Special Episode: Exploring The Different Paths to Recovery

In this special episode, Eric is joined by Laura Cathcart Robbins, Carl Erik Fisher, and Holly Whitaker to share their personal experiences with addiction and recovery. Their discussion explores the complex definitions of recovery, challenging the conventional norms and emphasizing the need for a broader and more inclusive approach.

In this episode, you will be able to:

• Explore the distinction between sobriety and recovery for a more holistic approach to healing
• Understand the personal experiences with addiction and recovery to broaden your perspective
• Learn how to measure progress in recovery, empowering yourself with tools to track personal growth
• Explore diverse perspectives on the use of medications in addiction treatment for a more informed understanding
• Gain understanding of Dry January in the recovery journey, uncovering potential benefits and insights

To learn more, click here!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
I think when somebody is trying and they still experience
a return to use, there's some other problem they're still practicing.
That's the thing that matters, is putting intention and attention
into a process of change.

Speaker 2 (00:18):
Welcome to the one you feed Throughout time, great thinkers
have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you
think ring true. And yet for many of us, our
thoughts don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity,
self pity, jealousy, or fear. We see what we don't

(00:40):
have instead of what we do. We think things that
hold us back and dampen our spirit. But it's not
just about thinking. Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent,
and creative effort to make a life worth living. This
podcast is about how other people keep themselves moving in
the right direction, how they feed their good will.

Speaker 3 (01:14):
If you feel under equipped and overwhelmed to make real
sustainable change, you're not alone. That's why I'm going live
on Wednesday at seven pm Eastern to present my most
popular master class, Habits that Stick. How to be remarkably
consistent no matter what goal you set join me for
this free master class where I'll be sharing the single

(01:36):
most important goal to set if you want to stay
motivated and encouraged to build.

Speaker 2 (01:41):
Your new habit.

Speaker 3 (01:42):
You'll learn a simple mindset shift that is crucial for
making habits stick in the midst of life's chaos, and
will also explore the five pillars of consistency, which are
so important for making positive changes in your life. Get
ready to transform your habits and achieve remarkable consistency. Join
me live on Wednesday at seven pm Eastern. I'll also

(02:04):
be sticking around to answer questions, so I look forward
to connecting with you then. I really love meeting all
the people, so I hope you can make it. You
can register for this free masterclass by going to oneufeed
dot net slash habits again. That's oneufeed dot net slash habits.
I hope to see you there.

Speaker 2 (02:22):
Thanks for joining us. This is a collaboration episode with
of course Eric Zimmer from the One You Feed podcast,
and also Laura Cathcart Robbins, host of the Only One
in the Room podcast and the author of the memoir Stash.
Also joining is Carl Eric Fisher, addiction specialist bioethicist at
Columbia University and a podcast host who is also the

(02:45):
author of The Urge Our History of Addiction. And we
have Holly Whittaker, author of Quit Like a Woman. She's
also the writer of the Recovery Substack. So enjoy this
great conversation.

Speaker 4 (02:57):
All right, we are coming to you not quite live,
but I'll just say that the we is Hollywood Occur
and Eric Zimmer and doctor Carl Eric Fisher and myself
Laura Cathcart Robins. We are colleagues and friends, and we
have decided to come to you to talk about dry January.

(03:18):
Actually not to you. We're going to talk about it
amongst ourselves and what it means and just different things
about sobriety and recovery. Like I said, I am Laura
Cathcart Robbins. I am the host of the podcast, the
only one in the room. I am the author of
the memoir Stash My Life in Hiding, which is an
addiction memoir that came out in March of twenty twenty three.

(03:39):
And this is the second time that Eric Zimmer from
the One You Feed and I have come together to
have this type of discussion in a dry month. The
last time was dry July. This time it's dry January,
and we're going to talk about what that means and
what it might mean to each of us on this podcast.
But that's who I am, and I wanted to just
kind of go around and have everyone introduce themselves before

(04:02):
we get started in this discussion. And Eric, do you
want to go next?

Speaker 3 (04:06):
Sure? I'm Eric Zimmer, host of the One You Feed podcast,
and I also run a program called Habits that Matter
that brings together wisdom and behavior change so that we
live our lives in a more meaningful way. And I'm
really happy to see you again Laura, and see you Carl,
and finally meet you Holly. But it's been a long time.

(04:27):
I've heard about you for years and we just have
we've never crossed paths, so I'm happy that's finally happening.

Speaker 4 (04:32):
And so to Holly, do you want to go next?

Speaker 5 (04:35):
Sure? My name is Holly Whitaker.

Speaker 6 (04:37):
I am the author of the book Quit Like a Woman,
which focuses specifically on alcohol and women and the recovery industry.
I have founded a recovery based company and developed a
modality to help specifically with alcohol use disorder, and I
currently write the Recovering column on Substack, even though I'm

(04:58):
on a little hiatus from it and working on two
books on this topic that we're talking about tonight on Recovery.
So really excited to be here.

Speaker 5 (05:07):
With you all.

Speaker 6 (05:07):
Lauren Carl are friends of mine, so Eric, it's nice
to meet I've heard about you for a long time too,
and Carl, it's.

Speaker 1 (05:12):
Great to see you all. I'm Karl Eric Fisher, addiction psychiatrist.
I'm a bioethicist at Columbia University. I wrote a book
called The Urge, Our History of Addiction, which is a
history of addiction from ancient times to the present day,
interwoven with some of my experience as a person in
recovery myself, including some reflections on my family history of alcoholism.

(05:33):
I host a podcast that's called Flourishing After Addiction that
focuses on all sorts of different people deep dive interviews
about how we make sense of addiction and recovery. And
I do have a Substack newsletter that I just launched
two weeks ago at Holly's encouragement and so much encouragement
that she named it for me because I can't name

(05:54):
anything myself.

Speaker 5 (05:54):
All of my best titles.

Speaker 1 (05:56):
Come from friends and it's called rat Park and I
love it so much. So thank you, Holly.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
I've got to say I'm a little nervous, and I
don't know if I want to use the word intimidated,
but I feel like because the three of you were
so established and so well respected in this area, that
I want to rise up to the same level and
I just need to just be me and do my
thing because I'm not educated in this area, but I've

(06:24):
had a lot of experience of my own. And Holly's like,
yes you are.

Speaker 5 (06:28):
Oh, I'm like looking at you. You're who I call.
What are you talking about?

Speaker 4 (06:32):
I know?

Speaker 6 (06:33):
But you know what I I mean, you don't have
any like professional credentials that you are you sponsored?

Speaker 5 (06:39):
I mean, I'm sure, yes, the people.

Speaker 4 (06:41):
At this point, thank you, thank you.

Speaker 5 (06:43):
So yeah, I mean I want more than I do.

