What if the reason you keep circling back to the same pain isn’t a lack of willpower, but the fact that your brain is storing it somewhere talk therapy can’t reach?
That’s the question at the center of my conversation with Paul Schulte, an EMDR expert and trainer based in Barcelona who is coming up on 23 years sober. Paul is the author of The 12 Step Guide for Skeptics and the creator of the iMover app, a guided EMDR tool now available in ten languages. He’s trained fifty Army psychologists in Ukraine, worked with refugees, soldiers, and survivors of sexual abuse, and built a career around one core belief: trauma doesn’t live in the logical brain, and you can’t talk your way out of it.
The Disease of Relapse
Early in the episode, Paul recalls a psychiatrist asking a room full of addiction specialists to name the number one symptom of alcoholism. Everyone guessed physical signs: shaking hands, blackouts, poor coordination. The answer was relapse itself. “This is a disease of relapse,” Paul says, and he argues we don’t talk about that nearly enough, or build enough compassion into how we handle it when it happens.
Trauma Lives in the Body, Not the Story
Paul walks through why traumatic memories get stored differently than ordinary ones, jumbled, timeless, and disconnected from the logical brain, which is exactly why talking about them in sequence so often fails to resolve them. EMDR works by asking the brain to integrate those fragments through bilateral stimulation, and Paul has watched it do in a few hours what years of talk therapy couldn’t touch, in English, Spanish, Portuguese, Ukrainian, and Russian.
Choosing Pity Over Forgiveness
Maybe the most striking reframe in this episode is what Paul says about people who’ve hurt us. He’s not a fan of forgiveness, not because it’s wrong, but because he reserves it for people we want to keep in our lives. For everyone else, he offers a different word: pity. Letting go doesn’t require reconciliation. It requires deciding you no longer need a relationship with what happened to you.
“You are the trigger. You’re living with your pain and your memories, and you’re going over and over again.”
Recovery was never meant to be something we grieve alone, and Paul’s story, from a childhood shaped by his father’s untreated PTSD to surviving the AIDS crisis to building tools that reach trauma survivors around the world, is proof that healing can happen even decades later.
Action Items
- Notice the next time you feel triggered and ask what memory or belief might be underneath it, rather than pushing the feeling back down
- If you’re supporting someone in active addiction, practice saying “I am powerless, but I’m not helpless” instead of pushing or pleading
- Consider whether “forgiveness” is the wrong goal for someone who hurt you, and whether “pity” or simply letting go might fit better
- Look into EMDR as a complement to talk therapy or 12-step work, especially if you feel stuck reliving the same memories
- Start a grieving practice, even years into recovery, for losses you never let yourself fully feel
- Read The 12 Step Guide for Skeptics to see how William James shaped the 12-step movement
- Try the free relapse-prevention session in the iMover app
Resources Mentioned
- EMDR iMover app — Paul Schulte’s guided EMDR tool, available in 10 languages, with a free relapse-prevention session
- The 12 Step Guide for Skeptics by Paul Schulte
- The Varieties of Religious Experience by William James
- Al-Anon
👊 Need help applying this information to your own life?
Here are 3 ways to get started:
🎁 Free Guide: 30 Tips for Your First 30 Days – With a printable PDF checklist
Grab your copy here: https://www.soberlifeschool.com
☎️ Private Coaching: Make Sobriety Stick
https://www.makesobrietystick.com
Subscribe So You Don’t Miss New Episodes!
Listen to the episode on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Amazon Music, or you can stream it from my website HERE.
You can also watch the interview on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/@theonedayatatimepodcast?sub_confirmation=1
transcript:
Paul Schulte
[00:00:00] Well, Paul, thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you for having me. Great to be here. Yeah. Where are you located right now? Uh, we are in Barcelona Ro- Barcelona, Spain right now. Oh, cool. And very hot. Yeah. Very hot. Yeah. You were like, “I should turn off the fan.” I was like, “I can’t hear it, so keep it on.”
Yeah. Good deal. Well, listen, I like to sorta set an intention for the interview, and if I asked you what the listener will gain by the end of this episode, what comes up for you? Well, I think that, you know, what we wanna talk about today is what is this relationship we’ve been struggling with in, uh, in, in the general field of recovery and in the 12-step program in particular about how we deal with the world of addiction, drug and alcohol addiction versus the world of dealing with individual historical trauma.[00:01:00]
A- and I think we need to have a better, bigger discussion on this. Yeah. And I would argue that we will… by the end of this episode, people are really… you’re an EMDR expert. You have a new tool that I’ve never had the opportunity to talk about. And whenever I find something new, I get really excited about it, and you have the EMDR iMover app.
And I just wanna make sure that people understand what it is and how people can use it to address the trauma really that you alluded to because I think that we need to make these tools more accessible, especially because, after COVID, it’s just seemed like it was very difficult to find a good facilitator or a therapist.
It’s expensive. It’s, it’s a l- a long process sometimes. So I, I really love what you’re doing. I think it’s gonna be wildly successful once it catches on. Um, but let’s start sort of at the beginning. I like to, [00:02:00] uh, do something called the lightning round, which is actually kind of slow, but it frontloads the episode with some resources.
Mm-hmm. So, uh, listen, I know you’ve been sober a long time, but when you think back to when you first got sober, were there any books that really helped you early on? Well, yeah. Funnily enough, when I read the, uh, appendix two about William James I I cottoned onto The Varieties of Religious Experience, uh, the book written by him.
A- and I learned that that book was the book that Ebby Thatcher gave to Bill Wilson on Veterans Day on, uh, in, in November 1934, you know, six months before Bill Wilson got sober. So I thought, “Hey, that book’s important.” So I read the book, I read it twice, and I ended up writing a book about it. And I, I compared all of the excerpts in the book that I thought were important with all the excerpts in the entire big book, and that’s what, that’s what a book…
That, that’s what the book that I wrote is about, is looking at the [00:03:00] way in which, uh, William James was a foundational inspiration to the 12-step movement in very important ways. That’s so interesting to me, ’cause he doesn’t get a lot of air time. Yeah, exactly. I actually didn’t know about him until you kinda educated me on that, so that, that was really- Yeah
interesting. Yeah, that’s really important. If you look back over your, you know, decades of sobriety, do you find that there is, like, a reoccurring theme for you? Progress not perfection? Or what… You know, mine’s obviously, like, one day at a time, stay in the present moment. Is there something that sort of fits for you as sort of a go-to mantra or theme or quote that you live by?
Yeah. The one I live by, a couple of them. You know, so someone in my old home group, I got sober in Los Angeles, and somebody in my old, in my old home group said “You know what? Everything that Napoleon learned as a, a commander in the battlefield, he learned in his first 90 days.” And it’s the same thing in the 12 step movement.[00:04:00]
Everything you need is in the first 90 days. There’s not much else, right? Uh, you know, for God’s sakes, don’t… For God’s sakes, do the opposite of what you learned in school. Copy. Copy from the people that you like and that you admire. Don’t try for As for God’s sake. It’s all- Right … remedial. It’s an eight pack Crayola crayon program.
Don’t go for the 64 pack, right? Keep it really simple, yeah. A- a- and that’s kind of what I like to go by, is, you know, keeping it really foundational simple. And normally what I need to do when I get lost is I go back to what I learned in my first 90 days. That’s brilliant. That’s brilliant. And listen, getting sober in the LA area, that’s like the gold standard.
I mean, the intensity the quality of sobriety is just very superior. I think in a lot of metropolitan cities, I wonder if you think this is true too, ’cause I know you’ve been all over, [00:05:00] that whenever you have a high density of people, you will find meetings that have really high quality sobriety. Yeah, I’ve noticed that the, the meetings, uh, in the cities where you party the heartiest-
are, are the best meetings. So like New York has great meetings, LA, San Francisco, London. Barcelona has a great twel- you know great stuff going on here. Uh, I lived in Hong Kong and Singapore, and I traveled a lot in my previous life, and so I think I’ve been to meetings in, like, 50 countries.
