Maureen Scanlon is a life coach and host of the INK (I Never Knew) podcast. She is also author of the books My Dog is More Enlightened Than I Am and My Dog is My Relationship Coach. We discussed these topics together:
- My journey with alcoholism and recovery
- How unfulfilled I was in my life and career, despite looking like I “had it all”
- How my adoption and eventual reunification with most of my birth families has been rewarding and a personal growth experience
- The ways we can handle major events in our lives (hint: don’t do it alone)
Transcript
Maureen Scanlon:
Hello everyone and welcome to today’s episode of I Never Knew But My Dog Did podcast. As always, I have a fabulous guest with me today. I am Maureen Scanlon, your hostess, and most of you know me as Life Coach Maureen. I’m so excited because my next guest, we were going to do a podcast, we connected, and I don’t know what happened. We did not get this scheduled. When he reached out again I was like, “Oh, there you are.” It’s meant to be when everything comes back around and that’s probably a life coaching moment right there that I could go off sidebar. But today, everyone, I’m so excited to bring you David Greer. He is an entrepreneurial coach, author, and facilitator. He is the catalyst who gets you to fully live your dreams now. If you spend one hour reading his book, Wind In Your Sails, attend a one-hour talk with him, or get a one hour of one-to-one coaching, you’ll have three concrete action items that will shift and accelerate your business within 90 days.
Outside of all of that wonderful stuff, David has a story. As you know on I Never Knew, we always have to have a story and it helps us as listeners hear people’s stories to give us hope and to say, “Hey, everyone has been there and done that. How did you get through your struggle?” With David, he had years of using alcohol and he’s now 14 years sober. He leads an extraordinary sober life in 12 Step Recovery and he also coaches other entrepreneurs challenged with alcoholism and addiction. Without further ado, hello my friend, David. How are you?
David Greer:
Hello, Maureen. I am doing fantastic and I’m so excited to be here and really looking forward to us spending time together today.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yes. Listeners, before we started recording, we could have talked for an hour and we had to go, “Hold on, wait a minute. We got to start recording,” because it’s such an authentic conversation with David and he is so genuine, and I know that you guys are going to hear it the way that I feel it. So David, what we do is we start with our knee story. So here at, I Never Knew, it’s that moment that really you were brought to your knees, and a lot of us have many knee stories, but I know for me there was just that catalyst of being tired of living the life I was living and realizing something had to change and I had to figure out what had to change. Tell us about your knee story.
David Greer:
I’m an alcoholic in recovery, and here in Vancouver when we have a birthday, we have another year of sobriety, we celebrate by having a cake with your home group, the group that you show up with regularly. And we are asked to share what it was like, what happened, and what it’s like now. And so if you give me permission to do that, I think it will help put the context because I got to tell a little bit about what it was like to really understand how I came to my knees.
And I actually start the story at the beginning, which is I was born in the Royal Alec Hospital at Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, and I was immediately relinquished for adoption. I was the result of a teenage pregnancy, I have learned in the last few years. And I was adopted as the first child into an upper middle-class family in Edmonton. Three years later they adopted my sister Jane. And three years after that my parents, my mom got pregnant and had her first [birth] child, my brother John. My father took over the business that my grandfather had started in 1923 and which my brother now runs, celebrating a hundred years in business this year, which is an amazing milestone. And I don’t think either of my family of origin parents, who are my Mom and Dad. That is Mom and Dad. I don’t think either of them were alcoholics, but they were pretty much daily drinkers.
Dad comes home from the office, pours Mom a gin and tonic, pours himself a scotch, and they have that while they’re visiting for the day or when we’re starting dinner. So that was normalized for me, daily drinking, that it was okay. And when they had parties, they were pretty good binge drinkers, so put away a lot of booze. So again, not alcoholic, but did get that modeling. In high school I was an academic, geek jock, so I was sportsman of the year in my grade 12 year, but in grade 10 I’m going to football keg parties and drinking, and after basketball games, going out with team members or people that showed up and drinking. And some of that would be a lot of drinking, would be binge-drinking.
And again, by then I still don’t think I was an alcoholic then because during the week I didn’t have anything to drink. I mostly led an alcohol-free life. When I was 18, I moved to Vancouver and eventually went back to university, asked my spouse out for our first date after a chemistry lab in first year. And on Monday, we will celebrate our 41st anniversary, so that’s been an amazing experience. And I played for the rugby team, another great group to be able to drink with. And then while I was in fourth year at UBC, my degree is in computer science. I said I was an academic geek. And I knew since grade eight or nine I wanted to take computers and business and put them together, and that’s what I did. And fourth year, I’m 22 years old, I joined a young software startup as the first employee after the founders.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow, that’s amazing.
