Separate The Problem From The Addiction

A tough thing to do is to separate the problem from the addiction in order to move to recovery and self forgiveness. 

Transcript

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I'm here to help. If you're in search of help to try to get your life back together, join me here at DocShock, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes, but not considered help. 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, all right? Have a good time, learn something, and then get the real help that you need from a professional. You know the saying, God moves in mysterious ways, really applies to us in recovery because a our mistakes and the things that we've done seem like they're so damaging to the people around us and to us as well. And whether it's physical damage or emotional damage or spiritual damage or something you've done, it's strange how the mind can twist it all around and turn it into some form of narcissistic nonsense Or turn us into very super destructive people. And I keep going back to the video that I've seen now. I've watched it. It's one of those reels on Facebook or YouTube or something. And it's the Ben Affleck appearance on the Howard Stern radio show. And I've seen it now several times. And I keep watching it because what I see in it is a guy who... And I don't even know how old Ben Affleck is. He's got to be in his, what, 50s, I guess, at this point. But I keep viewing it because I see something in it that just keeps making me think about the people that I help. And it's this self-directed anger that seems... It comes across as weird when you're watching it. And it's like sadness and frustration and anger all kind of rolled up into one. And I watch him... I don't know him. I've never met him. Who knows what he actually is like? You can't tell from his face in front of a camera because people have real personalities and they're usually not what you're seeing on camera. I understand that. But he seems very hostile towards himself at times and angry and frustrated. And I can't imagine what it's like to be somebody that is so isolated and insulated from reality as somebody who has that much celebrity where you can't be a normal person in public anymore. But the anger that I see radiating from him, and it's not directed at any one person, at least in that clip, it's not, other than himself. And he talks about, and if you have seen the clip... He's sitting there and he's being asked by Howard Stern, how did he get into recovery? How does he maintain his recovery? Something like that. And his answer is, he would go into the rooms and he'd listen to these old people, these old timers who would tell these stories about how bad they had it. And now they're so grateful and thankful that they are sober. And he's sitting there struggling and he goes, it just really makes me angry because... I don't, you know, how's that relate to me? How are you helping me by telling me about how great your life is now in your recovery? Because I'm struggling and I need to get there, but I'm not there. And then he goes on to say, you know, and I would sit in the rooms and I'd listen to that and I'd get upset and then I'd go back out and I'd start drinking again. And he said, you know, thank God, you know, it didn't necessarily affect my career and I didn't lose money. But his relationship suffered, and I'm sure that that was part of the demise of his various marriages and relationships and struggles with his kids, I'm sure. But he said, you know, you lose something, and you lose the thing that you didn't want to lose, and that's what moves you towards sobriety is loss. It's always about loss. And those words, I've been saying those words for over 20 years because that is the truth, and everybody who's in recovery knows it. or at least most of them do. Listen to Gabor Mate or any of the other experts in the field that are heavily published or broadcasting stuff out there, and they talk about that. All the popular ones that talk about addiction. Russell Brand, any of them. Anyway, so it's the idea that you've lost something, but how do you regain something? What are you trying to regain? And that's the real struggle. And I see that over and over and over in people's lives, the attempt at trying to regain something or at least not lose something. And it is a struggle. And I have clients, and I've had some this year, that they were fine, they were fine, and then they're not fine. And then they disappear. And it's like, what caused you to... just give into or rather give back into your addiction surrender back over to your addiction when you were doing okay well there's two parts to this one of the one of them is the idea of you know drinking or drugs weren't a problem and when i started using them they weren't the problem the problem is the problem but then they became a problem themselves but it's a separate problem And it's different from the problem that you were coping with when you were using your drug of choice. Now the drug of choice has become an additional problem, so now you've got two of them. And when I watch Ben Affleck talking about this, I often kind of wondered as I'm watching it, how does somebody that is in that level of notoriety and isolation from regular society, how does somebody get help and work on the problem when there's somebody like that and then I also think about my clients who they're not rich and famous like Ben Affleck rich and famous maybe they have money maybe they don't maybe they're just a you know a 20 year old who's struggling in school and trying to figure it out what how do they get help you know they they isolate so they don't they're not in they're not it's not known that they have the problem it's not talked about so where are they going to get the help well Okay, so you stop using, and then that's when it really becomes painful. And as I have said many, many times, and I say it all the time to people in my practice, and I've said it on these podcasts, when you first get into sobriety or getting clean, it's going to get worse, meaning your personal issues, before they get better because you strip away the coping mechanism, drugs and alcohol, or whatever your drug of choice is, you strip it away. Now you have nothing left to use to cope with that problem. You just took away the coping mechanism, and now you're really going to feel crappy. So the idea that you're working on the problem, okay, well, I stopped the usage. That's one. But then I have the personal issues. And that's where the new learned skill of things like, how do I learn how to forgive myself for what I've done? How do I do that? How do I forgive other