The Addicted Mind Podcast

On today’s episode, Duane speaks with Chris Howard, the founder of Ethos Recovery, a long-term recovery house for men. He’s also the founder of Lifestyle Interventions where he offers family intervention mentoring. Chris shares his journey of addiction and recovery and his experience working with families, helping them deal with addiction, and helping them heal as a whole system. A Los Angeles native, Chris grew up in a home with a schizoaffective mother and ended up in foster care. As a young man, Chris turned to drugs and alcohol to help escape his troubles in life and thought that his rite of passage into adulthood was going to prison. Chris eventually became a drug addict and drug dealer. He was engaging in all this maladaptive behavior without anyone telling him anything. After more than a decade of struggling with addiction, Chris finally decided to change his course and help other people going through the same thing.Now working in a helping field, Chris wants to help people without belittling them or making them feel worse about their suffering. He believes that his job is to help people question their maladaptive belief systems, their coping strategies, and why they (and even their families) are afraid of being honest. During the conversation, Chris explains that we’re now seeing a pendulum shift in treatment and recovery from being a heavily social model – that could be lacking in accountability – into one that is very clinical and lacking in empathy. These two have to meet somewhere in the middle. We must hold people accountable while also having love and compassion as we walk them through their recovery journey. There has to be a balance between both in order to create a potent formula for healing, personal growth, and being your best self. In this episode, you will hear: Chris’ journey through addiction and recovery How he began working with families Understanding the family dynamic Why trauma isn’t always the root cause of addiction Emotional reasoning tied into trauma The accountability perspective with DBT or Dialectical Behavior Therapy If drugs aren’t the problem, what is? The need to balance accountability and empathy How to heal as a family unit Key Quotes:[07:54] - “The group dynamic at times can help elevate your level of consciousness.”[12:30] - "The hardest thing to watch is people who maybe are more personality disordered and the families can't let go... they put themselves through so much pain and suffering as a result of their love for this person who either can't or will not change."[13:28] - “Trauma is the dominant narrative in mental health and substance abuse treatment at this point. It's not that I don't believe in trauma, I just don't believe every addict is a result of trauma.”[20:31] - “Working on mental health and substance abuse problems, it often gets worse before it gets better because you no longer have that to shield you to cope.”[21:14] - “Drugs aren't the problem. They're actually a phenomenal solution for human beings. The problem is they can't cope for some reason.”[24:40] - “The empathy aspect might actually even be one of the most important aspects because a lot of times, the mental state that individuals who struggle with mental health and substance abuse are in, is so deprived as a result of their life experience.”[32:48] - "Families often equate more money with better treatment. And it's not necessarily true."If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.Supporting Resources:Ethos Recovery Lifestyle InterventionsEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

How do you heal from addiction and alcoholism that you created? You may impact others through your addiction but you can also impact them through your recovery and healing. On today’s episode, Duane talks with Wendy Adamson, author of Mother Load and Incorrigible, about intergenerational trauma and how that impacts addiction recovery, getting better, mental health, relationships, and more.  As a teen, Wendy was labeled as incorrigible which is defined as, "not able to be corrected, improved, or reformed.” That's what the justice system called her. They pretty much gave up on her and put her into the system. Wendy was taken away from her father, plucked from her life, and put in a juvenile hall. From there, she went to foster homes with different environments that nobody ever questioned. Nobody was asking about her or what she had been through. She was locked up not just physically but also mentally.Unfortunately, there is still a lack of trauma-informed language for kids going into the system. Saying to a parent that their kid is incorrigible just sounds hopeless. Part of Wendy's desire to write a book is to give other people hope that they are not incorrigible and that they can come out on the other side. Taking her experience and using it as a tool to help others became a transformative experience for her.  