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Perfectionism, Body Image & Addiction: The Hidden Triggers That Keep Us Sick · Recovering Out Loud

• 0:00
  What do you think it did for you?
• 0:02
  Yeah, that's a good question. I think first it was a break
• 0:07
  from myself, like the constant pressure I put on myself to keep
• 0:12
  it together, to be a certain person.
• 0:15
  That perfectionism was a real big part of my anxiety and
• 0:20
  depression, and it made me feel less uncomfortable in my own
• 0:25
  skin. And it felt like this off
• 0:27
  switch, like I remember that feeling like I could just flick
• 0:31
  a switch and just like not be this version of myself anymore.
• 0:33
  And like what a relief like to not have to be in my body and
• 0:39
  with my thoughts anymore. It's like something I always
• 0:43
  wanted. Hi there, welcome back or
• 0:46
  welcome to Recovering Out Loud Podcast, the show where we get
• 0:50
  real about mental health and addiction.
• 0:52
  I'm so glad you're here. If you or someone you love is
• 0:55
  struggling with drugs or alcohol, please reach out for
• 0:59
  help. Send me a message on all social
• 1:01
  media platforms at Recovering Out Loud Pod or by e-mail at
• 1:06
  recoveringoutloudpod@gmail.com. You are no longer alone.
• 1:28
  What, like filming yourself? It's like very uncomfortable at
• 1:30
  first. Well, I have a journalism
• 1:32
  background. So.
• 1:34
  I have some training, but before I had that, yeah, it was
• 1:37
  incredibly nervous. And I still, I still have
• 1:39
  moments where I'm like, I don't, I'm just going to write
• 1:42
  something today. I don't want to be seen.
• 1:44
  I don't want to be perceived online.
• 1:45
  Yeah. So do you script out your videos
• 1:47
  before you film them or you just free ball, free freebase
• 1:52
  freebase it? I just freebase it.
• 1:55
  Yeah. Yeah, I just fucking go for.
• 1:56
  It welcome to Recovering out loud.
• 1:58
  We talk about crack. I love it.
• 2:02
  So you are a you're becoming a psychotherapist or you're
• 2:06
  already a psychotherapist. Psychotherapist.
• 2:08
  You are. So you're registered psycho.
• 2:09
  Fucking cool. Awesome.
• 2:11
  Yeah. I love having people on both
• 2:13
  sides. You're in recovery and you are
• 2:16
  helping other people. That's right through the
• 2:17
  recovery. Let's do this.
• 2:20
  My wife yelled at me because she says I don't introduce people
• 2:23
  enough. She's like, I don't know who the
• 2:24
  fuck I'm listening to. You start talking about their
• 2:26
  story and their childhood and they're like, I don't even know
• 2:28
  who it is. I'm like, well, if you read the
• 2:30
  description of the episode. You don't care about me, it's
• 2:32
  your fault. Exactly.
• 2:34
  Why don't you introduce yourself how you came into recovery?
• 2:37
  And yeah, let's start with that, OK?
• 2:39
  Yeah, I'm Errol McCaffrey and I've been sober for three years,
• 2:45
  just a little over three years, tried many times.
• 2:48
  This time seems to be sticking one day at a time.
• 2:53
  I'm also a psychotherapist. I work with people in recovery
• 2:56
  primarily. It wasn't my intention, but
• 2:59
  that's those are the people that come to me, people that are
• 3:00
  looking to get sober and they have relationship challenges.
• 3:05
  So yeah, that's kind of my jam right now.
• 3:08
  I'm working a lot with women that are craving sobriety.
• 3:10
  So that's like kind of the niche I'm finding myself in, but.
• 3:13
  Yeah, and how do they find you? Instagram, Yeah.
• 3:16
  It's a great it's a great gateway funnel.
• 3:22
  I'm trying to do that too. Working with addicts is so hard
• 3:25
  though. Like we never show up.
• 3:28
  You know what I mean, though? It's it's, it's funny, like I
• 3:31
  every time I get like upset with somebody because of whatever
• 3:35
  they are so rearing to get sober and then they, you know,
• 3:39
  disappear for a bit. I have to remind myself I'm
• 3:41
  like, dude, that was you like so many times, right?
• 3:44
  And I work at a rehab now where I get people into rehab and it's
• 3:47
  frustrating sometimes because you know, that they could be on
• 3:50
  the path of healing the better life.
• 3:52
  And like I'm dealing with this one guy.
• 3:56
  And I thought back to the last time I went into rehab.
• 3:59
  It took me probably two months before I like signed up before I
• 4:03
  actually got into the bed, right.
• 4:05
  So it's like. Yeah, it's so hard.
• 4:09
  That's something that I'm working with constantly with
• 4:11
  people is their resistance and resistance even like getting on
• 4:16
  a call to talk about it. Like it takes so much courage
• 4:19
  for somebody to go, OK, I have a problem.
• 4:21
  I want to do something about it. And I can be in frustration at
• 4:24
  moments for sure. Like I just, I know you could do
• 4:27
  it. I see this, you know, better
• 4:28
  future for you. And just like you, I know
• 4:30
  exactly what it's like to want something better for yourself.
• 4:34
  But you're stuck somewhere and you're not done yet.
• 4:38
  You haven't felt enough pain yet.
• 4:39
  You're not desperate enough yet. That's the big one.
• 4:42
  So who am I to say that you're ready if you're not?
• 4:44
  Yeah, I might be holding you back from another bottom, right?
• 4:48
  Yeah, that's the big one, right? Being ready, willing and ready.
• 4:53
  And everybody's different, right?
• 4:55
  Like, we have a lot more suffering to go almost all the
• 4:57
  time if we're still alive, right?
• 4:59
  You know, rock bottoms when you stop digging.
• 5:02
  So, but yeah, it's like who? I like that.
• 5:05
  Who am I to say that you're done, You might not be done.
• 5:07
  You know, there's some more experiments to do.
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  As I always say, some more research to do.
• 5:13
  More controlled drinking. Yeah, yeah, try some more
• 5:15
  controlled drinking. How did you?
• 5:17
  So can you walk us through your childhood and maybe how you
• 5:22
  found alcohol and what it did for you?
• 5:25
  Yeah, so alcohol's a big part of my, my family story addiction
• 5:31
  was it's really present in my family, like Alcoholics going
• 5:36
  back and, you know, through the family lines for generations and
• 5:42
  grew up with a dad who was in active addiction for basically
• 5:45
  my whole life. He he got sober once or twice
• 5:49
  for brief periods of time, but he, he really struggled with
• 5:54
  alcoholism and mental illness. So I grew up watching that and
• 6:00
  you know, my mom was in and still is in Al Anon.
• 6:04
  So she's got a really good program and early on was able to
• 6:06
  explain to my sisters and I like this is a sick person.
• 6:09
  This is a disease, You know, it's it's not you, it's not your
• 6:12
  fault. And that helped a lot.
• 6:14
  I'm incredibly grateful for that.
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  And at the same time, it doesn't undo the trauma of watching
• 6:23
  somebody you love hurt themselves constantly and not be
• 6:26
  there for you, not show up for you in the way that you need
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  them to. So that was my introduction to
• 6:31
  alcohol and childhood. And my dad passed away when I
• 6:36
  was 18. Was it 18?
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  Yeah. So he had, I'm going serious,
• 6:43
  deep dark right away. But he he had, he got a cancer
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  that was, the doctor said caused by his drinking.
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  And it was fatal. And he drank till the end.
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  So that was like the type of alcoholic I saw growing up.
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  And I was like, well, I'm just never going to be an alcoholic.
• 7:02
  I'm never going to have any issues with it.
