Episode Transcript
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SPEAKER_00 (00:00):
time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard
podcast.
I am Dr.
Jock DeBruyter, a psychologist,licensed professional counselor,
and addiction specialist.
If you are suffering fromaddiction, misery, trauma,
whatever it is, I'm here tohelp.
If you're in search of help totry to get your life back
together, join me here at DocJock, your addiction lifeguard,
(00:22):
the addiction recovery podcast.
I wanted to be real clear aboutwhat this podcast is intended
for.
It is intended for entertainmentand informational purposes, but
(00:45):
not considered help.
If you actually need real helpand you're in need of help,
please seek that out.
If you're in dire need of help,you can go to your nearest
emergency room or you can checkinto a rehab center or call a
counselor like me and talk aboutyour problems and work through
them.
But don't rely on a podcast tobe that form of help.
(01:06):
It's not.
It's just the podcast.
It's for entertainment andinformation only.
So let's keep it in that light,all right?
Have a good time, learnsomething, and then get the real
help that you need from aprofessional.
(01:42):
You know, a lot of clients thatI have will be working really
diligently hard on theirrecovery and trying to get into
recovery.
And then ultimately what happensis they end up self-sabotaging.
And I don't mean going out andjust having an accident.
That's what we call it.
That's what I call it anyway.
It's just having an accidentversus a full relapse.
(02:03):
So when somebody has anaccident, what they do is they
go out and they just drink thatday or get high that day.
And a relapse, of course, isjust that.
It's a relapse of goes on forweeks instead of just hours or a
couple of days anyway so theywill self-sabotage and they keep
sabotaging their own recoverynot just not just themselves but
(02:25):
their actual recovery and so thethe self-sabotage is something
that almost everybody struggleswith that I've experienced and
it doesn't mean that they'reweak or they're doomed it just
means that this is part of therecovery process I try to build
that into people's experience inrecovery and explain to them hey
(02:48):
man this this may be happeningto you or may happen to you in
the future but you know you'regoing to probably experience it
at some point so you got to besure you're open and honest
about it and that's what we tryto to aim for in recovery is
open honest recovery and itusually recovery is not
something that looks like wethink it will so let's talk
(03:10):
about self-sabotage shall we Um,so maybe it might help if you
really understood what, whatthat looks like.
What does self-sabotage looklike?
Um, let's see, avoidingmeetings, uh, either not either
refusing to go to meetings orjust avoiding them when things
are hard or you're, you know,feeling like you want to use and
(03:31):
you avoid a meeting, skippingtherapy, um, dropping, dropping
the use of accountabilitypartners, people that, you know,
you're working with, there werepeers, um, in recovery.
And that happens a lot.
The avoiding meetings and theskipping therapy, that's one I
always look for.
When somebody comes in andthey're working with me for, you
(03:54):
know, two, three, four monthsand then they miss a meeting.
Okay, you missed yourappointment.
Maybe you told me you couldn'tcome.
Then you don't.
And then the next week you justdon't show up.
And then you show up again andyou give me some half-hearted
excuse or reason for not comingand And then, you know, you come
for another two and then youdisappear for two or three or
(04:16):
four weeks and then you comeback.
And that's that's that for me isa real red flag.
I see immediately what's goingon.
It's funny because people I'mworking with, they never quite
get it.
They think they're the firstpeople doing this or whatever,
but they're not.
So skipping therapy, 40 meansdropping accountability partners
like these are people that Italk to that were in meetings
(04:37):
and maybe I switched meetings sothat I didn't have to talk to
that person anymore or just quittalking to them.
that period putting yourself insituations that you shouldn't be
in that's another one going toyou know going to the bar and
sitting there I had somebodyjust recently have a situation
where they would just go to thebar and sit and drink a Diet
(05:00):
Coke instead of drinking alcoholand they were saying yeah but
I'm not drinking and so you'rehanging around and in an old
place and you're talking topeople that you were talking to
and hanging around with when youwere drinking or getting high
that's a that's aself-sabotaging move right there
um and then there's that thatvoice in your head that critical
(05:22):
voice in your head uh andusually it's along the lines of
something like you know youdon't you don't really deserve
to be sober or clean becauselook at what the bad person that
you've become or that you wereall the things you did um or
you're too weak you know yourhead is telling you you're too
weak you're not going to make ityou can't do this you're going
to fail and And, you know, thoseare those kinds of things,
(05:45):
especially if you're sayingthose things in the old places
with the old people you used tohang around with.
And you're not you're not sayingit out loud to the people that
are in the recovery communitythat are your friends, man.
They want to help you.
And that's part of the recoveryprocess is learning how to be
more open and honest.
And I talk about honesty all thetime.
(06:07):
So being honest.
Right.
So there there are a lot ofdifferent things.
things that you can do thatwould be self-sabotaging,
self-destructive in yourrecovery that will derail it.
I've talked about this one quitea few times.
A person who, they go to theconference.
It's for professionals.
Oh my gosh, it's the conference.
(06:27):
It's that conference, thatout-of-town conference.
Everybody goes to theconference.
I know I'm speaking toogenerally, but everybody goes to
conference to go have a goodtime, right?
