Make Your Recovery As Visible As Your Addiction

Why do we want to hide our recovery when our addiction was so visible? 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00: 0:00

It's time again for Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jacques DeBruyckert, 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 Jacques, 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 a 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. When people start moving into recovery... They start doing some work. We talk about you got to work your program or you got to, you know, there's always like the there are always these steps engaged in the process. And one of the things that I have been experiencing with people that are in recovery is the lack of. uh appearance of anything happening and this is by the the people who are the family members the husbands wives the the parents they stay seemingly perceive that there's a lack of activity on the part of the person who's working on the recovery actually doing something and it's very confusing to people who are in recovery because they feel like they're doing a lot of things but they can't really communicate that effectively to They're loved ones. So if you are working on your recovery and it seems like you're hearing a lot of you're getting a lot of flack about or, you know, you're not doing enough. So as a clinician, I sit and listen to this and I help the person. I'll put together a treatment program for them. to follow. So they, you know, work your program. So I'm the person who gives you the program and I, and I give instructions and I say, okay, you got to, you know, go to meetings, got to get a sponsor. You got to go to this group. I need you to go to the psychiatrist. I need you to, um, report to me what you're doing with that process of, of medication and management of medication. And Hey, you can't be in charge of that. And then I also need you to come in and start working on the trauma stuff. And so we need to meet once or twice or three times a week, at least for a while, um, So we can begin working on that so you can feel like you're actually making progress. And then I also need you to make sure that you're reporting, you know, all the meetings you're attending or whatever. And your sponsor is probably going to want you to call every day or they're going to call you and talk to you and so on and so on and so on. I need you to work on your diet. I need you to work on exercise. I need you to work on your sleep. So there's all these things that it's just part of the process. Right. So the person who supposed to be doing those things, at various stages of recovery, the first 30, 60, 90 days is going to be kind of rough. There's not a lot of compliance sometimes. There's a lot of hesitation. Maybe you got some accidents here or there where you slip up and you use, things like that. So if the person who's a loved one is watching that and they're seeing all this, they're seeing things, but they're not seeing what they think is enough things as far as activity, then they begin to question you in your recovery. They start saying, well, you don't seem to be taking this seriously. That's usually where it starts. I don't see you being serious about this. And the seriousness of recovery means usually about the appearance of change and change and activity, the recovery activity. So when you're in recovery, the chaos has stopped. So you've been living a very chaotic life, and it's been going on for a long time, usually four or five years, maybe 10, 15 years, if you're an alcoholic, or 20 years. So there's all this chaos, and the people that are your loved ones are witnessing this chaos on a daily basis, multiple times a day. Then you stopped using, and now the chaos has stopped. So all that extracurricular activity, if you will, is not happening. So the appearance of non-activity is really very prominent in the eyes of the person who's watching the person who is an addict who's no longer engaging in their addiction. Sometimes the chaos that has been going on will pick back up. I do see that there's this projection or transference of the need for chaos. And so the chaotic existence creeps back in, but it's chaos around recovery. The chaos of like, oh, I've got these meetings and my car broke down and I can't get there and having to, you know, I got to take Uber or I got to, you know, they were supposed to come and pick me up or I can't do that meeting because it's overlapping with this other thing and I don't know what to do. And there's like chaotic experiences that happen in recovery in that way. And that's true that people who live in chaos, they need the chaos, right? So they'll recreate it. So sometimes it becomes a headache for those observing or supporting you in your recovery because there's so much chaos around you in recovery. Other than that situation, it seems like the calmness of non-usage is troublesome to the loved ones who are observing that person working on recovery. And therein lies the problem. Now it looks like you're not doing much or enough. And that's problematic for people because they need to see a lot of activity. So if you think about it, if you have addiction and you're either drunk or high, that's going to go on for hours, sometimes days. each time it occurs. And so that chaos is what they're used to seeing, that level of engagement of the addictive behavior. Then there is also the times when you're not using, but you can't function properly because you're either coming down off your high or you're hungover, you're sick, you're dope sick, something. And that is also contributing to the consumption of