Speaker 1Nobody told me that getting sober wasn't the hard part. The hard part was finding out the version of myself I'd been dragging along for years and realizing most of it wasn't even mine. You might have heard this phrase before, but today I want to talk about old ideas and the phrase I'm talking about is uncover, discover, and discard. When I come into recovery, I carry a lot of baggage. I carry a lot of ways of thinking, behaviors, patterns, ideas, thoughts that I have about the world, grand plans, perspectives that I am unshakable in. I will not see it your way. I always say this, but my biggest problem today is I'm right. I'm right. You're wrong. This is the way it has to be done because this is the way I do it. So when I come into recovery and people tell me to leave that shit at the door, check my ego, dispel, uncover, discover, discard. To me, it means I am unlearning. I'm peeling back the layers of my addiction that I carried around with me for so long because those behaviors, those ideas, those perspectives keep me sick. And if I don't open my mind to new concepts and new ideas, first of all, I wouldn't be sitting here today if I didn't do that. And if I don't continue to do that, I'm going to be back in the hotel rooms using Coke and meth by myself to all hours of the night once again, because that's essentially how I relapsed. I say a lot of reasons for how I relapsed. It's multi-layered, but at the end of the day, honesty, open-mindedness, and willingness. I stopped being open-minded. I stopped being honest. Yeah, for sure. Anyone that relapses, there's a level of dishonesty that happens, but I also stopped being open-minded. I stopped looking at other ways to do things. I was right. And I was stuck on this idea that I needed to use steroids to fix. My God-sized hole. I needed ADHD medication to fix what was going on in my brain when the keys to the house were inside the whole time. I'm like, I love the analogy of I'm like the guy stuck in prison, but I'm also the bailer and I'm also the key holder. I'm all three of those things. So I'm stuck inside the jail. I have the keys in my pocket and I'm also the guard, the prison guard watching me. It's like the answer is right there. I just don't want to dig for it because it's work. I'd rather take shortcuts and I'd rather use outside. Things to change my insides because it's less work. And the guy on Instagram told me he's happy when he does steroids. And the guy on my buddy tells me he got real big from doing peptides and losing weight. And that must be the answer. That's gotta be it. That's where my discomfort and unease is coming from. That's where I'm disturbed. That'll fix it. And then I lead down this road of not telling people things and eventually I'm relapsed. So this episode isn't a how-to. It's not a manual, not a guide. I'm just going to talk about basically the old ideas that keep me sick. Keep us sick and how to get rid of them, how to come into recovery and start to leave your old ideas behind because not all of them serve you. And let's be honest, not all of them are bad either. Some of them are helpful. Some of them get me through hard times, but a good example of one that's killing me right now is this money idea. I need money to be successful. I need a good job to be successful. I need a high paying job to be successful. I'm dispelling that every day or trying to, because I'm getting back into this. I'm getting back into this. I'm getting back into this. I'm getting back into this counseling industry, not back. I've never was in it before, but I'm getting into the counseling industry. And as you know, the money's not good in it's something that needs to change, but it's just the way it is. The social service work industry is not the pay that a lot of people might think it is. And it's not advantageous in the financial aspect. So I need to find worth elsewhere. And I mean, listen, at the end of the day, we all know money doesn't bring happiness, but you have to go and scrape your knee to try because we're stubborn. I need to learn the hard way. But at the end of the day, I'm chasing this, this path because I think it'll work out. I know it's the right thing to do for me right now. And if it's not, I'm going to learn someday and then I can just pivot and go back to something else, but I'm going to try it for now because I like it. I'm good at it. And it brings me joy to help others that are, were once suffering like me. So setting the stage, what are old ideas? What do I, what are we talking about when I say old ideas? There was a moment when I realized I wasn't addicted to just the substance is it was, I was addicted to the whole way of thinking the whole pattern, the, I need outside things to fix my insides. I have a problem I'm going to use. It's going to go away. I'm concerned about my drug use. So I'm going to keep using because when I continue to use my problems go away and I get that reprieve, I get that breath. I get that relief. I don't have to think about all the people I've heard. I don't have