David Greer:
And yeah, I didn’t really know how extraordinary it was or what it meant to join a startup. A lot of my life has been like that. I just fall into the next thing, and I don’t have any context to tell me how weird or strange or unusual it is.
Maureen Scanlon:
I love that. Going with the flow, and you and I are somewhat similar in age and that wasn’t a big thing back then. For us, it was join a company, stay at it for 30, 40 years, get that 401k. Well, they didn’t even have that. They had pensions. And you get that insurance and just stay at it. So to do that, that’s such a risk-taking thing for you at that age. And startups were not a thing, and computers were just starting out as well.
David Greer:
Barely. I was very lucky in Edmonton that I went to one of the very few high schools that had a data processing program and had courses and a teacher, and that’s where I actually started programming computers was in grade 11.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. Amazing.
David Greer:
At the time, in 1974.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah.
David Greer:
Personal computer hasn’t been invented yet.
Maureen Scanlon:
Right. Oh, wow. You’re a trailblazer. So you lived your life just going with the flow, and whatever came up, you just went for it?
David Greer:
Yes, and often being the trailblazer. Again, I didn’t realize how much I’m an early adopter. I do things. I was the 600,000th person on LinkedIn.
Maureen Scanlon:
What? My gosh.
David Greer:
In the early nineties, the company that I joined, I was with for 20 years, was the 80,000th registered website in the world. These kind of things have just been part of my experience, and part of my experience is how I coped with my feelings and how I dealt with stress or success was with alcohol. And I don’t know exactly when I became a pickle. We say in recovery, there’s a point where once the pickle’s a pickle, it can’t go back to being a cucumber. And for me, the disease of alcoholism is one of really the progressive nature of the disease. So sometime between my early twenties and about 32 when Karalee got pregnant with our first child, I became an alcoholic. And how I know is that when I reflect back when Karalee got pregnant with our oldest, Jocelyn, she committed to stop drinking while she was pregnant and I committed to supporting her, and that lasted 24 hours.
And I don’t actually know how I squared it with Karalee, but I did. And I’m pretty certain by then I was pretty much a daily drinker. And again, the progressive nature of the disease is probably six drinks when Jocelyn was born was enough. And then at the end, it was 12 or 15 or 18. Your brain, it likes to be in stasis, and so it actually generates chemicals to counteract the alcohol, and then it gets better at doing that over time, so that’s why most alcoholics need more alcohol to get the same effect over time. It’s just actually our brain being super good at protecting us.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah. Or trying to at least, right?
David Greer:
Or trying to. Yes.
Maureen Scanlon:
I love that you said that. And I just want to throw this in. When you were talking earlier, because we were talking offline and you had said, “Hey, do you have alcoholism in your background, in your family?” And it’s funny because I was like, “Well, no. We didn’t consider it that.” And then as I hear you speaking, you said, “Well, dad had a drink every day. And then mom had a drink every day, but they weren’t alcoholics.” And I remember when I was in my marriage to an alcoholic, he told me he was an alcoholic and I said, “No, you’re not.” Because I didn’t see him drinking and I didn’t see him that changed, I guess. I thought it was not that big of a deal where when he would drink, his personality would change. So what is considered an alcoholic, and I’ve been through Al-Anon myself and I know that is when it begins to control you, what would you say is considered an alcoholic?
David Greer:
So alcoholism is a medically diagnosed disease. It’s called alcohol use disorder. So there are metrics for AUD. For example, if you drink more than, for a guy, it’s four drinks at a time, or maybe it’s five drinks at a time. For a woman, it would be four drinks at a time. And if you did that consistently once a month, you would be considered exceedingly high risk for AUD.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. Four to five drinks per month would be considered-
David Greer:
Well, but drunk as a binge, so where you drunk them in a row without water in between.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow.
David Greer:
And part of why I coach entrepreneurs is to close business deals, a big high-end business deal, the CEO, the entrepreneur is expected to fly down, have dinner with the clients. And I’ve had entrepreneurs say, “Is it normal to have two, three drinks before dinner and then have a bottle of wine each?” And I said, “It might be normal, but everyone there is demonstrating alcoholic drinking. I can’t tell you that they’re alcoholics because I can’t diagnose anyone, but I can sure say that would be a high indicator.”
Maureen Scanlon:
Oh, that’s great. And I interviewed a lot of people who are in recovery from alcoholism and substance abuse. And I have always wanted to ask that question because there really isn’t a standard, and so that’s interesting that you said that. I love that you clarified that for us.
