There is Hope After Addiction! Reimagining a Life Worth Living

There is HOPE after addiction! Learn about the transformative journey of my guest Atticus Canham-Clyne, who bravely shares his path from addiction to recovery. Atticus opens up about the dark allure of heroin and crack cocaine, revealing how the fear of fentanyl's deadly grip became the catalyst for his recovery. His story isn't just about abstaining from substances; it's about reshaping responses to life's challenges through emotional intelligence and fostering meaningful relationships. In this inspiring podcast interview, Atticus recounts pivotal moments, like a near-fatal incident due to contaminated drug paraphernalia, which underscores the vital role of community and support systems in his recovery. He highlights the importance of choice and the hope found in recovery programs like the 12-step model, showing how these elements can lead to profound personal transformation. His experiences serve as a beacon of hope, illustrating that embracing life over addiction gives rise to a world brimming with possibilities. Join us as we discuss how practices like meditation, prayer, and gratitude can not only support recovery but enhance one's emotional and positive intelligence. Atticus's journey is a testament to the power of changing one's mindset to alter life outcomes. As we wrap up, we invite you to learn more about Atticus’s creative pursuits, including his novel-in-progress that is loosely based on his experiences, and we encourage you to seek the resources and support that are available when you or a loved one is ready to walk the path to recovery. You are not alone.

 Notes

Atticus Canham-Clyne

Substack: https://mockingbirdreview.substack.com/

Responsible Statecraft: https://responsiblestatecraft.org/author/atticuscanhamclyne/ 

Music by The Cars, “Just What I Needed”

There is help and hope:

Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration: SAMHSA: https://www.samhsa.gov/

National Drug Helpline: drughelpline.org or call 1-800-662-HELP (4357)

Substance Abuse and Addiction Hotline:

https://drughelpline.org/ or call 844-289-0879

Suicide and Crisis Lifeline: https://988lifeline.org/ or call 988

Chapters

• 0:00 Journey to Recovery From Addiction
• 5:16 The Downward Spiral of Addiction
• 20:59 Choosing Life
• 36:29 The New Life in Recovery
• 42:12 Change Your Mind, Change Your Life

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

I think initially what kept me sober was probably fear. Fear, you know, gave me a little bit of the urgency and immediacy that I needed. Fear of dying, I mean heroin addiction especially, is I've had a lot of friends, you know, lost friends to it Fentanyl now just so pervasive, I mean, it's even deadlier than heroin, and so I was very afraid of dying and that's what I think kept me sober at first and then ultimately, you know, kind of going back to the identity piece of it, I was able to start to see, you know, that core identity, you know who I was start to get after the urgency of the fear, you know, has sort of maybe calmed down a little bit over the years.

Speaker 2: 0:58

Welcome to the podcast Emotional Intelligence your Greatest Asset and Key to Success. I'm your host, dr Jamie Carlaccio, coming to you from the Greater New Haven, connecticut area, as an emotional intelligence or EQ coach. I'm committed to helping people develop both emotional intelligence and mental fitness. That is, you'll come to regard problems as situations that help you learn and grow. Eq is a way of being and doing in the world that enables you to develop and sustain a positive relationship with yourself and others, at home, at work and everywhere in between. Please subscribe to this podcast and tap the like button so more people can enjoy the benefits of EQ. And now here's the show. Can enjoy the benefits of EQ. And now here's the show.

Speaker 2: 1:53

Hello everybody, this podcast is dedicated to addiction, and this is a serious subject. This is a life and death subject, and my guest and I discuss some things that are very sensitive, and so this is your trigger warning If you think this may trigger you into using or into remembering something very painful about addiction. Just wanted to let you know that we do get really honest and real in this podcast episode. So this is your trigger warning. You may want to sit this one out if you feel like it's something that you are not sure you're ready to handle and there is help, and all of that information will be in the show notes. Thanks, hello and welcome everybody, and it is good to be back and I am excited because I have an awesome, awesome guest today. His name is Atticus Canem-Klein. Yes, you can ask him how he got the name Atticus and you can find out if it's from To Kill a Mockingbird, atticus. Thank you so much for joining me today. How are you?

