Overcome the Shame and Guilt of Addiction

Today we're going to be talking about how to rewrite your story when you're overcoming an addiction. You're in those early recovery days and you just feel like total crap about yourself. How do you dig out of that hole? How do you reinvent yourself? How do you even know who you are, you know, and overcome that? And it's. In order to do that, I have an expert witness for you guys. My expert witness.

That's what I.

Expert witness. That's right.

Yes.

We have Arlena Allen with us, and she is the host of one of the top, well, I think it is self help or mental health podcast others called One Day at a Time. It's a really, really good podcast. And Arlena's sort of expertise or specialty area is self esteem and recovery. And I thought that was just so, so exciting. So I'm so glad you're here to talk to us about it. We are so lucky to have you.

Thank you so much for inviting me. Yeah. And I just have to say that we recorded your episode on my podcast. I cannot wait to publish it. When you and I got off the phone, my heart was full and I was like, I just feel like your finger is on the pulse. Like you really, you really get it. Like the, the. The challenges and offer such practical solutions to help people. So I'm super excited to publish your episode and to be with you here today to talk about self esteem, because that's a really important topic.

So. So Arlena has expertise in a double kind of way. She's got expertise from her personal life and she's got expertise professionally. So you're getting like the double qualified expert witness here, will you? I watch a lot of true crime. I was just. In fact, I had to tear myself away from the Murdoch trial just to be here with you guys today.

Oh, dear. I was like, oh, well, thank you for being here today.

Anyways, so Arlena is going to share with us some about her story and her personal expertise. When you do true crime, they have you qualify yourself as a witness.

Where are you from?

Where'd you grow up? Well, what did you study? So this is like the version of that where you're. Where you're going to tell us how you're qualified and then you're gonna just like, lay the wisdom on us. And we're excited for it.

I'm gonna lay down some tools. When you finish listening to this, you will have some practical exercises that will help you make changes on such a core, fundamental level that it could literally change the entire trajectory of your life. And that's what I just wanna. If nothing else, I want to convey the idea that it's the tiny changes that are the most important ones. For instance, I always like to use the golf analogy because everyone's seen what a golf club looks like, even if you don't play. But the head of a golf club is very small. It's like 4 to 5 inches long. And it's the tiny changes in the angles that determine the trajectory of the ball. And the person that masters the tiny changes is the difference between a Tiger woods who makes, like, I don't know, $100 million a year, and the guy who ranks 100, whose name we don't even.

You know what I mean? I never thought of that.

It is, right?

It's a huge difference.

Yeah. I don't remember who I stole that from, but it makes sense. And everybody gets it. Everyone's like, okay, I'm on board. It is the tiny changes. And I think what's so frustrating early on in recovery is that we do all this recovery work, like prayer, meditation and journaling and connecting with others and, you know, reviewing the same information kind of over and over again that we feel like nothing's changing. But that's not true, because all those efforts support, like, neuroplasticity. Right. Your habits begin to change, your thoughts begin to change, Your neurochemistry circuits begin to change. And so over time, you end up landing in a very different place than you would have had you not done all those things. But people are measuring by this. This idea of, how do I feel? How much money do I have in the bank? Who am I dating? What's my. What's my dress size or pant size? You know, we have these very skewed.

Metrics trying to look for, like, a concrete number.

Yeah.

Like a data point or something.

Yeah. And so I, I, you know, over the. So I've been sober for 28 years. I got. Got sober really young, which means that I started drinking, using drugs really young. And I'll just give you a little bit of the backstory so you can kind of, you know, so everyone can kind of relate to. To kind of, you know what's funny? Circumstances are always different, but the feelings are all the same.

That's right.

And so that's what I like to. To share about is what were the feelings like? And I'll say that when I, you know, my family of origin, my mother was from Mexico City and my. My daddy was from Kentucky. So I occasionally lapse into this this accent, that's not mine, but we like.

You bring it out.

It's kind of funny. But so my parent. And my parents were not drinkers. They didn't do drugs. They were very, you know, stable, middle class. My daddy was like a government guy. Like, he was a marine and he worked for government agencies. It was so funny because at the end of his career, he was. I actually don't know what he did because he was like a, like security clearance guy. So I didn't know where he worked or what he did or.

Oh, wow. Like secret. It was top secret. Yeah.

Like, I lived in one city. He had a. He had. His phone was in one area code. And I knew that he was physically in a different area code. It was just weird. And this is, you know, this is a long time ago when that was actually significant because now you can get an area code and it's not a thing. Yeah, but that was. That was kind of a big deal. I was like, oh, I had to meet him for lunch and we had. At a disclosed location. It was funny.

Oh my gosh.

Maybe it was like black ops. I don't know.

Wow.

I don't think it was that exciting, but it was just funny. But oddly enough, he was the nurturing one out of my two parents. My mother was born and raised in Mexico City and she was a foreign exchange student. The first foreign exchange student, Klamath Falls, Oregon. And she was when she was 14. And she was of five kids who was, you know, primarily raised by an angry mom who herself was. I think she was 14 or 15 years old when she got married. She's still alive at 96 and a half. And you know, so it just speaks to sort of like this intergenerational. What it was was an inability to identify and process feelings to resolution. Right. Like, my mom did not gain any coping skills in her family of origin. Dad was at work a lot. And then there were two things that happened to me when I was really young that sort of set the stage for my self esteem. And I was sexually abused by a neighbor when I was very young. And it was an ongoing thing. And then the second thing was my parents divorced when I was seven years old. And I grew up in a religious household where I got the idea that I was supposed to be perfect. I was supposed to work towards these ideals of being Christlike. And there's this idea of perfectionism in the church that people did do not display their vulnerability, their human challenges. It was accept it's acceptable to be sick and be prayed for. But anything other than that, you know, people weren't talking about overeating, they weren't talking about their gambling or their sex and love addictions. They weren't there. There was, nobody was talking about what was really going on or domestic violence or drugs and alcohol. Right. Like nobody talked about that. So I just got these ideas that I was supposed to be this certain kind of way and I was failing miserably. And then because of my experiences of what was going on that nobody knew about, I felt that I was bad or broken or fundamentally there was something wrong with me. And as a side note, I have recently read this book called what happened to you? And the question what happened to you is very different than what's wrong with you? Because what happens to us informs how we, how we think of ourselves, our self esteem, our value in the world, what we deserve, what we're capable of. And so from a very early age, I had a very low self esteem. I thought I was bad. And I used to, you know, always beg God to fix me or change me. Yet I was continuing to be human. Right. I was living with trauma from an early age. And so at some point I decided if I couldn't be good, I was going to be good at being bad. Okay. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. And I used to joke around about that when I, when I told my story. And then one day I realized, you know, what the is at the core of that statement is. I believed I was bad, that I wasn't worthy of God's healing because God apparently is all powerful, but he wasn't fixing me. And I didn't know why. And I desperately wanted to be different and I just couldn't be because I had all these human frailties. I was living with trauma and just, I was confused. I was very confused. But I extrapolated a moral meaning about myself that I was bad. And so that's, that was my operating system.

Because you didn't have like a, a realistic viewpoint about what people were really like. So you thought you were like defective in some way when really you were just like everyone else probably.

Yeah. Yeah. Still. Yeah. Just human.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's. So that's a very observant. Of course, you know this, you know, because of all the things that you do. But most people I think, don't recognize that for themselves. Right. I did not recognize that for myself that I had, you know, I, you know, fast forward to, you know, getting sober. I joined 12 Step Communities and learned that I, you know, they call them character defects, but which I don't really like. I like to think of them as human frailties, you know, but even, even in those circles, a character defect is an instinct, a natural, normal, healthy instinct that's just out of balance.

Yeah, it's usually like a defense mechanism. It's like a protective thing.

Exactly. Yeah. No, all the time. That's exactly what it is. It's like we're in survival mode. So in, in my childhood I learned how to be in survival mode. And since my mom was the predominant parent at home and I got all my needs met through her, my job was to make mom happy so that I could get what I needed. But I had the, the character trait of rebelliousness. So I also, you know, would rebel against her. So it was a very precarious dynamic there. But something happened to me when I was 14 years old that instilled this, this pattern of behavior that still occurs in me today, which is my sister had mental health issues and she had suicidal depression when I was 14 years old. And you know, I'm so, so back, you know, 40 years ago. We didn't know that that's what that was. We didn't know was she older or younger? Two years older.

