first thing I did was what
00:34:10.180 everybody pretty much said to do is to go to an AA meeting. And I, you know, I have, I have utter
00:34:17.580 respect for AA helping the people that helped, but for me, it didn't do anything. It made me want to
00:34:22.740 drink. I mean, I'm sitting in a meeting with a bunch of people talking about drinking and how it
00:34:26.260 ruined their lives. I still walked out of there with cravings, with, with anxiety. So it didn't,
00:34:32.540 I didn't feel gelled. And I also didn't like being called powerless as a woman. I really hated
00:34:37.840 that. I thought, I thought, you know what, I'm not powerless. I come from a family of physicians.
00:34:42.620 I know that there must be something to fix this. I'm not going to relegate myself to being an
00:34:47.720 alcoholic for the rest of my life. I want to be able to say I used to be an alcoholic. So this
00:34:52.040 isn't working for me. So that was AA. Then I went to a rehab facility where, you know, you're locked
00:34:57.760 in a place with people with everything going on, eating disorders, heroin addiction, cocaine,
00:35:03.920 sex addiction, porn, I mean, everything. And we're denied alcohol, obviously. And we talk about
00:35:11.560 our childhoods, but then we get out in the real world. There's no preparation for being in the real
00:35:15.580 world. There's nobody telling me how to identify a trigger or what is a memory, how to, a toolbox to
00:35:22.420 deal with, with triggers. So you don't drink. I mean, there was no preparation for the real world.
00:35:27.080 So yeah, we're sober when we're in there, but the second you get out, you relapse. So I relapsed
00:35:32.020 very quickly after that very expensive rehab that I thought was a bit ridiculous. Then I tried
00:35:39.460 psychotherapy. So I went to a therapist who was convinced that my drinking was all to do with
00:35:45.200 childhood trauma. Okay. Interesting concept, but no, absolutely no appreciation of the biological
00:35:51.680 aspect of addiction. So she's treating, she's trying to treat this trauma, trauma, trauma,
00:35:57.200 not knowing that all talking about it is just triggering me. Once again, I'm not given tools
00:36:03.280 to deal with those cravings or with anything else. I'm just sent out after the hour and a half of
00:36:09.140 talking about my childhood, wanting to drink because that's my go-to mechanism for self-medicating
00:36:14.800 to not let the feelings bubble up. So she didn't prepare me in any way, shape or form
00:36:19.740 for, for triggers or cravings or anything like that. And I'm not blaming her. She wasn't an
00:36:24.820 addiction therapist. I should have gone to a specialist in addiction. The next thing I tried
00:36:30.340 was hypnotherapy because I heard that it helped some people. That lasted about a week. I was like,
00:36:36.700 wow, I don't feel like drinking. And then a week later I felt like drinking. So that only lasted about
00:36:41.060 a week. And every time I would do an episode, like a expensive hypnotherapy session, it would last less
00:36:48.540 and less time. So it was a week and then six days and five days. So that I tried, oh, I tried vitamin
00:36:56.780 therapy because I was told that, I mean, I researched and realized that the brain is lacking things when you
00:37:02.340 abuse alcohol, that you need certain vitamin Bs and certain supplements that will, that will help maintain
00:37:10.980 equilibrium in your brain. So I went into that whole vitamin thing, diet thing, exercise plan. And I thought
00:37:17.820 I can do this holistically. The cravings were still there, you know, so I, you know, I couldn't change my brain.
