Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the Dear Therapists advice column for The Atlantic.
And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid, and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED. And this is Dear Therapists.
Each week we invite you into a session so you can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help other people come to understand themselves better and make changes in their lives.
So sit back and welcome to today's session.
This week, we'll be talking with a woman who has a history of addictions that she is now in recovery for, but she has recently developed a new addiction, and that is to shopping.
I didn't realize that that's what was happening until I was six thousand dollars in debt. I think that's what makes me feel vulnerable, is to say this allowed.
First A quick note, therapist is for informational purposes only, does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and it's not a substitute for professional healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have
regarding a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter, you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in part or in full, and we may edit it for length and clarity and the sessions you'll hear. All names have been changed for the privacy of our fellow travelers.
So hey Guy, Hi Laurie.
So it's your week to go through the mailbooks. What have you found for us today?
Well, it was an interesting week in the mailbox because we got so many great letters, and I actually chose one that's very short, but on a topic that I think is really important. And it goes like this, Dear therapists, I am a licensed alcohol and drug counselor and recovery for eight years. I find myself spending a lot of money on things I do not need. It is starting to get out of control and I've put myself in unnecessary debt. What can I do? I believe it is
related to stress. I'd really appreciate your help. Hillary.
You know this is something that is much more common than people realize. Up to five percent of people are diagnosed with a compulsive buying disorder, and so overshopping is something a lot of people do, not necessarily to the point of it being a disorder, but it's something that can be very distressing to their bank account, to their relationships, and to their sense of self.
And in this case, she has a history of addiction, so she knows what it's like to feel out of control. And I think that's what she's writing to us about, is this feeling of I don't feel like I have control over this. And I think the other thing about addiction is that usually, as she said, I think I'm under a lot of stress, there's usually another problem and then the addiction is what people use to cope with
the problem. And so we want to find out more about what is going on in her life that is causing her to either try to deflect, distract, numb out, fill a hole. So let's go talk to her and learn more.
You're listening to Deo Therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after a quick break.
I'm Lori Gottlieb and.
I'm Guy Winch and this is Deo Therapists.
So Hi Hillary, Hello, welcome to the show.
Thank you.
We read your letter. We'd love to hear a little bit more about what's going on with the shopping and the history of that. Can me tell us a little bit about when this started.
I'm not sure when it all started, but I know that recently, in the last couple of years, it's escalated and it's become a real problem in my life, which is ironic because I am an alcohol and drug counselor and I've been in sobriety for nine years, so I understand when something interferes in your life, probably an addiction.
In the last couple of years, I've been working on my master's degree in counseling, and for the first time in my life, I experienced physical symptoms of anxiety, and to alleviate those physical symptoms, it felt really good to fill up my cart and buy something. And I didn't realize that that's what was happening until I was six thousand dollars in debt and I had to actually cancel that credit card and get a personal loan through my credit union, and I'm now paying that off but still spending.
Can you tell us a little bit about what that looks like. How did it start, what did you start buying, and how did it escalate to six thousand dollars.
I think it started in childhood. I can recall my mother and my siblings when I I was like five or six, and we would go out into the country and find abandoned homes or farmhouses, and we would take things from the farmhouse, and I think it stuck in my head that this was okay, that as a child, you can just take what you want. Now that turned into for me, it turned into active addiction to alcohol and drugs for many, many years, and during that time, I would allow myself to steal things.
At what age did the drug and alcohol you start?
I actually started about the age of ten. I was experiencing an extreme amount of shame from childhood, and when I drank the alcohol at age ten, it was like instant relief.
What was the shame about that you are feeling at age ten so strongly.
I think what it came from was no connection. I felt disconnected from the world, a single parent home, being bullied in school. And when I was able to in just that alcohol, it was like nirvana. It was the best thing I had ever experienced.
Where did you get the alcohol and what was the context in which you had your first drink.
I was in the basement of the house and somehow my older brother had it and he gave it to me, and it was a half frozen bottle of Boone's farm wine. What I can remember is that it took me away from feeling internal pain, so I no longer felt like I didn't belong. It was like the sensation of everything's going to be great.
So how quickly did it get into a habit?
Well, it continued for many, many years. I used whatever and whenever I could throughout my school years. By my twenties, I had developed an addiction to cocaine.
Alcohol is expensive. Where were you getting it? Were you taking it from the home? Did your mom not realize it was gone?
