Off the Record With Dr. K: This Interview Changed My Mind

Summary

The Dr. John Delony Show: Off the Record With Dr. K — This Interview Changed My Mind (February 25, 2026)

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Episode Overview

In this deeply insightful and candid episode, Dr. John Delony sits down "off the record" with Dr. Alec Kogia—better known as Dr. K, the "Healthy Gamer," psychiatrist, author, and prominent commentator on mental health, technology, and modern relationships. The conversation explores the impact of technology (especially on kids and families), the roots of addiction and loneliness, pornography’s influence on relationships, healthy communication between partners, and crucial strategies for raising children in a technology-heavy world. Both guests speak with vulnerability and humor, reflecting on their personal experiences as parents and professionals—often challenging each other and their own ingrained beliefs.

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Key Discussion Points and Insights

1. Fear, Love, and Parenting in a Modern World

• Parenthood Changes Everything: Dr. K shares, “People say when you have kids, you don't know the meaning of love until you have kids. I didn't know the meaning of fear until I had kids.” (00:05)
• Resilience in Children: Dr. K recalls advice from his pediatrician mother, noting, “Kids heal. Human beings are incredibly resilient.” (04:42)

2. Technology, Loneliness, and Modern Addictions

• Root of Addiction & Isolation:

  • Delony observes, “When a body is disconnected from a root set of relationships, the instant it recognizes it's lonely… sex and alcohol are substitutes.” (08:20)
  • Dr. K reframes technology use as a way of coping: “Technology allows us to stay in touch, but it kind of disconnects us… it's gas station food.” (11:09 - 12:01)
  • Social media & OnlyFans create "parasocial" interactions that mimic—but do not substitute for—real relationships.

• Dangers of Numbing & Emotional Awareness:

  • "If you fill up your stomach with gas station food, you'll still develop a nutrient deficiency ... you no longer feel hungry." (14:21)
  • Both agree our culture pushes to numb or pathologize basic emotions like guilt and shame, when these are actually essential for growth and motivation. (16:14 - 16:32)

3. The Pornography Crisis and Emotional Coping

• Skyrocketing Use & Consequences:
  • “About 5% of men under the age of 30 used to have erectile dysfunction. Now about 30% … almost certainly due to pornography.” (18:55)
• Pornography as Emotional Numbing:
  • “What a lot of people miss... pornography addiction is not about sex. There's a lot of passive consumption… It's about managing negative emotions.” (19:34)
• The Role of Powerlessness and Unspoken Needs:
  • Many men view their problems as unsolvable, driving deeper into unhealthy coping (porn, alcohol, etc.) instead of developing healthier skills and communication. (25:08)
  • “Is there something in your life you feel is unsolvable? Really working on that problem… really starting to feel empowered.” (26:52)
• Impact on Partners:
  • Discovering a partner’s porn use is deeply wounding and often misattributed: “That’s a hard truth to metabolize… usually that’s a man drowning in front of you.” (28:22)

4. Healthy Communication in Relationships

• Core Intimacy Challenges:

  • Dr. K explains, “There’s a huge difference between everything that you just said and this, which is all of those things is me and you against that thing out there. But when it comes to something like this [vulnerability, sexuality], it’s me and you.” (32:09)
  • Talks about the "risk of rejection" and why opening up about sexual needs is so fraught.

• The Danger of "Hollywoodized" Romance:

  • “The transformation of my own marriage came from what I would call the de-Hollywoodization…” (36:08)
  • Importance of direct, clear communication vs. reading each other’s minds or performing cultural scripts.

• Want vs. Need Language:

  • Delony suggests we overuse “needs” in relationships: “If I tell you I need X, Y or Z… I’m handing my well-being to you and saying, you have to fix this for me.” (41:03)
  • Dr. K agrees: “It’s really, really dangerous.” (45:03)

5. Emotional Vulnerability and Gender

• How Men & Women Process Vulnerability:
  • Dr. K: “As men, we have two modes—zero and 100. We don’t know how to go from 0 to 25.” (54:51)
  • “When men are emotionally vulnerable with their female partners, their female partner gets the ‘ick’.” (53:56)

6. Parenting, Technology, and Preparing Kids for the World

• Modeling Alone Isn’t Enough:

  • Dr. K: “The most important gift we can give our kids is awareness… not just modeling.” (85:00)
  • Awareness means teaching kids to observe how their behavior affects them — not just what parents do, but how tech, food, etc. make them feel.

• Integration and Responsibility, Not Prohibition:

  • “The off button leads to deception.” (62:23)
  • Teach kids integration and self-regulation, not just strict prohibition.
  • “Teach him how to swim, don’t keep him out of the ocean.” (69:05)

• Practical Tips for Tech Use:

  • Keep gaming devices in communal spaces, no headphones (so parents can overhear), involvement in what games they play and with whom. (77:38)
  • Instead of rigid limits, help kids recognize and reflect on how technology affects their well-being before, during, and after use. (71:16)

• Letting Kids Fail Safely:

  • Dr. K: “The real money is before it turns on and after it turns off”—discuss how they feel about usage, not just the time spent. (72:20)
  • Parents’ love makes it hard to stand firm on rules, but tolerating discomfort together is part of growth. (81:58 - 83:24)

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Notable Quotes and Memorable Moments

• On Emotional Numbing:
  • “Just because you feel numb does not mean that emotions are not active within you. They are controlling your behavior.” (24:52, Dr. K)
• On Hollywood Romance vs. Reality:
  • “The transformation of my own marriage came from the de-Hollywoodization…” (36:08, Delony)
• On Teaching Kids:
  • “I’m a big fan of teach him how to swim; don’t keep him out of the ocean.” (69:05, Dr. K)
• On Parental Fear Projected to Kids:
  • “You’re a therapist projecting onto him. This is your struggle. Your demon jumping on him to carry.” (65:11, Dr. K)
• On Awareness as the Greatest Gift:
  • “It’s not even teaching, it’s not even modeling… the greatest gift is awareness.” (85:10, Dr. K)
• On the Challenges of Letting Go:
  • “But I think there’s a deeper level… You are going to figure out what the right way is, and I’m going to create an environment where you come to your own conclusions.” (90:16, Dr. K)

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Important Timestamps

• 00:05–04:55 — Parenting, resilience, and fear
• 06:56–09:43 — Loneliness as the root of addiction
• 10:24–16:32 — Technology as numbing, the function of emotions
• 18:55–21:15 — Pornography, dopamine, and culture
• 28:22–33:13 — How porn impacts partners and communicating about sexual needs
• 36:08–39:58 — Deconstructing Hollywood romance and "apps as matching your mirror"
• 41:03–47:01 — "Needs" vs. "Wants" and the danger of emotional outsourcing
• 53:55–57:39 — Male vulnerability and the 'ick' factor
• 59:13–62:12 — Delony’s struggle with tech boundaries for his son; Dr. K’s analogy to gun safety
• 62:13–68:22 — How to coach kids toward responsible screen use, the limits of modeling, owning your parental anxiety
• 71:16–74:48 — Dr. K’s approach: teach self-awareness around tech enjoyment, involve kids in creating structure
• 77:38–79:37 — Concrete safety steps and long-term skill building
• 81:32–83:24 — The importance of letting kids fail and feeling okay with not being liked

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Summary for New Listeners

This episode is a must-listen for parents, partners, and anyone interested in the intersection of technology, mental health, and modern relationships. Dr. K and Dr. Delony wrestle with the unique problems families face in a world of addictive tech, share vulnerable stories as dads and as experts, and push listeners to move beyond control toward teaching kids—and each other—awareness, emotional regulation, and healthy communication. You’ll come away challenged to examine your own relationship with technology, your willingness to feel (rather than numb) uncomfortable emotions, and your strategies for resilience and connection in the digital age.

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For further reading, check out Dr. K's new book, "How to Raise a Healthy Gamer."

Transcript

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

People say when you have kids, you don't know the meaning of love until you have kids. I didn't know the meaning of fear until I had kids. I think most of the reasons that people struggle in life is because they're not taught how to live it. We've got a good thing going, right? We're in love. It's good. We've got a couple kids. But there's a huge difference between everything that you just said and this, which is all of those things, me and you against that thing out there.

[John DeLoney]

What's up? This is John. And welcome to off the Record. This is an additional drop for the Dr. John DeLoney show, where I bring in folks from a variety of different backgrounds, experiences, people that I think are cool, people that I know I disagree with, people that I know are going to challenge me. And I bring them in. Four people that I just love, and we. We sit down and have a great conversation today. I'm super hyped. This is one that's a long time coming. And this is. I. I brought him on as a response to one of the most common conversations people ask me to talk about, and that is relationships and technology. Technology and kids. Technology. And in interrupting adult relationships, I brought in. He's known to the world as the quote, unquote, healthy gamer known as Dr. K. His name is Alec Kogia. He is awesome. I'll call him Dr. K for the rest. That's how he goes. That's how he introduce himself. He is the best. He's a super kind guy, very relatable, and in this episode, he nailed me to the wall. He's a. He's a psychiatrist. He's a Still practices, but he also has written great books and talks at length on tons of different media platforms about the dangers of technology and the good stu about technology and how to integrate those things into a healthy home. It's an awesome conversation. Kelly says it's her favorite conversation I've ever had. And I think that's because he nailed me to the wall. And I walked away from this conversation literally changing the way I do things inside my own house. And so buckle up for my conversation with Dr. K. All right, so you. I've got two kids. You got two kids.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yep.

[John DeLoney]

If you and I are just sitting down having nachos. No, we're having papacitos because we're back in Houston.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

Which is the best. We're sitting there sharing chips in queso. Okay, what is. As you look ahead, what's the thing that makes you the Most like nervous as you look at or the thing you're most worried about that your two kids are gonna enter into in the world they're inhabiting.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, that's. That's such a great question. So I'll start by saying this. You know, people say when you have kids, you don't know the meaning of love until you have kids. I think what they don't advertise. I didn't know the meaning of fear until I had kids. I feel. I felt. I still remember there was one time that my kid was jumping on a trampoline and she, like, fell off. Like, you know, she was. She had a trajectory where she was gonna be off of the trampoline. And in that moment where she, like, cleared the edge of the tramp and was like plummeting towards the ground, I felt a degree of fear that I had never felt in my life. I don't think I'm very scared about a particular thing. I mean, I think, you know, our children have their own path in life. You know, I do feel so. I have two daughters, so I think there's a lot of concern about who they decide to be with.

[John DeLoney]

Sure. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. But I think it's also like all that stuff is. See, a lot of fear is about what we haven't experienced yet. Right. And so I'm not scared about a particular thing. Like, I guess maybe dating in general.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But in general, like, I. I think it's like, you know, I think they're. I'm not super scared about their future. I know it's may sound weird, but.

[John DeLoney]

Oh, I. I love that because I think. I think it. It in the barbell that is. I'm not worried about anything and I'm terrified about everything. The ecosystem. If you just spend your life scrolling, your ecosystem is. Everything is to be feared, right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, yeah.

