Episode Title: Neurodiversity's Hidden Toolkit: Can Coping Mechanisms Empower or Harm?

Episode Number: 16

Release Date: July 7, 2024

Duration: 49:31

Episode Summary:

In this episode of Now You Know One Autistic, Moshe and Leah discuss coping mechanisms for autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodiversity. They share personal experiences with unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as alcohol and nicotine, and discuss the link between autism and addiction. They also explore healthier coping mechanisms, such as music, exercise, mindfulness, and engaging in pleasant activities. The hosts emphasize the importance of seeking professional help for addiction and mental health issues.

Key Takeaways:

  • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms: Many neurodivergent individuals turn to unhealthy coping mechanisms, such as substance abuse, to manage their symptoms. These mechanisms may provide temporary relief but can have long-term negative consequences.
  • Link Between Autism and Addiction: Studies have shown a correlation between autism and addiction, highlighting the need for better awareness and support for neurodivergent individuals struggling with substance abuse.
  • Healthy Coping Mechanisms: There are many healthy coping mechanisms available for managing neurodiversity, including music, exercise, mindfulness, and engaging in enjoyable activities. Seeking professional help is crucial for addressing underlying mental health issues and developing effective coping strategies.

In This Episode, You Will Learn:

  • The different types of coping mechanisms used by neurodivergent individuals.
  • The link between autism and addiction.
  • The importance of seeking professional help for addiction and mental health issues.
  • Healthy coping mechanisms for managing neurodiversity.

Quotes:

  • "A lot of the initial signs that I was neurodivergent were exhibited not by my sometimes bizarre behavior, but actually by some very legitimate concerns of anxiety, of depression." - Moshe
  • "Alcoholism has a definite link to autism." - Moshe
  • "There absolutely does need to be better autism and neurodiversity awareness in alcoholism support services." - Moshe

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Transcript:

[00:08] Moshe: Hi, I'm Moshe, and I'm autistic.

[00:10] Leah: I'm Leah, and I'm boring. Welcome to the now, you know, one autistic podcast.

[00:16] Moshe: The opinions expressed in this podcast reflect one autistic and one layout, and don't necessarily reflect the entire autistic community.

[00:25] Leah: Let's get to it. Hi, Leah. Hi, Moshe.

[00:34] Moshe: How are you today?

[00:35] Leah: I'm all right. How are you?

[00:36] Moshe: I'm pretty good. So today we'll be discussing a topic that we talked about in a TikTok I recorded before Shabbat on Friday.

[00:46] Leah: You did?

[00:47] Moshe: And it came to us as we were undergoing Shabbat preparations because we're actually starting to talk to a bunch of different organizations. I won't, like, mention their names right now, but we're looking to sort of branch out and include some pretty prominent people and organizations in the coming days and weeks, which are very exciting. And of course, we'll let you know when any of them come to fruition. But the topic for today's episode is going to be coping mechanisms for autism, ADHD, and other forms of neurodiversity. And the topic came to me, actually, because I was an undiagnosed autistic for most of my life. I was only diagnosed a few years ago, thanks to you, actually. But prior to that, prior to knowing that I was autistic or even any kind of neurodivergent, beyond just really weird, I used a lot of coping mechanisms, either consciously or unconsciously, to offset a lot of the things that I was feeling.

[02:00] Leah: I feel like we should define what a coping mechanism is.

[02:03] Moshe: Right. So what happens when you have neurodiversity or autism or ADHD is things are not quite right with the way your process goes, with the way your processing is handled, with your ability to think, to retain information, to take new information in. And I wouldn't have thought it until I did more research on it, but a lot of the initial signs that I was neurodivergent were exhibited not by my sometimes bizarre behavior, but actually by some very legitimate concerns of anxiety, of depression. And that is exactly how it was treated.

[02:50] Leah: Right. Is that hard when sometimes those are the upfront symptoms?

[02:54] Moshe: It's hard because I'm not the kind of person who gives up. I'm a very stubborn person, as you will definitely attest to. And so when I had all of these feelings throughout my life, all I ever did was sort of ask myself, why can't I be like my friends? Why can't I be normal? And it was frustrating. And unfortunately, it really didn't manifest itself very prominently until I was in my early teens. I was always a difficult child, as my mother would have said, I always had challenges. You knew me since I was seven, so you knew that there was always something a little bit off about me.

[03:34] Leah: I never considered it off, but that's.

[03:36] Moshe: A whole different topic, and, well, something that was different, we'll say. And it was just, you know, my mother used to say, such a difficult job. Can you understand? I don't understand him. Do you understand him? It had some positive aspects, too. I would act in really silly ways sometimes, and I engaged in a lot of behaviors that would now be seen as absolutely normal when it comes to a neurodivergent type of character profile. I would get really excited, and I would run around in circles, and I would flap my hands. I told you the story of sometimes when my mother and my sister would go out and I was left home alone. Cause I did like to be alone a lot because a lot of the time, people didn't seem to have much patience for my behavior. My sister had this hi fi system in her room, and I would go in there when I was all alone, and I would turn on songs that I liked, and I would just run around in a circle and flap my hands.

