Dr. Gary Sprouse on the Stress Reducer Loop

What if the habit helping you cope with stress is now creating even more of it? Dr. Gary Sprouse returns to explain how recognizing that cycle can help you change it without allowing shame or harmful labels to define you.

Known as “The Less Stress Doc,” Gary is a retired primary care physician, speaker, and author of Highway to Your Happy Place: A Roadmap to Less Stress. In this conversation, he introduces his concept of “stress-reducer loops,” recurring patterns that can involve alcohol, tobacco, social media, work, shopping, exercise, self-sacrifice, or almost anything used to escape stress.

You will learn:

• How an ordinary coping behavior can become a stress-reducer loop
• Why caring people are especially vulnerable to burnout
• How replacing “I have to” with “I choose to” can restore control
• Why setbacks should become learning experiences instead of sources of shame
• How gratitude, connection, hope, and purpose create an accessible happy place

Gary also shares plans for Loop Breakers, his hybrid educational program designed to help people understand their patterns, reduce stress, and build healthier responses.

Learn more about Gary at https://thelessstressdoc.com/ or contact him at lesstressdoc@gmail.com.

This episode is sponsored by Tar Heel Construction Group. Visit https://tarheelconstructiongroup.com/ or call 410-638-7021.

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Transcript

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Wendy & Rich 0:01
Coming to you from the Freedom Federal Credit Union studios, Hartford County living presents Conversations with Rich Bennett. 

Rich Bennett 0:27
Have you ever wondered why some people seem to stay calm no matter what life throws at them while the rest of us can get overwhelmed by the smallest things? Well, today's returning guest has spent years helping people answer that very question. Dr. Gary Sprouse, the Let's Stress Doc, is back! 

I feel like I gotta do that from the movie. He's a retired primary care physician with nearly 40 years of experience. And since our last conversation, he's been busy expanding his mission of helping people spend more time at what he calls their happy place. He's launched an online course, become a regular voice on WCTR with his weekly radio segment, shared his message at the University of Toronto, and he's either preparing or has done a TEDx talk. So, stress isn't going away. If anything, life seems to get more demanding every year. But what if you could change the way you respond to it? What if you had practical tools to quiet the anxiety,stop  overthinking, and enjoy life a little more? That's exactly what we're diving into today. So, whether you heard Dr. Sprouse the first time around or this is your introduction to the Let's Stress Doc, I think you're going to walk away with some simple but powerful tools that can make a real difference in your everyday life. I don't know if I should just call you the Let's Stress Doc, Dr. Gary, Dr. Sprouse, Jom Jovi, or what? 

Gary Sprouse 2:10
Well, you can call me Gary, or my friends call me Doc, so whatever. When I'm playing basketball, I'm Doc. I don't even know if they know my first name, there's Doc. 

Rich Bennett 2:20
for those of you who are like, "Jompon Jovi," 

Gary Sprouse 2:21
And 

Rich Bennett 2:22
that's because he still does karaoke, and if you listen to the first episode, I think we did cover that. 

Gary Sprouse 2:28
I don't know, maybe. 

Rich Bennett 2:28
For a little bit. 

Gary Sprouse 2:29
I don't know. 

Rich Bennett 2:31
Oh, I'm sure we did. So, since the last time you've been on, what have you been doing? 

Gary Sprouse 2:38
So, I've been doing a lot of different talks. I was in Toronto, I did a couple talks there. University of Toronto is beautiful, right? 

Rich Bennett 2:45
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 2:45
It's their number one university in Canada. And I'm like, "Toronto's a very nice city." I'm like, "Maybe we should stay here, right?" And as I'm driving home with my wife, we get between the two big lakes, and a snow storm comes up, 

Rich Bennett 2:58
wind... 

Gary Sprouse 2:58
and the 

Rich Bennett 2:59
Oh, 

Gary Sprouse 2:59
it's whipping, and it's literally knocking semi-trucks over. And I'm like, "Yeah, no, take me back to Maryland." 

Rich Bennett 3:07
That wasn't this year, or this past 

Gary Sprouse 3:08
It 

Rich Bennett 3:08
year. 

Gary Sprouse 3:09
was in November, yeah, it was great. 

Rich Bennett 3:10
So, you brought that snow... 

Gary Sprouse 3:12
lot. Oh, yeah. Now, yeah, it was before that. Yeah, that was crazy. 

Rich Bennett 3:15
Yeah, thanks a 

Gary Sprouse 3:15
And I just went back from Dallas where I did a talk. And for a bunch of nurses, the director of nurses for nursing homes, and I was doing a talk on how to not get burnt out. And now, actually, as I'm doing a talk, I'm like, "This is good stuff. I'm like learning new stuff here. This is good." Because what I found was a lot of people get burnt out, and it's a big problem. And it's not that it's easy to fix, but it's kind of straightforward, the things you have to do. 

Rich Bennett 3:42
I think a lot of people are afraid to step back, too. 

Gary Sprouse 3:46
Well, I wanted 

Rich Bennett 3:47
to avoid burnout. 

Gary Sprouse 3:47
So the people who get burnt out are actually the people who care. Like, if you don't care, you just 

Rich Bennett 3:52
That's 

Gary Sprouse 3:52
show them... 

Rich Bennett 3:53
true, yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 3:53
Show them up, and you're doing your eight hours, you don't get burnt out, because you're just showing up, and get your eight hours and moving on. People who care, these are the people that get in trouble, where they go, "I really want to do a good job." But the system around me is not set up to be able to do that. So they get real 

Rich Bennett 4:07
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 4:08
frustrated, and that's where the burnout comes in. And they're very... They have high standards for themselves, so they think they should be doing this 100% job. So if they're only doing 95, then they feel like they're failing. And I'm like, "Nah, nah, nah, nah." You're 95 is probably better than most people's 50, right? So like, if you're doing 95, you're doing a good job. So stop beating yourself up for that last 5%. 

Rich Bennett 4:33
Wow. So Toronto Dallas, where else have you been to speed? 

Gary Sprouse 4:36
Oh, this is my favorite one. So I was just on a billboard in Times Square. 

Rich Bennett 4:42
Wait a minute, what? 

Gary Sprouse 4:44
So I'm in Times Square, and I'm on like a 10-story building with my picture on there, and it's like, "What?!" Yeah, it was crazy. 

Rich Bennett 4:52
For speaking 

Gary Sprouse 4:53
Nah, it's so like it was a publicity thing, but it's like you're 

Rich Bennett 4:57
engagement. 

Gary Sprouse 4:58
standing in front of your picture that's on this billboard, and the 

Rich Bennett 5:01
Uh-huh. 

Gary Sprouse 5:01
people in New York are going, wait, that's the, wait, he's up there. What, what, yeah, it was pretty cool. 

Rich Bennett 5:06
Wow, that's pretty wild. 

Gary Sprouse 5:08
That was wild. 

Rich Bennett 5:10
Man, okay, first of all, and their digital billboards, aren't they? 

Gary Sprouse 5:14
Yeah, it's wild. So somebody, 

Rich Bennett 5:16
They broke 

Gary Sprouse 5:17
yeah. So somebody, what they do is they, it was a company that I'm working with, and they make a video of you, and only last like a minute or 

Rich Bennett 5:26
it, 

Gary Sprouse 5:26
two, 

Rich Bennett 5:26
right? 

Gary Sprouse 5:26
but they put the video up there, and then you're up there, and you're getting your pictures so you're like, okay, I think I got a minute, so, okay, this, this, this, right. 

Rich Bennett 5:35
Oh, so it's only up there for a minute, it's not something that's really--

Gary Sprouse 5:38
Yeah, no, no, wow, to do that, like 

Rich Bennett 5:41
are--

Gary Sprouse 5:41
if you 

Rich Bennett 5:41
You're paying a 

Gary Sprouse 5:42
The 

Rich Bennett 5:42
normal leg. 

Gary Sprouse 5:42
Broadway show has put it on my there for three months, that can cost $50, 000, yeah, no. I wasn't doing that, so. 

Rich Bennett 5:50
$50, 000? 

Gary Sprouse 5:51
If you're up there for three months, depending on which one you're on, so. 

Rich Bennett 5:55
Oh, yeah, no, 

Gary Sprouse 5:57
no. 

Rich Bennett 5:57
No, no. 

Nevermind. 

Gary Sprouse 5:58
Yeah, what I did was part of a package that I'd signed up for, it was part of the Toronto package, actually. 

Rich Bennett 6:03
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 6:03
And so they were like, oh, as part of our package, you get to be on a billboard, and you're like, alright, whatever. But then you get there and it's like, wow, this is freaking cool, right? 

Rich Bennett 6:10
Yeah, beautiful up there, too, isn't 

Gary Sprouse 6:14
Yeah. 

Yeah, New York, well, New York is, well, that was in Toronto, but the billboard was in New York. And New York is great. I mean, it's a great town to visit. 

Rich Bennett 6:22
it? 

Gary Sprouse 6:22
I'm not sure I'd want to live there, but. 

Rich Bennett 6:24
Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, 

Gary Sprouse 6:25
And I will say, this is part of what, we actually stayed in New York, and then we took a train into New York. But we're 

Rich Bennett 6:31
no, no. Okay. 

