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vulnerability

When The Load Seems too Much

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Someone remarked that Atlas was not forced to hold up the world, he was convinced that if he did not, the world would fall. This kind of magical thinking is a trademark for children between the ages of 3 and 11. If dad were to wake up and announce to his five-year-old that the sun was going to come up from the west and be bright blue, it is likely that son would say “OK, if you say so, Dad!” He would believe it because at that age he is highly impressionable and vulnerable to illogical conclusions. 

During this time it is so important that parents recognize the vulnerability of their children during early susceptible years of childhood development. Often, children make up that they are responsible for adults in ways that are distorted. 

Children listen to the interaction between parents. When parents fight unfairly, the kids conclude it is their fault. Parents almost literally are God to young impressionable children. So when they fight, kids conclude that it is one thing for a child to have a problem but if God (mom and dad) have a problem it is untenable. So, they make up that the reason mom or dad are fighting is their fault. Or, they believe that it is their responsibility to fix the problem. Often, one or both parents seek out emotional support from the inadequate child. When parents lament about the other or use the child to be a receiver of everything that is wrong in the world, the child concludes that it is their responsibility to fix their parent. It could be that the parent complains about the other partner in the relationship. It might be that the parent pours out fear and anxiety about finances, health, world economy, politics, religion, dismal results about their favorite sports teams, or whatever. Like a vacuum, young impressionable kids suck it all in and magically conclude that it is their responsibility to fix the problem that mom and dad complain about. 

Subtlety, the parent-to-child role begins to shift whether intended by the adult parent or not. Children take on a role that they cannot fulfill. Even though they cannot fix the adult by their behavior, they still try.

When adults get stuck in immature childlike behavior, they are vulnerable to allow the child to fix the problem. They allow the child to attempt to fix the problem by letting them listen to them lament and/or depending upon the child to offer emotional support and love. This dysfunctional behavior cements into the brain of the child that it is their responsibility to be the parent to their adult parent. Children take on this impossible task and adopt a family role to be the fixer or hero in ways that never work. They lose themselves in their role and maintain the role in their adult relationships after they physically grow up. 

This patterned behavior contributes to intimacy-disabling behaviors in their adulthood. The lack of early child development of healthy boundaries created by unhealthy parents fuels dysfunctional adult behavior. The child grows up believing that the only way to be OK is that they have to fix everyone around them. They are set up to absorb everyone else’s hurt, disappointment, and difficulties, and that it is their responsibility to fix. They need to be the hero in order to be validated. So children who needed to fix their parents are prone to seek out heroic type jobs as adults. They become medical professionals, entrepreneurs, and CEO’S of companies with an emphasis to prove their worth by fixing problems. Their tendency is to find their identity in how well they can move mountains, fix problems, and conquer conflict because that is what was required of them when they were children. Dysfunctional childhood expectations are usually very subtle and unnoticeably powerful. It is a set up for desperate outside validation. The only way you know that you are worthwhile is that you are able to fix, conquer, or create solutions for problems that other people have. No matter how much money they pay you, if you do not fulfill this role of fixing others you will not be satisfied. Even though you know as an adult that intellectually you cannot solve other people’s problems, you have wired yourself that this is the fixated role you must play. Unnoticed, you become Atlas convinced that if you do not hold up your world it will indeed fall apart. 

Here are a few considerations to ponder if you feel stuck being Atlas.

1. There is a distinct difference between sharing someone’s pain and bearing it. Children from dysfunctional families learn to practice carrying mom/dad’s and other’s pain. In doing so, they succumb to overwhelm. They may grow up to be successful in their professional pursuits, but in their relationships they continue to believe it is their job to carry another person’s problems with the accompanying pain. They never learned to walk alongside and witness another person’s struggle without carrying their pain and compulsively needing to fix the problem. It is necessary to allow others to feel and have their own struggle without your interference. 

2. It is necessary to look backward and undo your dependency to your parents or caregivers around the dysfunctional roles you learned to play as a child. You will not be able to detach from your unhealthy role through simple recognition of what is happening dysfunctionally with your partner, friend, or professional endeavor. Recognition is a necessary beginning. Yet, to transform your behavior you will need to address the past parental/caregiver enmeshment. Grieving is necessary regarding the role reversal in relationship that mom or dad unintentionally did with you. Shame is the dynamic that keeps the old role in place. Empty chair work often is helpful. Sitting your parent down in an empty chair without them being actually present, and describing the impact of their past behavior is always helpful toward creating resolve. With this exercise, you can practice saying it straight without edit and move the energy of all your feelings from the parent/caregiver to the issue of injustice (you being their for them in an adult responsibility rather than they being their for you) and then further to your own personal empowerment to initiate healthy boundaries and self-actualized care. It is powerful to do this with your parents/caregivers in person as long as you are not expecting anything from them in their response or lack of response. 

3. Check to see whose baggage you are carrying. When you are traveling and check in bags at the airport you are given identification tags so that you are sure to pick up the right luggage at the end of your destination. More than once someone has mistakenly left with the wrong luggage. In relationships, you need to be sure that you are not carrying other people’s baggage. Sorting out what is truly yours and what is not is never-ending work. Some people don’t feel at peace until the emotions of everyone around them are managed and tended. If this is you, then you are walking out of the airport with someone else’s luggage. Bring it back to them. They cannot go home without it. Though confusing, you cannot be responsible for other people’s emotional response. Until you realize this you will continue to go home with someone else’s baggage, wondering how do you fit into their life expectations, solve their problems or essentially live their life. It is like opening the luggage once home and trying to fit into someone else’s clothing. It just doesn’t work!

Rather than continuing to mimic Atlas in your life, discover the amazing freedom of letting down, letting go, and allowing the world to carry you.

Wake Up Calls: The Reality of Relapse in Recovery

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Thirty-four years ago I was a neophyte in the recovery world. Determined to overcome my addiction, I did everything my sponsor told me to do. I read every book I could get my hands on and listened to audio tapes that would help me stay sober. I did everything my therapist would suggest. I was all in. On one occasion, I engaged in regressive therapy to resolve painful past events. The therapist was a specialist in uncovering unresolved painful events in life.