David Greer:
And I have both the Health Canada and the NIAAA organization, which is basically the organization in the United States who is the expert on alcoholism and addiction. They have slightly different, very similar standards what the warning signs are. And I have a YouTube video on that and I’d have it on my website, so if anyone has someone in their life they’re curious about it or they’re curious about it for themselves, feel free to reach out to me. I’ll be happy to share that. I don’t have more of the specifics at the top of my mind-
Maureen Scanlon:
Perfect. Perfect.
David Greer:
… in this moment.
Maureen Scanlon:
We’ll have all that-
David Greer:
I want to go forward a little bit in my story because I’m going to come back to some of the things that you experienced. So we moved forward, we have our second child, it’s the same thing. I don’t stop drinking. Karalee does, I don’t. And then shortly after that, I ended up buying out one of the founders of Robelle was the name of the company I joined when I was 22. It was named for Robert and Annabelle, the two founders, so that’s where Robelle… And I bought out Annabelle, which was massively stressful. I was standing on the 17th floor of an office tower in Vancouver outside the elevators of a really high-end accounting firm with tears in my eyes, the stress of taking on debt and what I was going to do. But I did go through with it. I’m sure I drank lots to cope. I don’t remember specifically doing that, but I can just trust that I did.
And then now I was a big shot, because now I’m like co-owner of the [business]. I don’t even have employee reviews anymore. I’m making a ton of money. And so being a big shot is part of my story and my alcoholism. Then Karalee got pregnant with her third and life moved on. And then in late 2000, the other founder of Robelle, the Robert, he and I had a huge disagreement about the strategic direction for the company. He wanted to downsize it, to milk it till the last customer leave and turn out the light, because we could see the end of our market was coming. We didn’t know exactly when, but change was coming. And I’m like, “We built these extraordinary people who do extraordinary thing. I would like to find new areas, take a little more risk, a little more money and move in new directions.” And I think both plans were viable. They weren’t complementary.
And so he ended up buying me out in early 2001. I’m on the street busy chasing deals, not noticing the .com meltdown, that this is not a good time to be starting anything in tech. And someone smarter than me sat me down, took me out to lunch, sat me down in her office and said, “Do you need to work right away?” And I’m like, “Well, no. I got a pretty good size check in my jeans and I’m not done for life, but I don’t need to work right away.” And she told me how she had, in a career transition, gone to Australia, bought a VW van and spent a year touring Australia. And I literally had the light bulb open. If you think of the cartoon and the light bulb going off over my head, it happened sitting in that chair. And from that, Karalee and I hatched the plan where we decided to commission a sailboat in the south of France, and we took our three children and we homeschooled them for two years while sailing more than 5,000 miles in the Mediterranean.
Maureen Scanlon:
Oh my goodness. How amazing.
David Greer:
An extraordinary experience and a legacy that we still have as a family. The Disney version of this would go kumbaya. David saw the light, he got sober on this big trip, connected to nature. The truth is the Mediterranean is a fantastic place for an alcoholic. Every port we pull into, there’s shoreside, restaurants, bars. Wine is 1/10 the price it costs in Canada. Even beer is about half the price, so I drank my way through the Mediterranean with one exception. We did over 20 overnight passages in the Mediterranean where you’re going for more than 24 hours continuously, and you’re on watch in the middle of the night. And I never drank on one of those passages.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. That’s awesome. That’s wonderful.
David Greer:
When the life of my family was totally at stake, and I don’t even know if I really thought… I did think about it a little bit because I know I journaled about it a bit, but it just happened. I didn’t have to consciously put it down. And one of those early passages, my son Kevin… So Kevin was 10 at the time, and he stood watch with me and our daughter, Jocelyn, who was 12 at the time, stood watch with Karalee. And we came on watch in the Western Mediterranean Sea, and it was a big high pressure. It was comms who were actually motoring. We came on watch at two in the morning and the Milky Way was absolutely horizon to horizon. In fact, Kevin and I kept mistaking stars on horizon for the lights of a ship.
Maureen Scanlon:
Oh, wow.
David Greer:
It was that bright. And I think that was the universe reaching out to me. And I think that those experiences overnight where I didn’t drink were the universe reaching out to me.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow.
David Greer:
We come back from that trip, and I don’t get sober. Came back in 2003 and I didn’t get sober until 2009. What happened in between was I came back, I really had trouble finding fulfilling work. I had all this experience. I started so young, I learned so much by the seat of my pants that I just knew a lot of stuff that most entrepreneurs even here in Vancouver didn’t really know, and I was coming across like that too, rather than more helpful. I did a bunch of angel investing, director work, being on boards of directors, coaching and mentoring young CEOs. And I took one of my CEOs I was mentoring to an event by a guy, Vern Harnish, who has a framework and a couple books. And in the back of the room were two coaches.