Wendy explains that there’s intergenerational trauma being passed on unconsciously through children until somebody wakes up in the family. Wendy’s mother was 38 when she had a psychotic break and killed herself. She lost her mind and never got an opportunity to get it back. Wendy, too, had a drug-induced psychotic break at 38 and ended up shooting her husband's girlfriend in the arm. She didn’t own any responsibility for it. She was blaming others and deflecting as addicts do. When Wendy finally reached a moment of clarity, she realized she was not only breaking her own heart but her children's as well because the trauma was being transmitted to them. It was the same trauma that she had not resolved. As a result, her older son went into the juvenile court system just like she did.In this episode, you will hear: The lack of trauma-informed language in our society evidenced by our justice system labeling teens as incorrigible The shame around mental illness Going from a moment of victimization to a moment of clarity Taking one step in the right direction There’s no defense against kindness How to create a positive feedback loop Understanding the impact of ​​intergenerational trauma Letting go of the outcome We’re always getting opportunities to redeem ourselves. Key Quotes:[03:14] - “You may impact others through your addiction, but you can impact them through your recovery and through your healing.”[12:27] - "When you're level to the point where you're out of ideas, and you surrender, and people are kind to you, you have no defense against kindness."[15:41] - “What we put out there, we get back, the universe responds by corresponding to my nature.”[22:05] - “We have the power to transmute the trauma when one person decides to change, there is a ripple effect within the family system.”[25:28] - "As a parent, you're just throwing information over the wall and you don't know if it's landing and if they're catching it."[31:08] - “There's something that happens and the things are revealed to you that you didn't know through your writing.”[33:42] - "Life is not a snapshot. You know, it's not just one image frozen in time. We get opportunities and we're always getting opportunities to redeem ourselves."Supporting Resources:www.wendyadamson.com Mother Load: A Memoir of Addiction, Gun Violence & Finding a Life of PurposeIncorrigible: A Coming-of-Age Memoir of Loss, Addiction & IncarcerationHav A SoleEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s episode, Duane speaks with Mike Grant about his recovery story and how he used running as a tool to help him through his recovery process. Mike currently works in the health care system as a licensed clinical social worker. He primarily works with people stuck in addiction. He’s an alcohol and drug counselor and the author of (Re)Making A Sandwich: An Addiction Case Study. As a lover of ultra marathons, Mike started a local running club for people in recovery and they have organized runs and done races together. Mike grew up with some anger issues as a result of things that happened in his home. He started drinking at 13 years old and thought it would help him for many years. Instead, drinking at such a young age stunted his emotional development. He lacked the emotional skill set he needed to make good decisions in his life.Part of Mike’s story was being a habitual DUI offender. After being placed on county probation due to multiple DUI offenses, Mike finally realized that the consequences of his drinking could negatively affect his son. He got tired of backtracking his life with law issues, financial issues, and everything else he couldn't juggle or keep straight because of his relationship with alcohol. Knowing that he needed mandated treatment for himself, Mike did a three-year diversion program that changed his life and he has been sober ever since. The diversion program was more of a life management program to him than a non-drinking program because he learned how to live life in a lot of ways.Ultimately, working with people in active addiction allows Mike to connect with the rawness of what addiction really is. There's no romanticizing it from the side of recovery because he knows what it's really like. In this episode, you will hear: Mike’s alcohol addiction and recovery journey How he invested in his progress through running How to make the huge mental shift from “I can’t” to “I can” How running helps some people in recovery Why grit is a transferable skill you can bring from addiction to recovery  Key Quotes:[07:02] - "I would make some progress in something and then alcohol would knock me back or my behaviors while drinking would knock me back."[12:04] - "I've shifted this perspective of shame-based thinking where I can't do something to why can't I?"[13:27] - ​​"If you actually enjoy the work that you're doing, it can make a workweek more tolerable."