October 28, 2025 • 55 mins
In this emotional and deeply relatable episode of Recovering Out Loud, host Anthony sits down with Eryl McCaffrey, a psychotherapist and woman in long-term recovery, to explore the toxic link between body image, perfectionism, and addiction.
Eryl opens up about growing up in an alcoholic home, chasing perfection to escape pain, and how her obsession with control over her body and success masked deeper wounds.
They dive into what it means to truly let go — to stop chasing validation and start building connection, spirituality, and self-acceptance.
You’ll learn:
Why perfectionism and body image struggles often lead to addiction
How trauma disconnects us from our bodies and our emotions
What “relief” really means in early recovery
Why spiritual connection is the antidote to self-destruction
Daily recovery practices that rebuild peace, gratitude, and purpose
This conversation is for anyone stuck in the loop of not enoughness — and ready to find peace in their own skin.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What do you think it did for you?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think first it was a break
from myself, like the constant pressure I put on myself to keep
it together, to be a certain person.
That perfectionism was a real big part of my anxiety and
depression, and it made me feel less uncomfortable in my own
(00:25):
skin. And it felt like this off
switch, like I remember that feeling like I could just flick
a switch and just like not be this version of myself anymore.
And like what a relief like to not have to be in my body and
with my thoughts anymore. It's like something I always
wanted. Hi there, welcome back or
(00:46):
welcome to Recovering Out Loud Podcast, the show where we get
real about mental health and addiction.
I'm so glad you're here. If you or someone you love is
struggling with drugs or alcohol, please reach out for
help. Send me a message on all social
media platforms at Recovering Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at
(01:06):
recoveringoutloudpod@gmail.com. You are no longer alone.
(01:28):
What, like filming yourself? It's like very uncomfortable at
first. Well, I have a journalism
background. So.
I have some training, but beforeI had that, yeah, it was
incredibly nervous. And I still, I still have
moments where I'm like, I don't,I'm just going to write
something today. I don't want to be seen.
I don't want to be perceived online.
Yeah. So do you script out your videos
before you film them or you justfree ball, free freebase
(01:52):
freebase it? I just freebase it.
Yeah. Yeah, I just fucking go for.
It welcome to Recovering out loud.
We talk about crack. I love it.
So you are a you're becoming a psychotherapist or you're
already a psychotherapist. Psychotherapist.
You are. So you're registered psycho.
Fucking cool. Awesome.
Yeah. I love having people on both
(02:13):
sides. You're in recovery and you are
helping other people. That's right through the
recovery. Let's do this.
My wife yelled at me because shesays I don't introduce people
enough. She's like, I don't know who the
fuck I'm listening to. You start talking about their
story and their childhood and they're like, I don't even know
who it is. I'm like, well, if you read the
description of the episode. You don't care about me, it's
your fault. Exactly.
(02:34):
Why don't you introduce yourselfhow you came into recovery?
And yeah, let's start with that,OK?
Yeah, I'm Errol McCaffrey and I've been sober for three years,
just a little over three years, tried many times.
This time seems to be sticking one day at a time.
I'm also a psychotherapist. I work with people in recovery
(02:56):
primarily. It wasn't my intention, but
that's those are the people thatcome to me, people that are
looking to get sober and they have relationship challenges.
So yeah, that's kind of my jam right now.
I'm working a lot with women that are craving sobriety.
So that's like kind of the nicheI'm finding myself in, but.
Yeah, and how do they find you? Instagram, Yeah.
It's a great it's a great gateway funnel.
(03:22):
I'm trying to do that too. Working with addicts is so hard
though. Like we never show up.
You know what I mean, though? It's it's, it's funny, like I
every time I get like upset withsomebody because of whatever
they are so rearing to get soberand then they, you know,
disappear for a bit. I have to remind myself I'm
like, dude, that was you like somany times, right?
(03:44):
And I work at a rehab now where I get people into rehab and it's
frustrating sometimes because you know, that they could be on
the path of healing the better life.
And like I'm dealing with this one guy.
And I thought back to the last time I went into rehab.
It took me probably two months before I like signed up before I
actually got into the bed, right.
(04:05):
So it's like. Yeah, it's so hard.
That's something that I'm working with constantly with
people is their resistance and resistance even like getting on
a call to talk about it. Like it takes so much courage
for somebody to go, OK, I have aproblem.
I want to do something about it.And I can be in frustration at
moments for sure. Like I just, I know you could do
(04:27):
it. I see this, you know, better
future for you. And just like you, I know
exactly what it's like to want something better for yourself.
But you're stuck somewhere and you're not done yet.
You haven't felt enough pain yet.
You're not desperate enough yet.That's the big one.
So who am I to say that you're ready if you're not?
Yeah, I might be holding you back from another bottom, right?
(04:48):
Yeah, that's the big one, right?Being ready, willing and ready.
And everybody's different, right?
Like, we have a lot more suffering to go almost all the
time if we're still alive, right?
You know, rock bottoms when you stop digging.
So, but yeah, it's like who? I like that.
Who am I to say that you're done, You might not be done.
You know, there's some more experiments to do.
(05:09):
As I always say, some more research to do.
More controlled drinking. Yeah, yeah, try some more
controlled drinking. How did you?
So can you walk us through your childhood and maybe how you
found alcohol and what it did for you?
Yeah, so alcohol's a big part ofmy, my family story addiction
(05:31):
was it's really present in my family, like Alcoholics going
back and, you know, through the family lines for generations and
grew up with a dad who was in active addiction for basically
my whole life. He he got sober once or twice
for brief periods of time, but he, he really struggled with
(05:54):
alcoholism and mental illness. So I grew up watching that and
you know, my mom was in and still is in Al Anon.
So she's got a really good program and early on was able to
explain to my sisters and I likethis is a sick person.
This is a disease, You know, it's it's not you, it's not your
fault. And that helped a lot.
(06:14):
I'm incredibly grateful for that.
And at the same time, it doesn'tundo the trauma of watching
somebody you love hurt themselves constantly and not be
there for you, not show up for you in the way that you need
them to. So that was my introduction to
alcohol and childhood. And my dad passed away when I
(06:36):
was 18. Was it 18?
Yeah. So he had, I'm going serious,
deep dark right away. But he he had, he got a cancer
that was, the doctor said causedby his drinking.
And it was fatal. And he drank till the end.
So that was like the type of alcoholic I saw growing up.
(06:59):
And I was like, well, I'm just never going to be an alcoholic.
I'm never going to have any issues with it.
So my first addiction was like perfectionism, high achieving,
really focused on school. Then I got addicted to body
image and food stuff. Big part of my story, always
trying to find a way to fix myself.
(07:21):
I didn't come into my own drinking until after my dad
died. So I wasn't, I didn't wasn't a
big drinker in high school. It was like, I think he, he
started getting sick and then then I was experimenting with it
a bit. And then as soon as he died, I
just went for it. And I dropped out of university.
(07:41):
I had the scholarship. I was like the golden child, you
know, trying to live up to that.And I just couldn't do it.
So I took a year off school and worked at a bar like a good
alcoholic. Yeah, I was like.
Let me just do some training. I just want to get better at
this thing. So a perfect place to, you know,
(08:05):
learn how to drink. And that was.
Yeah, I, I think that was reallythe beginning of it for me.
And it just like I, I don't evenknow where to stop talking about
this because it just went on forever.
It just went on forever. And it got worse and worse.
And it was tricky in university because it seemed it was normal,
quote UN quote normal to binge drink.
So it only really became clear to me that it was a problem when
(08:27):
I got out of university. I graduated and I was like, oh,
not everybody's drinking like that anymore, but I don't want
to stop. What do you think it did for
you? Yeah, that's a good question.
I think first it was a break from myself, like the constant
(08:50):
pressure I put on myself to keepit together, to be a certain
person. That perfectionism was a real
big part of my anxiety and depression, and it made me feel
less uncomfortable in my own skin.
(09:11):
And it felt like this off switch.
Like I remember that feeling like I could just flick a switch
and just like not be this version of myself anymore.
And like, what a relief like to not have to be in my body and
with my thoughts anymore. It's like something I always
wanted. That's the big word too.
Is is relief, right? Like this volume knob on my head
(09:35):
and it works until it doesn't, right?
It's like I was reading in one of the just for today's the
other day. It was beautiful.
It said, you know, alcohol and drugs for me mainly drugs
allowed me to be who I wanted when I wanted and feel what I
wanted when I wanted until it ituntil it controlled me, right.
(09:57):
Like you get to a point where itstops kind of achieving that
goal. And then the more you do, the
worse it gets to your, your, thethoughts get worse and louder.
And then the volume goes to like14, right?
And then you get that relief from maybe like for in my case,
like a few minutes at a time. And then you just chase that
(10:18):
until the gates of hell. It's it's insanity.
Like I spent so much of my life trying to like thinking I was
going to feel a certain way whenI would drink and it would just
like the feeling never came. It was, it's just this really
weird, insane behavior to be like, and this time it's going
to work and it never works. It just ends up near the end.
(10:39):
At least I could not escape my my awareness of my problem or my
thoughts, no matter how much I drank.
I drank, right? So it's just like it it.
It works for a little bit and then it becomes its own problem.
Yeah, I love the the three phases.
It's like fun, fun with problemsand then just problems after,
right? As you're talking there, I'm
(11:00):
thinking about the hand on the stove metaphor in one of the
recovery literatures where it's like, this time it's not going
to burn me, right? Maybe if I come at it from this
angle, right, it won't burn me the same.
And it's like every time, just fuck.
Ow ow ow. Yeah, why can't I stop doing
this? So that leads me into my next
question. How did you was it?
What was the moment where you were like this time?
(11:24):
I you know, I've had enough. This is I can't do this anymore.
I had a couple of moments. I had a couple of bottoms.
I think one of the first ones was, I think it was 2017.
It was like, yeah, it would havebeen before the pandemic.
I had gone through like a breakup of 10 years.
(11:44):
I was living, I had roommates that I didn't really know, but I
was living on my own essentiallyfor the first time.
And I started adding other substances to the picture.
And then I was not only drinking, but I was going out
into after hours clubs and like,you know, leaving 7:00 AM or
9:00 AM the next day. And like just it just it got
(12:08):
darker really fast. And I was doing more high risk
stuff and really afraid of like what I was capable of doing and
like, yeah, just afraid. I was like, I'm going to die, I
think probably. And all the while trying to hold
down my job as a yoga teacher. So think about that split
personality like mindfulness, Wellness, go on there.
(12:32):
Body's a temple. Doing some lines in the
bathroom. Namaste.
Just like, you know, just, it was just, it got crazy.
I had a seizure at one point staying up really late.
So it was just like, OK, I, I think I'm going to die.
So I think I should do something.
And at that point I took myself to treatment, to rehab.
I I reached out to a women's rehab and started doing some
(12:58):
outpatient work. Went to rehab for a month and it
was amazing. The, the like the Type A and me
was like, perfect. Give me structure.
I will be the best sober person you've ever met.
I'll be the star. Yeah.
I'm going to get a plus in rehab.
I'll be the. Star going it back in the floor.
I'll do it perfectly. And so I was like there that,
(13:19):
you know, I really wanted to want to get sober for real.
I wasn't ready. I kind of knew it too.
I was like, this is a nice breakfor me and came out within three
months, I was back out and then I didn't get sober again for
five years, which is where I am now.
(13:39):
This time around, it was very different.
It was like I was no longer using other substances.