00:37:24.800 That's eventually, um, I went to my first and only medical detox in 2009, uh, because I was really
00:37:32.700 afraid I was going to stroke out. I was doing what I thought was healthy. And that was just going cold
00:37:37.760 Turkey. I didn't know about tapering from alcohol. I didn't know that it was really dangerous to go
00:37:42.840 cold Turkey. Cause every time I would have a binge, I just stop. I would just stop and go cold Turkey
00:37:48.360 and recover from the binge. Well, this time as I was recovering from the binge, I really started
00:37:55.040 feeling like I couldn't control my body. So it was really scary. Cause I had heard about people
00:37:59.740 stroking out. So I called a friend, they took me to this medical detox and it was once again,
00:38:05.860 a horrific experience experience. And on the way out, I saw some flyers for various treatments for
00:38:12.820 alcoholism. And I gathered them all up and took them home and looked at them. And one of them said,
00:38:17.340 it stops cravings for alcohol. And I thought, well, that's my problem. It's the cravings, the
00:38:22.860 mental and physical cravings. So if I can just do that, that's great. So I researched it and it was
00:38:27.900 a shot called Vivitrol and I researched it and there was a lot of, a lot of bad reviews online and
00:38:35.560 talking about low grade depression and how it doesn't really target the alcohol, uh, in a, in a great
00:38:41.400 way. So I looked at what the ingredient was and it was naltrexone. So I Googled naltrexone
00:38:46.240 and up popped this book called the cure for alcoholism. And I was like, yeah, right cure
00:38:51.100 for alcoholism. But I read it, read the free chapter that they had online and I read it and
00:38:56.560 it seemed really intriguing. So I looked, I said, you know what, I'm going to try to get this
00:39:01.280 medication. I called my GP and he said, I'm not giving you an opiate. When I went in, I made the
00:39:07.300 appointment. I went in and I said, no, it's not an opiate. It's an opiate blocker. Uh, he still
00:39:11.280 refused me because he didn't, he had never used it on a patient, even though it's FDA approved,
00:39:16.140 it was totally safe. It's proven its efficacy. But at that point it was, it was always, um, given
00:39:23.260 to an individual with, with abstinence, but he wouldn't even give it to me for that. So I had to
00:39:29.560 order it online. So I ordered the packet of pills from India, from a pharmacy online, which was nerve
00:39:35.040 wracking and I thought illegal. And I received those pills after quite a long time. I think I
00:39:41.140 had three months of sobriety under my belt by the time they came. And I had ordered the book in the
00:39:47.300 meantime, the cure for alcoholism. I had read the whole book. I had done some research and I thought,
00:39:52.980 okay, either I'm, this is going to work or I'm going to die because the next binge is going to kill
00:39:56.620 me because the last one was so horrific that, you know, the binges get worse as they, as they come on.
00:40:01.680 That's how people die of alcohol poisoning. And it worked. I took that pill. I waited an hour
00:40:07.660 and I drank maybe a couple of sips of wine and I just wasn't interested. I tried it a few more times.
00:40:16.440 My body started getting used to the medication. I started drinking more like I did in my twenties.
00:40:22.660 And at about the four month mode, uh, month, I had my, what I call my aha moment. I talk about it in my
00:40:29.740 TEDx talk. I was driving down the road and I saw this billboard for wine. And normally that would
00:40:36.720 trigger me to want to drink. And I looked at it and my brain said, that's a billboard with a glass
00:40:42.200 of red wine on it. It didn't have any other effect on me other than registering what the billboard was.
00:40:49.500 And that to me, I was the moment where I went, Oh my God, I'm done. I'm done with, with that obsession
00:40:57.400 and that compulsive disorder of my brain. I felt normal. I would go whole days and realize I had
00:41:04.420 not thought of drinking. That was something that I hadn't experienced in almost a decade.
00:41:09.480 Wow.
00:41:09.920 So to, to, to, to, there's no other way to describe it, but to realize on a Thursday that
00:41:16.600 you have not thought about drinking since you drank on Sunday evening, it makes you want to cry
00:41:21.820 because prior to that every day I was either fighting for my sobriety, white knuckling through
00:41:27.420 every minute of the day, pushing down the thoughts of booze, or I was actively in a binge.
