Ep 21: The Addiction Continuum and Finding Wellness with Belinda Terro Mooney

I'm a wife , mom and a joy-filled Catholic , and I am the Catholic Subriety Coach , and I am so glad you're here . Hello everybody , thank you for joining me once again . I have a wonderful guest today . Her name is Belinda Taromuni , and Belinda is a mom , a widow , a secular carmelite and the author of a few books .

One of them is Christ the King , lord of History , the continuing story with Anne Carroll . Another is my Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Workbook , creating a comprehensive plan for a calm , ordered life , catholic edition . And she is currently working on another book with a working title of Praying with the Saints on their Feast Days .

Belinda is licensed in social work and addictions and she teaches at Longstar College . You can find out more about Belinda , her books and her work at TLCwellnessInstitutecom . Thank you so much for being here , belinda . Bye , good to be here , kristy .

So before we get into some of the questions that I have for you , would you mind sharing a little bit of how you got interested in the work that you do in the field of addiction recovery and you know teaching others to do the same .

And the second day on the job my supervisor looked at me and she said Miss Looney , I want you to do a substance abuse program . So I was already a social worker with a caseload and I was going to do a substance abuse program .

At that point in time , kristy , they weren't teaching us in schools of social work what addiction was , or we really didn't get any training at all when I was going into school . And so we give them a lot now , but we didn't when I was in school .

So I started with a person who came to help me from AA and he and I started this whole massive thing where we'd have groups for the guys , we bring in in a , we bring in AA , we bring in staff trainings for the staff , and , oh my gosh , it was a very overall and far reaching program and it ended up where five of the guys in the prison actually got out

and went to a treatment center . But coming back to your point , I was sitting in . Well , first of all , I knew I didn't know anything , so I begged two weeks free training at a center , an addiction center close to where we lived , in Bat Rouge . At the time .

I was living now in the Woodlands in Texas , but at that point in time I was living in Bat Rouge , and so I went and got training for a few weeks in an inpatient program , all facets , from assessment all the way to after care and everything in between .

And then I came back and I started this , this program , and I had said that I would never work with alcoholics and addicts . I had a few uncles that were addicted to alcohol and I didn't like the way it looked and I didn't like the way they treated us . So I thought , no , that's just not who I want to work with .

Well , the second day on the job , when the supervisor says you're going to run the program , I'm like , okay , god , what are you doing here ? What is going on ? Because I just didn't want to do that . So again , I went and got training .

I came back and one day , when I was putting on a training for the all the staff we're doing , we're viewing a movie about an alcoholic family . My parents didn't drink at all , but I knew that that was my family , absolutely . My mother was addicted to prescription drugs .

She's now passed away , but so , but she , she was addicted to prescription drugs after years of migraine headaches and I think depression and just the meds they were using then were a message you could become addicted to In any way . I'm not trying to blame anybody , I'm just saying she became addicted .

And then from there I went to an adolescent facility in Atlanta . That was more long term for dual disorders Now we call them coexisting disorders of chemical dependency and a mental illness . And , and about the time I was ending up that job I was listening to what my the children were saying . My parents were never there and I was realizing I'm never there .

I was on a beeper . I was working such long hours , I was being called in the middle of the night , like it was . It was really difficult . And my oldest son had some special needs and was asking me to homeschool him .

So after 10 years postmaster , of all this stuff where I'm writing , teaching at Georgia State and old forp , I'm going here there and yonder around the country giving talks to , you know , to professionals .

I'm actually at the end doing my own training Institute for other professionals to learn it I gave it all up and I will let me go back to learn about , in particular , addiction . so I did some ethics courses and stuff , but these professionals who were licensed would come to me to learn about addictions because I knew that the schools weren't catching up yet .

So for the last 28 years , just until June of this year , 2023 , I've done homeschooling with all my seven children .

I went from that to this and then the last part of this I have , since I had to start earning my own living , I have been teaching at Lone Store and the help of Bill Montavie College develop their first addictions course of they're going to be doing services bachelors . So anyway , I was working with them on that .

So now I teach and I'm writing and just enjoying trying to help people through means , whatever means you and other people have for me . I'm just trying to serve where I can . So that's kind of how I came to this .

So today , so most of my audience is going to be either women in recovery who are looking just to kind of clean up the mental mess , maintain sobriety , avoid relapse , or their women who are just noticing that they're having a problem with their drinking . Or maybe it's not a problem yet but it they're noticing it might be becoming a bit of a problem .

So I'm hoping that you can share some maybe common signs that might indicate that a woman does have a problem with alcohol and I know that can look different for different people , but I'm sure there are some markers . And then could you also address maybe what crossing the line into addiction would look like , just so that they kind of have the scope of that .