Speaker 4 (06:46):
Well, but yeah, okay, I do have experience. I have
something what I believe is valuable to contribute. And the
first thing I wanted to bring up was my experience.
So I've been sober for a little over fifteen years,
and when I first got sober, it was just literally
taking away the substances like I stopped taking pills and

(07:09):
I stopped drinking, and I didn't have anything mind altering
in my body. And that was sobriety for me, and
it was excruciating. I was in an incredible amount of
pain after I stopped. I was in as much or
more pain actually after I stopped than when I was using.
And I got sober through a twelve step program which

(07:29):
I'm still in and still a part of. And eventually,
as I engaged in like the tenants of this program,
the principles of this program, I started to feel some relief.
And I think of that as my recovery rather than
me being completely obstinate. And I find that that's kind
of scary for people, because at this point in my recovery,

(07:51):
I don't value the abstinence as much as I value
the work the recovery. So yeah, I feel like there's
a distinction, and for me now that there wasn't before,
and I know that things continue to evolve. I think
you can be using substances and still have recovery. I
also think that you can be completely abstinent and not

(08:11):
have any recovery. But I was wondering if you all
had any thoughts on sobriety versus recovery and if you
do what they are Yeah.

Speaker 1 (08:19):
Well, I think that's a really powerful reflection and really complicated.
We could probably have a whole day long retreat or
seminar on that topic because for me, what it reflects
back is the variety of different recovery experiences and the
notion that everybody has a different experience of recovery. There's
not one pathway to recovery. There's probably as many pathways
to recovery as there are people who are seeking recovery.

(08:42):
But just to simplify it so I don't think of
too much space, I had a positive and a negative reaction.
Positive reaction is I think it's really crucial that people
in general come up with their own notions of recovery
and seek it out in a positive towards sense, not
just stopping for many many people, not just limited to

(09:04):
twelve separate recovery. That includes getting outside the self and
finding some sort of advice or feedback so.

Speaker 7 (09:10):
They're not just running their own show.

Speaker 1 (09:12):
The negative reaction I had is speaking from within the
medical profession, there is a history of definitions of recovery
being used to gatekeep in certain ways. It tends to
be about power and judging people who use substances by
saying what you're doing does not count as recovery. This
is one of the things that I was interested in

(09:32):
when I started my sub sec was all these different
notions of recovery. And everyone has a different definition, different frameworks,
different components of it.

Speaker 7 (09:40):
You know.

Speaker 1 (09:40):
Just one example is an older, more conservative definition says
it requires a sort of conformity to ethical norms quote
unquote citizenship as part of recovery. Well, whose citizenship and
who gets to decide? And for some people, recovery involves
radical activism, and why can't that be a part of
recovery too. It's really tempting and dangerous, and I've seen

(10:02):
it happen within the recovery community and also from the
medical community down to the recovery community to use different
ideas about sobriety and recovery to discount other people's experiences.

Speaker 4 (10:13):
So do you think there's a difference between sobriety and
recovery or do you think they're one and the same.

Speaker 1 (10:18):
I tend not to use the word sobriety unless I'm
working with a client and they value that. Usually it's
a starting point for a discussion. A lot of people
like the word sobriety and the context of emotional sobriety,
and I like that. I strive for emotional sobriety. For me,
it's a big intention not to snap at my child,
or even just to be generally crappy, just to be

(10:42):
grumpy and not show up and be selfish around him.
That's a relapse for me. Is it a relapse that's
going to lead me to using alcohol?

Speaker 7 (10:50):
No?

Speaker 1 (10:51):
Is relapse always the right word for everyone? No, it
can be a very stigmatizing word. Some people really hate
the word relapse. I favor a really broad and inclusive
definition of recovery, and sobriety is I think, in some
ways even trickier. I don't know, what do you ought
to think?

Speaker 7 (11:05):
Yeah?

Speaker 3 (11:05):
I mean, I think definitions mean different things to different
people and can be used in different contexts and you.
For me, all of those words are problematic in certain
ways and useful in certain ways. Right, And for me, sobriety,
meaning an abstinence from mood altering chemicals, has been really

(11:26):
important to me. I don't think it's the end goal
for everybody. I don't think it has to be the
end goal. For me, it was the right end goal,
and I'm glad to have achieved that for a substantial
amount of time.

Speaker 7 (11:36):
Now.

Speaker 3 (11:37):
The thing about recovery that I don't like is a
word generally is that makes it sound like I'm going
back to something. I'm going to recover something that I had,
And honestly, for me, my sobriety journey has been about
becoming something that I really never was before, right, And
that's somebody who's able to deal with life as it

(11:58):
comes to me without having to take mood altering substances.
It's somebody who can do the things Carl talked about,
which is be more emotionally mature, where I don't snap
at people, where I think about people other than myself.
So for me, recovery is useful in that we talk
about recovery and being recovered from an addiction, right, But

(12:19):
I think where it ceases to be useful is that
I wanted a whole lot more than just being recovered
from an addiction. I wanted to continue and still want
to continue to grow as a human being and become
a better and better person. And that is the place
to me where it's not so much about going back.
It's about going forward.

Speaker 6 (12:40):
Yeah, I think for the sobrieties, I don't know how
I feel about the words sobriety anymore. I think that
it was very clear early on that it was a
very important word to me for me personally when I started.

Speaker 5 (12:52):
My theoretical ideas around recovery are far.

Speaker 6 (12:55):
More advanced than my personal bias, and so I could
say when I was an early recovery or in early sobriety,
that I believed in a harm reduction approach, and I
did theoretically, but I was very threatened by those things,
and I think like on a personal level, I couldn't
see how recovery could include the continued use of the
substance that you were struggling with in a dependent, addictive way.

(13:17):
And so what's changed is not so much how I
view it, even though that's changed, like the outward theory
that I have around what sobriety is or what recovery is.
But I think what I'm trying to say is that
I have gotten deeper in my own process, in my
own path, like my biases and my personal feelings about

(13:37):
it and my knee jerk reactions around what these words
mean and who can use them and what they're supposed
to do has really it's almost like just ascended to
where the theory is. And I know that sounds really confusing,
but I guess what I'm saying is, I think, like
anybody in recovery, I've really struggled with who gets to
use certain words and who doesn't get to use certain words.

Speaker 5 (13:58):
And I think that.

Speaker 6 (13:59):
That when Eric said that there's a lot of gatekeeping
in the medical community around these words, I was thinking before,
there's a lot of gatekeeping within the recovery community around
these words. I think like far more than there is
in the medical community, because that's where I've experienced the
most infighting and truly like complicated conversations around these words.

(14:24):
And so just to be very direct and quick about it,
I think, like Carl, sobriety's a word, and Eric, and
kind of I guess all of us like, sobriety.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
Is this word. That's kind of it's just not key.

Speaker 6 (14:35):
I will accidentally use it, I rarely intentionally use it
when I'm discussing anything. I think I conflated it so
much with recovery early on, and to me, recovery Carl
shared with me jan Brown's definition of recovery, which is,
I think anybody who says they're in recovery can be
in recovery.

