Episode 46: Fundamental Series - The 3 Pillars of the Recovery Zone

Send us a text

In this foundational episode of our Fundamental Series, we explore what it really means to live in the Recovery Zone—a space defined not just by abstinence, but by the integration of three essential pillars: boundaries, self-care, and sobriety. These aren’t standalone ideas—they’re interconnected forces that support and reinforce one another. When one is missing, the whole system can collapse.

Sean and Dayne break down each of these pillars, reflecting on their personal journeys and sharing insights from the broader recovery community. What does an effective boundary list actually look like? Why is self-care often the hardest to build, especially after years of self-neglect? And how can all of this help make abstinence something sustainable, not just survivable? Whether you're early in recovery or reevaluating your routine, this episode offers practical tools, honest reflection, and a framework for building a life that heals—not just one that avoids relapse.

Support the show

Twitter: @beyondbrokeness
Email: [e-mail]

Episode Transcript

Sean (00:15):
Hello everybody and welcome back to Beyond Sexual
Brokenness.
Dayne, before we get into thetopic for today, I wanted to
maybe refer back to some of thediscussion we've had in our
discussion board with the lastcouple of episodes.
First of all, I wanted toreally thank for everybody

(00:36):
that's commented in and we'rereceiving more and more comments
in our discussion board onRelay, which is awesome because
it gives Dayne and I a chance tokind of go back and forth with
people listening to us ButDayne, what I wanted to refer to
is, I've been very happy that afew people have actually took
exception to some of my commentsand mainly my comments in a

(00:56):
couple episodes.
And this was my way of saying,I love that, man.
Dayne and I always say thatwe're not experts and we're just
sharing our opinion.
I will also go another step andsay, I am not a professional
podcaster, nor do I have anydesire to be a professional
podcaster.
So if a certain message was theway it was intended.

(01:19):
I want to make sure I kind ofsay this out loud.
It's certainly not intended todemotivate anybody from what
they're doing, their recovery.
So this was my way of saying,love all of you listening to us.
If anything I say or anythingthis podcast says that does
anything but motivate you to sitdown and reflect and think
about what else you need to doto get yourself to a healthier

(01:42):
and more proud state of living,If it does anything but that,
don't listen to me, man.
I feel very comfortable to kindof listen to an episode or a
podcast that resonates with yourbeliefs.
These are certainly just ourpersonal opinion and a
reflection of our experiences.
Anyway, I just want to kind ofput that out there.

(02:04):
But today, we want to talkabout something more
fundamental.
We actually talked about this afew episodes ago that we're
going to publish a few seriesmore designed around the
fundamentals of what it takes tohave a healthy recovery journey
from porn and masturbationbased on our experiences.

(02:25):
And one concept, Dayne, that weoften feel like it's overlooked
is this idea of what's referredto as recovery zone.
Now, recovery zone is sort of atopic that's been labeled that
way in Relay, and it's verypowerful and a big part of the

(02:45):
tool and app that I utilizequite a bit.
But in general terms, whetheryou're part of Relay or not,
Recovery Zone is basically a setof integrated personal
commitments to what we like tosay self-care, to take care of
ourselves, to put ourselves inphysical, mental, spiritual

(03:09):
state of continuing a recoveryjourney.
That's self-care.
Second, part is boundaries,basically having a set of
boundaries that allow us andmakes relapsing more difficult
and makes living with freedommore easier or easier, I should
say.
And of course, the last pieceof recovery zone is this idea of

(03:32):
abstinence.
What are we abstaining from?
So at Relay, what we callrecovery zone is this
integration between self-care,boundaries, and abstinence.
And today, Dana and I want tokind of go back and forth on
what each of those conceptsmean, maybe share some examples
of what we have in our recoveryand what others have shared with

(03:54):
us and how they have evolvedsince day one, a year and a half
ago in this recovery versuswhere we are today.
Because the key idea for me,Dayne, is, and I love this, I
wrote this down in my journalthe other day and it's very
meaningful to me.
Abstinence is the floor, notthe ceiling for me, right?

(04:18):
Abstinence is bare minimum inmy recovery journey now.
The idea that I no longer wantto be addicted to pornography
and masturbation is now verymuch the floor of what I have in
my recovery zone.
could argue is endless and it'sall about how fulfilling can

(04:48):
life be for us and what more andmore I've learned is if this
recovery zone is designed theright way it can really motivate
us and enable us to reallythink about that ceiling not
necessarily just living withthis floor that's necessary for
me to have a successful recoveryjourney so with that said let's

(05:11):
kind of get the conversationgoing.
My thought was, Dayne, I wouldlike to start with abstinence
first, only because that kind ofsets basically the floor of the
conversation.
Then I want to circle back toself-care and boundary, and we
can kind of talk about each ofthose.
So abstinence is very simple.

(05:32):
Maybe I'll just put you on thespot.
What does your abstinencecircle look like?
What are you abstaining from?

Daye (05:42):
Yeah, for me, I'll just be direct and honest because
that's what we do here, right?
For me, mine is I've gotbasically four things that
probably are across the boardcommon for probably a lot of men
who are trying to stay awayfrom this stuff, or at least
some of them.
Mine would be for mepersonally, like viewing
pornography, um, lusting, tryingto try to even keep away from

(06:03):
that.
Uh, a big problem for me waschat rooms.
So that, and then, uh, justmasturbation, like those are the
things that I have as kind ofmy abstinence, uh, things that
are easy to remember and just,they are, you're right.
They are the floor.
They are the things that Theseare 100% relapse.

(06:24):
Now we could get into how youdefine relapse and what it is.
And that can vary as you goalong this journey and you
tighten up kind of what means arelapse for you and your own
care and what kind of thingsyou've set with your significant
other or whatever, as far aslike what these boundaries are,
but for your abstinence circle.
But for me those are those arethe initial ones and I think the

(06:44):
cool thing about this idea ofthese recovery zones that we're
talking about of like thisabstinence these boundaries
these self-care like when you'reearly on in your journey I
think every man who's even ifyou don't know what to do and
you're just like in this panicmode you can sit down and take
some time and write downabstinence boundaries self-care

(07:05):
and I guarantee you you canthink of some things to put
there because you know thethings you've been doing that
you want to stop doing you knowsome of the things that have
been stopping you from from hasbeen putting you in a position
to where you're able to do thosethings.
And you know the things you'remissing to kind of help yourself
a little bit.
You may not know an exhaustivelist, but you know one or two on
each category.
So I think this tool is a coolway to start out to really

(07:29):
figure out like, what do I need?
I don't even know what to donow.
Well, I think you need to gothrough these circles in your
recovery zone.
But again, for abstinence forme, it is those kind of four
things are like the bare bottomminimum of things that I've had
problems with in the past andare just non-negotiables for me
as far as recovery.
So.
What do you got?

Sean (07:49):
Lots of really cool stuff.
Bare minimum requirements,non-negotiable.
I love all those definitions.
Some of this has been repeatedin the past, but again, in the
spirit of hopefully creating anepisode that's very fundamental
for anybody either starting ajourney or still struggling.
Tell me why masturbation ispart of your abstinence cycle.

Daye (08:15):
For me, that was...

Sean (08:16):
Sorry, maybe a follow-up, just kind of be more direct
about what I'm trying to get at.
What if I don't watch anypornography, don't go into chat
rooms and masturbate?
Why is that scenario still partof your abstinence circle, I
presume?
Okay,

Daye (08:32):
yeah.
So you're saying like if I wasable to stay away from all the
other behaviors that I was doingand that was just the single
one that I kept, hold on.
Yeah.
Well, I think for me, and Ifeel this is true for a lot of
men, uh, and you can, you cangive me your opinion, of course,
after this, but, but, um, Idon't even want to say it was a
gateway to the other things itwas, but I think in and of

(08:55):
itself, it's bad enough because,but I think with the way people
position it, it feels like it'sa, I can say it's a gateway for
me to keep just close enough tothese active out behaviors
because I'm still doingsomething.
I have some kind of painmanagement system and that's
involved in it.
And I'm still finding a way asa solution to that.
That's outside of a healthyway.

