Mat: All right, good morning. Welcome to the Altitude's podcast. Today we're joined by Rehabs UK Managing Director Lester Morse once again. Morning, Lester.

lester: Alright.

Mat: So we're hearing an awful lot on the news at the moment about vaping. We've covered it. We've covered the ideas a few times and sort of seems to be peaking the zeitgeist at the moment. And I know yourself, Lester, it's sort of triggered some ideas behind this concept of harm reduction and vaping kind of seems to like wrap that whole concept up in. you know, what's going on at the moment. So you know, vaping as opposed to cigarettes being less harmful and that's actually an issue sort of

lester: Yeah.

Mat: in itself that we want to discuss. So yeah, if you give us your thoughts on that, that'd be great.

lester: Yeah, well I don't know, harm reduction is like a philosophy that's been introduced into a lot of countries. Maybe you could even get it out and have a look. It's different ways of, different approach of dealing with drug addiction by sort of being less judgmental, you know, not expecting people to be abstinent before treatment and stuff like that. I'm not quite sure whether the point that I wanted to make had much to do with that in that sense but just in the idea of The idea of harm reduction in things like you're saying in that less harm from Vaping than nicotine or less harm from alcohol by using cannabis and less harm using nitrous oxide than other drugs. I think that it seems to me that, because again, I just wrote an article, got asked to write an article yesterday for a newspaper about the growing numbers of people that have anxiety and depression that they're noticing are. using nicotine and cannabis. So now they're actually are noticing that there is a growing amount of people that have got anxiety and depression. And it's always been something that I've kind of tracked to a degree because it's even like when you work in the addiction treatment field, and especially in rehab where people are generally there coming to. be removed from chemicals, a lot of them are taking antidepressants and other sort of medications along them lines and some people seem really over medicated and I always question what do they do? good or harm, especially in that field. And so, you know, I've sort of done this before where you say to people, you know, in groups, you sort of ask them, who went to the doctors at the worst time in their life? And everybody puts their hand up. who got prescribed high-powered sedatives and antidepressants? Everybody puts their hand up. Who got better? Nobody put their hand up and I've done this to quite a few hundred people. Who got worse? Everybody put their hand up. Which seems strange to me that you'd be being given medication that's actually making you worse and even I noticed reading the 12 step literature that there was a couple of lines that said in 1937 that one of the stories says I went to the doctors who prescribed high powered sedatives and then the trips to the asylums begun. You know that people have like they go in there because they've got a chemical dependency problem and what they're being given to address that problem is more chemicals.

Mat: Thank you.

lester: And so in the last 20 years, part of the harm reduction is actually sort of almost giving people chemicals and you know they want to increase that to you know consumption rooms, shooting people up and down. Again, it's quite a heated debate and I'm not sure if I'm ever, well I guess I am going to get involved in it by even just saying this publicly. It makes me stomach churn honestly, it's like so much anxiety. because it is such a heated debate. But I can't help get away from the realization that. more chemicals that you give people, the more overdoses. Because again, overdosing, the very name of it, isn't it? It's you've overdosed. You've taken too great a dose of medication. And we're facing in the last 10 years, rising overdoses. Now I'm not. I don't believe for a minute, I just don't have the statistics, but I don't believe for a minute that them people only have one substance in their system. So I think that like with Amy Winehouse for example, that you know she died apparently from vodka, but I've read some articles that said that she was also being given M&Evrin, which is what we used to call liquid alcohol. for helping her to detox. Now,

Mat: Thank you.

lester: the toxicology report never got released, but I wouldn't mind betting that it wasn't just vodka, even though the amount of vodka that she was probably consuming was enough to kill a regular person. But I would say that there probably was M&EVR and other medications in her system that's causing the overdose.

Mat: Thank you.

lester: You know, when I worked in a... in a night shelter and a day centre for homeless people about 20 years ago. One thing I noticed is how much medication they were all being given. You know they were being given like a lot of Valium, which they seemed to think they could take handfuls at a time with immunity to it. They were being given a lot of antidepressants and they were being given lots of methadone. Plus they were all drinking lots of white lightening and strong ciders. And outside the doctors office funny enough, they had a tree with all the people that had died that used that service. And one thing

Mat: Morning.

lester: I noticed, they were all his patients. Now none of them died from cancer, car crashes, liver failure. They all died through overdose. They just weren't waking up. You know, when you worked there, you would hear, oh, Tim died, they found him slumped down underneath the. subway Peter died they found him in the morning in his chair you know that was kind of what you're hearing and I knew that they were taking just ridiculous amount of substances and most of them substances were being supplied by medical professionals. to people that were, you know, it said quite clearly on the packaging of the, which I used to try and show them, and the doctors, I would show the doctors and say, look, you're giving them these medications, he's an alcoholic. And it says quite clearly here in bold, black writing, do not drink alcohol. And the doctors would say, yeah, but I tell them not to drink. And he's like, he's an alcoholic.

