Recover Yourself: Out from Under the Influence

Happy 4th of July!!! Now let's dig into the wound of Independence.

 Creating Chaos in our lives is easy, and we all do it. Every expectation we carry for ourselves or others creates chaos. In this episode, I am talking with Thomas FreeMe about how when we have expectations and lie to ourselves and others we are creating chaos. That, and how the system, that we look to for guidance is creating chaos as well.   

If you are interested in contacting Thomas FreeMe check out his work by googling "Thomas FreeMe Podcast" or just connect here on YouTube.  

Recover Yourself is a podcast series focused on recovering strength and power we have inadvertently given up. There is no limit to our power and yet we have all been shown, warned, and taught to live in fear that we are not enough and that there is not enough resource in the world for us.  

As a former addict, I am coming out with the message that we can all recover. I am changing the conversation from "Recover From" to "Recover To" and I want to help people recover who they are. MartinJon is the host of Recover Yourself and a mentor, speaker, and originator of Portrait Facilitation which helps people recover themselves completely. MartinJon is dedicated to contributing his unique experiences to better the world, his life, and the lives of others by helping people understand we have no limits.  

Awareness is a cumulative process. If you start right now and open yourself to becoming aware of something that you previously were not aware of, like “What are you avoiding doing?” Whether there is a clear answer or not matters less than being aware that the question may have an answer. That is how we become aware, we can simply start by asking a question about how we feel about something and approach it with curiosity.

All of my work revolves around this concept of "Recovering To." Without hesitation, I believe that if we can each recover ourselves and stop living under the influence of others we will not only live amazing lives, we will contribute, love, inspire, and support everyone around us without even trying. Doing that will also help us naturally evade unnecessary conflict, stress, and health problems. But we first have to recognize where we are being influenced. 

I have been doing this work for a long time now, not that I am done, I have a lot of things that I still live under the influence of, however, I have been in the cycle of questioning and being curious for such a long time it is not easy to pick apart and express. 

I am talking with @laurs_worldofsobriety today because she is much closer to the source of the transition into "Recovering To" and I wanted to present the things that come with that transition. the fears, the anxiety, all the things we have to face in moving into a healthy direction. 

I always want to emphasize that sobriety is a beverage choice. It might be a very difficult one to make, and I am very proud of you for making it, but at the end of the day, it is simply a beverage choice. Recovery is what you choose to do with that and how you want to proceed in your recovery is your choice and I wish you the best, whatever that choice is.

When we are in recovery, we want to examine if there is a destination, or goal we are looking to achieve. Laurie hosts Laur's World, an interview series of people recovering Out Loud https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7Qugr1ff5KeEa9fBkFNONA you can also find her on Instagram @Laurs_WorldOfSobriety

If you are a parent or the adult child of a parent you are caring for or if you are a professional caregiver in any field, you face the very real threat of burnout nipping at your heels every day. This podcast can help you take a step back from that and get a wider perspective but working with me on a 4 session Recover Yourself package can finally put to bed any fear of burning out. Once you know how to recover yourself out of any situation, you’ll begin to gain more with every little thing you give. You’ll become unshakable and avoid conflict and stress without even knowing they were an option.

As my work suggests I am always looking to recover myself completely and my aim is to help others recover themselves. I see a client for a total of 4 sessions which is designed to launch self-directed lives and separate us from the constant draw of codependency. These start with my doing a portrait of my client. The portrait is an intimate experience, these open a vocabulary to trauma and are healing. This process is not for everyone and if you are not ready, I will not work with you. It is important that you are ready to step into yourself and stop playing a victim cursed by things around you. If you are interested in working together reach out at https://www.martinjon.com/

In this episode With Jenna Velez, she mentions the phrase “Post Traumatic Growth” which I had not yet heard in my travels. It is such a great phrase for many of my experiences, because, yes, I have experienced trauma, but it was that trauma that I grew through. That is not to say I want others to experience that trauma as well but we, all of us on this planet, have resilience.

In a recent episode with Ken Bain he mentioned that we punish people who try but have not yet succeeded. I mention that to say that if we are currently traumatized we are simply in a state of having not yet succeeded in overcoming it, not that we never will. We often write off people who have experienced and struggled with trauma, even ourselves. We can so easily not take into account the depth of resilience we have within ourselves. It is something I have addressed in many episodes and I cannot believe the will be the last either.