00:41:32.400 So that, that was profound. And when that happened to me, I wrote to the editor, I mean,
00:41:40.260 the publisher of the book. And I said, listen, I want to contact this man who wrote this because
00:41:45.780 he saved my life. And they allowed me to contact Dr. Roya Scapa. And I said, you know, I'm not a big
00:41:53.560 star. I I'm, I'm a working actress, but you know, I'm not really well-known. I have a little group of
00:41:59.360 fans that are sci-fi fans that are pretty much worldwide. You know, there are millions of people
00:42:04.100 that love Babylon five. Maybe I could help in some way, but you know, I'm not a Brad Pitt or
00:42:10.320 something. I'm just Claudia. And he said, why don't you write a book? And that's, that's why I wrote
00:42:15.820 Babylon confidential. And when that came out in 2012, I said, you know what? It didn't reach enough
00:42:20.680 people. This is a visual society. I'm going to make a movie. So I made one little pill, my documentary
00:42:25.460 and that came in 2014. It's available on Amazon for free. If anybody wants to watch it or
00:42:30.900 one little pill movie.com. And then at that point, concurrently, I said, you know what? We need a
00:42:36.920 nonprofit organization. I need to run it to give everybody the information that I needed when I
00:42:42.520 was suffering. So they don't have to order pills from India. And at that point in 2013, there was one
00:42:49.480 doctor in the United States that was willing to use TSM with his, with his patients, one doctor.
00:42:55.380 And now today in 2021, the entire United States has covered all of Canada, all of Australia,
00:43:02.340 New Zealand, most of Europe and the UK. Amazing to have gone through that process. And it's,
00:43:09.180 it's almost as if you did market research for others who are going through it because you tried
00:43:14.400 so many different ways. Claudia, a question for you about, you gave feedback to the person that's
00:43:18.940 going through it, how to handle it. What feedback could you give to somebody that has a loved one
00:43:23.840 who is currently at the binge phase and they don't know how to get out of it? What does a loved one do
00:43:29.880 to help that person, you know, transition out and be free?
00:43:35.000 First of all, you, you, you, and this is really hard to understand. It's funny. I just did a Twitch.
00:43:41.120 We have a Twitch channel that we, every Wednesday we do subjects and yesterday's was shame
00:43:45.340 and how important it is for a loved one to know this is not about you. And that's really hard to
00:43:52.640 do. So when a person says, my husband is choosing to drink over our relationship, you have to under,
00:43:58.920 you have to eliminate that from your thought process because the people who've gone through
00:44:03.240 addiction, this is not a choice. Nobody is asked for this to happen. This is not his fault. So let's
00:44:10.660 start there and start with love and support and say, look, I want to help you. And I've heard about
00:44:16.260 this method that involves drinking. It's not an excuse to drink, but it undoes addiction in the
00:44:21.600 brain. I think this would maybe work for you. And I would love if, if you would be willing to try it
00:44:27.440 and let's watch one little pill. So you get an idea of the science behind it. That's why I made that
00:44:32.640 movie. So loved ones can sit down with the person who's suffering and say, look, I'm not judging you.
00:44:37.680 I'm just excited about this thing I heard about. Are you willing to watch this documentary with me?
00:44:43.720 And if you are interested in doing TSM, I will help you. That's a loving way, a supportive way of
00:44:49.820 saying to a loved one, I recognize you're in pain. Just like you told your friend, I recognize you're
00:44:54.900 in pain and I don't know what to do for you, but I'd love to learn about this method. It might help you
00:45:01.720 and then do it together. If they, if they're coherent enough at that point to watch the documentary,
00:45:06.660 watch it with them. If they're not, you watch it on your own, go to c3foundation.org. Look at our
00:45:12.940 free resources. This person can get as much or as little help as they need. They can join free
00:45:19.020 online meetings. There's a whole community out there of people on the Sinclair method. There's
00:45:23.220 literally thousands of people all around the world that, that, that do meetings that have a forum,
00:45:28.940 Facebook pages. This is not something new or unproven. This is, you know, naltrexan has been around
00:45:33.820 since the early nineties used for alcohol use disorder, but it's only within the last maybe
00:45:39.360 decade that doctors are realizing it's better used in a targeted manner. That means taking it an hour
00:45:46.240 before you drink. So if you're in the UK, by the way, and you, or Europe and you get nalmaphine,
00:45:52.560 you have to wait two hours, but that's a whole other subject. There's two drugs that treat this,
00:45:56.600 nalmaphine and naltrexone. In the United States, you're bound to get, you are going to get naltrexone.
