July 31, 2024 • 39 mins
2024 E1041 Pamela S and Curt W join us for the first in a series of conversations about the topic of Earnie Larsen's Book "Stage II Recovery: Life Beyond Addiction". In this episode we discuss Larsen's definition of recovery and the differentiation between Stage I and Stage II Recovery along with Self-Defeating Learned Behaviors of Caretakers, People-Pleasers, Martyrs, Workaholics, Perfectionists, and Tap Dancers.
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(00:00):
Good morning, I'm Tim. I'm an alcoholic.
(00:04):
Good morning, I'm Rusty and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
Good morning, Rusty. Morning.
This morning we're going to be talking about states to recovery, life beyond addiction.
And with us today we have two guests. One is Kurt.
I'm Kurt, alcoholic, Al-Anon.
(00:25):
And Pamela.
I'm Pamela. I'm a food addict and Al-Anon.
Both of these people have been friends of Tam and I for a long time.
They've also been in states to recovery, which is a little group that we do here.
And we're going to be talking about, as Rusty said, states to recovery, life beyond addiction.
(00:51):
This is based on a book by Ernie Larson.
And a gentleman by the name of Gil Baker turned the learnings in this book into a program.
And this program, obviously, is called Stage 2 Recovery.
And when the folks here experienced it, we did it over eight weeks at three hours a session to cover the whole project.
(01:23):
And we're going to talk about that and how Rusty can share how that has evolved and where it is today.
And the fact that if you're interested in doing this program, we will invite you to contact Rusty via comments on our Facebook page, ChildrenofChaos.net.
(01:48):
So we're going to get started.
Ernie Larson starts off by saying that breaking the primary addiction, in other words, getting sober, is what he calls Stage 1 Recovery.
And he says that Stage 1 Recovery, the struggle of getting sober, is the stuff of real heroism.
(02:13):
Abstinence from a mood-altering chemical or specific behavior is still just abstinence.
As time goes on, people are becoming more aware that the real root of malfunction is buried deeper.
And that has acted out on the stage of relationships.
(02:37):
Stage 2 is not for people who think they've outgrown the 12 steps.
It is not possible to outgrow the 12 steps.
But as the program teaches, the steps can only take us as far as we allow them to take us.
And in many areas of our lives, we are usually only willing to go so far.
(03:02):
When we define recovery, we also define what the problem or issue is, what needs to be done about the problem or issue, and what our program is for.
Your program cannot take you farther than your own definition of recovery.
Since few people define recovery for themselves in any specific, meaningful manner, they have not clearly defined the central problem or issue in their lives,
(03:33):
and they don't have a good idea of where their program is supposed to take them.
So if my definition of recovery is abstaining from drinking, then my problem is stopping drinking, and my program will take me to abstinence.
(03:55):
Stage 2 recovery is the rebuilding of life that was saved in stage 1.
How did our lives come to need rebuilding?
In what context did all that pain come to be?
Since few of us are hermits, the unsurprising answer lies in the social context,
(04:18):
the world of personal relationships in which each one of us lives and breathes and have done so since birth.
We get sick in the company of other people, and we get well in the company of other people.
There is no other way it could be.
Ernie Larson believes that learning to make relationships work is at the core of full recovery.
(04:45):
Thank you, Tim.
One thing I might just add to what Tim just said was, in stage 1, he talks about the reasons of addiction,
and what he says is that a primary result of all addiction is the loss of self-esteem and integrity.
(05:07):
And I think everyone here at the table could agree to that.
He goes on to say, when they have gotten clean and sober or whatever, any addiction, food addiction, whatever, he goes into all that,
says that they find themselves pouring the same obsessive energy and putting the same blind effort into some other endeavor.
(05:30):
Now, we all know that. As soon as I quit the addiction, I'm looking for another one, right?
These objects of obsession then become just another way to hide from the real issue, learned behaviors.
He calls them character defects.
He says that character defects which invariably limit the capacity to function in loving relationships.
(05:58):
That is why these behaviors are self-defeating.
They block us from feeding our real hunger for good stuff to be going on between us and other people.
Now, I'm going to ask you guys, if you would, to just give us your experience, strength, and hope on what we've just read.
(06:19):
We'll talk about, if you want, about when you got here and when you stopped using whatever addiction you had
and what you saw yourself doing to replace that.
So, Pamela, could we start with you?
Okay. I've taken stage two recovery twice.
(06:41):
Once was 35 years ago with Gil Baker.
That was an interesting group because I was 40 years old.
I was newly married.
I had been in 12-step programs for my eating disorder and addiction for about 15 years.
I had been abstinent for that period of time.
(07:05):
I was newly married as well.
This was a new endeavor, a new growth process for me.
The unusual thing about this particular group that I was in, the people were a lot younger than I was.
Also, too, they were drug and alcohol addicted.
It was a little bit different.
(07:28):
I've enjoyed the program and learned a lot, but it's also been 35 years ago.
I don't remember all that much about it now.
It's all been absorbed into my recovery.
Since that time, I have used Emotions Anonymous.
I went to that program for one summer that was really pivotal.
(07:50):
What brought me into Overeaters Anonymous in my 20s was I'd had a mental and emotional breakdown.
The result was my addiction became full blown.
Stage two recovery was really good after I had already been abstinent for a period of time.
(08:12):
Recently, fast forward 35 years, I came to Rusty's group.
It was a wonderful group because it was a mixture of men and women.
It was a people more my age, or at least adults, and a mixture of people I knew and some that I didn't know and got to know in the group.
(08:33):
I was in an unusual place in my life.
My husband had recently passed away.
A lot of things were changing.
I had a fear of returning to that depression and mental state where I couldn't cope.
I think stage two recovery was good for me at this point in time.
(08:58):
Kurt?
Kurt, alcoholic.
I came to the program with a lot of different ideas.
I came to the program, one, to prove that I wasn't alcoholic.
I never mind that people along the way had suggested that I do AA, but my dad was an alcoholic, and I sure as heck wasn't going to be an alcoholic.
(09:21):
I thought when I was approached with that, that you'd be this way too if you came from that kind of stuff.
I was horribly bothered by the fact that people—I had the mind of an alcoholic, maybe.
Years later, when I went to a shrink, as I was going to all the shrinks in town, which was a vow of mine, if I get out of this house, I'm going to go see a bunch of shrinks because I am screwed up.
(09:49):
That's just an adult child of an alcoholic for sure.
It's very painful and gruesome to be an adult child of an alcoholic, even when nothing's going on.
But living between your thoughts and your brain is a very hurtful place.
