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The Comeback Story: Why I Disappeared... and What It Took to Return
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Introduction:
In this episode, I open up about why I stepped away from the podcast for the past six months and share a candid look at what has been happening in my life. The discussion covers personal growth, mental and emotional challenges, and how these experiences impacted my marriage, health, and passion for this show. I reflect on codependency, navigating personal setbacks, and the importance of reclaiming actions and habits that support my best self. This episode is both a return to the microphone and an invitation for listeners to consider where they might be holding back in their own lives or relationships.
Key Takeaways:
- Honest discussion about what led to a six-month podcast break, including recent life transitions and internal struggles.
- Insights on codependency and how it can subtly influence actions and relationships.
- Personal reflections on marriage, self-worth, and the reality of evolving roles after big life changes.
- The importance of small daily habits like morning walks, and their impact on well-being.
- Why reclaiming personal interests and routines—such as podcasting—is crucial for growth and connection.
- Encouragement for listeners to examine where they might be “playing small” and the value of making incremental positive changes.
- An open invitation for listeners and potential guests to connect and join future conversations about the multifaceted reality of masculinity.
Host: Josh Cearbaugh
Website: https://joshcearbaugh.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jcearbaugh/
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshcearbaugh/
Podcast: https://www.multifacetedmasculinity.com/
Online Course: https://www.jumpstartyourlife.com
Recommended
Transcript
Return from Hiatus and Addiction Struggle
00:00:01
Speaker
Well, it's been over six months since I have published a podcast episode, and there's a pretty good reason why and a pretty embarrassing reason why.
00:00:13
Speaker
We're going to get into the details of it, but let's just say that I got caught in a very hard, hard addiction that I thought I could dig my way out of on my own and found out that there was just no way that I could.
00:00:30
Speaker
and so the journey of me getting clean from the addiction and getting back on the saddle of the things that I know that I am meant to do and that I am good at, this podcast being one of those things.
00:00:46
Speaker
We're going to be having several guests, and we're going to touch on that later in the episode, that it's a new evolution. This is the welcome back episode for me, ah for those of you that have been listening for a while.
Personal Struggles and Insights Shared
00:01:01
Speaker
So without further ado, let's dive into a little bit of the story of what's been going on with me and also an offer at the end of the something that I feel that if you've been listening to this being your very first episode or been following me for years that you may find a lot of benefit from. All right, without further ado, let's dive into the reasons that I have been gone for the last six months.
00:01:31
Speaker
Men, we are not simple, chest-thumping, rock-smashing, fire-starting barbarians. We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared, yet brave.
00:01:44
Speaker
We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving. We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
00:02:00
Speaker
I have been hiding, and that's probably an understatement, but it's the realest truth that I can give you as far as what I've been up to for the last six months, and there's reasons why, which we're going to get into today in more detail because from what I've learned in that time of hiding is that I'm not alone in the reasons that I was hiding.
00:02:27
Speaker
I have not posted a new podcast episode in over six months.
Impact of Kratom Addiction on Life
00:02:32
Speaker
And there's a lot of factors to that, but the most shameful one, the one I've been most afraid to let people know, let the world know, is I had gotten caught into a very deep kratom addiction.
00:02:51
Speaker
And if you do not know what kratom is, it is a that and If you followed my podcast at all for the last few years, then you know that plant medicine, quote unquote plant medicine, has really helped me.
00:03:04
Speaker
it It's helped me heal my mind in a lot of ways. I was propped up on some VA medications for mental health, and I used plant medicine, psilocybin specifically, to come off of those medications and to really begin rebuilding my life after my divorce. and so I've always had an appreciation for plant medicine and um the downside of that is with my personality, with how I'm wired, I i got caught up in a plant that at the time I did not realize how addictive it was and how hard it was for me to shake that.
00:03:45
Speaker
And it led to this massive shame spiral where Over the years, at times, I've struggled with imposter syndrome, feeling like a fraud, not fitting in, etc and That was really why I shut down my coaching practice when I went through my divorce because my internal dialogue was, how could I be helping someone else work through things when my marriage is falling apart, when I can't save my marriage, I can't do enough or be enough for that? and It got to a point where I
Kratom's Nature and Failed Quitting Attempts
00:04:17
Speaker
shut it down. Well, similarly, it was different but in a similar vein,
00:04:22
Speaker
My addiction to kratom got to a point where i was feeling more and more like a fraud. Here I am with a podcast called Multifaceted Masculinity, and I'm having guests on, and I'm saying, come to me to learn about masculinity as I learn about masculinity. I've never said that I am the expert end-all be-all.
