How do you define what a sex addiction is

In this episode, Tyler and Brannon talks about the complexities of sex addiction, emphasizing that it goes beyond mere sexual behavior to encompass compulsive patterns that negatively impact an individual’s life. The discussion highlights the emotional and psychological aspects of the addiction, including feelings of shame and isolation that often accompany it.

Transcript (Tap to Toggle)
Introduction
how do you define what a sex addiction is brandon what’s going on man not much
uh had a couple things I was going to ask you about i You always ask these random questions man i’m a little scared
every time you ask now no this one is just I I don’t know if it’s a question
as much as it’s more just a I I need to make a comment okay um so I made
biscuits and gravy yesterday it was like a rainy Sunday morning you know just
like the the sausage sizzling and biscuits and gra it was like you know my
my son woke up and he he’s like “Whoa I woke up to
heaven.” And uh but it made me think of your wife’s biscuits and
gravy you know I just I I I have no words
god she does make some really good biscuits and gravy she takes pride in
that she like puts so she’s from Georgia she puts like southern love into her
Misconceptions
biscuit i can’t do it like I was eating mine and I was like “These are good i love this.” Oh man we had uh It’s funny
we had uh with somebody else we had some friends over one time and she gave them like southern food you know made biscuits and gravy and a whole bunch of
other southern food and they had little kids and they went the very next morning
this little kid he’s like a six-year-old little kid wakes up and he’s saying his morning prayers with his parents and
he’s like “Thank you for letting me dream of Riann’s
biscuits.” That sounds kind of funny i know i know i got a big laugh
out of that one i love it hey went the little kid went to bed dreaming of my wife’s biscuits
he’s not the only one he’s not the only one it might be
weird to say about your sister-in-law but I dream about her biscuits like from
scratch you know it’s just I can’t you know she does she does a really good job on those so Well good man that’s that’s
a great thing to have on a Sunday morning yeah you know just I was thinking about it and I thought I’d you know tell you how awesome her biscuits
and gravy are so yeah thanks man um should we get into the topic yeah
Signs & Symptoms
okay um we have a couple of good questions right yeah we’re actually going to we’re going to hit the question that we just put on the title and then
we’ll also throw in a bonus question today we got two people that submitted questions this week um that we thought
we could hit today so uh do you want me to just read the question first Brandon on this one yeah let’s just take one at
a time okay so um this one says “I love your podcast
and listen religiously i’m curious how is porn addiction identified and for a
lack or of a better word diagnosed my husband whom I recently separated from watches up to two hours of porn a day
and has had meaningless sexual encounters with strangers for the past four years he recently began therapy and
the therapist told him that he was not a sex addict i was hopeful you could address what constitutes a sex addict on
your podcast sometime thank you so much um maybe his therapist is a sex addict
maybe i’m just kidding i’m just kidding but seriously like two hours a day
acting out with meaningless sex with strangers uh I don’t I’d have to do a
bit more of an assessment but uh yeah there’s a there’s a enough there
to really start to go down the road of sex addiction yeah I think there’s a
couple of couple thoughts that kind of come up with this that might be a little broader than the question but we can get
Emotional Impact
into the question as well um in our world Brandon I I run into this a lot i
think you probably do too uh it seems that there’s some kind of a stigma
around whether or not you label yourself as an addict or having an addiction
right um people people really seem to feel strongly one way or the other about
um about whether or not I have a quote addiction well that Tyler there’s a
reason right i think so it’s in the culture of recovery it’s I mean 12step bakes that
in pretty heavily um to you know that that’s like step one um and so like they
kind of beat that drum of like and they try to remove the shame from it of I’m an addict but it’s okay to call yourself
an addict what’s wrong with that right right um but the the whole premise behind step one is call a call a spade a
spade be honest with yourself about what it is um and so I think there’s there’s
this like thing where it’s like if you have an addiction and you don’t call yourself an addict then you’re in denial
that you have an addiction yeah or you’re downplaying and that’s the sense I’m getting from this question it’s like
it’s it doesn’t really matter if we’re calling it an addiction or not it’s that it feels like the partner here is
