Content Warning: This episode discusses childhood rejection, homophobic bullying, family pain, relapse, and the shame that comes with counting days. If revisiting your own childhood or your using history is heavy for you right now, take it slowly, and consider working through this guide with your coach, therapist, or a trusted friend.
If you are in crisis or thinking about harming yourself, call or text 988 (Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, US). For substance use support any time, call the SAMHSA National Helpline at 1-800-662-4357. Outside the US, contact your local emergency or crisis line. You do not have to carry this alone.
What This Episode Is About
One of the first places I found to nourish my recovery was a spiritual center near my home. My fellowship was a group of mostly middle-aged women who liked to talk about angels, crystals, and past lives, and I treasure that season. It was such a relief from the perpetual conversation about meth, and being powerless over meth, and labeling myself a tweaker or an addict every week. Instead, we focused on the soul, the future, healing, what was serving us and what was not.
The first time I ever shared my story publicly was there. To prepare, I pulled out the old family photo albums (the ones with the sticky pages you peel back). I wanted pictures of myself as a boy. What I found instead was a key to my chemsex use: picture after picture of an unhappy little boy. Scowls, frowns, crossed arms, out of place in a room full of smiling family. Those albums told the story of my self-concept. And for a long time I used them to build a case: my parents, the church, the kids who rhymed my name with a slur, the uncle who commented on how I walked. Everything wrong with me was outside of me.
A couple of years later, putting the pictures back, I noticed something. I had subconsciously skipped every photo of me laughing with my brother, excited on Christmas morning, hugging my grandma. My brain was so conditioned to notice the negative that I literally did not see them. That was the moment my recovery evolved. I stepped outside the self-concept I had written and saw the reality of my life. What you focus on is what you get. This episode is a challenge to take a hard look at how you see yourself, because it can do more than help you leave chemsex behind. It can change the whole trajectory of your life.
Key Ideas to Sit With
1. A self-concept is not a belief. It is a collection of examples. This comes from Steve Andreas, one of the early developers of NLP (neuro-linguistic programming), in his 2002 book Transforming Your Self. Your self-concept is a mental photo album of images, sounds, and feelings that your brain pulls up as evidence. Ask yourself, "Am I reliable?" and notice what happens. Your brain does not answer with a word. It opens an album and starts flipping through for proof.
2. In early recovery, you will find the frowny faces first. If you are in chemsex recovery, my guess is that when you flip through, you see the negative pictures first, focus on them, and build your self-concept around them. But what is "true" about you is a perception based on how you have arranged the photos and where you put your energy. Two men can have identical life histories and completely different self-concepts. One friend says you are reliable; another says hell no. Your truth is variable and subjective, based on what you have accepted as truth.
3. A strong self-concept includes counterexamples. This is Andreas's most useful insight for us, and it connects back to episode 3:32, "Three Ways to Actually Love Yourself," where we talked about accepting all of you unconditionally. Every real family album has a bad photo in it. Somebody blinking, somebody crying, a haircut gone wrong. Nobody throws out the whole album over a few bad shots, and nobody judges the entire family history on one frown.
4. Say it out loud and let your body tell you the truth. Say "I am reliable." Then say "I am reliable, and sometimes I am not." Notice how your body responds. The first statement may activate anxiety, because part of you knows it is not the whole truth. The second one is true, and accepting it lets you stop searching for photos to prove a positive or a negative. You accept the humanity of who you are.
5. The "chemsex-free" album with no room for relapse. Men in recovery build an album titled "I'm chemsex-free," and there is no room in it for slips or learning experiences. Then one using episode happens and the whole album goes in the trash. They go right back to the nasty old album where they saved every transgression. That is not how a real album works.
6. You are chemsex-free more often than not. Think about the last 365 days. How many were you chemsex-free compared to how many were you using? For most of you, the honest statement is that you are chemsex-free more often than not. But your narrative is "I had X days and now I'm on day six." That is not true. The truth is: I'm chemsex-free now, and sometimes I'm not. The whole album is there. That statement dissolves the shame of counting days and lets you move forward.
