Speaker 1: This is Ellen Stewart, the Pushy broad from the Bronx, saying,
Speaker 1: remember everybody needs a little.
Speaker 2: Push from the push shit broad from the Bronx, New York.
Speaker 3: At Home.
Speaker 1: Welcome Transformation Talk Network listeners. My name is Ellen Stewart
Speaker 1: and I am the Pushy broad from the Bronx. Welcome
Speaker 1: to my show Recovery Recharged, where I share advice and
Speaker 1: support from experts in addiction and recovery. This is a
Speaker 1: straight talk episode, and that means you get questions answered
Speaker 1: directly from the Pushy broad as a certified recovery coach
Speaker 1: and life coach, having a lot of experience in behavioral
Speaker 1: health and addiction services, and also of course being in
Speaker 1: long term recovery myself. There are so many topics that
Speaker 1: interest you in this arena, and this one in particular
Speaker 1: is certainly worthy. What happens when you're trying to get healthy,
Speaker 1: stay healthy, stop drinking, trying to fit in abstinence one
Speaker 1: day at a time, no more drinking, no more drugs,
Speaker 1: and you are dating somebody or living with somebody or
Speaker 1: married to somebody that is not doing any of that,
Speaker 1: and that still decides to party, drink, and drug to
Speaker 1: the point that it becomes a very chaotic environment for you,
Speaker 1: so difficult that living in a sober environment becomes harder
Speaker 1: and harder for you to navigate. So I'm going to
Speaker 1: talk to you about some real tools, some boundaries, some
Speaker 1: decisions you may or may not make, so we can
Speaker 1: decide where our recovery begins and where codependency ends. So
Speaker 1: here are the most popular questions that I get from
Speaker 1: my clients and when I get from my audience, and
Speaker 1: my producer, Emily's in the studio today. She's going to
Speaker 1: feed them to me and we're going to get started.
Speaker 1: Good morning, Emily. What's the first question?
Speaker 3: Good morning? First question is what's the biggest mistake people
Speaker 3: make in this situation.
Speaker 1: There are a few of them, but the number one
Speaker 1: mistake is that if you aren't trying to stay clean
Speaker 1: and sober, and you're in a relationship with somebody that
Speaker 1: you care about, somebody that you love, you may confuse
Speaker 1: that love with the responsibility of taking care of them
Speaker 1: without properly taking care of yourself, putting your knee on
Speaker 1: the bottom of the list while you have their needs
Speaker 1: at the top. Right, confusing love with responsibility and sliding
Speaker 1: right into codefendans right, and we know that word, and
Speaker 1: it's a true word, and it's an addictive word because
Speaker 1: codependence is an addiction because we believe that our partner's
Speaker 1: well being solely depends upon us, and we can't be
Speaker 1: happy unless our partner is okay. That's a relationship addiction,
Speaker 1: and that's directly interfering with the addiction and the recovery
Speaker 1: of you trying to stay clean and sober. When you
Speaker 1: don't put your recovery first. I tell you over and
Speaker 1: over and over again. You get on an airplane, the
Speaker 1: flight attendant says, put your oxygen mask on first. You
Speaker 1: can't help anybody else if you are not taking care
Speaker 1: of you. So that's our biggest mistake. We put someone
Speaker 1: else's needs before our own and interpret that as love,
Speaker 1: which it certainly is not.
Speaker 3: Emily, next question, what is actually your job in the relationship?
Speaker 1: Well, I hate the word job because I don't think
Speaker 1: relationship should be a job. If your relationship is a job,
Speaker 1: guess what, it's not a relationship. But nevertheless, maybe what
Speaker 1: your role should be in a relationship is first to
Speaker 1: take care of your recovery. Every single treatment center, every
Speaker 1: single program, whether it's twelve step recovery or or harm reduction,
Speaker 1: or any of the recovery programs that work in treatment
Speaker 1: for lasting recovery. We'll tell you your recovery is the first
Speaker 1: and foremost thing you have to worry about. Taking care
Speaker 1: of your health is the number one thing. Staying clean
Speaker 1: and sober means the world now has purpose. You have
Speaker 1: the ability to move forward if not nothing else works.
