Latest / Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery / It’s Not About Just Waking Up, It’s About Growing Up

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It’s Not About Just Waking Up, It’s About Growing Up · Emotional Sobriety: The Next Step in Recovery

• 0:00
  Speaker A: Foreign. Welcome to emotional Sobriety, the next step in Recovery, with Dr. Alan Berger and Tom Rutledge. Howdy, partner. Let's talk.
• 0:16
  Speaker B: How are you and your girlfriend doing, by the way?
• 0:18
  Speaker A: I know the vibes are kind of off. It's just. It sucks. And then I was. I was at my writers group last week and. And one of my good friends was just like, you should break up with her because you're not married. And you know what you should do when you're struggling in relationships before you're married is just break up and find someone else. And that got in my head because he told me that with Maddie when I was dating her, that, like, you know, before I eventually did. I. I did everything I could to hold onto that relationship as well, but. But anyway, I was talking to my sponsor about it a little bit yesterday, and just like, you know, you take everything everyone says with a grain of salt, but, yeah, I just did. Long story short, it's just I'm about to do some traveling and I. And I am trying to spend, you know, quality time, make sure we're connect. Our connection's good before I leave. And I just don't feel the connection's great right now, but hopefully I'm just gonna try my best on the road to just stay in touch and send nice messages.
• 1:16
  Speaker B: And the hard part for traveling always for me was. Was re entry. Coming back after I'd been away, you know. You know, when you basically just wander around by yourself and. And you know, and the only time I was around other people, they were people that automatically already liked me. So that was. That was. That's no good. And. And so. And it doesn't matter how much you look forward. I look forward to getting home. It's like there's always that. That we found that there was always this bump where. Where that you feel like you're. Whoever's coming home feels like you're interrupting the life of the other one.
• 1:51
  Speaker A: How many years have you been married?
• 1:53
  Speaker B: 40.
• 1:54
  Speaker A: Do you. Is it even worth it at this point in time to get to give yourself a grade? Like, how's your. What grade would you give your marriage at this.
• 2:01
  Speaker B: God, the whole thing. Oh, no, I have no idea. Because, I mean, it would be one of my journals long ago. The only thing that was. Just had the date and it said, this woman hates me. And that was. That was the whole entry of the journal that day. And I. And I don't remember the content of anything that's going on, but I do remember the feeling. And I. And I am not, I was not exaggerating when I wrote that down. This woman hates me.
• 2:27
  Speaker A: That's what you felt at the time?
• 2:29
  Speaker B: No, I'm pretty sure that was just, I was perceiving it. I don't know.
• 2:32
  Speaker A: You're like, no, that's what away was.
• 2:34
  Speaker B: Listen to the sentence. This woman hates me. It's not a statement about me. When your friend tells you, you know, you're not married, so you can believe, it's like, that's a good thing. But the truth is these, we don't do what they used to in the old days, which is make a guess and get married and then see if it's going to work, what we're doing. And when we're, when we're, we're not just dating, we're living with each other, we're spending our lives with each other, we're, we're test flying these, these, these things. And in order to know what you're, you're capable of, you got to do your best. And, but if, but it is, it is nice that, I mean, Dee and I decided long ago that our criteria for getting married was if it, if it ever got to the point where it felt like to separate, would be, would feel like a divorce anyway. How's that for romantic? And the other, the other criteria was if we ever lived in a house that we would like to get married in and have our friends come over. And so when those two things happened, our therapist at the time was a Methodist minister, so ducks were in a row. So, you know, we had a Christmas party every year, so we just got married in our Christmas party. But it was, it was, I mean it wasn't non romantic, but it was like, it was very, we were very practical about it.
• 3:40
  Speaker A: I was talking to Alan about some relationship stuff the other day and, and you know, he told me about one thing in particular. What you're working on, what you're struggling with, is common. And so look at it as just like all the other emotional sobriety stuff, just an opportunity to, to work on it. Because I, sometimes I tend to walk around with my relationship problems like there's something wrong with me, like I've got some kind of a defect.
• 4:06
  Speaker B: You're not less than. And whatever you said, you have some defects or whatever. Sure there wrong with all of us. If we wait around to have all that. Be better, better, good. And all together, it's like, you know, it's not going to happen.
