L.O.G. 127 Addiction with Dr. Robb Kelly

Hello and welcome to the video version of The Human Behavior Podcast. I'm Brian Marren, the host and creator of the show. As always, I will be joined by human behavior expert, Mr. Greg Williams, who the show is affectionately named after. On the show, we discuss different topics through the lenses of what we call human behavior pattern recognition analysis. If you'd like to find out more about what that is, please check the links in the episode details and go to our website to learn more. Please don't forget to follow us on social media; the links are also in the episode details. And hit the like and subscribe button to help support our work. Thanks for tuning in, and we hope you enjoy the show.

Alright, well, Dr. Kelly, thank you so much for coming on the show today. We really appreciate having you on here.

My pleasure. Absolutely. Good to meet you as well, guys. Let's have a ball.

Yeah, I think we will. I've seen a few of your interviews and read some of your stuff, so I'm sure there'll be no lack of conversation on here. So that's always good. So, real quick, if you can, for our audience, you're in human behavior, you're an addiction specialist, mental health specialist, coming from that background yourself. So if you wouldn't mind, give us a quick about you and how you got into what you do. Then that way, we can jump into it from there, because we love your approach and your attitude and how you are. I know most of you are just listening, but Dr. Robb here, he's kind of a wild man on that side. You're a very colorful guy, you're very exciting. So we love that approach. So, yeah, tell us a little bit about you.

So, my name is Dr. Robb Kelly, calmly, the addiction doctor. I'm an alcoholic, chronic alcoholic, and I like drugs as well, so let's get that out there. I drank at the age of nine, on stage, musical family. Took my first drink. I didn't know it then, but I know it now, that that catapulted my alcoholism. It took many years to come to fruition, but the thing that bothered me was, why couldn't I stop drinking? Okay. And I tried to seek help. I mean, I went through, got my mom coming through college, session musician at Abbey Road, beautiful wife, two kids. Lost it all, living on the street for 14 months.

And it intrigued me. And this was the turning point for me. Everybody's talking about, "Can we just stop drinking? Go into treatment, it'll make you stop drinking." But when I came out, I relapsed, and so did 90% of my friends. So I'm stood outside a liquor store one morning. It's about 5:30 in the morning. The newsagents opens at 6. Can't serve alcohol till 10, but this guy knows me. I'm outside. It's snowing, freezing cold. I'm in a small vest, pair of shorts, and flip-flops, and I'm sweating profusely. I am shaking, I have a banging headache, and I just don't feel too well, signs of going into DTs (delirium tremens).

So, what the DTs obviously is, delivering tremors, can kill me. So the guy opened the door and he's like, "Come here." I'm coming. I put my ten pound on the counter. And this was my reaction, and this changed everything for me, to search into neuropathways, plasticity, neural pathways, brain science. As I walked into the store, put the bottle on the counter, and the shakes stopped, the sickness stopped, the sweating stopped, that headache went immediately. I remember looking at the shopkeeper and then looking back at the bottle, looking at him again. It's like slow motion. And looking back on the bottle, and it went, bang! It's not the alcohol.

And that led me, obviously I became homeless after that, but I always remember that point. So I swore that if I ever got off the streets, I would spend the rest of my life, because I'm going to be honest here, guys, I don't know who needs to hear this and who doesn't, but there's no profit in recovery for many people. So it gets left alone. If the pharmaceutical companies cannot give you a pill, or treatment centers cannot charge you $30,000 every four weeks as you keep relapsing and going in, nobody's interested. So I set about the last 30 years studying the brain addiction, and we cannot leave out behavior and trauma. So wherever there's alcoholism and addiction, there is always trauma, period.

I'm talking about intense studied, case studies, proven facts, evidence-based research, that's what we do. And we're kind of different to anybody else, which we'll get into. I'm not trying to sell anything here. You have to find me or you don't, I'm not bothered either way. If you want to get well, you'll find me; if you don't, I don't want you, kind of thing. So I never sell my services, and I never sell my book. I just want to get into some serious stuff about what addiction's all about and what the medical fraternity think it's about, because there are different things here. But I will say this, and I only say it to state a point: where normal treating centers, and we know a bunch down there, guys, who are awesome, just as good as us, but the main ones we went to, their success rate is between 3 and 10%. We sit around 97% today, over 30 years, with six and a half thousand patients. We're doing something right, that's all I can say.

So we kind of, I recover out loud so that other people can recover in silence or private if they wish. A lot of our people are high-profile. So that's the score really. The background: I'm a musician. I was a father, a hard worker. I've always been a psychologist. I went back to school about seven years ago, eight years ago, maybe nine, to get a second PhD in behavioral science, because now I'm looking for the signs when I'm speaking to someone. And this is great on Zoom, so we'll get into all that later, obviously. But that's kind of, that's kind of Robb Kelly wrapped up in a couple of minutes.

No, it's an incredible story. And I mean, you encapsulated it here just in a couple minutes, but really after just reading through it a few times on your stuff, it's absolutely amazing. You have these little moments, everyone has little moments like that in our life where we have these epiphanies or realizations. And I just love that you boil it down: it's our thinking, not our drinking, right? So I love those catchphrases like that because it really sums it all up, but you can unpack that, right? That's huge what we're talking about. And that, just so you understand a little bit, that's kind of what Greg and I get into about behavior and environment and what shapes us and how we can see those things. And what you actually just mentioned right there at the end is, "Now I'm looking for, I'm looking for those indicators during all this." Well, that's what we love about it, and that's where we sit.

So you talk about, can you give us kind of a general concept for everyone of what addiction is, because there is still a lot of confusion on it. I'll give you my take. The one thing that kind of made me realize how much I don't understand addiction is when I had a friend, and he was an addict, and he's a gambling addict. And he told me, he said, "You don't understand. I could be sitting there at a table, and everything in my body, everything, everything is screaming at me to get up and leave. And I'm thinking about my wife and my kids and everything I could lose." And he said, "And I just, I can't leave." And what that meant to me, I went, "Damn, like I really don't understand this, then. Like, I've never," because I've never had that thought, right? I would just, because everyone goes, "Well, it's about willpower, just get up and go. It's about you, you're lazy." This guy was not a lazy person. He was absolutely not lazy, he had plenty of willpower. Like a stud, but couldn't do that. So can you explain a little bit for us like why that is, or what that means? What is addiction?

So I'm going to, if people are listening to this and kind of in the addiction, well, I'm going to blow your mind here, because this is what it's all about, and let's get real about this, okay? Sugarcoating this stuff kills people. So there's a difference between drug addiction and gambling and alcohol addiction. When you check, alcoholics are born this way. There's a predisposition. You can trace it back, not so much drugs, but alcohol you can always trace back in your family. If not, you may be a heavy drinker or abusing alcohol, but let's talk about the alcoholic. So we're born this way, and what happens is, I'm remapped from birth, obviously my brain, and the trauma that is attached to that creates, as soon as I set the first drink, this chain reaction that may take a year, might take 50 years. We don't know what the deal behind that. So drug addiction is slightly different.

