Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 23: BONUS Understanding the Addict Mind

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23: BONUS Understanding the Addict Mind · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, we have a bonus episode for you today.
• 0:03
  I did a podcast with Alana and it was around a women's
• 0:09
  intensive that we have coming up and I thought the content might
• 0:14
  be something that you would like to listen to and feel free and
• 0:17
  if not, just skip right through it.
• 0:19
  The request came from which I get often as I have the
• 0:22
  opportunity to go to women's groups and in these women's
• 0:25
  groups, they ask a lot of questions.
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  And I used to call it like getting into the the brain of an
• 0:31
  addict. But really it's allowing the
• 0:34
  betrayed partner, the partner in healing, try to understand the
• 0:39
  why behind the behavior. So we address a lot of things
• 0:42
  like am I enough? I speak directly to her when
• 0:45
  she's asking the question like am I enough or why would my
• 0:48
  partner risk everything for the addiction?
• 0:51
  I just encourage you to take a listen.
• 0:53
  It's not necessarily speaking to the person who hurt their
• 0:58
  partner, but it might be useful for you to hear the kind of
• 1:02
  questions that they ask. Welcome to Beyond the Facade
• 1:07
  podcast. I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and
• 1:10
  I'm thrilled to have you join me in the space today.
• 1:12
  What we're going to be doing is diving deep into the trials and
• 1:15
  triumphs and truths of seeking authenticity.
• 1:18
  Becoming your true self isn't about a single action or a
• 1:20
  moment. It's a relentless pursuit, a
• 1:23
  commitment to self that reveals a rich connection and meaning
• 1:26
  that our life has to offer. So whether this is your first
• 1:29
  time tuning in or you're a regular listener, know this.
• 1:32
  What you're building here goes beyond a conversation.
• 1:35
  You're here to challenge, to change, and to celebrate the
• 1:38
  incredible journey of becoming your authentic self.
• 1:41
  Because when you dare to show up fully, the rewards are
• 1:43
  immeasurable. So, welcome to be on the facade.
• 1:46
  Let's get started. Thanks for joining us today.
• 1:51
  We have a special guest with us today, Luke Gordon, betrayal,
• 1:55
  trauma, sexual addiction, men's mental health, life coach, all
• 2:00
  of the above and more. And Amy's not with us today.
• 2:04
  It's just Luke and I. And this is a bonus episode
• 2:08
  where we're really going to look at some of the questions that we
• 2:13
  get so often that I see women just want to know about why
• 2:22
  their partner did what they did. And I will with this episode
• 2:26
  where normally I try to avoid gender, this one I am going to
• 2:30
  just use a gender of male and female simply because I want
• 2:35
  you, Luke, to authentically get in the mind of an addict.
• 2:38
  And specifically, a lot of women really struggle to understand
• 2:43
  what could possibly be happening in their husbands or partners
• 2:48
  brain have a hard time understanding what that thought
• 2:51
  processes is. How could they do this?
• 2:54
  What were they thinking? If anything?
• 2:56
  Did they ever feel guilt? Did they ever think about them?
• 3:00
  Was I enough? All of these questions that come
• 3:03
  up and today I'm more just going to interview you, Luke and ask
• 3:08
  the questions that I hear that women asking and wanting to know
• 3:12
  this episode, what kind of prompted this episode is we have
• 3:16
  an intensive coming up in a couple of weeks, the end of
• 3:19
  October. And Luke, you are coming to that
• 3:23
  and speaking to the women and doing a live Q&A session.
• 3:26
  And what's always been interesting to me is when I have
• 3:29
  run groups, we and our groups make room for questions every
• 3:34
  single week. And I would feel like, man, I
• 3:38
  know my women. I know what questions they have.
• 3:41
  I'm pretty sure I know what they're going to ask Luke.
• 3:43
  And I would bring Luke into the group, I don't know, every six
• 3:47
  months or so and let him answer their questions.
