Hidden Addiction: From Denial to Authentic Living

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0:44 Denzel Washington, welcome to inspire vision. Our sole purpose is to elevate the lives of others and to inspire you to do the same. Marcus, welcome to the show. Thank you, welcome, Welcome Mere Are you. Good and how are you doing fine? I'm fine. I'm looking forward to this podcast. This is the second one I'm recording. I'm a little nervous because i had to stress to get here on time, but I'm hoping that that will ease out through the through the talk. Got it, Yeah, I'm sure I will so, so one of the questions, you know, let the audience know, where are you at at this point in time, where do you live. I'm in Berlin. I'm originally from the Netherlands, from Rotterdam. I've been living here ten years and my original my my my language is Dutch and speaking German here. But I chose to write my book that we will discuss later, I think in English.

1:38 So yes, yes, we will. We will discuss your book. So when it comes to the languages. Oh, that's great, that's great. So what I'd love for you to do obviously you've written your book, but I want I want you to share with the audience. And I know that there's probably in the book. Share with your audience your journey, what what when did it all begin? And you know, what were some of the things that happened and what brought you to the point of writing the book? Several things. Probably the most important thing that made me really dig into myself is the patterns that kept reoccurring, and in business, in private relationship, and even even in friendships.

2:26 I kept running into the same problems. And the last time I was. In a relationship that involved there there was some drugs involved, and it really escalated. Into a fight where there. Was a lot of glass and porcelain destroyed and blood because my ex walked through the glass through the apartment. Yeah, the. Day that all. Ended, after the post he left my apartment, I was like, Okay, so I really need to know how to draw my borders, how to say no and yeah, to protect myself, and also to know myself.

3:12 Because I was completely lost at that moment. And then this is obviously a very dramatic event. But before that, I had some escalations and I tried to find myself, get to know myself, get to know my borders, and deal with the difficulties in life sometimes and somehow I needed this very intense and dramatic lesson to see reality, to accept the way the way that i'm I feel like I was programmed and I needed to learn this lesson, and unfortunately I needed to learn it the hard way.

3:53 And because. Because of this, and because of the fact that I tried so many times, I started writing the book, not with the idea to actually publish it from the beginning, but I put so much time and energy in it and it brought me so much that I decided to share it. So let me ask you a question. I know that you talk about addiction, you're talking about drug and so forth, and we're going to talk about ADHD because I know that's one of your main main points. But if you don't mind, and if it's a problem, say no. But I'd love for you. You know, you said you kind of found yourself lost in your life. I want you to go back and talk about what were the root causes of this that caused you to go in that direction that you're experiencing such great loss and really it sounds like a lot of confusion.

4:44 Yeah, well, ADHD is something that you probably or let me talk just about myself that I feel after writing the book, after seeing the patterns some generational trauma. As a child, I learned to adapt to the room, and I think that because of this, I created a kind of hyper sensitivity and I always concentrated on reading the room and adapting to that what I thought would be perceived best. And I have in my family.

5:27 There is some hypersensitivity. There is. My mom's pretty sensitive, my grandmother was pretty sensitive, and both of them were raised in a pretty controlled environment. And I believe that the same goes for my mom and her mom that the emotional connection with the. Parent was not really there. And because of this, I feel like in my case, I've always tried to adapt to that what I thought was needed, and I concentrate on a lot of other things.

6:11 Sometimes are important. So I'm kind of like feeling and I'm looking around a lot, and this distracts me a lot, and I think that my ADHD comes from this. As a young child, I was born in the eighties. They were not talking about ADHD back then in school in Netherlands, and the first time I got tested was when I was at my early twenties, nineteen twenty, and then they prescribed me as a medication and I didn't like the concept of that, so I denied. I denied the medication, but I also denied the ADHD, and I kept moving on forward. As the subtitle is called Head in the Sand, Wine in the Hand, I started to self medicate, first with alcohol, then combination with drugs, and after writing the book, I thought, you know what, let me let me get tested again, let me see what this is. And I started seeing more and more things about ADHD online and because you know, the algorithm gives you more once you like it, once you click on it, once you once you watch things that you're interested in.

7:23 And I got tested again and. It turned out I have quite a strong form of it, and again got advice to use. Back then it was written. In and now there was another form which was only short working short, like a short term like for four hours. And I now take that when I need to concentrate on administration or things that I find it very difficult to concentrate with. Well, you know. And it's so interesting because, as you say, back in you know, back in the early eighties and so forth, I didn't really talk a lot about ADHD, and and quite frankly, even now, when I hear the word HDHD, I immediately think of those who have been serving in their enforces and have come back from Iraq or from some of those different wars and the trauma that has occurred there that has affected them. And I'm not sure that people understand, and I'm one of them.

