A conversation that begins in a treatment center unfolds into a profound exploration of the human spirit's journey from darkness into light. When Shane sits down with his friend Eric, what emerges is a raw, unfiltered dialogue about addiction that transcends the typical narratives of recovery.
This episode delves beneath the surface of substance abuse to uncover the childhood foundations of addictive patterns. Eric courageously shares his experience growing up with an alcoholic mother and a passive father, revealing how these early dynamics created the perfect conditions for addiction to take root. What makes this conversation particularly revelatory is its exploration of how we create false versions of ourselves as protective mechanisms—personas that eventually become their own form of addiction.
The dialogue takes unexpected turns as Shane and Eric examine the role of shame in keeping us hidden from ourselves and others. They articulate how recovery isn't merely about abstaining from substances but about retrieving what was stolen from us—our authentic selves, our capacity for connection, and our ability to stand in our truth. Their insights into transgenerational trauma offer hope that we can break cycles of dysfunction that have persisted through generations.
Perhaps most powerful is their discussion of how healing begins with allowing small slivers of light into our darkness. As Eric beautifully expresses, our purpose may be to "get closer to the divine than any man before, and then to disseminate the divine rays amongst the rest of mankind." This spiritual dimension of recovery reminds us that our greatest wounds, once healed, become the ways we most meaningfully connect with others.
Listen to this episode if you're ready to venture beyond surface-level understanding of addiction and explore the deeper journey of coming out of hiding to reclaim your authentic self. Whether you're in recovery, supporting someone who is, or simply seeking to understand the human condition more deeply, this conversation offers invaluable wisdom about transformation.
Need support? Our free recovery services and weekly support groups are here to help both individuals and families affected by addiction and mental health challenges. You don’t have to do this alone. Schedule a free, confidential call today and start the healing process for everyone involved.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey everybody, I just wanted to set the stage with
this episode, this is anunscripted episode.
I had the pleasure of sittingwith a good friend of mine, eric
, and we just had some reallymeaningful conversation about
addiction, family trauma, shame,recovery, transformation, life,
(00:20):
life and I wanted to share thiswith you.
It is a longer episode, so, ifyou can, please stay to the end,
because there are so many gemswithin this episode that I
believe all of us can connect to.
So, without further ado, let'sget into it.
Hey everybody, and welcome backto another episode of man
(00:44):
Uncaved Shane.
I'm really excited about todaybecause I'm actually sitting
with a really good friend ofmine, eric, and this episode is
going to be really unscriptedbecause we were and we'll get
into all this on this episodetoday.
But we've had some meaningfultalks, men's work, everything
involved in that, and some greattopics came through that.
(01:07):
So I thought let's go there,let's be unscripted as fuck,
let's just go where we need togo and come out of hiding as men
and talk about this topic.
So, eric, I'm going to kind oflet you take it from here If you
want to share anything aboutyourself, about our relationship
, whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Of course.
Yeah, dude, I'm super stoked tobe here.
Shane, thanks for having me.
Man.
Yeah, you know, as youmentioned, we obviously have
known each other since I wentthrough treatment and you know
it's funny that you, that westart, that we're starting off
this way, because I was going tosay that I just couldn't tell
you how much I've appreciatedthe time that we've spent
together.
I mean, honestly, you've been areally huge part of my recovery
(01:48):
and I remember it like it wasyesterday.
You know, the first time that Iwas in one of your groups and
you know I looked a lotdifferent back then, as you can
imagine, and you know just theenergy that I got from you and
the way that you're able toconnect with me and just kind of
like piercing through some ofthese layers that I'm sure we're
going to talk about.
It was something that I hadjust never really experienced
(02:10):
before.
So it was very, veryinstrumental and super impactful
in my recovery and my time andtreatment.
So I really appreciate that.
Thanks, brother.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Oh, brother, that means a lot to me.
Thank you, you know, Iappreciate it.
And then you showing up in that.
So that's really what it'sabout is I learned from you, so
we, you know how this goes, butthank you, thank you for that.
So, yeah, so went throughrecovery.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know how how long ago was that, if you want to
share what was totally yeah,yeah.
So I got, I tried to get soberthe first time in 2022 and I had
hit what I thought was like myrock bottom.
As you know, there's just it'snot really a bottom, it just
like just keeps going.
And, um, I took myself intotreatment, thinking that I had
just kind of had like a bad runand if I got my, my thought
(02:59):
process was that if I got mymental health in check, then I'd
be able to go back to using anddrinking like a normal person,
which I now understand isinsanity.
But so I went into a 90 dayprogram and I didn't take it
seriously at all.
I was like drinking throughoutthe entire program.
I'm shocked.
I actually made it throughwithout getting kicked out and I
graduated from the program andI was just telling everyone the
(03:22):
whole time friends, family thatI was still sober.
And then a couple months later,I went back out, as I guess you
say, and Kat was out of the bag.
You know there was no longer asecret that I was no longer
sober, but I kind of owned itLike it was this I had like a
trial period with recovery and Irealized, okay, I don't need
(03:42):
that, that's not for me.
And I had this weird sense ofconviction that I'm sure we all
get as addicts.
We're like you think you'vefigured it out, like you figured
out how to beat the system, andso I just was in that state of
mind for a month, for a year,excuse me and I just kind of
went on a crazy tear and by theend of that year now, you know,
fast forward to around October,november of 2023, I went right
(04:08):
back into that place.
I was a year prior, except itwas just way worse.
So the second time around, Irealized, like, how serious it
was and it took me, I guess,just that experience to
understand, like, dude, this islife or death.
You got to figure it out and Iso I went back into treatment.
The second time around, I wentback into treatment in late 2023
.
It finally stuck.
(04:30):
And you know so since then Imean, I think right now, in
total, I have just under a yearand a half sober.
I cannot even begin to say howblessed I feel it's a word I
never used to use but howblessed I feel to have landed
where I did, to have gonethrough the program I did, to
have met the people.
I did you, everyone else, thatthat helped me along the way.
(04:51):
And so now I'm just in a placewhere you know you.
You go from a year and a halfago to today.
I it's two completely differententities altogether.
You wouldn't recognize me atone.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Thank you for your openness and talking about that
and I think it's somethingthat's very interesting.
You know, addiction has a pointof view and I think you know
and I'm just also just speakingfrom my own experience you know
it's the substance and all these.
Obviously there's morecompulsive, addictive behavior
patterns and it's so veryinteresting and we're going to
dive kind of into this.
(05:21):
I want to understand more ofyour journey and, I think, for
other people to reallyunderstand.
So sometimes we get thissubstance and I use the analogy
I talk about this too and youprobably heard this Sobriety and
recovery and they kind of getinterchanged in rooms and people
think, oh, sobriety, that'srecovery, right, and I love the
idea and this is where I dobring up in groups too.
(05:46):
It's like okay way that Iunderstand it is the sobriety.
For my own personal journey,sobriety is the abstinence.
I'm just not being, I'm notdoing, the behavior I and I tend
to use the definition from fromthe dictionary I'm a little
nerdy, but it says to retrievesomething lost or stolen that's
when I read that and I mean manymoons ago I was like that's
what the recovery is.
You pull this out and then yousee what's really been going on.
(06:10):
And I want to dive into alittle bit of that juiciness,
because I want to hear now I'mnot using great Congratulations,
and that is important.
I don't want to, you know,invalidate.
That is the first thing.
Safety, stabilization, let'sget away from our substance,
whatever.
And then there's some stuffthat was like buried deep
(06:31):
underneath.
That Can you share a little bit?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
some of this new stuff, good stuff?
Yeah, absolutely you know.
So it's funny.
I love that you touched on thatbecause, as you said, it's
recovery is defined as you knowsomething that was retrieving
something back that was lost orstolen and, interestingly enough
for me, I had no idea what Ihad lost or what had been stolen
for a lot of my life.
(06:55):
I'm sure we'll dive into this alittle bit deeper.
When it comes to all theseunderlying, you know, emotions
and experiences in our past,traumas and things that we carry
around with us all the time,sometimes we're aware of it and
oftentimes we have no idea.
It's even there, right?
So it's like, like you said,the first part for me was like,
(07:15):
okay, this is, you know, def CONone.
I got to get myself sober, Igot to stabilize, I got to
figure out how to just stayalive.
That's obviously the mostimportant part.
But then once you get a couplemonths under your belt and you
start to realize, huh, well,I've abstained from drugs and
alcohol and I'm doing everythingeveryone's telling me to do and
I still feel like shit, or Istill want to kill myself every
day.
What's going on here, right?
That's that stuff that you'retalking about.
And so you know it took me.
(07:37):
In all honesty I started tokind of unpack or journey.
You know your podcast calledman on Cave.
I was at the very, very, verybottom of my cave, just complete
darkness, couldn't see anything, and I wouldn't say that I even
started to move towards exitingthe cave until I was probably
(07:57):
in my late 20s, I want to sayaround 28 years old.
I'm almost 40 now, but thatwhole time prior to that in my
life I had no idea, absolutelyno idea, that I even struggled
with addiction ever.
But be what all the underlyingreasons were that I think
contributed to why I was anaddict, and so you know, I come
(08:18):
to find out that, like hold on asecond, my mom was a very, very
heavy alcoholic.
I used to say she was a violentalcoholic.
I don't know that I woulddescribe her anymore as a
violent alcoholic, just becausenow that I've gone through my
own experience with alcoholism,I understand her experience so
much differently.
It was a lot of like rage andresentment and hate and why me
(08:39):
and my mom this and my mom that?
Now it's like I understand thatdifferently.
But you know, addiction for mestarted in the womb and then,
from the time I popped out, it'slike it was nothing but abuse,
like I only really had my mom inmy life for the first 13 years
or so and that entire time itwas just like a horribly toxic
relationship between the two ofus, which again we can dive into
(09:00):
how that ends up stemming intoour life.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah Well, let's pause for a second because mom
cause I want to paint thispicture for mom, dad, mom.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Mom and dad are both gone.
Yeah, they both passed, but Imean I didn't know that.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Actually.
So that's another thing, rightso, but I was looking at you say
it was only mom.
Was dad not in the picture?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Dad was in the picture, but he I would have
never, ever described him asabusive.
What I've come to understandthe relationship with my mother
was I can clearly quantify thatas abuse.
And again, it's through nofault of her own.
She was struggling with her owndemons, right, but my dad, he
was probably the kindest,softest, gentlest, like most
(09:45):
nurturing he he had to play.
You know we talk a lot aboutmasculine versus feminine.
He had to play both roles a lotof the time, sure so I had a
wonderful relationship with him.
However, even though I look atit now, I wouldn't describe it
as abuse.
Right, he was on the other endof the spectrum where he was
just totally hands off.
He was super super passive.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Okay, even he was super super passive, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So even though he had all those qualities and those
traits and he leaned veryfeminine forward, which is what
people tell me I do as well.
Sure, it was this weirddichotomy, this weird clash
between these two forms.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Sorry, I'm going to cut you off right there.
No, that's okay, these areimportant things to notice too,
because, even say there's a manthere and I think this is
something very interesting tounderstand, even though they're
men there but this kind ofhands-off passivity, yes, um,
can also create a lack ofstructure.
There's no boundaries there,there's nothing, because
children love to push up againstsomething.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yep, so there's non-structure, and then again in
the technical word, abusive.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It might not be abuse in the way that we could
visualize it.
Lack of structure could havesome abusive quality to it where
it's not creating the structure, not creating safety in ways
it's just kind of you know,there could be some codependency
patterns there.
I don't know.
You know it could go deeper.
So I just wanted to put thatbecause it's something really to
(11:07):
highlight um when as you'rediscussing.
So please continue yes, no,absolutely non-structure.
Mom is kind of in her patternsyes, behavior and very
aggressive you talk about.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yes, right, can you?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
explain a little bit more, as you're becoming aware
of this, like where do I go withall this stuff?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
yeah, yeah, and that's the thing is like I was.
I was totally unaware of it themajority of my life, normal is
what we know, right.
So it's like all I understoodat that time was just whatever
was going on in the house, right.
But after years of therapy,going through treatment, all the
things that we do that we putinto our toolbox, I finally
realized like, oh, okay, I'vebeen dealing with this weird
(11:49):
mercurial like clash between twoopposing forces that are
completely opposite, in that mymom was always, like on a
thousand, very aggressive.
She was abusive physically,mentally, emotionally, verbally,
all of it, but it wasn't everto the point where I would have
known back then.
That's what it was.
I thought it was just kind ofnormal.
(12:09):
And then you have my dad, who'slike the nicest guy in the
world but he's completely handsoff.
So you know, the clash betweenthose two energies being around
all the time essentially formedand shaped my understanding of
how I viewed the world.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yes, absolutely.
On one side, you have a motherdealing with her alcoholism and
maybe other compulsive behaviorpatterns you know unpresent to
the child in some waysemotionally, spiritually,
mentally, physically and on theother side you have this father
who is in his own passivity,this hands-off approach, as you
mentioned.
Well, for that child.
Who's there to protect me?
Right, I am dependent on you,my primary caregivers, to guide
(12:52):
me.
I cannot do this without you,and so the child can interpret
this as I'm unsafe, I'm notcared for, I'm not seen, I'm not
loved, I'm not accepted,accepted and so on like,
sometimes doing nothing isalmost as bad as doing too much
right, absolutely yeah, landedon me as a man.
(13:12):
So here you are a boy.
I mean, as you start to developmore and you get into
adolescence, you start torealize.
My son's 12, you know, he'sstarting to realize he's going
to be a man one day.
And there's a natural tendencyfor boys just talking to the
boys and the men out there it'sthat the boy moves away from the
mother.
So they kind of move away in anenergetic way from the mother,
(13:34):
the maternal, they go towardsthe father.
But here's dad.
And how is dad showing up ornot showing up?
Wow, I think you brought light.
You know you shed light on thisearlier.
Again, when we're doing thiswork, um, we have to understand
these are human beings too.
Mom's a human being, dad's ahuman being.
(13:55):
We're, we're perfectlyimperfect.
It's not to make them wrong.
I think what you did point outearlier is, as we descend, we
have more compassion andunderstanding for their own
character, defects or whateveryou want to call them.
There are shortcomings, becausewe all have them.
So let's dive into a little bitof that, eric, because as a boy
(14:20):
, and seeing dad loving, caringobviously, and seeing dad loving
, caring obviously, but the lackof structure, how, how do you
move from this boy to a manwhere maybe it's like where do
you learn about all these things?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yep, Yep, I okay.
So such a million dollarquestion.
I, first of all, I learned whatI would believe to be the first
half of my life.
