A Turning Point And A Guest

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Dear listeners, you know like there is a moment in every life where the weight of who we have been meets the possibility of who we might become, right? So for some that moment arrives quietly. For others it comes after years of running of choices that narrow uh the world down to uh one more hit, one more escape until there is nowhere left to go but a foreign country and a cartilage compound, right? So my guest today has left that moment, he survived it. And on the other side, he found something like most people spend their whole lives searching for a reason to stay. Yeah. So dear listeners, welcome to Mind Mix Machine. I'm your host, Avik, and this is where we sit with the questions that shape us, the ones that don't have easy answers but demand like we keep asking anyway. And today, as I said, I have a very lovely guest with us. Please welcome Austin Rabbit. Welcome to the show. Thanks, Avik. How you doing, buddy? I'm doing great. Thank you so much, Austin, for being here. And yeah, and and listen, like before we get deep into the discussion, um, I'd quickly love to introduce with Austin. So Austin is the author of One Last Hit, A Man Who Spent Decades in the Grip of Addiction, fled the country, lived among the Sonoli Akartl, and somehow, somehow made it back to build a life as a father of five, sober and running his own business. So I do not want to take much of a time to listen. Let's get started and get to know from him. Yeah. Welcome again. Thank you, thank you. Glad to be here.

What Addiction Really Is

SPEAKER_01 1:37

So Austin, like I mean, like most people they think that addiction is about the substance itself. I mean, it's a drink or something, right? But but you lived it for decades. So what do you wish like people understood about what addiction really is beyond what you think that you are reaching for?

SPEAKER_00 1:59

That's a great question. I've had a lot of people ask me that. That seems to be a very common one. And I never have a great answer because I think what what confuses a lot of people about addiction is, and I understand both sides to this question, but what what confuses people about addiction is they look in from the outside in and they say, Wow, it's just so clear to me that that is the thing that's killing you. Why won't you just stop doing it? And and I get that because I had people in my life who looked at me and they were like, that is absolute insanity. Why would you continue to go back to the thing that's actively killing you? And I don't have a great answer for that except to say that something happens within the brain of an addict or an alcoholic. And once we start drinking or using, we have very little control over the amount we take. But as we damage our brains and bodies over time, what starts to happen is we develop this obsession, right? So I know today, if I alter my mind in any way, I have a very high potential of obsessing about when the next one is going to come, right? Next, next, next. It's always about more. And so it was never about the substance. It was always about what was that substance doing for me that I couldn't do for myself. And, you know, as a child, I had horrendous anxiety to the point that I had really bad neurological ticks. And when I took the first drink, you know, the only way I really know how to describe it is like if you pretend you've been driving in a rainstorm in a car your whole life, and all of a sudden you go under a bridge and the rain stops. That's kind of the way that it felt like. It was like at that first moment I ever really experienced peace. And, you know, I didn't know it at that time, but that first drink was going to lead me into a lifetime of addiction to almost every substance under the sun. And I I've noticed along the years, so I've of the last 21 years, I've been sober 18 of them, but it's not a consecutive 18. It's, you know, seven years and then three years and then three years and then three years, right? It's like okay, I think I missed one in there. And so for for somebody who's like obviously found the solution at certain times, right? You think, okay, well, that problem is behind us. But for some reason, when I disconnect from the community of sober people, which is a big one, when I disconnect from spiritual principles, like being honest, you know, like being intimate with other people. I don't mean sexually, I mean walls down, vulnerable. When those things go away, almost inevitably, my brain goes back to, well, we know how to feel better and let's go. Maybe you can do it normally, just like the rest of these people, right? That's the big lie that we that we all seem to tell ourselves. And so what I want people to know about addiction is it's it's a lot more complicated than just why don't you stop doing that? Because here's the thing if just putting down the drug or the alcohol was a sufficient substitute, the world would be full of detoxes, not treatment centers, and we'd go in and our sane mind would take over and we would never touch the substance again because that's insanity to do that. But but there's problems that underlie the addiction always. And so that's really where the root of it comes.

SPEAKER_01 5:08

I agree. I totally agree on this. And Alan, when you were in the kind of deepest part of it, then what were you actually trying to escape or kind

Relapse To Mexico And Cartel Life

SPEAKER_01 5:17

of I would say escape, trying to find basically? Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:21