Speaker 1: So what's your job in a relationship to take care
Speaker 1: of you so you can be responsible and wonderful to
Speaker 1: somebody else, so that you can protect your safety and
Speaker 1: their safety, so that you have peace of mind and
Speaker 1: they have peace of mind, so you're not managing their
Speaker 1: emotions or their outcomes. And that becomes the way not
Speaker 1: to find yourself in a core codependent trap. Focus on you,
Speaker 1: and the rest will automatically take care of itself. Emily,
Speaker 1: next question.
Speaker 3: What's the difference between support, enabling control and codependence?
Speaker 1: Believe it or not, there are so many fine lines.
Speaker 1: There really are, and we see it every single day
Speaker 1: in a partner relationship and espousal relationship, even in a
Speaker 1: parent child relationship. So here it is plain and simple. Okay,
Speaker 1: Support in a relationship means healthy encouragement, not doing something
Speaker 1: for someone else, not going in there and trying to
Speaker 1: fix all the stuff that's happening around your lives and
Speaker 1: everybody else's lives so that nobody gets hurt because you're
Speaker 1: not a safety net. That's not who you are. Support
Speaker 1: is healthy encouragement, that's it. Enabling removes all the consequences.
Speaker 1: The first thing we learn in recovery is that actions
Speaker 1: have consequences. If you take the consequences away, you're just
Speaker 1: going to keep doing the same negative behavior over and
Speaker 1: over again. You're just going to keep being that person
Speaker 1: who is active in addictive behavior and addictive use. Enabling
Speaker 1: removes consequences. Control tries to force a change. If it's
Speaker 1: not working well enough, let's try to make it work better.
Speaker 1: Or if this isn't working, let me try to force
Speaker 1: another solution that never works ever. And finally, codependence is
Speaker 1: when your identity and emotional stability revolves around somebody else's behavior.
Speaker 1: Stop living your life for someone else, You have to
Speaker 1: live your life for you, Emily, next question.
Speaker 3: Give us the Bronx moment on this.
Speaker 1: You know, like you know, I'm the pushy road from
Speaker 1: the Bronx. Okay, so if I want to tell it
Speaker 1: straight up, just like it is in my cheerleader and
Speaker 1: my drill sergeant way, I would tell you this. You're
Speaker 1: not their probation officer, you're not the A therapist, and
Speaker 1: you're not their mother. If this is your partner or
Speaker 1: your spouse, okay, you're not their probation officer, you're not
Speaker 1: the a therapist, you're not their mother. And if you're
Speaker 1: exhausted from trying to be those things, then you're codependent.
Speaker 1: Then you are not worried about you enough. Then you
Speaker 1: have to come talk to the Pushy Broad. Then you
Speaker 1: have to do some relationship building with you, some self partnering,
Speaker 1: and make sure that you are taking care of yourself enough.
Speaker 1: I can't stress this enough. Okay, you can't be somebody
Speaker 1: else's guardian. You have to take care of you first. Okay. Now,
Speaker 1: if you're confused about any of this and you want
Speaker 1: to do some work abound it, I need you to
Speaker 1: go to Pushy Broad from the Bronx dot com, make
Speaker 1: an appointment for a free consultation, and then let me
Speaker 1: help you concentrate on your recovery. Emily.
Speaker 3: Next question, how can someone tell if they're enabling or
Speaker 3: being codependent.
Speaker 1: Very simple, it's all easy. Sometimes we're in denial about
Speaker 1: all of this and we don't want to realize that
Speaker 1: we are codependent. So here it is. If your mood,
Speaker 1: your decisions, or your sense of self worth rise and
Speaker 1: fall based on somebody else's behavior, or you're constantly rescuing
Speaker 1: them from consequences, you're in codependent territory. Okay, both of
Speaker 1: these things. Enabling and codependent. If you're trying to see
Speaker 1: leave somebody, put a safety not there, make everything all
Speaker 1: right for someone, excluding your own consequences, then you're enabling somebody.
