Jeff Finlin on The Secret of Recovery

Hello, everybody, this is Franklin Taggart. And today I'm really excited to be interviewing my friend, Jeff, Finlin. Jeff is a person that I've known for several years now. And I'm really excited to be talking today about his latest book, The secret to recovery. And, Jeff, welcome to this interview. And thanks for the reason for it. I'm really excited to talk about your book today.

Thanks very much. Thanks for having me.

Q: First of all, how long have you been in recovery? personally?

Oh, I've been kicking around about 22 years now and it's been quite a journey.

Q: In your book, you tell the story of finding a yogi who helped you to kind of take your recovery to the next level, we're going to get into much more detail about that. But I want to just kind of set the stage a little bit to find out, what was your recovery experience, like before you met him?

Ah, it was good. You know, it was kind of a, you know, walking, walking on the edge of a cliff, I really knew that, you know, I went to AA and - because that was really the last house on the block. I didn't know where else to go.

I was, you know, I couldn't stop drinking, and I was filled with fear. This fear bubbled up inside of me that I knew wasn't normal. My father had went to, through AA and so he kind of got me on that path. A little bit. And, and it was good being a part of a group of people, and a fellowship, just going into that field of energy, I feel for those three or four years prior to meeting, my Yogi guy, enabled me to stay sober, you know, I could quit before that, but I couldn't stay quit. And I started working the step process. But honestly, I really didn't get any emotional relief for a couple of years, maybe two and a half years, it got worse for me, not better.

I was able to stay sober and I started that process of those steps in what turned out to be kind of the wrong spirit of embracing those steps. But it was it was a start anyway you know.

Q: When you say the wrong spirit, what do you mean by that?

Well, you know, we have to love ourselves unconditionally. We have to accept ourselves unconditionally, good, bad, right or wrong, evil, we have to accept what we've done, and who we are, before really any of that step work worked for me on any level.

And, you know, I was, I was terminally wracked with self loathing and guilt and shame. And I thought, you know, this program could propel me somewhere, somewhere else into a new state of reality. But I had to accept myself 100% first, who I am, I always say you have to love the horse thief, you know, before anything can happen for you, you really have to have 100% acceptance of where you are, or you just set up the opposite. You circle around in a field of opposites.

So that's what I really didn't get it first, you know, I thought I was a bad person. I thought it was morally bankrupt. I thought, you know, there was something terribly wrong with me that I did something wrong, that it was my fault, all these things and, and it really, it really kept me from moving forward in the proper fashion. 

Q: What did it take for you to get to that place of self acceptance

For about 10 or 15 years. You know, it really, you know, it really, it was really it was a long process for me. It took it took getting on the path, and the path really revealed where I needed to go. And my pain and confusion was my touchstone to my progress. And over time I was able to see a certain element of myself that prevented my own growth.

Q: You've come to a place in your own understanding where you connect a lot of your addiction to trauma, can you tell us a little bit about how that has come into your awareness and, and how you've addressed that?

Well, um, that came into awareness, you know, I was doing, I was being a good a person, I was showing up, I was doing everything that they told me I needed to do. I was serving serving, I was doing the inventories over and over again. And at some point, at about 12 years sober, the wheels just came off, none of that worked anymore. And I realized I was really incapable of receiving love, you know, my conditioning and my upbringing, built certain walls of protection inside of me to where I was unable to receive from the outside, receive love from the outside. And all this was really subconscious.

And I went to my, my best friend and my, my, a guy in Nashville, and I said, you know, the wheels are just coming off, nothing's working anymore. And I told him a little bit about how I grew up. And he said, Well, you're, you're two years earlier than me. So I had, I had the same kind of upbringing, and he introduced me to adult children of alcoholics. And that was a, that was a big gateway into, you know, some self knowledge about why I felt the way I felt why I approached every facet of my life a certain way.

So, that was a beginning for me. But that took a long time, you know, before I got there. Yeah. I mean, somebody asked me about, you know, I did an interview not too long ago, and the guy was talking about trauma. I was like, was there any talk about trauma back when you got sober? It wasn't, there was none. And so, um, I couldn't have discovered these things about myself, even if I wanted to, because it because there's a certain evolution that's happening within the recovery and spiritual world that is revealing this to us. So I couldn't have I couldn't have had that realization, even if I tried, you know, back in the late 90s, when I got sober.