to think about the consequences that I'm enduring. I, it just goes away. It's magic. Old ideas. They're not necessarily front and center opinions that we might be aware of. They're subconscious operating systems. So they operate in the subconscious. They run in the background without us knowing it's I'm programmed my upbringing. I've been programmed my whole life to know that money is a tool, but when I was growing up, we didn't have necessarily an abundance of money. We weren't hard off either. We were middle-class, but I was always taught. I had an old idea that money is sacred and you hold onto it and you save it and you don't spend it when you, you don't buy nice things. And so I think what I'm realizing over time is I've learned. I have a learned belief of, I can't have nice things like my neighbors do because we don't have enough money. That was sort of the narrative that was spun into my head. At least that's the way I remember it. So another example of old ideas, I have to earn love. So for me, it's, if I can make you laugh, you're going to love me. I have to bring value to you. I have to be of, I have to bring joy to your life. And that's how I'm accepted. I have to think that you like me. And this is where codependence comes in. I need you to love me so that I can love myself. I was, I run one of my biggest old ideas that is so detrimental to my life, but it's also helpful too. There's two sides to every idea is the fact that I judge my self-worth on your opinion of me. And it's gotten a lot better, but I still fall into that old pattern of thinking that if 10 people in a room, all love what I'm doing, they love the podcast. They love my opinions. They I'm helping them so much. That 11th person says, dude, you're the worst. I can't believe you think like that. Are you for real? I got a comment today on my YouTube. Somebody commented on my YouTube post. Is this for real? No, I'm joking. Like, yeah, it's for real. I posted it. Why are you watching it? Move on. Anyways, I will focus on that one person because I want to please everybody. And at the end of the day, people pleasing it's, we know it's not good, but at the same time, there's a skill behind it. I can adapt to scenarios to, for my betterment. I can do it, use it in business and in work, and I can read the room. And if, if I'm trying to do something at work, I can use that skill to get you on my side, to persuade you, to help me do something that's in work and in the business world. But my point is there's two sides to everything. So it's not just people. Pleasing it's also another side of it where you can use this as an asset. You can use this to build relationships and learn from people that, well, this worked and this didn't. I, people don't like when I do this, they like when I do that. I just need to be authentic at the end of the day. There's a lesson in every weakness, in every character defect. Another one is showing weakness gets you hurt. So men aren't supposed to be vulnerable. That's another idea. Men don't cry. We just move on and we provide for our families and we work hard and we're supposed to look strong all the time. And that that's another old idea that I come into recovery with. Another old idea off the top of my head. I need drugs to have fun. That's a perfect example. I need drugs to enjoy life. I can't leave my house without having drugs on me or the anticipation of getting drunk or the ability to look forward to this. I need something to look forward to. That's another one. I always have to have something that I'm looking forward to that I am anticipation of in anticipation of. I'm excited about. That's not always going to be the case in life. As you know, we're not going to, there's a lot of things I don't want to do that I'm not looking forward to that I have to do anyways. And I spin a story in my head about how it's going to be the worst thing. And then I go and do it and it's never as I thought it would be. That's fear, right? Face everything and recover or fuck everything and run. So there's this concept in psychology called schema. Schema. I don't know. I'm reading it like an Italian. S-C-H-E-M-A. Schema. It's deeply held beliefs, formed early in life that filter how we interpret everything. So it builds a perception. We're looking at it through a filter, through a lens based on our childhoods, something learned early on. This is why, so in recovery literature framing framework, you hear sometimes in 12-step recovery, rarely have we seen a person fail who has thoroughly followed our path. The path requires more than not using. It requires examining what's underneath. I have to do the work to realize why I do the things I do. Why I'm predisposed to picking up drugs and alcohol. Why I liked to escape myself. What parts am I avoiding? What am I trying to cover, blot out? What am I trying to not address? What am I trying not to face with drugs and alcohol? I'm escaping something. I need to be sober to do that. And that leads me into the next one, which is uncover. But before that, I'll ask