Episode 02 - What Is Shame? Baby Don't Hurt Me...

Have you ever looked up the definition of "Shame"? What does that word mean to you? Have you felt overwhelming shame when trying to get sober? We explore all these questions and more in today's episode!

Show Notes From The Hosts:
In this podcast episode Taylor and Eric explore the meaning of Shame and how the definitions of words like ashamed, disgraceful, immoral, humiliating and embarrassing, can actually help someone who is exploring the world of sobriety and recovery from their addition.
As they get into their discussion on the word shameful, Taylor uses definitions from the "University of Google" to start the discussion. Their discussion revolves around how the word "shame" has shown up in their own journey's.
Situational Perspective allows us the clear our minds of shame as we continue this road of recovery. Playing the "victim card" allowed us to manipulate people during our active addiction.
Our perspective broadens as we move into our sobriety.  We are not victims anymore.  We need to face our shame.  Eric brings into the conversation the idea of our intellect working against us when we are trying to deal with our shame. Joy and Neuro Science creates awareness in how we deal with shame,
Definition of Ashamed and how that fits in our early days of recovery. To be humbled or humiliated, through shame is a fine line.
Own your shame, it is your responsibility. Realization of our shame allows us the heal.
We have the power to change how we look at our trauma and shame.
Unforgivable changes to forgivable in recovery. We forgive others as well as allow other to forgive us. 
Painting our shame in different colors allow us to forgive our shame and move on.
What do I have control over? You can only "fix" the things you have control over.
I am not my thoughts and I don't need to take responsibility for all that goes through my mind.
Have a conversation with someone about what this topic means to you.
We can be as shameful as we want to be.

Host's and Show Social Media
sobershameless@gmail.com
IG: @sobernshameless
Tiktok @sobernshameless
buymeacoffee.com
klingercrafted
ericandrewcoaching12@gmail.com
IG: @e_acoach
Tiktok @ericandrewcoaching
FB: Eric Andrew Coaching
Eric's website:ericandrewcoaching.com

Episode Links:
merriam-webster.com
Laura McKowen, Author, Podcaster and Founder of the Luckiest Club @laura_mckowen

Transcript

 Sober and Shameless, episode two.

Hey everybody. Welcome to the show. I'm Taylor Klinger. And I'm Eric. Andrew. And this is Sober and Shameless shedding the Shame, the podcast that flips the script on what it means to live a sober life in each episode of Sober and Shame. The host, along with the occasional guests, will pick a topic to shed their shame about, explore ideas on how to grow through those challenges and provide organic, lighthearted, honest, and unprofessional commentary about their experiences with addiction, strength through recovery and life and sobriety.

It's actually really good to be here with you again, man. I think episode one was a great teaser into our style of podcasting and I'm really looking forward to what we want to talk about on episode two. How are you Eric? What's up? What? How I'm doing, buddy? I'm doing great, man. And and I would just put in there unprofessional because, oh shit, by God, we are not professional doctors or anything weird as.

What'd you call us one time? Two drunks. Two drunks on a bus, two drunks on a bus? Uh, yeah. I've been called worse than a professional doctor. Oh. I've been called a lot worse . So, but that's all right. So I hope we're, we're on a Sunday night here. I I hope you had a good weekend. I, um, I actually went to a New York Giants football game today.

Really? Yes, I have, uh, well, I'm getting ready to get rid of them, but I have seasoned tickets to the Giants. You're trying, you're trying to get rid of the. Yeah, we've had 'em, uh, I, I've had them with uh, uh, my ex-wife for how long have we had 'em for? Almost 18 years or whatever. Oh, the season tickets. The season tickets.

Actually literally trying to actively get rid of the Giants , I missed that. And you were trying to be funny and I missed that, so that was that hilarious. I watched to go over your head. Actually, it went just right over. Well, I am short, so sometimes those things do happen to me. I'm sorry man. What? It's, go ahead.

Go. No, that's fine. No, no. Uh, we, so we're not trying to get rid of the giants. We're trying to get rid of the giant tickets, the season tickets, and, uh, and that's gonna be for this next season. So this was our kind of final hurrah, so to speak. I haven't been to a game in a while, so I wanted to go to one more game and it was freaking cold.

Where were, where are your tickets at? Like what, what seats? Oh, man. We are in, uh, we are, 50 yard line, but we're all the way at the top. We're the second road to the top. Okay. So I can see the whole game, but it is cold up there. Dude, I have never ever been to that side of the United States. Well, that's not true.