Years older. Okay.

Yeah. She was like always very fragile and very like weak and just, she was always different. And my mother came to me one day in, in vulnerability and seeking my help. My mom was a very strong, emotionally, like, hard working, like she was a very strong personality and she was scared and she came to me for help and I was like, oh my God, this is an opera. You know, I think I had this idea that I, that my mom didn't like me or something terrible. You know, we had some experiences when I was, she was always angry and so when she came to me presenting with like this vulnerable, I need, I need your help. I was like, oh my gosh, this is an opportunity for me to get my mom to love me and accept me and see me and hear me, understand me. And you know, I really wanted her approval. And so she came to me and asked me for my help to save my sister. And so. But it was a setup for failure because there was no way that my 14 year old self was ever going to be able to rescue my mentally ill sister. It was never going to happen. But it set up this dynamic in me of being a people pleaser, being a rescuer. And it's something that I have to be very mindful of, especially today in the profession that I do, because I help People, that's my profession. It takes up most of my brain space. I have to be very careful that I'm expressing from my heart, not out of a need to rescue or save anybody else. Right. So all this to say that these were the dynamics that were set up early in my childhood that were sort of a setup for addiction. And I found drugs and alcohol very early. And I had my first drink probably between 8 and 10. And yeah, really young. I mean, I. When my boys. I have two boys that are 22 and 19 now. And I remember when they were that age, I would look at my boys and be like, wow, I can't believe that I felt the need to drink when I was that young.

Like, you, like. Was it like. Like you took a taste of somebody's drink? Are you, like, had a drink, girl.

I had a drink.

Wow. Yeah, I remember taking a sip of, like, grandma's vodka. So you just be like, oh, you know, like on accident, you know, usually you, like, had a drink, like, on purpose.

I did. Like, no, I got drunk. I got drunk. My mom went out to dinner, you know, just. I think I was. Yeah, I was young, but, you know, my older sister, you know, it wasn't like she was out late partying or anything like that. She just left the house for a couple hours to. Or maybe she was gone longer than that. It was in the evening because I remember my. After I got really drunk, my sister put me. Cleaned me up and put me to bed. But. So I guess it was in the evening, but I remember going for the bottle. So we were home alone. I knew there was a bottle. I don't know what prompt whispering it.

Now you're like, am I?

Don't tell anybody. It was like the excitement of it was like, since I was gonna. I was dedicated to being bad. I was like, excited to do something naughty. And I don't even know where I got the idea, but there was a bottle in the cabinet. I never saw my mom drink. It must have been left over from a party or something. But I remember mixing it with some juice and drinking it. I remember it burning my lips. I remember it burned all the way down, but when it hit bottom, like this warmth spread through my whole body, right? And you know what it was like? You know, what was lifted was like all this self hatred, self loathing, self consciousness that I had been feeling, all of that was lifted and all that was left were these good feelings, right? This euphoria that. And I think the juxtaposition of those two feelings, this contrast Was so stark that it was burned in my psyche forever. Right. And I got that feeling that I've heard people talk about many times of, oh my gosh, this is the thing.

Like my missing piece. Like, this is it.

Yeah, that was my missing piece. It was the. It was my medicine. And I drank it like medicine too. You know, you pinch your nose and chug it all down and mask it with sugar. Spoonful of sugar. Right. The juice. But when it ended up happening is that I got really sick and threw up everywhere. And my sister cleaned me up and put me in a bed and never said anything to my mother. And I asked her later why she didn't say anything. And she said, because I would have gotten in trouble. And so it sort of speaks to this dynamic that I grew up with, that I wasn't responsible for my feelings, I wasn't responsible for myself, but I was responsible for my sister. She felt the same way.

Wow.

So this inappropriate, like the responsive self. Responsibility was displaced. I was very confused about that for a very long time. So, yeah, so that's how I drank. I drank till I threw up and passed out on a mission until I was about 25. Yeah. And I didn't become a daily drinker at 10, but I was always a binge drinker. I would always binge drink. I would black out. I would wake up in places that were unfamiliar with people I didn't know. You know, that was. That was also a big. What I learned after recovery was that my promiscuous behavior was also a reflection of trying to reach. Regain personal power from the sexual abuse that I experienced when I was very young. Like I'm talking five, six, seven years old. Right. And so I learned that when women, especially young women, are displaying that type of behavior, it's often an indication that there was some sort of sexual abuse. And so, you know, this whole slut shaming thing is very. It breaks my heart because those are the women that were often abused. Very, very sensitive to that. And you know, I have boys that when they were coming up through, if I heard anything about that, I. I would explain. I would explain that. And they had a new context and perspective and compassion for those girls.

So you kind of had this unique, like, juxtaposition of being sort of really people pleasing, but also this sort of rebellious side that was sort of hidden maybe. Or the secrets.

Yeah. Pretty. Yeah. Not. Not so hidden. The rebellious.

Okay.

Yeah. And I just couldn. I just couldn't help it. I just needed to do what I needed to do. Excuse me. What I learned is that the purpose of addiction is distraction. It's a covering strategy, you know, was medicine for me. It soothed those places on my heart that I just didn't have the words or the context or perspective to deal with. You know, I needed help dealing with what happened to me. That my parents divorce was super traumatic on me too. And I just didn't have any support or I didn't have a place to feel safe enough where I could process those feelings. And so, you know, whatever we resist, persists, you know, whatever we suppress comes out sideways. And that was definitely my experience. I was. I was self sabotaging left and right, and I just couldn't seem to help it because I needed to do whatever I needed to do to distract from these feelings that I had.

So you're, you're. You know, you talked about how you got sober at a really young age. I think you said you were like 25. So that is really young to get sober. But you were on the. Sometimes I have young clients and I tell them they're on the fast track honors course or something. You know, you're on accelerator, you were on the accelerated program. So when you got sober, were there people? Because sometimes I see this, like in groups, there's almost like this hierarchy of, well, you're not really an alcoholic. Like, let me tell you what I did. You know, it's almost like this weird we're starting thing that happens where people. What do people think about the fact that you were thinking you were an alcoholic at 25? Were people like, yeah, you are, or people like, oh, you're just a kid, you know, how do people respond to that?

Well, the idea was introduced me that I was alcoholic by my sister. She and I. So I had a really bad night with her where I was physically abusive to her. I had a blackout. I behaved very badly. And I. When I woke up the next morning, I couldn't remember what happened, but I knew something terrible had happened. Like my hand was purple and blue from apparently I'd punched my windshield in a couple places. And when I had lost my damn mind, which was not an uncommon experience for me, I used to. I used to have these two alter egos when I drank. It was Wimpy Wendy and Badass Betsy, because I was either fighting or crying.

Okay?

When I, When I drank and it was like, it was like I was always stuffing my feelings, like I didn't know how to process them, so I would stuff them. But when I drank, it all came out like a very, very Dramatic fashion theory.

Like and I just made this up so there's no like science or anything but that people usually when I see people that have alcohol problems, they're. They're intoxicated self is almost always dead opposite of their regular self. So I always say like if they're like really like strong cowboy type, they like turn into like that I love you man, tight. You know, they're like, if they're like rough it, you know, it's almost like whatever. They're like, if they're like super like conflict avoidant and they're nice and they're people pleasing, they just like start fight. It's like that's just my own dude. It's just. And I think that kind of connects what you're saying. It's like that suppressed thing and now it's like the lid is off and.

