Navigating Addiction and Redefining Pleasure Through Personal Transformation - Massimo Rigotti

What happens when the pursuit of pleasure intertwines with the shadows of addiction? Unravel these mysteries as we welcome Massimo Rigotti, the ingenious mind behind the Sober Method. Massimo shares his courageous journey from grappling with addiction and bipolar disorder to discovering a life of balance and moderation. Together, we navigate the intricate web of how the quest for pleasure can spiral into addiction, driven by the brain's chemistry and the desire to fulfill deeper unmet needs. Massimo enlightens us on the significance of confidence within relationships, explaining how the lack of certain qualities can lead to dependency and addictive behaviors.

The narrative continues with an inspiring account from a Muslim woman who has triumphed over addiction through her transformative Soul Method. Her story is a powerful testament to the possibility of finding healing and growth even amidst adversity. We reflect on the need to redefine true pleasure, emphasizing the journey of self-discovery and understanding as pathways to healing. This episode is a beacon of hope, urging listeners to share these compelling stories and insights. Let's keep the dialogue alive about discovering genuine pleasure and courage in our lives.

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Chapters

• 0:01 The Interplay Between Addiction and Pleasure
• 17:46 Redefining Pleasure Through Healing

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:01

Hey everyone, welcome back to Pleasure Principles, the podcast where we unravel the mysteries of human connection, intimacy and the profound persuade of joy in our lives. I'm your host, vivek, and today's conversation promises to be one of the books. And today's conversation promises to be one of the books. So we are exploring the intricate and often paradoxical link between addiction and the persuade of pleasure in relationships. So how do our deepest desires and cravings intervene with patterns of addiction, and what does it mean to truly find pleasure that nurtures rather than numbs? So, to guide us through this labyrinth, I'm thrilled to welcome Massimo Rigotti. So welcome to the show, massimo.

Speaker 2: 0:59

Thank you so much, avik, for the introduction. This is going to be quite an interesting topic because, as you very correctly stated, there is such a labyrinth that is involved when you take the fine line of addiction and wrap it in human pleasure. It's a very interesting connection.

Speaker 1: 1:22

Exactly exactly. And, dear listeners, before we start, I'd really love to introduce Massimo to all of you. So Massimo is a man whose story is as inspiring as it is transformative. Like, from battling addiction and bipolar disorder to developing the groundbreaking sober method, he has turned his struggles into a roadmap for recovery and the growth. So he is an acclaimed author, speaker and addiction recovery advocate, and his insights on pleasure, confidence and holistic restoration are nothing short of groundbreaking. So, massimo, welcome to the show again and let's dive deep into and bring some light to this important and often unspoken connections.

Speaker 2: 2:12

Sounds exciting.

Speaker 1: 2:13

Exactly so, Massimo. Like any experience, how does the human pursuit of pleasure often veer into the addiction, particularly in the context of relationships?

Speaker 2: 2:29

Yeah. So it's very easy to find oneself addicted to someone and oftentimes we don't look at it necessarily as an addiction. But we've all heard the saying oh, I just can't live without this person, I can't live without her, oh, I'm just completely broken without this person. And those are subtle signs of a natural addiction to being connected with someone. Involved in actual chemical addiction are at play here. So if you are naturally someone who has an addictive personality, it's very easy for this to tip into seeking pleasure as well as your chemical addiction. Or sometimes people only pursue pleasure as their addiction. So it's very interesting how this connects, because we're talking about chemicals in the brain that when we receive positive reaction, these chemicals are released serotonin, dopamine and we're getting that hit, we're getting that fix and we want more and more of it and we will go to great lengths to achieve, in this case, pleasure, to get our fix.

Speaker 1: 3:46

Exactly, and when you were in the depths of your own struggle, so did you find that the pursuit of pleasure was making something deeper, like pain, fear or maybe even unmet needs.

Speaker 2: 4:03

Yes, you know I'm one that actually combined the whole chemical challenges I had with a pursuit of physical pleasure for a time. So I can speak directly to this understanding of wanting to connect with another person on a sexual level and find that pleasure that anything could become addictive. That really became. My greatest challenge, when I was really in the deepest throes of my addiction is that anything could become addictive. Food could become addictive. Oh, I had to have this certain particular. It was just the repetition. I had to eat this particular thing once a day or else I didn't feel like I had my fix.

