Speaker 1: Do you ever feel like life is just one problem
Speaker 1: after another. You finally feel like maybe there's a break,
Speaker 1: and then bam, another problem. This is how it is
Speaker 1: for many of us. But there is a better way
Speaker 1: to respond, a way of responding that brings greater ease
Speaker 1: into your life and returns some of the energy that
Speaker 1: the problems.
Speaker 2: Drained from you.
Speaker 1: We are hosting a free live masterclass on Sunday, March third,
Speaker 1: called Learn the Keystone Habit to unlock energy and ease
Speaker 1: in your life. In it, I will teach you how
Speaker 1: to tap into resources already within you so that life
Speaker 1: feels less like a never ending fight and more like
Speaker 1: an ever evolving dance. You will learn the number one
Speaker 1: source of unhappiness that drains your energy and keeps you
Speaker 1: feeling stuck, and a simple mindset shift you can make
Speaker 1: right away so that life doesn't feel like such a
Speaker 1: constant struggle. This will be a live event and you'll
Speaker 1: have a chance to interact with me and each other.
Speaker 1: I've really grown to love these community events where we
Speaker 1: get to meet each other and deepen our connections, and
Speaker 1: I hope that you can become part of that. Go
Speaker 1: to one you feed dot net slash live to learn
Speaker 1: more and register for this free event. Again, that's one
Speaker 1: you feed dot net slash live. I hope to see
Speaker 1: you there.
Speaker 3: To bring people around a campfire, which we've been doing
Speaker 3: for hundreds of thousands of years of human beings come
Speaker 3: together to discuss our differences are resolved and we are
Speaker 3: pack animals. Recently it's like this wave of isolation individualism.
Speaker 3: But wow, we need other human beings. We do.
Speaker 4: Welcome to the one you feed. Throughout time, great tinkers
Speaker 4: have recognized the importance of the thoughts we have. Quotes
Speaker 4: like garbage in, garbage out, or you are what you think,
Speaker 4: ring true, and yet for many of us, our thoughts
Speaker 4: don't strengthen or empower us. We tend toward negativity, self pity, jealousy,
Speaker 4: or fear. We see what we don't have instead of
Speaker 4: what we do. We think things that hold us back
Speaker 4: and dampen our spirit. But it's not just about thinking.
Speaker 4: Our actions matter. It takes conscious, consistent and creative effort
Speaker 4: to make a life worth living. This podcast is about
Speaker 4: how other people keep themselves moving in the right direction,
Speaker 4: how they feed their good wolf. Thanks for joining us.
Speaker 4: Our guest on this episode is Paul Churchill. Paul is
Speaker 4: the creator and host of the Recovery Elevator podcast. Today,
Speaker 4: Paul and Eric discuss his great new book, Alcohol Is Shit,
Speaker 4: How to Ditch the Booze, reignite your life and recover
Speaker 4: the person you were always meant to be.
Speaker 2: Hi, Paul, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Eric, Hello, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm really excited to talk with you. We're going
Speaker 1: to be discussing your book called Alcohol Is Shit, How
Speaker 1: to Ditch the Booze, Reignite your life and recover the
Speaker 1: person you were always meant to be. But before we
Speaker 1: get into that, we will be starting with a parable,
Speaker 1: like we always do. And in the parable, there's a
Speaker 1: grandparent who's talking with their grandchild and they say, in life,
Speaker 1: there are two wolves inside of us that are always
Speaker 1: at battle. What is a good wolf which represents things
Speaker 1: like kindness and bravery and love, and the other's a
Speaker 1: bad wolf, which represents things like greed and hatred and fear.
Speaker 1: And the grandchild stops and they think about it for
Speaker 1: a second. They look up at their grandparent and they say, well,
Speaker 1: which one wins? And the grandparent says, the one you feed.
Speaker 1: So I'd like to start off by asking you what
Speaker 1: that parable means to you in your life and in
Speaker 1: the work that you do.
Speaker 3: Wow, Eric, thanks for having me. It's great to be here.
Speaker 3: I've heard you work for a long time and thank you.
Speaker 3: So the older I get, the more I recognize that
Speaker 3: we do have an influence over our life, right, our thoughts. Actually,
Speaker 3: it can instruct physical reality.
Speaker 2: And you know where I.
Speaker 3: Choose to put my mental energies I find is what
Speaker 3: I get more in return. In fact, I came across
Speaker 3: a pdf on religions. If you could distill them all
Speaker 3: into like one sentence or less, and they're all the
Speaker 3: golden rule. Treat others the way you want to be treated,
Speaker 3: treat thy neighbor the way you want to be treated.
Speaker 3: And I think with the parable, it's where you place
Speaker 3: your energies. Yes, we live in a world of duality, Eric,
Speaker 3: where there's good and bad. You have to have them
Speaker 3: both for definitional purposes. But I choose to see wholeness
Speaker 3: in everything, and I choose to nourish that part of
Speaker 3: me that is rooted in love, that is rooted in bravery,
Speaker 3: that is rooted and acceptance in wholeness. Yeah, I love it.
Speaker 1: That's a great answer, and one of the things on
Speaker 1: your podcast, Recovery Elevator, which is a great show for
Speaker 1: people who are interested in recovery. Paul's is one of
Speaker 1: the best shows out there. You talk about what you
Speaker 1: just talked about there often, and even in your book
Speaker 1: later on, you talk a lot about the power of
Speaker 1: our thoughts. But where I'd like to start is with
Speaker 1: you of just described that you have the single most
Speaker 1: accurate assessment test for alcohol. And the reason I want
Speaker 1: to start there is that a lot of people they're
Speaker 1: not sure about do they have a problem with alcohol
Speaker 1: or drugs. Now, some of us, like me, I was
Speaker 1: pretty sure pretty early on, and it wasn't so much
Speaker 1: a question of whether I had a problem in my case,
Speaker 1: was whether I was actually ever going to do anything
Speaker 1: about it, and whether if I did something about it,
Speaker 1: whether it would actually work. But I know many many
Speaker 1: people have a more nuanced relationship with alcohol and drugs,
Speaker 1: and so they're asking themselves often am I alcoholic? Or
Speaker 1: do I have a problem? Or should I stop drinking?
Speaker 1: And there's lots of different ways people phrase that question,
Speaker 1: and there's lots of different surveys out there you can
Speaker 1: take and you say you've got a one question survey
Speaker 1: that is the most accurate you know, so tell us
Speaker 1: about that.
Speaker 3: I do, Eric, and thanks for setting that up. I
Speaker 3: love this question because most of us embark on this deep,
Speaker 3: inter explorative journey spending thousands of dollars with therapists online.
Speaker 3: Quiz's question, you know from the brightest minds and institutions,
Speaker 3: and yes, those do all the place, Eric, I agree,
Speaker 3: But it can be this simple, and it was this
Speaker 3: simple for me. At the end is if you've ever
Speaker 3: asked the question, if you've ever wondered do I have
Speaker 3: a drinking problem? That simple inquiry just answered the question.
Speaker 3: And for example, okay, so I'm here, I have a
Speaker 3: book alcohol Shit. I crashed and burned hard with alcohol,
Speaker 3: extremely hard, fast and early. I like I described that.
Speaker 3: For me, it was actually I was thankful that question
Speaker 3: was answered very quick. But for many and the stigma's
Speaker 3: part of this too. We go so far and so
Speaker 3: long into this when we don't need to do so.
Speaker 3: But I had a problem with alcohol. I don't struggle
Speaker 3: with gambling, not once. If I ever asked myself, you know,
Speaker 3: do we have a gambling problem? Do we have an
Speaker 3: online shopping problem? Do I have a sex problem? I've
Speaker 3: never asked myself those questions. So if you simply ask yourself,
Speaker 3: and I feel this inquiry Eric is coming from a
Speaker 3: deeper part of yourself saying, yo, hey there, buddy, this
Speaker 3: might be getting out of control, we might be going
Speaker 3: down a wrong path. And it's when that inner voice
Speaker 3: jumps in with those questions, with those narratives. If you
Speaker 3: ask the question do I have a drinking problem or not?
Speaker 3: You probably do. And if you've ever entered into Google,
Speaker 3: into google like online self alcohol assessment question, you've just
Speaker 3: answered it right there. You don't even need to take
Speaker 3: the test. If you've ever entered you Know How to
Speaker 3: Quit Drinking podcasts like you know, do I have a problem?
Speaker 3: If you've already answered the question.
Speaker 1: Let's assume that that's a fairly accurate diagnostic question. I
Speaker 1: tend to agree with you that you don't search for
Speaker 1: that sort of stuff if you're not having some sort
Speaker 1: of problem. You know. The other way it was often
Speaker 1: phrased to me, is you know, do you have a
Speaker 1: problem with alcohol?
Speaker 4: Well?
Speaker 1: Is alcohol causing any problems in your life? If so,
Speaker 1: you have a problem with alcohol? Is another fairly clear one.
Speaker 1: My follow up question would be, let's say that that
Speaker 1: is accurate. Does that mean that if I've answered yes
Speaker 1: to that question, that abstinence is the only path for me?
