Ep 2:12 EMDR Therapy AfterMeth with Drake

Hey y'all, thank you for tuning in today. If you are new to the Aftermath Podcast, welcome to the family. If you've been listening for a while, thank you very much. I really appreciate you taking time to listen to this podcast. There are so many options out there, um, although we're the only podcast that I know of that's focusing on this particular topic. But there are so many options for you to be listening to between YouTube and social media and everything else. But you're choosing the After Meth Podcast, and I really, really appreciate that very, very, very much. And I want you to congratulate yourself on listening to this podcast because this could be very, very instrumental in your recovery. When it comes to recovery, many of us have a tendency to have tunnel vision. And that's why I've said it time and time again. When you tell me your goal is to quit meth, I'm going to say, well, okay. That's the easy part. But what other vision do you have for yourself? Here's the thing. When you set an intention to become your best and highest version, meth use naturally falls away. And along with that comes the hard work. That's peeling back all of the layers of trauma, pinpointing the beliefs that you have about yourself and the world, and then processing them. For the ultimate healing, which in its basic form is perspective shift. Being able to see life experience in a new way is truly the key to recovery. Being able to see life experience in a new way is truly the key to recovery. Yes, I repeated it. The key to recovery, healing, and happiness. Everything we have experienced and will experience is neutral. You decide through your thoughts the meaning that experience has. That's how you create reality. And one way of doing this difficult, difficult work is through EMDR. And today, I'm happy to bring you a very qualified facilitator of EMDR, And he does lots of other treatments too. His name is Drake. I want you to really home in on the techniques and the theories behind EMDR treatment, even if you're not interested in the treatment itself. The techniques and the theories behind it— you don't have to do EMDR, but understanding the philosophies behind this therapy could not only break the patterns of chemsex but equip you for a more peaceful and whole life. And that's really what I want for you. All right, enjoy. The Aftermath Podcast is an outreach tool to help men who have sex with men break free from the addictive patterns associated with chemsex, otherwise known as crystal meth or Tina. I'm your host, Dr. Dallas Bragg, a former crystal meth Here you will find a repository of tools and resources intended to eradicate the epidemic that is plaguing our MSM population. Please note that the views expressed on this podcast are not to be taken as medical advice. Also, we will be talking about drugs and sex, so if you feel triggered to use, stop listening and contact your local emergency system and/or your support network.

Let's go.

Welcome back to the Aftermath Podcast. Very glad you are here today. And I have my list, uh, so I do not want to forget all the housekeeping. And sorry you have to sit through it, but one day if you do it all, you won't have to worry about it. And sorry you have to sit through it, Drake. Um, but there is a supplemental study guide that comes out with every one of the podcasts. I want to make sure that you know that I I am doing all I can to give you as much free information and free resources as I can. And if there's something else that you would like for free, tell me. Do not be afraid to speak up. I do, I do very well with feedback. But there is a study guide that comes with every podcast so that you don't just listen to it, you can actually apply it and integrate it into your life. It'll have journal prompts, reflective questions, it has actionable exercises, it has a review of what we talk about today. So if you want to be— if you want to get that, the link to it is in the show notes, or you can go to drdallasbragg.com and subscribe to my newsletter. And it's called— well, it's a blog on the website, but the newsletter will come to your email. I know it's very complicated, but subscribe anyway and you'll get all my emails because I also send out a newsletter every Monday that's also a workable newsletter. We have a Facebook community if you're still on Facebook. Uh, that is a free Facebook community called The Aftermath Podcast. I will ask for advice on there, like how was— how did you— what did y'all think of the podcast? Do you have any suggestions on topics? Um, and then we, we support each other too. There's a lot of people in there that are currently using and go there for a little bit of support, and we celebrate wins. Of course, you can watch the podcast on our YouTube account, The Aftermath Podcast. If you search for me, The Aftermath Podcast, it will autocorrect to Aftermath and you will get completely different podcasts. So After Meth Podcast, be sure that you autocorrect it to that. Speaking of free, I do have a free course. It's called Reframing Relapse. It's 28 days of video modules, journal prompts, guided meditations, and a free coaching session with me. So that is free. The link will be in the show notes as well. Also, if you have not rated and reviewed, which a lot of you have— I just actually went and checked the other day and I was like, oh yeah, people are listening here. They are rating and reviewing. Uh, very nice. I appreciate that. Um, I have a 4.9 on Apple, so I'm not sure where that came from, but, um, if you could give me a 5, that'd be great. But if I'm less than 5, again, let me know. I like to hear it. Uh, but if you've already done that, if you could share the podcast on your social media, that would be great. Or word of mouth, share it with someone that you think would be— would benefit from it. Um, there's a lot of topics that we talk on here about that would be beneficial for loved ones of those who are in the addictive patterns of crystal meth or Chemsex. So, uh, loved ones can learn a lot about the nature and the nuances of this particular experience and this particular substance. So I think it's helpful for quite a bit of people. So that being said, I'm going to introduce my guest, and I made the mistake of not asking how to pronounce your last name before we went live. Um, so I'm going to guess it's Drake Schoppel.

Sheppel. Yeah, you're good. Sheppel.

Sheppel. Okay, sorry. What, uh, what— where's that from? What last name is it?

It's like Austrian.

Oh, okay. Well, as I read that you're half Latinx and half white though.

Yeah, yeah, so half Mexican, half Mexican.

Yeah. Oh, okay. Yeah, I did a little bit of research this time, uh, but let's introduce Drake. Drake is an LCSW, Licensed therapist practicing in both Florida and Illinois. He has spent years of experience working with PTSD. I think we can all, um, we can all relate to that. Depression, anxiety, LGBTQ+ individuals, complex trauma, addiction, and relational issues. He takes a holistic and trauma-informed approach and believes that one's culture is integral in treatment. He's worked in a variety of roles, from being a crisis therapist responding to 911 calls related to mental health, a therapist in an inpatient psychiatric unit, a substance use rehabilitation center, and working with the LGBTQ+ youth and young adults and their families. How old are you, Drake? It's like, how did you get— how did you do all that? You look, you look so young, like a baby.

I know, I finished grad school pretty early.

Good for you. Uh, well, we, Drake, we met on Instagram, and I've really enjoyed watching your posts and you living your best life in Fort Lauderdale.

