In this powerful and deeply honest episode of PCOS Unfiltered, Lindsie sits down for part two with Dr. Rob Kelly, PhD, a world-renowned addiction expert and recovered alcoholic, to explore what really drives addiction, self-sabotage, and compulsive behaviors. This conversation goes far beyond alcohol or drugs and dives into the subconscious patterns that keep people stuck in cycles of emotional eating, body shame, perfectionism, and chronic self-harm — even when they know better. Dr. Robb explains why addiction isn’t about the substance or behavior itself, but about the nervous system’s attempt to regain safety and control after trauma. Through unforgettable stories — including the metaphor of “smashing the box” — he illustrates why familiar pain often feels safer than unfamiliar freedom, and why willpower alone will never be enough to create lasting change. Together, Lindsay and Dr. Rob connect the dots between trauma, food addiction, body image, chronic illness, PCOS, and the cultural systems that profit from keeping people disconnected from their bodies. They discuss how healing happens when the focus shifts from fixing symptoms to understanding root causes — and how weight loss, confidence, and freedom often become side effects of real healing. This episode is a compassionate reminder that your body isn’t broken — it’s been trying to protect you. And those survival patterns can be rewired.
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Dr. Robb is generously offering a limited number of signed copies of his book, free of charge. To receive one, reach out directly or follow the instructions linked in the show notes. After reading, he asks only that you pass it along to someone else who may need it. Contact me or email janet@robbkelly.com and mention the episode.
(0:00 - 0:26) That's what we do in life, what's programmed to self-sabotage, even though it's painful, it's your worst nightmare, it's a comfortable, recognizable place where we go in the brain every single time. So my advice to anybody, everybody going through this, is we need to smash the box, otherwise you'll keep getting back in. Hey friend, welcome back.
(0:26 - 0:55) I'm Lindsie, and today's conversation is one I really want you to lean into, because it's not just about fixing a behavior, it's about understanding what's underneath it. Today I'm joined by Dr. Robb Kelly, PhD, a world-renowned addiction expert who's known for one core belief, treat the problem, not the symptoms. Rob has spent decades working with addicts and alcoholics across the world, and what makes his work especially powerful is that it's not just professional, it's personal.
(0:56 - 1:36) He's a recovered alcoholic himself, and he shares parts of his story in this episode that are raw, real, and honestly, unforgettable. And even if you're thinking, addiction doesn't apply to me, I want you to keep listening, because we also talk about things like the subconscious mind and why willpower isn't enough, how trauma gets stored and shows up as patterns you can't seem to break, the link between addiction and food, emotional eating, and self-sabotage, and simple daily practices you can start using right now to begin shifting your internal dialogue. As always, the content shared on PCOS Unfiltered is for informational and educational purposes only.
(1:37 - 1:55) The views and opinions expressed by the hosts and guests are not intended to serve as medical advice. Always consult with a qualified healthcare professional before making any changes to your diet, exercise, or treatment plan. The information shared is based on personal experience and expert interviews, and is not a substitute for professional medical guidance.
(1:56 - 2:22) This conversation is about healing at the root, so you can stop living in the same loop, and finally feel free. All right, let's get into it with Dr. Robb Kelly. So yeah, I want to dive into the addiction side and the mindset that kind of goes along with that.
(2:23 - 2:40) I often get this question, what's the difference between food addiction, drug addiction, sex addiction? What's the difference? And the answer is no. They're both as powerful. The drug can ruin your life, and they're not about the food, they're not about the food or the drugs or the sex, it's got nothing to do with them.
(2:41 - 3:13) Most of it is trying to gain power back, because most of our life, other people run our lives and we don't like it, so the only power we get, the anorexia nervosa, all that stuff is gaining that power for a short period of time, it's got nothing to do with the food. But then the bad thing is with food addiction, is in America, probably 90% of stuff you buy from the supermarket is non-edible. Now when I say that, of course it's edible, but we've got to look for the rancid oils, the sunflower and all that stuff, the colors, the GMO.
