(Disclaimer: This transcript was done using AI technology. Please excuse any mistakes).

Music 0:00
Welcome to the Atheists in Recovery Podcast, where we talk about finding hope in recovery. And now your host, Dr. Adina Silvestri

Adina Silvestri 0:11
Bonjour guys and welcome to Episode 50 of the Atheists in Recovery podcast and can't believe we are nearing our one year anniversary. Happy Anniversary guys. I am equal parts excited and a tiny bit exhausted. But I feel like this podcast has taught me so much. I feel like it's made me a better therapist. It's given me an opportunity to meet individuals, artists, musicians, Buddhist monks, you know, people that I would never have met otherwise. And for that I am incredibly grateful. I'm incredibly grateful for the listeners. I'm incredibly grateful for feedback. And I'm also incredibly grateful for one specific listener who sent me my first fan mail. And thank you, person. I won't out you, but thank you. And that's what I'm dedicating this podcast to my first question, so that today is a q&a solo episode. And the question I feel is probably a question that many of you have. So that's what we're doing today. And the question is, why do you ask all of your guests about their spiritual background? And so let's go into it. Let's talk about that. Why do you ask your guests about their spiritual and religious background from childhood? I feel when we tell our story, it helps to talk about our childhood. You know, guys, I am a therapist, right number one, but I also feel like, and I'm gonna steal this from Brene' Brown, but I feel like our story are just data with a soul. And so in order to give a framework to the listeners, I asked about my guests spiritual background, and it helps to sort of understand them and give them more of an identity. And, you know, I also believe that a big part of who we are comes from that intersection between our deepest roots of our background of our childhood, that whenever we find a route and follow it back, we will think we reached its end, and then it will branch off again. Especially if we've tried to block out parts of our earliest memories and what happens when we try to block out or numb the pain. Well, I believe that's a major reason why we turn to addiction. And so let's talk about a few of these reasons why I ask each guest about their spiritual or religious background on an atheist podcast. I think helps us to remember that we got sober by being vulnerable, we got sober by reaching out by asking for help, when we just couldn't do it anymore, you know, and we just were so tired of fighting the good fight, or the bad fight. In this case, we decided to get into street fight. And we got into a street fight with vulnerability, and vulnerability one guys, thank god vulnerability one. And when vulnerability one we swore we would never go back, we would never go back to numbing the pain. And as we know when we numb the pain, we also numb the joy. And so we want to continue down this road of vulnerability and reach research, states research and from the podcast and in my private practice and also in other arenas that in order to To move through shame, we have to be vulnerable. And shame comes with the territory. Yeah, I mean, all of us experience a shame at some point.

But it's really hard to recover if you don't move through shame. And this is one of the quickest ways that I help people get sober. And so to be vulnerable means to be seen even when we're at our messiest, right, even more our most imperfect versions of ourselves. If we don't have someone who can love you through the messy, and it's not easy, it's not pretty. But if we don't have that, then we definitely look to a higher power. We definitely like to a spiritual healer, someone that has your back. And this is another way that I really help people that are struggling with addiction. It's to allow yourself to access that vulnerability. You know, it's allow you allowing yourself to be seen and know that you'll be loved no matter what You know, it's and I've said this in another podcast, a previous podcast that I'll link to in the show notes. But, you know, it's that dead uncle that loves you to pieces. It's you know that grandma that would do anything for you. You know, it's it's the people that got us to where we are today. You know, we don't we don't ride this rodeo alone, you know we have help, we have help. And so that's what I try and get people to access and I do that in a variety of ways and probably will end up being another podcast but you know, I use a lot of hypnotherapy. I use a lot of alternative therapies in my practice, but in staying with this topic, let's move on. So another reason I asked about the spirituality, higher power thing is connection. You know, they said on my podcast, the tagline under atheists in recovery is, you know, we all believe in something and I truly believe that you In the over 50 interviews that I've done and the over 750 individual therapy sessions that I've done, everybody has a belief, even if at first they look at me sideways, everybody has a belief, you know, and I've heard it all. I've heard it, they will leave in their dog, because do you G is God spelled backwards? I've heard it all. And so what I've gathered is that there's one theme that persists and that is that even if you acquired the secondhand smoke, kind of religion while you were growing up, but something catastrophic happens. You will most certainly hit your knees and you'll pray like you've never played prayed before. And it could be to God. It could be the Buddha, it could be the Dalai Lama, it doesn't matter but you will pray. You will learn for guidance, and it turns out that's connection and I believe also that it's why a so popular Alcoholics Anonymous I believe that their literature is not there it the literature is not what's compelling, right. I mean, that's not the reason that people keep coming back. You know, it's it's the connections. It's the people that you meet in these meetings that are like you whether you're atheist or agnostic, or maybe you're religious. You know, it's the people that meet you at the door with a warm smile and know your name and are looking forward to seeing you and ask you how your day is asking you how you're doing, and really listen to you really listen to you. You know, we connect by seeing the same struggles we connect by seeing the pain and others and the shame and the humaneness. You know, we connect and the joy as well. And so a third reason that I asked this question is Yeah, I feel like you could learn a lot just from this one question. You know, so if they only answer one question guys that I'm covered Now, that's not true. They they will answer more questions. But it also leads to more searching questions, the questions that I love, you know, the questions that I'm obsessed with, like, where do we come from? And where are we going? I would love to have a future podcast that talks more about those questions. And so, you know, and then a sidebar is people are quite creative. You know, I've had Robert Cox on I'll list his episode in the, in the show notes, talk about his higher power currently being a Christo-Buddhist. Dr. Elizabeth Bonet also came on very early on in the podcast, say that it was something along the lines of a voo doo Indian Princess, you know, these and these are scientific people, guys. And, and so I love hearing the descriptions about one's inner inner life, and what informs our decisions and what makes them who they are. So I believe that's it for today's first, and hopefully not the last q&a. So thank you listener out there for sending in that question. And before I let you go, if you have not left a rating and review, please do so over iTunes. And there is a link in the show notes. The more ratings I get, the more people I can reach with this podcast. And I would love to reach more people that are struggling with addiction to let them know that there isn't just one way to recover. And so please go ahead and do that. And let's connect. Let's definitely connect on social. You could also send me a email if you have a question and we'll and we'll do another one of these if you guys like this also looking at doing a compilation in the future. As we near a milestone number of downloads, I want to get some of my former guests on and just kind of have a podcast takeover. So those are just a couple of things I'm thinking about for future episodes. Alright guys, well, I hope you have a great rest of your day. Take care. Bye.

Music 10:21
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