Episode 63
Relationships Week at Peaks Recovery

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Description

This episode is filled with great insight regarding why Peaks Recovery integrates learning about relationships within our intensive program curriculum. We believe building healthy relationships is vital to all of us as human beings, therefore we want to help individuals relearn how to form them and how to truly connect with others.

Talking Points

1. Overview of Relationships
   
2. Stabilization and Relationships
   
3. Circles of Intimacy
   
4. Laying the foundation to healthy relationships
   

Quotes

“We all have a need to be in a relationship…and at our core, we all want to be fully known and fully accepted. We don’t want everyone to know us, that is living pretty boundaryless. But with relationships at the core we help clients break down how they look at their own relationships, both with people and things.”

– Jason Friesema, MA, LPC, LAC

Episode Transcripts

Episode 63 Transcripts

i just love that for all of you joining us today for another episode number 63 i looked at the notes looked at the notes that’s real to the crew in the back um for all of you all of you who just saw that intro it was the first time i saw the intro and i hope you enjoyed it just as much as we did here great brandon burns chief executive officer for peaks recovery center is joined today by chief clinical officer jason friesma lpc-lac all the things therapy leaders chief operating officer clint nicholson lpclec all the things therapy and uh we’re going to talk a little bit we’re going to do a little usually we’re talking about external things related to peaks recovery things that we do and how it kind of all works and comes together today we’re going to do a little dive into a little bit that we do at peaks recovery center so we’re going to talk a little bit about our curriculum uh one of the weeks of the curriculum correct me if i’m wrong we’re talking about relationships kind of an important topic for all of you out there you have relationships with us friends family significant others animals a variety of different ways to talk about relationships the meaning behind that jason friesman’s the expert he wrote the curriculum so we’re going to antagonize him with a lot of help yeah a lot of help he does need a lot of help that’s bad clinton gave me a look there clinton helped in a big way i did not no i was like what a relationship yes yeah he’s a skeptic actually yeah this is why pins are put in the cushion absolutely at work anyways we’re trailing off here welcome to this episode relationship curriculum tell us a little bit about it jason okay yeah we’ll do i obviously uh when people enter the peaks program usually there are some problems in their relationships like oftentimes people walk in into peaks whether it’s for a mental health issue or substance use issue or both uh there’s often a lot of um well strained relationships i would say and so really we decided uh to put relationships as part of our uh intensive curriculum uh because it’s important i think for our clients to take a look at that and obviously relationships and learning how to form them and and be in connection with others we look at as part of the solution for long-term recovery from from mental health issues so that’s why it’s in there okay i think fundamentally um i think the basis at least that i conceptualize looking at relationships is that we all have a need to be in relationship um even clinton uh has a need to be in relationships it’s a lot less than most people yeah i mean it’s there for sure um but in all seriousness like we have a need like it and um and i think at our core uh if if i were to put it really succinctly we we all want to be fully known and fully accepted and um we don’t want everybody to know us like that that’s kind of living pretty boundary list but like i think we all want a core group of people to fully know and fully accept us and um so with that at the core uh we kind of usually help clients uh break down how they look at their own relationships both with people and with uh things and and that sort of thing so that’s kind of an overview maybe brandon yeah i appreciate that yeah thank you for educating me because you were doing those things and i am just witness to the things okay within our work environment uh so curious about it you know we talk about stabilization as a 40 you know in our 45 day model we have a stable we call it the stabilization period at least in that 30 to 45 day time frame and so when we communicate things about relationships how like in a way it feels like i suppose if i were in that setting i would feel you know like that could be less stabilizing to talk about relationships and walk through that so you know maybe walk us through how that is a stabilizing feature of individuals who you know come into peaks either with mental health primary or sud primary uh and what that looks like okay so i think um