Gary Sprouse 6:32
staying in New York, and we get there, like, and I'm lying, and we say, let's go down, and go just get a drink to relax. So we get there, and a bartender's just like, amazing guy, and he's like, poor, and he's like, got this thing, and he's pouring a drink, and he's like, and he's chatting with us, and he introduced other people at the bar, and we start talking. And he goes, "What do you guys think of New York?" And we're like, "Well, what do you think of Baltimore?" And he's like, okay, fair question, right? 

Rich Bennett 6:57
(both laughing) 

Gary Sprouse 7:00
So then I go, he goes, "What are you guys doing here?" And I go, "Oh, I'm gonna get my picture on a billboard." He goes, "What?" And he goes, "Yeah, I bet you never heard that one before." And he goes, "I have not." 

Rich Bennett 7:08
(both laughing) 

Gary Sprouse 7:09
So then we were there, we were chatting with the people at the bar with him. We were there until like 11, 30 night. So the next day, we went back to show them the pictures of the billboard, 

Rich Bennett 7:19
Right? 

Gary Sprouse 7:19
and he wasn't there. And we were like, "Where is he?" And they go, "Well, the bar closes at nine o'clock." And we're like, "Wait, what?" So he had been sitting there with us for two and a half hours when he didn't need to be, right? And I was like, "Okay, 

Rich Bennett 7:31
be." 

Gary Sprouse 7:31
this 

Rich Bennett 7:31
Wow, 

Gary Sprouse 7:31
would is impressive, right? Yeah, seven. 

Rich Bennett 7:34
That's one thing I have noticed, it seems like a lot of your bars closed earlier now. 

Gary Sprouse 7:39
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:39
I mean, when we were younger, it was two o'clock. 

Gary Sprouse 7:42
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 7:42
is when they closed. We went, not too long ago, we went to see a band at a local place here. And I think they went on stage the last time, it was like 10 o'clock, and Lance called was close to 11. 

Gary Sprouse 7:55
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 7:56
They're like, 

Gary Sprouse 7:57
"Wait, what?" Yeah. Maybe it's 'cause we're having an aging population. 

Rich Bennett 8:02
You know what, that's, I was thinking about that. It's like, okay, it's past a lot of people's bedtime. Maybe that's what. But you know what, I've also noticed too, in a lot of your, maybe not your bars, but definitely your clubs. 

Gary Sprouse 8:16
You're 

Rich Bennett 8:17
seeing more mock 

Gary Sprouse 8:18
Oh 

Rich Bennett 8:19
tales. 

Gary Sprouse 8:19
yeah, for sure. 

Rich Bennett 8:20
One of the 

Gary Sprouse 8:20
I 

Rich Bennett 8:20
menus. 

Gary Sprouse 8:20
don't know. So it's been interesting to watch the gender generation. yeah. Make a relationship with alcohol. People, 

Rich Bennett 8:27
Yeah, 

Gary Sprouse 8:28
it's like, you know, with now the ubers and the people don't drive junk as much anymore, right? They do mock tales now. Like there's been a big shift in our culture in terms of how we handle alcohol. So, and I think positively. 

Rich Bennett 8:42
Now, have you done the TEDx 

Gary Sprouse 8:44
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 8:44
talk yet? 

Gary Sprouse 8:44
No, so the TEDx talk, the one that I was scheduled to do I canceled because the lady lost her certification and I'm not 100% sure what happened there. So that's not gonna happen. But there's, there's another one that I was like the runner-up to get on the talk. And there's, yeah, it's gonna happen. It just hasn't happened yet. 

Rich Bennett 9:04
Have you thought about holding one there? 

Gary Sprouse 9:07
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 9:08
You're it? 

Gary Sprouse 9:09
I have actually, because one of the things that I've talked about is doing an Eastern Shore 

Rich Bennett 9:13
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 9:13
TEDx talk. Yeah, no, I've thought that. The problem is if I run the show then I can't 

Rich Bennett 9:18
in it. Oh, 

Gary Sprouse 9:18
be 

Rich Bennett 9:18
that's right. I forgot about 

Gary Sprouse 9:20
which is an issue. That's what happened with this lady. She wanted to be 

Rich Bennett 9:22
that. Yeah, 

Gary Sprouse 9:22
in it. And then she found the rules or that she couldn't be in it. So she was not happy camper. But I was 

Rich Bennett 9:28
a, 

Gary Sprouse 9:28
like, what 

Rich Bennett 9:28
she named, all right. 

Gary Sprouse 9:30
That, that was story. We don't need to talk. We'll talk about that later. We 

Rich Bennett 9:33
talk. 

Gary Sprouse 9:33
don't need to 

Rich Bennett 9:33
Yeah, geez. Now, are you still doing the podcast as 

Gary Sprouse 9:37
No, 

Rich Bennett 9:37
well? 

Gary Sprouse 9:37
I'm not doing that. So now I'm, 

Rich Bennett 9:39
Gary, come on. 

Gary Sprouse 9:40
Hey, Gaston, you're a podcast. It's a lot easier, right? You get to do all the work. 

Rich Bennett 9:44
Doing your work for excellent together doing 

Gary Sprouse 9:47
We 

Rich Bennett 9:47
that. 

Gary Sprouse 9:47
were, I thought it was fun. Oh right, because you were on it, right? So yeah, that was fun, but it was it was it was money that I was spending that could be used other ways that would have more be in more packed. So that's what I found. Well, maybe if I've been doing it for a couple of years and stuck in there, but it's like, I was finding that the time and effort that I was putting into it wasn't getting the reach and draw that I could guide being on other people show. And I found that worked 

Rich Bennett 10:13
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 10:13
out better. And I'm in the process of starting a group called loop breakers. And this is one of the things I want to talk about today. So loop breakers is about people that are what I call stress reduce or loops. So what happens is so people are stressed out, right? They get overwhelmed. But when you're stressed out, then you have to do something to reduce your stress. So some people read a book, some people watch TV, some people exercise, some people go to church, some people drink alcohol, some people smoke cigarettes, some people do heroin. Right. There's all these different things that people do to reduce their stress. It's 

Rich Bennett 10:49
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 10:49
fine until the stress reducer starts causing stress. And now what I call it is the stress reduce or loops. And now you have stress. You do your stress producer. But it calls the stress. And now you have more stress, say, do your stress producer again. And now you're in this loop. And so to get out of that, so to me, stress reduce or loops is the term I want to use instead of addiction. Because what I find is when you use the word addict to a person, you're like, you're an addict. They're like, what? What do you mean I'm 

Rich Bennett 11:19
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 11:19
an addict? No, I don't think so. And they start fighting with you. And the reason is because you don't have any objective evidence in general, because you're like, you don't have a blood test, you don't have a gene test, you don't have a brain test. You're just going, well, you drink four drinks. So you're an alcoholic and you're like, that doesn't make me not call. And I would agree with them. It's early puts them at risk, but it's like 

Rich Bennett 11:40
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 11:40
it doesn't make them an alcoholic. And so what I found is then that people will be resistant and they'll get defensive and they'll get angry. A then they won't engage. They'll just leave. They'll just all me go see somebody else. And then you don't get any help. And then they wait till they're at the, you know, I'm at the bottom. You know, this is like, you can't get any lower than this. And then I go, I find, I'll take on that, that label. And here's what we do to people go, your disease for the rest of your life, whether you're drinking or not, your, does you have this disease forever. And here's what I, one of my friends gave me this realization. Here's what she said. She goes, when we, as parents, what we're told is tell our kids if they did something wrong, like you're a good kid, bu you did a bad thing. And we separate out the kid from the deep, but 

Rich Bennett 12:34
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 12:34
with addiction, we don't do that. I didn't listen to that advice. So what we say to people is, you're broken, you're bad, your damage, your disease, forever. And there's nothing you can do to make it go away. You're just stuck with that forever. So you know, you're not a good person who got stuck on a bad thing. You're just a bad, you're just a broken disease person. Like what? Who wants to hear that? Nobody. 

Rich Bennett 12:58
Exactly. 

Gary Sprouse 12:58
So I find that the stress-reducer loop model takes that away. And it says, you're a really good person. You're of actually a normal person, because you had stress. You found something network. Your brain did what's supposed to do and made it into a habit. You realize, wait, this is causing problems. I got to stop. And then you got stuck because now you're in withdrawal. Or now you got this anatomical track in your brain that you have to inhibit, like you have to say, no, and humans can do that. We can say, no, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to eat the truck with dinner, because I'm trying to lose weight, but we're not that good at it. So if I walk past the doughnut 10 times. Good for me. But the 11th time. I ate the donut while that I ate the donut, right? So it's like, 

Rich Bennett 13:42
they didn't, yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 13:42
Yeah. So what I want to do then is start a group called loopbreakers. And the loopbreakers is going to be like, hey, you have a loop. Let's come here. And I'm I'm going to show you. And there's this thing I call wins. So the win system is I'm going to give you some wisdom. I'm going to give you some insight. We're going to work on a new track. And then I'm going to give you a safe place to practice that track till that becomes your automatic. 

