Laughing at Addiction the science of using humor to heal.

so this may come as a surprise here but

these pictures are of the same person

this is me at the end of my addiction

and this is me six months ago it’s

amazing what a shower can do right

i know we’re here to talk about humor

today but let’s start with addiction

because anyone who looks at this lovely

picture

should also remember the one that came

before it

and you wouldn’t be alone if you were

wondering what the hell happened to jess

my parents asked that every day for

years my brother

my friends anyone who would ever know me

to look like this

and then later saw me become this

would you believe me if i told you i had

what most people would think of as an

ideal childhood

i was loved by my parents who were still

married today

my dad coached my soccer teams i got

good grades i was socially involved i

was this girl

i remember laughing and playing with my

friends every summer i would go and stay

with my cousin emily and all

we would do was laugh we would just lay

on our bed and speak to each other in

different accents and

tell ridiculous stories and just laugh

so hard until we peed

do you remember the last time you left

so hard you feed your pants

sadly i do it all the time how about you

laugh so hard you cried

we all know that deep awesome laughter

that just makes you forget the tough

stuff in life

that’s what i found in childhood but

then other things happen

too and it’s the other things that bring

us back to her

so here’s the not so funny part i was

molested from the age of four to five by

a babysitter

i’m telling you this because i think

it’s important that we stop hiding our

secrets and like renee brown says

get out from under shame this happened

on a regular basis

every time i was babysat and i never

told a soul about it

as a child i felt like i did something

to bring this on like it was my fault

that it started happening as a lot of

children do

and to keep the shame and the guilt from

killing me at the age of 13 i started

binging and purging and sneaking alcohol

from my dad’s liquor cabinet

i called this shame the screaming demon

and food and alcohol were the only

things that successfully quieted the

screaming demon

it was as if an elephant was lifted off

my chest and for the first time i could

breathe

this is how i medicated my anxiety and

panic that permeated my life due to

holding on to this insidious secret

alcohol became the only way i could cope

with life

until it brought me back to this so

you’re probably wondering

what brought me there and why did i keep

the picture

by my early twenties i was functioning

but barely hanging on by a thread

my addiction had progressed to drinking

a fifth of vodka a day

shockingly all while working as a

comedic actor

you see this is when i used comedy to

numb like a lot of comedians do

i hadn’t yet discovered that it could

heal at 27 i went to my first of nine

treatment centers and was admitted to

six different psychiatric hospitals that

same year in 2013 during a relapse i had

a hemorrhagic stroke from falling over a

railing drunk and ended up paralyzed and

in emergency brain

surgery so they say first using is fun

then it’s fun with problems then it’s

just problems

you could say i traveled to the deep end

of that last stage

after only two weeks in the acute rehab

facility

my brain had miraculously healed i was

able to walk again

and i was released but because my deep

end just wasn’t deep enough yet

i began drinking again just two months

after having brain surgery and it got

way worse just six months later in 2014

i was admitted to icu weighing only 78

pounds with a

rampant blood staph infection and a

blood alcohol concentration of 0.503

the acid from my urine had burned holes

through my skin because i had been lying

in one spot for over a month in a

drunken stupor i needed two

immediate blood transfusions and every

organ in my body

including my heart and brain were

failing my doctor told me i would not

have survived the night without medical

intervention

and that’s why i keep this photo because

laughter heals

but trauma reminds after finally getting

sober i began to look at my addiction

not just as an escape from pain or a bad

habit

but as a manifestation of dysfunctional

brain chemistry

and i believe that adverse childhood

experiences known as aces

can trigger this manifestation of course

addiction

is multifactorial and in my opinion

there’s not just

one cause it’s the perfect storm of

genetic susceptibility

environment upbringing trauma but let me

explain the correlation between adverse

childhood experiences

and addiction aces actually change how

our brain works

and how we process and respond to life

events

because here’s the other thing i’m not

alone

and alarming 90 of women with substance

dependence

were sexually abused during childhood so

now for the science part

it’s always a science part right the

primary brain system involved in trauma

is the nucleus accumbens

which is the pleasure reward center it’s

the same part of the brain that is

implicated in substance dependence

it inhibits the prefrontal cortex which

oversees impulse control

executive function rational decision

making

there are also changes in the amygdala

the brain’s fear response center

so you see those deepened problems were

actually part of my primitive survival

area of my brain

or what some people call the reptilian

part of the brain and this part of my

brain was now in the driver’s seat

dictating my life and behavior

my brain was like the upside down in the

show stranger things

there are real neurologic reasons why

people exposed to early adversity or

childhood trauma are more likely to

engage in high risk or addictive

behavior

when a child experiences adversity or

trauma

there is a cascade effect in their

brains and bodies and when the stress

response is

triggered over and over which is what we

do we relive the trauma over and over

this puts the person in a perpetual

state of survival

and when a human is in survival mode

long enough

illness manifests alcohol on a physical

level

initially suppressed my overactive

nervous system it also successfully

inhibited my hyper-vigilant fear