The session itself was very emotionally charged and plunged into significant past emotional trauma. When the session was over, I recall leaving the therapeutic setting feeling pretty raw emotionally. I was experiencing a lot of vulnerability. Even though I had established a significant length of time in sober living, I found myself in a kind of trance cruising and searching for a way to act out in my addiction. What I learned was that uncovering pain from past traumatic experiences creates increased vulnerability and a high risk toward relapse unless sufficient self-care is administered before and after trauma work. I learned to practice bookending my therapy sessions with connection and accountability with support people before and after therapy sessions. 

For sure, relapse is not necessary for addicts in recovery. Yet, learning to address lapse or relapse behaviors is imperative toward building long-term recovery. There are high-risk zones and pitfalls in recovery that addicts must be alert to avoid the backsliding into old destructive behaviors that are common for many. 

Wake-up calls are life experiences that take addicts by the nap of the neck and shake them with the reality that they are facing major relapse unless something dramatically changes quickly. I hear wake-up stories all the time. It may be a sex addict in recovery who shared that he was on his way to acting out with an escort when his car broke down on the way. He decided to call his sponsor instead of following through with his destructive act out. As a result, he determined to re-engage his program. He was saved from the slippery slide of relapse by way of a wake-up call in a random mechanical failure. I have listened to alcoholics and drug addicts share similar near misses around relapse. For one getting lost trying to find the location of a dealer and the other who drove to her old neighborhood bar only to learn that it had closed because of a COVID outbreak, represented indelible near-miss wake up calls that are often shared in recovery circles.

For sure, cravings for the dopamine hit that comes from addictive urges is an everyday possibility for addicts in recovery. Engaging in addictive act out can be like turning on a fire hose of dopamine to the brain of an addict, triggering euphoric response. The level of dopamine rises with anticipation and spikes when addicts act on their addictive urge. Living without the hit is tough. Usually, an addict will feel worse before he feels better. As a result, many addicts will live on the edge of their recovery program and bash boundaries around their addiction behavior. There is a certain rush just being near an addictive environment. Thus, the old adage “if you hang around the barbershop, you’re gonna get a haircut”. Inevitably, unattended high-risk behaviors will cascade you over the falls of addictive behavior. 

Wake-up call experiences in life can be utilized to help get your attention before relapse.

Here are a few considerations:

1. Roll up the welcome mat to addictive behavior. If you don’t want to slip stay away from slippery places. Often I listen to sex addicts share that they are hit on constantly. One will tell me that I was minding my own business and she came up to me and began flirting and throwing herself at me. What was I to do? Or I have heard complaints like I was sitting alone and he just came to me with warmth and a smile so I had no choice but to be nice to him. It’s almost as if helplessly they are unable to prevent these high-risk people and situations from happening. It’s not as if sex addicts are the most drop-dead gorgeous people who have to tolerate being hit on. Most people don’t live a life where they are constantly badgered by sexual invites from others. Substance addicts complain the same way. Everywhere I go I am being offered a drink or asked if I want to score, some will say. The answer to these challenges can be unraveled by taking an attitude inventory. First, am I serious and committed to ending the addictive behavior? If so, then eliminate the high-risk behavior by rolling up the welcome mat. Stop communicating availability in terms of the environment you hang out, the conversations you have with others, and the energy about the addictive behavior that you communicate. Simply put, shut down the energy that you are available for sexual intrigue if you are a sex addict and turn away from addictive environments while spurning the encouragement of those who would invite you to use or sit in high-risk scenarios. When you eliminate slippery places you likely will not slip. 

2. Decide you are going to be all in with recovery. Seriously embrace the AA saying “Half measure avail us nothing. We ask for his care with complete abandon”. Many addicts who attend 12-step meetings enjoy the community and gain from the insights shared. Fewer take the insights seriously toward life transformation. There is a difference between attending 12-step meetings and being all-in. Following through with boundaries, commitments, and program work requires an addict to abandon half-hearted attempts at recovery tasks. All in is a plunge experience. It is like cliff jumping. You put yourself into a position so that when you take the first step there is no turning back because of your complete abandonment to whatever it takes. When you compromise, make excuses, make commitments, and don’t follow through, you exemplify half-measures that never work. It’s like getting a prescription from your doctor and drinking the water while leaving the pills for treatment on the table. If you are blaming others for your downfall, keeping secrets about your thought and behavior life, and giving negative voices free rent in your head, this is the evidence that you are not willing to go to any lengths to create the sober life you want. In the presence of many new approaches and technology for healing, the only way to emotionally grow yourself up and address addiction will be through complete abandonment in your recovery program. 

3. Wake-up calls are never heard when you are stubbornly stuck in refusing to accept life as it is in the present moment. Denying the reality of what is in your life is a setup for relapse even when there are wake-up calls ringing all around you. There are many experiences about recovery that are not pleasant. The discomfort of real consequences from addictive behavior can be an intrusive reality that is shoved in your face with no reprieve. Loss of job, family, and esteem can be repressive. The whirlwind of addictive behavior always includes unfair treatment and unfair judgment. Consequences and restrictions can seem overwhelming. Yet, you will not find peace and sobriety until you can accept the limitations and implications of your addiction behavior. “This too will pass” will only be true for you through surrender when you can concentrate less on what needs to be changed in the world around you, and more about what needs to be changed within you and your attitudes. Acceptance is an age-old process that paves the way toward long-term sobriety. Without it, the phone will ring off the wall and you will never answer the wake-up call in recovery.