Speaker 1: 2:59

I'm excellent. Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

Speaker 2: 3:03

Good, good. I asked Atticus to join us today because Atticus is in recovery from addiction and I wanted to take a moment to really take some time out to talk about something really serious, because when it comes to addiction, it is literally life and death. But before we get into our conversation, let me just tell you a few words about Atticus. Atticus Canem-Klein is a grateful in his words, recovering addict from New Haven, connecticut, and thankful for every day that he can wake up sober and alive. He's fortunate enough to help others in a way that he was helped working on a novel that is loosely inspired by events in his hometown and his experience with addiction, and you can read some of his work on Substack and I will include all of this in the show notes as well as at the Quincy Institute's online magazine, responsible Statecraft, which has published a couple of his articles on foreign affairs. So thank you. You are kind of an eclectic blend, shall I say.

Speaker 1: 4:35

Yes, yes.

Speaker 2: 4:38

So tell us a little bit about your journey in addiction and recovery and then I'll kind of probably break in and, you know, talk about how recovery is possible when you want it. But also you know, it's not just a matter of stopping the drugs or the alcohol. It is what you do with how you respond to things in life.

Speaker 1: 5:07

Yeah, very true. So yeah, a little, a little bit about my personal journey. I started, as many people do, started drugs and alcohol, you know, getting high and drinking at a pretty young age, and I was introduced to heroin in my teen, my teenage years, and that pretty much. I was pretty much all downhill from there. Heroin and crack cocaine, and so my life was all about drugs for many years, from the time I was very young until my mid-20s. I'm 29, now, almost 30.

Speaker 1: 6:02

But for a good chunk of my life it revolved entirely around drugs and, um, I was pretty miserable, as you can maybe imagine, because, um, it's not a, you know, it's not a way to live. It saps the you know, the vitality and joy out of life. Um, drug addiction it's a, it's a prison, um, but it's the type of prison from which there doesn't appear to be any escape much of the time, unfortunately. And so I was stuck in a place where I didn't want to continue living like that. But I couldn't imagine or visualize an alternative type of life and it took sort of external events to force me to kind of come to a place where I could finally stop. I tried a couple times when I was younger sort of half-heartedly and at the behest of my family or you know that kind of thing to stop doing drugs. But for whatever reason, I got to a place where I was just ready and I couldn't do it on my own, but I had this external sort of push that ultimately got me into recovery.

Speaker 2: 7:23

Okay, well, I will talk about what that is in a moment, but I want to go back to a couple of things that you said. One of them is that you felt like your life was miserable. And you felt miserable and there wasn't any joy involved in your life. But, as I understand it and it was the same for me alcohol is my drug of choice and I've been sober for a few 24. But it was fun at first. It was fun and I had. You know, I went to parties and I fit in with lots of different people and I wanted to fit in. So part of my consumption had to do with being social and feeling like there was some kind of euphoria. So did it start off as fun and then become not fun?

Speaker 1: 8:15

Oh yeah, of course. I mean, if it wasn't fun I don't think we would do it. I know in my, my experience I think was a little like yours in that part of it was related to social dynamics a little bit. But yeah, it was fun, it was very fun. I remember thinking the first time I got high I just thought the word like magic, this is like, you know, real life magic.

Speaker 1: 8:42

I just wish I could feel this way all the time and that kind of became my life's mission from that point on. But yeah, it was fun, it was euphoric and it gave me some certain drugs alcohol, cocaine, xanax in particular made it easier for me to be social and I always had, I think, as many kids do. I always kind of felt like I'm a little different from everyone. You know, like if I can do this then I'll be more like everyone else, you know, like you know, made me, help me to be able to socialize. Of course, the paradox paradoxically, it's like it helps you fit in, but then it also, I don't know accentuates the difference because you feel kind of like cool and, you know, more interesting because I'm not like these normal people. You know I'm on drugs. So it gives you a kind of identity. You know as well, which I think a lot of you know it's a big thing for young people is defining who you are in life, and drugs kind of gave me by default that sort of identity. But yeah definitely.

