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Handle with Care: Empathy at Work


Apr 13, 2020

- David Mills
But I promise you, anyone who's hearing this. There are absolutely incredible things about you that other people see that you don't see. So be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with yourself, because there's always gonna be parts of yourself that you personally you don't feel like you can fully with. And there's a lot of ways to address that. Alcohol is one of the ways. There are a lot of other ways, too.
 

INTRO

 
This is a special, COVID-19 edition of the Handle with Care podcast.  In these unstable times, we are shining light on stories and experiences that will, hopefully, open your perspective to yourself and others.

 

Today, I am welcoming back a friend of the show, David Mills.  David was a guest in the summer of last year.  He talked about his journey through divorce, depression, and alcoholism.  If you missed the episode, go back and listen after you finish this listening to his one.  His reflections are honest and generous and insightful and I’ve welcomed him back to talk about what it has been like to stay sober and find emotional stability during this time of social isolation. 

 

As you scroll through Facebook or any social media feed, you will see people talking about the necessity of a glass of wine at the end of the day, or in the middle of the day, or with their breakfast.  Alcohol stores are classified as an essential business.  And, whether it is alcohol or binge watching or baking, we are all finding ways tt cope with our inner monologue during a time of tremendous stress. 

 

Before we jump in, I want to thank our sponsors.  FullStak PEO is a friend of the podcast and a great group of people.  FullStack provides benefits and support to small businesses and entrepreneurs.  In times of uncertainty, making sure your people are taken care of is so essential.  FullStack can help.  We are also sponsored by Motivosity, an employee-engagement platform that brings fun and gratitude to your workspace.

 

I interviewed David at the close of March, two weeks into the quarantine.  Like so many of you, I was navigating children and work, taking refuge in my closet to record our session.

 
- Liesel Mertes

Oh, no, no, no. It had been it has been. As we've waited for you, I've had Magnus come in. We been being like, Ada says that she has to practice for basketball, but she doesn't even play basketball. And I just want to be alone. I've been cooped up in the house. I don't want her to be in the yard and be like Magnus. She's seen me hard with you and him be like.

 

- Liesel Mertes

But I and her being like, really sassy about controlling the music because that's the streaming i-Pad. But the younger kids are watching Disney Plus, which we got for COVID-19. On the other i-Pad. So I just let it say I was not clairvoyant, but merely to do this right. That was already present in the home.

 

David Mills

Well, either way you come across looking as a pretty good mother.

 

Liesel Mertes

Oh, well, thank you so much.

 

– David Mills

Oh, by the way, I hope you don't think that we're going to start without me saying happy birthday. Thank you.

 

- Liesel Mertes

I was going to start commiserating about my birthday.

 

- David Mills
  1. Well, no, I'm not going to. I'm not going to sing because I don't want to like see or they're subscription numbers plummet

 

- Liesel Mertes

But it it does feel nice that you wish me happy birthday. And I didn't press record, but I'll probably cut, you know, this sort of like small talk.

 

- David Mills

But just you know, I think this is about people are coming out more lethal might they might like the idea that I'm cut. Yeah, I'm gonna I'm going to pivot more.

 

- Liesel Mertes

It is obviously a corona virus birthday. And some people handle that with remarkable, you know, like nonchalance. I am a big birthday person. Like this would be my birthday.

 

- Liesel Mertes

It's also a global economic social crisis. How are things for you?

 

- David Mills

Wow. Yeah. Well, things are OK. Life has just slowed down so suddenly, which I think has been hard for all of us to adjust to, and I think what causes the most anxiety when I can name it is just, you know, I like knowing when the end of things are going to be.

 

- David Mills

I like being able to have a plan.

 

- David Mills

I think we talked about before and this is a crisis that you can plan for and you can plan contingencies for an. Do you still have no idea when it's gonna end? So that's. That's that's been a key source of anxiety for me and I suspect a lot of other people, too. I know. I will say, you know, it's been.

 

- David Mills

It's great. It's great to have the technology that we have. It's great to have Zoom. It's great to have face time. It's great to be able to connect with people and have people checking in on you, and especially as you are on the path to sobriety. But nothing can really replace, you know, the the Face-To-Face connections, at least for me.

 

- David Mills

So it has so you know, but just by the nature of things felt more isolating than usual. And certainly the urge to drink for me, which frankly was for a couple of months pretty low, has been really strong. I think that just left alone in a house with no one else and my own thoughts. It can be a can be a dangerous place for me. So I'm sure we'll talk about some of the things that I tried to do to fight that.

