December 6, 2023 • 39 mins
🌟 The premiere episode of Season 3 of the "Heal Your Roots Podcast" 🎧 delves deep into the complex and often intertwined worlds of trauma, substance use disorder, and the transformative journey of recovery. Esteemed guest Laura Schneider, LSW brings a wealth of experience and personal insights that promise to enlighten and inspire. 💡
In this riveting episode, Laura, Clinical Supervisor at Valley Spring Recovery Center in New Jersey, shares her unique perspective, shaped by her background in nursing and social work, on the cyclical nature of trauma and substance use. She opens up about her own battles with drug addiction, offering an honest and relatable narrative that highlights the importance of understanding and empathy in the healing process. Her story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit and the power of therapy to change lives. 💪🏼💖
The heart of addiction treatment is explored, examining the relationship between trauma and addiction. Laura illuminates how often trauma precedes addiction, leading to a "pressure cooker" situation where individuals may turn to substances as a coping mechanism. This discussion is particularly pertinent as it navigates the challenges of the holiday season 🎄, a time that can trigger memories and emotions for those with trauma.
The complexities of treating trauma and addiction are discussed, underscoring the significance of tailoring therapeutic approaches to individual needs. Innovative methods like inner child work and art therapy 🎨 are explored, offering paths to healing and self-care beyond traditional therapeutic narratives. The episode takes a hopeful turn as it discusses the importance of joy and creativity in the recovery process. Laura and host Kira Yakubov emphasize how integrating joy and playfulness into therapy can facilitate healing on both internal and somatic levels. 😊🌈
Finally, the effectiveness of EMDR (Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing) therapy for trauma is delved into, discussing its process and how it helps individuals reprocess traumatic memories. The episode concludes with practical advice for managing triggers and cravings during the holiday season, including setting boundaries and having a backup plan for challenging social situations. 🛡️🧘
This episode is a must-listen for anyone touched by the issues of trauma and addiction, or for those seeking a deeper understanding of these complex conditions. Tune in for an enlightening conversation that sheds light on the path to healing and recovery. 🌟
If you want to get in touch with Laura, she is available at LSchneider@valleyspringrc.com or learn more about Valley Spring Recovery Center here.
Check out the rest of the Heal Your Roots Podcast episodes at our website.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
But you're not actually healingfrom anything. So these things
are going to keep coming up. Andyou're going to keep using
substances more and more to kindof treat the mental health
symptoms that come with trauma.
And then, as the addiction isgetting worse, you're probably
going to use more and thenyou're going to just be numbing
things until the point it kindof explodes. Eventually, it's
like a pressure cooker, the morepressure you put eventually it's
(00:21):
going to, it's all going to comecollapsing down.
Welcome back to Heal Your RootsPodcast. In today's episode, we
have Laurie Schneider,discussing the cyclical nature
between trauma and substance usedisorder. Laura shares great
insight and tips on how to workthrough this holiday season. If
you or a family member, youknow, may be struggling with
(00:44):
substance use disorder, you'regoing to want to tune in. Thanks
so much. So I'm so excited fortoday's episode. Laura, thank
you so much for joining ustoday.
We can kind of jump right in,can you share a little bit about
kind of how you got into thefield and into the world of
therapy? Sure. Thank you forhaving me. First of all, I'm
(01:05):
very excited to be here. I gotinto what I do now in a very
long, roundabout way. But I'mvery glad I got here.
I started when I went to school,I thought about what do I want
to do with my life. So I startedtaking classes for nursing. And
part of that is you takeprerequisites, and I started
(01:26):
taking psychology classes. Andsomething about learning about
how the mind works and howpeople are was so fascinating to
me that I changed my major. Istudied psychology. And after I
got my bachelor's degree, thencame another period of okay,
well, what do I want to do withthis degree? How do I want to
use this? So I started workingwith caseworkers I was a case
(01:49):
aide. And in that work, Idecided I loved working with
people, I loved the challengesthat they had and trying to help
them as much as I could. So Ilearned about a master's in
social work. And I really likedthat degree, because it opened a
lot of doors, it was verypersonal, you could really work
with a lot of differentpopulations, in different
(02:10):
settings, doing differentthings. And that really
intrigued me. So while I wasgetting that degree, I started
really, really loving theclasses where we talked about
the therapeutic interventionsand how to be a therapist. So
that was always my long termgoal.
During that time, however, I gotvery into drug addiction, it
(02:33):
started very innocently andeventually spiraled pretty out
of control. So my career pathkind of took a backseat for a
bit. Once I got help, I went toa place where a lot of the
therapists were openly inrecovery. And I remember sitting
there thinking, Oh my God, Iwant to do the same thing. I
have this degree already, I havethis real world experience. I
(02:55):
know what this is like. And sothat became my new long term
goal. And then once I starteddoing that kind of work, working
with alcohol, alcoholics andaddicts, and providing therapy
for them, I realized that thiswas always what I was meant to
do. It was the purpose that Iwas given, and I feel so
fulfilled. It's a verychallenging job. But it's one
(03:17):
that I find so rewarding. Iabsolutely love it. Even on the
really hard days where so manythings are going wrong, I still
very much know that this was mycalling and why I was put here.
Thank you for sharing that. Iappreciate that. I know, it's
not easy for us to always kindof share vulnerable moments of
our own personal life,especially as a therapist. And I
(03:40):
think that a lot of our ownpersonal experiences, whether
it's within our own life orfamily or things that we've gone
through kind of informed why wechoose particular specialties,
or who we want to work with. AndI'm I mean, I'm curious of how
that, I'm sure really helps yourclients feel like they can
relate to you knowing thatthat's something that you've
(04:01):
gone through as well. And hereto help them move through it. I
think it does. A lot of a lot ofthe clients I work with do
appreciate the honesty, I don'tshare a lot of details about it.
But I think just knowing surethat I come from a similar
background really does help.
I know for myself, it helped,because I did try treatment a
(04:22):
couple of times before my lastattempt. And I didn't know for
sure if any of the thetherapists were in recovery or
not. And I know in the field ofsocial work, it really shouldn't
matter, right? We were taughtnot to share too much about
ourselves because it's not aboutus. It's about the people we
work with. I just feel that thisis a very unique population. And
(04:44):
I think that having that degreeof familiarity and understanding
between us really helps thetherapeutic relationship.
(05:06):
I value their opinion andthey're also in recovery. So
they got it there. Maybe I canget it to, or like, they're not
just telling me something thatthey read in a textbook, they're
kind of giving me real advice.
And I find that it really helps,especially
in our, you know, our people arevery resistant to change at the
beginning. So I think havinghaving good role models helps.
(05:30):
Absolutely.
And so what kind of differentsettings have you worked in, in
terms of with clients likeinpatient or outpatient, what
that's been like for you andyour experience?
For substance use disorder, I'veworked in outpatient, I also
have a background in mentalhealth therapy, just strictly
mental health where I didoutpatient services as well.
(05:52):
I've worked in a group home fordevelopmentally disabled
children, I've worked with CPSnot, you know, going to family
court. So I've been in a lot ofdifferent outpatient settings.
And so when you are at yourcurrent placement right now, at
Valley springs recovery, is thatan outpatient facility, that's
(06:13):
an outpatient, okay. And so theclients you're seeing, are they
actively in addiction, orthey're through the recovery
process.
We're getting them in the earlystages. So some people come in,
and it's their first time andit's the early days, and they
don't know what to expect. Wehave some people who this is not
not their first rodeo. So they,they kind of have an idea of how
(06:34):
recovery kind of works. So youknow, they come in with some
background in trying to gethelp, I find we have people that
come in, in the very beginningsof recovery. So they've never
been to treatment before, theydon't really know what to
expect. We have some people thatthis is not the first go around.
So they they do have somebackground in the treatment
process. Some people that comefor, you know, to make their
(06:57):
families happy, some people thatreally want it for themselves.
And then during that process,some people, you know, have
slips or relapses, a goodportion of them do remain in
treatment, or try to get reengaged and get back on track,
for the most part, which is agreat thing. Very rarely do they
kind of just disappear and nevercome back. But yeah, those were
(07:21):
probably most of the people wesee.
Well, that's great, they don'tdisappear. The museum is
committed to treatment to somedegree, even if they're not
ready at that particular stage.
But you know, because I knowthere's different seasons of
this process. So knowing thatthe place you're at Valley
springs recovery, it soundslike, depending on where you're
at, in your journey, this is agood spot for them to come to
(07:44):
get treatment.
I agree. And I think the mainfeedback I hear from a lot of
the clients is that they feelcared for. They feel like we
actually do care about them andwant them to do well. That's it,
that's really the best thing tohear. I want people to feel
heard and seen and valued.
