Latest / Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute / 101: Why Am I Still Struggling Years Later?

Transcript

101: Why Am I Still Struggling Years Later? · Beyond the Facade with Choose Recovery Services and Blueprint Institute

• 0:00
  Hey everybody, so let me ask you a question.
• 0:03
  What if the reason you're still struggling today isn't because
• 0:06
  you're not trying hard enough and and struggling with whatever
• 0:09
  it is you still feel stuck on? OK, might be compulsive
• 0:12
  behavior, might be secrecy and hiding, might be just the
• 0:15
  ability to be able to have empathy, be able to hold
• 0:18
  somebody else's pain. So what if it isn't because
• 0:21
  you're unmotivated or you just, you know, you're lazy or you
• 0:26
  don't want it bad enough or whatever it might be?
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  What if you're actually been using the wrong solution for a
• 0:31
  problem you have? OK, I've used this analogy a few
• 0:35
  times, so bear with me as you've heard it before.
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  I want you to imagine three brothers, and all three of these
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  brothers have diabetes. OK?
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  The first brother, he manages diabetes simply by changing what
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  he eats. The second brother, he actually
• 0:48
  needs insulin shots. And that third brother has a
• 0:52
  surgically implanted insulin pump because his condition
• 0:56
  requires a much higher level of intervention.
• 0:59
  Now imagine that the first brother walked to the third
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  brother and and says, you know what worked for me?
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  I just cut out the sugar. What happened to that third
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  brother? I'm getting really dark and deep
• 1:09
  here. But I got the third brother
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  would die if he would follow that advice.
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  And not because the advice was bad.
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  It was it wasn't the right level of care for the problem that he
• 1:19
  had. And I think this is exactly
• 1:21
  what's happening for many men in recovery.
• 1:23
  They're listening to advice for men and professionals who need
• 1:26
  one level of support, while they need an entirely different level
• 1:31
  of intervention. OK, so today I want to talk
• 1:35
  about why some men continue to struggle years into recovery and
• 1:39
  why the first question isn't what's wrong with me.
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  The first question needs to be, I'm mitigating the level of help
• 1:45
  that I actually need because it is painful to be that male or be
• 1:50
  those people that are sitting there that are stuck, that don't
• 1:54
  have the right level of care. So that's what we're going to
• 1:58
  get into today. Welcome to Beyond the Facade
• 2:04
  podcast. I'm your host, Luke Gordon, and
• 2:06
  I'm thrilled to have you join me in this space today.
• 2:08
  What we're going to be doing is diving deep into the trials and
• 2:11
  triumphs and truths of seeking authenticity.
• 2:14
  Becoming your true self isn't about a single action or a
• 2:17
  moment. It's a relentless pursuit, a
• 2:20
  commitment to self that reveals the rich connection and meaning
• 2:23
  that our life. Has to offer.
• 2:24
  So whether this is your first time tuning in or you're a
• 2:27
  regular listener, know this. What you're building here goes
• 2:30
  beyond a conversation. You're here to challenge, to
• 2:33
  change, and to celebrate the incredible journey of becoming
• 2:36
  your authentic self. Because when you dare to show up
• 2:38
  fully. The.
• 2:39
  Rewards are immeasurable, so welcome to be on the facade.
• 2:43
  Let's get started. All right, so let's let's talk
• 2:48
  about this and let's start with the frustration of being stuck.
• 2:51
  And again, you've been reading the books, you've been attending
• 2:54
  the groups, you've seen a therapist, doesn't matter what
• 2:57
  level of things you've tried, maybe that you have the
• 3:01
  accountability, you know, the recovery language, yet there's
• 3:05
  still a struggle. There's still a place that
• 3:06
  you're stuck. And if you ever felt like that,
• 3:08
  you're working harder than ever, but you're seeing the same
• 3:12
  results and can you just notice and sense inside your body what
• 3:15
  that's like? Have you ever wondered why
• 3:18
  recovery seems easier for other people?
• 3:20
  Why maybe there's some successes out there.
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  So the answer might not be in that effort, maybe about the
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  assessment on the front end of where I'm actually at.
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  And where do I find that? Have you seen these?