Speaker 1: Or is it perhaps that I have a problem that
Speaker 1: I need to model. I mean, different people have different
Speaker 1: opinions on this, right, and I'd be curious your opinion
Speaker 1: and your experience with this.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Eric, and this is where I think it gets
Speaker 3: so beautifully interesting. It's confusing. It's not a black and
Speaker 3: white world. It's full of paradoxes. There's a program called
Speaker 3: Alcoholics Anonymous, started in nineteen thirty five by Bill Wilson
Speaker 3: and doctor Bob. Many times in the Big Book it says,
Speaker 3: drinking is but a symptom. Right, you know what does
Speaker 3: that mean? Alcohol is not the problem? It's not. It's
Speaker 3: a symptom of other unrest in your life. However, to
Speaker 3: uncover that unrest and do any sort of inner growth
Speaker 3: work with that, the alcohol has to go. Now, great question,
Speaker 3: is full abstinence the way to go? We can go
Speaker 3: here real quick with this. That's for everybody to decide,
Speaker 3: And I think everybody who eventually arrives at full abstinence
Speaker 3: has to go through this chapter of moderating right. Ye, Look,
Speaker 3: I'm not drinking. I'm not drinking on the weekday, on
Speaker 3: the weekends, I'm not drinking alone, not drinking before work,
Speaker 3: not drinking you know, in the Jupiter and moon or
Speaker 3: an eclipses together. Not you get it. But these are
Speaker 3: lines in the sand that if you do struggle with alcohol,
Speaker 3: eventually every single one of them will be crossed. And so, okay,
Speaker 3: I've been doing this for a hot minute and I
Speaker 3: have not come across anybody in a long term fashion
Speaker 3: here that moderation has worked. I've heard stories of a
Speaker 3: couple weeks, a couple months in my own in my
Speaker 3: own personal journey as well. Eric abstinence for me was
Speaker 3: the best way to go because of the progressiveness of alcoholism,
Speaker 3: but also the nature the way of life works, life circumstances.
Speaker 3: This could be deaths in the family, this could be
Speaker 3: your own personal tragedy or whatnot. Alcohol is a darn
Speaker 3: good coping strategy for a short time.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I think it's interesting because that moderation piece is so
Speaker 1: true that I don't think anybody would get to the
Speaker 1: point of giving up alcohol or drugs if they actually
Speaker 1: love them, like any of us who have a problem
Speaker 1: with them do. There's no way it was going to
Speaker 1: give them up without having tried everything else possible.
Speaker 2: First. You know, you mentioned AA.
Speaker 1: There's a line in the A Big Book, I think,
Speaker 1: basically along the lines that you know, certain people will
Speaker 1: chase this idea that somehow, someway I'll control my drinking,
Speaker 1: you know, to the gates of insanity and death.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 1: I mean, that's what we're trying to do. And I
Speaker 1: tried all those things this last time when I got sober,
Speaker 1: what I hope is the last time fifteen years ago,
Speaker 1: I actually did a stint in moderation management as a
Speaker 1: program first, and I've shared about this before, but it
Speaker 1: was so good for me because I failed so badly
Speaker 1: at it.
Speaker 2: But I tried so hard.
Speaker 1: I had been sober eight years before I knew what
Speaker 1: abstinence was, I knew what AA was. I was like,
Speaker 1: I do not want to go back and hang out
Speaker 1: with those people. I do not want to give up
Speaker 1: my alcohol. So I tried everything I could and moderation management,
Speaker 1: and I.
Speaker 2: Couldn't do it.
Speaker 1: It would set out like well your weight or whatever
Speaker 1: you could have, you know, two drinks a day or
Speaker 1: a drink and a half a day or whatever.
Speaker 2: And I was already immediately.
Speaker 1: Inflating my weight from about one hundred and forty five
Speaker 1: pounds to about one hundred and eighty pounds so that
Speaker 1: I could get to the two and a half drinks
Speaker 1: a day or whatever it was, right. And then, of
Speaker 1: course a drink is measured by certain number of ounces,
Speaker 1: but you know, well, we don't have to be real
Speaker 1: accurate that, so I was cheating from the very beginning.
Speaker 1: And even while cheating, I couldn't do it most of
Speaker 1: the time. I remember this, you know, this is one
Speaker 1: of my most like poignant memories of that time. Of
Speaker 1: it would be like, let's say eleven thirty at night.
Speaker 1: I worked a corporate job, so I'd have to be
Speaker 1: up the next morning. I'm in my kitchen by myself.
Speaker 1: Everybody's gone to bed. It's not like I'm at a party.
Speaker 1: Nothing is happening. It's time to go to bed, and
Speaker 1: I'm standing there with a bottle of whiskey on the counter,
Speaker 1: and I'm trying to not take another drink for which
Speaker 1: there's no possible reason on earth to take another drink.
Speaker 1: There's no good reason, and I'm trying as hard as
Speaker 1: I can not to do it, and yet more often
Speaker 1: than not, I poured another drink. And I'm so glad
Speaker 1: I went through that process because then it was much clearer,
Speaker 1: like Okay, my brain goes well, moderation, I go. We
Speaker 1: tried that really hard and it just didn't work. Now
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that's the way it is for everybody,
Speaker 1: but I know that in moderation management, what I saw
Speaker 1: was a lot of alcoholics hanging around hoping that there
Speaker 1: was a moderate answer to this.
Speaker 3: Eric, I like you phrased that, And through those failures,
Speaker 3: and I had hundreds of them, with moderation, we almost
Speaker 3: learned that the abstinence actually is the path of least resistance.
Speaker 3: We think abstinence is this like, oh my god, it's
Speaker 3: life in the dentist's chair, but it's flipped because there
Speaker 3: is such an obsessive compulsion, as you mentioned, to find
Speaker 3: a way to drink without impunity, which I tried hundreds
Speaker 3: and hundreds of ways. I couldn't find it. But I
Speaker 3: think what we say it's like moderate with alcohol, we
Speaker 3: almost say it like in brevity, like it's light. You know,
Speaker 3: I can't can't have just a couple. But if you
Speaker 3: look at the addictive traits of the chemical alcohol. It's
Speaker 3: one of the most addictive drugs in the world. And
Speaker 3: if we were to say like moderate, you know, let's
Speaker 3: moderate our heroin or crack use, like it just doesn't
Speaker 3: have the same ring to it when actually alcohol is.
Speaker 3: This study show that it's just the most addictive drug
Speaker 3: in the world and it kills more people every day
Speaker 3: than every other drug combined. Quite remarkable that way, and
Speaker 3: one of them thought of this in twenty twelve. You know,
Speaker 3: apps are everywhere now, but there was a time when
Speaker 3: a BAC of blood alcohol content app tracker came out.
Speaker 3: I said, yes, here's a way to moderately drink. So
Speaker 3: I went to Old Chicago's downloaded the app. I'm not
Speaker 3: going to be drunk driving home and to drink in
Speaker 3: that responsible way. At the the app told me when
Speaker 3: when to order the next drink so I could be
Speaker 3: safe to drive. It was so painful, Eric and I
Speaker 3: didn't even survive that way, just all right, two more
Speaker 3: that just deleted the app, right.
Speaker 1: Then, Yeah, there's another line from the AA Big Book
Speaker 1: that I ever fully understood, and it was that, you know,
Speaker 1: something about we could not control and enjoy our drinking.
Speaker 1: And what I realized was, I get that, like, if
Speaker 1: I'm trying to control it, hey, I ultimately can't do it.
Speaker 1: But even while I'm trying to do it, I'm not
Speaker 1: enjoying my drinking. It's miserable, you know. It's just or
Speaker 1: I can completely let go of the control and then
Speaker 1: I'm able to enjoy it a little bit, of course,
Speaker 1: until it all comes crashing down. But that recognizing those
Speaker 1: two things as not being able to coexist was really
Speaker 1: helpful to me and leads me into another topic I
Speaker 1: want to discuss though, because I'd get why abstinence is
Speaker 1: really important for me. I get why abstinence is important
Speaker 1: for most people who are problem drinkers, and it's because
Speaker 1: of what you said to me. Abstinence is so important.
Speaker 1: It's because it's the only way that the mechanism of
Speaker 1: craving ever gets shut off. Meaning if I don't get
Speaker 1: complete space from alcohol, then I'm in that craving game
Speaker 1: again and again. But I think one of the problems
Speaker 1: with an abstinence only viewpoint towards alcohol is that there's
Speaker 1: no room for progress in that right, meaning the scoring
Speaker 1: is one hundred percent or zero. Right, You're either one
Speaker 1: hundred percent like not alcohol free or your zero. And
Speaker 1: I've seen that can be very discouraging and detrimental to people.
Speaker 1: So how do you think about that in terms of like, yeah,
Speaker 1: absence is where we want to get, but how do
Speaker 1: I measure progress along the way if I'm not able
Speaker 1: to get to full absence right out of the gate?
Speaker 3: Okay, Hey, I'm really glad you brought that up, Eric,
Speaker 3: because the way most people land in sobriety and I'm
Speaker 3: no different here, and thank goodness, I'm on a current
Speaker 3: nine plus year away from my last drink. Hope that
Speaker 3: never changes. But the way most of us get here
Speaker 3: is by stacking days. Right. It's not a one and
Speaker 3: done thing. In fact, I've interviewed over four hundred people
Speaker 3: on the Recovery Ell Theater podcast. Very few of them
Speaker 3: were one and done. Like you know, I'm done with this.
Speaker 3: It rarely happens, and it lots more of what's called
Speaker 3: stacking days. You get three days here, you get a
Speaker 3: week there, and even years. You look back at the
Speaker 3: years orre like, Hey, in twenty twenty two, I went
Speaker 3: thirty three percent alcohol free. In twenty twenty three, I'm
Speaker 3: seventy five percent alcohol free. I think we're going for abstinence,
Speaker 3: but really I think that's how we get there. In
Speaker 3: more accurate terms, I think that's how most of us
Speaker 3: land in sobriety.