I've, I've been to that side of the United States. I've been towards the East Coast, but I've never been anywhere near New York at all whatsoever. It's still one of those like places that I only know about through 1980s. Movie. Like home alone. Yeah. Like that's, yeah. Which by the way, that house is obnoxiously big and I really want to know how much that mortgage was.

Yes. And this is how I know I'm getting older, is I the first time, actually, somebody posted on Facebook the other day, a friend of mine, she was like, why is it that all I think about is how much their mortgage was  . I was like, because you're in your thirties now, and that's what we do. . Right, exactly. We, we start to, uh, actually become adults at some point.

I honestly, it took me till of my fifties to become an adult, but that's all right. Uh, I always say, well, I'm, I'm still working on it. And honestly, what was it? There's this one thing that I listened to many years ago, but it was like, I know some of the most interesting people in the world don't have a clue about what they wanna do in their fifties.

And some of the most boring people I know are in their. You know, so it really, it doesn't matter where you are, it just is what it is. And well, exactly. And I'm about to segue, I hope you like the way I segue this, but I know what I wanna do in my fifties, my in my fifties. I want to be shameless. I don't want to have shame anymore.

I'm gonna ditch the shame. That was a terrible segue. It was . It sounded a hell of a lot better in my head,  because the guys in my head are, are a bunch of like clowns and monkeys and they like everything so. I mean, as long as they clap, I think it's okay. . I, but actually I have the monkey that has the little, you know, I just have to put a battery in in him and, and I think he's like forming

Well, dude, honestly though, I mean, I, I really like, uh, the name that we ended up going with because it just will always be something that comes back over and over again. You know, it's, it's, honestly, it's a pedestal that we'll probably never achieve, but I think it's a good goal to have.  And like, before we get into like the topic a little bit, I'm, uh, I'm gonna tell you how my weekend was cuz thanks for asking Ashley.

Oh yeah, . Um, Hey Taylor. How was your weekend man? Oh, no, no, it's okay. You know what? It actually, it was fine. It was fine. I got nothing to report. Isn't that a phrase that we like to use all the time? You know what fine stands for? Freaked out, insecure and neurotic and emotional, but, and which part are you today?

Ero? Ooh, I'm ero. How do you spell fine?

I'm fine with an, with an erotic . Wait, uh, listen, it's, it's Sunday night and I'm really tired, so it's a big erotic. You get what you're gonna get. And you don't throw a fit? No, actually I was putting up Christmas lights and I have to shamefully report that I have invested probably nine, 10 hours and one fight with my wife So far,

And I thought that this was going to go a lot quicker than it has been going, and I've had to use a lot of my recovery tools while I've gone through this process. Uh, many breaths have been. Stringing lights. The lights don't give a shit about who you are. , they will make you a tangled mess mentally and physically.

And it's been a practice, but I think I'm almost there. I have just Santa's runway to finish, which is a big deal to me because my dad and I used to make that when I was a little kid. And now that I'm a homeowner and you know, That a word asshole. No adult . One of my big things that I've always wanted to do was like, recreate that runway that my dad and I used to make on a roof.

And so I'm, I'm doing it more or less for me than anybody else. . Uh, but I have everything up except for the runway. But I'm gonna, actually, it's actually kind of cool though. I'm gonna use my solar panels as the runway. Not actually, but like the lights are gonna go on the top and the bottom of it, and so it just, Yeah, I, I don't know.

That's cool. In my brain, it sounds cool. So I don't know if it'll actually look. Do you have the same monkeys in your brain that I have? Uh, I think so. I Well, are they in the same circus? ? No. Is this a traveling circus? Well then it is traveling between you and I over lots of miles.  for sure. Uh, Anyways. Yeah, so that was more or less my weekend.

I, you know, did that we actually had a new tenant move into our basement because for those that don't know, I live out here in Colorado, and if you don't have at least five tenants, uh, you're not gonna be able to survive in Denver, or at least afford Denver in any way, shape or form. But yeah. I was super glad to get him all settled in and squared away as well.

Other than that, yeah, the wake was pretty good. Nothing too crazy. Nice. I did actually do some research, which I think would be a good thing to talk about today, and I know you kind of already brought it up. So here's my segue. Are you ready? All right. Okay. I'm ready.

