What if the thing standing between you and real connection isn’t the other person – it’s your own silence?
In this episode of the One Day at a Time Recovery Podcast, I wrap up Steps 4 and 5 with Sonia Kahlon, co-founder of Sisters in Sobriety and one of the most honest people I’ve had the pleasure of walking through the steps with. We’ve been doing this work on camera so you can see what the process actually looks like – the messy, real, sometimes funny, sometimes heavy version.
Sonia has been showing up consistently, and this episode delivered. She came in talking about a relationship and left with a new understanding of her own patterns – including one she’d never been able to name before.
The Fear of Asking for What You Need
One of the biggest things that surfaced in Sonia’s Step 4 inventory was what she described as “a fear of asking for what I need.” She could feel it physically – the tightness in her chest, the anticipation of the other person’s reaction – before she even opened her mouth. So she just… didn’t ask.
What struck me is that this isn’t unusual. A lot of us in recovery spent years either not knowing what we needed or numbing out before we could feel it. Now that we’re sober and more sensitive, those needs are louder – and so is the fear of voicing them.
“If You Spot It, You Got It”
This one came alive in the conversation in a beautiful way. Sonia was talking about wanting people to be softer with her – less aggressive, more mindful in their tone. And then, right in the middle of the conversation, she caught herself using a phrase that was bothering her boyfriend.
“I spotted it, I got it,” she said. And she was right. The same thing she was asking for from others, she needed to offer too. That’s what the inventory is designed to surface – not so we can beat ourselves up, but so we can see our patterns clearly and make different choices.
Hard Choices, Easy Life
I said it in this episode and I mean it – you can’t let resentments pile up and expect your sobriety to hold. Hard choices make for an easy life. Easy choices – sweeping it under the rug, minimizing how you felt, avoiding the conversation – those make for a very hard life.
“You can’t save your face and your ass at the same time.”
Sonia and I talked about canned responses as a tool – scripted phrases you can use when your heart is pounding and your brain freezes. Things like: “That may be true, but this is how I feel.” Simple. Unshakeable. No need to justify it.
Step 6 is next, and I couldn’t be more excited to keep watching Sonia do this work.
Action Items
- Identify one relationship where you’re holding back from saying what you need – write down what’s stopping you
- Practice “That may be true, but this is how I feel” out loud until it feels natural
- Notice the next time you “spot it” in someone else – ask yourself if you’ve got it too
- Look at your resentments list: are any of them connected to not speaking up?
- Try going back to a conversation and saying “Something’s been bugging me” – it’s never too late
- Write a list of your character defects as actions, not thoughts (this is the Step 6 prep work)
- Compliment someone in your life today – especially if they’re unlikely to hear it elsewhere
Resources Mentioned
- The 12-Step Guide for Skeptics Buy On Amazon
- Byron Katie’s The Work – thework.com
- The Karpman Drama Triangle
- Sisters in Sobriety Substack – sistersinsobriety.substack.com
👊 Need help applying this information to your own life?
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Transcript
Step 5 with Sonia Khalon
Arlina Allen: [00:00:00] Sonia, thank you so much for joining me today
Sonia: Thanks for having me again. I’m really excited to be here for step five
Arlina Allen: I’m so proud of you for your really consistent forward progress on this. You have not stalled out. I’m just really impressed with your ability to keep moving forward in the face of, facing this stuff is not easy. So I just wanna start off with a little commending you for good works. How does it feel so far?
Sonia: It feels good. It feels I do feel like you have to commit to it. It wouldn’t be without you, right? And so I think this is the point of having a sponsor. Then I would be like okay, I’ll just do it whenever.” But yeah, I’ve been consistent, and like I think that has a lot to do with having accountability to you.
And so I feel like… And this is also, look, like the, these steps four, five were like not easy for me, but wait till we get to amends. I’m gonna throw a full tantrum. So I know that’ll be like we’re gonna have to do that [00:01:00] one for months.
Arlina Allen: Yeah.
Sonia: don’t know if I’ll ever
Arlina Allen: It does,
Sonia: to do
Arlina Allen: it typically does take months actually, the amend step. But as they say, we’re not on that step yet.
Sonia: No, but
Arlina Allen: you only worry about the step that you’re on. But can I tell you that everybody does that. Everybody goes, “Oh, shit, step nine is coming.” But we’re not even worried about it yet
Sonia: Okay, yeah, let’s not worry about it till the summer, but yeah or like deep summer. But I just feel like, yeah, the accountability, and there is something, there is that feeling of accomplishment, right? That you don’t necessarily get as a recovering alcoholic from other things, right?
