1087: Can Trust Be Recovered After Diary Discovered? | Feedback Friday

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on your first order with code podcast15 at thirdlove.com. Welcome to Feedback Friday.
I'm your host, Jordan Harbinger. As always, I'm here with Feedback Friday producer, the sidewalk sandwich board inviting you into this bougie gastro pub of delicious life conundra, Gabriel Mizrahi.
One of those gastro pubs where the kombucha is like $14, obviously. Right.
Yeah. Well, it's house made.
It comes from a barrel we rolled in from the alleyway. That's right.
That homeless people urinate on during closing hours. That took a weird turn.
Yeah. But you know, that's what happens to all those barrels in the alley.
That is kind of what kombucha is, you could argue. Yeah.
What's the difference at that point? There was a Chinese restaurant, I want to say, somewhere around here where they busted one of the owners crushing garlic with his bare feet. Nice.
So there's that. That has nothing to do with anything we're talking about.
I just wanted to share that. Absolutely nothing, but I love it.
Thank you. On the Jordan Harbinger Show, we decode the stories.
Yeah, I ate there last week. The stories, secrets, and skills of the world's most fascinating people and turn their wisdom into practical advice that you can use to impact your own life and those around you.
And our mission is to help you become a better informed, more critical thinker. During the week, we have long form conversations with a variety of amazing folks from undercover economic hitmen, gold smugglers, Russian spies, astronauts, four-star generals.
This week, we had my friend Ryan Holiday on his new book, Right Thing, Right Now. A lot of talk about integrity, how to make difficult choices.
Just great conversation with Ryan Holiday. I think he's been on probably more than any other guest on the show, and I always enjoy, I always learn so much from him.
I always enjoy my conversations with him. I think he will as well.
We also had a skeptical Sunday last Sunday on traditional Chinese medicine. On Fridays, though, we share stories, offer advice, compare Gabe to quaint analog marketing tactics.
Before we kick off, a funny story I remembered the other day, Gabe. So about 20 years ago, I was going on a cruise with my girlfriend and her family, and I didn't have a flight.
So I drove to Miami with my college roommate, because he had a cruise too. And I ended up getting there a day early.
I guess they had their cruise left a day early. So I had to sleep in the lobby of a hotel until it was the earliest time that the boat opened up and I could actually board.
So I get there and they let me check in early. And it was like they had no room, but they made an exception because I was like, I'm basically homeless and I'm just going to wait by this weird ramp unless you let me on the boat.
And they're like, all right, fine. So I boarded and then I went to go get off the boat for a bit after dropping off my luggage and taking a shower in the room.
And I'm dressed in flip-flops and a polo and like cargo shorts, whatever the hell I was wearing back then. And I go to get off the boat and there's a bunch of staff and people moving, you know, drink carts and food and supplies on and off the boat.
So I go down, I guess it's called a gangway. I don't know.
That sounds nautical. Yeah, the thing that you walk down to get.
The thing you walk down to get off a boat on and off a boat. And suddenly this guy goes, where the hell do you think you're going? And it's like weird, you know, stodgy accent.
And I stop. I'm just like, uh, what? It's like, you get back on the ship right now.
I'm like, okay, can I ask why? He's like, I don't have to tell you why I'm the captain of this ship. And you turn around, you turn and get back on this boat right now.
So I turn and I head back to the boat and he's like, where do you work anyway? And I'm like, I don't have a job. I'm a student.
And he's like, oh my God, are you a guest on this ship? And I'm like, yeah. And he's like, oh God, I am so sorry.
I thought you worked on the boat. And I was, no, I'm just really early.
I checked in. I wanted to go walk around for a while.
And he's like, I am so, so sorry. I'm the captain of the boat.
I owe you one. Let me know if you're interested in any sort of events or anything special on the boat.
I owe you a massive apology. He just snapped to you because you thought you were an employee.
He was faffing off. Yeah.
He just thought I was like, yeah, faffing off, avoiding whatever sort of prep duty that I probably was supposed to be doing in my department of the boat to go dick around in Miami. And most of the staff was around the same age.

They were all from Poland or Eastern Europe

or, you know, someplace like that.

There was a bunch of staff from Estonia.

And I'm guessing here and there,

they make a hire or two that just screw around a lot.

And this captain has to constantly keep them in line.

Or some officer on the boat

has to constantly keep them in line.

So later on, I'm there with my girlfriend and her family.

And the captain comes up to us at the dinner

and is like, hello, my friend, and gives us this awesome tour of the bridge and all this cool stuff.

He has a different accent now.

I can't really do a Dutch accent other than the one from...

Oh, that was Dutch?

The whole staff was Dutch, yeah.

I'm so confused by the dialect of this character.

I mean, the only Dutch accent I have is Goldmember from Austin Powers.

He started off like Edwardian England.

Hey, it's going to just shift.

By the end of the story, it's going to be from like the Philippines.

Go on.

It's going to get, we're going to New Zealand.

So yeah, he gives us a great tour of the bridge, all this cool stuff on the boat.

And he told the family it was because I was such a charming guy and had talked to him

early on in the trip.

And he and I were sort of chummy and laughing about this really funny mistake. He didn't really want to admit that mistake to the family that I was with, which I thought was funny.
So he turned it into a compliment, which wasn't really true. But I thought it was funny.
I was just enjoying the special treatment. He later said, I knew I was in trouble the minute I heard your American accent, because I guess they don't hire Americans on the boat for probably a million different reasons, but one of which is it's $4 an hour.
I love that your cargo shorts and polo shirt with the collar popped was not enough for him to know that you were not a staff. No, I guess that was probably the de rigueur migrant labor uniform for all these young guys.
Stowaway uniform. Yeah.
So I don't think there's any kind of lesson in here. It was just a really funny thing that could have soured the experience for me or could have turned out poorly, but ended up making the trip even more memorable because we got special treatment.
And I had a funny start to the vacation by being yelled at by the captain of the ship. I love it.
I love when stuff like that happens. Yeah.
Well, speaking of lessons, one more thing before we jump in. Two weeks ago, we took a letter from a woman who, as you guys might remember, had to co-parent with her criminal ex-husband.
Right. And in her letter, she mentioned that the first time he was arrested, he was busted by a number of different law enforcement agencies, including the game wardens.
And when we took the letter, we were like, why would the game wardens be there? Well, one of our listeners, Eric, wrote us and pointed out that when you have a hot tip and the suspect in question has any sort of illegal dealings that a game warden could theoretically be a part of, apparently when you're in law enforcement, you always call them because they don't need a warrant. So in California, for example, fishing and game wardens are generally allowed to come onto a private property without a warrant.
And it's because of something called the open fields doctrine. And then the other agencies that they're working with can just walk right in the house behind them and they're basically free to roam and they don't have to go through all the paperwork.
Oh, wow. That could get dicey, but I also totally get it.
That's definitely a loophole. Call the game warden so that they can open the door and then the rest of us will just run roughshod over this person's Fourth Amendment rights.
Yeah, that is super interesting, though. I kind of remember from my law school days, open fields doctrine.
Yeah, it argues that the Fourth Amendment's protection against search and seizure doesn't apply to so-called open fields. So police can search open fields without a warrant or probable cause.
Again, clever, little shady, but clever. So we don't know whether this guy was illegally hunting or trespassing or something.
And that's why the game wardens were there, whether the cops were like, bring the game warden because we don't, we're going to do a fishing, well, pardon the pun, a fishing expedition and we might be able to find something

and we can't, we don't have enough to get a warrant. Who knows? Yeah, that's right.
Yeah.

It's so interesting. It really is.
So in case you were also wondering what the heck was going on,

why there was a game warden involved, that's why. So they don't need to call a judge and argue for

probable cause. And now let us trespass over any semblance of normalcy by diving into the mailbag.
Yeah. From one narcissist to another, by the way, the theme continues this month.
All right. Take it away.
Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I was in an extremely abusive marriage and relationship emotionally, physically, financially, and psychologically for 17 years with a narcissist.
Wow. I successfully left this marriage 10 years ago, but I had two children

with him and unfortunately have to co-parent with him. Oof.
Yeah. I'm very sorry to hear that.
Man,

Gabe, we have been hearing from a lot of partners of narcissists lately, haven't we?

Yeah. I don't know.
I guess it's that time of the year.

Yes. Narcissist season.
That's apparently, yeah, that makes total sense.

They famously emerge after daylight savings is over. Don't you know that? No, I don't know.

