The Sober Experience
Recovery and mental health, spirituality and life. We will be sitting down with people in and out of recovery who have helpful tips and shared experiences to provide better love and understanding on this earth. There will be a wide veriaty of topics discussed and after each interview there will be another reflection episode where I can analyze what we spoke of and what sticks to mind.
The Sober Experience
The Sober Experience: Battling the Chains of Compulsive Behavior
This episode of The Sober Experience starts with an honest chat about the unexpected challenges in my personal journey to consistency, from technical hiccups to the surprising sugar content in my favorite fruits. I also share my recent trip to grab a step working guide from a 12-step program and my growing passion for diving into these questions with you, starting with Step One.
Have you ever wondered how addiction silently influences every corner of your life? We deep-dive into addiction as a persistent disease that transcends just drug use, spilling over into obsessive and compulsive behaviors. With raw personal stories, I tackle the struggle of maintaining integrity and balance, the importance of self-respect, and the complexities of standing up for oneself without falling into aggression. The need for difficult conversations and overcoming the escape patterns created by obsession is also front and center in our discussion.
Ever felt trapped in the cycle of unhealthy habits? From endless political debates on Twitter to the lure of porn, we explore the toll of these behaviors on mental and physical well-being. This chapter emphasizes the necessity of discipline and the emotional and spiritual deterioration that comes from self-sabotage and avoidance. We also touch on the importance of generosity and kindness, and how neglecting these values points to deeper internal conflicts. Finally, I recommit to providing valuable, consistent content for your recovery journey, urging you to join us on YouTube and all podcast platforms as we push forward together. Thank you for your continued support!
Hey, what's up everybody? Welcome back Sober Experience. It's been a couple of weeks. We're doing our thing. I'm sorry for the delay.
Speaker 1:Shout out to my cousin, selena, who gave me a little nudge. It's like, hey, it's been three weeks since you dropped something, so make sure you get after it. I was like, all right, you got it, you got it, you got it. I've just been really, yeah, I've been a little bit overwhelmed. It's okay, I still I'm going to work on my consistency, you know, but and that's it, no excuses. So, going back, let's start the episode off, right? Number one, like and subscribe on all podcast platforms, including our YouTube channel. Like and subscribe on all podcast platforms, including our youtube channel. And, um, yeah, let's do a little bit of, uh, some pete rock love that guy. Yeah, uh-uh, uh-uh, not your head. All right, man, we're back. We hope you guys are doing well. Thank you for all the support. Shout out to all my family and friends who are in the fight.
Speaker 1:In the fight, I've been having these difficulties, oddly enough, with my recording equipment, where it records for a little while and then it'll stop and I won't notice it and I'm like fuck. And then I got to restart it and then when I upload it it gets a little bit fucking crazy, you know. So that just happened. So I'm doubling back to do like the introduction to the show this week, and yeah, I just been, you know, again I've been really busy. I don't, I hate when I have to do this kind of stuff, because normally I just do like one. Take Charlie, I hit the record button, I babble for a little bit and then I come back to reality and then that's it. You know, I just go somewhere else and I just spill it out. But you know, to keep with the continuity, I can't just start an episode in the middle of the show.
Speaker 1:So what was I talking about before I got cut off before was, you know, a couple of weeks ago I was under the weather and I was sick for a couple of days, and what did that do that? You ring that bell. I'm like yo, everything's going out the window. You know, the, the, uh, the discipline, discipline, the diet, the exercise, the, this, the, that, it all just goes away. And I made a funny post about it because I was, you know, I was like I'm eating a sleeve of saltine crackers, one at a time, a whole sleeve, with the super sodium-laced soup, you know, drying me out. Yeah, it's crazy, but I'm over that kind of stuff, and you know. But it's very easy, like I look for reasons to fly off track. You know my disease can't wait, like, oh, you're sick, that means you can't do anything but fuck yourself up even more. You know, and that's what it means. So, whether it's um, dealing with, uh, you know, food stuff or anything else, it's just, um, yeah, it's dealing with, you know, food stuff or anything else. It's just, yeah, it's a bad. It's always a bad, it's a slippery slope. I'm going to say that it's a slippery slope. So, anyway, I love you guys.
