Episode 39

hello and welcome to finding peaks
from
the studios of nuvill digital in
downtown colorado springs
uh i’m jason friesema chief clinical
officer here at peaks recovery
and to my right is madelyne padilla
admissions specialist
having
her back is just a great privilege
actually i thought our conversation last
time um
went so well that i could not wait to
have you back here again
um and you know interestingly you know
we do have some time before the show
where we get to chat and um
really where where our conversation
has left off or maybe where it ended and
where i’d like to pick it back up is
just um
madeline for you to kind of talk about
what what is addiction
sure
um yeah jason so
i think our original topic was about
being young and recovery and i was
thinking more like on clinical terms of
addiction as a brain disease and stuff
like that but then
um
i think something like more real and
more personal to me is the actual
etymology of the word addiction and it
actually comes um from ancient rome
ancient rome um
a person that has an unbearable weight
in society
they can self-impose into slavery to pay
that debt off
and that’s what addiction means to me
it’s a form of self-imposed slavery
and then
if you take it a little further
the word attico which is
if you look into addict is deeper it
means like to sell out or to abandon
self
um and i think that’s relevant too yeah
yeah why
why did the
the origin of those words or of the word
addiction why does that resonate so
strongly with you
because i’ve i’ve been there i’ve felt
like i’ve been enslaved to something
that my whole life
revolves around
it it just it makes sense to me yeah
you know
it’s interesting listening to you talk
about that i i had somebody maybe
similarly
recently asked me like what is recovery
like what are you recovering
and it gave me pause for a minute um
[Music]
and really the best answer i’ve been
able to come up with and maybe you can
help uh expand my answer a little bit
was um
what you recover
is access to yourself and access i like
to say access to your gut where you can
trust yourself again and then it’s not
going to be misleading you anymore
oh i love i love that dude absolutely
yeah get getting in touch
with what you’ve always known and what’s
always there and this is so
contradictory to some of the
conversations um that are had kind of an
old school stuff with you you don’t know
what’s best for you you never have all
of your best thinking got you here
and i i don’t think that’s true i think
we just have pushed away what we know
for so long or buried that intuition
um and lost touch with that absolutely
and i think it is a recovering that
um that deep knowing yeah of what’s
right and what you can do next and what
you’re capable of and
yeah yeah that’s good
and i i totally agree with you and that
to me is such
it’s just so much better than like
shaming people to be like your best
thinking got you here like
pretty much calling people an idiot
right i guess and i and i just really do
prefer that like you just lost you fill
out a relationship with yourself
basically and that’s what you get to
recover right and i think that applies
both for addiction and mental health
like i think both
create kind of a schism maybe in
people’s relationship
frankly with themselves and knowing
themselves well enough right yeah with
that is kind of the intro um
talk to me about kind of some things
you’re hearing lately on the admissions
line with families
okay um
you know we were talking about this
before jason i hear this a lot and i’m
sure i’ve said it at some point too but
this idea of we just want our son or
daughter
back
we want them the way they were before
all of this happened the drugs came into
the picture the substances we want old
jimmy back
but old jimmy
wanted
to get out of his experience and his
body so badly that he resorted to
drugs and alcohol to do that
there is no going back there’s no going
back and i i want families and i want
people in recovery to look at this
process as a transformative experience
and
yeah as you can take it wherever you
want to go
it’s not it’s not a limited experience i
think it’s a limitless experience and i
i think we can change the dialogue i i’m
excited to see who you’ll become through
this process or after this journey or
along the way i think those um
are more encouraging i think they’re
more helpful things to say
then we miss the old you because i i
know i didn’t miss the old me i did not
want to go back i was scared to death
that my life was just going to be
the removing of substances that i needed
to cope and we were going to go back to
the way things were
just without my substance of choice and
that wasn’t the case at all
and
just to summarize what you’re saying
basically like even before
um
the substance use starts like obviously
something is still not going very well
like something
is broken or you’re having a difficult
time uh but i do think like there is
that that thought process of like
um
i i want my kid back or i want my loved
one back
um
and what i hear you saying too is like
well what preceded
the addiction in this case was just
frankly a lot of misery yeah like where
do you think the addiction came in right
exactly and i i just think
too it’s discouraging for people to hear
that because they they can dream bigger
than what was before that’s all it feels
limiting and it feels restrictive and
that’s the opposite of what this is
about
yeah i totally agree
when people enter into
treatment especially like young adults
um
i’ve had a lot of
conversations with families
about how
um when the substance
misuse started that’s usually roughly
where emotional development arrests yeah
like people
you know
right their development stops because
like their body continues to grow and
develop
they’re not 24 years old or whatever but
emotionally they’re stuck
at age 15 whenever 16 or
substances
um
and i and i think
you know i would tell parents like okay
maybe
when when your loved one enters into
treatment into recovery there’s there’s
maturity issues there’s a lack of
development there’s usually lack of life
skills there’s all of these things that
are lacking
but if your loved one goes on um
this journey
not only will they kind of catch up
emotionally with their cohort but
oftentimes they’ll they’re kind of move
past their cohort because they’re going
to have to do so much
work on themselves in so much
uh
um introspection and so much uh
processing of traumas or whatever that
like they actually are going to
you know come in
at a 24 year old acting like a 14 year
old and leave as a 25 year old yeah or
when they’re 25 they’re going to be
mature beyond their years that’s been my
experience that’s
yeah yeah i think that
it’s like this this recovery process too
is like
it feels like alchemy you know like you
take you rocks and dirt and stones and
craft or whatever
and then and then you can you transform
those things into something
of incredible value that you may not
have had before all of the substances
appeared in your life and so i don’t
