Amber Reacts to Dr. Delony's Life-Changing Advice

We're going to be reacting to My Wife Moved Out Because of My Addiction on the Dr. Delony Show. One of the interesting things about mental health that's different than like medical health is that almost any mental health trained person is going to have a slightly different take on things. But before we take a look at this, I do want to say I'm actually a big fan of the Dr. John Delony Show. I think he gives especially good relationship advice. But let's take a listen to this discussion, which is more centered on Alcoholism.

Um, all right, well, I got myself in a little bit of a situation here.

Okay.

Um, I'll give you a quick backstory real quick. Um, so I had an alcohol withdrawal-related seizure September '21, and I have no legal trouble or anything like that. Um, so then my grandpa— so I quit after that, and then my grandpa died February '22.

Jeez.

All right, I gotta stop it already. So if I were listening to this in my office, the things I'm picking up on already, which are major pieces of information for me, are he's saying, I had an alcohol withdrawal seizure. So you've got a checkmark in the column of my drinking is pretty bad. You have to be really alcohol dependent to have an alcohol withdrawal seizure. But in the same breath, he says, but I've never really had any legal trouble or anything. So on one hand, he's saying I've got a big problem, and on the other hand, he's saying, but it's not that big. Let's see what else he has to say.

So I started slowly coming back and doing what I'm not supposed to be doing. And then so November of Uh, '22 to December of '22, I went to treatment in California, came back, was doing good through the holidays. IOP, AA, Celebrate Recovery counseling with my wife Lexi. Um, but then I started to relapse, and that pushed Lexi and Owen, my son, to her mom's house. So my 2 questions are, is, could you help me understand what— like, I, I, after all this treatment that I've been to, I still am not understanding Until I'm not noticing what I just did until after, like the next day. Like, why the hell did I do that? You know? And then the second question is, I'm really a relationship-oriented guy and I've been with Lexi for over 17 years now. So how should I deal with that loss of communication with her without going stir crazy out here by myself?

Yeah, that's a great question, man. Um, so you're—

I got my dog, my dog Rossi, and she doesn't speak very good English. Yeah.

So before we hear what Dr. Delaney's going to say, when I hear this, I hear a guy who's simultaneously trying to communicate, okay, I'm insightful. I know I have a problem, but there's also a little tinge of self-pity in here. And if you've heard many of my videos, you know that that's a major fueling component when it comes to addiction.

She probably loves you more than, more than most. Um, and you've been through hell the last year or two, huh?

Yeah.

Nice move, Dr. Milani. I love that. I can tell he's thinking about, what do I want to say? And then he's thinking about, wait a minute, before I say that, I got to build a connection here. And so he's trying to connect and empathize with them before he says anything further, which is a must, absolutely have to do. Otherwise, the next thing you're about to say is not going to land.

And you've been through hell way before that too, huh?

Yeah, but it was never— like I said, I've had no legal problems. I was—

I don't care about that. I don't care about that. I don't care about that. Okay, there's a lot of people who are in the nerd world, we call it long-tail suicide, who are quietly drinking themselves to death and no one will ever know because they're gonna say, I got pancreatic cancer, I had liver issues, or I had a stroke, and no one's gonna realize that for the last 30 years they quietly Um, drown themselves in the company of people who love them.

I love, love, love that Dr. Delony called that out. And you could see it kind of went over. It's going to kind of go over okay. And it's going to go over okay because he had that strong empathy statement to start with. But he quickly said, well, I don't care about that because he's wanting to sort of interrupt this. He's wanting to interrupt this conversation before it goes down this train of justifying. It's not that bad. Definitely. where this train is going. And what he's saying is, hey, a lot of people are out there drinking themselves to death and they may not have a legal problem or this problem or that problem. So basically what he's saying is, hey, not having a legal problem doesn't mean that this isn't a big problem.

Yep.

So I don't care about legal trouble, man. I care about Sean who's sitting in front of me, who's looking at his life and, and has a different picture of what this could look like, man. And you just feel tethered to the old one, right?

Yeah.

