Episode 46: Fundamental Series - The 3 Pillars of the Recovery Zone

In this foundational episode of our Fundamental Series, we explore what it really means to live in the Recovery Zone—a space defined not just by abstinence, but by the integration of three essential pillars: boundaries, self-care, and sobriety. These aren’t standalone ideas—they’re interconnected forces that support and reinforce one another. When one is missing, the whole system can collapse.

Sean and Dayne break down each of these pillars, reflecting on their personal journeys and sharing insights from the broader recovery community. What does an effective boundary list actually look like? Why is self-care often the hardest to build, especially after years of self-neglect? And how can all of this help make abstinence something sustainable, not just survivable? Whether you're early in recovery or reevaluating your routine, this episode offers practical tools, honest reflection, and a framework for building a life that heals—not just one that avoids relapse.

Transcript

Sean: 0:15

Hello everybody and welcome back to Beyond Sexual Brokenness. Dayne, before we get into the topic for today, I wanted to maybe refer back to some of the discussion we've had in our discussion board with the last couple of episodes. First of all, I wanted to really thank for everybody that's commented in and we're receiving more and more comments in our discussion board on Relay, which is awesome because it gives Dayne and I a chance to kind of go back and forth with people listening to us But Dayne, what I wanted to refer to is, I've been very happy that a few people have actually took exception to some of my comments and mainly my comments in a couple episodes. And this was my way of saying, I love that, man. Dayne and I always say that we're not experts and we're just sharing our opinion. I will also go another step and say, I am not a professional podcaster, nor do I have any desire to be a professional podcaster. So if a certain message was the way it was intended. I want to make sure I kind of say this out loud. It's certainly not intended to demotivate anybody from what they're doing, their recovery. So this was my way of saying, love all of you listening to us. If anything I say or anything this podcast says that does anything but motivate you to sit down and reflect and think about what else you need to do to get yourself to a healthier and more proud state of living, If it does anything but that, don't listen to me, man. I feel very comfortable to kind of listen to an episode or a podcast that resonates with your beliefs. These are certainly just our personal opinion and a reflection of our experiences. Anyway, I just want to kind of put that out there. But today, we want to talk about something more fundamental. We actually talked about this a few episodes ago that we're going to publish a few series more designed around the fundamentals of what it takes to have a healthy recovery journey from porn and masturbation based on our experiences. And one concept, Dayne, that we often feel like it's overlooked is this idea of what's referred to as recovery zone. Now, recovery zone is sort of a topic that's been labeled that way in Relay, and it's very powerful and a big part of the tool and app that I utilize quite a bit. But in general terms, whether you're part of Relay or not, Recovery Zone is basically a set of integrated personal commitments to what we like to say self-care, to take care of ourselves, to put ourselves in physical, mental, spiritual state of continuing a recovery journey. That's self-care. Second, part is boundaries, basically having a set of boundaries that allow us and makes relapsing more difficult and makes living with freedom more easier or easier, I should say. And of course, the last piece of recovery zone is this idea of abstinence. What are we abstaining from? So at Relay, what we call recovery zone is this integration between self-care, boundaries, and abstinence. And today, Dana and I want to kind of go back and forth on what each of those concepts mean, maybe share some examples of what we have in our recovery and what others have shared with us and how they have evolved since day one, a year and a half ago in this recovery versus where we are today. Because the key idea for me, Dayne, is, and I love this, I wrote this down in my journal the other day and it's very meaningful to me. Abstinence is the floor, not the ceiling for me, right? Abstinence is bare minimum in my recovery journey now. The idea that I no longer want to be addicted to pornography and masturbation is now very much the floor of what I have in my recovery zone. could argue is endless and it's all about how fulfilling can life be for us and what more and more I've learned is if this recovery zone is designed the right way it can really motivate us and enable us to really think about that ceiling not necessarily just living with this floor that's necessary for me to have a successful recovery journey so with that said let's kind of get the conversation going. My thought was, Dayne, I would like to start with abstinence first, only because that kind of sets basically the floor of the conversation. Then I want to circle back to self-care and boundary, and we can kind of talk about each of those. So abstinence is very simple. Maybe I'll just put you on the spot. What does your abstinence circle look like? What are you abstaining from?

Daye: 5:42

Yeah, for me, I'll just be direct and honest because that's what we do here, right? For me, mine is I've got basically four things that probably are across the board common for probably a lot of men who are trying to stay away from this stuff, or at least some of them. Mine would be for me personally, like viewing pornography, um, lusting, trying to try to even keep away from that. Uh, a big problem for me was chat rooms. So that, and then, uh, just masturbation, like those are the things that I have as kind of my abstinence, uh, things that are easy to remember and just, they are, you're right. They are the floor. They are the things that These are 100% relapse. Now we could get into how you define relapse and what it is. And that can vary as you go along this journey and you tighten up kind of what means a relapse for you and your own care and what kind of things you've set with your significant other or whatever, as far as like what these boundaries are, but for your abstinence circle. But for me those are those are the initial ones and I think the cool thing about this idea of these recovery zones that we're talking about of like this abstinence these boundaries these self-care like when you're early on in your journey I think every man who's even if you don't know what to do and you're just like in this panic mode you can sit down and take some time and write down abstinence boundaries self-care and I guarantee you you can think of some things to put there because you know the things you've been doing that you want to stop doing you know some of the things that have been stopping you from from has been putting you in a position to where you're able to do those things. And you know the things you're missing to kind of help yourself a little bit. You may not know an exhaustive list, but you know one or two on each category. So I think this tool is a cool way to start out to really figure out like, what do I need? I don't even know what to do now. Well, I think you need to go through these circles in your recovery zone. But again, for abstinence for me, it is those kind of four things are like the bare bottom minimum of things that I've had problems with in the past and are just non-negotiables for me as far as recovery. So. What do you got?

Sean: 7:49

Lots of really cool stuff. Bare minimum requirements, non-negotiable. I love all those definitions. Some of this has been repeated in the past, but again, in the spirit of hopefully creating an episode that's very fundamental for anybody either starting a journey or still struggling. Tell me why masturbation is part of your abstinence cycle.

Daye: 8:15

For me, that was...

Sean: 8:16

Sorry, maybe a follow-up, just kind of be more direct about what I'm trying to get at. What if I don't watch any pornography, don't go into chat rooms and masturbate? Why is that scenario still part of your abstinence circle, I presume? Okay,

Daye: 8:32

yeah. So you're saying like if I was able to stay away from all the other behaviors that I was doing and that was just the single one that I kept, hold on. Yeah. Well, I think for me, and I feel this is true for a lot of men, uh, and you can, you can give me your opinion, of course, after this, but, but, um, I don't even want to say it was a gateway to the other things it was, but I think in and of itself, it's bad enough because, but I think with the way people position it, it feels like it's a, I can say it's a gateway for me to keep just close enough to these active out behaviors because I'm still doing something. I have some kind of pain management system and that's involved in it. And I'm still finding a way as a solution to that. That's outside of a healthy way. And for me, it was still self-serving. It was still, um, I don't see how maybe some men can do this, but I don't see how you do it without fantasizing or having some kind of thoughts in your mind that move you back towards some kind of way of objectifying women and being unfaithful to yourself or your partner. my family and my wife and my relationship with her. It's, it's just, there's, I don't, yeah, for me, it's just, it's just something that's not beneficial. Yep.