so our clients are often also aware that their relationships are in tatters and and so um certainly taking a look at relationships at least initially is not very stabilizing in fact it’s kind of disruptive particularly when we do kind of our intensive days on tuesday and wednesday during relationship week we do a particular exercise called circles of intimacy which i can talk about in a minute if you would like but um but but our clients know that their relationships are strained um sometimes clients take the perception that i’m a victim like i am the victim of my circumstances and the system that i am coming out of um i’m the victim of that and i need help or um or sometimes they come from the standpoint sorry i got distracted by the ambulance there but uh sometimes they come from the standpoint that um they recognize that they’ve pushed a lot of relationships that are important to them further uh out from their life so um so in the way i’ll circle around to this or i’ll go around to the circles of intimacy what we do is we have people um kind of take it take a look at their relationships in their life and actually we have them uh on different pieces of paper write down up to 20 relationships sometimes it’s with work or school but we do try to focus a fair amount on people and also have them focus on activities that they may enjoy or not enjoy and sometimes drugs of choice can go on there as well and we we have people examine where as far as closeness uh to their core to be being fully known and fully accepted where each of these things fall in their life as they walk in and you know i i’ve sat with a lot of people going through this exercise and you know unfortunately a lot of times like people uh you know right in the middle of their circles of intimacy the thing they’re closest to is alcohol for instance and and so to kind of visually see that like alcohol has kind of created a scenario where i pushed out all the really important things in my life and the things in my core are the things that are not important for my life like oftentimes that’s been a big realization as clients do this exercise is they find that that they pushed out a lot of things that are important to them and allowed a ton of things that aren’t important to them to be their closest uh relationships i guess and um and that creates uh a lot of disruption for our clients it creates a fair amount of chaos uh shame and a ton of shame and um and as you know if you’ve watched any of our episodes about shame you know that what perpetuates shame is uh not talking about it and the irony is that when your relationships are in tatters that’s the last thing you want to do is talk about any shame you’re experiencing and so um it creates a pretty significant cycle down um the other thing that we certainly noticed too is uh when people live kind of a boundary-less life they they allow really dangerous people in to be really close to them like for instance a drug dealer or just a friend that’s taking advantage of them and so that’s who they allow in and that usually causes important relationships to become detached and distant um and it leads to a lot of chaos in people’s lives or the other alternative that i’ve seen a fair amount of people come in with is they push all the relationships really far away because of their shame around either substance use or their mental health and that just leads to just uh feelings of significant loneliness and so um when we when clients come in and kind of see all this and receive feedback around it then we ask them to kind of look aspirationally and how do you how do you want your relationships to look moving forward and we literally shift them around on the board and then say how do you how do you draw on your brother to be closer and how do you set some boundaries so this person is further away from you and that sort of thing so that’s kind of what the intensive part of that looks like and um though i’m kind of describing it uh you know kind of this higher level like it is fairly intense to write down all of your relationships and uh to lay them out and and to kind of look at maybe the uh sort of the mess somebody’s created in their life and then um to kind of find the solution and what that might look like uh can be really important as well well when you lay out your relationships and you kind of see the chaos that’s been created um it also strongly correlates to your value system right you find out that you’re also living outside of your value system and how really that constellation of relationships is really representative of something even greater than that so but so it’s a good entry point a lot of times to for even greater discussions after that um so i had i had an intervention two and a half years ago you might remember jason because was i there because you were there yeah oh okay doing the things and like no i’ll go later and you’re like no you go now yeah um so i had a little little thing going on jason caught it so i went for five days did this trauma intensive thing and i share that because upon arrival as we got probably two to three days into this process um uh i was in a group of of five uh with or five total there were three females and another male in the room and as we started getting into the trauma work all of this externalization happened like right in front of me and these three women were like oh i i know my problem now i gotta i got a divorce i gotta break up with i gotta get this guy out of my life uh sort of experience and so the circle of intimacy um resonates with me or at least through that experience because it feels like it’s how a lot of people are walking in if these people weren’t in my life i would be better in here if these people weren’t in my life i wouldn’t be drinking the way that i do sort of experience and it sounds like the circles of intimacy actually allows individuals to see that actually what is the problem at the center of their life or not the relationships and the people around but this thing called alcohol you know heroin and so forth so no i think you’re exactly right and and there isn’t a lot of times that we we stopped for a second to kind of examine like maybe i feel off a little bit or something isn’t kind of clicking in my life and they need to kind of take a look at um my relationship with my job or my relationship with alcohol or my relationship with the gym or lack thereof or whatever it might be and um and it kind of peaks i think particularly during this week allows people to take that moment and and to do some of that examining and to to lay it out kind of graphically and then to say okay where do i want it to go absolutely and then um clint’s favorite question is then okay how yeah how do i bring people closer how do i move social media way further out from my from these circles and invite real relationships in or how do i move fitness like i mean usually when people come in fitness and exercise and all those things are on the periphery of people’s lives and they uh aspire to kind of move that sort of thing in as well but i think that’s the great part of circles of intimacy is it creates space for repair like it’s not just about you just need to go there’s a it gives a really clear very vivid constellation of why what is impacting what and also gives you this kind of this map on how to fix it or at least begin to address it so yeah and in that example you gave brandon like you know on day one or day two or whatever of the intensive you you participated in i don’t think that’s necessarily the best time to make big safe decisions uh yeah take a couple years take a minute yeah and so you know oftentimes like when when people kind of have that reaction of like man i need to like blow this up or whatever you know i i like to then say well there’s probably some conversations in a process and you need to kind of begin to identify maybe what boundaries you need to put in place or what things you need to be communicating or expectations or whatever that you need to kind of implement in your life um and and i just don’t i don’t think you’re at a you know this is what i’ll say i i just don’t think you’re necessarily at a crossroad quite yet on that and and that may be a crossroad you reach and you may have to take that divorce path in that example but like you’re not at that exit yet right it’s usually what i like to say like you yeah for sure and you’re having these realizations and it’s an emotional flood for sure but well and what’s missing a lot of times in those and the relationships that with these dynamics is just space right there’s just not enough breathing room and enough space to see things objectively and again i think having a a sort of intervention strategy like circle circles of intimacy it literally puts it outside of you and gives you some actual physical space to kind of look at and view it from a different angle so i you know one of the things that i think is challenging in our industry you know you you can read about a doctor who you know goes in on a patient and does a surgery and you know replaces their heart organ transplants shattered bones like really extraordinary procedures and they suture them all back up and they get well in the process and it seems like there’s something like i don’t know just really big happening there and what i mean by that or introducing that is like some of these concepts in the clinical world feel like very straightforward and like simple and i think that some of the expectations i experience from like family systems at times is like you guys are about to perform rocket science on these people and though it’s not rocket science there’s something very powerful happening just like the heart surgery the shattered arm those instances and um i just want to talk a little bit more about like the power that you see from it uh as people walk through those experiences

