Our Environment Really Impacts Us and Our Mental Health

In this podcast, I wanna talk about how the environment really impacts us as human beings. Our living situation, those whom we associate with, just encourage you to pay attention to that as I discuss a couple of ideas today. Going back to 1971, as the Vietnam War was heading into its 16th year, There were a couple of congressmen, Robert Steele and Morgan Murphy, that made a discovery that stunned the American public. While visiting the troops, they had learned that over 15% Of the US soldiers stationed in Vietnam had become addicted to heroin. And further research indicated that about 35% of those over there serving in the military had tried heroin and as much as 20% had become addicted.

Now most of my career has been dealing with those who struggle with addiction issues. And some of those cases in residential facilities, Also, I spent about 7 years in working in methadone clinics. Now a methadone clinic, if you're not familiar with that, is a treatment facility that tries to help heroin addicts, opiate addicts, That's where OxyContin comes in, lower tab, things like that. And Methadone is a synthetic opiate, means a man made opiate with some of the similarities that it's a much longer lasting drug. Whereas heroin is a very fast acting drug, means it takes about 4 or 5 hours to get through the system approximately, and that varies from individual to individual.

But Methadone, Once ingested, it's an oral drug. I guess it can come in pill forms too, but in methadone clinics, they use the the liquid drug. It lasts for 24 to 36 hours before an individual goes into withdrawal. And if you've never really understand I understood the nature of addiction and what it is. When someone becomes addicted to heroin, what happens is their body has reached A certain tolerance whereas they need the drug in their system in order not to get sick.

So when the heroin drug runs off runs out after about 4 or 5 hours, their body starts to go into withdrawal and they feel just a horrendous sickness. It's just like the worst flu you can imagine, chills, shakes, nauseated, and all that goes with that. So if an individual has methadone in their system, they're they're able to go From day to day, they just come to the clinic, take their Methadone, and then they're they should be fine for 24 to 36 hours, but they come in every day. And and then as people, show that they're trustworthy with the medication because it's extremely potent and powerful. They get take homes where they don't have to come to the clinic every day that they can take a lockbox to the clinic and they take, You know, 3 or 4 doses home so they can only come to the clinic a couple times a week.

Anyway, it's a very, very powerful drug, All opiates are. And so back to talking about what happened with the Vietnam vets as they were coming back to America is that the government was extremely concerned about unleashing, you know, 20% of the veterans across the country and what that would do because they were going, oh my goodness, we're dealing with heroin addiction. You don't just get off of that. And and what are we gonna do? Well, that's where Lee Robbins comes in.

She was a researcher and she followed these individuals. When they came home, my understanding is that they were detoxed and then they were sent home across the country. And as she followed up with them a year later, the stunning results was only 5% Of them had become re addicted within a year, and just 12% had relapsed within 3 years. That's stunning As compared to what I have seen working with individuals who come to a residential treatment facility, I've I've worked with a couple of those. And so when someone's trying to get off heroin, they come into a safe environment, They cannot have access to the drug.

They go through a pretty, challenging detox. And then and then, You know, 30, 60, 90 days, and then we're in the process of having them go back out into the environment. But That real issue is, and this is what the Lee Robin study really showed us is that the environment is a main contributor to addiction. Because here in America, when someone comes to a residential treatment facility and we send them back out into the community, most always they they go back to where they came from, have the same associations, it's the same environment, And approximately 90% of them start using again immediately and then become re addicted. It's not uncommon for individuals to go through the treatment cycle over and over again.

We would see the same frequent flyers over and over again. Because of the environment and the psychological impact that that has on us. So And that and that's what was so stunning with Lee Robbins, research is that 95% did not not become re addicted because it wasn't associated with the horrors of war and being over in Vietnam. But Any situation that reminded them of that could be highly triggering, and it's just Through through this podcast, what I encourage you to do, to take away from this is is go home. You're not struggling with an addiction, it still is impactful because clutter clutter impacts us.

It it weighs on us, and so go home and clean up. Many of the times when I'm I'm having, sessions with clients, I will say, what are your goals for this week? And those often say, man, I I need to clean up my apartment. I need to, you know, do my laundry. It's very easy to let things pile up.

1, anyway anyway, there's tons of stories about people, who are living in in squalor in their own homes. And I know the impact Psychologically that it can have if you just clean up, straighten up, just test it out for yourself. One of one of the things that I'm grateful that my father and mother taught me, they cleaned up the kitchen every single night before they went to bed. Every night, there was never a dish, a dirty dish left in the sink. And so when they got up in the morning, it came down, it was completely clean.

And that's something that's just kinda stuck with, me and my wife before we go to bed. I wouldn't say it's all the time, I'd say about 90 Seriously, 90, 95% of the time, we have everything completely in order before we go to bed. Another thing is that one of the things we do when we wake up in the morning, I usually get up early and go exercise, and she'll get up, and the bed's always made. When I come home, the bed is always made. It looks like a model home when you walk in, And it it's just a good feeling.

So I would encourage you if you're struggling with some depression or even anxiety, Living in a cluttered environment can have a psychological impact on you. So clean up, straighten up. And I would encourage you right now, if look at the situation in your in your living environment, picture it in your mind's eye. And when you walk in, if it's if it's cluttered, pay attention to how you feel in your body as you're looking at things. And then Clean up, straighten up, organize, and then sit back when you're done and Look at it, observe it, and pay attention to have you how you feel.

And I'll bet that you will find that, something inside of you that says this feels good. There's there there's energy that flows, there's a whole science around this called Feng Shui. And, if you want some help on that, just Google that, look for suggestions on how to create, an environment, there's, I mean, there's a whole science and study of that and purpose of this podcast is not to go that deep, But but you know what I'm saying, just clean up, just straighten up, just organize and pay attention to how you feel after you go through the motions of doing that.