you a question. What's one belief you carried into recovery? That you picked up before you ever touched a substance. One belief you carried into recovery that you picked up long before you ever touched substance. Think about that. And is it benefiting you? Uncover. The question here is what is actually running me right now? So if you have the opportunity to do an inventory process in recovery, I highly recommend it. It's such a great exercise to get out your fears, your resentments, your relationship patterns, not the events, but the beliefs in column three or four underneath them all. What are the beliefs? What are the ideas here that are limiting me, that are affecting my behavior, that are affecting my relationships, the way I live and see the world? Is it financial insecurity? Is it sexual relations? Is it pride? Am I worried that I'm going to look a certain way? Am I comparing myself to other people? Is it ego? These are important things to uncover because they'll run your life if you're not aware of them. One of the ones that hit me the hardest when I do this and I did this, I've done a few of them in the 10 years that I've been doing recovery, working recovery program, is that I I compare myself to other people. So when I walk into a room or when I'm in public, when I'm around other humans, I do this thing subconsciously where I've realized it now during meditation and doing the work. I compare myself to you. So you're either worse than or better than me. You're either more successful or not as successful. And then if you're more successful, I envy you or I'm jealous or I build some resentment that, oh, you must have gotten it from your parents or you're just lucky and you're not an addict. So you got a good hand. You were dealt a good hand in life. All these lies, these stories I spin up in my head. And then if you're less than me, if I consider you less, I, you know, my subconscious mind will say, oh, poor guy. He doesn't know anything. I can't learn anything from him. It's a lack of humility. And I have to constantly work on that. I'm building my worth by scanning the environment and looking for differences and not similarities, which is a dangerous place to be. So uncovering isn't about blame. It's about visibility. Awareness. You can't fix what you won't look at. You can't heal what you don't feel. You can't heal what you're not aware of. I need to uncover the problem before I can find the solution. A screwdriver is a great tool. But if I have a flat tire on the highway, a screwdriver isn't going to help me for shit. So I need to find the problem and then I need the right solution to solve the problem. Usually the solution to these problems is the opposite of whatever you're doing. So if I'm. If I'm greedy, it's being humble. Or if I'm greedy, it's being. If I'm greedy, it's being grateful, living in gratitude. If I'm angry, it's love. If I'm resistant or I'm in resentment, I'm angry. Again, another one could be acceptance. If I am defiant, acceptance is the opposite. That's the answer. I need to practice more of that. I need to replace the defect of character with a spiritual principle. So there's an important distinction here between when. When something clicks is instead of asking yourself, why did this happen to me? Why, why, why? Because you'll sit there forever in self-pity wondering why. Why did I become an alcoholic? Why did I become an addict? Why did my financial situation end up like this? Why did I make this mistake? Move over to what did I decide about myself because of it? What identity did I form as a result of that thing? I also learned recently that I've been grieving my past. My past recovery life when I had seven and a half years and I had a lot of money and I had a job that was paying really well and I had a condo and I was thriving in recovery. I had money in the bank. I wasn't spending that much. My, my life was seemingly in, in order and I was on top of the world. And I, I realized late recently that I've been grieving that version of myself. I've been holding on to and comparing myself today to that guy, that version, which is not healthy. It's, I need to look at that as a point in my life and not a destination. Now I'm striving to be something else. I was obviously missing something there. I wouldn't have relapsed. There was obviously a part of my recovery program I wasn't uncovering and I wasn't dealing, dealing with. Now I need to, I'm, I'm Anthony 3.0 now. I'm a new version, you're a new version of yourself in this time around recovery. And you need to develop what that looks like and that identity and that version and lean into it. Address the root cause of the problem and move on. So I'm a new version of myself. So the distinction between events, circumstances and meaning making, it's a trauma, trauma research supports that it's often the story we assign to events, not the events themselves. It's the narrative I have in my head about that event, the perspective I'm spinning on it and I'm telling myself my reality, my version of