Speaker 1: Hey, fellow travelers. I'm Laurie Gottlieb. I'm the author of
Speaker 1: Maybe You Should Talk to Someone, and I write the
Speaker 1: Dear Therapists advice column for The Atlantic.
Speaker 2: And I'm Guy Wench. I'm the author of Emotional First Aid,
Speaker 2: and I write the Dear Guy advice column for TED.
Speaker 2: And this is Dear Therapists.
Speaker 1: Each week we invite you into a session so you
Speaker 1: can learn more about yourself by hearing how we help
Speaker 1: other people come to understand themselves better and make changes
Speaker 1: in their lives.
Speaker 2: So sit back and welcome to today's session.
Speaker 1: This week, we'll be talking with a woman who has
Speaker 1: a history of addictions that she is now in recovery for,
Speaker 1: but she has recently developed a new addiction, and that
Speaker 1: is to shopping.
Speaker 3: I didn't realize that that's what was happening until I
Speaker 3: was six thousand dollars in debt. I think that's what
Speaker 3: makes me feel vulnerable, is to say this allowed.
Speaker 2: First A quick note, therapist is for informational purposes only,
Speaker 2: does not constitute medical or psychological advice, and it's not
Speaker 2: a substitute for professional healthcare advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always
Speaker 2: seek the advice of your physician, mental health professional, or
Speaker 2: other qualified health provider with any questions you may have
Speaker 2: regarding a medical or psychological condition. By submitting a letter,
Speaker 2: you are agreeing to let iHeartMedia use it in part
Speaker 2: or in full, and we may edit it for length
Speaker 2: and clarity and the sessions you'll hear. All names have
Speaker 2: been changed for the privacy of our fellow travelers.
Speaker 1: So hey Guy, Hi Laurie.
Speaker 2: So it's your week to go through the mailbooks. What
Speaker 2: have you found for us today?
Speaker 1: Well, it was an interesting week in the mailbox because
Speaker 1: we got so many great letters, and I actually chose
Speaker 1: one that's very short, but on a topic that I
Speaker 1: think is really important. And it goes like this, Dear therapists,
Speaker 1: I am a licensed alcohol and drug counselor and recovery
Speaker 1: for eight years. I find myself spending a lot of
Speaker 1: money on things I do not need. It is starting
Speaker 1: to get out of control and I've put myself in
Speaker 1: unnecessary debt. What can I do? I believe it is
Speaker 1: related to stress. I'd really appreciate your help. Hillary.
Speaker 2: You know this is something that is much more common
Speaker 2: than people realize. Up to five percent of people are
Speaker 2: diagnosed with a compulsive buying disorder, and so overshopping is
Speaker 2: something a lot of people do, not necessarily to the
Speaker 2: point of it being a disorder, but it's something that
Speaker 2: can be very distressing to their bank account, to their relationships,
Speaker 2: and to their sense of self.
Speaker 1: And in this case, she has a history of addiction,
Speaker 1: so she knows what it's like to feel out of control.
Speaker 1: And I think that's what she's writing to us about,
Speaker 1: is this feeling of I don't feel like I have
Speaker 1: control over this. And I think the other thing about
Speaker 1: addiction is that usually, as she said, I think I'm
Speaker 1: under a lot of stress, there's usually another problem and
Speaker 1: then the addiction is what people use to cope with
Speaker 1: the problem. And so we want to find out more
Speaker 1: about what is going on in her life that is
Speaker 1: causing her to either try to deflect, distract, numb out,
Speaker 1: fill a hole. So let's go talk to her and
Speaker 1: learn more.
Speaker 2: You're listening to Deo Therapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be back
Speaker 2: after a quick break.
Speaker 1: I'm Lori Gottlieb and.
Speaker 2: I'm Guy Winch and this is Deo Therapists.
Speaker 1: So Hi Hillary, Hello, welcome to the show.
Speaker 3: Thank you.
Speaker 2: We read your letter. We'd love to hear a little
Speaker 2: bit more about what's going on with the shopping and
Speaker 2: the history of that. Can me tell us a little
Speaker 2: bit about when this started.
Speaker 3: I'm not sure when it all started, but I know
Speaker 3: that recently, in the last couple of years, it's escalated
Speaker 3: and it's become a real problem in my life, which
Speaker 3: is ironic because I am an alcohol and drug counselor
Speaker 3: and I've been in sobriety for nine years, so I
Speaker 3: understand when something interferes in your life, probably an addiction.
Speaker 3: In the last couple of years, I've been working on
Speaker 3: my master's degree in counseling, and for the first time
Speaker 3: in my life, I experienced physical symptoms of anxiety, and
Speaker 3: to alleviate those physical symptoms, it felt really good to
Speaker 3: fill up my cart and buy something. And I didn't
Speaker 3: realize that that's what was happening until I was six
Speaker 3: thousand dollars in debt and I had to actually cancel
Speaker 3: that credit card and get a personal loan through my
Speaker 3: credit union, and I'm now paying that off but still spending.
Speaker 1: Can you tell us a little bit about what that
Speaker 1: looks like. How did it start, what did you start buying,
Speaker 1: and how did it escalate to six thousand dollars.
Speaker 3: I think it started in childhood. I can recall my
Speaker 3: mother and my siblings when I I was like five
Speaker 3: or six, and we would go out into the country
Speaker 3: and find abandoned homes or farmhouses, and we would take
Speaker 3: things from the farmhouse, and I think it stuck in
Speaker 3: my head that this was okay, that as a child,
Speaker 3: you can just take what you want. Now that turned
Speaker 3: into for me, it turned into active addiction to alcohol
Speaker 3: and drugs for many, many years, and during that time,
Speaker 3: I would allow myself to steal things.
Speaker 1: At what age did the drug and alcohol you start?
Speaker 3: I actually started about the age of ten. I was
Speaker 3: experiencing an extreme amount of shame from childhood, and when
Speaker 3: I drank the alcohol at age ten, it was like
Speaker 3: instant relief.
Speaker 2: What was the shame about that you are feeling at
Speaker 2: age ten so strongly.
Speaker 3: I think what it came from was no connection. I
Speaker 3: felt disconnected from the world, a single parent home, being
Speaker 3: bullied in school. And when I was able to in
Speaker 3: just that alcohol, it was like nirvana. It was the
Speaker 3: best thing I had ever experienced.
Speaker 1: Where did you get the alcohol and what was the
Speaker 1: context in which you had your first drink.
Speaker 3: I was in the basement of the house and somehow
Speaker 3: my older brother had it and he gave it to me,
Speaker 3: and it was a half frozen bottle of Boone's farm wine.
Speaker 3: What I can remember is that it took me away
Speaker 3: from feeling internal pain, so I no longer felt like
Speaker 3: I didn't belong. It was like the sensation of everything's
Speaker 3: going to be great.
Speaker 2: So how quickly did it get into a habit?