Rich Bennett 14:07
Oh, now is this going to be online? 

Gary Sprouse 14:09
So what I want to do is it's going to be a hybrid meeting. So there'll be people in person and people online. 

Rich Bennett 14:15
Okay. 

Gary Sprouse 14:15
So my preference is in person because I find that there's this extra connection that happens when you're with somebody physically. 

Rich Bennett 14:24
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 14:25
What I say then, but if you can't be there physically, then I want you to be there online because I want you to be there because you because 

Rich Bennett 14:32
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 14:33
what I've been finding is that what people get in the trouble with their stress for you, so loop is they don't have the right information. So there's things, so just finished reading this book called The Real You. And it's awesome. But one of the things he talks about is most people are getting into trouble because their core beliefs are not positive. So their self-esteem is impositive. They don't feel like they have any control in life. They don't feel like they're acceptable. They don't feel like they're connected. And they don't feel like they're safe. And if you don't have those things, well, you're in trouble, right? That gets you into trouble, gets you into a loop. So what I can show people is, look, let me show you how your brain works. So then we're going to use the things that your 

Rich Bennett 15:16
brain is good at. And 

Gary Sprouse 15:17
we're going to minimize the things your brain's not going to say, what we are good at is learning. Like we're amazing. Like we can learn things like in five seconds. But what we're not good at is like, no, don't do that. I'm trying 

Rich Bennett 15:31
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 15:31
to wait, no, don't do that, right? That's not what we're good at. So we have to figure out other ways to get around that. So the model what it says is you're a normal person who's gotten into trouble because the treatment you had for stress is causing problems. So what we got to do then is let's find a way to not have stress or have lots. 

Rich Bennett 15:53
And 

Gary Sprouse 15:53
let's find different ways to deal the stress that you have. So I was talking to a lady on a podcast the other day. And she goes, that's an interesting. goes, you know, not to think about it. I was in a book reading loop and I'm like, what? She goes, well, when I was in high school, I literally would stay all night reading books. I'd book, book, book, read, read, read, read, read. She goes, my friends were like, you know, come out and play. And she's like, no, I'm reading. And my mom was like, yeah, and I like, what are you doing in your room? Get out. Like she would go to school groggy because she hadn't slept all night because you'd been reading. And I'm like, yes, that's exactly what I'm talking about. Here you are reading books, which is considered a good thing. But you did it so much that it was causing 

Rich Bennett 16:32
And 

Gary Sprouse 16:32
problems. 

Rich Bennett 16:32
you dig? 

Gary Sprouse 16:33
You're 

Rich Bennett 16:33
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 16:33
in this stress-reduce or loop. So to get out of that, we have to figure out ways to get less stress and different ways to deal with it, which is what happened to her. So she figured out all the ways to deal with the stresses. When she got to college, she stopped doing it. And it was, some of it was because what she thought about reading changed because it had to be reading before it was for pleasure and having fun at college, it wasn't. And so she decided reading was maybe not the right thing to do here. 

Rich Bennett 16:59
I could see this because let's face it, there's a lot of people that can be in this. People that are constantly on social media, media in general. And I want to say that I don't want to say addiction. I want to say the loop. 

Gary Sprouse 17:16
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 17:17
But I want to say media is of the biggest 

Gary Sprouse 17:19
Well, here's what I've been finding. So I've implemented three different categories. So there's chemical 

Rich Bennett 17:25
ones. 

Gary Sprouse 17:25
roots. 

Rich Bennett 17:25
Okay. 

Gary Sprouse 17:25
So alcohol, nicotine, heroin, 

Rich Bennett 17:27
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 17:28
deathcane, that kind of stuff. Then there's behavioral loops. And that's where that fits in, right? 

Rich Bennett 17:32
You're 

Gary Sprouse 17:33
doing social media or you're gambling or you're sexting or, you know, there's all these behavioral things that we do. And then the third category I call coping strategies. And that's one that's actually kind of interesting. So there's one. So people call it codependent. 

Rich Bennett 17:46
Okay. 

Gary Sprouse 17:46
If I said to you what's codependent, you're like, I don't know. This codependent, right? It's something. It's something that's bad. What I say is it's a self-sacrificing loop. That actually makes sense. It tells you what's going on. So this person is self-sacrificing. And we actually reward self-sacrifices. We like people who give of themselves for others. We, you know, responders, 

Rich Bennett 18:08
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 18:09
people in the military, people that are in the hospitals, we like it when when a mom is taking care of her kids. So we give them a lot of self-esteem points for being a self-sacrificing. Which is fine until you start saying yes to things that you don't really want to do. And then so you go, no, no, I don't want to do that. And they go, oh, you're green selfish. And the person goes, what? No, I can't be said. No. That would 

Rich Bennett 18:36
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 18:36
involve all of myself as team points for being self-sacrificing away. So yeah, no. Okay, fine. I'll do it. But now you start getting angry and you start getting resentful. And then eventually you go, I can't deal this anymore. And you just, and you just cut off the relationship because you can't see any other way to make it work. And the second thing that the self-sacrificing loop does is it gives you control to your environment. So you can now go, okay, I'm going to do the wash even though I don't like doing this. So I, this is with my ex wife. She was complaining about doing the wash. I said, Connie, you never have to do the wash ever again in our marriage, ever. I'll do it for the rest of our marriage. You know how long that lasted? Yeah. Three days. And it wasn't that I wasn't doing the launch. I just wasn't doing it the way she did it. 

Rich Bennett 19:24
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 19:25
couldn't handle that. So she started doing it again. So that's the self-sacrificing loop. It becomes a way to get self-esteem and a way to get control. But it gets to the point where you get yourself into trouble because you can't say no and you just take on more things like I can't trust that person to do it right. So I'll do it myself. But then you end up another one and another thing and another and all of a sudden you got way too many things in your plate and you're being resentful and angry because you're doing things you don't really want to do. And so the way out is to say learn how to say no but here's the key. Learn how to say no without feeling guilty. That's the trick part, right? 

Rich Bennett 20:01
My wife and I just went through this. We had to talk similar to this because I growing up, my father always told me never let the women cut the grass because you don't want them to get hurt. 

Gary Sprouse 20:14
I 

Rich Bennett 20:17
think we had one of our neighbors, she was cutting the grass and somehow another her foot under a lawn mower lost a tell. So a few years ago, I went to buy a new lawn mower, my wife's like, well, and I was going to a battery 

Gary Sprouse 20:30
one. 

Rich Bennett 20:30
operated So I didn't want to disturb the yellow jackets in the gram. She said, well, get one of self-propelled too and I can help cut the grass. It's like, okay. So I did. Anyway, she wanted me to get the self-propelled one. It was because it was easier on my back when I was cutting the hill. 

Gary Sprouse 20:51
Okay. 

Rich Bennett 20:51
yeah. Because yes, I said 

Gary Sprouse 20:53
Oka, 

Rich Bennett 20:53
something there or the other day, I said, well, you told me get this because you wanted to cut the grass. No, you told me before I was not allowed to cut the grass. 

Gary Sprouse 20:59
And 

Rich Bennett 21:01
then I just went through the same thing with we were going out, and I was getting ready. I said, can you iron my shirt real quick? She was no. I said, why? She was. You said before you even got married, there's only two people that are left iron your shirts, yourself and your mother, because you knew how. 

Gary Sprouse 21:19
I'm 

Rich Bennett 21:19
like, my God, really? I said, it's a t-shirt. I'm not worried about the creases or whatever. She did, but still. 

Gary Sprouse 21:28
I know. But that, no, so that's the key, right? So I was like, you know, we all like to have control in our environment. And when you don't feel that control, it can be scary. And so 

Rich Bennett 21:38
Yes. 

Gary Sprouse 21:38
then you go, okay, well, I'll just do it myself. But then when you do that, then you start taking on way too many things, and then you get overwhelmed and then you get that gets into trouble. 

Rich Bennett 21:48
And in my case, sometimes you can't get rid of those things, then they have other 

Gary Sprouse 21:51
Well, that's 

Rich Bennett 21:52
people do it. 

Gary Sprouse 21:52
it. 

Rich Bennett 21:52
I got to pay the kid next door to do it. 

Gary Sprouse 21:54
I know that well, yeah, these are the luxuries that we have, right? That you can do. 

Rich Bennett 21:58
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 21:58
So, so the way out of the loop then is figure out how to have less stress. So one of the things that I talk about is, you know, how to not be overwhelmed, how to improve yourself esteem, how to not feel guilty, right? All these, how to feel like you're in control. So I just wrote this the other day, like people give up their control in two main ways. Like, so the question, the first question comes up is where does control come from? And it turns out control comes from our choices. So as humans, we have choices. So we can say, I'm going to cut the grass, or I'm going to pay some kid to do it, right? We have a 

Rich Bennett 22:31
right 

Gary Sprouse 22:34
if you didn't, if you lived out on a farm of 500 acre farm, and there were no kids, you wouldn't have that choice. So then you would have to do it, right? So then you don't have any control, because you just have to do it. 

