Latest / State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast / #111 - She Tried to Rob a Bank. Then Got Her PhD. | Addiction, Codependency, Recovery & More with Dr. Sarah Michaud

Transcript

#111 - She Tried to Rob a Bank. Then Got Her PhD. | Addiction, Codependency, Recovery & More with Dr. Sarah Michaud · State Of Mind Mental Health Podcast

• 0:00
  You know, I tried to rob a bank one time when I was in college in Chicago to get money for a coke dealer that I had money to.
• 0:06
  I mean, that's a whole story in itself.
• 0:08
  I've been arrested a couple other times, but really that combination of
• 0:15
  needing to do drugs and then you're drinking and smoking tons of pot and taking Valium and everything to come down and that cycle, you know, then you're up for three days and you
• 0:25
  can't keep a job.
• 0:26
  My social connections are going darker and darker and darker and getting into more and more trouble.
• 0:32
  And I just kind of semi overdosed one night at a house.
• 0:36
  I woke up on the floor and bugs are crawling on me and I felt like I was losing my mind.
• 0:41
  And I basically
• 0:42
  I think just taken way too much of a bunch of different things.
• 0:46
  And I ended up in a psych hospital.
• 0:50
  Ironically, the same psych hospital I ended up working at 10 years later after I got my PhD.
• 0:55
  Hello, everybody.
• 0:56
  Welcome to the State of Mind podcast.
• 1:00
  Tools, stories and truth on being human.
• 1:04
  My name is Mike Strow, and this is a podcast for living with courage, clarity and compassion.
• 1:11
  On today's episode, I am speaking with Dr.
• 1:14
  Sarah Michaud.
• 1:16
  Hello, Sarah.
• 1:17
  Thank you so much for being here and for talking to me about your experience and wisdom and expertise.
• 1:23
  Can you please tell us a little bit about yourself?
• 1:26
  What brings you to this point in your life?
• 1:29
  Sure, Mike, thanks for having me.
• 1:31
  My name is Dr.
• 1:32
  Sarah Michaud.
• 1:33
  I'm a psychologist, but I've also been sober.
• 1:37
  I'm so old.
• 1:38
  I've been sober 42 years, and I'm 66.
• 1:43
  And in those 42 years of recovery, lots has happened.
• 1:48
  I guess I wrote a book on codependency.
• 1:50
  I do a little YouTube channel.
• 1:53
  And I'm really all about looking at
• 1:55
  You know, what's underneath addiction?
• 1:57
  What are some struggles we have when we put down the substance?
• 2:01
  What's it like to be a human being on the planet?
• 2:04
  How can we deal with our emotions?
• 2:06
  How can we deal with our relationships?
• 2:08
  All that stuff, things that we all deal with.
• 2:10
  How did you, so I guess you sobered up, well, I don't know, somewhat young.
• 2:16
  So what's that?
• 2:17
  Yeah, 24.
• 2:18
  How did you, how did that happen?
• 2:22
  How did you wave the white flag, I guess?
• 2:25
  Yeah.
• 2:26
  Yeah.
• 2:26
  mean, I thank God for the drugs.
• 2:28
  I mean, I always say that because in the eighties, cocaine was a huge thing.
• 2:33
  It's still a huge thing.
• 2:34
  ah But I started drinking, you know, early as a teenager.
• 2:41
  And then when I was about 18 or 19, I discovered cocaine.
• 2:46
  And that's when life really got colorful.
• 2:49
  because, and I thank God for this, drugs cost money.
• 2:52
  You have to start doing illegal things to get money and you start getting into a lot of trouble.
• 2:57
  So I have plenty of stories.
• 3:00
  You know, I tried to rob a bank one time when I was in college in Chicago to get money for a coke dealer that I had money to.
• 3:06
  I mean, that's a whole story in itself.
• 3:09
  I've been arrested a couple other times, but really that combination of
• 3:15
  needing to do drugs and then you're drinking and smoking tons of pot and taking Valium and everything to come down and that cycle, you know, then you're up for three days and you
• 3:25
  can't keep a job.
• 3:27
  My social connections are going darker and darker and darker and getting into more and more trouble.
• 3:33
  And I just kind of semi overdosed one night at a house.
• 3:37
  I woke up on the floor and bugs are crawling on me and I felt like I was losing my mind.
• 3:42
  And I basically
• 3:43
  I think just taken way too much of a bunch of different things.
• 3:47
  And I ended up in a psych hospital.
• 3:51
  Ironically, the same psych hospital I ended up working at 10 years later after I got my PhD.
• 3:58
  Yeah, so that was fun.
• 4:00
  ah But yeah, so I think that's why I got sober at 24 because you're getting into so much darkness and depression and trouble.
• 4:09
  Not that alcohol doesn't do that.
• 4:12
  ah But I think more quickly with the drugs.
• 4:16
  Yeah.
• 4:17
  Okay.
• 4:17
  So you ended up in, the psych ward and, how did you, how did those 10 years or how did you get, put the pieces back together?
• 4:29
  Yeah, I mean, I was someone who, and not everybody is like this.
• 4:33
  I just loved recovery.
• 4:36
  I mean, I got out of there.
• 4:39
  went to a halfway house for three months.
• 4:41
  I got a sober job at a print shop for like a year or two in Boston.
• 4:47
  And then I just felt my brain started clearing up and I felt like, man, I had tried college like four times.
• 4:54
  but I had dropped out for a variety of reasons.
• 4:57
  And uh so I really wanted to learn.
• 5:00
  So I went to UMass Boston and then I thought, you know what?
• 5:04
  I really want to help people.
• 5:06
  I'd been that type of person as a young kid.
• 5:10
  I did this thing as a junior in high school called Operation Crossroads Africa, which was this kind of Peace Corps thing.
• 5:18
  And it was in the Caribbean at these like poor islands.
• 5:21
  And so I knew kind of as a young kid, I wanted to be of service.
• 5:25
  I wanted to help people.