So I did some research on the word shameful. See, see, see? Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. Did you like that segue? I do. I did. Yeah. It was really smooth. It was good. It was quiet. Yeah, it was very smooth. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So you can think you know something until you actually look up the definitions of words. Right. I.

Certain words and phrases all the time, and then never ask any questions about them or what they actually mean. And I thought, you know, it might be a good thing that we now have this podcast with the name Shameless. We might wanna actually know what shame is. That would probably be a good start. That would be great.

I looked it up and. Shamed full. The definition, uh, per, uh, the University of Google says, worthy of or causing shame or disgrace, worthy of or causing shame or disgrace. And it's an adjective. And synonyms are disgraceful. Dishonorable, mean, unworthy, immoral, unforgivable, humiliating, embarrass. Indefensible and those were just a few.

So wait, but I wanna talk about Yeah, no, go ahead. Like what are your thoughts, man? Well, I, so, so shameful is you are doing the action then you are caus uh, least according to the definition you are causing the shame or the disgrace is that, well, if, if somebody says to you, you should be shameful. What they're implying is that, The action that they're observing should have caused shame or disgrace to you.

Whether or not you, yourself feel it is something that might happen immediately or 20 years later. And I know that in early sobriety, my shame hit me 20 years later because then you're sober and clear and then guess what starts to knock on your door. Literally all the shame that you should have felt right in certain moments, but didn't feel because you had.

Drunk goggles on and they were able to cover it up the feelings that you were trying to suppress, and now I am. In early recovery feeling all of these things, and I can't define them well, maybe literally looking up definitions for words like shameful might actually help us define some of these feelings that we're having, especially for people who are in early recovery.

I don't know, like, well, yeah. Does that make sense? Yeah, it does. It makes a lot of sense. I mean, it, it brought up a lot of thoughts for me, uh, in, in all of it. One, one thought that came to my mind. The concept of perspec perspective. If so, for instance, back to the definition, if somebody said, you should be shameful for that action that you just did because it was disgraceful or it was mean, or whatever it might be, it is that a true.

Definition of what happened or is that that person's perspective of what happened? So where's the balance? When is the balance of Yes. You know, I, I, I have the shame that I need to deal with these things of the way that I've handled stuff. And then the other part of the balance is when do I shed somebody's perspective of me having.

That I should be shameful for something. Now, this is coming from a people pleaser and somebody who is a co-dependent, so I'm kind of looking at this from a different perspective as well. And I'm not saying, I'm just saying is, is that part of it? Is that something we, we should be looking at? I think it's all encompassing.

Like I, I felt everything that you just said, I agree. I think that there was a moment where I may have, may or may not have been under the, I. Of something or other  where I had this idea, you know what those are . And I said to a friend, I remember I was at this party and this perspective hit me and the reason why it hit me was because, and I could be going on way too much of a tangent here, but it was more or less getting to the point of a phrase that I'm about to say.

I went to the gas station with him to pick up beer. Uh, we drove there. We got a phone call from somebody who was back at the party and I picked up the phone to someone saying, Hey, Brandon's dead. Now Brandon is somebody that I met one time, but I liked him. He was a good dude. So the way it hit me was very general sadness, I guess you could say.

But I knew I then had to hand the phone to my friend who grew up with him. Mm-hmm. , and to witness all of.  and the sadness and the genuine pain and suffering that occurred on top of the substances, which amplified everything, right? I had to embrace him and hold him and. Cry with him during those moments and later in the night after, things had kind of calmed down and party picked back up and the vibe was good again.

I had this idea and the idea was, prote perspective is situational not reality. Mm-hmm. , and it sounded like it was so mind blowing to me at the time. Like, I came up with this, I coined it, but no, it's not really a. Foreign thought, it's, I still think quite relevant. I had it based off of traumatic event for my friend, not necessarily for me, but it has stuck with me over the years and I think it's relevant to the conversation we're having right now is, yeah, when you go through these changes and your perspective starts to change because it is no longer cloud.

By substances. Then when you reflect back, you are having to recategorize and re-log all of your memories and decide in those moments with a clear mind what actually was and what was a skewed perspective. So perspective is situational, yes. Not reality and the situation. That changed was your sobriety and no longer use of the substance.

Now, You have choices Once that happens, once you recategorize those things, whether it be trauma from your past or a memory that is kind of nonchalant from your viewpoint, are you going to paint it in a pretty blue vibrant color or are you going to choose to make it gray and hold onto it and continue to have shame over?