Everything I learned was just aproduct of my environment, so I
was kind of like raised by theworld, so to speak, right From
the earliest memories.
I have the second I was oldenough to be on my own.
I was out the door, sun up, andyou wouldn't see me until the
(14:55):
streetlights were on.
I was around lots of extendedfriends and family.
I had a couple different socialcircles, the people in school,
so that's where I was kind oflike acquiring all these tools
or these understandings or thesebehavioral mechanisms.
You know again now I had tolearn how to sort of unpack as
time went on.
But to your point, like you know, my like I kind of think of, as
(15:17):
you're talking about it, Ialmost think of like the
prodigal son right, Like go outand you have to figure out
what's up with the world and youcome back home.
Well, that separation betweenthe feminine, which is where we
start, that's the beginning ofour journey and where we spend
the majority of our our timematuring as animals, as beings,
and then, once we have a senseof, you know, self-sustaining
(15:38):
where we can, we can do thingson our own we break off and now
we're kind of supposed to beable to get that understanding,
that prototype or blueprint ofhow to be a man in the world.
Well, again, that was rightwhere you say I went to the edge
of a cliff and just fell offand I was just like figuring out
what to do along the way.
Right, I had no clue.
So I did learn a lot of that,just as a product of my
environment.
(15:59):
Now again, fast forward to.
I almost kind of always look atthings as like pre and post.
When I started this journey oflike inner self, of going inward
, because, again, it didn'tstart until I was like in my
late 20s, Everything prior tothat, I just it was autopilot,
Sure.
Absolutely From that point onthe things that I've learned,
that have now kind ofreconstructed, reverse
(16:21):
engineered, this newunderstanding that I have what
it means to not just be a manbut to have a masculine presence
, because those are two verydifferent things and I think we
get confused.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Thank you, yeah, these are great.
Yeah, yeah, a long episode.
So can you on that one, becausethat's important.
So, yes, man versus masculinityIs that the distinction?
So let's go into that, becauseI'm in agreeance with you, but I
want to hear from yourperspective.
Can you tell a little bit moreabout that, as you're
understanding?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
My understanding, and again it comes from everything
I've learned along the way.
I've been having so manyepiphanies lately and this
might've been within the lastyear and a half, two years but
man and masculine were the exactsame thing.
There was no differentiation.
I could not distinguish betweenthose two.
And then I started to kind ofdive deeper into like when you
start to understand your innerself, the shadows, this idea of
(17:10):
everybody having both amasculine and a feminine side,
I'm like, huh, okay, let's do.
Let's like do a little deeper,dive into that.
(17:37):
As a man, it's quite simply theobjective version of the more
surface level version of what Iwould say how we kind of
delineate between ourselves andfemales as women, where it's all
the kind of like, it's all thelike logistics, right.
It's like as a man, like I havea certain biological profile.
I have a certain anatomy.
There might be certain rolesthat, historically speaking as
men and of course this hasalways changed and evolved over
time but there's maybeparticular roles that my body is
designed to do more effectivelymy mind is going to be, you
know, kind of working as acounterpart to the female mind,
(17:59):
which means that I might belooking at things from more of
like a logical or rationalperspective versus an emotional
perspective.
It's important like that I kindof also distinguish the
difference between.
Just because that's the caseand we have this baseline
understanding of like man versuswoman does not mean that
masculine and femininenecessarily correlate to that,
because we all, whether ourbiologically and again I want to
(18:22):
include everybody, not just notjust biological male, female,
whatever anyone- identifies aswhatever they're having that
inner energy, that inner senseof masculine and feminine is
something that everyonepossesses.
As a man, I have both, I wouldprobably argue.
In a lot of ways I have morefeminine energy than I do,
masculinity in some ways.
So the masculine energy, Ithink now we're kind of talking
(18:46):
more on the spiritual level ofwhat kind of energetically it
means to experience our livesthrough the masculine or the
feminine.
Again, there might be certainroles or certain archetypes that
are involved in those, but theydon't have to.
They're not mutually exclusivewith your gender.
They don't have with yourbiological being, they have
nothing to do with that Right.
(19:06):
And so you know, now I've cometo understand, like huh, like,
even in my relationship I seelike wow, the whole masculine
and feminine thing at play hasnothing to do with whether she's
a woman and I'm a man, becauseall of a sudden she's making
more money than I am and she'sgot a problem with that and I'm
not necessarily fulfilling therole that maybe it was, it was
(19:27):
expected of me to fulfill, andthese things are happening on a
very deeply subconscious levelvery, very deep within our soul,
right.
So now, all of a sudden, we'renot necessarily looking at each
other All of a sudden she has tobe the more masculine one and I
have to be the more feminineone, or vice versa.
Right, that can happen in anyexperience with any two people.
(19:47):
So that's kind of like what Ibelieve to now be the difference
between being a man and havingmasculine energy On hold to
these concepts and play.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
My whole thing is get in the sandbox, play around
with these concepts, see howthey work within your life.
You know, and I didn't have afather growing up so he was
completely gone.
My, my, it was kind of actuallymy my father was, uh, an
alcoholic, so he was absolutelygone.
So that structure of learningmask and actually, to be honest,
(20:18):
I don't, I can't actually becalled a healthy masculine in my
life at all, and kind of sothat child is reaching and I
just remember I would hang outwith kids on the block, you know
, and we would do what they doand and that sense of belonging
and oh, is this masculinity?
And I was like I got, I gotinto like tagging at one time,
which was a little ridiculous,but even at even at that I was.
(20:41):
I was looking for some form ofbelonging, some form of identity
and and not knowing thatstructure.
That's why I brought that up,because I thought it was really
interesting when you weretalking about the dad who's kind
of passive right.
So then, do you see patterns foryourself of how you might
(21:02):
engage in in relationships?
It could be romantic, it couldbe friendships with yourself.
Where parameters, where theparameters are a little blurry
because maybe we don't, we don'tknow how to express or you
don't know how to expressyourself.
Actually you express yourselfin certain ways and yeah,
because of that, absolutely thatyou were kind of conditioned to
, and again, we're just.
(21:23):
We are just fish.
Fish is in like a fishbowlright, like.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
There's an ocean out there.
You didn't know about it.
I'm a fish in a fuckingfishbowl.
I don't know that there's moreout there.
This is what's called normal.
There's no comparative, there'snothing to compare to, to
relate to, until you get untilyou get a little older.
For me I could say that when Igot a little older, uh, to hang
(21:49):
out with some of these kids andguess what they had?
they had a dad yeah, yeah andthen there was a little bit of
like wait a minute, what'shappening here?
Like, yeah, like how does that?
Yeah, what is that all about?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
yeah, yeah, how did that work in your face um so.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So, if you can maybe shed a little bit of light.
And yes, let's dive into we'regonna, we're gonna keep
descending.
That's why it's reallyunscripted.
So everybody who's listening tofollow us, we're taking you on
a journey today we have noscript for today.
We're just.
I love this deep dive becausethis is the conversations that
you and I get into.
Yep, um, just about these veryinteresting things.
We start to wake up and you'relike, whoa, look at that, look
(22:30):
at that, where did that comefrom?
And and all this stuff, how didthat?
Again, from the passive dad,because we're looking at men and
we can get into the motherstuff too, but with the dad,
what did that look like?
As far as like how, how did youput boundaries?
Did you have boundaries?
Did you put parameters?
Were you just the Mr Nice guyall over the place?
What did you?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I'm sure you know the answer to that question already
.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I probably do, but I want you to say it, of course.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like ding, ding, ding, it's
like all hitting on the head.
Yeah, so a all hitting on thehead, yeah, so a couple things.
Number one yes, um, boundariesin particular were, uh, I want
to say a problem, but they werealmost non-existent.
I didn't again, these arethings.
I didn't know the concept ofwhat boundaries are supposed to
(23:17):
be sure, where we, where weacquire them, how we understand
them and enforce them.
So, so, quite naturally,because my dad being the way he
was, and because I was trying toveer away from my mother and I
was trying to seek safety in myfather, I think I just kind of
like he imprinted his way ofbeing onto me.
(23:39):
So I have always been what Iwould consider to also be a
naturally passive person, right,and you know, because that you
combine that with, like, thepeople pleasing aspect of myself
, right, and the insecurities,and you know now, as I peel back
the layers farther and fartherof my mental health and
understanding okay, wait, you'vehad actually pretty wicked ADHD
(24:02):
most of your life.
You just went undiagnosed for along time.
I wasn't diagnosed till I wasin my 30s and depression.
I mean, it's just like you'rethrowing all these ingredients
into a blender and this is whatyou're going to get, right.
So for me, I had no boundaries.
I was extremely passive.
I'm trying to please everyonearound me all the time, which
I'm assuming is some form of atrauma response, because when I
(24:24):
walk into a room, if everyone inthe room is okay, then I'm okay
.
And so it's like you know thatbecame kind of my default right.
So how that sort of played outin relationships was very like I
wish we could just talkingabout just that.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
just that, all over the place right so distorted.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I mean so distorted because you think you have a
perspective or an understandingthat's completely falsified by
this sort of lens that you don'tknow is there right seeing
things through.
And so, while I think I'm reallya nice guy and I'm altruistic
and I'm this, you know I shouldbe like a catch for all these
(25:02):
women because I have a feminineside and I can talk to women.
I know a lot of ways I relateto women, more so than most men,
and you know something that, onthat point, you know, as you
talked about, like how we grewup on the school yard acquiring
things, and you know those guysmight've, those boys might've
had their own fathers.
Even those fathers are comingfrom all different walks of life
, so it's like who knows whattheir own understanding of
(25:24):
masculine is right.
That's being channeled down tous.
I also think it's interestingMaybe we can talk about it at a
different time but the fact thatI would.
I'd be interested to divedeeper into the idea that your
father and my mother were.
It was kind of like the yinyang, the opposite of each one.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I bet you, my mother was abusive in her own ways.
I mean, there was physicalabuse there.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So you were getting the whole yin, yang you were
getting it all.
Yeah, I think it was definitelyagain.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I mean just cut you off, don't lose your spot,
but definitely with my mother.
I mean you think about theclassical alcoholic and
codependent.
I mean my mom, I think, at thetrue sense of it, had
codependency issues andcodependency issues there.
I mean again looking from herlineage of trauma.
And so it just you know, and welook at codependency.
(26:10):
This is why I think this isalso important to.
Codependency is an addictivepattern.
It's addiction to relationships.
So codependency is rooted outof shame, which I know we're
going to talk about too.
So it is rooted out of shame,which I know we're going to talk
about too.
So it's rooted out of shame andthe tendency when you're you
brought this up.
So I want to highlight this forpeople when we look at it from
the lens of you talked about atrauma response, right?
(26:32):
So we all heard the fightflight, we heard the freeze for
some people, and then there'sthe fawn, and the fawn is the
people pleasing rooted in somecodependency, and so we can take
that into our adult life andthat becomes the pattern where
it's more unlearning.
I'm probably you probably heardthis we're unlearning than
learning.
Yeah, we are, we are unlearningall the bullshit and I think
(26:54):
this is one of my groups I talkabout.
You're all addicted to thebullshit you keep believing,
because that's what's in the wayof how we're supposed to be,
how we're supposed to operate.
And there's something that yousaid I know I'm going to.
I love that we're just goingoff on.
It's not too far off.
Because you said, you know, Idid grow up with a very uh woman
household.
(27:14):
So I had my mother and I had,uh, my mother's sisters, who
were actually very close in myage, because my mom is the
oldest of seven.
So you know we were closeenough in age that you know.
So it was a lot of women that Igrew up with and, that being
that, mom was sorry that dad wasgone.
You know, men were the scariestplace on planet Earth for me.
(27:35):
I was also sexually abused by aman later in life, so you know
that had its effect.
So I never gravitated towardsmen for safety, for comfort or,
you know, to feel belonging,because those are the dangers.
That was the clear one not solater.
I was like, oh shit, I got somemommy issues too, uh, but with
(27:56):
the men I never gravitatedtowards them to for a sense of
connection and um, but like youhad mentioned so I would
gravitate towards women foremotional safety.
Now, I don't know about you,I'm just going to go ahead and
call myself and come out ofhiding.
That is a dangerous place,especially when I'm in my
addictive behavior patterns.
Yeah, because I know how tomanipulate that, I know how to
(28:17):
use that, I know how to to usethat, I know how to get what I
want.
I can go and you can have sexand I can do all these types of
things because I'm that great,loving, emotionally available
guy and I don't say no and I'mthe yes man and you know all of
that shit.
And that's another thing.
Because, as you're looking atit from a sense of masculine, of
(28:38):
the absence of masculinity, Idon't know how to hold myself
and have direction, I don't havefocus, I didn't have purpose, I
didn't know how to say no.
Same deep down, because again,dad's gone, mom is there.
Deep down, if so, there'srejection on, not sorry, not
rejection, but there'sabandonment, dad, emotional
deprivation, neglect from mom.
(28:59):
So the fear of being alone.
The fear of being abandoned,the fear of being left, was so
prominent.
I had to be a young man becauseif I say no to you.
You might be angry, you mightleave me and then you're gonna
go and then I'm abandoned onceagain.
That little child that isholding on to the story gets
ignited.
It just triggers.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
No, everything that you justsaid is like it's so funny.
I'm glad we're talking aboutthis because, again, imagine the
whole point of what you'redoing here.
Right, it's like, imagine theamount of people that probably
experience the same thing.
But we don't talk about itBecause, again, you hinted on
shame in there, which I knowwe'll get into, but shame has to
(29:40):
be one of the most powerfulemotions, if not the most
powerful emotion I'veexperienced, because living in a
world of shame is what keeps meburied at the bottom of that
cave and what keeps mecompletely disconnected from my
understanding of what we'retalking about now.
So, like you said and I thinkit's true that what you're
describing about how you'regoing through life and how
that's manifesting inrelationships, right, was
exactly exactly what Iexperienced, but again, I just
(30:04):
didn't know.
That's what it was.
I was operating under thisguise of like thinking that
everything that I was doing waslike in this magnanimous way,
but in reality, it just turnsout that I was just like hiding
behind this, like avatar thatI'd created because of a bunch
of shit that was given to me orthat I acquired along the way,
or whatever the case may be thatI had no idea was even there,
right.
So so to your point.
(30:26):
You know, I'm going through myentire life seeking that safety,
seeking that comfort, notknowing that's what I'm doing.
And, like you said, you marrythat with addiction and now we
can have a pretty seriousproblem quick.
So my entire life right, and I,you know.
Again, I'd be curious, becausedid you ever know that was what
was happening, or did it takeyou till much later in your life
(30:51):
.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
This is good.