[John DeLoney]

But when both of us get to experience real people in real lives on a regular basis, it's like, now there's just kind of a broad human experience and they're going to have ups and they're going to have downs and.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. And I think what I've learned from my kids and my patients and stuff like that. I remember asking my mom when I was in med school, I asked her, like, you know, isn't it hard. She's a pediatrician, and so isn't it hard to like, deal with sick kids and like, you know, kids who get hurt? And I remember one day I went with her on Christmas Day. I went with her to the hospital and she had A patient who had been running over by a tractor. And so I was like, isn't that, like, impossible to deal with? Because these are like, you know, kids that have been just so grievously wounded. And she was like, no, it's actually, like, easier if you're a pediatrician, because kids heal. Right. So even if a kid has some neurological problem or something like that, like, there's still. There's a lot of neuroplasticity. There's a lot of, like, stem cell activation and, like, kids heal. And I think human beings, you know, that really struck me. And then what I've learned is human beings are incredibly resilient. Yeah. And I think as long as we understand kind of who we are and, and how our physiology works, how our brain works, a touch of spirituality thrown in. Like, you know, I think my kids have taught me that they're going to live their life no matter what plans I have.

[John DeLoney]

Oh, man. You know. Yeah. That's the one constant is I've been wrong every time, like, yeah, you should. Nah, it's not going to work that way. I hadn't thought about that. But you have the. The benefit of seeing somebody in a challenging moment, whether psychiatrically, physically or whatever. And you've got a, like a well of people that you've seen on the other side of that.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

That. That they're well, or they're whole or they're as well as they're gonna be and they're living full lives. Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So I, I think, you know, people think that, like. And I'm sure you've seen this too. You know, I mean, I can see that you're speaking from experience with the people that you've worked with, but I think a lot of times, you know, we, we think that helping people may be hard from a medical perspective, from a therapy perspective, but once you start to see success stories, Right. Once you start to see what human beings are truly capable of. And for me, the biggest thing is, I think most of the reasons that people struggle in life is because they're not taught how to live it. Right. So we have so much formal education in, like, mathematics and chemistry. We have zero formal education in emotions. We have zero formal education in ego.

[John DeLoney]

Relationships.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

In relationships. Right. And if you really look at, like, we have zero formal education and, like, finding purpose. Right. But if you look at, like, the things that make a human being happy, healthy, resilient, we don't actually teach them that, but we'll put them in school for eight hours a day for at least 12 years to teach them everything except for how to live life. Oh, man. And so I find that a very low quantity of education can help people an immense amount.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. So. Yeah, dude, that. Okay, that's perfect. And here's why I, I have over the last 20 years, sat with an increasing amount of substance abuse with, with, with young people and their parents. Substance abuse, pornography, all these different addictions. And one of the big meta themes I've picked up is the addiction isn't the problem, it's solving something. It is this numbness or this lack of skills to go do whatever's next. And then all of a sud. We. We keep having these increasingly vibrant numbing agents that. That makes sense.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. So what do you think is what. What has been. If an addiction is basically a solution, Right. It's. It's a problematic solution, but it's a solution. What do you think is growing on the inside that's causing people to move towards addiction?

[John DeLoney]

The. The aha moment I had, and I remember it specifically, I think it was in 07 or 08, when, when I was working with college students, when somebody told. When going to those academic nerd conferences. But that when a body is disconnected from a root set of relationships, the instant it recognizes it's lonely. That neurologically sex and alcohol are somewhat substitutes for this biochemically. And I was working with college students. Anyone who works for college students are worried about sex and they're worried about alcohol consumption. And then I was like, oh, so we unplug a human being from everything they know, drop them in a box full of 200 or 400 or a thousand strangers, and their poor brains are screaming for some sort of connection.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

And they have these pseudo off ramps and nowadays they don't even have to leave the room. They can just plug right in and they have these pseudosexual encounters all day, every day. And the, the root of that cancer is I got a lonely 19 year old, or I've got a desperately alone, like frantically alone 18 year old that's been unplugged from everything and just dropped into a box. And that humanized that kid that I had reduced to you only to stop having so much unsafe sex. Or y' all need to stop all the alcohol consumption.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Instead of going, oh, no, no, that makes sense. I guess my responsibility as somebody who's working with college students is I got to get y' all connected asap or I got to reexamine what are we doing to these poor kids. Right. And so loneliness, to answer Your question is, is a root that I keep seeing come up over and over.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I think it makes a lot of sense. You know, I think when we're talking about addictions, there's the behavior itself. So a lot of parents, especially if we're talking about things like technology and stuff like that, I mean, I hear this all the time where, you know, how do I get my kid off of the iPad or less time on the computer or PlayStation or whatever. And to understand that any behavior, if you just try to take it away, there's going to be a lot of friction, a lot of resistance.

[John DeLoney]

It's like kicking somebody's crutch out from underneath them.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

Is that a good.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, so I think. I don't. Yeah, I think a crutch is a little bit different because I think you really need, like if you've got a broken leg or something. But yeah, absolutely. I think the key thing that I think most professionals who work with humans stumble into is there's a fuel that's driving the addiction.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And if you really want the addiction to melt away, if you want it to kind of expire of its own accord, it's really about understanding what is the fuel that's driving it. And you sort of mentioned, you know, technology. And it's not just sex because nowadays we have things like OnlyFans. Right. And so OnlyFans is going to activate the brain in a way that even pornography doesn't.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Because there's this parasocial relationship. When you think about pornography, you're like a passive consumer. But now what's happened with OnlyFans is these people are like influencers. You can message them. They say your name, they say your name. They know they give you shout outs, all this kind of stuff. So it's not just the sex now. Now there's all of these, you know, parasocial relationships. Social media is the reason that it is so addictive and the reason that it grows so much is because it activates the social parts of our brain and it satisfies us. I love what you kind of said about an insufficient off ramp. Right. So you have this crippling loneliness. You have a lot of isolation. People are, you know, on the one hand, technology allows us to stay in touch, but it kind of disconnects us.

[John DeLoney]

Yes. You know, it's gas station food. Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. Right. So it's like highly processed. I mean, you can get some degree of connection. And I met a guy playing video games when I was 13 years old. The first time I met him in real life was the day that I got married and he came to my wedding. So there can be very real, authentic connections, but there's no way that that person can give you a hug. You can't get the oxytocin. There are some things that online relationships can't provide. And what's scary is all these platforms are getting better at substituting for a real relationship. That's why there's so much comments and so much interaction and things like that.

[John DeLoney]

So in that regard, a comment section can almost serve as though I'm participating in a real relationship.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So I would say that it does serve as some kind of participation.

[John DeLoney]

It's like the candy that says low fat. Like, I'm pretending that's healthier.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So in a comment section, and I don't know if you've done this or not, but, like, there's a lot of, like, great engagement. Yeah. Right. So it used to be like, okay, if I watch a movie, I'm like, okay, that movie was great. But now the actors in the movie are responding to my comments. I'm responding to their comments. We're seeing a trend, actually, especially on TikTok, where there's a lot of, like, video responses that really cause, you know, particular clips to grow.

[John DeLoney]

And it feels like I'm in it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. And so the more that they create a platform that allows you to feel like you're in it, the more addictive it's going to be. The more of your brain it's going to activate and. And it'll sort of manage that loneliness. Right. So when you talk about gas station food, it'll give you calories, but it may not give you nutrition.

[John DeLoney]

There you go. Yeah. It'll cost you in the long run. It might get you to tomorrow, but. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. And that's something that I see that's. That's really scary is, you know, one of the things that really frightens me. So I. I work predominantly with about 70, 30 men, women, an average age of about 32. It used to be 24. But one of the really scary things is that, you know, when you feel lonely, like, we think that that's bad, right. Like, we feel like it feels bad to feel lonely. But that's our brain telling us, our heart telling us, our soul telling us like, hey, this is a signal to connect. Why do we feel hungry? Why do we feel thirsty? It's our. It's our organism's way of telling us, hey, you need something.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So the really scary thing that I see is that as people engage with these online relationships, if you fill up your stomach with gas station food, you'll still develop a nutrient deficiency. And the reason you'll develop that nutrient deficiency is because you no longer feel hungry. So your desire to eat an apple won't be there. So people are actually, like, shutting down that signal from within themselves. That motivation to form real connections is now being satisfied by these really shallow online connections.

[John DeLoney]

And so it's, it's, it's almost like pulling out a can of spray paint and spray painting your dashboard on your car while you're driving. As though, like, I'm not gonna, I don't want any of these, these lights that are telling me this, the status of this car. I don't want to know.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

I'm just gonna put my head down and keep going.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right? Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

And eventually that car runs out of gas and pulls over.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. And that's what's so scary, is that we're, we're shutting down our motivational circuitry that causes us to fix our problems.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. When I'm, when I'm working with someone who's got an addiction, you know, they're, they're, they're maybe drowning out, they're going through divorce, they're on probation at work, whatever. Right. So they have all these problems in their life and they feel bad about them. And once you start drinking, once you start hitting the bottle, you're no longer. And all those, like, all that numbness sets in. You're not actually fixing your relationship. Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You're not actually improving your performance at work. So we're actually shutting down. All of these negative emotions that we have are our motivators to fix our life. Right. Shame tells us, hey, something that I'm doing is not acceptable to the people around me. Guilt tells us something I'm doing is not acceptable to me.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Anger can tell us, hey, something that someone is doing to me is not okay.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right.

[John DeLoney]

But as a culture, we've said, if you feel guilty, we need to fix that. You need to take that feeling away.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

Or if you feel shame or if you like, we're taking, we're extracting basic human physiology from the playbook.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

And pathologizing it instead of saying no. What is that trying to tell you? What's your body trying to tell you?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So, I mean, even when, when I, you know, when I prescribe medication, I'm. I'm super careful. I use medication in about 30% of my patients. And so I think it absolutely has a role but, like, the goal is to manage your emotions in a way where you can actually still feel them all. We don't want them to be overwhelming to the point that they cripple you, but we absolutely want you to be feeling anxious. Right. That's how you know that something is important. That's how you know what to pay attention to. And so, like, what we're seeing a lot of is just a lot of whole scale numbing. And then once you start numbing yourself, the problems get worse.