(09:16):
And for me, it was stillself-serving.
It was still, um, I don't seehow maybe some men can do this,
but I don't see how you do itwithout fantasizing or having
some kind of thoughts in yourmind that move you back towards
some kind of way of objectifyingwomen and being unfaithful to
yourself or your partner.

(09:37):
my family and my wife and myrelationship with her.
It's, it's just, there's, Idon't, yeah, for me, it's just,

(09:59):
it's just something that's notbeneficial.
Yep.

Sean (10:02):
Thank you.
And you and I have a verysimilar opinion on this.
As a matter of fact, we have afull episode on what is any
masturbation.
Okay.
I think it's the title of theepisode.
And we shared a lot of ourthoughts around that topic, but,
but I wanted to touch on that alittle bit.
I have the same opinion.
Once my brain, my brain hasbeen addicted.
to do thoughts and fantasies,even without any pornography.

(10:25):
masturbating I do not trust mybrain that it will someone that
will not come up

Daye (10:30):
right and I would say to add to that too like if you're a
guy who's like got this cyclepattern that's like weeks or
months or whatever and you'restill like you're not giving up
masturbation like that's the onething you kept then I would
think like how do you even knowif that's I mean that's
obviously still part of yourproblem because I don't see how
you could say that that's notpart of your problem and still

(10:50):
be in a cycle of some kind so ifyou're still I think anyone
listening to it find yourself insome kind of cycle And you've
decided this is okay.
I think you need to be true toyourself and say, I need to take
this out for now and see if itimpacts my cycle any
differently.
There's probably more youprobably need to do too.
But again, we talk about goingextreme and really getting like,
I mean, if something's notworking, you got to go, you got

(11:12):
to take the next step.
So.

Sean (11:13):
Yeah, I like that.
The other thing that's kind ofinteresting to me, Dan, I don't
know if you now feel this way ornot.
This is my first time andhopefully the only time where
I'm trying to recover from anaddiction.
I've not had other addictionsthat I have tried to get away
from.
I am getting very sensitivetowards this concept of being

(11:39):
addicted to something that Icannot stop.
I don't know how to describeit, Dan.
Even if masturbation hadnothing to do with any of the
other stuff that I'm trying toabstain from, which is not the
case, I agree with you.
I think they're veryintertwined and there's no way
to separate them from eachother, in my opinion.
But if I'm trying to stopsomething and I can't, like this

(12:03):
whole idea of I need to stopthis thing or I want to.
I want to.
I just want to.
I just want to stop this thingfor whatever reason.
And I can't go beyond a fewweeks without falling back into
that pattern or activity againstmy own will.
That really bothers me.
Like this whole idea of beingaddicted to any activity to an

(12:25):
extent that I cannot stop itwhen I want to because for
whatever the hell reason it'sbeing detrimental to my life.
I'm starting to build a...
I don't know how to describeit.
Allergy.
I'm being allergic to thisconcept of I need to stop this
thing because I don't like itanymore and I can't.

(12:47):
It just doesn't feel good as aman.
I don't pretend to be perfect.
There's a lot of things thatI'm not good at, but it just
doesn't feel good as a man tosay, I don't want to do this,
but yet again, something happensand I fall back into that
pattern to me whatever thatthing is it fits the bill of

(13:10):
adding it to the abstinencecircle i hate having something
in my life that despite me notwanting to do it as a man
somehow i get back to doing it ijust doesn't make me feel free
you know yeah so to me that fitsthe bill and i need that on my
abstinence circle

Daye (13:29):
yeah and i think that's the first step to doing it like
if we're getting practical likewhat are the things that you're
doing that you don't want to doand then like they make you
angry and you wish you couldstop them, like write, write
them down.
There's your abstinence.
You've got to keep these thingsdown.
And it seems simple.
It seems elementary, but like alot, I think a lot of these
guys that are struggling withstuff, me included early on,
it's like, I've got to get tojust give me some simple things

(13:50):
I can start doing.
Cause I'm so messed up rightnow.
I don't even know what to do.
And I think it's like, make alist of things you don't want to
do anymore.
Get granular or just list.
I mean, list them out and thengo from there.
But yeah, is step one.

Sean (14:05):
And if you struggle with keeping up with that list, you
probably have a good abstinencelist because whether you like to
call it addicted to it or not,you're obviously struggling to
keep that list alive.
So that's probably good to haveon your abstinence list.
The other thing, Dayne, andabstinence is actually the
easier part of the three, in myopinion, to talk about.

(14:25):
So I kind of want to move on toself-care and value.
But the other thing that I'velearned through my sort of this
list evolving for the last yearand a half I've also found out
that I may have to add some,I'll call it secondary or pseudo

(14:47):
abstinence targets in myabstinence list that help
keeping me dry with my primaryabstinence goal.
I'll give you some example.
Like when I started, it wasjust about masturbation and
pornography.
So those were my two things.
You don't masturbate, youdon't, you know, watch
pornography or any sort ofsexual content.
But then I realized, and I knowsome of my other friends have

(15:11):
actually thought this too, havekind of had these type of
reflections.
When I drink, I'm a lot moresusceptible to objectifying.
I'm a lot more susceptible topornography.
I have a pattern of when I geta little tipsy wanting to
masturbate.
I've done that for a long time,especially in college.
So I added alcohol to myabstinence circle and man, it

(15:32):
did wonders for me.
I was not addicted to alcohol.
I actually really enjoy alittle bit of alcohol here and
there.
But my primary absence goalbecame a lot easier by adding
basically some secondary absencetargets.
Now, we will talk about that.
I might eventually take thatoff and go enjoy a cocktail with
my wife here and there.

(15:52):
But it was very essential forme to realize that some other
things needed to be added tohelp me really keep my primary
goal alive.
I even went beyond that day anda couple months later, once I
added alcohol to my circle, Iwas in a thing with my friends

(16:15):
where somebody was enjoying anice Cuban cigar.
Guys getting together, most ofus have been in scenarios where
somebody brings some good cigarsor sharing after a wedding or
celebration or maybe it's just anice evening.
As soon as I poked at thatcigar, I'm not a smoker, I don't
smoke cigars very often, maybea couple of times a year.

(16:36):
But I smoked that cigar.
And then the first thing thatpopped in my head was, man, it
would be nice if I was drinkingsome whiskey with the cigar.
I just go together so well forSean and many other people.
I added smoking to my absencecircle right away because I
realized here's another thingthat could just make it a little
bit easier for me.
I'm not a big time smokeranyway.

(16:57):
So why can't I tell my friendnext time?
Actually, I stopped smoking.
I'm not going to smoke anymore.
Now I don't smoke.
I'm not going to have thetemptation to drink.
And when I don't drink, I'm notgoing to have another
temptation to masturbate orwatch porn.
Again, this was a little bit ofevolution for me that sometimes
these secondary tertiary typeabstinence goals can help keep

(17:19):
me away from that main one thatgot me in trouble.
And eventually in the future, Imight change that.
Today, if a friend comes to meand say, hey, you want to smoke
a Cuban cigar with me?
No problem.
I'll probably do it.
And it's not going to cause meany issues.
But for the time being, it ison my list.
And as long as it's on my list,is non-negotiable i would have
to have a good conversation withmyself and my wife and take

(17:40):
something off my list and thenthen do it differently in the
future but that's that's myother ask of those of you that
are really looking at yourabstinence circle if you have
things in there that are justmaking your life more difficult
to stay dry with pornography andmasturbation add that damn
thing to your abstinence listkeep yourself out of trouble
because life is just not worthrelapsing over and over again

(18:04):
we've talked about this i'm noteven going to get into the whole
relapse conversation as Dan andI poured our heart out about
that, you know, a couple ofepisodes ago.
But think about that.
Absence circle is all aboutprotecting us from relapsing,
protecting us from getting backinto our patterns.
And if there's something thatyou can add to it to make it

(18:24):
easier, that was my learning andit's been very helpful.
So right now on my absencecircle, I have pornography,
masturbation, alcohol, andsmoking.
Those are my four items and I'mvery happy about them I'm a
whole lot healthier last yearand a half because I haven't had
a drop of alcohol or smokelittle benefits to I guess

(18:47):
little extra health benefitsbecause of my abstinence cycles
as well alright so that's goodfor the time being let's kind of
move on I want to talk a littlebit about self-care then move
on to boundaries so self-careDayne, self-care has this sort

(19:09):
of notion of a list of softthings.
Self-care is not soft.
Guys, and Sean included, wekind of have a hard time with
making a list of things that aremeant to just take care of
ourselves.
I don't know.
At least me and my buddiesnever sat down and talked about,

(19:31):
man, I feel so much better whenI go to bed early at night.
I think I bragged more about,oh, I was watching this badass
movie till 3 a.m.
more often than I braggedabout, man, it feels so good to
go to bed at 10 o'clock everynight.
Something about men notnecessarily talking about things
that are important to theirself-care.

