When Love Feels Like a Drug 🏳️‍🌈 A Queer Recovery Podcast 🎙️

Today's topic is When Love Feels Like a Drug.  

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 🏳️‍🌈 Join Anthony & LouiLou for a new episode every Monday.  We record live from The Castro Country Club in San Francisco.

 🏳️‍🌈 We strive to create a brave space where we engage in topics of recovery, where there are no outside issues.

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#Queer #Recovery #LGBTQIA2S #Service #selfcare #selflove

Transcript

Welcome, you're at the CCC.
- Where there are no outside issues.
My name is Anthony, I'm an addict and an alcoholic,
another bozo on the bus, and I care about you.
- And my name is Louie Lou, and my pronouns are he him.
I'm in recovery for crystal meth and alcohol,
and I am always in search of balance.
- Yes, and each week we can strive to foster a brave space
where we can engage in conversations,
centered around topics of recovery.
- And our intention is to hold an inspire better spaces
for more people in recovery by tackling issues,
Sometimes, views to separate us.
- Before we do that, please like, share,
and support. - Subscribe.
- Rate this episode.
- Rate this episode, tell your friends about us.
- Yes.
- You know, we were here every week.
We tell you this every week.
No, this is, I know it's actually.
- So I just, it's just a bear's repeating.
- You know, the disclaimer in my thoughts.
Not my thoughts.
- You're the answer.
- The thoughts and opinions expressed on that
the CCCR is a little weird not to represent anyone,
but ourselves in other words,
we're just a couple of friends behind in my cure to entertain you.
And of course, everything we talk about here
is for general information purposes only.
Okay.
(laughing)
Absolutely.
Absolutely Lewis, how are you?
I am good.
It feels like it's been a really long time since I--
Since we've sat across from each other.
Yeah, exactly.
I think it has.
Okay, so first off, we need to tell people
that this is maybe the first time
we are actually sitting across from each other.
That was sitting across from each other.
It's like versus, you know?
Like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Or we're gonna have a serious conversation.
- Yeah, we're gonna have a serious conversation, exactly.
I feel uncomfortable.
- Do you feel uncomfortable?
- 'Cause you're gaze, it's like I'm all.
- Sure, I look to the side.
- No, no, no, you're fine,
because you're so glowing, you're beautiful as I am all.
It's like I'm all okay.
- I'm naturally really greasy.
- Yeah.
- And there's a lot of overhead lighting.
- Okay, no, it's all good.
- Yeah, it's all good.
- So you know what's funny?
So I took myself out to dinner before,
- Where'd you go?
- Meaning to, Cafe Mystique.
- Oh nice.
- They have this amazing salmon and rose
Mary Champagne sauce.
- Nice.
I actually, my sponsor took me there on Tuesday
for my anniversary.
- Oh, it's a fantastic place.
- I had salmon and mashed potatoes and broccoli.
- Oh, did you have the lemon caper one
or the rosemary one?
- I don't remember.
- Well, it's delicious.
- Yeah, it was really good.
- Take away is it delicious.
- Definitely.
- So I was sitting, so I went, you know,
took myself to dinner and I was sitting next to this couple,
these two guys and they were arguing.
- Oh god.
- They were, and the one says to the other one,
"Well, I just need you to understand me more."
And he's like, "What do you mean?"
He's like, "Well, for example, I need you
"and not hang up the phone on me
"when I'm trying to talk to you."
- Oh wow. - And it's like juicy.
- Yeah, I was like, "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my god!"
- It was, so then I put my headphones on
'cause I'm like, "You guys need your privacy."
- Exactly.
- And also, I didn't need to take that shit on.
- No, no, exactly.
It's like, "You're about,
I can imagine being that therapist you would have turned around and say, "You don't
talk about it."
I mean, you left the process.
Yeah, let's take breaks.
So I've been good.
I'm in my new rotation.
Nice.
I'm doing what's going really well.
It's going really well.
There were a couple parts that felt a little bumpy and I've been trying to work my program
around it.
There's two people that I'm absolutely obsessed with.
They're both sober.
They're both psychologists.
Nice.
They're the people that I go to and I'm trying to process different experiences that I've
been having there so far.
But it's in addiction.
So I'm like a pig and shit and I'm having a really good time.
I feel like because you aren't going through the same things you were going through during
your last rotation as far as trying to figure out where you were going to land.
That's what you're saying.
Oh yeah, you mean like with post-doc and stuff like that?
Yeah, I mean a lot of things have changed with us.
A lot of things have changed since I started this new rotation.
I think I may have shared with you that Benji and I
formally broke up.
- Okay.
- Yeah.
