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Abstinent or in Recovery? What’s the Difference—and Why It Matters · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  Hey guys, welcome back to another episode of Recovering
• 0:02
  Out Loud. Today I'm going to be talking to
• 0:06
  you about dry drunks, what it means to be a dry drunk, and
• 0:11
  recovery. So we're talking about two
• 0:13
  different things here. Yes, they are two different
• 0:15
  things. Being sober and being sober in
• 0:19
  recovery. What's the difference?
• 0:21
  Why should I care? How do I know which one I'm in?
• 0:24
  And sometimes we can waver between 2:00, but that's OK.
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  I'm going to break it all down for you today.
• 0:29
  This is very important because a lot of people think that when
• 0:32
  they get sober, life is going to magically fix itself.
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  And I'm going to be a better person and my family is going to
• 0:38
  be healed, My relationships are going to fix and everything's
• 0:41
  going to be great. I'm going to get that job and
• 0:42
  the money and everything, blah blah, blah, blah, blah blah
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  blah. Not true.
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  You need to work on yourself. When you get sober, you take the
• 0:49
  alcohol and drugs away from me. I am unmedicated, essentially.
• 0:54
  I am a piece of shit. I am a selfish bastard when I am
• 0:59
  not high or drunk. Now towards the end you could
• 1:02
  argue yes, I was a piece of shit while I was high and drunk.
• 1:05
  My defects of character come out in full force when I get sober.
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  When you remove my solution, I need something else, a power
• 1:12
  greater than me. Something, a recovery program, a
• 1:15
  group of people that I can lean on, a community, a set of
• 1:19
  principles that I can follow and be so I can be a good person so
• 1:22
  I could help the next alcoholic addict.
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  The key to all of this is selfless service.
• 1:28
  That is the secret to recovery. When I'm helping somebody else,
• 1:32
  I'm not thinking about me and poor me and my life and my
• 1:35
  problems. So we'll break it down today.
• 1:37
  You can be sober and still be miserable.
• 1:40
  That is very possible. If anything, it's almost a
• 1:43
  guarantee. If you're not working on
• 1:44
  yourself, you're not actively trying to improve yourself.
• 1:48
  Self improvement, self searching, self appraisal, who
• 1:53
  am I? You cannot be miserable and
• 1:56
  sober for long. Let me repeat that.
• 1:58
  No one can stay miserable and sober for a long time.
• 2:03
  You will eventually pick up. I have personal experience with
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  this. If I am not working on myself,
• 2:09
  if I am not following a set of principles, helping others, like
• 2:12
  I said, I will pick up drugs and alcohol again because what's the
• 2:15
  point? I have no purpose, I have no
• 2:16
  direction, I have no. What is the point of living if I
• 2:19
  can't get high or drunk? I need a North Star.
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  I need a guiding force. I need an inner teacher so that
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  I can be comfortable in my own skin.
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  I can be comfortable with here and now.
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  I don't need to escape. So today we're going to break
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  down what a dry drunk means. The difference between being
• 2:37
  sober and being in recovery. Why people relapse even after
• 2:42
  long stretches of abstinence. I'm a perfect example of that.
• 2:45
  Relapse after 7 1/2 years. Don't recommend it.
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  It does get worse. It will get worse, I promise you
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  that. And what real recovery actually
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  looks like in day-to-day life. This is about improving the
• 2:57
  quality of your life so that I don't need to escape it anymore.
• 3:02
  I don't want to escape it anymore because my life is big.
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  It's not perfect and it's not what I want all the time, but
• 3:09
  it's exactly what exactly what I need in recovery.
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  And then I find invariably that what I needed and what I wanted
• 3:15
  was actually the same fucking thing all along.
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  That is the true treasure here. So first, dry drunk.
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  What it really means, a dry drunk is somebody that got has
• 3:26
  gotten sober. They've stopped using
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  substances, so they've quit. They've stayed abstinent and
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  they haven't changed their internal patterns that fueled
• 3:35
  the addiction. That's the key here.
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  They're not changing how they interact in the world.
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  They're still acting on anger, they're still acting on lust.
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  They're still acting they're picking up other outside things
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  such as food, sex, gambling to ease the pain and the trauma in
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  in our lives. Essentially a dry drunk is the
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  world revolves around me and my problems.
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  Everything is against me and it's me versus everybody.