• 3:50
  And then they would come up with these questions.
• 3:52
  Once you got in front of them, Luke, that I was like, whoa,
• 3:56
  like that's a big, deep, heavy question that never came up in
• 3:59
  Group. And so there's something around
• 4:02
  when they get with somebody who truly knows and gets and has
• 4:06
  been there themselves what this type of thinking looks like.
• 4:10
  It's so interesting hearing some of those really deep questions
• 4:13
  that come out. Long introduction, but Luke,
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  thank you. Can I add something to that?
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  Please. What I found out is it's a very
• 4:21
  hard rewarding experience for me to go to those and because I I
• 4:26
  for the men that would get a chance to hear this because we
• 4:29
  are going to say men and women. Is that what I heard you say,
• 4:30
  Lana? Yeah, but this one, I'm good
• 4:32
  with it. With this one, we're good with
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  it. So for the men that I work with,
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  I have the opportunity to sit with a spouse and talk about the
• 4:43
  specific behavior. And often it can be my, it will
• 4:46
  be my behavior and not tie shame to it.
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  And it is such a rewarding experience and hard experience,
• 4:53
  at least for me to be able to be present in that emotion with the
• 4:56
  group. And I just, I go there and I
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  feel the women show up and just so badly want answers to these
• 5:03
  questions. And I get from them what I wish
• 5:06
  their husbands got, which is that or their partners got,
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  which is that connection in that experience of, oh, that makes
• 5:16
  sense because my walls are down. Like to a certain extent, it's
• 5:19
  still difficult. My walls are down and there's
• 5:22
  not be for connection. I'm like, I, I want that for
• 5:26
  him. I want him to show up because I
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  don't have the shame because I didn't hurt him.
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  But we're talking about the heart very specifically.
• 5:32
  So anyway, just wanted to say that.
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  And that's an interesting point because you're right, I see so
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  often that the person who has been betrayed have such a short
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  time holding their partner stuff because all of their shame does
• 5:46
  come block and get in the way. But also for a partner who is
• 5:52
  trained to heal from betrayal, they can ask you questions and
• 5:56
  hear answers with more of that emotional safety because if you
• 6:03
  give them an answer they don't like, they can just write it off
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  of OK, and I'll listen to that dude.
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  But if their husband or their boyfriend gives them an answer
• 6:12
  they don't like of how deeply that hurts.
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  And so sometimes we can hear each other better when it's
• 6:20
  coming from somebody else, which I think why is podcast like this
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  can be so helpful or women coming to this intensive and
• 6:27
  being able to be with you can be so helpful.
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  And I actually I'm thinking of another intensive we did a while
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  back where there was a group of, I don't know, 30 or 40 women.
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  And I told them before you came up, I said, you can ask any of
• 6:43
  the questions, throw your hardest at him, don't hold back.
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  And so there were women like got mad at you and because you
• 6:50
  represented men and represented their pain and there's just
• 6:56
  something really beautiful and you being able to hold that
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  space for them and let them be angry and validate that and it
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  can just be really healing. So you coming and being able to
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  tackle some of these questions today.
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  Thank you for that. And I will say to the women who
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  are listening, any feelings you have listening to this are OK
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  and welcome. There's different parts in the
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  journey where if I heard this type of conversation, I would
• 7:27
  want to stab the man who was speaking because of where I was
• 7:32
  at in my own pain. And there's other times I would
• 7:34
  want to cry in gratitude and everywhere in between.
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  And so just whatever comes up authentically, we welcome them
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  and that's OK. And one other thing I want to
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  say is my experience isn't every other man's experience.
• 7:52
  So I have my template and the way it is, and I'm sorry if that
• 7:56
  goes from, oh, I know I have complete clarity.
• 7:59
  And then Luke said this and I think that's how my husband or
• 8:03
  my partner showing up. I just recognized that this is
• 8:06
  that every man has a lit is having a different experience.
