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Source: Unidentified Historical Recording – Fellowship Review Recording 867 – Date Unknown.mp3 File: paula-h-relapse-workshop-ca-1992-archive-867.mp3 Duration: 01:19:25
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Interesting journey. Craig called me about a year ago and said, would you please come do this workshop? And at the time, I was involved with in vitro fertilization. And I said, gosh, Craig, you know, I'd love to, but if what I'm doing works, I'll be having a baby in September. Well, that wasn't the plan. And so, and at that point, you know, we all forgot about it because it was a year before the conference.
And I was sort of doing my thing. And I'm sure Craig was doing his thing. Well, then he called and he said, could you come? He said, did you have a baby? I said, no, I didn't have a baby. He said, well, could you come? Because, you know, something happened to the other speaker. And so I said, sure. And, you know, what you need to know is I am now pregnant and I am pregnant with twins. So anyway, what I want you to know is that I need to walk around a little bit.
And also, if I get out of breath a little bit. So if I stop, just just bear with me for a sec. Because it's sort of like your body is not your own. And I a day at a time, I'm sort of feeling like I've been invaded by aliens. So what we're going to talk about today is relapse. And what what I first like to know is when I say relapse, how many people kind of get a negative feeling? OK, how many people get a positive feeling?
How many people don't care? OK, well, what I what I want to talk about is sort of to move relapse into a new context, because I think it's important to, you know, to do this. It helps you not be so hard on yourself. And I'm not just going to talk about relapsing from chemicals. I think that's where the negative part comes in, is we all get very scared about that. We all get disappointed when it happens to us or our friends.
But sort of relapse in the bigger context of what it's about in our life. And it's a very important piece of our life. In the dictionary, relapse is defined as a fallback or a slip into a former state, especially after a partial recovery. And I want you to really hold on to that, to fall back after a partial recovery. And so what relapse is, is to repeat something, to repeat some behavior that's known to you.
So when you go forward and you get too far into the unknown, part of what you get to do is relapse into a former state and get back to what's known. So part of what we're talking about today is this part of relapse that's human nature, this part that any time you try to change, you know, I don't know how many people have ever tried to go on a diet in here, but you're usually good for a week, maybe two weeks, and then you relapse into a former state.
You go back and you think, oh, you know, I can have a hot fudge sundae or whatever it is, not that any of that stuff is right or wrong, but that when we begin to institute a change, we can only go forward so quickly before our resistance picks up and throws us backwards. Now, it's interesting. I'm going to do a little comparison between human beings and rats. I'll keep it clean, though. And in some ways, human beings are less aware than rats are.
And how this works is if you take a maze and you put a rat in a maze and put a piece of cheese somewhere in the maze, the rat will run through the maze and find the cheese. Big deal. You take the cheese out and put the rat back in. That rat will run the path one time, and when he finds out or she finds out there's no cheese, she will go forward in a new direction and pick a new way because the rat's survival depends on finding the food.
Well, human beings are a lot more grandiose than rats. And what happens is the human beings say to themselves, you know, it worked once, and there wasn't cheese down that path last time, but I know it'll be there this time, okay? And so over and over and over, we keep looking for that cheese.
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Even though it hasn't been there for a long time, we somewhere know that it's not there, and we get really grandiose. It's like we say, well, I'm shocked. I'm in denial. It should be there. It should be the way I want it to be. And consequently, you know, human beings become different because they'll do it over and over and over. The difference between rats and human beings are that rats would rather face the unknown than starve to death.
Human beings would rather flirt with dying or flirt with being in a rut than face the unknown. And so that's kind of the human condition that we find ourselves in as we go forward and we look at this thing called recovery and relapse. One of the things that I look at from that is that living with the truth is really difficult. In the program, we talk about reality on reality's terms, and part of what relapse is about is that little piece that says, I'm not going to do it on life's terms.
I'm going to do it on my terms. And so that kind of thinking, and if you look in to yourself, you'll find lots of areas where things haven't worked or you're constantly looking at, why do I keep doing this or why do I keep saying this? And what happens is that you're resisting, you're struggling with life on life's terms. Let's look at an example of this. I have this friend Mel, okay? And Mel, like many of us, lived whatever kind of life he wanted to.
He ate what he wanted to, he smoked, he drank, he danced, he did all this stuff. And one day, one day, Mel had a heart attack. And it scared the bejesus out of him. And obviously, Mel went to the doctor. And as he was at the doctor's, they cured him of it, they got him through his heart attack, he lived. And the doctor put him on a very strict schedule, very rigorous schedule. And one of the things that happened is because Mel was scared to death, he started to follow the schedule.
He meditated daily. He prayed daily. He didn't take the stairs because right now he wasn't supposed to exercise. He quit smoking, he quit drinking. And he started paying attention to what he knew he needed to do to move his life in a different direction. Lo and behold, one day, Mel started feeling better. And as Mel started feeling better, something started creeping in. That thought that, I'm okay now, I'm better, I'm fixed.
And as that thought started creeping in, Mel stopped praying and Mel stopped meditating. And nothing happened, no big deal, nothing. And so a little more time went on. And Mel went to work. One day the elevator was broken, so Mel took the stairs. And he was feeling so good he bounded up the stairs and nothing happened. And again, that process is being put in place, nothing happened. So then as Mel got back to work and back on his feet and he's feeling good and he's doing these things, but they're starting to slip away from him, he got invited to a party.
