The Biology of Trauma® With Dr. Aimie

➡️ Get the full episode breakdown at Biology of Trauma® Podcast - Episode 163: Growing Up With Addiction Left a Trauma Your Body Still Carries

What happens when a child has to become the adult in the family? Dr. Tian Dayton, clinical psychologist and author of Growing Up with Addiction, joins Dr. Aimie for one of the most personal conversations on the podcast. Both share their own childhood stories of reading the room, managing a parent’s emotions, and the unspoken rules that shaped their nervous systems for decades.

This episode reveals how children in unpredictable families redirect their brain’s resources from play to survival, how addiction’s rhythms become the child’s operating manual, and why chronic survival physiology leads to digestive dysfunction in midlife. Whether addiction was part of your family or not, these dynamics may be running your body today.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

(00:00) What happens when a child has to become the emotional manager of the family

(02:58) What chaos actually looks like in a family that appears organized on the surface

(05:00) How a child’s brain shifts from play and curiosity to strategizing and operating

(07:23) The different physiological states of a parent in addiction: sober, craving, and under the influence

(10:22) Why addiction spills beyond substances into food, process addictions, and mood cycles

(14:55) The connection between protein deficiency, neurotransmitter production, and craving cycles

(22:16) How the insula processes conflicting emotions and body sensations during overwhelming moments

(27:51) Why chronic survival physiology leads to digestive issues, bloating, and gut inflammation

(29:33) The perimenopause tipping point: when the body stops adapting to decades of unresolved stress

(52:17) The Al-Anon principle that changed everything: love the person, separate the disease

Resources/Guides:

Growing Up with Addiction by Dr. Tian Dayton — How Adult Children of Addicts Can Heal Family Trauma, C-PTSD, and Codependency

Dr. Tian Dayton’s website — Relational Trauma Repair resources and training

The Biology of Trauma by Dr. Aimie Apigian

Songs of the Inner World — Dr. Aimie’s YouTube music channel

Related Podcast Episodes:

Episode 92: How Chaos of Early Childhood Trauma Affects Our Adult Nervous System with Dr. Tian Dayton

Episode 146: How Attachment Affects Us For Life: 6 Childhood Pains and How to Repair

➡️ Get the full episode breakdown at Biology of Trauma® Podcast — Episode 162: Why Fixing Someone You Love Is Destroying Your Nervous System

When someone you love is struggling with addiction, your nervous system absorbs what theirs numbs out. Relational trauma repair therapist Karen Moser joins Dr. Aimie Apigian to explain why the families of substance users often carry deeper nervous system dysregulation than the users themselves. This episode reveals the biological cost of trying to control another person's healing and what it takes to reclaim the parts of yourself that got lost along the way.

In This Episode You'll Learn:

(00:00) Why helping someone you love may be destroying your nervous system

(02:00) What Relational Trauma Repair (RTR) is and how it works with the body

(06:30) How Karen Moser brought Relational Trauma Repair (RTR) into addiction treatment and family work

(08:00) Why the family's nervous system is often more dysregulated than the user's

(11:00) Why sobriety alone does not resolve the family's nervous system patterns

(15:00) Where relational trauma repair starts with families and self-relationship

(19:00) How floor checks help name and locate emotions in the body

(22:30) Why anger, shame, and even joy are emotions people learn to avoid

(28:00) How childhood survival roles create adult role fatigue and burnout

(38:00) A practical exercise to reconnect with the alive, strong parts of yourself

Resources/Guides:

The Biology of Trauma book — Get your copy here

Songs of the Inner World — Dr. Aimie’s YouTube channel for real, raw, honest words for your inner world.

Nervous System Journal — Download at biologyoftrauma.com/book. Track how often you are in a survival state.

Related Podcast Episodes:

Episode 136: How Chaos of Early Childhood Trauma Affects Our Adult Nervous System with Dr. Tian Dayton

Episode 158: Marijuana, Addiction, and the Body: What We’ve Been Getting Wrong with Kevin Sabet

Grief, regret, loneliness, inflammation, pain. There are deeper layers than we are even aware of.

Dana was a family physician who had managed gut issues for years. Constipation. Bloating. Acid reflux. She had every tool available to her. She rotated medications, over-the-counter laxatives, and antacids. She pushed through. Then one brave question changed everything. I asked her: what happened that should not have happened? Her posture collapsed. The tears came. And she made the connection — that was when my gut issues started.

This is the biology behind what so many of us carry without knowing it. In the main episode this week, we explored how grief and gut health are connected. Now I’m taking you deeper into what’s actually happening in your body when grief goes unrecognized — and the three types of grief that are hardest to name.

In this episode you’ll hear more about:

00:00 Grief, Regret & Going Gently: Setting the Tone

00:33 Check-In: Where Are You With Grief Right Now?

01:07 Prepare Your Support Tools (So You Don’t Go Into Overwhelm)

01:51 Dana’s Story: When “Managing Symptoms” Isn’t Healing

04:21 The Brave Question: “What Happened That Shouldn’t Have Happened?”

