Valiant Living Podcast
Welcome to the Valiant Living Podcast where we educate, encourage, and empower you towards a life of peace and freedom.
Valiant Living has been restoring lives and families since 2017 by providing multiple levels of care for men and their families. Fully accredited by The Joint Commission, Valiant Living has earned a national reputation as a premier treatment program, offering IOP, PHP, and recovery housing programs for men ages 26 and older. Founder and CEO MIchael Dinneen is a nationally recognized therapeutic expert, speaker, and thought leader in the behavioral health field.
On this podcast you’ll hear from the Valiant team as well as stories of alumni who are living in recovery. If you or someone you love is struggling to overcome addiction or trauma, please call us at (720)-756-7941 or email admissions@valiantliving.com We’d love to have a conversation with you!
Valiant Living Podcast
The Power of Gratitude, Grief and Community in Overcoming Addiction
Have you ever considered the deep-seated connection between gratitude and grief, especially in the light of overcoming addiction and cultivating sobriety? This episode explores this profound link through the eyes of our guest, a therapist at Valiant Living, as he recounts his personal journey from addiction to recovery. His story encompasses a faith-based upbringing, the recognition of self-worth, and the importance of understanding and embracing one's past as key elements in his path to sobriety.
Dive into our raw and heartfelt conversation as we traverse the road of addiction, recovery, and self-discovery. Our guest's insight on practicing gratitude and grief not just as tools for recovery, but as pathways to deeper self-awareness and acceptance, is truly thought-provoking. Together, we also explore the concept of ho-oponopono, an ancient Hawaiian practice of forgiveness and relationship repair, underlining its potential as a healing tool in recovery.
Our discussion doesn't stop there; we delve into the critical role that a supportive community plays in aiding one's journey to sobriety. Hear our guest recount his experience of how his family's involvement and engagement became a pillar of strength throughout his recovery. As we wrap up this potent conversation, we reiterate the transformative power of forgiveness, gratitude, and community. Join us and learn how acknowledging your past, cultivating self-awareness, and fostering a supportive community can guide you on the road to finding your authentic self.
Well, hey, everyone. Welcome to the Valiant Living podcast, where we educate, encourage and empower you towards a life of peace and freedom. I'm your host, drew Powell, and I'm a grateful alumni of the Valiant Living program. Valiant Living offers hope and transformational change to men and their families struggling with addiction and mental health challenges. So on this podcast you'll hear from the Valiant team, as well as stories of alumni who are living in recovery. If you or someone you love is struggling to overcome addiction or trauma, please call us at 720-756-7941 or you can email admissions at valiantlivingcom. We'd love to have a conversation with you, but for now, let's dive into today's episode. Well, man, thank you for being able to sit down and have a conversation. I selfishly, you're someone I've wanted to have on the podcast since we started this, so I like to sit on an email, and when you responded back, I think I even told you yes, I was hoping you would respond.
Speaker 1:So thanks for being able to sit down with me. Man, absolutely, you guys are so much going on, so busy, so I'm always grateful for you to give a little bit of your time and share some of your wisdom and expertise, so I'd love to hear a little bit of your story before we jump into today's content. We're going to be all over the place. We're going to talk gratitude, we're going to talk grief, we're going to talk holidays Everywhere, but we're going to go everywhere on this, so it's cornucopia.
Speaker 1:Yeah, exactly so. But before we jump in, I want people to get to know you a little bit. Tell us a little bit of your story and how you came to Valiant Living.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely so. I am also a recovering addict, a sex addict, love addict. I'm trying to think of the abridged edition.
Speaker 1:Three hour podcast just on your story? Yes, exactly.
Speaker 2:It's a five story, Not that exciting. No, I think in this case there was a lot of reasons that I came here, A lot of turns in the road. What I would say is that I came from a pretty broken home. There was a lot of and I'll say this because it comes into grief and gratitude as well At a later point some pervasive abuse, things of that sort, some pretty dark points, and I also grew up in a pretty religious home where.
Speaker 2:I didn't have the room or the space to navigate these things, so I became kind of almost two split persons. When I left home I did the kind of cliche thing where I'm the sheltered kid who goes out and does like a 10 year rump spring.
Speaker 1:I just go out and see the world and see a lot of the world.