Speaker 2: 9:53

Yeah, it was fun at first, for sure. Yeah, yeah, wow. So you said so many awesome things that I want to pick up on. I still want to, I want to put on the on the shelf for a moment this idea of prison, because what came to?

Speaker 2: 10:00

my mind was a straight jacket, you know, like a small room with no windows and you're just in a straight jacket in that know, like a small room with no windows, and you're just in a straight jacket in that room and there's no escape. But before we go there, you know, you said, you know, having that feeling of, oh my gosh, I fit in, I'm cool, this is fun. And you know you said something also that resonated with me that that first time was so awesome.

Speaker 2: 10:24

You wanted it again and you wanted it again and you wanted it again, yeah, yeah yeah but then and then you got hooked, and then it was like now I have to have it yeah, and I think that happened pretty fast for me.

Speaker 1: 10:44

I mean, I started just with alcohol and marijuana but, um, even just there, I turned pretty quickly to an everyday thing. I remember, um, actually drawing up a little schedule for myself when I first started, like I'll do it on a, you know, wednesday and friday and whatever you know, and that maybe went on for like a week or two and then it was pretty much like I'm just gonna do this every day if I can afford it. You know, um, yeah, but I, I mean the timeline, I don't know exactly. You know when it got, it stopped being fun and started being, you know, a compulsion or whatever you might want to call it. But, um, you know it, it happens eventually by, uh, you know, inevitably that's when it becomes that kind of prison, I think. Yes, exactly, you know inevitably that's when it becomes that kind of prison, I think.

Speaker 2: 11:35

Yes, exactly, you know, I think about it as liquid handcuffs or some kind of handcuff, you know if you need alcohol, it's liquid.

Speaker 2: 11:46

If you need Xanax, it's obviously not a liquid, although I guess you could crush it, do something with it, with water and drink it but handcuffs is is the thing that keeps coming to mind Because, as you pointed out, you know you tried a schedule and then the schedule just went right out the window. Yeah, yeah, and I think a lot of people who suffer from substance use addiction in whatever form that takes, and it also could be a process addiction, like gambling or pornography or shopping or sex. We try to control it and we find we can't and the brain has decided I like what's happening here and I want it again. And then, when the brain gets used to it, even when it's bad for us, the addiction has done a number on the brain to the extent that the withdrawals are so bad that we have to have it.

Speaker 1: 12:45

You're right. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think there are, you know a lot of factors that I mean I think there are you know a lot of factors that keep you in that sort of that state and that sort of the you know, the basic neurochemical ones are very, very strong, especially with something like with heroin, or Xanax, benzodiazepines, because you know, or alcohol, especially, you know, physical withdrawal is very intense, intense and, um, as a heroin addict, I mean it was sort of like a search for money to find, you know, drugs to stop the withdrawal, and then, you know, then you just try to figure out how to do it again the next day. Um, but yeah, I mean, and I think that that sort of the neurochemical, you know compulsion is is entwined with for me was, you know, uh, you know, self-loathing and those aspects of identity like how can I change? This is who I am, you know, and it just keeps you in that, those handcuffs, as it were.

Speaker 2: 13:46

yeah, yeah, yeah. So I was thinking while you were talking about that idea of your identity you know who are you, and a lot of times, I think, people who have substance use addiction forget who they are Like. There is this core self. There's this core beautiful, wonderful self that was born into this world. And when you are in your addiction, that's not who you are. No, that is just you under the influence of something. But I hear a lot of people refer very negatively to themselves as addicts or as losers or whatever.