Rich Bennett 22:45
Unless I have a bunch of goats. 

Gary Sprouse 22:47
Yeah, goats are another choice, right? So what I found then is like being able to have choices. This is what we talk about freedom in our country. Freedom means choices. It's freedom of choices. Not freedom. It's freedom of choices. So we can choose what religion we want to be. We can choose what political party we want to be. We can choose who we're going to be our electors, blah, blah, blah. Right? So where you see in other regimes where they don't have choice, you don't have freedom, then it's a lot scarier. You feel like you're not in control anymore, which is not a good feeling. Humans like to be in control, but they give it up in two ways. So one, they go, here's two ways they do it. One, I have to do this. I ought to do this. I should do this. And when you do that, then you've taken away your choice. You go, I have to cut the grass. You're like, no, I don't. I can pay somebody to cut the grass or I can 

Rich Bennett 23:40
Right?

Gary Sprouse 23:40
get some goats and cut the grass. I don't have to do it. I choose to do it. We were talking about earlier about when people are working and they retire. So when they go back and they volunteer, they might actually work more hours, but they're doing it because they're choosing to do it, 

Rich Bennett 23:53
Yeah . 

Gary Sprouse 23:53
not because they have to do it. And it makes all the difference in the world. The second way we give up for control, so what that means is you go, okay, well, I'm faced with this thing. And I can, I always have a choice. Like I can choose to do this or I can choose to do that. Like the reason I have to work is because I have a house. Well, don't have a house, right? I mean, we have all these. 

Rich Bennett 24:13
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Sprouse 24:14
They're not always good choices. Maybe it's a bad choice versus a 

Rich Bennett 24:17
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 24:17
really bad choice, right? But when you think of them as choices, then two things happen. You take responsibility for the choice. And two is that you feel like you have some control because you're getting to choose. The second thing we do is we talk about our emotions and we go, he did this and he made me angry. And what you're doing then is then all your emotional control, you're given to somebody else. Like why, they don't have your best interests in mind either most 

Rich Bennett 24:43
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 24:43
of the time, right? So stop doing that. So what I, what I say to people is like, hey, they did something and you decided to react like this, which then takes responsibility for your emotion, but it also gives you control over because you can decide, hey, I'm going to do this way or I'm going to react that way. And so then you feel like then you go, wait, I have a lot more control than I thought. 

Rich Bennett 25:07
Have you thought about teaching other people to head up these groups? 

Gary Sprouse 25:14
Well, that's to that. So I'm in to this loop breaker thing is what I'm going to be doing, right? So the loop break, 

Rich Bennett 25:19
right, 

Gary Sprouse 25:19
is going to be this, it's almost like a school. Like, I'm here here to get educated. So I like, hey, I mean, hey, I have some really good stuff to it. But one of the things that it doesn't do well is there's not very efficient. Like we have to go to meeting after meeting, like 90 meetings and 90 days to get the message. And you're like, that's, if somebody did 90 hours and 90 days, like what, that's a lot, right. 

Rich Bennett 25:43
yeah, 

Gary Sprouse 25:43
Well, what I'm going. Like, no, you come to me and I'm going to give you all this information, you know, in, chunks that you can handle. But we're just not going to take 90 days and it's not going to take 90 days and, you know, 90 meetings and 90 days. Because at the end of this meeting, you're going to have this information. At the end of this meeting, you're going to have this information. You're going to have this procedure that you can do. You're going to have this technique and this tool, like I wanted to be way more condensed and efficient so that people can 

Rich Bennett 26:09
right 

Gary Sprouse 26:09
get the message that they need. And yeah, I have a couple nurses that are going to work with me to help me get this message out. And the key is just like putting up what I'm working right now is the curriculum to say, okay, 

Rich Bennett 26:22
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 26:22
here's the lessons. And here's what I'm actually struggling with like all these lessons are important. So which ones do you do first? What's the first one? What's the second one? What's the fifth one? What's the tenth one? Which one can you wait till it, I don't know because they're all pretty important. That's the part I'm a little struggling with right now. I got the, I have what I want to teach, it's what order do I teach it? 

Rich Bennett 26:45
Yeah, that, oh wow. Yeah, that would be pretty complicated trying figure out unless you could set it up some way to where I don't know, I don't know, how do you go about doing that? 

Gary Sprouse 26:59
Yeah, well, well, so one of the things you were talking, where you were ahead, and I think was like, I can film what I'm doing and then put it online so that people can access it. 

Rich Bennett 27:10
Then 

Gary Sprouse 27:12
they can do it at their own pace, basically. 

Rich Bennett 27:16
Ah, okay, then that way they can which 

Gary Sprouse 27:19
area they choose. Right, but here's what I've seen, right? Like I can give you a book like in medical schools like this, right? We spend a whole year learning about medical illnesses, 

Rich Bennett 27:28
right? 

Gary Sprouse 27:29
learning from a book is way different than learning from people, so then we spend the next five years learning about people because like we 

Rich Bennett 27:37
But 

Gary Sprouse 27:37
got the book knowledge and now you got to go use that and apply what you learn to that person. That's the difference and that's what I see. The 

Rich Bennett 27:45
hands 

Gary Sprouse 27:45
Well, I can put these things in line but I can't personalize it to you because 

Rich Bennett 27:50
on, right? 

Gary Sprouse 27:51
I have to sort of like sort of found with my book. It's like, I don't know who's on the other side of my book, so I had to write it kind of generically. But what I say to people is like, hey, email me at lestrestdoc@gmail.com because I can personalize it for you because maybe your problem is, right? You know, cutting the grass issues like, I don't know. It's like, okay, let's figure out for you where you're coming from, you're married and you got a kid and like, okay, we can personalize the message to you versus just kind of writing generically about control. 

Rich Bennett 28:23
Right, 

Gary Sprouse 28:23
we'll introduce your loop. So 

Rich Bennett 28:25
I can see this thing being worldwide. 

Gary Sprouse 28:29
Yeah, well here's 

Rich Bennett 28:30
almost the Tony, I think it's Tony 

Gary Sprouse 28:32
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 28:32
Robbins that has 

Gary Sprouse 28:34
yeah, 

Rich Bennett 28:34
stuff like, 

Gary Sprouse 28:34
well, so interestingly, what I find is that literally anything humans do to reduce their stress can turn into a stress reduce your loop. So I've been shopping loops, exercise loops, I've seen AA loops, I've seen religion loops, like anything we do to reduce our stress can turn into a loop. And anybody, If you give them enough stress, we'll end up in a loop. So I used the example of Vietnam, like in Vietnam, like 90% of the people the military were redicted to something. And so the military is freaking out, because at the end of the war, all these guys were going to be coming back and they're like, we don't have the infrastructure to take care of all these addicts, right? But here's what happened, when they came back and their stress levels went down, 80% of them just stopped. 

Rich Bennett 29:22
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 29:23
Because they didn't need it anymore. And so, what you see is, when you give people too much stress, then it gets them in the trouble. What I've seen in the models that we use right now, we go, wow, you know, people that have ADD are more likely to end up in a stress reduction, you know, in an addiction. And you're like, well, it's not because of their 8/8, so their ADD is contributing, but what it's gone on is, They have two problems, one, things are more stressful to them than to other people. So, if your life is reacting with a 10 versus somebody who's reacting with a 2, well, guess who's a little more likely to end up in trouble with a stress-reduced solute, right? I think personally, if you're 

Rich Bennett 30:03
yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 30:03
reacting with a 10, because they need to do it more often and they need to find stronger things. Second is, one of the problems at ADD, they don't inhibit very well. So, if you're trying to get off your stress-reduced solute, you gotta learn how to inhibit. Well, that's the thing you're not good at. Well, yeah, guess what, you're gonna end up in, you're gonna have a more difficult time getting 

Rich Bennett 30:24
down. Right. 

Gary Sprouse 30:26
So, 

Rich Bennett 30:27
doesn't mean you can't do it, you just may have a difficult 

Gary Sprouse 30:29
Yes, 

Rich Bennett 30:29
time. 

Gary Sprouse 30:30
exactly. And so, what I find is, like, these dual diagnoses that people have, no, there's just those are contributing to their kind of sense of stress. 

Rich Bennett 30:41
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 30:41
And so, what I find is, if you, that's, so what I've been doing is then start shifting, because originally the book was how to have less stress and find you happy place. 

Rich Bennett 30:50
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 30:51
And then, and then I talked about stress-reduced solutes. But now, what I'm talking about, here's stress-reduced solutes. And underneath that umbrella is, well, we gotta get you, have it less stress. So, read my book, right? So, it's now, the umbrella is, let's get you out of your stress-reduced solute. And then, while we're in there, we're gonna help you have less stress. So, what you come out at the end of my program is, you got a lot less stress, you got new techniques for dealing with stress as you have leftover, and you're not in your stress-reduced loop anymore. Well, yeah. How nice is that? And you're normal, because here's what I found. 

Rich Bennett 31:25
It's 

Gary Sprouse 31:26
so dumb. Like, we say to people, like, I've heard of people go, I'm, I'm Bill, and I'm alcohol. You know, like, oh, hi, Bill. And you're like, well, one's the last time you drank and they got on, like, 25 years ago. Like, why are you still labeling yourself with you haven't done in 25 

Rich Bennett 31:40
years? Right. 