So they're drinking, and that'susually the focus of it, but in
some places it's drinking orsmoking weed and they go to the
conference because they think ohyou know I'm in Vegas because
(06:49):
Vegas is the worst one but theygo and then they start hanging
around people and then sureenough they they're off to the
races so why why is it thatpeople who have addiction do
this why do we do this well fearshame familiarity illusions of
(07:09):
control things like that so fearof success fear of failure
change feels really dangerousand bad so it can be a fear of
success if I get clean and soberI'm going to risk failing and
relapsing so I can't do this andthen you start with that
self-sabotaging critical voicein your head that you're not
(07:33):
going to make it or you don'tdeserve this because you're a
bad person so the fear ofsuccess which really is about
fear of change And many timeswhen I talk to people and I say,
hey, you know what?
Maybe you're doing this becauseyou're a fear of success.
They look at me like they werewaiting for me to say fear of
failure.
And it's not fear of failurenecessarily.
(07:54):
It can be fear of success.
Shame about your life.
Unresolved trauma.
UNKNOWN (08:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:04):
Hey, I feel bad and I feel uncomfortable and I don't
know how else to deal with this.
And so then you pick up thebottle or you pick up the joint
or you pick up the, the needle.
You do, you know, snort a line,something that makes you feel
not uncomfortable.
You think, right?
So shame, uh, shame is one aboutwhat, how, you know, how, how
(08:28):
you've been living.
And the other one is unresolvedtrauma.
Um, comfort of the familiar.
In other words, you want to beclose to the chaos because it's
normal and I talk about thatagain I've talked about that in
these podcasts a lot that whatfeels normal it can be very
unhealthy but you know what todo with it right so if you're
(08:49):
already uncomfortable becausesomething is happening that's
making you angry sad frustrateddepressed anxious and you feel
uncomfortable and then thatcomfort in the feelings of the
familiar well what do I do withthat okay well create chaos
(09:12):
right so you self-sabotage soyou stop going to meetings or
you start hanging out withpeople telling yourself you're
not going to do it you're notgoing to use it's okay to be
around these people because youneed the chaos right so you just
artificially creating chaos orthe illusion of control I
relapsed and that shows that I Iam in charge.
(09:37):
See, I'm still in charge, right?
I control this.
And now, if you are not anaddict and you're listening to
this, that would make absolutelyno sense.
But for us who have addiction,no, that makes perfect sense.
You know, I'm controllingeverything and I feel empowered.
And that's a weird thing becausewe really do that.
(09:57):
We feel empowered when we'reusing.
We feel like we're doingsomething about the chaos around
us by getting high.
and it's such a strange ideathat when you create chaos that
you're in charge because anormal I'm using my finger
quotes a normal person would sayoh well chaos is bad because
(10:20):
it's uncontrolled and it's it'sdestructive and it's crazy and
it's uncomfortable true unlessyou're very skilled at living in
chaos in which case you willgravitate towards it I used to
do that a lot in my 20s I wouldpurposely take on chaotic
situations difficult situationssometimes because with good
(10:44):
things like when I'm teachingswimming lessons I think I
talked about this beforeteaching swimming lessons to the
worst possible kids who didn'twant to learn that was very
chaotic I could have taken theeasier kids but I took the hard
kids okay well fine so thenthey're learning how to swim and
I'm teaching them something goodwell that's I'm using my skills
for good but using my skills forbad would be I take I on
(11:05):
relationships that are verychaotic and destructive and I
gravitate towards them.
I take on jobs that are verychaotic and dangerous and
destructive and I've done that.
I'll take on personal workloads,personal things that would be
destructive.
I've put myself in dangeroussituations with other people.
And, you know, it's like youkeep trying to do that because I
(11:31):
can control this.
I mean, that's, you know,there's a lot of work ways that
people do that.
First responders, doctors,sometimes lawyers, people who
are, you know, in this criticalkind of situation all the time
where life depends on myactions.
That's the illusion of controlkind of thing.
They want to prove that they'restill in charge.
(11:52):
That's part of it.
So there's a lot of differentthings that we do to
self-sabotage and there's a lotof different reasons why we do
it.
None of them are good.
I mean, they're all bad.
They're all going to trip us upand turn us into crazy addicts
again and active in our engagingof addiction.
(12:13):
So what do we do with that?
How do we break that cycle?
You're not going to change theway your brain works.
It's just, it works that way.
It's a thing that is, it's whatmakes you, you, right?
You're wired that way.
I, and this is, this podcast Iuse the term using my powers for
(12:38):
good or for evil I can choose todo that so breaking the cycle
you really need to be aware ofthe pattern that you're engaging
in but you can't use it as a asa means to beat yourself up
don't beat yourself up becauseyou're doing this but be aware
(12:58):
of it like the truth understandit's like it's a scriptural
thing if you understand thetruth the truth will set you
free and I am trying to changethe way that I am aware of
something.
I do have a tendency to bedestructive.
I do have a tendency to get intodestructive relationships or
react badly when somethinghappens to me or too quickly or
(13:21):
whatever.
Be aware of that because youcan't make a change in behavior
if you're not even aware of thefact that you're doing it.
You're not consciously aware.
So notice the pattern and do itin a way like you would if you
were conducting a scienceexperiment and you're becoming
aware of it without beatingyourself up.
Just this is what you do.
(13:42):
Oh, I want to do somethingdifferent.
