Relief From The Past

Having a troubled past will lead you to destruction. Getting into a group environment can help you when you are trying to work through your old issues that seem to linger in your present. 

Transcript

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Time again for Doc Jacques, your addiction lifeguard podcast. I am Dr. Jacques DeBruker, 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. What is the purpose of meeting in groups? gosh man on a daily basis like why why should why should he or she go to groups why should he or she go to meetings with other people especially if they're um mutual aid support you know like uh addicts helping addicts um not not led necessarily by a group leader as in a therapeutic setting what is the purpose of that and that's a very good question and i you know i heard uh drew pinsky say one time when he was asked about that like he's you know it's 12 step AA, NA, oh, it's all faith-based and it's all prayer. And yeah, that's true. Nine of the 12 steps are focused on faith. I get that. But he got asked about that and he's like, hey man, show me something else that works as good and I'll do it. But we don't have anything like that and so this works. So just do it. And if you have problems with, you know, you're not a person of faith like I am and you question, you know, why you should be in a group where prayer is a big part of it, Listen, man, just don't listen to the God talk if you don't want to hear it. Or maybe some of it will seep in, and you'll start to really understand that there's something out there that's bigger than you, which would be great. Maybe you'll find your faith there. Many people have. They go to meetings, and they end up finding faith and starting to live a different life. But in any case, just go to the groups and get into that group. But what's the whole point of that? And the point of it is to be able to get you into a different mindset. And to do that, you really have to get into a different setting with different kinds of people. If all you're around are people that are get high buddies, I can't imagine that you're going to do anything other than just get high with them. I mean, it's crazy to think that you're going to be the one person who's not using out of all the people that are gathering. So if you gather with people who are all aimed at recovery instead of all aimed at addiction, it's going to be easier for you to join in on that as well. So it's really important that you understand that the purpose of groups is to get into the community, into the recovery community, to have support, guidance, direction. And really, truly, I mean, those are the only people that can tell you, hey man, you're way off base with what you're thinking right now. and have that sink in with you that is a point that is not an attack they're not being judgmental or opinionated they're not being critical they're being real and truly that's the whole purpose of getting into groups to get real and in the therapeutic realm there's one man in particular who we consider to be the godfather of group therapy Irving Yalom And if you're going to look it up, it's Y-A-L-O-M, Yalom. And that's a guy, man, that he wrote many... He really... He wrote the book, if you want to put it that way. He wrote the book on group therapy and how it should work and why it should work. But he's a genius psychiatrist who really devoted his entire existence to understanding how to get people to help each other as a group. And... he had a process that he followed and there were actually um there were 12 steps that he saw um i don't know if it's 12 but the the the therapeutic goals how many is it one two three four five six seven eight eight uh steps that kind of get to the process of what happens in a group. And ultimately for him, the idea was that you've got to get to group cohesiveness. In other words, as a unit, the group works together to improve, and each person in the group is contributing to that improvement. It's interesting, the very first one is the installation of hope. And I think in the 12-step process, that's exactly what happens is people become hopeless. And they lose that sense of understanding that they can actually get better. So the installation of hope. And then moving towards universality. Everybody in the room is together. They're the same. We are universally trying to improve our lives. And once they move through that universality where they start to get who they are with each other. And that may take you know, a number of times together. It doesn't happen immediately. Um, once that happens, it becomes safer for people to, um, share. And so in the 12 step process, because it's not led by a therapist, um, it's, it's, it's, you have to keep showing up. There's like, that's what we talk about a home group. You have one, one group, that's your home group. And that's usually where your sponsor is as well. But it's the meeting that you feel comfortable. connected to. It's like your home, right? You feel comfortable in home. So you go home. And so, you know, Tuesday, 7 o'clock at the church, that's my home group. And the home group, the home meeting, everybody knows you. You participate. You probably volunteer your time. Maybe you have a job that you do. You set out the chairs or whatever. But you feel comfortable there and