Speaker 2: 4:53

And that's that intertwining of wanting to wanting to feel whole you're really driving towards. Something that is missing within you is what I came to realize in my own work and the work that I do with others now is that we're trying to fulfill a need. These needs are being fulfilled in the brain with chemical reactions, so we're chasing something that is not being given to us naturally. So we, basically we go for the easy fix. We're lazy as humans, so we always go for the thing that's easiest, and if the easiest way to get it is pleasure, then we're going to go do things that are pleasurable If the easiest way is to drink, then we're going to drink. If the easiest way is to do a drug, then it'll be to do the drug. So that's that's really where we need to focus that deep understanding that it is not unnatural for someone to be addicted to this type of pleasure.

Speaker 1: 5:55

That's lovely. I mean, it's such a powerful insight like how the pursuit of something seemingly positive can spiral into something destructive also. So it makes me think about how we define healthy pleasure. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 6:13

Yeah Well, you know, when you say that defining healthy pleasure, it's really, at the end of the day, it's finding that natural balance in one's life and knowing that you should just do everything in moderation. And I think that we hear that a lot and it's just kind of ah, it's in one ear and out the other. But there's a lot of truth in that. It is finding that balance to never put too much of one thing on the scale you don't want to be. You are not going to be healthy if all you eat is junk food. You're not going to be happy if all you engage in is activities that would make you sad. You know, these are, these are just like kind of natural things that if you have a balanced life and you engage in things that balance that life, then you're going to find that you don't delve into the easy fixes, because that's really what it is.

Speaker 1: 7:09

Okay, yeah. So um and uh, how does the search of uh intimacy, or a lack of it, play, and play into the uh addictive behaviors within the relationship? What is it?

Speaker 2: 7:27

Uh well, my personal view on it is is a is a little bit nuanced. I've had this huge drive into believing that confidence is the underlying greatest factor in us being happy as individuals, Because and I see this play out a lot of time in my own clients today is that they will seek out a relationship to make themselves happy. They will more or less attach to someone who has the strength that they wish they had and then they will live that life as if it's almost like a barnacle attaching to a whale. You know the whale's doing fine and I'll be doing fine if I attach myself to the whale, because I'll still be able to eat and I'll be happy and it'll be fine.

Speaker 2: 8:14

But you're not really happy. So you're constantly seeking out the approval of the person that you're wanting to feel that deeper connection or any connection with the individual. The sexual pleasure of having that intimate relation with someone is the easiest way for you to feel like you belong and that you're getting that connection with somebody. That is often much more difficult to get the chemical release that you would like when you're not having the pleasurable interaction with somebody. So if you become and rise to that confidence level as an individual, then you find that you don't necessarily need these other things or, in this case, to be with someone else. Could I actually live my life without anyone else? And if you can, then you're not going to lean into the pleasure. It will be about a healthy balance. Then, when you're in an intimate relationship because you know that you can survive without it, if that makes sense.

Speaker 1: 9:24

Understood, understood. Yeah, and do you think that our society's approach to intimacy, especially for men, sets up for those challenges is that men, we can't really show our emotions without being often punished for them.

Speaker 2: 9:52

I mean, in most of society, even though we say it's okay for men to show their emotions, they're still punished for actually showing these. I mean, you have to be strong and have that strength. That's just the natural thing of of being a male, and so if you are, you're seen as weak, uh, if you're leaning into these types of, uh, pleasurable activities instead of being capable of just uh, it's okay. I guess it's viewed okay to to have these kind of intimacy challenges, uh, from the outside world, but we can't necessarily voice our own emotional struggles. Does that make any sense?

Speaker 1: 10:43

uh, yeah, you can say differently. You can say and um, I mean, I mean it's true that there's often this unspoken pressure on the men to perform intimacy rather than actually experience it. So, yeah, understood, yeah. So also talking about your sober method is definitely transformative. So how do its principles work? I mean, the sober method principles apply to the cultivating healthy relationships, especially in breaking cycles of toxic pressure shaking.

Speaker 2: 11:27

Yeah, that's definitely would be broken down in the depth at which you go to observing yourself in the O step of the sober method, which you go to observing yourself in the O step of the sober method. So it's looking at your behaviors and measuring that, taking that measuring stick against to what is actually healthy and then mapping different behavior that is healthy and testing your strength to to have that behavior in the future. So you know we're talking about intimate relations today. But intimate relationships they always begin at some level of natural interaction between two people. And if it's a healthy interaction between two people, that's very easy for us to understand.