Then it's just like the lid is off. Yeah. I could never predict who I, who was going to come out once I started drinking. I really couldn't. Yeah, you know, I'm typically like a light hearted, happy, go lucky kind of girl. You know, I have like a, I've heard people describe me as a, having a bubbly which I really like. Bubbly personality. I love that. But when I drank I was a very different person. It was like the Jekyll, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde phenomenon. Yeah. Everything that was left unprocessed came out when I was drinking and it was, it was nothing I could control. And that's the thing about you know, being an alcoholic or having alcohol use disorder. Once I started drinking I couldn't stop like immediately. Like I had this phenomenon of more like whenever. And I used to drink a lot. Like I'm 5 foot 3 mm and I'm small. I was even smaller then. And I was able to drink men twice my size under the table because I was drinking so much because I had this more as soon as I started drinking it was like I just want more. And even when I quit drinking I would have dreams about drinking. And even in my dreams I was always, I would either I was a big pot smoker too. I would either take a big bong head or start drinking. And my immediate feeling was where's the next one versus where's the next bong hit? Where's the next drink? Where's the next? It was just more. I just needed more. And, and so I was just. Once I started drinking, I was paralysed to, to control it once it started. And you know, I never went to jail or Anything like that, but I had some very negative consequences. So to answer your question. Wow, that was a long way around the bend. To answer your question.

That's helpful. Yeah.

Yeah. So I had a bad night with my sister and I went to my mom's house to find. My sister was living with my mom and I went to their house to find out what happened. And she gave me this horrible description of the evening. And I was so. Even though I was like so like demoralized and humiliated and just so, so full of shame, like that burning shame that burned your eyes from the, from the back of your face, like, just like that burning shame. She said that she was going to start going to Al Anon and I was aghast. I was like, because of me, like zero.

Like what? Alcohol?

What? Yeah, so it started there. And the truth of the matter was I didn't have a lot of friends towards the end. I had like these drinking buddies that I would hang out with, but they were tired of my nonsense and so they didn't want to be around me either. But when my sister said that she was going to go to Al Anon, I was, I was really surprised, which is weird because I was so self centered but incapable of self examination.

Can I just stop? Because I feel like that's such an important thing you're saying there because a lot of our, a lot of the audience that watches me is family members of people that have substance use problems. The majority, I would say, probably a family members. And I'm constantly trying to explain to them about how even though your loved one won't show it to you, they know more than you think they know you know, they hide that. You know, they may act like cocky about it even to you or just say, you know, whatever, I like this. You know, they can have an attitude about it, but there is something deep down inside that does feel terrible about it. And it's funny because even when you said like your mom and your sister said I'm gonna go to Al Anon, you kind of had this response like insulted or like me.

Yeah, you know, I was so insulted. I was like, what? I, I was, I was, I was shocked. I mean, that's how delusional I was. I was so. And that's the whole purpose of denial is we hide information from ourselves. I just was doing whatever I had. I was in survival mode. Like I was doing what I had to survive. And the mere idea of giving it up was impossible to even consider. I could not fathom my life without the thing that was helping me to survive. And it's so interesting because I've recognized that drugs and alcohol on some level actually saved my life. Because if I had to feel everything that I was feeling, especially in my younger years, I wouldn't have survived. Like, I barely survived as it was. Right? I barely survived as it was. Then I found drugs and alcohol and that was my medicine. And to think of giving it up, it was impossible. And so I had completely rationalized and justified my behavior in my own mind that the idea that my sister was going to go to Al Anon was completely foreign to me. Like I could not make it make sense. But it did. It did open the door to, am I an alcoholic? What makes somebody an alcoholic? When did I become an alcoholic? What about my friends who drink like I do? Are they alcoholic? It was like one question led to another and, and every question just led to more questions and I didn't have any answers. So for about a two year period, I had to wrestle with this idea and shoot all my angles. Like, I, I'm a relatively smart person. I'm not a genius or anything, but I was like, I'm very, I'm survival, I'm, I'm a survivor, which means that I'm resourceful. And so I basically, I was like, I'm going to figure this thing out. I'm going to live in the self help section at Barnes and Noble. Which I did. And I'll stop you again because I'm.

Gonna ask you a question while you're in this phase of like this two years and you're trying to figure it out and this. Were you like, did other people know you were going through that? Like, were you acknowledging that out loud or was that sort of like just something that you were kind of doing privately to yourself?

You know, I was, listen, I'm kind of a weirdo where I would tell my business to anybody who stood still long enough because I was seeking external validation. I also have this thing about I'm a validation junkie, everybody needs to love me. But I. So it was weird because I would tell my business anybody, because I had this deep need to be seen, heard and understood. And so I was probably, I don't know how there are others perceived me, but I'm sure people were aware because, you know, when I take in information, the first thing I want to do is share it. So I was, you know, doing Tony Robbins 30 day. He had like this 30 day program on cassette. That's oddly funny enough because yes, I'm that old, but that was the first. I. First time I was introduced to the idea that if I could change my mind and my beliefs, I could change my life. But I still wasn't ready to give up. I wanted to control my drinking. And so I don't know if other people were aware, but I was talking about. They probably just thought I was crazy because my words didn't align with my behavior. I was still behaving badly, but I was. I was. I was taking in. I was gathering information and then trying it out to see if. If I could control my drinking. And it took me that two year period of really trying. And I had this other thing about me that I was ambitious, like, always worked really hard, like always had multiple jobs and worked really hard. And I thought that money would save me. I thought finding a man would save me. So I was. Spent a lot of time and energy decorating the outside and trying to make money and. And all this stuff. So listen, I don't know what people thought, but it took me two years of, like, research and applying what I was learning to my life without stopping the drugs and alcohol to see if my life would improve and all roads would lead back to. I need to quit drinking and smoking weed.

All right, family members, I hope you guys are taking notes because you're getting, like, this secret inside look about what goes on inside the mind of your loved one that they don't. They don't necessarily share with you. Or maybe they share it, but you think they don't mean it because, like. Like what Arlena is saying is her behaviors didn't line up. So it's not that they're not thinking about it or trying. It's just that it takes a while to figure it out.

Yeah. Truth be told, I wouldn't. I wouldn't take my most vulnerable self to. To my family because they were not safe. There was so much judgment and criticism. Like they were afraid. I know that they were afraid. I remember my mom telling my dad, like, later it came out that my mom told my dad we might lose her. And he was not happy to hear that. But my mom was like, she might not make it. She was very aware. I was drunk, driving and doing all these. All this. I was putting myself in dangerous situations. And she was aware, and so she was afraid. And so she would pressure me or say things. Very judgment, like she didn't know how to respond. And she would say these things to me, and I. They were just. She was just not a safe. I wasn't going to go to her with My vulnerability and be like, I'm trying to do this stuff and it's not working. And you know, because she'd be like, of course that's not. You're to going. You know, all the criticism. And so she just wasn't.

She would say that kind of thing to you.

Can I swear on this. Mind your own business. Like, I was just so resistant. And what ended up happening is I found people who were really safe. I got to into 12 step because I just reached that point of being sick and tired of being sick and tired. And I knew on all my, like, goal workshops, the number one thing was always to quit. And I just couldn't. I tried all the things to manage it, and I knew it was affecting my sales career and my ability to make money and my relationship. I was desperate to find Mr. Right. I found a bunch of Mr. Right. Now I had to kiss a lot of frogs before or Mr. Right. You know, thank God I met him early in my recovery and we've been together for 28 years now. But I, I listen, I was a hot mess, and it just took a long time to find people who were safe, who were like, oh my gosh, I did that to you. Like, I went to 12 Steps and found this woman who was my sponsor, who was like, I could see in her eyes that she got my kind of crazy and that she didn't judge me for it because she did the same thing. Like, she understood what it felt like to live with this. I forget what the psychological term is when you're just living in. In contradiction with yourself. Like, I knew what the right thing was to do. I just couldn't do it right. But she would share her stories. She just created such a safe space for me that my defenses melted away. And she just met my shame and guilt with empathy and compassion, and it melted away all my defenses. And I could finally be honest with myself and with her. And that's when I started recognizing all this trauma that I had been carrying out of survival. I was, I was acting, acting in survival mode because I didn't know how to manage my feelings. And so because it's like I said.

I tell people all the time, you have to make it less scary for the person to take the mask off, not more scary. And I think our instinct is to say, you know, you're terrible, you're killing yourself, you're killing us, you know, and you want to make it more scary. But that's not going to make the person like you're talking about take those defenses down, girl.