time. when you're an addict. So you've got the times when you're high or drunk, and then you've got the times when you're not high or drunk, but you're useless because you're hungover or you're coming down off your high, you're dope sick, wasting time, just feeling bad. So those times are large chunks of time in your life. If we look at the number of hours in a week, there's 168 hours in a week. And if you work full time, that's 40 hours of 168. So now you've got 148 left, not including travel to and from work. And if a majority of the extra time that you have beyond work, if you are working, how much time are you spending getting high or pursuing drugs or trying to get away with stuff, whatever's going on in your life that's the chaos around addiction? That all stops. Well, you've got your hundred and... 28 hours back of your week and I guess what people are expecting is that you're going to be spending every waking moment doing something related to recovery that you're not working if you work or if you're a student so what I guess what their expectation is that they see this flurry of activity around recovery and And when I say flurry of activity, I mean like you're actually doing something, you're out, you're at a meeting, you're gone, you're reading, you're talking to somebody. They expect like there's this nonstop activity around recovery. And it's interesting because even in a residential rehab, we do not devote 168 hours per day. of time on active engagement of things in recovery. Sitting quietly during your personal time in recovery is part of recovery. And people who are not addicts or are not engaging in recovery, having engaged in recovery, they don't understand that part. So they think this non-activity part of recovery is not acceptable. And they tend to focus on that. Now, I am not so naive as to think that somebody who is working on recovery is not also possibly avoiding the process of recovery because they don't actually want to get sober or clean. And so then they just kind of sidestep everything and they disengage and they don't do anything except go to a counselor once a week and maybe one meeting a week. And that's their version of recovery program. That is not a recovery program. And I'm not so naive as to think that that would be acceptable. It is not. It's clearly not. However, at the same time, like I said, you're not going to be spending all your time in recovery. So how do you deal with that? as a person who's an addict, who's trying to work on their recovery, how do you deal with that? Well, apparently what happens a lot of times is people get very resentful and they have a lot of resentment that they feel. They get angry because they're being questioned and doubted. And unfortunately, that can result in the person slipping back into their addiction because now they're being kind of I don't want to say traumatized, but they're being emotionally kind of attacked. And the result is they feel uncomfortable. And when you feel uncomfortable, that's when you're using. They're just going to want to use because I feel uncomfortable. I want to get rid of that feeling. Okay, I get it. So how do you do? Well, here's a survival technique for you. Be open about what you're doing. Share what your treatment plan is, your program. Share it with your loved one. It would be very, very helpful if your loved one would participate occasionally in your therapy process. And that's why I have all of my clients who are working on recovery. I have their loved ones come in once in a while and participate occasionally. in their counseling sessions. So we can talk about that. We can talk about their concerns. We can talk about, and I, as their primary therapist, can address their concerns about what this person who's sitting across from me that is my client, what they're actually doing. But what happens many times is they feel like my client, the person in recovery, who's working on their program, they feel like they're going to, they don't feel, they feel resentment. Like I shouldn't have to have somebody explain for it to be acceptable what that person's doing in recovery. Like I shouldn't have to explain myself. And so sometimes it will be a tug of war where I have to uh, work to get my client to agree to have a loved one come in because they feel like they're, they're having to get, they have to get somebody to explain what they're doing for it to be acceptable. In other words, how come me telling you what I'm doing is not good enough? You got to listen to this guy over here, explain it. And so that's where the resentment creeps in. And, you know, perhaps a valid point. Um, It doesn't seem fair that somebody would have to explain what they're doing through a third party, that that becomes acceptable, but your word is not. The counter to that is, you know what, you did a lot of lying and manipulating, honestly. And so now you're not believable, yet. And I think that's the important part. What you're saying is not acceptable yet. as the truth and reality yet. And I read books about recovery from different people's perspectives and I'm not believable because I've never been believable. And that's what they write about. There's a book called Unwasted where the author talks about that. She's in recovery for alcoholism and nobody believes anything she says because she spent so much time lying about everything and manipulating. And as a consequence and an outcome of those years of manipulation and lying, well, now nobody believes you. Okay, you'll have to reestablish believability. And that can be an uphill battle. So working on your recovery can sometimes mean that you're going to go through