[14:31] - "Running is a metaphor for so many things. You have to do it. No one can do it for you. Set goals. You get out there and do it."[19:01] - "When you're in recovery, building grit is so important because you've got to weather some difficult things."[19:28] - “​​Grit is a transferable skill from your addiction…if you can use those skills that you learned in your addiction and bring to your recovery, that grit will get you far.”[22:33] - “Life doesn't have to be changed overnight. You just do little consistent things and get back to it, and monumental things can happen in 10 years.”[26:09] - “Life is messy and beating yourself up over it isn't going to help.”Supporting Resources:(Re)Making A Sandwich: An Addiction Case StudyEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s episode, Duane talks with Justin B. Long about his journey through childhood trauma and how he tried to escape it through alcoholism. We discuss the traps of toxic masculinity, the idea that, as men, we can't share our feelings. We can't be vulnerable. We should be stoic at all times. In the episode, you’ll learn how that idea prevents us from being able to heal from our past wounds. Justin shares his story of hope and healing for everyone else out there who's struggling with the same issues. Justin is the author of The Righteous Rage of a Ten-Year-Old Boy: A Journey of Self-Discovery. In his book, he talks about uncovering our deeper feelings by addressing childhood events and traumas and changing how our emotions are tied to those memories. Justin has poured his deepest, darkest secrets into the book. As he pointed out, the more sunshine gets on those secrets, the less power they have over him.  As he was trying to recover from alcoholism in his mid-30's, Justin had to go back to the beginning of time to understand what drove him to alcoholism. Justin grew up with two very emotionally dysfunctional parents: his dad was a workaholic and a rageaholic and his mom was deep into extreme religiosity and hoped that God would solve her emotional challenges. He found himself in the wrong place at the wrong time. His parents didn't have any emotional tools to support him or help him. Therefore, he grew up in an unhealthy environment. The way his dad treated him taught him that he was a failure no matter what he did. Feeling unworthy, uncomfortable, and untrusting, Justin turned to books as a way to escape reality. Then, as he got older, he discovered alcohol. It made him feel good about himself and he felt accepted for the first time in his life. So, alcohol became his tool to feel good about himself. Justin didn’t realize that it wasn’t a solution or that it was just a band-aid. However, like all external things, it had diminishing returns over time. It worked less and less until it stopped working altogether.In this episode, you will hear: Justin’s childhood trauma What it was like to not know how to handle his feelings  How covering up feelings of shame and guilt through drinking became a cycle How he changed his perspective from being a failure to being okay How a recovery meeting became the first pinprick that showed him reality What his righteous rage looked like and how letting it go allowed him to achieve true freedom What happens when your pain is greater than your fear Why it’s okay to feel your feelings Justin’s motivation to put his book out there Key Quotes:[09:21] - "My biggest problem that made me decide I had to quit drinking was that the more I got drunk around other people, the more I misbehaved and just couldn't seem to control myself."[13:15] - “Everything that I thought I knew about myself to be true was not true. And I get to rewrite that story."[16:12] - "In your formative years, you take everything from around you, and you believe that to be true."[18:33] - “True freedom comes in moving past that and letting go of that rage, even if it's justified.”[21:02] - “The pain has to get greater than the fear. And that's how it was for me. It hurt bad enough that I was willing to step into the fear."[22:14] - “I'm trying to learn how to feel the feelings and be okay with them. And sometimes it hurts, but I've learned that that's okay, too. It's part of it.”