Overcoming Any Addictive Behaviour
Today on the show we’re delighted to welcome back Brian Pennie. Listeners to the podcast and members of the Work Well Community will be familiar with Brian’s story from 15 years of chronic heroin addiction to PhD at Trinity College. For more on that story, you can listen back to Episode 4 of Season 2. We asked Brian back today to speak about a specific area, and that’s alcohol and our relationship with it. As always, Brian had some really powerful advice and real-life experiences to share. There’s so much value in this episode.
Addiction is addiction, no matter what it is
Brian starts the conversation by reflecting on his heroin addiction and how alcohol and other drugs played a role in his addictive behaviour as well, "just anything to numb the pain… I was just an addict at anything," Brian said.
Regarding the point on alcohol, Brian's co-workers thought at that time he was an alcoholic and what's curious about it is that it felt like it was almost ok for him to be. "In Ireland and England and most countries, to be quite honest, it's a worldwide problem. Alcohol is just more accepted" Brian comments while reflecting on how despite alcoholism being an addiction, people tend to consider it less harmful.
The Root of the Problem
Brian digs deeper into the role of alcohol in his behaviour years ago. He highlights that addictive behaviour in his case was due to anxiety. Just trying to remove alcohol (or whatever addictive behaviour) will not solve anything long term because the behaviour is the outcome and not the root of the problem. "Anxiety drove me towards trying to anesthetise myself into oblivion. So once I sorted out the anxiety issues, I didn't have an addiction issue and the need or the motivation to drink or do drugs." Brian said.
Brian also explains that we are motivated by reward. In drug addiction, what's usual is that the usage of substances relieves people from something, and it is in that taking away, that numbness that people find the reward and reinforce the destructive behaviours.
New Trends
One short but interesting note on the conversation with Brian is that the younger generations tend to drink less alcohol than previous generations but are using more drugs. He explains that it is related to current role models and the growing trends in low calorie diets. Hence, people are taking calorie-free drugs instead of alcohol.
"It's great that they're on Instagram following all of these great role models, but they are still going out and partying, and they're taking calorie-free drugs as opposed to alcohol. So now you've got to weigh up. What's the worst of both worlds? Is it drugs? Is it the alcohol? You know, it's scary little trends coming in as well."
The ABC of Any Habit
The ABC model explains what motivates behaviour. So, A is for the trigger, B is for behaviour, and C is the reward. Brian explains it in a simple example: You're going home from work on a Friday. You're a little bit stressed, and you drive past the pub. There's an internal trigger, the stress, and an external trigger, the pub. You say, right, I'm going to go for a drink. So the behaviour is drinking. And then the C is the consequence, and it's the reward. And if it's rewarding and relieves the stress, that habit will increase over time or persist and be sustained over time.
Making Resources Available in the Workplace
Brian also comments that it is incredible how many people struggle with addiction, even managers and leaders. So, it is important to put in place resources to help people become aware of their bad habits and give them the tools to overcome them. But these topics are sensitive, and people tend to feel shame, so Brian suggests that all efforts to confront addictive behaviour in the workplace should be anonymous.
How to approach these issues is also very important. The wording we use can determine how many people will get involved. "There's a great example of a workplace out there where they hosted an anxiety workshop one week, and hardly anybody turned up. Then they ran the very same workshop two weeks later, but they called it a mental strength workshop, and there was a very good attendance."
If you want to know more about Brian Pennie, you can find him on LinkedIn Brian Pennie | LinkedIn, you can check out his course ‘How to Boost Energy’ and you can listen to a previous interview we had with Brian last year to hear his full story.
Listen to the entire podcast above or search for ‘The Work Well Podcast’ on your preferred podcast platform (including Spotify), and you can watch the video of our conversation through this link.
You can find details on the Health Research Board report on alcohol consumption in Ireland that was referenced in the episode here.
About Your Host
Brian Crooke is a wellbeing educator, speaker and adviser, empowering Irish organisations to promote and sustain wellbeing within their workplaces.
He is the founder of The Work Well Institute and the Workplace Wellbeing Ireland community and is Course Director of the Postgraduate Certificate in Workplace Wellness at Tangent, Trinity College Dublin. He is the host of The Work Well Podcast.
If you want to bring sustainable wellbeing to your workplace then check out The Work Well Institute’s flagship programme, Developing a Workplace Wellness Programme that Lasts.
In his spare time, Brian is bringing free resistance training to every county and community in Ireland through his parkHIIT social enterprise.
If you have any suggestions for future topics you'd like to hear on the show, email Brian directly, brian@workwellpodcast.com
Competition Time
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Follow @thefruitpeople and @workwellireland
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The weekly competition opens as soon as that week's episode is released (episodes will be released every Wednesday for Season 3). The competition closes the following Monday at 10 pm, and one lucky winner will be announced at lunchtime on Tuesday (we'll be checking each step has been followed).
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This competition consists of 12 weekly giveaways.
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