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Overcoming Fear in Sobriety: Tools for Anxiety, Uncertainty & Emotional Sobriety · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  Hello everyone, welcome back or welcome to recovering out loud
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  podcast another bite size tips and tricks episode for how to
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  handle life in recovery. Today I'm going to be talking
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  about the fear of the future, something that plagues a lot of
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  people that I talked to in recovery, myself included, is
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  fear of the unknown, right? This.
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  Either I have something that I have to do tomorrow that I don't
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  want. I'm really not looking forward
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  to doing it. I really don't want to do it and
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  it's plaguing my mind all day today.
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  Or that fear of uncertainty of what's going to happen next if I
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  don't do this or if I do this or I just, I want to know.
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  I want to know what's going to happen next.
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  I need to know. I need to be in control of the
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  outcome. So if it's your first time here,
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  welcome. My name is Anthony.
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  I'm an addict and alcoholic in recovery.
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  Been in recovery for 10 years, relapse after eight years, clean
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  and sober, coming up on 11 months again.
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  And I am so grateful that I'm back on this side.
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  I'm grateful to be able to do this with you and giving you all
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  the tips and tricks, all the recovery wisdom that has been
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  passed down freely to me over the years.
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  And there's a lot I've retained a lot.
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  I've learned a lot about my own disease, my own addiction.
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  So welcome, if you like the episodes, like what you're
• 1:20
  hearing, please follow subscribe, rate the podcast, The
• 1:24
  best payment I could get from you as I'm doing this all for
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  free. I'm not making any income off of
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  this. And I'm doing it really.
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  I'm doing it to stay sober myself, right?
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  Because when I'm of service, I'm not thinking about myself and
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  I'm talking recovery. I'm not thinking about my
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  problems and my poor me. So I'm going to break down today
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  what fear of the future really is from a neurological level, I
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  guess psychological level. Why fear hits hard in recovery,
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  The lies that fear tells us, how fear shapes our behaviors, tools
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  to break the fear cycle, what a healthy relationship with the
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  future looks like. And then I'm going to challenge
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  you to something. I'm going to ask you a few
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  questions that you can take home and reflect on yourself.
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  Because recovery is all about self examination, reflection,
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  quiet time. Who am I?
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  Why do I use drugs? How do I live life successfully
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  without the need to use drugs and alcohol?
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  So fear is common for everybody. Our bodies are designed to
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  anticipate threats and so we want to be aware of those
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  threats so that we can prepare for them.
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  Back in the day, long time ago, we used to have to be on guard
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  for predators, for lions, for bears, and our nervous system
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  was designed to keep us alive so that we can anticipate the
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  attack. Unfortunately or fortunately,
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  this has evolved with us and now we are afraid of a lot of
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  things. One of my favorite acronyms for
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  fear, and there's a few of them false evidence appearing real.
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  Another one is fuck everything and run.
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  Another one for you is face everything and recover.
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  But essentially, fear is normal. It's our perspective, our
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  perception that's the problem. Our perspective of said problem.
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  That's the issue, not the actual problem itself.
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  It's our story. The story that we spin on the
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  outcome, for example, I've been going through a lot of financial
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  debt as a result of my addiction and and alcoholism, and I had a
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  fear every single morning for a long time in my early recovery.
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  I'm still in early recovery, but in the first few months it was
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  every day I'd wake up with how am I going to solve this?
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  I'm going to fail. I'm not making enough money.
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  All these stories I would spin on to myself right when in in
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  turn, in reality I was OK. I was safe, I was sober, I was
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  alive, and there was no need for me to be obsessing over the fear
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  of financial insecurity. I spun a story in my head that I
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  wasn't safe and I needed to fix this problem right now.
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  When in reality, like I said, the problem itself was my
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  relationship to the financial insecurity.
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  I was trying to fix everything in one moment in the here and
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  now, and that was just impossible.
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  It was impossible. So I had to turn that over.
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  I had to accept the fact that I was where I was financially.