[John DeLoney]

That's why the way I describe it, one person I had a season when I was, took anxiety meds about a decade ago. And the way I described it is anxiety was a smoke detector. And I ignored it so long, it was so loud. And what the meds did for me was it didn't heal my anxiousness, which I don't want it to because it's. My body's trying to tell me something. It turned that alarm down enough so that I could go hear a counselor, I could go hear my wife, I could go hear these group of friends, and I could go do the stuff. Right. Instead of just sitting like this. Right. But so whether you are a wife, a mother, a husband, a son, a daughter listening to this, everybody's impacted nowadays by this question. You work with predominantly young men. What's the role of pornography in their lives? Give us a landscape of what the role in their life. And I take a lot of calls on my show from wives who stumble on it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Or from moms who stumble on their teenage sons on uncleared search history. Or a girlfriend who just. Or a guy who's like, I can't stop doing this. I don't know what's wrong with me.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Paint me a picture of the problem with pornography in our current culture and then head me towards some sort of solutions. Because here's the thing. Talking about only fans and talking about just social media, we're here. It's not mainstream yet, but we're here where there will be a undistinguishable, indistinguishable AI companion.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Pornographically. That I don't. We. We don't have the psychology, we don't have the neurochemistry for what we got. Now what's coming is going to be rough.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, absolutely. So. So, you know, I think we're seeing pornography addiction is skyrocketing. The real scary statistic of that is about 5% of men under the age of 30 used to have erectile dysfunction. Now about 30% of men under the age of thirty have erectile dysfunction, and it's probably due to pornography or almost certainly due to pornography usage. So the use is skyrocketing. And I think that what a lot of people miss about that. So a lot of people think that pornography addiction is about sex.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But it really isn't. So the number of people, when you sit down and work with these people, there's a lot of passive pornography consumption. So people will be working on Excel on one monitor, and there'll be pornography on the other monitor for hours at a time. So people don't realize what it kind of really is doing. And in order to understand what it does, we have to understand that the way that our organism is designed, it's to be able to procreate and then support our offspring so that they can procreate. Right. So if you sort of think about it like, the prime reason to exist as a person is to engage in a sexual act. Like that's what it's all about. Because if we stop doing that, no more. Yeah, we're done. Right.

[John DeLoney]

So we're working to get there.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So birth rates are on the decline.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And so what happens is sexual activity has a really interesting effect on the brain, which is that it shuts everything else off. So especially in men. And this is a little bit different for men and women. But if you kind of think about, you know, there are lots of jokes about, you know, when a dude feels frisky, you know, I know you're married, I'm married. When we feel frisky, it's easy to ignore a lot of other stuff. And then if you look at the physiology and neuroscience of the sexual act, when we're engaged in that act, we're not feeling anxious, we're not afraid, unless the anxiety is so overpowering that we are not able to engage in the act, which absolutely happens. But generally speaking, it shuts down all of our negative emotional circuitry.

[John DeLoney]

So we can say with neuroscientific accuracy, he probably really didn't see the dishes. Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

Or doesn't see the pile of clothes in the corner.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But. But here's. Here's something. Here's something really interesting. So 58% of women say that one of the top three things that increase their libido and desire for sex is men helping out housework and cognitive duties like doing shopping and stuff like that. That's 58% of people say top three. Trust, safety, and helping out with housework. That's the real foreplay. But yeah, so basically, the way Pornography works is that if I'm feeling bad, there's just so much powerful circuitry to make those emotions go away. So I think the number one thing is about emotion management. And so then what we're starting to see is that I remember earlier when you said, like, the smoke detector was. The alarm was going off. But if I were to ask you, why didn't you deal with whatever was on fire? Like, what was your experience then? So you started medication then that started, you know, started a path. Maybe you were on it for a little while. But why. Why weren't you able to fix the problem before that?

[John DeLoney]

So in. In my particular life,

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I.

[John DeLoney]

A lot of these things that my body was saying, hey, you're not safe.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Hey, hey, hey, hey.

[John DeLoney]

Trying to get my attention were actually things that were what I would call socially normed.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay?

[John DeLoney]

It's normal just to look at pornography. It's normal to. Nah, that's just my wife. It's normal to have six figures in student loans and a mortgage you can't afford and two house, like, two car notes. It's normal to always worry if you're about to get fired because you and your boss are cross. And so all these things that everyone's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. My body's saying, hey, you're not okay. Like, we're not safe here.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, yeah.

[John DeLoney]

And so I didn't even know that those were fires, okay? And so when I went looking for, hey, what's wrong with me? And you walk in and see the first. The first just out of grad school. And again, I'm talking. I'm talking negative about my own community. The first just out of grad school just got their LPC or their lmsw. And you, you on a chart. I have a set of symptom clusters for six months, then I can tag you. Oh, you have a. Your brain's malfunctioning. Instead of saying, no, your brain's working perfectly, let's look at your environment here. Like, let's start looking through what's on fire. I didn't even know that there was a fire.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Makes a lot of sense. Yeah. So. So I. I think it, you know, being well adjusted to an unhealthy society doesn't make you healthy.

[John DeLoney]

That's it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right? So you're normal. It's normal, but it sure as hell ain't healthy.

[John DeLoney]

Exactly.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You know, and so I. I think what. What I see is something really similar with people who struggle with pornography is there's a lot of stuff going on, on in their Life where there are two conditions. One is they don't know it's a problem. Right. So men, there's an interesting phenomenon called normative male alexithymia. So normative means it's normal, male means it happens to men. And alexithymia means colorblindness to your emotional state. So we're actually conditioned. Some of it is biological, hormonal, but we're actually conditioned to suppress our feelings. So we don't even know when there are fires going on. Right. Everything in your life is burning down around you and you're, you're just numb to it just because you're numb. Right. So let's be clear about the term numb. So if you go to the dentist and you get numbed up and they remove your tooth, just because you don't feel your tooth being removed doesn't mean that there isn't damage taking place.

[John DeLoney]

Oh, it's a five alarm fire to your body.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely right. So this is what really a lot of people don't understand is just because you feel emotions does not mean that emotions are not active within you. They're actually turned on. But you've got lidocaine in there, so you don't feel them and they are controlling your behavior. Golly.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So there's a lot of numbness, but there are fires going on. Just, just like in your case. The second thing that I think is almost sadder is that many of the men that I work with have problems in their life that they feel like are unsolvable. So when you can't solve a problem. Right. So when I'm working with, you know, couples where, you know, the wife does discover pornography, you know, I recently was working with someone who's, who basically went through a divorce. And their pornography, you said, a huge part of it. And this, this person, unfortunately we weren't able to help them in time. Like, things were too bad. And so the divorce proceeded. But over time, you know, what we discovered is that there are all kinds of problems they have in their life. They don't know how to communicate these with their wife. And since they don't know how to communicate, you know, the wife is like, well, why are you doing this? Can you please stop? It's making me feel xyz. And they don't even know, you know, they feel so powerless to actually fix these things because now your wife is upset with you, you don't know how to make her happy. You try to stop pornography for a little while, but that fuel is still burning, right? Those emotions are still active. And then you don't really have anything to deal with any alternate coping mechanisms that are healthier. So, so there's an immense feeling of powerlessness. And so if you feel, if you're a dude out there or woman and you know you're, you have a problem with pornography, the most important question to ask yourself because everyone thinks it's like, oh, you're a sexual fetish. Whatever. It's not. It's. Is there something in your life that you feel is unsolvable and really working on that problem. Really starting to feel empowered. Right. So a lot of addiction treatment is about I can't win against the alcohol. But if you go to an alcoholics an anonymous meeting, there's something really beautiful about hi, my name is Alok and I'm an alcoholic. I've been sober for 30 years and I'm an alcoholic. It's kind of this weird paradoxical empowerment where you start with I can't control this. Yeah. Fingers crossed. I'm gonna do the best that I can.

[John DeLoney]

Which is a tiny reclamation of autonomy.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

100 yeah. I don't think it's tiny. I think it's huge. Right. To, to admit that you were not perfect.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And, and once you admit. Right. And we're parents and hopefully you've got parents listening to this. Like once you acknowledge that there's a problem.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. Like if you've got kids who are struggling in school or going through a breakup or something. And like if your kid comes to you, how do I make sure that my ex dating me again.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You know, you got to say, hey, there's nothing you can do to guarantee that outcome. But there's a lot of stuff that we can do. Right. So I, I, I think that empowerment becomes really important for addiction.

[John DeLoney]

It's letting your hands open up.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Then you can be about solving the problem. So it's the, one of the hardest things for me is to communicate to let's just take, I'm just going to take a generic wife who finds pornography on generic husband's computer. Yeah. This deeply personal. Like I feel like he's cheating. That's enough. Fair.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

That deeply personal wound. And if you said if you it it is. Right. All those things are real. And it's hard to say. But probably that's not about you. Is a, is a, is a hard truth to metabolize. 100 this super big pain. You just stuck a knife in the middle of my ch and you're telling me that's not about me. And it's hard to compassionately say that usually is a man who's drowning in front of you. Does that make sense?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, it makes a lot of sense. So I think there's like two sides of this coin, right?

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You know, so. So absolutely. That a lot of men will use pornography to cope. Yeah, a lot of men. Because it's such a powerful. It's like the most endogenous drug we have. It's produced by our body. Right. It's like you don't need to actually even take a substance, but it's activates your brain in the same way, gives

[John DeLoney]

you dopamine, lights you up.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. Shuts off your negative emotions. Right. So anything that we get addicted to, there are two things to look for. One is it gives us pleasure, and the second is it takes away pain and then we become dependent on it. But I think there's a couple of other angles to this. So a lot of the women that I work with who, you know, have male partners who struggle with pornography, there's an intense amount of insecurity. Right. Because it's like, what are you getting from this?

[John DeLoney]

What's wrong with me?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

What's wrong with me? Right. And there's a very real threat.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, of course.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So is this because, like, it starts with pornography, but then, like, what comes next? And part of that pain is not just the discovery. Right. Part of the pain of the discovery is also the fact that there was a discovery, the fact that this is hidden, the fact that there's secrets. Right. So if this is something. So I think a lot of those warning signs, I think are complete, completely understandable. And I'm not saying. I get that you're saying that they're understandable too. Right. But I think, like, you know, there's a lot of insecurity. There's a lot of concern about, you know, doing something behind my back. The hardest conversation that I've had to navigate with a patient is how to communicate your sexual needs and desires to your partner.

[John DeLoney]

So a couple years ago, I was doing a marriage retreat and this is a joke. I was being silly. I said, I. I've created a new thing. It's called the John Deloney Erotic Envelope System. And here's what I want you to do. Go to Walgreens and get a 99 cent envelop. And you write down five things you want to see or try and you. And just once a month, once every two weeks, one of y' all draw it out and just promise you'll give it the college try. And if you don't even know how this is physiologically possible, you'll. You won't go. Your first thing won't be. That's sick. Your first thing will be. I don't even understand that. Tell me about that. And, bro, the number of people who've come back and be like, can we buy that? Is it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

But it has nothing to do with the act. It has to do with there's a thing inside of me, and I don't know how to share this, and I don't know how to receive this thing.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Beautiful.

[John DeLoney]

Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And let's dig into that for a second. Right? Because this is like, if we think about the most private parts of ourselves, right. There's so much intimacy. And so you have one person. If you're married, let's just assume that we've got a married couple. Right? So you've got one person in the world who's got your back in every single way, but if there's some part of you, you want them to do something, and then you share that with them. Because many of them don't know how it's physiologically.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Or they don't know how to start going about doing that. We'll talk about female examples in a second. That rejection, the risk of that rejection.

[John DeLoney]

Boom, off ramp, right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, absolutely. That's gonna crack this intimacy. So we've got. We've got a good thing going, right? We're in love. It's good. We've got a couple kids.

[John DeLoney]

But let's do this like, we've made humans together. We've buried parents together. We have gone through job loss and job gain together. We've celebrated. We have so much.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But there's. There's.

[John DeLoney]

Except this.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. But there's a huge difference between everything that you just said and this, which is all of those things is me and you against that thing out there. But when it comes to something like this is me and you. And so this.

