Jordan Peterson on Alcohol

i'm in a 12-step program in aaa right so i was now you know i'm in recovery so almost two years now and that really changed my life getting into you know 12 steps and you know we'll you know and i know that's your book um but i one of the things that stuck with me is esteemable people do esteemable things and it's like right and it's like when you have that choice to do something better than alcohol man yeah yeah the funny thing is if you're trying to stop drinking you need something better than alcohol and alcohol is pretty good yeah so you better find something a lot better man yeah and it is then esteemable people do esteemable things it's like yeah well you want to figure out you want to figure out something that you're doing with your life that's worth not getting drunk and screwing up yeah right because that's fun yeah you want to have something on the other side of that teeter-totter that has uh some value you bet you bet and so that you can think no no i'm not going to get drunk and screw that up right because you know you might say well why do people drink too much it's like if you like alcohol that's a stupid question yeah right it's like why do people drink too much well because it's great you know it's like okay so why stop well you do stupid things when you're drunk you hurt yourself you compromise your health it's really hard on the people around you you tend to turn into a liar and it screws up your life yeah it's like yeah but it's pretty fun yeah well it is but you need something better than that and what's better isn't being straight and and and not making mistakes it's like that's all prohibition in some sense what's better is no you need an adventure man you need to get out there and have something to do yeah and and something worth waking up for and you need that's the substitute for the addiction actually the addiction is the substitute for that if truth be known right but eventually you can flip that around and you can find that you know the the much girthier and and more uh there's a lot of sexy weight and having self-worth you know and that's what i've started to solely find in my life yeah and you might also like the thing too is you know i mean there's something kind of i don't know the the bar scene that the the heavy drinking scene there's something kind of edgy about it you know and something kind of adventurous about it and you know you see that it's kind of dramatized in people like tom waits who's got that real hard edge or johnny cash or people hard-living guys oh yeah six or seven livers in them yeah yeah exactly yeah well there's something kind of romantic about that yes and and fair enough you know but well then what that means is you have to build something like that into your own life so maybe you need to go maybe you need to you know take an adventurous trip now and then you got to have something there that that that's that's edgy to replace that and sometimes if people need a catalyst so there's that moment right like for me the catalyst was like um you know i needed to probably i was experimenting with cocaine and i sacrificed like a a neat job opportunity with that i had planned on being there for the job and next thing you know i spent the night doing cocaine right so i realized okay this is not this is a little out of my control so i have to make this but if if people don't have that sort of i'm sure this must have happened when you decided to stop drinking you must have thought this isn't good i'm not going to be funny anymore i thought that i thought i thought there was going to be ramifications yeah okay and so what were they what what what did you what did you foresee happening i thought i wouldn't be funny i thought that people wouldn't like me i thought that um i wouldn't be able to meet girls if i wasn't drinking or or you know or having drugs or um right so that was what you were afraid of giving up if you stopped drinking right what were you afraid of happening if you kept drinking um i was afraid of not achieving my dreams i was afraid of you know uh ending up a drug addict yeah of dying in my sleep something you know dying under the influence okay so there so yeah it's not like that doesn't happen to comedians right it happens a lot yes it's one of our goats well exactly well it's not an occupational hazard because you're up late at night you're around bars all the time it is because you're up late at night and yeah right here right right well and it happened to all sorts of comedians and rock musicians usually happens in about 27 you know weirdly enough so okay so you were afraid you're afraid you're going to die or you're afraid you're going to become addicted so so let's say what what of life what would have life like being like you for for you if you were addicted so you don't have a career anymore no right so you've given all that up and failed so that's fun so that's going to drive you even more towards drugs yeah it would have been all my dreams it would have been miserable right it would have been hell exactly is that so why quit drinking so i don't end up in hell hey there's a reason there's a reason to stop and then if you make that hell real it's like here's all the details of my personal hell yes let's avoid that right so then you have something to run the hell away from right so now you have something towards and something to run away from and i'll say this too as you for if there's any young men or women out there who are listening to jordan feeling like well i still i don't know if you know if i start doing something different like my friends are going to have to start yeah they are they are yeah but you're also you're going to start creating conversations you're going to become the intrigue because you're going to be bringing something new to the table you're also going to find out who your friends are yeah because if you're starting to put your life together and you have friends that object those are not friends those are just people you know they're not friends because a friend is someone this is one of the hallmarks of a friend here's two hallmarks a friend is someone