Episode Transcript
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Carl Fessenden (00:01):
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to become better people and livehealthier lives.
Alright, and welcome to thedrunken Warren podcast. My name
is Carl, the host and creator ofthis show. And I want to welcome
(01:29):
everybody to Episode 32. I'mgoing to be switching it up on
you guys. Today we're going tobe doing a little update for the
podcast. And we're also going tobe talking about a recovery
checklist. There are no guestson tonight's show. But I want to
hope that everybody is outthere, have a great day, maybe
you're on the treadmill, maybeyou're at the gym, maybe you're
(01:50):
at home listening to the show, Iwant to thank you very much for
taking the time tonight, ortoday and listening to this
podcast. All of you arewonderful. And I really
appreciate the support that youguys have given me. I also want
to remind you that if you wouldlike to subscribe to this show,
(02:11):
please go ahead onto yourfavorite streaming app, and hit
the Follow button. If you'd alsolike to give us a rating and let
us know how we're doing. Thatwould be very helpful. You know,
we put these episodes out and weput all of our content out. And
a lot of times, we have no wayof knowing other than just pure
download stats from ourproviders, how you guys are
(02:34):
enjoying the episodes if you'regetting anything out of them. So
please send us a message, let usknow how we're doing. You can
also visit our website at thedrunken worm podcast calm. And
there we have a message areathat you can leave us a message
it will send me an email, and Ido my best to try to get back to
those people with emails. Also,if you'd like to find us on
(02:56):
Facebook, we're listed there aswell. And also Instagram. So
please follow us on the socialmedia links. I currently host
the podcast on Facebook throughthe recovery revolution live
Facebook page, and that'srecovery revolution 100. And
there you can listen toepisodes, if you're on Facebook
(03:18):
is well. And we also have ourPatreon site, if you guys would
like to go there. And I havelinks for all of these sites and
services and everything elsethat we do on each episode in
the show notes. So if you'rewondering, how do I get to that,
or oh, shoot, I forgot what thatwas. He said, Go to the
shownotes. The links areclickable there and it will take
(03:40):
you directly to what you'relooking for. So like I said,
Today, I wanted to give you guysan update on how I'm doing how
the podcast is doing. Thepodcast is growing tremendously.
And I'm on my app right now. AndI use a service called bus
route. And, you know, we're onepisode 32. And I have all the
(04:05):
way up to episode 47 mapped outfor the show right now. So we
have a lot of great contentcoming up for you guys. I don't
want to give any spoilersbecause sometimes things change.
And I did that in the verybeginning. And I was like man,
okay, I'm going to give them allthe updates and and let you guys
know what's going on. But what Ifound out was as soon as I
(04:27):
started doing that, people werechanging the schedule. And then
I was like oh crap, I just saidthere, this person was going to
be on the show. And now it'sgoing to be something else. So
I'm trying not to give out toomany advanced notices on who's
going to be coming up. But we dohave a lot of great content
lined up for you guys for thisyear. And we are about a little
(04:52):
more halfway through with ourfirst season and the way that
I'm measuring the seasons andyou guys will see this now when
you look at The episodes andyour on your streaming apps is
that for one year, that'll beone season. So I have the
opportunity of putting 5252episodes out for that season. I
think we're gonna have 51episodes this season. So, you
(05:15):
know, we're getting a little bitpast our halfway mark for the
season. Very exciting. A lot ofsupport from the community. We
just heard last week, John Youngfrom 95, three KYC was hon. John
and I had a really good episode,if you didn't get a chance to
listen to that one, please takea listen to it. It was actually
(05:37):
probably right. As of right now,that was probably one of my top
favorite episodes to record,just from a personal standpoint,
being able to work with John andKYC radio, when I was in the
midst of my addiction, and nowgetting a chance to work with
him again, so a lot of excitingstuff going on. Also, if you
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don't know I am a certifiedalcohol and drug counselor. I
work as a clinical supervisorfor a company called the House
of x in Vallejo, California. AndI got into the addiction field
because I wanted to help people.