Sean: 10:02

Thank you. And you and I have a very similar opinion on this. As a matter of fact, we have a full episode on what is any masturbation. Okay. I think it's the title of the episode. And we shared a lot of our thoughts around that topic, but, but I wanted to touch on that a little bit. I have the same opinion. Once my brain, my brain has been addicted. to do thoughts and fantasies, even without any pornography. masturbating I do not trust my brain that it will someone that will not come up

Daye: 10:30

right and I would say to add to that too like if you're a guy who's like got this cycle pattern that's like weeks or months or whatever and you're still like you're not giving up masturbation like that's the one thing you kept then I would think like how do you even know if that's I mean that's obviously still part of your problem because I don't see how you could say that that's not part of your problem and still be in a cycle of some kind so if you're still I think anyone listening to it find yourself in some kind of cycle And you've decided this is okay. I think you need to be true to yourself and say, I need to take this out for now and see if it impacts my cycle any differently. There's probably more you probably need to do too. But again, we talk about going extreme and really getting like, I mean, if something's not working, you got to go, you got to take the next step. So.

Sean: 11:13

Yeah, I like that. The other thing that's kind of interesting to me, Dan, I don't know if you now feel this way or not. This is my first time and hopefully the only time where I'm trying to recover from an addiction. I've not had other addictions that I have tried to get away from. I am getting very sensitive towards this concept of being addicted to something that I cannot stop. I don't know how to describe it, Dan. Even if masturbation had nothing to do with any of the other stuff that I'm trying to abstain from, which is not the case, I agree with you. I think they're very intertwined and there's no way to separate them from each other, in my opinion. But if I'm trying to stop something and I can't, like this whole idea of I need to stop this thing or I want to. I want to. I just want to. I just want to stop this thing for whatever reason. And I can't go beyond a few weeks without falling back into that pattern or activity against my own will. That really bothers me. Like this whole idea of being addicted to any activity to an extent that I cannot stop it when I want to because for whatever the hell reason it's being detrimental to my life. I'm starting to build a... I don't know how to describe it. Allergy. I'm being allergic to this concept of I need to stop this thing because I don't like it anymore and I can't. It just doesn't feel good as a man. I don't pretend to be perfect. There's a lot of things that I'm not good at, but it just doesn't feel good as a man to say, I don't want to do this, but yet again, something happens and I fall back into that pattern to me whatever that thing is it fits the bill of adding it to the abstinence circle i hate having something in my life that despite me not wanting to do it as a man somehow i get back to doing it i just doesn't make me feel free you know yeah so to me that fits the bill and i need that on my abstinence circle

Daye: 13:29

yeah and i think that's the first step to doing it like if we're getting practical like what are the things that you're doing that you don't want to do and then like they make you angry and you wish you could stop them, like write, write them down. There's your abstinence. You've got to keep these things down. And it seems simple. It seems elementary, but like a lot, I think a lot of these guys that are struggling with stuff, me included early on, it's like, I've got to get to just give me some simple things I can start doing. Cause I'm so messed up right now. I don't even know what to do. And I think it's like, make a list of things you don't want to do anymore. Get granular or just list. I mean, list them out and then go from there. But yeah, is step one.

Sean: 14:05

And if you struggle with keeping up with that list, you probably have a good abstinence list because whether you like to call it addicted to it or not, you're obviously struggling to keep that list alive. So that's probably good to have on your abstinence list. The other thing, Dayne, and abstinence is actually the easier part of the three, in my opinion, to talk about. So I kind of want to move on to self-care and value. But the other thing that I've learned through my sort of this list evolving for the last year and a half I've also found out that I may have to add some, I'll call it secondary or pseudo abstinence targets in my abstinence list that help keeping me dry with my primary abstinence goal. I'll give you some example. Like when I started, it was just about masturbation and pornography. So those were my two things. You don't masturbate, you don't, you know, watch pornography or any sort of sexual content. But then I realized, and I know some of my other friends have actually thought this too, have kind of had these type of reflections. When I drink, I'm a lot more susceptible to objectifying. I'm a lot more susceptible to pornography. I have a pattern of when I get a little tipsy wanting to masturbate. I've done that for a long time, especially in college. So I added alcohol to my abstinence circle and man, it did wonders for me. I was not addicted to alcohol. I actually really enjoy a little bit of alcohol here and there. But my primary absence goal became a lot easier by adding basically some secondary absence targets. Now, we will talk about that. I might eventually take that off and go enjoy a cocktail with my wife here and there. But it was very essential for me to realize that some other things needed to be added to help me really keep my primary goal alive. I even went beyond that day and a couple months later, once I added alcohol to my circle, I was in a thing with my friends where somebody was enjoying a nice Cuban cigar. Guys getting together, most of us have been in scenarios where somebody brings some good cigars or sharing after a wedding or celebration or maybe it's just a nice evening. As soon as I poked at that cigar, I'm not a smoker, I don't smoke cigars very often, maybe a couple of times a year. But I smoked that cigar. And then the first thing that popped in my head was, man, it would be nice if I was drinking some whiskey with the cigar. I just go together so well for Sean and many other people. I added smoking to my absence circle right away because I realized here's another thing that could just make it a little bit easier for me. I'm not a big time smoker anyway. So why can't I tell my friend next time? Actually, I stopped smoking. I'm not going to smoke anymore. Now I don't smoke. I'm not going to have the temptation to drink. And when I don't drink, I'm not going to have another temptation to masturbate or watch porn. Again, this was a little bit of evolution for me that sometimes these secondary tertiary type abstinence goals can help keep me away from that main one that got me in trouble. And eventually in the future, I might change that. Today, if a friend comes to me and say, hey, you want to smoke a Cuban cigar with me? No problem. I'll probably do it. And it's not going to cause me any issues. But for the time being, it is on my list. And as long as it's on my list, is non-negotiable i would have to have a good conversation with myself and my wife and take something off my list and then then do it differently in the future but that's that's my other ask of those of you that are really looking at your abstinence circle if you have things in there that are just making your life more difficult to stay dry with pornography and masturbation add that damn thing to your abstinence list keep yourself out of trouble because life is just not worth relapsing over and over again we've talked about this i'm not even going to get into the whole relapse conversation as Dan and I poured our heart out about that, you know, a couple of episodes ago. But think about that. Absence circle is all about protecting us from relapsing, protecting us from getting back into our patterns. And if there's something that you can add to it to make it easier, that was my learning and it's been very helpful. So right now on my absence circle, I have pornography, masturbation, alcohol, and smoking. Those are my four items and I'm very happy about them I'm a whole lot healthier last year and a half because I haven't had a drop of alcohol or smoke little benefits to I guess little extra health benefits because of my abstinence cycles as well alright so that's good for the time being let's kind of move on I want to talk a little bit about self-care then move on to boundaries so self-care Dayne, self-care has this sort of notion of a list of soft things. Self-care is not soft. Guys, and Sean included, we kind of have a hard time with making a list of things that are meant to just take care of ourselves. I don't know. At least me and my buddies never sat down and talked about, man, I feel so much better when I go to bed early at night. I think I bragged more about, oh, I was watching this badass movie till 3 a.m. more often than I bragged about, man, it feels so good to go to bed at 10 o'clock every night. Something about men not necessarily talking about things that are important to their self-care. So I kind of want to talk to you about a little bit about like what What is your definition of self-care? And maybe if you have a few things that, you know, you're kind of working on that have helped you with your recovery to ultimately put you physically, emotionally in a position that allows you to be strong against your abstinence goals. That's sort of the definition of self-care for me, at least.

