Chemsex Shadow Work

Hey there, Dr. Dallas Bragg here, recovery coach for gay men who want to break free from the addictive patterns of chemsex and live their best and highest life. Today we're talking about the concept that gets thrown around a lot lately is shadow work. And how in the world does shadow work have anything to do with chemsex recovery? Well, if that interests you, keep watching. On this channel, you're going to find lots of resources to help you break free from Tina or chemsex and attain your best and highest self. Also, don't forget to look for my podcast. It's called The Aftermath Podcast here on this channel as well. I drop a long-form video just like this one every Saturday, so please turn on the notification bell and subscribe to the channel so you don't miss anything. By the way, if you're interested in my one-on-one or group coaching program, it's called Recovery Alchemy. The link is in the show notes if you'd like to apply. Through weekly one-on-one sessions or weekly group sessions and daily accountability, your life could look much differently in 6 months than it Does now. So if you've listened to my recovery story, and if you haven't, you can hear it on my podcast, The Aftermath Podcast, episode 2. You may recall that early on, if you've heard it, that I've got a job serving as a server, serving as a server at a local high-end steakhouse. Every day before the shift began, if you've worked at a restaurant, and I'm sure this sounds familiar, we were required to circle around the managers and hear the latest announcements and typically a list of all the server wrongdoings. And I can remember listening with complete disdain each time one particular manager addressed the whole group. I'd roll my eyes and I'd face— make a face to anybody who would make eye contact with me. My heart would speed up and I would be clenching my fists. I was so triggered. And at some point, I never heard a word he had to say because my inner contempt drowned out his words. I could complain, or I would complain to the other servers, he is so Arrogant. Holding that opinion of him meant that every single word or behavior from him was filtered through that belief and that thought. I was constantly scanning for proof of his arrogance. This went on until the moment in the woods when I had my spiritual awakening. Again, my story. After that point, I began to see that the world outside of myself was simply a reflection of me. And I remember thinking, that arrogant POS is not a reflection of me at all. But then I stood back and I took on the role of observer and I learned to ask the right questions. Instead, I asked, how is that arrogant POS a reflection of me? Then I learned the most valuable tool in shadow work, placing them with me. So instead of he is an arrogant POS, I said, I am an arrogant POS. That allowed— then what that did was allowed that to really saturate through my body, and it hit me. I was arrogant. How dare him call me out? Me? I've been serving since I was 18 years old. I was a grown man. How dare him correct me? How dare him correct anybody? Then the floodgates opened for me. I began seeing all the ways in my life that I was being arrogant toward my coworkers, my friends, my family. This POS, as I called him, became the gift The universe sent me the best recovery gift I could have received that made me a better man. And that's how I first learned that triggering people are my best friends. And that's also when recovery became real, sustainable, and a gateway to my highest expression. Let me tell you something. Nothing is personal, and that's your freedom in recovery. Here's something that's gonna change your entire recovery if you let it sink in. Nothing that anyone does or says to you is actually about you. Nothing. That criticism from your ex is not about you. The rejection from the app, not about you. Your family's disappointment, also not about you. That friend who flaked on your plans, not about you. Everything everyone does is about them, their wounds, their fears, their blind spots, and their programming. So here is what the beautiful and sometimes uncomfortable truth is. That everything you do is about you. Your reaction when somebody cancels plans, your rage when somebody doesn't text back, your devastation on a hookup app when somebody doesn't give you a woof or a tap or whatever, your reach for crystal when life feels too much. All about you. All revealing something that you can't see yet. That's not a problem. That's actually the path forward. So here's why blind spot Is the word that I use instead of shadow. So let's talk about the language here. I don't use the word shadow when I talk about shadow work because people automatically equate shadow with darkness, evil, the dark side, like we're all walking around with Darth Vader lurking in our psyche waiting to sabotage us, right? Or our addiction doing pushups in the parking lot. That's not what this is. A blind spot is simply a belief or pattern that you're carrying that's skewing your perception of yourself and the world, and you're completely unaware of it. Unaware blind spot. It's not good. It's not bad. It's not light. It's not dark. It just is. And it's running the show until you see it. Think of it like this. Driving down the highway, confident, in control. There's a car in your blind spot that you can't see. You go to change lanes. Holy shit. Where did that come from? You didn't see it, but it was always there. Sorry. And it was always going to create a problem until you learn to check that spot. Your blind