Episode 79
The Holiday Season & Recovery

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Description

On this episode, we have one of our favorite guests back on the show, Madelyn Padilla, one of our Admissions Specialists. Our team opens up the conversation about the holiday season and how it can affect our mental health and recovery journeys.

Talking Points

1. Madelyn shares how the holidays affect her
   
2. Expectations and comparisons
   
3. Resentment & envy with family members during the holidays
   
4. Being mindful and keeping the dialogue open
   
5. Buttoning Up
   
6. Parties during the holidays
   

Quotes

”Shame comes up in the holidays because we are called to show up in some sort of way, and often times when we are struggling we can’t even show up for ourselves.”

-Chris Burns, Founder

Episode Transcripts

Episode 79 Transcripts

welcome to another episode of Finding Peaks uh I’m Jason friezma host today um joining me I’m just super grateful uh just two of my favorite people Chris Burns founder CEO C sorry company truck Your Leader cheerleader um Mountaineer what was an adventure an adventure athlete cheerleader yeah adventure adventure athlete headed to Ecuador next week to do some Adventure athleting yeah climbing getting over 20 000 feet big deal up there with all your matters and then Madeleine Padilla uh admissions specialist with Peaks uh it’s always a pleasure to have you on um and today we’re actually uh going to talk about the holidays um yes they’re coming up or at least kind of the big ones at the end of the year and as I was reflecting on kind of entering this holiday season I have been thinking about how um you know at Peaks like we really we used to be as substance use disorder treatment facility only and we’ve recently added mental health and really what we’ve panned the camera back to is uh we really are trying to help those who are suffering and um unfortunately as beautiful as the holidays can be and and what they can commemorate oftentimes suffering could come along uh with that and we were kind of talking before the show that you know it doesn’t just apply to Thanksgiving or or kind of the Christmas December type holidays it can apply to all the holidays frankly but um so I just kind of wanted to launch into this a little bit and and maybe Madeline started with you and just kind of ask you uh what do the holidays conjure up in you and and how did they affect you uh when you were kind of early in your own journey in your own process or maybe at the end of your uh struggling period too hmm
I think that when I was in in a really bad place like thinking about like oh Christmas is coming up yeah it was just oh this is going to be the hardest the hardest day for me to be in the situation I’m in for whatever reason it like puts more weight like every day is bad you know but like that makes it extra extra bad you know for whatever reason like because people are supposed to be doing stuff right what is it supposed to look like like it was not a Rockwell painting you know what I mean that’s not what was happening so I think people put a lot of weight on all holidays in early recovery too that also if I’m better it’s going to be a Rockwell right right it’s fine better I’m good right right I’m gonna have gifts to bring and I’m gonna have perfect family relationships and this is how this thing is going to play out and uh that still is not happening for me like four years later right we’re still still navigating still working on things and it’s great it’s just not how I thought it was supposed to be that that accompanying expectations right so yeah intense yeah and I think it’s also when our comparison is so high as well like our the the part of us that just is comparing Our Lives to people’s Facebook or Instagram lives um and all that does is create shame usually unfortunately and and amplify it and and I appreciate your point that like um just because like some of your circumstances have changed it hasn’t necessarily no it’s still hard yeah or something yeah I signed up to work that’s what you know like holidays are they’re they’re just tough they’re really tough and I I’ve challenged myself this year to get better at them like there’s something to tackle yeah you’re going to Ecuador I’m just trying to survive the holidays I’m just tackling this next week you know yeah I was laughing I was laughing with the friend I I said um this is the what did I tell her this is the medication for my um seasonal depression I said this is the medication for my regular depression and then it hit me I was like oh my God like here we are you know but um there’s good stuff too I have moments too where I’m like wow different setting than it was uh four years ago yeah yeah but really heating that expectation too because I think for a lot of people that we work with and even myself included I I mean I don’t know what came over me when I got into recovery but I thought I’d go home and like they would cut the ribbon and the Christmas tree would light up and everybody would cheer and it was just so disconnected but I saw it more clearly yes and so it what takes hold a lot for me in early recovery and I think a lot of the clients that we work with is shame and so shame comes up in the holidays because like I think we’re