 

- David Mills

But the urge has been real. And I suspect that that's true for a lot of people, whether they're actively in recovery or maybe I've just been trying to drink less this year, drink more in moderation. But this has been a really trying time for them. Yeah. And I, I really feel the weight of that collectively and individually.

 

- Liesel Mertes

And today is my birthday. But it is also a noteworthy day for you. Tell us about your six months.

 

- David Mills

Yeah. So it's a day and sometimes I'm better at tracking this than others. But honestly, like I texted you. You're the first person I told. I was like, oh, yeah. Today's going to be my sixth anniversary. I just looked up on my little app that I have.

 

- David Mills

So it felt really good. I went for a long walk this morning and some nature preserves not too far from the city.

 

- David Mills

And I just had a lot of time to reflect and could feel, though, that the first signs of spring, the melting snow, the muddy boots, you know, the snow falling from the branches and the birds were really loud, which I really appreciated.

 

- David Mills

So it was it was a it was a quiet but meaningful way to celebrate. There have been weeks within the past six months when I have thought about drinking in my heart, I know those are especially dangerous times. But there have also been. A lot of. A lot of shaking hands, a lot of night sweats, a lot of really hard days to stay sober.

 

- David Mills

So I'm really grateful I don't take it for granted. And, you know, I've, I've made it up further than six months before and fallen off. So I don't I. It was a good reminder and reflection for me this morning to be especially vigilant in these times.

 

- Liesel Mertes

So, I imagine for people that some of them some of the support, the in-person support systems of things like AA meetings or community touchpoints that now they don't have access to because of this physical destiny distancing that that is a particular gap. Has that been a part of your journey with sobriety and have you felt that gap? Absolutely.

 

- David Mills

And I will say that at least the Chicago a network has been fantastic about getting Zoom meetings up really quickly like I participated. And a Twelve Steps meeting this morning. I'm going to participate in one tonight. They just e-mail you at the code and you can sign it. It's lovely. And I suspect that that's being replicated in AA chapters all across the country. And if you just go online to your local chapter, you'll get all of that information. But there is.

 

- David Mills

There is something really powerful about being actually in the room, surrounded by people from all walks of life, all races and religions who share this uniquely common struggle and sing, sing the way that they might be carrying on their shoulders and seeing the way that they lift the weight of other shoulders is something that can't fully be replicated in Zoom. So it's not perfect. But I am really thankful that there are these advances in technology which allow us to have even a meetings remotely.

 

- David Mills

It's really it's really incredible and I'm sure there's people out there using Zoom for some really like creepy shit.

 

- David Mills

But it's a good day. It is a good use of that.

 

- David Mills

So that's been really helpful. You know, I have to just also acknowledge that. I have over the last year been really forced to get better at not isolating. When I'm really depressed, I tend to isolate when I'm really manic. I tend to isolate this because I don't slow down and. That's something that I've had to unlearn over the past year, and what I've learned in the process is that I have a really stacked team of a supportive mother, father, stepmother, siblings, aunts, uncles, cousins and that's just my blood relatives that's not even accounting for the amazing friends that have reached out to me.

 

- David Mills

And I I I know that everybody's situation is different and not everybody has a whole roster of people that are coming for them and they can come to. But I promise you, there's someone and if there's not you no, I don't know. Reach out to me. Yeah, because the. You'll be grateful not only for not being isolated yourself, but I promise you that the people you love will be able to sleep a lot easier and have a lot less stress in their lives, too.

 

- Liesel Mertes

I'm hearing and you saying that and talking about your support system is that it's been really meaningful. People who have proactively reached out to you in the midst of a time of a lot of social isolation. What does that look like as they've reached out to you?

 

- David Mills

You know, it's a lot of text messages. It's a lot of calling me. And if I don't pick up calling me again, it's which I think speaks to the. To the high caliber of people that I have in my life, it's a lot of. Face timing with family or, you know, right now I don't have Atticus with me. He's with his mother and her parents in Wisconsin, which is great because it's far more isolated. And he.

 

- David Mills

It's a great place for him to be, at least for these couple of weeks. So that's been especially as isolating as well, but yeah, you know, daily face time conversations with Atticus, we're even gonna start doing some workouts together in the morning that him and his mom have been doing and going over some of his lesson plans together. So.

 

- David Mills

I guess we're all like we're all learning to adapt to the responsibilities that we have. Either vocationally or through the bond of love in new ways, and I'm struggling through that just as much as anyone and I don't have it all figured out. But I do know that the less I isolate, the more likely I am to stay level and to stay sober.

 

- David Mills

So I would just maybe also add that, you know, when this quarantine kind of started, I was really entering like a pretty manic phase. So it was it was hard for me to have all of this energy and feel like, as I often do, a manic phase. It's like I can just go, go and go without sleep. I have no place to expend that acceptance like my own apartment, which leads to a really thoroughly cleaned and redecorated and redecorated again apartment.

