Am I to Blame for His Depression?
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Coming up on the Dr. John Deloney Show. He told me he had to increase his depression medication because our relationship is so awful. Jane, is that true? Yeah. No, no, no, no. I know he said that. I'm asking you. Is that true? Our relationship was bad. Jane, is that true? No. No. No.

Hey, everybody. This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so, so glad that you're with us talking about your emotional and mental health, your marriage, your kids, your neighbor that won't shut up, your quasi-oppressive boss, like Kelly, like whatever you got going on in your world. We're here to talk about it.

You've been struggling with something for a long, long time or something just popped up. We're here. And here's my promise. I'll sit with you like I've been doing for over 20-something years, sitting with hurting people, and we're going to figure out what to do next. And it's not always pretty, and sometimes it's gritty, and sometimes it is uncomfortable for everybody. And that's where the healing is, on the other side of that hurt, on the other side of that pain.

And most of us spend our whole life avoiding it. And in this crazy world we've created for ourselves, we can for a while, but not here. Here we go right through it, and I'll walk with you. If you want to be on the show, give me a buzz at 1-844-693-3291 or go to johndeloney.com slash ask, A-S-K. Let's go out to Baltimore, Maryland and talk to not-so-plain Jane. What's up, Jane? Hi, Dr. John. How are you?

All right. I'm really nervous. I'm nervous too. We'll be nervous together. We'll be nervous together. What's up? So my question is about, am I responsible for anybody else's things or depression, specifically my ex-husband? Tell me more about that. So he was military for 17 years. We married very young at 21.

I joined him... We married mostly because he went into the military. The first two years were really good. And then he was in a really high-level secret job at the military. And he just started going inward. And his depression started getting higher. I know he's always dealt with depression.

And I was a stay-at-home mom for a lot of that. And then, I don't know, our marriage started crumbling. And at one point, he told me he had to increase his depression medication because our relationship is so awful. Jane, is that true? Yeah. No, no, no, no. I know he said that. I'm asking you. Is that true?

Our relationship was bad. I don't think... Jane, is that true? No. No. You've known this man since he was a kid. Since before he was allowed to drink beer. And he's wrestled with these demons for a long time, right? Yeah. And I say it all the time, secrets will kill you. And his job became keeping some of the hardest secrets to keep on planet Earth. And he was a military guy. And he was brass. And he probably stopped working out as much. And he probably stopped hanging out with buddies that weren't military guys.

He probably got disconnected from you romantically, sexually, like laughingly, right? Just relationally. Got disconnected from his kids. No, that's not true. You didn't make your husband have to increase his depression medication. I'm sorry that that was used as a weapon against you. Were you mean to him? No, I mean, I know there were times when I was petty just because. That was awesome. Like, no, I mean, I mean. Yeah. Tell me about it.

Well, the only way that I could get attention from him was to be angry. Okay. You've been lonely a long time, haven't you? Yes. How old are your kids? I have a 12-year-old and a 14-year-old. How are they doing? Actually, they're doing really well. Okay. This is the first year that they're really doing incredibly well with socially and going between the two houses and everything.

I'm just watching them blossom into amazing people. That's awesome. That means you did a pretty amazing job when they were young keeping things together, huh? Yeah. When you were a lonely base mom, enraged and scared and stuck in a house and you were not even allowed to talk to your own husband because of national security. Exactly. Yeah. So how's your co-parenting going? It's okay. He doesn't listen to a word I say, but that's to be expected. He doesn't what? He doesn't listen.

We try to decide on things that we're going to work on with the kids. If there's something big that we need to work on. I, for some reason, expect that he's going to work with me, but it's always been his way. Sure. Always going to be his way. Okay. But we get along better as co-parents. Yeah. So y'all are doing this best you can. You're acting like adults, which is good. Yes, we are. Kids come first. That's amazing. Good for you. Yeah.

So he's gone and the smoke is cleared and your marriage is nothing. Your life at 40 is nothing like you thought it was going to look. Yes. And objectively, you've got a somewhat adult acting co-parent. Your kids are starting to settle into their new world and they're doing great. Why are you still haunted? Why are you still waking up every day asking yourself, what did you do? I think because I'm just scared that's going to happen again. Yeah.

My dad walked out also on my mom when I was about 12. And you promised yourself you wouldn't do that. Yeah. Yeah. I saw my mom fall apart when my dad walked out. I really didn't want to do that for my kids. I keep my parenting skills together, but everything else feels like it's falling apart. Let's be specific. What do you think is falling apart?

My ability to keep house and keep friendships and things like that. Okay. Tell me about your friendships. I have one really good friend who lives in Seattle. That's on the other side of the planet. Like literally. Tell me about some friends you have there in Maryland. I have one friend I see...

There's a single male. He's gay, so it's not just no relationship or anything. So once a week, will you make a coffee date with this guy? And y'all go hang out? Yeah. Put on the calendar? Yeah. And give him the great blessing of saying, I'm going to start intentionally coming out of my shell. And I need you to be there for me every Wednesday morning at 8 o'clock after I drop off the knuckleheads. Okay. Is that fair? Yeah.

Do you have another friend you could invite to this get together? Two friends, three friends? Yeah, they're just really difficult to pin down. Okay. If you've got one anchor, then you can have a rotating cadre of weirdos. They'll come when they can come. Okay.