(3:14 - 3:36) When we eat something, anything, it doesn't get used in the sauce that we're eating. So I eat, I don't know, chicken or hamburger, whatever it is, it has to be methylated into the sauce that the body can use, it's common biology. In America though, most of the stuff we buy off the shelf, the body cannot methylate.
(3:36 - 4:27) So what happens is the body can't methylate, so that becomes a deficiency, that deficiency causes the addictions, causes the liver, cancers, that's what causes it. So we have to look at what we're eating, first of all, quality food, quality sleep, addiction, we can cure addiction, well you can't cure, after 11,000 patients, yeah we can, of course we can, but it's not about the food, so we're on a bad start with food anyway, because if you want to eat clean in America, it's going to cost you twice as much to do that. But there's certain things you can do and live better, but what is an addiction? Well, it's not what addiction tells us, by the way, the medical fraternity don't know nothing about alcoholism and addiction, or food or sex, whatever it is, it's something you do over and over again compulsively that has an effect on your life.
(4:28 - 5:47) So if food's the only thing you're thinking about, you're eating, you're distancing yourself from your husband and the kids, that's a problem, if you train every day and you look amazing, but you're going on vacation with the wife and kids and the first thing you do when you land is try and find the nearest gym, that's a problem. So it's all about balance, but if we can shift that power from self-sabotage to self-care, wouldn't that be the answer? Well our studies show there are billions of neural pathways in the brain, and also in self-sabotage, when you go through childhood trauma, about 300 neural pathways die every single day. What are you replacing them with? Are you replacing them with new routines you've developed, or are we replacing it with the same old thing? Oh my God, I'm hungry, oh my God, because that's not true, it's not true, you know, but we have to get rid of that fraternity, and again we come back to the fraternity, you know, so if you've ever been to the seaside with a bunch of guys from work, you get down there, you have a few beers, you let yourself, at the end of the day you get back on the bus, which seat you're sitting, it's usually the one you travel in, so the point where you may say, hey, that's my seat you're sitting, your seat, but the brain's been spoken, that safety is best, if I did it a certain way, that's the best.
(5:48 - 8:04) A girl in Manchester got, you know, snatched up the side of the street, 15 years old, 16 years old, skilled uniform, blonde hair, blue eyes, man point was huge for her back in 1968, couldn't find her, presumed dead after several months, nine months later, a police car's following another car down the country road, who has a black, a black broken light, so they pull him over, back in the day you had no communication or nothing, you can't check on anybody, so they used to ask you a question, hey, is this your car? Yeah. What's in the trunk? Yellow jacket, pair of boots. Oh, okay, it's your car, this guy was patient, so they open the trunk and there's a stolen screwdriver, that's a tab on, no receipt, so now they're allowed, back in the day, to go back to their house, no search warrant, and they searched the house and they found lawnmowers, they found ladders, they found, you know, all crazy drills, and while they're looking, they found this box in the corner, it's four foot high by about 12 foot wide, and the police officer said to them, we know you have more stolen goods in there, and he denied all knowledge of the box, so when they smashed the lock and opened the box, there was the girl that was missing, nine months before, she was alive, but he used to check her out every day, he used to do what you think he's going to do, bathe, toilet, get back in the box every single day, so when the police officer called the woman officer over, the woman police officer went over, she took this young girl's hand, she helped her step out of the box, she took the police boat off, and she put it around the girl, it's the first thing the girl did, she got back in the box, and that's what we do in life, we go around to self-sabotage, even though it's painful, it's your worst nightmare, it's a comfortable, recognizable place, where we go in the brain every single time, so my advice to anybody, everybody going through this, is when it's a smash the box, otherwise you'll keep getting back in, all the time, and this is what it's like to change your mind and routines around you, it's very, very important that you do that.