It was just drinking. I was in a relationship that was
with the person that was very wealthy and had access to a lot
of things. And so now my drinking looked
more refined and classy, you know, fancy wines.
I was like, OK, this is acceptable now.
(14:02):
And that actually overtime felt more dangerous.
I'm like, oh, I could do this forever.
Like black out every once in a while PO when someone's really
expensive carpet, but like, whatever, they'll forgive me.
They probably do it too. And so that that was a it got
worse in the pandemic for me. It was a slow, I just can't
explain it other than like another moment of I'm going to
(14:24):
die this way. I can't live like this.
This thing owns me. So that time I just, I had like
a RIP roaring night. I was blackout drunk the next
day. It was in August 3 years ago.
I was like, I can't do this anymore.
I can't explain it to you. It just was that not like, I
(14:47):
want to say this, but I meant it.
It's like I literally am so exhausted of fighting this thing
and pretending it's not a problem after I know I've been
to treatment for this thing and I'm like, it's OK, actually.
I can drink normally now. It's like, what the fuck?
So it was, yeah, it was a it wasa, a really a spiritual moment.
Like, I remember that night crying in the shower, just being
(15:10):
like, I can't, I literally can'tdo this anymore.
And the relief of that. And then my world fell apart for
a little bit. And there was another breakup
and I moved back home with mom. And.
But there was this fire at me. And I was like, yes, this is
supposed to happen. I need, I need to rise from the
ashes. And it was like I needed to be
(15:34):
so desperate and ready to start over.
Yeah. That with that partner that you
had was did he start start to notice like things and were you
hiding it like how did what did that look like?
There was a lot of like drinkingtogether.
I always took it a step further and it was kind of like I had
(15:58):
really controlled the narrative.So I have been to treatment.
But again, like it's fine, you don't have to worry about me.
And I did. I did a pretty good job of like
managing it for a while, but every now and then I would just
get wasted like black out drunk and he'd be upset with me and
embarrassed of what I did or satin public.
(16:19):
And there were some conversations about that.
But it really I didn't get an ultimatum.
Like there was no, you need to stop doing this or else it
really came from me. And and then it was a
conversation around, well, I don't want my lifestyle to
(16:41):
change. And I was like, I get it, but I
have to do this. So you can keep doing your thing
and living the way that you're living.
But I can't be around alcohol anymore in this way.
Yeah. Did you go back to to treatment
again or you just? I I invested in a in a a like
(17:02):
found a Home group, actually gave it a go.
Yeah, yeah, I, I think about this question a lot because I
post a lot of stuff about how toget sober and sometimes I make
it seem to, I mean, at least in my mind, too simple.
But it, it really is simple, right?
Like, because I always, I alwaystry to think about the people
(17:23):
that don't do 12 step, right. My experience with 12 step, it
still is. I have to because it just, I
just like it and I've tried a lot of other things and it it
just works for me. But there's a lot a large group
of people out there that are very 12 step defiant and, you
know, maybe even toward the hateside of things, whether it be
(17:46):
the God argument, which if you're arguing about the God
thing, that just tells me you haven't, you haven't done enough
work in the program to realize that it's not about religion at
all, right? And people usually hate things
they don't understand, right? I've, I've come to to realize,
but it's like, so you put that aside.
How does one get sober? Right?
I've been thinking about it a lot.
(18:07):
And I mean, if you were to ask me that right now, like my
simple, simple answer is I foundsomeone that was sober a decent
amount of time that seemed happyevery time I saw them had that,
you know, forget the things right?
The, the, a lot of them, the people, they do get the things
right, the car, the job, the, the relationship.
(18:30):
You put that aside and just takethat all away and it's just that
like that smile on their face, that joy, that sparkle in the
eye that you, I can see it in your eye now, right?
And every time I sit down with people, I always notice it.
It's funny like because for a long time that sparkle was gone
in my eye. And I remember seeing the the
alumni come into my treatment center this last time, the first
thing I noticed every single time was just like, fuck, man,
(18:52):
like what that guy has somethinglike, what is that right?
Just curiosity like, and this time I knew what it was, right?
But yeah, for me, it's like I found someone that that was more
sober and I fucking asked them what they did and then I did it.
It's really three simple steps. But if you don't go to 12 step,
I don't know like what do you get people that are against the
(19:13):
12 step and what do you like some of your clients?
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, like
12 step programs are wonderful. They're not for everybody for a
variety of reasons. I've always been somebody that's
like quite curious and I'm goingto take what Lance and kind of
like not pick apart anything else.
(19:33):
But when it comes to working with people, there's a lot of
resistance to 12 step programs because I think it's called T or
super religious and they've seenlike movies or shows, you know,
that have those scenes in it andthey think this is like totally
not for me. So there's a lot of resistance
(19:55):
to it. When people go and they come
back, they always report like, yeah, it was a bit awkward.
And I don't really like that they use that God word.
But I also felt really supportedand less ashamed.
I'm like, great. So do you want to feel more like
that? Maybe we should keep, maybe we
should keep going. Yeah, either way.
(20:16):
Take away what the program or the resource is, I know for sure
we all need community in recovery.
We all need spaces where we can tell the truth, and we need some
kind of connection to something bigger than ourselves.
Yeah, and, and that can be anything, right?
It could be a group of people. It could be a great outdoors.
Like I love, you know, I love hearing that said group of
(20:37):
drunks, great outdoors, good orderly direction, right?
Just living according to spiritual principles.
Honesty, the biggest one by far.I, I can sit here and honestly
tell you every single time I relapsed, number one was not
being practiced some level of deception, lies to myself and
other people, right? I had this sort of secret that I
(20:58):
shared about and and I wasn't telling people the full truth,
right? So it was such a slippery slope.
Yeah, it starts with one lie andthen it caroms into something
completely different. You know, I'm interested in the
body image thing because I struggle with that too.
(21:19):
How did you come to a place where that was more manageable,
would you say? I like that question.
Not like, how did you heal from it?
It's like it's ongoing. I have such a different
relationship to my body today. Like so much more compassion and
gratitude like the older I get. I'm 36 now.
I'll be 37 next birthday and it's like I'm like, yeah, this
(21:42):
body's amazing. It's been through some shit, you
know, Like I'm still alive. My liver.
'S still there, my heart's stillbeating, so I have such a
positive relationship with it. Most of the time I still
struggle with body image and things like that.
What did I do to get more to make more peace with my body?
(22:04):
A lot of therapy, a lot of trauma recovery work really
because of, you know, early childhood experiences that that
made me want to separate from mybody.
So exploring why, why that feelsso good for me to dissociate.
Why does it feel so good for me to be out of my body?
(22:26):
How can I learn to come back into my body?
That's been like an indirect wayof healing that relationship
because it's not about like, howdo I feel good in my clothes or
how do I change my shape or whatI'm eating.
It's like, how do I feel at homein myself?
So that other stuff doesn't really matter as much.
So a lot of therapy, yoga is bigfor me, you know, as a practice
(22:50):
that like allows me to be reallymindful and grateful.
And I also like maybe want to have kids one day and I do not
want to pass this on. So I want to like change the way
that I'm talking about these things, the narrative I have in
my head and what I say out loud because I know that can be
internalized if I'm talking thisway about my body, That's what
(23:13):
they hear and they think that's normal.
You should hate your body too. So I know that's like kind of a
all over the place answer, but sobriety has been huge for
working through a lot of that stuff too, because I just, it
(23:34):
doesn't matter to me as much as it did before.
I'm so much more connected to mypurpose, you know, and to my
higher power and to other people.
Like even if I have a bad body image day or some thoughts that
aren't helpful like it doesn't hold as much weight as it used
to. Yeah, I can relate to that
(23:54):
totally. The thoughts still come up,
right. For me, it's like you ate too
much last night, You're getting fat.
You didn't go to the gym as muchas you used to, right?
And they, yeah, they don't take up that much bandwidth, mental
bandwidth in my head, where it'slike when they come up, they're
more fleeting than they were before.
(24:15):
But yeah, it it took some work in recovery and being sober.
And I think the biggest thing for me was just like you said,
sharing about it, right? Because it just seems so much
more like it loses its power. But it just, it sounds so stupid
to say out loud, but, and that'sa good thing for me at least
where it's like one, you're not fat, right?
(24:38):
To like it. It it doesn't.
Yeah, it doesn't matter because you can't, you can't change it
right now anyways, right. So I mean, this idea of like
just being grateful and that I can even walk, right.
And that, yeah, to your point, like, I went to the hospital
when I was in rehab because I thought I was having a heart
attack. It was sitting down in one of
the classes and I felt this pressure on my chest for like an
(25:02):
hour straight. And I went to the hospital and
I'll never forget this in the the ambulance.
I, the thoughts were going through my mind.
I pictured my future, my wife was helping me up the stairs,
like all these things. I was like, I fucked up my heart
now, like, because of all the cocaine I've done.
And they did the ECG, they did everything, and it ended up
being fine, right? It ended up all working out and
I just had some sort of panic attack or something.
(25:23):
But like, I think that was a moment that I needed to have
where it was like, yeah, dude, like this could be a lot worse,
right? Your lungs are OK.
The amount of cigarettes you smoked, you know, your heart is
OK. And but that's not permanent,
right? If you go back out there.
Yeah. To what you said like I'm not
going to make it, you know? There's, there's, there's so
(25:43):
much to gratitude. And it sounds flowery as like
something you can practice if you want to heal some of these
wounds. It's huge.
And there's also something to checking in with yourself when
you, when we're having these thoughts and we're like sliding
back into those old sort of patterns to recognize that it's
(26:04):
also an addictive thought loop. It's also an addiction, like
body image, eating disorders, all that stuff is compulsive.
It's like a mental illness, you know, So not to put a heavy
label on it, just to acknowledge, oh, I'm in my
addiction. And when I'm, when I'm in any
kind of addictive behavior, I'm reaching out to soothe myself in
(26:26):
some way. So like, what is happening
inside of me right now that it feels better to obsess about
food than to sit Like, what am Iactually experiencing?
Oh, I'm really anxious about this thing coming up.
I'm going to try to deal with ananxiety through restricting what
I eat, working out a little bit more, you know, so it's like
there's an emotional component to all of the addictive
(26:48):
behaviors and thoughts that we have.
And it's like what's happening right now?
Yeah, and it it's so much harderto just sit with it, right.
I think there's a big differencetoo between sitting in it and
sitting with it. Or it's like acknowledging, like
you said, I like the the rain practice.
I don't know. Yeah, I'm going to screw it up,
but recognize, acknowledge, allow, recognize, allow.
(27:08):
How about you? Just investigate.
Investigate and nurture, right? So you're recognizing the
thought. You're allowing it to come in
and not, you know, push it out with food or whatever.
Whatever said addiction is, you're investigating.
What's this about? Why am I doing this?
And then you're nurturing. For me, nurturing.
Sometimes it's like actually, you know, just kind of feeling
(27:29):
my body and hugging myself. And then other times, it's one
of my favorite things to do is just like, you're doing that
thing again, buddy. Like just, you know, just laugh
at it, right? Like Anthony, you're doing that
thing again. You're trying to escape pain.
You know, this is what you do, right?
I'm interested in the dissociation thing.
(27:49):
Is that Is that what you mean bydissociation from your body?
Like looking for outside things?I mean, there's, there's a
disconnect that can happen when we're looking for outside
things. I think dissociation, the way
that I'm, I mean, it is like literally leaving my body.