[04:39] Leah: If the audience could see your face right now, they would see how much pleasure you gleaned from that small thing. You still have this wistful, just sort of smile on your face, just thinking about it.

[04:51] Moshe: And that's really the fact that I can think about that and smile now. Compared to ten or 20 years ago, when I thought about that and was just so humiliated and embarrassed, really shows how much I was comfortable, at least then, with who I was. I didn't know that I was autistic. I just knew that sometimes people would make me feel very excited, and I would sort of wave my hands and stuff.

[05:23] Leah: That's where you kind of get into the dilemma, right? The dilemma of childhood diagnosis versus adulthood diagnosis. Because children, especially children that young, the age you're describing, act that way anyway, right? So what's a normal childish behavior, and what's a neurodivergent childish behavior?

[05:44] Moshe: And that's really kind of it nowadays. You. You kind of know as parents what to look for. But when I was younger, a lot of the things that I did were just seen as difficult. And it's almost kind of funny now, because if you look back at me as a child and you put all of the pieces together of things that were just somewhat different about me, from my emotional expressions to my physical characteristics to my behavior. Anyone would sort of just look at my life. If you recorded like a 24 hours period or whatever with a camera, they would say, well, he's clearly autistic. But then they didn't really know what to make of me.

[06:31] Leah: I mean, kids were weird back then anyway. We didn't have Internet. We didn't have things to keep us occupied, so we did weird stuff anyway.

[06:38] Moshe: But this episode is not so much about that. It's mostly because these are all things that I did to cope. These are all things that I did to express my autism.

[06:50] Leah: When you need to cope with something, a coping mechanism is a filler, let's say, for a need that is created. So that means that there is a need there in the first place. The need can be caused by discomfort or loneliness or a feeling of not fitting in or nerves, struggling to learn stuff, struggling to perform to the way that you're supposed to be. But it always starts with a need, sort of like a hole or an anxiety or a sadness or an inability to do something that you either need to do or want to do.

[07:26] Moshe: And my autism, unlike the rest of me, developed and matured over time in a very linear way because when I was a child, I would, well, they call it now, stimming. I would stim in a way that was completely unconscious, involuntary, because, okay, so stims or stimulation seeking has positive or negative effects. Traditionally, autistic people will stim either to introduce stimulation or to handle overstimulation. So if they have a need for stimulation, they will stim to give themselves that stimulation. And if they are overstimulated, they will, I guess you could say, burn off or release excess energy by engaging in activities that would provide an escape valve. So I would get really excited and I would flap my hands or I would get really proud of myself when I would do what's now called echolalia, where I would repeat something that I said again and again and again because it made me really excited. All very normal behavior when you look at autism, but they were ways of me coping with overstimulation. A lot of it was positive. I mean, people associate stimming with negative stuff sometimes, but stimming can be very positive. I'm so excited that I run around in a circle, or like you said, Abram will get excited by something in his mouth, and he'll turn around and they'll spin. It's not negative. It's actually as a sense of overwhelming joy that you just don't know what to do with. So your body just vibrates.

[09:13] Leah: Sometimes when you have a child, you have to be careful with stuff like that, though, because it can be dangerous. The thing you're talking about is when he would have a candy or a lollipop in his mouth, and he would just spin and spin and spin because he couldn't stop. Because the feeling of the candy in his mouth was so overly exciting, so overly stimulating. But I think what we're trying to get at here is that stimming for autistics and other neurodivergents, and also neurotypicals to some extent, is a coping mechanism for something, something that you're missing. Now, in terms of that, can other more destructive or bad things be coping mechanisms for issues that arise for people?

[09:56] Moshe: As I got older, my coping mechanisms evolved because when you're seven or eight years old and you're home alone, and you can run around and flap your hands, and that just makes you so happy, and it allows you to better comport yourself. But as I got older, with the introduction of hormones and external stimuli and a lot of other factors, like my parents disagreements and my grandfather got sick, and other things would happen and it would transition to more destructive behaviors. So I think when I was little, my grandfather, my mother's father, if I pictured him in my mind, I would always see him with a cigar in one hand and a glass of scotch in the other.

[10:48] Leah: Those sound like coping mechanisms to me.

[10:50] Moshe: And so it's almost impossible to even think of my grandfather in my mind without, like, my senses smelling like the smell of cigars. Cause my grandfather used to smoke cigars regularly, and he would always give me the boxes when he was done. But I remember every time I would get the boxes, I would just smell the inside of it, and it just smelled like cigar tobacco. And I began to associate that smell with him. And he always had a glass of scotch. My father's father, as on his side, also drank heavily. He never smoked, but he was very much into the drinking.