Daye: 21:17

Yeah, for me, yeah, self-care is a big one. And it is, like you said, I think, and it's one of those that feels like very Uh, like, I don't know, fuzzy or hard to really grasp and understand. It's like self-care is this like thing out there. And I don't really know what, how do I even define this or what do I do with it? Or, or then there's the thought of like, how does this even, I think, I think for me early on. And I think for a lot of guys early on too, it's like, how does this even help me right now? I don't need to do with self-care. Self-care is like some long-term thing about the future and something I'm here in the beginning. My family, my marriage is falling apart. I can't stop doing this addiction. I'm doing things that I hate doing. What is self-care? I don't even care about myself. Why should I even talk self-care? I hate myself right now. I mean, I would argue that that's one, I would say that I think that's the wrong attitude to have about it because I think, um, as, as I've seen your journey for sure, like self-care has been a big thing that you, you can, you're a big proponent of, of like this, this is important. This is stuff we have to do. And I don't, I don't know if we will talk about ranking these three different areas. It's like priority wise, but I, I think they're all pretty close to like head to head on priority. Of course, abstinence is the powerful one because it's the one that Like you've you've like failed at that point. Right. But the other two have equal weight as far as like keeping you from failing. And there's a lot of discovery journey in that. But so I think there are three equal areas. But anyway, for for self-care for me, I would say it's something that this is going to spawn me to or cause me to revisit mine because I really think I need to do lately. But for me, my self-care is kind of one of them is like going to bed at night with my wife. at the same time. Um, that's, and I don't think you could argue, we can talk about this too, whether like there's a boundary or self-care things, but, uh, cause I think those kind of can blur to you. But for me, that's one of the things as we go to bed at the same time, because that helps me to be healthy. That helps me to stay in a position with her to where, uh, she feels safe around me because part of my problem was staying up late at night and doing things. And there's trauma associated with that with her. So part of our both self-care is me going to bed at the same time and going to sleep at the same time and then waking up in the morning and what it's doing to me as far as self-care is I'm feeling refreshed. I'm feeling energized. I'm not wasting the night away. I'm not putting myself into positions where I'm doing things that I shouldn't do at night because I'm up late and it was part of my triggering time. Um, so there's boundary self-care blend there, but that is one of the things. Um, so just for other ones are like, um, I, I, I try to journal, journal, even if just a few sentences, I try to do that every day to write something. Um, um, other thing I do is, um, I try to, I haven't done as well in this lately, but for a while I was trying to practice IFS work every day because internal family systems I was running was a big deal for me. So I was trying to practice, uh, IFS and just watching my, uh, my caffeine intake and how many I've drank too much coffee. So trying to be mindful of that. Um, and another thing for me has been, um, Part of my self-care is, and we've talked about this before, is just listening for bids from my family and recognize those and responding to those and acting on those. For me, that's another area of self-care because I'm training myself to be responsive to my family and interact with my family versus picking other things like my job or something. So I'm doing self-care to help myself be more responsive to them and be more aware and be more mindful of them. So those are some things. And I really, I, yeah, I think I would like to personally sit down and spend some time. This is making me think about it. Spend some time and just purposely take some time to go through my self-care and be like, what are some high things that I could start doing that are more, uh, more powerful for me at this point? Uh, but those just, a few things.

