Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 21: Myths of Sexual Addiction - Part 3

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21: Myths of Sexual Addiction - Part 3 · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:03
  Welcome to Beyond the Facade podcast.
• 0:05
  I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and I'm thrilled to have you join me
• 0:08
  in the space today. What we're going to be doing is
• 0:09
  diving deep into the trials and triumphs and truths of seeking
• 0:13
  authenticity. Becoming your true self isn't
• 0:16
  about a single action or a moment.
• 0:18
  It's a relentless pursuit, a commitment to self that reveals
• 0:21
  the rich connection and meaning that our life has to offer.
• 0:24
  So whether this is your first time tuning in or you're a
• 0:27
  regular listener, know this. What you're building here goes
• 0:30
  beyond a conversation. You're here to challenge, to
• 0:33
  change, and to celebrate the incredible journey of becoming
• 0:36
  your authentic self. Because when you dare to show up
• 0:38
  fully, the rewards are immeasurable.
• 0:41
  So welcome to Beyond the Facade. Let's get started.
• 0:45
  Hey everybody, I'm excited to be hanging out with you this week.
• 0:48
  Something a little bit different.
• 0:50
  I was invited to attend Alana and Amy's Choose to Be podcast.
• 0:55
  They were inviting me to attend a discussion on the myths about
• 0:59
  sex addiction and I decided to go ahead and air that over here,
• 1:03
  this three-part series on the On the Sod podcast.
• 1:08
  So excited for you to participate in the conversation.
• 1:11
  Obviously, if you pay attention to their episodes, you've
• 1:14
  already heard this, but excited if you haven't.
• 1:17
  And we're going to get into it. Welcome to the podcast,
• 1:20
  everyone. Thank you for listening, thank
• 1:22
  you for sharing your reviews, your comments.
• 1:24
  We love hearing from each one of you.
• 1:27
  We are continuing the myths of sexual addiction and this is
• 1:31
  Part 3. Like I mentioned, after our last
• 1:34
  recording, it went a little over an hour and we thought it would
• 1:38
  be best to split that up. Since there was so much
• 1:40
  information, so much really good content, we thought it would be
• 1:42
  best to let your brains just not feel so overwhelmed with all
• 1:47
  that we shared and all of those different things that we talked
• 1:50
  about. South Part 3.
• 1:52
  Today we're going to wrap up these myths of sexual addiction
• 1:56
  with Luke. But before we dive into the
• 1:58
  conversation, I want to acknowledge new listeners.
• 2:01
  Perhaps you are the one who betrayed and were asked by your
• 2:05
  partner to listen to these three episodes, or you chose to listen
• 2:09
  to them on your own. I felt it important to
• 2:11
  acknowledge the choice nonetheless to listen.
• 2:15
  Alana and I mention this all the time, how being open and curious
• 2:19
  and aware is half the battle. And as much as this podcast is
• 2:24
  mostly geared towards those who have been betrayed, in this
• 2:27
  series we are hoping that the one struggling with the behavior
• 2:31
  that is problematic can hear with curiosity and know that all
• 2:35
  of us that choose recovery are invested in couple recovery when
• 2:39
  the couple is choosing that, and that it happens with individual
• 2:43
  healing. So here is Part 3 as we wrap up
• 2:46
  our conversation on the myths of sexual addiction.
• 2:51
  OK, the next myth is I only have a problem if I get caught.
• 2:59
  By the way, this one's not a conscious thought.
• 3:02
  It's more of just a way of being.
• 3:05
  Like nobody is consciously going.
• 3:07
  I don't have a problem because I haven't been caught and there's
• 3:11
  many people living by this. I want to make an attempt and a
• 3:15
  guy's farther into recovery might value this a little bit
• 3:18
  more and can not. The guys newer in recovery won't
• 3:22
  be able to see it. But just noodle on this one for
• 3:24
  a second. OK, So what I hear this fallacy.
• 3:27
  When is just to say that again, I only have a problem if I get
• 3:30
  caught. Alana used to bring this up.
• 3:33
  She used to say you got caught. What would you say, Alana?
• 3:37
  Do you even know I'm going with this?
• 3:39
  OK, She would talk to me about getting caught, so that means it
• 3:43
  doesn't matter to me. I'm only.
• 3:45
  Sorry that I got caught. Sorry you got caught.
• 3:48
  Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm like, what are you talking
• 3:50
  about? No, I wish I wouldn't have done
• 3:51
  what I did. I wish I wouldn't have done.
• 3:53
  Believe me, I'm not happy about what I did.
• 3:56
  Totally different wire for her, different wavelength.
• 4:00
  And what is she talking about? And I think about two guys, one
• 4:04
  who gets caught and another guy who comes forward on his own.
• 4:08
  Not like she's asking questions, OK.
• 4:11
  And he decides to share it straight on his own.