With friends? We would take alcohol out of the parents' bottles and fill it with water. At that time, you could purchase alcohol at age eighteen, so we'd get older kids to buy it for us. Then it was marijuana was very prevalent, and it was everywhere.
Did anybody notice that this was going on in your family? Your mother or your brother, And did any of your teachers notice in terms of that it affected your functioning in school?
Well? I certainly wasn't alone there were hundreds of kids like me that would use whenever they could. Oh, sure, I think they did. I think for my mom, she was more happy if we would drink or use in the house rather than be out in the street. So nothing was done.
When you say that your mom would rather have you use in the house because she thought it was safer than having you use on the street. Was there any conversation about the fact that maybe you shouldn't be using.
No, was your mom also.
Drinking or using drugs.
She was a hard working single parent that raised three kids. My brother didn't use. My sister was six years older than I was, so there wasn't much connection there. And it wasn't like we did this every single day as kids. It was whatever we could get our hands on, so that might be a month. The other thing that happened to us, I had a cousin who had access to pills, so he provided some kind of downers, and that happened
shortly after that first drink of alcohol. I had forgotten about that, and so I was taking pills and alcohol before anything else.
Was your mom aware of the pills and what was happening with your cousin.
I don't think she was so there was alcohol in the house, so I don't know how much she was drinking. I know that she was gone a lot, but she was trying to raise three kids on her own, and during that time, being a divorce had a stigma attached. She was shunned because she was the divorcee in town.
And then you were shunned as the child of a divorcee.
Yeah.
Yeah, So I found a way to get through and make things happen, for instance, finding the kids that did what I did and hanging around with them. I didn't understand, of course, at that time that it was a way of escape. I just as a child, I just knew that getting high was cool.
It was cool because you had a group of friends, or it was cool because it took away the pain or both.
Oh, it's both, for sure. Having some connection with a group was a really crucial part. And at the time I think I was just really dying to belong to a group of people, and I could find it in this group of people.
As we're talking about disconnection, I wonder where was your dad. You haven't mentioned him yet.
Oh, he wasn't part of the picture.
How old were you when your parents got divorced, and what were the circumstances of the divorce.
I was like one years old. My father didn't want anything to do with the kids, really with us, so he left the home and got his own house in the city. As far as I can remember as a child, he came every other Sunday, and for some period of time, I thought that's what everybody's father did. Until I got to school.
Would he notice severa that you were drunk or high or did you just not do it when there was a visit from him?
Correct And if I was, I don't know that he'd care.
Did you ever develop a relationship with him as you got older?
I tried At one point, I tried to sit down as an adult. I asked him his life story, and that was a period of sobriety for me, and he basically told me his story but skipped over my mother and the birth of us, and so I chose to sever ties with him at that point.
She was saying, there was a period of sobriety in that time. What led to that?
In my senior year of high school and a little bit before that, I think I was seeking something, and I think part of what I was seeking was a father figure. I felt unfulfilled and I ended up smoking a lot of marijuana. But I also involved myself in church groups, so I was living a double life. In this church group, I participated, and I would sing the songs and I would become part of this religious ideology.
And then the other part of me would you know, By that time, I was taking acid, eating mushrooms, which are psychedelics, and doing this completely opposite thing. And I felt very alone because I felt like I was the only one living this double life. But in that while I was going to church, I discovered a cultural exchange program and I signed up. Most of that time was sober, but it was an adventure, so I was constantly stimulated with new information and it was really quite an experience.
And when I returned home once when I chose, in my enlightened state of having been living in Europe, to sit down with him and have this adult conversation.
When you spoke to your dad, did you ever say why did you leave or why weren't you involved in our childhood? I hear that you asked for his life story, but did you ever ask him directly about the relationship with you.
I don't think I did. Now that you say it that way, he's deceased, and you know, the story actually gets even more bizarre because my first attempt at sobriety, my brother told me that he wasn't really my father, that my stepfather was my father. I was thirty some years old. It was the first I ever had ever heard that, So that set me into a little bit of a tailspin. And when I tried to verify this information with my mother, she said she didn't know.
We haven't heard about the stepfather. So when did he come into the picture.
He came into the picture around the age of twelve or thirteen. He wasn't a nice person. He ended up kicking my older sister out of the house for what reason. I think they just didn't get along. She had a very strong personality. I think she felt like my mother chose him over her, so she became angry and chose to leave at age sixteen.
Your stepdad was in your life for how long?
