Podcast - BOLD Voices

00:05 – The truth is that addiction is a killer, and you can defeat it by facing what you’ve been avoiding.

00:09 – It’s high time to get real about the feelings you ignore,

00:11 – but you can’t do that alone.

00:13 – Form an alliance with the best.

00:13 – Team.

00:18 – Up with the doctors at Bold Health to build your capacity to bear those painful feelings.

00:20 – Get strong.

00:23 – Face the truth. Author. Your life.

00:27 – Bold health located in Encinitas, California.

00:32 – Or visit us online at Bold health Inc.com.

00:39 – If I belong on a following, your lead,

00:43 – a thought gets thrown up.

00:51 – Hey, everybody, this is Tom Paulus, and you’re listening to Bold Voices, a podcast about mental health, addiction and the human condition.

00:55 – Today we’re going to be listening to part two of the Katie Hurst Podcast.

00:59 – Well, the Katie Hurst interview, let me say it that way.

01:05 – So far in the interview, Katie’s described an addiction that she’s got going.

01:09 – But also the process of denial.

01:16 – She’s right at the point of deciding whether or not she admits to herself and other people that she’s got a problem.

01:20 – Let’s find out what she does from it.

01:25 – So I’m I’m getting this little addiction going, starting to realize, okay, this is this is unusual.

01:33 – Like, I think I think I’m developing a problem, but really being forced into not being forced into it, but forcing myself into denial

01:41 – because I’m sitting with a group of people who tell the doctors who get caught or who ask for help what to do.

01:42 – And what am I going to do?

01:45 – Come before my peers and admit that I have a problem?

01:49 – You know, my ego totally was not going to let that happen. So,

01:53 – going forward a couple more years, I have another child.

01:56 – I end up using, opioids during her pregnancy.

02:01 – Because, you know, I had an excuse for some round ligament pain, which, like

02:06 – every pregnant woman, has and does not need opioids for.

02:11 – But I was able to kind of, you know, just get access to those,

02:17 – prescribed, and then, end up delivering this, baby girl.

02:22 – Really? Because I went into withdrawal, about a few weeks before her due date.

02:28 – It took me a really long time to try and taper myself off, and I was only taking probably 4 to 5 of the

02:35 – the Vicodin or Percocet at the end of the pregnancy, a day which, you know, sounds is actually quite a lot.

02:38 – But I could not get myself to taper off.

02:43 – And when I finally got off of them, I was only off for about two days before I think I started going into withdrawal.

02:45 – And that triggered labor.

02:49 – And so I delivered, heard about 37 weeks.

02:54 – And thankfully she was fine, but I had an even higher tolerance than normal at that point.

03:00 – And so postpartum, I’m requiring these huge high doses of painkillers for my post-operative pain.

03:04 – And on top of that, I’m just requiring huge high doses because I like how it feels.

03:10 – And, you know, it’s some inappropriate laughter there, but it’s just like, it’s just the two different stuff.

03:13 – I mean, I was in pain, but I also just wanted to feel a little high.

03:16 – And so

03:21 – after we went home with her, it turned out I was on such high doses that I was essentially putting her to sleep

03:26 – because of the exposure in my breast milk. And so I had to quickly taper off.

03:30 – She kind of woke up after some days on formula.

03:34 – I went back to being able to breastfeed her once I was off.

03:38 – But even then within you know, a couple weeks after that I was back to taking

03:43 – maybe one a day, maybe 1 or 2 a day, because now I didn’t have just eight weeks off.

03:49 – Now, I had planned this four month maternity leave, and so it was even longer than I was going to be away

03:54 – from, you know, all of the kind of justification for my existence that my work provided.

03:59 – Had you consciously put all this together at that time about how hard it was for you

04:08 – after the birth to go without the validation and know, oh my gosh, this was all sort of still unconscious, totally unconscious.

04:11 – Yeah. Yeah. I had done really no work.

04:15 – Whatsoever to understand any of this.

04:17 – Yeah. Gotcha.

04:17 – Yeah.

04:22 – And had not really ever been in therapy.

04:24 – Yeah. Yeah.