4. Wake-up calls are a reminder to understand the underlying conditions that come from unresolved family-of-origin issues that have been incompletely addressed. Questions like “After so much time in recovery sobriety, why did I so quickly reach for my addictive behavior”? “Why do I struggle so much with behavior and attitudes that sabotage closeness to people I love”? “Why do I procrastinate facing the fear of my childhood or addressing Step 4 work”?are all about the underlying conditions of unresolved family of origin issues. Relapse is about losing who you are and forfeiting your potential for who you are meant to be. Relapse gives you the opportunity to claim lessons from the past and to reclaim your truth. If those underlying conditions aren’t treated, the return of those symptoms may cause you intense discomfort that can trigger you to go back to using. That’s the primary reason there is such a high rate of relapse among people who have become dependent on addictive behavior. It has less to do with the addiction and more to do with the original causes that created the dependency. There is a wake-up call for each of us who are tempted to walk only to the first oasis in the desert and camp out for the rest of our days. The wake-up call is to go the distance all the way through the desert to the other side. That other side is the peace that comes to those courageous enough to address the unresolved family of origin issues that trigger the addiction.

5. Wake-up calls require that you learn to bushwhack with accountability. Bushwhacking is a term that applies to a way of hiking in the wilderness. There is no trail. You just go—through thickets, over boulders, aimlessly moving into the adventure of the woods and great outdoors. It is a very uncomfortable way to travel. It may be a shortcut or may not be. What is involved is an adventure and exploration of the forest. Recovery growth engages a form of bushwhacking. Going deep always includes an uncharted course to follow that embraces getting out of your comfort zone. It calls for you to acknowledge your inconsistency. It requires that you own your incongruence. It demands that you admit your hypocrisy. It summons you to submit to the accountability of community to draw you back from these human frailties to be true to your heart. This is the wake-up call that curates relapse prevention and cultivates the character of long-term sobriety.  

Things We Need to Talk About But Don’t Touch

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“We shall not cease from exploration and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we began and to know the place for the first time.” —T.S. Eliot

This is true about recovery. It is such a repetitive cyclical experience in so many ways. There are many portals to explore and understand about addictive behavior. Open one door and it seems to lead to the next. You learned how to end your addictive behavior and stop the out-of-control train going down the track. Desperation opened the door to a belief in a Higher Power that restored you to sanity. Yet, stubborn willfulness blocked the decision to turn your will over to the care of that Higher Power. It brought you back to where you started with your addictive mindset dominating your behavior, and you repeated the same experience as before. Each time you repeat, the pattern becomes an opportunity to know yourself for the first time. 

The recovery experience invites you to talk about things that you don’t touch. There are secrets. You are invited to open your deepest darkest hidden experience and expose it to the light of day. You are encouraged to get emotionally naked about reality, often in the presence of people you don’t know that well or for that long. 

The exploration doesn’t stop with the addictive behavior. The challenge is to explore all of our behaviors and our relationships. Some 12-step groups insist that you only relate to one identified addiction during your time to share. I have always found this limiting. Recovery is pervasive in its journey of research and examination. It requires that you turn over every stone and inquire, with curiosity, pathways you have not explored. Many in recovery choose not to open doors about intimacy and relationships. They limit their 12-step journey to remaining sober from their addiction. They know a lot about staying sober and less about intimacy and building relationships. 

Addicts talk about things with their sponsors and others but often don’t open their hearts to their partners. They become good about sharing vulnerability with those who are distant. They give good advice about how to be emotionally open but remain closed and distant at home. There is so much that needs to be talked about that is never touched at home. 

Feelings like stress, anxiety, and fear build on the inside. An addict becomes lonely and seeks escape from discomfort. H/She sits with a craving to escape through their drug of choice. It is powerful because it works for a while. The pain is so great and the relief is so powerful. 

Your partner also has anxiety, stress, fear, and loneliness building within. They also want to escape. It could be through their addiction. It often takes the form of a cocktail of other experiences like busyness, electronic games, children’s activities, running errands, or exercise. The emptiness in the relationship builds as both partners avoid what needs to be talked about but is never touched. 

An addict may talk about the experience in a 12-step community. Yet, if it is never discussed with your partner, the 12-step group becomes a lifelong partner of triangulation. You can avoid opening your heart to the partner you should be talking with by sharing instead with a third party. The void between you and that person grows as you lament to your 12-step group. This becomes particularly sad when that person is your romantic partner. 

To stop the fantasy about your addiction you need to tell on yourself to your partner who, in turn,  needs to talk to you about how they try to escape from their discomfort. When partners do this with each other, the void between them shrinks and the feelings of discomfort give way to the richness of emotional intimacy.  No third-party relationship has ever been able to replace the richness of intimacy that is created when you touch what needs to be shared with your partner about the truth of who you are. Each time you talk about what you don’t want to touch in a relationship you will arrive where you began and know the place for the first time. 

Talkin’ Trash

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“Here I am – Do You See Me.”

 —KW

Blown by the wind without notice

Others just like me become my blanket

Gathered in a desolate corner

Invisible until we become so many

Scorned with disgust from others

Would someone please rid me of this filth?

There’s a trash can—put me there

Make me out of sight

Make me invisible like the night

But you can’t, cause I’m here just like you

I’m the reality of  your imagination

I’m dog shit

People shit

The wrappers of dreams to make me disappear

Straws for smack and blow to get you to forget

But here I am—

You can’t forget me, you must do something about me

I’m the writer who paints your park benches

Your trains, your overpass bridges

Got stuff you don’t get in carts on permanent loan

Sleep in places that scare the hell out of you and me too

Others just like me—in the heat and cold, moan and groan

Wash away the crust 

I’m just like you

Broken family, broken dreams

Close your eyes and listen 

It’s all the same—so it seems

Just talkin’ trash

Just talkin’ trash

No one wants to be invisible or forgotten. Being unwanted and uncared for is worse than being hungry with nothing to eat. When people are objectified their essential self is invisibilized.  People objectify others as sexual body parts to be pursued and conquered or as sources to achieve power, fame, or fortune.  People who are takers and not givers reduce relationships to what’s in it for me.  Solutions to social dilemmas require a giver mentality. Objectification is about taking. It’s about wanting what you want when you want it.  It’s about going through the world seeing only what you want to experience and ignoring the suffering that challenges others.