Gary Sprouse 31:41
I go, hi. I'm Dr. Sprouse. I'm a bed wetter. And they go, what? And I go, wow. I wet the bed every night. But then, I stop doing it. So, like, now I bought one night of bed wetting. I'm back in, right? So, 

Rich Bennett 31:53
that's a good point. 

Gary Sprouse 31:55
So, stop labeling yourself with this label. Like, you literally have thousands of tracks in your head. Why would you pick that one? There's not a very positive track and label yourself that. Like, no, stop it. You don't need the label to remind yourself that you can get into trouble. All you need to remember is, hey, I got this track in my brain, that if I start using that track again, I'm going to get in trouble. But I don't have to keep the label around to remind me, I can just go, yeah, I got that track and don't do that. 

Rich Bennett 32:24
You're listening to the conversations with Rich Bennett. We'll be right back. 

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Gary Sprouse 33:52
Well, it 

Rich Bennett 33:52
Like that. 

Gary Sprouse 33:53
was part of AA, and I understand where it came from. It was to remind people that you got this track and all it's going to take is one drink and you're right back in trouble. So to remind themselves, they go, "Hey, I'm Bill, I'm an alcoholic." But I don't need that because when I go out in public, then that makes me not feel normal. 

Rich Bennett 34:12
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 34:12
Now I'm an alcoholic. And here's the other thing, like we live by our identity. And so we try to reinforce our identity all the time. So what I've seen in the disease model, and AA, what they say is you're an alcoholic or maybe you're an ex-alcoholic. But either way, you're an alcoholic. And what I want to get is people's like, you're a non-drinker. Why would it even come up? Like I've never smoked. So if somebody said,"You're  really under a lot of stress, what should you do?" And I'm like, smoking a cigarette does not come up because I'm a non-smoker. 

Rich Bennett 34:47
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 34:48
So if I'm an ex-smoker, you're like, well, I used to use smoke. Maybe I can do that again, right? Because I see that all the time. Somebody who's an ex-smoker, they get under a lot of stress and they go, "Oh, I'll just go get a cigarette." And you're like, "No, you're a non-smoker. You're not an ex-smoker. You're a non-smoker." 

Rich Bennett 35:05
Wow. Yeah, I think that's-- These titles that we give people are definitely a problem. 

Gary Sprouse 35:13
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 35:14
Because it just keeps-- I think keeps putting 

Gary Sprouse 35:17
it in-- Yeah, absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 35:19
So you're-- you want them to be positive, but yeah, you want them to keep a negative title. 

Gary Sprouse 35:24
Yes. That's-- Yeah, you got it, right? 

Rich Bennett 35:26
Which is 

Gary Sprouse 35:27
Yes. 

Rich Bennett 35:27
wrong. 

Gary Sprouse 35:27
So it stigmatizes people. 

Rich Bennett 35:29
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 35:30
And we tend to ostracize these people because we go, "You're an addict. You're broken. You're diseased. You're unpredictable. We're going to stick you in a rehab for a month. Think about how someone said to you, "You're going to have to go to rehab for a month. Get rid of your phone. Can't call anybody. Can't talk to your family or friend. For 30 days, Alan, by the way, give me $20, 000-60,000 to do this." 

Rich Bennett 35:50
For sure. Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 35:51
And then you walk out, and two days later, if you relapse, yeah, you don't get your money back. 

Rich Bennett 35:56
No. 

Gary Sprouse 35:56
And it's 

Rich Bennett 35:57
"Yeah, 

Gary Sprouse 35:57
like, 

Rich Bennett 35:57
there's no refund." 

Gary Sprouse 35:58
So the stress that goes in with living in a building that you're not used to, when you get out, l, you just your job, you couldn't pay your rent. And like, "Wait, this is crazy. You didn't get to talk to any of your family or friends," say you were isolated. And they told you don't get any start and any new relationships here. Like, this is incredibly stressful stuff. And I'm not sitting here saying that it doesn't help some people because it definitely can be beneficial. So like, if you had a gall bladder problem, and I say, "You need surgery." Like, I'm actually cutting your gut open and taking your gall bladder. So I'm actually causing some stress. But in the end, you're going to be better. But we weigh the benefits inside effects. And we're like, "No, you're really sick, so we're not going to do that now because this is going to be good for you." Or, you know, this we can fix this with diet, so you don't need that surgery. So when we start looking at rehabs and all the different things that we're doing to people, we're like, "We got to start weighing. How much stress are we causing versus how much are we helping?" Because stress is the problem. So if I'm giving you more stress, then how are you going to get better? Like, I'm giving you all these extra stresses. Your brain saying, "Well, when your under stress go through that." So then when they laugh, they're like, "Oh, why did you laugh? Why did you do something so stupid? Why did you make that choice?" And what I say to people is, "Look, you've been inhibiting that track for a week, a month, a year." What changed that you weren't able to inhibit that day? There. And always, there's some stress that came up. Something big happened and they freaked out and then they went back to their... They went to that automatic track and they used and I go, "Oh, okay, so you laughs." That means you went down that track one time. What my job is to keep you from relapsing. So laughs, it means I went down the track one time. Relapsing is, I'm just back doing it. And one of 

Rich Bennett 37:50
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 37:50
the problems that gets into when you laugh, people beat the crap out of themselves. They go, "Oh my god, I was so stupid." And we punish the crap out and we go, "Oh, you got to go back to rehab. We're going to put you in jail. We're going to take your kids away because you laugh. Well, we know 80% of people laugh. We know that's a part of the problem. Why would we be punishing them for something that was going to happen? It doesn't make sense. What I say to this is that you were doing this awesome job of inhibiting, which is really hard. So we now figured out, "Oh, that is really stressful." So we got to figure out something else to do and that happens. So it's a learning experience. Not a thing to get punished for. 

Rich Bennett 38:28
Wow. We're talking straight along to start this. 

Gary Sprouse 38:34
Well, let's see. Right. No, I was doing in my office. In my office, when I was practicing, I had a 

Rich Bennett 38:39
Okay. 

Gary Sprouse 38:39
hundred patients that had been on heroin and I had switched them over to Suvaxen. And I was getting a 95% success rate. 

Rich Bennett 38:48
Oh, wow. 

Gary Sprouse 38:48
But then my, the medical board came to me and said, "We don't want you to do that anymore. We don't like what you're doing." Like, "What do you mean you don't like what I'm doing? I'm getting 95% success rate." They're like, "Yeah, we don't like what you're doing. You're doing this, you're doing that." No, you can't. We're going to take your ability to do that, take it away, which they did. So. 

Rich Bennett 39:05
Wow. 

That's my style. 

Gary Sprouse 39:08
is the world, right? It didn't make any sense to me. But what I found was. Like, so I was talking to some addiction specialists and I was telling them about what I was doing. And they go, 

Rich Bennett 39:17
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 39:17
"Well, that's great, but that was just you. Maybe they just like you and maybe you were just doing something different." They're like, "Well, maybe. But I think I had enough success. That warrants. Let's look into this and let's 

Rich Bennett 39:31
It 

Gary Sprouse 39:32
make a double blind placebo-controlled trial. Because I think the problem that we've run into in the medical community. There's a lot of smart people. There's a lot of money and the people that want to get off are really committed. And yet we're still getting to 20% success rate. And that's not even right because only 20% are people who have an addiction or stress-reduce or loo, actually come to treatment. Because they go, "I don't want to be around that guy." It doesn't work. No, I' not going to go there. So we're only getting 20% of 20%." So 

Rich Bennett 40:05
Wow. 

Gary Sprouse 40:05
what I found was, I had 100 patients because that was my limit. And people liked coming to see me because I treated them with respect. I treated them like they were a normal person. I showed them why they were having some difficulties because of the way our brains have been set up. And by taking... So a lot of doctors have prongest suboxone. And I 

Rich Bennett 40:28
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 40:28
understand why, because they go, "Well, you have the disease of opioid. Why would I give you an opioid to fix your disease of opioid? That doesn't make any sense." Which it doesn't. What we've learned is it works, but it doesn't make any sense. But in my model, where I go, "Okay, Heron was a treatment for your stress, but has crazy side effects, lethal side effects." So what I'm going to do, if I gave you a blood pressure medicine and it was making you pass out every time you stood up, you'd go, "Dah, this is causing really bad side effect. Isn't there something else I could use that would give me the benefit without the same--" 

Rich Bennett 41:03
Right! 

Gary Sprouse 41:03
And the answer, "Yes, sure. So suboxone is that answer for people with on heroin." And she's like, "Here's a treatment that has some of the same benefits, but way less side effects." And then, while I'm teaching you my wind system, you won't need that either, because suboxone doesn't have no side effects. You still got to take it. 