Speaker 1: There it is. I need you to pull back from
Speaker 1: both of those things and understand that the best love
Speaker 1: you could give someone, which is the hardest for people
Speaker 1: to understand, is the beginning of understanding what it means
Speaker 1: to love yourself. People think that they're not entitled to
Speaker 1: love their self. Their people think it's selfish to focus
Speaker 1: on themselves. It is not. It is self less in
Speaker 1: a way because you're able to concentrate on the things
Speaker 1: that matter, and that's being open. That's allowing other people
Speaker 1: to affect their own consequences. And when that happens, love blossoms.
Speaker 1: It doesn't shrivel up and die. Emily.
Speaker 3: Next question, what's a simple tool to help people stay
Speaker 3: in their life?
Speaker 1: Really simple? Again, three things. What's mine is mine, what's
Speaker 1: theirs is theirs, And for me, what's God's is God's
Speaker 1: meaning in recovery, we say, let go led God. That's
Speaker 1: what we do, which means I'm going to let go
Speaker 1: in and let the universe take its course. So if
Speaker 1: you're not particularly spiritual, I get it. I have many, many,
Speaker 1: many strictly science based clients, and we talk about the
Speaker 1: movement of the universe or what's going to unfold on
Speaker 1: its own. We don't have to control it every turn.
Speaker 1: We are only driving our own car. Okay, we're behind
Speaker 1: the wheel of our own vehicle. We're not driving anybody
Speaker 1: else's car. And the rest of it, the universe is
Speaker 1: taken care of. So I need you to realize that
Speaker 1: the universe can function very well on its own without
Speaker 1: you trying it return to manipulate it. Okay, what's mine
Speaker 1: is mine, what's theirs is theirs, and what the universe
Speaker 1: decide is up to the universe. Emily.
Speaker 3: Next question, can you give us an example of that
Speaker 3: tool in action?
Speaker 1: Okay, let's say your partner comes home drunk, and whatever
Speaker 1: they do, whatever their behavior is, belongs to them. If
Speaker 1: they've gotten into a serious situation, if they've landed in jail,
Speaker 1: if they're in debt, if they have done something that
Speaker 1: is a result of their drinking and drugging, whatever responsibility
Speaker 1: they face belongs to them. Their actions, their consequences. Your response, however,
Speaker 1: is yours, totally yours, which means how you react to
Speaker 1: them is up to you, Which means if you start
Speaker 1: to begin to fix it or cover it up, or
Speaker 1: tell tell them it's going to be okay, or any
Speaker 1: of those things, which means you're going to be directly
Speaker 1: involved into a situation that overlaps your well being, then
Speaker 1: I need you to say, I've got to stay in
Speaker 1: my lane, How am I doing, how am I feeling?
Speaker 1: This really doesn't apply to me. I can listen to them, vent,
Speaker 1: I can support them from afar, but I am not
Speaker 1: going to fix it and I am not going to
Speaker 1: jeopardize my recovery in the process. That's the example. Okay,
Speaker 1: remember push she brought from the Bronx dot com. The
Speaker 1: summer is coming, It's here. Schools are out in a
Speaker 1: couple of weeks, colleges are out, the whole world is partying.
Speaker 1: This is the time to get serious about who you
Speaker 1: are and what your recovery is all about.
Speaker 3: Emily, next question, what does it mean to live in
Speaker 3: a wet house? Ah?
Speaker 1: Okay, So if you're trying to stay sober in an
Speaker 1: environment where where substances are present, that's living in a
Speaker 1: wet house where everybody else is drinking and drugging, and
Speaker 1: you're trying to navigate a sober life. Of course, that's hard.
Speaker 1: Not only is it hard to stay clean and sober,
Speaker 1: which is hard enough, but to do that well, everything
Speaker 1: is coming at you, where all the triggers happen all
Speaker 1: at once, every single day, would wear anybody down. That's
Speaker 1: trying to be a martyr. You can't be a martyr.