spots are the same. They're Always there, always creating problems. And the other people, especially the ones that trigger the hell out of you, are showing you exactly where to look. I help gay men free themselves from addictive patterns and chemsex by going deep like this and become their best and highest selves. My one-on-one coaching is called Recovery Alchemy. It's a 6-month intense program that can literally change your life. I accept 2 new clients a month. Apply in the show notes. Relationships are assignments, not Accidents. Every person in your life is an assignment designed to reveal your blind spots. Every conflict, every trigger, every why does this keep happening to me moment. Your critical mother who never seems satisfied, she's showing you where you are still seeking external validation and can't give it to yourself. That guy who keeps breadcrumbing you, he's revealing your blind spot. Around believing that you're only valuable when somebody wants you. Your friend who always makes everything about them, they're showing you where you abandon yourself and you make everything about you. And here's where it gets really interesting for us in chemsex recovery. Every blind spot you have is part of a blueprint that made crystal and sex feel like the solution for you. So here's how. There's a blind spot blueprint. This is why chemsex felt like the answer for you. Chemsex didn't appeal to you randomly. It filled specific holes. Giggle, giggle. It solved specific problems, right? And those problems, they came directly from your blind spots. So here's a blind spot. I'm not enough as I am. Crystal made you feel enough, confident, desirable, worthy of attention. It temporarily collapsed the gap between who you felt you were and who you needed to be to deserve love and connection. The drug became your worthiness. generator because you couldn't see what you were looking for worth, that you were looking for worth in the wrong place, right? Outside of yourself instead of in. Here's another blind spot. I need to be desired to have value. Sex on crystal made you feel wanted, pursued, worshiped. It gave you a hit of validation that temporarily quieted the terror of being invisible and rejected. You couldn't see you were making other people's desire The measure of your worth. So of course you'd do anything, including destroying yourself and your life to keep that validation coming. Blind spot. Intimacy is dangerous. As Crystal created a connection without the vulnerability of working on it, you could be sexual, close, intimate without actually being seen for who you are. The drug and the dark rooms protected you from the terror of being truly known. You couldn't see that. You believed real intimacy would lead to rejection or abandonment, so you created a counterfeit version that felt safer. Blind spot: I have to perform to be loved. Crystal made you a better performer sexually, socially, professionally. It helped you meet impossible standards you'd set for yourself. You couldn't see that you believed love was conditional on achievement, so you kept pushing yourself to perform at unsustainable levels. So the only way to keep performing was to get higher and higher. Blind spot. My needs don't matter. Chemsex let you prioritize everyone else's pleasure while numbing out your own needs and desires. You became the ultimate giver, the accommodating one, the one who made everyone else feel good. You couldn't see that you'd learned that your needs were too much, too inconvenient, not worthy of attention. So you medicated them to silence. So you see how this works? Your blind spots, your beliefs about yourself created the conditions. Chemsex felt like the solution. And now in recovery, when someone triggers you, when your boyfriend doesn't validate you enough, or your friend takes you for granted, or your family still treats you like you're broken, you're getting that same signal that used to send you to the pipe. Except now you have a choice. You can see the blind spot. You can work with it. You have a clear mind. You can heal it. That trigger is the gift. I know this sounds like spiritual bypassing bullshit, but stay with me. It's not. When someone activates you emotionally, when you feel that surge of rage, shame, panic, and that's not them doing something to you, they are doing something for you. That's them pressing on a wound that you didn't know you had. They're showing you exactly where you're still unconscious, where you're still operating from old programming. This is the gift. Your coworker takes credit for your idea and you spiral into, I'm never going to get recognized. That's showing you a blind spot around needing external validation for your worth. Your date doesn't text you back and you're devastated, like for 3 days. That's revealing a blind spot about rejection, meaning you're unlovable. Your sponsor, your coach, your therapist, they give you feedback and you immediately wanna use. That's exposing a blind spot around criticism. equaling failure. None of that is personal. Your coworker is acting from their own insecurity. Your date is dealing with their own unavailability. Your sponsor is trying to help. But your reaction, that's all you. That's your unconscious belief system screaming to be seen. And here's the thing. When you were using, these triggers sent you straight to crystal because you didn't have any other way to deal with the pain. That the wounds were being— when the wounds got pressed on, right? Now you have to learn a different way. You have to turn toward the trigger instead