Like I first started doing that when I was a kid.
You know, people say like I was,I had an out of body experience.
(28:09):
So I mean not disconnecting for myself.
I mean literally not feeling like I'm in my body.
I'm watching my body, I'm watching myself.
And I, I had those experiences early on 'cause I used to get
panic attacks as a kid. So I'd be like, nothing's real.
I'm not here and I didn't understand at the time, but it
it was actually a coping mechanism.
(28:31):
It's like I didn't feel comfortable and safe in the
present moment. So it felt a lot better to just
be. I'm out now.
I'm like living in fantasyland. I'm not in touch with what's
happening in my body. And when we drink or when we get
to a certain level of intoxication, we dissociate.
I don't know what's happening inmy feet, what's going on in my
gut. I'm not connected to my heart.
(28:52):
I'm completely flooded and checked out.
So it's like a disconnection from the present moment, a
disconnection from your body, and it can feel great when you
don't want to be in reality. Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, I, I don't, I think maybe a lot of us do that and don't
even realize we're doing it. Oh, yeah.
As as you're talking about it, I'm just picturing like floating
(29:14):
up above my body. But it's not that dramatic.
Yeah, you might not feel like. Yeah, you talked a little bit
about spirituality. Do you wanna?
Can you describe maybe a little bit more what faith and
spirituality means to you and why it's important to stay
sober, why it's important for your recovery?
(29:35):
I think I'm not, I'm not a religious person, so I don't go
to church. I mean, 12 step is as close to
church as I go. But I've always had this like
little feeling in my soul that there's something greater at
work here. Like I'm supposed to do
something with my life. And there's a reason that all
(29:56):
we, we all exist and that we're in each other's lives.
Like a feeling of being part of something, which was hard, which
was a hard feeling to connect towhen I was in my active
addiction because I felt very isolated, like very lone.
I was separated from what I believe is like source.
I was really in my own pain, separated from other people, in
(30:18):
my shame, not part of any community.
So I, I just believe, I just believe that addiction is a,
it's an emotional problem. You know, there's emotional,
mental, physical components to it, but primarily it's a
(30:39):
spiritual problem. It's like I I don't have a
purpose. I don't know why I'm here.
I'm empty inside. Nothing I do or consume is
enough to make me feel OK. And no thing can fill that void.
No amount of food, booze, drugs,money, love, sex, it is never
(31:02):
enough. The only way that I've ever been
able to feel whole or fill that void is through a connection to
a higher power. And that feels like I have a
friend up there that I just talked to you everyday.
I'm like, what should I do today?
Put me in the right place, make me useful.
And so I feel led and like life is magical 'cause it all just
(31:25):
feels like purposeful. And how do you move through
something like addiction withoutsomething that powerful?
I don't know. Yeah.
Yeah, you can't in my experience.
Right. Yeah.
I, I mean, it's comforting just listening to you talk about it
because everyone describes it a little bit differently, but it's
(31:46):
like the same, same principle oflike, I don't know the answer.
I don't need to know the answer,but I trust that somebody,
something has the best intentionfor me at the end of the day,
right. And it it makes trauma, it makes
resistance, it makes horrible situations seem like they they
(32:09):
need to be there almost. And and there's a purpose for
it. I don't understand it yet.
But that's because I'm in the middle of the story, right?
I'm not. Every story has a beginning,
middle and end. And I'm in the middle right now.
And although it feels like everyone's against me and the
nothing's going my way and my financial problems are still
kicking from all the stupid hotels that I stayed at, right?
(32:30):
Yeah, there's a reason. Because I need to learn this
lesson, because down the road I'm going to be better with my
money, right? 100% like we, we are constantly
humbled and if we're walking a spiritual path, we can see that
and we don't have to be happy about that, but we can go right.
There's a reason that I'm learning this lesson again,
(32:51):
thank you. If we don't have any
spirituality can feel, we can feel very victimized by the
world and like nihilistic almostlike what is the point?
Everything's just suffering. And it's like the longer, in my
experience, the longer I live, the more I see the purpose of
everything that I've experienced.
Like I should have died so many times.
I want. I wanted to die.
(33:12):
I was in situations where I could have died and I didn't.
And like, since I got sober, I've been able to help so many
people. That's not a coincidence.
Like, I was kept alive to do something.
That's my that's my thought around it.
Yeah. I know I agree.
I agree. We have a unique purpose, right?
And somewhere in the the literature it says something
about all those all those drunkswill all those like you know,
(33:36):
those drinking experience and escapades and terrible times
will serve purpose to help someone else.
One right everything nothing happens in God's world by
mistake. That's.
My favorite line. Yeah, it's true.
There's a purpose for everythingright now.
So what is your favorite modality of therapy against
(33:56):
addiction? CBTDBT?
Like what do you think is the most effective for us addicts to
to practice I guess? Well, there's not one approach
that I lean on. Well, I, I guess I will say
across the board, something I dowith every client that's
experiencing addiction is calledmotivational interviewing.
(34:19):
Have you heard that term? Am I so for people that don't
know, it's helping somebody connect to their intrinsic,
their internal desire to get sober or recover because it's
not no one's ever going to move forward just because people are
telling them, hey, you should really quit like I or even
giving you ultimatums, I really need you to quit otherwise I'm
going to leave, blah blah, blah,blah, blah.
(34:41):
That's not what what's been proven to help somebody create
long lasting behavioral change that only happens when the
person inside themselves sees the costs of their behavior,
sees the potential benefits of change and they go for it.
They're motivated. So motivational interviewing is
like, yeah, tell me about what you've lost because of your
(35:04):
addiction. What will you continue to lose?
What would you have to gain if you got sober?
You start to build awareness around it.
You're not saying like, look at all this shit you're creating
for yourself. You're allowing them to identify
why, why this matters. So that's something I do with
every person. But then when it comes to, you
(35:24):
know, other interventions, it really depends on where they're
at in their recovery process. Like can they be in their body
at all? Or are they still using so much
that they don't have the capacity to do something like
mindfulness that might help helpthem like learn some new coping
skills? You know, I always want to bring
(35:45):
that in. It really depends on the person,
but I don't rely on CBTDBT like as a across the board kind of
intervention. It really depends on the person.
Yeah, but I mean, yeah, it's like I remember when I went to
my first rehab, I've been to three.
I went to my first one and they had us do this activity where we
had to write out the cost of ouraddiction, like the literal
(36:06):
cost. And I'd.
I'd never, you know, you talked about dropping out of school.
I did that three or four times in addiction.
I never equated. I never connected the dots.
Even though I knew my life was amess, I didn't.
Yeah, you that's because you were smoking weed every night,
right? And doing coke on the weekends
and it wasn't, you know, how is how's I I never understand when
(36:29):
people finish school through their drinking careers.
Like I never it blows my mind. It's like you hear someone get
up and they're like, yeah, I gota PhD while I was drinking every
night. It's like what?
Like, holy fuck. You know, I wasn't able to show
up at all. Right.
So that was a cool exercise to, to kind of go through because
it's like, you don't just, you know, you think about when, when
I ask someone, you know, what's the cost of your addiction?
(36:50):
It's like, well, you know, bars.So I spend some money at the
bars and this and that. What about the the lawyer fees
and the crashed cars and the carrepairs, The insurance premiums
going up? Right.
And also like the cost of there's all of that that's kind
of almost easier to quantify because you can put a number on
it, you can tally it up, But like the cost of watching your
(37:12):
future slip away from you, Something that I, I was
cognizant of a lot near the end was like, I'm just like not
going to be the person I want tobe ever.
Like how awful is it to know every day that I'm standing in
my own way? Like I'm actively preventing
that from happening? Like that's there's so much
shame there. There's so much shame and
(37:33):
frustration. It's like, that's a huge cost.
I can't be happy if I do this. I literally just won't have a
good life. Great.
Yeah, that should be enough, right?
But it's not. Yeah.
No, no, it's not. It's.
Not because it's easier sometimes to just easier softer
way is to just do this line and move on with my day.
Yeah, I'll start tomorrow. I'll.
Start tomorrow. Yeah, Yeah.
(37:53):
Monday is day one. Potential is the word I'm
thinking of when you're talking about happiness, right?
It's like this functional alcoholic.
Drives me crazy, that term. What could you be doing?
Could you be the Prime Minister of Canada?
You don't know because you're you know what I mean.
Could you discover like a cure for cancer?
Probably. You don't know, right?
(38:15):
Because what is, you know, I'm showing up to work everyday, OK,
but are you there? What's happening when you go
into work? Right, 'cause I remember when I
was going to work, even if I wasn't actively hired drunk at
work, which a lot of time I was,you know, the the latter people,
you know, you're hungover and you're not living up to your
potential, right? And people notice that stuff,
(38:36):
I'm starting to realize. Oh yeah.
You know, we think we're hiding it from everybody.
Oh yeah, You know, what are yoursort of, what are your daily
essentials for recovery? Prayer and meditation every
morning. It's very rare that I miss that.
And it's not like I have to do this or I'll relapse, but it
(38:59):
brings me so much peace. I'll meditate for like 5
minutes. I do some prayer, you know,
suggested by the big book. I'll do some prayer around that.
Essentially, I'm, I'm meditating, I'm clearing my mind
and then I'm praying to my higher power and saying just
make me useful. Like remove all the things
inside of me that prevent me from being useful to other
people, like my fear and my resentments and my impatience.
(39:22):
Like can you just remove those things so I can be useful to
you? And then I and then I asked for
knowledge. What's your will for me today?
And I try to listen and sometimes I'll hear things like
slow down, like I'll actually hear words or I'll get an image
of something of me like standingin the grass.
Like, OK, this is how I can be more useful today.
(39:43):
I can be present, you know, so Ihave a conversation with my
higher power in the morning and and then, you know, it's like
going to meetings. I don't go to a meeting every
day, but I go every week. I do my own therapy.
I have to do something physical every day.
I get to do something physical every day.
(40:05):
Like these are just things I've learned about myself.
It's like I'm not well if I don't move my body, it's not
like intense workout, but if I don't go for a walk or I don't
lift some weights or do some yoga, I'm more likely to fall
into depression, anxiety, thingslike that.
So. Exercise my all the things like
unfortunately that people tell you to do, they actually work
(40:26):
like things we don't want to do,like meditate, pray, feel
grateful exercise. There's probably other things
I'm not thinking of, but there'sa.
There's a reason, though, that everyone constantly says it
right, because it works. The conversation in the morning
is interesting that you know, asof late as you're talking there,
I'm thinking about I've I've hadthis attachment to outcomes
(40:49):
lately. That was, that's been my real
issue lately, whether it's podcast followers, Instagram
followers, this expected result expectation, right, always leads
to resentment. And you know, I was sitting in
my shed like for multiple days at a time.
And so I would wake up in the morning and I still do this
where I, I pray too, but I also journal out like 3 or 4 pages of
(41:11):
just free writing. And every single morning I, I
just for like a two weeks straight, I would ask, I would
just say like, help me remove this expectation, these
expectations. And it I'm telling you, like it
actually worked it. I look at social media less now.
I'm not perfect, right, but I look at it less and I stop
expecting things like whatever Ido, I'm not in control of the
(41:32):
outcome, right? It's, you know, it's very clear
to do. I always preach this, but preach
is the wrong word. I always say this, do the next
right thing and leave the outcomes up to the universe.
It's not up to me. Oh.
