Full Transcript for EP 13: What Does It Actually Mean to Do the Work?

different. That I you can't it's hard to get in a real rhythm. And I don't like the heat like I at all. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: I'm not a I know you do, but I am not a heat person and we've had a couple massive heat waves here. This last few days has been seventy and sunny and n barely any humidity and perfection. It feels like September. And if it was like this, I'd be psyched. But we get super hot, super muggy, and no bueno for me. Whatever animal I am, it does not thrive in that. You're not I'm not an armadillo, I don't think. speaker-0: Yeah. I'm trying to think of animals that really thrive in like the fall. No ⁓ in the fall. Well yeah, you're no you're not a lizard either. Yeah. No. So you're like a speaker-1: Thinking of hot weather animals. ⁓ what is a fall animal? Something cozy. A little bear. A bear in the woods. Has a nice sweater on. Sipping a nice pumpkin spice latte. speaker-0: Yeah. So So your spirit animal is Paddington? speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, sure. Fine. ⁓ speaker-0: Tea with some omelade jackets. Well folks, if you are listening for the first time, we do we do get weird quick around here, so speaker-1: Get weird quick. The alternate name for our podcast. speaker-0: So something tells me that would draw in a really interesting clientele though. Yeah. Welcome to get weird quick speaker-1: We'd be so good at that. speaker-0: Those are I actually really want to collect question submissions. speaker-1: I know. Right? This one's good though. speaker-0: Yeah, okay, we'll pivot. So if you're i for those of you who may be new to our podcast, welcome. ⁓ our format is we we take questions. ⁓ you could submit questions on the Luckiest Club Instagram page. You can email those to us. ⁓ you can send those to support at the Luckiest Club dot com. ⁓ if you're part of our community. As so many of you are, you we have a spot there in the sober stacks to submit questions. But we're really here to answer your questions to talk about what's on your mind as it relates to getting sober, staying sober, and thriving in a life of recovery. And we've had some really great questions. In fact, we had a really good discussion about which question we should take today. So I'm excited about our next four or five episodes. ⁓ but today we're gonna answer this one. So here's the question. Although I I have a better sense of it. Now, for the longest time I could not wrap my head around the meaning of quote, you have to do the work, end quote. Like what does that mean? What work? Is there a job description for sobriety? If so, I'll do it. What I've wanted is a neat and tidy list of steps. And I think others may feel the same. And a lot of us would appreciate more insight on what it really means when we're told do the work. And I love this question because not only has it been submitted here, but we do hear this a lot. I hear this a lot from folks who are, you know, three or four weeks in, you know, early on, a lot of it is like just don't drink. And then you get to a we hear this a lot, like folks get to a point where they're they would like leaders in the sobriety world to be more prescriptive about what happens next. And often find themselves a bit unsatisfied at how not prescriptive this really is. ⁓ I also hear this a lot from folks at six months, twelve months, eighteen months as well, who have maybe cleared that hurdle where they're not as worried as they were a while ago about relapse, but aren't really sure about kind of like what happens next, like now what? Well, sometimes what's the work will show up as like now what. So I think we'll tackle this from a couple different angles. I know you're chomping at the bit on this one. You wanna take a shot at this first? speaker-1: Sure. I don't know if I'm chomping at the bit, but I I get the question. ⁓ I get the question. And while it is it is sort of non prescriptive and there's a lot that it could entail, I I think it does actually boil down to a few core things in in my view. The first one is like getting honest with yourself and others. If there is one thing that sobriety has been about for me and one measure of how I'm doing. It's am I being honest with myself and others? And if I'm not, there's something going on that needs to be investigated. I'm hiding, ⁓ which me usually means there's shame going on or some sort of secrecy and or, you know, I'm afraid. ⁓ and I need to look at that 'cause ⁓ there's unexamined treasures to be revealed. And the saying in AA is, you know, secrets make you sick, and it actually is very true. The measure of my I hate to say progress, but we'll just use that word, progress in sobriety, my level of health, my level of ⁓ being well in sobriety across all measures is really how honest I'm able to be. And that includes with myself. That's the trickier