(08:05):
Absolutely. And so I know thatyou specialize in addiction,
treatment and substance use, Iknow that you also work with
trauma. And I know that there'sa really large overlap and kind
of like this cyclicalrelationship between trauma or
PTSD and substance use disorder.
Can you speak a little bit moreon that, or what you've seen in
your experience or yourknowledge around that?
(08:28):
Yeah, um, we actually talkedabout this yesterday, in group.
A lot of the people that I see Ilove getting the trauma people
if I know they have trauma, I dotry to see them because that is
one of my passions is workingwith trauma and PTSD. One of the
things that we learned in theprocess is some people will come
(08:50):
in with trauma before theiraddiction starts. And then some
people will have trauma kind ofin adulthood. But one of the
things we try to put togetherlike the pieces of okay, what
what is this trauma and how,what is the impact it's having
on your life? Is it a storywhere the pain is so much that
(09:10):
you did different things to copewith it, in a way numb it or try
to push it aside and pretendlike it's not there, eventually,
drugs and alcohol become a greatway to do that, because it kind
of turns your mind off a littlebit. But you're not actually
healing from anything. So thesethings are going to keep coming
up. And you're going to keepusing substances more and more
(09:30):
to kind of treat the mentalhealth symptoms that come with
trauma. And then as theaddiction is getting worse,
you're probably going to usemore and then you're going to
just be numbing things until thepoint it kind of explodes.
Eventually. It's like a pressurecooker, the more pressure you
put eventually it's going toit's all gonna come collapsing
down.
(09:51):
Yeah, and it's interestingbecause it's, you're saying that
sometimes people come in withtrauma and they haven't even
really started using substancesor it can be vice versa, right
like they need have alreadystarted using substances for
whatever reason, and maybethere's you know, they had an
accident or something elsethat's been going on in their
life. And then through thatprocess, they may find
themselves in kind of traumaticor dangerous situations that
(10:15):
exacerbates that and thosesymptoms. And it kind of just
goes back and forth. Yeah,it's a snowball effect. One of
the young men was talkingyesterday about how he, I think
it's like 10 years or so he hasa process, this really traumatic
thing that happened, where hefound a friend that passed away.
And it was an after a night ofthem partying. So he has been
carrying around for 10 years.
(10:37):
Who knows, but he hasn't evenstarted unpacking it, like the
guilt, the shame, the sadness,the anger, there's all these
things that he's just beennumbing, and the stuff is still
going to be there underneath.
But we're not actually healingand getting better.
Yeah, wow. And I can imagine alot of people who have had
childhood trauma, right, likeyears and years or decades of
(11:00):
not really wanting to go thereor think about that. And
numbing, self medicating, right.
I mean, it is a copingmechanism. It's maladaptive.
It's not the best one. But it's,you know, something that they
found to help them move throughlife to not have to deal with
those, whether it's painfulmemories or like the
dysregulation in their body.
(11:22):
Yeah, that's a lot. And it'sheavy work for you to be in
every day as well. So I commendyou for being in that specialty
and helping people in thatcircumstance.
Thank you. I, I think also,trying to identify healthy
coping skills can be achallenge, too, because
sometimes people don't even knowreally who they are. And they
depending on what the trauma is,I really love working,
(11:45):
especially not that I don't likeworking with men. But I like
working with women who havetrauma. Because a lot of times
what I hear from them is thisgreat sense of not really know
who they are, and having thisnarrative in their head, that
doesn't really come from them.
That that it's very, very lowself esteem and no confidence
and very, very segregating tothemselves and trying to work on
(12:07):
building up that piece of selflove and competence and kind of
rewriting the narrative thatthey've put into that they've
had running in their heads foryears. Yeah.
And so how do you kind ofapproach that if someone's
coming in with addiction orsubstance use? And they have a
history of trauma? Like do youtackle both at the same time? Do
(12:29):
you kind of take time toseparate between the two? What's
kind of like the course ofaction? Obviously, it's
different for every person, butlike, generally, your approach
to that.
i It's kind of like what yousaid, it depends on what
symptoms are presenting who theperson is what really needs to
be tackled. The hope is that, bythe time I see them, they're
relatively stable. They haven'thad substances in their system
(12:52):
for a while. So they're prettyas close to baseline as I can
get them. If they're going to bethere for a short amount of
time. We I do. I don't go deepdiving into the trauma, but we
kind of talk a little bit aboutmaybe putting the pieces
together of okay, we have thistraumatic experience you had,
how does that paint your view ofthe world? How does that? How is
(13:13):
that kind of showing you how toreact to people? How can we work
on that? So it's a more healthyway? If you're someone that gets
like, do you know, your traumatriggers? Do you know when
you're going to be moreirritable, more susceptible to
like panicking, depending onwhat you have? And we kind of
kind of work on? How do wemanage the symptoms, if they're
(13:35):
going to be there a little bitlonger, and I know, it would be
safe to do so we do try to divedeeper and to kind of talk about
the trauma more deeply andreally process that over time.
It really depends if someone'scoming for maybe a month, I'm
not going to deep dive into alot of heavy stuff. But I will
(13:56):
try to set them up for like alonger term plan. Luckily, most
of the people I do work withstay for a good amount of time.
So we're able to do both. Okay,so that's great. I'm glad that
you mentioned that if they'renot there for a long time.
You're not just going likestraight to the terrible. Yeah,
like the worst thing that everhappened, okay, in a couple of
(14:16):
weeks, we're ending. So see youlater, I just opened up this
room for you. That's likebleeding out, which is the
reason that you've been numbingor avoiding and now you have
nothing to help cope with it ormove through that. So more about
like symptom reduction, andsounds like a lot of self
awareness, right, like makingsure they can recognize when
they're experiencing thesesymptoms as well. Yeah.
(14:42):
Because that's also the maintakeaway I get from a lot of
when I'm listening to whatpeople are talking about. It
it's kind of awesome to watchpeople discover their own. The
ways that they react to thingsand how they don't they didn't
realize in that moment, I didn'treally I said something like,
that is why I feel this way,which makes me behave this way.
(15:05):
And it's it's really amazing towatch people put those pieces
together for themselves, andthen hopefully find better ways
to cope with things.
So I'm sure that's one of themost rewarding parts, right?
He's like having all the pieces,like watching the light bulb go
off, like, Oh, I get it. Now,we're recognizing that that
experience was traumatic,because I don't necessarily
(15:27):
specialize in trauma. But youknow, in therapy, a lot of our
clients are coming to us withsome level of traumatic
backgrounds, relationships,instances that they bring up.
And sometimes they don't evenrecognize that what they went
through was traumatic, becauseit doesn't seem that bad, or
doesn't seem like a big deal, orpeople around them had it worse.
(15:48):
So I'm curious what that's like,if you've had clients who kind
of minimize or downplay or don'teven recognize that the things
they've been through aretraumatic and impacting them
now.
So I do have, I'm thinking ofone person in particular, that
told me some stories. And in myhead, it sounded very traumatic.
They didn't, it was, you know,very adult, they were minimizing
(16:11):
it, or they just didn'texperience it as traumatic. But
it did sound pretty traumatic. Ialways included in my notes, and
I always put it down in like mytrauma history, just in case it
comes up again. And then maybelightly touch on like, trying to
pull similarities. Oh, well, ifyou're, if you're kind of
(16:32):
talking about these feelings ofunderlying self doubt, or
thinking that people don't likeyou, or this, you know, whatever
they're bringing to me, couldthat relate to the feeling you
might have had experiencing thisand trying to help them see, I'm
never going to tell someoneelse's story for them. So if
they don't think it's traumatic,then I'm not going to tell them
(16:54):
it's trauma. But I you know, Ijust want to kind of, I always
tell them, this just food forthought, give them little,
little things to think about. Alot of my homework for people is
just think about it, I just wantyou to think about these things.
See where the connection mightbe? Yeah. And so I know before,
(17:16):
when it was just the two of ustalking that you mentioned,
doing a lot of like, inner childwork? Can you share a little bit
about that as well?
I find inner child work to bechildhood work to be very
fascinating. I think it's, it'sa hard one to get people on
board with sometimes. Because Iget it it sounds kind of like
(17:37):
odd. Like you're, you'reparenting your inner child and
to do that sometimes you I alsoOkay, so let me tell us, I love
doing art therapy. It's one ofmy favorite things to do. But a
lot of my adult, they're alladults, but you know, they get a
little resistance to ourtherapy. They're like, why am I
coloring? I know I should not.
And like we can talk about heavystuff again. But this is just to
(17:59):
have fun. And there's a littlepiece of the kid inside that's
just wants to play and have fun.