called to show up in some sort of way and we often times when we’re struggling we can’t show up for ourselves and so it’s like that day on the calendar we’re like holy crap yeah I gotta like get ready and put myself together and come in this environment and then probably feel a tremendous amount of energy in those family systems and so I think it’s on it’s on both sides and I was actually called this week somebody reached out to me a young man who came through here who was a chef and we spent a lot of time with him love this young man and anyway I’m getting coffee with him tomorrow afternoon virtually and I went back and looked through the pictures because it was just kind of a week of reflection for me and I remember he prepared a Thanksgiving feast in 2014 the first year Peaks ever came and I was sitting around this table with these nine young adults at the time and we all did a little prayer a little meditation and I could tell for the first time maybe in a long time on this holiday in 2014 and I could show you the picture we were all connected and rooted in recovery and it’s really really special so I think as much as holidays are hard in treatment I’m really called to a time when it’s actually not as hard and we have an opportunity to connect and dismiss that shame and actually experience something really really wholesome even if we are an inpatient treatment and I was called to that this week in reflection and talking to this young man who we spent a lot of time with and I think Rick when recovery shows up at holidays we have the opportunity day to counterbalance and potentially dismiss shame I think I think you’re exactly right and I Chris it’s interesting you say that because I I remember um you know as we’ve as we’ve grown as a company and like you know requiring kind of Clinical Services seven days a week when back in the day that was not the case necessarily because we weren’t a residential program um just like watching the clinical team and all the teams be excited to go work on Christmas or excited to go work on Thanksgiving um because I think it doesn’t hold all those expectations that you were talking about Madeline it holds this other space of like we just get to go have a meaningful day with people and and maybe sit with people and have a holiday experience that they haven’t had before where it isn’t tense or it isn’t filled with resentments oh you’re supposed to show up yeah yeah that’s exactly right um and the other the other thing uh that I have been thinking about um for the last couple weeks that I think ties into the holidays a little bit um was that is actually about resentments um obviously that’s a word that kind of gets bantered about uh in recovery circles um but I was I was listening to this um thing by brene Brown and she was talking about she was interviewing uh like an expert in emotions and just kind of she kind of just uh mentioned that oh and by the way resentments right that that comes out of like the anger tree of emotions very intuitive yeah and uh the guy was like absolutely not resentments come from Envy yeah okay and yeah I’ve been sitting and reflecting on that for a couple weeks now and actually sitting with the clinical team and reflecting on it like I can’t find a single time that hasn’t been true um that’s tough now we just makes bad video when we sit here I’m thinking about it holy moly this could be right oh my gosh because if you think about it right like if you know like if you’re holding resentments with your family or whatever like I’ve just been challenging people okay where’s the Indian right where do you envious of yeah well and it’s in this is even like um an image that comes up in film it comes up that you know the the man walks down the the dark Street and he looks to the right in the Christmas tree and the families around the Christmas tree right and that is what addiction is it’s that guy walking by that window sorry yeah but like that’s that feeling you are on the outside and you’re looking in and you want to be there so badly that you can’t right you know and I just think we we need to treat all of our clients like they they are supported and they are in that they’re no longer out on the window and sometimes you find yourself kind of drifting back out there even though you’re you’re in there because you feel like you deserve to be out there or you’re worth being out there on the street we just got to keep bringing guiding people back in it’s warm in here come back yeah that’s so true and I used to watch actually speaking of Christmas a film that starts on Christmas is a show and there’s this film with Nicholas Cage called The Family Man and it’s all about that and I remember watching that being like like I just want that yeah I want to be a part of that and I’m and I think when now that you’ve brought up this Envy thing as a kid growing up when the holidays actually weren’t this Kumbaya situation I found myself at dinner tables with friends and Connections in the community and be like holy crap I really Envy this yeah and so that I would judge and I would give resentful and say I don’t want it yep um and things like that and those are in some really crucially developmental years and then I get sober at 22 I don’t find my mental health but I get sober at 22 and I’m like I hate holidays I just hate them you know and now I’m like I got my family we spend time I don’t envy the holiday experience because I’ve been able to create one that fits our family like a glove and it’s really nice when you think you would turn that corner for you Chris