My God, that's such a that's something I'm working through
too. It's, I spin out so quickly when
I start doing something and I expect immediate results and I
expect a specific kind of result.
(41:54):
And then it's about me. And it's actually not about the
thing, you know what I mean? Like I'm, it's not, it's no no
longer about being useful and being helpful and, and all of
that. It's like me, I need to be
validated, you know, and affirmed and all of these
things. And it's, yeah, that's such a
good practice, too. I forget to ask for those things
sometimes, like as they pop up during the day to be removed,
(42:15):
like I'm obsessing about this thing.
Could you just take it away fromme?
I heard a speaker tape one time,he said.
You know, he thinks about those things like going into a movie
and, you know, not actually going into a movie, but you have
this sort of thing that you won't let go of your holding
onto. And it's like, I'm going to go
into this movie for two hours. Hold on to this.
I'm looking up as I say this. Hold on to this while I go watch
(42:38):
this movie. And it's like, you can do that
with anything you need to let goof, right?
Yeah. Hold on to this.
I'll. I'll check with you when I'm
back, right? It's not up to me.
Yeah, that's a that's a very difficult thing, I think for
most people, but for addicts especially that want to like use
is about having control. I want to feel a different way.
I want the world to meet my expectations.
(43:01):
I don't want to, you know, meet life on life's terms.
So it's a constant journey to surrender to like, I'm just
going to show up and see what happens.
Yeah, it's a lot harder to do that right.
Oh yeah. I like asking this question but
I I get a similar answer every time but it's always something a
little bit different. But if you could go back and
(43:23):
change your path to pick the sort of normal drinker route,
non addict route, would you do it?
No. That's it, No.
Would I? Stupid question.
Would I really. Yeah.
God, that's so dumb. Would I?
Would I redo it? Apps.
No. But would I change it?
No. No.
(43:43):
Like I love my life today. Like I would not be such a cool
person had I not gone through all of that shit.
Like so grateful for it. Yeah, Truth.
Yeah, there's something that happens when you hit a sort of
rock bottom where you're like, Icould, if I could get through.
I always just tell my wife this,too, is 'cause she watched me at
(44:06):
the peak of my recovery at the eight years and this, like,
amazingly humble spiritual person just fall like, Wade from
the mountain top. And then she met, you know,
Hyde, Jekyll. Doctor Jekyll.
Doctor Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, she metMr. Hyde, right?
And like when I say miss, like she saw addiction 360 the full
(44:29):
front row seat right? And she stuck with me through it
the whole time. I don't know how, but I I think
she well she'll she'll say this is that she hung on to that like
that hope of like this is what he could be like, right?
This is this is him really. This is, you know, I met the
real Anthony. So but yeah, it's like it's it's
(44:50):
tough to sort of watch someone go through that.
And I mean, you have good experience with that too, right?
Where it's like, I don't know ifthey're ever gonna come out of
this. And and sometimes I too, I
think, you know, marrying, marrying an addict is must be a
difficult thing to do. You know, it's like, especially
when you know what could happen it it's beautiful when you get
you hear the people that my kidshave never seen me drink and
(45:12):
it's great. But it's like if they've seen
both sides, that guy is like, not that far away, right?
I mean, today he's far away. But, you know, I don't know.
All it takes is 1 drink. Yeah.
So there's it's like you're either you're either working on
relapse or you're working on recovery, which sounds a bit
(45:32):
severe, but it's actually true. Like if I'm not actively
everyday doing at least one thing to support my recovery, I
am way closer than I think to picking back up.
That's that's why I'm grateful when I have one of those
drinking dreams, which comes every once in a like it's like
clockwork every three months forthe last three years.
There's periods of time where I have them more, but I wake up
(45:53):
and I'm like, right, right, right.
I never want to drink again. Thank God that didn't happen.
You know, that reminds me how easy it is to go back into it.
And so, yeah, if you're if you're linking up with somebody
that's in recovery, just make sure they got a program of some
kind, OK? Strap in.
Yeah, Yeah. Sure you have an an escape
(46:15):
route. Yeah.
Yeah, a prenup, Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah, Yeah. Speaking of prenups, actually, I
don't know if you saw that Nicole Kidman prenup.
Yeah, no one knows about this. My wife told me about it,
probably from TikTok. Nicole Kidman designed her
prenup with Keith Urban. I think who's in recovery in the
in the fine print or whatever. In the actual document, it says
(46:37):
for every year that he stayed sober, he gets $1,000,000 in the
in the prenup. So he's got like $17 million or
$11 million. That's great.
I. Know I was like I gotta make a
video about this. That's a great idea for anybody
that wants to. Sign up anyone that's got
millions of dollars. That's the way you motivate.
Them, you know, right? Imagine getting paid to be
(46:57):
sober. Yeah.
Even then, that would not be enough unless you really wanted.
It it's so true, but it would help.
Yeah, but I mean it now this would be, I always said this the
the most dangerous thing is an addict alcoholic with an
unlimited bank account. Right.
Because I mean, you kind of had that right for a bit.
Or it's like I everything on theoutside is good.
(47:19):
Why would I get sober? It has to come from within.
You have to have that pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.
Yeah, yeah. It's really, I mean, a big part
of my story is like, I mean, this is probably not totally
true, but the way that I saw it was no one knew that I had a
problem. Like I was really.
(47:40):
I wasn't like my dad. I wasn't, you know, drunk
driving or getting arrested, like I wasn't, you know, or
getting in trouble with the law.I'm like, did he get arrested?
I don't know. Anyways, I wasn't that kind of
alcoholic for most of my career,at least my drinking career.
It was. It was like I was pretty quote
UN quote functional and teachingyoga.
(48:03):
And before that I was in the news business.
Like I always appeared to have it together.
I worked really hard at trying to appear that way.
So I just want to acknowledge that because it doesn't look
like, you know, losing everything for some people, like
some some might say I had a higher bottom.
Eventually it it's progressive, right?
(48:26):
So eventually all of those things would have happened to
me. I would have drunk driving, you
know, gotten in a car accident, maybe hurt somebody and and all
those things. But there's a lot of danger in
seeming to the outside world that you have it all together
and you're just like drowning inthis thing quietly.
It's like the duck. Everything's so good above the
(48:47):
surface, and then your legs are paddling like crazy.
Yeah, justification is a bitch, man.
Like, it's. Yeah, as you're talking there,
I'm not like my dad, right? That's like a huge driving
force. I can totally get with that.
You know what I mean? It's like, at least I'm not that
bad. For me, for a long time, it was,
oh, what was it? Oh, it was, you know, 'cause I
(49:07):
relapsed on ADHD medication, it was like, yeah, but I need this
to, to function. Meanwhile, the seven years I've
thrived in business, like I got promoted at work without any
medication. Now all of a sudden I need this
thing to focus on reports. That's what I told my therapist.
I was like, I need it to focus on reports.
She just laughed. She's like, seriously like that.
You're going to the club with itand then staying up to do work
(49:29):
all night and then watching movies or whatever, and you need
it to read reports. Are you sure?
It's like an addiction. It sounds a lot like like.
Behavior. Exactly.
Yeah. So.
But yeah, those justifications, they, they can be so dangerous
and they can keep us sick for solong, right?
Yeah, absolutely. You, you talked a little bit
about it, but is there anything else that you're working on
personally right now? For my recovery.
(49:51):
Yeah, just, or even just your, your life, really.
Yeah, I mean, the, the biggest growing chapter, I was gonna say
growing pain, but there's been some growing pains in the last
couple of months has been like, OK, I'm, I have, I'm blessed to
have a, a private practice and I'm seeing a lot of people that
(50:13):
way. And like, I want to help more
women that are in recovery. How do I do that or that want to
get into recovery? So I've been branching out a lot
more and focusing on like doing free events for women that are
sober curious. I've like launched this program
that I'm doing this fall for women that are curious about
getting sober or giving up alcohol.
(50:33):
And that's all been very, very aligned and like rewarding
because it's like I just, if I could go back in time and help
myself, I would do these things,you know, like I'm like, here's
some mindfulness tools you can do, here's some community
support. Here's some like it's structure.
It's, it's not a replacement fora 12 step program.
It's part of the whole thing, the whole toolkit, right?
So a lot has come up for me in the creation of these things.
(50:56):
Like it's been so challenging toshow up more in this way, like
talk more about this stuff. Not because I'm ashamed or like
I don't want to talk about my own experience.
It's just like a really vulnerable space to be in.
(51:17):
And you're, you know, even from like a business standpoint,
putting stuff out there and be like, will anyone come?
Like, is this going to work? Am I going to be embarrassed?
So there's been a lot of like, perfectionism that's reared its
head and a lot of fear and imposter syndrome.
Like I've, I've experienced another set of growing pains
that I didn't expect. Like, oh, but I'm a
(51:38):
professional. I have a private practice.
Like, I have a master's degree. Like, yeah.
But you're still an addict in recovery who, you know,
struggles with thought patterns too, you know, So yeah, it's
been really interesting. And I'm really practicing more
and more exactly what you were talking about earlier, which is
(52:00):
like, I'm just going to trust that that's all going to play
out as as it's supposed to. And I really have to step away
from attaching to a specific outcome.
It has to look like this. And it has to have this many
people and it has to have all ofthat stuff is is very
destabilizing for me. So I'm struggling with Instagram
a little. Like, that's a tough game to be.
(52:21):
It's annoying. Yeah, it's really annoying.
There's so many formulas and algorithms and, you know,
sometimes that's why I always comparison is the thief of joy.
And it's like you see somebody that's doing so well on
Instagram, it's like this is this sucks.
Like there's no. There's no.
Value here. Like what are we?
It's not even entertaining, right?
Dude, shut up. But but yeah, and, and also I'm
(52:44):
like, I don't know. We don't know how long that
person has been giving her. You know, it's like exactly what
I was thinking. They might be on.
They might have been trying thisthing for seven years.
Whenever we're comparing ourselves to somebody, it's like
we don't know if they're at the end of that particular journey,
the middle. We don't know what they've had
to sacrifice. So let's just stop doing that to
ourselves. That's so true.
(53:05):
You you compare your beginning to someone else's end, right?
It's like. Wow, I can't do this.
I guess it's impossible. Because they did it overnight.
Yeah, right. Overnight success.
That's how you do it right. Otherwise, you're a failure.
I love it. Let's end with this.
Thanks for being so vulnerable. I I, I really got a lot out of
it today. I appreciate it, but let's end
(53:26):
with this. If you could go back to and say
something to your younger, not even younger you're addicted
self today, what would you say? There's so much.
What did I say? This is what I'm going to just
take a moment and connect to my air power.
(53:50):
I just like it's just one foot in front of the other.
That's what that kind of drops in right now is it feels
impossible because we were at the bottom of the mountain.
We look up and we go, Oh my God,I have so far to go.
My life is such a mess and I have to rebuild everything.
And that's actually what prevents us from doing anything.
(54:11):
So if someone had just come in and said, look, I know this
feels impossible and like you, you're never going to be able to
drink again. That's like not something you
can commit to. It's like just one, it's one day
at a time, right? One foot in front of the other.
Start by telling somebody, but this is a problem for you, start
by putting that drink down. Like it's literally the 12 step
(54:32):
motto, right? But it's that all adds up over
time. And then all of a sudden you're
at the top of the mountain. You're like, my God, that comes
so far. Small steps.
Yeah. But you have to take those
steps. Well said.