My dad along the way got sober.
(10:11):
A lady sent me a book about alcoholics.
Actually, she sent me some Al-Anon stuff.
I decided, since I didn't understand what everybody was telling me about AA and Al-Anon and adult children, I went to all three of them, including counseling, and realized that Al-Anon made me feel better.
Adult children made me feel awful.
(10:34):
I didn't go to AA because I wasn't going to be an alcoholic.
That's just the way it was going to be.
I'm very determined or stubborn, depending on which people you're talking to.
I went in to one of the shrinks, and I thought he was going to say, what are you doing here? Go on home.
(10:56):
Instead, he said, what are you doing with all this anger?
I said, well, I run a lot.
Then he said, well, I thought with these tests that I took, he'd say, why don't you just go on home?
Instead, he said, sit down, son.
We've got a lot of work to do because you have the mind of an alcoholic.
Although I didn't want to know what that was, I knew what it was.
(11:18):
I just automatically knew what that was.
I came in, and like I said, I wound up in Al-Anon.
The funny thing about my alcoholism, if there's a reason, I take a geographic cure.
My alcoholism and the way I was and who I was wouldn't show up for a couple of years.
(11:39):
I think I heard Rusty say at a meeting one time, he said, we're pretty similar to all the kids on the playground until we get to a certain age.
That was exactly the way it was for me.
I was special. I grew up in a household full of women.
I was so special. It was amazing.
Luckily, my mom babied me to death, and my dad decided to make me tough.
(12:06):
Thank God for that. At the time, I wanted to kill them both.
I had a lot of triangles that I had to deal with because when I dated, I dated somebody so sweet I'd walk all over them.
Or I dated somebody real mean like my dad and would wind up in—that's finally what helped me start breaking those triangles.
I got with somebody that just plain old did better than—didn't know how to play this game better than me.
(12:33):
For me, most of it has been just getting to the end of my rope and then brave enough to face my character defects.
That's what I've done.
I'm really glad for the timing of this thing. I noticed that today was pretty sad.
Today was what's the use kind of stuff that went on.
(12:58):
Because my character defects, when I don't see them, they blindside me.
They mess my life up, and I have to live with them long enough to deal with them.
But over time, I see the process. I see God working in that process.
So far, God's been real good.
My obsessions of the mind, which is what Chuck C. in A New Pair of Glasses talks about, my obsessions of the mind, that's my life.
(13:26):
I played softball with a bunch of guys when we got sober, and you should have seen us.
You've seen the right size bats and the right handles and how the glove was made.
We were totally obsessed with the games.
Sometimes they were really good, and sometimes we just needed to be sent home because maybe we'd be in a bunch of fights.
But there's been a lot of fun, too, in the programs, even when you don't think that this is very much fun right now.
(13:53):
I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I always wanted to do Stage 2. It wasn't offered in Oklahoma City where I got sober.
Then when I came and this opportunity came up, and I don't think it had been offered for a little while, and we did it.
I got a lot out of it.
I was totally self-centered. I knew that.
(14:14):
I knew that I checked out a lot. You could be talking to me, and I would hear what you were saying, but I didn't.
I didn't have to replay it in my mind backwards to understand what you were saying because I'd check out a lot.
That was the main thing that happened to me in Stage 2.
These guys told me to tell them when I was going into that, and I didn't consciously. I'm hardly aware when I go into that.
(14:37):
But I had told them what the symptoms were, and I went into that.
Those guys walked me through it and kept talking to me.
I was able to talk while I was in that whatever that is, that chaos, which is older than the hills.
A lot of these things that are older than the hills keep me from having a life, and I don't like it.
(14:59):
At various times, I have more willingness.
I got to a place in the program where the only thing that was bothering me was how to make a living and how to take care of my family.
I knew I couldn't do it, and I wanted to rely on God.
My obsessions of the mind kept me away from God, though.
It was all up to me, and I had to make it happen.
(15:21):
If somebody suggested something to me, it sounded stupid. I wasn't going to do it.
Thank God that I hung around long enough to hear you guys.
I spent 15 to 17 years in that and got dry.
One of our friends saw my wife. She did her hair.
(15:45):
She told her, she said, you know, Kurt really needs to double up on his meetings. She could see how dry I was getting.
I'll get mean. Dad instilled the mean stuff. I can do the mean stuff.
I just don't much like to do it today.
There's consequences for all this stuff, and I don't want to dump that on everybody.
In fact, I wasn't sure if I could get married. I wasn't going to dump what I was on somebody.
(16:09):
I gave my wife a negative bid, and she told me to shut up.
I realized she's the one for me, because with all the good stuff, she had the stuff, too.
I'd already put in my God box that I wanted somebody that I wouldn't run over and somebody that wouldn't run over me.
There she was, right in the middle. She doesn't have a codependent bone in her body, and I can't work her.
(16:34):
All that stuff. Just amazing.
God's got a hold of my life, and He's given me a good life.
A couple of years ago, my character defects that I wasn't even aware of came into play.
They're just old subtleties, and when the right circumstances were there in my business,
(16:55):
I just darn near for probably the fourth time pulled the business down over my head.
Sidney's walked through that all with me, and that's by the grace of God.
That's been better. My thinking about that has gone from shock to willing to be willing,
and even a little bit more than that.
I'd like to make amends for all of it, and we'll see how that plays out eventually.
(17:20):
I like the freedom. I wrote on here, a full recovery for me is bodily, mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially.
So I'm asking a lot, knowing me in my own mind and being courageous enough to act on it.
That's what I love about all the people in the program. We're all heroes. I love that.
I think that's all for them.
(17:41):
And all that will happen. It's happening as we're all sitting here.
I believe that with all my heart.
For me, I came to Stage 2 Recovery out of curiosity.
Something was being offered, and I didn't know what it was, but it was called Stage 2 Recovery.
(18:02):
And at that point, I was about three years into my sobriety.
Prior to the pandemic, I had been going to between three and five meetings a day.
Part of that reason was because when I got bored, I drank, and I was afraid to get bored.
(18:23):
And part of it became ego because I heard the term 90 meetings in 90 days.
And I thought, well, that's just a meeting a day.
I can do more than that, and I need to do more than that.
And so a few months into this more meetings per day, it became an ego thing.
(18:44):
And it's like, I'm going to do 100 meetings a month.
And by the time I get to a year, I'm going to do 1200 meetings in 12 months.
All ego. I did not make 1200 meetings in 12 months.
I missed it by 27 because I got pneumonia, and it just put me out.
(19:09):
That aside, the ego is still going plenty strong.