• 4:19
  Speaker A: So we'll do the first nutshell recipe for peace of mind. Know what you believe, know what is important, know what is within your control, live congruently with what you believe.
• 4:30
  Speaker B: It's everything. So, I mean, it's, it's a summary one. You know, it's. It's like if you want to know what emotional sobriety is, there's two parts to it, right?
• 4:38
  Speaker A: First is the self understanding. And then the second part, the make or break, right, Is that you have to live congruently with it. So, like, I'll just give you that speed run. My sobriety date, as everyone knows, is a big inflection point in my life. And towards the end of my using, I became acutely aware that like, I had all these beliefs and I was not living according to any of them. I had a lot of beliefs.
• 5:02
  Speaker B: You're like the same beliefs I have today. Going through the list of beliefs, going, well, no, not that one. I don't know, man.
• 5:09
  Speaker A: Well, yeah, I was just like, damn, I'm a piece of. You know. But like, I really don't believe in being a piece of shit. I believe in the contrary.
• 5:18
  Speaker B: I didn't mean to be a piece of shit.
• 5:20
  Speaker A: No, I didn't mean to be. But yeah, and. And that is like a. One of the many gifts of recovery is that I'm less and less that as the days go on, you know, but it takes effort. It's not. Doesn't happen on its own.
• 5:34
  Speaker B: Yeah. I'm still surprised that when I begin therapy with, with somebody, you start asking things about that, what do you believe? What are you. What are you relieved is. I'm still surprised how many people, really intelligent, good, smart people don't know, you know, or they just, they either have a belief system that's by default or they just, they've just been too busy. You know, we keep ourselves so busy that we don't know what's. And it really is. That's just. That's the same thing three times in a row. What do you believe? What's important. And, and, well, the other part is not that, but it's with what's within your control. Because that, that's. It's weird because it. Less likely it's the part that people dread. But that. That third one, what is in. Within your control is what makes everything easier. How much energy have I put into an attempt, either actual trying or just trying to think it. Think it away. Trying to change things that I don't have a chance in hell of changing. It's like imagine if you could get all the energy back that you've spent Trying to change things that you have. No, no, you never had a chance of changing.
• 6:42
  Speaker A: I mean I would have an atomic level of energy.
• 6:45
  Speaker B: Yeah. We would have to really work on the metaphor for that. Would we?
• 6:49
  Speaker A: Yeah, it would be like a. Nuclear reactors.
• 6:51
  Speaker B: I am a nature. The language I use is I don't control much. And what I do control is my mind. And what I control about my mind is how I, how I perceive and interpret what happens to me, around me, the world, the small, small world in the big world. And then the other is I always have choices about how I respond to that. Other than that I have no, I don't control anything. I'm choice, I can try to influence, I can do. But anytime you're trying to influence somebody else. One of the things I teach people all the time and teach myself over and over again is when you're trying to influence other people, you do it by changing yourself. You know, that's the only way. It's like, it's like if I, if I'm trying to. That's where I love what Richard Bandler, one of the developers of neuro linguistics programming, I heard him in a speech one time say, say there. And I've been repeating it ever since. Is there no such thing as resistant clients that are only inflexible therapists? I learned this about alcoholism people. I had a client who went to some of the very best A D treatment programs. Betty Ford Hazelton. I mean, wonderful programs, they're all great. But this is, this is a culture wide problem. I asked, I asked him and I asked the people. A lot of times, has anybody ever asked you if, where I'd say do you think you're an alcoholic? And, and, and they pause and then I ask whether they answer that or not. I say do. Did anybody in your treatment program ever ask you if you thought you were an alcoholic? And the answer almost to that is no. It's like the, and, and I understand it because I used to work in those systems. You're the client. You're seeing me. We're in an alcohol and drug treatment inpatient treatment. It's like that's a really dumb assumption. But it's, but it's, it's easy to see how you have it. I have this. I have the assumption that you're an addict and you know it, you know, and, and, and, and you probably have a similar thing because a lot of times, and you've probably known people like this people can do really well inside treatment programs when they're really supported fully and they. And then they have a history of just really having a hard time once they get out. You know, it's. It's like. And. And those are the people that makes the fear. Yeah. Yeah. Well, those are the people who. Basically. The little workbook I wrote a long. Publish it. Yeah. But it's called the Recovery Decision. My theory is that what. What the ultimate goal of. Of the focus of. Of any kind of intensive residential or outpatient program for addiction should be focusing on the intrapersonal process within you and your decision about what. What you think you have, how you would define it and describe it. I want you to know what I think, and I want you to know what other people think and what. What. What the medical model says and all this other stuff. But ultimately none of that makes any difference if we don't ultimately focus on what you. You think. And it's. And it's tough to get people trained out of that because. Because we really have this idea, you know, in treatment that the way we get our good client is by toeing the line, you know, and saying the right things, which is fine. But I would always rather a client argue with me if they are arguing
• 10:17
  Speaker A: in their head about it so often and externalize that.