8:20 I had no idea the symptomology number one of ADHD, but secondarily the causes that can occur because of that, and the fact that in many cases is I've done a little bit of research on it prior to this podcast that it can definitely, although it's not a root cause, the symptomology that causes ADHD also, as you say, in order to try to deal with that often ends up with addiction, whether it's alcohol or drugs or whatever that happens to be. So when you talk about ADHD, and I'm assuming that this did not come from their armed forces, right from a war.

9:07 Well no, not at all. Okay, So what I want you to do is share with the audience what you experienced symptomology wise, and also, as you've researched a bit, how do people understand as they're observing some of their behavior that potentially they should really go get tested to see whether or not they have ADHD. What were your symptoms? Yeah, so there's a lot of There are different symptoms. You know, people like talking about the example that you put your car key somewhere and you don't know where it is. I'm actually quite structured. I know where Macarty is, and I'm very punctual, so I'm never liked. But the concentration problem that I have, For instance, if I tried to read a letter a letter and it doesn't.

9:56 Matter any know which one of these three languages. This is I just find it hard to stay focused on what I'm leading, what I'm reading, unless it is something that I program myself to see it for and I take the time to read. Then I can read perfectly. I can read super fast when I'm concentrated, but I need to be concentrated. This is probably the thing and the hyper sensitivity. These things are probably the strongest signals for me. What I also have is something that I use in my in my business when I work with people I used to be in sales, is I can read the room really well, so I can I can really see what somebody needs, how somebody is feeling, maybe they just went through something. I can pick these things up super fast, and I can put myself in them in.

10:52 Their position as well. So in my business I can because I know really well how to read the room, I can change. The energy as well. And in my business it's a good thing if you're trying to have a normal conversation with your partner and you're constantly checking what is happening around you, just so that you don't lose control of your surroundings. It's obviously not a very good thing, but it's for me very complicated to turn this off. Well, you know, as you talk about that, and it's interesting, you know, I years ago I attended a workshop talking about different things and they weren't talking about ADHD, but as you just were saying something about how you were always checking around, what comes to my mind is a concept of spatial thinker, you know, and and so often we find kids that are in school that are you know, birdlands on the window and they're over there and something's happening, and they're over there because they have that spatial awareness that you were talking about. And at the time, which was again years ago, they were talking about how people, how particularly children in school, don't understand that, you know, this is what they're experiencing, and the teachers basically saying, no, you've got some kind of attention deficit or whatever, and going to put them on drugs, some kind of medication.

12:20 But it sounds like, and to some degree, what you're talking about is that this is one of the symptomologies of ADHD, that spatial awareness that you just have to kind of check everything around. So as you found yourself, as you found yourself trying to deal with a lot of these things through the alcohol through the drugs. What would you say were the main emotions that you were trying to calm down. Was it that constant trying to be aware of everything around you or what were some of the other things you talked about the fact that you're very specific and heightened in your emotions. Probably exhaustion because of constantly being on.

13:04 I turned on the on switch. I mean, you're constantly trying to focus on everything that's happening around you so that you don't miss anything that makes you tired. In my work, I like. To impress people. I need to reach my goals. I am super motivated. I will say more than one hundred percent once I do something. Once I take the job, I go for it, and I have very high expectations of myself, and most of the time I succeed in what it is that I wish to do. But I. Exhaust myself and I probably had difficulties with being acknowledged for that what I was doing. So because I then didn't get the bonus or the attention that me or my team needed, I could get really frustrated and then this hypersensitivity for being hurt. Even in my job, I had to numb with substance.

14:14 Well within and as you as you went through that experience of addiction. You know, we talk about addiction. I think so many people experience and I think you've talked about this the shame the guilt of addiction, and you know that that even compounds the issue even more so as you navigated through that, what were some of the things that you've done that you could share with the audience that may be experiencing a similar type of situation to help them to learn how to navigate through the process. Number one and number two, to understand what that hidden nature of addiction is so that people can start to remove that shame and that moral failure con and understand that, hey, this is what's happening. And then when you talk about how you overcame it and how other people can overcome it.