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  So my first addiction was like perfectionism, high achieving,
• 7:10
  really focused on school. Then I got addicted to body
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  image and food stuff. Big part of my story, always
• 7:18
  trying to find a way to fix myself.
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  I didn't come into my own drinking until after my dad
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  died. So I wasn't, I didn't wasn't a
• 7:28
  big drinker in high school. It was like, I think he, he
• 7:31
  started getting sick and then then I was experimenting with it
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  a bit. And then as soon as he died, I
• 7:36
  just went for it. And I dropped out of university.
• 7:41
  I had the scholarship. I was like the golden child, you
• 7:44
  know, trying to live up to that. And I just couldn't do it.
• 7:46
  So I took a year off school and worked at a bar like a good
• 7:55
  alcoholic. Yeah, I was like.
• 7:57
  Let me just do some training. I just want to get better at
• 8:00
  this thing. So a perfect place to, you know,
• 8:05
  learn how to drink. And that was.
• 8:07
  Yeah, I, I think that was really the beginning of it for me.
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  And it just like I, I don't even know where to stop talking about
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  this because it just went on forever.
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  It just went on forever. And it got worse and worse.
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  And it was tricky in university because it seemed it was normal,
• 8:22
  quote UN quote normal to binge drink.
• 8:24
  So it only really became clear to me that it was a problem when
• 8:27
  I got out of university. I graduated and I was like, oh,
• 8:32
  not everybody's drinking like that anymore, but I don't want
• 8:35
  to stop. What do you think it did for
• 8:38
  you? Yeah, that's a good question.
• 8:43
  I think first it was a break from myself, like the constant
• 8:50
  pressure I put on myself to keep it together, to be a certain
• 8:54
  person. That perfectionism was a real
• 9:00
  big part of my anxiety and depression, and it made me feel
• 9:06
  less uncomfortable in my own skin.
• 9:11
  And it felt like this off switch.
• 9:13
  Like I remember that feeling like I could just flick a switch
• 9:16
  and just like not be this version of myself anymore.
• 9:18
  And like, what a relief like to not have to be in my body and
• 9:24
  with my thoughts anymore. It's like something I always
• 9:28
  wanted. That's the big word too.
• 9:29
  Is is relief, right? Like this volume knob on my head
• 9:35
  and it works until it doesn't, right?
• 9:37
  It's like I was reading in one of the just for today's the
• 9:39
  other day. It was beautiful.
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  It said, you know, alcohol and drugs for me mainly drugs
• 9:45
  allowed me to be who I wanted when I wanted and feel what I
• 9:51
  wanted when I wanted until it it until it controlled me, right.
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  Like you get to a point where it stops kind of achieving that
• 10:01
  goal. And then the more you do, the
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  worse it gets to your, your, the thoughts get worse and louder.
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  And then the volume goes to like 14, right?
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  And then you get that relief from maybe like for in my case,
• 10:14
  like a few minutes at a time. And then you just chase that
• 10:18
  until the gates of hell. It's it's insanity.
• 10:22
  Like I spent so much of my life trying to like thinking I was
• 10:26
  going to feel a certain way when I would drink and it would just
• 10:28
  like the feeling never came. It was, it's just this really
• 10:31
  weird, insane behavior to be like, and this time it's going
• 10:35
  to work and it never works. It just ends up near the end.
• 10:39
  At least I could not escape my my awareness of my problem or my
• 10:42
  thoughts, no matter how much I drank.
• 10:45
  I drank, right? So it's just like it it.
• 10:49
  It works for a little bit and then it becomes its own problem.
• 10:53
  Yeah, I love the the three phases.
• 10:55
  It's like fun, fun with problems and then just problems after,
• 10:59
  right? As you're talking there, I'm
• 11:00
  thinking about the hand on the stove metaphor in one of the
• 11:03
  recovery literatures where it's like, this time it's not going
• 11:06
  to burn me, right? Maybe if I come at it from this
• 11:09
  angle, right, it won't burn me the same.
• 11:11
  And it's like every time, just fuck.
• 11:13
  Ow ow ow. Yeah, why can't I stop doing
• 11:15
  this? So that leads me into my next
• 11:18
  question. How did you was it?
• 11:20
  What was the moment where you were like this time?
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  I you know, I've had enough. This is I can't do this anymore.
• 11:27
  I had a couple of moments. I had a couple of bottoms.
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  I think one of the first ones was, I think it was 2017.
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  It was like, yeah, it would have been before the pandemic.
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  I had gone through like a breakup of 10 years.
• 11:44
  I was living, I had roommates that I didn't really know, but I
• 11:47
  was living on my own essentially for the first time.
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  And I started adding other substances to the picture.
• 11:55
  And then I was not only drinking, but I was going out
• 11:57
  into after hours clubs and like, you know, leaving 7:00 AM or
• 12:03
  9:00 AM the next day. And like just it just it got
• 12:08
  darker really fast. And I was doing more high risk
• 12:10
  stuff and really afraid of like what I was capable of doing and
• 12:15
  like, yeah, just afraid. I was like, I'm going to die, I
• 12:19
  think probably. And all the while trying to hold
• 12:23
  down my job as a yoga teacher. So think about that split
• 12:26
  personality like mindfulness, Wellness, go on there.
• 12:32
  Body's a temple. Doing some lines in the
• 12:34
  bathroom. Namaste.
• 12:36
  Just like, you know, just, it was just, it got crazy.
• 12:39
  I had a seizure at one point staying up really late.
• 12:42
  So it was just like, OK, I, I think I'm going to die.
• 12:46
  So I think I should do something.
• 12:47
  And at that point I took myself to treatment, to rehab.
• 12:51
  I I reached out to a women's rehab and started doing some
• 12:58
  outpatient work. Went to rehab for a month and it
• 13:01
  was amazing. The, the like the Type A and me
• 13:05
  was like, perfect. Give me structure.
• 13:07
  I will be the best sober person you've ever met.
• 13:10
  I'll be the star. Yeah.
• 13:11
  I'm going to get a plus in rehab.
• 13:12
  I'll be the. Star going it back in the floor.
• 13:14
  I'll do it perfectly. And so I was like there that,
• 13:19
  you know, I really wanted to want to get sober for real.
• 13:23
  I wasn't ready. I kind of knew it too.
• 13:25
  I was like, this is a nice break for me and came out within three
• 13:30
  months, I was back out and then I didn't get sober again for
• 13:35
  five years, which is where I am now.
• 13:39
  This time around, it was very different.
• 13:41
  It was like I was no longer using other substances.
• 13:45
  It was just drinking. I was in a relationship that was
• 13:48
  with the person that was very wealthy and had access to a lot
• 13:52
  of things. And so now my drinking looked
• 13:55
  more refined and classy, you know, fancy wines.
• 13:59
  I was like, OK, this is acceptable now.
• 14:02
  And that actually overtime felt more dangerous.
• 14:04
  I'm like, oh, I could do this forever.
• 14:06
  Like black out every once in a while PO when someone's really
• 14:08
  expensive carpet, but like, whatever, they'll forgive me.
• 14:11
  They probably do it too. And so that that was a it got
• 14:17
  worse in the pandemic for me. It was a slow, I just can't
• 14:21
  explain it other than like another moment of I'm going to
• 14:24
  die this way. I can't live like this.
• 14:28
  This thing owns me. So that time I just, I had like
• 14:34
  a RIP roaring night. I was blackout drunk the next
• 14:39
  day. It was in August 3 years ago.
• 14:41
  I was like, I can't do this anymore.
• 14:44
  I can't explain it to you. It just was that not like, I
• 14:47
  want to say this, but I meant it.
