Enhancing Recovery Through Progress & Planning

Matt Finch: So harm reduction defines recovery as making any positive change, any positive change. Examples, going from a bottle of vodka a day to two glasses of wine per night. So if they were going to Twelve Step meetings, the day would still be, they wouldn't be able to speak at meetings, this, that, and the other. So they wouldn't be in recovery, even though they're making that positive change.

Chris Scott: If you planted the seed of belief inside of yourself, that you're going to drink again tonight and the next night and the next night, because you have a disease that's going to force you into becoming a mindless automaton with no free will or autonomy, then that's exactly what's going to happen. You've essentially surrendered your free will to a disease, which is a social construct that you've chosen to believe in. And it will determine your behavior because you've also surrendered the responsibility of doing anything about it.

Announcer: Thanks for tuning in to the "Elevation Recovery Podcast," your hub for addiction, recovery strategies hosted by Chris Scott and Matt Finch.

Matt Finch: Welcome everyone to episode 237 of "Elevation Recovery." I'm Matt Finch, and I'm joined here with my friend and co-host Chris Scott. Chris, nice to see you. I'm jealous that you have the cozy shirt on. I got to do laundry, so I don't have any of those cleans, but how you been, man? Long time no see. What's it been? At least a week.

Chris Scott: Hey. Yeah, great to be back. I actually had to, I forgot I turned my AC up a little bit so the temperature up, so I was kind of sweating, but this is so breathable that it's actually just fine. And yeah, I've been adapting to a new routine. I'm back into the get up early routine. I actually popped up out of bed at 4:30 yesterday. And I managed to get to sleep really early the night before. And people who have been following this podcast for a while, know that one of my post alcohol continual optimization struggles is, well, sleep, but not sleep per se. I can go to sleep if I get to bed. It's motivating myself to get to bed. It's kind of a high quality problem in that I have so many things that I love doing and so many like competing passions and hobbies and work projects and whatnot and friends to catch up with in different cities. Sometimes I'll be on the phone. "Oh my God, it's one in the morning." That kind of thing.

Chris Scott: And when you run a business from home like we do, or I guess a lot of people now do because they work remotely, you might not have a boss who's going to yell at you or give you an odd look if you are not showered and dressed by 8:00 AM. So for me, it's like, "How do I motivate myself to go to bed even when I'm being focused." It's not like I'm eating pizza in bed all day and that's why I can't sleep. I'm getting stuff done. Although, I have had lazy days, but usually those are earned and I feel pretty good about those. But I found a sort of hack that worked for me.

Chris Scott: And one of the things that I did during the pandemic was I got a sauna, an infrared sauna. I ordered the cheapest one I could find that also had good reviews from Amazon. I thought it could be a stupid investment, but sure enough, it showed up. It was dropped a bunch of boxes in my parking space outside my condo. Called my buddy and he and I constructed the thing in about 25 minutes. And I've been using that every single night since I got back from California. So I have a new rule sauna by 8:00 PM every night. And if I don't do the sauna, I take an Epson bath. You actually referred me to something that was like, CBD Essentials. Is that it? Yeah. It's like CBD-

Matt Finch: Yeah, the brand. That could be.

Chris Scott: Yeah. It's a CBD Epsom salt-

Matt Finch: [crosstalk 00:03:38]. And you've tried it now?

Chris Scott: Eucalyptus and other things. It's amazing. So, yeah, so I actually, I did that and the sauna two nights ago before I committed to waking up early at 8:00 PM. And then I took a bunch of supplements. Actually I took them prior to the sauna, so I'd be extra relaxed and sleepy when I got out. And I took glycine, lithium orotate, BCM-95, turmeric, vitamin D-3 5,000 IU, which I always take at night, magnesium three and eight. And let's see, what else did I take?

Chris Scott: I think that was it, but that's a good... Oh, I had a tea, that's what I had. I had a sleepy tea that my mom had gotten from somewhere. And it was, I think, lemongrass and maybe lemon balm as well.

Matt Finch: I love lemon balm.

Chris Scott: A mint. It was a lemon balm based sleepy tea that also might have had chamomile in it. Yeah. And I have to be careful with the chamomile because if I have too much of that, it's a bit of a diuretic. So I'm getting up every two hours to go to the bathroom, [crosstalk 00:04:41] but did all of that. And actually, oh, I took some CBD as well. I took 80 milligrams from a dropper.