• 4:14
  He's in pain because he doesn't want to be living this way
• 4:16
  anymore. They are in two totally
• 4:19
  different places, is ready to change, ready for change, two
• 4:23
  different stages. So if I only have a problem, if
• 4:26
  I get caught, it's I'm not ready to see reality yet because I'm
• 4:31
  still out of it. But somebody that's come forward
• 4:33
  on their own. I'm not ready to face reality
• 4:36
  yet. What did I say?
• 4:37
  You said C which is still accurate, but that like face
• 4:41
  reality also means like facing the consequences of reality.
• 4:46
  Yeah, I like Luke, how you broke that up to the difference
• 4:49
  between disclosure and discovery.
• 4:50
  That's one of the things that when we're working a betrayed
• 4:53
  partner is to get clear about, was this discovered or was this
• 4:56
  disclosed? Because it makes a huge
• 4:58
  difference on the consequences to the betrayed, the trust
• 5:03
  level. And I often find that when it's
• 5:05
  a constant discovery, we've got those abusive behaviors and
• 5:09
  communication happening, right? The lying and the the gas
• 5:13
  lighting and the blame shifting. Because there's still this.
• 5:17
  I don't want to get caught. I don't want to get caught.
• 5:20
  And then I got caught. OK, It's problematic either way.
• 5:24
  But I see this, I'm going to hide it until I get caught or
• 5:29
  I'm going to hope that I don't get caught or.
• 5:32
  Right. It's way more problematic.
• 5:34
  I think there's a lot more damage in the.
• 5:36
  Yeah, repeated discoveries that have to happen in order for the
• 5:41
  truth to come out. There's so much damage.
• 5:44
  Yeah, that's the word that kept going through her mind is it's a
• 5:47
  greater impact. Yeah.
• 5:49
  On that betrayed partner, Yeah. Are there both and?
• 5:52
  And I think on Bull too, if we're going to talk about the
• 5:54
  one who is betraying, I think if you are waiting to get found
• 5:59
  out, then you're just digging yourself in a deeper pit of
• 6:02
  shame and hole and just not helpful.
• 6:05
  So definitely a myth, definitely not a healthy mindset and
• 6:09
  healthy would be like, OK, dig deep and disclose, disclose as
• 6:14
  quickly as possible. We've talked about before you
• 6:17
  all this boundary that Alana you had and I keep mentioning it
• 6:22
  because I think it's a really powerful and beautiful 1.
• 6:25
  So if you are finding yourself relating to the constant
• 6:29
  discoveries rather than disclosures and multiple of
• 6:33
  anything isn't helpful. But if you're finding yourself
• 6:36
  more, I'm just, I always have to discover it.
• 6:38
  I think a beautiful boundary is that if you act out of sight of
• 6:44
  these value systems boundaries of the relationship, then I need
• 6:47
  to know within 24 hours. I love that one.
• 6:52
  One thing to look at is for the person, see how interested they
• 6:58
  are in tying and wanting credit to sharing information.
• 7:03
  And I think about the person that wants credit for sharing
• 7:06
  information of you got caught. No, I didn't because when you
• 7:11
  asked me, I told you and then, OK, I had to ask you for more
• 7:16
  questions. Yeah, but I answered your
• 7:17
  questions and I'm here. But she keeps dragging it out of
• 7:21
  them. And that destruction and also
• 7:25
  the that there's not that readiness or, or that
• 7:31
  experience. And I know for me, there's all
• 7:35
  the shame is tied up into it, all the shame.
• 7:38
  So I'm not ready to be open. So there's a big difference
• 7:42
  between disclosure and discovery.
• 7:44
  Just a big difference. In active truth telling and
• 7:47
  passive truth telling, because that's what you're talking
• 7:50
  about. That passive truth telling is I
• 7:53
  will tell since I'm caught. I will tell once you directly
• 7:56
  ask me just the right way, like, yeah, you're telling the truth,
• 8:00
  but very, very passively. And that doesn't create anywhere
• 8:06
  near the same level of safety then when we're engaging in that
• 8:09
  radical honesty and that active truth telling on your own.
• 8:14
  Yeah. Which inadvertently we just
• 8:16
  uncovered another myth, because I think that's another myth.
• 8:19
  But no, I didn't tell you the truth.
• 8:21
  No, you didn't. I had to drag it out of you.
• 8:22
  So yeah, Yeah, that's another it's.
• 8:26
  Like why we involve professionals because the thing
• 8:28
  that I would share with the guy is, and I recognize this can be
• 8:32
  really triggering or the partner, which is let's dig in
• 8:36
  and let's talk about what reality actually is.
• 8:39
  And there's a choice to be made of.
• 8:42
  I'm not going to be thinking about outcomes.
• 8:44
  I'm going to be thinking about truth.
• 8:46
  And so for any of the men that are listening to this podcast,
• 8:50
  what I won't want you to do is say, OK, I've got to get ready
• 8:52
  for change. So I'm not going to share
• 8:55
  anything until I'm ready for change.