you're connected there. And it's important that you be in that place. Because if you're not, what happens is you drift in and out. Also, if you're in there and you stay in there, people get to know you. So if you are at risk of going out, experimenting or relapsing, people are going to recognize that you're not there. And if you keep jumping meetings all over the place, nobody knows that you're coming today or haven't seen you in a month. They wouldn't even know. So that's part of it. So universality. And that then becomes the third goal, which is imparting information. So being able to give freely of your story. And in a group, it's difficult to do that if you don't know everybody. What happens for those of you who have not stepped into the rooms... What happens is you step in there and you realize immediately everybody in there is just like you, right? So we're all in the same boat. We're all here because we have the problem to the drug of choice that that meeting is about. And so imparting information is about how you feel, what you're feeling, when you're feeling it, how it makes you feel, your frustrations, your anger, your whatever. That's the imparting of information. In Yalom's model, altruism is the next phase after that. And being able to help others. I'm going to participate in a way that's supportive. And that's a big part of recovery, is helping others. The 12th step, going out and spreading the good news. It's kind of like proselytizing in the Christian faith. We go out and we talk about our faith. Now, you can turn it all wrong if you're like a Jehovah's Witness knocking on people's doors and you just, you know, you want to browbeat them. And that's a twisting of scripture that says that you have to go to their homes. Jehovah's Witnesses kind of take that scriptural passage a little too far. Going to their homes means going to where they exist, their hearts. Speak to them in their place that they are comfortable. It doesn't mean bang on their door and start trying to get them to convert. And it's the same thing with recovery. We want people to come into the rooms. We don't force people into the rooms. We want you to come. But once you come, we're going to welcome you. Because again, it's like that's your home. We want that to be your home. This is a safe place. This is a place where recovery happens. And and I'm not so naive to say that there can't be crazy situations that occur in the rooms. Of course, there are. And I know that there are because I've witnessed it. And there are people that that, you know, they're in there for a different agenda and they create problems. So maybe that's not the safe place for you. But there is a meeting that is so. But it's it's incumbent upon the people that are there to to be welcoming and to embrace those who are suffering. The next of the goals is interpersonal learning and development of socializing techniques. This is your chance to learn and develop in Yalom's model. Now, if you translate that into any group setting, you're learning to do things differently. In recovery, we have many sayings, and one of them is, there's only one thing you have to change to get clean and sober. Everything. And so learning or relearning or unlearning in some cases, interpersonal socializing techniques, that's again addiction, man. It turns you into a crazy person. We're insane when we're an addict. And that's why it's so difficult for people to accept the change that we're demonstrating. Because there's such a radical change that people are suspicious of it. They perhaps think that it's temporary or it's a false front or something. And in reality, what's happening is they've relearned how to be calm, peaceful, right? Because that's the opposite of addiction for me anyway. At least it's not sobriety or being clean. It's peace, right? So you're having to learn these interpersonal skills, right? that serve a different purpose other than just get you to your next high or get money from people or whatever the heck is going on. So you learn and you develop those socializing skills. And that then naturally moves into the next goal, which is the imitative behavior. Going into the rooms, you see a bunch of people that have it all together. And it can be very disturbing to people who don't have it all together. It can be frustrating because they walk in and they see these people that have 2, 3, 5, 10, 15, 20 years in the rooms. And they're like, I'm 48 hours in or I'm a month in and I'm comparing myself to other people in the room. So, yeah, that's a natural thing to do. And it can make you feel like you don't belong. So then you want to leave. However, imitating behavior. So imitative behavior is things that you're seeing that's modeled for you. And then you are going to go ahead and demonstrate those. That's one of the things that will bring you to identifying who is a good person to be a sponsor for you. Because you hear them and you listen to them. And you think to yourself, man, they've got... They got something I want, right? And so then we start trying to imitate that. And you as a person in recovery, you're also presenting things to the outside world. And those are the imitative things that you're demonstrating. If you're seeing behavior that you like and you want to become that and you see it repeatedly, that's what you will become. And