Addiction Series Pt 2 - From Addiction to Freedom: How to Reclaim Your Life

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Key Takeaways:

•          Recognizing addiction often involves observing changes in frequency and control over the use of substances, as well as the impact on daily life and relationships.

•          A five-point plan to recovery, analogous to the five fingers on a hand, includes spiritual guidance, counselling, lifestyle changes, transparent relationships, and a supportive community.

•          Monsignor Shora underscores the need for comprehensive strategies, comparing the approach to managing chronic conditions like diabetes.

•          Eddie Reaiche emphasizes the importance of the therapeutic relationship and educational components like understanding dopamine’s role in addiction.

•          Finding Sanctuary advocates for a hope-infused, non-judgmental, and trust-building process towards recovery, with spiritual support being a vital component.

Notable Quotes:

•          Monsignor Shora: “What’s your five-point plan? …for a hand to hold something solid and to be, you need all five fingers. So you need a good, solid plan…”

•          Eddie Reaiche: “…the beauty of this is the brain can heal itself, but we need to give it a chance.”

•          Debbie Draybi: “So being able to seek help from professionals… these are evidence-based, they work…”

•          Monsignor Shora: “…just wanting to move forward and find the fullness of life, to live a fuller life and to be free from that which chains you and holds you back.”

•          Eddie Reaiche: “The two most important things is we’ve all got it in us. We just have to believe in ourselves.”

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Transcript

0:00:00 Debbie Draybi: Welcome back. I’m Debbie Draby and I’ve got Monsignor Shora and Eddie Reich with me. And today we’re going to continue our conversation around addictions and being able to think about ways to recognise and identify what is an addiction and how it impacts you if you are experiencing it. And, Monsignor, last episode, you beautifully shared some stories of families that you’re working with, and I’m wondering if we can continue to reflect on that and build on some of those stories.

0:00:28 Debbie Draybi: And in particular, I was really curious about, you know, when people come to you, like, at what point leads them to ask for help and to recognise that they have an addiction and it is a problem that’s beyond their control and they reach out to you for help.

0:00:44 Monsignor Shora: I would say in my experience and those that have come to me for help, it’s often through their spouse, if they’re married or a family member who’s worried about. Who’s seen some behaviours or seen financial losses or seen them after they’ve received a call for them, when they’ve taken drugs or had too much to drink, and they’re seeing that family members brought them. And sometimes when they’ve come, at first, maybe because of the shame or sometimes not really fully recognising how much the substance has taken hold on them, they don’t see the seriousness of it. And so I’d ask them about the frequency and just ask them a little about when did they remember first starting, and just to see the frequency. And so that would give me an indication then, you know, something is definitely daily, you know, weekly, fortnightly, start to see that this could be addictive and to ask them how long? Well, what’s long as you’ve gone without doing this, you know, and if it’s not very long, then it starts to pool into that area.

0:01:49 Monsignor Shora: The other question asked me, so what helped you to stop? Or did you be able to stop by yourself? And sometimes if it was something that happened, you know, well, I had to go in for surgery when I was on recovery and, well, they couldn’t do the. So what stopped them was another cry, was a bit of a crisis or something. Could they stop with their free will? And if they did, if they were able to, to see what the things they may have discovered, some things that helped them.

0:02:15 Monsignor Shora: In some cases, there’s people where it might not be that often, but when they start, they can’t stop. So binge drinking. I’d only realised this over recent years, I think when it was publicised, like with teenage that there was a form of alcoholism that was binge drinking. It wasn’t that they were drinking every day or every. It was that when they did drink, even if it was only a month, they didn’t know how to stop.

0:02:37 Monsignor Shora: So I’ve come across that a bit, that someone that might only drink once a fortnight, but when they start, they can’t stop. Sometimes they might go into another substance then as well, because the alcohol’s opened everything up. So it’s seeing where there’s a loss of control, they can’t stop. And then how frequent, looking at that and then helping to see the negative impact. Well, you know, you’re seeing the negative impact. If you’ve drunk so much and you can’t move for two days or a day and a half and you’re married, well, where are you as a dad? Or where are you as, you know, a parent for your child?

