Speaker 1: Tonight, it's my pleasure to introduce our friend Alan Berger.
We're continuing our series of workshops on the theme of
emotional sobriety. Doctor Burger will speak to our group on
the first Monday of each month throughout this year twenty
twenty two. Tonight is the third part of his discussion
of how we can apply the twelve Essential Insights for
Emotional Sobriety to our recovery and growth in our programs.
Doctor Burger will be talking about discerning our emotional dependency.
And let me tell you a little about Alan. Alan
recently celebrated fifty years of sobriety using the Twelve Steps
and over forty years as a practicing psychotherapist specializing in
addiction to recovery with an emphasis on emotional sobriety. Doctor
Berger will bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to.
Speaker 2: Us each month.
Speaker 1: Like I said in Hiss and So, he's going to
be talking again about the insight number three and you
can find that referenced in his new book, which is
those the twelve Essential Insights for Emotional Sobriety, and it's
actually chapter five of the book if you want to
if you haven't had the book, handy and you want
to look at it for further information.
Speaker 2: So now it wasn't that genius. I don't have to
intro you now, I mean you got me intro.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I've been made, You've been made.
Speaker 2: She promoted the book.
Speaker 3: She did it all, She did it.
Speaker 2: All for me.
Speaker 4: No, that's Susie.
Speaker 2: That's Susie right.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 2: I love it. I love it. Ladies and gentlemen, welcome
back to the scene of the conversation. You already know
what it is.
Speaker 3: It's the VR is Thursday night.
Speaker 2: We've been on fire all week long and I had
to bring in the final boss of psychotherapy of emotional sobriety.
Speaker 3: Come on, let's have a real conversation.
Speaker 2: The number of dollars one eight hundred nine twenty fifteen
point eighty before I introduced my brother. This is my brother.
I don't think you all understand. This is my bro
has always been a catalyst and a supporter of my work.
Was able to see it, see where it's coming from,
understand it. Man, Doctor Berger is one of him one's.
I wouldn't bring him in here if he wasn't one
of them ones. Ladies in Joe, he's one of them.
One'sy tonight's topic. We're going to cover some of the
concepts and ideas not only in his book, but in
the body of work that he has established. I mean,
how long have you been a therapist? Christ I know.
Speaker 4: Yeah, susioad. The announcement was made five years ago because
just August first, I celebrated fifty five years clean and sover.
Speaker 2: Wow.
Speaker 4: Fifty five years and I've been as a psychotherapist actually
about fifty three of those fifty five years.
Speaker 2: Yikes.
Speaker 4: Okay, that's a life.
Speaker 3: That's a lifetime.
Speaker 4: Brother. Yeah, and look, yeah, you're my brother too, man,
and I do get what you do. And I think
everybody that listens to you understands that when you show up,
you show up for them, that when you share, you're
sharing something that you feel is of value and can
make a difference in people's lives. And that's why I've
loved your work up to this point in time, because
you've made an incredible contribution to the well being of
anyone that comes in contact to you. Man, You're that
you're like the pied Piper of mental health. Oh wow, wow,
you just carry such a wonderful message. And not only that, Man, listen,
I don't trust anybody that doesn't walk the way they talk.
And you walk the talk. You walk the talk. You
are the Zoe. You guys, here, here is the Zoe
out there that's living his life, that's trying to show up,
that's trying to figure things out, that hurts like you
and I hurt that. It feels the pain that you
and I feel. That struggles with the same issues. But
what you bring to that struggle is the amazing degree
of consciousness you had. I was talking about that earlier.
The consciousness you bring to your work, to your body
of work has been phenomenal and inspires me as well.
Come on, all right, good night everyone.
Speaker 2: Now, before I get this conversation going, I would be
remiss if I did not acknowledge that today for me
was a tough day. I appeared on many shows on
this station over the last eighteen months after the fires
happened in Altadena in Pasadena, and I you know, I
talked about how a couple of my older brothers were missing. Well,
today my second oldest brother, Maurice big Mo, passed away.
And when I tell you that was a protector, a mentor,
a father figure, an example, he was everything for me
and just to see him over the past years just
deteriorate because of codependency on alcohol. Yeah, it leads us
right into our topic, you know, being in a toxic
relationship and enabler drinking all. It leads us into our
topic tonight, rest in peace, big brother, Mo, I love
you forever. And now let's get to it. Emotional sobriety
a step by step guide on how to break insecure
attachment code dependence.
Speaker 5: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well, let's dedicate this show to your brother to let's
do that. This is for you, Mo, This is for
what didn't happen in your life that can happen in
other people's. Yeah, and hopefully you're suffering and your pain
will inspire some people to say, hey, time to wake up.
This is the real deal. This is not a dress rehearsal. No,
this is it, man, this is it.
Speaker 2: I love it. Let's get to the questions. Doc, you
got to walk us through this. Yeah, number one, give
us your definition of emotional sobriety. What is it? Why
do we need it? Why is it important right for
us to cultivate and kind of develop it? What is
an emotional operating system?
Speaker 3: Hey, talk to me bro.
Speaker 4: Listen, what a juicy question. Very juicy. Let me take
the first bite of that. Yes, and the first bite
would be, in one word, emotional. Sobriety has to do
with freedom, emotional freedom. And see what we don't realize,
all of us think. We walk around thinking, oh, I'm
in control of my life. I've been in control of
what I'm doing. But the truth is is Freud had
it right that we are being lived by the forces
within us, and those forces, most of them, are outside
of our awareness. We don't realize it. And so when
I talk about freedom, you know, if I go back
into my history when I was my first drink was
when I was twelve years old, I can remember it
like it was happening yesterday. And I'm seventy four, so
that was a few years ago, right, sixty two years ago.
What happened that day as I was twelve years old,
my father just died from cancer. I had all these
feelings as a twelve year old boy. My father's my
heritage on his side is Jewish, but I was in
a German Italian neighborhood and Jews were not popular in
that neighborhood, and so I had all these feelings, but
I didn't want to be who I was. I thought
if I was somebody else other than myself, I could
be okay. And dealing with the pain of my dad's loss.
I didn't even know how to wrap my head around
that because he was important to me, very important, and
so I had all these feelings inside that I was
trapped with. I had no idea how to address, a
deal with and cope with the reality of my life.
There was no one around me doing very good job
of it. You know, my dad was dying for over
a year and we never talked about it. It was
that kind of deal though. So when I took that
first drink, something really amazing happened. I felt free. It
created freedom, man. I was okay being Alan Berger. The drink,
the drink, the alcohol changed my consciousness. That made me okay.
And I'll tell you, man, I don't know if I
was born an alcoholic, but the minute I took that drink,
and alcoholic was born. And that idea, man, that if
one is good, more is gonna be what better better?
I got it, man, And I was off. I was running.