You can be like, “Woo-hoo, I made it through a wedding sober.” It’s great. But this is this, like you feel like you’re getting like a degree or something, right? You’re like, “I’m doing the homework. I’m going through the… yeah, I’m moving through the steps.” And so it feels though you are really accomplishing something.
So for those people out there wondering about the steps, it does feel like an accomplishment.
Arlina Allen: You are accomplishing something, and what you’re doing is you’ve been [00:02:00] taking a lot of action, and you’ve been practicing self-reflection. It’s so funny. I always say that when I showed up to the 12-step program, I was totally self-centered, but incapable of self-examination. It’s one of those paradoxes of recovery is I was totally sel- I was only thinking about what I wasn’t getting, what I wanted.
I really wasn’t really thinking about what are my actions and what are the consequences, right? And so what you’ve been doing is taking action. You’ve been… what, and this is what I loved about the steps is that a very pragmatic way of deconstructing your resentments so that you can get to what’s really going on underneath, right?
Just like alcoholism is a symptom of a deeper problem, like this allows you to get to the root cause, the core issues. They talk about causes and conditions, and so that’s really the whole purpose is let’s go a few layers [00:03:00] down. It’s like, why are we compelled to use? It’s typically some sort of emotional disturbance that compels us to wanna reach for something to medicate our feelings.
Yeah, you’ve been taking a lot of action. You’ve been self-reflecting. We have done some step work off camera because I wanted you to have the actual experience the real experience of working the steps, and I wanted you to f- have a safe space, so there were some things that we talked about resentments that you didn’t wanna air out in public
Fair
Sonia: Yeah, I think there are some where especially active ongoing situations are a little difficult to air in public because too, it’s a little unfair to that person, right? Especially if they happen to happen on the podcast and they’re like, “Is that bitch talking about me?” know? And so I think it would be pretty obvious who they are if they were
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: in, and that’s not fair to them or to me because [00:04:00] what we realized that one of my patterns is fear of asking for what I need.
And so one way to avoid that would be to air it publicly on a podcast, so I’m not gonna do that. But I am going to work on asking for what I need, and it’s the first time I’ve had this concept come up in therapy a lot but not in those words, the fear of asking for what I need. But I am, and I can feel it, and I can feel the fear when I’m thinking about what I need and how to express it, so I usually don’t even get to the point where I do. But just thinking about it causes this physical reaction in my body that makes me realize there’s something to it. It shouldn’t be that hard to ask, especially for things that aren’t really [00:05:00] putting someone else out, right?
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah. In a general way, what is the nature of the things that you need that you’re not getting?
Sonia: I think that one and I have realized that it’s okay. I am working… At the same time, I’m working at not developing a thicker skin, but I’m working on some of my triggers, but I also need the people that I’m close to be soft. And so while I work on these triggers, like I do, I have a hard time when people raise their voice.
I have a hard time when people criticize me. I’m not saying you can’t. I’m saying like, can you be more mindful of it knowing that I too am working on these things, right? so I need people in general that I’m close to be softer. I don’t know if there’s a better way that you can phrase that. What do you think?
What am I asking [00:06:00] for?
Arlina Allen: I think there is like an acknowledgement of… S- so we talk about setting boundaries, right? And boundaries start with an acknowledgement that we have needs and that we have feelings. And so a boundary is not necessarily I need you to be different so that I can be okay. It’s a self boundary of when I exper- when I am present with my feelings and I experience something that doesn’t sit well with me, that my boundary is that I don’t let it go unanswered.
And it doesn’t mean, it doesn’t mean that we have to come with guns blazing. It can be as easy as like I shared with you before we hit record that I felt like somebody was disrespecting my time, and that’s a trigger for me. And so I can respond with “Hey, I planned for this and I f- I feel disappointed.”
And just let it hang like a lead “I’m disappointed,” and just let it hang like a lead [00:07:00] balloon so that somebody… And not try to soften it for the other person. It’s important for me to be able to let someone have their feelings about how they affected me
Trying to, so it’s not trying to control how they respond to me but really be like, “Hey I put this time on my calendar.
You had asked me to do these things. I prepared. I, did all this stuff, and then you bailed last minute. That feels disrespectful of my time.” But I don’t need to go into all that. I can just be like, “Wow, that’s disappointing. I
Sonia: Yeah,
Arlina Allen: this aside of time
Sonia: want people to be able to express their feelings to me, but I don’t wanna hear those feelings in a condescending way or an aggressive way or… I think it’s that, right? Is that the boundary I want to set is am happy to talk about this. If you have an issue, ta- let’s talk.[00:08:00]
But no, please don’t be passive-aggressive or just aggressive.
That is what is happening in this other relationship I have. But for example, like yesterday, my, my boyfriend is… I you’re not listening, Dave. He can be, like, a little bit insecure a little bit jealous, and sometimes it’s funny, and sometimes it’s annoying.