Even though I'm living a life of complete abstinence from alcohol,
and the carrot was there, but no one would tell me what the carrot was.
It's stage two recovery.
Well, what is it? Crickets. Silence.
(19:32):
It's stage two recovery.
So I asked to become a part of it, and that was graciously accepted.
What I found was I was going to have problems getting to a life beyond addiction
because I believed that I was successful in stage one in getting sober.
(19:54):
But that's all I was.
And Ernie Larson says the success of stage one can be an obstacle to stage two.
It's the classic case of good being the enemy of the best.
And so I got to stage two recovery, again, with a blank sheet of paper,
(20:18):
just the way I got to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I was willing to listen and learn to whatever it is this program was
because I wanted to get to a life beyond addiction.
And, you know, I met eight other people.
One was the mentor.
(20:40):
The rest of us were a part of the learning experience.
The mentor is a part of the learning experience, but we were the students
and have developed wonderful relationships with every one of those people, but one.
And that's a different story, but I've developed a great relationship
with seven out of those eight people, and I'm really, really glad I got to find out
(21:06):
what stage two recovery is, and I look forward to going forward in this program.
Take it away, Rusty.
Thank you, Tim.
I wanted to go back for just a moment to, I read this earlier,
and I'm just going to paraphrase this.
These objects of obsession then become just another way to hide from the real issues themselves.
(21:29):
Their limitations, their self-defeating learned behaviors, their character defects,
which invariably limit their capacity to function in loving relationships.
That was my dilemma.
Most of you know I was married three times before I got sober.
(21:52):
All I did was quit drinking and using drugs.
All the behaviors, all the self-defeating behaviors, all the character defects were still there,
and a lot of them I wasn't ready, not knowing this, to get rid of.
I didn't have that level of consciousness that I could look at this stuff and say that.
(22:16):
I just didn't know because it had been me for so long.
So how did I replace the alcohol and the drugs?
Well, for me, my womanizing picked up.
Another thing that I picked up was I started skydiving, I started bungee jumping,
(22:37):
because I was addicted to what? Excitement.
Because my life was full of excitement.
Now, most of it was all negative, but it was full of it.
I didn't know how to act any other way than the way that I did.
That excitement, I needed that.
You find this with a lot of new people that's coming into the program, and they don't know.
(23:02):
All they know is I'm going to quit drinking.
Then once I complete that, then all the rest of the stuff is really there.
Then we do a fourth and a fifth step.
For me, all it did was clear the surface.
It accomplished one big thing in my life,
in that I could tell another human being about my sexual abuse.
(23:25):
That's when really it started.
When I got to stage two recovery with Gil, I was about three years sober.
Then he became my sponsor for the next 18 years.
I wanted to become his son, because I never had a dad, but he wouldn't let me do that.
He was smart enough not to let me do that.
(23:46):
He taught me so many things about me.
One of the things that I learned from Gil, without him saying a word,
I respected him and loved him so much that I wanted to do better, make him proud again.
When I'm addressing all these different issues, if we stick around, we have to address them.
(24:11):
Because we'll get drunk if we don't, or we'll go back to our drug of choice, whatever that is.
I'd like to maybe talk a little bit about that, Pamela.
It's interesting because what you're talking about is exactly what I experienced with.
I told you that first 15 years when I was abstinent, but then I got married.
Of course, I married somebody who challenged me, and I challenged him.
(24:36):
My serenity went to hell in a handbasket.
Stage two recovery was necessary to show me that I needed more.
Also, too, I started attending Al-Anon meetings about that time,
because Al-Anon is about relationships and being able to get along with people.
The safe and compassionate environment that you created, Rusty, in stage two recovery that we all took together
(25:03):
was just the place that was necessary to help me understand some of the stuff that I was going through,
even though I've been through so much stuff over the years.
But these self-defeating behaviors had been survival skills
and continued to be survival skills in certain instances.
And that's what I needed to work on.
(25:26):
Actually, stage two recovery is what it's all about.
I was always considered an intense person.
I've been told that.
But I always like to think that I'm passionate and determined and persistent.
And recovery is very important to me because, like I said, I figured going back to that mental state of depression
(25:47):
and not caring, then I know that I'm lost.
I want to be comfortable in my own skin.
And to me, that's what recovery is all about.
It's about serenity. It's being in touch with other people. It's being accepted.
I grew up in a home that was dysfunctional.
I have many relatives from past generations, my siblings, my husband, my stepchildren, nieces and nephews,
(26:13):
who have various and a myriad of addictions.
I'm the only one in my family who's in recovery.
And so that makes it a little bit harder for me because I am totally turning to my family of choice,
my 12-step family, to love and support me.
(26:34):
It was interesting because in our – and I think each stage two recovery group is going to be different, for sure.
I'm so grateful for the one that we had because I got to see people grow and go through things.
I got to see people struggle in trying to understand themselves.
And even the feedback that we gave each other, which was so brilliant and so welcoming,
(26:59):
was just unique, I think, to this group.
And I'm just very appreciative that I was able to take part in it.
Thank you, Betty.
That's great.
Well, I had that breakdown in high school emotionally.
And everything was going real good and I had something happen that was just – I just couldn't believe.
And I was already pretty set in my ways.
(27:22):
A friend of mine said, you grew up in a bad school, you learned good.
And so I was way set in my ways.
And how I handled things, well, I broke down and began praying about it.
And God sent me a book, basically.
Somebody told me I should read Psycho-Cybernetics.
It's an old book.
And I did that and I started putting myself back together and could slowly get out of bed
(27:46):
and start showing up at different places again and then went to OU.
And immediately they said, you need to be Rush Chairman.
And hell yeah, I did.
And so that's exactly what I did.
I approached life as a kamikaze is the only way I would have the will to do it.
I was terrified.
So I overdid everything as a kamikaze.
(28:09):
I had about anything for attention.
And so I did those things.
And so when I got sober – and this was because I heard some people that were in AA
and going to Al-Anon meetings that said, you know, Kurt's going to realize he's an alcoholic.
(28:31):
And they didn't know I was even there.
And it made me mad because once again, you know, you'd be this way too.
So after a while when I hit my next obstacle over Memorial Day weekend, I went to AA.
And I knew – I was going to AA and Al-Anon, so I knew –
I think I was just keeping my eyes on the guys in AA just in case,
(28:56):
just in case the thing that I was thinking was wrong.
And so that friend of mine said, just tell him you have a desire not to drink today.
He was in the program.
And that's what I did and that's where it started.
And had a whole bunch of Al-Anons that I ran around with.