Yeah. So I'll paint the picture a little bit. I had been in 12-step recovery for nine years from age 22 until 31. And I had had a very successful business. I had gotten married, had two kids, and then relapsed, picked up. I had stopped doing the things, I had stopped being honest with people, stopped taking inventory, stopped doing my prayer and meditation and various things. And when I picked up again, I had a whole bunch of money in the bank. And so I set out to destroy my life in the way I had always dreamed of, which is tongue in cheek, but but you know, truly, like I had enough resources to go really get after it. And what happened was I got marchman acted, which is a thing that's here in Florida, where if you're using drugs to the degree that you're definitely gonna die, uh, they can get the courts involved and they can have them, you know, send the cops after you and take you to rehab. And so I was in a hotel room in Fort Lauderdale. Cops came through the door. I'm I'm just about to shoot heroin in the bathroom, and they take me to detox and they put me in front of a judge. And the judge says, rehab or jail, take your pick. And I picked rehab. And then after about five days in rehab, I grabbed my stuff and left. And they're calling the cops, and I hopped on a plane to move to Mexico because I wasn't done. There was, there were not just resources available to me, but my brain and that and that moment was so addicted. I was willing to throw away everything in my life to continue that addiction, which is crazy to think of. And so I ended up moving to Mexico and and living in Cancun for 18 months and then Mexico City for six months. And, you know, there was a period of time where there was just nobody around me but people in the cartel because that's who was going to supply me drugs as soon as I landed there. And so at the deepest point of my addiction, I was running from here's really what I think I was running from. So I had this narrative in my head from an early age, and nobody said this to me, but I had this belief about myself that if I achieved, I was somehow worthy. And if I didn't achieve, then of myself, right, I'm just I don't measure up. And so I was always trying to do the things I thought would make me worthy to other people, whether it's act a certain way in the rooms of 12-step recovery or start a business, make enough money, right? Have kids, do all these things. But that hole in my soul was still there. And so when I, you know, picked up again, it was really me running for me. But the truth is, you know, I thought I was gonna go to Mexico and die. I I took enough money with me to kill myself. And what ended up happening is my heart held out longer than my bank account did. And uh so it it wasn't until I actually blew up my whole life and lost everything, and I mean everything, that I really became teachable again, I think is is the word I want to use.

SPEAKER_01 8:12

And I I I I'd say like, I mean, it is striking like how often we mistake the present term for the disease. And we see the behavior, the substance is the wreckage, and uh we think that's the problem, but underneath there's almost always something else, something quieter and older driving the whole machine. So diless, like I mean, Austin's pointing us towards that equal layer, like the one we have to face if we are going to heal anything at all. So Austin, like, for someone who is listening right now, I mean who's never struggled with the addiction, so how does that this show up in the everyday life? Like, what are the smaller kind of

Brain Wiring And Everyday Escapes

SPEAKER_01 8:52

version of this pattern that maybe all of us can recognize in ourselves?

SPEAKER_00 8:56

Yeah, that's a that's a great question. So, you know, there's there's there's certain ways that our brains work, right? There's a saying that neurons that fire together wire together. And what that essentially means is whenever I have an experience mixed with a very strong emotion, what happens is these these neural pathways in my brain are dug and I start forming these automatic repetitive subconscious systems, right? So essentially, I'll give you an example. If I, I don't know, let's say I'm at a 12-step recovery meeting and I say a joke, and that joke gets people to laugh, and I have a good feeling from that. What I'm going to start doing, and my brain's going to start rewarding, is if I tell a joke every single time that I share from the podium because I get good feelings, I get that dopamine hit from that. Or let's say the opposite was true. Let's say I said something and I walked away going, oh, that was really, really crappy, right? I also get that memory going on saying, hey, don't do that again. But on the flip side of things, something that's very interesting is anytime we experience pain as human beings, our brains are meaning-making machines. And what I what I mean by that is they always look for a cause, right? So if I'm going down the street, let's say, and something causes me pain, my brain's instantly going to go to what was the cause of that pain. Anytime I see that pain or the potential for that pain to show up in the future, I'm going to experience fear, right? Fear is a mechanism that is basically built as a life-preserving mechanism. But sometimes, in a lot of us, it gets out of control. And so where this might show up in the patterns of normal people is it might show up in gossip. It might show up in speaking about people when they're not there. But the reason that we generally do that is because we get this comfortable feeling of superiority when we impart information like that we don't have, that you don't have, right? So if I go to Avik and I say, hey, Avik, did you see what uh so-and-so did last week, right? Can you believe they did that? In a very subtle way, what's happening is I'm getting a small dopamine hit up in my brain because I'm gossiping about somebody else. Now, that may be completely and terribly detrimental to that other person, but I'm doing it in a very selfish way to try and feel better. And so these are the little mechanisms that our brain starts to adapt over time based on what it's learned from the day before. I was talking to a guy earlier that was addicted to Diet Coke, right? It sounds like a very like minor addiction, but but still, like we have that reward mechanism that says, hey, if you drink that, you're going to feel better. For me, it's Celsius. I like the energy drinks. I drink them all the time. Or it could be going to the gym, right? For some people, going to the gym is just like an excruciatingly difficult exercise. And for some people, it's just an automatic part of their day. They don't even think about it anymore. And so the brain does all these really, really curious things. And while they may not form as an addiction per se, they absolutely are ubiquitous amongst everybody. Everybody's got these little things.