00:04:44
Speaker
Really, more than anything, I'm a student. And wanting to share what I learn and what I've found works for me, doesn't work for me, and it's much easier to share what works for me, hey, focus on these things, than what doesn't work for me and the things that I can be guilty of gravitating to or getting stuck in.
00:05:07
Speaker
And Kratom was one of those things that I got stuck in. There was a product that there was a bottle and one bottle, according to its label on the back, represented two servings.
00:05:20
Speaker
At the peak of my addiction, I was taking eight to nine bottles a day. And it got to a point where i would take four or five. literally throw up because my body was rejecting it, I would throw up and then I would take some more.
00:05:35
Speaker
And what started as a pain management, and that that's to loop back to what I was saying about plant medicine, I've got an old Marine Corps injury in my lower back that acts up every now and then.
00:05:48
Speaker
And when I tweaked my back, I turned to Kratom. And I thought, you know what? I've heard this is good. People are coming off of opioids and using Kratom. and did a little bit of reading, not nearly enough ah to justify, hey, I can use this as a pain management, not realizing that it fires the same receptors, opioid receptors, as morphine.
00:06:14
Speaker
And the product that I was taking was using a form of the kratom leaf that which has been shown to be 40 to 50 times more. It fires 40 to 50 times more receptors than morphine does.
00:06:29
Speaker
And so I took it. I was like, man, I don't feel pain. I feel great. I kind of feel a little euphoric. Let me do some work. Long story short, that led to instead of it being something that I'm managing my pain, it then became a thing of me running away from the detox of it.
00:06:47
Speaker
And I would try, you know, I've quit smoking, I've quit drinking, I've been able to quit things when I put my mind to it. Well, with Kratom, I was not able to do that. ah I would start to try to taper off and I would start to get withdrawal symptoms that were not pleasant.
00:07:06
Speaker
So then I would run to the gas station. Unfortunately, at least in Texas, you can buy Kratom products in all different forms and fashions just at the gas station. And the best way I've been able to describe it is imagine if you had one of the worst flus that you can think of that you've experienced and all you'd have to do is run to the gas station, spend six, seven bucks and that flu would go away.
00:07:33
Speaker
Well, that's kind of what happened to me. And just like with opioids, I needed more and more and more to hold off that flu like symptoms.
00:07:45
Speaker
Well, I finally got to a point where I couldn't do it anymore. I couldn't put episodes out. I couldn't really, in a sense, function. I was hiding this from my wife at the time and feeling more and more shame, feeling more and more like an imposter because Here I was trying to build a coaching business and trying to step into more of me and all the things that we like to say while not being able to shake this thing that I had gotten addicted to.
Isolation, Community Support, and Detox
00:08:19
Speaker
Got to a point where i have I was deep in self-hatred and felt like a complete imposter and so I've taken some time to not only come clean with my wife, but also share with some friends and really lean back into community because that was another byproduct of my addiction is that I had slowly pulled back more and more and more from the people that love me, from my business partner, from my wife, from the community that I do have here.
00:08:50
Speaker
And I found safety and isolation because essentially, if people knew the reality, this is a story I was telling myself, is if they knew the reality of what I was choosing to do, what I was choosing to do in the sense of hiding, wasting money from my wife and hiding this dirty secret that for sure they're going to reject me.
00:09:13
Speaker
This is the story that I had gotten looped into my being Well, when i came clean with my wife, she was so gracious in her response and was like, hey, what do you need? Let's get through this.
00:09:26
Speaker
I turned to my community, and that was probably one of the bigger fears I had was, you know what, if I if i share this with this community, because I had started to build this amazing community that that they're just high caliber people.
00:09:41
Speaker
I don't know how else to say it, and we'll probably get into some of that. and Some of the guests that I have coming up are going to be guests from this community, just extremely high caliber individuals that if I came clean and shared the reality of what I was going through, then they wouldn't want me. They're high caliber. They're blowing and going, and they've got podcasts, and they're making good money as coaches. and I mean, why would they want me as part of that community? I would be a drag. I would be pulling the caliber of that community down.
00:10:14
Speaker
And I shared with the nudge, the loving nudge from one of my friends that I had come clean with. And when I did, the response not only humbled me, but...
00:10:26
Speaker
really shook me at my core in a beautiful way because I went to a friend's house and as part of that community and spent a little over a week there detoxing.
00:10:37
Speaker
And man, let me tell you, if you have started to play with Kratom or use Kratom, Kratom, Kratom, I'm not exactly sure what's the appropriate way to say it.
00:10:48
Speaker
Just know that not everybody is wired the same and it's not as addictive for some people, but for those that are, it is a miserable detox experience. I had insomnia where I was sleeping one to two hours a night. I had the sweats. I had chills.