- But you guys are still like--
- Oh my god, yeah.
- I was talking to somebody.
I was talking to somebody and we're all,
these two are so, they're so mature.
Like I feel like I've learned watching your process.
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I feel like I'm slowly just really
inching in whatever direction I am
and has everything to do with how healthy I feel.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Yeah, I mean, and it's in line with today's topic.
But so, so, you know, we don't even,
like calling it a breakup doesn't feel like it really kind
of matches the process that we went through.
So, you know what we've called it is like a transition
out of our romantic relationship.
- It's kind of like you said, it's like,
we're helping, what was it?
I was calling it falling in love and you were calling it
- Arriving in love.
- Arriving in love and so you're arriving
and not out of love.
- Yeah, so it's, you know, we still very much love each other.
we still very much care about each other.
And we got to a point where we both have different needs
and we can't meet those needs.
But that doesn't mean we have to have this crazy abrupt
tearing away where we don't talk to each other.
And in fact, I feel like it's still talk.
We still hang out.
- It's like it's better for our sex life.
- Yeah.
We don't have to, there's no like,
are you gonna go to these meetings
or am I gonna go to these meetings?
- Were you guys doing that, were you giving yourself
that kind of space?
- Space, yeah.
- Not really, we didn't really have to,
because we liked a lot of the same meetings.
You know, we have a lot of mutual friends.
So yeah, you know, that's kind of like a new development.
- And you guys don't have to separate out,
like who?
- No, no.
- You get this person, you get the person.
- No, no, I mean, he still has stuff at my place,
you know, instead of stuff at his.
But yeah, it's been really healthy.
We rode each other letters on the day that we like, okay, it's kind of like...
Is cry a little?
There was a bit of grieving, but we've been kind of grieving for a few a couple months now
because we were like, we're really trying to figure it out.
But yeah, by far, the healthiest breakup ever.
You've come a long way.
You guys listening, because if you've been with us, this one here, oh wow.
- Yeah, I mean, I learned, you know, relationships,
they can trust a lot about ourselves.
- Yes, oh yeah.
- Yeah.
Which brings us to today's topic.
- I know, but I do wanna say, I told you before,
like Tuesday was my anniversary,
so I'm celebrating 16 years.
- 16 years, everyone, let's, I think it's that one.
- It's that one.
- Yeah, 16 years, clean and sober.
- And the stupid question, like,
when you have a birthday, whatever,
it's like, hot as it feel, you know what,
it doesn't feel.
It's like, I mean, it's just really exciting to think about like,
that I've been doing this consistently
and continuously since, for 16 years so.
(audience laughing)
Right on, YouTube can, yeah, wax on wax off.
Yeah, yeah, very good job, congratulations.
Yeah, thank you.
16 years is really significant.
Absolutely.
But we only have today.
Yeah, I always say that, it's like,
I'm a first off, I don't need a cookie
for doing what I should have been doing all along.
And all I have is today.
And I think I was talking to somebody today.
I've seen people with lots of time go out because--
- Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.
- And it is not a, if you're not doing the work
to kind of expand you to build your spiritual life
and you run those risks.
And so I wanna encourage everybody.
- Yeah, well thank you for being an example
that I can be. - A pillar on a bus.
- A pillar on a bus.
- A pillar on a bus.
So today's topic is when love feels like a drug.
When love feels like a drug.
(bell dinging)
That's pretty good.
I like it.
- I think I'm doing pretty good at the sounds.
- That's impressive.
- So yeah, when love feels like a drug,
we've talked about love addiction in the past.
We've talked about sex addiction in the past.
This conversation I feel is a little different.
Because you and I, we, you know, we have a large group of friends and we often hear about
different kind of like coming together and breaking apart and a lot of trauma.
And, and, and, and rinse and repeat over and over and over.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like, that's the thing that gets me like, I have friends who like, it seems to be
their, their, how they, how they roll.
And you haven't learned anything.
You know, you're just--
Yeah.
Well, you know, one of the things that I think happens,
especially when we're talking about recovery,
like early recovery, or even if it's not just early recovery,
but you've been around for a while and you might relapse.
So I think what happens is that once we take away
the drugs in alcohol, we are--
in a lot of cases, stimulation seeking.
Oh, yeah.
we're needing to feel something.
And so it's not uncommon, for example,
when people are in residential programs,
where they start getting boot up with other people.
If they go to a sober living facility
and they start hooking up with someone that they live with.
- It's also like I say, it's like just because you got,
like if you were a slut,
or whatever you wanna call it,
if you were very promiscuous before,
after you get sober, you are a sober version of that.
- Yeah, and there's nothing wrong with that.