Speaker 3: Well, it continued for many, many years. I used whatever
Speaker 3: and whenever I could throughout my school years. By my twenties,
Speaker 3: I had developed an addiction to cocaine.
Speaker 2: Alcohol is expensive. Where were you getting it? Were you
Speaker 2: taking it from the home? Did your mom not realize
Speaker 2: it was gone?
Speaker 3: With friends? We would take alcohol out of the parents'
Speaker 3: bottles and fill it with water. At that time, you
Speaker 3: could purchase alcohol at age eighteen, so we'd get older
Speaker 3: kids to buy it for us. Then it was marijuana
Speaker 3: was very prevalent, and it was everywhere.
Speaker 1: Did anybody notice that this was going on in your family?
Speaker 1: Your mother or your brother, And did any of your
Speaker 1: teachers notice in terms of that it affected your functioning
Speaker 1: in school?
Speaker 3: Well? I certainly wasn't alone there were hundreds of kids
Speaker 3: like me that would use whenever they could. Oh, sure,
Speaker 3: I think they did. I think for my mom, she
Speaker 3: was more happy if we would drink or use in
Speaker 3: the house rather than be out in the street. So
Speaker 3: nothing was done.
Speaker 1: When you say that your mom would rather have you
Speaker 1: use in the house because she thought it was safer
Speaker 1: than having you use on the street. Was there any
Speaker 1: conversation about the fact that maybe you shouldn't be using.
Speaker 3: No, was your mom also.
Speaker 1: Drinking or using drugs.
Speaker 3: She was a hard working single parent that raised three kids.
Speaker 3: My brother didn't use. My sister was six years older
Speaker 3: than I was, so there wasn't much connection there. And
Speaker 3: it wasn't like we did this every single day as kids.
Speaker 3: It was whatever we could get our hands on, so
Speaker 3: that might be a month. The other thing that happened
Speaker 3: to us, I had a cousin who had access to pills,
Speaker 3: so he provided some kind of downers, and that happened
Speaker 3: shortly after that first drink of alcohol. I had forgotten
Speaker 3: about that, and so I was taking pills and alcohol
Speaker 3: before anything else.
Speaker 1: Was your mom aware of the pills and what was
Speaker 1: happening with your cousin.
Speaker 3: I don't think she was so there was alcohol in
Speaker 3: the house, so I don't know how much she was drinking.
Speaker 3: I know that she was gone a lot, but she
Speaker 3: was trying to raise three kids on her own, and
Speaker 3: during that time, being a divorce had a stigma attached.
Speaker 3: She was shunned because she was the divorcee in town.
Speaker 1: And then you were shunned as the child of a divorcee.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So I found a way to get through and
Speaker 3: make things happen, for instance, finding the kids that did
Speaker 3: what I did and hanging around with them. I didn't understand,
Speaker 3: of course, at that time that it was a way
Speaker 3: of escape. I just as a child, I just knew
Speaker 3: that getting high was cool.
Speaker 1: It was cool because you had a group of friends,
Speaker 1: or it was cool because it took away the pain
Speaker 1: or both.
Speaker 3: Oh, it's both, for sure. Having some connection with a
Speaker 3: group was a really crucial part. And at the time
Speaker 3: I think I was just really dying to belong to
Speaker 3: a group of people, and I could find it in
Speaker 3: this group of people.
Speaker 1: As we're talking about disconnection, I wonder where was your dad.
Speaker 1: You haven't mentioned him yet.
Speaker 3: Oh, he wasn't part of the picture.
Speaker 1: How old were you when your parents got divorced, and
Speaker 1: what were the circumstances of the divorce.
Speaker 3: I was like one years old. My father didn't want
Speaker 3: anything to do with the kids, really with us, so
Speaker 3: he left the home and got his own house in
Speaker 3: the city. As far as I can remember as a child,
Speaker 3: he came every other Sunday, and for some period of time,
Speaker 3: I thought that's what everybody's father did. Until I got
Speaker 3: to school.
Speaker 2: Would he notice severa that you were drunk or high
Speaker 2: or did you just not do it when there was
Speaker 2: a visit from him?
Speaker 3: Correct And if I was, I don't know that he'd care.
Speaker 1: Did you ever develop a relationship with him as you
Speaker 1: got older?
Speaker 3: I tried At one point, I tried to sit down
Speaker 3: as an adult. I asked him his life story, and
Speaker 3: that was a period of sobriety for me, and he
Speaker 3: basically told me his story but skipped over my mother
Speaker 3: and the birth of us, and so I chose to
Speaker 3: sever ties with him at that point.
Speaker 2: She was saying, there was a period of sobriety in
Speaker 2: that time. What led to that?
Speaker 3: In my senior year of high school and a little
Speaker 3: bit before that, I think I was seeking something, and
Speaker 3: I think part of what I was seeking was a
Speaker 3: father figure. I felt unfulfilled and I ended up smoking
Speaker 3: a lot of marijuana. But I also involved myself in
Speaker 3: church groups, so I was living a double life. In
Speaker 3: this church group, I participated, and I would sing the
Speaker 3: songs and I would become part of this religious ideology.
Speaker 3: And then the other part of me would you know,
Speaker 3: By that time, I was taking acid, eating mushrooms, which
Speaker 3: are psychedelics, and doing this completely opposite thing. And I
Speaker 3: felt very alone because I felt like I was the
Speaker 3: only one living this double life. But in that while
Speaker 3: I was going to church, I discovered a cultural exchange
Speaker 3: program and I signed up. Most of that time was sober,
Speaker 3: but it was an adventure, so I was constantly stimulated
Speaker 3: with new information and it was really quite an experience.
Speaker 3: And when I returned home once when I chose, in
Speaker 3: my enlightened state of having been living in Europe, to
Speaker 3: sit down with him and have this adult conversation.
Speaker 1: When you spoke to your dad, did you ever say
Speaker 1: why did you leave or why weren't you involved in
Speaker 1: our childhood? I hear that you asked for his life story,
Speaker 1: but did you ever ask him directly about the relationship
Speaker 1: with you.
Speaker 3: I don't think I did. Now that you say it
Speaker 3: that way, he's deceased, and you know, the story actually
Speaker 3: gets even more bizarre because my first attempt at sobriety,
Speaker 3: my brother told me that he wasn't really my father,
Speaker 3: that my stepfather was my father. I was thirty some
Speaker 3: years old. It was the first I ever had ever
Speaker 3: heard that, So that set me into a little bit
Speaker 3: of a tailspin. And when I tried to verify this
Speaker 3: information with my mother, she said she didn't know.
Speaker 2: We haven't heard about the stepfather. So when did he
Speaker 2: come into the picture.
Speaker 3: He came into the picture around the age of twelve
Speaker 3: or thirteen. He wasn't a nice person. He ended up
Speaker 3: kicking my older sister out of the house for what reason.