And I had this calling that wasinside of inside of me and a lot
of people experienced thiscalling when they first get
(06:21):
sober. I can't tell you how manypeople that I treat that say, Oh
man, I want to be an addictionscounselor, just like you are I
want to go through and I want todo that just like you did. And
what we're finding is that, youknow, a lot of people will set
forth and do this, but there'soften not a lot of follow
through. And it's sad to saythat, but it is true. You know,
(06:42):
I don't like to sugarcoat thingsfor you guys and say, Oh, it's
all gonna be better. And theneverything else no recovery is
one of the hardest things thatI've had to work on in my life.
And I've seen others working ontheir recovery. And it has also
been just as hard. So that's whyI want to do an episode like I'm
doing today we're going to betalking about a recovery
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checklist. And the informationthat I'm getting from is Sam
SMA. And I always mispronouncethat one at Sam SMA. I don't
know how to pronounce it. Butthey are the substance abuse
conglomerate of the government.
And they put out a ton ofpublications. And one of the
publications we use in ourtreatment centers is called the
(07:25):
matrix. It is for outpatienttreatment. And so we're going to
be talking a little bit aboutthat. One of the things that I
did want to mention to you likeI said, I'm a substance abuse
counselor, I am now a certifiedsubstance abuse counselor. And
you might think to yourself,well, Carl, what does a
certified Substance AbuseCounselor mean? Versus i a non
certified substance abusecounselor? Well, what it means
(07:47):
is that I have gone through anddone 37 semester units at
Woodland Community College. Andthere's other colleges out there
that people can go to there'sthe private pay colleges, like
your online colleges and thingslike that. Then you also have
your community colleges like Idid, and you have different
(08:08):
routes you can go, I chose to dothe certificate route, because I
wanted to get into the field andwork in the field sooner rather
than later. So that was a routeI took, I have not done my
general education yet. Andthat's something that I'm
working on right now. So as asubstance abuse counselor, you
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can start working in the field.
There are different certifyingboards and agencies out there
that will allow you to get ageneral registration. And with
that general registration, theyhave some stipulations. They say
that you have to be enrolled inschool, or you have to be doing
an internship or you've alreadycompleted your school an
(08:51):
internship, and you're workingon your hours. So what this does
is it allows people that areworking in the treatment
industry or the treatment fieldto start their career paths. And
with this career path, now wecan start to see, okay, how do I
get my certification? And whatdoes that mean to me? So, when
(09:13):
we look at the different facetsof the Career Counselor, the
registration portion is thefirst one that people are going
to do. You have to complete acertain amount of credits at
school, you have to complete Ithink it's 320 hours of an
internship. And then you on topof that you have to have a total
(09:37):
of 3000 hours of clinicalexperience.
And this is a highly documentedprocess, you know, so when I
started my documentation, ittook about six months to get all
the documentation cleared andapproved and everything else and
(09:57):
then you are now allowed To takean exam, the exam that I took
was through a company called ICand RC, which is the
International accrediting andreciprocity company. And they
offer a testing packet that youcan also have attached to your
(10:20):
credential at the end, sayingthat you are now able to work
internationally. So I see NRC asone of the biggest tests that
you can take for this field. Andit is recognized that if you
complete a certain amount ofhours after you test now we can
have the internationalattachment put onto your
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credentials. So recently, thepast couple weeks ago, I did
take my exam, there was a lot ofthings that happened in between
the time that I completed mypacket, to the time that I was
going to take my first exam. Andone of the things that did
happen to me, unfortunately, wasthat I can track to COVID. And I
(11:02):
can track to COVID, on the daythat I was supposed to go in and
test. So you know, there was alot of steps that I had to take
to get the exam rescheduled toget everything approved by the
certifying board and by thetesting company, and then by IC
and RC. But everything got takencare of, you know, there were
some letters that had to bewritten, explaining the
(11:24):
situation, but you know,everything was approved, so I
was allowed to go and take mytest. And great news guys, I
passed my test this is well, youknow, this is checking off. One
of those boxes that I've set formyself when I came into recovery
is that I wanted to become acertified alcohol and drug
counselor. Now I'm very pleasedto say that I am able to call
(11:47):
myself one of those versus aregistered alcohol and drug
technician who is working ontheir hours to get into the
counseling profession. Now I wasworking as a counselor during
that time, I carried a caseload.