- No absolutely absolutely.
- I know you're the last person.
- Not exactly.
- To say that.
- I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I gotta blue check.
Come on, come on, I am encouraging it.
- This is the, the governor of Buena Vista park.
- Oh good job.
- Wow, check place.
(laughing)
- No go.
- So, you know, stimulation seeking and here's the thing,
is that, sure, we can, we can be sex positive
we can have these relationships with other people.
But can we handle those relationships?
- Yeah, exactly.
- You know, like, are we ready to kind of do the,
maybe emotional, psychological, spiritual labor
to have an intimate relationship with another person?
- Uh-huh.
- And, you know, like sex, especially if you're gonna have sex
with someone who is like around, like regularly,
you know what I mean?
Like, is that something that you can handle?
And, and some, you know, and so I don't,
you know, I'm not yucking anyone's yum.
I certainly like I hooked up with a lot of people in in early recovery.
In fact, I remember going to a meeting where the speaker said, "Well, you know, the way
I got through my first five years of recovery was by like turning a sex."
So he had basically turned to this this this different addiction.
And so yeah, love, but we you know, we aren't necessarily talking about sex, but love can
feel like a drug.
Well, I think the challenge is is that we, you know, it's kind of like when we come in, we don't really, like what I remember you, what I think it was a couple of weeks ago, you were saying that I was talking to you about love or whatever and about the idea of love.
And is that what I hear from you is that you had to expand your thinking about what love is like I came in with a very kind of narrow kind of idea. And while you were talking, I was thinking.
So when I came in, I was an adult.
I may not have been acting like an adult,
but I was an adult.
And I think that shame and guilt or shame
plays a big part in why people sometimes
folks continue certain behaviors.
Because like I come in and I don't want you
to know that I don't know how to be
in a relationship with someone else.
I don't want anybody to know that I'm toxic or that I make poor choices.
My pickers off or I don't even want to acknowledge it myself.
I want everything to be okay because I think that's another thing.
You get sober and you want everything to just be okay automatically.
Yeah.
And like, I don't know about you, but I wanted everything to be just fine right away.
I wanted to, I don't want to have to go through the process.
On the other side of it now, I, it was necessary.
the long, slow, painful because I needed to kind of understand and appreciate, you know,
on a cellular level, why change, why certain changes weren't needed to take place.
Yeah.
You know, oh, there's a lot there, Lewis.
Yeah.
There's a lot there.
So, I'm going to, when I think about my own experiences and recovery, especially around
love.
So here's some background.
So there's one theory that says that part of what we're doing in our first attempts at
falling in love or our first attempts at having intimate relationships with other people,
what we think, one theory says that what we're really trying to do in those first attempts
is to reconcile the anxieties or the transgressions of our early caregivers.
So the way that plays out is, it's not uncommon, for example, for people to say like, "Oh,
I feel like I'm attracted to people that are emotionally unavailable.
My dad was emotionally unavailable.
Or I'm attracted to people who are really bad to me.
They yell and they call me names.
And that's the way I experience it as a young person.
So it's not-- that kind of thing happens all the time,
because we turn to those things that feel the most familiar to us.
And I can speak for myself here.
We're like an early recovery.
I would romanticize and I would sexualize anxiety.
Like whenever someone made me feel shitty about myself,
I thought like that anxiety that was created inside of me.
I thought that meant I loved them.
- Butterflies
- Yeah, I'm like, oh my God,
you make me feel like shit, I think I love you.
You know what I mean?
- I'm just happy.
- Yeah, and you know, there was a lot,
I had a lot of that.
And I think that part of that was,
you know, you feel empty.
You feel, I'll speak for myself, I felt empty.
I felt like I needed someone or something to fix me.
And I would constantly turn to relationships for that.
And what happens, at least in my experience,
is that when you go into a relationship
and you go into that relationship feeling incomplete,
you will continuously feel incomplete.
- Absolutely.
- And you will find yourself resenting the other person
because they just can't do it for you, right?
And that's when you get fights.
And that's when there are like,
there's a lot of conflict in that.
Because it's a big burden, you know?
- Yeah, and then we talked about also,
like sometimes we hold on to them.
- Yeah. - Like,
- Yeah. - Like,
- Yeah.
- It's like, I see clearly, everybody sees clearly
including Ray Charles.
(laughing)
This is not something you should be in,
but you hold on to it 'cause maybe you,
I mean, 'cause we all want to be loved.
- Yeah, of course.
- Sometimes we don't even acknowledge
that that's what it is that we're searching for.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Well, you know, a few things coming up from you right now.
So you know that one thing,
that people say this shit all the time.