It took me a while to reallyunderstand it.
You said something earlier andyou talked about everything if.
If my outside is good, then myinside is good.
So, yep, when I look at thatand I'm just using my
understanding of that that isthe child, right?
So the child is so merged withtheir parents, whoever's their
(31:13):
mom, dad, whoever's there.
They're merged with them.
They don't know where one endsand the other begins, yeah.
So mom is happy, then I'm happy.
If dad's happy, then I'm happy.
If they're not happy, they'renot.
We don't know that.
We can actually be okay if youcould be not happy and I can be
happy, yes, yes, because we'rejust absorbed in all of this.
There's no individualization,there is no self-actualization,
(31:37):
and I think that's kind of whatrecovery is.
And the bigger idea of recoveryis that we can have the self
separate of you mom, of you dad,of 8 billion people.
We get to make our own choices,and what I started to really
zone in out in my own recoveryis something that I think that
(32:00):
we talked about in probably oneof the first groups.
What are the gains?
So imagine that all behavior ispurposeful.
Now, with every behavior, thereis an ultimate gain and a
payoff.
So what is the gain?
Let's just use alcohol or drugsor whatever right, and I think
you were part of that.
What is the game?
Let's just use alcohol or drugsor whatever right, and I think
you were part of that.
(32:20):
Well, you ask the group ofpeople or person and they say,
you know, relief or validation,or control, or power, or love or
acceptance or belonging orsafety, comfort, yeah, okay,
great.
So what are those things then?
These are these emotional needsthat we needed as a child.
So we are constantly relivingthis like worst day cycle all
(32:43):
over again, reaching everythinggood outside.
This is my whole thing,everything good outside the ego,
which is the child within us,what the child first does.
So we grasp like.
You left me right, you don'tleave me right.
You don't leave me right.
You and when you're talkingabout it from the lens of shame.
And this is why I you know,coming out of hiding shame is
(33:04):
about hiding parts of ourself.
I'm ashamed of that part ofmyself, so I hide it from the
world, and what I do is I createa false self.
Now that false self becomes,talk about addiction becomes an
addiction because within thatfalse self, I'm guaranteed I'm
going to be loved.
I'm guaranteed I'm going to besafe.
I'm guaranteed.
Now I'm attached to this falseself as my ultimate God to save
(33:29):
me.
Save me from what saved me thepain Cause.
God forbid.
Eric, I don't want you to seeI'm flawed.
I don't want you to see thatI'm imperfect as a human being.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Cause, then you're going to see who I really am.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And then, oh my God, you're not going to like me and
you're going to leave me andyou're going to reject me Right,
and on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
It just taps into all .
It took me a while again torealize that when I went to
treatment this time around, Iwas talking to my therapist.
She goes you might be 38 yearsold, but inside of you there's a
nine-year-old who never grew upand who never had any idea what
like that a lot of you know.
So much of your life went onpast that point and that was
kind of a wild concept.
And so again there was like asyou I love that you touched on
the idea that we create thisversion of ourself, this persona
that's going to be able to get.
(34:17):
It's the gain right, like whatam I going to be able to get If
I become this person?
I get those things.
So I'm going to be more of thatperson, but since I have an
addictive personality, I'm justgoing to get lost in that person
and before I know it, I have noidea which one's which.
Like, I don't even know thereal version of me and how I'm
protecting.
As we mentioned before, we don'talways we not.
(34:41):
Not only do we not always know,more often than not we probably
don't know what's actually goingon inside of us internally and
the reasons why we're our ego isnaturally wanting to protect us
from these things.
So, you know, all thosebehaviors that we're exhibiting
throughout our lives that wethink are being kind of you know
, sort of like they're comingfrom a different place in our
(35:05):
mind.
We think it's coming from aplace of positivity or it's
coming from a place of, you know, confidence.
Maybe, for example, in reality,the grand scheme of things,
like you said, it's coming froma place of I don't want to let
anyone know what I really havegoing on inside, right, and so
for me to your, to your exactpoint, that's kind of how I
operated through my entire lifeand that's why that transit like
(35:28):
when you start to uncover thisand when you start to, you know,
dive deeper and deeper intothat cave and realize what's
been buried down there for theentirety of your life to that
point and start pulling it outnow not only do you not want to
show it to anyone else, I don'twant to see that for myself,
like that's some of the stuffthat we have to do deal with on
(35:49):
our own right.
Like, wait, hold on a second.
You're telling me.
Like you know, I did myinventory when I was doing my
steps and and I I was I had like26 character defects on there
and I was fine with every singleone of them except one.
I saw the word womanizer on thepage and I go I'm not a
womanizer.
What do you mean Womanizer?
Are you kidding me?
Like I spent my whole lifebeing the nicest, most loving,
most caring and I'm like OK,wait a minute.
(36:11):
I might not have ever laid myhands on a woman, which I never
did and I never would.
I've never like sexuallyassaulted a woman and none of
these things.
But you know, as you saidearlier, have I manipulated
myself to be able to get someversion of what I want?
Yeah, huh, yeah.
Have I said something thatmaybe wasn't truthful to be able
to get something I want?
(36:32):
Yeah, have I put on a differentpersona or version of myself to
get something I wanted?
Yes, and, as you said, it'sabout that game, because even if
I'm just lying in bed with awoman for one night, I'm getting
that sense of comfort out ofthat that I never got before and
it's going to really boost upmy ego.
So you know, it's all thosethings are connected, man, and
that's my whole thing.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Everything is everything.
When you start really startpulling back and you start
seeing sequence instead of theframe, you start seeing how
everything is connected, you'relike, holy shit, I've been
living my life like this andthis is why I think it's
important and I love that we'rehaving the discussion.
We'll dive deep, um, uh deeperon this topic.
(37:13):
But what I really love, and whyI love this, that we're having
this discussion now, is becauseaddiction gets a certain point
of view.
There's such a stigma whetherwhether people are actually
saying it or not, it's felt and,I think, because we don't
understand what is actuallyhappening.
Yes, I mean it.
Would you know this idea?
(37:34):
If addiction was a consciousthing, there would be no need
for treatment centers, therewould be no therapy.
There would be nothing rightfor treatment centers, there
would be no therapy.
There would be nothing right.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
We'd be fine but it is so unconscious and so it goes
back to my.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
The second actual definition of recovery is every
tree, uh to um.
Come back to a sense ofconsciousness, so carl young
talks about.
We have to bring thatunconscious into our
consciousness, because youcannot heal or fix something you
don't see.
There's no way you're gonnaknow, and that's the shadow.
Those are those disowned partsof myself.
(38:06):
We can kind of segue into that.
I love it.
The universe just works thatway.
But those are those disownedparts of myself.
Why?
Because there's such shame, orI was made to believe to be
ashamed of that part, so Idisowned it within myself
because I don't want to knowthat it's there and and you know
, I don't want to have to feelthat there and that's the whole
(38:28):
thing.
There's, there's.
You know, I don't know if weshouldn't, I don't know how
those words are, but the idea ofbeing ashamed of ourself.
Ourself is the most beautifulthing.
It is the most beautiful thingthat we have All the messiness,
all the sadness, all the just,all over the place Imperfections
(38:48):
.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah yeah, it's what makes us.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So you know, speaking from that shadow part in in
these identifications with falseself, attach them for survival
and of course they were andthey're adaptive.
Thank god, we created them,thank goodness that we created
these adaptive things to survive, we wouldn't have made it.
I had to push my feelings downat age two.
(39:13):
I had to.
Yeah, what was going on in myhousehold?
I had to.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I didn't do that consciously as a two-year-old,
oh my god this is so painful,let me push this away right,
your brain's like we're goodhere.
Yeah, my brain, and that'swhat's so crazy?
Speaker 1 (39:26):
because our brain does that naturally more
pleasure, less pain, yeah, yeahand then we like clear out the
record.
We're like oh shit, put mydrugs out of the way, move my
behaviors out of the way, andI'm like whoa, there the way.
And I'm like whoa, there's allthat I've been hiding for so
long.
Look, you know, doesn't matterhow much time I have, you have.
(39:47):
I'm still learning, I'm stilltrying to come out of this
hiding.
That's why this whole thing hascome out of hiding, because
there's so much.
And maybe that's what life isIf we can stand in our truth,
the more free we will be.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
yeah it will be uncomfortable guaranteed yeah
it's some of the hardest workI've ever had to do, you know,
and it's like, as you weresaying, that I was kind of
envisioning, like I'm all aboutvisuals, I'm all about metaphors
and I'm thinking about thatcave, right, and you know, as
you touched on it, I like tocall it having a white belt
mentality.
No matter, I could be a tripleblack belt in jiu-Jitsu, but
(40:19):
every time I walk into the dojoI have a white belt, as far as
I'm concerned, as far aseveryone else is concerned, and
so you're always learning fromthat place, right?
And so a lot of this, you know,just because we're having the
conversation to this point inour lives, of what we have
accumulated, the knowledge thatwe've acquired, what we've
experienced, has given us acertain perspective.
It's not like we're at the edgeof some understanding and
(40:41):
that's all we're going to everunderstand.
That's that it just keeps goingand going and going, right.
So it's like this idea of thiscave, when I normally would
visualize it, it's like there'sa bottom and there's an opening,
but in reality it's probablyjust this infinity continuum
where just some parts areprobably going to look darker
than others, and I do think that, you know, I try to look at
(41:01):
life in terms of and this couldbe a different conversation, so
I don't want to go too far offon a tangent.
But you know, for me I'vechanged my view on the ideas of
good and bad over the course ofmy life and right and wrong.
Obviously there's some thingsthat are pretty obvious, but I
think that it's really more of amatter of light and dark.
(41:21):
I think that there's times whenwe experience darkness and
there's times when we experiencelight, and I think, ultimately,
there's light in everybody,there's light in everything,
everywhere.
All the time there always was,there always will be dim.
Or if it's just completely offas far as we're concerned, it
doesn't mean it's not there, itjust means that we haven't seen
(41:44):
it yet.
And so for me, that journeythat you talk about was kind of
this uncovering and sort ofuncaving myself, and the more
and more that I would, I wouldrealize exactly what you said.
Hold on a second, this is a mething.
Like this is something thatI've had going on inside of me
my entire life, that I've beentrying to deflect or defend or
ignore, whatever the case may be.
(42:06):
And now, as a 38, 39 year old,I'm having to face these things
quite literally for the firsttime.
That's not easy for anyone,right?
So that's why recovery in anyform, right so it's such a
massive undertaking.
I've done some fairly difficultthings in my life and I can
safely say now, after goingthrough two rounds of rehab and
(42:29):
actually it's sticking to thepoint that it has now, god
willing, one day at a time.
There's nothing, you know, easy, and uh, or I I always say that
, um, easy is not synonymouswith simple.
It's.
It could be very simple tounderstand something, but it
doesn't mean that it's going tobe easy to accomplish it's.
You know, going through thesteps with some of the easiest
(42:49):
ideas I had to conceptualize,but the work itself was some of
the most difficult work ever.
So, as you mentioned, you'rekind of trying to have to attack
it on two fronts, where, firstof all, you have to even be able
to understand it, so you haveto kind of like peel it apart so
that you even know it's there,and then, second of all, you
have to realize that this is notnecessarily just about my, you
(43:10):
know, obsession with a drug oran alcohol right.
Fill in the blank with sex, withfood, with gambling, whole nine
yards, right?
It's not just those things,it's what is all of that that
exists with the self, within theself as you talk about, with
the shadow that's been designedto protect you.
So you know again, for betteror worse, it actually did do
(43:33):
some good for us.
That's why sometimes it's hardto say and disclaimer for anyone
listening, if they arestruggling with addiction or if
they are addicts.
I never want to say this as ifI'm glamorizing it, but at times
there absolutely was momentswhere it was probably exactly
what was saving my life.
Smoking marijuana at that momentin time was probably exactly
(43:54):
what was saving my life, becauseI didn't have any other tools.
I wasn't equipped with anythingelse to know what to do and, as
you mentioned, all I needed todo was where, in whatever's in
reach in my vicinity, where canI grab pleasure and where can I
completely avoid pain.
And so you know that'ssomething that, as we talk about
you know shame, and this ideathat's why I love that it's
(44:15):
called man on cave is in yourwhole, the whole thing, it all.
I love you.
It's great, but just like thatidea of of coming out of that is
is very multi-dimensional.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, it's not just about abstaining from drugs and
alcohol that's right yeah yeah,it's come out of hiding in all
of these areas that we live inthe smallness of who we actually
are and we don't live in theweakness and and and where we
can.
You know and I love that youbrought in many ways we can mood
(44:46):
alter.
Right relationships are a moodalteration.
Obviously we got drugs andalcohol, gambling, food, work,
money, anything that, everythingyou know.
We got these phones that we canstay buzzed on and dopamine
hits all over the place forhours.
You know it's and sorecognizing what's there.
Why sometimes do I need to goand distract?
I'm alone.
(45:06):
What's wrong?
I always get this thing wherepeople talk about and sometimes
other groups.
It's like boredom.
I'm like what's wrong withboredom?
What is wrong with boredom?
yeah because when there'snothing going on and there's not
the world of distractions allof that shit starts to come up
to the surface.
Yeah, that's what it is.
It's not boredom.
Boredom is neutral.
(45:26):
Boredom doesn't have anything.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
It's boredom there's nothing going on.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right, it's what comes up from that place.
Yeah, I always love theexpression that our happiness
and our joy is created by therelationship we have to the
experience, not the experienceitself.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
So relatively everything is neutral.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I am coming in to the neutral thing and I'm creating
an experience, and of course,that experience is from my own
understanding of what it is.
Yeah, because you and I willhave the same experience, but
you see it a whole different wayand I'm like wait, you see it
that way.
I see it this way, right?
So, obviously, start to descend, start to go deeper and deeper
(46:09):
and you'll find that little partof you that is scared to be
alone.
And we, we touched on itbriefly.
Yes, we're looking at familydynamics, we're looking at
family of origin, but you didshed light on that, so I do want
to bring this up.
This is kind of.
This can go down in legacies,man.
I mean it could go into great,great, great grandparents.
(46:31):
And if you understand the manylayers of the word that I use
and this is where my training alot comes from is trauma.
Think of humanity itself, rightFrom religious prosecution to
racism, to the Great Depressionto women who are not allowed to
vote.
I mean, those are going to betraumatic on whoever is
experiencing that and that willhave an effect guaranteed on
(46:55):
that generation.
And that's why I think it isimportant for us, in our
responsibility in this lifetime,to show up, to show up and do
the work, to look at that and doso we can change that.