downplaying the behavior in order to not take ownership for the fact that there’s
maybe a significant problem here if if he has compulsive behavior that’s
driving him to do this and he’s powerless and his life is unmanageable
Compulsion
let’s say if he has that or if he doesn’t have that and he’s acting out with porn two hours a day and sleeping
with strangers he’s still acting out with porn two hours a day and sleeping with strangers that’s an issue that’s a
problem in a healthy relationship that’s an issue right now right I think it is
important to distinguish like am I am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am am I actually dealing with this mental illness am I dealing with addiction here
or am I just choosing to go be a jack A and do this right right um maybe there’s
a better way to say that but you understand what I’m saying right
i I think I understand what you’re saying so yeah it’s important to call a
spade a spade it’s important I think to really get down to what it is but the
consequences of behavior are still there whether you call it X or Y i think where
you were getting to Brandon and this is the important part for most people is is that there’s kind of a if let’s let’s
just define addiction first an addiction there lots of different forms of the definition of addiction but the one that
we tend to to lean to is where you go to the use of a substance or a behavior to
increase pleasure or decrease pain and you do so even when it’s to your own
Healthy vs. Unhealthy
detriment and you continue to keep doing it and your life maybe has become unmanageable in some way that was a lot
like Yeah like break break that down a little bit like you guys can pick any second grade level us okay pick any any
behavior i do this thing even though it’s not good for me
and it’s causing problems in my life but I still keep going back to it
okay so let me throw some scenarios examples out there and see if this fits
um I watch TV really late every night and
it makes my sleep suffer and I have fatigue every day but I watch TV every
night anyways and I can’t stop mhm that’s an addiction okay
um I uh I’m on the brink of diabetes and I
you know if a if a donut comes my way I can’t say
no that’s an addiction what if I just want a
donut well you can have the donut it’s the fact that you can’t say no and you’re on the brink of diabetes that
Expert Insights
makes the makes it more unmanageable right i I have cerosis and my eyes are
yellow literally and my belly is full of fluids and the doctor says if I drink
another beer that I could definitely die and I drink another beer that’s an
addiction that’s a simple one what about What about maybe some more nuanced ones that our listeners aren’t going to like
hearing i just check I just checked my digital well-being on my phone and I realized that I’m averaging seven hours
a day on screen time on my phone and most of that is in social
media is that yet is that yet an addiction i don’t know yet let let me let me just push back just a little bit
if my job is marketing on online and on social media and after seven hours if I
turn it off and I’m mindful with my kids and I hang out with them and um I don’t I don’t feel this urge to go back and I
can actually stop it’s not an addiction that’s right right what if what if you add to that that your kids and wife are
complaining that you’re never available and you’re always checked out right so so that’s like me not being able to turn
it off right where it’s like hey they’re trying like I no one can connect with me
because I just got to see how many likes I got um we’re starting to see some
compulsion we’re starting to see some unmanageability you know as a result so
Personal Stories
yeah i I think we got to be careful to demonize uh screen time and stuff
automatically because it’s the the world we live in i mean here we are on a screen looking at each other right now
Tyler we’re going to spend the next few hours you know on on a screen but we’re
doing important work and so but your point is and the point that we’re making
is whatever it is the thing that you do if you don’t want to do it but you do it
anyways and there’s negative consequences to your life for doing it
you need to take a look at that right right so that would be that
would be in the realm of an addiction right when we call it an addiction now people don’t like to call it addictions
because it’s like I’m labeling somebody and whatever else when in reality what we’re getting to with this definition is
I need to be intuitive enough in myself to start paying attention and realizing
here’s the three things that you really look for for someone to take ownership and why they would call it an addiction
i have a problem this is a serious problem and I’m responsible to do something about it um and so like in in
this person who submitted the question maybe he’s sitting at home going two hours a day this is just my
hobby and then I just like casual sex and so that’s really not a problem for
him until he’s in a relationship that’s supposed to have