Rich Bennett 41:25
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 41:25
You got to make sure the pharmacist has it. If you don't take it, you'll go into withdrawal, like blood. So it's not like it has no side effects. It just has way less than heroin. So while I'm teaching you my wind system, you're going to not be in withdrawal. You're not going to be running on the street trying to find 50 dollars to get shot up. You're not exactly what you're getting. And you're going to come back to me so we can have this conversation. And they like coming back because they wanted to hear that they were normal. They wanted to hear that I could be a non-drug user. Like, "I'm an extra. I'm a non-drug user." Like, "I just have stress. And now I've got different ways to deal with it." So all that was very positive. And that's what I'm bringing to this table. It's taking me some time before I had deal with my boardcraft. Bu it's like, 

Rich Bennett 42:10
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 42:10
"Now, now I have all the ideas kind of conjilled into my head. They're on paper. It's written down. And now it's time." So my goal is to be having started by September. That's my goal. 

Rich Bennett 42:22
How can people sign up for it? 

Gary Sprouse 42:24
Well, right now I haven't set up the sign up yet because there's a couple other details that are going in place. But eventually, it's going to be on my website, TheLifeBestDoc.com. 

Rich Bennett 42:34
Okay. 

Gary Sprouse 42:35
And you can get there and it'll be under Loot Breakers. 

Rich Bennett 42:39
Breakers, okay. I really love this idea. I think it's definitely something that is needed. And like I said, I can-- or, like I said, I can see this going worldwide. 

Gary Sprouse 42:50
Loot 

Rich Bennett 42:51
Because everybody 

Gary Sprouse 42:52
I can't hear 

Rich Bennett 42:52
needs-- 

Gary Sprouse 42:52
me out, exactly. 

Rich Bennett 42:54
Well, everybody needs it. Everybody 

deals with stress from something. One way or another, whether it be drugs, whether it be alcohol, whether it be work. 

So the other one I said, media 

Gary Sprouse 43:16
addiction. Yeah, media 

Rich Bennett 43:19
addiction. 

Gary Sprouse 43:20
addiction. Well, I 

Rich Bennett 43:20
Media 

Gary Sprouse 43:20
want to be clear, right? Just being on your phone doesn't make you into a loop. Just drinking alcohol doesn't put you in the loop. 

Rich Bennett 43:28
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 43:29
Because when you do too much of it, or your sense of it. So like I had a couple, I'll give this example. So both of them were drinking three drinks a night. They were husband and wife. And that's a lot. And but neither of them were getting in trouble. And they like-- 

Rich Bennett 43:44
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 43:45
but the husband started getting liver problems. So he got yondis and he was getting into trouble. So his doctors like dude you're now in a stress, reduce your live, you need to stop drinkin. So he did. But then his wife says, well, I don't want to stop drinking, like I like my three drinks, right? So now the three drinks that she's doing are startin a cause stress because he can't drink anymore because it was liver. And then he died. 

Rich Bennett 44:17
Oh God! 

Gary Sprouse 44:18
And then guess what? Now she's then set a three drinks. Now she's drinkin' ten drinks because turned out he was one of her stress reducers. So when he went away, all of a sudden she had more stress because he wasn't there. 

Rich Bennett 44:31
Why? 

Gary Sprouse 44:32
And he was one of her stress reducers. So now she's drinkin' ten drinks today and now her liver's starting to fail, right? But you can see how it went from, okay, things were okay till now they weren't okay. So they went from a couple drinks here is all right. Now it's not okay because your body changed. To then your situation changed and now it's even worse and so now things got even more out of control. So just drinkin' alcohol doesn't put you in the stress reducer loop. Just watching soldiers meet it does is when you do too much reading a book like that lady was staying up all night to read a book. That's what got her into trouble, not the actual reading the book. 

Rich Bennett 45:06
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 45:07
So that line is that's a, it's a like one of this is one of the pieces that I'm still working on is where does that line? Where you go from, okay, I'm just, you know, drinking alcohol to I'm in a loop. Where's that line at? And it's a it's a shifting line and it's pretty grey. Which goes along with what we've been finding is like how do you how do you identify someone who's an alcoholic? And how do you get them to recognize it? Cuz that's a trick too because I had a patient that was drinking a lot. And he was having shakes and I was like, dude, you probably should stop drinking as much because now I think that's what's called the crime. He was, no, no, no, I think I have Parkinson's and you're like, well, maybe but I don't think so. And he's like, well, I think it's the medication so he kept coming up with all the other reasons besides alcohol and eventually what happened was he got a DUI and ended up in jail. And then he couldn't drink for a month and guess what? His drummer 

Rich Bennett 45:59
what? 

Gary Sprouse 45:59
wanted 

Rich Bennett 46:00
Skakes went away. 

Gary Sprouse 46:01
Exactly, right? So then he, that was, that was for him, what he finally figured out, where, oh yeah, that is a side effect that I'm doing. Like I, like I had a patient that was a smoker. And I was like, she said something about her sister. And I was like, well, where's your sister live? She goes, she's in California, but I haven't seen her in a long time. And I go, why not? She goes, well, I can't get on a plane and not smoke for six hours. I would be crazy. And I'm like, wait, what? So let me get this straight. So what you're telling me is one of the side effects of your smoking is that you don't get to see your sister. And it was the insight, right, that was, 

Rich Bennett 46:35
uh-huh, 

Gary Sprouse 46:36
insight. There's like, whoa, wait, what? Yeah. Oh, that's crazy. I need to get off cigarettes because I don't want that kind of side effect. Right? So sometimes people have a hard time pe, yeah, my favorite is where the guy goes, I drink cuz my voice a bitch. And I'm like, I gotta know your way. It's a bitch because you drink, right? 

Rich Bennett 46:53
time. 

Gary Sprouse 46:56
It's like, it's very 

Rich Bennett 46:56
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 46:57
Some 

Rich Bennett 46:57
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 46:57
people need insight. They need to be able to see because they're filtering their actions through their intentions. But 

Rich Bennett 47:04
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 47:04
other people are just looking at their actions going to do. You're drinking too much, right? And it's like, so that becomes part of the dilemma of like, when had he convinced somebody that they're in a loop because it's not, it's not an objective thing. 

Rich Bennett 47:21
Yeah, that could be hard trying to convince somebody. 

Gary Sprouse 47:23
Well, and here's the example he's like, it doesn't have like, I had a guy who I was drinking for drinks tonight. And his doctor told him he's an alcoholic. And he's like, I am not because I don't have d. I don't have this. I don't have that. No, you're drinking for you're just in the not so you're not calling. And I'm like, well, so I came in and say, you know, what are you doing? Why do you need four drinks? It's a quantity issue, right? I go, we 

Rich Bennett 47:46
yeah, 

Gary Sprouse 47:46
think you could get by with one or two and he's like, huh. And now we're having a dialogue because he wasn't, I wasn't kicking me out of the room. And he's like, yeah, you know what? You're right. Why don't you for it? That's a dumb. That's too much. That's going to move 

Rich Bennett 47:57
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 47:57
the trouble. Maybe I'll just cut back to one. And you're like, that's what you see. But for some people, even one might be a problem. So if you get married, because your dad was an alcoholic, and you go, I'm not, I'm marine somebody who doesn't drink. So you meet this guy and he doesn't drink. And you're like, Oh, you're perfect. Let's get married. And then he's in business for himself. And he starts getting stressed out and he gets a beer 

Rich Bennett 48:18
and 

Gary Sprouse 48:19
he's like, every night. She's like, you, you cannot do that. And he's like, I'm just drinking one beer. She's like, no, that's how my dad started not going there. Like I'm getting you would know. We're not doing this. Right. So you can see how just one beer for that guy and his setting is, is causing the stress reduced or loop, 

Rich Bennett 48:38
right? 

Gary Sprouse 48:38
Where that wouldn't cause a problem in the other relationship. It didn't cause a problem in the other relationship where they're each drinking. 

Rich Bennett 48:44
Wow. 

Gary Sprouse 48:44
There, right? So that's where the, it's variable. But the system is set up to say it's variable because what causes loop in each for you is different that what causes loop for me. 

Rich Bennett 48:56
Holly cow. Eh, you got to write another book. 

Gary Sprouse 48:59
I am. 

Rich Bennett 49:00
writing 

Gary Sprouse 49:00
It's being 

Rich Bennett 49:00
it. Why did that why? 

Gary Sprouse 49:01
done. I'm It's cause it's gonna be... well, is he... I haven't figured out the title, but it's gonna be based on it's either gonna be called loop breakers or new outcomes or wins or, you know, they're a stress-reduced loop. I haven't figured out what the title. And maybe it'll be all those together, I don't know. That's gonna be... That book's being written. And to me, t book is the reference book. It's like the big book for AA, where 

Rich Bennett 49:27
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 49:27
people can go back to the book and go, okay, here's chapters three. Let's see. Like my... the book I'm writing is gonna be the reference of like... here's stress-reduced your loops and here's how to get out of the loop. 

Rich Bennett 49:39
Well, you know what that means. 

Gary Sprouse 49:41
Well. 

Rich Bennett 49:41
You're gonna have to come on again. 

Gary Sprouse 49:43
So literally, yeah. There you go. 

Rich Bennett 49:45
No matter. I mean, another book means like, come on. 