Probably five years. It's a little bit blurry, but if an indeed he was the father, would have happened out of wedlock, you know, way before.
And when your mom says she doesn't know, it's because she truly doesn't know. It's possible that she had been sleeping with him before you were born, but she just truly doesn't know.
Correct, It's okay now, I mean they're both dead. I struggled with it for a little while, but it really doesn't matter. Now.
When you say it doesn't matter, can you say more about that?
Sure?
I have.
Worked through the emotions that are normally attached to who a father might be. I've also worked through like, if I had any health issues, you know who that would be. I've worked through things like I can't do a DNA test to find out for sure, and through a twelve step program. I've worked through resentment. I've worked through anger, and there's some sadness, but I don't live in that. So it's just the knowledge that one of these two people were my biological father, and I didn't care for
much of either of them. So what difference does it make? I make my own family tell us about that. Well. I have some people close to me that I consider to be family, and most of that has come from sobriety, being a part of a group, being involved with people who have suffered as I have, who put themselves through horrible addictions and come out the other side. So that's what I consider family.
I'm sitting here thinking about your feeling that it doesn't really matter who your father was. And one of the things that we see a lot with addiction is that there are these secrets in the family. There's this toxicity around a sea grip floating in the air that the
child somehow perceives but doesn't know what it is. Something just feels not right and it isn't even maybe in their awareness, but there's also an inherent internal sense of disconnection when you feel like there's something about this family that's off, there's something in the air here. And so as an adult, I understand that you've worked through a lot of maybe resentment, betrayal, anxiety, anger, sadness, whatever you
might have been feeling around it. But I just want to put out there that maybe there's more to do there.
There could be. I mean, I have to admit there could be.
Because your mother's still alive, right, Yeah, have you ever thought about that at all?
She's ninety two. She is actually an active alcoholic. She's very frail, She's like ninety pounds. She hardly eats. So when I say that, getting to the bottom of knowing who my father actually is. It is not worth knowing that in comparison to any pain that I would cause her by trying to pry it out of her or something. Does that make sense?
Yeah? So, how bad did things get before you became sober? What was that turning point for you? At the bottom?
I began using ivy needles and I did it for fifteen years and no cocaine. Luckily I never had a taste for opiates. I probably would be dead. I tried to get sober several times where I would manage to get six months or a year. And the last time that I used it was twenty twelve and it was with ivy needles and cocaine and I was at a person's home in the city. It got to the point
where I was bankrupt spiritually, mentally, physically, financially. I tended to go back to school at that time, though it didn't work out because I did have a cocurring disorder. I had depression anxiety, but I also had a significant substance use disorder. And it is secretive people who are in active use do have a tendency to minimize the severity of their addictions, and I was really good at that, so I knew how to cover my tracks, both literally
and figuratively. Because using needles, you know, I had collapsed veins. I had started shooting and using the needles in different places that wouldn't be visible. Well, anything to minimize the severity of the addiction.
You were talking about how secretive this was. Were you doing this alone? And how are you getting the drugs.
I was stealing?
And what were you stealing.
I would go into different stores, department stores, grocery stores, take things that I knew I could either pawn or sell directly to people, or trade so that I could get the drugs that I needed. My mental health had deteriorated. Of course, when you're in active use, the best antidepressants are not going to work. I got to a point where I was trading sex for drugs. I would beg
for alcohol. There was a particular bar that I went to all the time and scrape up enough to get a drink and then try and find somebody with drugs.
There was something different about this last time around where you finally did get sober. But I'm curious about what was different about this rock button because usually there's several rock buttons that you have to get to before one of them actually is.
I said I would never use needles, and then I did. I would never sell myself on the street in order to get drugs, and then I did, I would never steal from a friend, and then I did. That's the power of the obsession and compulsion of addiction that you continue to do things that are completely against what you
think your morals are. I had dabbled in recovery, and so I had a taste of what it was like to live without substances, and I watched other people living their life and laughing and be happy, and knowing that if I could somehow get over this homp, I could have that.
I understand that the periods of sobriety were very short, right, But were you able in moments to craft an image of what true sobriety would look like for you? Were you able to imagine? Because you said, oh, I saw people laugh and have fun and be happy, and I thought I want that. That that was we were able to really have a vision of what life could be like for you. But how did you see yourself? What was that woman you were meant to be?