And we were legends in our own mind.
I mean, we were hooligans.
(29:18):
In fact, this lady that was in Al-Anon and had been there for 30-something years,
she said, just leave them alone. They'll blow up.
You know, seen it a million times.
And we did.
And so then I got to work in AA and I did everything that they told me to do
and even some stuff where I went out and a guy told me he could save my life with the steps.
(29:45):
And I went out and worked on his farm for three or four months.
We never did the steps.
We did the steps one night, I think.
And that was it.
And then I started getting into all of the adult children stuff.
I had been doing five or six years in Al-Anon and I could talk it pretty well.
(30:09):
When I got over into AA, all this smart stuff that I thought I knew I didn't know and I had nothing to say.
And I knew it from my dad.
I knew the AA book from my dad and I would sure as heck like to tell him about it.
Once I had to read it for myself, it didn't make any sense.
So I really started at square one.
(30:30):
I got a great sponsor and he had kind of been my friend in softball.
He had a really great program and he told me about stuff.
I did my fifth step with him and he pointed out, he said, at the end of it,
he said, here's a list of some of your major character defects.
There were 10 or 12 of them and that's what started it.
(30:54):
At that point, I was not dating anybody.
That's not true. I had already dated two or three people.
I had already dated two or three people.
And why I ended up leaving Oklahoma City to go to Tulsa, I told everybody I was going up here to help my parents
(31:15):
because they were getting older and half of that was true.
I had one mean girl and one nice girl and I was between them both all the time.
I realized I'm not getting out of this.
There's nothing in me that can will me out of this. I'm going to have to.
I prayed about it and it seemed like it was a for real deal.
I asked some people about it and it seemed like that.
(31:39):
It was affirmed and so I came to Tulsa.
That started at New Hope.
And man, we had some great meetings at New Hope and so that was the beginning.
Let me ask you. So when you got to Tulsa and you had already been at Al-Anon for how long?
Five years.
Five years. But you knew you was alcoholic.
(32:01):
What self-defeating behaviors or character defects did you actually know when you got here?
Because being at Al-Anon, did you know that you were codependent?
I downplayed it. I knew I was.
I had had two huge obsessions about two different women that today would probably get you in some trouble.
(32:24):
I was locked in. One of them was in high school.
I'd just go outside and think about her until she drove by my house with her cigarettes and drive me downtown and stuff like that.
We were just like in sync and all that kind of stuff.
And I had another one when I got to college because I thought God told me I was supposed to marry this girl.
You know what I mean? And I just didn't know how to work my way through it.
(32:48):
So the obsessions were there and I knew I was, I did know I was codependent.
I didn't know how awful it could be for you.
My mom, before I ever got to the programs, my mom went to Al-Anon and she was extreme in the Al-Anon.
My dad was extreme in his alcoholism.
(33:09):
And they lived in two different worlds, but they were kind of good for each other.
My dad is telling my mom, patience little jackass, patience, you know, crap like that.
And he was good. I mean, he pulled me aside when he said, you know, I think you're afraid to accept responsibility.
I don't think you'll ever get married because you won't do it. You won't accept responsibility.
(33:30):
And I was like, hmm. So there's just stuff like that. But I knew the codependency.
And there was one other that I thought was really bad.
Well, came out in some workaholism, perfectionism, want to do it alone, but won't anybody's help.
And you can't do it. I couldn't do it that way.
And I just, you know, one girl that I dated, her friend said, you know, he's got the worst self-image I've ever seen.
(33:57):
And I didn't know what to do about that. That's kind of how I came in with it.
Before I got to stage two and had gotten sober, I experienced a couple of challenges in sobriety and am still facing those challenges.
One of those being my health issue. And the other was a relationship issue.
(34:21):
Is a relationship issue in the fact that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous indirectly or directly suggests that you should probably wait at least a year before you make any life changing decisions or get in a relationship.
Well, that didn't happen for me. My relationship started about four days in this variety.
(34:45):
So that's naturally going to be a challenge. And, you know, when I came to stage two, we had our, you know, initial meeting.
And I heard that this was talking about relationships and self-defeating behaviors.
And I got here with an attitude that I don't need any friends and I expressed that that night that I'm not here to make friends.
(35:15):
I'm here to learn about, you know, life beyond addiction. And we started talking about self-defeating behaviors.
We didn't even talk about what those categories of self-defeating behaviors are. But I made the statement.
I am not a victim here of my health disease or my relationship.
(35:39):
And being a victim isn't even one of those self-defeating behaviors, but it's certainly a part of several of those self-defeating behaviors.
And I think that by denying that I am a victim, I was really admitting that I probably was. I just couldn't see it.
(36:03):
Yeah. That's the key, isn't it?
Yeah. So I was open. You know, I became open to listening to what all of you had to say.
And as we progressed through these readings and this program, it's become a very beneficial part of my life.
(36:24):
And I'm looking forward to doing it again, because when I go back and I look at these self-defeating behaviors,
I'm willing to internalize them and where they reside within me. And I wasn't willing to do that the first time.
And that is just growth in life beyond addiction. But this program helped me recognize those
(36:54):
and become willing to work on those self-defeating behaviors or character defects.
When we get here with all the earnestness that we have within us, it's about our self-awareness.
See, I'd always been told that perfectionism was a great thing by my family and other people.
(37:16):
It got me where I wasn't. But then when I got here, I started hearing, oh, you're a perfectionist.
God dang, you're in big trouble. Well, they were right. But I couldn't see that in the beginning.
So it's still affecting my life, even though I've quit drinking and using. It's still going on.
(37:38):
Okay, that's a self-defeating behavior for me. So I just want to read this. It says,
if functioning in healthier relationships is the goal of Stage 2 recovery, then how can you attain it?
What has been standing in the way? If recovery is learning how to love, then what is the obstacle?
(38:01):
Self-defeating behaviors are what get in the way. These are the ways of thinking and acting that we have practiced
and that through practice has become habits. He's leading us in because in the next segment,
we're going to be talking about habits, right? In the course of time, these habits have become who we are.
(38:27):
And who we are has become rooted in our subconscious so that we now automatically act out these behavioral patterns,
whether we're aware of them or not. Today, we are at the beginning of Stage 2 recovery.
And in the next segment that we're going to be doing, we're going to get into the solution.
(38:52):
So thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
This has been a production of ChildrenOfChaos.net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and recovery in America.
It's not affiliated with, endorsed, or financed by any recovery or treatment program, organization, or institution.
