Anxiety – be it rational or irrational – paralyses many a life. What causes it? What impact does it have? How can we get over it? And how can Jesus help? All questions that I’ll be asking experienced Christian counsellor – Bob Silberman.

Well, something a bit different on the program this week because we’re going to be joined by a special guest, a long time friend of mine, Bob Silberman. Now Bob’s an interesting guy because years ago when I met him he was a teacher in the burgeoning field of electronics. It was a long time ago but after many, many years of training and practical experience pastoring Churches he now has a very busy counselling practice.

Now, I thought it would be really interesting to ask him this week what are the top 5 reasons that people come to see him? I mean why do people come and see a counsellor? So I rang him a few weeks ago and posed that question and he came back to me and said, “oh that’s easy, the top five reasons that people come to see me are these.”

Firstly anxiety and depression, fear, problems in relationships and finally addictions. I guess none of those are too much of a surprise for us so then I thought to myself, ‘What if we were able to see those from a different perspective – from Bob’s perspective – sitting, as he does, day after day listening to people, helping them through their problems?

So we managed to get him in the studio and we’re going to be talking through each one of those five reasons on the program this week, starting today with anxiety. So Bob, welcome to the program.

Bob: Thankyou. Good to be here.

Berni: Anxiety, is it a big thing? I mean is it number one on the hit parade with people?

Bob: Certainly is. We get more people with anxiety coming into the counselling centre than we do with any other disorder. If you’d like to describe it as a disorder.

Berni: Really, so what’s a picture? What exactly is anxiety?

Bob: We’re designed to have a little anxiety, it’s been given to us by God as a means of protecting us. Interestingly if we have a large tiger or lion running at us we’ve got to decide whether we fight it or we run and what happens is that our whole physiology, that’s our body systems, get us ready to either fight the tiger or the lion or run. In daily life we get stresses that cause us anxiety and those stresses can be very intense and so people get anxious. Hopefully throughout the day they resolve their anxiety but for some folk it just goes on day after day after day.

Berni: So what sort of things cause the anxiety?

Bob: Life stresses are probably the primary cause of anxiety because we all live in a very stressful society. I was speaking with someone the other day about the life stresses that they’re experiencing and we were talking about the time demands that are now on people. You’ve got to get it done by this time, you’ve got to be here by that time. And they find that very stressful, the demands from others, “I want this project completed by yesterday” type demand.

Berni: And I guess in today’s world too we used to be able to hide behind the mail and then someone invented fax machines and now we have emails and mobile phones and SMS’s so the time has become compressed hasn’t it?

Bob: Significantly and that demand of communication actually puts a lot of pressure on people.

Berni: One of the things I realised when I started using public transport was I really like public transport because it builds short delays into my day. I have to stand at the bus stop and wait for 10 minutes for a bus to come which, at the end of the day, is not a bad thing.

Bob: But isn’t it sad when we see most people turning their mobile phones or their technology on and spending their time on the technology rather than just stopping and thinking.

Berni: Absolutely. Yeah absolutely. I was walking around the park near my place and in the morning it’s a beautiful morning and the birds are singing and people are walking around on their mobile phones.

Bob: Correct and so that’s a constant stress and people build up over time a level of anxiety which normally resolves itself but that can cause a high level of anxiety, it can cause an actual physiological change, that is a change in their nervous reactions.

Berni: So how does in manifest? How does it come out? What happens to people when they’re suffering from anxiety?

Bob: It affects their whole responses to everything. Often in an extreme case they become shaky, their vision blurs, they become distressed by the littlest triggers and they literally can’t function very well.

Berni: Oh, and this is the number one on the hit parade?

Bob: It appears to me to be the case.

Berni: Wow, that’s amazing. I guess you could say in some cases anxiety is irrational, would that be true? If you look at it in an objective way you could say well it’s not reasonable to get anxious about those things but I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s rational or not, my perception is my reality.

