Waking Up

Marty: Hey everyone. Welcome to another exciting episode of the True You Podcast,

Bill: be determined how exciting it is.

Marty: right, right. Well with Bill Tierney, whose voice you just heard, my co-host and me Martin Kettle Hut. Um, bill and I are both coaches, but we coach, um. With some similarities and some differences builds is largely based in internal family systems IFS and, um, mine is a hodgepodge. I guess, I guess to, to summarize, its kind of, it's, it's a, kind of, um, leadership coaching of an ontological sort, so how your being makes all the difference.

Bill: Yes. Uh, I, I would say almost entirely based on IFS. Is, is the work that I do. Uh, today I have been looking again at my Compassionate Results Guidebook, which is a self-published workbook for coaching,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: uh, it's not quite available yet for, for purchase. I, I think you can probably find it, but I don't recommend that you, as of today, May 28th, that you, that you get that if, if you're looking at, at buying a copy of it, I'd go with version 1.7. Make sure that, that the one you're buying is version 1.7. 'cause that's the one that I've just been working on. But the, the reason I'm bringing it up is because the guidebook book talks about why I would use a therapy model in my coaching. And, and in essence, the reason I do is because with, without access to the parts of us that bring the, the influence and determine whether or not we can do a thing or, or be a particular way,

Marty: Okay.

Bill: then the best that I've been able to do with, for myself and with my clients is bring about temporary results. Whereas with IFS, once parts are seen and understood and appreciated and then open to being updated to, to current information, then the parts of us can actually be great allies in accomplishing whatever there is to accomplish. So I, I, I love IFS and I won't leave home without it, and I, and I bring it into every single coaching session that I have.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Today. Go ahead.

Marty: And it's very effective. Uh, you know, um, and are very few people that I meet these days who aren't, haven't heard about IFS because it's, it's spreading like wildfire. It's because of its effectiveness.

Bill: Yeah, and that's the reason it's, there's good reason it's spreading like wifi because it works. It actually works and, and it doesn't just work for what it's most popular for. It doesn't work just for treating trauma. It works because all, oh, what was that? Look, you have a look.

Marty: what you said,

Bill: Oh, it does, it, it works best. And it is known for treating trauma. Healing trauma.

Marty: treating trauma. Okay, Uhhuh.

Bill: Okay. Yeah. And, and, uh, and yet, I, I don't specialize in coaching people that have experienced trauma. It's just that most people have. Most people have experienced trauma in one way, shape, or form. And, and I'll define trauma and I wanna, I wanna just really distinguish that I am not, I don't consider myself to be a scientist. You've pointed out to me in the past that I am, that I often think in scientific terms, but I don't consciously do that. Most of my opinions, I guess, are formed around my experience. And not just my experience as a coach who helps other people, but as a human being who has been misaligned and lost, and who's experienced trauma, and then who's also tried to cope with that trauma in, in ways that have created really deep, horrible problems such as addictions, and then have recovered from. The effects of the addictions as well as the trauma that the addictions were there to, to manage.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: So from that experience, I'm forming opinions about things like what is trauma. I believe that trauma is anything that we experience that is more than our systems can process.

Marty: Sounds like a good working definition.

Bill: Yeah, it seems to work. Okay. And,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and the reason we wouldn't be able to process any given experience might be because we don't have the resources, we don't have. Um, for example, as children, we may not have had attuned adults nearby to say, oh, oh, let me help you understand what just happened, and let me help you know that, that what happened wasn't your fault. Let me help you really get that. You know, parents aren't gonna say that, not use those words, but essentially that's what an attuned. Caregiver that has the capacity to do so will do for someone a, a young child who's experienced something big that's, that alone, they can't process and digest, but can get help from an attuned adult that they trust and that they, that they know love them. So what, just many of the things that I experienced maybe growing up, I probably would not have experienced had I not had attuned. Adults. Many of the traumas that I experienced came from them, other traumas that I experienced, they just couldn't support me. They couldn't help me through them 'cause they didn't know how.

Marty: Right.

Bill: So it less, it got, it got stuck in my system. So when I say that I don't specialize in, in dealing with people in trauma, I'm a coach and I wanna help people accomplish things. And so many of the people that I work with have experienced like me, have experienced trauma. And so that's there to be dealt with. Do I send them off to a therapist before I can work with them? Sometimes I have to, if the trauma is so great. But when there are, when the trauma is showing up as resistance, maybe to take an action. If it's showing up as procrastination to, to doing that thing, you know that if you did it, you'd have the success that you're seeking, then I wanna be able to help them. And the IFS helps me to do that.

Marty: Okay.

Bill: I am gonna stop for a moment. You've been listening very nicely. Do you, do you have any comments or questions or, you know, you wanna just report how all of this is landing for you?