From Martin Buber’s book, I and Thou, it can be emphasized that when you engage others and the world around you as an “it” you organize and manipulate the world only as you want to see it.  Human suffering, social dilemmas, and environmental challenges become obstacles to ignore while material and relational pleasures become objectified. An “it” mentality is a pathway to becoming alienated from the world around you as it is. Buber wrote, “To look away from the world or to stare at it, does not help a man to reach God; but he who sees the world in Him stands in His presence.” There is a sense of spiritual connection that occurs when what you see and experience in the world around you connects with what is in you. It becomes a source for “thou” relationships which holds great respect for others problems and challenges in life.

Everyone needs a safe and trusting community to be seen. Here, vulnerability and trust are serendipitously expressed through our grief, joy, and challenge. I don’t know anyone who exemplifies this truth more than Sally, a client I once had. 

Sally had every reason to isolate and avoid the community when she first came to see me in my office. Emotionally, she was fragmented. She suffered horrendous physical, ritual, and sexual abuse from her parents who were involved in a cult. Her parents solicited her to other members of the family and cult. She experienced everything that would make a family unsafe. She fled from this frightful gruesome family to a life on the streets. 

While learning plenty of street savvy, she also learned to stuff her sorrows and the sadism she’d experienced throughout her childhood with a cocktail of addictions. When she initially sought professional counsel, she experienced more abuse and betrayal from those who were supposed to be healing and safe. She learned to deaden herself to the world at large and to disconnect from the community. Eventually, she decided to attend our intensive outpatient program, which involves sixty-five hours of therapy in 8 days. 

When she began her plunge experience, there was no trust, only desperation. However, as the days unfolded, her barriers began to come down. Maybe it was the intensity of one session after another beginning at 7:00 a.m. and continuing until 8:30 p.m. It could have been the many different approaches that her relentless counselors used. Whatever it was, she reached a watershed point where she decided to open her heart to the possibility of healing. As she progressed throughout the week, she decided that this would be her last attempt to find hope. She decided that she would do whatever it took to get healthy.

As she became committed to healing herself, she committed to integrating her fragmented inner self. She embraced the emotional pain that dominated her life, rather than medicate it with addiction. She resolved to attend 12-Step meetings to address her compulsive behaviors. Though dominated with fear and full of anxiety, slowly she shifted and allowed her 12-Step community to become a touchstone and signpost for reality in her recovery. Sharing her brokenness in the community provided relational safety for Sally. 

When there is relational safety in the community, anything and everything can be explored and sifted and sorted through. Pain becomes the fellowship’s touchstone and signpost indicating an imbalance in life. The community provides a sound studio to listen to pain’s message. Common shared brokenness is its draw, not common likeness or interest. Becoming emotionally naked by sharing our deepest feelings and secrets is commonplace and expected. It’s a space where we can fit in and be accepted as we are. It is a sanctuary in which to learn how we can wear our own skin well. It’s a space to accept our own acceptance while staring at imperfection. It is a place to grow ourselves into adult maturity and discover inner brilliance. 

Today, after many years of recovery and therapy, Sally has carved out a commitment to a 12-step community based on a shared brokenness that has proven supportive and sustaining. Today, though she continues to work out her emotional brokenness, she has become an inspiration to those who work with her professionally. She has become a leader in her field of expertise. Her husband and children continue to benefit from her resilience and commitment to her healing journey. 

Recently, she told me her recovery life has rendered her 1,000 percent improved. She echoed that without a community to share her deepest feelings of brokenness, in concert with therapeutic intervention, her road to recovery would have led to a dead end. 

There are thousands of Sally’s in the world around you including the homeless. My wife Eileen and I have chosen to live in a neighborhood where homeless people live all around us. Each morning we walk our dog through our neighborhood streets. We pick up trash and dog poop with our sanitary gloves as we make our way. Along the canal that we walk there is graffiti painted on park benches and backyard walls. There is trash all around including dog and human feces. At first, it was disgusting. Over time, I have learned that the trash has a voice that represents the many unfortunate ones. The trash is their voice to tell me and you that  “I am here. Don’t forget me. Please see me!” 

Do you know someone you would describe as forgotten? When you drive to work, worship, or play, do you notice the street people in your community? Not knowing what to do with misfortune, many look away from the homeless, choosing to deal with discomfort by distancing themselves from it. What about the person at the grocery store who shuffles by with a blank stare on his face? Do you think of him as invisible? 

Today every piece of trash I pick up, I hear the voices of so many on the streets and elsewhere saying please treat me as a “Thou.” Just talkin’ trash!

Peace in the Presence of Turmoil

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“Peace

Is an inner awakening,

And this inner awakening

We must share

With the rest of the world.” 

― Sri Chinmoy

Finding the way of peace is a journey addicts in recovery long for. Turmoil and chaos is created by the junkie worm every day an addict lives. In desperation, addicts search for escape from the insanity that rules their life. Even in recovery, many continue to struggle in search for peace in the midst of sobriety. Stopping the runaway train going down the track is a relief but not necessarily peaceful. The question remains “How do I create calm out of chaos?” “Is it possible to have peace when there is a storm that rages all around me?” Of course, addicts are not the only ones who want to know the answer to this quandary. 

In 1975 thousands of Vietnamese fled their country by sea following the collapse of the South Vietnamese government. Crowded into small boats, they were prey to pirates, and many suffered dehydration, starvation, and death by drowning. When challenged with rough seas, many in the boats panicked causing the boat to sink and many to drown. Thich Nhat Hanh remarked in his book Being Peace that when one person remained calm and lucid, knowing what to do, he or she would help others to avoid capsizing the boat. When their voice and facial expression communicated clarity and calmness, others trusted, listened, and avoided capsizing. (Page 12)

Addicts in recovery are boat people trying to survive the currents that pull and tug them back to the sea of addictive behavior. There is panic and an onslaught of craving that crashes against the recovery program of every addict who desires to escape the domination of addiction. Recovery requires that you become a peaceful person who sits in the midst of the storm around you with perspective and poise. Where does this panorama of equanimity come from in recovery? Consider the following:

1. In the midst of addictive chaos, return to being true to yourself. The demands of recovery are intimidating. It is tempting to compare your recovery journey with someone else’s recovery journey. Some people are talented presenters. At a speakers’ meeting some tell wonderful compelling stories about recovery and you wish that your recovery life looked like theirs. But it doesn’t. It simply looks like yours. This is a time that is important to maintain perspective and return to being true to yourself. That is all you must do. Remember an oak tree is an oak tree. That is all it has to do and be. If there was a demand that it grow and look like a palm tree, it would be in trouble. When you think you and your recovery must be something you are not, you will get into trouble. Just be you. It is your only requirement. Being true to yourself is where you will discover poise and perspective.