Mat: What do you expect?

lester: What, he can't, you know, oh it's strange mate, again even like, you'd go to the drug agencies and say look this guy needs help. And they're like well he doesn't turn up to his appointment. I just love it. One guy, he was living in such a terrible, he was a postman, he was living in complete squalor, totally bewildered. on prescription medication and alcohol and I went into the services and said look you've got to help him they said he just doesn't turn up to his appointments and so I went and got the guy I said come on I'm taking you down there I said get dressed he put no socks on odd shoes his about four buttons out. His trousers were open, his knob was hanging out, his flies. He had that alcoholic air, though, where he'd been lying and being sick. It was just all, like, gelled up with sick. I took him, his fingers were, like, brown up to about there. I mean this guy's house mate, he was unbelievable. I took him there and I said, look, what day is it? He didn't know what day it was. He said, what month? He didn't know what month, he just knew the year. So how's he supposed to turn up to appointments? Don't even know what day it is. and I said look if I give you like 60ml of meth, anfull of Valium, bottle of Whitesiders, and see if you turn up for work tomorrow, it's almost like they're on drugs. They're not going to keep appointments and time. It just seemed like absurd, like and then it's your own fault because you're not turning up for the help and for your appointments. So I don't know whether that system, so even this morning come up on my LinkedIn feed that anti-depressants have risen again. I think there's something like 80 odd million prescriptions, 40 million, 80, 60 million prescriptions. It equates to about eight million people and it's doubled since. the last 10 years it's just going up every year by like 5-10% that people are going on to antidepressants in our country. And again like this article with the anxiety, it's like you know I've been doing school talks for quite a few years but I've noticed that you know the last school talk I did at a university the teacher pulled me aside and said so many of them. full of anxiety and I'm anti-depressants. You know, and so... There's a massive rise in children vaping using nicotine, which is a very powerful mind-watering substance. There's a massive use in, people use in antidepressants. We've got massive rises in drug deaths. And I started thinking about the vaping and about the nitrous and you sort of read a bit about it and I think one thing it all has in common and even like a lot of the Joe Rogan sort of stuff, it's almost like they're making drugs more acceptable. So what I'm thinking is if you stop people being afraid. of the harms of drugs. And again, this is always the argument for the against harm minimalization, that if you legalize it, more people can do it, which I think is true. I mean, quite a lot more people die of nicotine than heroin, and a lot more people die of alcohol

Mat: Thanks for watching.

lester: than cocaine. I mean, a lot more. You know, the legal drugs. I should think even medications a lot. The legal drugs are doing far more damage. I mean, I don't think anything is doing more damage in society than alcohol. I think if you actually recorded all the damage that alcohol does in all of its nuances and all of its forms, it's a mass, weapon of mass destruction, alcohol, on the world. I'm

Mat: Mm-hmm.

lester: not against it, it does a lot of good, people enjoy it. But it is a weapon of mass destruction. So I think what's kind of happening at the minute is people are not realising the harm that nicotine, cannabis, alcohol and drugs actually have on people's lives. And I think there's almost like a perfect storm brewing in our country of chemical dependency. because it's just all rising at the moment. And I think at the heart of that is people really aren't talking about the harms that it can cause you. So, you know, you can be well informed. But one thing I knew growing up that, I don't know what it was, but even like the Herring Addicts, there seemed to be this romantic idea. I think even the film Trainspotting is sort of distressing to watch, but there's still a romantic idea about it. You know, and I think that people, for some reason, they really want to alter their minds. Is that there's a rising... psychedelics, even countries legalizing it and talking about microdosing and I think the more

Mat: And

lester: the more... Sorry man.