04:27 – Just hadn’t really thought about it very much.

04:30 – Knew that I was doing something that was wrong.

04:34 – But at the same time that I was able to push that thought down when it popped up,

04:39 – and replace it with all sorts of other things like, well, I’m functioning really well.

04:43 – You know, I haven’t crossed any really real lines.

04:47 – I mean, I was using while I was pregnant and breastfeeding. I think that for most women that’s a line.

04:52 – But there’s actually a lot of women out there who struggle to admit that that was true for them.

04:56 – Because when we’re in our addiction, we’re prioritizing, you know what feels good.

04:56 – Right.

05:02 – And we’re not prioritizing, you know, what is actually healthy for us or healthy for a little human inside us.

05:03 – Yeah.

05:10 – Did you ever have moments of being kind of scared over the dependance on this stuff early on?

05:11 – Yeah.

05:16 – And I think that that, you know, the fear that that brought up was just as quickly pushed down.

05:19 – Because again, you know, what would that mean for me.

05:24 – And since you know, I was married at this point I had one and then two children.

05:30 – But like that was not enough to define me as a person who brings meaning to the world.

05:35 – My career is really what I was using to define myself. And,

05:39 – and you know, what would happen to my career if I asked for help

05:45 – and which is even more messed up because, you know, I had sat on this committee and seen people come in, get help,

05:50 – take some time off of, you know, three months off from work, go to treatment and then go back and resume their careers.

05:57 – In very healthy ways without all of these crazy consequences that I imagined happening.

06:01 – But, you know, I saw myself as different from them.

06:06 – And that if I took a few months off to go get treatment, you know, I was going to lose everything.

06:11 – And so I just, you know, you don’t think clearly. Right.

06:15 – There’s just no there’s not logic. I’m not rational at that point.

06:21 – So things really got bad when my second daughter

06:26 – was about 8 or 9 months old and the cravings were just so intense.

06:29 – I had gone back to work.

06:31 – I was getting busy.

06:33 – You had your own clinic at this point, couldn’t you?

06:35 – Yeah. Maternal health. Right.

06:35 – We skip that.

06:37 – So we did.

06:41 – So, ironically, I was running, a clinic.

06:46 – I was essentially practicing in the field of women’s mental health, so I was seeing pregnant and postpartum women.

06:49 – And this was a very successful thing you started. Right?

06:54 – I mean, you had done very well of that. And I yeah, I was I was really good at it.

06:56 – And, we just did this next round of. Thank you.

07:01 – I know, but that’s my better way to go. Yeah. I mean, because I see,

07:04 – I just want you to like me right now.

07:05 – Okay.

07:10 – No. But, I mean, that’s an important piece because you’re it’s captures.

07:15 – I mean, you were it’s probably what fell into the denial because you could look and see.

07:19 – I mean, only you can now, but, like, look, I’m doing all this other stuff.

07:20 – Like you were still right.

07:23 – No, I was totally still really good at my job.

07:28 – And and so that seemed to be functional enough, right?

07:34 – My husband, keep in mind, had no idea that he knew that I was taking some pain meds.

07:41 – You know, maybe once a day when I was pregnant with my second one, he knew that I had been on to Harvard.

07:45 – An amount after I thought that it was just because my tolerance was so high.

07:49 – He didn’t know any of the other use that was coming in.

07:53 – And so, you know, I could pull it off, right? Yeah.

07:58 – Because, because beyond having to ask for help and then potentially hurting my career,

08:04 – it was having to ask for help and then really exposing myself as this flawed human being to my husband.

08:08 – And isn’t that the most vulnerable that we can be.

08:13 – Totally right is to actually admit to the person you’re closest to. Right. Yes.

08:15 – If they reject you.

08:16 – Right.

08:20 – So I couldn’t like that wasn’t even a possibility. Yeah.

08:22 – And so what ended up happening?

08:26 – Well, I mean, the first part and what really got bad was the.

08:34 – I was just thinking over and over again, I had this euphoric recall of just remembering over and over again how good the opioids felt.