(39:15):
Any views, thoughts, or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely that of the individual
and do not reflect the views, policies, or position of any specific recovery-based entity or organization.
Good morning, I'm Tim. I'm an alcoholic.
(00:04):
Good morning, I'm Rusty and I'm an alcoholic and this is Children of Chaos.
Good morning, Rusty. Morning.
This morning we're going to be talking about states to recovery, life beyond addiction.
And with us today we have two guests. One is Kurt.
I'm Kurt, alcoholic, Al-Anon.
(00:25):
And Pamela.
I'm Pamela. I'm a food addict and Al-Anon.
Both of these people have been friends of Tam and I for a long time.
They've also been in states to recovery, which is a little group that we do here.
And we're going to be talking about, as Rusty said, states to recovery, life beyond addiction.
(00:51):
This is based on a book by Ernie Larson.
And a gentleman by the name of Gil Baker turned the learnings in this book into a program.
And this program, obviously, is called Stage 2 Recovery.
And when the folks here experienced it, we did it over eight weeks at three hours a session to cover the whole project.
(01:23):
And we're going to talk about that and how Rusty can share how that has evolved and where it is today.
And the fact that if you're interested in doing this program, we will invite you to contact Rusty via comments on our Facebook page, ChildrenofChaos.net.
(01:48):
So we're going to get started.
Ernie Larson starts off by saying that breaking the primary addiction, in other words, getting sober, is what he calls Stage 1 Recovery.
And he says that Stage 1 Recovery, the struggle of getting sober, is the stuff of real heroism.
(02:13):
Abstinence from a mood-altering chemical or specific behavior is still just abstinence.
As time goes on, people are becoming more aware that the real root of malfunction is buried deeper.
And that has acted out on the stage of relationships.
(02:37):
Stage 2 is not for people who think they've outgrown the 12 steps.
It is not possible to outgrow the 12 steps.
But as the program teaches, the steps can only take us as far as we allow them to take us.
And in many areas of our lives, we are usually only willing to go so far.
(03:02):
When we define recovery, we also define what the problem or issue is, what needs to be done about the problem or issue, and what our program is for.
Your program cannot take you farther than your own definition of recovery.
Since few people define recovery for themselves in any specific, meaningful manner, they have not clearly defined the central problem or issue in their lives,
(03:33):
and they don't have a good idea of where their program is supposed to take them.
So if my definition of recovery is abstaining from drinking, then my problem is stopping drinking, and my program will take me to abstinence.
(03:55):
Stage 2 recovery is the rebuilding of life that was saved in stage 1.
How did our lives come to need rebuilding?
In what context did all that pain come to be?
Since few of us are hermits, the unsurprising answer lies in the social context,
(04:18):
the world of personal relationships in which each one of us lives and breathes and have done so since birth.
We get sick in the company of other people, and we get well in the company of other people.
There is no other way it could be.
Ernie Larson believes that learning to make relationships work is at the core of full recovery.
(04:45):
Thank you, Tim.
One thing I might just add to what Tim just said was, in stage 1, he talks about the reasons of addiction,
and what he says is that a primary result of all addiction is the loss of self-esteem and integrity.
(05:07):
And I think everyone here at the table could agree to that.
He goes on to say, when they have gotten clean and sober or whatever, any addiction, food addiction, whatever, he goes into all that,
says that they find themselves pouring the same obsessive energy and putting the same blind effort into some other endeavor.
(05:30):
Now, we all know that. As soon as I quit the addiction, I'm looking for another one, right?
These objects of obsession then become just another way to hide from the real issue, learned behaviors.
He calls them character defects.
He says that character defects which invariably limit the capacity to function in loving relationships.
(05:58):
That is why these behaviors are self-defeating.
They block us from feeding our real hunger for good stuff to be going on between us and other people.
Now, I'm going to ask you guys, if you would, to just give us your experience, strength, and hope on what we've just read.
(06:19):
We'll talk about, if you want, about when you got here and when you stopped using whatever addiction you had
and what you saw yourself doing to replace that.
So, Pamela, could we start with you?
Okay. I've taken stage two recovery twice.
(06:41):
Once was 35 years ago with Gil Baker.
That was an interesting group because I was 40 years old.
I was newly married.
I had been in 12-step programs for my eating disorder and addiction for about 15 years.
I had been abstinent for that period of time.
(07:05):
I was newly married as well.
This was a new endeavor, a new growth process for me.
The unusual thing about this particular group that I was in, the people were a lot younger than I was.
Also, too, they were drug and alcohol addicted.
It was a little bit different.
(07:28):
I've enjoyed the program and learned a lot, but it's also been 35 years ago.
I don't remember all that much about it now.
It's all been absorbed into my recovery.
Since that time, I have used Emotions Anonymous.
I went to that program for one summer that was really pivotal.
(07:50):
What brought me into Overeaters Anonymous in my 20s was I'd had a mental and emotional breakdown.
The result was my addiction became full blown.
Stage two recovery was really good after I had already been abstinent for a period of time.
(08:12):
Recently, fast forward 35 years, I came to Rusty's group.
It was a wonderful group because it was a mixture of men and women.
It was a people more my age, or at least adults, and a mixture of people I knew and some that I didn't know and got to know in the group.
(08:33):
I was in an unusual place in my life.
My husband had recently passed away.
A lot of things were changing.
I had a fear of returning to that depression and mental state where I couldn't cope.
I think stage two recovery was good for me at this point in time.
(08:58):
Kurt?
Kurt, alcoholic.
I came to the program with a lot of different ideas.
I came to the program, one, to prove that I wasn't alcoholic.
I never mind that people along the way had suggested that I do AA, but my dad was an alcoholic, and I sure as heck wasn't going to be an alcoholic.
(09:21):
I thought when I was approached with that, that you'd be this way too if you came from that kind of stuff.
I was horribly bothered by the fact that people—I had the mind of an alcoholic, maybe.
Years later, when I went to a shrink, as I was going to all the shrinks in town, which was a vow of mine, if I get out of this house, I'm going to go see a bunch of shrinks because I am screwed up.
(09:49):
That's just an adult child of an alcoholic for sure.
It's very painful and gruesome to be an adult child of an alcoholic, even when nothing's going on.
But living between your thoughts and your brain is a very hurtful place.
My dad along the way got sober.
(10:11):
A lady sent me a book about alcoholics.
Actually, she sent me some Al-Anon stuff.
I decided, since I didn't understand what everybody was telling me about AA and Al-Anon and adult children, I went to all three of them, including counseling, and realized that Al-Anon made me feel better.
Adult children made me feel awful.