A- and I’ve been to meetings where bats were coming out of the ceiling in the middle of a meeting, where- … uh, h- homeless people fell out of the closet in the middle of a meeting, and where the lesbians and the gays were throwing chairs at each other. You know. That’s crazy. It- All kinds. It’s great.
It’s, it’s great. All kinds of meetings. It’s great. Yeah, it’s all kinds. It’s all kinds. And- Yeah … I, I, you know what? I kind of really have a place in my heart for London meetings are really [00:06:00] good. I like London. I like London. And then, uh, but, uh, you know, that’s what they say. Uh, all of them all of them are good.
Some of them are great. You know? All of them are good. That’s what I like, yeah. Yeah. You either get the, um, messenger or the mess, and both are like y- what’s that saying? That you’re either a, Yeah … inspiration- Yeah … or a cautionary tale? Yeah, exactly. Yeah. An example or a cautionary tale. Yeah. Yeah. Either way, both very instructive.
Yep. Someti- sometimes you go to meetings to lend support rather than get filled up, but both are good, I think. Uh, I think that’s right. I think that’s right. Yeah, for sure. For sure. Yeah. Um, do you have… listen, you’ve been so- how long have you been sober? Coming on 23 years. Yeah. Okay, a long time. Yeah. So do you have a self-care practice, whether that’s, like, a set of meetings per week?
Do you have a morning routine, daily 10 stuff? What does that look like for you? You know, it’s interesting. I, I do a morning [00:07:00] routine which I have tried to avo- you know, I’m a Virgo and I’m a perfectionist- … you know, and I’m left-handed so I, you know, I wanna laminate everything and I wanna just make it perfect, right?
You know, but I go back to what I did in my first four step. My first four step was, I am filled with fear, I’m filled with shame, and what do I do? W- what’s the cover-up? That’s usually the third thing, right? Mm. The cover-up is the arrogance that you try to use to cover up your fear and your shame, and that hasn’t changed very much.
That’s kind of my… You know, there, there’s the soft, you know, there’s a, there, there’s a soft drive and the hard drive. The soft drive stuff can get switched out pretty quick. The hard drive stuff, it sticks around, right? My, my s- my sponsor had like 35 years sobriety and he said, “I think you get better when you’re 40 years sober, but I’m not sure.”
And so I, I usually talk about what am I afraid of today? What am I ashamed of today? [00:08:00] And, and how is my behavior toward people trying to cover up my fear and my shame? A- and that, you know, I get really good at managing that and sometimes I don’t, and I just have to get back on the beam, and I, I need to be okay.
Again, it- it’s the eight pack of Crayola crayons. Get the eight pack. Yeah. Don’t get a 64 pack with burnt sienna and all those neat colors. It’s the eight pack. Keep it simple, and, and… But I have a lot of ideas we can talk about tonight about how I think we should be approaching trauma a- and addiction, and that’s been a real evolution for me.
So we- we’ll get there eventually. Yeah. I, I me- I failed to mention that, uh, by the end of this episode we’re gonna really be giving some ideas around how to handle relapse ’cause as you mentioned in our pre-chat that, it’s a disease of relapse. Mm-hmm. Yep. So we’ll, we’ll definitely get into that, um- Y- [00:09:00] you know, when you were talking about the hardwire or the hardware and the software- Right
I often think about, I got obs- really obsessed with neuroscience and how the brain is wired, and how we have these neural circuits that actually run through your entire body. We think of all the neural circuits as being in the brain, but your entire- Mm-hmm … body is innervated with nervous tissue. And, you know, you have 90 per- 80 or 90% of your serotonin that is produced in the gut.
And so we, we have these circuits. And we, when we’re stressed out, it’s like we, when we experience stress when we were young and we were children, those circuits get hardwired. And then in adulthood when we get stressed out, we repurpose those same neural circuits. Right. So I almost feel like- Oh, wow … even though we’re using these same eight crayons, the, the point of that is the, those are the things that allow us to sort of evolve away from that neural- Mm-hmm
circuitry. But e- but [00:10:00] everybody gets… Like, if you go to the gym for a year and get in shape, if you stop though, you go back to factory setting. And I feel like all this self-care stuff right? All of this- So true. So true. Yeah … we go back to factory. So same with our mental health. We can use these eight crayons, prayer, meditation, journaling, surrender- Yeah
service, blah, blah, blah, whatever. But if we stop using those, we go back to factory setting, and then it feels like you need the big box of crayons, but really- It’s just a few simple practices. Yeah. There, there was a guy, Milton, a- a- and he was, like, he was already 40 years sober when I got sober in 2004, and, and he used to say- He, he is still alive?
I d- no, he got degenerative brain disease unfortunately, um, when he was about 45 years sober. But he, he, he was in his late 70s. He, he, he would always say, “Y- you learn how to play tennis, you can play tennis your whole life. You learn how to ride a bike, you can ride a bike your whole life. Y- you learn to get sober, it lasts about a week and a half.”[00:11:00]
Last about a week and a half. And- That is the truth … we got, and this guy had 42 years. Uh, he was a former Air Force officer. And, and, and I thought, “That doesn’t sound right.” You know, that, that was me, the newcomer. Like, “Well, I’m, I’m gonna get sober and I, I’m just gonna get this thing. I, you know, let’s go.
There’s 12 steps here, let’s get going here. Come on.” Chop, chop. A- a- and yeah, chop chop, come on. A- and boy, oh, boy, you know, it, it lasts about a week and a half or two weeks, and, and then you start getting off the beam. My, my, my default, I, I say that if I, uh, my hands are on 10:00 and 2:00 on the wheel, my sobriety is an old, like, 1970 Chevrolet Impala.
If I let my hands off the wheel, it’s gonna go right into the ditch, you know? Mm-hmm. Uh, I gotta keep my hands on 10:00 and 2:00 pretty much, you know, uh, most of the time or I’m gonna go right for the ditch. ‘Cause my, m- my default is m- my, my tires point to the right. I go right into the- Dude … right into the ditch.
The sober [00:12:00] drift is real. That is, the sober drift is a real thing. Yeah. Happens quickly. Yeah. I heard, there was this guy at, at meetings that I used to go to. He used to say, uh, “Meetings are like showers, they work better if you do it every day.” Yeah. And I, I sti- I still, and I, I sponsor, like, gosh six guys right now.
Uh-huh. And I, I, yeah, and I try to get to meetings at least twice a week. And right now I have one of my dear buddies who’s, who I’m sponsoring, his husband is, has cancer, and it’s quite late and so I’m just focusing on that one. Yeah. A- and th- that’s been a, just a fantastic blessing to be able to be present for somebody who wants to st- stay sober with his husband of 25 years.
Yeah. So, uh, you know, so, so, so this is the, these amazing blessings of sobriety. Yeah, I think the thing that I loved most about, if you c- if, if you can find a really good fellowship, they’re not everywhere. But if you can find a really good fellowship- Yeah … I [00:13:00] think it sort of serves a lot of things.
Like, I would go to meetings and I would be of service, I would see my friends, I would have connections. So I was, like, getting current with, like, several people. You get lots of hugs, you know, there’s… You get to share, you get to be reminded of the things that you already know, and I think that’s like, um, you know, going to meetings and repeating the same things or hearing the same things.
It’s like sober push-ups in a way. It’s, uh, there’s value in going over the material over and over and over again. I know there’s a lot of people- Mm … who are like, “Oh, you’re, you’re just, um, staying stuck in the problem,” but that’s not really it. I know that some people do, but that’s a choice.
Yeah, I agree. I agree. I agree with you. Yeah. Yeah. That’s a choice. I told you this was gonna be slow. If you could go back to your beginner sober self, is there o- o- one, is there, like, one thing you wish you would’ve known right the, in the beginning? [00:14:00] Well, I wish I could have known to, to get sober when I was, you know, 29 instead of, you know, 38.
Because I, m- my 30s was not great. I don’t, you know, I, I don’t even remember, you know, a lot of, uh, George Bush’s first term. You know, it was just, it was not good. It was not good. A- and so, uh, but at the beginning you know, I, I, I gotta say that, that I was with the, I was in the right place with the right people.