Speaker 2: 14:35

Or I see, even in society, even though we know so much about substance use addiction, we still hear the negative comments and we still get the negative judgments like you're an addict, or there's something wrong with you, or you're a moral failure. An addict, or there's something wrong with you, or you're a moral failure. And when you layer all of that on top of the person with the addiction, how can you get out from under that?

Speaker 1: 15:04

Yeah, it's very difficult. I mean, unfortunately, despite you know, the fact that I think it's much more common today to recognize addiction as a disease, there's obviously still, you know, a stigma out there and all these negative implications that go along with the language we use around addiction. But, yeah, how do you get out of that? I mean, obviously, in terms of the sort of moral model of it, you know you're a moral failure or whatever. Right, they would think it's an act of will and if you just have a strong enough will then you can solve your problems that way, you know, by yourself. But unfortunately I haven't really found that to be the case. Haven't really found that to be the case. I mean, I know people with pretty strong wills who have, you know, been alcoholics and addicts for a long time. But so how do you get out from under that? In my case, I got to a point of, I suppose, despair and I think I was just waiting for something to happen, because I didn't have the sort of requisite I don't know, you know means within myself to push me over the edge into recovery. But I was waiting for something to happen and, you know, something did happen and, for whatever reason, that was enough for me.

Speaker 1: 16:30

And I think initially what kept me sober was probably fear. Fear, you know, gave me a little bit of the urgency and immediacy that I needed. Fear of dying, I mean heroin addiction, especially as I've had a lot of friends, you know, lost friends to it. Fentanyl, now just so pervasive, I mean, it's even deadlier than heroin, and so I was very afraid of dying. And that's what I think kept me sober at first. And then ultimately, you know, kind of going back to the identity piece of it, I was able to start to see, you know, that core identity, you know who I was, start to get at least a vague idea of it, you know, and build a new life for myself. And that sort of positive push is what I think has kept me sober after the urgency of the fear you know has sort of maybe calmed down a little bit over the years, yeah, but it's.

Speaker 1: 17:25

It's a tough question, I mean, and you know one that everybody has to face in addiction is you know how do you get out from under it?

Speaker 2: 17:41

Right and you know. Going back to the willpower thing, you're right. Once your brain is addicted to a substance and it wants it, it needs it, it has to have it. There's no amount of willpower. You are a very smart person. You're very accomplished.

Speaker 2: 17:52

I was a high functioning alcoholic and I had a good job and I did a lot of things, but I couldn't stop drinking and I also tried to devise a schedule and make little rules for myself about what I would drink and what I wouldn't drink, and what I would drink and what I wouldn't drink. And none of it worked. Nothing worked. And I had a deep spiritual bottom. You know, I was physically not well. Most emotionally I wasn't well, and mentally it wasn't really well. And spiritually I felt spiritually bankrupt on a lot of levels, like I didn't have a relationship. I thought I had a relationship with God, but it was. It wasn't the same relationship I have today. Today that relationship is deep and abiding and there's a lot more going on. But when I initially thought I had a relationship with the God of my understanding, it was, you know, foxhole prayers and you know my life consisted of.

Speaker 2: 18:57

Please don't let me drink today, god. On the way to the liquor store.

Speaker 1: 19:01

Right.

Speaker 2: 19:02

You know, and it was and and so and. So what happened for me was I had a complete surrender and I did have medical issues and at first they didn't stop me. But I know that you have something much more dramatic, and I definitely want you to tell our audience about that, because that was one reason I asked you to come on this podcast, because this is some deadly serious stuff, stuff, and you are a testament to someone who said, okay, I'm ready.