Sean: 25:32

Yeah, perfectly put. And I love that you started with this whole idea of, man, at the beginning, I don't even care about self-care. I was trying to make a point. I don't even care about myself. I've actually heard people say that. I have talked about that. I didn't like myself. I've heard this from others in this space. So self-care, just like abstinence, also evolves. But the way I define it, and I'm going to repeat myself a little bit. Self-care enables, primes, creates the healthy enough of a physical mind and spiritual state of being that gives me the best chance to stay committed to my boundaries and ultimately stay committed to my abstinence. And early on, self-care might be very binary about things that are directly related to staying dry, sort of simplistically put. And it took me a long time for me to kind of visualize it this way. It helps me visualize it this way. I put it out there to see if others can do it too, whether it's meaningful to others or not. I have basically a list of self-care all the way to my left, which on Relay, it's basically a zone or a circle. My self-care list is on my left. My boundary list is in the middle and my absence is all the way to the right. Especially early on, I think it was very meaningful for me for these to be very integrated where the self-care that I have somehow makes it easier mentally or physically, makes it easier for me to have a boundary in the middle that actually works. I stay committed to my boundary and then that boundary really helps me stay committed to my abstinence. These kind of work like hand in hand. Let me give you, give an example for the audience to kind of think about, especially those who are early in their journey. I'm trying to abstain from masturbation, abstinence goal. A key time where I masturbate is late at night when I'm tired, when I'm bored, when it's 2 o'clock in the morning, when I'm in bed and my phone is in my hand. So I put a boundary that says no phone in bed or no phone in the room. We'll talk about the boundary list in a second. No phone in the room directly is connected to not masturbating. Boundary helps that abstinence. I go a step to the left where I get to my self-care. I go to bed on time or early so I don't end up in this vulnerable state of 2 a.m. So now I create this self-care list of I'm going to try to go to bed at 10, 11 o'clock at night. And the way then you said it, sometimes it's kind of gray between self-care and boundary. But what has helped Sean and his simple mind is as I go from left to right on my list, as I go from my self-care to boundary in the middle to all the way to the right, my abstinence from left to right, it becomes more and more non-negotiable. I love that word that Dayne said. Abstinence, hell no non-negotiable because when I negotiate with it, I relapse and I start all over. Black and white. boundary to a good extent non-negotiable Dayne talks about that some of his boundaries that we'll talk about in a minute and Sean the same way we're non-negotiable today they still are because we believe negotiating with that shit gets me in trouble with my abstinence so we to a very good extent treat our boundaries non-negotiable if you look at Dayne and Sean's recovery zone you will see we have a very long streak on our boundaries they're not maybe as long as our abstinence but damn long and we don't recycle on our boundaries very often we've got to a point where I know it's the same thing every now and then I spy on your circles it's like there's a boundary that goes with your absence like I do these things on my boundaries I stay dry with my absence right so that's how I make the difference between self-care and boundaries self-care can be a little bit more negotiable maybe every day I don't go to bed 11 o'clock something happens there's a birthday party that stay open till midnight now the moment the self-care the moment I don't follow a self-care item I need to be aware of it this self-care is me meaningful enough that if I go five, six days of not paying attention to it, it causes me problems. And we've had friends that, for example, going to bed at a decent time is a big deal for them. And they go five, six nights of staying up late. They get tired. Now they're white knuckling, staying away from pornography. And they actually relapse five, six days later. And I have seen them that they will reflect back and say, man, I've been really tired. If I had stuck to my self-care and I enabled my body to think about my boundaries, maybe I wouldn't have gone to my face with two o'clock in the morning and maybe I won't have relapsed with my abstinence, right? So I think, I guess my first point is, I think the way I treat them as how non-negotiable they are going from my self-care on the left-hand side all the way to my abstinence on the right-hand side, that's my way of differentiating between them. But for me, since you did a good job of talking about your self-care, my self-care, one is pray to start and finish the day. This actually at the beginning for me was saying my confirmation and commitment list at the beginning of the day and the end of the day. So I would start by saying these things I will not do today. These things I will do today. But it has evolved. I no longer go through the day and say I will not touch Facebook. I will not touch Instagram. I will not lie. I will not masturbate. I will not touch myself. Those used to be the things that I started with. Now it's become praying to start and finish the day. And so my commitment naturally gets obviously kind of verbalized as I'm praying. Do one thing journey related. To me, it is now more of a self-care, not a boundary because I am in a really good spot. I don't have to do something journey related every day. Some days I don't have the time for it. But this used to be, Dayne, journal every day. And you and I used to talk about journaling all the time. I have over 200 pages dated basically every single day where I journaled because it was so important at a time. Now it's changed a little bit. It's doing One thing journey related. Sometimes it's journaling. Sometimes it's podcast. Sometimes it's taking a phone call and helping your brother out. Sometimes it's chiming on it. in our discussion board, in a podcast. All of that is journey related, right? My other one is do one thing of service for my life, for my wife, sorry. Similar to what you're saying, you're just going to bed with your wife. I have doing one thing of service. And this one is related to my boundary of being trustworthy and being honest with my wife. So it's kind of, again, integrated. It helps me build a better relationship with my wife. Now, early in the journey, I was about to get divorced. If you think doing one thing of service to my wife was welcome on a day-to-day basis, you were hardly mistaken. She didn't want to have anything to do with me. So this, I think, is an example of how things can kind of evolve. Today, it's become one thing of service. She actually knows about it. She loves it. She sometimes jokes around about it. It's kind of fun. And sometimes she looks at me, she's like, it's 10 o'clock at night. You haven't done anything of service for me today. It's because It's become a thing at our household. But again, it wasn't like that all the time. And last thing that recently I've added, and Dan Gaines actually talked about this, Gaines recently added this to his software as well, is do or don't commit. And that's because I've learned that I overpromise too much. Again, this whole idea, I try to please everybody and I can't say no to anybody. And again, this evolved into something that I want to have in life. So I'm trying to become more of a man of my word. If I can't do it, don't overcommit to it. Don't try to please everybody. Sometimes you have to buy the conflict and say, sorry, I can't do that. I'm not very good at that. But again, do or don't commit was not a self-care at the beginning. So my self-care today has changed quite a bit. Early on, it was things like going to bed on time, regular exercise or movement, scheduled journey time, quiet time to reflect on my journey, journaling or therapy. Therapy used to be a big part of my self-care for a long time. Celebrating wins, I see it on one of my early version of my self-care where things were just so shitty. I was looking for a little something to celebrate and be happier about. That was part of my self-care. So I guess my message to summarize with self-care is, again, to kind of circle back. In my head, it's a list that enables the body and mind to commit to our boundaries and therefore commit to our abstinence. It evolves and it can very much change as long as it does something for the journey. And versus, you know, 520 where I'm at today. So, Dayne, does that resonate with you? Does that make sense?

Daye: 35:08

Any other thoughts about self-care? Yeah, it absolutely does. Yeah, no, you did an awesome job walking through that. That was really good. And I think, too, what I was realizing from that, too, is that for me, and I think this is the same for you, I feel like the ability for these to be fluid over time is heavier towards self-care versus, like, abstinence, right? Like, abstinence is pretty, like, solid it's pretty like I don't I don't think you set some abstinence goals and then you're later like oh I don't have to be abstinence from that anymore I mean maybe if you're if you're to a point where your abstinence is like I can't be on the internet. Like I'm abstaining from being on the internet. It's beyond just a boundary for me. It's become an abstinence. Like this is if I get on the internet, I'm now relapsing because that's how impactful it is to my depth of addiction. And I mean, that'd be one example. Then maybe that abstinence thing could change, but that feels like that's the exception in the rule. I think it feels like abstinence are pretty like standard. I think you can add to those if you want to get more granular, but I don't know that you ever take anything away. You may take one and split it into two because you want to get a little more granular with it. But I don't think you ever take those away. And boundaries, I think they are they're a little bit easier to remove and add, but, but not as much. They're still, they still should be pretty solid. I think, I mean, you can speak for yourself, but while we can get to broad boundaries and talk about that, but like once you put them there, it's kind of like you may even think they're temporary, but all of a sudden you realize, wait, this is actually something that needs to be there long term. But self-care again, like I think it's the most fluid. So I think that they kind of go, go in that way. But yeah, yeah.

Sean: 36:48

So I agree with a lot of people. I think that's a good segue. Let's talk about boundaries. Man, I

Daye: 36:54

think

Sean: 36:55

boundaries is like the most over-generalized, over-utilized, over-commercialized, whatever terminology in the addiction recovery space, right? I mean, no matter what addiction recovery program you go into or whatever therapist you talk about, they will talk about abstinence because if you're abstaining from something, that means you're addicted to something. That's why you're abstaining from it, at least in the addiction space. anybody in the recovery space will bring up boundaries, right? What are your boundaries? Do you have the right boundaries? Are they strong enough? Are they stringent enough? Are they non-negotiable enough, which is the terminology that Dan uses that makes total sense to me. Anyway, so let's talk about boundaries. Maybe we'll do the same thing. Tell me and tell us what do boundaries mean to you? Some of it you've already alluded to and maybe share some of your examples.