We are there's.
All of us have thatself-responsibility.
Yes, if we want a differentworld.
If we want a different thing,whatever want, it is your
(47:18):
responsibility to be part ofthat solution, not part of the
problem.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Correct.
Yeah, transgenerational trauma,yeah, it's like.
I mean, from the beginning oftime, for eons, people are.
You know if someone isexperiencing all the things
we're talking about, but wedon't have the language for it
or we don't have the motivationto figure out what it is, and
we're just operating on thatsense of autopilot.
We're just there's a manuscriptand we're just passing it down
(47:43):
from generation to generationhere.
This is how you be, this is howyou exist, right, and so that's
.
You.
Couldn't have said it better, Ithink you know, if I had to, I,
I like to ponder a lot, I getvery existential and I and I
like to think a lot about, likeyou know what, what is the
meaning of life and why are wehere and what is our purpose?
And if I had to nail it down towhat I believe to be like one
(48:04):
core true purpose that every oneof us has, it's exactly what
you just said.
It's how can I make something alittle bit better than it was
before I got here?
How can I make the world alittle bit better of a place?
How can I break some of thosetransgenerational curses and
traumas that have just beenpassed down from family unit to
family unit over the course ofall time, right, and so you know
(48:25):
you can't, you have to havethese conversations and you have
to do that self-work, likethat's.
You know people think ofaddiction as like.
As you said, it's like there'sstigmas around it and it's like
a sign of weakness or, myfavorite, it's like, well, just
can't, you just say no, right,and it's like you'll never
understand what it's like fromthe inner workings of struggling
(48:45):
with, you know, a constantcraving or obsession for
something, if you think there'sjust an on off switch for it.
But you know what's sofascinating to me about that?
Number one is that, as anaddict, I I now recognize that I
have the ability where we aredealing every day with a beast
inside of us that we have tocontain.
It's our choice, but we don'tknow that that's a choice we
(49:08):
think of.
These behaviors are allautomatic for a long time, right
, and so I've kind of come tounderstand.
Okay, wait, I recognize what'sbeen going on in my life, what
my parents experienced, what myparents' parents experienced,
and how that's now all beentransferred down to me.
I have a choice, though I cando something different with it.
I don't have to just take itall and turn around and pass it
(49:30):
to the next person in line,right?
I have, like you said, almost amoral duty or a civil
obligation to try and breakthose transgenerational curses,
right?
So, you know, what I like tosay oftentimes is that, but
having these conversations andgetting that out in the open,
you know, there's a phrase thatI heard once that reminds me of
(49:53):
every time I have thisconversation is you know, we
can't heal, we don't reveal.
So if we don't know, somethingis there.
You know, it's like the firstthing.
What do they say?
The first step in solving anyproblem is understanding.
There is one right these arejust like a little collection of
all these little problems thatwe've piled up inside of us that
we don't know we've ever had.
So, obviously, step one is todo the searching, it is to do
(50:15):
the seeking, it is to go inward,which is going to be some of
the hardest work we've ever hadto do.
Right, because knowledge is notthe solution.
Knowledge is just sort of thefoundation or the baseline of
knowing what we need to do inorder to create that world for
ourselves.
And, you know, it's probablywhy Nike is one of my favorite
brands of all time because theyfigured it out like just do it
(50:36):
Right, there's a majordifference.
Action based Action, yeah, allaction.
Just do it.
There's a huge differencebetween the world that we can
construct and live within in ourmind's eye and our imagination
in our brain, versus what we doto actually create a tangible
result in the physical realm.
Right, two very differentthings, right?
So it's like you know, for me,step one is kind of
(50:57):
understanding it.
We obviously have to do that,which we're never going to do if
we can't talk about it.
And now step two is okay we'vebeen able to identify these
things.
Now what are we going to doabout it?
Like that's the, that's themeat and potatoes of it.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah, that's yeah, man, well said.
And that's why it's importantthat us and if it's men or
whatever gathering you'resitting at is we have these type
of discussions, because I thinkit's with it.
That's why I love my groupdynamics, I have to tell you,
because you and I are havingthis discussion right and you're
just talking about yours anddad and mom and those kind of
(51:30):
those dynamics you grew up with.
Little timmy over here on theside is like wait a minute, wait
, that's not normal yes, yeah,yeah, little timmy didn't know
that that's not normal, like ohI thought that was perfectly
fine to be like, whatever youknow, whatever the choice, yep,
and the power lives, and thenyou see the awakening, and
speaking to that we we've beentalking, and one of the
(51:51):
expressions that I really loveis when do we not see our shadow
is when we're standing in thedark.
When do you see your shadow?
when there's light peeringthrough and what I have found is
in in these, you know healing,whether it's the rooms of
recovery, support therapy,whatever you're doing, you are,
you're creating a sliver oflight into the darkness.
(52:12):
Now, the more that you keepgoing on this path, you start to
widen the light.
So now you see more shadows andmore shadows, but it's the best
work I've ever done.
I mean, I've kind of flippedand I think I kind of hear the
excitement in yours.
It's like painful, yes, scary,yes, sad, yes, all of that.
(52:36):
And how exciting because I'mgrowing and I'm learning and I'm
evolving and I'm changing.
And from that place that pebblehits that pond and it ripples
and now you share this with yourbuddy and your buddy gets to
feel like how do you do that?
Show me.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
And then the wider and the stranger at the market.
Right, it just it could beanywhere.
It can literally be anywhere.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
It just keeps yep, it just keeps doing that anything
yeah I mean again, it doesn'thave to just be recovery, just
about little little gems we passto each other.
That just kind of creates thatlittle bit of light in maybe the
other person's eyes.
That wasn't there a second agoand that is making a change.
So yes, look, if you want to goglobal, we need it.
(53:22):
Right Like go global, go bigright.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
I love that Right right.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Just like, even in conversations like this, the
people you cross paths withshared stuff time with, how do I
leave that conversation?
How do I leave that?
And again, it's not that it hasto be perfect.
So if it's not perfect, how dowe come back and repair it?
How do we take responsibility?
That in itself accountability.
When you start throwing thatlanguage at people and you're
like, wow, that's mine, nojustifications, no recommit, I'm
(53:49):
you know and own it, withoutlike going into the well, the
ufo's under my backyard, andthat's the reason why?
and I'm gonna duct it in thetraffic and the snow that came
down in la.
It was like nobody gives a shitabout all the reasons why.
Yeah, and let's keep it moving.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
Own and recommit yeah , that and that takes god.
We could probably have thisconversation I think we're gonna
have to.
I don't know, but yeah, yeah, soit might be, I know no, no, no,
maybe we'll close it off andwe'll have a 2.0 version, but
you know that takes everythingyou just described.
There's a couple things that inmy head that I captured.
I wanted to highlight that youwere talking about.
That takes a certain level ofvulnerability.
(54:29):
That that's a big one, right?
Vulnerability is another wordthat I think, especially in the
male culture, within themasculine culture, is a word
that is not looked on in aparticularly positive way.
We associate it with beingvulnerable.
What are all the things we say?
You're being a sissy, you're agirl, whatever it is, we just
immediately assume that's like afeminine trait, right?
(54:51):
No, there's nothing stronger,in my opinion, than to
completely divulge all of whoyou are to the world, without
zero regard for what anyone'sgoing to think or say back.
That takes uh to, to show thetrue form of yourself and
completely disregard whatanyone's going to have to think
(55:11):
or say about it takes an immenseI mean some of the strongest
willpower that you can everimagine.
It's like, you know.
That's why, in recovery, a lotof times when people say like,
oh, you're weak, make no mistakeif you're an addict out there
and you're listening to thisright now, I promise you every
minute that you try to perseverethrough that disease, through
(55:31):
your addiction.
That is the most courageous andstrongest thing anyone could
ever, ever, ever do, right?
So, number one, it's like wehave to peel back some of these,
these misnomers, thesemisconceptions, the stereotypes
or the stigmas, like you said.
So it takes a lot ofvulnerability and, you know, as
you were talking, there was acouple of things.
I'm going to keep feeding offthe light analogy because I
(55:53):
think we're cruising with that,right yeah.
And so you know I was.
I was applying for my master's,which I didn't end up getting.
But I wanted to pursue a careerin therapy and so I was
applying for my master's and Iwas stuck on the application
process for weeks and weeks, andweeks and I couldn't figure out
how to close my missionstatement.
(56:15):
Every time I would sit down, myfingers would just freeze and
lock up, my brain would just goblank and I just didn't know
what to say in this final partand I'm coming up on the
deadline.
I mean it's days away and, mindyou, at this time I was pretty
active in my, you know, prettyheavy in my active using right.
But I decided one day you knowI can't sit at the computer
(56:36):
anymore and I went downstairsand I turned on Netflix and I
just picked some random show andsome random episode that
someone had told me to watchbefore.
And you know there was a quote.
It was an interview between twopeople.
There was a quote, it was aninterview between two people and
(57:06):
one of the gentlemen on theinterview had asked what do you
think is the purpose of life?
Touched on that a little bitago and you know your idea of,
like this spreading of the well.
I don't know if anyone knowswhat the true meaning or purpose
of life is, but I can tell youthat I've heard what I believe
to be the closest explanationfor it, and I believe he said
that he was quoting Beethoven,and this quote has stuck with me
ever since it goes the purposeof life is to get closer to the
(57:27):
divine than any man before, andthen to disseminate the divine
rays amongst the rest of mankindand I just remember thinking
that I had to, like, say it overand over and over in my head to
even get it, because I'm like Iknow I understand it, but that
sounds so complicated.
Wait, hold on, I'm just likeit's like a tape, I'm replaying
it over and over again in myhead and then I realized, wait,
(57:49):
no, that's actually quite simpleto understand.
Whatever your divine is right,we're all going to have a
different understanding of thedivine to us.
But whatever our divine is, ifwe can spend our life's mission
and purpose, our dedication togetting as close to that thing
as we possibly can, and then,rather than keeping it to
ourselves, turning around andsharing it with everyone else
(58:11):
that we can imagine, if everysingle person on the earth did
that, it quite literally wouldbe a matter of every single
person just being their own formof light and wherever they go,
they're illuminating that pathfor someone else along the way.
And you know, call me ahopeless romantic or an optimist
or whatever, but if enough, ifwe did that long enough over a
(58:33):
long enough period of time, wewould accomplish, you know, like
in the Kabbalah when it talksabout light being like the
ultimate source, we wouldaccomplish that.
It's, it's a, it's a, it's abinary fact.
There's no way around the factthat everyone just exhibited
that behavior and they made thattheir life's mission.
We would just touch everythingand everyone in the world and we
would just be this one,completely connected unison
(58:55):
being.
And I, you know, to me, eversince I heard that, that was
definitely what I have come tounderstand.
Even just a conversation likethis, you know, it's like that's
what I've kind of understood,my, it's my purpose.
That's why, when you asked meI'm where, do I sign like I, you
know I, I'm I love to havethese types of conversations,
you know?
Speaker 1 (59:14):
yeah, thank you, yeah , no, that was a beautiful image
and I, I don't even.
I think we're gonna have to goahead and continue to have more
of these episodes, because therewas so many.
That's why this one was reallyunscripted guys.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
There was really no plan.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
I'm like eric, let's just talk and and get it on tape
.
I love it because the way thatwe kind of piggyback off and
take that concept and run withit over, there and I'm gonna run
with it over there like thesesub genres.
Yeah, yeah, and I think there'sthis beauty and this poetry that
lives in there, there's arhythm that lives in there, and
(59:47):
that's what I really love is,sometimes, you know what, maybe
we just don't need to bescripted, let's just get here
and let's just talk about ourown and we we could definitely
dive more into this.
It was a great starting pointand we could probably make
there's probably 10 topics withthis and then we can actually
run with.
But when I edit, I'm about toput all that together.
Um, yeah, but where you leftoff, I think, is a perfect place
(01:00:11):
.
How can we be that light, howcan we spread that light and
100% taking that image with youas you walk through your dailies
and the relationships that youwalk into or the people that you
see?
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yep, everything you do, right.
If you're just exuding thatlight everywhere you go, I mean
it's impossible.
Light always wins, right.
It's just.
If you do it, if you're justexuding that light everywhere
you go, I mean it's impossible.
Light always wins, right.
It's like scientific fact thatif there's darkness and you flip
on a light, the light's goingto win every time.
So I just kind of think thatthat's you know.
If for me it's become this humanconnection, these conversations
(01:00:46):
, this gaining awareness of selfand understanding and you, and
to be able to materialize thatinto something that I feel I've
now had a sense of purposetowards which I didn't really
have my entire life prior to now.
There is something tangiblewhich, for me, the vehicle or
the vessel by which I'm choosingto accomplish that is by
helping other people whostruggle with addiction, because
(01:01:08):
that is something that now Iknow.
If you would have asked me ayear and a half ago, like I said
earlier, why me and I have twosisters, which, again, I'm all
women too right, we must've beensurrounded by mostly women,
which is why we have that, that,that the both elements.
But you know it's a lot of thewhy me?
Why me?
Why me, why me Not.
Why not my sisters?
Why was my dad not an addict?
(01:01:28):
But my mom was, and I was theonly one in the family who seems
to have gotten, you know, beenstuck with this, this shitty
disease.
And now you fast forward to ayear and a half later and it's
like you couldn't take myaddiction away from me.
If you tried, like I woulddefend it with my life, you know
.
And so if, if there's anypossibility of moving the needle
in just an iota of a directioncloser to someone else being
(01:01:51):
able to accomplish the samething I've done.
I feel like I've lived my, mylife's purpose, I've done my
part.
So, you know, beautiful, hugefor you having me on this, I
just I can't thank you enough,man from a group to here to like
talking man, but I love to saywelcome home, traveler.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
You come a far way to get here welcome my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Yeah, I feel very home I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Um, anyway, we will.
Thanks everybody who's beenlistening.
Again, this is man and caved.
I am shane.
This is my good friend, eric.
I'm so glad to have you, man.
I really did.
I just love your wide lens, Ilove energy.
I love your enthusiasm for thiswork and I'm so excited to have
you.
And I definitely want to haveyou again because, like I said
(01:02:37):
we can piggyback on like 10 ofthose topics, but I don't know
if I can keep our listenersgoing for two hours.
Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
So you know that's okay, we will be having many
conversations Just unscriptedand we'll talk more about that.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
But um anyway.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
So this is again.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
My name is shane.
This is man uncaved.
We need to come out of hiding.
Hey everybody, I just wanted to set the stage with
this episode, this is anunscripted episode.
