hello my fellow fallible human my name
is Tanya McIntyre and this is the Red
Roof recovery show, to soften
the path of recovery from substance and
behavioral addictions and it’s not just
for addictions it’s for life!
I appreciate you spending the next few
minutes here as I’m joined in
conversation with my life partner and my
best friend I call him sir Lancelot
thank you for being here sweetheart my
knight in shining armor
welcome my
love thank you sweetheart – Lance has
been with me for over 30 years and much
of that was lived experience through my
drug and alcohol addictions Lance brings
the perspective of a family member of a
loved one who’s affected by addiction
for every one person who is challenged
with an addiction there are five family
members also affected Salon shares his
lived experience and empathy with family
members whose loved ones are still
struggling with addictions
effective communication tools can
motivate your loved one to seek recovery
sooner than later we offer a thoughtful
conversation about a variety of recovery
topics you’re going to hear
science-based approaches to build a life
beyond addiction a life that you will
not need to escape from there are
literally hundreds of tools that you can
use to manage recovery and life the key
one of my favorite acronyms the key is
to keep educating yourself until you
find something that clicks for you
because this is all about you and your
recovery on this episode of The Red Roof
recovery show oh we are talking about
the stages of relapse very important to
recognize what they are
so what are they
they start well the physical sobriety
actually can take weeks sometimes months
after the first stage of relapse happens
and that is the emotional relapse
so I often say that my physical sobriety
was the first step and then my emotional
sobriety is an ongoing Journey that I
make the moment my eyes open in the
morning that’s when my journey starts
with emotional sobriety and I use a
variety of tools to manage my emotional
sobriety because there’s no shortage of
heightened emotions as you know
sweetheart in recovery you not only have
lived experience with me for a couple of
decades through my addictions
but now you’re living with me in
recovery and I’m sure I’m not I don’t
want to speak for you but I’m sure that
comes with its own challenges
uh yeah yeah it’s uh
you have your ups and downs
and your
your moments of
Frailty
and yeah
it’s it’s pretty much the same as when
you were
in your addiction
is that
you know I want to help I want to
somehow make it better
but
there is the whole thing where
unless you ask for help or ask me to do
something specific there’s nothing
really I can do apart from
be there when you do ask
and that’s a hard thing for people to
ask for help
especially because especially if it’s
something that people feel
um shameful about or guilty about
for someone to turn around who are
feeling vulnerable and
you know what you say about your
emotional sobriety if you’re feeling
emotionally vulnerable and seeing that
you know you could be going down that
path recognizing
that that path
you may be heading towards the next step
of relapse
um
it’s hard to talk talk to someone and
say this is what I really need
do it yourself
and I think understanding relapse I mean
I spent eight years
12-step programs relapsing every year
and that wasn’t the fault of the program
that was uh my inability to accept the
unconditional acceptance piece uh which
came a little bit later for me in
cognitive therapy
like I said there are hundreds of tools
that you can use in recovery and life
the key is to keep looking until you
find something that works for you so for
me the eight years of relapsing and
12-step programs helped me recognize the
stages of relapse helped me recognize
the pattern of thought that we begin
sometimes months before I would actually
physically relapse so it started with me
with an emotional relapse I would start
to get irritable I would start to
isolate I would start to look for
opportunities perhaps I had this kind of
struggle going on with my mind my
alcoholic brain was wanting to have a
drink or a drug to take the edge off of
whatever I was going through and then my
more rational brain was saying No this
is insane you know you’re doing this
work you’re now physically sober what
are you doing this is crazy so you’ve
got this banter going on I call it the
itty bitty shitty committee that
negative narrative that swirls around in
our head that never shuts up
sorry is that when you
emotionally come under pressure
something doesn’t go right you get
emotional that all this starts to happen
absolutely yeah okay I think I call it
my disease of emotions it’s you know
it’s emotional turmoil that I used to
run away from I used to just numb out
the feelings of heightened emotions that
I didn’t want to feel
um you know bordering on panic attacks
uh you know I hear people now who are
diagnosed with generalized anxiety
disorder and I think we all face some
level of anxiety and depression at
certain stages of life and I was
incapable of dealing with the emotions
without taking an easier softer way
looking for a quick fix a quick hit to
take that pressure off
I always equate it to uh when I was a
kid putting air in my tires in my
bicycle and if I over inflated the tire
I’d have to put my thumbnail on the
little gauge to let out some air that
that
is what
it felt like for me I needed that