I would say you know the last few years I really had to see kind of the underpinnings of my behavior and really begin to explore why I have such hard edges like I hate things like now when I say it I’m like I don’t hate anything yeah you know I don’t want that and so I kind of got to do a personal house cleaning with like some hard edges that I had on my life and some non-negotiables some never Evers never enjoy holidays never do this don’t celebrate my birthday we don’t have family things and so I just had to see where that negative energy was rooted and for me it’s very clear uh 10 years old is when we stopped having these amazing holiday family things it’s when my grandfather is kind of I hate this word too but at the time in 1994 he was a patriarch of our family he meant everything to us and he would celebrate the holidays and they were amazing and then he got cancer and he died 12 months later and we just didn’t do it anymore and the whole family seemed to kind of have this resentment towards the holidays and so over the last few years I’ve been able to go back through and really clean up some of that resentment some of that grief some of that pain and some of that shame to allow me to see clearly what I want and what we want Cassidy and I collectively within our family system but it’s been you know 14 years of recovery and a lot of hurdles specifically during the holiday season to try and make sense of this and I guess the question becomes how do we like re-contextualize these symbols that are so emotionally weighted because they are their symbols you know like so okay so Christmas is a symbol of um he was the the center of your solar system right of your of your family and he’s gone like that’s a really dark city right and it’s like I don’t want to go to Grandma’s house
and then everything that comes along with that becomes becomes a smaller symbol and a symbol of that like yeah how do we help people recontextualize their symbols yeah I think it’s exploring it’s worth exploring conversations like this in times like this in Seasons like this and I don’t think we do it often enough when seasons change and holidays come up and what that might mean for some people I mean in fact since we’ve been sitting down having this conversation like this is a really great topic yeah um to really charge into for our mental health because it has an opportunity to get a little cold a little gloomy we’re talking about Seasons changing as well seasonal apps dark it’s dark it’s darker earlier yeah now we got these holidays coming in and so from a mental health perspective I think we need to be more clear about what this stuff brings up in these Seasons you know not just for us I mean clearly but for the clients that we have the opportunity to serve
well I think it to your point this conversation and and you know as Chris you were talking um like so many people suffer in silence too so many and Shane tells you you’re the only one right like the shame says you’re the worst yeah um and I and I know I’ve talked about on here before but like a lot of people feel they’re literally the worst human on the planet planet nine billion people like four billion people think they’re the worst one on it from what I can tell and like um and and when you feel like you’re the worst person on the planet or it doesn’t even feel worthwhile talking to anybody about what you’re struggling with or what you’re going through but um as we approach this holiday season I think conversations are important and if the holidays are special to you and you look forward to them and you have kind of you’ve you’ve done it like you’ve made what you would like you’ve um I think it’s important to remember that not everybody feels that way and to like get into conversations with people and like out and be curious about what comes up for them for the holidays it is about keeping the dialogue open everybody’s heard this that’s in either mental health or like substance use I don’t care what it is can’t you have one good day can’t you have one anyone give me one good day just give me one good day from family from Friends what like can you just just pull it together for this one thing and and so then that creates this idea right my my feelings or or me coming as I am is a problem for other people and so then that that exists even today if I say I I’m not having a good day and it’s Christmas can’t you give me this one date so we have to keep the dialogue so open like we get to have these we don’t have to we get to have these conversations with each other that’s how serious it is yeah I still gotta check that yeah that’s so interesting because because you bring up so that’s the other good point too like not only is our comparison up around the holidays yeah but also the expectation that we are performing at home that’s right you guys better just you’re gonna wear these clothes that you don’t like to wear you’re gonna right sit in somebody’s uncomfortable couch and or eat food that you don’t necessarily want to eat