• 14:49
  It's like I literally am so exhausted of fighting this thing
• 14:53
  and pretending it's not a problem after I know I've been
• 14:56
  to treatment for this thing and I'm like, it's OK, actually.
• 14:59
  I can drink normally now. It's like, what the fuck?
• 15:02
  So it was, yeah, it was a it was a, a really a spiritual moment.
• 15:05
  Like, I remember that night crying in the shower, just being
• 15:10
  like, I can't, I literally can't do this anymore.
• 15:14
  And the relief of that. And then my world fell apart for
• 15:17
  a little bit. And there was another breakup
• 15:18
  and I moved back home with mom. And.
• 15:21
  But there was this fire at me. And I was like, yes, this is
• 15:24
  supposed to happen. I need, I need to rise from the
• 15:29
  ashes. And it was like I needed to be
• 15:34
  so desperate and ready to start over.
• 15:37
  Yeah. That with that partner that you
• 15:40
  had was did he start start to notice like things and were you
• 15:47
  hiding it like how did what did that look like?
• 15:50
  There was a lot of like drinking together.
• 15:53
  I always took it a step further and it was kind of like I had
• 15:58
  really controlled the narrative. So I have been to treatment.
• 16:02
  But again, like it's fine, you don't have to worry about me.
• 16:04
  And I did. I did a pretty good job of like
• 16:09
  managing it for a while, but every now and then I would just
• 16:12
  get wasted like black out drunk and he'd be upset with me and
• 16:16
  embarrassed of what I did or sat in public.
• 16:19
  And there were some conversations about that.
• 16:22
  But it really I didn't get an ultimatum.
• 16:28
  Like there was no, you need to stop doing this or else it
• 16:31
  really came from me. And and then it was a
• 16:37
  conversation around, well, I don't want my lifestyle to
• 16:41
  change. And I was like, I get it, but I
• 16:46
  have to do this. So you can keep doing your thing
• 16:49
  and living the way that you're living.
• 16:50
  But I can't be around alcohol anymore in this way.
• 16:54
  Yeah. Did you go back to to treatment
• 16:56
  again or you just? I I invested in a in a a like
• 17:02
  found a Home group, actually gave it a go.
• 17:06
  Yeah, yeah, I, I think about this question a lot because I
• 17:10
  post a lot of stuff about how to get sober and sometimes I make
• 17:14
  it seem to, I mean, at least in my mind, too simple.
• 17:17
  But it, it really is simple, right?
• 17:19
  Like, because I always, I always try to think about the people
• 17:23
  that don't do 12 step, right. My experience with 12 step, it
• 17:26
  still is. I have to because it just, I
• 17:29
  just like it and I've tried a lot of other things and it it
• 17:33
  just works for me. But there's a lot a large group
• 17:36
  of people out there that are very 12 step defiant and, you
• 17:42
  know, maybe even toward the hate side of things, whether it be
• 17:46
  the God argument, which if you're arguing about the God
• 17:50
  thing, that just tells me you haven't, you haven't done enough
• 17:53
  work in the program to realize that it's not about religion at
• 17:56
  all, right? And people usually hate things
• 17:59
  they don't understand, right? I've, I've come to to realize,
• 18:02
  but it's like, so you put that aside.
• 18:04
  How does one get sober? Right?
• 18:06
  I've been thinking about it a lot.
• 18:07
  And I mean, if you were to ask me that right now, like my
• 18:10
  simple, simple answer is I found someone that was sober a decent
• 18:15
  amount of time that seemed happy every time I saw them had that,
• 18:20
  you know, forget the things right?
• 18:22
  The, the, a lot of them, the people, they do get the things
• 18:25
  right, the car, the job, the, the relationship.
• 18:30
  You put that aside and just take that all away and it's just that
• 18:33
  like that smile on their face, that joy, that sparkle in the
• 18:37
  eye that you, I can see it in your eye now, right?
• 18:39
  And every time I sit down with people, I always notice it.
• 18:41
  It's funny like because for a long time that sparkle was gone
• 18:44
  in my eye. And I remember seeing the the
• 18:46
  alumni come into my treatment center this last time, the first
• 18:49
  thing I noticed every single time was just like, fuck, man,
• 18:52
  like what that guy has something like, what is that right?
• 18:55
  Just curiosity like, and this time I knew what it was, right?
• 18:59
  But yeah, for me, it's like I found someone that that was more
• 19:02
  sober and I fucking asked them what they did and then I did it.
• 19:06
  It's really three simple steps. But if you don't go to 12 step,
• 19:10
  I don't know like what do you get people that are against the
• 19:13
  12 step and what do you like some of your clients?
• 19:16
  Yeah. I mean, here's the thing, like
• 19:20
  12 step programs are wonderful. They're not for everybody for a
• 19:24
  variety of reasons. I've always been somebody that's
• 19:27
  like quite curious and I'm going to take what Lance and kind of
• 19:32
  like not pick apart anything else.
• 19:33
  But when it comes to working with people, there's a lot of
• 19:37
  resistance to 12 step programs because I think it's called T or
• 19:44
  super religious and they've seen like movies or shows, you know,
• 19:50
  that have those scenes in it and they think this is like totally
• 19:52
  not for me. So there's a lot of resistance
• 19:55
  to it. When people go and they come
• 19:57
  back, they always report like, yeah, it was a bit awkward.
• 19:59
  And I don't really like that they use that God word.
• 20:01
  But I also felt really supported and less ashamed.
• 20:06
  I'm like, great. So do you want to feel more like
• 20:09
  that? Maybe we should keep, maybe we
• 20:10
  should keep going. Yeah, either way.
• 20:16
  Take away what the program or the resource is, I know for sure
• 20:20
  we all need community in recovery.
• 20:22
  We all need spaces where we can tell the truth, and we need some
• 20:26
  kind of connection to something bigger than ourselves.
• 20:30
  Yeah, and, and that can be anything, right?
• 20:32
  It could be a group of people. It could be a great outdoors.
• 20:34
  Like I love, you know, I love hearing that said group of
• 20:37
  drunks, great outdoors, good orderly direction, right?
• 20:40
  Just living according to spiritual principles.
• 20:42
  Honesty, the biggest one by far. I, I can sit here and honestly
• 20:46
  tell you every single time I relapsed, number one was not
• 20:50
  being practiced some level of deception, lies to myself and
• 20:55
  other people, right? I had this sort of secret that I
• 20:58
  shared about and and I wasn't telling people the full truth,
• 21:04
  right? So it was such a slippery slope.
• 21:07
  Yeah, it starts with one lie and then it caroms into something
• 21:12
  completely different. You know, I'm interested in the
• 21:16
  body image thing because I struggle with that too.
• 21:19
  How did you come to a place where that was more manageable,
• 21:24
  would you say? I like that question.
• 21:26
  Not like, how did you heal from it?
• 21:28
  It's like it's ongoing. I have such a different
• 21:31
  relationship to my body today. Like so much more compassion and
• 21:35
  gratitude like the older I get. I'm 36 now.
• 21:38
  I'll be 37 next birthday and it's like I'm like, yeah, this
• 21:42
  body's amazing. It's been through some shit, you
• 21:45
  know, Like I'm still alive. My liver.
• 21:47
  'S still there, my heart's still beating, so I have such a
• 21:53
  positive relationship with it. Most of the time I still
• 21:55
  struggle with body image and things like that.
• 21:59
  What did I do to get more to make more peace with my body?
• 22:04
  A lot of therapy, a lot of trauma recovery work really
• 22:09
  because of, you know, early childhood experiences that that
• 22:13
  made me want to separate from my body.
• 22:16
  So exploring why, why that feels so good for me to dissociate.
