Breaking Free: Overcoming Addiction and Habits that Hold You Hostage

Hey there, welcome back No Problem Parents to another Therapeutic Thursday episode of the No Problem Parenting podcast. I'm your host Jackie Fineman and today's topic is one that touches many people's lives, either yourselves parents or your young adults or your teens struggling with addiction. Today I'm sharing a clip from episode 55 where my guest Tricia Peridot shared the various forms of addiction. It's not always drugs and alcohol hardcore addictions. There are addictions that include shopping, sugar reliance, body image, and other habits that can eventually hold us hostage and or lead to more serious addictions. So Tricia Peridot is a recovery lifestyle enthusiast, speaker, and a published writer. She's a nationally certified life coach, an international master's addiction specialist, and a professional life interventionist with a psych degree in process behavioral and chemical addiction. She was in our first book,

no problem parenting, raising your kiddos with more confidence and less fear, and she is specializing in life transitions and post-treatment journeys. Tricia is ever committed to serving her clients worldwide to find the emotional intelligence they need to conquer their life challenges. Her company is Turning Leaves Recovery Life and Wellness Coaching. It's seated in evidence-based practices, and she teaches her clients how to live the life they desire and live it free.

Learn more at turningleavesrecovery.com or follow her on her social media channels. Everything will be in the show notes. And again, if you want to learn more about Trisha's story, you can go back and listen to episode 55.

For now, we're going to jump into the part of the episode where Trisha's talking about some of the habits that hold us hostage. you know i do have a lot of clients that are in a quiet hell if you will and and this was part of my story also because at the end that physiological attachment you know like sugar is highly addictive and you know it you crave it it calls you you could be downstairs doing laundry and those cookies are calling you, that refined sugar is calling you. And then you toss in like being a little bit emotionally off and, and not having that, that those skillsets and tools, those tactics to use that allow you to say, Hey, why is it calling me? Right? What, what is that emotional attack? What is that thing that I'm expecting to get from it? Because when we eat a cookie,

if it's for a self-soothing measure, it's only going to soothe you while it's on your tongue. And then as soon as it gets into your stomach, what happens? Okay, great. Now, now I'm going to start the self-loathing, the regrets, then the images in the mirror, you know, maybe change, you know, because I did it again.

I ate the entire gallon of Ben and Jerry's, you know, like, and then what is that negative impact? So we want to always be able to look at that. How does that, what does that relationship look like? What is that level of severity?

It depends because if you feel trapped in it and you're quietly trying to like get it under control so nobody knows and nobody, you know, you're not telling anybody, especially if you're sneaking. If you're hiding candy in the bottom of your purse or small bottles, you know, either those single serve wines or, you know, the little airline bottles in the bottom of your gym bag in the back of your closet. and that's where you go to sneak a drink or grab a, you know, grab a snack, like we got a problem and, and nobody else may notice it, but you're in this, in this perpetual, right? If every time you go to target for three things for your kids, you come back with 25 items that were not on your list and you find yourself going, how am I going to get the bags in the house? Or if nobody's home,

Where am I going to hide them so that I can, you know, sneak them out? Like if, if, if you're operating this way in your life, like it's time to take a look at that. But if you don't feel like it's a problem, however, it's a daily, it's something again, that is, I used to say it all the time. It's just who I am.

It's just part of who I am. Wore it like a badge. Yep. I'm a highly functioning alcoholic.

I drink three to five beers every day, right? Like that was just, and it was fine because it wasn't actually causing negative impact in my life for that period of time. 12 to 26, absolutely negatively impacting 26 to 43, not so much, or 38, should I say not so much, but 38 to 43 was again, that derailing space for me. But so if we're, if we're like every, you know, every day I drink and then some days I drink more than others, there's a, there's a problem.

