Surrender Defined

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 to be that form of help. It's not. It's just a 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. Today's topic is surrender. Surrender... to recovery, surrender to the process? That is a very, very tough question.

When you begin to start to change in your recovery, what you're doing is you're surrendering, and you can't really change until you do surrender, but that is a thing that almost everybody I deal with really struggles with initially, and that's interesting. During the step process, for example, the first three steps, powerless, Life's out of control. Realize that you had to turn to a higher power and then turning yourself over to a higher power.

And that's something that people who have addiction don't like doing. You know that. If you're an addict, you know that. You don't want to give up control. And you will do anything to regain that control. And that is the topic for today. So let's talk about surrender in recovery. I think for the topic today, it would be helpful if we used some definitions for surrender and tried to really understand what are we talking about when we talk about surrender.

So let's go to the Merriam-Webster dictionary definition of surrender. Let's try that first. So they've got it listed either as a transitive verb or a verb, or it can be a noun. So we're going to go with the noun first, right? Definition of surrender. The action of yielding one's person or giving up the possession of something, especially into the power of another. The action of yielding one's person or giving up the possession of something, especially into the power of another.

Hmm. The relinquishment by a patentee of rights... or claims under a patent. Well, that doesn't really apply, does it? Voluntary cancellation of the legal liability of an insurance company by the insured or beneficiary for consideration. You know, as far as a noun, I'm not sure that surrender as a noun works. The second definition to it, an instance of surrendering. Well, that's just restating what the word means.

So let's talk about a verb, a transitive verb, really, because surrender and recovery is about an action. I'm giving something up. It's not a concept of giving up. It is I am actually giving it up. So let's look at the definitions for surrender as a transitive verb. To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand. Compulsion or demand. We're going to take these apart, so I'm just going to go on with the next one because we're going to start pulling these apart.

To give up completely or agree to forego, especially in favor of another. To give oneself up into the power of another, especially as a prisoner. As a prisoner? Wow. To give oneself over to something such as an influence. Wow. All right. To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand. I like that one. To give up completely or agree to forego, especially in favor of another. Now, that one I don't like so much. I like that first one.

To yield to the power, control, or possession of another upon compulsion or demand. In other words... We're going to give something up. See, in recovery, what you're giving up is you're giving up your addiction. You're surrendering your addiction. Now, as a person, what are you doing? Well, you're going to give yourself up to the power of another.

And I don't like the last part, especially as a prisoner, because I'm going to bet that all of you who have addiction and are confronted with the idea that you have to surrender, probably go with that one to give yourself up into the power of another, especially as a prisoner. Because you know what? You feel really angry. You don't want to give that up. You don't want to give up that control. That's a whole means and ways that you have to be able to engage in your addiction is to hang on to it.

So that's not cool. You don't want to give that up, do you? No, you don't. And if you tell me that you do, Upon first hearing that, you're a liar. I know you're lying because you don't because you're going to feel like you're surrendering your power, your control. And that is the only thing you have. And being the master of your universe is really the only way you can continue being an addict.

And brother and sister, I'm here to tell you, man, in my practice, that is all I deal with is convincing people that they have to surrender that power that they so crave to hang on to. So that third step, that's a doozy, right? And then to give yourself up into the power of another means that you have to trust them. So this is where the whole thing with the recovery movement being a self-help group, like a mutual aid society, is so incredibly powerful.

Because what you're doing is you're giving yourself up to the power of somebody who also has the same affliction that you do. I'm going to bet it's a lot easier for you to think of it in that way and accept it in those terms if you understand that the person you're surrendering to and that higher power process, the process, the power is something that you can do if you accept them or it as either a person, an institution, or a God. If you can accept that because they do care, right?

Other addicts, they care about each other. We're not trying to attack each other. It can be brutal when an addict attacks another addict because then it makes them not trust in the process. So this is why it's really important for you to go out and get into the recovery community because you're surrounded by people who have already surrendered and they are willingly asking you to surrender in the hopes that your existence will become better just like theirs has in the recovery process.

So that's where you can trust. So working with a sponsor, you learn to surrender to the sponsors of higher power who's there to help you and care for you, right? I was just reading, as an example, Stephen Tyler from Aerosmith. Let's see, when was this? This was back in June. This is June. No, I'm sorry, May 25th. This is back in May 25th. Steven Tyler, lead singer for Aerosmith. This man is 74 years old. He has been to rehab, I don't know how many times.