I was sprinting as fast as I could. In alcoholism,
I was a teenage alcoholic. I was blacking out several
times a week. I mean, my life was going nowhere,
nowhere at all. So I didn't even realize that I'm
being controlled by all these feelings, these all these ideas
that I've got to be somebody other than I am
to be okay. Well, it's not easy to be somebody
you're not. It's like building a house on somebody else's property. Man,
it's just not a good idea.
Speaker 2: It's not easy to be somebody you're not.
Speaker 3: It's not.
Speaker 4: And yet I thought if I was, that I could
be okay. I hope our listeners can hear the level
of self rejection, of abandonment that occurred within me.
Speaker 2: You went right to the point I was thinking when
you started to speak, And what came into mine is
a term we use on this particular platform all the time,
and that self avoidance. Yes, so alcoholism assists, Oh yes, right,
so it's it's a conduit for self escapism. Talk to
me about that.
Speaker 4: Well, that's it. See, So that's where I got freedom.
That's the only time I was free. But of course
when I sobered up or when I used I used
drugs other than alcohol, when I got straight, I was
still left with being Alan Berger. You know, it's just
like Charlie Brown. And no matter where Charlie Brown goes,
still Charlie Brown. I was still Allen. And when I
was fortunate, man, I'm so grateful to this day to
be helped by the United States Marine Corps. I got
my Marine Corps hat on.
Speaker 2: You see that, Yes, I see it.
Speaker 4: I'm sporting my Marine Corps hat today. When I was
helped into recovery by them, that I saw that there
was a possibility of living this life and to be
free without having to drink or get high. That's emotional sobriety. Now,
how you get there, how you start to deal with
that is a big question. And how do we do that?
How do we get there? By first scene? How determined
we are, that we are the determined ones, that I
am not the determining force in my life. All these
other ideas are running a show, and I'm thinking, I've
got to live up to these things to be okay.
So when I abandoned myself, I could not do what
a healthy person does. You see, a healthy person lives
their life and they try to actualize who they really are.
I dedicated myself to actualize in a concept of who
I thought I should be. Mmm mmmm, that's where the
problems started.
Speaker 2: Man, are there other types of sobriety that we need
to develop. There's emotional sobriety. You've already done a great job.
Speaker 4: Spiritual sobriety, I think is important and it goes hand
in hand I think with emotional sobriety. But obviously if
you're in, if you're addicted to alcohol and other drugs,
you need physical sobriety first. We see that if you
don't break the bonds at that addiction, no matter how
much help you get, you're gonna get caught. You're caught.
The addiction is holding you hostage. We are taking hostage.
There's been so many studies of how the brain changes
and when it changes. Man, all that you can think
about you become obsessed with getting high and getting drunk.
So the person has an obsession. They have a physical
compulsion that's got to be broken. Once that's broken, then
you can get on and start doing this other great
work on your emotional sobriety, which I see is related
to spiritual sobriety.
Speaker 2: I love that you mentioned spiritual sobriety. Because the first
thing that came to mind was spiritual bypassing. Oh yeah, right.
Oftentimes we will use the verbiage the terminology of spirituality
as a means to escape. It's almost like a spiritual drink,
just to get us through the difficult moment. And I
think we're living in a time right now where internal
resilience is at an all time low. Yes, so how
do we cultivate that?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's a good point, man, It's it is
at an all time low. Because see, nobody, nobody helps
us learn how to deal with our feelings. It's an
job training thing. And look, we do the best we can,
but it's never enough. I mean, that's why my work,
the book I wrote on twelve Essential Insights, the book
you've got coming out soon, right, I'm telling you, man,
that's that's the kind of that's the information that we
need to start raising our consciousness. And so I'm excited
about this work man. You know, I've been doing it
for a long time and I'm as excited, if not
more excited about it today because I see people getting free.
When you see somebody get free, man, they're standing on
the top of the mountain and they're shouting, I'm free,
free at last, Free at last, Lord Almighty, I am.
Speaker 2: Free at last.
Speaker 4: I understood why he said that, and I see people
in recovery experiencing that same thing.
Speaker 2: So I was talking all week long to the point
that you're making right now. And I've had so many
conversations at my local cigar lounge people listening to the show. Hey,
hold on, Zoe, I don't know. I don't know about this,
but when we come forward, I'm going to bring this
concept to you because you're talking about freedom. I gotta
share this with you when we come forward. More from
the v O R.
Speaker 4: Good song.
Speaker 6: That's right, man, right, you did it.
Speaker 4: That's the emotional sobriety theme song.
Speaker 6: Right there.
Speaker 7: Hey guys, I'm Heidi Preeb. Welcome back to my channel,
or welcome if this is your first time here today
on this channel, we are talking about what I kind
of think of as the cardinal error of those who
you're anxious on the attachment spectrum. And when I say
the cardinal error, I don't mean that this is something
you are in intentionally doing to sabotage your relationships. What
I mean is that there is this kind of blind
spot this area where your attachment system does one thing
that tends to get you the direct opposite of what
you want out of your relationships. So today we're going
to talk about what that is as well as how
to work with it when it comes up, so that
you end up getting more of what you do want
and less of what you don't instead of the opposite
in your relationships. So, with no further ado, the cardinal
error of those who fear anxious on the attachment spectrum
tends to be not leaving any room for the possibility
of separation or loss in the relationship. So when you
have an anxious attachment system, what your system is hardwired
to do. From the time you are at a very
young age, you have learned to seek consistent proximity to
your attachment figure, and when you were young, this was
very adaptive for you. Right when we are young children,
it's good to keep our caregivers close, especially if they
are a little bit incistent and the attention that they're
able to give us. It is very adaptive for us
to want to make sure that we are always on
their minds, that we always have their attention, that if
we need them for something, they will definitely be there
within a reasonable time frame to respond to us. However,
what often happens when you grow up with an anxious
attachment style is that you don't learn to change those
rules when you get into a romantic relationship as an
adult adult romantically, let's.
Speaker 2: Get her out of here. I love her, Heidi preb
She cooks with the rarest grease.
Speaker 3: She cooks with the rarest grease.
Speaker 2: But she just described everything we talked about, right. She
talked about the attachment system that you develop when you
have an inconsistent caregiver. Right, and we don't turn that off.
Do we become attachment aholics?
Speaker 4: You know, it's great that she's sharing us, but the
problems much bigger though.
Speaker 2: Talk to me.
Speaker 4: See, the attachment is to the idea that I'd be
okay if it doesn't just relate to people. Man, I'm okay.
If I get that job, I'm okay. If Suzie Velensky
would have liked me in the third grade, I would
have been okay. I'd be okay. If I got that
grade on the paper I was hoping i'd get, I'd
be okay. If I had that car I want it,
I'd be okay. If I had people respect me the
way I want to be respected.
Speaker 6: See.
Speaker 4: So what people have done is they focus this attachment
styles on a person. But it's not on a person,
it's on a consciousness. It's a consciousness that attaches itself
to things, and these things have to be a certain
way for us to be okay.
Speaker 2: I'd be okay if.