If you're going to go , so you're going to go left to right . I'm looking at my right in my right hand that you're going to write and this is the time you first use , and this is death .

Well , the reason it's death is because if a person becomes addicted and they keep using , over time they will die of their addiction in some way , shape or form , whether it's a liver problem with alcohol or it's an accident that they got into because they were high or you know .

So whatever , like there's just so many ways to die when you're addicted and I know that the people who are in recovery , who are listening , understand this and probably everybody has at least someone that they know of that has died from addiction .

So you start at the first use and at some point in time you are drinking more than , say , one or two drinks a night , maybe three over the long afternoon , and you're getting high , drunk or stoned . That phase then becomes where you are abusing the chemical and so you're saying , oh my gosh , well , everybody gets high or drunk . Why do you ?

Even in this society , some people think , like , well , why do you even drink if you're not going to get drunk at least ? Especially people who are in fraternities and things like that , like , so there's a lot of pressure to drink more than what you need to drink .

But the thing that starts delineating that there's a problem is when you're starting to see signs in your life areas . Usually it will start with your you seeming to feel uneasy that something's not right and your family making a comment I think you're starting to drink too much .

Now I want to stop and pause for a second and tell you that there's a huge denial system with addictions where we don't who wants to be addicted . Nobody said , well , I'm just going to become an alcoholic . Nobody wants to have that in their life . But slowly it happened and so there's a huge denial system around it .

Number one because there's a lot of shame , which hopefully we will dispel some of that today . And the second thing is because they don't want to give up this primary relationship to the chemical , whether it's alcohol or another prescription drug or other drugs that they have .

So if you are doing , if you are using a chemical and you start to feel uneasy sometimes about how you're using , or you just don't feel like you're totally in control of yourself when you're using , you can't always stop . When you say you're going to stop , or your husband or your child , some your mother , someone says that they are concerned with your drinking .

You have to take it seriously and you have to say , okay , I know I have a denial system , but I know I need to take this seriously because people don't want to say we have a problem . They're afraid of what it's going to make us think and it's uncomfortable for people .

So if you are someone else saying that , then that's something you need to pay attention to . Okay , so family and marital social You're going to go into , whether you do clubs or recreational things You're I'm thinking about your physical like you may just not be taking care of yourself well anymore has to get as a good .

Further along , you start to have legal problems if you get a DUI or then you may have other I'm trying to think other physical problems . Like your doctor may be saying you know your liver enzymes or elevated , or you know starting to look like your liver is enlarged .

There's a great movie called my Name is Bill W and Bill W is the founder of AA and the movie , that movie and when Love Is Not Enough , help you to see what this looks like as it goes along . And yes , his was a severe case . Like he , he really hit a low , what I call a low bottom . He lost everything . They even lost their home and he lost jobs .

And I'll just tell you one thing is whenever I used to do the assessments for people professional assessments to help help understand if there was an addiction or it was just abuse still , what I would , what I would say to the person , is , if your job is not affected , that doesn't necessarily mean that you are not addicted , because the job is usually the last

thing , because most people don't want to steal for the money to buy their , their drinks or their drugs . Right , they don't want to .

So it's it's not always that you can just say , well , I don't do this or I don't do that , or or , like you said earlier , I don't look like them , but the life areas will start to all be affected and they will get worse and worse . Like now , it's not just your husband saying that he thinks you drink too much .

Your mom or your dad or your friend , your best friend or whatever , like other people , will start to say things and and it just continues to get worse . You feel worse and worse and worse about yourself and how you've tried to do . You know , try to do this , stop this , and can't stop it .

And then there's something called tolerance that helps us to know whether or not the person has crossed the line .

And if you think about the the feeling that you get that the chemical produces in your brain of a high , and maybe , maybe it was taking you three or four drinks to get that high and now you're up to five or six drinks to get that same high , that's called an increase in tolerance .

Okay , and then , as you keep drinking , there are people maybe not everybody , so I'm not saying that everybody has this but some people will say , oh well , it doesn't take me . You know , I don't even drink that much anymore . I used to drink a six pack every night and now I'm drinking two beers and it's I'm fine .

Okay , but when you drink the two beers , do you get the same highs ? When you were drinking the 12 ? Yeah , and then you have what's called a decrease in tolerance and that your body has acclimated to the chemical .

So when you're understanding all this , when you get to the point where you have an increase or decrease in tolerance okay , so we were moving along the continuum , starting to have all the problems in the life areas keep going , keep going . Now we have an increase or decrease in tolerance . Maybe the person has had blackouts .

Blackouts is usually a sign that that you've crossed over into addiction . So when you have all these things put together and you meet the criteria , that's in the DSM , that's when people say the diagnostic and statistical manual we're on number five now . But that's when people say that you have a problem with an alcohol or other addiction .