08:39 – Now, I would frequently, you know, once I got my hands on some take a bunch of the pills,

08:43 – they kick in and I remember thinking, oh, this is all I was thinking of.

08:47 – Like, it was never as good as that first or second time, you know?

08:52 – But that power of the euphoric recall is really strong.

08:55 – And it was this craving of I need relief.

08:59 – I need relief because I’m trying to do too much.

09:05 – In my career, it is really hard to be a wife and a mother of two young kids.

09:09 – You know, and trying to be perfect and all of it.

09:14 – It’s very hard. It’s very hard. Right? And in fact, some would say it’s impossible. Right. Right.

09:17 – That we all have to ask for help and the different parts of our life.

09:20 – And what I, what my mind wants to say is suffer.

09:24 – But it’s not suffering, right? It’s just being human. Yeah. And it’s being normal, right?

09:26 – Dinner is not always on the table. Homemade.

09:27 – Right.

09:31 – The kids, you know, the kids don’t, you know, wear matching outfits?

09:33 – Well, actually, they often wore matching outfits, but,

09:37 – you know, but, like, I had to let some of that go and.

09:42 – Yeah, and yet I just couldn’t, because then I’d give up that that image that I had cultivated.

09:50 – Wow. And I would very carefully admit to having faults or, you know, getting behind on things because then I wasn’t too perfect.

09:56 – It is a calculated imperfection, like in those, old artists.

09:59 – Yes. Like, architectural works for the for the floor and, you know. Right.

10:04 – I’m a very calculated, manipulative person.

10:05 – You know.

10:09 – So, so moving forward, this cravings were getting overwhelming.

10:14 – And I remembered that, you know, at that point, you could call in Vicodin over the phone.

10:17 – And they weren’t checking IDs when you picked it up.

10:22 – And so I started calling in prescriptions under family members names and picking them up myself.

10:28 – And all of a sudden I had three family members who were in intense chronic pain.

10:32 – And because I had changed my name at marriage, they had different last names than I did.

10:40 – And I could very easily go pick them up at the local pharmacy and within about six weeks went from taking, you know,

10:48 – nothing to taking 30 to 40 of the, you know, ten milligram strength pills till you like, figured this thing out that you could do this.

10:49 – Yeah. Yeah.

10:54 – And I was kind of managing the pharmacy, you know, the pharmacy situation and and also very worried about getting caught,

10:59 – starting to get kind of paranoid, like, I’m taking huge quantities of these pills,

11:07 – which requires frequent refills for these family members who do not actually have pain, nor do they even live in San Diego.

11:12 – And I’m starting to worry that, you know, somebody’s going to join us.

11:13 – Right.

11:18 – And I’m also worried because, you know, once you’re up to that high quantity, you know, clearly

11:23 – I was going into withdrawal, and I was taking like, 8 or 9 pills at a time, a few times a day.

11:27 – And I could not get myself off of them.

11:31 – I tried to go cold turkey, and that withdrawal was horrible.

11:37 – I tried to taper, but like, every time a, you know, I try to taper, I had, I would write it all out on my phone and the notes,

11:44 – and then I just couldn’t comply with it because I knew that I was not going to get the same high that I was hoping for.

11:45 – And it was my solution.

11:50 – Work was getting busier, and I was being asked to create a new clinical program

11:55 – to potentially move to a new clinic site, to hire people to come on and work with me.

12:00 – And instead of saying no, saying I have this life threatening illness that I really need to get help for,

12:04 – I would just say yes, because then I get more praise and feel more important.

12:08 – So at some point, I recognized

12:13 – I couldn’t do it on my own and called and set up an appointment to get put on Suboxone or buprenorphine.

12:22 – And in this moment of absolute rare honesty, my husband happened to text me while I was in the waiting room of this doctor’s office.

12:27 – And I was probably only honest because I was in kind of a mild to moderate withdrawal in so many patches for town.

12:30 – And he just said, hey, how are you doing?

12:33 – And I said, well, I’m in a doctor’s office waiting to be put on Suboxone.

12:34 – And right.

12:36 – He knew nothing and he knew nothing. Right.