And he went to the party and he had a few drinks, he had a few cigarettes, he danced a few dances. And on the way home, Mel had a heart attack. Mel kept saying, I know there's cheese down there somewhere. And what happens is that Mel stopped doing the things that he needed to do that made his life work. He was relapsing, falling into illness after a partial recovery. And I think for many of us this happens, whether it be around chemicals or other areas,
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that we get motivated, we get going. And then part of why 12 Steps are so successful is because you do what your sponsor says, you go to a meeting and you do it until you integrate it into yourself and it becomes part of you. But in the beginning, especially, and I think some of these really hard changes that we're asked to face take a year to really get that you've got to be different, you've got to do it different.
So what happened is that Mel's relapse was preceded by wrong thinking. That wrong thinking came from denial. And as the denial crept in and Mel moved forward, he forgot what needed to happen. Right thinking comes from following the truth, the facts as they are, not how you want them to be. And in my example with Mel, you can see that he stopped doing what worked and started doing it his way. I'd like to look at what happened with Mel, sort of the steps of this, and kind of take you through, especially if we're dealing with something with negative consequences, what happens.
The first thing that happened to Mel after his heart attack was that he got frightened, he got scared. And I'm going to call this Mel's bottom. And we all have bottoms around certain things. We get fed up, and that produces the impetus for us to go forward, to make the change. And we're afraid of the negative consequences. But fear alone, although it acts as a motivating force, will not make the change.
I'm sure you've heard people say fear will not keep you sober because it doesn't last. We have this wonderful mechanism about ourselves that pain and fear get repressed. If we walked around feeling our pain and our fear all the time, we'd never get out of bed in the morning because life would just be too threatening. So fear helps motivate, but it won't last. It won't help you keep going. And then what happens is as you make a change, as you go on a diet, as you get into recovery, as you make any kind of change, you start to feel better.
You start to get the bennies of whatever positive life change you're making. And this is really dangerous because as you start to feel better, what happens is you start to get freedom. And we talk a lot about freedom in this country, but the truth is people are scared to death of freedom because freedom is the unknown. We're really much more comfortable having some limits and some boundaries and knowing the rules because when we get outside of the rules, if we don't have internal structure, we get out of control.
So as you start getting it, as Mel started getting it, what happened is that the freedom starts also the denial because as you have the freedom, you have the freedom to think of any possibility, including there may be cheese down that tunnel. The next thing that happens is that Mel started to lose his fear. And as we lose our fear, it's easy to stop doing whatever was working. Then also as we lose the fear, complacency sort of sets in.
And as that sets in, we get bored. It's like, nah, I don't want to. I don't want to go to a meeting. I don't want to eat right. I don't want to do the things that I know are going to help me heal and be a healthy person. And so Mel stopped doing what worked and started doing what he wanted to do. One of the things that I like about recovery is that you start out doing what you need to do and after you do it long enough, it becomes what you want to do.
And that's that process. That's what I'm talking about. Once it gets inside, then it's no big deal anymore, but until it becomes you want to take care of yourself, it takes a certain amount of pressing through that resistance.
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So what happens is that as you get bored with the routine, anything when it's new is pretty fun. But as it gets, you know, I see this a lot. I'm fortunate enough, I also work in the field of recovery. And I see a lot of people on a 30-day or a 60-day relapse cycle. They love going in. They love being a newcomer. They get a lot of attention. But as they hit that place where they're starting to grow up, you know, you don't get quite as much.
You know, then you're supposed to start doing it and not needing so much attention. And so, one of the things that happens is that when you hit that unknown place, you start thinking, well, maybe this time it'll be different. Maybe this time. And so people start acting out. And that acting out is part of what leads the path back. You start to see behavior changes, those kinds of things. And then what happens is, again, and none of this happens at a day, you experience the consequences of your actions.
You act out long enough and you fall down. Now, with chemicals, this can be very scary because what we're playing with is life-threatening. When we're talking about relapse as being part of human nature, it's normal to fall down. And we are all asked to walk a more narrow path around chemicals because, you know, what we're doing can be life-threatening. Around other areas of our lives, what we do, it's okay to fall down.
And I think it's important because we get very hard on ourselves of, oh, I relapsed, I was on a diet and I fell off my diet. And it's not usually life-threatening, but sometimes that same very rigid way of beating yourself up comes in. Now, none of us like rules or boundaries. Well, let me not speak for us. How many people like rules and boundaries? Good. Safe. I always thought, well, how do I know?
Maybe I better check this out. But the rules and boundaries are actually what keep us safe. They keep us contained, they keep us protected so that while we're trying to learn new behavior, the rules kind of act as a container for us to bounce around in. And without rules, what happens is that we just bounce any old direction or without boundaries. And ultimately what happens with these rules is that by paying attention to them, that's how we get freedom.
That's how we learn to transcend. However, in the beginning, people always experience rules as restraining and prohibitive and negative. And so it's important to know that with these rules, you're going to always resist. However many of you have worked with sponsees, I mean, that's most of what the gig is about, is holding their resistance. You know, I hate this, I hate that. You know, why this, why that?
Well, that's because when you get out of control, it's like when there aren't rules and boundaries, part of what happens is that you're used to not having that safe container and it makes it very difficult. You know, we learn things slowly and we learn things a little bit at a time. And so if we get too much freedom, we get scared. And as you know, too much, you know, if a government is out of control, we call that chaos or anarchy.
