Thank you very much indeed. It's very nice to be here at the pinnacle. I suppose there's only one way from here after that, I think. But I'll do my best nonetheless. I think you've been provided with copies of the paper, so I'll be skimming through what's in that. You won't need to take notes, any of those of you with pens and notepads out, which I know is distressingly few anyway, but most of what I'll have to say will be there. But a couple, I was asked to elaborate on the thoughts that I've had on the paper, and I have had a few subsequent ones anyway, so I may add those in as well. All right, what I wanted to do was basically to talk about various aspects, to talk about the proposed treaty amendment and why it's there, and basically to talk you through that and a few other aspects of it, and then maybe after that to look at the constitutional aspects of it as well, and I understand Paul is going to be talking through some of the same areas, but in a way hopefully that won't overlap too much with what I have to say. All right, well let's start where it all begins with the Treaty of Lisbon, which as we know entered into force on the 1st of December two years ago. Less than a year later, to the surprise of a lot of people, the member states had already agreed on the need for a significant treaty change concerning economic governance, and that's the reason why we're here today. Last October, the heads of state and government agreed on the need for member states to establish a permanent crisis mechanism to safeguard the financial stability of the Euro area, and they invited, they set and trained the necessary process, inviting Herman von Rompuy, who was here of course just a couple of days ago in Dublin, to undertake consultations with the members of the European Council on a limited treaty change required to that effect, and actions rapidly followed those particular words. Just by February of this year, the European Council was able to confirm that its March meeting would adopt a final decision on treaty change setting up the so-called what was now to be called the European stability mechanism. And in fact, it has been as good as its word. It did that and a great deal more. The European Council of the 24th and 25th of March achieved what Peter Ludlow, well-known commentator in European Affairs, called a grand bargain on the economic governance of the Euro area. And what he meant by that was five separate features, basically, something called the Euro plus pact, which doesn't just extend to the Euro countries, but to 23 of the 27 member states, Hungary, the Czech Republic, the United Kingdom and Sweden have stayed out of that, but it's still a fairly hefty agreement taking in 23 of the states, encouragement regarding the so-called six-pack of draft legislative proposals on economic governance, including one replacing the stability and growth pact. Priorities for structural reforms and fiscal consolidation in the context of what's now to be known as the European semester, and we've just seen that come into action this year for the first time, it endorsed the main features of the European stability mechanism and the treaty establishing that, the international treaty establishing that, I understand, is now due for signature on the 11th of July. It adopted a decision amending the treaty on the functioning of the European Union and that's why we're really here today or what we're talking about here today, and they called for the rapid launch of national approval procedures in relation to that. And as I said, it has been referred to such as the, if you like, the change in economic governance, a change that would have been unthinkable I think even a year ago, that it has been referred to as a grand bargain by Peter Ludlow and the European stability mechanism and the treaty change being undertaken to facilitate that is very much part of that. It's not actually the first post-Lizban amendment sought to be made. There was actually unbeknownst to most of us an intergovernmental conference held on the 23rd of June last year which adopted a proposed amendment already to a protocol concerning the European Parliament and that amendment was basically designed to ensure that those member states which would have gained extra seats had the Treaty of Lisbon come into force before the last European Parliament elections actually got them on a transitional basis even though the Treaty of Lisbon entered into force after the last European Parliament elections. But the European stability mechanism amendment that we're talking about today is the first proposed amendment to the actual treaty text. The other one, the previous amendment, was only to a protocol attached to the treaty. Now I want to say a few words about the means that are being sought to use to amend the treaty. The Lisbon Treaty, as some of us know, introduced altered procedures for amending the treaties. Prior to these changes there were really only two methods that were used to amend the treaties. One consisted of accession treaties, the latest accession treaty being the one that concerned Romania and Bulgaria, of course. They can and do amend the constitutional treaties of the European Union. But the main method for amending the treaties, of course, as we're intimately familiar with in Ireland consists of basically intergovernmental conference green changes and then national ratification. It has a number of disadvantages going with it. It's a slow process. It's lacking in transparency and democratic control. Very cumbersome for merely technical amendments. So some disadvantages attached to that. And that's the reason why the Lisbon Treaty replaced that more or less one-lane method of amending the treaties with the kind of four-lane motorway, if you like, for treaty amendment. Now the first of the four lanes is the so-called ordinary revision procedure. And that's basically the same as the old Article 48 procedure. But with some additions tacked on the so-called use of a convention in drafting, at least initially, the treaty, and greater involvement on the part of the European Parliament, the European Council, and indeed national parliaments. And that was the method that was used for the first, minus the convention at least, but it was used for the first purported amendment, the European Parliament amendment, which actually still hasn't come into force because it hasn't been ratified by all of the member states. Now apart from that method, which was used on the first occasion, three separate simplified revision procedures, fast lanes for treaty revision, were introduced. It's only the first of these that we're interested in looking at today because it's this one that has been used to amend, or is being sought to amend the treaties on this occasion. Each of the fast-track methods for amending the treaties, if I can call them that, empowers the European Council to amend the treaties. So it's the actual institution that amends the treaties by unanimity, but the need for an intergovernmental conference and convention is eliminated. So the European stability mechanism, as I said, uses this first simplified revision procedure, or this Article 486 procedure, it's probably a faster way of referring to it. The procedure applies only, it can't be used for the entirety of the treaty, it can only be used in relation to Part 3 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, which has seven parts in total, but it's a fairly hefty chunk of the treaty. It basically deals with everything that has to do with the single market. It's 78 pages out of 282 pages of treaty text, but for all that, it's mostly material that would normally not find its way into a national constitution. So it deals with things like the internal market, free movement of persons, and vitally there, as you can see highlighted in red there, economic and monetary policy. And that's why it's been capable of being used in relation to the European stability mechanism amendment. Now the procedure for this amendment, the way in which it's used is that any government or the European Parliament or the Commission can submit to the European Council proposals for revising some part of Part 3, and the European Council can adopt a decision, which it did in relation to the European stability mechanism in March, as I mentioned. In doing so, it acts by unanimity, so every Member State has to agree to the change in question. It consults the Parliament, the Commission, and the European Central Bank if it involves changes in the monetary area, which this one did, so the European Central Bank was consulted in relation to it. And the decision vitally doesn't enter into force until it's approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements. So in other words, if before the Treaty of Lisbon you required parliamentary approval, if it was required in all Member States, you need it afterwards. If before the Treaty of Lisbon you needed a constitutional referendum, you need a constitutional referendum afterwards as well. So the main, if you like, accelerations provided by this are the main changes, if you like, provided in using this method. No need for an intergovernmental conference, no need for a formal ratification process as such, although for all the difference it makes, I suppose it might as well be one. There's no need for a convention of the kind that drafted up the constitutional treaty, but the other side of it, there's a retained requirement of union enmity, so every