0:03:13 Monsignor Shora: Something urgent happens, you’re out of action. So you get them to see that. Yeah, well, that, you know, that means you’re in an area of addictive behavior, substances impacting on your life in an unhealthy way.

0:03:27 Debbie Draybi: So what I’m hearing is that, you know, that frequency, but also thinking about sometimes when you’re in it, you just really don’t see it. And I mean, just hearing you curious, asking them questions to get a better understanding, but also to improve their awareness of how it might be impacting. Cause it’s really hard sometimes when we do something, it almost becomes normal. You’re almost like a mirror monsignor. We’re asking them to reflect and to see their behaviors and to just assess them in a way that maybe they haven’t because they’re so entrenched in it.

0:04:06 Monsignor Shora: And sometimes they think about it in such the story, like, over so many years. Wow, I didn’t realize for so long. So you ask them, when did you first try it? And then how often then, and when did it get a little bit more? And then they start to see, oh, wow, this is a lot. And then to let them know then that it’s that sits in your body, that substance or that sitting in your body that’s not going to go straight away, that needs then a full, good strategy for you to be able to be rid of it, you know, to change your life, to not be held by it.

0:04:39 Debbie Draybi: And I think about coming to you for help. And what I’m hearing is this humble curiosity rather than, you know, there’s been absolutely no judgment in any of your questions. And it’s about just being curious and helping someone, sitting with them and helping them to understand themselves and to understand their behaviours and to think about isn’t really a problem and how much of a problem is it and in what way, particularly if it’s been going on, as you said, for a long time, it’s hard to see it and having someone to just be able to bow those ideas and to unpack it a little bit.

0:05:13 Monsignor Shora: Yeah. I often. I tell people that do come, you know, the first thing I say, look, I’m not here to judge, you know, I believe you’re a good person. And like all of us, we have some imperfections, we have things, we have struggles. So, you know, I’m here to try and help you with that and for the good of your family, for your life, for you, you know, so try to get them to relax with that. And of course, there’s the confidentiality to try and help them.

0:05:36 Monsignor Shora: So you need all of that so that they can open in trust. It’s a big step in trust.

0:05:41 Debbie Draybi: Yeah.

0:05:42 Monsignor Shora: They’re going to be dealing with two things. Stopping the addictive behaviour, but then being ready then to deal with the trauma or the pain that’s underneath it.

0:05:51 Debbie Draybi: Underneath it, yeah.

0:05:52 Monsignor Shora: So that’s being ready for that. They need to feel that safety and that trust, because they know there’s something scary, that when they stop this, they don’t know what’s going to come up or they don’t know how they’re going to handle that’s.

0:06:06 Debbie Draybi: I mean, really taking us on a journey of readiness. Eddy, you know, you mentioned in the last session around, someone can’t be helped unless they’re ready. But Monsignor has just taken us on a bit of a journey of no one’s born ready if you don’t wake up being suddenly ready to get better and to get help. Part of that readiness is being able to build your awareness of yourself and what’s happening. And maybe talking to someone can really help you engage that readiness and have that conversation.

0:06:35 Debbie Draybi: Eddie, you know, as you’re listening to Monsignor, some of your experiences, when people do come to seek help, you know, what leads them to that? But also, you know, what are some of the things that you recognize as someone’s readiness?

0:06:49 Eddie Reaiche: When I studied about addiction, we learned about the cycle of change. And the cycle of change starts with pre contemplation, which is they’re in their addictive behaviour, they don’t care. They just all. They’re interested in getting their next hit, whatever it is, and they don’t think about the problem. They don’t know or interested in stopping. Then comes the contemplation stage. In the contemplation stage, they think, I wonder, is this getting out of control now? Can I stop or do I even want to stop?