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  We're going to speak to a lot of the similarities.
• 8:13
  Yeah, yeah. Thank you.
• 8:15
  OK, So I think the place I want to start, that first question I
• 8:17
  want to ask you and I'm going to actually give you like 3
• 8:21
  different questions, but they're all the same energy.
• 8:24
  So it's what did I do to deserve this?
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  Am I not enough for you? If I look different, if I'd
• 8:31
  acted different, if I did something different, would you
• 8:34
  not have done this to me? Can you share with me more
• 8:38
  before I answer that question? When you say oh they all come
• 8:41
  with the same energy, would you share that more without me?
• 8:45
  Yeah, when I say they all come with the same energy, it's all
• 8:48
  about what we do when we've been betrayed as we internalize it
• 8:54
  about ourselves. And the deeper we internalize
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  it, the more pain there is. And so as much as possible, when
• 9:02
  I'm doing work with women and men, I'm trying to help them not
• 9:06
  internalize it. But it is so hard.
• 9:09
  So those questions of was I not enough?
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  What did I do wrong? But I have done something
• 9:14
  different to make this not happen, are so real and come up
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  in so many different ways. OK.
• 9:22
  All right. So what's the question again now
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  that I got my head around that part?
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  Am I not enough for you? If I looked differently or did
• 9:31
  something differently, would you not have done this?
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  Or what did I do to deserve this?
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  This is probably one of the harder ones to talk about
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  because what I wanted to run to is yet you are enough.
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  It's my problem as this is my problem.
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  You're enough. And that is absolutely accurate.
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  But let's go deeper than that. The like the what is actually
• 9:59
  behind that? So when I showed up to my
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  relationship in the beginning, I wasn't an emotionally healthy
• 10:09
  person. I wasn't, I didn't finish my
• 10:12
  growing up maturing process. So immediately I put my partner
• 10:17
  in a place where they needed to provide certain things for me
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  that they technically them or anybody else wasn't capable of.
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  And so every time he says, no, you are enough, he's slapping
• 10:33
  you in the face because nobody could be enough because what he
• 10:37
  was trying to get filled and held, nobody was going to be
• 10:41
  capable of. And so in and of yourself, heck
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  yeah, you're enough, right? Can I just want to say that to
• 10:48
  begin with, like you are enough. It's not about you.
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  And then it's everything because it surrounds you because it's
• 10:58
  relational. And so we want to have that big
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  and inside of there and recognizes both parts of this.
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  Because what I wanted to tell Alana was is no, you're enough.
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  Well, that's just a slap in the face, right?
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  Slap in the face because it's a me thing, right?
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  So that's not from what I hear. And Alana, if you can speak to
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  this is not really super validating for my partner to
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  just say, yeah, you are because there's missing pieces.
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  So anyway. That's no, I, I really like that
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  answer. And you hear that where they'll
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  say it's nothing about you, it's really about me.
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  And yes, while it's nothing about you, all of it impacts
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  you. And so both of those are true.
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  And even what I see is even when I have the person who has
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  betrayed, when they are in a place of blaming, if you would
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  have done this more, if you would have done this more, A, it
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  shows where they are in their work.
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  But B, truly, when you do dig down, you do discover it is like
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  the way all of us respond is because of our own things that
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  are happening internally within us.
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  And so I just appreciate you saying that it's nothing about
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  you, but everything about you because it impacts you.
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  Yeah. You didn't do anything wrong.
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  And we're you're not wrong when you say something like maybe if
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  I would have had sex more or maybe if I was more sexual in
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  our experiences, maybe that would have maybe for a moment,
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  right? Maybe for a tiny sliver of
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  something, but that is not the root of what's going on here.
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  That is, you know, it's really painful to hear about women
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  because you're allowing that to be the case here alone today.
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  We're talking about the traditional woman and and man
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  experience of man being the person that's compulsive is
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  there can be some curbing of some behavior through control,
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  right for both people, but it doesn't tackle root, it doesn't
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  change anything. It doesn't fix anything.