12:42 – And I think that like, his head exploded and, you know, he was working about ten minutes up the road

12:49 – and, you know, immediately drove there and was coming face to face with, oh my God, what?

12:53 – You know, what have you been doing? Like what has happened?

12:58 – And the next, year and a half for really this process.

13:01 – Well, and I mean really since then, that was six and a half years ago.

13:06 – This process of, you know, kind of slowly revealing to him the truth of how much I had

13:11 – deceived him, all the different ways that I manipulated my way into getting those.

13:17 – But that it actually took another year and a half after starting on the Suboxone because I was abusing that.

13:23 – He would be in charge of giving it to me, and he’d try to hide it from me.

13:25 – And, you know, again, he’s not sneaky.

13:28 – He’s a very honest, straightforward person.

13:34 – And so his idea of hiding something from me was like, not at all adequate in terms of hiding.

13:39 – So I would find it and then take extra because I was still trying to get high off of that.

13:42 – Would you get high, would you feel. Yeah. Oh totally. You know. Totally.

13:43 – Oh yeah.

13:51 – And so trying to taper off the Suboxone over the next year, taking myself off of it, relapsing.

13:55 – Then he caught me once, I mean relapsed.

13:56 – Back on the pills.

13:57 – It was a really painful year.

14:04 – But during that whole time, still working full time, hiring people on starting an intensive outpatient program.

14:09 – Right. Like total insanity. Total insanity.

14:14 – Because my ego just could not handle saying no.

14:17 – And not having that oncoming praise.

14:22 – And so I just needed to be doing more and more so that I could justify my existence, feel more important.

14:25 – And I remember actually going over to a friend’s house,

14:31 – and the only thing that I could think to talk about was how excited I was about the new clinic site.

14:38 – We were moving into, the furniture I was buying like nothing in of actual substance or thoughts about me for you.

14:39 – Yeah.

14:45 – And we had told a couple close friends and we had told my family, what was going on.

14:49 – But they didn’t know kind of the ins and outs of it.

14:53 – And so I got off the Suboxone in June of 2013.

15:00 – I had actually prescribed myself some extra, extra Valium because I was really worried about the jitteriness and the the restlessness.

15:05 – So it took me another probably 3 to 4 weeks to kind of clear from that.

15:09 – I lasted maybe 4 to 6 weeks with nothing in my system.

15:12 – And then I remember sitting, in my car

15:17 – outside of my kids school, thinking of all of the notes I had to write that night, all the things that I had to do.

15:23 – And, realizing I just didn’t have the energy to do it.

15:27 – And I needed to feel different somehow. I needed to manage it somehow.

15:32 – And so starting to abuse an over-the-counter drug, for several weeks

15:39 – and finally going, to treatment because I had called in meds to detox myself one last time.

15:45 – The pharmacy had started an automated call system, so they called my sister to let her know that her prescription was ready.

15:50 – And she you know, lives in San Francisco and not San Diego.

15:54 – So it was not anticipating a call from a San Diego pharmacy.

16:00 – So she immediately called me and said that she knew what was going on, called my husband and I had essentially agreed.

16:04 – You know, if this happens one more time, I’ll go to an inpatient place.

16:09 – And what I really had agreed to in my mind was if you catch me one more time. Right.

16:12 – Because there was no way I was voluntarily asking for help at that point.

16:13 – But I did.

16:17 – I went, I went for 30 days, and then it turned into 90 days.

16:20 – And an inpatient treatment center.

16:26 – I lied to my work and told them, you know, that I was going up, that my mom and sister had been in a car accident

16:29 – and that I was flying up to the Bay area to stay with them and help them.

16:33 – Of course, you know, lives don’t work very well long term, you know.

16:41 – And so they found out where I was and while I was in treatment, a lot of consequences came about, just from you taking that break.

16:47 – Well, the treatment like things just I mean, I think if I had been honest, perhaps it wouldn’t have been as bad.

16:49 – But I wasn’t.

16:56 – And so when they figured out what was going on, you know, I had lied to some people who I’d been very close to at work,

17:03 – and I was very appropriately reported to the DEA for having stolen a couple of prescriptions from one person

17:05 – and then for essentially what was going on.

