Today we have our guest Genesis with a year and some change clean. She tells us how giving recovery a try helped her to let go of using, and also gave her awareness to see all the other issues. She identifies some barriers most of us struggle with- procrastination, lack of discipline, and impatience. In our discussion we end up drilling down to the root of these problems such as fear, insecurity, and shame- scripts that affect our thinking based on past experiences. These roots are what we are learning to tackle as they were the same roots that we ended up using over in the past. Although awareness can be painful, Marc points out that when we don’t face it and take positive action, those things will pop up and sideswipe us when we least expect it. On the flip side, we can trust the tools that others in recovery have shared are helpful for them. Some solutions that we’ve found for recovery from substances such as meditation, reaching out to others, and observing our thoughts we also find helpful for all other barriers. As Genesis puts it- I can have hope for solutions to other things because I’ve found a solution to using by hearing others share their own journey.

Tool References: Roots of Use (Toolkit 1), Snow Globe (Toolkit 3), Right Sizing My Space (Toolkit 3)

Theresa, with 45 years clean talks about her recovery journey and taking care of her body, mind, and spirit. She walks us through how she started out- just starting with staying clean, just showing up at the gym, just sitting still for a couple minutes- and how these things evolved over time. She shares her realization of learning the importance of some of these aspects simply by experiencing the consequences of not doing them- the learning curve of life. We talk about the difficulty with some of these big concepts in early recovery and how someone can be struck with awe when trying to comprehend long bouts of recovery when they’re brand new. Theresa puts it this way-sometimes we watch someone who seems to be really good at something and think I could never do that, but it's important to remember that they only got that way from doing it every day. The most important thing is really just to start-not about what it looks like. Remember that the journey has ups and downs but the only way we experience any of it is if we take the first step forward. Showing up is good enough and good enough is the antidote to healing.

Tool References: You Must Be Present to Win (Toolkit 1), Riding the Wave (Toolkit 2), Roadtrip (Toolkit 2)

On today’s episode, our guest Keri gets current about some of the tougher recovery subjects- from doing an honest self-assessment to moving through grief in recovery and mending the wreckage of our past. In our conversation today, we discuss some of the core issues that arise from these experiences and how we’ve navigated them. Through honestly looking at our patterns, we’ve been able to identify the feelings that threaten to endanger our recovery- guilt, shame, grief, resentment, fear...As addicts, we tend to avoid feeling because we want to steer clear of pain but have found that avoidance itself is the problem. We talk about solutions to dealing with feelings so that they no longer rule our lives and how we’ve found freedom by walking through them, together. These tools have helped us make sense of the new life we are creating in recovery and find freedom from the baggage we’ve been carrying.

Tool References: The Double Life, Pressure Cooker, Grieving Your Past, Do You Want to Feel Better or Be Better at Feeling? (All Toolkit Book 1)