Daye: 39:10

Yeah, so boundaries for me are the things that I've realized in my life lead me to the abstinence that I mean, the acting out things that are on my abstinence list, like they're like the bridge or the ladder to my acting out activities. That's what those things are. Those boundaries are stopping me from having that ladder or that bridge to that activity, right? And I think they could be so varied. For me, my boundaries, well... Some of my big ones early on and still now are being at home, being by myself at home without a plan. That's a disaster for me. It was at first being by myself at home at all. That's where my boundary started. When I first started, I was like, I can't stay at home by myself. And we've talked about this in previous episodes early on. When I work from home, so my wife would leave, I would be like, are you leaving? Okay, I'm leaving. I'm going to a coffee shop. I'm going to this. Was it inconvenient? Yes, it was very inconvenient a lot. It was like I'm going and spending six, seven bucks to buy a coffee when I could be at home in the middle of the day when I didn't want to leave. But if she's leaving, I had to leave. And it's like those things of like, I've just got to do this. And so that was my boundary. Like, I can't. That's my boundary. I know it's my boundary. I know this is the spot that I can't. move from and so that was one like being but now it's turned to being by myself at home without a plan like i'm safe by myself at home and i've talked to my wife and she's okay with it but i really want to have a plan together like something's i'm doing something i'm not just like mindlessly at home um and declining social activities is one of mine um and um declining family activities for a long time because I think I've talked about this in the podcast too like my kids are in band they have events they go to and sometimes they would be far away and and the tickets were expensive. And so she's like, I'll just go and I'll take the kids and you stay with the younger kids at home. But we discussed and we're like, we don't really need to do that. We need to do family activities. We need to take this opportunity to be as a family. So one of my boundaries was early on not declining family activities and not being involved in those. So when they came up, my answer was, yes, we're going to this as a family. We're doing this baseball game as a family. We're doing this as a family. So those are, yeah, mine now are just like spending spending time alone by myself without plan declining social activities um and then social media is a boundary i have now because it's done nothing good for me so it's just something that i don't need to be involved with my life um so those are a few of mine

Sean: 41:58

so very cool um i i love that and i and i like the um again it's pretty thoughtful uh i'm kind of repeating myself a little bit but the first thing first you're obviously taking him very seriously so this whole non-negotiable part is very Very meaningful to me. So let me say this a little differently. That might be kind of interesting for folks to kind of think about. I had a simple rule for myself that I've stuck to. That's very meaningful and it's helping me. Again, I'm very simple minded. Self-care items. I go all the way to the left-hand side list. I go four or five days without them. Maybe I don't get in trouble. Okay, I'll survive. Life always changes, throws stuff at you. You can't predict everything that happens tomorrow. Okay. Boundaries to me, Dayne, I've noticed I go two or three days without them. I get in trouble. So to me, that's a good definition. If you have something that if you do a couple of times in a row, or if you don't do, depending on what the boundary is, a couple of days in a row, you are a lot more likely to relapse and not commit to your abstinence. That's a good boundary item to have. And you have some really good ones there. Like staying... Home alone, that used to be a big part of my boundary to begin with. I was the exact same way. Once I added that to my boundary list, it became non-negotiable. And at times, it was very inconvenient. I think I've shared some of my stories. I don't know if I've said them on episodes before or not. But I remember taking my wife to a meeting that she wanted to go to. And I said, I'll drop you off. And this was a couple months into recovery. And I dropped her off at the meeting. And I had to go pick her up three hours later. paid for a parking garage for three hours and took a nap in the car and did a little bit of work out of my car for a while and then took a nap. I just wasn't going to do it. And I actually didn't feel susceptible. I didn't think I was going to go home, relapse. But if it's on the boundary, then I'm disrespecting myself. I added that to a list because I think it can get me out of trouble. And if I have a way of staying true to it, I'm disrespecting myself by not doing it. I need to be a man of My word, stop being an addict and being washy, wishy-washy with the shit that I say. Addicts do that all the time. Sean did that all the time. It was so wishy-washy with crap that he said, no, you add it to the damn list, Sean. You're going to stick to it. I don't care how embarrassing it is. I don't care if you don't look cool. You're going to sleep in the car. So, yeah, I love what you said. You got to treat it as non-negotiable. And being home alone was a big part, a big thing for me. Social media was huge and has been. We'll talk about that a little bit. Just because I wasn't going to take risks. And also the algorithms that figured out what Sean liked to click on and things that I was getting on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter were basically soft porn. And the AI and the robots out there knew what to do to get me to relapse. And my brain stress all knew what to chase to get me to relapse. and I wasn't going to mess around with that. My boundaries have evolved quite a bit too, Dayne, but you're absolutely right, not as much as self-care has. And in some ways, fundamentally, what gets me out of trouble is still in place, but maybe the words around it have changed a little bit to just kind of represent the evolution that my recovery has gone through. For example, I'll give you one of them. When it used to be no time alone allowed at home, If your wife gets out, you get out like you and I talked about. Now it's no being alone without a plan. So things have changed. I trust myself. My wife trusts me that with a little bit of conversation beforehand, we can handle it. Eye control at all times got added to my boundary list where it wasn't there to begin with. Because for a couple of reasons, later on in my recovery, I realized that basically objectifying can get me in trouble just as much as pornography can. And also, it's not part of a man I want to be. And that became a boundary and very non-negotiable. And then my other big boundary right now, lists used to longer, it's become only three main items, is no high exposure public areas without a plan. So I still, whether it's a concert, whether it's a vacation, whether it's a ballpark game, sports event that I go to, I don't walk into it wishy-washy. I sit down, reflect on a journal about it, talk to my wife about it. Do we have the right plan? I think about all that stuff. Dana, I went on a date with my wife last night and we went to a restaurant It's very, very popular nearby, and it was very crowded. And I'm sharing this as an example of how this has evolved. Before, we wouldn't go to these places. The next version was we would sit down and talk about it so we had a good feel for when we were going. Maybe we'd go before people get drunk. Maybe we'd go for lunch versus dinner. Maybe we'd talk about do we sit outside versus inside. That was the plan. Yesterday, we didn't talk about it anymore. There's no talking about it physically. There's a lot more trust. There's a lot more normality. normalcy in our life per se. I didn't leave the apartment without a plan, though. I verbalize in my head, where are we going? What time are we going? You don't know where that table is. You You need a split second to make some decisions when we get there. When I got up there, my wife picked her chair, as you would give a lady the chance to sit down where she wants the chair. And I was being a gentleman, pulled the chair. She sat down. And then I knew exactly where to sit down to not have any issues. I had the bar behind me. There were a big table of a bachelor party next door that I took just the right angle to make sure they sit behind me so I'm not there. I had the angle of the stairway going up and down. It was not very crowded. And I'm saying this not to brag because I'm proud of myself because I wasn't like this before. But this is what self-care and boundary does to you. If you commit to it on a day-to-day basis, your brain starts getting really good at it. When my meal was done and I was eating and it was a time where we were just kind of sitting down and talking and socializing, Dayne, it hit me. I turned my chair a little bit towards my wife. I crossed my legs and I just created this sort of like a dead angle where I couldn't do anything but look at my wife. I enjoyed myself. I was present. I could tell she was appreciating. I was making eye contacts the whole time. And one thing I can tell you is I walked out of that restaurant. If you ask me today who was sitting there, what they were sitting, what they were wearing, how many people, I have no freaking clue. no idea. I went and cleaned. I walked out clean. I was so proud of myself. I feel good. Not that I would have fantasized about anybody, not that I would have objectified anybody in front of my wife, but my boundaries helped me just make my life a lot easier. And that's, I think, what a boundary is all about. So today, that's how it's evolved. I no longer sit down and write my plan, but it's got to a point where it is pretty natural. I'm still very mindful of what I'm doing. And the cool part is, and this is the next segue that I want to talk to you about then. I can see that being that with rest of my life. That has nothing to do with pornography and masturbation. It has a lot to do with the kind of guy I want to be. I want to be 65 years old and go out for dinner and still sit in the right spot and not have to have my wife worry about whether I looked at somebody else that looked cool or looked pretty or younger or better looking or more naked, whatever the hell it may be. I just don't want to be part of that conversation. I don't want that to be my brain. I don't want that to be my wife's brain. It's not normal. It's not cool. And that takes me, and I've said it a lot, but then it takes you to this next concept i want to kind of pick your brain on one of our friend jonathan has brought this up this whole idea of crutches versus guardrails so we we talk about boundaries in general but what you and i have alluded to is that sometimes boundaries evolve and and change and become more comprehensive or more lifelong like this example that i shared and let me uh maybe define what crutches and guardrails are and i kind of want to pick your brain and see if this resonates with you The way Jonathan talked about it was basically crutches are temporary boundaries designed to keep you upright when you're not yet stable. Basically, the legs are not working really well. You have a broken leg. You need crutches to be able to stay upright. They're essentially early on, but maybe not always meant to last forever. Guardrails are long-term boundaries that protect your freedom and your direction. It's for a time when you're up and running like Sean, but it keeps you on the road and doesn't allow you, stops you from running into the ditches by the road, which I think is where I'm at. Like with this example that I shared, it wasn't a crutch. I have guardrails that are set and I kind of want to run with my life the way I did yesterday in those scenarios, in those public areas. So with that said, I kind of wanted to ask you, do you have some examples of boundaries that you think would fall under crutches versus guardrail does that concept even resonate with you what do you think

