Friendship Red Flags: Training The Nervous System to Choose Calm Over Chaos with Dr. Sam

Ever notice how chaos can feel weirdly like home? I open up about seventeen years of sobriety and the unexpected truth beneath it: I wasn’t just addicted to substances—I was addicted to safety. That craving started in childhood, where asking a simple question risked love and silence bought me proximity. Those early lessons built a blueprint for codependency that followed me into adulthood, where intensity masqueraded as intimacy and breadcrumbs passed for connection.

I break down how old survival strategies show up in modern friendships—overgiving, oversharing, ignoring red flags—and why our nervous systems cling to what’s familiar even when it hurts. Then we dig into two anchors that changed everything: focus on repair over rupture when both people meet you halfway, and honor the boundary that says what cannot be repaired must be mourned. Grief becomes an act of protection, not defeat, and a path back to a self we abandoned to stay safe.

Across this conversation, I share how staying awake in hard seasons turns pain into a growth spurt, how re-parenting teaches the body a new baseline of calm, and why choosing yourself is the most reliable source of safety you’ll ever find. If you’ve ever chased validation, confused intensity for love, or kept negotiating with your worth, this one will feel like a mirror and a map. Subscribe, share with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help others find the show. And if you want support applying this work to your life, tap the link in the show notes to book a free discovery call.

To book your FREE discovery call with Dr. Sam, click the link below:

https://calendly.com/drharte/free-discovery-call-w-dr-harte

Chapters

• 0:00 A Solo Share On Safety
• 0:21 From Control To Safety
• 1:16 The First Rupture At Home
• 3:25 Learning To Shape Shift
• 4:36 Recovery Uncovers Deeper Layers
• 5:02 Adult Patterns Of Overgiving
• 6:01 Chasing Chaos And Breadcrumbs
• 7:44 Repair Versus Rupture
• 8:43 What Cannot Be Repaired Must Be Mourned
• 10:30 Grieving Childhood Wounds
• 11:42 Staying Awake In The Season
• 12:15 Choose Yourself And Keep Going
• 13:24 Invitation To Connect

