The Stoics Can Teach Us Something About Recovery

The Stoic philosophy can be applied to recovery., 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

It's time again for Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jacques Debruckert, 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 Jacques, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. I haven't done a podcast now for several weeks, and as you can tell by my voice, there perhaps was a reason. And the reason being that I had a terrible cold and then a sinus infection and have spent most of the time trying to recover. So please forgive me for having a very hoarse voice at this time, but I thought I'd have an attempt at doing a podcast. So here we go. I was listening to the news the other day, and I heard a story where someone was talking about the fact that 1968 was perhaps the worst time in this country, in the United States, since the Civil War. It was Bob Woodward, who is one of the two reporters that... Watergate story in the 60s and 70s and he was being interviewed and asked about his thoughts about what's going on in our country today and I'm not sure how much credibility or reverence I give to him as an individual. But he was pretty spot on, I believe, when he talked about the Civil War being a terrible time in this country in 1968, perhaps being probably the next worst. But he said that it pales in comparison to what is now what he considers to be the worst with the incredible amount of political turmoil that's going on in this country at this particular moment. Which brings me to the idea of how do we handle this and the ramping up of the irritation and upset. And that plays into people's fears and their concerns about society as a whole. And then they start getting upset and anxious and start feeling really badly. Well, when we feel uncomfortable, we feel bad, we want to use. So am I seeing people... and their usage going up in my purview of the world as I look upon it from my perspective. I don't know that I'm seeing an increase in the amount, but I think there is an increase in the amount of general upset that people seem to have when they come in to see me. And it's kind of an underlying, it's like an undertow. You can feel it, but you can't see it. And that's what we're kind of noticing as people are starting to get more and more upset about things. Now, if you were in another country, you may or may not have thoughts about that. But I think what we witnessed recently in the presidential debate is seen throughout the world. And people are greatly concerned. And rightly so. But how does that relate to recovery? Well, I've been doing a lot of reading recently on... The writings of Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, the Stoics, through the Greek and the Roman time period. And trying to understand, because I didn't really know too much about Stoicism, outside the phrase that gets kind of misused, which is, If somebody is being stoic, they're being insensitive or they're being unfeeling about situations. And that's really not what it's about, although there are some roots of truth to that. But being a stoic, there are things about it that people... follow and there's different things that it has uh influenced for example in psychology uh the cognitive behavioral therapy uh was heavily influenced by stoicism thinking before reacting thinking before coming to a conclusion um and in christianity uh early christianity saw um that uh recorded stoicism as a pagan philosophy a pagan belief um perhaps because it was a little bit devoid of of god and the connection to god but um interestingly though it has a lot of parallels to christian thinking and jewish thinking um But there are parts to stoicism that are tremendously helpful, especially when it comes to recovery. I was describing this to one of my clients who is struggling with his recovery and has really kind of hit rock bottom in his life. And he said, you know, the things that you're talking about, and I was telling him about the four things, the four principles of stoicism. And he said, you know, it sounds a lot like AA. And I thought, well, you know, actually, it is a lot like AA. There's a lot about it that is very similar. And the things that are similar are the approach to the belief of change and how that change occurs. As we find ways to... to recover. We have to be thoughtful. We have to be considerate. We have to connect to our emotions and think about our emotions. That's what we do when we're going through the 12 steps, right? We're working the 12 steps. So it's difficult if you're tied up in knots, so to speak, about your idea of how you're living, why you're living the way you're living, and being thoughtful about it. is an approach that is very helpful, and we teach people to do that, particularly when we're talking about step four, for example, the fearless searching moral inventory of your character defects. You're looking at the things that are bad and have caused problems for you or that you have caused problems with, the people that are problematic. We try to sort through the good and the bad, the virtue or the virtuous part of our life as well as the dismal, destructive part of our life and the contrast between the two. So the idea that somehow we have to change, but what are we changing? And the other part of it is the idea of clarity of thought about those things and knowing that you're trying to get to the other side of it. And in the case of recovery with the 12 steps, it's about the forgiveness part. So we're trying to forgive ourselves. Perhaps we're trying to make amends with other people for the things that we've done. And so applying the ideas of stoicism is what I wanted to do, a little bit of a deep dive. But I would encourage you to look into stoicism and Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius and the Greek and Romans at the time. Now, understand the Greeks and the Romans, they had some pretty... difficulties in their society a lot of things that were bad obviously um slavery sexual deviance mistreatment of people um you know the the glorification of other people suffering through like the gladiator battles and so on and so on and i'm not suggesting that they had any um great leg up on virtuous life which they didn't but um finding ways to