Well said. Thanks so much Errol for coming
down. I appreciate you and I look
forward to hopefully doing this again.
Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening.
(54:52):
Please help us grow the channel and like, share and subscribe
for more content. The discussions and stories
shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational
purposes only. This content is not a substitute
for professional medical advice,addiction treatment, or therapy.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction,
please consult A licensed physician, addiction specialist,
(55:14):
or mental health professional. You are no longer alone.
What do you think it did for you?
Yeah, that's a good question. I think first it was a break
from myself, like the constant pressure I put on myself to keep
it together, to be a certain person.
That perfectionism was a real big part of my anxiety and
depression, and it made me feel less uncomfortable in my own
(00:25):
skin. And it felt like this off
switch, like I remember that feeling like I could just flick
a switch and just like not be this version of myself anymore.
And like what a relief like to not have to be in my body and
with my thoughts anymore. It's like something I always
wanted. Hi there, welcome back or
(00:46):
welcome to Recovering Out Loud Podcast, the show where we get
real about mental health and addiction.
I'm so glad you're here. If you or someone you love is
struggling with drugs or alcohol, please reach out for
help. Send me a message on all social
media platforms at Recovering Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at
(01:06):
recoveringoutloudpod@gmail.com. You are no longer alone.
(01:28):
What, like filming yourself? It's like very uncomfortable at
first. Well, I have a journalism
background. So.
I have some training, but beforeI had that, yeah, it was
incredibly nervous. And I still, I still have
moments where I'm like, I don't,I'm just going to write
something today. I don't want to be seen.
I don't want to be perceived online.
Yeah. So do you script out your videos
before you film them or you justfree ball, free freebase
(01:52):
freebase it? I just freebase it.
Yeah. Yeah, I just fucking go for.
It welcome to Recovering out loud.
We talk about crack. I love it.
So you are a you're becoming a psychotherapist or you're
already a psychotherapist. Psychotherapist.
You are. So you're registered psycho.
Fucking cool. Awesome.
Yeah. I love having people on both
(02:13):
sides. You're in recovery and you are
helping other people. That's right through the
recovery. Let's do this.
My wife yelled at me because shesays I don't introduce people
enough. She's like, I don't know who the
fuck I'm listening to. You start talking about their
story and their childhood and they're like, I don't even know
who it is. I'm like, well, if you read the
description of the episode. You don't care about me, it's
your fault. Exactly.
(02:34):
Why don't you introduce yourselfhow you came into recovery?
And yeah, let's start with that,OK?
Yeah, I'm Errol McCaffrey and I've been sober for three years,
just a little over three years, tried many times.
This time seems to be sticking one day at a time.
I'm also a psychotherapist. I work with people in recovery
(02:56):
primarily. It wasn't my intention, but
that's those are the people thatcome to me, people that are
looking to get sober and they have relationship challenges.
So yeah, that's kind of my jam right now.
I'm working a lot with women that are craving sobriety.
So that's like kind of the nicheI'm finding myself in, but.
Yeah, and how do they find you? Instagram, Yeah.
It's a great it's a great gateway funnel.
(03:22):
I'm trying to do that too. Working with addicts is so hard
though. Like we never show up.
You know what I mean, though? It's it's, it's funny, like I
every time I get like upset withsomebody because of whatever
they are so rearing to get soberand then they, you know,
disappear for a bit. I have to remind myself I'm
like, dude, that was you like somany times, right?
(03:44):
And I work at a rehab now where I get people into rehab and it's
frustrating sometimes because you know, that they could be on
the path of healing the better life.
And like I'm dealing with this one guy.
And I thought back to the last time I went into rehab.
It took me probably two months before I like signed up before I
actually got into the bed, right.
(04:05):
So it's like. Yeah, it's so hard.
That's something that I'm working with constantly with
people is their resistance and resistance even like getting on
a call to talk about it. Like it takes so much courage
for somebody to go, OK, I have aproblem.
I want to do something about it.And I can be in frustration at
moments for sure. Like I just, I know you could do
(04:27):
it. I see this, you know, better
future for you. And just like you, I know
exactly what it's like to want something better for yourself.
But you're stuck somewhere and you're not done yet.
You haven't felt enough pain yet.
You're not desperate enough yet.That's the big one.
So who am I to say that you're ready if you're not?
Yeah, I might be holding you back from another bottom, right?
(04:48):
Yeah, that's the big one, right?Being ready, willing and ready.
And everybody's different, right?
Like, we have a lot more suffering to go almost all the
time if we're still alive, right?
You know, rock bottoms when you stop digging.
So, but yeah, it's like who? I like that.
Who am I to say that you're done, You might not be done.
You know, there's some more experiments to do.
(05:09):
As I always say, some more research to do.
More controlled drinking. Yeah, yeah, try some more
controlled drinking. How did you?
So can you walk us through your childhood and maybe how you
found alcohol and what it did for you?
Yeah, so alcohol's a big part ofmy, my family story addiction
(05:31):
was it's really present in my family, like Alcoholics going
back and, you know, through the family lines for generations and
grew up with a dad who was in active addiction for basically
my whole life. He he got sober once or twice
for brief periods of time, but he, he really struggled with
(05:54):
alcoholism and mental illness. So I grew up watching that and
you know, my mom was in and still is in Al Anon.
So she's got a really good program and early on was able to
explain to my sisters and I likethis is a sick person.
This is a disease, You know, it's it's not you, it's not your
fault. And that helped a lot.
(06:14):
I'm incredibly grateful for that.
And at the same time, it doesn'tundo the trauma of watching
somebody you love hurt themselves constantly and not be
there for you, not show up for you in the way that you need
them to. So that was my introduction to
alcohol and childhood. And my dad passed away when I
(06:36):
was 18. Was it 18?
Yeah. So he had, I'm going serious,
deep dark right away. But he he had, he got a cancer
that was, the doctor said causedby his drinking.
And it was fatal. And he drank till the end.
So that was like the type of alcoholic I saw growing up.
(06:59):
And I was like, well, I'm just never going to be an alcoholic.
I'm never going to have any issues with it.
So my first addiction was like perfectionism, high achieving,
really focused on school. Then I got addicted to body
image and food stuff. Big part of my story, always
trying to find a way to fix myself.
(07:21):
I didn't come into my own drinking until after my dad
died. So I wasn't, I didn't wasn't a
big drinker in high school. It was like, I think he, he
started getting sick and then then I was experimenting with it
a bit. And then as soon as he died, I
just went for it. And I dropped out of university.
(07:41):
I had the scholarship. I was like the golden child, you
know, trying to live up to that.And I just couldn't do it.
So I took a year off school and worked at a bar like a good
alcoholic. Yeah, I was like.
Let me just do some training. I just want to get better at
this thing. So a perfect place to, you know,
(08:05):
learn how to drink. And that was.
Yeah, I, I think that was reallythe beginning of it for me.
And it just like I, I don't evenknow where to stop talking about
this because it just went on forever.
It just went on forever. And it got worse and worse.
And it was tricky in university because it seemed it was normal,
quote UN quote normal to binge drink.
So it only really became clear to me that it was a problem when
(08:27):
I got out of university. I graduated and I was like, oh,
not everybody's drinking like that anymore, but I don't want
to stop. What do you think it did for
you? Yeah, that's a good question.
I think first it was a break from myself, like the constant
(08:50):
pressure I put on myself to keepit together, to be a certain
person. That perfectionism was a real
big part of my anxiety and depression, and it made me feel
less uncomfortable in my own skin.
(09:11):
And it felt like this off switch.
Like I remember that feeling like I could just flick a switch
and just like not be this version of myself anymore.
And like, what a relief like to not have to be in my body and
with my thoughts anymore. It's like something I always
wanted. That's the big word too.
Is is relief, right? Like this volume knob on my head
(09:35):
and it works until it doesn't, right?
It's like I was reading in one of the just for today's the
other day. It was beautiful.
It said, you know, alcohol and drugs for me mainly drugs
allowed me to be who I wanted when I wanted and feel what I
wanted when I wanted until it ituntil it controlled me, right.
(09:57):
Like you get to a point where itstops kind of achieving that
goal. And then the more you do, the
worse it gets to your, your, thethoughts get worse and louder.
And then the volume goes to like14, right?
And then you get that relief from maybe like for in my case,
like a few minutes at a time. And then you just chase that
(10:18):
until the gates of hell. It's it's insanity.
Like I spent so much of my life trying to like thinking I was
going to feel a certain way whenI would drink and it would just
like the feeling never came. It was, it's just this really
weird, insane behavior to be like, and this time it's going
to work and it never works. It just ends up near the end.
(10:39):
At least I could not escape my my awareness of my problem or my
thoughts, no matter how much I drank.
I drank, right? So it's just like it it.
It works for a little bit and then it becomes its own problem.
Yeah, I love the the three phases.
It's like fun, fun with problemsand then just problems after,
right? As you're talking there, I'm
(11:00):
thinking about the hand on the stove metaphor in one of the
recovery literatures where it's like, this time it's not going
to burn me, right? Maybe if I come at it from this
angle, right, it won't burn me the same.
And it's like every time, just fuck.
Ow ow ow. Yeah, why can't I stop doing
this? So that leads me into my next
question. How did you was it?
What was the moment where you were like this time?
(11:24):
I you know, I've had enough. This is I can't do this anymore.
I had a couple of moments. I had a couple of bottoms.
I think one of the first ones was, I think it was 2017.
It was like, yeah, it would havebeen before the pandemic.
I had gone through like a breakup of 10 years.
(11:44):
I was living, I had roommates that I didn't really know, but I
was living on my own essentiallyfor the first time.
And I started adding other substances to the picture.
And then I was not only drinking, but I was going out
into after hours clubs and like,you know, leaving 7:00 AM or
9:00 AM the next day. And like just it just it got
(12:08):
darker really fast. And I was doing more high risk
stuff and really afraid of like what I was capable of doing and
like, yeah, just afraid. I was like, I'm going to die, I
think probably. And all the while trying to hold
down my job as a yoga teacher. So think about that split
personality like mindfulness, Wellness, go on there.
(12:32):
Body's a temple. Doing some lines in the
bathroom. Namaste.
Just like, you know, just, it was just, it got crazy.
I had a seizure at one point staying up really late.
So it was just like, OK, I, I think I'm going to die.
So I think I should do something.
And at that point I took myself to treatment, to rehab.
I I reached out to a women's rehab and started doing some
(12:58):
outpatient work. Went to rehab for a month and it
was amazing. The, the like the Type A and me
was like, perfect. Give me structure.
I will be the best sober person you've ever met.
I'll be the star. Yeah.
I'm going to get a plus in rehab.
I'll be the. Star going it back in the floor.
I'll do it perfectly. And so I was like there that,
(13:19):
you know, I really wanted to want to get sober for real.
I wasn't ready. I kind of knew it too.
I was like, this is a nice breakfor me and came out within three
months, I was back out and then I didn't get sober again for
five years, which is where I am now.
(13:39):
This time around, it was very different.
It was like I was no longer using other substances.
It was just drinking. I was in a relationship that was
with the person that was very wealthy and had access to a lot
of things. And so now my drinking looked
more refined and classy, you know, fancy wines.
I was like, OK, this is acceptable now.
(14:02):
And that actually overtime felt more dangerous.
I'm like, oh, I could do this forever.
Like black out every once in a while PO when someone's really
expensive carpet, but like, whatever, they'll forgive me.