reality. Again, perception is everything. Everything is perception. Perception is reality. I can choose how to look at any situation at any time. I can choose. I can choose to look at this as being bad, or I can choose to look at this as being an opportunity. My alcoholism was a perfect example of that. I can look at my alcoholism as a curse and my life is over. I'm screwed. I'm never going to have fun again, which I did in the beginning. Or today I can look at it as the greatest asset in my life. It has brought me a spiritual toolkit. I have a purpose now in my life, in my life. God hooked me the F up. I have a direction I can follow and help others through. I can use all those addict skills that I have and develop. Build a business, build a podcast from it. Whatever your thing is, use those skills to your advantage. It's your superpower. As Eminem always says, that drive that you have to get high all the time, that, that ability to stay persistent on things and obsess over things. That's a skill, man. Use it towards something good. This is not about minimizing what happened. Both can be true. Something terrible happened and we built beliefs around it and now run us on autopilot. Two things can be true here. Question for you. When did you first realize a belief you had about yourself wasn't actually yours? It was something you absorbed from someone else. Okay. Segment three, discover where the question here with discover is where did this come from and what was it protecting me from the difference between uncovering and discovering uncovering names, the idea. We're looking at the root of the problem here. I talked about this a bit in the open, but my problem with money and my tying my self-worth to my external circumstances, having my self-worth contingent on my external circumstances, I think goes back to some part of my childhood where I needed everything to be okay in the house. I needed there to be no problems so that I could feel okay. That's the belief that was built in my childhood. And now today, if. Everything's not okay on the outside. If I'm not financially stable, it means I'm, let's be honest. It feels like I'm dying. It feels like I'm eroding into society. I am falling behind behind what behind this old version of me that I spun the story that I should be here. Again, we're using the shoulds. I should be doing this. This should be this way. Not accepting the nature of my reality. This part is uncomfortable and I'm not going to sugarcoat it. There was grief here. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. I'm not going to sugarcoat it for whatever you're going through. There was some amount of trauma that happened that developed this old idea. You can only decide for yourself what that is. And with the work of a good therapist and maybe a recovery sponsor as well, tracing back. But therapy is so important in this aspect because I need to learn why I do the things that I do so that I don't have to do them anymore. And then when they come up, I can just spin this quick line in my head, which I've been doing a lot lately. Oh, there's that financial insecurity fear coming up again. Oh, my. My brain is telling me it's doing that thing again that it's telling me I need external circumstances to be okay. I need my external environment to be okay. Whatever that means. Okay. For me to be feel safe for me to feel accepted for me to belong. Whatever the thing is for you. Discovering the origin didn't excuse the behavior, but it explained the function that mattered. Question for you. Have you ever discovered where one of your survival strategies originally came from? What was that like? Okay, discard. So the third one we have uncover. We did discover. And now we're going to talk about discard how the question here is, how do I actually let this go? And important part here, what do I replace it with? Because I need to subtract by addition. I need to take away by adding something else. Discarding isn't a decision that happens in the moment overnight. It's a practice I had to act as if the old idea wasn't true. Before. Before I believe the new one. So acting as if. Acting as if this wasn't true. Is this really true? Is this thing really true? This belief that I have. Is it 100% without a doubt true? Most of the time it's not. It's a story that we spin in our head. So if you can act as if it wasn't true before you believe a new one, you're on a good start. On a good path. So there's a gap period here that when you, when you've let go of the old idea, but the new one hasn't taken root yet. The space in between is where. A lot of people relapse or white knuckle it. You're finding out your identity. You're learning your true self. You're, you're uncovering, discovering, discarding and growing in recovery, but you're still looking for those new ideas. I had to go to recovery spaces full stop too. I followed around and I continue to follow around guys in recovery that have what I want. They have that sense of ease and comfort without taking a drink. They look calm and peaceful and they make