(19:52):
So I kind of want to talk toyou about a little bit about
like what What is yourdefinition of self-care?
And maybe if you have a fewthings that, you know, you're
kind of working on that havehelped you with your recovery to
ultimately put you physically,emotionally in a position that
allows you to be strong againstyour abstinence goals.

(20:14):
That's sort of the definitionof self-care for me, at least.

Daye (20:19):
Yeah, for me, yeah, self-care is a big one.
And it is, like you said, Ithink, and it's one of those
that feels like very Uh, like, Idon't know, fuzzy or hard to
really grasp and understand.
It's like self-care is thislike thing out there.
And I don't really know what,how do I even define this or
what do I do with it?
Or, or then there's the thoughtof like, how does this even, I

(20:39):
think, I think for me early on.
And I think for a lot of guysearly on too, it's like, how
does this even help me rightnow?
I don't need to do withself-care.
Self-care is like somelong-term thing about the future
and something I'm here in thebeginning.
My family, my marriage isfalling apart.
I can't stop doing thisaddiction.
I'm doing things that I hatedoing.
What is self-care?
I don't even care about myself.

(21:04):
Why should I even talkself-care?
I hate myself right now.
I mean, I would argue thatthat's one, I would say that I

(21:30):
think that's the wrong attitudeto have about it because I
think, um, as, as I've seen yourjourney for sure, like
self-care has been a big thingthat you, you can, you're a big
proponent of, of like this, thisis important.
This is stuff we have to do.
And I don't, I don't know if wewill talk about ranking these
three different areas.
It's like priority wise, but I,I think they're all pretty

(21:50):
close to like head to head onpriority.
Of course, abstinence is thepowerful one because it's the
one that Like you've you've likefailed at that point.
Right.
But the other two have equalweight as far as like keeping
you from failing.
And there's a lot of discoveryjourney in that.
But so I think there are threeequal areas.
But anyway, for for self-carefor me, I would say it's

(22:12):
something that this is going tospawn me to or cause me to
revisit mine because I reallythink I need to do lately.
But for me, my self-care iskind of one of them is like
going to bed at night with mywife.
at the same time.
Um, that's, and I don't thinkyou could argue, we can talk
about this too, whether likethere's a boundary or self-care

(22:32):
things, but, uh, cause I thinkthose kind of can blur to you.
But for me, that's one of thethings as we go to bed at the
same time, because that helps meto be healthy.
That helps me to stay in aposition with her to where, uh,
she feels safe around me becausepart of my problem was staying
up late at night and doingthings.
And there's trauma associatedwith that with her.
So part of our both self-careis me going to bed at the same

(22:52):
time and going to sleep at thesame time and then waking up in
the morning and what it's doingto me as far as self-care is I'm
feeling refreshed.
I'm feeling energized.
I'm not wasting the night away.
I'm not putting myself intopositions where I'm doing things
that I shouldn't do at nightbecause I'm up late and it was
part of my triggering time.
Um, so there's boundaryself-care blend there, but that

(23:13):
is one of the things.
Um, so just for other ones arelike, um, I, I, I try to
journal, journal, even if just afew sentences, I try to do that
every day to write something.
Um, um, other thing I do is,um, I try to, I haven't done as
well in this lately, but for awhile I was trying to practice
IFS work every day becauseinternal family systems I was

(23:33):
running was a big deal for me.
So I was trying to practice,uh, IFS and just watching my,
uh, my caffeine intake and howmany I've drank too much coffee.
So trying to be mindful ofthat.
Um, and another thing for mehas been, um, Part of my
self-care is, and we've talkedabout this before, is just
listening for bids from myfamily and recognize those and

(23:56):
responding to those and actingon those.
For me, that's another area ofself-care because I'm training
myself to be responsive to myfamily and interact with my
family versus picking otherthings like my job or something.
So I'm doing self-care to helpmyself be more responsive to
them and be more aware and bemore mindful of them.
So those are some things.

(24:17):
And I really, I, yeah, I thinkI would like to personally sit
down and spend some time.
This is making me think aboutit.
Spend some time and justpurposely take some time to go
through my self-care and belike, what are some high things
that I could start doing thatare more, uh, more powerful for
me at this point?
Uh, but those just, a fewthings.

Sean (24:34):
Yeah, perfectly put.
And I love that you startedwith this whole idea of, man, at
the beginning, I don't evencare about self-care.
I was trying to make a point.
I don't even care about myself.
I've actually heard people saythat.
I have talked about that.
I didn't like myself.
I've heard this from others inthis space.

(24:56):
So self-care, just likeabstinence, also evolves.
But the way I define it, andI'm going to repeat myself a
little bit.
Self-care enables, primes,creates the healthy enough of a

(25:18):
physical mind and spiritualstate of being that gives me the
best chance to stay committedto my boundaries and ultimately
stay committed to my abstinence.
And early on, self-care mightbe very binary about things that

(25:39):
are directly related to stayingdry, sort of simplistically
put.
And it took me a long time forme to kind of visualize it this
way.
It helps me visualize it thisway.
I put it out there to see ifothers can do it too, whether
it's meaningful to others ornot.
I have basically a list ofself-care all the way to my

(26:00):
left, which on Relay, it'sbasically a zone or a circle.
My self-care list is on myleft.
My boundary list is in themiddle and my absence is all the
way to the right.
Especially early on, I think itwas very meaningful for me for
these to be very integratedwhere the self-care that I have

(26:23):
somehow makes it easier mentallyor physically, makes it easier
for me to have a boundary in themiddle that actually works.
I stay committed to my boundaryand then that boundary really
helps me stay committed to myabstinence.
These kind of work like hand inhand.
Let me give you, give anexample for the audience to kind
of think about, especiallythose who are early in their

(26:43):
journey.
I'm trying to abstain frommasturbation, abstinence goal.
A key time where I masturbateis late at night when I'm tired,
when I'm bored, when it's 2o'clock in the morning, when I'm
in bed and my phone is in myhand.
So I put a boundary that saysno phone in bed or no phone in

(27:06):
the room.
We'll talk about the boundarylist in a second.
No phone in the room directlyis connected to not
masturbating.
Boundary helps that abstinence.
I go a step to the left where Iget to my self-care.
I go to bed on time or early soI don't end up in this
vulnerable state of 2 a.m.

(27:27):
So now I create this self-carelist of I'm going to try to go
to bed at 10, 11 o'clock atnight.
And the way then you said it,sometimes it's kind of gray
between self-care and boundary.
But what has helped Sean andhis simple mind is as I go from
left to right on my list, as Igo from my self-care to boundary

(27:49):
in the middle to all the way tothe right, my abstinence from
left to right, it becomes moreand more non-negotiable.
I love that word that Daynesaid.
Abstinence, hell nonon-negotiable because when I
negotiate with it, I relapse andI start all over.
Black and white.
boundary to a good extentnon-negotiable Dayne talks about
that some of his boundariesthat we'll talk about in a

(28:11):
minute and Sean the same waywe're non-negotiable today they
still are because we believenegotiating with that shit gets
me in trouble with my abstinenceso we to a very good extent
treat our boundariesnon-negotiable if you look at
Dayne and Sean's recovery zoneyou will see we have a very long
streak on our boundariesthey're not maybe as long as our
abstinence but damn long and wedon't recycle on our boundaries

(28:34):
very often we've got to a pointwhere I know it's the same
thing every now and then I spyon your circles it's like
there's a boundary that goeswith your absence like I do
these things on my boundaries Istay dry with my absence right
so that's how I make thedifference between self-care and
boundaries self-care can be alittle bit more negotiable maybe
every day I don't go to bed 11o'clock something happens

(28:55):
there's a birthday party thatstay open till midnight now the
moment the self-care the momentI don't follow a self-care item
I need to be aware of it thisself-care is me meaningful
enough that if I go five, sixdays of not paying attention to
it, it causes me problems.
And we've had friends that, forexample, going to bed at a
decent time is a big deal forthem.