[25:17] - “The more sunshine gets on those secrets, the less power they have over me.”Supporting Resources:The Righteous Rage of a Ten-Year-Old Boy: A Journey of Self-DiscoveryEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane speaks with Gill Tietz, a biochemist and the host of the Sober Powered Podcast. Gill shares her alcohol addiction journey, the connection between our brain chemistry and addiction, and how she used her knowledge of science to achieve sobriety, change her way of thinking, and ultimately change her life.Gill had her first drink at 18 years old and, after feeling shame and guilt, she decided not to drink anymore after that. Four years later, when she was at grad school, she started drinking with her colleagues. Having dealt with bullying and trauma early in life, Gill just wanted to fit in. Once she had just one drink, she thought it was magic and the best feeling in the world. Best of all, she finally felt included. Within a year, she became a daily drinker. Drinking was a huge part of the culture of the lab she worked at so she thought it was normal behavior. By the second year, she was drinking a lot more with 80% or more alcohol in her drinks. She was blacking out several nights a week and going to work massively hungover. Towards the end, she started having several mental health issues, hating herself, and becoming very suicidal. Finally, Gill braved through her alcohol issue by accepting reality and looking at her drinking for what it was versus what she was hoping it could be someday. By removing emotions from the equation, she started to look at things from a more scientific perspective. Having removed feelings of shame and guilt, she opened herself up to self-compassion. In this episode, you will hear: What it’s like to be in a work culture where drinking is normal  How drinking impacts mental health The science behind addiction How understanding the science behind it opened Gill up to self-compassion How sobriety is achieved by looking at facts and removing emotions How brain chemistry is related to addiction The study looking at endorphin levels for social drinkers and people with alcohol issues The misconception about dopamine The concept of neuroplasticity Key Quotes:[10:08] - "I really didn't think my behavior was weird. I was just doing what you're supposed to do."[19:42] - “In science, you're trained to be very objective. Your thoughts and beliefs about something don't make it true.”[20:07] - “The big reason I was able to stop – I finally accepted reality and looked at my drinking for what it actually was."[22:56] - “When you can disconnect yourself from that, and just look at the actual facts of what's going on, it's helpful to make a good decision."[24:47] - “It's a bunch of different risks that add and subtract from each other. And if they add up enough, your risk of having a problem is very, very high. And then bam, you have a problem."[29:15] - “As you abuse alcohol, it makes changes to your reward system and other areas of your brain. [29:27] - “Not everyone's brain reacts exactly the same to alcohol.”[32:26] - “Endorphins actually trigger the release of dopamine."Supporting Resources:Sober Powered PodcastEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane talks with author Benjamin Hardy about his personal experience with addiction and the chaos that comes along with it. Benjamin describes the process overcoming his own addictions involved going through a “redemptive process,” which involved forgiving his father and rebuilding the relationship there. With trauma, you’re always looking in the rear-view mirror, but you need to make meaning going forward. Meaning is not going to strike you—you have to make it yourself. The beauty of this is that you can change the meaning of your past, Benjamin says. It’s key to have empathy for your old self.  Benjamin also talks about how writing about your trauma can really help. Turning away from the past, you can have hope for the future. Without a hope for the future, Benjamin says, the present becomes meaningless. You can also choose to ascribe a meaning to your past. We call it “meaning-making,” Benjamin says. Part of becoming emotionally-developed includes this idea of choosing the meaning of your past.He shares a story about how you can actively work to a solution for something that didn’t go exactly how you planned instead of snapping to a quick decision. You can choose to frame it in a new way instead of being defined by a failure. Choosing the meaning going forward can change how you store that forever. In his story, Benjamin points to the fact that he was vulnerable enough to share his feelings with the people in question as part of the process.Moving onto his book, Benjamin unpacks the idea that your personality is going to change, and that you have the power to choose who you want to be in the future. Your personality is just how you consistently show up. It’s crucial to have your identity based on who you actually want to be in the future. The same courage that moves you to say “I need help” is the courage it takes to tell people who you want to be in the future. It takes courage, as Benjamin says, because it’s uncertain. You’ll realize you might be rejected, but that you also need to do some “rejecting” to get you where you ultimately want to be. When you are open and honest, nothing is hiding anymore. Key quotes:05:05 — “There’s capital ‘T’ trauma and lowercase ‘t’ trauma.”07:55 — “While I was running, I think I was subconsciously building confidence and thinking about my future.”09:25 — “Memory is not objective; it’s more of a set of meanings