So the awareness part means youhave to be consciously aware.
So sometimes people, I have thembuy those little tiny, you know,
little notebooks you can getthat are, you know, two by five
or whatever.
And when something's happening,write down, like, what caused me
(14:03):
to act that way?
Like, what were the triggers?
What was my mood?
How did I slip into it?
Did somebody say something tome?
Did it push a button?
Like, what is that button?
And so you have to be aware ofwhat these things are.
And so journaling them, in otherwords, writing them down, I
(14:23):
almost don't like that wordjournaling because it implies
that you're supposed to writelong passages like your Thoreau
or something.
No, you don't have to do that.
Just write down just a line.
Like, If you're in arelationship, my boyfriend, he
talked badly.
He told me I was whatever.
(14:44):
That was your trigger.
I woke up this morning and I wasnot in a good mood.
Why?
Because I'm overly tired.
And so I became more reactive.
And so I don't like that.
It makes me uncomfortable.
Understand what you're doing isyou're writing down the triggers
that are making you feeluncomfortable.
That's the overarching thing.
thing, right?
(15:05):
We use because we'reuncomfortable.
Uncomfortable can be any numberof things, endless variety of
things.
Writing this stuff down can helpyou understand.
The last part of that is theslips, right?
So what did you say?
Did you respond aggressivelytowards somebody?
Did you not show up at a meetingwith somebody that you're
(15:26):
supposed to meet with them forsome reason, a lunch or
whatever?
Did you just not respond to atext message that you should
have responded to in a friendlyway, but you didn't did you just
kind of ghost somebody did youwhatever whatever it is like
what was the slip not the usagebut what was your emotional slip
so writing down the triggers andyour you know the triggers the
(15:47):
moods the slips the things thatyou know happen so and and again
you don't have to write aparagraph just like a couple of
lines to remind yourself and ifyou are trying to then also
engage in real recovery you'regoing to be in in therapy right
so you can bring this up intherapy you can bring in a
little thing I encourage peopleto do that in my practice like
bring the bring a little pad andwrite it down so you so you
(16:10):
understand you have something totalk about with a therapist so
that leads me to theaccountability part right so
talk openly about these thingsthe truth will set you free but
if you're not speaking the truththere's no freedom so open
conversation about it befearless in your recovery
(16:31):
fearless so talk to your sponsoryour therapist, you know,
somebody in the recoverycommunity, somebody you trust
that you can be open with aboutthese things is really
important.
So the accountability is youtalking about it.
It's not them telling you, oh,you're a bad person because you
did that.
Or, oh, here's what you shoulddo.
(16:51):
It's not that.
It's I'm saying it out loud andI'm allowing somebody to bear
witness to it.
So I'm saying it.
So it's going from me to theperson to God.
I am not going to hide from thefact that I'm working on my
recovery, right?
So I'm a flawed person, but I'mseeking salvation, and I want to
(17:11):
be open so I can receivesalvation.
So I have to be open andtransparent.
Otherwise, there's nothing towork on, right?
So if you're not being truthful,you're not being open.
There's nothing there.
So talk to your sponsor.
Talk to some people in therecovery community that you can
(17:33):
spend time with.
Talk to your therapist.
And for me as a therapist,that's one of the frustrating
parts is when people come in andthey think all that I want to
hear is the good stuff.
And that's all they give me.
You know, how's it been goingthis week?
Oh, good.
You know, it's like, no, you gotstopped by the police twice.
What do you mean good?
This is the kind of stuff I runinto.
(17:54):
Like you had a massive fightwith your friend and now you've
cut your friend off.
And I'll get that.
But sometimes I don't get ituntil the last, I don't know,
five minutes of the sessionthey'll say this is what i
really wanted to talk abouttoday well why didn't you bring
it up i asked you how you weredoing and we spent 50 minutes
(18:15):
talking about you know whatyou've been doing this week at
work and whatever and you youhad something you really
seriously wanted to talk aboutbut you didn't bring it up why
because it's self-sabotaging youthink if i bring it up it makes
it real if i bring it up i haveto admit to it if i bring it up
It's true.
Well, I hate to tell you this.
(18:38):
It's true whether you say it outloud or not, but I will also
tell you that when you say itout loud, the power of it
diminishes because now you canhave a different perspective.