Q: So you'd reached a point where, through the 12 step program, and through some of the other supports that you had taken on that we're kind of in the traditional addictions, path and recovery path. At some point, you became aware of Yogi and you were compelled to attend a program. Can you tell us a little bit about what what precipitated that?

Well, it was very, it was very grace driven. It's like when the when the students ready the teacher showed up, and that was, and, and that was it for me Come 140% or whatever. Because I was as reluctant, as is the next guy. You know, I was this old black leather, cigarette smoking, cynical, you know, guy and I hated all that stuff. I hated all that spiritual people, and bla bla bla bla, and, and, and a friend of mine dragged me to to see this man, and I didn't really even want to be there. You know, he offered to buy me dinner. If I went with him, and I was like, Okay, well, we'll go eat steak. And he's like, sure, whatever you want, you know. And he drove me to see this man and I walked into the, to this church and he was just giving a talk and this little Indian guy walked in and when he walked down the middle of the church, the entire energy changed in the room. Yeah.

And he opened his mouth. And he started talking. And it was like, I'd been waiting to hear what he had to say my entire life. It was just, you know, I had to admit that I was wrong, you know that, that something was going on here. And then I signed up for a program and spent a week with him. And he did things that I could not explain, you know, he moved the energy in me move the energy in the room.

And when I after that week I was hooked. It was like something this thing came into my life that seemed like a doorway for me. And it was just given to me really, by, by grace on a on a big level, you know? 

Q: Now in the, in the subsequent time, you were given a practice that is covered in detail in the book. But can you tell us a little bit about the practice itself, and some of the some of the things that you saw as a result of the practice happened in your life?

This guy is a Kriya guy. So we, you know, it's defined as yoga, but we didn't do any asanas. Yeah, everything was done with the breath and what and what the practice does, it opens and balances our system, you know, our physical system is made up of polarities of opposites. And what we're trying to do is experience ourselves beyond the physical. So in our trauma is lodged in ourselves, our experiences lodged in ourselves. So what these practices were just simple Kriyas, and they, they balance and open the system, and then push energy up the middle, the middle channel of the body, and you start to be able to experience yourself in a different way as a result. And you can do all this with your breath. It's, it's very, it's a very simple process, but you have to be consistent about it.

And through that process, the trauma and the reaction to the conditioning that was lodged in my body, started to release itself and come up. And that's how those processes work. It's, it's basically what they call somatics, you know, somatic therapy, you release the energy in the cells, and it opens up and starts to come up, and you're able to experience yourself in a different dimension beyond the physical. 

Q: Now, that's not always a particularly easy or clean experience, is it? 

No, and it was very tumultuous for me, you know, like, they talk about, you know, oh, well, I started doing yoga and meditation, because they told me, it would make me peaceful. And, and at first, that was the last thing that it did, you know, all my bullshit started coming up and revealing itself to me, and it really wasn't pretty, you know, it was, it wasn't pretty for, for quite some time. I mean, we all come to the table with our own path where with our own unique past and our own unique sense of circumstances and conditioning, and so it's going to be different for everybody.

And, but initially, it wasn't, it wasn't very pretty, but through the through the A and the 12 steps through those inventory processes, I actually had somebody something to do with it, somebody to talk to about it, a program to write it down and release that energy and get rid of it. So that's what really what I've tried to incorporate in, in, in my deal or my program is the is the mix of those two, because what I never got an A was the practice element. And what I never got in the practice element, or in the Buddhist Sangha, or the yoga studio, was what I got in a. So the two of them went interpreted in the right in the correct manner in relationship to self love. They they were really profound for me. Yeah.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about one of the things that you've said in the way that you described the latest book that you've written, The Secret of Recovery you've said, so much as that what recovery requires is a spiritual awakening. How did this particular set of experiences lead to your own awakening?

Well, that that's the whole point of spiritual practice, you know, and I think I've defined what that is in the book, and it just gets so clouded over. And, you know, so what is it where we're trucking, you know,

in yoga, there's five levels of being for our physical, they're the result of our conditioning, food, body, mental body, energy, body, and intellectual body. And then there's one part of us that's non physical, called Ananda or the bliss body. And really, what we're trying to recover is that dimension of ourselves, before we accumulated, whatever it is we accumulated. And once we touch that dimension of ourselves, it changes the relationship with everything we've accumulated. So as soon as I touched that dimension of myself, I was no longer a victim of my story, I was no longer a victim of food, I was no longer a victim of what I thought there was a, I could see, I could see all that stuff clearly. And I knew who I really was. 

