Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Foreign.
[00:00:07] Speaker B: Welcome to emotional Sobriety, the next step in recovery with Dr. Alan Berger and Tom Rutledge.
Welcome to the podcast. Tom is checking in about his Social Security. I hope that's not too much tales told out of school. But I, I don't know. I'm happy to hear about anybody collecting.
You know, they're, they're some kind of support for a dignified life from the government.
[00:00:32] Speaker C: He's paid into that his whole life.
[00:00:34] Speaker B: Yeah, exactly.
[00:00:35] Speaker C: Right.
[00:00:35] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:00:36] Speaker C: You know, it's great that he's going to enjoy his investment in his life and in our government.
[00:00:41] Speaker B: Important context. Right. I mean, he paid into it. We're all paying into it. So, yeah, it's. We're very pro Social Security podcast.
[00:00:51] Speaker C: Yeah, we are. We're first insecurity.
[00:00:54] Speaker B: You could take that to the bank. So I'm going to read Tom's nutshell. Ignoring our own dark potential only makes it stronger.
Avoid washing dishes. And there are not only more of them, they are also harder to clean.
[00:01:07] Speaker C: It's. I love that nutshell. Makes me laugh. You know, we, we think about, we talked about it the other day about how it comes to mind that video I did with that gentleman who was so upset that his wife wouldn't have the dishes done by time he'd get home from work. We're going to talk more about those five points of balance, especially balance point number four and five and you know, and four is the meaningful endurance of facing yourself and your discomfort and as part of the process of your commitment to growth. And what he's saying there is so true. See, if what I tell people a lot, Patrick, is that if you don't confront yourself and take responsibility to begin to change the things that need to change in your life, then what happens is those people around you start to pressure you to change. I'll say that again so people can wrap their head around it.
If I abdicate my responsibility by projecting it onto others, meaning I don't say, hey, this behavior has got to stop. It's harmful to me, to my relationship, to my family.
If I don't take responsibility for that, then I get pressured from my partner, from.
If I have a family, my children.
If I don't and I'm acting out in society and I don't take responsibility, I drink and drive, then society or those people close to me that care about me are going to start pressuring me to change. And they're going to do it because out of concern for me, of partly out of concern for themselves as well. So the more I Take responsibility for myself.
The more I own my gaps in knowledge, my imperfections, my mistakes that I make, and the more I learn from them, the less I get pressured by other people stepping in my life and saying, alan, you need to clean this up.
[00:03:17] Speaker B: Right. It's like the enforcement mechanism is going to come from somewhere. And so it's best if you, you're
[00:03:23] Speaker C: either going to project it or own it. That's what I say to people. You're either going to project it and make your environment responsible for you if you're not showing up and being responsible, or you're going to take responsibility and not experience that pressure.
[00:03:41] Speaker B: Yeah, and it's, I mean essentially it's like a ten step inventory.
[00:03:45] Speaker C: It's a form of it, it's, it's a piece of that ten step inventory. It goes more than that, you know, because in emotional sobriety, you know, what we're talking about is the dark side of us or the Mr. Hyde or Mrs. Hyde in all of us is the part that makes everything about us and you know, wants everything to go our way.
You know, that we make these demands, we have these unreasonable expectations and to take a look at that and you know, we call it taking the second first step and actually taking the second pass through all of the steps to look at how our emotional dependency has created an impossible way of life, how it is, created our unmanageability. Because when I'm emotionally dependent, then I try to manage everyone around me to do what I want them to do. Bill called it. I want the possession and control of the people and conditions around me. That's how he owned it in, in his letter back in 1953 that was published in a 68 grapefile.
I want the possession and control of those people and conditions around me.
[00:04:56] Speaker B: You know, it's. I love that expression I first learned from you. It's name it to claim it. And my, my, my dad has got this friend, he passed away like a few years ago, but you know, he was a pretty heavy drinker. And I remember he was one of the, he was one of the first people that talked to me when I was growing up about drinking or about kind of like the process of addiction or kind of living with, like a, living with the character of addiction in your life and like, you know, forming some kind of relationship with it, constructive relationship with it. I don't know how successful he was, but he let me know that such a thing was possible. But he, he would talk about like knowing what your jones is. He called it a Jones.