Speaker 4: You got it. Man, that's the problem. And you see,
that's where we lose our freedom. If I'm okay, if
if that means I am so dependent, we call it
I'm looking for the environment to support me.
Speaker 2: External.
Speaker 4: Yes, it's an external focus. If things go my way,
I'm okay. If things don't go my way, I don't
know what to do. I don't know how to cope
with this. I don't know how to deal with it
because I have the idea, if they don't go my way,
there's something wrong. It's supposed to go my way. Life
is supposed to be what I want it to be,
if it's going to be okay. So that when you
have that consciousness, you cannot be free. Gosh, you cannot
be free. You are attached to everything. And then here's
the other thing. See, there's two forces in our culture
and you could wrap on these. I know for a
lot and often need to talk maybe about what that
shows up in different communities. Right, But one is it's
all about me. In our culture, we promote a narcissism.
There's no question we believe in personal importance. There's a
great side to that, and there's a very very destructive
side to that because it means that when I'm looking
at things, I am looking at what we call a
reflection of me.
Speaker 2: Come on, come on, you got twenty seconds, bring it home.
Speaker 4: I'm looking at a reflection of me. So I take
it all personally. If you don't do what I want
you to do, it means you don't care about me.
Or if you talk to me a certain way, I
get offended. How dare you don't you know who I am?
Rite that kind of thing? How could you talk to
me that? If you love me, you wouldn't do that.
Speaker 2: Listen, the stove is getting hot, ladies and gentlemen, the
grease is bubbling.
Speaker 3: We about to drop this fish in Listen when we
come forward more from the VEO R. The fire's just
getting lit.
Speaker 8: I'm Ross Rosenberg. Welcome to my latest YouTube video and podcast.
Today I'm going to step backward just a little bit.
We're going to talk about the term self love deficit disorder.
Why eight years ago did I make that term so
important to the world, to my life, to me? Why
was I so convinced that the word codependency, the term,
the understanding of it, the treatment of it. Why was
I so convinced that we had to replace it with
another term? Well, this is what this video or podcast
is going to be about. I want to go all
the way back my psychotherapy origin. I started in the
psychotherapy field nineteen eighty eight, almost thirty seven years ago.
My first job required me to do a little bit
of anything and everything without quite knowing what I was doing. Unfortunately,
that's the plight of many new psychotherapists we learn on
the job. Little did I know I was going to
be working with codependents. I didn't really know what codependency was.
But I started to notice a pattern with some of
my clients. They were beaten down, they were weakened, they
were sad, they were lonely and complained about a partner
who completely controlled Riddy, killed them, manipulated them. Over time,
it was clear to me a certain type of person
was in a relationship with another certain type of person
if they were codependent as I understood back then, which
was a term that was popularized by Melody Beattie's book
Codependent No More, published in nineteen eighty six. That book
was a blockbuster. It was the first book to talk
about codependency or what some people call codependence. Before it,
there wasn't anything out there that quite said exactly what
this codependence or codependency thing is. And she borrowed all
of her knowledge from all the people that preceded her,
mainly people in the twelve step treatment industry, the mental
health industry. There wasn't really a lot of information out
there on this codependency thing, but it was all I
had to work with. I started going to workshops. I
remember being profoundly impacted by the work of Terry Kellogg,
John Frile, among others. So it became clear that codependents
were people that were passive, compliant. They took care of
other people. They always fell victim to a certain type
of person that could manipulate them, get into their head,
keep them from leaving, convince them that they are loved,
convince them that they love them. So began my career
working with codependence, and I worked with them off and
on for the next fifteen years. But over time I
became more and more frustrated with the term codependency, co dependent,
co dependence. I didn't like the word at all. I
hated it. I know that's a strong term, but I did.
In twenty eleven, I was hired by a company, the
biggest company in the United States that specifically trains counselors
and psychotherapists. They contacted me and asked me to do
a training on codependence and what they called emotional manipulators.
I was ecstatic. I had been trying to get a
good job in the professional training field for quite a
while and they were the best. But I had to
do it on a title that they absolutely required me
to do. It was codependence and emotional manipulators. So I
don't want to get off track, but eventually I would
change the term emotional manipulator into pathological narcissists so that
I could use my own new ideas what was coming
to be that eventually would be my first Human Magnet
Center book. I could use these ideas about codependence, falling
in love with and becoming attracted the narcissists, the idea
that led me to what would become the human magnet syndrome,
the idea that codependence and narcissists are almost magnetically attracted
to each other. Their opposite personalities fit hand in glove
like a dancing couple. The fixer and the pleaser naturally
fits in with the needer and the taker. Their opposite
personalities fit and it becomes a coordinated, yet dysfunctional relationship.
Speaker 2: The show is just running so perfectly because he's talking
about everything that we've just discussed. Yes, that was Ross
rossenb author of the book The Human Magnet Syndrome, and
he's talking about this magnetic connection between the codependent, which
he has retermed as self love deficient SLD. You and
I were just talking about self avoidance, self escape, and
they orbit around each other to the narcissists, and that
ties right back into the point you were making about
this narcissistic society and this individualism. Talk more about it
and see if you can integrate some of the pieces
that Ross Rossenberg just laid out.
Speaker 4: Well, it's you know, look, when we took the break,
I was talking about how our culture promotes this idea
it's all about me. But that's only half of the
stories though, the other half of the story is our
culture also says you are more the more you have,
I am more. So it's all focused on materialism. So
you take that and it's about me. And now my
sense of self depends on what I have. So if
I have you instead of being in a relationship with you,
I have a relationship with you means that I possess that.
And see, so that's where the veer goes off. We
think I'd be okay. If he's talking about a very
similar phenomena. I see it different than he does. I'll
tell you how I see it. Everybody is born with
two forces inside of them. They're both instinctual, they're powerful.
It's a week the part of me that wants to
be in a relationship wants to join. I'm also born
with a part of me that's an I that wants
to be my own person. Now, how do we put
these together? How do I respect my desire to be
a part of and yet keep my individuality. See, we
define mature love as love that has union but with
the preservation of your individuality or integrity. That's what Eric
from described it as union with the preservation of integrity.
So I join you. I'm a part of this, but
I don't I'm just a part of it. I'm also
myself at the same time I'm with you. That turns
out to be a very important thing, and I'm going
to tie it to what he said. So what he
talks about is self love deficiency, right, I believe I
don't believe in these diagnoses we have, not that people
don't suffer from mental illness. There's clearly a mental illness.
But I think our biggest problem is we're stuck. We're
not sick, we are stuck developmentally at the stage of
development I'm talking about. We don't know how to have
a relationship and still have ourselves. The codependent, what side
of the bed does she fall out of? The WII side?
The narcissist falls out of what side? The eye side?
Speaker 3: The eye side? They don't know.
Speaker 4: Nobody ever taught them how to be a we and
an I. At the same time, nobody ever showed the
narcissist how to be an eye and a we and
why they came together other than because it's a human
magnet attracting his pathology. They're attracting each other. Because relationships
are people growers. It's gonna cause them trouble, and that
trouble is exactly what's supposed to happen, so they can
start growing up.