(8:05 - 11:13) So a few years back, well I guess five years now, that's crazy, I started having a reaction to gluten, for me, it was super easy, because I felt awful from it, it had been going on for years, but it finally kind of came to a head, and felt awful, I knew exactly how I was going to feel if I ate it going forward, so I just gave it up, no problem, but I've learned there's so many people out there, like I would talk to women, they're just like, yeah I just love it, but I'm going to suffer later, and I realized I was the minority in that case, even though they know the consequence, and they know how they're going to feel, they continue to do it, and I'm sure that can be applied to anything. It can, I mean with alcohol, I was programmed because of the hypothalamus to drink alcohol, so if you would have said to me during my drinking days, especially homeless, I'm going to walk you into a bar now, there's half a pint of whiskey and a gun, and if you drink the whiskey, you've got to use the gun yourself, and checking that all day long, and checking that deal all day long, because I'm not thinking about that, I'm thinking about this, because my part of the brain is saying if you don't drink this, you're going to die, even though it's to the contrary, and it's the same with every other addiction, we believe that if you don't do that, and go down that route, some harm is going to come to us, and we might die, but you stay in that mundane routine of self-harm all of the time. If in America, you go over to England, and I'm American guys, I'm not here British, I'm not British anymore, I'm American, that's just my accent, I've got to tell you that for a start, it's okay, but you go over to England, and buy McDonald's fries, there's three or four ingredients in it, why is there 22 ingredients in McDonald's fries over here? Because you can leave them in the cupboard, and I'll throw it in the cupboard for a year, go back to them, they're exactly the same, you can put McDonald's fries out in your garden, not one animal will touch it, not one animal, and yet there's billions of fries, portions of fries served every day, you know, but it's cheap, it's good, it's cheap, it's okay, don't want to start rethinking stuff, we've got ourselves in a bad state of affairs over here, where we believe that the government, we believe that the food industry, we believe that the pharmaceutical company has got our best interest at heart, and they haven't guys, if only you knew, they haven't, I mean is anybody out there, please let me know if this is the contrary, is anybody out there, don't see the doctor for an illness or ailment, or disease, been prescribed medication, took that medication as prescribed, cured the illness, so you don't have to take the pill anymore, never, never has that ever happened, because once they get you, you're done.
(11:13 - 18:48) Yeah, yeah, I mean, it's unfortunate, I mean, I see it a lot, you know, with my clients as well, and I try not to, I don't want to bash traditional medicine, there is a time and place for it, of course, you know, I worked in the emergency room, and definitely, definitely there's needs, you know, a need for that, but yes, when we're talking about chronic conditions, you know, symptoms, no, the goal is not to heal it, to cure it, and understandably, that might look different for different people, but yeah, like you just said, you can put on a medicine, you know, just like you were saying, the client that had been on Wellbutrin for several years, and just continuing to take it, and then unfortunately, we as Americans get caught up in that cycle, you just think, okay, well then, now you have a side effect from that medication, so I gotta go back to the doctor and get another medication, you know, and I would see it in my work, and that's why I do what I do today, because I don't, I don't want that for anybody, you know, I want their eyes to, yeah. I mean, I'm talking about psych meds, I'm not talking about liver or heart, nothing to do with that, I'm talking about psych meds, that we don't, they don't know too much about psych, so we introduce these drugs, but you don't always have to take it, if you're, if you're, let me pre-empt it, if you're a depression, take the freaking meds, what I'm saying is that three, can we look at why my steroids, or can we look at, well, if I will never take a pill, pain killer, if I have headache, I'd rather know why my head is aching, because I know there's no pain, pain receptors in the brain, so I can't feel pain, but the outside, the door, it's the thin skin that covers the brain, why is that contracting, that's the only reason you get headaches, usually the migraines, is what's happening to the body, that's, that's started on the door of it, that's making it expand. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I try to usually get to the root cause of it, and one, for me, it was gluten, actually, that was causing it, and it turned into migraines. Isn't that crazy, though, if someone said that years ago, it's gluten, that's true, and yet, here we are. Yeah, it was so bad, I mean, and kind of taking this back, you know, for women with PCOS, because they also deal with a lot of the, a lot of mental, you know, illnesses, health conditions, and depression, anxiety, it ties in a lot, a lot of times to the body image issues, the things that they're dealing with, their cycles, you know, all that stuff. Yeah, I was told that in magazines, and we're told we've got to look this way, and if we don't, we're not going to miss this, and we don't fit in, and we did studies on this about six years ago, and weight and size, and I mean, this chart that we look at in magazines, you know, if you are 5'8", and you're between 30, and you should weigh like 10 pounds, it's not true, there's no way of all guys since them days, but you know, I don't, I'm a true believer that your weight does not define you, your color of your hair does not define you, you are a product, a being, or a spiritual being that's meant to come in this world, get as much joy as you can, learn lessons, pass it on, and live your life to the full, that's basically it, and nobody can, you know, if anybody, that's what I found in this business, nobody, but nobody will criticize or judge you just doing as good as you are present, so if anyone's doing this at all, yeah, you're this, or you're that, it's like, they've got to look at themselves, because I know that when I get criticized for doing stuff online, you can bet that that guy that's criticized me, he's probably sat in his mom's bedroom after his fourth marriage, kids don't want to see him, he's overweight, he's criticizing me, and that's part of it, you can't upset me without my permission, you really can't, and God bless you if you have to spend your day doing that, but the body image started, it's just crazy, now I've lost all that weight because of my health, I'm 64, I can't continue to carry 350 pounds around with me, I just can't do it, so I did, and then you too, you know, it's just that we feel better, I mean, do I feel better getting in size 32 pants rather than 15 waistline, 100%, of course I feel better, but it's not because of the body image, I really don't care what you think about me, you've only got to see me somewhere and realize that I've got pink shoes, yellow trousers, and I don't care, you know, I'm just judging in my belief anyway. Yeah, I always tell people, because a lot of people sign up for weight loss, like that seems to be, you know, especially for women with PCOS, there's a good part of that, that are overweight, but once they start realizing, like when they go through my 90-day program, it's really about how they're feeling, and they realize that weight loss becomes a side effect of better health, and all those aches and pains that they've had for years, that they've, you know, disregarded are gone, along with all the other things, yeah, they just feel better in their clothes, they're more confident in general, yeah, yeah, so it's not so much about the glamour, it's about being healthy, you want to be around for your grandkids, you know, yeah, so the guy didn't sleep, obviously, it was a certain weight, but listen, we've had, we, in our experiment, we had like two girls that were six foot, one was five, one was six foot, one girl weighed 190 or something, and when she walked in, she was like stunning, like everything matched, her jeans were on, and a guy walks in the same, he was like a bit of a bodybuilder, he looks amazing, and yet on the chart, they're grossly overweight, and that's not true, that's false, guys, so why don't you love your body as God or Spirit wants it to be? What you cared about other people think, or what other people look like, are you happy? Now, most overweight people that we've dealt with are not happy, because, and I hate to say this, and please block this out if it's too harsh, but people in job interviews, they're just by their weight, if you walk in and you're overweight, and this, you know, cat model walks in, there's a good chance that she's going to get it, because men are pigs half the time, when they're hiring people, you know, so you've got to look at that, it's like you get more confident when you're the person you want to be. I still look good at 350, would you believe, Lindsay? I still carried a lot of muscle, I was in size for myself, but walking up the stairs killed me, bending down killed me, you know, so do it for yourself, guys, don't do it for any magazine, your program is amazing, see, I love it, but it's funny, like, once you fix this, which is kind of nothing, yeah, I want to lose weight, yeah, I want to stop drinking, once you address this, everything else goes away, it's like, hey, Dr. Morel, I've got a drink problem, I'm so depressed, really? Yeah, you think? Of course you're depressed, and once that goes, and we see some crazy illnesses, Lindsie, disappear, we're talking about diabetes, we're talking about all sorts of back pains, and it just, it goes, you know, once you're happy with you. Yeah, yeah, I mean, you said it perfectly there, and I was going to say that to kind of wrap it up, you know, love yourself, like, take that first step to do something, you know, for yourself, change the pattern, so you can start moving forward and start your journey.