[11:33] Leah: I think a lot of men from that generation use those things as coping mechanisms because they had a lot of stress put on them. They were the sole wage earners a lot of the time. If you think about my grandfather, what do you think when you say, Wally? What's the first thing that you think of? I can tell you what most people would say. Tall and a cigarette always in his mouth. Those are the two things every memory.

[11:54] Moshe: I have of your grandfather.

[11:56] Leah: Cigarette.

[11:56] Moshe: He was sitting in his chair. He was standing, talking, or he was standing with us and he always had a cigarette in one hand and he was just talking and he would smoke and he would talk to us and.

[12:08] Leah: Stuff because that that was a coping mechanism. Back then, the men had to earn money and they had to do whatever they could to do it. So 16 hours a day or whatever it was, they were under intense stress and pressure. So when they weren't, they had a glass of scotch or a cigarette or a cigar or a pipe.

[12:24] Moshe: My grandfather also had a pipe. Yeah, I love the pipe smoke to.

[12:28] Leah: Help them sort of relax. So that's a coping mechanism for sure.

[12:33] Moshe: Now, I want to say before we go any further, that we are going to discuss topics like smoking and alcohol use and drug use and stuff in this episode. Leah and I are not addiction counselors. We don't have any education or expertise in the realm of addictions. And also, I just want to say for the record, neither of us is in any way advocating for the use of non prescription drugs or alcohol or tobacco as a coping mechanism. We're just matching it because that is what we experience.

[13:06] Leah: These are purely personal stories and personal opinions. But nobody should substitute an illegal substance or a harmful substance for genuine medical care treatment, right?

[13:19] Moshe: So because of my association with these things, when I was probably around eleven or twelve, my mother stopped being allowed to. Not allow, but able to keep alcohol in the house. I would drink excessively all the time and I didn't know my limits, which we will discuss in a little while, but I would just drink and drink and drink, drink and drink until I would get sick and fall on the floor. And occasionally my mother would have company over and I would just dance into the kitchen and collapse on the floor and everyone would point and laugh. And then I would throw up on myself.

[14:02] Leah: That's really funny, because that's another aspect. There's a few aspects of you. We were really close when we were young, but that's an aspect of you that I didn't know about at that age.

[14:12] Moshe: I started drinking pretty much regularly when I was about twelve, to the point that my mother was no longer able to keep alcohol in the house. And it lasted for a couple of years. I was pretty much unhappy all the time at that point. And I think a lot of it had to do with the fact that there were a lot of things that were changing in my life around the 1213 range. And I just. I didn't have any means of coping with any of it.

[14:45] Leah: But you do know that a twelve or 13 year old developing an alcohol problem isn't normal. That's surprising to me that she didn't, like, do something about that or seek some sort of help for it other than just not keeping alcohol in the house.

[14:58] Moshe: It was a lot. I mean, I love my mother. She passed away in 2011. I miss her every day but a lot of the things that I was going through were very real cries for help. And to this day I don't know that even if she was still alive she would have acknowledged a lot of the pain that I was going through. And I mean, to be fair, the people around me would have. Would have said, well, you weren't exactly a peach either, but, like, there were a lot of.

[15:27] Leah: But also it was the eighties. They let us go out all day, every day without even knowing where we were and we had these dangerous toys like slip and slides and lawn darts and things. It was a different time.

[15:37] Moshe: So I drank pretty heavily until I was about 14. It didn't last very long but it was mostly because I stopped being able to be access to it. But any chance I got, whenever I was around someplace, if they had alcohol, I was drinking. And it was a way for me to cope with a lot of the anxiety and the depression that I had. My mother didn't believe very much in mental illness so when I exhibited signs that would probably be identified even then with anxiety or depression, at the very least they were just like, oh, no, no, no, you don't have any of that. So that continued pretty regularly. Not as much because my mother stopped keeping as much around until I was in my, I would say the apex of it, I think, was when I was about 1697 was a pretty bad year for me for a number of reasons. My father would keep alcohol around and I did the trick where you would drink alcohol and then fill the bottle with water. So I would drink all of the alcohol that I could find and I was anxious all the time. I'd started a new school, I was in a different place and I was just, I was just trying to get.

[17:06] Leah: By and so let's talk about that for a second. More than just autism runs in families, right? So we've already discussed that a few people in your family have autistic traits. More than a few. And also a few people in your family, if you go to their homes, you will notice that they keep a lot of alcohol. It's actually unsurprising at this point because I'm like, oh, look, honey, look, there's your sister's bar. Wow, it's bigger than yours. Oh, wow. Your dad has a cabinet full of whiskeys. Kel suprise. So can we like just put our opinion out there and say that those things are related?

[17:47] Moshe: Absolutely. And I mean, I'm just kind of giving you an overview. And true to form, my overview is taking half the episode. But the. Just to speed things along, I drank pretty heavily until I was. Until I moved out on my own. And then when I was allowed on my own and I had free rein over what I had in my house, I would drink to such an excess that I would frequently wake up in pools of things. And I never ended up in the hospital. I never choked on my own vomit, although I might have done at one point, but it really kind of stopped. The excess stuff really stopped when I was around 18, mostly because I got so sick that for many years after that I actually lost the taste for alcohol.

