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Piers Cross on Trauma, Addiction, and Self-Compassion

Most men walk around with stones in their shoes their whole lives. They don't know the stones are there. They just know something hurts, and they've learned to keep walking anyway.

That's one of the most powerful things Piers Cross said in this conversation. And it captures something I see all the time in the men I work with — unprocessed trauma quietly running the show, showing up as compulsive behavior, isolation, a relentless inner critic that won't let them rest.

Piers's own story is one of the more remarkable ones I've encountered. He grew up with an alcoholic father, ran away to boarding school, watched a friend die by suicide, and was then sexually abused by the priest the school sent them to for support. He suppressed all of it, built a successful career in finance, and slowly fell apart. At his lowest point he was homeless, struggling with drugs and alcohol, and tried to take his own life. What turned it around was ending up at a Buddhist monastery — where he stayed for over 1,000 days. He's been sober for 24 years.

In this episode we talk about:

• How suppressed childhood trauma shows up in adult addiction, even when the connection isn't obvious
• Why going back to touch trauma can re-traumatize you — and what to do instead
• What EFT tapping is, how it works neurologically, and why Piers uses it with every client
• The three ingredients Robert Moore says are required for real initiation to happen
• Why the monastery was a rite of passage from boy to man — and what that has to do with recovery
• The inner critic loop that keeps men stuck, and how to step out of it
• Why alcohol and porn relapse are more connected than most people realize
• A five-minute safety meditation practice you can start today
• What Piers wants every man struggling with addiction to hear before anything else

The self-compassion piece in this one is worth the whole conversation. The image Piers uses — of picking a child up 100 times when they fall — is the kind of thing that stays with you.

Connect with Piers Cross:

Coaching: piers-cross.com

Leadership work: compassionateleadersglobal.com

Podcast: An Evolving Man

Documentary: Boarding on Insanity

Resources from Jeremy:

Unhooked Academy: unhookedacademy.com

14-Day Slip Reset: unhookedacademy.com/reset