NAD is a supplement. Similar to testosterone, if we are not producing enough, we want to supplement it. Well, NAD enhances the ability of Vitamin B3 to support cellular healing in the body. This is a naturally occurring element in the body in which production can decrease for several reasons. Substance abuse or any abuse the body suffers could potentially erode the production of this in our body, as well as aging.

I am talking with Mike Godfrey and Stephanie Rose who are working together on a research project entitled “Perceptions of Mental Health and Recovery after Receiving NAD Treatment: A different Approach for Recovery and Withdrawal.” Although I do not support an abstinent-only approach, NAD seems to be a route for those that want abstinence.

Withdrawal is painful no matter how you slice it, and when it comes to stimulants there has previously been no help, or harm-reductive approach, to detoxing. NAD is not only being used to detox people from stimulants but for those who are ready to leave their MAT (suboxone/methadone) behind, as well as alcohol. Not everyone is going to want to move into abstinence but for those that are interested in that route, NAD seems to get people to a place where they can step into sobriety with a mind that is thinking clearer than otherwise would be possible.

Since doing this interview I have been taking NAD, I have not experienced any noticeable shift in my thinking or behaving. However, it should be noted that I didn’t take any tests to see the level of NAD I was producing, so it very well may have been a wash. I do have an MRI coming up in Dec for my MS, if I have significant shrinking in my legions or if it aids in any way I can detect, I will definitely let you know.

Harm Reduction is exactly what it sounds like, the desire to reduce harm. If you are not actively wanting to do harm there is no reason to oppose the ideas around harm reduction. We are looking to have a system that treats people with more respect than it currently does. Does that mean when we get you to treat people better, we will stop, no it doesn’t. Because when you treat people a little better, we will ask you to once again reevaluate and treat people even better than that.  

Maia mentions in this episode 2 things I want to point to specifically.   

1. That to practice harm reduction we have to look at risks in context and identify what harms we are looking to reduce.  

2. If you are treating someone with respect and dignity you are practicing harm reduction.  Maia Szalavitz is the author of 3 books Help at Any Cost: How the Troubled Teen Industry Cons Parents and Hurts Kids, Unbroken Brain:  A Revolutionary New Way of Understanding Addiction, and her latest from Hachette Go Undoing Drugs:  The Untold Story of Harm Reduction and the Future of Addiction.  

Energy is all around us and we interact with it at every turn, in every moment. There are things that energetically lift us and other things that weigh us down. How we interact with energy is one thing we can look at whenever we experience any sort of malady we can think of, even being a victim.

This week I am talking with Dr. Marina Kostina about the energy of the choices we make. If everything we do has an energy cost associated with it then every choice, we make is filled with potential and if we can make better energetic choices we can move in a better direction. We all follow energy but sometimes when that disrupts follow our “rules” it can feel quite uncomfortable, and thus we turn from feeling though it and act upon it.

Questions:

1. Where have you interacted with your guiding energy? Did you follow it or did you turn from it for a more intense “better” feeling?

2. What can be gained by following an energetic pull, even if that might invite a feeling of discomfort?

3. What actions are being asked of you by this energy, that you are either avoiding or afraid of considering?

So what is a pacifier? It is anything you do to soothe yourself when you are feeling uncomfortable. Some of these, like drugs, alcohol, or gambling have been known to cause serious problems in some people’s lives. That is primarily because people feel extreme levels of discomfort and want soothing. That, and the amount of dopamine, and other chemicals, these substances and activities are known to release, are such, that the person can easily be taken well beyond comfort and straight to escape. When these two aspects feet each other, the pain and the soothing, it could be a recipe for disaster.

Today, in our consumer society, we’ve learned so much about how to activate these dopamine responses in people that almost everything we engage in is connected to “feeling good.” This creates a dangerous environment because if something doesn’t engage a dopamine response it is likely that a person will feel discomfort because they have an expectation of things making them “feel good.” It is this that then turns people to a pacifier.

The thing about pacifiers is that they are often the things we enjoy doing. However, there are times when we will engage them less as a healthy enjoyment and more as an escape. Duston and I talk about reading and exercise being used as pacifiers as well as drugs and alcohol. We have to understand that it is within the expectation to be comfortable, or happy, that can get us turning to our pacifiers and those can turn out to become addictions in our lives.

