Why Do I Keep Sabotaging My Own Recovery

Just why are you sabotaging your own recovery? Let's find out. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

time again for Doc Jock, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jock DeBruyter, 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 Jock, your addiction lifeguard, the addiction recovery podcast. I wanted 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 the 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, a lot of clients that I have will be working really diligently hard on their recovery and trying to get into recovery. And then ultimately what happens is they end up self-sabotaging. And I don't mean going out and just having an accident. That's what we call it. That's what I call it anyway. It's just having an accident versus a full relapse. So when somebody has an accident, what they do is they go out and they just drink that day or get high that day. And a relapse, of course, is just that. It's a relapse of goes on for weeks instead of just hours or a couple of days anyway so they will self-sabotage and they keep sabotaging their own recovery not just not just themselves but their actual recovery and so the the self-sabotage is something that almost everybody struggles with that I've experienced and it doesn't mean that they're weak or they're doomed it just means that this is part of the recovery process I try to build that into people's experience in recovery and explain to them hey man this this may be happening to you or may happen to you in the future but you know you're going to probably experience it at some point so you got to be sure you're open and honest about it and that's what we try to to aim for in recovery is open honest recovery and it usually recovery is not something that looks like we think it will so let's talk about self-sabotage shall we Um, so maybe it might help if you really understood what, what that looks like. What does self-sabotage look like? Um, let's see, avoiding meetings, uh, either not either refusing to go to meetings or just avoiding them when things are hard or you're, you know, feeling like you want to use and you avoid a meeting, skipping therapy, um, dropping, dropping the use of accountability partners, people that, you know, you're working with, there were peers, um, in recovery. And that happens a lot. The avoiding meetings and the skipping therapy, that's one I always look for. When somebody comes in and they're working with me for, you know, two, three, four months and then they miss a meeting. Okay, you missed your appointment. Maybe you told me you couldn't come. Then you don't. And then the next week you just don't show up. And then you show up again and you give me some half-hearted excuse or reason for not coming and And then, you know, you come for another two and then you disappear for two or three or four weeks and then you come back. And that's that's that for me is a real red flag. I see immediately what's going on. It's funny because people I'm working with, they never quite get it. They think they're the first people doing this or whatever, but they're not. So skipping therapy, 40 means dropping accountability partners like these are people that I talk to that were in meetings and maybe I switched meetings so that I didn't have to talk to that person anymore or just quit talking to them. that period putting yourself in situations that you shouldn't be in that's another one going to you know going to the bar and sitting there I had somebody just recently have a situation where they would just go to the bar and sit and drink a Diet Coke instead of drinking alcohol and they were saying yeah but I'm not drinking and so you're hanging around and in an old place and you're talking to people that you were talking to and hanging around with when you were drinking or getting high that's a that's a self-sabotaging move right there um and then there's that that voice in your head that critical voice in your head uh and usually it's along the lines of something like you know you don't you don't really deserve to be sober or clean because look at what the bad person that you've become or that you were all the things you did um or you're too weak you know your head is telling you you're too weak you're not going to make it you can't do this you're going to fail and And, you know, those are those kinds of things, especially if you're saying those things in the old places with the old people you used to hang around with. And you're not you're not saying it out loud to the people that are in the recovery community that are your friends, man. They want to help you. And that's part of the recovery process is learning how to be more open and honest. And I talk about honesty all the time. So being honest. Right. So there there are a lot of different things. things that you can do that would be self-sabotaging, self-destructive in your recovery that will derail it. I've talked about this one quite a few times. A person who, they go to the conference. It's for professionals. Oh my gosh, it's the conference. It's that conference, that out-of-town conference. Everybody goes to the conference. I know I'm speaking too generally, but everybody goes to conference to go have a good time, right? So they're drinking, and that's usually the focus of it, but in some places it's drinking or smoking weed and they go to the conference because they think oh you know I'm in Vegas because Vegas is the worst one but they go and then they start hanging around people and then sure enough they they're off to the races so why why is it that people who have addiction do this why do we do this well fear shame familiarity illusions of control things like that so fear of success fear of failure change feels really dangerous and bad so it can be a fear of success if I get clean and sober I'm going to risk failing and relapsing so I can't do this and then you start with that self-sabotaging critical voice in your head that you're not going to make it or you don't deserve this because you're a bad person so the fear of success which really is about fear of change And many times when I talk to people and I say, hey, you know what? Maybe you're doing this because you're a fear of success. They look at me like they were waiting for me to say fear of failure. And it's not fear of failure necessarily. It can be fear of success. Shame about your life. Unresolved trauma.