Now, the reason why it's different on the brain, alcohol and drug addiction, is the ethanol in alcohol. I'm allergic to that stuff. I have a chain reaction in my head that says, "This is not good," because you have a mental obsession, they cannot get away with it every time, and that continues until one or two things happen: you change the neural pathways and behavior, or you die. Simple as that, okay? So drug addiction, gambling, all the same. You can start off with an addictive personality, which most of my friends have, but not alcoholic, and they want. So it's different signs, sex, porn, gambling, whatever it is, it takes over your whole body. So let me talk about alcoholism for a second.

So why is it that I can be stood with my daughter in my hands, two years old, punch my wife in the face, which I didn't even know at the time, and go for alcohol? I could stab my wife three times one night because she wouldn't let me finish my alcohol. This is what intrigues me. So I went, I started studying the brain. Now, the hypothalamus, which is at the base towards the back of the brain, it's a fight or flight kind of thing. And what it tells normal people to do, listen, guys, what it tells normal people to do is eat food, drink water, run, stay, survival instincts. Do you know what it tells the alcoholic? It tells us to drink alcohol.

So when you're fighting against your brain and your pathways are self-sabotaging, which 90% of mine were most of my life, then I'm going to start to build up a good life for me, then I'm always going to self-destruct. Always going to be self-destruct, because the bottom line is, I hate myself. I'm never going to be blonde enough, tall enough, thin enough, or rich enough. So I'm fighting against this brain that wants to kill me and make it look like an accident. So what kind of statistics are that? Well, I'm doomed to die, with the old information we have. Even 12-step rooms has jumped down to five to ten percent. Why? What's happening? It's all in the brain.

So there's a chain reaction with that with alcoholics, and what happens is my disease is sensitive, my subconscious brain. So I don't know when I'm going to relapse. Nobody else does, but again, there's a chain reaction that happens. So the subconscious brain goes, "Hey, wouldn't it be great to drink and get out of ourselves and self-sabotage?" Prefrontal cortex knows nothing of this right now, and it says yes. So what happens is my behavior changes and my attitude changes over a period of two, three days, maybe even two, three weeks. And what happens is I'm sat in the office and I'm looking at Julie across the desk who's using that stupid Christmas pen that her mom bought her and it's freaking July. That's the relapse. Not when you pick up the drink or drugs, that's the relapse right there. And then what happens then is the behavior agrees with the subconscious, and over it pops on a Thursday afternoon is, "Let's have a drink."

Now, the only, the only job of the prefrontal cortex is to come up with an answer or solution to your problem, and all the time it was alcohol for me. So by the time it gets to the prefrontal cortex, all bets are off. I've never known a real alcoholic turn around. So that's what we're talking about, we're talking our brain of the alcoholic. Now, same with addiction, it just doesn't have that reaction, the ethanol. Same with addiction with the addictive personality. And I just love that story, talk about your friend. It's like, it's not logic. Why would you do that? I mean, we had a guy opposite us, and he was kept secret, but he'd gone through the savings, he remortgaged the house because of gambling. Is that, how do you do that? The brain is telling us to do that. It's not a choice while you're suffering from untreated addiction or untreated alcoholism.

Once you do reset your pathways, central nervous system, and learn how to live in that one day at a time, this is not drinking one day at a time, it's learning to live the best life you can live today. Everything starts to quiet down, and the neuropathway has then become an 80/20. So if anybody's watching this, this here (Dr. Kelly holds his right hand up) is my self-sabotaging neural pathways. This is what I'm always going to do, end of story, always. And what happens with the program, out of our program, is this starts to happen (Dr. Kelly brings his left hand up, pushing against his right), as you get educated and we change neuro-linguistic programming, and what happens is this (Dr. Kelly's left hand dominates, pushing the right hand down). Now this becomes my primary, like I am today. So 90% of the time, I'm taking this route, helping people, going to my 12-step meetings, having a psychic change (a change of mind), relationship with a higher power, acting the good Samaritan every day. And it becomes monotonous every day to keep it there, but life is good. But I get complacent. So what I do is I start missing the stuff and I stop isolating, and before one day, is we relapse.

No, that's, I mean, incredibly, the summation of that of how you described it is absolutely incredible. And you're talking about basically, for lack of a better term, muscle memory, right? You're creating muscle memory, now new ones, so to speak, right? With neuroplasticity, and saying, "Hey, I'm going to, rather than thinking this way and going down this path, no, we're going to take a left now, we'll go down the path, and we're going to go down that path every single day, and we're going to keep going and keep going, keep going." So now that new neural pathway becomes the correct one, right there, the go-to. But like you just said, you've still got that old one sitting back there, right?

Always that. And it's always it.

Exactly. And it's like the, it's the term riding the bike. Well, you know, you're, once you learn how to ride a bike, and you just got to get back on the bike and start riding again, right? Well, that's almost the way to look at it too, because you can always fall back. And guess what the problem is with, when it comes to especially alcohol addiction, is you falling back and getting back on that bike means you're going to start drinking again. I mean, you fall back on that. And I think you did a really, really good job of summing up, in a very simple manner, on how that works. Greg, did you have something you want to start with here?

Yeah, thank you. Thank you. I always do. What an amazing guest, first of all. So the very first thing I told Marren is when we got you on, Robb, is that I'm trying to remodel a bathroom, have been for two years, no closer to doing it. I'm not losing any weight, and I'm not getting any younger. So what I'm trying to do is put handles on the shower in a bathroom so I don't die in a bathroom like I did. And when I saw your stuff, I go, "We need a handle on the show." Just to hang on. Because not like being on the... but we better hang on again.

Okay. So the way we found you was through a dear mutual friend named Adam Parr and his Partitivity podcast in the UK. And he's such a young kid, and he's like the Haley Joel Osment of podcasts. And you sit there and you listen to him, you go, "How much information can this young kid have amassed in just so few years?" Well, your story is very similar. Because we break everything down psychologically, sociologically, or physiologically. Now, you look at your story at the very beginning, and yes, we do want to talk about Abbey Road in your session with Queen. So make time to fit that because I'm amazed at your life story. But you're nine years old, and your uncle hands you a beer. Okay. Very similar to my story in many respects. Somebody in psychology would immediately side with saying, "Okay, here's a peer pressure with an adult and a command position that was teaching you that." With you, because your brain chemistry was so physiologically oriented toward the alcohol, it didn't matter if it was nine years old or 19. It didn't matter if it was your uncle or a mate. The idea was you were hooked. And if they had you at hello.

Now, the funny thing is, and funny, not ha-ha funny, clinical, is that what we did is we used this self-same addictive personality to find bombs that were killing soldier, sailors, airmen, and Marines in combat. Because what we knew is we knew that that axon and a dendrite have to connect across the synapse and myelin when we repeat behaviors and we get good drugs. We get dopamine, for example, to reinforce that, that we want to repeat those behaviors. So what we did is we associated those same feelings, the electrochemical neurotransmitters, the feelings, with finding the explosive device or sensing the ambush before you happen. So we knew that we could modify your behavior with myelin and myelinization, and that neuroplasticity saved lives.