Now, these are all choices that we make, and I think if you're on the journey of recovery, the only thing you can ever hope for is progress, not perfection, because there are some things that I will still, no matter how hard I try to use that tool that I just talked about, it doesn't work. But the fact that I'm willing to one day hope that it does work, makes me still wanna stay at the table and keep my hand.

You know, know that I'm not outta chips yet. For some reasoning, I decided to make a poker reference. , listen, everything you said, I, I love, and again, brought up some thoughts on my end, and I love the idea of situational perspective. I, I think that that is right on the money. And I also think that what, how shameful, at least for me, for this drunk.

Uh, what, how it works for me is as I can now view everybody in that moment versus just myself. Cuz as we know, you know, when we're in the midst of that beast of whatever, whatever our addictive, uh, beast is, we tend to only focus on ourselves and we tend to only see it from our perspective. Mm-hmm. , which is a lot of.

Being playing the victim card, you know, they're doing this to me or this is happening to me, or I'm feeling this because of that, or whatever it might be. So we're always outside ourselves. So that perspective, that situational perspective is everybody else is the enemy and I'm. , the, the poor soul that's getting, you know, I see everything and they don't see anything.

It's kind of what's happening there. I miss being the victim. Th they're so easy, right? Oh man. It's so easy. Yeah. Because you can point your finger and feel justified, you know? Oh yeah. If there's not one more thing true, it's that me as an alcoholic and others that are like, We're a bunch of fucking winers and it's great.

Yeah, I agree. Or a bunch of complainers, but yeah. Sorry, go ahead. No, I, I think, I think that that is true and I, and I think that we tend to, hopefully what's happening as we go through recovery is we start to recognize which whining is actually needed and which whining has been a real, has been more of a manipulation.

Because I always looked at the whining or the poor me stuff and all that as a manipulation tool to get what I wanted, to get the message that I wanted. You know, I think to my early days when I was starting to try to figure out do I really wanna quit drinking? I would look to people and go, do you really think I have a drinking problem?

I mean, you know, we drank together. Do you really think I have a drinking problem? I already knew that by saying it that way, that I was putting that person in that position of like, well, if I say he has a drinking problem, then I must include myself in that because he just said we drank together. That's, see what I'm saying?

Interesting. That's, that's an, Hey, we are powerful manipulators, man. Like that. Yeah, and that's, that's an interesting way to frame it, but you get that perspective that you're talking about right now through reflect. Right, and the reflection can only really occur from a genuine standpoint when you've actually been away from the substance for X amount of time.

Now, it can be instantaneous for some people, I've seen it work real quick for a select few, but the majority of the time it takes multiple times, multiple attempts. And once they do, then they could just be dry drunks for 3, 4, 5 years, you know? And they're not seeing the progress that other people around them are seeing.

And it's all. You know, a willingness to do something. . You know, I think I had said this before, and I'll say it again. You know, if you wanna quit drinking, go punch a cop, because then you'll throw you in a pin for three months and guess what? You won't drink. Will you survive? Yeah, you'll be all right. But if you wanna get sober and you want to change your perspective, then you want to have a better life and, right.

You don't want to keep reliving the same messed up thoughts, right? You don't wanna keep reliving all of the trauma that you. So much time and energy running away from, but the only way to actually do that is to face all of it. And that includes that shamefulness. All of those times that you were disgraceful, dishonorable, mean, unworthy, immoral, immoral hit me.

Immoral hit me hard cuz I never thought I could ever cheat. I never thought I was capable of cheating on somebody. And I did. And it is something that I look back on and even now it still makes me get the. , do you have those right where you like, remember something from your past and you literally shutter you like, ugh.

I, well, it, it affects me a little differently than that, but, but similar, you know, in the idea, and I  and I have to, um, I, I have to be careful of that kind of stuff because, you know, one of the things that in, in my recovery that I have to work on in healing along with everything else is this. Idea of perfectionism and the idea of codependency, which means, at least for me, that I take on everybody's shit.

You know? Like I'm gonna let you blame me for everything when things fall apart. And I'm gonna find a way to agree with you on that. So I was thinking too with the shameful cuz cuz I do feel like it's a process that takes time. In recovery to deal with. Uh, but I also think, and, and this is a little thought I had and I mentioned this to somebody at one time, but I feel like when we use our intellect then being shameful can't happen because our intellect will intellectualize us out of it being our fault.