And so yesterday, I had somebody fixing my deck, and I texted him, And I also refer to people as my boy, so I call my financial planner my boy Cliff. call the guy who mows my lawn my boy Jamil, or my boy at the grocery store. So I was like, “Hey, my boy Igor came and fixed the fen- like, the gate and the deck.” And he was like, “I don’t know who this Igor is, but blah, blah, blah.” And I was just like, “No. You know I’m excited that this was fixed. You’re picking on something that I say my boy all the time.” He’s “Who’s your boy Igor? What’s [00:09:00] going on with you and Igor?” And and then, so I just, I kinda just said, “No. is a boundary I’m setting where I’m gonna be excited about my deck getting fixed.
Happened between me and Igor.
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: to calm yourself down.” And he-
Arlina Allen: would you be willing to let go of that phrase, my boy?
Sonia: Yes. Yeah. Ah, interesting question. If it bugged him enough, yeah, I would be willing to let go of yeah. But also, I have been single for a long time, and so that is something that it’s been okay for me to say. And so yes, now that
Arlina Allen: How long have you and Dave been dating?
Sonia: Nine months
Arlina Allen: Oh, girl. You can’t claim I’ve been single a long time and that’s why I’m
Sonia: before that. I was single for a long time, so it was okay for me to say “My boy Igor.”
Arlina Allen: Yeah, but you’ve been in a relationship for nine months, so it’s time to let that go.
Sonia: Okay. I will let it go. He [00:10:00] then called me, not Igor, Dave. He FaceTimed me with his shirt off with a dumbbell and said, “I’m Igor.” Yeah, and he was pumping it and he said, “I’m
Arlina Allen: Did he spritz himself
Sonia: Yes. He had a spray bottle
Arlina Allen: Maybe he needs a couple more compliments.
Sonia: Yeah
Arlina Allen: a little… I heard on a podcast the other day that men, I’ve heard, I for- I think they may have thrown out some statistic, but like men rarely get compliments
Sonia: Oh, I’ve heard that too.
Arlina Allen: I did not know that. Yeah.
Sonia: him all the time.
Arlina Allen: You do?
Sonia: I do. Yes but look, I could drop the phrase my boy
Arlina Allen: Okay. Yeah, as we talk about asking people to modify their language, we also have to be willing to modify our own
Sonia: You’re [00:11:00] absolutely right, and I hadn’t even thought about it. I did get a little defensive, but he said, he’s I’m your boy.” And I was
Arlina Allen: Yeah.
Sonia: Igor fixed the deck,”
Arlina Allen: Yeah.
Sonia: he’s right. You’re right.
Arlina Allen: Yeah, it’s the claiming of somebody, like you’re mine. You’re s- You’re like, that’s a… if my husband said that shit to me, “Oh, my girl,” s- so and I’d be like, “Bitch, what’d you just say?” No, I’m just kidding
Sonia: “What if I said ‘My girl Monica came and helped me with my dryer?'” I’d be like, “I’d be happy that someone was helping you with your dryer.”
Arlina Allen: Yeah, but this is where we get into being respectful. When someone st- when someone states their need, being willing to modify. So yeah that’s interesting. There’s that saying, “If you spot it, you got it.”
Sonia: Yeah.
Arlina Allen: So if you’re spotting somebody… A- and I think the purpose of that saying is that it helps us have compassion for those [00:12:00] who are tr- trespassing against us, right?
They’re crossing our boundaries, and it’s,
Sonia: great point, which is I’m asking people to be softer with me in their language and their tone,
Then yeah, I spotted it, I got it. I need to do the same thing
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah
Sonia: I know if I really think about it, I know what upsets him, and he’s telling me
Arlina Allen: He’s asking for what he needs
Sonia: He is, and I need to respect that.
Arlina Allen: Yeah. And how powerful would that be for you to go to him and say, “Hey, I was thinking about what you said, and I- you’re right. I can absolutely modify that language.”
Period. So that when you have a request of him, what we’re doing is we’re just looking at our part.
Sonia: Yeah[00:13:00]
Arlina Allen: That’s the whole point of the inventory, is we identify patterns, we look for our part, how can we modify our behavior?
‘Cause really, at the end of the day, we love these people.