Speaker 1:I'm going to continue on with the other part of the episode that I had just recorded before this part, where really you only missed a couple of minutes. But, um, I think I'm starting to talk about, uh, you know, you know finding out how detrimental or how much sugar are in these fucking green grapes that I'm eating like 10 cups a time. 10 cups, uh, like whatever. It feels like 10 cups, but I can probably eat like a bunch of grapes, like a, like whatever. It feels like 10 cups, but I can probably eat like a bunch of grapes, like a, like a bunch, not like a handful, but a whole bunch. I can do that. Green ones cold in one night, and then you wonder why the gym ain't working. So, all right, we're gonna move on here, we go. Okay, we're back.
Speaker 1:I don't know what happened there, man. This, um, something's up with my sd cards anyway. So what I was saying is that, like grapes are high in sugar, I've been munching on these fucking grapes at night, which I also gotta stop. So, uh, the other thing I was thinking about I ended up going into the city, um, and got like the step working guide from um, from one of these 12 steps programs, right from na, and it looks, and I listen to this stuff all the time, um, and I just thought it was like really interesting. So I figured I'd read some of it with you guys, you know, and maybe answer these questions a little bit at a time, kind of like, you know, do a little flavor savers, whatever it's called. You know, let me see. Okay, well, I'll just start in the beginning. You know, let me see. Okay, well, I'll just start in the beginning. That way, it's not that crazy, okay, a first of anything is a beginning, and so it is with the steps. The steps are the best, by the way. The first step is the beginning of the recovery process. A healing starts here. We can't go any further until we've worked this step.
Speaker 1:Some members feel their way through the first step by intuition. Others chose to work step one in a more systematic fashion. Our reasons for formally working step one will vary from member to member. It may just be that new recovery, that we're new to recovery and we just fought and lost an exhausting battle with drugs. It may be that we've been around a while, absent from drugs, but we've discovered that our disease has become active in other areas of our lives, forcing us to face our powerlessness and our unmanageability of our lives once again. So that just basically means like you can stop drinking and doing drugs or gambling or whatever, and that kind of addict behavior will show up somewhere else, whether it's with women, whether it's with food, any kind of destructive thing, you know. Even if it's masqueraded as something constructive like going to the gym or becoming a workaholic, whatever, it's still destructive in nature if it's taking away from your life. Not every act of growth is motivated by pain. It may just be time to cycle through the steps again, thus beginning the next stage of our never-ending journey of recovery.
Speaker 1:Some of us find a measure of comfort in realizing that a disease quote-unquote is not a moral failing. A disease comma, not a moral failing has caused us to reach bottom. Okay. Others don't really care what the cause has been. We just want out yeah, you want out of that torture, that fucking mental cycle of me doing the same thing the same way over and over again and really just like hurting myself in some way. You know, I've been to a lot of meetings lately where they've been talking about bulimia and self-harm and all other kind of stuff and it's like very eye-opening, you know. Whatever the case, it's time to do some step work, to engage in some concrete activity that will help us find the freedom from our addiction, whatever shape it is currently taking.
Speaker 1:Our hope is to internalize the principles of step one, to deepen our surrender, to make the principles of acceptance, humility, willingness, honesty and open-mindedness the fundamental part of who we are. Yeah, that's very powerful stuff. First, we must arrive at the point of surrender. There are many different ways to do this. For some of us, the road we traveled getting to the first step was more than enough to convince us that unconditional surrender was our only option.
Speaker 1:Others of us start this process even though we're not entirely convinced that we're addicts and that we're really hit bottom. This could show up again in any form of your life. You know people that I'm close with. You know they're in unhealthy relationships, even with other people, platonic or not. And I'm watching it from the outside and I'm like Jesus Christ man, like I watch it with like identification, not with like. I'm speaking from some kind of like moral high ground. You know when are we?
Speaker 1:Only in working the first step do we come to realize that we are addicts and that we've hit bottom and that we must surrender. So before we begin the first step, we must become abstinent, whatever it takes, if we're new to NA, and our first step is primarily about looking at the effects of drug addiction has in our lives. We need to get clean at the effects of drug addiction has in our lives. We need to get clean If we've been clean for a while, and our first step is about powerlessness over some other behavior that's made our lives unmanageable. We need to find a way to stop the behavior so that our surrender isn't clouded by continuing acting out and it's also, uh, pretty moving stuff. Yeah, and what? Why do you think I even have this show? I'm over here telling him myself on an almost weekly basis, minus when I go on these deep fucking vacations or whatever, when I slide off the reservation for a week. But you know, who knows, maybe the next couple of weeks we're just going to go through this stuff together. I think it's a good idea. Maybe it's helpful, Maybe it's not. It's definitely going to be helping me, so I'm just going to keep that in mind. All right.