Marty: Well, a lot of things. I'll just mention a couple. Um, is that. Your, your approach is not entirely non-scientific because yes, it's based on your own experience, but that of your clients, like you are gathering evidence when you go to conferences with other IFS coaches and, and therapists. You're gathering evidence, so I'm, I doubt it's. Solely based on your own opinion.

Bill: Mm-hmm.

Marty: that makes it to a degree more scientific.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah.

Marty: I mean, I think that's the crux of the scientific method. kind of like democracy. The crux of the difference in the democratic government versus an authoritarian government is that the people vote. On issues, right? And same thing with the scientific method. We don't just like offer an opinion. We check out what evidence have you got, what did you get, what did you learn when you ran this experiment? um, that's other thing I wanted to comment on is this. Brazen and I think true assertion that you made, that we all have trauma or that many people have trauma, I think that's worth stopping and savoring that assertion because don't think a lot of people know that. That's why they're having trouble asserting themselves, so that's why they feel so on others' opinions or what have you. goes back to trauma that we, we. I think it's one of the great discoveries of the 21st century that we are all living with drama and that has not been addressed in centuries. So I think that's, that's important to, you know, like if you're, I think we all need a little help with that. So that, I think that's really important that you said that. Um, leave it there.

Bill: Well, the significance of having said that. Um, was lost to me until you just pointed it out. And as I heard you say that, I realized, you know, I, I've been on a planet a long time, as you know, just a little bit longer than you have. Uh, you know, you and I have, have experienced historically living in the United States through, you know, the end of the Korean War, uh, the Vietnam War, and everything that's happened since then. And, um, during that time. There've been a lot of things that have happened that have generated trauma. I was listening to a podcast the other day where, um, and this is about what they used to call F UFOs.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Now they call 'em UABs, I think

Marty: Something.

Bill: UABs. There was an incident that took place in 1969. I didn't know about this, but apparently it's documented and this is real. And this really happened in 1969 at Malmstrom Air Force Base. Just outside of Great Falls, Montana, where I lived beginning the next year in 1970, apparently scattered all over Montana are, atomic bomb missiles that are, that are hidden all over the state of Montana, maybe because the population is so small and, and that if the enemy were to dis to destroy those atomic bombs in those places, then all of Montana blew up in a. A fiery plume of atomic bomb explosion that fewer people would die there than if, if they had these silos located in, say, New York or California . But at Masm Air Force Base, apparently they had control of something like 10 missile silos that went offline, and they had no idea why they went offline. But at the very same moment they went offline, there was also a report of these unidentified flying objects at the gate of Malmstrom Air Force Base. I'm looking at this look on Yes, this, I couldn't, me too. I didn't, I couldn't believe it. Alright, so why? Why am I bringing this up? Because no matter what the implications of that are, the reality is that we were on the brink of destroying the planet. And probably have been several times since then. It's not brought up as often anymore, but I can remember being in school at Assumption grade school in Topeka, Kansas and having the bell go off, and it was a special bell that told us that it was time to practice dying from atomic anatomic bomb. You know, as children, we weren't told you're gonna die. We were told, you know, this is how you tuck underneath the, the, the, uh, desk just in case there's a bomb.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And that's terrifying for 6, 7, 8, 9, for any, any age terrifying to actually process that and think, oh, there could be a bomb and it could kill me right now.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: that all by itself, even without being bombed, is a trauma.

Marty: Sure.

Bill: It's too much to process.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And then we go home and say, mom and dad, are we gonna, you know, so it wasn't that, are we gonna die? And, and it was around that same time that Kennedy is dealing with, I think it's Khrushchev and who's, who's got, um, nuclear warheads pointed at the United States from Canada. These are, these have been scary times, and I'm sure there've been scarier times in the past. But this is all trauma that gets passed on from one generation to the next, to the next, to the next, and, and, and, and so it probably shouldn't be a big surprise that most of the people that I meet and talk with and, and coach, have experienced some level of trauma, something that's happened that's been too much for them to process. So it had to be buried away.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: And

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: go ahead.

Marty: Well, even I meet a lot of people in, um, I. A CA adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families where the trauma is just, you know, with the dysfunction that they experienced as children in the family of origin. It didn't have to be an atomic bomb from, you know, out of the sky. It was just parents who. We're outta control or who didn't understand, or, and left children, left their children. Just, not that they didn't love them, but they didn't know how to do things and, and those children grew up with trauma 'cause of it.