I saw clients, I wrote treatmentplans, I assisted with
understanding the diagnosis thatwould come down from other
(12:08):
professionals. As a counselor,we are not able to diagnose that
is not part of our jobdescription. We do not diagnose,
what we can do is we can doassessments. And then we send
all those assessments over toanother person, usually an L
PHA, or a physician or apsychologist or psychiatrist.
(12:29):
And then they are able to makethe diagnosis of whether or not
that person has a substance usedisorder, and what that
substance use disorder lookslike. And the severity of the
substance use disorder. Thereare a lot of different substance
use disorders out there that wedeal with on a daily basis. It's
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not just that you have asubstance use disorder. And then
there's also differentseverities, mild, moderate and
severe. And depending on howmany boxes you check off on the
person that is doing theassessment, you know, they say,
Okay, have you experienced thiswithin a 12 month period? Have
you experienced this within the12 month period. And depending
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on how many things that theycheck off when they're going
through the assessment withthem, it can raise or lower the
severity of the substance usedisorder. Or they might not even
have a substance use disorder.
They might be a casual personthat does alcohol or drugs. And
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in that case, what do we do withthem. So there's a lot of
different facets to thecounseling and clinical world of
substance use treatmentsubstance disorder treatment.
And so I wanted to kind of giveyou guys an idea of what it is
that, you know, if you know thatsomebody has gone into rehab, or
(13:54):
maybe you've gone into rehabyourself, there's a lot of
different things we have to takeinto consideration during that
person to stay in treatment. Notonly are we treating them for
substance use disorder, butwe're also getting them ready to
go back out and be a productivemember of the community. So one
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of the things I really work withmy clients with is a recovery
checklist. So you're probablythinking to yourself, well, what
could a recovery checklist mean?
So think about that. What does achecklist mean to you?
When you think about a list,what is a list mean? What a list
(14:36):
means that we are going to bewriting something down, or we
have something that's alreadywritten down for us to remind us
of things that we need to do orgoals that we need to
accomplish. So a recoverychecklist is just that it is a
written list of things we needto accomplish or goals that we
(14:57):
want to accomplish or remindknow that, hey, maybe we need to
go see a doctor every sixmonths. Or maybe we need to see
a physician once a year, if yourhealth is good. Most people
coming into recovery, though,they have shied away from seeing
physicians, I didn't see myphysician for the longest time.
(15:18):
And the reason for that was thatI was scared. I was scared of
what they might tell me. Or Iwas scared that they might find
out that I was using drugs.
Because I didn't want to stopusing drugs at that point. My
fear was that, you know, therewere going to be ramifications.
Or they were going to tell me Ihad to stop. And then we're
(15:40):
going to say, Well, you got togo to treatment. For myself,
going to the doctor was a scarythought. I only went to the
doctor, if I thought I waseither, you know, in a life
threatening situation. Andtowards the end of my addiction,
there were a lot of lifethreatening situations out there
for me, I had pneumonia, andthen I got congestive heart
(16:03):
failure. And it wasn't until thedoctor told me that Hey, dude,
you got to get your ass to thehospital, or we're gonna take
you to the hospital. That kindof put it into perspective. But
if you've heard on otherepisodes that you've heard me
talk about this, you know, thiswas an answer to my prayer.