Mat: I just feel, I totally hear where you're coming from and I kind of just want to tackle the thought that, like you say, alcohol does good for some people and some drugs do good for some people and people will always find some way of disassociating. We had a little bit of a conversation the other day and it could even be things like food or social media and there's always a way for us to disassociate. But I think what you're... sort of getting out there is that we're really lacking any education around these harms. There's always going to be harms in the world, there will always be hardship and tough times, but there's no... just giving somebody something else to be obsessed over or something else to suppress isn't the answer, right? It's sort of what you're saying. We need education around how to deal with these feelings and how to manage these substances.

lester: Yeah, well when addiction is treatable, and most people that I've met that have been prescribed antidepressants. I mean, again, it's not as simple as this, but it's not a lot more complicated either. That even to the, you know, the people that say, look, I've got depression, but you can clearly see when you're with them that they drink too much coffee. Again, this isn't across the board, it's not a judgement. It's just this case of saying there's other ways to treat depression when you feel depressed. So... I think most depression is very healthy emotion. That I've come to that conclusion. Now look, people have... proper mental problems that's causing depression but most people I've met don't they put the label depression but they really you can see that they're not equipped mentally or emotionally to overcome their problems so you know even to the to the to the end of the part of the problem where you notice that they drink a lot of stimulants you know they use a lot of sugar You know they use, you know the amount of times I've said to people like, look how much coffee you're drinking, no wonder you've got anxiety, look at the stimulants. You know and again anxiety is not a mental illness, it's part of you telling you that you need to do something. You know everyone gets anxiety, if you've got an exam coming up you get anxiety. If you've got to go and do public speaking or you know... certain things that cause you anxiety but you grow through it if you've got the ability to do that, if you've got the mental capacity and if you've got the tools to do that you actually can grow through these experiences so a lot of the times these people you can see it's like look you've been depending on chemicals to get you through which means you haven't developed a very strong neural network, you've got a very weak nervous system because you've not developed the insulation on it and so you're very sensitive and as you're going on in that path of not actually learning how to face life's traumas and ups and downs naturally you're not developing and you're becoming weaker. Because the older you get, the more demand gets put on you. And if your nervous system can't cope with it, you're going to be crushed, crumble, or you're going to go in and try to avoid everything. So you need to develop a strong nervous system. And so all of these people with depression and anxiety, it's because they're becoming very weak. You know, it's kind of like to make it simple, if you went to the doctors and said, oh doctor, I've been lying in bed all day and I go to the shop and I can't pick up a bag of shopping. and it makes me feel depressed. Now what he should be telling is, you need to go down to the gym. You need to start exercising and developing your muscle. But he doesn't, he says, I feel depressed. He's like, well, he gives you a painkiller. The trouble with painkillers is... They do relieve the discomfort. But there's another way of relieving the discomfort. And it's developing the capacity for that issue to not be uncomfortable anymore. that's going to take some work and so you know when you say to people look you're using too much coffee too much sugar too much stimulants no wonder you're depressed a very healthy person if they had your diet and didn't exercise and didn't do things that were stimulating and didn't sleep at night because they were taking too many stimulants and wasn't exercising and wearing their body out enough that the most healthy person in the country would feel depressed. So, but you're thinking that antidepressant's not gonna fix you. It's just the painkiller. You need to develop some parts of your character, some parts of your personality, some different attitudes in the way that you approach life. You've got to become a bit stronger. That's almost defensive to people saying that. That you're weak, man.

Mat: Yeah.

lester: That you're emotionally un-weak. You're like a child because you've not developed. any strength on your nervous system and so you're becoming anxious over nothing because you're not willing to face and overcome like that book field of fear and do it anyway that's almost like oh you're abusing people by saying that to them just let's look up make it easy for them and again i just think it's creating a perfect storm of drug dependency in our country that people

Mat: Mm-hmm.

lester: are actually becoming weak and expecting easy. And again, I'm just so not, when you work in addiction treatment, it's the people that you see that are willing to start facing life on life terms, as we say, that they're willing to cross that bridge of saying, do you know what, I'm gonna stop using these chemicals or these behaviors and I'm gonna find better ways of dealing with my problems and allow myself to redevelop the capacity to overcome. So these problems are not problems and even if it still feels uncomfortable it's not going to turn me back, it's not going to stop me doing it. So more than anything I think most people need personal development far more than therapy.