people that have done things to me? How do I do that? And that's really where the rubber meets the road, so to speak, when it comes to recovery, is trying to figure out, okay, you're going to separate out the drug of choice usage, and I'm going to sort that out. And I did, but I keep wanting to go back to it because I can't forgive, you know, or I can't receive forgiveness. And so one of my clients asked me about, you know, Something they had done. And I said, okay, well, you know, we've got to work on forgiveness. And they just kind of looked at me and I said, we have to define forgiveness, don't we? And they, yeah, I don't know what it is. And it's not uncommon to not know. It is a very common thing for somebody to not know forgiveness. what forgiveness is they think it's you know forgetting or it's putting aside the uh the engagement of the memory of it maybe they're going to just you know improve learn from that and improve so that they don't repeat it now remember i'm talking about self-forgiveness not forgiving other people and it's like no forgiveness is not any of those things Because if you applied the same standard of what is forgiveness that you give to somebody else, you would not say what you just said. You would not say it's learning how to just get past it, don't think about it, don't dwell on it, don't bring it up. It's none of those things because it's still there. You still feel you're harboring that feeling and you haven't forgiven somebody. So it's different for somebody else. When you apply that to yourself, How do you forgive yourself for things? They just really are stumped. And so when you're trying to get into recovery and you have nowhere to go with anything because you just keep hanging on to everything and you can't separate out the two things, it's easy to go back to using because you still have this pent up contained issue that you can't get over. You can't function you can't you you're just crippled by this emotion of regret shame anger um you know self-loathing whatever it's a long journey out of that and that's the point i want to make is it's a very long journey to arrive to the point where you can forgive yourself i know if you've listened to my podcast you've heard me talk about this so many times before But I just want to repeat it. When somebody feels upset about their actions, their behaviors, the things they did in their lives, and they really want to get through that part of it, they want to process through that, we end up talking about it at length for weeks and months. And they want to just get over it quickly. They want to go through it quickly. They want to just, okay, this is what it is. Let's move on. And I'm like, no, we can't move on. We're going to stay here. They feel uncomfortable. So they go back to, okay, well, we talked about that. We need to just, you know, and I'm like, no, no, we're going to go back over it again. And some people it drives crazy. And it seems like the younger the person is, the more it drives them crazy. The older you get, it seems like you have more of an understanding of time relevance to your actions and spread out over time your actions and the consequences that it's easier for you to talk about it and kind of hold in that moment but you must continue to walk through that because it's and it's funny the person sitting across from me we're talking about it and I say hey let's talk about that thing that you know that you did and I can see them change. I can say physically they're changing. Their face starts getting a little tight or sad. I can see sadness. Their shoulders slump down a little bit and they just kind of start looking at the ground or their eyes close and they just go back to the place where they're living with the shame or the anger and the disappointment they feel about the actions they took. I can see them doing it physically. They're giving me all the body language that that's where they're going. And so we talk about it, and I'll keep trying to drag more and more facts out of it from them, because the first time you tell it, you tell it, but you don't give too much detail. And every time they tell the same story, there seems to be more and more detail that they include. And so that's where they're at. And they tell me more, and they tell me more. And then they might go for... you know, the next session or two and we don't really talk about it too much. And then it comes back up again and we talk about it again. And this goes on and on and on until finally they start actually hearing themselves. And that's part of the key is like you're telling a story and you get a little dissociated from it. You're not connected to it. And then they've told it so many times that now they're starting to actually realize and connect to it. It's their story they're telling. It's not somebody else's story. And so they're at that point where they can recognize their own words. They hear their own words. And it's easier for them to, at that point, connect to it emotionally. You can't really get through something if you don't connect to it. And the same is true when they're talking about their parents or their siblings or their friends or their spouse or their children or whoever it is that maybe they've done something wrong to them or are more... I guess to the point, those people have done something wrong to them. And they want specifics. They want specific acknowledgement that whatever happened, the person who's saying, I'm sorry, I hope you can forgive me for it. They want that person to actually acknowledge fully what it is that they're seeking forgiveness for. And people have a hard time doing that for themselves. Because you have to be honest with yourself. So, sitting in a chair across from another human being. And it's like that interstitial space between cells. That's where living actually occurs. It's like in that space between cells. And so the space between the therapist and the client, that's where the therapy occurs. It doesn't occur in your brain as a client. It doesn't occur in my brain. It occurs in the space between us. So those are the words and the body language and the actions and thus the feeling that you get. And when somebody is experiencing something, I want to say in real time, and they've really brought it into reality, There is that awareness of the space between that becomes, it's almost uncomfortable. It is uncomfortable. Even for me as I'm sitting there listening to it and they're very emotional and I can tell they're really in that feeling of sadness and sorrow. There's crying. Sometimes they start raising their voice. But they're talking about themselves and their own disappointments. And it's