I think it was like 42 times is what I heard him say, if I'm remembering correctly. If I got that wrong, sorry, Steve. But 74 years old, and he's been in rehab at least that many times, right? And he's back in rehab again at 74. Why is he in rehab? Well... He had foot surgery. He messed up his leg. He's a motorcycle guy, believe it or not. And he likes riding motorcycles. And he had a horrible accident a number of years ago. And he had surgery to try to help it. But he's had problems.

I mean, he's been dancing around and riding bikes and falling off stage, I'm sure, and doing God knows what to his body all this time. And he's 74. He's 74. So he's old, right? So he had foot surgery to prepare for this accident.

tour that he was going to go on and uh he had a bunch of show they had a bunch of shows in june and july in vegas um that they were scheduling for and so he had to he had to get on stage and do stuff so he had surgery and he had pain and so he got prescribed pain meds i'm going to guess and he didn't turn them down and he probably thought he could handle it But he is really a powder keg, so you can't have any open flames near a powder keg and any kind of opiate drugs are aflame.

Now, he might have also sought that out himself outside the prescribing limitations of a physician. I don't know because it doesn't really say in the article one way or the other, but be that as it may, that is what happened, right? So then he went to voluntarily enter the treatment program because this is what he does. He surrenders to that process. He knows that he has lost control. And what's really fascinating is as an addict, he recognizes that he needs help.

And then he goes out and gets it. People come to me for help. And a lot of times they are not really wanting to get that help. But they need to. Right. So they surrender involuntarily to a higher power. That would be me who's going to tell them what to do, even though they don't want to do it, which is the basis of recovery. So here's Steven Tyler, the guy's rich and famous and he's a rock star, sex, drugs and rock and roll and all that has surgery in his foot.

Starts acting up with the pain meds again. And this guy's a poly addict. So he's used all kinds of different drugs at different stages in his life. And he voluntarily surrenders to a higher power. And he keeps going back to rehab. Good for him. Cost them the cancellations of the June and July shows. I don't know how long he's going to be there. If he goes for 30 or 60 or 90 days. I don't even know where he goes. I'm not sure. But it's a higher power. And he seeks it out. He surrenders to it.

not as a prisoner, to seek salvation. He wants to be saved. And that's the basis of surrender in recovery, even though sometimes we really don't understand that's what it is, but we have to surrender to that higher power. Not wanting to do that is a huge, huge problem in your recovery. It's a big hindrance in your recovery. There are so many things that can cause you to not want to surrender.

I get hit all the time with the bad case of I got it and dip it into that bucket of mayhem and craziness. I get that. I get anger. I get attacked. I get attacked by my clients, not physically, but verbally. And it's really interesting because they attack me. Hey, man. I'm just here to help you. You can yell at me all you want, but it's not effective because I don't care if you yell at me or not because I know you're insane.

And I don't put much worth in somebody who's insane in their thought process, so I don't get damaged by it emotionally. It's just part of the deal. But they'll lash out at their loved ones. They'll lash out at anybody around them. Ultimately, they can lash out at themselves and start self-harming. But the idea that you can... Feel free and safe around a higher power is scary. It's very scary. And I know you're scared. I know you're incredibly scared.

However, the life you're living is not going to work long term. It never does. Untreated addicts, they die an addiction related death 100% of the time left untreated. If you keep engaging in treatment, that can be a higher power, and it can be frustrating. It can seem like you're not really getting anywhere, but as long as you engage, yeah. But I also have people that come to me in their addiction, and they seek out treatment, but they want it on their terms.

Now we're right back to control again. You're not really surrendering if you're doing that, are you? Lying to me, lying to your psychiatrist who's giving you psych meds, lying to your general practitioner who's giving you psych meds inappropriately because they shouldn't be doing that, but you found a way to get these things. See, you're in control. Running games, playing games with people and their intentions or what they're trying to help you with, it's all control.

And as an addict, you know what you're doing. You're using all the tools, right? Anger, resentment, manipulation, gaslighting, nondisclosure, escape, running away, hiding, all the bluffs. And wow, addicts, you're really good at it. You're really good at it. People in your family, they fall for it because you've manipulated them in ways that are masterful. You've turned your family members many times into enablers. You did that as an addict.

They became an enabler because you kept crying wolf or chicken little running around. Oh, help me, help me. And sometimes it's even help me, help me get sober. Help me, help me get clean. And you are not wanting or desiring it. You're just saying it to shut them up. But it also spurs them into action, doesn't it? When you say, help me, the person who wants to help you, they start acting.