When we let the intellect go and we react through our emotional being, that's when we can accept that we and, and be shameful and we can look at. Where we've been mean or where we've been unworthy, or where we've been immoral or unforgivable and realize in our own being, wow, I've gotta change that.

That's not who I wanna be. That's not who I thought I was. But our intellect will drive us away from that. So I guess what do you mean by intellect? Like and in what way are you using the word intellect? That I'm a little lost on? Well, intellect for me means, so when I look at it in terms of sobriety, right?

Intellect is, Oh, you know, I read this book by Alan Carr and it talked about what alcohol does to your brain. Wow. I really understand that now, and how it affects the liver. And I get that now. That makes a lot of sense. And oh, you know, this idea of connection, you know, that's so important. You're right that being connected to people is super important to, to, you know, getting yourself outta everything because you get outta your own head.

So, so they can talk in platitudes about, , you know? But then when they actually have to apply it to themselves, which is the emotional part of their brain, they're struggling to do that because our emotional side of our brain, there's this whole study on joy and the neuroscience part of the brain, right?

And so you have the left side of the brain, which is your intellect picks things up a lot quicker, you know? So we learned things quicker. Think about. , you know, math class, like the teacher teaches you a math problem and, and you learn it. You go, oh, that, yeah, that's where I got stopped. But one, one plus one.

And you go, oh, that makes sense. I got it. And now you gotta apply it to your life. And you have no idea how to do that because your life doesn't really live in the intellectual world. Your life lives in the emotional world. Well, how do you apply this knowledge into your emotional being? That's what doing.

Yeah, that's the truth. It goes back to the, that, you know, adage of knowledge first, wisdom, right? You can have all the knowledge in the world, but without application it doesn't mean anything. Right? And so wisdom is doing that thing. I almost feel like what I'm understanding from what you're saying is awareness, drawing awareness.

Mm-hmm. .  to yourself, your actions and your understanding of what occurred. And then once you realize that shame is where you are, you're no longer in shame because you're aware. And shame can't live in awareness in a sense, because you wouldn't really be doing it, I guess. And this is just a thought, uh, you wouldn't really be doing it if it was brought to your attention.

Uh, you'd want to change it, or at least I feel like for the general. Public or Taylor, I would not want to continue to do that thing if it was brought to my attention. It's like if somebody were to said to me when I was cheating, Taylor, you are cheating. That's bad. I'd be like, shut the fuck up. And then I would, I would say, shut up.

Because I didn't want to feel guilty. Right.

So when I looked up the definition of ashamed, which varies, that was a great segue by the. Thank you. I like that it said embarrassed or guilty because of one's actions, characteristics, or associations who we are around reluctant to do something through fear of embarrassment or humiliation. Now in shameful it said humiliating and embarrassing.

I really like the words embarrass. And humiliation because it's where a lot of us go, especially at the beginning of this journey. It's what hits first. Once you have cleared the fog for five minutes and world starts to continue on around you, and no one actually really gives a shit that you're sober except for the people.

Truly love you, but at the end of the day, the world's still gonna go on. And you know, it's not that big of a deal. And once you realize that, you're kinda like, oh, well this sucks. Now I actually have to do stuff. But facing in that, sorry for that, that was a weird tangent. Um, it's embarrassment and humiliation.

To be humble or humiliated is a very thin line on this journey because I spent a lot of time in early recovery getting humbled. Realities that hit me about what actually occurred on things, but had to really try hard to not be humiliated by them and ashamed of them while I thought about them. And then the embarrassment during the thinking of the memory would make me s shutter and the guilt would just fill me up and keep me up at night.

It would let. Close my eyes, but not fall asleep. What's interesting about what you said is I can come from the complete opposite end of what shameful meant for me because shameful. The idea of, of shamefulness in what I really, truly needed to be shameful for. I came into recovery being shameful for, uh, about everything.

I took the blame for everything. It was always my fault about what every, you know, and people would say that to me, or, or I would, uh, not, they wouldn't come out and say that to me, but I would take it on. And what I had to learn in recovery was that not all of it is on. , but the part that is on you, you need to own responsibility, right?

My responsibility, the the responsibility. Like I, I love in Laura McAllen's nine things, the first two things that she and Laura McAllen writes books and she has her own group and all of this other stuff, and in the nine things it says, you know, it talks about addiction. It says it is not your fault, but number two, it is your responsibility.