And a lot of people might nothave had that might not have had
the chance to just have fun. Andyou get to care for the little
version of yourself that maybedidn't get that care. And he'll
(18:21):
that I always tell my peoplethink of so I would say for
instance you like think a littleKira Think a little Kira, who
just wanted to hug and she justwanted to adult like she never
got that, like enter the damndoll. Let's, let's take her
outside and touch some grass andyou know, paints or something,
you know, care for her. There'ssomething very healing about
(18:42):
being able to care for like thismetaphorical, smaller
version of yourself. Well, thatand you know, it's interesting,
because the work you do is I'msure really heavy. And you know,
therapy in general can be reallyheavy. And I think that clients
forget that a big part. And evensometimes a big part of healing
is experiencing joy. Right?
Like, it's not just abouttalking about these really,
(19:04):
whether it's traumatic orserious or vulnerable things.
Yes, it's that and it's okay,now how can I make more space in
my life to feel joy andhappiness and just be present
and do these activities thathave no function for
productivity or anything likethat, but just for me, to just
live and be like, have fun, likeyou're saying is just enjoy life
(19:29):
for a moment?
Yeah, those are actually thegroups that I love to do. I
almost always want to do those,obviously. But I think first of
all, sobriety wouldn't be no onewould keep doing it. If there
was no fun or joy ever, right?
If it was a drag every day forthe rest of your life. Why would
anyone ever stay the course. Soit's kind of showing everyone
(19:52):
Hey, we're still allowed tolaugh and have fun and be silly
and goof off. And there's alsoby dynamic in the group where
that brings up group cohesion ifyou're all making jokes and
laughing and having a fun timetogether, those are, those are
the memories that I rememberfrom my own group therapy years
ago, I remember that the fungroups were we were we made like
gingerbread houses forChristmas. And we were all just
(20:13):
joking around. And it was fun Inot that I didn't get anything
out of the heavier groups. Butthe fun groups is where, you
know, I kind of what you'resaying, I remembered, there's
joy, I'm allowed to have joy andI can have joy, without anything
in my body. That shouldn't bethere. Like, that's pretty cool.
That's pretty nice.
Yeah. And I think that's a bigpart of helping with trauma too,
(20:35):
right? Especially since it's soin our body, and our nervous
system is dysregulated. Andwe're on edge and there could be
panic, right? Like, our amygdalawas being fired all the time. So
having joy is like telling yourbody, hey, I'm safe enough. To
not be vigilant, I'm safe enoughto just focus and be present,
and enjoy the company of otherpeople around me and laugh. And
(20:58):
the more space we create forthat, like, stillness, right, it
also helps our body kind of healas well outside of the
narrative. And just likeinternally somatically, as well.
Absolutely.
And I think it's, it's a winwin, because so I picked up the
(21:18):
guitar when I got sober, and Iwas dealing with my own mental
health stuff. And I found it tobe so rewarding. And I'm not
saying everyone's got to pick upa guitar, you know how to play
music. But there's something outthere that you can do that's
really good to, like, help youget, like, get these things out
of you. So for music, if I'msad, I like to play sad music,
(21:39):
and I like to write a lot ofstuff that's going on in, in my
mind, get it out of my head. Andit's a healing thing, it helps
me process what I need to. And Ithink there's a lot of different
mechanisms mechanisms to dothat. That might be a little
outside the box, you know, ifyou're, I tell people play to
your strengths. I know that Ilike art, and I like music. So
I, I tried to just make it thatif you've always been interested
(22:00):
in knitting, try it and worktowards it. Because it's fresh,
everything's new and frustratingat first when you don't know how
to do it. But the more you doit, the more you learn, the
prouder, you feel more you wantto do it, and you feel
accomplished. And it's veryempowering. If you're someone
that likes to to run, make it agoal to do like a half marathon
and and take pride in each day,trying your best and just
(22:23):
working a little harder to getto your goal. And then you're
gonna feel so many good things.
Sounds like kind of redirectingyour your energy and your
thoughts on something healthier,right? Like, that's for you,
that brings joy that is alearning curve, right? It's not
about being really good at it.
But it's you gain confidencethroughout that process and
(22:43):
sticking with something so thatyou feel better about yourself.
Yeah, because in substance usedisorder, the number one trigger
I hear is boredom. When peopledon't have things to do, they
get bored, and then they don't,they're just like, Whatever, I'm
gonna go, do what I got to do.
So I tell people, you're gonnahave a lot of time on your hands
(23:05):
now that you're not, you know,going to the liquor store, go to
drug dealer worrying about thisor feeling sick, you're gonna
have a lot more free time. Let'smake some good use out of it and
find something that you'd liketo do. So that that that
downtime doesn't feel boring. Imean, as humans, we have to a
lot of people have to learn thatit's okay to just exist, our
(23:26):
bodies and our minds need torest. And it's okay, you don't
have to be engaged in somethingall day every day. But we can't
be not doing anything all day,every day, we got to find
something to do. So that thattime feels fulfilling. And
instead of calling it boringtime, it's more like this is my
peace. This is my peaceful time.
(23:51):
It's interesting that boredom isa is a trigger, I wouldn't have
necessarily thought about that.
But I can think about, at leastfor me, like I have ADHD and
like when I'm bored, sometimesit can feel or is interpreted as
me being sad. And so I'm curiousif there's kind of that
connection to have when you'rebored, there's nothing to do you
feel like that's you're notbeing fulfilled. And so it kind
of feels like sadness, or ifthat's just like, a personal
(24:14):
experience. And that's notsomething that maybe other
people kind of linked together.
Boredom.
Well, because what I think ofboredom, a lot of people also
talk about the feeling ofloneliness, too. And I think
that can feel sad as well. Andthis is more of that kind of CBT
technique is like what wordswe're using, right? Sometimes we
(24:36):
are going to be a little bored,it's okay to be bored. You're
not going to always be fulfilledevery single second of the day,
but it's about being able tokind of sit in that tolerate it,
and then maybe change how weview it. So for me if I'm having
that boring time, or what otherpeople might look at as boring I
find it very peaceful. I find itwe're also breaking this cycle
(24:59):
of Chaos. So a lot of people inaddiction and in trauma get very
used to chaos and I, welogically know that the chaos is
not good for us, we're not happyin that chaos, but it's
comfortable. When you've livedin it for so long, you, you, it
feels familiar. So you mightkeep trying to chase that chaos
in some way. So I think it'sabout accepting that you don't
(25:22):
have to live in chaos. Andthat's a good thing, you're
allowed to have peace. Andinstead of calling it boredom,
let's call it downtime, and theserenity that you've been
looking for, because you deserveto not live in chaos.
That's so true. Whatever isfamiliar is comfortable, even if
it's not something that'shealthy, or that we enjoy. It's
just we know what to expect. Weknow what to do with it. And
(25:44):
changes Change is hard, right?
And anytime we change, there'slike a grieving process, even if
we're changing for the better,still grieving something that
we're leaving behind or losing,that served a function for some
period of time for us.
Yeah. In. In our field, we wesay like drugs and alcohol.
That's not the problem. That'sthe solution. But what are we
(26:05):
solving? What are? What's thequestion? Were like, what are we
using it for? There's, it'sserving a purpose, we wouldn't
do it if it didn't serve apurpose.
So I know that you coming up inthe next year or sometime soon
wanted to become e MDR.
Certified? For the listeners whodon't know what that is, can you
share a little bit of like, whatthat approach is, and what made
you want to start learning andgoing into that direction?
(26:30):
Yeah, sure. Um, a lot of clientsbring it up to me. It's
something I've read about orheard about done, like, short
trainings on. But um, it standsfor eye movement,
desensitization andreprocessing. It's basically,
like the last two words,desensitization,
desensitization, andreprocessing. You know, trauma
(26:55):
has an impact on how weexperience the world, right? So
when the, when we're triggeredin those moments, it causes us
great distress, right? And thatcan impact how we're relating to
other people, how we're reactingin situations, and it's not
always the best, healthiest way,and it's very uncomfortable for
us. So this is a technique thatkind of uses eye movements
(27:21):
similar to REM sleep, I believe,to minimize some of how we
experienced that distress whenwe recall certain traumatic
events, so that they so thatthese moments aren't as intense
when we experienced them.
And is that something that Iknow you said you did a couple
of short trainings on? Is thereanything that like when you were
(27:41):
learning about you're like, Oh,I definitely want to do this or
that made you want to pulltowards it? Or is it just that
working with trauma, it's kindof like the natural next step.
I remember being very curiousabout it. When I first learned
about it, this was probably 10years ago, a long time ago, when
I did it. At that time, I wasworking with children who
survived sex abuse, so we didn'tput it I was still in school. So
(28:04):
we didn't, you know, practiceit. And I remember learning
about anything that's reallyinteresting. But again, my own
journey got very sidetracked. SoI didn't really, you know, go
back into it. And then as I wasworking in mental health and
working in addiction, it's comeup a lot, and a lot of people
who have had an interest in it.