Member State has to agree to it. The Member States have to have the decision approved in accordance with their constitutional requirements, and vitally, and this does come into play in relation to this, the European stability mechanism, the decision under Article 486 must not increase the competences that are conferred on the union under the treaty. So you can't use this method for amending the treaties in order to increase the competences of the European Union. Okay, now having discussed, if you like, the amendment process, what I want to turn to now is the reasons for a European stability mechanism. Now it was always foreseen, I think, that economic and monetary union would require some budgetary discipline on the part of, or at least it was hoped that it would involve some budgetary discipline on the part of the participating Member States, and that's why we had the so-called stability and growth pact. That was originally provided as an arrangement for seeing to it that that discipline would be provided. Unfortunately that collapsed in all but name over the unwillingness of the Schroeder and Schirach administrations in Germany and France to allow sanctions to be applied to their particular countries, and of course once it wasn't applied to them, they didn't want them applied to them either. The bailout of Greece in April 2010 and the setting up of the rescue mechanism in May 2010, which we in Portugal have now benefited from, returned economic governance to the agenda though with a vengeance. Now treaty change was nowhere on the agenda until a little seaside walk was taken by two prominent individuals in the French coastal resort of Deauville, and it's amazing what little walks on the beach can lead to because they sent I think the dispatch from Deauville, I think it was referred to by Jean-Claude Juncker, the President of the Eurogroup who was none too impressed with it, but anyway, and it actually called for treaty changes setting up a crisis mechanism, a bailout fund effectively for the Euro. So what we saw was a permanent and robust framework. It's a one-page document to safeguard financial stability in the Euro area as a whole, and in case of serious violation of basic principles, it actually suggested that the voting rights of member states concerned be suspended, and it also suggested that a necessary treaty amendment could be put in place before 2013. Now it caused outrage and I think particularly the suggestion concerning the suspension of voting rights of member states met with some objections on the part of member states, but eventually the idea of amending the treaties did, did if you like, gain acceptance on the part of all of the other member states. I want to spend a little bit more time explaining why that is the case and explaining the present position in the treaties. At the moment what we have in the treaties is a so-called no bailout clause. Now you can see that up on the overhead in front of you there. It's found in article 125.1 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union, and I'm not going to read the whole thing, but it basically has two limbs to it. It says that the union shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of public authorities of the member states, and then you can see down in the middle of it there it says that a member state shall not be liable for or assume the commitments of the public authorities of member states. Now there is an exception to that, and that exception is found in article 122 of the same treaty, and that allows financial assistance to be granted to a member state where a member state is in difficulties or is seriously threatened with severe difficulties caused by natural disasters or exceptional occurrences beyond its control, and it's that clause that was relied upon in order to provide financial assistance on the part of the union to Greece and subsequently to set up the rescue fund that both Ireland and Portugal availed of. Now Germany was instrumental, if you like, in having the original Nobel out clause put into the treaties, and German public opinion is very strongly in general against the idea of transferring money to, I would say, less fiscally responsible member states, so it might come as something of a surprise to learn that in actual fact the idea for amending the treaty to provide for the European stability mechanism actually came from Germany, and the explanation for that was concerned regarding the potential implications of case law that's going on in Germany at the moment before the German Constitutional Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, in which the assistance being provided to Greece or which has been provided to Greece and the rescue fund which Ireland and Portugal are benefiting from was challenged, and the danger in relation to this was that there would be an implicit risk to future such initiatives and also a fear of market pandemonium on the expiry of the current temporary arrangements without a legally secure replacement being put in place, so there was concern about that and that was the reason, if you like, why the amendment was being called for. The Brussels European Council in October last conceded that treaty change should occur but only regarding the first of the Dover demands, so a permanent crisis mechanism but no thought, I think, of suspending the voting rights of member states which I think is wholly appropriate. That was an utterly inappropriate suggestion to have been made. By November of last year, the Euro-area finance ministers reached agreement on the stability mechanism and on the need for treaty amendment, and they made a series of policy choices in relation to the stability mechanism, and by December the European Council formally agreed that the treaty was to be amended, the content of the amendment, the date in which it would come into force and its relationship with the existing rescue mechanisms, and the idea is basically that the European stability mechanism will replace MVEFSF and the EFSM, the current rescue mechanisms, they'll remain in force until June 2013. The idea then is that from then on where it's article 122, will then no longer be used to safeguard the financial stability of the Euro-area as a whole, so I suppose perhaps reflecting disquiet on the part of some member states that it had been used for that purpose already. So the proposed amendment, well there's the wording over there, the paragraph is a short paragraph, paragraph 3 be added to article 136 of the TF-EU, and it says simply that the member states whose currency the Euro may establish a stability mechanism to be activated and indispensable to safeguard the stability of the Euro-area as a whole. The granting of any required financial assistance under the mechanism will be made subject to strict conditionality. The words if indispensable and any were added by the German government at the last minute in relation to that so they're clearly not keen on recourse being had to this in any but the most extreme circumstances. The European Council launched the simplified revision procedure and the timeline which has been adhered to insofar as it applies today has been formal adoption of the decision in March 2011, that has now happened. The idea is that national approval procedures will be completed by the end of 2012 and that it will enter into force by January 2013. I don't know if the national approval procedures will be gotten through that quickly, it certainly hasn't happened in relation to the first amendment which is still underway, I understand but that is the plan in any case. The December European Council also called on finance ministers to finalise work on the intergovernmental arrangement and that word was there very prominently setting up the future mechanism by March 2011 and that basically is most of what has to be said in that regard just two observations that I'd like to make about the foregoing. The first is that this is yet another occasion I think it can be said when a group of European Union member states which have engaged in enhanced cooperation have found themselves stimulated by virtue of that enhanced cooperation to engage in yet deeper cooperation because that's what's going on this year. We've already seen that for instance in relation to the Schengen agreement where a future cooperation in that regard has led to many initiatives building on that and the 1993 social policy agreement which had basically the same effect so just a note in relation to that. Second point of interest I think is the reference that the arrangement setting up the stability mechanism, the intergovernmental something of a trend at European level at this stage. Not great days if you like for the community method at European level and something perhaps which should concern smaller member states like Ireland which do benefit I think more from the community method than via intergovernmentalism. Next topic, does Ireland need a referendum on this European stability mechanism? Well of course the main test in this regard which I think Paul is going to be looking at in more detail than I will be going through it fairly quickly stems from the Crotty decision of 1987 and basically you can see in the words of Mr. Justice Finley they are very eloquent words indeed that to hold that the relevant portion of article 29.4 doesn't authorize any form of amendment is too narrow to construct as an open ended authority to agree to any further amendment is too wide