EP:032 What is your recovery checklist?

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Transcript

Carl Fessenden: 1:19

Hey guys, are you looking for a backstage pass? How about behind the scenes look at this podcast, I have exciting news for you. Starting October 1, we will be opening the doors to the drunk and warm podcast, and loving our listeners join in the funny conversation. Check out the different ways that you can support the show and gain access to exclusive content, such as free drunk and warm podcast merchandise for one full year. Join an exclusive community where you can talk to other members vote on upcoming show topics. Here exclusive audio footage from interviews each month, receive a personal shout out on an upcoming episodes. And stay up to date with the drunk and warm podcast monthly newsletter so that you can stay informed about upcoming guests, show topics and community. With four different pledge options to fit any budget, you can flex your power and become a super fan today. Welcome to the drunken worm podcast. Each week, I will be bringing you dynamic content that will educate and inspire. This podcast was created to talk to mental health professionals about addiction recovery and their own personal stories that can help inspire us to become better people and live healthier lives. Alright, and welcome to the drunken Warren podcast. My name is Carl, the host and creator of this show. And I want to welcome everybody to Episode 32. I'm going to be switching it up on you guys. Today we're going to be doing a little update for the podcast. And we're also going to be talking about a recovery checklist. There are no guests on tonight's show. But I want to hope that everybody is out there, have a great day, maybe you're on the treadmill, maybe you're at the gym, maybe you're at home listening to the show, I want to thank you very much for taking the time tonight, or today and listening to this podcast. All of you are wonderful. And I really appreciate the support that you guys have given me. I also want to remind you that if you would like to subscribe to this show, please go ahead onto your favorite streaming app, and hit the Follow button. If you'd also like to give us a rating and let us know how we're doing. That would be very helpful. You know, we put these episodes out and we put all of our content out. And a lot of times, we have no way of knowing other than just pure download stats from our providers, how you guys are enjoying the episodes if you're getting anything out of them. So please send us a message, let us know how we're doing. You can also visit our website at the drunken worm podcast calm. And there we have a message area that you can leave us a message it will send me an email, and I do my best to try to get back to those people with emails. Also, if you'd like to find us on Facebook, we're listed there as well. And also Instagram. So please follow us on the social media links. I currently host the podcast on Facebook through the recovery revolution live Facebook page, and that's recovery revolution 100. And there you can listen to episodes, if you're on Facebook is well. And we also have our Patreon site, if you guys would like to go there. And I have links for all of these sites and services and everything else that we do on each episode in the show notes. So if you're wondering, how do I get to that, or oh, shoot, I forgot what that was. He said, Go to the shownotes. The links are clickable there and it will take you directly to what you're looking for. So like I said, Today, I wanted to give you guys an update on how I'm doing how the podcast is doing. The podcast is growing tremendously. And I'm on my app right now. And I use a service called bus route. And, you know, we're on episode 32. And I have all the way up to episode 47 mapped out for the show right now. So we have a lot of great content coming up for you guys. I don't want to give any spoilers because sometimes things change. And I did that in the very beginning. And I was like man, okay, I'm going to give them all the updates and and let you guys know what's going on. But what I found out was as soon as I started doing that, people were changing the schedule. And then I was like oh crap, I just said there, this person was going to be on the show. And now it's going to be something else. So I'm trying not to give out too many advanced notices on who's going to be coming up. But we do have a lot of great content lined up for you guys for this year. And we are about a little more halfway through with our first season and the way that I'm measuring the seasons and you guys will see this now when you look at The episodes and your on your streaming apps is that for one year, that'll be one season. So I have the opportunity of putting 5252 episodes out for that season. I think we're gonna have 51 episodes this season. So, you know, we're getting a little bit past our halfway mark for the season. Very exciting. A lot of support from the community. We just heard last week, John Young from 95, three KYC was hon. John and I had a really good episode, if you didn't get a chance to listen to that one, please take a listen to it. It was actually probably right. As of right now, that was probably one of my top favorite episodes to record, just from a personal standpoint, being able to work with John and KYC radio, when I was in the midst of my addiction, and now getting a chance to work with him again, so a lot of exciting stuff going on. Also, if you don't know I am a