420 Addiction and Recovery Podcast

The Recovering CEO  0:15  
My name is Derek, I am the recovering CEO. So this is my first direct live stream. This will become a podcast. And hopefully you will like it. So sorry for the glitchy start. But welcome. I'm going to do a reading today's reading and then I'll talk about some interesting topics. So today's reading. It's actually tomorrow's reading, but it was more interesting than today's that's from book called answers in the heart, says God alone can finish John Ruskin, then it says, we may have been brought up with the idea that we always had to finish something once begun a meal a painting a piece of work a letter. In many cases, this went along with our notions of perfectionism. If something is going to be done, it must be done perfectly. The way dad does it, or the teacher or God. And so especially if we'd like to experiment a bit or dream, we felt we really didn't measure up. But many of the greatest artists, Leonardo Cezanne, Picasso, left work unfinished, as if to show the margin between impossible perfection and their own striving would matter was the effort and the process and the struggle. Each viewer of an unfinished picture could by responding to the works creative urging with her or his imagination, fulfill the process. Our lives are never finished, at least until we can no longer add any final touches. We are always in a process of change and becoming. This is why we keep taking the steps in our program over and over to remind us that our lives are journeys, always in the act of unfolding. And then meditation for today, I feel relaxed when I view my life as an ongoing creative process rather than as a perfect work of art. Alright, so we will talk about that a little bit. I can relate to this. You know, Gary Vaynerchuk actually posted that this morning, that perfectionism is just another word for insecurity. And that's pretty interesting. I wanted to say, Well, thanks, Gary, appreciate you saying that. You know, and sometimes, I know sometimes pointing out the obvious is important, you know, I want it to be perfect. This is my first live stream partially because, you know, I'm hesitant to, to do these things, right? Like, I don't know how they're going to turn out. I'm not sure how they're going to be received. So it's perfectionism. But you could say insecurity, you know, insecurity, right? So I'm going to turn this into a podcast, I've been doing the recovering SEO podcast now, for a few months. I've interviewed some great guests on addiction and recovery. And if you have a story, you want to tell if you're maybe in the past, you struggle with some sort of addiction, you want to tell your story, let's talk, you know, let's talk, I think there's a lot of people out there that are making a positive impact a lot of people out there, both helping others, and then who need to be helped, you know, and one of the reasons I'm doing this on LinkedIn, how often do you see a LinkedIn live stream on addiction and recovery is because I feel like in the business world, there's a lot of people who are dealing with addiction, depression, you know, there's lots of different ways to explain it. And this whole concept of perfectionism, or you have to do it perfect, or don't do it at all, I felt was really interesting today, because, you know, it's, it's not true, I think, you know, half the battle is just suiting up and showing up. Just try it, just do it, you know, so just just record this, you know, I'm not sure how it looks right now on LinkedIn, but I'm recording it. And I'm live streaming it. And, you know, eventually I'll perfect the process. You know what I think the thing is, we got to just put stuff out there, get feedback, keep evolving, keep improving, and that's how it gets better. You know, that's how life gets better life. You know, here I am. almost 50 years old. You know, you could say changing careers or evolving my career, you know, life is an evolving process. And I see lots of other people doing it, too. You know, it's constantly. You know, a friend of mine says, pain growth slide, pain growth slide is the cycle. And basically, you know, means we experience pain, right, so we slip into complacency, we rest on our laurels. I know I do, you know, and I get comfortable for a while, and then I start to experience pain. It's like it doesn't feel good. You know, I feel best when I'm moving forward. It doesn't feel that good to sit too. Long still, you know, a rolling stone gathers no moss. So then I grow, right, so I experienced the pain that I grow. And there's these great moments of growth where it's a lot of learning spiritual growth.