And I say weirdos. They might be parents. They might have jobs. They may have whatever, right? I was supposed to have lunch with my buddy the other day, Dr. Conway, and he's one of my closest friends out here. And my show ran late, and I was late, and our lunch got cut. Anyway, life happens. But, man, if you have one person that you know is going to be there on time and is going to show up with you, sounds like this guy is awesome. Yeah. Yeah.

He's a good friend. I've known him since college. Can you say everything that's going on? Most of it, yeah. Nope. Nope. You heard me say earlier, secrets will kill you. You watch them do that to your husband. You got to find a place where you can be open and honest. Yeah, a lot of it revolves around him. I'll be honest. Revolves around your husband?

No, a lot of our conversation revolves around my friend. Okay, well tell him it's time for him to start listening to you. If he's a great friend, you can say, I put my time in. And compound interest, ROI, it's my turn. Okay. All right? And listen to me. You've been through hell. The thought of meeting somebody else and not wanting to be alone forever, your body's going to sound every alarm it has because its job is not to...

keep you joyful and happy. It's job is to keep you alive. And so when you feel anxious, when you meet somebody or you talk to somebody or even the thought of somebody, yes, just smile and go, yep, you're trying to take care of me, but I'm doing this, right? Like you just have to let your body know I'm driving. I'm driving. Thank you for trying to keep me safe. And you've kept me safe for a while, but I'm driving. And when it doesn't want to get up and go for a walk in the

Say thank you for trying to take care of me because the world does appear safer under these covers, but I'm going to go for a walk. I'm not fighting my body anymore. I'm going to be curious about it and I'm going to go do my next thing. Can I tell you something that happened in my driveway? And it's kind of a similar experience. A guy, there's some construction going on down the, down the holler as they call it down where I live out in the woods. Some, somebody bought a huge place and they're building this big fancy place out there. And one of the, um,

One of the concrete guys took a wrong turn and came up all the way up my driveway, but he had a flat tire. And I have a gravel driveway, and he just totally destroyed the driveway going up. And then he had to back this trailer all the way out and just created chaos. And I was out of town. I was at a speaking event. So I called. My wife sent a picture, and she couldn't. She was trying to take the kids to school. The whole thing was just a big mess. She couldn't barely get down the driveway because he had carved it up so wild. And then we've had some crazy rains over the last week or two.

So I just reached out to the person who was the project manager at this house and said, hey, man, I need to get the number to this dude. So he came out. He waited one week, waited two weeks, and then he came out this past Sunday. And he rolls up to my house in his backhoe or his front loader. And I'm wearing coveralls because I'm doing a bunch of yard work on the farm. And I greeted him, and the dude got up.

And it was enraged at me. How dare I call the boss? How dare I do this? How dare I do that? And I was looking around like, hey, you're at my house. Like, what are you doing, man? And I had this moment where I chose kindness. And I said, sir, my wife's right here. You're not going to talk to us like this. You're not going to talk to me like this in front of her. You tore my driveway. I just need someone to fix it. And you can read my text messages, man. I was super kind to you. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody screws up. But then you get this thing taken care of.

And he literally exhaled and dropped his shoulders and said, I'm sorry. I'm mad at this other dude. He keeps sending us the wrong address. And it turned into this compassion. And he gave me his cell number and said, man, I'm going to fix this. If there's any other problems, you call me. And we shook hands and he left. And normally, old John would have gotten mad, right? And would have had to buck up to the dude who drove up on his property. I just chose kindness this time. I didn't fight him. I just went around it. Just went around it.

And at the end of the day, here's what I wanted. I wanted a driveway that worked for my wife and my kids. And that's what I got now. He did a great job. And for you, what do we want? I want peace in your life. I want you to be able to hang out with your friends. I want you, when you feel overwhelmed, you've got a couple of people you can text. Are you doing okay financially? I actually have been unemployed for a few months, but I just got a job. Congratulations. How is the state of your finances? Are you in the hole financially?

I still have savings, luckily. Okay. I'm going to hook you up with a couple of things, launching you into this new... The sun's coming up, Jane, okay? But you're going to have to make some choices to move your body. You're going to have to make some choices to have some friends and meet those appointments. You're going to have to make some choices to get up in the morning, okay? Yeah. You're going to have to make some choices that when that thought pops into your head about your husband, your ex-husband, you're going to stop and say, okay,

He doesn't get a vote. I'm not thinking about him today. And the more you practice that, the more the default setting will begin to arc towards his voice not being in your home anymore because he left and he blamed you out the door. Okay. Yeah. Did you play a role in your marriage falling apart? Probably. Was it all your fault? No. Is your husband's decision to take the job that he took and not deal with his challenges your responsibility? No, it's his.

Set that brick down and don't ever pick that brick up again. Okay? Okay. You promise? Okay. Yeah. Stop carrying it. And say it out loud. Am I carrying that? Am I carrying that? You're not carrying it. No, I'm not carrying it. It's not mine to carry, man. You can't carry it anymore. No. Yeah. And then call your buddy. You and him go hang out. Call some other knuckleheaded friends of yours and y'all get together. And just revel in the fact that you held it together for those boys in the years when things got scary.

And they're doing great right now. And be grateful that you and your husband, your ex-husband can be adults and co-parent the best as you possibly can. It's awesome. Okay. Here's what I'm going to hook you up with. I'm going to send you both of my books and I want you to read both of them. Okay.