Yeah, it's been—

I love it. So thank you and welcome to the show.

Thank you. Yeah, no, thanks for having me. I really appreciate it.

So I am looking over— I was looking over your website. Your website is called Igniting Hope. So Igniting Hope Counseling with a picture of a sparkler. What does that mean to you? What is— what message you want us to get from that?

Yeah, you know, I find that a lot of people with PTSD and trauma, you know, we tend to like isolate ourselves so much and there's so much negativity and detachment and fear that goes on, right? So I find that a lot of my work really has to do with instilling hope in people, really kind of helping them see The light in life, finding connection, finding like ways to repair some of their attachment wounds, some ways to find better relationships so that it doesn't feel so dark, right? I also find that like a lot of times it feels very lonely, right? So like that darkness, that, you know, fear that kind of clouds us when we've gone through so much trauma or been through so much in life, right? Like we essentially want to move through that and kind of, to me, the spark just means kind of creating that in your life in itself, right?

Mm-hmm.

An internal resource.

Yeah, I like that because I, I meet a lot of people who— it's kind of like this, this dangerous vicious cycle of they're in this deep depression or they have PTSD or, you know, and they're using to try to, to try to calm that or numb that a little bit, right? But the, but the drugs cause more depression.

Yeah, exactly.

Right, right. So I would imagine like seeing some type of hope Or a light at the end of the, the tunnel would be helpful. Um, so do you see— I mean, you see so many different types of people, but you also treat, uh, men who have sex with men who are addicted or using meth, is that right?

Yep, that's correct.

Okay. And what do you see there as maybe a common issue or a common problem, I guess, among those?

Yeah, you know, I think it's so variant depending on a lot of different people, but I think the main thing I see tends to be very low self-esteem. Okay, and then a fear of relational, you know, aspects of things. When I say relational aspects, I mean like a fear of closeness, a fear of intimacy, a fear of like what it means to be vulnerable, right? You know, it's something I really hear a lot of when it comes to, you know, when we talk about trauma treatment, when I do sex with men, you know, who also use, you know, meth or other substances, you know, I find that a lot of people, they say things like, you know, meth gave me the confidence that I never had, right? Meth gave me, you know, the ability to like myself. It gave me the ability to feel okay to have sex with somebody else, right? Like, whether there is like elements of, you know, internalized homophobia there, what it has to do with religion, whether it has to do with, you know, trauma or being bullied or whatever it might be that kind of like the central themes that make that up, right? You know, I find that to be pretty central in pretty much everyone I work with in that realm, at least.

So a fear Of intimacy. Sounds very familiar. A fear of being vulnerable. Do, do these men come to you while they're still using? Is that something that's common, or is this after use?

So I would say majority of people I've worked with, usually it's while they're still using.

Okay.

Like, when it comes to level of use, I have pretty variant. Some people it's, you know, almost every day. Some people it's like a few times a month. Just really varies.

Okay. Is that doable? Is that treatable?

So if we're talking about in terms of EMDR treatment or in terms of just like general—

In general. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. I think it's, you know, it is, you know, doable. What I will say when it comes to trauma treatment and when it comes to like treatment in general, right? You know, we take more of like the motivational interviewing lens, more of the person-centered lens of, at least I do, at least, you know, like How willing are you to decrease use, right? Can you come to a session not high? Can you come to a session in a place where we can process things, right? I don't want you to be getting off a bender for 3, 4-day binge, you're coming to session because then your brain's not going to be a spot where we can kind of really access the information and kind of tap into some of those neural pathways that maybe are difficult to kind of tap into, right? So that's kind of like the main thing I start with, right? Kind of like, what is their goal? I think a huge thing in terms of treatment with people Is that you know I want them to feel empowered. I want them to feel like they're the ones making the choices regarding their substance use, right? I'm not here to tell you that you have to decrease. Am I here to tell you you have to stop even, right? Like I'm here more so to meet you where you're at and kind of say, you know, you have all this trauma. You have all these different things that you're working through, right? I care a whole lot more about dealing with the root issues and dealing with some of like that anxiety or those fears. than I do with you, you know, using meth to cope with it, right? That's a part of it, of course, right? But of course, you know, I want to do something that's more in our control here, right? Like talking more about like, what are the impulses that make you do that? What are your triggers? Why do you act on them, right? Like providing education about those things. To get back to your question though, like, yes, like it's definitely treatable. Is it difficult? Of course, right? Like any, you know, substance use disorder, any, you know, person kind of struggling using a coping skill that is highly addictive, you know, It's definitely a struggle, but at the same time, you know, I definitely have seen pretty positive results over time.

Mm-hmm. Yeah, if I if I come to you and I have layers, right? A lot of a lot of us have these layers, right? Like not only was dad mean to us, mean to me, but we're bullied at school, and then we're you know we were taught to not be gay, and you know on and on and on. you know, there's layers, layers, layers, layers. Where do you start? Like, how do you— if, if I have all these layers and it feels overwhelming to try to pick apart, what would you say to me in that?

Well, I think first and foremost, we got to build up some of your resources, right? So like, before, you know, really just depends on someone's that, but when I say resources, you know, the first part of trauma treatment is stabilization, right? And like, of course, it looks different for every person, but, you know, we want to make sure someone's in a place where they can handle Having these conversations where they can handle— they have the tolerance to go into some of this work, right? It can be very intense. So I think the starting point is developing that internal resource of, okay, like, let's get into some of the grounding work. Let's get into some of you learning how to be more in touch with your emotions, being more aware of your emotional experience, right? What makes it so hard for you to process and face your emotions, right? I think starting with some of those things is a starting place, right? Because we can't— bypass that work, right? If we jump into, you know, processing trauma and someone's shutting down, someone's dissociating, someone outside a session, because you talked about this, you know, they feel so dysregulated that they're going to go use again, they're going to go hurt themselves or do something really impulsive, right? That's not my goal. I never want to leave someone feeling super dysregulated, right? Of course, part of trauma treatment is activating somebody a little bit and then giving them some of the skills to help regulate. But at the same time, we first really want to start off with helping you regulate so that way you can be aware of what emotions are happening, right? But even in that same sense, right, we really want to get you in touch with them so that way we can teach you, okay, well, when I'm feeling stressed out, when I'm feeling sad about this, right, when I have a relational issue where I'm really fearful of what someone's going to think about me, right, it's not just about the situation at hand, it's about all the stuff from the past, right? It's from all the things that have happened to me.