2. Seek Understanding. It will provide compassion toward yourself and others. Addicts in recovery come from a lifestyle of self-absorption. Addicts want what they want when they want it. Their life is about taking up too much space. There is no perspective or understanding that makes sense except that which leads to achieving a desired fix with their drug of choice. It’s a very narrow view of understanding. This distorted thinking does not change overnight in recovery. An addict must seek understanding in order to cultivate compassion for others. Understanding transforms addict behavior. Understanding why you do what you do accelerates self-compassion and love for others. It is common for an addict to compartmentalize their thinking to only seeing the world from their viewpoint. Yet, when you expand your understanding with deep listening, it provides a depth of compassion for self and others. For example, I recently celebrated a birthday. However, my three sons failed to recognize my birthday. I was disappointed. Yet, when I explored the situation that each was experiencing, it provided understanding. One was traveling out of state. Distracted with covering responsibilities for a small child and engaging pomp and circumstance of a special event, he became distracted and overwhelmed with his own agenda. Another was distracted with the adjustment of a newborn and suffered from a lack of sleep and the responsibilities of being a new father. A third did call me, belated, while snow skiing. He was huffing and puffing while boot packing his way up the mountain for his first ski rendezvous of the season. His thoughts were about climbing to the top of a mountain, not my birthday. When you put yourself in other’s shoes you awaken to deeper understanding which creates room for compassion for the conditions you encounter in your world. Practice understanding. 

3. Practice cultivating community. Most addicts struggle with creating harmony and awareness in a meaningful community. Addicts tend to isolate. If they do create community it is with those in the group that they can “relate” to. Everyone in a 12-step group is an addict. We all can relate to each other. Addicts tend to be rigid and unable to adjust or become flexible with who they connect to. A 12-step community is a good place to learn how to create connections with people you would normally not relate to. This exercise is a secret to long-term sobriety. It is important that an addict take with them the ability to create community wherever they go outside a 12-step room. While easier said than done, mature recovery goes beyond a 12-step room and includes vulnerable sharing with others engaged throughout the course of life. Developing community must become a priority for addicts in recovery. 

Peace in the presence of turmoil can be achieved when addicts practice community in the highways and byways of their lives. It is anchored when addicts are true to themselves and deepened through understanding.

Catfished in a Sweetheart Swindle

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Catfished in a Sweetheart Swindle Bobbi Ann grew up in a family where she was the only girl with 4 brothers. Her dad was a truck driver who spent most of his time on the road. When he was home he spent his time trying to catch up with the boys’ sports schedule.  He never had much time for Bobbi Ann. He always thought attention to her activities was her mother’s job. Bobbi Ann admired her dad and quietly felt pain in her heart because of his lack of attention. When she went to college she fell in love with Buddy, and they both dropped out of school and got married. Things seemed great for the first 5 years. By then Buddy got into the habit of meeting guys at a local bar after work and would stay late. Finally, Bobbi Ann discovered that he was having an affair with her best friend and the marriage ended.

Bobbi Ann was devastated, depressed, and even suicidal.  The loneliness at night was driving her insane. She learned about the dating app Plenty of Fish from a friend at work.  She reached out in desperation, trying to fill the gaping void in her life.  Soon, she met Michael from Chicago online. He had a winsome personality and swept her off her feet with kindness. He seemed to be a perfect fit.  He asked many personal questions as he wove charm in his pursuit. She liked how he always seemed to make her feel special.  After each web contact, Bobbi Ann wondered why she didn’t learn much about Michael.  He began to direct the conversation to sexual behavior. Bobbi Ann wasn’t comfortable but she didn’t want to disappoint. So, she went along to get along. He boldly asked her to post sexually compromising pictures. She couldn’t believe that she did it. 

She knew she was hooked when he asked for $5000 to start a new business. He said he would pay her back as soon as the business got off the ground.  She cashed a stock investment in order to give him the money. At her next encounter, she asked him to come to San Francisco to visit her. He told her that he was too busy with his new start-up. When she insisted that she visit him he was slow to agree. He asked for another $5000 in order for his start-up to reach the next stage of development. Feeling pressured, she consented to provide the money and again posted a provocative pose at his request before ending the conversation. 

When she flew to Chicago, he never showed up to meet her. She called the number that he gave her and was greeted with a rude encounter: Michael told her to release another $30,000 or he would take the nude pictures that she posted for him and ruin her reputation and her life. Bobbi Ann was blackmailed.  She had been catfished with a sweetheart swindle in an internet scam for thousands of dollars.

Romance scammers weave all sorts of believable stories to con people. The stories might involve a sick child or a temporary inability to get to their money for a whole range of reasons. There is a kind of scamming called “catfishing” which happens when someone creates a fictional persona on a dating site to target a specific victim. Besides financial gain, catfishing motivations can sometimes be simply to cause distress or harm or possibly enable the perpetrator to carry out a fantasy or wish fulfillment. 

Romance scamming has skyrocketed in recent years over the internet. In 2021 reported losses hit a record $547 million.  That’s more than six times the reported losses in 2017 and a nearly 80% increase compared to 2020. The vast majority of frauds are not reported to the government.

Targets that make up sweetheart swindling include military romance scams, sexual exposure blackmail scams, fake dating sites, and code verification scams, where you are asked to click on a third-party link to verify your account. Once you click through you are asked a number of personal questions including credit card information. 