• 5:26
  thought I'd go into sociology, but then I ended up just because maybe of my own experience, one, it just got fascinated by the mind and people's behavior.
• 5:35
  So ended up in graduate school in California.
• 5:39
  The thing about recovery is this.
• 5:41
  was saying this to someone the other day.
• 5:43
  So when I was 10 years sober, I ended up in treatment and
• 5:48
  The reason I ended up in treatment is, so I got so, as a friend of mine once said, when you get sober, you rationalize and minimize and deny your substances, right?
• 6:01
  But we still have the thinking.
• 6:03
  So I'm going to get sober, and now I'm going to rationalize, deny, and minimize pretty much everything else.
• 6:09
  So I mean, you know, I...
• 6:12
  started getting into a bunch of relationships.
• 6:15
  I've had addictions to food.
• 6:16
  I had addictions to sex.
• 6:18
  I like spent money.
• 6:19
  I mean, I've done everything to escape from myself.
• 6:22
  And then achievement, you know, went to graduate school, got a PhD, was working, you know, a bunch of jobs and got busy.
• 6:30
  And, but I remember at one point in my recovery, I felt like something is wrong.
• 6:37
  And I had to be in therapy.
• 6:39
  I mean, I was in graduate school, you have to do therapy, but
• 6:42
  I felt like I was still looking for something to feel okay.
• 6:47
  And, you know, so that was manifesting in relationships, but I couldn't find peace.
• 6:54
  So I ended up going to a treatment center, actually up in Montreal.
• 6:58
  So I went to a place in Montreal on this lake and we kind of looked at a lot of that underlying stuff, you know, the childhood stuff that was still manifesting and behaviors
• 7:11
  that I was still doing that were getting in my way.
• 7:16
  I'd say I had some insights.
• 7:18
  remember being on psychoanalytic psychotherapy at the time.
• 7:22
  So insights are one thing, but behavior change is another.
• 7:26
  And it really wasn't until I got back here and started doing, I don't know, some different step work and workshops and really diving in to kind of fears, anger, shame, a lot of, and
• 7:42
  really looking at, geez, what happened?
• 7:46
  What are my behaviors now because of what happened?
• 7:49
  Really, which were all about staying safe.
• 7:52
  I mean, I don't pathologize all that stuff.
• 7:55
  I think we do things to feel safe.
• 7:56
  And then what's working and what's not.
• 7:59
  And you know, a lot of it came down to, and this sounds very simplistic, Mike, not being able to tolerate what's happening in my system.
• 8:10
  And...
• 8:10
  not tolerating it long enough to say, what is this about?
• 8:14
  What, what am I afraid of?
• 8:16
  And, know, I learned about, it wasn't really like fear of snakes, fear of bugs, fear.
• 8:23
  It was more of those interpersonal fears, fear of what you thought of me, fear of not being good enough, fear of abandonment, fear of not being loved, you know, all that stuff,
• 8:34
  fear of rejection, fear of someone getting mad.
• 8:37
  so I really did a deep dive on, you know, when those started, what was the belief system that happened because of that event?
• 8:47
  And then how have I lived out of that belief system?
• 8:50
  And now I can really stop and look, you know, they say pause, pray and proceed, right?
• 8:57
  So I can pause and take a look and not do the same behaviors most of the time.
• 9:02
  Yeah.
• 9:03
  Yeah.
• 9:05
  when I entered recovery, I did a lot of the 12 step stuff, but I also got into therapy and sort of mindfulness group, mindfulness programs, all that stuff.
• 9:19
  And there's so much overlap and with all these principles and tools and stuff, I guess, how do you see the steps?
• 9:31
  helping people and then how do you see more, I guess you would call it institutional or sort of therapeutic modalities helping people.
• 9:38
  You kind of just described some of that, but maybe a little more specific or in your experience kind of how those two things blended.
• 9:47
  It's really funny you say that about mindfulness because I remember doing the training with Jon Kabat-Zinn because he's at Worcester right near here, right?
• 9:55
  So I remember doing that stress training.
• 9:56
  And I also got really into reading Buddhism and Pemmichu.
• 10:02
  In fact, today, like literally for 40 years, I've been reading Comfortable with Uncertainty every day.
• 10:07
  I mean, that's like one of my favorite books.
• 10:09
  So I think with the mindfulness piece and the Buddhist piece, that was like
• 10:15
  has been part of my journey all along.
• 10:18
  The thing that changed my life is my thoughts are just thoughts.
• 10:22
  I mean, really that's so simple, but so many people in recovery or not in recovery believe their thinking.
• 10:31
  And that's the biggest mistake we can make.
• 10:34
  I mean, if I can embrace my thinking in a gentle manner and with literally I'm just like, I love humor.
• 10:43
  and just notice, I am 99 % ahead of most human beings because if you can have spaciousness around that, and a lot of my thoughts are just from the past.
• 10:54
  I don't know if you ever heard of the S training or the forum or Werner Erhart.
• 10:59
  He was this guy back in the eighties who did these like huge workshops of like 300 people in your inner room, like for three days.
• 11:09
  And like, you can only leave to pee.
• 11:11
  was like very,
• 11:11
  You
• 11:12
  You know, you were really confronting all your stuff, these like experiential workshops.
• 11:17
  And he used to say, what most people do is they take their past, they throw it into their future and they live into their past over and over again.
• 11:26
  And that really hit me because so much of what we do is unconscious.
• 11:32
  you know, for, I'll give you an example.
• 11:34
  So I saw a client once who had a fear of abandonment, right?
• 11:38
  This is very simplistic.
• 11:40
  had a fear of abandonment because his mother wasn't available, blah, blah, blah, I'll call it.
• 11:44
  And what he used to do is he'd get into relationships.
• 11:48
  He'd be very controlling and then he'd be abandoned.
• 11:52
  And so again, that's very simplistic, but out of his fear of abandonment, he would always hold on.
• 12:00
  He'd always ask her where she's going.
• 12:02
  He'd always be controlling.
