Mondays with Michael: He Keeps Saying He's Fine. What Now?

The hardest part of getting a man into treatment is rarely finding the right program. It's the moment a smart, successful, "I'm fine" kind of man starts negotiating for control while the people who love him are running out of hope.

This is the first Mondays with Michael, a bonus series on The Loving Leverage Podcast that drops on Mondays whenever there's a conversation worth sharing. Every Monday, Drew Powell and Valiant Living founder Michael Dinneen, LCSW, CSAT-S get on a call that is supposed to be about business. It always gets there eventually. But before the agenda, they end up in a real conversation about recovery, family, and what loving leverage looks like when it leaves the whiteboard. Every so often, Drew hits record.

In this one, Drew and Michael walk through a real intervention from the past week (names and details changed to protect everyone involved). A man who kept insisting he was fine. A wife and daughter who had tried everything they knew to try. And the specific moves that family made, with Michael's coaching, that got him through the doors of the men's program two days later.

You'll hear:

• Why the first draft of the impact letter had to be rewritten, and what changed when it led with love instead of accusation
• Why the consequence belongs at the end of the letter, not the beginning
• The "broken record" response that kept the family from getting pulled into his demands, threats, and rabbit holes
• Why reframing it as "family versus the disease" instead of "wife versus husband" changed everything
• What is actually going on when an addict keeps fighting for one last piece of control, even on the way to rehab
• Why Valiant is careful with the word codependency in early family work, and what is usually underneath it
• The performance wound: the belief that people will leave you if you stop performing, and what happens when someone doesn't leave
• Drew and Michael each share a moment from the same weekend where they lost their cool with family, went into a shame spiral, and had to repair
• Sideways emotions: why the thing you blew up about is rarely the thing you're actually carrying

If you have a man in your life who keeps saying he's fine, you're going to recognize this story. What this family did is learnable. It's not about being harsh and it's not about being a doormat. It's about loving someone enough to stop making it easy for him to stay stuck.

If you like this format, let us know. It helps us decide how often to hit record.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, you don't have to face it alone.

Valiant Living helps men and their families move from crisis to stability through clinically driven care, community, and hope.

Learn more at www.valiantliving.com or call our admissions line at (720) 669-1285. A real person picks up.

If you or someone you love is struggling with addiction, you don’t have to face it alone.

Valiant Living helps men and their families move from crisis to stability through clinically driven care, community, and hope.

Learn more about our programs at www.valiantliving.com
or call us confidentially at (720) 796-6885 to speak with someone who can help.

Transcript

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Welcome And New Monday Format

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Welcome to the Loving Leverage podcast presented by Valiant Living. I'm Drew Powell, recovery advocate and alumnus of the Valiant Living Men's program, and this is a show about what it takes to move from addiction to connection. So this is a little different from our usual episode, so let me set it up. Every Monday, Michael Danine and I get on a call. Michael's the founder and CEO of Valiant Living, he's a licensed clinical social worker, a certified sex addiction therapist, a supervisor, and the creator of this loving leverage framework that this show is named after. So this call is supposed to be about physics. And it always gets there eventually, but somewhere before the agenda, Michael and I end up in a real conversation about life, recovery, phase, and what loving leverage actually looks like when it's not like on a whiteboard. So for a long time this conversation has stayed between us. But I started hitting record, so every so often, not every week, we'll drop one of these. It's just kind of a bonus episode on Monday. We're calling it Mondays with Michael, no script, no guest prep. Just the two of us talking the way we already do. So in this one, Michael and I walked through a real case, a man who was stuck, a family that had tried everything they knew how to try, and specific moves that family made with Michael's guidance, the story about how I got involved with them and finally got him through the doors of our program. And we've we've changed names, we'll never use names, we're never gonna expose anybody's story, but um never use details. We want to definitely protect everyone involved, but the shape of the story is real. And if you got a man in your life who keeps saying he's fine, I think you're gonna recognize it, right? So here's Mondays with Michael.

The Reality Of Treatment Work

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So it's a great intervention to have to like talk about what are we really doing here, and it and so it's a nice pivot from uh business to focus on the good stuff of what we're up to recovery and the why, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:01

So and I don't know if you're willing to share or not, but we just had a wild weekend, man. And I know we're not gonna share names or anything like that, but just kind of like the day in the life of a a treatment facility owner. I mean, this last few days, you know, it it's just interesting how it works, whether it be the universe or God or whatever, but you we go through some moments where it's like we hit a lull and we're like, all right, man, we know that we know the need is great, and then we kind of get on our knees a little bit and say, God, you bring us the people you know we can help. And then all of a sudden it's like the floodgates open. And what was what was your last week, weekend like for you?