I saw her as educated, spiritual, connected to others, healthy both physically and mentally, somebody that was able to be calm and be happy living life on life service. So if adversity came my way, I was going to be able to handle that. If I had to step up and be accountable for my behavior, I was able to do that.
And if we go through that checklist and look at your current life, you're educated, obviously you care about others. What are the items on that list that are not as strong as they should be right now?
I think intimate relationships. I see someone that lives about one hundred and fifty miles away from where I am, and I see him occasionally. I don't have real strong, intimate close friends, and that's the area that I would really like to improve. I think the rest of what I discussed I have taken on and developed, including a work ethic, over the last nine years.
So given that context, tell us a little bit about the shopping how bad that gets when it happens.
In the last couple of years, I've recognized I have an imposter syndrome. So I've developed a counselor position for drugs and alcohol. I work with clients every day, and I started by going to a community college and finishing a two year degree. Then I chose to follow a local college in getting a four year degree in addictions counseling. I then developed this master's degree and I'm currently working towards co occurring counseling to work with both mental health
and substance use disorder. In the process of this, I developed anxiety. I've realized that I've been struggling for the last year and a half in getting school work done. Part of this is COVID that everything has gone to zoom or online, so I don't have interaction with professors, my cohort. It's all via soum. So I feel alone a lot, and it has transformed into a shopping addiction. There's no way I'm going to return to using drugs
or alcohol. However, that thinking is still there, so instead of writing my paper, I would find myself going on to my favorite shopping site and I need to read this difficult material and answer some discussion questions with my cohort from my college, and I realized I was trying to find some peace in material things. And that's when I recently come to realize that it stemmed back from the farmhouses, you know, fifty years ago, that idea of
having fun and taking something. So along with the impostor syndrome, which is basically feeling like I don't deserve to be where I'm at and I have the education, I have the ability, I have really positive feedback for the work that I do. But how can I be a counselor you're just a drug addict?
Is this a secret right now? Are we the only people who knows this about your shopping addiction?
Okay, the shopping part, yes, Okay, okay, because all right, because when we talk about shame again, there's that shame and you were talking about it with your earlier addiction around the secrecy.
And the shame and the ways that people try to hide this because of the shame.
Absolutely, the material items that I purchase at the time, there's a release when I press by.
What happens when the package arrives? When like it? Do you feel horrible or do you feel excited when when you see the package at your doorstep?
It used to be excitement. Now it's like another fucking package. What's going on?
Before COVID? Would you go to meetings in person and how often I.
Would typically go two to three times a week.
And then it was zoom for a while. I'm assuming or still.
Yeah, And I didn't participate much with that. I didn't do any zoom meetings.
Because there's a rough overlap in time between COVID and between when the shopping purchasing accelerated. And what we know about a lot of addictions is that this issue of this connection is alerting behind them. And you said that of the list of all the things I wanted to be and fix in my life, that one I haven't quite probably fixed is intimacy yet. But I think it's connection more broadly, to be honest with you, And there
are things we called soft ties and strong ties. Soft ties are more casual acquaintances, but when there's a lot of them, when there's a lot of people that say hello to you when you walk into a meeting or when you go to the grocery store because they know you there, it can add up and make people feel
more connected. And when you don't go to meetings and you stop that all together and you don't have a strong intimate bond with one other person you said you'd meet only occasionally with this person who's however many miles away. It can leave you feeling very disconnected because a lot of those softer ties that kept you feeling connected, kept you feeling a part of, go away, and then you feel very much not a part of And that's when
some of the old behaviors started to come back. And I'm wondering if you notice that.
Timing absolutely, and especially with explaining it that well. I think it accelerated over the last year. And also my schoolwork has suffered. It's supposed to be done with my master's by the end of next year or at this time next year. The way it's looking, I'll have to either withdraw or find another way because I had to take incomplete so I developed the anxiety symptoms of the physical symptoms within my chest.
I think that the paradox of getting sober is that once you start to realize what is possible in your life. First of all, there's a lot of grief for all the lost years.
Oh yeah, yes, definitely, I have a lot of.
That, right And usually it starts in childhood because you didn't have necessarily the kinds of connections and love that you wanted in childhood. Even if your mother loved you.
You felt very alone, yep, And I didn't recognize it as that, but that's what it was, right.
And then the lost years when you're using and you're not connected in the world, you're in that world of just I need the next fix. And so then when you come out of it, when you're sober, you start to realize how important connection is. And there's also a fear of connection. So those two things happen at once of I really want connection, this is really important, and I'm not sure A I know how to do it, or B that I deserve it.
