How To Ask For Help in Sobriety with Guest Kyle Miller

In this episode of the Recovered Life Show, host Damon Frank is joined by Kyle Miller, a licensed clinical professional counselor and certified clinical trauma professional. The discussion delves into the often challenging yet crucial topic of 'How To Ask For Help' in the context of recovery. Kyle Miller brings a fresh perspective, emphasizing the importance of vulnerability, emotional intelligence, and relational skills in seeking assistance. This episode is particularly valuable for those in recovery, highlighting the delicate balance between independence and seeking help, a vital aspect of emotional sobriety.

Damon Frank explores his personal struggles with asking for help, relating it to broader themes of autonomy, loyalty, and the societal perception of independence. The conversation covers various aspects, including the impact of upbringing on one’s ability to seek help, the role of shame and pride in recovery, and the significance of building a supportive community. Kyle Miller provides expert insights into overcoming the barriers to asking for help, underscoring the need for self-compassion and the courage to be vulnerable.

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Information you need to live your best-recovered life. Join host Damon Frank as he brings you addiction recovery stories, news, expert perspectives, and features about life in sobriety and addiction recovery.

(Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai - Go Unlimited to remove this message) You're listening to The Recovered Life Show, the show that helps people in recovery live their best recovered lives.

And here is your host, Damon Frank.

And welcome back to The Recovered Life Show.

I'm excited to introduce our guest, Kyle Miller.

Kyle is a licensed clinical professional counselor and certified clinical trauma professional.

And he's here to talk with us about how to ask for help.

How you doing, Kyle?

I'm doing well, Damon.

Thanks for having me.

Thank you so much for coming on the show today.

Excited about this topic.

I, you know, I think I mentioned before we went on the air here that I hate asking for help.

I just despise it.

I know I'm not the only person that's in recovery that does it.

Not only getting sober that I hate asking for help, but just in life in general, I've always looked at it as a character defect.

I've learned in recovery, Kyle.

It's not.

It's essential.

It's part of emotional sobriety is to understand when you need help.

So thanks so much for coming on the show today and talking with us and you being a licensed clinical professional counselor, you kind of bring another perspective to this.

I have to ask you right up right up front, Kyle, why do people hate this?

I know I'm not the only one.

Why do people just really hate asking for help?

Yeah, that's a great question.

And what I would say is that I think in my experience and working with, you know, a lot of people that everyone's a little bit different, right?

But, you know, it's one of the things that comes up often is when I get curious about people asking for help, if if it's an issue for them is talking about, you know, how were you how were you raised?

Esther Perel is is kind of a big talking head in the mental health field right now.

And she talks about a lot of us when we're when we're children, it's autonomy or loyalty.

And so we ask people often, were you raised to be autonomous?

Were you raised to be an independent person or are you raised to be loyal in your family?

And so that's a question that I ask a lot of my clients that I work with.

And a lot of times people say that they were they were raised to be loyal to their families, which also makes it I am supposed to give, I am supposed to help you, I am supposed to make sure that all of my effort goes external.

Right.

But if you're raised for autonomy, that actually puts unrealistic expectations on yourself and beliefs that I should be able to do everything on my own.

So either way, you're actually kind of caught in a catch 22 situation.

Yeah, I've never really thought about it like that, Kyle.

But you're right.

Like I know for myself, I was raised in a very Western, you know, ranch setting and being independent and being able to stand on your own two feet and do things for yourself was considered good.

Right.

It was considered.

And if you had to ask for help, I remember very early on there were certain things you asked for help with, but other things, it was just like, why can't you do that yourself?

You have to figure it out.

And I think for people in recovery, I think might have also a lot.

We know a lot of people come from alcoholic households who are also raised like this, this pattern that you're talking about.

Right.

Yeah.

And in sobriety, we're trying to figure out how do we still have independence, which is, I think as a therapist, you would say is essential.

Right.

We have to have independence in our recovery.

But how do you start to open yourself up to start taking directions from other people or even asking that question?

I need help.

That's a huge question.

And I think it's like you're open Pandora's box there because asking for help requires you to be humble.

It requires you to be vulnerable.