(10:34):
I didn't go to AA because I wasn't going to be an alcoholic.
That's just the way it was going to be.
I'm very determined or stubborn, depending on which people you're talking to.
I went in to one of the shrinks, and I thought he was going to say, what are you doing here? Go on home.
(10:56):
Instead, he said, what are you doing with all this anger?
I said, well, I run a lot.
Then he said, well, I thought with these tests that I took, he'd say, why don't you just go on home?
Instead, he said, sit down, son.
We've got a lot of work to do because you have the mind of an alcoholic.
Although I didn't want to know what that was, I knew what it was.
(11:18):
I just automatically knew what that was.
I came in, and like I said, I wound up in Al-Anon.
The funny thing about my alcoholism, if there's a reason, I take a geographic cure.
My alcoholism and the way I was and who I was wouldn't show up for a couple of years.
(11:39):
I think I heard Rusty say at a meeting one time, he said, we're pretty similar to all the kids on the playground until we get to a certain age.
That was exactly the way it was for me.
I was special. I grew up in a household full of women.
I was so special. It was amazing.
Luckily, my mom babied me to death, and my dad decided to make me tough.
(12:06):
Thank God for that. At the time, I wanted to kill them both.
I had a lot of triangles that I had to deal with because when I dated, I dated somebody so sweet I'd walk all over them.
Or I dated somebody real mean like my dad and would wind up in—that's finally what helped me start breaking those triangles.
I got with somebody that just plain old did better than—didn't know how to play this game better than me.
(12:33):
For me, most of it has been just getting to the end of my rope and then brave enough to face my character defects.
That's what I've done.
I'm really glad for the timing of this thing. I noticed that today was pretty sad.
Today was what's the use kind of stuff that went on.
(12:58):
Because my character defects, when I don't see them, they blindside me.
They mess my life up, and I have to live with them long enough to deal with them.
But over time, I see the process. I see God working in that process.
So far, God's been real good.
My obsessions of the mind, which is what Chuck C. in A New Pair of Glasses talks about, my obsessions of the mind, that's my life.
(13:26):
I played softball with a bunch of guys when we got sober, and you should have seen us.
You've seen the right size bats and the right handles and how the glove was made.
We were totally obsessed with the games.
Sometimes they were really good, and sometimes we just needed to be sent home because maybe we'd be in a bunch of fights.
But there's been a lot of fun, too, in the programs, even when you don't think that this is very much fun right now.
(13:53):
I got sick and tired of being sick and tired.
I always wanted to do Stage 2. It wasn't offered in Oklahoma City where I got sober.
Then when I came and this opportunity came up, and I don't think it had been offered for a little while, and we did it.
I got a lot out of it.
I was totally self-centered. I knew that.
(14:14):
I knew that I checked out a lot. You could be talking to me, and I would hear what you were saying, but I didn't.
I didn't have to replay it in my mind backwards to understand what you were saying because I'd check out a lot.
That was the main thing that happened to me in Stage 2.
These guys told me to tell them when I was going into that, and I didn't consciously. I'm hardly aware when I go into that.
(14:37):
But I had told them what the symptoms were, and I went into that.
Those guys walked me through it and kept talking to me.
I was able to talk while I was in that whatever that is, that chaos, which is older than the hills.
A lot of these things that are older than the hills keep me from having a life, and I don't like it.
(14:59):
At various times, I have more willingness.
I got to a place in the program where the only thing that was bothering me was how to make a living and how to take care of my family.
I knew I couldn't do it, and I wanted to rely on God.
My obsessions of the mind kept me away from God, though.
It was all up to me, and I had to make it happen.
(15:21):
If somebody suggested something to me, it sounded stupid. I wasn't going to do it.
Thank God that I hung around long enough to hear you guys.
I spent 15 to 17 years in that and got dry.
One of our friends saw my wife. She did her hair.
(15:45):
She told her, she said, you know, Kurt really needs to double up on his meetings. She could see how dry I was getting.
I'll get mean. Dad instilled the mean stuff. I can do the mean stuff.
I just don't much like to do it today.
There's consequences for all this stuff, and I don't want to dump that on everybody.
In fact, I wasn't sure if I could get married. I wasn't going to dump what I was on somebody.
(16:09):
I gave my wife a negative bid, and she told me to shut up.
I realized she's the one for me, because with all the good stuff, she had the stuff, too.
I'd already put in my God box that I wanted somebody that I wouldn't run over and somebody that wouldn't run over me.
There she was, right in the middle. She doesn't have a codependent bone in her body, and I can't work her.
(16:34):
All that stuff. Just amazing.
God's got a hold of my life, and He's given me a good life.
A couple of years ago, my character defects that I wasn't even aware of came into play.
They're just old subtleties, and when the right circumstances were there in my business,
(16:55):
I just darn near for probably the fourth time pulled the business down over my head.
Sidney's walked through that all with me, and that's by the grace of God.
That's been better. My thinking about that has gone from shock to willing to be willing,
and even a little bit more than that.
I'd like to make amends for all of it, and we'll see how that plays out eventually.
(17:20):
I like the freedom. I wrote on here, a full recovery for me is bodily, mentally, physically, emotionally, and socially.
So I'm asking a lot, knowing me in my own mind and being courageous enough to act on it.
That's what I love about all the people in the program. We're all heroes. I love that.
I think that's all for them.
(17:41):
And all that will happen. It's happening as we're all sitting here.
I believe that with all my heart.
For me, I came to Stage 2 Recovery out of curiosity.
Something was being offered, and I didn't know what it was, but it was called Stage 2 Recovery.
(18:02):
And at that point, I was about three years into my sobriety.
Prior to the pandemic, I had been going to between three and five meetings a day.
Part of that reason was because when I got bored, I drank, and I was afraid to get bored.
(18:23):
And part of it became ego because I heard the term 90 meetings in 90 days.
And I thought, well, that's just a meeting a day.
I can do more than that, and I need to do more than that.
And so a few months into this more meetings per day, it became an ego thing.
(18:44):
And it's like, I'm going to do 100 meetings a month.
And by the time I get to a year, I'm going to do 1200 meetings in 12 months.
All ego. I did not make 1200 meetings in 12 months.
I missed it by 27 because I got pneumonia, and it just put me out.
(19:09):
That aside, the ego is still going plenty strong.
Even though I'm living a life of complete abstinence from alcohol,
and the carrot was there, but no one would tell me what the carrot was.
It's stage two recovery.
Well, what is it? Crickets. Silence.
(19:32):
It's stage two recovery.
So I asked to become a part of it, and that was graciously accepted.