part, right? Like am I trying to keep things from myself? Am I avoiding am I knowing things deep down that I don't want to admit because of all the reasons that we don't want to admit? You know, how we feel or what the truth is about a situation or you know what's really going on at work or what's really going on in my home or in a friendship or any other relationship. So it's the honesty piece. ⁓ and then with that And this this is hand in hand with honesty, but it's really looking at sort of the areas where you find friction in your life, whether it's emotional pain, struggle in a certain relationship, patterns that emerge with a person or a situation over and over again, or just a general unease and restlessness and frustration ⁓ that you experience and figuring out what in that situation is in your control and what is not in your control and taking responsibility for what you can control. And you know, I said that just now in a few words, but that's like that's major work. And if you just take one relationship, right? Say you have a relationship at work that is just brutal, right? Or let's just say not even a relationship, a situation, a a climate at work that is

just brutal. You're sort of perpetually frustrated. you feel stuck, but you don't know how to find your way through it. You feel like maybe your boss is against you or you know, there's some forces working against you that feel both ambiguous And specific d depending on the day, you know, some days you might be like, it's this person or it's this project. But what you've noticed over time is that it's just a sustaining unhappiness, a sustaining unease ⁓ and dissatisfaction with work. And some people's tendency is to blame outside factors, some people's tendency is to constantly blame themselves, sometimes it's a combination of the two. But what sobriety, like the work of sobriety is to really pull back and and through help with others and sort of self examination, ⁓ to see what the pattern is and how you are participating in that pattern. Right. And it's really hard to do. It's hard. It takes humility, takes a lot of honesty, sometimes takes admitting things that you don't want to admit about how you are participating. ⁓ Or that you're contributing to your own unhappiness. I mean that those two things alone, right there, getting more honest with yourself and others and looking at patterns in your life where there's ⁓ the where where there's suffering of some kind and figuring out what your part is, the work can sort of be summarized into those two things, as far as I'm concerned. And everything comes from that. speaker-0: I I a hundred percent agree. with like I'm gonna I'm gonna maybe drop this into a two by two matrix like a good NBA grad should do. So I l I love both of those pieces. The second one in particular, I have something I I say a lot around the luckiest club community. Resistance is an invitation. And I think within that second bucket where you're looking at Tension and discomfort is to notice the moments of resistance. Like, I don't want to go to this meeting. I don't want to tell my significant other that I'm thinking about not drinking anymore. I don't want to give this feedback to my colleague at work. I don't want, I don't want to get out of bed and go for a run this morning. Like in those moments where we experience resistance, I love the way you talk about like those are the invitation to get. Honest about what's happening inside. What are you afraid of? What are the stories that you tell yourself? If you mention it to a partner, are you afraid that it might change your relationship? Or are you afraid they're gonna be like, cool, let's do this? Like you're gonna suddenly have to commit. Like the answer is different in those, but in those answers, there's some rich information about what's happening inside of yourself. And if you're willing to pull that out and work with it. I think that's awesome. And I think that's an important part of the work. The the dimension I'll add to those is I think there is a limit to how much of that honest with yourself and how much of that tension resistance you can genuinely do alone. And so the

there's a layer of how are you doing this with other people? That connection piece I think is an important part of the work. So yes, honest with yourself and also either honest with others or honest publicly, you know, that might look like going to a meeting and saying, I I'm really struggling today. You know, I'm getting ready to go on a work trip. I have 10 days sober, and I am really struggling to think about getting through an airport and staying sober do it. So I'm bringing it here today. That's that I'm being honest with myself, but I'm putting it out into a community to be witnessed. to be understood and maybe to some degree to be resourced as folks have ideas to bring that forward. And then the same with that tension and resistance, the