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  I am self-centered to the core. I'm not working on being
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  selfless or working on my defects of character.
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  I'm just acting on every single emotion and pain that comes up.
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  And guess who pays the price? Not only you, but every single
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  person around you, every single person that you come into
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  contact with pays the price. And then you're just in this
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  constant state of disturbance. I'm always disturbed when the
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  guy cuts me off in line. I don't have the ability to be
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  patient when I'm not working my recovery program.
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  I flip out and cause a scene and get into a fight or go to jail
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  or whatever. You know how it goes.
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  They're abstinent but still operating from a place of fear.
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  Resentment, control. I need to control things.
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  You need to follow my script. And if you don't follow my
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  script, I automatically hate you.
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  Now I have a resentment. I'm not telling anyone about it.
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  I'm eventually going to blow up because I'm pissed off.
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  I have a low level resentment following me around like a black
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  cloud. So resentment, fear, control,
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  ego, emotional avoidance is another one.
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  You know, that's too uncomfortable.
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  I don't want, I don't want to deal with that.
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  I'll just push that down and then it comes up and explodes on
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  your wife or husband. Some common signs of a dry
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  drunk, chronic irritability or anger.
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  So everything is just pissing you off.
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  It's the state of disturbed. I'm just constantly restless,
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  irritable and discontent and now I don't have my drinks or my
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  drugs. So you're seeing the
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  consequences of that. I'm acting out on that.
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  I'm always irritable. So just, I'm just always
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  uncomfortable. Everything's pissing me off.
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  Everyone else is the problem, right?
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  This victim mentality that's dry drunk, white knuckling through
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  life, just getting through every day, getting to bed, not working
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  on myself, just trying to get sober, trying to get through
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  every day. It's a struggle.
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  It's a real struggle. Being a dry drunk, not having a
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  recovery program, no accountability.
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  Again, everyone else is to blame except for me.
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  Wasn't my fault. If only my husband or my wife or
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  my friends would treat me better or call me more, I'd be happier.
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  No emotional growth. So we're not learning from our
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  mistakes. We're not learning from our
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  emotions. We're not noticing them.
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  They're just coming through. And I always say our emotions
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  and thoughts come through like trains at a train station.
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  You can either use them, they either have Velcro on them and
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  they stick around and we're dwelling on that, or you let
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  them pass by, you're acknowledging it and it's
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  passing by through like trains at a train station and then
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  another sign of a dry drunk still trying to control people
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  outcomes and feelings. If everybody would just follow
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  my script, don't you know the world would be a better place if
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  everyone just listened to me and my ideas and followed my plans?
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  So the key point here is the substance is removed, the
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  substance is gone, but the addiction, the attic mindset is
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  still running the show. Me, me, me.
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  I need to get things my way now. And if I don't, you're going to
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  hear about it. Think of it like this.
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  You didn't remove the engine, you just took your foot off the
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  gas walking around just coasting through life.
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  Irritable, restless, irritable and discontent.
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  Sober does not equal recovered or in recovery.
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  There's a huge debate, I'm gonna go on a tangent here, a little
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  sidetrack here. There's a big debate in recovery
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  versus whether someone can recover or not.
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  There are specific programs that say you can recover from a
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  seemingly hopeless and you can recover.
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  So recover I can recover from a seemingly hopeless state of mind
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  and body. That's what it says is I can be
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  restored to a state of usefulness.
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  Really. If you look up recovered or
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  recover in an old dictionary, one of the oldest definitions is
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  to return. I think it's return to
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  usefulness. So I'm now useful to society in
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  my life, to useful to others again.
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  Whereas when I'm in addiction, I am completely useless.
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  I can't show up to things. I can't keep obligations, I
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  can't keep promises. I can't.
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  Fuck, I can't even keep my own promises.
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  I promised I wouldn't drink tonight because I have that
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  important engagement tomorrow. Here I am, drunk again.
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  So sobriety is behavioral. I'm stopping drinking and using.
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  Recovery is psychological, emotional, spiritual, and
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  relational. You can be 30 days one year, 10
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  years sober and still feel emotionally unsafe, disconnected
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  from community, from a power, grading yourself from yourself,
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  unfulfilled, stuck in old survival patterns.
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  This is why you constantly hear people say, and some people
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  relapse over this. Like I said, I stayed sober but
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  I hated my life. I was miserable.
