The Addiction Recovery Podcast I wanted to be real clear about what this podcast is intended for. It is intended for entertainment and informational purposes, but not considered help. If you actually need real help and you're in need of help, please seek that out. If you're in dire need of help, you can go to your nearest emergency room or you can check into a rehab center or call a counselor like me and talk about your problems and work through them.
But don't rely on a podcast or to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a podcast. It's for entertainment and information only. So let's keep it in that light, alright? Have a good time, learn something, and then get the real help that you need from a professional.
I have a very unorthodox view of someone in recovery and someone in the profession of We can also talk about that. I think that all plants have their purpose. Like psilocybin for depression and ayahuasca for deep trauma. They're just not for me. We can get into that if you want to.
So we had been talking about a mix of things of your history but also your kind of philosophy on recovery and your experiences with treatment as well as the receiving end as well as the giving end of treatment. So I'm just curious about... When you said that it has gotten hard to get people to stay in recovery recently, it's harder. Why? Because there are people that are not as, oh, I don't know, fundamentalist when they look at recovery?
Or is it a, do you think there's an, this is what I think. I think there's a strong influence of social media and narcissism. And we are now, and I know because the literature supports this, there is this trending up in people scoring higher and higher on the narcissistic indicators. And so the look at me, hey, look at me. If you feel like you're out of place, And you're uncomfortable in society. And you're surrounded by a bunch of people who are all, hey, hey, look at me.
With filters, by the way, that make them look fantastic. Oh,
yeah.
And perfect. And they have like a Mercedes Benz behind them that's not theirs. And you think that you need to be that way.
Right. Look at this. I read an article just this morning on some publication online that I was looking at. And it was like how to look like you're a millionaire online. by the car you drive while spending less than $30,000, and they had 10 cars that you can buy that'll make it look like you spent $100,000 or more on your car when you actually only spent about $20,000. That's narcissism, right? It's like, look at me. Look at the facade. Look at me. I'm successful. You're not.
Ha-ha. That's what we call a dressed-up garbage can.
Well, yeah.
A dressed-up garbage can.
So my theory is that this increased narcissism And the TikTok, Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, Instagram world has created a bunch of narcissists. And so I'm dissatisfied with my life to begin with. And then I look at a bunch of pictures of people that seem to have it all together. And I'm even now more angry and disgruntled. And jealousy and envy are coursing through my veins at all times. And so I feel crappy. So I'm going to use. How am I going to deal with those feelings?
Yeah. I'm going to die. Yeah. And interestingly, the people that I have coming in here, when I first started doing this, they were like, they were beating down people. I mean, they came in and they just looked beaten down, beaten up. And now they come in and they're proud of their success of usage. Like that is now their success. Like I'm the best heroin addict ever. in my neighborhood or in town. I didn't go to the trap house in Baltimore. I ran it. I ran it. Really? That's your badge of honor?
I have more abscesses than you do.
Yeah, I'm really good at this. It's like we're narcissistically trying to attach to something you can be really good at.
I see a lot of that on The Best Junkie on the Planet at work also. So yeah, I would agree with that. And that's just like, really? You're going to go for that?
Yeah. So I can see how easily people would fall into the trap of like, well, I gave up my identity when I became clean and sober. You wanted me to join a group. Well, I'm in this group. I'm in the rooms. I'm in the community. I got a sponsor. I got my friends. Well, I'm just like them. Well, then it's special. I was special when I was running the trap house. I knew how to get away from things. I knew how to talk my way out of getting arrested because I scored some heroin.
Now you want me to join this group just like everybody else? And you know, you know, because you've seen this in the rooms, the people who are addicts, they always are peacocking, right? They always got the most tattoos, the most piercings, the craziest hair, they dress crazy. They got to stand out. The craziest girlfriend. Absolutely. They got to stand out, right? So I think the relapse thing might be also because you're asking them to give up what they've become successful at.
The only thing they did that was really, they were successful at destroying themselves. Well,
we can back around and wrap back around to when I said, I didn't want to be that guy again because I was a kid and I hated that guy. So I had to... Yeah, but you're old. I had to reformulate who Scott was. Yeah, but you're old. There is that. You're a child of the 80s. Yeah. Well, 70s. Yeah. I was born in 70.
Yeah. Well...
I missed Quaaludes by like three years. So there was... Quaaludes was like four years, three or four years before my
time. See, I came up in the pod transition to cocaine.
But... The revamping who is Scott, finding out who Scott is, solidifying what I call solidifying a sense of self is extremely important without the peacocking. Like I walk around, I'm in a sweatshirt and jeans and sneakers.