Because up to that point, I hadbeen asking God a very one sided
relationship, how do I stopusing? How can I stop using and
(16:27):
so this was what I feel, are myrelationship with God now? This
is what I feel his response was,and his answer to me was, go to
the hospital. And I was tellingmy boss said this the other day,
(16:48):
and I told him, I said, youknow, when I got into that
hospital bed, man, it was like,I knew I had to be honest, for
once in my life, I had to starttelling the truth about my
addiction. Because, you know, itjust, I was tired of running
from it. I was tired of hiding,I was tired of, of doing all
(17:10):
these things that just were, youknow, so fucked up. And the the
masks, I've talked about themasks, before I spoke at a
meeting, I talked about all ofthese masks that I had to wear,
because I was trying to conformto different populations that I
was putting myself into, anddifferent people that I was
(17:32):
associating myself with, and themasks have to go. So the first
thing on my recovery checklist,guys is going to be self care.
What are we doing today forourselves? If you guys have a
pen and paper, please writethese things down. I'm going to
try to put them in the shownotes, the show notes are a
(17:53):
little bit limited on how muchspace I have in there. But I'll
do some bullet points in therefor you guys. So that you have
you know, these things, if youwant to write them down, that
would be great. There are alsoother downloads you can find out
on the internet, you know, youcan type in a recovery
checklist. And I'm sure a lot ofstuff will come up that you
(18:14):
could download. But if you'relike me, I like to have
something tangible in my hand.
You know, I make a lot of listsand everything else on my
iPhone, I have a lot of thingson there that I do. Because I'm
more inclined to actually do achecklist if it's on a piece of
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paper. And maybe that's, youknow, I'm giving my age away a
little bit. And that's just howI was raised, you know, before
computers and all of thistechnology that it's here to
assist us. And I try to use thattechnology to the best of my
ability. But a lot of times Ifind comfort in being able to
write something down, and thecomfort in actually putting a
(18:57):
check next to something when Iwhen I do it. So let's talk a
little bit about self care. Whatdoes self care look like to you?
What does it look like? How areyou improving on yourself? For
me, self care means somethingthat I'm trying to do, either on
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a daily basis, on a weeklybasis, on a monthly basis, every
six months, maybe every year.
So what are we doing for selfcare? And why is self care so
important for people inrecovery, people with mental
health issues, and just peoplein general? Why is it so
(19:45):
important? Well, I'm going totell you why it's important. It
is important because we need tobe able to relax, we need to be
able to know that we have theseoutlets other than using Other
than falling into an addiction,and I'm not just talking about a
chemical addiction, we couldhave a food addiction, we could
(20:06):
have a porn addiction, we couldhave a shopping addiction, we
could have a sex addiction, wecould have a gambling addiction,
it's not just a substance useaddiction. There are so many
other addictions out there. Andour world is just fostering
these addictions becauseeverything is so readily
available for us. So self carefor me, and these are some of
(20:30):
the notes that I wrote down onthe show notes was go to your
doctor on a regular basis, starthaving that conversation with
them. Having a betterunderstanding about your health
in your medical history. Go inand have bloodwork done. Check
for STDs, you know, have all ofyour your blood workups done.
(20:56):
And when you go and see thatdoctor, be honest and tell them
Hey, Doc, dude, I haven't seen adoctor in this amount of time.
And I'm really scared because Ihaven't had blood work done in
so long. I guarantee you thatdoctor is gonna say great, we're
going to do every possible testwe can. Depending on your age,
(21:19):
you might have some more testsdone, versus maybe somebody
that's older, younger, but it'sokay. So check up with your
doctor. And before you leavethat appointment, talk to them
about scheduling your nextcheckup. When does that need to
be and see if you can get it onthe books before you leave that
(21:43):
doctor's office and then put itin your scheduling book or your
phone or wherever you keep yourschedule. Keep a schedule, it is
so important, especially ifyou're in early recovery. It is
so important to keep a scheduleand to learn that time
management skill. Let a lot ofus lack because we just didn't
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take the time no pun intended tocare about being on time. My
theory was and my addiction.
Shit, man. I'm always on time.
All of you people are eitherlate or early. And that's your
fault. So starting with healthyhabits. The next one I want to
(22:31):
talk about is eating healthy.
This was a big one for me, man.