[18:34] Leah: Yeah, I was going to say eventually, if you're getting sick enough, it's kind of like one of those things where I woke up one day, your hand gets slapped enough and you just don't want to do it. But there are people who are alcoholics that I've met who that does not deter them. And some of them, they're actually even chasing that. They love that. So that is, again, one autistic and one person's experience.

[18:55] Moshe: Exactly.

[18:56] Leah: That doesn't mean that that's going to deter everybody who starts to develop an alcohol issue.

[19:01] Moshe: So, all right, so to summarize, I used alcohol and on and off for the next few years, smoking to cope. I never did any heavy drugs, although I did use cannabis on and off. I don't particularly like it. And now I don't use any drugs at all, except for the prescribed kind, but coping mechanisms. So it got me thinking I couldn't be alone. And so we did research. So we'll move on to the next topic, which is the link between autism and alcoholism.

[19:35] Leah: Well, I mean, let's talk about you not being alone. Let's talk about this. So you need to, first of all, talk about the effect that alcohol has on you versus what you've now discovered alcohol has on other people. And we also have to disclose that you still drink. Actually, yes.

[19:53] Moshe: And again, I'm not advocating alcohol use. Some people like it, some people don't. If you do like it, you know, know your limits, stick within them. And that's definitely not something that I'm advocating. I do like to drink. Now, I certainly, or at least very rarely drink to what I would consider excess because over time, I've unfortunately learned my limits developed a tolerance. But this is. This is where it starts. And unfortunately, and this is kind of what we're going to get into now, alcoholism has a definite link to autism. Alcoholism, just for the purposes of the discussion that Leah and I are having, there's a lot of definitions, but one of the ones that we're going to describe specifically focus on an inability to function without alcohol, or alcohol actually interfering in your day to day life or alcohol causing legitimate, like, health issues.

[20:48] Leah: So through our research and also through lots of life experience on both of our ends, we understand that alcoholism is not defined as an amount of alcohol that you drink or how many drinks or how many bottles of wine you drink in a week. It's defined as, is it interfering with your life one way or the other? So can you not function without it, or is it causing you to not be able to function to your capability? So I just want to point out here, I did sort of call Moshe out for drinking, but he doesn't drink to an excessive amount anymore. He goes to work every day and he functions, but he does drink more than some people would say that they do. And he functions to an unrealistic level, really, sometimes depending on how much you would consider alcohol consumption to be. So discuss that a little bit.

[21:33] Moshe: So the impetus for this episode actually started with a book that was put out by Sarah Hendricks and Matthew Tinley. Matthew Tinley is autistic, and he used alcohol to be able to work. They wrote a book called Asperger's syndrome and alcohol. And essentially it was, to summarize, it's a great book. You can pick it up. To summarize, he, throughout 17 plus years, he required alcohol in order to go to work. He actually could not work, at least that was my understanding, without alcohol, because he had such crippling social anxiety and overstimulation associated with autism that he required alcohol to reach a normal level of functioning. And to what Leah said, studies have actually shown that for autistics, there's almost like a graph where they can reach what would be considered, I suppose, a neurotypical level of functioning by creating an inhibitory, there's a word for you, an inhibitory effect with alcohol that gets them to a point where not only is it not impairing their function, it's actually improving their function. They're able to retain information. It slows their brain down to a point when they are now able to take an information and really process it. It works almost counterintuitive to the neurotypical brain, where when someone gets drunk, they are not able to process information. A lot of autistics, at least in the beginning, or low levels of alcohol, it'll actually improve their processing, but then they hit a point where it just drops precipitously, and then they actually feel significantly drunk. And that happens through almost always a combination of tolerance and being unaware of what point functionality crosses into drunkenness.

[23:50] Leah: We've been together long enough that I've seen all of it. The whole spectrum of those things happen to you. But, yeah, speaking of the spectrum. So what Moshe's trying to say, just to summarize, is that some autistics will find this out on their own. So they'll start to drink when they're a certain age or whatever, and they'll say, wow, I suddenly feel more neurotypical. I suddenly feel like I can handle things. I suddenly feel like I'm coping better so that they'll continue to then use alcohol rather than seeking out maybe a diagnosis or proper medication or therapy. And again, we don't. We don't suggest that. We're just talking about how that happens.

[24:28] Moshe: Right?

[24:29] Leah: And there are some studies, and it's absolutely true, I've seen it from my own perspective, is that you get two or three drinks in, you're extremely functional. You can work on more alcohol than most people you know, would have to.

[24:40] Moshe: Go to bed with, which is not a good thing.

[24:42] Leah: Not a good thing.

[24:43] Moshe: This is not talked about for. Because of the benefits. It's actually not normal.

[24:49] Leah: We'll say, yeah, but your brain is working at a better level, whereas mine, let's say, will just sort of go off into la la land, it suppresses me a lot more than it does you.