Matt Finch: Woo. That's a good one.

Chris Scott: And I was out by 9:30 PM and I popped up at 4:30 AM, which is not enough sleep. It's almost enough sleep, but not. And so I let myself, I didn't actually mean to wake up at 4:30. I had my alarm set for 6:45, which I think is reasonable. And so this morning I woke up at 6:45 and I probably drifted off last night by 10:30 ish. So that's pretty good. And just getting a lot done in the morning as opposed to my default, which is getting a lot done after MMA training, after my work out in the afternoon, when I'm already I'm kind of tired, because I just expanded a lot of energy. And then I eat and then I would try not to take a nap after dinner because that's dumb. So then I would work late into the night, get a second wind, end up on the phone with my best friend from college and all of a sudden it's one in the morning. So that was the routine that I kept being in.

Chris Scott: And I think it was coach Zach who had posted something on Instagram or maybe Facebook. And it was a quote. It said, you're only as good as your routines and rituals. And he might not have actually posted that as a quote. He might have just said it. I can't recall. But that resonated with me. And I was thinking, I've definitely gotten a lot better objectively in all sorts of areas since transcending alcohol, but I'm still only as good as my routines and rituals. And if I have routines and rituals that are not serving me 100%, if they're serving me 60 or 70%, then I can get much better. And if I'm 30% better every single day for a year, then great things can happen. We can reach more people. So that's just a little window into my own life. Nothing catastrophic or major or potentially even interesting for someone who's going through more ups and downs than I am at this point.

Chris Scott: But that's the kind of thing you can deal with seven years plus after transcending addiction. Always trying to stay a fine-tuned machine, trying to stay on top of things and tweaking things. So I should add that one of the things I also did was I got my giant whiteboard, which is screwed to the wall in my sauna room actually. I reflect on it when I'm sitting in the sauna. And I totally erased it and I wrote out a new eight-week routine this time. So I have certain goals that I want to be achieved by the time Thanksgiving rolls around. And I actually went the extra step. I have a little notebook, which is right here. Everyone can see and every morning I [crosstalk 00:07:22] erase things. Yeah, I actually, so these things I started with this-

Matt Finch: Is that leather?

Chris Scott: This is leather. Yeah. My best friend from high school got this from me when I quit drinking. And I've gone through literally a dozen of these pads in seven or so years. And they're really helpful. I have them all stacked up. And so every year I'm continue to churn them out. And so I have like a step by step plan for like week by week for those eight weeks and after which I have certain desired outcomes. So I've been very motivated. You and I both know that, well, I would've laughed at this several years ago, but I don't anymore because it can't be coincidence anymore. Mercury's been in retrograde. Although I still don't understand the mechanics of that, I trust you on it. And we definitely see evidence of it. There's something in the collective consciousness, perhaps with world events as well that I won't get into because I like this podcast to be kind of a safe Haven from those events, but people are feeling maybe a little bit disoriented and unmotivated. So I wanted to share something I've been doing to combat that.

Matt Finch: Yeah, it's, you're super brave for launching such a new, huge project during this time. When I think currently there's like five or six, maybe even more planets that are all going in retrograde motion. So compared to the usual motion of the planets, the forward motion, Mercury's the planet of communication, technology and a bunch of things. So I mean here's a little bit of evidence-based sort of is that they've done large research studies where when the planet Mercury goes in this retrograde motion for around three weeks at a time, I think four times a year, they noted that during those times of the year there's more flat tires, there's more technology outages or complications. There's more certain types of breakdowns with communication and technology. So they've done a lot of testing into this. Kind of cool that there's a little bit of a, not just wooy woo stuff, but they've done pretty cool statistics on it.

Matt Finch: And I also love the fact that towards the end of your little kind of monologue on your epic, new, not only project, but your new routine and most importantly, your new sleep routine. So you can get to bed early and wake up super early, that's super early. But then you were saying, if I can get a certain amount of percentage better, making progress, that act actually links it to exactly one thing that I wanted to mention today, which can help anybody right now, literally anybody. They might not have the high quality problem of trying to figure out how to get to sleep at best. They might be drinking a bottle of vodka a day. They might be shooting a bunch of heroin per day. So for that, I want to talk about real quick, a concept from this article from Time Magazine. I think the title was, "What does it mean to recover from addiction?"