SPEAKER_00 2:43

I think too, you just summed it up really well. It it's like we're I think we're expected to hustle and to stay surrendered, to kind of have a posture of like we only want the people to show up on our phones and on and and in our lives that we could actually help, or we can help connect them to the right place. And and and sometimes I feel like it's a grace that we're that we're that we're in these places where we have to fully surrender and and this has been an area where I think uh close to my marriage and other things, addictions that I've had to get on my knees and and really we joke around uh you know, that I've suffered from census affective disorder, which I heard from Bobby Ferguson. Like we joke about that stuff, but it's real. It's real, man. It's real. And because it affects morale, it affects um the finances, it affects the cohort of the clients. Of like, are they gonna get because half of what the clients receive from us is the cohort, right? That's why we try to keep it in that sweet spot of a man that is suffering from multiple things, uh intimacy disorder being one of them, right? That that Bill W said in the 12 by 12, and I can hammer this because it's the founder of the 12-step movement who never really got help for his intimacy disorder, but was very open as much as you could be in the 1940s, 50s, 60s about his afflictions. He said our total inability to form a true partnership with another human being. That was our that was our our our main problem, right? That we dig two disastrous falls, we try to depend on people far too much, or we try to dominate them. Either way, they push us away eventually. I know there are these people are out there, I know that there are millions of men suffering, millions of women uh that are suffering, and and then it and that's well, it's like why isn't why aren't there like lines for miles down the street to get into places like cars, right?

A Stuck Man And A Family

SPEAKER_00 5:35

Right, and then uh so I guess I'm so grateful to you the way you step stepped in last week. I just didn't think it was even possible like that you could hit the ground running like that. But um I was winging it.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

I kept calling you and be like, hey man, I need some coaching. I'm about to walk into this thing. You're like, you got it, just you know, remember what people did for you and do that for someone else, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:02

It was unbelievable, and you had a tough customer, and you you sit with that stuff really well.

SPEAKER_01 6:08

You think?

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Oh, yeah, you do.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, and you had to be a little bit more than a lot of lot of myself in that guy. You know, I was never as this guy was a little more um type A, aggressive. I was a little more, I cared more what people thought. I was more of a people pleaser than he was. But some of the things that he was doing, um I just had so much empathy for because I was like, I know this guy better than himself right now. Like I I remember what this was like and trying to like use people to get to feel better. I mean, given ultimatums and you know, not having not having any ground to stand on, but still trying to control the the narrative. And and so I think part of it is just empathy of like I see myself in those moments, and I also know how much hope there is for a gentleman like this.

SPEAKER_00 7:00

But I will say, real quick, to that story, go ahead and be a natural like at this because it's it's way more complicated than than anybody could describe. So, like you're sitting there, and a guy like this who's intelligent, has a little money, has a little education, has a little status, all stuff that isn't that big of a deal, but to him it is, right? And what a guy like that will do, and and it's not uh this isn't to rail on him at all, at all. Like you could post stuff. This is he's a perfect example of what we do as men to slide out. We take people into the weeds, and we say things like, Yeah, well, this is this just got you guys just ambushed me, this kind of got dropped on me. I don't know about this, and what about my own room? And uh, are you gonna stick with me? Why am I even doing this? So I'm gonna I'm gonna take you down like 10 rabbit holes. But what you did is you gently prepared the loving spouse who's who's all over the board. She's probably angry. I don't know her. You dealt with her, but and you and you, but she loves the guy, she wants to keep the family together, and she's pissed, she's hurt, she's she's been betrayed, right? It's not time to start telling, asking her, hey, can I get some assurances? Can I get a hug? Can I get a kiss? Did I get a parade? Like, and so the way you coached all that and didn't and and really guarded him from going down the rabbit holes was or or guarded when he did go down the rabbit holes, how you had everyone prepared, that it was like, no, we're gonna do this now, and here's the offer, uh, and and we really need to we need to actually act quickly because you know, her heart, she's bleeding out. Her heart is her heart's hurting, and and you need to show some you need to show some aggressive move in the right direction to show a little bit of amends to her for the pain that she's in. So I'm just kind of going off the top of my head about how you handle that.

SPEAKER_01 9:19

Well, I mean, thank you for saying that, but also a couple things come to mind. You know, getting getting the opportunity to kind of listen in and watch how you work with these guys. I I just kept remember reminding myself of what you say all the time of you got to outmaneuver, it's the disease, it's not the guy. And I kept reminding the wife and the daughter, like, hey, this isn't your husband and dad talking. This is the disease right now that is, and here's what it's trying to do. And so don't let it win. Don't let that disease part, because of course they're wanting to like do whatever they can to get him to go. And I actually have, I have, I won't read it, but I have her impact letter in front of me. And she wrote one, and I said, This is really, really good. I was like, Would you be open to some feedback on how to rework this thing? So we rewrote it. Because in the impact letter, what I've learned from you and others is that the most powerful ultimatum is not accusing, well, you did this and you do that. Like the addict already knows what they've done. They're already in shame, a shame cycle anyway. It's more of, I love you, we love you. Here's what this is doing to us. This is killing us, this is tearing us apart, and saved all the way to the end of this letter. I mean, it's a it's a full page here. She she just sat there, and to her credit, you've coined the phrase loving leverage. This spouse sat at a table at a restaurant and read him this letter and just held the ground, man. And I kept telling her before and after, I was like, hey, you know, you're saving his life, right? Whether your marriage stays together or