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  This and circled back. Abstinence alone does not teach
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  you how to feel emotions, how to communicate, or how to repair
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  relationships. These are all skills that are
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  learned in recovery from me working on myself, being honest
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  about the way I'm interacting in the world.
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  Oh, I was kind of a piece of shit there.
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  Oh, I didn't really. I kind of blew up at my wife,
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  you know, I didn't really, she probably didn't appreciate that.
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  I should go and apologize. This is recovery, observing how
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  I interact in the world. So what recovery actually is?
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  Recovery is a change from the inside out.
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  It is an inside job. You hear that a lot.
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  Recovery is an inside job. Nothing out here is going to fix
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  the way I'm feeling that discomfort, that unease inside
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  that dis ease. It's an inside job.
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  I have to work on myself, my defects of character.
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  When I lie, I have to go back and say, hey, I lied there and
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  tell the truth. It's not about being perfect.
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  We are not Saints. We are looking for spiritual
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  progress here. I am being honest about when I
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  fuck up. There's a good story that I I've
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  heard a speaker say once and I, I like to tell it.
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  There was a, a guy that was, he lost his keys and he's out on
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  his front lawn one day looking for his car keys and he's
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  searching through the grass. He's he's on his hands and knees
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  and his friends walk by and say, hey, man, what are you doing?
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  And he invites them over to help him look for his car keys.
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  He's frantically looking all over the grass until one of them
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  says to him, hey, man, where were you last when you had your
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  keys? And he goes, oh, I was inside
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  the house. And the guy, his friends go,
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  well, why the fuck are we looking out here then?
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  And his response is, well, the grass is, is beautiful.
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  It's nice out here. I want to be out here.
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  This is a perfect analogy to I am looking outside for the
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  solution. When the solution is inside the
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  house, it's inside me. My keys are inside the house the
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  entire time. This material I use outside
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  things to change my insides. If I just get that job, I'll be
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  happy. If I just get the girl, I'll be
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  happy. If I just win the bet, I'll be
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  happy. If I just get that house.
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  I've always wanted that Porsche. I will be happy.
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  Biggest lie we can tell ourselves.
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  Nothing. The shine wears off of those
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  things, those material things. It never lasts.
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  This is where recovery comes in and replaces that I am in.
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  I can be in financial trouble and and go from miserable to OK
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  by not getting any money because I am changing.
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  The perception is changing. I did a whole episode about
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  perception, you can check it out.
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  I am changing the way I look at my problems.
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  I'm changing the way I look at the world.
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  It's not everyone versus me anymore.
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  It's I'm focused too much on money and maybe right now I'm
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  not supposed to have money. Is am I OK?
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  Yeah. The heat's on.
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  I have a bed. I have food on the table.
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  Things are pretty fucking good. I'm not using drugs today.
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  I'm not lying, cheating and stealing.
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  Things are pretty good. Life is good.
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  Essentially we're moving from self-centered to God centered
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  and don't. It's not a religious God.
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  I'm moving from self-centered to community centered.
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  I'm focusing on others, constant thought of others.
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  I'm enhancing my spiritual life through the self sacrifice of
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  service to other people. Simple.
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  At the end of the day, we are recovering our true selves here.
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  I'm peeling back the layers of the onion.
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  I am unlearning old behaviors that I picked up in addiction
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  and in childhood and over my life.
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  The armor. I'm peeling down the armor and
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  I'm getting to the core of the root of the problem.
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  Me. I'm a pretty good person under
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  here. I just need to unlearn all these
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  behaviors that kept me sick for so long and still keep me sick.
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  These behaviors also kept us safe.
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  They were survival mechanisms. How can I be safe without
• 12:06
  freaking out and using anger and jealousy and judgement and fear?
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  A power greater than me? Maybe community?
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  A recovery program? The point of all this?
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  The key is to uncover, discover and discard.
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  I'm uncovering. I'm discovering.
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  Oh wow, I didn't realize I do that thing when someone cuts me
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  off. I get really angry in traffic
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  when somebody pisses me off. Maybe I need to work on patients
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  more. Maybe I need to let the guy go
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  in front of me so that I can work on my patients.
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  Maybe when this guy's talking and won't let me get a word in,
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  I need to practice my listening skills by shutting up and
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  listening. What a concept.