and basically the test that is therefore applied in relation to the Crotty test is that the essential scope and objectives of the treaty if they are overstepped the existing treaties are overstepped then the existing immunity in relation to European Union measures doesn't apply so that is the test that we're talking about there. Now the Crotty case had legal and political consequences I think in legal terms it give rise to some uncertainty as to when a referendum would be recorded and when it would not and to understand Paul will be having a look at that in terms of political consequences I think it gave rise to a feeling on the part of many that any major European treaty would be associated with a referendum in Ireland certainly since Crotty we've had a total of seven referendums on five separate European amending treaties at this stage now in many respects the Crotty case was actually quite a broad approach so if you think back I know it's a long time ago to the single European Act but most of the reforms that were included in that actually passed muster under the Crotty test they weren't regarded as going beyond the essential scope and objectives of the treaty so the manifold changes to qualified majority the identification of new topics to be looked at significant institutional change the facilitation of the creation of the court of first instance and the empowerment of the council to adopt health and safety measures by qualified majority they all passed muster under that particular test it was only title three of the single European Act involving cooperation in the foreign policy field that if you like fell in the second part of the Crotty judgment now let's apply the Crotty test to the European stability mechanism and the amendment and see where it takes us in relation to that I've given some thoughts in the paper in relation to this I've added a few at this point as well which is referred to in the overhead now let's remind ourselves that's the amendment I've already read through it I won't go through it again so the question that we're asking ourselves is does an amendment like that go beyond the essential scope or objectives of the existing treaties so as to require a constitutional amendment it's ratification and there are six points that I want to make in relation to that I've given away my views in relation to that but I suppose anyone who's had a look at my paper will probably be aware of them anyway the first point that I wanted to make about this particular amendment is that arguably it doesn't increase the competences of the union certainly the European Commission has expressly stated this in its view in its opinion on the amendment in question if I can quote directly from that it has said that it does not involve creating a new legal base which would allow the union to take action which was not possible before this treaty amendment but significantly it hasn't just been the commission that has expressed this view the member states have obviously also taken this view and the reason we can say that is because they have relied on article 48.6 of the treaty on the functioning of the European Union and you will recall that I told you that that particular provision may not be used to increase the competences of the European Union so if you like they have staked the validity of this particular amendment on the view that it doesn't increase the competences of the European Union further on that particular point we can say that the amendment may not alter the legal capacity of the union at all and by this I mean that if the existing bailouts, so-called bailouts of Greece Ireland and Portugal are legal well then why should there be any legal block on a more permanent mechanism in that regard in other words if the existing ones are legal doesn't that mean that the permanent mechanism is legal as well but let's assume that I'm wrong in that regard and that the amendment does alter the competences of the union well in so far as it does so it arguably reduces it by actually shrinking the obstacle posed by the article 125 no bailout flows on member state action in other words it reduces the capacity of the existing treaties rather than increases them in other words member states are effectively liberated by this particular restriction which was imposed on them by article 1251 sorry there it is just there in front of you again and they intend to use that new found liberty in order to sign a treaty setting up the European stability mechanism so if you look at the no bailout clause the first clause of that provision by the way remains in place the first clause of it says that the union shall not be liable for various public debts the second clause of it says that a member state shall not be liable for and it's only the second part of that if you like that is being affected by this particular amendment that the restriction is being taken away from the action if any change is being affected a restriction is being taken away from the action of the member states so that's the third point that I'd make in relation to that but let's assume that the member states and the commission have gotten it entirely wrong alright and that the effect of the proposed amendment is that it will increase the competences let's just ignore article 486 for a minute and assume that it will increase the competences of the European Union but even if that were the case even if that were somehow possible for the treaty change to be viewed as increasing the competences of the European Union that would not necessarily of itself create a problem under the Crotty test and we can see that from the first part of the Crotty judgment in which it was indicated by Chief Justice Finlay giving the judgment of the court that the increase in order to be problematic must alter the essential character of the Union you see that on page 770 of the judgment and it indicates on the same page that expansion and progress is allowed in the mechanics used by the European Union in the achievement of its agreed objectives now economic and monetary Union has been an agreed objective of the European Union since the coming into force of the Treaty of Maastricht in 1993 and what is this the European stability mechanism other than an expansion and progress in the mechanics of achieving economic and monetary Union between the member states looking at the second part of the Crotty judgment it notes that treaty provisions condemned in the it's worth noting that the treaty provisions condemned in the second part of the Crotty judgment involved effectively legal Terra Nova if you look at the judgments of Mr. Justice Walsh and Mr. Justice Griffin in the Crotty case in particular what they seem to object to was that the Treaty of the Single European Act was effectively a new treaty it wasn't amending the existing treaty provisions it was bringing in if you like measures in a wholly new area and they felt that this if you like brought it outside any protection but there's another point that I want to make in this regard moving on to my fifth out of six points you'll be relieved to know I'll be stopping on point number six but point number five was somehow reviewed as increasing competences even if you went by that and even if I'm wrong in relation to my interpretation of the Crotty case and it goes beyond the existing scope or objectives of the treaties that would merely move the European stability mechanism amendment outside the shield of immunity but that's not enough to require a referendum legally speaking more is required to necessitate a referendum what you need is an actual violation but why would agreeing the European stability mechanism violate the constitution the state appears to be entitled to agree treaties such as the European stability mechanism treaty even without any immunity attaching to it so it doesn't actually need the immunity so again no unconstitutionality involved as far as I can see in relation to that and therefore no immunity needed even if this did raise problems as regards the application of this immunity and the final point I suppose specifically already is that if this amendment increases the competences the competence of the European Union at all it's actually we don't need to worry if you like about a constitutional referendum because it's actually invalid under European Union law itself so that's basically all that I have to say in that regard and that if you like they're the reasons why I would offer as to why a constitutional referendum I think is not legally necessary in relation to this particular treaty that doesn't mean we can't decide should we want to have a referendum in relation to it as a political matter and if you feel that's a desirable way to decide take decisions in relation to a treaty like this I don't quite frankly to be honest about it but that's a political matter and it's not the issue that I'm addressing today what I'm addressing today is the legal necessity for a referendum and on the basis of the arguments that I've put forward to you there today I don't believe that such a referendum is necessary


O Jesus, through the Immaculate Heart of Mary, I offer you my prayers, works, joys and sufferings of this day for all the intentions of your Sacred Heart in union with the holy sacrifice of the mass throughout the world, for the salvation of souls, the reparation of sins, the reunion of all Christians, and in particular for the intentions of the Holy Father this month. Amen.