But it's like if you've got a jones, you gotta, you've got to know what it is before you can figure out, figure out how to deal with it. And.
Yeah, and you know, just reading what, how Tom wrote this about the dark potential. And for him, he, he always talks about Tequila Boy.
Tequila Boy is like a very active.
Not active, I shouldn't say, but he's on the inner committee and Tom is always aware of what Tequila Boy is doing or how he's sitting and what he's saying so that he could then go about dismantling him or, you know,
[00:06:16] Speaker C: well, at least neutralizing his influence. Right. Like, like, you know, as, as we've said, we don't get rid of Tequila Boy. We don't get rid of these dark sides of us. But what we can do is integrate them into our lives so that they don't drive us.
See, that's the problem is that when I disown them, that's what I was saying before.
If I disown, let's say, the areas in my life that are causing me a problem, then what happens is the disowning of it then now projects the responsibility into my environment. As soon as I own it, I take it back and I undo that whole process. And that's why people stop pressuring me. Because now I've taken that responsibility for myself.
Now. It's a hard thing to do, you see, to look at some of these things. And that's why they say that first step is a big challenge for people going into recovery. Because to admit you're powerless over something sounds like you're admitting that you're less than and you're weak.
And if what I admit is going to take something away from me, no matter how helpful it might be in the long run, I'm going to resist doing it. And that's why, you know, for me, a big, big shift in my consciousness when I realized that admitting that my powerless was re actually taking responsibility for my life, which I can feel proud of and not feel bad, that and, and you know, put myself down that I'm weak because I'm powerless. I just accept that I'm different than my fellows.
I'm different in a lot of ways than other people and everybody is. And that's nothing to when I accept myself, that's nothing to feel bad about.
But if I have to be a certain way to be okay, you see that self acceptance becomes a major issue. So enduring my discomfort and pain because it's going to be meaningful and it's going to help me grow myself and grow up becomes such an important point of balance so that we don't run from tension and difficulty. We don't run from our mistakes, we don't run from facing ourselves.
We look squarely at who we are and how we're functioning so we can become what we can be.
[00:08:44] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, it is painful.
[00:08:45] Speaker C: It can be.
[00:08:46] Speaker B: But the worst pain, the worst pain is kind of the slow death of just not doing it and not knowing where.
[00:08:52] Speaker C: I say that all the time, Patrick. If you put your finger on something important, See, the issue here is there's going to be pain that's unavoidable.
We're going to have pain, we're going to suffer. The issue is, does that suffering lead to something that is useful for us, something that will help us become what we can be?
The kind of pain that I'm talking about is actually therapeutic. It's going to grow you. It's going to help you become the person that you want to be.
It's going to help you realize your potential as a human being.
The other pain is self pity. And that goes nowhere. You just implode on yourself, right? Or you get angry at society and other people, blame other people, you blame yourself.
That's that pain.
You don't, there's no growth from that. You're you, you're stuck. You, you create gridlock with your development and your, and your growth.
[00:09:53] Speaker B: I, I love the concept that, you know, we've talked about a lot of, you know, if you want to learn to accept something, if you want to learn to heal from something, you know, you must first own the fact that you're not accepting it.
[00:10:09] Speaker C: That's it, man. That's the paradoxical theory of change.
And so, you know, we come around to the, to the fifth principle of the five points of balance, which. The five points of balance are ways that we can not hold on to ourselves, that ways that we can develop a solid yet flexible sense of ourselves, right?
So the fifth point of balance is to look at our expectations, our unenforceable rules, our demands, and take responsibility for those and start unhooking people from them in our life.
So as I unhook the I, and because the idea behind this is that I need things to be a certain way to be okay.
We know that's the problem here. That I'm okay. If consciousness or I would have been okay if this didn't happen to me is part of the problem. It's not the solution.
The solution is I Can be okay. Even if so when I start unhooking people from my expectations or demands, I put myself on the hook instead of them, is the way I like to think about it now.