Okay. We only have a certain ability to tolerate freedom. And part of what I want to look at is that to move into a new level of freedom, we still have to keep the boundaries there. And so we all function in this thing called a comfort zone. And a comfort zone is, let me. Okay, this is simply just a zone of comfort. And we all have different comfort zones.
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What happens is that, let's play with money for a sec. If the most amount of money that you're comfortable having. Well, actually, when I was a practicing addict, I was comfortable with having about $500 because that got me close to a quarter ounce. And so what would happen is that I would save my money. And as I got close to that $500, I would get rid of it. I would buy drugs. And what would happen is maybe the least amount of money I was comfortable having was $50.
Okay. So I would get close to $500, get rid of the money, get down to $50. If I dropped to $49.95, I was below my comfort zone, had to have $50 left. And so what happens is then I'd start saving again. Okay. If I got to $600, I would create some reason to get rid of the money. Okay. Usually not a very good reason, but it made sense at the time. Okay. And so then what would happen? Well, what would happen is that I would travel up and down in my own comfort zone.
Now, the problem is that obviously as I got into recovery, I wanted to have my leashes shifting. As I got into recovery, you know, I wanted some more financial security. Well, in order to, let's say, raise this to being comfortable having $1,000, I had to raise the bottom. Okay. Didn't you have a napkin? No. Okay. Anyway. Tissue would be terrific. Okay. Thanks. Well, let me see. Wait a sec. Good eyes.
Thanks. Okay. So, all right. So part of what happens as you make changes is that to raise the top, you have to raise the bottom. Okay. So if I wanted to be comfortable with $1,000, let's say, then I had to raise this to $200. So what happens is, okay, I'm at $200. My new top, my old top used to be $500. As I hit $500, what I have to do is stay very conscious, watch my behavior, watch my attitude, watch my mind, because this is the sabotage point.
Okay. And as I do that, now what happens between here and here is my mind will come up, whether in recovery or not, with a million things that all of a sudden I think I should have. And what I have to do is really focus on raising the top. Okay. And then let's say I spend some of this. I have to really watch that I don't go back to the old bottom. Okay. Now, this is sort of, I think, another easy way to look at this and to sort of figure out what your comfort zone is, is most people have a weight that is the least amount that they end up weighing.
Okay. So I'm going to say 135 is the least amount. And what happens is that unless you exercise and you do the kinds of things, that over time you go up here and let's say 150 is the top. Okay. And I'm seeing some heads nod. I think that this is one that we all go through, you know. Regardless of what the numbers are, we get to this place. Okay. So let's say we've just finished sort of a diet and we're at a very comfortable place.
Okay. So we're at the 135. We're good there. We're happy. We feel really good about ourselves. And then that process starts. And so it's like, well, I could have hot fudge sundae tonight. That's cool. And we go on. And then over a month or six weeks or however long it takes, it never took me six weeks,
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but anyway, we start getting up here. We get on the scale and we freak out. And what that means is that we're out, if we get to 151, we're out of the comfort zone. Okay. So then we'll do something to bring us back in. And we'll bounce around in here. So part of what needs to happen to make changes is you have to identify what your comfort zone is and what you're trying to move out of. Okay. Does that sort of make sense to everybody?
Because it's kind of important as we go forward. Okay. This also, by the way, happens with relationships. You know, I notice in my own relationship, like, we have the comfort zone of how well we get along, how close we're willing to be with each other. And if we start doing too good, I mean, I have a pretty good relationship. But if we start, like, really cruising and connecting too well, I'll pick a fight or I'll do something.
And what happens is it sends us right back into, you know, we know how to get through a fight. We know how to say we're sorry. We know how to do that stuff. And so as we do that, we're back being comfortable. And that will happen for a certain amount of days. And, you know, part of this is also what gets worked into this is also it keeps life in chaos and drama. And, you know, other than chemically dependent people, we're also drama junkies.
And so this keeps us fluctuating and it keeps stuff happening. So, again, in order to change, we have to move out of, we have to lift our comfort zone. But you can't just say that the least I want to weigh is 135. I have to lower, in this case, lower the top also. So that rather than at 150, that being the flag, let's say 140 becomes the flag. Then I can have more success down here. Okay? What happens, from my point of view, is that life is kind of like a series of lessons.
And especially once you get into recovery, when we complete one, we move on. And when we don't complete one, we keep coming back to it. One of the things that happens, though, is sometimes repetition and relapsing becomes a way of life. And that's part of what, as we move into this, we're going to look at a little bit later, is where are the areas of your life that you're chronically relapsing, that you're using to beat yourself up, that you hold on to, to keep your self-esteem in a place that doesn't feel good.
Through this repetition, we create a lot of pain for ourselves. But again, if misery is the top and it's known, we don't move beyond that because it gives us too much freedom. And so most often, people would rather choose misery because it's known. Not because it's truly what they want, but they know how to do it. And they know how to be unhappy. And so in order to transcend this, you have to start trying new attitudes.
You have to start trying some new things. Getting out of a rut takes a lot of courage. One of the things that Chris talked about last night, he started out saying that he was a disciplined, recovering person. And I think it's really important that to make some of these changes, the verb that you put towards your recovery to get clean and sober is the same verb often that you have to put towards making the shifts in your life.
