Dr. Kenneth M. Adams: "Addiction as Intimacy Disorder" (Ep 2 of the Fresh Start Podcast)

What’s said in this shiur

The opening of this shiur, in Rabbi Shais Taub’s own words — taken from the captions, so names and Hebrew terms may be approximate.

[Music] dr ken adams it's a pleasure to be with you here nice to have nice to be with you i'm a big fan of you and your books you're you're the expert in addiction in so many areas what what did you gain from uh from a rabbi's book well i like your i like your i liked a lot of it um but what i really liked was was putting the 12-step program in some perspective that it wasn't a christian program that it was a spiritual program and there was a neutrality in those wisdom of those steps and words which i think are brilliant and i've seen no replacement for the 12 steps when it comes to addiction recovery so that was my biggest takeaway among others but that was that's really what struck with me thank you that that's it's very humbling um okay i i want to just get right down to it i want to talk a little bit about addiction specifically um your expertise has a focus on on sexual addiction and i just want to talk about your um experience as far as how do you describe it's a very misunderstood subject how would you to somebody who is completely um with no background in this let's say thank god they don't have it in their family they've just heard about it maybe third hand how would you describe what is addiction really what is it really well it always involves a primary relationship to a mood altering drug or experience alcohol drugs food sex porn uh gambling etc shopping um where there is a inability to stop despite negative consequences and attempts to do so so that's primary

Jump to a moment

1. 0:00[Music] dr ken adams it's a pleasure to be with you here nice to have nice…
2. 1:33how would you describe what is addiction really what is it really well it always involves…
3. 3:36addict's ability to have real relationships adult functional relationships so here's the problem so if you…
4. 5:40that's primary that produces consequences but i can't stop now i may be losing my my…
5. 7:12measures of eldest nothing because um on one hand it's important for somebody in recovery to…
6. 9:18just so uh toxic and especially in the religious community and i think if more of…
7. 11:21course as they say in the program and to begin to let go and surrender i…
8. 13:00that therefore a person should abandon uses the word abandon his father and his mother and…
9. 15:03understanding of this new relationship with the young adult in their life who then returns out…
10. 17:07so they're trying to get some place of autonomy where i can do whatever the heck…

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