I agree that there are some substances that are far easier to become addicted to than others. However, in the world of addiction, we are going to want to step away from trying to define things as addictive or not addictive. This sort of approach has primarily been used to allow people to engage in pacifiers, at a greater level than is healthy, simply because they are not classified as addictive. These definitions also create bias, as well as stigma, depending on what drug you are engaging. If we look at “Cali Sober” there is a further stigmatizing of opioids and alcohol, which are deemed addictive, while marijuana and psilocybin as seen as saviors due to the widespread idea they are not addictive. As it relates to stigma, the idea of being addicted to a substance frame the one who suffers from addiction as weak.

Questions:

• Throughout your life you have had many different pacifiers, some of which you still use some of which you do not. Can you spot 5 things that you have used as pacifiers throughout your life?

• Of those 5 things, can you identify times you are drawn to use them? If they are no longer options in your life can you identify what made you stop using this in particular? Did something replace it?

• Can you identify in your life, an action or substance that you may sometimes use as a pacifier, but other times is simply for the enjoyment of engaging in it? What are the differences between the two ways of engaging?

The most important relationship we have is with ourselves. Now that I’ve said that let’s look at romantic relationships in recovery. You’re move to recovery was done for you; I hope. Your partner is going to experience a lot of benefits from your hard work but that doesn’t mean they don’t have work to do as well. In this episode I am talking with Chantal Jauvin about her new book Love Without Martinis which is all about relationships after treatment.

In it she lays out the ASCENT approach which stands for

§ Assess your readiness to change.

§ Structure your time.

§ Create your community.

§ Engage in your life.

§ Nurture your spirituality.

§ Treasure your partnership.

Each one of these is for each individual to achieve on their own, this isn’t one sided because if your relationship is one sided something is wrong.

The Long Game is not always something that is obvious. The world around us, especially here in the United States, wants us to focus on the Short Game. The Short Game gets us leaning on others, Google, status, money, and all sorts of things to help us feel more comfortable. We can fool ourselves into thinking the Short Game is the goal, like marriage. When the Long Game, which is hidden behind the Short Game, is where we are going to experience the most fulfillment. As it relates to marriage, the Long Game is wanting what is best for ourselves and our partner regardless of the status of the marriage. If we cannot embrace that idea we may be playing a Short Game.

This relates to our recovery as well, if our goal is to count days, or define our lives from the perspective of a beverage choice, we are playing a dangerous Short Game. Your recovery is going to offer the world so much more when we can embrace the idea that we are recovering ourselves. I say this because you are much more to the world than your consumer loyalty.

Questions:

a. What is a Short Game in your life today? Is that contributing to a Long Game?

b. How would you like others to change to make your life, or the world, better? What expectations do you hold that cause you to believe this is a reasonable request to have of others? Would you be willing to change to make the world a better place for those people that you want to change?

c. How are you conceding to the beliefs of others? (this often looks like arguing an irrelevant short game rather than focusing on a Long Game) How can you begin to focus on the Long Game? What would that do to how you approach the situation you are interested in altering?

As my work suggests I am always looking to recover myself completely and my aim is to help others recover themselves. I see a client for a total of 4 sessions which is designed to launch self-directed lives and separate us from the constant draw of codependency. This starts with my doing a portrait of my client. The portrait is an intimate experience, these open a vocabulary to trauma and are healing. This process is not for everyone and if you are not ready, I will not work with you. It is important that you are ready to step into yourself and stop playing a victim cursed by things around you. If you are interested in working together reach out at https://www.martinjon.com/

Groups are a double-edged sword. They can act as a rocket booster to get us off the ground and moving in a direction. Just having done that in our lives we can be put in a position to idolize the group, and sometimes the people in it. Groups can intimidate just as easily as they support and groups can start out on one clear path and slowly, over time, completely change course. That is not to say an individual doesn’t do that as well, but we do it as it fits into our lives, whether erroneous or not. When we are part of a group we have to ebb and flow with the group and whichever way the wind is blowing within the group.

You are the only one making your decisions, and the only one you’re making decisions for (the role of parents needs a whole book so we will leave it at that for now). When we are not living under the influence of something a group doesn’t know what’s best for us, neither do our partners, families, or friends. When your life is guided by you there is nothing that knows your answer better than you. Not Google, not some Instagram influencer, not even your spiritual leader or therapist. You’re on a path to knowing you have the right answer, and this can seem lonely but that is only how it feels as we stop living under the influence of others.

