Season 2
Growth
Perspective and Perseverance
Reality
Stress
Season 1
Creativity
Anger
Trust the Mystery
Mediocrity
Toxicity
We are right in the middle of the holidays, and we chat about this with our guest Andrea of 38 years clean in today’s episode. She shares with us which foundational things she has continued to do since the beginning of her recovery such as attending meetings and building a support. She also shares some recent life changes that are in the mix. We discuss how recovery is a continuous process of growth, building on foundational pieces. In fact, many of these same principles have allowed us to get through tough times like holidays: leaning on support, accepting difficult feelings, and getting outside of self through service. One of the greatest gifts that we have found on our journeys is that the basic idea of sitting with others that share a common experience can ground us as we make changes that continue to improve our quality of life. We learn that we have choices today- we no longer have to wait until the box that we put ourselves in gets too close for comfort in order to make positive change. Tool References: Service (Toolkit 1), Raising the Bar (Toolkit 1) Getting Out of Your Comfort Zone (Toolkit 3)
Our guest today, Gil, is one spiritual gangster! He shares about his difficult experiences of handling the recent death of his best friend due to addiction, preparing to go to prison CLEAN, and rebuilding broken relationships with family. Gil shares about how he’s been working a program while on pretrial for years and now has to take a pause from every wonderful thing that he’s built in his recovery due to consequences of addiction. We discuss how many of us have also been on the other side- powerlessly watching loved ones struggle and sometimes die from their own addictions. Life doesn’t always unfold the way we want, but there is hope; all the hard work of recovery is not for nothing, and there’s nothing more powerful than listening and watching another person in recovery walk through it with gratitude, purpose, and a focus on helping others. Utilizing what’s been taught to us through working a recovery program- seeking out a grateful perspective, using communication skills even when it’s painful or awkward, getting outside of our own heads by being of service to others, having faith in something beyond our own abilities, and staying the course no matter what happens- these things aren’t easy but when we practice them, it can make a world of difference. Tool References: Loss (Toolkit 3), Editing the Story (Toolkit 3), Transformation (Toolkit 1)
It could be said that addiction, in essence, is having an inherent problem with reality and finding ways to escape it despite the cost. In this podcast, we chat with our guest Miranda about how our thinking constantly veers toward escape even in recovery, whether it is through fantasizing, avoiding, procrastinating, or planning means of self-sabotage. We review actions we’ve taken from seeking out values that have a beneficial impact, utilizing gratitude to shift perspective, and creating support despite our inherent struggles to connect. We find that when we deal with reality instead of escape it, we prove ourselves wrong- reality is mostly bad because we escape it. When we take positive action, receive input, and rely on each other, we start creating a reality worth living in. Tool References: Spirituality (Toolkit 2), Life in the Castle (Toolkit 3), Double Life (Toolkit 1)
Welcome back to the Life in Recovery podcast as we kick it off with Season 2! We brought back Nick F, with all his years of recovered wisdom to discuss stress. Nick talks about his stressors of new life changes, fear of success and the unknown. New things can be interesting and exciting yet also stressful since we aren’t sure what to expect. We discuss a theory that when the stressors are greater than our skill set for handling it, that’s when we act out in harmful ways, even in recovery. We share some skills we’ve found to be helpful for handling stress such as asking for advice, identifying our strengths, allowing for mistakes, evaluating the importance of tasks, and disregarding our first thoughts. We also feel that stress is handled better together, and with some laughs! See you there... Tool References: The Stress Mess, Stress Less (Toolkit 3)
Today we discuss creativity in addiction versus recovery and how it interacts with things like feeling depressed, down, worthless, etc. for us. Barriers to creativity that we identify in this episode are getting stuck in fantasy, needing outside validation, falling into procrastination, comparing ourselves to others, and seeking instant gratification. Through discussion we find that positive perception, confidence, motivation, hard work, and consistency are pivotal to being creative without a substance. Simple right? Not always! It's often easier said than done. We discuss the irony: creativity can be an antidote for feeling depressed but feeling depressed makes it hard to access creativity. For us, finding the motivation and confidence without the substance means setting small goals, taking one step at a time, and pointing out the successes along the way. We can let this consistent practice improve our motivation and confidence to use creativity to crawl ourselves out of the hole. Tool References: Super Powers (Toolkit 1), Persistence (Toolkit 1), One Degree (Toolkit 2)
In this episode, we begin to explore anger- where does it come from? what does it do for us? what happens when it becomes dysfunctional and how do we break free? We discuss how instantaneous anger feels and how that reactivity helps us to survive against external threats and regain control over our environment. Addiction, trauma, or any situation that requires constant survival often creates never-ending anger/stress- we're supposed to use the anger as a catalyst to seek safety but when that doesn't happen it eventually leads to a state of fatigue, hopelessness, and isolation, doesn't it? That energy is hard to maintain! If this is a pattern, it can get very discouraging, then we're left with the core issues of worthlessness, abandonment.... How do we break free? What if we look at when this pattern started? Did I learn to be angry from or because of someone I was around? Did it get my needs met? Was I invalidated and my needs unmet for a long time? When we're ready to change, we have to move away from survival mode- both changing our environment and dealing with our emotions through reflection. Support groups validate these core issues: we're met with love, and provided with solutions to healing the core issues that subconsciously drove our behavior. Does the work feel heavy at first? Hell yeah! It's painful to identify all the stuff that drove the anger- fear, loneliness, abandonment, etc. which was part of the reason that blaming the world often felt easier- Anger allowed us to avoid changing and accepting responsibility for our own lives. But when we do decide to face it and make necessary changes, we've found that the emotional intensity lowers, the work becomes more automatic, and we find freedom from old beliefs. Tool References: Needs, Function of Emotions, Dysfunction, The System Crashes, and Resetting the System (all Toolkit 3)