The Recovering CEO  5:15  
But it's often caused by pain. And then eventually I slide back into complacency. And over and over and over constantly being reinvigorated, you know, you might experience this at work, where, you know, one day or one week, you're very excited, fired up, working super hard. getting everything done in your to do list being super productive. And then all the sudden, you just hit a wall, you know, for me, often it's on Monday, Mondays are just depressing. And why is that? I don't know, you know, but I want to commiserate with anyone else who struggles through days at work, because it's just not fun. You know, and sometimes I don't want to do the work. And I kind of feel like, well, you can't make me, you can't make me and a lot of people that I've been listening to and learning from lately keep talking about part of that. Part of that. The reason I think that we struggle at work is because if we're not doing what we're truly meant to do, or what we're truly happy and that's part of it, you know, we need to find a career, a calling that really satisfies satisfies us, you know, what makes me happy? What am I best at? What type of work do I enjoy doing? You know, I enjoy walking my dogs, can I get paid for that? Not necessarily, but I could start a dog walking business if I really wanted to, you know, obviously, there's some financial limitations there, maybe unless I, you know, break it out into a grow it somehow into a big business, but and for me, I like helping people in recovery, I like talking about addiction and recovery. You know, I've been sober for over 25 years from drugs and alcohol over 25 years, so why not help others? You know, I feel like I'm happiest. When I am helping others, you know, when I can share the meeting, when I can share my experience, strength and hope with others, and they can get something from it. You know, that's what I'm happiest. So I started the recovering CEO podcast, we've website, the recovering ceo.com, putting out content, interviewing people who are in the business who, who help others in recovery, who are joining us on the recovery and the spiritual journey. And we, you know, collaborate with them, we interview them. So that's what we do. You know, that's what we do. And it seems to be working. You know, it's, it's picking up steam. And I think the key is to just keep suiting up and showing up. And so figuring out how to livestream direct to LinkedIn. That's a good step, maybe live streaming to Twitter, figure out how to get more content out there. I'd love to get some questions from the audience. I think there's people out there in the business world who may have questions about addiction and recovery, please send me a direct message. You can also leave a voicemail on our website if you have a question. But I'd love to answer your questions live on air. You know, I know getting sober is not easy. If you're debating on whether to get sober or not.

The Recovering CEO  8:15  
You know, you got to ask yourself, why are you debating? Is it causing problems in your life? You know, sure, I've been sober over 25 years from drugs and alcohol, life is still not easy. You know, I still have to deal with people in the workplace, my co workers, my supervisors, my clients, you know, I have my own business now. But I still have clients to satisfy, I still have people who are expecting things from me, you know, I still have a wife that I'm accountable to that I need to contribute, and not just contribute financially, but contribute and help in the household, you know, do my part. And, you know, my wife is real successful. And, you know, one of the things I contribute is by helping around the house, you know, making sure things get done handling things, she doesn't want to, you know, she's a little bit of an introvert. So I go be an extrovert and I deal with the people that we need to deal with for repairs or services. You know, I booked the cleaning service, I you know, the yard work that needs to get done to get it done, you know, doing the dishes, my wife is an amazing cook, the least I could do is clean up, you know, we help. I have two daughters, two amazing daughters that I have to be of service to, you know, I have to be a good example, and live my life. You know, live my life by example. I can't just micromanage their lives, you know, I have to let them live their lives. You know, I have one daughter who is a junior in high school, extremely independent teenager. I have another who's a freshman in college and she's doing wonderful and I just need to support them. You know, say hey, you know, girls, I love you. I support you. Go live your dreams. Go do it. You know, here we are talking about life is a journey. Life is a work in progress. We're never finished. You know, we're Never finished until the end, and I'm not sure when that's going to come. You know, I have learned that I don't fear the end. I don't fear dying. I really don't. You know, I always love the line from Caddyshack where Bill Murray says, when he was Caddying for the Dalai Lama that he would achieve enlightenment on his deathbed. He said, Yeah, so I have that going for me. And he's right. You know, I'm not perfect. I might achieve enlightenment on my deathbed. Why not? Why not? You know, the moment before I die, it all makes sense. And, you know, I get glimpses, I get glimpses into what it all means. You know, I used to think that nitrous oxide, you know, every time we do nitrous, had a party when I was in college, or at a Grateful Dead show. You know, when you do nitrous, you kind of understand the meaning of life, it would just come to me, and I would say, Oh, my God, everything makes sense. Now, everything would just tie itself up into a neat little bow. And it would all become clear. And then a second later, guess what? I'd forget it and be like, where to go? Where the thought go? Why? Why didn't I write it down? It was such a fleeting thought, you know, this grasp of what it all means. You know, and that just means that, you know, drugs, alcohol, no matter how good the buzz no matter how good the Hi. You know, I'm always chasing it, I'm always chasing that perfect tie. You know, the first time I ever got drunk, the first time ever got hired, did drugs. I want to feel that way again. You know, and as a person with addictive tendencies, it's like that for a lot of things, you know, I can, I can keep eating ice cream, or food, like cupcakes, hot fudge sundaes, you know, potato chips, I keep eating things, chasing that feeling of the perfect feeling of satisfaction, the perfect rush of endorphins. And, you know, whatever it is, whatever the chemical mixes, you know, that I crave, that essentially changes the way I feel, you know, and eventually, when I chase pleasure, too often, you know, my mind will cap it off, it'll cap off my, my serotonin and my endorphins. And I'll say, You know what, it's not natural to feel that good or that high. So we're going to cap that off, so you can never get there again. And then, you know, if I struggle with addiction, I'll keep chasing, and I'll keep trying more and more and more, because it takes more and more and more to get off the same way. You know. And that's why alcoholism is a progressive disease. You know, that's why drug addiction is progressive. You know, a lot of people overdose from drugs like heroin and stuff like that. I don't think they mean to overdose. You know, I really don't. It's often an accident. You know, I'm just trying to get high just trying to feel good here, you know, so Can someone just leave me alone, I'm trying to feel good here. But then, if nobody's around, you know, you don't always know what you're taking. And your heart will stop. You know, you're ingest so many drugs that your heart will stop. And that's called an accidental overdose, you know, and they say, Well, you know, are they committed suicide? You know, I don't know about that.