Speaker 2:And that chasm became the chasm between this addict part and this part where I was faith based and religious and really devoted to my faith became like there was like a chasm.
Speaker 1:Real gorge, grand canyon between them.
Speaker 2:What brought me here was the tension between the two. It was that struggle because I just didn't know how to hold that tension. And ideally I shouldn't be holding that tension there, it would be an integrated person. I just was pulled in two different directions and that exhaustion brought me to a place where I thought I either have to heal myself these two have to meet or I just don't want to go on living.
Speaker 2:I thought, if I look at myself in the next five years, even one year, I just don't have that much energy to stand in that tension between those two opposing things.
Speaker 1:Gosh, that's powerful.
Speaker 2:I think the thing is, without me going off into a rabbit trail. My authentic self is in the middle. My authentic self is not this broken part or this hyper spiritualized part and I don't say hyper spiritualized in demeaning my religious a bringing of my religious path. It was just a perfect person.
Speaker 2:Either I was perfect, impossible expectations, or I wasn't, and I was completely depraved, perverted, whatever the case is, whatever, I have so many titles I put on myself, so I decided at one point you'd get into a 12-step program, started working on that. Here's a little hint for anyone you start a relationship when you're getting sober. It's a really terrible idea.
Speaker 2:If you take nothing else from those episodes please don't do that to yourself, because you're in a state of flux here, you don't know who you're. Well, I should speak for myself. I don't know who I am at that point. So my journey to finding that authentic self, you know, is experimenting and searching out. And okay, this didn't work, this did. And so my partner. You know, when we started the relationship, I think they had like whiplash from oh wait, okay, this is your true nope, this is your true self.
Speaker 2:So it is quite the journey. Long story short is, I got into sobriety. I relapsed several times and I don't discount those relapses. There was a lot of things I learned from that. It's another podcast, but I eventually came to a point where I was able to anchor myself a little more and a little more into this central person. I realized that the addiction was a response, a reaction, and that anytime I made my addiction the center point and I was revolving around that, even trying to fix it then I mean, what happens when you take away the center point of a wheel?
Speaker 1:There's chaos, you know.
Speaker 2:What I had to do was understand my. This isn't even what I was going to talk about today. I love it, dude. This is great.
Speaker 1:This is what I love about these conversations, they take on life of their own. This is so good. Keep going.
Speaker 2:I moved myself to the center of that wheel, and so at that point I go okay, I have absolute value, intrinsic value, my person is at the center. That means now, as I heal, everything that goes off kind of the spokes of that wheel become more functional. I realized at that point that sobriety was more maintainable, more sustainable and, as I continued changing, that informed everything else, so everything wasn't so much a reaction.
Speaker 1:That's beautiful man.
Speaker 2:I decided at some point to go through grad school and get my degrees as social worker, came to valiant, I had to do an internship for grad school. I was like, okay, I want this, this was one of my top picks. And then I had another place and it just worked out. When I sat down for the interview with valiant I was like this place is ridiculous in how much it spoke to me and the dignity to the whole person and the treatment of the whole person and that while we work with addiction, we don't, in this case, make it that sole focus.
Speaker 2:Look at the person that's exactly right.
Speaker 1:It's one of the things I loved about being here and I had the privilege of being here when you came, yeah, when you came in. I remember we'll have to do another episode on the whole the spirituality thing, what you were talking about there, man. I'm just soaking that in because, man, I just relate to that, just the challenge of that. We'll have to do an episode on that, you and I at some point, because I remember connecting with you on that. I remember sharing some of my story and I don't know if you pulled me aside or I actually think it was in the group that you said something and I was like, wow, we have a lot in common.
Speaker 1:When it comes to some of our past and our background and some of those things. One thing I really appreciated about you from the moment I met you was your willingness. I remember one of the first times, I think, I ever met you. We were doing yoga.
Speaker 2:You just got in there with us. You just got. I was like he's one of us man.
Speaker 1:He's just in here going for it, like you didn't hold yourself in this, like hey, I've got all figured out, or whatever. You just were just active and made us feel there's a strong connection because you're willing just to get your hands dirty and get into it, and I love that. I think we didn't even maybe even know who you were at the time. We're just like is this a new guy in the program or is he just doing yoga with us? And there was just a humility I felt from you at that point and I think it allowed a lot of us guys to feel really safe around you and so really thankful for that. And thank you for sharing that part of your story. I know there's a lot deeper well there, but it's beautiful the way that you unpack that.