Coincidence, I guess, or maybe I guess people hear stories on the show about them and then they feel moved to write in. Sure.
That must be it. It just feels like a massive uptick.
I guess the Dr. Romney episodes have also been landing with people because they're like, oh, this person is a massive narcissist.
It's not just a weird thing that we have. Anyway, carry on.
After leaving him, I went to extensive therapy for many years. I've been in a relationship for seven years.
And as you can imagine, there are some tough times when your baggage includes a narcissist ex who isn't above physical threats. After 10 years of being quote-unquote free from him, he kept me in legal battle after legal battle as a means of control.
Eventually, it was my turn to ask the court to get permission to emigrate with one of our children to Europe with my new partner. The eldest is an adult now.
After three years, the court granted me full custody and permission to emigrate, and now we're gearing up for the big move. The problem is, I have a business doing digital marketing and social media specializing in hospitality.
My ex, who's currently going through his second divorce, contacted me about doing social media for his business. My answer was, I need to think about it.
A big part of my healing journey has been journaling, writing things down, which helps me clear my head, come to a better perspective, manage my triggers around my ex better, build boundaries, and rebuild myself. So after this request, I wrote out a plan and a list of ideas to come to a sound decision.
In the end, I told my ex I was unable to assist him. Oh, thank God.
Good move. I don't even like doing business with people I'm friends with, let alone people I've been dying to get away from for a decade.
I had told my partner about the offer the same day my ex asked me to work with him, but I never told my partner how I arrived at the decision to turn him down. Little did I know that my partner had found my journal and my writing about all of this.
He asked me if there was a discussion between my ex and me about it, and I said no, that I needed to think about it, and that I decided that it wouldn't work. My partner then accused me of lying.
I asked what he meant, and he said, I asked you if there was a discussion, and you said no to my face. I said, yes, that's right.
I tried to explain the journal, putting aside my annoyance and my hurt that he read in my private writing, and tried explaining that it's my way of processing and analyzing. He doesn't believe me, and claims that I'm saying that to avoid taking responsibility for lying.
Meaning for lying about the fact that she didn't discuss this with her ex beyond that initial conversation? Right. She says that didn't happen.
Okay. I tried to explain to him that when my ex first asked me to work together, I had this knee-jerk response like, see, you didn't break me completely.
I rebuilt myself bigger and better. It was vindication to me to learn that my abuser needed my skills for something.
I was so proud of myself that I took my time and didn't just follow my initial response, which was to prove to him that despite the abuse he put me through, I made it, I grew, I was now a force to be reckoned with, so much so that he was asking me for help. I was so proud that I did what I learned in therapy, to write things out, and that I ultimately said no.
Unfortunately, my partner didn't see it like that and completely invalidated my feelings about it. Interesting.
So her partner is angry that she was even considering this offer, which I got to say, given how he treated her, I can understand. But she's looking at this like, I didn't do anything wrong.
In fact, I did something right. Right.
She's saying, look at the process I went through to make the right decision here, to make a decision that, you know, is thoughtful and truly mine. That's a win for me.
That's the win. Yeah, I get that.
But this vindication piece, that's a little trickier for me to understand. I mean, I guess I understand why this was nice to hear.
The guy who tortured you now needs you. I'm guessing that speaks to a part of her that wants to know that she's valuable, that he's less capable.
Sure, but I can't help but wonder what this guy's motivation really was. I don't want to take the win away from her, but she started this letter by saying that her ex was abusive emotionally, physically, financially, psychologically, that he's tried to control her in various ways over a decade.
Right. So it's asking her to be his social media marketer part of that game.
Yeah. You're telling me there's not anyone else out there who can run his freaking Instagram account for his printing business or whatever.
Come on, man. It does seem curious.
I agree. Yeah.
Again, I can understand why this validation was meaningful, but I also think it's important for her to have an accurate read of this situation. Yeah, it's possible this guy is going, oh, I need you.
I'm hopeless. You're talented.
I'm sure she is. But I'm not convinced this is as simple as my abusive ex finally admitted that I'm a strong and capable person and he needs me.
To say nothing of the fact that working with him again, to your point, would be a disaster. A disaster, man, which I have to imagine is why her partner got so upset about this.
I can also imagine this guy knowing her past, hearing this offer from her abusive ex, reading her journal, which by the way, is not okay, but he did it, whatever, and going, you're talking to this guy again? Are you seriously considering this? I think I would be a little frustrated too, to be honest. I think there are some really interesting things happening on both sides of this equation.
I also want to ask, and I asked this without judgment, whether she should even be looking for vindication and validation from her abuser. For sure.
And why? And why, right. Well, I'm guessing that that's part of the trauma and the dynamic with him.
So that might be part of what's hard for her partner to understand too. Like, why are you looking for validation from this guy? Why not from me, from your family, from yourself? He might even be a little threatened by how compelling this invitation was coming from her ex.
And that's making it hard for him to appreciate the process that she went through. So she goes on, what my partner did next has left me feeling very unheard and extremely unsettled.
He took my explanation as an excuse. His view is that I'm using the fact that I was in an abusive relationship as an excuse for lying, and it's time that I leave all of this in my past.
He believes that anyone who's been abused wouldn't have had to even think about this offer. Uh, well, there you go.
And again, I get that to some degree. To be honest, I wish that was my natural reaction.
But I got there. I just needed to follow my own process.
Shouldn't that count for something? Yeah. Again, I don't think your partner's 100% right here.
I think he's missing something important about your process. It doesn't sound like he's open to hearing it.
And I'm starting to gather that he's not understanding how complicated this is for a victim of abuse or for you specifically. I can also understand why he's saying, okay, screw this guy.
You fought so hard to be free from him. Why is this even a question? I was very hurt.
My partner then told me that it's my choice to be hurt and that basically me being hurt is irrelevant because I hurt him first by lying. Ooh, okay.
Okay, dude. I don't know.
This guy suddenly got a little more complicated for me. Yeah.
You heard me. I was kind of empathizing with this dude until just now.
Telling her that it's her choice to be hurt when he's accusing her of doing something she didn't do. And not even trying to appreciate why she handled things the way she did, even if he disagrees.
Right. Even if he disagrees.
That's a little worrisome. A little bit.
He is just making this all about him. Who does? What kind of person does that again, Gabriel? Makes it all about themselves? There's a word for this.
We should write a book about this and teach people about it because this is a thing. Somebody should make a word for people who make everything all about themselves.
It's been over seven weeks since this happened and I've completely shut him out. Mind you, he shut me out and pushed me away as well.
Yeah. I acknowledged that I hurt his feelings by even telling my ex that I had to think about the offer, and I own that, and I apologized.
He didn't accept that apology because he said it wasn't sincere, because my answer should have been no from the outset. Wait, what? What do those two things have to do with each other? I'm confused.
Yeah, I'm also confused. First of all, the answer to what do they have to do with each other? The answer is almost nothing.
He's rejecting her apology, which, by the way, I'm not fully convinced that she owed him at all in the first place, but I do appreciate that she's taking his feelings into account. He's rejecting that apology as insincere because she didn't do the thing he would have wanted her to do from the beginning, which is not what insincere means at all.
Before she could have known that that's what he would have wanted and therefore would not have needed to apologize to him if she knew that. I'm so confused.
You're not confused. This just makes no sense.
Also, she's allowed to consider this offer even if it's an objectively terrible idea. He's framing that as somehow an affront to him personally.
And I get that it impacts him, but it's her life. He still refuses to acknowledge that he hurt me too.
He hasn't apologized and he's told me that he isn't going to. When I try to talk to him about it, he passively aggressively gives my ex nicknames that he claims I probably call my ex too, which I don't.
Okay, so communication is just totally broken down here. I don't feel this situation can be seen from only one perspective.
It's quite complicated rebuilding after narcissistic abuse. Everyone heals and grows in different ways, and my road has been hard.
This is a process that my partner doesn't understand, it seems. He also doesn't believe in therapy.
Ooh, well, that's just very telling. So this guy does not want to dig into all of this stuff very deeply, does he?

He just wants to be right.

Which might also explain why it's hard for him to empathize with her.

Right.

And to make room for different perspectives.

He's just shutting down and going, you screwed up.

This is on you.

I don't have to look at anything.

Certainly not my own stuff.

It's all you.

I don't believe in that.

Which, how do you make progress if that's your position?

I don't know if I can let this go.

Having my feelings invalidated like this is bringing up a lot of my past trauma, the gaslighting, the steamrolling. I'm standing my ground because I will not apologize for my feelings or my thought process, but I feel so unsettled and annoyed that my partner read my journal and then used it in such a hurtful way.
Am I being unreasonable? What do you gents think I can do in this situation? Signed, feeling like I've lost it after going through my process. Oh man, there's a lot going on here.
We already talked a lot, so let me try to cut to the chase here. First of all, no, you're not being unreasonable.
Just going to address that one right off the bat. Like I said, you're allowed to consider an offer like this, even if it's a risky one.
You're allowed to go through whatever process you find helpful to arrive at the right decision for you, which, by the way, you absolutely did. I think working with your ex would have been a disaster and very dangerous and totally unproductive.
And the fact that you got there in your own way when your initial instinct was to maybe say yes, I personally, I think that's a huge point in your favor. It confirms that the journaling practice is healthy and productive

and gets you to the right decision,

at least in this case.

