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- [00:01]
Crissle West
So good, so good, so good.
- [00:03]
Nordstrom Rack Announcer
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- [00:58]
FX The Shards Promoter
This episode is supported by FX's the Shards, a seductive drama from executive producer Ryan Murphy. Set in 1980s Los Angeles, the series follows a group of glamorous, deeply entangled high school seniors drawn into a life of wealth, beauty, parties and excess. At its center is Brett, whose reality begins to unravel when the arrival of a new student coincides with a series of mysterious murders. FX's the Shards premieres August 5th. FX and Hulu
- [01:29]
Crissle West
hi and welcome to Christmas Couch, the show where I answer your letters for advice and talk to the most interesting people in the world. This week I wanted to do something a little different on the couch, and instead of answering your letters or doing an interview, I want to kind of do a deep dive into one particular topic. And I'll probably do this again about other topics as they come up. But I think this is the sort of place where it could really be useful to talk about some things, give you guys some additional insight, some other questions you can ask yourself, et cetera, et cetera. So what's coming up for me right now is the topic of addiction. It comes up a lot on this show. A lot of you write in trying to work with a friend or a family member who's currently dealing with addiction, and you don't really know where to start or what would be best, or how to take care of you and your loved one so simultaneous, simultaneously trying to have boundaries with someone in active addiction. So I want to talk about again, some of the common myths about addiction and the difference between casually using substances versus when you have a problem, how people end up addicted in the first place. And some questions, again, that you can ask yourself if you're wondering maybe you Hear some of this, and you're like, wait, is this. Is this fucking play about us? Like, girl, maybe. I don't know. So just give you guys some things to think about as we explore this topic more. As I have been very open about on the show, I have struggled with alcohol use disorder throughout my life. That is, well, throughout my life, since I was probably 17 or 18 until a few years ago, when I really worked through a lot of the different issues that led me to drink in the first place. But we'll get there. I want to start off with the idea that all you need to do to overcome addiction is have the willpower. You know, this idea that, like, if they wanted to not do drugs or not drink, then they would simply do that. Unfortunately, if that was all it took, nobody would be addicted. People do not want to be addicted to the point of hurting themselves, Losing their jobs, their family, friends, ending up on the street. In some of the most severe cases, you know, battling literally for their lives. People don't choose that. Addiction is a consequence of lots of different factors. There's a genetic component to it. Your upbringing and the things you have experienced throughout your life, especially in childhood, have a lot to do with it. And these substances, you know, you don't just take them. You don't get high or drunk for a while, and then you go back to the way you were with prolonged and heavy use. They lead to profound changes in the brain. They alter your neural pathways, what feels like a reward in the brain. So basically, I don't want get too deep into neuropsychology, okay, because that was my least favorite class. But addictive substances shortcut the reward process in your brain. Normally, you know, you only get that reward feeling after you've put in some work and actually accomplished something. You know, there's been some effort and a delay. The drugs and alcohol say, girl, fuck all that. We're going straight in and giving you the chemicals that signal pleasure. So actually having to do something to get that reward feeling, we can just cut all that right out and give it straight to you. Now, for people who are really seeking pleasure in their life, again because they had a genetic component, or maybe times are just hard, maybe you went through a lot in childhood using these substances is. You can see how the appeal would be present. You know, people do not want to sit around and feel miserable. If I told you, hey, a couple shots of this and you'll stop being so sad and you'll start feeling happy and like you want to socialize and be in A good mood. A lot of people are going to take that, that chance. With the alcohol, for example. As addiction takes hold, the changes in your brain erode your ability to have control over yourself and your decisions, especially the ability to make good decisions. And they keep sending these highly intense impulses, cravings, to take the drugs. As the problem grows, you're taking more of it in order to get that same feeling of reward, pleasure, dopamine, et cetera. This is how people get wrapped up and caught up in a cycle of, like, feeling compelled to do the substance even though it is causing negative effects in their lives. It's the reward that they're getting from it is very temporary, it's very fake, but it's also very real. Like, in that moment, it is taking care of the issue for you. It's just that everything after that is going to be pure hell. But you know how you can avoid that pure hell? Taking more of that drug. Of course, you don't actually avoid it. You end up extending the pain and making things much worse for yourself. But it's hard to get out of that once you're in it. So people who are suffering from substance use disorder or a misuse of substances will have impaired control. The idea that, you know, oh, I can just have one or two drinks and then I stop, they are not able to do that. The craving is so strong that they feel compelled to keep using. And when they try to stop, they're unable to do that. Substance use disorders cause social problems. They can really make life hard for you at work, at school, at home, in your social group, at church, or other things you may be doing as part of your community. And for a lot of people, you end up cutting out some of the fun things that you used to do for yourself or in your life because the pull to take the drugs or alcohol, whatever it may be, is stronger. As the addiction grows, you may find yourself more willing to do more and more dangerous things for it. You're willing to ask people on the streets for drugs, sharing needles, going up to strangers in the club and drinking out of their drinks, or, you know, trying to be part of their section, pour yourself a drink from their bottle. Like, you will just find yourself doing more and more ridiculous and risky things in order to get that. That hit of the substance that you have become dependent on. And of course, as you continue to misuse these substances, your tolerance increases. So you need more and more of that drug in order to get the same effect. And the withdrawal symptoms can be much more severe when you do decide to stop, and they can even be deadly in the case of alcohol abuse. Trying to Withdraw from Alcohol if you have had a very serious alcohol problem for a long time, you may need to go to a hospital or treatment center in order to be supervised as you withdraw from alcohol. So it's also not as easy as just stopping. Not only because of the addiction component, the brain component of it all, but also because the withdrawal symptoms kick your ass the deeper you are into the issue.