we’ve given.”12:40 — ”You’re a normal person even though you’ve made mistakes—and by the way, we’ve all made mistakes.”16:45 — “We get stuck remembering the past rather than imagining the future.”29:45 — “You shorten the refractory period by taking action.”33:30 — “Identity and personality are two different things.”36:50 — “Who you want to be is part of your true self.”38:30 — “We’re more likely to believe the stories we tell people about who we are.”41:15 — “There is potential for you to look back at this thing you’re going through and be grateful.”Supporting Resources:Check out Benjamin’s website at https://benjaminhardy.comEPISODE CREDITS: If you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today’s episode of The Addicted Mind Podcast, Duane speaks with Dr. Joseph Volpicelli, a world-renowned scientist clinician whose research led to the discovery of naltrexone (a drug that treats alcohol addiction) among many other discoveries related to addiction treatment.  Today, he talks about how naltrexone can help someone struggling with alcohol addiction reduce their cravings. With the help of naltrexone as one of the tools in their toolkit of recovery, people can now start to build a meaningful, purposeful life. They also talk about the importance of the other component: not just the medical intervention, but also the psychosocial interventions for recovery.Dr. Volpicelli has been interested in addiction treatment and research for 40 years now. Such interest started when he was a medical student working with individuals who were returning from Vietnam who had developed an alcohol addiction. Many of them were using opiates but when they came back to the United States, they started drinking more alcohol. For a long time, he has been interested in the relationship between stress, alcohol drinking, and opiates, and has taken that observation into the laboratory working with rats. What he found out was that the ability to control trauma had a very profound effect in terms of one's ability to fight something like cancer. When you're exposed to uncontrollable trauma, your brain releases endogenous endorphins and endogenous morphine-like molecules that help kill the pain. The problem with addiction is that the behavior makes you feel better temporarily but it sows the seeds for the next episode when you’ll need to use alcohol or drugs again, thereby creating an addictive cycle.Dr. Volpicelli discovered how naltrexone helps moderate the highs and lows and, therefore, helps break that addictive cycle. This then gives a person a chance to find other things in life and gives them a sense of purpose and social connectedness.In this episode, you will hear: How Dr. Volpicelli got interested in addiction treatment Trauma and its effects on physical or behavioral disorders How stress is related to alcohol addiction Withdrawal from your own endogenous opiates The endorphin effect that happens in addiction How naltrexone breaks the addictive cycle Understanding the logical brain vs. the emotional brain The BRENDA Approach to enhance adherence Key Quotes:[04:06] - “The ability to control the trauma had a very profound effect in terms of one's ability to fight something like cancer.”[08:05] - “When you're exposed to uncontrollable trauma, your brain releases endogenous endorphins and endogenous morphine-like molecules that help kill the pain.”[09:24] - “A lot of times when people have a very stressful week, on the weekends, they just feel like sitting on a couch eating potato chips, and for some folks when they drink, it helps improve their mood… that's probably withdrawal from your own endogenous opiates.”[10:53] - "The problem with addiction is that the behavior, drinking alcohol or any other behavior, makes you feel better temporarily. But it sows the seeds for the next episode where you need to use the drug again. And so it creates an addictive cycle."[13:58] - “The naltrexone helps moderate the highs and lows so it helps break that addictive cycle.”[15:33] - “By breaking that cycle, the medicine then gives a person a chance to find other things in life to give them a sense of purpose and social connectedness.”[23:24] - "Rather than fight our emotional brain, it's important to understand how it works."