Maureen Benkovich (00:01.71)
Could your struggle with alcohol actually be your brain's cry for dopamine? ADHD is massively underdiagnosed, especially in women, and it could be the missing link behind impulsivity, emotional overwhelm, and the urge to numb out. Today's guest is Jerry South, and she's here to explain all of this to us. So we're gonna dive deep into the connection between ADHD and addiction, especially how undiagnosed or untreated ADHD is.
can drive people to self-medicate with alcohol and other substances as well. So my guest today is Jerry South, certified ADHD specialist, parent and team coach and a neurodivergent woman herself. She brings personal and professional insight to a topic that is not talked about enough, especially around alcohol, I think. How emotional, dysregulation, dopamine chasing, which we're gonna get into, and shame loops affect the way we drink. And why understanding your brain wiring
could be a powerful tool in staying sober, grounded and in control. So Jerry, thank you so much for reaching out and for coming on to Sober Fitlife. I'm really excited to have this conversation and hopefully clear up. There's so much contrasting information going on around there. So thank you.
Jheri South (01:16.331)
Yeah, thank you for having me, Maureen. I'm really excited to have this conversation.
Maureen Benkovich (01:21.494)
Yeah. So can you talk about how you got interested in this, how you are now a specialist in ADHD and specializing as a parent and teen coach?
Jheri South (01:30.974)
You bet. There's so much there. So I've really tried to condense it down because I didn't always specialize in neurodivergence. So I wasn't diagnosed with ADHD until I was in my forties. I was almost 40 and all seven of my children are neurodivergent. But going back to being a young mom, getting a divorce, having six children and being a single mother, there was a lot of struggle there. And actually, as I think back earlier into
my twenties, experienced, excuse me, experienced some addiction myself and I noticed that I had a very addictive personality and my own parents had been divorced and I had a lot of just abandonment issues, some different struggles going on and it was incredibly painful. In fact, I would say that I knew deep down that my internal reaction and even sometimes my external reaction
was maybe bigger than the situation in front of me warranted. Maybe I would have a breakup or something would happen at work. I was really bouncing a lot back and forth in a tremendous amount of emotional pain. And at the time, not knowing I had ADHD or rejection sensitivity dysphoria, which is the intense feeling of rejection that most ADHDers struggle with, I just thought I was a sensitive person or that my life was really hard.
Maureen Benkovich (02:31.522)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (02:56.931)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (02:59.154)
people with ADHD tend to numb a lot more often than others because we're such intense feelers. So I did struggle with some addiction myself. Alcohol was not really the thing that I struggled with so much, but the other things. And it was a really difficult time to overcome that on my own and get out of this pain. And then you fast forward to having to go through a divorce because my husband, had to my knowledge,
no background in addiction was, I mean, we're like, we're church going people raising our family. I was really blindsided and that addiction, by the way, I've been divorced now for over 12 years and remarried, just continued to get worse and worse. And it runs strong in my family. So as I become certified to become a coach and I'm working with women, that's who I want to work with initially. I love women and
I went through a hard time in my divorce and raising six kids and going through a divorce with a husband who suffers from addiction. And it got to the point where it was meth and things like that and never got better. There's so much to that story when you are going through that with someone from losing property and money to your family falling apart and your children struggling. But I started to see with my children.
there's some things going on here. I mean, this is running in our family. There's some mental health issues and eventually, I did, I did actually, I was going to say eventually I found out I had ADHD, but, I had a child attempt suicide. I was trying to get him help nowhere. I went, helped him. He counselors, therapists. I didn't know he was neurodivergent at the time. And once we started getting diagnosed, all of this made sense.
Maureen Benkovich (04:38.158)
So sorry.
Jheri South (04:52.004)
And so I, at that time, had shifted my niche to working with parents and teens because I believed that coaching saved his life. And shortly after that, I found I started to discover what it meant to have ADHD, to have autism. Most of my children have both. And what this meant for us and what we needed to do to keep our family healthy and overcome these things that had been really a plague in our family.
And so I just, I went down a rabbit hole with both ADHD and autism. I took camera crews to some of the top specialists. Dr. William Dodson is just one. I consider him to be one of the very top ADHD doctors in the United States. And I interviewed him and asked him every question I'd ever had, four hours, every question my clients had, and continued to interview specialists all over the world, even outside of the United States that I can find so that I could not only help and
really save my family, but then also be the person that I was looking for for other families because there is so much misinformation and people who are neurodivergent are three to four times more likely to suffer with addiction. So this is a personal topic for me and I really do believe that coaching saved my children and saves a lot of families as well.
Maureen Benkovich (06:13.88)
It's so amazing how you saw the gap and instead of just giving up, you said, I'm going to fill this gap. I'm going to figure this out for my family. And now this is what you do professionally. That's incredible.
Jheri South (06:25.918)
Right, it just took me down a road when someone wanted me to do a teen class, just so you know, in the very beginning, my answer was, no way, I'm not working with teens, my son hates me, that sounds terrible. And now, of course, I absolutely love it.
Maureen Benkovich (06:33.528)
Yeah.
Right. Well, can you for our audience and myself as well, explain neurodivergence? We hear this term thrown around a lot in the last few years. What does that mean?
Jheri South (06:48.222)
So a neurodivergent brain is just, it's basically saying it's not a neurotypical brain. So neurotypical brain is a brain that thinks, it's more common, right? A neurotypical brain is what most of us have, a neurotypical brain, it doesn't think like an autistic brain or it doesn't function like an ADHD brain. So if you are neurodivergent, you fall,
in either one of two categories. Autism, somewhere on the spectrum. And we don't use the term Asperger's anymore, even though personally I wish we did. I don't like that anyone on the spectrum is considered autistic. I'm not big on labels anyway, but I don't like that because you can have such a wide range. It prevents sometimes one from wanting to be diagnosed because autism can be nonverbal, right?