This is stock number 20T19A. We are here at Summit Automotive in Vandalak, Wisconsin near New and used Ram and light duty truck headquarters. Today we are checking out this super clean 2016 Ram 1500 Crew Cab 6 foot 4 inch short box Laramie. This vehicle has the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi motor and has been fully safety and inspected by our service shop has a fresh oil and filter chain change. All the fluids have been checked and topped off brand new brakes in the front and back I believe. Delmonico red pearl is the color we shoot all of our videos in 1080p 60 frames per second. So if you have HD capabilities on your computer tablet or smartphone device turn them on right now because it is like you're right here looking at the truck with me and definitely your best way to check out the vehicle before seeing it in person. Very clean on that side if you want to check out more pictures of this truck in the upper right hand part of your screen is a link right to our website Goodyear Wrangler 27560R20 tires with about 60 to 70% of the tread left. Factory alloy rims with the chrome covers. Didn't see any dents or dings on that front fender. Projector lamp headlamps LED running lights and factory fog lights. Front bumper is absolutely perfect no dents or dings on that. I didn't see any dents or dings on the hood. Very nice and clean condition. Passenger side fender is in nice shape as well and the passenger side rim no scuffs or scrapes on that. As you go down this side of the truck you can see just how clean the body is how reflective and mirror like that paint is. We take these HD videos so if you are far away or even if you're close by and just cannot make the trip down you can still see the vehicle hear the vehicle and have confidence in what you're looking at before you even get here. In fact we offer a Summit Auto Fastpass option on our website where you can apply for financing get pre-approved see payment options and even appraise your trade right on our website so when you get here it's all ready to go. Basically do your entire deal right on our website. That's why we do the videos we want to make sure when you do get here you're absolutely certain of what you're getting the back brakes are brand new as well and the back tires look like they have about 70 to 80% of the tread left on them. It does have the plastic wheel well liners and what that does is give you keeps your frame and underbody looking really nice and clean the full length wheel to wheel side steps but back to that Fastpass option you can click the link in the upper right hand part of your screen to check out that Fastpass option. As we come around to the back of the vehicle the rear bumper is absolutely perfect no denser dings than that. Dual rear exhaust full towing package which includes the receiver hitch, 4 pin and 7 pin wiring tailgate is an excellent condition as well. It is a locking tailgate with a backup camera, spray and bed liner beds in pretty nice condition and as you go down this side of the truck just as clean as that passenger side no denser dings on the box here and for full disclosure this back rim is in excellent shape as well. We just want to give you the most accurate representation it makes everything so much easier especially if you're coming from far away you have that peace of mind that the vehicle is going to be really nice and exactly what you're expecting built in directional signals heated mirrors inside the Laramie package gives you the black leather interior there are no rips there are no tears on the seats they're in really nice condition it both these seats are heated both these seats are cooled and you do get memory driver seat power driver seat as well factory floor mats throughout auto headlamps power pedals power windows power locks and power folding mirrors they fold in like so and also power fold out. As we hop inside the vehicle here you can see that this one has 8,671 miles has the digital spinometer 7 inch LCD display outside temperature compass display and you can also program some stuff in the bottom corners as well instrument cluster is very nice and clean comes with the leather wrapped heated steering wheel cruise controls and gear selector on the right Bluetooth and information center controls on the left no rips or tears on that steering wheel comes with the 8.4 3C radio gives you AM FM and Sirius XM radio capabilities as well as factory navigation and you can do your heated and cooled seat buttons here as well as your heated steering wheel and you can do your backup camera there as well notice I didn't even have to put it in reverse to check out that backup camera which is pretty cool you can also do your climate controls up here or you can do your climate controls down here if you like the more tactile buttons you can also do the heated and cooled seat buttons down here if you like the more tactile buttons as well stability control tow-haul mode has the 8 speed automatic turn dial transmission push button four-wheel drive with the four-wheel drive auto feature and a neutral setting 115 volt 150 watt plug-in and finally it does have the upgraded Alpine premium sound system passenger side floor mat and seat are an excellent condition I didn't see any rips or tears on that smells very clean inside this truck I don't think it's ever been smoked in got the speakers in the ceiling there part of that Alpine sound system power sign rear window LED map lights and your home link system for your garage door security systems and lighting systems last but not least it does have the 911 assist buttons in the rear view mirror those are features of the vehicle that you never have to pay a subscription for also this one does have the CD player in the center console not all of them have that that is an option we'll take a quick look at the back seats and then we will check out under the hood the back seats are just as clean as the front seats there are no rips there are no tears back here looks like you might have had some stuff on the passenger side there but other than that very very nice in here leather or latch child safety system I should say that power sliding rear window as well these seats do fold up there is a load floor which is really nice if you got pets you can put both sides on they got a nice flat place away or if you got muddy boots or tools you put them on there and they're not going to ruin your nice leather seats storage underneath this side and the other side has the subwoofer on it and you do get these removable bins for easy cleaning so you can put ice and drinks in there it's like you got too many coolers wherever you go and they can just dump it out and clean it up there are the heated seat buttons for the outboard side of the back seats and it does have the child safety locks right there and we'll take a quick look under the hood I would personally like to thank you for checking out the video today and hopefully from this HD video we'll have been able to tell just how clean this RAM is all the way around inside and out under the hood we have the 5.7 liter V8 Hemi motor engine bay is very very clean runs very smooth this truck has been fully safety and inspected like I said has a fresh oil and filter change all the fluids have been checked and topped off truck has been gone through mechanically 100% has brand new brakes all the way around and is 100% ready to go to see more pictures of this truck or one of our other 450 new and used cars trucks SUVs minivans Wranglers half tons three quarter tons one tons you name it we got it go to our website www.summitauto.com full pictures and descriptions of every single vehicle from two locations all at summitauto.com and if you like to check out more HD videos you can go to youtube.com slash summit auto remember to like subscribe and share on this video and all the videos that you see there in fact in a second you will see a link to subscribe to our YouTube channel on your left a link to more half ton truck videos like this one on your right if you've not been to our website on the bottom link to this vehicle on our website click those check us out and we really look forward to helping with this super clean 2016 Ram 1500 crew cab six foot four inch short box Laramie thanks again


Welcome everybody. Today we're going to be discussing strengths-based biopsychosocial approach to recovery from addictions and personality disorders. Now this one is going to be a little bit unique, I think, because I have a slightly unique approach or take on personality disorders, which you'll become familiar with as we go through this. I do believe that personality disorders are treatable, like I believe addictions are treatable. So we're going to talk about how these things kind of look alike and how they may be long-standing patterns of behavior that have been learned that can also be replaced. So we're going to define personality disorders, examine the similarities between the behaviors of certain personality disorders and addictions, specifically cluster B, identify ways to address these behaviors and thought patterns, and encourage clinicians to really critically examine behaviors and patients with addictions in order to effectively, differentially diagnose. When I worked in community mental health, one of the things that I was pretty adamant about with my staff, obviously especially my unlicensed staff, was the fact that we really wanted to see people work through the program and get a certain amount of clean time under their belt before we started willy-nilly throwing personality diagnoses at them. Part of this is because personality disorders as a term has really gotten a bad rap, if you will, as being persistent and untreatable. And I would encourage you to think about that as we go through this presentation as to how untreatable they are. Yes, they're going to be more difficult to treat than something somebody started doing a year ago if they've been doing it since they were knee-high to a grasshopper. But I don't believe that personality disorders are completely untreatable or intractable. So why do we care? When personality disorders are viewed as pervasive and perpetual, it provides an excuse for the patient for relapse. Well, I'm borderline, you know, I had this impulse control issue and I relapsed. I'm never going to be normal, so I relapsed. It often derails treatment because patterns of behavior thought to be due to the personality disorder are essentially ignored sometimes, not all the time, by staff and clinicians because they see personality disorders as something that can't be fixed, changed, or modified. And I really disagree with that. Personality disordered and addictive behavior often look very, very similar or the same. And the goals for recovery from both include honesty with self and others about thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants. So thinking about those personality disorders, a lot of people, especially again with cluster B, have difficulty identifying, let alone communicating their own thoughts, feelings, needs, and wants. Both addictions and people with personality disorders need to address distress tolerance and develop the ability to self soothe. They need to develop hope and faith in themselves, the future, and other people through addressing cognitive errors because we find that this hope and faith is often dashed by very negative or very polarized thinking errors. They need to develop self-esteem to eliminate the need for external validation.  