fidelity and now he’s got a partner who’s feeling betrayed and misgu misled
and of course he’s been hiding which also means there’s something else going on there for him otherwise he would just
be you know authentic with who he is um so he probably needs to come to a place
of saying “I got a problem.” And it’s a serious problem i.e addiction um I mean he doesn’t need to
but if he doesn’t do that then the addiction will continue to it’s going to continue to go
to go forward exactly whether he calls it one or not right if it’s an addiction
it will that that’s another marker of addiction is the tolerance and the like
Treatment Options
it it doesn’t just stop it’s not like oh yeah I’m done with that no no it just it
keeps building and keeps growing and sometimes really slow over time sometimes rapidly
yeah there’s a there’s a pretty simple easy test you Dr dr anna LMK talks about this who is the author of Dopamine
Nation talks about kind of gauging whether or not you have an addiction take whatever the behavior it is that
you’re in question about and remove it from your life for an extended period of time and then pay attention to what your
responses are in your body and your brain and whether or not you want to go back to it and how strongly you want to go back to it so if you have an
addiction you’re going to kind of have pieces of withdrawal where you’re going to have that craving those urges you
might even get physiological symptoms you know tremors shakes um tightness in
the chest irritability um when you remove those things for a period of time and then after a period
of time they’ll they’ll start to slowly decrease um that’s an indicator of how
deeply attached you are to whatever it is that you’re trying to be be in question over right yep um and it’s a
simple test and most people most people who have an addiction when you suggest that they say they can do it but then
they won’t do it yeah well um so I I think we overthink it Tyler
like I really I really do of of course we have temptations we have desires we have those type of things but you know
Support Systems
just take whatever those things are whatever gives you the dopamine hit and if it becomes a compulsion that you
can’t control you’re probably dealing with some type of an addiction and most people have some addictions that’s a
reality in the in the world that we’re living in right now um I mean I don’t know the percentage on this but how many
people do you think are addicted to sugar Tyler
that might be the biggest addiction in in our country absolutely right
um I know I fall in that camp for sure like what you just said if I were to
remove that I would get physical symptoms um and
emotional symptoms as well of like oh my gosh how do I get through this week without my sugar right um now a lot of
people don’t admit that and they just kind of stay in the these addictions for a long time one one of the problems with
certain addictions and I think porn’s an interesting one because it kind of falls
into both um if you take like meth um
you start using meth it pretty quickly usually pushes you to some limits that
Conclusion
are insane you’re staying up like three nights in a row you know you’re like
it’s just nuts um something like sugar or social
media or even sex or porn can the the the the ones that kind of tend
to play off of natural human behavior like sex or
eating there there can be a slow burn in in the addiction and it can cause issues
over time where you dabble here you dabble there um the tolerance builds
slowly and it’s slowly killing you but it doesn’t seem like it’s it’s
causing massive problems so it’s easy to justify a little here and a little there because the blatant consequence the rock
bottom isn’t in my face um you know I’m not that alcoholic with
Resources
cerosis you you know it it’s not so obvious and so then it can over time so
like you know we we talk about 2 hours of porn a day like I I don’t know every everyone’s different with their
sexuality and those type of things but to me that sounds excessive like that
sounds kind of crazy like 2 hours a day that’s a lot of porn yeah
um you know and but but like to him he might be looking at this and like well
you know I it used to be three and a half hours and now I’m you know 2 hours here 2 hours there it’s not a big deal
you know like you can downplay it and then over time it can take your marriage
from you it can take so much from you self-respect
everything else yep so yes I I it it’s
problematic can I speak to another another point to this question before we move on sure if you are in denial about
um reality then you will attract people and things into your
life that will support you in that denial right Tyler yeah exactly you
build your own little world around it yeah i’m not going to go find I’m not going to go talk to friends about an
issue that I don’t want to face i’m not going to like go find a therapist who’s
going to actually confront me on my denial around my addiction i’m going to go find a therapist who’s actually going