I had the pleasure of sittingwith a good friend of mine, eric
, and we just had some reallymeaningful conversation about
addiction, family trauma, shame,recovery, transformation, life,
(00:20):
life and I wanted to share thiswith you.
It is a longer episode, so, ifyou can, please stay to the end,
because there are so many gemswithin this episode that I
believe all of us can connect to.
So, without further ado, let'sget into it.
Hey everybody, and welcome backto another episode of man
(00:44):
Uncaved Shane.
I'm really excited about todaybecause I'm actually sitting
with a really good friend ofmine, eric, and this episode is
going to be really unscriptedbecause we were and we'll get
into all this on this episodetoday.
But we've had some meaningfultalks, men's work, everything
involved in that, and some greattopics came through that.
(01:07):
So I thought let's go there,let's be unscripted as fuck,
let's just go where we need togo and come out of hiding as men
and talk about this topic.
So, eric, I'm going to kind oflet you take it from here If you
want to share anything aboutyourself, about our relationship
, whatever you want to do.
Speaker 2 (01:26):
Of course.
Yeah, dude, I'm super stoked tobe here.
Shane, thanks for having me.
Man.
Yeah, you know, as youmentioned, we obviously have
known each other since I wentthrough treatment and you know
it's funny that you, that westart, that we're starting off
this way, because I was going tosay that I just couldn't tell
you how much I've appreciatedthe time that we've spent
together.
I mean, honestly, you've been areally huge part of my recovery
(01:48):
and I remember it like it wasyesterday.
You know, the first time that Iwas in one of your groups and
you know I looked a lotdifferent back then, as you can
imagine, and you know just theenergy that I got from you and
the way that you're able toconnect with me and just kind of
like piercing through some ofthese layers that I'm sure we're
going to talk about.
It was something that I hadjust never really experienced
(02:10):
before.
So it was very, veryinstrumental and super impactful
in my recovery and my time andtreatment.
So I really appreciate that.
Thanks, brother.
Speaker 1 (02:18):
Oh, brother, that means a lot to me.
Thank you, you know, Iappreciate it.
And then you showing up in that.
So that's really what it'sabout is I learned from you, so
we, you know how this goes, butthank you, thank you for that.
So, yeah, so went throughrecovery.
Speaker 2 (02:36):
You know how how long ago was that, if you want to
share what was totally yeah,yeah.
So I got, I tried to get soberthe first time in 2022 and I had
hit what I thought was like myrock bottom.
As you know, there's just it'snot really a bottom, it just
like just keeps going.
And, um, I took myself intotreatment, thinking that I had
just kind of had like a bad runand if I got my, my thought
(02:59):
process was that if I got mymental health in check, then I'd
be able to go back to using anddrinking like a normal person,
which I now understand isinsanity.
But so I went into a 90 dayprogram and I didn't take it
seriously at all.
I was like drinking throughoutthe entire program.
I'm shocked.
I actually made it throughwithout getting kicked out and I
graduated from the program andI was just telling everyone the
(03:22):
whole time friends, family thatI was still sober.
And then a couple months later,I went back out, as I guess you
say, and Kat was out of the bag.
You know there was no longer asecret that I was no longer
sober, but I kind of owned itLike it was this I had like a
trial period with recovery and Irealized, okay, I don't need
(03:42):
that, that's not for me.
And I had this weird sense ofconviction that I'm sure we all
get as addicts.
We're like you think you'vefigured it out, like you figured
out how to beat the system, andso I just was in that state of
mind for a month, for a year,excuse me and I just kind of
went on a crazy tear and by theend of that year now, you know,
fast forward to around October,november of 2023, I went right
(04:08):
back into that place.
I was a year prior, except itwas just way worse.
So the second time around, Irealized, like, how serious it
was and it took me, I guess,just that experience to
understand, like, dude, this islife or death.
You got to figure it out and Iso I went back into treatment.
The second time around, I wentback into treatment in late 2023
.
It finally stuck.
(04:30):
And you know so since then Imean, I think right now, in
total, I have just under a yearand a half sober.
I cannot even begin to say howblessed I feel it's a word I
never used to use but howblessed I feel to have landed
where I did, to have gonethrough the program I did, to
have met the people.
I did you, everyone else, thatthat helped me along the way.
(04:51):
And so now I'm just in a placewhere you know you.
You go from a year and a halfago to today.
I it's two completely differententities altogether.
You wouldn't recognize me atone.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Thank you for your openness and talking about that
and I think it's somethingthat's very interesting.
You know, addiction has a pointof view and I think you know
and I'm just also just speakingfrom my own experience you know
it's the substance and all these.
Obviously there's morecompulsive, addictive behavior
patterns and it's so veryinteresting and we're going to
dive kind of into this.
(05:21):
I want to understand more ofyour journey and, I think, for
other people to reallyunderstand.
So sometimes we get thissubstance and I use the analogy
I talk about this too and youprobably heard this Sobriety and
recovery and they kind of getinterchanged in rooms and people
think, oh, sobriety, that'srecovery, right, and I love the
idea and this is where I dobring up in groups too.
(05:46):
It's like okay way that Iunderstand it is the sobriety.
For my own personal journey,sobriety is the abstinence.
I'm just not being, I'm notdoing, the behavior I and I tend
to use the definition from fromthe dictionary I'm a little
nerdy, but it says to retrievesomething lost or stolen that's
when I read that and I mean manymoons ago I was like that's
what the recovery is.
You pull this out and then yousee what's really been going on.
(06:10):
And I want to dive into alittle bit of that juiciness,
because I want to hear now I'mnot using great Congratulations,
and that is important.
I don't want to, you know,invalidate.
That is the first thing.
Safety, stabilization, let'sget away from our substance,
whatever.
And then there's some stuffthat was like buried deep
(06:31):
underneath.
That Can you share a little bit?
Speaker 2 (06:35):
some of this new stuff, good stuff?
Yeah, absolutely you know.
So it's funny.
I love that you touched on thatbecause, as you said, it's
recovery is defined as you knowsomething that was retrieving
something back that was lost orstolen and, interestingly enough
for me, I had no idea what Ihad lost or what had been stolen
for a lot of my life.
(06:55):
I'm sure we'll dive into this alittle bit deeper.
When it comes to all theseunderlying, you know, emotions
and experiences in our past,traumas and things that we carry
around with us all the time,sometimes we're aware of it and
oftentimes we have no idea.
It's even there, right?
So it's like, like you said,the first part for me was like,
(07:15):
okay, this is, you know, def CONone.
I got to get myself sober, Igot to stabilize, I got to
figure out how to just stayalive.
That's obviously the mostimportant part.
But then once you get a couplemonths under your belt and you
start to realize, huh, well,I've abstained from drugs and
alcohol and I'm doing everythingeveryone's telling me to do and
I still feel like shit, or Istill want to kill myself every
day.
What's going on here, right?
That's that stuff that you'retalking about.
And so you know it took me.
(07:37):
In all honesty I started tokind of unpack or journey.
You know your podcast calledman on Cave.
I was at the very, very, verybottom of my cave, just complete
darkness, couldn't see anything, and I wouldn't say that I even
started to move towards exitingthe cave until I was probably
(07:57):
in my late 20s, I want to sayaround 28 years old.
I'm almost 40 now, but thatwhole time prior to that in my
life I had no idea, absolutelyno idea, that I even struggled
with addiction ever.
But be what all the underlyingreasons were that I think
contributed to why I was anaddict, and so you know, I come
(08:18):
to find out that, like hold on asecond, my mom was a very, very
heavy alcoholic.
I used to say she was a violentalcoholic.
I don't know that I woulddescribe her anymore as a
violent alcoholic, just becausenow that I've gone through my
own experience with alcoholism,I understand her experience so
much differently.
It was a lot of like rage andresentment and hate and why me
(08:39):
and my mom this and my mom that?
Now it's like I understand thatdifferently.
But you know, addiction for mestarted in the womb and then,
from the time I popped out, it'slike it was nothing but abuse,
like I only really had my mom inmy life for the first 13 years
or so and that entire time itwas just like a horribly toxic
relationship between the two ofus, which again we can dive into
(09:00):
how that ends up stemming intoour life.
Speaker 1 (09:03):
Yeah Well, let's pause for a second because mom
cause I want to paint thispicture for mom, dad, mom.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Mom and dad are both gone.
Yeah, they both passed, but Imean I didn't know that.
Thank you.
Speaker 1 (09:15):
Actually.
So that's another thing, rightso, but I was looking at you say
it was only mom.
Was dad not in the picture?
Speaker 2 (09:23):
Dad was in the picture, but he I would have
never, ever described him asabusive.
What I've come to understandthe relationship with my mother
was I can clearly quantify thatas abuse.
And again, it's through nofault of her own.
She was struggling with her owndemons, right, but my dad, he
was probably the kindest,softest, gentlest, like most
(09:45):
nurturing he he had to play.
You know we talk a lot aboutmasculine versus feminine.
He had to play both roles a lotof the time, sure so I had a
wonderful relationship with him.
However, even though I look atit now, I wouldn't describe it
as abuse.
Right, he was on the other endof the spectrum where he was
just totally hands off.
He was super super passive.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
Okay, even he was super super passive, okay.
Speaker 2 (10:06):
So even though he had all those qualities and those
traits and he leaned veryfeminine forward, which is what
people tell me I do as well.
Sure, it was this weirddichotomy, this weird clash
between these two forms.
Speaker 1 (10:19):
Sorry, I'm going to cut you off right there.
No, that's okay, these areimportant things to notice too,
because, even say there's a manthere and I think this is
something very interesting tounderstand, even though they're
men there but this kind ofhands-off passivity, yes, um,
can also create a lack ofstructure.
There's no boundaries there,there's nothing, because
children love to push up againstsomething.
Speaker 2 (10:41):
Yep, so there's non-structure, and then again in
the technical word, abusive.
Speaker 1 (10:46):
It might not be abuse in the way that we could
visualize it.
Lack of structure could havesome abusive quality to it where
it's not creating the structure, not creating safety in ways
it's just kind of you know,there could be some codependency
patterns there.
I don't know.
You know it could go deeper.
So I just wanted to put thatbecause it's something really to
(11:07):
highlight um when as you'rediscussing.
So please continue yes, no,absolutely non-structure.
Mom is kind of in her patternsyes, behavior and very
aggressive you talk about.
Speaker 2 (11:20):
Yes, right, can you?
Speaker 1 (11:21):
explain a little bit more, as you're becoming aware
of this, like where do I go withall this stuff?
Speaker 2 (11:25):
yeah, yeah, and that's the thing is like I was.
I was totally unaware of it themajority of my life, normal is
what we know, right.
So it's like all I understoodat that time was just whatever
was going on in the house, right.
But after years of therapy,going through treatment, all the
things that we do that we putinto our toolbox, I finally
realized like, oh, okay, I'vebeen dealing with this weird
(11:49):
mercurial like clash between twoopposing forces that are
completely opposite, in that mymom was always, like on a
thousand, very aggressive.
She was abusive physically,mentally, emotionally, verbally,
all of it, but it wasn't everto the point where I would have
known back then.
That's what it was.
I thought it was just kind ofnormal.
(12:09):
And then you have my dad, who'slike the nicest guy in the
world but he's completely handsoff.
So you know, the clash betweenthose two energies being around
all the time essentially formedand shaped my understanding of
how I viewed the world.
Speaker 1 (12:30):
Yes, absolutely.
On one side, you have a motherdealing with her alcoholism and
maybe other compulsive behaviorpatterns you know unpresent to
the child in some waysemotionally, spiritually,
mentally, physically and on theother side you have this father
who is in his own passivity,this hands-off approach, as you
mentioned.
Well, for that child.
Who's there to protect me?
Right, I am dependent on you,my primary caregivers, to guide
(12:52):
me.
I cannot do this without you,and so the child can interpret
this as I'm unsafe, I'm notcared for, I'm not seen, I'm not
loved, I'm not accepted,accepted and so on like,
sometimes doing nothing isalmost as bad as doing too much
right, absolutely yeah, landedon me as a man.
(13:12):
So here you are a boy.
I mean, as you start to developmore and you get into
adolescence, you start torealize.
My son's 12, you know, he'sstarting to realize he's going
to be a man one day.
And there's a natural tendencyfor boys just talking to the
boys and the men out there it'sthat the boy moves away from the
mother.
So they kind of move away in anenergetic way from the mother,
(13:34):
the maternal, they go towardsthe father.
But here's dad.
And how is dad showing up ornot showing up?
Wow, I think you brought light.
You know you shed light on thisearlier.
Again, when we're doing thiswork, um, we have to understand
these are human beings too.
Mom's a human being, dad's ahuman being.
(13:55):
We're, we're perfectlyimperfect.
It's not to make them wrong.
I think what you did point outearlier is, as we descend, we
have more compassion andunderstanding for their own
character, defects or whateveryou want to call them.
There are shortcomings, becausewe all have them.
So let's dive into a little bitof that, eric, because as a boy
(14:20):
, and seeing dad loving, caringobviously, and seeing dad loving
, caring obviously, but the lackof structure, how, how do you
move from this boy to a manwhere maybe it's like where do
you learn about all these things?
Speaker 2 (14:33):
Yep, Yep, I okay.
So such a million dollarquestion.
I, first of all, I learned whatI would believe to be the first
half of my life.
Everything I learned was just aproduct of my environment, so I
was kind of like raised by theworld, so to speak, right From
the earliest memories.
I have the second I was oldenough to be on my own.
I was out the door, sun up, andyou wouldn't see me until the
(14:55):
streetlights were on.
I was around lots of extendedfriends and family.
I had a couple different socialcircles, the people in school,
so that's where I was kind oflike acquiring all these tools
or these understandings or thesebehavioral mechanisms.
You know again now I had tolearn how to sort of unpack as
time went on.
But to your point, like you know, my like I kind of think of, as
(15:17):
you're talking about it, Ialmost think of like the
prodigal son right, Like go outand you have to figure out
what's up with the world and youcome back home.
Well, that separation betweenthe feminine, which is where we
start, that's the beginning ofour journey and where we spend
the majority of our our timematuring as animals, as beings,
and then, once we have a senseof, you know, self-sustaining
(15:38):
where we can, we can do thingson our own we break off and now
we're kind of supposed to beable to get that understanding,
that prototype or blueprint ofhow to be a man in the world.
Well, again, that was rightwhere you say I went to the edge
of a cliff and just fell offand I was just like figuring out
what to do along the way.
Right, I had no clue.
So I did learn a lot of that,just as a product of my
environment.
(15:59):
Now again, fast forward to.
I almost kind of always look atthings as like pre and post.