 

- David Mills

But I can also feel. Like, there's just too much going on inside of me to possibly let out in a single building. You know what I mean? And.

 

- David Mills

Like, you can go on walks, you can go on rides when it's not snowing.

 

- David Mills

Just feeling as trapped as I have in the apartment has certainly been the key part of like feeling like this is one of the hardest stretches to make you well and.

 

- David Mills

You know, so many of us in our different ways are doing our own emotional, psychological recalibration in real time, you know, like hourly of try. What is that?

 

- Liesel Mertes

I imagine that there are powerful aspects of the things you say to yourself or what you do to build resiliency in the four walls of your apartment. What has that? What have you learned about that conversation with yourself?

 

- David Mills

That's a good question. Well, you know, I I should say that. One thing that has also helped this just came to mind is that I'm like it. I realize it would be easy for me just to take a few weeks off of therapy right now, but my therapist and I have. Setup Zoom meetings, so you even just today, like a couple hours ago, I was it was, you know, video chatting with my therapist for an hour, and that's something that really helps because, you know, a gives me.

 

- David Mills

The space to take control over my drinking problem. Therapy is where I can go to get the tools that I need to address the narratives that would tell me that I'm not enough with tell me that.

 

- David Mills

I'm not going to rise up further than I have that I'm destined to. You know, be losing the fight, those narratives are wrong and therapy is the place where I can talk about the underlying trauma that led to them and feeds them and get to the practical tools that I need to develop a more helpful internal dialogue. One that is reflective of where I've come from, one that's reflective of where I want to go and one that's reflective of my own strengths and honesty without being overly critical of my own weaknesses.

 

- David Mills

If that makes sense. So for me.

 

- David Mills

That just speaks these these past two weeks of really just also reinforce in me the need to be in consistent therapy. And. To not just think that a one prong or two-pronged approach is enough. So, yeah, I I that kind of address your question.

 

- Liesel Mertes

Yeah, it does. Yeah. I appreciate the. Especially confronting that messages of I am not enough. And just to extrapolate all of it. So so you're in like you're in your space. You're feeling overwhelmed by. Anxiety or fear or desperate, you know, all the things that could flood any of us in that moment. You have an awareness of where those thoughts have taken you in the past. What sorts of things are you saying or doing for yourself in those moments where you feel like I'm on the edge of overwhelm here?

 

- David Mills

Yeah, that's a really good question, and I'm glad you asked that because I actually have an answer for it. Those are my favorite questions.

 

- David Mills

I used to be like a really avid reader. I would just read anything from the time I was a kid all all growing up. But that's, that's really fallen off. So over the past couple of weeks, I've really like especially when my my brain is truly feels unable to slow down. I guess my immediate thought was like, OK, I'm trapped in this place. My brain can't slow down. Can I put it to use to like spark some creative joy inside of myself or to like gain some knowledge of some kind which might benefit me in some way?

 

- David Mills

And really, what that ended up looking like is this reading all the books that I have on hand so far, I think I've read just looking at the stack. Now it looks like I've read re-read The Odyssey, read Little Women Again, classic, beautiful, great. Read a book of Irish love poetry. Don't recommend that if you're single and started in on a book called Founding, Founding Mothers and Fathers, which is about. The gender played a role in forming early American society.

 

- David Mills

Not relevant. Anyways, I've read it. I've read a lot and that's really helped slow my mind down and also provided me a means of escape because like, I can't fully, directly relate to any of the characters in the US. Like, that's it's it's not a world which I inhabit. So. Just like, oh, and the return of Sherlock Holmes is the other one that I read, like, you know, like I don't I don't live in that period of England.

 

- David Mills

That's a it's a means of escape for me. So that's been that's been a really helpful thing. And then also I've just been toiling away in the woodshop. Just kind of building and sanding and staining for a couple hours a night. And I have to watch myself because it's easy to be out there for four or five hours before you know it. It's like 2:00 in the morning.

 

- David Mills

But those things have been really helpful. So I guess, you know.

 

- David Mills

Anything you can do to spark creative joy in yourself or maybe bring a little bit of restoration, whether it's restoration to your mind through the written word or its restoration to know something you're refinishing or something you're building. That can be it can be a really powerful tool, at least for me. Yeah. Thank you for sharing that. Yeah.