Q&A
to talk to me about how crazy my wife is and tell me that I’m not an addict yeah
how can So nice like they’re there for me and they’re helping me right
and so like I think we all got to stop and check ourselves a little bit of like
okay why do I why do I get that help why do I attract that into my life why does
that be is it because of your denial or is it because you’re actually trying to get better i think that’s the key
question too is that it really boils down to the individual asking a curious honest question of am I doing this to
make me a better person or am I doing this to stay stuck in a pattern exactly
and and and honestly Tyler like that this is one question that we we don’t know all the ins and outs
and who knows what’s actually going on here so before I totally throw this therapist under the bus like maybe
they’re getting a totally different story yeah maybe they’re hearing something completely different um I
don’t know yeah i I would also just maybe add to this before we go to the
next question Brandon you can hear the frustration in the question there’s two things I want to
Final Thoughts
just bring up one one is how do you diagnose a sex addiction and in our world it’s actually kind of difficult to
do that because I can already hear certain people saying well it’s not even in the DSM you can’t even diagnose a sex
addiction um it doesn’t even have a billable code that’s so dumb and uh well
I Yeah that could send me on a soap box let’s not do that i know and I And I want to I want to get on the soap box
for just one second about that for people because I can hear you might pull me up there okay well so so just just so
we want to understand what happened with that in the last in the last edition of the DSM which is the diagnostic manual
for mental health it was actually up for being let put into the into the manual
and it was left off with food addictions um but it it included all
sorts of other addictions and the reason it was left off is because the pornography industry
has a massive lobbying you know arm and they know that if it gets put into the DSM and there’s
now a diagnosible problem with it that means there’s going to be significant
lawsuits class action to think about tobacco and what happened with tobacco and so they’re doing everything
they can to keep that out of there so um we can round up we can round up a 100
people in the next hour Brandon that would come forth and say hey this is addiction right and just because the
world does says it doesn’t fit in the manual doesn’t mean it’s not there it means there’s other forces behind the scenes that are at work there and you
should think twice before you use that as an argument yeah also Tyler like
there’s the other side of it of insurance doesn’t want it to be a diagnosible thing because what do you
know like all of a sudden they’re paying out this epidemic they’re paying out for and they don’t want that to go in the
DSM so there’s all this all these politics and all this like whatever going on with that and it
yeah the the thing about it is Tyler there there’s two competing arguments of like sex addiction or not and the the
ones that say sex addiction isn’t a real thing are the I I actually think both
extremes can’t hold a dialectic they can’t the one who say sex addiction is not a thing are the ones
that are like hey your individual sexuality is is yours and you get to explore that and that’s all it is so
just like but like when we look at the definition of addiction compulsive behavior over time
that that builds tolerance up so you have to push new limits and your life becomes unmanageable
sex absolutely fits within that absolutely so we can be sex positive and still
believe in sex addiction at the same time both those things can happen that’s right
um and so yeah the DSM like there’s too much there to even get into it’s just a
bunch of crap is is was I’ll be honest with you like it just like whatever i
don’t care what the DSM says on that like I don’t um and like keep playing
your politics whatever you’re doing with that um and like food addiction same
thing right um think think of the lobbying behind that one
you just look at what’s happening right now with everything going on with the new movements in you know politics right
now so lot a lot of wrangling there yeah anyways anyway so the second part to
this back to the original question then we’ll go to this next question is is the the person the wife who just submitted this submitted this question you can
hear the frustration um you don’t need for him to say he’s
got an addiction to still move forward with making your own choices and keeping
your own boundaries and treating it as you see it and as you feel it oh you just said something really important
what well I mean the way like the question is asked like what about him
and shouldn’t he own this and all of this stuff and you just did something that is uh uh like because you’re an
awesome therapist who cares about people getting better but also not fun to hear