• 12:03
  And he couldn't kind of acknowledge, wow, I'm, you know.
• 12:07
  Can we work out a system here?
• 12:09
  He was driven by the fear.
• 12:11
  um so he would become this controlling partner and then the people would leave him.
• 12:18
  So again, it's very simplistic, but it's a great example of how, and it's funny because Gabor Matei often says, it's not the fear of abandonment, it's really the fear of
• 12:30
  feelings.
• 12:31
  Because it's not really the abandonment, it's what I'm experiencing.
• 12:36
  yeah.
• 12:37
  of the abandonment.
• 12:38
  So it still goes back to the fear of having feelings, which I think, again, very simplistically is really 75 % of the battle.
• 12:49
  So you were asking the question about recovery and program and then other ways, you know, whether it's mindfulness or whatever people decide to use.
• 13:00
  The thing about the steps that I love is, and I don't think you have to believe in a God necessarily at all, but I do believe that this idea of letting go, listening to the voice
• 13:15
  inside of me, knowing I can't do it alone and that my self-reliance failed.
• 13:21
  And again, there's lots of theories about this and other people feel differently about the powerlessness thing.
• 13:27
  But,
• 13:28
  There's just something about surrendering and trusting that I think helps people who are trying to manage and figure it all out and do it all themselves.
• 13:40
  Because most people I've met in recovery are super smart, high, you know, they can function, they're gonna go back to school, they're gonna do this.
• 13:49
  And yet,
• 13:50
  That is get, fact, when I would see the doctors and the scientists and all, they would, they would come for two sessions and leave because you know what?
• 13:58
  I've got this.
• 14:00
  They were the worst.
• 14:02
  have an answer, right?
• 14:03
  To
• 14:04
  The thing about the 12 steps that, and this is going to be controversial, that I don't think helps some people.
• 14:11
  And this is why I got into the whole codependency thing.
• 14:14
  And I can talk about that is there is something about, am responsible for what happens in my hula hoop.
• 14:22
  That's very powerful.
• 14:24
  And my feeling with people that come to see me is there's this point.
• 14:30
  when someone can stop blaming the world and other people and start realizing no matter what happened to me, I'm still carrying the results of that.
• 14:40
  And so I've got to handle what's going on here.
• 14:44
  And to me, that is where the power is.
• 14:48
  And I ended up writing the book on codependency because when I started going to Al-Anon 25 years ago or whatever,
• 14:58
  I felt like there was a lot of still focused on, the mantra is bring it to me, the focus is on me, but there was still a lot of talk to me about changing them or this happened to
• 15:13
  me and not kind of owning our part.
• 15:17
  And my husband relapsed, he was 15 years sober and my life blew up.
• 15:22
  I mean, and that was at...
• 15:24
  I'm ever many years of sobriety, like 20.
• 15:26
  And, you know, I barely knew what to do.
• 15:31
  And, but I also knew I had to own it.
• 15:34
  I had to look at my part.
• 15:36
  I had to take responsibility.
• 15:38
  I couldn't wait for him to change.
• 15:40
  And to me, a lot of folks who can't speak up or can't set a boundary.
• 15:48
  To me, don't look at their own fear about staying in the relationship.
• 15:53
  They keep saying, it's about them and I'm trying to help them.
• 15:56
  And I just don't believe that anymore.
• 15:59
  I really believe it's about us.
• 16:02
  Anyways.
• 16:03
  you know, that's it's a.
• 16:05
  I find it difficult to walk that, I also did a lot of Al-Anon, walk the line of
• 16:12
  Where's my part and how do I?
• 16:16
  guess, compassionately keep putting up the boundary, even when it seems like I'm being so mean and cruel.
• 16:25
  And how could I possibly expect person A to take responsibility for something that's so difficult and you know, it must be I must be contributing to the problem and da da da da.
• 16:41
  That's a hard
• 16:43
  it's hard sometimes to kind of walk that line and trust that it's the right thing to do.
• 16:49
  Yes.
• 16:50
  I mean, it reminds me of that book by Cloud and Townsend, you know, the boundaries book and right.
• 16:56
  And they used to say, like, if you feel guilty, it's a good sign because you're starting to do behaviors that you didn't do before.
• 17:03
  Right.
• 17:04
  And so feeling guilty or feeling like you're being mean is a natural response to doing these behaviors that I haven't done for a long time.
• 17:13
  And it also, go ahead.
• 17:16
  no, I was just gonna say or ever, yeah, yeah.
• 17:19
  Yes.
• 17:20
  And it, you know, it's that real belief that I have that it's the best thing for both people.
• 17:27
  And of course someone's going to be upset because you're not letting them get away with whatever they used to do.
• 17:34
  But the bottom line is, is I still can't control the outcome.
• 17:37
  It's still about me setting the boundary no matter what and then letting go of the outcome.
• 17:42
  And then if the outcome isn't what I want,
• 17:45
  setting another boundary.
• 17:46
  You got it.
• 17:48
  mean, you know, I mean, my dad was a narcissist, PTSD, very successful attorney, very needy.
• 17:57
  And I mean, I had, when I moved back to Boston, I mean, I had to set boundaries constantly because I was his source in his mind, you know, and his kids were his source.
• 18:10
  And it was frustrating.
• 18:12
  And yet,
• 18:13
  You know, if I wanted to have a sane relationship with him, that's what I had to do.
• 18:18
  But especially with people we wanna keep having relationships with, you know, that's the hard part.
• 18:25
  Or kids, kids are very hard.
• 18:28
  Yeah, that's another, we could do a whole other, but I feel very strongly about the kid thing because I see so many parents not do it and suffer later on.
• 18:39
  Yeah, it's huge, but it's so hard.
• 18:42
  I'm with you.
• 18:43
  Still hard.
• 18:46
  Yes.
• 18:46
  Yes!
• 18:48
  to let them have their feelings or really it's about letting us have our feelings about them having feelings.
• 18:55
  It's not even about that really.
• 18:57
  You know what I mean?
• 18:59
  do.