• 22:23
  Why does it feel so good for me to be out of my body?
• 22:26
  How can I learn to come back into my body?
• 22:29
  That's been like an indirect way of healing that relationship
• 22:32
  because it's not about like, how do I feel good in my clothes or
• 22:35
  how do I change my shape or what I'm eating.
• 22:37
  It's like, how do I feel at home in myself?
• 22:40
  So that other stuff doesn't really matter as much.
• 22:43
  So a lot of therapy, yoga is big for me, you know, as a practice
• 22:50
  that like allows me to be really mindful and grateful.
• 22:56
  And I also like maybe want to have kids one day and I do not
• 23:01
  want to pass this on. So I want to like change the way
• 23:04
  that I'm talking about these things, the narrative I have in
• 23:06
  my head and what I say out loud because I know that can be
• 23:09
  internalized if I'm talking this way about my body, That's what
• 23:13
  they hear and they think that's normal.
• 23:15
  You should hate your body too. So I know that's like kind of a
• 23:20
  all over the place answer, but sobriety has been huge for
• 23:27
  working through a lot of that stuff too, because I just, it
• 23:34
  doesn't matter to me as much as it did before.
• 23:38
  I'm so much more connected to my purpose, you know, and to my
• 23:44
  higher power and to other people.
• 23:45
  Like even if I have a bad body image day or some thoughts that
• 23:49
  aren't helpful like it doesn't hold as much weight as it used
• 23:52
  to. Yeah, I can relate to that
• 23:54
  totally. The thoughts still come up,
• 23:58
  right. For me, it's like you ate too
• 23:59
  much last night, You're getting fat.
• 24:01
  You didn't go to the gym as much as you used to, right?
• 24:05
  And they, yeah, they don't take up that much bandwidth, mental
• 24:09
  bandwidth in my head, where it's like when they come up, they're
• 24:13
  more fleeting than they were before.
• 24:15
  But yeah, it it took some work in recovery and being sober.
• 24:18
  And I think the biggest thing for me was just like you said,
• 24:22
  sharing about it, right? Because it just seems so much
• 24:25
  more like it loses its power. But it just, it sounds so stupid
• 24:30
  to say out loud, but, and that's a good thing for me at least
• 24:32
  where it's like one, you're not fat, right?
• 24:38
  To like it. It it doesn't.
• 24:41
  Yeah, it doesn't matter because you can't, you can't change it
• 24:44
  right now anyways, right. So I mean, this idea of like
• 24:47
  just being grateful and that I can even walk, right.
• 24:51
  And that, yeah, to your point, like, I went to the hospital
• 24:54
  when I was in rehab because I thought I was having a heart
• 24:56
  attack. It was sitting down in one of
• 24:58
  the classes and I felt this pressure on my chest for like an
• 25:02
  hour straight. And I went to the hospital and
• 25:04
  I'll never forget this in the the ambulance.
• 25:06
  I, the thoughts were going through my mind.
• 25:08
  I pictured my future, my wife was helping me up the stairs,
• 25:11
  like all these things. I was like, I fucked up my heart
• 25:13
  now, like, because of all the cocaine I've done.
• 25:16
  And they did the ECG, they did everything, and it ended up
• 25:19
  being fine, right? It ended up all working out and
• 25:21
  I just had some sort of panic attack or something.
• 25:23
  But like, I think that was a moment that I needed to have
• 25:26
  where it was like, yeah, dude, like this could be a lot worse,
• 25:29
  right? Your lungs are OK.
• 25:30
  The amount of cigarettes you smoked, you know, your heart is
• 25:33
  OK. And but that's not permanent,
• 25:37
  right? If you go back out there.
• 25:39
  Yeah. To what you said like I'm not
• 25:41
  going to make it, you know? There's, there's, there's so
• 25:43
  much to gratitude. And it sounds flowery as like
• 25:47
  something you can practice if you want to heal some of these
• 25:49
  wounds. It's huge.
• 25:51
  And there's also something to checking in with yourself when
• 25:58
  you, when we're having these thoughts and we're like sliding
• 26:01
  back into those old sort of patterns to recognize that it's
• 26:04
  also an addictive thought loop. It's also an addiction, like
• 26:09
  body image, eating disorders, all that stuff is compulsive.
• 26:14
  It's like a mental illness, you know, So not to put a heavy
• 26:18
  label on it, just to acknowledge, oh, I'm in my
• 26:20
  addiction. And when I'm, when I'm in any
• 26:22
  kind of addictive behavior, I'm reaching out to soothe myself in
• 26:26
  some way. So like, what is happening
• 26:28
  inside of me right now that it feels better to obsess about
• 26:31
  food than to sit Like, what am I actually experiencing?
• 26:35
  Oh, I'm really anxious about this thing coming up.
• 26:38
  I'm going to try to deal with an anxiety through restricting what
• 26:41
  I eat, working out a little bit more, you know, so it's like
• 26:45
  there's an emotional component to all of the addictive
• 26:48
  behaviors and thoughts that we have.
• 26:49
  And it's like what's happening right now?
• 26:51
  Yeah, and it it's so much harder to just sit with it, right.
• 26:54
  I think there's a big difference too between sitting in it and
• 26:56
  sitting with it. Or it's like acknowledging, like
• 26:59
  you said, I like the the rain practice.
• 27:01
  I don't know. Yeah, I'm going to screw it up,
• 27:03
  but recognize, acknowledge, allow, recognize, allow.
• 27:08
  How about you? Just investigate.
• 27:09
  Investigate and nurture, right? So you're recognizing the
• 27:12
  thought. You're allowing it to come in
• 27:15
  and not, you know, push it out with food or whatever.
• 27:17
  Whatever said addiction is, you're investigating.
• 27:21
  What's this about? Why am I doing this?
• 27:24
  And then you're nurturing. For me, nurturing.
• 27:26
  Sometimes it's like actually, you know, just kind of feeling
• 27:29
  my body and hugging myself. And then other times, it's one
• 27:33
  of my favorite things to do is just like, you're doing that
• 27:36
  thing again, buddy. Like just, you know, just laugh
• 27:38
  at it, right? Like Anthony, you're doing that
• 27:40
  thing again. You're trying to escape pain.
• 27:42
  You know, this is what you do, right?
• 27:48
  I'm interested in the dissociation thing.
• 27:49
  Is that Is that what you mean by dissociation from your body?
• 27:52
  Like looking for outside things? I mean, there's, there's a
• 27:56
  disconnect that can happen when we're looking for outside
• 27:58
  things. I think dissociation, the way
• 28:00
  that I'm, I mean, it is like literally leaving my body.
• 28:03
  Like I first started doing that when I was a kid.
• 28:06
  You know, people say like I was, I had an out of body experience.
• 28:09
  So I mean not disconnecting for myself.
• 28:12
  I mean literally not feeling like I'm in my body.
• 28:15
  I'm watching my body, I'm watching myself.
• 28:18
  And I, I had those experiences early on 'cause I used to get
• 28:21
  panic attacks as a kid. So I'd be like, nothing's real.
• 28:24
  I'm not here and I didn't understand at the time, but it
• 28:29
  it was actually a coping mechanism.
• 28:31
  It's like I didn't feel comfortable and safe in the
• 28:33
  present moment. So it felt a lot better to just
• 28:35
  be. I'm out now.
• 28:37
  I'm like living in fantasyland. I'm not in touch with what's
• 28:40
  happening in my body. And when we drink or when we get
• 28:44
  to a certain level of intoxication, we dissociate.
• 28:47
  I don't know what's happening in my feet, what's going on in my
• 28:50
  gut. I'm not connected to my heart.
• 28:52
  I'm completely flooded and checked out.