Bob: A lot of it’s got to do, I think, with people’s expectations of themselves or other people’s expectations of them. I can’t help but thinking of Jesus talking to Mary and Martha in the kitchen, very anxious about making sure that He was properly cared for and she comes to Jesus and complains about Mary’s lack of activity. Jesus challenged her and said, ‘Martha, Martha, try not to be anxious. Mary’s doing the right thing, she’s sitting and talking to me and listening to me.’

Berni: And she’s chosen the better thing.

Bob: Absolutely.

Berni: Yeah okay, so what helps? I come to you and I’m suffering from anxiety. I’m anxious about this and I’m anxious about that, it churns around in my mind all night and all day, I can’t put it down. What sort of things are going to help me deal with anxiety?

Bob: The first thing I do with people is try to help them relax and I try to point out to them that it’s good to build some kind of relaxation method into their living. So I teach them simple methods of relaxation.

Berni: Like standing at the bus stop not talking on the mobile.

Bob: Of course but I also teach them simple breathing techniques so that they breath properly. Let me explain, when we get anxious what happens is we tend to shallow breath and our system becomes alarmed at that and so we can teach people to breath properly, deep breathing, lots of oxygen, it does calm their systems down. Then the next step is to begin to look at the things which we psychologists call triggers. The things that trigger the anxiety.

And it might be all sorts of expectations of others or themselves. Last night I had a woman who came and spent some time with me and her issue is she’s a perfectionist and she can’t ever reach that level and she gets very anxious about her lack of perfection. This lady is a teacher and she sets such a high standard for herself that she struggles to meet that standard. She loves her children but she’s so critical of herself.

Berni: Do people suffer from anxiety over expectations of other people as well?

Bob: Often. Sometimes children and I’ve treated children who are quite anxious about what their parents expect of them. I often treat husbands and wives individually about their stress associated with what their partner expects of them.

Berni: Now Bob I know you’re a Christian, you’ve pastored quite a few Churches, what practical solutions does Gods word have? What does God say about anxiety, if anything?

Bob: Well to me God gives the answer because He says, “Trust in me. Put all your cares in my hands. Trust me and I will help you through this.” I know He recognises that we can be anxious but He also says put our trust in Him and He will give us the answers.

Berni: I guess for many people that’s easier said than done.

Bob: Of course but where do we find that comfort except in His word and in prayer and it’s supported by fellowship of other Christians. We need other Christians to share that fellowship and to be able to talk in human terms about what we’re experiencing and then spend time praying together.

Berni: That’s awesome.

Depression impacts many, many people. But what exactly is it? Are prescription drugs the answer? How can we get over it? And how can Jesus help? All questions that I’ll be asking experienced Christian counsellor – Bob Silberman.

Depression is not an easy subject to talk about. It’s not something that I talk about on the program much I guess because I don’t feel qualified to do that. Sure we can all feel a bit depressed from time to time but that can develop into something much deeper. Something with both psychological and physiological dimensions to it as well as spiritual and emotional dimension.

But today I’m joined by someone who counsels people with depression pretty much as a full-time job. His name’s Bob Silberman. Of course people come to see him for other things too but depressions one of the main things.

Now Bob’s a strong Christian too so the thing that really interests me in this whole area of depression is how Bob makes the rubber hit the road in bringing his faith in Jesus to bear when he’s helping people through this difficult time of depression. Because for me that’s the thing.

I believe this whole Christianity thing actually works and if it doesn’t, if Jesus isn’t able to make a difference in our lives it’s kind of, well what’s the point? My hunch is I’m not the only one to ask the question. So lets put this Christian counsellor right on the spot. Bob, welcome to the program, feeling comfortable are we about being put on the spot?

Bob: Absolutely.

Berni: Good on you. So Bob tell us about this thing depression. In a nutshell what is it?

Bob: Depression expresses itself mainly in people not being able to function normally. They lose their capacity to make decisions. They lose the capacity to think their way through problems and they lose the capacity to relate. So often people who are deeply depressed go to bed and stay there because they literally can’t face the day or the week.

Berni: So are there different degrees of depression? Is there some line where you step over that line and it becomes a clinical issue?