UNKNOWN: 8:03

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00: 8:04

Hey, I feel bad and I feel uncomfortable and I don't know how else to deal with this. And so then you pick up the bottle or you pick up the joint or you pick up the, the needle. You do, you know, snort a line, something that makes you feel not uncomfortable. You think, right? So shame, uh, shame is one about what, how, you know, how, how you've been living. And the other one is unresolved trauma. Um, comfort of the familiar. In other words, you want to be close to the chaos because it's normal and I talk about that again I've talked about that in these podcasts a lot that what feels normal it can be very unhealthy but you know what to do with it right so if you're already uncomfortable because something is happening that's making you angry sad frustrated depressed anxious and you feel uncomfortable and then that comfort in the feelings of the familiar well what do I do with that okay well create chaos right so you self-sabotage so you stop going to meetings or you start hanging out with people telling yourself you're not going to do it you're not going to use it's okay to be around these people because you need the chaos right so you just artificially creating chaos or the illusion of control I relapsed and that shows that I I am in charge. See, I'm still in charge, right? I control this. And now, if you are not an addict and you're listening to this, that would make absolutely no sense. But for us who have addiction, no, that makes perfect sense. You know, I'm controlling everything and I feel empowered. And that's a weird thing because we really do that. We feel empowered when we're using. We feel like we're doing something about the chaos around us by getting high. and it's such a strange idea that when you create chaos that you're in charge because a normal I'm using my finger quotes a normal person would say oh well chaos is bad because it's uncontrolled and it's it's destructive and it's crazy and it's uncomfortable true unless you're very skilled at living in chaos in which case you will gravitate towards it I used to do that a lot in my 20s I would purposely take on chaotic situations difficult situations sometimes because with good things like when I'm teaching swimming lessons I think I talked about this before teaching swimming lessons to the worst possible kids who didn't want to learn that was very chaotic I could have taken the easier kids but I took the hard kids okay well fine so then they're learning how to swim and I'm teaching them something good well that's I'm using my skills for good but using my skills for bad would be I take I on relationships that are very chaotic and destructive and I gravitate towards them. I take on jobs that are very chaotic and dangerous and destructive and I've done that. I'll take on personal workloads, personal things that would be destructive. I've put myself in dangerous situations with other people. And, you know, it's like you keep trying to do that because I can control this. I mean, that's, you know, there's a lot of work ways that people do that. First responders, doctors, sometimes lawyers, people who are, you know, in this critical kind of situation all the time where life depends on my actions. That's the illusion of control kind of thing. They want to prove that they're still in charge. That's part of it. So there's a lot of different things that we do to self-sabotage and there's a lot of different reasons why we do it. None of them are good. I mean, they're all bad. They're all going to trip us up and turn us into crazy addicts again and active in our engaging of addiction. So what do we do with that? How do we break that cycle? You're not going to change the way your brain works. It's just, it works that way. It's a thing that is, it's what makes you, you, right? You're wired that way. I, and this is, this podcast I use the term using my powers for good or for evil I can choose to do that so breaking the cycle you really need to be aware of the pattern that you're engaging in but you can't use it as a as a means to beat yourself up don't beat yourself up because you're doing this but be aware of it like the truth understand it's like it's a scriptural thing if you understand the truth the truth will set you free and I am trying to change the way that I am aware of something. I do have a tendency to be destructive. I do have a tendency to get into destructive relationships or react badly when something happens to me or too quickly or whatever. Be aware of that because you can't make a change in behavior if you're not even aware of the fact that you're doing it. You're not consciously aware. So notice the pattern and do it in a way like you would if you were conducting a science experiment and you're becoming aware of it without beating yourself up. Just this is what you do. Oh, I want to do something different. So the awareness part means you have to be consciously aware. So sometimes people, I have them buy those little tiny, you know, little notebooks you can get that are, you know, two by five or whatever. And when something's happening, write down, like, what caused me to act that way? Like, what were the triggers? What was my mood? How did I slip into it? Did somebody say something to me? Did it push a button? Like, what is that button? And so you have to be aware of what these things are. And so journaling them, in other words, writing them down, I almost don't like that word journaling because it implies that you're supposed to write long passages like your Thoreau or something. No, you don't have to do that. Just write down just a line. Like, If you're in a relationship, my boyfriend, he talked badly. He told me I was whatever. That was your trigger. I woke up this morning and I was not in a good mood. Why? Because I'm overly tired. And so I became more reactive. And so I don't like that. It makes me uncomfortable. Understand what you're doing is you're writing down the triggers that are making you feel uncomfortable. That's the overarching thing. thing, right? We use because we're uncomfortable. Uncomfortable can be any number of things, endless variety of things. Writing this stuff down can help you understand. The last part of that is the slips, right? So what did you say? Did you respond aggressively towards somebody? Did you not show up at a meeting with somebody that you're supposed to meet with them for some reason, a lunch or whatever? Did you just not respond to a text message that you should have responded to in a friendly way, but you didn't did you just kind of ghost somebody did you whatever whatever it is like what was the slip not the usage but what was your emotional slip so writing down the triggers and your you know the triggers the moods the slips the things that you know happen so and and