if you think about it, that's exactly what happened to you, that you became an addict. Alcohol for me was a problem because I saw my parents do it, and they did it a lot. My mom was excessive, probably a little bit more than my father, but I saw that, and so I imitated it. It's funny because as addicts, we don't really want to imitate what we see because we hate what we're seeing, especially if it's our siblings or our parents. And we're growing up with it. And we just get angry about it. And it's kind of odd that we then take those things on. But that's how it works, right? So imitative behavior is what you are going to see and do. Monkey see, monkey do. So trying to figure out how do you have behavior that could be experienced differently is really based on who you're around. Okay. There are times when I've met people who their parent dad was like a criminal. He ended up in prison and he's serving 15 or 20 years. So then the child grows up without dad and one sibling starts going down that path, the same path. And another sibling, uh, One child does, and then the sibling of that child and the other child of the person who's in prison goes the opposite way. So you get one that becomes a criminal and one becomes a priest or a cop. You know, it happens. It's just what's in us. And each person is different. In my family, my sister was a big hot mess all the time, but she was exposed to things at the hands of my mother that were very abusive physically, and I did not. So I didn't imitate that. My sister, however, she imitated that with herself. So she saw this behavior of my mother being physically abusive to her, and she kind of continued that behavior. I see that in my practice all the time. The person who is abused will then go out and find an abuser. Women do this. Dad was abusive to mom or mom was abusive to the daughter or dad was abusive to the daughter. And the daughter goes out and gets some guy. He gets hooked up with him who abuses her. And it just seems insane that that would happen. But that's kind of. where it goes sometimes. So then within the group, imitative behavior is, um, you're seeing recovery behavior. You're seeing non-tolerance of, of bad behavior. You're seeing people reach out when they are in need. Um, and they need help and you see that. And so then you know that if you need help, you can reach out too. And it becomes safe and becomes safer. So your home becomes safer and safer in that home group. Right. Um, So the next goal, it's worded a little technical, but corrective recapitulation of the primary family group and existential factors. So what exactly does that mean? So corrective recapitulation of the primary family group. So the primary family group is the one that you grew up in and the existential factors. So you're trying to change what you saw and for the person who's in the group they're trying to change that thing that they saw and they grew up with and the existential factors involved in that um in groups what's interesting is you'll see a group they they gather um the groups that i do or have done they will come together and they become weirdly dependent on each other but they will fall into the roles that they had in within their own family Now, when I do groups, I don't have people coming into the group that I don't see individually as well. For me, that's an important part because I'm dealing with a life-threatening condition. I'm not dealing with I'm depressed, and this is a depression group. This is a highly traumatized group of people, and I need to know their story. So I require that each person that's in my group be working with me individually because I need to know What I'm seeing as a group leader, I'm the therapist leading the group. I need to see that. When you step into the rooms, there is no group leader that knows your story like that, is not working with you therapeutically. So what you're trying to do is you're trying to do something that's a little bit more of a challenge in a mutual aid society type setting. But the primary family group, and the existential factors is trying to change that. Now, again, Yalom's group therapy work and studies were all done on therapist-led, Yalom's therapist-led. So trying to correct it so that you can fit into the group and make it functional. Now, here's another factor. It's really important to think about. If you go into an AA group or an NA group or something, a 12-step group, And you come from a very dysfunctional family. It's going to be kind of difficult for you if you're doing it without any other therapeutic intervention in your life, because you perhaps will fall very, very easily into a role that you did serve in your family. You also, if you think about it, you can see in the workplace, you can see this happen. When I was working as an executive in groups and there would be a team. You know, it's funny. I could tell who was an only child. I could tell who came from a family of two. And I could also tell from a family, a larger family. The people that were only children, they struggled a bit in the group because they were always kind of struggling with identification and leadership. The people that grew up with just one sibling they tended to kind of get along and go along a little bit easier the people that grew up in a family of like five or six or eight or ten they they