0:07:28 Eddie Reaiche: And then that goes on for a little while until they get to change. And then when they get to change, that’s when they’re ready to seek help, do what they have to. Problem is, by the time the spouse brings their husband or their wife into the. There’s been a lot of arguments before and sort of a crisis. Yeah. To the point where do or divorce, and it can get to that and generally does get to that stage and it’s in that threat. But then I start thinking about even mandated people who come from the courts.

0:08:03 Eddie Reaiche: They. They’re not ready for anything, and because they’re forced, they’re not ready for change. But then when they start seeing the effects and when we sit down, we start talking about addiction and what it involves and definition of what it is and how it affects the body. I’m very big on having their partner there as well, because this is a journey. Addiction is not going to be fixed in one session, and it’s a long journey, and it’s an arduous journey.

0:08:31 Eddie Reaiche: And so what I tend to do is have the wife or the husband there and I have my whiteboard and I explain exactly what addiction is. So they have an understanding because most people in the community have no idea and they’re going through their own stress. And sometimes I’ve had to counsel them because all their milestones they had in their life have now been quashed because their husband or their wife is not the person they thought they married.

0:08:56 Eddie Reaiche: And so that’s become a real issue. And then it’s only then that they realise, they both start to realise what effect it has on them and what effect it has on the children as well, where it starts to increase. So we start working with that and we start building towards hope. Once we’ve established hope, that’s when they’re ready for change, and that’s when things start to happen.

0:09:21 Debbie Draybi: And it sounds like it’s building that awareness. You know, Marcin’s talking about being curious about what it is and how it impacts them. When you’re explaining it, what are some of the things that help build that awareness? How do you explain it? If you can give me an example of what goes up on that whiteboard, I’m imagining it. I’m just wondering what’s on there.

0:09:40 Eddie Reaiche: Well, usually what I do is I draw a brain because that’s what gets affected.

0:09:44 Debbie Draybi: And are you a good drawer?

0:09:46 Eddie Reaiche: I’m the worst drawer on the planet. I just draw a circle and I say, do you know what that is? They goes out of brain. And I said, see, I am good because they know what I’m talking about. And then I draw the way chemicals work, the way there’s a chemical called dopamine, for instance, and how it works. And the one thing people don’t realize is, why do people who fall into addiction seem to lose their way and not think about their wife or their children or the people they affect?

0:10:19 Eddie Reaiche: Then when I draw it, I show them the level of dopamine. When you kiss a child, when you hug a child, or when you kiss your wife or whatever, and it’s only like a small, small bit. But when you take a substance, it’s a very huge jump. And the brain says, oh, you know what, I really like this. Let’s have some more of that. And the more you do that, the more the little bits don’t count anymore. Once I’ve explained that to them, that kind of makes sense.

0:10:49 Eddie Reaiche: Hits home. Unfortunately, a lot of times the wives tend to cry for good reason because they realise what’s happening. And then I tell them, but the beauty of this is the brain can heal itself, but we need to give it a chance. And it does take a while, sometimes years, but it’s worth the effort. And so when we stop this huge dopamine, slowly the brain starts to say, okay, if I’m not getting that, at least let’s go back to these smaller bits. Then we start going with that.

0:11:23 Eddie Reaiche: So once I’ve explained that to them, it kind of makes sense. And it really, I really like these light bulb moments that I get from the clients that say, oh, that’s why, that’s why that makes sense. Or that makes sense. And when they understand that, then I’m on the road to recovery. And again, it’s a straight line on the road to recovery. So if they relapse, and it’s very, very common, people relapse, they don’t fail, they fall, but they get up again and they keep moving on.

0:11:53 Eddie Reaiche: And what I get them to do is when you get up, turn around, have a look at what you’ve achieved, and let’s move forward. Don’t ever think that I’m back to zero. Always look forward. And then just keep them, dust your boots and keep moving forward. I think it’s important for anybody who’s trying to see some positives in what they’re doing.