So the openness in your talkingabout it is where the recovery
(19:03):
from that incident is so let'stalk about therapy you know
therapy is is a process whereyou're talking to a human being
who's a clinician who's trainedand hopefully they have a lot of
experience in recovery theyunderstand addiction they're
very very oriented towardstrauma and understanding it
(19:25):
because that's what you reallyneed as an addict so dealing
with the deeper wounds thatdrive relapse is what you talk
about in therapy and that's whenyou're having these
conversations that are the hardones you're crying you're angry
people in my office they getvery emotional um very angry
(19:48):
very sad it's not a little bitit's a lot there are a lot of
tears there's there's yellingthat goes on in my office
there's crying that goes on inmy office and that is
appropriate that is what you'resupposed to be doing in therapy
right so you deal with thosedeep or wounds the deeper cuts
that you felt and the reasonsyou feel uncomfortable about the
(20:10):
things that trigger you so youknow powerless abused neglected
those kinds of things and that'swhat you that's what you talk
about in therapy because that'sfrom you know of course I'm
prejudiced because I'm atherapist right so I I'm going
to say that I think realrecovery can happen when you
start working on that and thatthe only place you can really
(20:31):
work on that is in good therapyso it's really important that
you find a good therapist thatyou connect with but that's
where you can uh really do somei think some really good work on
breaking that cycle ofself-sabotaging okay and so now
there's another component rightbecause we talked about um we're
(20:53):
talking about physical likedon't go to bars don't hang out
with your friends that are gethigh buddies we're talking about
uh intellectual right be open behonest that's intellectual uh um
talk about the thing thatbothers you that's the emotion
so the last part is thespiritual or the face faith part
of it so a common thing thathappens with addicts is that
(21:16):
they feel very isolated theyfeel very alone they're doing it
on their own and if you if youhave any experience whatsoever
with going to aa or na or sa orany of the a's we talk about you
are not alone and i can tell youfrom my own experience having no
family and struggling with thatand then finding and then
(21:41):
finding that there actually is afather figure that was
benevolent and cared about meand was watching over me was a
very very weird experiencebecause I did not have that as a
father I didn't have thatmodeled for me as a father
whatsoever and not trusting myfather he was he was verbally
abusive he's an alcoholic mymother was not a safe to be
(22:04):
around she was alwaysmanipulating and whatever and
it's like you just always byyourself right so when when i
became closer to anunderstanding of faith and and a
spiritual life i realized thati'm not in this alone like there
is there is i felt this power ofsomething in me that was
changing me that i didn't feelisolated and alone many of my
(22:28):
male clients really strugglewith that one because they've
had fathers who were crazy oralcoholics are abusive in some
way and so we in my office workon that and an understanding of
like you know what is what aboutfaith in your life and it's
really kind of almost amusingwhen I see them because they
turn from agnostic or atheist towhat we call in the Christian
(22:53):
community baby Christians wherethey're starting to understand a
little bit and they get it butthey don't believe it's for them
they don't believe that it canbe for them and so it's a little
bit strange to see them movethat direction initially because
they hesitate and they fight itand they don't, you know.
But you have to remind yourselfover and over again that you're
(23:15):
not fighting this alone.
It's a good battle and the enemywants to win and the way it wins
is by slowly beating you downand stripping you of things that
are close and important to you.
Relationships, health, freedom,money, safety, housing,
employment, things like that.
So,
UNKNOWN (23:33):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (23:35):
Practice your faith, okay?
The sabotage part of it usuallyequates to failure.
Sabotage doesn't mean failure.
It means there's some deeperthing that needs attention in
you.
And so when you're trying tofigure out how do I address
(23:56):
this, understand there's a piecethat's missing for you.
And I don't know what that pieceis, but you will need to find
out what that piece is.
Whatever it is.
But it doesn't mean that youfailed.
Many times people come fromhomes that are just these horror
stories that I hear.
That's not your failing.
(24:16):
That's the failing of yourparents.
That's the failing of the peoplearound you.
And so failure is not part ofthis.
It just means there's somethingdeeper that needs to be tended
to.
So that's why getting intoreally good therapy is
important.
Progress.
What is that?
that it's persistence.
(24:37):
Recovery is persistence.
Progress isn't perfect.
It isn't perfection.
You haven't gotten there wheneverything is perfect.
It's persistently working onrecovery.
It's an up and down.
I'm making a little wave motionwith my hand and my arm right
now.
It's like up and down.
It's up and down.
It's not just a straight line.
(24:59):
It's zigzaggy and up and down.
So don't think that it's allgoing to go away when everything
is perfect because you're nevergoing to get perfect there is no
perfect there's close there'swonderful there's great I guess
or something I don't know butthere's never perfect so that's
(25:20):
not what you're that's not whatyou're aiming for so let
yourself be lifted and stopfighting in your recovery stop
fighting to stay the crazyaddict because you're not
showing anything to anybody andreally you're not hurting
anybody but yourself uh just youknow like when you're in
(25:40):
recovery you get to be a betterperson everybody around you
benefits you get to be a badperson everybody's suffering
with you so just let yourself belifted stop fighting in that
rescue and figure out a way toaccept help um Addiction is
(26:02):
going to try to pull you under.
It's like a rip current.
It's going to try to pull youunder, but there's always a
lifeline.
You just have to reach out forit and let yourself be rescued.
Let the power of healing occurbecause you would accept help.
Step one, my life has becomeunmanageable.
(26:23):
Yeah, and you need to berescued, so allow yourself to be
rescued.
You don't rescue yourself.
You allow yourself to berescued.
Well, that's it for this editionof Doc Shock, Your Addiction
Lifeguard.
I hope you've enjoyed thisepisode.
I know that I've taken some timeoff and I really needed it.
(26:44):
I've been doing some writing andgetting completion on my book.
So hopefully that'll come outsoon.
And I look forward to getting itout to you.
Hey, look, man, if you're inneed of help, go get it.
Don't let addiction take youdown.
Don't drown just because you'retrying to save your addiction
(27:05):
that's crazy save yourself sowhen someone's coming along to
try to help you let them and ifyou need help get help go to
therapy go to rehab do somethingbut don't let addiction kill you
so until next time this is DocJacques your addiction lifeguard
saying see ya
time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard
podcast.