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  And slowly when I stopped obsessing over it, the answer
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  came to me in the quiet, the moment moments, right?
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  And for me, that answer was to just pay off your minimum
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  payments one at a time. And today, I can honestly say
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  I'm back on the track. I'm back on track to financial
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  freedom, which is really the goal here, right?
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  I mean, at the end of the day, I just want to be financially safe
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  and free and have the ability to live without panicking about it.
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  But again, that's my perception of it.
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  So you're not broken. Fear is your brain recalibrating
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  to the lack of chaos and the quiet and the sort of normalcy
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  that you've now cultivated in recovery.
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  So our brain hates uncertainty. Addiction sort of created a
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  predictable chaos for us, for a lot of us.
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  And then recovery removes that predictability pattern where
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  it's like now I don't know what's going to happen next.
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  And I can't just check out of life with drugs and alcohol
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  where I used to before, whenever the fears used to come up with
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  tomorrow, I would just check out by doing a line or smoking a
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  joint or drinking. And then so this uncertainty
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  feels dangerous and it feels like my life is that threatened,
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  my life is in jeopardy when really it's not.
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  It's just my brain telling me a story.
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  I'm like a movie projector going around the world and projecting
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  my story onto the movie screen. It's not reality.
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  It's my version of reality, my story, my perception.
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  So there's anticipatory anxiety, which is sort of this state that
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  we like to cultivate, that I like to cultivate where it's
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  like, if I can predict the worst thing that's going to happen to
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  me, I feel in control, I feel safe.
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  Meanwhile, I'm freaking out and panicking over the fear of what
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  possibly could happen. And it's usually the most
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  outlandish thing, right? False evidence appearing real.
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  For example, I moved careers. I'm not making a steady income
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  like I used to. I'm going to fail.
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  I'm going to be a bad husband. I'm not going to be able to
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  support my family. All these stories start to spin
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  up in my head. And then it takes me away from
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  the solution of the problem, which is just shut up, keep
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  going, and trust the process, right when you're on the break
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  path. It will come, just not in your
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  time. The money will come.
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  I keep telling myself that the financial freedom will come,
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  just not in my time. So this fear of the future shows
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  up in a multitude of ways, but more specifically, overthinking,
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  catastrophizing, avoidance, wanting guarantees or
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  expectations out of life, right? Expectations are nothing but
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  premeditated resentments. And then when I don't get that
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  expectation of making enough money and what is enough money
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  anyways? Like seriously, what is enough
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  money? Once I get here I'll be OK.
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  Once I make 6 figures I'll be. And then it's never enough.
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  You get there and you're like wow this doesn't feel that good.
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  It's because it's an external motivator.
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  External factor. You'll never be happy from
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  external motivator just it's so cliche, but listen to anybody
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  that's made it rich. They always say it isn't what
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  they thought it would be, right. Picture it as like a ladder.
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  At the top of the ladder, there's a bag.
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  And the guy that's been to the top of the ladder is telling
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  you, dude, there's nothing in the bag.
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  There's nothing in the bag. Don't bother going to the top of
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  the ladder and doing all these things to get there.
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  Manipulating, lie, cheating, seal, work hard, whatever.
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  And then no, You know, I Yeah, I believe you.
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  But I got to still see for myself.
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  You climb up the ladder, you do all the things you got to do to
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  get ahead in life. You get to the top, open the
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  bag, it's empty every time. Why does fear hit so hard in
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  recovery? Because there's an identity
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  shift for a lot of us. It's if I remove the drugs and
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  alcohol. Who and I without it I'm not fun
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  bar drinking guy. Meanwhile I was the only one
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  that thought that I'm not Life of the party Anthony who always
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  has a bag on him and people love to have around.
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  By the end nobody wanted me fucking around and I was alone
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  in a hotel room every single time.
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  So you come into recovery, you lose your coping mechanisms,
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  your solution? Drugs and alcohol.
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  Now what? Without numbness, the future
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  feels raw and unpredictable and real.
