It's Tom again for doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard podcast.

I am doctor Jacquese Brukerte, a psychologist licensed professional counselor and addiction specialist. If you are suffering from addiction, misery, trauma, whatever it is, I'm here to help.

If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at Doc Shock, your Addiction Lifeguard, the Addiction Recovery podcast.

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If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room, or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me.

And talk about your problems and work through them, but don't rely on a podcast to be that form of help.

It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light. Alright? Have a good time, learn something, and then get the real help that you need, from a professional.

I need to fix the world. I need to fix the world around me. That becomes the project a lot of people as like a follow on to the idea of the 12 step where you are gonna go out and carry the message forward.

A lot of times what happens is people try to carry that message forward and they stop working on themselves. Sometimes just normal people have this problem too.

They end up coming involved in their own, recovery of, what they think are the social problems around and then they start transferring that out into the people around them. And so they begin to start working on other people's problems.

I find that to be something that happens a lot of times in recovery in residential treatment programs. People start to get involved in other people's recovery rather than own.

And, as an example, that recently was brought to my attention of somebody who was supposed to be working on their recovery And they started, leading groups, so they wanted to have some kind of leadership role.

The problem is that you're disguising your own problems and wrapping it up in other people's problems and then you start working on their stuff. Many times, I've helped people in there recovery and they get lost in that.

So jumping into sponsorship, for example, when in the 12 step process, we have what are called sponsors. And those of you who are in the recovery that you know this, but maybe there's people that aren't in the AA program or NA.

Don't know what this is about. So just give me a moment to explain. So in in the AA model, somebody is allowed to, work with other and we call that being a sponsor. And you have a sponsor.

And the sponsor's job is to work the 12 steps with their sponsors hold them accountable and find ways to kind of supervise their recovery through a structured And in the 12 step, in the AA model of 12 step, we have, workbooks that you can use, the Hazelton Foundation, which is the parent company of AA, if you will.

There's a lot of collateral material support material out there. So somebody who needs to work the 12 step they'll work with the sponsor, and the sponsor is somebody who's a peer.

My recommendation, my solid recommendation for people working on the 12 step process is that you get a sponsor because I think that's really where the magic lies in recovery.

If you're in AA, you need to be in the 12 step process. Us. And, it I mean, if you're in recovery, you need to be in the AA process because it's community.

And that community is actually structured And if you're not working with a sponsor and you're in AA or NA, you're really missing out on the meat and potatoes, if you will, of recovery. So my recommendation is that you find a sponsor.

My absolute limit and boundary on that is that the person be at least 5 years in their own recovery. Many times, I've heard people who are maybe a year in or maybe 2 years, but they're a year in, sometimes less.

And they're like, I wanna be a sponsor. You have no business being a sponsor. You have absolutely no foundation of your own recovery.

If you're under 2 years, you are not even in recovery. In my book, you're not even cleaners over. You're not there yet. So I don't know how you can lead people in recovery if you're not even there at that point.

So at least 5 years, because you've probably been through so much of your own accidents and relapses and things that happen in recovery that you get it.

And so 5 years is my absolute minimum. I really like it when somebody's, like, 5 to 10 years in recovery before they become a sponsor because I don't know that there's a lot of usefulness before that.

So my recommendation is that the person be solidly in their recovery before they start doing that work.

What happens is you become a a social handyman That's a term that I've lifted from one of my clients that used it as social handyman.

That's the person that's gonna go out and fix the world. You know, in in the in the construction world, the handyman is the person who can't be licensed to do real construction work.

So they kinda do the odd jobs. They do the things that are the smaller jobs that people who are in the construction trade don't wanna do.

You know, install a new door hinge, fix your your your your window that's sticking when you bring it down, maybe, help with, replacing a little thing here or there, cabinet door that's squeaky, whatever.

That's something small. Right? And it's something that you do if you're not licensed. It's it's it's not something you're gonna pay somebody a $1000 to do, and it doesn't require a license.

A state issued license in the United States. We have that. We have licensed construction workers and, carpenters and plumbers and you know, you gotta be bonded and licensed and, you know, it's basically certifying that you can do it.

Handymen? There's no handymen license. So it's just odd jobs. So the social handyman is the person who's gonna go out there and try to save the world a little bit at a time, and they're not highly skilled.