And that's what we're trying to recover. And I don't think that's said enough in, in recovery world. It's like, No, we want a good job. We want a happy family, we wanna, you know, we want a psychological experience, or we want a medical experience, what actually is a spiritual experience? And how does it relate to recovery? Because that's, that's the one thing I bought into when I first got sober. You know, it's like, what's required is a spiritual experience. And what does that mean? You know,

Q: In the book, you you go into much more detail about the practices. What I'd like to talk about is how did how did this particular book come about? I know that you had written a book a few years ago called Recovery Yoga, that's actually a daily kind of a daily, it's almost like a devotional where you would go in and you would have a daily reading and something to kind of set your day up for, for good things. But in this particular book, you ended up with a much more personal story in it, can you talk a little bit about how you came to the point where you knew you had to write it?

Well, I thought, I really knew that I had to share it, you know, I thought it was like my duty to really share it because I had an experience in an ashram. I had that, that awakening experience, and all my trauma response disappeared. Yeah. And, and, you know, at first it was, it took me a while to figure out what happened because it was so profound.

And, and then, after a while, I really started, I didn't need the process. I didn't need the path anymore. Because I'd already walked through that doorway, right, and I started to forget it, you know, I started to really forget what what it is that I did, in order to actually get up to that point to make myself available or open enough to actually have that experience.

So I kind of got scared, I was like, I need to write all this down, you know, for other people. Um, and really, it's...upon doing that, I realized, wow, this has been the entire focus and trajectory of my whole life for the past 22 years. It's what all my songwriting and music work is about, it was about documenting certain stages on that path. And I really became just incredibly grateful, and in the realization that, Oh, this is kind of what my purpose has been for the past 22 years.

And I felt it just it it's important to document it and, and let people know that this is possible. Because we, in the trauma world, we're talking a lot about, you know, trauma informed care how to live with your trauma, not how to, you know, not how to trigger your trauma and all this stuff, but nobody's really talking about like, wow, it's it's completely possible to walk out through a doorway, a free man. Yeah. And that's what happened to me, you know.

Q: Can you talk a little bit about at after the fact now that you see this, this book as something that is a gift for other people in recovery, but it's not necessarily for people who are just starting out in recovery, it's like, the people who are doing the 9090 meetings in 90 days phase probably aren't ready for this book quite yet. Tell us a little bit about who it really is perfect for?

Well, I think it's perfect for that one a deep, and it's perfect for people that you know, are through the detox stage, they're, they're ready to make a commitment to their recovery. It's not really for people in treatment centers, though, though, they could all there's, there's never a perfect time to start on this kind of path. You know, they do teach yoga and in, in treatment centers, but generally, treatment centers are trying to just get people in a very short period of time stepping in the right direction, you know, and get them detox. I don't even know if that's possible. And in to completely detox and 28 days, yeah, I look back, it probably took me eight or nine months to completely detox, you know, and, or longer, I don't know. Um, so if people that are out of treatment, and want to really start working on a process that, you know, can set can set you on a path to freedom, and it and people that are ready, really to make a commitment to spiritual life.

Q: If a person was to pick up the book today, and start reading it now and start to really apply the practices that you've that you've included in the book what would they be able to anticipate in terms of the impact of those practices on their lives over the longer period of time? Not necessarily the, the more immediate timeframe, but over the longer period of time, as they incorporate these practices into their lives? What different kinds of impact would they be able to expect?

Well, that's, that's a problem. Because I, you know, I, I lit, there's one section in the book, I repeat three times. And it basically is if you think you know, where you're going, you're selling yourself way short, if you have any expectation about where this process is going to take you. You almost throw a monkey wrench into the process, you know, it all starts with not knowing. And, you know, if I set myself up for Oh, this is gonna get me a house and a wife and a job and I'm gonna be happy, it's like, you know, you're selling yourself way short, because I have no idea what's going to happen when I start these process, this process,

I really have to be kind of at the end of my rope, and in some ways, and be willing to just get on the magic carpet and see wherever it goes. And it goes different places for different people, you know, so I'd be, I think I'd be remiss in in answering your question, like, as as to letting know people what to expect? Yes, you really don't. And everybody comes to the table with a different set of a different makeup and a different story and a different experience. So when you start opening the system, it's going to be different for everybody. Yeah. 

Q: Now, one of the things that you also offer, in addition to the book you very often will offer classes and things like that. So what we want to make sure of is that people know first of all, where they can get the book. Where would you send them first to pick up a copy of the book?