Bob: Absolutely! Let me say this that there’s always been a sign of depression in our society, it’s common. I get the figures recently that 1 in 5 females and 1 in 8 males will experience depression in their life time which suggests a fairly high number of people experiencing depression.

Berni: And how is that different from, we all feel down sometimes right?

Bob: Sure.

Berni: We all feel a bit glum and sad, so how is it different?

Bob: Our lovely black Americans used to sing the blues and that was their way of expressing feeling down but depression in a clinical sense means a person can’t function or their function is severely disturbed so that they can’t do the things that they normally do. They feel like they’re in a big, deep, black hole.

Berni: Alright give us some examples of what causes it? I mean people that you see, obviously you’re not going to mention names but what sorts of things do people get depressed about? Is there a reason, is there a trigger or is it just a psychological general thing?

Bob: People get depressed by life stresses. It might be a family conflict, it might be an interpersonal conflict with a person they may work with or relate to. It might be a recent loss or disappointment in some way that causes them to feel depressed. It might be the conditions they work under which causes them to feel depressed. Past experiences often come in to their daily living. The kind of personality they have maybe one that expresses it.

Berni: Would some personality types be more prone to depression than others?

Bob: Well, we hear people saying that he or she is melancholic. It’s not a term I like, it comes from the ancient Greeks, I think it’s better to say that some people tend towards a depressive approach to life rather than an optimistic approach. It can be flushed out in some people’s lives by just high anxiety. A highly anxious person can become depressed. This can cause a change in their brain function which is quite sad and they need help. Sometimes depressed people actually have a family of depression and they can go back 2 or 3, my great grandmother, my grandmother, my mother and that’s why I’m depressed.

Berni: Does it often go undiagnosed?

Bob: Yes it does because in some families, oh well that’s the way we function and so it’s not until they get to the clinical level where they’re so severely depressed they can’t normally function that the problem is picked up. And then sometimes they’ll say, ‘Oh gosh, the rest of the family were like that too’. Of course, if I might mention that drugs and alcohol are severe depressants and people end up with quite serious problems. Also folks who have some kind of medical illness.

Berni: Okay, what about prescription medication? I mean there are a lot of people on prescription drugs to help them with depression, is that the answer?

Bob: Not completely. Initially over many years the medical fraternity just felt give them a pill and they’ll be right but we now know that that’s insufficient. It took a long time for the medical profession to accept the fact that people just by taking a drug were not totally helped and that’s why psychotherapy, as we call it, with clinical psychologists and other trained therapists bring the change.

Berni: I guess that sounds a little bit daunting, I mean going to see a psychotherapist and clinical and the average punter who hasn’t been involved in that world before might find that just a little bit, “Ooh am I crazy? Is there something really wrong with me?”

Bob: That’s how they come through the office door to me often and I spend the first five minutes calming them and saying, “No, it’s okay, you’re not crazy but you do have a problem that’s disabling you, lets address it.” Often they’ve come also referred by their GP or their Doctor.

Berni: Now Bob I know you’re a Christian, you’ve pastored quite a few Churches in your time, does God have any answers to this?

Bob: I believe He has the clearest answer of all. It’s very much related to our putting our trust in Him for our circumstances. Individuals often try to work out their problems on their own rather than turning to God and seeing His solutions. They might even try to ask others, “Well what can I do?” but He has the answers. His word is most powerful. His word tells a story of how people have been depressed but His word also talks about the healing that God can bring to the life of an individual.

Berni: In a practical sense how do you bring Gods word, I mean God does talk, He says, ‘Don’t worry about anything, don’t get stressed about stuff’. He does say that in His word, Jesus says that but how do you make the rubber hit the road? I mean how do you lift that veil of depression off a person’s life?

Bob: If they’re seriously depressed we need the help of medication. There’s a chemical change that occurs in the brain when someone is severely depressed and what we do is we give them a medication which changes that chemical balance a little bit. The drugs do work but on their own they’re not enough. And so people then spend time with a therapist and they will receive guidance and help and understanding and I operate on the principle of what we call Cognitive Behaviour therapy which is really saying cognitive/brain, behaviour/change your behaviour. So change your thinking changes your behaviour.