Speaker 2: 12:12

Anyone to understand People who are in toxic relationships know they're in toxic relationships. Anyone to understand People who are in toxic relationships know they're in toxic relationships. So they do. They deny that they're in them, but they do know they're in them.

Speaker 2: 12:26

If you ask anyone who you see in a relationship that's toxic, of course they'll immediately say no, I'm not. But if you press them a little bit they will admit to it. And when they do then you can pull them back and ask them. What would you do differently in this situation? Do you think that what you're doing to this person, the way that you are attacking them might cause challenges in other areas of your relationship, becoming intimate with them, etc. And that's kind of where the rubber meets the road in looking at how to dig deeper into that interaction. And then, once you understand how you might react differently, then you want to test that behavior and see if you can change that with the individual you're with Now you're not always going to be able to. You're with Now you're not always going to be able to. And that's the important thing that you have to view in this is that if you're using the sober method to fix your relationship, you both really need to want to change the relationship, because it requires work from Exactly, very true, yeah.

Speaker 1: 13:35

And I mean what to say, like if someone in a relationship where addiction, whether theirs or their partner's, is a factor, like how can they start implementing these principles without overwhelming themselves?

Speaker 2: 13:55

Well, you have to start small. You really do and the biggest way to do that is to look at. You have to understand what your largest challenge is in the relationship first, and not to backtrack to about saying start small. You have to understand what your biggest challenge is and then you have to look at all of the components that make up this challenge. And and that's where sober really works well is because you're peeling off the. What is holding this up, what is holding up the greatest challenge you have.

Speaker 2: 14:30

So you peel back one challenge, fix that, and then you peel back another, and then the, then the relationship as it frames up is going to begin to heal itself as you work through each one of the challenges that you have in your relationship. It definitely can be done, but it again it is going to require that dedicated daily work from both sides. And and that's a real challenge and and I think that sometimes and this is where fear strikes a lot of people and having a lack of confidence is that sometimes the best thing to do is to step back, take a break and come back and try to rebuild that you have. It's sometimes very difficult to work on things when you're right in the center of it in a relationship, whereas if you step away for a period of time and cool off and then come back together to try to work on things, it generally has a better outcome.

Speaker 1: 15:28

Exactly, very true, yeah, I mean, I love the idea of incremental change. It's like planting seeds, yeah and yeah. So it's all small step, small actions over time and it can definitely lead to a profound growth. So that's, that's a great one. Yeah and uh. Also like um, your concept of the flavor of confidence is intriguing. So how does building confidence influence your ability to experience authentic pleasure in relationships?

Speaker 2: 16:06

I'll tell you what it's.

Speaker 2: 16:07

One of the most amazing things that I can ever explain is that when I finally found myself confident in my life, it changed the way that I looked at everything.

Speaker 2: 16:19

Just imagine being able to walk into any room and know that it didn't matter what you did, because you were just yourself. Imagine if you were able to be yourself in a relationship, if you presented yourself in any relationship, a friendship, to an intimate one, and you were yourself and your reaction to the other person was your authentic reaction, not a filtered one that you were providing feedback that you thought the other person would like or approve of. Well, you're going to get it right back the authentic self that you put forward by being confident on who you are. You receive that right back from other people, and I watched as many of my long-term relationships, long-term friendships, changed during that time period. Now, I didn't make it through my addiction challenges with my wife, with my ex-wife now, but I will tell you this much we've been divorced for 12 years and we still are in regular contact, but and and that amazes me, um because we managed to finally see one another for who we are and gained a mutual respect for one another that's lovely.

Speaker 1: 17:33

Yeah, yeah and um, I mean, uh, it's, it's definitely that confidence is such a game changer. What an incredible conversation today. Muslim woman, and your insights on the connection between addiction and the pursuit of pleasure in relationships are both eye-opening and inspiring. So your journey from battling inner demons to creating the transformative soul method reminds us that even in our darkest moments, there's a path to the healing and the environment. So thank you everyone for tuning in to Pleasure Principles and if you enjoyed this episode, share it with a friend or family or someone who needs to hear it, subscribe and leave us a review. Remember to post a-wedding. Pleasure should end. This is your host, abhi, signing off. So stay curious, stay courageous and let's keep redefining what pleasure truly means. So thank you so much.