Now you can run the game on them because they're running around trying to figure out how to help you, and then you run away. Or you feign extreme recovery. Oh, you've helped me. No, they haven't. You're lying because you're still using it. I get that in here all the time. Somebody will come in and they'll tell me how great they're doing. I know they're not doing great. And I call them out on it. No, no, no, I'm good. No, you're not. And they just keep that story up.

And then finally they'll come in because they ended up overdosing in the hospital. Then I'm like, what happened? They're like, well, I wasn't really being truthful with you. I said, oh, no, you weren't. Well, what happened? Well, I was actually using the whole time. Oh. Wow. Huh. Imagine that. Like I didn't know it. I'm like, yeah, I knew. And a lot of times they look at me and they're like, well, why didn't you say something? You wouldn't have listened.

You would just keep running that same game. I need you to fall down a few times to realize, hey, I'm here. I'm not running away. I'm not going to be manipulated. I'm not going to fall for your games and the lies and all the deception. But I'm here. And even though you fell down, I didn't react like everybody else did. See, because that's what somebody in recovery would experience with their family members or loved ones. You know as soon as you do that, then they just get all upset.

Oh my God, it spurs them into action again. Now they're back on the recovery thing again. See, when you've got people around you who are in recovery, your sponsor, the recovery community, a therapist, they're not falling for that. They're not falling for it at all. They're going to let you fall. They're going to make sure you stay alive, but they're going to let you fall because you need to. Because you think you're in control. And your amount of control is actually going to get you injured.

And you're going to overdose or you're going to get in a car accident or you're going to end up with a DWI. Or you're going to get fired or something. Well, we've got to let you do it. Because you need to experience that loss before you actually realize you need help. So the recovery part really hinges on this idea of higher power, turning yourself over to a process of surrendering. And that higher power, you know, God is a higher power that is really difficult to argue with.

But I know a lot of atheists and agnostics really don't want to go there. Okay, so then they stay away from the recovery community because it's all full of people that are all just this God talk. It's like, well, ignore the God talk then. Just listen to your sponsor. Just would you get in the meeting? For God's sake. Oh, that was a pun. So just get into a meeting. Get in the community. Let that be your higher power. You know, whatever. I'd prefer that you didn't go into it that way.

I'd prefer you go into it with God as a higher power. But hey, if you got to go into it with the concept of higher power and it's going to be something greater than you, right? You are going to have to give up control. And if you can't give up control, then you're certainly not going to get clean and sober. It's not going to happen. You can't, in your own head, you can't say, oh, okay, I know I need to get clean. I know I need to get sober. And I'm going to just do it.

And it's going to be something that is achieved because of my willpower, my intelligence, my capability of reasoning through this. And that's not going to happen. It is not going to happen because when you find yourself in that place, what happens is you are your higher power. I refer to that as somebody trying to be their own Jesus. You can't be your own Jesus. It's just not going to happen. You can't. There's nowhere that that's going to go. There's nowhere for it to go.

It's you are yourself and you are your Savior. You don't save yourself in addiction. You don't, you have to reach out for help. So there's a simple analogy I have for this and it is the following. And this is a doc Jacques original. When I think of what happens in surrender is that you're looking down a hole and that's your addiction and that's your trauma. That's the horribleness of your life. And you're looking down that hole, and it's dark. You can't see the bottom.

In the movies, they crack open the glow sticks, and they drop them down, and then it hits the bottom, and then, oh, there's the bottom. So you know how deep it is. Well, this one, you drop those glow sticks down, and they just keep going. Until finally the light's not, it's so far away, you're not able to even, it doesn't even carry up to where you are. So that's how deep that hole is, how dark it is. And there's a voice going, you have to go into this hole to get what you want.

And that's, you know, that would be recovery, right? So you have to get into this hole. And there's a rope hanging off the edge. So, you know, the voice instructs you to grab the rope and climb down. And you say, but I can't. It's too dark. I have to stay up here. I'm in control. So finally you just decide, okay, you know what? I'm just going to grab that rope and I'm going to climb down. It can't be that far. And the voice is saying, good. That's good. Keep doing that.

And you start down that hole. Pretty soon, you look up as you've been easing your way down that hole. And you look up and you realize you can't see up and you can't see down. And you're just surrounded by pitch black. And all you hear is this voice saying, trust me. I can help you. Trust me. Trust my words. Just keep climbing down. And you get down, and you keep going and going and going and going and going. And the voice is still trying to help you and guide you.