[25:01] Moshe: Right. And when we talk a little bit later about the opposite effect that things like caffeine and stimulants have on people with ADHD, which is often a coexisting condition to autism or often on its own. It's the same thing where someone would become hyper or overly awake. Stimulants with people who have ADHD will actually allow their processing to improve, but we'll get into that in a second. I just want to cite a few studies, just so you don't think that I'm talking out of my hat here. So in 2006, there was a study by the Mental Health foundation which found that 65% of alcoholics admitted to rehab suffered from social anxiety, potentially including undiagnosed autism. There's also a study in 2020 by the Journal of Autism Developmental Disorders, conducted by the researchers, the Autism Research center in Cambridge, that found that adults with autism were twice as likely to have alcohol related problems, which does show a correlation between alcoholism and autism. Of course, correlation doesn't equal causation. So it's not to say that all alcoholics are autistic or all autistics become alcoholics. It's just kind of an interesting thing. There was a study done in Sweden in 2021, published in the Journal of Autism Developmental Disorders that found that autism actually doubles the risk of somebody engaging in substance uses, including alcohol, compared to the general population. And Brown University and the University of Missouri did a very extensive study on youth, actually between 16 and 20, which found that autistic youth are less likely to drink, to fit in, or to socially drink, but they're far more likely to drink in order to function or cope.

[26:57] Leah: Don't you think it's understandable, though, that if somebody who has such a deficit in life that they're so uncomfortable and so unhappy finds something that even takes the edge off a little bit or helps a little bit, that they're going to do that to access? I actually find that to be a completely understandable mechanism.

[27:16] Moshe: It's very understandable. And this leads into the final study, which was done by the Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard, which this study actually was very interesting to me because it discusses the correlation between substance abuses of all kinds and autistics. And it shows that 20% of young adults in the study who are being treated for either alcoholism or drug use exhibited elevated scores on the SRS scale, which indicated likely undiagnosed autism. So they assessed 69 youths who were reported for the first time to outpatient psychiatric substance use disorder clinics, and they were asked to fill out a form. And what they found was that adolescents who had undiagnosed autism and were in the facility were eight times more likely to be stimulant use or drug users and five times more likely to have opioid addictions. And so based on the study, based on this study by Harvard and the University of or the Hospital of Massachusetts, they decided to suggest that all substance use facilities and rehab centers should have, you know, things in place that test people who are there for neurodiversity.

[28:48] Leah: Yeah. So sort of catches neurodivergent people.

[28:51] Moshe: Yeah.

[28:51] Leah: Which actually makes sense because that is a scary statistic, and that definitely shows a deficit in the diagnostic criteria and the helping professions in general.

[29:06] Moshe: Absolutely. So this is to say that there absolutely does need to be better autism and neurodiversity awareness in alcoholism support services. I know that there's a variety of services out there from, you know, Alcoholics Anonymous to Narcotics Anonymous. I think in general, to just rehab centers.

[29:33] Leah: I think in general, I can speak to this because I think I've already disclosed, but I will again, that I'm very well acquainted with the twelve step system because my stepfather had a cocaine habit problem, not while he was married to my mom, but he was still in recovery. Because you're always recovering, you're never recovered. So we got to do a lot of those things with him, which was very educational for me. And the reality is, when it comes to alcoholism or any other type of substance abuse, people say, okay, well, now you're abusing alcohol. We have to stop you from abusing alcohol. Also, you're a bad person for abusing alcohol. So get it together. What I've never actually seen or heard is why did you start abusing alcohol in the first place? What was the deficit in your life that you needed to start abusing this substance? Cocaine, alcohol, opiates, whatever it is that you felt the need to do this in the first place? From the treatment professionals in the twelve steps, the people do get up and share their own stories, and a lot of them do share those things, and a lot of them are very parallel. They sound very familiar to your story. So when I would drink alcohol, I would suddenly become superman. I could talk to girls. When I drank alcohol, I would feel so anxious. It felt like a nice warm hug. When I would drink alcohol, I could function on this level that I couldn't do before. When I would drink alcohol, I was great at dancing. When I would drink alcohol, I was good at this or that. And the personal stories that I heard often sounded like that. The harder drug stories are a little bit darker, and I don't know that I need to share them necessarily right here, but the alcohol ones always kind of start innocently like that. Like, I was so afraid to talk to girls, and then I had a beer and I could talk to this girl. So I just kept doing that. Right? It starts really innocently because alcohol, much.

[31:25] Moshe: Like other drugs, as I mentioned, opioid drug use, is a problem around the world.

[31:30] Leah: Those stories are much darker, though, and.

[31:34] Moshe: The common denominator, if you will, in that is these people are just so racked with oversensitization, overstimulation, anxiety, nervousness, social anxiety, phobias, because autism can present in many different ways, especially if it's undiagnosed. And when you have the availability, as unfortunately we do in society, to drugs like alcohol, narcotics and whatever that calm down your brain. Or your body, it can be attractive, at least at first, to, you know, suddenly feel like you're not constantly stressed about crowds or, you know, the taste of things or smells in the air or things that, unfortunately, autism does cause.