But we'd like it to be easy, we'd like it to be simple, and it's not. Life isn't easy and life isn't simple. One of the things I like in Scott Peck's book, The Road Less Traveled, the first sentence in his book is, life is hard. And once you can accept that life is hard, then it's actually quite easy. easy. But it's when you want it to be easy, and you think it should be easy, and you shouldn't have to struggle, and you shouldn't have to work through your resistance, then we get into trouble. You know, the other thing that I notice is part of why my recovery means
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so much to me. is because I worked so damn hard to get it and have it. And if it were easy, it would be like any other thing. You know, it's like if I find a hundred bucks on the street, I'll blow it. But if I have to earn that hundred dollars, it means more to me. And I think that when you get the value of recovery, part of that is because each of us worked very hard to get there. I think I talked a little bit about relapse in life is normal.
If you go forward too fast, you have to come back. However, with chemicals, it's like sometimes we'd rather play with the chance of dying or really hurting ourselves than deal with what we know we've got to do. When I was in graduate school, one of the things that really scared me when I started doing my internships is I would listen very hard to people. I'm a therapist. And I would listen very hard to people and be very scared that I would miss something.
Well, as I listened and I'd go back to my professors and say, you know, what if I miss something? You know, this could be crucial in their healing. And what I came to understand is that what you don't complete, you get to keep repeating. And part of what happens is that, you know, what's nice about the kind of work I do is let's say something gets missed, it shows up again and again and again and again.
And that's sort of the great, you know, the great part of life. There's lots of lessons, and how many you do, that's up to you. But you don't get to go on to the third lesson until you do the first one and the second one. And then you get to move on. I think that every lesson that we learn creates a certain amount of awareness. And with that awareness, we get a bigger piece of ourselves. We get more freedom.
We get to tolerate more freedom. But it takes time to get there. In order to feel like a whole person, we need to take all the steps to get there. You know, we started in San Francisco, Bob L. and I, Cocaine Anonymous, 10 years ago in July. And it's been a really wonderful 10 years. And as I look back and I look at some of the things that happened, I'm real different today. You know, it's like when I tell my story today, I know I did those things, but I have a hard time because that's not who I am.
And how that changed was a piece at a time. And getting clean and sober was just the beginning. I think that total health, you know, once somebody asked me, you know, Paula, what do you think health is? And I said, well, I think that being a really healthy person is having appropriate feelings for the appropriate situation. And that as you move along, you develop that sense of whole. But the most important thing, and I think why relapse is so important to talk about, not necessarily just from chemicals, but from a life stance perspective, is that the most important relationship that you ever have is the one with yourself.
And that by knowing some ways and some tools to move through, to accept that resistance is part of life and that you're going to relapse, not necessarily from chemicals, but in other areas, whether it be money, relationship, weight, performance on your job, whatever it is. You're going to change and then fall back. And one of the things that happens is that as you get sick and tired of being sick and tired, you move forward and you say, okay, I'm going to do it and do the steps that it takes to make that change.
In order not to relapse, we need to stay conscious. We need to examine our thoughts and our feelings and our attitudes. And we also need to really pay attention to those little fudgings. It's like, eh, that's not a big deal. But what happens is all the little deals become bigger deals.
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And that compounds. And what happens is that if we allow ourselves to start not telling the truth to ourselves, it gets bigger and then it gets hard and then we relapse. I mean, it's actually quite simple, but that's what happens. And as we get into one of these tracks, like I know when I start lying to myself in a certain area, it affects my self-esteem. When I get up in the morning, whether it's weight or whatever, I'm having a great time right now struggling with this being pregnant thing because it's like, especially maybe for women out there, if a doctor tells you you're going to gain 45 pounds, that was awesome to me.
And I've spent my whole life training myself about what foods I can eat and how often I can eat and never eat snacks. And all of a sudden I find myself in this place where I've got to eat snacks every two hours. I don't even know what a snack is. So you have to work with yourself. You have to work with your resistance. And what I'd like to do… First, any questions, any comments? Clear as mud? Great.
Okay. What I'd like to do is I have a worksheet and I thought part of what would be fun today is to go through some of the areas for each of you that's kind of a stuck point in your life. And for the sake of the tape, what I'm going to do is read over… Since I'm sort of on a leash… And there should be pencils and some sheets. And so for the sake of the tape, what I'm going to do is just sort of read through the questions and explain them.
And then I'll sort of circulate as we do this. I think you'll find it helpful to look at some of these questions. Okay, the first thing to think about… And if you want to make some notes, that's fine. This is yours. Take it, do it. Keep six of it, whatever you want. But the first question on the worksheet is, what area in your life is in an ongoing relapse? Like, what area of your life are you using to beat yourself up?
So you do it and then you hate yourself for it. And God, if you don't have any of that going on, good for you. You don't need to be here. Okay, that's number one. So think about that. Think about what's sort of repetitive in your life. The second area is, what do you want to have happen? Or what do you think you want to have happen? How does it look like it would be okay? And the third is, what have you done before successfully to try to change this behavior?
Four is, what feelings and thoughts did you begin to have as you were making this change? You know, like, what was the internal dialogue? What was the chatter? And you may know that and you may not know that. Five is, what happened to sabotage your desire? What was the thought that said, oh, I think I'll have a hot fudge sundae. Number six, and this is really an important one. If you succeeded, I find this a lot when I work with clients who are overweight.