When I started this journey oflike inner self, of going inward
, because, again, it didn'tstart until I was like in my
late 20s, Everything prior tothat, I just it was autopilot,
Sure.
Absolutely From that point onthe things that I've learned,
that have now kind ofreconstructed, reverse
(16:21):
engineered, this newunderstanding that I have what
it means to not just be a manbut to have a masculine presence
, because those are two verydifferent things and I think we
get confused.
Speaker 1 (16:32):
Thank you, yeah, these are great.
Yeah, yeah, a long episode.
So can you on that one, becausethat's important.
So, yes, man versus masculinityIs that the distinction?
So let's go into that, becauseI'm in agreeance with you, but I
want to hear from yourperspective.
Can you tell a little bit moreabout that, as you're
understanding?
Speaker 2 (16:49):
My understanding, and again it comes from everything
I've learned along the way.
I've been having so manyepiphanies lately and this
might've been within the lastyear and a half, two years but
man and masculine were the exactsame thing.
There was no differentiation.
I could not distinguish betweenthose two.
And then I started to kind ofdive deeper into like when you
start to understand your innerself, the shadows, this idea of
(17:10):
everybody having both amasculine and a feminine side,
I'm like, huh, okay, let's do.
Let's like do a little deeper,dive into that.
(17:37):
As a man, it's quite simply theobjective version of the more
surface level version of what Iwould say how we kind of
delineate between ourselves andfemales as women, where it's all
the kind of like, it's all thelike logistics, right.
It's like as a man, like I havea certain biological profile.
I have a certain anatomy.
There might be certain rolesthat, historically speaking as
men and of course this hasalways changed and evolved over
time but there's maybeparticular roles that my body is
designed to do more effectivelymy mind is going to be, you
know, kind of working as acounterpart to the female mind,
(17:59):
which means that I might belooking at things from more of
like a logical or rationalperspective versus an emotional
perspective.
It's important like that I kindof also distinguish the
difference between.
Just because that's the caseand we have this baseline
understanding of like man versuswoman does not mean that
masculine and femininenecessarily correlate to that,
because we all, whether ourbiologically and again I want to
(18:22):
include everybody, not just notjust biological male, female,
whatever anyone- identifies aswhatever they're having that
inner energy, that inner senseof masculine and feminine is
something that everyonepossesses.
As a man, I have both, I wouldprobably argue.
In a lot of ways I have morefeminine energy than I do,
masculinity in some ways.
So the masculine energy, Ithink now we're kind of talking
(18:46):
more on the spiritual level ofwhat kind of energetically it
means to experience our livesthrough the masculine or the
feminine.
Again, there might be certainroles or certain archetypes that
are involved in those, but theydon't have to.
They're not mutually exclusivewith your gender.
They don't have with yourbiological being, they have
nothing to do with that Right.
(19:06):
And so you know, now I've cometo understand, like huh, like,
even in my relationship I seelike wow, the whole masculine
and feminine thing at play hasnothing to do with whether she's
a woman and I'm a man, becauseall of a sudden she's making
more money than I am and she'sgot a problem with that and I'm
not necessarily fulfilling therole that maybe it was, it was
(19:27):
expected of me to fulfill, andthese things are happening on a
very deeply subconscious levelvery, very deep within our soul,
right.
So now, all of a sudden, we'renot necessarily looking at each
other All of a sudden she has tobe the more masculine one and I
have to be the more feminineone, or vice versa.
Right, that can happen in anyexperience with any two people.
(19:47):
So that's kind of like what Ibelieve to now be the difference
between being a man and havingmasculine energy On hold to
these concepts and play.
Speaker 1 (19:56):
My whole thing is get in the sandbox, play around
with these concepts, see howthey work within your life.
You know, and I didn't have afather growing up so he was
completely gone.
My, my, it was kind of actuallymy my father was, uh, an
alcoholic, so he was absolutelygone.
So that structure of learningmask and actually, to be honest,
(20:18):
I don't, I can't actually becalled a healthy masculine in my
life at all, and kind of sothat child is reaching and I
just remember I would hang outwith kids on the block, you know
, and we would do what they doand and that sense of belonging
and oh, is this masculinity?
And I was like I got, I gotinto like tagging at one time,
which was a little ridiculous,but even at even at that I was.
(20:41):
I was looking for some form ofbelonging, some form of identity
and and not knowing thatstructure.
That's why I brought that up,because I thought it was really
interesting when you weretalking about the dad who's kind
of passive right.
So then, do you see patterns foryourself of how you might
(21:02):
engage in in relationships?
It could be romantic, it couldbe friendships with yourself.
Where parameters, where theparameters are a little blurry
because maybe we don't, we don'tknow how to express or you
don't know how to expressyourself.
Actually you express yourselfin certain ways and yeah,
because of that, absolutely thatyou were kind of conditioned to
, and again, we're just.
(21:23):
We are just fish.
Fish is in like a fishbowlright, like.
Speaker 2 (21:28):
I love it.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
There's an ocean out there.
You didn't know about it.
I'm a fish in a fuckingfishbowl.
I don't know that there's moreout there.
This is what's called normal.
There's no comparative, there'snothing to compare to, to
relate to, until you get untilyou get a little older.
For me I could say that when Igot a little older, uh, to hang
(21:49):
out with some of these kids andguess what they had?
they had a dad yeah, yeah andthen there was a little bit of
like wait a minute, what'shappening here?
Like, yeah, like how does that?
Yeah, what is that all about?
Speaker 2 (22:00):
yeah, yeah, how did that work in your face um so.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
So, if you can maybe shed a little bit of light.
And yes, let's dive into we'regonna, we're gonna keep
descending.
That's why it's reallyunscripted.
So everybody who's listening tofollow us, we're taking you on
a journey today we have noscript for today.
We're just.
I love this deep dive becausethis is the conversations that
you and I get into.
Yep, um, just about these veryinteresting things.
We start to wake up and you'relike, whoa, look at that, look
(22:30):
at that, where did that comefrom?
And and all this stuff, how didthat?
Again, from the passive dad,because we're looking at men and
we can get into the motherstuff too, but with the dad,
what did that look like?
As far as like how, how did youput boundaries?
Did you have boundaries?
Did you put parameters?
Were you just the Mr Nice guyall over the place?
What did you?
Speaker 2 (22:52):
I'm sure you know the answer to that question already
.
Speaker 1 (22:54):
I probably do, but I want you to say it, of course.
Speaker 2 (22:57):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, it's like ding, ding, ding, it's
like all hitting on the head.
Yeah, so a all hitting on thehead, yeah, so a couple things.
Number one yes, um, boundariesin particular were, uh, I want
to say a problem, but they werealmost non-existent.
I didn't again, these arethings.
I didn't know the concept ofwhat boundaries are supposed to
(23:17):
be sure, where we, where weacquire them, how we understand
them and enforce them.
So, so, quite naturally,because my dad being the way he
was, and because I was trying toveer away from my mother and I
was trying to seek safety in myfather, I think I just kind of
like he imprinted his way ofbeing onto me.
(23:39):
So I have always been what Iwould consider to also be a
naturally passive person, right,and you know, because that you
combine that with, like, thepeople pleasing aspect of myself
, right, and the insecurities,and you know now, as I peel back
the layers farther and fartherof my mental health and
understanding okay, wait, you'vehad actually pretty wicked ADHD
(24:02):
most of your life.
You just went undiagnosed for along time.
I wasn't diagnosed till I wasin my 30s and depression.
I mean, it's just like you'rethrowing all these ingredients
into a blender and this is whatyou're going to get, right.
So for me, I had no boundaries.
I was extremely passive.
I'm trying to please everyonearound me all the time, which
I'm assuming is some form of atrauma response, because when I
(24:24):
walk into a room, if everyone inthe room is okay, then I'm okay
.
And so it's like you know thatbecame kind of my default right.
So how that sort of played outin relationships was very like I
wish we could just talkingabout just that.
Speaker 1 (24:39):
just that, all over the place right so distorted.
Speaker 2 (24:42):
I mean so distorted because you think you have a
perspective or an understandingthat's completely falsified by
this sort of lens that you don'tknow is there right seeing
things through.
And so, while I think I'm reallya nice guy and I'm altruistic
and I'm this, you know I shouldbe like a catch for all these
(25:02):
women because I have a feminineside and I can talk to women.
I know a lot of ways I relateto women, more so than most men,
and you know something that, onthat point, you know, as you
talked about, like how we grewup on the school yard acquiring
things, and you know those guysmight've, those boys might've
had their own fathers.
Even those fathers are comingfrom all different walks of life
, so it's like who knows whattheir own understanding of
(25:24):
masculine is right.
That's being channeled down tous.
I also think it's interestingMaybe we can talk about it at a
different time but the fact thatI would.
I'd be interested to divedeeper into the idea that your
father and my mother were.
It was kind of like the yinyang, the opposite of each one.
Speaker 1 (25:38):
I bet you, my mother was abusive in her own ways.
I mean, there was physicalabuse there.
Speaker 2 (25:43):
So you were getting the whole yin, yang you were
getting it all.
Yeah, I think it was definitelyagain.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
So I mean just cut you off, don't lose your spot,
but definitely with my mother.
I mean you think about theclassical alcoholic and
codependent.
I mean my mom, I think, at thetrue sense of it, had
codependency issues andcodependency issues there.
I mean again looking from herlineage of trauma.
And so it just you know, and welook at codependency.
(26:10):
This is why I think this isalso important to.
Codependency is an addictivepattern.
It's addiction to relationships.
So codependency is rooted outof shame, which I know we're
going to talk about too.
So it is rooted out of shame,which I know we're going to talk
about too.
So it's rooted out of shame andthe tendency when you're you
brought this up.
So I want to highlight this forpeople when we look at it from
the lens of you talked about atrauma response, right?
(26:32):
So we all heard the fightflight, we heard the freeze for
some people, and then there'sthe fawn, and the fawn is the
people pleasing rooted in somecodependency, and so we can take
that into our adult life andthat becomes the pattern where
it's more unlearning.
I'm probably you probably heardthis we're unlearning than
learning.
Yeah, we are, we are unlearningall the bullshit and I think
(26:54):
this is one of my groups I talkabout.
You're all addicted to thebullshit you keep believing,
because that's what's in the wayof how we're supposed to be,
how we're supposed to operate.
And there's something that yousaid I know I'm going to.
I love that we're just goingoff on.
It's not too far off.
Because you said, you know, Idid grow up with a very uh woman
household.
(27:14):
So I had my mother and I had,uh, my mother's sisters, who
were actually very close in myage, because my mom is the
oldest of seven.
So you know we were closeenough in age that you know.
So it was a lot of women that Igrew up with and, that being
that, mom was sorry that dad wasgone.
You know, men were the scariestplace on planet Earth for me.
(27:35):
I was also sexually abused by aman later in life, so you know
that had its effect.
So I never gravitated towardsmen for safety, for comfort or,
you know, to feel belonging,because those are the dangers.
That was the clear one not solater.
I was like, oh shit, I got somemommy issues too, uh, but with
(27:56):
the men I never gravitatedtowards them to for a sense of
connection and um, but like youhad mentioned so I would
gravitate towards women foremotional safety.
Now, I don't know about you,I'm just going to go ahead and
call myself and come out ofhiding.
That is a dangerous place,especially when I'm in my
addictive behavior patterns.
Yeah, because I know how tomanipulate that, I know how to
(28:17):
use that, I know how to to usethat, I know how to get what I
want.
I can go and you can have sexand I can do all these types of
things because I'm that great,loving, emotionally available
guy and I don't say no and I'mthe yes man and you know all of
that shit.
And that's another thing.
Because, as you're looking atit from a sense of masculine, of
(28:38):
the absence of masculinity, Idon't know how to hold myself
and have direction, I don't havefocus, I didn't have purpose, I
didn't know how to say no.
Same deep down, because again,dad's gone, mom is there.
Deep down, if so, there'srejection on, not sorry, not
rejection, but there'sabandonment, dad, emotional
deprivation, neglect from mom.
(28:59):
So the fear of being alone.
The fear of being abandoned,the fear of being left, was so
prominent.
I had to be a young man becauseif I say no to you.
You might be angry, you mightleave me and then you're gonna
go and then I'm abandoned onceagain.
That little child that isholding on to the story gets
ignited.
It just triggers.
Speaker 2 (29:20):
Yeah, absolutely yeah .
No, everything that you justsaid is like it's so funny.
I'm glad we're talking aboutthis because, again, imagine the
whole point of what you'redoing here.
Right, it's like, imagine theamount of people that probably
experience the same thing.
But we don't talk about itBecause, again, you hinted on
shame in there, which I knowwe'll get into, but shame has to
(29:40):
be one of the most powerfulemotions, if not the most
powerful emotion I'veexperienced, because living in a
world of shame is what keeps meburied at the bottom of that
cave and what keeps mecompletely disconnected from my
understanding of what we'retalking about now.
So, like you said and I thinkit's true that what you're
describing about how you'regoing through life and how
that's manifesting inrelationships, right, was
exactly exactly what Iexperienced, but again, I just
(30:04):
didn't know.
That's what it was.
I was operating under thisguise of like thinking that
everything that I was doing waslike in this magnanimous way,
but in reality, it just turnsout that I was just like hiding
behind this, like avatar thatI'd created because of a bunch
of shit that was given to me orthat I acquired along the way,
or whatever the case may be thatI had no idea was even there,
right.
So so to your point.
(30:26):
You know, I'm going through myentire life seeking that safety,
seeking that comfort, notknowing that's what I'm doing.
And, like you said, you marrythat with addiction and now we
can have a pretty seriousproblem quick.
So my entire life right, and I,you know.
Again, I'd be curious, becausedid you ever know that was what
was happening, or did it takeyou till much later in your life
(30:51):
.
Speaker 1 (30:51):
This is good.
It took me a while to reallyunderstand it.
You said something earlier andyou talked about everything if.
If my outside is good, then myinside is good.
So, yep, when I look at thatand I'm just using my
understanding of that that isthe child, right?
So the child is so merged withtheir parents, whoever's their
(31:13):
mom, dad, whoever's there.
They're merged with them.
They don't know where one endsand the other begins, yeah.
So mom is happy, then I'm happy.
If dad's happy, then I'm happy.
If they're not happy, they'renot.
We don't know that.
We can actually be okay if youcould be not happy and I can be
happy, yes, yes, because we'rejust absorbed in all of this.
There's no individualization,there is no self-actualization,
(31:37):
and I think that's kind of whatrecovery is.
And the bigger idea of recoveryis that we can have the self
separate of you mom, of you dad,of 8 billion people.