7. A using episode is a photo, not a verdict. It becomes one page in the album, hopefully with a note on the back about what it taught you. It is feedback about who you are becoming, not a verdict on who you are. This is the difference between "I must stop using meth" and the real question underneath it: how do I live in peace right now, no matter when I last used, and move on from there as my best and highest self?
8. What would your self-concept album show a visitor? Back in the day, photo albums sat on the coffee table. You showed them to friends, to the boyfriend meeting your mother. If you had an album labeled "My Self-Concept" and you handed it to someone new, what would be in it? Page after page of you smoking a pipe and crying into a pillow? Or a true reflection: hugging a friend after a crying session, running in the park feeling hopeful, leaving work satisfied, walking into a treatment center, and yes, smoking the pipe and staring out the window wondering what you did with your life. Someone looking at the real album would say: this is a man who sometimes uses, and he is on the pathway to stopping. They cannot reach that conclusion from an edited album.
9. Accept the totality of who you are and where you are. You have upsides and downsides. When you accept the real truth of that, you can love yourself fully and find the wholeness inside to move forward. Zoom out on your whole life and give yourself a break from the day count. See the beauty of the whole picture. Decide today to change your self-concept and know that you are strong, you are blessed, and you are chemsex-free.
10. You get to choose which album sits on the coffee table, but it takes repetition. Your brain is going to resist you at first. It wants to back up whatever you have told it: I'm a piece of shit, I'm an addict. Those are the only pictures it will show you. You have to force yourself to look at all the pages, again and again, and integrate both albums into one honest story.
Reflective Questions
- When I ask myself "Am I a good man?" or "Am I reliable?", which pictures does my brain show me first? Which ones does it skip?
- What case have I built about who is to blame for my self-concept? What has that case cost me?
- How does my body respond when I say "I'm chemsex-free" versus "I'm chemsex-free, and sometimes I'm not"?
- Over the last 365 days, what is the honest ratio of chemsex-free days to using days? What story have I been telling instead?
- If a stranger looked at the unedited album of my life, what would they conclude about me?
Journal Prompts
- "The photos my brain has been skipping (the moments of joy, connection, and competence in my life) include..."
- "The narrative I built about my childhood, and what I am now able to see that I could not see before, is..."
- "I am [quality], and sometimes I am not. Here is what accepting both halves of that feels like..."
- "If my last using episode were a photo with a note on the back, the note would say..."
- "The album I want sitting on my coffee table a year from now looks like this..."
Action Exercises
- Do the reliability test. Pick three qualities you want to claim (reliable, honest, loving, strong). For each, say "I am ___" out loud, then "I am ___, and sometimes I am not." Notice where your body relaxes. Write down what you learned.
- Find the skipped photos. Go through real photos, old or recent, or simply your memory, and deliberately collect ten moments your brain usually passes over: laughing, connecting, accomplishing something. Write each one down as a caption.
- Run the 365-day count. Estimate honestly how many of the last 365 days you were chemsex-free. Write the true sentence at the top of a page: "I am chemsex-free more often than not." Read it every morning for a week.
- Write the note on the back. For your most recent using episode, write one paragraph about what it taught you. File it as feedback, not as a verdict.
- Build your self-concept album. Create a page (in a journal, a notes app, or an actual photo book) that holds the whole story: joy, pain, progress, and setbacks side by side. Add to it weekly so the repetition starts rewiring what your brain reaches for.
Going Deeper
- Episode 3:32: Three Ways to Actually Love Yourself. The foundation for accepting all of you unconditionally.
- Transforming Your Self by Steve Andreas (2002). The NLP source for self-concept as a collection of examples, and why counterexamples make it stronger.
- Recovery Alchemy coaching. Self-concept and identity work is a core part of what my clients do in Foundations. Learn more at www.recoveryalchemy.org.
- Get study guides by email. Go to recoveryalchemy.org, click Blog, and subscribe. You will get an email every time an episode drops (twice a week).
- Join the conversation. Tell me in the comments on Spotify or YouTube what your album shows you.
You are not the frowning boy in the photo, and you are not the man with the pipe. You are not the man on day six either. You are the whole album, every page of it, and you are on the pathway. Stop editing, start integrating, and give yourself the break you would give anyone else you love.
Love you!! Dallas 💚
© Recovery Alchemy, Inc. | www.recoveryalchemy.org
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