And at the break in the morning I went back and talked to both of those coaches, and one of those coaches had me on the edge of tears in about three or four minutes of conversation. And he gave me his card and his card sat next to my phone. And every time I looked at that card, I thought, I really should call this guy. And the phone then would look like it weighed about 10,000 pounds.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah. What did he say that had you almost in tears? Was it just straight to the point?
David Greer:
He took his hand and he waved it around the room and he said, “I bet 90% of the people in this room could use your help.” And none of them were accepting it. I couldn’t find anyone to help and be paid. And that comment was what brought a tear to the corner of my eye.
Maureen Scanlon:
Because what did you realize at that moment? That you weren’t living up to your potential?
David Greer:
I was completely unfulfilled, that the work that I was doing was completely unfulfilling. It just landed.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. And I’m going to jump in for one second because I wrote something down and I wrote, “It doesn’t matter how successful we are. If we’re not fulfilled and we’re not feeling our purpose, then it doesn’t matter.” And listeners, I know you’re listening and you’re like, “Wow, he had this successful business. He got these opportunities at 22, he had a wonderful wife and three beautiful children. He got to sail for a year. Yeah. Okay. You had a problem with alcohol.” You could see how people would be like, “Ugh.”
David Greer:
Totally.
Maureen Scanlon:
“I’m living on the street, guy. I lost my job at McDonald’s and I got nothing. My family disowned me, and that’s when I became an alcoholic.” But what I want to point out is no one’s problems are bigger and no one’s problems are smaller. It’s what’s internally, how we’re feeling about ourselves, our lives and our purposes I think that why we have addictions, and everyone’s story is different and they’re all the same. So I just wanted to say that.
David Greer:
I’m probably been to over 1,800 12-step meetings, and everyone’s story, as you said, is different, unique in their own way. And yet the feelings, that emptiness, that hollowness, that desperation, I’ve heard that over and over and over again. And that’s the feeling that we shared.
Maureen Scanlon:
The commonality.
David Greer:
Three weeks later, Coach Kevin called me and he said, “Hey, I thought there was a spark that morning.” Or he said, “Do you remember me?” And in my mind, I’m going, “Fuck.” Pardon me. “Yes, I really remember you.”
Maureen Scanlon:
We drop F bombs here. Whatever flows, flows here. Go ahead.
David Greer:
But I just said, “Yes, I do remember our conversation,” and I ended up hiring him. And actually, our first coaching session was on my 50th birthday.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow.
David Greer:
August 9th, 2007. I remember because at that time, to become a client of Kevin’s, you had to agree to two eight-hour coaching days.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. Wow. I love those.
David Greer:
Super intense. And for 18 months we worked together. Well, we worked together for nine years, but initially we worked together for 18 months and we cleared off all the clutter on the table, cleaned up a whole bunch of things in all aspects of my life, until the elephant in the room was all that was left. And on January 26th, 2009, I sent an email to Kevin because we had a coaching session the next day. And the way I worked with Kevin was I always sent my wins and the topic for the day. And I had my last beer about 10:30 at night, and then I wrote the email message and I said, “The topic is my drinking.” And the next day was a Tuesday and we had a coaching session in the morning. This is, whatever, 14 and some odd years later and it’s still pretty fresh in my memory.
And I told Kevin I had a drinking problem and he asked me stuff about it, and he coached me to go to 12-step recovery. And I committed to him. That was a Tuesday. I committed to go by Friday to my first meeting, and being the overachiever that I am, that afternoon I was knew I was going to a networking event between five and eight. I looked up meetings, and lo and behold, on the drive home, this is how the universe works. On the drive home, a quarter of a block off the main street I’m going to be driving down, there was a meeting at 8:30. So I finished my event a little early, I show up at this meeting about 10 past eight. And it was a big meeting. I stood in the back. It took me years to really admit how scared I was. And couple of young ladies came out and really welcomed me. I don’t remember their words. I just remember feeling welcome and feeling like they wanted me here.
And the meeting started and I sat in the aisle seat ready to bolt. And at that time in that meeting, they asked if there’s any newcomers. And so the chairperson asked the question two-thirds of the way through the meeting and I sat on my hands and I sat on my hands. Unfortunately, the chairperson waited about 30 seconds. And at the last possible second I stood up and said, “I’m David, I’m an alcoholic.” And I think that’s the watershed moment because it’s the first time of admittance. And I started going to meetings, and I liked that meeting and I made it my home group. It’s still my home group today. So every Tuesday night at 8:30, if you’re in Vancouver, come check it out Kits group.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yes. There’s such a relief for you when you go to that first meeting. And I think, for anyone who is going through anything to meet others, that’s why I do this podcast, to meet others who’ve been there, done that, it’s like suddenly you’re not alone. Tell us your feeling of being in that meeting.