0:12:15 Debbie Draybi: Yeah. So thinking about that journey and really explaining what’s going on, how this has happened, why they’ve lost control, why it’s taken such a strong grip on them. And just giving them a comparison, really, nothing compares to the drugs, what it’s doing for their bodies and the rush that they’re getting, the relief that they’re getting, they’re not going to get from anything else. So part of it is trying to let go of that, too, and to understand that they’re never going to feel that level of elation or euphoria, excitement or euphoria with anything else.

0:12:51 Debbie Draybi: Nothing comes close to that.

0:12:52 Eddie Reaiche: That’s right. And that’s what they believe. That’s where their brain believes. And so they just keep going down that path. And so they start, they become pathological liars. They justify everything that they do. One of those things, it’s always compare it to the angel and the devil on your shoulders. And the angel saying, this is not right. And the devil’s going, yeah, but you deserve this. You’ve worked really hard.

0:13:17 Eddie Reaiche: What’s wrong with enjoying your life? What’s wrong with doing this? And it’s the lies that you start listening to. And I might add, in saying that all the people that I’ve ever helped have always had. We’ve had a very large spiritual component in there, because it’s really important to believe in a greater being than yourself to help you through it.

0:13:41 Debbie Draybi: Yeah. Finding meaning and connections again, because, as you said, you start to almost change the story that you tell yourself because it’s such a powerful, strong force. And it’s. It’s incredibly attractive, isn’t it? Because you want to be drawn to those strong, euphoric, powerful, you know, feelings that come with the addiction. So being able to change that and find something to bring you back to reconnecting with yourself. Because it really disconnects, doesn’t it?

0:14:12 Eddie Reaiche: Yeah, it does. And if people want to think about it, people who don’t have addictions gotta think twice. A lot of us are addicted to coffee. And how do you feel when you have that first sip of coffee and you think, oh, thank God, now I can function. I mean, it’s only a small example, but that’s an addiction. And you know, and they know it’s an addiction because if they don’t have that coffee, they get really narky and they get headaches and all these things which are withdrawal symptoms.

0:14:43 Eddie Reaiche: So all of us have. And chocolate eaters are the worst they’re bad addictions because they justify every bite. And so they get addicted to chocolate. But it’s only a small addiction compared to what we’re talking about, but still an addiction.

0:15:01 Debbie Draybi: Yeah. So being able to think about, it’s not something that’s completely unrelatable. We all have it in our life to a lesser or greater extent. We do have things that we rely on, whether it’s food, even, sometimes activities. It could be shopping, it could be our devices. There’s another big one, you know, there’s so many things that we are drawn to that give us that relief or that disconnect from the pressures of life.

0:15:32 Debbie Draybi: So understanding that everyone experiencing it, to a lesser or greater extent, we all have our addictions and things that we don’t always have control over and that can take over. Monsignor, as you know, as you’re listening to Eddie, what are some of the things that you’re thinking about? You know, is there anything that comes to mind that you want to share?

0:15:52 Monsignor Shora: A good friend, psychologist, once shared with me into trying to help people to see once they do recognise, and she said to me, if they give them the symbol of their hand, so to take control, you know, we have five fingers, so that generally, to handle an addiction, we need a five point plan, you know, and one of them is that, yeah, we do open up to God and through, in that way, through someone, a spiritual person, like it can be a priest, a religious person that you open up to to help you connect with God.

0:16:26 Monsignor Shora: Two, because often it is covering a trauma that maybe you are speaking to a counsellor, therapist, a psychologist that’s helping you then to look underneath and, you know, see to what’s the pain there, what needs healing and that. And then, because it does have this bodily effect that there is a lifestyle change and often the addiction takes up time. And yes, you’ve got this spare time, the lifestyle.

0:16:54 Monsignor Shora: What do I add? My exercise things for my self growth, bit of volunteer work. Where do I start to do? You’re right, it doesn’t compare with the dopamine levels. You can’t get that. But you can have a more happier time, a more balanced, happier time and a real, real happiness, real euphoria, even though it’s not 500% high. But you have a deep joy, you find that deep joy and that’s with your life building up a better lifestyle and that. And your relationships.