(29:16):
And they go five, six nights ofstaying up late.
They get tired.
Now they're white knuckling,staying away from pornography.
And they actually relapse five,six days later.
And I have seen them that theywill reflect back and say, man,
I've been really tired.
If I had stuck to my self-careand I enabled my body to think
about my boundaries, maybe Iwouldn't have gone to my face
with two o'clock in the morningand maybe I won't have relapsed

(29:39):
with my abstinence, right?
So I think, I guess my firstpoint is, I think the way I
treat them as how non-negotiablethey are going from my
self-care on the left-hand sideall the way to my abstinence on
the right-hand side, that's myway of differentiating between
them.
But for me, since you did agood job of talking about your
self-care, my self-care, one ispray to start and finish the

(30:03):
day.
This actually at the beginningfor me was saying my
confirmation and commitment listat the beginning of the day and
the end of the day.
So I would start by sayingthese things I will not do
today.
These things I will do today.
But it has evolved.
I no longer go through the dayand say I will not touch
Facebook.

(30:23):
I will not touch Instagram.
I will not lie.
I will not masturbate.
I will not touch myself.
Those used to be the thingsthat I started with.
Now it's become praying tostart and finish the day.
And so my commitment naturallygets obviously kind of
verbalized as I'm praying.
Do one thing journey related.
To me, it is now more of aself-care, not a boundary

(30:45):
because I am in a really goodspot.
I don't have to do somethingjourney related every day.
Some days I don't have the timefor it.
But this used to be, Dayne,journal every day.
And you and I used to talkabout journaling all the time.
I have over 200 pages datedbasically every single day where
I journaled because it was soimportant at a time.

(31:06):
Now it's changed a little bit.
It's doing One thing journeyrelated.
Sometimes it's journaling.
Sometimes it's podcast.
Sometimes it's taking a phonecall and helping your brother
out.
Sometimes it's chiming on it.
in our discussion board, in apodcast.
All of that is journey related,right?
My other one is do one thing ofservice for my life, for my
wife, sorry.

(31:26):
Similar to what you're saying,you're just going to bed with
your wife.
I have doing one thing ofservice.
And this one is related to myboundary of being trustworthy
and being honest with my wife.
So it's kind of, again,integrated.
It helps me build a betterrelationship with my wife.

(31:46):
Now, early in the journey, Iwas about to get divorced.
If you think doing one thing ofservice to my wife was welcome
on a day-to-day basis, you werehardly mistaken.
She didn't want to haveanything to do with me.
So this, I think, is an exampleof how things can kind of
evolve.
Today, it's become one thing ofservice.
She actually knows about it.
She loves it.
She sometimes jokes aroundabout it.

(32:07):
It's kind of fun.
And sometimes she looks at me,she's like, it's 10 o'clock at
night.
You haven't done anything ofservice for me today.
It's because It's become athing at our household.
But again, it wasn't like thatall the time.
And last thing that recentlyI've added, and Dan Gaines
actually talked about this,Gaines recently added this to

(32:29):
his software as well, is do ordon't commit.
And that's because I've learnedthat I overpromise too much.
Again, this whole idea, I tryto please everybody and I can't
say no to anybody.
And again, this evolved intosomething that I want to have in
life.
So I'm trying to become more ofa man of my word.

(32:51):
If I can't do it, don'tovercommit to it.
Don't try to please everybody.
Sometimes you have to buy theconflict and say, sorry, I can't
do that.
I'm not very good at that.
But again, do or don't commitwas not a self-care at the
beginning.
So my self-care today haschanged quite a bit.
Early on, it was things likegoing to bed on time, regular

(33:12):
exercise or movement, scheduledjourney time, quiet time to
reflect on my journey,journaling or therapy.
Therapy used to be a big partof my self-care for a long time.
Celebrating wins, I see it onone of my early version of my
self-care where things were justso shitty.
I was looking for a littlesomething to celebrate and be

(33:34):
happier about.
That was part of my self-care.
So I guess my message tosummarize with self-care is,
again, to kind of circle back.
In my head, it's a list thatenables the body and mind to
commit to our boundaries andtherefore commit to our
abstinence.
It evolves and it can very muchchange as long as it does

(33:56):
something for the journey.
And versus, you know, 520 whereI'm at today.
So, Dayne, does that resonatewith you?
Does that make sense?

Daye (34:10):
Any other thoughts about self-care?
Yeah, it absolutely does.
Yeah, no, you did an awesomejob walking through that.
That was really good.
And I think, too, what I wasrealizing from that, too, is
that for me, and I think this isthe same for you, I feel like
the ability for these to befluid over time is heavier
towards self-care versus, like,abstinence, right?

(34:32):
Like, abstinence is pretty,like, solid it's pretty like I
don't I don't think you set someabstinence goals and then
you're later like oh I don'thave to be abstinence from that
anymore I mean maybe if you'reif you're to a point where your
abstinence is like I can't be onthe internet.
Like I'm abstaining from beingon the internet.
It's beyond just a boundary forme.

(34:53):
It's become an abstinence.
Like this is if I get on theinternet, I'm now relapsing
because that's how impactful itis to my depth of addiction.
And I mean, that'd be oneexample.
Then maybe that abstinencething could change, but that
feels like that's the exceptionin the rule.
I think it feels likeabstinence are pretty like
standard.
I think you can add to those ifyou want to get more granular,

(35:15):
but I don't know that you evertake anything away.
You may take one and split itinto two because you want to get
a little more granular with it.
But I don't think you ever takethose away.
And boundaries, I think theyare they're a little bit easier
to remove and add, but, but notas much.
They're still, they stillshould be pretty solid.
I think, I mean, you can speakfor yourself, but while we can
get to broad boundaries and talkabout that, but like once you

(35:35):
put them there, it's kind oflike you may even think they're
temporary, but all of a suddenyou realize, wait, this is
actually something that needs tobe there long term.
But self-care again, like Ithink it's the most fluid.
So I think that they kind ofgo, go in that way.
But yeah, yeah.

Sean (35:50):
So I agree with a lot of people.
I think that's a good segue.
Let's talk about boundaries.
Man, I

Daye (35:56):
think

Sean (35:57):
boundaries is like the most over-generalized,
over-utilized,over-commercialized, whatever
terminology in the addictionrecovery space, right?
I mean, no matter whataddiction recovery program you
go into or whatever therapistyou talk about, they will talk
about abstinence because ifyou're abstaining from

(36:18):
something, that means you'readdicted to something.
That's why you're abstainingfrom it, at least in the
addiction space.
anybody in the recovery spacewill bring up boundaries, right?
What are your boundaries?
Do you have the rightboundaries?
Are they strong enough?
Are they stringent enough?
Are they non-negotiable enough,which is the terminology that
Dan uses that makes total senseto me.

(36:39):
Anyway, so let's talk aboutboundaries.
Maybe we'll do the same thing.
Tell me and tell us what doboundaries mean to you?
Some of it you've alreadyalluded to and maybe share some
of your examples.

Daye (36:56):
Yeah, so boundaries for me are the things that I've
realized in my life lead me tothe abstinence that I mean, the
acting out things that are on myabstinence list, like they're
like the bridge or the ladder tomy acting out activities.
That's what those things are.

(37:17):
Those boundaries are stoppingme from having that ladder or
that bridge to that activity,right?
And I think they could be sovaried.
For me, my boundaries, well...
Some of my big ones early onand still now are being at home,
being by myself at home withouta plan.