Like I oh my god, I used to eatthe worst things. Dude, I used
to eat. Oh my goodness, I usedto eat ice cream, like a huge
bowl of ice cream. It's so goodto man. I can just I can taste
it today. And I used to put likethe biggest scoop of peanut
(22:54):
butter in the bottom of thebowl. And then I would stack ice
cream on top of that peanutbutter. And then I put chocolate
sauce. And if I was reallyfeeling, you know bougie I would
put peanut m&ms on that pitch.
Yes, Iwould. Pan It was so good too.
Damn it. But is that healthy?
(23:20):
Eating my feelings away eatingice cream because I wanted to
try to go to sleep because I washigh.
That's not healthy, and theamounts that I was eating too.
And it was just awful. So eatinghealthy. Talk to your doctor,
taking it back to the doctor,talk to them about a diet, talk
(23:40):
to them about your eatinghabits, see if they can give you
a referral. And this is wherethe medical system works, right?
If your doctor can't answer thequestions for you, they do what
is called a referral. See if hecan get a referral over to
somebody, a nutritionist or alife coach. See if as part of
your coverage with your medicalcare plan. Even if you're on
(24:03):
medical, Obamacare, Medicaid, orstate disability insurance, see
what is out there for you toutilize. You guys are paying for
it or we're paying for it foryou. But use those services.
It's so important. So eatinghealthy learning about
(24:25):
nutrition, learning how to reada nutritional label on the back
of a product making healthychoices. The next thing I want
to talk about is hobbies. Oh mygosh, hobbies hobbies are so
good to have one of my hobbiesright now. Believe it or not is
(24:47):
podcasting. I mean, you guyslisten to my episodes once a
week and and you know I I hopethat I would like to think and
I've been told by others that Iput out very professional
content And it always makes mesmile when I hear people are
learning and getting things fromthese episodes that that I put
(25:08):
out for the drunken wormpodcast. But find a hobby. One
of my other hobbies is takingphotography, you know, I take
pictures. And I love that. And Igot into a photography club. And
what we would do is we would goaround and we would enter
contest local contests. Likehere in Solano County, we have
the Dixon Mayfair, and they havea huge photography contest. I've
(25:31):
learned that like three or fourtimes, man, and I've won a lot
in that, you know, so find ahobby that you like to do
photography, I also love scubadiving, you know. But the
problem with hobbies, though,sometimes is that they cost
money. So if you're thinkingabout a hobby that you like to
do, and you don't have a lot ofmoney, because maybe you're an
(25:52):
early recovery, and you're like,Fuck, man, I just got out of
rehab. But I want to get intosomething. Well, why don't you
combine two things, our nextone's going to be exercise. So
let's say that you likeexercise, and you want to have a
hobby, well maybe take up hikingor take up was that Gio? Oh,
(26:15):
it's a new hobby? Well, I don'tthink it's really new. But you
can get this app on your phoneand I have it on my phone. In
fact, I'm looking for right nowas we go through this. And I'm
going off the notes, guys. Thisis not on my show notes. So I'm
going to be talking while I talkabout this and and look for it.
But it's it's called geo mappingor what is this called, I don't
(26:38):
even have my glasses on Holycrap. This is so basically it's
like a treasure hunt. And it iscalled geo caches, geo caches.
And the geocache is like alittle treasure hunt that you
do. And you have to get outaside and you have to walk
(27:00):
around and you follow a map andfollow clues and you try to find
a little treasure. I'll behonest with you, I downloaded
the app, I haven't used it yet.
But I have a lot of otherhobbies. And I was like, Oh,
that'd be fun to do sometime.
And I haven't done it. But youknow, that could be something
that you might want to get intogeocaching, and the app was
(27:21):
free. And they have a ton ofthese things out there. I mean,
I was just looking at my area,and I'm like, holy shit. I mean,
if there's money involved inhere, I could be a millionaire.
There's so many of these. Sohobbies or something else that
we can do. Okay. And again,we're talking about self care
here, guys, we're talking aboutways to take care of ourselves.
(27:46):
Let's shift topics a little bit.
And let's talk about us. Let'stalk about our thoughts, our
feelings, our behaviors.