Speaker 3: I think they just didn't get along. She had a
Speaker 3: very strong personality. I think she felt like my mother
Speaker 3: chose him over her, so she became angry and chose
Speaker 3: to leave at age sixteen.
Speaker 2: Your stepdad was in your life for how long?
Speaker 3: Probably five years. It's a little bit blurry, but if
Speaker 3: an indeed he was the father, would have happened out
Speaker 3: of wedlock, you know, way before.
Speaker 2: And when your mom says she doesn't know, it's because
Speaker 2: she truly doesn't know. It's possible that she had been
Speaker 2: sleeping with him before you were born, but she just
Speaker 2: truly doesn't know.
Speaker 3: Correct, It's okay now, I mean they're both dead. I
Speaker 3: struggled with it for a little while, but it really
Speaker 3: doesn't matter. Now.
Speaker 1: When you say it doesn't matter, can you say more
Speaker 1: about that?
Speaker 3: Sure?
Speaker 1: I have.
Speaker 3: Worked through the emotions that are normally attached to who
Speaker 3: a father might be. I've also worked through like, if
Speaker 3: I had any health issues, you know who that would be.
Speaker 3: I've worked through things like I can't do a DNA
Speaker 3: test to find out for sure, and through a twelve
Speaker 3: step program. I've worked through resentment. I've worked through anger,
Speaker 3: and there's some sadness, but I don't live in that.
Speaker 3: So it's just the knowledge that one of these two
Speaker 3: people were my biological father, and I didn't care for
Speaker 3: much of either of them. So what difference does it make?
Speaker 3: I make my own family tell us about that. Well.
Speaker 3: I have some people close to me that I consider
Speaker 3: to be family, and most of that has come from sobriety,
Speaker 3: being a part of a group, being involved with people
Speaker 3: who have suffered as I have, who put themselves through
Speaker 3: horrible addictions and come out the other side. So that's
Speaker 3: what I consider family.
Speaker 1: I'm sitting here thinking about your feeling that it doesn't
Speaker 1: really matter who your father was. And one of the
Speaker 1: things that we see a lot with addiction is that
Speaker 1: there are these secrets in the family. There's this toxicity
Speaker 1: around a sea grip floating in the air that the
Speaker 1: child somehow perceives but doesn't know what it is. Something
Speaker 1: just feels not right and it isn't even maybe in
Speaker 1: their awareness, but there's also an inherent internal sense of
Speaker 1: disconnection when you feel like there's something about this family
Speaker 1: that's off, there's something in the air here. And so
Speaker 1: as an adult, I understand that you've worked through a
Speaker 1: lot of maybe resentment, betrayal, anxiety, anger, sadness, whatever you
Speaker 1: might have been feeling around it. But I just want
Speaker 1: to put out there that maybe there's more to do there.
Speaker 3: There could be. I mean, I have to admit there
Speaker 3: could be.
Speaker 1: Because your mother's still alive, right, Yeah, have you ever
Speaker 1: thought about that at all?
Speaker 3: She's ninety two. She is actually an active alcoholic. She's
Speaker 3: very frail, She's like ninety pounds. She hardly eats. So
Speaker 3: when I say that, getting to the bottom of knowing
Speaker 3: who my father actually is. It is not worth knowing
Speaker 3: that in comparison to any pain that I would cause
Speaker 3: her by trying to pry it out of her or something.
Speaker 3: Does that make sense?
Speaker 2: Yeah? So, how bad did things get before you became sober?
Speaker 2: What was that turning point for you? At the bottom?
Speaker 3: I began using ivy needles and I did it for
Speaker 3: fifteen years and no cocaine. Luckily I never had a
Speaker 3: taste for opiates. I probably would be dead. I tried
Speaker 3: to get sober several times where I would manage to
Speaker 3: get six months or a year. And the last time
Speaker 3: that I used it was twenty twelve and it was
Speaker 3: with ivy needles and cocaine and I was at a
Speaker 3: person's home in the city. It got to the point
Speaker 3: where I was bankrupt spiritually, mentally, physically, financially. I tended
Speaker 3: to go back to school at that time, though it
Speaker 3: didn't work out because I did have a cocurring disorder.
Speaker 3: I had depression anxiety, but I also had a significant
Speaker 3: substance use disorder. And it is secretive people who are
Speaker 3: in active use do have a tendency to minimize the
Speaker 3: severity of their addictions, and I was really good at that,
Speaker 3: so I knew how to cover my tracks, both literally
Speaker 3: and figuratively. Because using needles, you know, I had collapsed veins.
Speaker 3: I had started shooting and using the needles in different
Speaker 3: places that wouldn't be visible. Well, anything to minimize the
Speaker 3: severity of the addiction.
Speaker 1: You were talking about how secretive this was. Were you
Speaker 1: doing this alone? And how are you getting the drugs.
Speaker 3: I was stealing?
Speaker 1: And what were you stealing.
Speaker 3: I would go into different stores, department stores, grocery stores,
Speaker 3: take things that I knew I could either pawn or
Speaker 3: sell directly to people, or trade so that I could
Speaker 3: get the drugs that I needed. My mental health had deteriorated.
Speaker 3: Of course, when you're in active use, the best antidepressants
Speaker 3: are not going to work. I got to a point
Speaker 3: where I was trading sex for drugs. I would beg
Speaker 3: for alcohol. There was a particular bar that I went
Speaker 3: to all the time and scrape up enough to get
Speaker 3: a drink and then try and find somebody with drugs.
Speaker 2: There was something different about this last time around where
Speaker 2: you finally did get sober. But I'm curious about what
Speaker 2: was different about this rock button because usually there's several
Speaker 2: rock buttons that you have to get to before one
Speaker 2: of them actually is.
Speaker 3: I said I would never use needles, and then I did.
Speaker 3: I would never sell myself on the street in order
Speaker 3: to get drugs, and then I did, I would never
Speaker 3: steal from a friend, and then I did. That's the
Speaker 3: power of the obsession and compulsion of addiction that you
Speaker 3: continue to do things that are completely against what you
Speaker 3: think your morals are. I had dabbled in recovery, and
Speaker 3: so I had a taste of what it was like
Speaker 3: to live without substances, and I watched other people living
Speaker 3: their life and laughing and be happy, and knowing that
Speaker 3: if I could somehow get over this homp, I could
Speaker 3: have that.
Speaker 2: I understand that the periods of sobriety were very short, right,
Speaker 2: But were you able in moments to craft an image
Speaker 2: of what true sobriety would look like for you? Were
Speaker 2: you able to imagine? Because you said, oh, I saw
Speaker 2: people laugh and have fun and be happy, and I
Speaker 2: thought I want that. That that was we were able
Speaker 2: to really have a vision of what life could be
Speaker 2: like for you. But how did you see yourself? What
Speaker 2: was that woman you were meant to be?