Our bodies are not even physically built to process more than one alcoholic beverage on any occasion. Tops at one, not too many people. Well, if you're having, you know, if you're out at dinner and you're having wine with your dinner, if that if the purpose for the wine isn't because it complements your ribeye really good. and that's the only reason that you're having it, then you want to take a look at your relationship with alcohol. If, you know, constantly eating refined sugars, like you want to look at the relationship anyway, we could go on. I mean, really it boils down to anything that we are craving, addicting, reliant upon, reliant upon. There you go. Yeah. It's to make us feel better.

right? So what do you enjoy? Comfort, relief, value, validity, worthiness, whatever it is. If it, if it serves that purpose for you, there's an issue. So what are just a couple of things that we could do to get started to meet our need without going to the crutch? Okay. So I'm going to do this in twofold because I do want to circle back around and again, talk about that leading by example. And I have an example of, you know, how I know I was negatively impacting my children with my relationship with food and my body image way back in the day. I did, I struggled with anorexia and body dysmorphia. And, and so, so what we're doing with our kids, especially when we're talking about dietary practices, fitness, body image, what is fit, what's not fit, you know, like how we're talking to them about food is going to be impacting. I remember standing in the kitchen with my girls and, you know, taking turns and measuring the size of our legs and this and that. My daughters are stepdaughters, so we're not even built the same. And so, so negatively impacting on their lives, just in guessing, you know, second guessing like their own body shape and size.

even though I wasn't in active anorexia, I still was in that early recovery process from it. And so, you know, it was all, all the time talking about, you know, you know, I, I overate, you know, last week, I got to restrict this week. No, we have to change that. Like we have had to change our dialogue so much over the years so that I could re lead by example, right? I had to start over and do it better because I, I, you know, I feel like I failed them. They don't necessarily feel like I felt failed them, but you know, we really had to, I had to really work on restructuring that, you know, a few things that you can do and shopping. I also led by poor example with shopping because I had a really bad shopping addiction. Addiction is so much more than just drugs and alcohol because it's, it's an attitude. It's a behavior. It's a way of living. It's a way we function. And there are better ways to do it. We can shift, we can still shop, but it has to be,

it has to be restructured. We have to restructure that emotional piece. So self-observation, huge, huge, slow things down, learn the art of pause so that you have that opportunity to ask yourself why, and then maybe ask yourself why a few more times as you answer it, right? why am I putting this in my cart? Because it's super cute. I want it. Is it a need or a want?

Well, it's a want. Okay. Why do you want it? What are you hoping to get from it? Right. Yeah. How impulsive is it? And I forced myself to actually go home before purchasing, go home and look at my closet to see how many things I had identical to it. How many times could I replicate this outfit with what I already have in my closet before buying it. Right. But so there's a whole training process, but it has to start with self-observation. Am I, am I hope, am I doing this and hope for some sort of emotional relief? You know, what example is this going to be leading by for, for my children?

You know, do I feel trapped by this? Do I feel held hostage? Is this attachment negative or positive. And some people will say, oh, it's positive. You know, my, my, my fitness regime is positive. Well, if it controls your world and it's not lifelong manageable, maintainable, meaning that you can sustain it throughout the remainder of your life, it's not lifelong manageable, maintainable. I get it. Sometimes we need to lose 50 pounds, but we don't have to do it quickly. We can do it properly over time. And then we have young children that we are leading by an example for what is going to be better to teach them how to what incorporate things into their life effectively so that we can do what works and be effective and have our lifestyle versus things we put in our life to fix something. I hope them look at their life and then take that, that psychological skillset or tactic and, and add, edit, delete, change,

shift morph it to fit into their life, which means I have to teach them how to do that with each one by giving them examples, by helping them, by helping them pull out areas of their life. So I can't just say, Hey, listen to this and, and go, go do it. Right. That would make me no different than any other self-help book that's on the shelf. That doesn't teach you how to apply things in your life. I love self-help books. Don't get me wrong. I'm not bagging on them. I'm just talking about this is, this is a hugely important way to change the way you experience living without changing everything about you so that you can see yourself inside your environment, the way that you desire to see yourself so that you can experience your environment,

the way that you desire, and also so that you can be received by all things in your environment, the way that you would prefer to be received. And that means by your children, by your spouse, by your coworkers, by your boss, by your community members, by everybody. Like, how do you want them to receive you? And so this is not something that can just be, you know, here's a worksheet, figure it out.