• 28:56
  So it's like a disconnection from the present moment, a
• 29:00
  disconnection from your body, and it can feel great when you
• 29:04
  don't want to be in reality. Yeah, interesting.
• 29:07
  Yeah, I, I don't, I think maybe a lot of us do that and don't
• 29:09
  even realize we're doing it. Oh, yeah.
• 29:12
  As as you're talking about it, I'm just picturing like floating
• 29:14
  up above my body. But it's not that dramatic.
• 29:16
  Yeah, you might not feel like. Yeah, you talked a little bit
• 29:21
  about spirituality. Do you wanna?
• 29:23
  Can you describe maybe a little bit more what faith and
• 29:28
  spirituality means to you and why it's important to stay
• 29:31
  sober, why it's important for your recovery?
• 29:35
  I think I'm not, I'm not a religious person, so I don't go
• 29:40
  to church. I mean, 12 step is as close to
• 29:42
  church as I go. But I've always had this like
• 29:46
  little feeling in my soul that there's something greater at
• 29:51
  work here. Like I'm supposed to do
• 29:52
  something with my life. And there's a reason that all
• 29:56
  we, we all exist and that we're in each other's lives.
• 29:58
  Like a feeling of being part of something, which was hard, which
• 30:05
  was a hard feeling to connect to when I was in my active
• 30:07
  addiction because I felt very isolated, like very lone.
• 30:12
  I was separated from what I believe is like source.
• 30:15
  I was really in my own pain, separated from other people, in
• 30:18
  my shame, not part of any community.
• 30:22
  So I, I just believe, I just believe that addiction is a,
• 30:34
  it's an emotional problem. You know, there's emotional,
• 30:36
  mental, physical components to it, but primarily it's a
• 30:39
  spiritual problem. It's like I I don't have a
• 30:44
  purpose. I don't know why I'm here.
• 30:47
  I'm empty inside. Nothing I do or consume is
• 30:50
  enough to make me feel OK. And no thing can fill that void.
• 30:57
  No amount of food, booze, drugs, money, love, sex, it is never
• 31:02
  enough. The only way that I've ever been
• 31:05
  able to feel whole or fill that void is through a connection to
• 31:10
  a higher power. And that feels like I have a
• 31:13
  friend up there that I just talked to you everyday.
• 31:14
  I'm like, what should I do today?
• 31:17
  Put me in the right place, make me useful.
• 31:19
  And so I feel led and like life is magical 'cause it all just
• 31:25
  feels like purposeful. And how do you move through
• 31:31
  something like addiction without something that powerful?
• 31:34
  I don't know. Yeah.
• 31:37
  Yeah, you can't in my experience.
• 31:39
  Right. Yeah.
• 31:41
  I, I mean, it's comforting just listening to you talk about it
• 31:43
  because everyone describes it a little bit differently, but it's
• 31:46
  like the same, same principle of like, I don't know the answer.
• 31:50
  I don't need to know the answer, but I trust that somebody,
• 31:54
  something has the best intention for me at the end of the day,
• 31:58
  right. And it it makes trauma, it makes
• 32:02
  resistance, it makes horrible situations seem like they they
• 32:09
  need to be there almost. And and there's a purpose for
• 32:12
  it. I don't understand it yet.
• 32:15
  But that's because I'm in the middle of the story, right?
• 32:18
  I'm not. Every story has a beginning,
• 32:19
  middle and end. And I'm in the middle right now.
• 32:21
  And although it feels like everyone's against me and the
• 32:23
  nothing's going my way and my financial problems are still
• 32:26
  kicking from all the stupid hotels that I stayed at, right?
• 32:30
  Yeah, there's a reason. Because I need to learn this
• 32:33
  lesson, because down the road I'm going to be better with my
• 32:37
  money, right? 100% like we, we are constantly
• 32:40
  humbled and if we're walking a spiritual path, we can see that
• 32:45
  and we don't have to be happy about that, but we can go right.
• 32:48
  There's a reason that I'm learning this lesson again,
• 32:51
  thank you. If we don't have any
• 32:54
  spirituality can feel, we can feel very victimized by the
• 32:56
  world and like nihilistic almost like what is the point?
• 32:59
  Everything's just suffering. And it's like the longer, in my
• 33:03
  experience, the longer I live, the more I see the purpose of
• 33:05
  everything that I've experienced.
• 33:07
  Like I should have died so many times.
• 33:09
  I want. I wanted to die.
• 33:12
  I was in situations where I could have died and I didn't.
• 33:16
  And like, since I got sober, I've been able to help so many
• 33:18
  people. That's not a coincidence.
• 33:21
  Like, I was kept alive to do something.
• 33:24
  That's my that's my thought around it.
• 33:25
  Yeah. I know I agree.
• 33:27
  I agree. We have a unique purpose, right?
• 33:28
  And somewhere in the the literature it says something
• 33:31
  about all those all those drunks will all those like you know,
• 33:36
  those drinking experience and escapades and terrible times
• 33:38
  will serve purpose to help someone else.
• 33:41
  One right everything nothing happens in God's world by
• 33:44
  mistake. That's.
• 33:45
  My favorite line. Yeah, it's true.
• 33:47
  There's a purpose for everything right now.
• 33:50
  So what is your favorite modality of therapy against
• 33:56
  addiction? CBTDBT?
• 33:58
  Like what do you think is the most effective for us addicts to
• 34:03
  to practice I guess? Well, there's not one approach
• 34:11
  that I lean on. Well, I, I guess I will say
• 34:13
  across the board, something I do with every client that's
• 34:16
  experiencing addiction is called motivational interviewing.
• 34:19
  Have you heard that term? Am I so for people that don't
• 34:23
  know, it's helping somebody connect to their intrinsic,
• 34:27
  their internal desire to get sober or recover because it's
• 34:31
  not no one's ever going to move forward just because people are
• 34:34
  telling them, hey, you should really quit like I or even
• 34:36
  giving you ultimatums, I really need you to quit otherwise I'm
• 34:39
  going to leave, blah blah, blah, blah, blah.
• 34:41
  That's not what what's been proven to help somebody create
• 34:45
  long lasting behavioral change that only happens when the
• 34:48
  person inside themselves sees the costs of their behavior,
• 34:53
  sees the potential benefits of change and they go for it.
• 34:57
  They're motivated. So motivational interviewing is
• 35:01
  like, yeah, tell me about what you've lost because of your
• 35:04
  addiction. What will you continue to lose?
• 35:07
  What would you have to gain if you got sober?
• 35:10
  You start to build awareness around it.
• 35:11
  You're not saying like, look at all this shit you're creating
• 35:13
  for yourself. You're allowing them to identify
• 35:16
  why, why this matters. So that's something I do with
• 35:19
  every person. But then when it comes to, you
• 35:24
  know, other interventions, it really depends on where they're
• 35:26
  at in their recovery process. Like can they be in their body
• 35:31
  at all? Or are they still using so much
• 35:34
  that they don't have the capacity to do something like
• 35:37
  mindfulness that might help help them like learn some new coping
• 35:42
  skills? You know, I always want to bring
• 35:45
  that in. It really depends on the person,
• 35:47
  but I don't rely on CBTDBT like as a across the board kind of
• 35:52
  intervention. It really depends on the person.
• 35:55
  Yeah, but I mean, yeah, it's like I remember when I went to
• 35:58
  my first rehab, I've been to three.
• 36:00
  I went to my first one and they had us do this activity where we
• 36:03
  had to write out the cost of our addiction, like the literal
• 36:06
  cost. And I'd.
• 36:09
  I'd never, you know, you talked about dropping out of school.
• 36:13
  I did that three or four times in addiction.