certified alcohol and drug counselor. I work as a clinical supervisor for a company called the House of x in Vallejo, California. And I got into the addiction field because I wanted to help people. And I had this calling that was inside of inside of me and a lot of people experienced this calling when they first get sober. I can't tell you how many people that I treat that say, Oh man, I want to be an addictions counselor, just like you are I want to go through and I want to do that just like you did. And what we're finding is that, you know, a lot of people will set forth and do this, but there's often not a lot of follow through. And it's sad to say that, but it is true. You know, I don't like to sugarcoat things for you guys and say, Oh, it's all gonna be better. And then everything else no recovery is one of the hardest things that I've had to work on in my life. And I've seen others working on their recovery. And it has also been just as hard. So that's why I want to do an episode like I'm doing today we're going to be talking about a recovery checklist. And the information that I'm getting from is Sam SMA. And I always mispronounce that one at Sam SMA. I don't know how to pronounce it. But they are the substance abuse conglomerate of the government. And they put out a ton of publications. And one of the publications we use in our treatment centers is called the matrix. It is for outpatient treatment. And so we're going to be talking a little bit about that. One of the things that I did want to mention to you like I said, I'm a substance abuse counselor, I am now a certified substance abuse counselor. And you might think to yourself, well, Carl, what does a certified Substance Abuse Counselor mean? Versus i a non certified substance abuse counselor? Well, what it means is that I have gone through and done 37 semester units at Woodland Community College. And there's other colleges out there that people can go to there's the private pay colleges, like your online colleges and things like that. Then you also have your community colleges like I did, and you have different routes you can go, I chose to do the certificate route, because I wanted to get into the field and work in the field sooner rather than later. So that was a route I took, I have not done my general education yet. And that's something that I'm working on right now. So as a substance abuse counselor, you can start working in the field. There are different certifying boards and agencies out there that will allow you to get a general registration. And with that general registration, they have some stipulations. They say that you have to be enrolled in school, or you have to be doing an internship or you've already completed your school an internship, and you're working on your hours. So what this does is it allows people that are working in the treatment industry or the treatment field to start their career paths. And with this career path, now we can start to see, okay, how do I get my certification? And what does that mean to me? So, when we look at the different facets of the Career Counselor, the registration portion is the first one that people are going to do. You have to complete a certain amount of credits at school, you have to complete I think it's 320 hours of an internship. And then you on top of that you have to have a total of 3000 hours of clinical experience. And this is a highly documented process, you know, so when I started my documentation, it took about six months to get all the documentation cleared and approved and everything else and then you are now allowed To take an exam, the exam that I took was through a company called IC and RC, which is the International accrediting and reciprocity company. And they offer a testing packet that you can also have attached to your credential at the end, saying that you are now able to work internationally. So I see NRC as one of the biggest tests that you can take for this field. And it is recognized that if you complete a certain amount of hours after you test now we can have the international attachment put onto your credentials. So recently, the past couple weeks ago, I did take my exam, there was a lot of things that happened in between the time that I completed my packet, to the time that I was going to take my first exam. And one of the things that did happen to me, unfortunately, was that I can track to COVID. And I can track to COVID, on the day that I was supposed to go in and test. So you know, there was a lot of steps that I had to take to get the exam rescheduled to get everything approved by the certifying board and by the testing company, and then by IC and RC. But everything got taken care of, you know, there were some letters that had to be written, explaining the situation, but you know, everything was approved, so I was allowed to go and take my test. And great news guys, I passed my test this is well, you know, this is checking off. One of those boxes that I've set for myself when I came into recovery is that I wanted to become a certified alcohol and drug counselor. Now I'm very pleased to say that I am able to call myself one of those versus a registered alcohol and drug technician who is working on their hours to get into the counseling profession. Now I was working as a counselor during that time, I carried a caseload. I saw clients, I wrote treatment plans, I assisted with understanding the diagnosis that would come down from other professionals. As a counselor, we are not able to diagnose that is not part of our job