I need to be able to deal with whatever situation I'm confronting or that I'm facing and find a way to best show up where I can feel good about myself.
And that depends on my behavior, not what other people are doing or how they're going to respond to me.
[00:11:40] Speaker B: You know, it's interesting. I almost think of in this context, reality is like an 18 wheeler that's like double parked. And I can, you know, try and push and manipulate that 18 wheeler to move in a different direction, you know, or I can get to work thinking about how to, how I myself can navigate around it.
And, and yeah, a lot, a lot less painful for all involved. I think.
[00:12:06] Speaker C: Well, it's, I, I can now develop a real hope and faith that's grounded in reality, not grounded in trying to change things. I cannot change, you see, where my hope is based on conditions that are outside of my ability to influence.
I'm setting myself up to be disappointed and to feel hopeless.
You know, a lot of people say we got to work on our relationship. I don't think you do. No, I used to say that too. Not saying that we don't have to work on our relationship, but not a lot of people when they say work on a relationship means I'm going to see if I can get my partner to change the behavior I don't like and get them to do what I want them to do. That that's not working on your relationship. Working on your relationship is totally unhooking that other person from your expectations that they have to be anything other than they are for you to have a good relationship and put yourself on the hook to develop, you know, this sense of yourself so that you're showing up and you're focusing on who you are, not what they're doing. Right, Right.
You know, as soon as I'm doing things to get you different, then I'm really pressuring you because there's a condition, there's strings attached.
[00:13:30] Speaker B: Right. And another way I'm thinking about it is that if, if you're trying to figure out in a relationship whether there's a difference that's, that's reconcilable or not, then the work becomes can I meet them where they are? They are.
And if I cannot meet them where they are, you know, then, then, then that'll help me to make my Decision. But it's the framework shouldn't be, can they meet me where I am? You know, like, my expectation is that, you know, it's. It's like when you. By what taking them off the hook and putting yourself on means is that, you know, I'm seeing if I can make this work with. On my side, from my side of the street, right?
[00:14:15] Speaker C: And I like that. I really like that. And I love the way Dr. David Snart says this. He goes, you can want from the best in you or from the worst in you.
You can want from what is good and solid in you. I get rid of the word good. You can want from what is healthy and solid in you or from what is weak, empty, and tubitous.
He goes, wanting from neediness is fairly common and almost automatic in most relationships because people aren't aware of their dependency.
He says, wanting from your solid, flexible self takes personal development.
It takes growing up.
It takes confronting these issues that we've been talking about and learning from your experience.
Maturity is learning from our experience. And when I fail to learn from my experience, I keep myself stuck in my development.
I will not learn from my experience if I try to beat myself up or blame others. If I. If blame is a part of the scene, whether it's directed towards me or someone else, I. I will not learn because the lessons aren't available.
[00:15:36] Speaker B: The best answer I have for somebody asking, what's the difference? What's the difference between a reasonable and unreasonable expectation? Because that's the part of 0.5 that might. That has a little nuance, right? Is like, okay, there's a reasonable and unreasonable expectations. The only thing I can think of to answer that is just time. You know, time.
[00:15:55] Speaker C: Here's the answer to that. Yeah, reasonable expectations are grounded in reality. Unreasonable expectations are fantasies. So a reasonable expectation, if you and I are in a relationship, is we're going to have trouble communicating from time to time because no one has the ability to say what they want, to stand for it, and to be clear about things.
So if I expect that you're going to have trouble when you have trouble communicating something important to me, instead of saying, patrick, why didn't you tell me about that?
My first response is, of course, I'm glad you're able to say it now instead of shaming you for what you didn't do, I just appreciate that this is hard work and have compassion about it.
So that's the difference between reasonable and unreasonable.
Reasonable is always grounded in the reality of who we are and who that other person is. And what reality is unreasonable flies in the face of all of that.
[00:16:54] Speaker B: Right. Why didn't you communicate this important thing on my clock?
[00:17:00] Speaker C: Right.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: That. That would be an unreasonable expectation.
[00:17:04] Speaker C: Yes. Yeah. If you love me, you'll do what I want you to do.