[25:55] - "We like to do something purposeful and meaningful in our lives. And people who establish that have much less risk of going back to relapse."Supporting Resources:https://volpicellicenter.com Episode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today's episode, Duane speaks with Howard Lipp about the recovery he experienced after coming up against a wall that he couldn't move. He also shares about the experience he had in rehab that led him to do some work with psychedelics. This enabled him to transcend and find a way out of his suffering and pain.Howard jumped into the world of recovery in 2002 after hitting a wall with drugs and alcohol which he describes as impenetrable. He later realized he had a callous on his forehead from running into the same wall for such a long time without realizing it. Although he wasn't actively suicidal, he no longer wanted to live the way he was living.Therefore, he went through a Pavlovian conditioning program that worked for a while. The problem was that it didn't solve the internal conflict he had within him: his feelings of worthlessness and all the pain he carried from his past of abuse and bullying. Howard went through most of his life believing there was something foundationally wrong with him. It was easy to grab evidence from his experience as a child and from the fact that he needed something outside of himself to feel okay in his skin. The only thing that shut that up was alcohol. It worked well. The problem is, eventually every substance will fail.Howard went to a treatment center and had the most unusual experience after being awake for 21 days. Then, he didn't move for three days and had no detox symptoms or medications applied to his body. Today, Howard talks about the out-of-body experience he had at this treatment center. He also shares his first experience with plant-based medicine and how it broke through something within him. He felt an immediate connection to the presence of a great mystery of spirit. He later realized that his addiction was not to a substance but to his thinking. He believed every single thought he had and that the thinker was him rather than the construct itself. He also started to see how his experience had informed his beliefs. In this episode, you will hear: The belief that leads to a feeling of unworthiness Looking beyond the constructive self The self-flagellating false self that beats the crap out of us The belief that we’re separate from the Divine Why circumstances are not the challenge but the thinking mind is What happens when you use your mind as the guidance system for living The benefits of plant-based medicine in healing addiction and trauma Key Quotes:[03:13] - “You can't solve the problem with the thing that's causing the problem.”[04:50] - "We come from the realm of the great mystery, and land into a body and we're not received as this whole and complete being. Instead, we're given lots of reasons why we're not whole and complete."[12:28] - "As Michael Palin says, ‘If you really want to change your mind, you're going to have to address these false selves.’" [16:25] - "Nobody is really suffering from an addiction to a substance and that is a known fact that it's a symptom."[23:16] - “Psychedelics bring you into the present moment and you can't run away.”[29:32] - “My suffering is not what's happening in the moment. It's the story I tell myself about it.”[42:02] - "The greatest lie we tell ourselves and our kids is that the value of a human being can be codified or quantified by anything of this world, our job, or money or all of that. But the essence of what we are can’t be measured."If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.Supporting Resources:www.enaandhoward.com Episode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Getting through the first two years of recovery can be extremely difficult. Just when you think you've gone as far as you can go, you realize you’re only at the beginning. You need to develop the skill set to master recovery and live your best life.On today’s episode, Duane speaks with Barry Lehman about achieving long-term recovery or recovery after the first two years of sobriety. They specifically talk about what that looks like and how we can gain mastery so we can live our best life and find joy and happiness in recovery. Barry is a retired pastor and has been sober for 33 years now. While he was in ministry as a parish pastor, he discovered he was an alcoholic. He went into a treatment program and stayed in the ministry for another 11 years after getting sober. He also got his Doctor of Ministry in Counseling and got his license as an Alcohol and Drug Counselor which he has served as part-time for 28 years now.Through his recovery journey, Barry learned how to be healthy and he now hopes he can share his story with others. In his book, Mastering Recovery, Barry talks about long-term recovery. He realized that the nitty-gritty of staying sober for more than two years isn't talked about enough. When you’re in recovery, everything changes drastically. You have to find out how to live again and that’s not easy. In your first two years of recovery, you learn how to go about normal life and enjoy various occasions without alcohol. However, once you hit the third year, you can’t just go on doing things you used to do and just try doing them sober. If that’s all you do, you’ll end up having lots of cravings as well as mental and emotional relapses.  