description. We do not diagnose, what we can do is we can do assessments. And then we send all those assessments over to another person, usually an L PHA, or a physician or a psychologist or psychiatrist. And then they are able to make the diagnosis of whether or not that person has a substance use disorder, and what that substance use disorder looks like. And the severity of the substance use disorder. There are a lot of different substance use disorders out there that we deal with on a daily basis. It's not just that you have a substance use disorder. And then there's also different severities, mild, moderate and severe. And depending on how many boxes you check off on the person that is doing the assessment, you know, they say, Okay, have you experienced this within a 12 month period? Have you experienced this within the 12 month period. And depending on how many things that they check off when they're going through the assessment with them, it can raise or lower the severity of the substance use disorder. Or they might not even have a substance use disorder. They might be a casual person that does alcohol or drugs. And in that case, what do we do with them. So there's a lot of different facets to the counseling and clinical world of substance use treatment substance disorder treatment. And so I wanted to kind of give you guys an idea of what it is that, you know, if you know that somebody has gone into rehab, or maybe you've gone into rehab yourself, there's a lot of different things we have to take into consideration during that person to stay in treatment. Not only are we treating them for substance use disorder, but we're also getting them ready to go back out and be a productive member of the community. So one of the things I really work with my clients with is a recovery checklist. So you're probably thinking to yourself, well, what could a recovery checklist mean? So think about that. What does a checklist mean to you? When you think about a list, what is a list mean? What a list means that we are going to be writing something down, or we have something that's already written down for us to remind us of things that we need to do or goals that we need to accomplish. So a recovery checklist is just that it is a written list of things we need to accomplish or goals that we want to accomplish or remind know that, hey, maybe we need to go see a doctor every six months. Or maybe we need to see a physician once a year, if your health is good. Most people coming into recovery, though, they have shied away from seeing physicians, I didn't see my physician for the longest time. And the reason for that was that I was scared. I was scared of what they might tell me. Or I was scared that they might find out that I was using drugs. Because I didn't want to stop using drugs at that point. My fear was that, you know, there were going to be ramifications. Or they were going to tell me I had to stop. And then we're going to say, Well, you got to go to treatment. For myself, going to the doctor was a scary thought. I only went to the doctor, if I thought I was either, you know, in a life threatening situation. And towards the end of my addiction, there were a lot of life threatening situations out there for me, I had pneumonia, and then I got congestive heart failure. And it wasn't until the doctor told me that Hey, dude, you got to get your ass to the hospital, or we're gonna take you to the hospital. That kind of put it into perspective. But if you've heard on other episodes that you've heard me talk about this, you know, this was an answer to my prayer. Because up to that point, I had been asking God a very one sided relationship, how do I stop using? How can I stop using and so this was what I feel, are my relationship with God now? This is what I feel his response was, and his answer to me was, go to the hospital. And I was telling my boss said this the other day, and I told him, I said, you know, when I got into that hospital bed, man, it was like, I knew I had to be honest, for once in my life, I had to start telling the truth about my addiction. Because, you know, it just, I was tired of running from it. I was tired of hiding, I was tired of, of doing all these things that just were, you know, so fucked up. And the the masks, I've talked about the masks, before I spoke at a meeting, I talked about all of these masks that I had to wear, because I was trying to conform to different populations that I was putting myself into, and different people that I was associating myself with, and the masks have to go. So the first thing on my recovery checklist, guys is going to be self care. What are we doing today for ourselves? If you guys have a pen and paper, please write these things down. I'm going to try to put them in the show notes, the show notes are a little bit limited on how much space I have in there. But I'll do some bullet points in there for you guys. So that you have you know, these things, if you want to write them down, that would be great. There are also other downloads you can find out on the internet, you know, you can type in a recovery checklist. And I'm sure a lot of stuff will come up that you could download. But if you're like me, I like to have something tangible in my hand. You know, I make a lot of lists and everything else on my iPhone, I have a lot of things on there that I do. Because I'm more inclined to actually do a checklist if it's on a piece of paper. And maybe that's, you know, I'm giving my age away a little bit. And that's just how I