is it doesn’t matter if he claims it as an addiction or not your recovery is
yours and you get to move forward if he Yeah i mean what it what it does do is it gives you data that you get to make
decisions off of and so if you’re if you’re watching a partner that’s looking at porn twice a
day and having casual sex with people and unwilling to take accountability for it you don’t need to wait to hear him
say “I’m an addict to go ah this probably isn’t going to fly for me.” In
fact even more so Tyler it’s like not only is he struggling with an addiction he’s also in denial about struggling
with an addiction which means that you better amp up your recovery and do what
you need to do for you because you’re not only in a in a marriage or relationship with somebody with an
addiction you’re in a relationship with someone with an addiction who’s in denial about it right so so instead of
sitting back and being like “Well if only he would own it and work his recovery then like we’d get better
that’s not going to like that even if he owns it and works his recovery.” You still have to work your recovery so
either way working your recovery is your best option yeah well it sounds like in the
question I think she said she’s now separated and so it sounds like she she’s probably working her recovery she’s probably working some recovery and
it’s probably a great question because it would be nice she’s I think what she’s hoping for is some kind of validation of like okay like I’m reading
this properly but also she’s maybe hoping that her husband would somehow hear the same thing and maybe have see
the light so um yeah I got to I got to say I’m not saying that this person that
asked this question is not working her recovery i’m just making a point from that question
right all right bonus question today brandon oh I can’t wait it’s It’s not
about biscuits and gravy is it it’s No dang it my food addiction’s coming out
like but my my husband disclosed to me his
quote addiction with pornography for the last 15 years we will be married 15 years in July my world came crashing
down he has been porn free no urges temptations etc for 30 plus days he
asked for forgiveness asked Jesus into his heart and has truly changed i can see it and he has given me access to
everything he is doing everything right my trouble is with me i cannot get
images locations and things he has said out of my head after his disclosure we
have become more connected to each other and more intimate than ever before how can I move on
mentally um oh I have a lot to say here
um what what’s coming up for me is
um I I I’ve seen this so many times that where there’s a honeymoon period once
disclosure happens um it’s like wow I feel closer now to you um we have more
sex we have more intimacy we’re connected more because you opened up about something
um also we talk about the hugging uh way in the fear cycle um you know I I want
to feel closer to you because it makes me feel safe right um you’ve been
married 15 years he had an addiction to porn for 15 years he had an addiction to
porn longer than 15 years i would say most like it probably started long
before the marriage um disclosure to you does not create
recovery just because the cat got out of the bag doesn’t mean that the issue
isn’t still there and I hate to I hate to break that to you i don’t like I hate
to be a bearer of bad news i wish Jesus could come in and take away the addiction from everybody and I I’ve seen
it happen where in the first few weeks the you know the person struggling with addiction is like I’m motivated i feel
good i feel out of my shame this is so great like I know Jesus is there
like that’s wonderful but there’s still a process of healing that must take
place and in in order for real long-term recovery to set in and he can he can
probably get some sobriety for a little while here because of the disclosure
um but is he actually in recovery right so that’s what comes up for me first
Tyler when I hear that question yeah which you didn’t even speak to her original question with all of that so
Well yeah yeah but but I I thought some of the same things in reading the
question and and maybe I would just add to what you’re saying before we get to the actual question is this number
one hallelujah that he is approaching this with humility hallelujah that he’s
experiencing this change of heart like nice that he’s willing to go to work and
that you’re feeling safer with him because his energy is different and you feel that there’s a sincerity there
that’s awesome and that’s the stuff that you will lean into what I would say is is that for
most people sometimes it’s true like somebody just kind of has this like moment and it’s like a bam it just
changes them but even in those things then the lives that they go and build afterwards also constant also kind of
show that that change of heart is there right so so you watch for that change of heart to continually be there and I