• 18:59
  I do.
• 19:00
  I do.
• 19:01
  It's really like it's never about the other person in a sense.
• 19:07
  Right.
• 19:08
  other person.
• 19:09
  I the thing is other people can hurt us.
• 19:11
  Other people do stuff.
• 19:13
  So all that is true.
• 19:14
  I I always say it's the both and.
• 19:17
  It's not either, but can I control what they're doing?
• 19:21
  No, I can control my response.
• 19:24
  That's about it.
• 19:26
  But oftentimes my response is going to be from the past, you know, and I often say, you know, 99 % of the time we're in some kind of activation.
• 19:36
  It's never about the present moment.
• 19:37
  It's always about the past.
• 19:39
  And usually, and this is simplistic also about a fear getting activated underneath the anger is really fear and powerlessness.
• 19:49
  Anyways, in my opinion.
• 19:51
  Yeah.
• 19:53
  And I guess I'm curious your thoughts on analogies between, well, you just gave some good ones about the powerlessness, the sort of letting go of ourself will.
• 20:06
  between I've never come across anything as effective as step four, the resentment inventory or the inventory work in psychotherapy models.
• 20:20
  To me, it's sort of the shat, the Jungian shadow kind of stuff.
• 20:26
  I guess I'm just kind of curious if you have thoughts on the.
• 20:32
  I don't know if it's the difference, but at how the step work is therapeutic and does a lot of things that therapy does.
• 20:40
  And then are there other types of therapy or things in therapy that mirror the step stuff?
• 20:48
  Yeah, it's interesting because I've been thinking a lot about anger lately, maybe because of what's happening.
• 20:55
  I just think so many humans struggle with experience anger, identifying anger, expressing anger appropriately.
• 21:06
  for a variety of reasons.
• 21:08
  mean, we have, and we're talking about this because of the fourth step in the resentment piece.
• 21:12
  ah And that either someone is on my hands, you can't see them, but on one extreme is like completely shut down, numb, checked out, dissociated, okay?
• 21:25
  And then on the other extreme is like volatile, screaming at everybody, know, our president, should I even say that, but.
• 21:33
  I can't even call him a president anyways, our patient in the White House.
• 21:39
  But yeah, and then we all, it's like for some reason, everybody has this fear about anger.
• 21:48
  And yet if we all kind of learned to process it and to acknowledge it from early on, we'd be so much better off.
• 21:58
  You know, I have this pyramid that I use.
• 22:01
  And at the top is like rage.
• 22:04
  Underneath that is like anger, agitation, irritability, restlessness, know, all that, all those words, language.
• 22:12
  Underneath that sadness, pain, anxiety, blah, blah.
• 22:16
  Underneath that is fear and at the bottom is powerlessness.
• 22:20
  And we all have our kind of ways that we've learned.
• 22:25
  to adapt.
• 22:26
  like five years old, my brother might've learned to yell and get upset with people was his way to stay safe.
• 22:33
  I might've learned to shut down.
• 22:35
  So we all learn these ways.
• 22:37
  And yet the anger thing to me is people get so, I don't know if it gets physiologically just comfortable because of your system or it just feels like a protection and.
• 22:50
  But it's so hard for folks to just be okay with what's happening.
• 22:56
  So for the resentment part of the fourth step, I think it's super powerful because it's this very structured way, and I do it in a very specific way, to really feel safe, to
• 23:09
  write things out, to look at what's underneath it, to look at the belief systems, to look at our behaviors.
• 23:15
  And sometimes in therapy,
• 23:18
  I don't know, it might feel dangerous or scary to acknowledge it, to feel it, to express it.
• 23:24
  I think that has to do with the relationship you have with your therapist.
• 23:28
  I I think you've got to have a safe place with your therapist.
• 23:32
  You also though, to me, and this is huge, feel like you can get mad at your therapist, because it's all about the relationship.
• 23:41
  And maybe I'm old school with transference and counter transference, but.
• 23:46
  I really think you do get to a great place when they can get mad at you.
• 23:51
  I had a client once after two years, tell me I was calling her the wrong name.
• 23:58
  Her name was Kirsten and I was calling her Krista.
• 24:04
  I had no idea.
• 24:05
  And to me, that was just a freaking enormous breakthrough because it's like,
• 24:12
  she could feel safe enough and get angry at me and the insanity about not even telling me that that's another story.
• 24:19
  You reminded me actually when I was watching one of your videos because she was a heroin addict, got sober off of heroin, but kept smoking pot.
• 24:29
  And she smoked pot for like a year to feel stable.
• 24:34
  And the fact is her life got better, right?
• 24:36
  She could carry a job, but she was stuck.
• 24:40
  And I said to her, I can't see you anymore.
• 24:43
  I need you to go to treatment to get off the pod.
• 24:46
  We're hitting a standstill.
• 24:47
  And she said it was the hardest thing she ever did to get off the pod.
• 24:52
  And she was a heroin person.
• 24:54
  So I mean, that pot thing, you know, is all, and now she's actually a therapist.
• 24:59
  I mean, she just had a baby.
• 25:00
  So I mean, the pot thing can be so tricky.
• 25:03
  Why am I going off on that tangent?
• 25:05
  But,
• 25:06
  Yeah, the whole idea of anger and honesty.
• 25:09
  And the other thing, I don't know if you ever heard of therapy in a nutshell, it's a YouTube mental health.
• 25:16
  She's like the biggest mental health.
• 25:18
  Anyway, she and I have done some videos together and she asked the same question around the ninth step because I got two things.
• 25:31
  One is she talks, she's of a certain religion.
• 25:36
  And she talks about repair in her therapy work.
• 25:39
  She's a therapist.
• 25:41
  And she knew about the ninth step in repair, but she says nowhere in therapy that she's discovered do people really get to this idea of like, you know, it's always about what's
• 25:55
  been done to you rather than how do you repair?
• 25:58
  How do you acknowledge what you've done?
• 26:01
  And of course, if you're an addict, do.