Daye: 51:40

yeah no that concept resonates with me and i think you said it i mean like your example is a good one too i think that in my mind it makes me think about the idea of like um things i can't even do on my own versus things i can do on my own right like so like crutches would be I mean I would still your example but like not even going out to the dinner because you can't even stand up you can't even go out you you are like I don't even have the confidence in myself to go out to this dinner and not look at these women that around me I don't even know if you're gonna be there but it doesn't matter I'm going to I just I just don't have the I don't have the confidence in myself to be able to do that. I don't have the strength to do that. Or my wife doesn't have the belief in me to be able to do that. Or she doesn't. Yeah, wherever that is, whatever that layer is. And then the guardrails is more of like you made the decision, you've strengthened the muscle inside of yourself to be self-aware and to move towards healing, to be a better man. Like you're doing it. You're doing the work. And so you're like, I've done the work. I just need a little bit of guardrails or positioning to keep myself from doing this stuff. that I might normally do in the past. And so, I mean, I think that's a great example of you being able to go out to dinner and it was a choice, right? That was a choice. Like you could have chosen to say, you know what? You could have said, I feel like, I mean, you can correct me, but I mean, do you feel you could have said to your wife, like, I just don't think we should go out tonight because I'm not, I'm just not feeling comfortable with it. It's been a long day. It's been a rough day at work. Let's just get some takeout or something or eat at home. And then let's plan for another night. I just don't think it's the best night for us to do that. I mean, like, and that's, and I think that's still guardrails because you are making the decision out of your ability to say like, this is, I can move the boundary. I can make it more strict if I want, or I can make it less. But I think in the early days, it It's hard to know you need those crutches. Because for me, when I first started out, I... had no boundaries at all like I didn't even think of the concept of boundaries it was like whatever the world was feeding me I just let it feed me whatever I mean it was it wasn't like I was going out on sites and making accounts on every kind of thing and I wasn't doing all the things that the world offered but I wasn't telling I wasn't like taking ownership of things and pushing the world away I was just letting it feed me whatever it wanted and so I needed just boundaries that were extreme at the beginning just so I could understand what a boundary even was because I wasn't living with any. And I think that's where a lot of guys are. It's like, you got to go extreme so you can just exercise that muscle of understanding how to deal with the boundary. Because all this stuff you're saying is like super high emotional intelligence and self-awareness is like what you're describing to me, what I think of when you talk about this experience, because you were doing all the things that to some guys may think like, man, that's a lot of work, but it really wasn't because you've trained yourself to know. It's like riding a bike. Once you get on it, you know how to ride the bike. You've Yeah. But yeah, I think your example is a perfect example of those two different categories. But I think those are great analogies to different types of boundaries.

Sean: 54:58

I appreciate you. So if you don't mind, let's do a little bit of exercise because I also don't want it to be, you know, it is easy for Dana and I to kind of talk about what's really clicking for us, but we weren't always here. Like you said it really best. And while I'm trying to do really my best to kind of show the evolution of what I've gone through, I also don't want people to kind of take my word for it. What I'm doing, what I described with this dinner was, again, like Dayne said, was absolutely impossible early on. I couldn't have done it. And yes, because of the circumstances that I were in, I really didn't have a choice. But I put myself in a position where I did tell my wife early on, we can't do this. We canceled a couple of vacations. We changed a couple of vacations from scenic and beach-like vacations and rivers and boat trips to camping. things that didn't have a lot of people around us. We canceled a couple of concerts. So we've gone through those very painful decisions, but I haven't always been here. So I kind of wanted, if you don't mind, I have a list of boundaries that I've generated. I wanted to play this little cheesy game of if you think they're crutches or guardrails, and I'm going to kind of mix them up. And there's no right or wrong answers. I think that's the beauty of it because some people might take it as a crutch, some people might take it as a guardrail, and some of it might be it started as a crutch and it's also going to stay as a guardrail I think that's the beauty of this exercise. So let's do this little fun exercise. And some of them are more relevant for people early on in their journey. No smartphone or social media at all.

Daye: 56:36

I think that would be a crutch, I think, that category of because it's an extreme. I

Sean: 56:42

like that. Yeah. And we've heard people have done that. People have gone to dumb phones. People have completely stopped social media. Interesting enough, I like this example. You remember I switched from iPhone to an Android early on because I need to have trouble and trouble only working on Android. And you and I joked about how I became an Android fan. So that was I didn't go all the way to a dumb phone, but I changed my phone to have, you know, better screen monitoring. Social media also was a crutch for me, but I actually think, Dayne, for me, that's become a guardrail now. I just kind of enjoy it. I used to waste a lot of time on it, and I don't want to go back. So it's kind of one of those examples where maybe it was absolutely a crutch to begin with, but now it's become maybe a little bit more of a guardrail. Okay, another one. Sleeping with your phone in another room.