Speaker 1: 19:37

So, if you don't mind, sharing a little bit about how you did get sober of course I mean, yeah, going back to the, that moment of surrender and the fear of death I talked about, um, I mean, like I said I was, I was a heroin addict, I was a crack user, so I shot heroin every day, several times a day, and the event that really pushed me to get there, you know I had overdosed before, you know, a couple of times over the years and that, for whatever reason, wasn't enough, I'd seen friends die and that you, whatever reason wasn't enough, um, I'd seen friends die, and that, you know, wasn't enough. But, um, I got to a point where I was just totally miserable and what happened was I, uh, I was working at the time, despite, you know, my addiction. I managed to hold down a job most of the time over the years and, um, I was working but I had spent all my money, you know, pretty early in the sort of pay cycle we got paid every two weeks I spent all my money and by the second week it was usually a scramble to try, and you know, scheme and make money. But so I spent all my money and I needed some heroin because I was getting sick, you know, heroin withdrawal, opiate withdrawal, heroin because I was getting sick. You know heroin withdrawal, opiate withdrawal and, um, the way that heroin addicts uh use heroin.

Speaker 1: 20:59

When you shoot it, um, you use a little piece of cotton to filter the heroin, um, you draw it up through a syringe. Uh, first you put a little water in with heroin, you mix it up in like a bottle cap or a little you know kind of confined space and then you put a little piece of cotton in there to filter it up and you draw the heroin you know liquid mixture up into your syringe and a little bit of residue is left in the cotton. That, you know, is what they call it cottons. And so after you do your shot, do your, you know, get high, um, you have cotton left over and if you save them up, you can sprinkle a little water them, kind of mash them up and get like a little kind of sludgy sort of residue that you can drop and get a high with that when you're out of money or out of heroin. And so I had left out.

Speaker 1: 21:46

I had quite a few cottons, probably a couple dozen at the time, and um, I'd left them out kind of damp in the uh july heat and it was very hot in um, in the room. I left them out and and I came home from work and I was, you know, sick. I was like I need, you know, I need a shop. I don't have any money, I can't. You know, my dealer won't front me any today, you know, um, so I need you know. I need you know, I did a cotton shot but because I left those damp cottons out in the humid sort of heat all day, I they'd grown all kinds of you know, bacteria, and I mean just formed a little like petri dish type of situation there.

Speaker 1: 22:28

Uh, and so when I shot up, I managed to infect myself with a pretty, uh, intense kind of quickly acting bacterial infection that came with blood infection and, um, so, by I don't know, midnight that night, I was, um, throwing up. I couldn't stop throwing up. I kept throwing up. I started throwing up bile, you know, and, um, I had a high fever and I was starting to hallucinate and, um, by the time I got to the emergency room, I couldn't feel my limbs and I couldn't really think very well and I was starting to.

Speaker 1: 23:07

Uh, by the time they took me back, I was, I could feel myself floating up out of my body and I was kind of watching myself just sitting or laying there in the emergency room, and so I'm convinced that if I hadn't you know, if I'd gotten there a few hours later, I might not be here today. If I hadn't got it all, I definitely wouldn't be here today. Um, and that's kind of what did it, and being in the hospital for a few days while they treated the bacterial infection, I went through the worst of the withdrawal, and so by the time I got out, I had an opportunity and I just felt like I have to have to try. I didn't actually have the confidence that I could be sober at the time, but but I, like I said, I was terrified of dying after that and I knew I couldn't go back to addiction. So I felt you know, let me at least try.

Speaker 1: 24:03

Yeah, that's what did it for me.

Speaker 2: 24:06

That's really powerful and what I really like about that, and I'm going to have to put a trigger warning on this.

Speaker 1: 24:12

What.

Speaker 2: 24:13

I like is that you chose life. Ultimately, there was something abiding in you and you chose that. You know that thing, that we are born with that inner being, that source, that love. I call it God, but people have different names for it and different orientations. But there's something in you that wanted to live and, by the grace of whatever God universe, something you got to live and you are able to carry this message.

Speaker 2: 24:51

And it's a message of hope right, because you know let's move on and talk about how it is because you're alive and it is because you chose life that you ended up in the business of helping other people in their recovery journey.