So I my instinct is to call bullcrap on in in a loving way, right? If we're sitting here, I'd be smiling. But I would say I call bullcrap on I just blackout and I wake up the next day and I was drunk the night before. There's always a moment.

Not yet.

Love it, love it, love it. I also when I heard him say that, I was like. No, it's not just happening like that. Like, I don't even know what happened, and then it just happens, and then the next day I'm like, what happened? Totally with you, Dr. Delony. Let's see what happens next.

Yeah, always on.

And like, and it's, it's there, and I know that like these situations, they just kind of pop up out of the blue.

I know it's not, it's not an excuse, but you, you know what sets you off. What is it?

I want to say like my, like, friendship. If like a friend's coming over or something like that, you know, relationships.

And so if I want to— if a friend is coming over, if your wife wants to, to get close with you, that's when you drink?

Well, I mean, I'll have friends that like— I just went to Dallas for 5 days and didn't drink the whole time I was down there.

Sure, because that's a new environment.

Yeah, yeah. And I Yeah, like I say, it's just, it's for me, it's—

answer my question though, brother. When you're sitting at home, what happened? But friendship, are you drinking because you're lonely? Are you drinking because you got friends coming over?

I think, I think, I think because I'm, because I'm bored.

There you go.

Yeah. And like, uh, like my old routines of like out on the tractor having a beer in my hand, you know, that, that type of thing.

That's right.

And he said, I just went to Dallas, I was there for 5 days and didn't drink. But I also, when I hear that statement, to me that's another thing that this person is telling himself that indicates, see, it's not that bad of a problem. I mean, I went a whole 5 days without drinking and it was like a special circumstance. So again, if you listen closely, you can hear the justifications and rationalizations, and that is going to be the answer to why do I keep relapsing?

So all the things you just rattled off, Celebrate Recovery, AA, counseling with my wife, trying to do this, trying to do that. You are trying to do so much all at the exact same time.

Yeah.

I would love to see you back out a little bit and have one singular goal for 6 months, and that is to stay stone sober. We're not going to also dig into my childhood past. We're not going to also dig into how can I communicate better. Not going to dig into the shame associated with, you You love this woman for 17 years, but you've dragged her through the mud too. We're not going to do any of that. We're going to create a structure around staying sober.

And this is also really good advice because what he's speaking to here is most people, almost everyone who has an addiction issue to anything, also has other things going on. It could be other mental health things going on or marriage problems, something like that. But you absolutely have to deal with the addiction issue first because you can't deal with any of those other things as long as the addiction is running the show.

Because what you're trying to do, man, it's like you have a stomach virus and you keep throwing up, and you're also trying to clean up the house at the same time and meet with the roofing contractor and test out new counter wipes. The first thing you gotta do, man, is quit barfing, right?

And convince my wife that I'm really serious about trying to conquer this issue. That's another little piece of what's going on here.

Yeah.

And that's, that's the challenge. And yes, Um, it doesn't surprise me that it's easy for you when you're in a new environment to stay clean because your body doesn't fall into those old rhythms. The challenge you gotta come— you gotta be honest with yourself about is, A, and I live on some acres too, and so I get what I'm asking you, is that the place for you?

Well, see, that's the— that's one thing too. We were, uh, my wife Lexi, she's a consultant pharmacist, and she has an opportunity to move to St. George in Utah, and We're seriously thinking about a new environment.

I don't know that that's necessarily a bad thing.

Yeah.

And maybe it's something where you hang on to your property and y'all go down there and rent for a season.

You know, this is a pretty classic piece of addiction recovery advice, which is basically change your people, places, and things. And sometimes people say your playgrounds, playmates, and playthings, which will help keep you out of that habitual sort of acting without thinking mode.

Yeah, we've been talking through that the last couple of weeks.

Okay. Your wife has to understand and believe that healing is coming, but you can't do it all at the same time. And she's going to want to get her 17 years back.

Yeah.

And she's going to want to get especially the last 2 or 3 years back. And she wants to get back how scared she was when you had that seizure. And she wants to get back all that right now. And that's just not how healing works.