Bill: Yes, yes. Trauma can happen from car accidents, from the death of a loved one, from, From so many, so many different things. It's just something that's happened in the past that couldn't be processed then, so it stayed stuck in us, not just on an emotional level. The body keeps the score vessel. Band Van, I can, I can never say his name correctly, but the name of the book is The Body Keeps The, keeps the Score, and he talks about how the body stores these memories and these traumatic experiences. And he also gets, and, and one of the reasons that IFS has gotten so popular was it was because of that book where in one of the chapters he devotes it to, you know, what are the different modalities that can help to, to heal this, these traumas? And IFS was named as one of them.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: When I got sober in 1982, I was 27 years old, and I would hear people talking about that they had experienced trauma and I would roll my eyes. I. And because I just thought I would scoff at it because I thought, oh, what a, what a drama queen this is, this person is, they're just, they're just really trying to milk their painful, challenging experiences in life and, and be seen as a victim. That's, I was very judgmental about it. Very. And then over the next several years, being exposed to adult children of alcoholics and dysfunctional families that, that you just referred to a CA. And reading books like The Primal Screen by Arthur Janov. And, um, being, uh, exposed to, um, modalities such as Bioenergetics, uh, which is a modality created by a guy by the name of Alexander Lowen, um, helped me to realize, oh, I have experienced trauma and it has had an impact on me. And fortunately there's something I can do about it, and not drinking is a good start. And I wasn't. I stopped drinking in, in on no novo, November 15th, 1982, and it took me years and years and years to realize that just not drinking, wasn't gonna fix the problem because drinking was there to, to fix the problem. It was there to manage the problem, not drinking, left me vulnerable and exposed to the problem that needed to be solved or managed.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah, and the problem itself is unhealed trauma.

Marty: Yeah, I mean, I think that, um, you know, I first started think noticing trauma and its relevance. I had a similar reaction when people talk about trauma. I'm like. Do you know what you're talking about? Really? Trauma. But then were a number of. Shows on TV or Netflix series that dealt with the issue, you know, and brought in a ca a new character for a couple of episodes. Who was treating the trauma, you know, in, in the character the, the west side. The West Wing is a great example of one of those series. There were two different characters that had trauma at different times, and the same psychologist came in and, and we got to see how traumas dealt with in a, in a, in a session was very interesting. And that raised, that raised my awareness to the, you know, this is and that's why they're dealing with it in a television program.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: But I also had the experience of. Never quite being able to figure out about myself, why I get so scared in front and with certain people authority figures

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: and authority figures. I, I, I'm like, I'm reduced to two years old. I'm just, and what is that? And, and did a lot of work trying to pinpoint that. And yet it was still there. Like I, I was, you could see I was having a traumatic reaction. I. And I hadn't pinpoint where it came from. And it, and then a counselor, a therapist, suggested to me, well, maybe this trauma happened before you were actually, you know, conscious. Like before you were five years old, maybe you got maybe something about an authority figure scared the heck out of you when you were two or three.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: And then I heard my mom tell a story about something that happened to me when I was two or three, and I went. Oh my gosh. That's very likely the source of this traumatic

Bill: Hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah. So you too have come to grips with the reality of trauma that you experienced, the impact of that trauma. And then I assume that you've done some healing work around that and that whatever that impact previously was now is resolved to some degree.

Marty: Like 99%? Yes.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: There's something about connecting up that past experience. It's not required from what I, under my experience has been that it's not required that we connect up to the original trauma in order to recover from it. Uh. Because in a general sense, the bread crumbs, let's say it that way, the bread crumbs of that trauma show up in our current lives and, and, and just tracing it back to the part of us that is pro, providing the protective strategy to manage around the trauma.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Connecting with that part is enough to be introduced to the other parts of us.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: That have been holding the trauma and whether we actually hear a full account of what happened or not, when those parts of us that are holding the, the painful memory, the beliefs, the meaning making, and the, and the locked in energy of the emotions. Once we access all of that, once we access the what IFS calls, exiled parts of ourselves. And fully witness them and embrace them. We can at that point help them unburden from whatever meaning making whatever locked in emotions they've had. And when that happens, it, it feels like magic. There's a permanent shift that occurs, and I don't know if you've had this experience or not, but I've had it at least three or four times in my recovery, uh, over the past, which is, encompasses about 43 years now, 42 years. I knew that something had internally shifted permanently and would never remain to its previous state. I just somehow knew it and it's played out.

Marty: Yeah, I mean that, that. This happened to me recently that there was something that I was always fearful of, an anxious about, worried about, namely my income

Bill: Yep.

Marty: and, um, through a lot of different kinds of, um, work traumatic experiences with money when I was younger also just, you know, um. An understanding of, you know, like with my financial advisor of my I don't that that it, it's amazing to me, but I don't have that anymore. It was every day it was oppressive and it's gone. It lifted. I.

Bill: Wow. And you, did you have the sense when it lifted, first of all, I guess I have, uh, at least two questions about this. When it lifted, were you aware in that moment that it was gone? Had something shifted. So in, in such a marked way that you can point to that day and say, yeah, I knew in that in that moment it was gone.

Marty: No, I think it happened over about a. You know, maybe six, eight weeks time,

Bill: Yeah,

Marty: it wasn't a snap like that. there I can definitely tell you what it felt like before and how different it feels now.

