The Therapy Breakthrough That Changed Everything | Fat Tony

0:00The biggest things I talk about now from Tara is when she asked me how clean I was and I said 15 years. She's like, but when did you last have a drink? And I said 15 years ago. And then she was like, what about a drug? And I said 15 years ago. And she was like, and then she didn't say anything. And I was like, she asked me that stupid question before. I've been paying you for months and months and months. Surely you should know that. And then she's at the end of the session. She said, I said, why did you ask that? I said, she went, we just want to know, why do you still go to meetings? And I was like, what?

0:33I said, because I need to still go to meetings. It's where I need to be to stay clean. And she was like, okay, well, I can see like four or five really big problems here that are going on that you're ignoring and won't deal with because you're still dealing with something you haven't done for 15 years. and I was like whoa you would say that because you're not in recovery and like you know then I left and I just thought why am I going to this woman she really doesn't understand but you know because it was challenging and it was like that learnt behaviour of having to go to meetings to stay clean was a learnt behaviour that I really no longer served me because I was raging from every meeting I was taking all the wrong aspects of those meetings and channeling them to hate myself like what like just people what the same person talking about the same stuff every morning or this one talking about his daughter's GCEs or whatever it was just anything and it would like infuriate me and I would take it on and I would leave the meeting thinking I hate these people and but really what it was was it was just like it was no longer serving me in the way that it should have served me and uh I was full of ego and because I was veered up and then so I stepped back from doing so many meetings I went back to Tara and start a step back and my life changed so dramatically in the sense of I was no longer being the face of recovery I was actually in recovery in a sense that it wasn't a pre-scripted manual anymore.

2:17I was working the steps to my own ability, best of my ability, not somebody else's. So I guess the way I interpret that, right, is that you have these 12 steps that kind of get you clean. Yeah. But then the underlying thing of getting the next stage is actually working on the reasons why you got there originally and unravelling that. Yeah, I mean, we go through the 12 steps and each step with your sponsor, you write certain, there's certain writing aspects to it. You know, you write lists of people you need to make amends to. You write lists of, you know, people you have, so many situations. But it's always the same, it's always prescripted.

2:56So not everybody suffers with the same illness. It's not a one-stop shop. And, you know, it's about finding your people and about finding the right people that relate to... Okay, addiction is such a massive thing in the sense of... I have so many friends that say, oh, I've never struggled with addiction. I'm like, okay, right, how many hours a week do you work? Do you drink every night? All of these different factors. And people see addiction as one thing, and it's not. It manifests in relationships. It manifests in the way we treat us. It's so many different ways. We become accepting of being a bad person.

3:41Yeah. Or, oh, why does this keep happening to me? Why, oh, why, you know, why have I got no friends? And all of these things that we use as tools to self-harm. And so, you know, with the 12 steps, I was doing exactly that. I was never moving forward. and I still listen I work my program to the best of my ability but I'm more connected to the program than I am meetings so I was the I had to make myself the face of everything yeah because I was living in ego I no longer live in that ego ego is like doesn't serve me well what was it that Tara did that kind of helped unlayer those masks and make you feel more accepted like what do you have a do you have a defining moment when you're in these meetings with her being like Like, that was a real epiphany.

4:31Yeah, there was lots of them. You know, like I would sit on the floor colouring in and drawing stick men, basically. With her? Yeah, during a timeline of my life and certain situations that I remembered and I would have to draw them out. And there were so many situations where people all ended up having blonde hair and I was like, and she was like, why are they all blonde? And I was like, I don't know. It was just the colour of the felt-tip pen. and it wasn't the colour of the felt tip because I actually made a conscious effort to get the yellow and make them blonde and then it was like about a month later that it suddenly dawned on me that everybody that had been in my life that was abusive were blonde but yeah I always went for blondes

5:17and you know that I always thought that blondes were my thing I'm now married to a Greek I know I've seen yeah there's no blonde there's absolutely no blonde there and you know I would always go for this type of person that was unlovable because I was unlovable so I always went for that for that that type you know um and yeah so working through that stuff and looking at the reasons why I was the way I was the drama triangle living my life you know mind mapping revolutionary talk to me about that no I'm not going to go into that I'd be here for two hours no you know just like the whole process of sitting down and actually instead of you know most people go to therapy they rant and they they go on and the therapist sits there ask six questions and off you leave that's not like that with with with tara she would challenge you on everything and she'd be like why um let's go back to that i'd be like no let's not and she'd be like no we're going to go back to that and she'll ask me questions you know i'd realized that i'd spent the first 15 years of my recovery firmly on a drama triangle on every side the victim the persecutor all of it that was me uh and because it's it was self-seeking it was self-serving and i got to this point in my life where i was so addicted to drama i still can be but i i i i think a lot of people are addicted to drama of course because it's it's it's a way of channeling energy that we we don't have any other way and we when we grow up coming from a place of drama it stays with us it's another learned behavior you know well talk to me about the big dick energy well you know the thing about is with big dick energy is like when you meet someone and you fancy them and you think oh i'm gonna have a chat with that person and you go up and you give them this version of yourself like all right how you know on all of this stuff and then you walk away and you think you wanker.