Building A Strong Impact Letter

SPEAKER_01 10:50

not, you and and honestly, if he does the work, I wouldn't want him to know this right now, but if he does the work, there is a lot of hope for that marriage and family and everything. Like this family sees it as a disease and loves this man deeply. But she held the line, and at the end of the impact letter, he basically said, Well, looks like I'm either gonna get a divorce and not have a relationship with my kid and my my grandson on the way, or I go to treatment. And she said, Yep, that's the that's your options. And brother, everything that you always talk about loving leverage, I got to see firsthand. And two days later, he's on a plane to Denver because this family, in all of their pain and hurt and trauma, held the line, and it was it was intense, but man, it was beautiful to to uh see what happened. And the crazy part is they live in my hometown, and so I was able to like meet with them in person, and you know, I don't normally answer, I don't normally work the phones, but this week I started on on the phones, and it was the first phone call I got was from this daughter who happens to live in my city. So I was able to meet with them for dinner that night in person. It just was a crazy man, it was a crazy experience. But I have to give credit to not just you know you and the coaching and the team there at Valiant, but also you know, to this family who did what a lot of families can't do. It's just they're in too much pain. But man, it was emotional to watch. And then, of course, you know, the last thing I'll say is it's just what a lot of people have done for me. I'm just sitting there trying to remember my intervention, remember what other people did for me. I'm like, this is what they said, and how long have you been in pain, and some of the other things that people said to me that you know, so it was wild, man.

SPEAKER_00 12:38

But that's really cool stuff too. And and I don't want to over-spiritualize it, but how divine I mean, it had to be a God involved in this.

SPEAKER_01 12:48

I felt like there was some higher power activity going on for sure. When and I I literally that morning, because you know, I you know, we've got a great census going right now, but you know, candidly, we were we were kind of looking on the business side, like, okay, who who do we need to get into the pipeline here? And um, you know, I sat down that morning, and I don't normally do this, but I just was like, God, it would be just great if you kind of would bring someone across our path that we could help. And I think it was not even an hour later the phone. So I'm not saying that works every time. I don't know how God works, I don't know all that stuff, but I'm I'm also not gonna um let's just say I'll be quick to give him credit, regardless of that was his activity or not, he's gonna get credit for it.

SPEAKER_00 13:32

Totally. And I I always forget this because my ego wants to jump back in. But when I pray this for real, it's the most powerful, it's straight out of the AA big book. It it says something like our main objective should be to put ourselves in a position to be of maximum service to God and to his children, to have our head in the clouds with him, but our feet formally pronounted on the ground because that's where that's where his children are on the ground, right? And so the prayer is God, please put me in a position where I could be of most service to you and to your children. God, please put me in a position where I could be of most service to you and your children. And then it could just be smiling at the person at the desk at the gym or praying for the person uh you know that's annoying you in the weight room. It doesn't matter. You you can almost rest assured that that prayer is gonna get answered because it's a dangerous prayer.

Holding The Line With Love

SPEAKER_02 14:35

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

You know, like if you're like me, Irish Catholic kid, I'm like, I pray that prayer and I'm gonna end up with an ex-nun living in a hut in Africa. Uh you know what I mean? Like, bad things are gonna start happening for me if I put myself in maximum service, maximum. Right. Um, so the fact, the truth is it's the opposite. God puts us in the zone where we're we're we're where I love what my therapist says, Dr. Harv Powers. He says something like, He he doesn't use you in spite of you, he uses you be in spite of all these flaws and traumas that you've brought into this world and that you continue to have. He's using you be because and and because of who you are, not in spite.

SPEAKER_01 15:23

Totally. Well, yeah, there's no way four years ago I could have sat down with this guy and have been of really any help. Because I I wouldn't have had any idea what to say or do or how he would have felt. Or I mean, I would have just the spiritual bypassing, or the I honestly, I would probably have just been frozen because I just wouldn't know what to do, you know, which is you know, not the worst thing in the world. You call someone and get help, but I'm just saying for me to be of maximum service to this guy, it's only out of my own pain and my own story that I'm able to do that.

SPEAKER_00 15:57

And and even though I mean, I think it's different from a business owner perspective versus a uh the mental health of employees that work in these institutions, that people need space. They need they need to get to be able to shut the phone off. But for me, I'm like so honored, not every minute of every day, but when I'm on those phone calls, I tell them, and I mean it, that I feel like it's an honor to enter into their space at the darkest moment of their life. Right? Hey, look, I don't even know what you look like, and I and I'm sorry that I'm meeting you this way. And um trust me, it's 10 o'clock at night, and it's not a big deal to me because I would be doing this anyway if like a sponsor or some a friend was calling me, and it's an honor to be able to like it's almost like I went from talking about sports and stupid stuff, quoting movies, and just being like a kind of like a mindless walking drunk uh that didn't have anything to say, and then I started getting bored with superficial talk in recovery. I was like, Man, can we just talk about our five biggest secrets? Because uh this conversation is killing me, right? So it's almost an honor to be able to go into someone's life and be like, okay, let's go.

SPEAKER_01 17:30

Yeah, let's do this. Yeah, it does feel sacred for sure. And meanwhile, you're in Texas trying to get your daughter moved into college and taking these phone calls and everything. But it's just your lifestyle now. I mean, this is part of you know, part of how you roll.