Maureen Benkovich (07:41.07)
Mm-hmm, I can relate.
Jheri South (07:45.129)
high functioning at all. And it can also be genius level, you know, IQ and functioning quite well. And we just call it autism. And then ADHD also falls under that umbrella of neurodivergence. And so what we're saying is just that our brain functions, thinks, and processes information different than a neurotypical brain.
Maureen Benkovich (07:52.515)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (08:08.332)
And yet we don't understand it so much, especially, I don't know about you, but I was a child of the 80s. We didn't really understand this stuff at all. And so being, were told you were too much, you were too sensitive, you overreact. I definitely experienced those types of things. As you were saying, you called it hyper sensitivity rejection syndrome. What was that?
Jheri South (08:15.398)
Never talked about it, no.
Jheri South (08:29.28)
yeah, so rejection sensitivity dysphoria. It's not necessarily a second diagnosis as much as it is just a name for the intense emotional reaction that ADHDers have. We will call it RSD. And it's about 95 % of those with ADHD will experience RSD to some level. But this is really interesting. One third of all adults with
ADHD say that RSD, rejection sensitivity dysphoria, is the number one symptom that they deal with. That's really important in my mind because for so long we thought of ADHD as hyperactivity, which two thirds of all ADHDers are not hyperactive. We thought of it as not being able to focus, distractibility, which it will be those things for a lot of people. But the emotional dysregulation is such a
big part of ADHD and for many women especially, it is the most important part. It is the most difficult thing that they deal with because it's this uncontrollable, intense emotion of either anger or sadness and it comes on almost faster than we can even process. And so if we don't understand it and we haven't learned how to manage it,
It can ruin relationships. could cause us a lot of problems in our life because it's taking over. And it's real. It's real for us.
Maureen Benkovich (09:58.37)
Yeah, it is. It is. I've met so many women through my own coaching of clients as well as when I went through my own coaching to stop drinking. I met so many women with undiagnosed ADHD who realized they were self-medicating. Sue, can you talk about the link between ADHD women, emotional dysregulation and self-medicating with alcohol?
Jheri South (10:20.946)
absolutely, absolutely. Well, and as a coach, I'm sure you're aware of this, but for your audience, really, as we grow up, we learn to do three things with our emotions. We either resist them, we just push them down and pretend that they're not there, or we blame and react, right? You made me feel this way, we might slam a door or give a silent treatment, but we are reacting and many times blaming, or we avoid them. And when we avoid them, what do we do? WE
buffer. So buffering is my word for anything that we do to avoid how we're feeling. And of course, I want to focus on women, but I also want to just point out in today's, you know, the way that we live today, this is especially a problem for teenagers because when I was growing up, if I had a bad day at school, I went in my room, you know, how many channels did we have? I sound so old when I say we probably have 15 or 20 channels. Oh, three. So, okay. Yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (11:14.35)
Three. I'm older than you, three.
Jheri South (11:17.816)
I'm almost 50, so maybe I'm just remembering incorrectly. you know, I would lie on my bed and I would stare at the ceiling and I would turn on the radio and I'd have to wait 20 minutes, right, for a song that I liked to come on the radio. But what I was going to say is I actually had time to think about what happened. Maybe I didn't love it, but I would.
Maureen Benkovich (11:23.98)
Right, numb out.
Jheri South (11:35.389)
replay and I would think about my thoughts. But today, that's not the case. There's AirPods in ears, there's a phone and scrolling, there's a fast food restaurant, multiple on every corner, soda shops, Dutch Bros, Starbucks, you name it, video games, access to pornography, and it's really easy to get drugs and drink and vape. So kids today especially, and adults too, I wanna focus on women, but I just wanted to highlight because most women are parents as well or have friends that have kids.
Maureen Benkovich (12:01.976)
Yes?
Jheri South (12:04.478)
Our kids today are set up for failure because they're not learning to process their emotions. They're dealing with so much anxiety and that anxiety many times comes from not having the ability because they're growing up to be fragile. They haven't been taught to sit and process through what they're feeling.
Maureen Benkovich (12:23.938)
No, I'm glad you're talking about children because children become women and men. And if we don't learn the skills early, we take them into our adult relationships, being parents, how we interact with people. So it makes absolute sense. If you can catch it earlier, more the better.
Jheri South (12:27.261)
Yes.
Jheri South (12:38.63)
Right. Well, and also I just want to highlight that in the beginning, when we're first becoming addicted to something, our brain doesn't really care what the dopamine is. We just are having a hard day or we're feeling overwhelmed or anxious or sad. And so we go do something. It could be we open up the pantry and we grab a box of cookies. It could be that we binge a whole season of Netflix or it could be that we have a drink of alcohol. The brain doesn't really care. It just wants something to feel better.
Maureen Benkovich (12:56.963)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (13:06.972)
And then we know it only feels good for a short period of time. And then we don't feel better again. So we're training our brain. I need this for survival. Now, as soon as we feel something uncomfortable, our brain says, go do that. It's like a toddler with a knife, right? It's like, go do it, right? And so after a while, now it's become a problem. And so, especially for teenagers, these things, fast food, video games for eight hours, TikTok.
Maureen Benkovich (13:20.204)
Do that thing again. Yeah.
Jheri South (13:33.315)
vaping, it eventually turns into bigger things. And so what we're really talking about is getting control over our brain. Well, ADHDers, they are dopamine chasers because we are already dopamine depleted. We have a lower level of dopamine. And this is why if anyone out there can relate with this, if you have ADHD, you will get burnt out quite easily if you're working all day, you're hyper focusing on something that needs to get done.