I love that and I've heard it too, and I didn't know who said it or. You know, whatever. But I, I love that phrase. It is so spot on. It is not my fault. But once you're aware, it is your damn responsibility. Absolutely. Absolutely. And to me, that little phrase takes away this concept of pointing a finger at everybody else.

You know, oh, well, it's not my fault. Good, then I'll just blame everybody else and I'll keep drinking. No, no, no. You don't get to do that. It's not your fault, but guess what? It is your responsibility to clean up your mess, you know, and, and clean yourself up. And you gotta, no one else can fix it. And that's the biggest thing is that acceptance.

Right? Which is the shameful right in the middle of that, when I accept that I have a drinking problem, the first thing that comes to my mind in the early days was, and I'm ashamed. I'm ashamed that I have this, that I'm ashamed that I can't do this. And at first, that kind of rocks your world, but then when you realize you're there and you're recognizing a reality, your own reality, That's when then you can start to fix it and when you can start working on it.

And I truly believe that people in recovery are really great with that because the realization of that shame opens the door to everything else because the best connections in the world are in recovery because we're also , we, we've all told our story and if, if you can tell that shameful story in public, then you can basically be an open.

Well, and it depends on how you decide to paint it. It was something that I started saying when I first got sober on. While we look back at our past, maybe try viewing it as a canvas.  and yeah, the picture's already there, but it doesn't have any color, and you can choose to remember those things in color.

Mm-hmm. , you can choose to remember 'em in black and white and that's great. It's a choice that we still have. Luckily enough, the past is set in stone. Man, those rocks are fucking there. They're there, right? They are. They're not going anywhere. Right. And the only person that has the power to make them do anything is the person that had those memories.

You absolutely, absolutely. But I can pick up a paintbrush and I can fucking paint 'em any color I want. And it's just a way to deal with trauma and deal with the past. And there's a lot of shit back there, man. Yeah. And it is not fucking pretty. What do I have? What are my. You know, it's like while you look at your shame, while you look.

all of the things that just were disgraceful. Right. Well, and that takes me, I I, I'm sorry to interrupt, but I, I think that what you're saying makes a lot of sense to this other word that you have up there. Uh, the word of unforgivable, and I truly believe that word is when you are in recovery and when you are starting to become healthy, unforgivable changes to forgivable that you can forgive yourself.

You can forget. I mean, the first step is you gotta forgive yourself, right? We, we, we all have to do that. And that's a work in progress. That's not a one. You know, I know people like to box everything up, right? Like, okay, well here's this thing. This is what you do. You do that, and now you can move on and do something else.

And I think some of this is a work in progress, which we always say that we're works in progress and it's about progress. It's progress, not perfection. So a baby step forward is a baby step forward. Cool. That's what we want. So, but to get to the place where we can be forgivable, and what I mean by that is that we can forgive ourselves.

We, for we forgive others, and we allow others to forgive us because I, I think there's a many times in my. Where prior to recovery, where I would rather sit in the shit. So I want you to be mad at me because then I can sit in the shit, you know? I think when you go into recovery, you can't sit in the shit anymore.

And it goes to your painting of the picture. As you forgive these moments in your life, are you going to color them and make them these big things that are gonna just sit there in your brain? Or are you going to forgive them in black and white and let them kind of fade into the background? Well, and I think what I mean by color them is that is the forgiveness.

That is you forgiving yourself for them. Uh, when you do paint them a new color. It's a choice that I've made on some of the things that I've felt shame for in my past because ultimately, It goes to regret too, right? Do I regret these things that occurred? And, uh, while I did regret a lot of things, I don't regret many of those things anymore, and it's because I spent the time necessary to do the work on getting to a place to where I can paint that picture and see the value and the lessons learned from those things that I used to think were the reason why there is.

Purpose to this. The reason why, using those things as proof that I wasn't worthy, proof that I was less than and proof that I was undeserving. But while I felt those things during those times in hindsight with the tools I've been provided in recovery, can now paint that scene into a new, beautiful canvas.

I can see the diamond in the rough. I can see the silver lining through the chaos that ensued from whatever bad memory happened. And I think that's relatable for a lot of people, especially in the world of recovery. And you know, in 12 step programs, there's a very specific process that gets you to those places, but it's also achievable in other ways as well, that I think a lot of people are just screaming the same language.