was raised, you know, before computers and all of this technology that it's here to assist us. And I try to use that technology to the best of my ability. But a lot of times I find comfort in being able to write something down, and the comfort in actually putting a check next to something when I when I do it. So let's talk a little bit about self care. What does self care look like to you? What does it look like? How are you improving on yourself? For me, self care means something that I'm trying to do, either on a daily basis, on a weekly basis, on a monthly basis, every six months, maybe every year. So what are we doing for self care? And why is self care so important for people in recovery, people with mental health issues, and just people in general? Why is it so important? Well, I'm going to tell you why it's important. It is important because we need to be able to relax, we need to be able to know that we have these outlets other than using Other than falling into an addiction, and I'm not just talking about a chemical addiction, we could have a food addiction, we could have a porn addiction, we could have a shopping addiction, we could have a sex addiction, we could have a gambling addiction, it's not just a substance use addiction. There are so many other addictions out there. And our world is just fostering these addictions because everything is so readily available for us. So self care for me, and these are some of the notes that I wrote down on the show notes was go to your doctor on a regular basis, start having that conversation with them. Having a better understanding about your health in your medical history. Go in and have bloodwork done. Check for STDs, you know, have all of your your blood workups done. And when you go and see that doctor, be honest and tell them Hey, Doc, dude, I haven't seen a doctor in this amount of time. And I'm really scared because I haven't had blood work done in so long. I guarantee you that doctor is gonna say great, we're going to do every possible test we can. Depending on your age, you might have some more tests done, versus maybe somebody that's older, younger, but it's okay. So check up with your doctor. And before you leave that appointment, talk to them about scheduling your next checkup. When does that need to be and see if you can get it on the books before you leave that doctor's office and then put it in your scheduling book or your phone or wherever you keep your schedule. Keep a schedule, it is so important, especially if you're in early recovery. It is so important to keep a schedule and to learn that time management skill. Let a lot of us lack because we just didn't take the time no pun intended to care about being on time. My theory was and my addiction. Shit, man. I'm always on time. All of you people are either late or early. And that's your fault. So starting with healthy habits. The next one I want to talk about is eating healthy. This was a big one for me, man. Like I oh my god, I used to eat the worst things. Dude, I used to eat. Oh my goodness, I used to eat ice cream, like a huge bowl of ice cream. It's so good to man. I can just I can taste it today. And I used to put like the biggest scoop of peanut butter in the bottom of the bowl. And then I would stack ice cream on top of that peanut butter. And then I put chocolate sauce. And if I was really feeling, you know bougie I would put peanut m&ms on that pitch. Yes, I would. Pan It was so good too. Damn it. But is that healthy? Eating my feelings away eating ice cream because I wanted to try to go to sleep because I was high. That's not healthy, and the amounts that I was eating too. And it was just awful. So eating healthy. Talk to your doctor, taking it back to the doctor, talk to them about a diet, talk to them about your eating habits, see if they can give you a referral. And this is where the medical system works, right? If your doctor can't answer the questions for you, they do what is called a referral. See if he can get a referral over to somebody, a nutritionist or a life coach. See if as part of your coverage with your medical care plan. Even if you're on medical, Obamacare, Medicaid, or state disability insurance, see what is out there for you to utilize. You guys are paying for it or we're paying for it for you. But use those services. It's so important. So eating healthy learning about nutrition, learning how to read a nutritional label on the back of a product making healthy choices. The next thing I want to talk about is hobbies. Oh my gosh, hobbies hobbies are so good to have one of my hobbies right now. Believe it or not is podcasting. I mean, you guys listen to my episodes once a week and and you know I I hope that I would like to think and I've been told by others that I put out very professional content And it always makes me smile when I hear people are learning and getting things from these episodes that that I put out for the drunken worm podcast. But find a hobby. One of my other hobbies is taking photography, you know, I take pictures. And I love that. And I got into a photography club. And what we would do is we would go around and we would enter contest local contests. Like here in Solano County, we have the Dixon Mayfair, and they have a huge photography contest. I've learned that like three or four times, man, and I've won a lot in that, you know, so find a hobby that you like to do photography, I also love scuba diving, you know. But the problem with hobbies, though, sometimes is that they cost money. So if you're thinking