Speaker 2: I don't know who he's talking to tonight, Andy's time
for a price break.
Speaker 3: Let's go.
Speaker 2: Come on, ladies and gentlemen. You're listening to the vo R.
Listen when we come forward.
Speaker 3: We don't cap cooking. Let's go.
Speaker 9: This is the one thing that no one talks about
when we talk about relationships.
Speaker 6: Right now.
Speaker 9: Everyone loves discussing attachment styles. And if you follow Jaybirdfit,
then you know I have you covered in that area.
One thing we don't talk about is differentiation. And while
that might sound complex at first, I can assure you
that it's not. In the book Secrets of a Passionate
Marriage by David Snarch, differentiation is described as your ability
to maintain your sense of self while being emotionally and
physically close to others. So then the question is what
does that even look like? Number one is maintaining a
strong sense of self, being able to hold on to
your values, beliefs, and identity.
Speaker 2: Even that is exactly what you just said.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, he's right on. I mean doctor Snarch was brilliant.
I mean he took all of these ideas from doctor
Murray Boonen, who was the first person to introduce this
idea of differentiation into psychology. You see, he was a psychiatrist,
a medical doctor, and he didn't go along with what
Freud was saying. He thought Freud was off that it's
not all about sex. He thought that what happens is
is that there's a that's in nature that grows us
a certain way, and it grows us in the direction
of becoming what we can be. And that force was
a force so called differentiation. So that each cell, excuse me,
each cell has the ability to obviously become what it
can be. If it if it's genetic DNA and genetic
programming unfolds itself, it'll grow into let's say it was
going to be an eye. It'll grow into your eye
in a most beautiful way. Right. But if that cell,
it goes through stages, so when it hits the final stages,
it's differentiated. It's an eye. But if you take that
cell earlier on and you move it, let's say, from
a fetus's eye socket to the cheek. What happens is
something incredible. Instead of a third eye growing here, that
cell will pick up all of the DNA programming from
the other cells and change who it is. It's a
codependent cell. Oh my god, we found it. It's a
codependent cell. It now lost who its true nature is
because it hadn't formed the self that what's I don't
know who that was was talking about. So Bowen saw that,
and he says that applies to families. If families are healthy,
they grow each individual to become who you can be
and encourage you to be your own person. But now
listen to this example, though, in terms of what goes wrong.
You know, I got a little girl eight years old,
she's CC, right, and she comes home second grade. Daddy, Daddy,
look at what I did in school today. Right now,
I'm taught to be a good father. So what's my
first response. I'm looking at her artwork and I say,
oh my god, yeah, that's what's out of my mouth,
right god, CC. And then the music comes on. If
the DJ was there, he'd be doing, Hellujah, CEC, that's incredible.
What are may piece of art work? Let's put it
up here on the fridgial. Let everybody see how wonderful
you are. She goes back to school tomorrow, and what
is she thinking? I'm gonna do something else. I wonder
how Daddy's gonna think about this? Now, what if she
came home and instead of me doing that, I said
to her, Wow, Ceci, I can hear how excited you are?
You know, honey, it's good to feel that excited about
things you do. What did you like about doing that?
What was fun about that? How come you use that color?
How come you like that color? What did this mean
to you? So now she goes to school, what is
she thinking about?
Speaker 2: So now she's thinking about herself.
Speaker 4: You gotta process she I have reflected I had and
what we call right. I am mirroring her response and
her excitement, and I'm helping her become aware of who
she is instead of imposing on her a standard you
got to live up to great to be okay? Right,
So we talk about this codependency being, you know, you know,
an epidemic in our culture because none of us are
encouraged to be who we are. We fall out of
the eye side of the bed, We fall out of
the w side of the bed. Now you and I
were talking about when I said that we are stuck.
We're not sick, we're stuck. Our diagnosis is a gross disorder.
We need to grow up. We need to grow up.
And he was talking about growing up means learning to
stand on your own two feet, having a clear sense
of who you are, but not a rigid sense that
you're able to roll with the punches, because if you're rigid,
that's not healthy either. So you have to have a
clear sense of who you are, but also humble where
you don't know you know, I might not have it
all figured out here, Maybe I got this wrong, so
that there's room for me to keep growing. See if
I can clean that kind of an energy as well
as what we call there's five points of balance that
really help a person develop a sense of self. This
is one really having a clear sense of who we are,
but a flexible sense, which to me means that there's
humility in the recipe for that self. Nobody talks about
humility and psychology. I don't know why, but it's such
an important thing recovery. People talk about it all the time,
but you don't hear much. Ado you hear a book
on any psychologist to coming out and saying, Hey, let's
talk about the value of humility. It's incredibly important because
it gets rid of what it's all about me. Piece
that's the antidote to narcissism, is some humility that it's
not all about me and I don't need things to
be better. I need to learn how to get better
and cope with what's going on instead of demanding everything
by the way I think it should be.
Speaker 2: Come on, So we have a growth disorder.
Speaker 4: That's it, man.
Speaker 2: Growth disorder is basically rooted in the construct of I
need to stay the same, I need to refine what
I already know. I can't step outside of them.
Speaker 4: It's all about me, and I need to have things
to be okay. I need to have my way to
be okay. I need to have life is supposed to
be what it is, and when life does what I
want it to do, I'll be okay. That's where we're stuck.
And you see kids do that. They want it their way,
they can't deal with when it doesn't go away, they
throw a fit.
Speaker 2: But and you're right on point, because I'm saying the
adult that we're dealing with in adult relationships are still.
Speaker 3: The kids they are they have we all grown up.
Speaker 4: We're stuck. We got a growth disorder, man, we growth disorder.
King baby, queen baby, that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2: Baby queen baby, Ladies and gentlemen, Oh, the voice of reason.
Speaker 3: It's all complete fire tonight.
Speaker 10: Y'all.
Speaker 2: Didn't think I was gonna bring another heavy hitter in
the building right after precious. Oh God, this whole week
has been on complete fire. Listen, there's a whole nother hour.
We got doctor Alan Berger, author of Emotional Sobriety. If
you don't go out and get that book right now, everybody,
go get that book. Ladies and gentlemen, the Voice of
Reason will see you on the other side.
Speaker 10: Hello everyone, sobonner Hello. In South Africa, where I come from,
soul Borna is the Zulu word for hello. There's a
beautiful and powerful intention behind the word because salbona, literally
translated means I see you, and by seeing you, I
bring you into being so beautiful. Imagine being greeted like that.
But what does it take in the way we see ourselves,
our thoughts, our emotions, and our stories that help us
to thrive in an increasingly complex and fraught world. This
crucial question has been at the center of my life's
work because how we deal with our inner world drives
everything every aspect of how we love, how we live,
how we parent, and how we lead. The conventional view
of emotions as good or bad, positive or negative is rigid,
and rigidity in the face of complexity is toxic. We
need greater levels of emotional agility for true resilience and thriving.