15:09 Well, I think that most of the people that listen that recognize some kind of a hidden addiction have asked themselves this question. Do I have a problem? Do I drink too much to am I too much on social media or drugs? Is this controlling me? Do I need this to get through life? I've been having I've been asking myself this question from an early age. Because in the beginning, when I would party and then would be hungover the next day, I would have anxiety and I would feel guilty because I wasn't living up to the expectations. I wasn't performing, I didn't have the energy to start new things. I had a difficulty and the guilt feeling of resting as well. So yeah, I think that a lot of people recognize themselves or maybe their partner into sticking uh in in the concept of sticking the head in the sand and the wine in the hand, or what other addiction they have. The guilt and the shame have have been a huge problem for for me because I was my own worst enemy in this battle, and because I was always trying to overperform and to be this person that I wasn't really, I lost a lot of energy that I could have better used for for therapy, or for self help, or for education,

16:40 or for for whatever other reason than to know myself. So the addiction, the drinking, the overstepping my borders would make my half my my glass half full, and as soon as I would be in in a comeback, then it would be more than half, it would be less than half full. And I've been fighting this like the constant being tired, feeling guilty, shame. In my head. I've become simply overthinking. And one of the things that helped me the most was to just accept that I lived my life like this.

17:25 And I've always tried, through. Many things like therapy, yoga, mindfulness, tried to help myself. But what I didn't know is that I wasn't accepting myself and that I was not feeling comfortable with the way that I was deep down inside. I didn't even know how I was deep down inside because I always kept up the serrade. Well, excuse me. You know, you get into this concept of mindset, and I think you know, at least in my mind, that's what you're talking about, the fact that you know, if a person can get to the point where they're consciously aware of the fact that, Okay, this is who I am, this is what I'm experiencing, take away the guilt, take away the shame, this is just who I am. And at that point in time, don't you then start to gain a little bit of control and you can choose not to anymore be involved in that type of situation. Did you find yourself self sabotaging a lot.

18:28 Yes, yes, for sure. I mean also, the ADHD is a thing that I like doing different things and start things and finishing something needs discipline, needs time, and that was something that I felt like I didn't have, and then if I would put pressure on it. It wouldn't go the way that it was supposed to go. That I'd instead of taking a deep breath, taking some time to think, call me what my next step was, I would get frustrated and rather let go of the project. So I think you've hit on a really important point for people who are wondering whether they happen to, you know, have this situation in their lives, the fact that you start on a project, but you don't finish, so you start on another project, you know, and so you've got all of these projects, none of which you finish, and you know, you're referring to that as self sabotage, and the reality is it's just a symptom of something much deeper, which we're referring to as ADHD. So as you went through that process, is you finally developed the mindset of accepting who you were and who you are? What were the steps that you've taken in order to start to overcome that, to get yourself out of the addiction, to be able to consciously start to do things and kind of move that ADHD to the side, recognizing that it's always there, so that you're able to start a project and finish it and some of these other things. What

19:58 were the steps that you took you could share with the audience that has made a difference for you. Well over the years. The thing that I worked on from a young age has been a rhythm, like daily rhythm. Sports have kept me on track. I almost never stopped doing sports. It's really something that I need. I get up in the morning, I have a lot of energy, and if I go to the gym, I kind of balance that out and have a clearer mind to start the day. That's what I started with. Then I did some reading.

20:38 There was a book which is called Emotional Alchemy that I read. I tried to read when I was twenty three, and that later on helped me understand myself better. Mindfulness courses just be in the moment, not to try to always think of what's next, and definitely not d well in the past. But the thing that helped me the most was the biggest step into finding myself was RTT hypnotherapy. I did a session with a German woman. I was recommended to her by a friend of mine who had a session with her as well, and she had me relive three moments and after we discussed the meaning of this three moments and we're three different times of my youth, one with my grandmother, one with my father, and one with my grand father. These three moments explained seeing as an adult and then first you look through the eyes of the little child that's involved in situation, and then as an adult in this case, together with this therapist, you look at what is happening and you get this

22:11 view of a person who is not brought up in my world and helps me explain what it is that happened there and what I felt at that moment I was missing. And another exercise in this RTT hypnotherapy session that I did it It took four weeks. There were several phases and one. Was to sit next to my younger self in the room where I grew up. I could really vision, I could really see the room, the details of the room, and I, as an adult, took place next to my younger self and I asked my younger self how I was feeling, and I could really at that moment owns feel that there was this little boy feeling lost and not seen, feeling different from others.

23:08 And the exercise was to tell him. That what he needed to hear, and then the next step was to embrace him, lock him in my heart. It was a visualization. And after I did that, after these four weeks, I got a recording which was like a guided meditation which would help me like reprogram my subconsciousness. And I did that for three weeks every day and through the whole process is four weeks, I just felt I was letting go, I was understanding, I was more, I was less, less angry or frustrated.