Bill: it was more of a noticing like, oh, it's just not here anymore.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I, I don't feel the same way. I don't, I haven't fretted over that concern for a long time. Yeah. So I that,

Marty: my notes, like I look at my notes. My journal. Journal and, and elsewhere, and you could tell like, I was freaking out

Bill: yeah.

Marty: huh, I don't feel nearly that way about those notes on my notebook.

Bill: So you remember, you look at the notes and you remember feeling that way, but you don't feel that way now.

Marty: Right.

Bill: That's amazing. It is amazing, and even though I've experienced, it still amazes me

Marty: Isn't it's, yeah. We, we are transformable human beings Can. You know, uh, look, you can look one day on the same life and feel, and like thoroughly feel like way, and then the next day, you know, if you've gotten, if you've done the right work, you can look at the same life and the same reality and, and have a very different orientation to it. It's, it's one of the most amazing things about being a human being.

Bill: And there's a lot of ways that that can happen. One of the ways involves an update of information.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And, and go ahead.

Marty: right, or orientation. This is where ontological coaching takes its root. Is in the fact, like if I'm relating to something, let's say in a fearful way and we have the right kind of conversation about that, I see the right, you know, myself, I can then just, I can choose a different orientation in a different way of being. the whole world shows up differently. Everything, my relationships, the results I'm getting, you know how I feel in my body. It all is shifted because of a a different way of being.

Bill: Your perspective has shifted. It's, it's in that moment when you think and might even say out loud, wow, I just never have looked at it that way.

Marty: Yeah, I mean the classic example from my life, something I've talked about on the pod before um. You know, when I came outta graduate school, I thought I had no possibilities. Like I have studied this thing called philosophy, you know, and it's left me with penniless and you know, with no real use to the universe, my society, like I was, I didn't know what I was gonna do. And then, you know, through coaching, realized that. Um, I had actually set myself up to be coach. You know, I, I, I have critical thinking skills learned from philosophy and, and listening skills and, um, and all these assets that would, could be very well employed as a coach. And, and so I, I, instead of, instead of being an academic philosopher, I dubbed myself a philosopher of the marketplace like Socrates was. And all of a sudden I had this whole new leash on life. Like, wow, this is, I've got all, I've got. I've got an enormous possibility here. There's great potential. This feels great to me. I have a place in the world. You know, like night and day was amazing

Bill: Yeah. Yeah. Great example.

Marty: stuck like I've made a career of it.

Bill: Yes, we've helped a lot of people.

Marty: So, so I think that's, that's one of the things that I wish I could just, you know, impart to everybody on the planet. Like you, you are transformable. Whatever you're going through, transformable. You could feel very different about whatever it's,

Bill: Human beings can change.

Marty: Well, and I want to emphasize this word transform because it's different than change and I'm, I mean, sorry to be picky, but like. Change is kind of incremental. Like it's, it's gradual. Like you, you can, over time you can change. Whereas transformation is like seeing this like, and, and it is like seeing the same thing totally differently in

Bill: Yes.

Marty: in the next instant.

Bill: Yeah, I see.

Marty: You know? Like it's not, it's not like, um, I had to change the world. Uh, you know, I just had to change my mindset and all of a sudden I had a whole new life.

Bill: When your mindset changed, you were transformed.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: Yeah. And nothing about me had changed. You see, I.

Bill: How you, how you saw things changed. I.

Marty: Right, right. I still had the same skills. I still had the same life. I still had the same needs. That was all the same. It was the way I saw it, that

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: That's what I mean by transformation.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: like, it's like you're going along, going along, and you might be working on change, working on change, but then all of a sudden you see it from this other level and it's like, oh, it means something totally different to me now.

Bill: Yeah. Yeah, so the method, how, how to go about affecting that. For anybody that's interested in transformation, that's gotta be the question I put most in their mind. If they have not yet discovered that,

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: how, how do I do that?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And what I tell my clients is, this is how I did it. And of all that I've done over these 42 years, this is the method. That seems to work most effectively and most efficiently. And if I'd had this method and been open to it 42 years ago, where I am today, probably could have been, uh, achieved or realized within the first five or 10 years of my recovery, maybe sooner