So that's kind of what it looks like to cross the line . Now I know we were talking earlier about what . What is the continuum of care then , and how do you stop before you cross the line ? Well , all right . The first thing I would say about that is , if you don't know if you've crossed the line or not , then stop altogether .

Don't drink anymore , because it's obviously , especially if you have any type , if you can look in your family , you have any type of a family history . That is playing Russian roulette .

That's why I stopped drinking , even though I hadn't started abusing the chemical yet , because what I learned about addiction was I can start and say , well , I'll never get all your drunk or stoned , I'll never do that .

But I don't absolutely know that I won't , because it's such a , it's such a factor in my family history that I'm not going to take that chance .

So I would recommend that you stop , maybe go to some AA meetings , for especially I recommend , if you're , if you've never been to AA before , find some good women's AA meetings in the area that you're in , because sometimes when people come into recovery especially men they're still a little on the rough side . They're the language is rough , they're .

They may not be the kind of people that you would normally hang with and then all of that will put you off and make you think , well , I just don't want to go there .

But if you're in a group with women , and especially if you've been abused in any way by a man before , it's a safe group and they will help you to understand whether or not this is something that you really , yeah , have a problem with , or you stopped short of it , or whatever . So that would be a good place to go .

Now , if you've been sober that's what you call it If you haven't drank for three months and then you go back to drinking , or six months and then you go back to drinking , well , you may have a problem because you can't stay stopped . Oh well , I didn't want to stop anyway .

I just wanted to stop for three months and just kind of get everything back in order , okay . Well , what I'm going to tell you is that the likelihood is very high that is going to go back to the same things that happened to you before , except this time it's going to go back in a faster fashion .

It's like when people who are actually addicted and in recovery , when they rehabs , it doesn't take as long for all the problems and everything to just start hitting them again . It just like , oh my gosh , I just went straight down the tube and it just is horrible .

It's a horrible feeling and it's horrible to watch it for people because they're really trying hard to live their life the way they feel like they're supposed to be living their life within their value system and with God and with their neighbor and all that .

So did you want to get into the continuum of care like when and how to get help if you ?

Maybe they're not , maybe they're past the point of coaching because they have . They first have to deal with trauma and some other things underlying things that are contributing to their drinking . Yeah , so I guess maybe when and how should they seek professional help for any alcohol-related concerns ?

It's EMDR therapy and it's a specific therapy for trauma where you actually process things and you can go from like an eight or a nine in the feeling of anxiety or whatever feeling brought up from this incident in your life or whatever , down to a two or a three , and I'm living proof of that because I've done my own trauma work . It's absolutely phenomenal .

I couldn't be , I just couldn't be functioning the way I am right now if I had not had it . So you can go and seek help at the same time that you're going , to say , a woman's AA group , so that you can kind of see what's going on and listen , because what they share in AA is the experience , strength and hope and so .

But they also tell some of their stories without going into . Can you hear me ?

But if they have LCDC , they're trained to do the assessments and they can help you . So if you start to see that you are increasing intolerance or decreasing intolerance , then you would need to or you or you're having blackouts , then you need to go see somebody and get an assessment done right away .

I wouldn't keep waiting because those are prod signs and you're you . You may , you may end up having an emergency situation where you've overdosed or something has happened with you . So don't don't wait .

If you can't stop and you think these symptoms or these symptoms we call them , or or signs are there , just go and get an evaluation , because what they're going to do is they're going to help you see where you are on that continuum and what you need to do .

So the programs , the 12 step programs , can help you in staying sober and the professionals can help you in trying to accelerate that if AA by itself is not working .

So , as I'm sure a lot of you are recovering people in in , you know , on the podcast can testify to , because we start off by maybe they have gone to treatment first and then the treatment program recommended AA or NA , and so then they go there for support and then they're in after care , after the program along with it .

So there's this whole continuum of care and maybe some of your folks have heard of how you do with mental health . You may go to a , an individual therapist , you may go to group therapy , you may go then to a family or marital therapy , but in all these that's all what we call outpatient . And then you can do something called a partial hospitalization .

Those are programs that run most of the day , many hours , but you go home at night and then there's all the way to gosh I'm having withdrawals and I need to be in a hospital for them to monitor this , or my situation is so dangerous for me and the way I'm using or what I'm using that I need to be in a hospital and that's called inpatient .

So you know you have all these different levels that when you get an assessment they can assess where you could potentially get help , depending on what they're seeing and what they would recommend .

And one of the things I would greatly encourage people to think about is that If you have addiction in your family line your partner or spouse has it in their family line this is a high risk factor for your children . So when you stop drinking and you feel like , oh , it's the end of the world , I don't want to admit I have a problem .