• 26:04
  But tons of people, like I'll take my brothers for example, you they've often said to me, geez, I wish I was in the program because I could do the amend thing.
• 26:13
  And I say, you can do the amend thing anyway.
• 26:16
  You don't have to be in it.
• 26:17
  Because I think that's where the real freedom is.
• 26:22
  When it's looking at the hard stuff that we do that we need to make up for it.
• 26:27
  That's one thing.
• 26:28
  The second thing is,
• 26:31
  The connection between anxiety and anger.
• 26:34
  I did a whole video on it with her and especially for women.
• 26:38
  I've seen over the 30 years that women will be anxious or panic attacks because they're enraged.
• 26:45
  It's much more comfortable to be anxious than angry.
• 26:49
  And that's a whole other video.
• 26:52
  No, but that just to pick up on that last point, it's so common that underneath so much of the whatever dysfunction or suffering is anger, unexpressed anger.
• 27:06
  I am working with someone who just sort of had that light bulb come on um that they're, wow, I can't express anger or
• 27:18
  I don't know how to do it sort of sincerely, something like that, or honestly.
• 27:24
  And it is a skill.
• 27:25
  Did you ever read any of the Harville Hendricks stuff?
• 27:28
  There's a, Harville Hendricks does a lot of couples.
• 27:30
  I don't even, I think he's still alive.
• 27:32
  He and his wife wrote some books and they give this whole, you know, kind of these tools that I used to do with couples around how to express it in a way where someone can really
• 27:45
  listen.
• 27:46
  And when I say, you know, they do this process where
• 27:51
  you know, the person will say, geez, I'm really angry because you're late all the time, whatever.
• 27:57
  And then the person has to just validate and mirror like they do rather than defend themselves.
• 28:02
  And then you look at, you know, then you say why this makes me sad.
• 28:07
  So you start with the anger, then you do the sadness.
• 28:10
  And then the person says, what this reminds me of in childhood is.
• 28:15
  And that's where the partner
• 28:18
  really can empathize because when two people are sitting there and they've been arguing about something and the husband who's laid all the time says, it's because my mother used
• 28:31
  to beat me when I didn't do anything wrong or whatever, whatever.
• 28:36
  And he has some emotion about the origin of the lateness.
• 28:42
  Then you have empathy.
• 28:44
  And so it's just very powerful.
• 28:47
  Like I think it's great for some people to just get in touch with I'm angry and acknowledge that.
• 28:55
  And then it's like really powerful to get in touch with what is the underlying stuff that's triggering that and what's that about?
• 29:03
  Cause that's where the meat is.
• 29:06
  Yeah.
• 29:07
  I want to pick up on the, maybe the ninth step stuff you were just Scott describing.
• 29:13
  How do you help people navigate the except when so, made direct amends wherever possible except when to do so would injure them or others.
• 29:24
  How do you help people navigate that line of rigorous honesty?
• 29:28
  And then also
• 29:30
  We don't need a megaphone going around telling everybody everything.
• 29:34
  No, although this is what I'll say because I do, talked to a lot of people about this is there's a community of people.
• 29:42
  So I live in Massachusetts and Cape Cod is a little part of Massachusetts by the ocean.
• 29:48
  Right.
• 29:49
  And there's a group down there that we do this thing called the big book step study, where you study the big book and you do it a certain way, blah, blah, blah.
• 29:57
  And that group was started by a bunch of men and.
• 30:02
  they believe that you shouldn't go to exes at all.
• 30:07
  mean, someone could be married for 30 years and they're like, no.
• 30:10
  And my theory, because I've talked to different men in that group is they believe that they're gonna hook up again.
• 30:17
  Like, I think, like they think they're not gonna have control over themselves or whatever it is.
• 30:23
  And so, you know, different groups have these different rules.
• 30:27
  And to me,
• 30:28
  You can't possibly be married for 30 years and not have anything to say to your ex.
• 30:34
  It's just ridiculous.
• 30:35
  So the reason I say that is because yes, I know there are certain instances.
• 30:42
  I'm not going to tell, I don't know if I can think of an example, my ex-wife that I'm divorced from, that I slept with her best friend back 20 years, know, whatever.
• 30:54
  yeah.
• 30:54
  but I can give general amends.
• 30:57
  I'm really sorry I wasn't there for you.
• 30:59
  So you can do it in a way where you're not hurting people and addicts, we are tricky beans.
• 31:06
  We wanna get away with shit.
• 31:07
  We just do it.
• 31:09
  And we wanna blame other people because it's easier.
• 31:12
  But this video I did with Emma, I gave some examples and I could tell you one right now of the power, the real power.
• 31:21
  I believe the freedom.
• 31:23
  really happens when you can really say out loud.
• 31:28
  I often say amends is where the magic happens and I do believe that.
• 31:34
  you know, I so are there really unique instances where you shouldn't?
• 31:39
  Yes, maybe.
• 31:40
  But I think we we err on the caution of look, if it comes up for us when we're making our list, if it comes up.
• 31:48
  then yes, it's something, but definitely talk to a sponsor about it.
• 31:53
  Talk to someone saying about it.
• 31:55
  Not all sponsors are saying.
• 31:58
  That's another, that's for another day, But yeah, so I'm to give you an example of a really powerful instance.
• 32:04
  So there was a guy I heard on a meeting, God, I get choked up when I talk about this.
• 32:09
  A guy on a meeting once.
• 32:10
  And when he was in college,
• 32:13
  he felt so insecure and alone that he ended up joining a fraternity.
• 32:19
  And he knew that stuff that was happening there, he didn't really like the guys because they were, you know, not nice to women most of the time.
• 32:26
  But he said one time they were out on this, they were at a window like over this courtyard where the dorms were.
• 32:35
  And this girl was walking by who people would tease and stuff.
• 32:39
  And they started yelling names at her.
• 32:43
  something about like her face looked like a horse or something horrible.
• 32:48
  So they yelled down to her and for years, so I'm not saying his drinking was all about that, but that girl ended up leaving school.