Like, well, you, wait, wait, what is it?
It's like one of those things.
Well, you know, you'll find love
when you're not looking for it.
- Oh, good. - Or, what's the other one?
It'll happen when it's, you know, your time or,
anyway, so just a lot of shit like that.
- Or is there somebody for everybody?
- There's someone for everybody.
And here's the thing.
If I've learned anything in recovery,
it's that the relationship that I have with a power
that's greater than myself, you can call it God,
you can call it Allah, you can call it whatever you want.
My relationship to a power that's greater than myself,
a higher purpose is the most accurate estimation
of my ability to love and show up for someone else.
- Absolutely.
Like, it's a direct measurement of my happiness, of my serenity.
And the reason why I say that is because when I think about relationships, or I think
about, let's say, for example, like, you know, Benji and I recently, I think the reason
why we were able to kind of move into that relationship gracefully and lovingly and then
transition out of that relationship gracefully and lovingly is because throughout the entire
time we weren't necessarily relying on ourselves, you know, like we were going to therapy, we
were going to meetings, we were checking with sponsors, you know, we did all of this work
and that isn't to say that we, you know, were like a model example of what that can look
like, but I can say--
>> Yeah, but it's closer to like a model example.
>> Yeah, I mean, I mean, it's the kind of, it's the way I want to show up, you know.
>> Yeah, exactly.
>> Yeah, it's the way I want to show up.
But love can, again, feel like a drug.
- No, absolutely.
- You know, when you get those high feelings, you know,
like even with sexual encounters, right?
Like sexual encounters, you can,
oh, you know, I read this actually in this,
it was a book written by this fundamentalist Christian,
and I didn't even know he was a fundamentalist Christian.
- I read it, but he's problematic.
- Yeah, no, no, I mean, he's super problematic.
But one of the things he said that I thought was interesting was, he said, you know, sex
is can bond people.
And the problem with that is that sometimes you can have people bonded that have no business
being together.
Right.
And it can be really confusing in that way.
That's exactly.
The sex is real good, but that's all.
Yeah, that's all.
You know, it can be, yeah.
So I don't know.
What's coming up for you?
What are you thinking?
So I was pretty fortunate when I got sober because I came in through another program.
Crystal Math was an issue I like I talk about.
And so also in my mind I was older and I gained the first couple weeks of recovery or treatment
I gained a ton of weight.
And I really didn't gain a ton of weight.
I gained the weight I was supposed to have on my body because I was grossly underweight.
But I was out of sync.
My body, I didn't trust me.
I didn't trust my body, I didn't trust anything.
And so, fortunate, I was fortunate enough to put all that on the kebash.
But it manifested, you know, it's interesting.
It's like I would judge and treat unfairly.
I can look back on say now individuals who were sexual, who were flirty, who were doing
all those things.
And I know it had everything to do in me being jealous.
I mean, the gift of recovery is being able to say,
"Ah, this is, you know, 'cause I didn't even want to admit
"the whole jealous piece or whatever."
But I remember around the seventh month mark,
I branched out and I started going to the sex clips
'cause I was thinking, okay, I need to,
I kept hearing the message in the meetings,
I was like, "Well, you can put it on the shelf,
"but you can't put it on the shelf indefinitely."
And I think what I realized is that,
you know, we're sexual beings,
And at some point, especially,
and I think that we have a very kind of natural place
where we can start addressing this as in our fourth step,
and with our sexual idea once we kind of have
an understanding of what it is we actually want,
and that's what we think we want.
But I started exploring.
And it was, for me, it was lovely because I realized
that everything that I had done leading up to that point,
before sobriety.
Like I eventually would have done it,
but I think that the drugs in alcohol
kind of sped up the process.
- Yeah.
- My inhibitions were lowered.
And so I thought I was being sex positive
or doing things I wanted to you,
but I really wasn't the one in the driver's seat.
- Yeah.
You know, I'm surprised we didn't start here,
but you know when you said we have this natural way.
So what you're reminding me of,
and I'm surprised reading it again,
talk about this earlier,
is that, so addiction is about feeling good, right?
It's about chasing a high, right?
And love does very similar things for the human mind, right?
Like love will activate like a reward system,
it'll release dopamine and oxytocin
and so we'll feel like close
and we'll get essentially, we'll get a high.
And we get the same thing with sex.
Like you get the surge of dopamine, right?
And it feels euphoric.
Flirting can feel very exciting.
- Oh yeah.
- Right?
And so there is a way that when someone is not drinking
or using, they may, without knowing it,
be using love or relationships or intimacy
as a way of also getting high.
- Transferred addictions.
- Yeah, of course.