So, you know, well done there.

And apart from this specific fight,

reading a partner's private journal

without their permission

is just not okay under any real circumstance.

Like, why would you do that?

No, that was a violation from the start.

Absolutely.

And it doesn't even sound like he's acknowledged that.

Honestly, it's one of the things that makes me a little worried about this guy. He didn't say like, I'm sorry, I know I shouldn't have done that, but I did and now did it.
No, he's like, I'm right and you're wrong. And by the way, any opinion of the contrary, I'm just not interested in.
So no, you're not the one in the wrong here. You're not being unreasonable.
And I can also make room for the idea that this offer was very disturbing to your partner. He might have felt, I mean, fill in the blank here, disappointed, betrayed, threatened, weirded out by the fact that you were even considering this offer.
I have some empathy for that, some. What I don't have empathy for is the fact that this guy goes and reads your private journal, sees something he doesn't like, then turns around and says, well, this was all you.
I didn't do anything wrong. You made me feel this way.
But also, I won't accept your apology and move on because it's not sincere. And the reason I think it's not sincere is because you should have done the thing I wanted you to do beforehand.
What? I find that incredibly immature, not to mention manipulative, to be honest. Agreed.
And he's not even saying that. He's not going, this offer from your ex makes me feel disappointed and betrayed and threatened and angry, and I'm having a really hard time understanding why you would even consider it.

Like, I'm fuming.

He's just getting angry, taking it out on his partner, mocking her ex, and straight

up refusing to repair things with her.

So my question is, to what end?

Like, what is he hoping to accomplish by taking this tack?

Exactly.

And that's where I start to worry about their relationship a little bit.

I want to be very careful here. I might be connecting some dots that might or might not exist.
I could be totally wrong. But given her history with her ex, some of what her current partner is doing here is setting off some alarm bells for me.
I'm not saying he's as bad as the ex. I'm not saying he's abusing our friend here the way the other guy did.
I'm not saying there's absolutely no reason for this guy to be a little upset. But when I hold all these facts together, reading her private journal, weaponizing what he reads against her, taking this offer from her ex extremely personally for whatever reason, and then retaliating against her.
Refusing to empathize with her, refusing to look at his own response, refusing even to apologize or consider apologizing. Yeah, and refusing to accept her apology.
Then he ices her out and holds her to these impossible standards. Expecting her to have somehow read his mind and made a decision that would make him happy from the very start.
Yeah, which again, largely makes this all about him. I know where you're going with it.
I see. Yeah, it does sound a bit narcissistic, doesn't it? Am I crazy? This does not sound good to me at all.
It does not. Look, the reason I want to tread lightly here is I'm not saying she's ended up with the exact same partner again or that she hasn't made a ton of progress since she left her husband.
She clearly has, as evidenced by this very powerful journaling practice and her decision making and yada yada. I get it.
And also look at how she's responding to him now. He's being quite unfair and manipulative and she's going, I find this invalidating.
I find this wrong. I find this hurtful.
I'm standing my ground. You know, I'm not going to apologize for my feelings or my process for somebody with this background.
That is huge. It is huge.
And when she said that, I kind of wanted to give her a little standing applause here. To me, that's a sign of massive growth on her part.
So I am not taking any of that away from her by pointing this out. But we also have to appreciate that she's in a relationship with another possibly kind of tricky partner.
And it does make me wonder if she might be vulnerable to personalities like this. Right.
Is she maybe overlooking certain qualities in her partners that later become issues like this? Yeah. Or if she has a tendency to settle into a certain dynamic or a way of being with partners that helps create conflicts like this.
And I'm not blaming her, by the way, for this. I mean, these are all fair questions, and these are really important things for her to consider, because even if her partner is not a textbook narcissist, even if he has other qualities that are great, she's now seeing aspects of him that she probably didn't know were there.
She's seeing the limits of his empathy, his introspection. She's seeing his rigidity, his lack of curiosity, his lack of nuance.
She also seems to be discovering that her partner doesn't take her privacy and kind of her inner world in general very seriously. You framed that really well.
That's one of the more concerning things to me. It's not just that he read her journal.
It's just that he's kind of like, I don't care how you make decisions. They have to be the right ones according to what I want you to do.
What? Let's remember that what set off this fight was not that she hid the fact that her ex made her this offer. She came right out and told her partner about that the very same day.
What kicked off this fight was learning that she had taken some time to consider it, that she had gone through this private process of her own before coming to a decision. In her partner's mind, he assumed that meant that they were having a lot of contact, which apparently was not the case.
So it sounds to me like there's something disturbing and maybe a little bit threatening to this guy about her having an inner world that he doesn't always have access to and her own agency that he cannot control. In addition to his anxiety, his honestly somewhat understandable anxiety, that her ex might be clawing his way back into her life, into their life.
I mean, reading someone's private journal, like you said, Jordan, not cool. And I can't read that any other way than I needed to know what you were really thinking.
And now that I know that, I'm going to use that against you. And I'm also going to do that in the least charitable way.
Right. I can't help but feel that there's something objectively disrespectful and controlling about that.
And part of me even wonders, like, did she choose to journal about all of this privately because on some level she knew he wouldn't be able to tolerate an open conversation about whether to accept the offer? Interesting. Again, to your point a moment ago about the dynamic that they might be co-creating, is this one way that they might have done that? By her hiding her thought process from her partner in order to spare him some difficult feelings, him then intuiting that there was something he didn't know, and then violating her privacy in order to find it, and then using it to confirm his worst fears, not only that her ex might still have some hold over her, not only that she might be keeping a secret, but that he himself does not have total access to her true thoughts, which might mean that there are aspects of her that he cannot control.
Ooh, fascinating. Yeah, I could see that.
So, yeah, I mean, even if she hasn't fallen into the exact same template she had with her ex, she might want to ask, what do these qualities signal? Like, did I clock any of them before this blew up? And did I handle things this way because on some level I knew that they were there and this was my way of working around them? Right. And has the abuse she experienced with her husband, and I imagine formative events long before that, are those also playing a role in her relationship now? So to answer your question, what are you supposed to do here? Well, it's hard because your partner isn't making it very easy for you guys to make progress.
He's dug his heels in. That doesn't allow for much conversation.
What I would do

is go to him, again, with the benefit of a little more time and insight, and tell him, basically, look, I appreciate why this offer upset you so much. I've done a lot of work to see things from your perspective.
I agree with you that working with my ex was a bad idea, which is precisely the conclusion I came to on my own. And now I'm asking you to see things from my perspective.
What I went through with my ex, it left a real mark on me. It impacted my sense of self, my feelings, my ability to take my own thoughts and needs seriously.
It also made me eager for vindication and validation from my ex, as weird and irrational as that might sound, and that's part of the legacy of this abuse. The journaling I do, it's part of my therapy, it's part of my process, it's really important.
I needed to sit with this offer and really analyze it in order to know that I was making the right decision here. Not for him, not for you, but for me.
And by the way, that's my private journal. I'm still very hurt and angry that you read it.
That is not okay. And I'd like you to acknowledge that and respect my privacy going forward.
But more importantly, I'm inviting you to empathize with me here to try to understand why I had to go through this process in my own way in order to say no. I've owned and apologized for my piece of this.
It hurts me to know that I hurt you, but I also feel that I'm not getting the same consideration or curiosity from you in response. That sucks, and it concerns me, and it's making it impossible for us to make progress here.
So are you open to doing that? Can you make some more room for me here? Can we really talk about this? So that's basically what I would say to him and how he responds is gonna tell you a whole lot about whether this relationship really works. My hope is that he can hear you and he realizes how hurtful and unproductive his response has been and he tries again with more openness and more compassion.
It's also unfortunately possible that he won't want to be in this process with you, maybe because it's too complex for him or too vulnerable, at which point you're going to have to decide whether you can accept that, whether this is the partner you want to be with, given how far you've come. I'm not telling you what to do here.
There are some conversations that need to happen first. So my hope for you is that you take everything you've learned from this situation and use it to assess your relationship and hopefully improve it, although that's going to require both of you to want to do that.
But more importantly, my hope for you is that you stay connected to your own experience here, which you're doing beautifully, by the way. Your thoughts and your feelings and your process, they matter a great deal and they are worth protecting.
And you can do that while you're making room for your partner's feelings and process as well.