• 8:57
  It's just who are you going to share it with?
• 9:01
  And once you get that process started, it's a really big deal.
• 9:05
  Which goes into disclosure that we're going to be talking about,
• 9:07
  like why that process needs to happen sooner than later, why
• 9:11
  it's so important. The next myth.
• 9:14
  If my partner forgives me, then we can have things go back to
• 9:18
  the way they were and we'll just be fine.
• 9:20
  And underneath that, like a sub myth to that is I said I'm sorry
• 9:25
  a million times. How many more times is this
• 9:27
  going to take for my partner to forgive me So that forgiveness
• 9:33
  1. And I know we touched on this
• 9:34
  Alana in our betrayed partner myth, but I hear this from the
• 9:39
  addict is if my partner would just forgive me, how many times
• 9:44
  do I have to say sorry? I said sorry so many times
• 9:48
  doesn't work that way. Yeah, it's interesting because
• 9:51
  we wouldn't bring this into actual real life.
• 9:53
  We wouldn't run up a debt, go to collections with a creditor and
• 9:59
  then the settle on the collection and then go OK.
• 10:04
  That means that all possible lenders out there should just be
• 10:07
  OK with me because we settled. Let me play off of this.
• 10:11
  I was just going to say there's such a difference between
• 10:15
  immense and an apology. And so I think of it like,
• 10:19
  you're going to the creditor and you're like, I'm so sorry.
• 10:22
  And you show all the reasons why you're so sorry.
• 10:25
  And then they're like, OK, sure, you don't have to pay me back
• 10:27
  the $120,000. That's not how creditors work.
• 10:31
  The you're still have to figure out a repayment plan and they
• 10:35
  still are figuring out how you are going to repay that debt.
• 10:38
  And then even then there's still those consequences that come
• 10:43
  from it. They're not going to just go
• 10:44
  shovel out and give you a ton more money.
• 10:46
  No, now you have higher interest rate now the next time that you
• 10:49
  want to loan money. And so there is there that
• 10:53
  creditor still requires that repayment and that's what I look
• 10:57
  at as the immense like we want to just say I'm sorry and have
• 11:01
  an apology and then it's better. But then that bypasses the whole
• 11:06
  process that needs and. That's what I think of.
• 11:11
  It's, I believe it's misunderstood forgiveness,
• 11:15
  forgiveness. What I noticed with you, Alana,
• 11:17
  was that process of trusting myself again and forgiving, not
• 11:22
  forgiving yourself, but that, that peace that you made inside
• 11:25
  of yourself. And Oh my gosh, for me to think
• 11:29
  that's about me and like that's going to heal our relationship.
• 11:32
  You get into a place of forgiveness.
• 11:34
  Like I've done my work doesn't make things better.
• 11:37
  That's something that you came to with your own hard work.
• 11:41
  But there's still a lot of rebuilding that it was way
• 11:45
  outside of forgiveness. And repair, yeah, it can be a
• 11:49
  lifetime. And in the sense of forgiveness,
• 11:51
  and I think I mentioned this before, but I don't look at it
• 11:53
  as a one and done either. So I think just like repair is I
• 11:57
  think ongoing, so is forgiveness.
• 12:00
  And I think there's different pieces and chunks and aspects
• 12:03
  that you might feel a completion and repair around this area, but
• 12:07
  not so much in this area. So I don't even like looking at
• 12:12
  it as a forgiveness period done and repair period done.
• 12:17
  I think this is an ongoing experience when you're
• 12:20
  rebuilding a relationship from this.
• 12:21
  Totally, totally. And we said this in the B trail
• 12:25
  trauma one, but just if you're only listening to this one right
• 12:29
  now, forgiveness does not equal trust.
• 12:32
  Those are two totally different processes.
• 12:34
  And we talk a way more in depth in the B trail trauma myths.
• 12:38
  So with you're only listening to this one, do go over and listen
• 12:41
  to more in depth around forgiveness there.
• 12:45
  OK, next myth. Looking at pornography isn't
• 12:49
  that big of a deal. My partner is making too big of
• 12:52
  a deal out of this. Yeah, looking at pornography
• 12:55
  isn't a big deal. How could someone clarify that?
• 12:59
  Because what we're actually looking at is the alignment and
• 13:04
  the consent about what the relationship consists of.
• 13:08
  And if one person says this doesn't work for me, it makes it
• 13:13
  a big deal. It doesn't matter what it is, it
• 13:16
  doesn't matter what we're talking about.
• 13:18
  So it's relationally destructive to be breaking the rules.
• 13:26
  People rewinding that and listening to that again.
• 13:31
  And, and in in my experience, the betrayed partners who are
• 13:36
  traumatized by it are the ones where it's been hidden and
• 13:41
  deceived and the reality has been altered.
• 13:46
  That's what takes it from being a problem with consent and a
• 13:51
  problem of different values to now we're getting into trauma.