Speaker 3: I saw her as educated, spiritual, connected to others, healthy
Speaker 3: both physically and mentally, somebody that was able to be
Speaker 3: calm and be happy living life on life service. So
Speaker 3: if adversity came my way, I was going to be
Speaker 3: able to handle that. If I had to step up
Speaker 3: and be accountable for my behavior, I was able to
Speaker 3: do that.
Speaker 2: And if we go through that checklist and look at
Speaker 2: your current life, you're educated, obviously you care about others.
Speaker 2: What are the items on that list that are not
Speaker 2: as strong as they should be right now?
Speaker 3: I think intimate relationships. I see someone that lives about
Speaker 3: one hundred and fifty miles away from where I am,
Speaker 3: and I see him occasionally. I don't have real strong,
Speaker 3: intimate close friends, and that's the area that I would
Speaker 3: really like to improve. I think the rest of what
Speaker 3: I discussed I have taken on and developed, including a
Speaker 3: work ethic, over the last nine years.
Speaker 2: So given that context, tell us a little bit about
Speaker 2: the shopping how bad that gets when it happens.
Speaker 3: In the last couple of years, I've recognized I have
Speaker 3: an imposter syndrome. So I've developed a counselor position for
Speaker 3: drugs and alcohol. I work with clients every day, and
Speaker 3: I started by going to a community college and finishing
Speaker 3: a two year degree. Then I chose to follow a
Speaker 3: local college in getting a four year degree in addictions counseling.
Speaker 3: I then developed this master's degree and I'm currently working
Speaker 3: towards co occurring counseling to work with both mental health
Speaker 3: and substance use disorder. In the process of this, I
Speaker 3: developed anxiety. I've realized that I've been struggling for the
Speaker 3: last year and a half in getting school work done.
Speaker 3: Part of this is COVID that everything has gone to
Speaker 3: zoom or online, so I don't have interaction with professors,
Speaker 3: my cohort. It's all via soum. So I feel alone
Speaker 3: a lot, and it has transformed into a shopping addiction.
Speaker 3: There's no way I'm going to return to using drugs
Speaker 3: or alcohol. However, that thinking is still there, so instead
Speaker 3: of writing my paper, I would find myself going on
Speaker 3: to my favorite shopping site and I need to read
Speaker 3: this difficult material and answer some discussion questions with my
Speaker 3: cohort from my college, and I realized I was trying
Speaker 3: to find some peace in material things. And that's when
Speaker 3: I recently come to realize that it stemmed back from
Speaker 3: the farmhouses, you know, fifty years ago, that idea of
Speaker 3: having fun and taking something. So along with the impostor syndrome,
Speaker 3: which is basically feeling like I don't deserve to be
Speaker 3: where I'm at and I have the education, I have
Speaker 3: the ability, I have really positive feedback for the work
Speaker 3: that I do. But how can I be a counselor
Speaker 3: you're just a drug addict?
Speaker 1: Is this a secret right now? Are we the only
Speaker 1: people who knows this about your shopping addiction?
Speaker 4: Okay, the shopping part, yes, Okay, okay, because all right,
Speaker 4: because when we talk about shame again, there's that shame
Speaker 4: and you were talking about it with your earlier addiction
Speaker 4: around the secrecy.
Speaker 1: And the shame and the ways that people try to
Speaker 1: hide this because of the shame.
Speaker 3: Absolutely, the material items that I purchase at the time,
Speaker 3: there's a release when I press by.
Speaker 1: What happens when the package arrives? When like it? Do
Speaker 1: you feel horrible or do you feel excited when when
Speaker 1: you see the package at your doorstep?
Speaker 3: It used to be excitement. Now it's like another fucking package.
Speaker 3: What's going on?
Speaker 2: Before COVID? Would you go to meetings in person and
Speaker 2: how often I.
Speaker 3: Would typically go two to three times a week.
Speaker 2: And then it was zoom for a while. I'm assuming
Speaker 2: or still.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And I didn't participate much with that. I didn't
Speaker 3: do any zoom meetings.
Speaker 2: Because there's a rough overlap in time between COVID and
Speaker 2: between when the shopping purchasing accelerated. And what we know
Speaker 2: about a lot of addictions is that this issue of
Speaker 2: this connection is alerting behind them. And you said that
Speaker 2: of the list of all the things I wanted to
Speaker 2: be and fix in my life, that one I haven't
Speaker 2: quite probably fixed is intimacy yet. But I think it's
Speaker 2: connection more broadly, to be honest with you, And there
Speaker 2: are things we called soft ties and strong ties. Soft
Speaker 2: ties are more casual acquaintances, but when there's a lot
Speaker 2: of them, when there's a lot of people that say
Speaker 2: hello to you when you walk into a meeting or
Speaker 2: when you go to the grocery store because they know
Speaker 2: you there, it can add up and make people feel
Speaker 2: more connected. And when you don't go to meetings and
Speaker 2: you stop that all together and you don't have a
Speaker 2: strong intimate bond with one other person you said you'd
Speaker 2: meet only occasionally with this person who's however many miles away.
Speaker 2: It can leave you feeling very disconnected because a lot
Speaker 2: of those softer ties that kept you feeling connected, kept
Speaker 2: you feeling a part of, go away, and then you
Speaker 2: feel very much not a part of And that's when
Speaker 2: some of the old behaviors started to come back. And
Speaker 2: I'm wondering if you notice that.
Speaker 3: Timing absolutely, and especially with explaining it that well. I
Speaker 3: think it accelerated over the last year. And also my
Speaker 3: schoolwork has suffered. It's supposed to be done with my
Speaker 3: master's by the end of next year or at this
Speaker 3: time next year. The way it's looking, I'll have to
Speaker 3: either withdraw or find another way because I had to
Speaker 3: take incomplete so I developed the anxiety symptoms of the
Speaker 3: physical symptoms within my chest.
Speaker 1: I think that the paradox of getting sober is that
Speaker 1: once you start to realize what is possible in your life.
Speaker 1: First of all, there's a lot of grief for all
Speaker 1: the lost years.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yes, definitely, I have a lot of.
Speaker 1: That, right And usually it starts in childhood because you
Speaker 1: didn't have necessarily the kinds of connections and love that
Speaker 1: you wanted in childhood. Even if your mother loved you.
Speaker 3: You felt very alone, yep, And I didn't recognize it
Speaker 3: as that, but that's what it was, right.
Speaker 1: And then the lost years when you're using and you're
Speaker 1: not connected in the world, you're in that world of
Speaker 1: just I need the next fix. And so then when
Speaker 1: you come out of it, when you're sober, you start
Speaker 1: to realize how important connection is. And there's also a
Speaker 1: fear of connection. So those two things happen at once
Speaker 1: of I really want connection, this is really important, and
Speaker 1: I'm not sure A I know how to do it,
Speaker 1: or B that I deserve it.
Speaker 3: Oh, definitely. The main part of that is this idea
Speaker 3: that I don't deserve connection, or when I make a connection,
Speaker 3: it was so scary to be connected with somebody.