Speaker 2:I have to tell you, I remember that. I remember I was shaking because I was so nervous Are you serious. It was my first group.
Speaker 1:You didn't let on.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there you go. I took acting in high school Pull that out yeah exactly. But I also remember there was a point in my internship I don't know if you remember this where you were. We were doing a group and the main person didn't show up and I was just shadowing groups at that time.
Speaker 1:I do remember this Dude. I just got goosebumps thinking about that. Keep going, yeah, yeah and I was.
Speaker 2:It was a scheduling snafu, so the person who was going to do it didn't show up and I was like, okay, we have to do something. And I was like, you know, dire, by the grace of God, go I. So I was like, just pull something together. I think we even talked about how do you react to the unexpected in life and what I remember was you specifically, and I remember a couple of the other guys in there, just being so gracious and kind to it, because obviously I was not prepared and there was a point where that was the first time where I thought, okay, I can actually do this, I can be a therapist. In this case, all of you were so kind, you delved into the subject matter you shared vulnerably, so it was a formative point. So you were at two formative points for me and I appreciate it.
Speaker 1:That's really special to me and I like I still have goosebumps right now as you're telling a story, because what I remember from that, it wasn't difficult to be kind to you because you were so. Naturally it was a great conversation and it was like that was like destined to be what needed to happen for that group. And I just remember thinking and then there was a part where we wanted to like we were cheering for you too. So like I just remember wanting to go tell everyone like hey, this was amazing, like Josh didn't just like cover, like this was better than it. You know, it was great. And so I don't you remember just being kind to you out of like some sort of empathy or sympathy. It was like this was awesome, this was so good and so being colleagues with you is full circle.
Speaker 2:I just love it.
Speaker 1:Oh, man, and I you know when I sit and you know we'll have staffing today when I sit in there, I just you guys, for me, are just my favorite people. I mean the work that you do and I'll sit there and just be choking, like choking my tears, because I'm like this was you guys were talking about me in here, like not that long ago, in the care that you guys put into each individual person and how much everyone talks about this person and how you want what's better.
Speaker 1:I'm like gosh, they really care about us in here and so, yeah, to be able to sit and do stuff like this with you, like it, it sounds dramatic. I'm a dramatic person. It really is a dream come true for me.
Speaker 1:It really is, because of just our connection, and so, anyways, let's jump into, let's talk about gratitude and grief. Let's do it, okay. So we're in the holiday season, yep, so we're kind of theming some of our episodes around. You know just how to navigate holidays. We'll talk about that some too, I think. But let's just let's start with the role of gratitude, love to know how does that kind of played out in your life specifically, but also just in the role of recovery, in sobriety. It's around Thanksgiving. We're having these conversations, yeah, yeah, I'd love to know, like, what are your thoughts on gratitude?
Speaker 2:Yeah, so I might take a circular approach to this. So bear with me, I have a point. I promise We'll see if I get there. Yeah, I remember gratitude and grief, but specifically gratitude was very much a part of my functional recovery, and what I mean by that is there was a point in my addiction where I don't even know how many times I had cheated on my partner, and there was a point we came to where I thought, okay, I have to change, I have to grow. This is one of those. Do it or get off the horse. Right, I have to do this.
Speaker 2:So I went to my uncle, who was very much my father figure, and I was honest to him. I told him, I said this is my addiction, this is where I've been, this is what I've been doing to my spouse, to myself, and he said best advice I've ever been given he goes. He used some other language which I will put aside because he was this crusty old man, salt of the earth, cowboy. He was great. But he said one work on your own stuff and then always approach your partner with kindness and generosity. And I thought, okay, I can work on my stuff. Cool, I'm gonna get a therapist, can I tell you, drew, the work of approaching him with generosity was in many ways so much harder.
Speaker 1:Really, why is?
Speaker 2:that and recovery. The reason is because there was a point where, if there was any hair left on my head, I'm bald. For anyone who can't see this I was pulling it out. The reason was because I was approaching the healing of my relationship with an addict mindset, and what I mean by that is addiction is built on lack. A lot of times addiction comes out of lack You're responding to, you're coping with a situation where you don't have safety, you're escaping a relationship where you are threatened, you don't have affection, nurturing as a child. So there's a lot of nurture aspect there, and that's not for everybody.
