The Recovery Playbook: Conversations about Addiction & Recovery

What's Good or Bad About Recovery

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In this episode of The Recovery Playbook, Daryl Shorter, MD, and Ryan Leaf, Menninger’s Ambassador in Recovery, address both the pros and cons of recovery treatment.

Dr. Shorter shares an experience of asking a patient what they thought about going into recovery, while Leaf admits that one big “con” is “… that everyone knows. The fear of someone knowing you have a problem is worse than the fear of getting the help you need.”

For Leaf, one fear about recovery was being made fun of or ostracized. He also had concerns about having a social life, since so much of Americans’ social lives involves drinking, whether at restaurants or bars. This made him concerned about finding a partner, as many of the places where you typically meet people would be off limits.

For Dr. Shorter, addressing an addict’s fears about recovery is an important part of treatment. Without such a discussion, there’s no opportunity to help an addict learn to manage those fears.

Dr. Shorter highlights two good things specifically related to Leaf’s recovery: the ability to be of service to others and the capacity to experience self-acceptance. According to Dr. Shorter, radical change is possible for everyone.

“There are no negatives in recovery,” says Leaf.

Follow The Menninger Clinic on Twitter, Facebook, Instagram and LinkedIn to stay up to date on new Recovery Playbook episodes with Ryan Leaf and Daryl Shorter, M.D. To submit a topic for discussion, email podcast@menninger.edu. If you are a new or regular listener, please leave us a review on your favorite listening platform!

Visit www.menningerclinic.org to learn more about The Menninger Clinic’s research and leadership role in mental health.

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

Hey there, welcome to the recovery playbook brought to you by the Menninger Clinic, a national leader in mental health and addictions treatment. We're your hosts, Dr. Darrell shorter. And

Ryan Leaf:

I'm Ryan leaf. Our goal is to elevate conversation about substance use and addictions for anyone who may be impacted, including family members,

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

our episodes will share real issues and the latest treatment and matters of interest to the recovery community. What's today's playbook topic, Ryan?

Ryan Leaf:

Today's topic is what's good and what's bad about recovery? Or is there really a bad?

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

I was, we were talking before about this idea that there might be something quote unquote negative about going in and into recovery out. I'd read this in a book when I was still in training and how important it is to when you're working with someone, patient and family, to talk about to at least acknowledge that for some people, the idea of entering recovery can be scary or undesirable. So I asked this patient, once I say like, Hey, what do you think are sort of the downsides about going into recovery? And a patient says to me, you know, Doctor, the first person that ever asked me that, and what I didn't tell him was that he was the first person I'd ever asked that question to a but what it allowed was an opportunity for us to really explore his deepest fears and biggest concerns about entering recovery.

Ryan Leaf:

Well, I think the biggest fear always is that somebody knows hmm. And that's the stigma again, right? The fear of someone knowing you have a problem is worse than getting the help that you need, or getting into recovery. Also, you fear the social aspect of things a lot of the time now my drug use was not social, like I was a, I was Gollum. Right. My drug of choice was my precious, and no one else got to see it, or have it? That's a lot. A lot of times that's what opioid addicts do. Some are able to go get high, go play basketball, and do think it's crazy to me. Yeah. But it was my little precious. So the fear of not being included, you know, because in our culture in our world we live in it's Brazil revolves directly around alcohol bars, clubs. It's how you meet people, the idea that you'll never meet a partner, possibly, because you are not in the places in which those frequent when you set up blind dates, and things like that, where are they usually set up in restaurants or bars and grills and things like that. So it's institution, therefore, you believe that will be a negative for you. Like, for me, I took pills all the time, when I would go see movies, it was, I was alone in the dark. I'd go see, I remember, I think I went saw the Dark Knight, like 15 times in the theater I and, and, and, you know, pop those pills. And so one of my biggest fears was like, I love movies, I love that. I'm not gonna be able to go see them. Yeah, anymore. Because I've always been high and to think back like you weren't high when you were in high school and college and, and so I went to my first one with a group when I was in treatment. And it was be the first time I'd seen a film sober in some time. And I learned pretty quickly, like, I can still enjoy it. And so these are experimental things that have to come with it. But that is a great thing that you'll be able to utilize now with patients to simply say, hey, what do you think the negative parts are the have been in recovery are ultimately going

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

to be in it because it's interesting, if you don't bring it into the room or into the conversation, those fears are still lingering. And you don't get an opportunity to talk through like, well, this is how we might manage something like this. This is how we might help you get through something like this. And