Oh, definitely. The main part of that is this idea that I don't deserve connection, or when I make a connection, it was so scary to be connected with somebody.
There's one more thing that I'm thinking about, which is that, in terms of the timing, you said that now you're doing this program where you're studying addiction and its relationship with other mood disorders like anxiety and depression, and I wonder if that's bringing up anxiety in you, because sometimes it's very hard to be studying something that you also have a lot of personal experience with.
Interesting that you should say that because I never really made the connection of that feeling of anxiety and the way I know how to escape is shopping.
It's also possible that part of the imposter syndrome is you recognizing even early on that this shopping it feels a lot like using and I'm using it in the same way. Part of you might be feeling, oh, and I still have these behaviors going on. Now that's in the shopping domain, and that might be what part of the imposter syndrome it's also about.
Yeah, I have to look at that. I think the imposter syndrome idea came in my undergrad work. Each graduation I had I physically became ill. So when I graduated from college with my bachelor's degree, I got physically sick. Emotionally I was a mess. I achieved something that I had been striving for or fantasized about my whole life, and when I got it, I want to do it throw up. I became so sick.
You know. It's one of the things that happens in long term addiction is you really can lose the ability to trust yourself because you made so many deals with yourself that you've broken thousands of them and then when you achieve something, it feels like, Okay, now I can trust myself. I've actually completed that thing, that fantasy that I had have actually attained it. But that fear of oh, it can be taken away because I can screw up again. You know, I'm trying to trust myself, but I can
slip again. That fear of this life will be taken away from me can operate for a very very long time with addiction. So when you start to achieve finally thirty five years of fears of oh, I'm going to screw this up and mess this up, don't go away overnight. And the more you have at stake, the greater the fear.
Is.
Now you actually have something to lose. And before sobriety you really didn't have much to lose, and now you do, and that can make the anxiety grow bigger.
Yeah, it makes sense because in active use, it's like what is there to lose? It's just about the next score. So now living a life of integrity and responsibility and work ethic and making an income, saving money, have a four to h one K, I've never had that before. And then to admit to a shopping addiction.
I wanted to say one more thing about this idea of you getting physically ill when you would accomplish something like a graduation. The other addiction that people don't talk about is that people get addicted to punishing themselves. People get addicted to not having People get addicted to that sense of things are not going to work out for me. That becomes something that they hold very dear, even though they don't want that to happen, And so all of a sudden you have to let go of that idea.
It's a whole self concept of going from I'm someone for whom nothing will work out to I'm someone who can have agency in the world.
Indeed, there's comfort in the familiarity of discomfort.
There's this saying, especially in the field of psychology, that research is mesearch, meaning that we usually are interested in exploring something that touches us very closely personally. So somebody who comes from a history of substance use will become an addiction counselor. But what you're studying now, I think is the most tender part of something that you're still trying to resolve, which is the anxiety, the relational pieces.
And so I wonder if you're avoiding doing this work in a way that you didn't avoid doing the other work because of where you are in your process of working through.
It, you know, there's probably some truth to that.
We were talking about this idea of connection and loneliness and how those two things go with addiction. Very often what happens with alcohol and substances is that, especially when it's thirty five years of that, that's what draws the people to one another. It's the actual glue that determines who your people are and how close you are with them because you're all doing the same thing substance wise.
And when that glue goes away because you become sober, you literally have to rediscover reinvent, Well, what's the glue that I use now? How do I get close to people now? And those skill sets that usually require very intentional, active work to develop those muscles to connect and especially in deeper ways with people. Do you have a sense of whether you've developed enough of those muscles?
No, I haven't, and I have a sense of not wanting to address that inability to create those relationships, to create new glue. The one relationship that I have with a guy, like I said, and he lives one hundred and fifty miles away. We've been seeing each other on and off for eleven years, and I don't have a lot of interest in getting married or or moving in with him, even I have no desire to do that.
Is that because of you don't feel that connection with him or you don't want that with anybody?
I don't know for sure, because I've asked myself that what's been popping in my head is you're too old. You're too old, You're too old.
This keeps coming up. You're too old to get a degree or a tool to have a relationship. I think it's a bit of an excuse, to be honest with you. I think you're using it as an excuse.
The person that you've been dating. His name is Shane. Okay, So Shane, how did you meet eleven years ago? And is he wanting more or how did the two of you talk about what you're doing with each other?