And you're just going on faith at that point. Like, okay, I'm going to go. Okay, but then you start to lose that belief. After a while, you haven't touched bottom, and you just keep climbing. And then the rope starts getting smaller in diameter. And you're thinking, what is this? And you get down and you're struggling and fighting because the rope's getting thinner and thinner and thinner as you're going. And the voice just keeps saying, it's okay. Trust in me. I can help you. I will save you.

Believe in me. And you just don't want to do it. You just want to be in control. So you're climbing down, you're climbing down, you're climbing down and it's getting dark and it's getting scary and the rope is getting thinner and thinner until finally it's like the size of a thread. It's just enough for you to hang on to and then you get to the end. You get to the end of that and you've climbed so far there's no way you're going to climb back up. You're not going to be able to do it.

And the voice is right there next to you at this point. It's right there and it's telling you just let go. And that's the scariest moment of all, right? The ultimate in surrender. Just let go. You'll be fine. Oh, no. Uh-uh. No. No. I will fall to my death. That's what you're thinking. I will fall to my death. And the voice keeps saying, no, trust in me. I wouldn't let you do that. You'll be okay. You just have to let go. And you will be saved.

And finally your strength is giving out and you're hanging on and you're hanging on in that little thread. It's just not enough for your grip anymore. You're so tired, just so tired of hanging on. And you finally out of desperation, you just let go and you're convinced that you're going to plummet to your death. And you let go and you drop about a foot and you land on solid ground. And as soon as you land on solid ground, the light comes up enough to see. There's where the voice was coming from.

And it was correct. It didn't let you fail. It didn't let you drown. It didn't let you die. But see, that idea that you can trust in me, it really wasn't voluntary. And that's the thing is, sometimes we get to a point where it's not voluntary. It's involuntary. We just can't hold on anymore. I give up. I give up, right?

I just made you believe the truth. And the truth was, if you just relied on me to begin with to guide you to a better place, now you can live your life because you're at that better place. And that is the struggle I have with people all the time that I'm trying to help myself in recovery as a clinician. They do not want to surrender over to any kind of higher power. They think they're going to figure it out themselves.

But all they end up doing is just running around at the top, staring at the hole once in a while, thinking, hey, maybe there's something in here that's going to make it better. And the thing that's going to make it better is if you just stop trying to figure it out yourself because you can't do it. And so step one, my life has become unmanageable. I'm living in utter chaos. I need to change. That's step one. Step two, came to realize that you had to rely on a higher power to help you.

That's sort of what we're talking about. And then step three, surrendering to that higher power to bring you back to sanity. So can you get there? Yes. Can you get there on your own? Absolutely not. You're not going to do it. I find inspiration in stories like Steven Tyler's. Other people I tell that to, they think, why can't he get it together? For me, he did get it together. He got it together enough where he actually wants to live. He's 74. He's figured that out.

And he's been dealing with drug addiction and drug abuse his entire career since the 70s when he was in Boston. His entire career. Oh, that's a failure. Look, he keeps going to rehab. Yeah, that's the point. He keeps going to rehab. He keeps surrendering to the higher power. I find inspiration in that. No matter how bad it is, no matter how bad things seem to be, you can actually get to the place where you have a reliable higher power that helps you and helps you want to recover.

So let's aim for that, brothers and sisters. Let's find the higher power and stop with the fighting. Because that control and that fighting is just you and your addiction. Now, if we go back to my running theme and my firm belief that addiction is the problem, you are not the problem. You are the victim of the problem. You are being attacked by addiction. And all the loved ones around you are being attacked by addiction as well.

And what addiction does is it convinces your loved ones that you're the problem. So now the enemy of my enemy becomes my friend. So addiction just sits back, sets you on a course of destruction. pits you against your loved ones. The loved ones then get fed this information where they believe that they have to fight with you. So now, bingo bango, you and your loved ones are battling and fighting with each other and addiction doesn't have to do anything because it's already won.

And I say don't let addiction win. So if you need to understand surrender, surrender is the act of letting go but in safety. Well, that's it for this podcast edition of Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard.

want to thank you for listening today and I hope that you can get into recovery and surrender to recovery because you know what life is worth living and I'm here to tell you a life that is lived in a sane stable and sober is so much more satisfying than being a slave to your addiction because your addiction is going to kill you but before it does it's going to strip away everything you have then it will kill you and that's just not the way that I want to go and I don't think you do either So

listen again for another addiction of Doc Shock, your addiction lifeguard. If you've got questions for me, reach me at my website, wellspringmindbody.com, and I'll catch you on the next podcast. Thanks for listening.