Okay. Own your past, change your future. It's about what happens when things go sideways and what you can do next, but especially the stories that you tell yourself over and over again, and that's what you're drowning in. And then it's going to, the next book is building a non-anxious life. And I want this to be your roadmap for building a home where it feels when you walk in the door and a home filled with laughter and a home filled with teenage boys making fart noises and you making one back. Right.

Yeah. You know, blow your boys' minds. You blow a good one on your arm and shock them back, right? And a life worth having friends. I'm also going to hook you up with, I want you to watch, I work here at Ramsey Solutions. I want you to watch the Financial Peace University courses. It's about handling your money. Okay? You're going to be on your own now.

Yeah. And I'm going to send you the every dollar premium app for a year. Okay. And that's going to let you track your money. You got a job now. You stop living off savings. You start tracking your money, taking care of it. And it's going to give you overall peace in your home. Does that sound good? Yeah. All right. Hang on the line. We're going to hook you up. Jane, I'm proud of you. Proud of you.

When you go to war with a lion, you come out and you're scratched up and you're exhausted and you can't move. And the next couple of months you have to heal and you're sore. And then one day you open one of your eyes and the sun's back up. And then you realize, oh, I got to stand back up. I can't just lay here. And you're doing it. You're standing up. And it feels like everything's coming apart, but it's not. One step at a time, one step at a time, one step at a time. First call when we get off this phone call, I want you to call your buddy. And you and him are going to start hanging out. We'll put it on the calendar. And then we're going to start changing things.

So proud of you, Jay. We'll be right back. Let's talk about Organifi. I just got home from a week in the woods with family and friends and a few hundred high school kids at a summer camp. And as you can imagine, I ate camp food for a week. I didn't sleep great. And high schoolers aren't the most hygienic creatures in the world. And now that I'm home...

And now that you're home for whatever you've been doing this summer, and we're both beginning to settle back into the rhythms of the end of summer, start of school, it's critical that both you and me get back into our wellness routines. And for me, Organifi is a cornerstone of my wellness routine.

I blend the red and green powders together almost every morning, and I keep talking about them. I love my happy drops, and I've revolutionized my sleep with Harmony and Gold Juice Medley. I blend them together and drink them down right before bed, and I sleep like a baby. Organifi helps me with energy and gut health with my sleep and with my mood.

Here's the deal. I take Organifi every single day. And my friends and my family are always stealing my stuff because it's the best of the best. And if it's good enough for me and my friends and my family, it's worth you trying it out. Go to Organifi.com slash Deloney or use promo code Deloney at checkout. That's Organifi.com, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I dot com slash Deloney. And they're going to hook you up with 20% off everything.

All of it. Invest in yourself with Organifi. Hey, y'all hear me talk about my friends Doug and Justin and Adam and Sal all the time. But I feel like it's important to repeat this because I get so many calls and questions about weight loss and nutrition. My favorite fitness and health resource by far

is the Mind Pump podcast. Go check it out. The hosts communicate fitness and health and fat loss the right way. And they're the guys I reached out to behind closed doors with my cell phone. I trust these guys. They've been working with people for over two decades and they combine their experience with the best current science. They're hilarious, super offensive, so don't have kids in the room when you listen to it, but they're great, great friends. They're great dads. They're great husbands.

And they help with the best information. And it's not nonsense, influencery garbage. It's the right stuff to help you over the long term. Please go check out my buddies at Mind Pump. They're mindpumppodcast.com or you can get it wherever you get podcasts. It's worth a listen. And you can go through their library. It's the workout I used this morning. I used from their MAPS program. Go check out my buddies at mindpumppodcast.com.

All right, let's roll out to Brandon in Niagara Falls, Canada. What's up, Brandon? Hey, Dr. John. How are you? Good, man. What's up? Okay, so my question today, I guess, is a little twofold. So I have an eight-year-old daughter and a two-year-old daughter. My eight-year-old's from a previous relationship, and I'm struggling with getting the same level of...

I don't know if intimacy or affection is the right word between the two girls. I just, I was around a lot more for my second than my first, and I'm struggling to get the same level of attachment to my first that I have with my second. Can I be super honest with you in this call? Is that cool, man? Yeah. All right. I'm not going to be very nice. Is that okay? I'll be nice. I'll be as kind as I can. I'll be kind, not nice. Where were you with the first kid?

So I was in a mix of going back to school and joining the military. Okay. And how old was your eight-year-old? It was he or she? It was she. How old was she when you started going back to school and joined the military? So I was midway through my first year when she was born. So I wasn't really around for the first two years. Why'd you choose that? I think I had told myself at the time that it was...

Because I wanted to put myself in a position to be able to support my family. But I had a full-time job as a dean of students at a law school, and I was a full-time doctoral student when my daughter was born. Where were you? In all honesty, looking back on it, I have a feeling that it was more of... No feelings. Just talk straight to me, man. Well, at the time, I was 18, so I feel like I was running away from the situation more than...

and using it as an excuse to not have to be there at first. Excellent. How old are you now? 28. Okay. You got to forgive your 18-year-old self. Was that the right thing to do? Absolutely not. Were you a kid? Yes. I think every time you look at that girl, you get haunted by what 18, 19, and 20-year-old you didn't do, and then you went and joined the military, which is good, but man, you missed your whole kid's life.