00:11:08
Speaker
I had just the wind blowing on my skin, felt like a thousand needles blowing on my skin. I had diarrhea, I had a pounding headaches and migraines, and that was even with me doing all of the biohacking I could, which I think did help, definitely.
00:11:25
Speaker
My friend had a hyperbaric chamber that I was in often. i was taking a lot of different supplements that are known to help with coming off of Kratom or opioids in general. and i had i had pulled out all the tricks that I knew to do, and it was still brutal and miserable. and so just want to encourage you, if if you are taking Kratom, be aware of just how addictive it actually is.
00:11:48
Speaker
And know that the longer, if you're wired similarly, that if you're wired like I am, that it's better to get into community and to pull back from Kratom as quickly as you reasonably can.
00:12:02
Speaker
And I can tell you confidently that there is no way that I would have been able to do it. I know that I couldn't do it because I tried to do it on my own.
Addiction's Root Causes and Recovery
00:12:10
Speaker
I tried to essentially hide from the community and from my wife.
00:12:15
Speaker
And the story I was telling myself was, you know what, I'm going to get clean. And then once I get clean, once I detox, once I taper off, I'm going to hide this. And then I'm going to go, you know what, I used to be addicted to Kratom. That's a part of my past, but not actually who I am today.
00:12:34
Speaker
and I failed miserably. I was fighting a behemoth that I didn't really understand how just physically addictive it was, and then also how much that physical addiction slowly ate away at my identity and my confidence and robbed me. Now, this is me choosing to do it. It's a thousand percent on me.
00:12:57
Speaker
But the way that I responded to it and the way that I got caught in the addiction really robbed me of a lot of beautiful moments. um Another thing that I've realized after the fact is it really affected my memory.
00:13:10
Speaker
And more than just my wife saying, hey, can you take out the trash and then I forget to do it? There is some of that for sure. I'm still guilty of that a little bit. But I now have moments that my friends are telling me about or my wife was saying, you know, remember when we did this?
00:13:28
Speaker
And I, it's it's almost like, you know when you're blackout drunk and you don't remember what happened, even though you were there when you did it, it's not quite to that degree, but I was essentially high and was present in the sense of physically there, but emotionally and mentally, I was fully, fully checked out.
00:13:51
Speaker
So I can tell you right now that it's not impossible, but it's a hell of a lot harder to come clean in this if you find yourself addicted to Kratom. And i actually want to broaden it it and go beyond that as really any addiction.
00:14:06
Speaker
you know I hate how people are expected to own their addiction as part of their identity and say, I am an alcoholic. I am addicted to porn. I was addicted to Kratom.
00:14:17
Speaker
I physically became addicted Kratom. But what I've come to learn even more is those that are often either highly sensitive or have high output, they they have a desire to really do a lot and lean into that.
00:14:32
Speaker
Those individuals, if they are not in community and or are not managing themselves in a good, grounded way, that it's very easy for us to turn to things that are addictive to try to manage that. And that can be on either end. If if you're a highly sensitive person in the sense of you can feel overstimulated and overwhelmed and you're just trying to go and blow and and and you find yourself burning out,
00:15:00
Speaker
not having a healthy space to navigate through that internally as well as in community, well, then you look for things that often are addictive to kind of bring you down to a baseline.
00:15:11
Speaker
And if you're on the other end, which is more of where I was, where you feel more depressed or just don't have much drive or desire or energy. I've shared in previous episodes my journey with suicidal ideation.
00:15:26
Speaker
If you're down there, then you're looking for something. If you're not managing yourself in a healthy way, you're looking for something to bring you up to some sort of a baseline or functioning. And so these last six months, I have been working really on cleaning up those messes in my life that I have made.
00:15:44
Speaker
And then at the same time, just to be totally honest with you, I've felt afraid to make this podcast episode. I've actually recorded it a few times. Because there is still a deep part of me that feels ashamed, that feels somewhat afraid of letting people know the real raw me in the sense of my shortcomings and the things that I've been going through. but Both from the encouragement of my wife, which has been steadfast, as well as community, and just me getting clean and and locking back into me, getting back into coaching, getting back into now the podcast, knowing that those are some of the good things for me that really do help me feel fulfilled and a sense of purpose, and that I'm pretty good at.
00:16:33
Speaker
is making this podcast episode as well as launching some men's groups that I'm going to be talking about are the things that I couldn't access because of the self-hatred and the shame that I was feeling.
00:16:49
Speaker
and so Along with that cleaning up of things, i've also been ah I kind of had a mantra for me, which was cleaning up and leaning in.