What I found was I was going to have problems getting to a life beyond addiction
because I believed that I was successful in stage one in getting sober.
(19:54):
But that's all I was.
And Ernie Larson says the success of stage one can be an obstacle to stage two.
It's the classic case of good being the enemy of the best.
And so I got to stage two recovery, again, with a blank sheet of paper,
(20:18):
just the way I got to Alcoholics Anonymous.
And I was willing to listen and learn to whatever it is this program was
because I wanted to get to a life beyond addiction.
And, you know, I met eight other people.
One was the mentor.
(20:40):
The rest of us were a part of the learning experience.
The mentor is a part of the learning experience, but we were the students
and have developed wonderful relationships with every one of those people, but one.
And that's a different story, but I've developed a great relationship
with seven out of those eight people, and I'm really, really glad I got to find out
(21:06):
what stage two recovery is, and I look forward to going forward in this program.
Take it away, Rusty.
Thank you, Tim.
I wanted to go back for just a moment to, I read this earlier,
and I'm just going to paraphrase this.
These objects of obsession then become just another way to hide from the real issues themselves.
(21:29):
Their limitations, their self-defeating learned behaviors, their character defects,
which invariably limit their capacity to function in loving relationships.
That was my dilemma.
Most of you know I was married three times before I got sober.
(21:52):
All I did was quit drinking and using drugs.
All the behaviors, all the self-defeating behaviors, all the character defects were still there,
and a lot of them I wasn't ready, not knowing this, to get rid of.
I didn't have that level of consciousness that I could look at this stuff and say that.
(22:16):
I just didn't know because it had been me for so long.
So how did I replace the alcohol and the drugs?
Well, for me, my womanizing picked up.
Another thing that I picked up was I started skydiving, I started bungee jumping,
(22:37):
because I was addicted to what? Excitement.
Because my life was full of excitement.
Now, most of it was all negative, but it was full of it.
I didn't know how to act any other way than the way that I did.
That excitement, I needed that.
You find this with a lot of new people that's coming into the program, and they don't know.
(23:02):
All they know is I'm going to quit drinking.
Then once I complete that, then all the rest of the stuff is really there.
Then we do a fourth and a fifth step.
For me, all it did was clear the surface.
It accomplished one big thing in my life,
in that I could tell another human being about my sexual abuse.
(23:25):
That's when really it started.
When I got to stage two recovery with Gil, I was about three years sober.
Then he became my sponsor for the next 18 years.
I wanted to become his son, because I never had a dad, but he wouldn't let me do that.
He was smart enough not to let me do that.
(23:46):
He taught me so many things about me.
One of the things that I learned from Gil, without him saying a word,
I respected him and loved him so much that I wanted to do better, make him proud again.
When I'm addressing all these different issues, if we stick around, we have to address them.
(24:11):
Because we'll get drunk if we don't, or we'll go back to our drug of choice, whatever that is.
I'd like to maybe talk a little bit about that, Pamela.
It's interesting because what you're talking about is exactly what I experienced with.
I told you that first 15 years when I was abstinent, but then I got married.
Of course, I married somebody who challenged me, and I challenged him.
(24:36):
My serenity went to hell in a handbasket.
Stage two recovery was necessary to show me that I needed more.
Also, too, I started attending Al-Anon meetings about that time,
because Al-Anon is about relationships and being able to get along with people.
The safe and compassionate environment that you created, Rusty, in stage two recovery that we all took together
(25:03):
was just the place that was necessary to help me understand some of the stuff that I was going through,
even though I've been through so much stuff over the years.
But these self-defeating behaviors had been survival skills
and continued to be survival skills in certain instances.
And that's what I needed to work on.
(25:26):
Actually, stage two recovery is what it's all about.
I was always considered an intense person.
I've been told that.
But I always like to think that I'm passionate and determined and persistent.
And recovery is very important to me because, like I said, I figured going back to that mental state of depression
(25:47):
and not caring, then I know that I'm lost.
I want to be comfortable in my own skin.
And to me, that's what recovery is all about.
It's about serenity. It's being in touch with other people. It's being accepted.
I grew up in a home that was dysfunctional.
I have many relatives from past generations, my siblings, my husband, my stepchildren, nieces and nephews,
(26:13):
who have various and a myriad of addictions.
I'm the only one in my family who's in recovery.
And so that makes it a little bit harder for me because I am totally turning to my family of choice,
my 12-step family, to love and support me.
(26:34):
It was interesting because in our – and I think each stage two recovery group is going to be different, for sure.
I'm so grateful for the one that we had because I got to see people grow and go through things.
I got to see people struggle in trying to understand themselves.
And even the feedback that we gave each other, which was so brilliant and so welcoming,
(26:59):
was just unique, I think, to this group.
And I'm just very appreciative that I was able to take part in it.
Thank you, Betty.
That's great.
Well, I had that breakdown in high school emotionally.
And everything was going real good and I had something happen that was just – I just couldn't believe.
And I was already pretty set in my ways.
(27:22):
A friend of mine said, you grew up in a bad school, you learned good.
And so I was way set in my ways.
And how I handled things, well, I broke down and began praying about it.
And God sent me a book, basically.
Somebody told me I should read Psycho-Cybernetics.
It's an old book.
And I did that and I started putting myself back together and could slowly get out of bed
(27:46):
and start showing up at different places again and then went to OU.
And immediately they said, you need to be Rush Chairman.
And hell yeah, I did.
And so that's exactly what I did.
I approached life as a kamikaze is the only way I would have the will to do it.
I was terrified.
So I overdid everything as a kamikaze.
(28:09):
I had about anything for attention.
And so I did those things.
And so when I got sober – and this was because I heard some people that were in AA
and going to Al-Anon meetings that said, you know, Kurt's going to realize he's an alcoholic.
(28:31):
And they didn't know I was even there.
And it made me mad because once again, you know, you'd be this way too.
So after a while when I hit my next obstacle over Memorial Day weekend, I went to AA.
And I knew – I was going to AA and Al-Anon, so I knew –
I think I was just keeping my eyes on the guys in AA just in case,
(28:56):
just in case the thing that I was thinking was wrong.
And so that friend of mine said, just tell him you have a desire not to drink today.
He was in the program.
And that's what I did and that's where it started.
And had a whole bunch of Al-Anons that I ran around with.
And we were legends in our own mind.
I mean, we were hooligans.
(29:18):
In fact, this lady that was in Al-Anon and had been there for 30-something years,
she said, just leave them alone. They'll blow up.
You know, seen it a million times.