And it's not that eight-year-old's job to bring you intimacy like a cuddly two-year-old's going to. You're the dad. You're the adult. It's your job to connect with that kid, okay? If you get nothing else from this phone call, brother, you got to let the 18-year-old off the hook. He's an 18-year-old. It's done. It's done. And you cannot expect that eight-year-old to come to you. It has to be in reverse, okay? Yeah. Is that fair?

That's fair. I have an eight-year-old daughter that really struggles with me too. And the part I didn't finish about what I said about when she was born, being a full-time employee and a full-time doctoral student, is I let my studies get in the way too, except that was in my 30s. Okay? And it haunts me. And I cannot blame my daughter for that, and you can't blame yours. Okay? Yeah. Is that fair? That's fair. Okay. Exhale on that for a second. You have a two-year-old now?

Yeah. If you could go back and do it over again with your eight-year-old, what would you do differently? I'd be there from the start. Okay. Then let's start being there right now. What's custody look like? It's week by week. So this is my week with her. Week on, week off. All right. When you say you struggle with intimacy with her, what does that mean? Does she not want to be around you? Does she just want to hug you? Or when you hug her, it just feels not right? Tell me what that means.

So it's, uh, so I, I've made an attempt to every Sunday, me and her just go out and spend a couple hours together, just the two of us. Um, and she loves being around me and I love being around her. It's just, I can tell the, I can tell the feeling. I don't know. It's just different. It's not. You're a guy she knows you're not dad, right? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

You have to trust me that that can change, but it's going to take investment on your part, okay? A couple hours on a Sunday is not going to cut it. Yeah. Okay? Hey, I forgive you. She'll forgive you. You have to forgive you. If every time you see that sweet little girl, you think of your own failure, she's going to feel that, and she's going to spend her whole life trying to solve that problem. And I think at some point when she's 16 or 18, you have a conversation. Say, I had you when I was 18 years old, man. I totally screwed it up. You'll have that conversation. Not now. She's eight. Yeah.

Here's a picture in my head, okay? When you have her on your weeks, I want you to give her a dedicated morning for breakfast. I want you to take her out somewhere. Do you have a place where you could take her out in Niagara Falls? Yeah. My son and I ate breakfast inside of a gas station in rural Tennessee this morning. He had biscuits and gravy. I mean, he literally took four years off his life with the biscuits and gravy thing he had today. Okay.

It doesn't have to be fancy. It can be. It'd be awesome if it could be, if you can afford it and all that, but it doesn't have to be fancy. But once a week is her special morning that you wake up early. I cut my workout short this morning. Like you figure it out and it's breakfast day. It could be Tuesday. It could be Wednesday. It could be whenever day. Okay. I want you to have a weekly once a week dance night where you turn the music on too loud. And I know you have a two-year-old, the two-year-old can just watch.

And I want y'all just to fling-flang around for a couple of songs. If you're like me, I can only last a few songs because I'm so out of shape. Actually, I'm in pretty good shape. I just can't dance like that. I want you to fling-flang around with this little girl, okay? Okay. And let her know, dance night, what song do you want to listen to? And you get a song and she gets a song. That way you can teach her what real good music is. Yeah, absolutely. And then maybe a...

This is like a within reason, but like a yes day. Maybe Sunday afternoon is your yes day. And of course it's within reason. And the first couple of times, see if she catches on when she says, can we go? You go, yep. And then go, can I get it? Yep. And here's what we're doing. We're not trying to bribe her. We're not trying to poison her with junk food or anything like that. I just want her when she thinks a dad and her shoulders to drop. And you're probably like most men. You're trying to make up the missed time with a bunch of life lessons and a bunch of look like this and dress like this and don't do that.

we don't need that right now okay she needs her dad is that fair yeah that's fair can you do those three things i can absolutely do those three things all right i got one more for you it's going to be the worst one of all okay every night she stays with you when she goes to put her head on her bed on her pillow i want there to be a card from dad on that pillow and it could be a funny drawing but it has to have the words i love you in that draw in that thing dear daughter's name

I love you, dad. Not love dad, but I love you, dad. And I want her to wake up when she's 18 and have 10 years of every other week's worth of letters, little notes from her dad, okay? Okay. We're going to slowly build this thing back and I want you to treat your new wife as amazing as possible so that this eight-year-old girl gets a picture of what marriage is supposed to look like and love is supposed to look like. And don't, don't, like you're building a relationship because you're going to have some tough times in teenage years, okay?

Things will be tough. And that's okay. That's part of it. But you got to forgive 18-year-old you. Can you say that out loud? I forgive myself. I forgive 18-year-old Brandon. I can say it, but I don't know if I believe it. All right, before this day is over, I want you to go find a mirror and put your hand in your chest. And I want you to eyeball yourself for 10 seconds and don't say a word. And then look at yourself and drop your shoulders and say the words, I forgive you. My daughter deserves all of us now. Because if you don't do that, you're choosing to poison the present with stuff you did in the past.

I think she's done being poisoned. Fair? Fair enough. Okay. The path through is to forgive yourself and stop beating up Brandon for stuff 18-year-old Brandon did. We all did stupid stuff when we were 18, 19, 20. Every one of us, myself included. Thank God I didn't have a kid when I was 18. Okay? If you begin to court your daughter's heart, not in a romantic way, but in a, I will always be here and I will never leave your side, you're going to find your heart along the way. Okay? Okay.