Mm-hmm.

It's from all the things I've encountered. Making those connections are kind of a starting point that we really want to start with.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I want to— I just want to, um, recap on that. And that is, a lot of people that I meet, a lot of guys that I work with, they— they're— it's hard to connect the value of something simple as grounding.

Yep.

Right. They don't want— well, how is putting my feet on the ground— yeah, that's, that's my basic grounding, but, you know, putting my bare feet on the ground, breathing, holding a tree, right? Drinking some water. I don't know. But, you know, how is that helping me? You know, you're— it's an insult to some people, right? But it's such an important first step. Like, like, if you're overwhelmed by the amount of trauma you have to work on, then let's just give you a little goal of just be.

Just be, right?

100%. And I like what you said about awareness and noticing. So if you're listening, just think about this. Like one of the first steps, all you have to do is just be aware of the emotion. And I like to ask, you know, again, I always have to say, I'm not a therapist. I'm not a counselor, but I like to tell people, you know, ask a lot of questions when an emotion comes up. Like where is it in my body? What color is it? What is it trying to tell me? Is it moving? Is it rigid? You know, I don't know, I just— all these questions. By the time you— by doing that, by being aware and noticing it, you have separated yourself from it, and now you are in control of it. I mean, pretty much, right? Is that right? Am I speaking out of turn?

No. Yeah, that's pretty much right, right? I mean, I think it's some of that separation, right? I think that so many people, going to your point about grounding, you know, so many people, they tend to like, okay, how is this going to help me? You know, there's this big resistance to doing some of it, right? And I think a lot of people think this because when they do breathwork, when they do putting their feet on the floor, you know, progressive muscle relaxation, whatever it might be, being aware of their body, they're doing it with an intention to get rid of the emotion, doing it with an intention to reduce the emotion. And that's actually not what we want to do, right?

Mm-hmm.

We actually just wanna teach people that when I'm dealing with this emotion, first and foremost, I wanna get familiar with it, right? For example, if every single time I get stressed out, I get panicked, I get overwhelmed, I go and rush to, you know, smoke, or I go and rush to grab a bottle or whatever it is I do. Right? We want you to slow down and we want you to really think to yourself, let's get curious, right? What do I do when I'm stressed out? What do I do when I'm angry? Right? What am I feeling right now? And what are my urges telling me to do?

Right?

When I'm slowing something down, like you said, right? I can kind of control it, but more so in a sense, I have more agency with it, right? I have more ability to do something different. Yeah.

Yes. That's such a better way of saying it. I have agency now. Right? I like what you said. About you're not getting rid of the emotion because, you know, most of us, I mean, we're, you and I are completely different generations, but, you know, I was taught, you know, stop crying or I'll give you something to cry about, right? Or don't be over, don't be so emotional, don't be so dramatic or whatever, which unfortunately was a message I gave my kids too. Uh, it was a mistake. You know, one of my Many parenting mistakes. Um, but, but the goal isn't to get rid of the emotion or to feel better. I always say it's not to feel better, it's to feel better. Like, it's to feel it better, right? So, but we're, we're so quick to say, I gotta get rid of this, I, I, it feels uncomfortable, I gotta get rid of it. And so, and that just suppresses it, doesn't it?

Yeah, 100%. Blows it up.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And I love the word curious. So if For the listeners, curiosity over condemnation is always kind of a keyword that I say in terms of if you're condemning yourself for feeling that way, it's only going to make it worse. But be curious about why am I feeling this way is important, right? Yeah. Yes. Thank you for that. Um, and one more thing that you said that I want to highlight when I double-click is that what you said was What is in front of you triggering you emotionally a lot of times? Well, almost every time is not that person and not that situation in front of you in the moment. It's something from the past. Can you talk about that a little more? I want to make sure we get that.

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So like, you know, when we're talking about, let's say a feeling, right? And let's say, you know, we're in the grocery store. or at work or something, and someone like rejects us, right? Sometimes people will take that rejection and make it this huge meaning of what it means about their character, what it means about them as a person, and they really internalize that belief system. But we, for example, they're coming to me talking about this, right? Well, let's talk about it. Where did you get that belief from? When did you first start feeling that way?

Mm-hmm.

Were you 4 years old? Were you 10 years old? Was it when, you know, your dad left? Was it when, you know, your parents wouldn't pick you up from school? Was it when, you know, you had a really big incident happened to you and no one showed up for you. No one cared about how you were feeling, right? And it's not always that grand, and don't get me wrong. But at the same time, you know, like when we start getting more curious about where these belief systems come from, and we start befriending those belief systems and really slowing down, and I just really want to highlight the slowing down piece here.

Mm-hmm.

And I say that because so many people with high anxiety, with trauma, with, you know, people that are in addiction and stuff like that, right? Like They never take time to slow down. Everything is so impulsive. Everything needs to move at the speed of light. Everything's very immediate. And the thing is, when we slow down, we have so much more ability to really go into our emotional experience, to really get curious about those emotions. Now, I will say, when it comes to slowing down, this is where some of the grounding work comes in. People face roadblocks, right? Like, people don't want to go there. You know, we think back to, you know, I work with some people and I'll ask like, you know, well, when was the first time you felt that way? Right? A lot of people will say, either I don't know, or that doesn't matter. Like, that was so long ago. Right? But even that response, that doesn't matter, it was so long ago. Right? Why do you feel that way? What makes you say to yourself that it doesn't matter? Right? Who's that little boy inside of you? Or who is that little person inside of you that is telling you that your feelings don't matter? Right? Is that your voice?

Mm-hmm.

Is that your parents? Is that society? What does that actually do to the part of you that feels like this does matter? Right. That's the piece that I really want them to make the connection with. Right. And it's hard to face that. It's very difficult.

Mm-hmm. I love that. I love it. Yeah. So for us, as on a, in a practical sense, if let's say we are rejected, let's say we get ghosted. That's one of my favorites. Let's say we get ghosted and you know, we think it's, what did I do? You know, that's always my first question. What did I do? I did something. Let me go search. Let me go scroll back in all the text conversations and where did I do it wrong, right? Or did they see me? Did they see a picture of me they didn't like? You know, all these— that, that's the, the real that goes on, right, in my head, because I personalize it. But like you're saying, if I were to say— if I were to stop and say, and this is for, for you listeners too, to say When does this exact same emotion— when did it first show up for me? Right? And then of course, like, like Drake is saying, if your first reaction is this is bullshit, then you need to then take a little sidebar to say, why do you think it's bullshit? Right?