We love them. We don’t want our people to be sad or feel bad
Sonia: we do think about, if we go a step into the phrase my boy, I did really start using it when I got divorced, right? So once I was alone, it was like, “Oh, I have all these people. My boy Cliff’s over here. My boy Jamel,” and so maybe it is time to drop it. Maybe it was something I did for a period of time for a reason that I no longer need
Arlina Allen: Yeah. And listen, I just wanna validate that I see where you’re coming with this. That makes people feel good. When you claim somebody as your friend, my girl, my, my homie, whatever, like that makes people feel good. And so I feel like your intentions are good. [00:14:00] And boundaries are a funny thing ’cause as we grow and evolve, that boundary moves, and sometimes we don’t know where it is until we cross it
Sonia: Yeah, I just learned that yesterday. So that’s amazing. It is really interesting, the if you spot it, you’ve got it. It’s really interesting that I am so sensitive to language and language choices,
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: and then I think sometimes when other people are, I’ll pass it off as I was just being funny.
It’s just a joke.” And it’s no, maybe not to that other person
Arlina Allen: Yeah. No, that’s good. But the intention of you spot it, you got it isn’t just so that we beat ourselves up about it.
Sonia: Okay
Arlina Allen: Yeah, so I always have to temper all this with a heavy dose of self-compassion. It’s “Oh, shoot, I wonder if that’s like how they feel. Like they probably don’t even realize that they’re doing that.”
Do you know what I mean?
Sonia: Yeah, that makes sense
Arlina Allen: It [00:15:00] tempers my resentment when I think about that lady. It’s oh, maybe she’s sensitive about her time. Maybe she felt that was not a good use of her time and… Do you know what I mean? It’s almost have you ever heard of Byron Katie’s The Work?
It’s can I… Is this true?
Can I absolutely know that it’s true? W- who would I be without this thought? And then she does this thing called a turnaround. It’s I think, oh, they’re disrespecting my time. Maybe I’m disrespecting my time, or maybe I’m not respecting her time.
Sonia: Yeah
Arlina Allen: It’s just different ways of But I think the big question, like in her four questions, is: Who would I be without this thought?
If I’m deciding that someone’s being disrespectful of my time, then h-
Sonia: would I
Arlina Allen: does not feel good to me. Then it’s who would I be without this thought? It’s if nobody’s disrespecting my time, then there’s really nothing to be upset about. Yeah, and let it
Sonia: That one of the parts I liked [00:16:00] about reading the 12 and 12 is it says alcohol lets us act extemporaneously. And so I did, I used to act in a way and say things that I wouldn’t say now, right? And so I have a much harder time
Arlina Allen: Ah.
Sonia: I would say I have a much harder time saying certain things than when I was drinking.
I don’t know if I would say when I was drinking I asked for what I needed, but I certainly was quicker to express myself and
Arlina Allen: Your displeasure?
Sonia: Yeah,
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: So I was quicker to have difficult conversations. I would very specifically pour a drink to talk to my mom.
Arlina Allen: That says a lot
Sonia: I would light a cigarette and I would pour a drink and I would call my mom, and I think it made it so much easier to have certain [00:17:00] conversations or to say certain things that sober was like, “Oh my God, the feeling’s crazy.”
“What did you just say?” Like it was almost like I got slower at processing in
Ways when I got sober.
Arlina Allen: Oh yeah. I always talk about my hurt buttons on delayed reaction
Sonia: S- yes!
Arlina Allen: Like I don’t realize it hurt my feelings till the next day, and I’m like, “Damn it, I should have said this,” or, “I should have said that.”
Sonia: But when I was drinking, I think I did not take it as deeply, but I reacted quicker. So now it things that people, the same thing that let’s just say my mom would say, would hit deeper now, but I wouldn’t feel it until the next day.
It would just like bounce and I would like, I would just kick it back, right?
I’ll be
Arlina Allen: Yeah.
Sonia: Kick it back. I
Let it land
Arlina Allen: the funny thing about a scenario like that [00:18:00] is I often thought, oh, if I didn’t say it in the moment, I was like, “Oh, I should’ve said this,” or, “I should’ve said that.” Who says you can’t go back and be like, “Hey, I thought about our conversation. There’s something that’s not sitting well with me, and I just wanted to share it with you.”
That’s a thing
Sonia: go back and do that? I don’t know who, like, why we don’t do that
Arlina Allen: No, I’m just saying you can
Sonia: No, I’m saying I think I feel embarrassed to do that
Arlina Allen: Of course
Sonia: Yeah, I think that’s what stops me from doing it
Arlina Allen: But what got you here isn’t gonna get you there, meaning the set of tools that, and decisions and beliefs that got you here are not gonna get you to a healthier place with your mom or whoever
Sonia: sort of feeling of excuse me, I forgot to mention this, but…” And you feel like a,
Arlina Allen: Feel like an asshole, yeah.
Sonia: Yeah. I feel
Arlina Allen: But
Sonia: I, I look like I’ve been carrying this around now for a week.
Arlina Allen: You have been.