- [08:29]
BetterHelp Sponsor
This episode of Crystal's Couch is sponsored by BetterHelp. Nowadays, people are talking more openly about mental health than ever before. But sometimes asking for help can still be challenging. BetterHelp's 2026 State of Stigma report surveyed 2,000Americans and revealed that 85% of Americans believe getting support is wise, yet 74% say society discourages people from doing so. Now, I think this might be because so many of us, including myself at one point, you know, we've been in a space where we truly believe in mental health support like therapy and medication, but we're still hesitant to choose those options for ourselves out of fear of what our friends and family might think of us. So continuing to be open about both our struggles and the tools we use to get through them is a great way to reduce stigma and help others. BetterHelp is the world's largest online therapy platform with over 30,000 fully licensed therapists who work according to a strict code of conduct. BetterHelp does the initial matching work for you so you can focus on your therapy goals. A short questionnaire helps identify your needs and preferences, and our 12 plus years of experience and industry leading match fulfillment rate means we typically get it right the first time. But if you're not happy with your match, switch to a different therapist at any time from our tailored recommendations. Don't let stigma stand in the way of support. Start therapy with BetterHelp. Sign up and get 10% off at betterhelp.com chrysal com. That's betterhelp.com C-R-I S S L E
- [09:58]
Crissle West
so a lot of people casually use substances without it crossing the threshold into disordered behavior. Okay, just about everybody I know can go out to the lounge, have a couple drinks, maybe smoke a blunt, you know, things of that nature. And it's something you do maybe once or twice a week. It's not a regular everyday part of your life. Now there are lots of different standards. Like I think for Alcoh especially you can just google like what it means to binge drink. I think for Men, it's more than two drinks in an hour or so, and for women, it's more than one. Something like that. That information is very highly publicized. You can go find that online anywhere. But the difference between casual use and disordered use is when again, you have the impaired ability to stop or control the substance despite the fact that it is causing absolute havoc in your life in so many different ways. Your spous is tired of having to deal with the fallout of whatever you do when you're on these substances. You're choosing the substance over paying your bills, your rent, taking care of your kids, taking care of yourself. You begin to neglect or abuse the people around you or yourself because of the way you act when you're under the influence of the substance. You're losing your job, you're having healthcare problems. You know, if you do see the doctor, the doctor's like, hey, you got all this stuff going on. It is the binge drinking or it is the cocaine or the weed or whatever the problematic substance may be for you is causing all of these other things to go on. So if you have a more severe, on that more severe end, you may find yourself putting the drugs or the alcohol above everything else in your life, including the things that used to bring you joy, hanging out with family and friends. It's more important than your career, than your kids, than just about anything else. And you will continue to use those substances despite the fact that it is having all of these terrible negative consequences in your life. It can be very, very common that we don't accept this, especially if abusing substances is normalized around us. So really, the first step, we always say awareness is the first step to making change. That is especially true in the case of addiction. If everybody around you is binge drinking every other day, then it may seem normal to you to come home after work and have four or five shots before bed. But again, when you look the difference between using it casually and what qualifies as a disorder, you can kind of look at yourself and say, you know, actually I have been late to work three times in the past week because I was a little hungover and just couldn't get myself out of bed. Or I wasn't as clear or as sharp or as ready for that meeting as I could have been. Or I forgot about my kids recital. I was supposed to pick up some prescriptions from the pharmacy after work. Completely forgot. My wife is gonna be so mad at me. Whatever it may be, you can kind of take a look at what you're doing in Your life, and, okay, is this actually holding me back in any sort of way, and am I capable of simply not doing it? A lot of people will try and find that they are just not able to put the drugs or alcohol down like they thought they could. So, again, when the cravings are super strong, when you're unable to stop or limit your use of the substance, when you need more and more of it in order to feel the same effect, when you are having withdrawal symptoms. Now, that can be physical symptoms like sweating, shaking, tremors, things like that. It can be things you don't notice, like increased blood pressure. It could be more anxiety, nausea, things of that nature. Those are all considered withdrawal symptoms. When you're distancing yourself from activities that you used to enjoy and continuing to use the substance even though it causes health problems, that's what a lot of the symptoms of this will look like, and that is drugs or alcohol. Either