i i actually really appreciate you saying that like i think i think a lot of clinical intervention is not rocket science in a lot of ways it’s but it is about um it’s about holding space which i think we’ve talked about on here like like sometimes like i think it’s what we try to do actually as we sit here in front of these cameras is sit here and hold some space for a good discussion um and some some thoughtfulness around it and that that’s a key component and then certainly there might be some insights in all that and maybe you know when clients laid out you know i my favorite part is when other clients are offering their own insights and feedback but it but it’s just a few sentences or a few observations and i don’t know what those that example you gave like these women heard something that was like i’m seeing things like the scales are falling from my eyes i can see clearly now um and uh it’s your point that isn’t an eight hour long surgery where there’s pins and rods and all that and somebody’s shattered arm but like i do think um i do think these simple tools um provide kind of the format maybe for the magic work if you will of therapy to work

yeah i guess um i love that word magic magic yeah super into magic yeah slytherin house of course yeah um i think that so medical science has one thing going for it and that’s that you can see it right like there’s a there’s a phys a visual moment that’s happening but the reality is like underneath that cast underneath that suture whatever the case may be all of those pins and needles are still very fragile and it is months and sometimes years and years of healing that actually still has to happen in order for that that um that limb to repair completely and to some degree it might never actually repair completely right i think that we’re doing the same thing a lot of times we are actually like setting pins and we’re setting bones and we’re setting these sort of emotional spaces for people that allow them the opportunity to once as they progress in life to to kind of transform into who they want to be and to be able to create the relationships that they’re actually that they’ve actually wanted the whole time so if they come into the process around relationships and say something like okay i’m gonna divorce my husband tomorrow that’s the problem they do intimacy of relationship actually like maybe the alcohol is the problem maybe i want to bring yeah you know like husband a little bit closer in that regard but the initial energy is like zero to sixty divorce how do we ensure that the next direction is in zero to sixty coming i’m gonna love you is like i’m just gonna do the exact opposite of this divorcing and just love you in the way like i met you for the first time right because if it especially around substance use disorders there’s an intensity of use and then that intensity translates into exercise relationships all the other things that normally the intensity is being put into the drugs and alcohol now it’s being put in all these things um but if you’re that wife husband or whatever that went through these experiences and now you’re just coming out and saying i love you all of a sudden right they’re wounded you know they’re going through their own struggles and so how how do we in like a relationship week um you know nurture them not doing the 0-60 thing but incrementally in the how aspect moving toward the goal rather than racing toward the goal