a phase where nobody believes what you're saying in recovery because they learn not to believe anything you say in your addiction. Okay, well, fair trade-off. It's just going to take time to reestablish that. But you better be ready to be able to take on those times when that believability is an issue. It's okay. Part of the process. So explaining what your recovery program is. And it should be pretty robust, but it's also not going to be every waking moment. So it should include meetings, and I don't care what kind of meetings, but you gotta go to meetings. I don't care if it's Smart Recovery. I don't care if it's AA. It doesn't really matter. It's just like you gotta get into the recovery community, and I have in my practice a lot of people who they can't tolerate meetings because of the God talk. Okay, we'll go find a non-God-based meeting if that's your thing. If the God talk is your thing, then go jump into those meetings. But you've got to get into meetings. The second thing is it would be helpful if you got into a process where you could share openly, but you could also receive feedback. So that's the opposite of the anonymity-based meetings where there's no crosstalk, like AA, NA, SA, those types of meetings. Crosstalk is not allowed. Supportive crosstalk sometimes will occur within those meetings, and that's appropriate, but crosstalk is not allowed. It's helpful if you can get into meetings where crosstalk is not only allowed, but it's encouraged, so you get honest feedback about what you said, but those meetings need to be supervised by a clinician so they can be regulated, and it's not an unmonitored meeting because you want helpful, supportive feedback. um i do those types of meetings and i do run them so i'll get people of the same gender and the same drug type in a meeting where crosstalk is the entire purpose of the meeting if you can find something like that uh i call them process groups where we're processing our recovery and processing our thoughts and our feelings if you can find those groups those are very very helpful to participate in. So you got the AA meetings or similar type meetings, smart recovery, whatever. And then you've got the process group type meetings where your peers are working through your stuff. And then the next part of it is you need therapy. You need a therapist. You need to find somebody that is a really good, talented therapist. Hopefully you're finding one that actually is working on trauma and your trauma stuff, because you're going to have trauma. If you have an addiction, you've got trauma. And so understanding trauma. So the person is a trauma-trained therapist who also understands addiction. And they're trained in it, hopefully. So you've got peer mutual aid society group. You've got a supervised process group where you can get all the crosstalk and supportive work. Then you've got an individual therapist. And then you are going to need, most likely, a psychiatrist. And when I say psychiatrist, I mean a psychiatrist who's giving you medications. I do not encourage people to see a family practice or general practice physician for their psychiatric medications. Those physicians, and I've said this before, while good intentioned, are not trained in psych meds or psychiatric conditions. They can recognize when it's there, but they're not really trained in how to medicate them. So they don't really know what to look for, and they don't really know, like they can't differentiate easily bipolar disorder versus depressive with manic episodes at times, and things like that. There's a fine line there, and they're not trained in that. They're trained in family practice medicine or general medicine, but not psychiatric medication application for psychiatric conditions. So go to a psychiatrist to get your psych meds. and to have them monitored. Yes, they're difficult to find. Yes, they are expensive. The initial cost is high because you've got to get an assessment that can be anywhere from$500 to$2,000. I understand that. But you must get your psych meds from a psychiatrist to really be effective. Then the other part is you need to build a team around you that include people like trauma-informed yoga instructor, a personal trainer, Sometimes a nutritionist. When I say nutritionist, I mean somebody who is an actual specialist in nutritional analysis and I want to say treatment. So a registered dietitian, not somebody who, like for example, in the state of Virginia, as an example, anybody can call themselves a nutritionist. There's no state regulation on that title. a nutritionist. Nutrition is anything you eat, but I have met quite a few people who are not qualified in any way to give you nutritional advice other than they went through a little quiz. They took a hundred question test and so now they're a nutritionist. That is not a really what I would consider somebody who should be giving out sound nutritional advice to someone who is in recovery. But you should work with somebody who has some qualification, like they've got an actual college degree from an actual university about nutrition. So they're a registered dietitian, something like that. Then you also need to be working one-on-one with a peer. So have a peer relationship. And in the AA model, that is your sponsor. But it would be extremely important for you to have somebody who has gone down that path of recovery in their past and they want to help you. So they can walk you through the process of recovery. And they actually will be organized with it and it's structured. So for example, in AA, we have like, you know, the staying sober, walk your way through the workbook of recovery. But