Speaker 7 (14:53):
You're in recovery if you say you are.

Speaker 6 (14:55):
Right, right exactly your recovery if you say you are
And I think, to me, that feel important. And I
think words are Like Eric said, I think like there's
really no words that exist in our lexicon that are
not problematic because of what we've done to those words
or how those words have been used, and so like
even like words like relapse right or return to use

(15:15):
or trying to find like what the adequate term is
to reflect with the experiences of millions of people that
all have these like vastly differing experiences, we're all trying
to casture with one word.

Speaker 5 (15:29):
Is just it's a really, I think impossible thing.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
Yeah, I feel like I learned so much just listening
to each of you just then, like gatekeeping and problematic
words and the idea that you're in recovery when you
say you are in that self declaration. In Holly and Carl,
you both mentioned relapse. My dad is an HIV doctor.
He loves his work. All of his patients are living now,

(15:56):
you know, they used to in the eighties when he
first started. They die, and now they die of natural causes.
They don't die from HIV or AIDS anymore. His patients
have a relapse is devastating. It's a return to a
state that is probably going to kill them, right, something
bad has happened and they are back to a state

(16:17):
where they have to recover or work to recover, to
get back to where they were before. For us in
the twelve step community, a relapse, I feel is also
seen that way. When the word relapse is mentioned and
someone says that they have started using or drinking again,
I feel the ripple through the room is that something

(16:38):
devastating has occurred. There's been a failure of some kind,
a loss, not just for that person, but maybe for
the community. Right, Like we all had a stake in this,
and now we're all kind of reeling from this admission
that something was picked up or someone had a drink,
or someone shot some dope or whatever it is, or
someone threw up when they're in recovery from an eating disorder,

(17:01):
whatever it might be, whatever that relapse looks like. And
like I said, I think I said this in the beginning,
I'm really hesitant to even use that word, but I
think it's very problematic. I don't have another word for it,
So one I wanted to see if you all do,
and then just to hear your thoughts on Like for me,
my old ideas were like, if you pick up anything ever,
you're back to one and you may not ever make

(17:23):
it back. Like if you pick up anything ever, you're
out there and you may not ever make it back,
meaning if you drink again or you use again, you
may not ever get this time back that you've amassed. Right,
ten days sober, ten years sober, whatever it is sober
meaning without use of any substances or alcohol. And so

(17:45):
do you all think this is true? One? Do you
think it's true that you lose something when you pick
up again, if you pick up again and pick up
meaning drink or use again. And if it's not true,
what might your new ideas be around this subject? And
if you have a name for it that isn't as

(18:06):
problematic as relapse, or maybe you don't think relapse is problematic,
and that's the word to use, let's go to Eric first.

Speaker 3 (18:12):
Yeah, I mean I think this is another loaded term.
Do I think that we lose something if we pick
up or use again. I think it depends on what
we're aiming for. But in my case, yes, I do
lose something. And you use the term relapse meaning in
a dangerous condition. Right, Going back to drinking in drugs

(18:34):
for people like me is a dangerous thing to do, right,
It actually is, right, and it's far more dangerous today
than it was fifteen years ago. Right, I was an
opioid addict, right, I was an intervenious heroin user. It
is dangerous out there, right, and so not doing that
is a far safer place to be. The other reason

(18:54):
that I feel like I lose something is that to me,
a length of continuous sobriety is what caused the craving
to use to go away. To me, that is the
worst feeling in the world, that literal tearing a part
of my soul, when one part of me is screaming,
don't do it and the other part is screaming do

(19:15):
it right, and so space away from that, Thank God,
that goes away. So in that way, yes, I do
think we lose something. Do we lose everything? No, That's
where I think the mistake is.

Speaker 7 (19:27):
Right.

Speaker 3 (19:28):
In a lot of recovery communities, you could have five
years and if you use, you are back literally to
day one, and you are considered an absolute beginner. You
failed one hundred percent, right, as if those five years
didn't give you something. I was sober eight years the
first time around, and I went back out and used.
And did I lose something when I did? Absolutely? Did

(19:49):
I have to fight my way back into recovery?

Speaker 4 (19:51):
I did.

Speaker 3 (19:52):
Were there people who like me had periods of sobriety
that went out and have never made it back and
several of them are dead. Yes, right, But I didn't
lose what I'd learned in those eight years. It wasn't
gone right. Matter of fact, it was part of what
allowed me to come back, because I was able to
see some things in myself that there's no way I
would have seen before that period of time. So I

(20:13):
think that's where the mistake is that we lose everything.
And I think this grading system we have of zero
percent or one hundred percent is really problematic because we
don't grade anything else.

Speaker 2 (20:25):
In life that way.

Speaker 3 (20:26):
And so it's a very tricky thing because I do
think permanent abstinence is a very valuable thing, and I
don't think we should only be grading zero, one hundred percent.
We have to look at progress. And if I look
back at my recovery story, and I would imagine most
of you would say this about yours. There was a
period of trying and failing, and trying and failing, and

(20:46):
trying and failing. If we want to use that word, right,
trying and learning would be a better way to say it.
Trying and learning, trying and learning, trying and learning, and
then I was able to get to full abstinence. And
I would much rather had that context in my mind
as I was going through it instead of trying and failing.

Speaker 4 (21:04):
Trying and learning.

Speaker 3 (21:05):
Yeah, right, And so I think it is a useful term,
and I think we lose something, But I also think
that it can be problematic if it's applied too strictly.
So those are just my thoughts.

Speaker 4 (21:17):
Holly, What are your thoughts?

Speaker 5 (21:18):
What were the two specific questions.

Speaker 4 (21:20):
I was asking one if this is a word that
you use, and but the first question was you know
the black and whiteness around it? Is it a failure?
Do we lose everything?

Speaker 5 (21:30):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (21:31):
In the twelve step recovery of which I'm a member,
you lose all the days, right, you do start counting again.

Speaker 5 (21:37):
Does the book say you lose all the days? Or
is that what the people did? But do you know
what I mean?

Speaker 6 (21:42):
Is that do or is that like just a norm
or is that what the book dictates?

Speaker 4 (21:45):
I think it's the people.

Speaker 3 (21:47):
Yeah, I don't think the book says anything about counting sobriety.

Speaker 6 (21:50):
No, the book doesn't say that that's right, So you
don't actually in a right back to zero. It's what
has been cultivated through the fellowship that dictates that. This
one woman we had the same conversation, but she was
telling me all this stuff that's written in the book
and all the stuff that's actually just proliferates in the fellowship.
And that's one of the things, which is it doesn't

(22:11):
say in the book that you have to reset your
daycount if you use drugs and drink again. And I
think the reason I bring that up is because I think,
isn't that interesting that that's like such our human nature
is to say, like, where does that come from? It
comes from us saying you don't get to you messed up,
you have to reset.

Speaker 5 (22:30):
And go back to day zero.