about a hobby that you like to do, and you don't have a lot of money, because maybe you're an early recovery, and you're like, Fuck, man, I just got out of rehab. But I want to get into something. Well, why don't you combine two things, our next one's going to be exercise. So let's say that you like exercise, and you want to have a hobby, well maybe take up hiking or take up was that Gio? Oh, it's a new hobby? Well, I don't think it's really new. But you can get this app on your phone and I have it on my phone. In fact, I'm looking for right now as we go through this. And I'm going off the notes, guys. This is not on my show notes. So I'm going to be talking while I talk about this and and look for it. But it's it's called geo mapping or what is this called, I don't even have my glasses on Holy crap. This is so basically it's like a treasure hunt. And it is called geo caches, geo caches. And the geocache is like a little treasure hunt that you do. And you have to get out aside and you have to walk around and you follow a map and follow clues and you try to find a little treasure. I'll be honest with you, I downloaded the app, I haven't used it yet. But I have a lot of other hobbies. And I was like, Oh, that'd be fun to do sometime. And I haven't done it. But you know, that could be something that you might want to get into geocaching, and the app was free. And they have a ton of these things out there. I mean, I was just looking at my area, and I'm like, holy shit. I mean, if there's money involved in here, I could be a millionaire. There's so many of these. So hobbies or something else that we can do. Okay. And again, we're talking about self care here, guys, we're talking about ways to take care of ourselves. Let's shift topics a little bit. And let's talk about us. Let's talk about our thoughts, our feelings, our behaviors. Why are those important? Why is it important for me to understand my thoughts? Why is it important for me to understand my feelings? And why is it important for me to understand how those two things are linked to my behaviors? So when you think about your thoughts, feelings and behaviors, because those three items are so linked together what do you what it what is comes up for you? My behaviors now. And I just cost us today. I love food. And I caught my thoughts and feelings before it turned into a behavior. And, you know, there there was there was a little medical scare in my family. Just very briefly, everybody is okay. Nobody needs to worry. Everyone's home. We're all fine. But I had to take a family member over to the ER. And when I got back, I was hungry. But I had already eaten breakfast. So I had to analyze that. And I had to say, You know what? Am I really hungry? or is this some like what's going on? So when we think about our thoughts, feelings and behaviors, we need to talk about them with people. We need to talk about why is it making us feel this way? Why are we having these behaviors? And how can we change our behaviors? Because we are all we are all going to have reaction to our thoughts and our feelings. But it's how we act out on those thoughts and feelings. That is either going to be a positive or a negative For a lot of us who suffer from addiction, and other mental health disorders, a lot of times that behavior usually comes with a negative consequence. And that negative consequences and always something that will happen to us right away. But down the road, we're going to experience that negative consequence. So what can we do? We can talk to professionals. If you're in treatment, right now, you can talk to a treatment professional, maybe your counselor, maybe you can talk to other people in the group. But what can we do? Talk to our family and our friends. One of the things that I stayed away from though, and I'll let you guys know this, when I came into early recovery, I stayed away from telling my mom and my dad, when I would have a trigger, and I did this, because I was really afraid that they would like I would lose ground with them. But when I finally got to the point where I could share this trigger with them, it was so easy to tell them, because my behaviors, were showing them that I wasn't slipping up my behaviors, or showing them that I was able to communicate effectively with them, tell them how I was feeling, tell them what I was thinking. And then tell them what I was doing to change my behavior, because my old behavior was to go use right or to go eat ice cream, or to go on this unhealthy rampage of making cheese sandwiches in the microwave. They're so good. But my behaviors were directing me in a positive manner. And the way that I dealt with them, because I had the support group around me to talk about my feelings and my thoughts and my behaviors, by going to meetings by talking to my sponsor, by talking to my sponsee, brothers and sisters, you know, and doing all of these things, and talking to the people in my rehab and talking to the people in my support groups, talking to the people at school because I was going to school, right? So I had this huge support group. And it was changing my behaviors for a positive outcome. So if you're thinking about how can I bring up my thoughts and feelings and behaviors, start with people that maybe you can identify with, start with a support group outside of your family, if you feel that maybe your family is going to freak out, because you just had a trigger, and they're getting the car out of the garage, and they're like, holy shit, we got to take you back to