Lines of Defense

[Music] you ready to do this let's do it cool how uh how can you tell how heavy a Red Hot Chili Pepper is you give it away Give It Away Give It Away God yeah you would definitely be able to figure out the weight all right that was your your delivery on that was better than normal I was stolen a little bit while the birds were going off so I figure out the delivery anyway so uh topicwise today I wanted to uh share a story um and talk about bottom lines uh SL lines of Defense there's a a friend of ours who I was really just had a cool experience with recently and wanted to give a shout out to him for how he handled himself in this situation so he's uh somebody who has struggled with alcohol in the past and he's been doing some real work recently in the last year or so to try and get get some good healthy Behavior around alcohol um so he's abstaining and um he he has a bottom line and we can talk about what that is exactly a little bit later but a bottom line that he will not even touch uh containers of alcohol and so he found one that was an old old bottle that he had used a long time ago just had it hidden somewhere found it and um and knew that my wife and I we'd be coming over uh with our kids to have dinner with them and he waited until until we got there and said hey I've got a favor to ask and he he was kind of uncomfortable he was ask a weird this yeah so I didn't know what was coming and then he said hey I've got this bottom line would you mind helping me uh by grabbing this uh container for me and just discarding it and um I didn't even throw it away in the trash cannon in his house I took it with me um and and that was a better situation for him so um in my mind what a hero what a guy for doing that in his mind probably man I'm feeling kind of sheepish it's weird and I'm feeling a little weak and yeah but um but maybe let's talk about that so first off what is a what is a bottom line and and how do you go about establishing one what what's the value of them great question shout out to I know I know the person you're talking about too and shout out to him for actually sticking to his bottom line uh first so yeah so we call them lines of Defense bottom lines in essence you find something in your life that you an outcome that's taking place in your life that you don't like a problem Behavior something that's going on that you don't like and then what you do is you systematically track the patterns all the way back to the very beginning of the pattern and then you go back and look through and find places that you have control over where you could change the Habit Loop that leads you to the end so in essence we use this idea of kind of going off the edge of a cliff and you know you walk yourself off close to the edge of it and then it begins to give you a little bit slippery slope and then it drops straight off let's say with alcohol we're using this as an Al with alcohol his goal is to stop drinking alcohol if he sets a bottom line or a line of defense that I don't drink alcohol he's going to be living a life that's still full of all of the habits that have been established that get him to drink alcohol so he's going to spend a lot of time being miserable down right on the edge of the cliff using only his willpower until his willpower Fades and then he relapses and he's like I crossed my bottom line I I drink again like you know but if he sets a new line that's like you know what if I never even touch a container of alcohol the only way I relapse is if somebody like pours it in for me right which which which is actually a pretty good bottom line right because now he's going to have to talk talk about feeling like sheepish and weak like I have a bottom line but me mama bird yeah you know unless he's at un he's at a frat party or something and he uses the gravity bong as like you know that I'm not touching anything um you know which which at that point then defeats it just defeats the purpose of the bottom line in the first place so so what you're doing with the bottom line is you're finding your patterns and saying okay let's use a different example pornography I can set my line I don't look at porn but that's already if I hit that I've already crossed it and I've already used way more of my willpower than I want to use whereas if I say you know what I always do it when I'm alone and I always do it through these particular kinds of sites you know what my new bottom line is is that I'm not going to get on the internet alone period right and so that's what a bottom line is is it's it's a bottom line it's something that I don't do or I do do no matter what now so in his situation his bottom line is I don't want to touch alcohol cuz then I'll end up drinking it this in this situation he could have just gone and said I'm actually touching this so I can throw it away right yeah right like he wasn't even going to drink it but he knew that you have to take your bottom lines seriously as if your life depends on it because because his life the way he wants to live his life actually depends on that right and if you start letting what happens with the brain is if you let your mind slide a little bit on this bottom line here and then the back of your brain goes oh see no big deal like and then you let it slide a little bit more and then you let up on a few other things and pretty soon you're doing this slow fade until all of a sudden you're on the edge of the cliff again and you're like guys I really I had this guy one time he had a bottom line with with porn his his his routine was that he would get bored he'd get a bunch of snacks he'd start eating these snacks