I hated who I was. I hated who I was, so. And I felt that I deserved all the bad things that were coming. So death was not a deterrent. Right, to be perfectly honest. Right. Death, isolation, self hatred, those were not things that. Those were things that were already familiar to me. So they weren't going to be a motivator. They just weren't. Like, I was like, if this doesn't work out, I'm gonna check out that kind of thing.

And so you're saying your motivators were you.

You.

Initially, it's like, this is messing with my sales career, Mr. Wright. And I say this all the time to the family members. I say, listen. Their motivators, you're going to think are dumb when you hear them. Like, because you're gonna think, well, what about this and this and this? But it doesn't matter. I'll say, any reason is a good reason.

Yeah, I like it.

Okay.

Yeah. I had this idea that if I just found the right man or had enough money, then I would be okay. But I didn't know that what I needed to do was confront my pain and trauma with compassion and empathy. Brene Brown was famous for saying that empathy is the antidote to shame. And I have found that to be true in my own life. Even today. You know, even today, it's like I'm hardwired a certain way. You know, neuroscience terms, they call it the default mode network, or the default mode network, depending on tomato, tomato, I don't know, but it's like your brain's operating system. And I had this set of beliefs about who I was and what I was capable of and what I deserved from a young age. And my adulthood has been. I've spent a lot of time moving away from that sort of that default mode, you know, And I liken it to, you know, you wouldn't go to the gym once and expect to stay in shape forever. You wouldn't eat a singular salad and think that you were gonna continue to be thin and healthy. Right. So the idea of recovery is about a daily practice that includes empathy and compassion and processing my pain to resolution. But more than that, can I just say I feel like it's so important to focus on the positive. Like, we have all these assets, and I think in recovery, we're so, you know, encouraged to focus on what we're doing wrong, to sort of break that denial, which I think is vitally important. But we need to give equal, if not more focus to the things that we're doing right, because Whatever you focus on expands. Right? And so I don't believe in recovery through shame. Right. It just doesn't. It just. It's like asking somebody to run a marathon on a broken leg. It's just.

I love that. Right.

Any sense it doesn't make. Listen, if beating myself up would have worked, I would have been better already. What I needed was to learn how to love myself and build that self esteem so that I could receive the solution that would ultimately change my life. And. And that's really the focus of my work, is bringing compact self compassion, self empathy all through the lens of. I teach a class called Reinvent. And what we're doing is we're reinventing our identity. Because my identity, when I first got sober was the part of girl. I was the party girl. You know, I was crazy. I was fun. I was promiscuous. I was. I was all these. I thought I was all these things. I also thought I wasn't very smart. I also thought I wasn't good enough. I had all these. All these thoughts. And so what I observed over the 28 years that I've been in recovery circles is that there are some people who have a difficult time receiving the solution. And in my mind, I believe it's because they have a fundamental belief of that they're not good enough, they're not deserving, they're not worthy. And so I thought, you know, what for? And. And let's be real. Anybody who goes through heartbreak, trauma, addiction, what's left on the other side is a completely obliterated sense of self esteem. Right? And so I thought it was really. I feel like 12 steps are great for resolving sort of the crisis of addiction. But the work of self esteem is critical because of the whole. This whole class I teach is predicated on an idea that says that we only allow into our lives what we believe we deserve. On a subconscious level.

100 definitely agree with that.

And so oftentimes people say to me, well, how do I identify what my limiting beliefs are? And by the way, our beliefs are so powerful that we don't even realize. Like, a lot of the programs talk about powerlessness, okay, over drugs and alcohol, but we are actually very powerful. You have dogs.

The mowers came.

Can I keep talking? Okay.

I kind of forgot where I was at about powerlessness.

Oh, yes. Thank you. Yeah. So we are actually way more powerful than we realize. And it's because our power resides in our beliefs about who we are. It's. And our beliefs about the world. Like, is this place or not can I trust? Trust is a big thing for a lot of us in recovery because oftentimes in childhood, our needs, needs are not met, especially our emotional needs. And so we learn as adults that we can't trust anybody. Like, nobody's coming for help. So a lot of us develop these extreme independence, like I can't. Or we, in an attempt to trust people, we end up trusting what feels familiar, like the parents. What feels familiar is our childhood experience. So we end up trying to trust the wrong people, they fail us. And then we come away with a conclusion that people cannot be trusted. Right.

And so that you can't trust yourself because you picked the wrong people or you didn't see it.

Yeah, yeah. So there's a lot of that. But what the problem is, there's a flaw in the fundamental assumptions, right? And so the work I do is about identifying and uncovering limiting beliefs. And so here's the exercise that people can walk away with right now I ask people, what is it that you want and why don't you have it? And this is the part where we rewrite our stories, right? Because a lot of times, especially women, we don't even know what we want. We're such people pleasers, we, you know, we don't even know what we like. I don't even. We're so disconnected from ourself, from our own feelings. Like we've had to practice self abandonment in order to get our needs met, right? So we get sober, we're not anesthetized anymore, and all of a sudden we have all these feelings and we don't know what to do with them. And I sort of relate it to. Have you ever seen like one of those old timey pictures of the switchboard operators? They always have that short hairdo and they're in front of a panel that has like a lot of holes and then they have like these plugs and so the switchboard. So these are like your feelings. Yeah. Right. And there's all these options, like what? All these labels. It's like I remember first getting sober. And I was like, I'm having a feeling. I don't even know what this is. You know, my sponsor, I'm like, I'm having a feeling. I don't know what's happening. She'd be like, okay, well what happened?

Describe it to me.

Yeah, where is it in your body? What happened just before you had this thing and this picture getting out, like.

The smiley face, one of the faces.

The smiley face, and there's the frown, county face. Yeah. And so recovery for me was about recovering my whole self, including all my feelings, the good ones and the bad ones. Right. And being able to identify what it was that I really wanted. Because I actually didn't know. I. I thought I knew what I wanted, which was to get you to like me or I don't know what I thought I wanted, to be honest, but that's a. It's a good place to start. Well, what is it that you want? And why don't you have it? But the story of why don't you have it leaves clues as to your limiting beliefs.

Right. The answer's right in there. If you're watching and you're listening to Arlena, and if you knew immediately what the answer to the question was, like when she said that. When she said, what is it that you want? Put a smiley face emoji in the comments or in the chat. If you knew immediately what your answer was and put a question mark in the comments or the chat. If you were like, I don't know, hold on, wait a second. And you're kind of like, blindsided by that.

Yeah. What is it that you want? And why don't you have it? And I would argue that whatever it is that you think you want, really, if you look, it's like, why? Why? What do I think I'll get by having that thing? And then, why? What do I think I'll get by having that thing? If you ask the question, like, five times, you go deeper and deeper and deeper. And typically, what happens is people want peace, they want love, they want contentment. And we tend to put these obstacles between us and the good feelings. Like, I want to help a lot of people so that I feel good about myself so that I can receive love.

Right.

Or to even more practical terms, to everybody can relate to. It's like, I want to be thinner so that I can wear these clothes so that I could look good, so I can feel more confident about myself. So that. And if I. What do I get from being more, Then I will feel peaceful and you know what I mean? So it's like, all roads lead to this.

I like that you're using, like, I've heard this technique. It's called, like, why Ask yourself why? And go five or seven left, you know, what do you want? Why? Okay, well, why do you want that? Why? But I like. I like the way you said it, because you said so that. I think that's even better because it's like, I want this so that. Because then the next one so that. And that really gets you there kind of faster. I like that.

And that really gets you there. But to back up just a tiny bit to, why don't you have it? So it's like, I want to be a size five. Let's say that's how I was in high school. I want to be a size five. And I don't have it because I can't seem to control my appetite. I'm a little older now, so that seems to be a common experience for me. Or, you know, I'm in a work environment. Everybody keeps bringing all this sugar, and there's too much temptation. It's like Tony Robbins was kind of famous for saying, the only obstacle between you, you and what you want is to be a story that you tell yourself. Yeah, right.

Yeah.