The Recovering CEO  13:16  
You know, sometimes addicts and alcoholics will say they want to die, right. And that's often when somebody hits bottom, you know, they're like, I wanted to die. I was so desperate for help. But oftentimes, it's just questioning, is it worth it? You know, is it worth it to do these drugs? I don't know what's going to happen, even though it might kill me. And an addicted mind will say, Yes, it is. And actually, you don't even really think about it. You know, as an addict, when I want to get high, I'm gonna get high. If anybody wants to get high, they're gonna get high. And they will do it at all costs. And sometimes that leads to death, you know? People making stupid choices, like drinking and driving, you know, it's often the courts and drinking and driving that will get people into recovery, you know, because why else would they stop? They love drinking so much. But then they go out drinking and driving. I've known people who've killed someone. They just killed someone, you know, one night, they're at a party having fun. They drive home, because of course, they always drive home. And then they run someone over or get in an accident and kill someone. And they have to live with that for the rest of their life. That sucks. Right and not only sucks for the innocent person who was killed. It sucks for the person who did it. Right. So then the courts, you know, you're dealing with courts, you're dealing with losing everything. You lose your family, you lose your freedom. Y'all often lose your job. Job is often the last thing to go. Anyone who's an alcoholic will keep their job no matter what. Because a job is very important, you know, job Is the paycheck a job funds the whole operation? You know, I can't, I can't get drunk, I can't get high, I can't use my drugs and alcohol if I have no money, it sucks being broke, right? So I will keep my job at all costs. A lot of alcoholics and addicts will lose their family, their kids, their spouse, their home, before their job. So what does that mean? That means in the workplace, you could be working with a lot of people who are just hiding their addiction. You know, maybe you think you smell alcohol on them. Right? On a Monday morning, Friday morning. You know, they don't look too good. Maybe their performance is struggling a little bit, you know, you notice something, you might just want to ask, Hey, is everything okay? You know, are you doing okay? You know, you can talk to me if you want, maybe for this for this video to them. Share this video. You know, a lot of people like, Well, shit, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm not an addict. Why am I watching this stupid video from the recovering CEO? Well, because we're all trying to help. My guess is that you've been touched by addiction, somewhere in your life, right? A family member, a parent, a sibling, maybe your children, grandparent, you know, alcoholism, touches so many people. Addiction touches so many people. And it's passed on from generation to generation. And one of the things I want to stop is that that handoff, you know, it's it's partially hereditary. But it's also learned, right, because I feel bad. I feel shame. I had some trauma when I was young. So I'm going to try and change the way I feel, right? If somebody experiences trauma, when they're young, no matter what that is, maybe it was sexual abuse could be something as simple as bullying in school, could be just feeling different. You know, for me, I was adopted, in which I love my parents who raised me that I was adopted, which means I was taken away from my biological mother at birth. That was traumatic because I bonded with her for nine months in the womb, you know what I've learned that by talking about it in therapy and stuff like that. And then I was put into foster care for six months. And I bonded with those people, and I was taken away from them. So I struggle with attachment disorder, I struggle with intimacy disorder, I have trouble connecting with others. And that's why as someone who struggles with addiction and who is in recovery from addiction, I struggle with my coworkers, I struggle with authority. Right? If you're my boss, good luck, because I'm going to be rebellious against you. Because I've had bad experiences with authority figures in my life. authority figures, people who have power over me in my life, did things to me that I was not happy about. So I'm going to rebel against that. Even if it hurts me. Very similar to I'm going to do heroin, even if it could kill me, right, very similar attitude. And I need to work to change those attitudes. Right. So the reading we did today talked about life as a journey, life is a work in progress, we work the steps over and over again,

The Recovering CEO  18:09  