Speaker 1: There's one more thing that I'm thinking about, which is that,
Speaker 1: in terms of the timing, you said that now you're
Speaker 1: doing this program where you're studying addiction and its relationship
Speaker 1: with other mood disorders like anxiety and depression, and I
Speaker 1: wonder if that's bringing up anxiety in you, because sometimes
Speaker 1: it's very hard to be studying something that you also
Speaker 1: have a lot of personal experience with.
Speaker 3: Interesting that you should say that because I never really
Speaker 3: made the connection of that feeling of anxiety and the
Speaker 3: way I know how to escape is shopping.
Speaker 2: It's also possible that part of the imposter syndrome is
Speaker 2: you recognizing even early on that this shopping it feels
Speaker 2: a lot like using and I'm using it in the
Speaker 2: same way. Part of you might be feeling, oh, and
Speaker 2: I still have these behaviors going on. Now that's in
Speaker 2: the shopping domain, and that might be what part of
Speaker 2: the imposter syndrome it's also about.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I have to look at that. I think the
Speaker 3: imposter syndrome idea came in my undergrad work. Each graduation
Speaker 3: I had I physically became ill. So when I graduated
Speaker 3: from college with my bachelor's degree, I got physically sick.
Speaker 3: Emotionally I was a mess. I achieved something that I
Speaker 3: had been striving for or fantasized about my whole life,
Speaker 3: and when I got it, I want to do it
Speaker 3: throw up. I became so sick.
Speaker 2: You know. It's one of the things that happens in
Speaker 2: long term addiction is you really can lose the ability
Speaker 2: to trust yourself because you made so many deals with
Speaker 2: yourself that you've broken thousands of them and then when
Speaker 2: you achieve something, it feels like, Okay, now I can
Speaker 2: trust myself. I've actually completed that thing, that fantasy that
Speaker 2: I had have actually attained it. But that fear of oh,
Speaker 2: it can be taken away because I can screw up again.
Speaker 2: You know, I'm trying to trust myself, but I can
Speaker 2: slip again. That fear of this life will be taken
Speaker 2: away from me can operate for a very very long
Speaker 2: time with addiction. So when you start to achieve finally
Speaker 2: thirty five years of fears of oh, I'm going to
Speaker 2: screw this up and mess this up, don't go away overnight.
Speaker 2: And the more you have at stake, the greater the fear.
Speaker 5: Is.
Speaker 2: Now you actually have something to lose. And before sobriety
Speaker 2: you really didn't have much to lose, and now you do,
Speaker 2: and that can make the anxiety grow bigger.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it makes sense because in active use, it's like
Speaker 3: what is there to lose? It's just about the next score.
Speaker 3: So now living a life of integrity and responsibility and
Speaker 3: work ethic and making an income, saving money, have a
Speaker 3: four to h one K, I've never had that before.
Speaker 3: And then to admit to a shopping addiction.
Speaker 1: I wanted to say one more thing about this idea
Speaker 1: of you getting physically ill when you would accomplish something
Speaker 1: like a graduation. The other addiction that people don't talk
Speaker 1: about is that people get addicted to punishing themselves. People
Speaker 1: get addicted to not having People get addicted to that
Speaker 1: sense of things are not going to work out for me.
Speaker 1: That becomes something that they hold very dear, even though
Speaker 1: they don't want that to happen, And so all of
Speaker 1: a sudden you have to let go of that idea.
Speaker 1: It's a whole self concept of going from I'm someone
Speaker 1: for whom nothing will work out to I'm someone who
Speaker 1: can have agency in the world.
Speaker 3: Indeed, there's comfort in the familiarity of discomfort.
Speaker 1: There's this saying, especially in the field of psychology, that
Speaker 1: research is mesearch, meaning that we usually are interested in
Speaker 1: exploring something that touches us very closely personally. So somebody
Speaker 1: who comes from a history of substance use will become
Speaker 1: an addiction counselor. But what you're studying now, I think
Speaker 1: is the most tender part of something that you're still
Speaker 1: trying to resolve, which is the anxiety, the relational pieces.
Speaker 1: And so I wonder if you're avoiding doing this work
Speaker 1: in a way that you didn't avoid doing the other
Speaker 1: work because of where you are in your process of
Speaker 1: working through.
Speaker 3: It, you know, there's probably some truth to that.
Speaker 2: We were talking about this idea of connection and loneliness
Speaker 2: and how those two things go with addiction. Very often
Speaker 2: what happens with alcohol and substances is that, especially when
Speaker 2: it's thirty five years of that, that's what draws the
Speaker 2: people to one another. It's the actual glue that determines
Speaker 2: who your people are and how close you are with
Speaker 2: them because you're all doing the same thing substance wise.
Speaker 2: And when that glue goes away because you become sober,
Speaker 2: you literally have to rediscover reinvent, Well, what's the glue
Speaker 2: that I use now? How do I get close to
Speaker 2: people now? And those skill sets that usually require very intentional,
Speaker 2: active work to develop those muscles to connect and especially
Speaker 2: in deeper ways with people. Do you have a sense
Speaker 2: of whether you've developed enough of those muscles?
Speaker 3: No, I haven't, and I have a sense of not
Speaker 3: wanting to address that inability to create those relationships, to
Speaker 3: create new glue. The one relationship that I have with
Speaker 3: a guy, like I said, and he lives one hundred
Speaker 3: and fifty miles away. We've been seeing each other on
Speaker 3: and off for eleven years, and I don't have a
Speaker 3: lot of interest in getting married or or moving in
Speaker 3: with him, even I have no desire to do that.
Speaker 1: Is that because of you don't feel that connection with
Speaker 1: him or you don't want that with anybody?
Speaker 3: I don't know for sure, because I've asked myself that
Speaker 3: what's been popping in my head is you're too old.
Speaker 3: You're too old, You're too old.
Speaker 2: This keeps coming up. You're too old to get a
Speaker 2: degree or a tool to have a relationship. I think
Speaker 2: it's a bit of an excuse, to be honest with you.
Speaker 2: I think you're using it as an excuse.
Speaker 1: The person that you've been dating. His name is Shane. Okay,
Speaker 1: So Shane, how did you meet eleven years ago? And
Speaker 1: is he wanting more or how did the two of
Speaker 1: you talk about what you're doing with each other?
Speaker 3: Well, we met online on Craigslist and it was an
Speaker 3: attempt for connection on my part back then, and it
Speaker 3: turned out that we were very compatible and over the
Speaker 3: years he has been supportive. So he has seen me
Speaker 3: in active addiction and has seen me in recovery, and
Speaker 3: I recently was making a choice to end the relationship
Speaker 3: last year right when COVID hit. It was no connection
Speaker 3: to COVID, it just happened to be at the same time.
Speaker 1: Why did you want to end the relationship? And what
Speaker 1: is he wanting in this relationship?