I know, I've been very curiousabout it. myself. So I thought,
you know, if I'm really going totry to specialize more in
(28:28):
trauma, I should be reallyinformed in a, a pretty
successful and, you know, neededtechnique. Yeah,
absolutely. And I know thatit's, like pretty evidence
based, like, there's a lot ofresearch studies that show that
it decreases the symptoms ofPTSD or trauma, like
significantly, and yourexperience of it. I mean, I've
(28:51):
had it done. For me, personally,I haven't had like the full
kind, of course of it, but it'spretty intense. It's you, I
think you have to like really beready for that journey and know
that like, Okay, I'm committedto experiencing this and working
through it. And it's like, notlike it gets worse before it
gets better, at least from myexperience.
(29:14):
This is where I would beparticular about who I
implemented with, though,because if, again, I'm not going
to open Pandora's box, you know,if someone can only be with me
for a month, I would kind of bemore open to I don't like to
have a discussion with people atthe beginning of really how long
treatment is going to be becauseit I don't know that I can't
answer that for them. I don'twant to give them an arbitrary
(29:36):
number. And then they get sofocused on the end game that
they're not present. So I neverreally give anything more than
like a kind of basic trajectoryof how I think it could go with
no promises made. But I thinkyou know, with depending on who
I'm working with, I think Iwould have to highlight who
would benefit from this whowould want to be with me for a
(29:56):
while because I don't want to,like you said it can be pretty
intense and pretty. Eat, it'sgonna feel worse before it gets
better. So I don't want to just,you know, let's do EMDR and then
you're out next week, that's nota good idea. So I'd have to be
very careful. But I think I haveenough people that would be with
me long enough that it would bebeneficial.
Yeah. And can you share a littlebit if you if you know, like,
(30:20):
kind of like the process or whatthat's like for a client who
might be interested in that orstruggling with trauma to think
about what they could expect insomething like that,
um, I haven't performed itmyself. So I don't, I can't
speak to like how it might lookthat way. But from what I know,
the first session or two arevery, you know, getting like the
(30:40):
background information, gettingthe history, and then you in the
coalition kind of highlight whattraumatic memories are what what
things you want to what todistressing symptoms you're
going to be looking at, andyou're looking to replace that
with a more positive belief inthat place. And then, over the
course of a few sessions, you'regoing to be really, you got to
(31:03):
be ready to recall these eventsin great detail. And that might
bring up a lot of emotions andfeelings, and then they they do
the tapping or the, you know,the fingers snapping or the
clapping, to reprocess that inyour brain. And so you might,
it's gonna bring up a lot ofstuff. So start small, with
smaller traumas that aren't asintense. And you do that for a
(31:27):
few weeks, it really is going todepend on the person and what,
what traumatic memories you'rebringing up, how intense it is.
And then hopefully, you'refeeling better after, you know,
a couple months. So that, yeah,and then you kind of, I think
you'll either pick more stuff toeven or to I don't think we're
ever fully healed. So I think, Ithink just because life is a
(31:52):
growth and change process, Ithink you can minimize a lot of
things. But I think, like grief,never 100% goes away. But if you
learn to manage it and live withit, I have anxiety, and I've
just learned to manage and dealwith it and find what works, you
know, it's never going to goaway. 100% Anxiety is normal
thing to happen, right? Grief isa normal experience, pain is
(32:13):
normal. But I think we don't, wedon't want it to impact our
whole lives. We're not we'realways distressed or always
anxious, we'realways this way. But you should
feel it's not getting rid of,yeah, we're
not getting rid of anything.
We're just kind of learning howto live with these things and
manage them in a way that'seffective and helps.
(32:34):
And for my understanding, so Idon't know for sure. But for my
understanding of EMDR. The waythat it works like in your brain
is pretty fascinating. Andinteresting, especially why they
do like the eye movements or thetapping to incorporate with that
is that you know, when a persongoes through a traumatic
experience, everything in yourbrain and body kind of shuts off
(32:56):
that doesn't need to be there tosurvive in that moment. So like
your language center is off yourreproductive system, like
everything is kind of off thatis not immediately necessary. So
like the story and narrative ofwhat's happening, versus what's
really going on is likedisconnected. Right? And so
then, from what I can, from whatI was reading is that EMDR helps
(33:18):
you make that connection betweenthe traumatic experience between
the story, communicate that toeach other, and desensitize
yourself to create this newnarrative about the situation or
about what you feel or thinkabout it. So that it doesn't
feel the same way in your bodyand in your mind. Which is
(33:39):
pretty powerful. Like, whoa,that's crazy.
Yeah, it's it is fascinating. Iwish I was like a neurologist or
someone who could understandanything with the brain and
understand how that works. Butit's just it's powerful. It like
you said it's evidence based soit works for a lot of people.
Yeah. Andso I know with the the holidays
kind of coming up is this awould you say this is like a
(34:03):
natural trigger for some peopleor some of your clients just
being or whether it's aroundfamily or like memories, or, you
know, in the northeast of likebeing in New Jersey, New York,
it's cold and there's like, youknow, seasonal depression? Is
this a time where you might seemore relapse?
Absolutely, this is what I callthe danger zone, I feel it's
(34:25):
because it's a lot of holidaysback to back to back. And that
can bring up either painfulmemories of not having their
families around. It canhighlight you know, you have to
be around family members thatyou might not get along with.
There's usually alcohol atevents around the holidays. So
like you said, it's cold it'sdreary, it's you know, you're
(34:48):
gonna be more prone to that. Oh,it's boring because I can't go
outside and it's it's too coldin the snow and it just you
know, and seasonal depressionwe're now years feeling Saturn
general it's definite The dangerzone. So we talked about that a
bit over the last week or solike what's, what's the safety
plan? How do we manage throughthe holidays in a way where
(35:09):
we're going to manage oursymptoms? Well, and not go back
out and use? Like, what are whatare the tools we're going to put
in our toolkit for the holidays?
And on the flip side, I do havesome people that are excited,
because like, Oh, my God, I'msober for the first time that
Thanksgiving, that's, that'sfun. And they're like,
Okay. Oh, yeah. And so for thelisteners, are there any kind of
(35:30):
I know, it's very, you know,specific and customized to the
person. But is there any likekind of general tips that you
could give people during thistime that might be in recovery
or struggling to help them movethrough this holiday season or
winter?
Absolutely, there's a few toolsthat I always recommend for the
toolbox no matter who you are.
So that's coming up with a plan,right, and part of the plan are
(35:52):
going to consist of differentsteps. So I always encourage
people, if you're going tosomeone's house, and you know
there's going to be alcohol,there's no way to avoid that. Go
late, leave early. Take care ofyourself, have at least one
person, at least one, ideallymore, but at least one person
who you can confide in that canhelp you. So if you get there,
(36:16):
and it's more of a struggle thanyou thought, have someone that
you can pull aside to talk tohave a safe word that lets them
know, we gotta leave right now,because we're in high Red Alert.
Have some people on standby onyour phone that you can text or
call so you can step out ifyou're having a craving. So
like, Hey, you got 15 minutes tojust talk to me, talk me through
(36:37):
this. And, you know, get throughthat with them. Bring drinks
that you like, if your favoritedrink in the whole world is Diet
Coke, bringing 12 Diet Coke, soyou know that you have your
favorite drink, always have itand always have it in your hand.
Because people are a lot lesslikely to offer you a drink if
you're holding a drink in yourhand. So we tell people to do
(36:59):
that. And just don't be like, Iget it. We all want to be polite
and kind. You don't have toworry about what other people
think if you're struggling,don't just sit there because you
know, oh, Nana said, you know,and I was gonna get mad if I
leave No, like if you're if it'sbetween you drinking or nana
getting offended, just, youknow, go take care yourself be
(37:21):
safe. Your safety is the numberone concern. And don't you don't
have to tell anybody why you'renot drinking, but have a firm
no, no is a complete sentence.
And I know that a lot of timesfamilies don't take that they
want to more information, comeup with whatever you want to say
if you're on antibiotics, oryou're on antibiotics, if you're
(37:43):
saying oh, I'm not drinking inNovember, say that. If you want
to tell people you're inrecovery, even more power to
you. But it's your story. Youdon't have to tell people unless
you're comfortable. But justhave a firm know, don't be like
some people will. Because wewant to be kind we care about
other people think a lot of mypeople I work with are people
pleasers, as am I we feel likewe owe people an explanation. Or
(38:08):
something about like, you know,we don't we can just say no, I'm
not doing this. And we can wecan say that in a way where they
understand that's like the endof the conversation. Because
some people will say, Oh, no,not right now. Good. You know,
maybe later, maybe next time Isee you, you know, just put a
firm no on it. You're allowed tohave boundaries, you're allowed
to stand up for something thatyou need, you're allowed to
(38:29):
express thatsounds like a lot of being
assertive, assertive boundaries,having a backup plan, like
thinking ahead a little bit andhaving support around you. Yeah.
