How to Break the Spell of the Broken Brain

Hey Randy, “Where’s the brain in your definition of addiction? You don’t have any mention of it at all.”

I’ll often make it blunt and clear to establish some polarity by answering, “I don’t care about the brain.” Now, of course, I care about the brain. But what I absolutely do not want is to cast a spell of dependence. And one of them, one of the biggest ones we have in this society, is this idea of the broken brain.

When someone points to the brain as a problem, for whatever reason or diagnosis, I have one question, “Do I still have a choice?”

If I find myself sitting at a barstool, with a lime, salt, and three shots of tequila lined up in front of me, and because by every definition of “alcoholic” there is, I am one, the question remains, do I have a choice to indulge - or don’t I?

I believe I do. (And of course, if I find myself in that situation, it’s because I’ve already made a long series of bad choices to get there! But still, in that moment, there’s one more choice to be made, and one last opportunity to make it a healthy one.)

Because when a client says, “I can’t fill-in-the-blank because I’ve got this diagnosis. I don’t have a choice. I’ve got a broken brain,” someone has removed this client’s ability to choose. To me, that’s a powerful spell.

One that we need to call out, pull apart and examine.

That’s what we’re going to be diving into this episode, as well as looking at:

* Do I have a choice or not?

* What’s missing from Gabor Mate’s definition of addiction

* The Spell’s effect on over 100,000,000 Americans with ADHD, anxiety & depression

* Why a cyclical perception of time is one answer to fix things

One of the most important aspects of my work is to bring clarity to what your choices are, where in the cycle you can make them, and then exactly what it’s going to take for you to pull them off.

No one can do it for you. And the beauty is, once you’ve done that, no one can take it away.

Blessings,

Randy

If you’re new to Alchemist Recovery, consider becoming a free or paid subscriber.

I know that addiction can feel like something from outside of us has taken over. That we’re under a spell or even possessed. In this episode, we’ll tie together Chinese medicine, core shamanism, psychology, and some classic monster mythology to explain why, and what it takes to break the hold.

Starting with our simple four-part model from The Alchemist Recovery Program, we’ll show how the walls we build to protect ourselves end up blocking the very things we need to heal us.

In this episode:

* The TAHL model: how trauma, abuse, heartbreak, and loss come in like a meteor, leave a crater, and why our response matters more than the event itself

* The Pericardium is the wall around the heart, and how it can keep good things from getting in and keep the stuff, like grief, from getting expressed out

* You know the rule: the vampire can only enter when invited, so we’ll look at how the lie of “I am not enough” becomes the invitation

* How shame is the cement in the wall, and how we can dissolve it to break the spell

And once the Spell is broken and we become conscious of the Void that remains, we’ll close with what fills it: a practice that generates our gift, and a place where that gift is received.

Let me know how this one lands with you and send me any questions that you have.

With blessings,

Randy

“I need something.”

I hear this a lot, as this is a familiar feeling in addiction recovery. “But Randy, I got to have something to…ease the pain, fill the emptiness, make life manageable, etc…”

But what happens when the thing we reach for keeps changing while the need underneath, and that pull of the Void, stays the same?

In this episode of the Alchemist Recovery Podcast, I explore the difference between finding relief and addressing the hurts. Evaluating substitute addictions and seemingly healthy routines, we’ll look at how our sources of comfort can support growth or how they can sometimes be holding us back.

I’m going to pull a favorite quote from William Blake and contrast it to another fave from Hunter S. Thompson. I’ll revive a few memories of my own recovery to coincide with and rub against various conversations with clients. From all this, we’ll consider how moments of presence, belonging and acknowledgement of heartbreak are exactly the medicine we need to address the Pull of the Void - and without needing to escape it.

In this episode, we explore:

* Replacing one addiction with another: Recognizing substitution and questioning when it stops helping.

* Relief versus resolution: Appreciating progress while remaining open to deeper work.

* Healthy habits and avoidance: Examining our relationship with self-improvement, structure, and control.

* The practice of belonging: Finding connection through community, shared experience, and offering our gifts.

* Feeling enough: Making room for grief, gratitude, and the possibility that we already have something worth trusting.

Thanks for listening, it’s greatly appreciated!

As are all of your questions: Spirit@RandalLyons.com

With Blessings,

Randy

Free delivery here…

What Do I Do When There’s Nothing I Can Do?

Feeling Stuck and Feeling Powerless

In recovery, as in life, there’s few feelings that are as frustrating as stuck-ness with seemingly no way out. Whether we’re talking a job, a marriage, a health diagnosis, or a legal battle, powerlessness stinks because it feels absolute and immovable, especially once we’ve stopped using our old coping mechanisms in the form of the go-to drug-of-choice.

In this episode, we explore what a simple but powerful shift in perception can do.

When we change our perception of medicine, the medicine of perception changes us

I propose that what we call “stuck” is often based upon an assumption, and once we see it clearly, we get to trade powerlessness for empowering conscious choice.