My journey with this calling began not in the hallowed
halls of a university, but in the messy, tender business
of life. I grew up in the white suburbs of
apartheid South Africa, a country and community committed to notazieing
to denial. It's denial that makes fifty years of racist
legislation possible, while people convince themselves that they are doing
nothing wrong. And yet I first learned of the destructive
power of denial at a personal level before I understood
what it was doing to the country of my birth.
My father died on a Friday. He was forty two
years old and I was fifteen. My mother whispered to
me to go and say goodbye to my father before
I went to school, So I put my backpack down
and walked the passage that ran through to where the
heart of our home my father lay, dying of cancer.
His eyes were closed, but he knew I was there
in his presence. I had always felt seen. I told
him I loved him, said goodbye, and headed off for
my day.
Speaker 11: At school.
Speaker 10: I drifted from science to mathematics, to history to biology
as my father slipped from the world. From May to July,
September November. I went about with my usual smile. I
didn't drop a single grade. When asked how I was doing,
I would shrug and say okay. I was praised for
being strong. I was the master of being okay. But
back home we struggled. My father hadn't been able to
keep his small business going during his illness, and my
mother alone was grieving the love of her life, trying
to raise three children, and the creditors were knocking. We
felt as a family financially and emotionally ravaged, and I
began to spiral down, isolated fast. I started to use
food to numb my pain, binging and purging, refusing to
accept the full weight of my grief. No one knew,
and in a culture that values relentless positivity. I thought
that no one wanted to know, but one person did
not buy into my story of triumph over grief. My
eighth grade English teacher fixed me with burning blue eyes
as she handed out blank notebooks. She said, write what
you're feeling, tell the truth right like nobody's reading. And
just like that, I was invited to show up authentically
to my grief and pain. It was a simple act,
but nothing short of.
Speaker 11: A revolution for me.
Speaker 10: It was this revolution that started in this blank notebook
thirty years ago that shaped my life's work, the secret,
silent correspondence with myself. Like a gymnast, I started to
move beyond the rigidity of denial into what I've now
come to call emotional agility.
Speaker 6: Life's beauty is Andy.
Speaker 3: Who is that? Come on?
Speaker 2: Wow, Susan David? Yes, cooking with the rarest truffle oils.
This is good stuff. Tonight, the voice of reason is
on complete fire. We have an amazing guest, an outstanding topic.
He's written books, he has decades of experience emotional sobriety
is Tonight's conversation. And doctor Alan Berger not only just
a guest, but a literal for real deal friend of
mine is in the building. If you guys are brave enough,
you should call in the number of dollars one eight
hundred nine twenty fifteen point eighty. And Susan David was
just speaking to this elasticity. You know this, you know
the opposite side of the coin of rigidity, and we
need that in our emotional states. Now, I've heard people
say emotions aren't real, they're fleeting, they come and go.
You should not be moved by the ephemeral nature of emotions.
What are your thoughts on that kind of framing of emotions?
Speaker 4: What I loved about what she just shared with us.
I mean, I think every one of us could feel
what happened when she started to accept herself rather than
reject herself. See, that's the more important part of it,
is that she changed her relationship to herself instead of
retreating herself as though she shouldn't be feeling what she's feeling.
She doesn't that she shouldn't have these feelings or she
doesn't know how to deal with them. What she did,
she was given an invitation to be herself. Now, on
one hand, we can all sit here and say, isn't
it sad that somebody has to tell us that that's.
Speaker 2: Okay, isn't it sad? But you just opened up a
can of whoop ass.
Speaker 4: But see, that's what she gave her. She gave her
permission to befriend herself. You see the first level of
self acceptance. And we can spend a little time talking
about self acceptance because it's so relevant to this whole
discussion of emotional sobriety. You know, if I'm not accepting myself,
how can I hold on to myself? If I don't
like myself, how can I stand for myself? I can't
do that. Level one in terms of self acceptance is
to be on your own side. That's what she did.
She was on her own side. Finally. Now the negative
side of way of saying that is self acceptance has
to do with an utter refusal. And everybody listened to
this because I don't think any of us have this,
an utter refusal to be in an adversarial relationship with ourselves,
right I listen. Yes, no calling yourself names anymore, No
saying you're stupid, no saying how you know you're a dummy?
How could you do that? You're an idiot? Nobody's going
to love you. All of this stuff is you're in
an adversarial relationship. Most of us wouldn't talk to a
friend like that, right, most of us wouldn't do that.
You don't treat a friend the way you do that.
So the first level of self acceptance is to befriends yourself. Say,
you know, it's like I am who I am, right,
And that's what she said. All feelings are just feelings,
you know, we will talk about. They're not an infallible
guide to the truth. There's no question about that. They
can can be distorted. But at the same time, they
are also signaling devices. They're telling me something about what's
important to me. I like this, I don't like this,
I want this, I don't want this. You see, when
we're healthy and we're operating from a center. I don't
operate from shoulds. I operate from what I like and
what I don't, what I want, what I don't want,
what I will, or what I want to do. That's it, brother,
that's all it is. When you're an adult, those are
the only reasons to do something. I will say that again.
When you're in an adult the only reason to do
something is because you want to or you don't.
Speaker 3: That's it.
Speaker 4: There's no better reason than yourself. And so that's level one.
Level two is to say, all of these are parts
of me, the good, the bad, and the ugly. I've
got all of those inside of me. You know, I realized,
I tell people all the time, I'm a lot smarter
now that I realize how stupid I am. I can
be stupid, but I can also I'm also smart. I
have both sides. I can be a wonderful guy. I
can be a total asshole that your book has written
about how to intercept the wandering asshole, but I can
be that most of the time. I'm not, but I
have that part of me. If I don't accept that
what we resist persists, we know that. That's level two.
This is all of me. I am what I am.
I like the way they Popeye said it. I am
what I am. I'm Popeye, the sailor man.
Speaker 2: What's interesting about what you're saying is really a lot
of people, and we talked about it in that first hour.
You call it the emotional operating system. In my book,
I metaphorically call it the kada, a psychological kada that yes,
sequence of right, just like martial arts. You're just conditioned
to react. You don't respond, you react, and sometimes beneath
your consciousness you're not even aware of it. Right. What's
beautiful about what we're talking about here. Many people think
that instant sequence of reactions is who they are. And
what the young lady just exposed to us in that
reading was there was a moment where she was outside
of that programming and she was able to see the
real hurt.
Speaker 4: Right, well said so? Well said Jeef said it? Jeef
said it. Listen, we're all asleep dreaming. We're awake. Yes,
we are all asleep. You cannot wake up with the
same information I put you to sleep. You have to
get some new information. That's what this show is about.
That's why you spent your whole life trying to raise consciousness.
And that's what I'm trying to do too. Wow, what
I say is only the best, and you can see
the worst in you. We'll get to the third level
of acceptance. When are we gonna go away for a
break or you can say it now? So the third level?