Maureen Benkovich (13:39.267)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (14:00.485)
everybody experiences burnout. But the difference for an ADHDer is the burnout is coming from usually a dopamine depletion. So this is why someone with ADHD can have a really long week and they feel completely burnt out and they can lie around all day. Let's say it's a Sunday, they lie around all day long, they take a little nap and on Monday, they don't feel refreshed. They don't feel ready to get back to work because the problem wasn't necessarily rest.
It's not the energy, it's the dopamine depletion. So ADHDers, many times without realizing it, are constantly searching and looking for dopamine. And we want to learn to create dopamine in our life naturally, and then also give ourselves, sure, yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (14:42.862)
Right. Let's talk about that for a minute if I could, if we could stay there for a second. So how does someone get depleted in dopamine? I have some ideas, but I want hear it from you.
Jheri South (14:54.214)
Right, well, we're already naturally depleted, but if we're not, the way I think about it is if we already are starting with not enough, then our brain is craving it. So this is one of the reasons we're also very distracted. We're wanting things that feel good. The ADHD brain does not process information and work the way a neurotypical brain does. So a neurotypical person, if they have something in front of them, they can get it done just because it's important or there will be some kind of, you
Maureen Benkovich (15:05.87)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (15:23.422)
predetermined reward in front of them. That does absolutely nothing for an ADHD brain. We're seeking novelty. We're seeking something that we're passionate about or something that's a competition that turns our brain on. So when we're talking about dopamine depleted, what we're saying is that there is not enough there. There's not enough gasoline in the tank for us to create any kind of motivation to do the things that need to get done. And so
what we're doing is we're constantly searching the room, looking around what's interesting, what can my brain focus on, what do I want to do? So when...
Maureen Benkovich (15:59.308)
And that's interpreted as distraction. Cause as I'm watching you do that, I'm thinking that's what it looks like.
Jheri South (16:01.979)
Yes, many times it is, yes.
Yes, that's like exactly. I mean, we have a hard time focusing on things that are boring. We have a hard time paying attention when something drags on too long. ADHDers will usually listen to podcasts one and a half times the speed and they don't like being around slow talkers. Everything's fast. Everything's quick. They're onto the next thing. So if we're bored easily and we're constantly looking, unfortunately that's just the way it works. And I'll have people who don't have ADHD say,
Maureen Benkovich (16:28.589)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (16:34.61)
Well, everybody likes to do things they like to do. No, it's of course, but it's different than that. you picture, if your brain had an on switch, it will only turn on if there's something in front of you that's novelty, interesting, a challenge, it's very urgent, or you're passionate about it. And if one of those five things isn't there, your brain is off. So as far as dopamine chasing goes,
We're constantly looking to be stimulated. We want to be entertained. want boredom, by the way, is one of the most overwhelming heavy emotions for an ADHD-er. If I have a
Maureen Benkovich (17:13.346)
And I love that you're letting people know that boredom is in fact an emotion. Yes.
Jheri South (17:18.122)
Yes, it's a heavy emotion. And just to give you some context, teenagers in here who are bored will say things like, my life has no meaning. mean, that's, you know, when we were bored, when we were younger, our parents would say, well, go, you know, go out in the backyard or you're right. But ADHDers don't know how to get unbored. And so what happens when they're bored? They look for stimulation. What's most stimulating? Vaping.
Maureen Benkovich (17:33.912)
Go outside.
Maureen Benkovich (17:40.802)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (17:46.744)
Drugs and alcohol, yeah. Pornography, right?
Jheri South (17:47.859)
drugs, alcohol, pornography, and so, and by the way, such a hit of dopamine, right? And then we want more and more. So three to four times more likely to be addicted to some kind of substance if you have ADHD because your brain is always searching for it.
Maureen Benkovich (17:55.32)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (18:04.142)
Three to four, three to four times more likely. Wow. That's a big number. And that's making some, it's clicking with me a little more than I realize. But so let's fast forward to now, this child, this young girl has become a woman and she's found alcohol. And I'm kind of thinking to myself, found alcohol and I would get really ramped up from drinking. It would make me feel energized. So,
Jheri South (18:09.395)
Yes.
Jheri South (18:14.076)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (18:23.71)
Sure.
Maureen Benkovich (18:33.25)
dopamine chasing, the excitement. Yeah, yeah. Right.
Jheri South (18:34.472)
Feels great, right? You're not used to feeling this way. Extra good if you're an ADHD or who's used to being depleted in dopamine. Feels so good.
Maureen Benkovich (18:41.974)
Yeah, but the flip side of that is over time, and you know this, the more you're drinking, your own brain that's trying to balance out your brain chemistry says, well, let's lessen our production of our own dopamine and maybe less receptors of dopamine because we've got to get homeostasis somehow and she's going to keep drinking. So the very thing you're chasing, you start to get even more depleted in.
Jheri South (19:05.958)
It isn't that true about everything. mean, buffering is my word for I'm doing something that's going to make me feel terrible later. And I'm trading the terrible feeling later for feeling really good right now.
Maureen Benkovich (19:10.467)
I like that.
Maureen Benkovich (19:19.724)
Yeah, short term, quick fix.
Jheri South (19:23.122)
feel worse later.
Maureen Benkovich (19:24.396)
Yeah. Why is it so misdiagnosed, underdiagnosed, misunderstood?