And it requires safety.

So or I mean, or you kind of pushing past not feeling those things to ask for help, which is a really hard thing to do.

And so.

I think it's a really key relational skill, because in relationship with other people, we it's important that there's a give and take.

It's important that if I'm in a relationship with you, that you feel like you're contributing to the relationship.

And it's important that I feel like I am also contributing to the relationship.

And yet in our society, I think our society mirrors what you've talked about is that independence and not asking for help and doing it on your own.

And we see asking for help as a sign of weakness.

That means that you're not capable.

Right.

Yeah.

But absolutely, I love that.

As we know, like any type of like being maintaining sobriety requires other people in your life, it's the independence puts so much pressure on you as an individual, and it's unrealistic to to think in my mind, and I could be wrong, there might be outliers out there, but we as humans are relational.

We're made to be in relation with others.

And so if we don't learn how to ask for help, I think oftentimes loneliness and and separation from others is partially what creates the issue to begin with.

And then we we need to self medicate because you can't feel that all the time.

Right.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, one of the things I was going to ask you that you that you brought up here early on was how I have noticed, even though it was very difficult for me to ask for help, I was more than willing to give help to everybody and and I would actively seek it.

I would volunteer.

I would even if I wasn't asked, I would help.

Right.

And I've seen this in recovery and I don't want to call it codependency, but it kind of borders on that.

I found that a lot of people in recovery because of either the way that they're raised or what they've learned, right, or the opposite as far as giving help, but are the worst about putting on their own oxygen mask when the plane is going down.

Right.

Yeah.

And I found that not being able to actually say, hey, I'm struggling.

Can you give me some advice?

Hey, you know, I'm really kind of stuck in this area of my life.

Can you tell me, can you give me some advice?

Because I've seen that you've been through this before the inability to be able to get there really, I think, keeps people trapped in recovery.

I call it church basement thinking.

They're just trapped, right?

Because when even though I hated it, Kyle, at the most part, I had an epiphany one day, I said to myself, you know what, Damon?

Any my thinking got me here.

My thinking is not necessarily going to get me out of this.

So all everything that I'm going to get, really, as far as new thinking is going to come from other people.

So I need to really shift my perspective and really start asking and interacting with other people and be willing, even if I don't know how, at least I could be willing to start taking some suggestions, not only what suggestions, but also really hearing what people have to say, a different perspective on the situation.

Because the only way I'm really going to get out of the situation that I'm in.

Yeah, absolutely.

And that is, that's been mirrored in a lot of the work that I've done personally and a lot of the work that a lot of my clients do is we kind of hold, we're holding people at arm's length.

And I think naturally for people who grow up believing that independence is the key, we're skeptical of other people and their advice, right?

And so I think what we need to do is the relational piece of it is learning how to trust that other people have our best interests at heart, right?

And I have seen and I have experienced that relational radar can be malfunctioning.

And so you go into a room and you can't really discern who is for me and who isn't, right?

And so I'm keeping that guy at arm's length.

I'm keeping that guy at arm's length or that person at arm's length.

And you end up, again, feeling alone and all of the pressure remains on you.

And that is, again, an unrealistic expectation of yourself.

But if that is how you see things like watching Clint Eastwood in his movies, like that guy could do anything, right?

Like he's just the strong guy and can maintain anything.

And, you know, and there's no faults, right?

How do you how do you start?

You know, one of the things that you're talking about is just, you know, starting to interact and creating relationships.

We talk about this a lot on The Recovered Life Show about how to create relationships in recovery, not just romantic relationships, but really personal relationships, how to reset the relationships in your family, right?

Those kind of really because that's really what life is all about.

That's where all the joy is going to come.

That's where the interaction is going to come, the knowledge, all this stuff.

But so many people that are in recovery, Kyle, and I know I was one of them had some trauma that was in their childhood, right?

And it had to do with alcoholism.

It had to do with, you know, other things that created trauma.

I didn't know this until, you know, 20 years into my 30 year journey that that was actually called trauma.

You know, I just I was not aware of it.

I knew that it affected me.

But, you know, part of that trauma came from people, right, that it came from people that were close to me.