• 3:34
  Have you seen these ads maybe on social media somewhere else
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  where it does this quick fix of the ones that drive me the most
• 3:41
  craziest, overcome your pornography addiction in 28
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  days, promised results, all that kind of stuff.
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  Just madding the promises that are made.
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  And I think where it leaves somebody once they try it and
• 3:53
  their conclusion is I'm just broken because it didn't work.
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  Well, what the problem is, is that it's that's a sales pitch.
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  What the problem is on the front end and actually assessing the
• 4:03
  level of care that's needed. Right.
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  And having. It being mapped out so we don't
• 4:08
  assess recovery very well sometimes.
• 4:10
  And I say we as in people there that are should be more
• 4:13
  responsible for how recovery is assessed and meeting that person
• 4:17
  where they're at knowing. So most men don't actually know
• 4:20
  what level of support they need, which is fine that that makes
• 4:23
  sense. We are responsible to go to not
• 4:27
  stop fighting for what healthy looks like.
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  But So what might be end up getting tried is weekly therapy
• 4:33
  or group therapy or coaching or intensives or outpatient
• 4:36
  treatment. And I just want to talk about
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  how often we choose. It's the human experience to
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  choose like sometimes the lowest level of care first, because it
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  feels safer. It feels safer to choose
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  something that's lower level care or maybe it's cheaper or
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  maybe it's less disruptive to a busy life.
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  But The thing is, a lot of men have proven that level isn't
• 4:58
  isn't enough yet. So why?
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  And I think it's really easy to feel stuck here because
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  sometimes insight, even though it feels really good, it doesn't
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  automatically create change. So this is where I want to share
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  with you. My story is for years I thought
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  I just learned enough that I'd change.
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  I got some piece of information in my brain.
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  I read some article or some book or listen to something.
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  And it was like, OK, I think I rounded a corner.
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  But what would happen is life would hit.
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  My partner would get frustrated or upset with me, or I'd fail at
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  something or something, go poorly at work, and I'd struggle
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  to use those concepts that I'd been taught.
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  I'd struggle to understand my own triggers.
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  I'd actually hadn't dove deep enough into knowing what my
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  cycles were, what my patterns were.
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  There was still being stuck, some of the stuck being known,
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  some of it not actually being able to see that I was stuck.
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  So eventually I realized that I wasn't lacking information.
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  I was lacking really what we call integration, like how I get
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  it to be a part of me, not just something that I, I've learned,
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  but something that's how I interact with it.
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  It becomes a it's integration. So the missing piece often here
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  is regulation so we can talk about like trauma.
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  I think that's a big piece. One of my favorite, one of my
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  favorite pieces of information that was big for me, how they
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  integrate it was 10s of trauma into sexual addiction.
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  Doctor Barda's book and he talks about trauma, talks about a
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  nervous system, how it gets activated, and he talks about
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  emotional avoidance and how we use behaviors to regulate our
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  distress. So many men are trying to solve
• 6:45
  regulation problems with this information and that that rarely
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  works. Be able to listen to a podcast,
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  hear it, and have everything be able to now change in my life.
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  OK, getting my system to take it in, getting from here to how I
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  interact with the world. I think so let's just talk for a
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  second. How do I know if I need more
• 7:07
  help? I just want to give you guys
• 7:09
  some practical indicators. If you have multiple relapses,
• 7:13
  like despite some sincere efforts, and I'm talking about
• 7:16
  it, you know those relapses where you've been doing the,
• 7:19
  what you feel like is you're doing the work, you're like, I
• 7:22
  feel like I've been putting the effort in, but it doesn't seem
• 7:25
  to be changing anything. I don't feel like I'm
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  interacting differently with my triggers just because I know it.
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  Another indicator that I might need more help is my behavior is
• 7:34
  escalating, and often that's done in secret, escalating
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  behavior. And that's the scariest part
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  about it being secret is, is that's where it escalates.
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  Usually if there's openness and transparency around behaviors,
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  they don't escalate so much. I'm getting off on a side
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  tangent there. Here's some other indication you
• 7:51
  need more help just like that ongoing secrecy.