I was living in Hong Kong, and I knew that I would never get sober living in Hong Kong, so I had to go back to LA, which is where I’m from. And I didn’t know why, but I, I got sober in LA, and that’s why I went back, ’cause I needed to get cleaned up. And the the getting sober experience was really important.
I was still very shy about talking about being gay. I wish I would’ve been a lot more aggressive about being out and gay and proud of that on day one. Mm-hmm. Uh, I was in a m- I was in a men’s group and it took me, [00:15:00] like, six months to say that I was gay. You know, th- right? Do you, do you feel like that’s changed over the last 20 years?
It changed, and now we’re going backwards. Are we? Yep, for sure. We’re going backwards everywhere. Oh. Yeah, we’re going backwards everywhere. Going backwards in America. I think Europe is tilting back to the right. And, uh, like today, the, the big party, uh, the PP, it’s called the PP Party in, um, Spain, is, like, way ahead of the center-left party times two.
So this is a big scare in Spain, for instance. And, you know, you see, you know, like, countries like, you know, Sweden and Holland and, even Poland and UK, you know, all going to the right, you know? And, and so, so it’s kinda scary, you know, a little bit. And, and so I think the, the liberties that the LGBT community was, was accumulating are either stopped or going backwards, I think.
And most gay people I talk to would agree. I, I, I think that’s, I think that’s a consensus in, in the gay [00:16:00] community. Interesting. Yeah. It’s one of those things that’s, uh, freedom isn’t free. I feel like these things are sort of like a pendulum. You know? Mm-hmm. Mm. They, they do go back and forth. Hopefully we’ll land in the center.
Yeah. But, um, yeah. Amen, sister. Yeah, it is a pendulum. History is a constant pendulum, and, and we’re swinging back now. Yeah. It’ll, it’ll come back. Don’t lose hope. Yeah. Don’t lose hope. Keep being fabulous.
Well, let’s talk a little bit about your… I always love the childhood stuff, ’cause I feel like that sets the stage for- Oh, do we have to? I- We do. Sorry. It’s my favorite. It’s my favorite. I’m, like, my superpower is, like, being able to connect the dots for pe- Yeah. Yeah … especially, like, people that I’m coaching and stuff.
You know, you hear about what’s going on and what happened in their childhood, and it’s like yeah, it makes so much sense the things that we struggle with in adulthood. Yeah. So as much as or as little you wanna share, you know, I- Oh, no, no, I’m, [00:17:00] I’m open book. Open book. I know you are. I know you are. But, like, where I li- typically like to start is what did Dad do for a living?
What was your relationship with your parents? Did you have siblings? Because that really says a lot. Yeah, exactly. And so, so I come from this extremely conservative Catholic family- … in Orange County, California, where both my parents are were Army, in the Army, and where my mother was from, like, old Ireland, right?
So b- and we had, we had holy water. You had to dip your hand in the water when you go in the house and bless yourself. I mean, that’s what we, that’s what I grew up in. Wow. But I also grew up in the house of secrets, as usual with an alcoholic. And so, uh, both my parents very clearly had, uh, PTSD. I am the youngest of 10 kids, uh, with seven boys and three girls.
And so my mom had me when she was 43 right? So my mom w- was a, a generation older [00:18:00] w- by the time she had me. So m- my parents turned 18 in 1942, and so they went off to war. Wow. And they met in Asia during the war. A- and they finished off the war in Singapore where they were processing and rehabilitating the POWs.
Wow. And my father was working in, uh, war crimes and court martials, dark stuff. Was he an attorney? And… No. But he was working for an adjutant general as his assistant to an adjutant general- Oh … who was in charge of this. So he was a talented, you know, talented bureaucrat, talented… He was very g- smart, and a good writer, and all that jazz, and typed 150 words a minute crazy fast, right?
And so, uh, so, so- How many sentences did I get my, get from my dad about war? Zero. From my mom? Two, right? They had deeply troubled, deeply hidden, rageful [00:19:00] anger from the war, and my father drank himself silly trying to hide that anger and that rage, and he was a very angry, violent man because of that. So he had untreated PTSD.
And so, uh, that- that’s something that, that’s near and dear to my heart because as you know, I, I just was in the Ukraine last year. Uh, I trained, uh, 50 Army psychologists in EMDR to help to allow them to help soldiers and veterans coming back from the front lines to prevent, this kind of thing from happening.
And so that mark of my family is a very important part of who I am today. So you’re absolutely right, yeah. And- I’m curious. Uh, y- so your dad was a drinker, and it seems like kids go one of two ways, you know, if they see their… And it depend- like, e- e- everything, it just, it sort of all depends, right?
But they usually go follow in their footsteps, or they do the polar opposite. So I’m curious, a- and I know you kinda went down [00:20:00] the using route a little bit, or a lot a bit, as it may, as the case may be, but how old were you… first, what kinds of experiences did you have with your daughter, uh, with your dad?
Were you afraid of him? Did, was he violent? Was he just absent? How did his drinking affect you and your siblings? Well, you know, uh, when I first started, uh, therapy after I got sober, I, I, I, my, my therapist said, “You know, what was y- what was your relationship like with your dad?” And, and I said to my therapist, and I was completely 100% sincere, and I can’t believe that I actually said that.
My relationship was perfectly cordial. It was cordial. Right? Uh, isn’t that what it’s supposed to be? And my therapist was like, “Well, uh, not exactly. But, a- and I said to him, “It was cordial.” I shook hands with my dad. I never hugged him. He never said, “I love you.” I never said, “I love you.”
I rarely ever talked to him. When he came into a room, I would usually quietly, slowly [00:21:00] leave the room and go somewhere else. When I was in high school, I was in every single sport and every single club so I could go home as late as possible, right? Find something to eat, and then go to bed, and that was it, right?
And so, I took a long time to realize that is not the way parents should be treating their children, right? A- and my mom was just, you know, sort of la, la-la, la-la praying the rosary and hoping things got better. And, you know, she was in, like, co-dependent la-la land. And, you know, so, so what I’m telling you is it’s fairly, like, it’s a setup for a deeply troubled marriage, you know?
And, and after my dad died, my mom said, you know, “I hated that man,” and they were married for 42 years. And, and s- She hated him? So why? She said to me, “You know, there’s no love in an alcoholic marriage.” [00:22:00] And my father was abusive. He was angry, and bitchy, and bitter, and screamer, and yeller, and, a- and w- and my…
And, and, you know, there was no legal way to get a divorce until 1973 in America, right? Wow. That’s crazy. No-fault divorce. I know, right? No-fault divorce only came in 1973. So by that point they were already married, you know, 20, what? 26, 27 years. A- and so, um, m- my dad keeled over from alcoholism when I was 24, and he would’ve been in his, like, late 50s or something like that, early 60s.
Uh, and I’ve had three siblings die from a- overdoses a- or alcoholism. Uh, and I have four more going down the drain. And so I’m the one, me and a brother have stayed sober for all these years. Wow … a- and the rest are going down the drain. And so this [00:23:00] is… That’s why i- in my early days, what I did that I really thought w- this was a really good idea, I went to a billion Al-Anon meetings.
So I, I really am a double winner in the sense that Al-Anon really beat into my brain, “Leave people alone. I- if they reach out for you to, for help, help them. If they don’t, leave them alone.” My sponsor was very clear. When you go and you badger, and pester, and hector, and say, “Why can’t you do this?” and, “Let me do this for you,” and, “Let me take you to a, a rehab,” or whatever, all you’re doing is driving a wedge deeper and deeper between you and that person.
Leave them alone. If they want to get sober, they’re gonna ask you. But how many of my siblings asked me about anything about sobriety in 23 years? I, I’m a certified counselor, right? I’m qualified in EMDR. I’m qualified in counseling from UCLA. Zero. Not one of them has asked me anything in [00:24:00] 23 years.