Matt Finch: And it was all about kind of the binary of Twelve Steps. Like you're either in recovery, which means you're abstinent from everything bar caffeine and nicotine and sugar.

Chris Scott: Except meetings. Yeah.

Matt Finch: Yeah. Alcohol and then drugs. And so this one was awesome. It's all about harm reduction. And the guy that wrote the article for Time just came out with a book I can't wait to read it or listen to it. So harm reduction defines recovery as making any positive change, any positive change. Examples going from a bottle of vodka a day to two glasses of wine per night. So if they were going to Twelve Step meetings, they'd still, they wouldn't even be a newcomer. They would still be... I turned that off, I swear. They would still be, they wouldn't be able to speak at meetings this, that and the other. So they wouldn't be in recovery even though they're making that positive change harm reduction.

Matt Finch: Say for instance, somebody is snorting fentanyl powder, really powerful opioid, up to 100 stronger than morphine. What if that person goes from snorting a whole bunch of fentanyl per day, to transitioning over to a sublingual buprenorphine, slow onset, slow offset, long acting, partial opioid agonist, much safer. It's pretty much impossible to overdose on, at least for people that are opioid dependent already. But then when he would go to Twelve Step meetings, even though he's in recovery from fentanyl and opioid addiction, he wouldn't be considered as being in recovery because he's on, he's just trading one addiction for another. So I've been big into harm reduction for ages. Any positive change should be celebrated. A lot of people don't want to simply...

Matt Finch: Let's say a person's, and I've mentioned this in the last solo cast. Let's say a girl is 21 and she gets into drinking and becomes an alcoholic. She qualifies for alcohol use disorder, let's say. Let's say she's only doing that for six to 12 months. Totally ruins her life and her health. Goes to inpatient rehab, gets indoctrinated into Twelve Step big book ideology, gets a lot of fear and fear-based strategies from the counselor saying, "You need to stick with this for life. Once an addict, an alcoholic, always an addict, an alcoholic." Well then all of a sudden she's not supposed to ever use any substances ever again so long as she lives. And she only had a problem for less than a year at the age of 21 when most people go through things like that. So it's a very kind of black and white thinking. And you and I have talked a lot about this.

Matt Finch: And then, oh, I know what I want to do now. I got to read this portion, which I took a screenshot of. You're going to love this part. So here we go. Of course, for people steeped in traditional abstinence-oriented recovery, the harm reduction's any positive change definition can be challenging. In the Twelve Step world members who have maintained continuous abstinence for many years are revered. The longer their time away from alcohol and other drugs, the higher their status tends to be. The lure of such social acclaim helps some avoid relapse. Granting the status of recovering to those who have not quit entirely seems unfair from this perspective. However, it could save lives. I just love that. Research shows that having such a binary view of recovery can actually make relapses more dangerous.

Matt Finch: It goes into the example that I think I shared on this podcast maybe a year ago or longer where what if somebody has 40 years of continuous abstinence from drugs and alcohol and their wife dies. And that night they're just totally vulnerable. They take, they drink half a glass of wine or they drink one shot of Jack Daniels or even a double shot of scotch or something to take the edge off. They're truthful about it. They go to a meeting the next day, say what happened. This person that's been in recovery and AA for 40 years has sponsored probably hundreds of people, they would have to start back as a newcomer, erase all those 40 years and start as a newcomer for the next 30 days. And all their time starts over. That is so black and white and binary it's ridiculous. Versus there's still... That's why I hate the terminology and the ironclad rules.

Matt Finch: Because if somebody does that, then what's to stop them, "Well, I'm not going to erase all 40 years from that one drink that I took. If I have to start from zero, I'm going to make it worth it. I'm actually going to go do this." And when people do that, which happens all the time, it happened to me. I've seen it happen to so many people in AA. I've personally known and witnessed, well, not witness like them passing away, but I have known people a lot of them at the Twelve Step meetings from the many years that I went there that had many years sober, clean, whatever you want to call. Had a little slip, in a sense that one little tiny night of drinking, even if it was one drink. Since they knew that takes them back to zero from like four years, 10 years back to zero days, they're just like, "Well, I'm going to at least make this worth it if I'm going to have to start all over from scratch."