If you succeed in losing the weight, then what? What then do you have to face? Because most times what happens is that we will relapse so as we don't have to look at the new step. Okay? For instance, if people have tremendous intimacy issues, by holding on to the weight it creates a tremendous barrier. Okay? Or it could be a relationship around money. It could be sexual stuff. It's like, if you don't handle this, how is it protecting you?
How does it keep you from looking at the next thing?
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Number seven is, how does the relapse serve you? I think I said earlier around weight. One of the things that happened for me is that, I played this game around ten pounds. This was not like a big deal from anybody else's point of view. But around ten pounds, every pound I used to hate myself. And what I finally had to realize is that I had a hard time accepting myself as okay. And if I always had this one area where I could hate Paula, then I could always pull that out of the hat and stay in that comfort zone of, I'm not good enough yet.
Okay? So look at that. Does your relapse somehow keep you from letting yourself be okay? And number eight is, what do you need to do to complete this pattern? So what I'd like you to do is take a few minutes and run through it. I'm going to sort of circulate. I'll be happy to answer any questions. And let's try the worksheet. It's okay if I beat my wife, but I'm clean and sober today. I don't happen to agree with that.
That's not okay with me. And so what I'm saying is that as you walk along your journey of recovery, just being clean and sober, that's not enough. That's not it. At least it's not it for me. And as I walk along, things appear. Whether it's weight that comes up or money or relationships, relationships are great. They put lots of boulders in the path that help you grow. I mean, as I said, life is about lessons.
And what happens is that those lessons help us go forward, help us be more of who we are. So the comfort is fine, but that doesn't mean you're done with lessons. And so as lessons come, you can complete them or you can continue to repeat them. And that's sort of what I'm looking at is, A, that repeating them is normal, but usually as you repeat them a certain amount of pain will come up with that. Yes?
My question is the problem that I have is when I'm in that comfort zone it gets real, I get real nervous. And I want something, I will create some chaos. So what I don't understand is that, I mean, what are the things that I would have to do to get, to push myself past that point of when my head sets in and says, Wait a minute, it's too quiet down here or it's too quiet. You've got to have something going on.
Your insides are turning somersaults and so on and so forth. What do I have to do to, you know, to push myself past that? Okay. The part of what we're talking about, I'm guessing, Okay. That's the word. Okay. So we have intimacy and we have isolation, okay? Or separateness. Okay. So what happens is, and somewhere in here I'm going to say is your zone, okay? But these are the directions that you're going back.
So as you move towards intimacy, I'm not going to put you on the spot. I'm going to ask, I'm going to make it up, okay? What happens is, I'm guessing, something kicks in, some piece of you kicks in and probably starts criticizing. So-and-so's not good enough. I don't like the way this happens. Something happens and you start talking to yourself. And what happens is that allows you to get all stirred up.
And as you get stirred up, you move towards separation. You probably have a fight or some kind of skirmish. And, you know, a lot of people, a lot of couples fight for intimacy. A lot of couples fight for passion. It's how they know how to do it. It's how they know how to be close. I can call you a jerk and you can call me a jerk and then we get to say we're sorry and that's how we know how to get close.
So if you want to move beyond that, you have to recognize the signs that are coming. Recognize the self-talk, the internal dialogue is what I call it, and then start either talking about it in your relationship, you know, the other thing, when Steve and I, and Skip did a couple things, one of the things we talked about that's very helpful is to work a step
[00:45:01]
one. Like, every time you start dealing with stuff, do a written step one with each other. And you get clear real quick. I, I sort of look at relationships as like, I have my side of the tennis court, and my husband has his side of the tennis court. And what I like to do is I like to serve the ball, and then I like to run over and tell him how to hit that ball. And what a step one does, and it's a good thing he doesn't have the microphone, um, anyway.
Metaphorically speaking you understand. Um, and what a step one does is it gets me back on my side of the tennis court. What I can do is work with me. What I can control and what I'm powerful with. And so that's one thing that you can do, is as you start getting, moving towards intimacy, really sit down and look at all the things you're judging about the other person. And see what you can own back.
But most of my thoughts, I'm sorry. Sure. Not so much do I get into the judgment of him, but my head will say, oh boy, this will be, you know, good, good. That's the final reason for, you know, that I'm such a strong, independent woman, and to allow myself to be vulnerable is the last step. Okay, so, alright, so I can give you some clues where I'd look, okay? Many people have gotten messages from their families, you remember the families, and the families say don't cry, be strong, whatever your family says.
So part of what you may need to do is work through some of the family issues about is it okay to be vulnerable? Is it okay to be close? Is it okay to share your feelings? Is it okay to work towards intimacy? And again, the wonderful part about human nature and relapse is if you get too intimate, you're going to relapse and screw it up. So you'll get comfortable again. But each time you just take a few baby steps and it gets a little better.
You know, that's, I mean, it's like a friend of mine just said that his sister just got married and I said, oh God, the worst year of your life. You know, you can live with somebody, but getting married, usually the first year is the worst. And what happens is after that year you learn to work with each other. You know, because you set these limits around marriage, these rules, these comfort zones.
You know? I don't know if that's helpful, but a lot of times finding out what's yours and what's not yours, and also how many people you have in bed with you at night. You know, I mean, damn, sometimes our bed got damn crowded, you know? We got two cats and we got two people. And then we got, you know, my family and his family and, you know, it gets complicated. And you've got to be able to sort some of that out.