And so what we don't often do is examine our beliefs. Is this really true? Is this really true that I can't control my appetite? Well. Or is this really true? Like, some. Some of us need a little help. I had to get a little help. I mean, I had hired trainers and nutritionists and. And a lot of my stuff was emotional. Eating right as a distraction. That was never a thing for me until I got older. But as I, you know, got a little older, like, things, you know, so some of it was actually biological, so I needed to get help, some from doctors and things like that. But a lot of it was emotional. Right. A lot of it was unresolved pain. And. And so practicing something like meditation helps me to acknowledge the only time a behavior can change is in the present moment, when I'm aware I could go down this road or I. That's familiar, or I could try to do something different. Right. And that's the only time we can change is when we have the present awareness of. In this moment, I can choose different. And being aware of the pain of the past can often be a motivator. Like, I'm done. I'm done being that other. I don't want to do that anymore. And so. But to. When we recognize what is the bs, what is the story, sometimes we need help from other people. Like, it's like, this is why I don't have what I want. Somebody else can look at that list and say, let's reframe that into the positive. It's like, you know, it's like I have no control over myself. Well, the truth of the matter is, is I do have control over myself. I can control how I spend my morning. I can pour into myself the love and nurturing and care and set intentions for the day so that I actually have resources to draw from. Right. Willpower is actually an interesting concept because it's finite and by the end of the day we typically run out of this resource. And so that's why evenings are a big trigger for people. Right. So there are ways that we can set up our environment. You know, first thing in the evening, you get home from work, you have some protein, right. Feed your body, drink a glass of water and pick up the phone and call a friend. Right? If we have this ritual or this habit or routine that actually adds an infusion of resources so that we can make better choices. Right.

And stop and fill up the gas tank.

I love that. Yeah. And, and so, and when we, in the morning when you're like, I could, I might. I've decided my routine is I'm going to pray and meditate in the morning. I'm going to read something inspirational to fill my heart and spend, you know, a few minutes in meditation. Sometimes we wake up in the morning and we look at our phone and I'm like, the temptation is to do what we've always done, right? Your body is, you know, they think it's in your mind, but your neural tissue is. It permeates every cell of your body, right? And so your body is in the habit of doing these certain things. And so the temptation in the morning when you wake up, you're like, you know what? I feel pretty good today. I'm just going to do this one thing first. That's a lie I love to tell myself. I'm just gonna check my email first. And then I'll pray and meditate and do my thing and fill up my tank and then I just get busy and I, I skip it. And if I do that enough times, you know, then I, my resources are depleted. And if something triggers me, like we all carry around these soul bruises, right? These wounds, this trauma that we have, people will brush up against our little soul bruises. And if we, if we are not insulated with that self care, we do tend to react rather than respond respond. And you know, I kind of, I have this little analogy of the red. A pitcher of red Kool aid, right? And my prayer meditation, my self care practice in the morning is about pouring that out. Because if I don't pour it out, can you imagine walking around with a pitcher full of red Kool aid, right? And somebody bumps into you and you spill at, man, if you spill red Kool aid on your white shirt or your pants and that stuff sticks around forever and that's like, right. And that's like you, if you don't take care of yourself in the morning, you go throughout your day and somebody brushes up against you and you explode on that. Like words are very difficult. It's like squeezing toothpaste out of a tube. Like once it's out, ain't going back in. Right. It's like that, that red Kool aid, the toothpaste, it has a lasting effect and so sometimes you can't take back and we damage relationships, we hurt ourselves, we make bad choices and, and so my suggestion is to remember, let that pain burn you a little bit. Let it burn you. And then the next morning when you're like, when you're facing the choice in the present moment, do I want to do my self care or do I, am I going to disregard it and go into my day? You can remember. It's like you know what? I did that and I, I said something I didn't mean to my boss or my co worker or my loved one, my kid. I snapped at my kids and then I felt terrible after. It's like that let, it's like that's the proper use of pain is to let it motivate you to do the self care because you actually deserve every. You deserve, you deserve it and the people around you deserve it. It's really an act of service to do the self care practice.

Yes. And when you're in addiction you have any of that little inkling of pain and then you have like this secret formula for just making it go away. And so that's why you say so stuck. You can't learn from it. You can't grow, you can't connect the dots.

Yeah, it does take you back right to that default mode. And it's a very painful place to be in because it feels like there's no other choice. But there is. It starts with a daily self care practice that doesn't feel as satisfying as is taking a drink or a drug. But it's those tiny changes that have the profound impact. It's all, it's all about. It's all about self. It's changing your story about who you are. Right. And there's a great book by James Clear, it's called Atomic Habits. In the very beginning of the book he talks about who do you want to be?

Who?

And my, and my feeling is, is that you are already your perfect self or just going to strip away the things that no longer serve you. You already, you are actually fundamentally good. You are just Operating off of trauma that is unresolved. And so when that, you know, they say that alcoholism is sign of a symptom of a deeper problem. It's pain. And we don't deserve condemnation for our pain. We deserve empathy and compassion. And. And so the whole recovery process is about, you know, that's why I do the why it's called reinvent, because you're sort of re. Identifying. Reinventing your identity to support you.

I think a lot of people, especially in early recovery, they don't. They're like, I don't know who I am. I don't know what I like. I can remember talking to this fella who had been using since he was, you know, like a teenager. And so he was, you know, he was older than me, so it was a long time he'd been using. And so he. He was saying, I don't. I don't really know what I want. I don't know. I got to figure out what's going.

To make me happy.

Maybe I should move to Florida. Maybe I should do this. And I immediately thought, when I didn't. I didn't necessarily say it out loud, but I immediately thought, oh, you're getting it wrong. Because he said, I don't know what would make me happy, maybe if I did this. And I was like, oh, the question is, is who do I want to be? Because that's what's going to make you happy. Instead of. Because he was coming up with, maybe I would really love to, like, do this. Or, you know, instead of like, it's. It's a. Missing is the wrong question, I guess, to ask. Ask yourself sometimes.

Yeah, I think both questions are actually kind of important because. So here's another thing about when you first get sober, suddenly you have a lot of free time. All the time that you spent drinking or drugging or doing it or chasing it or trying to set it, like, oh, since it's a lot, it's very time consuming.

You didn't do it. Trying to have it.

Yeah, everything, you know. So a lot of times people in early recovery feel like recovery is. Is boring. Like they're bored. There's no excitement to life anymore. And what I would say to that is the beginning of recovery. We need to let our brains heal. Our dopamine reward system is totally askew. Oh, yeah, right. So there does need to be a little. We do have to acknowledge that there's a little bit of time where we need to let that reset. Right. But it does beg the question, what am I going to do with all this free time I have, you know, we can't just be serious sober people all the time. We do need to. You know, I like to. To lead. I like to follow my heart through joy. Right. And I just happen to be like a crafty person. So I like to. I used to do nail art and scrapbooking. I've done knitting. Obsessive cookie decorating. I don't eat the cookies, but I make. So I mean like I, I do all these. And that's part of being ADHD is like I find something I like and I go in deep. And that's all well and good, right? It's. What are the act. I used to like to dance. I like to do line dancing, a swing dancing. A lot of people do physical activities that'll help to re establish your dopamine reward system and your whole neural circuitry, all your hormones and neurotransmitters and all that. But that is an important question. What am I going to do instead? Like, how am I going to spend my time? And, and so early recovery can be a time of experimenting.

Right. Because you. You'll actually find that you actually. I call it normal people things. I said I'm so like. You're gonna like normal people things. You don't think so, but you will, and it'll be shocking.

Yeah. Addiction is often defined.

Just try a bunch of it and see. Because when you're drinking, you won't like anymore. Like I said, you might not like going to concerts anymore, you might not like tailgating anymore, but you're gonna like these other things that you used to. Never would have thought you would like.

You do.

It is trial and error.

It is trial and error. And sometimes those things that you like, you can do again. But it's. It's a little bit different. It's a lot of times like the tailgating and concerts, it's all about who you're with.

Yeah.