and then he'd play video games and then he'd play video games until he was bored with video games and then he'd act out with porn right so he comes in he's like my new bottom line guys is that I'm actually I'm I gave up my Xbox like no more video games I had someone package it up put it in the closet like I'm not touching my video games anymore comes in like 3 months later and he's like guys sobriety's been easy like it's been so easy like I haven't acted out in 3 months when he's like acting out almost every day you know and and uh he's like so I'm letting you know what I'm good now I'm bringing back my video games and everyone's like in group like are you sure you want to do that like you're winning you're winning right now you've got 3 months of of sobriety under your belt like you're doing great he's like no no no I'm good now I figured it out he comes in the very next week to group guys I relaps I don't know what happened I I don't know how how I don't know how it happened we like well map it out you know so we map it out he's like I sat down I was bored I started eating snacks then I just started playing my Xbox and then and somehow I was looking up hor again like it's like that's that's what you said 3 months ago like that's that's why you have the bottom line the way you had it is because you figured out the link you you actually were winning with the pivotal link and then he just didn't want to have the inconvenience of not having his video gam so but he didn't have the inner like development of habit yet to actually keep the video games without looking at the porn because the Habit was so strong so I don't know I answer your question yeah yeah absolutely I mean that's that's a really good demonstration um I was going to share one I didn't you know classify as the bottom line at the time but back in college when I was trying to quit alcohol you know I'd been been drinking up until the age of 21 when I could finally legally drink uh I had a I decided like hey I need to be done with this I'm trying to change my life and in order for me to do that I need to stop drinking beer like the way that I used to drink beer or liquor the way that I used to drink liquor but champagne I only drink it like on on New Year's it's only special occasions so I'll do champagne only so that was my bottom line I only drink champagne but then I just got to the point where I was just drinking champagne all the time was like cos me way more money so so so the good thing is is you were moving yourself going okay I got a problem and the problem is the binge drinking and since champagne is a special occasion thing the problem is is that then your attic part of your brain like that like part was like well I'm not breaking a bottom line somehow it's important to us to feel like we're still keeping our integrity right like I'm not cheating myself somehow yeah that's a perfect example because like I think for most people when we start looking at lines of Defense they go one of two different ways one is that they go way rigid like um because have acted out sexually I am going to put like a rubber band on my penis and never allow myself to feel sexual feelings again and then of course they fail clamp the hose right like they just yeah they totally clamp it down then of course it doesn't work right so that's one way is like I'm going to go too rigid I'm not really going to go along with what's actually going on with my patterns with what I need and then the other side is how close can I get to the edge of the cliff like how how can I keep as much much of my pattern as possible but maybe still winning it's like greasing up with Crisco exactly it's like it's like somewhere more in the middle and I would say even more towards the you know the safe side is usually best for most people you know so if I have one where it's like I have problems with endless scrolling that leads to me getting numb and then I click on some of the clickbait over there and then I feel guilty so then I kind of dabble in some softcore stuff and then because I feel even guilty now I've already messed up then I go into my other stuff I'm probably not going to set the line at hey softcore I probably need to set the line more at hey you know what I'm I'm not going to be on endless scrolling sites um because the Habit Loop is is really strong and the further down the Habit Loop we get the less willpower we have so that makes sense so we don't we so a bottom line or a line of defense needs to be specific enough not to loophole but but General enough to cover what you needed to cover you know and it's something you might have to do more than once to adjust and it's so funny like why do we do it to ourselves that we like loophole ourselves like we bargain with ourselves like we're somehow like being moral and all of this we're the ones that are setting the lines in the first place like it's like people are like well I'm being controlled by like I've got one guy right now he knows who he is he'll like this he's got a bottom line right now that he doesn't leave the valley without somebody else with him the valley where we live because he would leave the valley and then that's where he'd get into trouble with you know massage parlor other stuff so he comes in a group one day and he's all bitter he's like I I got this opportunity to go do this but it's outside the valley and like I can't even go it's like my wife says I'll be breaking a bottom line if I go I'm like well is it your bottom line he's like yeah but but like well you it's your bottom line you can you can do whatever you want with that you want to change your bottom line talk it