Berni: Okay, lets say there’s someone listening right now, we’re running out of time, someone’s listening right now who may feel that they’re depressed. If you could give them just one quick bit of advice what would that be?

Bob: Probably I would say acknowledge that you are depressed. Seek help from someone who you know has some professional skills but put your trust in Jesus because He can meet needs that the human beings can’t.

Berni: Bob Silberman, thanks very much.

Bob: Thank you.

Fear – be it rational or irrational – paralyses many a life. But what is it? What causes it? What impact does it have? How can we get over it? And how can Jesus help? All questions I’ll be asking experienced Christian counsellor – Bob Silberman.

Now, fear’s something that we’ve talked quite a bit about on the program over the years. Two reasons, firstly because we all experience fear, we all find things to be afraid of. It’s because there are so many things out there, outside our control that can impact negatively on our well being.

But also we’ve talked a lot about fear because one of the things that God says quite a bit through His word is, “Do not be afraid.” God is a God who wants His perfect love to cast out all fear and to give us peace.

Today, we have a fantastic opportunity to look at fear from a different perspective. If you’ve been able to join us earlier in the week you’ll know that I have a special guest on the program, a man by the name of Bob Silberman. Now, Bob is a clinical psychologist, a Christian counsellor and he also spends a lot of time talking with people about issues and problems in their lives.

One of the things that Bob’s identified as one of the top five reasons that people come to see him is this whole issue of fear. So I’m really looking forward to seeing this fear thing from a different perspective.

Berni: Bob, welcome again today on the program.

Bob: Hi Berni.

Berni: Fantastic to have you here. Now Bob the other day you and I were chatting about anxiety and yet today we’re going to talk about fear. Are they the same thing? Are they different? Are they related?

Bob: They’re different but they’re related. Fear is a response to a threat and so we might experience or perceive a threat that’s coming our way and we can become fearful and then that will cause us to react in one way or another. And the fear can be real or it can be imagined but it’s still a fear.

Berni: I guess it doesn’t matter whether it’s real or imagined.

Bob: Well, you can define a fear in lots of ways. Let me give you an example, there was a woman that I treated some years ago, she was frightened of birds, she would not go into the backyard and hang out the washing without firstly sending the dog out to scare the birds away and the children to chase them away. And if a bird flew over head even quite high she would run inside and hide.

Berni: Do people feel odd about having fears like that? Do they kind of go, “Look I feel really silly, I have this fear of birds” or “how does that work?”

Bob: She was referred to me by her pastor because it was affecting her life very seriously but she had hidden that fear for many years. So people will hide their fears because they recognise that they’re unusual, it’s not the normal way to respond. They meet others who are not fearful like they are.

Berni: I guess in a sense some rational fears are a good thing, I mean it’s probably a good thing that I’m afraid of funnel web spiders and red belly black snakes, it makes me keep away from them as they’re deadly but is there a difference between good fear and bad fear, irrational fear? Am I getting the distinction right?

Bob: We need to be fearful of things that will harm us so we have to be wise and we teach our children ‘Don’t run out on the road where there are trucks and cars, you could get hurt’. There are fears that come our way and we can’t explain them, they’re just responses to events or situations and we can become so fearful that it affects how we function on the day to day basis.

Berni: So what are we doing when we experience that sort of fear, I mean why do we do that? What’s going on?

Bob: It’s part of our safety. I believe that we need to have some fears just to be safe.

Berni: But the bird flying over head right, what’s going on when you start to experience that sort of fear? Where do they come from?

Bob: Well, what happened, it took us six months to finally work out that when she was three years old their favourite goose used to chase her and bite her and the family had filmed it and mocked her at times when they showed the film. But the film got lost and it took her a long time to remember what really frightened her. The result was that when we began to address that fear her fear of animals, particularly birds, changed. My last contact with her she was taking the children to Centennial Park in Sydney feeding the ducks.

Berni: Isn’t that great? It’s amazing how complex we are as people isn’t it?

Bob: We certainly are, there’s no simple solution in the human term.