would just say plan on it being a little bit of a roller coaster if you’re like most people thank goodness there’s the
humility there’s the accountability there’s the work there’s the lack of urges on his part that may or may not
stay i would suspect that that’s going to change over time and there will be some harder days than other days with
feelings and urges and triggers because that’s a human thing that most people deal with um but if that’s met with
openness with work with transparency then you’re fine you’re on the right path and good for you that’s great
please take it a day at a time uh people people like to think of it as a black or
white all or nothing like we weren’t in recovery and then lightning struck and now we’re in recovery and we’re all
better and most people it’s more of like man I was in the darkness of my denial
and addiction and now I’m pulling out of that and I’m realizing there could be this world of recovery and today I’m
mostly in recovery and tomorrow I’m mostly in recovery and every day after I’m mostly in recovery and there might
be a few struggles and blips along the way but I’m committed to figuring this out and that processor orientation is
going to work better for most people so um even if the miracle happened embrace
it as a process rather than as an all or nothing yeah I I agree Tyler that’s it
the not approaching her actual question um I think I think we her actual
question is a great question but I think both of us are picking up on go
everything’s better now why can’t I just let go of this and then we could totally be better right and and the reality is
is you’re like you’re starting the
process you’re not completing the process and but starting the process is
good that’s you’re in a good place yes for sure right i think about like when I
get out of a cold plunge and how do you feel right when you get out kind of have
that like almost high you feel euphoria right it’s like you get out you do something hard you feel I for me Tyler I
feel really good for about 5 minutes and then I the shivers start and then I’m
like my bones are cold right and I have to go through this full process of figuring out how to warm my body up as a
result of doing that hard thing so even though I felt that euphoria it wasn’t it
was kind of short-lived and then it was like “Hey now I got to do something to actually
um really shift this.” Uh it’s the same principle right yeah yeah um and uh Yeah
i hate to I hate to be the bearer of bad news i’m not This isn’t bad news it’s not bad news no it’s not but I think I
think what we’re both keying in on here is is that we’ve seen too many people go through this where it’s like the miracle
has happened 30 days in we’re in absolute recovery and seen it so many times boom the shoe drops and they’re
like what the heck like Jesus let him down or whatever and it’s like well maybe or or maybe this was a part of the
process and we should be grateful for that part and we’ll embrace the next part that comes and um and I think the
reason why you and I both keyed in lat Brown is that we actually don’t want her Yeah to get to get burned here um what
she’s what she’s experiencing is probably within the realm of normal to have those kinds of thoughts and
feelings and images still come up and if she tries to hurry and smack them down and be like “I shouldn’t feel this way he’s already in recovery.” There’s maybe
a different way of approaching those things right that’s going to be more effective for her and probably for their
marriage too right um Yep there’s a there’s an undertone to this question
Tyler of sobriety being the answer so and also disclosure so like I disclosed
and now I’ve I’m 30 days sober everything’s better but this dude for 15
years in a marriage and probably long before that he’s a Christian man in a
committed relationship where you know acting out in this way is not okay he’s doing it in
secret imagine the depths of shame and self-rejection and feelings that he’s
had over 15 years right right it it doesn’t just take sobriety and disclosure to just pop that
out wing done no it takes a full process of understanding who he is um finding
some forgiveness for himself um knowing that he’s okay regardless um but it’s a
process so um now her question is actually still a
really good question because we we we deal with that a lot usually you know the first 30 days I would say right now
it’s normal for you to think about where he was and what he was doing and what he was looking at and that it’s normal for
you to ruminate there some in these early stages um but Tyler we hear a lot
like where partners fixate and That’s right they there’s anxiety they they
can’t let things go it lasts for a long long time right and so what would you
say to that right so this is what the original question was and and here’s one thought for that um you’re going to have
those things come up and the problem isn’t that they come up the problem is is then we get stuck on the
rumination of it and so what you can do is people will get stuck in the