Lexx is a Life Coach, Motivational Speaker, and sober advocate for mental health. She hails from a tiny little riverfront town in Ontario, Canada, and is on a mission to empower incredible humans like you to live in alignment with their authentic selves. Her passion is helping people to reduce overwhelm and embody their uniqueness in every area of their lives. www.lexxellins.com

Questions

What were some groups you fit into well? What sort of rewards did you receive from these groups and what did you have to do to receive those rewards?

What groups did you not fit into so well? What was an expectation of the group that caused you to not fit in?

Have you altered your friendships, relationships, or life because of a group? Examine if that was in favor of the promises of the group, or you're leaving the group whether by choice or otherwise. How important, traumatic, or exalting was this?

What we are capable of is immeasurable. We walk around believing so many things about ourselves, never having really looked at ourselves from the space of a blank slate. We come into the world already wired through the womb of our mother to believe the world is how they experienced it. From there we further get trained to learn how to experience and expect life to be. But we, individually, are so much greater than that. How do I know? Because not you, nor I, or anybody can ever be described, or understood, so the act of attempting to understand or describe a person will only fall short.

Our possibilities are endless and if we choose to accept the challenge to touch what is possible within us we will be on a journey that will neither end nor cease to amaze us. This week I have the pleasure of talking with best-selling author Guy Finley about our possibilities and the journey that presents us with the lives we are destined to live.

Check out Guy’s books "The Secret of Letting Go," "The Essential Laws of Fearless Living," and his newest book "Relationship Magic: Waking Up Together." He is the founder and director of Life of Learning Foundation, a nonprofit Center for Spiritual Discovery located in southern Oregon. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and at 1440 Multiversity. Tune in live every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening for Guy's free online talks. Guy is a faculty member at the Omega Institute in Rhinebeck, New York, and at 1440 Multiversity.

Tune in live every Sunday morning and Wednesday evening for Guy's free online talks.
On March 21st, 2021 Guy will be giving a talk entitled 7 Simple Practices to Actualize Your Highest Spiritual Possibilities.

Revenge is one of those things that, once we are under the influence of it, we can find it hard to separate from. We all have grievances, but once we allow ourselves to feel like we are being victimized things can quickly get out of hand. In this episode, I am talking with James Kimmel Jr., a lead developer of the NonJustice System, and we are talking about forgiveness.

Those of us in some sort of recovery may have, and may still, feel victimized. We may have utilized our DOC (Drug of Choice) in order to cope with our feelings of victimization. We may have and may continue to, relive and remind ourselves that we were victims. This is just another addiction. The more we live in this space of victimization in our minds the more we are living under its influence. This is not to say we do not have a grievance, we do, but how much are we willing to be controlled by it?

In this episode, we are exploring grievance, revenge, and forgiveness, how they relate to addiction, and how we can further our ability to forgive so as not to live under their influences.

On the path of recovering yourself, you are going to find there is no end to the bombardment of things attempting to keep us living comfortably. Even though wanting revenge, or feeling victimized doesn't sound comfortable, it is often much easier to be a victim than it is to be your own savior.

Questions for groups: When was the last time you felt the desire to get revenge (whether you acted on it or not)? What is the story you told yourself about why you deserve to get revenge? What would it feel like if you were able to forgive those who you have a grievance against sooner? How long is long enough to be aggrieved?

If you’re interested in a walkthrough of Yana, I encourage you to check out this episode on YouTube. Just jump to the 26th minute, and to watch as Tyler walks me through the essentials of Yana and addresses its platform directly. 

Tyler Matheny is a co-founder of Yana (You Are Not Alone) which is a program agnostic activity app for the sober community. Tyler helps us define some of the major differences between the terms: abstinence, sobriety, and recovery. Tyler faces his recovery, like many who venture on this path, with the backing of AA. After some time he found that it wasn’t working for him, but he then learned that he was working AA.

It is important to recognize if we are working AA or just trying it. No matter where we find ourselves along the journey if we join a group, or take a course, or buy a product, and expect that to be the end of the conversation, we haven’t been paying attention. We are going to have to work and work hard, first for our sobriety, and then our recovery. Having apps like Yana, and podcasts like this one, communities like AA or S.M.A.R.T. are all aids in the journey. Without you, and your dedication to continuing to do the work, those things can do nothing. 