like perform right and uh into your point and I think that can start from a really young age too and like uh and not realizing how shaming it is too to tell somebody like can you just yeah pull it together for a day it wouldn’t be here just for one day it would be a good day not even a full day we’re talking like yeah yeah you just button it up yeah button it up right yeah it can be really tough hearing those messages in the holidays and um you know fortunately when it was like our whole family you know when we moved over to Grandpa’s house our family of origin needed to button it up yeah and so it was like get your crap together here guys everybody’s got to button it up and clean off all our faces and we’d go over there all right yeah you know so I love this topic because it brings up a greater conversation and I just love the brunette that’s all I hear the whole time like clear as kind clear as kind and I think this holiday season for me um I think we’re all in the in the midst of experiencing a tremendous amount of clarity and so I want to continue to deliver on that not only to the people that we love each other our families but to the clients down at Peaks recovery who are entrusting us in a very fragile season for a lot of people um and we don’t take that trust lightly here it means the world to us and with just 36 small inpatient beds in the team that we have we just have an army of loving people that want to walk with people throughout these really difficult Seasons yeah I’m going to commit to that I’d like to commit I’m going to commit to not not buttoning up yeah you know that that’s uh that’s a hard one to commit to but I think that’s where we make the change no one listens to a thing we say right and our clients sure don’t I never listen to you guys but I appreciate it right but they they’re watching yeah yeah and they’re listening yeah and I’m watching and I’m listening right so I don’t want to be that person that buttons up this year yeah it actually had a cool experience actually something happened to where I I’m not going to be going on a Christmas trip this year I was going to head to Canada something else came up and so I’m not going to be doing that this year and initially I was like I felt that the depth is some shame because of what happened but very quickly and very clearly and now that as I sit here I can see the opportunity to just spend time presently here in Colorado with my family with you all and the Peaks recovery crew which would be really really nice and now that I think about it I wouldn’t want to be leaving anyways hmm the other holiday factor that we haven’t really mentioned but I think it’s worth mentioning is that certainly there are holidays that also mean parties like New Year’s also is kind of on the back end of Christmas and like uh and and that leads to a little of that fear of missing out for sure like if I can’t be crazy or if I can’t do the things and in other holidays I mean we were talking before the show it’s not just these holidays like Halloween has its own Ridiculousness and um and Fourth of July yeah PTSD you’ve got Halloween is just oh my gosh I I gotta bring it up here because we were just talking about it but like you go into a spirit store a Halloween store or whatever and like you just now that I’m in recovery like you see all these stigmas that are like alive and well like they’ve got mental patience it’s a costume it’s a costume and that that really tells you where like mental mental health Falls in our priorities like collectively you know as a society that’s funny that’s okay right exactly they they don’t have a bomb costume they don’t have but yeah mental health that’s scary that terrifies people yeah and then yeah even Fourth of July and then you know I said just gun violence in in this country right like I hear fireworks going off and I’m like are we good here like is something yeah and that’s so sad and I I just think being aware of people’s previous experiences too um we we need to be aware of what our clients are are could potentially be going through all year round yeah even birthdays you know that’s funny you said that I’m gonna be the kind of guy that doesn’t care a person that doesn’t care about their birthday um yeah that’s a shame issue right there big time like that makes me so sad when people don’t I used to be like that it’s just another day
I’m like it’s my birthday
like um that’s a day to honor yourself you know that’s cool yeah it’s not selfish I do think too to your guys’s point is like you know these party holidays right yeah and I got you know we got to recovery Yong 22 years old a year after I could legally drink good thing I’ve been drinking for 10 years so it’s but you know I was really worried as a young adult like I’m gonna miss out on these opportunities and I just want to like tell the viewers that differently than what I was taught they would say yeah Chris you’re going to miss out on those you’re going to come to a meeting I’m like okay okay cool it’s not so bad we’ll have an AAA party it’ll be great I actually don’t think you have to miss out on the party I think this is a season of life and I think this is a reinvestment in our self-worth yeah right and and while we’re reinvesting in our self-worth and until we find it I think it makes