- Yeah.
- And here's the thing.
Is that just like with any drug, you can also experience a withdrawal.
Oh, God.
Right.
So, breakups will kind of trigger withdrawals, which, you know, how many times have you heard
of someone going out, you know, returning to use because they went through a breakup,
right?
Exactly.
And then also, say, I was listening to just recently and you were saying that and you can
repeat, it's tougher when you've been in a short relationship as opposed to a long
relationship.
I don't know how you said it.
You said it because you didn't have an understanding of the person.
Do you know what I'm getting at?
I think so, same.
Yeah.
So no, so no, I was listening to this earlier today.
And it's like, you know, and it's tied to all of this kind of drama and everything.
Like when you, the shorter relationship, I was thinking it's like, I can imagine what
it would have been.
And I don't know, it's like, I'm following you.
I'm following you.
Yeah.
So, you know, for folks who may not be familiar with like what does dopamine and what is
oxytocin and what is serotonin?
So these are, these are hormones that we have or ready that exist in our body.
They're not hormones.
I don't know why this is escaping me right now.
But oxytocin, for example, is when we get that kind of warm feeling from a hug, that's
oxytocin being released.
When we orgasm, that rush that we feel is dopamine.
Right.
Nice.
Nice.
And so yeah, so here's the thing is that the other part of this is that people can find themselves in toxic cycles.
Right. And sometimes those toxic cycles, you ever hear people talking about like trauma bonding?
Oh yeah. Right. So trauma bonding, you have this, they're like these intermittent, hot and cold cycles. Right.
It's like you're getting love from someone and then they go cold on you.
You get stuck in this dynamic where you're constantly, it feels like a gamble.
But you continue to gamble.
Yeah, it feels good.
It feels like there is a high, this person's ignoring you, ignoring you, and then they give
you attention.
It can be really affirming in that way.
I don't know if it personally or professionally
or how I think about this,
but I think that it is ultimately an extension of addiction
of stimulation seeking,
well, when we're talking about people in recovery at least.
- And then it's all tied up in this gumbo of insecurity,
low self-esteem, like all of trauma that was,
you know, our lack of understanding of how to be loved
how do we receive love?
So, oh God, it's like, this is a lot.
- Yeah, yeah, and that's the thing is that,
and some of that stuff we carry from childhood,
you know what I mean?
Yeah, some of that stuff we carry from childhood,
and you know, can you remember being like a teenager
and being filled with hormones?
You know what I mean?
- Well, I remember around 17,
that's when my mom started having to really
kind of like grabbed me and shake me because I was a holy terror.
I was just like always upset about something angry.
And one of my tools that I still kind of use now
is silent scorn.
Yeah, remember you talking about that?
I was like, I didn't know what it was,
but I knew that there was power on it
because I was a very around the people
that I love and care about.
I was a communicator.
I was just saying I talked a lot.
but as I go, you knew something up if I wasn't talking to you.
- Yeah, yeah.
I remembered what I was trying to say earlier.
So, oxytocin is sometimes called the love hormone
or the cuddle chemical.
- The cuddle chemical.
- The cuddle chemical.
I'm gonna get some oxytocin spray and I'll just get.
(laughing)
So, you know, I think there is a solution, right?
I think I've been seeing a lot of these advertisements
from Better Health, I think.
And it opens up with, I think it's better.
It's one of the kind of online therapy platforms.
And in the commercial,
there's a person talking to a therapist and says,
well, how do you know what your green flags are?
And how do you know what red flags are?
And those are great questions.
I think before knowing like green flags and red flags,
I think it's really important for a person to address the parts of themselves that feel
like they're aching.
Right.
Now, here's the thing.
I am not saying, for example, that we must feel complete in order to be in relationship.
Right?
Who know?
There are a bunch of different ideas and theories.
And there's a lot of research about why people come together and why people break apart.
In my experience, at least in 12 steps, in my experience with 12 step, I cannot, you
know what, I'm thinking about the third step here, I cannot assume or get caught up with
fantasies of the future without, I don't want to say enough information.
I'm kind of at a loss here because what I'm trying to say here is
I can only be in the moment that I'm in right now.
Yeah.
Okay. I can only be in the moment that I'm in right now, which means that I have to accept you
in the moment that we're in right now. And to me, that is the fertile ground in which we can
kind of lay seeds, you know?
- Right on.
- We can plant seeds, right?
Which to me is like very sobering, right?
To be very upfront about what needs and wants are.
To be very upfront about what's coming up.
To be honest with ourselves about what is it that I need?
Am I hurt right now, right?