Jheri South (19:30.28)
Great question. So right now we're in the DSM-5. And if anyone doesn't understand DSM, it's just where we're at, where doctors will look for the updates on how to diagnose someone. And that's true, whether it's ADHD or bipolar or OCD or whatever it is we're dealing with. as we've continued to move forward in our understanding of ADHD, we're starting to look at different things. So do you know that there was a day that doctors believed women couldn't, girls, females could not,
Maureen Benkovich (19:42.83)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (19:58.697)
have ADHD, so that's how much we misunderstood this diagnosis. We really did think it was a hyperactive disorder for boys and for kids. So there's this misconception that you can grow out of ADHD, that's still a rumor that's going around, which is absolutely not true. You're born with ADHD, trauma can absolutely make it worse, but you're born with ADHD, it's genetic. So if your child has ADHD,
Maureen Benkovich (20:15.662)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (20:26.608)
One of the parents has ADHD. If you have ADHD, there's a 50 % likelihood that each of your children will have ADHD. Now, I think there's a lot of reasons why we don't do a very good job of diagnosing ADHD. First of all, the DSM evaluation, it's focused on, I think there's 18 behaviors, but it's focused on behavior. And a lot of ADHD lives in the mind. Think of emotional dysregulation. You can keep that inside.
Maureen Benkovich (20:51.689)
Mm. Yeah.
Jheri South (20:54.878)
And so also the behaviors are meant for ages up to 16 years old. So if you're an adult going into be evaluated, you're being evaluated based off of a GSM that goes up to age 16. So, and most of us aren't still exhibiting 16 year old behaviors. Some of us are. And then especially with women ADHD is a terrible name, attention deficit. We're not deficit, we're just inconsistent in our attention.
Maureen Benkovich (21:08.91)
children.
Jheri South (21:24.614)
and also hyperactivity. So the H also stands for hyperarousal now. There's no such thing as ADD anymore. It's just ADHD. You're either hyper or you're hyper. But by the way, only one third of all ADHDers say they're hyperactive. it does a terrible job of recognizing people who are not hyperactive, who are willing to do twice as much work for half the reward. If you're someone who just really, and girls do this. Girls are better at masking overall than boys are.
Maureen Benkovich (21:31.683)
bright.
Maureen Benkovich (21:37.496)
hyper.
Jheri South (21:53.287)
And so in school or in work, or even in our relationships, women learn to watch and do and people please. And so if you're willing to do twice as much work for half of the reward, or you just have some really great gifts that help you kind of blend in and keep up with everything, there's still damage inside. There's still a lot of self-esteem issues. There's emotional dysregulation, there's dopamine depletion, but from the outside, it looks like you're handling things well and women especially will fit into this category. And so,
Maureen Benkovich (22:11.426)
Yes.
Jheri South (22:22.236)
you don't fit the criteria.
Maureen Benkovich (22:22.316)
which can be exhausting, like when you keep up that facade.
Jheri South (22:25.904)
It's the reason it's misdiagnosed all the time for depression and anxiety because it's been undiagnosed. If you were to treat the ADHD, many times the anxiety and depression goes away.
Maureen Benkovich (22:36.398)
Well, let's go back to your story for a minute because you said you were not diagnosed until how old? 40?
Jheri South (22:40.816)
Yes, in fact, I went in in my 20s and I was told I didn't have it.
Maureen Benkovich (22:45.422)
So what happened when you're 40? Were you surprised or were you validated? Did that help you?
Jheri South (22:49.818)
yeah, I think both. It was interesting because I had so much struggle. My parents were divorced and then I was happily married and then I got a divorce and I didn't really know. I just knew that sometimes I felt crazy with my emotions and you just start to chalk it up to, guess maybe this is what abandonment feels like or maybe I have been told my whole life, I was always told you just needed so much attention.
Maureen Benkovich (22:53.528)
Yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (23:16.024)
Hmm.
Jheri South (23:16.806)
always so much attention when you were little and that I talked too much and that I was too much and that I was so sensitive. And now as I'm healed, I love those things about myself. You know, I was always told I talked too much and then I had my own radio show for a long time on KTA are out here. Yeah, I do. I talk too much and I'm a coach. It's perfect. And, but yeah, as far as being diagnosed, it's interesting. Actually, it was my sister.
Maureen Benkovich (23:31.702)
Right, perfect. Yeah, yeah.
Jheri South (23:43.711)
who was first diagnosed in our family, she had a binge eating disorder that she was trying to get help for and had, I mean, we didn't know about ADHD. We had no idea that her binge eating disorder was connected to ADHD. And so once she was diagnosed, she's the one that sent me some of Dr. Dodson's information and I had never heard about RSD in my life. And we're watching this going, whoa, wow. And yes, and so, you know, then one by one,
Maureen Benkovich (24:05.614)
I've never heard it.
Yeah, this is us.
Jheri South (24:12.998)
family members are diagnosed and everything started to make sense. But at that point I had done a lot of work on myself. And so even though I still always have work to do, it was really healing for me to hear that. And also I have to say because of where I was in my life, I was also able to recognize all of the gifts I had from ADHD to the ability to take risks and helping me be a great entrepreneur and
Maureen Benkovich (24:24.61)
Yes, me too.
Jheri South (24:41.33)
the creativity, the other things that I knew I was good at but always were focusing on the negative things. So it was really fascinating and quite healing for me to learn that I had ADHD.
Maureen Benkovich (24:52.568)
I love that you brought that up because you're saying when you recognize that there are many gifts, then you can channel that energy into doing so many things. But what about this sort of almost epidemic of just automatically putting children on medication without teaching them tools, how to manage this ADHD?
Jheri South (25:11.229)
Right.
Right, yeah, and I get this question a lot about how do I feel about medication? So if you would have asked me probably seven years ago, I would have said, no, absolutely not. Do not put kids on medication, dangerous, because I'm a natural person. I like to natural healing. However, when you have a child's attempt to suicide, when you have ADHD comorbidity, and this is another thing that's important when we talk about addiction.
Maureen Benkovich (25:16.238)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (25:41.311)
the likelihood that you will have more physical and mental health problems if you don't get treated. And I'll get back to medication in a moment, but I just wanted to point out that treatment isn't only medication, it is getting help, right? Behavioral health. It goes up quite a bit and the comorbidity rate just on its own is 60%. There's a 60 % likelihood that you will have a comorbid condition for your audience. That just means a second diagnosis.