Speaker 1: That makes a lot of sense and certainly my experience,
Speaker 1: and I think that given that I was either completely
Speaker 1: abstinate or not, it was one hundred percent or zero
Speaker 1: in the scoring system I was given and introduced to,
Speaker 1: it led to when I wasn't one hundred percent just
Speaker 1: giving up completely, I mean, and so it was just
Speaker 1: profoundly discouraging, right, And so I think what you're saying
Speaker 1: is I wish I'd had more people tell me, and
Speaker 1: I wish I'd understood more that, like, you're going to
Speaker 1: have to make multiple runs at this, Right, You're going
Speaker 1: to come in and you're going to learn some things
Speaker 1: and you're going to do better, and then you're going
Speaker 1: to come up against something you can't you know, handle,
Speaker 1: and then you're going to come back again, and over
Speaker 1: time you'll eventually get there. That wasn't the way it
Speaker 1: was presented to me. So I ended up in a
Speaker 1: really dark period where I thought I've done everything they
Speaker 1: told me to do, right. I was a heroin addict
Speaker 1: at the time, right, And I've gone to treatment. You know,
Speaker 1: I did thirty meetings and thirty days, I got a sponsor,
Speaker 1: I did all those things and it didn't work. And so,
Speaker 1: you know what, I can't do this. I'm not the
Speaker 1: kind of person that will ever get this. And I
Speaker 1: wish it'd have been presented to me more the way
Speaker 1: you're presenting it, because that was a really dangerous period
Speaker 1: when I thought I can't get this. I'm not the
Speaker 1: kind of person that'll ever get sober. That was a
Speaker 1: dangerous and dark period.
Speaker 3: There was a movement in the late eighteen hundred It's
Speaker 3: called the Temperance movement, and I think that's one of
Speaker 3: the reasons why it's not around today because it was
Speaker 3: basically an internal and external declaration Melty with the Church
Speaker 3: of I'm going to abstain from alcohol. However, there was
Speaker 3: no work. There was no inner work, there's no recovery work,
Speaker 3: there was no spiritual growth, there was no program. Then
Speaker 3: I think when AA came along, you know, they filled
Speaker 3: that void. And you're right, that's black and white. I drank. Oops,
Speaker 3: I can't get this, and I went through a period
Speaker 3: of that to Eric where I had so many day
Speaker 3: ones and I was going to the meetings or whatnot,
Speaker 3: and I'm such a stubborn dude. I started my own
Speaker 3: sobriety tracker app. The reason why Eric there was only
Speaker 3: like one or two on iTunes of that time, and
Speaker 3: the one that I had started off you got a
Speaker 3: day after twenty four hours, and I had so many
Speaker 3: times where I didn't even have a day. I actually
Speaker 3: developed an that was still on the app store, the
Speaker 3: Recovery Elevator Sobriety Tracker, that you start on day one,
Speaker 3: like if you're on day one. But I just couldn't
Speaker 3: even make it. It was like point zero one, you know,
Speaker 3: point when I woke up, it was point zero five.
Speaker 3: You know, you get an hour point zero five. And
Speaker 3: I was like, I cannot get this, but I'm going
Speaker 3: to start my own app because I want to wake
Speaker 3: up and see the number one point zero. Eventually, here
Speaker 3: I am today. I had to go through all of
Speaker 3: that stuff, all those failed moderation techniques, and again I think,
Speaker 3: I think sobriety is the path of least resistance. It
Speaker 3: gets a little brutal, they'll kind of let the brain,
Speaker 3: the mind, the body, reset the dopamine systems. But I
Speaker 3: feel today is also the wild West of recovery is
Speaker 3: and there's so many more options today to quit drinking
Speaker 3: your drug of choice whatever than there were five years ago,
Speaker 3: ten years ago, and definitely twenty or thirty years ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so let's talk a little bit about that. You've
Speaker 1: got a line in your book, and I've heard you
Speaker 1: say it on your podcast multiple times, right, there are
Speaker 1: many pathways leading to the same place, So meaning, I
Speaker 1: think what you mean is there's not one way to
Speaker 1: get sober. There's lots of different ways to get sober.
Speaker 1: Share a little bit more about that.
Speaker 3: Yeah, with Recovery Elevator, we believe there's no right or
Speaker 3: wrong way to quit drinking. In fact, I think it's
Speaker 3: dangerous when we do put like this is what sobriety
Speaker 3: looks like. Here's step one, two three. I know there's
Speaker 3: the twelve steps of AA. That's a beautiful guide that
Speaker 3: I think every human being on the earth could follow
Speaker 3: and get benefit. But all pathways lead to home, and
Speaker 3: stick with me here for a second. I do feel
Speaker 3: the addiction actually serves a purpose. In biology, this is
Speaker 3: called endowment theory. That nothing happens on planet earth or
Speaker 3: in this universe without some sort of beneficial purpose. If
Speaker 3: drinking is but the symptom, it's but the messenger, it's
Speaker 3: but the invitation to step into a more authentic way
Speaker 3: of living. And I think the addiction where I'm at
Speaker 3: right now, it has forced me to land inside of me.
Speaker 3: We are in a fractured world, a disconnected world. Rates
Speaker 3: of addiction, sickness, illness, pain and all that stuff, autoimmune disorders, inflammation,
Speaker 3: they're on the rise. But I think what an addiction
Speaker 3: is trying to do. It's very painful at first, but
Speaker 3: it's trying to reconnect the soul with the conscious, the unconscious,
Speaker 3: all parts of your body and helping you land at
Speaker 3: your core. So again, all pathways lead to home. There's
Speaker 3: no right or wrong way to quit drinking, and I
Speaker 3: don't advocate go out and make your own program, right.
Speaker 3: I think AA is a great place to start. I
Speaker 3: think Cafe Airy is a great place to start. I
Speaker 3: think surrounding yourself with people who've already done this, listening
Speaker 3: to podcasts like yours, Eric is a great way to start.
Speaker 3: But again in twenty twenty three, when we're recording this
Speaker 3: in twenty four and beyond. There are some really neat
Speaker 3: ways to ditch the booze. And I think the invention
Speaker 3: of our time, Eric is going to be the Internet.
Speaker 3: That's it, and how we're able to connect. And this
Speaker 3: isn't my quote, but the opposite of addiction is connection.
Speaker 3: The ways that we can connect in twenty twenty three,
Speaker 3: twenty twenty four looks so much different. I'm recording this
Speaker 3: right I'm in Costa Rica right now, and I can
Speaker 3: see you like you're in the next room and we're
Speaker 3: two human beings have an authentic conversation about how we
Speaker 3: ditched what was holding us back?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean when I got sober the first time,
Speaker 1: it was nineteen ninety four in Columbus, Ohio, and so
Speaker 1: there was nothing else except AA And I mean that
Speaker 1: quite literally, Like there wasn't even like the smatterings of
Speaker 1: like smart recovery or you know, there was one game
Speaker 1: in town and thank god it worked for me. But
Speaker 1: like you said, today, there are so many different options.
Speaker 1: There is no one way to do it. But I've
Speaker 1: heard other people express a concern that the fact that
Speaker 1: there's so many different ways to do it. There's all
Speaker 1: these different apps, and there's all these different things, that
Speaker 1: people can spend a lot of time sort of monkeying
Speaker 1: around with a lot of different things before they find
Speaker 1: something that really works for them. And I don't really
Speaker 1: know what I think about that argument, but I'm curious
Speaker 1: what you think.
Speaker 3: That's definitely valid. I track with that. I think things
Speaker 3: can be discarded a little fast. I cringe when I
Speaker 3: hear people like, oh, I read a pamphlet about AA,
Speaker 3: it's just not for me. They never went to one,
Speaker 3: or they went to one meeting, it's just not for me.
Speaker 3: But I think when you're ready, Eric, when you were
Speaker 3: ready to stop using, when I was ready to stop drinking.
Speaker 3: When you're ready, it doesn't matter what program you show
Speaker 3: up at, and when you're ready to focus on the
Speaker 3: similarities instead of the difference, it doesn't matter if it's AA,
Speaker 3: Smart Recovery Cafe ARI, it doesn't matter at all. And
Speaker 3: I think that's all part of the journey too, of
Speaker 3: exploring different programs out it's not for me today, it
Speaker 3: might be for me later on down the road. But
Speaker 3: I realized I had these these qualms about AA. Well,
Speaker 3: we're just we're just going to talk about alcohol for
Speaker 3: an hour. That sounds quite triggering to me and that
Speaker 3: it was a good argument internally, but I just wasn't
Speaker 3: really ready to quit drinking at that time.
Speaker 1: You hit on something there that I think is really important,
Speaker 1: which is focusing on the similarities not the differences, right,
Speaker 1: And I think this actually applies to any group we
Speaker 1: go into, any type of connection we're seeking. It's a
Speaker 1: useful idea, But in regards to alcohol or recovery, say
Speaker 1: why this is so important and what happens if we're
Speaker 1: not orienting in that way?
Speaker 3: Okay? In twenty twelve, I had been sober alcohol free
Speaker 3: for about two and a half years and I went
Speaker 3: to my first AA meeting with a friend who was
Speaker 3: struggling with alcohol. I took this person to an AA
Speaker 3: meeting to support that person. And this is after I
Speaker 3: had owned a bar in Spain lost to the bar
Speaker 3: in Spain was getting blacked out, blacking out every night
Speaker 3: of the week for a couple of years straight. And
Speaker 3: I was at that AA meeting and I was focusing
Speaker 3: on the differences, not the similarities. And I heard people
Speaker 3: share and I said, wait a second, I don't have
Speaker 3: multiple DUIs. I didn't have any at that time. I've
Speaker 3: never been to prison. I've never been to jail. I
Speaker 3: don't have a bankruptcy all these things, and I was
Speaker 3: drunk like two nights later, and it was a train wreck.