Yeah, why did it take so long? Why was this written about in the 1910s and 1920s? Why did it take so long for somebody to have that aha moment and say that it works for addiction as well? That it works for alcoholism specifically? How come? Take me, because you had the epiphany by finding those same old documents and looking at that work.

Well, again, it goes back to there's no profit in recovery. And nobody wants to help our soldiers. And the same old, same old. And what gets on my nerves, I became a U.S. citizen about four months ago, and I'm passionate about this country. I did it the right way. I wasted my time when I turned up. I turned up with a full suit on and people turn up in shorts, and I'm like, "You're disrespecting." Oh, I'm all American, end of story. If God forbid, but if England went to war tomorrow against America, I'm on this side, and that's just the way it goes.

So I really hate it when we, when we look at how we're just treating people around there, people in jail for life get more attention and better food and everything else than the soldiers out there. So when they come back, they're all messed up. So there's no money in recovery. Nobody wants to know, because in 1938, some guys wrote a book that we use in the 12-step meetings, and they talked about neuroplasticity change. It talks about a psychic change (a change of mind). And most people thought a psychic then was somebody sat around a ball saying, "Okay, here's the future." Psychic of the mind, psychology, psychiatrist, a change. So it's a change of mind. Boom. Nobody took any notes apart from a few people in that fellowship and a doctor or one or two doctors back then. But then it was left alone because it was always put down, Greg, as a behavioral problem. Right. Alcoholism and addiction is not a behavioral problem. We don't have a choice over this.

So nobody, and the reason why I call myself the best doctor in the world regarding addiction, is because nobody else has studied it. Nobody else has gone, "Okay, this is what I'm doing." And for the first five or six years, I was broke, guys. And every time I took my papers to the medical, they laughed me out the room. But I knew I was onto something, I knew I was onto something. So I think that's, that's the situation. And it takes people like me, you, Greg, and Brian, to fight for this cause, because there is a solution out there, but the pharmaceutical companies don't want us to find that. Because, hey, they'll give you a pill. They give you a couple of pills. The treatment center that was born in probably 1948 to '55, they don't want to look for a cure. So we've been sort of blinded away.

And if you look at alcoholism as a whole, no one was ever called an alcoholic back in my bad days. In fact, the reason why I researched my family is my mom said, and I quote, "Oh, no, Dad hasn't got an alcohol problem, nor have I, but your granddad liked to drink." What? That was a chronic alcoholic, you mean, Mom? But yeah, it was hidden away. And over the last 10 to 20 years, has it become apparent to say, "Hey, I'm struggling here with mental illness." We call it a mental injury, but, "How can I help?" Because people like that were locked away. You both know that. Like 40, 50 years ago, man, you didn't see the light of day for family, especially affluent families. But now some brave people have come forward over the years and go, "Hey, I'm struggling with mental injury. And I'm here and I'm not going away." And more people became talking about it. But when I came over 14 years ago to this country, I told everyone it's an epidemic around, because the pharmaceutical companies are killing us. And again, I got left off stage, I got left off TV. And nobody wanted to listen to me, but look where we are now.

Yeah. And part of that too is, you know, you're talking about, I mean, and correct me if I'm wrong, is what you do is a training program. That's why we see so many similarities, right? Greg and I do training, that's what we do. And then the problem is that, is it's not a pill. You got to put in the effort, you got to put in the time, you got to actually go through the program versus just. And even one of the things I thought was interesting, only knowing so much about addiction and the treatment and everything, and I looked in what you said and how you approach it. And you know, a lot of places do these typical like inpatient treatment things, 30 days, 60 days, whatever it is. And you're going to sit there with a group and there's all these different activities and therapies, but you're in this controlled environment. And then for them, the hardest thing is when they walk out that door. And you already approach it, it looks like, "Well, let's not use that model then, right? Let's, let's put you in wherever you need to be or wherever you're normally going to be." Your normal operating environment is what we would call that on our end, right? And make sense of it there, because yeah, that's fine, you can do anything in a controlled, nice clinical setting, right? That works, that's easier. But it's when you have to, your environment that you, your normal areas that you go to, they're going to have those triggering thoughts, feelings. So how did you come to take that approach or, over just a typical one?

Here's the fact of the matter: that alcoholism has got hardly nothing to do with alcohol, and drug addiction has got hardly anything with drugs. And when you look at that, you say, "Hey, I'm going to be locked up for 30 days and I get a good start." Unfortunately, guys, that's not the case with many treatment centers, because yeah, you can go for your jacuzzis, you can have fun throwing a ball around and calling each other names, you can do all that stuff. But unless you get into the brain itself and find out what the hell's going on, nothing's going to change. Nothing is going to change. So if you're an alcoholic that goes into that environment and you come out 30 days clean, it's about a 54% chance you're going to drink on the way home, because this, again, I want to go back to this real quick, guys, this. Remember I talked about this (Dr. Kelly demonstrates with hand gestures), being the self-sabotage? And now we can change it, okay, to this (Dr. Kelly demonstrates with his other hand dominating). We can change it. Do you know when it moves back again, it's like this (Dr. Kelly moves his dominant hand back to the previous position of self-sabotage), self-sabotage, it's threefold now, it's a progressive illness, right? Unless you catch it in time, again, you're going to die. And I hate to be so blunt, but this is the stuff I'm talking about.

So yeah, that, that was kind of my thinking of you need to recover in your own environment. We do one hour a day for 92 days, one hour via telehealth even, because you don't need to be sat next to somebody to change the way they think. And we always ask the family to come on board. Whoever's in the house, if a wife is there, she has to come on board, otherwise we won't touch you, because it's a family environment. And the way I explain that is this is the house, okay, this is the whole house, everyone's in it. We take little Johnny out and we start working with him, and we teach him there's a different language in recovery. So we teach them a different language. So they're speaking American now. We're, let's say we're teaching them Japanese. Okay? So we're teaching the Japanese in a 30-day training center, and then we go back home. What's going to happen? Well, they're all going to start speaking English again because there's too much pressure. So you have to work in your own environment. You have to come against situations, everyday situations.

But what we do as well is we convince you. You see, one of the differences between us and therapists is the therapist will ask you how you're feeling today, we will tell you how you're feeling today until your own mind starts to self-care. So we're very aggressive, okay? We're loving, but we're very aggressive because we're not messing around. There's two personalities when we speak to alcoholics: the alcoholic and the real person. And for the first month, we don't speak to the real person. And I've tried every which way but loose to make sure that the disease is attacked. And once we recognize it, where it is attacked, and at what time, and the consequences around you and what's happening, then we can check that off and make sure you don't go there again. So it's a really smart way of doing this. But I think, and you've got to imagine the guys that invented stuff in the early days, Kitty Hawk and all that stuff, is in 30 years time, they're going to be teaching this stuff in every treatment center around because of the truth. But right now, I don't see that. I'm the guy still battling against all the odds. "Don't be stupid! How can you have a 97%? Who do you think you are?"