[32:24] Leah: I have my own story. I had my own mental health issues, and they came to a head around 2008, and I had to seek medical treatment. And one of the first things that they gave me was Ativan. And Ativan made me feel so good. It made me feel like I was floating in a bubble of Jell O all the time. And I just. I couldn't feel anxious if I wanted to. And I actually went back to the doctor with the bottle and I said, you need to take this away from me because this is going to become a habit real quick.

[32:52] Moshe: That was a very smart decision to do. And of course, I just want to finish this talk with, you know, the most obvious study ever created, put up by the Lancet, which states that substance use is very high among people with autism or people with trauma and people with mental health issues, social difficulties. Drug use is bad. It can seem good on the surface. I'm not going to do one of those eighties psa, this is your brain on drugs thing. But the fact is, these are all negative coping mechanisms. They may help you in the short term, but alcohol is a poison. Narcotics used off brand and off prescription are not useful even on prescription.

[33:36] Leah: They're actually quite toxic to the body.

[33:38] Moshe: Very addictive and timely diagnosis and healthy management of your symptoms, whether you have mental illness, whether you have autism, whether you have something else, is always, always, always preferable to substances.

[33:52] Leah: So now it's time to talk about the negative effects, really, of any substance. So substances that I can think of, that story you were talking about, that man who was functional because he could go to work, because he used alcohol, he used it to excess. Excess. And he now has liver cirrhosis, doesn't he?

[34:09] Moshe: Yeah. So the connection that was the book, like the book was not meant to be like, look, there's this wonderful substance that you can use to function. It was very much a cautionary tale because alcohol is a poison, and it does develop a tolerance because the same amount of alcohol that creates the same effect very quickly stops working. And of course, you have to take more and more and more and more and more, and eventually you can cause genuine damage to his body, to your body. And now he is fortunately doing much better, but he's actually harmed his body to the excess that alcohol can actually kill him.

[34:47] Leah: Yeah.

[34:47] Moshe: And that's obviously and also certain medications.

[34:49] Leah: I'm sure he's not able to take now. So he's harmed himself and these things. This is the end of the story for multiple people. I can give you real life examples. In my real life, I know somebody who passed away from opioid addiction, and I'm sure it started very easily and simply as well. In our own lives, we know people who are non functional alcoholics, people who use cannabis, which is totally legal in Canada, by the way, to an excess where they're stupid all the time, or they cause themselves psychosis, or they cause themselves other brain issues. Every substance has its own cost in the end. So that's why it's really, really important that even though at the beginning, if you feel like it's helping you, you feel like you have control over it, you feel like you know, this is the greatest thing ever. And just other people don't understand. Just know that you're wrong, right, and you need to seek help.

[35:48] Moshe: And now, before we move on to the next topic, let's discuss the podcast in general. So we are now in the mid teens, thanks in large part to the support all of our wonderful listeners and downloaders from all across the country, in Israel, all across the states, all across Canada, all across the United Kingdom, in Europe, as far as Asia and China. We have the odd person in Australia. So we have people from all around. And the only way that this podcast is going to be successful is by sharing and liking and downloading and subscribing on your relevant podcasting sites. Every time you hit the subscribe on the Potbean website, or on Apple, or on Spotify, or on whatever tool you use, you are boosting the podcast so that more and more people can find it. If you have friends that you want to share the podcast with, please do so. We have a Patreon set up. If you ever listen to the podcast and think, you know what, I want to send these people money. Not to say that it happens, but it's definitely a possibility.

[36:56] Leah: Why not?

[36:57] Moshe: So patreon.com no one autistic and no is know one autistic. We have different levels for donations. They are meaningless, much like the Duke Carey version. Whose line is it anyway? The money doesn't matter. Send us a dollar. Send us dollar five. Send us dollar 100. It doesn't matter. The levels there are just mostly for, you know, kicks. But if you want to send us anything just to help support us and allow us to continue doing this, the podcast will not succeed without your support. And we would love to have your support. We brought some amazing guests on last week. We had our daughter Raya. I would say she's definitely one of our biggest celebrities.

[37:39] Leah: Absolutely. She's like, I'm famous.

[37:41] Moshe: The week before that, we had Adam and Becca. Their TikTok is they're on study show. They have a wonderful, or Becca has a wonderful podcast about poisons. They're both amazing people who have done a great service in helping us out. We have some amazing guests lineup. We just have to confirm them. So stay tuned for that. Just keep supporting us so we can keep doing this.

[38:04] Leah: And the biggest part of support actually isn't financial or monetary. It's downloading, downloading, downloading the episodes.