me feel calm and peaceful. You ever been around one of those people that's always anxious and you can like hear them. their thoughts out loud almost they're so uptight and wound up. How do you feel when you're around those people? Not very good. You feel the anxiety coming off them, the energy that they bring to the room. I started to hang around people that had good energy. And what I mean by that, I don't mean it in a woo-woo way, but the people that made me feel calm when I hung around them that were forgiving and they weren't talking shit. They weren't gossiping. I started to hang around those people so that I could steal their new beliefs and apply them in my life. That's what works for me today. Hey, can I borrow your belief and practice it? And look, I'm happier now as a result. What are the chances of that? Who would have thought? If you want what we have, you have to do what we did. Full stop. So discarding also means grieving the identity that formed around the old idea. So again, I'm grieving my old seven and a half year self because I'll never get back to that guy. I'm not saying that I'll never get seven and a half years sober. I'm saying that I will never be exactly like that version of me. I'm growing. The circumstances are changing. My life is growing, evolving. I'm changing. My perception of the world is changing. I'm more mature. I'm maturing in recovery. I'm growing up. So if your story was, I don't need anyone. I've got this. I could do this on my own, which is common for a lot of us. Letting that go means sitting with how lonely I actually was. Cognitive restructuring does not equal positive thinking. It's about identifying the distortion and replacing it with something more accurate, not just optimistic. You're being more realistic and accepting and noticing things for what they actually are. ACT therapy, which stands for acceptance and commitment therapy, highly recommend doing it if you have a therapist. The framework is diffusion, learning to see the thoughts as thoughts, not facts. Listen, I don't know about you, but I have no control over my first thought. A lot of the time I have no control over a lot of the thoughts that pop into my head, but I do have control over my action and my next thought and what I do about that thought. Do I dwell on it or do I notice it for a train passing through the station? That's it. It's a train passing through the station and I don't have to identify with it. I don't have to attach myself to it. Neuroplasticity basics, repeated new thought patterns, literally build new neural pathways over time. Recovery changes brain structure, not just behavior. You're rewiring your neurotransmitters in your brain to think more realistically and in turn end up thinking more positively. Here's something I'll leave with you. If anything is possible in the future, if you have a fear of the future like I do, and I just, I don't know what's, I have a fear of the unknown. Well, guess what? The unknown could also be the best thing ever for you. Think about that for a moment. The unknown could be, is scary. It's frightening. It's petrifying at times, but it could also be, if you look at it this way, exciting and illuminating. And if I don't know what's going to happen in the future, that means anything can happen, including all the good positive things. Whatever you put your magnifying glass on, you're going to notice more in your life. It's the same reason if I tell you, look for a blue car and all you, you leave this podcast and all you see on the road or if you're driving right now, listening to this, and I say blue car, blue car, blue car, all you're going to notice is blue cars and you're not going to notice, wow, I saw 25 blue cars today. What are you going to notice? I'm going to notice a blue car, a blue car, a blue car, a blue car, a blue car, just remember that. Your magnifying glass is looking at the negative, turn it to the positive. This isn't a one-time thing. Uncover, discover, discard is a loop. It's constant, ongoing for life. It's a new layer, new inventory, new freedom. I still catch myself running in that old code, that old behavior, that old programming. The difference is I notice it faster now. I notice when it's running my life and it's not serving me. Where are you today with this process? What's still being worked on? Keep it honest, not resolved. What am I still working through? Recovery is not just about the removing of the substance. If drugs were my problem, I would have stopped a long time ago. If alcohol was my problem, I would have stopped a long time ago. My problem is my perception, the way I think, the way I see things, the way I spin stories. That is my problem today. I'm right. You're wrong. I'm right. That's my problem. Thank you all for being here today. I appreciate every single one of you. If you haven't already, please like, follow, subscribe. Rate the podcast. It helps me more than you know. If no one's told you this yet today, I love you. And remember, recovery is simple, not easy.
PodcastTranscript AI