0:17:31 Monsignor Shora: Yes, and definitely exercise then would be one of those. And then the last one is that you’re transparent with your spouse on that lane. So if it’s gambling with money, so your spouse or someone has full eyes on that and control of that and you’re humble about that. If it’s alcohol, whatever the substance is, you’re fully transparent with your spouse or a key person that doesn’t have that. And the last one is, which is part of the gamblers anonymous or their twelve steps is. Yeah. Where you have a support group, you have heart friends that know you’ve struggled with this and you’re going out with your toddler and they don’t go to those places or those things. So very often people have to change in certain sub certain addictions is because I’m in a social environment and it’s the temptation as well.

0:18:23 Monsignor Shora: So I’ve got to get away from that crowd. If it is that, you know, you gotta ask, what’s your five point plan to deal with this? For a hand to hold something solid and to be, you need all five fingers. So you need a good, solid plan and to always keep those, that, that plan going, all five fingers gotta keep working. You know, you just have to let some things go. It’s gonna be. Yeah. You risk, you know. Yeah.

0:18:48 Monsignor Shora: Like I often say to people, it’s like if someone has diabetes or someone has an allergy to peanuts, someone. Yeah. You know, it could kill them if they, they got to set up a strategy in their home. They don’t have sugar in the fridge or they don’t have that. They don’t have that. Yeah. So it’s just, I try to normalize it in that way. It’s not like they’re, you’re doing something. If you’ve got diabetes, you’ve got to watch what you eat.

0:19:11 Monsignor Shora: You got to do exercise, you’ve got a, you know. Yeah. You got to test. You got a five point plan. Same with this. You got, you need a five point plan. All of us, in some ways for our life, we need, you know, so in this. Yeah. What’s your five point plan? And that if they can put it together and work on it and plan it themselves and be happy with it, it’s a good chance that that’s gonna work. You know, that works. And then their spouse keeps the eye and they share that plan with their spouse. Their spouse knows, you know, and. Yeah. So that’s just something to give people the hope, you know, that there is a way to deal with it. There is. There is a strategy and there is good, as Eddie said, there’s good support out there to help.

0:19:54 Debbie Draybi: And, you know, what I’m hearing is it’s complex. It’s not just about the behaviour, but it’s what happens. Then you’re competing with a very strong biological response. And to be able to tackle that, you need more than just one strategy. And that’s being able to think about in that plan. As you mentioned, you’re thinking about that hand with the five fingers, things that are all interconnected with each other, whether it’s about as we would treat any other physical illness, because this is, you know, it impacts us in the same way.

0:20:28 Debbie Draybi: It needs treatment that’s holistic and connected to all parts of our life. Whether it’s about treating our body using medicine or ideas around treatments that could involve other medications sometimes to help ease some of those symptoms and to help ease the withdrawals, which you know, are huge. And then thinking about all the lifestyles and other things to help repair our body and to bring it back to its normal function, whether it’s exercise, eating the right food, but then also thinking about the relationships that can help build that connection again with parts of ourselves that we’ve lost and that we’ve become disconnected with. And those relationships are so important.

0:21:13 Debbie Draybi: We don’t have to do this alone. Whether it’s reconnecting with our intimate partners and the people in our lives or others who’ve been through it, thinking about, you know, a support system of people who are on that recovery journey and have walked that same path. And being able to have that connection and that shared experience is so powerful, isn’t it? Eddie, what about that? What do you think about that five point plan and the five fingers?

0:21:40 Eddie Reaiche: I think it’s great when we use metaphors and things like this, it’s easier to remember on how we can help people. Obviously, in my line of work we use scientific type plans. I’m not taking it away from what you said. That was fine. We just use things like motivational interviewing and DBT, CBT. And there’s a lot of things that we use techniques that we use to help people through it. But like everything else in our line of work, the most important thing that we can do is work on what we call a therapeutic relationship.