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  Then there's the fear of failure and relapse and the myth that
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  you tell yourself of one mistake sort of erases everything,
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  whether it's a relapse or, you know, a bad decision you made or
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  something that affected your life in a detrimental way, a
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  relationship you lost. Now I've lost all my recovery.
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  I've ruined it all. This sort of zero to 100
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  thinking, this catastrophizing. Then there's the fear of
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  success, which is the pressure expectations, like I said
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  already, responsibility. I have so much on my shoulders.
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  I have such a big load to carry. And then there's the fear of
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  stability. And this one sounds a little
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  strange, but I found that a lot of people struggle with this
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  one, myself included. It's this like, chaos was
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  familiar for me. Now I have like a sort of
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  mediocre, not high, not lowlife. Things are just sort of moving
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  along and peace feels foreign. I don't like this feeling of
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  quiet. It feels boring, you know, is
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  this all my life is now? I always say that.
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  All right. Most common lies that fear tells
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  us lie number one, I won't be able to handle what's coming.
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  Counter that with listen, motherfucker, you've been
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  through the deepest, darkest depths of hell in addiction.
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  OK? I think you can handle a little
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  financial insecurity. I think you can handle getting
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  another job. Maybe just not in your time.
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  Maybe it's not what you want, but you'll get what you need if
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  you stay sober. In my experience, most people
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  have never been to the rock bottoms.
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  You've been. Why can't you handle this blank
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  thing coming up? Lie number 2.
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  Something bad is going to happen, right?
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  This it's going too well. This is too good to be true.
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  Something bad is coming. Fear confuses possibility with
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  probability. It's like Murphy's Law.
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  You know, you're always living in this.
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  Anything that can happen will happen to me today, right now,
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  I'm going to flip my car on the highway.
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  I don't know what it whatever it is for you.
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  Line number three. If I can't see the whole path,
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  something is wrong. Something is off.
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  Recovery teaches us one step at a time, one day at a time, one
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  minute at a time, sometimes right, one breath at a time.
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  Just keep moving forward. Lie #4 I'm behind in life or
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  behind in my program. Comparison is the thief of joy.
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  Stop comparing yourself to other people that have are at the
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  middle of their movie, their story.
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  You're at the beginning, they're in the middle or at the end.
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  Stop comparing it to a good comparison.
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  For me was, you know, when I first got on social media, I was
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  always comparing myself to these other sober creators that had
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  20-30, forty, 5000 thousand followers and I was like, why do
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  they have so many and I don't have any?
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  Dude, you just fucking started. What you haven't been looking at
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  is they've been running on the treadmill for the past five
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  years. You're just getting on the
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  treadmill now and you're complaining that you don't have
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  what they have. You got to put in the work line
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  #5 good things don't last for people like me.
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  I don't deserve good things. I'm a bad person.
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  That's just shame, OK? You're seeing the world through
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  a shame lens right now. You do deserve good things
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  because you're working hard and you're sober and you're just the
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  same as everybody else. We're all equal here.
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  Nobody special Addiction got you used to being in the shame lens,
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  wearing the shame glasses, right?
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  Because you are exhibiting behaviors that you that went
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  below your moral code, IE drinking and driving.
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  Drinking in front of your kids, disappearing for days at a time.
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  I don't know what you know, insert whatever thing you did
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  all right next, how fear shapes behavior.
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  So fears are one thing. They start in your head.
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  They're just thoughts. How do they move into our now
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  actual behaviors, actions, right?
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  If we draw that triangle that they teach you in rehab, if
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  you've been to rehab, it's thoughts, emotions, behaviors,
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  and then shame about. I probably fucked that up, but
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  something along those lines. It starts as a thought and
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  emotion, then it goes into a behavior and now you're in the
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  shame of the behavior, shame, guilt of the behavior, and then
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  it's goes back back in like a endless cycle of pain.
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  So for example, staying in toxic relationships, avoiding growth,
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  staying small to stay safe, not taking any chances, right?