you can tell bad news to and they won't tell you why you're an idiot and they won't interfere with your suffering they'll just listen and maybe they'll suffer along with you okay so you can tell bad news to them and they won't tell you some worst thing that happened to them they'll listen they'll suffer along with you but a friend is also someone you can tell good news to and the friend will say wow in this veil of tears something good happened to you great man i'm wonderful it's rare it's unlikely good for you i hope 10 more things like that happen and they're not envious and they're not jealous and they're not one up in you and if you're trying to get your life together it's actually if you're trying to get your life together and your friends get in the way that's actually real useful for you because you've now identified who your friends aren't and you might think well i can't give them up it's like oh yes you can and not only can you you should and it would be better for them because if they're aiming down and they want you going down with them there's nothing good about what's happening to them and there's certainly nothing good about that for you yeah they're not gonna and then they're gonna learn wow if i i'm gonna lose friends if i continue in these directions yeah exactly exactly is it hard for why is it hard for people to let go of what's so familiar with to them even if it's bad well because it's complicated you know and the thing that's a really good question you discount the risk of familiarity that they're familiar with so like let's say because people are in relationships people are in relationships with the drugs and alcohol people in relationships with humans people are in relationships with jobs people in relationships with their own selves and they deliver they're they're living a lie every single day but it's it's familiarity yeah well you say i have a job i hate it's like well yeah but i'm not dying from it's like not as bad as it can be so you kind of you kind of you factored in the risks already they get invisible you think well i can't jump out of this job because what about all the risk it's like yeah no kidding you got to make a you got to get your resume in order you got to send it out you got to send 50 of the damn things out before anybody will call you back then you have to go get interviewed and maybe you're not any good at that you have to come up with a story while you're a good employee and maybe and maybe you're not yet so you have to figure out how to do that it's like what about all these risks if i go look for a new job it's like yeah absolutely man those are risks and they're harsh and no wonder you're avoiding them what about the risks for you to stay with this job you absolutely hate well let's think that through okay so i have this dead end job i hate it i'm getting better where am i going to be in five years i know where because i've watched this with people you're going to be you're going to be just like you are now except a lot more of what's good about you is going to be gone and a lot more of what's terrible is going to be amplified and you're going to be like in five years you're going to be 10 years older instead of three years older yeah right because it kills your spirit yeah so it's like you think oh my god there's a terrible risk in pursuing this new job it's like yeah there is a terrible risk there's a terrible risk and you stand with your job right now and so one of the things that's really really freeing to understand is that you're screwed no matter what you do ah there's no secure path forward give it up it's risk everywhere oh my god that's terrible it's like yes except for two things you can pick your risk that's the first thing so you get to pick your poison that's something and second you're a lot tougher than you think so even though there's risk everywhere if you confront it forthrightly what you'll find is that you can actually handle the risk and that's the security that's beautiful and there's so much growth to be had right there when you realize how much like there were times i was like man i could never be a sober person because i'm afraid of you know i can't communicate with women or i'm afraid to you know stand around in a circle with tough guys without having like a beer in my hand you know or like all these little crutches you know i can't and then i remember when i got like 90 days sober i was just like holy man like it was like the first time i'd ever done something uh like for myself you know yeah and it just man it felt it felt unprecedented yeah yeah well it was like i felt like i'd gone to the moon how old were you when you started drinking uh i don't probably like 17 or 16 you know kind of regular yeah it was pretty basic and i never did a bunch of it you know but my biggest thing was just emotional sobriety like i was so drunk on my own insecurities and low self-worth well alcohol alcohol really is a good drug for coping with anxiety that's why people use it so it does too if you if you really like alcohol it does it does two things to you it makes you more extroverted and enthusiastic well you're on the ascending limb of the blood alcohol curve which is why you have to keep drinking once you start because if you plateau that goes away so you got to keep drinking okay so that's one thing it makes you more enthusiastic and and more full of positive emotion and the second thing it does is reduce anxiety yeah and so if you are a bit more socially anxious and you also have that positive response to alcohol which everyone doesn't have by the way then it's a great drug but the problem is it's well it's a great drug for the moment right right there's there's consequences yeah this sounds when it's not great well it also alcohol is an interesting drug because it it it actually doesn't make people stupid this is being tested like alcohol people who are drunk will take far more risk and you might say well that's because they're too stupid to understand the risk it's like no they're not if you ask them about the risk when they're drunk they can outline it perfectly what it stops them from doing