Speaker 6 (22:31):
It comes from this, like this, this idea that somebody
with an addiction kind of has to you know, just
take it, you know, and just do whatever it takes
because you don't have any agency over this.

Speaker 5 (22:43):
This is what the group says. You have to give
back your days or whatever it is.

Speaker 6 (22:46):
And so I think a lot of times when we're
operating around words like this, we have to like remember,
like a lot of this stuff isn't codified anywhere.

Speaker 5 (22:53):
It's just stuff that we do because of.

Speaker 6 (22:56):
You know, like what came out of like the group
think or whatever, and also came out of whatever was
operating at the time that those norms were formed. So
when I think of like, there's some statistic I think,
and I will try and find it so you can
include it in the show notes. But I'm not going
to say this is one hundred percent accurate. Maybe Carl

(23:16):
you know this, but I think it's like five percent
of people that try for an abstinence space recovery actually
make it from start to finish without return to youthse
that very few people that are going for an abstinent
in face recovery actually make it through without relapsing or
without return to use. And so when I think of it,
I think of like, and the problematic nature of it

(23:38):
is that that figure that comes from research that I
will find and make sure is accurate. But when you
think about that this is like a very normal If
it's ninety five percent of people that are trying to
not consume or consuming, or trying not to use or using,
that's interesting too, write because it shows that this is
just like a normal occurrence. And that's how I view

(23:59):
it really is, like return to use is just a
normal thing as part of the process of trying to
overcome an addiction to to a substance or whatever it is,
and that like, of course we've turned it into this
this naturally occurring thing that's actually like proof that you're trying, right,
because like if you're relapsing, right, or if you're going

(24:23):
back out, like you're.

Speaker 5 (24:25):
Going back out from somewhere, right, this is like part
of what we do.

Speaker 6 (24:29):
But we've carved this out to say this one exceptional
thing that I think until like the seventies wasn't even
a word that was like discussed in you know, in
treatment settings as like a potential outcome. We've created a
lot of fear around something that's just a normal part
of the process, you know, And I think, like to
be very clear what Eric said there was a huge
consequence in certain situations to that phenomenon, right, but that

(24:54):
is just.

Speaker 5 (24:54):
Part of it.

Speaker 6 (24:55):
And return to use the other piece about it. You
asked like for you know, like what words I think
I use return to use? But there's also like there's
so many different definitions of relapse that there's really no
like one this is exactly what a relapse is. There's
no working definition that we're all using and coming back to,
you know, like somebody could say, I accidentally, you know,

(25:18):
took a sip of my mom's wine and I've relapsed, right,
and somebody might call that a lapse, and somebody might
not even mention it because it was nothing.

Speaker 4 (25:26):
You know, I love return to use and I find

(25:54):
it just even then the idea of it to be
really comforting because it doesn't feel as heavy or is blaming,
as relapse might feel. And I'm wondering, Carl, from a
medical standpoint, And I don't know if you do this,
but if you were counseling people who have a loved
one that's dealing with this, what words do you use

(26:17):
when discussing return to use? And do you try to
normalize it for them, like it's part of the process.

Speaker 1 (26:23):
I tend to default to the cutting edge medical descriptions,
which is what Holly has gone to in terms of
talking about return to use. I also like to take
a step back and ask about measurement in general, because
whenever we attach a name to something, or we're measuring
it or tracking it, including this notion of return to use,

(26:44):
or if someone chooses to identify this way laps or relapse,
the question is why is that the metric? Why is
that the thing we're attaching to This also overlaps or
the question of recovery. Is our measure of recovery not using?
Or is our measure of recovery thriving and feeling better?

(27:06):
Is it interpersonal effectiveness? Is it feeling connected to a
sense of meaning and purpose and being in connection with
other human beings. Even in medical circles, you know, people
talk about the immediate question, which is what language do
you use or what do you measure in terms of
return to use versus relapse, et cetera. And even from

(27:28):
the top federal agencies like NAIDA at the National Institute
of Drug Addiction, there have been some recent opinions and
advisories given saying we shouldn't just track if somebody stops using,
because we've all met people who have stopped using in
a very sort of tight and restricted and controlled way

(27:49):
but have not developed in other ways. That's a thing
that happens, and more power to them, you know. I'm
glad that people don't use if it's their choice, and
I'm glad that people don't use if they're at risk
of death with opioids and fentanyl and other types of
dangerous substances increasing every single day. But I say that
because a lot of times, in a medical context, people
are really concerned about, like the rea. There's a whole

(28:11):
therapy called relast prevention therapy. I think that's a good metric.
But if we're stopped there, then we're selling somebody a
really stark and boring and dry vision of life, and
that I think is actually one of the problems with
dry january, which we could also talk about. I think
dry january is fine. I think it's great in the

(28:32):
sense that, like sometimes people stop use and then they
confront the self and it's sort of like sitting down
to meditation.

Speaker 7 (28:38):
You see the activity.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Of the mind, and it's terrifying and can be miserable
or overwhelming. But if you can get out through to
the other side, it can be very beautiful and instructive. Okay, great,
but it can't just be about stopping use. That's a
starting point. That's almost like the meta point that has
to exist above all the sort of like definitions and all.

Speaker 3 (29:00):
Yeah. I have a coaching client of mine who did
something that I thought sort of brought this together in
a really interesting way. I probably shared this last time
Laura when we were on but she was having trouble
getting complete and total abstinence and would get very discouraged
by it. I mean, she may have gotten this idea
somewhere else. I don't know if she made up. Anyway,
what she started doing was putting a marble in a

(29:22):
jar for every day that she was sober. And what
we saw over the course of a couple years was
a ton of marbles, right, maybe three hundred and fifty
marbles a year, maybe three hundred and fifty five marbles
a year. And she was also developing in all the
ways that you talk about, Carl, And so again, in
her case, we still looked at abstinence as a place

(29:42):
we wanted to get to because those returns to use
were problematic, right, They sometimes would last longer than a
day or two.

Speaker 5 (29:50):
They affected her quality of life exactly.

Speaker 3 (29:52):
They affected her quality of life. But that was a
really useful way of us measuring in a way that
was actually I think you because there is something about
measuring and celebrating success. And we can look at the
twelve step program counting days as a you know, I think, Holly,
you mentioned maybe it's a power thing, and I think
there is some of that, right, But I think some

(30:13):
of that also came out of us celebrating each other
as we made progress.

Speaker 5 (30:18):
Right.

Speaker 3 (30:19):
One of my favorite things is to go to a
twelve step meeting and see the whole room go crazy
for somebody who has thirty days sober. Right, There's something
that just warms my heart seeing yeah. Yeah. And so again,
I think that with all these things, there's a point
where terms and labels and measuring is useful and there
are ways and it's not useful. And I think if

(30:40):
people can look in their own life and say, in
what ways is this useful to me? And in what
ways is it not? And that's what I thought was
so ingenious about what my client did is she found
a way of measuring that worked for her, that allowed
her to see real progress, to feel good about herself,
to see progress, but not get into this Z year
over one hundred percent or I failed five times this year. Instead,

(31:03):
it's like I succeeded three hundred and sixty times this year, right,
And I just loved that approach to things. I thought
it was a really wise way to handle this question.