She's worth that, and so are you. 28-year-old Brandon. You a good dad now to that 2-year-old? Yeah. How are you a good dad? Well, it's been great being able to do bedtimes with both of them, and it's been great being able to take both of them to the park. And since I work from home, I have the blessing that I get to spend every day with the 2-year-old playing games while working. Awesome. This is what changing your family tree looks like.

Most people get so wound up and covered up and weighted down with shame from crap they did in the past that they can't adjust it and make it different in the future. That's not you. Tells me you've become a man of character and I'm proud of you. Right? Yeah. You treat that two-year-old's mom right? Yep. Is she your wife? Have you married her? Yeah, we've been married for five years now. Okay. You honor that woman and take care of it? Take care of her? Absolutely. Awesome. You've become a man of character. That's amazing.

Now let 18 year old you off the hook. If an 18 year old drove by your house and said something stupid and you had a hard talk with him and he's like, I'm sorry, sir. You'd forgive him, right? Yeah, of course you would. Forgive Brandon. Cool. Cool. Go chase that eight year old's heart and find yours in the process. I'll say it again. She's worth it. Worth it to my brother. Proud of you. Proud of you, man. We'll be right back. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

So my wife and I were meeting the other day about the back-to-school madness that is about to be on us. We've got my travel schedule, her work schedule, our daughter's new school and clothes and forms to fill out and all these online portals and my son's sports schedule and he's got to have shoes every two weeks because his feet won't stop growing and how are we going to pay for all this and on and on and on.

And when we step back and look at our schedule, it's so packed and we haven't even put in the things like exercise, date nights, counseling appointments, church and holiday trips and big home projects. And these are the things that make life worth living. And I listened to y'all. This is your life too. And here's what I've learned. When it comes to taking care of me, my family and my work, I have to begin with the things that matter most and the things that keep me well and whole so I can wade into the chaos and be sturdy and present and strong.

you too. So as you're planning your upcoming end of summer and fall plans, make sure you don't skip date nights, don't skip regular exercise, and don't skip your regular therapy appointments. Yes, therapy can be hard work, but it can also help make the rest of your life possible.

When it comes to therapy, I want you to consider calling the team at BetterHelp. BetterHelp is 100% online therapy staffed with licensed therapists. It's convenient, it's flexible, and it's suited to fit your schedule.

With a good therapist, you can learn things like positive coping skills, how to set boundaries, how to deal with all the chaos going on in your life, and how to be the best version of yourself. In this upcoming season, make sure you put on your oxygen mask first. Never skip therapy day. Call my friends at BetterHelp. Visit betterhelp.com slash deloney today to get 10% off your first month. That's betterhelp, H-E-L-P dot com slash deloney.

And let's roll out to Alaska. What's that, Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure? Going to military school in Alaska. Let's talk to Eric. What's up, brother? Hey, John. Good morning. How are you? Good, man. How are you? Doing pretty good. What's up? Long story short, I'm a recovering alcoholic. Four years sober now. Hey, can I stop for a second? Can we stop? Yeah. That's incredible, dude.

That's a harder adventure. That's a harder thing to go through than most people walking around listening to this will ever experience. Good on you, man. Has it been easier? Has it been pretty hellacious? The first, oh gosh, six months or so were pretty hellish, but...

Um, gosh, I mean, the last two years or so, I felt like I've been a groove, but I'm proud of you. Thank you. I mean, that's kind of brought me to now though, John is, you know, I realized a few weeks ago that in the process of trying to juggle everything that comes with sobriety longterm and kind of untangling all of the messes that, you know, we make for ourselves when we're

we're not doing so hot in that world, I've kind of forgotten about me. And I have no idea how to make amends with myself. And I have no idea how to do that at the same time that I'm untangling a pretty significant rat's nest of debt. I mean, I've got about $116,000 now worth of debt, most of that student loans. And I'm following the baby steps. I'm on baby step two. I've got a proper snowball listed out. But

I'm sitting here and every day it's, you know, how do I forgive myself for financial mistakes? You know, things I did to myself, you know, consequences of addiction. So how do I balance all this? How do I, how do I get into a place now that I'm there of working on me and forgiving me? Man, it's hard. Cause on the outside, I'm seeing you, I'm listening to you, man. And you're doing it like you're four years sober.

um you're living in alaska which has a high rate of addiction it's tough there's lots of there's lots of darkness and lots of coal and lots of just stuck inside right so um you're doing it and now you're working through you've got the what's that old paul thomas anderson quote you may be through the past but the past isn't through with you right you've got it you've got dollar amounts letting you know we're not done with you yet right still paying stuff off um so i'm watching you do it in real time i i've i've

I actually first kind of wandered through this on accident with folks coming out of AA, which is we thought this whole thing would, quote unquote, feel a certain way when we got sober. And what we realized is we had to feel everything.