Right. And so if you're around people whose company you enjoy, then, you know, find your happy people. There's lots of happy people. Find your happy people and go out, hang, hang out with them and just give yourself a little time. But it's important to find things that bring you joy. And it just. It's an, it's an experiment you have to try. It's a trial and error type of thing. But that's really important to begin to notice what makes you happy, whether it's music, physical activity, crafty things, yoga, meditate, you know, meditation's not often thought of as Like a fun thing, you know, like retreats or socializing or movies. There's. Yeah, it's. And often people. Will I ask people, what did you like to do when you were little? You know, did you like to color and draw? Did you like to. Would you rather be outside playing with the other kids? Like those. There's clues because what you're getting back to is your true self. Right. And. And so that's. There's clues. There's clues in childhood what you used to like, and then there's the experimenting process, and just try a bunch of different things. I had this list of, like, a hundred things that you could do. Everything from, like, going to, like, dog shows or car shows or, you know, I just. I have this list a very long. I can share it with your audience if you want a list of things you can do instead. That's really important.

Yeah. And I think I do want to point this out because we do have so many family members watching. You know, as the family member, you're always getting told old, and it almost. It almost. I try not to say it because it almost like, makes you want to throw up. I know. It's like, take care of yourself and go towards yourself. And we say these things. And when you're a family member and you're like, loved ones in crisis, it's just like, are you serious? But it's true. It's true. And all of these things that our Arlena is talking about apply to you, too. So when people tell you that you do what makes you happy, go towards yourself, take care of yourself, it is the very same thing. There's no difference. And just like someone in early recovery from substances, you may think, I don't want to. I'm not gonna like it. But you don't know. I want you to do it anyway. Because you will find some of those things that you do like.

Yeah, that's, you know, content prior to investigation. It's like, that sounds stupid. And then you go to go do something silly like. Play is activity with no purpose. Right. And it's. And. But that is when, like, we do need to balance out, you know, some of the serious recovery work with play. And it goes for the family members, too, because they're tr. Listen, I will not discredit the pain and trauma that the family experiences. My sister and my mother and my dad all had trauma around my behavior because they were, you know, they were afraid I was going to die for a long time. Right. And that is. That's like complex ptsd. It is like. And once I got sober, there they were like, now what? Like, you know what I mean? It's like, oh, I've spent all my time and energy trying to save this person. But I heard early on that you didn't cause it. You can't control it, and you can't cure it. And so the best thing that you could do is to, you know, focus on yourself and where is the joy? Where is the joy? Like, where. You know? And, you know, let's do fun things together. You know, like, my mom and my sister and I all used to do line dancing together. When I first got sober, it was so funny because people are like, why do you spend all your time at that country bar? I'm like, well, that's where they do teach the. I was taking dance lessons twice a week and then going on, going Saturday and with a safe group of people, Right? Yeah. And, you know, strutting everything that I learned during the week. And that kept me busy and kept us together. The three of us went and did that together. Yeah.

We had the physical movement of it.

Music.

It was a lot of good ingredients with that.

It was so fun. And truth be told, I was done. Like, I wasn't gonna drink. Like, I. I knew I. I had my last drink on my 25th birthday. I woke up the next morning, and I knew I was like, I'm never gonna drink again. I took a big bong hit. It took me five months to get sober. Okay. After that point.

But that was the beginning of the end. That was that day.

Yeah. My 25th birthday was the last drink. But I. I was like, I. Again, I'm never going to drink again. And I haven't.

How many I'm never going to drink again episodes did you have before that one?

I think that was the only one I ever had to. Where I was like, I just knew to my bones, because I had spent two years trying to figure it out, and I had shocked my.

Had some I'm never going to drink like that again episodes. Before something like that, it was more.

Like, I don't ever want to do this again.

Okay.

But that wanting was. It's, you know, feelings are temporary. Like, you can't make this, Make a decision off of a temporary feeling.

It's a flame. You have to keep it alive like a fire. I say you have to keep it. You have to get oxygen on it. You have to fuel it to keep it going.

Yeah. It's like the exercise thing. Like, recovery is like an exercise thing. Like, if you don't do your. And listen, for those of us who have addiction issues, the consequences are deadly. Over the last 28 years that I've been sober, I have been to more funerals than I care to admit to you. I've seen people die. Not everybody makes it not. That's. That is the truth. And so what are you going to do if they don't? What are you going to do if they don't make it? How will you survive? Right. And so it's better. It seems counterintuitive, but recovery is counterintuitive. Like, they told me to surrender to win. I was like, on what planet does that make sense? Yeah.

What is. What does that even mean? What do you mean?

Yeah, yeah, right? And it was like surrendering my old ideas, surrendering the idea that I could learn to control my drinking at some point. And once I accepted that idea, then that's when. That's when things started to change, is when I surrendered the idea that I could do something about it. I needed help, support, but I. I had to come to that. Like, my mom was like, hands off. Like, she was like, you. You know, thank God. Maybe it would have. Maybe it would have taken me longer to get sober if she was trying.

That's not. Experiences. The more other people try to control it, the longer it takes.

Yeah, yeah. And my mom was just like. She was like, you need to figure this one out.

Right? And I think that's because you get. You get distracted focusing on trying to prove them wrong instead of, like, figuring it out. Well, I had.

I had such a funny experience with a sponsor of mine. She had this husband that he was a construction worker, and he would come home and, you know, he'd be all dirty, and he'd take off his socks and leave it in house. The. A muddy, disgusting ball. And she was for a while reaching in to. To this disgusting thing and turning the socket right side out and then putting it in the wash. And she told him. She's like, I'm not doing that anymore. And pretty soon he ran out of socks. He's like, why aren't you washing? She's like, I told you, all you have to do is, you know, tournaments. I'm not doing that part. And so he just ran out of socks. And finally he changed his behavior. I just thought, wasn't that funny? As simple, like, yeah, I'm not doing this anymore. Yeah, this is kind of a funny example. But, yeah. She's like, I'm just not willing. I'm not. I'm not helping you. Yeah.

You have to be willing to say, yeah, I'm not doing that. And then also to stick with it. When there's 30 muddy socks sitting there, you have to stick with it long enough. And then. Yeah.

She was allowing him to experience the consequences of his own choices. It's like, let people have their feelings. It actually excel. I didn't change until I absolutely had to. Like, I just couldn't stand the pain anymore. I just couldn't stand it. And I had enough. You know, there's this law of 51. Right. So if you look at the balance scale, we're actually a lot closer to the solution than we realize. All it takes is a little bit more. Yes. Than now for the scale to tip. Right. Like, if you look at the balance scale, 51% will tip the scale. So we're actually a lot closer.

You don't have to be 100%. You don't have to hit bottom. You have to be 51%. And if you're the family member, you have to stay out of the way so you don't distract them so they know exactly when they hit 51%. Otherwise, they're looking at you instead of looking at their scale.

Yeah. And it was so funny because the thing I think this was, my point about the sock story is that that she was told by her sponsor that if she bitched at him about it, then he could point the finger at her and be like, you're being a. And he didn't have to. And he didn't have to look at his own behavior because he was so busy. She presented an excuse for him. Right. And she's like, yeah, I'm not mad at you. I'm just not doing this thing anymore.

Yeah.

Like, so she. There's no more yelling. There was no more coercing. There was no more pressuring, pushing. The funny thing about pushing, as in tech sales for 10 years in Silicon Valley, first thing learned in sales is not to push because it creates natural resistance. And somebody did this very visceral experiment where I think it was my dad, actually. He said, hold up your hand. I held up my hand. He put his palm to mine. Sorry. He put his palm to mine and he pushed, and I just naturally pushed back. And he goes, I didn't tell you to push back. Why did you push? And I'm like, I have no idea. And he goes, people just have natural resistance to being pushed.

And it was safe. Like a reflex. Yeah, it was.

It's very reflexive. We don't. And people, you know, I'm sure wanted to help me but it felt like pushing and my. I just, you know that's like if you have a girlfriend who's complaining about her horrible boyfriend you can't attack him because that just digs her into worst thing to do. Yeah. Is she puts her in a position to defend her. Her bad choice. And so that's another like we. So we don't push. And so especially when someone comes to me for help and they're talking about their relationship, I never addressed the other person and I was like well tell me about your self care practice. Because it's. That goes back to that idea that we only allow into our lives what we believe we deserve. And so if we're in these nurse relationship with narcissistic people or addicts or it's like what is it about me that is continuing to. Why do I continue to show up for this? Don't I believe I deserve better? Obviously not because I keep choosing to show up for this abuse. Which is really what it is. Right. And so then the question, then the responsibility is back on me. What am I going to do to take care of myself so that I feel worthy and deserving of having peace and love in my life? Because everything kind of boils down to that. What kind of peace and love do I want in my life? And it has to start with I believe I deserve it and if I don't. So here's a quick. If you want to learn how to build your self esteem, you have to do esteemable acts. And service is the best way to do that.