Sonia: [00:19:00] have
Arlina Allen: It’s the willingness to be vulnerable. Be like, “Yeah,” go, “Hey, something you said has been bugging. It’s been festering, and I’m embarrassed to tell you this, but I gotta say it.” Call it out. “I feel like such a jerk saying this ’cause this happened a week ago, but it’s been bugging me, and I need to get this off my chest.”
You can even preface it like, “I feel like such a tool right now. I feel s- like such a m- jerk, but I have to say this to you.”
Sonia: One of the defects that came up for me from the list was that saving face, and I think that comes in to this situation, that there’s this element of trying to save face and not wanting to acknowledge that something bothered you
Arlina Allen: Yeah, nobody likes it.
Sonia: deep. Yeah, and so I
Arlina Allen: That’s a pride thing
Sonia: saving face,
Arlina Allen: And that you know what they say, you can’t save your face and [00:20:00] your ass at the same time.
Sonia: Who says that? That’s a good one
Arlina Allen: AA people in the program. Can’t save your face. And here’s the thing, for some of us, they say that re- resentment is the number one cause of relapse, and that is a, for some of us, that is a very heavy consequence. And so I was like, look, for me to drink again would be fucking disastrous. I am not a half measures kinda girl.
That would be like pouring gasoline on a fire. Maybe not in a day, in a week, in a month, in a year, but eventually I would blow up my life ’cause that’s … it’s progressive, right? And when I drink, it’s disastrous. So for me, the consequences of not addressing my resentments are very severe, so I feel like it’s really important for me to handle my resentments, which means I have to be honest about my feelings and have those uncomfortable conversations.
And there’s the [00:21:00] saying, hard choices make for an easy life, and easy choices make for a hard life. The easy choice would be to just sweep that shit under the rug, to minimize how you felt, to deny it, and suppr- or I’ll just deal with it somehow, some other way, not dealing it directly with the person, right?
But what happens is the resentments build, and then one day you hit the wall, and you’re like, “How did I get here?” You know how you got here? You didn’t take care of your resentments along the way. They stack up over time, and then the scales tip, and then something happens and triggers you, and that’s how relapse happens
Sonia: Yeah. Hang on one sec. I have to get my charger. Hang on.
Arlina Allen: Oh, sure.
Okay.[00:22:00]
Sonia: Got it
Arlina Allen: Okay. I’m just clearing out my email
Sonia: So is that idea then that dealing with our resentments is important to not relapsing, like pointing out the [00:23:00] character defect or pointing out our role in it? Or is it not developing the resentments in the first place?
Arlina Allen: I would say both probably. But it’s if we side, sidestep the character defect, what we’re really doing is the self-examination to identify what our part is so that we can figure out what to do instead If that makes sense. So if we have a resentment because somebody’s was, said something unkind to us or wasted our time or didn’t, whatever.
So and then we de- decide how it affected us. We could even figure out what it’s triggering in us. For instance, we had talked about some abandonment issues when you were young, things like that’s triggering that, right? And then you decide what your part is in it, which is really about how am I responding to these difficult situations?
Do I shut down? Do I seek retaliation? Do I tell a victim’s story? [00:24:00] Do I decide to take, step up and take responsibility? Do I learn from this experience so that the next time I’m confronted with it, I can take, make a different choice? That’s really kinda the essence of it all, is did I do something to provoke it?
Like it was so funny. My when I was doing my… I had a very strong victim mentality, and the first time I did the inventory, it’s all these people who I felt had done me wrong. Turns out I was the instigator. I was provoking people, and they would treat me badly, and I’d be like, “Oh my God, they treat me so badly.
I’m a victim.” It’s no, bitch, you provoked that person. You did something to provoke them, right? And so that’s when I started oh, I’m, I need to take responsibility for myself. I’m allowing people to walk all over me. I’m like, “Oh, it’s okay. You can walk all over me.” Do you know what I mean?
Or
Sonia: What is the idea, though, of provoking? So I think that sometimes with this one relationship that we were talking about, like offline, I think just like [00:25:00] my mere existence provokes this person.
Arlina Allen: Then that’s not about you.
Sonia: okay. I
Arlina Allen: That’s not about you
Sonia: just about like my place in the world that provokes them
Arlina Allen: Or there is something okay, so talk about vulnerability. I have to share that I’m estranged from my sister.
Sonia: Yeah
Arlina Allen: is the consummate victim mentality, and it’s toxic for me, and I’m not good for her because her victim mentality pro- brings out a very nasty side of me
So her eh the funny thing about the victim mentality, it’s actually a very powerful position because a person who claims to be the victim own- take- do- takes no responsibility.