• 32:58
  He gets sober.
• 32:59
  It's torturing him.
• 33:01
  He tracks her down and asks her if they can get together.
• 33:05
  And he said,
• 33:07
  that meeting with her was like a spiritual experience.
• 33:11
  This woman broke down sobbing and said she had become suicidal after that.
• 33:16
  She had been hospitalized after that.
• 33:19
  And the fact that he had the courage to tell her that it wasn't about her, that gives both people freedom.
• 33:31
  And to me, that's magic.
• 33:33
  And I think that can only happen
• 33:37
  when we humble ourselves enough to really, really say the truth and the truth isn't easy.
• 33:43
  Yeah.
• 33:45
  Yeah.
• 33:46
  sometimes we for maybe uh non step people in order to get to that point, as you say, the humility, we need the other steps or the other steps are in place so that the humility can
• 34:00
  be developed to be able to do something like that.
• 34:04
  Yes, and the like both and like I was married to my son's dad for only six years.
• 34:11
  And when I got when I started, you know, doing my work around that relationship, like, I was like, he did this, he did that, he did this.
• 34:19
  And that was true.
• 34:20
  He did some stuff.
• 34:21
  But I also had to get to a place where well, I was married to him for six years.
• 34:28
  I did some stuff, too.
• 34:30
  And
• 34:30
  Like you can be angry at someone and still own the stuff you did.
• 34:35
  It's not either or.
• 34:37
  And that's really hard when you know someone's done some stuff to you, but it's still, it's still what am I responsible for?
• 34:46
  So that's a hard one.
• 34:48
  It's a hard one.
• 34:49
  Yeah.
• 34:49
  is a hard one.
• 34:50
  Would you say there the, excuse me, the parallels, I guess, between the Buddhism and the steps, really all these ancient traditions are so, I guess, disciplined in that teaching
• 35:04
  of this is not about other people.
• 35:06
  This is about me or us.
• 35:10
  And it's our job to
• 35:12
  navigate that line.
• 35:14
  I don't like accepting that.
• 35:15
  It's not that I don't like it, but it's constant practice to remind myself of that.
• 35:21
  Yes, and again, it's not to say someone didn't abuse me or, you know, I wasn't a survivor of incest or I wasn't like huge things.
• 35:32
  And the only way to freedom is for me to heal here because, know, that's why I wrote the book because, you know, most of us get focused on fixing, changing or saving someone else.
• 35:46
  And if I fix change or save them,
• 35:50
  I'm going to feel okay, which is a lie.
• 35:52
  It's not going to happen.
• 35:55
  You know, that's the delusion.
• 35:56
  I call it the big lie, right?
• 35:59
  If my partner gets sober, I'm going to feel okay.
• 36:01
  Nope.
• 36:02
  It's going to be just the beginning as a matter of fact.
• 36:05
  So it's like, it's really bringing the focus back to you.
• 36:12
  And yes, acknowledging that some of this stuff is not okay.
• 36:16
  And that's where boundaries come in.
• 36:18
  You know, and I think this is the thing.
• 36:22
  I think a lot of times it's hard to acknowledge something because then we have to take an action step.
• 36:33
  If, you know, if one of my clients says, you know what, I'm really afraid to divorce my alcoholic husband because I don't want to be financially responsible.
• 36:44
  That's a breakthrough.
• 36:46
  rather than spending five years talking about his alcoholism to get to, this is why I'm here.
• 36:54
  That's where the freedom is.
• 36:57
  And the problem is if she says that, and what I say to her is, you can divorce him or not.
• 37:02
  It doesn't matter to me.
• 37:04
  But let's look at what the two paths are and what's getting in the way.
• 37:09
  That's all.
• 37:10
  It's like, somehow we think
• 37:14
  that if I forgive someone or I take ownership, they win or something like that.
• 37:20
  Like there's a win-lose.
• 37:22
  Rather than, my God, that's when I become free.
• 37:28
  It's the same with anger.
• 37:29
  If I'm holding onto resentment, I'm not free.
• 37:32
  If I'm blaming them, I'm not free.
• 37:34
  For me, it's all about freedom.
• 37:36
  Yeah.
• 37:37
  And the, as you described the, the illusion that holding onto the blame or resentment or whatnot is giving them some, the illusion of control and, that the sort of like shift into
• 37:54
  letting go of that is the freedom, as you say.
• 37:57
  ah
• 37:59
  our egos aren't attached to it, it's all that, you know, making stories, you know, we're always making up stories like, if I do this, it means that if I do this, it's like, no, it
• 38:08
  doesn't mean anything.
• 38:10
  It just means what you decide.
• 38:12
  I mean, that's it.
• 38:14
  Right.
• 38:15
  I mean, it's all the making meaning out of things.
• 38:20
  Yeah.
• 38:22
  How, how do you, or, or, I don't know if there's a straight answer over the years.
• 38:28
  Do you have.
• 38:29
  go to or sort of ritual practices that you rely on or what are some of those things that you have found most helpful personally?
• 38:38
  Yeah, I mean, I have certain readings I do.
• 38:42
  You know, I really still love the Buddhism stuff.
• 38:45
  And, you know, now I get into kind of alternative stuff.
• 38:48
  I don't know if you ever heard of Pam Grout.
• 38:51
  She, she does a, that's a great book.
• 38:55
  I should send you a copy, but it's out there.
• 38:57
  It's like, it's a lot of kind of law of attraction stuff, but it's based on the Course in Miracles.
• 39:03
  And it's, it's very similar to like, we just make up stuff all day long.
• 39:08
  And it's really, where do we want to live in or from?
• 39:11
  And so I'm constantly kind of, you know, reading something every day for a few years, then I'll switch it up.
• 39:18
  I'll get a little bored.
• 39:19
  I'll read something else.
• 39:20
  I'll have different practices, uh prayer practices, meditation practices.
• 39:26
  I really believe in moving my body.
• 39:29
  I mean, I get outside a lot.