[38:12] Moshe: Right. The fact is, the websites that host us, the ones that get the most downloads and subscriptions, are the ones that get to monetize. And we would absolutely love to partner with any organization that wants to discuss partnering with us. We have some irons in the fire there. So please, please, please share this with your friends and subscribe. Download like and share and comment. I mean, let us know.

[38:36] Leah: Great comment. Even if you don't like us, fine.

[38:39] Moshe: This episode was weird. Why did you talk about that? Or I didn't understand what you were saying, or you guys suck. Don't say that. That's not nice. But we would love to. Absolute thumbs up. Thumbs down. It's on YouTube. I mean, there's no videos yet, but there might be eventually. So you can post whatever you want on YouTube. You **** has its own monetization scheme.

[38:57] Leah: I think you just said you poo.

[38:59] Moshe: I said you poo. And, I mean, you could also listen to it in the bathroom if you want. That's definitely an option as well. Listen to it on the way to work. Listen to it in the bathroom. Listen to it when you're going to sleep at night. My voice is somewhat soporific. Soporific. So maybe put in the earbuds and skip.

[39:18] Leah: Maybe they can skip the ad event and just listen to you.

[39:20] Moshe: Yeah, just. You want to hear Leah and I talk about boring stuff for an hour? One of our least popular episodes ever is the episode about the genetics of autism.

[39:30] Leah: Yeah. People don't like sciency things as much as I do.

[39:33] Moshe: Stick that on. That's a wonderful way to fall asleep at night and spend a good hour of your time. Anyway, now back to our regularly scheduled programming. Let's talk really quickly about the opposite. We've talked about alcohol and opioids. Let's talk about caffeine and nicotine.

[39:50] Leah: Oh, yes. Those are some of my favorites. How about you?

[39:53] Moshe: Yes. So I'm, in addition to being autistic, I'm also a diagnosed ADHD. I don't like the word sufferer, but Haverdeh, I'm a haver of ADHD.

[40:05] Leah: You're a participant in the ADHD.

[40:07] Moshe: I don't. I'm fortunate enough not to get addicted to cigarettes, but I have smoked on and off my entire adult life, I would say. I say on and off because I actually don't like doing it, but it's a way of increasing stimulation. I drank an excessive amount of coffee. I still probably drink way more than.

[40:25] Leah: I should, a lot less now that you're properly medicated. And that, I think, is the nugget that I want people to get through in terms of this podcast.

[40:32] Moshe: And one of the conditions for the person who diagnosed me as such was that I needed to quit smoking and I needed to stop drinking like 20 cups of coffee a day.

[40:42] Leah: And I promised that you would or he wouldn't prescribe the stimulants for you. And I did, and I have.

[40:47] Moshe: And of course, stimulants such as nicotine and alcohol and others. There are hard drugs, of course, that a lot of people do, fortunately, have never been drawn to them that mimic the effects of stimulants that you take prescribed by your doctor, like Ritalin or.

[41:03] Leah: Adderall, actually a really popular one in the nineties. Remember when we were teenagers and all of our friends were doing speed?

[41:09] Moshe: Speed. I remember speed.

[41:11] Leah: Ritalin is basically speed, isn't it?

[41:13] Moshe: So, yeah, so we're doing low level speed, and it's great because it does help me function. But of course, I take it prescribed by a doctor. I have neurologists that monitor me, yes.

[41:22] Leah: And we monitor his heart rate and all the fun stuff that comes along with having an actual medical team looking after you rather than self medicating.

[41:30] Moshe: So, of course, there's the given risks with nicotine use of any kind, because it's never good and it's very highly addictive. And of course, drinking coffee and energy drinks, I used to drink lots and lots of energy drinks, is not good.

[41:46] Leah: Because your brain was seeking stimulation. But the ADHD brain also doesn't process caffeine the same way. So you have to have massive doses to get the same effect that, for example, I would have with one, you know, espresso shot.

[42:01] Moshe: So let's talk a little bit about the healthy coping mechanisms that are out there. Music. Music is a big one. Our daughter Raya can't go anywhere without her earbuds and her music. The thing with music is it does provide a calming effect. But for most people, I would say it's much more, you know, on the spot. Like, it helps while it's on, and it doesn't really have too many lasting effects. So a lot of people do use music for therapy. Exercise is good. I used to go to the gym quite a lot. Now I walk. We walk a lot, and it's very good. Breathing is your typical. Your typical coping mechanism. There's a lot of apps that you can get that do breathing. You know, just monitoring your breathing. What's the word I'm looking for? Like, centering yourself, like, mindfulness.

[42:52] Leah: Mindfulness.

[42:53] Moshe: Mindfulness. Being aware of everything is very, very important. And what else? Engaging in pleasant activities. Sometimes you can use hyper focus to calm them down. If you find that they are in a state of crisis, then you can say, hey, let's go over some flags and see if you know them. Or, you know, did you hear about that new kind of train that's out there? You want to talk about trains for a while? Yeah. Or what video games are you playing? It focuses the mind, and it can definitely relieve a lot of anxiety and just, you know, they say, take time to smell the roses. We happen to live in a beautiful place. It's in the middle of the summer, and there's flowers and there's plants, and there's just good smells in the air.