I don't want to admit that I you know that I can't drink anymore and all this stuff .

I want you to remember one thing is that you are going to become now a protective factor for your children because you are going to be breaking a chain , breaking a cycle and breaking the genetic propensity for them , because you're going to be in , if not recovery recovery because you quote , had a problem .

You'll be in recovery from just whatever depression , grief , loss , trauma , whatever else you had . You'll be in some kind of a recovery program that will help you to get more balance in your life and help , and you won't be using alcohol in the way that you used it ever again because you won't be drinking . So I can't .

I don't know how to explain it , except to tell you that you know there's every once in a while the thought will come through my mind well , I never , ever had a problem . You know , I didn't even drink too much . You know , like do I ?

Can I just enjoy a glass of wine every once in a while with a meal , but I'm still not willing to go back and take the chance again , because when I made that decision .

It was a good one and so I'm sticking to it , even if I never had a problem at all and never had any consequences whatsoever , because I never got drunk , you know it's like so , okay , I , I'm going to do what I'm doing now .

And actually , for those of us who stopped drinking , there's something called the Pioneer Total Abstinence Association and that is an association for Catholics , I guess , so that people could join . But you're actually making reparation for those people who cannot stop drinking and are in in temperate , and God will then give them grace by your sacrifice to stop drinking .

So , who knows , maybe some of you are gaining the benefit of all the years I've been in this association , but it's been a long time and I've been praying for you a long , long , long time , and I'm still praying for everybody who is addicted or has addiction in their family in any kind of way , or mental health issues , because mental health is a whole you

know , oh , it's just a whole painful thing by itself . So , yeah , so now , having said that , were there any questions that you were thinking people might have on those three , on those few things that we've been talking about before we get into the effective strategies to maintain ?

only thing . Other thing I wanted to mention , and we've talked about before , is the group Catholic in recovery .

So for my Catholic audience members , which I'm told is a , it's like not in place of AA , but it's done in addition to AA , and it wasn't around when I did , when I was in AA , and I wish that it would have been , because it would have been so wonderful to fellowship with other Catholic women and or Catholics in general , and they , I know that they do have

I'll leave a link in the show notes too , but I know that they do have in person meetings and they also have virtual meetings and they work with people with any type of disordered attachment and families .

So , yeah , catholic in recovery is new and it's helpful , because in AA they don't want to talk about God as in Jesus or the Catholic God , because it could put people off as they're coming back into recovery Many times , depending on how far again along that continuum you are .

I forgot to mention that one of the life areas it gives very terribly affected is your spiritual life . So I put that at the beginning in my therapeutic lifestyle changes workbook that this is something you need to start working on right away . It's like as if the relationship to the chemical has become more important than the relationship to God or anybody else .

And who would do that on purpose ? So , but that's how it became because , at least at the beginning , you always got a good , high feeling out of what you were doing with the chemical . Right out of that relationship it was like , um , yeah , so it was positive . Until then it wasn't , and right . Problems are here and and I'm a mess kind of thing .

So so Catholic in recovery can help you to bridge between talking about God . Sometimes people use the phrase higher power . Um , I just wanted to say this so that people can understand . It's not that the LW or Dr Bob didn't believe in God .

God , they believed in God , but they didn't want to alienate anybody because even when they were drunk , they didn't want people coming at him with God because again , they were alienated from God and everybody was preaching God at him . They would go the opposite direction as fast as they could . So they don't want to turn to a meeting .

People start talking about Catholic faith . Well , maybe they're . Maybe their dad was a , was a really rageful alcoholic and he was Catholic . And now they have all these problems with the church and the first thing they hit a with is Catholicism and so they're gonna oh , I'm not , I don't belong here because I'm not ready to give that SOB .

I mean they , you see what I'm saying . Yes , a lot of my clients started out . I mean they would tell me over and over and over you know , I started drinking and I was going to show him what it was like to drink properly . And now here I am .

It's just so much grief , you know like , because again , they didn't understand the genetic propensity and all the life factors . And this is what it does to witness how people cope with alcohol or whatever .

That's why if you stop using , if you think you're becoming addicted , your children never see that again and they only see you in recovery and you are going to be a protective factor . Okay , so having Catholic and recovery is new . And also pH of fitness .

So for people who need exercise and an intense stretching , which is a really great way to to come , it's a really great thing to combine with meditation . But without all the Buddhist elements of the yoga postures , you can do pH of fitness . It's , it's totally Christian . Even if you're not Catholic , I don't think you would object to pH of fitness .

So it's like it's . It's for Christians and people who are leaning toward Christian philosophy and and and it prevents you from being in positions of of . So this is not you and I are not talking today about why Christians shouldn't do yoga , so I don't mean .