Speaker 1:The disease of addiction. You know, this is like a lot of stuff, so, whatever, it's not all going to happen in one day, but give us food for thought for the next thing, All right. Next paragraph the disease of addiction. What makes us addicts is a disease of addiction, not drugs, not our behavior, but our disease. There's something within us that makes us unable to control or use drugs. That same something quote unquote also makes us prone to obsession and compulsion in other areas of our lives. How can we tell when our disease is active? Question mark when we become trapped in obsessive, compulsive, self-centered routines, endless loops that lead nowhere but physical, mental and spiritual. Physical, mental, spiritual and emotional decay. I know there's a lot of regular civilians that can identify with that, you know, yeah, okay, so here's some of the.
Speaker 1:What does the disease of addiction mean to me? What it means to me, basically, is what it just described is that I have a tendency to become addicted in some way to anything, it doesn't matter what it is, and I've struggled a lot my whole life to try to find a little bit of balance and level-headedness and right action. For a long time, I was addicted to the need to control everything. For a long time, I was addicted to the need to control everything, to control my relationships with people, my family, my parents, if I had a romantic relationship, controlling meaning what. I know that if I am behaving in a way in a dishonest and disingenuous way, that's my attempt of trying to control the situation, and I spent most of my life doing that. And if I'm not careful, it's obviously always on the menu.
Speaker 1:I can, I can fall into those traps where I'm lying Even white lies are still lies, you know, yeah. Or withholding information from people. You know I was talking about that yesterday with my wife that I'm uncomfortable being like that. I was talking about that yesterday with my wife that I'm uncomfortable being like that, you know, and it's not that I want to hurt anybody else, but I have a very, you know, I have a gravitational thing that really, you know, pulls me to really not be fair to myself, meaning that some of the relationships in my life are one-way traffic and it doesn't mean that I need to, and I evolved into that after doing a lot of this kind of work because I was supremely self-centered and selfish and I had to learn how to become selfless. And I think I, you know, I can go to the other extreme of that and being completely like people pleasing and sacrificing myself in a lot of different ways, so that way I don't rock the boat, meaning even though rocking the boat is like future tripping, or rocking the boat by having confrontations with people or institutions or whatever, standing up for myself.
Speaker 1:You know, I was talking with my sponsor a little while ago and he's like look, man, you got to give it all to God. You know the results, but the truth is God wants you to fight like a lion when it comes to. You know you doing the right thing. You know I have like insurance company stuff going on with my vehicles and with some of my workers and whatever. And I'm like, yeah, I can't just give it all to God. He's like, no, no, no, you can, but you have to fight like a lion. Just don't accept what these people say, or whatever they do. Like you fucking, go for it. You know, because when I don't do that, I can hide being lazy behind giving everything to God and this is just the way it's supposed to be. That's fucking fucked up, anyway. So that's a little bit of an elaboration.
Speaker 1:What does the disease of addiction mean to me? That I have to train myself to not want to hide from the world. And the way that I hide from the world is only in destructive ways. What's the next question? Has my disease been active recently, and in what way? Yeah, my disease has been active. It's always active, you know it's always active. It's always active. You know it's always active.
Speaker 1:And I just explained a little bit about what I'm going through now, where, you know, I have to have hard conversations with myself and with people. It's not easy for me to stand up for myself without being like some kind of you know aggressive, you know animal I don't even like to say the word animal, but without being like. I can't be like either zero or a hundred. You know I have to be at like 30, like hey, look, this ain't working for me and if we don't change then it's not going to work out. Whether again, it's an institution like fucking Geico or you know one of my workers or you know anything Like, I have to be willing to stand up for myself in a constructive way. So that's the way that my and I've been hiding from doing that for long enough that I have like a bunch of these little fires that are going on everywhere because I've been too appeasing in some ways and then not loving and respecting myself in other ways.
Speaker 1:Okay, what is it like when I'm obsessed with something? Does my thinking follow a pattern? Describe what is it like when I'm obsessed with something? Does my thinking follow a pattern? Describe what is it like when I'm obsessed with something? Um, I don't really have. I don't really have an answer to that. It just it feels uncomfortable an answer to that. It just it feels uncomfortable to be. You know, I've been working on this kind of stuff long enough to know that. You know what, know what happens. I feel like this when I get obsessed with, something like. When I get obsessed with anything, it's normally because I'm running from something else, and then whatever I'm obsessed with at the moment, that is very it's burning bright for the moment and then after that it just fizzles out.