Speaker 2:I've talked to people, couple people not a lot, but where they're like, I didn't really have that, but for me everything about my addiction was lack. I didn't have enough of this and there was a point where I internalized it and I said, well, if I don't, maybe it's that I'm not enough, maybe it's that I haven't brought enough to the situation or I didn't do enough to not be abandoned, or whatever the case is. So what I did was I started going into recovery and but I was trying to build recovery from the aspect of Paying a debt. You know you're behind when you even come in. And the thing is with addiction when you personify that, that lack, then that message just it was almost like on my forehead it's not enough. When you go into sobriety with a message that it's not enough, then you're never going to be enough right your sobriety is never going to be enough, right?
Speaker 2:none of that is ever going to be enough, because that message doesn't go away and informs everything. So what happened was I started to go into sobriety. In my Relationship and even my connection to myself became even more tumultuous, because I was just I was a debt collector trying to, you know, collect debt for myself. Yeah, we're going meta here. It's great.
Speaker 1:It makes sense when you unpack it that way, though.
Speaker 2:This is great when I talked with my uncle and he said approach your spouse with kindness and generosity. I Can't do that. That doesn't work. If I'm approaching it with, I'm not good enough Because I'm also guess what going to project that on him as well. Even if I'm trying to reconcile, the reconciliation isn't going to be good enough. There's resentment that came up. I Experienced moments of anger more at that point than I had had ever before, because the disparities were even greater. I remember, I Remember hearing and this is a little dark but it bears relevance because it's real I remember hearing about that Shooting of the Amish school, when a shooter went into an Amish school this was several years ago and Tragically killed several of the students and then killed himself.
Speaker 2:What I remember about that? I mean we were the world, literally. I think this was in Virginia, but around the world people were grieving. This Amish community lost a whole generation. Again, I have a point I promise, and I think there was a. There was a collective point of Kind of stuttering almost when it came out that the day that this happened, a Group of Amish people went out to the family of the shooter and offered condolences and then, when the funeral came up for this man there were more Amish people from this community than there were family members and people. There was almost a sense of Outrage at this going. What is going on?
Speaker 2:not appropriate you know you're not holding your grief, and In so many words I mean they said it so much better than I did. But the Amish response from this community was we still grieve, but we lose our. We release our ownership on revenge. Wow, we release our ownership on the debt, yeah. So when I realized that and I'm getting the gratitude here yeah, eventually I had to apply that to myself. I thought that was one of the most beautiful and profound pictures I had to Put down my debt. Gratitude comes in that, when I started approaching my Partner with generosity, I thought okay, this then has to be a lifestyle, this is a commitment and it's exhausting in the beginning right.
Speaker 2:Because you don't get to go. Oh well, you didn't give me this, so I get to go do this. What it means is now I go, okay, I'm going to continue approaching you with kindness, I'm going to put down. I'm still gonna hold the grief of what I've done to this person and what I've done to myself and my addiction, sure, but I'm not going to hold the debt. Hmm, so what happened? Was I started going? Okay, I'm gonna be generous, but I realized that I can't be generous without holding gratitude, that they go hand in hand. It's a dialogue. Gratitude and generosity are both kind of different parts of a dialogue that you have.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can be with yourself, it can be with your higher power, it can be with your spouse. So there were points where I started going okay, I'm going to and I struggled with this, I'm gonna get a gratitude journal here. I just always thought those were so hunky.
Speaker 1:I'm sorry.
Speaker 2:Yeah, exactly. So I was like okay, that's what I'm gonna do. And there were points in the beginning when I was rebuilding not just my relationship but my connection to myself again. I was moving myself to that center, of that spoke. And there were points where all I could write in my journal of gratitude was at least I can feel. Today, I'm thankful that I can feel the pain because I wasn't feeling the pain when I was in my addiction.
Speaker 1:I was numbing right. Look, I gotta stop you right there for me, because that is the profound thought. So you're saying I'm You're giving gratitude that I can actually feel.
Speaker 2:Pain something because I'm alive.