(37:39):
That's a disaster for me.
It was at first being by myselfat home at all.
That's where my boundarystarted.
When I first started, I waslike, I can't stay at home by
myself.
And we've talked about this inprevious episodes early on.
When I work from home, so mywife would leave, I would be

(37:59):
like, are you leaving?
Okay, I'm leaving.
I'm going to a coffee shop.
I'm going to this.
Was it inconvenient?
Yes, it was very inconvenient alot.
It was like I'm going andspending six, seven bucks to buy
a coffee when I could be athome in the middle of the day
when I didn't want to leave.
But if she's leaving, I had toleave.
And it's like those things oflike, I've just got to do this.
And so that was my boundary.
Like, I can't.
That's my boundary.
I know it's my boundary.

(38:19):
I know this is the spot that Ican't.
move from and so that was onelike being but now it's turned
to being by myself at homewithout a plan like i'm safe by
myself at home and i've talkedto my wife and she's okay with
it but i really want to have aplan together like something's
i'm doing something i'm not justlike mindlessly at home um and

(38:40):
declining social activities isone of mine um and um declining
family activities for a longtime because I think I've talked
about this in the podcast toolike my kids are in band they
have events they go to andsometimes they would be far away
and and the tickets wereexpensive.
And so she's like, I'll just goand I'll take the kids and you

(39:01):
stay with the younger kids athome.
But we discussed and we'relike, we don't really need to do
that.
We need to do familyactivities.
We need to take thisopportunity to be as a family.
So one of my boundaries wasearly on not declining family
activities and not beinginvolved in those.
So when they came up, my answerwas, yes, we're going to this
as a family.

(39:21):
We're doing this baseball gameas a family.
We're doing this as a family.
So those are, yeah, mine noware just like spending spending
time alone by myself withoutplan declining social activities
um and then social media is aboundary i have now because it's
done nothing good for me soit's just something that i don't
need to be involved with mylife um so those are a few of

(39:43):
mine

Sean (39:45):
so very cool um i i love that and i and i like the um
again it's pretty thoughtful uhi'm kind of repeating myself a
little bit but the first thingfirst you're obviously taking
him very seriously so this wholenon-negotiable part is very
Very meaningful to me.
So let me say this a littledifferently.
That might be kind ofinteresting for folks to kind of

(40:05):
think about.
I had a simple rule for myselfthat I've stuck to.
That's very meaningful and it'shelping me.
Again, I'm very simple minded.
Self-care items.
I go all the way to theleft-hand side list.
I go four or five days withoutthem.
Maybe I don't get in trouble.
Okay, I'll survive.
Life always changes, throwsstuff at you.

(40:27):
You can't predict everythingthat happens tomorrow.
Okay.
Boundaries to me, Dayne, I'venoticed I go two or three days
without them.
I get in trouble.
So to me, that's a gooddefinition.
If you have something that ifyou do a couple of times in a
row, or if you don't do,depending on what the boundary
is, a couple of days in a row,you are a lot more likely to

(40:51):
relapse and not commit to yourabstinence.
That's a good boundary item tohave.
And you have some really goodones there.
Like staying...
Home alone, that used to be abig part of my boundary to begin
with.
I was the exact same way.
Once I added that to myboundary list, it became
non-negotiable.
And at times, it was veryinconvenient.

(41:11):
I think I've shared some of mystories.
I don't know if I've said themon episodes before or not.
But I remember taking my wifeto a meeting that she wanted to
go to.
And I said, I'll drop you off.
And this was a couple monthsinto recovery.
And I dropped her off at themeeting.
And I had to go pick her upthree hours later.
paid for a parking garage forthree hours and took a nap in

(41:34):
the car and did a little bit ofwork out of my car for a while
and then took a nap.
I just wasn't going to do it.
And I actually didn't feelsusceptible.
I didn't think I was going togo home, relapse.
But if it's on the boundary,then I'm disrespecting myself.
I added that to a list becauseI think it can get me out of
trouble.

(41:54):
And if I have a way of stayingtrue to it, I'm disrespecting
myself by not doing it.
I need to be a man of My word,stop being an addict and being
washy, wishy-washy with the shitthat I say.
Addicts do that all the time.
Sean did that all the time.
It was so wishy-washy with crapthat he said, no, you add it to
the damn list, Sean.
You're going to stick to it.
I don't care how embarrassingit is.

(42:15):
I don't care if you don't lookcool.
You're going to sleep in thecar.
So, yeah, I love what you said.
You got to treat it asnon-negotiable.
And being home alone was a bigpart, a big thing for me.
Social media was huge and hasbeen.
We'll talk about that a littlebit.
Just because I wasn't going totake risks.

(42:37):
And also the algorithms thatfigured out what Sean liked to
click on and things that I wasgetting on Facebook and
Instagram and Twitter werebasically soft porn.
And the AI and the robots outthere knew what to do to get me
to relapse.
And my brain stress all knewwhat to chase to get me to

(43:00):
relapse.
and I wasn't going to messaround with that.
My boundaries have evolvedquite a bit too, Dayne, but
you're absolutely right, not asmuch as self-care has.
And in some ways,fundamentally, what gets me out
of trouble is still in place,but maybe the words around it
have changed a little bit tojust kind of represent the

(43:22):
evolution that my recovery hasgone through.
For example, I'll give you oneof them.
When it used to be no timealone allowed at home, If your
wife gets out, you get out likeyou and I talked about.
Now it's no being alone withouta plan.
So things have changed.
I trust myself.
My wife trusts me that with alittle bit of conversation
beforehand, we can handle it.
Eye control at all times gotadded to my boundary list where

(43:47):
it wasn't there to begin with.
Because for a couple ofreasons, later on in my
recovery, I realized thatbasically objectifying can get
me in trouble just as much aspornography can.
And also, it's not part of aman I want to be.
And that became a boundary andvery non-negotiable.

(44:09):
And then my other big boundaryright now, lists used to longer,
it's become only three mainitems, is no high exposure
public areas without a plan.
So I still, whether it's aconcert, whether it's a
vacation, whether it's aballpark game, sports event that
I go to, I don't walk into itwishy-washy.

(44:31):
I sit down, reflect on ajournal about it, talk to my
wife about it.
Do we have the right plan?
I think about all that stuff.
Dana, I went on a date with mywife last night and we went to a
restaurant It's very, verypopular nearby, and it was very
crowded.
And I'm sharing this as anexample of how this has evolved.

(44:51):
Before, we wouldn't go to theseplaces.
The next version was we wouldsit down and talk about it so we
had a good feel for when wewere going.
Maybe we'd go before people getdrunk.
Maybe we'd go for lunch versusdinner.
Maybe we'd talk about do we sitoutside versus inside.
That was the plan.
Yesterday, we didn't talk aboutit anymore.
There's no talking about itphysically.
There's a lot more trust.

(45:12):
There's a lot more normality.
normalcy in our life per se.
I didn't leave the apartmentwithout a plan, though.
I verbalize in my head, whereare we going?
What time are we going?
You don't know where that tableis.
You You need a split second tomake some decisions when we get
there.
When I got up there, my wifepicked her chair, as you would

(45:35):
give a lady the chance to sitdown where she wants the chair.
And I was being a gentleman,pulled the chair.
She sat down.
And then I knew exactly whereto sit down to not have any
issues.
I had the bar behind me.
There were a big table of abachelor party next door that I
took just the right angle tomake sure they sit behind me so
I'm not there.
I had the angle of the stairwaygoing up and down.

(45:57):
It was not very crowded.
And I'm saying this not to bragbecause I'm proud of myself
because I wasn't like thisbefore.
But this is what self-care andboundary does to you.
If you commit to it on aday-to-day basis, your brain
starts getting really good atit.
When my meal was done and I waseating and it was a time where
we were just kind of sittingdown and talking and
socializing, Dayne, it hit me.