Yeah.

And like, this is so true. By the time a person who has an alcohol problem gets help, their closest family member is so exhausted from holding up all the responsibilities that it's like, I want you to conquer this problem and get back into the game 100% because I'm exhausted and I'm tired and you haven't been being a teammate to me in so long. Get in the game. Anyone who has a spouse going through this will definitely feel that way.

Yeah, I know it does, but that starts the cycle over again. Yeah, your body's way of dealing with terrible is to unplug. When you unplug, you get bored, man. And I gotta feel something. I don't want to feel shame, and I can feel this, and this is awesome. Is that fair?

Okay, yeah, that's fair. And, you know, it's, uh—

What keeps you from calling your sponsor?

Um, I don't have a sponsor yet.

Before we listen to that part about the sponsor, let's back up just like a couple of seconds.

Pickle over again. Yeah, you feel terrible, and then your body's way of dealing with terrible is to unplug. When you unplug, you get bored, man. And I gotta feel something. I don't want to feel shame, and then I can feel this, and this is awesome. Is that fair?

When I hear that pause there, I think this guy is processing this, but I don't think he either isn't totally on board with this theory or he's having a hard time processing and understanding what Dr. Deloney's saying here. But he's going to say, yeah, yeah, okay. You can just tell it in the hesitation and then the way that he agrees. He's trying to be polite and doesn't want to argue, but he's not quite sure about this statement.

Okay. Yeah, that's fair.

And, and, you know, it's, uh, what keeps, what keeps you from calling your sponsor?

Um, I don't have a sponsor yet. I call my buddies to keep me, me focused.

That ends today.

Really?

That ends today.

You—

I think he said really because I think he thought Dr. Delaney was talking about don't call your buddies. I don't think he realized he's talking about the sponsor. Let's see what happens.

You have to get a sponsor to hold you accountable. Okay, bro, your way has not worked. It's not worked, has it?

I know. Nope.

You got to say, for the next 60 days, I'm going to AA every single day, and I will get a sponsor, and I'm going to go through the whole rigmarole. As much as you roll your eyes and, oh my gosh, it's so stupid, and they get all in your face or whatever, they want to sing Kumbaya, whatever they want to do, that's the way, because my way is not working.

This is so true, and it's such a classic kind of issue. It's like most of the time when you're new in this process, you go to a program and you listen to it and you do about 50, 60, 70, maybe 80% of what they tell you to do. But then there's a few pieces of it that you're like, nah, that doesn't really fit for me. So I'm not going to do that. In this case, it's getting the sponsor and then it doesn't work. And then you hear people say, oh, I tried that program. It didn't work. But did you really try it? Did you wholeheartedly try it? Or did you do what's called in recovery a half measure?

Yeah. Because I mean, I was doing AA every day and But then I just kind of got out of that rhythm.

You did, you did it partway.

Yeah.

You went to meetings, but you didn't connect with people, right?

I kind of did. I was there probably going for 3 or 4 months, you know.

But you never got, you never got a spot, you never got somebody's number to call when you felt the need to use?

No.

Yeah.

No.

You just, you, you were playing AA. You went halfway.

Okay.

Just talking to you, I think you're probably a great guy.

Did you hear the way, um, he said you didn't do AA all the way, you were just sort of playing at it? That's And then the caller says, okay, you can— it's another time I can tell he's not really totally buying into this, but at least he is listening to this confrontation. Now, this whole thing about getting a sponsor and calling your sponsor when you want to drink, that is also a classic piece of recovery advice. In fact, when you go to a 12-step meeting, a lot of times if they know you're a newcomer, they pass around a pamphlet schedule and everybody in that meeting will write their name and number on that and say, hey, give me a call, man. Like, if you're struggling, give me a call, which I think Sounds awesome in theory. And what are the chances you're going to call somebody on a random phone list that you don't even know? Not very great. Not so much that I think they shouldn't do this. I'm just saying it doesn't usually happen. So what I advise people to do is to connect with some people in your program, whatever that program is, and just call them regularly, daily to talk about regular stuff. And once you're in that habit of doing that, if you're having a bad day, it will be easy and natural to reach out to that person as opposed to waiting until this moment where You really want to drink. The thing of it is, is when you really want to drink, you don't want to be talked out of it, which is what you know is going to happen if you call that person. So you got to get at this problem like before that domino starts to fall.