sense for a season to pull out of some of that intensity and some of those parties but you guys very clearly I go to the parties um I have a good time I don’t go all the time and I don’t stay really late because that’s just not what my eco it doesn’t fit my ecosystem I have a plan in the morning to go for a run and get some sun on my face you gotta have it yeah and and then you start you start craving more you want you want more from people and when someone if I’m encountering someone that’s not emotionally present maybe they’ve had one too many too many you know I can feel that and I’m like this is not a good convo for me I need more I need more out of this I’m gonna I’m gonna go call yeah typically someone who Peaks you know I it’s just doesn’t cut it you know and and you kind of feel that hollowness and and that speaks to everyone stressed out during the holidays because even people maybe without a substance use issue they’re loosening up a little bit because they’re under tremendous stress we’re all in this together you know I I think that’s that’s something to consider yeah yeah I expect more than that see I like that reinvestment in my self-worth that I am deserving of emotional presence all the time yeah and it’s beautiful then that’s what you find is like you actually don’t and I hate to say this because I don’t want to like but the party’s seen it just the depth and weight there’s there’s not a lot of connection when we get into recovery we get to have you come into Peaks your first week I mean you’re having conversations yeah like you’ve never had with individuals and to go out into a bar and be like you want to shoot some pool yeah you know it just feels almost nonsensical it does the admission oh God okay the admissions team Angela’s been on here Chris has been where’s and Jake’s part of this too we’re all sitting there we’re like What are some normal questions um to ask on a date like you know we’re talking about it what could we do and then like immediately it’s like how do you feel about human suffering like what is humanity
guys this is not normal we gotta tone it down and then I was thinking about that no way I’m not I’m not gonna tell them that those are the questions that matter to me and if they don’t matter to someone else then that’s good that’s just it’s rejection is God’s protection we just move on you know like I don’t know I love that first date if I ever to go back into that I’ll be like yeah first day yeah my party talk my Chit Chat that’s that’s what it is I’m like how’s your shame today you know like that’s so funny you say that Madeline just before we I came over here to film I was in supervision with the clinician and she had this list of questions about trauma to ask your clients and what are the questions like there were a bunch of questions I just wanted to ask my friends like what was what was your biggest strength as a child yeah that’s so good question Jason because it opens up all these doors right and that’s what we’re always you know that’s what relationships are they’re just opening doors all the time walking through them and then you open another door and you walk through that door and like yeah those are the questions give me that list later I I will actually it was actually maybe I need for trauma-based questions they were really inviting and all of that um oh I love that that’s awesome yeah it’s almost like a game you could play yes that seems like a good time because again that seems like a good time because we’re in the authenticity sphere well to bring it back to the holidays and to kind of wrap up this episode like you can tell this is what we crave and what what I hear you saying too is like you don’t like any fake aspect of a holiday is very triggering and I think that makes a ton of sense and I think I I wouldn’t be surprised if a lot of people don’t even realize that they just are like I don’t know why I dread going to Grandma’s house for Thanksgiving but I do yeah and and I think you’ve seen like you’ve done your work to say there’s pieces of if I enter into a holiday and I can’t be me or people aren’t being themselves it’s not for me and it’s not celebratory and I think that makes a ton of sense um I really appreciate you guys joining me and I I do want to look at the camera and say if you are suffering in this holiday season um don’t suffer in silence and don’t suffer Alone um if you’re telling yourself you’re alone and nobody can relate to you and nobody has any idea how you feel um that’s a sign that you got to talk to somebody and I guarantee you’re not alone and uh I’m going to finish this with a quote from brene Brown the two most powerful words in the English language are often me too if you can just find somebody that you can share that that has walked in similar shoes than you you don’t have to carry your burdens alone so um with that uh I don’t uh we will end this holiday episode again thank you guys for joining us um please uh follow us on Instagram Chris we got a bunch of likes on something it looked really nice yeah we had some good stuff we’re really getting our content dialed in on the inside on the gram um follow us on Facebook if you’re my age Facebook uh or you can uh listen to us on on Apple podcast Spotify as well um and uh and that’s it have a great one