apply something that is thoughtful uh that is what i would encourage you to do is to look into that so that you can understand um stoicism and and it's and it's thoughtfulness aspect uh approach to So what I want to do is I want to talk briefly, or not briefly, but just kind of touch on some things for you to think about in your recovery when it comes to change and acceptance. The Stoics had four cardinal virtues, and those cardinal virtues were the things that they saw as absolutes that should be considered whenever you're dealing with your issues or approaching life. And they are as follows, justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom. Justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom. Those four virtues, they were cardinal virtues, absolutes. Excuse me. So let's talk about justice first. So justice is not just righteousness, but justice is integrity, fairness, equitable distribution of value. It's the belief that justice is something that applies to other people, that we apply to other people, but we also apply it to ourselves. So like, for example, integrity. If I am demonstrating integrity, That's a cardinal virtue. That's a virtue that I demonstrate when I'm dealing with somebody else, but it's also something I use when I'm dealing with myself. Being fair, being just, being not judgmental, but so fairness. And that's not what we do when we're working on recovery. We're pretty condemning. we look at our lives as a shattered mess. And so we don't want to, we don't want to let ourselves go when it comes to, I did a bad thing and I can be forgiven for it. And until you get to the point where you feel like you can be forgiven. And again, from a Christian perspective, you're laying it at his feet, right? What you're doing is you're asking for that forgiveness and, and accepting it. So being forgiven, being fair to yourself, just like you're fair to other people. Other people who wrong you, you work to make sure that you can be fair when they have done something wrong. They come to you, they apologize, they seem to be full of regret, and they're asking for forgiveness. And so we must do that for ourselves. So being kind and showing fairness or, I guess, in a Christian perspective, piety towards others and towards ourselves is a real important part of a recovery. Now, the second virtue, courage, That's one that I talk about with my clients in recovery all the time, having the courage to face the things that you have done and having the courage to face others with those things. Shame, if you think about it, shame is one of the things that happens when people are coming out of addiction and they are trying to work towards recovery because they have been told that they're, they're bad people. They're stigmatized. So the idea of courage, um, a virtue having, uh, the ability to not be afraid. So I tell people in recovery, have the courage to face the things that you have done, have the courage to be able to recover in a way that allows you to have grace for those things that you've done, except that grace. Um, I use the word fearless. Courage, I think, is one that gets a little bit, I don't know, misunderstood with my addicts. They equate courage to, I'm a coward if I don't show that. So I say fearless, less than fearful. Be fearless in showing that you have worked through those issues. So have the courage to be able to do that. There was... There's pain and discomfort in our lives. And as addicts, people who experience discomfort, they use. And then that becomes their handicap. That becomes their source of shame. My usage. People who are crippled by their usage can feel like they have not got the courage to face real life. to face life as it is out in the real world or to even face the things that they've done. I've had instances where people came to my office and they were so just beaten down by their own, um, bad, bad deeds, their own mistakes. And it's funny because I say to them, as I look at them, you know, you've already been forgiven. You just haven't accepted it. And it's always those, that phrase when I say it is always met with silence. because they're not sure how to react to that. It was never a consideration that what they did could be forgiven. And by, by the things they did, I mean their usage and their bad behavior associated with that usage. They just never seem to see that as a possibility. And so when I say that to them, I'm not speaking as if I'm some all powerful, uh, deity over their lives. Who's, who's telling them that, um, Everything could be okay. I don't have that power. God has that power, but I don't have that power. But what I'm saying is I'm saying it to them. I'm saying those words to them that they perhaps never considered for themselves, which is they can be forgiven. And the forgiveness part is part of the justice too, right? Being fair, being fair, never, never crossed their mind when it comes to them. They just think they're bad, they're failures, and that's it. So, courage. Temperance. The third virtue. It's categories. According to the Stoics, it's broken down into categories. Modesty, self-control, seamlessness, and good discipline. Self-regulation, controlling your impulses, controlling those bad habits. Okay, addiction, right? Bad habit. So temperance, temperance in recovery, we would consider that abstinence. I'm going to be exercising self-control. Jordan Peterson was talking about addiction as being a childish endeavor that is driven by childish impulses. What we're doing is by using, we are basically dissociating with the pain that we're feeling, and we're doing it in a very dysfunctional way. So in his opinion, addiction is a very childish response, childlike, childish response, to a problem that you feel you have no control over. So exercising temperance, good discipline, self-control, modesty, the things in life that make us humble, right? And how many times do we talk about being humble in recovery, in the rooms, with our sponsors, doing the step four work? I'm being humble in the face of my self-destruction. So bad habits and habitual usage, chronic usage of drugs and alcohol. So be able to experience temperance, a calmness in those compulsive desires. And then the last virtue, wisdom. It's the one that the four virtues really are kind of It's the primary one, wisdom. Now, when