I went to Promises down and blah, blah, blah, and it was a hundred grand I paid, and I got the best treatment. Listen, two things I want to tell you: stop paying for treatment unless it's a really good training center. And secondly, and most importantly, stop believing your doctor knows best. So if you go there with addiction problems and he sticks you on Suboxone because you can't come off the freaking heroin, stop saying yes, the old excuse that it's a medical thing, "My doctor gave it to me." Ninety-one percent of people that come through my practice who's been on heroin started in the doctor's office. So stop believing you'd go somewhere else and get a second opinion. Because we all want to take what the doctor said. The doctor said, "Well, you give it six months and watch what the doctor said." It's going to pull you off that because his license is in danger. What are you going to do then? You're going to go to the streets, and what happens then? You're probably going to die. So it's a whole, and just like you guys have, stop focusing on what you think is the problem. Yep. Because that's not the problem. The other things around it are the problem.

And if we, and if we stop focusing on the alcohol, the drugs, whatever it is the addiction brain goes for, and start looking at the surroundings, the trauma. So I want to say something really interesting with the alcoholic and the addictive brain. So, because we hear things different. No, listen. We hear things different. We're very sensitive. So me and my brother are sat on the kitchen table, we're not supposed to be there. And my mom walks in and she says to my brother, and he hears, because this is what she's saying: "Paul, get out of that table, you stupid idiot, get down." Okay, so he gets down. Do you know what I hear with the same tone and the same words? "Get out of that chair, you stupid idiot." Now, that's trauma. You didn't have the plane crash, you didn't have the child abuse. That is trauma to the addicted brain, and that gets stored in my subconscious brain. The body keeps score all the time, and it's like a zip file on a computer. And I store all this stuff up, and I go in 30 days and I stop it. Then I store all this stuff up. And all of a sudden, someone clicks on that file, and it all comes out. How many times have you heard of people in treatment, "I've got to get a computer because I've got to work, stress, trauma." And that's it, really.

No. And, you know, you talk about that, that's so many issues where, you know, we want to focus on, like you said, we want to focus on the drugs or the alcohol or the gambling, whatever it is. That's not the issue. That's the symptom. That's what's coming out from something else. And I think that's with a lot of issues that we face societally too, is we, but we, we're simple creatures, like you even just said. We see what we want to see, we hear what we want to hear, we believe what we want to believe, right? And so we want to fixate on this one thing. But if I just blame it on this, right, this one thing, that's much simpler for me to understand, and now I have something to actually blame it on. Now my family can cope with it because they can say, "Oh, it's the alcohol industry," or "It's that." I mean, it allows us to kind of just deflect any responsibility that we have to take and say, "No, maybe, or maybe I'm the problem here, not, not the, not the alcohol." And I think that's, that's an interesting thing you bring up.

And you also brought up a really interesting thing about, about language, right? Because you say, when you teach people at a treatment center, you teach them a new way, like you're teaching them Japanese. But then they got to go home and speak English. And I'm curious if there's certain things that, that you hear, what are those? Let's just say people are listening and we go, "You know what, I think you're talking about my brother or my husband or my friend or whatever." Are there specific, like from all of your experience, do you have those certain things that when you hear, you go, "Yep, this guy or this girl, they have a serious problem. They don't even realize it yet." Or are there certain ways or behaviors that you've seen, heard like that are indicators to you? Because we're all about pre-event indicators, right? What is it that we can do to mitigate it before it gets really bad? Is there something that you've heard before?

Well, I always say to families and loved ones, if you think there's something going on that shouldn't be, and everybody knows. Dialogue. Start dialogue. We get all the time that wives are calling up and saying, "My husband has done this, this, this, can you help him?" I said, "I don't know, does he want help?" You have to recognize it. Now again, just going back to the brain. So we're the last to know, obviously every insane person doesn't know they're insane. But we do, we don't think alcoholic and addict, but they do, they can see it.

So we, we took about 10 patients, 20 patients, I can't remember, about 10 years ago, and they all wanted to get well. They weren't patients, it was a trial that we paid people to come in, $25 or something. We put them, 10 people on a lie detector. Every single one of them passed a lie detector that they will be sober and clean for at least a week. After the week, we would give them a hundred dollars as a thank you for taking part. So all of them relapsed after taking the lie detector. So then we asked them to write down if they ever did relapse, the journey. So the thought pattern hit them to drink. They drove to the liquor store. They got the alcohol. They got back in the car and they drank. You guys know this, but I'm going to say it anyway. What was the most intoxicating part of that story? Was the drive to the liquor store. So again, it's not a…

So people will give in. I can, I can spot an alcoholic from like two miles away. Drives my wife crazy. Or I'm going to watch what someone, who digs your brain. "What do you want to drink?" "Hey, Johnny, what, you haven't been having a sandwich?" "Oh yeah, Rob, get me a sandwich." And they're going to Coke. "What are you getting, Rob?" "Then I'm going to have two sandwiches, three bags of chips, and get me two Cokes and one and things over there." That's the addictive brain. So you can spot it. Someone will go from alcoholism, get well, but will spend $4,000 a month on shopping on Amazon. So we've got to be careful.

Right now, alcoholism attacks the brain definitely with the ethanol, but addiction is all under one umbrella when the mind's telling us one thing and we react on that because we think it's the norm. So I, I surround myself. Now, I truly believe, guys, that every alcoholic addict is born with a million-dollar mind. I truly, yes. What I say to my guys is, "Stop hanging around ten-cent minds because you will become a ten-cent mind. If you hang around nine people that are depressed, you will become the tenth." So it's all about, and what we hear as well, I mean, would you believe that words could change everything about you? The power of words is absolutely phenomenal. And my internal dialogue, if I drop a pen on the floor, I'm not a stupid idiot today. I've just dropped a pen on the floor. So all this stuff is part of getting well and realizing how much power you really have. Because we bow down to people, "I'm sorry, I've relapsed, I guess." Stop it. You have to. Would they do that if you had cancer? No. Right? They can recover from this. You can be a recovered alcoholic like me, where, like you said before, Brian, it's always there. If I want to self-sabotage, it's always there. So you just have to be careful.

You had a great comment during one of your interviews a while back, and you said, "You are the average of the five people that you hang around with." And that is so true because I remember my dad saying that, that he could tell you two things: my dad would look at your shoes and your friends, and he would tell you the rest of your life. You get what I'm saying?

Yeah, my granddad used to say that.

It was, well, he actually said, "Watch, watch the shoes. If they're polished at the front and not at the back, it's all for show." He'd say, "Watch what they wear and watch who they hang around with." That's what he used to say. And that's why, you know, you got a, you got a double PhD, and the second one in behavior. And that's what we do: human behavior pattern recognition, that's the first part, and then the analysis, the second part.