Speaker 3: I had like thirty drinks that night, and when the
Speaker 3: gas station was closed, I could no longer pick up alcohol.
Speaker 3: I was googling if I could drink rubbing alcohol or
Speaker 3: hydrogen peroxide, and I had a bottle of each on
Speaker 3: either side of my computer. So shit got real fast.
Speaker 3: But it was a big eye opener for me. I
Speaker 3: recognized in that meeting, looking back, that there was still
Speaker 3: the obsession to drink, and I was focusing on the
Speaker 3: differences of why I was not like them, why I
Speaker 3: was better, or why I was different, and why I
Speaker 3: could find a way to go out and drink again.
Speaker 3: I did, didn't work. I got back at it, and
Speaker 3: I don't think that was an error. It had to happen.
Speaker 3: I learned a lot from it, Eric, I really did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that when we walk into any group,
Speaker 1: I was saying, I think some of this comes up.
Speaker 1: But I think in recovery in particular, we want to
Speaker 1: not belong there, right, that would be our preference. Our
Speaker 1: preference would be as we talked about earlier. The great
Speaker 1: desire of every addict or alcoholic is that you're not
Speaker 1: an addict or alcoholic, right because then you can continue
Speaker 1: to do what you do. So we're pretty motivated to
Speaker 1: disqualify ourselves. We're pretty motivated to look for all the
Speaker 1: ways I'm not like you people. And I know people
Speaker 1: who look at people and go you know, people will
Speaker 1: walk into a meeting and go like, I was not
Speaker 1: nearly as bad as those people, or other people will
Speaker 1: say I'm way worse than what those people were. I mean,
Speaker 1: we're just looking for a way to give ourselves an
Speaker 1: excuse to walk out the door. And so listening for
Speaker 1: similarity is really helpful. And I don't know if you
Speaker 1: said this in your book, but I think you did,
Speaker 1: or maybe you said it on a podcast. Even further,
Speaker 1: if we don't focus on the stories, the externals of
Speaker 1: what the stuff, but the internals of how it feels.
Speaker 1: And you know, I've shared with you and I've shared
Speaker 1: with listeners before. You know, there was a time I
Speaker 1: got sober twice once was a very low bottom heroin addiction,
Speaker 1: homeless heroin addic hepatitis CEE going to jail for a
Speaker 1: long time and then I stayed sober, and then I
Speaker 1: went back out and I just pretty much drank and
Speaker 1: smoke pot and my bottom the second time was much higher,
Speaker 1: if we want to use that terminology, meaning had the
Speaker 1: best job I'd ever had, I was driving the nicest
Speaker 1: car I'd ever had. I was living in a great neighborhood.
Speaker 1: I mean in all those ways. Luckily for me, what
Speaker 1: I was able to focus on was inside. I felt
Speaker 1: just as out of control as I did the first time. Right,
Speaker 1: And so oftentimes, if we can shake the if we
Speaker 1: can get away. And I say all that to say,
Speaker 1: when we're looking at externals, it's easy to disqualify ourselves.
Speaker 1: But most people who are an addict, if you walk
Speaker 1: into a room of AA or another support group and
Speaker 1: you listen to people describe what it felt like to
Speaker 1: be an alcoholic or addict, I think that that's when
Speaker 1: the similarities really come forth, which is just that just
Speaker 1: that despair and that shame and that confusion of why
Speaker 1: can't I stop this?
Speaker 3: Okay, I track with you, Eric. I think one of
Speaker 3: the most dangerous parts about alcohol drugs the stigma and
Speaker 3: the ego, the disease or whatever you want to call
Speaker 3: it tells us that we're the only person in the
Speaker 3: world that's struggling with that, which is not true at all.
Speaker 3: Millions and millions of Americans, millions across the world when
Speaker 3: we find our tribe or find other like minded individuals
Speaker 3: that have the same thing in common, and for us,
Speaker 3: we've punched an intense ticket of pain to enter the
Speaker 3: rooms of sobriety or to enter the rooms of authenticity, growth,
Speaker 3: and wholeness through recovery from an addictionary substances, You're gonna
Speaker 3: go through a lot of pain, you know, rock bottom,
Speaker 3: homeless on the street, hepatitis, ce, all that stuff, regardless,
Speaker 3: and sometimes you know, higher bottom, lower bottom. They're all
Speaker 3: emotionally relatively the same, they're all internally equally is painful.
Speaker 3: But I also have found on the flip side, on
Speaker 3: the other side of it, it is an incredible glue.
Speaker 3: I've been part of many clubs, guilds, sports teams, committees,
Speaker 3: you name it, but not once have I found the
Speaker 3: camaraderie that exists in sobriety. You know, we do events,
Speaker 3: we do retreats, we do sober travel trips, and the
Speaker 3: first couple ones I thought we were getting lucky. I
Speaker 3: was like, Man, we're gonna that's gonna be hard to duplicate.
Speaker 3: But it's the glue of sobriety. It's the glue, which
Speaker 3: actually it's the pain, you know, day one, when we
Speaker 3: start talking, it's like we've known somebody for seven days
Speaker 3: or two weeks. We go right, pass a small talk
Speaker 3: and get into it, which I absolutely love.
Speaker 1: I teach a couple of different programs, and an aspect
Speaker 1: of it is about building community. And I quote some
Speaker 1: studies around how long it takes to build friendships, right,
Speaker 1: and so if you look at the scientific research about
Speaker 1: how long it takes to build a friendship, it takes
Speaker 1: a lot of hours, right. I've seen some estimates like
Speaker 1: one hundred hours, which is why people tend to become
Speaker 1: close to people they work with, because they spend all
Speaker 1: that time with them. What I think about these studies, though,
Speaker 1: is that they did not interview groups of alcoholics or addicts,
Speaker 1: or support groups for depression or support groups for cancer
Speaker 1: or pick your top, because friendships form so much more
Speaker 1: quickly when you're immediately talking about things that matter deeply. Right,
Speaker 1: it takes one hundred hours to build a friendship if
Speaker 1: you're spending thirty of those hours talking about the weather
Speaker 1: and sports. Right when you're immediately in the sort of
Speaker 1: intimacy that any of these different types of groups and
Speaker 1: hopefully you know, our spiritual habits programs go that deep
Speaker 1: that quickly. When you do that, the time to build
Speaker 1: friendships and lifelong connections is far faster and far easier,
Speaker 1: which is what you're describing right, Like, right away, you
Speaker 1: have these connections with people that are really strong and deep,
Speaker 1: and it is like a glue.
Speaker 3: Eric, you know, the people on this sobriety journey. Again,
Speaker 3: there's a stigma, But I think we have it wrong.
Speaker 3: I think the stigma puts us at the back of
Speaker 3: the societal queue. But I think it's opposite. We can
Speaker 3: come together in a room and put aside our differences,
Speaker 3: talk respectfully, lead with love, and connect fast. In fact,
Speaker 3: it's almost a superpower of mind. When I travel there.
Speaker 3: I've been at AA meetings in like over a dozen
Speaker 3: countries right around there, and I do it because I
Speaker 3: find the connection in a meeting. I find myself at
Speaker 3: a barbecue, hit somebody else's house later, or dinner plans
Speaker 3: or whatnot, and it's this fast track right past the
Speaker 3: bs small talk into authentic conversation with all of this
Speaker 3: at the sole level where seeking we're yearning for this.
Speaker 1: Let's pivot this direction a little bit because you're starting
Speaker 1: to sort of talk about recovery as a plus to life,
Speaker 1: Like it's not just like, oh, I get to quit
Speaker 1: drinking and that's why I go, but that I actually
Speaker 1: get further ahead in life. And you talk a lot
Speaker 1: about this idea where you say, as I mentioned earlier
Speaker 1: in this book, alcohol is a spirit which can give
Speaker 1: us profound gifts if we're able to recognize, right, you
Speaker 1: sort of talk about this like seeing our recovery and
Speaker 1: our addiction as ultimately a gift. Talk more about that,
Speaker 1: because that's what we're sort of talking about here, is
Speaker 1: that as part of this you get an enhanced community.
Speaker 1: What are the other benefits that come from a life
Speaker 1: in recovery?
Speaker 3: Okay, Eric, sobriety, recovery it's the greatest gift I could
Speaker 3: have ever received. But not everybody gets there in sobriety.
Speaker 3: My take is there's a lot of victims in sobriety.
Speaker 3: It's a lot of victims in this world. There's a
Speaker 3: lot of victims in AA actually, but back to the
Speaker 3: parable the one You Feed podcast. As I said, if
Speaker 3: I'm authentic to how I answered that question, if I
Speaker 3: choose to see wholeness in everything and really lean into
Speaker 3: the universe, that everything is happening for me, not against me,
Speaker 3: it helped me depart from the victim mentality. So if
Speaker 3: I'm true to that, if I honor that, and I
Speaker 3: know that nothing malfunctioned in the past with the addiction,
Speaker 3: it all took me to this path right here again,
Speaker 3: all pathways lead to home, mine, yours, and others on
Speaker 3: this sobriety journey. It's more of a painful way into
Speaker 3: this type of work, but also you catapult to the
Speaker 3: other side. So I think there are so many benefits
Speaker 3: to sobriety that others who don't embark on this. We
Speaker 3: have no choice but to answer questions such as who
Speaker 3: I am, like, what's the point of life? What's important
Speaker 3: to me? What am I going to do in this
Speaker 3: human life the rest of the time I have here.