• 10:21
  Speaker B: Yeah. You know, one of the things that. I just say this because it's true about every program I say one of the things that you guys don't do nearly enough here in this program is, is you don't talk about the upside of addiction, you know? You know, we don't really talk about that. It's like that's what the guy that's got when he leaves treatment, that's what he's got to deal with. No, there's nobody in there arguing that. Oh, let's. I want to have more hangovers and I want to up another relationship.
• 10:49
  Speaker A: Right, right. It's like get. Realize what that voice is. Really know your. Know your enemy. Know what that voice is and what it's saying to you. And then you know and know your
• 10:58
  Speaker B: enemy in this particular case, one on one, is smarter than you. Yeah. It's like that's why we persuasive. Yeah. You and. You and I are smarter than my addiction. You and I are smarter than your addiction, one on one. And I'm not even saying we would have to necessarily physically relapse, but one on one, if we're dealing with this stuff on our own, we're. We're moving down a dark path, you know? You know, we. We know. We know people. We can. You. Can we laugh But. But, you know, that's not. That's not. That's not the only hell that there is. We can also live a miserable life sober.
• 11:36
  Speaker A: Yeah. And neither is appealing to me, actually.
• 11:37
  Speaker B: No, no, we want.
• 11:38
  Speaker A: No, I don't want a miserable sober life, but I don't want to live a drug.
• 11:41
  Speaker B: Yeah. And so. So basically, as long as. As you haven't decided that this is the way that you believe is going to work for you to do this. If I've decided it and if I'm a good salesman, which I. In therapy, I probably am, I got to be careful about not just selling you the idea. You know, when. When we're in an ideal situation where you're surrounded by people who are going to support this and. And give you accolades for claiming that you're powerless over alcohol. It's like, I want to know. I want to hear from. I want to hear from the denial. I want. Pull up the chair of the denial, say, tell me what that guy's saying to you. Because. Because they're either being very quiet during treatment or they're sitting there whispering in your ear. You've been there. You both. You've always experienced both. Bullshit. This is bullshit. This bullshit. Don't worry about that. Just listen. Just do what they say. You'll be okay. We'll get you out here.
• 12:34
  Speaker A: Yeah, I was. I was asked through the grapevine to help somebody that I. That we met in Puerto Vallarta recently who's really struggling with drinking and that whenever I get that question, for as much as, you know, I talk about addiction with you guys, for much AAs I do. For as much as I think about it myself, and for as much experience as I've had on both sides, both, you know, suffering and recovering, I still. I feel like a lurch about answering that question just because it's so the. Where recovery is found. To me, I think there's a mysticism to it, and it's like. It's such a. Like unplannable. Uncontrollable thing. And, you know, I think what I landed on was that I only quit because I had to, or I. There was just. No. It was such a binary. I think it had. You have to reach this binary point where you're living life on death mode or you're living life in some more kind of like, constructive.
• 13:30
  Speaker B: Right.
• 13:32
  Speaker A: Generative way, I think.