So I, I need to be okay with that, and that took a lot of Al-Anon meetings too. I, you know, I hear that a l- I, listen, I hear that a lot. It’s painful to watch somebody you love suffer, and how do you take care of yourself in the face of watching somebody you love suffer? ‘Cause it’s not, like you can’t always, like…
I, I would imagine your siblings have their own homes and they… But what if it’s your child? What if it’s your husband? And, and I think the, I see this happen- Mm-hmm … all the time. Pushing creates resistance. Yes, exactly. Pushing creates natural… So it actually makes it worse. Makes it worse. So while the intentions are good, it makes it worse.
It, it- Absolutely … people dig into their, they become entrenched. And so how- Sure … I feel like the question then becomes how do you take care of yourself when you’re… Is it, is it, because it’s like mourning, it’s like physically pain. Like, how do you take [00:25:00] care of yourself in the face of watching somebody you love suffer?
Yeah. That’s a really beautiful point. I think that for me it is, you know, when, when people say, you know, step one, I am powerless over people, places, things, and events,” right? And that leaving people alone is really it’s, it’s that phrase that we throw around, but it, it’s really important, radical acceptance.
That I am not that person’s higher power. And boy, I, if I think I am, I really better get out of that business. That’s a terrible business to be in, to be somebody’s higher power, ’cause th- you’re gonna go right down the drain with them. And that’s the first thing. The second thing is my sponsor was very clear.
He said, “No, dude, never let people escape the consequences of their behavior ’cause you’re doing them a grave disservice by not allowing them to learn from their mistakes.” Learn from their consequences. I think that is huge. That is the ticket right there. There’s so- Yeah … something so interesting [00:26:00] about the word powerless, ’cause what I think is that, I don’t know about you, I feel like I have influence.
I have lots of good ideas. So I think there’s a difference between being… I feel like, um- Yeah … there’s a difference between controlling somebody, right? I think what we’re trying to do is control, and the idea of powerless- Right … is just saying, “Hey, you actually can’t control somebody. And oh, by the way, if you are preventing them from experiencing their consequences- Or if you’re giving suggestions, you’re actually making it worse.
So like, like any kind of influence you think you might have is probably actually detrimental. I- is that fair? Oh, for sure. For sure. Uh, you know, I, I like that phrase I’m, I’m, “I’m powerless, but I’m not helpless.” A- and- Yeah … you know, my, my, my sponsor w- was really good about this. You know, he had a…
He became really good friends with one of his new sober buddies. And, he my sponsor [00:27:00] was an archeologist in the Near East, um, you know, in, in, uh, the Levant. And, and he invited this friend to go to Israel to go on an archeological dig. Pretty cool, right? Yeah. Well, the whole time his friend was drinking.
Oh. And he didn’t tell my sponsor. A- and my sponsor was so hurt and so upset, and he said, “How could you do this to me?” And he said, “I want you to know, Bill, when I’m drinking, my best friend is not you. My best friend is Jack Daniels.” “It’s not you.” Yeah. Right? So, so you are not their friend. Yeah. Their friend is weed or crystal meth or Jack Daniels or- Wow
me. I, I, I love Stolichnaya Vodka. Boy, oh, boy, could I drink that all day long, that’s my best friend. Yeah. And all I’m thinking about is how I’m gonna have more and how am I gonna have the next one tomorrow. Yeah. Yeah. That, that’s what we’re doing. It’s all we think about. I- it is an, it is an obsession.
And trying to get in [00:28:00] the middle of that obsession they’re, they’re gonna steamroll you. Yeah, for sure. They are going to steamroll you, so stay away and let them- … figure… Let them come to you. Yeah. Don’t take it personal. It’s not about you. Yeah. Yeah. Okay, so we sort of alluded… Okay, so clearly lots of trauma growing up for you dysregulated, being in a household of…
Listen, if all of your siblings except you and one other, that’s, um, that says a lot, so lots of trauma. Yeah, and I, I, I was a gay, closeted, you know, really super closeted, like, hyper overachiever, left-handed Virgo, so I was in big trouble, the whole time. And so I got the award in my high school. Are you ready for this one?
I got the award for never having missed a day of school in four years. Wow. I know. And I thought, pretty cool. Everyone was like, “Oh, Schulte, Mc- you’re like a… Come on. That is so lame.” And I was like, “You know, whatever. [00:29:00] Okay, fine.” You deserve it. And, and I did ve- I, I did very, very well in university. And then, you know, after my dad died, I began to drink alcoholically bet- within three mo- three weeks, three months of my dad dying, of alcoholism.
Interesting. Why do you think that is? Because, you know, when I heard my mom tell me at the wake how much she hated him, that devastated me, ’cause I just realized they, they lived a total lie. Their whole marriage was a betrayal. And that devastated me, and I didn’t know what to do with it. A- and I learned, uh, about that time that there was a lot of sexual abuse going on in my home with other members of my family.
And, a- and, and yet, you know, you and I both know from sponsoring hundreds of people in AA, it’s so common. It’s so goddamn common- Yeah … unfortunately that, that is something that- It’s a rarity when someone hasn’t experienced some sort of a s- sexual abuse or assault [00:30:00] Amen. Amen, sister. Yeah, you’re right.
You’re right. That’s right. A- and, and we need to get… We need to blow the door off that one. That’s why even in my app in my iMover app, I have a section on, you know, coming clean with incest because it’s so common. It’s so common, unfortunately. Yeah. And so I, I didn’t know what to do with all that information, and so I just decided to, as what, as we do, right?
What we do when we’re drinking is we’re changing the reality in front of us that is unacceptable. Yeah. And so all that reality, I didn’t know what to do with it. Uh, w- when I was in my 20s, going to a therapist was for crazy people, right? Oh, man. Yeah. I… Re- normal people didn’t go to therapists, you know?
You could… And you, and you certainly didn’t tell anybody, right? Now it’s like a, a badge of honor. But- … but I didn’t go. I, I didn’t do anything with it. I just was living with it and living alone with it. And boy, oh, boy, we’re gonna drink over that stuff. And so, so I, I came from this, broken, alcoholic w- [00:31:00] betrayal of institutional marriage a- and I lost my way.
And, and of course also don’t forget my generation was dealing with the AIDS crisis. Yeah. And that was when one-third, 30% of my generation of gay men were wiped out. That’s crazy. One out of three. So I was in Washington- Of your generation? Yeah. So, so my- How did you survive? I don’t… You know, that’s the thing, right?
30% died and the tw- another 20% either committed suicide or, or overdosed, right? So my sponsor in 1985, he got sober in ’85, and he said to me… And he said that by 1990 all of the people in his Rolodex from 1985 were dead. That’s- Every one of them … wild. And so, uh, that was, you know, very tough. I was living in DC, and DC was ravaged.
DC, New York, LA, San Francisco, Atlanta, Dallas, uh, and a few other cities were ravaged. A- and so, uh, I didn’t allow myself something that is [00:32:00] what I think the essence of the steps are and the essence of EMDR is, which is grieving. So many of us stopped grieving and I think part, um, yeah, you and I talked about this last time we talked in, in our prep.
I, I think that part of the alcoholic personality is just a, a complete stop on grief, allowing ourselves to feel grief. Uh, we’re not good at it. We don’t wanna, we don’t want it. We don’t wanna deal with emotions. You know, I, I sometimes joke, it’s like, let’s see, um, drink myself to death, have an emotion.
Let me think. Uh, which one do I wanna do? Oh, I think I’ll drink myself to death in- instead of having an emotion, right? I need… But let’s, to be fair, the emotion is something that we typically don’t know we can’t bear it. We- Exactly … we don’t know how to process feelings to resolution. We cannot bear it.
So- That’s right … the idea is- Yeah, you’re right … that we medicate it because we can’t [00:33:00] bear it. And what I love about EMDR, it’s almost like body doubling in a way. Like, and that’s the reason why, you know, when you share pain is, reduced ’cause you’re not carrying it alone. That’s right. And so unless have a sufficient substitute for the alcohol, the grief is all consuming.
The pain, the tr- it’s all consuming. So I mean, I get it. I was there. You were there. We get it. Yeah. I, I, I was there. I, I remember just as I’m sitting here in like my first couple of months, I just thought this emotion thing, so we’re gonna have to do these emotions. I was very shu- I was completely shut down.