a powerful thing. It's a very, very powerful thing to witness. I have tremendous respect for the power of that. And when I hear somebody doing that in my presence, I'm trying to let them know I'm absorbing it. I'm, you know, it's, I'm feeling it. I'm feeling what they're, what they're expressing, but reflecting back to them, compassion and, um, the idea of forgiveness is, is vitally important. And so, um, and, and, you know, my clients who are, are, uh, they have faith, they, um, They think that perhaps that God is not going to forgive them for whatever they've done, but the reality is he is. And part of that is you openly confessing and being honest and admitting, right? What it is that you've done or said that caused this. And so I see them struggle with this, but then when they start to relax and they start giving more emotion to it, and if you are struggling with recovery and you can't seem to get there and you really are holding on to these things that you have done in your life and you feel like they are unforgivable, that is not true. That is not true at all. It can be forgiven. You just have to accept that you can be forgiven. That is a vital part to this. And so when you're in those moments and you're really feeling that emotional pull of sadness, you need to stay in that place, in the presence of another person, and hopefully somebody who's a very well-trained trauma therapist that can help you, guide you through that. the content, if you will, of that forgiveness and that acceptance. Now, the therapist is not forgiving you. They're bearing witness to you. And as it says in the New Testament that um that you have to acknowledge the presence of of god and it's kind of hard to do sometimes so we say it in in uh in the presence of another person in the 12 steps we we that's uh step five right you're saying it to yourself you're saying out loud the nature and extent of your character defects out loud to yourself to another person into god and what that does is it it makes it so that you're not just speaking into a vacuum, seemingly. Because I think that's what a lot of addicts seem to... Certainly that's what we kind of fall into, right? Because isolation is addiction's best friend. And so you are saying something, but it perhaps is not heard, you think, right? So when you say it in front of another person, you're making it real, right? It's making it real for you and for God. And so... The asking for forgiveness from things, it's not an act. It's not a feeling. It's not an intangible spiritual thing. It's all of them combined. And so when we ask for forgiveness, we have to receive it, but we have to let it go. And so when we have lost something that we didn't want to lose, and then we get angry about it, like Ben Affleck, What we're doing is we are kind of putting ourselves in a place where we are primed for asking for forgiveness for the destruction. Some of us, me included, have done things that we really need forgiveness for. We really need to ask for forgiveness. And if you have an addiction issue, you certainly have a need for forgiveness. Trust me. the damage you've done being the tornado that blew into town is tremendous and perhaps worse than you think but don't be afraid don't be timid and i think the shame is kind of what puts you into that place of being timid and being timid is not a good place to be because now you're not you're just hiding right so don't hide be right up there be right up front like stand up and Say, I did these things. And we do that when we work with sponsors in the STEP program. We do that. We talk about our stuff. And if you've got a good sponsor, he or she is not going to let you just talk about it for 10 minutes and move on to the next thing. It's going to be really searching into the inner soul of what's going on. Because I'll tell you something. Hanging on to this stuff will destroy you. And it's not worth it. So when you're trying to separate out the addiction from the problem, you must tackle the addiction first. Then we tackle the problem, whatever it is. And then we go towards freedom. So be fearless. in your searching inventory of yourself, but also be fearless in the act of self-forgiveness, right? And accepting forgiveness. I'm going to forgive myself. And we pattern that, at least in the Christian world, we pattern that after accepting forgiveness from God for the things that we have done. Like, I'm going to ask for forgiveness. I'm going to ask for that forgiveness. And I must receive it. If I ask for it, I'm going to receive it. If I ask for it and I don't receive it, then you're kind of spinning your wheels right so if you're going to ask for it you must receive it and then you got to ask yourself to forgive yourself and i'm not going to let the anger live within me for my own mistakes i'm not going to let that resentment live in me for my own mistakes and each time and every time it comes back up and it will come back up it has in my life over and over again You have to keep going back to it and saying, oh, yeah, okay, well, here's another thing I need to forgive myself for, or I do need to forgive myself for this. I already did that. That's right. I got to keep in that place, right? So that you're not like an angry Ben Affleck who, you know, is just beside himself as to why it took him so long to get to the realization of what was going on before he got sober. Because, you know, Ben Affleck, listen, man, Better late than never, better late than dead. Okay. So dude, listen, you went through some stuff. God bless you for like struggling. And when you're surrounded by yes men and party people and nobody's listening and you know, people that don't care, they just want something from you. Listen, that's all of us. It's just for somebody like that, it's fame and fortune. And for others of us, it's just because, you know, people love us. Or they want to use us. And so you've got to accept it when it's asked for. But please ask for it. Forgiveness is the way. Well, I hope that satisfies your need for another episode of Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard. I am Doc Shock, and I am a counselor. If you need help, you can reach out to me through my website, wellspringmindbody.com. Send me a line. Let me know. I've had a few people reach out to me and ask me questions. You can certainly do that. I will answer you. I promise you. And if you like this podcast, please subscribe. Please like it and come back and listen to more because you know what it's not worth ending your life just to save your addiction because ultimately you're the loser right so let's get let's get sober so until the next episode this is dark shock saying see ya