And we did.
And so then I got to work in AA and I did everything that they told me to do
and even some stuff where I went out and a guy told me he could save my life with the steps.
(29:45):
And I went out and worked on his farm for three or four months.
We never did the steps.
We did the steps one night, I think.
And that was it.
And then I started getting into all of the adult children stuff.
I had been doing five or six years in Al-Anon and I could talk it pretty well.
(30:09):
When I got over into AA, all this smart stuff that I thought I knew I didn't know and I had nothing to say.
And I knew it from my dad.
I knew the AA book from my dad and I would sure as heck like to tell him about it.
Once I had to read it for myself, it didn't make any sense.
So I really started at square one.
(30:30):
I got a great sponsor and he had kind of been my friend in softball.
He had a really great program and he told me about stuff.
I did my fifth step with him and he pointed out, he said, at the end of it,
he said, here's a list of some of your major character defects.
There were 10 or 12 of them and that's what started it.
(30:54):
At that point, I was not dating anybody.
That's not true. I had already dated two or three people.
I had already dated two or three people.
And why I ended up leaving Oklahoma City to go to Tulsa, I told everybody I was going up here to help my parents
(31:15):
because they were getting older and half of that was true.
I had one mean girl and one nice girl and I was between them both all the time.
I realized I'm not getting out of this.
There's nothing in me that can will me out of this. I'm going to have to.
I prayed about it and it seemed like it was a for real deal.
I asked some people about it and it seemed like that.
(31:39):
It was affirmed and so I came to Tulsa.
That started at New Hope.
And man, we had some great meetings at New Hope and so that was the beginning.
Let me ask you. So when you got to Tulsa and you had already been at Al-Anon for how long?
Five years.
Five years. But you knew you was alcoholic.
(32:01):
What self-defeating behaviors or character defects did you actually know when you got here?
Because being at Al-Anon, did you know that you were codependent?
I downplayed it. I knew I was.
I had had two huge obsessions about two different women that today would probably get you in some trouble.
(32:24):
I was locked in. One of them was in high school.
I'd just go outside and think about her until she drove by my house with her cigarettes and drive me downtown and stuff like that.
We were just like in sync and all that kind of stuff.
And I had another one when I got to college because I thought God told me I was supposed to marry this girl.
You know what I mean? And I just didn't know how to work my way through it.
(32:48):
So the obsessions were there and I knew I was, I did know I was codependent.
I didn't know how awful it could be for you.
My mom, before I ever got to the programs, my mom went to Al-Anon and she was extreme in the Al-Anon.
My dad was extreme in his alcoholism.
(33:09):
And they lived in two different worlds, but they were kind of good for each other.
My dad is telling my mom, patience little jackass, patience, you know, crap like that.
And he was good. I mean, he pulled me aside when he said, you know, I think you're afraid to accept responsibility.
I don't think you'll ever get married because you won't do it. You won't accept responsibility.
(33:30):
And I was like, hmm. So there's just stuff like that. But I knew the codependency.
And there was one other that I thought was really bad.
Well, came out in some workaholism, perfectionism, want to do it alone, but won't anybody's help.
And you can't do it. I couldn't do it that way.
And I just, you know, one girl that I dated, her friend said, you know, he's got the worst self-image I've ever seen.
(33:57):
And I didn't know what to do about that. That's kind of how I came in with it.
Before I got to stage two and had gotten sober, I experienced a couple of challenges in sobriety and am still facing those challenges.
One of those being my health issue. And the other was a relationship issue.
(34:21):
Is a relationship issue in the fact that the program of Alcoholics Anonymous indirectly or directly suggests that you should probably wait at least a year before you make any life changing decisions or get in a relationship.
Well, that didn't happen for me. My relationship started about four days in this variety.
(34:45):
So that's naturally going to be a challenge. And, you know, when I came to stage two, we had our, you know, initial meeting.
And I heard that this was talking about relationships and self-defeating behaviors.
And I got here with an attitude that I don't need any friends and I expressed that that night that I'm not here to make friends.
(35:15):
I'm here to learn about, you know, life beyond addiction. And we started talking about self-defeating behaviors.
We didn't even talk about what those categories of self-defeating behaviors are. But I made the statement.
I am not a victim here of my health disease or my relationship.
(35:39):
And being a victim isn't even one of those self-defeating behaviors, but it's certainly a part of several of those self-defeating behaviors.
And I think that by denying that I am a victim, I was really admitting that I probably was. I just couldn't see it.
(36:03):
Yeah. That's the key, isn't it?
Yeah. So I was open. You know, I became open to listening to what all of you had to say.
And as we progressed through these readings and this program, it's become a very beneficial part of my life.
(36:24):
And I'm looking forward to doing it again, because when I go back and I look at these self-defeating behaviors,
I'm willing to internalize them and where they reside within me. And I wasn't willing to do that the first time.
And that is just growth in life beyond addiction. But this program helped me recognize those
(36:54):
and become willing to work on those self-defeating behaviors or character defects.
When we get here with all the earnestness that we have within us, it's about our self-awareness.
See, I'd always been told that perfectionism was a great thing by my family and other people.
(37:16):
It got me where I wasn't. But then when I got here, I started hearing, oh, you're a perfectionist.
God dang, you're in big trouble. Well, they were right. But I couldn't see that in the beginning.
So it's still affecting my life, even though I've quit drinking and using. It's still going on.
(37:38):
Okay, that's a self-defeating behavior for me. So I just want to read this. It says,
if functioning in healthier relationships is the goal of Stage 2 recovery, then how can you attain it?
What has been standing in the way? If recovery is learning how to love, then what is the obstacle?
(38:01):
Self-defeating behaviors are what get in the way. These are the ways of thinking and acting that we have practiced
and that through practice has become habits. He's leading us in because in the next segment,
we're going to be talking about habits, right? In the course of time, these habits have become who we are.
(38:27):
And who we are has become rooted in our subconscious so that we now automatically act out these behavioral patterns,
whether we're aware of them or not. Today, we are at the beginning of Stage 2 recovery.
And in the next segment that we're going to be doing, we're going to get into the solution.
(38:52):
So thank you for listening and we'll see you next time.
This has been a production of ChildrenOfChaos.net.
Children of Chaos is a forum to discuss topics related to and in concert with addiction and recovery in America.
It's not affiliated with, endorsed, or financed by any recovery or treatment program, organization, or institution.
(39:15):
Any views, thoughts, or opinions expressed by an individual in this venue are solely that of the individual
and do not reflect the views, policies, or position of any specific recovery-based entity or organization.
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