Victims experience a range of negative emotions, such as anger, resentment, fear, anxiety, and depression. Furthermore, victims of romance scams feel embarrassed and believe that they are responsible for their victimization, which impacts their sense of trust in themselves.

Smart people get caught in a romance scam for many reasons:

1. Victims are vulnerable to idealizing their online pursuits. Often, needy and hurt, like Bobbi Ann, they tend to focus on the positives and forget the negatives in their new romance. 

2. Loneliness: Some web users prefer expressing themselves online rather than in the real world. However, some tend to lower their guard to a scammer who takes full advantage.

3. Thrill seekers: some web users are impulsive and addictive. Some victims have described feeling addicted to the relationship and found it difficult to cut it off even when they learned that it was not genuine.

The coronavirus pandemic triggered people to spend more time online. It provided conditions that romance scammers could exploit. Often, scammers target older people because they are more likely to have assets such as retirement funds or homes, which they can steal. It is estimated that about two-thirds of romance fraud victims are women, with an average age of 50. 

A growing trend in 2021 was scammers using romance as a hook to lure people into bogus investments, especially cryptocurrency. People are led to believe their new online companion is a successful investor who, before long, casually offers investment advice. These so-called investment opportunities often involve foreign exchange (forex) trading or cryptocurrency. When people follow this investment advice, they wind up losing all the money they invest.

How to avoid an online sweetheart swindle: 

There are a number of guidelines that help you use a legitimate dating site and stay out of harm’s way:

1. Don’t accept friend requests from people you don’t know. Try a reverse-image search of profile pictures. If the details don’t match up, it’s a scam.

2. Avoid revealing too much personal information in a dating profile or to someone you’ve chatted with only online. Never provide your credentials to third parties online. If you give sensitive information, don’t panic — remove your credentials. Change your passwords and contact your bank immediately. 

3. Use reputable dating sites and keep communicating through their messaging service. Fraudsters will want you to switch to text, social media, or phone quickly, so there is no evidence on the dating site of them asking you for money.

4. Avoid sending compromising photos to online strangers that could later be used for extortion.

5. Never send money or gift cards or disclose your bank details to someone you’ve only met online. 

Many sex and relationship addicts have been snagged by swindles and fraudsters. They often remain hidden because of fear and shame. Online relationship scamming is pervasive. Taking suggested precautions will help you avoid the dangers described. If you have been victimized by a sweetheart swindle, please report the crime to the Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3).

The Value of the Cold Plunge

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Wim Hof, also known as The Iceman, is a Dutch motivational speaker and extreme athlete noted for his ability to withstand freezing temperatures. He has set Guinness World Records for swimming under ice and prolonged full-body contact with ice, and previously held the record for a barefoot half-marathon on ice and snow. He has motivated many to engage the rage of the cold plunge. There are many benefits promoted by advocates of the cold plunge including reducing swelling and pain caused by joint stress and muscle soreness.

In 12-step recovery there is another form of cold plunge. It involves the way you check-in with others during group processing.  Most attending a 12-step meeting approach check-ins with caution. Often with fear and trepidation, members disclose their addictive behaviors. Most avoid stark naked truth about acting out and either share with vagueness or reveal half truths. For them it is far too scary and vulnerable to say it straight. So they piecemeal the truth. Many talk about related issues that are less difficult and remain stuck in deception. Even, after untangling their first step with honesty about their addictive behavior, many retreat to sharing vaguely about everyday cravings and struggles. 

The cold plunge in recovery circles is about leading with the last thing you want people to know about you being the first thing you share when checking in. Rather than talking around a struggle you do the cold plunge and simply put it on the table for all to see. There is no going around the barn, hinting about what’s on your mind. You simply spill your guts. You lay out exactly what’s going on in your life with no edits. Your first thought might be “I don’t like anyone in this room.” Maybe, “I hate 12-step meetings.” Perhaps, “I want to act out right now or have been binging and the last place I want to be is at a 12-step meeting!” You just put it out there describing exactly what’s inside! This is a cold plunge check-in. 

There is a level of dishonesty that pervades a 12-step meeting when people don’t say it like it is. When the level of addiction is not unpacked, you can feel the drain of power in the room. Insincere shares fall flat like a lead balloon. Groups that maintain surface check-ins shrivel and eventually cease to exist.

What are the benefits of a cold plunge share? 

1. It sets the stage for emotional safety. Without emotional safety people remain surface in their shares. Breaking the ice and plunging deep with honest truth promotes others to do the same. When there is relational safety in community, anything and everything can be explored, sifted and sorted through. Pain becomes its touchstone and signpost indicating imbalance in life. Community provides a sound studio to listen to its message. Common shared brokenness is its draw, not common likeness or interest. Becoming emotionally naked in terms of sharing deepest feelings, even secrets are commonplace and expected. It’s a space where we can fit, be accepted as we are. It is a sanctuary to hide, to learn how we can wear our own skin well. It’s a space to accept our own acceptance while staring at imperfection. It is a place to grow ourselves into adult maturity and discover inner brilliance.

2. It promotes the practice of telling on yourself. There is no growth in recovery without truth telling. Cold plunge sharing eliminates hedging with the truth and highlights vulnerability. It helps dispel impression management and the fear of being real and authentic.

3. Cold plunge sharing activates a listening spirit. 12-step healing accelerates when you put yourself in the shoes of someone else. It requires that you identify with the share of another. When another addict says it straight, it is like a powerful slap in the face that demands a fair hearing. Truly listening to the broken voice that is sharing truth through a cold plunge manifests what others need to hear for their own healing. 

Cold plunge sharing smashes fix-minded inflexible thought that blocks recovery growth. Prejudiced thought about recovery is often rooted in rigid black-and-white thinking. Fixed-minded sharing closes the heart and diminishes the possibility of exploring healing. Recovery requires that you sit with the discomfort and uncertainty created by cold plunge sharing. It invites you to open your heart and trust your own inner brilliance to figure recovery out. It embraces fettered feelings that through sharing become like clouds that can be cleared to the awakening of inner brilliance and wisdom.

