BrainFood for the Good Life

Here's how you can pick  someone to ask to sponsor you, how to approach it and how not to.  Here's also how to choose the purpose of the relationship, process, and the scheduling of meetings.

First understand suicide, so you can prevent doing it yourself, and help others to avoid it.  Then after the fact, know how deal with all the thoughts and feelings that are left behind for loved ones to work through.

We'll discuss all the different conditions that can lead to a diagnostic label of "depression" or "mood disorder", and we'll describe which ones respond best and worst to medicine and psychotherapy, and why.

We'll learn how to identify and work through emotional conditions of being down short of clinical depression:  discouragement, grief, guilt, bogus guilt, shame, and Godly sorrow.

This last form of enabling is the most common of all, because it is the most socially acceptable.  It doesn't so much harbor and breed addiction as it does helplessness, dependency, and IMMATURITY.  Learn where we got the term vicarious, as in, living vicariously through someone else.  Once again, if you can see it, you won't want to be it.

How would you know if you had codependency, if you were codependent?  The term got overused, and we all heard so many definitions that we pretty much stopped talking about it.  But here is a down-to-earth definition that is dead center with all the others.

How Codependents live like Zombies and Vampires: When you don't feel good about who you are or how your life feels apart from your loved one, what do you call that condition?  There is so much of it in our society that it goes virtually unnoticed and unnamed.  Get to know vampiracy, because after you see it, you won't want to be it.

Tips 11 - 20 of the 20 most important things for partners of sex addicts to know and to do.

How to create and practice using a last-minute escape from acting out

[0:54] Dr. Schmidt is back to give us the final ten of his 30 Tips for Recovery from Sex Addiction! [1:22] Tip #21: Understand your spouse and support their healing process (and the resource Paul recommends to help in this) [2:54] Tip #22: Recognize the symptoms for your spouse’s PTSD early in their recovery [5:13] Tip #23: Lower domestic distress--and learn when to disengage [7:28] Tip #24: Learn the 4 things addiction says to you (and how to talk back--out loud) [9:30] Tip #25: Be honest with yourself by asking, Is this opposite-sex friendship helping or hurting my marriage? [11:56] Tip #26: Develop a fire-drill kit to practice calmly walking out of danger [13:43] Tip #27: Discover how to take “two steps forward” after relapse [15:28] Tip #28: Learn when a period of abstinence from sexual activity is healthy (and 5 purposes behind why to do it) [17:52] Tip #29: Learn when temporary separation actually helps to promote recovery [19:22’ Tip #30: Accept that recovery is a lifelong process of making a good life better [22:55] Dr. Schmidt’s final caution: the three little words we think that can lead us astray  

In Part 2 of this series, Dr. Paul Schmidt helps us understand and apply the 30 Best Tips for Recovery from Sex Addiction that he has developed after 40 years working as a psychologist-life coach. [0:52] Welcome back to Part 2 of Dr. Paul Schmidt’s 30 Best Tips Towards Recovery from Sex Addiction [1:23] Tip #11: Know how to use a 12-step program (and the three styles of support groups Dr. Schmidt recommends) [3:10] Tip #12: Look into professional-led virtual support groups [4:03] Tip #13: Choose a sponsor and home group to be part of your real life [5:31] Tip #14: Name your character flaws and your assets (and hear the common characteristic checklist for sex-addicts) [7:33] Tip #15: Use a 4-circle recovery plan to practice self-accountability in just 5 minutes [13:02] Tip #16: Practice research-based tools to avoid relapse   [14:49] Tip #17: Tell the truth to your partner--but give “formal disclosure” [17:05] Tip #18: Learn to respond to your spouse’s pain in a way that builds closeness [18:53] Tip #19: Look through your fear of divorce [20:09] Tip #20: Accept that you cannot predict the future of your marriage (and how to “outdo” one another in recovery)

In this first series in the Brainfood for the Good Life Podcast, Dr. Paul Schmidt helps us understand and apply the 30 Best Tips for Recovery from Sex Addiction that he has developed after 40 years working as a psychologist-life coach. [0:54] Meet Dr. Schmidt--our guide to full, fast recovery from sexual addiction--both online and in his office [2:52] Tip #1: Discover and take responsibility for your unique plan for healing [3:32] Tip #2: Explore what God’s Word says about the effects of sexual problems (and the healing process) [4:09] Tip #3: Ask yourself, Where did this addiction come from? [5:03] Tip #4: Understand the addictive nature and power of the Internet [7:28] Tip #5: Identify the different dangerous sexual behaviors (and recognize which you engage in) [8:20] Tip #6: Learn the “helps” that actually harm recovery from sexual addiction [9:09] Tip #7: Realize your family can’t take responsibility for your recovery [9:55] What Dr. Schmidt says spouses should (and shouldn’t) do to help their recovering spouse [10:38] Tip #8: Feel your guilt instead of blaming your spouse [12:06] Tip #9: Learn how to recognize the symptoms of any addiction [13:03] Tip #10: Choose and coordinate your own recovery team

In the middle of info about podcast host Landmark Recovery, Dr. Schmidt answers questions about the Celebrate Recovery movement:  what he and his clients have experienced going to meetings.

Helps and Hazards of Medication, and what Counseling can do (and teach YOU to do)

The key to lowering your anxiety is realizing where it is coming from, so you can turn off the flow.