Speaker 3: There's many normal drinkers out there, whatnot? You know, they're
Speaker 3: not forced to ask these internal deep questions. They're not
Speaker 3: forced to find a different way of living, and they're
Speaker 3: not forced to find a way to align the way
Speaker 3: they're living more in line of how we are as
Speaker 3: human beings. So I want to be in the moment,
Speaker 3: but I'm excited, shall I say, of where this recovery
Speaker 3: journey goes in the future. I think a couple of
Speaker 3: years into sobriety, I could barely spell spirituality. And now
Speaker 3: it's like this beautiful aperture of really trusting the universe.
Speaker 3: Bob Marley's got a song. Every little thing is going
Speaker 3: to be all right, three little birds and up into
Speaker 3: this moment for me, Eric, and maybe you can say
Speaker 3: the same about yourself. Every little thing is going to
Speaker 3: be okay, and it has been up until this moment.
Speaker 3: So it's really leaning into that. And the sobriety has
Speaker 3: taught me again back to the parables, like where you
Speaker 3: put your energy is what you're going to get back.
Speaker 3: And I'm choosing to see wholeness, authenticity, love in everything
Speaker 3: that I see. And there's days it's a struggle. I
Speaker 3: get it. I drive in the same roads that you
Speaker 3: guys do, and that stuff. This is a superpower. This
Speaker 3: is an asset. It is not a liability.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: I've even had that reflected back to me and people
Speaker 1: throughout my life. You know, over the years who have
Speaker 1: been almost envious of what it's like to be in recovery,
Speaker 1: of the friendships that get formed, of the deep work that,
Speaker 1: like you said, were forced to kind of do you know?
Speaker 1: I have been involved in some form of healing and
Speaker 1: or recovery and working on who I am because I've
Speaker 1: had to since I was twenty four years old, that's
Speaker 1: almost thirty years now. There were a couple of years
Speaker 1: of a big detour in there. But I never would
Speaker 1: have done the type of things that I did as
Speaker 1: young as I did them, with the intensity that I
Speaker 1: did them, and I mean as far as my own
Speaker 1: spiritual path and my own personal growth path, I wouldn't
Speaker 1: have done those things if I hadn't been forced into
Speaker 1: doing it. And so there are many, many benefits and
Speaker 1: gifts of recovery. And I think there's another element to
Speaker 1: this too that I think about a lot, which is,
Speaker 1: you know a lot of people in recovery will say
Speaker 1: that they eventually see it as a benefit or a gift,
Speaker 1: or many people who have gone through any sort of
Speaker 1: very difficult experience, many of them will turn around and
Speaker 1: reflect upon it as a very positive thing and The
Speaker 1: key element to me seems to be that they found
Speaker 1: some way that that difficulty served the world.
Speaker 2: That when we're able.
Speaker 1: To suddenly take what was difficult for us, what was
Speaker 1: really painful for us, and use it in some way
Speaker 1: to help someone else. To me, that transforms the thing.
Speaker 1: That's the alchemy that gets it to be where we're
Speaker 1: able to sort of go like, oh, that was a gift.
Speaker 3: Yeah, if you didn't say the word alchemy, I was
Speaker 3: going to say just that. I saw Morgan Freeman movie
Speaker 3: a couple months ago and he was asked what's the
Speaker 3: point of life? And without hesitation, he responded to pass
Speaker 3: on what we've learned to others. And Eric, we're doing
Speaker 3: that right now. I crash and burn so hard. I'm
Speaker 3: not the only one. There's millions of people who have
Speaker 3: as well, same with you, and here we are. We've
Speaker 3: had limited time together and we're getting after it. We
Speaker 3: are sharing our experiences, of our stories of how we
Speaker 3: found healing and how we continue to deepen on that path,
Speaker 3: and also how we can help others. The only reason
Speaker 3: why Recovery Elevator has been successful, I feel, is the
Speaker 3: motives behind it when I started were to create account
Speaker 3: of be for myself. That's a selfish motive, but number
Speaker 3: two to help. If other people listened along the way
Speaker 3: and gain traction out of it, then let's do it.
Speaker 3: There was no money, there was no sponsorships. The first
Speaker 3: hundred episodes. It was almost like an easier day. But
Speaker 3: to pass that along to another human being of our
Speaker 3: experiences again, I think it's how we're wired biologically. Chemicals
Speaker 3: such as oxytocin, Sarah own and all those feel good
Speaker 3: chemicals are released when we do so. And we do
Speaker 3: this with other species too. We help out animals who
Speaker 3: need help. We raise it dogs, right, We have animals
Speaker 3: in our households, and helping others feels our soul up.
Speaker 3: And it was almost like rocket science. In nineteen thirty
Speaker 3: five when Bill w figured it out, he said, you
Speaker 3: know what crazy as can be. When I go to
Speaker 3: Manhattan hospitals and share my story with alcohol, I stay sober.
Speaker 3: Not everybody I speak to stays sober, but by golly
Speaker 3: darn it, I'm staying sober. It was revolutionary at the time,
Speaker 3: but now we know that sharing and opening up and teaching,
Speaker 3: and that's what you are.
Speaker 4: Eric.
Speaker 3: You're a teacher and you're teaching right now. Doing that
Speaker 3: to listeners, it helps us as well and hopefully it
Speaker 3: helps the listener.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I agree with you. I think that that
Speaker 1: founding of AA. And again I want to be clear,
Speaker 1: like neither you nor I is saying AA is the
Speaker 1: only way to go by reight stretch of the imagination.
Speaker 1: It happens to be the program that saved my life twice.
Speaker 1: I also see the challenges with it, and I'm glad
Speaker 1: that there's all sorts of alternatives, but I reference it
Speaker 1: a lot because it was what worked for me. But
Speaker 1: that moment that Bill found out and he found it
Speaker 1: out in Ohio, which is where I'm at right, you know,
Speaker 1: just up the road from here. You know, he found
Speaker 1: that when he talked to another alcoholic, he stayed sober.
Speaker 1: And I think that what's so beautiful about that is
Speaker 1: the actually the reciprocity there, because I know people like
Speaker 1: this and will come into recovery or any sort of
Speaker 1: support movement, and they won't want to be a burden
Speaker 1: to the other people. Oh I don't want to call him.
Speaker 1: I would just be a burden. Or I don't want
Speaker 1: to tell them about my problems because I would be
Speaker 1: a burden, right, And the beauty of what Bill and
Speaker 1: doctor Bob found with each other was that they helped
Speaker 1: each other equally. It wasn't like the person who has
Speaker 1: a ear sober and the person who has a day
Speaker 1: sober that there's some power imbalance there.
Speaker 2: There isn't.
Speaker 1: There's a reciprocity in the coming together. And that's been
Speaker 1: my experience in any sort of good support movement. You
Speaker 1: know that there's a lot in the mental health community
Speaker 1: today around peer support, and it works for the exact
Speaker 1: same reason. There's a true reciprocity between people in that
Speaker 1: both are helped in that relationship. And I think it's
Speaker 1: one of the most beautiful things in the world, is
Speaker 1: that thing where when we genuinely connect with people, both
Speaker 1: people benefit from that connection.
Speaker 3: Yeah. An addiction I feel in a purpose of it
Speaker 3: is the humbling process you mentioned two people coming together
Speaker 3: as equals. It's the ego, right, you have to come
Speaker 3: face to face with the ego and make a decision
Speaker 3: life or death and letting the ego take me off
Speaker 3: the cliff or whatnot. So this reciprocity of two people
Speaker 3: coming together, which is very in line for roughly ten
Speaker 3: thousand human generations of how we evolve. We have to
Speaker 3: help each other pass on our stories of how to live.
Speaker 3: You know, how we're living today is completely past awkwards
Speaker 3: of how we used to live and made it this far.
Speaker 3: And by not asking for help, and look, I'm the
Speaker 3: same too. I don't want to be a burden or whatnot.
Speaker 3: But by not asking for help, you're depriving another person
Speaker 3: to feel good, for them, to be in line with
Speaker 3: what a human being is to help them. Once I
Speaker 3: really embodied that, it became a lot easier for me
Speaker 3: to ask for help. And we've heard it in the
Speaker 3: rooms or whatnot, is the most important person in the
Speaker 3: room is the newcomer. That's the same in cafe iri.
Speaker 3: That's our private online community as well. And you know,
Speaker 3: aa that's how I started. I still go. But you
Speaker 3: know it's not a perfect program either, and I want
Speaker 3: to be clear on that as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so many programs these days that are out there,
Speaker 1: and I think a lot of them share in common
Speaker 1: in something that you say in the book, which I believe. Also,
Speaker 1: you know, anytime I'm on a podcast and anyway's like well,
Speaker 1: they'll ask me to make some definitive statement about alcoholism
Speaker 1: or addiction. I don't really want to make any definitive
Speaker 1: statement because everybody's different, and there's so many gray areas
Speaker 1: that you talk about. But the one statement that I
Speaker 1: will make, and you make it also, and you say
Speaker 1: you can't do this alone. There are several gray areas
Speaker 1: in recovery, but this isn't one of them.
Speaker 2: This one is.