Matt Finch: And a lot of them don't come back from that relapse. They end up overdosed, dead, in jail for a long time. So I wanted to bring that up because you were saying that, progress, if I can get better, that's what harm reduction is. And a lot of people don't just quit drinking or quit drugs overnight or within a month. Recovering is more of like a journey, a process, a transformation versus an event. And so people are beating themselves up. "Oh, I drank again. I had three weeks off and I drank, I feel so shitty about myself." They beat themselves up. "I thought I had it."

Matt Finch: Well, that's three weeks you didn't drink for. Holy moly. Let's celebrate that. And then as long as people are making even 1% or 2% progress per week even. If people are making progress towards positive changes, even if they're not completely to the goal that they want regarding their use of alcohol and or drugs, if they're moving towards that destination, that little bit of progress, even that's something that can be very motivating is... It comes from AA. It's so funny that AA is so kind of black and white about this, that's where the cliche comes from. Focus on progress, not perfection. Yet they seem to have missed that one and they only celebrate people for perfection or they only award people the clean time in the status of an old timer that have had all that continuous time in that kind of specific binary way.

Chris Scott: Yeah. I think there's a lot of good stuff there. There's many directions that I could go with it, but I think what popped out for me in what you said is talking about people who relapsed then they feel shitty afterwards. And if there's one thing that I hope people can do in Total Alcohol Recovery 2.0 or who listen to the podcast or just involved in maybe a similar framework as the one that we have used ourselves, it's that if you do feel shitty after a so-called relapse, then I hope it's mostly or all because of the toxic effects of alcohol and not because of you beating yourself up because you beating yourself up compounds the toxic effects of alcohol and makes it much worse. And actually even worse than that, it can make you do it again.

Chris Scott: If you believe, if you've planted the seed of belief inside of yourself that you're going to drink again tonight and the next night and the next night, because you have a disease that's going to force you into becoming a mindless auto automaton with no free will or autonomy, then that's exactly what's going to happen. And you've essentially surrendered your free will to a disease, which is a social construct that you've chosen to believe in. And it will determine your behavior because you've also surrendered the responsibility of doing anything about it. And I think that's the dangerous thing. I've seen people who are exposed to new information who say, "All right, I drink way too much. I probably have some biochemical imbalances and some physical damage from this toxic substance called alcohol." I don't think there's a lot of social construct in that, except for maybe the words too much, because that's, what's too much?

Chris Scott: I think I read about a country at some point that said like, the guidelines. I can't remember where if it was in Europe or Africa,-

Matt Finch: Sweden.

Chris Scott: Or elsewhere but it was like for men, no more than nine units a night and for women no more than seven, I was like, "Whoa!"

Matt Finch: Norway and Sweden and Finland.

Chris Scott: Yeah. I don't recall exactly where. It could have been a different time as well. But I thought that was funny. The definition of moderation is a nebulous term, it's changing all the time and it varies from country to country and place to place. Social construct. What's not a social construct is ethanol as a molecule and neither are your internal organs or your brain. And neither is your energy level and how you objectively feel, which of course is influenced by how you subjectively feel as well. But these are things that you have control over. And there are tools that you can use to build yourself back up from scratch after being exposed chronically to the toxic compound alcohol.

Chris Scott: And if people think of it in that framework and they think, "Well, all right, I had two weeks in which I started to rewire my brain and rebalance my chemistry. That's really good. And then after that I didn't have mysterious and baffling relapse. I actually chose to drink because my best friend came into town and I used that as a reason to drink." Well now you have some fuel for a plan because you understand the reason of why something happened. It didn't just mysteriously creep up on you. You might have given into it in a way that seemed mysterious because you didn't fully process it or you let yourself surrender your free will at that point to just range of the moment, whimsical pleasure, which we all do from time to time. And even after you transcend alcohol, you're still going to do that sometimes. I've eaten entire pizzas for no reason every now and then. Or that's not usually my weakness. There's all sorts of things that will tempt you forever. Not necessarily forever.