Yes. Hi, Michael. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Does those who are willing to go to any lengths to not have turmoil bring pain? Is that okay with you? Is emptiness okay with you? Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay.
[00:50:03]
Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Um, I mean, I think there are several things that you want to look at. One is, yeah, if you just blasted off the map, usually what happens is we go into denial or we relapse into a former state. We go back to something that's known, okay? Or go through something like you're going through, it often will relapse on drugs or alcohol because it brings them a certain level of comfort.
That allows them then to start over in recovery, go to meetings, do that stuff, because that's a known commodity. That's the start, okay? The other thing is to look at, um, you need to do some healing and some grieving also, um, for all these things that have happened. And also to look at what do you have energy for and what kinds of things do you need to have some meaning in your life. For instance, um, interest.
You know, I don't know what yours might be, but computers, games, whatever it is, baby step by baby step, you start to reach out and integrate into the community. Um, are the kinds of things that, you know, when you get just jammed off the scale, you know, part of what you need to do sometimes is go to be still and regroup and then do one thing at a time. And also, what comes in for me around that is to be gentle with yourself.
You know, that none of us like change. And that's why we stay in the pipeline. And that if you have a very abrupt transition, you're going to be very likely to go back and to keep, use, you know, do some of that stuff. And if you're not doing that, you need to really give yourself some credit and be gentle, you know, and ask for help. And that's where, you know, the fellowship can be very positive because you can go and say, I just ended up here.
I don't know what the hell I'm doing here. And, you know, I'd like to have co-op with somebody. And that begins a connection. I don't know if that's helpful. But then what you need to do is go to the next step. Then take the next step. Way to take it. And then say, here, how am I? Here, how am I doing? And ask me how am I doing in this part of the spiritual world. I'm not working on it. I'm not here.
I'm not here. So, you know, what my ambition is to stay here. You know, what I'm doing here. You want to use my card? Who are you working for?
[00:55:02]
No, I doubt that. I'm guessing that you were working to prove something to your parents. And… So, the other piece, and I, you know, I want to be very gentle. Because I have my own philosophy, okay. But sometimes it's important to go in and do some of that work with somebody who's trained to do that work. And that might be the piece. You know, I don't want to tell anybody how to heal. Okay. Well, you know…
I know how to do my job. Well, one of the things, you know, as I work in my own recovery, and I travel on sort of a spiritual path, sometimes better, sometimes worse. And I asked a friend of mine, you know, I said, You know, I don't think that I can get there and work every day because there's too many distractions. And one of the things that he said to me is, you know, Paula, it's easy to get serenity, and it's easy to get spiritualness by going up on top of the mountains.
But he said, the real one is we're in a physical plane, we're here. And so part of it is learning to integrate. How do I take care of me and participate in the world? I'm not saying it's easy. It's actually quite hard. But from my point of view, it's worth it. And there are many different avenues, you know, to try. And maybe you just need to keep trying some different paths to find the one that works for you.
I have one guy that I've been seeing for a lot of years. He's in a lot of pain. And, you know, he works out every day, and that's his recovery program. It's not for me to judge it. I think if he did some other things, he'd feel better. But it works. And so it may just mean that part of what you're getting blasted through is to really search for your path. And part of that searching is to be willing to try things that then you may have to be discarded.
And say, that's not for me, and that's not for me. But to keep openness that the answer will come. And that's always been my experience. You know, when I am stagnant and scared and I don't know my way, it's not time for me to know that. And I hate that place, that ambivalent place. But that's also part of this new life. Yes? That's what my whole family did. My parents did a lot of work. And when I got down there, some of the things that I was doing, game security, the guilt, loneliness, stuff like that.
But as far as who was coming back to it, I was just involved in work or whatever I was doing. So it's not just a statement of who came back. And the real reason that I find out that I'm afraid to get out of the work, or I'm afraid to stop over eating there, is because I can't accept that there's a different level of eating success. But the rest of my life, the rest of what's going on around me, is part of the experience of what you know is beautiful, the things that you're doing, that you're saying, I don't know how to do that, I don't know how to do that, you know, and I'm trying to go to a community club, I'm trying to go to a spiritual institution, I'm trying to go
[01:00:02]
I'm going back to him, and you're not going back to the book, and I'm going back to that subject, and, well, my level of success is already increasing, but I don't have to be You know, I think that, I always think about the movie Blue, and they said, you know, life is a question of balance, and I really find that to be one of the truths of life, is that it really, to do it and have it be called, it really is sort of a question of balance, and that you can't do all balance, you know, it's like how you get balanced is not by standing this way, you fall this way, and you're right yourself, and you fall this way, and you come back to center, and as you keep coming back to center, you know, you find out who you are, and as you handle, for instance, once you've got a recovery program, well, then it's maybe time to work on relationships, and so then what you have to do is let go a little bit, just a little bit, of your recovery program, and start to learn in the next area, and then as you master that, you go on to the next area, and it isn't easy to have a balance, you know, and I get, what I know is some days I'm off balance, what you say is crazy, I know I'm off balance, and so then I go back to the basics, and I do what I need to do, it's like relapsing, I get off balance, this is my relapse, I come back to center, and then I do the things I know work, and then I look at, okay, what knocks me off my block.