Speaker 3: He's wanting to get married. He is a Vietnam veteran.
Speaker 3: He has some PTSD that he's never dealt with nor
Speaker 3: wishes to talk about. And he wasn't willing to like
Speaker 3: go to alan On or some other kind of help
Speaker 3: for people who are families of addicted people. And so
Speaker 3: I've tried. I tried to have him join me at meetings,
Speaker 3: go to his own meetings, and he was unwilling to
Speaker 3: do this. And at that time, he lived about twenty
Speaker 3: miles away. And he then decided to get a house
Speaker 3: in the northern part of the state and moved up there.
Speaker 3: And it's like, fine, fuck you.
Speaker 1: So you felt hurt that he didn't include you in
Speaker 1: that decision.
Speaker 3: Well, I think I did. The fact that he moved
Speaker 3: so far away. Recently, however, I've been talking with him again,
Speaker 3: and part of that is loneliness.
Speaker 1: When he moved away, did he ever say to you,
Speaker 1: you know, I moved away because I've been wanting more
Speaker 1: from this relationship for a long time and I felt
Speaker 1: hopeless that I would ever get it.
Speaker 3: If he could say that, that would be awesome. He
Speaker 3: doesn't have the capability of saying that.
Speaker 1: What prevented you during this time if you felt like
Speaker 1: this wasn't the right relationship from seeking out someone you
Speaker 1: might be more compatible with.
Speaker 3: I wanted to focus on school work.
Speaker 5: Again, Hillary, we know you have to focus on your
Speaker 5: school work, but you know people can be in school
Speaker 5: and also have clothes and intimate relationships. So we really
Speaker 5: hope you'll continue to explore this question of intimacy. Maybe
Speaker 5: just get curious about the reasons you're not pursuing it
Speaker 5: and challenge yourself on those if you can. But look,
Speaker 5: you told us you have to run to a group.
Speaker 5: So one last quick question before we get to the advice.
Speaker 5: You know there are groups for shopping addiction, and since
Speaker 5: you're already in the twelve step system, have you considered
Speaker 5: joining one of them?
Speaker 3: I have considered it, but I haven't acted on it.
Speaker 3: So I looked it up. I looked it up online
Speaker 3: shoppers Anonymous, and I think I'm going to because the
Speaker 3: night before I knew I was supposed to be meeting
Speaker 3: with you, I'm online shopping.
Speaker 2: So Hillary, we have some advice for you. The first
Speaker 2: thing we'd like you to do is to see if
Speaker 2: you can cancel your credit cards and use only Apple
Speaker 2: Pay or Samsung Pay or something that doesn't require a
Speaker 2: credit card, so that it limits you in how much
Speaker 2: you can shop online. There's a huge convenience factor here
Speaker 2: that's making it really difficult to not do because it's
Speaker 2: truly and everyone's trying to make this easier and one
Speaker 2: click away. It's not so good for shopping adicts to
Speaker 2: have one click away. So if you can put some
Speaker 2: speed bumps in there that you would have to do
Speaker 2: it in person, preferably with cash, we think that would help. Okay,
Speaker 2: the next thing is you spoke about these struggles with
Speaker 2: grad school that you're having trouble saying on top of
Speaker 2: stuff getting assignments done.
Speaker 3: Correct.
Speaker 2: Now, we are very clear that this is not any
Speaker 2: problem to do with your intellectual ability or your commitment
Speaker 2: to this subject matter and commitment to this career path.
Speaker 2: There's something psychological there.
Speaker 3: I agree.
Speaker 2: Often what happens is that when you have worked so
Speaker 2: hard for so long to turn your life around, and
Speaker 2: you're standing there at the end of a marathon, before
Speaker 2: the finish line. It can be very scaried across it
Speaker 2: because it's the promised land, and it can feel very,
Speaker 2: very scary. And what we'd like you to do is
Speaker 2: a visualization exercise. Sit in a comfortable place, close your eyes,
Speaker 2: and imagine what your life would be like in a
Speaker 2: year or two once you've crossed that finish line, once
Speaker 2: you've finished your degree and graduated and got your hours
Speaker 2: in and taking care of all the other issues that
Speaker 2: you have to take care of, and now you finally
Speaker 2: have this new life. You'd like you to really try
Speaker 2: and visualize what that looks like, because when you do that,
Speaker 2: you'll see the feelings that come up, and some of
Speaker 2: them might be excitement, but some of them might be
Speaker 2: discomfort or anxiety because it's a very foreign land still,
Speaker 2: yes it is, and would like you to get familiar
Speaker 2: with that land. And one way to do that is
Speaker 2: my visualizing, and we want you to do that as
Speaker 2: many times as you need until you can go to
Speaker 2: that land and feel comfortable there.
Speaker 3: That's a great idea.
Speaker 1: And related to that, we were thinking about this idea
Speaker 1: of I don't deserve to have anything good because of
Speaker 1: what I've done and how that really sits inside of you.
Speaker 3: Yes, there's a.
Speaker 1: Word cherophobia, which means fear of joy. Chero meaning joy phobia,
Speaker 1: fear you never really got to have a childhood because
Speaker 1: you turned to alcohol and drugs to cope with your pain,
Speaker 1: and you didn't get to have that joy that's un
Speaker 1: edited that a lot of children experience and then they
Speaker 1: can bring into adulthood with them. So we'd like you
Speaker 1: to reclaim this aspect of yourself and do something fun
Speaker 1: that If you think about going back to ten years old,
Speaker 1: what would your ten year old self have wanted to
Speaker 1: do for fun? So this is before the addiction started.
Speaker 1: What class or hobby or activity would the young you
Speaker 1: be excited about? And can you extrapolate from that and
Speaker 1: think about what you, as an adult right now would
Speaker 1: find enjoyable.
Speaker 3: That's a great idea. I would have to really sit
Speaker 3: and think about that and figure out what she would.
Speaker 1: Want, right because you didn't really have the opportunity to
Speaker 1: sit and think about what she would want because you
Speaker 1: were really trying to manage your pain at that time.
Speaker 1: But now you are right on the precipice of freedom,
Speaker 1: and that's part of this block because you're kind of like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what to do with this freedom. I
Speaker 1: don't know what to do with joy. So part of
Speaker 1: it is the visualization and part of it is being
Speaker 1: able to say, what is this other side of me
Speaker 1: that I can reclaim? And as you're making the list,
Speaker 1: notice what feelings come up. How does it feel to you?
Speaker 1: Do you get excited, do you get scared? And try
Speaker 1: to hold on to the excitement part. See what it
Speaker 1: feels like this week to embark on that process.
Speaker 3: That's interesting because I've been putting off reading for pleasure
Speaker 3: for years because in my mind it was I have
Speaker 3: to focus on text books. So I have this stack
Speaker 3: of books I want to read.