But if you watch the pH of fitness documentary , at the beginning , you'll learn all about this and about how even the postures have to do with the religion . So even if they're not talking religion , the way you're placing your hands has something to do and those spirits are there .

So I just want to put that out and just say pH of fitness is a way to get all that stretching in and it's beautiful and it's safe for Christians . So the other thought I had for people who are trying to maintain recovery and take care of themselves is the .

So we've covered AA in a Alenon Noranon , which I haven't covered yet Noranon , alenon adult children of alcoholics , and then Allantine for children . So if you are in recovery and you've never had your kids go to Allantine but they were old enough to experience your drinking , they would benefit from it because , just like you , working the steps is helpful to you .

The children work the steps in Allantine and they have a safe place to share some of the characteristics that they have started to pick up because they were perhaps taking too much responsibility in the home . That's a whole other podcast about how it affects children . But then we talked about EMDR , some kind of trauma therapy , and that to me is the best one .

And then there's a book that Dr Burns David Burns wrote called Feeling Good , the New Moved Therapy and I recommend it to people because it's a way to do cognitive therapy with yourself . So while you're doing the trauma therapy , all these thoughts are coming up and you're seeing the thoughts and what you picked up and you can go back home . And you can .

If you took a sheet of paper and you wrote down a diagram like I'm going to , I don't know how well you'd be able to see it , but a thought leads to a feeling leads to an action or inaction , and that can help you kind of set out . I don't know if you can see this . Here Is it okay .

So if you put I'm no good , that makes you feel discouraged , hopeless , and then you either freeze or you don't do what you're going to do , you don't apply for the job , whereas if you say I am the child of God , then you feel encouraged , hopeful , you feel out the application because you think you're worth it . Do you see ?

That's just one little tiny example of how the negative thoughts can get to us . So that's what's like . And then I wrote a book called my Therapeutic Lifestyle Changes Workbook , creating a Comprehensive Plan for a Calm , ordered Life . And this one is a workbook where the first three chapters I have not written the Catholic edition yet .

That's something that's in the works as soon as this other Saint book finishes . But this one is out and it's totally fine because the Catholic edition will be based on this and with just some different specific examples for Catholics in a certain of the goal areas . So it's not like if you buy this one it's a bad book or something it's for anybody .

So the first three chapters talk about all the therapeutic lifestyle changes and those are neuroscience based research based to help people .

So I start with spirituality because , like I said , I think that spiritual enhancement is critical for people who are in any type of recovery , whether it's from mental illness , addictions , being a family member of those people who have those diagnoses , or you just had a lot of trauma in your life and whatever spiritual enhancement .

Then relationships and support group relationships come under that your family , your social relationships . And then I have a topic called our TLC , called service , another one called cultural identity . See , these are all the wellness areas , but usually you think of wellness , you think of diet and exercise , and that's when they stop .

No , no , when you put them all together and you make a comprehensive plan of what you want to do for your life , that's when you're going to get help .

And it's been proven by research that if a person has a clinical depression and they work all these areas I'm going to continue with the areas in just a second but they might not have to even take an anti-depressant . That's how good these things are . That's all a thing .

So the next one is exercise , and that can be aerobic exercise , that can be the strength training like with PHF fitness , and that can be other type of things like dance or ballet , things that you wouldn't normally think . Okay , I'm doing that for exercise , but instead of doing something that you hate , where you're not going to do it .

Do what you love and do it . I don't care if you just put on music and dance around the house for 20 minutes , that's wonderful exercise . And if you're going to do it , then do that . As long as you do at least 20 minutes three times a week , you're going to see some health benefits .

And then , for me , I exercise every day , every day that I possibly can , that I can do it Because it releases so much stress . And a long time ago , when I had a lot of stress in my life and tremendous amount of stress , my doctor told me but you have to exercise every day just to get the stress out . So that's what I do and I do what I can .

I love

swimming . Swimming is very , very good , and all exercise is good for your brain as well as your body . So if you've had trauma or you have had depression or you use drugs , your brain has to clear of a lot of things . Your brain has to start functioning again .

So exercise is not just good for your body , because the reason I'm saying this is because I don't know if anybody listening is like me , but I couldn't make myself do exercise just from my body . I could do it when I knew my brain had been compromised because of trauma .

I could then exercise because I knew that my poor , poor , poor , tired , pitiful brain , all this giftedness and intelligence that God has given me , is just like oh , you know , it's just I need something to boost that . And so I started exercising and and it has really helped . Okay so exercises critical it also .

It also will help you , help your immune system , so that the way it's explained to me by a doctor that I had was that when you exercise for four hours after you exercise , your immune system takes a little hit . So you think , well then , why would exercise ? Wait for the rest of it ? And after that it goes and it's like as if you get a booster shot .