Yeah, exactly.

Right? Because you were probably told your opinion is bullshit or something, you know, whatever. Um, but yeah, if you can pinpoint kind of— if you can let your mind go back to the first time you felt that I know this is, this is what I've been doing for so long now. Um, and then, oh, okay, this is me at 6 years old when Dad didn't take me fishing like he promised, or, you know, whatever. That's what that's about. Not that this, you know, stupid person— not stupid person, but this, this person that I've never met that could be not even real has, has ghosted me on a dating app. Right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Great. Good. Slowing down. Slow down, slow down, slow down. I love that. So one thing that I wanted to get into and, um, that you offer, as I noticed on your website, and that we haven't talked about on the podcast, is EMDR. Um, I've been asked about that several times in my DMs about can you cover EMDR. So can you talk to me like a 2-year-old Tell me, what is— what does EMDR stand for? But what is it?

Sure. Yeah. So first, it stands for Eye Movement Desensitization Reprocessing Therapy. And that's a fancy way of basically saying, like, you know, just to kind of break it down. So when people come in for EMDR, what we're doing is we are taking memories that are still highly reactive. So memories that we have a big emotional response to, memories that feel like there's a big, you know, pull for from, right? This doesn't mean we're like boohoo crying about the memory or anything like that. Sometimes, right? But it could be anything from a rape, it could be an assault, it could be, you know, like you kind of were saying, like, my dad wouldn't show up for me, right? Or like, my mom was very volatile in the household, right? Like kind of memories like that, right? But there has to be an emotional charge, right?

Okay.

And the reason why is because if there's not an emotional charge there, you can't necessarily always So what I mean by that is like, that memory is not fully processed, right? It's somewhere in the working memory. It's something there that feels like it's trapped in the part of our brain where the fear response is activated, right?

Mm-hmm.

So our brain obviously has different associations. So when we face things like rejection, someone raising their voice, conflict, anger, whatever it might be, right? Our brain jumps to those different memories, right? So our brain's going to, someone's upset with me, it means that they're going to leave me. When I disappoint someone, it means that they're going to get really, really angry with me and maybe hurt me, right? Whether that's conscious or unconscious, that's where our brain will go to if those memories are left unprocessed, depending on what we're talking about, right? So that's a fancy way of saying basically we bring up the memory in EMDR. We talk a lot about, you know, because of this memory, what are the negative beliefs you started believing about yourself? yourself, right? Did you feel like, I'm defective, I'm unlovable, I'm unworthy, my needs don't matter, right? Just some of the few that tend to come up a lot. And we talk about those belief systems first and, you know, how they come up right now in your life, right? So we talk about, because I feel like I'm unlovable, that makes me act this way, right? That makes me self-sabotage. That makes me repeat cycles I don't want to repeat, right? That makes me do things that not proud of. Right. And then we go into it by matching that with a memory. So maybe we start with something more recent. You know, we don't necessarily have to start with the most intense thing ever. I think that's a misconception.

Okay.

And we go from that memory, we go into usually 10 to 20-ish seconds of intervals where we do something called bilateral stimulation. That's a fancy way of basically saying we operate Right and left side of the brain. So all we're doing with that is a few different things we can do. So we either do this, so we take our fingers and we go really, really quickly in front of somebody's eyes, cuz we're operating the eyes moving back and forth. We can use a ball, we can use tappers, a light, anything that's gonna help activate the right side and left side of the brain at the same time as we focus on that memory. What this is doing is in that 10 to 20 second interval, You're getting pretty heightened exposure to the memory, to those emotions, to those sensations that are so uncomfortable, right? And it's helping your brain naturally process that to go to long-term memory, right? And when I say long-term memory, I'm saying that after we do some of these things, after we get some desensitization done to the memory, we can feel like this is just an objective thing that happened to me, right? I can acknowledge this was horrible. It was awful, but it's not feeling like this big emotional, physical pull where I just feel like it's life-consuming. I feel overwhelmed by it. I feel like, you know, my heart's going to burst out of me, or I feel like I'm in tears every single time, right? We're more able to recall the factual information and the feelings around it, but we don't get caught up in it, right? And when we do this, you know, we also go into the reprocessing part, which is what we're talking about, but then we also go into the consolidation Mm-hmm. So the way EMDR works, the theory is at least, you know, when it comes to REM sleep, which in REM sleep, basically that's when you go to sleep, you get that deep sleep, your memories are being consolidated, they're being processed of like kind of what you took in throughout the day.

Mm-hmm.

Different memories coming up, that type of thing.

Mm-hmm.

With EMDR, it's kind of the, the theory is it's paired with REM sleep cuz in REM sleep your eyes tend to dart back and forth.

Mm-hmm.

Right? The same way EMDR when you're doing this, right?

Hmm.

So your memories tend to be processed through the night when you sleep that night after an EMDR session. We're also like, you know, going into it from a framework of we're adding in a positive belief. So when you subtract a belief, we also want to add in a belief, right? So for example, I'll never get better, or my needs don't matter, right? It could be something along the lines of my needs do matter, just maybe the opposite, or You know, I can face anxiety and be okay, or I can keep myself safe now, or whatever that might be. I'll stop there.

Yeah. Wow, that's a lot. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I'm gonna get this right. So if I go in, if I go into you, I'm going to— you're going to want to ask me what to pick, a memory that has an electric— I mean, electric— that has a charge to it. Right. Just, just choose one. Any ones?

So it depends, right? So I want to be sure the biggest thing here, we want to keep someone in their window of tolerance, right? So we want to be sure someone feels like ready to work on something again. I don't want to choose the goal for them. I want them to choose for themselves. Right. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So a highly reactive memory, something that has an emotional charge, and then I'm going to watch your fingers or watch something. To move, to make my eyes move back and forth. And then are you having me speak through the memory at that time, or am I reliving it in my mind, or what?

So usually people relive it in their minds.

Okay.

There's also an audio version too. So sometimes if people have a hard time focusing as it's going back and forth with their eyes, some people close their eyes, they'll have the sound just go back and forth. Oh, and as— yeah, as they're doing it, they're kind of just letting whatever come up, come up.