Yes. And, and since I have been in recovery, it's real easy to be, um, perfect, and be beautiful, be myself, and like a nurse, you know, I'm a really good nurse, and I hope you are too, and, um, last year, I got involved in a relationship, and he, the reason that he fell in love with me was because I was a nurse, and he had me, you know, up here, and I, and I, and I knew him, and, uh, and after he found out that I wasn't gay, um, um, he didn't believe me, and, again, he asked me if I was gay, and he did not have the knowledge, all of the nonsense that, um, um, most of the words that have been said to me, and this is what he said to me.
It, um, a lot of times, you know, it sounds like, A, it was his loss, that he had trouble seeing you for who you are, and it also sounds like, he's trying to pay me to say that, um, and, and also, to start looking at, okay, knowing that, that you have issues around perfection, what I see, what I would tell you to do is go out and make a mistake every week, and see that the world still stands. It doesn't have to be a big one, but, you know, you can take a jar of jelly, and just drop it, and look at the floor, and notice that the world didn't stop.
So, I had a woman once that I worked with, and she had this thing from her family about Christmas trees, and every ball had to jump to be sold, and I would listen to this and think, my God. So, I gave her a sign over the holidays, and that was to, you know, to have that one hanging off, and look at it every day, and just notice that the world didn't stop, and, you know, we're not brought up, I mean, there's no license for parenting, and it's really kind of a sad thing, because, you know, all you gotta do is screw somebody, and, you know, and all
[01:05:03]
of a sudden, that qualifies them to be doing the most important thing, I think, that people in this world is bringing up children, and so, you know, you got, you have hard things to look at, and it sounds like you know what they are, and as you walk along, you'll know what's new, you know, but there are things you can practice, and when you get that perfection thing, you know, thank your father for caring, and send them out of the room, and you're adults can do that today.
You know, that's the other thing, I do a lot of work with inner child, but don't forget, you got an inner adult, and you don't have to take that, and nobody should be able to abuse you today at all, it's not okay. Yes. Hi, my name is John. Hi, Ron. Um, our marriage started in a youth escape. I still talk about it. Our relationship is growing more and more and more. I'm working on a real heavy, hard school thing, and I'm not moving along very well, and the other kids, and my whole position, a lot of the stuff that we've gone over, ends up where sometimes it's all bad news, later on, and it's like, how do I go about getting where I am?
I'm comfortable where I am. I'm happy where I am. Um, I've come home. Um, it's the first thing that's ever happened to me, and I'm going back, and I'm enjoying the youth, and the people that I've known, and what I've gained out of it, and I'm afraid sometimes to let go, that if I start letting that go, I might get into that same thing I went to one U.S. grade. I don't want to go to that again. I looked at the sheets, but it's hard to get U.S. grades.
You have to go out, go back to communities, and I'm in a community, and it's uncomfortable with it. I'm not sure you're going to like what I have to say, but I'm going to say it. And that is, when people come together, and they're practicing chemically dependent people, there tends to be a certain enmeshment, especially around self-destructive behavior. Okay? The easy way to say that is it's real easy to go down together.
It's real tough to come up together. Because not only are you having to get recovery, but you're also having to develop as an individual, and so there needs to be a certain amount of separation, individuation separation from each other. And sometimes you may, you may not. I can't predict for you, but you may, you know, it's like we start out in recovery, and we have a foot on the old way and a foot on the new way, and I think of those as icebergs.
And what happens is they stay connected for a while. And then as you change, icebergs separate, and sometimes you have to jump on for once. And that makes sense. The other thing, again, is to get support. To, you know, to have support in talking you through. It's okay. I don't think both of you have to work the same kind of program. You know, so that depends on how much is there. But also, sometimes roads and relationships go together, and sometimes they go apart to come back together again, and sometimes they go apart to stay together.
We have noticed what was going on between the two of us, and we knew that we could not handle it alone. And we were told from a local that we can't handle a lot of conditions. And we knew we needed to do something. We are now going through very tough times, but it is not that easy. You want life to be the way you want it to be? Do you listen to me today? Yeah. I mean, I'll tell you what. On a regular basis, I would like to change my husband.
On a regular basis. And he's a really good guy. And over time, and he would like to change me on a daily basis too. And over time, we are both changing. But, you know, we've been together seven years. And it's small. And part of that acceptance is knowing that neither one of us is going to fit the ideal picture for the other one. So it also has to do with acceptance. And once you can see sort of clearly, you know, it's like there isn't anybody out there
[01:10:04]
that fits my picture of Prince Charming. I'll look. And I had to accept that Prince Charming is sort of inside here for me. That's an ideal. And if I measure every man I meet according to that, I always sit in this place of disappointment. And that's painful for me. You know, acceptance is a hard thing. But what you and your wife are doing, I mean, I think it's hard to stay in a relationship. And as long as it seems like, you know, there's hope and there's a good foundation, you know, it's good for you.
And sometimes people come together. You know, I was married before. And part of what that was about for me is this man and I came together to grow each other up. And we got to the point where we looked at each other one day. And we didn't do it for each other anymore. We were good friends. It was amicable. But we were not headed in the same direction. I hope I got a clear message that if I stayed in that relationship, I would be cocaine.