rehab. Know. We can make a change for ourselves. But we have to have that trust in other people. And we have to be able to talk to other people in a positive meaningful manner. And a lot of times we can find refuge in people that we can have relations with not personal intimate relations, but with that we can relate to right. So find that person or that group that you feel comfortable talking to. Alright, the next thing I want to talk about is a support group of some sort. I'm a 12, stepper. I have a sponsor, I have two sponsees. I go to meetings on a regular basis. I work a program of recovery, I do service work, and I work out of my step working guides. So that's what I'm doing with my recovery community. But there's other communities out there. Say maybe you have a community or you have this idea that man, I don't really like the concept of God, I'm uncomfortable with that. There are other groups out there where you can work a program of recovery without the idea of God or having God or a higher power or prayer put into the whole picture. There's other groups out there other than 12 Step groups and do some research. But having that community outside of your family and outside of your rehab group is going to be so important, because rehab is going to end right it's not a final destination. This is merely a stop along the way of your journey. It is merely a stop. And sometimes we have to get back on that bus and take that journey again. And that's okay. Maybe you've done the rehab journey 3456 789 10 I don't know how many times, but it's okay, if that's happened. Because that bus is always going to be there for you, if you choose to get on it. And every time you do, it gets a little bit easier to make that bus trip, it gets a little bit easier to make those stops along the way of your journey of recovery. The last thing I want to talk about is people places and things. Wow, these are so important to identify Danger, danger and danger. Right? I mean, think about it. Like, I mean, how many times have you heard the person at the meeting? Talk about or maybe you've done this yourself? Because I fucking done it. Maybe you've gone in, you've like, Hey, man, how are you doing? You know, seeing somebody online or wanting to go over to your buddy's house who used to use with, and now you're sober. And you're like, Man, I'm feeling really good. And you go over to their house. And then the next thing you know, the drugs are out and you're like, Oh, should I go decision to make I wasn't prepared for this. I wasn't ready for this. So we have to evaluate in early recovery. When we come into a situation. Who are we associating ourselves with? Where are we going when we're sober? What are the things that we're doing when we're sober? My whole thing when I got sober, was that I wanted to have like a buddy with me at all times if I went out. And that was great. I had my my friend from the program. And he and I used to go everywhere, man. And that really showed me how to live a life of sobriety, how to live a life where I didn't have the urge to use anymore. And I get urges every once in a while. I mean, I'm not gonna lie, they don't really go away, at least not for me right now. Every once in a while, but again, we're going back to the behaviors are going back to how we reacted to those urges. And those feelings now it's just like, they pass man. It's like it's in and it's out. Now I look at it, I'm like, Whoa, shit. That was Dallas. Like, it might be fun. No, thank you, right? All of these different things that we have. And we have the ability to evaluate who we're around the places we go in the things that we're doing. So make that evaluation for yourself. Write down a list of all the friends that you know, all the places you want to go and hang out and all the things you want to do with those people. And then take that to somebody you trust and have them go over that list with you. And I guarantee you, probably a few people on that list are going to be questionable. And that might be hard because I've heard other clients that have come in and they say, Oh man, my brother still uses my love them so much. I want to be able to see him at family events and stuff like that. And it's really hard as a counselor to sit across to somebody and use motivational interviewing and watching them go through this process where now they're realizing that they have to cut ties with that person until that person can be safe to be around them. Not the other way around. But that person can be safe to be around the person that is considering going and hanging out with somebody that's still using our stolen active addiction. Or maybe somebody that shares codependent traits. codependency is a huge one. I mean, so many addicts you know, are codependent on other people. And it's really sad because they don't even know that they're codependent. So guys, this episode, I wanted to give the update, I wanted to talk about the recovery checklist. I hope that you've gotten something from this. I like sharing these little tidbits. And I like doing this type of thing with you guys every once in a while. You know, like I said, you know, we've got a lot of great content coming up for you. Over the next few months. I'm booked all the way up to my 47th episode. And this is episode 32. Solid you guys do the math. I'm not a math major. Otherwise I would throw a number out at you. But again, I want to thank everybody for listening and I hope that you guys have enjoyed it. And I look forward to talking to you guys next week.