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  So. Not only that, it can
• 13:13
  perpetuate. Perpetuate.
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  Really unhealthy patterns because my mother gave me the
• 13:19
  book. We had probably been married at
• 13:22
  that point, like six or seven years, but she gave me the book.
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  The Proper Care and Feeding of Husbands by Doctor Laura
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  Schless. Oh my goodness.
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  And in, in in the book's defense, in the very first page
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  or two, it says if there is addiction or abuse happening,
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  this book does not apply. And I didn't know that emotional
• 13:41
  abuse or addiction were happening.
• 13:43
  But I took that book to heart. And I was all about making my
• 13:52
  husband's life as happy and easy and comfortable as I could and
• 13:57
  making sure I was sexually available, making sure that his
• 13:59
  life, when he walked in the door from work, he was very
• 14:01
  comfortable and he was happy and he was so well taken care of.
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  And the reality is he did like that.
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  And there was a positive response from that.
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  And what it did is it further enabled, even for those
• 14:19
  unhealthy patterns that we were in that we did not know about,
• 14:23
  to not only continue, but to thrive.
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  And it played in big time to the addiction actually increasing
• 14:30
  and entitlement increasing and he was happier with me.
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  But overall, big picture, it was not better.
• 14:40
  Yeah, yeah, totally. I think about that.
• 14:42
  You're like you, you did a kick butt job.
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  Do we cuss here or no? Amy loves to cuss.
• 14:49
  I'm Amy. I'm not throwing you into the
• 14:51
  bus. I cuss all the time.
• 14:52
  I just don't really don't cuss on the podcast.
• 14:54
  OK, But anyway, I, you did a kick butt job like providing
• 14:59
  that environment, that book said.
• 15:01
  And I'll tell you, I don't like the book in general.
• 15:04
  I don't care whether it is because I think nuances of
• 15:06
  relationships with men in general, there's a catering to
• 15:09
  that's not helpful. So whether you experience
• 15:11
  addiction or not culture set up to there's not a lot of there's
• 15:17
  a lot of inequality there and a lot of not a lot of partnership.
• 15:20
  But anyway, I won't go on that. So what we have with that is as
• 15:23
  long as you did a kick butt job creating an environment and
• 15:26
  that's the enough that we're talking about there, you
• 15:29
  couldn't do. I was always going to expect
• 15:31
  more and I was going to get used to the best that you could give,
• 15:35
  right? And I was going to get used to
• 15:36
  that. And then there was going to be a
• 15:37
  little bit more. And that's the addictive
• 15:39
  mindset, right? Whatever I have, it's not going
• 15:42
  to be enough. So it was about.
• 15:45
  It wasn't about you, but everything around you.
• 15:48
  Yeah, yeah. OK, let's go.
• 15:51
  The next question, we were only going to do like a 15 minute
• 15:53
  episode and I think we've already gone past 15 minutes.
• 15:55
  But I do want to hit a couple of questions.
• 15:58
  There's so many good ones, and I feel like everyone that I have
• 16:00
  is going to open up a can of worms.
• 16:02
  Let's go to once around trust and honesty.
• 16:04
  I see a lot of those. One question I see is how do I
• 16:10
  know you're telling me the truth now?
• 16:13
  Or how can I believe anything you say now?
• 16:18
  Oh man, the first thing I run to is it's the scariest part out
• 16:21
  there. It's the part that I don't want
• 16:22
  to believe in. Technically the partner
• 16:24
  traumatize. I don't ever believe it's about
• 16:27
  when I find myself in denial or in deceit.
• 16:31
  I can find that relatively quickly and I can come forward
• 16:34
  on it. So it's not the perfectionism,
• 16:36
  it's not the I will never lie again.
• 16:39
  It's the what can bring comfort long term that somebody shows up
• 16:45
  and shows the parts that they don't want to be seeing.