I'll say that one more time. That was good. We need to hear that again.

Yeah. If you want to build self esteem, do esteemable acts. And typically it's an act of service. And so when someone comes to me for help, one of the first things I ask them to do is something called a willingness. This call. And a willingness call is a demonstration. It's an action that proves to myself I'm willing to invest in my own sobriety. Right. And, and sobriety or emotional stability is for really both sides of the fence. It doesn't matter if you're the family member or the addict, everybody needs to do this. And so a willingness call is like you have an agreement with a friend, you say I'm going to call you once a week and we're just going to do a check in call when you're feeling good. And so the call is like hey, I just have a few minutes, I just wanted to check in on you. What's going on with you. And so you find out a little bit about them, and you're like, and here's a little bit about what's going on with me. A challenge or it's typically the challenges that are important to address. And then you're current. And then if you do that with three or four people, five people, whatever, what happens is you're current with a bunch of people, that this is about building your support system. Right.

Right.

You're current with, like, five people. When the hits the fan, which it will, because life gets lifey, you will already be in the habit and current with several people because there's this idea we don't rise to the level of our expectations. We fall to the level of our training.

Love that.

And so we do this training when we feel good. Because when I feel bad or when I'm in survival mode, when I get triggered to be in survival mode, my nervous system is hijacked, and I can't even think clearly. But if I'm already in the habit of reaching out to these people, then when I'm in crisis mode, like, this is like the best relapse prevention. I'm in crisis mode. I'm already current with a bunch of people. One person's not available. I just go down the list until I get somebody who is available. And I don't have to spend a lot of time on the backstory because we're already current.

There's like 10 things I love about that. Right, because you're current. Yeah. Because you probably maybe saw it coming even a little bit before because you're.

You're.

You're watching out because you're explaining these things to people.

I love that.

Because, you know, when you go to meetings, they say, here's a. You know, here's a phone list. And they say, call me if you think you're gonna drink. And I'm like, no. No one does that.

Nobody ever does that.

Tomorrow and the next day.

Just.

I've not heard it called a willingness call. Like, you're calling. I love.

I just made it. I just made it up.

I like it.

It's another thing. But it's a thing.

But.

And. But the thing is. And this is what people always are like, oh, I don't want to bother it anybody. Right. But it's actually an act of service, because I can't tell you how many times when I reach out to somebody for a willingness call and they're going through something and I have the opportunity to be of service to them and offer Love and support to them, really, it's all about empathy and compassion. Right. And when I get off the phone or when I. You know, sometimes you meet somebody for coffee and it's hard to feel bad about yourself when you're looking into the eyes of gratitude. Right. Some would be like, oh, I'm so glad that we were able to meet today. I was really having a hard time. I just. I didn't know I needed to connect. Right. And then your heart is full, and their heart is full in. And then you can go about your day. Right? It's, you know, it's filling up the reserve. So that's one of the. My best relapse prevention tips ever, is to do the willingness call. Right.

You're just. You're actually just doing that. When I'm thinking about it, you're doing, like 10 things at once. You know, you're building a connection. You're. You're. It's service. You're talking about yourself. You're building this whole, like, support team that you can, like, access it anytime that you're not even going to feel weird because they know you're going to call anyways. You know, there's like 100 things that are happening there that are super helpful, like you're saying, for relapse prevention, for sanity management. All of that. Them.

Yeah. And the tr. And the truth is that who doesn't want to get a phone call from a friend that they love who's asking for help? Right? People are like, I don't want to bother, but how do you feel when someone calls you and say, hey, can I get your perspective on this thing? I was thinking about this. I'm. I have this challenge. What do you think? You know, it's like, oh, someone wants to know what I think, what I get to help. What are you talking about? I love helping. Yeah. So it's. You're not burdening somebody. You're giving them an opportunity to be of service. So if you're.

If you're on here live or even if you're watching on the replay, but if you're on here live, we're gonna. We're gonna put Arlena to the test, and we're gonna see if she could do a willingness call right here. We're gonna see if you guys have any question or anything you want to ask Arina or get her perspective on that's going on with you or just something you're thinking about what she's saying. I know that there's a lot of people here in Chat. And I actually saw a chat. Just give me one second, Arlene. I'm gonna scroll back, because I saw something a while ago that I put a mena note on. I was like, oh, that's good.

Oh, look at that. I just clicked on the comments. I didn't realize that there was.

There's, like, a whole bunch right there. Yeah.

Oh, my goodness. Well, hey, y'. All. I just thought it was me and Amber having a little chat now.

There's a whole bunch of people on here with us right now. Somebody was saying. And I can't remember exactly the name, but I made a mental note. Somebody was saying. When you were saying, like, the what do you want? Question. The what do you want? And why don't you have a question somebody put in the chat that they. When you ask the question, like, immediately they knew what they wanted for their son, but they didn't know what they wanted for themselves. But then I thought, actually, your answer is. Is in there. If you go through the. The why questions or the because questions, you know, it's like, I want this for my son because why is that important? Why is that important? Because ultimately, it's something about what's going on with you that you're really wanting. I want Go to sleep at night. I want to, you know, not be scared every day. I want to feel like a good mom. You know, that kind of thing.

Can I just tell you, I left out a huge thing that I think is probably important. I had a son that went to rehab.

Oh, yeah. That's pretty big. Had to get you back on here again.

Yeah.

To talk from that perspective.

Yeah.

I don't think.

I don't think he's fine now, but I have never been. Have been so scary. I had one son that had suicidal depression when he was a teenager in high school and another one that actually had to go to rehab. And it was terrifying. Yeah. And it all. You know, what was very. You know, there's this idea that the truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. And while we were going through this process with my son, it was this idea that I need him to be okay so that I could be okay. Like, I thought, what would. If something happens to my son, I will never be the same. I can't handle if some. It's like, if he died, that was the ultimate fear that he would die. And I was so terrified that I. I began to realize that it was about. I was afraid for me.

Right, Exactly.

It was a shameful admission, but I was Afraid like that. I couldn't handle it.

Of course. Right.

And we ended up getting help and he went to rehab. Yeah. Yeah. What would I do?

Yeah.

Destroy me forever.

Yeah.

So I, it's not that I don't have compassion. And he. But he's been fine for a long time now, so.

Wow. Yeah. We'll have to have you back on to talk about.

Okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Any questions that you see there in the chat that are standing out to you or comments that you wanted to speak to, I'm going to look through too.

Well, DJ was saying, question. I think we can stop pushing, but how do we continue to deal with the behavior? Oh, man. Boundaries. So I. So one of the, one of the lessons. So I have Teach the self esteem class. And the third lesson is about boundaries. And for me, boundaries. More about boundaries. With myself, like, especially with my son, it was like, I'm not. I'm no longer going to do this or that or like, I, I. Because we've been in recovery for so long. My husband's 34 years sober. I'm 28. Like, I, I was like, I cannot save myself, my son. So I had to turn him over to the expert. So, but, you know, he was also young, so he still had to live with us. So it was just, you know, situation by situation of how to deal with the behavior. But I recognized early on that when I was afraid, my fear came out in anger and I would say things that were hurtful. Even with all my training and all my expertise, I still couldn't. I couldn't bear my own pain. I couldn't control my own fear. When my, When I was hiding my fear, like, kicked off my nervous system. I had to get support and help from others to process my pain so that I could respond instead of react. There was a lot of. I had to do a lot of apologizing to my son.

Wow.

Yeah, it was hard.

Yeah. Hard.

My heart goes out to you, dj. That's harsh.

It is. It's so scary.