17:10 – And this was the clinic that you started. These people ended up turning me away.

17:12 – Well, you know, it was one person,

17:17 – was worried about that person’s own license

17:22 – because, sure, you know, legally and ethically, that’s what needed to be done.

17:27 – Yeah. And, you know, of course, I had a lot of anger

17:32 – towards, you know, that person, towards that whole system for feeling like they had really thrown me under the bus.

17:38 – But the truth was that, I mean, ultimately they saved my life because, wow, had I

17:44 – had no consequences and really just gone back to work, you know, I hadn’t changed anything.

17:48 – I would have just gone right back into the same game that I was playing

17:53 – where everybody else, you know, told me that I was good enough and I didn’t feel it inside.

17:59 – And I didn’t even recognize that I had my own anxiety, that I didn’t feel good about myself.

18:04 – Because I was not far detached from, from where I was.

18:10 – So I actually sounded pretty narcissistic and full of myself when I was in rehab, because I was so busy

18:17 – telling everybody that I was, smart and important and that I had no problem with self-esteem or self-worth. Wow.

18:21 – Yeah. Which, was quite the opposite, it turns out.

18:25 – So I ended up, you know, getting my DEA prescribing permit revoked.

18:30 – I ended up with criminal charges and was a convicted felon for a year and a half.

18:37 – And I also have to recognize, you know, I was telling this story to a group of, medical students at Stanford,

18:47 – and very clearly had to mention there and, and actually in other talks as well, that I recognize that I got a really good deal

18:52 – because they had 38 instances in which I had called in fraudulent prescriptions.

18:54 – And with each of those,

18:59 – there was a burglary charge that could be attached, because I’d entered that pharmacy with the intent to commit a felony.

19:03 – So I was potentially facing 76 felony charges.

19:11 – And because I am a very well-educated, well-spoken white woman physician, I was able to have a very nice lawyer

19:17 – and I was able to only be convicted and, you know, only have to plead guilty to two felonies, serve no time.

19:23 – And after a year and a half of successful probation, be able to get it reduced to a misdemeanor and expunged.

19:28 – And I think that were I not of the probably gender and race

19:33 – that I am, where I not at the education and socioeconomic level, I would have gone to jail.

19:38 – And I think that’s what happens to so many people who are caught up in their addiction,

19:42 – which is a whole, you know, you can have another 16 podcast without discussion.

19:46 – Of course, what we’ve done to society, without criminalization.

19:49 – But I got off easy. Yeah. Really easy.

19:56 – And so to some extent, I’m really open with my story because, other people can’t be.

20:01 – And because we’ve got to work on getting rid of the stigma around this.

20:02 – Right.

20:07 – If other people can see me and identify with me and go, oh man, if that happened to a doctor

20:10 – who looks like she kind of has her stuff together right now. Yeah.

20:12 – That’s one of the things I’m noticing. Yeah.

20:17 – I mean, this really cuts across, looks in a way.

20:20 – But the the effects are different for different people.

20:22 – They are, they are, you know. Yeah.

20:28 – And so during, you know, that was I took a couple years, I took a few years off of work.

20:31 – Wasn’t able to work.

20:34 – Because when you’re a convicted felon, you’re not really supposed to be practicing medicine.

20:39 – So in the medical board says appropriately. And then I was so lucky.

20:47 – Lucky to, you know, doctor Lamm, Christy Lamm stayed in touch with me because we had been friends, and colleagues.

20:54 – And so she invited me to come back and start teaching mindfulness classes of old and then start seeing patients.

21:00 – Wow. And that whole, you know, this makes it sound like it’s been an easy time coming up on five years in November.

21:02 – You know, everything continues the way it’s going.

21:11 – You know, that skips over a whole huge section of, well, how do you go from being so involved

21:18 – and high all the time and desperate to feel good about yourself, to feeling good and happy and sober?

21:23 – Yes. And and so we, we should probably break this up

21:28 – into two sections, because this is, this is another piece that I want to spend some time on.