(46:18):
I turned my chair a little bittowards my wife.
I crossed my legs and I justcreated this sort of like a dead
angle where I couldn't doanything but look at my wife.
I enjoyed myself.
I was present.
I could tell she wasappreciating.
I was making eye contacts thewhole time.
And one thing I can tell you isI walked out of that
restaurant.
If you ask me today who wassitting there, what they were

(46:41):
sitting, what they were wearing,how many people, I have no
freaking clue.
no idea.
I went and cleaned.
I walked out clean.
I was so proud of myself.
I feel good.
Not that I would havefantasized about anybody, not
that I would have objectifiedanybody in front of my wife, but
my boundaries helped me justmake my life a lot easier.
And that's, I think, what aboundary is all about.
So today, that's how it'sevolved.

(47:02):
I no longer sit down and writemy plan, but it's got to a point
where it is pretty natural.
I'm still very mindful of whatI'm doing.
And the cool part is, and thisis the next segue that I want to
talk to you about then.
I can see that being that withrest of my life.
That has nothing to do withpornography and masturbation.

(47:22):
It has a lot to do with thekind of guy I want to be.
I want to be 65 years old andgo out for dinner and still sit
in the right spot and not haveto have my wife worry about
whether I looked at somebodyelse that looked cool or looked
pretty or younger or betterlooking or more naked, whatever
the hell it may be.
I just don't want to be part ofthat conversation.
I don't want that to be mybrain.
I don't want that to be mywife's brain.

(47:43):
It's not normal.
It's not cool.
And that takes me, and I'vesaid it a lot, but then it takes
you to this next concept i wantto kind of pick your brain on
one of our friend jonathan hasbrought this up this whole idea
of crutches versus guardrails sowe we talk about boundaries in
general but what you and i havealluded to is that sometimes

(48:04):
boundaries evolve and and changeand become more comprehensive
or more lifelong like thisexample that i shared and let me
uh maybe define what crutchesand guardrails are and i kind of
want to pick your brain and seeif this resonates with you The
way Jonathan talked about it wasbasically crutches are
temporary boundaries designed tokeep you upright when you're

(48:27):
not yet stable.
Basically, the legs are notworking really well.
You have a broken leg.
You need crutches to be able tostay upright.
They're essentially early on,but maybe not always meant to
last forever.
Guardrails are long-termboundaries that protect your
freedom and your direction.
It's for a time when you're upand running like Sean, but it

(48:52):
keeps you on the road anddoesn't allow you, stops you
from running into the ditches bythe road, which I think is
where I'm at.
Like with this example that Ishared, it wasn't a crutch.
I have guardrails that are setand I kind of want to run with
my life the way I did yesterdayin those scenarios, in those
public areas.

(49:13):
So with that said, I kind ofwanted to ask you, do you have
some examples of boundaries thatyou think would fall under
crutches versus guardrail doesthat concept even resonate with
you what do you think

Daye (49:26):
yeah no that concept resonates with me and i think
you said it i mean like yourexample is a good one too i
think that in my mind it makesme think about the idea of like
um things i can't even do on myown versus things i can do on my
own right like so like crutcheswould be I mean I would still
your example but like not evengoing out to the dinner because

(49:50):
you can't even stand up youcan't even go out you you are
like I don't even have theconfidence in myself to go out
to this dinner and not look atthese women that around me I
don't even know if you're gonnabe there but it doesn't matter
I'm going to I just I just don'thave the I don't have the
confidence in myself to be ableto do that.
I don't have the strength to dothat.
Or my wife doesn't have thebelief in me to be able to do
that.
Or she doesn't.

(50:10):
Yeah, wherever that is,whatever that layer is.
And then the guardrails is moreof like you made the decision,
you've strengthened the muscleinside of yourself to be
self-aware and to move towardshealing, to be a better man.
Like you're doing it.
You're doing the work.
And so you're like, I've donethe work.
I just need a little bit ofguardrails or positioning to

(50:31):
keep myself from doing thisstuff.
that I might normally do in thepast.
And so, I mean, I think that'sa great example of you being
able to go out to dinner and itwas a choice, right?
That was a choice.
Like you could have chosen tosay, you know what?
You could have said, I feellike, I mean, you can correct
me, but I mean, do you feel youcould have said to your wife,
like, I just don't think weshould go out tonight because
I'm not, I'm just not feelingcomfortable with it.

(50:53):
It's been a long day.
It's been a rough day at work.
Let's just get some takeout orsomething or eat at home.
And then let's plan for anothernight.
I just don't think it's thebest night for us to do that.
I mean, like, and that's, and Ithink that's still guardrails
because you are making thedecision out of your ability to
say like, this is, I can movethe boundary.
I can make it more strict if Iwant, or I can make it less.
But I think in the early days,it It's hard to know you need

(51:15):
those crutches.
Because for me, when I firststarted out, I...
had no boundaries at all like Ididn't even think of the
concept of boundaries it waslike whatever the world was
feeding me I just let it feed mewhatever I mean it was it
wasn't like I was going out onsites and making accounts on
every kind of thing and I wasn'tdoing all the things that the
world offered but I wasn'ttelling I wasn't like taking

(51:39):
ownership of things and pushingthe world away I was just
letting it feed me whatever itwanted and so I needed just
boundaries that were extreme atthe beginning just so I could
understand what a boundary evenwas because I wasn't living with
any.
And I think that's where a lotof guys are.
It's like, you got to goextreme so you can just exercise
that muscle of understandinghow to deal with the boundary.
Because all this stuff you'resaying is like super high

(52:01):
emotional intelligence andself-awareness is like what
you're describing to me, what Ithink of when you talk about
this experience, because youwere doing all the things that
to some guys may think like,man, that's a lot of work, but
it really wasn't because you'vetrained yourself to know.
It's like riding a bike.
Once you get on it, you knowhow to ride the bike.
You've Yeah.
But yeah, I think your exampleis a perfect example of those

(52:38):
two different categories.
But I think those are greatanalogies to different types of
boundaries.

Sean (52:44):
I appreciate you.
So if you don't mind, let's doa little bit of exercise because
I also don't want it to be, youknow, it is easy for Dana and I
to kind of talk about what'sreally clicking for us, but we
weren't always here.
Like you said it really best.
And while I'm trying to doreally my best to kind of show
the evolution of what I've gonethrough, I also don't want
people to kind of take my wordfor it.

(53:05):
What I'm doing, what Idescribed with this dinner was,
again, like Dayne said, wasabsolutely impossible early on.
I couldn't have done it.
And yes, because of thecircumstances that I were in, I
really didn't have a choice.
But I put myself in a positionwhere I did tell my wife early
on, we can't do this.
We canceled a couple ofvacations.
We changed a couple ofvacations from scenic and

(53:26):
beach-like vacations and riversand boat trips to camping.
things that didn't have a lotof people around us.
We canceled a couple ofconcerts.
So we've gone through thosevery painful decisions, but I
haven't always been here.
So I kind of wanted, if youdon't mind, I have a list of

(53:47):
boundaries that I've generated.
I wanted to play this littlecheesy game of if you think
they're crutches or guardrails,and I'm going to kind of mix
them up.
And there's no right or wronganswers.
I think that's the beauty of itbecause some people might take
it as a crutch, some peoplemight take it as a guardrail,
and some of it might be itstarted as a crutch and it's
also going to stay as aguardrail I think that's the
beauty of this exercise.
So let's do this little funexercise.

(54:08):
And some of them are morerelevant for people early on in
their journey.
No smartphone or social mediaat all.

Daye (54:22):
I think that would be a crutch, I think, that category
of because it's an extreme.
I

Sean (54:29):
like that.
Yeah.
And we've heard people havedone that.
People have gone to dumbphones.
People have completely stoppedsocial media.
Interesting enough, I like thisexample.
You remember I switched fromiPhone to an Android early on
because I need to have troubleand trouble only working on
Android.
And you and I joked about how Ibecame an Android fan.
So that was I didn't go all theway to a dumb phone, but I

(54:50):
changed my phone to have, youknow, better screen monitoring.
Social media also was a crutchfor me, but I actually think,
Dayne, for me, that's become aguardrail now.
I just kind of enjoy it.
I used to waste a lot of timeon it, and I don't want to go
back.
So it's kind of one of thoseexamples where maybe it was
absolutely a crutch to beginwith, but now it's become maybe

(55:12):
a little bit more of aguardrail.
Okay, another one.
Sleeping with your phone inanother room.