Speaker 1: All you can do is try to move away from
Speaker 1: substances and move away from triggers that want you to
Speaker 1: go back to substances. Everybody that wants to go on
Speaker 1: a diet doesn't go to the supermarket and come back
Speaker 1: with k candy and ice cream in the refrigerator. So
Speaker 1: when they open the refrigerator all they see is cake,
Speaker 1: candy and ice cream. How does one stay on a
Speaker 1: diet if it's right in front of you all the time.
Speaker 1: Every single treatment, every single science based research tells us
Speaker 1: that if we're around something long enough, we will cave in.
Speaker 1: So we have to separate ourselves, which sometimes is the hardest.
Speaker 1: But if we can't, maybe we can't. Maybe we can't.
Speaker 1: There are other ways we can get around it, and
Speaker 1: we're going to talk a little bit about it as
Speaker 1: time goes on here. But I know that many of
Speaker 1: you because many of my clients are in situations where
Speaker 1: they're doing their best to stay clean and sober on
Speaker 1: a daily basis, and their partner is not clean and sober,
Speaker 1: and they are surrounded by bottles of beer, bottles of wine,
Speaker 1: marijuana pills in the medicine cabinet, everything that looks to
Speaker 1: take them down at every moment. I understand how hard
Speaker 1: it is, I really do. But I want you to
Speaker 1: survive through it, and I want you to flourish and
Speaker 1: go past it. Emily, next question.
Speaker 3: How do you protect your sobriety in that environment? There?
Speaker 1: You go here? It is so simple things create a
Speaker 1: safe space. If you can't move your environment where you
Speaker 1: don't want to, some people know that they can get
Speaker 1: themselves out of an environment. But that also seems very insurmountable.
Speaker 1: I understand you're trying to do one thing at a time,
Speaker 1: and the first thing is to stay abstinent, stay clean
Speaker 1: and sober, maybe one minute at a time. So how
Speaker 1: are you going to move and how are you going
Speaker 1: to do this? And how you're going to create an
Speaker 1: upheaval in your life? I get it. So instead, take
Speaker 1: a safe space I don't know, a corner of the room,
Speaker 1: a closet, a safe empty space that you can make
Speaker 1: peaceful and calm. The walk in the park, and a
Speaker 1: certain bench under a tree, a walk with the dog.
Speaker 1: Create a safe place where you are away from all
Speaker 1: of the things that are triggers, and then you can
Speaker 1: create that safe space in your mind when you need
Speaker 1: to right. It's called mindfulness, understanding wherever my feet are,
Speaker 1: that's where my brain has to be. How can I
Speaker 1: go to the safe place in my mind? Limit the
Speaker 1: exposure that you have to mood altering substances. You may
Speaker 1: be sharing an apartment with roommates and everybody's getting high,
Speaker 1: So maybe this is your time to go into your room,
Speaker 1: close the door, pick up a book, or put your
Speaker 1: headsets on, listen to some music and turn on the
Speaker 1: tube any of those things. And if you're codependent around
Speaker 1: all of this because you choose to stay with a
Speaker 1: partner that is still using I need you to move
Speaker 1: away from their behavior and stop monitor their every move.
Speaker 1: You know how it is when you want to stay
Speaker 1: clean and sober, there's nobody on this planet that can
Speaker 1: tell you to do it, no matter how many times
Speaker 1: your partner may have told you, your friends may have
Speaker 1: told you, your folks may have told you, anybody. You
Speaker 1: are staying clean and sober for you. So realize that
Speaker 1: if they want to get clean and sober, they're not
Speaker 1: going to do it for you. And if they think
Speaker 1: they're doing it for you, it's not going to be sustainable.
Speaker 1: So I need you to back it up. Understand that
Speaker 1: you don't want them controlling you. You can't control them
Speaker 1: or their sobriety. So that's how you predict protect your environment. Emily,
Speaker 1: next question.
Speaker 3: What's an example of an exit plan?
Speaker 1: There are many different things. When you are in a
Speaker 1: toxic relationship where both people are doing alcohol or drugs
Speaker 1: on a regular basis, it becomes a series of situations.