I just looked up what the opposite of shame was, and it says admirable, honorable Lable. Praiseworthy. Mm-hmm. , the only one that sticks out to me is kind of praiseworthy, praiseworthy that I got through it. Um, yes. I wouldn't say admirable, but praiseworthy. I like praiseworthy. I understand. I, I am proud and I think I praise myself for deciding.

to grow. Yes. In the face of adversity. Yes. And if there's anything that could be said about people who suffer from addiction, it's that we are relentless and we can take a punch and come back swinging. But the difference is I'm not swinging at people anymore. , right? I'm swinging at life. I'm saying, no, I'm not gonna back down.

I am gonna do something.  and I am going to choose another path. It's gonna be hard, but it's gonna be less hard than the other way. Or maybe a different kind of hard. And I know you know where I'm going with that. I think, uh, it's that other podcast show she talks about, you know, you gotta choose your hard, do you know who I'm talking about?

Glennon Doyle. Oh, Glennon Doyle. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We can do hard. Yes, yes. We, we gotta pick, we gotta pick our hard, you know, and that's, I think, something from, uh, what she has said and I couldn't agree more with that. And it's, it's all gonna be fucking hard, you know, I don't get sober cuz it's hard. Well, guess what?

Getting drunk is still hard. Right. You know, it's just familiar and it's easier to stay in the familiar, even if it hurts you. It's comforting because it's easy to know, you know, what the repercussions are for your actions, whether or not you like them. They're familiar and it's like a. . It's something you can cozy up into, right?

And shame is something that is just a nature of the beast. And so fuck it. Why not just continue down that road? People already know me for being that person anyways. I'm not really caring about it because I'm still drunk. So who gives a shit that all mentality? That's not what the soul wants. The soul wants something different.

The soul wants to matter and provide and be a part of and feel connected.  and I think connection is a, a, a subject that we might talk about next week. Speaking about that one thing though that I kind of wanna talk about, that's actually on this page that I have pulled up right now for synonyms, for ashamed.

This was a weird one. Can you see what that says? It's such a weird one. Conscious stricken. Yeah. Yeah. Think about that phrasing for ashamed. You are conscious stricken, and I was. When I read the word conscious stricken out of this context, would you have landed on a synonym for ashamed? Like, to me, conscious, right?

Like so aware of maybe I, you know, I'm not, I, I'm not, I would, I mean, maybe I wouldn't come up with that phrase or that word, but to me it makes sense and, and again, I'm going back to, I. I think it's great, but I think that it goes back to when you are tying in the, the idea of, you know, people pleasing and all of that, you are too conscious stricken, and you are taking on everything and thinking about everything and thinking it out and going, your glass okay?

Yeah, your glass has been shattered. Yes. Like you're now aware, right? You're a conscious stricken. You can't unconscious  anymore. Well, no. No. Right, right. But what I'm saying is that sometimes, you know, and this goes back to me saying that my approach to all of this came from a different place. I had to learn how to temper the shamefulness because I was shameful for everything that was happening around me.

If it didn't work, it didn't work because it was my. Whether it was a relationship, whether it was a job, whether it was just friends, whether it was, whatever it was, you know, I had a fight with the person at the grocery store at the Chaka counter. That was all me. That was all on me and, and I would take the blame for all of it.

And so when I look at conscious stricken, I think part of conscious stricken is thinking sometimes almost thinking too much. You know, thinking too much about what you're shameful about. My whole approach to Shamefulness with that was I needed to learn what I actually needed to be shameful for and what I needed to let go of.

So I needed to pull back on being conscious, stricken about everything and just realize there's certain things, the things I have control over. And that's the big part of, of, of recovery is what do you have control over? That's the stuff you can fix. The rest of it, you don't have control. Except the things I cannot change.

Have courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know. The difference is when we fall into that state of reflection. It's good to reflect. You should reflect daily, and people that drink all the time do not reflect. So it's a practice that should be picked up, especially in early recovery.

However, do not overthink your reflections of the day. Know where you did right, know where you did wrong. Know what you need to fix and know what you can continue doing. Compliment yourself for your assets and be. But do not fall into a state of constant reflection that becomes unhealthy and becomes almost an obsession into the negative realms of our thoughts.

And when you become too conscious stricken, I think that's what you were saying, right, is that level of awareness is no longer doing or serving. , it's not serving others because it's taking you away from the moments. It's not serving you because it is keeping you locked inside your brain, right? And so if it's not of use to others or yourself, don't spend too much time on it.