Speaker 4 (31:12):
Yeah, I love that too. You didn't share that before,
I don't think. I don't think I've heard that story.
I also wanted to just kind of put out their
twelve step recovery tends to look down upon or disregard
what I now know to be harm reduction. I had
not heard that term before. Like, I remember meeting a
guy at a meeting and he had come in because

(31:36):
of heroin use, and he was taking chips and he
was on suboxen. Is that how you pronounce it? Yeah?
And I immediately thought, Oh, he's not sober, like, he's
not doing this, He's just substituted with something else that's
not real sobriety. And I felt like that opinion was
kind of carried through the group, Like the consensus was

(32:00):
that if whatever you're if you're using anything, then you're
not you're not in this thing with us. You're taking
dirty chips, which means that you're taking chips while you're
still using and dirty cakes, right, And.

Speaker 5 (32:13):
Is that a word, dirty chips and dirty cake?

Speaker 4 (32:15):
It is, it's absolutely, it's a term, yes. And so,
like I've said, now, you know, since I've been educated
and educating myself, I see things differently, but I'm very
much still learning about this. So I was wondering what
the three of you thought about the black and whiteness
of that, and if it has a place in twelve

(32:36):
step recovery or just in recovery.

Speaker 3 (32:38):
I mean, once upon a time. And again I think
Holly made a good point earlier, which is there's the
if you want to look at twelve step programs, they're
based on alcoholics Anonymous and alcoholics Anonymous published a book,
and that book, you know, is intended to be sort
of the core of the program, and then different groups
add all sorts of things on top of that. And
I actually think that's fine, because I don't think a

(32:59):
book that was published in nineteen thirty nine should be
the end all, be all Bible of life. But there
was once upon a time in recovery, in certain circles,
if you were taking antidepressants, right, you were considered not so.

Speaker 6 (33:09):
I don't think that's even once upon a time. I
think that's still I really do. It may be still, yeah.

Speaker 3 (33:14):
And it just depends on the group, right. That's the
thing when we talk about twelve step programs, if we
talk about them monolithically as one thing, we are missing
the fact that there can be great disparity. Right. I
was part of twelve step programs where antidepressants were considered
absolutely fine, and what you're describing, Laura, seboxone would be
considered completely fine, but other groups would be like, absolutely

(33:36):
not to any of that. And a few years after
I got sober, I met a guy who used to
be my drug dealer, my heroin dealer, and he was
sober on methadone, and like you, Laura, I looked down
on him and I thought, hmm, I'm glad I didn't
do that right because I wouldn't get here. And I
think this gets back to our earlier discussion about recovery,

(33:56):
that there's more than just physical sobriety, right. I mean,
I think everybody's path is their own, right, I think
it's perfectly possible to be getting help. You know, there's
lots of different drugs out there that help us achieve abstinence, right,
I think that those can be used as a way
of launching ourselves into these deeper realms of recovery that

(34:19):
Karl has talked so eloquently about. So those are just
kind of my thoughts.

Speaker 7 (34:24):
Yeah, I have strong feelings about this. Of course.

Speaker 1 (34:26):
I don't know how to get out of this trap
that we have such a deeply polarized opinion of medications
in the United States. And I love this one discussion.
I know I've discussed this view, Holly, but it was

(34:47):
from the nineteen seventies. There's a bioethicist and psychiatrist who
said we swing between psychotropic heatedism on one side and
pharmacological calvinism, Calvinism meaning that there's some sort of virtue
in suffering, and so individuals and cultures swing from sort
of screw it, let's do everything back to nothing is good.

(35:10):
And the truth of the matter, certainly at the population level,
is somewhere in the middle. It would be very bad
if everybody with every kind of addiction God put on ozempic.
For example, like, there's interesting evidence that ozempic has some
sort of effect central addiction relevant receptors and has effects
on gambling addiction and alcohol addiction. Not to take us

(35:32):
down too much of a rabbit hole, but you know,
ezempic has costs too. It has actual material costs, and
then it also might reduce bone density and muscle mass
and all sorts of other things. Like there are costs
and benefits to the box hone, they're definitely costs is
a box zone. There are ways that it can be
diverted in harmful ways, and there are ways that some
people can experience maybe emotional numbing or things like that.

(35:53):
But medications for addiction treatment, they're not even assisted treatment.
It's for addiction treatment. Because medications are the only things
in a research basis that have been shown to reduce
death for opiaduced disorder. Not attending twelve step groups, not
going to a rehab, not outpatient psychotherapy, nothing, it's just medications.
And so if we're interested in actually getting people in

(36:15):
to recovery, whatever recovery means, whatever we want to call it,
we have to be much less judgy about medications. I think, like,
if you go to the coastal cities, or if you
go to places where there's like a higher density of
people and groups like you can find groups that are
much more accepting of this. But you know, across the
whole national and certainly global addiction community, you can certainly

(36:36):
find treatment centers where people will say, hey, if you're
on a heart medication like a beta blocker that reduces anxiety,
that's not real sobriety, you should ask your doctor to
switch you to something else that's not psychoactive, because maybe
just taking the edge off.

Speaker 7 (36:49):
A little bit.

Speaker 1 (36:50):
You know, I haven't used a self prescribed mind remoon
altering substance for a very long time.

Speaker 7 (36:56):
Now.

Speaker 1 (36:56):
I alter my moods in a lot of ways.

Speaker 7 (36:59):
You know, I still go to the.

Speaker 1 (37:00):
Ice cream, and I still go to anger, and I
still go into like frantic overwork or whatever. You know,
there's lots of ways I alter my moods. And the
actual magnitude of changing someone's mood with suboxone is so
minor compared to the universe of other ways that people
use their mood. There's no universe in which it would
ever possibly justify the scale of death that the lives

(37:21):
left on the table represent here, Carl.

Speaker 6 (37:23):
Do you think it's because there is the fear that
they're getting a bit of hit and a bit of
a high, and there's like they're altering themselves, Or do
you think it's because it's cheating and it's not really
like doing it the right way.

Speaker 7 (37:34):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (37:35):
I think it's so overdetermined in the sense that there's
so many different stories and narratives swirling around it. Some
of it is just cultural inertia. That's part of why
I was interested in the history of addiction is there
is a lot of racist and sort of class oppressive
stuff going on in the nineteen seventies when methodone was
first introduced, and you know, because of that and because

(37:56):
of stories about who was using substances, primarily heroin, back then,
you know, methodone was overregulated to the gills in a
way that it still is today. So you know, imagine
in your mind right now, what is your image of
a methadone clinic. It looks like a fortress. It's a
place with barred windows, and people have to line up
in the cold and the snow for hours sometimes. It

(38:19):
wasn't until COVID that we started to get some take
home doses. You know, that sort of oppression made its
way into methanone. There's just one casualty of the constant
war on people that was disguised as the war on
drugs that just trickled down. That trickled down in a saboxone.