Yeah. But he actually had the answer. He said, I guess we focus on ourselves. That's the truth. And get the. Get help for them. Like, we can't be the ones to save them. The answers have to come from someone else.

Here's a comment from Brenda, who says, we say as parents, we need to be hands off, but my daughter would already be dead if I'd been handling hands off and making her go to rehab. As a mother, I could not stand by and watch her die. Maybe recovery will take longer, but at least she's in a safe place. Do you have any thoughts about that? Arlena?

Yeah. I think she did the right thing. This. So hands off might be a little bit of a misleading term. I think it's more like we don't control. Like, we can encourage. We can. I mean, if. If. If the. You know, like. Like we sent my son to. We sent my son to rehab out of state, and that was. That wasn't a choice. Like, you either go to rehab or you leave the house. Like, you can't live here. You have. Like. You know, what it was for me is like, I. I'm a. Like, he brought drugs into my house. And I was like, I'm not telling you. You can't bring drugs. Like, I'm looking down on you. Like, I'm better than you. I'm a drug addict. You cannot bring drugs, Drugs into a house of a recovering drug addict. You're putting my sobriety at risk, Right? You're jeopardizing me. And truth be told, if someone brings drugs in the house. The police came to your house. Guess who gets in trouble, right? It's not just them. You're jeopardizing the whole household. Right? So. But that's. That doesn't mean. Yeah, I understand. It's so confusing, right? It's like we have to be hands off, but we have to put them in rehab, otherwise they would die. I felt the same way. I felt like my son was. Was safe when once he was in rehab, he was not happy to be there. But it just depends. It just depends. And that's why we need each other, because we need people who've been through it before to sort of. We need to process with each other. Here's the funny thing about emotion. Emotion will color your perspective so that you can't see objectively, right? That's why we need others. That's the same way, like your girlfriend comes to you and tells you about how horrible her relationship was, or she had this bad experience. We can see clearly what the solution is. She can't because she's emotionally attached and.

She'S in the middle of it, right?

She's in the middle of it. So it's like you can't read the label from inside the jar. I'm in it. I am in the fear. I'm in this situation. I don't know what else to do different, right? That's why we need somebody on the outside who is not emotional, who can say yes, sent them to rehab. And while they're in rehab, you're Going to be doing therapy.

Right. Exactly.

How Trauma. I. I can't tell you how many times I've talked to someone, and they're like. And I'm like, you should get some help, too. And they're like, let me be clear. They're the ones with the problem.

I had to, like. One of the first things I had to learn as a counselor is. How do you say that without offending someone? How to, like these techniques?

The truth will set you free, but first it will piss you off. If you get pissed about the answers, it's because it's getting close to the truth.

That's right. Because it's a source.

We have to have courage.

We have to have courage to be like, yeah, yeah.

Anyway, it's so hard. All this is hard, which is why we need each other.

It looks like DJ has a question. I think we can stop pushing, but how do we continue to deal with the behaviors? We don't want to continue to deal with behaviors if we are hands off. But I guess we focus on ourselves.

Oh, yeah, that was the one. Yeah.

I'm sorry. I didn't realize. That's okay.

Yeah.

I'm late to the game here, dj. My fault. My. My fault. Tracy has a question. Where can we begin to find a resource in my area that counsels me towards boundaries with my loved one? I think we need to be encouraged, be brave, and allow them to experience the consequences of their use.

So I started giggling because I recognize a limiting belief in the question that says, where can I begin to find a resource in my area? It doesn't have to be in your area. Yeah, you know, there's. You know.

Yeah, you're finding right now, you know, and you're finding one. They're all over.

Yeah. Yeah. So Al Anon is the program for family members. I always struggled with Al Anon because I. I would suggest finding an Al Anon meeting that's focused on the steps and traditions, one that's focused on solutions, because a lot of people use it to vent. Right. And venting is. Is what. What venting is is a request for validation. And so. But once your feelings are validated, we need to move to solution. Right. So constant complaining about the problem like you don't find the light by investigation of the darkness. We already know what the problem is. Right. We know. And so it's like, what can I do different is. And boundaries is really important. I mean, I know. I know so many. There's an organization for women called she Recovers, and they have. It's not 12 step, but it's, it's people that are in recovery from living with an addict, being an addict, divorce, cancer. It's like, so it's recovery. It's really about recovery from trauma. And, and I would argue that Tracy's probably had some trauma because of this experience. But we need, we need external support. And there's, there's. I was bringing that organization up because they have meeting, free meetings that you can attend online. But there's also in that community a lot of. She recovers. Coaches who teach boundary classes. Boundaries is one of the, you know, one of them. It's a six week course where you do the work in class and one of them is on boundaries. And it's like, what is my part, what is theirs?

And it doesn't even have to be Tracy, it doesn't even have to be addiction focused. Anything on boundaries.

Yeah.

Because once you, once you really understand the philosophy and the, and how to make the decisions, like the formula of it, you can apply that any which way you want to.

And let me just give you the formula really quick.

It's.

We do the, we do the check in. Right. So the self care practice, what we're doing is reattaching to our own family feelings. Right. What is it that I want and why don't I have it? You know, sort of a thing. So. And then when we, I mean there's two kinds of boundaries. There's brick wall boundaries, like where safety is involved. There's. That's a brick wall boundary, like abuse and think that's a brick wall boundary. For us with my son, the brick wall boundary was you can't bring drugs in this house or you have to leave. Right. And that was a very firm. And he was like babied his whole life. So he's like, what, I can't survive on the street anyway.

Did you mean it when you said it like. Because a lot of times that's a rule that a lot of families say. And they think like, you can't have drugs in the house. And they say, oh, they're gonna know I mean business. But I'm like, do not say that.

Because they are saying, you better, you.

Better be saying, prepared to act on it. Because if they're an addict and they're in your house, they are bringing drugs in your house. No question about it.

Yeah. I had a girlfriend who. Her son chose to be homeless for a few years. He was on. He was a hockey player who got an injury and one of the coaches gave him some. I forgot what it was that they gave him some drugs, some pain medication. He got hooked on. He got hooked on the drugs and she had, she, like, you can't, you can't live here. And so he chose to live on the street and she would see him and I can't imagine how hard that must have been for her. But he eventually got sick and tired of it and got sober. Yeah, that's hard. That's where we need support. Yeah. Yeah. But so there's brick wall boundaries and then there's the other kind of boundaries where it's about negotiation of needs. A request.

Like a request.

Yeah. Demands don't really work. It's like, well, this is, you know, like the girl with the socks. It was like, I'm not doing this anymore. So you can either do the socks and I'll wash them or, you know, not doing that. But it's also a, it's a, it's a communication. It's like, this is how I'm feeling. I'm not okay with this, you know, just communication and coming to like a joint. It's. I know that it's like, it just kind of depends. Everything is sort of situational dependent.

But I do think having a coach is super helpful because it really is that sounding board kind of thing that will help you to, to think through all of those, all those decisions. Arlena, will you tell everyone where they can find you and get more wisdom and get access to maybe some of your. The things that you do with the coaching and the courses and all that stuff?

Yeah. So probably the best way is just to go to soberlifeschool.com There is a link to the podcast so you can start listening to the podcast. I typically have experts on like Amber who will come in and share their story and share solutions. You know, we tell the stories so that we can relate, but at the end of the day it's, it's the solutions. What can I do different? It's all about action. And then there's a link to one on one coaching. I do hypnotherapy as well as recovery coaching. So it's a, it's a process. And then the self esteem class class is called Reinvent. I do those periodically too. So as soon as I get enough people to fill a class, they're usually small classes, like 10 people. So as soon as 10 people sign up, I set the date and we.

Do start a new one. I put the, I put the link in the description of this video for you. It's soberlifeschool. Dot com. I also put it in the chat. Thank you so much for. It was so fun. I feel like I could just talk to you all afternoon. It gets me all excited about it.

You are awesome. Yes. Thank you so much for having me and you guys.

Let Arlena know that you appreciate her. So maybe we can get her come back and talk about the mom experience from that side.

Yeah, we would love that.

Yeah.

Okay. You let me know. I'm your girl.

Bye, everybody. Bye.