The following is a partial transcript of a conversation Dan
Griffin had with Jerry Law as part of his Men in Recovery video series.
Jerry is an interventionist and the Director of Family, Education, and
Leadership Training at The Meadows. Through his role at The Meadows, he
works with families of clients who are in treatment to help them
understand how they can support their loved one and begin their own
process of healing.
DAN: What is the greatest gift recovery has given you toward being the man you always knew you could be?
JERRY: Really, there’s a one-word answer for me, and that’s freedom.
The very first time I drank alcohol— not the first time I tasted it—but
the first time I really drank it, I was 17 and I had a blackout. It just
kind of went downhill from there.
For the next 30 years, I continued to drink off and on. I’d drink
more and then less and then a lot more and a little less—until I was
drinking daily. I couldn’t not drink.
When I reached that point, I tried everything I could think of to
quit. Like the old joke says, “Quitting’s not hard, it’s staying quit.”
Everything I tried didn’t work.
Finally, I found the divine paradox of recovery, that victory comes
from surrender. When I finally embraced that and began to do what others
who were successful in recovery were doing it really set me free. Now
I’m free, not only from alcohol, free to live my life. That’s the
greatest gift that recovery has given me.
DAN: Freedom has come up multiple times in these interviews with men
in recovery. It starts with the freedom from the addiction, and then you
realize, “Oh, my God, I can actually do this.” Your freedom then begins
to expand and expand. I’m free to be in a relationship as myself. I’m
free to be in this world as myself and mean “yes” when I say “yes,” and
mean “no” when I say “no” and live authentically in both my professional
life and my personal life.
JERRY: That is so true. Like a lot of us, I grew up with some trauma
and learned at a really young age how to shut down and close off and be
inauthentic and lie really well. In recovery I learned that it’s okay to
just be who I am—what a gift!
Relationships
DAN: That’s what is so wonderful about The Meadows. You get to look
deeply at the childhood piece. You get to look at the artifice that
you’ve created and the authentic person within. As men, we get to look
at the boys that we were and the men we’ve forced ourselves to become in
light of The Man Rules. In recovery, there’s the freedom to be the men
we really want to be and not be bound by those Man Rules. I’m free to be
the man I want to be; I don’t have to be the man everyone else thinks I
should be.
JERRY: The societal definition of what a man is, certainly in the
United States, is so warped. It’s based on “Boys don’t cry, and “Man
up.” Those rules work in some areas of life, but they sure don’t work in
relationships.
In school, we had the debate team, where we learned to spar and
verbally defend our position. Those are wonderful skills to have in many
areas of life, but when we go into relationships and use those skills
they just blow up in our faces. What we needed to have in school in
addition to a debate team was a resolution team, because in a lot of
cases nobody taught us how to resolve differences. So we try to stumble
our way through and we make a mess of it. Then we turn to
something—mood-altering chemicals or behaviors—to get some relief from
the pain we’re in over these unresolved conflicts.
DAN: Stephen Bergman, M.D. says it leads us to be agents of
disconnection. We aren’t relearning how to be in relationships in
recovery, we’re learning how to be in relationships for the first time.
What is so powerful for me is that we’re constantly moving from
connection to disconnection to reconnection. It’s the reconnection piece
that is so difficult, particularly for men. The more vulnerable the
relationship, the more difficult it is to repair.
JERRY: Absolutely. And the more fear, the more anxiety I have about connecting the more I’m unable to have trust.
DAN: I talk about this in my book A Man’s Way Through Relationships.
When we move into vulnerability and intimacy, sometimes we’re not
prepared. A lot of men are constantly walking around the landscape of
each other’s lives not knowing where the landmines are and never knowing
when we’re going to step on a landmine that blows up the relationship.
I’ve seen this happen with so many men, where they have a close,
vulnerable, connected relationship until one disconnection happens and
one person just says “I’m done.”
JERRY: Well, we tell ourselves that if this is what a relationship
is, if it’s going to have this kind of pain, count me out. I just won’t
do it. I’ll be a mile wide and an inch deep with everyone. But, pain is
just a part of a relationship. It just comes with it.
DAN: But, it’s sad. It’s sad that that’s what we’ve done to men. We
kind of stand outside and judge men’s inability to connect. I always say
to people, if you’re one of those couples that don't fight, that scares
me. It’s the ability to withstand the disconnection and the conflict
and come back and compromise. I’ve found that in my marriage and in my
closest relationships, that’s everything.
Work and Leadership
JERRY: I love what C.S. Lewis said: “Pain is God’s megaphone.” He
didn’t say it’s his club, he said it’s his megaphone. Sometimes we’ve
got to have that pain to recognize that something is wrong and the ask
ourselves what we’re going to do about it.
DAN: Unfortunately, so many men are socialized to think that the problem is someone else…
JERRY: Particularly when we’re talking about men in the workplace.
Men are typically in a workplace environment 8 to 10 hours a day.
Workplace culture often promotes disconnection. it promotes being one
up, and it promotes power-driven relationships. Then, we leave this
environment and walk through the door at home at the end of the day only
to find that our dogs have more authority than we do. Everyone at
home—our spouse and our kids, they want to be in more connected
relationships.
When men are at work, it’s all about power, all day long. Taking off
that hat and putting on the spouse/ parent hat is difficult, and we
often just don’t know how to do it.
DAN: That is so true. It’s really about how do we teach men how to be
congruent in their business and personal lives. One doesn’t have to be
that different from the other. Men can be vulnerable and share power at
work, but can also translate some of his leadership skills from the
business world to his life at home. We can all be more thoughtful about
how we connect and how we work together.
JERRY: You’re right, Dan, It really is about congruence, because
there are business skills that translate into home life successfully,
and there are relationship skills from home life that translate into the
business world successfully. You just have to learn with whom you can
be vulnerable because not everyone is safe.
That’s what is so great about recovery. When you’re active in a
recovery community you get the opportunity to learn how to be vulnerable
around other people, and then transfer these skills into home life and
work life and the community at large.
Families of Addicts
DAN: That is so true. The recovery community really shifts how men
are allowed to show up. We do get to practice vulnerability and make
mistakes and go through all of the pains of relationships.
The work you’re doing with families is so important because no person
with an addiction lives in a vacuum, so I think it’s absolutely
wonderful.
JERRY: We still live in this society that wants to brand addiction in
strictly moral terms. But, it’s not about being bad, wrong, and stupid;
it’s about being ill and doing things that may be bad, wrong or stupid.
When families get their heads around that idea—“Oh, you mean my loved
one isn’t just an awful person? Oh, okay here are some ways I can
understand what’s been going on…”—then families get to experience the
freedom of recovery as well.
DAN: And then, of course, they get the opportunity to look within
which may or may not feel like an opportunity. But, it certainly helps
to facilitate healing. Freedom is such a wonderful gift—in our personal
lives, in our relationships and in the work that we do. It allows us to
live our mission and to have a purpose.
Thanks for taking the time today, Jerry. I always like to let my guests have the last word, so take us home…
JERRY: I always tell families to educate themselves on addiction For
me, freedom came from an getting education about the disease of
addiction and what it really is. So, I say to families, if you’ve got
someone who’s struggling, get help, and reach out. There’s so much help
available. In some ways, our anonymity in the recovery world is our own
worst enemy because there’s so much help available but many people just
don’t know about it. So to men who need help: reach out. And to families
who need help: reach out because it’s available.