SPEAKER_00 17:45

But yeah, it's sacred. Samantha deals with it. She's like, only because I got on the phone and I was talking to some lawyer, and they were like, Oh, he's in so much trouble. And Samantha, I hear Samantha say, only our lives.

SPEAKER_01 18:03

Oh man, your kids have a lot of stories. You're you're giving them a very full, rich childhood experience. So, but no, it's I mean, it's it's part of it, and there are sacrifices you have to make and the kids make, but you know, it is sacred to enter into their stories and see them get help, and especially at the beginning, and then you know, you meet someone you know a few weeks later after they've been in treatment for a while, and it's almost like meeting a different person. You know, it's like you know total surrender starts to happen, and I'm excited for these guys kind of to see where they where they land and where they end up.

SPEAKER_00 18:39

You know,

Defusing Demands Without Enabling

SPEAKER_00 18:40

uh dialing it back to this loving leverage, it I liked what you said on the website and some posts that you've been putting out there about like, yeah, you didn't cause it. There's really no nothing that you've done to try to help this situation as uh is anything to blame yourself for. We have to de-shame each other. But think about the empowerment that you gave this daughter and this wife, even though they're this is the beginning of a new journey, but but you you helped you inserted yourself in a place where you gave them power that they didn't realize that they had in their lives.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

And you gave it back to them because you know, he could have said no, I'm I'm I'm gonna I'm gonna opt out of the grandkids and relationship with my daughters and and a marriage. Because that's as crazy as it sounds, that's actually a possibility for a lot of addicts because of our level of pride and insanity in that moment. That immaturity, not to not not to rail on this, but if you think about we're stunted emotionally, so there's there's a sometimes an adolescent response. You can't take yourself out of the situation and and and do what what like a mature adult would do. You get in your feelings, you get attacked by your feelings, your narcissism gets triggered, your whatever happens, you these sore spots, and then you react out of an emotion that could burn the whole house down. So uh, so I'm not saying like um that every outcome is is perfect, but but if it's done with enough love, that you seem to have like been able to like slow the process down and and help them craft a letter that that has a little bit more more love than accusation, right? And it doesn't lead with consequences. That consequence came at the end of that, where it's like, it looks like I'm either going to treatment or this, and and she was able to look them in the eye and say, indeed, that's that's what we're looking at here. But the consequence is not the actual uh it's the cherry on top, but it's really that it's really the love that actually is the defining factor there.

SPEAKER_01 21:12

No, you're spot on. I mean, they originally, because there's so much hurt, understandably so, and pain, that the the letter at the beginning was just so you know, so much accusation and so such intense and ultimatum right at the beginning, and just you know and to be able to slow it down and to really you know what you're asking families to do in some ways is almost the impossible, which is like you gotta zoom out of your own pain and hurt at the moment, and you've got to kind of and it's why you need guides and people to help, you know, to see through this, because it's like um you know, they waited as the very last paragraph of this thing, and they've they said, and now the hardest part, she said, which I'm telling you not as a threat, but because you deserve the The truth about where we are. We've decided that if you refuse treatment and she kind of goes on to this thing, and it's the very last thing. And he says, We're saying it because we cannot keep living inside the addiction with you, because we believe pretending otherwise would help the addiction win. So even that line is like, this isn't about you. We're we're we're confronting, which literally that word means with confront con with your front. It's like we together are confronting this disease, this addiction. This is now not husband versus wife or dad versus daughter. This is now family versus the disease, and we're gonna attack it that way. And when you when you see and the last line was we want you, we love you, we need our father back, and I need my husband back. That's that was how it ended. And you know, it was it was powerful, but you know, to your point, it's like, man, getting this is why we exist and why we do what we do, is because getting it's almost impossible when you're in that much pain to see the force for the trees. I mean, it's just you you almost have to have someone holding your hand and guide you through the loving leverage. And I just kept telling her, hey, you're saving his life. You know what you're doing, the courage. And then for the next two days, he would call and make demands,

Why Addicts Fight For Control

SPEAKER_01 23:20

and I need this, and you gotta come to my house, or you gotta whatever. And and she just had one, I forget what it was, but the line was, we love you, we want you to get help, and would not listen to one of his demands. And then he would he would bluff and say, Well, then I'm not going, I'm gonna go move to a cabin in the woods, and I'm gonna go like just going off. And she just kept like, okay, like just let him go, and eventually you got on the plane. It was a beautiful thing. But that's what that's what I think I'd want the families to hear that are listening or watching this, is like our goal is to walk alongside these families. Sometimes you have to borrow faith, you have to borrow courage. You know, sometimes you don't have that. You know, I I think about the scripture of of the guys who lowered the man down to Jesus to get healed, and Jesus said it was because of their faith that you were healed. It's like sometimes it's like because of someone else's faith or courage that the healing happens when you don't have it in you yet. And that's what the valiant team that's what we do. We just borrow borrow our courage and faith and hope until you have it. Because you probably don't have it right now.