Like, and so I think reaching out in recovery, why it's been like a muscle, I called a muscle, being able to reach out and connect with people in recovery has been has been great for me in my journey.

And then, you know, in my career, and then eventually, you know, outside of the rooms of like Alcoholics Anonymous and 12 step groups, you know, I was able to kind of take that to the next level and create relationships all over the place.

But one of the one of the stumbling blocks, I think, was picking the right kind of people because I found that if you had trauma in your past, or maybe you just didn't have good models about how to do that, sometimes the picker gene of who I would pick to ask for the help was the worst there might be 10 people I would pick the worst person, right?

And I see this in recovery over and over and over.

How do you start to kind of judge who the people in your life that are safe to actually ask for help?

Because there are people that aren't safe to ask for help, you know, they're actually going to put you in a worse place.

Yeah, well, I'd be interested to hear your perspective on this.

But my belief is that it starts with you.

So it really is kind of looking at that inner work.

Like, where did this come from?

Why do I?

Why is this picker, we call that a picker gene?

That I called it the radar, right?

Like your radar for who's safe and who's not, or who's good for me and who's not.

That is is faulty because of you know, it could be a big T or little t trauma, right?

It could be something that really bad has happened.

Or it could be, you know, little t traumas are these, it could be just someone picking at you, or being critical of you over time.

Like those things, I think are actually more insidious than what we consider traumas in our lives.

It's those like having someone bully you in school, or just having a parent, you know, make fun of you for crying, or, you know, things like those kinds of things, we think they're not a big deal.

But that's what formulates how you believe about yourself.

And you carry that into adulthood.

So one of my beliefs, and it's, you know, it's metaphorical is that I don't know if you've ever heard of Terry real, he's a, he created relational life therapy.

And he talks about the wounded child, the adaptive child, and then the wise adult.

Your wise adult is the one that we're sitting here right now having an intellectual conversation, a theoretical conversation, and a real conversation.

And then you've got an adaptive child that is still inside of you that pops up when you get triggered, or when you are, you know, feeling hurt, or you want revenge on someone, or you're having a hard time forgiving, or you are, you know, trying to be overly independent, that is a that's an, you know, an adaptive response to some of the things that may have happened in your life.

And then the wounded child is the one that's like carrying all the pain.

That's like when you're in your fight or flight mode.

And that I really believe that that is what's coming up.

And so if you do your inner work and realize, oh my gosh, that was just like hurt me, that came up and is like, I don't trust this person.

Because the hurt part of me just popped up.

We need to have some self compassion.

And I know that that wouldn't turn a lot of people don't like it, because it's a buzzword.

And it sounds kind of hokey.

But actually, what we're doing is we're giving a little bit of love to that kid who was hurt, and had to adapt to situations and created a way of being that was protective.

The other thing is, those are well earned defense mechanisms, right?

Because at one point, you had to stay safe.

So yes, I don't doubt that just take a step back and realize, yes, I did this in my past, and I had to stay safe.

Now I'm in this program.

And there are all these other people around me, some of them may be safe, some of them may not be, but I can't tell the difference right now.

And if I get triggered, or if I choose that person, who is who is not good for me, that's because I believe and just using the term your adaptive child popped up.

Because what is it feeding in you?

What pattern from your history is repeating itself?

I love how you use the adaptive child I love, you know, because I think not even knowing what that is, I definitely have, you know, I have those conversations with myself.

You know, one of the interesting thing is, is when this pops up, oh, this person's not safe, right?

There are boundaries.

And there I think that there are little checklists that you can have, right?

I think dumping everything on somebody that you don't know, and you have no experience with how they're going to handle it is just, you know, what I do, the whole trauma dump thing isn't really a good idea in general, right?

For anyone, whether they're, whether they're in recovery or not, just because you the the perspective, even of the listener of the person receiving it, that you don't even know if you're really communicating it in a way that they're going to receive it, right?

So I love that.

But this this inner dialogue, one of the things I had to realize about myself is when that popped up, that little inner dialogue, I had to ask myself, well, is this the third grade Damon that's looking at this?

You know, I had like a little checklist.