to let us know that it's a constant regeneration, a constant evolving and changing. And if you're not growing, you're in trouble, right? You're in trouble. In your career, you need to grow, right, you need to grow, you need to strive, you need to push yourself, you know, keep getting out of your comfort zone, keep doing things that are out of your comfort zone, that's how we grow. And it's important. And just like I talked about pain growth slide, sometimes you're gonna get stuck in place, you're gonna get stuck in neutral, you're going to be stagnant, right? And that's when the pain is going to start to creep in. It's very similar, you know, getting sober, the motivation to get sober is very similar to the motivation to getting a new job. Right? If I have a shitty job, and I hate my job, then that's gonna cause me pain, right? It's gonna cause me pain. I'm gonna look at that and say, this sucks. I don't like it. And then that's going to motivate me to do the work to find a new job. Alright, so I have to update my LinkedIn, I need to talk to people, I need to get out there and say, Hey, I'm looking for a new job. You know, pain is the great motivator. Pain is the great motivator. But honestly, people I want you to find peace, right? Pain will teach us a lot. But we can find peace. We can. You know, my life is more peaceful today because of changes I have made. Alright, I realized a long time ago that I don't do that while working in a corporation. So I started my own business. It's very easy to do. You know you can there's lots of people on LinkedIn, you can follow. This guy Justin Welsh, puts out amazing content and starting your own business. solopreneur Gary Vaynerchuk puts out amazing content. And really what they say is don't don't sweat the details. Just do it. Figure out what you're good at. What's something you can be an expert at? What's something you can talk about for 30 minutes, and share about, and then just go do it. And people will follow you. And you're gonna find people that are going to comment, or maybe DM you and say, Hey, that was pretty cool. Can you tell me more, and then you get feedback from them, and then you start creating products, and you can sell your own products. And I want to do that, you know, as the recovering CEO podcast, I want to be, you know, known as a person who helps others in recovery, I want to help at a larger scale, I believe, you know, when Alcoholics Anonymous started back in 1935, or so, I believe 35. But back when it started, you know, is so much has changed since then, you know, certainly they didn't have podcasting back then. So, people are listened to meetings on podcasts, if you go out on a walk or run, you can listen to meeting, you can listen to the recovering CEO podcast, I encourage you to listen to, I encourage you to subscribe to it, I would love it, if you could take a moment to rate and review my podcast, we're on all the major podcast services, it just takes a minute. You know, but if you've been touched by addiction, if addiction has impacted your life somehow, right? And you want to help others not to deal with that, if you want to help others, maybe they don't have to deal with the same pain you did, then I encourage you to share this livestream, share my post, somebody could benefit, share it. If you write a review, it's going to help others see it. If you subscribe, it's going to help others see it. And we don't know. You know, it's very similar to work in digital marketing. You never know what's going to bring someone to your website. Okay, so we need to cast a really wide net, very similar in recovery, and helping others in recovery. Right? This is an attraction of this is a program of attraction, not promotion. But when somebody is ready to get sober when somebody needs help, we always want

The Recovering CEO  22:02  
they say the hand of a to be there, right? And I'm not representing a. But the point is, if you listen to my podcast, you might end up in a you know, I will give you tips, I will give you pointers, how do you stay sober? How do you improve your life? The number one way to do it is to stop doing the drug or alcohol or gambling or whatever was bringing you down just stop it. Stop it. Admit The other problem? You know, admit it. And I always say that sobriety gives us the gift of awareness. Once I stop using the drug of choice, once I stopped doing my addictive behavior, then I gain awareness. Why am I doing this? What was I doing? Why is it bad? How is it hurting people who was hurting, you know? And we realized that we're hurting others? Oftentimes, we're hurting ourselves. You know, if my performance in my workplace isn't that good? It's often because I'm spending all my time thinking about going out tonight and drinking and how am I going to manage my drinking? And how am I going to act sober on the Zoom call when I'm drinking while I'm on the Zoom call? And how am I going to get drugs for this weekend? How am I going to do this and that the other thing? How am I going to manage my life because my life is unmanageable. And I really just need to throw my hands up and say, You know what, this is no way to live. This will kill me. Addiction will kill me. I guarantee it. I've experimented with this, you know, I quit. I quit drinking and drugs at age 24 I quit drugs age 23 I quit drinking at age 24. You know I'm now 49 years old. I learned at a very young age that if I keep this up, I'm gonna fucking die. It's that serious? The alcohol will take me down. You know one day especially at my age right now. You know, I mean a lot of a lot of rock stars if you notice they all die around age 28. Right Kurt Cobain? Was that really great blues singer? I don't know if there's Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Who was that woman from England who was so good. It's not a lamest Morissette. I'm blanking on her name Anyways, if you're doing hard drugs, you could die at a very young age, right? 