Well, we met online on Craigslist and it was an attempt for connection on my part back then, and it turned out that we were very compatible and over the years he has been supportive. So he has seen me in active addiction and has seen me in recovery, and I recently was making a choice to end the relationship last year right when COVID hit. It was no connection to COVID, it just happened to be at the same time.
Why did you want to end the relationship? And what is he wanting in this relationship?
He's wanting to get married. He is a Vietnam veteran. He has some PTSD that he's never dealt with nor wishes to talk about. And he wasn't willing to like go to alan On or some other kind of help for people who are families of addicted people. And so I've tried. I tried to have him join me at meetings, go to his own meetings, and he was unwilling to do this. And at that time, he lived about twenty miles away. And he then decided to get a house in the northern part of the state and moved up there.
And it's like, fine, fuck you.
So you felt hurt that he didn't include you in that decision.
Well, I think I did. The fact that he moved so far away. Recently, however, I've been talking with him again, and part of that is loneliness.
When he moved away, did he ever say to you, you know, I moved away because I've been wanting more from this relationship for a long time and I felt hopeless that I would ever get it.
If he could say that, that would be awesome. He doesn't have the capability of saying that.
What prevented you during this time if you felt like this wasn't the right relationship from seeking out someone you might be more compatible with.
I wanted to focus on school work.
Again, Hillary, we know you have to focus on your school work, but you know people can be in school and also have clothes and intimate relationships. So we really hope you'll continue to explore this question of intimacy. Maybe just get curious about the reasons you're not pursuing it and challenge yourself on those if you can. But look, you told us you have to run to a group. So one last quick question before we get to the advice.
You know there are groups for shopping addiction, and since you're already in the twelve step system, have you considered joining one of them?
I have considered it, but I haven't acted on it. So I looked it up. I looked it up online shoppers Anonymous, and I think I'm going to because the night before I knew I was supposed to be meeting with you, I'm online shopping.
So Hillary, we have some advice for you. The first thing we'd like you to do is to see if you can cancel your credit cards and use only Apple Pay or Samsung Pay or something that doesn't require a credit card, so that it limits you in how much you can shop online. There's a huge convenience factor here that's making it really difficult to not do because it's truly and everyone's trying to make this easier and one click away. It's not so good for shopping adicts to
have one click away. So if you can put some speed bumps in there that you would have to do it in person, preferably with cash, we think that would help. Okay, the next thing is you spoke about these struggles with grad school that you're having trouble saying on top of stuff getting assignments done.
Correct.
Now, we are very clear that this is not any problem to do with your intellectual ability or your commitment to this subject matter and commitment to this career path. There's something psychological there.
I agree.
Often what happens is that when you have worked so hard for so long to turn your life around, and you're standing there at the end of a marathon, before the finish line. It can be very scaried across it because it's the promised land, and it can feel very, very scary. And what we'd like you to do is
a visualization exercise. Sit in a comfortable place, close your eyes, and imagine what your life would be like in a year or two once you've crossed that finish line, once you've finished your degree and graduated and got your hours in and taking care of all the other issues that you have to take care of, and now you finally
have this new life. You'd like you to really try and visualize what that looks like, because when you do that, you'll see the feelings that come up, and some of them might be excitement, but some of them might be discomfort or anxiety because it's a very foreign land still, yes it is, and would like you to get familiar with that land. And one way to do that is my visualizing, and we want you to do that as many times as you need until you can go to that land and feel comfortable there.
That's a great idea.
And related to that, we were thinking about this idea of I don't deserve to have anything good because of what I've done and how that really sits inside of you.
Yes, there's a.
Word cherophobia, which means fear of joy. Chero meaning joy phobia, fear you never really got to have a childhood because you turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with your pain, and you didn't get to have that joy that's un edited that a lot of children experience and then they can bring into adulthood with them. So we'd like you to reclaim this aspect of yourself and do something fun that If you think about going back to ten years old, what would your ten year old self have wanted to
do for fun? So this is before the addiction started. What class or hobby or activity would the young you be excited about? And can you extrapolate from that and think about what you, as an adult right now would find enjoyable.
That's a great idea. I would have to really sit and think about that and figure out what she would.
Want, right because you didn't really have the opportunity to sit and think about what she would want because you were really trying to manage your pain at that time. But now you are right on the precipice of freedom, and that's part of this block because you're kind of like, I don't know what to do with this freedom. I don't know what to do with joy. So part of it is the visualization and part of it is being able to say, what is this other side of me
that I can reclaim? And as you're making the list, notice what feelings come up. How does it feel to you? Do you get excited, do you get scared? And try to hold on to the excitement part. See what it feels like this week to embark on that process.