somebody who's a peer that you can have that relationship with that's one-on-one and they are encouraging, they're inspiring, they're They are helping. And so that peer relationship is really, really important. That one-on-one peer relationship. Somebody who gets it. They get what it's like to be awake at five in the morning after having been up for the last day or day and a half just on a bender. They've been there. They've walked that path. And they know it. They know what it's like. So having somebody who's a peer that can help you walk through that process. And if you have that whole like team effort around you, your chance of recovery is going to be better. But then also being able to share that with your loved ones and say, hey, look, you know, I got the sponsor. I got a therapist. I got a psychiatrist. I go to meetings. I'm reading. They're giving me direction. I'm watching videos on YouTube. I'm listening to podcasts. So you can lay out like, oh, no, I am doing all these things. Because here's what's interesting. The loved ones around you, the destruction and the chaos is very, very visible. It's very visible. Legal encounters, law enforcement officers, officers of the court, attorneys, judges, doctors. You ended up in the psych unit. I mean, all this stuff is so very, very visible. Um, and then laying around the house, drunk, passed out, laying, rolling around in your own vomit, missed work, getting fired, all that stuff. You know, it's just very, very visible. And so you have to keep that in mind when you're working on your recovery, that your destruction was very, very visible. Your recovery is not as visible because it's calm. It's quiet. It's sitting listening to a podcast on recovery for, you know, a 20-minute podcast on recovery. If you're listening to this, this is not visible to the person who is watching you in your recovery. You got your headphones on. You're listening to something. You're listening to my words. You're working on your recovery by doing this. This is not visible. You'd have to show this and say, hey, look, this is what I listened to today. You'd have to show that to your loved one. It's not as visible as you passed out on the couch, drunk or high and nodding off at the dinner table. That's visible. This is not. So you have to keep that in mind. So you're gonna have to share your recovery to your loved one for them to be able to see it you don't have to share your destruction in your addiction because it's very visible it's it's everybody sees it keep that in mind and don't be afraid and to share it and don't be afraid about the backlash or the pushback on you're not you're not doing enough when you hear those words understand it's because they can't see it So show it to them and don't be ashamed and don't be afraid to show it to them. And stop with the arrogant thinking that you shouldn't have to. How dare you question me and my recovery? They're not. questioning you. They want to be supportive, but they also want evidence that you're doing it. If you're doing it and you're not being an addict and acting chaotically, why are you so arrogantly upset that they want proof of that? You should be proud to show it to them. The analogy to that, the analogous part of that is like when somebody says, well, I don't believe that you're not using. I need you to blow into this device or I need you to pee into that cup. And that being said to you by a loved one. And many times my clients will get outraged that they're being questioned as to whether or not they're using. It is the complete opposite reaction than the one you actually should have, which is you should be proudly peeing into that cup and showing that you are not using anything. You should be proudly blowing into the device that shows that you're not using alcohol. Because you're not. And you should be proud of that. Many times my clients are upset that they're being questioned. And that's the opposite of what you should be. You should be proud of your recovery. You should be proud of the work you're doing. It's hard. It's life-changing. It's challenging. It's intrusive. But you should be proud of that work. and not upset about the fact that you're being questioned about your own recovery you should be proud because it is hard work and it's giving you something that you didn't have before it's giving you your life back and that is something that is worth every bit of all of the upset that you probably feel in that recovery so make it visible and be proud to explain it don't be upset when you get questioned and show what you're doing share it because it is quiet it is calm it is peaceful and it is personal your addiction when you're out there getting high at somebody or drunk at somebody is powerful as well but it's highly visible it's highly destructive and it's something that is upsetting so share your recovery just like you shared your addiction Well, that's it for this episode of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard. I hope you enjoyed this podcast. And if you did, please send me some feedback and subscribe to it. And I hope that if you did get something from it, that you share that with other people as well. I really do want to spread the word about recovery. And in particular, you should be spreading the word of your recovery. If you need help, you need direction, you need advice or guidance, you can reach out to me through my website, Wells SpringMindBody.com Look me up. Send me a message. Reach out. Let me know how I can help you. Don't end your life just to save your recovery. Get sober. So until the next podcast, this is Doc Shock saying thanks for listening and see ya.