They probably do it too. And so that that was a it got
worse in the pandemic for me. It was a slow, I just can't
explain it other than like another moment of I'm going to
(14:24):
die this way. I can't live like this.
This thing owns me. So that time I just, I had like
a RIP roaring night. I was blackout drunk the next
day. It was in August 3 years ago.
I was like, I can't do this anymore.
I can't explain it to you. It just was that not like, I
(14:47):
want to say this, but I meant it.
It's like I literally am so exhausted of fighting this thing
and pretending it's not a problem after I know I've been
to treatment for this thing and I'm like, it's OK, actually.
I can drink normally now. It's like, what the fuck?
So it was, yeah, it was a it wasa, a really a spiritual moment.
Like, I remember that night crying in the shower, just being
(15:10):
like, I can't, I literally can'tdo this anymore.
And the relief of that. And then my world fell apart for
a little bit. And there was another breakup
and I moved back home with mom. And.
But there was this fire at me. And I was like, yes, this is
supposed to happen. I need, I need to rise from the
ashes. And it was like I needed to be
(15:34):
so desperate and ready to start over.
Yeah. That with that partner that you
had was did he start start to notice like things and were you
hiding it like how did what did that look like?
There was a lot of like drinkingtogether.
I always took it a step further and it was kind of like I had
(15:58):
really controlled the narrative.So I have been to treatment.
But again, like it's fine, you don't have to worry about me.
And I did. I did a pretty good job of like
managing it for a while, but every now and then I would just
get wasted like black out drunk and he'd be upset with me and
embarrassed of what I did or satin public.
(16:19):
And there were some conversations about that.
But it really I didn't get an ultimatum.
Like there was no, you need to stop doing this or else it
really came from me. And and then it was a
conversation around, well, I don't want my lifestyle to
(16:41):
change. And I was like, I get it, but I
have to do this. So you can keep doing your thing
and living the way that you're living.
But I can't be around alcohol anymore in this way.
Yeah. Did you go back to to treatment
again or you just? I I invested in a in a a like
(17:02):
found a Home group, actually gave it a go.
Yeah, yeah, I, I think about this question a lot because I
post a lot of stuff about how toget sober and sometimes I make
it seem to, I mean, at least in my mind, too simple.
But it, it really is simple, right?
Like, because I always, I alwaystry to think about the people
(17:23):
that don't do 12 step, right. My experience with 12 step, it
still is. I have to because it just, I
just like it and I've tried a lot of other things and it it
just works for me. But there's a lot a large group
of people out there that are very 12 step defiant and, you
know, maybe even toward the hateside of things, whether it be
(17:46):
the God argument, which if you're arguing about the God
thing, that just tells me you haven't, you haven't done enough
work in the program to realize that it's not about religion at
all, right? And people usually hate things
they don't understand, right? I've, I've come to to realize,
but it's like, so you put that aside.
How does one get sober? Right?
I've been thinking about it a lot.
(18:07):
And I mean, if you were to ask me that right now, like my
simple, simple answer is I foundsomeone that was sober a decent
amount of time that seemed happyevery time I saw them had that,
you know, forget the things right?
The, the, a lot of them, the people, they do get the things
right, the car, the job, the, the relationship.
(18:30):
You put that aside and just takethat all away and it's just that
like that smile on their face, that joy, that sparkle in the
eye that you, I can see it in your eye now, right?
And every time I sit down with people, I always notice it.
It's funny like because for a long time that sparkle was gone
in my eye. And I remember seeing the the
alumni come into my treatment center this last time, the first
thing I noticed every single time was just like, fuck, man,
(18:52):
like what that guy has somethinglike, what is that right?
Just curiosity like, and this time I knew what it was, right?
But yeah, for me, it's like I found someone that that was more
sober and I fucking asked them what they did and then I did it.
It's really three simple steps. But if you don't go to 12 step,
I don't know like what do you get people that are against the
(19:13):
12 step and what do you like some of your clients?
Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, like
12 step programs are wonderful. They're not for everybody for a
variety of reasons. I've always been somebody that's
like quite curious and I'm goingto take what Lance and kind of
like not pick apart anything else.
(19:33):
But when it comes to working with people, there's a lot of
resistance to 12 step programs because I think it's called T or
super religious and they've seenlike movies or shows, you know,
that have those scenes in it andthey think this is like totally
not for me. So there's a lot of resistance
(19:55):
to it. When people go and they come
back, they always report like, yeah, it was a bit awkward.
And I don't really like that they use that God word.
But I also felt really supportedand less ashamed.
I'm like, great. So do you want to feel more like
that? Maybe we should keep, maybe we
should keep going. Yeah, either way.
(20:16):
Take away what the program or the resource is, I know for sure
we all need community in recovery.
We all need spaces where we can tell the truth, and we need some
kind of connection to something bigger than ourselves.
Yeah, and, and that can be anything, right?
It could be a group of people. It could be a great outdoors.
Like I love, you know, I love hearing that said group of
(20:37):
drunks, great outdoors, good orderly direction, right?
Just living according to spiritual principles.
Honesty, the biggest one by far.I, I can sit here and honestly
tell you every single time I relapsed, number one was not
being practiced some level of deception, lies to myself and
other people, right? I had this sort of secret that I
(20:58):
shared about and and I wasn't telling people the full truth,
right? So it was such a slippery slope.
Yeah, it starts with one lie andthen it caroms into something
completely different. You know, I'm interested in the
body image thing because I struggle with that too.
(21:19):
How did you come to a place where that was more manageable,
would you say? I like that question.
Not like, how did you heal from it?
It's like it's ongoing. I have such a different
relationship to my body today. Like so much more compassion and
gratitude like the older I get. I'm 36 now.
I'll be 37 next birthday and it's like I'm like, yeah, this
(21:42):
body's amazing. It's been through some shit, you
know, Like I'm still alive. My liver.
'S still there, my heart's stillbeating, so I have such a
positive relationship with it. Most of the time I still
struggle with body image and things like that.
What did I do to get more to make more peace with my body?
(22:04):
A lot of therapy, a lot of trauma recovery work really
because of, you know, early childhood experiences that that
made me want to separate from mybody.
So exploring why, why that feelsso good for me to dissociate.
Why does it feel so good for me to be out of my body?
(22:26):
How can I learn to come back into my body?
That's been like an indirect wayof healing that relationship
because it's not about like, howdo I feel good in my clothes or
how do I change my shape or whatI'm eating.
It's like, how do I feel at homein myself?
So that other stuff doesn't really matter as much.
So a lot of therapy, yoga is bigfor me, you know, as a practice
(22:50):
that like allows me to be reallymindful and grateful.
And I also like maybe want to have kids one day and I do not
want to pass this on. So I want to like change the way
that I'm talking about these things, the narrative I have in
my head and what I say out loud because I know that can be
internalized if I'm talking thisway about my body, That's what
(23:13):
they hear and they think that's normal.
You should hate your body too. So I know that's like kind of a
all over the place answer, but sobriety has been huge for
working through a lot of that stuff too, because I just, it
(23:34):
doesn't matter to me as much as it did before.
I'm so much more connected to mypurpose, you know, and to my
higher power and to other people.
Like even if I have a bad body image day or some thoughts that
aren't helpful like it doesn't hold as much weight as it used
to. Yeah, I can relate to that
(23:54):
totally. The thoughts still come up,
right. For me, it's like you ate too
much last night, You're getting fat.
You didn't go to the gym as muchas you used to, right?
And they, yeah, they don't take up that much bandwidth, mental
bandwidth in my head, where it'slike when they come up, they're
more fleeting than they were before.
(24:15):
But yeah, it it took some work in recovery and being sober.
And I think the biggest thing for me was just like you said,
sharing about it, right? Because it just seems so much
more like it loses its power. But it just, it sounds so stupid
to say out loud, but, and that'sa good thing for me at least
where it's like one, you're not fat, right?
(24:38):
To like it. It it doesn't.
Yeah, it doesn't matter because you can't, you can't change it
right now anyways, right. So I mean, this idea of like
just being grateful and that I can even walk, right.
And that, yeah, to your point, like, I went to the hospital
when I was in rehab because I thought I was having a heart
attack. It was sitting down in one of
the classes and I felt this pressure on my chest for like an
(25:02):
hour straight. And I went to the hospital and
I'll never forget this in the the ambulance.
I, the thoughts were going through my mind.
I pictured my future, my wife was helping me up the stairs,
like all these things. I was like, I fucked up my heart
now, like, because of all the cocaine I've done.
And they did the ECG, they did everything, and it ended up
being fine, right? It ended up all working out and
I just had some sort of panic attack or something.
(25:23):
But like, I think that was a moment that I needed to have
where it was like, yeah, dude, like this could be a lot worse,
right? Your lungs are OK.
The amount of cigarettes you smoked, you know, your heart is
OK. And but that's not permanent,
right? If you go back out there.
Yeah. To what you said like I'm not
going to make it, you know? There's, there's, there's so
(25:43):
much to gratitude. And it sounds flowery as like
something you can practice if you want to heal some of these
wounds. It's huge.
And there's also something to checking in with yourself when
you, when we're having these thoughts and we're like sliding
back into those old sort of patterns to recognize that it's
(26:04):
also an addictive thought loop. It's also an addiction, like
body image, eating disorders, all that stuff is compulsive.
It's like a mental illness, you know, So not to put a heavy
label on it, just to acknowledge, oh, I'm in my
addiction. And when I'm, when I'm in any
kind of addictive behavior, I'm reaching out to soothe myself in
(26:26):
some way. So like, what is happening
inside of me right now that it feels better to obsess about
food than to sit Like, what am Iactually experiencing?
Oh, I'm really anxious about this thing coming up.
I'm going to try to deal with ananxiety through restricting what
I eat, working out a little bit more, you know, so it's like
there's an emotional component to all of the addictive
(26:48):
behaviors and thoughts that we have.
And it's like what's happening right now?
Yeah, and it it's so much harderto just sit with it, right.
I think there's a big differencetoo between sitting in it and
sitting with it. Or it's like acknowledging, like
you said, I like the the rain practice.
I don't know. Yeah, I'm going to screw it up,
but recognize, acknowledge, allow, recognize, allow.
(27:08):
How about you? Just investigate.
Investigate and nurture, right? So you're recognizing the
thought. You're allowing it to come in
and not, you know, push it out with food or whatever.
Whatever said addiction is, you're investigating.
What's this about? Why am I doing this?
And then you're nurturing. For me, nurturing.
Sometimes it's like actually, you know, just kind of feeling
(27:29):
my body and hugging myself. And then other times, it's one
of my favorite things to do is just like, you're doing that
thing again, buddy. Like just, you know, just laugh
at it, right? Like Anthony, you're doing that
thing again. You're trying to escape pain.
You know, this is what you do, right?
I'm interested in the dissociation thing.
(27:49):
Is that Is that what you mean bydissociation from your body?
Like looking for outside things?I mean, there's, there's a
disconnect that can happen when we're looking for outside
things. I think dissociation, the way
that I'm, I mean, it is like literally leaving my body.
Like I first started doing that when I was a kid.
You know, people say like I was,I had an out of body experience.
(28:09):
So I mean not disconnecting for myself.
I mean literally not feeling like I'm in my body.
I'm watching my body, I'm watching myself.
And I, I had those experiences early on 'cause I used to get
panic attacks as a kid. So I'd be like, nothing's real.
I'm not here and I didn't understand at the time, but it
it was actually a coping mechanism.