We're sending you a big hug and wishing you all the best. You know, it's in my journal,

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All right, back to Feedback Friday. Okay, next up.
Hi, Jordan and Gabe. I'm the mom of three kids, the youngest of which is a 16-year-old sophomore in high school.
His older sister was pretty introverted, and his older brother was in high school during COVID, so the social stuff was pretty limited. Our youngest is now living his best high school life, gets good grades, and is a talented artist and varsity athlete in two sports.
He has a very active social life, and most weekends gets invited to get-togethers or parties. After a recent party, we discovered that he had had a few beers, which was a first for us in our 25 years of parenting.
While I enjoyed high school and was very social, I was also dealing with an abusive alcoholic father and was raised by atheist parents who were totally checked out. While I could literally have been doing anything in high school, I became very interested in religion and explored several through my high school years before eventually settling on Catholicism in college.
Needless to say, I was never a partier, and still only drink socially, and we rarely have alcohol at home or in front of our kids. My 47-year-old brother, on the other hand, has been an addict, alcohol and any drug he can get his hands on, since he was 14, and was found speeding down a six-lane road in our parents' stolen car with his best friend on the roof.
Whoa. Holy smokes.
Oh, wow. I was not expecting that.
That is ridiculous. That is insane.
And it gets worse. Wow.
My brother is now an end-stage kidney and liver failure and has been a cautionary tale to all of our kids. We have raised our children as practicing Catholics, and our older two always heeded our warnings about underage drinking and never participated until they were in college.
While we have always given them good practical reasons why they should not drink in their teen years, the trump card we always had was the honor thy parents commandment, which was sort of pervasive in our expectations. In the past four years, several major events have occurred that have led me to deconstruct my faith.
Looking back, I actually wish I had done some experimenting slash boundary pushing in my teens instead of being so focused on being a good girl. I'm now really struggling on how to approach many aspects of parenting since I no longer have the church for guidance and did not have any healthy modeling growing up.
I don't want to overreact to what I know is very normal, but I'm also fearful

of underreacting and creating a clone of my brother. What are your opinions about teens

experimenting with alcohol? How do I talk to my son about making healthy and safe choices

without shaming him for a normal part of growing up or grounding him for the rest of high school? What are some guidelines on how to speak with him about the topic and set expectations while also keeping the lines of communication open, allowing him to make mistakes, and encouraging honesty even when we might be disappointed with his choices? What are appropriate expectations and consequences for when we become aware that he has chosen to drink? And how do we educate our son on the line between some normal, moderate experimentation and binge drinking or trying harder drugs? Signed, trying to solve the riddle and finding a healthy middle between being critical and offering acquittal when my youngest wants to tipple. Super interesting and good questions.
First of all, I appreciate your attitude here. I love how much you want to guide your son without shaming him or driving him away.
I think that's terrific. More parents should do that.
Having a parent who can teach you and correct you when necessary, but still be a safe parent to go to when you need help, that's a gift. And I'm glad your son's gonna have that with you.
Second, man, I'm sorry to hear about your brother. That is a super tragic story and a cautionary tale for sure.

And I actually think his story will be quite useful

in these conversations.

Let's come back to that.

Third, this journey you've been on with your faith,

there's a lot to say about that.

But as it relates to your parenting,

I'm not sure that you need any specific framework

or set of beliefs in order to be a good parent.

What you do need,

while people get angry about that last statement,

what you do need are strong values, clear intentions, and a healthy and trusting relationship with your child. Now, there might be some overlap between those qualities and the ideas that, say, Catholicism or any other religion might offer, but that doesn't mean you absolutely need to be religious in order to be effective as a parent.
And the reason I say this is I hear some confusion and anxiety on your part about how to parent

without having the church for guidance, which I can understand. It's probably easier to point at a specific doctrine or commandment or concept in your religion and say, this is why we don't do that, and here it is in black and white in the New Testament or whatever.
And a lot of those ideas are legitimate. But I also think that approach, it has the potential to cut off or bypass some important conversations with your child.
For example, about why they're feeling drawn to alcohol in the first place, how it functions in their social environment, how they're developing their own values around this stuff, whether they feel safe talking about certain subjects with their parents, what process they're going through around making big decisions like this. It's not that a church's stance on something like alcohol is always wrong.
I'm sure there's some value there. But when a parent points to some external system and goes, don't do it because they say it's wrong, I think that has the potential to miss something very important.
I would imagine the best pastors, priests, whatever, religious scholars, they also tell you why instead of just pointing to something and saying, well, it says here that we don't do that. All that to say, I understand you're feeling a little lost without your faith, but in a way, I think you might be in an even better position to have this conversation because now you can share ideas and approaches and be in a process with your son that A, you really believe in, and B, allows for the two of you to be in open and ongoing dialogue about this stuff rather than just,, you know, you have to do it this way in order to be a good Catholic, or we don't have to talk about why you shouldn't drink, just, you know, honor thy parents.
Which I'm guessing is part of the reason you deconstructed your faith, because it kept you in a place of wanting to be a good girl and possibly held you back from exploring and discovering your own identity in a responsible way. So my take on teens experimenting with alcohol? I mean, look, it's available, they can easily do it.
I don't have to worry about this for many more years, thank goodness, but it's on my mind. Ideally, they don't do it until they're a little older, and if they do it, it's minimal, it's responsible, it's rare, we're on total communication about it, hopefully.
I don't think I fall into the never drink ever or you're screwed camp of parents, but I'm also not like, hey, do whatever you want. It's your life, kid, man.
It'll be fine. To your point, this is all about how you help your child make safe and healthy choices.
And the way I would do that is by sitting down with him, talking to him about his relationship to alcohol these days, how it functions in his life, sharing your thoughts on alcohol, and making a lot of space for him to be open with you about his lifestyle, his friends, his desire to drink at this stage of his life. So as for appropriate expectations and consequences, I really think that's up to you.
I can't tell you how strict you should be with your own kids. If you want a zero tolerance policy with him until he's 21, hey, that's your right.
If you want to be like the cool mom who's okay with him drinking a little with some guardrails, I guess that could be legit too as long as he's being responsible. Just, you know, be careful with that.
Obviously, the less a teenager drinks alcohol, the better. Ideally, he doesn't drink for a while longer, although this is kind of an American thing too.
I know kids in Europe are drinking wine at dinner with their parents when they're, I think it's like 16 or something like that, beer and wine. And I've read some theories that that leads to less abuse of alcohol later on.
I don't know how rigorous that research is or if it's done by like the European Wine Producers Institute, right? I don't know. But look, my general stance on this is, first of all, being strict with kids, there's obviously a place for that in parenting, especially when they're young.
You got to set those standards and parameters early. As they become teenagers, though, I think that approach can change.
Being strict, that's a way to enforce behavior you want because you think your child won't live up to your standards. But if you educate your child appropriately early on, if you positively reinforce their good choices and instill solid values in them, and you teach them to make good decisions for themselves, then over time, you don't really need to be strict because they'll be holding themselves to those standards.
And ideally, that's what you want as a parent, in my opinion, anyway. But also, I think the most important expectation here is that your son stays safe, right? That's what mine would be if I were a parent.
So to me, that means definitely not binge drinking, not poisoning his body. It means never drinking so much that it gets in the way of his goals, his mood, his plans.
And by the way, I just want to say that a unique variable in her story is that her son is apparently quite successful, right? As a high schooler, he's in two varsity sports, he's doing well in school. I mean, these are all great signs.
It's really hard to have a serious drinking problem when you're getting straight A's and you're involved in sports and you're on top of your goals and you have a vision for your future. So, you know, the more that you can encourage and support those plans, the more you keep him engaged with his own life, the less likely it is that he's going to get really lost in alcohol.
And he might not even literally have time to drink if those are the things that are most important to him. I think being safe also means obviously never driving drunk or driving with someone else who's drunk or being drunk in public in a way that could get him in trouble and ruin his future in some way.
Yeah, and when you share that with him, that's a moment when you can say, look, if you're him to be responsible without, as you put it, shaming him.

And as for educating him on the difference between, you know, normal experimentation and binge drinking or trying even harder drugs, I mean, you have a very powerful case study in your brother. His story is so tragic and it might be quite painful to talk about, but I can't think of anything more effective than telling a 16 year old kid, look at Uncle Rich, you know, look what he did to himself.
He's going to die because he had a wildly unhealthy relationship with drugs and alcohol. This is what can happen when this gets out of control, and it does not take much.
And hey, I know this is kind of intense, but maybe you even visit your brother with your son. Show him up close what the difference between responsible drinking and substance abuse actually looks like.
I have to think that that would make quite an impact on him without you having to say too much. I think I've mentioned this on the show before.

My aunt died from alcoholism years ago.

Watching her waste away in the hospital when we were kids was a hugely formative event for my sister and me.

And I think it's a big reason that neither of us drinks very much now, kind of not at

all.

It was all the lecture we needed at a moment in our lives where we were very receptive

to that message.

So it could be powerful.