Gary Sprouse 49:48
No, this is good stuff. I think it's good stuff. And we'll see what happens, right. I'm hoping that the public. 

Rich Bennett 49:54
Oh, it's great stuff. 

Gary Sprouse 49:55
I think the... I think that people that are in trouble will like the message that comes out of this and like the education. And I think it will make them... so that book I was telling about the real you, like what he's... he's been doing this for 30 years. He's from the UK and he's just had 20,000 people that he's helped. And you're like, wow. I want to be there, right. That's awesome, right. But what he talks about is when you get down to these core beliefs and you put them, make them from negative to positive, you take somebody who's got low self-esteem and give them good self-esteem. He goes, they feel lighter. They're happier. They're interaction with the world is better. And it's like, yeah, that's what I'm looking for. 

Rich Bennett 50:36
Wow. All right. So for those people that are listening that did not hear the first time you were on... Tell them a little bit about your book. High way to your happy 

Gary Sprouse 50:50
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 50:50
place. Because it's a great book, first of all. 

Gary Sprouse 50:52
Cool. 

Rich Bennett 50:53
And I think people should still be buying 

Gary Sprouse 50:55
it. Well, so the idea that book came from how to patient that was had high blood pressure and you go on two or three medicines. And then you retired and then you didn't need any medicines. And you're like, oh, right. Okay, well stress, that's something to do with this, right. 

Rich Bennett 51:11
And 

Gary Sprouse 51:11
so what I realized was as a doctor, I'm used to writing prescription, say, this is a great medicine for your blood pressure, good how some side effects, but we're going to minimize the side effects and maximize the benefits. And then I go, wait, let me take that and apply it to our mind. And what I realized was that the majority of our stresses are actually side effects to the skills that we have. And we have the ability to envision the future. What? It's amazing, right. But the side effect is then you have to worry about it. And you're like, so my two, I have a two month old granddaughter, right. She said cute. She's still kind of 

Rich Bennett 51:47
congratulations. 

Gary Sprouse 51:48
She's still kind of a blob right now, but whatever, 

Rich Bennett 51:50
right. 

Gary Sprouse 51:52
But she hasn't developed the skill of envisioning the future yet. So she doesn't sit under a dab's lap and go, Dad, how are we going to pay for college like it doesn't come up. 

Rich Bennett 52:04
right. 

Gary Sprouse 52:04
Now, my three year old grandson is starting to get it. So his dad said, like, we're going to get you this toy for your birthday. And so like, nearly every day is like, well, today my birthday is the day my birthday, because he's starting to get this idea that there's something that's coming. 

Rich Bennett 52:20
Uh 

Gary Sprouse 52:21
But 

Rich Bennett 52:21
huh, 

Gary Sprouse 52:21
now you can now he has a side effect of like frustration and worry. And when's it going to come and is it going to come, right. So you can see it's starting to happen. But if you don't have. So if you just live for today, which is what's like college tells you to do, then you don't worry. That's great. But then you don't look into the future either. That's bad because like that's an incredible skill. We have. So in the book, what I write about is here's the skill. Here's the side effect. So here's how to get rid of the side effect and keep the skill because I don't want to get rid of the skill. So 

Rich Bennett 52:52
right. 

Gary Sprouse 52:52
for envision a future. I go, look, the side effect is worry to wait to have less worry is to be able to plan. But without fear. And then you're like, oh, yes. And now I get to envision the future, but without fear. And that makes it a whole lot better, right. 

Rich Bennett 53:07
Those of you listening, trust me, you need the book. Everybody. I think everybody needs the book. Um, 

Gary Sprouse 53:14
that's what I thought. 

Rich Bennett 53:16
Well, they do. They definitely do. And the thing is, and I didn't say this the last time you were wrong. But I've been especially when I get authors on that and they have a very good book. 

Business owners, organizations, whatever those of you listening, and even individuals. by several copies of the book and give it to people that you know could benefit from it. Even if it's a recovery center, or even if it's 

Gary Sprouse 53:45
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 53:45
a jail or or whenever, especially organizations by some, which I call sponsored books. 

Gary Sprouse 53:54
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:55
You buy a message. 

Gary Sprouse 53:55
Yeah, no, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 53:56
They're the sun place. 

Gary Sprouse 53:58
We can put their we can put their ad in the in the book. You can put it right in. 

Rich Bennett 54:02
Oh, I never even thought it. 

Gary Sprouse 54:03
Yeah, no, that's a cool thing. 

Rich Bennett 54:04
The 

Gary Sprouse 54:05
other thing that comes out, thank you very much for the endorsement by the way. The second thing that came out of this work was people would come to me and they go, well, I would say then, well, if you have less stress, where are you going to be? They're like, I don't know. Like, I know where I don't want to be, but I have no idea where I do want to be. And that's when I started talking about the happy place. And you're like, here's what I read. I said, I did a seminar and I go, tell me what your happy place are and some later raise your hand. She goes, I like the beach. I'm like, that's great. I go how often do you get to go to the beach? She goes on a couple of weeks a year. It's like I was 50 weeks out of the year. You're not in your happy place. 

Rich Bennett 54:39
Hmm. 

Gary Sprouse 54:40
Well, that's not a good number, right? And I so when I started figuring out people's happy places where they're all different. Obviously, but they have the same rooms. They just decorate them differently. So what makes you like, I have fun doing karaoke. Maybe you would get nauseous. They even think about doing karaoke, right? All right, we both like to have pleasure. So your pleasure 

Rich Bennett 55:01
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 55:01
might come from something different than what I do, right? We both have gratitude. We both feel safe. We're all looking for these things that make up the happy place. And here's the key. It's right in your pocket. It's accessible. You can pull it out whenever if your kids doing something dumb and you're like, you dumb kid, I can't believe you're doing that. You pull out your happy place. You're like, Oh, yeah. I'm grateful that I have, kid. And I 

Rich Bennett 55:24
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 55:24
can talk to them and that they can actually do something that is dumb, right? And that they're going to learn. I have hope that they're going to be better when they get older, right? So it's like, you know, that's your happy place. And when you pull that out, you're like, Awesome. And people come to me and they go, the world is falling apart. And I'm like, no, it is not like I'm literally traveling around the world now. And everywhere I go, people are amazingly 

Rich Bennett 55:49
nice. Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 55:50
For the most part, like 99% of people that I run into are incredibly nice. And as an example, I'll just use me as an example. My wife and I are sitting in, where were we at? We're in Greece. Okay. And we're sitting at a little, yeah, it was actually cool. We're sitting at this little cafe and we're eating a sandwich. We're out on the street. And the lady next to us starts choking. And she's like, right? I don't know this lady, but I go over back or I enter on the back and pops out and she's better. And she's like, Oh, I'm thinking that you know, I'm like, but that's what people do. I'm not 

Rich Bennett 56:28
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 56:28
we I'm not unusual. Like 99 out of 100 people would have done the same thing, right? Because people are incredibly nice to each other when you give them the right opportunity. 

Rich Bennett 56:39
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 56:39
And when you look at things the right way, people are incredibly nice. We had a flat tire where you're driving to Atlanta and got a flat tire and we're in Gastonia, North Carolina. Don't know where that is where that's where we're 

Rich Bennett 56:51
at. 

Gary Sprouse 56:52
But those people were incredibly nice. They were like, 

Rich Bennett 56:54
Oh, 

Gary Sprouse 56:55
dude, like, Oh, we got to get out of the tire and it'll be in. And with this, we'll do a triple A came and picked up my truck. I just called on myself and there's a magic box that I could just call people. It's like what? What? Yeah. And it's like and got within a couple hours or back on the road and it's like, this is amazing. Our world is incredible. We just have to be willing to recognize it and stop letting the media dictate what we think of the world. 

Rich Bennett 57:22
Yelp. 

Gary Sprouse 57:22
Because I think is what this is what I would like to see change. Like you get a newspaper and a screaming headline goes, airplane crashes and 300 people die. But what I want to see is that's half the headline, 

Rich Bennett 57:39
right? 

Gary Sprouse 57:39
The other half the headline just as big and just as bold is 3 million people landed safely today. And then you go, Oh, okay, some people died. That's not good. But oh, 3 million people is okay. Now you have balance. 

Rich Bennett 57:55
Yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 57:56
Well, we get now is not there's no balance to it. And so all we're seeing is these bad things. And here's the problem. The way our brains been set up. Our emotional center goes off first. 

Rich Bennett 58:09
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Sprouse 58:09
So when we see something or hear something, it goes to our, this is a part of your brain called the amygdala, which is where the fear center is. That takes neuron to get to the thinking part of your brain takes five neurons. 

Rich Bennett 58:24
Wow. 

Gary Sprouse 58:24
So you're already your body literally is already reacting emotionally to something before you ever get to go, Oh, wait, that's just on the news or that's just a movie where that's like, because you've already reacted. 

Rich Bennett 58:38
Right. 

Gary Sprouse 58:38
Because that's the way your brain's been set up. But if you don't know that, then you're like, "Way, why?" Like, then you don't even realize why you're upset. It's because you reacted to something that was on TV, because you didn't even think about it at first, right? Because it didn't come up anyway. 