• 13:33
  Speaker B: Remember this. Remind me sometime, Patrick, because that's something I wrote a long time ago. This. I wrote a. It was like a treatment manual for a. A 12 week program. But ultimately it's a workbook on, on your. On making. Making best decision about this. And I've never, I've never. Alan and I've talked about it before, but I've never followed up and put it in print in any way. And I think as like with a lot of my stuff as the more we talk about this emotional sobriety stuff, I see the relevance of it. And when you're talking about there reminds me of what's in that. That workbook there is that. That, that most of us, I think the vast majority of us as addicts get get into this program because of negative motivation. In other words, I'm avoiding something. It's like. And for me it was. I wasn't going to lose. I was an al drug counselor and clinical director and my wife had just told me to either get sober or move out the next day. So what was I avoiding? I was avoiding losing my, my, my, my marriage or my, or my girlfriend at the time. And I was avoiding just the whole clusterfuck in my career if I, if, if the word was out that I was active addict, you know. And so. But in there, what I talk about in that chapter in the book is. And this is one of the things that, that happens with good programs. It really does happen in. For the majority of people, I think. And, and forgive my statistics because I don't really have any. I just make them up. Is the.
• 15:00
  Speaker A: We all do.
• 15:02
  Speaker B: Some people do worse than others and we won't go into that subject. It's like, like. But that the idea is somewhere in that early on those early days the motor. You'll always, you'll always have the motive, the negative motivation. Forty years into my recovery, am still avoiding my wife kicking me out of the house when I don't drink. How often does that occur to me when I'm having conversations like this? That's the only time I'm still avoiding my career going down the tubes because I'm, because I'm a. Would be a drinking. I'm a drinking alcoholic who's trying to make a living treating other people. It's like those things are still in there, but it's like the focus is no longer there because there's been a, there's, there's early on a shift from, from negative motivation to positive motivation. You know, think about negative motivation being like something that's chasing me. Okay? Like you're after, you're after me. And so I'm running as fast as I can to get away. Positive motivation is what pulls us, you know, that attracts us. So we get into that and, you know, if you and I just sit and think about if somebody, if somebody interviews us now and says tell. Tell us to just today why you're sober. It's like we may or may not mention the shit that we're avoiding because it's there, but we probably not going to talk about that. We're going to talk about what we love about our lives and we're talking about. We love about our relationships and all the wonderful things there are. And it's like that. And I'm not saying you're supposed to make that shift entirely in the early parts of recovery, but you need to begin that process some because otherwise you're always recovering as a victim. I'm doing this because I have to.
• 16:44
  Speaker A: Right. And that's, you know, that kind of dies on the vine, you know, a little easier than the positive affirmation, you know, the positive reinforcement. Yeah, yeah. I got one of Joe's beyond belief reflections to read for today. That's cool to you? I love that. When I think of what liquor does to me and how much it makes me suffer, I sometimes feel as if I didn't know why I drank, as if any reason sounded too foolish to bother with. Then again, when I concentrate on the problem, it seems as if there were reasons or impulses, some of which are obvious and some of which are vague and hence hard to explain. The Common Sense Drinking by Richard R. Peabody Yesterday we read that a good deal of the recovery community attitude about alcoholism and treatment came from the best selling Peabody book the Common Sense of drinking. At $20 an hour, five times a week, not many drunks were sitting in Peabody's waiting room and the aftermath of the Great Depression. The fact that AA was a free fellowship is one reason it was able to run with the best of these ideas and soon eclipsed its predecessor. AA was also influenced by the Oxford Group, which offered four absolutes, which were Christ's message of God's will, honesty, purity, unselfishness, and love. AA broke away from the Oxford Group because founders disagreed with absolutes, but their concepts are still found in the 12 step lore. Peabody found many earnest practitioners trying to make gentlemen drinkers out of drunkards with 0% success. Peabody was convinced that recovery from addiction required personal commitment to relieve an addict from their fate. He also felt that the experience of addiction, of losing oneself to compulsion, had to be articulated to tell the fellow addict that someone understood and additionally to help the medical world know that addiction is not a Moral or discipline issue. As I read the passage above. Do I appreciate the timeless commonality of addiction? Relapse is so easy to judge and hypothesize about. Do I know what causes relapse and what it takes to stay in recovery? We will never be all knowing. Humility and gratitude can go a long way to getting and staying sober. Even without offering crystal clear answers.