[John DeLoney]

The tension.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

The tension is between the two of us. Right. That's why it's such a critical fracture. Right. So we. And. And I don't want to risk because, hey, like you said, this is what's so paradoxical about it. We've been through so much stuff together, and would I ever risk that?

[John DeLoney]

But this is between us.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So there's some distance. And in this equilibrium, we can bury parents, we can raise children. We're connected right now. There's nothing between us. Right. We're going to just I'm going to shove it to the back and you're going to shove your stuff to the back and we're going to stay good between us. And that's how we handle all the difficulties of life. Why would I ever want to jeopardize raising kids, burying parents, paying off mortgages, dealing with cancer, and by creating this friction. What if there's a rejection over here? Because this is something you can't take away. Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

So it's, it's almost. It's the old adage, like, women connect. And again, I know this is over generalized, but women connect kneecap to kneecap and men connect shoulder to shoulder. We're doing a thing. It's us verse, or we're solving a problem this way. And in a marriage, yeah, we can get shoulder to shoulder and take stuff on, but the moment we turn, man.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So I think it's tricky. Right. That's terrifying because even if I share with you and you say no, that's not the end of it.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Because then how does that rejection make me feel? And even if I say if we pretend everything is okay and then you say no, which is totally fine, but then are you wondering whether I think that's okay? Am I just saying it's okay, but I really don't think it's okay.

[John DeLoney]

What is it about me that she just rejected or he just rejected?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. I think this is. What's really important is people don't realize how to. It's not about opening the conversation. People don't know how to navigate that conversation to a healthy close. Right. Whether it involves trying things or not. There's so much that we don't know how to talk about because this is the one kind of conversation that, that no one ever teaches us how to have. Yeah, right. About intimacy. Yep. And the funny thing about this is, like, a lot of people will. Will think like, oh, you know, dudes want their wives to do particular things. But it goes both ways, of course. And I, I think that oftentimes the men that I work with, you know, and I've had my wife complain about this to me. And by the way, my wife says you are awesome. I. I was supposed to give you this.

[John DeLoney]

I received that. Dude. Thanks for.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Because of the way that you talk about your relationship. And she absolutely loves it.

[John DeLoney]

It. Tell her I think she's awesome.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Will do. So I forgot what I was saying. Oh, yeah. So a lot of times we as men don't know how to provide the right level of romance that you find in a Romance novel. And our partners don't know how to ask that of us. So they'll say, I want you to be more romantic. But then we look at the COVID of this romance novel where there's some

[John DeLoney]

pirate on a horse. Yeah, pirate on a horse with no shirt.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And so similarly, there's a lot of stuff that our wives may be wanting us to do that they don't know how to ask for that is also intimate. It's something between the two of us. But we are like, we can't live up. So we can't live up to the washboard ab pirate riding a horse, and they can't live up to the pornographic actress. Whereas the beautiful thing is, you don't have to live up to those two things. The reality of it is great, you know, and so I think there's a lot of, like, romance that we don't know how to do. We think it's flowers and chocolates and that's it. But there's so much more to it. There's tension, there's connection, there's excitement. You know, there's a lot of.

[John DeLoney]

The transformation of my own marriage came from what I would call the de Hollywoodization, the when. When going back to, like, I just need some more romance. To now. My wife came in, and I've told this story before on the show. Like, she came in about a year ago and just pointed at me and said, I need to borrow your nervous system for 20 minutes. Find an episode of Brooklyn Nine Nine. I'll be right back. And I was sitting on the couch doing something mindless. I found an episode, and she curled up on me like a. Like a golden retreat. I just curled up tight. We watched the show, we laughed, and she literally. She got up and she goes, thank you. As though saying exactly what I need. When I, instead of saying just romance, Hollywood say, if. If you have to explain it, it's not real anymore. Your relationship's over.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, yes.

[John DeLoney]

And except for saying, great point. Hey, can. This is exactly what I need in this moment. I just need to lean up against something sturdy for a bit. Versus and also me being like, hey, you want to try? Like, I need you to read my mind. And if you can't read my mind, then we're done.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Then.

[John DeLoney]

Then Hollywood says, then somebody else is going to be able to read your mind. Instead of saying, hey, I really. Ooh, this is uncomfortable. I want to try this, this and this, which is scary. It's terrifying. And that's where the magic is.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So I think what people don't get about. And I love this term de Hollywoodization. You know, we have these ideas of what relationships are, and especially when it comes to things like pornography, when it comes to things like social media. Right. Where we have all these performative relationships, where we have influencers who are showing, oh, my partner did this for me. And people are. I really think a lot of this stuff really pollutes our idea of what a real relationship is. And oftentimes what happens is, you know, if your partner is watching something, whether it's a Hollywood movie, an influencer, or pornography, it can feel like you can't match that.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So there's a lot of sense of, like, I can't live these expectations. Absolutely. I can't live up to these expectations. One thing you gotta remember is that you have certain things at your disposal that they can't match. And your example is great. It's actual physical touch.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You know, when you touch a human being, when you actually. There's like, what you see when you kiss, you see two people kissing, and then there's the actual experience of kissing. So you have so much ammo that Hollywood can't touch, which is real experience. It's real.

[John DeLoney]

Yes, yes, yes, yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Which is actually holding your partner, which is cracking a joke, you know, and not all sex has to be passionate.

[John DeLoney]

Right, Exactly.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

It's like.

[John DeLoney]

But you got two young kids. There's survival sex. We got seven minutes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. Right.

[John DeLoney]

I'm in if you're in. Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. And then there's the. So why don't we do that more often?

[John DeLoney]

Exactly. Yes, exactly.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So I think there's a lot of, like, you know, shared emotional connection. There's a lot of intimacy that you can build. There's a lot of shoulder to shoulder and knee to knee kind of going on. And so I think a lot of the problems that we see is that. And this is one of the reasons that I think we have, like, this dating and mating crisis right now, which is that everyone is trying to live up to expectations. And I think apps are just making this worse. Oh, yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Catastrophically. So. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Apps are basically saying, give us all your expectations. We will find you someone who checks all the boxes. But that's not what a real relationship is.

[John DeLoney]

Which is, by the way, is kind of a Through a glass darkly version of yourself.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

What does that mean, glass darkly?

[John DeLoney]

It means when I fill out all the things I like, I'm gonna get a version of that back to me. And so we're gonna have three great dates. And then I'm gonna get bored. I'm, I, I'm gonna have no, there is, there is no reciprocation. I listen to punk rock music. My wife grew up on country music. I've benefited. And so is she.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. So I think that's what's so scary is what you're, what you're talking about is that apps will select for things that have nothing to do. There's tons of research on this. Have nothing to do with relationship quality.

[John DeLoney]

Exactly. It has to do with what you think is cool.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. Right.

[John DeLoney]

Which is not good relationship down the road.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So I'm the same way. So, you know, my wife and I had a conversation recently where like, she wants me to like, like, do more things that she likes. We're like completely different human beings. We don't, we don't like the same music. We have different interests. Like, I'm a gamer. She's super into tennis. Right. And we're like completely different people and we would have never met on a dating app. This is kind of funny. The one thing we have in common, she's Indian, I'm Indian. The one thing we have in common is we both didn't want to end up with an Indian person. That's the only thing, that's the only thing we have in common when it comes to like, like our shared preferences for relationships. And if you look at the science of it, you know, sharing interests is not even in the top five of a successful relationship. No. You know, it's, it's really my whole.

[John DeLoney]

The hardest part is if I could go back and tell 24 year old me is the things you're the most worried about when it comes to shared interest will be the thing that make your life as rich as it possibly can be later on. Yeah. And yeah, but it's hard. I, I don't know how to, I don't know how to explain that to 25 year old me because that guy wouldn't listen to anybody. Right. And it's, it's something you have to endure. And I guess the challenge is getting into the minds of folks that the greatest gift you can give your partner is some sort of map. And that map is like, here's how you can love me right now. Or here is a. Let me ask this, if this passes your smell test. And feel free to say absolutely not. I have a working hypothesis that may not be accurate. In fact, you're the first clinician I've talked to about this. Tell me if I'm wrong. I think we way overuse the word needs, especially in mental health culture. And a much more intimate and even vulnerable thing to put on the table is what I want. So if I tell you I need X, Y or Z, I need you to help around here. I need this type of sex right now. What I'm doing is I'm taking a cinder block and I'm handing my well being to you and saying, you have to fix this for me. That's a. That's a whom. That's a weight. And that goes on a checklist. Because you know what else needs to be done? The kids got to be fair. The diaper's got to be changed. The yard's got to be mowed, the roof's got to be fixed. It goes on this list. It's a scarier thing for me to say, I want you or I want a hug right now. Because then someone can say no. If someone gives you a need, you kind of have. You kind of get railroaded in.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I. Yeah, so. So, so I.

[John DeLoney]

Does that pass the smell test or. No?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

It's. It absolutely passes the smell test. But it, It, I, I agree 100% and I'm. It's triggers me because I think this is one of the worst things that's happening right now.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So I completely agree that we use needs way too much and we don't use wants enough. I think some of the other. Some of the. That foundation, I agree with 100. Where you go from there? Yeah. I go in a far more negative place.

[John DeLoney]

Okay, take me there.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So I'm not disagreeing with even where you end up. But, like, what I've noticed is scary. So when you start saying you need particular things, this is the way for a spoiled person to get what they want.

[John DeLoney]

Yes. When they start, it's a weaponization. Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So I say, like, I need this purse.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So it's really scary. And you're spot on that, like, this is. There's something weird happening where we're starting to use a lot of mental health language very colloquially.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And I think what's really scary is that there are people out there that. And it's kind of human nature who will hijack the word need and really start to create. And even when I work with these people, it kind of makes me angry, but I sort of see where they're coming from because many times they don't know how to manage that on their own. So it becomes a need.

[John DeLoney]

Okay, that's fair. That's a good call.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

A great example of this is I

[John DeLoney]

need my spouse to regulate me because I literally don't know how.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely right. So you took the example out of my mouth.

[John DeLoney]

That's actually a fair. That's a valid challenge.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Really scary example of this is I need you to not break up with me, otherwise I'm going to kill myself.

[John DeLoney]

Yep. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. And so this creates a really. And maybe that is more of a need because we're talking about life and death. But what we're seeing a lot of is a lot of people, when they want something, their inability to tolerate not getting what they want is so low that they convert it to a need.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Or they have discovered that the way to get what I want is to

[John DeLoney]

call it a need is to throw a cinder block at you and say, catch.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely right. And it feels so burdensome. I love this imagery of a cinder block. Right. Because when I'm sharing all my needs with you, I'm absolutely outsourcing that responsibility to you. And so I think it's like, it's really, really dangerous.

[John DeLoney]

It's. It will causes so much. The question I get from men all the time is, how do I get my wife to want to. Want to be with me? Right. And every time I've had an audience, like a live audience, and I've said, said, when's the last time you told your wife, not that I need sex today?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Or.