Speaker 1:You know, it happened to me when I went to get my permit for the concealed carry stuff. You know, I was with my boy, amr, and this other kid that I met, who was lovely, and I did all the training and I did whatever. It was like two days of bullshit. And then I'm supposed to do all this paperwork and I paid somebody $700 to put the paperwork in for me. And let me tell you, it's probably been a year and I've been dragging my feet and I don't have my permit and I have not fired a weapon once since that day. But in those moments, for those three days, I was like, yeah, man, we got a blah, blah, blah.
Speaker 1:Meanwhile I've been having nightmares of the migrants because they are creeping, creeping, creeping around where I work. I mean, they've been here for a long time and shit is starting to pop off, not just here but in other places, and I'm I'm seeing it in a different light. You know, I love them as people. Again, I'm not a policy guy, but it's getting a little bit hairy over here, like you know. Yeah, so there's that.
Speaker 1:But the other thing is is also, I can't be going down fucking Twitter rabbit holes about politics and this other kind of stuff too, so that kind of obsessive thinking or you know whatever Obsessive behavior, and I'm wondering why I can't sleep good at night. Sleep good at night because it, you know, goes from you know those kind of uh videos on Twitter to then I'm watching fucking fight videos. Next thing, you know, next day I'm going to turn on the fucking porn which I've been off of for like a long time. You know, yeah, and then none of that, and then then I'm yeah, then I just I feel like shit about myself when I'm in that loop, and that's what addiction does to me. So that's the pattern. The pattern is, like you know, I give my disease one inch and it takes a motherfucking yard, and then it just starts dragging me Because I don't feel good even while I'm doing it, but I cannot stop myself from doing it, which is the truth. That's what makes me an addict.
Speaker 1:Okay, when the thought occurs to me, do I immediately act upon it without considering the consequences. In what other ways do I behave compulsively? No, I mean, the thought is one thing, the thoughts, they come and go. A feeling will have me act impulsively, like I'll be feeling uncomfortable, maybe because some of the stuff is going right, and then I need to just, you know, sabotage myself in one way. It's not even a thought, it's just like, oh well, you know, I'm doing this 95% good, then I can fuck off over here, you know. Yeah, so it's not even a thought, it really is my feelings. They, you know, the thoughts, come like oh, just a little bit of deviance will I don't even know if that's a word will make you feel better, and then it all does is just make me feel worse. You know the consequences that I don't get in any trouble except with myself that like, okay, you just gave another piece of your uh, another like $5 chip to your fucking disease, with your integrity and things that, uh, your positivity. You, you, uh, you just donated. You know you made a deposit.
Speaker 1:Hmm, okay, how does my self-centered part of my disease affect my life and the lives of those around me? I don't really have that issue. I'm just being honest, for today, the self-centeredness I don't really have that. I live for my wife. Oh my god, I fucking live for her. You know, I really do my kids too, but my wife mostly. I really do, man, and that's uh, I can't even believe I'm saying that, but I am, but it's the truth. Yeah, so there's that.
Speaker 1:And how has my disease affected me physically, mentally, spiritually and emotionally? When the disease is active for me, it just drags me, like I said, physically what happens? I start to take days off of exercise. Dude, exercise doesn't have to be like, you know, when I'm going to muay thai, or when I was going I had I stopped because I had that sciatica problem and whatever, or just being lazy. Um, it doesn't have to be, you know. You know, physically, exercise is everything stretching, yoga poses, going for a walk is exercising, doing some kind of physical activity.
Speaker 1:To me, you know, I have to try and break a sweat. That's the whole thing, man, and I fucking fight myself when I'm not in a good space, I'm like, well, I'll go through the motions, but I won't break a sweat. And that's like bullshit, because as soon as I break a sweat, I start feeling better, you know, I think, like all of the feel good feelings and the serotonin is attached to that. Mentally, you know, I don't know. I don't know how it affects me in that way. You know, mentally I don't feel stable. I'm aware that's the shitty part. I'm aware about what's going on, but I'm making a choice to avoid whatever I'm avoiding. Spiritually and emotionally they're both connected. Spiritually and emotionally, I start, I start to feel like shit about myself.