• 36:16
  I never equated. I never connected the dots.
• 36:18
  Even though I knew my life was a mess, I didn't.
• 36:21
  Yeah, you that's because you were smoking weed every night,
• 36:23
  right? And doing coke on the weekends
• 36:25
  and it wasn't, you know, how is how's I I never understand when
• 36:29
  people finish school through their drinking careers.
• 36:31
  Like I never it blows my mind. It's like you hear someone get
• 36:34
  up and they're like, yeah, I got a PhD while I was drinking every
• 36:37
  night. It's like what?
• 36:38
  Like, holy fuck. You know, I wasn't able to show
• 36:40
  up at all. Right.
• 36:42
  So that was a cool exercise to, to kind of go through because
• 36:45
  it's like, you don't just, you know, you think about when, when
• 36:48
  I ask someone, you know, what's the cost of your addiction?
• 36:50
  It's like, well, you know, bars. So I spend some money at the
• 36:52
  bars and this and that. What about the the lawyer fees
• 36:56
  and the crashed cars and the car repairs, The insurance premiums
• 37:00
  going up? Right.
• 37:02
  And also like the cost of there's all of that that's kind
• 37:07
  of almost easier to quantify because you can put a number on
• 37:09
  it, you can tally it up, But like the cost of watching your
• 37:12
  future slip away from you, Something that I, I was
• 37:15
  cognizant of a lot near the end was like, I'm just like not
• 37:18
  going to be the person I want to be ever.
• 37:21
  Like how awful is it to know every day that I'm standing in
• 37:25
  my own way? Like I'm actively preventing
• 37:27
  that from happening? Like that's there's so much
• 37:31
  shame there. There's so much shame and
• 37:33
  frustration. It's like, that's a huge cost.
• 37:35
  I can't be happy if I do this. I literally just won't have a
• 37:39
  good life. Great.
• 37:41
  Yeah, that should be enough, right?
• 37:42
  But it's not. Yeah.
• 37:44
  No, no, it's not. It's.
• 37:45
  Not because it's easier sometimes to just easier softer
• 37:48
  way is to just do this line and move on with my day.
• 37:51
  Yeah, I'll start tomorrow. I'll.
• 37:52
  Start tomorrow. Yeah, Yeah.
• 37:53
  Monday is day one. Potential is the word I'm
• 37:56
  thinking of when you're talking about happiness, right?
• 37:59
  It's like this functional alcoholic.
• 38:01
  Drives me crazy, that term. What could you be doing?
• 38:05
  Could you be the Prime Minister of Canada?
• 38:08
  You don't know because you're you know what I mean.
• 38:10
  Could you discover like a cure for cancer?
• 38:13
  Probably. You don't know, right?
• 38:15
  Because what is, you know, I'm showing up to work everyday, OK,
• 38:19
  but are you there? What's happening when you go
• 38:21
  into work? Right, 'cause I remember when I
• 38:23
  was going to work, even if I wasn't actively hired drunk at
• 38:25
  work, which a lot of time I was, you know, the the latter people,
• 38:31
  you know, you're hungover and you're not living up to your
• 38:34
  potential, right? And people notice that stuff,
• 38:36
  I'm starting to realize. Oh yeah.
• 38:38
  You know, we think we're hiding it from everybody.
• 38:39
  Oh yeah, You know, what are your sort of, what are your daily
• 38:46
  essentials for recovery? Prayer and meditation every
• 38:52
  morning. It's very rare that I miss that.
• 38:55
  And it's not like I have to do this or I'll relapse, but it
• 38:59
  brings me so much peace. I'll meditate for like 5
• 39:01
  minutes. I do some prayer, you know,
• 39:05
  suggested by the big book. I'll do some prayer around that.
• 39:08
  Essentially, I'm, I'm meditating, I'm clearing my mind
• 39:11
  and then I'm praying to my higher power and saying just
• 39:13
  make me useful. Like remove all the things
• 39:15
  inside of me that prevent me from being useful to other
• 39:18
  people, like my fear and my resentments and my impatience.
• 39:22
  Like can you just remove those things so I can be useful to
• 39:24
  you? And then I and then I asked for
• 39:27
  knowledge. What's your will for me today?
• 39:28
  And I try to listen and sometimes I'll hear things like
• 39:33
  slow down, like I'll actually hear words or I'll get an image
• 39:38
  of something of me like standing in the grass.
• 39:40
  Like, OK, this is how I can be more useful today.
• 39:43
  I can be present, you know, so I have a conversation with my
• 39:47
  higher power in the morning and and then, you know, it's like
• 39:51
  going to meetings. I don't go to a meeting every
• 39:53
  day, but I go every week. I do my own therapy.
• 40:00
  I have to do something physical every day.
• 40:02
  I get to do something physical every day.
• 40:05
  Like these are just things I've learned about myself.
• 40:07
  It's like I'm not well if I don't move my body, it's not
• 40:11
  like intense workout, but if I don't go for a walk or I don't
• 40:14
  lift some weights or do some yoga, I'm more likely to fall
• 40:18
  into depression, anxiety, things like that.
• 40:21
  So. Exercise my all the things like
• 40:23
  unfortunately that people tell you to do, they actually work
• 40:26
  like things we don't want to do, like meditate, pray, feel
• 40:30
  grateful exercise. There's probably other things
• 40:33
  I'm not thinking of, but there's a.
• 40:34
  There's a reason, though, that everyone constantly says it
• 40:38
  right, because it works. The conversation in the morning
• 40:41
  is interesting that you know, as of late as you're talking there,
• 40:44
  I'm thinking about I've I've had this attachment to outcomes
• 40:49
  lately. That was, that's been my real
• 40:51
  issue lately, whether it's podcast followers, Instagram
• 40:55
  followers, this expected result expectation, right, always leads
• 40:59
  to resentment. And you know, I was sitting in
• 41:02
  my shed like for multiple days at a time.
• 41:05
  And so I would wake up in the morning and I still do this
• 41:07
  where I, I pray too, but I also journal out like 3 or 4 pages of
• 41:11
  just free writing. And every single morning I, I
• 41:14
  just for like a two weeks straight, I would ask, I would
• 41:16
  just say like, help me remove this expectation, these
• 41:19
  expectations. And it I'm telling you, like it
• 41:21
  actually worked it. I look at social media less now.
• 41:24
  I'm not perfect, right, but I look at it less and I stop
• 41:27
  expecting things like whatever I do, I'm not in control of the
• 41:32
  outcome, right? It's, you know, it's very clear
• 41:34
  to do. I always preach this, but preach
• 41:36
  is the wrong word. I always say this, do the next
• 41:38
  right thing and leave the outcomes up to the universe.
• 41:41
  It's not up to me. Oh.
• 41:42
  My God, that's such a that's something I'm working through
• 41:44
  too. It's, I spin out so quickly when
• 41:48
  I start doing something and I expect immediate results and I
• 41:52
  expect a specific kind of result.
• 41:54
  And then it's about me. And it's actually not about the
• 41:56
  thing, you know what I mean? Like I'm, it's not, it's no no
• 41:58
  longer about being useful and being helpful and, and all of
• 42:01
  that. It's like me, I need to be
• 42:03
  validated, you know, and affirmed and all of these
• 42:06
  things. And it's, yeah, that's such a
• 42:09
  good practice, too. I forget to ask for those things
• 42:13
  sometimes, like as they pop up during the day to be removed,
• 42:15
  like I'm obsessing about this thing.
• 42:17
  Could you just take it away from me?
• 42:20
  I heard a speaker tape one time, he said.