SPEAKER_00 24:25

So true. Um, a few thoughts. Everything you said was gold, but uh she's a for one first thought was she's a hero. You know, how how do you do that? 100%. I don't know. How does a woman how does a woman dig that deep and find that kind of strength? And then number two, I don't know if she knows this, but that's the best thing you could ever do for an addicted person who's trying to manipulate you. And by the way, whether they know it or not, it's a hundred percent manipulation when they're in that savage negotiation. Okay. So when you're in that place, the broken record technique uh of being assertive versus aggressive and passive is the broken record is classic. I mean, I read a book, I think 35 years ago, by a Jesuit named Powell. It's about communication, but he talked about the the levels of communication. But one of the one of the techniques is that what she did, broken record, same line. We wish the best, we're rooting for you. I hope you get on that plane and send. And we wish the best. And then he's just like, What's going on here? This woman, I heard one guy say, I heard one guy say once, every time my wife goes to one of those meetings, meaning Al-Anon or support group or our betrayed spouse group, like we do here. Every time my wife goes to one of those meetings, it takes me like two weeks to get her back to normal.

SPEAKER_01 26:02

Well, the codependency wore off for a couple weeks, and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

It's like I've I've got a gaslight, I've got to put on my best gaslighting shoes for two weeks just to get her like back on track. But it's like they don't realize that they actually want a healthy wife. Deep down, when they're in their highest of best self, they want that person, they want the sickness when they're in the sickness. I want you to be normal, I want you to go back to your enabling or controlling behavior so I can blame you, I could get resentful at you that you treat me like a child, or I could get uh, or I could get, you know, whatever it is, I could get angry and go act out.

SPEAKER_01 26:42

Right.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

And build some uh but when when she's actually in herself and she's and she's grounded and she's doing those techniques, and those weren't techniques, those were coming from her heart. Oh uh, there's there's no outmaneuvering that now. Eventually he will thank her for that. In the moment, he's not happy.

SPEAKER_01 27:03

No. Well, we're as addicts, we are grasping on to whatever the last little bit of control we can possibly muster. It's like, you know, it got almost almost comical, and it's not because it's it's super sad. But even before he was getting on the plane, he was like, I'll turn around and walk off this plane right now if you don't, and then fill in the blank. And it's like still making these demands, like I'm gonna try to get this last little bit of control to feel like I'm, you know, your your world's falling apart, right? You're you're literally on a on a plane to rehab because that's how unmanageable it's gotten. But there's still something in us, and I don't know, I'd love to hear what what that is. What is in us as an addict that's still saying, I'm not gonna let go completely. I'm gonna try to control this last tiny little bit of power I have. I'm gonna try to exert this power.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

Again, I think it goes back to the emotional immaturity of the addicted person that it starts with kind of trauma and some mental health, and then you find the addiction. And so

Codependency And Self-Energy In Practice

SPEAKER_00 28:05

we used to think, oh, you know, when I started drinking at 14, that's where I stopped growing. Well, it was actually before that. It's when I was trying to get everyone to love me when I couldn't stand myself and I couldn't stand what was going on inside my body, and I couldn't read from my dyslexia, whatever the it doesn't matter what the formula is, but it starts starts even before the addiction. The addiction is actually there to help for a time period to ease the pain of what I'm experiencing. So, so I think the immaturity, I think that's why I gave that guy. I mean, he said Saturday, it was Thursday when we when you guys closed in on him. Right. And I was gonna body slam him for Friday, but but the wife was so strong that I was like, Yeah, I'm gonna give this to him when he said, All right, I'll come out on Saturday, and then he switched the flight to later, and I rolled with it because I was sensing that the wife was holding strong. If I didn't feel like the wife could hold strong, I was gonna body slam them in because I wanted to give him I wanted to give him the illusion of power, yeah. At the end, right at the end where he he was he was trying to exhibit some sort of like, and that's what they I guess they do with like kids that uh of like you give them choices, you say you can do this or that, and it and it gives the but they're both good choices, right?

unknown 29:43

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:43

You can get on a plane on Friday or you can get on a plane on Saturday, but you're not getting on a plane on Sunday, right?

SPEAKER_01 29:49

Right, exactly. Well, and you know, it was tough that over Friday just though to hold the line, you know. But at the same time, giving him a little bit of agency over those choices helped diffuse the situation a little bit. But it's it was just so interesting how it almost felt like the family couldn't exhale until the door shut on the plane and there was liftoff. It was just like and then, of course, all the codependent um tendencies, which we don't use that word a whole lot at Valiant with families early on, because really it's trauma responses and betrayal trauma. And so sometimes codependent is used, it's weaponized to make families feel shame. I mean, it it might be what it is, but it's just not a helpful word, especially in the beginning. But the truth is there's these cycles of um of behaviors and patterns that this family had established that they were having to like actively break those cycles on that Friday because because of course they've been caretaking this addict for years. So it felt like, well, we gotta we gotta care for him, we gotta help him. He's he's spiraling. He's we gotta like no, let him go, let him go. He'll be fine. He's a big boy, he's got people, he's got you, he's got me. Like, we were both talking with him. So it's like he's got people to reach out to, and sometimes, you know, which we're happy to play this role. Sometimes I had to be the bad cop. I think he I think he hung up on me a total of three times. Um, just got mad, and it's like I can be that guy. Let me be that guy for the fan base, so you guys don't have to be. You know, let us tell him something hard that it's coming from our clinical team, so he can like he, I don't care if he's mad at me today, he can be mad all he wants. He's safe and in treatment. That's what matters, you know.