One of Tim Ferriss’s favorite guest quotes is, “How am I complicit in the situations I say I don’t want?” I love that. And when we reframe our stuckness into a choice, we restore our agency, we reclaim our power, even if every option still feels difficult.

This episode covers:

* The four common areas of stuckness: Job and finances, marriage and relationships, health and diagnosis, and legal struggles, along with the hidden assumption that keeps each one feeling immovable.

* Shifting from assumption to choice, and why that shift alone begins to return power to you, even before you’ve solved anything.

* Head versus heart decision-making, weighing logic against emotion, plus the deeper distinction between man-made power, which others can give or take away, and spiritual power, which no one can give you or take away from you.

If you’ve ever felt trapped by circumstances outside your control, I hope this podcast episode sheds light along the path back to clarity, choice, and empowerment.

Blessings!

Randy

We’ll dive a little deeper into the Newsletter’s info from this week and really examine what we mean by…

* How does an addiction deliver Nurturance?

* What exactly does this look like?

* What can I do about it?

Also, we go into everybody’s favorite of The Big 3: Food, Sex, Money, with regards to substitution.

* Why does our relationship to these things change in recovery?

* What are the forms of Nurturance we get from them?

* What do we really need & how do we get it?

There’s Power in this work, and if we don’t acknowledge, receive and redirect it into our new places of recovery, then the forces, habits, and spirits of addiction will gladly accept them back into the self-perpetuating cycles of the-way-things-have-always-been.

Please like, share, subscribe, wherever you get your podcasts on, and send me any questions or comments you have.

Blessings!

Randy

The opposite of addiction is…Home.

It is not just sobriety, as I’ve known plenty of people who were sober but not at home. They remain in a wrestling match of daily struggle.

In this episode, we’ll look at the power that resides in the archetypal idea of Home and how it holds the ability to single-handedly disrupt the entire cycle of addiction.

Some points we’ll look at are:

* “New York’s home but it ain’t mine no more” - a little Neil Diamond to illustrate the tension between where we are now and where we came from

* The Story of the Identified Patient - is this yours, as well?

* The Weave of Home - the Irish joke that holds profound truth

* “Go where you’re treated best” - is that back home or somewhere new?

We all are somewhere on the continuum of deeply rooted where we’re presently at, to blowing around like a kite in the winds of circumstance, so either way and from wherever in-between you find yourself, there’s questions to ask in this one.

I’ve love to know how you answer them, so drop me a e-line, or type them in the comments below!

With Blessings,

Randy

I use the word communion on purpose, so as to illicit a response and begin an exploratory conversation.

Let’s reveal exactly what your beliefs are around these-things and see how they bring clarity to your position.

Because I propose that we enter into communion with the spirits of addiction when we are engaged in the cycle. We feed them our energy and give them our power, and from this unhealthy union, all we get back are the consequences of our ordinary reality actions and the validation, through experience, of our original limiting core belief.

There are three reasons I use communion to explain addiction, and they are:

* The rituals involved

* The definition: to become as one with

* The power this moment in the cycle delivers

I go through each of these to show how this perspective illuminates the insane, but in this moment accurate, logic of how “addiction actually works and makes perfect sense.”

Let me know how all of this lands with you - I’d love to hear your take.

Here’s the newsletter that covers all of this:

Here’s Lesson #33 of the Alchemist Recovery Program that provides material, guidance and experiential exercises to dismantle this portion of the cycle:

Please hit the little ♥️ if this resonates, leave a comment below, and share with another who may need to hear it. We never know what the word, gesture or small action is that tips the scales from active addiction into recovery - even if just for today.

Blessings!

Randy

As I often say, words have power. And when supporting someone in the early stages of making a big change in their life, like getting clean & sober, how we use our words matters.

They can connect us or they can cause unintended obstacles.

For some, the word “treatment” is one of those words. It can imply meanings that are less than helpful and land as:

* A reinforcement for a limiting core belief repeating, “I am broken”

* A professional will do the heavy lifting for me

* When does treatment end?

Whereas a simple shift to the word, “transformation” can imply:

* I see my limiting core belief of, “I am broken” & can transform it

* I will do the heavy lifting

* I will know when I’ve transformed

While these are simplified examples, the shift in how we use words is important. They can carry implied meanings that either reinforce old stories or begin to question the limiting core beliefs we’ve been telling ourselves for years.

We’ll dive deeper into all things transformation on this one. So, let me know how it lands with you, what practices you use and if you’ve experienced anything similar along your path of transformation!

With Blessings,

Randy

Chapters:

* 00:01 - Introduction to the Alchemist Recovery Podcast

* 04:43 - Understanding Transformation vs. Treatment

* 14:07 - Exploring Transformation Practices

* 21:22 - The Transformation of Jing, Chi, and Shen

* 24:45 - Transformation through the Spleen: A Metaphor for Healing

* 29:30 - The Importance of Language in Transformation

* 35:14 - The Path of Mastery: Transformation Practices