I am Dr.
Jock DeBruyter, a psychologist,licensed professional counselor,
and addiction specialist.
If you are suffering fromaddiction, misery, trauma,
whatever it is, I'm here tohelp.
If you're in search of help totry to get your life back
together, join me here at DocJock, your addiction lifeguard,
(00:22):
the addiction recovery podcast.
I wanted to be real clear aboutwhat this podcast is intended
for.
It is intended for entertainmentand informational purposes, but
(00:45):
not considered help.
If you actually need real helpand you're in need of help,
please seek that out.
If you're in dire need of help,you can go to your nearest
emergency room or you can checkinto a rehab center or call a
counselor like me and talk aboutyour problems and work through
them.
But don't rely on a podcast tobe that form of help.
(01:06):
It's not.
It's just the podcast.
It's for entertainment andinformation only.
So let's keep it in that light,all right?
Have a good time, learnsomething, and then get the real
help that you need from aprofessional.
(01:42):
You know, a lot of clients thatI have will be working really
diligently hard on theirrecovery and trying to get into
recovery.
And then ultimately what happensis they end up self-sabotaging.
And I don't mean going out andjust having an accident.
That's what we call it.
That's what I call it anyway.
It's just having an accidentversus a full relapse.
(02:03):
So when somebody has anaccident, what they do is they
go out and they just drink thatday or get high that day.
And a relapse, of course, isjust that.
It's a relapse of goes on forweeks instead of just hours or a
couple of days anyway so theywill self-sabotage and they keep
sabotaging their own recoverynot just not just themselves but
(02:25):
their actual recovery and so thethe self-sabotage is something
that almost everybody struggleswith that I've experienced and
it doesn't mean that they'reweak or they're doomed it just
means that this is part of therecovery process I try to build
that into people's experience inrecovery and explain to them hey
(02:48):
man this this may be happeningto you or may happen to you in
the future but you know you'regoing to probably experience it
at some point so you got to besure you're open and honest
about it and that's what we tryto to aim for in recovery is
open honest recovery and itusually recovery is not
something that looks like wethink it will so let's talk
(03:10):
about self-sabotage shall we Um,so maybe it might help if you
really understood what, whatthat looks like.
What does self-sabotage looklike?
Um, let's see, avoidingmeetings, uh, either not either
refusing to go to meetings orjust avoiding them when things
are hard or you're, you know,feeling like you want to use and
(03:31):
you avoid a meeting, skippingtherapy, um, dropping, dropping
the use of accountabilitypartners, people that, you know,
you're working with, there werepeers, um, in recovery.
And that happens a lot.
The avoiding meetings and theskipping therapy, that's one I
always look for.
When somebody comes in andthey're working with me for, you
(03:54):
know, two, three, four monthsand then they miss a meeting.
Okay, you missed yourappointment.
Maybe you told me you couldn'tcome.
Then you don't.
And then the next week you justdon't show up.
And then you show up again andyou give me some half-hearted
excuse or reason for not comingand And then, you know, you come
for another two and then youdisappear for two or three or
(04:16):
four weeks and then you comeback.
And that's that's that for me isa real red flag.
I see immediately what's goingon.
It's funny because people I'mworking with, they never quite
get it.
They think they're the firstpeople doing this or whatever,
but they're not.
So skipping therapy, 40 meansdropping accountability partners
like these are people that Italk to that were in meetings
(04:37):
and maybe I switched meetings sothat I didn't have to talk to
that person anymore or just quittalking to them.
that period putting yourself insituations that you shouldn't be
in that's another one going toyou know going to the bar and
sitting there I had somebodyjust recently have a situation
where they would just go to thebar and sit and drink a Diet
(05:00):
Coke instead of drinking alcoholand they were saying yeah but
I'm not drinking and so you'rehanging around and in an old
place and you're talking topeople that you were talking to
and hanging around with when youwere drinking or getting high
that's a that's aself-sabotaging move right there
um and then there's that thatvoice in your head that critical
(05:22):
voice in your head uh andusually it's along the lines of
something like you know youdon't you don't really deserve
to be sober or clean becauselook at what the bad person that
you've become or that you wereall the things you did um or
you're too weak you know yourhead is telling you you're too
weak you're not going to make ityou can't do this you're going
to fail and And, you know, thoseare those kinds of things,
(05:45):
especially if you're sayingthose things in the old places
with the old people you used tohang around with.
And you're not you're not sayingit out loud to the people that
are in the recovery communitythat are your friends, man.
They want to help you.
And that's part of the recoveryprocess is learning how to be
more open and honest.
And I talk about honesty all thetime.
(06:07):
So being honest.
Right.
So there there are a lot ofdifferent things.
things that you can do thatwould be self-sabotaging,
self-destructive in yourrecovery that will derail it.
I've talked about this one quitea few times.
A person who, they go to theconference.
It's for professionals.
Oh my gosh, it's the conference.
(06:27):
It's that conference, thatout-of-town conference.
Everybody goes to theconference.
I know I'm speaking toogenerally, but everybody goes to
conference to go have a goodtime, right?