In this episode, you will hear: Why Barry wrote the book Mastering Recovery What mastery really is Practice as the path to mastery How to do a personal inventory Trauma-informed treatment Finding meaning and purpose Building a recovery-positive list Key Quotes:[07:44] - “The real nitty-gritty down and dirty way of staying sober beyond two years isn't very often talked about.”[12:29] - “Getting better at something important to you. – that's what mastery is.”[12:56] - “That's the path of mastery, keep practicing… When you think you've come to the end, you're only just beginning.”[18:42] - “Trauma-informed treatment, while it’s a buzzword, it's also very real.”[20:25] "Learning about movement, learning about exercise, is a big step that many of us need to take at that two-year mark, if not before."[27:50] - "Even when you're angry and upset, or frustrated, you begin to learn how to deal with those. And that's part of the practice."[29:45] - "I got to have that awareness of myself and my world of who I am. That's long-term recovery."[31:42] - "If you're lucky enough to have good people around you, who have been through good treatment and good therapy, you'll be able to lay down the stepping stones that will keep you growing in that area."If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.Supporting Resources:www.balehman.comBook: Mastering RecoveryEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

On today's episode, Duane talks with Faith Elicia about her nine-year journey through an eating disorder. They discuss how she struggled several times to get help and how she finally found something that worked for her. They also talk about what helped her deal with not only her eating disorder but also with her anxiety, depression, and family history of addiction and family dysfunction. Faith's story provides a lot of hope that, even when you feel at your worst and like you can't go on, there's still hope out there. Faith comes from an addictive household, being a child of an alcoholic. She used to believe that all dads yelled. She was scared of all fathers and generalized that all dads are mean. At 16, Faith saw her dad drunk for the first time, throwing a chair while she was hiding under the table. Then, he sought help and got sober for 30 years until his death three years ago.She also has a sister who found recovery in Narcotics Anonymous and another sister who found recovery in Alcoholics Anonymous. Although she was very familiar with the behaviors of addiction growing up, she wasn't aware that there was addiction in their house because of shame. Everything had to stay within the walls. After she had her third child, Faith dealt with anxiety, panic, and agoraphobia. This was in the 80s and there wasn't really an understanding of anxiety disorders at that time. She couldn't tell anyone for fear they would lock her up in a psychiatric ward. Mental health just wasn't talked about like it is now. Understandably, Faith was petrified. She was very afraid of drugs and alcohol. However, impulsive compulsive behavior can come out in other forms. Food became her way of coping and dealing with her internal chaos. Faith’s anxiety disorder turned into an eating disorder. It wasn't until she started to incorporate a mindfulness practice that things shifted for her.In this episode, you will hear: Growing up in a family with addictive behaviors Depression and anxiety during her third pregnancy How her anxiety disorder morphed into an eating disorder  Feeling guilt knowing her daughter also had an eating disorder Finding her home in Codependency Anonymous The shift that occurred when she joined the Mindfulness-Based Stress Reduction Program How she deals with the eating disorder voice that comes in Digging deeper into what’s really going on Key Quotes:[08:39] - “Addiction is a disease. It's a sickness.”[14:41] - ​​"It becomes all-consuming, weighing myself all day. It really took over."[16:26] - “It's very important for someone who thinks they have an eating disorder to seek help from someone who specializes in it and who really understands it."[19:00] - “No two eating disorders are the same. No two recoveries are the same. ... this is a process. It's a journey.”[19:21] - “This is a journey of self-awareness, self-discovery, retraining my thoughts filling that void that was always inside with self-care."[32:34] - "When the eating disorder voice is trying to distract me, it's from some feeling or situation that I don't want to deal with."If you really enjoyed this episode, we’ve created a PDF that has all of the key information for you from the episode. Just go to the episode page at www.theaddictedmind.com to download it.Supporting Resources:Do You See What I See? by Faith EliciaThe Four Agreements by Don Miguel RuizCodependency AnonymousEpisode CreditsIf you like this podcast and are thinking of creating your own, consider talking to my producer, Danny Ozment.Find out more at https://emeraldcitypro.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.