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: had I been devoted to it. You know, that's a lot of ifs. But, but the reality is. That with the foundation that had already been laid, some of which needed to be, you know, Jack hammered out and start, and, and I had to start over in some areas because the foundation had been laid on, uh, principles and ideas that were not valid.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Like I, for example, here's one I if, if I'm gonna recover, I have to try harder, I have to do more, I have to be more devoted. I have to. I have to surrender to a higher power, for example. Now this might sound pretty controversial, especially 12 step people when they hear me saying this, but, but I gotta tell you that the idea that I needed to turn my will and life over to the care of God or else I couldn't recover was complete fallacy for me because I couldn't turn my well life over to the care of God. And the reason I couldn't do that is because I didn't believe there was a God. I certainly didn't believe that there was a God that if I turned my will and life over to the care of, that my life would get better. I tried to, I tried really, really hard to believe what was unbelievable to me. I tried really, really hard to have faith in what I didn't have any faith in, and yet. According to the measurement of the 12 step programs that I attended and participated in, I recovered. How could that be? How could it be that I had to do this in order to get recovery and yet I recovered without it? So what I did with that during, during the times that I was attending meetings and trying to do the best I could to engage in and participate fully in those programs was made myself wrong. I just believe, well, there must be something wrong with me that I can't do this. 'cause I'm looking around and I'm seeing that everybody else can, or most other people can, at least those people that are staying sober.

Marty: Can't believe you mean or couldn't give up alcohol, which I'm

Bill: Oh, the o The other people, well, the measurement of recovery for the program that I was in was that they had, they didn't abstain without, they, they abstain from alcohol. They didn't ibe, we didn't drink anymore. Those of us that were successful didn't drink anymore.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And so that was measured by time. Still to this day, I could say I'm 42 years sober and that would have to be considered the ultimate, the top of the mountain. There are people that have been sober longer, not too many. 'cause you have to be really, really old to, to have accomplished that and not drink. But my experience is that that is not a valid measurement of recovery at all. It's, it's like getting into the waiting room at the doctor's office and hoping that you're gonna get well. Now, it, it, it's good to be there in the waiting room because when the doctor's ready for you, you're gonna get seen and you might get what you need. Recovery for me means I, I create the conditions that make it possible for me to recover, and part of those, part of those conditions are, I don't put alcohol in my body anymore. I don't, I don't engage in mind altering substances. That's a, that's like best baseline start. Now what do I do from there? And the how for some people might be, I, I apply the 12 steps of, of the 12 step program to the best of my ability. And that's how I get to this transformation that you just were describing. It's just that it didn't work for me that way. So I was totally screwed given that, that I was told was the last house on the block. This is the Your last chance Bill, because you're an alcoholic. This is the only thing that there is left for you to do. And if you can't do this, there's nothing left for you.

Marty: So would you say that the 12 step method is a method of change versus transformation? 'cause it takes time and you know,

Bill: Yeah. You know, the way you described what changes, I would have to say. Yeah, that's true. And I did change, you know, I. For example.

Marty: because a person couldn't say, Hey, I just got it. I'm not gonna drink anymore. Well, we don't know if they've recovered yet by saying that. Right. We know it as time goes

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: they, when, know, a to a coin for their 10, you know, 10 weeks and then three months and then a year.

Bill: Yeah.

Marty: that's how we, that's how we measure it. But was there like that. it from a whole different point of view and now maybe, maybe like maybe some of those people who do have the experience of like, well, I just, I felt I had the experience of giving it to God and it wasn't on me anymore. That, that might feel like transformation.

Bill: Absolutely, and I've heard those stories. I've third heard thousands of those stories were people that, and I was so envious that, that people could say that and, and I knew that they meant it. I knew that they were, that they were being sincere.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: I knew that they weren't just making it up. It's just what was so frustrating to me was that I couldn't have that experience. I couldn't, I imagined having it, but I didn't know how to get there. And, um, I was told that I had too much pride. I was told that I had too much of an ego, that I, that I, um, that I didn't have the humility that I needed to have. And, you know, to all accounts, given the feedback that I got in my first early years of sobriety, I didn't have a rat's chance of hell of staying sober. 'cause I was doing it all wrong and I wasn't doing enough of anything. Seriously. I was only going to like three meetings a day. I was doing all kinds of service work. I was, you know, I was sponsoring people, but I was, you know when,

Marty: wrong,

Bill: huh?

Marty: and that was considered

Bill: Well, none of that was wrong. But when I'd sit in meetings and I'd hear people talking about what you have to do to stay sober, and then I would look at my checklist and realize, well, shit, I can't check hardly any of these boxes.

Marty: I see.

Bill: I'm not turning my will in life over to the care of God.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: not actively working on a step right now. You know, I'm not, I'm not taking people through those steps and sponsoring them so that they can get sober too. I'm not actively going out and looking for newcomers to help them. There's so many, so many things that I, that I was clearly and obviously doing wrong, and then sometimes I'd get direct feedback from, from fellow members and that same 12 step program that would tell me, you're doing this wrong. You're not gonna stay sober. If, if, if you don't do this, this, and this, you're not gonna stay sober. And, and yet somehow I ended up over 42 years of, of sobriety. So one of the things that I made myself wrong about was that I probably wasn't an alcoholic in the first place. That's, that's the only explanation I'm taking. I'm taking this prideful position that I'm an alcoholic. Isn't that, isn't that just such a para paradox?