Speaker 1: 25:24

Right, yeah, I mean, if I hadn't made that choice, I wouldn't be able to help other people who are in the process of maybe getting to that choice or making that choice. You know, or maybe starting me. You know that divine spark, you know whatever was in me that that wanted to live, um. I was just fortunate enough to to have that, you know um, and for it to be, you know, kind of reaching and grasping towards life. And I was fortunate enough to, uh, you know, to make that choice and to to have people around me who could help me when I, you know, got there, because I think sort of one of the basic, you know, fundamentals of recovery is that you really can't do it alone, that you need help. Yes, at least in the way I, you know, subscribe to recovery.

Speaker 2: 26:11

That I haven't met anyone who could do it alone. I honestly haven't. Maybe that person is out there somewhere, but I have not met them. You know, we, we have 12 step programs. Aa was founded in 1935. And then a plethora of 12 step programs have come as a result of AA, of one drunk talking to another one guy realizing he couldn't do it alone and he couldn't keep it to himself and that he couldn't stay sober unless he gave it away. And it's not a moral failing. You are not a bad person, you know. This is really. You know it may be a disease, it may be a disorder. If it's in the DSM, it's a disorder. But however you want to refer to it, it acts on us mentally, physically, spiritually, emotionally. And going back to the word choice, because you and I have been talking about the word choice a lot, we do have a choice.

Speaker 2: 27:12

We just didn't know we had a choice for a very long time, but at some point something snapped and you realized you had a choice. And I think I realized I had a choice when I surrendered my will. And the choice then becomes do I want this more than the life I was living, the life where I was looking for the next high or the next whatever? Or you know, scouring my drawers for you know, loose change, or borrowing money or stealing or doing whatever people do when they're trying to get something that they really think they need.

Speaker 1: 27:56

Yeah, no, I mean, and I think it's a choice that you make really on a daily basis. Ultimately, yeah, you do have that choice. It's hard to see when you're in. You know the thick of it. When you're in, you know the depths of addiction. But what that kind of like near-death experience gave me was an opportunity to sort of clear the smoke a little bit and allow me to realize, you know, I have that choice and, um, initially it was fear that got me sober, but it was this, the new life and the hope that I was able to live in, that kept me sober. That's that message of hope that I think is so basic to recovery is that if you make that choice, your life will get better.

Speaker 2: 28:49

Yes, and I'm here to reinforce that point your life will get better, and it may not seem so at first. And you know the other thing, atticus life is going to continue to happen, challenges are going to continue to come up. You know things are going to happen that derail your plans or you know so-and-so, you know hurt you or you lost this or whatever happened. But when you make a choice to handle it sober, you do so much better. For instance, this is a podcast on emotional intelligence and the idea is that we have that inner sage, we have the inner source, and that source is the five powers are empathy, and the first person that we should all have empathy with is ourselves, right, and that becomes that part of that self love and self regard, and that's. If you want to call that selfish, that's fine, because that's a good kind of selfish. That's not excluding anyone else from, you know, feeling empathy. But if we can't begin to love that self and honor that self, then how can we possibly honor other people?

Speaker 1: 30:08

Yeah, yeah, I mean, I think one thing I hear again and again repeatedly working with people you know, inactive alcoholism and active addiction really boiled down to you know it's you know sort of fundamental problem is that you're terrible to yourself, you know you're not good to yourself. I think I used to think of addiction as a parasite, you know, which colonizes your, that true genuine core self and replaces your needs and desires with its own um and so, yeah, you don't have that emotional intelligence to, to, to take care of yourself, right, yeah?

Speaker 2: 31:06

and then if you, if you can get emotional intelligence and I get it, I mean, it's a muscle that we have to exercise. You know, our brain is made up of all of these neural networks and the addiction has created different pathways that we go down and our problems are solved by getting high again or whatever you know, and we have to create new neural pathways. And that involves choice and it involves thinking differently. You have to choose to think differently, so you have to reframe every experience. Isn't this is bad? This happened to me. What am I going to do now? It's okay.