(18:49 - 19:04) Stay away from the scale. Yeah, and that too, oh yeah, that's one thing. I was obsessed with the scales, until about 12 months ago, I jumped on it, you know what, this is crazy, and you'll understand this, Lindsay, if I was two pounds over, my day was terrible.
(19:05 - 20:19) Yeah, that's, yeah, so I talk about that with my clients, they can weigh themselves in the beginning, and then we do like a midway, you know, midpoint weigh-in, and then at the very end, but in between, we also discuss wins all the time, you know, all those off-the-scale wins, but we do pictures, and we do measurements too, but people will be so focused on that number on the scale, but I explain to them why, because like you just said, you'll see that number, because it's going to naturally fluctuate, you know, day to day, but you see that number, and it like ruins your whole day, but it also raises your cortisol, prevents you from losing weight, prevents, you know, stresses out your body more, and I'm trying to regulate the nervous system with them, so yeah, stay away from the scale. Oh, god, yes, yeah, definitely. Be happy with yourself, be happy with the physique you've got, lose weight for the real reason, like health, don't lose weight, getting those skinny jeans that you used to do 40 years ago, you do it for a healthy reason, you can get healthy, you can drop weight easily, the mind's got a lot to do with that, you can be anybody you want to do, but do it for you, don't do it for anybody else, because that's crazy, and we're programmed to do that.
(20:21 - 21:34) Yeah, well, awesome, I loved this. Last question is, how can somebody find you and connect with you? So if you're listening and not watching, guys, there's no one able to see these, robbkelly.com is the website, Dr. Rob Kelly in any search engine, up, up, up, good or bad, I'm thinking down to two aces, so that's good. And listen, listen, listen, I want to do this, because, so my last thing my daughter said to me was, Daddy, Daddy, please stop drinking, and I couldn't do it. That's me on a visit, wasted, while I was homeless. And that's my daughter. Daddy, Daddy, please stop drinking. We're going to get 10 copies away, guys, free of charge. So if you contact yourself or Lindsay and go, hey, don't go, don't buy us Amazon. Hey, I love that guy on, and I love you even more, Lindsay, can I get a book? I'm going to sign the book personally to you. I'm going to pay for the shipping and everything. And the only thing you have to do is pass it on to somebody else that may need it after you've read it. Awesome, love that. I'll link everything in the show notes for everybody as well. But but good, I appreciate that. And I appreciate you taking the time to do this with me. And I think there was a lot of good information from it all. So thank you. Thank you so much.
(21:34 - 21:53) Thank you, Lindsie. Bye, guys. Wow, what a conversation. If something he shared hit you in the chest a little, whether it was his story, the way he described the subconscious mind, or the idea of smashing the box. I just want to say you're not alone. And there is nothing wrong with you for struggling.
(21:54 - 22:04) One of my biggest takeaways from today is this. It's not about the thing, not the food, not the alcohol, not the habit. It's about what your nervous system learned to do to survive.
(22:05 - 22:33) And the good news is, those patterns can be rewired. I want to thank Dr. Robb Kelly for joining me today. And if you want to connect with him, you can find him at robkelly.com. I'll also link everything in the show notes so it's easy for you. And as he mentioned, something really generous. He's offering a limited number of signed book copies to listeners. So if you want one, reach out to me or follow the instructions in the show notes, and we'll make sure you have what you need to get connected.
(22:33 - 23:03) If you love this episode, take a screenshot, share it to your stories and tag me so I can thank you and share you on. And if you're listening on Apple podcasts, leaving a quick review helps more people find these conversations, especially the ones who need them most. As always, friend, your body is not betraying you, it's communicating with you. And you don't have to white knuckle your way to healing. I'm sending you so much love, and I'll see you on the next episode of PCOS Unfiltered. Nourish, heal, thrive.