Maureen Benkovich (25:53.24)
Right.
Jheri South (26:08.51)
If you have ADHD and a 40 % likelihood that you would have a second comorbid condition, so it's quite high So it's more common that you would have ADHD and autism or ADHD and OCD or something else and An anxiety disorder then not so that's something else You know those things just continue to manifest and become bigger problems when they're not treated but when it comes to medication itself, I have changed how I feel about this over the years because
Maureen Benkovich (26:27.854)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (26:36.092)
I've had kids come into my office that are in fifth grade that are cutting themselves or who have been kicked out of three schools and they can't control their RSD at all. And so now I feel that some people have to be on medication. Some people can do just fine without it. But the behavioral health part, I think the part that I do is the important part because we want to learn these skills and be able to implement how to overcome RSD, how to change the way that we feel.
how to heal our pain so that we don't buffer and turn to things to help us feel better. We know how to help ourselves feel better. And I just want to put out there for people who are thinking about medication or just there's so much misinformation. An ADHD specialist will tell you, you you want to be and need to be on a stimulant for the rest of your life if you need medication. And for some people that might be true, but also what I see medication can be a tool for.
Maureen Benkovich (27:26.574)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (27:34.279)
Because if I have a parent come to me and say, you know, if my child was on medication Can you help them without it basically is what they're asking me and I'll tell them a lot of kids Yes, but it's the impulsivity and this is for adults too. It's the impulsivity to just act without thinking Some people just really struggle having that control and so some of my clients I can get to like 80 % we can do all of the skills and tools But I can't teach someone to not be impulsive. I can teach them to reflect and
and what to do if they can pause for five seconds. But for some clients, they actually can't pause. And some of them will even say in an RSD episode, they don't even remember what they said. So I think of the medication as being the tool to calm their brain down enough that they can now implement the skills and tools that they're learning and coaching.
Maureen Benkovich (28:07.638)
It's the pause.
Maureen Benkovich (28:11.608)
Right.
Maureen Benkovich (28:24.6)
So use a combination of medication and implementing skills and tools, not just medication and sending them on their way. I talk a lot about antidepressants and I hear a lot of similarities. You you want people to get on antidepressants, medications are great in many occasions and types of depression, but teaching them the skills and the tools, maybe they stay on antidepressants all their life, maybe they don't once they learn right these skills and tools.
Jheri South (28:47.206)
or we enough and same thing with ADHD stimulants and for something like RSD, there's a very mild medication that's not a stimulant at all. It's an alpha agonist that you can take to manage RSD symptoms. So there's a lot of options out there and I'm not a medication pusher. I have just as many clients not on medication, even my kids, some of them are on medication, some of them aren't because every situation is unique and I believe in natural healing and diet and all of those things as well.
Maureen Benkovich (29:11.746)
Unique.
Jheri South (29:15.806)
And so I don't push one thing or the other, but I do think that the mindset coaching, and by the way, if you're neurodivergent, also believe working with someone who's neurodivergent is really helpful because there's language that my children weren't getting, for example, when I was taking them to get help. It makes a difference when someone has walked in your shoes, as you know, your audience, right?
Maureen Benkovich (29:21.923)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (29:32.718)
Mm-hmm.
Absolutely. Yes, absolutely. Well, let's get back to how does emotional dysregulation play into impulsivity and drinking in particular alcohol?
Jheri South (29:46.557)
Yeah, that's a great question. you know, impulsivity is something that especially people with ADHD, this is one of the main struggles. They feel that they don't have control over it because what do we get when we act on our impulses? We get dopamine. so even things that aren't drinking like spending money, you know, you can make commitments to yourself and say, I'm not going to do that. And then the urge gets so strong because the need for dopamine is so high.
we do it and when it comes to addiction and alcohol, I think that because the brain wants to feel better all the time, it just wants what it wants and the impulses are so strong, it's just so easy to get wrapped up in that and I think more than that, it's hard to get out of. And this isn't to say that people that don't have ADHD,
Maureen Benkovich (30:28.194)
Yeah, always.
Jheri South (30:42.664)
don't struggle to get out of addiction. Of course they do. But when you have a dopamine depletion issue in your brain, it's so difficult to resist the urge once the addiction has taken hold. This is why so many ADHDers that I work with struggle getting out of their cycles and their patterns. And then it also becomes a huge hit to their self-confidence.
and they don't believe that they can do it. They don't believe that they are stronger than the impulse to chase the dopamine. And I would say for myself as well, when I look back on my years, it was short lived, but I was so determined. I just didn't wanna be a failure anymore. But I look back and I think, wow, sometimes I'm surprised I made it out of that because
Maureen Benkovich (31:18.222)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (31:37.939)
the need and desire for that dopamine was so strong, it took over everything else in my life that was important. And so I really had to heal my brain, not just from the addiction, but from learning to give myself dopamine. And that's the problem is it's like nothing else was giving me that kind of dopamine hit that healing of.
Maureen Benkovich (31:58.124)
Right. Fast enough.
Jheri South (32:00.911)
Yeah, I had to find other things again that were interesting or novelty or I was passionate about and that was the struggle because an ADHD brain, it's almost like it needs it more because it's already has so much less.
Maureen Benkovich (32:15.746)
crazy thing is the more we drink alcohol, it increases our pleasure baseline. So then it's harder to get pleasure out of everyday activities. And so here we are, if you're ADHD, boredom is really hard for you. You drink out of boredom, but the more you drink, the higher your pleasure baseline goes. So it's just you're chasing, there's that chasing of the dopamine. So it's a never ending cycle.
Jheri South (32:25.851)
Exactly.