Good dad?

Yeah, I try to be when I can, when I'm around him.

Yeah, but you know your wife's doing what's best for him. She took— she got her away from somebody who's not— got him away from somebody who's not safe, right?

Right. I understand all that. It's just hard on me.

Oh dude, I can't, I can't. My son's at camp right now. I can't even breathe. Our whole house is a little bit low because our— because one of, uh, one of the gang's gone, right? I get that.

Yeah.

My guess is this fella does get that, that his drinking is a problem for the wife and for the son, and that she did need to go. I'm guessing that he does get that a little, but I'm guessing he doesn't get that completely. So he's like, yeah, I get it, it's not good, you need to protect your kid. But I bet in the back of his head he's thinking, it's not that bad, she's overreacting. There's probably a little bit of that in there too.

But listen, you can't get so Were for him.

Yeah, for myself.

Uh-oh. Think about all the things that you would do for your kid that you wouldn't do for yourself. There's no bad reason to get sober. So if that's true, why do people always say that you got to get sober for yourself? Because eventually, if you don't develop your own internal reasons to stay sober, then if you get in a fight with that person, or if you get in a fight with that person, or maybe that person's just like gone for a few days on vacation or something, it's really easy to relapse if that's your only reason. But I will say that in the beginning, almost everyone gets sober for an external reason. Now, once they get sober, they feel better after a while, and then eventually they decide they like their life better, they feel better, and then they stay sober for themselves. But almost everyone gets sober for an external reason, and I've never heard anyone tell me any reason to get sober that I thought was a bad one. I'll take any of them.

Why don't you believe that, dude?

I don't know, I feel like, like it's hard not to like defend my family.

I know, but the best way to defend your family is you being able to defend your family.

100%.

I know.

Who told you Sean sucks?

Uh, I think him.

Your son?

No, me.

Oh.

Yeah, but somebody—

I can just—

that start— those, those kind of conversations start as somebody else's words.

So making an empathy statement like that, who told you that you suck? It's a good move in a lot of ways because it's saying, hey, you're not a bad guy. What's going on inside of you? What's making you do this? And it's definitely sort of like a counselor kind of move, but it also goes with this idea that all addiction is caused by trauma. I'm like one of the people out there that's Not quite as on board with that, and maybe that's just my point of view because of the type of clients that I typically work with. This guy that's talking on this stream right here, this is exactly the kind of person that I tend to work with. Most of the people that I work with are fairly successful. They come from good families, and for sure they've been through difficult things, but a lot of them don't have anything hugely significant that you would put your finger on and say, "Hey, would cause someone to become addicted?" When someone has a substance abuse problem, especially if it's an alcohol problem, they will replay old past hurts. Hurts and wounds over and over and over in their head. And they have a very difficult time getting over things and moving past things because they relive it, especially when they're drinking. And every time they relive it, it's like re-hurting themselves. It doesn't have to be a huge trauma. It can be something like, my girlfriend cheated on me, or I got let go of from a job and I thought that was unfair. Anything like that, we can replay it over and over. Basically, it's the replaying of that self-pity and resentment. And so I'm always really careful around these issues.

I mean, and I couldn't tell you that off the top of my head when I would have ever noticed that.

Okay. The way it usually works is we're born into a family of some sort, we're born into some sort of— it's just the air we breathe, we don't even know it.

And that's, that's, that's, that could be another topic here is I, I mean, I have one brother, no divorces, my parents been married for 40 years, never moved, same elementary school, all that. Sports, football, basketball, baseball. I didn't drink till freshman year of college.