SPEAKER_00 31:33

A couple of thoughts. I love this. This is such a good because I think honestly, even though we were just going on one, we dealt with three situations this weekend, but we were we're only talking about one. But I actually think this is gonna be more helpful to people because people don't want to hear theory, they want to hear reality. Basically, yeah.

unknown 31:52

Right.

SPEAKER_00 31:53

Um, but what uh when I use the word codependency, I actually think think that we're all like like it's a word that is like being human, right? I am I am taking my self-esteem for what I think either my boss, my wife, the world thinks, or what I perceive they feel about me. And so we're all kind of addicted in that way. Uh, that the addict is addicted to their addiction and themselves. The people around them, if there's an addiction, it's to saving them or controlling them, or they're on they're on my mind all the time. Yeah, like the addict's thinking about the drug, and the person that loves the addict is thinking about the addict and their behavior and how to stop it. So it's all it all is the same stuff because if you scratch a little bit underneath the the addict, you're gonna find codependency.

SPEAKER_01 32:52

Right. Oh man, not to interrupt you because I want to hear your other points, but I I learned I was way more codependent than my wife was. I just said I I viewed the codependent as the more passive one, but turns out I was the more controlling one, and I was codependently trying to manage more. So, like 100% true in my story. I have my codependency ran a lot deeper, it just looked different, you know.

SPEAKER_00 33:13

It just looks different, and yeah, because for me it's more like I take my self-esteem for how I think you feel

Performance Wounds And Fear Of Abandonment

SPEAKER_00 33:20

think about me, where another codependent would be like how helpful I am to this person, how indispensable I am to them. How so you're right, it takes on different forms. The other thing that came up, your because your your comments are profound in that when when he got mad at you and hung up on you three times, it's so beautiful. I wish I would have found IFS in total family systems 25 years ago, 35 years ago when I got into recovery, because I feel of course I'm just pedaling my tricycle as fast as I can. So there's no I'm not talking from you know me, so you know it wasn't that long ago that I blew my top coming back from China. So it's not like it's not like my I don't have my moments, but when we're able to, I don't like this whole space, you know, like all this kind of like little yoga talk, but when we're when we're ever to when we're able to, as men, uh see that this is just a part of somebody, you know, like okay, this person's acting crazy right now, it hasn't it doesn't have anything to do with me, and this is just a part of him that's hanging up on me right now, and it has nothing to do with my humanity. And there's just a part of me that feels hurt, there's a part of me that's irritated, there's a part of me that really loves this guy, that is actually a little bit humored by the whole thing, right? Um, right. And and so if we could um if we can harness the energy, what Schwartz would call, you know, tapping into the self, right? Self-energy, if we could harness that, people we can actually show up and really love people the way they need to be loved because it's not about how they're treating us, it's about we're feeling about them, and and we can we can actually we can handle whatever they throw at us if we don't take anything seriously. Like it's about our self-entery, it's not about how they behave.

SPEAKER_01 35:27

Right. No, that's that, and honestly, that's exactly how I was able to survive it this week because that was well, first of all, understanding that's not him, that's the disease talking. You know, I bet when he's healthy and whole and everything else, and I bet he's doesn't act that way, you know. And I remembered it's it was so interesting. I remembered the night where I almost fought one of my best friends trying to break out of his basement because I wanted to leave, and I was a crazed animal backed into a corner. So like it wasn't that long ago where I'm like, I know what this feels like, man. This is he's in he's hurting right now. This is not him. Right. I kept telling him, I said, I won't use his name, but I just kept saying, Hey, you're presenting really angry right now, but I don't think you're angry. I think you're in a lot of pain. I think you're hurting, and I think you're really sad, and you're like, but just anger feels more accessible. And he's like, Yeah, you know, you're right, you're right. And and all three times he came back to apologize. And I think the biggest thing that surprised him was that I wasn't leaving him. Like, his it was not like, oh, you well, you need to come repair this with me. Each time I was like, buddy, I get it. This is this is hard, this hurts, this is really painful. I was like, when we're when you're done with this and you move back to my city, we're gonna be golf buddies. Like, I'm not going anywhere. Like, well, I'm gonna walk with you through this. And I think that's one thing that I know addicts, especially those of us that have struggled with performance addiction and people pleasing, and the especially the guys that we deal with a lot that are really well put together and have kind of made their identity out of success, we just have bought into this lie that we have to perform well or people will leave us. You know, that's how we get our acceptance. And then when we remit when we realize that we can be a total jackass, but there's certain people that aren't going to go anywhere because they they see you at a deeper level than just your it's your sickness, not you. Yep. Man, that that messes with your whole the whole way you frame and see the world.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