23:55 I was not against my youth or the things that and in my youth. I have quite an okay relationship with my parents. Now, if we understand each other completely, I would say no, but we're good with each other. And this helped me understand my parents more and respect that what they did was what they could give me at that time, and therefore I'm thankful. This is also something that I write about in the book because it's very important. I think I read once that they are there, they are here for the first time as well in this role. So if you look at it like that, you know, why would you be so hard on them, especially if you know that they did their best. So after the RTT hypno therapy session session, I got.

24:53 More interested in generational trauma. So I did, Oh God, I have blackout. I did a family. Consolation, and there I also found that there were some difficulties that I was struggling with that were passed on to me from a different generation. And this is all pretty much in the same direction. So there's a few things that I did and it all pointed me into the same direction. And I tried to clean myself from beliefs and patterns from different generations or my behavior towards expectations from others, and step by step in each chapter of writing my book, I write also in the realizations.

25:48 After every topic, I felt lighter. I would wake up in the morning and I would be like, oh, oh wow, that really happened. It was a super interesting thing for me to do because all. These things and writing them down chronologically gave me more and clear insights of what was happening. And the whole process of writing the book has been into together with the with the RTT hypnotherapy and the family Consolation have been life changing for me. I actually stopped reading the revisioned version of my book yesterday.

26:32 I finished it yesterday, so I had to go through all the. Chapters one more time and see if there were some maybe some spellings or spacing mistakes still left. And it's quite a right. There's a lot of things happening, but it's great. I'm talking about my own book. But I'm one year away from ending the writing phase of the book, and reading my book again a year later makes it even easier for me to understand and even more difficult for me to realize that I have been in denial for so long.

27:13 Well, and you know, you talk about so many things, and you know, you talk about the hypnotherapy, very specific type of hypnotherapy, and it reminds me of things that I was trained in doing, as far as something called neuro linguistic programming NLP, where you take someone back and or help them to get back to that point where they're able to recognize those traumas within their early childhood. And I think the other thing that you've hit on that is so important that people just don't really understand is a generational trauma that gets embedded in your DNA, And so then we get these epigenetics where you've got this in there, and based on certain circumstances, you will respond to a large jury based on that epigenetic history, and all of a sudden, we find ourselves living a life that isn't ours and it was not intended for us to be. And the fact that you went through meditation and through those affirmations, through the guided meditation to where you literally started to change your brain patterns and do that from a neurological standpoint, I mean everything you have described I think is so incredible and so essential that you have been able to do that and to start to overcome that. And so as you talk about authenticity in your life, what does that mean? What does it mean to have a life of purpose, a life of authenticity? And how would you recommend that can be accomplished?

28:46 Well, first of all, I think it is it's probably most people's fear that things will change, and that's the reason why they sometimes don't want to dig into things too deep. Was for me similar to that, similar you sorry, can you can you say the question again? I'm getting like one. That's fine. So one of the things you talk about is having an authentic life, living an authentic life, and you know, so for people who are really wanting to have a purposeful life, a life of authenticity, what was your journey and how would you help them to start that program?

29:35 Yeah, so a lot of examples I already gave. So I'm homosexual. I didn't really have a coming out, but I left my parents' place when I was sixteen years old, and then I started dating man and around eighteen, my brother confronted my parents with it and I came out that it was not really a coming out as other people did. But this was one of the signs too. So I've been living a homosexual life, but I never really accepted it fully. I always adapted to the room again to what that I thought was expected of me at the moment from the people that I was with, and this was one of them. This was one of the points. And another one would be the hypersensitivity. It's something like being very sensitive can be very nice, but it can be also very difficult for people to deal with the fact that I embrace my sensitivity now and that I see it as a part of me as soon as somebody is condescendent of it. I asked myself the question, do I need this because I cannot change myself?

30:49 This is who I am? And do I need to have this person judge me for it? Or do I need to swallow because this person doesn't want to deal with it, or doesn't want to self reflect or is not respectful towards my feelings. And this is a concept that I learned throughout the years, throughout the writing process, seeing the same thing over and over again, writing down my own mistakes, then correcting my own mistakes, then analyzing them through the child eyes or the young adult eyes, and then through the adult that I am right now and the person that.