We get to make our own choices,and what I started to really
zone in out in my own recoveryis something that I think that
(32:00):
we talked about in probably oneof the first groups.
What are the gains?
So imagine that all behavior ispurposeful.
Now, with every behavior, thereis an ultimate gain and a
payoff.
So what is the gain?
Let's just use alcohol or drugsor whatever right, and I think
you were part of that.
What is the game?
Let's just use alcohol or drugsor whatever right, and I think
you were part of that.
(32:20):
Well, you ask the group ofpeople or person and they say,
you know, relief or validation,or control, or power, or love or
acceptance or belonging orsafety, comfort, yeah, okay,
great.
So what are those things then?
These are these emotional needsthat we needed as a child.
So we are constantly relivingthis like worst day cycle all
(32:43):
over again, reaching everythinggood outside.
This is my whole thing,everything good outside the ego,
which is the child within us,what the child first does.
So we grasp like.
You left me right, you don'tleave me right.
You don't leave me right.
You and when you're talkingabout it from the lens of shame.
And this is why I you know,coming out of hiding shame is
(33:04):
about hiding parts of ourself.
I'm ashamed of that part ofmyself, so I hide it from the
world, and what I do is I createa false self.
Now that false self becomes,talk about addiction becomes an
addiction because within thatfalse self, I'm guaranteed I'm
going to be loved.
I'm guaranteed I'm going to besafe.
I'm guaranteed.
Now I'm attached to this falseself as my ultimate God to save
(33:29):
me.
Save me from what saved me thepain Cause.
God forbid.
Eric, I don't want you to seeI'm flawed.
I don't want you to see thatI'm imperfect as a human being.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
Cause, then you're going to see who I really am.
Speaker 1 (33:40):
And then, oh my God, you're not going to like me and
you're going to leave me andyou're going to reject me Right,
and on and on and on.
Speaker 2 (33:56):
It just taps into all .
It took me a while again torealize that when I went to
treatment this time around, Iwas talking to my therapist.
She goes you might be 38 yearsold, but inside of you there's a
nine-year-old who never grew upand who never had any idea what
like that a lot of you know.
So much of your life went onpast that point and that was
kind of a wild concept.
And so again there was like asyou I love that you touched on
the idea that we create thisversion of ourself, this persona
that's going to be able to get.
(34:17):
It's the gain right, like whatam I going to be able to get If
I become this person?
I get those things.
So I'm going to be more of thatperson, but since I have an
addictive personality, I'm justgoing to get lost in that person
and before I know it, I have noidea which one's which.
Like, I don't even know thereal version of me and how I'm
protecting.
As we mentioned before, we don'talways we not.
(34:41):
Not only do we not always know,more often than not we probably
don't know what's actually goingon inside of us internally and
the reasons why we're our ego isnaturally wanting to protect us
from these things.
So, you know, all thosebehaviors that we're exhibiting
throughout our lives that wethink are being kind of you know
, sort of like they're comingfrom a different place in our
(35:05):
mind.
We think it's coming from aplace of positivity or it's
coming from a place of, you know, confidence.
Maybe, for example, in reality,the grand scheme of things,
like you said, it's coming froma place of I don't want to let
anyone know what I really havegoing on inside, right, and so
for me to your, to your exactpoint, that's kind of how I
operated through my entire lifeand that's why that transit like
(35:28):
when you start to uncover thisand when you start to, you know,
dive deeper and deeper intothat cave and realize what's
been buried down there for theentirety of your life to that
point and start pulling it outnow not only do you not want to
show it to anyone else, I don'twant to see that for myself,
like that's some of the stuffthat we have to do deal with on
(35:49):
our own right.
Like, wait, hold on a second.
You're telling me.
Like you know, I did myinventory when I was doing my
steps and and I I was I had like26 character defects on there
and I was fine with every singleone of them except one.
I saw the word womanizer on thepage and I go I'm not a
womanizer.
What do you mean Womanizer?
Are you kidding me?
Like I spent my whole lifebeing the nicest, most loving,
most caring and I'm like OK,wait a minute.
(36:11):
I might not have ever laid myhands on a woman, which I never
did and I never would.
I've never like sexuallyassaulted a woman and none of
these things.
But you know, as you saidearlier, have I manipulated
myself to be able to get someversion of what I want?
Yeah, huh, yeah.
Have I said something thatmaybe wasn't truthful to be able
to get something I want?
(36:32):
Yeah, have I put on a differentpersona or version of myself to
get something I wanted?
Yes, and, as you said, it'sabout that game, because even if
I'm just lying in bed with awoman for one night, I'm getting
that sense of comfort out ofthat that I never got before and
it's going to really boost upmy ego.
So you know, it's all thosethings are connected, man, and
that's my whole thing.
Speaker 1 (36:51):
Everything is everything.
When you start really startpulling back and you start
seeing sequence instead of theframe, you start seeing how
everything is connected, you'relike, holy shit, I've been
living my life like this andthis is why I think it's
important and I love that we'rehaving the discussion.
We'll dive deep, um, uh deeperon this topic.
(37:13):
But what I really love, and whyI love this, that we're having
this discussion now, is becauseaddiction gets a certain point
of view.
There's such a stigma whetherwhether people are actually
saying it or not, it's felt and,I think, because we don't
understand what is actuallyhappening.
Yes, I mean it.
Would you know this idea?
(37:34):
If addiction was a consciousthing, there would be no need
for treatment centers, therewould be no therapy.
There would be nothing rightfor treatment centers, there
would be no therapy.
There would be nothing right.
Speaker 2 (37:41):
We'd be fine but it is so unconscious and so it goes
back to my.
Speaker 1 (37:44):
The second actual definition of recovery is every
tree, uh to um.
Come back to a sense ofconsciousness, so carl young
talks about.
We have to bring thatunconscious into our
consciousness, because youcannot heal or fix something you
don't see.
There's no way you're gonnaknow, and that's the shadow.
Those are those disowned partsof myself.
(38:06):
We can kind of segue into that.
I love it.
The universe just works thatway.
But those are those disownedparts of myself.
Why?
Because there's such shame, orI was made to believe to be
ashamed of that part, so Idisowned it within myself
because I don't want to knowthat it's there and and you know
, I don't want to have to feelthat there and that's the whole
(38:28):
thing.
There's, there's.
You know, I don't know if weshouldn't, I don't know how
those words are, but the idea ofbeing ashamed of ourself.
Ourself is the most beautifulthing.
It is the most beautiful thingthat we have All the messiness,
all the sadness, all the just,all over the place Imperfections
(38:48):
.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Yeah yeah, it's what makes us.
Speaker 1 (38:52):
So you know, speaking from that shadow part in in
these identifications with falseself, attach them for survival
and of course they were andthey're adaptive.
Thank god, we created them,thank goodness that we created
these adaptive things to survive, we wouldn't have made it.
I had to push my feelings downat age two.
(39:13):
I had to.
Yeah, what was going on in myhousehold?
I had to.
Speaker 2 (39:16):
I didn't do that consciously as a two-year-old,
oh my god this is so painful,let me push this away right,
your brain's like we're goodhere.
Yeah, my brain, and that'swhat's so crazy?
Speaker 1 (39:26):
because our brain does that naturally more
pleasure, less pain, yeah, yeahand then we like clear out the
record.
We're like oh shit, put mydrugs out of the way, move my
behaviors out of the way, andI'm like whoa, there the way.
And I'm like whoa, there's allthat I've been hiding for so
long.
Look, you know, doesn't matterhow much time I have, you have.
(39:47):
I'm still learning, I'm stilltrying to come out of this
hiding.
That's why this whole thing hascome out of hiding, because
there's so much.
And maybe that's what life isIf we can stand in our truth,
the more free we will be.
Speaker 2 (39:59):
yeah it will be uncomfortable guaranteed yeah
it's some of the hardest workI've ever had to do, you know,
and it's like, as you weresaying, that I was kind of
envisioning, like I'm all aboutvisuals, I'm all about metaphors
and I'm thinking about thatcave, right, and you know, as
you touched on it, I like tocall it having a white belt
mentality.
No matter, I could be a tripleblack belt in jiu-Jitsu, but
(40:19):
every time I walk into the dojoI have a white belt, as far as
I'm concerned, as far aseveryone else is concerned, and
so you're always learning fromthat place, right?
And so a lot of this, you know,just because we're having the
conversation to this point inour lives, of what we have
accumulated, the knowledge thatwe've acquired, what we've
experienced, has given us acertain perspective.
It's not like we're at the edgeof some understanding and
(40:41):
that's all we're going to everunderstand.
That's that it just keeps goingand going and going, right.
So it's like this idea of thiscave, when I normally would
visualize it, it's like there'sa bottom and there's an opening,
but in reality it's probablyjust this infinity continuum
where just some parts areprobably going to look darker
than others, and I do think that, you know, I try to look at
(41:01):
life in terms of and this couldbe a different conversation, so
I don't want to go too far offon a tangent.
But you know, for me I'vechanged my view on the ideas of
good and bad over the course ofmy life and right and wrong.
Obviously there's some thingsthat are pretty obvious, but I
think that it's really more of amatter of light and dark.
(41:21):
I think that there's times whenwe experience darkness and
there's times when we experiencelight, and I think, ultimately,
there's light in everybody,there's light in everything,
everywhere.
All the time there always was,there always will be dim.
Or if it's just completely offas far as we're concerned, it
doesn't mean it's not there, itjust means that we haven't seen
(41:44):
it yet.
And so for me, that journeythat you talk about was kind of
this uncovering and sort ofuncaving myself, and the more
and more that I would, I wouldrealize exactly what you said.
Hold on a second, this is a mething.
Like this is something thatI've had going on inside of me
my entire life, that I've beentrying to deflect or defend or
ignore, whatever the case may be.
(42:06):
And now, as a 38, 39 year old,I'm having to face these things
quite literally for the firsttime.
That's not easy for anyone,right?
So that's why recovery in anyform, right so it's such a
massive undertaking.
I've done some fairly difficultthings in my life and I can
safely say now, after goingthrough two rounds of rehab and
(42:29):
actually it's sticking to thepoint that it has now, god
willing, one day at a time.
There's nothing, you know, easy, and uh, or I I always say that
, um, easy is not synonymouswith simple.
It's.
It could be very simple tounderstand something, but it
doesn't mean that it's going tobe easy to accomplish it's.
You know, going through thesteps with some of the easiest
(42:49):
ideas I had to conceptualize,but the work itself was some of
the most difficult work ever.
So, as you mentioned, you'rekind of trying to have to attack
it on two fronts, where, firstof all, you have to even be able
to understand it, so you haveto kind of like peel it apart so
that you even know it's there,and then, second of all, you
have to realize that this is notnecessarily just about my, you
(43:10):
know, obsession with a drug oran alcohol right.
Fill in the blank with sex, withfood, with gambling, whole nine
yards, right?
It's not just those things,it's what is all of that that
exists with the self, within theself as you talk about, with
the shadow that's been designedto protect you.
So you know again, for betteror worse, it actually did do
(43:33):
some good for us.
That's why sometimes it's hardto say and disclaimer for anyone
listening, if they arestruggling with addiction or if
they are addicts.
I never want to say this as ifI'm glamorizing it, but at times
there absolutely was momentswhere it was probably exactly
what was saving my life.
Smoking marijuana at that momentin time was probably exactly
(43:54):
what was saving my life, becauseI didn't have any other tools.
I wasn't equipped with anythingelse to know what to do and, as
you mentioned, all I needed todo was where, in whatever's in
reach in my vicinity, where canI grab pleasure and where can I
completely avoid pain.
And so you know that'ssomething that, as we talk about
you know shame, and this ideathat's why I love that it's
(44:15):
called man on cave is in yourwhole, the whole thing, it all.
I love you.
It's great, but just like thatidea of of coming out of that is
is very multi-dimensional.
Speaker 1 (44:25):
Yeah, it's not just about abstaining from drugs and
alcohol that's right yeah yeah,it's come out of hiding in all
of these areas that we live inthe smallness of who we actually
are and we don't live in theweakness and and and where we
can.
You know and I love that youbrought in many ways we can mood
(44:46):
alter.
Right relationships are a moodalteration.
Obviously we got drugs andalcohol, gambling, food, work,
money, anything that, everythingyou know.
We got these phones that we canstay buzzed on and dopamine
hits all over the place forhours.
You know it's and sorecognizing what's there.
Why sometimes do I need to goand distract?
I'm alone.
(45:06):
What's wrong?
I always get this thing wherepeople talk about and sometimes
other groups.
It's like boredom.
I'm like what's wrong withboredom?
What is wrong with boredom?
yeah because when there'snothing going on and there's not
the world of distractions allof that shit starts to come up
to the surface.
Yeah, that's what it is.
It's not boredom.
Boredom is neutral.
(45:26):
Boredom doesn't have anything.
Speaker 2 (45:29):
It's boredom there's nothing going on.
Speaker 1 (45:30):
Right, it's what comes up from that place.
Yeah, I always love theexpression that our happiness
and our joy is created by therelationship we have to the
experience, not the experienceitself.
Speaker 2 (45:45):
So relatively everything is neutral.
Speaker 1 (45:48):
I am coming in to the neutral thing and I'm creating
an experience, and of course,that experience is from my own
understanding of what it is.
Yeah, because you and I willhave the same experience, but
you see it a whole different wayand I'm like wait, you see it
that way.
I see it this way, right?
So, obviously, start to descend, start to go deeper and deeper
(46:09):
and you'll find that little partof you that is scared to be
alone.
And we, we touched on itbriefly.
Yes, we're looking at familydynamics, we're looking at
family of origin, but you didshed light on that, so I do want
to bring this up.
This is kind of.
This can go down in legacies,man.
I mean it could go into great,great, great grandparents.
(46:31):
And if you understand the manylayers of the word that I use
and this is where my training alot comes from is trauma.
Think of humanity itself, rightFrom religious prosecution to
racism, to the Great Depressionto women who are not allowed to
vote.
I mean, those are going to betraumatic on whoever is
experiencing that and that willhave an effect guaranteed on
(46:55):
that generation.
And that's why I think it isimportant for us, in our
responsibility in this lifetime,to show up, to show up and do
the work, to look at that and doso we can change that.
We are there's.
All of us have thatself-responsibility.
Yes, if we want a differentworld.
If we want a different thing,whatever want, it is your
(47:18):
responsibility to be part ofthat solution, not part of the
problem.
Speaker 2 (47:22):
Correct.
Yeah, transgenerational trauma,yeah, it's like.
I mean, from the beginning oftime, for eons, people are.
