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Don’t Let Anyone Edit Your Reality · Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to Emotional Sobriety, the next step in Recovery, with Dr. Alan Berger and Tom Rutledge. We're back at the Madonna Mountains with Alan on his tour with Tommy Rosen. Recovery 2.0, combining emotional sobriety and the Recovery 2.0 worlds. But we were going to get into a nutshell today. It's don't let anybody edit my reality. What does Tom and Alan mean by this?
• 0:37
  Speaker B: Once again, I say we're stuck. We're not sick. When I'm stuck at a less than mature level of my emotional development, let's say I am, my differentiation is low. People have heard me use that phrase before. My differentiation is low. So when I have low differentiation, I make everything about me and I am fused with my environment. We talked about that in a show last week. The difference between responsibility and blame. Talk about when I'm fused with my environment, I'm not separating myself with it. So in terms of this nutshell today, when we say don't let other people edit your reality. So what will happen is, let's say I'm in a relationship with. With a woman, something really important for me is happening and I really want her to come and share the experience with me, right? Let's say I'm giving a talk somewhere and I really want her to be there and I want to introduce her to people and stuff like that. And let's say she shows up half an hour late, right? So I don't get to say hi to her. I'm up on stage when she walks in, and all of a sudden I start to have these fantasies. I start imagining, well, obviously I'm not that important to her, else she would have come because she knew this was an important thing for me. She would have moved heaven and earth to be here for me. So now I start taking it very personally. And I'm starting to say that, well, not only does she not want to be here with me and support me and love me that way, she doesn't think my work is very valuable. She doesn't even want to hear it. So she doesn't think it's very. It's got any real wisdom in it or anything. I mean, I could really go down a rabbit hole what I've just done by doing that because of my emotional dependency, I've let her edit my reality. It may be something I'm excited to do and I love doing it. Whether she's there or not, I love doing that. Yeah, if she's there, I don't have anybody in my life today. I'm using this hypothetically, but what I'm saying is that if I did and I was in that kind of situation, then I would be letting her edit my reality in emotional sobriety. I would be able to go through my experience and enjoy giving my talk and not get too hung up in the fact that she's not there. Because I'm not dependent on her to be myself, to feel good about myself. If I'm dependent on her to feel good about myself, then she's going to have the power to edit my reality and take over authorship of my reality. I don't want that. I want to keep authorship in my hands. So I do that by differentiating, right, and saying, wow, she couldn't be here. Something must have come up. I don't assume the worst. That meaning that she doesn't love me. I assume that something really got in the way of her getting here and I can be compassionate and supportive and interested. Rather than after I get off the stage, let's say I go to her and say, God, you know, what's wrong with you? Why can't you ever show up on time? Or something like that? That's a put down. Instead of saying, are you all right? I noticed that you walked in late. I was concerned about you.
• 4:18
  Speaker A: No matter what the reason was in this scenario for her showing up late, it shouldn't impact your feeling one way or the other about make it a should.
• 4:29
  Speaker B: We're just saying it's a possibility, Pat.
• 4:32
  Speaker A: Yes, yes.
• 4:33
  Speaker B: You don't have. There's a way of getting to a place in your life where you don't need to let other people edit your reality. Let's say you give a great talk. Let's say you do a great video, you do an editing that you feel good about and a person, somebody doesn't like it. Well, if you're dependent on people's approval, you're going to feel bad about it. If you're okay with yourself, you're going to say, hey, it's not about everybody liking it. I just need to make sure my boy, whoever authored the work or, you know, ordered the work, gets is pleased with it. That's good enough for me. I don't need these other people to like it. And especially if I feel good about
• 5:15
  Speaker A: it, you know, what I can tell you is the volume. If there's like a dial of, you know, dependence that we have inside of ourselves. I mean, I know I would use. I was at a 90, you know, a 90, 95 for like many years. Maybe I'm at like a 45 or a 40 or maybe even like a 35. But I can give you just a bunch of examples. Maybe not a bunch of examples, but like in the last couple weeks, texts that if I don't get responses from people about certain things, I assign all these narratives to why I'm not getting the text back. And I love the way you describe it as editing. You know, it's editing your reality because depending on. It's almost like a stock ticker.