And being just very honest, andespecially what yourself. Some
people think like, this is atest. We were not this is not a
test. These are not like littleyou can you can get through
(38:50):
these moments and feel proud ofthem. But you shouldn't need to,
like go out and test yoursobriety. Right? Like that's why
I always say even if you thinkyou're going to be fine, have a
safety plan. I'd rather youhave, like 20 different coping
skills and never need to use anyof them then be stuck. And now
you don't know what to do.
Sure. Better safe than sorry.
Always write better to beprepared not have to do
(39:11):
anything. Vice versa. Exactly.
Yeah. So our this has been veryinformative, really great. I
really appreciate you you comingon. Is there any way for people
that are listening that mightwant to work with you to get in
touch with you? Yeah,um, so I have an email address.
l Schneider at Valley springrc.com.
(39:35):
Thank you so much for I reallyappreciate your time and you
sharing your insights with ustoday.
They I appreciate it. Thank youfor having me.
This was nice. Absolutely.
But you're not actually healingfrom anything. So these things
are going to keep coming up. Andyou're going to keep using
substances more and more to kindof treat the mental health
symptoms that come with trauma.
And then, as the addiction isgetting worse, you're probably
going to use more and thenyou're going to just be numbing
things until the point it kindof explodes. Eventually, it's
like a pressure cooker, the morepressure you put eventually it's
(00:21):
going to, it's all going to comecollapsing down.
Welcome back to Heal Your RootsPodcast. In today's episode, we
have Laurie Schneider,discussing the cyclical nature
between trauma and substance usedisorder. Laura shares great
insight and tips on how to workthrough this holiday season. If
you or a family member, youknow, may be struggling with
(00:44):
substance use disorder, you'regoing to want to tune in. Thanks
so much. So I'm so excited fortoday's episode. Laura, thank
you so much for joining ustoday.
We can kind of jump right in,can you share a little bit about
kind of how you got into thefield and into the world of
therapy? Sure. Thank you forhaving me. First of all, I'm
(01:05):
very excited to be here. I gotinto what I do now in a very
long, roundabout way. But I'mvery glad I got here.
I started when I went to school,I thought about what do I want
to do with my life. So I startedtaking classes for nursing. And
part of that is you takeprerequisites, and I started
(01:26):
taking psychology classes. Andsomething about learning about
how the mind works and howpeople are was so fascinating to
me that I changed my major. Istudied psychology. And after I
got my bachelor's degree, thencame another period of okay,
well, what do I want to do withthis degree? How do I want to
use this? So I started workingwith caseworkers I was a case
(01:49):
aide. And in that work, Idecided I loved working with
people, I loved the challengesthat they had and trying to help
them as much as I could. So Ilearned about a master's in
social work. And I really likedthat degree, because it opened a
lot of doors, it was verypersonal, you could really work
with a lot of differentpopulations, in different
(02:10):
settings, doing differentthings. And that really
intrigued me. So while I wasgetting that degree, I started
really, really loving theclasses where we talked about
the therapeutic interventionsand how to be a therapist. So
that was always my long termgoal.
During that time, however, I gotvery into drug addiction, it
(02:33):
started very innocently andeventually spiraled pretty out
of control. So my career pathkind of took a backseat for a
bit. Once I got help, I went toa place where a lot of the
therapists were openly inrecovery. And I remember sitting
there thinking, Oh my God, Iwant to do the same thing. I
have this degree already, I havethis real world experience. I
(02:55):
know what this is like. And sothat became my new long term
goal. And then once I starteddoing that kind of work, working
with alcohol, alcoholics andaddicts, and providing therapy
for them, I realized that thiswas always what I was meant to
do. It was the purpose that Iwas given, and I feel so
fulfilled. It's a verychallenging job. But it's one
(03:17):
that I find so rewarding. Iabsolutely love it. Even on the
really hard days where so manythings are going wrong, I still
very much know that this was mycalling and why I was put here.
Thank you for sharing that. Iappreciate that. I know, it's
not easy for us to always kindof share vulnerable moments of
our own personal life,especially as a therapist. And I
(03:40):
think that a lot of our ownpersonal experiences, whether
it's within our own life orfamily or things that we've gone
through kind of informed why wechoose particular specialties,
or who we want to work with. AndI'm I mean, I'm curious of how
that, I'm sure really helps yourclients feel like they can
relate to you knowing thatthat's something that you've
(04:01):
gone through as well. And hereto help them move through it. I
think it does. A lot of a lot ofthe clients I work with do
appreciate the honesty, I don'tshare a lot of details about it.
But I think just knowing surethat I come from a similar
background really does help.
I know for myself, it helped,because I did try treatment a
(04:22):
couple of times before my lastattempt. And I didn't know for
sure if any of the thetherapists were in recovery or
not. And I know in the field ofsocial work, it really shouldn't
matter, right? We were taughtnot to share too much about
ourselves because it's not aboutus. It's about the people we
work with. I just feel that thisis a very unique population. And
(04:44):
I think that having that degreeof familiarity and understanding
between us really helps thetherapeutic relationship.
(05:06):
I value their opinion andthey're also in recovery. So
they got it there. Maybe I canget it to, or like, they're not
just telling me something thatthey read in a textbook, they're
kind of giving me real advice.
And I find that it really helps,especially
in our, you know, our people arevery resistant to change at the
beginning. So I think havinghaving good role models helps.
(05:30):
Absolutely.
And so what kind of differentsettings have you worked in, in
terms of with clients likeinpatient or outpatient, what
that's been like for you andyour experience?
For substance use disorder, I'veworked in outpatient, I also
have a background in mentalhealth therapy, just strictly
mental health where I didoutpatient services as well.
(05:52):
I've worked in a group home fordevelopmentally disabled
children, I've worked with CPSnot, you know, going to family
court. So I've been in a lot ofdifferent outpatient settings.
And so when you are at yourcurrent placement right now, at
Valley springs recovery, is thatan outpatient facility, that's
(06:13):
an outpatient, okay. And so theclients you're seeing, are they
actively in addiction, orthey're through the recovery
process.
We're getting them in the earlystages. So some people come in,
and it's their first time andit's the early days, and they
don't know what to expect. Wehave some people who this is not
not their first rodeo. So they,they kind of have an idea of how
(06:34):
recovery kind of works. So youknow, they come in with some
background in trying to gethelp, I find we have people that
come in, in the very beginningsof recovery. So they've never
been to treatment before, theydon't really know what to
expect. We have some people thatthis is not the first go around.
So they they do have somebackground in the treatment
process. Some people that comefor, you know, to make their
(06:57):
families happy, some people thatreally want it for themselves.
And then during that process,some people, you know, have
slips or relapses, a goodportion of them do remain in
treatment, or try to get reengaged and get back on track,
for the most part, which is agreat thing. Very rarely do they
kind of just disappear and nevercome back. But yeah, those were
(07:21):
probably most of the people wesee.
Well, that's great, they don'tdisappear. The museum is
committed to treatment to somedegree, even if they're not
ready at that particular stage.
But you know, because I knowthere's different seasons of
this process. So knowing thatthe place you're at Valley
springs recovery, it soundslike, depending on where you're
at, in your journey, this is agood spot for them to come to
(07:44):
get treatment.
I agree. And I think the mainfeedback I hear from a lot of
the clients is that they feelcared for. They feel like we
actually do care about them andwant them to do well. That's it,
that's really the best thing tohear. I want people to feel
heard and seen and valued.
(08:05):
Absolutely. And so I know thatyou specialize in addiction,
treatment and substance use, Iknow that you also work with
trauma. And I know that there'sa really large overlap and kind
of like this cyclicalrelationship between trauma or
PTSD and substance use disorder.
Can you speak a little bit moreon that, or what you've seen in
your experience or yourknowledge around that?
(08:28):
Yeah, um, we actually talkedabout this yesterday, in group.
A lot of the people that I see Ilove getting the trauma people
if I know they have trauma, I dotry to see them because that is
one of my passions is workingwith trauma and PTSD. One of the
things that we learned in theprocess is some people will come
(08:50):
in with trauma before theiraddiction starts. And then some
people will have trauma kind ofin adulthood. But one of the
things we try to put togetherlike the pieces of okay, what
what is this trauma and how,what is the impact it's having
on your life? Is it a storywhere the pain is so much that
(09:10):
you did different things to copewith it, in a way numb it or try
to push it aside and pretendlike it's not there, eventually,
drugs and alcohol become a greatway to do that, because it kind
of turns your mind off a littlebit. But you're not actually
healing from anything. So thesethings are going to keep coming
up. And you're going to keepusing substances more and more
(09:30):
to kind of treat the mentalhealth symptoms that come with
trauma. And then as theaddiction is getting worse,
you're probably going to usemore and then you're going to
just be numbing things until thepoint it kind of explodes.