You know if someone isexperiencing all the things
we're talking about, but wedon't have the language for it
or we don't have the motivationto figure out what it is, and
we're just operating on thatsense of autopilot.
We're just there's a manuscriptand we're just passing it down
(47:43):
from generation to generationhere.
This is how you be, this is howyou exist, right, and so that's
.
You.
Couldn't have said it better, Ithink you know, if I had to, I,
I like to ponder a lot, I getvery existential and I and I
like to think a lot about, likeyou know what, what is the
meaning of life and why are wehere and what is our purpose?
And if I had to nail it down towhat I believe to be like one
(48:04):
core true purpose that every oneof us has, it's exactly what
you just said.
It's how can I make something alittle bit better than it was
before I got here?
How can I make the world alittle bit better of a place?
How can I break some of thosetransgenerational curses and
traumas that have just beenpassed down from family unit to
family unit over the course ofall time, right, and so you know
(48:25):
you can't, you have to havethese conversations and you have
to do that self-work, likethat's.
You know people think ofaddiction as like.
As you said, it's like there'sstigmas around it and it's like
a sign of weakness or, myfavorite, it's like, well, just
can't, you just say no, right,and it's like you'll never
understand what it's like fromthe inner workings of struggling
(48:45):
with, you know, a constantcraving or obsession for
something, if you think there'sjust an on off switch for it.
But you know what's sofascinating to me about that?
Number one is that, as anaddict, I I now recognize that I
have the ability where we aredealing every day with a beast
inside of us that we have tocontain.
It's our choice, but we don'tknow that that's a choice we
(49:08):
think of.
These behaviors are allautomatic for a long time, right
, and so I've kind of come tounderstand.
Okay, wait, I recognize what'sbeen going on in my life, what
my parents experienced, what myparents' parents experienced,
and how that's now all beentransferred down to me.
I have a choice, though I cando something different with it.
I don't have to just take itall and turn around and pass it
(49:30):
to the next person in line,right?
I have, like you said, almost amoral duty or a civil
obligation to try and breakthose transgenerational curses,
right?
So, you know, what I like tosay oftentimes is that, but
having these conversations andgetting that out in the open,
you know, there's a phrase thatI heard once that reminds me of
(49:53):
every time I have thisconversation is you know, we
can't heal, we don't reveal.
So if we don't know, somethingis there.
You know, it's like the firstthing.
What do they say?
The first step in solving anyproblem is understanding.
There is one right these arejust like a little collection of
all these little problems thatwe've piled up inside of us that
we don't know we've ever had.
So, obviously, step one is todo the searching, it is to do
(50:15):
the seeking, it is to go inward,which is going to be some of
the hardest work we've ever hadto do.
Right, because knowledge is notthe solution.
Knowledge is just sort of thefoundation or the baseline of
knowing what we need to do inorder to create that world for
ourselves.
And, you know, it's probablywhy Nike is one of my favorite
brands of all time because theyfigured it out like just do it
(50:36):
Right, there's a majordifference.
Action based Action, yeah, allaction.
Just do it.
There's a huge differencebetween the world that we can
construct and live within in ourmind's eye and our imagination
in our brain, versus what we doto actually create a tangible
result in the physical realm.
Right, two very differentthings, right?
So it's like you know, for me,step one is kind of
(50:57):
understanding it.
We obviously have to do that,which we're never going to do if
we can't talk about it.
And now step two is okay we'vebeen able to identify these
things.
Now what are we going to doabout it?
Like that's the, that's themeat and potatoes of it.
Speaker 1 (51:10):
Yeah, that's yeah, man, well said.
And that's why it's importantthat us and if it's men or
whatever gathering you'resitting at is we have these type
of discussions, because I thinkit's with it.
That's why I love my groupdynamics, I have to tell you,
because you and I are havingthis discussion right and you're
just talking about yours anddad and mom and those kind of
(51:30):
those dynamics you grew up with.
Little timmy over here on theside is like wait a minute, wait
, that's not normal yes, yeah,yeah, little timmy didn't know
that that's not normal, like ohI thought that was perfectly
fine to be like, whatever youknow, whatever the choice, yep,
and the power lives, and thenyou see the awakening, and
speaking to that we we've beentalking, and one of the
(51:51):
expressions that I really loveis when do we not see our shadow
is when we're standing in thedark.
When do you see your shadow?
when there's light peeringthrough and what I have found is
in in these, you know healing,whether it's the rooms of
recovery, support therapy,whatever you're doing, you are,
you're creating a sliver oflight into the darkness.
(52:12):
Now, the more that you keepgoing on this path, you start to
widen the light.
So now you see more shadows andmore shadows, but it's the best
work I've ever done.
I mean, I've kind of flippedand I think I kind of hear the
excitement in yours.
It's like painful, yes, scary,yes, sad, yes, all of that.
(52:36):
And how exciting because I'mgrowing and I'm learning and I'm
evolving and I'm changing.
And from that place that pebblehits that pond and it ripples
and now you share this with yourbuddy and your buddy gets to
feel like how do you do that?
Show me.
Speaker 2 (52:56):
And then the wider and the stranger at the market.
Right, it just it could beanywhere.
It can literally be anywhere.
Speaker 1 (53:01):
It just keeps yep, it just keeps doing that anything
yeah I mean again, it doesn'thave to just be recovery, just
about little little gems we passto each other.
That just kind of creates thatlittle bit of light in maybe the
other person's eyes.
That wasn't there a second agoand that is making a change.
So yes, look, if you want to goglobal, we need it.
(53:22):
Right Like go global, go bigright.
Speaker 2 (53:24):
I love that Right right.
Speaker 1 (53:25):
Just like, even in conversations like this, the
people you cross paths withshared stuff time with, how do I
leave that conversation?
How do I leave that?
And again, it's not that it hasto be perfect.
So if it's not perfect, how dowe come back and repair it?
How do we take responsibility?
That in itself accountability.
When you start throwing thatlanguage at people and you're
like, wow, that's mine, nojustifications, no recommit, I'm
(53:49):
you know and own it, withoutlike going into the well, the
ufo's under my backyard, andthat's the reason why?
and I'm gonna duct it in thetraffic and the snow that came
down in la.
It was like nobody gives a shitabout all the reasons why.
Yeah, and let's keep it moving.
Speaker 2 (54:05):
Own and recommit yeah , that and that takes god.
We could probably have thisconversation I think we're gonna
have to.
I don't know, but yeah, yeah, soit might be, I know no, no, no,
maybe we'll close it off andwe'll have a 2.0 version, but
you know that takes everythingyou just described.
There's a couple things that inmy head that I captured.
I wanted to highlight that youwere talking about.
That takes a certain level ofvulnerability.
(54:29):
That that's a big one, right?
Vulnerability is another wordthat I think, especially in the
male culture, within themasculine culture, is a word
that is not looked on in aparticularly positive way.
We associate it with beingvulnerable.
What are all the things we say?
You're being a sissy, you're agirl, whatever it is, we just
immediately assume that's like afeminine trait, right?
(54:51):
No, there's nothing stronger,in my opinion, than to
completely divulge all of whoyou are to the world, without
zero regard for what anyone'sgoing to think or say back.
That takes uh to, to show thetrue form of yourself and
completely disregard whatanyone's going to have to think
(55:11):
or say about it takes an immenseI mean some of the strongest
willpower that you can everimagine.
It's like, you know.
That's why, in recovery, a lotof times when people say like,
oh, you're weak, make no mistakeif you're an addict out there
and you're listening to thisright now, I promise you every
minute that you try to perseverethrough that disease, through
(55:31):
your addiction.
That is the most courageous andstrongest thing anyone could
ever, ever, ever do, right?
So, number one, it's like wehave to peel back some of these,
these misnomers, thesemisconceptions, the stereotypes
or the stigmas, like you said.
So it takes a lot ofvulnerability and, you know, as
you were talking, there was acouple of things.
I'm going to keep feeding offthe light analogy because I
(55:53):
think we're cruising with that,right yeah.
And so you know I was.
I was applying for my master's,which I didn't end up getting.
But I wanted to pursue a careerin therapy and so I was
applying for my master's and Iwas stuck on the application
process for weeks and weeks, andweeks and I couldn't figure out
how to close my missionstatement.
(56:15):
Every time I would sit down, myfingers would just freeze and
lock up, my brain would just goblank and I just didn't know
what to say in this final partand I'm coming up on the
deadline.
I mean it's days away and, mindyou, at this time I was pretty
active in my, you know, prettyheavy in my active using right.
But I decided one day you knowI can't sit at the computer
(56:36):
anymore and I went downstairsand I turned on Netflix and I
just picked some random show andsome random episode that
someone had told me to watchbefore.
And you know there was a quote.
It was an interview between twopeople.
There was a quote, it was aninterview between two people and
(57:06):
one of the gentlemen on theinterview had asked what do you
think is the purpose of life?
Touched on that a little bitago and you know your idea of,
like this spreading of the well.
I don't know if anyone knowswhat the true meaning or purpose
of life is, but I can tell youthat I've heard what I believe
to be the closest explanationfor it, and I believe he said
that he was quoting Beethoven,and this quote has stuck with me
ever since it goes the purposeof life is to get closer to the
(57:27):
divine than any man before, andthen to disseminate the divine
rays amongst the rest of mankindand I just remember thinking
that I had to, like, say it overand over and over in my head to
even get it, because I'm like Iknow I understand it, but that
sounds so complicated.
Wait, hold on, I'm just likeit's like a tape, I'm replaying
it over and over again in myhead and then I realized, wait,
(57:49):
no, that's actually quite simpleto understand.
Whatever your divine is right,we're all going to have a
different understanding of thedivine to us.
But whatever our divine is, ifwe can spend our life's mission
and purpose, our dedication togetting as close to that thing
as we possibly can, and then,rather than keeping it to
ourselves, turning around andsharing it with everyone else
(58:11):
that we can imagine, if everysingle person on the earth did
that, it quite literally wouldbe a matter of every single
person just being their own formof light and wherever they go,
they're illuminating that pathfor someone else along the way.
And you know, call me ahopeless romantic or an optimist
or whatever, but if enough, ifwe did that long enough over a
(58:33):
long enough period of time, wewould accomplish, you know, like
in the Kabbalah when it talksabout light being like the
ultimate source, we wouldaccomplish that.
It's, it's a, it's a, it's abinary fact.
There's no way around the factthat everyone just exhibited
that behavior and they made thattheir life's mission.
We would just touch everythingand everyone in the world and we
would just be this one,completely connected unison
(58:55):
being.
And I, you know, to me, eversince I heard that, that was
definitely what I have come tounderstand.
Even just a conversation likethis, you know, it's like that's
what I've kind of understood,my, it's my purpose.
That's why, when you asked meI'm where, do I sign like I, you
know I, I'm I love to havethese types of conversations,
you know?
Speaker 1 (59:14):
yeah, thank you, yeah , no, that was a beautiful image
and I, I don't even.
I think we're gonna have to goahead and continue to have more
of these episodes, because therewas so many.
That's why this one was reallyunscripted guys.
Speaker 2 (59:26):
There was really no plan.
Speaker 1 (59:27):
I'm like eric, let's just talk and and get it on tape
.
I love it because the way thatwe kind of piggyback off and
take that concept and run withit over, there and I'm gonna run
with it over there like thesesub genres.
Yeah, yeah, and I think there'sthis beauty and this poetry that
lives in there, there's arhythm that lives in there, and
(59:47):
that's what I really love is,sometimes, you know what, maybe
we just don't need to bescripted, let's just get here
and let's just talk about ourown and we we could definitely
dive more into this.
It was a great starting pointand we could probably make
there's probably 10 topics withthis and then we can actually
run with.
But when I edit, I'm about toput all that together.
Um, yeah, but where you leftoff, I think, is a perfect place
(01:00:11):
.
How can we be that light, howcan we spread that light and
100% taking that image with youas you walk through your dailies
and the relationships that youwalk into or the people that you
see?
Speaker 2 (01:00:25):
Yep, everything you do, right.
If you're just exuding thatlight everywhere you go, I mean
it's impossible.
Light always wins, right.
It's just.
If you do it, if you're justexuding that light everywhere
you go, I mean it's impossible.
Light always wins, right.
It's like scientific fact thatif there's darkness and you flip
on a light, the light's goingto win every time.
So I just kind of think thatthat's you know.
If for me it's become this humanconnection, these conversations
(01:00:46):
, this gaining awareness of selfand understanding and you, and
to be able to materialize thatinto something that I feel I've
now had a sense of purposetowards which I didn't really
have my entire life prior to now.
There is something tangiblewhich, for me, the vehicle or
the vessel by which I'm choosingto accomplish that is by
helping other people whostruggle with addiction, because
(01:01:08):
that is something that now Iknow.
If you would have asked me ayear and a half ago, like I said
earlier, why me and I have twosisters, which, again, I'm all
women too right, we must've beensurrounded by mostly women,
which is why we have that, that,that the both elements.
But you know it's a lot of thewhy me?
Why me?
Why me, why me Not.
Why not my sisters?
Why was my dad not an addict?
(01:01:28):
But my mom was, and I was theonly one in the family who seems
to have gotten, you know, beenstuck with this, this shitty
disease.
And now you fast forward to ayear and a half later and it's
like you couldn't take myaddiction away from me.
If you tried, like I woulddefend it with my life, you know
.
And so if, if there's anypossibility of moving the needle
in just an iota of a directioncloser to someone else being
(01:01:51):
able to accomplish the samething I've done.
I feel like I've lived my, mylife's purpose, I've done my
part.
So, you know, beautiful, hugefor you having me on this, I
just I can't thank you enough,man from a group to here to like
talking man, but I love to saywelcome home, traveler.
Speaker 1 (01:02:08):
You come a far way to get here welcome my friend.
Speaker 2 (01:02:11):
Yeah, I feel very home I love it.
Speaker 1 (01:02:14):
Um, anyway, we will.
Thanks everybody who's beenlistening.
Again, this is man and caved.
I am shane.
This is my good friend, eric.
I'm so glad to have you, man.
I really did.
I just love your wide lens, Ilove energy.
I love your enthusiasm for thiswork and I'm so excited to have
you.
And I definitely want to haveyou again because, like I said
(01:02:37):
we can piggyback on like 10 ofthose topics, but I don't know
if I can keep our listenersgoing for two hours.
Speaker 2 (01:02:43):
So you know that's okay, we will be having many
conversations Just unscriptedand we'll talk more about that.
Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
But um anyway.
Speaker 2 (01:02:51):
So this is again.
Speaker 1 (01:02:52):
My name is shane.
This is man uncaved.
We need to come out of hiding.
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