You know, yeah. You you just summed up my my what I've identified, I think, as my deepest wound is that God's just gonna get sick of me and leave me due to my poor performance. Right. Like when I'm when I'm on a roll and I'm out hustling and I'm doing some good and I'm walking into Walmart, slapping my credit card down for 15 people, paying for their groceries. And I love that kind of stuff, but I don't but but there's there is definitely a little Catholic boy in me that feels like I'm in the zone right now, I'm doing some good. And then there's another part of me that uh is almost uh unsatisfied unless I can prove to myself that there's something wrong with me, right? And uh when that happens, there's a crawlback, and and the crawlb is to is to God, and I don't know where I learned this, but it's it's always like this when is he gonna finally just be done? Uh and and that's leaving. That's sort of like if if I could, if I could, if I could really speak to what I think I got super for, why I got in this field and why I'm doing this trauma work and why I live the life I'm living, it's to feel those unconscious and really deep embedded beliefs that aren't real. Like because you were there, you ignore whatever he was throwing out. It's probably the spirit is probably thinking the same thing about us. It's like there he goes again, he's spinning out like a little, like a little maniac. And I used to just rub my son's back and uh get some water and some Doritos and feed him some corn chips, and and like 10 minutes later, he was like, Hey, I'm sorry, Dad. I I I was sorry, I told you I hated you, you know. Sorry, I didn't take any of it seriously. I was just like, this little boy is losing it, right? And uh and I think it's probably the same thing uh with uh with us is we're we're allowed to mess up and lose it and throw accusations out there, and then you know, there's a little uh back rub and and some some water and a couple of corn chips, you know. And I think we need to start looking at ourselves that way because we'll rebound so much quicker.

SPEAKER_01 39:52

Dude, I can't even believe you're saying this because it's like I got goosebumps,

Shame Spirals And Repair At Home

SPEAKER_01 39:55

because exactly that happened with me this weekend. And I'm I'm like I'm experiencing healing even in this conversation because I had this amazing week, you know, was pretty, pretty exhausted, pretty tired by Saturday. Even you sent me a text like, hey man, check out. You need to, you know, I don't want you burning out, whatever, which is great. I appreciated that. Uh go to a football game, and after the football game, just lost my cool with my daughter, my youngest daughter, and just not a good scenario. And man, I went into all day yesterday, shame spiral, just toxic shame. And it was honestly wasn't until the end of the day where I was able to check it in with my wife and kind of say, hey, here's what's start climbing out of it. But all day I was in it. But it's like what you just said, the same thing. It's like it's part of being human, man. It's part of like you know, I messed up, I was really screwed up, and I was wrong, and I had apologized and I repaired, but then it didn't the shame stuff, man. What's wrong with you, Drew? Like, why would you what kind of dad does that to their, you know, that kind of thing sets in, and you know, that's part of the human experience. But connection, we say it all the time. Connection, getting it out of our body, not living in that headspace, checking it in with someone else. I mean, you gotta work this, work this process to dig yourself out of it. So I I take comfort hearing a guy like you who's checking that in, and you know, we're living it.

SPEAKER_00 41:21

Thank you for saying that. And same exact thing. I wasn't gonna share this unless you shared yours, but we go down to this like sketchy part of Austin yesterday. Samantha wants us to bring us to this super cool church called Christ Church. Um, and there's like this Anglican service, and they're just good-hearted people. We leave there and we're like walking through complete mayhem. Like, it was like not just homelessness, it was like mental illness on steroids. I don't know what's going on on the dark side of that city. Either it's a good thing that they harbor, but there were hundreds of like, and we were walking through this section, and the girls were scared. And of course, I'm self-righteous. I'm like, we're walking towards the city. I'm like, this is where, hey guys, this is where Jesus would be hanging out. Don't be like leaving church and being like, ooh, uh, like, but remember, I'm a man, I'm not scared. Like, something goes wrong, I'm knocking the dude out. Like, my my my wife and and and my daughter can't do that, right? So we have to remember the I don't want to go weird gender roles, but like we also have to remember when we lose our cool or raise our voice or do something, it's a lot more frightening for a female than it is for another male that could be like that guy's yelling at you on the phone, hangs up on you. You don't even think you you're you're not thinking anything of it. If he does that to his wife, she shattered, she's just like, Oh my gosh, this guy is dangerous, right?

SPEAKER_01 42:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:49

So uh then this car almost runs me over, and uh both girls grab me. And I have all this trauma from all these bites from my youth in in New York. And if you mess with my face or or push me, like there's this immediate kind of schoolyard thing, and I was just like, uh I got loud for a second, and it sent me into a shame cycle.

SPEAKER_01 43:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 43:17

And we're walking in silence, and then finally my daughter just like said something, and and we had a great lunch, but it was like that could have been horribly wrong because I could have been like, guys, you never never touch a man that's been traumatized, like you know, like and like I feel like pride uh um thing about why I raised my voice, and I was able to just be like, okay, I don't understand what's going on for them walking through a crowd of people that are using skills. I because I'm not scared. Right. And and so so I had to like uh empathize with where they're at instead of trying to get them to empathize with where I was at.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Totally, totally.