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: You know, who in the world would, would go and, and identify as an alcoholic and then brag about it? But, um, so why, what would be my motives for going to meetings and I, and identifying as an alcoholic if I, if I wasn't an alcoholic and yet because things weren't adding up, the only way that I could make these mathematical equations, logical equations in my mind work would, would be to question, well, maybe, maybe I'm not really an alcoholic. Maybe I never was. Maybe I should just go ahead and drink like everybody else. But I, even though I never had been able to, you know, isn't it crazy, crazy, crazy thinking. I didn't, thank goodness. I never, I never did. I really never was tempted to after, after I'd say my first year of sobriety. I just was committed. I'm not gonna drink anymore.

Marty: It. Mm-hmm.

Bill: the other thing that happened was that there was some principles in those 12 steps that that had been taught in Catholic school, but I hadn't embraced because of the hypocrisy that I was surrounded by as far as I was concerned. Being raised Catholic just meant that you pretend like you, that you've got a relationship with God and you pretend like you're good. You pretend like you don't lie, and then, you know, you go cash that in about once a week in communion, and you tell the priest and then you're good to get good to go again, and then you start accumulating more sense that that was the program for me. I was a sinner. I did it all wrong. How could God possibly love me? Thank God for the communion, for the, for, for the, uh, for being able to

Marty: Jesus

Bill: to tell.

Marty: This saved your soul.

Bill: Right, right. A couple thousand years after I was born. So, um, or before I was born, none of that made any sense at all to me. So now coming into the 12 step programs and being told that the only way that I could actually recover would be to embrace ideas that I had rejected in my childhood because of the hypocrisy and because none of it made any sense. Because I could see it was just a, a con, the whole thing was a con for me. That's the way I used it. Go to church cash kushing. I've got, I've got currency now. I've got spiritual currency 'cause I went to church on Sunday. Uh, light, a light, a few candles, Kushing, I've got some, some spiritual currency. I'm earning some cred with God. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to communion. I'm, I'm serving as an altar boy. I'm playing guitar masses. I'm doing all these things. I'm earning some spiritual credibility so that maybe I don't get my ass thrown in jail or in hell. I mean, when I die. Um, and so, you know, as I grew up, I'm trying to put all this logical, rational stuff together and it doesn't add up. It just doesn't make any sense. And now I'm struggling with, with overuse of alcohol and marijuana and kind of for a while there, anything I can get my hands on. And I'm completely self-centered and I'm not thinking of anybody else really than myself. Completely self-centered. And I'm not thinking of anybody else fears. I'm overwhelmed, anonymous. And that solution is the same thing that I had rejected And I think I'm totally screwed. So I'm gonna have to work super, super, super hard if I'm gonna stay sober. And I, and the only reason I wanted to stay sober is 'cause I was afraid if I didn't, my wife, believe me, I, I, I really didn't believe I was alcoholic. I just have to stay sober, so she'll stay with me and she won't leave me. And then in the course of going to meetings, I became convinced I must be an alcoholic Today, I can tell you that I, I think I probably was, according to the definition of, of, according to the 12 step definition of what is an alcoholic. Yeah, I was, I was, and I'm, I'm convinced that if I drank today, even though all I've, I've healed all kinds of trauma in me, I might still have a tendency to overdo it. Because I still kind of overdo a lot of things.

Marty: Mm-hmm. What was the, you said, I'm gonna have to work extra hard at this, what, what, what was the work

Bill: Well, the work was very similar to what I'd learned how to do in a Catholic church. I go to church on Sunday, just check, check the boxes, work the 12 steps. Um, do that four step inventory. I did, I think I did 13 of them, 12 step inventories. Uh, and, and fifth steps and, um, you know, all of, all of the steps, they tell you exactly what you have to do.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, and all the while never forget that despite all that I do, the only way that I can stay sober is if I, if God grants me my sobriety. So I have to ask for that every day and thank, thank God every day for that too. And I did all of that. But as far as I was concerned, it was one way communication and there was nothing going on coming back the other way. That I was staying sober 'cause I wanted to stay sober. Not because I asked, but you know, I still have car insurance even though I don't think I'm gonna get in a car accident. So I'm gonna go ahead and pray. I'm gonna go ahead and thank God, even though I don't believe God is there for my sobriety

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: and you know, the evidence that I'm 42 years sober. Now, might people might say, well it worked and maybe it did. Maybe that had something to do with it. I don't know. But what I do know is that the trying hard, checking the boxes, doing the things that I'm told to do so that I can get the result that I want, can only work as long as I do those things. The, the most terrifying thing for me to do was after 35 years of attending meetings, averaging at least a meeting a day over 35 years. Was that I would drink again, and they were, was, was to find out they were right. That once I started doing those, stopped doing those things that I was gonna drink again. And there's stories of of, of guys that do that, but I haven't wanted to drink since then.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I gotta say that in the last, almost eight years now since I stopped going to meetings. My recovery is much more full than it ever has been. And I think that the reason that that is true is because I'm looking at the causes of my drinking in the first place. Why did I drink in the first place? Because I could not stand what it felt like to to be Bill Tierney sober.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: I didn't know we were gonna talk about this today, but here we are.