Speaker 1: You may have started wondering whether or not the relationship
Speaker 1: was working. How long you've been in relationships. I have
Speaker 1: clients who have been married for twenty or thirty years.
Speaker 1: Even where one or both people in the relationship are
Speaker 1: continuously drinking or drugging. It is very hard to break
Speaker 1: away from these things. But I need you to say
Speaker 1: to yourself, do I want this chance for myself? Do
Speaker 1: I want the opportunity to see what life is like
Speaker 1: being completely clean and sober. That's the most important thing
Speaker 1: I know. When I got clean and sober, the thing
Speaker 1: that was most appealing to me was to remember what
Speaker 1: it was like when I was a kid, where I
Speaker 1: didn't spend my life in my li My brain wasn't
Speaker 1: functioning on mood altering substances, even marijuana, which is completely
Speaker 1: legal today and you can maybe smoke a little bit
Speaker 1: every night or whatever it is, but still you are
Speaker 1: in a fog. There is a distinct difference between living
Speaker 1: clean and sober and living with any kind of mood
Speaker 1: altering substance. So when you decide you want to be
Speaker 1: brave enough to make a change, not only because of
Speaker 1: that reason, but because you do not want to live
Speaker 1: in a situation that no longer works for you, Because
Speaker 1: I'm telling you, when both people are drinking and drugging
Speaker 1: to the point where you want to get sober, this
Speaker 1: is a great relationship that resembles toxic situations and negative influences.
Speaker 1: And if you want to start an exit plan could
Speaker 1: be I want to go to couples counseling to see
Speaker 1: if this marriage is working from any point of view.
Speaker 1: Pick up the phone and call Pushy Broad, go to
Speaker 1: the website, make an appointment with me, and we'll see
Speaker 1: whether this relationship is worth holding onto or worth letting go.
Speaker 1: But if things escalate, things escalate, if there's violence, if
Speaker 1: there's abuse, if there is a dangerous situation, no matter
Speaker 1: who you are, you must leave without guilt, without over explaining.
Speaker 1: You have to walk out the door. I don't care
Speaker 1: if you do it. He wakes up one day or
Speaker 1: she wakes up one day, and you're not in that
Speaker 1: bed anymore. I don't care. Get out of it. Codependence
Speaker 1: will tell you to stay and management, manage it. Recovery
Speaker 1: will always tell you to protect yourself and protect your peace.
Speaker 1: Think about it hard, and don't do it alone. Let's
Speaker 1: get some support. I'm here for you, Emily.
Speaker 3: Next question, how important is outside support in this.
Speaker 1: Situation immensely important, but I do urge you to start
Speaker 1: with professional help first. And let me tell you why.
Speaker 1: There are so many people that talk to me about
Speaker 1: talking to their friends about situations or talking to their
Speaker 1: family about situations. I'm not saying that that's not important,
Speaker 1: but understand friends and family will not understand the way
Speaker 1: a recovery professional will understand, or whether a behavioral health
Speaker 1: therapist will understand, because family may be on your side
Speaker 1: for a minute, and then when things change may be
Speaker 1: on your partner side. Friends will vacillate depending upon how
Speaker 1: they are feeling. Family will also take sides depending upon
Speaker 1: how they are feeling. A professional doesn't put feelings into it.
Speaker 1: Their feelings don't matter. My feelings around this have nothing
Speaker 1: to do with your situation, which is why you need
Speaker 1: independent professional advice and the ability to be allowed to
Speaker 1: vent to get the support you need because you can't
Speaker 1: have it bottled up. There's no place to go except
Speaker 1: self recrimination, and that's something you don't want to do.
Speaker 1: So support is critical, especially for breaking codependent patterns, because
Speaker 1: that's an addiction. You need voices like the pushy broad
Speaker 1: that reminds you what's yours and what isn't yours? What
Speaker 1: doesn't belong to you? I cannot stress this enough. Take
Speaker 1: advantage now because I'm taking new clients. Pushy broad from
Speaker 1: the Bronx dot com. Make an appointment for a free consultation.