So first level befriends yourself, utter refusal to be in
an adversarial relationship.
Speaker 2: No adversarial.
Speaker 4: Number two, I am I am all of these parts.
I'm not any one of these things. That's the good,
the bad, and the ugly, right, the good bad. Now
I am the sum total of that. That's what I
don't identify myself as just being selfish. I can be selfish,
but I'm more than that. That's why I say I'm
a recovering alcoholic and atic. But I'm much more than
a recovering alcoholic andatic.
Speaker 2: How about that?
Speaker 4: Right? That kind of thing. The third level is being
able to own what we've done wrong and deal with
it and face it with compassion, so that our focus
is on not judging ourselves for what we've done, but
understanding what is going on here that that that may
that contributed to my behaving the way I behaved. Wow.
So that third level is developing a deeper understanding of
ourselves and our operating system, as you'd like to call it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well you call it the operating system. I've called it.
Speaker 4: The kada, the kada and listen, and it's well, you know,
we learn free form kada is what we're doing here
is in your book, it would be that we don't.
We want it. We have to learn basic things. You
have to do that I was I was when I
was in Vietnam. So I'm a Vietnam combat veteran. Yes,
in nineteen seventy I was over there. We had two
Korean Marines assigned to our unit to teach us. Taekwonda
look at that, and we were learning kadas there you go,
And the first quada was the basic kada. Right is
learning the stances going down block, middle, punch down, block,
middle punch three middle punches down block, middle punch down block.
Basic kada right, basic. You had to learn the basic
kotta to get to the next one. And it kept
building on each other, right, But it was all moving
towards what freestyle fighting there you go, which has no
program no programming.
Speaker 2: That's why I chose Bruce Lee.
Speaker 4: Bruce Lee, what did he say? Said, I don't fight
an opponent.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah yeah. He says, I don't
hit it hits all by itself, right, no style as style,
no limitation as limitations. And this man, this is so great.
Speaker 3: We got callers on the line out, Oh good, I
want to.
Speaker 2: Bring some folk in here to talk to my brother.
Let's talk to brother who we got online right now?
Tony from Inglewood California. Inglewood is in the building, Tony,
what are your thoughts on tonight's topic.
Speaker 6: I'm enjoying it. I think the only thing is that
I would love to hear. I mean, I heard you
guys quote Freud. I like to hear some perspective as
a relations to fanones some.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 6: I'm hearing everything with all due respect everybody. I'm hearing
everything feels to be with exact in the use zones
from a European perspective, because when I listen to all this,
I can think, I think of I am because we are,
because we are, therefore I am. It's through relationship that
I feel good that I actually affirm who I am
and recognize when I'm all based. I don't see that
as like being like a ball and chain around me
or either losing myself. I would love for you guys
to talk about the importance of being in relationship as
we less. You know, stand up on your own two
feet if that makes it, you say. And another thing
I've thought when the brothers said about his daughter, I mean,
the first thing I would do with mine would be
to congratulate and say, you know what, that's good, baby.
I thought you did good and really share with me
such as say, then I would then I would go
into why did you do ABC and D, because my
first thought would be to congratulate and embrace her on
being celebrating the fact that she learned something that day
in school. Yeah, I'm just looking you know.
Speaker 2: I don't know. You are making sense. And I don't
see that as a wrong answer. If you're doing both right,
congratulating and then having her look inward and reflect and
see herself in the way that doctor Berger explained, I
think both are good. I think that's an example of
good parenting. Tony, your thoughts.
Speaker 6: And I think, and let me just add this one thing.
I think shouldn't we have a little more balance at
the conversation because this just just me. I appreciate you,
doctor Burger. I really celebrate your years of sobriety. I
think that's wonderful. I even appreciate that other woman that
just spoke, But a black hearing a black voys other
than yours. Though, in terms of a scholar and researcher,
scientists and or a philosopher or psychologist psychiatrists, I need
to hear some of that from that perspective. As well,
because all I mean is white people.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you got it.
Speaker 6: I know it right, It's over that white woman you
played on the radio just a minute ago.
Speaker 2: Tony, if you don't sit down and have a cigar
this evening, listen, you know good and well. We play
black authors, we talk with we're talking.
Speaker 3: It can't be right now.
Speaker 2: This is right now, Tony. Listen, look at Tony. It
can't be right now, Tony, because this is right now,
and we need perspectivity. How about that. You don't like perspective?
Speaker 6: Yeah, I like it.
Speaker 3: I love Tony.
Speaker 2: I know, I know Tony.
Speaker 3: This is my Tony.
Speaker 2: Tony is Tony belonged to me? He in my circle?
I know Tony. This is the type of conversations I
have with Tony in person.
Speaker 3: Listen here, Zoe, put a tie on.
Speaker 2: You're too smart to not wear a tie. You understand.
Speaker 3: I need a tie on you.
Speaker 7: Tho.
Speaker 2: You're a handsome man, You're tall. I need you to
put on a suit and tie. People need to see
you in the streets. Though.
Speaker 3: I talked to Tony every day.
Speaker 2: I love Tony.
Speaker 3: He gets to say this. It's all right, Tony.
Speaker 4: Can I respond to Tony? Listen and listen, you're right
on man. This is this is a perspective I've developed from,
you know, my perspective growing up. But I'll tell you
what what this whole thing is about in terms of
the joining, because I agree with you, community is incredibly important.
And we saw that even in the studies he did
with the rats. You're probably familiar with this, this researcher
up in Canada. He was trying to understand addiction, right
and when he put all these rats together and they
were living together and they had no ways of really
having fun and entertaining, and then put drugs in the scene,
all these rats became addicts right way. They never per
formed any Stay.
Speaker 2: Right there, Stay right there. We're gonna go back. We're
gonna We're gonna get this, Okay, the rat experiment. I
just saw this. When we come forward, doctor Burger's going
to break it down for the curmudgeon Tony.
Speaker 11: I guess you could say that I am a self
compassion evangelist. I love spreading the good word about self compassion.
I've devoted the last ten years of my research career
to studying the mental health benefits of self compassion, and
more recently I've been working on developing Andy.
Speaker 2: I want to give this clip a little time to breathe.
But we have a caller on the line. We haven't
heard from him in a minute. I definitely want to
get the caller on. I don't want him waiting on
the line too much longer than he's already been waiting.
We got Leroy from Inglewood back in the building. Inglewood
is showing up big time. Hey, Lee Roy, I'm gonna
give you three minutes. I'm gonna get out your way.
Speaker 3: Let's go. It's me, yeah, Leroy. What are your thoughts
on tonight's topic?
Speaker 6: First of all, I was waiting to hear from Tony again.
Speaker 5: He left trying to trying to come out here and
tell you how to run your show. I can't imagine
anyone doing back.
Speaker 6: Well, I don't imagine any of your callers doing anything
like that, trying to tell you how to run your show.
Speaker 5: I don't know what type of caller would ever do that, well.