And they need to work on the development of healthy supportive relationships. A lot of times people with addictions and with personality disorders get into relationships, true. I mean, they may have a lot of friends, they may have family, they may have lots of relationships. The healthy supportive ones are usually few and far between. So we want to look at what does that look like and who in your support system might most closely qualify as being a healthy supportive relationship. So personality disorders generally represent a cluster of behaviors that's pervasive. That means it's not just at school or not just at home, but everywhere, beginning before the age of 15. We're really looking for some of that stuff and we know we can't diagnose a personality disorder this early. We're going to have conduct disorder or oppositional defiant disorder, something like that. Addictive behaviors also often begin before age 15. A lot of my more clinically challenged clients, severe whatever, however you want to phrase it, their addictions began significantly earlier than people who had milder issues or milder addictions. Their issues all often began back in early adolescence, maybe even late childhood. So we want to look at how long has this behavior been going on because it's pervasiveness and the degree of how firmly entrenched someone is in these behaviors probably makes sense. If they've been doing it for 25 years, it's going to be something that they use pretty frequently. Due to immature cognitive development, children tend to be more egocentric over generalized and think in terms of dichotomies.  If you are my parent and you hurt me, you're supposed to love me and you're supposed to take care of me. So if you hurt me, it must be my fault. So you can see how these cognitive errors that children make because they don't have any other frame of reference. They don't have the ability to really look in terms of shades of gray. Can create a situation where they start seeing the world in terms of polarization. They see the world in terms of distorted thinking. From a survival perspective, most of the behaviors that we're going to talk about make perfect sense when you view it through the eyes of a 7, 8, 9, 10 year old. Does that mean that we're dealing with somebody who is cognitively 7, 8, 9 or 10? No. But what I'm saying is that some of the ways that we have organized our world or the schemas that we've created may have been constructed back then and may never have been challenged. Since these behaviors form the foundation for further development, so they built upon this negative conceptualization of the world, patients must understand the function of the symptoms and the thoughts in the past. Identify how these behaviors and beliefs are faulty in the present. What was true when you were 7 may not be true now that you're 27. Develop alternative skills and be empowered to interface with the world with the strengths, knowledge and tools of the adult. Children think differently. I mean Piaget spent his whole life proving that children think differently. They don't have that ability for abstract reasoning. So if a lot of really bad stuff happened when the child was young, they may not have started developing all of the abstract reasoning skills that a person who had the support and a nurturing environment would have. Addictions represent one way to cope with distress. It's not a good way. It's not a good way at all because all it does is numb it out. But it does represent the person's desire to survive what they cannot tolerate in terms of distress. They can begin in early life. Eating disorders, we see eating disorder behavior begin as early as seven or eight years old. We see addictive behavior, use of marijuana, use of alcohol. I've had patients tell me that they started smoking marijuana as early as nine. So we're dealing with people who are, for one reason or another, engaging in some dysfunctional coping behaviors at a very, very early cognitive and developmental age. That also tells me, and from the research that we've looked at on what happens when a child is exposed to abuse or neglect, the brain is developing so rapidly at that point that people who experience this kind of distress, this kind of adversity early in life probably are going to have some different wiring in their brains than the rest of us do because their brain was trying to compensate and deal with that neglect and everything else that was going on. It's important to understand this. It doesn't mean that the person is permanently broken. It just means we need to figure out a way to help them work with the wiring that they have. So real quick review.  Social awkwardness, withdrawal. I've had several patients over the years who have had cluster A diagnoses and they've co-occurred with the addictions. People with social awkwardness and withdrawal. I mean, think about going through middle school and high school without the ability to trust with some paranoid ideation with difficulty making eye contact. It's a difficult place to be. So some of these people and by and large, not all of them, but some of these people will develop addictions or will start using substances in order to feel part of a group in order to feel less isolated, less of an outcast. Others don't care and they are more than happy to withdraw into their room, but they may still engage in addictive behavior. Cluster C, and yes, I know it's out of order, your obsessive compulsive and your dependent personality disorders, these tend to be more anxious and fearful. This again may co-occur with addiction, but I haven't really experienced and what I've experienced over 20 years is just a really small sample of what's out there, but I have not experienced a lot of people coming through with OCD or dependent personality disorder. That being said, when those characteristics occur, if the personality disorder is there, it wouldn't surprise me to see some addictive behaviors in addition in order to help the person cope in the obsessive compulsive area, help them cope with the fact that they can't control everything in the dependent area, help them cope with potential fear of abandonment. But then there's Cluster B, your borderline narcissistic, histrionic and anti-social characterized by dramatic emotional or erratic behavior. These behavioral patterns often overlap with addiction, so let's look at some of these characteristics. Cluster B, you have your dramatic emotional erratic behavior. Think about somebody who is in the middle of an addiction. We talk about them being emotionally all over the place. We talk about them being dependent upon the substances to numb the pain. We talk about erratic, unpredictable behavior and mood swings. Okay, you see that in Cluster B too. All or nothing thinking. We see this in personality disorders and we see it in addiction. People start seeing the world as all good or all bad and there's nothing in between. You're going to fit into one of those categories if I have to squeeze you into it. Hostility and aggression. The world starts getting to be a very, very, very scary place if you have this all or nothing situation going on. Everything you see is always extreme and you're hypersensitive.  They want to be attuned to all the clues that way they can best protect themselves from any fallout. They want to be able to fight or flee at the first sign of negativity or the first sign that something's going to go down. Manipulative. Well, we know that people with addictions are manipulative because they're trying to protect that addiction. That one thing that helps them survive. People with personality disorders can also be manipulative. We're going to look at some of the ways that they want to protect themselves from what seems to be a very, very scary world. All of these personality disorders tend to have low self-esteem and a weak self-concept with the exception of narcissistic personality disorder where they tend to be on the other end of the spectrum all or nothing again with very grandiose ideas about what capacity they have and what strengths they have. So let's look at antisocial. Disregard for the rights of other people. They do what they want, when they want to, because they want to in order to get whatever they want to. Is this true of people with addictions? Yeah, it is especially if it involves doing whatever they need to do to access their addiction of choice. Do people in active addiction do things that they wouldn't normally do with regard to disregarding the rights of other people? Oh yeah. So one of the things that we want to look at if we're differentially diagnosing is is this behavior, this disregard for the rights of other people, limited only to the time when the person is symptomatic of addiction. With a lot of our patients we're not going to be able to look back and see when they've been asymptomatic because it's been going on for so long. But we need to kind of start looking at it. We need to look at do they have empathy? Is there a sense of guilt for impinging upon the rights of someone else? Not just they're upset because they didn't get their own way. Impulsivity. People with antisocial personality disorder and you know this is also common in criminogenic thinking. It's like there's not enough time. They want what they want and they want it yesterday and they can't wait. People with addictions are often the same way. They need to have their own way and they need to have it now. They're trying to control their environment because the world as they know it is very chaotic and or they're in distress. So if they can't numb it out, if they can't control it, then it needs to go away. So there's a lot of impulsivity, reactivity, trying to protect themselves and it really comes down to a survival function. Hostility and or aggression. In antisocial personality disorder, we see people who are hostile and aggressive generally when they don't get their own way because they want to get stuff. Now whatever that stuff is is dependent on the person. Sometimes it's just power and control. When we look at people with addictions, hostility and aggression, what do we know about anger? Anger is a power move. That's your fight of the fight or flee. So hostility and aggression is a way of getting control over other people, getting the upper hand, the power position or pushing people away so they can't hurt you. Either way, you're in a dominant position which is protective. Deceit and manipulation.  