[John DeLoney]

Which. Which, by the way, can be a threat too, or I'm gonna have to go get it somewhere else, either through pornography or through the person I work with. Whatever. When's the last time you looked at her after helping around the, like, taking your fair share of the load at the house and saying, hey, I really want you in the whole room just goes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right.

[John DeLoney]

And it gets you off the need to do list into the right. Similar with if you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't, you don't. And he never gives me emotional connection. It's like, are you a person that he can emotionally connect to? Because the emotional interactions you'll have are all about how he's not enough. He's not enough. He's not doing this, he's not doing this. Are you a person that he can actually plug into? And that comes, like, to me, it always comes back to, if you need to use the word need to get what you want, then your relationship is not built on the foundation you think it's on.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, it's, It's. It's a dangerous game.

[John DeLoney]

If you say, I want you, and they Say no, that's a revealing that. That tells you where your relationship is. Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

And. But. But I. But your. Your critique is fair in that if I don't know how to do that, then it. It is a need. Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. Yeah. So it's a need. Absolutely right. So that's what we see with people who have, like, borderline personality disorder and stuff like that. Right. So you have the. All these intense feelings that.

[John DeLoney]

That.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And I think it's everything you said and the things that I said. Right. Sometimes it's. I don't know how to get this done without you, which is why I need you to do it. And the real challenge with that is that it engenders dependence. Right. And what's starting to happen is now when I'm giving you this cinder block, you have cinder blocks, too. You have your own cinder blocks, and oftentimes you're carrying your own cinder blocks. And now you're carrying my cinder blocks, too. And that is something that is. Can work in the short term, but is absolutely going to weigh you down long term.

[John DeLoney]

Absolutely.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. One thing I wanted to touch on is this question of how to want. So I've devoted myself to this in the last year.

[John DeLoney]

Okay, sweet.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

How do I get my wife to want to want me?

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. And I'm not saying that from, like, my marriage perspective. I did go through somewhat of a midlife crisis. And we.

[John DeLoney]

We all have. Yeah, we've all been there.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I think we don't. We don't advertise. One thing that we should. Should let people know more is that midlife crises, I think, are developmentally appropriate. I think they just happen. They should happen. And it's part of growing up. But. So a couple questions that I work with. When I work with someone, I'll ask someone, when was the last time that they wanted you? And what were the conditions during that time? Yeah. Right. So what we need to understand is desire is something that grows. It's not something that you turn on or turn off. And you kind of talk about emotional connection. So I'm not surprised at all that we basically ended up in a very similar place. But oftentimes what happens is early on in relationships, there's a lot of space for desire. There's a lot of space for emotional connection. And then we get mortgages, and then we get kids, and we get all these kinds of things. And as we start entering the early stages of burnout, the first thing that goes from a neuroscience perspective is empathy. And once empathy goes away, once you're not sleeping well. And once empathy goes away, I'm sure you've seen this a ton and maybe lived through it.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But when you have young kids at home and things like that, and sex life gets really challenging, and then it becomes a desperate. We've got seven minutes, right?

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So. But I think a big part of it is understanding that there are certain circumstances that create. That we didn't have to engineer before because they were natural and organic. We. We could emotionally connect because we had a lot of idle time.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And so what we really have to do once we get that time crunch is we have to understand, okay, what was the fertilizer at that time or what was the ground like at that time? And now we need to add fertilizer. Now we need to add something special that wasn't there before.

[John DeLoney]

Intentionality.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Intentionality, Right. You have to really think about it. And I think trust, safety, sleep, I think is huge. Right. And I think it's just understanding that there is some. I think this stuff gets overplayed a little bit, but there's absolutely, like, a physiological element where the sexual act for the male biology is different from the sexual act from a female biology. The energy investment for male biology is like, actually, average is about seven minutes. The energy investment for a female biological.

[John DeLoney]

The audience was just like seven minutes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, yeah. So this is fascinating. People don't. People don't realize this average sexual act is three to nine minutes. Yeah. 50% of women would prefer that sex stays less than 15 minutes. And this is where a lot of people will be like, that means you're not doing it, right? Well, like, sometimes that's not the case. Well.

[John DeLoney]

And that's where, again, pornography has taken any sort of reality and.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, yeah, yeah. I once had. If I can tell a slightly vulgar story, y' all can edit it out. But I once had a patient who came to my office and said, you know, I'm having difficulty. I can't achieve a full climax. And so we kind of worked at it for a little while, and, you know, I was trying to ask some questions and things like that. And then finally, like, the second week they came in, I said, you know, let's just get to basics here. When you say full climax, what do you mean? Mean? And they had this impression from pornography that when, like, the volume of. Oh, ejaculate was like, you know, gallop.

[John DeLoney]

Sure. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And they were. They were achieving climax. But in the pornography, it didn't look like the. The volume was different. Right. The volume was like 3 ML.

[John DeLoney]

And they thought they were broke. 3 ML they thought they were broken.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And their climax lasts a certain amount of time, which is not what is demonstrated in pornography.

[John DeLoney]

Right, right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So, so, you know, anyway, that's just,

[John DeLoney]

just, it was just out there. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

People just don't understand, right. What, what normal really is.

[John DeLoney]

So my, if I was to distill it down and make it as simple as I can, and again, tell me if I'm, if I'm out to lunch here again, a broad generalization inside of a bell curve, right. That everyone's different, reading, listening to this. But it is for all of human history, sex has been an extraordinarily vulnerable act, especially for women. Carrying the bulk of this might kill you in childbirth.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Most dangerous thing you'll do statistically, if

[John DeLoney]

you have a child, yeah, it's yours forever. Right. And he can leave and you can't. Right. And so I have to know you are safe. You will be here. There is some sort of. And I'm gonna get through that safety emotionally to get to this and coming this other direction. If before we were sitting upstairs in the green room talking and you were like, like, hey, man, can I just tell you, like, life's like, really tough for me right now. It just guy to guy. I'd be like, cool, man. Right. We have to know, like, physically we did a thing together. We have shared professional interest. We, if I come in vulnerable with a guy just out in the world, it's gonna, it's gonna get me ostracized. And so we're gonna do a thing together, which then gives me permission to be, be emotionally vulnerable with you and you, we cross each other. Does that make sense? Am I saying that clearly? Yeah, so, so it's emotional to physical versus physical allows emotion and emotion allows physical. And we go right past.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So I think, I think, I think a lot of so are you. So I, I, I, I don't disagree with you at all. I, I would add some, some of just my experience working with men. So I think what a lot of men struggle with in terms of emotional vulnerability is they literally do not know how to be emotionally vulnerable. And oftentimes what a lot of people think by that is, oh, yeah, men can't cry. That's actually, it's really fascinating. So many men, including men in like, happy marriages, right? So when, when I say if we were back in the green room and I was like, hey, John, my life is, I'm on the struggle bus right now. Right. It would make may get me ostracized. What a lot of people don't realize is that when men are emotionally vulnerable with their female partners, they get ostracized by their female partners.

[John DeLoney]

Correct. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So this is really, there's some fascinating research that comes out of actually a feminist publication, which is really interesting. So oftentimes as men, as we express emotions, so if you look at the way that women express emotions, and this is once again, bell curve, right. So there's kind of this gradual escalation, right. Where they'll talk for, let's say like a 45 minute period. You don't, you don't start with crying. You go from like zero to five miles an hour. Your, your female friend tells you. Okay, like, I totally understand. They're, they're like very emotionally supportive and they'll kind of work their way up in a very, like, safe, collaborative way.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So as men, we have like two modes. We have like zero and we have 100. And what's really scary, you know, nowadays, the kids call it the ick. But so many men that I work with, with, when they express emotional vulnerability to their female partner, their female partner gets the ick.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And that's for a couple of really interesting reasons. One is we don't know how to go from 0 to 25 and make sure you're okay with 25. Right.

[John DeLoney]

Hey, we cool? Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So he goes from 0 to 100.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And then there's another really interesting thing. So there's a kind of emotional labor that men are actually really good at that women are not socialized to do nearly as much, which is something called emotional containment. Okay, so if I go from 0 to 100, you would be able to handle that?

[John DeLoney]

Of course.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So we've all had probably male friends who will just absolutely be out of control. And we're like, bro, it's okay. Right? I can hold that.

[John DeLoney]

Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Like, you can be falling apart and like, it's like, I can handle that.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So even I remember when my dad passed away, the way that, you know, when someone cries, they end up on a man's shoulder. Right, right, right, right, right. So. So I, as a, as a, as a psychiatrist, have held people who are crying on my couch. I cannot think of a single of my female colleagues who has ever done that.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So the ability to hold emotions and contain them. Right. Because we're really good at suppressing. So you can send it my way.

[John DeLoney]

I'll hold it for you.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I can hang onto it for you. I can Suppress it. I'll shove it down like, I know how to bury that. I'm good at that. And oftentimes women don't do that kind of emotional labor nearly as much as men do. That's our day in and day out. So what can actually happen is if you're a dude and you go from 0 to 100, that is oftentimes too much for someone to handle. Right. Especially your female partner. And it kind of gives them the ick. I hear this a lot with, like, dating where, you know, now, like, men are trying to be a little bit more emotionally vulnerable and stuff like that. And. And just think. Think about it, right? If you're a woman listening to this, if you're. If your husband showed up and just started crying at, like, 100% and did that like, six days in a row. Right, Right. How would that make you feel? Would you be like, is this okay? I don't know what the is going on.

[John DeLoney]

Let's go, let's go, let's go.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I don't know how to handle it.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And that's also why one of the worst things I think you can ever do is confess your love. So when you confess your love, you're going, you've had all this love. That's.

[John DeLoney]

Oh, you're dating somebody, you can.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You're confessing. So. So I'm. I'm following more and more and more and more in love, and then I suddenly dump all of that on you. So I go from 0 to 100. The other person is like, where is this coming from? And if you think about the way that organic. I don't know what happened with you and your relationship, but. But I would guess that most people out there, even if you kind of go from 0 to 100, you don't show them 0 to 100. Right. You fall for them real quick in the back of your mind. You can't get them out of your head. But you're kind of playing it cool. And there's this graduation.

[John DeLoney]

I was going to say the old line was, dude, be cool.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, right, Exactly. And there are reasons why these things are the old line. Right. So there are reasons that we offer this kind of advice. Because if you go from 0 to 100 and the other person can't handle it, clip that are going to pull away.

[John DeLoney]

Dude, we can talk for five hours on this one topic. We're going to set that up next time in Houston. We're going to get together. All right? I want to switch gears. I need you to. I need Your parenting coaching me now.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

Okay. We're going to televise this, but I, we're going to record it, but I'm literally asking for your input.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. Okay.