• 13:55
  It's really the behaviors around it that deceiving that I see the
• 14:00
  most damage caused. Yeah, yeah.
• 14:03
  And to continue to quote hope raise work, This is why it's the
• 14:08
  trouble of violence because of what that does to the internal
• 14:13
  system as well as external when that has been hidden from you.
• 14:18
  And look, again, to reiterate what you're saying, I think
• 14:20
  that's such a good valid point. If this has been established as
• 14:25
  part of your relational boundary and you know that this is
• 14:29
  something that was not part of, of what is accepted in the
• 14:34
  relational bubble, then it is a big deal.
• 14:36
  And so I just, I love how you frame that.
• 14:38
  And if it's not OK with your partner, it's a big deal, even
• 14:42
  outside of pornography, right? When we're just talking about
• 14:44
  healthy relationships and what we are allowing in our couple
• 14:48
  bubble, if my partner has a problem with something and is
• 14:52
  uncomfortable and injured, then it's a problem for me and I take
• 14:58
  that seriously and I want to repair that.
• 15:00
  Yeah, my, my body knows what to expect and responds to
• 15:05
  consistent and normal and repetitive at a foundational
• 15:08
  level in many different aspects. This reminds me of, it's going
• 15:12
  to sound like I'm changing the subject and I'm not, but just
• 15:14
  notice how a body responds to what we're thinking we're going
• 15:17
  to get and not get that. I remember being a little guy
• 15:21
  and whenever my mom and dad stay up late on a Friday night, it
• 15:23
  was their date night. They didn't have a lot of money,
• 15:24
  but they'd go get treats and they'd go get those things.
• 15:28
  And I would just pray that there would be some leftover in the
• 15:30
  morning because I was going to go raid the what with the
• 15:32
  leftovers were. And a lot of you know what story
• 15:35
  I'm going to talk about. And I wake up earlier and
• 15:38
  everybody else and I go to the front room and there's a cup and
• 15:42
  it's got root beer in it, right? And I'm like, sweet, right?
• 15:46
  This is awesome. I drank it.
• 15:49
  It wasn't root beer. It was my dad dumped olives into
• 15:53
  a cup out of a can. It was olive juice.
• 15:57
  OK, so my body knew what it was going to get right and it
• 16:02
  responded and such. I can just taste like that's not
• 16:07
  what I thought I was going to get.
• 16:08
  You think about it, it's just a freaking cup of olive juice I
• 16:10
  thought was root beer. Imagine thinking you were
• 16:14
  getting something that meant everything right and your body
• 16:19
  responding that's not what I thought it was.
• 16:23
  And like you said, trauma. We built something
• 16:26
  foundationally that we agreed on mattered.
• 16:29
  And the thing that makes it more traumatic is one person says
• 16:32
  something doesn't feel right, doesn't feel right.
• 16:35
  So they checked that, and they checked that.
• 16:37
  And they're told over and over again, no, we're still on the
• 16:39
  same page. Yeah, we're still on the same
• 16:41
  page. And then they're given in a
• 16:43
  moment that that now you're drinking something different.
• 16:47
  It's a great analogy. And I'm so sorry.
• 16:52
  Oh, it was nasty. It was nasty.
• 16:55
  And I like all those were that disgusting.
• 16:57
  The gross. That's such a good visual
• 17:00
  because I can just imagine that expectation of drinking
• 17:05
  something. We've all done that, right?
• 17:06
  The next myth is replacing one addiction for another.
• 17:10
  So what I hear often is at least I'm not having sex with other
• 17:14
  people, or at least I'm not masturbating.
• 17:15
  Least I'm not looking at pornography.
• 17:17
  So they're moving towards another unhealthy, problematic,
• 17:23
  addictive behavior, but justifying that to their partner
• 17:26
  because at least it's not this. At least it's not sex.
• 17:30
  I I, I think on this, I'm a little bit embarrassed, but in
• 17:34
  the beginning stages of my journey made and for moments
• 17:39
  watching a partner get frustrated because they're
• 17:43
  because their partners like and I'm I'm worried I think he's
• 17:45
  just doing some cross addiction stuff and be like, well, he's
• 17:49
  not looking at porn. Why is that so upsetting?
• 17:52
  And I am embarrassed. That's some stuff that was
• 17:55
  coming up for me. And just read the book Dopamine
• 17:58
  Nation. What keeps us disconnected from
• 18:02
  the people we love is just being over saturated with chemicals.
• 18:07
  And Alan and I often talk about this, but her and I have
• 18:10
  privately maybe on a podcast about me just being a dopamine
• 18:15
  junkie because you talk about a relationship with food.
• 18:19
  I couldn't get enough sweets. I couldn't get enough sugar.
• 18:23
  It was just intense. And it's really important to
• 18:27
  recognize it's not just a porn problem, it's a emotional
• 18:30
  mismanagement. It's a coping problem.