• 18:51
  Speaker B: Joe is, he's such a wonderful blend of historian, for one thing. He's so much more. It might mean more. I'm not. And so therefore it's one of the things I admire and him and other people do that. But, but, but he's a, he's able to. When he writes and when he talks, he's able to, to put that, that left brain historian right in the mix with the wise teacher. You know, I mean, exactly what he looks like, you know, it's like, in my opinion, it's like, you know, the, the long white hair and beard and it's like, like, you know, it's like, okay, well, this is the guy I'm going to go talk to on the top of the mountain.
• 19:28
  Speaker A: You know, form follows function.
• 19:31
  Speaker B: Yeah, but he does, but the thing is, he doesn't talk like the guys that we, we were taught to expect up on the mountain. He's, he's, you know, hey, buddy, come on in. Have a seat. What you doing?
• 19:40
  Speaker A: Yeah, he's, he's, he's much too Canadian for that.
• 19:43
  Speaker B: I never thought of it that way. You know, I look at my history of therapy and it's like long history of therapy, of paying people money, a lot of money. And then the moment they start to help them try to help me, I dig my heels in. So it's like, here's your money. Heels dug in you, you, you inside my head, you know, and I'm basically paying you and then doing everything I can do to not, not absorb anything from you. You know, it's. And it's that, and by the way, that I don't think addicts have a total corner on the market. But that is one description of the insanity of our disease is we are working against ourselves always.
• 20:26
  Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, I, I'm glad I landed on this principle in talking to this person. I, you know, or trying to help this person I mentioned earlier with their alcoholism, and there's been discussion of go to therapy, do, do therapy, see if you can get over some of your personal problems and your traumas, and then perhaps then he'll be able to moderate his use and defined, kind of like A less destructive way to drink and use or whatever. And. And then I couldn't help but think about the therapy I went to between, I think, 2015 and 2018, where I was drinking and using through all of it. And I was sitting there and I was. I was trying just that, and I was. And I kept hitting up against that. That wall of there's only so, so much I can do while I was getting hammered in between every session. But would I recommend that somebody struggling goes to therapy? And, you know, I mean, I think that I have to say yes, because, like, that while I was sitting there and coming up against that barrier in those days, you know, I was getting that that was its own kind of education, you know, and so. And it's like, you have to try that. You have to, like, X that off the list, you know, to kind of fully be fully prepared, to kind of like, do what's next, you know, and it's. It'll be expensive and it'll take up your time and you'll get. It'll be messy. But.
• 21:55
  Speaker B: Well, first of all, when it's expensive, and I'm not saying, I'm not trying to assume anything, but, you know, my patience wore thin fairly early on in this career of people who were telling me coming to see me was too expensive. When I actually thought about what they. When I figured. Figured out how much money they were spending on drugs and alcohol, it's like, yeah, yeah, right. When I used to work in an outpatient program that we were just back in the. Probably the 90s. So it's like, like cocaine, cocaine, people just snorting cocaine all the time. It's like. And, man, these guys spent a lot of money on this stuff. And it's like. So one of my favorite things to do when these guys would start complaining about the. The price, I say, okay, let's do this. We're going to sit down. I said, I know what to do about this. We're going to sit down and we're going to figure out how much. How much money you spend generally in a year on cocaine. You're going to give me that amount of money, and I'm not going to charge you any more than that, you know, for a year. And it's like the meat. I mean, first of all, like, mostly that's a.
• 22:55
  Speaker A: That's a good way. It's a good way to talk them into it, talk yourself into a race.