Jheri South (32:36.958)
Well, I have a couple of clients that are even, you know, they're trying to quit drinking right now and they'll go to their meetings and they'll do well for even a couple of months. And then the urge becomes so strong. And when we talk about why they'll say, I'm just so bored. I'm so bored. can't go out with my friends. They're drinking. I'm still single. My friends are married and the boredom with ADHD.
is such a problem. It's so overwhelming. So now they're not just fighting the urge to drink, they're fighting the heaviest emotion of boredom. And all they have to do is just like go out with their friends one night and all of that goes away. The willpower and the self-discipline that we have to be able to, that's just, we don't have that overnight. We have to develop that over time to be able to not give into that urge.
That is a very, very difficult thing. And so my heart goes out to anybody who's working through that process. If it feels hard, it should if you have ADHD. And once you master that, you'll show yourself, you'll be able to do anything in life because overcoming boredom, yes, and the urge to overcome an addiction is one of the hardest things you'll do in ADHD.
Maureen Benkovich (33:52.61)
You build confidence. Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (33:58.552)
So what do you recommend, say, boredom, you know, you have your clients, they're doing really well, but boredom is just the thing that keeps drawing them back towards addiction, drinking, smoking, vaping, whatever it is.
Jheri South (34:08.646)
Right? Well, I think that with ADHD, we're creatures of habit. We like the same things. We'll listen to the same song over and over again. We'll eat the same food for four or five days. And we just really like what we like. so when we're, everybody does, but with ADHD, we have these patterns, right? We become very obsessive about the things that we like. And so we get really good at saying, no, I don't like that. No, that seems too hard. ADHDers are known for
Maureen Benkovich (34:28.046)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (34:36.562)
giving up quickly on things that they're not good at. They try an activity, it was kind of difficult, or it was boring, there was nobody there that we really connected with, and because we're dopamine chasers, we're only going where we want to go. So the best advice I can give someone with ADHD who's in this phase of life right now or these patterns is to start saying yes to a lot more things that you would normally say no to. It's going to require that you get out of your comfort zone.
and you allow yourself to be bored. And I think the expectation that if I get out of my house and I go try something new, I should have fun. And if I don't have fun, then I can't do it. The expectation I think should be for about six months, for me it was six months. don't know what you coach your clients, but for me, okay, okay, about six months.
Maureen Benkovich (35:19.34)
No, I agree. I'm nodding my head with you. Absolutely. You have to be curious and willing to try again. And well, maybe that time it wasn't great, but let me try again. Let me see who shows up the next time where, you know, let me be curious and give it a good try.
Jheri South (35:34.204)
Well and also, know, unintentionally we did this to our brain. We told our brain this is necessary for survival and we're gonna do it whenever we don't feel good. So now there's a healing process that has to happen. You're not going to have that dopamine hit for a while. So my expectation was this is gonna be a little bit terrible for a while. But my thought was, but I can do it. I am either going to fail or I'm going to succeed. Am I willing to be miserable?
Maureen Benkovich (35:37.795)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (36:00.947)
Can I do it? And so I was going to activities where I wanted to have fun, I'd get all dressed up and I would be hopeful and it was not fun. And I didn't connect with the people or I would try a hobby and I wasn't very good at it. But I kept going because I, ADHDs are very intense feelers and so we get really excited about things and we get really down about things and we're constantly going up and down and up and down. And so I would just have thoughts. I would tell myself things that.
Maureen Benkovich (36:20.344)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (36:28.924)
I would have a deal with myself. Like, if I do this, if I do this for six months, I know I'm a God-fearing person, a God-loving person, but I would tell myself, he's going to bless me. If I just put myself where I'm supposed to be, it doesn't matter if I'm miserable, it doesn't matter. I know I'm going to get what I want. And so the actual circumstance of where I was or how miserable it was started to be less and less important. And me making the effort because I kind of had this secret deal with God and myself and I believed it.
And ADHDers are good at that. We're good at storytelling and putting ourselves in scenarios. That got me through. But if we just tell ourselves, no, that's boring. I won't connect with anyone. I won't know anyone there. I already tried that. I'm not good at that. Well, OK. Well, then if we don't change our habits and the places that we're putting ourselves, we will continue to end up right back where we are. You have to change it.
Maureen Benkovich (37:20.334)
do think you bring up a really important point which we could have a whole other podcast on is faith and having faith that you know and trusting in God that if you keep trying this and putting yourself in this situation trying something new, He will help you, it will change, right? So I think that is so great that you brought that up. But of course we're gonna run out of time so we'll make that another podcast. But what would you say? Sure.
Jheri South (37:25.278)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (37:42.219)
Well, and can I add to really quickly too, I just wanted to say real quickly is ADHDers are a lot of times when we are trying to get ourselves motivated to do the dishes or clean the kitchen, ADHDers will. They'll pretend a camera crew's following them around and so they have to perform or they're an FBI agent and they can't leave any fingerprints. And so ADHDers do this. And so that's why what I was just mentioning, that method works really well. What I did was I had a journal and I was diligent. I'm not, admittedly I'm not.
Maureen Benkovich (37:58.428)
my gosh.
Jheri South (38:08.978)
really a journal writer. don't keep a journal now, but at that time when I was healing, we know it takes a long time for the brain to heal from alcohol. I think it's 18 months to two years or something like that if you've been drinking for a while. And so it was very healing. We released cortisol three ways that I know of. We released cortisol through our sweat. So if we're exercising and we're sweating, we'll release cortisol. We also release cortisol when we go to coaching.
Maureen Benkovich (38:17.741)
Yes.
Maureen Benkovich (38:26.924)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (38:31.27)
or therapy and then we release cortisol when we're writing in our journal. And so I am, that's the stress hormone, you're actually healing. So I would write in my journal and I would write out what I thought was gonna happen in my future, what I've learned. I would spend so much time, but I really did have, I told myself a whole story. I would give myself timelines in six months or in two years. This is what's going to happen and I know it because, and I would talk about it and I would, in my journal it's like sometimes I was talking to myself, sometimes I was talking to God.