Speaker 2: The next thing is that we would like you to
Speaker 2: find a twilsted group for shopping addiction, because you have
Speaker 2: some shame around the fact that here I am, I'm
Speaker 2: an addiction counselor and here I am falling into a
Speaker 2: different kind perhaps of addiction. And why do you want
Speaker 2: you to go to a group? Because a as you know,
Speaker 2: talking about these things is a great way to take
Speaker 2: ownership and to undo feelings of shame. But we also
Speaker 2: want you to keep in mind that the fact that
Speaker 2: you're an addiction counselor does not mean that you are
Speaker 2: not vulnerable to addictions. What it does mean is that
Speaker 2: when you catch yourself, you have a major head start
Speaker 2: because you know so much because you deal with it.
Speaker 2: So I want you to think of this as, oh,
Speaker 2: I have a head start as opposed to I've fallen behind.
Speaker 3: Great, that makes so much sense to me. What I'm hearing,
Speaker 3: also you say, is how I choose to think about
Speaker 3: something that is going to matter on how I deal
Speaker 3: with it.
Speaker 1: Yes, that's right, And we have two more things for you.
Speaker 1: We were thinking about how you were saying you felt
Speaker 1: too old to date, and what we think is that
Speaker 1: you weren't ready to date earlier because of what you
Speaker 1: were going through and because of all of the changes
Speaker 1: that you've made in your life, you're finally now old
Speaker 1: enough to date. But adult dating means doing the apps,
Speaker 1: the dating sites, not Craigslist, and not hookup sites. So
Speaker 1: we want you to get on some of these dating
Speaker 1: apps and dating sites that are for people who are
Speaker 1: looking for a relationship and to really start from learning
Speaker 1: about yourself in relationship.
Speaker 3: I don't know that that's something I want to seek
Speaker 3: out right now, but I understand what you're saying, and
Speaker 3: I do think that people my age and older are
Speaker 3: more interested in relationships than they are in a hookup.
Speaker 1: Right And when you say you don't want to pursue
Speaker 1: it right now, you don't have to take any of
Speaker 1: this advice. But I imagine that there's some fear there.
Speaker 1: And we're saying is we see you from a very
Speaker 1: different perspective than you see yourself. There's a part here
Speaker 1: of if I reveal myself to somebody, I'm not going
Speaker 1: to be lovable.
Speaker 2: One last thing, and this will continue of what Laurie
Speaker 2: just said. We do think that you don't yet see
Speaker 2: yourself as we see you, in the sense of how
Speaker 2: remarkable your accomplishments are, given where you came from, given
Speaker 2: how long you were in that world, you have done
Speaker 2: such an astonishing job of turning things around that, truly
Speaker 2: we are so impressed by how much you've done. You
Speaker 2: would like you to every day spend a moment going
Speaker 2: back to a dark moment, a difficult moment, and talking
Speaker 2: to your past self and saying, and look at where
Speaker 2: I am today. If I could travel back in time
Speaker 2: and appear to myself in that moment with everything I
Speaker 2: was feeling, with everything that was going on, and show
Speaker 2: myself what I was able to pull off, that might
Speaker 2: bring you more in touch with how ridiculously impressive the
Speaker 2: turnaround is that you've been able to pull off.
Speaker 3: Well, that makes sense, and I certainly have a lot
Speaker 3: of moments to choose from.
Speaker 1: Right It's almost like you're being visited from your future self.
Speaker 1: So if you can go back to those moments and
Speaker 1: then here you are in the future right now. And
Speaker 1: if you could have known back then, if your future
Speaker 1: self could have visited you and said, look where I am,
Speaker 1: would you ever have believed it?
Speaker 3: Absolutely not.
Speaker 1: So what we think you haven't really absorbed that yet though,
Speaker 1: and we want you to make sure that you're focusing
Speaker 1: on this part of what you did and visiting your
Speaker 1: past self and saying, wow, you know what this is.
Speaker 1: How things are turning out and it is amazing.
Speaker 2: So we really look forward to hearing how this went
Speaker 2: for you. Thank you so much for taking the time.
Speaker 3: Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: One thing I noticed when we were giving Hillary advice
Speaker 2: is that she totally got what we were saying as
Speaker 2: we were saying it, and not only she got here's
Speaker 2: the assignment. She got. Oh, and this is why I
Speaker 2: think that would be important, or I get why you're
Speaker 2: telling me to do this. So I'm extremely helpful that
Speaker 2: with that level of sophistication she'll really be able to
Speaker 2: follow through as much as possible with these things.
Speaker 1: And I really agree that sometimes when people are in
Speaker 1: this profession, they feel like I should know better, But
Speaker 1: in fact she does have that head start, and I
Speaker 1: think that's really going to help her when she tries
Speaker 1: to do the assignment.
Speaker 2: This week, you're listening to Deotherapists from iHeartRadio. We'll be
Speaker 2: back after a quick break. So we heard from Hillary
Speaker 2: and we gave her a lot of home so I
Speaker 2: am curious to see how much of it she was
Speaker 2: able to get through.
Speaker 3: Hi, this is Hillary. I wanted to give you a
Speaker 3: little update the six items you listed. The first one
Speaker 3: was canceled cards. I haven't done that yet, but I
Speaker 3: did pay off a card and I have intention to
Speaker 3: get rid of those. The second thing was to visualize
Speaker 3: myself graduated or one to two years after and what
Speaker 3: kind of feelings that invoked. I've actually found it relaxing
Speaker 3: and happy. I didn't really feel the fear and anxiety.
Speaker 3: The third thing was I don't deserve to have anything
Speaker 3: good and joy and to go back to that ten
Speaker 3: year old girl. So I made a list. The first
Speaker 3: thing is a metal detecting. I've always wanted to do that,
Speaker 3: so I want to get myself, you know, a reasonably
Speaker 3: priced metal detector and go buy the shores of some
Speaker 3: lakes or find some meteorites, do some research. The second
Speaker 3: thing is water skiing. Third thing is roller skating. I
Speaker 3: love to roller skate. I haven't done it in years.
Speaker 3: I love reading science fiction, so I've read dozens of
Speaker 3: books and I have a lot waiting for me. As
Speaker 3: far as signing up for a class, it would be
Speaker 3: for stargazing. My local community they have community classes and
Speaker 3: they have one on stargazing. The next thing is getting
Speaker 3: a motorcycle that would fit me. I still have my
Speaker 3: motorcycle license, so I'd like to get a motorcycle A
Speaker 3: fifty five and older. Softball league is another thing I'm considering.
Speaker 3: And then finally, of course playing the drums. I always
Speaker 3: wanted to do that. The fourth thing you talked about
Speaker 3: was the shopping addictions. I signed up for Debtor's Anonymous
Speaker 3: and Overspenders Anonymous on Facebook. I'm members of both groups now.