[John DeLoney]

You are a gamer. Okay, like, right? You're like, yeah, yeah. You're like, yeah, an outstanding gamer from what I understand. Like, you're good at it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I'm a gamer. Okay. Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Okay. So I have hit the belt, the, the pendulum so far that I have, in the words of the great Homer Simpson, the best part about having kids is to teach them to hate the things that you hate. Right. So I have passed along to my son. I'll use him. He's 15. This over sensationalized danger of all things. Screens, all things, like whatever. Go outside, go be active. In fact, I got him a new climbing stand for. We're in the middle of hunting season here in Nashville, and he was this morning, before the sun came up, practicing with it up a tree. Right? Okay, Hit it so far, and I also have begun to have like, he got his first smartphone in eighth grade, but we took off cameras, we took off the Internet. There's no way. It's basically a texting device. Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

And to this day, 15 still doesn't have that stuff. No. No Snapchat. No. None of those things. Part of that is a response to me doing a bunch of sexual assault investigations where everything was in Snapchat over and over and over and over again. Right. And just constantly living in the data about social media. Have I hit am I, am I, have I gone too far to the point I'm messing this poor kid up playing defense? And if I haven't yet, what is a way that he's. He's not two and a half years from walking out of my front door into the wild, wild west.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

How would I begin to integrate into him responsibility while at the same time saying, you're still a kid, man. And these, these, the tech ecosystem is simply better than us?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

It's.

[John DeLoney]

It's better than us. Help me.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay, sure. So let's start with a couple of questions. Okay?

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

What happens next? Like where, where is your plan going to lead you? Like, so what, what happens next?

[John DeLoney]

Well, it's plan is a, A. So a couple years ago, he's got, he does have some video games and he plays them with his friends. And, and that was. He brought it to us and said, hey, we live out here in the country. When I walk out of my schoolhouse, you have isolated me from every human being on the planet. I was like, that's actually, that's a fair call. And so if there's a couple of these games that have closed groups that I know, what I don't want is strangers coming in, et cetera, et cetera.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

It's a ton extra work on my part, but it was a fair call. So you got to be able to talk to your friends on the phone and just talk noise and trash and make jokes after school and whatever. That's fine. And if y' all are doing it playing Minecraft, so be it. But I have to come up with some sort of healthy integration, because the day you walk out of my house, that's the ecosystem you're in.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. So. So. Right. So I. I think. I think so. It sounds like y' all hunt.

[John DeLoney]

Let me say it with a bow and arrow. There has been since he was a very young kid. Here's what safety looks like. And you can be next to me, and you can't touch this thing. And then now he's 15.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

And you can climb up a tree on your own. Right. Because I, I. So there's trust there.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You all hunt?

[John DeLoney]

Yes. Correct.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. And you use guns or bows and arrows. Okay. How old was he when you taught him how to.

[John DeLoney]

You.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Which one did you learn first? Bow or gun?

[John DeLoney]

A gun. A rifle.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

How. How old was he when you taught him how to use a rifle?

[John DeLoney]

I thought, I'm not very, very young, but there's a difference between teaching you and then you being able to do this.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I'm with you. I'm with you.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Very, very, very young.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

How old was he?

[John DeLoney]

Gosh, man. Probably five.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

Four.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So some people think I, I can understand that. People will judge that. I don't judge that at all. Right. So. So I. I think here's. Here's kind of. And I'm kind of with. With you. I. I think this is a really common problem. That's why I. I literally wrote a book about it. It's called how to Raise a Healthy Gamer, where I kind of lay all this stuff out. So I play games with my kids. I started. I tried to play Mario Kart with my daughter when she was 2. She was way too young, didn't understand it. So here's kind of where I'm coming from. So let's like, just super high level.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You mentioned that these tech platforms are better than us. Better than us. Yeah. We're outgunned. Correct. We have. We have certain things that they don't have. But.

[John DeLoney]

But we have the off button. We always have the nuclear option.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

No, no, that's not the nuclear. No, no. The off button doesn't help us so much.

[John DeLoney]

Okay, okay. Okay. That feels good.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So off button leads to deception.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. So if you are pushing the off button on your kid, your kid is just going to learn ways around it. Correct. Yeah. So I think we're outgunned for sure. Parents don't know what to do. That's why I wrote a book about it. So let's start with a couple of things. So I think that technology is going to get more addictive every year that goes by. So we had, you know, even. Even when I started working on tech addiction, which is in 2015, things were not that bad. Now we're in the world of AI and everything is just getting. The rate of change is increasing. It's. Everything is getting. Advancing faster. Right. So it's my view that we have to prepare our kids for the world that they are going to inherit.

[John DeLoney]

Correct.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Correct. So I'm kind of with you that if you want to teach your kid how to hunt, you got to teach them early and you got to teach him responsibility. Right, Right. So in that, in that.

[John DeLoney]

When it comes to the gun, I think, I think this is a great analogy. I had to model every second of that.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Because that's what he's absorbing.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So that, that's.

[John DeLoney]

How does dad handle this bow and arrow every second of every day.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So that's another challenge that parents have. You can't model Minecraft. No.

[John DeLoney]

Right, that's right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So. So, like, that's really challenging. Right. So even with gun safety, like, you can model it. He can learn how to chop carrots, he can learn how to shoot a gun. He can learn about safeties. He's going to watch how careful you are and he's going to pick it up. But a lot of parents aren't gamers.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And so how are you supposed to model good behavior?

[John DeLoney]

Can you model laughter and joy and an exuberant life away from a screen?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. You should.

[John DeLoney]

Is that, Is that, is that an antidote?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

That is not an antidote. Okay, so this is. This is where I think this is the wrong kind of thinking in my opinion. Right. So it's not either or. And you're thinking about it like a pendulum.

[John DeLoney]

I am. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

This is not either or. So we gotta. Like, if I was coaching you.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I would start with, what's your allergy to screen? Why do you hate screen so much?

[John DeLoney]

Because it. Because I can't stop when I turn it on. I go Do a vortex.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

Does that make sense? Like, I, I have a. But a lived experience of never having social media. And three years ago, finding myself, bro, I. In my closet scrolling while the kid. I was like, I remember laughing like, oh, dude, they got me.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

So, Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So, I mean, I literally. Oh, well, I failed so many classes. It took me five and a half years to graduate from college because I basically failed my first two years of college because I was playing video games for 16 to 20 hours a day. So, so, like, think about that. You're a therapist projecting onto him. Right? So, like, this is your struggle.

[John DeLoney]

This is your demon jumping on him to carry.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And it's like, oh, my God. You know, I've seen this. You're, you know, I had a kid with someone. The person who, the father of the kid turned out to be not the best human being on the planet. Therefore, I never want you to.

[John DeLoney]

All men are bad. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

All men are bad.

[John DeLoney]

That's right. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So that's kind of what you're doing emotionally, that needs to be worked on because that emotion is going to be very confusing for him when you're coming at him like that. Yeah. Right. And I think you've done a really good job because you're still letting him play and you haven't, you know, so you acknowledge that this is his world and, and so you're doing good there. But I think working on that is important.

[John DeLoney]

It is, man. Well, and also, it may be that the only lifeline I have in three years is, hey, you want to get online and play a game together? Because he's across the country.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

And that could be a shared moment we have.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. Right. So, so, so I, I, I think even sharing with him why you come at him so hard about screenshots.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

This is what I noticed in myself. It's something that I struggled with. It's something that I wanted to protect you from. I was afraid that this is going to mess you up. Right. So having that conversation with him, giving him that context will help immensely. Okay.

[John DeLoney]

Yes. Can I ask a question?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Going back to the pseudo relationship of social media.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

One of the things, since he was little, I would always ask, like, like, why would you outsource playing a baseball game to the screen? Why don't we just go outside and play baseball? Is this a. Or why go shoot bad guys out here? Let's go. Nerf gun in the, in the yard. Is, is, is this an offshoot? Is it a substitute of.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

No, I don't think so.

[John DeLoney]

Of of an activity.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So, so why, why play baseball on a game instead of playing baseball in real life?

[John DeLoney]

Life?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Because I can be awesome in the game and.

[John DeLoney]

I know, but I'm gonna be mediocre.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

No, you can't.

[John DeLoney]

No, no, I'm saying I can be awesome. I can be really tough on social media. Right?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So, so, so let's, let's, let's tease these apart.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So first thing is for you specifically.

[John DeLoney]

I know I'm wrong here. I'm hanging on.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

No, no, you're not. You're not. You're not wrong.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

You're not wrong about anything. Yeah. You have the beliefs that you have, you have the experiences that you have. You're. You're incredibly thoughtful. Yeah. You're a good dad. You've lived through some difficult times. So you're not wrong. What I would say is you're incomplete.

[John DeLoney]

Perfect. Love it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right.

[John DeLoney]

Loving way to say that.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I mean it's not like I'm not trying to like glaze on you. Artificially compassionate. It's like this is, this is how parents get here is there's just dimensions of this stuff that we don't understand.

[John DeLoney]

Yes. And that honestly you guys been my core fear. I don't understand it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

I don't get it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. And. And so this is why when men have problems that they don't know how to solve. Right. We had a whole conversation about how we react.

[John DeLoney]

We should. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right.

[John DeLoney]

We shut it down. Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

We shot or. And sometimes we use pornography. Sounds like that's not your challenge. But so, so let's just start with. So I think, I think understanding your own feelings because once again you're. Your child is going to model. They're gonna pick up on what you're doing.

[John DeLoney]

That's right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Let's remember that when your son was like 11 months old, he had no ability to communicate with you with words. You had no ability to communicate with him with words. The vital survival communication between parent and child is completely non verbal. He knows how you're feeling. Right. My favorite study of this is if you take a parent with anxiety disorder and a child with anxiety disorder. If you give the parent treatment, the child's anxiety will improve even if you don't do anything to the kid. Yeah. Okay. So he is picking up whatever you are feeling now. So that's the first thing. So you gotta understand how you feel about it. Maybe have a conversation with him. He's 15, so you can probably.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, he's great.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I think. Second thing is I'm A big fan of teach him how to swim. Don't keep him out of the ocean.

[John DeLoney]

Exactly. I am too.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So how do we do that? So this is where I think the key thing is absolutely integration, but with awareness. So what a lot of parents do is it's either off or on. But that's not how people will ask me, like, how many hours a day is too much. It's not about how many hours a day. Right. So if we think about, like. I'm trying to think of a good example. So even if we take someone who, like, works. Right. How many hours of a day is work? Okay. Okay. And you may say, okay, 40 hours a week. Like, I work 80 hours a week, 90 hours a week. I work six or seven days out of the week. You know, and that's not unhealthy. Right. So it's not a total number. It is the way that you are handling it. Okay. So I think it's about teaching them responsibility. And the cornerstone of responsibility is awareness. So this is what I did with my kids.

[John DeLoney]

I would.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

They would wake up in the morning and they would say, can we watch tv?

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. Saturday morning. And I would say, my daughter starts

[John DeLoney]

every day of the week with that question.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yep.

[John DeLoney]

Can I watch?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Can I watch? Right. And by the way, as long as your children. So my. My goal, and this is what I lay out in how to Raise a Healthy Gamer. My goal is to teach them, to make them understand, Help them understand. Once they understand, they won't keep asking you the questions. Right. Do your kids ask you, oh, hey, can I touch the hot pan? Can I touch the hot stove? Can I touch the hot stove? Do they ask that every week? It's because they haven't understood. Because you're doing the mental work for them. You're restricting them. Right. So you're not teaching. You're never teaching them gun safety. You're just saying, no guns, no guns, no guns. Okay, here, hold a gun. Now push the trigger. Now I'm taking it away. You're not letting them learn how to use it. So this is what I did with my kids. They'd say, can we watch? And I would say, yes. So 45 minutes go by. I say, hey, let's go to the playground. And they say, no, we want to watch more. We want to watch more. I say, okay, fine. So I paused for a second. I said, how are y' all feeling? Do you really wanna watch? I'll invite them to, like, check in with themselves. And then, you know, 30 minutes later, they wanna watch for another 45 minutes. Fifteen minutes later, they're fighting with each other. They're like. They're rolling around on the bed, right? They're like six.