• 5:56
  Speaker B: Yeah, straight up. Exactly, man. Exactly. And see, we. We don't. That we can get to a place where that's not going on. And that's the freedom that is promised in emotional sobriety. You can be free of the feedback, the pressures, whether it's positive or negative from others. I mean, you know, because, you know, if it cuts on one side, it's going to cut on the other. You know, if you feel good about it and you get it, it's great. But if you don't, you're gonna feel bad. You know, it's great if somebody likes it, fine or not. But the real issue is, am I okay with what I'm doing? See, am I. Can I keep my center of gravity over my two feet regardless? And that's what I'm striving for in my recovery. And that's what we're encouraging people to do. Because when you do that, you keep an equanimity. Much more of the time, you're not as reactive. You're not getting upset with what people are doing. You're focus on what you're doing.
• 6:59
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I've talked about it before, but I mean, just the. There was no daylight in an earlier era of my life between, you know, say, an argument I was having, and then my reaction to it, like, I was so reactive, just on a hair trigger, and it was miserable. I mean, I'm just like, I. I feel like that way of living was either going to kill me or I would find some way to change the way that I looked at life. And so I'm in the process of change. But it's hard to hang like that. Things aren't going to go the way that we demand or expect them to.
• 7:37
  Speaker B: We just want you all to keep Tom in his prayers as he's facing some personal issues that he's addressing at this point in time. And as soon as he's feeling up to it, he'll be back and joining us again. And in the meantime, let's just keep him in our thoughts and in our prayers and Wish him all the best.
• 7:55
  Speaker A: There's really no emotional sobriety, the next step in recovery, without Tom Rutledge. You know, he's an essential part of the mix.
• 8:03
  Speaker B: He makes an important contribution, as he does and, you know, we're excited. That revised version of a book that used to be published called earn your own respect, we rewritten it from the perspective of emotional sobriety, and we can't wait for it to be out. So you'll be seeing some announcements about it here pretty soon. Okay. Patrick, it was great spending this time with you. I love you, man. Thanks for all you do.
• 8:26
  Speaker A: I love you too, man.
• 8:30
  Speaker C: Don't let other people edit your reality. What are the exceptions to that? When I came into recovery, my reality was sobriety was a punishment for being an alcoholic. Right?
• 8:48
  Speaker A: People can edit our delusion. People can edit our delusion, not a reality.
• 8:52
  Speaker C: That's right. And all of our reality is a construct, right. You know, everything's a construct, right? Our religion is a construct. Our rejection of religion is a construct. Right? Our beliefs in this program of recovery versus some other program of recovery as being, you know, the. The cool one, the best one. Those are all constructs, you know, our political affiliation, everything's a construct. Our national identity. These are the things we build to explain a life that has no owner's manual to it, right? So we. We make them up. So reality. Reality is a crutch for people who couldn't handle drugs, was the way I said it as a teenager.
• 9:48
  Speaker A: That was that. That's a good one. Yeah, yeah,
• 9:53
  Speaker C: yeah. So, you know, I. I want to have agency in terms of my own reality. But again, I'm not afraid of convergent value systems or viewpoints. I want to engage with people with the different political stripes or here's one that I am wrestling with right now. There is a very limited body of work on people who have had long term sobriety and experimenting with going back to drinking. Like the idea that once a person with alcohol use disorder, always a person with alcohol use disorder. That's a belief. It's not a scientific fact.
• 10:50
  Speaker A: Right.
• 10:50
  Speaker C: And it's a belief I've used to help preserve my sobriety. And when I think of about it, I go, I don't miss drunkenness or being stoned any more than I miss hamburgers. Right. I haven't had a hamburger since the 80s, right. Other than beyond belief, you know, like I've had tofu burgers or, you know,
• 11:19
  Speaker A: well, there needs to be. There needs to be a beyond belief burger. We need to.