we're born, we are not wise. We have nothing. We have no foundation for wisdom whatsoever because we don't have any experience. As we are in our youth through toddler, pre-adolescent, adolescent stages, we also don't have wisdom. What we're doing is we're experiencing life. We're learning. So wisdom is something you gain through experience and knowledge. So it takes time. And That's why people who are young, they struggle, especially with my young clients, my young addicts. It's interesting. Youth and addiction create a situation where the person really begins to understand that they are destroying their lives. I certainly understood that in my youth, that my impulsiveness, as Jordan Peterson said, the impulsive reaction to dealing with or coping with problems through use of chemicals, is is a way to dissociate and that's certainly what what i experienced and i i've experienced that with my clients but um applying wisdom is something that comes with time but it also comes with experience and the knowledge that that experience gives us so wisdom is seen as the foundation for the others so we use the wisdom and we apply that to all the other the other three justice courage and temperance and wisdom in social life in your personal life when you're um trying to make decisions we make decisions based on our wisdom and that's why when we're young we make really bad decisions people who are abused as children or become addicts as children uh or or young adults uh like say pre-18 um They tend to grow up much faster. And it's interesting when I'm talking to somebody who's an addict or somebody who was abused, they seem wise beyond their years. And that's because their wisdom comes from that experience that they had that many other people do not have. So if you're exposed to beatings or sexual abuse, your wisdom is based on the experiences that you have. And if you never had those, there's a different kind of wisdom you have, right? There's a youthfulness to it. and that gets taken when we are abused. Um, so applying wisdom and, um, applying wisdom to decision-making and our feelings is important. So that's why the Stoics were labeled as individuals who, um, in our modern thinking, being Stoic is a, is a bad thing because you're unfeeling, you're insensitive because you don't have reactions. You seem insensitive. unmoved by things around you. Well, that's kind of a pejorative statement to use to somebody. However, if you are using your thoughtfulness, you're thinking about what you're going to do or say before you do it or say it is a stoic idea. And that is using justice as a filter and the courage to think about it and the temperance in your reaction and the based on the wisdom that you have gained to that point. So that's my hope is that when people are working on recovery, they can apply what's the Stoics for virtues, those cardinal virtues, justice, courage, temperance, and wisdom, and they can live their lives in a much better way. I, if I were to put that in one single word of those four cardinal virtues, I would say peaceful, If you are peaceful, you tend to use those. When people are not peaceful, they tend to be very reactive, very emotional in their response, and explosive, erratic, unpredictable. And life becomes difficult. The other part of it is the wisdom. And I know somebody who lives their life and they just don't seem to apply any wisdom because they don't seem to retain things. Their thinking is very selfish, self-centered. And the outcome is they're not effective as a parent. They're detached from the spouse. They're living a life that's almost like it's unreal because they're so disconnected and they're not creating peace around them. And I don't even know if internally they're in peace. I really don't think they are. They don't seem to describe it. They don't live it. So there's no peacefulness in their existence. And they have had times where they have had addiction, addictive behaviors going on as they were uncomfortable. They came from an abusive household. There was not a good family foundation for their family of origin. And so they, The wisdom that they have doesn't get applied, I think, because they probably feel like, as I've heard them say, I don't know what to do. It's like, well, you do know what to do. You're just not doing it. Why is that? Well, because they don't have the courage to face reality, to face the truth, their own shortcomings. And it's sad to watch. It really is. And so people who are working on recovery, need to really focus in on that internal healing because as i keep saying to people i say this all the time change comes from within you and moves out external change does not actually change you it changes your circumstance but wherever you go there you are because you're still you haven't changed internally so change happens from within and then begins to move out. And then it affects the people around you. So if I am a good person and I start acting crazy and erratic and unpredictably, the people around me are going to be affected. Well, that change occurred from within. Conversely, if I am changing internally to positive and I feel centered and focused and balanced, and then it moves out, I have affected change with the people around me as well. So, treating yourself fairly, with kindness, with a value on self, and I have the courage to extend myself out to be truthful, step four. If I'm exercising temperance, then abstinence, that gives me a certain perspective which then influences my wisdom, doesn't it? So let's try doing that in our recovery. And that's it for this episode of Doc Jacques, Your Addiction Lifeguard. I hope you've enjoyed this episode, and if you are looking for recovery, go out there and find it. You can reach out to me, Dr. Jacques DeBruyckert, for help, or you can go to a rehab or see a counselor in your area. But whatever it is, go to meetings, do whatever you have to do, but don't succumb to your addiction. It's crazy. There's no point in saving your addiction by killing your life. Does that make sense? Killing yourself to save your addiction, rather. Well, if you have suggestions for this podcast, please reach out to me and let me know. You can reach me at my website, wellspringmindbody.com. And until the next episode of Doc Shock, this is Doc Shock saying, see ya.