Yeah, I remember you talking about that, Gabe.

That is, it's so sad, but yeah, it's very effective.

But even if you don't take your son to see him,

the message here is basically,

look, as you get a little older,

a beer or two at a party,

a drink with your friends every once in a while,

and a safe environment to let loose,

that's one thing.

I can be okay with that.

If in fact you are, of course, okay with that. Slamming eight beers every Saturday, having a couple of drinks and then partaking in other stuff.
That's when things get problematic. That's where it can seriously derail your life.
That stuff is not okay. Also feeling like you can only have fun if you're drinking.
That's something else I would encourage your son to keep an eye on because that's where a dependence really starts. And maybe you tell him, look, if you ever find that you can't relax or have fun or talk to people without a couple drinks, I want you to stop and go, okay, why do I need to drink in order to have fun? What is the drinking helping me deal with? And if you want, I would love for you to come to me and we can talk about that together.
Agreed. So that's how I'd approach this with your son.
16, man, it's an interesting age. He's between two stages.
So it's hard to know what's okay, what's not okay. But in a year or two, he might be off at college or he might be living somewhere on his own, spending time around plenty of alcohol, and you are not going to be able to monitor him every second.
So the question I'd be asking myself if I were in your shoes is, how do I empower and educate my son to be the kind of person I can trust to take care of himself? Instilling these values and standards starting now in a way that isn't as punitive but is maybe more meaningful and self-directed, that is everything. Because yes, you can manage or punish him like a teenager, and there might be a role for that sometimes, or you can teach him how to respect and take care of himself like an adult.
So be direct with him, lead with some basic strong values around health and safety and self-respect, make plenty of room for him to be open with you, and you really can't go wrong here. All right, you can reach us Friday at jordanharbinger.com.
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You can sign up at jordanharbinger.com slash news. All right, what's next? Hey, guys.
A couple years ago, my wife of almost 20 years separated and later divorced me, which was one of the hardest experiences I have ever gone through. There are a few issues that I'm still dealing with from my marriage, but those are very quickly being solved and should be in the rearview mirror by the end of the year.
What's troubling me now is my new girlfriend. She's an amazing person.
She has a good job and likes a lot of the same things I like. In short, we click.
But I'm struggling with her family. Her mom was injured a number of decades ago and is very limited.
Her dad has compensated for this by becoming a hoarder, is possibly narcissistic, and does not show any amount of love towards his daughter, which she desperately craves. My girlfriend makes comments like, I need a partner to help deal with my family stuff, or there's so much in my life I don't know how to handle it all, or I know my family is a lot.
Better run while you're not married to me. it's also not uncommon for Okay.
when her dad needs something, she'll be there for him without any apology from him, which he would never give anyway. All of this makes me question if I want to continue the relationship.
I know that walking away from this relationship might be the right thing for me, but I'm conflicted. I've been with my girlfriend for three and a half years, and she's a good person.
But all this drama in her life is really starting to wear on me. I understand that in a relationship, you assist with your partner's challenges at times, but this seems unending.
And if I continue with her, it likely won't end for me. How do you walk away from a three and a half year relationship? Signed, chafing at this imprisonment and thinking a breakup is probably imminent because her parents' drama is infinite.
Fascinating question. Well, first of all, I'm very sorry that your girlfriend has these parents, his dad especially.
This is deeply painful stuff. The fact that he withholds love, she craves it from him, and they fight so often, especially over trivial things.
It's just really sad. Clearly, that's left a real mark on her.
Obviously, her father sounds like he's got some real issues. I know that hoarding is often caused by anxiety, trauma, OCD, other mental health stuff.
Hard to say what's going on there, although it's interesting that it all started after his wife got injured. I'm guessing that he's maybe grasping for a sense of control and safety after the accident and hanging on to things, items, gives him that control.
And it sounds like he's carrying a big burden, so he's probably in a lot of pain. But candidly, he also sounds like a miserable old coot who's treating his daughter like crap, which is not okay either.
So yeah, that puts you in a really difficult position to have to constantly support a partner who's suffering because of family stuff. It's a lot to deal with, man.
It's got to be exhausting, stressful, unpleasant, and it probably drives you crazy. And the worst part, like you said, is it doesn't seem to be getting any better.
It's never ending. That's the problem.
She's stuck in this very painful dynamic with her father. She's overwhelmed.
It sounds like she's not very well equipped to deal with it, and she doesn't know how to change things. If she did know how to change things, this could be absolutely survivable.
Right. I also find it fascinating she's saying all this to our friend here.
She's going, I need a partner to help me deal with my parents. I don't know how to handle my life.
But then she's also saying, like, you better run while you still can. Those are very stressful messages to receive.
Well, she's both relying on him way too much and also kind of pushing him away or at least giving him an escape hatch, right? It sounds to me like she might be in conflict about how much to rely on her partner. Look, she might be a little ashamed or maybe a lot ashamed about how much she needs his help and what she imagines that he thinks and feels about her as a result.
So it sounds to me, based on those details, that she's projecting some of that onto him by saying, you better run while you're not married to me, which is really sad. But that probably says a lot about how she feels about herself.
Right, right. But how do you respond to that? He's taken on a lot here and he's having to stand by and watch his girlfriend get hurt over and over by her family and then come home and just bring all of that to him.
So I get why he's going, I think I need to get out of here. This is a bit much.
I understand it too. The desire to flee is legitimate and it's meaningful, but what that feeling is trying to tell him, I don't know.
I think there might be a few different things going on there. One obvious meaning is that this relationship is just not working for him and he can't handle it anymore.
And look, if that's the case, he's allowed to leave. Fair enough.
But I also wonder how much he's really tried to help his girlfriend find a new way of relating to her family. Has he encouraged her to go to therapy and talk about her father? Has he encouraged her to explore some boundaries that would make her relationship with her father less painful? Yeah, unclear from his letter, based on what he shared, they haven't really done that.
It doesn't sound like it, in which case, leaving her feels a little premature to me. And kind of unfair to her.
Again, I get the impulse, the thought of breaking up. That might be a fantasy that gives him a measure of relief and control in a situation that I'm guessing feels increasingly unsustainable.
Also, let's remember that he began his letter by talking about his previous marriage, right? Which sounded very difficult. He said a lot of those problems are soon to be in the rearview mirror and I'll be done with them.
So he might have been accumulating a lot of stress and anxiety, and this might just be like putting him over the top. So we don't know exactly what role his last relationship is playing in all of this, but it is part of his story and it might be helpful for him to separate out the residual stress and burden of his last relationship from how he's feeling about this one.
But if I were him, I would try to help her work through some of this stuff and see if she has any interest in growing before breaking up with her, especially after three and a half years. I think you owe your partner at least the opportunity, and especially because apparently she's great in all of these other ways.
I agree, because if he doesn't, that kind of sucks, right? Then he's just ditching her for having a shitty family without giving her much of a chance. And also, he might break up with her and then regret it if he realizes that he didn't give her a shot at finding a new way of managing her parents.
But I will say this is her responsibility and not his. It's not all on him to like make her change or something.
But as her partner, he can and should support her in doing that if she's willing to actually give it a shot. Yes.
And one way to do that would be to sit down with her and say, listen, I know you ended up with a really tough set of parents, and that was not your fault. It sucks.
I can see how much pain your dad causes you. I know you don't have the relationship you want from him, and I am so sorry about that.
And it's really hard for me as your partner to watch you continue to be hurt again and again by a guy who does not treat you with the love you deserve. It's also hard to watch you guys fight all the time and then see you go back and help him without resolving anything, and then bring a lot of that hurt and sadness and frustration to me.
I love you. I appreciate you.
You are a wonderful person, but I'm going to be very honest and say that this family stuff is really starting to wear on me. I want to be there for you.
I want to be there for you appropriately, but this now feels like something different. This feels like constantly helping you deal with pain that I think we now know you need to learn how to protect yourself from.
Because unfortunately, I just don't see the situation with your family, at least with your father, changing. So I think there are a few ways that you could start to work on your relationship with your parents on your side of things.
And if you're open to talking about that, I'm here to do that. I like that, Gabe.
That's exactly right. I think he needs to go on record as saying, this isn't sustainable or fair to me anymore.
But also, I'm here to support you. Again, appropriately in finding a new way of managing this situation.
And then it's up to her to decide whether to take you up on that, whether she wants to try things in a new way. Maybe she tells her dad that she won't fight with him anymore and she expects more from him.