0:22:18 Eddie Reaiche: If we establish a relationship, that’s 70% of the work, because we’re establishing a sense of trust and these people don’t trust anybody because we’re trying to take away from them their greatest reward that they have for themselves. And here we come along, we’re trying to take it away. We’re saying it’s wrong. It’s wrong when every fiber of their body is saying it’s right, it’s right, it’s right. And so I can understand how hard that is. And there’s this tug of war that we need to go in there and we want them to understand that they’re in a war right now that they could potentially easily lose, but we’re going to be there to support them and help them through it.

0:23:00 Eddie Reaiche: And so hopefully, with all the support that we can give them, we’ve only got them for an hour. Their wife or husband who’s next to them are there with them the rest of the time. That’s why they’re an integral part in the therapy, because we need them to take over where we leave off and always have them accountable, because that’s the thing, the more accountable they are with what they’re doing, the better the success.

0:23:25 Eddie Reaiche: And so when you integrate everybody into what we’re doing, you’ll find that support network is so, so important in the way they go from here.

0:23:39 Debbie Draybi: Thinking about and exploring the importance of trust, trusting that it is a long process, it’s trusting that building that connection, seeking help and being able to navigate the complexities of the healing journey and the recovery journey. To do that alone is impossible. Being able to seek help from professionals. You talk about different models. These are evidence based, they work. There’s really good examples of the way that they work, but the important part is starting the conversation and connecting with someone and trusting that they are there to help you and support you and not to blame you or shame you or judge you, because those things really get in the way.

0:24:25 Debbie Draybi: And as we said, we all go through different levels of addiction in our life to cope with the challenges of life. So being able to reach out and get help from others and not wait too, until sometimes we think that it’s not serious enough or it’s not bad enough. We don’t recognise at what point it’s at. But if it’s getting in the way of our relationships and the people we love, it’s important that we’re able to ask for help and be curious about whether it is really a problem and understand it. And sometimes having someone to bounce that off does help.

0:25:00 Eddie Reaiche: I think the two most important things is we’ve all got it in us. We just have to believe in ourselves. The way I see things, having that spiritual help is always understated because it’s one of the most integral parts in our recovery. Knowing that God’s out there, who’s with us, trying to help us get through the greatest adversity of our life, and I think that’s really important. That’s the take home message. I’d want people to understand.

0:25:29 Debbie Draybi: What about yourself?

0:25:30 Monsignor Shora: I can’t disagree with that.

0:25:32 Debbie Draybi: Well, you better not.

0:25:33 Monsignor Shora: I’d get in trouble, wouldn’t I? I agree with that. And I think in some ways, that’s why I find a lot of people do come in our community, to the priests, because they know there’s a sense that they do need God to help them with this. And I would say to people, yeah, just the voices of shame or the voices that make you feel like, no, you’re not worthy to come or you let that aside. It’s about just wanting to move forward and find the fullness of life, to live a fuller life and to be free from that.

0:26:10 Monsignor Shora: That chains you and holds you back.

0:26:14 Eddie Reaiche: Because you’re worth it.

0:26:16 Debbie Draybi: Yeah. And you talk about how big it is and how controlling it can be, but God is bigger than that. God is greater than any addiction. And being able to know that and to remind yourself that there is a.

0:26:32 Monsignor Shora: Way out and it’s a good way out. And it’s real life. Yeah. Sometimes people say, oh, I’ve got to do this to distract myself from it. You know, I’ve got to do this to distract myself and say, no, no, no. That’s the distraction. This is real life. Come to find the real life. Yeah. There’s a lot of good news stories out there. A lot of good people who. People who have. And sometimes, as Eddie said, fall off a little bit, they come back, straight back on, you know, and to keep going.

0:26:58 Eddie Reaiche: Yeah.

0:26:59 Debbie Draybi: Well, thank you both. And I just want to highlight that for our listeners. If you do have a story and you have struggled and you’re on your way to recovery, reach out. I mean, we’d love for you to share your stories. I know that, of course, Monsignor and Eddy, to protect the anonymity and confidentiality, they never disclose their patience and their stories. However, if you do feel the need to share, please reach out to us. We’d love to hear you and share your story.