So I'm old enough that back in the day with cop work, DuPont Kevlar, when Kevlar first came out, nobody was buying bullet-resistant vests. So there was a guy that was selling him that would come around to the police agencies, and he would put on the vest, he would put a phone book in between his body and the vest, and then he would shoot himself. And I remember that was the most amazing demonstration I ever had of willpower. This guy believed in his product so much that he was going door-to-door shooting himself. Now, he doesn't do that anymore. I don't know where he is, but I hope he had a great retirement. But the reason you can spot people is not just because you're two PhDs in all the training. You spot one because you're a kindred spirit. Birds of a feather flock together. You smell them, you feel them, you taste them, you know where they're hiding things. I think that's one of the things that we have as an advantage. What led me into the work is that I was better as a neophyte spotting criminal behavior or addictive behavior than the guy next to me, only because I had it around me all the time. It influenced every facet of my life. And I think that's why I have such a great time listening to your logic.

Like, I got to ask this. I'm not a Dr. Phil fan, never have been. But you've been on Dr. Phil. Why is it that I can listen to you, but he stimulates my gag reflex?

I think you've been there. I think he's like on the ground, and you've been there. That's my feeling. And people know that. People can feel that. Yeah, it's why alcoholics always try and marry alcoholics. It's why abusers always abuse, and the battered women that you've seen the mom being battered, they always become, they attract those people. And people don't get that. It's like, listen, I don't know if you heard the box story, but this will cap it all.

There was a girl, 17, 18, in Manchester many years ago, and she was snatched off the streets by somebody. There was a huge manhunt on, and they couldn't find her. And after about a month, they had to bring the manhunt back and just two people working on it. But it's absolutely terrible, nobody knew what happened to her. There was a police officer on duty once driving down the road, and he got behind a car that had a broken signal light. So he pulled him over. And they found, he searched this car, you don't need a warrant in England, or the house. Searched his car, they found a stolen screwdriver. So in England, back in the day, when you had a stolen screwdriver on the person or the vehicle, you can go back to the house and see what else they've got stolen. So that's what they did, and they found some more stolen items. But they also found a box in the corner that was about 12 foot wide and about four foot wide. And they said, "What have you got in there?" And he says, "Oh, I don't know, I don't have a key for that. I don't know what's in there." So they said, "Look, there's going to be more stolen items." So they smashed the lock up, and they opened, and there was the girl that had been snatched nine months ago. And he'd take her every day, he was an abuser, and he'd beat her a little bit, feed her, restroom, put her back in. And that's all she knew for nine months.

So when the policewoman opened the box, she was alive. She was battered and bruised, but she was alive. So she went over and she held her hand, and she helped her step out the box. And she took a coat off the policewoman and she put it around this girl and said, "Don't worry, you're safe now." What's the first thing she did, do you think? Probably want to get back in the box. She got back in the box. Yeah. True story. Yeah. It's the same with addiction, same with sabotage.

That's, first of all, what a powerful story. And that we were there with the, with the ending just shows the, the trauma and abuse that we've suffered, and why we, why we search out each other. And when people ask me about complacency, we sometimes play in high-stakes worlds, training SEALs, pre-combat training, the Rangers or SWAT teams or Delta. And so, you know, they understand a little bit differently how life, what the balance is. And people say, "How do you, how do you not get complacent?" And what happened to me is my trauma is crime scenes. It doesn't matter where I'm at, if I close my eyes, even try to sleep, I see crime scenes, whether they're forward or back in Detroit or wherever they are, and the yellow tape and all the evidence that goes along with them. And I replay them in my mind. So all I got to do is take a look right here at the, I'm in Romanov West in my office, and I can see the yellow tape, and I can see the marks, and I can see the fingerprint dust. And that sobers me immediately to the stakes.

You know, now you, you did it in an odd way, but of a brilliant way when it comes to neuroplasticity. You have no problems going to a bar, you have no problem going to dinner where other people are drinking. Don't you find that that gets those electrochemical neurotransmitters firing? Doesn't it feel like a fight against a dragon? Like you're tilting against a, because with me, it's really hard being in a place that serves alcohol and not drinking. So it's got to be doubly hard for you. How do you, how do you balance that?

Well, it's not, you know, the compulsions of drink has been taken away, and my neural pathways have been told from self-sabotage. So most people say that, "Isn't it a fight every day?" Listen, if it was a fight for me, I'd be drinking. I'm not this brave and I'm definitely not this clever. So there actually has to be a complete change, a complete change. So I, my wife drinks once a Blue Moon. I will pour a wine. No problems with that. People drink around. We host barbecues at the house. "Oh, Robb, should we not bring alcohol?" What? Right? If I was allergic to cheese, what did I say? "Nobody can bring cheese." That's crazy. You know? So I've had that full psychic change (a change of mind), and the body's better. So yeah, I could walk anywhere. But in the early days, I can't do that, Greg. You know?

And God bless you. You know, sometimes I sit and I think about you guys because we love the ID Channel. And these guys that see this stuff, and the guys coming back from war. But the cops especially, because you know, they're expected to jump on duty next day and carry on as if nothing has happened. Nobody can do that. Nobody can do it. And we work with the ICE, NCIS. Yeah, we worked a couple of them back in Dallas, and it's unbelievable. You need to get them in that space where you can treat that PTSD because that's all it is, it's recall. It's a part of the mirroring part of the brain. You're always going to see it when you close your eyes. But there, there is a way to stop doing that through courses of brain spotting and somatic experience. Now, brain spotting has just come out. I'm a practitioner already because I think it's a fascinating tool, and you can do it online. And basically what brain spotting is, is a direct route from the pupil to the subconscious brain. Shut up. And I'm being serious. It's unbelievable. So I, I think that we're finding out every year, every month, that we'll only know this much about the brain. You know, there's so much more to know. Because you must know, Greg, that the mortality rate, the suicide rate and what you used to do is sky-high. Because poor cops, what are they? That's what they're doing. Tough every day. They can't imagine one cop going to another going, "Hey, I feel depressed today." You probably shoot him in the military.

Yeah. It's just this weekend I had another friend who committed suicide. So it's kind of weighing on me right now as you're talking about this stuff. Same thing, I went through sniper school with him, he was a complete stud. And you just, you just never know. But what I tell people is kind of what you brought up, when you said the million-dollar mind, is that the fact that you've been through that, you understand that if you can learn, like you're talking about, how to reframe that and use that, you are actually now prime, you have a better chance of being successful and doing better than everyone else in your environment because of the experience you went through. I mean, and can you, because I, that's what I try to tell people, but help me explain that to people. Like, it's like, "Wait, are you, so you're saying I've been through all this trauma, or I've seen all this hate, death, fear, and the worst things in the world, and that exposure is going to, it's going to make me better?" It's like, "Well, yes, it can." So can you explain that, please?