31:30 Is writing the book. It's something which is very which takes quite a lot of time. You can just say, Okay, I'm gonna live an authentic life. You surround yourself with people on the same frequency of trauma, the same. Level of trauma. That's how you That's how I pick my my relationships. And first I needed to see that, and then I needed. To slowly stripped down these these beliefs that I had and ask myself, why and. What do I want what do what do I want? What do I really? What do I like?

32:11 And I really needed to take the time to get to this point, to to read the book, to to to to write the book. I needed to take the time, and I needed to. Let all these new beliefs and feelings also find its place inside of me, because I was pretty judgmental towards others but also towards my and like I said before, I was was my worst worst enemy. And uh, there's a lot of people with a lot of luggage and damage, and not everybody has a clean slate opening opening up about it, being honest about it first, maybe to your best friend or somebody that you that you can that you think you can trust completely without them judging you or guiding you in a specific direction.

33:07 And therapy, I mean there's lots of forms of therapy, but I was in a group therapy and being there listening to other people dealing with similar problems gave me better insights. It made me be less hard on myself. It made me feel less shame because I realized that. I'm not alone. And this is also a bit how I how I set up the book. The book is supposed to be this friend that you can trust. There's some questions in it, there's some topics in it. There's mostly the realizations after writing down a specific story, what happened to me, Things I say to myself like mantras, funny things, but also very serious things.

34:05 It's uh, it's a it's a process. First of all, the just accept yourself, forgive you, forgive yourself or that what you are ashamed of because you can't change it anyway. The shame will just hold you down. And what I noticed now talking about it openly to the publisher, to the writing cost, to some of the people that have already read the book, you're the second podcast I'm doing, it kind of spreads light for me to talk about it in the examples that I mentioned before. The feedback that I'm getting.

34:48 Helps me to stay on this path also to to to keep being authentic. Also, the probably biggest benefit of being author is that you attract the people that actually fit. Yes, so you have people understanding or wanting to understand you, instead of people holding you down, talking back at you, or talking. Down to you. And this creates a lot more comfortable life. Well, and you know, as you talk about it, and I love what you talked about, the fact that you know as you, as you really are able to identify what your true values are, what your passions are, and then start to align your life with that. So often we live everybody else's life but our own. And to be able to really get to the point where you can identify your your values, your passions and then align yourself with that, and as you say, start to go through some of these processes that you've shared, I think can make such a difference in people's lives. So you know, I love the story. How do people find your book? Again, it's called Hidden Addiction, right, Yes.

35:58 Get an addiction head and send wine in the hand. Yeah, how do people find my book? It's very interesting and not a lot of people have read the book yet. Obviously, I just finished this last phase. With the publisher and the editor, and I've been getting some really positive feedback, but also some very interesting feedback. This book is not for everybody. I'm being completely open and honest and transparent, and I'm trying to always talk from my position. I'm trying to explain how I perceive things and what it. Did to me back then, what it's doing to me right now, and what I'm changing.

36:39 The again, I lost I lost track? Is it ultimately? Are you planning to ultimately get it on Amazon? I mean obviously you're you're in your early stages right now. But will it be on Amazon in a while? Yes, yes, But when the podcast is out, it will be out and about. Okay, that's the key then, so folk, it's going to be on Amazon. Obviously we pre record these and we've done this a little bit earlier than when it's going to be published. But that's great. So as we finish here, Marcus, and you've said some incredible things and shared some incredible truths, I believe, But what would be that message that you just kind of leave with the audience.

37:22 Honesty first, first with yourself, then towards the other people. Like I said, just now, being authentic might speaking your truth might create a different environment. You might lose some friendships or you might gain some. This is the thing that helped me the most, And in the book I explained chapter by chapter how I found it easier to live the more authentic life, and I think everybody should do that. I think in my case, I'm talking about addiction. The book is called in an addiction at the. End, I see the addiction that I was afraid of as a coping mechanism, for that's what I was trying to deal with, or trying to not accept or to go through. And the book helped me see what is important to me and being my authentic self has created the surrounding of people and relationships and business that makes me feel in alignment and like this, I wish everybody could live.

38:36 Oh wonderful, wonderful Marcus. Thank you so much. You've been extremely transparent and you know what. For you to be transparent and to literally be willing to share that that vulnerability, I think you know is so tough to experience. And yet that's the very thing, the transparency, the vulnerability is what can help us all to really move in the direction that we would love to move in. So thank you so much. I appreciate you being on the show. Thank you for saying that that keeps me going. Great. Well, folks, I hope you've enjoyed this, and you know, again, by the time this gets published, go on Amazon and find that book Hidding Addiction, and look forward to having your join us again soon. So this is doctor Doug saying, now, mis stay