I, I’m very German that way. I’m so German. And I’m like, but I know if I, if I feel sadness, I will die of sadness. A- and I believed that with all my heart and all my mind I’m not gonna let myself feel sad because if I, if I do, I will die of sadness. And guess what? I’m still here. And, and I wish, I, I wish I would’ve allowed that grieving process to happen.[00:34:00]
I told my sponsor one time, I said, “You know what, Bill? I thought, I think my first five years I was just grieving and I didn’t know it.” And my sponsor was very funny. He said, “Yeah, I was doing that for 10 years, so you’re lucky.” S- listen, it’s not a competition. There’s enough crazy to go around. I know. Yeah, exactly.
Yeah. Right. Yeah. For God sakes it’s all remedial, but don’t try to get A’s in AA, right? Yes. Seriously. But try to proceed- But that’s so important. It’s … I, I really felt like that was one of the things about the program that I really appreciated, was that people, you know, they, they got my kinda crazy and I was able to- Mm-hmm
share my feelings. And as I would share my feelings, they would dissipate. Feel it to heal it type of stuff. Yeah. That’s right. And so that was like my first introduction to- Yeah … that type of thing. Let’s fast- No, I, I, I tell people, I, I tell people, “You know, feelings do not last forever, but they can wait forever.”
Mm. A- and I tell people that all the time, right? That is [00:35:00] a good one. You know what else is good? I just heard this yesterday. Some guy was talking about he was in his therapist office, and he was talking to his therapist about burying his feelings, and she was like, “You know what? Those feelings are buried alive.”
It’s like buried alive. Like, what happens to us, like, if we get buried alive? We panic. We struggle to get out, right? Amen. Yeah, for sure. We will claw… Yeah. And so those feelings, although buried, they will claw their way out. They will find… That’s why, like, they say that there’s a treasure under every trigger.
Like, people get triggered, but they think it’s a bad thing. They try to, you know, put it back, put the genie back in the bottle. But it’s actually good. I, I had a friend that said, “Never waste a good crisis.” I agree. Like – Yeah. Right. Yeah … if something happens that, uh, triggers- Yeah … the feelings, like, don’t waste that.
Like, process it to resolution. Like, lean in. Yeah, for sure. Yeah. That was sort of like the magic sauce for me. Yeah. Pull the trigger. Yeah, pull the trigger. I, I am a big fan. [00:36:00] You know, because what else… W- then, then we’re just having the trigger going off over and over again in our minds. Yeah. Right?
People are living with their triggers 24/7. That’s what I tell people with EMDR. Let it come out. Let it come out. Yeah. You know, what we resist persists, right? Yes. It’s that Carl Jung thing, right? Yeah. No, it’s, it’s so true. Let’s… Talk me through what happened that you decided finally that you needed to get sober.
‘Cause I would imagine you had m- many bad experiences. You said your 30s were very difficult. What happened? Did you have a rock bottom moment and have that sort of post-traumatic growth experience? Was it just, were you skipping along rock bottom for a while? Or what happened that made you decide to get sober?
Oh, yeah. Yeah. I, I was being pulled by the, the alcohol, uh, Chevy, uh, t- with a rope tied to my legs through a cactus patch- … for, like, m- miles and miles. I didn’t fall off any [00:37:00] cliffs. I didn’t have, you know, a, a drastic bottom. I had my, my, my car and my house and my goodies, but I was just… I was dying on the inside.
I was dying on the inside. You know, I, I was… Uh, I d- I felt like I was… I, I’ll never forget it. I felt like I was, like, at the top of a rusted, you know, tin can that had been pulled over with one of those manual, you know, uh, can openers, and there was a tiny piece left hanging onto the tin can.
And I thought, “If that falls off, I’m a goner.” And, uh, I just didn’t care about anything anymore. And I thought I can’t do this.” And so I just went. I walked to my first, uh, meeting in Santa Monica. How did you know to go there? Um, I, well, I first I got lost, and then I I heard that my neighbor was sober.
So I knocked on his door very sheepishly, and I said, “Bob, I think I have a problem.” And he said, “What are we gonna do?” And he said, “Well, okay, we’re gonna go over to your house, and we’re gonna get rid of all of the [00:38:00] alcohol in your house.” And I said, “I have a lot of alcohol in my fridge for cooking, so I think I need to keep that al- that white wine is for cooking steamed artichoke.”
Very important. Of course you need… Right, it’s very important. Yeah. And he’s like, “No, Paul, I don’t think so.” And so all the, the wine came out, the booze came out, the poppers, everything was taken out. And he said, “We- we’re gonna go to Joslin Park at 8:00, and that’s what we’re gonna do.” And, you know, I have not had a drink since my first meeting.
I am very lucky. Wow. You were very, very ready. Yeah. I, yeah, and I was ready because some of my friends said, “Paul, you look really, like, you know, well done, seared, butterflied, and just, like, flamed.” And so we thought- You’re cooked … you were pre- you were cooked. You were well done. And I was like, “How, how dare you, you bitch?”
And, and but, but they were right. They were right. They were right. Clutch your pearls. I get it. We all do. It’s very offensive. I know. Exactly. That’s so funny. [00:39:00] I had a friend that would call that spiritual rudeness. It was very rude. So rude. All right. So they pulled your blankets, as they say, and pulled your covers.
Yeah. And so you went- Yeah … and not… That’s amazing that after, so did you feel at home right away? Did you jump into the steps right away? How did that work for you? Yeah. I, I, by, by my third meeting, I would say I was like, “Okay, this is where…” Not only this is where I need to be, but I thought, you know, and I was already, you know, very, uh, adept at the DSM-5, or back then it was the DSM-4.
You were already educated in this? I, uh, I have 21 out of these 23 disorders, so I am really, like, beyond help. And I then, I was just in a meeting, and I just thought, “You know what? I am, I’m an alcoholic. That’s what I am.” Everything that they’re talking about explains me. Yeah. And so wh- when I allowed myself to say that out loud, [00:40:00] I was like, “Aha.”
I really had an aha moment. I can’t handle reality. I want to change my reality because I am incapable or unwilling to have any emotions because alcoholics hate emotions, and I have a lot of them from this completely crash and burn alcoholic family and the AIDS crisis. That was still ongoing, right?
People stopped dying more or less in 2000, 2001 people stopped dying from AIDS. So it was ’83 to basically 2000. A- and, a- and I had all that unresolved grief. A- and I thought, “Okay, I, I can do this.” And then I was at a meeting one time in Santa Monica, and a guy came in, and he looked… He was maybe 35, and he, missing all his teeth, and he said he’d…
But he had the, you know… He, he was HIV positive, and he looked terrible, and his teeth were gone, and he looked 120 years old. And he said, “You know, I was [00:41:00] about to start my fourth step, and I went out.” And I’m like, “Oh my God, what is this fourth step thing? I’ve got to do this right away.” So I was like, “What the hell?
Oh my God, if…” You know, that’s like the… we go to meetings to find out what happens to people who don’t go to meetings. You know, and- Who don’t do the steps … a- and, yeah, and, and d- do the fourth or you’re gonna have a fifth. And I just love that one, right? And so I got all these secrets out that I thought I would never tell anybody about sexual abuse that happened to me when I was a boy.
Mm. About things in my house, about how dreadful my father was. A- a- and I, I put this big facade up for decades, right? Uh, I’m from Orange County, California, this very wealthy county, but my father was a hillbilly from Missouri, and my mom was from a tiny town in rural Ireland. That’s the reality, right?
Yeah. And that was w- so, purgative. The problem is, and we’ll [00:42:00] talk about this more, is I feel like the steps are great, but the steps are like an archeological dig. You’re, you’re digging up a- all the relics, and it’s like, “Oh, wow, that’s pretty cool,” and, “Oh, I didn’t know that was there,” and, “Oh, that’s really interesting.”
I think something like EMDR is the museum. Y- you name it. You say, “This is what happened. This happened to me. I felt this when this happened. I began to believe this about myself when this happened.” And so I think that the steps are, are pretty cool, but I, I think for a lot of people, a lot of people could do with uh, a lot of outside help, uh, a- a- a- as you and I could discuss later on.