The Power of Deep Belief in Who You Are

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I hesitate to write about the subject of self-belief because its importance has been pounded into the heads of entrepreneurs and addicts. Many rags-to-riches stories highlight what one person can do by acting on a dream of what they envision and believe they can do. There are people who read this blog who have written about the power of belief in relation to their personal achievement of amazing accomplishments. Achieving financial security or any length of sobriety is dependent upon exercising belief in a process, a system, and actions that you believe will help you create the results you hope for. 

That said, it has been my observation that entrepreneurs and addicts who seek recovery from destructive behaviors in relationships struggle with self-belief. There is a basic misconception that you cannot face the reality of truth in a relationship conflict because of fear of rejection and abandonment at some level. This fear triggers dishonesty. You withhold the truth about your feelings in a relationship because you fear a negative impact. Many people won’t share true feelings because they don’t want to hurt the person they care about.

As a therapist, I often hear that if I tell my partner how I really feel then I have to deal with the blowback that I am going to get. There is an implied sense of abandonment if you say it straight. If you tell your partner that you don’t like their whining, complaining, expectations, parenting skills, lack of sexual pursuit, in-laws, or attitude about money, etc. then you will have to deal with their response to all of that and it won’t be pretty!  Further, you would have to deal with negative feelings about yourself for saying hurtful things to the other person. Underneath this thought is that if you do share what might be experienced as hurtful then you would have to address the negative feelings about yourself for saying hurtful things to the other person. 

There is a lack of belief that if you are vulnerable and say it straight that you will not be able to manage the conflict that is triggered by your truth to your partner. So why say it? People can live with each other forever and avoid saying the truth about subjects they fear will be hurtful and create conflict. I have seen people willing to suffer other painful consequences in order to avoid abandonment and rejection.  Most of us do not want to sign up for conflict in any relationship. Yet, conflict is a necessary reality for two people to connect in a committed relationship. 

In order to be vulnerable and address your truth in a significant relationship you must believe in yourself.  You must believe that you can embrace scary feelings like insecurity, anxiety, anger, fears of disappointment, abandonment, or rejection and survive! Here are some considerations.

1. Learn conflict resolution skills and train yourself to use them! We learn how to do conflict from our parents. Oftentimes this thought is laughable! Many parents never learned to do healthy conflict resolution so their role modeling was very poor. So, you will need to pick up the slack through conflict resolution skills training. There are many courses and approaches. They all can work. The biggest challenge is that most people have become entrenched in destructive behaviors in dealing with conflict from thousands of hours of poor parental role modeling that even when they know to do differently they don’t. You can teach an old dog new tricks! If you are serious about believing in yourself in relationship healing then you will go into training with a program you select toward developing conflict resolution skills and establish accountability to hold your feet to the fire toward improving your skills to talk about what is uncomfortable. 

2. Get emotionally naked! Self-belief requires emotional nudity with those you care most about. You must be willing to appear incomplete, contradictory, wrong, misunderstood, even mixed up and confused to your significant other and those whom you want to care most about. There must be zero impression management. Getting physically naked in a romantic relationship is the easy part of romance. Becoming emotionally vulnerable with naked emotions is the path to intimacy. It requires deep belief in oneself.

3. Practice going down with vulnerable feelings with your loved one, knowing that you can come up. Everybody is intimidated by some feeling! Only those who cut off from all feelings would state that nothing scares them. Another way of saying it is that we are all intimidated by something. This is true because we are human. There is a difference between feeling intimidated and being dominated by the intimidation factor in life. We don’t have to be dominated. However, we will need to lean into our fears and anxieties. This requires self-confidence in the basic goodness of who we are. Self-confidence is not a feeling but an action. In the presence of shaky tenderness and fearful anxiety, you can go down, be real with your partner, and know that you will come back to your basic goodness. This requires training. As you train you will cultivate an unconditional confidence in your basic sense of goodness.

4. Cultivate affirmations around your fundamental goodness. Most addicts or entrepreneurs tend to affirm how they perform and the positive traits of achievements. However, it requires forethought to create affirmations that focus on “being.” It is your basic goodness that becomes the foundation for your unconditional confidence. Once you establish a list of affirmative “being” qualities, you will need to bathe yourself with them every day just like you brush your teeth and do other basic hygiene. Most addicts blow this discipline off. However, it is a secret sauce to cultivating a deep sense of self-belief.

Confronting your truth in a relationship where there are high stakes for disapproval, criticism or rejection requires deep personal belief in oneself. This is not a show of arrogance and domination. There is humility demonstrated when you know you can get emotionally naked, go down, be vulnerable about what you think, feel, want, and expect in a relationship, and know with unconditional confidence that you can come up and live with your truth.

Nine Thoughts that Shape Recovery

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I have been in recovery from addiction for 31 years. I have been reflecting on the 9 thoughts that have shaped and governed my recovery life. I want to share them in hopes that perhaps I can offer hope and strength to those who struggle with maintaining sobriety today.

1. Attitude is your greatest stock-in-trade. Sometimes people think they have to pay an exorbitant price to work with the best-known inpatient facility or a perceived guru in order to address addiction. Sometimes this attitude wreaks of entitlement. They have the money so they feel entitled to demand the best. One time this guy came to see me and said I heard you were the best and I want to only work with the best. I responded by saying “Why do you need the best therapist, you are not the best client.” What is far more important than finding the best therapist is to bring with you the best attitude you can manifest. When I got into recovery, I did not have any money. It took some time but I created a great attitude about recovery. My wife and I decided to embrace the mantra that we would “hock our socks” and do what was necessary to be healthy and sober. We found many resources that were free including 12-step programs which offered free cassette tapes and books. I learned to look for what would help me develop and grow my sobriety. I found individuals in 12-step rooms who were serious about living a sober life. I would sit or stand in the parking lot talking to them about recovery life. When confronted by others in 12-step meetings, I did not always receive helpful feedback. I learned to latch on to what was helpful and let go of what was hurtful. It was a good attitude that helped me to keep coming back again and again. Thirty-one years and over 3500 meetings later, the number one reason that I am sober is because I learned to live with a good attitude toward growth and recovery. I have to work on it every day. The greatest investment I ever made was not for a therapist or an inpatient facility. It has been my determination to be coachable and have a good attitude. It serves me well.