I truly, I truly, you know, all my college, in 23 years at colleges, universities over my time, the best time I spent was the 14 months on the streets for education. I'm amongst them guys suffering. I see what's really going on the ground, and people can see that in each day. They can see my passion because of those days. You know? So it's really interesting how our mind works. Even when that was not knowing, you ever got on a bus trip somewhere at school, go to the seaside or something, you get back on the bus, which seat you're sitting? The same when you travel. Absolutely. Even to the point where we go, "Hey!" Yeah, exactly. So we need to understand that. We also need to understand behavior, and we need to understand how the brain works.

But I'm telling you, guys, my best education was on the streets. Because you don't see what the clinicians, we see what the clinicians don't see, or the doctors. Everybody goes to the doctor, "I'm drinking a bottle of vodka a day." "How much did you drink, Dr. Kelly?" "Oh, one or two beers a day." Nobody tells the truth. Everyone wants to hide it. So this, what happens, this is what continues to happen. And I, I would love to go back and help PTSD from police and and the armed forces. I would be in heaven if I do that. You know? Because this is the focus that you can recover.

When I met my wife six years ago, we got talking, and there was a connection I've never felt before. I told her about my alcoholism, on my journey, and she was very impressed. Then it went quiet, and she said, "My brother was an alcoholic." And it says "was." So he said, "Yeah, we're all having a party. He wasn't drinking, blah, blah, blah, in a happy mood. We, we were going to go out the day after, me and him. He was so excited. He went home and shot himself in the head." What the hell is that about? So that got me intrigued of the suicide rate and what our brain is telling us and what the subconscious brain has in mind for us that we've no idea. Yeah. So it really is about, and I'm not being, guys, I'm no cleverer than anybody who's listening to this, believe me. But if I would have been at that barbecue with them, I would have seen that coming. Yep. Because I studied behavior. I study all the movements, the hand movement, suggestion. 90% of our communication is non-verbal. I would have been able to tell that he was in a bad place.

Well, two, two things immediately come to mind. One, we got to collaborate on something because we have the same field of persons, whether it's our military background or police background, our first responders, the type of people that are in high stakes. But the thing too is that the same, the self-same things we're talking about work for anybody on the way to 7-Eleven in the morning that don't have the problem. So, one. And you're in an area that, that is a tough nut to crack anyway. We travel a lot to Dallas, and Dallas does a lot of, hmm, years and years of yes without making the decision. So we would love to come down and play in San Antonio and Dallas again. So let's collaborate on something specifically earmarked for the people that are most at risk for the suicide, which we know are our veterans and our law enforcement.

And second thing is, you street things up. There's two things you've got going for, so many things you've got going for, your life has changed. But you got the ShamWow going for you. And the ShamWow is that you've got the British accent and you can do voices and stuff. And you become an American, people shut up and listen. It doesn't matter, they want to hear you. But the other thing is, you have got a bulletproof story. The idea is that you were on the street, to step away from giving the "Z job," you were the person that was out there spitting and trying to wipe a window to make enough money to go buy the gin or buy the vodka, the clear liquor that nobody could tell so you could mix it. And you were holding it together. And the fantasy that we tell ourselves where, "Hey, I've got this, I'm holding it together. I'm not like dumpster guy." How many times did you say that when you were going through it? That's fascinating to me. And that you held it together. Your books are amazing, your podcasts are amazing. The, the, the things that you've accomplished in your life are amazing. Yet you still acquiesce back to the thing that you're the fattest, dumbest, most unmotivated person in the room. That's, that's where we are all the time.

And I think that's why Brian and our kindred spirits, we go out, we open these minds, we save these lives, we do this great training, and we go back and sit in a dark hotel room and go, "We accomplished nothing today. We are the worst people in the hotel." You have to know that. That's part of the, is that part of the cure or is it part of the disease? Is that why we're better than other people at it, or is that why we're cursed? You have to know what I'm talking about because it reeks out of everything that you write and speak.

Well, I never knew I had a problem for a start. Never took the kids off me. Never knew wife left. Never knew losing of houses, cars, businesses, medical lines. Never knew until after 14 months on the street, Greg. After 14 months on the street, I dropped down on my knees on that and I cried like a baby. I wasn't crying because I lost my kids or my house or my wife. I was crying because for the first time in my life, I realized I couldn't stop drinking. So yeah, that's always there with me. But, you know, I, I am so adamant that what you believe in what you see in your mind, you can hold in your hand. So let me tell you a little scenario real quick.

Let's say on a basketball court, quantum physics tells us that we can be 25 places at the same time on that court. Wow. So somebody asked me once, "Where would you want to be, Robb?" So I want to be near the goal so I get the ball and slap it in the net. "How do I get there?" He says, "Can you see yourself over there?" "Oh yeah, I can see myself." And he leaned into him and he said this: "You walk over and you take the position." And it blew my mind. So, absolutely blew my mind. So that they're, because it's what we believe, it's what you tell guys and how you treat them, that's going to change him, not the education I have.

So they did a scientific project in England many years ago, and this scientific institution went to a school and said, "Hey, guys, we have a test, a written test that will give you the five top pupils between the ages of 11 and say 13, I think it was." There was 50 students there, and they went, "What do you mean?" "Oh, this test will tell you who the five geniuses are going to be." And I mentioned geniuses because that's how good the test is. Well, of course, the school is like, "Whoa, we want to know!" So they, they did it. They went in and then all 50 people, the kids took the test. And they went away next day and they looked at it and came back and said, "Yep, I think we can do this. Here's your top five students: it's Jimmy, it's Julie, it's Julie." "Oh, wow," she said. "Oh, okay. What else? Bill." "Oh, what, really?" "Yeah." "Oh, yeah, okay." So they got the five students and said, "We'll be back in a year's time, see how you're doing."

In a year's time, they came back and they said, "How's our star pupils doing?" And the headmaster went, "Oh my goodness, I have no idea how you've done this, but they are straight A students." This is what the research guys said to them: "There wasn't really a test, in actual fact. When we left here the first time, we threw them all away." And the teacher went, "I don't get it." He said, "Because we told you they were, you started treating them, so they started acting as if they were." It's Psychology 101. Absolutely. Once you start treating people like a hero, we become empowered. This guy's empowered people, empower people. That's the bottom line. I can change someone's, in a five-minute pep talk on the phone, change your life. In actual fact, I'm going to get my personal phone number before we finish. Because if you're in that, if you're sat at home thinking, "I'm never going to be good enough, I'm never going to amount to anything, I'm so depressed," I want to apologize to you guys, because somebody's put that there, right? This is not how we're born. So if you want a five-minute pep talk, you call me up and I'll tell you the truth about you, because it isn't about you. It's about the thousands and hundred thousand people out there who want to hear your story and get well because of your story. And that's what I got told by an old man many years ago: "Stop being selfish, Robb, get your stuff together, get through the program, create a different program and go save lives."