So imagine if you , every 24 hours , you're exercising some form of fashion I don't care , as long as you do it and your body is , is , it just takes us . It's probably going to take a smaller and smaller hit after you exercise because it'll get committed and then it'll always be boosting your immune system and it'll be continuously healing your brain .

Then , with sleep , which is the next part , a lot of times you can prevent Alzheimer's and other things by the way you sleep and do the rest of these TLCs . So it's not just preventing a possible addiction if you're not there yet , or preventing a relapse if you are in addiction .

It's also that this will give you help in the future not to become , not to have Alzheimer's , or if you do , you might have it 10 years later . So let's say , I'm 70 years old and I don't get Alzheimer's until 80 and I died at 78 , like I never got it . Do you see what I'm saying ? So we're doing prevention here . It's a lot of prevention , okay .

So what have we covered ? We've covered spiritual relationships , service , cultural identity , exercise , sleep . We've covered . Now we're going to cover nutrition , and that can be food or hydration .

It's extremely important for your brain to do hydration , to keep , keep your body hydrated , and they will tell you in the army you can go without food , but you cannot go without water . So that's why they wear those facts on their back everywhere they go , the hydration packs . So I talk about it in the workbook , about how to keep hydrated . And then health .

Okay , well , what does that mean ? So I have physical and mental health , and under that I'm covering things like under physical , especially for women . I don't know about all of you all , but before I got into recovery I was notorious about making all the appointments for everybody in my family except for myself .

I cannot tell you how much prevention is done just by getting a yearly physical and a yearly gynecological exam with a mammogram . And if we're not taking care of ourselves and committing to ourselves that we are worth and our children are worth having us there for the long term , then we're going to let that slide .

So I'm not talking here about physical like with exercise and nutrition . We've already covered those areas . I'm talking about physical like making yearly exams , making dental exams , making all these other exams that have to do with your physical body and doing those things .

And then under mental and emotional health , I'm talking about scheduling appointments to see what nutrition is , eating disorder specialist , if you think you might be coming up with that . A trauma specialist on doing journaling .

I'm talking about a lot of different things that you can do under human health reading the cognitive therapy things and trying to do a thought replacement , where you're thinking about positive thoughts . So that's all the health physical , mental and then we have work , finances .

Look at all the different areas that most people don't ever like put all together and make a plan about . We just do a few of them , right . And finances , and people who are in recovery sometimes have a lot of problems in this area . So you have to make a plan of how you're going to get the finances back in order .

And then I talk about brain work , whether it's neurobics , where you're doing crossword puzzles or chess or Sudoku or whatever . I talk about higher education because that in itself is just a way to work your brain .

But if you , if you don't do anything else , a very quick tip is next to your rock and chair or your scouts or your lounger or whatever you do when you watch movies at home , just put a little book of crossword puzzles or word finds or whatever , and and just do that .

Or coloring book , because that , that rhythmic motion of the coloring book is very good for your brain . To that can come into creativity as well . In the next area , but for right now , you can just sit and do brain work while you're watching a movie . I do word finds all the time .

So then the next area is creativity , and I go into all the different things Because a lot of people think , well , I'm not good at drawing , or I'm not good at play , I don't play an instrument and I'm like oh well , that doesn't mean you're not creative . You're totally everybody's creative .

It's just in what way you are that you have to discover and so talk about . Maybe you love doing things with your house and and making things look better . You might like painting or decorating your home , or you may like doing hair . Maybe you cut people's hair or brain people's hair . That's all artistic and you just never thought about it in that way .

So if we can get creativity in , will you think of do yourself ? Oh , I'm overwhelmed just listening to you . Yes , you can go that way if you haven't planned anything in any of any of your areas .

So we start with the top one . What is the one thing in your life that , if you put right , all the other areas would get better ?

And I haven't mentioned the last one , and that's the self-discipline , the screen time , the alcohol and the drugs , the smoking , the , any other addictions that you may have , especially if it's something that rewires your brain , like pornography , like all those things . What's the one area of all these things that , if I put right , everything would get better ?

In my classes , when I do this because this workbook I developed for my students that's how I developed this workbook I would give them the fourth chapter , which is where you actually I'll show you here actually start writing your physical I mean your spiritual area , and then you go from one to the next as you go through the chapter .

If you can see it , I would give them a modified version of that and , excuse me , I think I hit something and turned off my video . Okay , there you are Modified version of that . And then I'd tell them what to do and then by the time they got home to their computer , they were like well , now , what did professors say about that ?

And they couldn't remember . Well , I'm an author , why don't I just write it ? And so that's how . The first three chapters . Then , when they got , they read the chapters and they got to chapter four , they could turn to chapter three with the most specific . So in chapter three , like in exercise , I give you an example of a first try .