[John DeLoney]

They don't feel good.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

They don't feel good, but they still don't wanna stop. So I'll force them to stop. We'll pause. I'll say, how do you feel? Are you guys having fun? And they'll be like, yeah. And I'm like, is this what fun looks like? Right. Do you smiling? Are you smiling right now? And they're like, no. And they kind of understand that. Then I'll forcibly remove them. Then we'll go to the playground, and I let them play for 15 minutes. And I'll say, hey, do you guys want to go back and watch, or do you want to stay at the playground? And of course they say, I want to stay at the playground. Maybe your kids don't, but. And so I think a key thing is that once they're at the playground, and then they stay for an hour, Right. Then we go back, and then we're gonna have lunch, and then I'll invite them to reflect. Okay, so what did y' all notice? Would y' all have wanted to stay for two hours? How much fun are you actually having in the first 30 minutes and the second 30 minutes? How does this stuff work? You guys tell me. Yeah, yeah, yeah, right? And it's amazing how much when you invite them to, like, pay attention, because so many parents operate between on and off.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

The real money is before it turns on and after it turns off.

[John DeLoney]

Ooh, that's good. I like that.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right? So to think a little bit where people ask, can I get a cell phone? It's the wrong question. Or my par. My kid is asking for a cell phone. Can I get him a cell phone? It's the wrong question. The question is, once you get a cell phone, what are your responsibilities? How are you going to use it responsibly? These are the conversations you need to be having with your kid. You can absolutely get a cell phone if you can be responsible with it. What does responsibility mean? Yeah. So oftentimes what I'll do is we'll sort of talk. We'll have these conversations with our kids, and parents will be blown away. So you have a kid who plays too many video games. And then we'll sit down, we'll ask them, okay, what do you like about the game? Well, I like playing with my friends. And it's so sad, because I really feel for these kids as someone who's a gamer, right? Because parents are like, I want them to play for one hour a day. And I'm like, that is so terrible. Right. It's kind of like the whole point of gaming is you don't like do it for one hour a day.

[John DeLoney]

You go down a rabbit hole.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, right. You want to play until you're satisfied. It's like, hey, I'm going to take you to a baseball game. We're going to go to two innings a day. It's like that's not how it's fun.

[John DeLoney]

I want to go to one game a month and watch the whole game.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. Right. So I'll tell something to these parents and I'll ask them, talk to your kid about what they like about you gaming. And then they'll blow my, you know, their mind will be blown. But then we'll, we'll develop a plan of like, okay, what does your kid really want? And what we come up with is, okay, this is what you're going to do. These are your responsibilities. Every day you're going to, you're going to have an activity. You're going to go to martial arts, you're going to go to tennis, you're going to do math tutoring, you're going to be home, you're going to be at, at the dinner table at 6:45 so you can help set the table. We sat out all these things. I know it sounds unbelievable, but we

[John DeLoney]

can get to our houses.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But, but when Friday rolls around, okay, Friday you get home, we're gonna order you pizza. You can start gaming at 5pm you can sleep at dawn, you can get up at noon, you need to be up by lunch the next day. Okay? And then you're gonna be with us on Saturday. And then on Sunday we're gonna have like a family day. But you can stay up all night. We're gonna get you a 2 liter thing of mountain Dew, right? If you do, if you live your life responsibly, you get this game as a reward. There is recreation and then there is the rest of your life. And those two things can be combined.

[John DeLoney]

How do you navigate? And actually we're not quite as on the sleep, but that's actually how we live our life, which I love. Like Friday night I'm pretty disciplined about what we eat. Yeah, that Friday night wheels are off, man.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

Family movie night. And it, and hey, and my son over time is like, can I go in here and play with my buddies on this? Whatever. Absolutely, dude. Knock your lights out. How do you manage safety.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So a couple of things. So safety with relation to like the people that they encounter on the Internet.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Because what I can make. I ran the streets growing up. Like we would go spend the night somebody's house and we'd come back. We try to be back before the parents are awake. Right. And just being silly. Right. Doing silly dumb stuff. So the lack of sleep, deep fine. The health, the drinking, Tula fine. I'm more worried about the, the nefarious characters that I don't.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. So let's be specific. So what are you afraid is going to happen to your 15 year old son?

[John DeLoney]

I'm afraid that a, somebody's going to come into that group that's not a part of that group.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And what.

[John DeLoney]

And go down rabbit holes that there's going to be chat responses of suddenly someone's, someone's picking on 15 year old kids and now they come, they start coming back and forth and now suddenly there's a. They respond like harassment, like he's a big humongous 15 year old. So let me insert my daughter here. That somebody's going to encourage her to go outside and I'm gonna come by and pick you up because I got some cool stuff for you. Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

Someone's gonna traffic my kid or somebody's going to, hey, send me a good. I, my, my, my former career was looking at somebody convincing, finally wearing somebody down until they sent a topless photo. Right. That's the stuff I'm worried about.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay, so, so it's, it's a completely valid fear. But let's like put things in perspective.

[John DeLoney]

Okay.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So the most dangerous person from a sexual predation standpoint for your daughter is going to be someone she knows.

[John DeLoney]

Correct.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So strangers on the Internet, are they dangerous? But statistically I think something like, I don't remember the number. It's probably around 75% or higher of like the threats to her. Somebody I know is someone you know.

[John DeLoney]

Correct.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. It's gonna be. Chances are it's gonna be like someone who's older than her, who's gonna be a man, who's a member of your family or social circle.

[John DeLoney]

Somebody's brother or someone's brother.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So, so this is where like. Let's just put the numbers in perspective. You should be way more worried about when she goes on sleepovers than you should about an interaction.

[John DeLoney]

That's one of the things I'm militant on. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay. That being said, there are risks, right? There are absolutely risks. So that's where a couple Things that I recommend. One is that generally speaking if your child has access to a device in their room that increases usage by 50%. So what I recommend is keep it in common spaces. Correct. And secondly, no headphones, speakers.

[John DeLoney]

Perfect.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So then you hear what they're saying

[John DeLoney]

or at least they assume you might be hearing what they're saying.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Exactly, exactly. Right. And then, and then the most, the most powerful thing that you can do is be involved. Hey, who do you play games with online? Right. And that's where if your kid is afraid. So I recommend something in the book which is for the first month that you talk to your kids about gaming, you don't try to punish them, you don't try to make any changes based on what they say and you even approach them and explicitly tell them that hey, I know you play a lot of games. I just want to understand why. Can you explain this gaming stuff to me? What do you like about it? Do you have friends? Do you not have friends? What are your friends like? How old are they? I just want to understand. I'm not going to change anything for the first week. Month later on we're going to start to figure out limits.

[John DeLoney]

What's safe and what's. Yeah, yeah. Based on.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I would love when I set limits. I would love it if I understood how you felt. Yeah, I would love to set those limits with you instead of without you. Right. And that's how we get to these plans of kid is grinding Monday through Thursday and Friday comes along. It's like good job now your parents and it's amazing the kids will be on your side because the idea for a kid that dad is going to order me pizza and I get to game all night and, and then you know, he like, like that's so foreign to them. Yeah, right. That's what they really want and you're giving it to them and they're doing all the healthy stuff which was what they want too because your 15 year old son knows that he needs to be studying hard, he knows he needs to be athletic. Right. Because he may have a crush on someone and if he's got acne and he's like severely overweight and doesn't know how to socialize, he's not going to feel good. Right.

[John DeLoney]

Well and, and if you layer what you're saying on top of something that's been, this is my wife's idea early on was to always point out how good he feels after a good night's sleep. And now I have a 15 year old that's Like d, I'm going to bed.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I'm like, stay up with your dad.

[John DeLoney]

And he's like dude, I'm going to bed. And that's wired in. Right. So the, that all night takes, begins to take care of itself. Cuz he knows that path too.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. So, so, so two things there, right. The important conversation happens before it turns on and out after it turns off. Your wife stumbled into that.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. Which is beautiful. And then the, the next, or when

[John DeLoney]

he gets up at, at noon the next morning, be like, you feel great. Huh.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Like so, and, and that's the other thing is, is once children understand. So it's not just kids. Right. So I, I work with people who are addicted to technology from, you know, who are kids all the way to like seniors. And the, the basic problem with all these apps and stuff is that we are not aware of, of the impact it's having us. The moment what's happening is we are touching a hot stove, but we have lidocaine on our hands so we're not feeling anything. Then we wake up the next day and we're like what, what happened to my hand?

[John DeLoney]

We burned our hand.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So we're not even aware. Like just pay attention to yourself.

[John DeLoney]

And that, that's teach going full circle here. That's teaching emotional regulation. That's teaching, here's how your body feels.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I, I, yeah, I would even say it's not even regulation yet. We're not. That's where it'll end up, right? I would say it's teaching awareness, Awareness for regulation. So, so this is where you know one thing, when I work with like older adults, right. So, so here's what surprises people. You know, the reason that healthy gamer is a thing is because people who are addicted to video games don't want to be addicted. They're not in denial like the majority of them, they just don't know how to stop.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And so even when I, you know, I'll work with like, like professionals and they take a break and you pull out your phone, ask one really simple question after you take a 45 minute break or you're scrolling on your phone, do you feel energized afterward?

[John DeLoney]

You feel good?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Answer is absolutely not. I feel more emotionally drained. It drains you cognitively when you're engaging with your phone. So I think there's a lot of awareness teaching, there's a lot of graduated steps. Parents suck at this. And the reason they suck at this is because they're not willing to let their children fail.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So, so I mean, we'll, we'll do things like, it's like, you know, mom is saying, hey, like, did you. You know, you have to take care of your paper? Is your paper done? And, and, and then we'll come up with different kinds of rules. Like if you get a, you know, if you get a C, it's like zero hours. If you get a B, it's this much. If you get an A, it's this much. And then something really dangerous happens, which is parents have a really big disadvantage, which is that they love their kids. Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So kid comes home and gets a C. And parent says, okay, no more gaming. A month into no gaming, kid hasn't gotten rid of his C. Right. Because semesters happen every three months. But now the kid is working really hard. Now the kid is, is. Is like, you know, working on their papers and they're studying. They got an A on a test. Now kid comes to you and says, hey, I got an A on a test. Can I play now? Out. And the parent is the one who violates it.