Daye (55:23):
I mean, I think it could be both.
I think that would start asa...
I mean, I think any of thesewould be those kind of...
Well, that one I think is acrutch, though, because you're
moving the option to grab it atall, but I still can see the
power of like that.
That makes me think of thesocial media one where it's
probably like, hey, this ismoving to a healthy activity

(55:45):
where I mean, because look, lookanywhere and find someone who
doesn't say you should be andsomeone who says you should be
on your phone right before youfall asleep.
No one says that.
Everyone says you should takelike 30 minutes to an hour.
The only thing they'd probablydiffer on is how long before you
go to sleep.
You should be away from yourphone, but they all say you
should be away from it.

Sean (56:00):
You

Daye (56:01):
got it.
So like there's no, having itout of your room is probably a
great idea.

Sean (56:05):
And for relationships or people that have partners that
sleep in bed, man, my wife and Ieven just put the whole
pornography shit aside.
We used to spend half hour witheach of us on their phone.
And I know I have all sorts offriends that have this thing
where the lady's on an iPad andhe's on an iPhone.
And so ours, maybe thisboundary starts with sleeping

(56:25):
with your phone in another room.
For us, it's no longer anotherroom though, Dayne.
For us, it's...
We put it on a drawer set.
We moved all our chargers awayfrom our bed.
And it's on a drawer set on theother side of our master
bedroom.
So after we brush our teeth toput the phone on chargers, we
put it on the drawer set so wecan't be in our bed with our
phone.
Now, sometimes we go to bed andwe fall asleep five minutes

(56:48):
later.
Sometimes it's 20 minutes oftalking.
Sometimes it's intimacy.
Sometimes it's not.
But phones are away from thebed.
So they're not in anotherbedroom, but they have evolved.
Very cool.
So there's a couple otherexamples.
Internet disabled after acertain time of night.
Probably more of a crutch.

(57:11):
Maybe you can't be without theinternet forever, but definitely
one of those dang examples ofat the beginning, you kind of do
it all.
I love this one.
Cutting off contact with allopposite sex friends, even if
not sexual.
That could be a crutch forsomebody that struggles with
temptation, whether you like itor not, maybe being in that

(57:33):
scene kind of great stuff.
Daily check-ins withaccountability partners.
Another one that's probablymore of a crutch.
I'm going a little fasterthrough the listing.
But yeah, some of us have hadthat.
You and I used to talk a lotmore often.
Gains used to talk to me a lotmore often at the beginning.
This one I think is usually oneof Sean's ones.

(57:53):
Avoiding gym altogether becauseof the exposure it provides.
I did that for nine months nowthat it's evolved.
But again, it used to be acrutch, but I can't avoid gym
for the rest of my life.
It would be a bad guardrail.
I need to have some sort ofphysical activity, right?
Only Only watching G-ratedcontent, maybe more of a crutch
early on, and maybe gain morecontrol later on.

(58:16):
Some examples of guardrails.
I wonder what you think of thisone.
Using accountability software.
Guardrail or crutch?

Daye (58:29):
Yeah, I think you could argue that it could be a crutch
because of the extreme amountthat it stops things.
But I would argue that ifyou're living a healthy life and
you're doing all the things youshould, what would you need to
hide?
And so I think it's a guardrailas in to me, it's just a

(58:54):
practical way to be in recovery.
I can't think of a singleperson that I would say, oh,
yeah, for your scenario, youdon't need any kind of
accountability software becauseyou're the special edge case
where you don't need it.
There's not a person I canthink of that I would say that
to.
I don't care how long sober youare.
It gets to where it's like justtransparency with your spouse.

(59:14):
Now, I could get to wherethere's the level of like, and
this is a separate conversationwith this but like if I don't
think it's healthy to take takethe person you've traumatized
and say can you be my you canyou hold me accountable and you
get all this account you getthis stuff from accountability
software for me and then putthat burden on the person you've
traumatized unless they'rewilling to do it or asking for

(59:36):
it or but but that yeah that'snot the conversation we're
having but anyway that's just alittle side note but I think
it's it can start is likefeeling like a I think it's a
guard rail that disguises itselfas a crutch I guess what it is
because i again i don't see whyyou wouldn't have it i don't see
now that i've had it on myphone for over a year it's like
why would i not do this what'sthe reason why i just decide i

(59:57):
don't do this anymore i don'tknow

Sean (59:59):
yeah i'm with you i think that's my opinion it's it's the
best uh however many bucks 12 15bucks a month or whatever it is
that i pay right i think 16bucks a month that i pay on
triple but i put that in thereto create this conversation it
is absolutely it was absolutelynecessary and for me a crutch
right i did not know how to walki knew I needed the walker.

(01:00:20):
I needed the wheelchair.
It wasn't even a crutch.
It was like a wheelchair.
I couldn't even live withoutit.
But now I'm thinking, man, Ilove my household.
I want my household to be likethis.
If I have a kid, I want this tobe part of the boundary at
home.
I mean, especially with thisover-sexualized world that we
live in, yeah, it's become moreof a guardrail for me.
Here's a few other ones.

(01:00:41):
If any of them kind of catchyour resonance with you, let me
know if you have any thoughts.
But keeping devices at thebedroom overnight night we
talked about that that couldbecome a guardrail choosing not
to follow sexualized influencerseven when technically not porn
i put that in there becauseinfluencers have become a big

(01:01:01):
part of people's lives they'renot part of mine but if you have
if you know somebody thatwhether directly or indirectly
they're selling it based ontheir body their visual
appearance what they're wearingum

Daye (01:01:14):
yeah i don't think sounds ironic that sounds ironic that
you would say like there'sThey're like sexualized and
they're influencing.
So they're trying to influenceyou to do something and they're
sexualized.
Why would you follow them?
The whole idea is like they'retrying to influence you to do
something.
The whole name of their.
what they are says that this istrying to do yeah i think

(01:01:35):
that's pointless that's a wasteof time if you're doing that
stop just stop

Sean (01:01:39):
just stop you're not helping

Daye (01:01:40):
yourself

Sean (01:01:40):
there's another one not not being alone in a private
space with someone you might betempted by whether it's work
whether it's home with itsfriends i mean kind of just
think of it as a club whetherit's a sports activity um having
a you know weekly rhythm ofrest or solitude sabbath
depending of spiritual is youknow reasoning or rhyme reason

(01:02:03):
is part of your recovery I thinkthat that weak reflection I
called weekly but routine thatroutine reflection Sabbath type
exercise and solitude isnecessary for me it's become a
guardrail it's not it's not acrutch because it again like you
talk about takes a lot of kindof sanity and emotional maturity

(01:02:25):
if that's the word to gointelligence to kind of do that
early on it's hard to I didn'thave any of at least.
So to me, this is more of aguardrail.
Building movement or exerciseinto my life at a regular basis.
You and I talked about thiswhen we were kind of chatting
before the episode.
My crutch was don't go to a gymfor nine months.

(01:02:47):
My guardrail has become, hey,take care of your body, man.
You want to stay healthy.
It's a good stress reliever.
It's things that could causeother issues in the future,
including maybe not honoringsome of your boundaries and and
falling into problems.
Regular therapy or coaching.
I don't know about you.
I still do my therapy once amonth.
It used to be a couple of timesa week.

(01:03:08):
It used to be a crutch.
Now it's become more of aguardrail and I don't actually
talk about recovery much.
For 30 seconds, it's kind offunny that I feel obligated when
I start with them.
Like, hey, Aaron, abstinence isreally good and I'm still
sober.
And then I go into things and Iwant to talk to him and he's
now not even acknowledging whatI say about recovery He just

(01:03:30):
kind of ignores it.
I'm pretty sure he's doing iton purpose.
Like he doesn't even bring anylife to that conversation
anymore, which is kind oflovely.
I love that.
It's kind of his way of saying,okay, like I expect you to go.
Like when you tell your wife,I've been sober for 200 days and
she will say, well, welcome tothe world of living.
I've been sober all my life.
Yeah.