Speaker 1: Black and white. What that means the not doing it
Speaker 1: alone can take lots of different forms. But I do
Speaker 1: believe that to be true for the vast, vast majority
Speaker 1: of people who have a real problem, is that doing
Speaker 1: it by yourself won't work. We do hear stories of
Speaker 1: people who do. I'm not saying that never happens, but
Speaker 1: it's so rare.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I think it was a long term. It's
Speaker 3: even more rare. People can do it on their own
Speaker 3: a couple months whatnot? Yet I did it on my
Speaker 3: own for two and a half years and went twenty
Speaker 3: AA meeting and the drunk two days later. I did.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I went and saw my sponsor lead when I
Speaker 1: was thirty days sober, and went out afterwards and bought
Speaker 1: hero And I was like, man, that is a strong
Speaker 1: message you got, dude.
Speaker 2: So similar to you sober two years of walking to
Speaker 2: an AA meaning and all goes up in smoke.
Speaker 3: Folks on the differences. Yeah, I drank my roommate's bottle
Speaker 3: of champagne that he saved from his wedding.
Speaker 4: Yikes.
Speaker 3: In the late seventeen hundreds, there was a Seneca man
Speaker 3: named Handsome Lake. This is an Indian tribe who recognized
Speaker 3: he brought the tribes people together that struggled with alcohol,
Speaker 3: and he almost built. He didn't have twelve steps right,
Speaker 3: but it was a strikingly similar program as AA to
Speaker 3: bring people around a campfire, which we've been doing for
Speaker 3: hundreds of thousands of years of human beings come together
Speaker 3: to discuss our differences are resolved, and we are pack animals.
Speaker 3: Recently it's like this wave of isolation individualism, but wow,
Speaker 3: we need other human beings we do.
Speaker 1: Yeah, share a little bit more about your story here.
Speaker 1: So we've referenced it a couple of times. Obviously you
Speaker 1: said you owned a bar in Spain. We can all
Speaker 1: assume what happens if you Manchin an alcoholic and owning
Speaker 1: a bar.
Speaker 2: It's not a good thing.
Speaker 1: We can picture all that you stay sober a couple
Speaker 1: of years you go to an AA meeting, you drink again,
Speaker 1: walk us through there. How did you find your way
Speaker 1: back to sobriety? And what was it like in the
Speaker 1: early days for you?
Speaker 3: All Right? So in twenty ten, this is five years
Speaker 3: after I owned the bar, I said, hey, I something's
Speaker 3: going on here. So I went two and a half
Speaker 3: years without alcohol. I was only going to go for
Speaker 3: a month, but after just a couple of weeks, the
Speaker 3: color in my face changed, the bloating went away. It's like, oh,
Speaker 3: I might be onto something here, but I still didn't
Speaker 3: want to believe it was alcohol. Two and a half
Speaker 3: years later, drank we covered that. I said, no problem,
Speaker 3: I'll get back on it at two and a half
Speaker 3: years before, I'll do it again. Except that wasn't the case.
Speaker 3: That two and a half years went seven months that
Speaker 3: I remember, got like three months and three weeks, and
Speaker 3: then it was like a year and a half two
Speaker 3: years of just day ones, over and over and over.
Speaker 3: Twenty fourteen got a little the grim at a failed
Speaker 3: suicide attempt there. I got a DUI while driving to
Speaker 3: work and it was just the hopelessness. And my heart
Speaker 3: goes out to everybody or anybody who's listening out there
Speaker 3: that's in that space of an addiction where there's just
Speaker 3: the hope seems to be lost. Keep going. Myself was there,
Speaker 3: Eric was there. We got your back, We're right there,
Speaker 3: We're right here with you. We are. And later that year,
Speaker 3: in twenty fourteen, Eric, luckily, I found myself two months
Speaker 3: away from alcohol. I was going to an AA meeting
Speaker 3: and I was hiding behind pine trees. This is the stigma, right.
Speaker 3: I didn't want people driving by. No one was going
Speaker 3: to AA. I heard this voice in my brain that said,
Speaker 3: we don't have to go to that meeting. I got this,
Speaker 3: and I just stopped there because I knew every time
Speaker 3: in the past when I said I got this, not
Speaker 3: only did I didn't get this, I ended up in
Speaker 3: a way worse spot, just completely backfired. So something was
Speaker 3: there with me. I left the pine tree, I went
Speaker 3: into the AA meeting. I came out and I had
Speaker 3: the idea of a podcast. At that time, there's only
Speaker 3: a couple sobriety podcasts. I said, shit, not only do
Speaker 3: I have to go back into AA, I have to
Speaker 3: do something more. And you've heard the quote or a
Speaker 3: line like you have to put at least as much
Speaker 3: energy into your recovery as you did for your drinking,
Speaker 3: and obviously like a little bit more to counteract that.
Speaker 3: And I put a lot of energy in my drinking.
Speaker 3: I was a bar owner, I was used to DJ
Speaker 3: clubs and weddings and all that stuff. So I just
Speaker 3: went full board into it. And I said, all right,
Speaker 3: I'm going to start a podcast called Recovery Elevator. February fifteenth,
Speaker 3: twenty fifteen, was a first episode to create accountability, and
Speaker 3: I just in an MP three format, launched it out
Speaker 3: in the world. Burn the ships. Look man, name's Paul Churchill,
Speaker 3: crashed and burned big time with alcohol. But an amazing
Speaker 3: thing happened. Eric I had got honest and authentic with myself,
Speaker 3: and that process was already underway in twenty fourteen. And
Speaker 3: when I did it in MP three format, I gave
Speaker 3: others the permission to do the same. And I received
Speaker 3: one email like three weeks after I launched the podcast,
Speaker 3: it's too scared to read it. Actually, more emails came,
Speaker 3: people started listening, and here we are nine and a
Speaker 3: half years later, four hundred and sixty something weekly podcast
Speaker 3: Sober Travel over ten million downloads. YadA, YadA, all this stuff.
Speaker 3: I mean, what an incredible journey. I don't think everybody
Speaker 3: has to get sober that way. I don't recommend it,
Speaker 3: you know, looking back, that was actually quite risky, with
Speaker 3: about six months of sobriety, launching a sober podcast. I
Speaker 3: don't recommend that. But but for me, that's how my
Speaker 3: universe bent, you know, turned melded in a way that
Speaker 3: I was able to remain alcohol free. And thank goodness
Speaker 3: that current run is still live today.
Speaker 1: And so while you were doing that, you were also
Speaker 1: attending AA. Sounds like you've attended a reasonable amount of AA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, okay, I did the full ninety and ninety you know.
Speaker 3: Sponsor steps just put the ego asides, like, look, I
Speaker 3: don't know better than these people. I am not better.
Speaker 3: I have no effing clue what's good for me or
Speaker 3: how to do this. So I just said yes yes
Speaker 3: to everything, and including the podcast. Right now, I'm in
Speaker 3: Costa Rica, and I go to one AA meeting a
Speaker 3: week about thirty minutes away from me. It's awesome. And
Speaker 3: with that into seven or eight meetings, and I've already
Speaker 3: got a wonderful community of authentic people who know exactly
Speaker 3: who I am. Right, superpower, right leverage that this is
Speaker 3: an asset. Back home, I spend most of my time
Speaker 3: here in Montana. I probably go to one to two
Speaker 3: AA meetings a month, but sometimes I'll go three or
Speaker 3: four months without going to a meeting. However, I am
Speaker 3: very plugged in to our community group cafe ARI like
Speaker 3: I run it. You know, I'm in a different position there.
Speaker 3: But I attended our chat right before I interview Eric.
Speaker 3: I attended our we call them chats and our version
Speaker 3: of meetings. I do probably two to three a week,
Speaker 3: and I make sure I host at least one.
Speaker 1: My recovery journey was a lot of a early on,
Speaker 1: and then as time went on, I sort of found
Speaker 1: other aspects to get, you know, sort of what I
Speaker 1: was getting from AA. I was starting to drift away
Speaker 1: from AA, which the first time I did that ended
Speaker 1: up with me drinking again. And when it started to
Speaker 1: happen again, I was like, I don't want to repeat that,
Speaker 1: and so I was kind of looking at like, well,
Speaker 1: what am I getting from AA, Like what is it doing?
Speaker 1: And I was able to sort of reverse engineer that
Speaker 1: in different ways. You know, oh, I'm getting community, So
Speaker 1: where else am I getting community? I'm getting a structured
Speaker 1: approach to change. Where else might I get that? I'm
Speaker 1: getting the chance to support others.
Speaker 3: I like that.
Speaker 2: I sort of.
Speaker 1: Tried to break it down, and I think I'm glad
Speaker 1: I did that after I had like, say, five years sober,
Speaker 1: instead of trying to do that in the beginning and
Speaker 1: be like, oh, well, I think I'm going to know
Speaker 1: how to do all this. Let's talk about the word
Speaker 1: alcoholic for a second, because this is a controversial term.
Speaker 1: You know, it was not a controversial term in nineteen
Speaker 1: ninety five, right when I got into sobriety. It was
Speaker 1: like you just that's how you identified, And many people
Speaker 1: now feel like as a label, it's not a very
Speaker 1: helpful label. How do you feel about the term alcoholic
Speaker 1: and how does it work for you in your life?
Speaker 3: Yeah? Great question. I've oscillated on both sides of it. Eric,
Speaker 3: I have officially broken up with the word alcoholic twice
Speaker 3: in podcast episodes. Yeah, but when I go to the program, hey, man'am,
Speaker 3: it's Paul an alcoholic. Out of respect for the program.
Speaker 3: We do need to be careful with words, right. The
Speaker 3: unconscious has already attached to label a stigma behaviors whatever
Speaker 3: to a word, so we need to be careful with that.