Speaker 1:If I'm feeling pain, I'm not just wondering how many people that are listening to this right now that just need to hear that, like there's a, there's that, that is a I Know how would you say it's. Like there's a certain permission there. That that I felt when you said that to like, hey, I can still be grateful, yeah To to just kind of sit in and live in whatever sadness or I spent so much of my life running from quote-unquote negative emotions Like can't, can't feel it, don't feel it, and some of my spiritual background give it to God, don't all that kind of stuff. Yeah, and there's a freedom that I felt when you just said that. Like I can be great, I can be grateful that I'm feeling something yeah when my Mindset is just a bail from that.
Speaker 1:I don't want to feel it, so I can't be thankful for it. That's I wanted to pause you there, because I think that is a powerful, profound thought have you ever seen the movie Boba Duke? The Boba.
Speaker 2:Duke. It's a great movie. I think it's a great movie, Some people would argue. But the whole point of the movie was that there's this spoiler alert. I'm going to tell you a little bit about the movie and it pertains. There's this woman who she and her husband was killed in an accident, so she and her son are trying to kind of functionally live with that. And there's this monster that comes up. Long story short, they come to a point where the monster was actually the personification of her grief and at the end they don't conquer the monster, they give it space to live in the basement. Every day she goes to visit this monster and care for it. We have to give ourselves space If we're going to put ourselves kind of.
Speaker 2:What I was saying at the center spoke of that wheel. That means that we not only have to engage in gratitude, but we also have to hold our pain and respect that and be present to it. That's where we grow from. So good Grief isn't something that you conquer. There are scars that I have about what I did to myself and to my loved ones that I hope never stop hurting, because those are my reminder.
Speaker 1:Wow, that is so good. I personally needed to hear that today and one of the things that you guys taught me when I was here is exactly that, especially when it comes to anxiety and other things as well. It wasn't about getting rid of it, it was about I remember our friend Steven Sparotto would always talk about the song Hello Darkness, my old friend. He would use that as an example a lot. It's like that whole hello anxiety, my old friend Just befriending it, which is so counterintuitive for me. Even this episode talking about gratitude and grief. There could be some people from the outside being like that's two different topics, but the way you see it, even the way you just started to describe it, they're very much connected, aren't they?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, it's expansive Grief. I remember a priest once told me he said God created in darkness and that's something that we can do as well. Yeah, If we really believe that. However you see faith, or if you believe in a higher power, treasure the dark spaces.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:Don't run from them.
Speaker 1:So I'm kind of going back to your story because I wanted you to be able to kind of finish that thought. You started journaling, you started doing that, and how did that help start transforming? Because that's a very practical way that we can start cultivating gratitude in our life. But I'm just curious about how that started to impact the way you're able to show up more generous in that relationship.
Speaker 2:Absolutely Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. So what happened was I was. I mean the first part was that I had to accept myself as complete. I'm not incomplete. And that's so important because even if you're approaching gratitude as an incomplete person again, excuse me, there's that lack. So even your gratitude work is going to be less than. One day I'll be able to be fully functional, be fully grateful. Whatever the case is, I have to be full in this case. Do I have some wounds? Yes, but it's still there. Then that means that what I have to do as far as being gracious and grateful and things of that sort, is it starts to build on itself. What happened was when I say it expands. I'm trying to.
Speaker 2:Maybe I may not be describing this super well, but I see gratitude. You're always growing something, whether it's resentment, gratitude, whatever the case is. As I started going okay, I can be grateful for this one thing. Well, if I'm grateful for this one thing, then that means that this connected thing here I can also move into that space with gratitude. If I can be grateful for this one moment, then everything else that is in the periphery, okay, I can actually start doing that here as well. I started being kind to my partner and then my partner started responding in kind. The thing was is because I wasn't in a system of lack, I didn't need him to.
Speaker 1:I'm giving you space to respond how you respond, if that means so it wasn't like I'm going to be generous, so you'll be generous back tonight, which is a trap that a lot of us fall into right. It's like I'm going to be kind but I'm waiting for. I'm doing it for the response You're saying when you get to that place, where you're not living in scarcity and lack, you don't need that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and you're able to give that person some space to hurt and space in their grief as well. There's grief that my partner had that I had never touched. So I gave them space and when I did that, they were able to take a breath. They weren't defensive all the time. They were able to take a breath and some of that came out on me and some of it should have been come out on me as we started to communicate with each other. I had to hold that pain for a while. It was a lifestyle, but eventually there was some small steps that we started taking towards each other. As I continued to be grateful and also gracious towards this person, they started responding in kind. We gave each other full space for our grief and also our healing and I would say, 12 years later, I would say our relationship is so much stronger now because of this. Really, it was a very dark, dark path for a while.