Daye: 57:37

I mean, I think it could be both. I think that would start as a... I mean, I think any of these would be those kind of... Well, that one I think is a crutch, though, because you're moving the option to grab it at all, but I still can see the power of like that. That makes me think of the social media one where it's probably like, hey, this is moving to a healthy activity where I mean, because look, look anywhere and find someone who doesn't say you should be and someone who says you should be on your phone right before you fall asleep. No one says that. Everyone says you should take like 30 minutes to an hour. The only thing they'd probably differ on is how long before you go to sleep. You should be away from your phone, but they all say you should be away from it.

Sean: 58:14

You

Daye: 58:14

got it. So like there's no, having it out of your room is probably a great idea.

Sean: 58:18

And for relationships or people that have partners that sleep in bed, man, my wife and I even just put the whole pornography shit aside. We used to spend half hour with each of us on their phone. And I know I have all sorts of friends that have this thing where the lady's on an iPad and he's on an iPhone. And so ours, maybe this boundary starts with sleeping with your phone in another room. For us, it's no longer another room though, Dayne. For us, it's... We put it on a drawer set. We moved all our chargers away from our bed. And it's on a drawer set on the other side of our master bedroom. So after we brush our teeth to put the phone on chargers, we put it on the drawer set so we can't be in our bed with our phone. Now, sometimes we go to bed and we fall asleep five minutes later. Sometimes it's 20 minutes of talking. Sometimes it's intimacy. Sometimes it's not. But phones are away from the bed. So they're not in another bedroom, but they have evolved. Very cool. So there's a couple other examples. Internet disabled after a certain time of night. Probably more of a crutch. Maybe you can't be without the internet forever, but definitely one of those dang examples of at the beginning, you kind of do it all. I love this one. Cutting off contact with all opposite sex friends, even if not sexual. That could be a crutch for somebody that struggles with temptation, whether you like it or not, maybe being in that scene kind of great stuff. Daily check-ins with accountability partners. Another one that's probably more of a crutch. I'm going a little faster through the listing. But yeah, some of us have had that. You and I used to talk a lot more often. Gains used to talk to me a lot more often at the beginning. This one I think is usually one of Sean's ones. Avoiding gym altogether because of the exposure it provides. I did that for nine months now that it's evolved. But again, it used to be a crutch, but I can't avoid gym for the rest of my life. It would be a bad guardrail. I need to have some sort of physical activity, right? Only Only watching G-rated content, maybe more of a crutch early on, and maybe gain more control later on. Some examples of guardrails. I wonder what you think of this one. Using accountability software. Guardrail or crutch?

Daye: 1:00:43

Yeah, I think you could argue that it could be a crutch because of the extreme amount that it stops things. But I would argue that if you're living a healthy life and you're doing all the things you should, what would you need to hide? And so I think it's a guardrail as in to me, it's just a practical way to be in recovery. I can't think of a single person that I would say, oh, yeah, for your scenario, you don't need any kind of accountability software because you're the special edge case where you don't need it. There's not a person I can think of that I would say that to. I don't care how long sober you are. It gets to where it's like just transparency with your spouse. Now, I could get to where there's the level of like, and this is a separate conversation with this but like if I don't think it's healthy to take take the person you've traumatized and say can you be my you can you hold me accountable and you get all this account you get this stuff from accountability software for me and then put that burden on the person you've traumatized unless they're willing to do it or asking for it or but but that yeah that's not the conversation we're having but anyway that's just a little side note but I think it's it can start is like feeling like a I think it's a guard rail that disguises itself as a crutch I guess what it is because i again i don't see why you wouldn't have it i don't see now that i've had it on my phone for over a year it's like why would i not do this what's the reason why i just decide i don't do this anymore i don't know

Sean: 1:02:13

yeah i'm with you i think that's my opinion it's it's the best uh however many bucks 12 15 bucks a month or whatever it is that i pay right i think 16 bucks a month that i pay on triple but i put that in there to create this conversation it is absolutely it was absolutely necessary and for me a crutch right i did not know how to walk i knew I needed the walker. I needed the wheelchair. It wasn't even a crutch. It was like a wheelchair. I couldn't even live without it. But now I'm thinking, man, I love my household. I want my household to be like this. If I have a kid, I want this to be part of the boundary at home. I mean, especially with this over-sexualized world that we live in, yeah, it's become more of a guardrail for me. Here's a few other ones. If any of them kind of catch your resonance with you, let me know if you have any thoughts. But keeping devices at the bedroom overnight night we talked about that that could become a guardrail choosing not to follow sexualized influencers even when technically not porn i put that in there because influencers have become a big part of people's lives they're not part of mine but if you have if you know somebody that whether directly or indirectly they're selling it based on their body their visual appearance what they're wearing um

Daye: 1:03:27

yeah i don't think sounds ironic that sounds ironic that you would say like there's They're like sexualized and they're influencing. So they're trying to influence you to do something and they're sexualized. Why would you follow them? The whole idea is like they're trying to influence you to do something. The whole name of their. what they are says that this is trying to do yeah i think that's pointless that's a waste of time if you're doing that stop just stop

Sean: 1:03:52

just stop you're not helping

Daye: 1:03:54

yourself

Sean: 1:03:54

there's another one not not being alone in a private space with someone you might be tempted by whether it's work whether it's home with its friends i mean kind of just think of it as a club whether it's a sports activity um having a you know weekly rhythm of rest or solitude sabbath depending of spiritual is you know reasoning or rhyme reason is part of your recovery I think that that weak reflection I called weekly but routine that routine reflection Sabbath type exercise and solitude is necessary for me it's become a guardrail it's not it's not a crutch because it again like you talk about takes a lot of kind of sanity and emotional maturity if that's the word to go intelligence to kind of do that early on it's hard to I didn't have any of at least. So to me, this is more of a guardrail. Building movement or exercise into my life at a regular basis. You and I talked about this when we were kind of chatting before the episode. My crutch was don't go to a gym for nine months. My guardrail has become, hey, take care of your body, man. You want to stay healthy. It's a good stress reliever. It's things that could cause other issues in the future, including maybe not honoring some of your boundaries and and falling into problems. Regular therapy or coaching. I don't know about you. I still do my therapy once a month. It used to be a couple of times a week. It used to be a crutch. Now it's become more of a guardrail and I don't actually talk about recovery much. For 30 seconds, it's kind of funny that I feel obligated when I start with them. Like, hey, Aaron, abstinence is really good and I'm still sober. And then I go into things and I want to talk to him and he's now not even acknowledging what I say about recovery He just kind of ignores it. I'm pretty sure he's doing it on purpose. Like he doesn't even bring any life to that conversation anymore, which is kind of lovely. I love that. It's kind of his way of saying, okay, like I expect you to go. Like when you tell your wife, I've been sober for 200 days and she will say, well, welcome to the world of living. I've been sober all my life. Yeah. So it's kind of been the same thing with my, but yeah, anyway, therapy, mentoring, coaching. I think it's more of a guardrail, having people that you look up to, people that inspire you. Anyway, hopefully this creates a little bit of an opportunity. This list could go forever, but I would love for people to kind of maybe think about a little bit some of the boundaries, crutches they really need to have to be able to walk. Or did they get to a point where they can have the emotional sanity and intelligence and be able to kind of build some guardrails? I think you and I are at a point where we're building more and more guardrails in life. And it's just lovely. It's lovely to be in that position.