[43:47] Leah: Yeah, we do that, too. And we go for a walk.

[43:49] Moshe: For walks. We look over at the sites, we look at things.

[43:52] Leah: The interesting is actually interesting to me as well. And I'll tell you why. Because I have, as you know, severe anxiety. And when I'm really anxious, it can even help to distract me if you engage with me on one of my special interests, which are usually more complex and more boring than trains or flags, a lot less simple. But if you look at me and say, can you explain to me how a valence electron bonds in order for it to make a molecule? And I'll go, oh, yeah, let's talk about that for an hour. I don't think you understand half of it, but you just let me explain it.

[44:29] Moshe: And it really calls back to what any new parent knows. You know, your baby's about to cry. Look at the keys. Look at the keys.

[44:37] Leah: Remind me again about string theory. He'll say to me, it's a distraction.

[44:40] Moshe: So you're basically taking a now adult mind and going, let's look at this. Pay attention to this thing that I know that really interests you. And it's a much healthier way. And of course, prescription drugs, if you need them, not everyone needs them, but if you need them, there's actually no shame, not at all, in getting. In getting certain medications that are prescribed by a medical professional that allow you to better handle a lot of your symptoms. And of course, there's lots of apps out there. We're not sponsored by any of them, but maybe we should.

[45:14] Leah: We should be. We should have reached out. But, yeah, there's mindfulness apps, right?

[45:18] Moshe: Yeah. If you want to go on Google Play Store or the Apple Store, there's things like. And headspace, and I think there's one called breathe to relax or something. There's all sorts of different apps that are out there. A lot of them cost money, but some of them have free.

[45:32] Leah: YouTube's good for that option.

[45:33] Moshe: YouTube is good, too.

[45:34] Leah: They have guided meditation. I needed guided meditation because my situation was so sad that I couldn't even calm down enough to meditate on my own without guidance. So I legitimately had to listen to somebody else tell me how to meditate because I was too anxious to do it on my own.

[45:52] Moshe: I used to work for a company that offered a free premium subscription to headspace, and I miss it because I used to require. Not required, but maybe you require. I used to require headspace guided meditations to help me sleep. They had one where you're on the beach and it kind of walks you through what's going on around you, and you sort of envision feeling the sand beneath your feet and picture reaching down and picking up a shell and talking about how that feels.

[46:24] Leah: My absolute favorite was actually a free one. It was called Yoga Nidrade. And what he would describe was that you are running through the woods and you came across a boulder, and the boulder was in your path, and you had to get either up over the boulder or around the boulder or near the boulder to continue on the path. And he said to you, it doesn't matter how you navigated the boulder. Now you're past it. And the end of the meditation is that you run up this mountain and you finally made it to the top of the mountain. And from the top of the mountain, you can look down at the boulder, and then you can see all the alternative ways that you could have tackled that boulder. For me, that was, you know, that did it for me.

[47:02] Moshe: So that's it for this episode. And of course, I would be remiss if I didn't mention that if you or someone you love is struggling with addiction. There's many services out there, depending on what country or city you live in. You can just google addition counseling. There's always going to be an, you know, an AA or an NA or some sort of twelve step program if you're into that sort of thing, or download an app that teaches you how to breathe. Any final thoughts, Leah?

[47:34] Leah: Yeah, I honestly think that you should also seek a partner, somebody you trust, a friend, a colleague, a parent, a romantic partner. Because again, addiction counseling is really missing that part. Why is this thing happening to you versus this thing's happening to you and we need to stop it?

[47:52] Moshe: Social support is actually a really important thing, and I'll just kind of close with that. The reason that a lot of these twelve step programs include a sponsor is for the same reason that if you happen to be struggling with mental illness, which does include addictions or autism or neurodiversity, then you don't want to be alone. You want someone not only to hold you accountable, but also to hold your hand when you need it and to be there for you like Leah is there for me. If you are isolating, as a lot of autistics tend to do, then there's always going to be support groups out there. And if you're fortunate enough to have a relationship the way that I do with Leah, then you have someone who not only is there to help you when you're struggling, but is there to hold you accountable for your actions so you don't have, you know, go off the rails too much.

[48:48] Leah: Yep.

[48:50] Moshe: I would absolutely love to discuss next week's episode, but we actually don't know what it is yet. We have a few potential options. We have a couple of guests that we're looking to slot in and have a talk with about certain things. But stay tuned. And once again, like subscribe, comment, download, download, download, download and download. And we'll, we'll see you next week.

[49:12] Leah: Thank you for listening.

[49:15] Moshe: Well, that's our show for today. Now, you know one autistic just a little bit better. So something you may not know about some autistics is that we often struggle with ending social interactions. So, Leah.

[49:31] Leah: All right, Moshe. I'll take care of it. Thank you for listening to now, you know one autistic, you next week.

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