Sonia: Yeah
Arlina Allen: somebody that is unwilling to take responsibility is to me offensive. Like [00:26:00] it, it brings out like this interrogator in me. Like I’ll s- I’ll interrogate my s- our dynamic was is she’d play the victim and then I would start interrogating her, put her on the hot seat and start asking her all these
And it, I, and it brought out like an aggressive side to me.
Sonia: I
Arlina Allen: And so that’s an extreme ex- an extreme example. But when somebody is not willing to take responsibility for their own feelings, sometimes it does provoke the pro- what they call the prosecutor. And there’s this oh, I’m not gonna be able to remember it, but it’s like this drama triangle.
I forget who invented it, but it’s like the victim, the prosecutor, and I forget who the other person is. But it’s a drama triangle, and it’s so funny. And these are extreme roles that we play. So oftentimes the prosecutor and the victim are polar opposites of each other, and they bring out the worst in each other.[00:27:00]
So but when the victim decides to step up and take responsibility for like their feelings or for their situation, if they did something wrong and they own it, that’s a very powerful position, and that changes the dynamic.
Sonia: and the persecutor
Arlina Allen: Thank you. The rescuer. Did you look it up? Yeah. Yeah, the rescuer
Sonia: a really interesting dynamic
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah. The rescuer is also not healthy because they’re c- they’re reinforcing the idea that the victim is powerless
Sonia: Yeah
Arlina Allen: Yeah. They’re doing the work for you, which is not good. Everybody needs to do their… I gotta do my own pushups if I wanna get stronger. You can’t do my pushups for me. I won’t get stronger that way
Sonia: So where does estrangement fall then in this idea of resentment? So I would say l- when we did step four, the people that I named I have resentment [00:28:00] towards, so my parents, my brother, my ex-husband, I am estranged from that all, from them all. Is that a form of avoidance though? Or… Not
Arlina Allen: Yeah, you’re avoiding abuse.
Sonia: Yeah, I’m
Arlina Allen: avoiding abuse. It depe- and so I’ll just say it depends.
Sonia: Okay,
Arlina Allen: It just depends. It just depends
Sonia: my choice necessarily, so it’s not all that estrangement is necessarily my choice. Some of it is.
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: it’s not. But yeah, but I’m okay with it.
But
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: from your sister, is that a choice? And is that a choice to say being in the situation causes me resentment, I’m removing myself from the situation”?
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Like my relationship with my sister is just so extremely toxic. It’s not good for either one of us.
Like she triggers me so hard in a way that makes me fricking crazy, and I know that there’s deep work for me to do around that, but I don’t… It’s not appropriate for me to do my work in her space[00:29:00]
Sonia: Wow
Arlina Allen: got some pretty serious mental illness issues going on that there really is no healthy… And I’m sure, people listening can judge it like, “Oh, you think you’re so spiritual.” I do not. I just realize my lone- I think it’s important for, like it’s a boundary for me. I recognize I have these limitations, and it’s better for both of us that we don’t communicate
Sonia: And is this something you are doing the work around and that like maybe one day they’ll be
Arlina Allen: I’ve done it too many times. There… Like, when mental illness is a factor, maybe this is just, maybe this is just BS, but for me, the last… So my mother passed away, and before my mother passed away, I promised my mom that I would do my best to look out for her. She’s alienated everybody.
She’s alone in the world. And sh- she has a couple pe- like, an, I have an aunt, my [00:30:00] mom’s sister, who will check in on her. My stepbrother and my stepmom are checking in on her. She m- she’s managed to alienate them, too. So I’m hoping my brother can step in and check in on her once. I wish, w- but we’re dealing with some pretty severe mental illness, and so that’s not going to change.
So for me, I had to come to the conclusion that I wasn’t going to be that person that could be in a relationship with her ’cause it’s so toxic for me. So maybe that’s a cop-out
Sonia: No, it’s not. I’m just curious yeah, how you see it because there was a lot of talk about family estrangement. There was like a big Oprah about it, and so I was just curious what you
Arlina Allen: Which, yeah, that, so family estrangement is interesting, especially coming from her, because it almost sounded like maybe I didn’t see the whole thing, but it was like, “Hey, we’re cutting our family off too soon,” or,
Sonia: Yes.
Arlina Allen: “We should try…” Yeah. But she herself had alienated her own [00:31:00] family members, so I I was a little, I felt funny about it.
I wasn’t sure how to feel about it. I just know that for me… And listen, I can’t judge. I don’t know what’s going on. But I do see a lot of people cutting family members off because of political issues and things like that and maybe that’s where that was coming from. It’s wait a minute, can we, maybe we should, find common ground.
I don’t know. But there is a, I think there is an appropriate place for estrangement. I think it, it comes after a lot of work, and I did years of therapy, decades of therapy and
Sonia: place then for resentment?