Okay. Yeah, I was gonna say, I was wondering if I could think and watch the— watch something at the same time. Um, yeah, okay. And so as you're watching or thinking about it, and then how do you get to what the belief system is that came from that charged memory?

Yeah, so a lot of times we actually do that work before We start processing, right? And I say that because sometimes it takes a little bit of talking to kind of unravel some of it, right? So like, it comes from, you know, me maybe asking you a lot of different questions about, you know, well, when you were a kid, like, you talk about this anxiety you feel now, like, you know, this tightness in your chest. What are the other times you felt that way, right? Or when you get rejected, you know, let's think about it. Like, you know, what do you feel about yourself? Do you feel responsible for everything? Do you feel like everything relies on you? Like my needs don't matter. Like we kind of just start inputting there. However, a lot of times when we start the processing, so much naturally comes out where people will say like, I feel alone or I'm invisible or I'm not in control. Right. And that's part of the processing where we're deepening. We're going into that experience. And when people do that, the brain, you know, a lot of times makes these natural connections. of what that negative cognition really is, what that true fear really is. Okay.

Yeah. So if I— if the memory reveals that I will always be alone, let's say, if that's a belief system, then I'm going— you're going to take that and match it up to memories. But are you going to take it up to— yeah, you're going to match it to kind of what's going on in my life right now, or how it's showing up in my life now? Is that something that you do?

Yeah, absolutely. So sometimes, like, you know, some people feel more activated with more recent events, right? So like, let's say it's a date rejection someone goes through, or, you know, whatever, and that, you know, belief gets activated, right? Like, I'll always be alone because no one responds to me, people ghost me, right? We might go into that as a window, right? Like, let's start with, like, the recent rejection. Let's start with, okay, the person that ghosted to, right? It doesn't have to be like a 10 out of 10 on the distress scale, but it just is a window into the bigger picture of like what this is to you, right?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And then you're going to replace the I'll always be alone with a more positive belief. That's the consolidation.

Yeah, exactly. So we first, we want to clean up the stuff in there though first, right? We can't just like paper over it and say, oh, like, yeah, you know, things are going to be great. No, that's not, you know, not how we're going to do it, right? There's some validity to how we feel. That's also important to validate, you know, some of those feelings, because there was time periods where, like, it was true, I was alone, right? And people did abandon me, and people did screw me over. Like, that is all real and true, and that's good to validate that experience. That's part of EMDR, is like validating the fact that, yeah, like, you were alone, right? But at the same time, you know, maybe a positive cognition could be something along the lines of like, I have the ability to make and maintain connections. I have the ability to make and have community and relationships, right? It could be a lot of different things we can kind of input into there, right? We're kind of wanting to build up some of that positive, you know, neural networks that are going on for those people.

Hmm. Okay. Okay. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. The validation part I want to mention too, because I think it's important for anybody to— because I, you know, if somebody, for instance, if somebody is objectively, you know, in, in the queer community, objectively hot, right? Like they have a body, blah blah, they have the look that every gay wants, right? But they have a belief that they're not good enough, that their, their body's not good enough, or, you know, they're physically not— ugly. Let's just say I'm ugly, right? When I have seen people that are objectively beautiful say something about being imperfect physically or, or not being attractive, and then I see all these other people jump in and say, what are you talking about? Look at you, blah blah blah, you know. And to me, it's like you're invalidating their belief system, right?

Yeah.

I mean, if that's the way they believe, then that's the way they believe. But I think validating that, probably something they never experienced, because everybody always says It probably says to them, what the hell are you saying? Look at you. Right. But there's so, I think there's such a value in healing in invalidating someone when they're having an experience, no matter what you think from your, from your viewpoint is true or not. Is that right?

Exactly. 100%. Yeah. It goes, it goes such a long way, right? You're like forming trust, you're forming safety within yourself, but then also with the community around you.

Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So if I, let's, let's say I'm using Crystal, I can't stop. Um, I'm in this trauma cycle. How, what are the implications of EMDR for me? Like what, how does that plug into addiction recovery?

Sure. Absolutely. So I think a few things, right? Like, you know, if someone can't stop, you know, we tend to not go into, there's different protocols for substance use, but we tend not to go into the full trauma processing just yet. And I say that because the last thing, again, I want to do is overwhelm somebody, make them stop coming to therapy. They make therapy a stressful experience. Like, you know, therapy is going to be a little bit stressful regardless, a lot of times, you know, not all the time.

Mm-hmm.

Um, but I don't want them to have— I find that so many people are already so avoidant as is. The last thing I want to do is push them too far and they feel like they're not in a space where they're ready to do that. So what do I do different with the EMDR in that regard? I tend to focus on the positive part, right? So for example, we want to reduce the attractiveness of meth, right? We want to reduce the attractiveness of the substances in general, you know, and what that means is, I think a lot of times, let's look at the belief system someone has with meth, right? Like, you know, I feel helpless to my addiction. I feel like I can't be who I want to be without meth. I can't have sex the way I want to have sex without meth, right? Like, I can't function I want to function in my relationships or my community without meth, right? It gives me— it's given me this confidence that I have. So we really want to target some of those things where we feel this really strong attachment to meth, right? We want to focus on that first in the therapeutic lens, right? That doesn't necessarily have to be done through EMDR per se, right? It could be. And when I say it could be, I mean, in the sense of like, maybe we're focusing on some of the bad experiences we've had with meth, focusing on the negative experiences it's had with my relationships, right? Like, what have I lost because of it? What have I like avoided because of my addiction, right? Like, that can be a really huge thing to kind of build up in terms of like fixations, right? I find so much of the time some people also come into treatment and they glorify, you know, the use of it, right? They want to talk about the positives of it, which is okay.

Mm-hmm.

But I think at the same time, we don't want to get caught up in glorifying the substance, right? We don't get caught up in like just making it seem like this almighty thing that's like, it just helps us so much, right? That is okay to say though, right? But I also think the other piece is, you know, we talk about targeting cravings and triggers, right? So like, going back to one of the points I was making earlier, we talk a lot about like, you know, when I'm getting a trigger, what is the emotion I'm experiencing, right?

Mm-hmm.

What am I trying to get away from? What am I trying to solve in the situation?

