What most people don't realize about addiction, whether it’s to alcohol, drugs, shopping, overeating, or porn, is that it’s not the core of the problem. The addicted person just uses it to cope with their real problem: their addicted mind or funky brain. For recovery to happen, people need to change their thinking to grow to new levels of awareness.

On this episode, Duane talks with Dennis Berry, the author of Funky Wisdom: A Practical Guide to Life and the host of The Funky Brain Podcast. He has been sober since April 8, 2003 and now has expertise in life mastery. During the time since 2003, he became a successful businessman, athlete, and family man. His journey and recovery helped him find his mission in life: to help others achieve inner peace, success, and mastery in every area of their lives. 

Dennis knows what it's like to be helpless and hopeless with no positive direction. He was able to climb out of the gutter and transform his life so now he spends his life helping others do the same. His goal is to help people understand life on a whole different level and to see the world differently.

Living by his mantra of gratitude and service, he hopes to shorten people's learning curve for growing to new levels of awareness to six months or a year instead of five or seven years. 

Dennis calls himself a grateful alcoholic because all that he did got him to this new place of living, growth, understanding, and awareness. 

Today, Dennis talks about practical steps you can take to mitigate your suffering, ease your pain, and create the meaningful life you want. Hopefully, this episode helps you on your journey through recovery. 

In this episode, you will hear:

• It’s not about drinking but emotional sobriety.
• The inspiration behind his book and why “funky wisdom.”
• The HOW approach to what.
• What you need to do when your world changes.
• What can you do with your most valuable asset?
• If addiction is not the real problem, what is?
• How do you create willingness?
• Why he's a grateful alcoholic.
• The value of having an expert in every area of your life.
• Rewiring your beliefs and behaviors in six categories of your life.
• Why writing is more powerful than talk therapy.

Key Quotes:

[02:30] - "It wasn't about not drinking... it's about following up. It's about looking at the world in the eye and acting like a mature adult. And what we strive for really is emotional sobriety”

[07:32] - "You can't solve a problem you can't admit exists."

[07:43] - "When you're in enough pain, that's when the change can occur because we don't like change as human beings."

[08:15] - “When I'm stressed out, angry, resentful, fearful, you know, what I find is usually that the world changed, and I didn't change along with it."

[13:47] - “We need to really change our thinking to really grow to new levels of awareness.”

[23:19] - “It may not help them at this moment. But we're planting those seeds."

[28:17] - "We want to surround ourselves with success all the time, whenever possible. So I was taught to have an expert in every area of your life."

[30:37] - "There's no shame in asking for help. In fact, it'll get you there faster."

[32:50] - “What we need to do is focus on one goal at a time. We start knocking down each of those goals at a high level. And then all of a sudden, we start changing.”

Supporting Resources:

Funky Wisdom: A Practical Guide to Life

The Funky Brain Podcast

Episode Credits

If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.

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