And that wasn't what we thought it was going to be going through. We knew we were feeling terrible all the time drinking and we were making bad decisions and yada, yada, yada. But we thought it was going to quote unquote feel better on the back end. And it does for a while, right? When you get sober and the light comes on and it feels great and amazing, but then reality starts to hit, right? So I'm watching you do it and I'm not pretty. I'm amazed. I'm impressed. But underneath the alcohol and underneath whatever numbing agents you have, underneath all the debt and underneath all the schooling, all that stuff,

You don't like you. Why? What happened? I've been trying to figure that out. I mean, I've done a lot of time in therapy throughout the years and I've always dealt with major depressive disorder to some degree. And as far back as being really, really young, I can remember struggling with it.

But for like a key indicator or a key kind of moment, I don't know where it is, but it's somewhere in there and I cannot find it. So I've been really, really, really trying to hammer on that and figure out what the answer to that question is. And I think that's part of what bogs me down is that it almost seems like there's this massive weight of trying to manage the unknown. So stop. So stop.

Your whole tenor changed talking about that. So I tell people this all the time. When they're dealing with trauma and they know it's there and they know they've wrestled with it and they can't put their finger on it and they can't stop because you end up getting stuck. I love the words. It's a rat's nest, right? I keep having in my mind, I don't know if you're a fisherman, but you throw out like an open-faced reel and you don't put your thumb down all the way and it just turns into a big bird's nest. It's a mess. And at some point, you got to cut the line and pull new fresh line out.

Like, I don't know how to untangle that. I'm going to move past it. Because here's the deal, Eric, what's your other option? Just to sit in it, right? Exactly. Which isn't great. Exactly. And so I would love, do you, so we often think of when we go in the past and I care less and less as I'm getting older and sitting with more people, I care less and less about the things that happened. They're important.

But I know enough about the literature on memory that our memories aren't great, right? I'm more curious about somebody who may have told you you're not enough or you're not worth something because somewhere that story got planted in you. Maybe it was just you just were shot out of a cannon and people in your family struggle with depression. You struggle with depression.

and you just kind of laid low for a while, and alcohol made that go away. But do you know somebody who may have planned, or people, or ideas, or did you grow up in the home of also somebody who struggled with addiction who planted that idea in your head that you just kind of suck? Because that seems to be the, that's the ticker tape underneath the movie that's your life, right? Yeah, that's a really good point, because, you know, I've had some death in my family over the last couple years, and...

Someone in my family who passed who I wasn't super close to, he was a 40-year alcoholic and pretty aggressive cancer on top of his body, just giving out on him, took him. And yeah, there are those underlying tones of, yeah, just that not being good enough from when I was really, really young.

And I think that that's always kind of resonated with me. And yeah, when I had that death in the family, maybe a year and a half ago, fellow alcoholic, that hit me really hard because it was like, that could have happened to me. But at the same time, I was, you know, grieving loss of a family member and it's just always been the strange gray area. So it's both and right. And that's, that, that to me is one of the beautiful things about AA is that it's the both and right.

Like alcohol worked for a while. Probably kept you alive. What did it keep you safe from? Probably me. Yeah. Yeah. Just feeling like, uh, feeling like what? I don't want to take that from you. Feeling like what? It was a weird place. It was like, you didn't want to live, but you didn't want to die. Sure. Just want to stop hurting. Yeah. And if you grow up a little kid surrounded by people struggling with addiction, you're wondering every minute of every day, what am I doing wrong? Cause I see them right here and they're not there in front of me.

And if you grow up in the home of parents who are dealing with loved ones who are struggling with addiction, they're busy doing other things. And your little kid, it's like growing up with a parent who's stuck on their iPhone all the time. Your little kid wondering, what's wrong with me? Why is uncle whoever so much more important than me? And when you're seven or six or three or nine or 14, you don't, the world kind of does revolve around you, right? And, but then you grow up to be 19 and you start to,

tell new stories, which is, oh, they didn't want to be around me because something's wrong with me. And that's a weight that nobody can bear. Nobody can carry that. And alcohol makes that hurt go away for a bit. It kills you, right? Yeah. What was your moment? Oh, gosh. I mean, I'll never forget it. I was drinking 12 to 15 shots a day. And I remember I was hammered at four in the morning and

Couldn't sleep and I was sweating my brains out and just so upset with myself that I had gotten to the place I had and I had had, you know, a lot of close calls and a couple of suicide attempts in there. And I was asking myself, you know, what's it going to be? And I went and I just looked in the mirror because I was going to just go parade myself in the mirror and I made eye contact with myself and I

Just gave myself the most objective, compassionate look I had probably ever given myself. And I just lost it. And I was like, you know what? This is it. Like, if I die trying, I die trying. Getting out of it. It's like, I'm done. And yeah, that was February 10th, 2020. Haven't had a drink since. Little did you know the world was going to set on fire. Yeah. Nice time to stop, dude. I know. I had to make a joke there because I got choked up.

The idea of you standing in front of a mirror and finally seeing yourself for who you are, not for who your mom said you were, who your dad didn't say you were, who your uncles didn't say you were, your teachers that wrote you off, the kids that made fun of you. You finally saw you for you. Yeah, it was definitely unexpected. Yeah. And I need you to hear me. That's how the rest of us see too, man.

So the challenge for you is, number one, is you have to continue staying plugged in. You've got a lifelong history of depression, a lifelong history of suicidal ideation. You have to stay plugged in with somebody, okay, professionally. Okay. And I know you don't want to, but thank God we live in this tiny little sliver of history. And it's not going to be forever, but when you're running low, I want you to have a touch point, okay? I do. I have that, and I do this for a living.