yeah that’s a good that’s a good question and and i like yours your 0-60 metaphor just gives me the opportunity to say what does 5 miles an hour look like like you can just ask a client that i’m like having some ideas around what that might look like um and i’ve certainly um i’ve certainly given like couples uh the metaphor of like yeah um your old marriage may be over but this relationship may not be over like you may need to rebuild a new marriage like that that other one was full of uh deception and lies or or infidelity or whatever and that does need to probably die but that doesn’t necessarily mean that your relationship with this person needs to go away and how do we how do we begin to navigate that and then also kind of you know truthfully um in our family program and what we teach our clients too is just really again simple and basic communication strategies um like even even how to format a weekly meeting between a couple to just kind of discuss some of the harder things that would either be avoided or would come up all the time like how do we kind of build some containers around difficult conversations to not avoid or not flood the flood the zone with that either like so i think there are ways to build in kind of a breaking mechanism to keep from going 0 to 60 because it’ll it’ll fail right like or i’ll just say like you got to let the concrete dry a little bit before you can uh build on top of that and so um i think you pick up on a really important piece too like all these things are measured and to your point like the intensity like people do sometimes just be crave that intensity and and part of it too is like some empathy building like okay yeah you’re in here and you’re we’re talking about this eight hours a day or whatever absolutely and your partner is at work yeah the rate of recovery is much different they’re thinking about this like 20 minutes a day tops and mostly they’re angry so like yeah if you if you they’re gonna try to jump on the treadmill at you know 20 miles an hour like they’re just going to fly off the back of this thing like you got to slow down and build some empathy there and that’s where boundaries are really effective as well right they’re kind of like a natural speed bump right just slows things down a little bit but really i think it’s the rate of recovery that is something that really has to be explained to people law because you know they’re healing at a pretty significant rate even though it might not be a magical like immediate thing can consider in comparison to the people that are sort of on the outside of the programming they’re moving at a really really rapid click and um it’s it’s not going to be even when you meet up on the outside why why relationships and not some other concept and and i think the thing that i’m trying to get at here is is that relationships are fairly triggering especially for individuals involved with drugs and alcohol and even mental health issues or you know even without all those things just a family system or relational system without boundaries or ways to communicate with each other can drive a ton of frustrations the divorce rates in america all those sort of things that we have but uh in that way i mean i guess what’s the biggest part that nurtures in the future resilience around craving states or triggered states and those types of things because we’re still i i mean the question feels rhetorical when i’m answering because it feels like if we get these things right we’re less triggered we’re slowing things down into the future we’re discovering these processes and that can also be a beautiful thing i i mean maybe this relationship failed like you said but this really uh this relationship can really thrive under these new circumstances and so um you know but to the to just kind of keep it i guess a little bit more attuned with those trigger states and substance use disorders you know why relationships um is such an important aspect to communicate maybe by comparison to some other week that we’re doing