Chris Scott: But I don't think there's a reason to frame that in a way that makes it more difficult for you to overcome it or that turns it into a giant monster. It is something that you can tackle and progress is better than no progress. And always be focused on what you've done to help yourself thus far. So if you're focused on your failures, then you could fall into a state of helplessness or powerlessness, which tends to be the root cause psychologically of all depression. And when you're in a state of depression, quite apart from the raw materials of 5-HTP or L-tryptophan being available to boost your serotonin, you actually produce less serotonin because you're in a depressed state. The same way that Jordan Peterson likes to talk about the lobsters. And when they lose a lobster fighting match, the one that loses his serotonin goes down or her serotonin, they go down. And so that's not because they didn't take their 5-HTP, that's a situational phenomenon.

Chris Scott: So you can create situational phenomenons by means of the beliefs that you choose to integrate into your own mind that can influence your levels of neurochemicals. So that's why I like to talk about the biopsychosocial, spiritual hierarchy of recovery, rather than just saying, "Take these supplements and you're done." For some people, it does seem to be that easy, but that's usually because they have an unusually good grasp on life otherwise. But if you want to fully optimize yourself, then I think it really pays to look at the whole framework. And as my dad pointed out, he's someone who has never had any experience with addiction. He said, "The things that you teach, I think you could be teaching this method to people who don't have addictions and it would improve their lives."

Chris Scott: And that was the kind of the goal that you leave addiction behind as a past phase that you learn from, and that you understand the underlying science of, but then you go on to optimize your life. And when you do that, you try to optimize all areas. That doesn't mean becoming a perfectionist. It means understanding how to categorize things in your life, that you can then zoom in on and try to improve to the best of your ability. Understanding you're unlikely to get to 100%. We talked about the four burners a few weeks ago, where you have like, if each area of your life is a burner that can be turned up from one to 10, you're not going to have all of them 10 all the time. It just doesn't happen.

Chris Scott: And so I find it in my own life, if I'm super fit and I wake up in the morning and I have veins in my abs, then chances are pretty good that I haven't been working quite as hard as I have in my hard work phases. Or if I find that I'm getting a huge amount done and waking up early as I am now, I might get beat up a little bit in MMA this week. That's fine. There's certain trade-offs. But I think the key is to enable yourself to be physiologically and psychologically optimized so that you can make those trade-offs properly. And when you do that, one trade-off that doesn't make sense is binging on alcohol or drugs.

Matt Finch: Yeah. And I know we got to go pretty soon here. You got a cool important phone call coming up. I'll just say, this is something that I've been doing recently. I forget exactly where I heard it from. No, I remember. The YouTube channel, Aaron Abke. I love his videos. He's one of my new favorite dudes. And so I've been doing this thing every single day, sometimes a few times a day. And what I'll do is, I got lots of candles, scented candles, crystal candles, WoodWick candles, big variety. Love the candle lights. But I'll look into the candle on my altar on my dresser, and I'll just close my eyes and relax, deep-breathe. And then I'll say, "I forgive myself. I forgive all the people that have trespassed against me. I forgive everyone in the world. I forgive the world, I forgive myself."

Matt Finch: And then I really just kind of meditate on that. And I do that several times a day. Oh, man. Because I am super prone to just minor judgmentalism of myself and of others. And so since I've been doing that, oh, I'm just like everything... Like I'm not judging, "Oh look it's these airplanes are too loud. Oh, it's so busy here in San Diego." I had fallen a lot from doing that in the past couple of years, but with this new little ritual, you're talking about routines and rituals. With that one little ritual takes me like a minute or two or 30 seconds sometimes. When I do it a few times throughout the day, it just feels really good. It's like putting that energy out there where I'm forgiving myself, just acknowledging that and really meaning it. Like I forgive myself for everything that I've done or not done or said or not said or thought or not thought.

Matt Finch: And then it's just like, wow, something so simple can just be so powerful. And I've been teaching that to a bunch of the clients that I have that are really beating themselves up and the ones that are doing it, they're like, "Oh man. I wish I'd been... I should have been doing this my whole adult life. It's so powerful." So I'll just end with that. And then we can wrap it up here so you can get ready for your call. Or if you want to say anything else, you got the floor. Papaya is just going to keep chilling like she's been doing.