Speaker 1:I don't treat people maybe in such a bad way. There's times when I have to check myself, like if I'm pulling up to a light and I always give the bum or whatever you want to call him, the vagrant. I always give them whatever dollars I have in my pocket and sometimes they make out good. Sometimes they get $20, $30. Sometimes they get $3. I'm 20, 30 bucks. Sometimes I get 3 bucks. I'm like, alright, here, take this.
Speaker 1:When I start to tell myself, fuck you, no, I'm not giving it, that's like that makes me feel horrible. When I do that and If I'm in a pattern of doing that, I've gone and drove past somebody and it's been raining. They've been standing out there with a sign and I've looped all the way around just to give them 20 bucks. I'm like, dude, you're out here in the fucking rain standing with a sign. What Cause you want to be here, and I don't know what circumstances or what choices you made in your life to make that happen. But twenty dollars is not, it doesn't. Um, it's not affecting me in any way, you know, and it maybe helps that person feel a little bit better for those moments, or maybe it changes their day.
Speaker 1:So I find myself when I, when I tell myself no, no, fuck, that I ain't doing it, that's normally when I'm in that loop, like I said, politics, videos, fight porn, regular porn, all kind of you know fucking negative devil shit, the bedevilments, yeah, and then it's oh man, then I can't sleep. And then I've worked so long to get off of these like, um, what's that stuff? Melatonin, you know, I was taking it for a while and and I'm off of them completely, like my wife looks at me like how do you go from taking 30 milligrams of melatonin every night, or maybe one or two or three over-the-counter sleeping pills? How do you go from that to taking none and then finding your way to sleep? Good, and just be tired at the end of the day and just close your eyes and go to sleep. And it's like dude. When I'm living the right kind of life and being the right kind of person human that I want to be Dog I sleep like a fucking baby, like a champ, you know. When I'm not, my brain has space to fucking ruminate because I've been feeding it all kind of bullshit. Okay, next part We'll be done here in a couple minutes. Pal.
Speaker 1:Our addiction can manifest itself in a variety of ways. When we first come to NA, our problem will, of course, be drugs. Later on, we may find out that addiction is wrecking havoc in our lives in a number of ways. What is the specific way in which my addiction has been manifesting itself the most recently, the most way in which my addiction has been manifesting itself the most recently? Um, the most. There's not one area more severe than the other.
Speaker 1:I've been doing a little bit of self-pity and, um, yeah, and really again, well, it's no, it's been manifesting, and what I'm confronting is again the thing I was talking to you guys about, as far as, like, being more fair to myself and standing up for myself in that way, without trying to bully or be dishonest with other people, being more honest with myself about how I feel regarding situations. Yeah, okay, have I been obsessed with a person, place or thing? No, obsessed, no. For a few days I went down like the RFK Kamala Harris like political shit. I'm like dude, all that needs to just go away. I'm high, I'm a lot happier without, uh, knowing more than peripheral. When I stay peripheral and I'm just like, listen, they're all fucking dirtbags, they're all scumbags. None of them are our friends. I feel better and it allows me to do the rest of my life and my work on this earth serving the Lord in a much more productive way.
Speaker 1:How else have I been affected mentally, physically, spiritually and emotionally by this obsession? Yeah, we're going to stop there. But yeah, how else have I been affected? All that stuff drains me. Maybe that's also why I'm a little bit sluggish. You know, and you know, I'm taking those, uh, that blood work, uh, tomorrow for the testosterone shit. Maybe that's going to help me.
Speaker 1:I don't like to. I don't like to surrender to, um, you know, if my shit is low, then okay, but if it's not, then I'm'm gonna have to just work on it, because I don't like to take things outside of myself if I can avoid it. This is part of my disease. Part of that first step is reaching for things that are outside of myself in order to make me feel better. Yeah, when I'm doing that, dog, that's fucking addict behavior. You know. That's alcoholic behavior 101. I call it unearned serotonin. You're getting a little bump that'll hold you for the next eight minutes. You get another little bump. In whatever way you get your bumps, you know.
Speaker 1:So, yeah, I'm actually looking forward to working through this stuff with you guys. Um, and I'm gonna be committed, like that's what we're gonna do. I don't know if I'm gonna. I gotta get on here and babble every week. Who the fuck wants to hear that all the time, you know. But I think this is all pretty constructive and maybe it'll help you guys out. So like and subscribe on all podcast platforms. Don't forget our YouTube channel, the Sober Experience, and you know it's Labor Day and we're out here putting in that work. Love you guys. Peace.