So they're drinking, and that'susually the focus of it, but in
some places it's drinking orsmoking weed and they go to the
conference because they think ohyou know I'm in Vegas because
(06:49):
Vegas is the worst one but theygo and then they start hanging
around people and then sureenough they they're off to the
races so why why is it thatpeople who have addiction do
this why do we do this well fearshame familiarity illusions of
(07:09):
control things like that so fearof success fear of failure
change feels really dangerousand bad so it can be a fear of
success if I get clean and soberI'm going to risk failing and
relapsing so I can't do this andthen you start with that
self-sabotaging critical voicein your head that you're not
(07:33):
going to make it or you don'tdeserve this because you're a
bad person so the fear ofsuccess which really is about
fear of change And many timeswhen I talk to people and I say,
hey, you know what?
Maybe you're doing this becauseyou're a fear of success.
They look at me like they werewaiting for me to say fear of
failure.
And it's not fear of failurenecessarily.
(07:54):
It can be fear of success.
Shame about your life.
Unresolved trauma.
UNKNOWN (08:03):
Yeah.
SPEAKER_00 (08:04):
Hey, I feel bad and I feel uncomfortable and I don't
know how else to deal with this.
And so then you pick up thebottle or you pick up the joint
or you pick up the, the needle.
You do, you know, snort a line,something that makes you feel
not uncomfortable.
You think, right?
So shame, uh, shame is one aboutwhat, how, you know, how, how
(08:28):
you've been living.
And the other one is unresolvedtrauma.
Um, comfort of the familiar.
In other words, you want to beclose to the chaos because it's
normal and I talk about thatagain I've talked about that in
these podcasts a lot that whatfeels normal it can be very
unhealthy but you know what todo with it right so if you're
(08:49):
already uncomfortable becausesomething is happening that's
making you angry sad frustrateddepressed anxious and you feel
uncomfortable and then thatcomfort in the feelings of the
familiar well what do I do withthat okay well create chaos
(09:12):
right so you self-sabotage soyou stop going to meetings or
you start hanging out withpeople telling yourself you're
not going to do it you're notgoing to use it's okay to be
around these people because youneed the chaos right so you just
artificially creating chaos orthe illusion of control I
relapsed and that shows that I Iam in charge.
(09:37):
See, I'm still in charge, right?
I control this.
And now, if you are not anaddict and you're listening to
this, that would make absolutelyno sense.
But for us who have addiction,no, that makes perfect sense.
You know, I'm controllingeverything and I feel empowered.
And that's a weird thing becausewe really do that.
(09:57):
We feel empowered when we'reusing.
We feel like we're doingsomething about the chaos around
us by getting high.
and it's such a strange ideathat when you create chaos that
you're in charge because anormal I'm using my finger
quotes a normal person would sayoh well chaos is bad because
(10:20):
it's uncontrolled and it's it'sdestructive and it's crazy and
it's uncomfortable true unlessyou're very skilled at living in
chaos in which case you willgravitate towards it I used to
do that a lot in my 20s I wouldpurposely take on chaotic
situations difficult situationssometimes because with good
(10:44):
things like when I'm teachingswimming lessons I think I
talked about this beforeteaching swimming lessons to the
worst possible kids who didn'twant to learn that was very
chaotic I could have taken theeasier kids but I took the hard
kids okay well fine so thenthey're learning how to swim and
I'm teaching them something goodwell that's I'm using my skills
for good but using my skills forbad would be I take I on
(11:05):
relationships that are verychaotic and destructive and I
gravitate towards them.
I take on jobs that are verychaotic and dangerous and
destructive and I've done that.
I'll take on personal workloads,personal things that would be
destructive.
I've put myself in dangeroussituations with other people.
And, you know, it's like youkeep trying to do that because I
(11:31):
can control this.
I mean, that's, you know,there's a lot of work ways that
people do that.
First responders, doctors,sometimes lawyers, people who
are, you know, in this criticalkind of situation all the time
where life depends on myactions.
That's the illusion of controlkind of thing.
They want to prove that they'restill in charge.
(11:52):
That's part of it.
So there's a lot of differentthings that we do to
self-sabotage and there's a lotof different reasons why we do
it.
None of them are good.
I mean, they're all bad.
They're all going to trip us upand turn us into crazy addicts
again and active in our engagingof addiction.
(12:13):
So what do we do with that?
How do we break that cycle?
You're not going to change theway your brain works.
It's just, it works that way.
It's a thing that is, it's whatmakes you, you, right?
You're wired that way.
I, and this is, this podcast Iuse the term using my powers for
(12:38):
good or for evil I can choose todo that so breaking the cycle
you really need to be aware ofthe pattern that you're engaging
in but you can't use it as a asa means to beat yourself up
don't beat yourself up becauseyou're doing this but be aware
(12:58):
of it like the truth understandit's like it's a scriptural
thing if you understand thetruth the truth will set you
free and I am trying to changethe way that I am aware of
something.
I do have a tendency to bedestructive.
I do have a tendency to get intodestructive relationships or
react badly when somethinghappens to me or too quickly or
(13:21):
whatever.
Be aware of that because youcan't make a change in behavior
if you're not even aware of thefact that you're doing it.
You're not consciously aware.
So notice the pattern and do itin a way like you would if you
were conducting a scienceexperiment and you're becoming
aware of it without beatingyourself up.
Just this is what you do.
(13:42):
Oh, I want to do somethingdifferent.