And just for the listeners edification, his sweatshirt says college on the front. It says college. You know where that's from though, right? That's all it says, college.
It's Jim Belushi, Animal House, Jim Belushi. Yeah,
I know, I know, I know. Yeah. I'm a child of the 60s.
Yeah, and also, it's fun if I wear this to work. Like, three of the older alcoholics will get it from my clients, and nobody else will. Nobody else does. Nobody else will, but they're like, you know, they go, hey, man, good shirt. I'm like, yeah. Which
is an interesting thing, also, if you want to take that parallel a little bit further. How did John Belushi die?
Oh, overdose.
Yeah. Drugs you used.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Chris Farley. Uh-huh. John Belushi.
Uh-huh.
The list goes on and on. Oh, it's endless. I mean, there was a two that died at 33 from Speedball specifically.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, so I derailed the conversation. That's fine. With your college shirt.
You're going to have the younger listeners going, what's Animal House? And the older listeners going, oh, right on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah. Bluto. Yes. So, Blutarski. Blutarski.
uh all right so you you uh changing though was because you and let me throw this on let me just throw this out to you see how you react to it in my experience people don't want to change they don't the addicts don't want to change right uh my belief is that they don't want to change they begin to change when they need to change and wanting to change occurs much later in their recovery Because they have to experience something that's positive about the change, and they've got to go through a
whole bunch of crap before they get to the positive part. So they need to change. Arrested, dead, overdosed, suicide, divorce, lost their job, lost their house, lost their money. You know, loss, loss, loss, loss. Diagnostic criteria for addiction, right? So they have to need to change. to change before they ever want to. Because if you think about it, recovery is about something that you're going to get that you value. And when you're first starting, you don't value it.
Because you don't know what it is. Well, you don't even care. You don't have a taste
of it.
It's everybody
else's problem. But also you don't have a taste of the actual beauty of what life can be. Right. It's just crap. That's why you use it. It sucks. Right. So when you get
into the, I need to do this. And so you get them. And they're, like you said, off the street and they're just crazy, right? They're not even detoxed yet. So you get that. That's not a need to get there. How do they end up in your facility? because they're homeless and poor. They
get put there through CSBs in different counties, but also I love seeing the emails coming in where they have all these mental health diagnoses, but yet they don't come in there with any medication. I'm like, oh, great. Yeah. It's going to be fun. So
they're just spinning completely out of control. They're completely dysregulated and unmanageable. That is not a person who's going to say in a very conscientious, thoughtful manner, wow, I really want to get sober and clean. They don't. It's like,
I'm here and I hate you. I really think I can live life without drugs. No, I get motherfuckered up and down at work all day.
Yeah. So it's like, no, I hate you. I hate you. That's what you get hit
with. And apparently I'm that guy at work. I'm kind of the guy that confronts and all that. And I'm looked at as a CEO and all that. But I say, it's what you perceive me. If you think I'm the CEO, I'm the CEO. If you think I can help you stay clean, I can help you stay clean.
Yeah. So they got to go to, they do that for a while. And then there's something that comes to them in their recovery attempt in that early stage. And that like step one, it's more powerful than I am. My life's unmanageable. And they get past that and they think, oh, you know what? There's something of value here. And I'd really rather probably not lose that. And that's when you start to see, I want to get there. And it's a slow transition.
They go from, I need to slowly, the two of them blend together. I want to need to until finally it becomes, I want to. And that's when I get the phone call. because they've been clean and sober for six months, eight months, and they had an accident and they're calling me crying, male or female, crying because they are so upset because they think that they have disappointed me. They're therapists by getting high or drunk. Well, you're an authority figure. I get it.
And I know at that point that's because you want this. A trusted authority figure. Yeah. Yeah. I get it. See, because you tried so hard to get there and you really valued it and you think I value it more than you do. So then you're upset because you think you disappointed me. And me, the benevolent, you know, omnipotent God creature is listening on the phone going, you know what? It's okay. Yeah. And they're very confused.
Yeah.
Because they think they're going to be rejected. Because they've had so much of it, depending on their trauma level.
And their attachment.
And I tell them, you know what? You've already been forgiven for this. You just have to understand that. And they can't. It's like, ugh.
What I tell people, I focus on a lot of faith and belief. Mm-hmm. And there's a quick and dirty difference that Alan Watts said. I'm paraphrasing completely because he's a master. But faith isn't something unseen. Belief isn't something concrete. And at first I had a little bit of faith that I could do this. A little bit of faith that I could do something else and do something different and change a bit.