Ryan Leaf:

for me, it tends to be very superficial. I think that's the best way to put it in terms of a negative experience of recovery. What you're going to experience and I'm sorry to say that this is the case, because of stigma. The day after I got out of prison, I was so fearful of what was going to happen. Where I was going to go. Did I have any hope? I wake up the morning after at my parents house as a 36 year old with no money and no hope nothing. And in my eyes in my mind, I thought and sure enough, I sit down at the breakfast table where your mother's making you breakfast. I was a millionaire at 21 I had multiple homes, I was successful. I was an NFL player. Now I'm sitting at mom and dad's breakfast table while she's cooking me breakfast doesn't do a lot for your ego. And then I opened the paper, my hometown newspaper, and there's a cartoon that said Ryan leafs out, lock up your medicine cabinets. And so, immediately my mindset goes to okay, this is this is my future. This is my future in recovery. I'm going to be ostracized I'm going to be made fun of I'm going to be He, you know, portrayed as this, that and the other, you know, as a character,

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

how did you get through that moment?

Ryan Leaf:

I still it's I mean, I can tell it still haunts me because I still think about it right? I dealt with it through my recovery with my sponsor when the resentment piece of things, okay, you know, I've forgiven them. Also my mom who's, you know, incredibly a badass, she, she went down there, I'm 36 years old, she goes down to the editor makes them and I don't reason the right at next couple of days, there's a retraction and apology written in the paper. My mother will, as she's told us, plenty of times, she will die for her kids. She also probably doesn't fully understand that she probably is a big reason why we're fucked up a little bit too. So it but still she's willing their time, you know, to care for us and, and, and do anything for us. So that helped. I knew that somebody had my back. Yeah. But then I started making it about other people. And when you start making it about other people, your life gets better. And that's the strangest thing and all this as a narcissist, I only thought the way my life could get better is if it was about me. And so that was a shift. That was the change. That's how I addressed it. And then there in doing that comes in acceptance. Yeah. Like, I'm the guy I see in the mirror, who people want to make fun of or belittle. I like that guy. I like who he's become. And, you know, what you're ultimately saying, I believe, is probably a projection on on your feelings. And mainly, I think it's because of, of the disease that I have, and then how they feel I've screwed up, that I've now found this piece, and they don't like that. So

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

what's so cool about your story is that one of the greatest positives of recovery that happened for you was this greater acceptance of yourself, and then this ability to be of service to other people.

Ryan Leaf:

So are you if you're putting a list of like positives versus negatives, you know, the superficiality of what I said to you around the negative part is all about perception and stigma and judgment. Were the positives. I mean, we spend our time in between these shows talking about I got a, I got a little girl coming in here in about six weeks, you know, I have a son, we have unbelievable family and home. And in the work I get to do, I mean, if you if I can't be the perfect example of what positives and recovery can look like, I don't know where there is. And if I can do this, anybody can write I'm not smarter than anybody. I'm not more personable, I don't communicate better. I've these are learned, these are accepted. And I a ton of people come up to me and tell me how inspirational is because it must have been so much harder to do this in the public eye. And I don't I don't necessarily agree with that. I think I think what it was it was easier because because I was in the public eye, there was consequences. Immediately. There are so many individuals like me out there that are doing this in the shadows. Yeah. And they're gone. I

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

think one of the reasons and because people will sort of ask me, Well, why do you work in the addictions field? Like, what's that about? And I say, well, it's really because of people like you, who have taught me so much about like, how we can pivot and make changes and like not just small changes, but really radical changes in our lives as a result of confronting some some really hard truths about ourselves, but also by working with other people and recognizing that really, none of us do this alone this thing called life. None of us do this alone.

Ryan Leaf:

And that's a huge lesson you learn. For the longest time, I think I felt like the success I had the the fact that I got to the NFL and I became so successful early, was something I kind of did on my own. And, and then after the fact that all of this, when I got sober, and I've got this life, it's very important for people to understand. You know, when they talk about what kind of lives we're saving, or I'm saving, I'm like, I'm here because of a lot of people, right? I've been picked up over the last 10 years and carried through this process. And I walk into a room now and I don't think I'm the smartest one. I want to be educated I want to learn I want as much life experience as I can get because of my recovery. And so if you believe this is propaganda around positive recovery, it's not it's it's simply just the truth. What the propaganda usually is, is around the negative aspects of what recovery becomes, because it doesn't, in fact that the friends you do lose in recovery are the ones you you you don't need anyone and they're usually the enablers are ones that are going to try to bring you down the ones who will unconditionally care about you We are the ones that wants you to see you safe, living a peaceful and chaotic life. And that's there isn't a thing that I can can talk about where there's a negative in recovery.

Dr. Daryl Shorter:

And the funny thing is, if we think about it, we're all in recovery from something. Thanks for joining us. We'll see you next time.

Ryan Leaf:

Alright, so that's it for today.