• 11:23
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah. I wouldn't die from eating hamburger. Right. You know, I wouldn't be a lesser person for eating a hamburger, but I don't want to. Right. So. But, you know, for people who want to be in a social world, that includes having a glass of champagne or something like that, can they. Should they do that after 10 or 40 years of sobriety? Well, I just have to hold space for. That's a legitimate path. That isn't a relapse. That's a redefining of their recovery. I've recovered from the addiction I came from. Part of me is afraid of that, and I want to just reject it as well. That can only lead to death, jail, or, you know, institutions. Right. But, you know, I've been sober long enough that I can't believe that.
• 12:20
  Speaker B: Right.
• 12:21
  Speaker C: I'm a free thinker. How can I know that's true for everybody? Right. I don't. So this is a new area, a new altering of my reality that I'm inviting. Right. I'm not signing up for it for myself. I don't want it for myself, But I want people who think they need it or want it to do what they have to.
• 12:45
  Speaker A: Well, right. And another part of your reality is you're anti orthodox and you are a free thinker, and you're not a gatekeeper. And so unless, you know, there was some, like, ironclad scientific principle that's interceding, you want to. You want to open this up and investigate it and, you know, kind of like. And I think I love that. Right. Because. Yeah. Where is it written in the stars that somebody can't have a glass of champagne? After 40 years of sobriety, I have a feeling that, you know, I can never have a glass of champagne again or, you know, I don't want to. I've seemed to have found a shore in my recovery that, like, I'm. I'm just clinging to and like, it really. I feel very sustained by this program that I have, and I don't want to f with it, but everybody's built differently, I think. And, you know, I could see.
• 13:41
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. And, like, when I got sober, I didn't write off overindulging in pecan pie. That's not good for me. Right. Yeah. That'll cause me regret. Right. You know, and many more days, dull my brain. Right. You know, and the. Yeah. I'll wake up the morning after the night before wishing I hadn't done that. But I don't imagine Joe Friday date,
• 14:10
  Speaker A: just Joe, like, surrounded by crumbs. Just, you know, like Halo the morning after.
• 14:15
  Speaker C: Yeah, yeah.
• 14:17
  Speaker A: In my hair and oh, said I got into the pecan pie.
• 14:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, that's right. I mean, these are all, again, they're constructs, like our definition of sobriety. Like I joke about, you know, like my friends in N A. Right. A drug is a drug is a drug. Whether you drink it or you smoke it, or you inhale it or you inject it or snort it. It's a, a drug. Okay. And, but, but I've overcome that. Here, hold my cigarette and my coffee while I get out my 10 year medallion to show it to you. Right. And yeah, so everyone has their own sort of what healthy looks like, you know, what normal, what recovery looks like. And that should be in a healthy evolving person subject to change. So that's where I stand on that.
• 15:22
  Speaker A: I ran into the don't let anybody edit my reality thing recently when I had to break up with somebody or I decided to break up with somebody. And part of that that's difficult is that there's a lot of stuff flying back and forth and you know, I get some, you get some version of you're a piece of shit. And I'm like, well, you know, does that mean I'm actually a piece of shit? Like, you know, you're really angry with me and you know how much I just have this tendency to just take other people's assessment of me as gospel or to. Yeah, to really like let that imprint on my DNA. And I think a lot of the work I've done over the years has been a kind of reframing or kind of like holding on to like consider other people. But don't let that completely unmoor you from your sense of self.
• 16:08
  Speaker C: You know, if someone feels that way about me, I have to consider that. Forget the blame now to the responsibility. I have some responsibility, not all the responsibility in this conflict. Right. And you know, what can I do? What am I willing to do within my value system to ease that person's pain? Right. It might be, you know, I'm not in that role anymore and they're going to have to find their own way. Right. My, the. All I can do is cause no more harm.
• 16:45
  Speaker B: Right.
• 16:45
  Speaker C: You know. Yes. But maybe there is something I can at least recognize that I see how you feel and I hear you, I really do. And I, I wish I can help you, but I can't see how I can.