00:46:01.900 And it has many different generic brands of naltrexone. So you might get Revia, you might
00:46:07.500 get Nodict. It's all 50 milligram naltrexone for treating alcohol use disorder. So people can find
00:46:13.280 a provider on my page. They can, they can find whatever they need. So for loved ones, we also
00:46:18.080 even have a loved one for loved ones, Facebook page. So they get the support they need. Most
00:46:22.680 important thing to do is no threatening. That's a great page. Yes. We have a, we have a Facebook page
00:46:28.720 just for loved ones, because that is a whole, to watch your loved one killing yourself is
00:46:33.400 unbearable. Yep. And I have people say, I don't understand why my son just can't quit. It's a
00:46:39.040 reflection on the parent. If the child is not doing well. And so all sorts of things come in ego,
00:46:46.800 embarrassment, shame. My daughter's an addict. My son's a junkie. You know, all of these words that
00:46:52.540 we hear it's, it's mortifying for the parent. So they, they react quite often with anger.
00:46:57.320 Yep. And one thing that I can attest to that doesn't work when you're in the throes of addiction
00:47:01.680 is anger. If somebody is angry at you or they shame you, you're just more likely to drink more.
00:47:07.340 And we don't want to create that environment. We want to create a really safe communication line
00:47:13.240 with the loved one. So we want to tell the loved one, you know, just say, I know you're hurting and I
00:47:18.940 want to help you. And I, you know, I saw this actress talking about this here, let's watch her
00:47:23.740 Ted talk, you know, just slowly bring the idea up. And if that person is motivated to change,
00:47:29.540 then TSM is a great method for them. If they're not ready, you can't force them to take the pill and
00:47:34.800 wait the hour. So this is not a method for somebody to force on somebody. You cannot force a loved one to
00:47:41.120 do this. This method is for people who've tried other methods, who other treatment modalities have
00:47:46.780 failed, who are at their wits end, and who are really motivated to comply with the medication.
00:47:53.120 Because if you don't comply, it ain't going to work. Very, very important topic. I'm so thankful
00:48:00.800 that you came out to share your testimony with the rest of us. I highly recommend folks, you go visit
00:48:07.620 her website. We're going to put the link below as well as the book you wrote. I'll put the link below
00:48:11.820 second. We'll put the foundation at the top first. Claudia, I'll give you the final thoughts.
00:48:16.580 Is there anything else you want to share with the viewer based on the conversation we've had today
00:48:21.380 on Valuetainment? I just want to say, if you know someone who's suffering or if you're suffering
00:48:26.900 yourself, please, please don't give up. This method works for the majority of people who try it. It has
00:48:32.700 over like an 80% long-term success rate. When you have really good care and support, it goes upwards to 90%
00:48:40.880 long-term success rate. You have a really good opportunity to get your life back if you're
00:48:46.900 suffering right now. If it is a loved one, try and employ the methods that we discussed of being
00:48:53.460 kind and loving, and just giving them the support they need, and giving them this information,
00:48:59.120 this life-saving information. That's my last thought on the subject, and I appreciate you
00:49:04.340 having me on here. Every single time somebody hears this spoken about, a life is saved. Just know that
00:49:13.380 you are saving lives right now because I cannot tell you how many people reach out and say,
00:49:18.420 oh, I saw you on this, or I heard that podcast. You saved my life. No, you're saving lives because
00:49:23.780 you're having me on here, so I thank you for that opportunity. Oh, anytime. This is a very important
00:49:29.060 matter, and if we can collectively make an impact in somebody else's life, we did our part right. So
00:49:35.620 once again, thank you so much for being a guest on Valley Entertainment. Appreciate you. Thank you.
00:49:39.480 Take care. You probably know somebody that's dealing with the issue that she was dealing with.
00:49:42.860 Everybody almost knows somebody that's dealing with alcoholism or some other kind of addiction that
00:49:47.020 they have, and I've seen many people's lives being taken due to not knowing how to deal with it,
00:49:52.760 nor do the family members and loved ones knowing how to deal with them that is going through the
00:49:57.560 challenge right now. So I'm curious to know your thoughts. Comment below, and if you enjoyed this
00:50:01.140 interview, I think you would enjoy another interview I did with Daniel Lieberman. Similar topics,
00:50:05.240 different issues. Click over here to watch the interview, and with that being said, take care,
00:50:10.360 everybody. Bye-bye.