Mm-hmm.

When I get a craving, you know, what am I trying to achieve, right? What am I trying to feel? Right. And sometimes when we do some of the pre-EMDR work, when I say pre-EMDR work, again, we're kind of slowing down, doing some of the grounding work, doing some of that stabilization. This is kind of opening some of those doors, right? And when someone gets to a place where they're able to face some of those things, they feel ready to do some of those things, I think we're more able to do that. I do want to talk a little bit about like different, like different frequencies of addiction, I'd say, because I think that also matters when it comes to this too. Or how it affects her.

Yeah, let's do that. Let's do that for sure. I'm interested in what that— and that word frequency is a— that's the one that's— that's a word that we haven't heard on the podcast before. But I do want to stop and say and just kind of reiterate something that you said, and that is reducing the attraction, right? Because I, I can— I get these DMs and you, you can tell, you know, within 5 minutes of the, the language that you're using, right? Like, I'll never have sex without it. I will never be able to function without it. I can't work without it. I can't be a real person without it. Like, these disempowering comments and statements really show what your belief is around it. How are you— how are you supposed to— you, you're so conflicted when you say you want to stop, but you also say, I can't function without it.

You—

it's gas and brake. You're like, how are you supposed to move forward if your underlying belief is that I can't function without it? Kind of like my underlying belief is I'll always be alone, but I'm trying to date somebody. If I believe I'm always going to be alone, right, I'm going to find every reason and every avenue to find that, to make that true. Is that right?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And I think that like that goes right into it, right? Is like when we talk about, you know, the way these beliefs inform our behavior. I think that's the entire piece here, right? Like, if I feel and I fall into the beliefs that I'm helpless to my addiction, that I'm just never going to get better, I can't possibly have the self-confidence without meth, I can't possibly have sex without meth, right? You know, we're going to do things that justify that belief, right? We're going to relapse, we're going to have sex, we're going to use, you know, meth to have sex, we're going to engage in chemsex, we're going to, you know, only engage in certain relationships because I feel like that's what I deserve. I feel like that's what I need for myself, right? And I find that a lot of times, you know, it has to go with the active choice of going against that, right? And that's really difficult. But I say that because when we slow our thoughts down and we think to ourselves, okay, if I engage in this behavior, all I'm doing is feeding that, you know, negative belief network that I'm helpless to this, right? That it can never get better.

Mm-hmm.

But instead, if I choose vulnerability, if I choose to experience my emotions of discomfort, Because that's a lot of what it comes down to, right? I'm just so uncomfortable. I'm so anxious. Like, I just feel like I can't tolerate it, right? We want to build that capacity. That's a huge piece here is building capacity for your resiliency, right? Like, you can tolerate the stress, you can tolerate the discomfort, but then also realizing, hey, like, your brain, you know, it needs time to recover. You know, you've made these really strong associations that essentially, you know, I can only do this thing if I'm under the influence, right? If I'm on meth and That's the only time I can do it. But unfortunately, it's not just gonna snap back, right? Our brains are plastic in the sense that they can change, they can reform, they can develop, they can make new associations, but they also need time to recover from the information you fed it, right? And that's a really hard thing when you have this really, really, really gratifying, you know, thing that helps you just feel so good and feel so confident and so amazing for so much of it. And then you go into this and you feel horrible, right? You feel down, you feel unmotivated, you feel scared. But part of it is allowing yourself to feel scared, allowing yourself to face failure, to face rejection, and kind of really feeling those things in so that you can realize that, hey, I actually can tolerate this, right? Maybe not in like extreme doses. I'm not saying go out there and just like wing it, right? But like little by little, we want to expose ourselves to those emotions. We want to expose ourselves to those experiences so we can say, I can tolerate this. I can manage this.

I love that. Yeah, it's kind of like, you know, when you're building, you want to build self-trust, you take take some risks.

Exactly.

Right. Um, yeah, and, and measured risks, I would say, in the beginning. Yeah, I love the Negative Belief Network. So many people watch that channel, the Negative Belief Network. Um, yeah, I like that a lot. Yeah, good, good. That's really good stuff, really good stuff. And it For you, if you're listening and/or you know somebody who's, who's stuck, is pay attention to the language. Because your beliefs are basically your, your words, right? Your, your thoughts, your— that you keep thinking become a belief. And if you believe— whatever you believe about your relationship with meth is going to give you a really great indication of why you still relapse, why you're still using. Um, right?

Yeah, exactly.

Uh, I love having somebody credentialed to back me up when speak. Okay. All right. So frequencies of addiction. This is interesting. I'd like to hear more about what you mean by that.

Yeah. So, you know, I think this kind of comes into, you know, when we talk about treatment, right? So for example, you know, someone's using on the weekends and they're using it specifically for like chemsex or to release or to relax or whatever it might be, right? Versus someone that maybe uses daily. daily, or someone uses like every other day, and they use it to go to work, or they use it for like other things, right? Um, I feel like when it comes to treatment, you know, I think that sometimes there's a little bit more to be done with people that use it for things like chemsex or things like, you know, a few times a month. And the reason why I'm saying that is because it impacts them in different ways, right?

Mm-hmm.

So for example, if it's an intimacy wound, we could still target that intimacy wound. We could still work on maybe decreasing the frequency of how much they engage, right? So maybe if they're doing it every single weekend, right? Maybe they do it all weekend long, right? Maybe it's they skip a weekend, or maybe they only do it one day, right? And when it comes to that, I do think that like we can target other wounds, right? Like if there's other wounds about self-esteem, or other wounds about, you know, maybe just communication or meeting up with other gay men, because that's something a lot of people feel too, is like, you know, having You know, sex with another man is a lot for them or brings up a lot of emotions they haven't dealt with, right? Like, we can kind of target some of those things. When it comes to people, you know, when we're using every day or every other day, right? Like, that's where trauma work gets a little tricky, you know? Like, for example, you know, if you're coming into session and, you know, you're having psychosis or you're having some, like, you know, meth-induced panic or, you know, whatever it might be. you know, you're not in a state where your brain can retain that information, right? It can't really fully process things. So, you know, I might want to get you to a part where, you know, you can come to session where you haven't smoked today, or, you know, you haven't done anything like that so that we can process some of those things, right? Because it starts getting tricky in terms of like what's real and what's delusion, right? So like, that's, that's some of the tricky parts there, I'll say.