Addiction holds a lot of stigmas and this episode might really agitate a lot of people because I am looking to place addiction in the hands of every one of us. Those of us who have been traditionally seen as addicts have held the bag long enough.

Politics have divided us and turn us on one another, but that is only on the face of it. Behind the politics, at the core of everything that has been going on in the US my entire life, is addiction. We have journeyed headlong into a contract with any, and all, sorts of escapes. The US has been built, for some, on some unfounded premise that you don’t have to feel uncomfortable. Well, that was never true. Fear is gripping our country today as we, as a country have to face discomfort. Trump has wielded that fear of discomfort as a drug for people that support him with things like his catchphrase “Make America Great Again.” Basically stating “make the discomfort I am feeling go away.” This fear is also being used as a drug for those that don’t support him. As he sows fear and distrust day in and day out we slowly get accustomed to feeling that anxiety, and it is added to a new normal.

Today I believe we are in a position to have to redefine what addiction is or create a vocabulary that can handle the truth of what we have created here in the United States. For lack of a better word, I am using addiction. Trump has rooted his entire tenure in the position of president as a means to obtain an ever-increasing amount of his DOC (drug of choice), whether this is fame or money, or both I won’t venture to say, but his actions are of those of an addict.

If Trump was addicted to a substance, would we support him as fervently as we do? His actions are no less atrocious, and yet people are still standing by and enabling this man. By doing this we are only further harming him, as well as ourselves. In the mix of what has transpired over the past 4 years, we have, as a country become very misdirected due to all of us living under the influence of one thing or another.

I wish I could express how important it is to recognize addiction when we see it, and not simply look to professionals to tell us how to define it. If we can recognize, identify, and accept that addiction is a part of all of our lives we would all be heading toward a better future. As it stands today, with most of the population under the influence of something or another, most people are blindly advancing their lives leaving a wake of destruction that they will claim they are the victim of, just like Trump does.

This is why I passionately spread the message of recovering ourselves. Trump has probably never had a substance abuse issue as we understand it traditionally but he has also probably been chasing his own high his entire life.

One thing to note, Trump is facing detox, unsupervised, and with an audience that sees him as their dealer, if not a savior. For those of you who have been through a serious detox, you’ll know what that can do to your mind. We are headed into an unprecedented territory and I hope there are people that are taking notes because we are going to want to learn from this.

Karith Foster is a comedian, speaker, television and radio personality, actress, author, and entrepreneur. In this episode, we are talking about identity and doubling down. When we attach so heavily to our identities, we can easily get lost in details that might not be as important as the feel at the moment.

Our identities are things we really hold dear, but we are always changing so much it is hard to even pin down an identity. However, in our world, today, being attached to an identity can be seen as pretty important, and that has really kept many people from accepting change. For those of us who have experienced addiction, we have all stood by our addict identities when it may have been easier to relinquish that identity. Where else do we do this? How can we approach our identities as fleeting and ever-changing? There is the 5 by 5 rule which states if it won’t matter in 5 years don’t spend 5 minutes being upset about it.

It is important to always try and grasp onto a more accurate view of the world. The theories that we’ve created about the world intuitively, often as children, are very wrong. Andrew, the author of ScienceBlind, is speaking in the realm of hard science, like biology, physics, chemistry, and so on, as he is expressing intuitive theories. I want to suggest however that this is exactly the same when it comes to the soft sciences and in all aspects of our lives, most importantly, relationships. If, as Andrew proposes in his book, we do not ever get over our intuitive theories we will want to explore what intuitive theories we are carrying.  

It is easy to glom onto an intuitive theory that has hard science behind it. Those easily show us what is Truth versus where we are off base when it comes to our intuitive theories. However, when we look at relationships, where things don’t have so many hard facts, we are going to have to, as Andrew expresses in this episode, find a good matrix on how to address theories that are at the root of our actions.  

Andrew mentions also that there has to be a desire to learn. Whether you are talking about your theories around physics and gravity or your relationships with romantic partners, they won’t naturally morph into facts. So, we have to act on those desires to learn and purposefully shift our theories.   

Questions to consider and discuss:
What intuitive theories do you carry about...
...relationships?
...How others see you?
...your place in the world?
Can you find places in your life where you handle similar situations in different ways due to how they were raised? Which would you prefer to use more often, if not all the time?

