How Therapy Helped Joel Overcome Alcoholism and PTSD

<cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>0:05</time> <p>Welcome to 90834. It&#39;s the weekly podcast where guests share the biggest lessons they&#39;ve learned in therapy. In each episode, i&#39;ll pose two questions What were you looking to resolve by going to therapy, and what did you really end up getting out of therapy? I&#39;m Shannon Miller, a licensed clinical social worker and private practice who has the privilege of spending every day watching the therapeutic process lead to unexpected and beautiful places. Today, i have the pleasure of welcoming Joel, a 40-year-old man living in North Bay, ontario, canada. His therapeutic practice spans six to seven years and includes two residential treatment programs for alcoholism. Joel entered the alcohol programs believing that it wouldn&#39;t work for him. However, what he discovered was it is, in fact, working and he does have more emotions than just anxiety and anger. Welcome, joel. What was the things that originally took you to therapy? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>1:02</time> <p>There&#39;s the things that happened in my life and then there&#39;s the thing that I guess triggered me going to therapy for the first time was, i would say, that I was in crisis and I just didn&#39;t know that I was. I got to a point where I was drinking every day. I was not at the point where I was able to kind of like admit that. It&#39;s not that I didn&#39;t know I was an alcoholic, it just I didn&#39;t think that. I didn&#39;t think I was an alcoholic to where it was a problem that I needed to stop. I guess I also thought that a lot of the feelings and the problems that I was having at the time were just like a one-on-one direct relationship to the alcohol. So that you know, any PTSD symptoms, any all that stuff that now that I know I was experiencing at the time, i just figured, you know, okay, i got to quit drinking and that was the only thing I had focused on at the time, like six, seven years ago, and those problems are all going to go away. So I went in and I talked to the doctor, who&#39;s a psychiatrist, and he, you know, we kind of went through my alcohol abuse symptoms, didn&#39;t really get into much and he&#39;s like, okay, we&#39;ll give you some volume. And he&#39;s like, i think you&#39;re safe to detox at home. And then, okay, so I did that. That was the first time I tried to come off the alcohol and didn&#39;t work right. So, yeah, i physically got off it for a couple of days and that&#39;s when the cycle started where I was like, okay, i get sober for a couple of days and next thing, you know, i&#39;m like drinking again like I was. And then I kept going back to different doctors and doing this kind of cycle where I would go back and see a doctor and talk to them about my drinking but not actually do anything about it. So, like I would go to therapy, i would go to different therapists, kind of from EAP, and just have like one or two quick meetings. It would help a little bit. And I just had a really shitty attitude where I thought I was like that one person that I can&#39;t help. I just kept repeating that for a little bit. Well, my drinking was getting worse and worse and worse. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>2:45</time> <p>When you say worse and worse and worse, like can you quantify it? Like how much do you drink? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>2:49</time> <p>So, like it started, i can very clearly remember like I started around 30 problem drinking. My relationship with alcohol like goes back to younger. Like it was a problem probably, but I just didn&#39;t. It&#39;s weird to explain, but like I think I was always probably an alcoholic, but I just didn&#39;t drink that much. Like when I would touch it, it was just I would drink a lot. We&#39;d start with a few beers a night and that progressed to, like you know, four beers, slowly to eight beers, and then I was like, well, i don&#39;t want to drink more than eight, so I&#39;ll start buying the bigger cans. And then, right, like you, start bargaining And then, as the time went on, i was buying a case like a 24 cans of beer a day and I would drink most of them. Half them probably get spilled. I would drink. It would be like you know, the equivalent of, like we call it, a 40 ounce of vodka, but like a big bottle Every single day. I was sick, like I would just you know it was. It was bad. I was physically really really getting sick. Like I wasn&#39;t eating It&#39;s ungodly amount of alcohol. It destroyed my finances, destroyed everything. I just couldn&#39;t stop. And finally, what happened is I went to a thing called a Ram clinic. It was like a rapid access Friend brought me in like a Sunday night, connected there with like for the first time. It connected with like a charity where, like all of a sudden, i went in I met like a psychiatrist, a psychologist. There was a social worker. That was like the first time where I guess kind of I had somebody looking at all the aspects of my life, like saying like Hey, like your situation is crazy. It was right around that time like I just split up with my ex wife to like my drinking went off the rails, so like that would have been March. Sorry if I&#39;m all over the map here. Yeah, so like it was right at that time like I just started drinking so much that I finally finally like couldn&#39;t, like I was completely non functional. Okay, you know my friends are coming over checking the fridge because I passed it on the floor. I&#39;m making sure I&#39;m eating that kind of stuff. It was bad. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>4:35</time> <p>Were you able to still go to work. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>4:38</time> <p>No, I went off leading up to me, like to that, leading up to that time, like, as I drinking more and more, like and I was going to the like, I had a pile of like personal issues, like the divorce, you know, kind of the court, with that I&#39;ve got some people in my family that were sick, and that kind of all overwhelmed me and thank God I went off work sick because I know for a fact like I was lucky to have a supportive employer, but like I can look back at it now and see how I would have messed that up, Like I would have completely, I would have got myself fired, I would have got myself into trouble because even though I wasn&#39;t drinking at work, like I would get home that carries over. I&#39;m like, looking at it now, It&#39;s like how sick I would have felt, how tired I was every day, how mentally drained I was, And not to mention the fact that, like when you drink, you know I&#39;m coming into. You&#39;ve been coming into work with the shakes essentially every morning. Wow, And that happened for a little while. I didn&#39;t know what was going on to be on us until I went off sick. I didn&#39;t know why I was shaking in the morning. At the time I think I was sorry, I think I knew I don&#39;t think I wanted to admit it. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>5:39</time> <p>Okay, okay. So it sounds like it was getting really bad, really fast. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>5:46</time> <p>I was suicidal. I was hospitalized at one point more than once because I It was weird. It&#39;s like I felt like I had, like I would get those places where, like I felt like I was had to kill myself. Like not like that I wanted to, but I felt like it was a weird thing trying to explain to the doctor. It&#39;s like I felt as a man to presser, if I fucked my life up so bad That like that was the only strategy that I had left right, because people that commit suicide or attempt suicide Don&#39;t necessarily want to kill themselves. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>6:13</time> <p>They just want to stop the pain. Yeah, that seems to be the only thing that&#39;s going to do it at that point. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>6:19</time> <p>Yeah, and a few times, like I caught myself Getting that cycle as a coldy fuck, like it scared me. But I mean we have a good system, at least where I am live that I was able to act. So like, hey, man, like I&#39;m feeling this way and you know, talk to a crisis worker, get into the hospital and realize that you know It&#39;s all alcohol induced. Well, not all alcohol induced, but like, yeah, like to get in there They would give you a little bit of a space to work through the problem, which was always good, which usually means like a little bit of medication and sobering up. But it, yeah, like I just I don&#39;t know what happened, but like there was definitely a switch around that point where I went off sick from work. We&#39;re like I Think it was just after I got divorced because, like, all of a sudden, i was on my own for the first time. There was nobody telling me, nobody counting my drinks, nobody Saying like, hey, you shouldn&#39;t drink me. I don&#39;t know what it was, but it was like the cat came out of the bag and I just yeah, and when I say not functional, like it was, i count my blessings to this day that like I&#39;ve survived it because, like it was just so, it was such a sad story, like I wasn&#39;t the kind of drunk that was out like drinking and driving and breaking laws and doing stuff like I was more, like I was super. It was like the sad drunk in his basement in a dark room. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>7:31</time> <p>You know like Sitting in his own pity. I think there&#39;s a lot more that do that than Then. Perhaps we realize. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>7:43</time> <p>Yeah, i think you&#39;re right. People that feel shame from it too for sure, like you hide that keeps you drinking too, and I know that now, like that was a huge part, like when you fuck up enough things, like you don&#39;t want to face it. Right, you messed up relationships, what I really you&#39;re. Just you wake up and you&#39;re like, well, i don&#39;t want to feel that way anymore and The solutions in a bottle across the room, at least in your mind, then Clearly there&#39;s a problem. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>8:11</time> <p>Tell me a little bit about the first impatient facility you went to to the first one that I went to. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>8:17</time> <p>It was nothing wrong with it, it was just. It was a really good program, but it was just meant to it&#39;s a harm reduction program. Short, it was kind of like just like a taste of it, i guess, so to speak, like just to get you on your feet. And then I, there wasn&#39;t a lot of like mental health work involved, other than like, hey, you might be doing some of these things, but You&#39;re gonna have to work on that outside of here, and like, let&#39;s just focus on getting you off the booze, kind of thing. More like Kind of like an intense detox, almost. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>8:43</time> <p>And then so you did the three week short term Intervention, and then some time passes and then you enter into the eight week program. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>8:54</time> <p>That&#39;s kind of funny. I got at the time that consider these all like failures But like so those. But the thing is now looking like this was all like, if I go back to this. The second, i stepped into that three week program. That was definitely where like my journey, i can say started to like sobriety. Like very clearly because that was the first time it became very aware of my went in, did three weeks, came out, did the harm reduction didn&#39;t work with that top, like great. Within like a few months I learned pretty quickly. Like well, like yeah, i&#39;m not that kind of alcoholic. So I came out of there, had you. As soon as I came out I signed up for the other program. But it took a few months to get in And definitely at some point I made the switch where I decided like well, since I&#39;m going to rehab, i might as well drink anyway. Right, like just just alcoholic. I was going to find an excuse at the time, like it didn&#39;t matter, that was just the one I picked, started drinking again. Like it was weird, i would drink in a different way. I switched. I would just binge drink for like two weeks and then get so sick where I would just like lay in bed for a week And I just kind of repeat that cycle until I got into the other rehab And like I was like a complete mess. My family was pissed at me Like I was sleeping on my mom&#39;s couch. Now I had to sell my house Like it was just I was a fucking disaster man. So I finally finally finally get into this other place the beginning of 2020. Like it was like more, like it was therapy eight hours a day, of different types, like group sessions, working with people. It was probably one of the first times in my life where I was like, oh, like other men can talk to each other about feelings. Yeah, that was weird. I was very much closed off to my feelings until, like, i&#39;ve gone through this process, i really thought that like there was anger and anxiety, like fear maybe, like that was like the spectrum of emotions And I thought like the first time it was like it was a psychologist actually showed me a feelings wheel was like one of my first appointments. But this is before rehab. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>10:44</time> <p>Oh, that was my favorite tools. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>10:46</time> <p>I literally thought it was a student. I thought this, i&#39;m like this person, i&#39;m like this is so stupid, and that was my thoughts at the time, right, and it wasn&#39;t until, like I was into the inpatient rehab and like they pull this thing out and like you do these check ins every day, right, like how, where are you, how are you feeling? And slowly you&#39;re kind of using more of those feelings off this like wheel, and then you start realizing like oh my God, like there&#39;s all these emotions that I&#39;m having in the day where I&#39;m feeling distress, and I was incorrectly, like incorrect, like everything. I just thought everything, every emotion I was misinterpreting, is like the wrong emotion. At a very basic level, i didn&#39;t understand that. You know, maybe I&#39;m distressed today because I&#39;m overtired And I&#39;m not actually like angry at somebody, or like maybe I&#39;m having issues with my self worth today, or I woke up feeling like I&#39;m you know, i can&#39;t think of it off top of my head like you know, you just woke up not feeling like yourself And that it could be like a whole spectrum of things And it really taught me, like taught me, a lot about myself, and I think the first thing was teaching me how ignorant I was about my own emotions. Yeah, it was definitely kind of like I would say it talks like in the sense of like you know, like masculine, like don&#39;t cry, you know, your friends, your friends break up. Like your advice is isn&#39;t like, hey, how are you doing? Like hey, like go let&#39;s go out drinking, or like you know what I mean, like just get on Tinder and go go find some girls, like that&#39;s the kind of like that&#39;s where I was, like that kind of you know, emotional, i guess approach to life. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>12:18</time> <p>How did they teach you to connect with your feelings and to figure out that they&#39;re more nuanced and complex than what you had previously thought? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>12:26</time> <p>Oh, wow, that&#39;s a good question. Well, i think part of it is just it&#39;s the grind of doing it every day, like that&#39;s really a thing. I think I mean just sticking with it. But I think I truly think like a lot of it was for me connecting with other people that were like me, because I don&#39;t know how to explain this but like in that kind of when you&#39;re not mentally well and you&#39;re also like in addiction, you tend like you see the world from your perspective and you kind of think you&#39;re the only. You&#39;re the only one that can feel the way that you&#39;re feeling, or experience all this like dread and all these things go on. And all of a sudden, i think, just being around other people going through the same thing, other dads, other people that had careers and were losing everything, other people that couldn&#39;t figure out what was going on in their life And it was like it gave me a place to let my guard down for the first time probably in my life where, like I wasn&#39;t scared that other people would, i wasn&#39;t scared. You know what I mean. It took that fear away of being able to kind of break off that shell and just open up. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>13:26</time> <p>Sorry. What was it about that environment that allowed you to let your guard down? It was the culture. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>13:32</time> <p>It was the. It&#39;s definitely the culture because we&#39;re told there&#39;s two realities. Like it&#39;s a reality. It&#39;s like you know you can go out and you can tell people and talk about your feelings. Right, you go and do that at the grocery store. People are going to think you might think you&#39;re weird, and it created an environment where it was completely safe to do that. I think I really think it was the culture and the environment. Like there&#39;s doctors or psychiatrists, there&#39;s all this stuff, but it&#39;s just they really pushed the community aspect there. And then the connection and they always you know I get what they&#39;re saying. Now it&#39;s like the opposite, like of like you&#39;re so disconnected during addiction. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>14:08</time> <p>The opposite of addiction is connection. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>14:11</time> <p>Yeah, like developing connection, because the one thing you notice like there was all these people there pretty much more like for the majority of most of the people you would talk to became ice were very isolated, myself included coming into there. Yeah, like maybe you have a family but they&#39;re not really talking to you. The only conversations you have with people is about when you&#39;re going to stop drinking. So you just kind of shut your door and lock it in to the rest of the world And, yeah, you unlock it, walking in there for sure. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>14:38</time> <p>So can you share to whatever extent you&#39;re comfortable. What are the mental health issues that came to light? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>14:44</time> <p>So I was diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder. That was the newer thing like that I was diagnosed with, but I had always had. Like I was diagnosed with an anxiety disorder probably around 15 or 16. I had went through like a traumatic event Then and there wasn&#39;t a lot of mental health support, So it was there. Like if I look back now my history, like it&#39;s so obvious. I had no idea like how these things impacted me then and there was no therapy. I think they gave me some paxil at 15 years old and were like sent me on my way right. That was up until college and like I kind of struggled really bad with that anxiety. Yeah, like I would say up into my early 20s I would take that paxil, But that was the extent of it and then I just stopped taking it. I just learned to live with the symptoms of kind of and then other things happen throughout your life And it just compounds it. But like at the time it&#39;s kind of Unhealthily learned to live with it. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>15:34</time> <p>What were the symptoms you learned to live with? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>15:37</time> <p>So the big one was like I would get these moments like out of nowhere, where I would have, like this, all of a sudden, this Impending sense of doom, whether it was about like myself, like I&#39;m gonna drop dead or something&#39;s like a Comment&#39;s gonna fall on the earth like out of nowhere. There was definitely the flashbacks part. Like that was a very Probably ten years that didn&#39;t go away. I didn&#39;t, probably it was like 30. I was still experiencing like we get angry at anybody that like brought up the subject. Some of the symptoms actually got worse like it as life went on, but like the, the main one being that like it was intrusive thoughts Okay, you know what I mean like you just that started and it would just get in your head like something bad was gonna happen, or like you&#39;re. I can&#39;t explain it, it&#39;s so hard to put into words, so I would just stuff it down. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>16:24</time> <p>But what does stuff it down mean? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>16:25</time> <p>or look like Okay every time it would come up. I would just I&#39;d like to say this, say I start thinking about the intrusive thoughts, or like anxiety, like a lot of times I wouldn&#39;t even surround with necessarily the event. My strategy became to think or do something else. So avoidance, i guess you could say okay, we&#39;re much avoidant personality in that sense And I like it truly. I understand what people say, like I could could feel it then compound over the next like 10, 15 years, to where it&#39;s like, okay, i&#39;ve kind of like as the quitting drinking, like I&#39;m having a meltdown You know what I mean of all, because then that&#39;s at 15, you know, all these things happen between 15, 30, 40 like that also compound onto that and I think it really started to get to me, like in my 30s, the hypervigilance, so that show up for you. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>17:10</time> <p>Not sleeping I couldn&#39;t understand. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>17:12</time> <p>Snowplow would come by And like I&#39;d be jumping out of bed with like every noise you know at the door outside. You know, I think it was there and it just slowly that was a symptom that would get worse and worse, Can I? </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>17:24</time> <p>can I stop you for a sec? Could you share just Whatever you&#39;re comfortable with what happened at 15. What was the traumatic event? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>17:30</time> <p>The initial one was I was involved in a hunting accident where somebody was shot, and so I just Just didn&#39;t know how to process it. Well, yeah, it was just. It was just I didn&#39;t even know. It was traumatic at the time. You know what I mean. Like you&#39;re so young, ptsd then was only something that happened to people in the military. I actually had to not mostly grieve, but I had to process in therapy. It was like I was really upset when I found out, like when I first got diagnosed with PTSD, like I was really upset. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>18:00</time> <p>Sorry to stop you there. Upset sort of a junk drawer award for me, because it could mean many things. So can you be more specific? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>18:06</time> <p>when you found out you had PTSD, you were I argued for like months with the psychologist and saying that like no, like this is not what I have, like That&#39;s something you get in the army like not me. Yeah, like I really did not feel like I have PTSD Even to this day, like I&#39;ll be, like Like you know what I mean, like it&#39;s still I did. It&#39;s a weird thing. I didn&#39;t feel like it, i didn&#39;t understand because it it kind of evolved in such a like jumbled mess that like I didn&#39;t, i couldn&#39;t connect it in my brain And I was really angry. Because then I went back to When I was 15 and I thought about, like the care that I received and all that stuff Which, okay, it was completely adequate for the time. That&#39;s just what it was. However, i remember like literally having to like kind of have this like deep. I had this emotional response where I was like overwhelmed and upset like man. If I just fucking had some therapy when I was 15 years old or 16 years old To set me on the right path back, that you know what I mean. Like that&#39;s where my brain went. So I had to like kind of just learn to like radically accept that, or whatever they call it that like that&#39;s just what happened. Yeah, like it took me a little bit to digest that because I also felt like it was a black mark on me. The reality is there&#39;s still a lot of people that will judge you. I mean you learn to I Got what&#39;s the word. I&#39;m gonna say learn not to be deterred by it, i guess. And it&#39;s less people for sure, i think, that judge you now than they did 20 years ago. Most people are pretty good about it. My life. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>19:33</time> <p>Sorry, a PTSD Diagnosis conflicts with the toxic masculinity that you had also referenced. Yeah, yeah, it definitely does. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>19:43</time> <p>The place that I went to for the therapy specialized in treating people that Had been like either first responders and the military nurses, people that had like kind of Exposure to some kind of like trauma at some points in their job or like addiction. This other, that was like soup, that was super helpful, was like There was a lot of column bros. There&#39;s a lot of column bros. A lot of us bros got shipped in there. We&#39;re like all of a sudden like that toxic masculinity. Holy shit, does that ever go away quick? You saw people come in there that were like, yeah, like you know what I mean. There were some people that just they&#39;re gonna be like that, that&#39;s just their personality, it&#39;ll always be like that. But there&#39;s people that would come in and you just see it so much that, like guys like me, they just like they couldn&#39;t believe that there was all this like layers underneath themselves, like they&#39;re just learning about themselves, and the men were a lot softer in there than they are outside, which is kind of funny. It&#39;s kind of sad actually, you know, in a way, the way that I see men interact with each other and even how I interact with my friends myself, compared to how I interacted with people when I was in, like, say, that rehab facility. There was so much more meaning behind it in the sense like even still, you come out and I still talk to a few friends about stuff, but 90% of the interactions that I still have with other men are like there&#39;s never any like context, like you know what I mean. Like this is kind of like so superficial in a lot of ways because I don&#39;t know. It&#39;s just, it&#39;s a weird thing. I can&#39;t explain it. Men tend to isolate other men too. We don&#39;t even realize it. Like I said to my buddy the day you don&#39;t have a social life, like I don&#39;t, it&#39;s a weird thing You become. I didn&#39;t realize how isolated I would become in that sense from the male community. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>21:31</time> <p>So males tend to isolate each other, or they isolate themselves, yeah, Yeah, Okay, Very much Like it&#39;s. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>21:38</time> <p>Just it doesn&#39;t. It doesn&#39;t afford the opportunity for me to now engage in the activities like with my male friends that I used to like one, I can&#39;t go drinking. Whenever we&#39;d hang out as guys, it was like our time to get away from the kids and go do guy stuff Like that was like the way we would frame it in our mind. So like it&#39;s I&#39;m, I&#39;ve had to learn how to socialize again, but it&#39;s just I don&#39;t know, I gotta really think about that. Now that I&#39;m hearing myself say it out loud, it&#39;s like almost like it would be weird to think even now of spending. Like my one of my guy friends is like Hey, like, let&#39;s go do, let&#39;s just go hang out together and do some grocery shopping Not that it wouldn&#39;t be healthy, It&#39;s like, yeah, like it would just seem out of place. I have two years of abstinence, So just, over two years. Thank you. And I came out of rehab. I came out in the February of 2021. And the thing my therapist said to me I was kind of so funny now, whatever you do, he&#39;s like stay connected and don&#39;t isolate yourself. And then it was like a week later to like lockdown And yeah, like that was not good for me. I went to my like I stayed with family a little bit, but like I just ended up I was in like a shitty kind of bachelor apartment hotel type situation because it&#39;s pretty much homeless at the time And like that was my pandemic. It was like watch modern family on my phone and just drink and sit there And I was like what in the heck? Like what is this world? Like I thought. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>23:05</time> <p>So you came out of rehab. they say, hey, stay connected, we go into the pandemic lockdown. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>23:12</time> <p>And so you went right into drinking, yeah, like everything that I was doing, all the programs that I had placed, everything that I had planned in my recovery got trash. So like I was supposed to be working with like an occupational therapist I was supposed to be part of this like can&#39;t remember the name of the other program. Honestly, i don&#39;t think I would have succeeded at the time. I still was like mentally working through stuff, but everything that kind of was set up coming out of rehab just got just completely annihilated. So I had zero support like coming out of rehab, like I just went right to a hotel and I was like what the fuck is going on. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>23:48</time> <p>Wow. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>23:49</time> <p>Yeah, so it was scary and it wasn&#39;t until, yeah, eventually my insurance got me like I got working with some care team, but it took a while. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>24:00</time> <p>The pandemic definitely threw a wrench in that whole process, like that just sort of clicked like any really powerful things, that a therapist or you did a lot of group therapy, that maybe somebody else said that shifted everything for you. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>24:15</time> <p>Yeah, i actually have two moments. The first one I can remember like really making a difference is I went into this class and it was on Diclactic Behavioral Therapy. It was talking about, like you know, it&#39;s improving interpersonal effectiveness and all this stuff. but it was this thing about acceptance, radical acceptance. It was the first time that something clicked for me and I can remember where it was. like I don&#39;t have to hold on to some of this shit, like things that I can&#39;t change. like it really clicked. You know that thing where it&#39;s people say like oh, not my monkey, not my circus or not my problem. I couldn&#39;t get over it. I thought everything was my problem. I thought everybody else&#39;s problems were my problems. I thought everything that happened in the past was as real as it was today. All those things like it just stayed with me and it was like it&#39;s not that I like instantly learned how to get. I still like I still am learning how to get over things, but it gave me like a path forward in a sense. like when it clicked, it was like okay, i can let go of these things and I&#39;m allowed to do it, that is okay, and I just got to learn how to work on that and improve that skill. And it&#39;s definitely improved still needs improvement but that was definitely a huge click. I would say mindfulness was a big thing because I meditation. I&#39;m not good, i&#39;m still trying to learn meditation but I couldn&#39;t understand that mindfulness was different than meditation, so that&#39;s a big one for me. Now I do things like listening to podcasts while I&#39;m doing dishes, trying to learn how to be in the moment and actually enjoy it for what it is. You know, i can find a way to make these parts of my life that I don&#39;t enjoy. You know why not just try to make them enjoyable? Why not reframe it into like a positive thing? And I work on that every day And I&#39;m still trying to work on that And that&#39;s made a huge difference. An example is like recently that really helped me with that. The therapist that I see now said to Jamie and I was like I want to get back to the gym. I just would have this dreaded thought, like I&#39;m thinking about, like gotta put the bag in the car, gotta get ready, fill my water bottle, i don&#39;t want to go in there. It&#39;s raining out today. You know what I mean. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>26:13</time> <p>I have to tie my shoes. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>26:16</time> <p>Yeah, exactly, i was sitting in this session. It was actually two things. I don&#39;t know what he did. Maybe it was just something he said that day. Stop thinking about how you feel now, how you&#39;re going to feel trying to do it, and start trying to think about how you&#39;re going to feel after you&#39;ve done it. Try to start, like approaching it like that. And then I was like whatever dude, like you know, the last time you just think in your head like start casting voice and like yeah, it&#39;s just something, you know, it&#39;s the psychologist. So I&#39;m like, whatever, i&#39;ll just do it, i&#39;ll humor him. And like I was like holy fuck. That was like I felt great. I was like I&#39;ll try it again. And he&#39;s like Kay, like you know, then I have to go back and then like, yeah, dude, you&#39;re right. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>26:49</time> <p>Every now and then we might know a thing or two. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>26:51</time> <p>Yeah, like it really and I will say it like anybody that&#39;s listening like that was the biggest takeaway for me is that going to these therapists like a lot of times it&#39;s so easy to think like, well, they don&#39;t really know me and know what&#39;s going on, and forgetting that you guys are like gone to school for a long time and have been doing this And slowly you, you know. It&#39;s one of those things that you have to build trust in the people that you&#39;re working with and have these relationships, because it&#39;s not something like I get it now, it&#39;s not something that changes with two or three sessions of therapy. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>27:21</time> <p>So why don&#39;t you speak a little bit to why it&#39;s an ongoing thing for you and it&#39;s not a fix it up, move on thing? </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>27:29</time> <p>Oh, that&#39;s a good point. If I had stopped therapy four months in, it wouldn&#39;t be here 100%. I would have been likely would be dead. To be honest, the way I was continuing And for anybody that starts it, it&#39;s like you just yeah, like it really feels like it doesn&#39;t work at first. It doesn&#39;t feel like it doesn&#39;t do anything, the same way that when you go to the gym the first couple of times, you don&#39;t feel stronger, you feel like you got the shit kicked out of you, yep, and it&#39;s like you keep going back, right. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>27:57</time> <p>Therapy does kind of kick the shit out of you, right? I mean it did. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>28:00</time> <p>Oh, it really does. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>28:00</time> <p>You thought the problem was the drinking, and hey, it turns out you have PTSD and that&#39;s an affront to your entire identity. That then you have to sort of sit there and process through. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>28:11</time> <p>Yeah, it&#39;s good I can compare how happy I am now to how happy I was like before. It&#39;s like immensely damn happy now, like actually happy, not just like before. I thought excitement was being happy. Excitement is not like you know what I mean. There&#39;s a big dirt scene being excited and being happy. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>28:27</time> <p>And now you define happy as what Assertiated content, content. </p> <cite>Speaker 2:</cite> <time>28:31</time> <p>Yeah, like I&#39;m satisfied. Like you know, i look, i&#39;m like, enjoy my house, i like where I&#39;m at, like they&#39;ve got a little cat, i&#39;ve got kids. I don&#39;t necessarily do anything exciting, but it&#39;s pretty cool that, like you know, after work today I&#39;m probably going to go down and go fishing or like I just do whatever I want really. And I didn&#39;t think it was possible. I thought I, everybody, you&#39;ll see this all the time and like addicts, like you think you&#39;re the one addict that&#39;s so beyond help you can&#39;t be helped, or you&#39;re so mentally ill that you&#39;re the one person that therapy will not work for. And yeah, like, maybe that&#39;s true for a small part of the population, but chances are, if you&#39;re in that situation, you&#39;re not that person and you can be helped. </p> <cite>Speaker 1:</cite> <time>29:09</time> <p>I think that&#39;s the perfect words for us to end on today. Thank you, joel, for taking the time out of your day to share with us what was your seven year long path into sobriety and the process of learning all of the things that lurked below the surface, that had to be dealt with in order to get there. We are so appreciative. Thank you, And now stay tuned for a not so subtle advertisement from my own private practice a prissy expat therapy. In today&#39;s fast paced and transient world, taking care of your mental health has never been more important. Aprisody expat therapy is your gateway to healing and self discovery from the comfort of your home with a prissy. Licensed therapists are just a click away. Experience the convenience and flexibility of online therapy sessions tailored to your unique needs as an expat. There is no cumbersome intake process or long waiting periods. We are a small private practice dedicated to helping you. Our compassionate therapists provide a confidential and supportive environment where you can explore your thoughts, emotions and concerns, all without stepping foot outside your door. Whether you&#39;re dealing with depression, anxiety or just need someone to talk to, a prissy has therapist for you. Visit a prissy expat therapy to learn more about our therapists and schedule your first online therapy session today. </p>