21:33 – So we’ll will, you know, why don’t we just create it?

21:37 – Why don’t we create a little space for you to go into that section now?

21:41 – Okay. Yeah. I mean, so, I mean, you’ve you’ve kind of brought us through,

21:48 – the really difficult part and set it up and helped us see how this developed.

21:54 – What’s, I mean, and I’m thinking about the person that’s listening to this that may be more in that part of their journey.

22:01 – What’s the other side of this like, is there another side.

22:02 – Oh my gosh.

22:09 – It’s I, I was sitting with somebody the other day and disclosed my own history, to that person.

22:14 – And the person looked at me and was shocked like, oh my God, you’ve gone through this.

22:15 – I never would have guessed.

22:23 – And said that, you know, you seem so calm and just, you know, kind of just at peace with life.

22:27 – And I said, yes, and that is what you can have.

22:31 – And that is what, you know, real recovery is.

22:36 – And it brings tears to my eyes because of, I think, really the joy and the gratitude

22:46 – that comes with the opportunity I have, which is to live a whole new, you know, next part of my life without needing to,

22:54 – first of all, use drugs to feel good about myself and accomplish things, but also without needing to rely on other people to make me feel good.

23:02 – You know, I’m I’m able to wake up in the morning and know that even if I do not have a place to work,

23:09 – even if I do not have, you know, patients waiting to see me or, you know, I don’t know, even kids waiting to be woken up,

23:16 – then I can just exist and that I get to be a human being, and then I can have gratitude for that,

23:19 – and that I don’t have to have anybody tell me they’re happy to see me.

23:21 – That’s a lovely thing.

23:26 – And that comes with feeling good and calm and serene about myself and who I am.

23:32 – But that I can just, you know, work every day to be a good person,

23:38 – to make wise choices, and to bring compassion to myself.

23:41 – But also to other people.

23:41 – Yeah.

23:45 – There’s so real simplicity in that. Yeah. It’s really, really. Yeah.

23:47 – So it really means changing.

23:49 – It meant changing my whole life.

23:50 – Wow. Right.

23:55 – To really make my life revolve around my own self-care, which sounds really selfish.

23:59 – But if I don’t think about this,

24:02 – if I don’t take care of myself, how can I take care of my kids?

24:06 – How can I take care of my husband or my patients?

24:13 – You know, how can I take care of my colleagues and taking care in that way of just being around other humans in a kind, compassionate way?

24:15 – Yeah.

24:21 – I mean, I often think like that we can’t really give ourselves in an authentic way if we haven’t really accepted ourselves

24:23 – and, and integrated.

24:27 – And cared for that gift of our existence. Yeah.

24:28 – And then.

24:31 – Yeah. Then, then we can move on to caring for other people.

24:34 – But it has to be in that order. Exactly.

24:35 – Exactly.

24:39 – You what would you say to somebody?

24:44 – In the middle of, of struggling, with this and hasn’t quite

24:49 – moved on to this, this last chapter where they’re putting their life back together?

24:52 – Somebody who’s struggling still with being in the midst of that.

24:53 – Yeah.

24:57 – A lot of ambivalence maybe about about their addiction.

25:00 – And, Yeah, maybe.

25:03 – Yeah. I mean, I guess it depends on the person, but is there some.

25:05 – Yeah. I mean, what do we, What?

25:10 – Well, see, I mean, there’s no way to motivate somebody else to care for themselves, right?

25:10 – Right.

25:15 – And that’s why, you know, we work so hard here to remind ourselves that, you know, I,

25:21 – I can try as I might to get somebody to walk in our doors and accept going to treatment.

25:25 – If they don’t want to be there, then there’s just not much that we can do.

25:26 – That’s right.

25:36 – And so, you know, a lot of this is making it okay for people to ask for help making it okay for them to be struggling.

25:42 – Not feeling like, having to go to quote unquote rehab or treatment,

25:49 – you know, means that they’re a failure because ultimately, I mean what a mark of success in somebody’s personal life when they can actually ask

25:56 – for help before the huge crisis happens, right before they end up in jail or,

26:02 – you know, hurting other people and unintentionally, and along with that goes,

26:07 – This idea

26:13 – of taking care of ourselves as human beings and taking care of others.