through with someone on your team and figure out if it's actually going to work for you like he's like I'm like all handcuff like I can't I can't do this thing well you set the line you know at least he's holding his line you but but that's the thing is that the bottom lines only work with the ability of us to be honest with oursel and act with our own Integrity otherwise otherwise they don't work yeah you know okay so I'm curious what what are some Bott that you've seen that are really effective like what who are some examples that you have in mind of guys that just nailed it and maybe maybe they didn't nail it the first time but they eventually got there and figured it out it's a good question maybe I'll give a couple examples of specific lines but but maybe even more importantly it's it's more of the principle that goes into bottom line so if you look at like what bottom lines are the the logistical thing is is that you set this new Target Behavior I don't you know I don't you know touch an alcohol bottle anymore I don't touch any container that has alcohol in it okay that's a great bottom line for his specific situation if he actually follows that one thing he only has to do one thing one thing the rest of his life and he won't drink that's a pretty good bottom line right um the challenge to a bottom line is is that it also reinforces a few principles because a bottom line always has the target you're going to change with accountability built into it so if I bump into my bottom line or I cross my bottom line I'm going to reach out to somebody on my team and I'm going to reset it so now I have to be honest with myself I have to be humble enough to make the right choice with what I know my actual situation is and then I get a chance to be accountable and then I get a chance to connect with people because when I run into my bottom lines I'm connecting so so I'm actually reinforcing four principles of recovery at the same time that I'm creating sobriety or changing my habit Loops right so so good good examples and this is going to be per situation right um but but I have you some some pretty common ones are things around like pornography use a lot of guys have their own little kind of ritual to get into the pornography you know they'll they'll kind of Bounce along with dabbling and something else that's numbing sports or something else and then they inevitably get picked off by the clickbait of some athletes hot wife or something when you say ritual you don't you don't mean they like scheme up like this is how I'm going to do it as much as this is kind of the the the pattern pattern rituals rituals are the patterns that set up the acting out a lot of the rituals we do are actually by themselves are not harmful or damage right no problem for anybody to go check the sports scores but when I've done it enough times where I check the sports scores and the back of my mind is like that's first base and then I start scrolling for all the leftover news that's on that thing and then I find the one thing that's got like a girl that's dressed a little bit funny and I know that I'm going to click on it because I'm actually just really interested in her as a golfer or something right yeah yeah but you know better you're already cheating yourself yeah and then that starts to move you further down that's what I talk about like rituals so so identify your own rituals and set the line with rituals that are way far up the chain rather than right down at the bottom so my own bottom lines when I had to get sober from pornography um there were a few one I did not use the internet alone period And I knew I would cheat on my phone so I took all internet off my phone gaming for me was a Gateway into my pornography so I stopped playing all video games unless it was in the presence of or with other people um and I took those off my phone too and then I didn't use YouTube because for me YouTube was the pivotal kind of link I would go there I got sucked into to other things numbing me and then always there was either an ad or something else that would then just kind of lead me down the rabbit hole so so I only had three bottom lines to get sober but they worked um but they worked for my situation because th those were my patterns right so let me think of some other bottom lines um it could be over any other Behavior too you know uh think about it like I I've used this in the past and I've actually relapsed since this but I went for almost seven years without drinking any soda I was drinking about 130 ounces a day of Dr Pepper Mountain Dew until I went to the dentist and the dentist was like ah you drink way too much soda and that's before he took the x-rays you know good to meet you he's like so so do you want to do these fillings in like per quadrant of the mouth or do you don't want to do it per top or bottom but we have like 13 feelings we need to do I'm like oh my gosh my my life is out of control like it's unmanageable right that's an addiction um so so I'm like I got to I got to get clean off of soda like I got to stop this and I I remember some of the family photos of you during Christmas time and you were you were a thick boy you thicker than I am now I'm still trying to bring that down a little bit but I was I that was when I was at the Pinnacle of my worst Health ever worst Health ever no wonder I had to get hip replacements weren't you hitting gosners to get like cheese curd and under pepper on like the daily oh yeah no I would go I would purposely make loops that way so my office is even on the way to gosners I go by gosners get my cheese curds and then I'd stop at the maveri at 10th West and