Not particularly good at what they're doing, but they can kinda sorta do it while they should actually get more skills.

So I am not advocating that anybody become a social handyman. The work that you're doing on your recovery is your recovery.

It's not other peoples. And you know what? It's a great way to kind of deflect from your own issues. And that's what people who are in recovery love to do. So they don't wanna deal with their own stuff.

And if you follow my philosophy, that addiction is about trauma. And every addict is a trauma victim. They need to work on their trauma. And if you're a social handyman, you're working on other people's stuff.

That means you're not working on yours. So I am not supporting people being the social handyman. I want you to be an expert. I want you to be a licensed expert you know, go through the process of really learning your craft.

And if the if you're in recovery, you need to do that. Don't redirect or misdirect or spend time doing something that on on other people that you should be doing on yourself.

It's a waste of your time. It's probably causing problems for the people that you're trying to help because you're not really effective.

And it's a distraction, and you're probably gonna slip and fall and fail in your own recovery is certainly not doing anything to move your recovery forward.

That's for sure. So being a social handyman is kind of being a jack of all trades. It's not good at any of them. And I don't like that. I don't think that's helpful. It's not productive, and there are better ways to spend your time.

And if you are in recovery or trying to get into recovery, you need to spend the time to do that. I have read so many books on recovery, and they have one common thread through it.

The idea that somehow I this is how it starts. If it's a autobiographical type formatting, it's the person says, I thought I understood what I needed to do get into recovery only to find out that I hadn't got a I haven't got a clue.

And it's the idea initially that they were stumbling around thinking they got it, thinking they understood it when in fact, they actually didn't, and they realized that as the more that they engage in their own recovery.

So usually the person talks about how they were trying they were trying to help other people or they were getting lost in the process, and then they went back out and relapsed, couldn't figure out why.

And then finally, their life degraded to the point where they had to get real intensive help. And that's when they realized that, hey. I've been working on other people. Or other things.

And I haven't been working on myself. That's a real common theme. Interestingly, if you think about it, in your own recovery, you don't like taking advice from people who don't get it. Like, if you if you got it, you spot it.

It's one of the Saints in recovery. If I'm in recovery, I can, you know, if I'm an alcoholic, I can spot another alcoholic. You don't like taking advice or direction from people who are not in recovery because they don't get it.

Well, I'm suggesting that you apply that same thinking in same mentality in your own recovery. Stop giving advice when you're not fully in recovery.

You may be an addict and you may get the addiction part. You get it. You understand that addiction is something that causes a lot of problems in your life, and it's destroying things and whatever, whatever.

But the reality is you don't know anything about recovery. Stop giving advice on recovery because you're not there.

It's it's ridiculous. So if you're hearing something from somebody and you're in recovery and you can get that person's history, and you find out that that person is not, you know, 3 years, 4 years, 5 years in recovery.

Listen to their story and understand they are your your time cohort peer.

They are the person that is in the same stage of recovery as you are if you have less than a year or less than 2 years, they the the words that they have have value, they have relatability.

And they're important for you to hear. So you need to be in the rooms in order to hear them, but understand it's it's words that you're hearing from somebody without a lot of expertise to back up any solution that they're presenting.

An example of that is I I was in a meeting one time, and I heard somebody talking about their their their mistakes that they had engaged in.

And they're their life was one that was filled with a lot of legal entanglements. And I remember, the person told the story about how they had had this occurrence, and they found that they, you know, were in trouble.

And then they, they, they were sitting in a meeting with somebody that they had committed a crime against.

And they realized it, and they were sitting there paralyzed because they felt so bad about the fact that they had done something to this person, but the person that they had done it to did not recognize them.

And this guy was, I think, less than 2 years into his recovery at that point.

He seemed like he was pretty pretty solid there, but he he he was not there. And and it was like, oh, you know, committing or crime against somebody. And he just went ahead and told them.

He said, you know, may not remember me, but I'm this person. I was like, wow. That's awesome. And I've heard that in in treatment centers where people will start to relate to others, as well as in meetings.

And then just in gatherings, and you find something that you can relate to the person and they start to feel that and and in that example, the person was like, you know what?