Just go to Amazon, or my website, www.jefffinlin,com and there's a link there to Amazon. Yeah, it's and you can get it most anywhere in the world. The Amazon's just easiest, you know, I know they're the evil Big brother to some people. But it's just, it's easy, and it's, it's cost effective, and they'll drop it right at your door. Yeah.

Q: And how would you encourage people to get in touch with you

Just through my website, or, you know, you can always email me at jfinlin@yahoo.com.

I offer free consultations to people, you can always call me up, we'll talk about where you're at what you want to do. And, and then I offer a program to take you through this process that we could talk about.

Q: In your own experience to finish things up with, I'd like to, to hear from you as far as what's the what's the greatest miracle that you consider that you've experienced in your own recovery?

Well, there's lots of them, you know, it's, it's very emotional. You know, I mean, I think about, I was talking to somebody yesterday about when I went in, first went into the recovery rooms, and how angry and full of hate I was, and, you know, just for all those people in there, I didn't want to be there, you know, my, actually, my first sponsor may may go into my home group and tell everybody how much I hated them. You know?

And, and the guy was telling that to he was, he's not in recovery. So he was like, Whoa, man, you know, and, but when I did that, and I just laid it on him all, you know, I told him, You know, I slung it heavy and hard. And they just laughed at me. They laughed, they laughed at me, you know, and they were like, welcome, welcome. You're one of us, you know.

And there was, there was some people in that in this is one example, there's some people in, in my home group, there's this one guy, that every time he would go to share, he was the guy that sat in the same chair and collected all the, the pamphlets in the end, he had this giant rubber band wrapped around all this literature and stuff. And every time he would go to speak, and I would just go, Oh, God, I just want to run away. But over time, I started to laugh at him. And I started to like him. And then next thing, I knew I was helping him move out of his house. And he had to have a leg amputated, and he was in this nursing home and, and he wasn't doing well, and I would I bake him a pie and take in food. And, and I thought about how much I hated this man, you know, back in the day, what happened to me, what what happened to me, in between that time, where I would show up and take him food, turn on his TV and sit with him and laugh with him is like, that's, that's a miracle right there. And Hi, you know, I cannot really understand how or why that happened. But it was, it was completely amazing to me. And I always go back that to that. And remember that as like an example of the possibility of grace and recovery and how this great change of spirit is possible within us if we just show up and, and get the hell over ourselves, you know, so that that's a good one right there.

Q: I think that's a great place to end and I appreciate you just being so open with your own story and really, really grateful also for your book, because I feel like that it's gonna be something that makes a huge difference for a lot of people. So I'll remind people that the name of the book is the secret to recovery by Jeff Finlin. You can find more about Jeff at www.jefffinlin.com you should be able to see it there on the screen. And I would encourage you to check that out right now. So thanks. Thanks again, Jeff, for being a part of this today. 

Thanks. 

Q: My pleasure.

Bocephitas

Im so happy that Anti Heroine chic published this funny little essay I wrote on emotional support...I hope you all enjoy—-Jeff

I was in the airport recently and a waifish looking millennial was walking gingerly toward concourse B. She had a dog with her and I struck up a conversation about the pooch. She was obviously not blind. I asked her what the dog’s name was. She said, Jako and then said, He’s my emotional support animal. I said, “What is an emotional support animal? She said she had a lot of anxiety in her life and her animal was an emotional support for her. They allowed her to take the animal almost anywhere so she could be emotionally supported. I asked her if this was a “thing”? She said yes, that lots of her friends with anxiety had emotional support animals to help them navigate the pitfalls of this emotionally challenging environment we live in today.
 
I walked away a bit flabbergasted. I grew up in the seventies. If I needed emotional support, or even gave a hint of it, I might have been beaten beyond recognition. I wouldn’t have been beaten at home but certainly shamed. They would say something like “Who the hell do you think you are the queen of Sheba? And then made fun of my general lack of character and weakness. They would have laughed me out of the living room. In some ways that reaction was a good thing. In some ways it was bad. The bad part was that we eventually wore black leather and became drunk and disgusting. The good part was that, we eventually, learned that emotions were limited and not permanent. You realized you could live through almost anything.
 