• 18:33
  It's just coping with. I got to feel good.
• 18:38
  And once you feel good, then you continue to tip that and look
• 18:43
  for more things that feel good. More things feel good.
• 18:44
  You don't have the ability to feel good anymore and the only
• 18:47
  thing that can fix it is pain, and pain is important.
• 18:51
  Healthy pain. Yeah, yeah, Heldic pain.
• 18:54
  With this one, they're replacing one addiction for another.
• 18:58
  I see partners find comfort in that, Find comfort of I would
• 19:02
  much rather him being playing video games and me out wondering
• 19:05
  where he's at. And so I just want to give a
• 19:09
  little bit of validation to that, that if you do find some
• 19:13
  comfort of he's here, I'm seeing something different.
• 19:17
  I am finding comfort in that. I, I don't want to take that
• 19:21
  away from that. And the skills of healthy living
• 19:27
  and health Healthy like dailies can help with all addictions,
• 19:33
  whether we're talking about gambling addictions or alcohol
• 19:38
  or food or gaming or pornography, whatever the
• 19:42
  addiction is, it is those dailies, It is that checking in
• 19:47
  with our emotions. It is those regular things that
• 19:49
  we're doing that treats all of it, all of that disconnection.
• 19:55
  And so if somebody is moving away from doing really extreme
• 20:01
  behaviors and they are still struggling with food, I'm not
• 20:05
  going to shame my client for that.
• 20:07
  And we're still going to be tackling it the same.
• 20:12
  And building in those skills and building in the extra healthy
• 20:16
  living that will help them get more control in their life.
• 20:20
  So I want to highlight that. And then I just do want to give
• 20:23
  a little like side note, the amount of individuals who have
• 20:28
  sexual addiction and ADHD Co concurring or comorbid
• 20:33
  conditions is incredibly high. And we really do need to treat
• 20:39
  the ADHD because ADHD does include a deficit in your brain
• 20:44
  of dopamine, and so you have to find those healthy ways to be
• 20:48
  getting that dopamine, otherwise your brain is constantly starved
• 20:52
  for dopamine. And so treating the ADHD in
• 20:56
  conjunction with the self with any type of sexual addiction is
• 21:00
  essential. Yeah, there's this part, Alana,
• 21:04
  I wanted to push back on a little bit, but then I just was
• 21:06
  aligning with what you were saying.
• 21:08
  The part that makes me nervous is about different addictions is
• 21:12
  because comorbid addictions or replacing one with another, I
• 21:16
  guess is what I should be saying is let's say I switch from porn
• 21:20
  to cheeseburgers and I handle my wife's life with cheeseburgers.
• 21:24
  There will be a time in my life when cheeseburgers won't mean as
• 21:27
  much to me because I'm over saturated with dopamine, which
• 21:30
  means I need to find a bigger hit.
• 21:33
  And those neural pathways still exist because they never get to
• 21:35
  get rid of them. And that's the scary part.
• 21:38
  And that's not going to happen just like that.
• 21:40
  I'm not going to go from cheeseburgers to porn again, but
• 21:45
  it will be a process. So I just wanted to just echo
• 21:49
  and say thank you for acknowledging that there's new
• 21:52
  and healthier way of handling things.
• 21:54
  Yeah. And thank you for bringing.
• 21:56
  Healthiness. Yeah, the neuro pathways is such
• 21:58
  an important piece that you brought up because you're right,
• 22:02
  those addiction neuro pathways don't disappear.
• 22:07
  We just build stronger, healthier ones.
• 22:10
  That becomes our default. That becomes faster, but we can
• 22:14
  revert back to those old ones if we're stopping that healthy
• 22:18
  behavior. Yeah, yeah.
• 22:20
  And my experience is that reverting doesn't happen
• 22:23
  quickly. It's slowly over time.
• 22:26
  This is the part that I forgot to bring up earlier, but it ties
• 22:28
  in right now, which is when I'm mapping out a recovery plan with
• 22:32
  a guy, and it's his recovery plan, nobody else's.
• 22:35
  It's not mine, It's his We'll talk about.
• 22:38
  If you went back into old behavior, what pathway would you
• 22:42
  take to get back there? What would that process look
• 22:45
  like? And he wants to think it happens
• 22:47
  immediately, like he slips and then everything back over again.
• 22:50
  I'm like, no, you don't go from we can buy this to food.
• 22:52
  You don't go from 185 lbs to 225 in a moment.
• 22:57
  That's a process to get back there.
• 22:59
  So what would that process look like?
• 23:01
  So it's the same thing here. It's creating awareness.
• 23:03
  And what we do is to fill that hole.
• 23:04
  Yeah, and it and it can be a slippery slope, but it's not a
• 23:10
  quantum leap junk. It is a slippery slope.