• 22:58
  Speaker B: Most of them, most of them had a good sense of humor and were just laughing, laughing. But. But, I mean, all of them had a little look in their eyes just like, oh fuck. Okay. Well you know, basically he, they could still complain, but they weren't going to complain to me anymore because, because I, because I'm codependent enough to where I. Every. Anytime somebody tells me it's too expensive, I feel guilty. You know, it's like. And then friend of mine said, how much money do you think they're spending? And forget about. I mean I was, I did a lot of different drugs, but alcohol was my drug of choice. But I want to tell you, I was never. I may had trouble meeting reading some bills. I may have had trouble having enough money to do things, but I never didn't have enough money for alcohol. You know, I don't, I never even have a memory of going, oh, I gotta, I gotta scrape some money together to get, you know, a bottle of scotch. It's like, no, it was a given, you know, and so that's, that's what I learned from this person. It's like, like look, if you really want it, you get to go, go do this. And, and, and yeah, one of, one of the things I learned, and this is kind of a sidebar, but it's like one of the things I learned in this business about, about that is, is because through the years I've given lots of people discounts and did. Done pro bono stuff and things like that. But one of the things I learned is I never do that on the front end people. When people contact me and announce, first thing they ask is a discount or you know, that kind of stuff. Because the people, the people I have given discounts and pro bonus stuff to are people that have come in, they found a way to do it and I can give them great, some great examples of it and they work their ass off and no matter what, this is what they're invested in. I've had several of those people where I've stopped them somewhere in the early part of our work together and say, how do you afford this? And you know, and then ultimately having a session where I end up saying, I think you, I can give you a break because you're working your ass off to do this. And I, you've never, you never miss anything. I do everything, so let's, let's do this. And I, I had a client one time that was just out of prison. I was always proud because she was my only client who was a getaway car driver for rob robbery room.
• 25:19
  Speaker A: Oh yeah, that would be my preference for clients.
• 25:23
  Speaker B: That's a good job. That Woman came straight out of, straight out of prison, had gotten sober in prison. And I forget what my fee was at the time, but it was, wouldn't seem much now, but it was then and she never missed paying that. And when I was doing workshops on the weekends, she was always the first one to sign up for them. And that was just an extreme example because ultimately we sat and talked and looked at her money. I said, okay, we're changing your rate to $10, period. That's, that's all you're ever going to pay me at a time is $10. Because, you know, when I told her and I tried it, I trusted her recovery. But I said, look, I don't want to be the reason you go back to driving a getaway car. It's like, don't want you to have to rob money to pay me, so let's do it that way. But, but the main point I'm making here is the motivation has to become yours. I'll see if I can find that. I don't know if you'd be interested in that with this guy you're talking about, but I'll see if I can find that manuscript about the recovery decision. There may be some. Please.
• 26:28
  Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, I, I really had a good, I don't know, I, I, I had a interesting connection with this guy and, and I care a lot about him because what a of a disease really. Like when you see it coursing through someone and they're miserable and it's that like, it's that beautiful misery of like, it's, it's a misery that tells you that it's actually good and that you need, it needs to perpetuate itself. And you know, there's a kind of like, I mean, I just remember it so vividly where like, I was just, I had to do it. I had to keep like jamming the knife into my face every single day because that was like my program. That was my program for living then was that I just had to like, you know, get a load on and just turn myself into a, you know, an antisocial zombie, you know, and like, but like, yeah, you see it in other people and they struggle and it's just like, Jesus.
• 27:20
  Speaker B: I just hope it's one of, it's one of the, to me, you tell me if it's true for you. It's one of the gifts of recovery too. The longer, longer we're in, the deeper we go into recovery. It's, it's like pan back perspective so you could look, listen to this and go. And you can. And it really does in many ways become. Not. None of it is easy, but. But the view of it, the perception of it becomes simple. You. You know, you can see. It's one of the things that you encourage therapists not to get too frustrated with because it can look simple from the outside, and you can get really frustrated as a helper because the person just doesn't seem to be able to do the math, you know? But. But what. What I do is tell them to do exactly what you did. Don't forget what it was like. You know, I had a. I had a co therapist that did retreat retreats with me for a long time. And when I was talking about things both with addiction and eating disorder, she would say, tom. And I would be kind of saying, like, you may have it harder than I. Than I did. She would ask me how in front of the client, she would say, how hard was it for you to quit drinking? Was it easy? It's like, no, you know, well, how hard was it? I was hard to describe it. It's like. But she reminded me that basically, just because I'm feeling clear of it at this moment, and AA teaches it, right. Don't ever forget where you've come from.
• 28:36
  Speaker A: I hope I never do. I'm gonna bring my mic with me on my international trip so that if we can figure out a way to get an episode in, we can do that.
• 28:44
  Speaker B: All we ask of the audience is that they practice perfect mental health. You know, two weeks. That shouldn't be hard.
• 28:50
  Speaker A: And send us money, unmarked envelopes. Send it to me.
• 28:53
  Speaker B: I always. I always want those briefcase full of money that they put in the movie.