Speaker 1:I'd love for you to help help us to fight. Well, first of all, before I move on to the next thing, is there anything else on gratitude specifically? Because I want us to kind of move into talking through the connection there specifically with gratitude and grief and talk a little bit about the grief side. But I want to make sure that we don't miss anything on gratitude specifically.
Speaker 2:You know, I think the bridge for this I was just talking with a group of men this morning about this. I think of the this is such a fun word to say. The Hawaiian approach to forgiveness is called ho-oponopono. Spell it if you were on Wheel of Fortune you would go broke. There's too many vowels in it. But it's a process where if you're pursuing forgiveness with someone and pursuing repair, then you sit with that person in the culture. You sit with that person and you hold their pain and there's a process you go through as you're holding their pain. If you're the one who had brought pain, you say I'm sorry, forgive me, I love you and thank you. Gratitude is a part of that healing. It's absolutely connected. They don't stop at saying I love you. They start by it. They end it by saying I'm grateful. That gratitude there that I think is present in that grief of coming through addiction.
Speaker 2:And we can go into that further. I hope I'm tying this in, but for me grief, the work of grief and the work of gratitude are very connected.
Speaker 1:They're connected Well, especially in our context. I know a lot of people when they hear the word grief I know I do it's very easy to connect it specifically to lost loved one or something like that. But I think what you're helping us see is that grief has. It's just more multifaceted than that. Could you unpack that a little bit specifically? When it comes to addiction recovery, all that kind of stuff, what role do you see grief? How can we honor grief in this process?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I'm trying to decide on a direction. I want to go with that because there's so many different ways to look at that.
Speaker 1:Or even how we as individuals experience grief.
Speaker 2:I think you mentioned it earlier that we don't always have a sense of holding grief. Grief, I think and this may be an American concept, whatever the case is, but the grieving process for a lot of people is about not experiencing it. I've had people go. Okay, how long do I have to grieve the loss of my marriage, the loss of, whatever the case is, the loss of everything that I gave up in my addiction? Tell me what's the expiration date?
Speaker 2:The thing is again, it's a chaotic creative process. So, going, I'm going to grieve, however my soul needs it. Giving ourselves permission and the time for that, I think, is powerful. Yeah, I think what. One other thing I'll say is we have, when I approach people about grieving, especially in addiction recovery I've heard so many times I can't even say it, I would say maybe even every time that I've worked with someone that's coming through recovery they say there's too much pain, I can't handle it. It's this ocean of pain. I mean, we have every capacity to hold that pain. What happens, though, is that again I mean tie it back to what I was saying before if we approach holding that grief with that inadequacy, that paying back debts and that lack, that's what disables us from holding grief. I love that we have every capacity to hold grief. People have been doing it for centuries, thousands of years. It's the belief that we have in our inadequacy.
Speaker 1:Well, I want to ask something about coping strategies with this, because it's a lot of what you teach here and help guys with.
Speaker 1:But I wanted to also just touch on something you said and it was really helpful for me and I don't want to be too redundant because you're saying it very well but I think the idea that we can even grieve the loss of our addiction that was some things that I learned in here as well, and honoring some things, especially during the holiday season too, this time of year, there could be some grief even around old, unhealthy ways of life, and you can honor that too. I was just a master of suppression, but I think what I've learned is okay. In the parts work that you guys teach here, it's okay to be like, hey, a part of me or part of the listener that's out there might be like, hey, there's parts of me that I liked about this addiction and I know it's destructive, it was killing me, all those things but I think it's dishonoring to not recognize there's some of that we miss right and that's. Isn't that a form of grief as well? Yeah absolutely.
Speaker 2:Let's be real.
Speaker 2:It's not like we were. There was function and there was importance and there was value. Again, going back to addiction, being responsive, that was a space of protection For me when I was going through my addiction. That's how I was able to receive nurturing and connection. I felt valuable.