26:21 – And I just totally blanked on what I was going to say, which either means that I’m in KPD writing or the thought was not worth carrying on.

26:26 – I’m guessing there’s some money, some unresolved selling, some like there, some good there.

26:28 – We’ll go with that theory.

26:31 – But, it is 10:00. I’m not sure.

26:33 – A patient meditation class to teach.

26:41 – Okay, well, there may have to be a follow up on this, Katie, because, I clearly see that you have had a really authentic path.

26:44 – I’m sure you still have your knots and your struggles so far.

26:45 – Yeah.

26:50 – But, just to be engaging authentically with where we really are.

26:52 – I think that’s what we’re all about here. Called.

26:53 – Yeah. That’s so hard.

26:57 – I mean, it’s a frustration for me, but, yeah, in a new patient comes in.

27:00 – Look, you know, you can just tell us the truth about where you are. Right.

27:04 – And that actually is what I was going to say earlier, which is the stumbling. Right?

27:07 – Getting my path to being where I am today.

27:09 – And I can’t say my path to recovery

27:14 – because, like, I’m not using drugs today and I’m not doing anything that’s harmful to myself at this moment.

27:19 – But, you know, I do really believe that it’s one day at a time.

27:20 – Very strongly.

27:20 – Yeah.

27:25 – And my path to recovery has had a lot of stumbles and missteps along it.

27:30 – And we are so focused on letting people stumble

27:35 – if that is what they need to do, but then welcoming them up after that stumble.

27:36 – Yeah. That’s it.

27:43 – None of this, you know, I, I, I have really benefited from 12 step programs, but I also feel,

27:51 – that when people, you know, quote unquote, slip or go back and use once, you know, let’s welcome them back in

27:57 – without having to shame or humiliate because they’re already harder or harder ourselves, then, I mean, that’s maybe why it’s hard to be honest.

27:58 – Yeah.

28:04 – The striving in this whole story like that, that need to be, you know, acceptable.

28:04 – Yeah.

28:09 – And like, it’s okay for me to stumble in, you know, eat an entire bag of hint of lime Tostitos.

28:14 – Yeah, because I was super stressed out the other night, but I don’t have to, you know, not to myself as a newcomer.

28:16 – Yeah. Anywhere. You know. Yeah.

28:22 – And so that, yes, is different from taking drugs, but at the same time, that’s just my current drug of choice.

28:25 – Yeah, right. It’s binging on salty food. Yeah.

28:30 – And then gaining 5 pounds of water right overnight and coming in with swollen eyes, which is how you know, how I now

28:33 – look for the swollen up.

28:34 – Yeah.

28:37 – Katie, thank you so much. You’re so welcome.

28:37 – Yeah. Yeah.

28:40 – Awesome. Have a great mindfulness class. Thank you very much.

28:42 – It’ll be as it is

28:47 – also.

28:51 – Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of Bob voices.

28:55 – Thank you, doctor K Herz for sharing your story.

28:58 – Let me offer my usual shout out. Thank you, Deb professional for the music.

29:03 – Thank you, John Drexler, for more music. Here’s your problem.

29:05 – Thank you also for music.

29:08 – Paul Flores, thanks for your help, man.

29:10 – Appreciate the help with the set up.

29:14 – More support, etc., etc..

29:16 – Finally, thank you to our listeners.

29:20 – I hope you’ll tune in for our next episode.

29:25 – See you next time.

29:32 – Hey, dude.

29:33 – Hey, check out bro.

29:35 – Hey, Chuck B.

29:36 – What’s up?

29:40 – Hey, I got you on the the speakerphone here.

29:40 – Oh, really?

29:41 – Yeah.

29:47 – I’m wondering, how do you know you had an unlocking of the unconscious in any amount of detail you’d like to share?

29:51 – Well, just essentially, it’s an experience of dreaming while you’re awake.

29:53 – I mean, that’s the only way to describe it.

30:02 – And I’ve never been high on LSD or used any other psychotropic kind of substance.