one of those can manifest in that way, show up in your life. So a lot of you may have just heard all this and thought, okay, but how do people get to that point in the first place? Like, if you've never dealt with addiction, it may seem ridiculous, because on the face of it, it is like, what do you mean? I am going to continue and keep doing this thing that is actively killing me and ruining all of my relationships? Why would anybody do that? So, like I mentioned at the beginning of this episode, there's a huge genetic component to becoming addicted. If your parents had a substance use disorder, you are much more likely to also have one. There are lots of environmental factors that can also contribute, like stress, trauma. Even if it wasn't in childhood, but especially in childhood, you know, I think a lot of people can probably relate to, whew, I've had a rough week. Things have been hard. I'm gonna unwind, have some drinks, do a little drug, that sort of thing. But when the stress and the trauma and all of that is always present, it's not an acute situation, but it's chronic. It's always there. We find that people are leaning more into the drugs to cope with that, and then the addiction cycle is able to perpetuate. There are also, again, like I said, with the genetic factor, some genes are just passed down from parent to child. So even if you had a pretty chill life and there's not a bunch of stress or trauma going on, if that genetic factor is there, you may feel compelled to drink or use anyway. There are also lots of mental health conditions that can increase your risk for addiction. Unfortunately, there are a lot of comorbidities which are other diseases or disorders or conditions that occur. They kind of go hand in hand. Like depression and anxiety are probably the most common ones. If you meet somebody who has one, they usually have signs of the other. Maybe not to the same degree, but they are definitely there. And a huge reason for this is because, well, that is not about substances. People turn. People with mental illnesses turn to substances because they make you feel better in that moment, if there's not something that can just snap you out of it, which when you're dealing with a mental health condition, there isn't the allure of smoking something, injecting something, taking a shot and feeling better within a few minutes, as opposed to the weeks or months that medication and therapy require, not to mention the work that those things require. Again, it becomes much easier to understand how people turn to this and how quickly they can get caught up in the trap of addiction. So again, I want to be super clear that I understand that it does alleviate that immediate pain. This is something that if you talk to a therapist, there are lots and lots of addiction substance abuse counselors out there. When you talk to them about it, something that is so frustrating is that they will say, but it doesn't actually make you feel better, but it actually does. This causes all these long term problems.
- [17:15]
BetterHelp Sponsor
Yes.
- [17:16]
Crissle West
And I need you to understand that in that moment it solves the problem that I am having, which is I'm uncomfortable, I'm sad, I'm depressed, I have whatever going on. Maybe there are things going on in my subconscious that I don't know anything about. And using these substances pulls me out of that. The fact that it has all of these long term consequences that are terrible for me is a problem for me when I'm sober. Okay? But that's not my problem right now. So if someone is dealing with serious mental or not even, it doesn't have to be the most severe mental health issues. Again, depression is extremely common and a lot of people just want a reprieve from feeling so terrible you can get caught up in that way. But bipolar disorder, eating disorders, even conditions like adhd, where the brain is constantly searching for that next dopamine hit, ptsd, ocd, personality disorders, schizophrenia and other psychotic disorders. People are just looking for a break from feeling like shit. And that is what the substances do for them. Another huge factor to determining whether a person will have a substance use disorder is whether they have experienced what we call ACEs, which stands for adverse childhood experiences. These are things that happen to you during childhood that can lead to a lot of difficulties in your life, both physical but especially emotional. So this includes all manners of abuse and neglect. Physical, sexual, verbal, emotional, witnessing violence, having unstable caretakers. So being raised by people who have untreated mental illnesses or untreated substance abuse disorders, incarcerated parents, even divorce. These are all factors that can contribute to substance use disorder in later adolescence and adulthood. If you experienced a lot of these things as kids, as you're, you're sort of taking in all this information, you may think, hmm, did not realize I had a problem. But now it's kind of sounding like maybe I do. Here are some things that you can ask yourself before you decide to bring it up with your doctor or seek out the help of a therapist just to kind of help you get a little bit more understanding about where you currently are. And these are questions that as when I was a therapist in grad school, these are the sort of questions that we would ask. We have lots of forms and this is sort of like a screening kind of this. You can also use it to be self reflective. But these are questions that we ask when the topic of substance