Speaker 2: 31:45

I have a situation on my hands. How can I respond to this? And that involves exploring. You know what's going on. Where did this come from? Did I bring it about? Is there anything I can do differently? Do I need to call on somebody to ask for help? Do I need to? You know how do I navigate? Another sage power is navigate another podcast guest, actually. And navigating is about asking your older self what would you tell my young self today about this thing? What do I need to know? And if you can kind of inhabit that older self, you will find that you actually have more wisdom than you think yes, yeah you know, so explore, navigate, and then you know and and have empathy and really take action on whatever you're learning.

Speaker 2: 32:46

You know, and one of them is is um innovate.

Speaker 1: 32:50

And so innovate means think outside the box or go to plan B and maybe plan C type of thinking, your style of thinking, and that's something you have to work on and exercise every day. Um, because I obviously a lot of people that deal with addiction um, they have a very negative cast of mind which is particularly surprising, you know, when you've lived that sort of life for many, many years.

Speaker 1: 33:28

But, um, if you carry that type of thinking over into sobriety, into recovery, you're going to set yourself up for a catastrophe down the road sooner or later. And so you have to, you know, you have to really work at that, because that's the only you know way that you've known how to think. But you have to. You have to start seeing the world in a different way, because you want to experience life in a different way. Obviously you have to think differently, you know you have to act differently than what you've done before. And so I mean, I think, going back to the, the idea of sort of selfishness, you know that that sort of like taking care of yourself is, is, is a good kind of selfishness. Um, you know that that sort of like taking care of yourself is, is, uh, is a good kind of selfishness.

Speaker 1: 34:17

Um, I think a lot of addicts are obviously like, unintentionally but definitely self-centered, because they're all about their addiction, they're all about their alcoholism, they're all about you know, the next drink or the next high, um, and that's obviously a very sort of self-centered way to live, um, and so you have to escape from that very narrow you know the very narrow confines of that. You talk about innovation and navigation. You know being able to see that the world is bigger than just your. You know your, your addiction and your phobias and your. You know various you know little moments of frustration and anger and irritation. That you can move beyond that into a much brighter and wide open world.

Speaker 2: 35:06

Right, right, and I was while you were talking. I always have like 100 things going through my head and what came up for me while you were talking about that is you know the thinking differently and reorienting, because you can be what some people would say you can be dry, but you're not sober. You know you can, you can be off substances, but if you haven't really changed your thinking and you aren't living differently, thinking differently and behaving differently and repairing relationships and nourishing new ones, then ultimately, what kind of life is that?

Speaker 1: 35:46

right. What was the point of getting sober in the first place if you're just gonna live the same way without just without the drink or the drug? You're just going to live the same way without, just without the drink or the drug. Yeah, I mean to me, like I've said, what has kept me sober is the opportunity to think differently and to live differently. And I think if I had just stayed the same person I was, I probably would have been back on heroin, you know, within a year or so, if I just kept.

Speaker 1: 36:18

You know, and obviously it's not easy because it doesn't come naturally to you after years of addiction. You know, like you said, it's something you have to really work at. But to me, that's the whole point of recovery is to be able to start to think differently and to live differently. And if you don't want to make the choice to kind of take that opportunity and to try and you know inevitably you're going to fail at things, you know you're not going to succeed all the time. Obviously life happens, like you said, but trying to keep going in a sort of positive direction, that's, that's the opportunity I think that recovery gives us every day.

Speaker 2: 36:56

Yeah, exactly, and it is. It is a new life. It really is. And just to repeat, nobody said it was going to be easy peasy, but I think you and I agree that it is better, better, better.

Speaker 1: 37:13

Oh, of course, yeah, yeah, a thousand times.