But so can people with addictions. Part of it is just practice because they need or they feel they need to access whatever it is. There's also a There's also a certain amount for both groups of a thrill of being able to manipulate and deceive people in order to keep them kind of your puppets. And that sounds horrible, but when you think about it in terms of somebody with an addiction who has been victimized, who feels out of control, who wants to keep people from hurting them, one of the best ways to keep people from hurting you is to control them. Now, obviously that's not the healthy way to go about things. But when again, I want you to just kind of think of it, step out of your therapist mind and try to get into the mind of somebody with an addiction or with one of these personality disorders and view the world through their eyes. This is one of the challenges that a lot of us have when we're working with people with a variety of things, you know, we can get into the mind or we can get into the shoes of somebody with depression. But when it comes to addictions or personality disorders or schizophrenia, sometimes it's harder for us to want to put ourselves in their shoes in order to understand the reward function, the motivation behind these behaviors. But we're not going to be able to help them address them unless we see what the motivation is, how it is functioning for them right now, and how we could find other healthier ways to help them meet those needs. And then a lack of empathy. And I put seam there. People with antisocial personality disorder typically don't know how to empathize with other people. Now, if you remember back in preschool, one of my son's preschool teachers was just fabulous. But I remember distinctly watching her sometimes on the playground work with little children that were trying to negotiate things. And one child would hurt another child and she'd pull them aside and go, you know, how do you think Tommy felt when you took his toy or when you hit him? And the offending child often would shrug his shoulders. And she would say, okay, well, how would you feel if he took your toy or he hit you? Then the child was like, oh, that wouldn't be so good. Alright, so if you don't think it would be so good if he did it to you, then how do you think he felt? We teach children empathy. Now, some of it is inborn. Some of it is just part of being human. But the degree of empathy that helps us engage in healthy relationships is partly learned and crafted through social interactions as you grow up. And if all of your social interactions are abusive, negative or dysfunctional as you're growing up, then you may not learn to take empathy or have empathy like other people do when they get to be older. So I really want to look at empathy in terms of is it something the person is just not wired for and they're not capable? Or is it something they haven't learned? Another thing to remember in both is cluster B people. 99% of the time you don't look back over their childhood and go, hey, you had a great childhood. What in the world happened? Most people with personality disorders, especially cluster B, tend to come from very chaotic, dysfunctional, neglectful environments. So seeming to lack empathy. If everybody you were supposed to be able to trust has let you down. If nobody has ever had empathy for you, it makes sense that you may not have empathy for other people, you may have just given up. And if that's the case, we can, you know, re-inspire hope and stuff. But we need to figure out where these symptoms are coming from. Why do you lack empathy? Do you not know how? Do you just not have the capability?  Histrionic. Now this takes a little twist on it. Excessive emotionality and intention seeking. They may become enraged at perceived rejection. Now remember we talked about all of the people in this cluster tend to be very hyper vigilant. People with histrionic tendencies tend to be flirtatious, need to be the center of attention and when they're not, they feel lost. They feel very out of control. They derive a lot of their self-worth and a lot of their ego strength from other people valuing them, from other people falling over them. And when they don't have that, since they can't self-soothe, they like freak out. They have an inability to engage in authentic relationships but they're uncomfortable being alone. They can't be their true selves because they don't know who they are.  Now this is starting to sound a little bit like borderline now, isn't it? We'll get there. They're uncomfortable being alone because they haven't any internal ego strength. They haven't any internal idea of who they are. They're relying on everybody else to shower them with praise for what they do.  Okay, if I'm the center of attention because I'm an excellent fill-in-the-blank, then if I'm not a fill-in-the-blank anymore, I disappear. They imagine relationships to be more intimate in nature than they actually are. They so desperately want to fill that hole inside them that they start imagining this relationship to be more intimate. If somebody is paying attention to me, then you must love me. They tend to be suggestible and easily influenced by other people, which is not good especially in a situation where there are also addictions and people who have ulterior not-so-nice motivations. Histrionic personality disorder is not uncommon, and a lot of times you will notice it because these people, particularly females, it tends to be diagnosed more in females, try to use this power in order to control people. My thought when I'm working with someone who's histrionic is what happened in the past that has taught you that this is how to interface with people and that this is the safest way to interact. Borderline, people with borderline personality disorder, and we have all worked with somebody who has borderline tendencies, and I use that word a lot, tendencies, because I find that true borderline personality disorder isn't nearly as common as we might think because these behaviors are so similar to those that we see in addiction treatment. Low self-esteem. Okay, how many different diagnoses have low self-esteem as a characteristic? The person with borderline personality disorder is empty inside and they're relying on other people again to tell them who they are, what they are, and they are very chameleon-like. Just like in addictions, the chameleon comes out in order to keep people from abandoning them. They feel helpless, anxious, and constantly fear-abandonment. What would have created this situation in a person when they were growing up or when they got older, that they constantly fear that people are going to leave them. They constantly feel like they're not good enough. And I'm kind of putting that out as a question for you to think about when you're working with people with addictions or with borderline personality disorder, this is a devastating place to be where every time you walk into a room or you think you are starting to have a friend, you're just like, well, I better not get too attached because they're going to leave. Their perceptions of themselves and others may quickly vacillate back and forth. People with BPD, we think about them turning on a dime. They love you or they hate you and there is no middle ground. It's protective. If you are filling a need, if you are filling the void, if you are reinforcing them as a human being, they will love you. The minute they start to perceive that you might be critical, that you might be getting ready to leave, that you might be doing something they don't like, it will turn. It will turn to something of closer to hate. Why? It's protective. They are going to be the dumper instead of the dumpy. They are not going to let you abandon them. They are going to push you away. A lot of this deals, comes from their hypervigilance. They grew up in an environment where they had to be sort of on their toes all the time because it was very chaotic and very unpredictable. And that's what they see everywhere they look now.  On top of this, they tend to be emotionally reactive with an inability to de-escalate. So they see something. They are hypervigilant. They are looking. They see the slightest hint of disappointment or abandonment or disapproval. They go into a full-out fight-or-flight reaction and they cannot self-soothe to come back down, which is why we see a lot of self-injurious behavior and addictions in people with personality disorders because they're trying to numb out the intracyclic pain. They often have a history of neglect, abuse, or a dismissive style of parent-child attachment. So they never felt like they were important or good enough in their family of origin. How must that affect a child when they grow up in an environment where the people who are supposed to approve of them and protect them, their parents, are neglectful, abusive, and dismissive? So if those people can let you down, then everybody else most certainly can let you down because they have less of a stake in it. People with narcissistic personality disorder, I say this one for last because they're kind of on the other end of the spectrum. People with narcissism have this powerful sense of entitlement. And I can say that in my career, I've worked with two people who had narcissistic tendencies.  They believed they deserved special treatment.  