Maureen Benkovich (38:43.022)
I love that.
Jheri South (39:00.348)
That was so healing for me and it really, I know I said this, but I really want to emphasize writing that in my journal to solidify it in my brain really became real to me. So I was able to endure the miserable outings because it had a purpose.
Maureen Benkovich (39:01.922)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (39:09.037)
I agree.
Maureen Benkovich (39:15.182)
I said, my gosh, earlier when you said it helps ADHDers to envision people watching them, a news crew, I'm convinced now because when I was, I used to have to cut the lawn and my parents made me cut the lawn and I would convince myself that people were watching and look how great she cuts that corner. Look at that beautiful way that she cuts the lawn. So when you said that, I thought, my God, that's me.
Jheri South (39:33.05)
Exactly.
Jheri South (39:37.97)
And you would think I never want anyone to know I'm doing this, but like, I think all the ADHDers are doing it. know like people are watching me and they're so impressed. It got you through the lawn cutting. helps. Stories help.
Maureen Benkovich (39:45.197)
It helps.
Maureen Benkovich (39:49.186)
Yes. So, stories do help. So interesting. So what would you say to women specifically listening right now or men who suspect they might have ADHD undiagnosed and they know they're drinking, they know they're self-medicating, haven't had a diagnosis? What would you say? I believe you even have a quiz. So can you tell us about that?
Jheri South (40:08.476)
I do, yeah, so getting evaluated is, in my opinion, really important, whether you're going to take medication or not. And I will say that according to Dr. Dodson 93 % of psychiatrists today don't properly know how to treat ADHD. So if you are going to get evaluated, I personally wouldn't just go to a family practitioner, a pediatrician's office.
Maureen Benkovich (40:13.742)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (40:33.136)
and even any psychiatrist. Now you might have an amazing doctor that you know specializes in this, that's great. But otherwise, when you're looking for somebody and they say, I specialize in all these things, there's a good chance they don't specialize in ADHD. It's missed all of the time and the comorbidity is missed so often. So most of the time, I would say actually most, women are diagnosed with anxiety and depression instead of properly being diagnosed with ADHD.
Maureen Benkovich (40:52.91)
Mm.
Jheri South (41:02.766)
many times autism is there. It's the number one thing in my office that's missed and autism is not what most people think that it is. It's just a different way of processing information and not being a lot of people with autism experience alexithymia or some different things like that. So you want to go to somebody who really knows what they're doing first of all. If your audience is curious right away, I do have a quiz for free on my website and I didn't just make these questions up. actually took
I've been very blessed to have a vault of research and information. I took questions right from evaluations that different specialists use in their office for evaluating ADHD. I cannot properly diagnose you so you don't get an official diagnosis at the end, but taking those, test, that quiz will really give you a good indication of where you could potentially fall to go get a proper diagnosis. And then lastly, what I'd say is, again, I don't push medication, but ADHD specialists who work
When you work in this field and you see it all, you realize there are people who have tried everything. They've tried taking out diets and healthy diets and healing their gut and it hasn't changed anything for them. And then you have other people who have had success from that. So that's why it's a very dangerous narrative to put out there that like medication's harmful and don't take it and everything is natural healing. And also not everyone needs to be on it. But if we struggle with addiction,
medication specialists for ADHD, and I'm talking like the top specialists, they'll tell you that when you're on medication, you're less likely to have addiction issues because what does medication do? It regulates the brain. So it helps you resist urges. It helps your emotional regulation. It helps you with your impulsivity and you have more control over your brain. So if you're at a point where you feel like I am really struggling with emotional regulation and impulsivity, I just don't seem to be able to control myself.
Medication could potentially be something that gets you through. But either way, I think that the healing part, the coaching part, hiring someone to be your coach and work through everything that's going on in here will be especially healing and help you through being able to, what are we talking about? We're talking about having control over our brain when we're managing addiction, yeah.
Maureen Benkovich (43:22.444)
Right. Well, we will put Jerry's quiz in the show notes so you can check that out and that can help you go to your specialist, your ADHD specialist with more informed questions, it sounds like. So that's great that you created that quiz. You know, I'm going to go on a little tangent here because I will tell you when I was drinking at bars and I had friends who were taking medication, they'd be like, here, take one of these, you'll be able to drink more. And that would, I'd like, okay, because I wanted to drink more.
Jheri South (43:34.173)
Yes.
Jheri South (43:46.75)
So.
Jheri South (43:51.258)
Mmm.
Maureen Benkovich (43:52.064)
Speak to that, the abuse of the medication?
Jheri South (43:55.549)
Yeah, so many people have heard, the medication's addictive. I don't want to be addicted to anything else. And what I have found to mostly be true, there's always going to be someone who has an exception to this, but mostly is true, is that
ADHD medications, stimulant medications are often abused because they're so easy to get and they're so inexpensive. So someone who's going to abuse a substance, like just like looking for things to abuse, ADHD medication is going to be easy. If you trust yourself to, if alcohol is the thing you're dealing with, but you're not someone who thinks that you're going to now, here's what I really want to say. ADHDers don't feel euphoric or
Maureen Benkovich (44:18.179)
right.
Jheri South (44:40.958)
high on ADHD medication. calms your brain down. So you know you're on too much medication if you're really jittery, like you've taken way too much coffee or you're really numb like a zombie. So the first couple weeks of taking medication, you will feel some of the stimulant effects of maybe a little bit headache or jittery and not everybody does. I didn't or not being able to sleep, but that wears off in about two weeks. then
Maureen Benkovich (44:41.742)
Mm-hmm, right.
