Joe Rogan Experience #1708 - Anne Lembke

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The Joe Rogan Experience.

Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night. All day. (instrumental music)

All right, hello.

Hi.

Thanks for doing this. Appreciate it.

I'm happy to be here.

I'm very excited to talk to you about this. This is a very, uh, interesting subject. I have had problems with addiction my whole life.

Okay.

Particularly, like, I had a really bad video game addiction at one point in time, and, uh, I had to quit cold turkey. It was like a eight-hour-a-day addiction. Like-

And, and when, when was that?

20 years ago? Somewhere around then.

Okay.

Yeah.

So-

Little more than 20 years ago.

Okay. So you were in your 30s?

Yeah.

And how did you realize that you were addicted?

Oh, I knew.

Okay. You, you-

(laughs) I did, I did the whole time.

You, you, you knew from the very beginning?

Well, it was very fun. I was playing this, uh, online video game called Quake. And what it is, is you play online and, you know, you, uh, you, you are in this 3D environment.

Yes.

And you hear, like, sounds in 3D-

Mm-hmm.

... and s- the graphics are amazing, and you're running around shooting at people, and they're shooting at you, and it's real exciting. It's very thrilling. But it's not real life, and, uh, it'll eat your whole life away.

Yeah.

(laughs)

So, I'm, I'm curious, how did you ... I mean, did you know from the very beginning that you were addicted, or was-

No.

... there a... So what, at what point, like, how long into it did you say, "Gee, this is a problem. I should change this behavior"?

Uh, well, when I would w- I would go to bed in the morning.

(laughs)

'Cause I would come home from, like, a comedy show and I would literally play all night long.

Okay.

And then-

Yeah.

... I would realize it was, like, eight o'clock in the morning, and the sun was up, and I was just going to bed. I was like, "This is terrible for you."

Yeah.

Like, "What am I doing? I'm, like, basically working the night shift." And, uh, I was also, uh, realizing that I was tired a lot 'cause I was just, like, really wrecking my, um, my system-

Right. Mm-hmm.

... by, by doing that, by staying up. And also, the game is so exciting, like, "Aah!" You know, you're redlining.

Yeah. Yeah.

And then you get out of there, and you're like ... You'll, you, you feel cracked out.

Yeah. So usually, you know, as we become addicted to something, we don't see it.

Hmm.