Arlina Allen: I’m not resentful about it. I’ve made peace with it,
Sonia: Okay
Arlina Allen: so I’m not mad about it, but I just… It is what it is
Sonia: Yeah. Yeah. So one other thing that we talked about that I thought was really interesting is that we talked about learning to express ourselves. And for me, for example, like learning to express my needs, and that I don’t have to [00:32:00] go from a doormat to a dictator, and I
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: that because that is what I struggle with.
It’s I haven’t said anything for like however long to this person. I can’t just all of a sudden just go off on them and And so there was this idea that you were like, look, it’s a baby steps kind of thing, that, yeah, make these small changes and learn to of express myself, and one way was to have like scripted or canned kind of responses.
And that, I love that advice and I give that advice to other people, and I don’t know why I don’t take it more.
Arlina Allen: hard. It’s hard. But when the discomfort of staying the same is greater than the discomfort of changing, that’s when we s- take different actions. And the thing about sobriety is we do become more sensitive, and that’s a good thing
Because then we can note… our feelings are there to help us, right?
You touch your hand on the stove, it hurts. You don’t do [00:33:00] that again. But if you’re, if you’re numbed out and you don’t feel anything, you can show up for abuse over and over again. And so as we get sober, we become more mindful, more intentional, more aware. We can be like, “Ouch, that… I don’t know why you said that to me like that, but that hurt my feelings.
Just FYI.” You make a joke out of it or… But it’s “Hey, that’s not o- I’m not okay with that, just so you know. If you have any love for me at all, don’t be saying that shit to me.”
Sonia: Yeah,
Arlina Allen: don’t know.
Sonia: Let me use that one.
Arlina Allen: Yeah, maybe not, but
Sonia: not that one, but
Arlina Allen: n- it depends, but have a canned response. My mother-in-law gave me this this line.
She would say, “Just state, state your I statement.” “Wow, I, I feel really sad,” or, “That really hurt my feelings.” And be like, “I was just kidding,” or, “You’re so sensitive.”
Sonia: yeah
Arlina Allen: And then you say that may be true, but this is how I feel.” And then just let it hang like a lead balloon
Sonia: That may be [00:34:00] true, but this is how I feel. So that actually is the issue with me talking to people, is that I will anticipate their response. So it’s like I can do the first part “What you said hurt my feelings.” What I can’t do is when they respond in maybe not the affirmative and not accepting what I said, and if there’s any sort of argument or feedback, that’s where I’m like, “I don’t know what to say next.
What am I gonna say if they say this? What am I gonna say if they say that?” and then that,
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Do you be like, “Do you care how I feel? I’m not sure that you care how I feel.”
Sonia: Yeah, but I think I’m gonna say that, which is
Arlina Allen: that may be true
Sonia: but this, that, this is how I feel
Arlina Allen: Yeah. You’re just o- you’re just owning how you feel, and you can do it with your heart pounding and your palms sweaty. But the more you do it, the easier it gets is the thing
Sonia: Yeah. That makes so [00:35:00] much sense though, that yeah. Yeah. I get that it’ll get easier, but like I never even get past that one part, but it makes sense to just say to somebody
Arlina Allen: Yeah. That’s why having like a canned response is important
Sonia: Yeah. Maybe your next book should be a list of canned responses
Arlina Allen: That feels like a blog post. Maybe I’ll just do an episode.
Sonia: Yeah. 15 responses you can use with a emotional terrorist
Arlina Allen: And emotional terrorists
Sonia: To get out of an emotional hostage situation
Arlina Allen: For real though, that’s so funny
Sonia: Yeah. One is I feel like asking questions, and I do that a lot where I’ll ask people questions like how do you feel like this went?” Or, “How do you…” Always work
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah. My husband was somebody that really taught me how to communicate early on, and we’d be having a uncomfortable, a difficult conversation. We’d be sitting on the couch, and you have those moments where you go silent, and he’d go… He’ll say, “I don’t feel good. How do you feel?” And I’d [00:36:00] be like, “I feel terrible.”
And he goes let’s keep talking.” And I’ll be like, “I don’t know.”
Yeah. That’s some spiritual jujitsu right there.
Sonia: Yeah. do that little bit. My boyfriend and I do that naturally this feels shitty.
Arlina Allen: å“Žå‘€
Sonia: What do you wanna do now?” And it’s let’s figure it out. Let’s talk,
Arlina Allen: Yeah.
Sonia: Yeah.
Arlina Allen: Or he would say to me, or we’d take a or we’d take a break and then you have some space, and then he’d come back and he’d be like, “Do you wanna be friends?”
Sonia: Aw
Arlina Allen: That’s typically, yeah, or I’d go to him and I… once I learned that language and I, sometimes I I’m a little hot-headed.