Speaker 7 (38:36):
You know.

Speaker 1 (38:36):
Suboxone is only just recently liberalized so that every doctor
can prescribe it. People should know that because like a
lot of doctors don't even know that honestly. But this
happened a little while.

Speaker 6 (38:47):
Ago, right, it was controlled, right, like you can only
prescribe so much.

Speaker 5 (38:51):
Yeah, and you.

Speaker 1 (38:52):
Had to get a special waiver, you had to go
through a special course and go through this whole process.

Speaker 7 (38:56):
You know.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
It was only a little while ago that that happened,
and so few doctor went through the extra step of
getting certified to do the suboxone. Even I it was
just like taking an online course and checking a box.
It's just we need much more massive uptake of it.
It's been really suppressed that we're leaving so many lives
on the table. You know, the opioid epidemic is not
We're not bending the curve at all. It's horrifying. I
talked to one researcher. Today, I talked to researchers who

(39:18):
I went to med school and residency with and people
who are in the research community, and they are burning out.
I mean, they are really struggling because they're doing the research.
You can pile up our journal articles that say suboxone
saves lives. These the medicine saved lives, but it's just
not happening, not because of a lack of medical research.
It's because of the cultural stigma and again, like the

(39:38):
internal stigma within the recovery community.

Speaker 7 (39:41):
I think it's really just deadly.

Speaker 3 (39:43):
Are their stats, Carl on the number of people on
suboxone year over year. I'm just kind of curious because
to your point, I don't know how many years ago,
I'm terrible with time. It was this really fringe thing
that I was starting to hear about, and now, you know,
I think there's a whole lot more of it, and
I'm curious. We may not be bending the curve that much,
but I would have to assume that the uptake levels
on that have to be going up somewhat substantially, or

(40:06):
that just may be my own sense impression, which is
why I'm asking about data.

Speaker 1 (40:10):
You know, I would love to get some data, put
it in the show notes. Later I can look into that.
But I do know in outline that you could double
a tiny number and it's still.

Speaker 7 (40:20):
A tiny number.

Speaker 1 (40:21):
That's the issue, such a tiny fraction. Like if we
you know, we're still at over one hundred thousand overdose
deaths a year and the size of our addiction workforce
is tiny, tiny, tiny, and our addiction workforce is primarily
directed toward alcohol. You know, there are a lot of
people with opio use problems.

Speaker 7 (40:38):
Going to rehab.

Speaker 1 (40:39):
So it's really I mean, that's really where the numbers are.
That's why the tighter restrictions on subbox when prescribing were removed.
But still, what we need is a cultural change. We
need people to change the way they think about addiction
and recovery and recognize that. You know, there's this sort
of like pro recovery slogan sometimes people say to suggest
that you can't just stop debts. There's a difference between

(41:00):
stopping and death and saving life, which is true, but
you also have to stop the deaths. If you don't
stop the debts, you can't, Yeah, get the people in
the room dead, people can't recover.

Speaker 4 (41:11):
Yeah, Yeah, that was really helpful for me, Carl. I
probably told all three of you that I sat with
Beth Macy on a panel about a year ago and
she really hit this subject hard, harm reduction, harm reduction,
harm reduction. It was actually the most I'd ever heard
anybody talk about it. And I was still kind of like, yeah,

(41:34):
but you're not on my side of it, right, you
don't understand the consequences of someone like me who was
really really ill with this picking up anything and using
it again. And I didn't really get what she was saying,
But I got it when you were talking, Carl, that
this is the way to bring these people into where

(41:58):
I'm sitting now in recovery. That there isn't a meeting
they can sit in that's going to get them. And
I'm just saying recovery because it's just the word that
I use. But there isn't a meeting or a talking
to or a therapist that's going to do the same
job that a medication that makes them physically able to
join in. Well, I've had several people in my family

(42:19):
die from both alcohol and heroin, and so I feel
like I have experience, but I didn't really understand that
and this gives me a lot more compassion, So I
really appreciate it. Holly, I know you want to talk

(42:52):
about dry January.

Speaker 6 (42:54):
I want to talk about it just because everyone wants
to talk about it. Like I personally have no strong
feelings towards dry January.

Speaker 5 (43:02):
I can't remember if I used to or not.

Speaker 6 (43:04):
I think I used to be a little like tongue
in cheek about it when it really really blew up,
because it started about a decade.

Speaker 5 (43:10):
Ago in the UK.

Speaker 6 (43:11):
It was like the first many years that people did it,
a few thousand people did it.

Speaker 5 (43:16):
And then you know, it's like now, you.

Speaker 6 (43:19):
Know, millions of people do it, to the point that
they're already exhausted by it and now are moving on
to damp January.

Speaker 5 (43:26):
That's dry January is too.

Speaker 6 (43:27):
You know, and so like we've already been through three
cycles and we've swung back and then we're going so
but I think, like for me this year, I've heard
a number of people, most of my friends are you know,
in some form of recovery, and so people I know
talking about it, you know, and giving it like a
little sight and I kind of am surprised by it
by the number of like people I've heard disparage it

(43:48):
this year, and like a year ago a calumnist that
The Cut wrote an article that was like, don't get
sober in January, and a lot of people get sober
in January, a lot of people into recovery in January.
And we have kind of like because we're so aware
of the impact of diet culture in all the ways
that like in hustle culture and productivity culture and workism

(44:09):
and the ways that we're supposed to become new people
in January first, and now we've rejected that. And now
we don't want to become new people in January first.

Speaker 5 (44:17):
We just want to sleep.

Speaker 6 (44:18):
And I think we're missing the point, Like we're missing
the point capitalism is going to capitalism, right, this really
beautiful movement that I think is a wonderful idea that
gives people a chance. Like there was Hello Sunday Morning.
I don't know if that's even still in existence, but
was this organization that allowed people in New Zealand or
Australia to try three months or one month's since of

(44:40):
not drinking.

Speaker 5 (44:40):
And this was you know, like a decade or fifteen
years ago, and.

Speaker 6 (44:43):
People would say it was like a local thing and
they signed up for it as like a break from alcohol.
They'd commit to a break from alcohol and they would
say I'm doing a Hello Sunday Morning or an HSN
and beoble be like, oh got it. And so it
was this really sweet way for people to not have
to go through the complicated of deciding whether or not
they're an alcoholic, you know, before cutting back their drinking,

(45:04):
and getting recognition that this is an important thing and
it's socially supported. And that is what Joy January is
to me, is the sense of there's visibility, it's conspicuous,
you're pledging to it. It's very very much like a
thing your friend might do, not because she's an alcoholic
or she's pregnant or whatever, but because she wants to
take a break after the holidays. And so I think

(45:26):
when you're looking at like specifically alcohol and the barrier
to entry, like for treating alcoholics disorder or even just
like on that spectrum, like I'm not talking severe, but
just like addressing it, you have to go through a
lot of hurdles because of the normalization and the idea
that only people that don't like there's a lot of
stuff that prevents people from examining whether or not, you know,

(45:47):
alcohol is showing up wrong.