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  In recovery, you start to notice patterns instead of reacting
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  automatically. We're not walking around like a
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  pinball machine pulling the trigger every time someone
• 12:52
  pisses us off. We're just that there's a space.
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  There's always a space between circumstance.
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  When thing happens to me, sad thing happens to me.
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  Whatever happens outside circumstance and my reaction,
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  there is always a space. Recovery makes that gap wider
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  and wider over time. So I can pause.
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  Hey, maybe I shouldn't yell at this guy right now.
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  Hey, maybe I shouldn't steal from the grocery store.
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  Maybe I should do something else instead.
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  Maybe there's another way to approach this problem.
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  Let me ask for help. There's a level of humility
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  here, too. Another spiritual principle.
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  What are the opposites of our defects of character?
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  Spiritual principles? Honesty, hope, faith, humility,
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  service, brotherly love, perseverance, patience, love,
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  tolerance. I'm replacing those old ideas
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  with spiritual principles. Instead of being defensive all
• 13:43
  the time, I can be humble and say, yeah you know what maybe
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  I'm wrong, maybe I'm wrong. What a concept.
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  Ultimately recovery is the shift from I can't drink or use drugs
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  2. I don't need to escape my life
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  anymore. Building a new life I don't want
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  to escape from. It's pretty good here if I
• 14:02
  notice gratitude, practice gratitude.
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  All the good things I have in my life.
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  Why does dry drunk lead to relapse?
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  Most relapses, I would say all, but most relapses don't start
• 14:13
  with a drink. They start in the weeks, months,
• 14:16
  years leading up to that first behavior picking up.
• 14:20
  It starts with emotional disconnection.
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  My primary purpose becomes Anthony.
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  I don't serve anybody anymore. The highest, I love this.
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  The highest job, the highest position we can hold in recovery
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  is a servant. That is the highest you can
• 14:38
  graduate to. There's no graduation here.
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  The highest position I can be is a servant, not a slave.
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  I'm there by choice. I am serving God's will.
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  I am serving others. I am doing the next right thing
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  because at the end of the day, it benefits me.
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  It gives me purpose, it makes me feel good about myself.
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  And people tend to graduate, tend to gravitate.
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  Jeez, I can't think right now. Gravitate towards that.
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  And I can attract good energy. I put out good energy and I
• 15:07
  attract good energy back. Then things start to happen that
• 15:10
  are good in my life. I start to get the job that I
• 15:13
  need. The money comes eventually.
• 15:15
  It's just not in my time. Dry drunk.
• 15:18
  Sobriety often includes isolation.
• 15:20
  So I'm better on my own. I don't need those people in
• 15:22
  recovery. I've got this suppressed
• 15:24
  emotions. I'm angry, so I'm just going to
• 15:27
  ignore it or I'm going to take it out on somebody else.
• 15:29
  Unaddressed trauma. So there's a something in my
• 15:33
  life has happened that has caused me to pick up drugs and
• 15:36
  alcohol or cause me mass mass discomfort.
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  I'm just going to ignore it. And resentment builds quietly in
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  the background. I am hating everything.
• 15:45
  Remember, resentment is like drinking poison and hoping the
• 15:48
  other person people die. I'm the only one suffering.
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  When I'm in resentment, nobody else is suffering.
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  No one else is even thinking about me.
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  So eventually, and this will happen to you, the thought
• 15:58
  appears. What is the point of staying
• 16:00
  sober if life feels like this? What's the point?
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  I might as well using drink. For me, I always thought boredom
• 16:07
  was the reason I relapsed. And again, boredom is fear.
• 16:11
  So I was afraid that it was never going to end.
• 16:13
  This feeling of everything was just OK and things were OK in my
• 16:17
  life. Not being able to sit through
• 16:19
  that, acknowledge it, and just reach out for help and get
• 16:22
  through those times lead to relapse because I need my
• 16:25
  medicine eventually. I can't live miserable and sober
• 16:28
  for long. As I said in the beginning,
• 16:31
  relapse is not failure. It's information that our plan
• 16:34
  isn't working. There's something that needs to
• 16:36
  be tweaked here. I need to build a part of my
• 16:39
  life that I can enjoy, that I don't need to escape like I
• 16:42
  said. So how to move from dry drunk to
• 16:45
  recover? Recovering alcoholic addict.