Speaker 3: And studies show that only five percent of alcoholics actually
Speaker 3: live under bridges. Brown paper bags fit that bill. Most
Speaker 3: alcoholics are very functional, And the stats here are we're
Speaker 3: high earners, we're highly educated when we are in relationships.
Speaker 3: So with that, the word alcoholic to what an alcoholic
Speaker 3: it really is, actually is a compliment, like we're higher
Speaker 3: achievers than the average person. Like crazy stats there. But
Speaker 3: where I'm at right now in my journey, and I
Speaker 3: think this is the point of an addiction, is you know,
Speaker 3: we have been looking for happiness outside of ourselves so long.
Speaker 3: That was for me in a bottle, right, this internal unrest, well,
Speaker 3: what's up tequila? Like that'll fix it pretty quick. But
Speaker 3: where I'm at right now is I'm trying to be
Speaker 3: as grounded and as rude as possible as I can be.
Speaker 3: That you can call me whatever you want to call me, eric, alcoholic,
Speaker 3: you know, alcohol use disorder. I've been called way worse
Speaker 3: in the past, probably well in the future. It doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: And that's part of the recovery work, too, is to
Speaker 3: not focus on what everybody else is thinking about you
Speaker 3: and normal. Number one. People don't think about you as
Speaker 3: much as what we think that they do, So it
Speaker 3: really doesn't matter. And again, I think we're living in
Speaker 3: a world. It kind of upsets me sometimes that we
Speaker 3: want everything to be black and white. You're either this
Speaker 3: or you're that. And kind of how we started, Eric,
Speaker 3: we go down this road of online questionnaires, meetings with
Speaker 3: doctors and therapists. Oh am, I in do I have
Speaker 3: an alcohol use disorder? It doesn't matter. Like you are
Speaker 3: what you are. Do you want to improve in life
Speaker 3: as there is something that's holding you back. But I've
Speaker 3: already seen a change, Like the words sober curious is
Speaker 3: now on the horizon. That's just like alcoholic light, you know.
Speaker 3: But it really doesn't matter to me. In fact, you know,
Speaker 3: we think if we come out to our friends and
Speaker 3: family as an alcoholic, then you know, the stars will fall,
Speaker 3: our worlds are over. But let me just share this
Speaker 3: with you guys, and Eric, you might have seen the same.
Speaker 3: I know you have. I have burned the ships or
Speaker 3: said I am an alcoholic to over a million people,
Speaker 3: probably high hundreds of thousands. Yeah, by download numbers, millions. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I've actually received the opposite more love, more support, more authentic,
Speaker 3: you go, do you man? Hey, how can I help?
Speaker 3: It's the exact opposite has happened. I imagine you too, Eric,
Speaker 3: And the more authentic you are about your story, in
Speaker 3: owning it and being you and being more rooted in yourself,
Speaker 3: it doesn't matter what people call you, it doesn't. And
Speaker 3: you've probably seen the opposite, Like people are like, yeah, Eric,
Speaker 3: you do you man? Like I wish I could own
Speaker 3: my story in a fashion that you do.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I think about this question a lot, you know, I
Speaker 1: talk a lot about recovery. I talk a lot about
Speaker 1: different mental illnesses, and I think this idea of a
Speaker 1: diagnosis versus an idea entity are very interesting. Right. I
Speaker 1: still refer to myself as an alcoholic because to me
Speaker 1: that means a very specific thing. It just means I
Speaker 1: can't drink alcohol safely again.
Speaker 2: But interestingly, part.
Speaker 1: Of what you know made me go to AA less
Speaker 1: was the fact that there was this constant discussion of
Speaker 1: what an alcoholic meant, right, and so you know, there
Speaker 1: would be like, well, you know, we're still all really sick.
Speaker 1: You know, well we're still a liar, cheating, a thief.
Speaker 1: Were still this idea that like since I once was
Speaker 1: quote unquote you know, define myself as an alcoholic, that
Speaker 1: I had all these character traits that I no longer had,
Speaker 1: you know, I was like, wait a minute, I don't
Speaker 1: actually think I'm particularly dysfunctional or sick. I came in
Speaker 1: the rooms really messed up, but I don't think I'm
Speaker 1: really that way anymore. And so that idea of sort
Speaker 1: of what alcoholic meant started to not work for me
Speaker 1: because I was like, well, identify myself as so much
Speaker 1: more than an alcohol I actually identify myself much more
Speaker 1: with everybody in the world than I do a very
Speaker 1: small subset of people in the world, even though in
Speaker 1: the beginning that's where I need to identify. And so
Speaker 1: for me, it's sort of like these labels or diagnoses
Speaker 1: or identities, I try and think about where are they useful?
Speaker 1: And then when do they become limited? You know, And
Speaker 1: for me that's what works. But alcoholic is a shorthand
Speaker 1: for me, meaning don't be an idiot and pick up
Speaker 1: another drink eric, Right, Like, as long as I don't
Speaker 1: forget that fact, it doesn't really matter what I call myself, right,
Speaker 1: But I don't want to forget that key fact. Because
Speaker 1: every time I have in the past it has not
Speaker 1: gone well.
Speaker 3: I think a lot of people are pushing sobriety off
Speaker 3: because the word alcoholic is too big of a word
Speaker 3: for them to swallow. Like you said, if it's a
Speaker 3: little too prohibitive for you, you call it whatever you want. Yeah,
Speaker 3: Laura McCowan addresses it like this, You just ask yourself,
Speaker 3: are you free? Is alcohol blocked your freedom? You can
Speaker 3: call it whatever you want. But of course, listeners, if
Speaker 3: the word alcoholic is just there's too much much of
Speaker 3: a charge there, Yeah, I agree. And sometimes, like I've
Speaker 3: been diagnosed things that end in syndrome or disorder or disease,
Speaker 3: and I I don't even say that. I don't even
Speaker 3: say that internally in my brain, Like I'm not going
Speaker 3: to say, oh, I have a syndrome because words have weight.
Speaker 3: They for sure do, and the unconscious will latch onto that.
Speaker 2: Yeah they do.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think that's what's so interesting is that
Speaker 1: oftentimes in the beginning my experience is at the beginning
Speaker 1: to diagnosis, like being diagnosed as depressed was actually initially
Speaker 1: helpful because I was like, well, what is going on
Speaker 1: with me? And then somebody's like here's what it is,
Speaker 1: and they describe it, and then they were like, and
Speaker 1: here's the different ways you treat it, like initially really
Speaker 1: helpful and then over time though, I don't want to
Speaker 1: be limited by it. And so that's I think where
Speaker 1: it's interesting. If the identity or label helps you deal
Speaker 1: with that situation or problem better, great, But the minute
Speaker 1: that you start to define yourself and your limits of
Speaker 1: who you are by that thing, to me, that's when
Speaker 1: it's time to discard it, because then it is no
Speaker 1: longer empowering, helping, healing, curing, it's limiting. Another guess we've
Speaker 1: found on the show Catherine Gray. I don't know if
Speaker 1: you know where. She's out of England. She's delightful and
Speaker 1: is written about recovery, but hers is even simpler. It's
Speaker 1: just simply would your life be better without alcohol in it?
Speaker 1: And that is such another just really great way to
Speaker 1: look at it, Like who cares what you call it,
Speaker 1: how you define yourself? Would your life be better if
Speaker 1: all the bad things that were happening related to drinking
Speaker 1: weren't happening? And you can move on that foundation.
Speaker 3: Without a doubt. And internally, there's a lot of ways
Speaker 3: to phrase it it is and whatever's the easiest, softest
Speaker 3: way we've heard that before for you to enter into
Speaker 3: that world to explore it. Yeah, go for it, because
Speaker 3: quitting drinking is the one domino that has the capacity
Speaker 3: to knock every other domino in your life over. It's
Speaker 3: going to affect everything. So you know, go slow with it,
Speaker 3: but also don't go too slow with it, because there's
Speaker 3: a progressive nature of alcoholism or really any addiction of sorts.
Speaker 3: And you kind of wait, wait a little too long,
Speaker 3: shall we say?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, I mean, I'm so grateful but having been
Speaker 1: an opiate addict that I did it in the nineties
Speaker 1: and not today because it is dangerous out there. So
Speaker 1: this is a big question. What is addiction or alternately,
Speaker 1: what causes addiction?
Speaker 3: There's one thousand and one answers for this. None of
Speaker 3: them are right, none of them are wrong. But I'm
Speaker 3: going to try to summarize it. And I have fun
Speaker 3: talking about this, I really do. There is a line
Speaker 3: in the Realm of Hungry Ghosts. This is doctor Gobermante's
Speaker 3: book on addiction that says most anthropologists agree that there
Speaker 3: was no record of addiction in pre modern times. There
Speaker 3: is addiction in the Bible, and there has been, but
Speaker 3: nothing like we see it today. So what the heck
Speaker 3: is going on? If it's genetic, you know, genes don't
Speaker 3: change that fast. And side note with genetics, they still
Speaker 3: have not found the addiction gene. In fact, they stopped
Speaker 3: looking for the addiction gene. They've already mapped the whole
Speaker 3: human genome. There's not a gambling gene. There's not an
Speaker 3: Amazon Prime shopping gene, there's a there's not a cigarette gene.
Speaker 3: There isn't And so the genetic thing, maybe genetic loads
Speaker 3: the gun and the environment pulls the trigger. I think
Speaker 3: we're a little closer to that. If we distill it
Speaker 3: to the opposite of addiction is connection, then addiction is disconnection,
Speaker 3: then I think we're onto something. There is the way
Speaker 3: we used to live. You know, prior to three or
Speaker 3: four hundred years ago, the communities were much more intact.