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  Without work or at school or doing something you love, just
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  going to not take any risks so that I don't have any potential
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  consequences. I'm not going to go to that
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  thing because I'm I'm afraid that I'm going to relapse all
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  the time or I'm afraid that I'm going to embarrass myself.
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  Don't stay stuck there and then self sabotage to avoid pressure.
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  So I'm a piece of shit you know? Put the 2 by 4 down.
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  Stop beating yourself up. It already happened.
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  Except it this all circles back to emotional sobriety right?
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  Emotional sobriety is the most important thing to long term
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  recovery in my opinion. My experience, I have to keep my
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  emotions in check. I have to regulate my emotions
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  whenever Fear, shame, guilt, anger, whenever they crop up, I
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  have to check that shit. I have to turn it over to God,
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  to the universe. Hey, could you work on this?
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  I'll check back in with you tomorrow.
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  In that silence, the answer comes to your problem.
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  Whatever that emotion problem is, it's different than avoiding
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  it. You're not avoiding it.
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  You're acknowledging that it's there.
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  You're laughing at it and saying, wow, that's crazy.
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  Why am I having that emotion, that feeling?
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  You're talking about it, you're journaling, you're working
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  through it. You're not avoiding it.
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  You're turning it over to somebody more qualified than
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  you. Whether that's a power greater
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  than yourself or a therapist or a group of people at your
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  meeting doesn't matter. Turn it over.
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  Don't keep it in your head. All right, Some tools to break
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  the fear cycle. What the fuck can I do to get
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  out of this? How do I get out of the fear
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  cycle? I don't like.
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  I don't like being here. Yeah, me neither.
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  First, shrink the timeline. Your job is not to plan the next
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  five years out. Your job is to stay sober today.
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  That's it. That's job number one.
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  No matter how far along, whether you have three months, one day,
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  10 years, 30 years, your job is to stay sober.
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  If you stay sober today, that is a win.
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  If not, try again tomorrow. Don't beat yourself up.
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  Live the next 24 hours with integrity.
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  Integrity is doing the right thing when nobody's watching.
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  Doing the right thing when nobody is watching.
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  How hard is that? Wow, powerful stuff.
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  And don't ask me what is the right thing.
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  You know deep down, OK, you know, when you get that feeling
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  in your stomach of that not that butterfly, that
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  uncomfortability, not even the butterflies, the
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  uncomfortability, that that gut wrenching feeling, you're
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  probably not doing the right thing.
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  Stop doing the wrong thing. And if you do do the wrong
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  thing, don't beat yourself up about it.
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  It all comes back to two things, right?
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  If I fuck up and I make a mistake, I apologize for it.
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  I make an amends immediately. If somebody wrongs me, I forgive
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  them no matter what. Those are the two actions in
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  life that simple. Forgive if you are wronged and
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  apologize. Make amends if you wrong
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  somebody or somebody else. Two, name the fear.
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  Unspoken fears feel like a mysterious green monster.
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  When you name the fear, it becomes a problem you can work
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  on, right? So for example, I don't want to
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  go to my business meeting tonight at my Home group because
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  I hate business meetings. They don't serve me right?
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  They're uncomfortable. Whatever.
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  Name the fear. I don't want to go because I'm
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  doing this in real time with you, By the way, I don't want to
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  go because, like I said, it doesn't directly serve me.
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  It's inconvenient. I have to drive in traffic so I
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  am afraid of I am afraid of not getting what I want out of the
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  situation. That's typically fear comes down
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  to fear of I'm I'm scared to lose something that I have or
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  I'm scared to not get something that I want. 3 Action before
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  clarity. You can't think your way out of
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  fear. You have to do something about
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  You have to act your way out of it.
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  Whether you call somebody and tell them about it, get out of
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  your house and go to a meeting, go for coffee, go for a walk,
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  you have to act your way out of it.
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  You can't think your way into good action, but you can act
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  your way into good thinking. I'm gonna say that again.