In this episode, I am talking with Tio Hardiman, executive director of Violence interrupters. We are talking all about restorative justice which is an approach to healing communities after violence. It may seem a bit off base from the Recovery work I usually address but when we can think about restoring all of the aspects of ourselves, then we are recovering ourselves.

Tio talks about perpetrators having to face victims and the families of their victims. In our lives, we have to do the same. We as the perpetrator have to, eventually, embrace ourselves as the victim. This is not easy to do, or even visualize, within ourselves, but when we can see it physically happen in a community we can internalize that and take steps to restore justice within our lives. These are important steps and Tio, who has over 30 years in recovery, walks us through each of the 12 steps and shows us not only what they are but how to step up our step work and if we are not 12 step people he lays out some of the basics so that we can further solidify our sobriety and recovery.

Questions to consider and discuss for yourself and for recovery groups:
Can you name two or more aspects of yourself that are at odds, or contradictory?
How do these aspects of yourself currently interact? Do they interact?
Can there be a way of reconciling these aspects or are you actively keeping them separate?
What steps could each of these aspects use to better communicate and reconcile with the other?

This episode is meant to connect some of the dots of the past 6 episodes. As I am focused on topics now more than individual stories it may not be clear as to how these individual topics may connect to the topic of “Recovering To.” This is because we are all in different places in our recovery and some of these may be more intriguing to you than others. Episodes like this will give you a bit of an overview and hopefully open you to ideas, and listening to episodes that are included in these recaps.

Last week we looked at treatment centers from the vantage point of someone who is on the ground working with patients and for the centers. If you didn't get a chance to listen here is the link https://anchor.fm/martinjon/episodes/Understanding-Treatment-Centers-eihpu3 Not all centers are created equal, however. Today, as we spoke about in the last episode, there are a lot of conflicting issues with offering help through an institution. Of course, I don’t have all the numbers and I am not involved in the inner workings of Above and Beyond, the treatment center that we are going to be referencing today, but from my vantage point, they are doing some real honest and effective work.

My guest this week is Dan Hostetler, the executive director of Above and Beyond and he is on the board of directors of SMART Recovery USA. Dan and I are talking all about re-framing fear from the moment you step into a treatment center that, in my opinion, needs to be the driving force. Those of us who are stepping into treatment for the first time are often riddled with fear. The first people we interact within a center often legitimizes that fear by being standoffish and untrusting. That is not what I experienced when walking into Above and Beyond. Full Disclosure I have never been through any programs there, but when I approached them with my Recover Yourself work they saw the connections my work and theirs had and invited me to learn more about their programming.

There is a lot in this episode about how we all can step into our lives in deeper ways and have more purpose-driven lives. The results that Dan speaks about in this episode are achievable and I am proud to present him and the work that is being done at Above and Beyond.

Questions to consider and discuss for yourself and for recovery groups:
How were you greeted when you arrived at a treatment center or hospital while looking for help?
How do you get in the way of counselors trying to help you?
Do you want to fight, argue, or interact in other unhelpful behavior and find yourself in a space or relationship that accommodates that?
What can you do RIGHT NOW to help or support someone else without the expectation of even a "thank you" in return?

Treatment centers are an essential role to play within the world of recovery. They are complex entities in society these days as they explicitly separate what society deems as “addicts” from the rest of the population, all of whom have addictive tendencies as well. Treatment centers are one of the places that everyone quietly judges as they are, by design, meant to attract those who society pushes to the outskirts. As organizations, their missions are not always as benevolent as they may seem. There is a paradox in the world of treatment centers, they stand being both a business and an altruistic space. I am not saying that these two things cannot ever coincide however, it is not common. This paradox means that it may be exceedingly difficult to understand and justify, the actions of these spaces. When acting in the best interest of the business, for instance, the altruistic mission must be abandoned. When the opposite happens, a conflict arises in the legitimacy of the for-profit sector businesses, as they are mandated by law to profit. The non-profit businesses don’t have that weight to consider but often work at much leaner margins and may have to use the “It’s just business” argument more often than they would like as individuals.    