Mat: you

lester: I think a lot of people

Mat: Mm-hmm.

lester: going into therapy is like I don't... I think you need to go and find a life coach rather than a therapist. I think you need someone to help motivate you. Because again, it's like, you kinda gotta be in it to win it naturally. See, naturally we're supposed to develop. You know, in either way, that guy that I said that I took into that place, you know, I was trying to tell him, look, if you don't do something, you're going to end up living under a bridge. He used to work in the post office, he had a house, he lost everything. And he's like, oh, I can't live under a bridge, I can't be homeless. And he's like, mate, you will adapt. You will adapt. But you also see the same thing, I see the homeless people that start putting themselves in difficult situations, going to college, developing, that they adapt too. It's funny, I was listening to something on a... on a podcast it said if you take a millionaire or somebody successful and make them homeless in a short period of time they've become successful again but take a homeless person and make them a millionaire and in a short period of time they'll probably be homeless again And so I think that, I think there's a truth in that. I think it's about your mental capacity, your emotional capacity is gonna determine do you succeed or fail. And,

Mat: Yeah,

lester: you know, and

Mat: it

lester: again,

Mat: can be

lester: I...

Mat: really difficult to step back, can't it? You know, as a person, if you're, like you say, whether you're the homeless person or the millionaire or whether you have a job that's causing you anxieties, it's really difficult to step back from that. I know there's something called the sunken cost fallacy where you've invested so much time into something. Even if it's going wrong, you feel like you can't change because you've put so much into that particular lifestyle or career or toxic relationship. or maybe you've done your medication for X amount of time and you feel like you can't come off of it now. So I think you're right, getting somebody like a therapist or a life coach, somebody who can, some support network that can look at the bigger picture and step back and say look, this is what your life looks like, these are your weak points. There are changes you can make but it's not easy and it's scary.

lester: That's the hardest thing for me, working with quite a few thousand people now over three decades, is encouraging people to not change the way they feel, or make a different decision when they're uncomfortable. But the people that actually start to accept being uncomfortable... but allow themselves to go into situations that are difficult for them and then start making changes. Why I love the 12-step program, because again it teaches you how to take personal infantry. So it gives you to really look at what your problem is. Because again, it's about responsibility, which again, it just seems like people just not. being taught to take responsibility. I don't even hear it on the news. It's always, it drives me nuts. They're like, oh, the children are stabbing each other. What are the government gonna do? It's like, well, what are the parents gonna do? You know, there's no personal responsibility that say, look, it's your ability to respond is the problem. But that's... the fact that when you do infantry you're seeing you're struggling in this area it shows that you've not got an ability to respond in any healthy or successful way so then a goal should be not to pain kill you because you're I don't want to say the word inadequate but underdeveloped is to say look the solution is which we call the corrective measure is we need to get you developed How do we develop you? Which again is why I believe environment is king. You know, if I go in a place that they've got all the fancy stuff but there's no recovery, it's like we are not gonna get recovery if it's not in the environment, which is why we try and get people to go to recovery environments. Because you're encouraged in recovery environments not to quit. Because one of the things is, you know, The pressure can really build in your life. And you know the first time I knew I'd overcome my addiction was when I had a traumatic event, my sister dying, and the first thought that came into my head was I'm glad I don't drink. not I need a drink or I need a cigarette. I just felt so grateful that I wasn't drunk because I knew my family descended into trauma. and I thought I could see myself drinking, coming through the door drunk, making their lives worse and making it all about me. But in that moment, I was able to support my family, which is what I would wanna do. And so I realised that, you know, in the early part of my recovery, I used to go to AA meetings and this was astonishing to me, man. I'd say, I can't believe how bad I feel, but I don't wanna drink.

Mat: I don't want to do it.