Speaker 3: I did write one post, but I'm going to look
Speaker 3: into local area face to face meetings. The fifth thing
Speaker 3: was dating, something that I'm not really interested in. However,
Speaker 3: I did fill out a form or take a personality
Speaker 3: test for a group called Silver Singles, so we'll see
Speaker 3: what happens there. And then finally, the sixth thing is
Speaker 3: talking to my past self, finding a dark moment, which
Speaker 3: there are lots and lots, and I actually did that
Speaker 3: first thing after I spoke with you. It was much
Speaker 3: harder than I thought, but I'm going to continue to
Speaker 3: do that because I think it will be healing. And then, finally,
Speaker 3: thank you so much for this opportunity. It was really
Speaker 3: more than I expected, and taking the time to listen
Speaker 3: to me, and I hope I can help somebody else
Speaker 3: who needs recovery it works and you can make your
Speaker 3: life better. Thank you.
Speaker 2: I was smiling so broadly when she was mentioning the
Speaker 2: list of things she might want to do because they
Speaker 2: are so different and they're so interesting. There's the metal
Speaker 2: detector stuff, and then the water skiing and roller skating
Speaker 2: and sci fi and take a stargazing class, and the
Speaker 2: motorcycle and the soft body. It just was one thing
Speaker 2: after another. So this is a woman who has so
Speaker 2: many varied interests and such a rich inner life that
Speaker 2: it would be amazing to see her really connect and
Speaker 2: start to do some of these things. It was so
Speaker 2: great to hear.
Speaker 1: You, And I think what it shows is that we
Speaker 1: don't actually lose that childhood self, that that was still
Speaker 1: in there. It was just repressed, it was buried, and
Speaker 1: we opened the door by simply asking a question, what
Speaker 1: would you do if you could let yourself dream, if
Speaker 1: you could be that child again? What could you do?
Speaker 1: And it was so easy for her to do. I'm
Speaker 1: sure if she sat down even longer, she'd probably come
Speaker 1: up with more. She has such a rich inner life.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it was amazing and it was so wonderful to
Speaker 2: hear because she didn't lose that over the years. You know,
Speaker 2: that's still there and it's been there all along, and
Speaker 2: now she gets to actually do something with it, which
Speaker 2: I'm so excited for her.
Speaker 1: And I think sometimes we need permission, We need permission
Speaker 1: to be able to say I get to have fun,
Speaker 1: I get to have joy in my life.
Speaker 2: Which brings me to some of the stuff that she
Speaker 2: didn't quite do. For example, the dating that she wasn't
Speaker 2: quite ready for necessarily. However, she did sign up respond
Speaker 2: to a personality thing for a service. But I do
Speaker 2: hope that she gets to dating. But I certainly see
Speaker 2: that there's a lot of other pieces of her social
Speaker 2: and personal life, and that she can work in the
Speaker 2: meantime that also, I think would be very meaningful.
Speaker 1: There were two areas where she was reluctant. One was
Speaker 1: the dating, and then with the credit cards. She paid
Speaker 1: off a credit card, but there was the intention to
Speaker 1: cancel the credit cards, but she didn't do that. And
Speaker 1: so whenever there's that I intend to do this, but
Speaker 1: you don't actually do it, it might mean that she's just
Speaker 1: not quite ready to cut off the supply yet.
Speaker 2: On the one hand, but what comforts me in this
Speaker 2: very specific case is that she signed up for those
Speaker 2: Facebook groups for death is Anonymous and Overspenders anonymous, and
Speaker 2: is planning to go to in person meetings, which will
Speaker 2: absolutely then help with the accountability and probably nudge her
Speaker 2: to cancel the credit cards. But by paying off one
Speaker 2: of the credit cards by joining those other groups and
Speaker 2: having accountability. She said she even made one post on
Speaker 2: the Facebook group and hopefully getting to meetings very soon.
Speaker 2: I really hope they'll be follow up there. But we
Speaker 2: always think a therapist that when somebody has any kind
Speaker 2: of addiction issue, that it's not just about deal with
Speaker 2: the addiction, but it's about fill the voids in your
Speaker 2: life that might be there. And so I'm really hopeful
Speaker 2: that all this works together for her. By doing all
Speaker 2: those things, it will help support her in backing away
Speaker 2: from this new kind of dependency that she developed. In
Speaker 2: terms of the.
Speaker 1: Show being yeah, and I do hope that she goes
Speaker 1: in person because we know that again with addiction, connection
Speaker 1: is so important. Having a support system is so important,
Speaker 1: and the in person experience is going to be very
Speaker 1: different for her than the online experience. I think both
Speaker 1: are useful in different ways. And I also was really
Speaker 1: glad to hear that she is able to do hard things.
Speaker 1: She said that talking to her past self was very hard,
Speaker 1: and yet she's optimistic that it's going to be healing
Speaker 1: for her. So even though it's something that may create
Speaker 1: some discomfort in her, she's more than willing to do it,
Speaker 1: and that is a great sign.
Speaker 2: And I have a suggestion for Hillary if she's listening,
Speaker 2: and for other listeners if they're thinking of doing this
Speaker 2: kind of exercise. If you start and you find that
Speaker 2: it's triggering anxiety, to go back to specific very difficult moments,
Speaker 2: then ease in. Start with less difficult moments, start there
Speaker 2: and build your way up. You don't have to start
Speaker 2: with the bleakest, darkest, the most difficult, because you don't
Speaker 2: want to retrigger past trauma. It's fine to work your
Speaker 2: way up to that, but to start with any low
Speaker 2: moment and then insert that visitor from the future that's
Speaker 2: telling that past version of yourself that I really turn
Speaker 2: things around.
Speaker 1: Next week, we'll be bringing you a special live episode
Speaker 1: of Dear Therapists, where we'll share how we do these
Speaker 1: Dear Therapist sessions every week and what we're really thinking
Speaker 1: when we're trying to help all of you through the
Speaker 1: issues you bring us.
Speaker 2: I literally say to myself in my head, I'm going
Speaker 2: to do a Lori here, and then I do a
Speaker 2: thing that I think Laurie would do.
Speaker 1: Hey, fellow travelers, if you're enjoying our podcast each week,
Speaker 1: don't forget to subscribe for free so that you don't
Speaker 1: miss any episodes, and please help support Dear Therapists by
Speaker 1: telling your friends about it and leaving a review on
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts. Your reviews really help people to find the show.
Speaker 2: If you have a dilemma you'd like to discuss with us,
Speaker 2: they go smooth. Email us at Lorian Guy at iHeartMedia
Speaker 2: dot com.
Speaker 1: Our executive producer is Noel Brown. We're produced and edited
Speaker 1: by Mike Johns, Josh Fisher, and Chris Childs. Our interns
Speaker 1: are Dorit Corwin and Silver Lifton. Special thanks to Alison
Speaker 1: Wright and to our podcast fairy Godmother Katie Kuric. We
Speaker 1: can't wait to see you at next week's session.
Speaker 2: Therapist is a production of iHeartRadio.