Speaker 3: Every task that we did meant something to the community.
Speaker 3: Ourself being, our self worth was more tied to that.
Speaker 3: So the way we're living today, Instagram, email, this super
Speaker 3: fast paced, these high salaries. I'm a big fan of
Speaker 3: capitalism some aspects, but also we're seeing the limitations clearly,
Speaker 3: and I think addiction is a big part with that.
Speaker 3: The way we're living today, I think is completely out
Speaker 3: of balance, and I think it is the environment that
Speaker 3: is creating such such extreme unrest. I just read that
Speaker 3: the life expectancy for a white male in America has
Speaker 3: dropped for like four straight years in a row. There's
Speaker 3: all kinds of barometers. Addiction is one of them. But
Speaker 3: mental health, like I said, inflammations, anxiety disorders, all this stuff,
Speaker 3: it's skyrocketing. So what the heck is going on? I
Speaker 3: think we have separated ourselves from nature. Eric, there's like
Speaker 3: this compulsive, obsessive, compulsive disorder by everybody to consume. Right,
Speaker 3: we have the climate change. We've all heard about this stuff,
Speaker 3: but can we rein it in it's It's quite interesting.
Speaker 3: But one more thing with that, the spirits, like the
Speaker 3: technology to drink or the technology to get an alcohol
Speaker 3: up to forty percent alcohol like that didn't exist about
Speaker 3: one hundred years ago. Beer topped out at like three
Speaker 3: point two percent. This is a couple hundred years ago.
Speaker 3: Wines we're like six to seven percent, not thirteen percent.
Speaker 3: You couldn't find, you know, your microbrew a ten percent
Speaker 3: and drinking was also done more in communal settings a
Speaker 3: couple hundred years ago, So there's almost like these safeguards,
Speaker 3: these stop gaps in place to prevent alcoholism from going
Speaker 3: out of control. But again, I think it's the way
Speaker 3: we're living. It's we've never been more stressed. It's so competitive.
Speaker 3: We've got parents like cheating on their kids' SATs to
Speaker 3: get them into college. Like what's going on with so
Speaker 3: many of these things right now? But I don't think
Speaker 3: we labeled it.
Speaker 2: All is bad.
Speaker 3: Hang with me for just a second. I do think
Speaker 3: that every human being is going to have to overcome addiction,
Speaker 3: and I think there are a wave of people that
Speaker 3: have already done it, like this could be me and you.
Speaker 3: Eric the buddhas said all of humanity has to cross
Speaker 3: a river crossing of consciousness, and it wasn't metaphorically spoke
Speaker 3: about it many times. So today I think we've got
Speaker 3: some very potent drugs. We got alcohol, we have sugar,
Speaker 3: we have TV, and we have screens, right cell phones,
Speaker 3: and I think the cell phone technology, I think that
Speaker 3: technology addiction is going to be the greatest of our
Speaker 3: time that everybody is going to have to overcome. And
Speaker 3: this is finding wholeness externally, looking for wholeness externally, and
Speaker 3: we're going to be forced to find it internally. And
Speaker 3: I think there's a wave of us that have already started.
Speaker 3: And I don't want to say, Eric checkbox, Yep, I'm there,
Speaker 3: they're not. That's not it at all. But I think
Speaker 3: there's going to be a wave of humanity that have
Speaker 3: to really tackle this inner unrest at the individual level.
Speaker 3: I don't think that the government is going to have
Speaker 3: the answer to addiction health like I think this is
Speaker 3: going to be something the individual or small communities are
Speaker 3: going to have to solve. And I think we'll see
Speaker 3: us moving back into smaller communities, let's say, off the grid,
Speaker 3: but where those soul societal structures are more intact. But
Speaker 3: I think it's an incredibly fascinating topic.
Speaker 2: I do, Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 1: Also, I want to probe a little deeper there because
Speaker 1: and you write about this in your book a little
Speaker 1: bit about at first glance what can seem to be
Speaker 1: contradictory things, which is this need, as you said, to
Speaker 1: sort of go inwards and establish our relationship with ourselves
Speaker 1: on an internal level, right and also remain connected to
Speaker 1: the people around us. And I think that's what you're saying, right,
Speaker 1: is that you need to do both those things sort
Speaker 1: of simultaneously, because it seems to me that, like you know,
Speaker 1: certain Eastern traditions would focus on, at least the way
Speaker 1: we've westernized them, going inside, you know, the answers within
Speaker 1: you. You know, meditate, be quiet, go inwards. Right, that's one extreme.
Speaker 1: The other extreme is you spend all your life outward,
Speaker 1: and it seems like and you're write about this in
Speaker 1: your book, sort of being able to do both right,
Speaker 1: being able to go inwards and remain connected to others.
Speaker 3: I think the word we're going here is balance. There's
Speaker 3: the yin and the yang, right. We almost have to
Speaker 3: know both extremes, the good wolf, the bad wolf or whatnot.
Speaker 3: But it's finding that healthy balance because you're right, one
Speaker 3: of the other is not going to work. I don't
Speaker 3: think I could just go sit in a cave and meditate,
Speaker 3: at least for myself right now and find that inner piece.
Speaker 3: It just wouldn't work. I need I need that human connection.
Speaker 3: I have a wonderful wife and I need that connection.
Speaker 3: But on the flip side, if it's all external and
Speaker 3: you neglect internally, that inner child's like, yo, what about me?
Speaker 3: So I think this river crossing of consciousness that the
Speaker 3: Buddhist speaks about could be just that, it could be balanced,
Speaker 3: it could be harmony. And there's another theory with that.
Speaker 3: I know I'll lose some people here, that we are
Speaker 3: one of the last species out there to enlighten orally
Speaker 3: to reach full homeostasis with nature. You know, the human
Speaker 3: beings have been a little out of balance in the
Speaker 3: last couple hundred years without a species that have been
Speaker 3: with extinction and climate change, YadA, YadA, YadA. But it
Speaker 3: still fits in the big picture of it, all right.
Speaker 3: So I think thousands of years looking back, like whoa
Speaker 3: humanity had to go through that really rough time, almost
Speaker 3: like that caterpillar who looks like they're going through extreme
Speaker 3: dysfunction before emerging as a butterfly. I really hope that's
Speaker 3: what's going down here.
Speaker 1: As we finalize and wrap up here, give me one
Speaker 1: last piece of advice for somebody who is either early
Speaker 1: in their recovery journey or even determining whether they should
Speaker 1: get on the recovery journey.
Speaker 3: Okay, burn the ships, burn the ships, and it's got
Speaker 3: to be done internally. You can look in the mirror
Speaker 3: yourself and be like, hey, is this really where we're going.
Speaker 3: You gotta get honest with yourself. Then burn the ships externally.
Speaker 3: Find a close friend. It doesn't have to be a
Speaker 3: close friend, but just voicing it, getting it inside to
Speaker 3: outside in front of a live human being is going
Speaker 3: to do wonder for you. And that could be just
Speaker 3: going to a meeting, a chat. There's so many online
Speaker 3: recovery platforms, but burning the ships is quite impactful because
Speaker 3: it's honesty. You have to get honest with yourself and
Speaker 3: get honest with another person. It's not easy. I get it.
Speaker 3: That's my advice, Eric.
Speaker 1: So not everybody's going to be familiar with that phrase
Speaker 1: burn the ships. So what's that meaning?
Speaker 3: I guess you're right. In fifteen nineteen, with bernand Cortes
Speaker 3: sailed from Cuba and landed on the coast of Vera
Speaker 3: Cruz in Mexico to conquer the Aztec Empire, which for
Speaker 3: the previous five hundred years many have tried to conquer
Speaker 3: the Aztecs. The first thing he did, and this is true,
Speaker 3: when he got on the coast of Mexico, he said,
Speaker 3: burn the ships. He burned. I think it was like
Speaker 3: thirty or forty ships, millions and millions of dollars in
Speaker 3: today's money. The only way they were going to go
Speaker 3: back to Spain is if they were victorious, and that's
Speaker 3: what happened. They won. A long story, but with burning
Speaker 3: the ships, we have conversations with people that we can't
Speaker 3: unha those conversations. And like I said earlier, when you
Speaker 3: reach out for help, you give another person the opportunity
Speaker 3: to be of service, to be of help which helps them.
Speaker 2: Well.
Speaker 1: That is a beautiful place for us to wrap up.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much Paul for coming on, Thanks for
Speaker 1: sharing your wisdom. We'll have links in the show notes
Speaker 1: to your podcast to your recovery community. And it was
Speaker 1: a real pleasure.
Speaker 3: Eric, it was a blast, nice chat with you. Thank
Speaker 3: you very much for having me.
Speaker 4: If what you just heard was helpful to you, please
Speaker 4: consider making a monthly donation to support the One You
Speaker 4: Feed podcast. When you join our membership community with this
Speaker 4: monthly pledge, you get lots of exclusive members only benefits.
Speaker 4: It's our way of saying thank you for your support. Now.
Speaker 4: We are so grateful for the members of our community.
Speaker 4: We wouldn't be able to do what we do without
Speaker 4: their support, and we don't take a single dollar for granted.
Speaker 4: To learn more, make a donation at any level and
Speaker 4: become a member of the One You Feed Immunity go
Speaker 4: to oneufeed dot net slash join The One You Feed
Speaker 4: podcast would like to sincerely thank our sponsors for supporting
Speaker 4: the show.