David Greer:
I don’t know if it came from that first meeting, but I kept going to meetings. And that’s the thing, I think. If you’re new to recovery, keep going to meetings. Let the magic happen because it won’t happen right away. And yeah, I was really uncomfortable. Fortunately, I’m a very social person. I’m mostly an extrovert. Years of recovery, I’ve learned how much an introvert I am and how much I need to be alone or restore myself. But it is my natural inclination, so going to meetings and being social and being with people was not particularly hard.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah, so you have to push yourself. If the first meeting doesn’t feel like everything you wanted it to, just keep going back or find another group. Is that really key in recovery?
David Greer:
That’s key. One of the things we suggest is, if you’re just coming to recovery, try 90 in 90. 90 meetings in 90 days, which sounds like a lot, but if you look at the time you put into your drinking…
Maureen Scanlon:
True.
David Greer:
… we’re only talking an hour a day, and pretty well I can guarantee you, for most alcoholics, you were putting more than an hour a day into your drinking or into getting rid of the empties or into acquiring more. And so something you shared was about being in denial about alcoholism in your family of origin. So I told my wife that I was going to go to AA and I was an alcoholic, and she was totally distraught and she didn’t believe me. In fact, to this day we’ve come to an agreement where she agrees that I believe that I’m an alcoholic.
Maureen Scanlon:
Really? So she’s not convinced not of it from her perspective? She didn’t see it as a problem?
David Greer:
I’m not a truck driver. I’m not a logger. I don’t go to bars, I don’t get in fights. I’m not on the wrong side of the tracks drinking out of a brown paper bag. A high-performing alcoholic is okay in her world.
Maureen Scanlon:
Fascinating.
David Greer:
And then you’re not an alcoholic.
Maureen Scanlon:
And that had to come from something, right? Did that come from her family dynamic then?
David Greer:
Yeah. She comes from alcoholics and that’s the way the family behaved, and she also made a personal promise to herself that she would never marry an alcoholic.
Maureen Scanlon:
Oh, so it’s almost like maybe a defiance of, “I’m not going to believe you’re an alcoholic?”
David Greer:
Well, it’s a really hard place to be. You made a super important commitment to yourself and then suddenly your husband shows up and says, “Surprise.”
Maureen Scanlon:
I remember that. I remember that moment of my husband coming and saying, “I’m an alcoholic,” and this is when I was coming to him to say, “I’m going to divorce you,” and also finding out I was pregnant with my third child so there was a lot going on at that moment. And so I’m going through AA with him and Al-Anon pregnant with my third child, so on top of emotions and hormones from that. But I do remember that and I can completely empathize with your wife. I didn’t want to believe it, but I knew it. I knew it in the back of my mind. And I remember the moments of saying, “If I can’t beat them, join them,” so thinking I could moderate it. So instead of telling you, “You can’t drink,” and this is such a codependent thing, I’ll tell you, instead of telling you, “You can’t drink,” I’ll just say, “Well, you can have two drinks.”
And it didn’t matter though. And this is something I want to talk about too, is the fact that it’s not always how much you drink. Because I had been with people who drank one beer and you would’ve thought they drank a case or a keg. Their personality changed so much. And we talked offline before this. My grandfather was that way. My grandfather did not drink a lot, but when he drank, he just became irate and this different person. But he could do that after only two or three beers, so it’s how they metabolize is what I understand. Is that correct?
David Greer:
Yes. It’s how it’s metabolized. It’s how it operates in your brain. And yeah, it’s like having a personality change after two drinks would indicate that you have issues with alcohol.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah. So back to that how do we know we’re an alcoholic? Well, you know when you’re out of control or you know that the next day when people are like, “You were a total jerk yesterday.” Sometimes it’s not the amount.
David Greer:
And other things, do you think about alcohol all the time? Do you think about when you’re going to have your next drink? Because normies, which is what we in recovery call you that aren’t alcoholics…
Maureen Scanlon:
Normies. I love it.
David Greer:
Normies. Normal people who don’t have an issue with alcohol don’t think about it all the time. They’re not always thinking about their next drink. If it consumes a lot of your internal dialogue in your brain, that’s an indicator for us alcoholics. Moderating. My wife would drink a half a glass of wine and go, “Oh, I’m feeling enough,” and just leave it. You want to drive an alcoholic crazy, do that.
Maureen Scanlon:
Watch me moderating.