Jheri South (45:04.742)
If you're on the right dose, I don't feel anything. The way I know my medication's working is I look back on my day and I think, wow, I got so much done. So most ADHDers have a problem remembering to take their medication, not abusing their medication. That is almost never a problem ADHDers have. I will say that if you are in a phase of life where you are still feeling very much that you are addicted and you're looking for substances, something like Stratera...
Maureen Benkovich (45:07.182)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (45:30.526)
that is not a stimulant that may take a little bit longer to work, but is not a stimulant, can be very effective for people. And then you don't have to worry about a stimulant that could be potentially addictive for you. But most ADHDers struggle to remember their medication. not being addicted to it. would say, like an ADHDer, ADHD people that I know of that have still in the middle of addiction issues,
Maureen Benkovich (45:51.0)
That's interesting.
Jheri South (45:59.423)
they will take 10 stimulants in one day just to feel awake. And it probably feels terrible. I mean, you'd have headaches. It feels like being on way too much coffee. But that's what you would see from someone who is having an addiction issue. But it's not going to feel like getting high. It's just not. It'll probably give you a headache and just keep you awake.
Maureen Benkovich (46:06.318)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (46:15.342)
No,
Maureen Benkovich (46:20.908)
Right. That's it. That's good to know. That's interesting. So let's get back to you for a second. And here's a question I like to ask on this podcast. What do you do in your life, Jerry, to be sober fit?
Jheri South (46:32.986)
that's a good question. I, so my addiction ended when I was in my twenties, but I have noticed, but I mean, I, have still been addicted to things over the year, I guess, if I, over the years, if I'm honest, right? I mean, I, what I have noticed about myself, I used to say, I have an addictive personality. And since then I learned as I, you know, went through coaching and got a little bit older that I don't want to ever give myself that label.
Maureen Benkovich (46:38.894)
That's great.
Maureen Benkovich (46:57.688)
Right.
Jheri South (46:57.98)
But as I started to understand the ADHD brain, and this is what I love about understanding your diagnosis, is that you are not your wiring. And many people who either don't know they have ADHD or aren't educated on ADHD, they do think it's the same. I'm lazy, I have an addictive personality. It's like, no, here's your wiring that works very well when you learn to master it and work it, and here's your personality. And that has really helped me.
know that I'm depleted in dopamine and so when I get something I like, I want more of it. If I find a food I love, I'll buy four or five of them at the grocery store. can't just buy one. I don't like to be a soda drinker, but I do like to drink soda. So we have a lot of soda shops out here like Twisted Sugar and Soda-licious. If I catch myself now wanting one a second or third day in a row, I just cut myself off. No, I talk to my brain like it's a toddler.
Maureen Benkovich (47:46.19)
Because you know yourself.
Jheri South (47:47.875)
I know myself, I've learned that when I start to really crave something, I will go down, doesn't matter what it is, sugar, dessert, a TV show. I've had to learn that kind of discipline in my life because my brain, even being, I feel that I'm in a really good place, even now, that is just something my brain will always want to do. So I really pay attention to my brain and what it wants and what my limits are, and I just don't even let myself go there.
Maureen Benkovich (47:53.688)
Mm-hmm.
Maureen Benkovich (48:16.632)
I love how you said that you are not your wiring. That's neuroplasticity, we can change it. But you are not your wiring. I'm gonna use that, I really like that. Yeah.
Jheri South (48:19.762)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (48:23.838)
at all. And one other thing I just want to put out there for because your audiences are listening to this, I'm sure a lot of them are thinking they might have ADHD. I love that I have ADHD. I love it. And when I say that on my own pages, so many people love it, and then just as many people get offended. And so I'm never wanting to be insensitive to people who are in the middle of the struggle. If you're struggling with addiction, and sometimes people feel that ADHD has ruined their life,
I've been there, I understand that. And so when I say I love it, and I've dealt with some stuff here in my family, right? What I mean is that there are so many gifts when you learn to manage the things that are holding you back. And so getting treatment or healing for yourself, that's when your gifts start to shine. Your ability to go out and create things, and most ADHDers, their IQ is above average.
Maureen Benkovich (49:01.645)
Mm-hmm.
Jheri South (49:21.052)
They are very creative. They can see solutions to problems faster than the average person. They read people very well, very intuitive. Risk takers, they make incredible entrepreneurs. overall, usually just can be very successful because of their ideas and the things that they're willing to do that other people will be very preserved about. Now, if you are hearing that and you think you have ADHD and you think, well, that's not me.
there's probably some anxiety there because of things that have happened over the years. So that's what I'm saying. When you can get through, undo the wiring, rewire the wiring, then the strengths really start to shine. And I attribute any and all of the success I've had as a single mother, when I started as a coach working with women, it was on reinvention. I've had great success even throughout all of the hardships in my life, in my career, making money and starting businesses. I have some really actually incredible stories I could share another time just about those types of things.
Maureen Benkovich (49:55.32)
Right, rewire.
Jheri South (50:17.616)
And people would say things like, you make these opportunities appear out of thin air. How did you get that job? what are you? And I would always think, I don't know, it wasn't that hard. looking back, I realized it was my ADHD. It was my ability to connect with people and go for opportunities that I probably wasn't even qualified for. ADHDers have that gift, but they can't tap into it when they still have healing to do.
Maureen Benkovich (50:39.662)
That is such a good encouraging note to end on. so ADHDers, I hope you all hear that and try to look for your best self in this. Look for the gifts and hopefully make more informed choices and not numb yourself with alcohol so you can really learn and experience who you are and come to love yourself as an ADHDer. I think that's terrific. Thank you so much, Jerry, for coming on to Sober Fit Life. I really appreciate you being here.
Jheri South (51:04.536)
You are welcome. It's been my pleasure.