Speaker 3: I know one, I don't know.
Speaker 5: I don't know any callers do whatever do that, especially
when you got an esteemed guest all who've been supporting
your work for all this time, And I.
Speaker 6: Can't imagine anybody calling to do that.
Speaker 3: But nonetheless that's your uncle Lee Roy apparently.
Speaker 5: So okay, So I didn't know it. I missed a
Feller reunion in two when he was there.
Speaker 6: Who knew.
Speaker 3: It wasn't It wasn't.
Speaker 6: In the DNA, right.
Speaker 2: I love it, brother, I love it.
Speaker 3: I love it.
Speaker 5: But I did want to congratulate you on a show
you did with about Carlos Miller on one of your
other outlets, and you were dealing with adjustments h and
uh you and the lady that was on the show
and uh. And also I was about to ask Tony
had he seen any of your shows.
Speaker 6: With Jehudi my Hot Ride if he's if he's willing
to go backwards, it will help him to move forward.
Speaker 5: But you know, I can't tell Tony what to do
because he don't want to hear it from me. I
don't know what I'm talking about. But congratulations on a
wonderful uh month. Thank you, Condolencist.
Speaker 6: Condolences.
Speaker 5: Condolences is actually what I called in for. Condoleus is
on behalf of your brother I know you were looking
for one of your brothers. Was that the one you
had been looking for?
Speaker 2: We was looking for both of them and we found
both of them and then you know, eighteen months later,
you know, my second oldest brother, Maurice, passed away today today.
Speaker 5: I'm not happy to hear that, but I must say
that with the release comes relief and praise God that
the suffering is over. Yeah, and I pray that the
family funeral is not the only family reunion and that
you guys can grow stronger as a result of this.
Speaker 6: As opposed to.
Speaker 5: The struggle that comes with not knowing. So now that
you do know, y'all can stay in touch to a
greater degree.
Speaker 2: Maniate.
Speaker 6: That's actually what I called.
Speaker 5: In because you and your guests are killing it and
you don't need any help with the.
Speaker 2: Thank you brother, I appreciate you. Lee Roy from Inglewood.
If you want to bring your city in the building,
all you got to do is call us one eight
nine twenty fifteen eighty will see you on the other side.
Speaker 12: When the child is born and the child is two needs,
the first need is for attachment. An attachment is contact, connection, love.
Without that, the human child does not survived. Any mammalian
child or even an avian child doesn't survive. So that
as soon as you get past the level of reptiles,
the reptile is hatched, the mother's long gone by then,
and the reptile infant either lives or dies, but there's
no attachment to a parenting figure. As soon as you
get to the level of birds, now the baby bird
has to have an attachment with the pants. The pants
have to be attached to the baby, otherwise the infant
simply does not survive. Mammalians even more so, and most
of the human because we're the least developed, the least mature,
with the least developed brains, and the most dependent for
the longest period of time with any creature in the universe.
So our attachment needs are enormous and they remain important
throughout lifetime because we have to have attachments to from societies,
social groups, without which we don't survive. So attachment is
a huge need. Be able to connect, belong, beloved by,
and love. That's just the basic human need. But we
have another need as well, which is for authenticity. Authenticity
is the capacity, as I said earlier, to know what
we feel, to be in touch with our bodies, and
to be able to express who we are and manifest
who we are in our activities and in our relationships. Now,
why is that? Well, think of a human being in
evolutionary period.
Speaker 2: How was goobor man Gooboor cooks. Yes, yes, he cooks
with the rarest grease. I love what we're talking about
tonight because it's leading me to what I wanted to
talk to you about this whole discussion. Need has a
purpose when we're young. But if we look at the
ancient traditions, the far Eastern traditions, Taoism, Hinduism, Buddhism, all
of these spiritual belief systems believe in this self realization,
self actualization. I believe Young took a great piece of
that with his concepts on individuation, right, the full self,
the shadow and the mass, the persona, all of that right.
But I believe the reason why unconditional love is out
of people's reach is because they're still in this pattern
of need, which keeps them looking outward. You talked about
earlier in the First Hour, being able to go inside.
You gave the example of the little girl and the
pain being able to go inward. I think need helps
you survive the original environment, but you can't carry need
into an intimate environment because need will always make that
environment conditional. I call need the first sin HM, talk
to me about your thoughts on that.
Speaker 4: You know, it's interesting when Gabora was sharing this thing
about we all have attachment, I had the vision of
what attachment looks like without dependency. See is attachment possible
without being dependent on another person? And I think the
answer is yes. See, that's emotional autonomy, that's growing up.
But we don't get there because we're stuck. We're stuck.
We're attachment equal dependency. Where we refused when we were
inside our mother's womb, were one with her. When we
were born, we started the ever last journey, everlasting journey
towards what separation, becoming your own person. And I believe
the life force inside of us is that force that
wants to move us in the direction of becoming whole,
becoming holy, becoming a whole person, of being an integrated person.
And so when that life force is moving forward, I'm growing,
I'm thriving, I'm becoming. When we get stuck, that life
force now creates and is wanting to move forward, but
it doesn't have anywhere to go. And that's that thing,
is that when I believe I need you to be
a certain way for me to be okay. I'm dependent
on you instead of being I need to be a
certain way to be okay. There's an interesting thing that
I'm working on a little book now. It's going to
be a small book where I take what's been wrongly
called the Saint Francis prayer, which you've probably heard of.
It is better to understand than to be understood. That's
one of the lines. There's all kinds of things like that,
and we've all thought of the Saint Francis prayers. Better
for me to understand you than for you to understand me.
And if I give you understanding, I will get understanding.
We all understand that. That's a powerful way. But I've
flipped it around. It's better to understand me than to
expect you to understand me.
Speaker 2: It's better that I understand myself.
Speaker 4: And if I do, then if you understand me, great.
I can appreciate that. If you don't, I still don't
lose myself. It's better to love than to be loved.
Screen emer It's better to love me, yeah, than to
look to you to love me. It's better to come
comfort them to be comforted. Learn how to comfort yourself
rather than look to everybody else to comfort you. I'm not.
I think attachment's great. And when we can be in
a relationship where we learn how to attach and keep
our integrity, I call it connection with integrity cooperation with integrity,
then you create What Tony was talking about is the
value of community is to be in a community that
is a life affirming community that encourages people to operate
with cooperation and integrity at the same time. But we
don't do that. Our culture focuses on cooperation without integrity, right,
And that's a problem, man, It's a serious problem. So
in relationships, we get in there and we sacrifice ourselves. Man,
didn't you learn love is sacrifice?
Speaker 2: So to self interests, right, that serve themselves and because
they match, we can work together.
Speaker 4: Because part of my self interest is I want you
to be happy. If I love you, I am selfishly
interested in your happiness. I want you to do what
you want to do. I want you to enjoy your life.
But if I got to possess you, if I'm fused
to you, then if you do something where you separate
yourself from me, all of a sudden I start to
get threatened.