They needed to be in control. They needed to be powerful and admired. They didn't have empathy for their impact on others because it was just like, well, I am the queen and you are all my subjects. So I don't really care how you feel. What everything is about is how you make me feel. And relationships are also often superficial and devoid of real intimacy because they're not engaging with the other person. They are wanting people to fawn over them. Again, what must have happened in this person's life to develop this set of behaviors, this sense of entitlement that everything they want, they get, that they always deserve special treatment. I've known people who've grown up and everything they've wanted, they've gotten, and whenever they got in trouble, they got rescued. They learned to believe they deserved special treatment, not because of any reason, but just because they said so. They didn't develop so much a sense of who they were. They developed a sense of the fact that they could control and bully people. People with narcissism, if they're ever confronted with the fact that they may not be as powerful and as admirable as they think they are, it is a crushing blow. But most of the time, they're going to blame others. If anything they do has a hiccup in it or is incomplete or imperfect, it's not their fault. They will not take responsibility for it because they're perfect in their own eyes. People with narcissism have a very, very difficult time forming healthy relationships because most healthy people don't want to be around it. So a lot of times you see people with narcissism are surrounded by people who are codependent or who are dependent and need to take care of someone else. They have a need to fawn over someone and the narcissist has a need to be fawned over. So it's not a match made in heaven, but a dysfunctional match, if nothing else. So what are our take-home messages? Many of the behaviors that we've talked about are characteristic of active addiction. People in active addiction are manipulative. Yes, they are. When they sober up, the world is a scary, terrifying, depressing, hostile place. And the reason they started using was to get away from the terrifying, scary, depressing, hostile place. So they tend to be manipulative in order to protect their addiction. They protect that one thing that's helping them survive right now because they don't know how to deal with all this stuff that they have to deal with. And it's overwhelming to even think about starting to deal with it. They tend to lack empathy for others. They don't even have empathy for themselves most of the time. They just, they're just trying to exist. A lot of times they're numb inside. Addictions and personality disorders often begin in late childhood or early adolescence. And not saying that they're one in the same because we know that there is no such thing as an addictive personality. But I do believe that people who develop personality disorder behavior often also develop addictive behavior as a way to deal with all the negativity. As the person deals with the addiction and a lot of the stuff that we talk about that they need to address in their addiction is really stuff we're talking about in terms of coping and personality disorder behaviors. Recovery from addiction requires people develop effective coping skills and address their cognitive distortions. Recovery from personality disorders also requires that. I mean you can't be viewing the world as a scary place. You can't be viewing the world in all or nothing terms. You can't always be fearing abandonment and expect to be able to be happy. So addressing the cognitive distortions that makes the world such a scary, unwelcoming or hostile place and developing coping skills to help the person self soothe. True for both addictions and personality disorders. Recovery from addiction also requires addressing dramatic emotional and erratic behavior. In their addiction whether they're using or they're not using if they're still engaging in this kind of behavior they need to develop some mindfulness to identify and process the source of their distress. They need to identify some distress tolerance skills. If you look at some of the DBT skills workbooks they talk about distress tolerance and most of you probably are aware that DBT was initially developed to work with people with borderline personality disorder. We want people to develop the ability to feel distress and ride the wave through it without having to act out, without having to use, without having to cut, without having to engage in some other sort of reckless self-destructive behavior. Once you get past that initial distress people still need to have coping skills to deal with whatever it was that caused the emotional upset to begin with. This all happens really fast. You get upset, you have to acknowledge that you're upset, get through the initial rush of emotion with the distress, with your distress tolerance skills and then cope with it. That's a lot to learn. It can be done but it's a lot to learn. Mindfulness is the first step no matter what the diagnosis we're talking about. People need to understand when they get upset. They need to start identifying that because that's what leads up to their acting out. I've talked before ad nauseam about the fact that relapses don't come from out of nowhere. They come from a whole host of things building up and stuffing this distress and failing to deal with it and a lack of mindfulness. If you're mindful then stuff doesn't build up. If you're mindful you're aware of problems and you can start to address them from the get-go. All or nothing thinking like I said it's common and a bunch of different diagnoses. People need to be aware of the fact that this is a cognitive distortion and start identifying ways that it makes sense for them to address it. Not everybody is going to address their polarized thinking the same way but we need to start asking them what is it that can help you get away from this all or nothing thinking or identify when they start to get distressed what parts of that distress were due to viewing the world in terms of all or nothing or extremes and then helping them figure out other ways to deal with it like identifying exceptions. This doesn't always happen because there are at least one or two exceptions to it. Hostility and aggression these are again protective so we need to help people understand the fight-or-flight response and the function of this hostility and aggression. When you start feeling this way something's going on that is telling your brain that there's a threat so what are these threats and how can you best deal with them now when you were seven eight what how when you were a child you may not have been able to deal with them you may not have had the skills or the ability to deal with whatever it was that was causing the threat so you had to get away from it in your own head now that you are 38 you have more skills you have more tools you have more things at your disposal you're not dependent upon your parents you're not dependent upon certain things how can you deal with it differently as a 38 year old when something like this happens development of anger awareness and management skills what triggers your anger you can do you know eight ten twelve weeks on anger management helping people understand what triggers their anger because a lot of times what it is is only sort of the tip of the iceberg it's representative of a lot of other stuff underneath a lot of conceptual stuff remembering that anger is a response to a threat so why are you feeling threatened when somebody looks at your cross side why are you feeling threatened when somebody sighs the wrong way why are you feeling threatened when you know and have people keep playing that tape over in their head why am i threatened when until they start identifying the underlying cognitive issues that need to be addressed the things that they learned when they were growing up those negative tapes those hecklers in the gallery that are still telling them they're not good enough or that they're in danger hypersensitivity especially to rejection we know people with addictions tend to be very chameleon like because that's the best way to manipulate someone if they want to appease you if they want to keep you happy if they want to pull something over on you the best way to do that is to be hyper aware so they can manipulate you by the same token being hyper aware means they're also hyper aware when they're about ready to lose control which may mean rejection which may mean abandonment which may mean they get their addiction taken away could mean a lot of things but when somebody's hypersensitive it's exhausting we need to help them develop an awareness of their thinking errors if your boss walks down the hall and sighs or doesn't say hi to you if you automatically think that means that you're in trouble and you're getting ready to get fired let's talk about that let's talk about how that might be a thinking error and where did that come from at what time in your past has a situation but similar to this happened and it did end up with something very dramatic have them develop an awareness of their abandonment issues why people are why certain people are so important to them what it means if people leave who's abandoned them in the past and how they need to deal with that and what that means to them and then also developing a sense of self-esteem so they can be okay with who they are and not need to have everybody's approval all the time manipulative people with addictions and personality disorders manipulate other people it helps them stay in control in control is a safe place if you're out of control it's potentially an unsafe place helping people identify what they need and what they want what their boundaries are and effectively communicate that is going to go a long way towards addressing some of the manipulative behavior a lot of times in clients in addiction treatment we see them being manipulative because they don't know how to ask for what they want they may not even know exactly what they want but they certainly don't know how to say i'm feeling this way and this is what i need a huge portion of early recovery with addictions is helping people identify what their boundaries are and what their needs and wants are because they've gotten so detached from themselves and the same thing is true with personality disorders whatever happened back then the child pretty much had to give up a lot of what he or she was in order to be whatever the caregivers needed him or her to be in order to survive low self-esteem and weak self-concept you know develop self-esteem and the ability to internally validate so we're not reliant on anybody to validate us we can reserve that for people who aren't we are in healthy relationships with we're not going to go out and just start pulling anybody in going i need somebody to be my friend it's okay to be alone you can be alone and not be lonely and you can be in a room of people and still be lonely because loneliness and being alone are not the same thing