Rich Bennett 58:56
And I guarantee you, some of those people stop watching news, their stress levels 

Gary Sprouse 59:00
get... 

Rich Bennett 59:00
are going to 

Gary Sprouse 59:00
Yeah, yeah. 

Rich Bennett 59:01
It has for me. 

Gary Sprouse 59:03
Absolutely. 

Rich Bennett 59:03
I don't watch it anymore. 

Gary Sprouse 59:04
Well, and here's the problem, is like, you want to know about dangerous things. Like, my brother...oh, right? You want to know... 

Rich Bennett 59:11
The social 

Gary Sprouse 59:11
is 

Rich Bennett 59:12
media 

Gary Sprouse 59:12
like... Like, my brother called me the other day. And goes, "Do you know that they're going to have speed cameras all up and down 95 from Florida to the main? And they're going to give you tickets? And you're going to get five tickets every day?" And I'm like, "Wait, what?" And I'm like, "But if you didn't, let's say it turned out, it wasn't all up and down these coasts. But it isn't Delaware, and it isn't Virginia, that they're going to have more speed cameras. And they've already... they did the trial. They had people that were doing 130 miles an hour. What? 

Rich Bennett 59:40
Wow. 

Gary Sprouse 59:40
So now they're going to get tickets, right? So yeah, okay. But you need to know that. So now if you're going to be 130 miles an hour in Delaware, you're going to get a big ticket, right? So if you didn't know that, now you're just getting tickets and you didn't know it. So if you know, if you know I had a time, you can prepare and plan, right? So we want to know bad news, we want to know, you know, Ebola virus or Hanta virus or COVID is common because we want to know what to do. Right? So we want to be prepared for dangerous things, but we don't want to be the only thing that we get to see is dangerous things. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:14
Yeah. Oh yeah, because... And with me, I have to be on social media all the time from mainly from my business. Yeah. So yeah, if I see one of those ads, I think it was, I just not ad, but a headline. And I just, if it looks bad, I'm going to investigate it. Like I just saw something. Yeah, those of you listed, we're recording this on June 25th. And I just saw something yesterday about earthquakes and Venezuela. 

Gary Sprouse 1:00:38
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:39
Too long. Back to back, 7.2 and 7.5. I was like, 

Gary Sprouse 1:00:43
they were that big. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:45
This real, so I, yeah, sorry, researcher who is like, oh, wow. That's, that's 

Gary Sprouse 1:00:52
Well, 

Rich Bennett 1:00:52
that, 

Gary Sprouse 1:00:52
we didn't have this in California. It had like a five and a half in California. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:55
Well, we just got one here in Maryland. 

Gary Sprouse 1:00:57
That was a couple years ago. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:58
No, 

Gary Sprouse 1:00:59
All right. 

Rich Bennett 1:00:59
like last week, 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:00
all right. I 

Rich Bennett 1:01:01
County, all. 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:02
didn't know at 

Rich Bennett 1:01:02
It was a two point, I think a 2.5. 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:05
It is 

Rich Bennett 1:01:05
North 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:05
weird. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:06
room, Bel 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:07
I did when you're in 

Rich Bennett 1:01:07
Air. 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:08
an earthquake in your house starts moving, you're like, wait, what? 

Rich Bennett 1:01:13
it's a little, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's, yeah. And one thing, if that starts happening, people, bit of advice, don't go outside and look and leave your young son 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:22
Yeah, 

Rich Bennett 1:01:22
sitting. 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:24
Yeah. No, that's not good. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:25
Yeah. That one here in Maryland, I did that. And I need, because it's, the first time 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:31
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:01:32
I 

experienced it here in Maryland. Yes. I experienced in Japan before, but not here in Maryland. So I thought it was an Aberdeen Proof of Graham. 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:40
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Not, yes, actually. I don't 

Rich Bennett 1:01:42
And 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:42
know, right? That's what I'm saying. So you like to 

Rich Bennett 1:01:44
yeah. 

Gary Sprouse 1:01:44
have the information to know what's going on. So you got on the news and go, oh, man, that was an earthquake that we had, not a bomb going off underground. So yeah, that's that we like to be educated, particularly for dangerous things. It's how we survive, right? Yeah. The ancestors that we had survived, because they reacted to something quickly. That's how we still alive, right? People that didn't react quickly aren't here anymore. So 

Rich Bennett 1:02:10
yeah, think I'm a son's older now. 

Gary Sprouse 1:02:12
Yeah. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:12
Yeah. 

All right. So Gary, before I get to my last question, which is different from what you were on before, is there anything you would like 

Gary Sprouse 1:02:22
add? 

Rich Bennett 1:02:22
to 

Gary Sprouse 1:02:23
Yeah, I just tell people, don't resign yourself. To live in a stressed out life. Don't resign yourself to being in a stress-reduce-reluke. There are ways out. You just have to be continued. And what I tell people is, there's no such thing as failure until you stop trying. So as long as you're trying, you're not failing, you're just learning. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:41
When 

Gary Sprouse 1:02:42
you stop trying, then you fail. 

Rich Bennett 1:02:45
Exactly. I love that. All right. So what would I do now? I have a hundred different questions. Don't worry. I'm not going to ask you all 100. But I always have my guest pick a question or pick a number, which is going to determine what the question is. A lot of times, somehow or another, it's been aligned with what we've been talking about. So we're going to see how good you pick your numbers. So pick a number between one and five first. 

Gary Sprouse 1:03:12
You want a five 

Rich Bennett 1:03:14
three. Three. All right. Now I need you to pick a number between 41 and 60. 

Gary Sprouse 1:03:21
50. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:23
50. 

Huh. Okay. This is a good question. Nobody's picked this one before that I know of. What is a value that guides most of your decisions? 

Gary Sprouse 1:03:39
That goes, okay, well, so for me the value is that I get significant value for me of helping other people. 

Rich Bennett 1:03:50
Mm-hmm. 

Gary Sprouse 1:03:50
So, and for me that's actually been hardwired into every human's brain. For me it just is accentuated and fortunately I've developed some skills that allow me to help people more than average person. So everything that guides if I'm helping somebody then that's the right direction. If I'm not helping somebody then that's the wrong direction. And so that's the value that I use to guide me is, is it helping people or not. And so that, like we were talking about the podcast and it's like the podcast I didn't think was helping people, 

Rich Bennett 1:04:21
uh, 

Gary Sprouse 1:04:21
and so I decided that I could use my resources in other ways that might be more beneficial. So that's why I pulled back doing that my own podcast. So that's my guiding principles. It is, if it's helping people do it, it is not helping people then don't 

Rich Bennett 1:04:37
do it. I love that. Gary, I want to thank you so much. See what I should have done when I asked that question I should have said, but sing your answer like John. 

Gary Sprouse 1:04:47
Oh yeah, now there you go. 

Rich Bennett 1:04:52
Gary, great to see you and I know I'm going to be singing you again. And eventually when I get down your way or over your way, I've got to go come watch what do you Gary, 

Gary Sprouse 1:05:02
just let me know and I'll be ready. Let's do it. 

Rich Bennett 1:05:05
You got it. Take care. Thanks. Something that really stood out to me in this conversation is Dr. Gary Sprouse's reminder that stress doesn't mean we're weak or broken. Often, we're simply trying to cope with something difficult. And a habit that once brought relief can eventually begin creating more stress than it removes. Whether that habit involves alcohol, social media, tobacco, work, shopping, exercise, or constantly sacrificing our own needs for others, recognizing the loop is the first step toward changing it. Gary also challenged us to reconsider the labels we place on ourselves and other people, and I believe this is very important. A person is not defined by a harmful habit, a setback, or the worst decision they have ever made. We'll deserve dignity, understanding, and the opportunity to learn healthier ways to handle what life throws at them. As Gary explained, a setback doesn't have to be treated as proof of failure. It can become information, something that helps us understand what happened, what triggered it, and what needs to change moving forward. We also heard how much power be found in our choices. Replacing I have to, with I choose to, may sound simple, but it can help restore a sense of control. So can learning to say no without guilt, allowing others to help, and recognizing that we are responsible for how we respond, even when we cannot control what happens around us. Perhaps the most encouraging message from Gary is that none of us has to accept a life ruled by stress. We can learn how our minds work, develop better ways to respond, and create a happy place that isn't limited to a vacation or physical destination. It can be found through gratitude, hope, connection, purpose, and more balanced view of the world around us. And as it reminded us, there is no failure as long as we continue trying. We're still learning, still growing, and still capable of finding a different path. Gary, thanks for returning to the show, for challenging the way we think about stress and harmful habits, and for continuing to build tools that help people feel understood instead of judged. And to everyone listening, take a moment to consider your own stress reducers. Are they still helping you, or have they started creating stress of their own? If you recognize a loop, please remember that it does not define you, and there is a way forward. Until next time, I'm Rich Bennett. Thanks for listening and remember, every great conversation starts with someone willing to listen and someone willing to share. And now it's your turn. Join the conversation by sharing this episode, leave in a comment or reaching out to me directly. Take care, be kind to one another, and I'll talk with you again soon.