- That's an interesting and I always mentioned
that when you talk about that, that definitely is coming from someone who is kind of maybe
evolved or maybe a little more enlightened because we don't come in thinking.
You know, or even being able to articulate, to tell somebody how we feel.
I feel like a little grace is necessary. Of course. We come in doing what we know how to do.
and we have to unlearn certain behaviors.
And so what tends to happen,
and we were talking about this before,
like, okay, yeah, you come in, you get into relationship,
and you get into relationship that's not the best.
But hopefully, if we are doing the work,
if whatever form of recovery or whatever,
if we're doing whatever, that work is prescribed to us
or whatever, eventually, we start to kind of heal
in healing a way that allows us to see, oh yeah, this is not healthy for me.
This is not okay for me.
But I think that it's unfortunate that some people have to go through that.
Yeah.
I don't think everybody does because there are some people like, like for me, I didn't
have to go through that.
I probably had my own private Idaho, but I didn't have to go through that.
And so for me, especially, and I think that this is where my higher power comes in, the sponcees
I've had over the last two or three years.
They've all been in various stages of relationship.
And it's been a gift, it's been a gift for me.
And I've made it all about me.
And it's okay, but I've looked at how they've walked through
some with grace, some not so much or whatever,
but come out on the other side.
And like I was saying to you earlier,
I feel like my openness to hearing the good and not just the bad, because I used to say,
I would see a situation, it would go sour and I say, and see, this is why I don't get
a relationship.
Because it was a great excuse.
But the reality of it is like it requires work, effort.
And I think what makes recovery, and a large way, what makes my recovery work for me, is
I do the work with the faith that, and I'm ready for what's coming next.
You know what I'm saying?
Because moral will be revealed.
And I would like to say that everything's rosy, but not everything, everything's not always
going to be rosy.
And I have courage.
I'm not afraid of what's around the corner or what new challenge as I may.
And I think that you kind of have to be that way when you get into a relationship.
relationship.
Yes, yes, yes.
And yeah.
Yes.
I think we're vibing right now because I was thinking about how the first thing was no
one's got the ship figured out.
No one has anything figured out.
No one has a perfect relationship.
And in a lot of ways, I would venture to say that it sometimes kind of feels like a
to crap you, you know what I mean?
And of course, I'll tell you something,
my sponsor told me very many years ago, she said,
Anthony you don't know what you want.
You may have ideas, right?
We talk about like a sexual ideal,
we write out what a sexual ideal is.
But we were constantly changing, right?
And I think what I was hearing from you
and I agree with, which is,
Regardless of what happens in a relationship,
be it with a romantic partner or a friend.
Regardless of the things that you fear or avoid,
you have to believe that you're gonna be okay.
- Exactly.
- Regardless of what it is.
Pain is inevitable.
- Yeah, pain is inevitable.
- Discomfort is inevitable.
We can't go around trying to protect ourselves
all the time.
Right, what we can do is we can get stronger in ourselves
in our identities.
We can get stronger in the way that we support ourselves
and we connect with community.
Right, like that's how we survive.
- Absolutely, absolutely.
I always talk to my sponsors all the time.
Like, okay, so I used to feel,
well, I kind of felt a little like a fraud in that situation,
but then I figured the best way that I could approach it
like, you know what, honesty. Being honest about what you're feeling or what you think you're feeling.
Yes. Putting it out there. And that's it's hard. Yes, exactly.
That's it's hard. Putting it out there. And so because of the religion that we have,
I'm constantly saying, you know what, you don't have to blow smoke up my ass. You know what,
don't tell me something because you think you think I want to hear it. First of all, you need to know
that I'm not here to judge you on what you're feeling. I'm here to listen to offer my insight if I
I have an need to give and to support you.
To support you.
And you're gonna make whatever decision you're gonna make.
But I mean, I think the best way,
and the way you can probably be the most successful,
is if you are just honest about it.
And I was thinking about, when you said,
you were thinking about the third step,
and going back to it, it's like,
I have to have faith.
I don't need to try to manipulate and change it,
make sure I know what this is supposed to look like.
I need to just let it be what it is.
- Yeah, take us to church.
Yeah, on my best days, the world is filled
with so much possibility.
- Yes.
- You know, I'm working in addiction now.
And so I'm constantly around people who are new to recovery,
which is such a gift.
- Yeah.
- And probably because they're not everyone's going
in the direction of 12 step.
- No, yeah, yeah, exactly.
- So many different, yeah.
- The structure that we use isn't 12 step.
Which makes me really appreciate all of this stuff.
- Yeah, yeah.
- You know, but what I was trying to get at is that
this reminds me of something,
a friend of mine, Alex Schneiderer.
