Do you ever feel like you have racing thoughts?
Are you constantly preoccupied with your loved one who has the disease of addiction?
Is it hard to focus on and care for yourself?
If you can say yes to any of these you have found the right podcast!
This subject is near and dear to my heart, Monkey Chatter is something I created to describe the insanity I experience in my head, I call it the voice of my disease keeping me focused on my drug of no choice which is a walking, talking human being.
I have heard from many that this name describes their experience well. Having a name for the incessant voice in their head that keeps them focused on fixing, managing, and attempting to control their addict, has helped them be more aware of it.
Don’t worry not only do I share an example of Monkey Chatter from my story, I also offer tools that have assisted me in my recovery. Thankfully the monkey is more tame today however it can start screeching at me anytime I feel fear and then back to recovery basics I must go.
Find your recovery community, or reach out to me at
https://embracefamilyrecovery.com/work-with-margaret/
See full transcript of episode below
Intro: You’re listening to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. A place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host Margaret Swift Thompson.
Margaret: Welcome back. Today I thought I’d try another solo episode. I’ve had a few people inquire about Monkey Chatter. I refer to it quite a bit in my interviews with people and I thought it would be helpful to explain it for those of you who may not know what Monkey Chatter means.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret: So here goes, back in 1996 I started my training in working with people with the disease of chemical dependency. I was a student at Hazelden Betty Ford in a yearlong program where I was learning about this disease. And when I tell you I was not someone who understood it that would be an understatement. I had lived with an ex- partners compulsion I had counseled people who were dealing with addiction and did not understand as many counselors don’t, this baffling disease of addiction.
So, while I was in the training program in Center City, Minnesota after doing a geographical escape from Bermuda, from all of the insanity that I was experiencing after the loss of the relationship. My only way to cope was to disappear. And the ironic thing about it is I landed here and guess what? All my issues came with me. You know geographical cures seem like fresh starts and this one turned out to be a phenomenal one for me. But at the time thinking that I closed the door and ran from what was going on, that I deluded myself to think that it wouldn’t come with me. That wasn’t the case it came with me.
And I landed in a place where I was given the opportunity to work with some of the most incredibly powerful human beings, from clinicians who walked a path and taught me. To my peers who learned with me, to our clients who showed courage by seeking help taught me through their stories and their experience to understand truly for the first time in my life that addiction and chemical dependency is a no-fault disease.
That wasn’t easy for me to understand as I was still very much wounded by the disease having infiltrated my life. And wanting to blame the person rather than face the reality that this disease is like a train plowing down a train track, and the person that gets hit first is the person with the disease, the person who’s chemically dependent or has the addiction. But what that person who’s on the track as the addict doesn’t know, is that family members jump on the track behind them to try to get to them, pull them off, save them, push them, change their mind, make them do different and sadly get beat up by that same train.
So one of the people that cross my path as a student and for the early years of my career once I was hired to work at Hazelden Betty Ford was Saul Selby so created Slick. So slick is the voice within every addict’s mind that has the sole purpose to manipulate, convince, cajole and maneuver the person into using as the only means to survive in the world. And the goal of this disease of addiction is to get someone to use until they are no longer capable of functioning or die. And Saul created Slick to try and help people who had the disease of addiction learn to separate themselves from the disease. Learn to see the disease and the way it tricks them, and talks to them, and manipulates them, and cons them. And to recognize that they are a good person with a disease within them that takes over there thinking and leads them to its goal which is to use at allcost. And so I got to witness saw give this lecture a few times where he would teach about Slick, and he used this very funny nonthreatening puppet as Slick, and would have this puppet talk to him as if he were the person with the disease, and it would give you a very clear understanding of the insanity within the head of someone who’s active in their disease. It’s not a pretty place to be it’s incredibly painful, it is scary, it is full of shame. And the person who says I’m not going to use again means it at the time. They don’t want to be at the mercy of this Slick to do whatever it tells them to do but then the alternative is I don’t know if I can cope without it, and so it continues.
So, while I was sitting watching Saul do this lecture and getting a better understanding of how this disease works, I was like I have a voice like that in my head. And that voice in my head was always screaming at me to try to fix, manage, and control the person I loved who had this disease, and it didn’t have a name. But it felt very similar to what I was seeing from this Slick character on the stage and so I got to thinking about it and I coined it Monkey Chatter many, many years ago.
That as a family member, someone who loves a person with the disease of addiction. We have this voice that is very rapid, and very persuasive, and very pushy, that gets us into fear and worry immediately. And when we’re in that place then we go into fix, manage, control to get out of that fear and worry.
So, it’s like Slick gets the addict to be fearful, and worried, and scared. The person uses to cope with that, and the cycle continues. The same is true for family members. We have this voice in our head that is telling us all these worst-case scenarios and bad things, and look for this, and do that. And all of that anxiety, fear, and worry starts consuming us and we don’t want to tolerate that feeling at all. We don’t know how and so instead of staying put in that feeling, ’cause it’s overwhelming we jump into trying to fix, manage, control that person with which we have no control over.