SPEAKER_01 11:55

And and like when you kind of talk to people now, what is the reaction you get? They start to see their own version of escape or avoidance.

Shame Ends With Connection

SPEAKER_00 12:06

That's a good question. So, I mean, my my story is so like crazy. It's so so deep in addiction that I think where my story has a lot more pull is with addicts and alcoholics. For people that can go, hey man, I see how far down the scale you went. And even though I didn't go that far, I also saw that you got better. And so to me, that's a testament that, hey, recovery is possible. Because in in the midst of addiction, I know the way that it feels to me, like if I'm on a run, is it feels very alone. It feels like I'm the only one that's ever done these things, right? It's so full of shame. And it's almost to the point of being debilitating. But there's something special that happens when you connect with another person who's got the same thing, right? You connect with another addict or alcoholic who's had those experiences, and they can say, Yeah, man, I know exactly how you feel. And here's how I got out of that. There's a lot of power in that feeling of not being alone. And I think, you know, probably your podcast and a lot of podcasts out there help to give people that feeling. Like, hey, I'm not the only one.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

So I mean, we all have our versions, and maybe it's not about the uh let's say substances, but the phone we take compulsively, right? And the work we hide behind, the relationship kind of we keep returning to even when it hurts. The patent is the same, right? Like reaching for something outside ourselves to manage what's happening inside. So yeah, definitely and also like relapse, right? It's it's definitely a part of a lot of recovery stories. I mean, even if you haven't relapsed, the fear of the possibility must be there. So, how do you hold that? Like, how do you live with the knowledge of who you were without letting it pull

Staying Sober Through Service

SPEAKER_01 13:53

you back?

SPEAKER_00 13:53

So what do you think? That's a great question. So, one thing I think 12-step recovery does, you know, probably better than most of the other ways to get sober out there is is A, they give us a community, but B, as a part of our own working of the 12 steps, it's our job to go back to the new people and grab them and say, hey, let's and then take them through the steps. And so while I'm years removed from my last drink and drug, it's it could it could be easy for me to forget. But because I'm in the trenches with these new guys, because I'm on the phone with them constantly, because I'm taking them through the book and through the steps and and through the the process, it keeps it very green for me. And I know that like more than anything else, the number one thing that'll help keep me sober is being of service to other people. Like the the more I can I can stop thinking about me and start thinking about somebody else, man, the better it becomes. So if you have to give one advice to the listeners today, what will you?

You See The World As You Are

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Well, I mean, that could change depending on who I'm talking to. But one thing that I have learned, which has been really kind of radically opened things up for me, is that I don't view the world as it is, I view the world as I am. Um, meaning that that I as a human being, and this is probably true for everyone, although I'm not other people, I put this layer of belief over what I witness, right? Like, so for instance, what I'm looking at now, Avik, is you with headphones on, right? And I'm labeling it. Okay, there's glasses, there's headphones, there's a brown shirt. But the truth is I'm not actually seeing what's in front of me. I'm I'm interpreting it through my own filter. And so I I've I've kind of learned to expand that to my own life in that if I believe everyone I encounter is friendly and helpful and that I'm gonna go through my days smiling, then that's the type of world I'm gonna experience. And if I have a belief that life is difficult and that people are, you know, jerks and nobody's gonna be nice to me, then that's the world that I'm gonna experience. But they could be the exact same world. The only difference is the way that I'm looking at it.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Yeah, definitely, definitely true. So that's interesting. And if listeners want to connect with you, uh how they can connect.

How To Connect And Final Words

SPEAKER_00 16:01

Yeah. So my website is one last hitbook.com, uh, which is also that's all of my socials. So Instagram, Facebook, just at one last hit book. And I love connecting with anyone. So by all means, reach out. Amazing. That's really amazing.

SPEAKER_01 16:15

So, dear listeners, what I'll do is I'll put all the links, details, everything into the show notes for easy reference. And I'll say, like, here's what stays with me is like, you know, like the life you are living today doesn't have to be the life you live tomorrow. So just think about it like it's a it's a deep one. So and and thank you so much, Austin, for being here, sharing your past and also the learnings that you had. And I'd say it's it's rare to sit with someone dear listeners like who's walked through that much darkness and come out of it the other side and still willing to talk about it and still willing to show up, right? So there is just like Austin's story is not just about the surviving part. Just wanted to be clear, it's not about the survival, but it is all about who becomes kind of possible when we stop running and start facing what's actually there. So if any of you are carrying something heavy right now, or you are feeling something, right? So something you think that might define you forever, then I hope that this conversation will definitely help you help you and help you to get through it. Because maybe just maybe the next chapter is still unwritten, right? So with this, thank you so much for being here, dear listeners. And with this, this is your host topic and this is Mind Meets Machine. I'll just say take care of yourselves and each other. Thank you so much.