30:08 – But the experience I had with the unlocking seemed like it was probably similar.

30:11 – Wow. And,

30:15 – the circumstance was

30:23 – I got into dealing with a conflict with someone important in my life, and I was driving in my car

30:31 – trying to experience my anger versus using defenses of devaluing or going getting really anxious with, say, smooth muscle anxiety.

30:35 – I was really trying hard to block my defenses and regulate anxiety.

30:39 – I kept oscillating between smooth muscle anxiety and defense.

30:43 – Self attack, for example. And

30:46 – after about

30:52 – 5 to 10 minutes of doing that while I was driving, my mind started to get these images

30:55 – that that just kept building.

30:59 – And the images were perfectly consistent with my upbringing.

31:08 – And the setting was the baseball field of my high school, which is the source of tremendous conflict for me.

31:11 – So I’m

31:15 – paying attention to my anger, and it’s deepening, and these images start to come into my mind.

31:22 – Conscious mind, of course, while you’re driving, while I’m driving, I’m awake and my my physiology starts to,

31:27 – you know, feel like I’m on fire or something, or like this lightness, this, like, euphoric feeling.

31:29 – I guess it’s a better way to describe it.

31:35 – Kind of like, Nirvana is what I’m looking for.

31:43 – So the more I deepen that, I just kind of fall into this trance, and I, and I get this image of.

31:50 – So I’m at the baseball field of my high school in Canyon City, Colorado, my hometown, but it’s just me.

31:55 – But then I start to see my dad, these images of my dad wearing his baseball hat,

32:01 – wearing his shirt of our team, the Kansas City Tigers baseball team.

32:03 – You can see all this, like, clearly.

32:06 – Oh, so clearly.

32:10 – It’s like I’m there. It’s like I’m just dreaming. Yeah. It’s,

32:15 – the his physical movements, his facial hair, just like everything is there.

32:20 – He’s walking down the sideline in this, you know, next to the fence.

32:24 – And like, I’ve seen him do hundreds of times before.

32:26 – And then.

32:30 – So this really clear image of my dad in his baseball hat

32:35 – and his shirt and him walking down with his camera because he’d always bring the camera.

32:44 – And then it jumps to he and I sitting on the bleachers together having a conversation.

32:51 – And just like reporting a dream, it’s it’s really hard to convey the images and the the emotional tone.

32:52 – Sure, the images.

32:56 – So recounting it right now, I’m already like, yeah, it’s not even doing it justice.

32:58 – Just like when you have a real dream.

33:04 – So, but we’re sitting there on the bleachers and I feel so safe with him.

33:08 – It’s an experience I’ve never had with my father. And.

33:11 – And my conscious, my conscious life. I’m great.

33:17 – I’m crying because I feel so much joy over finally getting to meet the real

33:22 – dad, the dad who was safe and available to me on the baseball field and

33:25 – just while I’m driving.

33:29 – It’s it’s a total integration between my unconscious and my conscious life.

33:34 – I’m literally feeling the safety with him for the first time.

33:37 – But it’s the images from the unconscious.

33:43 – It’s my dad’s not actually there with me in the car, but my unconscious historic dad is.

33:46 – But in a in a in a healthy way.

33:49 – And so I’m just I’m just communing with my dad there on the bleachers.

33:51 – He’s really quiet, like he always has been.

33:55 – My dad’s a quiet guy, but.

33:58 – I hope you enjoyed that little preview of Paul’s story.

34:03 – Tune into the episode on Unlocking the Unconscious to hear the rest of Paul’s story.

34:09 – See you next time.

34:18 – The truth is that addiction is a killer, and you can defeat it by facing what you’ve been avoiding.

34:20 – It’s high time to get real about the feelings you ignore.

34:24 – But you can’t do that alone.

34:25 – Form an alliance with the best.

34:31 – Team up with the doctors at Bold Health to build your capacity to bear those painful feelings.

34:33 – Get strong.

34:36 – Face the truth. Author. Your life.

34:43 – Bold health located in Encinitas, California or visit us online at Bold health Inc.com.