7:24And they must think you're a wanker too because of the way you're talking, giving it like running on ego. And my ego will take me to places that I do not need to go to to try and get what I want. And walking away from it, you just think, if the only you gave them the version, the real version of you, the vulnerable, the scared, lonely. Because that's got rejection. Of course it has. But you know what? they just might relate to that do you get what I mean instead of like giving them this big dick energy of bravado walking in the room thinking right well no one in here is going to challenge me I'm going to challenge them all before they before they even say hello that's what I went through life being like you know um and I was known for it I was known to be that bitchy the the sharpest tongue in the room.

8:15And that was all a, you know, character assassination. Yeah. Guys, it's taken me eight years, but I finally wrote a book and it's called Healthy Shouldn't Be This Hard. And actually it became a bestseller this May. Very exciting. Now, if you want more self-compassion in your life and you want to know the reasons on why that is so important, I tell you all in this book, and I give you a lot of tools to help you get there. it's definitely been a lifesaver for me and i know many people that have read it has for them too so if you want to check it out head to my bio or the show notes below you'll find the link to the book and so that's what tara helped you yeah release was we broke down all of that stuff and we realized that it no longer works for for this version of me the real version of me because this isn't another made-up character this is like the the one that cries at coronation street the one the one that well you know it's only in the background i find it numbing uh i haven't watched it in ages but you know i'm using it as like uh the kind of thing that i would actually sit and watch because i find it mind-numbing in the sense of like uh i just i i will cry at adverts I cry at dogs in the street you know I I see things like baby penguins and it makes me cry I would just so many baby penguins yeah of course who wouldn't right unless you've got no heart you know um and I'm all right I'm you know I I love that version of me and I think Stabby loves that version of me I get sent so many dog things every day you know this weekend we when When we were away, the dogs were with the dog sitters and they went to the beach for two days.

10:06And Stabby was so upset because we wasn't doing it with the dogs. And the dogs were going to have that memory of being with Max, who works with us, and his girlfriend who runs a puppy school, like puppy sitting. And they went down to the beach and Raph, our other dog, was surfing. Oh, my God, it broke Stabby's heart. For me, I just was like, oh, my God, look. But it broke his heart because it wasn't him doing it. Yeah. And I couldn't get my head around it at first. I was like, be happy that the dogs are not just sitting at home. They're out surfing. You know, that's a clip. They were actually really surfing.

10:46I'll show you in a minute. You'll be like, what? And then last night I was in the car with Max and Stavvy sent through, because Max was sending us videos of himself with the dogs. and they're like amazing, Stabby had superimposed his own face on Max's body to make it look like it was it. And he was like, yeah, that was that day that we went to the beach. I was just like, oh, stop it. We'll take them ourselves. But do you know what I mean? It's like that kind of thing just makes me so happy. I know, but that also just sounds like you're living the basics of life. There's nothing basic about my life anymore, just so you know.

11:25like you know you're finding joy in the in the things that aren't these like addictive pleasures you're finding joy in watching your dog it's real it's real happy real happiness the simplest of happiness you know it's it's uh it's not about expense it's not about design it's not about anything that is you know is is self-seeking self-serving in that sense you know like oh i Yes, I love clothes. I have a shopping problem. It's only a problem to other people because they make it a problem, but it's not a problem to me. I don't. But for me, my expensive tastes these days are making sure that my dog's got food and making sure that my husband's looked after and we're in a place of happiness.

12:14Those are the expensive needs, which cost nothing most of the time. Yeah. So there's this whole kind of interesting area of self-development, which I feel like you all really understand. Yeah. But do you think we can like over-intellectualize therapy and self-development to the point where we're like trying to fix ourselves and we can't fix ourselves anymore? Because there's always a point where you have to stop and take a breath and breathe and actually live as that person. That's what I mean, like watching your dog surfing. Totally, 100%. You know, it's about stepping back like anything. You know, as I said, I stepped back from 12-step meetings because I wanted to live those 12 steps.

12:57I stepped back from therapy because I wanted to live as the person that I've now become because I've dealt with the wreckage of the past. The wreckage of the past no longer dictates my future. I talk a lot about the past in past tense now, not reliving it. I don't relive that stuff. yesterday I was asked by the guy interviewing me at Wilderness not Wilderness, Camp Festival do I have regrets and I said yeah I do, of course I do but they don't dictate who I am, today I live in yet's, not regrets talk to me about yet's well I can't, yet to come woulda shoulda coulda is done yeah I shoulda done this yeah I shoulda done that, no no no I'm doing this and I'm doing that, that is what's important and i think that the yetts are jumping out of a plane parachuting going sliding down the mountain on the chevoggan doing all of these things that i would never allow myself to do before yeah and it's not no you know people get to these points in their lives and they go oh he's having a midlife crisis he's bought a lamborghini there are no lamborghinis there's happiness fresh air going on long walks doing all of these like simple things but also oh I've never been there or I've never done that I'm going to do it do you know what I mean?

14:20and it's like well it sounds like you're just excited for the future which I think is actually maybe a mindset you weren't in because you were dwelling on the past before I don't want to say that like you're dwelling on the past but you were processing a lot of stuff that was within you well it held me back exactly all of it was holding me back that's why I always ended up in the most darkest of places even in recovery I always still end up in those places uh of despair and now I don't go to those places because that wreckage has all been dealt with and I you know today it's kind of like okay I'm tired do I want to go and do a podcast it's boiling hot outside no I don't but you know what I agreed to do it so I'm going to do it and now I'm here and I'm loving it