[00:17:08] Speaker B: Oh yeah, that's a big.
[00:17:10] Speaker C: That's a. But a lot of people, you know, we say it out loud. It sounds so absurd. But I can't tell you how many people operate that way. They don't even see it because it's absurd. They don't want to see it because they're absurd.
I'm a lot less absurd when I realize how absurd and outrageous I am.
[00:17:28] Speaker B: They need to go out. People need to go out and just fail at a few relationships and then they'll get it.
[00:17:34] Speaker C: No, only if they learn from it.
[00:17:37] Speaker B: Oh, I see.
[00:17:37] Speaker C: Because all people keep failing, but they're failing to learn. That's the big issue. If I fail to learn, I'm going to keep failing and doing the same thing over and over again.
[00:17:50] Speaker B: Ignoring our own dark potential only makes it so stronger. Avoid washing dishes. And there are not only more of them, they're also harder to clean.
[00:17:58] Speaker A: I remember hearing therapist and author named Sheldon Cop who wrote several great books. But one is probably the most famous book is, and I've mentioned it here before, if you, if you meet the Buddha on the road, kill him. But he, I remember him talking about doing therapy and one of the things he was saying about clients, he, he said, he said to clients that he said if anybody, any of you are afraid you have taken on your parents characteristics. He said, relax.
You have, you know, darn give up the struggle. You're not going to get better until you acknowledge what's, what's happening. And you're not going to get, and that's not going to, you're not going to get better until you acknowledge your part of what's happening. You can't walk around that stuff. You can't wait for it to go away. And the way I think about it is just the idea that once we understand, once I understand the dark potential of using what I was talking about with the parents, once I understand that I, that I am the, the child of my, both my parents and therefore I have, I have integrated or I, or I have absorbed both positive and negative characteristics of them. I'm oversimplifying, but the negative characteristics are like, to use Carl Jung's words, it's part of my shadow.
Those are part of the characteristics and I've experienced being those Dark parts of my parents multiple times in my life. And.
But my job there is to identify them and abstain from them, just like I do from alcoholism or from ism or whatever. It's like, it's. You know, it's just. It's always. To me, about the thing I wrote in my first book was recovery has two. Two directions. Recover from what's toxic to you so you can recover who you genuinely are. And from us, that includes those saboteurs that are our head, those negative thinking, those bad emotional habits that we've.
All of us have developed. And it's like, it's not a problem that they're there. It's just we. We just have to take charge of making the choices so we can say no to them. I mean, how long has it been since you or I had a drink? And then how. How, like, been long has it been since you've been really tempted to take a drink? You know, it's like, it's constant. It's constantly better. We don't ever want to have too much confidence, but it's like, it's constantly better. And the same can happen with this stuff. So. So if I think about, you know, my. My mother's pessimism, the dark expectations she always had, it's like, I'm very familiar with that voice in my head and in my body. It's like, I don't. I'm. I'm pretty clear these days that that's not who I want to. That's not what I want to identify with. So. And that's gotten easier over time, but it's like, only through practice, as we always say, everybody, we say every podcast, practice is the only way to transform ourselves.
[00:20:55] Speaker B: Your nutshell made me think of all things. It's kind of embarrassing, but, like, I can confide is.
So a therapist I was seeing a while ago, years ago, before my sobriety, I, like, I had what they call transference, right? And, like, I really fell for her, or I thought I fell for her, but, like, I was very attracted to her, and I think I, like, texted her, like, drunk or something. Like, you know, just, like, some. Yeah, you know how it goes. Just embarrassing.
And. And then the way that she tried to help me with that is that, like, I get there for therapy, and she's just like, hey, like, let's just talk about that. Let's talk about.
Let's just have you with me own, you know, your attraction to me, and we can address, you know, by. By owning it. Then we can talk about it. And same goes for, like, when I would be taking pills on the sly and not telling people that I was high, you know, like, all these things, these, like, just all of these dark complications that I was going through, and I just could not cop to them, you know, And I was trying to, like, exist as this other. This person that was other than what I was. And I. And I realized with some distance, you know, that, like, look, there's, like, you can't. I can't get to where I want to go unless I first admit where I am, you know, And I think, like, I.