just like load up on a 64 ooun or and and the sad thing is I would usually fill it up and drink half of it and then top it off you know so so so I'm like man I got to stop I got to stop this and I I was trying to stop I couldn't figure out how to stop and what I realized was it was the the sounds so stupid this is how bad my denial was I would go on purpose almost every day to gas up my car and then I would gas up but I would pay inside so that I could justify the gas expense like so I'm like all right I noticed one day right when I walked in the in the freaking gas station my mouth just went just started to water and I was like the glow light of like the the fountain drinks I was like I'm like that's it if I never go into a gas station I never buy a fountain drink you know so I set that bottom line and I cheated on it for like 2 weeks and I call my brother up and he' be like hey like are you serious do you really want to keep this bottom line like he's like you know what after two weeks he's like don't call me unless you're serious about it like okay okay I'll go and that's where I started to get a foothold and I didn't go into a gas station for several months I paid at the pump only when I needed gas and uh and I got some sobriety and then I ended up being sober up until this last year and now this last year we have a client oh man we have a client who worked for a place that did energy drinks I never drank an energy drink in my life he started bringing them to me on the weekly and so I got hooked on energy drinks and now that's gone back into a 64 oer occasionally it's still not what it was um but I got to I got to tighten that back up again so it's funny how those patterns are so strong too they that's so funny yeah oh good man I'm glad to hear that okay but one thing I want to bring up is um there are times where you like with the guy that went back to his Xbox right yeah three months he hadn't really changed fully The Habit Loop wasn't totally broken it was just kind of DOR and then he woke it back up and just cycled kicked it right back into gear um I know that you watch hunting videos on YouTube right and there's other things that you watch on YouTube and that was one of your bottom lines previously when did you decide like hey it's probably okay for me to kind of dial that back and do yeah this is this is a good question because it's got principle in it too with that specific one I'll give the principles I didn't watch YouTube for like 3 years and that was really hard cuz my friends would watch it they'd like get together like hey was you watch this watch I didn't watch it at all that was my bottom line and then I started thinking you know what like I started getting some confidence in myself and I started to realize that things had changed and I had a few years now of sobriety under my belt and I was thought Man YouTube is actually a really good tool in some ways um so I actually changed my bottom line but slowly I actually went to I'm only going to watch YouTube when it's a video that has been sent to me by somebody I trust and so people would send me resources all the time that I never watched so I went back and I watched trusted people's resources and only those videos and then I added in I'm going to watch YouTube with that after a while and if I need to look up a question for how to fix something like at my house or you know something like that cuz it's so good at that so then I added that in and then I've brought brought it back to where I show things in my groups almost every single group now and now I use YouTube almost every day I get my news there I get my you know I I I do all my hobby stuff with my hunting and stuff there but it took time and it was systematically done with still limits and rules that would allow me to be successful with it rather than just go cart blanch with it again and so that that one took you know 3 years before I felt safe enough to start even changing it at all some things will never change you know um I would say for most people if you find a bottom line that works don't even consider changing it until you've been doing it for at least a year and okay so what what about in your own life like what what do you have any examples of bottom lines that you still have yeah this one's this one's a little bit harder one but like with relationships with women yeah I as soon as I started working my own recovery I've had a bottom line that has not changed with relationships with other women and that is that I don't interact with a woman ever in a way that if my wife was present she would take exception to it yeah and I know that I know that feeling like you know and um and so that that one has not changed uh we've got another client who you know he's been sober for eight nine years and one of his bottom lines is is that he doesn't like use his technology in his bedroom and he could probably use technology in his bedroom and stay sober but to this date he's just found that he likes being able to be have the bedroom be a place of thought and relaxation and connection with his wife and so he's not going to bring it back you know um because he's found that it it improves the quality of his life I I think one of the coolest things about bottom lines is that well while they do seem like a a restraint and kind of a a rest restriction it's it also provides Freedom it's for the sake of a new it's for the sake of Freedom a new life right we're changing things that that aren't producing what we want in our life so we're restricting the things that are tempting for us but they're not effective for us so we're creating space for the new to grow into