• 39:31
  I hike, I live in the woods.
• 39:33
  I,
• 39:34
  I really love like hiking and getting out and having a long time.
• 39:39
  Like I'll do hour long walks in the woods by myself and pray.
• 39:43
  You know, and again, I don't believe you need to believe in anything particular, but I also think it helps me to get out of, because I do believe self-centered fear is the
• 39:55
  trouble, not just with alcoholics, but humans.
• 39:58
  We think everybody's thinking about us when they're thinking about themselves.
• 40:02
  I mean, it's ridiculous, right?
• 40:04
  So I mean, to just let go and get out of my ego nature.
• 40:09
  Yeah.
• 40:10
  And also having people like I have a best friend, do this little YouTube channel, Leaving Crazy Town, and he and I have a relationship where we can share things with each other and
• 40:24
  not take it personally.
• 40:25
  Like the idea, I talk a lot about that, the codependency recovery.
• 40:30
  Nothing's personal.
• 40:31
  You know, what you're doing is not my business.
• 40:34
  Like all those sayings, what you do is not about me.
• 40:38
  So if you have people in your life, a core group of people that you can talk freely with, and they're not going to take it personally and then react.
• 40:48
  mean, that's like, you know, communication 101 to really have people that don't react so you can have a space to speak and have someone validate is really key.
• 41:00
  Yeah.
• 41:01
  and be processing your, you know, I should get your email because I have a certain sheet, a couple of different sheets I use in the turnaround work and the resentment work that I
• 41:11
  find really helpful.
• 41:13
  And also a sheet about getting activated and kind of looking at that.
• 41:18
  Cause I think that's a huge part of, you know, emotional maturity.
• 41:24
  How can I not just be in an activation in my relationships?
• 41:28
  You know, so if I can constantly kind of look at that and I'm not, then I'm not in a state of irritable, restless, or discontent, right?
• 41:39
  Yeah.
• 41:39
  Yes, the ribs.
• 41:41
  can, uh, how do you, I love that you added the, the, the relationship stuff to that, because I find for people that perhaps don't have anyone to go to or have a really hard
• 41:57
  time with that and to, even if they're, quote unquote non addicts or whatever.
• 42:01
  Yes.
• 42:02
  How do, or have you seen people develop those relationships?
• 42:09
  Something you may find in an AA group or whatever.
• 42:13
  Yeah, any kind of insights on that?
• 42:15
  Yeah, I mean, I do think, I mean, you know, from all the research lately about loneliness and isolation and all that stuff since COVID, God, my son said the other day, I have a 25
• 42:26
  year old and he told me that statistically he just read that like above 50 % of people his age now don't have best friends.
• 42:36
  Like, it's like, I mean, I think about the twenties when you're really, but I don't know if it's because of the online stuff, but um
• 42:43
  Yeah, I mean, that's why AA is so great.
• 42:45
  But again, I'm not just, you know, if it doesn't work, fine.
• 42:49
  I do think you need a reality check.
• 42:52
  You know, I had someone call me, I had a meeting with her at 730 and she had had a fight with her sister.
• 42:58
  And when she was talking about how angry she was, I'm like, this isn't about her sister, right?
• 43:03
  I mean, you know, she's getting upset, but it sounded so old.
• 43:08
  So I said, I want you to send me the email and send me your response because when you have a third party looking at it, I don't have the same activation.
• 43:19
  And so I think we need people to what I call reality check.
• 43:24
  know, I mean, the other tool I have, I do a lot with people is what are the facts?
• 43:30
  I mean, so often our feelings are so out of control.
• 43:35
  It's like, no, but.
• 43:36
  really what happened?
• 43:37
  Like what are the facts?
• 43:38
  Oh, he forgot to call you or whatever the thing is.
• 43:44
  It doesn't mean he doesn't love you.
• 43:45
  doesn't mean you're gonna, know, like sticking with the facts is huge.
• 43:50
  But I do think, I mean, now with the online communities and meetup groups, I mean, there's so many opportunities to connect with people, but the problem is,
• 44:01
  I think the online thing can happen so easily that you can almost have like your screen up or whatever.
• 44:09
  I think people have to be able to tolerate being uncomfortable.
• 44:14
  You know what, relationships aren't easy.
• 44:17
  But you know what, they're gonna be uncomfortable.
• 44:20
  I mean, even when you meet someone new, you know, a few months in, you'll get upset and you might have to share something that.
• 44:26
  Like, my God, you upset me and see if you get through that moment.
• 44:30
  But that's relating.
• 44:33
  mean, so yeah, just tolerating stuff.
• 44:38
  And actually that'll help you find people that are of your same tribe.
• 44:45
  Because if someone then gets defensive and you can't talk to them about it, you know they're not the right person, right?
• 44:52
  Yeah.
• 44:53
  That's such a useful idea of when when you meet with people who are struggling in a relationship, romantic or not.
• 45:02
  So much of the struggle is because they don't tell the truth, right?
• 45:05
  Or they don't have those difficult conversations.
• 45:08
  And in so doing, they get the information that they need so that.
• 45:15
  It's amazing how that honesty piece works.
• 45:17
  Shocking.
• 45:18
  ah
• 45:19
  either be liberating or terrifying because it might be information you may not want to see or a therapist of mine years ago said, intimacy only occurs when you can tell the truth.
• 45:33
  And if you're not telling the truth, how are you being intimate?
• 45:37
  yeah, and intimacy is ultimately what we really want, even though it's terrifying.
• 45:44
  Right?
• 45:45
  you say telling the, maybe this is implied, telling the truth.
• 45:48
  When you learn how to do that, that's a huge piece of intimacy with the self kind of thing, right?
• 45:54
  Developing, yeah.
• 45:56
  Yeah, I mean, I believe when we can tell the truth, we get closer to ourselves, we get closer to others and God or whomever.
• 46:03
  It's like we feel more connected.
• 46:06
  You know, there's a theory in depression, I think it is where, this makes me sad because it really is with addiction to the bigger the discrepancy between what I'm truly feeling
• 46:20
  and who I'm presenting to the world, the bigger the depression.