- I think it's, I always mispronounce his last name,
He runs another podcast.
And one of the things he's said about,
like the kind of work that we do,
and he's listened to our podcast.
And he said, you know, so much of what he's thought about
with respect to sobriety and recovery
has always been a very like gloom and doom.
Right?
And if there was like one thing I could impart,
and this is the thing that I try to work on
when I'm working with patients,
struggling with addiction,
is that on the other side of addiction is so much possibility.
Time is not lost.
There is something really magical that happens
like the world opens up.
You know, in the big book we say,
you'll have a life beyond your wildest dreams.
- Exactly.
- And it's true.
- And the other piece too is that you get to look back
on your life and not look at it as garbage.
- Right.
- Like it was like, you know what?
It is what was necessary to get me to this point.
- Yeah, so you and I, we have a friend who,
he's been in and out very many times,
but he has the most time he's ever had right now.
I think he's in his late 50s,
and we were having a conversation and he was saying,
you know, Anthony, like,
I feel like my recovery is so bittersweet,
and I'm like, what are you talking about?
And he was saying that, well, he's like,
I look back at all the time I wasted,
all the opportunities and all the things that I didn't do,
and I'm like finally coming into myself
and wouldn't my life have been better
if I was coming into myself when I was younger?
And I'm like, what's fucking amazing is that you are let,
you are searching, you are seeking, you are growing.
And for a lot of people,
people kind of stop doing that as they age, right?
- I know, I know.
- Yeah, except, one of the things that I think is really
magical about recovery is that it really is a lifestyle.
- Oh yes, exactly.
- You learn how to look at things differently,
you learn how to be in a different relationship with yourself and other people.
And so I think it's caused for celebration when we start to wake up.
And when you're really doing it, you realize that it's something that, you know,
the landscape of what my recovery looks looks like changes every day.
Sometimes I need this, sometimes I need that.
Sometimes all I can do is just say, "Stay in bed."
Yeah.
Yeah, and you know, you talked about shame a little bit ago.
There's the very famous book by Ellen Downs,
the Velvet Rage, and he talks a lot about shame.
It's, in my opinion, one of the most important works
that was produced for the community.
It does have it, I have some issues with it,
but I think that, I think Dr. Downs
does an excellent job at speaking to an experience
that many gay men have.
So I would recommend folks to go read that.
We're not endorsed by Ellen Sells.
We're not getting paid to do that,
but I do think it's an important book
that people should read.
And then you talked about honesty and a Lemke,
MD, Dr. Lemke, she wrote Dopeamine Nation,
and she has this whole section
where she talks about the importance of honesty and recovery.
Right?
- And it's important, I really feel like,
and I learned this, it's important
first to get honest with yourself.
- Yeah.
- Like, 'cause I mean,
I think that a lot of times we treat ourselves with kid gloves or we do.
But I needed to be honest about what I was feeling, what I was going through with emotions.
If I was okay with this or not, okay, because one of my sponsors, he always talks about
what he talks about and he kind of sweeps it under and I'm like, well, what are you really
feeling?
Are you pissed off? I would be pissed off. I usually try to, like, you know, I usually try to,
I believe in a little good girlfriend and sponsor and I want to challenge them because it's like,
and it's been so helpful for me because I can't ask it something from somebody if I'm not willing
to do it myself. Right. One of the things that I love that Dr. Lemke says, I'm paraphrasing because
I haven't read the book last year.
She talks about how honesty can bond us.
You know, honesty helps us cultivate relationships
with other people, right?
It's when we put our guard down.
It's when we get real about the shit
that's coming up for us,
because it gives people permission to do the same.
- Oh, absolutely.
- And if you find it's genuine kind of energy
and it's not that kind of brazen kind of--
like messy where people say,
well, I'm just direct, you know, but they're cruel.
It's like, it's not cruel.
It's just, yeah, yeah.
It's just, I'm being honest about where I'm at
and what I'm going.
- 100% 100% and there are also biological benefits
to honesty.
You know, there's studies that show
that it reduces stress and anxiety.
- I always say, but you know you're anything,
but truly, but the truth.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
And I think that honesty, you know,
I think that honesty does start with ourselves.
You know, I think it's like when we slow down
and we get real about the shit that's coming up for us.
You know, like for example, you mentioned jealousy.
Oh my gosh, jealousy.
Like I struggled with jealousy for such a long time,
but it was so hard for me to say it out loud.
- Oh, absolutely.
- 'Cause it feels humiliating, it feels,
but you know, I certainly have experienced jealousy.
- Yeah, exactly.