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  Then what's the scariest kind of secrets are the ones that we
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  keep from ourselves, the one where we act out or we do
• 7:59
  something outside of our values and we just push it down and
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  push away real quick. So it's almost a secret from
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  ourselves. My inability to regulate my
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  emotions, my ability to be able to sit with hard days, hard
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  times, and be able to notice what's going on inside of me.
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  How do I know if I need more help?
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  This is a big indicator. My partner continues to
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  experience instability inside of me.
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  I'm not able to be that rock, that person that is, I don't
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  want to say unshaken, right, because we're all human, but
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  they're able to notice that I'm in emotionally unstable.
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  So it's significant. And here's probably the last one
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  I'll give you. How do you know if you need more
• 8:37
  help? I think recovery feels like
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  constant, like knuckling. I'm just kind of like hanging on
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  by dear life. The things that I said I'm going
• 8:44
  to do that I want to do almost feel slightly unattainable and
• 8:48
  maybe I am sober. Can I hate that word some days?
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  And what if the issue isn't my commitment?
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  What if the issue is that I've outgrown the level of support
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  that I'm receiving? And that can happen too.
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  We can have marked improvement and marked progress with one set
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  of behaviors, but still be stuck in another world.
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  So maybe you got group work. Was that place the guy came
• 9:11
  sober from sexually acting out. But emotionally I'm not sober.
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  Emotionally I'm dysregulated. So maybe that level of support
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  you're receiving, you've outgrown it.
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  So I just want to share with you, just take a step back right
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  now, pause the podcast, maybe do some journaling and going, does
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  the level of care and sport that I have, does it meet where I'm
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  trying to go? I always tell a client like, and
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  bear with me through this, what is it going to take for me to
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  get fired? How do you know when your work
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  is done with me? It's a better way to put it,
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  like how will we know that we can conclude our work together?
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  How will you know when you're not arrived?
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  But what am I trying to support you with right now?
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  And take a step back about what would you have told the person
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  you're working with, the group you're working with and where
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  are you at in that? Are you stuck?
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  And how can we assess? So y'all, there are so many
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  beautiful tools out there to assess.
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  And I love it when a clinician or some type of provider says,
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  let me just listen. And before we start going about
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  treatment, let's talk about where you're headed.
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  Let's talk about where you've already been taking treatment,
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  methods that have already existed, things you've done in
• 10:27
  the past and building than what you currently have.
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  OK, so a decent amount of effort in this podcast was putting into
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  how am I going to, am I getting the right level of treatment I
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  need? Which brother am I?
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  I'm the third brother, you all. I'm the third brother.
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  I need that insulin pump surgically mounted to me.
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  I used to have a lot of shame for that.
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  I'm not saying there hasn't been progress in my journey or
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  anything like that, but I just know that if I would have got
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  first level brother advice been super problematic, super
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  problematic. And I actually do know that I
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  got first level brother advice I can think of early on in my
• 11:01
  journey. And so discouraged by this.
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  But in the church that I, the church that I belong to, going
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  into clergy's office, going into church leadership's office and
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  confessing what I done and them giving me words of
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  encouragement, love, acceptance, and then but really giving me
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  things that to do. But we're not going to give me
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  where I wanted to go for sure. And all the love to the world,
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  to the men and the people that I would sit with that would like
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  that first brother saying, hey, cut off sugar.
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  Bless her heart for doing what they did, but it wouldn't have
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  been enough. So choose recovery services.
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  Doesn't need to be the end all be all to what those methods
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  look like. But if you want to take a look
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  at assessments and figure out what that level looks like,
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  we're happy to support you and help you.
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  So I just want to leave you with one final thought.
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  Stop asking why can't I get this?
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  Start asking yourself if I had this assess correctly what I
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  actually need because there's no shame in needing a higher level
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  of support. Please just remember that.
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  Please remember that there's no level shame in higher levels for
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  it can feel so shameful. It can feel so shameful when you
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  my gosh, I just want to stop at this podcast and I'm going to
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  maybe cry a little bit, but there's this experience we have
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  of like going when I have is not enough right now.
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  And it feels feels so broken in that moment of what I'm doing
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  right now wasn't working. And it's just compassion and
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  love. When you say I need a higher
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  level support, it's just compassion speaking.
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  It's love for self saying love for partner, love for anybody
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  surround you saying hold on, I raised my hand.