you know when when you’re when you’re asking that question what i’m thinking of is we i would like for our clients to build significant enough relationships that when they are in the parking lot of the liquor store about to walk in they will pick up their phone and call somebody rather than walk in or you know when they’re thinking about coming off their meds they’ll actually have enough of a relationship and care and the people around them that they’ll be like i don’t feel like taking my meds anymore in the family but what do you think like i think like to me that’s that’s the goal right like we can put in all these tools but inside of that is this um this emotional intimacy that that if it’s built correctly then then you don’t have a family that you’re just trying to prove yourself or you’re trying to make them happy or appease them you have friends and family that are around you where you can say hey i’m having this struggle can you support me rather than catch me if you can i’m going to try to present myself in in a positive enough light that you won’t see that i’m struggling and instead to say i’m at the liquor store i’m about to walk in and talk me out of it give me two reasons why i shouldn’t to kind of hopefully the relationships can poke through that craving state that you described yeah just enough and it seems like too you know the in the parking lot of the liquor store right calling you know maybe wife or husband or whoever in that moment is also walking through uh a shame experience too right you’re the last person i want to call but i know it’s the right call at the same time as well too and allows a person to get through that and act and then creates that all that additional level of healthy communication of hey do you need me to come sit with you you know can we meet up somewhere you know those types of things it seems like it really just compounds on itself to create this real positive value that allows the person maybe in that moment to actually drive away from the liquor store in a way that they would have been there with shame regardless and gone through it as an experience ignored the conversation knowing it was going to add shame to it somehow try to hide it breathman or something gets home and then experiences more shame because they know that’s coming because they just made up a story about how they tripped and fell and a bottle of liquor fell in their hands so but if we can if we can teach families because like on the other end of that is you know we see it in our family programming like when we talk about relapse being possible or like learning how to listen and talk about craving states or triggers and that sort of thing like families get very afraid and teaching families that like hey if somebody comes to me says i’m triggered like that’s a great sign that’s that’s trust building and don’t panic or like it’s not time to necessarily go to shame or anything like that so we can teach families to talk about it when triggers and cravings are low i think it’s the building blocks too to be like i’m at a nine and i need a movie or i need to go on a drive or i need something like i think it builds kind of that structure to like communicate about the hard times too yeah

i mean healthy relationships are fifty percent of recovery you know i think regard regardless of if it’s substance use or mental health healthy relationships or how we stay healthy as human beings and it may sound simple and maybe again there might be more clever topics to to bring up in a treatment episode but if you don’t have healthy relationships you don’t have stability yeah well and i think you know and it for me to be absolutely clear i mean we’re one of the only treatment center counselors you know talking about relationships in this world it’s a really big topic and and even though it presents as simple maybe to some somatic experiencing trauma you know therapeutic intervention taking place that has a little bit more oomph and it’s yeah you know sort of tighter a little sexier a little sexier a little a little more curb appeal on the side of it um we can’t do that type of work without these foundational things in place it feels like these are the these are the priorities to get right and then from there we can move into more of these uh intensive trauma work or intensive focus on you know family systems and that sort of stuff so the building blocks make sense um and so what comes off as simple as or not rocket science at the end of the day has an incredible amount of power and that has to be the takeaway um not because we insist on it here at peaks but because we witness it each and every day that we walk through um at least this week of our curriculum um and so i think you know to kind of carry us out in that how format right you know i go i do my five days jason friesma made me okay i’m done with it that individual therapy everything i’ve experienced you know on the other side of that i think one of the real powerful features of clinical interventions is it’s it creates a ton of awareness about who we are removes blinders about the situation that we’re walking through uh and there’s an incredible power to that and there’s almost like a feeling my feeling just to share it in particular walking away like i got this easy through that awareness i know where the harm’s coming from i know how to like put all these places you know all these things intact and then i show up in my household and i see my wife and it’s like dang it it’s still hard to say i love you you know or something around that uh in that regard and from a neuroplasticity you know standpoint of you know long-term healing in the brain 50 reduction in outcomes after year one in relapse outcomes 85 reduction after year two less than five percent after year five takes an incredible amount of time just for the brain to heal around craving states the physiological brain states right and it’s going to take not an incredible amount of time i don’t want to use too big of a words here but it’s going to take time to get those relationships right to get those things intact to move past that first conversation that first i love you when i get home into the second i love you and into i love you and here’s some flowers and you know and really building upon those uh things so you know maybe what advice can we give to like family systems watching individuals who maybe did relationships at peaks or outside of peaks and you know thought they had it may be struggling a little bit about you know in the same way that we got to nurture those craving states over years as a time frame how we can kind of put the best foot forward and maybe strategies for supporting that endeavor