Yeah. So you said frequency. I'm, I'm in this like metaphysical Like, oh, world of—

I know.

Oh my gosh, vibration, frequency. Yeah, yeah, I, I get it now. Yeah, I'm so— I told you you have to talk to me like a 2-year-old.

No, you're good. Sorry.

No, no, no, no, but that's great. So back to intimacy wound, and then I'll talk more about the frequency. But how do I know if I have an intimacy wound?

Yeah, you know, I think there's a lot of different ways, but I think, you know, if you have problems in your relationships, right, like if you find that it's difficult to communicate, you shut down, you withdraw, um, maybe you're overly combative in your relationships or you're very angry, um, maybe it comes to you can't sustain a relationship, right? This could even go into friendships. I think a lot of times we focus more on like romantic relationships, but, you know, maybe we don't show up for friends, maybe we don't show up for ourselves, we isolate, right? I think a lot of times those are a lot of ways. But outside of that too, you know, like, why can I not engage in sex without meth, right? Like, what makes it so difficult? Obviously, there's a chemical component there, right? I want to be very validating to that component, because that's very real. But at the same part, like, how did this start? Was it always this way? Did I— was I always using a substance, whether I started off with alcohol or weed or something else? Like, to engage in sex, right?

What—

and I really want to get like, I think the big part here is analyzing like, what is the feeling I was feeling before having sex, right? I had the craving to have sex. But what got in my way? Was it my fear of like seeing my body? Was it being vulnerable? Was it the fact that I'm gonna like have performance anxiety? Like what really was getting in your way there, right? I think those are like the big things I look out for in terms of like the intimacy issues.

Okay. Yeah, I hear that a lot. The, you know, I have such anxiety having sex sober, you know, because I mean, that's why people— a lot of people drink too, right? But of course meth is like, will make you feel super sexual. You just forget, forget whatever, right? Like I had a, a gentleman I worked with who used because of— he grew up very insecure about his penis size, right? But when he got on meth, he thought he had the biggest dick in the room.

Yep.

You know, it's like, you know, so that, that's, that's a challenge, I would say, to go from that feeling to sober. You're so aware when you're sober, right? You're so aware of everything, and you remember, like, all those— everything you're talking about, the actively, the emotionally charged— what did you say? How did you say it? Um, highly reactive memories, emotionally charged memories, they're all right there when you're sober.

Yep.

Right? They're all blatantly yelling at you, right? Um, yeah, so I think just a little, a little side note too for listeners is how to connect EMDR and, and your recovery is if you can understand kind of these underlying beliefs, you're going to understand why your relationships are falling apart. You're going to understand why you lose that job or why you're in the job you don't like. You're going to understand all these parts that make up the constellation of why you are using. I mean, it really is a powerful way to get down to understanding what is underneath my life that has made it this way, right? What, what is, what is fueling my reality at the moment? Because most of the time it's going to be from something. And like, I know from my, all of my therapeutic work, most of my trauma and most of the way that I see the world had to do with like little 30-second increments of time, little comments from my father, right? Just little comments. And those little comments stuck with me as a boy so hard. You know, and then that created this belief that I'm not this and I'm not that and I'm not, you know, I'm not normal and I'm always going to— men are always going to leave me, right? And that's why, that's why I was, you know, I've told the story before, but after every chemsex session, I was bawling and crying and I felt like my heart had been ripped out because the guy left, because I had convinced this one was the one, right?

Yeah.

Um, yeah, so it happened every time. Anyway, enough about me. And what are we talking about? I got off on a tangent.

You're good.

I got off on a tangent, but okay. Anyway, back to what we're saying here, and that is the amount— oh, the frequency that you use. That's what we're talking about. Uh, not vibrational frequency, but frequency. So if you're saying, like, let's say you're a weekend warrior, as we've talked about on the show, You're, you're asking, you're saying that it would be best, probably, maybe a better, uh, application of the therapy if they could at least take a weekend off or decrease, or decrease what they're doing so that they can kind of let those memories come out, I would say, right?

Yeah, let the memories come out, but then also have the experience to like slow down and say, you know, like, my impulses are so here? Like, can I try to do something alternative, right? Can I try to like focus on like my feelings here? Can I try to go into my experience, right? Can we have the willingness to see like, I don't have to go through a whole weekend of doing this, right? I can do other things, but I can also like maybe sit with it, sit with my emotions, see what comes up for me, right? Even if you— if we have to start with you take 15 minutes to do that, that still means something, right? Like, I'm really— I'm a big proponent of like harm reduction. In my opinion, and like we're just working with people where they're at. But even if it's 10-15 minutes of some exposure to you getting in touch with yourself, getting in touch with those emotions, that is so meaningful, right? We're starting off because the truth is like so many people come into this work and they don't want to, you know, even do the 10-15 minutes. They don't want to even talk about it with me, you know. But I think it's very, you know, we can be brutally honest that there's no way around it, you know. There's no magical method. to, you know, we have to experience it. We have to move through it, you know? And I think that if we start off in those smaller increments, sure, some people can do that and be like, hell no, like, I can't do it. I need to, you know, go do my thing. And that's totally fine. But at least it gives us something. Maybe next time we can go up to 30 minutes or 45 or whatever that could be.

I love that.

Yeah.

I mean, instant gratification got you into this, right? In the first place. So what got you into it is not going to get you out of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's my little, my little quip there on that. Um, okay, well, I think we— did I miss something about EMDR that would be important for us to know in terms of chemsex addiction?

Um, you know, I think the biggest thing I just want, you know, listeners and people to know— I know some of this can sound really intimidating, but, you know, if you work with a good therapist, like, they're going to meet you where you're You know, like, it's not the therapist's job to push you too far. It's, you know, up to you what you feel ready to work with. You feel ready to stop using even a little bit, or whatever that might mean. And also, like, you can do this work— I'm not going to say while using daily, but like, you know, you could still get into some of this work, you know. And I just, I want people to know that. I think a lot of times people avoid therapists and therapy because they feel like they're going to be pushed too far. They keep relapsing. They're like, what's the point, you know? But there's still meaning there.