Accountability and Podcast Revival
00:16:58
Speaker
Cleaning up messes and leaning into the things that I know that I should be doing, be that the men's group that I was a part of or the community that I have here that's just absolutely amazing.
00:17:10
Speaker
and Then really just setting weekly goals to get back on the saddle. to stay accountable, both to my group, but also to myself first and foremost.
00:17:21
Speaker
And then being willing to apply self-consequences, not because of a expectation to perform and you now have shame and you need to have a consequence, but really, you know, I let myself down.
00:17:36
Speaker
I didn't follow through with the word that I gave myself or I gave others. And when I fall short of that, and I probably will again, I need a consequence. I need to feel the sting of what it looks like to or what it feels like to cost both myself as well as those that I'm in relationship, what that cost is to lose a little bit of trust, to lose connection, to lose momentum in those relationships, to lose a little piece of my own identity.
00:18:12
Speaker
And so having a self-imposed consequence is a really important part of that. So all of that said, i am really excited to one, announce that I am going to be leaning back into this podcast.
00:18:29
Speaker
I have several guests that I've actually already recorded with that are going to be coming out the following weeks. We're going to be launching a new episode every Monday. and i guess I'll go ahead and give a little bit of a teaser for a new series that I've been wanting to do probably for the last year and have been holding off on, and that is talking about masculinity from the feminine perspective.
00:18:53
Speaker
and so I have a group of incredible women that are going to be coming onto the podcast that's going to be talking about One, how they experience masculinity, how the things that we don't do or what they're looking for when that's not there, how that affects them.
00:19:10
Speaker
And really hearing the unfiltered version of what does it look like when us as men, when we show up in our fullness, how does that affect them? And when we don't, how does that affect them? Okay.
00:19:23
Speaker
And just so you know, part of this leaning back into being more vulnerable and being more open is the very first guest I'm having in that series is going to be my ex-wife.
New Series and Men's Group Announcement
00:19:36
Speaker
And then the second episode after that is going to be my current wife. and so we're gonna You guys are going to get to kind of dig into the the good, the bad, the ugly, whatever it may be, of how they experienced me, both in the past as well as currently, what they've what they've felt and a difference in from the work that I've been doing.
00:19:58
Speaker
And then also some really, really high caliber women that are in the space of tangibly helping individuals, both men and women. And so they really have a good sense of the conversation. And I'm really, to say that I'm excited would be an understatement.
00:20:16
Speaker
And again, just to be honest with you, a little bit nervous, a little bit nervous because we're going to be peeling back some really vulnerable layers And it's going to be hard hitting. These women that are in my life, they hold back no punches. And i need that. I need that as a man. From men, I definitely need that. But also from the women.
00:20:37
Speaker
I don't want to have individuals around me that just placate to my playing small. And i hit a tipping point of where what I had been doing, one, wasn't sustainable.
00:20:49
Speaker
And two, I got really pissed at... where I had let myself get. And yes, some of that was self-hatred, and some of that was self-love.
00:21:00
Speaker
Some of that was me hitting this threshold of being so fed up with recreating more and more of those unhealthy things in my life that I i just couldn't sit by and continue to let it happen.
00:21:16
Speaker
In addition to the series that I'm going to be launching, I'm also launching a men's group. and This men's group is for those of you that you may be at different places, but you're at that core place of being fed up, of of just not being okay with where you have found yourself.
00:21:39
Speaker
And they these groups, we are going to be going deep. We're going to be getting real. We're going be having fun because I can be very guilty of taking my personal development so serious.
00:21:52
Speaker
and really making it a lot of work and not juggling that both the depth of the work with the fun and enjoyment of life.
00:22:03
Speaker
We're going to be mixing in a lot of those different elements and trying to move all of us closer to the name of my podcast, Multifaceted Masculinity.
00:22:16
Speaker
And so the group is called The Multifaceted Man. You can check out the link in the show notes or just go to themultifacetedman.com to learn more about the men's groups.
00:22:28
Speaker
Or you can always reach out to me. I know several of you have my email or even my phone number. Let's link arms and... Be real with the fact that we don't always have it together. We're going to have hard times.
00:22:41
Speaker
But as men, we need each other to tackle all of the different things that make life not easy necessarily. You don't have to do it alone.
00:22:53
Speaker
You can get support and there's lots of different men's groups out there. But we if if you've been listening to me for a while and you're feeling that nudge, then i would suggest you today, right after you're done with this episode, take action, go to the multifaceted man and take that first step. I know for me, sometimes that first step just to engage was one of the harder things to do.
00:23:18
Speaker
Take that first step. I'll help you take the second step and we'll go from there.