most patients with addictions have traits associated with personality disorders so i really encourage people who are working in the field of addictions or co-incurring disorders to try to understand the function of those behaviors instead of just slapping a diagnosis on it many treatment centers will not accept people with personality disorder diagnoses so am i saying not to diagnose a personality disorder if it exists no what i'm saying is let's make sure that that's what we're dealing with before we put it there because it's going to stay in that person's record these traits can be loosely classified into thinking errors where they're perceiving threats all over the place and behavioral reactivity to escape or eliminate the threat so when we're looking at the motivation behind these behaviors or the reward from acting this way where is it coming from why would somebody behave this way and that involves getting in their head and going okay what why are they perceiving a threat or how is this giving them control the first steps in the recovery process are going to be to help them to get honest with themselves and others develop a sense of mindfulness and awareness of what's going on and how they impact others and how others impact them that's you know phase one of treatment is just kind of getting grounded and trying to figure out what's going on the next step is developing hope and faith identifying those cognitive distortions and thinking errors that are keeping the world scary if you can address those cognitive distortions and start saying okay you know some people are bad people and that's true but all people are not bad people some people and I mean it depends on your person how they're going to phrase it they may say everybody has the ability to do bad things and you know that's potentially true how can they look at it in terms of sort of shades of gray where most of the time most people are not going to do bad things this will help them develop hope that they can be happy and they can be safe without having to try to control and manipulate everything and finally they need to develop courage and discipline to remain constantly mindful of their own feelings if they've been acting this way if they've been behaving this way if they've been thinking this way for 20 years guess what that's always going to be there you know you have behaviors that you learned when you know when you're 23 if you want something and you don't get it you're most likely not going to throw yourself on the floor in the middle of the grocery store and start pounding your fists a three-year-old might do that we've learned not to use that but does that mean that that behavior is completely gone no we know that behavior is there we just know as a 23-year-old is most likely to get you committed instead of get you the cereal that you want my point being when we're quote curing or treating or eliminating behaviors they're always going to be somewhere back in that mental toolbox children growing up in unstable neglectful and emotionally detached environments develop traits to survive a lot of these traits we call personality disordered because if you grew up in a normal family or what you expect in a healthy situation and I don't like either those either those words normal or healthy but then these behaviors seem very confusing when you put yourself in that dysfunctional environment the behaviors make a lot more sense and addictions often numb the pain and escape from this lack of control you know yeah addictions do nothing to solve the problem but it may help somebody survive when they can't fix or change something that is just untenable and behaviors characteristic of addictions and personality disorders were learned and reinforced we don't do things that are not beneficial or rewarding in some way so we've got to figure out what that is they will always be in the recesses of the toolbox if somebody was a cutter when they were eight if things get bad enough when they are 28 might they think about self-injurious behavior again sure will they do it hopefully we've provided them or help them develop enough tools that they won't need to regress to that behavior but it's always going to be there the dysfunctional behaviors have to be made less rewarding than alternative healthy behaviors you don't want to replace chocolate with celery you know if something did the job and it did it really really really well then telling them oh you know just sit through it or do something that just kind of maybe sort of addresses it that's not going to work you need to replace it roughly one for one if it did a really good job in the past whatever it was that was dysfunctional we need to find something that's functional that meets the same need to the same degree in order for it to replace the old behavior


Back home, saw my untamed strength, Sacramento, California man, great time in LA, but back to the grind. And as always, my goals right now remain in kind of hypertrophy, fat loss phase. So I'm focusing on feeling good, I'm focusing on my cardio for health reasons, not that I have any health issues, which is general health, feeling my mind good, feeling productive, dropping a little bit of weight, but my body's feeling good. So we're going to push squats a little bit, came down tamed, I knew my boy Marcus was going to be here, an old homie Riley was here, who I used to coach back in the day with the one and only Connor behind the camera. Alan stopped by, I got to say what's up, but he doesn't really train on Saturday, so I might have to even find another day to drive out here and train with Alan. But based on breaking out my squats, it's fairly simple. It's simple, basic, based off of the infinite off season, which I made for Kaizen Training. It's free, if you guys want to always check it out, I have a bunch of free programs there. But I added a little bit of frequency, since I'm not deadlifting, I can handle a little bit more volume. And basically, it's a way of daily undulating periodization. And now what I'm doing is I started with just the specific movement of the squat to get back to where about I wanted to be. So today we hit 465 for a single, it was pretty fast. I'm not my strongest ever, I'm not peaked, I'm not prepped, but my strength is generally where I want it to be. And so I don't want to just bang my head on the specific squat all the time, so we're going to start to add in variations, squatting three times a week. Anyways that untamed, because I have Marcus in the environment, in the equipment, will be my heavy day. And basically what I'm going to do is work up to a heavy-ish single, RPE 89, depending on how I'm feeling. A couple of drop-down sets of three, not being specific about the percentage, just kind of going to guesstimate today I ended up with 415 for sets of three, because we're using the Texas Squat Bar. Next week I might try to do 425 for sets of three, or 420, it's not that big of a deal. Just slowly making that progress there. Volume day, volume day, I'm only going to do sets of five or six, it's going to end up being on Mondays. I'll probably start with doing that potentially beltless, potentially without sleeves. We'll see, not that those make a huge difference for me right now, but three sets of five, something decent. And then we're going to start to add in some cleans and maybe some clean pulls with my boy Ben Claret at. So get a little bit more posterior involved, but still get some kind of volume. I don't want to squat super high reps, one because my frequency is high, I'm dieting, and so I don't want to just be too beat up. But two, the more fatigue you throw in, the more reps you throw in, the higher chance that you're going to have sloppy reps and coming off in any kind of injury or being beat up. I don't want to have any kind of issues with bad form or not breathing or getting a little lazy. So sets of five, I can still do five perfect singles in a row. Wednesday will be my other lower day. I'm also going to try to do some cleans on that day, power cleans, whatever Ben has right up for me, told me to do, cleans and some push press. And that day is going to be real light. I'm going to be totally beltless, totally knees. And I'm going to start with about three, 15, five to six sets of three, just working on speed and form, getting a little extra volume in, and then we either add some sets, maybe end up at seven sets of three, or just add a little bit of weight. Week one and two will be three, 15 to get acclimated, then I'll go three, 25, three, 45, work my way back up, ramp back down, work my way back up. The infinite off season that we made free a long time ago is a base structure. And so that's my base structure. And then you can make your own modifications if you're aware with any kind of programming, what you need, variation-wise, et cetera, et cetera. Upper body is going to be similar, pushing the bench a little bit. So Saturday is going to be my heavy bench day, worked up to a single, 325, I think, for a pretty clean single. Felt heavy in my hands, but not bad. Back down sets, 275, some 295 on the way up, getting a little extra volume in. And that's it for Saturdays, because I'm going to do a bunch of pulling and accessory stuff during the week. So training probably five or six times a week right now, three lower body, three-ish upper body, some mix, because I want to do some push press with Ben's eyes.  Blocks, kind of fun. Trying new things, back on the grind, back on the strength grind, but number one, hyper-trippery and losing some weight. Hopefully you guys enjoyed this type of video. More training footage on the way. Be sure to subscribe, turn on notifications, thumbs up. I'll see you in the next one.


While the damage assessments going on, salvage workers can look for an area to move objects and documents for triage and salvage. This could be another room in your building, a place on the grounds where a tent can be set up, or even an off-site location. In any case, you'll want to consider several factors. The first thing that you need to think about is security. Is this space secure? What are the climate conditions in that space, and what are the factors going to be about getting objects from your institution, point A to point B? Are you in a large city? Do you have to deal with a lot of traffic? Is this building that's just next door so transportation for the artifacts could actually be carried out very easily, as opposed to off-site salvage, where you're going to actually have to think about packing up the artifacts on site, which is going to add a whole other level of complexity.