of turning away from it. So let me name some of the patterns I see over and over in my work with men who have sex with men in recovery. The blame game blind spot. You think your emotional state is somebody else's responsibility. Your boyfriend didn't text you enough, so you feel anxious. Your friend canceled plans, so you feel worthless. Your family said something insensitive, so you feel ashamed. You're giving away all your power by making your internal experience dependent on external behavior. You can't see that you're avoiding looking at why you need external regulation to feel okay inside. The perfectionist blind spot. You have impossibly high standards for yourself, and you believe one mistake means total failure. You relapse once and you're back at square one. You gain 5 pounds, you spiral. You have an awkward social interaction and you replay it in your mind for weeks, You can't see that you're running from a deeper belief that you're fundamentally flawed. Any evidence of imperfection will expose that truth. The people-pleasing blind spot. You say yes when you want to say no. You accommodate everyone else's needs while you— oh, you were— your own go unmet. You're afraid to disappoint anybody, even if it means disappointing yourself. You can't see that you believe conflict or boundaries will lead to abandonment, so you've learned To be whoever you need to be to keep people around. The rejection blind spot. You're constantly scanning for evidence that people don't really like you, that you're about to be rejected. The connection is temporary. You test people, you push them away before they can leave. You cling desperately. Maybe you can't see that you were so terrified of abandonment that you're creating the very rejection you fear by never letting anyone actually get close. Each of these blind spots made chemsex appealing because the drug and the scene provided temporary relief. You didn't have to deal with the pain of the unconscious beliefs. Now in recovery, the beliefs are still running, but without that medication. That's why triggers feel so intense. You're finally feeling what you've been running from. So here's how to work with your blind spots, not against them. Here's what doesn't work: trying to eliminate your blind spots through force, shame, or willpower. Telling yourself you shouldn't need validation or you should be able to handle rejection, you should be more confident. Shoulding on yourself just creates more shame and activates even more triggers, which makes you more vulnerable to relapse. So here's what does work: curiosity, compassion, commitment. Step 1: Notice the pattern. When you get triggered, don't immediately try to fix it or make it go away. Pause. Get curious. Interesting. I'm having a really big reaction. To this small thing. What might this be showing me? Step 2, name the belief. What belief would have to be true for this trigger to feel this big? If I'm this devastated by somebody not texting me back, what must I believe about myself or relationships? Often that belief is something like, I'm only valuable when somebody wants me, or if somebody doesn't respond quickly, they're rejecting me. Step 3, trace it back. Where did you learn this belief? Usually it's from childhood, early relationships, formative experiences in the gay community. You don't have to need to do years of therapy here. Just get a sense of the origin. This feels like when my parents only paid attention to me when I was performing, right? Step 4, separate then from now. That belief made sense in what you experienced. Your younger self developed it as a survival strategy. But is it true? Are you still in that situation? Do you still need the protection? No. Step 5, choose a response. This is where it really The real work really happens. Rubber hits the road. You don't erase the old belief immediately. You just practice responding from a new one. This person not texting me back isn't about my worth. They have their own life. I can feel disappointed without making it mean something catastrophic about me. It's not about me. Now, this takes time. Those old neural pathways are deep, but every time you choose the new response, you're weakening the old pattern and strengthening the new one. This is how you change the blueprint. This is how chemsex loses its appeal because you're not trying to escape blind spots anymore. You're healing them. All right. Blind spot mapping. Here is a practice for you. It's an exercise that I do with my clients that will reveal more about your unconscious patterns than months of trying to figure it out intellectually. For the next week, keep a trigger journal. Every time somebody activates you emotionally, anger, shame, anxiety, desperation, rage, Write it down. What happened? Just the facts. No judgment, no interpretation. What did you feel? The emotion. What meaning you made it? What's the story you told yourself? What you wanted to do in response, especially if you wanted to use? And what old belief might this be revealing? Do this for every trigger. Big ones, small ones, doesn't matter. By the end of the week, you're gonna see patterns. You'll see the same blind spots showing up in different situations. You'll see what you're still unconsciously believing about yourself. about relationships and about the world. And once you see them, they'll begin losing their power because blind spots only work when they're hidden. Shadows only are there when there's no light. Once you shine light on them, you have a choice. All right. Hope that helps. See y'all next week.