He's not identifying anything significant from his childhood that would be traumatic or difficult to the point that you would think would be the origin of an addiction issue. The thing of it is, if you do something over and over long enough, or if you put a chemical in your body over and over long enough, your body gets so used to it, it becomes habitual. And with substances, you get dependent on it and then you need it. I don't care if you've had trauma or not, that will happen to you. For example, think about people who get addicted to nicotine. If somebody uses nicotine long enough, they will get addicted to it. There doesn't have to be trauma in the history for that to happen.

And that was just barely on and off.

So what is it you thought life would look like now? And what's different about this reality? No, no, but let's take drinking off the table. You thought your life would look like— did it include driving a tractor on your own little place?

Yep.

So what's so hollow about this world?

Uh, right now, um, not having my family home.

I know, dude, but there's a hollowness there that you wallpaper over with alcohol.

You see, that's the thing is so many people think that there's always some kind of big wound, hollowness, trauma, and in a lot of cases maybe there is. But I'm telling you, it is not always there. Now, if you engage in an addictive behavior long enough, it will eventually get there because the nature of addiction will cause you to lose things and go through traumatic events. Kind of like what he's saying, like the hollowness is that my family's not there. It's not like I developed this alcohol problem because my family's not there. It's more like my family's not there because I developed this alcohol problem.

Because you're really, really focused on external metrics. Haven't been to jail. They're still married for 40 years. I know a lot of silently abusive families where everything looks great on the outside, or really, really great moms and dads who did the best that they could, but they also let the one kid know that they like the other kid better. I don't know what your story is, man.

Yeah, so that, that is one thing that I've— I, I kind of noticed that my punishments were harsher than my brother's.

Okay, but you see right there, it was— it's like if I keep throwing out some examples I'm going to grab something sometime. And I'm sure that this guy's telling the truth. Hey, yeah, I was always kind of like jealous that my parents liked my brother better. But is that really the thing that's causing the drinking issue?

Where is that buried and why did it come out when it did? If that is what—

I think that's a problem. If I were you, I'd want to know the answer to that, but you can't know that answer until you get sober.

Right.

And so going spelunking into your past, trying to Fix all things, Mary. Dude, you're doing so, so much all at the same time.

Yeah.

I want to see you make a full commitment, a full run at going to meetings for 60— let's do 90 days, 3 months, man. Give you— oh, love Sean enough for 3 months. And I'm gonna get a sponsor on the first day and tell them, I've been before, I didn't do it all the way, I didn't go all in. I need someone I can call.

Great advice.

What we're gonna do is we're going to practice. We are going to make a commitment to sobriety, and it will be on that foundation that we can start becoming— working on and practicing becoming a better husband and dad. But you gotta get clean. You trust me when I tell you you're worth— you're worth more than this?

Oh yeah. I mean, I've heard it a bunch of times. It's just— I'm Felt like reaching out to you guys, just something different for me to think about.

I'm grateful for you, man. How can I help you? Is there something you need?

Uh, I don't think so, not right— I mean, I'd like to, like, talk to you again.

Okay.

I would—

it would make my heart full if after 60 days you would call me back and let me know you've been going for 60 days, and I'll have you back on the show. We'll do a whole segment. Is that cool?

That's awesome.

Okay.

You know, it's really hard to figure out someone's entire problem, give them good strategic advice in 15 minutes. So overall, when I look at this, I think Dr. Delaney did a bang up job here because he had this great mix of empathy, care, concern, curiosity, and also some good healthy confrontation. So I'm like 90% on board with everything that happened here. The only place where I differ just a little bit is This idea of is thinking that there's always something deeper. What this guy called in wanting to know is, why do I keep relapsing? Based on this little bit of information, I personally think the reason that this guy keeps relapsing is because he doesn't think his problem is that bad. And in those moments when he has recently relapsed, it sounds like it was like a lot one day and then I stopped. I drank a lot one day and then I stopped. So that's actually giving him more evidence to the fact that he's controlling it because he's not drinking for days on end. So he's saying, I just don't understand it why I keep doing it. But at the same time, he's using those lapses as more evidence to think that my problem really isn't that bad. Dr. Deloney has a ton of good videos. I'm going to link this one for you in the description. So definitely go check out his channel.