(28:31):
It's like I didn't feel comfortable and safe in the
present moment. So it felt a lot better to just
be. I'm out now.
I'm like living in fantasyland. I'm not in touch with what's
happening in my body. And when we drink or when we get
to a certain level of intoxication, we dissociate.
I don't know what's happening inmy feet, what's going on in my
gut. I'm not connected to my heart.
(28:52):
I'm completely flooded and checked out.
So it's like a disconnection from the present moment, a
disconnection from your body, and it can feel great when you
don't want to be in reality. Yeah, interesting.
Yeah, I, I don't, I think maybe a lot of us do that and don't
even realize we're doing it. Oh, yeah.
As as you're talking about it, I'm just picturing like floating
(29:14):
up above my body. But it's not that dramatic.
Yeah, you might not feel like. Yeah, you talked a little bit
about spirituality. Do you wanna?
Can you describe maybe a little bit more what faith and
spirituality means to you and why it's important to stay
sober, why it's important for your recovery?
(29:35):
I think I'm not, I'm not a religious person, so I don't go
to church. I mean, 12 step is as close to
church as I go. But I've always had this like
little feeling in my soul that there's something greater at
work here. Like I'm supposed to do
something with my life. And there's a reason that all
(29:56):
we, we all exist and that we're in each other's lives.
Like a feeling of being part of something, which was hard, which
was a hard feeling to connect towhen I was in my active
addiction because I felt very isolated, like very lone.
I was separated from what I believe is like source.
I was really in my own pain, separated from other people, in
(30:18):
my shame, not part of any community.
So I, I just believe, I just believe that addiction is a,
it's an emotional problem. You know, there's emotional,
mental, physical components to it, but primarily it's a
(30:39):
spiritual problem. It's like I I don't have a
purpose. I don't know why I'm here.
I'm empty inside. Nothing I do or consume is
enough to make me feel OK. And no thing can fill that void.
No amount of food, booze, drugs,money, love, sex, it is never
(31:02):
enough. The only way that I've ever been
able to feel whole or fill that void is through a connection to
a higher power. And that feels like I have a
friend up there that I just talked to you everyday.
I'm like, what should I do today?
Put me in the right place, make me useful.
And so I feel led and like life is magical 'cause it all just
(31:25):
feels like purposeful. And how do you move through
something like addiction withoutsomething that powerful?
I don't know. Yeah.
Yeah, you can't in my experience.
Right. Yeah.
I, I mean, it's comforting just listening to you talk about it
because everyone describes it a little bit differently, but it's
(31:46):
like the same, same principle oflike, I don't know the answer.
I don't need to know the answer,but I trust that somebody,
something has the best intentionfor me at the end of the day,
right. And it it makes trauma, it makes
resistance, it makes horrible situations seem like they they
(32:09):
need to be there almost. And and there's a purpose for
it. I don't understand it yet.
But that's because I'm in the middle of the story, right?
I'm not. Every story has a beginning,
middle and end. And I'm in the middle right now.
And although it feels like everyone's against me and the
nothing's going my way and my financial problems are still
kicking from all the stupid hotels that I stayed at, right?
(32:30):
Yeah, there's a reason. Because I need to learn this
lesson, because down the road I'm going to be better with my
money, right? 100% like we, we are constantly
humbled and if we're walking a spiritual path, we can see that
and we don't have to be happy about that, but we can go right.
There's a reason that I'm learning this lesson again,
(32:51):
thank you. If we don't have any
spirituality can feel, we can feel very victimized by the
world and like nihilistic almostlike what is the point?
Everything's just suffering. And it's like the longer, in my
experience, the longer I live, the more I see the purpose of
everything that I've experienced.
Like I should have died so many times.
I want. I wanted to die.
(33:12):
I was in situations where I could have died and I didn't.
And like, since I got sober, I've been able to help so many
people. That's not a coincidence.
Like, I was kept alive to do something.
That's my that's my thought around it.
Yeah. I know I agree.
I agree. We have a unique purpose, right?
And somewhere in the the literature it says something
about all those all those drunkswill all those like you know,
(33:36):
those drinking experience and escapades and terrible times
will serve purpose to help someone else.
One right everything nothing happens in God's world by
mistake. That's.
My favorite line. Yeah, it's true.
There's a purpose for everythingright now.
So what is your favorite modality of therapy against
(33:56):
addiction? CBTDBT?
Like what do you think is the most effective for us addicts to
to practice I guess? Well, there's not one approach
that I lean on. Well, I, I guess I will say
across the board, something I dowith every client that's
experiencing addiction is calledmotivational interviewing.
(34:19):
Have you heard that term? Am I so for people that don't
know, it's helping somebody connect to their intrinsic,
their internal desire to get sober or recover because it's
not no one's ever going to move forward just because people are
telling them, hey, you should really quit like I or even
giving you ultimatums, I really need you to quit otherwise I'm
going to leave, blah blah, blah,blah, blah.
(34:41):
That's not what what's been proven to help somebody create
long lasting behavioral change that only happens when the
person inside themselves sees the costs of their behavior,
sees the potential benefits of change and they go for it.
They're motivated. So motivational interviewing is
like, yeah, tell me about what you've lost because of your
(35:04):
addiction. What will you continue to lose?
What would you have to gain if you got sober?
You start to build awareness around it.
You're not saying like, look at all this shit you're creating
for yourself. You're allowing them to identify
why, why this matters. So that's something I do with
every person. But then when it comes to, you
(35:24):
know, other interventions, it really depends on where they're
at in their recovery process. Like can they be in their body
at all? Or are they still using so much
that they don't have the capacity to do something like
mindfulness that might help helpthem like learn some new coping
skills? You know, I always want to bring
(35:45):
that in. It really depends on the person,
but I don't rely on CBTDBT like as a across the board kind of
intervention. It really depends on the person.
Yeah, but I mean, yeah, it's like I remember when I went to
my first rehab, I've been to three.
I went to my first one and they had us do this activity where we
had to write out the cost of ouraddiction, like the literal
(36:06):
cost. And I'd.
I'd never, you know, you talked about dropping out of school.
I did that three or four times in addiction.
I never equated. I never connected the dots.
Even though I knew my life was amess, I didn't.
Yeah, you that's because you were smoking weed every night,
right? And doing coke on the weekends
and it wasn't, you know, how is how's I I never understand when
(36:29):
people finish school through their drinking careers.
Like I never it blows my mind. It's like you hear someone get
up and they're like, yeah, I gota PhD while I was drinking every
night. It's like what?
Like, holy fuck. You know, I wasn't able to show
up at all. Right.
So that was a cool exercise to, to kind of go through because
it's like, you don't just, you know, you think about when, when
I ask someone, you know, what's the cost of your addiction?
(36:50):
It's like, well, you know, bars.So I spend some money at the
bars and this and that. What about the the lawyer fees
and the crashed cars and the carrepairs, The insurance premiums
going up? Right.
And also like the cost of there's all of that that's kind
of almost easier to quantify because you can put a number on
it, you can tally it up, But like the cost of watching your
(37:12):
future slip away from you, Something that I, I was
cognizant of a lot near the end was like, I'm just like not
going to be the person I want tobe ever.
Like how awful is it to know every day that I'm standing in
my own way? Like I'm actively preventing
that from happening? Like that's there's so much
shame there. There's so much shame and
(37:33):
frustration. It's like, that's a huge cost.
I can't be happy if I do this. I literally just won't have a
good life. Great.
Yeah, that should be enough, right?
But it's not. Yeah.
No, no, it's not. It's.
Not because it's easier sometimes to just easier softer
way is to just do this line and move on with my day.
Yeah, I'll start tomorrow. I'll.
Start tomorrow. Yeah, Yeah.
(37:53):
Monday is day one. Potential is the word I'm
thinking of when you're talking about happiness, right?
It's like this functional alcoholic.
Drives me crazy, that term. What could you be doing?
Could you be the Prime Minister of Canada?
You don't know because you're you know what I mean.
Could you discover like a cure for cancer?
Probably. You don't know, right?
(38:15):
Because what is, you know, I'm showing up to work everyday, OK,
but are you there? What's happening when you go
into work? Right, 'cause I remember when I
was going to work, even if I wasn't actively hired drunk at
work, which a lot of time I was,you know, the the latter people,
you know, you're hungover and you're not living up to your
potential, right? And people notice that stuff,
(38:36):
I'm starting to realize. Oh yeah.
You know, we think we're hiding it from everybody.
Oh yeah, You know, what are yoursort of, what are your daily
essentials for recovery? Prayer and meditation every
morning. It's very rare that I miss that.
And it's not like I have to do this or I'll relapse, but it
(38:59):
brings me so much peace. I'll meditate for like 5
minutes. I do some prayer, you know,
suggested by the big book. I'll do some prayer around that.
Essentially, I'm, I'm meditating, I'm clearing my mind
and then I'm praying to my higher power and saying just
make me useful. Like remove all the things
inside of me that prevent me from being useful to other
people, like my fear and my resentments and my impatience.
(39:22):
Like can you just remove those things so I can be useful to
you? And then I and then I asked for
knowledge. What's your will for me today?
And I try to listen and sometimes I'll hear things like
slow down, like I'll actually hear words or I'll get an image
of something of me like standingin the grass.
Like, OK, this is how I can be more useful today.
(39:43):
I can be present, you know, so Ihave a conversation with my
higher power in the morning and and then, you know, it's like
going to meetings. I don't go to a meeting every
day, but I go every week. I do my own therapy.
I have to do something physical every day.
I get to do something physical every day.
(40:05):
Like these are just things I've learned about myself.
It's like I'm not well if I don't move my body, it's not
like intense workout, but if I don't go for a walk or I don't
lift some weights or do some yoga, I'm more likely to fall
into depression, anxiety, thingslike that.
So. Exercise my all the things like
unfortunately that people tell you to do, they actually work
(40:26):
like things we don't want to do,like meditate, pray, feel
grateful exercise. There's probably other things
I'm not thinking of, but there'sa.
There's a reason, though, that everyone constantly says it
right, because it works. The conversation in the morning
is interesting that you know, asof late as you're talking there,
I'm thinking about I've I've hadthis attachment to outcomes
(40:49):
lately. That was, that's been my real
issue lately, whether it's podcast followers, Instagram
followers, this expected result expectation, right, always leads
to resentment. And you know, I was sitting in
my shed like for multiple days at a time.
And so I would wake up in the morning and I still do this
where I, I pray too, but I also journal out like 3 or 4 pages of
(41:11):
just free writing. And every single morning I, I
just for like a two weeks straight, I would ask, I would
just say like, help me remove this expectation, these
expectations. And it I'm telling you, like it
actually worked it. I look at social media less now.
I'm not perfect, right, but I look at it less and I stop
expecting things like whatever Ido, I'm not in control of the
(41:32):
outcome, right? It's, you know, it's very clear
to do. I always preach this, but preach
is the wrong word. I always say this, do the next
right thing and leave the outcomes up to the universe.
It's not up to me. Oh.
My God, that's such a that's something I'm working through
too. It's, I spin out so quickly when
I start doing something and I expect immediate results and I
expect a specific kind of result.
(41:54):
And then it's about me. And it's actually not about the
thing, you know what I mean? Like I'm, it's not, it's no no
longer about being useful and being helpful and, and all of
that. It's like me, I need to be
validated, you know, and affirmed and all of these
things. And it's, yeah, that's such a
good practice, too. I forget to ask for those things
sometimes, like as they pop up during the day to be removed,
(42:15):
like I'm obsessing about this thing.