05:03 When the Body Connects the Dots: Stored Grief & the Gut

07:33 The 3 Hardest Types of Grief: Absent, Attachment & Heart Shock

09:01 Grief Isn’t Stress: A Whole-Body Trauma Response

10:00 Guided Body Awareness: Hand on Heart, Hand on Gut

12:44 Stomach Support Practice + Closing Message to Your Belly

13:21 Wrap-Up: Completing the Session

Grief is more than an emotion. It is a whole-body response. It creates overwhelm in a way that stress does not. When grief is stored, the gut holds it. The posture holds it. The throat holds it. Dana didn’t just need to grieve what happened. She needed to grieve the silence, the years of self-blame, and the cost to her health she hadn’t seen. Most of us carry grief we haven’t named yet.

Resources/Guides:

Download the 3 Most Common Biochemical Imbalances Guide — The biochemical patterns that disrupt normal nervous system function and keep the body stuck in overwhelm.

Biology of Trauma book — Dana’s story begins in Chapter 7 and continues in Chapter 9. Available everywhere books are sold. Get your copy

→ Watch the video version on YouTube

→ Check out the main episode — EP 161: Dopamine and Depression: The Metabolic Link You Need to Know

Try this practice this week: Notice when your gut clenches, your posture collapses, or a lump forms in your throat. Before you push through, pause. Put one hand over your belly. Give it a message: “I see what you’ve been holding. We don’t have to go there today.” Presence interrupts the pattern of pushing through.

Leave a review on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or YouTube. It helps others find trauma-informed care.

➡️ Get the full episode breakdown at Biology of Trauma® Podcast -  Episode 161: Dopamine and Depression: The Metabolic Link You Need to Know
Dopamine doesn't just create pleasure. It signals unexpected experiences and primes the brain to learn. New research reveals that depression, anxiety, and ADHD have different metabolic phenotypes. Understanding your unique metabolic footprint explains why standard treatments work for some and not others. Mental health and metabolic health are inseparable.
In This Episode You'll Learn:
[01:00] How does peripheral nerve stimulation affect dopamine in the brain?
[06:30] Does dopamine actually make you feel good?
[13:00] What is the real function of dopamine in learning and memory?
[15:30] How does trauma change the way we perceive reality?
[22:00] What are metabolic phenotypes in mental health conditions?
[27:00] Why does the same diagnosis look different in different people?
[33:00] How are metabolism, hormones, and mental health connected?
[37:00] What role does the hypothalamus play in emotional and metabolic regulation?
[44:00] Why do negative experiences affect us more than positive ones?
[47:00] What does anchoring to something unchangeable mean for recovery?
Resources/Guides:
Learn more about Dr. Kyle Bills' Research
The NeuroNova Seat: Dopamine-releasing neuromodulation device.
Year-long Biology of Trauma® immersion program with coursework on stress, grief, attachment, letting go, freeze, and neuroplasticity. Available for self-help individuals and practitioners seeking certification.
Foundational Journey — Six weeks to clean up your internal environment so repair becomes possible. This is where we create the conditions for cellular healing. Prerequisite for the Year of Transformation program.
The Biology of Trauma book — Get your copy here
Related Podcast Episodes:
Episode 5: How Genetics & Epigenetics Affect In-Utero Development (Part 1) with Dr. William Walsh 
Episode 6: The Role of Methylation & Epigenetics in Mental Health Outcomes (Part 2) with William Walsh

➡️ Get the full episode breakdown at Biology of Trauma® Podcast - Episode 160: How Creativity Rewires Your Nervous System with Adam Roa
What if the key to healing isn't more therapy—but creativity? Adam Roa's poem "You Are Who You've Been Looking For" reached over 250 million people. But before that poem existed, Adam spent 25 years emotionally shut down. He didn't remember his childhood sexual abuse until age 30. His journey reveals why creativity creates neurological safety for emotions that were once too overwhelming to feel. Creativity isn't about talent—it's about pattern disruption. When you turn pain into a poem or painting, you force your brain to view that experience differently.
This episode explains why safety must come before expression and how the creative process rewires neural pathways when talk alone can't reach what's stored in the body.
In This Episode You'll Learn:
(01:00) What poetry has to do with your nervous system's capacity to heal 
(03:45) Why Adam's viral poem reached 250 million people 
(05:30) How childhood trauma stayed hidden for 25 years 
(08:00) Why acting became Adam's first safe space to feel emotions 
(12:00) The moment poetry became a survival mechanism after heartbreak 
(17:00) How creativity rewires neural pathways associated with traumatic events 
(22:00) Why one poem can play multiple roles in your healing journey 
(27:00) What happens when you write for yourself but release for others 
(32:00) Dr. Aimie shares her song "Letter to the Me" publicly for the first time 
(47:00) Adam performs "You Are Who You've Been Looking For" 
(54:00) The journey from viral success to learning what self-love actually means
Resources/Guides: 
The Biology of Trauma book — Get your copy here
Adam Roa's New Book — Crazy Love explores the journey of learning to truly love yourself. Available May 2025.
Adam's Websites — adamroa.com
Dr. Aimie's Music Channel — Songs of the Inner World on YouTube
Free Guide: The Chronic Freeze Response — Understanding why your body stays stuck even when you want to move
Related Podcast Episodes: 
Episode 82: Using Biological Rhythms to Recover From Trauma with Dr. Leslie Korn
Episode 119: Transforming Trauma Into Joy & Purpose with Gregg Ward