Speaker 5 (45:49):
And I think that this is.

Speaker 6 (45:50):
A really beautiful way for people to experience that without
having to go through all of the mental gymnastics and
the hurdles to actually enter some kind of recovery, you know.
And so that said, yeah, of course it's become commodified.
Like some woman just wrote this article. I couldn't even
read it. It was like something about like how I'm

(46:10):
the devil and dry January is the devil and something else.
And there's a lot of like side eyed stuff. But
the capitalism component of it and the fact that like
not drinking or dry January.

Speaker 5 (46:20):
Or sober curiosity or these other like.

Speaker 6 (46:22):
Trends are somehow damaging and terrible, and I personally feel
that needs to be set aside. And what we need
to understand is that there's so few things that capitalism
does write, and in this case, this is leveraging an
opportunity for people to try something out they wouldn't otherwise.

(46:44):
And I guarantee January is probably the month that the most.

Speaker 5 (46:48):
People get sober.

Speaker 6 (46:49):
It has to be, so I personally don't think there's
anything wrong with it, And I think it's one of
those places where I've chosen to not be upset about
the commodification of recovery and sobriety or whatever that is.
It's just let it be and let people do it.
And that's my thoughts on Try January.

Speaker 4 (47:06):
That's a very generous way to look at it.

Speaker 5 (47:08):
I think. I don't know if I always looked at
it this way.

Speaker 6 (47:09):
I think I was very ough, you know, when it
really really took off and everyone was doing it, and
like there was this feeling that like, oh, but I'm
really in recovery. I really had a problem, and then
people are just trying it on for fun and you know,
and I think that there was that sentiment that I
had around it or it's not real or whatever again
like personal bias, like deep inside.

Speaker 5 (47:28):
That was my gut reaction to it. But I think
it's great, you know.

Speaker 1 (47:31):
I think this connects really nicely to the story Eric
that you had about the person who's putting.

Speaker 7 (47:36):
Marbles in the jar.

Speaker 1 (47:37):
I love that story. I'm going to remember it because
it's about practice that person was practicing and they wanted
credit for those days that they practiced. And I think
when somebody is trying and they still experience a return
to use or some other problem.

Speaker 7 (47:48):
They're still practicing.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
That's the thing that matters, is putting intention and attention
into a process of change.

Speaker 7 (47:55):
And why would we put that down? You know?

Speaker 1 (47:58):
I think RYE January could be somebody's experienced practicing with
drinking and they might not stick with it, and then
they see that and they see the difficulty with bringing
their actions in line with their intentions, and then they
modify and they change, and then maybe it's only three
years or five years later that plants a seed for
some bigger change.

Speaker 6 (48:17):
Yeah, Carl, can I just say real quick you might
know this better, but I think that the average time
between identifying that you knowing you have something wrong and
actually seeking treatment for it when it comes to I
think it's alcohol, but it might be all addiction, is
like ten years.

Speaker 5 (48:29):
Seven to ten years, Is that right?

Speaker 6 (48:31):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (48:31):
John Kelly, who directs the recovery research in suit at Harvard,
he likes to say eight.

Speaker 7 (48:35):
But you're exactly right.

Speaker 1 (48:36):
It's actually from the time, if I'm remembering it right,
from the time that somebody makes any attention to seek absidence.
The bad news is there's many, many returns to you.
So people can have problems along the way, but the
good news is many many people recover. It just takes
a while, and all of that is practice along the way, right,
you know, if somebody wants to practice, we're all in
little bubbles. We like to talk about recovery. Probably people

(48:57):
on this podcast like to talk about recovery. They might
have experience with it, but there are a lot of
people out there who don't. And maybe that's their entry point.
Maybe that's our entry point to practicing the change or
looking at themselves.

Speaker 7 (49:08):
So why I put that down?

Speaker 3 (49:09):
I would agree. I mean, I think anything that gets
people to examine their relationship to substances is a good thing, right.
And for some people, they'll examine their relationship to it
through dry January and they'll go, Okay, nothing to see here, right, Like,
they'll move on right, and other people will start to
see something, you know. I mean, I've heard stories of
people say, oh, I took a month off drinking and

(49:29):
I started to really see what drinking was doing in
my life. Right. And again, you know your point, Carl.
They may maybe a year down the road, three years
down the road, but I only see a positive in
things that encourage us to do that. And I also
think when we start to say and truly accept like
there's lots of paths to recovery, there's lots of ways
to get better. If we really accept that, right, then

(49:52):
we can become very encouraging of all of them. And
we don't have to sort of, you know, to use
your term Holly side eye these different things or take
hot takes on things. Right, we can just go good,
somebody's trying to get better. More power to you, you know, imagine, imagine.

Speaker 5 (50:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:09):
I also think though, and I agree with everything you
all said, almost reluctantly, because I really don't want to
like driyja anyway. I really like I feel like it's
such a like an amateurist thing, Like people are just
trying out something like just to see if it makes
them a little bit healthier. I think most people are

(50:30):
probably trying to lose weight or get back in shape,
and letting, you know, letting go of alcohol is part
of that.

Speaker 5 (50:36):
Sure, but like, isn't that okay to have like vain reasons?

Speaker 4 (50:40):
It is? It is, I'm trying. I was listening to you, Holley,
I'm like, I'm going to be more generous with this
because this is really a good thing. I'm going to
embrace it. But I was reading I don't know if
you guys read this. TJ. Holmes and Amy Roback. They
were Good Morning America like posts who Affair and now
they have their own show.

Speaker 5 (50:58):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (50:59):
But he was saying saying he's doing dry January and
he was drinking eighteen drinks a day. Yeah, and he's
come up like against like, whoa, this is a really
big change from my eighteen drinks a day in dry January.
And I know we have to wrap up, but I
was just thinking, shouldn't there be some kind of support
because then you feel like he's got to feel terrible

(51:23):
right physically my experiences, it got worse before it got better,
Like I felt like, oh my god, I need something
for like the first thirty days, the first sixty days,
like I need anything, Like I would have taken or
used anything to get rid of the feeling of withdrawal,
because I would imagine that the body or the brain
wants something after it's used to having eighteen drinks a day,

(51:45):
So is it wise when someone is drinking I would
say that successively. I don't know if TJ. Holmes would
but is it wise to embark upon an abstinence, an
abrupt abstinence, or should people who were maybe drinking excessively
look for support as they go through it, knowing someone

(52:05):
that can inform them that's gonna get worse, but then
it'll get better.