Berni: So how do you help people face their fears and deal with them?

Bob: The most important thing I think is to identify the fear or the group of fears and so we help people. I talk to them and get them to think through the things that they have become fearful about. And when we identify them we try to do a process of changing their thinking which will change their behaviour. And so that’s to me where we can bring Christ into it because He can help us to change our thinking. Saint Paul said, “Renew your mind by focusing on Christ.”

Berni: Okay take me back to being afraid of the birds ’cause it’s a really good example, with a lot of people it’s not birds it’s something else.

Bob: Absolutely.

Berni: How do you help a person who’s afraid of birds, just step through that to the point where she’s going to feed the ducks with the kids?

Bob: We did it as an interesting process. First of all on one occasion I actually went on site with her and we went to the beach where there are a lot of sea gulls. And she showed me her fears, showed me because she wouldn’t get out of the car, she literally could not get out onto the beach because there were sea gulls sitting on the beach. That was a sad event for her but slowly we encouraged her to approach the birds from a long distance and progressively she began to recognise her fear. The fear created severe anxiety for her so we treated the anxiety and as she began to treat the anxiety produced by the fear she slowly began to get better.

Berni: Have you ever experienced that sort of fear?

Bob: I guess I’ve played around with scary things like collecting funnel web spiders, I’ve always been extra cautious I think but I, everybody has a little bit of fear but I’ve never been disabled by fear.

Berni: For anyone who doesn’t live in Australia funnel web spiders are one of our particularly dangerous varieties of spiders.

Bob: They are and snakes too, we do have them and we have to be careful around them. There are others who are so skilled at handling them, they have no fear.

Berni: What’s another example of fear that you’ve met with someone?

Bob: Probably the one that I most commonly see is the fear of getting into trouble from somebody.

Berni: Okay.

Bob: I often experience this in terms of a wife who’s afraid of her husband getting very angry about something that she’s done.

Berni: Is that more the husbands problem? I mean is it because some men just have anger in their marriages?

Bob: They do and so some women are afraid of doing something wrong and getting punished verbally mostly but verbal punishment can be more severe than physical punishment for some and so that’s a very fear producing thing. There are also men who come home and they’re quite frightened of their wife so it’s both ways. Children frightened of parents.

Berni: Incredibly sad. Okay someone’s listening at the moment today and they’re dealing with some real fear in their lives. If you could give them one piece of advice what would that be?

Bob: I think the first thing to do is to identify the fear, whatever it is and to recognise that it’s real and that it’s actually affecting you as a person. The next thing to do I think is to speak to someone who you trust and talk to them about it and share with them this fear. You don’t want to feel criticised, you want them to believe you. And as a clinical psychologist people say to me, “You believe me do you? No one else will.” My response is, “Yes, I do believe you, let’s now address it.” Seems to me there’s one other thing that I think is most important is to pray.

Berni: Bob, we have to cut it there, we’re running out of time. Thanks for joining us and we’ll catch you again tomorrow.

Bob: It’s a pleasure.

We all experience relationship problems from time to time. Hmm. Why is that? What impact can those problems have in our lives? How can we deal with them? And how can Jesus help? All questions that I’ll be asking experienced Christian counsellor – Bob Silberman.

Today again, we’re really blessed to be joined on the program by Bob Silberman. Now Bob’s a clinical psychologist, a Christian counsellor and helps many, many people.

A few weeks ago I asked him, “What were the top five reasons that people came to him for counselling?” These are the reasons he nominated, anxiety, depression, fear, relationship problems and addictions. So over the last few days we’ve chatted together about the first three of those, anxiety, depression and fear.

And today, I’m really looking forward to today’s subject, relationship problems. I can tell you whenever we talk about relationships on the program the phone runs hot and the website melts down because it seems that this is one of the strongest felt needs that people have.

We all have to deal with some difficult people. We all have to cope with the mistakes, the sins of others, we all have to deal with conflict, we all have relationships that could be better and my hunch is that Bob and I could spend a month of Sundays talking about this one subject alone.

We have just a few minutes today so Bob, welcome again to the program.