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  You can't think your way into good action, but you can act
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  your way into good thinking. When you go and help somebody
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  else, it clears your brain, makes you feel good about
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  yourself, gets that dopamine going in a natural way.
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  Help someone else. 4 Anchor yourself in evidence.
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  Love this one. List out what you survived.
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  Be honest with yourself, what you learned, who you are today
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  versus then. Fear does not survive evidence.
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  It rarely survives evidence. You've been here before, you've
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  done hard things before. Why not this?
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  Why not me? All right #5 build a future
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  safety plan. Not a prediction, a preparation.
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  Plans are good. Who is in your support system?
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  List them down. What do you do when you feel
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  overwhelmed? What you commit to daily.
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  So if that's going to the gym, going to the coffee, journaling,
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  meditating, praying, whatever your thing is, find that that
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  brings you relief without drugs and alcohol.
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  And six, reframe uncertainty as opportunity.
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  There's a little bit of cognitive behavioral therapy.
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  Recovery gives you the chance to build a life you never thought
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  was possible. Uncertainty equals potential.
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  Well, if I don't know what's going to happen next, that means
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  anything can happen next. That means anything amazing can
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  happen next. I could become the president of
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  the United States, right? Maybe not that extreme, but you
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  get what I'm saying. Not knowing the future is a
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  gift. It's a blessing.
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  Because I can tell you when I came into recovery, if you asked
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  me where I would be 11 months later, I would have sold myself
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  short. And you'll hear a lot of people
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  say that if I gave out my where I am now, the job that I have
• 17:33
  doing while in school, helping others, doing, you know, the
• 17:36
  podcast, enjoying my life again, I would have sold myself short.
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  I would have listed out things that I thought I was going to
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  achieve and it would have been short.
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  And again, it's not material things.
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  It's never like, oh, I'm going to have a house by this point in
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  our car because that shit doesn't make you happy.
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  It doesn't, it really doesn't. It's those tangible, internal,
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  intrinsic motivators, right? Those I am, you know, my show up
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  and my family wants me to be there.
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  Like that's a gift of recovery. People call me and ask me for
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  help and they're I'm useful again.
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  I can be a good husband and my wife doesn't look at me like
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  with that look of how are you going to let me down again
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  today? Anthony?
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  What a beautiful gift. That's what recovery offers.
• 18:18
  All right, next segment, what a healthy relationship with the
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  future looks like. You don't need guarantees.
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  You need some direction, some guidance.
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  My spiritual people. This will be a lot easier for
• 18:27
  you, right? If you don't believe in God,
• 18:30
  that's OK. If you don't believe in
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  spirituality or the power greater than yourself, the
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  universe, you're going to pay the consequences of that or feel
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  the consequences of that. If you do believe in
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  spirituality and a guiding force and an inner teacher and a God
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  and something greater than you, a greater plan, whatever it
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  looks like, then you're going to get the consequences of that
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  which are unlimited. There's no cap on the
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  potentials. If I leave my plan up to a power
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  greater than myself, the universe is able to deal with
• 19:00
  any problem 10,000 times better than I am.
• 19:04
  Think about that for a second. I am limited in my ability as a
• 19:08
  human being. How many times in your life have
• 19:11
  things turned out way better than you thought they were?
• 19:13
  And you're like, wow, that was better than anything I could
• 19:15
  have planned or controlled or tried to achieve?
• 19:17
  That's spirituality. You leave the results up to a
• 19:20
  power greater than yourself. Stop trying to control
• 19:23
  everything. Maybe your plan isn't as good as
• 19:27
  the universe's plan or your higher powers plan.
• 19:30
  Think about that. Life doesn't reward people with
• 19:33
  certainty. It rewards people who show up.
• 19:36
  Showing up is 90% of the battle. You hear that all the time.
• 19:40
  Vulnerability is this is from Brené Brown.