Why are those important? Why isit important for me to
(28:06):
understand my thoughts? Why isit important for me to
understand my feelings?
And why is it important for meto understand how those two
things are linked to mybehaviors? So when you think
about your thoughts, feelingsand behaviors, because those
(28:26):
three items are so linkedtogether what do you what it
what is comes up for you? Mybehaviors now. And I just cost
us today. I love food. And Icaught my thoughts and feelings
(28:49):
before it turned into abehavior. And, you know, there
there was there was a littlemedical scare in my family. Just
very briefly, everybody is okay.
Nobody needs to worry.
Everyone's home. We're all fine.
But I had to take a familymember over to the ER. And when
I got back, I was hungry. But Ihad already eaten breakfast. So
(29:20):
I had to analyze that. And I hadto say, You know what?
Am I really hungry? or is thissome like what's going on? So
when we think about ourthoughts, feelings and
behaviors, we need to talk aboutthem with people. We need to
talk about why is it making usfeel this way? Why are we having
(29:42):
these behaviors? And how can wechange our behaviors? Because we
are all we are all going to havereaction to our thoughts and our
feelings. But it's how we actout on those thoughts and
feelings. That is either goingto be a positive or a negative
For a lot of us who suffer fromaddiction, and other mental
(30:04):
health disorders, a lot of timesthat behavior usually comes with
a negative consequence. And thatnegative consequences and always
something that will happen to usright away. But down the road,
we're going to experience thatnegative consequence. So what
(30:26):
can we do? We can talk toprofessionals. If you're in
treatment, right now, you cantalk to a treatment
professional, maybe yourcounselor, maybe you can talk to
other people in the group. Butwhat can we do? Talk to our
family and our friends. One ofthe things that I stayed away
(30:46):
from though, and I'll let youguys know this, when I came into
early recovery, I stayed awayfrom telling my mom and my dad,
when I would have a trigger, andI did this, because I was really
afraid that they would like Iwould lose ground with them. But
(31:06):
when I finally got to the pointwhere I could share this trigger
with them, it was so easy totell them, because my behaviors,
were showing them that I wasn'tslipping up my behaviors, or
(31:27):
showing them that I was able tocommunicate effectively with
them, tell them how I wasfeeling, tell them what I was
thinking. And then tell themwhat I was doing to change my
behavior, because my oldbehavior was to go use right or
to go eat ice cream, or to go onthis unhealthy rampage of making
(31:48):
cheese sandwiches in themicrowave. They're so good. But
my behaviors were directing mein a positive manner. And the
way that I dealt with them,because I had the support group
(32:09):
around me to talk about myfeelings and my thoughts and my
behaviors, by going to meetingsby talking to my sponsor, by
talking to my sponsee, brothersand sisters, you know, and doing
all of these things, and talkingto the people in my rehab and
talking to the people in mysupport groups, talking to the
people at school because I wasgoing to school, right? So I had
(32:30):
this huge support group. And itwas changing my behaviors for a
positive outcome. So if you'rethinking about how can I bring
up my thoughts and feelings andbehaviors, start with people
that maybe you can identifywith, start with a support group
outside of your family, if youfeel that maybe your family is
(32:53):
going to freak out, because youjust had a trigger, and they're
getting the car out of thegarage, and they're like, holy
shit, we got to take you back torehab. Know. We can make a
change for ourselves. But wehave to have that trust in other
people. And we have to be ableto talk to other people in a
(33:17):
positive meaningful manner. Anda lot of times we can find
refuge in people that we canhave relations with not personal
intimate relations, but withthat we can relate to right. So
find that person or that groupthat you feel comfortable
talking to. Alright, the nextthing I want to talk about is a
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support group of some sort. I'ma 12, stepper. I have a sponsor,
I have two sponsees. I go tomeetings on a regular basis. I
work a program of recovery, I doservice work, and I work out of
my step working guides. Sothat's what I'm doing with my
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recovery community. But there'sother communities out there. Say
maybe you have a community oryou have this idea that man, I
don't really like the concept ofGod, I'm uncomfortable with
that. There are other groups outthere where you can work a
program of recovery without theidea of God or having God or a
higher power or prayer put intothe whole picture.
