Recovery:- It’s a Brain Thing... with Dave & Susan Kenney

 

So my guests today are Dave & Susan Kenney   -  they believe that understanding the brain is the key to recovery and are the pioneers of Actualised Recovery – an approach which combines neuroscience, psychology and lifestyle medicine.  After running their own residential recovery program for a decade they have now pivoted to training recovery coaches. 

 In this episode:-

• At school Dave had excelled at sport but had struggled academically leading to him being called “lazy”
• Now that he understands so much more about the brain he sees that as a sign of his brain not working properly as he really wanted to do well.. and in fact believes that all children and adults want to do well
• He got into university on a sports scholarship and became an educator
• In 2008 as educators Dave & Susan noticed many kids struggling socially, academically and with addiction
• Although back then they knew nothing about the brain and hadn’t even heard of neuroplasticity they started to wonder whether it was possible to change a brain
• They came across the work of a neuro psychologist called Daniel Amen – He had published a book called “Change Your Brain, Change Your Life”
• The book is about neuroplasticity which is our ability to rewire our brains
• Dave explained the concept that the brain drives behaviour – a concept which has been fundamental to their work and which they decided to apply to the world of recovery and
• The brain drives our patterns, our cravings and our choices so if we change our brains we can change our behaviour
• Dave explained that he sees the brain as the hardware of a computer and it’s no good addressing the software if the hardware is faulty
• So meditation, CBT or any other kind of therapy is not going to work if the brain is not working properly
• Dave came up with the analogy that trauma can be likened to a virus on a computer … causing our brains to dysfunction
• He also made the point that not everybody becomes addicted to alcohol – the people who do get addicted have a brain which is chemically predisposed to getting relief from alcohol
• If we impact and change the brain we can enable the person to create better habits and change their behaviours
• The catalyst for applying their knowledge to the recovery world was hearing about a friend who had lost her son to suicide which galvanized them into setting up their own recovery centre
• for 12 years they ran a private residential recovery program based on this Brain First approach – helping thousands of people and living on campus themselves
• Dave would interview patients on arrival and ask them what they would choose if he could give them anything – nine out of ten said happiness
• We discussed the futility of chasing short term goals to be happy – whether that’s a shot of tequila or a new car
• Dave shared his favourite word with us with is:-
• Eudomonia: which is living a life of long term values – the premise being that happiness and wellbeing come from how we live our lives rather than the pursuit of material wealth or power
• For Susan the definition of happiness is a life led with purpose
• Their approach fits with Maslows hierarchy which has purpose and self actualization at the top but physiological needs at the foundations – Susan explained that most patients would be dehydrated on arrival so no amount of therapy was going to work until that was put right
• They would work on basic health and then the therapies and treatments could come in
• There was an essential family component to their recovery program which often involved coaching the family how to agree boundaries rather than making threats
• We talked of the importance of changing patterns in early recovery..- you can’t just take away the alcohol and carry on with the same behaviour…
• So many of our patterns involve coupling various activities with alcohol – for example cooking dinner while sipping a glass of wine – we have to work on replacing this habit until we can cook happily without the wine
• “The more a neuron fires the stronger it wires” in other words our new habits will get stronger over time
• Dave & Susan closed their clinic when Covid hit and have now pivoted into training recovery coaches – using all the knowledge they built up working in their clinic over the years
• Dave's definition of recovery coaching is simply to enable people to live their limitless lives
• They have an internationally certified Recovery Coaching program – an 8 week online program
• Unlike many programs they don’t believe that a recovery coach needs to have gone through their own struggles to be a good coach
• The rationale being that coaching is about asking the right questions and listening deeply to the answers rather than sharing our own stories
• One of their students made the interesting point that people should be trained in recovery coaching before life coaching as understanding the brain and why people do what they do should be the foundation for the kind of goal setting that a life coach would do…
• Susan & David are both graduates of the Amen University Brain Education program – so they are brain coaches
• Susan is qualified in positive psychology and Dave is doing his PhD in neuroscience and psychology
• In spite of their academic qualifications they manage to deliver the knowledge and tools required by their coaches in an easily understood format
• A mix of psychology, neuroscience and addiction is on the curriculum
• They are able to distil complex issues down to a practical format which can be applied straight away
• Their approach is very different to 12 steps and in fact their book is called "Recovery is not about 12 steps – it’s a brain thing"
• He disagrees with Step 1 of AA -  "I am Powerless"
• A more constructive approach would be Viktor Frankl and Logotherapy… he identifies the stimulus, the gap and the response – we always get a chance to choose during the gap –
• That gap is not powerlessness – that’s where our power lies
• We only lose our power when we have that first drink
• Labelling people "powerless and an alcoholic" is keeping them in a victim role
• I explained that Tribe Sober's approach is to enable our members to quit drinking and then to build an alcohol free life they love
• The focus is not on living a life of sobriety, rather on enabling people to thrive and discover what they really want out of their lives
• Susan agrees that if we focus on building healthy habits and wellbeing the recovery will take care of itself
• A nice tip from Susan to calm the brain before sleeping is to have a notebook and write in 3 good things that happened during the day…and to add why at the end … same with gratitude.. that will attach an emotion and make it more meaningful to the brain – it’s the "why" that engages the brain
• We talked about the tragic statistic that only 10% of Americans struggling with addiction actually reach out and how we could change that
• We also agreed that addiction is a "white collar" problem - people who won't go to AA
• They believe the key is to reduce the stigma by education and their current mission is to create a Tribe of Actualized Recovery Coach Warriors to impact more than 1 million people by 2026.
• They have a new book coming out ACTUALIZED RECOVERY® — It’s Not About 12-Steps. Recovery is a Brain Thing
• You can contact Dave & Susan via their website which is Emergoacademy.com 

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