• 23:14
  And what I'm hearing in a lot of this and what I've experienced
• 23:17
  personally too, on the on the recovery side, physiologically,
• 23:21
  neurologically from betrayal, this does lead into at some
• 23:26
  point expanding your scope of professionals to help you
• 23:30
  because this does include testing.
• 23:34
  I just did a neurological panel for my DNA and genetic testing
• 23:40
  and it showed a lot of things, helps with understanding how
• 23:42
  PTSD affected me neurologically. Functional medicine can help
• 23:46
  with a lot of this stuff. There's so many resources now
• 23:52
  that help facilitate this kind of physiological and
• 23:55
  neurological healing. So I like that we're going here
• 23:58
  too because it's so much bigger when we're talking about our
• 24:03
  human experience outside of the problematic sexual behaviors.
• 24:08
  There's so much under it, which is why I think that that myth of
• 24:13
  I'm fine, I've been sober a while.
• 24:15
  I don't need a help, just gets under my skinks.
• 24:17
  I'm like, Oh my gosh, no. And even on the betrayed side of
• 24:20
  I'm fine, I've been doing OK. And you see, sometimes a lot of
• 24:23
  like our clients will drop off and you're like, ah, you haven't
• 24:26
  even got to the somatic part, right?
• 24:28
  You're going to be back in my office.
• 24:29
  And so this is when we can commit to this is a lifestyle
• 24:34
  change. I heard Jennifer Finland 5 talk
• 24:36
  about this. Like at some point, using these
• 24:40
  experiences that just rocked us to the core, individually and
• 24:43
  relationally, using them and being able to look at them at
• 24:47
  some point as a gift, as a gift to change, as a gift, to grow,
• 24:52
  as a gift, to see what we didn't see before and we're blinded to
• 24:55
  before in our human experience. And so I want to normalize too,
• 25:00
  that this is what we as humans are here to do, to learn, to
• 25:04
  grow from these types of injuries that we receive.
• 25:08
  And 'cause that's the growth mindset that we're always
• 25:11
  talking about. So it's so much more impactful
• 25:16
  when you're ready for that. But there's a lot of good things
• 25:19
  here. So yeah, I appreciate where you
• 25:22
  guys went with this in the brain part.
• 25:25
  OK, the last one and then we're wrapping up y'all.
• 25:27
  The last myth that we're going to talk about is how relapse
• 25:30
  means that I'm back at square 1. Almost everyone I work with, it
• 25:35
  feels like square one for the beat trade partner and for the
• 25:38
  person who is back in behaviors. And just because it feels like
• 25:45
  it doesn't mean you have unlearned everything that you
• 25:49
  have learned and what you do with it really is going to be
• 25:57
  key with whether it is a tool for learning and growth or it is
• 26:03
  just simply a painful experience.
• 26:08
  Then can you give a couple ideas of what that healthy response to
• 26:13
  a relapse would look like? Because I can just see our
• 26:15
  listeners going, OK, well, what does that look like?
• 26:17
  What does that look like? Lana, you used that analogy a
• 26:19
  long time ago about the rubber band.
• 26:22
  You just share that one again. Yeah, If you have an individual
• 26:24
  who's kneeling from triggers, you have this big explosion.
• 26:27
  And then as you heal and move forward, you move away from
• 26:29
  that. But then when you hit a trigger,
• 26:32
  PTSD pulls you back to that moment.
• 26:35
  They feel like you're back right when it happened, and you're
• 26:39
  not. And then your brains, like, have
• 26:42
  to start all over. But in reality, you don't start
• 26:45
  over. You pick up where you left off
• 26:48
  and then you keep healing and you keep moving forward.
• 26:50
  And then when you get hit again and the PTSD hits and it takes
• 26:53
  you back to that moment. For those who can't see my hands
• 26:56
  because you're listening to me, I'm smacking it back to my hand
• 27:00
  again. It feels like you're at the
• 27:01
  beginning, but when you work through that trigger, you don't
• 27:05
  start all over. You go back to where you left
• 27:09
  off or you are still where you left off.
• 27:11
  Really. You just don't feel like you're
• 27:13
  in the middle of it and you keep healing and moving forward.
• 27:16
  And I think about the acting out partner, if they can take what
• 27:23
  happened and show up differently and take time like you call it
• 27:29
  game tape, which I would love for you to explain what that is.
• 27:32
  If you can do the process around this, it can be such a tool for
• 27:37
  understanding yourself and your story and why you do what you do
• 27:41
  if you choose to dig into it and face that hard pain.
• 27:47
  Yeah, and it's a lot of men that I work with.
• 27:50
  It's what gets their way is they're effed up a relationship
• 27:53
  with failure. And the way they view failure is
• 27:56
  I need to hide when things don't go the way that I am, I think
• 28:00
  they're supposed to go. So when a guy shows up and I
• 28:05
  think about anybody that's been quote UN quote successful,
• 28:08
  they're learning that came from their failures and how they
• 28:11
  grasp onto those. Some pretty solid people that go
• 28:15
  like about just like Thomas Edison is one example.
