How to Overcome Addiction to Substances or Behaviors | Dr. Keith Humphreys

**Keith Humphreys** (0:00)
Some says, I want to quit smoking. A good clinician will say, why would you want to do that? To say, so tell me, what do you want to get out of this? Because it's work. I mean, I'm happy to work with you, but what is it?
What are your motives? And sort of helping them build up in their own mind, because again, this is about them, not you. What do you get? And that's what the therapist does. The other thing that's really important is that like any time you're making a behavior change, hang out with other people who are trying to make the same change. You want to start jogging? Join a jogging group. You want to stop drinking? I would suggest go check in to an AA meeting or one of the other fellowships we have. Having other people on the same journey is good for us. I mean, everything shows that no matter what you're doing, I'm losing weight, I'm exercising, I'm more, whatever, I'm quitting smoking. Because it gives you two things. It gives you support, but it also gives you some accountability. Say, hey, you were going jogging. I mean, Tuesday, you weren't there. What's up? Are you going to be part of this group or not? And that is helpful for people.

**Andrew Huberman** (0:58)
Welcome to the Huberman Lab Podcast, where we discuss science and science-based tools for everyday life.
I'm Andrew Huberman, and I'm a professor of neurobiology and ophthalmology at Stanford School of Medicine. My guest today is Dr. Keith Humphreys. Dr. Keith Humphreys is a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford School of Medicine. And he is one of the world's foremost experts on addictive substances and behaviors and how to overcome addictions of all kinds. He is also an expert on how science, commercial marketing, lobbying, and the legal system interact to create what are called addiction for profit businesses. The alcohol, food, and opioid industries come to mind as just a few examples of these. And he's an expert on how all of that shapes things like legal policy. Today we discuss all the major addictions to give you the most up-to-date information on alcohol, cannabis, opioids, gambling, and much more. Dr. Humphreys gives us the unbiased facts. And more importantly, he explains how to think about the health risks of any substance or behavior in a logical way. For instance, while it may be true that a certain amount of alcohol could afford you some heart health benefits, we hear this, then we hear it's not true, it goes back and forth. He explains that any heart benefits that exist from alcohol are greatly offset by the increased cancer and other risks of alcohol. And with respect to cannabis, he explains who may be okay to use it, but who should absolutely not. We also discuss the most effective ways to get over any addiction. That includes alcohol, pornography, stimulants, and much more. As you'll soon see, Dr. Keith Humphreys is no ordinary scientist or psychologist or addiction expert. He has the big picture on addiction and what it means to try and navigate life nowadays in an ocean of addiction for profit marketing and confusing health information. I assure you that today he doesn't tell you what to think or what to do about various substances and addictive behaviors, but rather how to think about them and in doing so, how to avoid and overcome essentially any addiction. It's a powerful conversation that I'm certain will help millions of people make better decisions. Before we begin, I'd like to emphasize that this podcast is separate from my teaching and research roles at Stanford. It is however, part of my desire and effort to bring zero cost to consumer information about science and science related tools to the general public. In keeping with that theme, today's episode does include sponsors. And now for my discussion with Dr. Keith Humphreys. Dr. Keith Humphreys, welcome.

**Keith Humphreys** (3:24)
Good to meet you, Andrew.

**Andrew Huberman** (3:26)
Addiction is a big topic, but I think for a lot of people, it gets slotted into one small drawer. But if we were to compare to say, mental illness, many, many things, depression, manic bipolar, OCD and on and on. How do you parse this thing that we call addiction in thinking about how best to possibly treat addiction, especially when it comes to trying to treat addiction en masse at the level of policy, which we'll also talk about today? So put simply, how do you frame addiction and how should people think about it?

**Keith Humphreys** (4:01)
Yeah, it's hard because it's a word, unlike say, you know, maybe it's a little like schizophrenia, where people say like, oh, you know, he's a schizophrenic person. What they actually mean is, you know, he's a person with different moods and that sort of thing. Addiction is even more like that. It's in common parlance. People say, you know, I'm addicted to, you know, you know, a TV show or I'm addicted to my phone or that sort of thing. But, you know, it's not just stuff you do a lot, you know, which we sometimes, you know, colloquially call addiction. It's the persistence of doing something that is harmful. So like the classic animal study, you know, is, you know, James' old study with rats done in the 50s, showing that you could give a rat the opportunity to give itself brain stimulation, which they enjoy, and that they would continue to do that even as they were starving to death next to a pile of food pellets, or run out of water while they were next to water. That is what it was. It's not the doing the things over and over or even being compulsive about things. It's doing them to the point of destruction when you would normally, you know, any other behavior, you would think, well, you would just stop doing that, but people don't. And that's the synchronicity of addiction.