Then the history builds up to where I have some concrete evidence that I have done X, Y, Z. And I get some belief. And therefore that's when it shifts. Also for me, somewhere in the first couple years... I stopped running away from something and started running toward something else. Does that make sense? And I'm not sure what occurred and when it occurred, but it was my first couple years of being clean.
I stopped running away from something, running away from getting high, running away from my problems, running away from my drama, running away from my parents. And I started running toward something. something else it was a shift in perception
see and that's that blending i think when you go from my need to get clean and sober and then slowly i want to starts creeping in it doesn't eliminate need immediately right they they overlap for a while and that's when you said there's a transition into the i want this yeah right and that's when you really value it yeah i
mean where i'm sitting now i look at things and i and i mean i find drugs all the time at work and all that stuff again i'm like why would i do this it's just silly I don't mean to downplay the addiction or the draw of drugs, but where I'm sitting now, I know who Scott is and I know where Scott's going. Why would I go get high? That just doesn't make sense. That doesn't calculate.
It doesn't now. Now, no. See, but this is the same guy who was plotting and scheming and stealing and, you know. Yeah, I know. And if it was there, he would use
it. Oh, yeah. Right. Yeah, stealing my parents' painkillers that needed them. Oh, yeah. That kind of thing.
Yeah. Yeah. Oh, no. You and I both know all the horror stories of addicts who have done all kinds of reprehensible things. Yeah. So, yeah, you know, it's Eckhart Tolle when he was battling depression. He talked about how he realized at some point that he was not really depressed, that he had become depression. So it's that same thing of like, I'm identifying as being depression. I have taken on the persona of depression.
So how am I ever going to beat depression if all I am is identifying as depression? So I have to stop saying. Because he said he almost unconsciously transitioned from waking up every morning going, I'm depressed, to... It's like a reality. I am depression. If you keep saying that, well, that's what you are. Those words that you use become what you are. That's why positive self-talk matters. And it became concrete.
So depression was concrete for him, and it was the only thing he knew all day long. So his battle with depression was to try to change the reality of what he had accepted as concrete into something that was more abstract. And transition back over into...
And it's also frightening giving up that identity and going to something else. That's where I think a lot of the whole recovery versus recovered language war in the 12-step rooms goes on. Where you say you're recovered and people freak out. You're always an addict. Stop being an addict just because you say you're not an addict. But I think it's also how you pump yourself up. How you identify yourself. How you talk to yourself. How gentle you are with yourself. Right. But
we're not that. As addicts, we're not that.
I was not that. I was extremely harsh. I had to learn to be that way, though. Right. Accepting. The whole positive notes on the sticky notes in the mirror. I tell guys to do that all the time, man.
Yeah.
Because it
matters and it works. Because you're forgiving yourself. Mm-hmm. And so you can't get there if you don't forgive yourself for the things you've done, and you can't forgive people for the things they've done, and you're just hating.
Yeah, I got a tough gangster sitting in the seat across from me, and I tell him to be gentle with himself and give himself a break, and he just cries like a baby.
I know. Yeah. I know. I get the same thing. That happens a lot. In my office, all the time.
Hardcore, I mean, gangster dudes.
Yeah. People are people, man, unless you're a psychopath and you have no capacity to feel. Unfortunately,
there's a lot of them, too, because substance use is a hallmark of sociopathy. No, I'm talking
about psychopathy.
There's that, too. Like full-on psychopathy. It's hard to differentiate, though. I think the sociopaths are harder to pick out because they're better at it. The psychopaths get caught easier.
You know what? The psychopaths are not charming. Sociopaths are. Right. They're very charming people. Psychopaths are just these weird automatons that... Yeah. I looked at him, and he could have killed me in a second. Oh, the dead eyes. Yeah. I see that, and I recognize that. Sociopathy, it's like, no, they're okay. That's
what you're thinking. No, they're trying the crap out of you, man. You think they're your best friend. And then a year or two later, you're like, this guy ain't quite right. What's going on here?
But see, for me, in my office, they're easy to dismantle.
Yeah, see, I had a close friend early on that, I mean, I'm pretty sure, and I've had a sponsee, I haven't got a sponsee, had a sponsee that's a textbook sociopath. He's still locked up, but you know.
So when you are identifying as an addict, and that's all you know, it's hard to break away from that, but you can. You just got to get in the right environment, right? So for treating, from a treatment perspective... They have to have the opportunity to get there, and it's got to be very long-term. It's not short-term. But like you just said, in the rooms, once an addict, always an addict. I don't buy into that.
I think you're a good example of somebody who could not be any more hardcore, and yet here you are saying, I
feel uncomfortable with identifying. I don't really feel uncomfortable identifying. I just kind of say it because that's what I say when I'm in a meeting. I don't really take it to heart when I say that and introduce myself to Cher. I don't really pay attention to that.