So the awareness part means youhave to be consciously aware.
So sometimes people, I have thembuy those little tiny, you know,
little notebooks you can getthat are, you know, two by five
or whatever.
And when something's happening,write down, like, what caused me
(14:03):
to act that way?
Like, what were the triggers?
What was my mood?
How did I slip into it?
Did somebody say something tome?
Did it push a button?
Like, what is that button?
And so you have to be aware ofwhat these things are.
And so journaling them, in otherwords, writing them down, I
(14:23):
almost don't like that wordjournaling because it implies
that you're supposed to writelong passages like your Thoreau
or something.
No, you don't have to do that.
Just write down just a line.
Like, If you're in arelationship, my boyfriend, he
talked badly.
He told me I was whatever.
(14:44):
That was your trigger.
I woke up this morning and I wasnot in a good mood.
Why?
Because I'm overly tired.
And so I became more reactive.
And so I don't like that.
It makes me uncomfortable.
Understand what you're doing isyou're writing down the triggers
that are making you feeluncomfortable.
That's the overarching thing.
thing, right?
(15:05):
We use because we'reuncomfortable.
Uncomfortable can be any numberof things, endless variety of
things.
Writing this stuff down can helpyou understand.
The last part of that is theslips, right?
So what did you say?
Did you respond aggressivelytowards somebody?
Did you not show up at a meetingwith somebody that you're
(15:26):
supposed to meet with them forsome reason, a lunch or
whatever?
Did you just not respond to atext message that you should
have responded to in a friendlyway, but you didn't did you just
kind of ghost somebody did youwhatever whatever it is like
what was the slip not the usagebut what was your emotional slip
so writing down the triggers andyour you know the triggers the
(15:47):
moods the slips the things thatyou know happen so and and again
you don't have to write aparagraph just like a couple of
lines to remind yourself and ifyou are trying to then also
engage in real recovery you'regoing to be in in therapy right
so you can bring this up intherapy you can bring in a
little thing I encourage peopleto do that in my practice like
bring the bring a little pad andwrite it down so you so you
(16:10):
understand you have something totalk about with a therapist so
that leads me to theaccountability part right so
talk openly about these thingsthe truth will set you free but
if you're not speaking the truththere's no freedom so open
conversation about it befearless in your recovery
(16:31):
fearless so talk to your sponsoryour therapist, you know,
somebody in the recoverycommunity, somebody you trust
that you can be open with aboutthese things is really
important.
So the accountability is youtalking about it.
It's not them telling you, oh,you're a bad person because you
did that.
Or, oh, here's what you shoulddo.
(16:51):
It's not that.
It's I'm saying it out loud andI'm allowing somebody to bear
witness to it.
So I'm saying it.
So it's going from me to theperson to God.
I am not going to hide from thefact that I'm working on my
recovery, right?
So I'm a flawed person, but I'mseeking salvation, and I want to
(17:11):
be open so I can receivesalvation.
So I have to be open andtransparent.
Otherwise, there's nothing towork on, right?
So if you're not being truthful,you're not being open.
There's nothing there.
So talk to your sponsor.
Talk to some people in therecovery community that you can
(17:33):
spend time with.
Talk to your therapist.
And for me as a therapist,that's one of the frustrating
parts is when people come in andthey think all that I want to
hear is the good stuff.
And that's all they give me.
You know, how's it been goingthis week?
Oh, good.
You know, it's like, no, you gotstopped by the police twice.
What do you mean good?
This is the kind of stuff I runinto.
(17:54):
Like you had a massive fightwith your friend and now you've
cut your friend off.
And I'll get that.
But sometimes I don't get ituntil the last, I don't know,
five minutes of the sessionthey'll say this is what i
really wanted to talk abouttoday well why didn't you bring
it up i asked you how you weredoing and we spent 50 minutes
(18:15):
talking about you know whatyou've been doing this week at
work and whatever and you youhad something you really
seriously wanted to talk aboutbut you didn't bring it up why
because it's self-sabotaging youthink if i bring it up it makes
it real if i bring it up i haveto admit to it if i bring it up
It's true.
Well, I hate to tell you this.
(18:38):
It's true whether you say it outloud or not, but I will also
tell you that when you say itout loud, the power of it
diminishes because now you canhave a different perspective.