I’m a little spicy sometimes. I’ll come back and I’ll be like, “Oh, do you wanna be friends?” That’s how we kinda reconcile. I’ll be like, “I c- I can see how…” Listen, we use the four steps. Listen, we’ve been married, we’ve been together 32 years, right? Almost 32 years. September, it’ll be 32 years.
So we’ve learned a few tricks along the way, but, the four [00:37:00] step is what resolved our resentment in our relationship, and he’s still my my favorite person. We don’t have any resentment. We’re not hold- neither one of us are holding onto anything.
Sonia: Wow.
Arlina Allen: Listen, 32 years will give you time to work shit out, but
Sonia: Yeah, but you don’t have any resentment in your relationship? Like, you
Arlina Allen: None I can’t even think of anything
Sonia: That’s
Arlina Allen: I can’t think of a thing. I can’t think of a single thing
Sonia: what is step six gonna be about? I’m curious now as we wrap up step
Arlina Allen: Yeah. So step six is, I’m pulling out the book, the 12-Step Guide for Skeptics
In the back, page 214 step six. We’re entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character. And the writing exercise… Okay, so there’s some reading, and then identify the behavioral patterns, your actions, as not your thoughts, not your feelings.
It’s what are [00:38:00] your actions? This- which is actually very interesting ’cause some people are really hard on themselves for things that they think. If somebody makes you mad, in your mind, you’re like, “Blah, blah, blah.” And then when you actually talk to somebody, you say, “Oh, excuse me, sir, I,
Sonia: Yeah yeah
Arlina Allen: And but what you say your actions are different, right? And so a lot of people judge themselves on their thought crimes. I, they feel so bad about themselves ’cause they thought this horrible thing, but do you… I was like, “But did you do anything about it?” “No.” All right. We’re just talking about actions.
And so as a result of the character defects, you were making your life unbalanced, oh, that were making your life. So if we’re looking at you if we talk about I didn’t, I don’t speak up for myself. I don’t set boundaries with myself to acknowledge when someone’s hurting my feelings that is your action.
Your action is you’re choosing to be silent.
Sonia: Yeah
Arlina Allen: List many, as many examples as you can think of. [00:39:00] The purpose of this exercise is to help you recognize that the old behavior patterns you have relied on thus far are no longer working. It will also help you feel ready to let them go so that you can ask your higher power for help.
Yeah. So
Sonia: Okay.
Ready.
Arlina Allen: that’s the gauntlet.
Sonia: I’m ready.
Arlina Allen: I’m excited.
Sonia: excited. I’m excited about step six. It’ll be nice to move past this step four, five. It was really good. I feel like they’re like in chunks to me, like one
Arlina Allen: Yeah
Sonia: and then three. Four, five were together, so let’s-
Arlina Allen: Yeah, so the first three are, like, the uncover. The five, six, seven are the discover. Wait, am I saying that right? And then the last are, steps are, like, the discard. There’s like the… Th- they say that the last three steps are the maintenance steps. So yes, we did four and five, but step 10 is continue to take personal inventory.
So that’s something you do on a daily basis so that shit doesn’t pile up, and then [00:40:00] you don’t have, you don’t get, you don’t have a relapse ’cause you’re not letting stuff pile up
Sonia: Yeah. Okay, I’m excited. I can’t wait.
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah, you did great. I’m so proud of you. Thank you f- for being willing to do this work. I think it will be helpful for… I think it’s really helpful for people to sorta see the process unfold
Sonia: Yeah, I’ve gotten really good feedback especially on Substack about the
Arlina Allen: Nice. Yay
Sonia: like… Yeah, comment a little more privately, and they’ll be like, “Oh,” “I’ve been always curious about the steps but kept them at an arm’s length,” or been like, “Oh, it’s not for me.”
And so they’re like, “Thanks so much for going through
Arlina Allen: Yeah.
Sonia: doing them.” And so yeah, I love
Arlina Allen: What?
Sonia: know. we have
Arlina Allen: Oh my
Sonia: the
Arlina Allen: God.
Sonia: steps. Yeah. It’s
Arlina Allen: me so happy
Sonia: if they pick one, and they’re like, “You know what? That one kind of resonates,” “Let me do step three,” or whatever it is, like that’s something, right?
Arlina Allen: Something
Sonia: use it as a journaling exercise. Do that,
Arlina Allen: Yeah. Yeah. That’s amazing. I’m so happy to hear it.
Sonia: I know, me too.
Arlina Allen: My heart is [00:41:00] full.
Sonia: Yeah,
Arlina Allen: Thank you so much.
Sonia: Thank you
Arlina Allen: Okay, we’ll look forward to next meeting, which will be step six Okay
Sonia: Yay!
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