And if he doesn't treat her better, maybe she decides to have less contact with him or pull back on her responsibilities with him. Maybe she goes to therapy.
Given what you've shared, I sincerely hope that she does because I think she's got a lot to work through. Point is, she has options here.
Agreed. And if she pursues those options, I think that would go a long way in helping your relationship.
It would also give you more confidence that this is the right relationship for you. And if she doesn't want to dig into this stuff and make some meaningful progress, then you'll have the last big piece of data you need to know whether breaking up really is the right decision.
And you'll probably have a lot less guilt about making that call. So doing this is really for both of you.
In the meantime, though, I'd sit with this impulse to leave and see what that might be saying about you. Your girlfriend might be avoiding certain conversations with her parents, but you might also be avoiding certain conversations with her.
And that's your work to do. Good luck.
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All right, time for our recommendation of the week. So I've always dug cool tattoos on people, but I am way too terrified to ever get a tattoo myself.
I just don't, I don't know if I love anything enough to live with it forever. I'm a coward basically.
But when I went to Burning Man, we played around with those temporary tattoos, you know, like when we would go out at night, they were so fun. It was like this funny little playful, like dress up kind of thing we did.
It was a way to have fun and be performative without having to commit to anything. And it's incredibly fun to do for parties, especially with friends.
So my recommendation of the week is these high-end temporary tattoos you can get online. Again, it's a way to have fun as an adult and microdose this massive commitment without waking up in 12 years with a terrible Ben Affleck tattoo of a wolf on your forearm or whatever.
Lots of fun. I think you guys might like it too.
You know, it's funny that you mentioned this. I totally agree.
I actually just discovered temporary tattoos as well. Now, I mean, my kids like them.
I've always known that they exist, but I went to Laos in Vietnam with this group of entrepreneurs and one of the organizers said, okay, we're having a costume party and everyone groans, right? Because you're already packing for two weeks in Laos in Vietnam and now you got to bring a freaking costume that you're going to wear for three hours. So I thought, okay, the ultimate hack is going to be just order a couple dozen tattoos off of whatever website, pack those.
They pack his flat sheets, of course, and bring those. And then I'll have enough leftover for other people too.
The party theme was come as you aren't. And that's a pretty damn cool theme, right? Cause it's essentially, what do you mean? Like come as you Michael aren't or come as you are not.
Yeah, no. Yeah.
Come as you are not. So, you know, come as you are as a thing, right? But this is like, you know, come as sort of the alternate ego, the alter ego that maybe lives inside you or something like that.
The Tyler Durden in your heart. Yeah.
The Tyler Durden. Got it.
Very cool. So I was like, all right, it's hot in Laos.
I'm just going to take my shirt off and put on temporary tattoos. Speaking of Tyler Durden and walk around with my brand new dad bod six pack hanging out and sort of enjoy it.
And I got to tell you, man, I've never wanted so many tattoos in my life. I would love if I could just immediately wake up tomorrow with 17 actually cool, tasteful tattoos.
But the problem is, yeah, I want them gone in 10 years without painful laser surgery. Yeah.
And this is the way to do it. Yeah.
I'm going to include some links to a couple of cool sets I found on Amazon in the show notes. There's one in black.
There's one in white. The white is really elegant if you want to class it up a little for a party.
I actually really like the white ones and they can be fun to put on your like forehead or your cheek without looking like a, you know, like a SoundCloud rapper or something. Highly recommend.
Yeah. And if you guys have any recs on cooler sets of tattoos, the options on Amazon, they're kind of limited and kind of a mixed bag, right? Because it's clearly like designs from China that are made in China.
Some are cool. Some are really lame.
So maybe, yeah, who knows? Maybe some of you make your own temporary tattoos or something. If so, I'd love to hear from you because that's definitely a cooler, more fun way to go.
All right. Next up.
Dear Gordon and Jabe, I'm a 45-year-old in the telecommunications industry. The pay is decent.
I'm not a millionaire, but earn in the low six figures, which is enough to care for myself and my family. I'm also a struggling addict who has been through recovery twice in the last four years.
I'm now at a crossroads, and I'm scared. Honestly, I'm petrified.
In 2020, I was working a job that I truly enjoyed as a customer trainer for a satellite communications company. I was able to travel the world and interact with a wide variety of people from all walks of life.
This was the first time that I had worked directly with people, since I was a team chief in the US Army back in the early 2000s, where I was a supervisor for up to 8 people and millions of dollars worth of equipment. I was recognized as the Distinguished Leadership Graduate from the Army Leadership School, and I noticed during my service that I had a natural gift for working and dealing with people.
I still maintain contact with several of my soldiers, and they continuously tell me how much I meant to them and how grateful they were for my leadership. Wow, that's really special, man, and really great feedback for you.
Sounds like you're an awesome leader. Unfortunately, I was a functional alcoholic.
I never got into any serious trouble with alcohol, no fights, no DUIs, no arrests, but it was clear that I was not healthy and needed to make some drastic changes in my life. So I went to a recovery center in 2020.
While there, I noticed that I again gravitated towards serving people in need. In week two of the six-week program, I was approached by some of the staff about staying on as a servant leader, a volunteer who stays on at the facility to help the staff and mentor other addicts in recovery.
I was consistently told by the counselors and other patients that this was what I was supposed to be doing in life. Due to the stories of my rough background and my unusual appearance, I'm able to reach people that others might not be able to.
That's cool. That sounds super rewarding.
For all those reasons, I quit my job to volunteer for four months in the hopes of working there full-time while working toward my certification to become an addiction counselor. But when my four-month volunteer service ended, I was told by the leader of the facility, quote, we just do not have anything for you, unquote.
I was crushed. I had been gassed up by so many people that I was sure that this was God telling me to move in this direction.
I was ready to make a serious change in my life, and now I was left with nothing. I also know that the rejection was specific to me because they ended up hiring two other people from the same class as me to full-time positions.
Interesting. So this might also be good feedback for you, but let's see where this goes.
The rejection also hurt on a personal level because I had elevated the director of the center to almost a father-like position because mine had abandoned me as a child. Okay.
There was a lot going on in this volunteer position. A lot.
Yeah. So he goes on.
I eventually got a new job in my field, but sadly ended up relapsing a few months later. The loss of this new life, these old feelings of abandonment and isolation due to COVID were too much for me to bear.
Two years after my first stint, I went to a different recovery facility. After the first two weeks of detoxing and adjusting mentally, I started getting that same feeling again.
Clients were coming to me for advice, guidance, or just to talk. Staff members noticed this and told me that I had something of value to offer others.
This program was 12 weeks long, and around four weeks in, I started making it known to the leadership that I wanted to pursue this path. I spoke regularly with the CEO of the organization who would consistently tell me, man, we cannot wait to get you here, and hey man, when are we going to make this happen? With many hugs and handshakes and other positive affirmations.
I was asked to develop two classes on recovery by the end of the week and delivered four within two days. I was talking to most of the staff and it seemed to me that I was destined to be there.
After my program, which included four weeks of aftercare where I stayed on as a volunteer, I made it clear to the CEO that I couldn't quit my full-time job. But since this location was right on my way to and from work, I would volunteer as often as they needed, so long as I could remain in the recovery community.
I felt a strong sense of direction again. I felt fulfilled and complete.
Then the facility attempted to run my insurance again for four more weeks of aftercare, which was denied, as it wasn't a quote-unquote medical necessity. Two days later, I was discharged from the program by the one guy on staff I wasn't talking to, who ended up being the decision maker.
What a blow. This guy just keeps on getting pumped up and then cut down.
When I asked that guy about leadership roles, I was told, yeah, that's really only for people that can be here full time and was essentially shown the door. I attempted several times to reach out to the CEO and was met with very brief responses, if any at all.
It was clear to me that I was lied to about any potential to be involved once they were done collecting money from my insurance company. Wow, if that's true, that sucks.
I wonder if there's more to the story there. But man, if dangling job opportunities in front of addicts is just a way to keep them on the tap, that is deeply messed up and highly unethical.
I agree. Very concerning.
But also, the first time he was turned down, that did seem to be unique to him. It wasn't about money, right? Right.
It's hard to know what conclusion to draw from this pattern. If it is a pattern.
Right. It's happened twice, which is enough for me to go, okay, something seems to be happening here.
Let's look at this. But also it could just be bad luck.
Now I'm back in the communications industry and I am miserable. I battle daily with depression.
and though I'm not 100% sober, I have some beer here and there. I am not at the level I was before going to recovery, nor do I plan on being back in that dark place.
Ooh, boy, candidly, this makes me nervous. There's no negotiating with recovery.
I admire your discipline, your confidence, I really do, but I'm a little concerned that you're not totally on the wagon, especially when his life purpose seems to be helping people in recovery.