Speaker 2:So when someone comes into the office you know, into my office I think, yes, we're asking you in so many ways to. I mean, in the bigger picture, yes, there's going to be growth and healing, but we're asking you to put down this thing that's given you what one of those basic needs? Was it misdirected? Yes, absolutely. But we're also then asking you to put it down and that means that everything that you've put into that is part of your identity. I mean, it's helped you develop in so many ways. It's a part of your life. So it's not surgical. We don't just cut it off and we go on with our happy day. I still there's parts where I remember my addiction and I remember how it was so immediately effective at taking away the pain. Us escaping pain is an evolutionary process. That's what we're supposed to do to survive.
Speaker 1:Well, it's interesting because it's another connection between gratitude and grief, because one of the guys in my cohort it was a really powerful moment where there was almost like a thank you letter, it was almost like a breakup letter. It was like thank you to the substance that actually helped me get through some really tough stuff. Yes, there was like this gratitude and that was so counterintuitive for me to hear. Like there's this gratitude of like hey, but then there's the second part was like but I don't need you anymore because I've got these healthier ways of coping and different things, but it and then.
Speaker 1:So there's this there was gratitude and grief all in the same letter, and it's just such an interesting way and, I think, a much more helpful way to approach these things, as opposed to just saying it's all bad and then it goes into shame and toxic shame and all the things. But there's a part of us that can say, hey, thank you to that thing that helped me survive. Now I want to thrive, and so, in order to thrive, I need some other things, right, a little healthier.
Speaker 2:Absolutely. I love the. When we're looking at internal family systems therapy or IFS, there's that thought that there's no bad parts. Right, there's nothing about you that is evil or disgusting. There's no bad parts. So what I love about that approach in therapy is that you're not again cutting off that part. What you do is you come to a part that's you know, you say, okay, well, you've helped me, you gave me protection, you were protecting me, and I honor that. The best thing about it is asking that part what would you rather do? Now? You've been protecting me, whether functionally or dysfunctionally. Is there something that you would rather do? And when we've navigated that with clients and I do that with my own therapist, I'm happy to say I have a therapist that's worked with me on that knowing that I don't have to feel shame about a part but going, let's just redirect it to something that you would rather be doing, that means that, my goodness, it's so much easier that way to approach with kindness, redirecting as opposed to cutting off. That means that I'm not broken.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's so good. Let's talk a little bit about let's tie this into coping strategies specifically around the holidays, right, so like? Because I feel like what you just permissioned me to do is, as I come into the holiday season, I'm going to experience both.
Speaker 1:I'm going to experience both gratitude and grief, and now I'm seeing kind of how they're holding hands with one another and say, okay, I can have both, I can be very grateful. You know, whether you're around family. You know we talked about this on the episode with Bridget as well, where it was like there's just a lot that comes up over the holidays, especially when you go through, you know, treatment or you're in addiction, some of that stuff. Then you're doing like going back and doing the ACA stuff or you're digging up some childhood stuff and then all of a sudden you're around a lot of people that that may. You're like I don't know what to do with all these feelings, or new all that stuff right.
Speaker 1:So what are some specifically this time of year? What are some some coping strategies around grief that we can employ? It's either you know, stay sober. I know a lot of people during the season. It's they struggle because they feelings are big, you know, and then all of a sudden it's like okay, so based on what you just said, the parts work. How do we, how do we go that better direction when we start feeling these things?
Speaker 2:I think what I would say is let's approach it instead of trying to again get rid of grief. What is kind of the fountain head of that grief when I what I mean by that is, let's say, I'm in recovery from alcohol in some way what I'm going to be doing is I again I'm speaking hypothetically. I started doing that because I was maybe abused as a child or I just didn't have a self-concept. I needed safety and I needed acceptance, instead of trying to avoid grief as I'm, you know, dealing with loss in the holidays. How can I build some acceptance? How can I build some safety? Make that your focus, instead of trying not to feel something. Build something that feels, feels that basic core need.
Speaker 2:You know the guys that I work with are. You know they probably got a coin jar for the amount of times I say this, but the opposite of addiction is what it's community. The way to build acceptance and safety is with other people. I think in my mind and maybe you know this may be off, but it's just the way I approach it all of our basic needs involve in some way some other person connect with someone.