Speaker 2: 37:16

Yeah. So it may not be easy to change your thinking. It isn't going to happen overnight. It is, as I say in this podcast. We have, you know, basically a positive intelligence or emotional intelligence muscle and it needs to go to the gym. We have to exercise the muscle every day and that involves, for me, meditation and prayer and it involves gratitude. You know, I'm always thinking about what am I grateful for and, as I was telling a friend yesterday, sometimes we get a FGO O's, another effing growth opportunity. But because I can say it like that, I can accept it like oh, okay here, I guess I needed to learn that. Or what is this?

Speaker 2: 38:04

What is this situation teaching me right now, or what is it that I need to learn from this? And if I can call it an AFGO, I'm much more likely to to maybe take in what it is that I need to learn versus oh, this is terrible, Look what this thing happened. But as soon as it's an AFGO, it's like yep, there we go again.

Speaker 1: 38:29

Yeah, yeah, I mean you can. Gives you the opportunity to learn from life rather than to just suffer through and endure it.

Speaker 2: 38:38

Yeah, Right and and yeah, I'm here to say that the world is actually a good place. Yes, there are bad things happening in the world and yes, there are problems, and yes, we need to do things about them. We need to take action. But that's why emotional intelligence is so important. It's how can we reorient ourselves to ourselves and to each other and to the world at large so that we can make it a better place and so that we can fight addiction on all fronts? Because it's, you know, there's this dry January. This episode, you know, is kind of coming at the very end of January, and dry January is a great step in the right direction, but it is really just a pebble, you know. It's not what real sobriety is. There's something about staying dry and maybe swearing off it for a month and seeing how things go, but that doesn't necessarily mean you're going to live differently. It means you're dry for January and it's a good start. I don't want to knock dry January, but I do want to say that it goes much deeper than that.

Speaker 1: 39:58

Yeah, yeah, I mean, and I personally, I mean, I, I think I'm still just at the beginning of getting to know myself as a person, um, because it's a lifelong process, um. But you know, like you said, the world, if you think of it as a bad place, you're obviously you're not going to have a good time in life. You're going to have a bad time because you're living in a bad place. That's how you think of it, that's what it's going to be to you. But I mean, I like to remind myself you know you talk about gratitude just how amazing it is to be able to be alive. You know, at this time, you know, on this planet, in this universe Like it's just.

Speaker 1: 40:43

It's not something you should take for granted. I don't think you know being able to wake up every day and experience the world it's. You only have one life and I would like to be able to live it in a way that makes me happy and I think that boils over into other things.

Speaker 2: 41:05

right, because if you're happy and you're grounded and you're able to sort of take life with a grain of salt, that's going to spill over into your interactions with other people and it makes you a more effective recovery coach too.

Speaker 1: 41:21

Yeah, for sure, yeah, yeah, definitely.

Speaker 2: 41:26

Yeah.

Speaker 1: 41:27

Yeah.

Speaker 2: 41:29

So this was a bit of a sober podcast, but I hope everyone gets the message that this is really about. There's hope that addiction is terrible and it's horrible and it can really wreck your life and maybe it already has on some level, if you're watching or listening to this but it doesn't have to stay that way and there's help out there and all of that help will be in the show notes. There's help out there and all of that help will be in the show notes. But ultimately, Atticus and I want to tell you that life is good and it is so much better sober than under the influence.

Speaker 1: 42:07

Yeah, a thousand times, definitely, and you can change your life. I think is sort of the message there.

Speaker 2: 42:14

Yeah, I think doesn't that say that there? Change your mind, change your life.

Speaker 1: 42:18

Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2: 42:20

Yeah, it is, and so, Atticus, this is a good place for us to wrap up, and you mentioned a song that resonates with you, and I thought I would play it for our audience.

Speaker 1: 42:36

And that is our show.

Speaker 2: 42:37

Thank you so much for tuning in and remember, please like and subscribe to this podcast and if you think you want to work with a recovery coach, I'm available, atticus is available and we are here to help you. We just wanted to show you that there is a way out of addiction that is above and beyond your wildest dreams, out of addiction that is above and beyond your wildest dreams. So thanks, everybody, and I'll see you at the emotional intelligence or EQ gym. Bye.