April Garfoli is a seasoned veteran in the world of Treatment Facilities. So seasoned in fact she has left that world behind to stand within her own ethics. Doing that, she no longer needs to justify the paradox described above. April has worked in corrections, detox, residential, dual diagnosis, in and outpatient facilities, homes, schools, and community centers, she has a master’s in clinical Counseling and a psychology degree. This episode lays out a number of things we all should know about treatment centers, especially if we may be, or know someone that may be, admitted to one, one day. Treatment Centers need to be seen as triage spaces, places where we can get a leg up, but they are not always equipped to help you keep that leg up. This episode will give you some idea of how much you can expect from your local treatment center. This is by no means an indictment of treatment centers, but a way to expose the paradox so that you have a better idea of the complexity of the situations there.  

Evolution is happening all around us all the time. It has been interesting for me to have been born in a time of what is known as “Quickening.” This refers to consciousness, that we are all connected to, changing increasingly rapidly. To give you some perspective I was born before answering machines, for telephones, were common, and I still consider myself quite young at 45. What has happened in the world is astonishing, but to look at what cannot be seen, the consciousness of all things, we can see even more growth.

Today as increasing numbers of people get into recovery, we are also taking on the responsibility of recovering ourselves. This is because it is not enough to simply recover from some substance or some behavior any longer. We want more, and it is not that AA or those that came before us didn’t want more but, and I see this as being due to the level of consciousness we are stepping into, more, as we understand it today, wasn’t accessible.

All of those that came before us have been doing great work contributing to the consciousness from which we are all benefiting. Today we can much more easily grasp what people 85 years ago were struggling and striving to accomplish. That doesn’t mean we understand anything today, however. It is not time to sit on your laurels and pat yourself on the back for your new beverage choices, you are laying the groundwork for the next 100 years.

The information we need is within us, it has never, and may never be able to be written, there is nothing you can identify with that will be you other than you. I am so happy for the work we are doing and I am looking forward to witnessing it continue to change the world.

Allen Baker is a healer and works with therapeutic breathwork and VortexHealing® Energetic Therapy. You can contact him on Instagram @bakerAllenP or the following websites

In this episode, I am speaking with Chris Robinson who is a Y12SR instructor. His journey in recovery had him seeking approval and validation. He had to open up to his needs revolving around that validation. Those needs had him going out and getting one certificate after another proving to him, and others, that he was valid, that he had something to offer. Knowing that we are what we have to offer is a big step in our growth and recovery. Knowing that we have nothing to prove and that we are the proof is a much bigger gift than any short-lived joy that a certificate can provide.

We also talk about his having gotten married and directly look at how easily we can allow others to pick up after us. I know when I was diagnosed with MS I saw first hand how grateful I was to not have a partner. Did not having a partner make things less comfortable? Yes, of course, I would have loved to have been coddled and cuddled but if I was I would have allowed it. I would have taken the easy route to be weak and allow myself to be coddled while slowly building resentment and manipulating that situation. Today I am so extremely grateful for my MS and all that it has shown me about myself. That would not necessarily be that case had I had a partner who I could lean on.

In this episode, I am speaking with the author and founder of Soul Recovery Ester NicholsonEster has a staggering 34 years and I am so excited to be talking with her about what has to be one of the most important parts of recovering yourself, What is the self we are recovering? That self we are recovering, in Ester’s words, is our Soul. I must agree and she and I dive deep about how the work gets done. With so much going on around us today we must do the work, but to just tell you to do the work is silly, most people have no idea what it means and how to even approach it. Well, Recovering our souls, or selves, means we have to be able to look outward and see how, what we are experiencing, is reflecting ourselves back to us.

We have to question “How is this me?” Neither Ester nor I can give you the answer but we do talk about how we have found the answer in our lives. This podcast is about giving you clues as to how to do the work yourself because there is no magic bullet but there is magic, and you are filled with it.

In this episode, I am speaking with the founder of @Y12SR (Yoga 12 Step Recovery) Nikki Myers. Nikki realized after 2 relapses, that although both Yoga and 12 Steps programs are both useful in solidifying one’s recovery, she and others like her needed a way to connect the two differing aspects. Yoga, a combination of physical and mental awareness had little to offer her in the cognitive world we are all raised in. The 12 Step programs that we have all around us tend to exist in the cognitive world and lack some of the real hard inner work that yoga focuses on. Her bringing these together has helped millions and as it relates to recovering the self Nikki and I seem to have a lot to talk about.