Right, right. There's a daily touch point, whether it's listening to a lesson, working on a milestone. We have a digital coaching corner that is a secure platform where you can communicate. And so everything is there. We can share documentation, but then we also do have a live weekly skillset group that people can come to if they want. It's not mandatory.

So there's a way to, to connect with other people doing the same walk and journey as you, but then there's also, I generally meet with my clients twice a week, at least for the first month while we're, while we're learning, how do I, how do I shift without making drastic change? Right? Like what, what is that look like? That is amazing. Twice a week. That's, and everybody has my cell phone number and I, I text with people almost daily. So it's, it's literally, I have to become part of your life for a period of time. And, and we negotiate, everybody is different. Some people need more, some people need less. And so it's very, it's very customized. And I like that you say touch points too. So it doesn't mean you're meeting twice a week for an hour or two hours.

It could just be a, it's 15 minutes. I'm going to listen to that. It's 15 minutes. I'm going to do a check-in. It's 30 minutes. I may be having, you know, a situation is coming up. I'm going to do some text communication. If we can't hash it out that way or on the platform, then, then we're going to hop on a really quick call just so that, you know, but a lot of times I'll just do voice recordings back. Like, Hey, try this, you know, yada, yada problem solved that way. And then we generally just have one, one hour session.

You know, one of my favorite things about the No Problem Parenting podcast is that I can bring resources to people that are accessible to them no matter where they live. And this is one of those things where it's like sometimes in your local area, there aren't a lot of resources for recovery, for addiction, unless you're going to therapy. And you can find that, but you're like, I don't really need weekly therapy. I want to figure this out in my house, in my home, in my day to day.

What do I need to do to stop having wine every night or to stop feeling like I need to binge and all that sort of thing. So that's why I really love that. You're, you're just a really accessible resource difference between therapy and coaching. Absolutely.

Yeah. And we can identify that as, you know, you know, our therapists, we go and we go talk to them and we, you know, we pour our hearts out, et cetera, where my clients do that with me as well, but I'm still a coach. I'm going to say, okay, how would you prefer this to look? Let's, let's dig in and let's make those changes. Let's make those shifts. Let's, you know, do those. It's very forward moving. So I do work with a lot of therapists in tandem where there'll be working on the trauma or, you know, the distressing things like, you know, divorce, divorce is a big one. And so we have, you know, maybe we have our marriage, you know, LMFT that we're working with. That's great. But how are you going to learn how to continue living going forward. And in a lot of divorce situations, I do find that whether it's a negative attachment,

a habit or an actual chemical addiction, there's generally something embedded in that, in that relationship that if we could tweak, it might actually improve the relationship and keep us from actually going through with that, that divorce situation. We just don't know that we're being rigid in some, you know, in an area that, that we, if we softened, we could, you know, repair some things. So conflict resolution is a big one, whether it's conflict internally, or if it's conflict within a relationship. It's a big, it's a big part of emotional intelligence that we all need to be working on. Absolutely. Well, thank you so much. I'm so excited that you were willing to come on and give us a different look into addictions and habit forming kinds of habits that hold you hostage. That's when I was trying to think of, I've heard you say it a million times. And it's like, yeah, they are when they're holding us hostage, it's time to shift and release that. We want to experience living the way that we desire. So good. So thanks so much for being here. All the links are going to be in the show notes. And I hope that my parents, anybody that's,

you know, just kind of on the fence or struggling or unsure, talk to Tricia, give her a call. She is the most down to earth, realistic coach, especially around addictions and recovery that I have ever met. And I so appreciate you. Thank you. I appreciate you also. It's been, It was a blessing for me to be invited.

All right, that's it for today's episode of the No Problem Parenting Podcast. Hey, thanks guys for tuning in. If you found value in today's episode, click the subscribe button and share it with other parents who might need a little boost. Stay connected on our socials by following at No Problem Parents for more parenting tips and get your free download of the 60 ways to respond to your kids without losing your cool.

Go to noproblemparents.com. Until next time, remember, your confidence comes from embracing both successes and setbacks. So take a deep breath, embrace the chaos, and remember, you got this.

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