Marty: So I'm just, I just wanna understand, so you really didn't do aa, you, you did Bill Tierney's program, which involved, you know, doing what they said you should do in aa, but you weren't feeling it in the

Bill: Oh no. I certainly wasn't drinking the Kool-Aid.

Marty: Yeah.

Bill: No, I was scared.

Marty: Uhhuh Uhhuh. And, and your method was effective, like you have been sober for 42 years now

Bill: With that being the measurement of effective and successful recovery. Yes, but I don't, I don't measure it that way though.

Marty: and, and how do you measure it?

Bill: Quality of life, I think the closest thing that I ever learned about or heard about in, in the 12 step, and I'm being careful not to name which 12 Step program it is. Um, because I still wanna respect that anonymity, but I, I suppose people that know, that know. But, um, is the idea of, of emotional sobriety now, that, that was a, a leap not just a, a, a step, but a leap into recovery was, was the pursuit of emotional sobriety.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: does it mean to be emotionally sober

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: now? Now we're talking. Now we're talking recovery, because if I'm not emotionally sober, it doesn't matter that I haven't, well, it matters, but it doesn't make a great deal of difference. If I, if I'm, if I'm not putting alcohol in my body, but I'm still raging, I'm still blaming, I'm still gaslighting, I'm still disconnecting, I'm still creating havoc in my life,

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: then, then what's the point other than keeping this body alive by not putting alcohol in it?

Marty: Right.

Bill: And that gets us back to the be beginning of this conversation. How do you get emotional sobriety? And what I learned about how to get emotional sobriety was to turn my well life and care over to the to the care of God as I understood. So it's back to the same solution, even though a new ideal emotional sobriety had been identified that I recognized as valuable and I.

Marty: how did, since you didn't do it by giving. Your life over to God. How did you accomplish emotional sobriety? Now, I know more recently been through, you know, all these transformative bodies of work like IFS and Byron Katie and like that. But before that, how were you dealing with it?

Bill: I didn't have emotional sobriety before that. So I was, I got sober in 1982. I discovered Byron Katie in 2002. I'd been sober for 20 years before I even began to be, to, to have an idea, a concept of, of true emotional sobriety. I loved the idea of it, but the experience of it hadn't, didn't happen until the first time I did the work of Byron Katie, and it got in.

Marty: So what I'm. I'm to ask about is other people are giving it over to God and that's helping them, but what are you doing those first 20 years before you attended to the emotions that were the source of the, the, the drinking? were you doing to, to just, just like, just like strict, being strict with yourself and

Bill: Yes, yes. Going to lots of meetings. Taking all the actions. It, it, it, it was a program of enduring, tolerating, and surviving a life that I hated.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: Yeah, it was, I had a lot of depression. I had a lot of anxiety, which means I had a ton of fears that I hadn't addressed. Did a lot of pretending I was one of the best at pretending to be authentic, that I know I wasn't a lot of fun to be around. I. And, um, it's no surprise then when you think that the relationships, the quality of the relationships that I had were, was not good. I was married twice in that 20 years. Um, both, both marriages were lacked emotional substance. There was a lot of blaming, a lot of, um, a lot of fighting. A lot of hurt, a lot of pain, uh, a lot of strategies for managing each other. Yeah, so 2002, I, I'm introduced to work, Byron, Katie. It really sticks. I apply it and every time I do, I apply it to anytime I'm noticing that I'm suffering, that I'm willing to apply the work of Byron Katie and I can shift over the course of 15 or 20 minutes from suffering, enduring, tolerating, and surviving life. To freedom and lightness and peace and openness. There's, there's Byron Katie used to say, probably still does if there's a God. It's reality.

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: rules and, and, uh, so I, I finally found a concept of God about that time that worked for me.

Marty: And that is reality.

Bill: Well, that was the beginning. That's how it started. As I aligned with Byron's, Katie's idea of what it, what is God, God is reality, 'cause reality rules.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: then after that I was introduced to this very obscure book called The Rancha Book. And by reading it, it's about 2100 pages long by reading it. Over the course of reading that book, I was introduced to the, the same God that the Catholic church and the 12 step program were trying to get me to believe in and, and I embraced it.

Marty: Uh, well, what was the difference in the way that this book introduced you to God?