Speaker 2:If that means, you know, getting together with some other guys, you know that, you know that are sober. It may mean going to a faith-based service and maybe going to a 12-step program. Even if you don't, you know, really ascribe to the 12-step model, you're connecting with somebody and that means that in some way or another those core needs are being met.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, staying connected, yes. What about for the family of people who are it might be their first holiday season and recovery? What about the support system? Give us some advice on how we can kind of show up for people who are trying to stay sober during the holidays.
Speaker 2:Yeah, absolutely. I think in this case I have to. You know, kind of look at my family, who were very gracious and you know kind of re-approaching me. What they did is they asked questions. As I'm becoming more of my authentic self, that means I'm starting to communicate things differently.
Speaker 2:That means that my relationships are different. What my family did and they shared this with me later is including my partner is there was some frustration because they were trying to engage with me in the broken system of my addiction. What they did, that avoided, kind of circumvented that frustration, was they started going. What does it mean to you to be sober, Ask questions? Now, in saying that, that means that there's going to be some point where maybe you ask the wrong question, where you trigger something. That's how we build these new relationships. Just ask more questions.
Speaker 2:You know, I think of the kind of the scientific method. The scientific method is where you approach something knowing you will make mistakes and you embrace the mistakes, because the mistakes what help you ask better questions. This is how we build community. This is how we build that new sense of language and interacting with each other. Just keep asking questions and being present because you know right now this person may not even know how to answer the questions, but knowing that you have some sense of investment in that and that you're part of your, with them on that journey is huge, yeah.
Speaker 2:That's kind of what I would say.
Speaker 1:Man, this is exactly what I knew it would be. Talk with it, helpful, insightful. Thank you for all this. I want to just kind of like throw you this last kind of softball question because I also want to honor the fact that you definitely did some preparation work for this. I'm bad about like sending questions and not sticking to the questions, so I do want to honor, but before I let you go, anything else you'd love to share with us, any advice, hope. I just kind of want to give you the final word on just kind of wide open softball. What could you share with us? What thought could you leave us with today?
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think the most important thing that I ever start with and that I work with guys on, I don't go right into let's try to stop drinking drugs, whatever the case is. Let's start with what would your life look like if you were a complete and whole person, if you didn't hate yourself, if you didn't have all of these debts that you've put on yourself, if you were a full person? That does have dysfunctions, but it's not coming from a place of brokenness. What does it look like if you're at the center of that wheel and the wheel is not broken? That changes things. It changes our focus. Our answers are different. Then, if I am whole, that means that I'm now. It's kind of like I would say in this case you, let's say, you crash and burn and you skin up your knee or something of that sort. That hasn't removed your wholeness as a person. I've talked with people that have been amputees before and their process is.
Speaker 2:I'm a whole person, regardless of what's happened to my body. It doesn't reduce that. My response to that is there's hope here. You're a whole person. Start from there. How does your sobriety look if you're a whole person and not trying to pay back a debt? Your debt's already been fully paid. We're healing relationships now, but let's start it from that. We're building something. We're not repaying something. We're building trust. We're building our sense of identity. It's expansive. Start from that creative place and that dark point. That's how we heal.
Speaker 1:So good man. Thank you so much. I feel like I need to send you a bill. I just got a personal therapy session here.
Speaker 2:This was amazing.
Speaker 1:Would you come back and we have so much more to talk about? Absolutely.
Speaker 2:You've done a great job at keeping me on topic, because a tangential is in my personality.
Speaker 1:You're a great storyteller. It's easy just to listen. You always bring it back around A lot of really practical and insightful stuff in this episode, so I'm really grateful for you.
Speaker 2:Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1:Well, we appreciate you listening to this episode of the Valiant Living Podcast and our hope is that it helped you feel educated, encouraged and even empowered on your journey towards peace and freedom. If we can serve you or your loved one in any way, we'd love to have a conversation with you. You can call 720-756-7941 or email admissions at valiantlivingcom. At Valiant Living, we treat the whole person so you not only survive, but you thrive in the life you deserve. And finally, if this episode has been helpful to you, it would mean a lot to us if you'd subscribe and even share it with your friends and family. You can also follow along with us on Instagram and Facebook by simply searching Valiant Living. Thanks again for listening and supporting the Valiant Living Podcast. We'll see you next week.