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  Let's take this up a step. I think I hate the same analogy
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  over and over again. But what's the definition of
• 13:00
  insanity? Doing the same thing over and
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  over again and expecting a different result.
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  And by the way, you don't have to give up what you're doing
• 13:07
  right now and stop doing what you're doing.
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  If there's some parts of it that are really working great, that's
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  fantastic. Just see what else there could
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  be. And then what?
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  Here's another thing. What's coming to my mind,
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  actually, I'm going to have you stop and just notice here for a
• 13:20
  second, what's that thing? I'm feeling like I need to ask
• 13:27
  you this question. What's that thing that you've
• 13:30
  been avoiding doing that you know you need to do, right?
• 13:34
  What is that thing that you know is take action?
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  Maybe your partner's asking you to do it, maybe not.
• 13:43
  Maybe you just know it and kind of dragging your feet, right.
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  And you got really good reasons, really good excuses to not do
• 13:54
  that. Yeah.
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  So what if you let go of, like, all the reasons why you
• 13:59
  couldn't? What if you did the impossible?
• 14:01
  Just did it anyway, right? You don't know what that would
• 14:05
  look like. You won't know until you
• 14:07
  actually do it. So anyway, it's good to spend
• 14:11
  time with you. And also, this is going to be
• 14:14
  our next few podcasts over this are going to build on this.
• 14:17
  We don't always build on things. Sometimes we'll do series, but
• 14:20
  next time we're going to talk about that.
• 14:22
  This isn't an addiction problem. It's like an emotional awareness
• 14:25
  problem. Many men don't act out because
• 14:28
  they want sex. They act out because they don't
• 14:30
  know what they're feeling and their body actually responds.
• 14:34
  So we're going to get to that and explain the why behind that.
• 14:37
  So anyway, it's good to spend time with you.
• 14:40
  Hey, so let's talk about our reclaimed intensive coming up.
• 14:43
  I know we have some buzz around it and I'm hoping we get to see
• 14:45
  you there, but let me tell you what it's about.
• 14:47
  Have you ever felt like a part of you genuinely wants recovery
• 14:50
  while another part of you keep sabotaging it?
• 14:53
  Where one part wants like connection to another part wants
• 14:56
  escape? Where one part wants honesty and
• 14:59
  another part wants to hide? And let me give you one more
• 15:02
  where one part wants to be present with your kids, your
• 15:05
  partner and your life, but another part you wants to numb
• 15:09
  out, wants to check out, wants to disappear all together.
• 15:12
  Many men spend years fighting this internal battle without
• 15:16
  even understanding what's actually happening beneath the
• 15:18
  surface. The truth is, you're not broken.
• 15:22
  You're not crazy. You're not fighting against
• 15:24
  yourself by accident. You're carrying a system of
• 15:27
  parts that were developed for a reason.
• 15:29
  That's why we created the reclaimed intensive.
• 15:32
  So Reclaim is a four day men's intensive build around internal
• 15:35
  family systems and parts work and other various tools of
• 15:38
  recovery. So together we want to identify
• 15:41
  these different parts of you and we want to understand the wounds
• 15:45
  and what they're protecting and how to be LED through your
• 15:49
  internal system so you can find some clarity and confidence and
• 15:51
  self energy that you haven't had before.
• 15:54
  Because this isn't about trying harder.
• 15:56
  It's about understanding what's happening inside of you.
• 15:58
  So if you're struggling and you want to move beyond managing
• 16:03
  some of the systems and start addressing it or please join us
• 16:07
  from August 18th to the 21st in Spanish Fork, UT.
• 16:10
  So go ahead and visit chooserecoveryservices.com, go
• 16:13
  to the intensive section and with the reclaimed intensives.
• 16:17
  And even if you want to schedule a consultation, we can talk
• 16:20
  about it more. Hey, thanks for joining us
• 16:26
  today. If this is.
• 16:27
  Something that you connected with, I'd love to meet with you
• 16:30
  more and talk about it. So what you can do is go to
• 16:33
  chooserecoveryservices.com. Or check the show notes.
• 16:36
  And there what we can do is set up a quick conversation we need.
• 16:39
  Thanks so much for listening to Beyond the Facade where we
• 16:42
  unmask the authentic self.