• 17:01
  Speaker A: Yeah. I mean, in that situation specifically, I try to do everything I can to help, short of. Right. Just kind of stepping over a Certain boundary of, you know, like, we're going our separate ways and, you know, there's. There's a role that I used to fulfill in this dynamic that we're just not going to do anymore. But, yeah, that was really. That was really tough, by the way. Yeah, that was a tough one, but that was pretty recent. I was a couple months ago. But, yeah, it's always a big deal. I don't know. I. I really love all my partners, and it always feels like there's a piece of me that I'm cutting off when I, you know, when we part ways.
• 17:43
  Speaker C: Yeah. Like. Like my duty to others has evolved over the years, for sure. There was a time when I was younger and promiscuous where, you know, I didn't want to, you know, I'd lied to people and then felt bad about it. So I thought, okay, well, I can't. Can't lie to people. I have to tell them who I am. And then I had this sort of preset, well, you know, like, if you're a one person for every person kind of, you know, thing. I'm not that. And, you know, like, I love hanging out with you and I'm totally into you, but, you know, just, you know, don't know that it's exclusive. And then I felt satisfied that if it went wrong, hey, we had this contract. We both entered into it, right? Yeah. I've. No. I'm absolved of responsibility. And eventually I outgrew that sort of immature contractual agreement and felt, no, I need to assess, you know, if I can meet this person's needs or not. If I think I can. Right. Discuss it with them and in some cases, just, you know, not let it go there because, you know, they've, you know, if I've really listened, I've heard that they might put up with it for a weekend, but it's not. They've also said what they really want is something else. And I hear them in that. Right. And, yeah, just, you know, say, just take some responsibility to, you know, and I'd rather a friend for life than a wild weekend who, you know, so.
• 19:39
  Speaker A: Me too. That's a new. That's a new thing for me.
• 19:44
  Speaker C: Yeah. Not that I was wrong then, but it. I outgrew it. Right. It just wasn't, you know, like, it was better than doing things behind people's back because I didn't want to hurt them. Right. That I couldn't live with that value system. It's a growing, you know, sort of bloodying our nose and, you know, Adjusting and learning from our mistakes and, and, and just being more growing in empathy and sense of duty to others in the world. Right. You know, so yeah, like I, I don't preach some, any kind of right or wrong way, but change is happening.
• 20:27
  Speaker A: Change is happening. We just don't know what change and we don't know at what pace, but it's happening to us. You know, something's happening to us. It's just an inevitable outcome of, you know, just being engaged with this on some level.
• 20:40
  Speaker C: Change is difficult and we resist it. I know I do. But compare that to staying still. Like think of our recovery program. You know, we avoid change, but it's the only way to ensure our survival. Like things that stayed the same are dead.
• 21:01
  Speaker A: Yeah, I'm pro survival, I would say.
• 21:03
  Speaker C: Yeah. Yeah, I'm pro survival too. Hello Tom and hello Alan. Miss you both. Hope to see you soon.
• 21:10
  Speaker A: Yeah, and I am going to be visiting the conference in Phoenix in November, so I won't be there for like the entire three days. Is that like still worth doing?
• 21:21
  Speaker C: Yeah, totally worth doing. The program will go at least until like 4 or 5 o' clock Sunday, so there's lots there. I'm doing a presentation at 9:30 Sunday morning, Saturday night. Like there's a great program Friday and it's a shame you can't be there, but doing some of it is better than doing none of it right. And you know, you get probably of other duties and responsibilities in life for sure. So. Yeah, you'll still get as much as you can absorb in two days.
• 21:56
  Speaker A: Yeah, well, I'm just, I mean, yeah, I'm just tired of not going, you know, so I'm gonna, I'm gonna go. It'll need to be less time than I would like, but yeah, at least I at least get to see you in three dimensions.
• 22:10
  Speaker C: Yeah, for sure. Let's do that. And a shout out to everybody in the who's listening to us through their earbuds. We're talking about the International conference of Secular AA in Phoenix, Arizona, ICSA 2026. And there's information for it at secular a.org if you want to join us because it'd be great to meet you too.
• 22:44
  Speaker A: Yeah, let's all get together. I'll be sure and put the URL in the show notes.
• 22:48
  Speaker C: Yeah, wonderful.