Would it be like for someone who says well , I used to walk three days a week and I want to start walking again and add trampoline work ? Well , something better than that was . I'll walk up and downstairs at school and in my apartment two days a week and work out on my trampoline three days a week . Well , now the best .

So you see , I'm doing first try better , best the best would be . I will resume exercise . I'll get in 20 minutes' exercise on Monday , wednesday , friday and Saturday from 4 pm by rotating , jumping on the trampoline Monday and Friday , walking up and downstairs Wednesday and Saturday . Look how specific I'm getting .

And I'm showing you how to get specific , because what happens is , whether it's you or my students , they come to me and they say and they say what normally you'd have in first try or better , and then I'm like no , no , no , I need to know when you're committing to yourself to put that in , because right now you don't have a place in your schedule .

So when you're trying to put in your TLCs , you've got your calendar , you've got your understanding of what your life is like , you've got the areas that you need to put back into place in the most like immediate fashion and you kind of going from there and so you start with that area , no matter where that is .

You know the thing , if it's sleep like , most of my students are asleep to prod , so they start with their sleep and the next week , when we come back to class , well , how's your sleep ? Oh , my gosh , I'm so much better . Everything is so much better .

But if I slow down and I'm like , no , I'm just going to focus on sleep , and then that gets better , I'm just going to focus on nutrition next , and that gets better .

So some things that you already have , like let's say , a person who's listening is in AA already and they go to , let's say , two AA meetings a week , or maybe they go to three Everybody differs and varies depending on the length of time they've been in recovery , et cetera but maybe you're going to do , you're going to say , okay , I will go to these two AA

meetings a week and I'll add in a CI , a Catholic and cover a CI , or a Catholic and cover meeting online during the week . Or if you're fortunate enough to have one in your area , then you could go to it because I really enjoyed the one that I'm going to .

So , yeah , and so you can add that in and restructure just a bit , while still maintaining your continuity of what you already have in place . Okay , so let's say you haven't done any stretching , but you're hearing about how it's really going to help you and it's going to help you and flow into your meditation if you do pH or fitness .

Okay , so now I'm going to walk three times a week and do pH or fitness on Saturday afternoon or Sunday evening , whatever , Like . I really love it on Sunday night to try to give you a hot bath once a week and I like to treat myself on Sunday . I do a lot of like while I'm watching movies with my family or whatever .

I might be doing my nails or you know , a lot of the self care isn't just like pampering kind of thing . Self care is really all this stuff we're talking about where these areas of your life are getting more balanced . But that doesn't mean that you have to throw out any pampering things or things that you would normally do , Like grooming or whatever .

It's just that you have them in your system and they're kind of planned and if you already are doing them and it's working , then maybe while you're doing your nails you're meditating on something . Or let me give you an example and I put it in the workbook that one of my students was getting her .

She would drink coffee in the morning while she listened to a book of literature . She loved reading books and she liked the audio books the best , so she put that on and she drink her coffee and she just loved it . Well , those two the literature and the literature was in there , and every once in a while she would get exercise in .

She wasn't walking the dog as much as she was supposed to and she wasn't exercising as much as she was supposed to . So I asked her , I said , and she wanted to meditate , but she never could do it . So I said well , how about this ? Would you consider just swapping things ? You've already got something in place .

When you sit down in the morning with your cup of coffee or I don't drink coffee normally let me just tell you that the caffeine robs your bones of calcium .

So even working out your TLCs is a very creative thing , but this is part of how you can either work on stopping drinking and building your life back before you cross the line or , if you are , if you do consider yourself as a person who's already in recovery and you want to continue to maintain your recovery and you want to just have the best life possible .

These TLCs will help get your brain back and help get your body back into the shape that you want in a very I want to say balanced way , you know in a very balanced way . So , yeah , so we've got some resources with the TLCs , with the Piatra Fitness , the Catholic and Recovery , the EMDR , all the 12 step groups , depending on which one where you fall .

And then books . There's all kind of books that I could recommend . Just have a dimension , one feeling good , but in the back of the , in the back of the book , there's a whole section is called the bibliography and extra reading , and it goes for pages . So so I think you're working on like sleep I did .

I looked up a researcher when I was researching that part and she says that between 1030 and 12 or our optimal times for our brain to recover . I don't I'm not saying that , it's not like I want everybody to go to bed at 1030 , because I just feel like I want to control things she said .

So I'm still one of you , along with everybody else , who is trying to get my sleep habits incorrectly and trying to help my brain . And you know , if I , when you're on central I mean daylight savings time and you switch , it's difficult to understand where you are where's 1030 , but I'm going to try to do what I can eventually to put that in order .