Let it flow down the river of consciousness. Let that thing just float right on by because I am not my thoughts and I don't have to take responsibility for everything that flows through my brain. However, yes, it is inside my brain, but trust me, if I took responsibility for everything that was inside my head, holy shit, , which I know there are people out there that do think that you are your thoughts and you do have full responsibility for them and for those people, I'm sorry, and I will let you deal.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Maybe it's just because I don't understand it, so that's okay too. I don't need to understand everything. I agree with you. I, I also think there's always, there's too much of a good thing. You know, we go, go to that, that adage that healthy food can be good for you. Vitamins can be good for you.

It, if you do it too much, it could actually backfire and go a different direction. I think the same with self-consciousness. It goes to a different, like, I loved everything you had to say. Did you have that written down? And I just was streaming outta your brain. Cuz that was the intense I I, it was, I call it a mental throw.

Well, the throw up was, was really good. I liked it and I'm not cleaning it up. So  So it makes it even, it makes it even better. Well, there's nothing to clean up. It was, it was, honestly, it was really good. It was genius because it's, you're right, you're right. And the idea of that I do not have to take on every thought I have.

The thoughts are not me. I can let them pass by. That is certainly something that I am working on. So I thought that was, that was great that you brought that up. Understanding which are the thoughts that I wanna take on and which are the thoughts I wanna let go.

I think this is a great point in the conversation. To come to a conclusion. Thank the listeners. I think Thank you listeners as always. Yeah, I think as always, Eric, it's always good to talk to you, my friend. Um, I'm glad that we're doing this because at the end of the day, uh, this is accountability for both of us, and I agree.

Being able to have these conversations, uh, helps both of us grow. Right. Well, and I would just add, uh, to our listeners, For you all to know you, Taylor and I will talk a lot during the week, and in fact, when we first jump on, on the Zoom, we'll, we'll have a conversation about whatever, where we're at that day, what's going on.

Hey, do I need some accountability? Let me tell you what's going on, uh, for me today, and vice versa. And, and it's great because it, it allows us to connect, it gives us that account. And that's exactly what we're talking about and that's what we want to share with all of you, is the idea of what, what it means to be in recovery and how you can use these different tools of connection, of accountability, of understanding Shamefulness, to be able to move forward and be positive.

So I thank you, my friend, for being a part of this with me. This is, this is great fun. I agree. And honestly, I would challenge our listeners to a task this week. Maybe have a conversation with somebody. About this topic and what it means to you, because what's the point of just listening to us if there's no real world application?

And yeah, this is just us and our thoughts about the thing that we decided to talk about this week, but why not bring it up? To somebody else that you're comfortable with having these discussions with and explore the ideas and how it relates to you, because thinking thoughts and speaking thoughts have very different impact.

And the more I speak, the more comfortable I get with things and the more value I gain in my life because I don't realize what is actually going on inside my head until I actually talk about it. . You know, speaking of guys and vulnerability and finding comfort, it's a very powerful tool to just, even to a bro.

You know, I talk to my best friend every single night and he and I just shoot the shit on everything under the sun. And most of the time it's not even anything to do with recovery, but it's therapeutic. And it allows us both to be able to be completely honest with each other about things that honestly, we don't wanna want anybody else to know.

And that's okay because we know that we can have those conversations and it's not gonna go anywhere, and we can be as shameful as we want to be.

Hey, thank you all for listening to the show. We really appreciate it. Thank you so much for joining us today, and we would not be here without you. New episodes Air every Friday morning. This show is available wherever you podcast. You can join the conversation throughout the week by following us on Instagram and TikTok by searching at sober the letter n.

Shameless, if you would like to be a guest on our show or would simply like to send us an email about this week's topic. Then please email us@sobershamelessgmail.com. You can find all these links and more in the show notes, interested in supporting the show. Then buy us a cup of coffee. That's a drink we can enjoy without regret.

Just simply navigate to buy me a coffee.com/sober and shameless. That's S O B E R. S H A N E L E S s, and you can give us a cup if you'd like. We'll send you a sober and shameless sticker in the mail and post a photo on our Instagram thanking you for your support. Woo, and finally shed that shame. Don't forget to take care of yourself today.

We love you and you are worth it. Coming in regular, coming in hot.