28 you can't manage it. You just can't manage it, your body will stop working. Because those drugs are so hard on your body. If you do alcohol, you can last for longer. You can last for longer, but around 40s It's going to start causing problems. Your doctor is going to say excuse me, but your liver is failing. And your livers enlarged. It's stopping working your kidneys aren't working etc etc. If you don't stop drinking, this could kill you. If you don't stop drinking, you will die in six months or a year. Right so that's people hear that right? So if you drink for a long time, right may If you're lucky, some people can drink their entire lives. God bless you, right? I couldn't. But if you drink for a long time, there's a good chance the doctor is gonna say it's gonna kill you. So you have a chance to change there, you have a chance to stop drinking. And people never think they have a drinking problem until they try and stop. It's not obvious that I have a drinking problem. Until I try and stop, right? I have no problem drinking, try stopping. Try stopping for a week, six months a year. Just try. It's not that easy. It's not. So the other thing that usually happens is our drinking is going to start causing problems in our life. Right? So our boss, our supervisor will tell us, they've noticed the lack of our performance, we'll lose a job over it. Oftentimes our spouse significant other, our partner will say, hey, you know what, I'm not going to live like like this anymore. If you keep drinking, doing drugs, continue this behavior, I'm going to leave you, you need to get help, you need to change or I'm going to leave you right, that's another one. Those are two big opportunities to get sober. The third one is often as I mentioned before a judge right, so we do something stupid. We get a drunk driving, we get in a fight assault something to whether it's domestic assault, getting in a fight at a baseball game, or something stupid like that, like, basically, we act like a drunk ass and we get in trouble. And then there's the lawyer, I'm sorry, the lawyer, the judge, and the judge will say, hey, you know what, you need to go to recovery, you need to stop drinking, you know, we're gonna put bracelet on you, we're gonna put a breathalyzer on your car, you need to change your behavior, go to 90 meetings, blah, blah. Those are three of the big ways that people get into this program. I encourage a fourth way, which is just realizing that your life kind of sucks and you want to change.

The Recovering CEO  26:57  
You can get off this merry go round at any time. All right. Someone says, Well, how do you know when you've hit bottom? And it's Well, when you stop digging, when you're sick and tired of being sick and tired, when you don't like the way it feels, you know, when you don't like the way it feels, it's causing you a little bit of pain. You can feel it right in your chest. It doesn't feel right. There's something wrong with your life. And I never wanted to blame drugs or alcohol. Right. I never wanted to blame some of my thinking. You know, I struggle with addictive thinking. You know, whether it's food obsession, you know, it could even be boundaries of intimacy, and, you know, sexual obsession, thoughts like that. They're not good for me. You know, I can't entertain lust. I can't entertain going downstairs and getting an almond croissant. You know, I Vegas is not safe. For me. Las Vegas is not safe for me. Like I love I like Las Vegas. Why? Because it is an addicts paradise. You know, when you walk around Las Vegas, there's so much to do. There's people watching there, there was gambling. There is alcohol, drugs, sex, anything you want anything. It's just all there. And it's constant 24 hours a day. So sure, I go to Vegas, and it's like, I feel like my head feels like a slot machine going off. Is Vegas safe for me? No. Right? No, it's not. I know not to gamble. You know, a lot of people experiment with gambling. Well, maybe they don't have addictive tendencies like I do, because I can't do it. Gambling will take me down. You know, I have a spending addiction. I like to buy shit. I want I'm going to New York this week. And I want to buy some new Jordans, right? can I really afford spending 500 bucks on a new pair of Jordans? Maybe, but also probably not, you know, I have other things that I need to buy. And there's a big difference between need and want. Right? I want the hive buying I want to be able to show them off. And it's crazy. You know, sometimes I need to simplify. I just need to say okay, let's simplify. All right, let's let this go. Let's not buy a motorhome today. Let's not buy a new car today. Let's not buy a new Jordans today. Let's not buy tickets to the Phish concert today. Let's not book a trip to Aruba. Let's just frickin do my job. Be a good husband. Be a good father. Be a good you know, employee. Let's do my best today. Let's try to not change the way I feel from something outside of myself. Just be at peace, meditate, be at peace exercise, walk the dogs, do my work. Take breaks, love myself and forgive myself for not being perfect because I am certainly not perfect. And it's okay to not be perfect. If you listen this far, God bless you. I really you know, you must know me or something. Maybe you're like my parent or something or someone who knows me. But God bless you Listen this far and I don't even really believe in God. But thank you. Please share this with a friend. Please comment. And if you are struggling hit me up. I'd be happy to talk to you more. And this is the recovering CEO signing out. Make it a great day. stay sober and we'll see you next time. Thanks.