Yeah. No, I, I agree. It’s a, um- Yeah … it’s a great, uh, foundation. I’m a, I’m an and girl. Yeah. So 12 steps and therapy, 12 steps and yoga. Tell us… Like, I… Listen, I, I, I- Great … treat all the recovery tools the way I treated drugs. I did them all. Do you know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah, I love it. So why not try all the [00:43:00] recovery things?
Yeah. And I don’t see the point really in excluding certain exercises or certain modalities. Like, it… That never has made a lot of sense to me. It’s just all in learning how to use the tools. Yes, that’s right. Like, we need to learn how to use the tools, and there’s- Yeah … I mean, I wrote a whole book about it, about how to use the 12 step.
Mm-hmm. That you have. There it is. God bless you. The 12 Step Guide for Skeptics. Yeah, there’s, there’s a way to use the tools. There’s a, there… I wouldn’t say, like, right and wrong, but, like, I’m all about personal safety. So safety first. Let’s talk about- Yeah, yeah … let’s talk about EMDR. I’m obsessed. I did EMDR, and that was life-changing for me.
I had childhood sexual abuse as well, and creating s- like, it made a lot of sense to me why I was so obsessed with security- … with trying to help others heal, ’cause I was broken and I didn’t know how to do my own work. So I got in the 12 step and became obsessed with trying to help other people heal.
It [00:44:00] was like a indirect way of addressing my own trauma. But, um, EMDR is eye movement desensitization reprocessing. Is that right? Mm-hmm. And explain, like, the mechanics, ’cause I, I think it’s so… It was so fascinating to go through the experience. It’s definitely an experience. Mm-hmm. How would you describe, like, the mechanics or the procedure?
Start anywhere that feels relevant to you. Yeah, so, so two things. First thing is when we, um, w- when we recall a, a traumatic experience when we’re eight or 10 or 12 or 16, right, th- that kind of period, it usually means that we are… we smell something, and then, oh my God, that reminded me of that time when I was abused or when I was beaten up or when my parents were yelling or, or beating me up, or when my father was beating up my mom.
Spaghetti was cooking, a- and the smell of spaghetti triggers that. Uh, we hear something in, uh, our, our, our [00:45:00] childhood dog barking, and that triggers the, uh, the memory, right? Our memory is a jumble, and it is not in our frontal cortex. It is not in our logical brain. It, it’s in the back of the brain, and, and, and traumatic memories are in the back of the brain.
Traumatic memories are pure emotion. And so when we’re trying to do a lot of talk therapy to get this stuff out, it doesn’t work, ’cause you’re talking to a logical brain that doesn’t have any contact with this pure emotional jumble of senses. And also something else that’s jumbled, time. Time is jumbled.
And so when we’re trying to recall or talk about some of this stuff, it’s automatically frightening because all the senses are mixed up, time is mixed up, and it’s very frightening. It, it’s like going in the middle of a movie and trying to figure out what’s going on. You’re, you’re like I can’t understand what’s going on here,” right?
A- and so EMDR [00:46:00] is a really neat way… It’s, it’s very new. It’s only gained traction in the last really 10 years. Uh, I would say 10 or, 10 or 15 13 years where the, uh- Was that, was that Carol DeWeck? Was she the one that sort of pioneered this, or is that somebody else? Uh, Francine Shapiro was the one who, who pioneered it in the early 2000s in New York City.
Thank you. And by the way, they thought she was a quack. For 10 years- … they thought, th- she’s waving her fingers around, and she’s crazy, and leave her alone. Okay. And it took 10 years for her to be taken seriously. Okay. And so, like, b- by the mid, 2000-teens, like 2015, 2018, you started to see the military look at it and say, “What the hell?
Something’s happening here. This is working for soldiers with PTSD. Something is going on here.” And so very quickly, the ministry of defense of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, United States, UK, picked it up for [00:47:00] their soldiers, and then there was more peer-reviewed research being done. And so what is it, basically?
M- my left-handedness is my right brain, which is story, narrative, imagination. My right-handedness is my, my, my left brain, which is time, space person. Analytical … yeah, this happened to me in this time, i- in this continuum of time. And so when you’re going back and forth with people’s eyes you’re asking the brain to talk to itself and to integrate what’s happening.
And this has a wild effect on the amygdala and the hippocampus to bring to organize memories that have been stuck there for decades. Yeah. And, and, and they come out, as, as you know from doing it, that they come out very quickly. A- and when, when you do that, the very act of saying, “This happened to [00:48:00] me, and I felt this, and wow, I came to believe this about myself,” this is what you’re doing.
Oh, that is… Yeah. Right? That’s the trick. We, we, uh, tend to- Yeah … come up with, uh, meanings about our identity. And, and, and, like, you know how, uh, Einstein talks about time-space? It’s not time, it’s not space, it’s time-space. Mm-hmm. I love to think about it as emotion belief, because you can’t have beliefs without emotions.
A- and the emotions that tend to come up during abuse, which by the way, act as a lens in our adult life I didn’t do enough, I’m a coward I should have told somebody. And, uh, one of the dirty ones, I liked it. And- Oh, yeah … uh, yeah, a- and like the soldiers that I work with, you know, “I, I should have done more.”
Uh, h- he, He didn’t obey the command so it’s my fault. You know, sexual, sexual assault I, I should have pushed him harder to get off me. You know, but part of me liked it. [00:49:00] And then with, uh, other people I work with in burnout, um, “I’m an idiot. I’m a fraud and a fake and a phony.” A- and people come to believe all these things that when you do EMDR for maybe two or even three hours, they will say That was never true.
That’s the thing. I did my best. I tried to get away. I did everything I, I could. I’m not a coward. I am quite talented. My past does show that I am actually a remarkable athlete or a remarkable, uh, businessperson. I’ve worked… I’ve done it with Olympic athletes. Olympic athletes forget how talented they are.
Uh, it’s the same thing with Olympic talent as it is with business acumen or or just being a good parent, right? People need to be questioned about these beliefs and, and nine times out of 10 I get really good results with people [00:50:00] saying- Yeah … “Wow, yeah, that was never true. How could I ever believe that about myself?”
That’s very true. You know? And so, so, so, so i- it’s the integration of time and space and emotion. And when we do that the, the trigger is… the, the trigger mechanism is dismantled. Yeah. The, the trigger is taken away. That’s why I say please do EMDR and stop living with your triggers. Yeah. EMDR is not the trigger.
You’re the trigger, right? You’re living with your you’re living with your- You, you are the trigger. Yeah … y- you’re living with your pain and your memories, and you’re going over and over again. I, you know, I, I, I’m this. I, I believe I, I’m not worthy of love. I am not worthy- Mm-hmm … of being touched. I don’t wanna be in my body.
You know, a lot of people have- Not safe … are not safe. So yeah, so, so the things that people get after EMDR, safety, agency, a sense of self-trust that they m- maybe never had in their adult [00:51:00] life, and I see it all the time. I just did it yesterday with somebody who was leaving a cult And, and they were comp- they were completely devastated.
A- and it’s one of those man, alpha male, weirdo, cults, right? A- a- and he just said, “I just can’t believe that I allowed myself to get sucked into that.” Yeah. A- and I think also, you know, one of the things that I would say is all the things we’re talking about, all of it was profoundly aggravated by COVID, and I don’t think we are done as a civilization grieving about what COVID did to all of us.
It was the isolation. I mean, that’s… They don’t even- Yeah … do that to prisoners. You know what I mean? It’s like it’s a form of torture, so yeah. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Isolation is, is, uh, very painful. Yeah. And, and- What was what was your own personal experience with EMDR? I’m sure is… Did you receive EMDR and you were like, “Oh my God, this is my life’s work now, like I need to do this for others,” or did you do EMDR as part of your [00:52:00] training?
I, I, I did. I, I, I, one of my… I was living in Singapore. It was right during COV- right before COVID, and one of my dear friends, one of my Irish friends uh, Aisling, she’s great she said, “Paul, I did this thing and it was really helpful for sexual abuse.” And I’m like, “Gi- give me her number. I’m just gonna go try it.”