• 16:48
  Some practical tools and shifts you can do to switch from
• 16:52
  primary purposes me to primary purposes to stay sober and help
• 16:56
  another alcoholic get connected. Meetings, therapy, community.
• 17:00
  Go for coffee with somebody, Ask.
• 17:02
  Go buy somebody a coffee. Ask them how they're doing.
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  If you go to a meeting and see a new person, go up to them and
• 17:06
  ask them how they are. Get their phone number, talk to
• 17:08
  them, call them. Call 3 Alcoholics or addicts
• 17:12
  everyday and just ask them how they're doing.
• 17:14
  You will build friends and connections this way.
• 17:16
  Two, practice honesty, especially when it's
• 17:19
  uncomfortable. And when you lie, go back and
• 17:21
  say, hey, you know, I, I kind of lied there.
• 17:24
  This is embarrassing, but and then laugh about it.
• 17:26
  I, I told you a white lie there. I shouldn't have done that.
• 17:29
  Next is learn emotional language.
• 17:31
  So not just I'm fine, everything's fine.
• 17:34
  Angry or stressed, Get deeper, go deeper.
• 17:36
  What are you actually feeling in this moment?
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  Meditate, think about it, feel it, allow it to sit with it.
• 17:42
  Don't sit in it and then stop white knuckling and start
• 17:46
  participating. Action, action, action.
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  Find someone that's sober, ask them what they did, and then do
• 17:52
  what they did. Take the steps one at a time.
• 17:54
  Do the next right thing. And if you can't do that, do the
• 17:57
  next thing right. And then you do the work gently,
• 18:03
  consistently, imperfectly. You build a routine so that when
• 18:07
  you're tired and you don't want to go to that meeting, you have
• 18:10
  a routine, You have an obligation to be there.
• 18:11
  You have a service position, whatever it is, these are tools
• 18:14
  that actually work. All right, so here's the truth
• 18:16
  with all of this. Sobriety keeps you alive.
• 18:20
  Great everyone. Sobriety is important, but
• 18:23
  sobriety alone will not avail long term recovery.
• 18:26
  You will again, you will. You cannot be miserable and
• 18:29
  sober for a long time. Recovery gives you a life worth
• 18:32
  staying sober for. So you're building all these
• 18:35
  things. If you had hobbies in the past,
• 18:37
  like playing the guitar, going for walks, going to the gym, you
• 18:39
  actually enjoy these things. You're present, you're able to
• 18:42
  show up. Family gatherings, obligations,
• 18:45
  commitments. You are staying true to your
• 18:47
  word. That builds confidence.
• 18:49
  I am doing things I'm saying in my head that I'm going to do.
• 18:52
  So in closing, if you are sober right now and unhappy, you're
• 18:56
  not broken, you're not failing, you're not doing it wrong.
• 19:00
  Just look at some of the areas in your life and say, where can
• 19:02
  I be of service to other people? Where can I build life?
• 19:05
  Where can I find purpose? Where can I lend a helping hand?
• 19:09
  What are some areas that maybe I'm not so proud of about
• 19:12
  myself? Some actions, some
• 19:13
  relationships, some things I'm not taking a part accountability
• 19:18
  in. And how do I slowly but surely
• 19:20
  start to be accountable and show up and be a good person?
• 19:24
  I had a mentor asked me one time, what kind of man do you
• 19:28
  want to be? Ask yourself, what kind of man
• 19:30
  or woman or person do you want to be?
• 19:32
  And do my actions reflect that person?
• 19:35
  Simple, not easy. I'll leave you with this.
• 19:38
  You don't recover so that you can stay sober.
• 19:41
  You stay sober so that you can recover.
• 19:44
  Recover what? My true self, that three-year
• 19:48
  old Anthony that's running around spreading love and joy
• 19:51
  and happiness and peace and purpose.
• 19:55
  Thank you guys for showing up today and listening.
• 19:57
  I appreciate all of you. Please like, follow, subscribe,
• 20:01
  send this podcast to someone who needs to hear it.
• 20:03
  Thank you for the messages as well.
• 20:05
  I am back up on TikTok and fully putting out videos again.
• 20:10
  Instagram still not so much. I'm still banned from there for
• 20:13
  a bit, so we'll see how that goes.
• 20:15
  Out of my control. Recovery is simple, not easy.
• 20:19
  And if nobody's told you yet, today, I love you.