Eventually. It's like a pressurecooker, the more pressure you
put eventually it's going toit's all gonna come collapsing
down.
(09:51):
Yeah, and it's interestingbecause it's, you're saying that
sometimes people come in withtrauma and they haven't even
really started using substancesor it can be vice versa, right
like they need have alreadystarted using substances for
whatever reason, and maybethere's you know, they had an
accident or something elsethat's been going on in their
life. And then through thatprocess, they may find
themselves in kind of traumaticor dangerous situations that
(10:15):
exacerbates that and thosesymptoms. And it kind of just
goes back and forth. Yeah,it's a snowball effect. One of
the young men was talkingyesterday about how he, I think
it's like 10 years or so he hasa process, this really traumatic
thing that happened, where hefound a friend that passed away.
And it was an after a night ofthem partying. So he has been
carrying around for 10 years.
(10:37):
Who knows, but he hasn't evenstarted unpacking it, like the
guilt, the shame, the sadness,the anger, there's all these
things that he's just beennumbing, and the stuff is still
going to be there underneath.
But we're not actually healingand getting better.
Yeah, wow. And I can imagine alot of people who have had
childhood trauma, right, likeyears and years or decades of
(11:00):
not really wanting to go thereor think about that. And
numbing, self medicating, right.
I mean, it is a copingmechanism. It's maladaptive.
It's not the best one. But it's,you know, something that they
found to help them move throughlife to not have to deal with
those, whether it's painfulmemories or like the
dysregulation in their body.
(11:22):
Yeah, that's a lot. And it'sheavy work for you to be in
every day as well. So I commendyou for being in that specialty
and helping people in thatcircumstance.
Thank you. I, I think also,trying to identify healthy
coping skills can be achallenge, too, because
sometimes people don't even knowreally who they are. And they
depending on what the trauma is,I really love working,
(11:45):
especially not that I don't likeworking with men. But I like
working with women who havetrauma. Because a lot of times
what I hear from them is thisgreat sense of not really know
who they are, and having thisnarrative in their head, that
doesn't really come from them.
That that it's very, very lowself esteem and no confidence
and very, very segregating tothemselves and trying to work on
(12:07):
building up that piece of selflove and competence and kind of
rewriting the narrative thatthey've put into that they've
had running in their heads foryears. Yeah.
And so how do you kind ofapproach that if someone's
coming in with addiction orsubstance use? And they have a
history of trauma? Like do youtackle both at the same time? Do
(12:29):
you kind of take time toseparate between the two? What's
kind of like the course ofaction? Obviously, it's
different for every person, butlike, generally, your approach
to that.
i It's kind of like what yousaid, it depends on what
symptoms are presenting who theperson is what really needs to
be tackled. The hope is that, bythe time I see them, they're
relatively stable. They haven'thad substances in their system
(12:52):
for a while. So they're prettyas close to baseline as I can
get them. If they're going to bethere for a short amount of
time. We I do. I don't go deepdiving into the trauma, but we
kind of talk a little bit aboutmaybe putting the pieces
together of okay, we have thistraumatic experience you had,
how does that paint your view ofthe world? How does that? How is
(13:13):
that kind of showing you how toreact to people? How can we work
on that? So it's a more healthyway? If you're someone that gets
like, do you know, your traumatriggers? Do you know when
you're going to be moreirritable, more susceptible to
like panicking, depending onwhat you have? And we kind of
kind of work on? How do wemanage the symptoms, if they're
(13:35):
going to be there a little bitlonger, and I know, it would be
safe to do so we do try to divedeeper and to kind of talk about
the trauma more deeply andreally process that over time.
It really depends if someone'scoming for maybe a month, I'm
not going to deep dive into alot of heavy stuff. But I will
(13:56):
try to set them up for like alonger term plan. Luckily, most
of the people I do work withstay for a good amount of time.
So we're able to do both. Okay,so that's great. I'm glad that
you mentioned that if they'renot there for a long time.
You're not just going likestraight to the terrible. Yeah,
like the worst thing that everhappened, okay, in a couple of
(14:16):
weeks, we're ending. So see youlater, I just opened up this
room for you. That's likebleeding out, which is the
reason that you've been numbingor avoiding and now you have
nothing to help cope with it ormove through that. So more about
like symptom reduction, andsounds like a lot of self
awareness, right, like makingsure they can recognize when
they're experiencing thesesymptoms as well. Yeah.
(14:42):
Because that's also the maintakeaway I get from a lot of
when I'm listening to whatpeople are talking about. It
it's kind of awesome to watchpeople discover their own. The
ways that they react to thingsand how they don't they didn't
realize in that moment, I didn'treally I said something like,
that is why I feel this way,which makes me behave this way.
(15:05):
And it's it's really amazing towatch people put those pieces
together for themselves, andthen hopefully find better ways
to cope with things.
So I'm sure that's one of themost rewarding parts, right?
He's like having all the pieces,like watching the light bulb go
off, like, Oh, I get it. Now,we're recognizing that that
experience was traumatic,because I don't necessarily
(15:27):
specialize in trauma. But youknow, in therapy, a lot of our
clients are coming to us withsome level of traumatic
backgrounds, relationships,instances that they bring up.
And sometimes they don't evenrecognize that what they went
through was traumatic, becauseit doesn't seem that bad, or
doesn't seem like a big deal, orpeople around them had it worse.
(15:48):
So I'm curious what that's like,if you've had clients who kind
of minimize or downplay or don'teven recognize that the things
they've been through aretraumatic and impacting them
now.
So I do have, I'm thinking ofone person in particular, that
told me some stories. And in myhead, it sounded very traumatic.
They didn't, it was, you know,very adult, they were minimizing
(16:11):
it, or they just didn'texperience it as traumatic. But
it did sound pretty traumatic. Ialways included in my notes, and
I always put it down in like mytrauma history, just in case it
comes up again. And then maybelightly touch on like, trying to
pull similarities. Oh, well, ifyou're, if you're kind of
(16:32):
talking about these feelings ofunderlying self doubt, or
thinking that people don't likeyou, or this, you know, whatever
they're bringing to me, couldthat relate to the feeling you
might have had experiencing thisand trying to help them see, I'm
never going to tell someoneelse's story for them. So if
they don't think it's traumatic,then I'm not going to tell them
(16:54):
it's trauma. But I you know, Ijust want to kind of, I always
tell them, this just food forthought, give them little,
little things to think about. Alot of my homework for people is
just think about it, I just wantyou to think about these things.
See where the connection mightbe? Yeah. And so I know before,
(17:16):
when it was just the two of ustalking that you mentioned,
doing a lot of like, inner childwork? Can you share a little bit
about that as well?
I find inner child work to bechildhood work to be very
fascinating. I think it's, it'sa hard one to get people on
board with sometimes. Because Iget it it sounds kind of like
(17:37):
odd. Like you're, you'reparenting your inner child and
to do that sometimes you I alsoOkay, so let me tell us, I love
doing art therapy. It's one ofmy favorite things to do. But a
lot of my adult, they're alladults, but you know, they get a
little resistance to ourtherapy. They're like, why am I
coloring? I know I should not.
And like we can talk about heavystuff again. But this is just to
(17:59):
have fun. And there's a littlepiece of the kid inside that's
just wants to play and have fun.
And a lot of people might nothave had that might not have had
the chance to just have fun. Andyou get to care for the little
version of yourself that maybedidn't get that care. And he'll
(18:21):
that I always tell my peoplethink of so I would say for
instance you like think a littleKira Think a little Kira, who
just wanted to hug and she justwanted to adult like she never
got that, like enter the damndoll. Let's, let's take her
outside and touch some grass andyou know, paints or something,
you know, care for her. There'ssomething very healing about
(18:42):
being able to care for like thismetaphorical, smaller
version of yourself. Well, thatand you know, it's interesting,
because the work you do is I'msure really heavy. And you know,
therapy in general can be reallyheavy. And I think that clients
forget that a big part. And evensometimes a big part of healing
is experiencing joy. Right?
Like, it's not just abouttalking about these really,
(19:04):
whether it's traumatic orserious or vulnerable things.
Yes, it's that and it's okay,now how can I make more space in
my life to feel joy andhappiness and just be present
and do these activities thathave no function for
productivity or anything likethat, but just for me, to just
live and be like, have fun, likeyou're saying is just enjoy life
(19:29):
for a moment?
Yeah, those are actually thegroups that I love to do. I
almost always want to do those,obviously. But I think first of
all, sobriety wouldn't be no onewould keep doing it. If there
was no fun or joy ever, right?