And that, that's you, you're getting into so much. I mean, it really is basic psychology stuff. I mean, you're talking about habits of thought, habits of action. And actually, what Greg and I do is we, we operationalize information. What you're saying is, "Here's all the information." You do the same thing in your world, you say, "Here's what the science says, here's, here's, okay, but here's the so what." Like, don't worry about all the books written on the shelf, let them collect dust where they belong, right? And, and this is how you use this, what you need this on the street. And I love that.

And one of the things, because we deal with training and understanding human behavior, and one of the things is, everyone wants to do that, "Everything's so dangerous, and someone might want to kill me." And it's like, "Okay, but you can't be hyper-vigilant because then you miss everything, right? You have to do this." And one of the things I say, my daily habit of thought, which leads to habits of action, right, because you're talking about what psychology is, is just affect, cognition, behavior, right? What you're thinking, what you're feeling, what you're doing. And so what my thing is, you know, people go, "Well, Brian, how do you, you do all this stuff where you observe people, how do you not get hyper-vigilant?" It's just every day in the morning when I brush my teeth and look myself in the mirror and say, "Someone might try to kill you today." Not, "It's going to happen," not, "You're going to be fine," not, "Look out for everything." And all that does is tell my limbic system, like you're talking about, flips that light switch on and goes, "Hey, buddy, let's, let's, let's wake up today. Let's observe our world." And that's it. So you, that's my daily thing. But I always tell people that, just, just try it. Do you have a daily, what's, what's your thing that you do in the morning or that routine that you do, that habit of thought that leads to habit of action?

So I get up in the morning and I do a quick prayer to whoever's up there, could be, you know, there's 26,000 gods, just pick one or a higher power, or more who's passed away, it makes no difference, right? And then I do what's called mirror work. I tell myself 10 times, when nobody's around, "I love you. I love you. I love you." And what I'm doing by that is not being vain, but I'm storing the subconscious brain that if, when I'm in a difficulty, that'll flip over to the prefrontal cortex and go, "I love you, Robb, you can do this." And then I go about my day. And as you know, I'm seeing six or seven people a day. So that kind of helps me. And then I go to a 12-step meeting myself once a week. And I just try. Look, everybody gets complacent, it's very hard.

Let me tell you a scenario. It's very hard to be flown over first class to Paramount Studios, that put you in one of the best hotels in Hollywood. They get a chauffeur that drives you there. You go onto this show. The audience is blown away by you. You come off and not go, "Okay, that's another day." No, my brain thinks now, "Big deal." My brain thinks now that, "Hey, where's my chauffeur, wife? Where is it?" Kind of stuff like that. So I surround myself. My wife's really good at this. And Rick, who kind of oversees me, is very good at saying, "Hey, you was a bum on the street. The only reason why you're doing this is you get a larger platform. That's all it is. If you ever think it's about you, go drink, Robb. Go drink because you're in this for the wrong reason." So I have people around me that keep me grounded, but I do that routine every single day because that's what it's about. You know, if once you get that daily routine, it's very, if you're, if you're doing a program, a real program that is, and do your daily routine, it's impossible to relapse. But you just have to be careful of the brain. If I tell you a lie, you might believe it, you might not. But if I tell you a lie often enough, you're going to believe it. But if I tell you a lie real often enough, I'm going to start to believe it. And that's what you got to think of. Think of positive things, positive people. Hang around. "Show me your friends and I'll show you your future," kind of thing. And see what you can bring to the table, because you never know whose life you're affecting.

We, we had a five-year birthday or something at one of my 12-step groups. So I decided to go for the cake, me and my assistant. A lot of cakes, being talked about. This old lady comes out. Me and her are bantering back and forth. You just meet that person. She's about 80. "If you were 20 years younger, I'd date you." And I'm like, "If I was 20 years older, I'd let you." And we just did a banter. And off she went. The next day, went back for the cake, all written on beautiful. And she came out and she said, "Can I have a word with you, sir?" And I said, "Uh oh," my brain went, "What have I done wrong?" And she said, "You know something, I want to thank you." And I said, "What for?" He said, "Yesterday, the, the banter we had, it was awesome." I said, "I know it was." He said, "No, no, you don't understand. My husband died three months ago, and I've never been able to face work again because he used to work here. Yesterday was my first day back, and I want to thank you for making my day." You see, we never know, guys. You want to show dopamine now? Say thank you to somebody. It's released in my brain. That's the way the world works.

That humility and empathy is such a core concept. The idea is that you never know who you're going to run into and where they're at and how full their cup is or how empty it is. And words matter. And taking that extra second to acknowledge somebody and make eye contact and give the nod might be all the difference between that and somebody ventilating themselves because they don't think that they're worthy of it. It's hard for me to talk about this because I have those feelings. And you walk around and what do, what do people, what are the charlatans give you? They give you platitudes, they give you the hope and the sunny and the this and that, and "Look at my effing rabbit," and all emojis and everything are around that. And that doesn't help. You know, my idea is take just a few seconds and tell somebody, "I appreciate you. Thank you for doing that. This is wonderful what you're doing." And you know what that turns into? Those brain electric and chemical signals that keep you going for another day. And that's what it's about, really. Because the idea of the ideation, the ideation that goes along with people wanting to have an addictive personality, many times is that you can't perceive a future. You know? And we see people that commit suicide that seemingly had everything. They got a trophy wife, they got a great house, they survived all of this different, but you don't understand that that trauma never goes away. That trauma erodes your trust. And if you don't take a few minutes and talk to a person about it, then, then you may allow that person to drift into that deep dark chasm. So words hurt, man, and words can help too.

That's amazing that you bring that out. Yeah, that's why it's one of the best things. Well, it's hard to do because at first I was, I was very hard at receiving a compliment. "Oh, that's a nice shirt, Robb." "Oh, it's just something I threw out. I've had it for ages." "Yeah, the price tag is on the collar, you know?" "Oh, it's just something I threw on." Do you know what I start to learn to say today? "Thank you." Yeah, that's all it is. "Thank you." So powerful. And yes or no is a full enough answer. "Oh, well, I can't go tomorrow, but let me..." Stop it already. "No, thank you for asking, though." See, we always want to prove something. Stop trying to prove something to people. How many people's lives can you make today? You know, God's put me, or higher power, whatever, has put me on a platform where I can afford to pay people's rent if they're suffering. I can afford to buy someone groceries. I can afford all this stuff. We're known for it. "If you're struggling, call us," kind of thing. But the most powerful thing is, "Hey, what a great day you've had!" "Oh, hey, I like those shoes you've got on, they're awesome." Oh my God, you will never know how much that day's been made by just, "Oh, silly old me." Yes, silly old you. So try and do it more. It's, it's absolutely amazing.