And you know, I got that from my sponsor, you know, that I had kind of put together myself.

And it was like, well, I'm not endangered.

You know, I don't have any physical danger in the in the situation.

There's nothing terrible that's going to happen here.

My experience with this person has been great all along.

There are no warning signs of any of these warning signs.

Why am I having this this feeling?

I acknowledge the feeling that I'm having it.

And I don't try to make it wrong.

I used to make it right.

I don't I don't do that.

Right.

But then I also realized, okay, well, I'm looking at this not in a correct way.

This is a wrong way to look at this that this is not really what's going on.

Right.

And I think so many people there's like what's going on in recovery.

And then I always say there's what's really going on in recovery.

Right.

And all of the healing is really like what's really going on.

What's really going on is fear, pride, all this other stuff.

Yeah, absolutely.

It's what it's always what's underneath it.

Right.

And that's the scary stuff, though, because you have to be you have to find the right person or people to be vulnerable with.

If it's your sponsor, that's great.

If it's a therapist, that's great.

If it's a really good friend, that's great, too.

But you just have to be careful about the friend because there, I always tell people your family and your friends are emotionally invested in your wellness.

So they will jump to advice, they will jump to, you know, trying to guide you.

And sometimes they're not right, you know, about what's good for you.

I mean, it may be what's right for them.

But I think one of the things that's hard for us to do at times is to put ourselves in the other person's shoes and be like, you know, what do you what do you think might be might work best for you?

Well, you know, this whole thing that's going on now, Kyle, about this buzzword about transactional relationships, right?

I mean, every relationship is transactional to a certain degree.

But one of the things I've realized is that, you

know, being in business and having a successful

business career, I noticed that one of the

things that was a huge no no for me was kind of

aligning that those personal relationships and

business relationships, like I had to make sure

that they weren't transactional in a way with

the people that are really getting that

device advice about how I really feel about

certain personal issues, you know, because like

you're, you know, if you're in these

transactional relationships, where they get some

sort of benefit over telling you a certain thing,

right, you might not be getting the truth

totally, the truth of the capital T, you know,

why I'm a huge fan of 12 step groups was it was

really the first time that I really got really

the truth.

Like people would tell me like, like I said, man, I've kind of like really blown it here.

I made a really bad move.

Yes, you did.

Like, they just tell me, you know what I mean?

They didn't sugarcoat it.

They're like going, yes, you did.

Like you like that wasn't a good move.

Like, and they were truthful.

They were like, compassionately truthful with me.

Right.

Yeah.

And I think that that is so important.

Can we talk about that, like the role of a good sponsor or a therapist like yourself in this whole thing about creating, starting to create trust with having these relationships and being able to open up and ask for help and get opinions for people.

How important it is to have that kind of those types of people in your life.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And I think when when you said compassionate truth, truth, that's what really struck me is because I've noticed this so many times I have a tendency to be more of a direct.

I'm kind of direct in the way that I do therapy.

I speak, I tell hard truths sometimes.

And people really, if a lot of people feel seen when you do that, you know, if I, if you say, yeah, what you did was really harmful and it was actually kind of toxic.

But if you say that in a compassionate way and you say, look, I know that's not who you are.

I know it's not who you want to be, but it is, it is something that you did.

Right.

That's the difference between shame and guilt.

Right.

Like shame is like, I am a horrible person and I, you know, I can't ever be good for anyone, much less myself.

And guilt is I did something that hurts someone, but I still have value.

I know that I know I'm a good person.

Right.

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And we really a lot of us fall into those traps.

Difficult.

You know, I think it's I think it's a balance.

You know, I know that some of the biggest aha moments that I've had in my recovery and in my life were people who really that I really trusted that I hadn't grown trust with that that that's what that I had actually asked for an honest opinion and they gave me an honest answer.

But love me anyway.

You know, I remember there's a guy who listens to the show Kevin who was my first sponsor, you know, and you know, he you know, and I asked him a question.

Hey, man, how come everything is blowing up this very early sobriety?

How come everything's blowing up around me?

Like everything like jobs, like housing, every is just like everything was blowing up, right?