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:09

Welcome back, everybody, to the truth about addiction. It is a solo episode, just me and you today, and I'm gonna share what's on my heart. I think most of you know that I've been in recovery, sober from drugs and alcohol for a very long time. Actually, in February, I will have 17 years, which is nothing short of a miracle. And I used to start my shares in the 12 step rooms by saying my drug of choice is actually control. But I feel differently. All these years later, I would say, first of all, my drug of choice is safety. And for a really long time, drugs and alcohol gave that to me. They were the solution to the problem. The problem was that I wasn't safe being myself. What was I actually addicted to? What was the very first thing that became reinforced in my life where I was escaping myself? Codependency. I probably was four or five years old, was confronting my mom, who, of course, at the time I didn't know any of this, was mentally ill and self-medicating. And I looked at her and said, Why do you have to take those pills every night? Because she would be a certain way during the day, and then she would take these pills at night, and it was like her eyes glazed over, like someone had blown the light out behind them. She would eat more in that period of time than I had seen her eat all day, and she was like a living ghost. It scared me. And she looked back at me and said, Do you like the things that you have? To which I just said Yes. She said, Well, in order for me to get you the things that you have, I have to make money. And I can't make money unless I work. And in order for me to work, I have to sleep. These pills help me sleep. And that was the end of the conversation. What does that have to do with codependency? Well, my mother was the matriarch. She was where I got what I needed in my house growing up. I love my dad, but he was emotionally pretty absent. And they were really unhappily married, and so whatever my mother said was what happened in that house. So what I learned in that moment is that when I speak up on behalf of my most authentic self, and I ask something out of concern, well, I lose proximity to my mother. To my mother's love. And I needed that love because it was all that was going to keep me safe. Because my dad wasn't exactly accessible. So I had a split at that very young age of four or five from myself. And I learned to become whatever mom needed me to become. If it was the version of me that stopped asking hard questions, then I would become that. If mom was really sad, then I would do whatever I could to make her happy. If mom was really angry, well, then I had better be more perfect and more pretty, and maybe she'd feel a little bit better. Why do I bring this up? Well, when you get into recovery and you actually put the substances down, that is when you start uncovering all the layers that are below the surface. It's taken me all this time to get to that layer. And it's also taken me all this time to be ready to heal it. So here's the way it shows up as a grown woman who has decades of personal development tools and therapy behind her. The friend is really smart, spicy, high energy, funny, and I want in and I want all the way in. I want them to see me and know me and love me and never leave me. So I over-give and I overshare. And even as I see warning signs, and even though the high of the friendship is matched with an equal and opposite low, I continue to stay because my nervous system recognizes chaos. My mom was bipolar, she was either all the way up or all the way down. And I figured out how to shape shift and stay inside of that container and keep her loving me. So I could surely do that with you too, right? And what ends up happening is I accept breadcrumbs. And then of course I get angry, and there's usually a big fallout, and none of the things that I've said or done, and all the time we've been friends actually really matter to that other person. And often they have an easier time moving on than I do. Now, fortunately, I'm healing from this pattern, but I've only been healing from it in the last couple of years. And God continues to give me spiritual tests. Sometimes the tests are in the form of humans who come back in with the same presentation, and I become delusional again, and I stay in something that is not reciprocal and that is not actually safe. But I stay because it's so fun in the beginning. I stay because I now know it feels like I can repair something from my childhood, some kind of need that didn't get met. And when I strung these two powerful things I heard on them together, when I strung them together, it was like a light bulb went on. And then when I was ready to heal, I infused the things I heard into my life. And I tried to live by them so I could heal. The first part was it's not about the rupture, it's about the repair. I had a ton of ruptures as a kid. And I believe there is so much value with the people that you love who are willing to meet you halfway, who want to do the work on themselves and take personal accountability, to try to repair a rupture when and where you can, and see if there is a new and more mature way to move forward with that person. If it's not reciprocal, though, that's different. And that leads me to the second thing I heard, which is that which cannot be repaired must be mourned. I'm gonna say that again. Were just an attempt to repair these childhood wounds. These ruptures with my mother. Like mom did. Like my sister eventually did when she died. But I can't repair those things. I can't go back in time as much as I wish I could. I can't go back and make my mother mentally stable. I can't go back and make my sister less addicted. All I can do is grieve and give young Sam the love and safety that she so desperately needed. That's what I can do. And I can stop trying to chase down that validation from you. This is really hard work. That's why so many people don't do it. It's scary. But you also can't see what you can't see. And in the time I've been sober, there have been a lot of spiritual derailments, big huge things that have happened that have just knocked the wind out of me. Healing codependency wasn't even in the purview. I had no desire to become conscious of this part of my life and all the work it required. Because there were too many other things in front of it. So whatever season you're in, be in it. But try to stay awake during this season. Try not to go unconscious. You can, but it's only temporary. And the work is gonna be there when you wake back up, and usually it's pain that wakes us back up. So if you can just stay with yourself right now, in whatever the season is of healing that you're in, and look at the really hard thing as a massive growth spurt. That if you could learn as much as you can from the pain, there is a whole audience of people you can help and serve. There's real healing that takes place, there is real love and joy on the other side of it, even though it feels impossible. The only ask is to try to stay with yourself because the reason we're usually in these positions in the first place is because we've left ourselves behind. So if you could just stop leaving yourself behind. I promise you're gonna be okay. I promise you're gonna be okay. And as always, I am here. I am not just a podcast host, I'm a speaker, an author, a coach, a trauma-informed physical therapist. I treat people all over the world, and I have a link in the show notes for a free discovery call. So if you want to connect more deeply, just click the link, schedule a call with me. I'm here. I love you. And I hope you have the best day ever. I'll talk to you guys soon.