That's right. That's right. That's right. I'm glad you said that too. Um, I, and it just, I want to listen. I want you as a listener to see too, and you correct me if I'm wrong here, like if EMDR maybe doesn't jive with you, there are other options. But at the end of the day, aren't you trying to get to the same the, the same objective here in terms of what are the beliefs I'm— that they're running my life, where did they come from, and how do I replace them, right? Isn't that right?

100%. Yeah.

Yeah. I had a question I, I put out. Usually I post to clients, I post on the Facebook page for questions when I'm doing a podcast. I only got one. I got a question about, um, there's a recovery center who's offering EMDR, but they're interns. And so he's saying, you know, is it as effective for somebody who is not even certified yet? Um, and that leads me to a question. If I was a listener, I would ask, what do I look for if I want EMDR treatment? What are some questions I would ask to make sure I'm getting an effective facilitator?

Yeah, 100%. Yeah. So I think, you know, a few things, you know, to answer the first question about the interns. Of course interns are gonna have less experience, so there's gonna be maybe some wiggle room there, but I wouldn't necessarily write them off. I think the good thing about interns is sometimes those people are very eager and very willing to learn. They learn new information and they could be really great in terms of facilitating some of this work. Will there be some learning curves? Potentially, right? Like, I'm not gonna write that off, but I don't think you should write them off as a whole because I do think they could provide some valuable work. Outside of that, in terms of like questions for looking for an EMDR practitioner, I think asking them like you know what is their experience with substance use? What's their experience with many other sexes of men, queer culture, chemsex, all of that? I think it's all relevant. And then also asking like what is your approach to this, right? Like are you gonna ask me that I need to stop using totally? Are you gonna tell me that I can't? engage in trauma work or EMDR until like I'm totally like off methamphetamines? Or is it like okay that I am a weekend warrior, or I do use a few days a week, right? Like, what do you feel? Because there is a lot of practitioners who, they feel differently than me, right? You know, some people feel like, well, like, you know, you need to decrease this, and I don't want you to relapse, and X, Y, and Z. But, you know, I think it's very different. People have such different scenarios, right? Like, Everyone has a different level of comfort. You know, there's going to be some people that maybe I say, you know, I don't want to go there just yet. But I do think it's important to ask that practitioner just for your own comfort too, right? The last thing I think you want to do is be lying to your therapist and telling them like, oh, like, I'm not doing this because you want to get started with the work because you're eager, right? I want you to feel like, you know, can I be honest with you and trust you with this information? And still, you know, have some boundaries because I think it is important for people to know, like, You're not always like ready to go there, right? Like maybe you're not at the point where like we think it's good, right? But sometimes like we can explore it, right? Will your practitioner be open to that? I think that's really important.

Okay. Yeah. So, I mean, I could go in, like, I guess there's, there's this part of me that thinks I'm going to jump right in to go right into the, you know, the fucking deep, deep trauma, but I could, you could start with Um, a belief around, or maybe a negative charge around something small, right? Like, I'm not good, I'm not a good baseball thrower, I throw like a girl.

Yeah, right.

Which I do, but I've accepted that.

I do too.

I've accepted that. Uh, but yeah, I mean, you could start there, right? In something that's non-invasive, as— or not as invasive.

100%. Yeah, you don't even have to start with things related to like meth, right? You could start with like totally other, like things not related at all, right? Or things with like correlation, you know, it doesn't have to be about that, you know.

Yeah. And then you learn the tools and as you get, yeah. And then as you go deeper, you, you can still practice those tools in your life.

Exactly. 100%. Because the first thing we do is stabilization.

Stabilization. Stabilization. I like that word. Okay. So what, real quick, your practice, Do I have to live in Illinois or Florida to work with you?

Yeah, so I am located in Illinois, Florida, and Virginia. I'm only virtual right now. I take most insurance plans. I am pretty full. But I'm looking to hire some— I'm looking to hire a couple people in the next year.

So, well, I saw that— I saw that you went against advice and started your own practice. Yeah, I saw your post about that. And it's It's obviously successful if you're full and hiring.

Yeah, no, it's doing well.

Good for you. Good for you for doing that. And it looks like you work with Internal Family Systems as well.

Yeah, that's something we didn't talk about in today's episode, but the IFS, Internal Family Systems, um, tend to pair really well with EMDR. You know, that's parts work for listeners, you know, if you're not familiar with IFS, but yeah, the parts work going into kind of we talked about today, like the inner child work, kind of figuring, fleshing those things out, works really well with this.

Yes. Okay. And on ignitinghope.info, Drake's website, um, there's learn more about EMDR, EMDR therapy, what it is, procedure effectiveness, all that stuff. Um, you can learn more about that and see how that resonates with you. But I, I mean, I see that, I see this being very helpful for anyone who's Really stuck, you know, just stuck in the relapse. And that's the people that come to me. They're usually like every 2 months or every 3 months, why do I keep going back to this? You know, I don't want to. But those are my particular clients. Now I see myself as like a bridge to get somebody away from the substance long enough to go get therapized, to go get EMDR, right? So that you can be You're both your most cognizant self, critical thinking self, and online as much as you can be, and then go get therapy. That's kind of what I see my role as, as a, as a Chemsex coach. So I think that works well with you. Okay, well, Drake, what did I miss today? What should I have asked that you wish I had have asked? Or were you— did you— I, I do not prepare for the podcast, by the way, if you're listening. I don't prepare questions. We just wing it.

I prepared some of it. Yeah, I mean, no, it's— you think essentially we covered everything for the most part. Yeah, we're good.

Okay, good. Well, okay, and if you're, you're pretty full right now, but can people still contact you?

Yeah, they can still contact me, like here and there, like I have openings and, you know, it's always changing. Summertime tends to be a little slower, so yeah.

Okay, okay. Well, we'll put your website in the show notes and any other, any other information you want want us to as well.

Awesome. No, thank you so much for your time.

Thank you so much for your time, and thank you for listening. I appreciate it very much. If you have— want to add to the conversation, you can start a thread on YouTube underneath, or you can go to Spotify and, and make a comment there. If you have questions, you can also go in the Facebook community. You can also ask questions. And, um, if you have questions for Drake, you can reach out to him or ask me. But I'd like to hear what you think about EMDR, if you have experiences with it, positive or negative and, and why. And also if you're interested and if you're, you're, if you are EMDR curious, I'd like to hear about that too so we can start the, the, the conversation. So, all right guys, we'll see you next week.

Bye.