So it's just things like this . I give you resources in the back of the book where you can go and find these things and the website you mentioned at the beginning . T is TLC wellness Institute . Tlc wellness Institute .

It does touch on all those aspects of our lives and , you know , balance is a huge thing that comes up for all of my clients , whether they're in recovery or just looking to drink less or not at all . It's about balance , it's about stress management , it's about finding healthier ways to cope and I love all the information and resources that you gave .

But , again , your workbook , it just it does , it just covers all of those things , because we have to have , you know , we don't have to do it all at once , like we talked about earlier , but just just by piecing it out and figuring out what is the priority and addressing that and I also love because this is what I work on with my clients is like getting

very specific , and I think that's what your good , better , best does , cause it's like oh , I'm gonna . Sometimes I'll say , okay , well , what are you going to do about that ? And then like , oh , I'll journal . I'm like that's great . When can we do that ? Like when would be a great time to do that ?

And then they'll be like , you know , I have like time in the morning after I take the kids to school . I'm like great , like what room do you wanna be in when you do that ? You know what feelings do you wanna have as you're anticipating doing it , you know . So we walk through all of that and they can do that with your workbook .

So I just think that that's so beautiful and I appreciate all of this information , cause I know it is gonna be so , so helpful . Honestly , that TLC workbook is great for anybody , even if you're not struggling with addiction .

Like we all have such busy lives or we think that we do and when we actually can like really focus on each thing and just kind of balance it , it's amazing the amount of time that we find and it's like oh yeah , and we don't feel so hurried and stuff .

I'm an adjunct professor and so my classes are like in addition to my writing , so I'll sit down for 25 minutes and then I'll go put on a load of clothes , then I'll come back for , you know , for Friday and I'll come back on another 25 minutes and then I go load the dishwasher .

And one of my students came and at the beginning of the semester she was struggling so terribly with her laundry she could never keep up because she had . Most of my students at the community college that I teach are working . They have families and they're coming to school , so some of them are working . They're working full-time jobs .

They just wanted to come back to get their LCDC or start toward their bachelors at a , you know , at a place that's less expensive or whatever . Okay , so she had all this stuff going on and she started doing this and she put that as part of her goals . I'm gonna do .

I'm gonna structure my study time to where I can do the Pomodero method and I'm going to work that with my laundry . And at the end of the semester she was all small . I was like , oh , this is amazing , I can't have a problem with laundry anymore . So you know , I just wanted all of you to know that it's not in the program .

We talk about doing the next right thing . It's not like this is all gonna . Okay , I've gotta sit down and then if I don't do all this , I'm gonna start beating myself up . No , you do the first thing that needs to be changed , then you do the next one and then the next one . Eventually , every line area and all the wellness areas are wonderful .

And , yes , what you were saying was so true .

I started writing the book for my class , my students , not to get burned out , because that's what I had done , and I realized as I was writing it oh God is calling me to help a lot more people than just these folks , because anybody who cares about wellness in any way can use the TLC workbook and , as far as I know , there's absolutely nothing else like it

and nobody's even doing most of these areas , even if they're writing about them and not putting away from them . The most I could find was the University of Kansas that did the . I think it was exercise , nutrition and one other thing , and I can't remember right now , like it was only three .

Yes , I know that this is gonna help a lot of people and I try to give it for Christmas . Give it to myself because , yeah , you might even do their TLCs . Yes , For people with a lot of loss or grief , but they have family members who have lost a loved one .

By helping them to formulate their TLCs , that person can , even if they don't feel like doing it , they can do something to take care of themselves . It goes beyond the feeling to know I've committed to myself that I will take care of myself , and this is what I'm doing today . I'm gonna do the next right thing .

He just kind of puts people in our paths at the right time . So you've been a blessing to me . I know you've been a blessing to everybody else , so thank you for being here .

You know I'm here , but I hope that you will work your TLCs , you will get into whatever recovery program that is for you and again , if you cannot , if you're trying to reduce your drinking and you cannot not get drunk , that's a bad sign . That's a warning sign that you need to get help .

You go to AA , go get an evaluation and get some help , because you don't want your children to live through with you what you're gonna be living through . You want the children to live through a good life with you .

Well , that does it for this episode of the Catholic sobriety podcast . I hope you enjoyed this episode and I would invite you to share it with a friend who might also get value from it as well , and make sure you subscribe so you don't miss a thing .

I am the Catholic sobriety coach , and if you would like to learn how to work with me or learn more about the coaching that I offer , visit my website , thecatholicsobrietycoachcom . Follow me on Instagram at theCatholic sobrietycoach . I look forward to speaking to you next time , and remember I am here for you , I am praying for you . You are not alone .