Speaker 2: You're leaving me.
Speaker 4: That's right, man, and that costs of that anxiety. I'll
tell you if our listeners are hearing. One thing I
want to say tonight is the way you manage your
anxiety in a relationship is going to pay great dividends.
When you look to control someone else to deal with
your anxiety, you're gonna cause a lot of trouble in
your relationship.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, you're listening to the voice of reason.
That is the voice of my friend, doctor Alan Berger.
Speaker 3: He's been on complete fired the entire two hours and
it's almost over.
Speaker 2: When we come forward, Eh, we're about to land this plane.
Speaker 13: Everyone is in the middle of a life story, and
your story is being shaped by what you were saying
yes too, and what you were saying no to your
yeses and nos, or what boundaries are made of? So
what are boundaries? How do we build them? How do
we heal when our boundaries are violated? And how do
we push through boundaries? These questions have been the center
of my life and my work. When I was a
little kid and my world was just my family, I
was pretty sure we were the only one struggling with
those questions. And then I grew up and I became
a family therapist, and I saw lots of people struggling
with these questions. And when I took a detour and
ran nonprofits, I saw communities and leaders struggling with these questions.
So now I teach workshops and wrote a book to
help people answer these questions. And as people answer these
questions and learn more about their boundaries, I've watched hundreds
of people make the journey from being overwhelmed and exhausted
and stressed out to people who trust themselves and are
decisive and are committed to healthy relationships.
Speaker 2: Andy, who is that? Gil Sary Gilman? Love it? I
love it, I love it, I love it. She was
cooking with the rarest grease. Ladies and gentlemen. You're listening
to the Voice of Reason on KBLA Talk fifteen eighty,
the most radical relationship show in the world where you
will get perspectivity. Ah, we have to get differentsus perspectives
in here, and I love it. I brought my good
friend doctor Alan Berger, author of Emotional Sobriety, among many
other titles, over forty years of experience.
Speaker 4: What you said fifty fifty fifty years, fifty three years, Yeah,
that That was SUSI on the Berlin group. I volunteered
to go into that group and help. It's a European
group and they get almost three hundred people when I'm
there once a month, and we talk about emotional sobriety.
But you know, let me respond to what she was saying,
because there's so much wisdom. I would zoom out a
little further and say, your yes is and no to
find who you are, not your boundaries. They define yourself similar. Well, see,
that's the important thing we're talking about. How do you
what is our self? Well, yourself is what you say
yes to and what you say no to. And if
you can I can't say a real no. You can't
say a real yes. It just doesn't happen if you
can't say a true yes. And that's why I say
when I cooperate with someone, it's because I want to.
That's a real yes. And if I don't want to,
I own that. But now let's integrate what I said
earlier about respecting the we and me and the eye.
So let's say you say, hey, Allan, would you mind
meeting me down at the corner. I got some stuff
I got to move out of my place and stuff
like that. My other buddy couldn't show up. Can you
make it over? And let's say. My first response is
I'd love to help you because I love you. I
want to do something for you. I want to cooperate
with you, but I'm jammed up. I got something else
going now. I could say yes and go and do it,
and then at the same time feel the no because
I don't trust. If I said no to you, you'd
still be.
Speaker 2: My friend A performative.
Speaker 4: Yes, that's right, and then it's not a real deal.
I am doing what I'm supposed to do, not what
I want to do. So if I said to you so,
I really I love you, man, I would help you
in a minute. And this is also going on. Check
it out, see if you can find anybody else. If not,
call me, then I'll see what I can do to change.
So I try to respect you and me at the
same time. Yes, that is cooperating with integrity, Yes, and
I want to do that because I love you. But
I also want to do what I need to do
and what I want to do. So I'm trying to
find a way to make those both possible.
Speaker 2: And what you just did was illustrate what a healthy
boundary looks like.
Speaker 4: And I'm being myself. See, I am showing you this
is Alan, this is who I am. I'm the I
and I'm the Wei, and I'm bringing both of them
to you.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you protected both the friend and yourself. You got
it in that response.
Speaker 4: The biggest thing that we learn in emotional sobriety. And
I'll say this and then we can think about it.
From this book, there's twodelines here for emotional sobriety. They're
not shoulds, they're guidelines. They're suggestions to learn to act
for yourself without being selfish. I'll say that again. Learn
to act for yourself without being selfish, and learn to
act for others without losing yourself. Act for yourself without
being selfish, act for others without losing yourself. If you
can pull that off, you're going to be growing up.
Come on, that's what a grown up that.
Speaker 2: Hey. Hey, okay, so Alan, I want all my people
to support your work. Go get your books. I know
you have a website, I know you have lectures and
your big time. You're like fortune five hundred, not yet,
but teaching countries how to come together and be emotionally sober.
Talk to me, man, what do you have going in?
How can people support you?
Speaker 4: My recent book that I feel really good about it.
It's called Twelve Insights for Emotional Sobriety, and that is
a deep dive into emotional sobriety. That book is being
used all over the United States and treatment programs in
Europe and Canada, in South America. I mean, it's really
taken off and it's given people a new vision of
what's possible, not only for those that are in recovery,
but those people that are just trying to live a
better life. So check the book out. It's on Amazon.
But look, I'm not here just to promote my book.
And there's a lot of things I do that I'm
sorry that are open source that I don't get any
money from. I have a YouTube channel called Optimal Sobriety.
Optimal Recovery and Emotional Sobriety is what the name of
the channel is. There's over two hundred videos from Thursday Night,
which is a free workshop I've been doing for five
years right now. I've been in there before, you've been
in there. If you go to Emotional Sobriety Info, if
you look up that. You go to that website, you
will get the link for that Thursday night meeting. Come
and join us, become a part of that. It's nine
pm Eastern time every Thursday night. I'm not there tonight
because I'm with you, but they're posted, they're watching, they
heard about us. So check that stuff out on that website.
You'll see all the different speaking engagements. I'm gonna be
up at the Wilson House doing a retreat on relationships.
I'm gonna be doing a bunch of different stuff that's
coming up. So you know, if you got excited by
anything I'm saying tonight, come and learn more about it.
Speaker 2: Now watch this. Doctor Berger is loved and revered and
respected and has an international following. Zoe Williams does not.
So if you come in here and say bring some
black voices on, I'm gonna say, did you buy my book?
Did you support me? Doctor Berger is supported by his folk.
But if you got criticism for Zoe and you haven't
supported Zoe and doctor Berger is here in support of
Zoe because Zoe is doing real work.
Speaker 3: Then what are you talking about. You're part of the problem.
Come on, Tony, Tony, get in here. Where are you
at Tony. I'm gonna see you at the cigar Land.
I got words, are you Tony?
Speaker 6: He's gonna.
Speaker 3: Listen.
Speaker 2: We start the conversation, it's up to you to finish it.
Zoe Williams the voice of reason.
Speaker 3: We always on fire. I'll be back next week with
four slappers.
Speaker 4: That's right,