• 42:23
  You know, he thinks about those things like going into a movie
• 42:26
  and, you know, not actually going into a movie, but you have
• 42:30
  this sort of thing that you won't let go of your holding
• 42:31
  onto. And it's like, I'm going to go
• 42:33
  into this movie for two hours. Hold on to this.
• 42:35
  I'm looking up as I say this. Hold on to this while I go watch
• 42:38
  this movie. And it's like, you can do that
• 42:40
  with anything you need to let go of, right?
• 42:41
  Yeah. Hold on to this.
• 42:43
  I'll. I'll check with you when I'm
• 42:44
  back, right? It's not up to me.
• 42:47
  Yeah, that's a that's a very difficult thing, I think for
• 42:49
  most people, but for addicts especially that want to like use
• 42:54
  is about having control. I want to feel a different way.
• 42:58
  I want the world to meet my expectations.
• 43:01
  I don't want to, you know, meet life on life's terms.
• 43:03
  So it's a constant journey to surrender to like, I'm just
• 43:09
  going to show up and see what happens.
• 43:11
  Yeah, it's a lot harder to do that right.
• 43:14
  Oh yeah. I like asking this question but
• 43:17
  I I get a similar answer every time but it's always something a
• 43:20
  little bit different. But if you could go back and
• 43:23
  change your path to pick the sort of normal drinker route,
• 43:27
  non addict route, would you do it?
• 43:30
  No. That's it, No.
• 43:33
  Would I? Stupid question.
• 43:34
  Would I really. Yeah.
• 43:36
  God, that's so dumb. Would I?
• 43:38
  Would I redo it? Apps.
• 43:40
  No. But would I change it?
• 43:42
  No. No.
• 43:43
  Like I love my life today. Like I would not be such a cool
• 43:48
  person had I not gone through all of that shit.
• 43:51
  Like so grateful for it. Yeah, Truth.
• 43:55
  Yeah, there's something that happens when you hit a sort of
• 43:58
  rock bottom where you're like, I could, if I could get through.
• 44:03
  I always just tell my wife this, too, is 'cause she watched me at
• 44:06
  the peak of my recovery at the eight years and this, like,
• 44:09
  amazingly humble spiritual person just fall like, Wade from
• 44:15
  the mountain top. And then she met, you know,
• 44:18
  Hyde, Jekyll. Doctor Jekyll.
• 44:21
  Doctor Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, she met Mr. Hyde, right?
• 44:24
  And like when I say miss, like she saw addiction 360 the full
• 44:29
  front row seat right? And she stuck with me through it
• 44:31
  the whole time. I don't know how, but I I think
• 44:34
  she well she'll she'll say this is that she hung on to that like
• 44:38
  that hope of like this is what he could be like, right?
• 44:41
  This is this is him really. This is, you know, I met the
• 44:44
  real Anthony. So but yeah, it's like it's it's
• 44:50
  tough to sort of watch someone go through that.
• 44:53
  And I mean, you have good experience with that too, right?
• 44:56
  Where it's like, I don't know if they're ever gonna come out of
• 44:58
  this. And and sometimes I too, I
• 45:00
  think, you know, marrying, marrying an addict is must be a
• 45:05
  difficult thing to do. You know, it's like, especially
• 45:07
  when you know what could happen it it's beautiful when you get
• 45:10
  you hear the people that my kids have never seen me drink and
• 45:12
  it's great. But it's like if they've seen
• 45:14
  both sides, that guy is like, not that far away, right?
• 45:19
  I mean, today he's far away. But, you know, I don't know.
• 45:24
  All it takes is 1 drink. Yeah.
• 45:25
  So there's it's like you're either you're either working on
• 45:29
  relapse or you're working on recovery, which sounds a bit
• 45:32
  severe, but it's actually true. Like if I'm not actively
• 45:36
  everyday doing at least one thing to support my recovery, I
• 45:39
  am way closer than I think to picking back up.
• 45:43
  That's that's why I'm grateful when I have one of those
• 45:45
  drinking dreams, which comes every once in a like it's like
• 45:47
  clockwork every three months for the last three years.
• 45:50
  There's periods of time where I have them more, but I wake up
• 45:53
  and I'm like, right, right, right.
• 45:54
  I never want to drink again. Thank God that didn't happen.
• 45:58
  You know, that reminds me how easy it is to go back into it.
• 46:03
  And so, yeah, if you're if you're linking up with somebody
• 46:06
  that's in recovery, just make sure they got a program of some
• 46:10
  kind, OK? Strap in.
• 46:12
  Yeah, Yeah. Sure you have an an escape
• 46:15
  route. Yeah.
• 46:16
  Yeah, a prenup, Yeah. Exactly.
• 46:18
  Yeah, Yeah. Speaking of prenups, actually, I
• 46:21
  don't know if you saw that Nicole Kidman prenup.
• 46:23
  Yeah, no one knows about this. My wife told me about it,
• 46:25
  probably from TikTok. Nicole Kidman designed her
• 46:29
  prenup with Keith Urban. I think who's in recovery in the
• 46:33
  in the fine print or whatever. In the actual document, it says
• 46:37
  for every year that he stayed sober, he gets $1,000,000 in the
• 46:41
  in the prenup. So he's got like $17 million or
• 46:45
  $11 million. That's great.
• 46:47
  I. Know I was like I gotta make a
• 46:48
  video about this. That's a great idea for anybody
• 46:51
  that wants to. Sign up anyone that's got
• 46:53
  millions of dollars. That's the way you motivate.
• 46:55
  Them, you know, right? Imagine getting paid to be
• 46:57
  sober. Yeah.
• 46:59
  Even then, that would not be enough unless you really wanted.
• 47:02
  It it's so true, but it would help.
• 47:04
  Yeah, but I mean it now this would be, I always said this the
• 47:08
  the most dangerous thing is an addict alcoholic with an
• 47:10
  unlimited bank account. Right.
• 47:12
  Because I mean, you kind of had that right for a bit.
• 47:16
  Or it's like I everything on the outside is good.
• 47:19
  Why would I get sober? It has to come from within.
• 47:22
  You have to have that pitiful, incomprehensible demoralization.
• 47:27
  Yeah, yeah. It's really, I mean, a big part
• 47:31
  of my story is like, I mean, this is probably not totally
• 47:35
  true, but the way that I saw it was no one knew that I had a
• 47:38
  problem. Like I was really.
• 47:40
  I wasn't like my dad. I wasn't, you know, drunk
• 47:46
  driving or getting arrested, like I wasn't, you know, or
• 47:49
  getting in trouble with the law. I'm like, did he get arrested?
• 47:51
  I don't know. Anyways, I wasn't that kind of
• 47:53
  alcoholic for most of my career, at least my drinking career.
• 47:57
  It was. It was like I was pretty quote
• 47:59
  UN quote functional and teaching yoga.
• 48:03
  And before that I was in the news business.
• 48:04
  Like I always appeared to have it together.
• 48:07
  I worked really hard at trying to appear that way.
• 48:09
  So I just want to acknowledge that because it doesn't look
• 48:13
  like, you know, losing everything for some people, like
• 48:19
  some some might say I had a higher bottom.
• 48:23
  Eventually it it's progressive, right?
• 48:26
  So eventually all of those things would have happened to
• 48:28
  me. I would have drunk driving, you
• 48:29
  know, gotten in a car accident, maybe hurt somebody and and all
• 48:33
  those things. But there's a lot of danger in
• 48:38
  seeming to the outside world that you have it all together
• 48:41
  and you're just like drowning in this thing quietly.
• 48:45
  It's like the duck. Everything's so good above the
• 48:47
  surface, and then your legs are paddling like crazy.
• 48:50
  Yeah, justification is a bitch, man.