Yeah. And. And I. So I could. I could see, like, how she was trying to help me with a whole variety of things back then, and I just, like, I. I just couldn't.
I couldn't face who I was, you know?
[00:22:26] Speaker A: Well, first of all, I bet.
I bet that therapist was never bored working with you. I think you probably. There was always plenty to do, plenty of interesting things to look at. But even you telling me this, and you refer to it, you preface it as it could be, it's going to be embarrassing. And maybe it is a little bit silty, but it's. I would venture to say it's not really what we used to. We actually think, embarrassing. It has been embarrassing. Any of us can understand why it would be embarrassing to do that. But a part of what we do constantly to clean up those dishes is, you know, therapy. I mean, recovery, including therapy, but also just all recovery. One of the ways to describe it is it's based on tattling on ourselves.
You know, we just say things out loud that. That we would never say, you know, and what you're talking about is having a history. Not that I know very well that I. I have this. I call it the white hat addiction. Looking back, it was like I had this. This idea that I had to be a good guy and I had to be in a certain way to see myself, you know, whether it be strong or helpful or good or kind, whatever it is. But it's like, you know, you know, we look back at our. Look back at our. Are using is like I was really none of those things. I mean, I was. I was in there, so maybe that some of them slipped through sometime. But I wasn't living my life as any of those things. But I was like you.
I was at first. And it's not even just. I'm not gonna. I don't want to face this at first. It really is unconscious. We don't want to face it, so we don't See it.
I mean, that's one of the things I have to remember. I need to remember when I'm working with other people is some things that. And see if you can identify with this, Patrick. It's like with working with other people in the program, sometimes somebody will talk to you for five minutes. And some of this is just so obvious, you're just looking at it and going like, well, you know, you see that big brick sitting on your head. Won't you take it? Move it over there? It's like they don't see it. And part of our approach to people is to respect them. And your therapist was doing the same thing. You know, you. You actually gave her something to work with that is, you know, was. Was tangible. Okay, now let's talk about this.
My guess is, I mean, if. If that's me in this situation going like, okay, well, this I can get. I can get this. I can get a head around this. And I can talk to Patrick about this because.
And it's kind of. It's kind of nice when. Because therapists are always learning as we go anyway, but sometimes you just get something like that go, oh, I know what this is. Like you say this is countertransference. We understand how it works. We understand why it's that way. We probably all experienced some of it ourselves. And, and it's. Yeah, but, but. So I guess go back to the nutshell. The, the. The point is just keep washing the dishes, you know, don't try to figure out what they're for, what when they're going to do. It's just if somebody brings in the dishes and there's, you know, and, you know, the, the law of the universe is if, If I've washed a whole bunch of dishes and then I finish the last dish.
And this is really weird law, but it really does exist in the world. Even if you live alone and you finish the dishes, someone brings another dish in after you finish, it's never finished. You look, you go, damn. It's like. It's like. And that's funny.
[00:25:55] Speaker B: Yeah, that last. That last coffee mug that gets laid in there, right when I'm, like, wiping off the pot, it's just like, I'm gonna kill you now.
[00:26:03] Speaker A: And to me, if we're just playing with this metaphor, it's a. It's a beautiful thing. Just. It just says there's always going to be something there that's going to remind me even, Even when I'm feeling like I'm doing really good, to remind me that we're never done. We're not done.
We got work to do.
And face it, don't.
Yeah. What? Yeah, I appreciate you liking this nutshell because. Because my question about it when I wrote it was, will people be able to connect the two parts of it? Because one of them is. Is really more of an seated. In a more therapeutic sense of, you know, don't your dark side. But the other is just so practical. It's just like I can always. I can always get with a.
If you turn something into a kitchen metaphor, I'm going to be able to understand it.
[00:26:47] Speaker B: Well, I think most people will. And like. And, you know, like, at the risk of boring anyone who's listening, let's just stick with the dishes for a moment. Okay. Because, like, when I was. One of the things I thought of when I took my cake earlier this week, I thought of it after my share, of course. Like, I always think of the best stuff after the moment is passed and an opportunity to say anything. I.