If it was a drag every day forthe rest of your life. Why would
anyone ever stay the course. Soit's kind of showing everyone
(19:52):
Hey, we're still allowed tolaugh and have fun and be silly
and goof off. And there's alsoby dynamic in the group where
that brings up group cohesion ifyou're all making jokes and
laughing and having a fun timetogether, those are, those are
the memories that I rememberfrom my own group therapy years
ago, I remember that the fungroups were we were we made like
gingerbread houses forChristmas. And we were all just
(20:13):
joking around. And it was fun Inot that I didn't get anything
out of the heavier groups. Butthe fun groups is where, you
know, I kind of what you'resaying, I remembered, there's
joy, I'm allowed to have joy andI can have joy, without anything
in my body. That shouldn't bethere. Like, that's pretty cool.
That's pretty nice.
Yeah. And I think that's a bigpart of helping with trauma too,
(20:35):
right? Especially since it's soin our body, and our nervous
system is dysregulated. Andwe're on edge and there could be
panic, right? Like, our amygdalawas being fired all the time. So
having joy is like telling yourbody, hey, I'm safe enough. To
not be vigilant, I'm safe enoughto just focus and be present,
and enjoy the company of otherpeople around me and laugh. And
(20:58):
the more space we create forthat, like, stillness, right, it
also helps our body kind of healas well outside of the
narrative. And just likeinternally somatically, as well.
Absolutely.
And I think it's, it's a winwin, because so I picked up the
(21:18):
guitar when I got sober, and Iwas dealing with my own mental
health stuff. And I found it tobe so rewarding. And I'm not
saying everyone's got to pick upa guitar, you know how to play
music. But there's something outthere that you can do that's
really good to, like, help youget, like, get these things out
of you. So for music, if I'msad, I like to play sad music,
(21:39):
and I like to write a lot ofstuff that's going on in, in my
mind, get it out of my head. Andit's a healing thing, it helps
me process what I need to. And Ithink there's a lot of different
mechanisms mechanisms to dothat. That might be a little
outside the box, you know, ifyou're, I tell people play to
your strengths. I know that Ilike art, and I like music. So
I, I tried to just make it thatif you've always been interested
(22:00):
in knitting, try it and worktowards it. Because it's fresh,
everything's new and frustratingat first when you don't know how
to do it. But the more you doit, the more you learn, the
prouder, you feel more you wantto do it, and you feel
accomplished. And it's veryempowering. If you're someone
that likes to to run, make it agoal to do like a half marathon
and and take pride in each day,trying your best and just
(22:23):
working a little harder to getto your goal. And then you're
gonna feel so many good things.
Sounds like kind of redirectingyour your energy and your
thoughts on something healthier,right? Like, that's for you,
that brings joy that is alearning curve, right? It's not
about being really good at it.
But it's you gain confidencethroughout that process and
(22:43):
sticking with something so thatyou feel better about yourself.
Yeah, because in substance usedisorder, the number one trigger
I hear is boredom. When peopledon't have things to do, they
get bored, and then they don't,they're just like, Whatever, I'm
gonna go, do what I got to do.
So I tell people, you're gonnahave a lot of time on your hands
(23:05):
now that you're not, you know,going to the liquor store, go to
drug dealer worrying about thisor feeling sick, you're gonna
have a lot more free time. Let'smake some good use out of it and
find something that you'd liketo do. So that that that
downtime doesn't feel boring. Imean, as humans, we have to a
lot of people have to learn thatit's okay to just exist, our
(23:26):
bodies and our minds need torest. And it's okay, you don't
have to be engaged in somethingall day every day. But we can't
be not doing anything all day,every day, we got to find
something to do. So that thattime feels fulfilling. And
instead of calling it boringtime, it's more like this is my
peace. This is my peaceful time.
(23:51):
It's interesting that boredom isa is a trigger, I wouldn't have
necessarily thought about that.
But I can think about, at leastfor me, like I have ADHD and
like when I'm bored, sometimesit can feel or is interpreted as
me being sad. And so I'm curiousif there's kind of that
connection to have when you'rebored, there's nothing to do you
feel like that's you're notbeing fulfilled. And so it kind
of feels like sadness, or ifthat's just like, a personal
(24:14):
experience. And that's notsomething that maybe other
people kind of linked together.
Boredom.
Well, because what I think ofboredom, a lot of people also
talk about the feeling ofloneliness, too. And I think
that can feel sad as well. Andthis is more of that kind of CBT
technique is like what wordswe're using, right? Sometimes we
(24:36):
are going to be a little bored,it's okay to be bored. You're
not going to always be fulfilledevery single second of the day,
but it's about being able tokind of sit in that tolerate it,
and then maybe change how weview it. So for me if I'm having
that boring time, or what otherpeople might look at as boring I
find it very peaceful. I find itwe're also breaking this cycle
(24:59):
of Chaos. So a lot of people inaddiction and in trauma get very
used to chaos and I, welogically know that the chaos is
not good for us, we're not happyin that chaos, but it's
comfortable. When you've livedin it for so long, you, you, it
feels familiar. So you mightkeep trying to chase that chaos
in some way. So I think it'sabout accepting that you don't
(25:22):
have to live in chaos. Andthat's a good thing, you're
allowed to have peace. Andinstead of calling it boredom,
let's call it downtime, and theserenity that you've been
looking for, because you deserveto not live in chaos.
That's so true. Whatever isfamiliar is comfortable, even if
it's not something that'shealthy, or that we enjoy. It's
just we know what to expect. Weknow what to do with it. And
(25:44):
changes Change is hard, right?
And anytime we change, there'slike a grieving process, even if
we're changing for the better,still grieving something that
we're leaving behind or losing,that served a function for some
period of time for us.
Yeah. In. In our field, we wesay like drugs and alcohol.
That's not the problem. That'sthe solution. But what are we
(26:05):
solving? What are? What's thequestion? Were like, what are we
using it for? There's, it'sserving a purpose, we wouldn't
do it if it didn't serve apurpose.
So I know that you coming up inthe next year or sometime soon
wanted to become e MDR.
Certified? For the listeners whodon't know what that is, can you
share a little bit of like, whatthat approach is, and what made
you want to start learning andgoing into that direction?
(26:30):
Yeah, sure. Um, a lot of clientsbring it up to me. It's
something I've read about orheard about done, like, short
trainings on. But um, it standsfor eye movement,
desensitization andreprocessing. It's basically,
like the last two words,desensitization,
desensitization, andreprocessing. You know, trauma
(26:55):
has an impact on how weexperience the world, right? So
when the, when we're triggeredin those moments, it causes us
great distress, right? And thatcan impact how we're relating to
other people, how we're reactingin situations, and it's not
always the best, healthiest way,and it's very uncomfortable for
us. So this is a technique thatkind of uses eye movements
(27:21):
similar to REM sleep, I believe,to minimize some of how we
experienced that distress whenwe recall certain traumatic
events, so that they so thatthese moments aren't as intense
when we experienced them.
And is that something that Iknow you said you did a couple
of short trainings on? Is thereanything that like when you were
(27:41):
learning about you're like, Oh,I definitely want to do this or
that made you want to pulltowards it? Or is it just that
working with trauma, it's kindof like the natural next step.
I remember being very curiousabout it. When I first learned
about it, this was probably 10years ago, a long time ago, when
I did it. At that time, I wasworking with children who
survived sex abuse, so we didn'tput it I was still in school. So
(28:04):
we didn't, you know, practiceit. And I remember learning
about anything that's reallyinteresting. But again, my own
journey got very sidetracked. SoI didn't really, you know, go
back into it. And then as I wasworking in mental health and
working in addiction, it's comeup a lot, and a lot of people
who have had an interest in it.
I know, I've been very curiousabout it. myself. So I thought,
you know, if I'm really going totry to specialize more in
(28:28):
trauma, I should be reallyinformed in a, a pretty
successful and, you know, neededtechnique. Yeah,
absolutely. And I know thatit's, like pretty evidence
based, like, there's a lot ofresearch studies that show that
it decreases the symptoms ofPTSD or trauma, like
significantly, and yourexperience of it. I mean, I've
(28:51):
had it done. For me, personally,I haven't had like the full
kind, of course of it, but it'spretty intense. It's you, I
think you have to like really beready for that journey and know
that like, Okay, I'm committedto experiencing this and working
through it. And it's like, notlike it gets worse before it
gets better, at least from myexperience.
