Summary
Overview
Tim Ferriss and Kevin Rose reconnect for another Random Show episode, covering personal updates including Kevin's return to moderate drinking, Tim's breakthrough anxiety treatment with TMS and d-cycloserine, their shared discovery of aphantasia, modern AI developments, and Tim's new relationship. They discuss medical interventions, gift recommendations, investment strategies, and the challenges of modern dating while maintaining their characteristic blend of vulnerability and practical insights.
Kevin's Return to Drinking and Anthony DeMello's Wisdom
After nearly seven months of sobriety, Kevin explains his decision to resume drinking in moderation, inspired by Anthony DeMello's book Awareness. He shares how the book's message about avoiding attachment—even to abstinence—influenced his approach. Kevin introduces his "2-2-2 rule": maximum two drinks per night, never two days in a row, and only two days per week, emphasizing meaningful occasions over casual consumption.
- Kevin made it almost seven months sober, originally planning three months
- Anthony DeMello's concept that abstinence can bind you to what you're avoiding influenced the decision
- New "2-2-2 rule": two drinks max, never two consecutive days, two days per week maximum
- Kevin's therapist serves as accountability partner for the new approach
" Abstinence or asceticism, renunciation, is as much a trap or can be as much a trap as anything else because it ties you, it binds you to the thing that you are abstaining from. "
" I want to be bound to it, and I did that with a glass of wine. Break those chains. "
Tim's Breakthrough TMS Treatment with D-Cycloserine
Tim shares his journey with accelerated Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation for treating generalized anxiety disorder. After initial success followed by failed attempts to replicate results, he discovered that combining TMS with d-cycloserine—an antibiotic that enhances neuroplasticity—compressed a five-day treatment into just one day with remarkable results. This breakthrough could make the treatment accessible to millions who can't take a week off work.
- First TMS treatment reduced anxiety from 8-9/10 to zero for 3-4 months
- Multiple booster attempts failed to replicate initial success
- D-cycloserine works as partial agonist at glycine binding site of NMDA glutamate receptor
- New protocol compressed treatment from five days to one day with similar results
- Side effects included two weeks of insomnia but were considered acceptable trade-off
" I effectively had, let's just call it, eight or nine out of ten kind of resting state generalized anxiety... It went to zero for a period of, say, three to four months, which blew my mind. "
" The fact that this d-cycloserine, like DCS-enhanced treatment, was able to be compressed into a single day, I feel like it opens up the multitude of people who can potentially use this tenfold, a hundredfold, a thousandfold. "
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