Bob: Thank you.

Berni: Relationship problems. Wow! Where do we begin?

Bob: I’m not sure but I guess we are relationship beings; God has designed us that way so when we’re tiny, tiny babies we’re relating to our mums and then slowly we begin to relate to the others around us – our dads, our brothers, our sisters and the wider circle. So relationships are extremely important for our emotional health and I guess that’s something that people are concerned about. We see it often in children in the playground, very anxious particularly little girls are anxious about relationships. The boys just have a fight on the football field but the girls are very worried about relationships.

Berni: Are there any specific aspects of a relationship that people are finding particularly difficult these days?

Bob: I believe it’s got a lot to do with closeness to each other. We’re seeing enormous pressures on relationships. A lot of relationships are under pressure in the home, in the work place, in the community. Let’s think about the home. The mum and dad are both working, their lives are full of activities outside the home, they don’t get as much time to spend time just basically relating to each other. The time away from the home means that they’re not getting time for relationship with their children. Children yearn for that relationship.

Berni: So I guess we’re all so busy, we’re all doing work, we’re all doing stuff, there are a million entertainment options and the thing that suffers is the time that we used to spend just talking.

Bob: You’ll probably remember grandparents saying we all stood around the piano and used to sing or used to sit at the dinner table and talk to each other. I’ve observed that a lot of families sit in front of the television set and eat their dinner and never talk to each other. So the night is gone of even relating or the weekend is involved with some kind of social activity or sport that takes them in different directions.

Berni: Why can’t we see this coming? I mean it’s blindingly glimpsingly obvious isn’t it? What’s the matter with us that we’re missing this?

Bob: It’s got a lot do with the pressures on us. I think in society that I’ve observed that parents now spend a lot of time running here, there and everywhere taking children to lots of different activities. When I was a kid we …

Berni: It was a long time ago wasn’t it Bob?

Bob: (Both laughing) It was a long time ago but we had to make our own interests and activity. But somehow or the other now parents are expected to create interests for their children but it fragments the family.

Berni: Okay so how do you help them? It must be an absolute minefield.

Bob: It is and a great number of people who come my way might be one partner of a relationship that’s in trouble. I always want to get both together at some stage so I might be referred a partner, maybe a wife or a husband individually but after two or three sessions I want to bring the partner in and then we work on the relationship together. It’s very important for both to be involved because if you just have one partner making a change about the way they think about the relationship it won’t work unless the other partner is on board.

Berni: A bit of a cliché but it takes two to tango, right?

Bob: It does. It does and it takes two to keep a relationship healthy. One of the issues is that you probably know about Berni and I certainly know about even in my own marriage is the importance of communication. People have stopped talking to each other and I’m not just talking about functional communication – “can you pick the kids up from the shops or the school; can you buy some milk on your way home; please don’t forget to stop and do this or that.” What’s happening is people are not relating at that next level which is the emotional level.

Berni: This is how I feel, this is what I’m experiencing, and this is what I’m going through, what do you think?

Bob: Absolutely. Do you know I have to teach people that? When you’re talking to each other talk about how you’re feeling. I was speaking to a couple this week who were looking at me in absolute amazement. What do you mean talk about how you feel? We’ve never done that. And I said to them let’s begin, let’s do some exercises now and at the end of the session they said, “We haven’t talked to each other like that ever.”

Berni: Unbelievable isn’t it? And of course some people, I mean I’m less a heart person, I’m more a go and do it, get it done, you know this type A action man type guy, and a lot of guys are like that and we’re less concerned about feelings, aren’t we? We’re kind of more concerned about who’s going to win the football on the weekend or that sort of thing? So it’s very easy, particularly for guys, to get into this trap of not talking.

Bob: The difference I think that’s designed into us is males are very task focused whereas females are much more relationship focused and so males often will focus on the task and forget about the relationship. That’s dangerous in terms of the relationship. The statistics tell us one in two marriages are failing, isn’t that sad?

Berni: It’s terrible.

Bob: Terribly sad.

Berni: It’s a real tragedy.