A- a- and I went and I tried it, a- and this is stuff I’d been, I’d been struggling with for decades, right? Mm-hmm. And I did this like four hours. I did four one-hour sessions, and at the end I was like, “Now what was I bothered about? What was the thing-” “… that, that, that was going around-” Oh, what was that thing?
in my head?” Yeah. For decades, and I, I couldn’t remember it. A- and she said- Let’s, come back next Tuesday, uh, if you want, and I’m gonna make an appointment for you, but tell me if you wanna come back.” I said, “Oh, yeah. My God, I have to come back and see you again.” And then middle of the week I’m like, “You know what?”
Yeah, I’m good. I don’t think of… I forgot what I was anxious about. [00:53:00] And so I was like- Isn’t that funny? And so it took me like a year, I just was like, “What in the hell happened?” And then I began to get really intrigued by it, and then I, I ended up writing, uh, a lot. I wrote a, I wrote a book about it, I wrote a manual about it.
I translated the manual into Ukrainian. I went to Ukraine and I taught 50 army psychologists how to do it. I got qualified in four different types of EMDR. Three of them were bad, one of them was good. You know? Uh, the teaching is not great. And I was blown away by how powerful it was in in, in Ukraine.
Mm-hmm. And so I have done it in Ukrainian, I’ve done it with gay Russian, uh, refugees, who if they go back to Russia they’re gonna be killed. They’re gonna go to prison, and then they’re gonna go right to the front wh- where they get speci- uh, especially bad treatment. And so I’ve done this in Ukrainian, I’ve done it in Russian.
Uh, I speak Spanish and Portuguese and English. And [00:54:00] the interesting thing is o- one of the outcomes that, uh, that again, I we need to talk about this, ’cause you, you and I are, are similar Yes, we get agency, we get, you know, that sense of safety. We get that sense of being, being back in our body again, being at ease in our body, right?
Where all of that tension and anxiety and fear and anger just is, leaves our body, ’cause all of this stuff lives in our body. EMDR cleans the body when we do it. It’s remarkable. But what are we gonna do about our about our abuser? Mm. Right? And by the time I get to the end of a lot of this stuff, and people have a objectivity and detachment.
I, I kind of like the word de- detachment more than desensitization. I, I think it, they should call it eye movement detachment. Oh … right? A- a- and a- a- and I say to people, “Look, what do you wanna do about your oppressor?” ‘Cause I’m not, I tell them, “I’m not a fan of forgiveness.” Forgiveness is something you do to [00:55:00] somebody that you want to keep in your life, right?
With somebody that you do not wanna keep in your life, for God’s sakes, don’t forgive them. We need to move on. And guess what? In every language, in Spanish, in Portuguese, in Ukrainian, in Russian, and certainly the word in English that comes up over and over again is that word that has positive and negative connotations.
It’s pity. Really? Okay. And I lo- and it came up in Ukrainian, ’cause I have an automatic translator with me that translates in .5 seconds. Wow. And that person c- can get the translation of what I’m saying in .5 seconds. Got it. A- and, and the word comes across as either pity or condolence.
Kind of a thing, condolence. I’m gonna go to a funeral, I’m saying goodbye to this person. “Uh, I’m sorry this happened to you. Where’s the ham sandwiches?” You know? This is what we do. Keep it moving. W- we keep it moving a- [00:56:00] and we don’t wanna have a relationship with that person. W- we say, “I don’t wanna be you.
I don’t wanna be like you. You need to go figure out what the hell happened to you or what’s wrong with you, but I am no longer in your life. You’re not in my life. I, I, uh, forgiveness is not in the cards here. Pity is. You’re deeply sick. I’m moving on.” And I think that’s really important. A- and in all these different languages, in all these different cultures in, in, in Catholic, you know, Spain and in Portuguese, I, I, I spent, I spent a lot of time in Brazil, different culture.
Slavic culture, very different. It’s the same word. We get- That’s wild … we get relief and we get freedom from the oppressor by moving on and saying, “I have pity for you.” Uh, a- and if people think that’s a bad word, fine, great. I’m good with that Yeah, I’m a choose your own word type of girl, but I, I can s- I think it’s really interesting that that is sort of a- Right?
[00:57:00] Yeah Yeah It comes across, and it, I’ve seen it in five languages. It’s really crazy, um- Yeah … and, and we gotta give it credence if that word’s coming across in five different languages in- Yeah … four different types of culture. Listen, if the word pity reaches somebody that’s listening and it allows them to let go and to move forward, meaning you know, letting go of the, the anchors that hold us back so that we can flourish in life.
Like, do you know what I mean? It’s like, let’s start, what is it that we do want? Like, it, I th- I think it’s important to validate, acknowledge, process, heal, and then, you know, like we were saying, keep it moving, to what? Yeah Which is anything that you want. I, I’m all about- Yeah. Mm, mm, mm … dream a big dream and go after it.
And, and a lot of times reaching big goals is about letting go of these things that hold us back. So, if pity is the word that allows you to let [00:58:00] go and move forward, it’s magic Yeah, and so that’s, that’s a good, that’s a really good point. You know, what… that’s a great question you ask. What, where are we going?
And I- Where are we going? … I lo- I, I love to call that, okay, what is your true north? True north is not a direction, but it sure is useful, right? It, it, it sure is. It, it’s a, it… This is where I’m going. And the one word that comes up very often when we get to the end of four or six or eight hours of EMDR, I said, “W- tell me what it looks like.
What is your, what does this true north look like now that you’ve freed yourself up from this, you know, sadness and anger and fear and anxiety and rage? What, what does it look like? T- tell me the word of what it looks like.” And, and so often the word that comes up is, “Wow, for the first time I feel kind of like free.
Freedom.” Yeah. My freedom to act, my freedom to choose, m- my freedom not to have to be dragged around by other people’s opinion of me.” [00:59:00] Yeah. “A- and by other people’s guilt toward me, or other people’s shame.” A- and this is when I work with somebody who’s leaving a narcissist or somebody who’s leaving a cult or somebody who is dragged around by terrible memories of war in Ukraine or sexual assault or incest or sexual abuse.
I want the freedom to have agency and to have boundaries and to have enough respect for myself that my sense of agency and trust and boundaries can be maintained. Yeah. And I said, “Bang. That is your true north.” And I just did this with somebody, uh, the other day about leaving a narcissist. It’s the same thing.
Yeah. That’s really important. Yeah, and, and to be fair, uh, we, we talked about, you know, by the end of the episode you’ll learn about re- you know, how to overcome relapse. This is the way. This is the way. You deal with your true north. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. Mm-hmm. And that’s, uh- Yeah … that’s how we prevent relapse is doing the EMDR work.[01:00:00]
That’s exactly right. And, a- and what, what struck me is I, I came across this word and, and it’s something that we don’t talk about. Why do people, with Alzheimer’s get in the car a- and take the car a- a- and go driving? Why do people with, um, schizophrenia, why do they quit taking their medication, right?
Mm-hmm. And then they go and they do- Have an episode … yeah, they do terrible, violent things. Why do people with bipolar stop taking their medication and they go out and they tear up a bar and then buy $10,000 worth of stuff on, on the internet? It’s called anosognosia, right? It’s it’s the Greek word for self-deception.
Oh. A- a- and, and it’s a syndrome. And, and all it’s saying, and this is exactly what they call it for relapse, my five senses by myself tell me I’m okay. The Alzheimer person thinks he’s okay. The schizophrenic thinks he’s okay. The bipolar thinks [01:01:00] he’s okay. This is the same syndrome as the alcoholic who says, “I’m okay.
I can have a drink.” And that’s why, you know, that’s why we say, uh, you know, uh, “My name is so-and-so. I’m an alcoholic” in these 12-step meetings. You’re not reinforcing negative. You’re reinforcing the reality that my five senses, after about a week and a half, are gonna tell me, uh, “Oh, an ice cold beer is a great idea on a hot day.”