Especially you see people kind of,
and back to the topics,
like you see these folks coming in and connecting
whatever and what and I had flashes of I used to hate going out to clubs when I was
drinking and using whatever and I would have these friends that they go out and
their main goal was to hook up but they wouldn't communicate that so we get to
the club and they disappear and it was and I'm like oh and and I thought about
that it's like I'm all whenever I encounter individuals that remind me of that
And we have a friend like that. You and I do? We do. We have a lot of friends like it, but we have a lot of friends like that. We just recently kind of went through a
situation because because of how he had been showing up with newcomers, you know, and
and so like I realized that I
Pulled away from him because he started to trigger or remind me of that and it wasn't until like I acknowledge that it's that
"Oh, it was gone, that I was able to go at that
"and not punish him for what someone else had been doing."
'Cause he wasn't hurting me, if anything,
he's hurting himself.
But it's like, whatever, it's like,
"Girl, you can't get it, we love you."
- Yeah.
And this reminds me of something that I felt about,
I was thinking about this recently.
And it's through relationships that didn't work out.
It's through like upsets with family
where I got to this point where what seems very clear to me
is that the best way to love someone
is to give them your truth and your honesty.
Like the best way to show up in any relationship
is to be rooted and grounded and what is real for you.
- Yeah, exactly.
- And sometimes those conversations are scary.
- They are, it's scary.
you know, maybe it means that like,
maybe the relationship isn't gonna work out.
- Exactly, and I think that a lot of it requires like,
I need to be okay with losing you.
And I'm like that with friends.
I need to be okay.
If I feel like I need to say I need to be okay
with having you be pissed off at me
because I, yeah, I love that idea.
It's gotta be rooted in honesty.
It's like, especially for me, for selfish reasons,
I need to make sure that I'm not compromising who I am for this.
That's right.
Yeah.
And that honesty, that truthfulness, I really do think that coming back to it really originates
and starts with you.
Absolutely.
You know, it's like, and we aren't honest and truthful for the benefit of other people
necessarily, but it's about taking the best care of ourselves, right?
And the only way that we're going to be able to do that is to know, and maybe you don't
know what you need.
Right, but even saying that, I don't know what I need.
My mom used to say charity starts at home,
it's spreads abroad, and I didn't understand
the deeper meaning of it.
- Wait, say that again.
- Charity starts at home and spreads abroad.
And I didn't understand the deeper meaning.
Charity is here, this is home.
- Yeah, Lewis is pointing to his heart.
- This is home and the oxytocins releasing.
No, this is home, and when I'm good to me,
I'm good to other people.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, it's like it's infectious.
- Yeah, it is.
So what in the sentence, what would you want listeners
to hear tonight?
- Well, you know, first off, I feel like it is important
that you act, you know, that you, like don't be afraid.
I mean, it's not gonna be perfect.
- Yeah.
- I mean, if I sit still and do nothing
then I don't know what I need to work on.
- Yeah.
- And so you need to go out there and take risk.
and but also realize that, you know,
if it's not something that feels right,
that you are not locked in.
- You can't do, of course, correct.
- Exactly, of course, correct.
- Yeah, and you know what I wanted to say here is,
shit's really tough right now.
- Yeah, good, yeah.
- Politically, socially, things are really fucking tough right now.
It is really easy to get down on yourself.
It's really easy to feel defeated.
All of that stuff is very, very easy.
- Just judge yourself based on what other people
are doing, don't do it.
- Yeah.
What I would encourage folks to do is,
when you find yourself in a new situation,
look for things that you love in other people.
If you have to try very hard to find something,
then try very hard.
It is a much better place,
a much better state of mind to be in,
if you're seeking for things.
- Oh, absolutely.
- Or you can bond.
I think the other thing that I wanna say here is that
and no one's doing anything perfectly.
- Yeah.
- You know, one of the things,
and I've talked about this before is
in the 10th step in the 12 and 12 it talks about,
like you know, when we're looking at our days
and the plusses and minuses,
we use that shit as data.
You know what I mean?
Like when things don't go, well, it's just data.
You take the information and you,
like I said earlier, you course correct.
So shall we?
- Yes, let's just check.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Little, little, little.
- So the Castro Country Club is a safe
and sober community center for all,
and for all people and a refuge for the LGBTQ
recovery community.
- We provide programs and services
that help change lives by supporting personal growth.
- Our vision is to reduce the suffering of addiction
by connecting people to community, opportunity,
and support.
- You can find more information including
all the ways to contact us at www.castrocountryclub.org
up slash podcast.
Yeah, it's been catching new episodes every Monday.
When they go live, yeah.
Hey, hey, hey.
Yeah, it's like, yeah, alive.
We love you, and we'll see you soon.
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