lester: I don't want to take a drug. It was like a miracle. Because that's what the book says. It says, you know, that the problem gets removed from you on the condition that you work this program. And I worked the program and I started noticing not that my whole life was wonderful, because it wasn't. It was difficult. I still had a lot of emotional and mental disorders and probably still got a handful. My life goes hard. I had two years from three years in recovery to five years in recovery. I was depressed every day for two years. I went to the doctors, he was trying to give me antidepressants. He's like, I don't want antidepressants. I ended up learning to meditate more and realizing, look, you've got to change the way you're thinking. And so I started doing that. But that was always the amazing thing to me is how. difficult my feelings can be. but my head tries to think of more positive ways whether it's you know I can't afford to be resentful yet I'm a very resentful person so I'm forever trying to stop myself being resentful I get a lot of anxiety or worry a lot but I know that it's been created by my thinking now I can dumb down my thinking with medication which I don't, I choose not to do or I can start looking at why am I worrying is the worry, you know sometimes I think it's realistic to worry, like anxiety and worry in this world is like, you know, I always can have a, for periods of this impending sense of doom, but that wouldn't be an out of place feeling in this world at the minute, would it? But again, I don't wanna live in that feeling, so you know, through spiritual practices, I've got an alternative. I'm not cured, it says you're not cured of addiction. Because again, I don't think the addiction is the substance. I think the addiction is, you know, that I think that the substance is gonna resolve my problems and it doesn't. It's not like, you know, antidepressants are not like antibiotics. You know, antibiotics kinda get rid of infections. Antidepressants don't get rid of depression. They don't fix ya. but the fact in my head, the head of an addictive personality, that when I get an uncomfortable thought or feeling, the first thought that comes in my head isn't to take a drug. Now don't get me wrong, every now and then, out in the blue for some reason, something new may happen in my life and I've noticed not for a long time, but it did shock me a little while back then. I can't remember what it was, but I sort of, something different happened that I'd not been accustomed to. And I felt uncomfortable. And the first thought I had was, have a cigarette. Now I haven't smoked in

Mat: Hmm.

lester: 27 years, but still my body. thought nicotine would be the relief. I mean, you can get that, mate, when I was single and I didn't realise I felt lonely. And for no reason at all out of the blue, I'm walking through Asda's buying food and I don't remember feeling lonely, I don't remember thinking lonely, but I was buying my dinner, so I guess I was buying it for myself. And all of a sudden it's like this overwhelming suicidal thought come into my head. And I thought, man that was a powerful experience. All of a sudden I felt suicidal. And when I got home, because I've learned to meditate over three decades, I thought I'd better see where that come from. So I sat myself down and went into my meditation. and took myself back to that moment in as does and what I realised was, which I never knew until that moment, that I actually felt lonely. But I didn't realise that I'd been lonely all my life and what a traumatic and uncomfortable feeling that was. And so this part of me that we call the ego that's trying to protect me, instead of letting me feel this terrible feeling or emotion of loneliness, it threw this idea of suicide. at me. You know like they say like anger is a secondary emotion, anger is usually covering over what you're really feeling and do you know the funny thing is what I'm usually really feeling is love but love hurts especially when you're dysfunctional. And so, for example, if I care about you... and you let me down. I feel hurt because I care about you. But if I'm in a healthy place, I'll go, oh, I feel really hurt. And then I'd phone you up and go, oh Matt, I felt really let down mate, I felt really hurt. And then you'd probably go if you're healthy, oh I'm sorry mate, I didn't mean to make you feel like that, you know, I love you. You know, you restore yourself.

Mat: Oh.

lester: But when you don't have that process, that feeling of love and hurt comes out, you're like, Matt, I fucking hate that Matt. I'm never talking to him again. I'm never putting myself in that position to let him do that to me again. That's an ongoing process that I'm in. That

Mat: Thank you.

lester: my love has expressed itself mostly in anger all my life. I'm a very sensitive person. But when I learn to express it in telling people, not in an angry way, how I feel, they usually restore that. Not always. Sometimes they're like, well I think you're a prat and I don't want to hang around you anyway because you do needy or whatever and it's like well that hurts but I could do something with that. But it's about learning how to balance my chemicals out. with spiritual practices like forgiveness and understanding, patience and tolerance, rather than with medications. Because I think if you don't learn how to balance your emotions on the inside, you generally look outside, whether it's chemicals or behaviours or porn or gym, or you tend to try and balance your internal... feelings with using external... so the whole world is a bit of a drug to a degree but the truth is you can learn to balance your own emotional state without taking that stuff but while you're on that stuff that's not a possible process it's just not possible but more and more they seem to be trying to promote the people that you can develop. redevelop your neural network while you're on certain medications and I don't think that's true. I think I've noticed that certain medications

Mat: Absolutely.

lester: actually stop you from developing like methadone. I think methadone actually blocks you from developing. It may improve your situation but you're going to be stuck

Mat: Yeah.

lester: in that situation. You're not going to develop

Mat: well

lester: beyond

Mat: they're all

lester: a certain

Mat: tints

lester: point.

Mat: and buffers to...

lester: Yeah,

Mat: they're

lester: I think

Mat: all sort

lester: you

Mat: of tints

lester: are.

Mat: and buffers from your perception of the world, aren't they? It's

lester: Yeah.