We got to come back to this. So he goes on.
I know that I'm supposed to be doing something

different with my life. I know that I'm supposed to be serving God by serving others.
I know that

I have a gift when it comes to interacting with those in pain and in need of help. At the end of

my workday, I feel completely unfulfilled. I would much rather know that I was able to help just

Thank you. have a gift when it comes to interacting with those in pain and in need of help.
At the end of my workday, I feel completely unfulfilled. I would much rather know that I was able to help just one person, even if the pay were considerably less.
My goal is to open a recovery facility co-located with an animal rescue. I love dogs, and I know that when an addict has something else to care for, something else to live for, recovery is much more successful.
I dream of a facility where someone can come and fight off their addiction while also helping rescue animals. I love it.
That's a beautiful dream. This is touching.
But then I'm so scared to step away from this industry for a third attempt to enter the recovery field. The thought of not being able to make my rent or pay my bills keeps me up at night and often in tears during the day.
I know this is not where I belong, but I feel that I've been let down two different times by those that I thought were my path into this field. I do not know if I can tackle this mountain on my own, but I've been on my own since I was 16 and have never had to ask anyone for help.
How can I go about getting my foot in the community again so I can start really making a difference in people's lives? Am I overthinking this? Should I just toss the cow shit in the wind and let the chips fall where they may? What advice can you offer someone in my position? Signed, trying to not get flattened by dealing with these dragons as I wait for my best life to happen while I'm on, or at least Oh, I see. That's what happens when you voice to text your feedback Friday emails.
That's hilarious. Well, regardless, no, I would not throw caution nor cow shit or anything really into the wind.
I know how powerful having a purpose is. I know how much it sucks to feel like you're not living a life that's meaningful, that's authentic.
I hear how unhappy you are, and believe me, I get it. But you also can't compromise yourself financially by recklessly chasing your purpose without a plan for how to take care of yourself.
That could put you in a very stressful position. It could exacerbate a lot of the difficult feelings that you're wrestling with.
It might even make it more tempting to drink. I also think it could kind of infect this beautiful mission of yours.
Because if you rush into recovery work without a way to take care of yourself, you might put a lot of pressure on that new career to take care of you. I'm going to go ahead and guess that it's not super lucrative, at least not at first, and it might end up souring you on the work or making it unsustainable.
Whereas if you found a way to keep a roof over your head and pay the bills while you took some steps towards this calling, I have a feeling you'd be able to engage with it in a very pure way. You'd be able to enjoy it because you truly love it and not allow money to get too wrapped up in this calling from the jump.
The distress you're in about money, I know that feels like a huge sign that something isn't aligned in your life, and I agree with you. But you also wouldn't feel that distress of taking care of yourself financially weren't really important.
Agreed. To me, this is a sign that you need to be responsible while you're also courageous, and it is not either or.
Exactly. So my strong advice is you need to find a way to support yourself and engage in the recovery field.
Maybe that means keeping your job and volunteering at a recovery center nights and weekends. Maybe it means getting a new job that's less demanding or a job that's part-time or a job that's closer to the recovery world in some way and using it as a transition to support your recovery work.
Maybe it means staying at your job, but making more peace with it. Not thinking of it as abandoning your calling, but as a way to support your calling until you can make enough income from the work that really matters.
Which, by the way, that isn't just a cute story. I really do believe that.
I don't think Einstein felt like he was living inauthentically by working in the patent office. You know, he was holding down a job he needed to be able to do the work he cared about.
And he did that work. You know, that's also a really interesting example because working as a patent examiner, that was a smart day job to have as a physicist.
I think I remember reading that being exposed to all those patents actually helped Einstein develop his own ideas and think more creatively or something like that. So that's a good case study in potentially looking for work that's near the field you care about, even if it's not exactly the work that you dream of doing.
Exactly. I mean, how many aspiring writers work as baristas? You know, you can either sling lattes all day miserable and bitter that it's not your calling, or you can say, thank you for this job that allows me to go home and write.
Now, about stepping back into the recovery community again, actually moving closer to your calling, I think there's something more important we got to talk about first. His recovery.
Yeah. Like I said, I'm pretty worried about this.
I know he said he's, I have a couple of beers here and there. I know he said he'd ever gotten any serious trouble with alcohol, no fights, no DUIs, no arrests.
Maybe his dependency wasn't too severe.

But he also said that it was clear that he wasn't healthy and he needed to make some drastic changes

in his life. Exactly.
And by the way, just because you didn't get into a fight or drive drunk or get

arrested doesn't mean you didn't have a problem. It might just mean you weren't aggressive or

reckless or you were lucky enough not to be busted by the cops. But more to the point, you've relapsed

twice. Now, I know everyone's on their own journey.
I understand that some people can find their own

Thank you. or you were lucky enough not to be busted by the cops.
But more to the point, you've relapsed twice. Now, I know everyone's on their own journey.
I understand that some people can find their own paths to sobriety. Maybe you're one of those people who's learned how to keep this in check on his own, but candidly, man, and I say this with love, I am not convinced that you are one of those people.
You have a problem with alcohol, by your own admission, and that doesn't just go away. You might be keeping it in line right now, but that doesn't mean that you've addressed your addiction or the roots of your addiction.
Which, you know, I think might include this father wound he mentioned, this sense of abandonment, the fact that he's been on his own since he was 16 years old, which is heartbreaking. These core wounds are profound and they might be driving a lot of this guy's story in ways that he might not fully realize, not just the pain of being rejected by these recovery centers, and that CEO in particular, but also the depression that he's experiencing these days, the struggle he feels in reaching out and asking for help, even the ambivalence about pursuing his purpose in the first place.
I'm speculating a little bit here, and I'm maybe glossing over some things, but I do wonder if that might be the real problem that alcohol has seemed like the solution for. I think so, Gabe.
It's so interesting. He's remarkably self-aware about his patterns, his tender spots, his conflicts, but I don't know if he's going all the way and asking himself how his ongoing relationship with alcohol might be serving to cope with those things.
And then in turn, making it really hard to heal them. And the reason he needs to dig into this first is I just don't understand how he thinks he's going to be a truly helpful guide to other addicts if he's casually tossing back Coronas a couple times a week.
I have a lot of compassion for this guy. I really do.
He's been through a lot. But again, if I'm being totally honest here, I find his flexible relationship with recovery rather hypocritical and lacking in integrity, frankly, and it kind of antithetical to the whole premise of recovery.
I might go a step further and very respectfully say that I find it a little presumptuous of him to want to coach other addicts when he is not 100% sober himself. I hear in his letter that he has a lot to offer other people in recovery.
And I believe him, that he is a natural leader, that people respond to him, they respond to his story. It is so beautiful.
But I think he needs to pause and ask himself why he is chasing this path so hard if he isn't fully walking that path himself. Is he putting the cart before the horse here? My strong feeling is yes.
Is it possible that ministering to other addicts is in part a way for him to potentially bypass aspects of his own recovery? This is so interesting. This parallel is so interesting.
When I was doing the dating coach thing, there were so many guys who would walk in on like day one of the bootcamp or the beginning

of their journey.

And you'd ask them what their goals are.

And tons of them wanted to be coaches.

They're like, how do I get to a coaching role?

How do I?

And I was so confused by this.

It's funny because I also kind of went through that in an initial stage, I guess.

But then I was shocked by how many people had the same desire.

And I would ask them why.

And some of it was like, oh, look, all these people look up to you.

It feels good.

So there's status.