David Greer:
Well, it’s so inconceivable. And of course when I was drinking I would just say, “Oh, you’re not going to finish that? Well, how about I do?” And she’d just hand me the glass and of course I’d finish it. And if I only have two drinks, then I’m just totally obsessed about thinking about whether I’m going to have a third or how I’m going to get through the rest of the night with only having two drinks. It’s actually easier to have no drinks than to actually have two and stop.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. I love that insight. I love that insight.
David Greer:
It’s just painful.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow, that’s fascinating. And we can attribute that to anything, with people who smoke cigarettes or people who eat, who overeat. When you become this… It’s that thing that you have to think about all the time and it controls how you’re going to schedule your day, schedule your night, it really becomes this part of, this is the one thing that tells me how to live my life. And that’s when you know that you’re just completely out of control because it’s controlling you. And I think that’s really, even in regards to mental health, when you have anything mental health I think related that is controlling you and it’s something you’re thinking about continuously, those are the times when you really need to reach out, get a coach.
I love that you said that you got a coach and you still see a coach. I had a life coach before I was life coaching. I can’t emphasize enough, for me, I think therapy is great as well, but I think coaching is, I feel, at least my own coaching, and I’m certain yours is too, is the move forward that you need. I think the therapy can open you up to the self-actualization. But I think that coaching… I’ll say this. I’m obsessed with your success. You don’t have to be obsessed with it. I’m going to be obsessed with it. I’m so obsessed with the moving forward for you that I don’t allow you to go backwards. I don’t allow you to go back to the excuses, go back to the traumas, go back to that. We’ll talk about it, but I still need you moving forward. And I think that’s the difference with coaching. What do you think?
David Greer:
Totally. I’m just probably going to paraphrase what you said, but people ask me, “What’s the difference between coaching and therapy?” In coaching, I help a client paint a future vision that is so compelling that they will draw themselves towards it. And then I will help remind them that that’s where they’re going when they stumble and fall or their belief system starts letting them down, and they can power through an amazing amount of trauma and things, which isn’t necessarily always the healthiest thing for us to power through that. And then as a coach, I work with people’s belief systems. You’ve painted this really compelling story, I believe it, I believe in you, and you’re not going there. Then we have to dig around in belief systems, and then some of those are so deep, that then I think we move to therapy, which I’m not trained for and not competent on, but a professional therapist is. And that usually takes longer, but releases you from these things that are deeply, deeply held experiences or beliefs that are part of you.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah, because you would keep going back to those, like you said. It’s almost like you’re going to be counterproductive too.
David Greer:
Well, and at some point I can’t help you get to your goals because that belief system just keeps… You keep defaulting back into it. And until you do some work around that, it’ll be almost impossible to move forward. ‘ve done 12-step work. I’ve done personal therapy work. Karalee and I on Monday will be married 41 years I think I mentioned. And the first 30 years, we never had any professional help in our relationship. And then after I went into recovery, we spent eight years in relationship counseling with four different sets of counselors because each one was appropriate at the time. And one of the discoveries was we were massively codependent and we both come from really codependent families, so it’s not surprising. And that has been one of my big growth edges is to work through that.
And I see that as my second-biggest ism. Alcoholism is first, but then I think the codependency piece, and then it shows up in all sorts of ways. People pleasing, something we call in my 12-step program false pride. I either think I’m way better than you, or surprisingly, I’ve discovered how many times I think I’m way worse than you because that’s why I want to please you, so I’m going to do extra to please you so you’ll like me.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah.
David Greer:
Rather than just saying, I’m just okay where I’m at and I’m just me being me and you’re you being you, and that’s okay.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah. The acceptance piece that we all tend to struggle with, and a lot of people have said that I’ve talked to is addiction is the symptom and-
David Greer:
Correct.
Maureen Scanlon:
… the codependence and the trauma or the CPTSD is really the cause. And so I think that’s something to remember too, that we have addictions because we’re trying self-soothe something. We’re trying to escape something, not feeling whatever it is. It’s the numbness. Or even there are people who are introverts and need to be extroverted and that drinking helps them to be something that they not.
David Greer:
Exactly. The other way I’ve heard it described is that the ism, think of it as an iceberg. And the part above the surface is the ism part, which is usually only 10% of the iceberg, and the 90% underwater, that’s the stuff you need to deal with. And once I took alcohol out of my life, my favorite way of dealing with uncomfortable things was taken away, so I had to go find other ways, which I’ve done over an extensive period of time. And 12-step recovery as I practice it is to me not about not drinking. It’s about life. It’s how do I cope with life on life’s terms when I don’t have my drug of choice, alcohol, to cope?
Maureen Scanlon:
How do I find the joy that that addiction was bringing me technically?