(01:03:54):
So it's kind of been the samething with my, but yeah, anyway,
therapy, mentoring, coaching.
I think it's more of aguardrail, having people that
you look up to, people thatinspire you.
Anyway, hopefully this createsa little bit of an opportunity.
This list could go forever, butI would love for people to kind
of maybe think about a littlebit some of the boundaries,

(01:04:16):
crutches they really need tohave to be able to walk.
Or did they get to a pointwhere they can have the
emotional sanity andintelligence and be able to kind
of build some guardrails?
I think you and I are at apoint where we're building more
and more guardrails in life.
And it's just lovely.
It's lovely to be in thatposition.

Daye (01:04:32):
I think one of the big takeaways to me out of this
whole conversation has been thatsobriety isn't something that
magically happens to you.
It's something that like, Imean, we've spent an hour
talking about self-care andboundaries and abstinence like
just kind of getting ourbearings on like what that is
what it's been for us how tolike that's not something that

(01:04:54):
just magically you don't tripinto sobriety with this
addiction you spend somepurposeful time to evaluate
yourself sit down figure outwhat is what are some things
that fit in these differentbuckets for you that you need to
start doing and start acting onand then how do you start
making a plan to start doingsomething about it and this just
to me hopefully it's energizingsome people to give them some

(01:05:16):
ability to think like, oh,here's a plan.
Like you guys have just walkedthrough a plan for me to start
doing this for myself.
And that's what I'm hoping theycan take away from it.
It's not Sean's plan.
It's not Dayne's plan.
It's my plan on what I need todo for my boundaries, for my
self-care and my abstinence,where I'm at right now.
Because it doesn't matter whereyou're at, if you're day zero
or you're day a thousand.
I mean, you can, if you haven'tbeen thinking about this stuff

(01:05:37):
and you want to be a better man,you can start with this stuff,
with this exercise of sittingdown and going through these
things.
And of course, we all day wouldsay hop on Relay and use it
because it's the perfect placeto do this within the app.
But even if you're just writingit down on some paper and
keeping it with you is a greatway to just start doing this.
But it's an exercise everybodyneeds to do for sure.

Sean (01:05:59):
Very cool.
Well said, Dan.
I think that actually kind offinishes the conversation pretty
well.
I had four or five questionsthat I was going to ask people
to kind of reflect on.
If you have anything else toadd to those questions or if any
of it resonates to you, pleasefeel free to chime in.
But there's a couple ofquestions that I think would be
awesome reflection opportunity.

(01:06:20):
We talked about journaling andreflecting might be part of a
boundary, might be part of aself-care depending on where
you're in your journey.
So kind of use this exercise tothink about that.
First one.
And in very Sean and Daynestyle, they are supposed to be
provocative.
Am I just trying not to lose oram I playing to win?

(01:06:42):
And honestly.
I have been in both thosespaces.
Early on, it was about notlosing.
You remember me saying it'sabout plus one tomorrow.
A lot of people talk about thistoday.
It's become a little thing thata lot of people say in our
recovery.
I used to say, I'm damn sobertoday.
Damn it if it's not plus onetomorrow.

(01:07:04):
It was all about not losing,right?
And it was necessary at a time.
Well, no, it ain't about plusone tomorrow because welcome
back to the life of living.
I'm supposed to be sober.
Normal people.
are sober they don't go watchpornography and masturbate in
their 40s when they're marriedI'll just leave it there at
least so I think I think it'sgood to kind of think about

(01:07:27):
where am I at in my recovery amI just too focused about not
losing today or am I starting tobuild things and guardrails in
my life that's actually aboutwinning and Dayne talks about
man and I want to be in thefuture the kind of life that I
want to have look at thatboundary that Dayne had like I
will not say no when it's aboutfamily get together figure it
the shit out This is not aboutnot losing.

(01:07:50):
This has nothing to do withjerking off tomorrow or not.
This is about, this is the manI want to be in my life.
It has nothing to do with that.
I want to put that behind me.
I want my family to even forgetabout that.
I want me to forget that I evenhad any of that.
This is about the man I want tobe in life.
So eventually we got to get toa point where this needs to
become about winning and notlosing.

(01:08:10):
But again, we're not judging.
Some of us might be in the notlosing space.
It's okay.
We've been there.
We've been

Daye (01:08:17):
there.
We were there for a long

Sean (01:08:19):
time.
Does your routine actuallysupport your healing?
I think that's very important.
I have seen some routines thatsome of my brothers get it kind
of intertwined and confused.
I think you kind of talkedabout it.
We don't just trip intosobriety.
It has to be intentional.
This whole regimen is not aboutgetting good at everything in

(01:08:42):
life.
That's not what this is about.
I've had a friend that said,I'm bad at keeping lists, so I'm
going to add it to my boundarylist that I make a list of 15
things that I'm going to getdone to them and I have to get
them done.
Okay, man, maybe that's astruggle you're having with your
wife because you're not good atkeeping up with a list or with
your boss or with your parents,but that's not what it's all
about.
We're talking about stoppingpornography, masturbation, and

(01:09:05):
lusting and objectifying womenand becoming a really good man
in life.
Now, if there's something inthat space that's relevant to
this thing, maybe in your headit is, but I think this a really
good question to talk aboutwhen we're talking about
recovery regimen anything youhave in that self-care anything
you have in that boundaryanything you have in that

(01:09:26):
abstinence it's about becominghealed from this damn addiction
don't get it intertwined withother stuff for example I have a
goal of reading 15 books a yearIf reading books has something
to do with learning ormeditating, managing your stress
level, learning absence, ifreading is part of this regimen

(01:09:49):
of filling your bored time withsomething more productive so
you're not on social media, ifthere's that connection, all
right, makes sense.
If it's passing a record or NewYear resolution, I did 45 books
last year, I want to do 50 thisyear, that's not part of this.
That's not useful.
So you kind of have to makethat connection.
connection.
The last two questions, whatwould someone who believes they

(01:10:16):
deserve to be complete and wholewith their life, what do they
do with their time, with theirenergy, with their
relationships?
That was my way of gettingpeople to think about their
idols, people that they getinspired by.
What is their life regimen?
What do they do?
Is it your dad?
Is it your grandpa?

(01:10:37):
Is it an uncle?
Is it friend it's it's all kindof all part of that sort of
mentorship having somebody is itJesus Christ if if it's part of
your if Christianity is part ofyour thing I think it's it's
good to think about who whatmodel do I have in my life that
I want to live by and what ratehow do they take care of
themselves what things do theysay no that's another name of

(01:11:00):
boundary what do they abstainfrom good people have rules in
their lives Dayne I've learnedthis I've learned I get inspired
by people People that arecommitted to boundaries, things
that they take care of, thingsthat they abstain from.
They don't just go, like I lovewhat you said, they don't just
go live with what life throws atthem.

(01:11:21):
People that inspire me say noto certain things.
Don't let life dictate whatthey do on a day-to-day basis.
And I think that's something tokind of reflect on.
Hopefully, this episode hascreated an opportunity for us to
really sit down and think aboutintentionally, am I taking care

(01:11:43):
of myself to the extent that itmakes sense where you are in
your mental space?
Do I have the right boundariesin life?
And am I abstaining from theright crap that's got me in
trouble?
I love this conversation.
It was meaningful for me, myfriend.
Thank you for always beingthere and give me the chance to

(01:12:03):
get some of the stuff off mychest.
I feel good.
You feel good?

Daye (01:12:09):
Yeah, no, it was a great conversation.
I enjoyed it.

Sean (01:12:11):
I love that.
My last ask is, I'm gettingexcited about our discussion
board because more and morepeople are getting involved.
So please, I would love for youto come back, maybe answer a
couple of those questions.
Maybe tell us what resonatedwith you more, maybe in some
ways more important to us whatdoesn't resonate with you that
maybe we can kind of use thisplatform and bring some of those
voices into the conversation.

(01:12:33):
If you're part of Relay, youcan always jump in and ask us a
question or leave a comment.
We would appreciate that.
Thank you very much.
Loved having this conversation.
This is Sean and Dayne sayinggoodbye.
And before you know it, we'llbe back with another episode.