• 16:47
  They don't want to be seeing themselves and they don't want
• 16:49
  other people to see. So it's the it's that part of
• 16:54
  what am I noticing my partner do to be seen and be real and what
• 16:57
  they don't are not proud of, right.
• 16:59
  So it's bigger than just the lying.
• 17:01
  The part, it's the integrity. It's the it's the transparency
• 17:06
  on the experience. We get caught in the you lied,
• 17:10
  right? There was a lie, right?
• 17:11
  Or I lied and now I can't be seen.
• 17:13
  Oh, I wasn't perfect. This is a hard one because if
• 17:19
  lived here of no, you will be perfect or we're done and I
• 17:24
  didn't use the words perfect. But no, you're not going to mess
• 17:27
  up again, like you're not going to lie to me.
• 17:29
  You're not going to mess up. You're not going to like you
• 17:32
  betray me. I'm done.
• 17:34
  And so I wanted perfect. I felt like I deserved nothing
• 17:39
  but perfect. And while that may be true, that
• 17:43
  I did not deserve anything that happened to me, the reality of
• 17:48
  this and of humans is we aren't perfect and we don't move from
• 17:55
  being very broken to being perfect.
• 17:58
  Ain't nobody perfect but B growing as a process from where
• 18:02
  we're at. So what you're saying is we have
• 18:06
  to have truth in on truth, honesty and transparency in the
• 18:12
  imperfection, and that's where the trust is built?
• 18:14
  That's where it's built. It's not built from being
• 18:17
  perfect. That's so problematic to think
• 18:20
  that my partner is going to start to trust me out of
• 18:23
  perfection. And that's not how trust trust
• 18:26
  gets a rebuilt of watching of them watching me fall and stand
• 18:31
  up and learn and share that experience.
• 18:35
  And I think it's when you. Say fall, does that mean that
• 18:38
  they have to go back to cheating or go back to addictive
• 18:41
  behavior? Is that what you mean by fall?
• 18:44
  No, it's just how quick they become, OK, here's the word that
• 18:47
  we have a hard time with lying on both sides.
• 18:49
  The person that's been betrayed and the person that did the
• 18:51
  betraying. Lying is this.
• 18:52
  Everybody sees there's a problem.
• 18:54
  Both people do. They're like, I don't, I see
• 18:56
  there's a problem. It is the problem.
• 18:59
  What we do is we recognize that's actually awareness is the
• 19:02
  problem. I lack awareness of my
• 19:04
  experience of what's going on in my life.
• 19:07
  So this is the hard truth for the person that's been betrayed.
• 19:11
  You will have a front row seat to your partner becoming more
• 19:14
  and more aware, unpacking layer by layer.
• 19:17
  So it's not just the lies that they're aware of, it's the lies
• 19:20
  and the it's denial about what they're actually experiencing.
• 19:24
  So when they come out of it, they'll actually come out of it
• 19:27
  and come into awareness in shame.
• 19:30
  That's their first response in that awareness.
• 19:33
  And so if I'm just after just straight up just always be truth
• 19:39
  to me, it means like that person has to be completely aware of
• 19:42
  everything to begin with. Again, nuanced.
• 19:45
  There's some greatness in here. But anyway, just thoughts.
• 19:50
  OK, this is the yeah. So then I go back to that
• 19:53
  initial question of how do I know you're telling me the truth
• 19:56
  or how can I believe anything? What I hear you say is that
• 20:02
  there is this process of coming into reality, process of
• 20:06
  shutting the denial, process of coming to truth.
• 20:10
  And it's how open and honest are they in that process?
• 20:16
  And I think what I wanted when I was in this journey was like,
• 20:20
  give me the answer that will guarantee that I'm safe moving
• 20:25
  forward. And I almost want to cry with
• 20:27
  that because there's so much emotion of almost this begging
• 20:31
  and pleading of just tell me how I can be safe.