• 28:18
  How many times did it take to invent light bulb like 1000 and
• 28:21
  don't picture him the first time it didn't work.
• 28:23
  Him running off in shame and saying what's wrong with me?
• 28:26
  I'm so stupid. He was like, OK, I'm going to
• 28:28
  learn from that. What?
• 28:30
  What am I taking from that? So we add this into it.
• 28:33
  What men will do is they'll build into their process.
• 28:36
  What am I going to learn from my close call or my slip or my
• 28:40
  relapse? Because those are three
• 28:42
  different things, slips, close calls and relapses way
• 28:45
  different. OK, I'm going to get with
• 28:48
  somebody. I'm going to seek to understand
• 28:49
  what happened, but what led up to what happened?
• 28:53
  And what did I learn from that? And what am I going to do
• 28:55
  differently? And that's a three-part process.
• 28:58
  And that's not having such an effed up version or relationship
• 29:03
  with failure. I'm actually learning about
• 29:05
  myself from my experiences. And you have somebody that shows
• 29:09
  up with you and says, hey, I want to tell you about something
• 29:12
  that I'm not pleased about what I did.
• 29:14
  This is what happened and this is what I learned.
• 29:17
  This one I do going forward feels a lot different than
• 29:20
  somebody who's a mess that was just caught.
• 29:24
  It's a big difference. And some of that learning could
• 29:28
  sound like I'm learning that I tend to doubt when I'm feeling
• 29:32
  really lonely. Or I am learning that me taking
• 29:38
  my phone in my room to bed every night is when I act out the
• 29:42
  most. Or I'm learning for me, watching
• 29:45
  YouTube and just scrolling YouTube is the gateway drug for
• 29:48
  me. And so it's putting those pieces
• 29:51
  together and looking at yourself and understanding.
• 29:54
  Or like I'm learning that when I skip four days of doing my
• 29:59
  regular healthy things, it is so much harder for me to not act
• 30:04
  out of my values. Those type of things are the
• 30:08
  things that you can learn and practice and start showing up
• 30:12
  differently. And I'm going to rewind us
• 30:15
  because I wrote something down on my piece of paper.
• 30:17
  We were talking about. I can control my addiction
• 30:21
  without professional help. And I wrote something down and
• 30:24
  then the conversation was so good I totally forgot it.
• 30:27
  If you have a spouse who has been acting outside of their
• 30:31
  values and their professional suddenly decides they won't work
• 30:37
  with them any longer, in almost every case I've seen that
• 30:43
  happen, it's a professional who will not work with somebody in
• 30:48
  addiction who is not doing the work.
• 30:52
  And I have seen betrayed partners talk themselves out of
• 30:56
  seeing the reality of that and talk themselves out of that
• 31:00
  experience or justify it or minimize it because that's a
• 31:03
  really painful truth when somebody is really committed to
• 31:09
  doing the work and changing. I see coaches and professionals
• 31:12
  who are like, I'm with you, even if you're messing up, even if
• 31:16
  you're not doing it perfect, if I see your heart is in it and
• 31:19
  you're doing the work between session and you're really trying
• 31:22
  to figure this out, I'm right here by your side.
• 31:24
  The times I see them say, hey, dude, I can't work with you
• 31:28
  anymore. Not until you're ready and
• 31:30
  serious and doing this work. Usually it's because they're not
• 31:34
  doing anything in between sessions and then just want to
• 31:38
  use that time as like a hangout and catch up time.
• 31:41
  And we as professionals are not serving our clients well by
• 31:47
  doing that, by just hanging out with them.
• 31:52
  We're not actually helping them. We're part of.
• 31:54
  In the. In that pattern.
• 31:57
  Yeah. Can I tell you what that sounds
• 31:58
  like in real life, or can I share with you so I have the
• 32:02
  painful experience from time to time?
• 32:03
  Stop working with a man. But I'll go back to, hey, in the
• 32:08
  beginning you said what you hired me for, what I'm here for.
• 32:12
  And I won't hurt you by staying here if the progress isn't head
• 32:17
  in that area, if what you said you were going to do.
• 32:21
  And we don't need perfection at all at all.
• 32:24
  What we need is momentum and the work that goes into those
• 32:29
  things. And yeah, it's pretty painful.
• 32:32
  And I feel for the partner because I never called the
• 32:35
  spouse up and say, hey, just so you know, I'm not working with
• 32:38
  your man anymore because of this.
• 32:41
  Yeah, you can't. Not for confidentiality.
• 32:44
  Yeah. So that's not, it's not ethical,
• 32:47
  it's not right. And I have such strong feelings.
• 32:50
  And then I am reassured that her because of again, typically I
• 32:54
  work with men of her ability to be able to look at all the
• 32:57
  pieces and not get that direct communication from me and be
• 33:00
  able to go. I trust myself and I recognize
• 33:03
  this doesn't feel right, but I won't spend time hurting them by
• 33:08
  not being present for them alone of doing their work.