And I'm just super grateful that I have that person that I can reach out to and that will see me in a pretty short notice. And I can have somebody to do life with. And the other side of it is, I want you to stop. It's going to sound crazy. I want you to stop feeling so much. And I want you to start doing. And I want you to keep track of the things you're doing towards the goals. And here's what I hope happens over time. I want you to set up a series of goals like you have. And normally I don't say start with goals, but I think that's important here because your identity is kind of shot.

I want you to begin to say like I'm gonna go this week and I'm gonna write down five positive things about me five things I love about Eric that Eric's doing good in the world and you've probably heard me say this but this this therapist that I talked to she challenged me to put my fist in my chest and look in the mirror and say the words I love this guy ten times a day and I couldn't do it at first it was embarrassing I couldn't do it as a grown man I couldn't do it I felt dumb

So I had to get to that place where like that moment you had in the mirror, I just had to be compassionate with this guy. I'm not a bad guy. Right. And I want you to make tiny, tiny, tiny, you're on, you're on, for those of you who don't know what baby steps are, it's following the, the Ramsey solutions, um, get out of debt plan, which is amazing. And you'll find a lot of freedom on the back end of this. I promise you. Um, but you got a big mountain to climb. How much have you paid off so far?

Um, about 16,000 that I've paid off here in the last year or so. That's amazing. What do you, what's your annual salary? Um, it's just under 70 right now. Okay. What do you do for a living? Uh, working in the transportation industry. Okay. Do you like it?

Yeah, it's fast-paced and it's rewarding and it's fun to see folks come up to the state and get the Alaska experience for a summer and all that. That's really rewarding to me. Okay. Do you have ways that you can earn money on the side for a year? In the off-season, I can. In the winter months, I can find the side gig, yeah. Okay. I want to challenge you to see if you hit the gas, even when you wake up in the morning and you feel low or you feel like...

that's going to be your signal from the guy on the podcast to pick up that stupid journal you have by your bed and write five things that eric is doing good in the world and if you say i don't have five things i want you to hear my voice and say you're lying yes you are and you can put five things a day five things i'm grateful for five things i'm doing in the world i'm moving forward i'm moving from um

And then I want you to have some little wins, man. I want you to make a weekly tally on how much you're paying off on this stuff. Sometimes when you owe 118 grand and it's all in student loans, it just feels like you're chipping away at an iceberg, right? And you got to break it up into smaller chunks. You can have those little victories along the way. I, this is going to sound cheesy. I put it in my bedroom. I was married with a kid when we started doing this. And I had six figures of student loans myself. I made one of those little construction paper chains.

that little kids make when they're going on a ski trip. And I tore one off every time I made a payment. And I hung it in my bedroom. It was the least romantic thing you could possibly hang in your bedroom. But I hung it up in there because I had to see it every day. And both as a motivator and both as I saw that thing over time just get shorter and shorter and shorter. It was amazing. Let me ask you this. Do you have any one thing that's weighing on your soul that you did during your drinking years?

That you can't let go of? I mean, it's more oriented to what I did to myself. I mean, there is a phase of self-harm in there on top of those suicide attempts and that period of time. Cutting, jumping, hitting, what was it? Burning. Burning, okay. Yeah, so it's strange now how...

I can go, you know, two weeks, three weeks without even thinking about it. And then other times it just smashes me like a ton of bricks. Yeah. And when that smashes you, what does it smash you with? Embarrassment? Just like sadness. Like how? Like why? Who was I? Yeah. It's the sadness of it. That's the hardest part. Can I give you one more cheesy thing to do? Yeah.

When you get smashed in your own words, by the way, I want you to stop calling it smashed. It's just those ghosts show up, man. I want you to, it's going to sound so lame, dude. Do this by yourself. Don't do it not in public. But I want you to embrace yourself. I want you to put one hand on one tricep and one hand on the other, like you're kind of hugging yourself. And I want you just to exhale, man. Say, that kid was going through hell. And thank God we're here now. Look how strong I am now. If you indulge that wave when it hits you,

What was that guy doing? Oh my gosh. I can't believe I did this. I got, I got six figures in debt. I got this. I did, man, your body has a map for that and it dumps all the chemicals into your body and it takes you underwater. Doesn't it? Yeah. I know the feeling it's almost daily. Yeah. Yeah. You have to choose. I'm not going to go underwater today. And that just means you got to do something different when that wave hits you. When the wave hits you,

I'm going to stand as tall as I can and I'm going to hug my arms and say, man, that kid was going through hell and I love that guy. Look how strong I am now. And just sit there for a second. Don't run away from it. Your body's trying to get your attention and the more that wave hits you and you duck underwater, it's getting what it wants, which is you to put your head down so you don't get hurt again.

And the way you teach your body that it's stronger than it knows itself to be is you stand tall during those moments. Even when it feels like you're going to get knocked over. But, man, I would love for you to spend 30 minutes with yourself this evening in the journal. Go to the store today and buy one, man. And I know you're not supposed to buy anything when you're broke, but buy a journal, man. And I would love for you just to take inventory the last four years of the amazing things you've overcome. You haven't had a drink in four years.