• 20:34
  And there is no like a guarantee that you're getting the honest
• 20:40
  truth. There is no 1000% assurance To
• 20:43
  love and to invest in again takes a level of risk.
• 20:49
  And as you're utilizing these healthy tools, as you're coming
• 20:54
  into honesty and transparency, that's where that trust starts
• 20:59
  to get rebuilt. It is not restored.
• 21:01
  It gets rebuilt little tiny piece by little tiny piece.
• 21:06
  Yeah, you can't restore something that doesn't exist.
• 21:10
  It was a fallacy. Not what he was providing for
• 21:14
  you and what reality was. That's the fallacy.
• 21:17
  That there's a lot of grief that comes with that loss of trust
• 21:21
  for AB Trade partner to feel like they really can trust and
• 21:24
  then all of a sudden discover that they can't.
• 21:27
  There's such a loss there. And with that loss comes a lot
• 21:29
  of grief. So I just want to hold space for
• 21:31
  that. Yeah, totally.
• 21:34
  OK, one more question and then if you want more come to the
• 21:38
  intensive. You can have a whole hour and a
• 21:40
  half of your individual questions, but OK, how could you
• 21:45
  risk everything we built together?
• 21:48
  How could you jeopardize everything?
• 21:53
  Just when you get stoned out of your brain and you're surviving,
• 22:00
  there's nothing conscious about that.
• 22:03
  What do you mean? OK, so this could be super,
• 22:07
  super triggering. I'm sorry if the impact is
• 22:10
  hopefully the hopefully there's some helpfulness and, and not
• 22:13
  just hurt inside of this at the, when I would come, when I would
• 22:21
  conclude an acting out experience, OK, when I would be
• 22:25
  done with it, whatever it was changing masturbation,
• 22:28
  pornography, whatever it is, I would get done with that
• 22:34
  experience. And I would all the sudden come
• 22:37
  out of a come out of a like a trance of sorts.
• 22:42
  I don't even know how to describe it.
• 22:45
  And I would look around and it was very short moment and I
• 22:49
  would go, what did you do? Why did you do that?
• 22:57
  And I think that it's like the frog in the boiling water,
• 23:01
  right? Little bit by little bit.
• 23:05
  And the reason I've even stepped in the boiling water is because
• 23:09
  something at the end of the day needed attended to.
• 23:14
  There was pain and I needed to deal with that pain.
• 23:18
  And I didn't have a lot of solutions when the solutions
• 23:23
  that I had were very destructive.
• 23:25
  I would follow rituals and patterns that would lull myself
• 23:28
  to sleep. By the way, none of this is me
• 23:32
  saying I I get a pass because I'm being lulled into not being
• 23:38
  aware of my choices because I'm making choices as I'm going
• 23:41
  through this experience. There's still accountability for
• 23:43
  every choice to learn the. Whole much accountability now,
• 23:46
  I'm not going to escape that. That's not even an option.
• 23:50
  I can pretend like it is, but that is an experience where I
• 23:54
  go, where I drift from the frontal cortex, from the front
• 23:57
  part of my brain where my values exist.
• 24:00
  And then things happen in my life that go some that I
• 24:04
  emotionally can't take, and I go, I need to cope with that.
• 24:07
  And it sends me on this pattern that sends me down these
• 24:10
  patterns and these processes to handle my emotional pain, but it
• 24:15
  lulls me to sleep and lulls me to that survival part of my
• 24:18
  brain. Almost a choosing to numb out as
• 24:21
  I see it so often. In what is extremely dangerous
• 24:25
  ways that don't seem dangerous to the surface level, right,
• 24:29
  Because I'm able to identify through recovery.
• 24:31
  Like the danger isn't like in the porn or the cheating.
• 24:35
  The danger is anything that will put me to sleep, anything that
• 24:38
  will take me away from ability to make conscious choice.