It’ll be okay this time. Because I’m gonna be drinking till Christmas. That’s what’s gonna happen. I, I deserve it. And so… I deserve it, yeah. Uh, a- and by the way, if you had what happened to you happen to me, you would be drinking, too, by the way, and let me tell you about my problems. A- and I don’t wanna hear about yours, you know?
Uh, and so this anosognosia is that, that inability of the five senses to make, uh, sound conclusions. A- and it’s a real deep, profoundly… That is the tragedy of human life. The blind- it’s the ultimate [01:02:00] blind spot. It’s what you said at the beginning. The grief and, uh, and the sadness of people close to us who are blind to not taking medications for brain disease, for schizophrenia, bipolar disorder, for not taking their daily medication.
Yeah. Of a 12-step meeting. Yeah. Calling a newcomer, right? Call your sponsor. Uh, you know, uh- Service, surrender something … you know, service. Yeah. Go make coffee, right? Yeah. D- something, right? B- buy cookies for the meeting, right? And so, so I, I think that EMDR really brings that out. EMDR integrates the five senses together.
Yeah. And that’s when people can say, “Wow, now I understand the way that I felt and what happened to me and what I did, and what I came to believe about myself. Oh, my God.” A- and when we don’t do that, what do we believe about ourselves when we come back from a relapse? We’ve heard it, you and I have heard it three million times.
“I’m a big loser. I can’t stay [01:03:00] sober. I I’m broken,” right? “Uh, I’m not like you.” Uh, you know, it, we, we isolate. It’s the terminal uniqueness. “I’m never gonna get this.” And these are just these are just toxic beliefs that come from trauma. They come from trauma. And I’m telling you, I, you, you and I discussed this.
I think 80 to 90% of people coming into 12-step meetings have PTSD. For sure. Because how many have been in a car accident? How many have seen somebody overdose in front of them or near them? How many have had a family member die from o- from an overdose or, uh, alcoholic death? Alcoholic death is terrible.
My brother died a alcoholic death. Terrible. Uh, you know, a- and, and in the gay community, right? A- anybody who’s left living in their 50s and 60s lived through the AIDS crisis. We were going to one funeral a week. And nobody processed it, right? And so, so I, I think that w- we need other tools.
I love what you said, A-A-And. Yeah. And, and I think EMDR i- is, is… So I’m gonna tell [01:04:00] you right now, I think that EMDR will overtake talk therapy within five years. I, I am so- Yeah … utterly convinced. Talk therapy, you’re talking to a logical brain that is not capable of accessing the traumatic emotional beliefs, uh, that, that are trapped in the brain at the moment of the abuse, and people keep reliving that.
Mm-hmm. And EMDR pulls that out. Talk therapy can’t yeah. Um, I wanna call out the fact that the iMover app- Mm-hmm … that you developed has a, I don’t know if you call them a session, but has a a process specifically to address relapse. Yeah, exactly. So in fact, uh, relapse, the, the relapse one is free, so- And it’s free
go with- Come on … go with and use it. R- read the introduction and read- Yeah … the relapse. Y- you and I were joking. I think it should, it should’ve been called not A- Alcoholics Anonymous, it should’ve been called Relapse Anonymous. Yeah. Because this [01:05:00] is a disease of relapse. When I was- Yeah … at UCLA there was this very famous, like I’ll tell you a quick story.
Sure. A famous psychiatrist, she brought all the… We, we… It was like a really cool day. A lot of, all the s- doctors and psychiatrists and psychologists were all in one of the, you know, the circular rooms. And she said, “I want you to tell me, you’re some of the best people in the country on addiction. Tell me the number one symptom of alcoholism.”
And people said, “Well, you know, um, poor mortar- motor co- coordination.” Yes. “Reddening of the face, vomiting you know, uh, inability to walk,” you know, and so forth and so on, right? Bla- blackouts, all that jazz. She said, “No. The number one symptom of alcoholism is relapse.” Yeah. A- and we don’t talk about that enough, and we need to be really okay…
A- and if, if we’re sick and tired of people relapsing, we’re in the wrong program, baby. I mean, that’s missing- This is- … the whole point. Yeah. This is a disease of relapse. And I am just so blessed I never had a relapse. I’ve relapsed [01:06:00] in other programs, so I get it, believe me. Yeah. You know? Uh, I, I, I, it t- uh, it took me 3,000 times to quit smoking.
When I was about two years sober I quit, and I was like a, a two pack a day smoker. That’s commitment. Yeah. A- and uh, i- i- it’s, it’s, uh, I think EMDR is a, a big part of the and. Uh, and it’s gonna be a very big part of people’s lives, and I believe it will overtake talk therapy within five years.
I’m very convinced. Yeah. Li- and listen, you making it accessible through an app is… I, I told you before, I go, “I’m glad I got to meet you before your app explodes and you’re highly in demand all the time.” Yeah, I know. I mean, I, I just wonder what I’m doing sometimes. But I, I- Yeah … it’s in 10 languages. Uh, a- and I did it, you know, there’s a section for soldiers, for refugees- Yeah
sexual abuse, burnout and burnout a- and, and transition. A lot of work I do in that. And something I’ve been doing a lot in the last year, I’m just so blown away by it, escaping the narcissist, whether it’s [01:07:00] escaping the narcissist parent or the narcissist partner. Very big problem right now in society. A- and it’s very devastating.
I think, I, I was working with this cult guy, and I was working with another guy leaving a narcissist, and I was like this is the same.” It’s the same. I was really blown away. Yeah. There’s a lot of- It’s the same … a lot of similarities. Where do people… I’m gonna leave a link. If you’re driving- Yeah
uh, just know that the link will be in the show notes. But- Yeah … where can people… What’s it called? Oh, it’s, uh, uh, so small I, M-O-V-E-R, iMover, and it’s in, uh, iOS and in Google, and it’s in 10 languages. It’s in Ukrainian, um, Arabic Spanish, French, English and a bunch of other languages. And, uh- Making it very accessible
the, the, it, it’s very carefully guided by me. I spent months and months writing the scripts that I audio, uh, recorded it, for each part of the protocol. The protocol is pretty straightforward. Yeah. Uh, and, and so I spent months and months, uh, writing and recording the [01:08:00] protocols. Uh, a- and it’s gentle, and it’s loving, and it’s accepting, and I’ve been there, and I’ve done that, and so I get it.
Yeah. Beautiful work. I, I love things that are scalable, right? And this is definitely- Yeah … something that could have, will have far-reaching impact on so many people who just don’t have access. So I, I, I know about, I thought about 20 people that I feel like I was like, “Oh, yeah, I need to make sure these people get it.”
So, Paul, listen. Well- Thank you so much for your time. I am a big fan of your work. I think what you’re doing is gonna have, you know, such a profound impact f- on so many people’s lives. Uh, thank you for what you’re doing, and I’m so glad we got to spend some time together. Oh, yeah, I know. Thank you so much.
Yeah. I just love your, y- your book is great. I loved it. I, I think, I think AA has to be a lot more creative now. AA was, we forget, in the ’30s and ’40s, AA was a [01:09:00] radical organization. Yeah. AA broke every social norm imaginable. Letting Blacks in, letting gays in, letting transvestites in, you know, uh, allowing gay groups.
Women. Uh, women. D- d- dragging the women in. Cle- the, the women especially, right? And so, uh, the way that, that women were pulled in, the way that Al-Anon was created uh, just amazing. And racial integration decades before America was doing
that. Yeah. And we gotta be a lot more- Spawned so many different other kinds of programs too … we gotta do a lot m- be a lot more creative now to get some juices flowing. You and I discussed this about kind of, uh, tweaking, doing some tweaking to thinking about 12-step and how we’re gonna do this going forward.
We need to be thinking a lot more about this. Yeah, definitely. And, and your book is a great start. Thank you so much. I really appreciate it. Yeah. And I’ll look forward to another conversation in the future. I would love it. Thanks so [01:10:00] much, Paul. Have- And you, come to Barcelona I am dying to come to Barcelona.
Okay. All right. I’ll show you around. Thanks. The Sagrada FamÃlia finally finished after 140 years, nice. We’ll check it out. Of course. Okay. Thanks. Much love.
Leave a Reply