Speaker 1: We will go from there. It's the spring, new things
Speaker 1: are blossoming. Now is the time, Emily, What else have
Speaker 1: you got?
Speaker 3: What's one piece of homework for listeners this week?
Speaker 1: Okay? Really simple? Really? Maybe I want you to set
Speaker 1: one clear boundary, one clear boundary, and notice when you're
Speaker 1: having difficulty breaking that boundary. For instance, I am not
Speaker 1: going to tell them to stop drinking so much at night.
Speaker 1: I'm not going to count the beer bottles in the
Speaker 1: garbage pail. Okay, I'm not going to go searching for
Speaker 1: the wine bottles that are underneath the couch. Okay. I
Speaker 1: know you're out there, and I know you're doing it.
Speaker 1: I need you to send one clear boundary, and that
Speaker 1: big thing is to focus on you and say to yourself,
Speaker 1: this does not belong to me. I am clean and sober.
Speaker 1: I need you to set one clear boundary and see
Speaker 1: how many times that boundary comes up, and how many
Speaker 1: times you want to break that boundary, and then I
Speaker 1: need you to get some support because this takes time.
Speaker 1: I promise you you can recover from codependency from enabling,
Speaker 1: and you can stay clean and sober.
Speaker 3: Emily, next question, why shouldn't people make big relationship decisions
Speaker 3: and crisis?
Speaker 1: Well, okay, so here it is in recovery. I've always
Speaker 1: been told one thing, and it's kind of like a commandment.
Speaker 1: We never make decisions in anger or in haste because
Speaker 1: invariably they will not work out. Ever, and it's a
Speaker 1: cloudy judgment call. I'm reacting from fear, not clarity, or
Speaker 1: I am reacting from pressure to act not clarity, and
Speaker 1: it's very hard for someone who is a recovering addict,
Speaker 1: even because addicts want what they want when they want it,
Speaker 1: and they want it right now. Okay, So that means
Speaker 1: I want to give you a decision right away. I
Speaker 1: want to say yes right away. I want to make
Speaker 1: a decision for myself that may not be right immediately,
Speaker 1: because the impulse reaction is very strong in addiction, which
Speaker 1: means we go to save right away, We go to
Speaker 1: react right away, and sometimes out of fear or anger
Speaker 1: and not clarity. So I need you to pause, and
Speaker 1: I need you to say I'm not sure about that yet.
Speaker 1: I'll give you a decision in twenty four hours or
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's going to work for me.
Speaker 1: I have to give it some further thought. It's not
Speaker 1: a no, it's just a not now. That's all. That's
Speaker 1: the best thing to do. Okay, one more thing. Instead
Speaker 1: of reacting, I want you to explore three options codependence
Speaker 1: Russia's decisions Recovery allows space and reflection. I know that
Speaker 1: it's extremely important for you to do the right thing
Speaker 1: and feel that you're doing the right thing. But every
Speaker 1: single day you go without a drink or a drug,
Speaker 1: I promise you your life will get better. The clarity
Speaker 1: will return. The life that you're supposed to lead is here,
Speaker 1: and I want you to think about what it would
Speaker 1: look like in the next thirty days if you decided
Speaker 1: to do something drastically different with your life, Meaning, what
Speaker 1: would it look like in the next thirty days if
Speaker 1: you weren't in the situation you're in. Remember called the
Speaker 1: pushy brought from the Bronx. I am here to help
Speaker 1: you in this. You can sustain a relationship without losing yourself,
Speaker 1: and you can flourish in recovery. Thank you.
Speaker 2: She's a pushy broad from the Bronx, New York. Follow
Speaker 2: her voice a straight dog TI. She's a pushy broad
Speaker 2: from the Bronx. Oh yeah, don't be surprised if you want.
Speaker 3: To listen twice, make.
Speaker 2: Decisions, find the right choice now yourself, better find your
Speaker 2: own voice. It's okay. You need know today because everybody
Speaker 2: need a little push from the pushhit broad from the
Speaker 2: Bronx New York that let outlet at home