Welcome to today’s session. My name is Gilles Brideau, and I am a psychotherapist, coach, and hypnotist that lives and works in Sudbury Ontario, Canada.
The topic of today is about addictions and more specifically, I watched a movie recently about the resurrection of Jake “The Snake” Roberts. Now for those of you who don’t know, Jake “The Snake” Roberts was a professional wrestler that was extremely popular in the late 80s, maybe early 90s. This video, or this movie sorry, that was presented on Netflix really demonstrated the rise and fall, more about the fall but how he became a superstar in the World Wrestling Federation. It’s now the World Wrestling Entertainment. In the WWF, even to the point when he was the main event, they had broken attendance records for an outdoor event, or an indoor event because it was at the Pontiac Silverdome in Michigan.
This professional wrestler athlete was at the highest level and then it just shows his decline especially into addictions, drugs, alcohol. A lot of that, especially around the drugs, was to alleviate a physical pain. In his story … Because I had seen stuff about him before on Beyond the Mat which is a documentary that was featuring Mick Foley, another wrestler in the 1990s. In this one, you could really see the decline of his body due to drinking. Kind of the big message around his recovery and how it really came full circle is the help of a fellow wrestler called Diamond Dallas Page. Now Diamond Dallas Page, or DDP, has been popularized recently because he’s come out with a yoga series of videos, in which he helps people of all walks of life transform their lives using his method of yoga.
One of the most popular ones on Facebook is an ex-war veteran who was on crutches and was pretty severely overweight, and how at the end of his journey with DDP was able to run without crutches, of course. This was really kind of the story on Jake and Dallas’s relationship and how Dallas really reached out to him to help him, so he actually brought him to his house in Atlanta and started his recovery journey. Now the most amazing thing about the video is the cunning and baffling ways that addictions can kind of take over a person’s life because when Jake is sober, he’s kind, he’s considerate, he’s grateful, he’s often emotional. Then the alter ego when addiction is present is he lies, he’s arrogant, he’s aggressive, just not really a nice person to be around and so he’s often filled with remorse.
One of the powerful things of the movie, too, is how his past really in his life dictated how he saw his perception of his today’s … In other words, he had a very detrimental relationship with his father, and his father was always putting him down. His feeling of not being good enough became the story of his life. He took that to the extreme, and then that propelled the drinking, and all that kind of stuff. One of the cool things that has happened throughout the video is that when he starts to transform, he realizes that there’s a lot of people who care about him, that he had touched many people. In fact, he had to get surgery for his shoulder. His shoulder was just shot and the surgery, because he didn’t have any insurance, was around $9,000. He was able to raise 7 out of the $9,000 in one night.
It was just very emotional for him that there was so many people actually cared, which kind of flew in the face of that old belief that, “I’m never and have never been good enough.” Now what’s interesting around that theme is that I’ve witnessed that with a lot of clients that that toxic shame, the feeling that I’m unlovable, that I’m flawed and defective in some way, is one of the root causes of addictions and the sustainability of addictive behavior long term. It’s really not until you start to address those issues that the addiction can really be overcome. Throughout the movie, he struggles back and forth with this story line of not being good enough which gives him a justifier to drink. Now about midway, one of their other wrestling cohort’s Scott Hall, who was known in the wrestling circles as Razor Ramon, also came to Atlanta. Diamond Dallas opened his house to 2 of his brothers to make changes in their lives.
The other thing that was really important is how the systems of support that you get when you’re struggling with an addictions issue is key. I always say to clients that there most important job is to replace me which is nobody important, just somebody to talk to. The metaphor I often use is I want you to imagine that addiction is like a full football team getting ready to psyche the quarterback and yes, you are the quarterback with the ball. I wonder how aggressive and how strong your offensive line needs to be to protect you. Sometimes people just count on their child who’s 4 or 5 years old to block the addiction which is coming 8, 10, 9, 11 fold getting ready to attack you. You can’t really put it on one person. The more people you have standing in line … I really want you to see that visualization that if you had 50 people, 100 people, 20 people standing in line blocking you from the addiction, the more chance you have to survive and not get sacked, more chances that you have to be successful.
This was really the key in this video. That was the foundation. It was through the systems of support with Jake, with his family, with the belief from Diamond Dallas that he could make changes in his life. That just propelled his recovery. It’s also to recognize it’s an everyday struggle. People will often think that once they get sober, it’s behind them now and they can deal with life. That’s kind of the cunning, baffling, powerful things about addiction is that that’s often not enough. The system of support that you have in place will help keep you protected and are much more likely to succeed. That’s my theme today. Just be aware of your own systems of support. Keep being grateful for them by appreciating them every day. That’s how we all get well, not just people with struggle with addictions. Our systems of support really are the reflection of the health in our lives. That’s my message for today. Thanks so much for joining me. Have a great day.