That's okay. You know, I'm glad you're here. I'm glad you're in this meeting. And that's that's the relatability part of it, you need to have relatability.

2 people finding each other in in a, a space where they both are in that same place in the recovery, or they feel like they're close to the same place in their recovery, and it's early.

That's very valuable because then you can feel like, hey. I'm not the only one that has this issue.

I you know, I have what you have. And you could you could just as easily turn to that person and say, do you know what to do about this? And they may not know. That's fine because you don't know, and they don't know.

But the person who's been there, and and is 10 years in, and you asked that they asked that same question. Oh, yeah. No. They're gonna know. They're gonna have an answer for you that they really think that, you know, hey.

This came up and you should probably do this. And So finding relatability is one thing. Finding direction is another. And I don't want I I'm I really would not want somebody who was a social handyman helping me with my problems.

I I really wouldn't I wouldn't feel comfortable with that. No more so than I would think that a handyman coming over and replacing all my plumbing in my house is probably a good idea. It's not.

You want the master plumber coming over and doing that. So when it comes to your own recovery, if you are involved, in all kinds of of stuff related to, issues, or you've got friends and you start distracting yourself with friends.

Not even in recovery, you know, like, like friends that don't have addiction issues and their relations with their spouses or their boyfriends or girlfriends or thing and you're distracting yourself with that, you have become a social handyman.

You need to you need to get it back focused on you. And your stuff. And that's where the recovery process can fall apart. So don't don't feel like being a social handyman is is particularly helpful.

It's not. Don't think that it's somehow gonna make a difference in somebody else's life. It probably will, but it's probably, you know, may not be for the right reasons. But I I really strongly urge you to focus on yourself.

Now if you have gotten to the point where you feel like you really can give some advice to people. The question becomes one of, well, how do I know when I've transitioned? To where I can be a person that's helping.

I have clients who, can go, you know, 2, 3, 4 years into recovery, and they really don't feel like they're ready to to help others. You know? They're not at step 12. They're not going out to spread the message.

Hey. That's okay. Not everybody can be a teacher just because you can do something doesn't mean that you necessarily teaching it. That's a different skill. And just because you can teach doesn't mean you can necessarily do something.

And maybe you're talking to somebody who you think may not be relatable because they had it worse than you. And so now you can't help them if you're at that point where you're at step 12.

Well, you never know what you're offering. It may be valuable. You don't have to have been somebody that spent 5 years in a federal federal penitentiary to work with somebody who's been in a federal penitentiary.

You really don't. Conversely, if you're somebody that's been in a federal penitentiary and you're talking to somebody who has never committed a crime, it doesn't mean that you're not relatable to them either.

We bring what we have with our history to others when we can. And you know what? It may be something that gave you some wisdom to be able to do that.

So much like in the serenity prayer, where you have the ability to, to understand Things you can change, things you can't, and the intelligence or wisdom or experience to to be able to know the difference between the two.

That's what you're bringing to other people's recovery. So the social handyman thinks they have those things. But they don't. They don't have that wisdom. And that's why they're the handyman versus a master repair person.

They don't have the wisdom. I, I'm a car guy, and so and I have cycles. I ride motorcycles. And I have found that I am a I'm I'm a halfway decent mechanic. I I work on my cars, and I work on my own motorcycles.

I don't think I've had a motorcycle mechanic touch of motorcycle more than 2 times in my lifetime, but I'm amazed when I watch somebody who is a highly skilled mechanic because they seem like they're do it's like it's like alchemy.

They're doing something that I can't even imagine doing.

I've seen people totally dismantle motorcycle engines right in front of me, and they do it literally in a matter of minutes, it seems like. They've got the thing completely stripped down.

They're not following instructions. They're not looking in a a maintenance manual. They're not looking at a shop manual. They know which thing to take off in what order and to keep it in that order.

And I've seen them do it and sit there with the pieces right in front of on a on a motorcycle engine, seemingly understanding every single thing they're doing, and then reassembling it after they've replaced the 1 or 2 or 3 parts that are that are broken, putting it all back together, buttoning it up, maybe they need to look on a shop manual for torque specifications for some parts of it where they get the tightening of the bolts just right.

But that's it. Other than that, they got it down. And I'm just in amazement.