response making the world seem like a

safer place to be in

i used alcohol like most people use

medication

after it had progressed to physical

dependence however

it created a rebound effect causing an

increase in stress response and cortisol

leading to withdrawal and that

vicious cycle of relapse i was bound to

alcohol as the only survival mechanism i

knew

and the longer i depended on it the more

it seemed like there was no way out

ever since i was a little kid i had this

inherent feeling there was something

beyond the physical world just

waiting to be discovered i would always

ask my parents questions like

what is god or why do humans exist

you know regular eight-year-old stuff

the world

felt like a terrifying place and i

wanted answers

dr daniel sumrock the director of the

center of addiction sciences at the

university of tennessee

calls addiction ritualized compulsive

comfort seeking

having found food and alcohol at a young

age i was compulsively seeking comfort

even at the price of my own life

dr sumac says the solution to changing

the unhealthy ritualized compulsive

comfort seeking

is to address a person’s adverse

childhood experiences

treat them with respect and help them

find a ritualized compulsive comfort

seeking behavior

that won’t kill them or put them in jail

or make them take amazing glamour shots

like

what i’ve showed you whether we’re

talking about obesity

addiction to cigarettes alcohol or

opioids

they all have one thing in common they

are ritualized compulsive comfort

seeking behaviors people do

in order to ameliorate their deep seated

pain

as gabor mate says we shouldn’t be

asking why the addiction

we should be asking why the pain so now

for the part when life starts getting

fun again

i remember the first time i realized i

might be okay i was sitting in a

recovery meeting and i was asked to

share my story

i was sharing about a very vulnerable

dark part of my story and

suddenly everyone started laughing and

then i found myself laughing

it was that deep awesome contagious

laughter

that just filled the room with hope and

levity

something in me began to soften i felt

like i was back on emily’s bed again

giggling over our accents i suddenly had

an epiphany

why would human beings be biologically

hardwired to laugh

if it didn’t serve a purpose that was

advantageous to their survival

this was it this is what we needed to

heal

our pain and our past

there’s a yiddish proverb as soap is to

the body

laughter is to the soul and that night

in that dingy church basement

i began to heal i began to feel cleansed

have you ever seen steel magnolias

there’s this great scene where all the

ladies are at the funeral of julia

roberts character who’s sally field’s

daughter

sally is angry she’s mad at the world

for taking her daughter

and she’s deep in her pain and her

trauma when all of a sudden olympia

dukakis’s character

shoves forward the old grump of the

group wheezy played by shirley maclaine

and says hit wheezy and weezy’s like

what the hell

and she says it again hit wheezy

and all anyone can do is laugh including

sally fields

and you know in that moment that no

matter what we’re going through

we’re going to be okay that is the power

of laughter

and wheezy is not the only evidence in a

recent study conducted at loma linda

university in southern california

20 normal healthy adults sat in a room

and watched a funny video for 20 minutes

while a control group sat in a room

calmly with no video

afterwards their saliva levels were

analyzed for stress hormones

those who got to laugh for 20 minutes

scored better on short-term memory tests

and had a significant decrease

in the saliva levels of the stress

hormone cortisol

in addition to reducing stress hormones

laughter increases endorphins

releasing dopamine in the brain

providing a sense of pleasure and reward

it triggers the release of endogenous

opiate which helps modulate

pain it also activates the release of

serotonin the neural chemical that is

affected by the most common types of

ssris or antidepressants

laughter is literally medicine

neuroscientist

and author dan siegel says the only way

we can change the neural pathways of the

brain are through empathy

and connection one of the best ways to

connect with others

is through laughter laughter subverts

language it contagiously forms social

bonds

have you ever been to another country

and you started laughing at something

with someone from that country

but neither of you spoke each other’s

language but you both knew what you were

laughing about

that’s the connection that it instantly

creates

the endorphin effect also explains why

laughter is so contagious

spreading endorphins through a group

promotes a sense of safety and

togetherness

that’s why when someone starts laughing

others will start laughing even if

they’re not sure what everyone’s

laughing about

laughter is a neurological response to

someone else’s joy

and when we participate in joy we begin

to heal

trauma but it does so much more than

that laughter also has an impact on your

physical health

research has shown that laughter has an

anti-inflammatory effect that protects

the blood vessels and the heart muscles

from the damaging effects of

cardiovascular disease

it also lessens the body’s response to

stress which is directly linked to

inflammation

addiction cancer you name it when i was

in that church basement that night i

didn’t know what laughter was doing to

me

in a way its effects were just as

surprising as addiction

for so many years i had been this girl

and that girl hadn’t laughed really

laughed in

years my life was a crushing struggle

for survival

there were days i didn’t even want to

live but then i found other people with

that same photo at home

those same struggles the same questions

from their friends and family

how did this happen to them and through

their stories of making it

i began to respond to their joy i

learned to hit weezy

and i was brought back to those summers

laughing until i peed

it’s been in the last couple of years

that i’ve begun to heal this little girl

that i have finally become this woman

and if i’m now laughing my way through

this journey we all can

thank you