Even with a job history, on a resume, you're not supposed to put more than 10 years of your job history on your resume. So you're in recovery for 20 years. Are you going to say, I am an addict? No, I had addiction issues, and I've really worked very hard at recovery from that. I know I'm like one drink away from relapsing, of course.
I still know people with a lot of clean time, like 20-plus years, that are still scared of that concept.
Well, because there are people that relapse. I've got a 24-year guy. Yeah, I know. Clean, sober, owns a business,
family guy. But it's fear-based.
And he drinks, and he's got a big... rock of cocaine in his pocket sitting outside the police department at the 7-Eleven. 24 years clean. What are you doing? But I think that comes from like a whole... Well, stuff
went wrong. Yeah, things went wrong. He just didn't turn a corner and all of a sudden he was high.
Oh no, he did.
But there were steps. No. There was some kind of thing you could see early. Two-week time
span. Nope. Okay, two weeks, I can see. Nope, nope, nope. It was a two-week time span. All right. But things went wrong, and he didn't tap into the things that he needed to access to protect himself from it because he's so freaking arrogant, and he thought that he could take on anything, but he didn't know his limitations. Clint Eastwood, man's got to know his limitations. as the chief of police goes driving off and his car blows up. It's like a man's got to know his limitations.
And he didn't recognize the limitation and he didn't act on it. But it literally was a two-week slide from clean and sober
and
then the embarrassment of having to go in because he's all full of himself for years going, I'm 22 years, I'm 23 years, and now he's got to go get a 24-hour chip. He didn't want to do it.
I know. But, I mean, ego's a killer, man. Shame. Ego is a killer, though. Yeah. It's also ego. Oh, it's all arrogance. It's arrogant ego. Oh, man. Yeah, yeah. I've seen a lot of people with a lot of, like, I don't, I have eight years, so I'm not there yet, but a lot of people with a lot of time sometimes put themselves up on a pedestal. Oh, look at me. And that's a giant fall. Look at me. That's a hard fall, man. Look at what I've done. That's a hard fall.
Especially if you've got, like, you know, 15 sponsees. And the thing is, they distance themselves from everybody that can help them. Yeah. Well, that's the arrogance.
Yeah.
And all of a sudden, that fall from that pedestal is rough, man.
So I say this all the time. I say this in the podcast. I say it in my office all the time. Arrogance is addiction's best tool. It's the strongest in its arsenal. Is that a jocism? Yes, it is. Arrogance is addiction's best tool. And that was the one that will kill you. It's not going to take you down. It will kill you. It is literally the nuclear bomb of weapons.
I like that because I always say anger is the bodyguard of fear and sadness. I like that one. Wait, wait. Anger is the bodyguard
of fear
and sadness.
Anger is the bodyguard of fear and sadness. Yeah, I like that. I'm stealing that one. All right, I'm going to steal the arrogance one. Right on. But arrogance is, and it's funny. Symbiotic, symbiotic debris. Yeah. Well, I'm giving you permission. I bet. It's copyrighted, though, for anybody else that's out there that's using it. The thing is, though, about arrogance is it's also the last thing to leave you in recovery.
Like, as you're trying to get out of addiction, arrogance is the very last thing that leaves you. Because it is the strongest tool, right?
But it can also present itself
again
later on.
I think. Oh, yeah. But see, this is the thing, though. In recovery, what did you do? Cyclical. Fearless, searching, moral inventory of your character defects. You did that early on, right? So if you are actually good in your recovery, arrogance will always be a presence because you had some sociopathy in your being that allowed you to be an addict in the first place successfully, unless you were dead or homeless, right? Because those aren't really successful addicts.
So your charm, your humor, your charisma... Your arrogance, they're all things that protect you, right? Anger is the thing that keeps people at a distance. But your arrogance is the thing that addiction is going to hang on to as it's dying like the Wicked Witch of the North with the water, you know, and it's going,
I'm melting.
You know, it wants back in, right? So that's the lifeline that addiction can use to pull itself back into your life and blind you. And take you over, right? So, again, there are many tools that addiction uses. And I see addiction as the enemy. I don't see the addict as the enemy. And if I and the addict are not battling addiction, and I'm battling the addict, then we're not going to get anywhere.
But also, I'm not saying you're doing it, but people can mistake this as you're identifying addiction as something outside of yourself.
Right.