again you don't have to write a paragraph just like a couple of lines to remind yourself and if you are trying to then also engage in real recovery you're going to be in in therapy right so you can bring this up in therapy you can bring in a little thing I encourage people to do that in my practice like bring the bring a little pad and write it down so you so you understand you have something to talk about with a therapist so that leads me to the accountability part right so talk openly about these things the truth will set you free but if you're not speaking the truth there's no freedom so open conversation about it be fearless in your recovery fearless so talk to your sponsor your therapist, you know, somebody in the recovery community, somebody you trust that you can be open with about these things is really important. So the accountability is you talking about it. It's not them telling you, oh, you're a bad person because you did that. Or, oh, here's what you should do. It's not that. It's I'm saying it out loud and I'm allowing somebody to bear witness to it. So I'm saying it. So it's going from me to the person to God. I am not going to hide from the fact that I'm working on my recovery, right? So I'm a flawed person, but I'm seeking salvation, and I want to be open so I can receive salvation. So I have to be open and transparent. Otherwise, there's nothing to work on, right? So if you're not being truthful, you're not being open. There's nothing there. So talk to your sponsor. Talk to some people in the recovery community that you can spend time with. Talk to your therapist. And for me as a therapist, that's one of the frustrating parts is when people come in and they think all that I want to hear is the good stuff. And that's all they give me. You know, how's it been going this week? Oh, good. You know, it's like, no, you got stopped by the police twice. What do you mean good? This is the kind of stuff I run into. Like you had a massive fight with your friend and now you've cut your friend off. And I'll get that. But sometimes I don't get it until the last, I don't know, five minutes of the session they'll say this is what i really wanted to talk about today well why didn't you bring it up i asked you how you were doing and we spent 50 minutes talking about you know what you've been doing this week at work and whatever and you you had something you really seriously wanted to talk about but you didn't bring it up why because it's self-sabotaging you think if i bring it up it makes it real if i bring it up i have to admit to it if i bring it up It's true. Well, I hate to tell you this. It's true whether you say it out loud or not, but I will also tell you that when you say it out loud, the power of it diminishes because now you can have a different perspective. So the openness in your talking about it is where the recovery from that incident is so let's talk about therapy you know therapy is is a process where you're talking to a human being who's a clinician who's trained and hopefully they have a lot of experience in recovery they understand addiction they're very very oriented towards trauma and understanding it because that's what you really need as an addict so dealing with the deeper wounds that drive relapse is what you talk about in therapy and that's when you're having these conversations that are the hard ones you're crying you're angry people in my office they get very emotional um very angry very sad it's not a little bit it's a lot there are a lot of tears there's there's yelling that goes on in my office there's crying that goes on in my office and that is appropriate that is what you're supposed to be doing in therapy right so you deal with those deep or wounds the deeper cuts that you felt and the reasons you feel uncomfortable about the things that trigger you so you know powerless abused neglected those kinds of things and that's what you that's what you talk about in therapy because that's from you know of course I'm prejudiced because I'm a therapist right so I I'm going to say that I think real recovery can happen when you start working on that and that the only place you can really work on that is in good therapy so it's really important that you find a good therapist that you connect with but that's where you can uh really do some i think some really good work on breaking that cycle of self-sabotaging okay and so now there's another component right because we talked about um we're talking about physical like don't go to bars don't hang out with your friends that are get high buddies we're talking about uh intellectual right be open be honest that's intellectual uh um talk about the thing that bothers you that's the emotion so the last part is the spiritual or the face faith part of it so a common thing that happens with addicts is that they feel very isolated they feel very alone they're doing it on their own and if you if you have any experience whatsoever with going to aa or na or sa or any of the a's we talk about you are not alone and i can tell you from my own experience having no family and struggling with that and then finding and then finding that there actually is a father figure that was benevolent and cared about me and was watching over me was a very very weird experience because I did not have that as a father I didn't have that modeled for me as a father whatsoever and not trusting my father he was he was verbally abusive he's an alcoholic my mother was not a safe to be around she was always manipulating and whatever and it's like you just always by yourself right so when when i became closer to an understanding of faith and and a spiritual life i realized that i'm not in this alone like there is there is i felt this power of something in me that was changing me that i didn't feel isolated and alone many of my male clients really struggle with that one because they've had fathers who were crazy or alcoholics are abusive in some way and so we in my office work on that and an understanding of like you know what is what about faith in your life and it's really kind of almost amusing when I see them because they turn from agnostic or atheist to what we call in the Christian community baby Christians where they're starting to understand a little bit and they get it but they don't believe it's for them they don't believe that it can be for them and so it's a little bit strange to see them move that direction initially because they hesitate and they fight it and they don't, you know. But you have to remind yourself over and over again that you're not fighting this alone. It's a good battle and the enemy wants to win and the way it wins is by slowly beating you down and stripping you of things that are close and important to you. Relationships, health, freedom, money, safety, housing, employment, things like that. So,