SPEAKER_00 44:10

And I want people, and I think as as as providers, we want them to feel safe in our presence because it's like, guys, I will always protect you. That's what it is. I will die before anybody in this in this whole area comes even close to you. And then what is it that you guys don't trust about me that that I'm gonna protect you? Right. And so something about men and shame that comes up and it's like, whoa, whoa, whoa, they're not feeling that. They're not going, oh, this guy's not a good protector. I wish my dad was a better uh was a better fighter because

Sideways Emotions And Decompression

SPEAKER_00 44:50

then I wouldn't be nervous walking through. We're just experiencing, I'm just going into kind of like trying to give grace to all sides. And we're we're that's that St. Francis to understand rather than be understood. And in that in his prayer, it's like to love then to be loved, to to understand. And and we have to do that, it kills me. We have to do that rather than being understood, we have to understand.

SPEAKER_01 45:18

That's right, that's right. And you nailed it. I mean, that was for me getting loud and realizing my wife brought up the attention that my daughter didn't feel safe. Like, hey, you don't realize when you get big that it's scary, you know. And but part of that too is like just digging deeper below and just being like, okay, what's actually going on? What's really bothering me? And there was a couple other things from the weekend that I was like, oh, these these are side, this is sideways emotions, these are things coming out sideways. It's not actually what happened with my daughter, that reason why I blew up. It's these other things that I'm not addressing in my life right now that I'm like, hey, I'm I'm not talking about this thing that hurt me or this thing that made me sad or whatever. And so now boom, blow up for no reason. Shame's and all of it is not even about the thing that's really going. You know, way to go.

SPEAKER_00 46:09

You are in it. I I always thought I was immune, like I was an emergency room doctor, and this is just my life, and I'm just a little twisted, and I can handle this stuff. Well, here's the truth we can't.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

Right.

SPEAKER_00 46:22

We if we go into people's lives and we go into their darkness, you better believe that you need some decompression and you need to give yourself some grace, you need to treat yourself. Uh, because I remember one time I was helping a buddy of mine whose wife passed away. Um, you know him, he's a beautiful man. And uh I was helping him clean out his house. And I remember being at dinner and and getting so angry with my wife and uh my wife and son that I left and I went to a meeting, and my my son just said down. I don't know what's wrong, just come home. Uh, and it was a hundred percent that I was cleaning this house all day and it was just bugging me out, it was bugging me out. It was like I was in dark, I was in this sort of like depressive darkness all day because she had you know left left left in a way that was that was kind of traumatizing for him, and it was like and I was holding all of that, and uh that spiritual energy or that that whatever it was, I I was holding it because they didn't do anything wrong.

SPEAKER_01 47:38

Right, right. It's just sideways emotions. It's it's when we don't deal with and a lot of guys that we deal with in treatment, I mean, they show up angry, and you're like, that's not what you're angry about. That could be a 40-year-old trauma that you've undy you're actually angry, you know, and that's what we're helping guys do, get beneath the thing. I mean, you say it all the time. Whether you show up for sex addiction or gambling or substance, yeah, there's there's nuanced differences and all that, but underneath all those things, we look a lot more similar than we do different. Shame, it's fear, it's trauma, it's it's you know, we just happen to be exposed to a certain unhealthy escape that numbs us out and makes us not feel that's just happens to be one guy's heroin, that's guy it's sex, the next guy's gambling. It's but we're all numbing. We're all it's all we're all medicating, it's all medicine that we're using to you know try to not feel like it's the art of dissociation.

SPEAKER_00 48:32

It's sort of like uh it's such a skill to be able to learn how to dissociate when you're a child, that you could go somewhere. I was watching that movie Michael on the plane. Oh, yeah, oh yeah, it's amazing how so few people impact our lives in such a profound way, right? The whole world could love you, you could be the biggest superstar in the world, yeah, and still tormented by one relationship, right? That sets you on a pretty uh difficult trajectory, right? And it's just amazing how um without that knowledge, how much power all of that has over us.

SPEAKER_01 49:24

I have a friend that always says everyone makes more sense in light of their story. Like once you hear someone's story, then it makes a lot more sense. All

Takeaways And How To Reach Us

SPEAKER_01 49:35

right, so that's it. It's a little look inside our our our Monday ramblings and conversation, and um, that's what it's gonna be. Like I said at the top, these will show up every so often. Um, whatever the conversation before the business is worth sharing. And if you if you like this format, let me know. It helps us decide how often to hit record. But if you heard your own family somewhere in that story, I want you to know what that family did is learnable. We walk you through that. It's not about being harsh, it's not about being a doormat, it's about loving someone enough to make to stop making it easy for him to stay stuck, really. So that's what the loving leverage is, and that's what we help families do every day. So head to ValiantLiving.com to learn more, or if you're ready to talk with someone today, call us at 720-669-1285. That's the admission lines for our men's program, and a real person picks up. And if you're the one making the call for someone you love, you're not betraying him. You might be the reason he gets his life back. If this episode helped you, share it with the man who needs to hear it, or with the person who loves him and subscribe so you don't miss what's coming next. Alright, I'm Drew Powell. You've been listening to Mondays with Michael on the Loving Leverage podcast. We'll see you next time.