• 24:43
  So that's. So to answer your question,
• 24:45
  there was a question how could I do that or what was?
• 24:50
  Did you risk everything we built together?
• 24:53
  Yeah, because I couldn't deal with the pain and that would
• 24:58
  send me down the path. And that's a again, that's a
• 25:01
  hole that can't be filled like we talked about can never be
• 25:04
  enough with that. I need to just a really quick
• 25:09
  thing on dopamine because a lot of this, a lot of this is fueled
• 25:12
  by dopamine. Dopamine is something that I use
• 25:16
  to fill reward, but it's also something that if I get a lot of
• 25:20
  it, I can't feel it anymore. I can't feel that level of
• 25:23
  dopamine. And it's also the way that I
• 25:25
  combat pain and a counteract pain.
• 25:28
  So I give myself dopamine and that helps me handle my pain,
• 25:31
  but the problem is the more dopamine I get, the less that it
• 25:34
  works. So I have to get more intense
• 25:37
  with the level of dopamine that I get.
• 25:39
  So it takes me to where I'm out of that conscious space because
• 25:44
  of how saturated I am with dopamine.
• 25:47
  And then what that means is it's a more intense experience which
• 25:51
  causes me to act in those ways. To answer your question, a lot
• 25:55
  of why? Why did you not understand the
• 25:57
  risk? Because I wasn't fully aware.
• 26:00
  Can we just say more about how that I'm still making choices?
• 26:03
  Because I feel like that there's, I don't want to come
• 26:05
  across as I get a pass because I'm not awake.
• 26:08
  Yeah, sure, Because what I was going to say is like, I I'm,
• 26:14
  I've studied the science on this for years.
• 26:17
  This is all about like the CSAT training.
• 26:20
  And what you're talking about is the book Dopamine Nation and all
• 26:23
  of her research there. I know the science, I know the
• 26:26
  research and betrile trauma, those betrayed parts.
• 26:31
  There's no answer that's going to feel good or satisfy.
• 26:36
  How could you risk everything? Thanks.
• 26:39
  There's just no answer that I know all the research and I can
• 26:43
  sit down with a partner and I could show you all the research
• 26:46
  and it may hit you logically, like analytically, like I hear
• 26:52
  you cognitively. I get it emotionally, there is
• 26:57
  no reason that could ever make sense of how somebody could
• 27:02
  risk, especially if you felt that there was love in the
• 27:05
  relationship and you felt like there was trust.
• 27:08
  And so I just hold that going great answer.
• 27:13
  And for those who are listening to this who have been betrayed
• 27:17
  and that answer is like, that sucks that doesn't it?
• 27:20
  And it feels like he's getting giving himself a free pass.
• 27:24
  All of the research is there, all of the understanding around
• 27:28
  how the brain works and how addiction works and the rituals
• 27:30
  and the cycles and all of that can make sense.
• 27:34
  And that still doesn't make it make emotional sense on how
• 27:39
  somebody could risk everything for them.
• 27:44
  Yeah. And that's where like that work
• 27:47
  that I have so much respect for y'all doing is that separating
• 27:52
  yourself from his behavior? It's not about me.
• 27:54
  And that's done by going and doing that work and processing
• 27:59
  that in that place where it's safe to process it.
• 28:03
  And I'm sorry if your partner's not in a place to be able to
• 28:07
  hear you talk about that, because that sucks.
• 28:11
  It is. It's so painful and as humans we
• 28:15
  just want to be heard and understood, especially in a pain
• 28:19
  like this. Yeah.
• 28:21
  OK. I know we went longer than what
• 28:24
  I said we were going to go Lube. Thank you for volunteering your
• 28:27
  time. I think that I have in front of
• 28:32
  me 40 questions. We had three.
• 28:36
  Maybe we'll have you come on and we'll do this again.
• 28:38
  But thank you for answering those questions.
• 28:41
  I really hope that I get to see some of you at the intensive.