Bob: Yeah.

Berni: Someone’s listening, they’ve got relationship problems right now, there’s a problem in a relationship at home or at work. What are one or two of the most important things for them to do now?

Bob: Try to communicate that problem to their partner or to their child. Seek opportunities to rebuild the relationship.

Berni: Can you rebuild the relationship because that’s the hard bit isn’t it?

Bob: It is.

Berni: You can try and communicate, there’s some fence mending if you can call it that.

Bob: Absolutely. It’s interesting to me in the clinical setting, we often get women who come and say, “I’m trying to fix it up but he doesn’t seem interested”. “I’m trying to fix it up but my child says, ‘Oh mum you’re on it again’”.

Berni: What does she do?

Bob: Well it’s important if she first of all identifies the problem. Then I spend time trying to help her develop strategies for changing how the family operates and changing how she communicates because some men will say, ‘Oh she’s always whining’ and that’s not helpful.

Berni: Dripping tap.

Bob: Yes, that’s not helpful.

Berni: Well that was fascinating. Tomorrow we going to be talking the last the main reasons people come to see you, addictions. Give me a quick heads up, where are we going with that?

Bob: Gosh Berni, that’s a big subject. People seem to be addicted to all sorts of things. We can think of the obvious addictions like alcohol, which seems to be a huge problem in our society. To a lesser extent drugs but people can be addicted to television, they can be addicted to other activities.

Berni: Bob, thanks for joining us and we’ll catch you again tomorrow.

Bob: It’s a pleasure.

Addictions are everywhere. Pornography. Alcohol. Drugs. Cigarettes. They’re the obvious ones – and there are others – perhaps a bit more subtle. So, why do people get hooked? How can they get unhooked? And .. well, can Jesus help? All questions that I’ll be asking experienced Christian counsellor – Bob Silberman.

Well, I’m kind of sad because it’s the end of the week again. And if you’ve been able to join us throughout this week so far on the program you’ll know that my special guest, Bob Silberman, has been giving us some powerful insights about the reasons that people come to see him in his counselling practice.

We’ve talked about anxiety, depression, fear and relationship problems. If you’ve missed any of those discussions I’ll let you know at the end of the program how you can catch up and hear them online.

But today, today we’re finishing off our discussions with Bob on the subject of addictions. So many people are addicted to so many different things and the problem with addictions is that they have so many different aspects to them, physical, emotional even spiritually, especially spiritually.

An addiction puts the whole person into bondage. It locks the whole person up, not just part of them and with often devastating consequences. So Bob welcome again to the program.

Bob: Hi Berni, it’s good to be here.

Berni: So Bob how do you define addiction? What exactly is it? I mean I love chocolate, am I addicted?

Bob: You can be if you’re constantly eating chocolate. I had one lovely lady who came to see me; she could not go to bed each night until she’d eaten two family bars of chocolate.

Berni: That’s a bit extreme.

Bob: Her relationship was in severe trouble and so she was eating chocolate to try and comfort herself. Now chocolate releases seratonin in our system so we feel good when we eat chocolate. Other people can be more severely addicted to alcohol or drugs or other kind of chemical addictions. My wife thinks I’m addicted to apples, I love my apple each day and she says sometimes I can’t keep enough apples up to you because I think you’re addicted to them.

Berni: That’s not a bad thing. At what point does an addiction become bad? At what point does one glass of wine a night turn into an addiction to alcohol?

Bob: When it becomes a chemical obsession, if you like. I can’t manage without my five beers; I can’t manage without my three glasses of wine. And it becomes daily, even for some folk hourly, that kind of addiction. We see it with cigarette smokers. Some cigarette smokers can’t go more than a short period before they take a nicotine boost. Our society is changing in case you’ve noticed and we’re not making space for cigarette smokers as much as we used to.

Berni: Well that differs right around the world. Some places it’s still very strong and of course here where we live it’s not. What are some of the other things that people are most commonly addicted to?

Bob: People can be addicted to sport. It’s almost like they have to have the sport channel on their television set or sports station on their radio and then listening to sport and in the process they’re excluding all others in their lives.