know i just i think that it’s an
opportunity a huge opportunity and i
think the language around it we can make
it
feel more
expansive i think and just more open
do you have any idea what that language
would be like like how do you
what language do you find to be
constrictive
maybe that’s the theme today is just
talking about language
[Laughter]
i think i think it comes down to
open-ended questions i think it comes
down to what
who would you like to be yeah
how could i support you getting where
you want to go where do you want to go
like those are really good questions
who do you want to be or maybe i’m not
sure who you are right now
so
you saying that does also remind me
of how
like when clients come in
and they begin to make these significant
changes
finding that meaning and purpose
is so
difficult i think because like you like
you said asking those open-ended
questions to me leaves all of these
openings for people as they are walking
out of
as they are entering into recovery and
kind of um defining their new self
instead of going back to their old self
how
it’s such a difficult
thing i used to describe it like this
that like
um the removal of substances or
difficult mental health issues it leaves
this big blank slate
yes no you’re so right jason and like
that’s the ground floor but
it’s amazing that’s when you can see you
can survey everything and become the
engineer
to to a life that’s that’s worth being
present for
that’s like the best vantage point for
you yeah
can you speak to the like was there a
moment that where you could see that for
yourself where like okay i can see that
i can begin to make a life for me that
isn’t
my old self
i think pretty early on
i realized that it was gonna have to be
pretty radical yeah there was no
there was no way to go back because i
couldn’t feel like that anymore
so so then i started asking people how
do you not feel like that like what are
you people doing
what should i do um and people gave me a
lot of guidance like this is how i did
it this is how i did it and i think you
just you kind of find a way forward
through that um
it was pretty apparent right off the bat
things were never going to be the same
again yeah yeah right off the bat but i
was also ready to release that i was
like ready to move forward from that and
take big big risks
big risk to get different results what
do you what do you think your family
went through
as you were sorting these things out
i think it was hard for them it was
really hard for them i
i cut them off through a lot of my
treatment i did the old revoke the roi
this is my favorite move right like i’m
i’m mad or i’m frustrated um
i’m feeling vulnerable even or i feel
like something’s going to be taken from
me so i’m going to pull back on what i
can and sometimes that’s all you have is
an roi
so i would revoke that all the time
i didn’t want to get into sessions with
them a lot of the time
it was really hard for them i think they
were just waiting with their fingers
crossed like could could she actually
pull this off will she actually make a
difference but
they also know that i’m very all or
nothing that if i’m going to do it i
want to do it all the way
so i’m sure after the first 30 days of
being in treatment they started feeling
a little uh calmer about
my process yeah yeah and and just to be
clear and roi is a release of
information so basically the thing you
did was to say
you don’t get any information nothing
in fact i’m going to disappear yeah okay
it’s like terrorism it’s like emotional
terrorism you know you get nothing
um
[Music]
what do you think you gained from
grabbing that control
um
a sense of control i’m trying to
what did i gain from grabbing that
control
what did it call me down did it
i think there were moments honestly
jason where i felt really bad and i
wanted them to feel bad
or to understand that i was suffering in
some way like i’m in pain i’m gonna do
something that shows you that i am in a
really difficult process right now yeah
and that’s the best way for me to do it
yeah
this was before the tools no yeah like
but it makes sense to say
i’m
i’m going through this and i’m going to
show you what i’m going through because
um
well because it’s really difficult yeah
really painful
um
and then if you kind of
fast forward then
like do you remember some moments where
maybe you’re like okay i’m actually
starting to like me again i’m starting
to like where my where this
how i’m feeling this blank slate of the
life that i’ve had
oh yeah i mean
boy i’ll tell you jason you wake up and
you’re not sick like you’re not unwell
and your body works and it does what
you’re asking it to do that’s an
incredible feeling i really started
liking that very quickly you know that
was amazing to me um
the hut trip i know we’ve talked about
that it’ll always go down in history it
was
like wow oh my gosh i’m loving being in
nature like i’m loving
hiking i don’t i’m not a hiker you know
what i mean i actually really enjoy this
i enjoy socializing with people these
are just things i didn’t think i could
get without my drug of choice i didn’t
think i could be okay
in an uncomfortable situation without my
drug of choice so that yeah the hut trip
was an awesome experience the bowling
alley we used to hit the bowling alley
all the time um that this is pre-covered
by the way yeah
before all that yeah
and we just bowl all day you know the
clients and we would just talk and you
know exchange stories and like those are
really close bonds that were formed i’m
like other people are doing this and
they want me to be a part of it um so
that that was awesome
yeah i climbed a couple 14 years
not too long ago now you’re just
bragging
i did recently
and um there’s like a point where
you’re going up and you really don’t
think physically your first one that you
do you actually don’t think you’re gonna
make it but then you start loving it you
start loving it and then you’re like you
can see the top and you feel even better
about it and um
that’s kind of how peace felt it was
like the halfway point where i was like
i feel like i’m gonna die i’m not gonna
die i can see the top i can make it to
the top and that’s never ended that’s
there’s still this trajectory it’s still
it’s still rolling yeah
that makes sense
um so
to maybe
um
[Music]
bring this all the way
kind of back around
um
to your to your word and your your
etymology of uh addiction
what’s the opposite of addiction just
freedom
just for being free having having
agency
over your decision making process yeah
and you were really ready with that
answer because like
i think you’re exactly right it actually
gave me chills because i do think you’re
right i think
um
that is the other thing that i think
recovery has to offer is that freedom
freedom yeah yeah
all right so with that um i think
we’re gonna put this episode uh away i
appreciate you joining me yeah um
uh so with that i i will invite everyone
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apparently
and
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sign off thank you very much
[Music]