• 19:43
  Vulnerability is showing up without any knowledge of the
• 19:47
  outcome, right? Just showing up and you have no
• 19:50
  idea how it's going to turn out. Could be good, could be bad, but
• 19:53
  you're showing up either way. I always say this, my biggest
• 19:55
  problem today, my biggest problem today is I'm right.
• 19:59
  Yeah. But I know contempt prior to
• 20:02
  investigation when I know something is going to go a
• 20:04
  certainty. That's a dangerous place to be.
• 20:07
  I have to go into all situations today knowing that I could be
• 20:10
  wrong and I kind of want to be wrong because if I'm wrong, that
• 20:13
  means there's other answers that are other perspectives, greater
• 20:16
  perspectives, better outcomes than I thought.
• 20:19
  We want to move from control to trust, from fear to carry
• 20:24
  curiosity, from avoidance to participation.
• 20:29
  Faith is choosing to walk even when the path is not visible,
• 20:33
  where you can't see where it's going.
• 20:35
  All right, we're reaching the end here.
• 20:36
  So I want to challenge you with something, some self reflection,
• 20:39
  homework. Three things.
• 20:41
  OK, three things ready. What future are you afraid of #1
• 20:46
  What future are you afraid of #2 What is 1 action you can take
• 20:51
  today that your future self will thank you for?
• 20:55
  OK, what is 1 action you can take today that your future self
• 20:59
  will thank you? And then three, what stories are
• 21:02
  you telling yourself that no longer fit who you are becoming?
• 21:07
  What stories are you telling yourself that no longer fit who
• 21:12
  you are becoming? Reflect on that.
• 21:14
  Write it down, get it out, think about it.
• 21:17
  Message me your answers. I would love to see them.
• 21:19
  If you're struggling, message me.
• 21:21
  I'm here for it. Remember, we are all like movie
• 21:24
  projectors going around the world projecting our stories,
• 21:27
  our movies onto the screen. It is not reality.
• 21:31
  Same reason when you talk to any cops and they talk to witnesses
• 21:36
  of a crime there, there will be 10 to, you know, depending on
• 21:41
  the witnesses. If they asked 20 witnesses what
• 21:43
  happened, they'll be they'll get 20 different stories, 20
• 21:46
  different perspectives. Some of them might be similar.
• 21:48
  They'll have different spin, a different spin on them, a
• 21:52
  different perspective. You don't have problems today.
• 21:55
  You have perception problems. Your only problem is how you are
• 22:00
  looking at said situation, how you look at the world.
• 22:03
  Are you looking at the world through a fear lens, a shame
• 22:06
  lens, a trauma lens, an anger lens?
• 22:10
  Or are you looking at it objectively and with curiosity
• 22:13
  and turning it over to your power, Power greater than
• 22:16
  yourself? You know, there's a reason you
• 22:18
  come into recovery and meet people with 30 plus years, 20
• 22:21
  plus years of of sobriety and they all talk about God.
• 22:24
  There's a reason those people are happy all the time.
• 22:28
  They're not drunk. They are tapped in.
• 22:31
  They're tapped into a power greater than themselves that
• 22:34
  they don't know how to describe it.
• 22:37
  It's an undescribable guiding force.
• 22:40
  Maybe you should try it. Fuck, what do I know?
• 22:42
  I've only been around since 2015 and I've been happy, joyous and
• 22:47
  free. Maybe I'm wrong again, thanks
• 22:49
  for listening. I love all, every single one of
• 22:51
  you. I'll leave you with this.
• 22:54
  Recovery makes the future possible, not dangerous.
• 22:58
  Anything is possible. Get out of your own way today.
• 23:01
  Give back to somebody else, ask for help if you're struggling,
• 23:04
  and do the next right thing. If you can't do the next right
• 23:07
  thing, do the next thing right. Until next time.
• 23:11
  I love you all. Message me, send me some more
• 23:13
  podcast ideas, Have a great day. This too shall pass.
• 23:16
  If you're going through something right now, this too
• 23:19
  shall pass. It always does, just not in your
• 23:21
  time.