rumination and then they catch themselves ruminating they’re like “Oh I’m bad i shouldn’t think about this i should hurry and get rid of this thought or I should let it go or I’m ruining my
marriage because he’s in recovery.” Like it’s like the other way the there’s another pathway that tends to work more
effectively over time and this is an exercise that you can do every time it comes up so you have a bubbling up of
emotions that comes from whatever the trigger is that goes through your mind the image that you see or the the place
that you go by or whatever else most people will start to avoid all of that and be afraid of it but what if you
actually when you went by that place and you drove by it and it all bubbled up inside of you instead you followed some
kind of a pattern like this where you went into your body first and said “What
is this trigger like in my body where do I actually feel it well there’s this thought rolling around in my head and
there’s this tightness in my cheeks and there’s this like churning in my chest and like a sickness to my stomach
okay what’s that emotion or set of emotions oh I’m feeling like fearful and
angry and unstable again okay yeah that’s exactly what I’m feeling and I’m
noticing that it’s attached to this trigger so now I I’ve given myself acknowledgement and credence to my
experience and then in that moment I can ask a question is it going to be effective for me to continue to think
about this and if the answer is yes keep thinking about it if the answer is no then you’re
going to practice surrender in some form it could be a physical action open your posture i don’t like this i can’t change
this i can accept this you can do the ride the wave skill of actually noticing your emotion and going back into your
body just watch your emotion pick you up and set you back down because if you don’t do anything that emotion will pass
through you that’s what emotions do um but now you can observe the actual emotion rather than stay stuck in the
rumination um so those are a couple of ways that you might just learn to practice dancing with your experience a
little differently rather than trying to hurry and get rid of it or kill it off the natural tendency is to turn to them
with your thoughts and your actions in order to try to deal with those triggers
so when when those triggers come it’s like well I I need to go ask them or where are they right now what’s going on
and notice what Tyler just said like everything that Tyler just talked about was turning within to yourself and
practicing some schools to reg or some schools some tools to regulate yourself
so that you can then get to a point of assessment with that trigger to say is
this something I need to address or is this something I need to surrender and if I need to surrender it then I want
more tools to learn how to surrender and if I need to address it then I want the tools to address it in a healthy way um
but this is me this is my work and so and Tyler just gave some great um tools
in order to do that yeah I do think it’s okay you know depending on how it gets approached too
like you know I might go do all of that work on my own and I still might approach my partner and say “Hey I had a
really rough day today when I drove by you know whatever the place.” Yeah um sure and and just say “I just want to
let you know I had a rough day and I’d love a hug if you if you’re in the right mood or I just want you to know that I
had a rough time.” That’s different than out of compulsion like “Hey I just drove by this place tell me this this this
this this this this this this.” Again like that’s probably not going to go very well for you guys um but it’s okay
to go and be vulnerable with your emotions especially if you’re starting to feel like you’re with a partner who wants to work recovery if you go in or
you’re vulnerable with your emotions and it’s not held very well that’s going to just be more work for you though too tyler do you remember the check-ins that
they used to do back in the day at night do you remember the like really unhealthy ones well see that’s the thing
in fact you just you just reminded me one of my groups asked me to talk about check-ins so I’ll have to do that this week now that you brought it up but yeah
there’s a there’s a healthy Maybe our next episode we talk about healthy checkins maybe we’re doing another
episode right after this maybe we’ll just do that as the episode brandon we we actually should do that
yeah let’s let’s let’s just jump we we’ll end this episode and jump onto the next one that we’re going to record right now and just do what’s a good
check in okay all right i like I like that we’ll we’ll scrap our other topic and go with that one
yeah i don’t think we have time for it today to give it adequate attention in this episode because we’re just at the end yeah so stay tuned this is a
two-part series and uh yeah next episode we’ll
talk about check-ins and um until next time keep on keeping on

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