That's interesting because I've been putting off reading for pleasure for years because in my mind it was I have to focus on text books. So I have this stack of books I want to read.
The next thing is that we would like you to find a twilsted group for shopping addiction, because you have some shame around the fact that here I am, I'm an addiction counselor and here I am falling into a different kind perhaps of addiction. And why do you want you to go to a group? Because a as you know, talking about these things is a great way to take
ownership and to undo feelings of shame. But we also want you to keep in mind that the fact that you're an addiction counselor does not mean that you are not vulnerable to addictions. What it does mean is that when you catch yourself, you have a major head start because you know so much because you deal with it. So I want you to think of this as, oh, I have a head start as opposed to I've fallen behind.
Great, that makes so much sense to me. What I'm hearing, also you say, is how I choose to think about something that is going to matter on how I deal with it.
Yes, that's right, And we have two more things for you. We were thinking about how you were saying you felt too old to date, and what we think is that you weren't ready to date earlier because of what you were going through and because of all of the changes that you've made in your life, you're finally now old enough to date. But adult dating means doing the apps,
the dating sites, not Craigslist, and not hookup sites. So we want you to get on some of these dating apps and dating sites that are for people who are looking for a relationship and to really start from learning about yourself in relationship.
I don't know that that's something I want to seek out right now, but I understand what you're saying, and I do think that people my age and older are more interested in relationships than they are in a hookup.
Right And when you say you don't want to pursue it right now, you don't have to take any of this advice. But I imagine that there's some fear there. And we're saying is we see you from a very different perspective than you see yourself. There's a part here of if I reveal myself to somebody, I'm not going to be lovable.
One last thing, and this will continue of what Laurie just said. We do think that you don't yet see yourself as we see you, in the sense of how remarkable your accomplishments are, given where you came from, given how long you were in that world, you have done such an astonishing job of turning things around that, truly
we are so impressed by how much you've done. You would like you to every day spend a moment going back to a dark moment, a difficult moment, and talking to your past self and saying, and look at where
I am today. If I could travel back in time and appear to myself in that moment with everything I was feeling, with everything that was going on, and show myself what I was able to pull off, that might bring you more in touch with how ridiculously impressive the turnaround is that you've been able to pull off.
Well, that makes sense, and I certainly have a lot of moments to choose from.
Right It's almost like you're being visited from your future self. So if you can go back to those moments and then here you are in the future right now. And if you could have known back then, if your future self could have visited you and said, look where I am, would you ever have believed it?
Absolutely not.
So what we think you haven't really absorbed that yet though, and we want you to make sure that you're focusing on this part of what you did and visiting your past self and saying, wow, you know what this is. How things are turning out and it is amazing.
So we really look forward to hearing how this went for you. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Thank you so much.
One thing I noticed when we were giving Hillary advice is that she totally got what we were saying as we were saying it, and not only she got here's the assignment. She got. Oh, and this is why I think that would be important, or I get why you're telling me to do this. So I'm extremely helpful that with that level of sophistication she'll really be able to follow through as much as possible with these things.
And I really agree that sometimes when people are in this profession, they feel like I should know better, But in fact she does have that head start, and I think that's really going to help her when she tries to do the assignment.
This week, you're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back after a quick break. So we heard from Hillary and we gave her a lot of home so I am curious to see how much of it she was able to get through.
Hi, this is Hillary. I wanted to give you a little update the six items you listed. The first one was canceled cards. I haven't done that yet, but I did pay off a card and I have intention to get rid of those. The second thing was to visualize myself graduated or one to two years after and what kind of feelings that invoked. I've actually found it relaxing and happy. I didn't really feel the fear and anxiety.
The third thing was I don't deserve to have anything good and joy and to go back to that ten year old girl. So I made a list. The first thing is a metal detecting. I've always wanted to do that, so I want to get myself, you know, a reasonably priced metal detector and go buy the shores of some lakes or find some meteorites, do some research. The second thing is water skiing. Third thing is roller skating. I love to roller skate. I haven't done it in years.