Berni: It’s almost as though you can be addicted to just about anything.

Bob: I think you can be. It depends on the level of your response to whatever that is that you’re interested in.

Berni: I mean the obvious ones are alcohol, drugs, pornography but sports channel, I mean just listening to that that can really ruin a family.

Bob: It can. I’ve had wives come and say, “He walks in the door, turns the television on, tunes into the sports channel, hardly speaks to any of us and there he is for the rest of the night”.

Berni: Is it because some of us have an addictive personality? Are some people more prone to addictions than others?

Bob: That’s a hard question. It seems a pattern of behaviour that some people choose, it maybe that they choose it for the reasons of escaping. They want to get away from the stresses of life that they’re experiencing so they use either a chemical or some kind of process to escape from their reality and so they become addicted to that particular thing whatever it is.

Berni: You used the word a lifestyle some people choose, I guess someone who’s addicted to something wouldn’t see it as a choice.

Bob: They may not see it as a choice but initially it was a choice.

Berni: Right.

Bob: Can I choose to drink? Can I choose to smoke? We do know that chemical processes change in the human body when they do those things but with the help of different organisations and good therapy people can change their behaviour. First of all, as a cognitive behaviour therapist, we believe…..

Berni: That’s a big term, tell me about that. Cognitive behaviour therapist.

Bob: Sounds powerful doesn’t it? But cognitive means thinking, behaviour is how we behave, therapy means healing. Helping people to change their thinking which changes their behaviour and that’s therapeutic. This is what Jesus was saying, we need to change our thinking. God’s perspective is better than our sinful perspective.

Berni: Okay so what are some of the key impacts you see in people’s lives through their addictions?

Bob: My observations generally are they can’t function as well. Somehow or other they’re life is changed by the addiction. Think of the drug addict, they’re often searching for money and opportunities to buy more drugs to feed their addiction. The person who is hungry for alcohol and sadly there are people who are addicted to food and we see some people who say, ‘I can’t manage without my …

Berni: Apple.

Bob: Macca’s or whatever it is.

Berni: Okay, so you get this real crackpot come to you who’s addicted to apples, let’s say.

Bob: Yes. Me. (Both laugh)

Berni: And I sit down in your office and say, “Bob, I’m just addicted to apples” or “I’m addicted to chocolate”, help me change my mind. I mean I love the stuff and I can’t, I see a block of chocolate or I see an apple or whatever it is, I just can’t help myself.

Bob: Do you know Berni, it takes us back to our first topic of anxiety? Because when people are anxious they want to calm that anxiety. So often they will eat or take a chemical or something like that to kind of lower the anxiety they’re feeling and in lowering that anxiety then they feel better in themselves.

Berni: Is there a spiritual dimension to this to? When someone’s hooked to something it seems to have gripped them like a vice.

Bob: I totally agree with that. I think that the enemy, the devil, tries to hook people into things which will focus them away from Jesus and so they get caught up.

Berni: So there’s the cognitive behaviour therapy, that’s important, but I would have thought that there’s a spiritual dimension, a prayer and of Christian fellowship?

Bob: Absolutely! If a person has an addiction they are often diverted away from relationships – their relationship with God and their relationship with other Christians – and so they can be caught up in their addiction rather than seeking opportunities to be strengthened through the word of God, through fellowship, through prayer, through the study of the Bible.

Berni: Yeah. We talked a little bit before about Romans chapter 12, verse 1 and 2 which talks about being transformed by the renewing of our mind and then in that chapter Paul goes straight on and talks about us in community.

Bob: Yes.

Berni: We tend to think of ourselves as us in isolation but community is a place of healing.

Bob: Sadly addictions separate people rather than bring them together. A person who is addicted to drugs is separated except from their own drug community where they’re dealing with drugs. Alcoholics tend often to separate themselves too. Quite sad really.

Berni: Yeah. Bob, look it’s been fantastic having you on the program, we’re out of time. We might see if we can get you back sometime and talk some more.

Bob: It’s been my pleasure.

Berni: Thanks.