• 33:13
  So I don't know what the myth is in there, but I think that's a
• 33:16
  really important piece to know because I've just seen it often
• 33:21
  enough. I think about there are so many
• 33:26
  people who really do want to do the work and we cannot fill our
• 33:31
  calendar with people who want to just hang out because that's not
• 33:35
  helpful to them and that's not what we're here for.
• 33:39
  And so I just. Clarify the hangout Alana,
• 33:42
  because I don't think anybody ever just wants to hang out.
• 33:44
  Can you clarify that? Because I think that's
• 33:45
  important. What I've experienced is when I
• 33:50
  have somebody who has been acting outside of their values
• 33:53
  and isn't in a place that they want to change, then they come
• 33:57
  with super trivial things that aren't actually any of the
• 34:00
  issues that they ever brought. It's more of let's just talk
• 34:04
  about how my day went, Let's talk about the week.
• 34:07
  And we're not actually diving into any real work.
• 34:10
  When I'm trying to get into real work, it's deflected into just
• 34:14
  wanting to keep it really surface level.
• 34:17
  And no matter how many times I try as a professional to go
• 34:19
  deeper, they're not interested. And one of my personal
• 34:23
  boundaries is I will not work harder than my client.
• 34:27
  I will work side by side with my client.
• 34:29
  I will support my client, but I will not drag them through
• 34:33
  recovery or through their work because that to me has taken
• 34:37
  away the autonomy of my client. So I won't do that.
• 34:42
  I will work with people who want to do the work.
• 34:46
  I will be an incredibly safe person and I will allow for that
• 34:50
  accountability, but I will not drag people into healing because
• 34:54
  that's not real change. That's not really.
• 34:56
  What I've noticed for me with my clients and just remember who I
• 35:00
  work with, typically the betrayer or always the betrayer
• 35:04
  is their hanging out version looks like trying to figure out
• 35:09
  how to convince or change or look at the other person's
• 35:14
  problems, how they need to figure out instead of that
• 35:18
  internal work, that empowering myself.
• 35:22
  That's what the hanging out looks like for my clients.
• 35:27
  Oh yes, I definitely see that too.
• 35:29
  And I love that you've highlighted that.
• 35:31
  If they only want to talk about what the other person is or
• 35:34
  isn't doing, instead of looking at where their internal work is
• 35:39
  and their focus of control is, yeah, yeah, it's good.
• 35:46
  I think the myth. If we were to create a myth
• 35:49
  around this, what I hear and it whether it's from the betrayed
• 35:53
  or even the addict, there's just no professionals.
• 35:56
  He's been through so many professionals and he's no one
• 35:59
  has has wanted to work with him or no one will help him or on
• 36:02
  that you hear this from the addict side.
• 36:04
  No, no one will work with me. No one really will see me or
• 36:07
  help me. And when you see the pattern of
• 36:10
  multiple professionals that they've been through, that's
• 36:13
  where I'm kind of like, OK, it causes for pause and getting
• 36:16
  more curious and asking some more questions around what's
• 36:20
  going on there. So I think there is a myth there
• 36:22
  too that I see my partners believe like around the addict
• 36:26
  of they just have been through so many.
• 36:28
  No one has been able to actually help him and going into how the
• 36:33
  professional is actually messed up because again, I totally know
• 36:38
  that there have been professionals that are not
• 36:42
  actually helpful. That does exist.
• 36:44
  I get that. So I'm not discounting, But it's
• 36:48
  always, if I hear that and it's multiple, it's always cause for
• 36:53
  pause and more curiosity. Yeah.
• 36:57
  Luke, thank you. Thank.
• 36:59
  You. I, I just, again, anytime we're
• 37:02
  talking about the acting out behaviors, where they're coming
• 37:05
  from mindsets, I know that this can be really sensitive for
• 37:09
  maybe trade partners. So I want to have empathy for
• 37:13
  that and make space for that and just encourage you to notice
• 37:18
  where the pain points are and to take some time and do some
• 37:23
  grounding work and then dive deeper into those triggers
• 37:26
  because triggers are pieces of information on where our healing
• 37:31
  work is waiting for us. Sending so much love as both
• 37:36
  sides are trying to navigate this journey Is this hard
• 37:38
  emotional work? So I just send love and support
• 37:40
  with that. And as always, thank you for
• 37:43
  hanging out with us this week, and we look forward to seeing
• 37:45
  you all next week. Hey, thanks for joining us
• 37:50
  today. If this is something that you
• 37:52
  connected with, I'd love to meet with you more and talk about it.
• 37:55
  So what you can do is go to chooserecoveryservices.com or
• 37:58
  check the show notes and there what we can do is set up a quick
• 38:01
  conversation we need. Thanks so much for listening to
• 38:04
  Beyond the Facade where we unmask the authentic cell.