I knew that. That would be wrong, I could say. So, it was a hard choice. It was a hard choice. Yeah. I'm sorry. Not at all. It's good. It's good. It seems like with myself, if I wasn't supposed to, you know, or whatever, that I'm, that I need to, I need to relax and get that thought. And that's what I'm doing is I'm looking for something else to say. And it's a place where I need to focus. And what really surprises me is what I'm doing with my life.
What I'm doing with today is changing the structure of my relationship with you. So, this is just a debrief. It's just a succession of stuff. And it seems like before I came into this life, that there was a succession of stuff. So, I don't have expectations of them. I'm just off the hook and through. It's just that. So, I'm just off the hook and through. It's just that. So, I'm just off the hook and through.
It's just that. And a lot of times we always want to finish and think, okay, I'm better now. The end. And what I notice is life is kind of like this big spiral. And so, you've got mother issues, father issues, recovery issues, friends, money, whatever the hell. Okay. And so, as you travel around in your life, you hit them. You just hit them at a different level. You know, but they don't go away. You know, a wound is a wound is a wound is a wound.
You know. I've got scars from surgery. And I will always have scars from surgery. And I will always have emotional scars. It's just that as I work through it more and more, it gets easier. And I know how to take care of myself. You know, it's like if I get depressed, I know what to do. I go to bed, I buy cookies, and I read people's magazines. So, it works for me. Yes. Thank you for letting us be part of this.
Hurrah! Well, I, um, lately I, you know, I've been thinking about, you know, the education school and, you know, I just got a hard time. You know, it's just too busy. I'm thinking about what I'm going to be saying. You have to voice something. You know. You're going to come to me in classes. You know, I'm going to be in that home corner. I'm going to get a bad grade. I have out loud several times just said, you know, fuck you, you yelled it out, you yelled it out.
It worked. It worked for me.
[01:15:00]
You can't do it. But listening to those voices come back to me, there was a failure, a failure for me, a failure. You know, it was worth a try to get by. It still wasn't going to work out. But I told myself, you know, I'm a lot of positive. We've been really fortunate just now. I'm going to do it. No matter what, I'm going to do it. I am what you said. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it.
I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. I'm going to do it. My Second Son Was Talking About Making A Decision, He Said, Listen, You're Not That Bad, You're That Good, You Drive Yourself Crazy, It's Going To Get Worse, And That Seems To Feel More To Me Also, Part Of My, Part Of My Relationship Was When He Was Talking About, How He Was Aged, And, You Know, Once He Was In Jail, It Was All Just, You Know, It Didn't Go On Well At All, He Was The First Person That I Ever Gave A Decision, He Was Not Going Out Of His Mind, You Know What I Mean, That's Just The Way It Was, You Know, You Know, I Was Just, Um, The First Person That I, You Know, I've Been Able To Stick With A Decision, By Myself, By My, By My Son, We, We Just Had A Little, Uh, A Therapy, That's Just The Way It Was, And It Didn't Go On At One Time, And The Therapist, When We Got There, She Said, Okay, Today We're Going To Listen To What, You Know, His Reason, His Thoughts About It, And She Cried Through The Whole Thing, You Know, She Cried, She Said To Me, You Know, If Anything, We've Got No Time To Talk About It, She Said, You Know, We're Not Going Back, She Said, I'm Not Going Back, She Said, I Felt So, Violated, So Uncomfortable, She Said, I Hate It, And I Said, You Know, I'm Willing To Go To Any Length, You Know, Any Avenue, Any Street, There Is A Possibility Of People's Relationship Working, Things That I Have Learned In, In, In My Personal Life, How To Incorporate Them In, Uh, In This Relationship, And She Wasn't Willing To Do That, You Know, I Had Eight, Eight, Eight, You Know, Books, And All These Cosmic, Spiritual Things, And Why Aren't You Reading Them, For Christ's Sake, You Know, If You Want To Seem To Work It, You Know, Yes, And No, Yes, And No, And I, You Know, Lit My Hair On Fire, Water On The Capitol, Anything To Kind Of Make Her, You Know, Feel My Way, I'm Trying To Realize, I'm Trying To Realize, You Know, I Can't Say, It's Not Going To Happen, But I Got Really Crazy, I Got All That Belting I Could Have Put Along, It Was Really, Really Crazy, Relationships Are A Great Feature, You Know, Um, What I'd Like To Do Is, Uh, Especially For Bringing Up The Perfectionists, And The Winning, And The Failing, I Think That I'll Leave You With A Story Today, Um, But Before I Tell You The Story, Does Anybody Have Something Burning That They Wanted To Share, Because I Realize We Haven't Taken A Break, And I Got Out, I Took Care Of My Bladder, But I Don't Know How You Guys Are Doing, Um, Let Me Just Leave You With A Story Today, I Would Like You To All Think Back To The Time In Your Life When You Were A Sperm, Yes, You Were, Part Of You Were, Okay, I Want You To Think Back To The Time When You Were A Sperm, Okay, And You're Getting Ready, And All The Sperms Are Lining Up On The Start Date, Ooh, And There's A False Start, You Gotta Get Back And Get Organized, Okay, Get Yourself Back Organized, Back On That Line, Okay, And Boom, The Race Is On, And You Are Swimming Like A Duck And Going Like A Bat Out Of Hell, Who Won That Race, That's Right, And You Have Already Succeeded, You Have Already Done Everything You Need To Do To Have Permission To Be Here, You Don't Have To Do Anything Else, You Have Won The Race, Thank You.