In this episode, I am talking Nathan Siler performer and composer who lives and works in NYC. In addition to being the chief architect of the NYC post-punk-prog band Portraiture, he is a classical singer who frequently sings at Carnegie Hall with the Bard Festival Chorale and at Lincoln Center with NY Concert Chorale.  Recently he was imprisoned (on stage) in the World Premiere of David Lang’s new Opera “The Prisoner of the State” at Lincoln Center.  He also keeps a packed schedule of composition and orchestration projects.  Siler's notable works include Original score to the devised theater piece Rise/Fall by Sheila B., Featured Orchestration for BAM (Jules Verne: From the Earth to the Moon); Original podcast theme song (Reverence Road); Film scores (The Widowers; We Are Mary); Full orchestral suite for Grammy© award-winning children's rock band Sugar-Free Allstars (performed by Winston-Salem Philharmonic and Oklahoma City Philharmonic). He produces albums across multiple genres, most recently: “Blaze: Songs from Pham” by Margaret Tran and the new debut EP by singer-songwriter Jason Drew.

Nathan has a lot to share in this episode and we talk a lot about how creativity has been a part of our recovery. Nathan is also a new parent and we got the opportunity to talk about how that changed him, and how his understanding of distance has been challenged since the birth of his child.

In this episode, I am talking Trenda Hedges the Wellness and Recovery Program Manager of Illinois’ Warm Line. Trenda has a history of addiction and has been working with the state of Illinois to help those struggling with, and curious about, addiction and recovery. She educates people about recovery by addressing it in communities in hopes to remove stigmas and resistance. Her recovery, and relationship with God, is earmarked upon losing her son, which we talk about in this episode. This, of course, would be difficult for everyone, but for someone who had previously been so associated with escaping how they feel, this is more than tragic because she was only beginning to learn how to cope with emotions. Her recovery is solid today because of her relationship with God and I want to applaud her for finding her way through that and growing as herself. I am so grateful for her sharing with me and openly expressing her faith and beliefs with us.

Call the Warm Line at +1 866 359 7953

Option #2

Option #5 

With episodes like this one, I am extremely grateful. Although Trenda and I have different ways of looking at God and how he relates to our individual recoveries, I love her approach and her expression of recovery. Broadening these conversations is part of my mission. I cannot express how grateful I am to have so many wonderful people trust me to interview them like @coachleetorres @rawrecoverytalk @carmellpelly and so many others, it is my hope, that I also am able to contribute to their lives and show you how you might better see your growth.

If you would like to be a guest and share how you’re recovering yourself - Contact me here or through my website MartinJon.com I also want to thank @Pandora where you can listen to the full episode of this and all episodes of Recover Yourself

In this episode, I am talking with artist Matt Bodett. Matt was diagnosed with Schizophrenia and after initially recovering from the diagnosis, he began to rebuild his life in a way that he wanted. He looked at the system and stood up for himself within it. The responsibility, and clarity that requires is enormous and we speak about that in the episode. The medical industry which, if you have ever been to an IOP you will know, is very much about us appearing a certain way more than it is about us actually being wholly healthy, whatever that would mean for us individually.

In this episode, @Krystal_Delite and I talk all about the nuts and bolts of recovery. Character defects and triggers as well as all the basics that come with knowing and working the steps. Krystal isn’t alone in thinking that everyone should go through the steps at some point in High School.

.

In this episode, Emily Paulson and I get real about honesty. However, it’s not as if we talk about “Being Honest” the whole time but, in the end, that is where everything is pointed.

Writing, for many of us, is about building our voice which is all about being honest with ourselves and knowing our value. That happens to be exactly the launching pad of Emily’s book “Highlight Real: Finding Honesty & Recovery Beyond the Filtered Life.”

Numbing out is about hiding, or not being honest, with ourselves. and as a mother, to be honest, and say “Yes, I love my children but…” is an act of rebellion in the face of all that our patriarchal society wants women to be. Not being able to say that, or even face it, has forced countless mothers to buy into the “mommy needs wine” culture. Talking about these things has been wonderful for me because my heart breaks every time, I see women being judged. We have created a society that doesn’t embrace women, and there are plenty of women that support that culture. To have Emily, and all the women I’ve had on this podcast, speaking up and supporting each other is such a joy for me.

Get her book “Highlight Real: Finding Honesty & Recovery Beyond The Filtered Life” wherever books are sold. This book is not just for those on a recovery path due to addictions it is about honesty and getting real with ourselves.