I've I saw a gentleman do that with a car engine, a VA car engine over a 2 day period, strip it down to just the parts and pieces, replace a cam shaft, and replace, some, some of the pistons and put it back together and him buttoning the whole thing up in a matter of 2 days.

I saw it when I was in college, and the guy I just was I was mesmerized.

How in the world do you do that? Well, you know what? He's done that so many times that he knows exactly what how to do it and what to do. I, on the other hand, had never done that.

So I had no idea how to do what he was doing. It would have taken me months to do what he did in a matter of 2 days. And to see him take that engine and he put it back in the car and he got it running.

And at the end of the week, the car drove out of the garage, the repair shop, with a brand with, you know, a fully rebuilt engine that worked perfectly fine, unimaginable for me to be able to do I was just I I was so impressed, and I was so all and I was in awe of that.

And I thought those hands that skill.

And that's exactly what it is in recovery. And being see, being the social handyman, you don't have that skill. So you're not you're just kind of fumbling around and doing things. You're probably making mistakes.

But 1st and foremost, you're not able to do it because you haven't got the wisdom So learning how to affect change in your life, right, having having the the serenity to to understand you can't change some things.

And then and then what is it using the courage to change the things you can and having the wisdom to know the difference? It's that wisdom part. Right?

The first two are from your learning experiences in your recovery. I can't change this. I'm gonna try it anyway. And I failed at it. I I don't think I can change that. And so you don't, but you could've but she don't have the wisdom.

So in in what I what I have been preaching for a long time in my practice with my clients is You need to understand that you have to take a chance and and go out there on a limb and do something and try it over and over again, and you may fail.

But if you say you can't do it, you're not going to.

So you have to have the experience. Right? So you have to gain experience Once you've gained enough experience, you start to understand now you have knowledge because you've done it enough times.

Once you've had enough knowledge because you had so many experiences and you keep repeating those experiences, you can have positive outcomes now because you have the knowledge about how to do it.

You start to gain wisdom. So the formula is experience gives you knowledge, knowledge gives you wisdom. You don't go from experience to wisdom.

And that's what being a social handyman is the illusion of wisdom. So you have some experiences don't understand at all what you're doing or why you're doing it or what why it needs to be done. And then it changes in to false wisdom.

We call that in the recovery community arrogance. And remember, I've said in these podcasts so many times over and over again, Erarogance is the the tool that addiction hands you that causes the most destruction in your life.

So being a social handyman is trying to circumvent the process of getting wisdom. Don't don't fall victim to them. That's your arrogance talking to you saying, hey. You know what?

I stopped drinking. I stopped get I stopped doing coke. I stopped doing the opioid drugs. I'm fine now. And you've only been not doing those things for months rather than years. And so now your arrogance kicks in and you go, oh, no.

I can go out and start fixing the world. I'm a social handyman. Yeah. You are. Totally useless to everybody and causing destruction by fixing things that you're not actually fixing. So Please don't become a social handyman.

Be a person who gains experience through action and thought and attempt and go from experience to knowledge. You don't know what you're doing. You don't know why you're doing it. You're just screwing everything up.

Then you have experience and you know you know what's gonna happen. But you don't know why. And so the why is the knowledge. And then when to apply things and when to back away from things, knowing the difference, that's wisdom.

The serenity prayer in the AA model is is a good one. God grant me the serenity to know the things I can't change or and the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference.

Very, very well put, I think, for people in recovery to understand that you actually can do it, but the very last thing you have to have is the wisdom so that you know what you can and can't change.

And that's the key to not being a social handyman. Don't be that guy. Or girl. Well, that's it for this episode of Doc your addiction lifeguard. This is Doctor Jacques Deep Rugert. I am Doc Shock. Your addiction lifeguard.

If you're in need of help, You can reach out to me. You can reach me through my website, wellspringmindbody. com, get some help. If you're in need of help and you're not able to reach out to me, reach out for help anyway.

Go to an emergency room if you need to, but you can also go to a rehab or go to an IOP, yeah, residential program, go check into a sober living house.

Do what you need to do to get into clean, sober living, and get sane stable and sober because guess what? Remember, it's not worth ending your life just to save rediction. So until next time, this is Doc Jacques and see you.

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