I think that's dangerous too. If I see addiction like up here to my left and I blame everything on my disease and I don't take responsibility for it, right, that leads me into a victim mentality. Oh, my disease. Oh, yeah? No. I mean, I get we teach the disease concept. I like disorder better, personally, as far as the flavor of words. But if I blame everything on that, I take no responsibility and I can blame all my stuff on this outside entity of an addiction. No growth can occur.
No spiritual growth, at least.
Okay, I agree with you. I do agree with you. If I am a bully... And I'm verbally assaulting people or I'm physically attacking them. Am I the problem? Or is my bullying the problem?
Oh, the bullying is the problem. Okay. But also, when you're bullying somebody like that, you're in pain, and you need a storehouse for your pain, and that's the victim that you're bullying.
But see, the bullying behavior is the thing that I use to channel my resentment and anger and upset about the fact that I have this issue, right? Yeah. So I use bullying as a technique. Now, if I'm not the problem, the bullying is the problem. Just like the Eckhart Tolle thing, I am depression. So if the person who's trying to help you or you yourself as the bully, you see you as the problem, there's nowhere for you to go to recover from this. Because even if you stop bullying...
If you see you as the problem, that triggers the shame. You've been... Yeah, right. So now you're targeted as the problem, right? So if you look at it like if you stop bullying, there's somewhere for us to go... in your recovery from that action that is so reprehensible. So that's why I separate addiction from the person, but not in, not the way that you're talking about. Right. It's when you get into recovery and you start making that change and you start getting, then I want you in my life.
It's almost, addiction is almost like a skin that
needs to be shed like a
snake. Absolutely. Right. I get that. So if you, and, and, and this is, I know we're like splitting hairs, but, um,
not really. It's, it's different viewpoints on, on, Language is difficult. Everybody has a little bit different viewpoint on certain words and how they're put together. So sometimes language is a difficult thing. Yeah. Right. I'm saying like with me nowadays, I don't say like, oh, well, I lied today because of this disease outside of me. I've incorporated, like I said, a solidified sense of self. I've incorporated all my stuff. I didn't conquer my demons. I've absorbed them. Does
that
make sense? Yeah. I've learned their names. I've made friends with them.
Right. You're not a parent. I'm a parent. One of the things that is critical when you're raising children is that you don't, give them a feeling of, I don't like you. It's, I love you, I don't like what you're doing. Oh, address the behavior, not the person. Correct. So, that's addiction. Like, I love you, I don't like your addiction, but you and I have to work on that addiction. I'm not working on you, I'm working on your addiction. As far as the behavior.
Now, the trauma that you experienced that led to the addiction... That's me working on you as a therapist. But I'm not working on you in your recovery as far as a behavior. And I make a very distinct separation between the two. And this happens with married couples too. And I preach this all the time to them. One of the two of them has addiction. So the two of them sitting in my office have to understand. And usually what happens is they're attacking each other.
Attack, defend, defend, attack, and it goes on and on and on. So listen, the two of you and me, we have got to be battling addiction, not each other. Because if you do that, addiction wins. Because addiction got you two to fight each other and it didn't have to do anything. Right. The enemy of my enemy is my friend.
See, this is nice. I'm kind of actually learning stuff from my future clinical skills. But, yeah, I mean, I'm not saying that off the break I incorporated that whole, you know what I'm saying? I got to fight this. I got to kill my addiction demon. That was me early on. Yeah,
because you're not the problem.
Yeah.
Right, that's the arrogance.
Yeah, and then I just realized that, you know, I just got to stop fighting and things will be kind of cool.
Surrender. Yeah, step three. Stop fighting and surrender. You got to surrender, brother.
I got to fight this thing. Stop fighting. No,
no, no, no. Surrender. Yeah, that way you can get strong. So that's something I want to talk about, geez, I guess in the next episode. The difference between surrender and giving up. And then if you surrender, what do you get as opposed to giving up? What do you get? So I want to talk to you about that because I think that's a really important thing. Okay. See you next time. Yeah, hang on, man. Okay. That's an hour and three minutes.
That one or everything? The two. Okay. Right on. We're going and going. This is fun, man. This is good. This is good.
All right. No, I really do want to talk about that because that's a thing that's
important. But also there's Henry Tybo.
All right. Wait, wait, wait. We're out of time. You're going to have to come back and talk about that. So let's come back and talk about it. So I guess in the meantime, you're going to have to wait for that one. I want to say thanks, Scott, for coming in and enjoying this. I'm sure you guys have. I have. And let's start working on our sobriety, shall we? So remember, it's not how many times you fall down that matter.
It's how many times you get back up, and you only got to get back up that one last time. And thanks for listening. Catch us on the next episode of Doc Shock, Your Addiction Lifeguard. Thanks for listening.
Bye.