2. Be hungry. Let the world be your library. What does it mean to be hungry about recovery? Literally, the physical craving for food is a motivation to satisfy the need for nourishment. It’s not different in addiction recovery. When you don’t have a white-hot intense hunger for sobriety, serenity, and recovery, you miss out on what others get. Some people think they only do recovery when they attend a 12-step meeting, do the steps, or sit in a therapist’s office. Not me. I have learned that recovery is all around me. I have greatly appreciated the different therapists who have helped me throughout my journey. Yet, if I limited my resources to identified recovery sources I would have stunted and stifled my recovery growth. Being hungry for recovery growth means that you bring this mindset to all that you are and all that you do. I have gained great insights from the imagination of children and the persistence that I have observed from people who live a hardscrabble existence. I have walked alongside very wealthy people and have learned recovery principles. I have experienced even more wisdom from the poor and homeless. I have learned spirituality from my depression, impatience, and dire failings in my life. Emotional and physical pain have been great teachers. Recently, sitting next to Sequoia trees in California helped me to keep my vision for change to extend beyond my own time and onto future generations. When you are hungry for insight and understanding, you find it all around you. Let the world be your library to stretch yourself and grow.

3. Tell on yourself. The hardest thing in recovery I have ever had to do was to get emotionally honest at a deep level and tell on myself. That meant to tell on myself about times I was insecure and unsure. It meant that I needed to learn to live with being “emotionally naked” to those who I identified as support. This is much easier to write about than live. It meant that in order for me to show up at a 12-step group, I had to be honest and lead with the last thing I wanted people to know about me and let that be the first thing I said. I have pissed people off, said things I wasn’t comfortable saying, and put up with blowback from others because of what I said. I don’t do this everywhere I go. Yet, when it comes to recovery groups, the only way I have been able to always get something from each group is for me to show up and tell on myself. This mentality has conditioned me to cultivate deeper intimacy with my wife and those I care about and who I have invited to be close. Practice telling on yourself.

4. Do the next right thing no matter what it takes. We say this all the time in 12-step work. When you screw up, make a relationship mistake, or act out, the hardest thing is to face the consequences and do the next right thing. You feel shitty about yourself and getting up out of the mud hole you created for yourself is really hard. Sometimes it feels impossible. It requires that regardless of how you feel, you have to force yourself to move in the right direction, not perfectly, but you’ve got to move! While the voices are screaming that you can’t do recovery, give up, just numb out, and get high, you have to take yourself by the nape of the neck and do the next right thing. This move is not spectacular and there is no glory in it. The war with addiction behavior is hammered out when you drag yourself from wallowing in the mud and pick up the phone, tell on yourself, and go to a meeting. You can never get away from doing the next right thing no matter what it takes.

5. As an addict, what you think is most important, seldom is. In my addiction, what I thought was so important never was. John Prine wrote this great song about Sam Stone who became a morphine addict in the VietNam war and lived out the rest of his days addicted. He wrote, “When he popped his last balloon… there was nothing to be done but trade his house that he bought on the GI-bill for a flag-draped casket on a local hero’s hill.” That’s always the result of addictive demand. There are times, even now, that I can be so damned insistent on wanting what I want when I want it. The next day it didn’t even matter. After the build-up of addictive craving and you too have popped your balloon, what you thought was so important on the other side seldom was.

6. Be your own guru. Activist Grace Lee Boggs wrote a book when she was 98 years old. In the book, she said “We are the leaders we are looking for.” This applies not only about our country’s destiny but is also true for those in recovery. I lead several groups of men who gather on weekends to work through addictive behavior. The tendency in groups of all kinds is to look to someone to be the guru. Usually, it is someone who has a way with words, is charismatic, or who just simply talks a lot. Guru is synonymous to being a teacher, master, or sage. The idea of being a teacher is great. However, it is common for group members to look to a teacher and build them up and put them on a pedestal. I find this very annoying! I can teach you and you can teach me. There is no need to pedestalize anyone. In religion, we make saints out of people. We do the same thing in recovery groups. Perhaps, out of insecurity, we put others on a pedestal and make gurus out of them. I find it detrimental to recovery growth. I suspect that this is done because we don’t want to grow ourselves and become our own guru. Recovery growth in my life has required that I become my own guru.

7. Addicts change only when the prospect of not changing is more painful than the change they are facing. This has been said by many regarding the change of behavior. It certainly has been true for me. Only when the pain of remaining stuck in old behavior—addiction, procrastination, lack of exercise, healthy eating habits, etc, became intolerable did I transform myself around these behaviors. Many talk about change. It will require that you increase the pain of hurtful behavior to an intensity that change is less painful than remaining the same. Personal growth throughout the rest of your life will demand that you make decisions around this experience of tension.

8. What is more important than sobriety is bringing yourself back to center. Sobriety is sacred. It is hard won by all of us who experience it. However, throughout the years I have learned to value the skill of bringing myself back to center to be more important. No one does sobriety perfect. In the world of sex addiction, few have ever put down the addictive process and never returned through relapse. Even among those who do, lapses into high-risk behavior is common. Bringing yourself back to center is a way of managing your humanity. You will make mistakes. You will need to cultivate the concept of velvet steel if you intend to maintain long-term sobriety. When – not if – you blow it and make a big mistake, you will need to know how to bring yourself back to center with humility and gentleness. You will need to know how to assert necessary firmness and resolution that will ground and help you to be true to your heart.

9. Be who you are – don’t try to be someone else. Musician and poet Van Morrison wrote, “Live the life you love and it will bring the blessings from above”. So many people try to be someone they are not. It is not necessary to try to live life through another’s persona. It’s an impossible way to live and extremely painful. Recovery flows and is rich when you commit to being your authentic self. You will never remain lost in your recovery when you practice being true to yourself.

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