I think I could accurately be described in my using time as. I couldn't tie my shoes, I couldn't walk from one end of the room to the other. I couldn't fold my laundry, I couldn't make my bed, I couldn't wash my dishes without getting a load on, without having some kind of, like, barrier between in, you know, my feelings and myself. And as a result, I lived in squalor. You know, I couldn't. I couldn't. I couldn't barely dress myself, you know, I mean, that's how sad it had gotten towards the end. And then in recovery, I've become fastidious about those things, you know, and try not to get, you know, to. That could be its own kind of addiction. Like, you know, I.
Yeah, people can go hard with it. When I had that inability to clean the dishes or to. To fold my clothes or whatever, it was just because facing them just seemed insurmountable. Like, I was just like, I just can't do it. It's so hard, you know, like, I don't. I don't have the. You know, I mean, obviously there was all this, like, chemical stuff going on with my brain at the time. You know, I had, you know, all of these kinds of. As happens with addiction, this kind of compounding awfulness, you know, that was like, walling me in. But, like, what was happening in essence, right, was that, like, I couldn't look. I couldn't look at the problem squarely. I couldn't confront it. And as a result, it piled up and it just got Worse and worse and worse and worse until. Okay, now you've really got some dishes to wash. It's like you think, Washington, your dinner is bad. Oh, how about two dinners or three dinners?
[00:28:31] Speaker C: Right?
[00:28:32] Speaker B: You can extrapolate that to.
[00:28:33] Speaker A: Yeah, with the, with the, with the food caked on. Now you know where it's. Now. Now we're going to have to scrape it off.
It's. As you're talking, I'm going, you know, again, we can do with any of these, These nutshell things is, is. It's just, it's fun just to see how, how short you can make it. And when you were saying, I'm going, like, really, it could just be two words. Keep up. None of us do that perfectly like anything else. So we're going to get behind sometimes. But when you get behind, be aware of. And I, rather than say, don't do something because, you know, that's the negative command. Don't think of the color blue. Don't. Don't imagine, you know, you. You wearing a sombrero.
That's fun. It's. It's like, instead, just say when. When I do be aware of what, what, what my inner response is. And so again, one of my inner responses is going to be that. That part of me that's always looking for a reason to procrastinate, you know? You know, you and I have talked about procrastination a lot. We're good. We're good at it. We have talent in that area. And it's too bad they don't. They don't pay you for it. But it. But we'd never get around to collecting our checks anyway.
[00:29:43] Speaker B: I could be. No, I could. Yeah, yeah, I could. I could be a consultant. You know, I could go around the world just telling people, teaching procrastination.
[00:29:50] Speaker A: Yeah, but the idea is, listen to that voice. Because that's what it's always, you know, And I can't remember if we talked about this. I talked about this somewhere recently. I don't remember. It was with our podcast. But that procrastination at any given moment is really just a thinly disguised version of saying no.
It's like, you know, it's a little bit like I was saying about the White Hat addiction. I don't want to say. I'm just saying no, but if I'm saying, well, I'm not going to work on this thing right now, even though I really probably should, but I'll do it later.
The short version of that is I need to. I need to own that I just said, I'm not going to do this today. That puts the responsibility in my lap in a much more clear. I can still do it. It's my choice. But it puts the Realize, you know, it's. We're protecting our own image with ourselves by procrastinating, is what I've been recently thinking about. But I'll get it. I'm going to get to it. It's like, so, so, you know, so if you really, if we're having a conversation and you're really wanting to be therapeutic with that, I say, well, I will get to it. And so. So you would say, so you're not going to do it.
Well, I'll get to it. So you're not going to do it. It's like, well, I'm going to do it some other time, but, oh, so you're not going to do it today, you know, and how long would it take in a conversation to get me just. Just to break me down enough to where I go, okay, I'm not going to do it today. It's like. And you would say, how hard was that? Say what it is. These are just some examples of how complicated we make things that are simple,
[00:31:40] Speaker C: Sam.