• 48:52
  Like, it's. Yeah, as you're talking there,
• 48:54
  I'm not like my dad, right? That's like a huge driving
• 48:57
  force. I can totally get with that.
• 48:59
  You know what I mean? It's like, at least I'm not that
• 49:01
  bad. For me, for a long time, it was,
• 49:05
  oh, what was it? Oh, it was, you know, 'cause I
• 49:07
  relapsed on ADHD medication, it was like, yeah, but I need this
• 49:11
  to, to function. Meanwhile, the seven years I've
• 49:14
  thrived in business, like I got promoted at work without any
• 49:17
  medication. Now all of a sudden I need this
• 49:19
  thing to focus on reports. That's what I told my therapist.
• 49:22
  I was like, I need it to focus on reports.
• 49:23
  She just laughed. She's like, seriously like that.
• 49:26
  You're going to the club with it and then staying up to do work
• 49:29
  all night and then watching movies or whatever, and you need
• 49:31
  it to read reports. Are you sure?
• 49:33
  It's like an addiction. It sounds a lot like like.
• 49:35
  Behavior. Exactly.
• 49:36
  Yeah. So.
• 49:37
  But yeah, those justifications, they, they can be so dangerous
• 49:39
  and they can keep us sick for so long, right?
• 49:41
  Yeah, absolutely. You, you talked a little bit
• 49:46
  about it, but is there anything else that you're working on
• 49:48
  personally right now? For my recovery.
• 49:51
  Yeah, just, or even just your, your life, really.
• 49:56
  Yeah, I mean, the, the biggest growing chapter, I was gonna say
• 50:02
  growing pain, but there's been some growing pains in the last
• 50:06
  couple of months has been like, OK, I'm, I have, I'm blessed to
• 50:10
  have a, a private practice and I'm seeing a lot of people that
• 50:13
  way. And like, I want to help more
• 50:14
  women that are in recovery. How do I do that or that want to
• 50:18
  get into recovery? So I've been branching out a lot
• 50:20
  more and focusing on like doing free events for women that are
• 50:24
  sober curious. I've like launched this program
• 50:26
  that I'm doing this fall for women that are curious about
• 50:29
  getting sober or giving up alcohol.
• 50:33
  And that's all been very, very aligned and like rewarding
• 50:37
  because it's like I just, if I could go back in time and help
• 50:39
  myself, I would do these things, you know, like I'm like, here's
• 50:42
  some mindfulness tools you can do, here's some community
• 50:44
  support. Here's some like it's structure.
• 50:46
  It's, it's not a replacement for a 12 step program.
• 50:49
  It's part of the whole thing, the whole toolkit, right?
• 50:52
  So a lot has come up for me in the creation of these things.
• 50:56
  Like it's been so challenging to show up more in this way, like
• 51:07
  talk more about this stuff. Not because I'm ashamed or like
• 51:11
  I don't want to talk about my own experience.
• 51:13
  It's just like a really vulnerable space to be in.
• 51:17
  And you're, you know, even from like a business standpoint,
• 51:21
  putting stuff out there and be like, will anyone come?
• 51:23
  Like, is this going to work? Am I going to be embarrassed?
• 51:26
  So there's been a lot of like, perfectionism that's reared its
• 51:28
  head and a lot of fear and imposter syndrome.
• 51:33
  Like I've, I've experienced another set of growing pains
• 51:36
  that I didn't expect. Like, oh, but I'm a
• 51:38
  professional. I have a private practice.
• 51:39
  Like, I have a master's degree. Like, yeah.
• 51:43
  But you're still an addict in recovery who, you know,
• 51:48
  struggles with thought patterns too, you know, So yeah, it's
• 51:52
  been really interesting. And I'm really practicing more
• 51:58
  and more exactly what you were talking about earlier, which is
• 52:00
  like, I'm just going to trust that that's all going to play
• 52:03
  out as as it's supposed to. And I really have to step away
• 52:06
  from attaching to a specific outcome.
• 52:09
  It has to look like this. And it has to have this many
• 52:11
  people and it has to have all of that stuff is is very
• 52:16
  destabilizing for me. So I'm struggling with Instagram
• 52:19
  a little. Like, that's a tough game to be.
• 52:21
  It's annoying. Yeah, it's really annoying.
• 52:24
  There's so many formulas and algorithms and, you know,
• 52:27
  sometimes that's why I always comparison is the thief of joy.
• 52:31
  And it's like you see somebody that's doing so well on
• 52:33
  Instagram, it's like this is this sucks.
• 52:35
  Like there's no. There's no.
• 52:37
  Value here. Like what are we?
• 52:38
  It's not even entertaining, right?
• 52:41
  Dude, shut up. But but yeah, and, and also I'm
• 52:44
  like, I don't know. We don't know how long that
• 52:46
  person has been giving her. You know, it's like exactly what
• 52:49
  I was thinking. They might be on.
• 52:50
  They might have been trying this thing for seven years.
• 52:53
  Whenever we're comparing ourselves to somebody, it's like
• 52:55
  we don't know if they're at the end of that particular journey,
• 52:58
  the middle. We don't know what they've had
• 52:59
  to sacrifice. So let's just stop doing that to
• 53:03
  ourselves. That's so true.
• 53:05
  You you compare your beginning to someone else's end, right?
• 53:09
  It's like. Wow, I can't do this.
• 53:12
  I guess it's impossible. Because they did it overnight.
• 53:15
  Yeah, right. Overnight success.
• 53:16
  That's how you do it right. Otherwise, you're a failure.
• 53:19
  I love it. Let's end with this.
• 53:21
  Thanks for being so vulnerable. I I, I really got a lot out of
• 53:24
  it today. I appreciate it, but let's end
• 53:26
  with this. If you could go back to and say
• 53:29
  something to your younger, not even younger you're addicted
• 53:33
  self today, what would you say? There's so much.
• 53:39
  What did I say? This is what I'm going to just
• 53:42
  take a moment and connect to my air power.
• 53:50
  I just like it's just one foot in front of the other.
• 53:55
  That's what that kind of drops in right now is it feels
• 53:59
  impossible because we were at the bottom of the mountain.
• 54:02
  We look up and we go, Oh my God, I have so far to go.
• 54:05
  My life is such a mess and I have to rebuild everything.
• 54:07
  And that's actually what prevents us from doing anything.
• 54:11
  So if someone had just come in and said, look, I know this
• 54:13
  feels impossible and like you, you're never going to be able to
• 54:16
  drink again. That's like not something you
• 54:17
  can commit to. It's like just one, it's one day
• 54:20
  at a time, right? One foot in front of the other.
• 54:23
  Start by telling somebody, but this is a problem for you, start
• 54:28
  by putting that drink down. Like it's literally the 12 step
• 54:32
  motto, right? But it's that all adds up over
• 54:35
  time. And then all of a sudden you're
• 54:36
  at the top of the mountain. You're like, my God, that comes
• 54:39
  so far. Small steps.
• 54:41
  Yeah. But you have to take those
• 54:43
  steps. Well said.
• 54:45
  Well said. Thanks so much Errol for coming
• 54:47
  down. I appreciate you and I look
• 54:49
  forward to hopefully doing this again.
• 54:50
  Thanks so much for having me. Thanks for listening.
• 54:52
  Please help us grow the channel and like, share and subscribe
• 54:56
  for more content. The discussions and stories
• 54:58
  shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational
• 55:01
  purposes only. This content is not a substitute
• 55:05
  for professional medical advice, addiction treatment, or therapy.
• 55:08
  If you or someone you know is struggling with addiction,
• 55:11
  please consult A licensed physician, addiction specialist,
• 55:14
  or mental health professional. You are no longer alone.