And that's what, that little stuff like that. You know, because everyone goes, "Well, how does that change anything? I'm just one person or just this." No. It's hard to see at a macro level what that would do if everyone just did that one little thing, right? And that's what changed me. You know, again, what I started doing last year after I had another friend whose military committed suicide. You know, we got social media, and everyone uses it differently and for different things, and it's good and it's bad, and it's, it's everything in between. But you get, one of the things that's good about Facebook is you get an alert when it's someone's birthday. So instead of just the empty, "Oh, happy birthday, man," or whatever, I just, I send them a text and say, "Look, this is why I appreciate you." And they're just like, "Holy cow!" Completely blown away. "Like, dude, like this is better than anything in my family."

Exactly.

I want you to know that. Because I had a great conversation with one of my buddies, George, at this funeral last year, and it was just that. It was like, "You know, we're all sitting here, we're all saying these amazing things about him. Why didn't we do that when he was alive? Why didn't he know that when, when he was alive?" And it was just those simple, simple messages, like, like you just said, like, "I do you have your mirror routine?" I might be routine for different reasons, but same, we're talking about the same, same thing, right? We're talking about it. And we need, and we need to recognize that because, you know, a couple of scenarios that happened. I was walking past the kitchen at work, and one nurse said to the other, "Did you see what just happened? That guy coming, he was suicidal. He's seen Dr. Kelly, went out. He's absolutely amazing, he's fantastic at what he does." And the other girl said, "Yeah, he is. Have you told him?" "No, no, he already knows." We don't know.

And the other thing is, I'm talking, I'm teaching at book studies, and I'm working with alcoholics at this meeting in Dallas, and it was tedious, and I've done it for years, and nobody seems to appreciate me, and everyone thinks I'm a gobshite, or some English pig who comes with this seminar. So I'm fighting against these guys. And one night there's a speaker meeting, and several people get called up, and I got up to the stage, and I said, "You know something, guys, mostly you've been nothing but snarl at me. Most of you have been nothing but talked about me on my back. I'm done." And I threw the mic down and I walked off. And it was silence. There was about 50, 60 people there. And this old man from the back that used to come, well, still does, I think, coming in at 6:00 AM, they call the coffee for the 8:00 meeting. Sweeps up all day. And he got to the stage, and he said, he looked at me and he said, "If anybody's been affected by what Robb's done in this meeting, now there were 50, 60 people there, remember, can you please stand up?" Six people stood up. And I was like, "I told you!" And then he says, "The guys that have stood up, if anybody in the audience has been affected by what they've done?" Another 20 stood up. "If anybody..." And it went around until everybody in the room had stood up. And he looked at me and he said, "Never doubt the power that you have." And he walked off. And never have since.

That's it. Our CEO brings it up and says, "Never miss an opportunity to celebrate a small win." And I like that. You walk past that and we're so sorry to remind each other. Yeah. And we say all the time, it doesn't matter whether it's Buddha or Vishnu or Allah or God or the lava lamp in your room, whatever you're praying to, if it grants you peace and makes it easier for somebody else to deal with you on that day, then, you know what, good. Drive on. Because we're right in your corner, we're right behind you. It's such, you have such an important message. Brian, I'm touched that we were able to get Dr. Robb today. You got to come back on because there's no way that we could say this hour was enough. You got to work with Brian and I on collaborating in something in Texas. Texas needs us.

Well, listen, Courtney does all my stuff, and she called me, and she doesn't usually call me and go, "Hey, you need to do this." She usually can send something over, "Hey, do you want to do this?" She sent it over and says, "You need to do this." Now, I know Courtney for a few years now, when she says that, it means it's something special. So I get on and I research you guys and I find out who you are. So I want to say this to you, I want to say thank you, Greg. Thank you, Brian. You have changed hundreds of thousands, if not millions of lives. Your change to the world is phenomenal. I'm in awe of what you guys do every single day. I'm following the podcasts. I'm going to see if we can do some more work together because you two guys, amongst all the thousands of podcasts I've done, stick out from the heart, not to get famous, not for them, but from their heart. And for me, I want to say thank you so much, guys, you're unbelievable.

Well, thank you. Thank you. I appreciate it. And thank you for, for everything that you're doing. And of course, we gravitate to you because you do it in a very aggressive manner, which just kind of fits our personalities as well because we need to be pushed into it.

Yeah, because the same way, if you come in, you're coming too soft with me, I write you off. You got to come in, I'm hard-headed, so you got to come in the same way.

So how do people get a hold of you, what to do, who reach out, where can we find? I mean, I'm going to have all the links and stuff and the details and all that, but what do you suggest to get a hold of here? What's the best way?

Dr. Robb Kelly on any search engine or Facebook, seek me out. Or robbkelly.com. I spell my name with two B's, so it's R-O-B-B K-E-L-L-Y.com. And then here's the phone number, guys. No, I'm not, my secretary's not the front desk. This is my phone number. If you're having a genuine bad time and you want to be lifted up and hear some good stuff, I want you to call me now. I'm very, very short on time, but I will dedicate five minutes to your time. You don't have to pay anything, you don't owe me anything, just let me try and cheer your day up and move you on. So it's 214-600-0210. And mention either Greg or Brian when you call me because it might go to voicemail. Just say, "Hey, I heard you on the show." And I will call you back. Even if a thousand people, I will call you back, and we'll have that chat that I guarantee will change your life, guys.

That's absolutely incredible. We are the first person to throw their phone number out on this, unless, unless Greg is telling people my phone number so they can control me.

I write Marren's phone number at every restaurant and I tell them it's just for social media.

Excellent. Thanks. 15 million followers.

Yeah, I know. Exactly.

So true. And he's very, very, he's very popular, very popular in the prison system. Exactly. A lot of people are so honored to link up when they get out.

Oh, I appreciate, I appreciate you coming on, Robb. It's all mine. The pleasures are all mine. Any time.

Well, we're going to get together. This is not the end. I got a feeling about this. And I see Branson musicians, so we're halfway there. You're a cop, Greg. You should be a cop.

I was a police officer for just three years, I know that. And I also know that you did sessions with some of the people that I think, first of all, Bowie's my, my, hello. It's a music, it's when I, I went from Motown to Bowie, just think about that. And everything that Freddie Mercury envisioned and put down in music is fascinating. And so I'm still fascinated by it. And Brian and I do references in courses. Well, before all the music videos and the TV and stuff, we use them in our small groups all the time. And Brian's an incredible musician.

Yeah. When I said it was like studio musician at Abbey Road, I was like, "Amazing."

Oh, okay. Wow. Exactly. We have so much more to do and talk about.

During my time at Abbey Road, the best person I've ever sat down with in life, ever, period, and I've sat down with some real good people, it's Freddie Mercury. That was incredible, just a beautiful guy. That's what made me want to become a beautiful guy. That's amazing.

You've achieved that. Thank you, sir. Thank you. Thanks so much for having us on. I really appreciate you coming on the show. We'll, we'll be in touch. I'll have all your contact info like everyone. And we, we, we always end it with to everyone, don't forget that training changes behavior.