Back in those days, if you really had issues, they would put you on lithium. There was no in between. Schizophrenia was schizophrenia back then. There was no mild bipolar shit. If you were mildly bipolar it just meant you were an artist or a musician, painter or poet. You felt more deeply and were a little kooky. There was no diagnosis for that. You didn’t get a dog to go with that everywhere you went. If you had good parents, they accepted that in you. If you had bad parents, they tried to get you to be something else.  Most had bad parents. Now they want to medicate you if you get a little blue when it rains. They medicate little children because they don’t act like well-adjusted adults. They put children on trial as adults. Well, they are not adults. They are children. And if you treat them like adults when they are children, then part of them will still remain a child as an adult. It’s kind of a crazy paradoxical thing.
 
Now, if you have trouble holding a job or can’t pass algebra two, they give you a psychological diagnosis. Who the fuck can pass algebra 2? No one I know? Certainly not me then or now. Cell phones and social media don’t help. None of our kids these days are grounded in the earth. So, they are wracked with anxiety.
 
There is no in between anymore. Only black and white. You are either in or out- on the bus or off the bus. But an emotional support animal? Seems to me these are the folks the dinosaurs would have eaten. At some point in the 50’s we toughened the hell up and the dinosaurs went extinct. Right? Either that or they drank themselves to death because they didn’t have emotional support animals.
 
Survival is still a part of the picture. In places where survival is imminent people have to get their shit together. That’s why I like going to Wyoming in the summers to visit my people there. Up there, survival lives a little closer to the bone. There’s not much work, its 20 below in the winter and the wind is howling at 50 miles an hour. You have to figure it out quickly up there or you’ll starve or freeze to death. There’s no fat on the land to hustle for. I always notice people are a little more emotionally stable in these environments. They are more direct and resourceful. They are little more awake. They have to know about a lot of things in order to survive-like being handy with a hammer, a saw, an ax or money. There’s less class hierarchy up there. A plumber is just as valuable as a doctor. Sometimes more so. There’s not as much time to dilly dally around emotionally. Even the artists I know up there are tough, direct working people. Emotions really don’t serve survival very well.
 
I broached this emotional support subject with my best friend. He’s a Montana cat. He grew up in the desolate shit show of a dysfunctional family in the wilds of nowhere. He once got in a drunken fistfight with Evel Knievel in his underwear. I’ll say no more. That’s the kind of guy he was. Now he is a sensitive loving man.
 
My friend was a bit flabbergasted about the emotional support critter as well. I said, “if we would have had emotional support animals back in the day, in light of all the abuse, shame and drunkenness of our youth, what would this creature look like? What would it encompass?”
We went straight in.
 
We decided our emotional support animal would have been an angry, ex circus chimp named Bocephus. He would probably sport a backwards baseball hat and chain smoke Pall Malls. He would probably be prone to grabbing people inappropriately and throwing his feces at you through the bars of his shattered soul- just for a good laugh. He would probably do backwards flips for more cigarettes, beer or bananas and flip you off at any sign of emotional vulnerability. He would touch himself inappropriately in public and bullfighting would be his favorite sport. I found his long-lost brother in Mexico this week (in the picture above). His Mexican counterpart would be named Bocephitas.
 
Of course, all this emotional bankruptcy comes from having to walk around with a starving heart. Sometimes there is nowhere to turn to feed a starving heart in this world. Especially in America. We are living in dark times. But what I’ve found is the heart flowers in the soul beyond emotion. You just have to sit in said emotion, without resistance and support, till the grief of it all exhausts itself as a solution. It’s the only way to transcend it. It’s the only way to see emotion for what it is. “Ya got to sit in the ugly spot and not resist it”,  as my beautiful Montana buddy always says.
 
There, Bocephus and his ugly Mexican brother Bocephitas die a strung-out lonely death. Out of their decaying corpses sprouts the flower of love incarnate…Love supreme…Suprema amor.
 
I love u all

​

Born in Cleveland Ohio, Songwriter and writer Jeff Finlin was born the grandson of Irish railroad workers (who seemed to be in the habit of leaping from trains.) Having released 12 records to critical acclaim around the world. His Song “Sugar Blue” was featured in The Cameron Crowe classic film-----“Elizabethtown.”

The Chicago Sun Times writes of Jeff Finlin--- “Finlin writes with the minimalist grit of Sam Shepard and Raymond Carver. Tune in for an elusive magic.”
​
Jeff has written two books of poetry and prose and a book on yoga and recovery.  His latest book is The Secret of Recovery. He has written extensively for the East Nashville Magazine and been published nationally in American Songwriter, Elephant Journal, Huffington Post as well as the  other online rags. Visit him at https://www.jefffinlin.com/