(29:14):
This is where I would beparticular about who I
implemented with, though,because if, again, I'm not going
to open Pandora's box, you know,if someone can only be with me
for a month, I would kind of bemore open to I don't like to
have a discussion with people atthe beginning of really how long
treatment is going to be becauseit I don't know that I can't
answer that for them. I don'twant to give them an arbitrary
(29:36):
number. And then they get sofocused on the end game that
they're not present. So I neverreally give anything more than
like a kind of basic trajectoryof how I think it could go with
no promises made. But I thinkyou know, with depending on who
I'm working with, I think Iwould have to highlight who
would benefit from this whowould want to be with me for a
(29:56):
while because I don't want to,like you said it can be pretty
intense and pretty. Eat, it'sgonna feel worse before it gets
better. So I don't want to just,you know, let's do EMDR and then
you're out next week, that's nota good idea. So I'd have to be
very careful. But I think I haveenough people that would be with
me long enough that it would bebeneficial.
Yeah. And can you share a littlebit if you if you know, like,
(30:20):
kind of like the process or whatthat's like for a client who
might be interested in that orstruggling with trauma to think
about what they could expect insomething like that,
um, I haven't performed itmyself. So I don't, I can't
speak to like how it might lookthat way. But from what I know,
the first session or two arevery, you know, getting like the
(30:40):
background information, gettingthe history, and then you in the
coalition kind of highlight whattraumatic memories are what what
things you want to what todistressing symptoms you're
going to be looking at, andyou're looking to replace that
with a more positive belief inthat place. And then, over the
course of a few sessions, you'regoing to be really, you got to
(31:03):
be ready to recall these eventsin great detail. And that might
bring up a lot of emotions andfeelings, and then they they do
the tapping or the, you know,the fingers snapping or the
clapping, to reprocess that inyour brain. And so you might,
it's gonna bring up a lot ofstuff. So start small, with
smaller traumas that aren't asintense. And you do that for a
(31:27):
few weeks, it really is going todepend on the person and what,
what traumatic memories you'rebringing up, how intense it is.
And then hopefully, you'refeeling better after, you know,
a couple months. So that, yeah,and then you kind of, I think
you'll either pick more stuff toeven or to I don't think we're
ever fully healed. So I think, Ithink just because life is a
(31:52):
growth and change process, Ithink you can minimize a lot of
things. But I think, like grief,never 100% goes away. But if you
learn to manage it and live withit, I have anxiety, and I've
just learned to manage and dealwith it and find what works, you
know, it's never going to goaway. 100% Anxiety is normal
thing to happen, right? Grief isa normal experience, pain is
(32:13):
normal. But I think we don't, wedon't want it to impact our
whole lives. We're not we'realways distressed or always
anxious, we'realways this way. But you should
feel it's not getting rid of,yeah, we're
not getting rid of anything.
We're just kind of learning howto live with these things and
manage them in a way that'seffective and helps.
(32:34):
And for my understanding, so Idon't know for sure. But for my
understanding of EMDR. The waythat it works like in your brain
is pretty fascinating. Andinteresting, especially why they
do like the eye movements or thetapping to incorporate with that
is that you know, when a persongoes through a traumatic
experience, everything in yourbrain and body kind of shuts off
(32:56):
that doesn't need to be there tosurvive in that moment. So like
your language center is off yourreproductive system, like
everything is kind of off thatis not immediately necessary. So
like the story and narrative ofwhat's happening, versus what's
really going on is likedisconnected. Right? And so
then, from what I can, from whatI was reading is that EMDR helps
(33:18):
you make that connection betweenthe traumatic experience between
the story, communicate that toeach other, and desensitize
yourself to create this newnarrative about the situation or
about what you feel or thinkabout it. So that it doesn't
feel the same way in your bodyand in your mind. Which is
(33:39):
pretty powerful. Like, whoa,that's crazy.
Yeah, it's it is fascinating. Iwish I was like a neurologist or
someone who could understandanything with the brain and
understand how that works. Butit's just it's powerful. It like
you said it's evidence based soit works for a lot of people.
Yeah. Andso I know with the the holidays
kind of coming up is this awould you say this is like a
(34:03):
natural trigger for some peopleor some of your clients just
being or whether it's aroundfamily or like memories, or, you
know, in the northeast of likebeing in New Jersey, New York,
it's cold and there's like, youknow, seasonal depression? Is
this a time where you might seemore relapse?
Absolutely, this is what I callthe danger zone, I feel it's
(34:25):
because it's a lot of holidaysback to back to back. And that
can bring up either painfulmemories of not having their
families around. It canhighlight you know, you have to
be around family members thatyou might not get along with.
There's usually alcohol atevents around the holidays. So
like you said, it's cold it'sdreary, it's you know, you're
(34:48):
gonna be more prone to that. Oh,it's boring because I can't go
outside and it's it's too coldin the snow and it just you
know, and seasonal depressionwe're now years feeling Saturn
general it's definite The dangerzone. So we talked about that a
bit over the last week or solike what's, what's the safety
plan? How do we manage throughthe holidays in a way where
(35:09):
we're going to manage oursymptoms? Well, and not go back
out and use? Like, what are whatare the tools we're going to put
in our toolkit for the holidays?
And on the flip side, I do havesome people that are excited,
because like, Oh, my God, I'msober for the first time that
Thanksgiving, that's, that'sfun. And they're like,
Okay. Oh, yeah. And so for thelisteners, are there any kind of
(35:30):
I know, it's very, you know,specific and customized to the
person. But is there any likekind of general tips that you
could give people during thistime that might be in recovery
or struggling to help them movethrough this holiday season or
winter?
Absolutely, there's a few toolsthat I always recommend for the
toolbox no matter who you are.
So that's coming up with a plan,right, and part of the plan are
(35:52):
going to consist of differentsteps. So I always encourage
people, if you're going tosomeone's house, and you know
there's going to be alcohol,there's no way to avoid that. Go
late, leave early. Take care ofyourself, have at least one
person, at least one, ideallymore, but at least one person
who you can confide in that canhelp you. So if you get there,
(36:16):
and it's more of a struggle thanyou thought, have someone that
you can pull aside to talk tohave a safe word that lets them
know, we gotta leave right now,because we're in high Red Alert.
Have some people on standby onyour phone that you can text or
call so you can step out ifyou're having a craving. So
like, Hey, you got 15 minutes tojust talk to me, talk me through
(36:37):
this. And, you know, get throughthat with them. Bring drinks
that you like, if your favoritedrink in the whole world is Diet
Coke, bringing 12 Diet Coke, soyou know that you have your
favorite drink, always have itand always have it in your hand.
Because people are a lot lesslikely to offer you a drink if
you're holding a drink in yourhand. So we tell people to do
(36:59):
that. And just don't be like, Iget it. We all want to be polite
and kind. You don't have toworry about what other people
think if you're struggling,don't just sit there because you
know, oh, Nana said, you know,and I was gonna get mad if I
leave No, like if you're if it'sbetween you drinking or nana
getting offended, just, youknow, go take care yourself be
(37:21):
safe. Your safety is the numberone concern. And don't you don't
have to tell anybody why you'renot drinking, but have a firm
no, no is a complete sentence.
And I know that a lot of timesfamilies don't take that they
want to more information, comeup with whatever you want to say
if you're on antibiotics, oryou're on antibiotics, if you're
(37:43):
saying oh, I'm not drinking inNovember, say that. If you want
to tell people you're inrecovery, even more power to
you. But it's your story. Youdon't have to tell people unless
you're comfortable. But justhave a firm know, don't be like
some people will. Because wewant to be kind we care about
other people think a lot of mypeople I work with are people
pleasers, as am I we feel likewe owe people an explanation. Or
(38:08):
something about like, you know,we don't we can just say no, I'm
not doing this. And we can wecan say that in a way where they
understand that's like the endof the conversation. Because
some people will say, Oh, no,not right now. Good. You know,
maybe later, maybe next time Isee you, you know, just put a
firm no on it. You're allowed tohave boundaries, you're allowed
to stand up for something thatyou need, you're allowed to
(38:29):
express thatsounds like a lot of being
assertive, assertive boundaries,having a backup plan, like
thinking ahead a little bit andhaving support around you. Yeah.
And being just very honest, andespecially what yourself. Some
people think like, this is atest. We were not this is not a
test. These are not like littleyou can you can get through
(38:50):
these moments and feel proud ofthem. But you shouldn't need to,
like go out and test yoursobriety. Right? Like that's why
I always say even if you thinkyou're going to be fine, have a
safety plan. I'd rather youhave, like 20 different coping
skills and never need to use anyof them then be stuck. And now
you don't know what to do.
Sure. Better safe than sorry.
Always write better to beprepared not have to do
(39:11):
anything. Vice versa. Exactly.
Yeah. So our this has been veryinformative, really great. I
really appreciate you you comingon. Is there any way for people
that are listening that mightwant to work with you to get in
touch with you? Yeah,um, so I have an email address.
l Schneider at Valley springrc.com.
(39:35):
Thank you so much for I reallyappreciate your time and you
sharing your insights with ustoday.
They I appreciate it. Thank youfor having me.
This was nice. Absolutely.
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