use disorder comes up. So do you ever have trouble remembering things or focusing on what you're doing because you're thinking about using? Have you ever broken promises because of your substance use? Have you ever done things when you were using that you would not normally do? Have you ever lost a job or had money problems because of your use? Do you ever make excuses for your use or lie to hide it? Does someone make excuses for you when you're inebriated or hungover or unable to do the things that you said you would do? Do people kind of like scramble to have your back and cover up for you? Do you find yourself missing work or school because of your use? Have your children or close family members or friends ever asked you to stop using or to reconsider how much you're using? Has a spouse or partner ever left you because of substance abuse issues? Have you ever had sexual problems that may have been affected by your use? Have you noticed that you've gotten sick more often as you use more? And the big joker. Have you tried to quit but found you just couldn't? That is a huge one. It's common enough that I think maybe we've thought, who hasn't had a rough of drinking and said, boy, I am never doing that again just to turn around and do it again. That's not really what I'm talking about. I mean, have you ever noticed like Damn, I got really wasted four nights this week. I'm gonna chill this weekend. Not gonna drink at all. And then somebody calls you and says, hey, girl, you wanna go to the club? It's such and such birthday dollar shots till midnight, and next thing you know, you right there pounding them at the bar. That sort of thing. I want y' all to understand that addiction is so complicated. It's complex, but it is treatable. It affects brain function and behavior. So whether you're talking about, you know, your own issues or trying to help a loved one who has these issues, I hope that I've made it clear throughout the course of this episode that it's not a one size fit all sort of thing. There's no single treatment that is appropriate for everyone. And there are so many different combinations of reasons that can lead to someone drinking that there's nothing. There's no one answer to the issue. If you write into the show about your specific situation, I'll be happy to try to give you help based off what you've told me. But we are all unique and we all have a unique blend of circumstances that have led to us being where we are today. Effective treatment will mean meet all of the needs of the individual. It won't just be therapy for this or medication for this. It'll be a holistic blend of approaches to not only help with the current behavior issue, which is the use of the substances, but also what is driving you to do that. Is it simply genetic? Probably not, but it is possible. The earlier you started using substances also has a lot to do with how you cope and how easy or challenging it will be for you to heal from those things the younger you are. It tends to be when you started using substances. It tends to be that the process for you will be more challenging and it takes a lot of patience. Therapy. I wish therapy and medication worked the way drugs and illicit drugs and alcohol do, where it just, you know, one session with a therapist or the first two times you take a prescription and bam, you don't have these issues anymore. But unfortunately, you do have to put in the time and the effort. Counseling is huge. There are lots of groups available for substance use disorder, of course, individual therapy and seeking out a therapist who is trained specifically for working with people with these sort of disorders. They're probably the most common treatment plan that people go for. But you know, this is the sort of thing where when you decide to get help, you are sort of committing yourself to a process. As long as you're under the care of a doctor or a therapist, then they should be continually reassessing and making adjustments in your treatment plan. As you continue to go on, you may find that other issues start to pop up that need to be addressed as well. Again, the right doctor or therapist should be able to help you do that. And probably the single most important thing that I want you to remember before I close out this episode is that relapse is part of the process. And any therapist, psychiatrist, psychologist that you work with should understand that. Yes, we want you to be held accountable, but we also want to have empathy and understanding for the fact that you are a human being. You're coping with what was available to you and what you knew at the time. And relapse is part of the process. It is not likely that you are going to decide that, you know, you're done with the alcohol, you're done with the drugs, and you're simply never gonna do it again. It's part of it. Hopefully you don't relapse and do additional permanent damage to yourself. Hopefully this is something that you can continue to work through. But please hold yourself to a human standard. You're doing your best. You're rewiring your brain again. It is possible neuroplasticity is real. You can get through this, but you're going to need patience. So give yourself some grace. I hope that this helped answer some common questions about addiction and maybe gave you guys a little bit more to think about. If you'd like me to do another topic like this, if there's something else you'd like for me to do this sort of little mini dive into, I'm happy to do that. Send me an email advice at crystalscouch. Com. We'll see you next week.