from the pressure of life and emotions
and I would get that from a drink or a
drug
okay so recognizing the emotional
relapse first so recognizing that
pattern of thought my irritability the
loss of patience my wanting to isolate
looking for opportunities where I might
be able to sneak something without
somebody knowing
so not really thinking about it but you
know you start to recognize these
different
mood swings
and then you start to go into what I
call then the emotion or the mental
relapse so you go from emotional relapse
the mental relapse is when you stick in
the emotional relapse too long and the
mental relapse then you’ve really got
that screaming going on this
well dysfunction happening in your brain
that you don’t want to and you want to
um you know there wasn’t I often say
people say it’s about choice
when I was walking toward a bottle of
vodka telling myself this is insane what
are you doing uh there was no stopping
my arm reaching for the Vodka so there
was no choice there for me when I was
deep into my addictions
um so when you know I have these
discussions with people about choice and
I’m thinking maybe after you’ve made
that transition to get physically sober
uh to start to work on your emotional
sobriety then perhaps there’s a level of
choice involved there but when you’re
mired deep into your addiction
there’s no choice about it you have no
choice so you’ve got emotional and
you’ve got mental mental and the mental
relapse is when you’ve stayed in
emotional relapse too long now you’ve
graduated into the mental relapse
um so you know you you’re again you
start then you start to lie to yourself
and others looking for those
opportunities to start to bargain you
start to look for opportunities to get
together with old friends oh I wonder
what happened to that dealer I used to
know
um so seeing old friends that were part
of your addictions looking for
opportunities where you don’t get caught
so coming up with strategies to not only
just recognize those patterns of thought
but then to nip them
cut them at the core right you gotta
catch it check it change it all these
slogans that we have in recovery circles
okay so we can get to the last one which
I presume is something like physical or
are you actually well yep so you would
when you’re ignoring the warning signs
which I did for eight years and 12-step
programs and then I would go into a
physical relapse and then I would be
questioning myself after my fourth drink
saying
what the heck happened how did I get
here well I got here looking back now it
started with a pattern of thinking the
emotional relapse I call it where I
started to isolate I started to notice
swings in my real big swings in my mood
um irritability loss of patience loss of
interest
um ignoring my self-care routine
so now that I have eight years of
experience of relapsing I can recognize
the emotional lapse I can recognize when
I’ve stayed there too long and now I’ve
graduated into the mental relapse and
thankfully now I’m we’re you know
January of 2023
so I’m four and a half years now of
successfully consecutively keeping
maintaining my uh sobriety my abstinence
from drug and alcohol addictions and I
absolutely chalk it up to cognitive
therapies that now I I’ve learned how to
sit with my emotions how to tolerate
discomfort how to reach into my toolbox
uh so I keep putting Tools in my toolbox
so I have a whole plethora of tools to
choose from and the hammer in my toolbox
is the unconditional acceptance piece
unconditional acceptance for myself
others and life that’s huge for me so
getting a good sleep eating
um
at the same time every day very
important for me going to bed and
getting up at the same time every day uh
well you know me a structured routine
very very important I also don’t
hesitate to share my feelings now that’s
a double-edged sword for sure certainly
can be
what
I go to meetings
help
and from my point of view yeah I mean
you do share your feelings
but you shared and you used to bottle
them up and then it would all come out
in one
normally a a drunken
geyser would come flying at me
and I didn’t know where it was coming
from and it wasn’t very nice
whereas now yeah you can still you know
share some things that can be a little
bit
but
it’s better to know where
where I sit and where use it
and there’s helping you not relapse
so yeah I mean
double-edged swords at double-edged
swords like everything is a double-edged
sword you know being a passive person is
a double-edged sword
yeah some people say as a weakness some
people it was a strength
everything has pros and cons
well I’m grateful that you’re here with
me sweetheart and uh that you have
weathered the storm with me and now you
you now surf the waves of life with me
and I appreciate that thank you yeah I
don’t live in a tsunami anymore and
thank you for sharing a few minutes of
your time I know in the noise of the
Internet it’s uh it’s hard to get
anybody’s attention because our
attention span is shrinking so I
appreciate the minutes that you are
sharing with us and if you have gotten
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learn how to maintain your your
abstinence from drug and alcohol
addictions
thank you so much for being here lots a
lot thank you I love your family
perspective it helps a great deal thank
you you’re welcome my love love you too
May the force be with you and remember
you are the force
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