David Greer:
Yeah. I want to move to some really recent events and just another little part of my story, and I haven’t had to drink over it, which has been quite amazing. So 60 years of life and nine years of recovery, I decided to go look into my birth families. And the biggest thing that held me back was my codependency with my mother and what she might think of that, and I had to get past that. She is an adult. She can have whatever reaction she has to my going and looking into the birth families, and that’s her stuff and this is mine.
And five years ago, February, I reached out to the first of my birth family members who was my birth mom and had a conversation on the phone, which was very short. My birth mother first was in just complete denial. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Then I shared some more about Alberta adoption services and my records. Then it’s blame. “Those people at Alberta adoption records, they never should have shared anything with you,” about the topic that, two minutes before, she just told me she knew nothing about
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah. Yeah.
David Greer:
And then just complete rejection. “I want nothing to do with you.”
Maureen Scanlon:
Oh my gosh. And you were sober at this time?
David Greer:
I’d be nine years sober.
Maureen Scanlon:
Wow. So how did you deal with that? That’s a pretty big traumatic thing. Being rejected technically at birth and then being rejected later on.
David Greer:
Yeah. And so there were a lot of gifts in it, but I’ll answer your question about coping. I went for about a two and a half hour walk. I called my coach who wasn’t available, but I left a message. I called my sponsor and I had a long conversation with him.
Maureen Scanlon:
Right. Right.
David Greer:
And one of his children were adopted, so he knew the parental side. And it was a sunny February day, so it was beautiful and I just stayed close to nature. And Karalee called me an hour and a half, two hours in and, “How are you doing?” she asked, and she said, “Do you want me to meet you at the Sylvia Hotel down on English Bay Beach?” And by then, I was ready to accept that actually, which probably an hour before I wasn’t. And by the end of the day I was actually okay. And it’s a gift because I could never experience that rejection that I experienced as a baby. Obviously, there’s some physical aspect of it that’s part of me. I know almost for certain that my birth mother never held me because birth moms at that time, it just wasn’t allowed by young women who were giving up their babies, relinquishing their baby for adoption. But I got to experience it as an adult. And of course, people coached me and reminded me that my birth mother was not rejecting me since she didn’t know who the hell I was.
Maureen Scanlon:
True, true.
David Greer:
She was rejecting the experience of having me. And, it turned out, multi-decades of shame from my grandmother Pearl, who never let her forget her big mistake.
Maureen Scanlon:
So inserted in her continuously the shame, and you reaching out to her just brought it back, just whoosh, full force to her.
David Greer:
Yeah.
Maureen Scanlon:
And just really the way that it is in life is it’s always about them. We always take everything so personal. “Oh, it’s about me.” No, 99% of anything that happens between you and someone else is what’s going on with them. And I think as we wrap up here, we got a few more minutes, I think something you just said I think is so beautiful. You gave us a real life, step by step, how do I handle those horrible, scary, traumatic, emotional things that happen while I’m in recovery that normally would’ve led me to my drinking? And I wrote it down and I think it’s beautiful. You reached out after this really gut-wrenching knife in the heart thing. You reached out. You not only reached out to one person, your coach, they didn’t answer. So you didn’t go get a drink after that. You reached out to your sponsor. You talked to your sponsor for half an hour. You reached out. Your wife was there, you were seeking support of those that love you.
And that’s real life because a lot of people could hear, “Oh yeah, yeah, the 12-step, you go once a week and blah, blah, blah. What about the other times when stuff happens, when shit happens to me on a daily basis?” And you just gave us a real life, walking step by step, this is how you do it. Just take it a moment at a time, take a walk, be out in nature, reach out, get support. I love it.
David Greer:
And you don’t have to do it alone.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah, yeah.
David Greer:
And that’s what I’ve learned. And you can’t. So I want to try in two minutes, because there’s a little wrap up piece to this that’s very current and very emotional for me.
Maureen Scanlon:
Perfect.
David Greer:
I told my birth mother I’d be reaching out to other Ridley family members. That’s her maiden name and my birth name. And I did, and I’m actually good friends with my aunt and uncle, her siblings, and with my two maternal sisters, so we’re half sisters. And my older half sister called me two weeks ago Saturday to say that my birth mom, Teriry had been admitted to the hospital with inoperable and untreatable brain cancer, and that she only had days or weeks to live. And so that was a Saturday. The Monday afternoon, I just had a feeling and I just flew to Calgary and got an Airbnb. And two weeks ago, Tuesday, the entire Ridley family was in the hospital room and they invited me to be there. And my birth mother was still alive, but not conscious, and I was in her presence for two hours for the first time since I had been born.
Maureen Scanlon:
Oh my gosh. That’s heavy. That was a heavy moment for you.