So the openness in your talkingabout it is where the recovery
(19:03):
from that incident is so let'stalk about therapy you know
therapy is is a process whereyou're talking to a human being
who's a clinician who's trainedand hopefully they have a lot of
experience in recovery theyunderstand addiction they're
very very oriented towardstrauma and understanding it
(19:25):
because that's what you reallyneed as an addict so dealing
with the deeper wounds thatdrive relapse is what you talk
about in therapy and that's whenyou're having these
conversations that are the hardones you're crying you're angry
people in my office they getvery emotional um very angry
(19:48):
very sad it's not a little bitit's a lot there are a lot of
tears there's there's yellingthat goes on in my office
there's crying that goes on inmy office and that is
appropriate that is what you'resupposed to be doing in therapy
right so you deal with thosedeep or wounds the deeper cuts
that you felt and the reasonsyou feel uncomfortable about the
(20:10):
things that trigger you so youknow powerless abused neglected
those kinds of things and that'swhat you that's what you talk
about in therapy because that'sfrom you know of course I'm
prejudiced because I'm atherapist right so I I'm going
to say that I think realrecovery can happen when you
start working on that and thatthe only place you can really
(20:31):
work on that is in good therapyso it's really important that
you find a good therapist thatyou connect with but that's
where you can uh really do somei think some really good work on
breaking that cycle ofself-sabotaging okay and so now
there's another component rightbecause we talked about um we're
(20:53):
talking about physical likedon't go to bars don't hang out
with your friends that are gethigh buddies we're talking about
uh intellectual right be open behonest that's intellectual uh um
talk about the thing thatbothers you that's the emotion
so the last part is thespiritual or the face faith part
of it so a common thing thathappens with addicts is that
(21:16):
they feel very isolated theyfeel very alone they're doing it
on their own and if you if youhave any experience whatsoever
with going to aa or na or sa orany of the a's we talk about you
are not alone and i can tell youfrom my own experience having no
family and struggling with thatand then finding and then
(21:41):
finding that there actually is afather figure that was
benevolent and cared about meand was watching over me was a
very very weird experiencebecause I did not have that as a
father I didn't have thatmodeled for me as a father
whatsoever and not trusting myfather he was he was verbally
abusive he's an alcoholic mymother was not a safe to be
(22:04):
around she was alwaysmanipulating and whatever and
it's like you just always byyourself right so when when i
became closer to anunderstanding of faith and and a
spiritual life i realized thati'm not in this alone like there
is there is i felt this power ofsomething in me that was
changing me that i didn't feelisolated and alone many of my
(22:28):
male clients really strugglewith that one because they've
had fathers who were crazy oralcoholics are abusive in some
way and so we in my office workon that and an understanding of
like you know what is what aboutfaith in your life and it's
really kind of almost amusingwhen I see them because they
turn from agnostic or atheist towhat we call in the Christian
(22:53):
community baby Christians wherethey're starting to understand a
little bit and they get it butthey don't believe it's for them
they don't believe that it canbe for them and so it's a little
bit strange to see them movethat direction initially because
they hesitate and they fight itand they don't, you know.
But you have to remind yourselfover and over again that you're
(23:15):
not fighting this alone.
It's a good battle and the enemywants to win and the way it wins
is by slowly beating you downand stripping you of things that
are close and important to you.
Relationships, health, freedom,money, safety, housing,
employment, things like that.
So,
UNKNOWN (23:33):
Thank you.
SPEAKER_00 (23:35):
Practice your faith, okay?
The sabotage part of it usuallyequates to failure.
Sabotage doesn't mean failure.
It means there's some deeperthing that needs attention in
you.
And so when you're trying tofigure out how do I address
(23:56):
this, understand there's a piecethat's missing for you.
And I don't know what that pieceis, but you will need to find
out what that piece is.
Whatever it is.
But it doesn't mean that youfailed.
Many times people come fromhomes that are just these horror
stories that I hear.
That's not your failing.
(24:16):
That's the failing of yourparents.
That's the failing of the peoplearound you.
And so failure is not part ofthis.
It just means there's somethingdeeper that needs to be tended
to.
So that's why getting intoreally good therapy is
important.
Progress.
What is that?
that it's persistence.
(24:37):
Recovery is persistence.
Progress isn't perfect.
It isn't perfection.
You haven't gotten there wheneverything is perfect.
It's persistently working onrecovery.
It's an up and down.
I'm making a little wave motionwith my hand and my arm right
now.
It's like up and down.
It's up and down.
It's not just a straight line.
(24:59):
It's zigzaggy and up and down.
So don't think that it's allgoing to go away when everything
is perfect because you're nevergoing to get perfect there is no
perfect there's close there'swonderful there's great I guess
or something I don't know butthere's never perfect so that's
(25:20):
not what you're that's not whatyou're aiming for so let
yourself be lifted and stopfighting in your recovery stop
fighting to stay the crazyaddict because you're not
showing anything to anybody andreally you're not hurting
anybody but yourself uh just youknow like when you're in
(25:40):
recovery you get to be a betterperson everybody around you
benefits you get to be a badperson everybody's suffering
with you so just let yourself belifted stop fighting in that
rescue and figure out a way toaccept help um Addiction is
(26:02):
going to try to pull you under.
It's like a rip current.
It's going to try to pull youunder, but there's always a
lifeline.
You just have to reach out forit and let yourself be rescued.
Let the power of healing occurbecause you would accept help.
Step one, my life has becomeunmanageable.
(26:23):
Yeah, and you need to berescued, so allow yourself to be
rescued.
You don't rescue yourself.
You allow yourself to berescued.
Well, that's it for this editionof Doc Shock, Your Addiction
Lifeguard.
I hope you've enjoyed thisepisode.
I know that I've taken some timeoff and I really needed it.
(26:44):
I've been doing some writing andgetting completion on my book.
So hopefully that'll come outsoon.
And I look forward to getting itout to you.
Hey, look, man, if you're inneed of help, go get it.
Don't let addiction take youdown.
Don't drown just because you'retrying to save your addiction
(27:05):
that's crazy save yourself sowhen someone's coming along to
try to help you let them and ifyou need help get help go to
therapy go to rehab do somethingbut don't let addiction kill you
so until next time this is DocJacques your addiction lifeguard
saying see ya
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