Daye: 1:06:46

I think one of the big takeaways to me out of this whole conversation has been that sobriety isn't something that magically happens to you. It's something that like, I mean, we've spent an hour talking about self-care and boundaries and abstinence like just kind of getting our bearings on like what that is what it's been for us how to like that's not something that just magically you don't trip into sobriety with this addiction you spend some purposeful time to evaluate yourself sit down figure out what is what are some things that fit in these different buckets for you that you need to start doing and start acting on and then how do you start making a plan to start doing something about it and this just to me hopefully it's energizing some people to give them some ability to think like, oh, here's a plan. Like you guys have just walked through a plan for me to start doing this for myself. And that's what I'm hoping they can take away from it. It's not Sean's plan. It's not Dayne's plan. It's my plan on what I need to do for my boundaries, for my self-care and my abstinence, where I'm at right now. Because it doesn't matter where you're at, if you're day zero or you're day a thousand. I mean, you can, if you haven't been thinking about this stuff and you want to be a better man, you can start with this stuff, with this exercise of sitting down and going through these things. And of course, we all day would say hop on Relay and use it because it's the perfect place to do this within the app. But even if you're just writing it down on some paper and keeping it with you is a great way to just start doing this. But it's an exercise everybody needs to do for sure.

Sean: 1:08:12

Very cool. Well said, Dan. I think that actually kind of finishes the conversation pretty well. I had four or five questions that I was going to ask people to kind of reflect on. If you have anything else to add to those questions or if any of it resonates to you, please feel free to chime in. But there's a couple of questions that I think would be awesome reflection opportunity. We talked about journaling and reflecting might be part of a boundary, might be part of a self-care depending on where you're in your journey. So kind of use this exercise to think about that. First one. And in very Sean and Dayne style, they are supposed to be provocative. Am I just trying not to lose or am I playing to win? And honestly. I have been in both those spaces. Early on, it was about not losing. You remember me saying it's about plus one tomorrow. A lot of people talk about this today. It's become a little thing that a lot of people say in our recovery. I used to say, I'm damn sober today. Damn it if it's not plus one tomorrow. It was all about not losing, right? And it was necessary at a time. Well, no, it ain't about plus one tomorrow because welcome back to the life of living. I'm supposed to be sober. Normal people. are sober they don't go watch pornography and masturbate in their 40s when they're married I'll just leave it there at least so I think I think it's good to kind of think about where am I at in my recovery am I just too focused about not losing today or am I starting to build things and guardrails in my life that's actually about winning and Dayne talks about man and I want to be in the future the kind of life that I want to have look at that boundary that Dayne had like I will not say no when it's about family get together figure it the shit out This is not about not losing. This has nothing to do with jerking off tomorrow or not. This is about, this is the man I want to be in my life. It has nothing to do with that. I want to put that behind me. I want my family to even forget about that. I want me to forget that I even had any of that. This is about the man I want to be in life. So eventually we got to get to a point where this needs to become about winning and not losing. But again, we're not judging. Some of us might be in the not losing space. It's okay. We've been there. We've been

Daye: 1:10:30

there. We were there for a long

Sean: 1:10:32

time. Does your routine actually support your healing? I think that's very important. I have seen some routines that some of my brothers get it kind of intertwined and confused. I think you kind of talked about it. We don't just trip into sobriety. It has to be intentional. This whole regimen is not about getting good at everything in life. That's not what this is about. I've had a friend that said, I'm bad at keeping lists, so I'm going to add it to my boundary list that I make a list of 15 things that I'm going to get done to them and I have to get them done. Okay, man, maybe that's a struggle you're having with your wife because you're not good at keeping up with a list or with your boss or with your parents, but that's not what it's all about. We're talking about stopping pornography, masturbation, and lusting and objectifying women and becoming a really good man in life. Now, if there's something in that space that's relevant to this thing, maybe in your head it is, but I think this a really good question to talk about when we're talking about recovery regimen anything you have in that self-care anything you have in that boundary anything you have in that abstinence it's about becoming healed from this damn addiction don't get it intertwined with other stuff for example I have a goal of reading 15 books a year If reading books has something to do with learning or meditating, managing your stress level, learning absence, if reading is part of this regimen of filling your bored time with something more productive so you're not on social media, if there's that connection, all right, makes sense. If it's passing a record or New Year resolution, I did 45 books last year, I want to do 50 this year, that's not part of this. That's not useful. So you kind of have to make that connection. connection. The last two questions, what would someone who believes they deserve to be complete and whole with their life, what do they do with their time, with their energy, with their relationships? That was my way of getting people to think about their idols, people that they get inspired by. What is their life regimen? What do they do? Is it your dad? Is it your grandpa? Is it an uncle? Is it friend it's it's all kind of all part of that sort of mentorship having somebody is it Jesus Christ if if it's part of your if Christianity is part of your thing I think it's it's good to think about who what model do I have in my life that I want to live by and what rate how do they take care of themselves what things do they say no that's another name of boundary what do they abstain from good people have rules in their lives Dayne I've learned this I've learned I get inspired by people People that are committed to boundaries, things that they take care of, things that they abstain from. They don't just go, like I love what you said, they don't just go live with what life throws at them. People that inspire me say no to certain things. Don't let life dictate what they do on a day-to-day basis. And I think that's something to kind of reflect on. Hopefully, this episode has created an opportunity for us to really sit down and think about intentionally, am I taking care of myself to the extent that it makes sense where you are in your mental space? Do I have the right boundaries in life? And am I abstaining from the right crap that's got me in trouble? I love this conversation. It was meaningful for me, my friend. Thank you for always being there and give me the chance to get some of the stuff off my chest. I feel good. You feel good?

Daye: 1:14:23

Yeah, no, it was a great conversation. I enjoyed it.

Sean: 1:14:25

I love that. My last ask is, I'm getting excited about our discussion board because more and more people are getting involved. So please, I would love for you to come back, maybe answer a couple of those questions. Maybe tell us what resonated with you more, maybe in some ways more important to us what doesn't resonate with you that maybe we can kind of use this platform and bring some of those voices into the conversation. If you're part of Relay, you can always jump in and ask us a question or leave a comment. We would appreciate that. Thank you very much. Loved having this conversation. This is Sean and Dayne saying goodbye. And before you know it, we'll be back with another episode.