So, I want to give you an example of what Monkey Chatter feels and sounds like. So I’m going to do an example of what my thinking was when I was living with a person who is in there compulsion or addiction, and I was trying to show them and be with them in a loving way. Thinking that would make it better.
So, he would leave for work in the morning and as soon as his feet would cross the threshold I would hear in my head immediately, this incessant voice and it would sound something like this. So, bear with me it’s going to get fast:
Wait a minute what time is it? It’s too early. Why is he going to work this early? It’s way too early. He doesn’t have to be at work this soon. This is not OK! Something bad is gonna happen. Oh my gosh. OK calm down. It’s not going to be a problem. He’s told you he’s not going to. He’s promised he’s not going to. You know what I think, he is going to. I better follow him. No, I can’t follow him. If he sees me follow him, he knows I don’t trust him. If he knows I don’t trust him, all bets are off. ‘Cause if I don’t trust him then why would he bother. OK. I know I got to get back to basics here. Ok what can I do? You know what I can go to where I know he wants to go, if he’s going to go. And I can see if he could see me, and I go to the bank on Front Street I can stand behind that one-way glass. He can’t see me, but I can see him, and if I see him then I know he’s lying to me. If I know he’s lying to me then I know I’m right and this is all going to go bad. OK let me go to the bank and stand there, you know what Margaret are you really gonna stand there? Are you just going to do nothing if you see him? No you’re going to confront him, and it’s going to be a big scene in public and you can’t have that. It’s too humiliating, you know someone is going to see you, and it’s going to get ugly. OK I can’t do that. Hmm, what can I do? I don’t want to do anything. I just want to calm down. I gotta go to work, I can’t go to work. I can’t even focus. What am I going to do? I know what, I’ll go to lunch with him, Uhuh I can’t go to lunch with him, I go to lunch with him all the time if I go to lunch too many times, he knows I’m just there to check on time upon him. I’m not really having lunch with him I’m just checking on him. I’m seeing what he’s doing. You know I can tell by his eyes. He has that weird look in his eye when he’s not doing ok. You know you can’t do that. You cannot follow him! You cannot go to lunch! this is not going to work. What am I gonna do? I don’t know what to do. I can’t stand this. I hate this. I don’t know how to feel about this. I’ve got to do something. This is not OK. Sigh.
That’s just one example of hours upon hours of this monkey in my mind imagining the worst-case scenario. Trying to catch the person, or keep them in line, or show them I love them enough thinking that was going to make it, or control them enough so they couldn’t have any opportunity, or check on them enough, or do everything for them so they didn’t have any pressures. The reality is that monkey does not help me nor the person that I love who has this disease.
I thought for sure if he got well the monkey would stop talking, it would get quiet. What I didn’t understand until I engaged in my own recovery work, was that my monkey was mine to heal. That no one else could take that voice away from me. Just as no one can take someone else’s Slick away from them. That they have to work within the community, and the fellowship of recovery using the tools and the steps to get well. And let that power from that voice lessen, and lessen, and lesson. So that it no longer controls our everyday movements and actions.
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That monkey will still show up today, and I’m not in that relationship and haven’t been in decades. That monkey will show up for example when I receive a letter in the mail with no return address because when I got the most devastating news of my life it was through an anonymous letter in the mail. And to this day, 30 years later I still have that (gasp) when I see a letter. It’s way less, but it’s still there, and then the voices –
Who is this? What is this? Is this bad news? Is it’s going to be awful? Is going to be OK?
And it starts that fast.
That monkey still shows up for me when someone I love is struggling. And it’s this non-stop revolving chatter about what I should do, what I shouldn’t do, how I should jump in, how I… and I have to get back to basics, to quiet it. So, so, those of you out there who relate to this and when I have done that before, in say, a family program or a seminar. People will be like, Oh my gosh have you been living in my head? Oh my gosh were you listening to me? No, I think it’s universal. When we love someone, who has this disease, and we feel so powerless. That’s what happens to us.
My healing to the point that this voice, this monkey doesn’t control my everyday has come through the 12 steps of recovery. Has come through accepting and admitting my powerlessness, and then surrendering to a higher power the people I love and care for. And that hasn’t always been easy and still is difficult. What I will do though is if I’m worried about let’s say my daughter, I will send Angels to hold her, watch out for her. That’s my calling my higher power. If my monkey chatter is very active, I’ll use the serenity prayer each stanza. I’ll write out, I’ll journal to try and get some clarity on the things that I’m hearing in my head and what of them I have power or control over. Usually, the worry and fears that my monkey throws at me are 99% of the time things and people that I am powerless over. The unknowns of life. The worries and the fears that I can’t predict. The other thing I’ll do is call someone in program and I’ll say out loud what I’m hearing in my head, to diffuse the power it holds over me. What I work hard not to do, is go to the person that my monkey is screaming at me about to try and make them responsible for making me feel less scared, worried. It’s really futile to do that because if there’s been a history of dishonesty due to the disease, we don’t trust them yet anyway. So, anything they say may give us a breathing room for a minute or two, but very quickly the monkey will be like …
Yeah, but how can you believe him? How can you trust him? You’ve been lied to for years. Why would this be any different?