ability to go to a meeting and say, like, I didn't want to share today. I have some shame about what I'm about to put forward or I feel so alone in what I'm about to share. And I'm gonna choose to use my voice today to say, like, this is this is going to eat me from the inside out if I don't. Bring it forward if I don't put it down. And then to be held, to be supported, to have other people say, Hey, you're not alone. There's some power in that too. So the work I think has to be internal, but the work also depends on you doing this in community with with one other person or with a collection of people. But to bring that forward so that you know you're not alone, so you can get some extra perspective, so you can be encouraged, supported, shown compassion. I think that that falls in those categories but maybe is a different container for it. Does that make sense? speaker-1: One hundred percent. I think you you you know, we can't because ⁓ you we also just have blind spots. Like it's it's near impossible. So much of what we do to create our own suffering is unconscious to us. We don't know the we we can't see it without the help of others, whether it's a therapist or friends or a community or whatever, reflecting back to us, like, hey, I've noticed that this happen when this happens, you have this reaction or Just engaging in conversation that's revealing and generative and sh and shows reveals to us our our patterns, right? We we can't always get there. I I don't think we can even often get there on our own. I certainly can't. And so yeah, we absolutely do need to do it in community. And as you were talking, I was thinking, you know, it sounds so simple and so trite almost. Just like be honest. Become aware of your contribution to your pattern of suffering. But my God, that's a that's all ⁓ of life. Like that you're really uncovering every trauma you've had, every repressed emotion, every difficulty in relationship, every fear you have, every wound. It takes it's it's ongoing forever and ever. But the reason That you have to do the work in sobrieties because those are the reasons you drink to begin with. There's the drinking and the the physical addiction and all the the all the all of that is true. And if there's a genetic component and yada yada. But underneath is almost always emotional pain, ⁓ trying to escape oneself, right? Or one's circumstances. And that's why we have to do the work because Once you take away the alcohol, as we've said on this podcast and elsewhere n a a million times, once you take away the alcohol or the whatever, you're just left with that, without any buffer, without any medication. You're just you're raw dogging it. And it's too much. It's too hard. So that's what yeah, that's what doing the work is. And it starts small, you know. I mean it starts it's baby steps, especially the telling the truth part. ⁓ I learned by watching other people at first, just going to meetings and seeing other people just s say things that I could not believe they were saying out loud. and sort of watching them and watching them not implode, not like vaporize into flames of shame and wanting that freedom, you know, that they had to speak like that. And then, you know, it slowly builds and and you learn. But yeah, it's It's that. And and underneath all those things are resentments and you know, hiding of figuring out the parts of yourself that you're hiding and you know, there's layers and layers, but I do think it starts with those two things. speaker-0: Yeah, I agree. I'm glad that you said the part about sort of baby steps. You know, I think that's 'cause what I don't want anybody to walk away with is like, okay, I gotta go and tell everybody in my life exactly what I think about Like, there's the honesty piece. Okay. No, no. These are this the work here is about like uncovering the clues and uncovering the source of some of the pain and discomfort and disorientation that we feel, the to notice the resistance and the reasons behind that. And then to just just slowly move through those. ⁓ in the sober steady, we have a tool called the Courage Ladder. And it it's a simple tool that basically says like what's the next most comfort comfortable action I could take and a great example, like like being honest with yourself might sound like there's somebody in my life that I can't stand, and also somehow can't stand to be without. And that is and I I mean that's like 30% of the what we hear. Like there's somebody it could be a friend, it could be a a sibling, it could be a significant other. I can't stand them, and I somehow can't stand to be without them. And that tension has me stuck and I don't know what to do. And what I what you said that I love is like. Go to a meeting and listen. Because I know that might be the most common human adult problem that they are trying to work through, at least in sobriety communities, is how to navigate these relationships that you can't stand and can't stand to be without. So go listen. That notice that other people are struggling with that. Notice how they're talking about it. Notice how people who've sort of just admitted this are beginning to work with it. And notice how those who've manage to get to the