Speaker 1 (52:08):
Well, this is not medical advice, but uh, alcohol withdrawal
can be dangerous.

Speaker 7 (52:14):
You know, it'll kill you.

Speaker 1 (52:16):
Not that it's extremely common, but it can be dangerous.
So it is good for people who are worried about
their health to seek out medical help, keeping into account
that there are also problems with access. You know, people
might have trouble accessing good which are all supported, or
if you walk into your ear you might get treated
like crap. Yeah, and so that people might get suck
in a double bind there. And I also know that

(52:37):
when I when I was trying to stop drinking as
a young doctor, I kept on telling myself, ooh, I
better not stop quickly, a better sload And so that
turned into years upon years right, rationalizations, So it's very hard.
I think in general it doesn't have to be medicine.
It's good to get help looking at those kind of rationalizations,
and you know, is this nonsense or do I actually

(53:00):
need to be careful. My own experience was that I
had plenty of experience with silly rationalizations.

Speaker 4 (53:06):
Eric.

Speaker 3 (53:07):
Yeah, I mean again I think yes, probably, you know,
good medical advice says you get help. But again, I'm
kind of back to who knows whether for I don't
even remember the gentleman's name, the eighteen drinks a day,
but he's actually due to dry January, He's now taking
a look at something he may never have taken a
look at before, right, Who knows where that will lead?

(53:27):
And back to this idea of there's one thousand different
roads into recovery. I mean, I just I'm in general
and support of again, like I said, anything that gets
people to take a look at their relationship with these
chemicals is a positive. And yes, if you're drinking eighteen
drinks a day for a long, long period of time,
I'd suggest a little bit of medical help.

Speaker 4 (53:47):
I mean, I didn't even mean to laugh there. That's
that's real. That's like, it just makes me laugh that
that was the headline on my feed in the morning
was d J. Holmes.

Speaker 6 (53:57):
He really was drinking eighteen every single day, thirty days,
that's what he says.

Speaker 4 (54:02):
He says easily has eighteen drinks a day is what
the headline says, and then he saved three thousand dollars already.
This is whenever. This was on.

Speaker 3 (54:14):
January third.

Speaker 4 (54:21):
Does anyone have any last words, anything that you were
inspired to say when someone else was talking that you
didn't get to say, or just something you want to
leave with the listeners.

Speaker 3 (54:33):
Well, I always wrap up discussions like this with an
old twelve step phrase, which is keep coming back, right.
And I don't mean it in necessarily keep coming back
to twelve step programs, but I mean it in general
when it has anything to do with addiction or substance use, overuse,
whatever you want to call it. Like, I think the
message is keep coming back, keep trying. I love the

(54:54):
way Carl put it, keep practicing right, because recovery is available,
but it rarely happens to us on the first or
second or third try, right. It's something that happens through
repeated effort to try. And so I would just say,
you know, don't get discouraged and keep coming back. You know,
there's lots of ways to get help. Keep looking for help,
and there is a solution if you want one.

Speaker 1 (55:15):
Laura, I want to say, these are great questions. You
said at the outset that you were feeling a little nervous,
and you have no reason to. I think they're really
wise in their directness. You're getting to the core of
questions that a lot of people are walking around with
and then feel really awkward to ask, like what exactly
is relapse? How bad is it if I go have
a relapse?

Speaker 7 (55:35):
Or what does it mean to be sober? What am
I even going for?

Speaker 1 (55:38):
There's almost a sort of I don't know, it could
be snobbishness in some circles, or maybe just the sort
of toughness in others, but a hesitancy to explore these
types of things. And I think it's really really useful
to just look closely, because this is what life is
made out of, you know, this is really what matters
is how do I want the character of my lives
to be? My many lives? I didn't even mean to

(55:59):
say that plural. It's true. We're living new lives every
single day. We have so many opportunities to reinvent it.

Speaker 3 (56:04):
Yeah.

Speaker 7 (56:05):
I just really.

Speaker 1 (56:05):
Appreciate returning to these core core topics because in recovery
communities and medical communities, we can get twisted up in
knots about what is right and wrong, et cetera. But
you know, at the end of the day, people are
just trying to feel better, get better, do better, and
this is all really special stuff.

Speaker 7 (56:20):
So I'm glad to be here with all of you.

Speaker 4 (56:22):
Thank you, Thank you, Carl. That was very sweet, and
I do I feel bolstered now. I appreciate that now.

Speaker 6 (56:30):
Holly, thank you for organizing all this. I think like
the one thing that I took away from this, and
I've been thinking about a lot lately.

Speaker 5 (56:37):
Is just how capable people are.

Speaker 6 (56:41):
And how smart they are about themselves, and how little
consensus there really is about what's right. And it just
totally depends on who you talk to and what their
experiences and what their biases and what their opinions are.
I mean, just sitting here in this group, I think
that we take for granted that there is We believe

(57:03):
that there exists some code and that if we just
find it and read it and follow it, then we'll
be fin like that there's an answer out there.

Speaker 5 (57:11):
And I think it's just so much messier than that.

Speaker 6 (57:14):
And I think a lot of us spend a lot
of time looking around and making sure we're doing it right.
And I think that it really just comes back down
to that, you know what Eric said, right of just trying,
it's just about trying, and we don't give enough credit
to trying and just showing up.

Speaker 5 (57:32):
We complicate it.

Speaker 6 (57:33):
So I really enjoyed talking to all of you and
hearing all of your different perspectives, and thanks for making
this happen.

Speaker 4 (57:40):
And I'll just say really quickly at the end that
I really appreciate this conversation. It was really nourishing for me.
I'm going to take all of this and go out
in the world with it and sound really smart, but
also getting sober for me was the hardest thing I've
ever done in my life. It was excruciating and humiliating,

(58:01):
and I didn't want to and I didn't believe in
any of the things I was asked to believe in,
and I still don't believe in a lot of those things.
And yet it's the best thing that I have ever
done for myself. The life I lead today is because
of what I did, because of that hard work. And
to go back to the marbles and the jar and
what Carl pointed out, practice makes a practice, you know,

(58:22):
the more you practice, eventually you'll have a practice. That's
what's happened to me. You know, faith without works is dead,
but work without faith still works. For me. I've done
this work and I've ended up with this life that
I wouldn't trade it in right as of this moment
for anything. I really enjoy it and I am thriving,

(58:44):
and that's just something I never thought I would do
at the beginning. I didn't think that was possible for me.
So these types of the discussions are oxygen for me, truly,
and I appreciate all of you, and Eric, I've taken
over the conversation, but thank you for inviting us to
have this discussion on your show.

Speaker 3 (59:04):
Seriously, Yes, yes, it's been a pleasure. I'm happy to
talk to two of you who've been on the show before,
and Holly, I'm so happy to have finally gotten a
chance to have you on. And I think it was
a great discussion. And the more often we all talk
about these things, the better, So thank you all.

Speaker 2 (59:35):
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