• 28:44
  Obviously I will, but it's such a rich experience and I hope
• 28:49
  that I get a chance to see you and I will give you.
• 28:52
  Can I is it OK if I give some encouragement?
• 28:54
  Alana here. I hope this isn't like the
• 28:57
  levels of appropriate. Gosh damn it, like families and
• 29:03
  couples spend so much money and time and resources on his on his
• 29:09
  recovery. Please put yourself first.
• 29:12
  Please get what you need. Invest in yourself, not just
• 29:17
  financially, but time wise. Oh my gosh, the sacrifice of
• 29:20
  everything you do that you have to put down to come take care of
• 29:24
  you for a few days. That's a lot.
• 29:26
  I don't know, I don't get it. But yeah, just please put you
• 29:31
  first with these types of experiences.
• 29:33
  The healing that we do as individuals is so much bigger
• 29:38
  than us. When you get your healing, it
• 29:42
  not only impacts you, but if you have any children, if you have a
• 29:46
  partner, if you have loved ones, a coworkers, friends, that your
• 29:51
  healing ripples out, but especially if you have children.
• 29:56
  And so prioritizing yourself is so much bigger than just you.
• 30:00
  But even if you lived in a vacuum, which nobody does, you
• 30:04
  are still worth getting your healing.
• 30:06
  And I want to tell you about Alana, talk about while you're
• 30:08
  here. I love watching her because
• 30:11
  what's really important to her and the other women that put on
• 30:15
  this intensive because they know other people are working really
• 30:18
  hard is they are really interested in you getting
• 30:22
  catered to, you being taken care of you, you getting prefers
• 30:26
  because you're doing that for everybody else and it's about
• 30:28
  damn time that happens for you. So anyway, just excited about
• 30:33
  it. OK.
• 30:35
  Thank you, Luke for coming on and answering those questions.
• 30:39
  And to our listeners, thank you for hanging out with us.
• 30:41
  I would I normally end with we'll see you all next week, but
• 30:45
  this is a bonus episode, so we'll see you in a few days.
• 30:48
  And thanks for joining us today. Hi, this is Hallie Roderick with
• 30:55
  Choose Recovery Services. And I wanted to tell you a
• 30:57
  little bit about our upcoming Courage to Thrive Intensive that
• 31:01
  we'll be hosting in Spanish Fork, UT on October 23rd through
• 31:04
  the 26th. If you're a woman who's
• 31:07
  experienced betrayal trauma, we would invite you to consider
• 31:10
  joining us in Spanish Fork. It's a beautiful time to be in
• 31:13
  Utah. The fall leaves are coming, and
• 31:15
  it's a great opportunity for you to take the next steps forward
• 31:18
  in wherever you're at in your healing journey.
• 31:21
  At these intensives, we like to create opportunities for you to
• 31:24
  actually experience healing and not just learn about it.
• 31:29
  So we'll be addressing the topics of healthy boundaries,
• 31:34
  learning to rebuild trust in yourself and others.
• 31:37
  We'll take a look at grief and how it shows up in betrayal,
• 31:39
  trauma, and so many more things. We also have some opportunities
• 31:43
  for you to experience some somatic healing because we all
• 31:47
  know that trauma effects our physical bodies as well.
• 31:50
  So if you're in a place where you want some additional
• 31:53
  support, taking the next step forward in your healing journey,
• 31:57
  please check our show notes For more information on how to
• 31:59
  register for the upcoming intensive.
• 32:02
  And I hope to see you in Spanish work on October 23rd.
• 32:08
  Hey, thanks for joining us today.
• 32:10
  If this is something that you connected with, I'd love to meet
• 32:13
  with you more and talk about it. So what you can do is go to
• 32:15
  chooserecoveryservices.com or check the show notes and there
• 32:19
  what we can do is set up a quick conversation we need.
• 32:22
  Thanks so much for listening to Beyond the Facade where we
• 32:24
  unmask the authentic self.