Bill: I don't know. It was very surprising. You know, earlier in this conversation we were talking about how, um, we human beings can transform, we are transformable.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: Um, something about the way this book was laid out, as I read through it, I just noticed one day, wow, I believe this, I. I actually believe this. To me, this is coming in, I'm, I'm taking in this information as if it's true, so that if anybody were to say anything that argued with what, what I had just read, I'd wanna argue with them about it. I'd wanna say, oh, no, that that's not the way it is. Here's the way it's. I wouldn't, I'm not, I'm not someone that would just throw out an opinion that, that, that I haven't got per, haven't been asked for. But, um, but I would think that in my head, like, oh yeah, no, that's, that's not it. You don't understand. And I felt like I did. And, and that was, hmm, 20 years ago that that happened and not much of what I came to believe from reading that book has changed since then.

Marty: Mm-hmm. And it is the same,

Bill: The same God, the same idea? Yeah,

Marty: mm-hmm.

Bill: just expanded. It made more sense. I guess you're asking what the difference was.

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: made sense. Now it was explained with such detail in those 2100 pages that it, it made sense and it never had before. I didn't have to make me wrong to make God right.

Marty: Speaking of Byron Katie and transformation, I mean the, her questions right in the middle of that, you know, who would you be without this thought? That's a transformational question.

Bill: It is, it is. And the first three questions prior to that set up that transformation.

Marty: it up exactly.

Bill: It, it, it cracks the shell of the belief. Like, is there a possibility that what I believe isn't true?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: And the third question really, now she, she sets this, she sets it up this way. She says, anytime I believe a thought that argues with reality, I suffer. So if I'm suffering, it's because I'm believing a thought that argues with reality. Now, if you're suffering, what is the belief that goes with that suffering?

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: He shouldn't have cut me off in traffic. Something as simple as that. Is, is a belief or, or a thought and I'm suffering. What's, what's the nature of my suffering? I'm pissed. I'm wanting to go to road rage. You know, I wanna flip the guy off. I wanna chase him down. What am I gonna do with a, when I catch him? I don't know, but I'm just, I'm overtaken by my rage and my, so that's how I suffer when I believe the thought he shouldn't have cut me off. By the time we get to that fourth question that you just named, who would I be without? The thought is I'd still be driving under the speed limit or at maybe, maybe five over the speed limit, rather than, you know, chasing the guy at 90 miles an hour down the road on his, on his tail, not knowing what I would do once I, once I catch him, I'd be at peace. You know, I'd be safe again. I wouldn't be scaring all the passengers in my car.

Marty: Right,

Bill: Something that simple

Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bill: or, uh, I mean, and, and the same can be applied to beliefs. Like, I'm not enough. I. Is it true that I'm not enough, you know, beliefs that maybe have never been actually questioned before? What I've noticed about Byron Katie is that, that it doesn't go all the way to actually providing the healing and the transformation to those deeper core beliefs. We need a little more help with that because parts are involved, parts are involved with the other beliefs as well. I'm not saying that, but, but, but the parts that are holding beliefs, like I'm not enough. Those are, those are the parts that have, that all the other parts are organized around and we need to use IFS to, to get that to that or something like that. We need something like IFS to, to be able to get to those beliefs and, and help those parts have a transform, transformative change of mind. I,

Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bill: but we were gonna talk about fear and anxiety today and we never got to it.

Marty: We're avoiding our fear.

Bill: Well, no, I don't think so. I think I, we just got really, I know I'll speak for myself. I got really engaged in this conversation.

Marty: Yeah, you did. That's great.

Bill: Yes, you did. Well, maybe we can talk about that next time.

Marty: That sounds good.

Bill: Alright, well I'm gonna get ready for my men's recovery group. I will, I'll see if I can calm this energy down a little bit before I do the do that group, because I'm just, I'm, I feel like I'm just revving right now. Like my energies are just revving.

Marty: I might, might appropriate. Wait and see.

Bill: I'm literally on the edge of my seat here talking with you about this. Yeah. So I'd, I'd love to hear from listeners even if, if this conversation upsets you, if you're involved in 12 Step and this conversation upsets you. It certainly wasn't my intention to do so. I don't mean to disrespect 12 Step because I know all the good that it's done. I especially have a lot of love and respect and appreciation for programs like Adult Children of Alcoholics that actually lately has been employing more of an approach like IFS. Especially in, it's employing more of an approach like IFS the loving, uh, loving child, what is it called? Yeah, that's a lot. If we can take the best of 12 step

Marty: Oh.

Bill: and, and loosen up the have tos out of it, I. Uh, and give people agency again. I think the combination of IFS and 12 step can be amazing and powerful and, you know, my experience was what it was. And so I'm gonna speak honestly about that, but I don't want, but I, at the same time, I don't want to rob anybody of going to 12 Step if that can help them. Check it out, see if it works for you. It may or may not work for you. And know that, that if it doesn't, there's other things that can help.

Marty: Very good.

Bill: Okay. All right, Marty, great talking with you again. Thanks for letting me do most of the talking today.

Marty: It was fascinating. Thank you.

Bill: Alright, till next week. Bye.

Marty: Bye.