• 46:23
  So if we can narrow that gap, I believe all of our mental health will improve.
• 46:31
  And I also talk about that with codependency.
• 46:35
  When you ongoingly dismiss your own needs and rationalize that it's OK, resentments are going to happen, anger is going to increase, anxiety is going to increase, physical
• 46:46
  problems are going to increase.
• 46:48
  So
• 46:49
  That's a form of truth telling, right?
• 46:52
  Acknowledging that we have needs.
• 46:53
  And for some reason, expressing our truth, I find, is like the number one thing that can cause problems.
• 47:03
  Meaning, everybody struggles, which is mind blowing when you think about it, with speaking up and just speaking up and saying our truth.
• 47:11
  And yet, not doing it, you can have so many consequences.
• 47:16
  So many.
• 47:17
  yeah, which are often worse than doing it.
• 47:21
  And yeah.
• 47:22
  um
• 47:24
  it's like we have this fear of someone getting upset.
• 47:27
  It's like, but that's being human.
• 47:29
  Like our kids, know, let them get upset.
• 47:33
  I mean, teach them that it's okay to get upset.
• 47:35
  You can survive a feeling.
• 47:37
  I mean, the parents that are so overprotective and so over managing, it's like they don't realize that their kids are gonna become victims of that.
• 47:47
  And they're not gonna learn how to do their own thing.
• 47:50
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 47:52
  mean, God, had a friend of my son's mother who, a friend of my son's, yeah, mother, when he went to college, she was still calling him to wake him up in the morning.
• 48:06
  And I thought that kid is not gonna learn how to be responsible.
• 48:11
  And really, what was it about?
• 48:13
  It was her own fear.
• 48:14
  It was so obvious that it was about her.
• 48:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 48:17
  Mm-hmm.
• 48:18
  Mm-hmm.
• 48:19
  parents is so key.
• 48:22
  Yeah.
• 48:23
  I've been rambling a lot.
• 48:24
  I'm sorry, Mike.
• 48:26
  love it.
• 48:26
  I love it.
• 48:27
  I love it.
• 48:28
  Maybe one last question, which I meant to ask you earlier, this idea of when, when we do start telling the truth and acknowledging our own needs and et cetera, how it can often
• 48:42
  trigger guilt, right?
• 48:43
  Or shame or I I'm not worthy of sticking up for my needs or, or I'll be
• 48:51
  abandoned or I don't know, can you maybe just sort of talk a little bit about that?
• 48:55
  Yeah, worthiness is interesting.
• 48:58
  Worthiness.
• 49:00
  Yeah, I mean,
• 49:02
  It's really about developing an identity, right?
• 49:05
  And caring enough about yourself.
• 49:09
  Caring enough about yourself.
• 49:10
  What I would do, I'm going to send you, I'll have to get your email.
• 49:13
  Where I would look is, when did I decide I wasn't worthy?
• 49:19
  You know, because to me, we're born as these beings and you didn't come out of the womb thinking you were unworthy, right?
• 49:26
  So that is a belief that occurred somewhere along the way.
• 49:30
  And for me,
• 49:32
  If I can see kind of the origin or that, and maybe it was someone else's belief, one of your mother's, your father's, somebody that didn't treat you right, it's flipping that
• 49:42
  script.
• 49:43
  Because again, part of you, I mean, part of recovery is walking those two tracks, right?
• 49:50
  It's walking the track of the old beliefs.
• 49:53
  I'm noticing that my voice says I'm not worthy, blah, blah, blah.
• 49:56
  And what are the facts?
• 49:58
  I'm a great being, I'm worthy, I'm Mike, I've done all this great stuff and I have some insecurities just like everybody else.
• 50:05
  Where do I wanna come from?
• 50:07
  I wanna come from here.
• 50:09
  And noticing the thoughts of unworthiness, mean, yeah, you can notice those, but then it's like, I don't wanna come from there.
• 50:16
  Because if you come from unworthiness, it reminds me of some parenting stuff, which is...
• 50:22
  If I come from a state of unworthiness or guilt, say for example, then I'm not gonna see the things clearly that are happening with my child because I'm gonna have some internal
• 50:37
  process about it rather than see clearly what's happening.
• 50:41
  So I think it's the both end.
• 50:42
  I need to look at my unworthiness.
• 50:44
  I gotta kinda do a deep dive and unpack that, but I also have to have my ego strength and part of me that knows I'm worthy.
• 50:53
  Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
• 50:54
  this planet feeling unworthy.
• 50:56
  So that was something that came in.
• 50:58
  Now let me really look at putting that back in its place because it's not mine.
• 51:05
  You know what I mean?
• 51:07
  something around that.
• 51:10
  Yeah, unworthiness is a deep one.
• 51:14
  Yeah, I'm gonna think about that.
• 51:16
  Okay, well maybe we can have this conversation again sometime.
• 51:20
  I would love that.
• 51:20
  uh Well, again, thank you so very much for sharing all that wisdom with us.
• 51:26
  Sincerely appreciate it.
• 51:28
  And all your info will be in the show notes.
• 51:32
  So if people wanna track down your book and follow you elsewhere, that will be there.
• 51:37
  And again, thank you so much.
• 51:39
  It was so great to be here.
• 51:40
  I really want to hear your story next time.
• 51:43
  Thanks for listening to this episode of the State of Mind podcast.
• 51:47
  Before you go, please consider bringing one idea, one practice, one insight with you and practicing it this week.
• 51:58
  Let go of any expectations and see what happens.
• 52:01
  If you enjoyed this, subscribe, follow us here on Substack on YouTube
• 52:07
  Leave us a kind, encouraging review if you feel so inclined.
• 52:12
  and share this episode with someone who you think might find it helpful.
• 52:16
  Remember, live with courage, clarity, and compassion.
• 52:21
  I wish you all the very best.
• 52:23
  Take it easy.
• 52:23
  Peace out.