UNKNOWN: 23:33

Thank you.

SPEAKER_00: 23:35

Practice your faith, okay? The sabotage part of it usually equates to failure. Sabotage doesn't mean failure. It means there's some deeper thing that needs attention in you. And so when you're trying to figure out how do I address this, understand there's a piece that's missing for you. And I don't know what that piece is, but you will need to find out what that piece is. Whatever it is. But it doesn't mean that you failed. Many times people come from homes that are just these horror stories that I hear. That's not your failing. That's the failing of your parents. That's the failing of the people around you. And so failure is not part of this. It just means there's something deeper that needs to be tended to. So that's why getting into really good therapy is important. Progress. What is that? that it's persistence. Recovery is persistence. Progress isn't perfect. It isn't perfection. You haven't gotten there when everything is perfect. It's persistently working on recovery. It's an up and down. I'm making a little wave motion with my hand and my arm right now. It's like up and down. It's up and down. It's not just a straight line. It's zigzaggy and up and down. So don't think that it's all going to go away when everything is perfect because you're never going to get perfect there is no perfect there's close there's wonderful there's great I guess or something I don't know but there's never perfect so that's not what you're that's not what you're aiming for so let yourself be lifted and stop fighting in your recovery stop fighting to stay the crazy addict because you're not showing anything to anybody and really you're not hurting anybody but yourself uh just you know like when you're in recovery you get to be a better person everybody around you benefits you get to be a bad person everybody's suffering with you so just let yourself be lifted stop fighting in that rescue and figure out a way to accept help um Addiction is going to try to pull you under. It's like a rip current. It's going to try to pull you under, but there's always a lifeline. You just have to reach out for it and let yourself be rescued. Let the power of healing occur because you would accept help. Step one, my life has become unmanageable. Yeah, and you need to be rescued, so allow yourself to be rescued. You don't rescue yourself. You allow yourself to be rescued. Well, that's it for this edition of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard. I hope you've enjoyed this episode. I know that I've taken some time off and I really needed it. I've been doing some writing and getting completion on my book. So hopefully that'll come out soon. And I look forward to getting it out to you. Hey, look, man, if you're in need of help, go get it. Don't let addiction take you down. Don't drown just because you're trying to save your addiction that's crazy save yourself so when someone's coming along to try to help you let them and if you need help get help go to therapy go to rehab do something but don't let addiction kill you so until next time this is Doc Jacques your addiction lifeguard saying see ya