David Greer:
It was. And two hours later, she passed away peacefully. And I was there with my aunt and uncle and my sisters and extended family members. And there were a lot of hugs and a lot of tears, and I felt very accepted. I felt very part of it. And afterwards, my uncle Jim said, “Do you want a picture with you and Terry?” And there was a part of me that totally said, “No effing way.” And there’s a part of me said, “You’ll never have a picture with her if you don’t do it right now.”
Maureen Scanlon:
Yeah. Don’t regret it later because of how you feel right now.
David Greer:
So Jim took that picture, and afterwards I leaned over and I kissed her on the cheek and I said, “Take care.” Which also wasn’t what I wanted to do, and I knew it was the next right thing to do and that I would regret it if I didn’t do it. I just held to the light streaming through the window, to the group that was in the room, to the support that was there, and just leaned into all of that. And the next day, my uncle and siblings were cleaning out her apartment, and I already knew this about her, but a full bottle of Canadian Club rye whiskey in the kitchen cupboard and a full case of 12 in the closet. I had been told repeatedly that she was an alcoholic.
I also have a brother, a stepbrother or a half brother, Gary, who I never met because he died in 2015 of cirrhosis of the liver as a direct result of his alcoholism. My family of origin had modeled daily drinking, but my mother was an alcoholic her entire life. And I wondered if she still was at the end, and the answer is absolutely.
Maureen Scanlon:
There’s no definitive with nature versus nurture because-
David Greer:
No.
Maureen Scanlon:
… you can see right there, there’s a 50/50 right there where you had a little both, and I think that’s important to know about ourselves and in moving forward, living that life of choice. And what a beautiful ending though. It feels like there was so much healing and also this benefit of these additional connections and love from these family members that you never would’ve met. And now you have now this extended family of love and support and caring, and that’s all we could ask for in this life, is just to be able to have that.
David Greer:
These people have known me for more than five years, and for almost all of them, except for my aunt, I was the total surprise.
Maureen Scanlon:
I love it.
David Greer:
They had no idea that there had been a baby.
Maureen Scanlon:
That’s crazy that you don’t know someone exists and all of a sudden there’s someone out there that’s a part of you, a piece of you. And I love that they embraced you. So as we wrap up, let’s tell everyone where they can find you. Your website, your book, everything where you can find my friend David, guys. So take it away, David.
David Greer:
Easiest is my website, coachdjgreer.com. So that’s coach, D as in David, J as in James, greer.com. And my phone number and my email address is on every page. There’s a link to my book. I wrote a blog post this morning, so there’s some current content on there. Of course, I don’t know when this podcast will air, but-
Maureen Scanlon:
We’re pretty backed up, but that’s okay. We’re going to get you out there.
David Greer:
But anyways, the blog post will still be there when you get around to going and checking it out.
Maureen Scanlon:
Yes, it will. And Wind In Your Sails. Where’s that available?
David Greer:
It’s available anywhere. Amazon, Barnes and Noble. You can get it in Kindle format, you can get it in NOOK format. It’s available as an audiobook on Audible.
Maureen Scanlon:
Perfect.
David Greer:
So wherever online you like to get books, you should be able to get a copy of my book, which is a book-
Maureen Scanlon:
It’s out there.
David Greer:
So yeah, each chapter starts with the sailing analogy, but it’s actually a business book. The full title is Wind in Your Sails, Vital Strategies That Will Accelerate Your Entrepreneurial Success.
Maureen Scanlon:
Love it. Love it, love it, love it. Reach out to him for coaching, my entrepreneurial friends. You’re amazing. I love your story. I love your spirit. And I just am so glad you were with us today. Listeners, I hope you enjoyed him as much as I did because he’s very genuine and very authentic and he gives us such an inspiring story. So if he can do it, you can do it. And again, you can reach out to him at coachdjgreer.com and I’m certain he’ll help you if you are on the road to recovery or in recovery or need recovery, so we’re here to help one another.
I’m going to wrap us up for today. As you know, you can find me at lifecoachmaureen.com. And of course, my books are available on Amazon as well. And don’t forget, our doggy boutique at mydogiseverything.net. I just came out with a brand new doggy treat, healthy PB and J. Yes, the doggies love the PB and J, and it’s a organic preserve and xylitol-free peanut butter in those treats so they’re all healthy. No dyes, no preservatives for your pups. And I got a bunch of new products, so don’t forget to go check that out for your furry babies. Love you all for listening. Don’t forget to go and do those reviews and any comments, questions, or if you want to be a guest, feel free to reach out to me. And that is all until next week. Love you all for listening. Take care of yourselves, take care of each other. Most of all, take care of those furry babies, and we’ll see you later.