[John DeLoney]

Well, and I think even beneath the. And parents love their kids is parents really want their kids to like them.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

Well, I can't live in the tension of my kid doesn't like me right now, which I think is job number three or four. Besides, keep alive is you gotta have seasons where your kids don't like you. And that's right. It's right and good.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I had a tough conversation with my daughter a couple weeks ago where I said to her, I know what I'm doing is making you not like me. And if we're not careful, our relationship will evolve in a way where we don't like each other. And I'm okay with that. What I'm teaching you and how important this. I would rather you hate me and do this and learn this than you like me and not do this. This is how important this is to me.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. I love you enough to let you know, like.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Like me right now. Yeah. And. And, and I think it was. It was hard for her and it was hard for me, but I think, like, we ended up in a good place.

[John DeLoney]

Always.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Always. Yeah. And so I think a lot of it anyway, going back to the gaming thing. So I think it's having conversations with them. Yeah. Enrolling them in developing a healthy practice. Right. That's what we really want to do. Hey, I'm here to provide some structure for you right now, but three years from now, you're going to be out of the house. House. You're Going to be on your own. I literally, I just gave a talk with, to middle schoolers and high schoolers where I was like, you know, right now you guys are living this way. What happens in three years?

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

When y' all are, when y' all are out on your own? Like, are you going to be able to control it?

[John DeLoney]

Okay, so.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And they're terrified.

[John DeLoney]

Like, I've got a conviction now. Tell me if I'm right. Yeah, I think you're. I think you're. I think I'm right. I don't want to be. So if I wanted to change the health of my home. Right. Just the overall nutritional and physical health of my home.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Okay.

[John DeLoney]

The greatest thing I could do would not be to post a bunch of workout plans on the walls. The greatest thing I could do for my kids would be to start waking up and exercising in the morning and letting them see me live this. To participate in cooking healthy meals so that they have a lived experience, a picture, a moving picture of one of the most important people in their life doing this thing. More is caught than taught. I've heard it said. And then as they begin to get curious and ask questions, and I bring them along. But it's got to be a lived experience. And so what I'm, Is that, is that fair?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I would not say that's the greatest thing that you can do.

[John DeLoney]

Okay, what's the greatest thing?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I think the greatest thing that you could do is have them be aware of the impact of food on their body.

[John DeLoney]

Right? Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah.

[John DeLoney]

We're gonna have conversations about it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

We're gonna, I mean, so, so, so, like, like, I mean, not. I think we're getting maybe a bit lost in the details here, but, like, you know, one of my kids has constipation, and so just showing her the

[John DeLoney]

link between this food and this outcome.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, yeah. Right. So, like, what did you eat today? What did you eat today? And asking her, okay, like, what do you think your poop is going to be like tomorrow?

[John DeLoney]

Correct. Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. And, and even if you don't like this thing, I, I, I think the, the most important, the greatest gift I believe, that we can give our kids is the gift of awareness. It's not even teaching. It's not even modeling. Right.

[John DeLoney]

And by awareness, you mean, you mean, like action and consequence? Here's a link.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

The simple act of observation.

[John DeLoney]

That's it. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So I know this sounds crazy, but the reason the world is going to hell right now is because technology has taken away our awareness. Anytime you use technology, you lose yourself that's what we love about it. We don't realize how we're being programmed. So if you look at it, I had this problem when I was in med school. I would wake up in the morning, I would listen to a lecture while I was cooking breakfast, Eating while I'm listening to a lecture, you know, earbuds are in, Walk into the train, Studying on the train, walk into the lecture hall. Because I needed to be efficient, right? But I was never. I was always like externalizing my focus. I wasn't just with here. And I did something that people think is insane. So I was studying a ton. And I saw everyone around me is studying a ton. So. So monkey see, monkey do, right? And I wasn't doing the best. And I was like, this is not working for me. So thankfully, I had spent seven years studying to become a monk. And I just paid attention to myself. I was like, this is not working. So I made up this plan where I would wake up at 4:30 every morning. I would study for two hours before I went to class. I would go to class, I would finish my day around between three and five, I would come home and I was done. I made a rule that prior to tests I would study more, especially on the weekends. But generally speaking, in med school, I studied two hours a day and I got two awards for academics, academic achievement. You have to understand the way that you work. You have to have awareness of how things are affecting you. As long as my hand is numb, I'll keep touching a hot stove. You don't need to teach them anything. The human instrument is designed to learn, but it can only learn if it is aware. Right. As a counselor, as a therapist, when you work with couples, what causes problems, they don't understand how their actions are. They're not aware of the impact of

[John DeLoney]

their actions to that other person. Yeah, yeah, right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And sometimes we'll run into things like denial. With addiction, which is. Denial is intentional lack of awareness. We numb ourselves. Oh, this fire alarm is going on. And you're not aware that these are even fires. I mean, I asked you an hour ago and you're like, I didn't even realize it was a problem. So people don't. We really don't realize how powerful awareness is. And awareness is the greatest driver for behavioral change. Everyone thinks we need willpower or we need discipline.

[John DeLoney]

Nonsense. Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Just the moment that you understand, hey, this thing is good for me.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And what's really interesting is as you get older, you can't. You become more aware.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So like Your stomach can't handle things the way. And it signals you.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And then you start to eat healthier automatically.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So. So I, I think with kids really practicing, awareness is the key thing. Okay, now just to kind of quickly summarize because you asked a question about your.

[John DeLoney]

I was saying what. So, yes, if, if I. To use this analogy, and here's where I was going with it. If I, I'm going to sit down and say, hey, this is, this is good for you. This is how you feel. Here's a couple examples. I'm gonna, I'm gonna be the behavior change in this house, and I want to be demonstrative about how good I feel. If I want my son to have a healthy relationship when he leaves my home in two and a half years, then is it beneficial for me to A, continue with the awareness trajectory? How do you feel this morning after being up playing all night?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. Right.

[John DeLoney]

And B, hey, would you invite me in? I want to learn how to do this.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. So, so I, I, you know what I'm saying?

[John DeLoney]

Like, I want to begin to model this here.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah. So. So I think the, the problem, John, is that. So I'm all for modeling.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But I think the most important modeling. Modeling is program. It's not programming, but it, it, you know, it helps some. Yeah. But, but I think joining your kid is great. Right. And I think the really scary thing is that, like, you're. So why are you modeling? Because you want him to be a certain way.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. That's what I think is really hard for parents to let go of. Right. You want him to be a certain way, which makes you a great dad and is going to statistically do, of

[John DeLoney]

course, for your son.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

But I think there's a deeper, deeper, deeper level to this, which is not. I'm going to show you how to do it the right way. This is really scary. Scary. It's. You are going to figure out how to do the right. What the right way is, and I'm going to create an environment where you are going to come to your own conclusions.

[John DeLoney]

That's scary with kids.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Very scary.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Huh?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. And so I think.

[John DeLoney]

But knowing that kids are not going to come to the right conclusions most of the time.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

My goodness.

[John DeLoney]

Is that fair?

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Oh, my God, John, is that right? I didn't realize I was sitting with God. Because you know what is right and you know what is wrong. Oh, wow. Holy.

[John DeLoney]

I thought I would drop that on you.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

I know, right? So. Oh, they're coming to the right conclusions.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah. Not the right. That's. That's a bad way to put that.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

This the same, right.

[John DeLoney]

I'm gonna say the safe. Here's where I'm finding myself and I'm doing it. And then we gotta wrap this thing up. Kelly's waving at me. I got you. I'll tell this quick story. And I'm just realizing in real time, this is happening.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Morning.

[John DeLoney]

You're a great therapist. Well done. My dad was a homicide detective. And there's a. There's a famous story in our house where we went to. We lived outside north of Houston and in about as safe as a suburban environment as exist on planet Earth. And we. He came and picked me up from work and drove me out, and he always had his suit on. He was a detective, always had a suit. He'd sit outside my baseball, he'd help coach in a suit. He was. It was awesome. We pull back in after being gone an hour and a half, and I had left the back door open, and he looked at that back door and he looked at me and said, I knew it. And out of nowhere he pulls out a gun and goes and clears the house. And I remember being 10, going, that's an overreaction. Right. That's a lot. Right. But his lived experience was, all he did every day was homicide investigation. So my whole career has been students who get themselves in trouble with technology in situations they can't take back. Ever.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

And that has shifted my bell curve.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely.

[John DeLoney]

In a profound way. And I'm realizing that right here.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Absolutely. Right. So. So this is the really scary thing. The things that, you know, are. Right.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Worked.

[John DeLoney]

Yes.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

When you were growing up.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

They've worked up until this point. The really scary thing about technology, the world that our children are going to inherit is astronomical. For the last 2000, between the years 1900 and zero, the world was roughly similar.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So sure, there was industrialization and things like that, but like, you know, still back then, more people died of starvation than obesity. Like something weird has happened in our society and that rate of change is only increasing. Right, right. So that's why I think, like, you know, what I try to lay out in the book, and this is kind of the summary for you is, is first of all, understand how technology affects the brain. We kind of lay that out. Secondly, understand how to communicate with your child. So we teach communication techniques which I'm sure you know. Well, open ended questions. Right. We really need to listen to our kids because we need their information. That also models, once you Start listening to them, they're going to start listening to you. But most parents, with technology, it's on, off, you're going to do it my way or the highway way. They model that behavior. Then comes shared boundary setting. Right. So we're gonna develop a plan. You get your. Your child doesn't get a vote. This is absurd. Everyone's like, oh, my God, no, no. You're a dictator. They're the advisory council, but they're also the expert. So you're gonna listen to what they say, and then you develop boundaries. And then you gotta be careful because there's a lot of stuff that we do to shoot ourselves in the foot, which we talked about. Right. Cause you don't want your kid to dislike you. So there's a lot of. You're tolerating your kid. They're never going to learn unless you let them fall.

[John DeLoney]

Right. They have to tolerate the discomfort.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right.

[John DeLoney]

Which means, I guess, as a parent, have to hold it.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yeah, absolutely. Right. And so I. I think that you're doing a phenomenal job. But I think. I think it starts with. And I know we're all supposed to say. And instead of but, but, but I. I think that there's, you know, you got to understand that your kid is going into a world where you can teach him how to use a gun, but someone is gonna sell him a nuke.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Right. So you have to teach.

[John DeLoney]

Literally,

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

you can't teach him how to be safe with this. You have to teach him how to

[John DeLoney]

learn how to think safely.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Exactly right. How to think safely. You have to teach him how to learn how to develop a healthy relationship with technology instead of imbuing him with a particular idea.

[John DeLoney]

Right. Because most kids, and I hate to be this binary, but most kids will either placate you till they're out the door or they will fight you.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yep.

[John DeLoney]

And you'll lose a relationship.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

Yep. So. So the. The foundation is you can never be sober.

[John DeLoney]

Right.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So if I had to summarize the work that I do with kids. You can never be sober for someone else.

[John DeLoney]

Exactly.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And that includes your kids.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

So there's nothing you can do to make them have a healthy relationship. You have to teach them, hopefully. Fingers crossed. How to develop their own healthy relationship. Right. So you can't. You can't do the work for them. They gotta do. They have to struggle with the device themselves.

[John DeLoney]

Yeah.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

And it's about creating the best environment to do that.

[John DeLoney]

Thanks for coming, dude.

[Dr. Alec Kogia]

All right, man. Thank you so much. This is great.