Could you just take it away fromme?
I heard a speaker tape one time,he said.
You know, he thinks about those things like going into a movie
and, you know, not actually going into a movie, but you have
this sort of thing that you won't let go of your holding
onto. And it's like, I'm going to go
into this movie for two hours. Hold on to this.
I'm looking up as I say this. Hold on to this while I go watch
(42:38):
this movie. And it's like, you can do that
with anything you need to let goof, right?
Yeah. Hold on to this.
I'll. I'll check with you when I'm
back, right? It's not up to me.
Yeah, that's a that's a very difficult thing, I think for
most people, but for addicts especially that want to like use
is about having control. I want to feel a different way.
I want the world to meet my expectations.
(43:01):
I don't want to, you know, meet life on life's terms.
So it's a constant journey to surrender to like, I'm just
going to show up and see what happens.
Yeah, it's a lot harder to do that right.
Oh yeah. I like asking this question but
I I get a similar answer every time but it's always something a
little bit different. But if you could go back and
(43:23):
change your path to pick the sort of normal drinker route,
non addict route, would you do it?
No. That's it, No.
Would I? Stupid question.
Would I really. Yeah.
God, that's so dumb. Would I?
Would I redo it? Apps.
No. But would I change it?
No. No.
(43:43):
Like I love my life today. Like I would not be such a cool
person had I not gone through all of that shit.
Like so grateful for it. Yeah, Truth.
Yeah, there's something that happens when you hit a sort of
rock bottom where you're like, Icould, if I could get through.
I always just tell my wife this,too, is 'cause she watched me at
(44:06):
the peak of my recovery at the eight years and this, like,
amazingly humble spiritual person just fall like, Wade from
the mountain top. And then she met, you know,
Hyde, Jekyll. Doctor Jekyll.
Doctor Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, she metMr. Hyde, right?
And like when I say miss, like she saw addiction 360 the full
(44:29):
front row seat right? And she stuck with me through it
the whole time. I don't know how, but I I think
she well she'll she'll say this is that she hung on to that like
that hope of like this is what he could be like, right?
This is this is him really. This is, you know, I met the
real Anthony. So but yeah, it's like it's it's
(44:50):
tough to sort of watch someone go through that.
And I mean, you have good experience with that too, right?
Where it's like, I don't know ifthey're ever gonna come out of
this. And and sometimes I too, I
think, you know, marrying, marrying an addict is must be a
difficult thing to do. You know, it's like, especially
when you know what could happen it it's beautiful when you get
you hear the people that my kidshave never seen me drink and
(45:12):
it's great. But it's like if they've seen
both sides, that guy is like, not that far away, right?
I mean, today he's far away. But, you know, I don't know.
All it takes is 1 drink. Yeah.
So there's it's like you're either you're either working on
relapse or you're working on recovery, which sounds a bit
(45:32):
severe, but it's actually true. Like if I'm not actively
everyday doing at least one thing to support my recovery, I
am way closer than I think to picking back up.
That's that's why I'm grateful when I have one of those
drinking dreams, which comes every once in a like it's like
clockwork every three months forthe last three years.
There's periods of time where I have them more, but I wake up
(45:53):
and I'm like, right, right, right.
I never want to drink again. Thank God that didn't happen.
You know, that reminds me how easy it is to go back into it.
And so, yeah, if you're if you're linking up with somebody
that's in recovery, just make sure they got a program of some
kind, OK? Strap in.
Yeah, Yeah. Sure you have an an escape
(46:15):
route. Yeah.
Yeah, a prenup, Yeah. Exactly.
Yeah, Yeah. Speaking of prenups, actually, I
don't know if you saw that Nicole Kidman prenup.
Yeah, no one knows about this. My wife told me about it,
probably from TikTok. Nicole Kidman designed her
prenup with Keith Urban. I think who's in recovery in the
in the fine print or whatever. In the actual document, it says
(46:37):
for every year that he stayed sober, he gets $1,000,000 in the
in the prenup. So he's got like $17 million or
$11 million. That's great.
I. Know I was like I gotta make a
video about this. That's a great idea for anybody
that wants to. Sign up anyone that's got
millions of dollars. That's the way you motivate.
Them, you know, right? Imagine getting paid to be
(46:57):
sober. Yeah.
Even then, that would not be enough unless you really wanted.
It it's so true, but it would help.
Yeah, but I mean it now this would be, I always said this the
the most dangerous thing is an addict alcoholic with an
unlimited bank account. Right.
Because I mean, you kind of had that right for a bit.
Or it's like I everything on theoutside is good.
(47:19):
Why would I get sober? It has to come from within.
You have to have that pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.
Yeah, yeah. It's really, I mean, a big part
of my story is like, I mean, this is probably not totally
true, but the way that I saw it was no one knew that I had a
problem. Like I was really.
(47:40):
I wasn't like my dad. I wasn't, you know, drunk
driving or getting arrested, like I wasn't, you know, or
getting in trouble with the law.I'm like, did he get arrested?
I don't know. Anyways, I wasn't that kind of
alcoholic for most of my career,at least my drinking career.
It was. It was like I was pretty quote
UN quote functional and teachingyoga.
(48:03):
And before that I was in the news business.
Like I always appeared to have it together.
I worked really hard at trying to appear that way.
So I just want to acknowledge that because it doesn't look
like, you know, losing everything for some people, like
some some might say I had a higher bottom.
Eventually it it's progressive, right?
(48:26):
So eventually all of those things would have happened to
me. I would have drunk driving, you
know, gotten in a car accident, maybe hurt somebody and and all
those things. But there's a lot of danger in
seeming to the outside world that you have it all together
and you're just like drowning inthis thing quietly.
It's like the duck. Everything's so good above the
(48:47):
surface, and then your legs are paddling like crazy.
Yeah, justification is a bitch, man.
Like, it's. Yeah, as you're talking there,
I'm not like my dad, right? That's like a huge driving
force. I can totally get with that.
You know what I mean? It's like, at least I'm not that
bad. For me, for a long time, it was,
oh, what was it? Oh, it was, you know, 'cause I
(49:07):
relapsed on ADHD medication, it was like, yeah, but I need this
to, to function. Meanwhile, the seven years I've
thrived in business, like I got promoted at work without any
medication. Now all of a sudden I need this
thing to focus on reports. That's what I told my therapist.
I was like, I need it to focus on reports.
She just laughed. She's like, seriously like that.
You're going to the club with itand then staying up to do work
(49:29):
all night and then watching movies or whatever, and you need
it to read reports. Are you sure?
It's like an addiction. It sounds a lot like like.
Behavior. Exactly.
Yeah. So.
But yeah, those justifications, they, they can be so dangerous
and they can keep us sick for solong, right?
Yeah, absolutely. You, you talked a little bit
about it, but is there anything else that you're working on
personally right now? For my recovery.
(49:51):
Yeah, just, or even just your, your life, really.
Yeah, I mean, the, the biggest growing chapter, I was gonna say
growing pain, but there's been some growing pains in the last
couple of months has been like, OK, I'm, I have, I'm blessed to
have a, a private practice and I'm seeing a lot of people that
(50:13):
way. And like, I want to help more
women that are in recovery. How do I do that or that want to
get into recovery? So I've been branching out a lot
more and focusing on like doing free events for women that are
sober curious. I've like launched this program
that I'm doing this fall for women that are curious about
getting sober or giving up alcohol.
(50:33):
And that's all been very, very aligned and like rewarding
because it's like I just, if I could go back in time and help
myself, I would do these things,you know, like I'm like, here's
some mindfulness tools you can do, here's some community
support. Here's some like it's structure.
It's, it's not a replacement fora 12 step program.
It's part of the whole thing, the whole toolkit, right?
So a lot has come up for me in the creation of these things.
(50:56):
Like it's been so challenging toshow up more in this way, like
talk more about this stuff. Not because I'm ashamed or like
I don't want to talk about my own experience.
It's just like a really vulnerable space to be in.
(51:17):
And you're, you know, even from like a business standpoint,
putting stuff out there and be like, will anyone come?
Like, is this going to work? Am I going to be embarrassed?
So there's been a lot of like, perfectionism that's reared its
head and a lot of fear and imposter syndrome.
Like I've, I've experienced another set of growing pains
that I didn't expect. Like, oh, but I'm a
(51:38):
professional. I have a private practice.
Like, I have a master's degree. Like, yeah.
But you're still an addict in recovery who, you know,
struggles with thought patterns too, you know, So yeah, it's
been really interesting. And I'm really practicing more
and more exactly what you were talking about earlier, which is
(52:00):
like, I'm just going to trust that that's all going to play
out as as it's supposed to. And I really have to step away
from attaching to a specific outcome.
It has to look like this. And it has to have this many
people and it has to have all ofthat stuff is is very
destabilizing for me. So I'm struggling with Instagram
a little. Like, that's a tough game to be.
(52:21):
It's annoying. Yeah, it's really annoying.
There's so many formulas and algorithms and, you know,
sometimes that's why I always comparison is the thief of joy.
And it's like you see somebody that's doing so well on
Instagram, it's like this is this sucks.
Like there's no. There's no.
Value here. Like what are we?
It's not even entertaining, right?
Dude, shut up. But but yeah, and, and also I'm
(52:44):
like, I don't know. We don't know how long that
person has been giving her. You know, it's like exactly what
I was thinking. They might be on.
They might have been trying thisthing for seven years.
Whenever we're comparing ourselves to somebody, it's like
we don't know if they're at the end of that particular journey,
the middle. We don't know what they've had
to sacrifice. So let's just stop doing that to
ourselves. That's so true.
(53:05):
You you compare your beginning to someone else's end, right?
It's like. Wow, I can't do this.
I guess it's impossible. Because they did it overnight.
Yeah, right. Overnight success.
That's how you do it right. Otherwise, you're a failure.
I love it. Let's end with this.
Thanks for being so vulnerable. I I, I really got a lot out of
it today. I appreciate it, but let's end
(53:26):
with this. If you could go back to and say
something to your younger, not even younger you're addicted
self today, what would you say? There's so much.
What did I say? This is what I'm going to just
take a moment and connect to my air power.
(53:50):
I just like it's just one foot in front of the other.
That's what that kind of drops in right now is it feels
impossible because we were at the bottom of the mountain.
We look up and we go, Oh my God,I have so far to go.
My life is such a mess and I have to rebuild everything.
And that's actually what prevents us from doing anything.
(54:11):
So if someone had just come in and said, look, I know this
feels impossible and like you, you're never going to be able to
drink again. That's like not something you
can commit to. It's like just one, it's one day
at a time, right? One foot in front of the other.
Start by telling somebody, but this is a problem for you, start
by putting that drink down. Like it's literally the 12 step
(54:32):
motto, right? But it's that all adds up over
time. And then all of a sudden you're
at the top of the mountain. You're like, my God, that comes
so far. Small steps.
Yeah. But you have to take those
steps. Well said.
Well said. Thanks so much Errol for coming
down. I appreciate you and I look
forward to hopefully doing this again.
Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening.
(54:52):
Please help us grow the channel and like, share and subscribe
for more content. The discussions and stories
shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational
purposes only. This content is not a substitute
for professional medical advice,addiction treatment, or therapy.
If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction,
please consult A licensed physician, addiction specialist,
(55:14):
or mental health professional. You are no longer alone.
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