i mean i think there’s a few fold things first of all you know i’ve known a few people that have done kind of those intensive weeks and usually there’s one or two people that stay in connection for long periods of time because they need that support to be like hey is this harder for you on the back end of this because like this is tough um and then i know like like i i literally we have we ask our families to set up meetings weekly pick a day pick a time it’s one hour list out eight or ten questions that you wanna ask and go over are you experiencing cravings are you taking your meds did you see your account whatever it is you want to do but like we script it out and they walk out and there’s an appointment 6 p.m on tuesday this is what we’re going to talk about and um and the families that i’m aware of that that do this and follow up on it um they they build it’s like building this tool and then organic conversation comes out of that usually after two or three months of doing that they don’t need to do it anymore because it was kind of this arbitrary or not arbitrary but it was it was a clunky uh pragmatic uh solution to some of this um that could that then transition into being organic once once they got the conversation piece down so setting these little things because the other thing is okay these questions then you can’t ask them the rest of the week like let them give space and like and then we have these other activities to like help build and nurture your relationship with one another as well but like so i think there’s some really pragmatic things uh to say this is going to be hard and here’s how you lean into some of these conversations i mean jason is i know i’m pragmatic so i this is probably one of the best days of my life it i i 100 agree it’s it’s strategy right it’s simplicity it’s it’s intentionality and more than anything it’s practice it takes practice you’re not going to be good at it right away and i think having realistic expectations and then using these really pragmatic strategies you kind of have to start from scratch to a certain degree yeah yeah absolutely and you know just to kind of make it true on that medical side of things for like what we do maybe peaks is the cast and we put all the pins and uh needles and everything in the arm suture it up and then when you leave after 45 days you’re sort of stable enough to take the cast off but from there you’re in any medical any i’m not a i’m not a doctor scientist but i want to say any medical condition of that major disruption in the way that mental health and addiction are is going to require that ongoing like physical therapy yeah physical therapy all of those things in place to really get it right and really get it corrected and as you go through those processes even though it’s healed you’re going to think oh it’s actually not fully healed and actually and i want to be over here but i can’t get there fast enough and so there’s a all those stressors that come with this incremental approach within mental health and substance use disorder are also true for all these medical disorders and i think we’ve gotten so good as a society of separating the two and saying this is a real sciency thing that’s happening over here and we’re just talking about relationships over here um but both of them have the same setup for foundation creation and then leveling up into physical therapy and an ongoing intensive outpatient over here and then all molding into the position where like i can actually throw a pitch now because after my arm was shattered and i can actually walk into a room and be relational with my wife in a way that i’ve never been before and without drugs and alcohol uh in that way and i think this these are this is often missed within the nature of it not feeling like rocket science in this you know in the beginning at the end of the day so just wanted to hit that home and i think kind of as a you know a take out here uh you know encourage family systems the viewers out there individuals in relationships or otherwise to think about how you walk into your house each and every day at the end of your job you’re tuckered out you’re tired all of those things what does it look like for you to walk into that home and and out of this sort of walking away too is is to experience your own difficulties and showing up in the way that you did on day one of whatever relationship you’re in whether it’s a friend a significant other or otherwise day one when we’re all giddy in our first relationships we just do whatever and we bring the flowers when we do all those things and somehow we move away from those things as experiences so what’s true for individuals uh who experience substance use disorder and mental health is also true for the general population our divorce rates wouldn’t be so high if it weren’t true at the end of the day and invite everybody to find a counselor somebody in their life to help them help bring you closer to relationships because they’re so valuable and i think more than ever without making any grand statements i think relationships as a communal feature are just so valuable in today’s society and so encourage everybody to think about that on the other side it’s not just a problem for substance use disorder and mental health i think it’s a community problem that we’re all experiencing at any given time and just push a little bit to to consider it a little bit further in your own time so unless you guys wanna are inspired by anything else to add to that i think it’s perfect all right drop it drop down right drop and drop it love you all thanks again for joining us on another episode of finding peaks finding peaks at peaksrecovery.com send me an email telling me how perfect your relationship is you missed brandon point there i do everything great um also find us on the twitters this uh the other social medias the facebooks are you all doing facebook say you’re all still doing facebook instagrams uh what is what is the chris burns tick tock the tick tock the heart days the pounding of the chest follow chris burns on peaks recovery as well too until next time thanks for joining us and we’ll see you soon