And he told me since is it's because it's all about you.

Like you, you have to stop making your life all about you.

That like killed because I didn't view myself as somebody who made my life all about like, but he was right.

Right.

You know, and the thing is, it is like, you know, if you want to have more friends and you want to be likable, then you need to be likable.

Right.

And he's like, I know you want to and I know you can and I know you are, but you're not, you know, and it was it was great because I realized it was like, you know what?

Yeah, like it's not about me, you know, and that's what's caused.

That's what's hurting me.

Same thing with asking for help.

It's really, it is about me, but it's not about me.

Like I have got to, like I've got to, I have to be that person if I'm going to become that person day to day.

Absolutely.

And when it comes to that, I always wonder like, what's again, what's underneath that?

Right?

If you're if you're not a likable person, what's going on?

You know, if you're not behaving as a likable person, because it's really easy to tell, most people are likable when they're being authentic.

Most of the time, my experience with with people that I interact with is if they're not being authentic, it feels off.

I feel I get this gut feeling that I need to be a little bit guarded with that person.

And so I'm not going to ask them for help.

Because I don't in my body, I don't feel like I can trust you.

You know, and it's not that I think they're a bad person.

I just don't think that they're capable of being fully authentic, and maybe calling me on my stuff if it's needed.

You know, but if somebody is, you know, is willing to, like you said, be compassionately open with me, and maybe not trauma dump, because that's another that that feels boundary list, right?

And that feels like, okay, now you're overwhelming me.

But, you know, being able to, to, to experience those is really important.

And I think all of us, it's learning how to, how to gauge that, I call it a radar, you know, like, are people trustworthy?

Or are they not?

And but also recognizing, like you said, the the younger part of you that third grader that's popping up that isn't that got really hurt and doesn't trust people, give them a little bit of compassion.

It once your body settles a little bit, now check and see how you feel about that person.

Because when we are when we're when we're heightened or when we're feeling anxious, or we're feeling confronted in talking to someone, it's going to be hard for us to make a decision.

So if we can just take a step back and then see, okay, how do I how do I feel with this person now that I'm feeling a little more settled or grounded in my body?

That's one thing that I do with everyone now is we all need especially men, we need to get into our bodies.

And we need to instead of knowing how our bodies work for sports or for work.

How do they work emotionally?

Because most of us weren't trained to do that.

This is the okay, I love what you're saying here.

And, and rarely do I hear actually therapists put it like that.

I think this is I think this is such a key to what you said because I feel that most of the recovery process, like, like I always say, like, everybody's recovering from someone, these are human conditions, right?

And I think in people in recovery think, well, it's just me, it's just like, they have just a it's a very small person, you know, view of the world, everybody suffers with relationships, family, everybody has issues with their career, everybody has setbacks, right?

In life, this is just the life condition.

This is just the life that we all share.

And I think this perspective of looking at it like that.

And when you say kind of cutting yourself a break to that third, that third grader, I found that this has been the big, pivotal thing, because so much of I think, the more you are, I'm not going to ask for help.

I call it the John Wayne syndrome, right?

I love John Wayne movies.

I do.

You got me right.

I love it because there's, there's like, there's a rugged obstinance in it, right?

Which I, I have to be honest, I feel compelled.

I don't want to ask for help, right?

But this ability to kind of work this muscle and be vulnerable, right?

Be able to reach out into practice, hey, what would you do?

And then be open, really activates this bigger thing that's actually going on in my recovery, which is really kind of what we call emotional sobriety.

It's awareness, right?

This, this awareness that everybody shares, right?

That every, not just people in recovery, this awareness that's happening in my life.

And the more and more I practice that, the more I really feel unauthentic being that third grader.

Does, does that make sense?

Yes, absolutely.

That, so we call that reparenting.

So once you feel inauthentic in that, that means that you're, that third grader is now feels okay settling down and doesn't need to come up as much.

So you've kind of effectively, you know, if you want to use the term kind of reparented that child by giving him some compassion and saying, Hey dude, sorry, you know, like I'm, that you got hurt.

You know, I want you to learn how to trust that I have this as the adult in my adult body.