other side of it, feel about it. The relief or the vic the victory, the celebration, the like freedom that we talk a lot about. Go listen. Hear these stories. Recognize you're not alone. And then the next right action might be to get your hand up in that community and say, Well, I'm going through that too. And this is actually really powerful to hear other people. I don't know what I'm going to do, but I this is the first time I've admitted it. So There's something in that. And then sit with what it feels like to put that out into the world and notice. So it's it's this honesty and this navigating this tension. And then it's what's the next action I can stand to work with this? You know, step by step, bird by bird, use your metaphor. ⁓ and and if you don't have a place, a sobriety meeting is a great place to do that because folks have heard it all. I promise you've heard it all. Yeah. And and I promise you there's understanding and nonjudgment in these places because we've seen it and we've heard it. So this might be the place to come listen. This might be the place to share about it. Right? Those little actions, that's the work to move through it. Right. Yeah. Sounds so simple yet. speaker-1: Beautifully put. Sounds so simple, yet twelve years later, still doing it. ⁓ but it does get better. It gets better because you get more resilient. You get better at identifying your patterns. I mean, so much of this is just revealing what is unconscious into consciousness so that you can actually work with it instead of it being this big scary nebulous monster that lives inside you called fear or shame. Right. It gives it a name, it gives it ⁓ a a shape, it gives you an understanding of potentially how you could begin to work through something. And then piece by piece your your life starts to be something that you can live in more comfortably, more honestly, more at peace with who you are and who the people around you are. ⁓ that's my experience anyway. I agree. And the the the cool and uncool thing is that it ⁓ sobriety my friend Veronica always says like sobriety everyone has to do this work or everyone should do this work, but sobriety sort of forces people who experience addiction are forced into it because they can't afford to be in that much emotional pain. We're d or where we have a level of desperation that other people don't have because of that. And it sucks. because we're forced to do this work and it's also beautiful because we're forced to do this work. speaker-0: A hundred percent. I'll love that. And I'll just say as as we kind of wrap things up for the person who submitted this and also anybody out there who's looking for a list. Unfortunately there's no list. And I wouldn't trust ⁓ like a coach or community that says, you know, here's your list or like ninety days and you'll be free if you follow these easy, simple call ⁓ what you will, list, steps, tasks. it it doesn't work that way. It's messy. There's a lot of ambiguity, there's a lot of uncertainty, there's a lot of repetition, there's a lot of learning from failure, and it can be done. Like you can do it. But probably not alone, as we say a lot too. So I think that's what it looks like, you know, for better or for worse. Well, I would just say for better. The lit ⁓ true story. speaker-1: Let's do us part. speaker-0: But I love this. Th these are, you know, if you have questions like this on your mind, I will tell you I what I've learned in sobriety is there really is no such thing as a simple question. ⁓ and also you're not the only one who has it. So if there's something on your mind as it relates to getting and staying sober, we would love to hear it. Send it to us. You can follow the Luckiest Club, who is the the force behind the Deer Vernon podcast, on Instagram, Facebook. ⁓ you can follow us website, theluckiestclub.com. ⁓ we've got some great resources out there. We'd love for you to be part of the community. You can join us at community at the Luckiest Club dot com. We've got a seven day free trial and lots of places to submit questions and meetings you can join. ⁓ and we'd love to see you around. So keep ⁓ coming. This is always fun for us to do. So thanks y'all. speaker-1: Thanks. speaker-0: Thank you for listening to this episode of Dear Vernon, a sobriety support podcast brought to you by the team at the Luckiest Club. If you or someone you know needs support, connection, or accountability to help make sobriety stick, check us out at the Luckiest Club. You can find all the information you need on our community and our programs at theluckiestclub.com. Thank you for listening.