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There's other groups out thereother than 12 Step groups and do
some research. But having thatcommunity outside of your family
and outside of your rehab groupis going to be so important,
because rehab is going to endright it's not a final
destination. This is merely astop along the way of your
journey. It is merely a stop.
And sometimes we have to getback on that bus and take that
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journey again. And that's okay.
Maybe you've done the rehabjourney 3456 789 10 I don't know
how many times, but it's okay,if that's happened. Because that
bus is always going to be therefor you, if you choose to get on
it. And every time you do, itgets a little bit easier to make
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that bus trip, it gets a littlebit easier to make those stops
along the way of your journey ofrecovery. The last thing I want
to talk about is people placesand things. Wow, these are so
important to identify Danger,danger and danger. Right? I
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mean, think about it. Like, Imean, how many times have you
heard the person at the meeting?
Talk about or maybe you've donethis yourself? Because I fucking
done it. Maybe you've gone in,you've like, Hey, man, how are
you doing? You know, seeingsomebody online or wanting to go
over to your buddy's house whoused to use with, and now you're
sober. And you're like, Man, I'mfeeling really good. And you go
over to their house. And thenthe next thing you know, the
(35:58):
drugs are out and you're like,Oh, should I go decision to make
I wasn't prepared for this. Iwasn't ready for this. So we
have to evaluate in earlyrecovery. When we come into a
situation. Who are weassociating ourselves with?
Where are we going when we'resober? What are the things that
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we're doing when we're sober? Mywhole thing when I got sober,
was that I wanted to have like abuddy with me at all times if I
went out. And that was great. Ihad my my friend from the
program. And he and I used to goeverywhere, man. And that really
showed me how to live a life ofsobriety, how to live a life
(36:38):
where I didn't have the urge touse anymore. And I get urges
every once in a while. I mean,I'm not gonna lie, they don't
really go away, at least not forme right now. Every once in a
while, but again, we're goingback to the behaviors are going
back to how we reacted to thoseurges. And those feelings now
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it's just like, they pass man.
It's like it's in and it's out.
Now I look at it, I'm like,Whoa, shit. That was Dallas.
Like, it might be fun. No, thankyou, right? All of these
different things that we have.
And we have the ability toevaluate who we're around the
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places we go in the things thatwe're doing. So make that
evaluation for yourself. Writedown a list of all the friends
that you know, all the placesyou want to go and hang out and
all the things you want to dowith those people. And then take
that to somebody you trust andhave them go over that list with
you. And I guarantee you,probably a few people on that
(37:44):
list are going to bequestionable. And that might be
hard because I've heard otherclients that have come in and
they say, Oh man, my brotherstill uses my love them so much.
I want to be able to see him atfamily events and stuff like
that. And it's really hard as acounselor to sit across to
somebody and use motivationalinterviewing and watching them
go through this process wherenow they're realizing that they
(38:06):
have to cut ties with thatperson until that person can be
safe to be around them. Not theother way around. But that
person can be safe to be aroundthe person that is considering
going and hanging out withsomebody that's still using our
stolen active addiction. Ormaybe somebody that shares
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codependent traits. codependencyis a huge one. I mean, so many
addicts you know, arecodependent on other people. And
it's really sad because theydon't even know that they're
codependent. So guys, thisepisode, I wanted to give the
update, I wanted to talk aboutthe recovery checklist. I hope
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that you've gotten somethingfrom this. I like sharing these
little tidbits. And I like doingthis type of thing with you guys
every once in a while. You know,like I said, you know, we've got
a lot of great content coming upfor you. Over the next few
months. I'm booked all the wayup to my 47th episode. And this
is episode 32. Solid you guys dothe math. I'm not a math major.
(39:13):
Otherwise I would throw a numberout at you. But again, I want to
thank everybody for listeningand I hope that you guys have
enjoyed it. And I look forwardto talking to you guys next
week.