But I also think that you kind of get to say, I've arrived. I'm healed.
I have a little bit of power over this problem because I am in a role of a teacher. And it just feels good because you go, oh, of course, I've done the work.
Look at me. I'm the one who's teaching the class.
And what role does that desire play in that person's personality? It's very interesting. So yeah, I think we have to ask the question, is there something attractive to our friend here about being the guy who can help other people stay sober, the guy who's powerful and inspiring and kind of essential when he's struggling to stay sober himself? I know those are intense questions to ponder.
Maybe they feel a little bit leading, but I'm with you, Jordan. Something is not quite right here.
The dream of his to build the center that offers addiction treatment and animal therapy is amazing, but how can the guy running that center, running group therapy sessions, for example, coaching addicts, how can that guy who has a history of substance abuse not be sober? That does not feel right to me. And I wonder if on some level that doesn't feel right to him either.
And maybe that's why he's tied up in knots these days, not just because, you know, he's working a job that he doesn't care about, that's not aligned with his purpose, but because on some level he knows that he still has work to do on himself before this path truly becomes doable. To say nothing of the fact that continuing to drink might be making all of these feelings and decisions even harder to work through.
A hundred percent. And I have to ask, and I recognize I'm speculating here, I cannot know this for sure, but is this a quality that the first treatment center also noticed and went, I don't know if this is our guy, I don't know if he's ready.
I'm not saying they necessarily went, oh, this guy's going to fall off the wagon or he's not ready. But this aspect of his personality might have come through in certain ways or popped up in a few different situations or moments or just his overall way of being.
And that might have sent a signal that he had no idea he was sending. Again, we cannot know this for sure.
It's just a theory. But my point here is I think there's something something meaningful for him to know about the feedback that he got.
Assuming, of course, that it wasn't all just a scam to run his insurance for more money. Yeah, I think it's a very fair question and it's absolutely up to him to decide what the answer is, what he believes is true.
But to me, it doesn't really matter if he doesn't plan on being back in that dark place, as he put it. I think he already is back in that dark place, or at least a dark place, as long as he is not living his life fully in alignment with his supposed purpose, which means living his life fully in alignment with sobriety.
But I do want to clarify one thing. I am not saying that this purpose of yours is misguided or that it's not actually your path.
I do not think that you're being disingenuous or deluded about how much this recovery path means to you. Your struggle with alcohol, it informs this calling of yours in a really important way.
It's like a priest who wrestles with his faith, and that makes his role even more meaningful, right? Or a therapist who's drawn to helping people because of her own trauma, right? This does not disqualify you from this meaningful work. I think it actually qualifies you even more.
Right, but if that priest is secretly sleeping with women or the therapist isn't addressing their own wounds, that's a different story. That's right.
The question is, what relationship do you have with those wounds? How are you engaging with these challenges? So, my strong feeling, I don't mean to beat a dead horse, it's just so fascinating what this guy's dealing with. My strong feeling is that he needs to look at all of his motivations for wanting to pursue this work at this moment, especially given that he's not fully walking the walk.
The other thing that's complicated about this is he's been burned by two different recovery centers, and I can appreciate why that's left a bad taste in his mouth, and I can understand why it's left him wary of the recovery world. Like I said, the first center that turned him down and then hired two other people, they might have been responding to certain qualities in him.
I think that's at least useful for him to be aware of them. The second center, though, that really does sound like a money thing.
And like I said, that is super gross and hurtful. And unfortunately, it doesn't surprise me in the least here in the United States with our privatized kind of rehab thing.
Our health care system is so broken. So much of it is driven by profit.
And I've heard tons of stories about shady practices at rehab centers, not being certified. I mean, just the list goes on and on.
So that might not have been about him per se. But I can absolutely understand why that's probably made it even scarier for him to open himself up to help again.
For sure. And who knows, maybe continuing to drink a little bit.
Maybe that's even a little like screw you to the recovery world on some level, a form of protest in a way. Like, okay, you guys don't actually care about me.
I'm not going to play by your rules. I'm going to do this my way.
That is such an interesting theory. That could be, but to really trace this back and just hopefully connect up all these dots really quickly.
I think we're hearing from a guy who has some unaddressed trauma, some very real wounds as we all do. He's a terrific leader, a generous human being, apparently a very compelling role model, and he has some stuff to work through.
The alcohol? Probably a way of dealing with that trauma. But the trauma is also making his relationship with the recovery world even more fraught.
So in many ways, I do wonder if this goes back to his father, and I know that that's like the obvious Freud take here, but remember, he put that director of that first center up on a pedestal. He became a kind of surrogate father to him because his dad abandoned him as a child.
And that made that rejection so much more painful, right? He wasn't just turned down by a place he was excited about. He was kind of pushed out, rejected by a guy who felt like dad and a place that probably felt like home.
And who knows, maybe the way he related to that director and maybe other people at the center, the people he chose to talk to, and maybe that one guy he didn't talk to, maybe that contributed to their decision. I say that not to make him paranoid or to blame him, because it does sound like they also loved him, and he did phenomenal work there, right? Clearly.
But who knows, maybe he came off as a little intense, or a little clingy, or a little presumptuous, or who knows, maybe they had an intuitive sense, to your point, Jordan, that he just wasn't the right fit for them. It's also possible that those people just did not value and appreciate him, and that is on them.
But then there's the fact that he's been on his own from such a young age, which is another very important data point. He doesn't have a lot of experience asking for help, and what that tells me is that he's probably extremely self-sufficient.
It's a hallmark of leadership that can also become a fatal flaw. And it's probably very uncomfortable for him to say, I need help.
And those are really two sides of the same coin. Right.
It's hard for him to be vulnerable. And I'm sure that relates to his dad too.
But being vulnerable in that way is essential. It's essential in recovery.
It's essential in therapy, and it sounds very essential in helping other addicts. And look, he is being very vulnerable with us.
I want to give him so much credit for that. He has a gift for reaching other addicts.
He has a gift for moving people with his story, and he's being very open with us. But in these two relationships, the one that he has with other addicts who need help, and the one that he's having with us right now, two strangers on a podcast, he might be able to be vulnerable on certain convenient terms, either by being the guy who inspires and leads, which might put him in a position of superiority, or by being the guy who gets to be anonymous and a little distant, which might put him in a position of safety.
Yeah, as opposed to the guy who has to go back to the staff at a rehab center where he's been burned a couple of times and say, I need help. Yes.
I need help as a patient. Exactly.
It's a really good point. It's something I think he needs to sit with.
So, wow. Okay, we spent way more time on this than I thought we would, but it's such a rich story.
I hope this gives you some new angles, man. Sometimes when you feel stuck or stymied, it's because you still have some work to do exactly where you are.
And then when you do that work, you start to find that the doors open in a new way. For example, if you find a treatment center that works in an ethical way, that values you, that really helps you, and you open yourself up to that help while you hold down this job, that might create some excellent opportunities in the recovery world.
If you get and stay sober, that might put you in a headspace to pursue those opportunities in a way that's financially sustainable to you. It isn't magical thinking.
It's real stuff. So take care of yourself, man.
Open yourself up to the people and places that you need to get healthy. Get as solid as you can in every way first.
Then see where you can take this purpose and talent of yours. I have a feeling you could make a big impact on people, man.
But I feel very strongly that this journey you're so passionate about, it really has to begin at home. And we're rooting for you, dude.
Good luck. Go back and check out our Ryan Holiday episode and our Skeptical Sunday on traditional Chinese medicine, if you haven't done so yet.
The best things that have happened in my life and business have come through my network, the circle of people that I know, like, and trust. And I'm teaching you how to build the same thing for yourself in our 6-Minute Networking course.

It's free, you hear about it on the show all the time.

It's not schmoozy, it's on the Thinkific platform

over at 6minutenetworking.com.

These drills just take a few minutes a day.

It's stuff I wish I knew 20 years ago.

You gotta dig that well before you get thirsty, folks.

Build those relationships before you need them.

You can find it all again for free

at 6minutenetworking.com. Show notes and transcripts on the website, advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support the show, all at jordanharbinger.com slash deals.
I'm at jordanharbinger on Twitter and Instagram. You can also connect with me on LinkedIn.
Gabe's over on Instagram at Gabriel Mizrahi or on Twitter at Gabe Mizrahi. This show is created in association with Podcast One.
My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogarty, and of course, Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our

own, and I am a lawyer, but I am not your lawyer. So do your own research before implementing

anything you hear on the show. Remember, we rise by lifting others.
Share the show with those you

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advice we gave here today. In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn, and we'll see you next time.
If you're looking for another episode of The Jordan Harbinger Show to check out, I wanted to give you a preview of my conversation with the legendary Dennis Quaid. We got into rejection both in Hollywood and outside, and how he brings his characters to life on screen.
This is really a fun episode. I think you're going to dig it.
I didn't know at the time if I wanted to be an actor. That was back during the time where I wanted to be a veterinarian and or a forest ranger.
Forest ranger. You'd be fighting fires right now? Yes, I would.
I'm evacuated from my house right now. Are you really? I saw the smoke when I flew in this morning.
And our flight originally was canceled, and I was like, you got to get me to L.A. I got Dennis Quaid coming here.
I can't stand him up for this bullshit fire. You use a lot of different accents in many of your films.
I'm curious how you learn and practice those. My brother and I grew up doing impersonations like Ed Sullivan and John Wayne and, you know, everybody that was around us.
So I pick up on accents badly, even, you know, like in India, I will be talking. Oh, man.
Are you the guy that hears one on TV and then spends the rest of the week annoying everybody in the house? I prepare in secret. So, like, you're in the shower going, one more dinner.
One more dinner. I can't get her to go, Captain.
That one's awesome. That's definitely good.
There's a reason you get paid the big bucks for these, and I don't. That's for sure.
I know music's a big part of your life. You wrote a few songs for three of your films.
Been in a band for like 20 years? Same guys. Same guys.
For 19 years this Halloween. Oh, happy bandiversary.
Well, that's really good. I like that.
You can steal that. I definitely think I just made that up just now.
Really? Yeah. I've never heard.
I've also never heard. Wow, it just came out.
Yeah. See what happens when you relax.
Is it true that you play with your band in bare feet? Yes, when we first started out. The Beastie Boys, they don't wear shirts.
I won't weariv. For more with Dennis Quaid, including how he uses fear to stay motivated, check out episode 279 right here on The Jordan Harbinger Show.
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