It’s like going to the bottle for an alcoholic to seek the answers. It never will provide us what we want.
The monkey does get quieter with our program, our recovery. And the monkey can get quiet even if the person we love is not in recovery. However, it takes double the work because the ever-present fear that comes with active addiction is very high while they’re active. It’s still high when they’re in early recovery. And can still be high when they’re further along in recovery. Where we as family members need to step up our program and deserve all the help it can give us, is around our triggers.
So, our triggers are sounds, smells, sites, tastes, behaviors that immediately kick up an old memory that was really bad and take us out into the future and what is going to happen that is awful.
So, for example one of the ones young people will tell me is getting off the bus. Driving home every day on the bus was really painful because getting off the bus in the past finding mom, dad or sibling passed out or cut because they fell, was scary, and overwhelming, and upsetting. And so, after that happened getting off the bus every time going home, not knowing what condition that person was going to be in, and even once the person entered recovery got help and was sober, that riding the bus home didn’t stop being scary until the person felt like they could trust further, and more, and not waiting for that other shoe to drop every drive home.
Another trigger the sound of a beer can opening. Does it sound any different if it’s pop? No. So what happens if I’m standing in the kitchen and it’s a gathering of family, and we’ve got people over and someone behind me opens a pop can? That instant fear of,
oh my gosh, is it them? Is it pop? Is it beer? What’s happening? Are they drinking? Have they had it?
Is, it’s an, inanimate. We don’t consciously have awareness this takes over, the monkey just starts.
One more example when the ping on a text goes off. Or the phone rings and the ringtone is our loved one who has this disease. Or at a certain time of night the phone going off. One of the tips to work on that trigger, is removing the phone from our bedside, at least silencing it and trying to put it in the drawer. So that that light doesn’t wake us or vibration if it’s silent. ‘Cause we’re pretty high vigilance in early recovery to every possible concern.
Ultimately in order to let go of the control the monkey holds over us, as family members. We have to give the person we love over to the care of their higher power ’cause we can’t be it. And when we are living by the mercy of the monkey telling us what to do, we are believing the false sense of control that gives us to think we have the power to make someone well. And we as family members cannot make anyone else use, and we cannot make anyone else recover. And even though that truth hurts to hear, it’s a very freeing truth.
And in early recovery if we don’t have a belief in a higher power, and I certainly did not. Who or what can we turn them over to? Can we turn them over to the care of treatment center? Can we turn them over to the care of their 12 step community? Can we turn them over to the care of Angels? People have passed who you believe might be out there watching over them. Can we turn them over to the universe at large? Can we look for evidence that there is something out there that will help them when I can’t?
And it’s a day by day thing. The greatest combattor to the monkey and slick when it comes to this family disease, is living our recovery one day at a time. Don’t expect your person with the disease to say I will never use again. ‘Cause if they work a 12 step program that will be taught to them to not say because it’s an empty promise, ’cause no one has the ability to make that promise. Can they say I commit to staying abstinent today? Yes. And as a family member that’s hard to hear. I want a guarantee. I want to know. We can’t.
As a family member am I willing to let go of fix, manage, control just for today? And am I willing to work on me and focus on me, just for today?
To all of you listening I hope you consider looking for your own recovery support as family members. I am a firm believer that living your recovery out loud is the greatest gift and assistance you give to your person with this no-fault disease. Because you role model for them on a day to day basis everything that you wish they would do for themselves. That has far more influence than ever telling them what they should or should not do.
Even though I’m a counselor and I’m a counselor in the field of addiction, when it came to someone close to me having this disease, I’m as powerless as the next person. And I get lost in the insanity of the disease just like you do. And I need my recovery community, and my sponsor, and my fellows, my literature, my tools of recovery to help me stay sane one day at a time. So, when and if they need me they can rely on me, and turn to me and I will have the supports to help me do the next right thing for me, and also for them. And that gets messy.
If any of you are looking for help check out online meetings. There are so many right now ’cause of covid, which is one of the few blessings of this pandemic. Go to Al-Anon.org, Naranon, Adult Children of Alcoholics, Codependents Anonymous, Families Anonymous. Find whatever meeting works, go to your church community, Celebrate Recovery. Whatever works for you. Find your tribe, your community.
And the other thing I wanna say be kind to yourself. And if you want help from me, please look online at embracefamilyrecovery.com
I have a website with resources, and tips, and information where all my podcasts can be heard. And you can work with me through the Work with Margaret page. Sign up and we can chat.
As a last thing I want to thank you! I am truly humbled that I have reached a point with these podcasts that over 1000 downloads have happened, and that blows my mind! I am excited, and I am looking forward to doing more of these conversations with people in family recovery. And I have some great guests coming up.
I have my first couple, parents of someone with this disease. I have some good friends, and colleagues, and I also have the child whisperer. And I’ll let you guess on that one, but it’s going to be worth!
So, keep coming back and checking out these podcasts! And don’t forget that if you don’t hear them on your live streaming Spotify, Apple, whatever, you can always find them at embracefamilyrecovery.com
All my episodes are there, and available for you to play, if you wish.
So, until next time, take care of you and thanks for tunning in!