fit in really easily however the people that were in that position where they came from they're having multiple siblings unless they were the oldest child again trying to struggle with leadership roles um they quickly melded into the group easily, but they were trying to fit in in the way that they did within their family. And I noticed it then. You know, 25 years ago, I was seeing that. And in the AA model, the 12-step NAAA model, since the leadership is kind of, it's the chair of the meeting, but that's it, then everybody else is kind of equal, right? And the shy, quiet, retiring one who doesn't want to say a whole lot because they're experiencing maybe some things that they did when they were growing up, it's a little bit more challenging for them to find a different role. That's why I like people in the rooms to have a service job. in that meeting. They serve in that meeting because it can help change that dynamic of were you the youngest child in your family or were you the one that everybody picked on or were you the mean one or whatever your deal was in your family. A service job can help break through that a bit. So I really encourage people in the rooms to get a service job. By service job, I mean getting the coffee ready, putting the chairs out, you get the books out, you get the chips out. I mean, everybody's got like one little job. I think it helps with that. Now, the final goal for Yalom, of course, is to get to group cohesiveness. This is when the group starts kind of coalescing around each other. And that cohesive thinking, like we are all equally supportive of each other. Now, I understand in a mutual aid society type setting of meetings, it's rather difficult because people are coming and going at will in the meeting and they can do that. But getting to group cohesiveness is possible as long as there is a core group that seems to always show up at that meeting. Now, what I've noticed is it's more difficult for this to be achieved, if at all, in any kind of step meeting, if it's a large meeting. It becomes challenging. I've been to meetings that were as many as 50 to 60 people, and it becomes unwielding at that point. Even, you know, Yalom's model was based on one, I believe it was one therapist for no more than eight people. You know, 50, 60 people. Gosh, it's just like, that makes for an interesting meeting because it's, I don't know that I've ever experienced that and gone to a meeting like that where I've had a sense that people really belonged to the meeting. That wasn't a home group. It is a group that's very easy to stand up and vent and get some feedback from head nods and whatever. And I'll tell you the other part of this that's very helpful in those larger meetings is that when you show up and you see that many people, you realize that, holy mackerel, there's a whole lot of us out here. Smaller group meetings can have just a complete opposite effect, and it can be somewhat intimidating and a little bit isolating. I've been to a meeting that had as few as four people, and wow, that's a tough one to get through without feeling like you're, you know, under a microscope. Um, so there's, but there, you know what, there's, it's, it all boils down to a central theme that Yalom had. And, um, it's, it's a brilliant statement that he made sooner or later, you must relinquish the goal of having a better past. I think in recovery, our past determines pretty much everything that we are. Um, I'm certainly a supporter of that idea. Yalom had that. Dan Siegel. I mean, you could go through the list of people, Adler, everybody. But I think the importance of understanding that your past is your past and you're not going to have a different one. So this is the one you had, but then what do you do with it? And that's an important thing to consider when you're working on recovery because you must work towards a goal of being a part of of recovery not not experiencing at 10,000 feet so if if I could give anybody any advice it would be please step into the rooms understand that it's not going to be easy it's it's difficult it's challenging but if you hang in there and you stay in the meetings you will feel that sense of home and belonging and it's really it's kind of funny like that old tv show cheers where they were all going to the bar it's a place where everybody knows your name And I think you have to have that. It certainly is true when the chips are down and you need help. You need somebody to know your name. So let's work towards that. And please do yourself a favor and go into the rooms and start working on your own recovery. Man, how time flies. I hope you've enjoyed this episode of Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard. And if you need help, please, you can reach out to me. I'll talk to you. I'll guide you. I can get you there. And if you are looking for help and advice, that's one thing. But if you actually need clinical help, please go get it. Check into a rehab. Go to the emergency room if you have to. But start getting into recovery because Ending your life trying to save your addiction is crazy. You need to go the other way. So work towards staying stable and sober. And I hope that you will tune back in for another episode of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard. Until the next time, this is Doc Shock saying, see ya.