I love reading science fiction, so I've read dozens of books and I have a lot waiting for me. As far as signing up for a class, it would be for stargazing. My local community they have community classes and they have one on stargazing. The next thing is getting a motorcycle that would fit me. I still have my motorcycle license, so I'd like to get a motorcycle A fifty five and older. Softball league is another thing I'm considering. And then finally, of course playing the drums. I always
wanted to do that. The fourth thing you talked about was the shopping addictions. I signed up for Debtor's Anonymous and Overspenders Anonymous on Facebook. I'm members of both groups now. I did write one post, but I'm going to look into local area face to face meetings. The fifth thing was dating, something that I'm not really interested in. However, I did fill out a form or take a personality test for a group called Silver Singles, so we'll see
what happens there. And then finally, the sixth thing is talking to my past self, finding a dark moment, which there are lots and lots, and I actually did that first thing after I spoke with you. It was much harder than I thought, but I'm going to continue to do that because I think it will be healing. And then, finally,
thank you so much for this opportunity. It was really more than I expected, and taking the time to listen to me, and I hope I can help somebody else who needs recovery it works and you can make your life better. Thank you.
I was smiling so broadly when she was mentioning the list of things she might want to do because they are so different and they're so interesting. There's the metal detector stuff, and then the water skiing and roller skating and sci fi and take a stargazing class, and the motorcycle and the soft body. It just was one thing after another. So this is a woman who has so many varied interests and such a rich inner life that it would be amazing to see her really connect and
start to do some of these things. It was so great to hear.
You, And I think what it shows is that we don't actually lose that childhood self, that that was still in there. It was just repressed, it was buried, and we opened the door by simply asking a question, what would you do if you could let yourself dream, if you could be that child again? What could you do? And it was so easy for her to do. I'm sure if she sat down even longer, she'd probably come up with more. She has such a rich inner life.
Yeah, it was amazing and it was so wonderful to hear because she didn't lose that over the years. You know, that's still there and it's been there all along, and now she gets to actually do something with it, which I'm so excited for her.
And I think sometimes we need permission, We need permission to be able to say I get to have fun, I get to have joy in my life.
Which brings me to some of the stuff that she didn't quite do. For example, the dating that she wasn't quite ready for necessarily. However, she did sign up respond to a personality thing for a service. But I do hope that she gets to dating. But I certainly see that there's a lot of other pieces of her social and personal life, and that she can work in the meantime that also, I think would be very meaningful.
There were two areas where she was reluctant. One was the dating, and then with the credit cards. She paid off a credit card, but there was the intention to cancel the credit cards, but she didn't do that. And so whenever there's that I intend to do this, but you don't actually do it, it might mean that she's just not quite ready to cut off the supply yet.
On the one hand, but what comforts me in this very specific case is that she signed up for those Facebook groups for death is Anonymous and Overspenders anonymous, and is planning to go to in person meetings, which will absolutely then help with the accountability and probably nudge her to cancel the credit cards. But by paying off one of the credit cards by joining those other groups and
having accountability. She said she even made one post on the Facebook group and hopefully getting to meetings very soon. I really hope they'll be follow up there. But we always think a therapist that when somebody has any kind of addiction issue, that it's not just about deal with the addiction, but it's about fill the voids in your life that might be there. And so I'm really hopeful that all this works together for her. By doing all those things, it will help support her in backing away
from this new kind of dependency that she developed. In terms of the.
Show being yeah, and I do hope that she goes in person because we know that again with addiction, connection is so important. Having a support system is so important, and the in person experience is going to be very different for her than the online experience. I think both are useful in different ways. And I also was really glad to hear that she is able to do hard things. She said that talking to her past self was very hard, and yet she's optimistic that it's going to be healing
for her. So even though it's something that may create some discomfort in her, she's more than willing to do it, and that is a great sign.
And I have a suggestion for Hillary if she's listening, and for other listeners if they're thinking of doing this kind of exercise. If you start and you find that it's triggering anxiety, to go back to specific very difficult moments, then ease in. Start with less difficult moments, start there and build your way up. You don't have to start with the bleakest, darkest, the most difficult, because you don't
want to retrigger past trauma. It's fine to work your way up to that, but to start with any low moment and then insert that visitor from the future that's telling that past version of yourself that I really turn things around.
Next week, we'll be bringing you a special live episode of Dear Therapists, where we'll share how we do these Dear Therapist sessions every week and what we're really thinking when we're trying to help all of you through the issues you bring us.
I literally say to myself in my head, I'm going to do a Lori here, and then I do a thing that I think Laurie would do.
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