is caring about the risk it's actually and that's part of the anti-anxiety components like yeah the risk is that's why you can drive around drunk at high speed in a car which is really stupid thing to do yeah we used to do that in the back roads in northern alberta it's fun yeah you know but but people died all the time doing it especially in the winter it's like wow this is great it's great until your head's gone through the windshield you know like so many things yeah it's like jumping off a cliff it's i'm flying which is true until the last one tenth of a second it's like then you're not flying man it's like yeah yeah so so alcohol alcohol has exactly that effect it is a great anti-anxiety drug but it does stop you and he said it stopped you from learning the skills that you need in the social circumstance to be able to cope with that so then it actually stops you from dealing with the anxiety you don't have to learn how to overcome it that's not good yeah so yeah yeah you're not really learning you're kind of just staying in the you're just you're baiting the egg you're you're kind of meeting the anxiety with a little bit of light medication but you're never getting through whatever the anxiety was yeah you don't know you don't have to learn the skills well you said you like to stand there with a beer in your hand we'll give you something to do you didn't know what else to do then you didn't have to learn right i had the same issue like i started drinking when i was 13 probably yeah and and that's late in canada yeah that's right i mean i was way behind my neighbors they were slugging it back when they were four oh i've been in edmonton and i've seen people i mean it's just people love to drink up there it's just it's a fun culture right it's a cultural thing on the farther north you go the more the drinking becomes necessary especially in the winter you know so and there's not that much to do in those isolated small towns yeah i drink i'd drink my own blood probably yeah well that's it well that's funny when i used to go back to the little town i was from when i was an adult even if i hadn't had nobody had anything to drink for years it was like well what are we going to do well let's go to the bar why well because there actually isn't anything else to do so you know and so you end up there but but but the the alcohol is it's it's well it's a hell of a it's a hell of a drug man do you think watch it do you think it's going to start get out to get outdated i start to think that alcohol is almost a drug of the past slowly like i could see us like with psychedelics and stuff like that becoming a little bit more in like the common sphere of conversation um well it'd be interesting to see that we just legalized marijuana in canada yeah yeah like it's not it's not completely legal yet but the bill was passed so canada is doing this country-wide experiment and i know there is some data showing that in counties in the u.s where marijuana has been legalized the overuse of of opiates for pain has decreased substantially and the crime rates have gone down interesting well still people stoned on pot it's hard to pick somebody's pocket yeah break into a building i don't think so you're just not going to get it together you might knock for a long time i think you might knock at the front door i don't think you're gonna break in and you're not gonna you might that's right you might knock you're not gonna go out what are you gonna go in the alley and have a fight no you're not a real slow fight well while you're watching your hands like yeah it's like chest with your hands exactly exactly that's not going to happen so yeah who knows like i mean if we had to make a bad drug legal the worst choice was alcohol that's definitely the case you know and i'm saying that as somewhat of a fan of alcohol me too yeah i like it it's but it's a bad drug and is it also starting to become archaic as we get into drugs that are you know like uh you know people are using psychedelics more where people are a little bit curious about drugs that make you think um instead instead of drugs that make you not think right yeah right yeah yeah because alcohol is kind of an escape into well it's not full unconsciousness although it certainly can be yeah but yeah and alcohol also makes people aggressive it's the only drug we know that actually makes people aggressive so and so so you see a massive effect on crime rates because half the people who murder someone are drunk oh yeah and half the people who are murdered are drunk and you know and you're most likely to be murdered by a family member so i've been joking with my audiences is like well if you really want to get killed the best thing to do is go drink with a family member which is actually statistically true which is terribly terribly comical it's like yeah go get drunk with your family if you want to die good evening good afternoon and other times thanks for watching that video you just saw i mean it was okay but the next video you can watch could be way better what if you watch a video right now that changes your life well you could watch this one or watch this one watch this one watch this one watch this one ah

Channel: Theo Von Clips

Views: 4,617,383

Rating: 4.9245543 out of 5

Keywords: Theo von, this past weekend, theo von podcast, this past weekend podcast, tpw, joe rogan, joe rogan experience, jre, joe rogan podcat, brendan schaub, bryan callen, the fighter and the kid, below the belt, tfatk, theo von brendan schaub, chris delia, congratulations, tom segura, theogate, tigerbelly, jordan peterson, jordan b peterson, alcohol, addiction, aa, recovery, drugs and alcohol, alcoholism

Id: 4cYuWLZI5kw

Length: 15min 1sec (901 seconds)

Published: Tue May 28 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/4728582849]

Trusting a drug-addicted millionaire huckster? Risky game.

[u/Railered]

Peterson is a painkiller addict still lol

That said, the substance of the talk was spot on.

[u/YesBeerIsGreat]

Love your username. Wish I could score some Rainier in the Midwest. Think Colorado is the nearest point of distribution.

[u/Run8]

Very true.