 

- Liesel Mertes

As you so I I can see the like national data about things like alcohol sales being through the roof right now, which is not inherently bad, but also a sign of how people are funneling these unwieldy feelings of being out of control. What word would you have, particularly for someone who is walking a hard journey of sobriety, or perhaps they're at a point where they're just beginning to take stock and say, I'm drinking quite a lot. What words of insight would you offer?

 

- David Mills

I don't know if they're different for those two groups or general. I. I'm thinking back before I answer. I'm just thinking back. And like some of the things that like I've. Learned through a and through therapy, and that's, you know, I didn't. The drinking was never the problem. There were. Things underneath of it that made me want to drink, I used drinking to medicate when I was manic to slow my thoughts down. I use it as a motivator.

 

- David Mills

When I was depressed to get out of bed. I use that in all circumstances to dull and soften and maybe even a race momentarily, the edges and parts of myself.

 

- David Mills

That felt really unlovable. So I guess what I would say to either of those groups is. Your sobriety. Or your drinking are not the most interesting thing about you. There's so much light and so few. That is not. In any way connected to alcohol. And it can be really easy in these moments when you're trapped. In a place, whether by yourself or with loved ones or with roommates or whoever. To feel a more urgent need to do all the edges of yourself but seem hard to live with.

 

- David Mills

Either just in isolation or in close proximity to others. You don't need to do that. That's, that's what I would say, you just don't you don't need to. There are ways. To live and to the parts of yourself that you don't love yet. That don't involve doling your census. That involve becoming more and not. Suppressing and becoming less or. Feeling like you can only be free and likable under the influence. And I know that's really easy to say and it's taken me a long time to even begin to live.

 

- David Mills

But I promise you, anyone who's hearing this. There are absolutely incredible things about you that other people see that you don't see. So be gentle with yourself. Be gentle with yourself, because there's always gonna be parts of yourself that you personally you don't feel like you can fully with. And there's a lot of ways to address that. Alcohol is one of the ways. There are a lot of other ways, too. There's a lot of things you can do.

 

- David Mills

There's a long there's a long winded answer, I don't know, maybe since it did.

 

- Liesel Mertes

Thank you. That's a good word, David. I appreciate it. Thank you. Yeah.

 
- Liesel Mertes

So. Yeah. Any funny things you've discovered about yourself or your habits in the midst of living in isolation? Sure.

 

- David Mills

I mean, I've I've pretty much known. The type of the type of human I am when it comes to living by myself for a while, but I. Nothing really nothing really, truly funny. But I did have this absolute epiphany. Like nothing I've ever had yesterday as I was doing the dishes, because I have this tendency to absolutely let my sink overflowing before I tackle the dishes. It is the one thing that just like starting it causes me such anxiety.

 

- David Mills

And then I have this epiphany yesterday and I'm like, if I only had two plates out. And I got rid of my other plates or put them away in stores, but they weren't easy to get to. I would.

 

- David Mills

The reason I do this because I have like twelve plates, because every time my mother visits she brings more kitchenware, like not to blame my mom.

 

- David Mills

But thanks mom.

 

- David Mills

That's that that's a I've also discovered that I. It's, it's nice to have a plant to talk to at least. And I wish I would have. I wish I would have heeded advocacies, many requests to get a cat or something. But I think one positive benefit for Atticus is coming out of this could be a pet.

 

MUSICAL TRANSITION

 

- David Mills

It is hard. I will say, you know, not having Atticus there to not have like some living thing depending on me for more than water which is all at once.

 

- Liesel Mertes

Well and I do like just on the human level. I hear that. I know that being a dad and being a good dad, Atticus is a huge part of who you are. And I imagine that that is its own like sacrifice and sadness right now. So sorry.

 

- David Mills

Thank you. Thank you. I really appreciate that. All right.

 

- David Mills

Well, I don't know. I haven't learned anything else really, truly funny about myself. Yeah. Now. I've. I'm kind of sick of myself, actually.

 

MUSICAL TRANSITION

 

Here are three reflections after my conversation with David:

 

  • If you know someone that is living with alcoholism or walking a journey of sobriety, reach out and check in with them.Social support is especially important for David…and sometimes people in his support network have to reach out more than once.  Practice persistence in your care. 
  • David has been directing his energy into creative outlets like woodworking and reading books that take him to other places.How can you funnel your feelings into pursuits that are creative and life giving?
  • Who you are with alcohol is not the most interesting part about you.There is deep wisdom in this reflection. Whether it is alcohol or another coping mechanism to escaps pain, remember that you are more than that behavior and that there are other ways to address the pain. 

 

Thanks again to our sponsors, FullStack PEO, helping entrepreneurs get back to business by providing benefits and support.  And thanks to Motivosity, an employee engagement software system that brings fun and gratitude to your people. 

 

OUTRO