Mat: just going to make your true perception of it that much more difficult.

lester: Yeah, well the way I kind of look at it is if you like develop naturally from a child and if you imagine that you know your nervous system is a hair and when you're sensitive as a child that's why they keep a lot of responsibilities from you because you're not developed enough to deal with it but when you have a problem you go home and go oh Freddie called me this and your mum would go well maybe Freddie was having a bad day and... you know they start developing an insulation around your nervous system because what you what you want ideally is to take in information from your experience of the world you want to be able to collect that information that data you want to be able to analyze it accurately and then respond to it correctly and that's a well adjusted person. That they're taking in all of the data from their nervous system, all their emotions and their senses, you know, we've all got a lot of senses, human beings, but most of us have no way of collecting the data and we're doing really bad analysis of it. And so sometimes it becomes overwhelming and so we're deadening it down. which is where the drugs and alcohol come in. The painkiller, but the painkiller is often a sign of underdevelopment. So taking the painkillers, in the short term, it's a kindness, but in the long term, it's destroying the person because, you know, life is the best teacher and the best developer. So we've got to go, which again, is what I call the bridge, is to say, look, we've got to get that natural process happening. Now you're an adult, but you've got the emotions of a 12 year old. or less. So you're like a child. But that's fine. But we need to get you back into the natural process which means now you've got to get your emotions because again the antidepressants and the painkiller become the insulation. But there's not a lot getting through the insulation so you're not getting a lot of good data. You're being dumbed down. even if you could and um If you did know how to analyse the data that you were getting and respond to it correctly, you wouldn't feel it because the insulation is too thick. You're protecting your nervous system. So you're not feeling anything bad, but you're not going to be feeling anything good either, not that's natural. Because all the good feelings being produced is not natural, it's chemical. So sort of recovery in the abstinence sort of recovery, the philosophy is right. We need to remove, probably slowly, remove the false synthetic insulation on your nervous system. And then life has to start happening again, which means your nervous systems are gonna get. challenged and they are going to get pinged and they are going to get hurt but as that's happening it's like going down the gym. As that process is happening slowly you're figuring it out you're learning better responses but while you're doing that you're building a natural insulation back over your nervous system so it's going from the synthetic nervous system that the doctor's giving you to the natural nervous system that nature's giving you. But that in-between bit, this is crossing the bridge. It can be a little bit uncomfortable, but that pain. is what's going to allow you to grow. And again, that's the hardest thing I find to explain to people in abstinent recovery that you are going to go through difficulties, but that's a good thing because it's going to develop you. As long as you keep adjusting yourself and learning and changing the way that you think about situations, it's actually redeveloping the nervous system and it should get stronger and stronger, which actually will give you more... capacity because in this state you're not developing so you're kind of stuck and a lot of people's

Mat: Yeah.

lester: life rescind because they're like well I don't want to do a lot because it's too difficult for me and it makes me too uncomfortable so I shall rescind my life down to shelter, food, security but I'm not going to actually live my dreams or you know it's almost like they... I use them analogies, they're like a ship that's gone into a port and they're never going to leave the port again, they're never going to get to sail the world and have adventures and go to fantastic places and have incredible experiences because they're now incapable or afraid of the storms and the things that you know smooth seas don't make good sailors

Mat: We'll see.

lester: it's how do I learn to and really that's the redevelopment

Mat: Mm-hmm.

lester: of the nervous system that's where you need good support that's where you need like I say I think you're better off with life coaches than therapists for most people I think most people just need some

Mat: Yeah.

lester: good support some good information and a willingness to go you know what I don't like going down the gym So I need someone that does to keep encouraging me and pushing me and pushing me because if they keep pushing me Then and I keep going eventually I'm gonna end up with that six-pack. It's guaranteed the only thing that's Stopping me from getting the six-pack is that I don't want to go down the gym and do the work that it takes But that's the same in all areas of life

Mat: Yeah, Lester,

lester: for

Mat: I

lester: giving

Mat: think that's

lester: us.

Mat: a really perfect point to end it on there today. I think it totally makes a lot of sense what he's saying there. And I think a lot of people will hopefully be able to take something away from that. Um, cause yeah, you're dead right. The smooth seas don't make a good sailor. I think that's a metaphor for life really, isn't it? Especially in the world of addiction.

lester: Cool.

Mat: All right,

lester: Thank you very much

Mat: Thank you so much for your time today.