My guess is you've probably started taking care of your body a little bit better over four years. My guess is you probably treat your loved ones a little bit better or your friends a little bit better over four years. You graduated college. You got a stable job. You bring joy to countless people coming to Alaska to see something that they never get to see in their day-to-day life. You're probably extra compassionate to folks who come out there, right? On and on and on. I want you to write those things down. And I want you to make today almost like you're

So, Bride of the Day, you remember that day. February 2020, you remember that day. I want you to have another marker today of the day that you decided to start loving and honoring and looking forward to the future with Eric. You can't untangle all that rashness. And what you'll find is as you begin to move into the future,

things will pop up man that so-and-so said this or you experienced that those things will pop up that you're gonna go talk to your therapist about and i know you're probably sick of therapy find somebody that you care about somebody you love somebody you trust um or get a group of trusted friends whatever i would suggest you you stick with a professional for the time being but especially if you're still feeling those daily waves of that depressive just ocean just hitting you um i know you're sick of it but keep going man you owe it to future eric

And I want to promise you in four years from now, if you keep taking those tiny steps forward and learn to honor yourself, not stew and based in that, what happened, what happened? I can't believe, oh my gosh, I can't believe. Look how far I've come. Look how strong this guy is. And look at the impact he's making in the world. He's bringing joy to so many people on a daily basis. The last thing I'm going to tell you is brother, I know it's harder. You got to find a group of friends to do life with.

And I know that might be ridiculous. You can roll your eyes, but you got to find a group of guys that you can just hang with that won't identify you as, oh yeah, that's the guy in AA or that's the guy that works in transportation. It's just my friend here. Whatever it takes to make that happen. Okay. Whatever it takes. Maybe it's a couple of guys from AA that y'all start having dinner together and lunch together and whatever. Make them a regular part of your life. I need you to hear me say this. I see a guy who's changed everything. It's been a slow turn. It's been four years, a bunch of tiny little steps, and you're still taking these tiny steps.

You've gone miles over the last four years. I'm really proud of you. Don't stop. Just keep moving. We'll be right back. What's up, friends? Dr. John Deloney here. Tickets are selling like madhouse for the money in marriage getaway happening over Valentine's Day weekend in 2025.

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By the time you go home, you'll walk away with new tools to not just talk about, but to actually utilize. You're going to learn how to communicate. You're going to strengthen your sex and intimacy, and you're going to deepen your connection with each other. Plus, you're going to take part in a bunch of Q&A sessions with me and Rachel Cruz, where we will give you real-life answers to your tough questions.

There are a few VIP tickets left up for grabs that include a meet and greet with me and Rachel Cruz. And we are so jazzed to meet you all in person. There's not many tickets left, so don't wait. Please don't wait. Please come. Go to RamseySolutions.com slash getaway to get your tickets. That's RamseySolutions.com slash getaway. Hey, we're back. So...

A lot of people reach out to me after hearing the advertisements on the show and ask about counseling and ask about is BetterHelp really as good as I'm always ranting and raving they are. Do they really show up? Do they really give you a licensed therapist all the time? Yada, yada, yada. The answer is yes. I have people from all over the country reaching out saying thank you so much.

I walk outside from my job and I can talk to my licensed counselor in my car. Or when my kid's finally taking a nap and I feel like I'm losing my mind, I can meet with my therapist from my laptop in my living room. And I don't have to get a babysitter. It's such a gift. And I talk about it a lot and you'll hear me in all the commercial breaks talking about better help, better help, better help. I thought it'd be awesome to...

Let you listen to some real voices, some real people that I didn't curate, some real people who have experienced BetterHelp, and they're going to talk about their experience. It's worth a listen. Check it out.

The past two years has been a lot for everyone across the globe, and it's been a lot for me personally. So I decided to use BetterHelp for therapy because I was entering a new season of my life. I have been on BetterHelp for about two weeks now. I've experienced job loss, moving across the country when I was nine months pregnant, becoming a first-time parent to my beautiful daughter.

learning how to make new friends in the midst of the isolation of the pandemic, and losing my cousin due to mental illness. New relationship, we were talking about our future together, new promotion at work, a bunch of new stress in my life, both good and bad, that I was working through and trying to make sure that I'm using every tool in the toolbox that I possibly could. It was a lot, and so I decided to take up Dr. John Deloney's recommendation to use BetterHelp

using his promo code. And I was matched with counselors who were able to talk me through my feelings and what had recently happened. My therapist and I, we communicate many different ways. We have a chat session that we can go back and forth. If I have a story that is going to be a little too long for texting, I can record myself and send it to her as an audio file.

And we also have live sessions. It was a great experience. My therapist that I was matched with, she helped me identify how different traumas and experiences in my life were affecting the way I react to things now.

She helped me with strategies on how to approach situations at work better, how not to take work home with me, how to approach conversations with my partner better. I've had a really great experience with her. We have communicated on all these different topics such as parenthood, marriage,

even just some conversations regarding boundaries with my family that I grew up with. We talked about my marriage, my mental health, setting healthier boundaries, how I can make new friends, what I should say yes and no to. It was a great experience. You know, as somebody who's dealt with anxiety his entire life, it was by far the best counseling experience I've ever had. I can't recommend it enough. And

especially as you enter different seasons of your life. I think it's a great opportunity to make sure you're using all the tools you possibly can. I highly encourage everyone to check it out. I think it's been very enriching for myself and I think it could be for you all too. I would recommend it to all of my family and friends to give it a try and I'd highly recommend it to you.