Chris Scott: Yeah. I think that's a great routine. And something I've been doing in the morning is I'm back to my miracle morning stuff. And so I have my five-minute timer on my iPhone. I have my, it's a journal. The first thing I write in that journal is what I'm grateful for because then that orients me towards, well, I find it to be stress relieving, because if you're focused on what you have, then you're not stressing out about what you don't have. And that's a really nice way to start the day in the morning when your subconscious mind is pretty malleable. And after that, I tend to write, I start writing lists and things that I want to do, but I'm getting excited. I'm not stressing myself out. It's not like, "Oh my to-do list." It's like, "I'm going to do this, this and that. And here's how I'm going to do it."

Chris Scott: And I'm feeling fresh and awake. So I'm going to write it out now. And then I can kind of have that in the back of my mind and make me more efficient throughout the day. And another thing is before bed, I didn't add this, but I still am reading. I have to read before sleep. So I'm actually reading in the sauna and I turn the sauna into a red light mode. So it's like a big red light therapy in addition to the infrared. [crosstalk 00:27:48]. And so I'm reading, I'm sweating all over this book. So the book looks like crap now-

Matt Finch: That's so-

Chris Scott: But it's like, yeah, the pages are all messed up and it's like parchment paper, but I'm reading the evolutionary herbalism book. And then I transfer into bed and I have my little clip-on red light, reading light, which you can find on Amazon. I forget the brand. It starts with an H and I just read, I have the dogs next to me. That's something I'm always grateful for in the morning that I have my pack who are actually laying right here. And they lay in bed with me until I say, "All right, time to go to bed." They go to their dog beds, put the book down and it's out. So having your routines and rituals and having some things be constant from day to day, I think are really good. And then sometimes you have these grand epiphanies where you figure out what you can shift in those rituals. And if you can stick with that over time when you're having an epiphany and not make it too ridiculous.

Chris Scott: If I had a miracle morning, it was like, "I'm going to meditate for an hour. I'm going to do a two-hour workout. Do I need to get up at 3:30 AM?" I'm not going to do it. I just I don't have enough willpower. I'm not Jacko or David Goggins. I've nothing against those guys. If you can do it, then good. But that wouldn't actually be optimal for me because we have a finite amount of energy each day. And the question is, "How do we want to expend that energy?" When you look at it like that and instead of, when I was a drinker, I would assume for some reason that I had infinite energy and that I should be able to drink my face off all the time and also kill it at work and also have a girlfriend and do all these things. And that's just not possible. You have a finite amount of energy each day, but the cool thing is that with good and improving rituals and routines over time, you can slowly increase the amount of energy that you have.

Chris Scott: So it remains fairly finite from day to day but within the span of a year, if you keep making those improvements, you can go from this much energy per day to that much energy per day.

Matt Finch: And a great book, too, for people to learn how to optimize their energy in the different domains. I learned this one from Eben Pagan, it's called "The Power of Full Engagement." That book, life changing for helping people to learn how to manage their energy, conserve their energy, optimize their energy mentally, physically, emotionally and spiritually. And real quick before we go, I also should plug Hal Elrod's book series, really. It's a book series that you and I have both read and there's a journal workbook type of thing that you can fill in too, called "The Miracle Morning." I have listened to and or are read the regular "Miracle Morning," the "Miracle Morning for Entrepreneurs," the "Miracle Morning for Writers." And so for if people are looking for a quick little action step that can make them kind of more productive and happy and fulfilled.

Matt Finch: If you're liking Chris's morning routine, they have and it's, co-written Hal Elrod with the guy that is the founder of Genius Recovery. I can't remember his name right now. It's been a while since I've even thought about him, but he's amazing. The book is called "The Miracle Morning for Addiction Recovery" or the miracle morning for recovery. So it's like all about how to set up your mornings. Even something as short as one minute, one journal, one minute meditate, one minute prayer. And there's different things. The miracle, M-I-R-A-C-L-E something like meditate, eat or no, sorry, meditate, exercise, meditate. I forget. It's like things like your scribing, your quiet time, your meditating. There's so there's different words. It's like an acronym MIRACLE.

Matt Finch: And there's like what? Six or seven different things. So it's a great book. Hal Elrod's a great author and he even has on YouTube lots of good YouTube keynotes presentations on the miracle morning. He's really great. Really funny. He's a multiple time cancer survivor and he's just one of the most loving human beings. So I had to give them a shout out right there. Thanks so much, Chris, always fun as usual. Have a great Shopify call in one minute.