In this episode, our guest of over 44 years clean gives us a glimpse of what to expect in the long haul, the differences he's experienced throughout time, and how working a program progresses from simply achieving freedom from addiction to overall improvements of the human condition. We talk about how addiction is not being ok with what is- I need more, different, now....the grass appears greener on the other side until we get there- it's essentially an obsession with fantasy. When we stop using, some of that fantasy gets demolished, reality hurts and we look for ways to escape. But most of us come to the rooms as our last option- we've already tried to use successfully in tons of different ways and it led us here- where we are surrounded by a bunch of people who love us unconditionally, suggest new things, and reward us for doing the right thing. No matter how we feel, see, or hear things- if we can admit that we need to put trust in the mystery and love that a fellowship provides us- we can find relief from the extreme suffering that categorizes addiction- our guest puts it beautifully- addicts suffer the same problems as the rest of the human population, we just experience it in the extreme. The program offers us a way out of that if we can take the next action that's suggested with even the smallest kernel of hope. Recovery may not provide us with blasts of wonderfulness the same way that a substance did, but with time we build wonderful lives that we no longer have to destroy. Through discussion about the barriers and solutions of entering recovery to the daily living of long-term recovery, we arrive at a similar conclusion- no matter how complicated it gets- staying consistent to following what a 12-step program offers provides us with the solution time and time again. Tool References: Grass Is Always Greener (Toolkit 3), Do I Want to Feel Better or Be Better at Feeling? (Toolkit 1)
Our guest for today- Nick, has been clean for over two decades, so we start our session by asking him to drop some knowledge on us. One of Nick's gems is that "mediocrity is delicious." He expands on this due to our puzzled faces- after all we're addicts- we're special, no we're the worst, no you're the worst, we need stimulation, no validation...what is it? Nick breaks it down for us as simple practices that have enhanced his life and recovery. Staying in one's own lane, self-soothing, avoiding gossip, taking a pause before reacting, finding out more information, talking to experts, avoiding putting our whole lives on public display - this is the mediocrity- the deliciousness? Peace of mind, self-worth, balance, stability, healthy relationships. Join us today in wading through the difference between being self-seeking and selfishness and how simple actions can provide us with the ability to be...well, just be! Tool References: Editing the Story (Toolkit 3), Check Motivation Light (Toolkit 2), Practice of Gratitude (Toolkit 1)
Toxic patterns in relationships- romantic, family, or otherwise can cause immense pain even in recovery. In today's session, your hosts Elyse and Marc chat with friend Andrew about our experiences with this issue. We discuss how similar negative relationship patterns are to using substances- addiction to the roller coaster, chasing the euphoria, the relationship to self-worth, fear of change, fantasy thinking and misguided expectations... We explore what it looks like when we're in it, things that we've found helpful along the way, and how to navigate the journey with the help of a positive community that can show us a new relationship with love- for ourselves, and with each other. Tool References: The Frog and the Pot (Toolkit 1), Other Side of the Fence (Toolkit 2)
As usual, we start our conversation in one direction, land in another, then it all circles back! Today we explore some of the drivers of resentment like low self-worth, then question if self-esteem is necessary first to drive behavior change when behavior change seems to increase self-esteem and reduce things like resentment. Sound confusing and ironic? It is! Let's explore... We start our discussion today talking about resentment- what is it? Where does it come from? In general, we've found that it stems from a lack of resolution of an old issue...we discuss how easy it is to slip into resentment when we aren't practicing honesty and are driven by a lack of self-worth or fear of abandonment- it's so much easier to blame the world than it is to identify the work that WE need to do to break free from the misery. Living in resentment, people-pleasing, avoidance, self-sabotage, seeking toxic relationships, blaming...all these old behaviors keep us stuck in the stories we tell ourselves...we have to learn how to practice new principles to build self-esteem. The irony seems to be that doing estimable things is hard to do without self-esteem, however, we've found that this issue can be overridden with a few things like support, trust, and baby steps. Once we're desperate enough to try recovery, we engage in a program that has a healthy support group- then we can be honest without being abandoned, we see people who have the qualities that we want for ourselves, and we trust that they'll guide us in the right direction. With time and practice, these positive behaviors increase our sense of self-worth and we learn how to do good things for OURSELVES not just for external validation. This breaks us free from the negative stories and patterns that used to define us and kept us stuck...Welcome to freedom! Tool References: Resentment Amplifier (Toolkit 3), Resentment Resolution (Toolkit 3), Blame (Toolkit 2), and the Learnable Skills section (Toolkit 1): Honesty, Communication, and Service