Recovery and relationships: you’re different and you have unique needs when it comes to dating and relationships

I see you over there, working your ass off to get healthy. Everyone tells you that you shouldn’t be interested in relationships. In fact, that should be the last thing on your mind. But it’s not. You feel alone and you’re tired of being alone. You know that feeling alone is part of the reason you use in the first place.

But, when you’re in a relationship, you either lose yourself totally, even getting obsessed. Or you keep so much distance out of fear that you never let anyone get too close to you.

It all feels so black and white. Your relationships are either awesome or horrific. Nothing in between.

You feel like no one really understands you. You have a hard time opening up in relationships. You keep most everything to yourself. It takes you awhile to trust people. You kind of feel like everyone is full of shit.

You also don’t know how to need without coming off as too needy.

You attract guys, but when you get close to them, usually after you sleep with them, you find out they’re jerks.

Or you are with a man and he doesn’t support you.

He says things like, “I want the old you back.” But you and I both know the old you is what led you to drugs and alcohol in the first place. You want to be you…2.0.

Maybe you’ve caused a lot of damage in your relationship. You cheated, or left the “good guy” and now you’re wondering if it’s too late for you and you missed your chance at true love.

Or, maybe you’re in a relationship left to wonder if there’s too much water under the bridge.

Or maybe you are wanting to learn all you can so that you don’t keep repeating old patterns. You want love. But, once you open up, you find that you get hurt again! He leaves you or cheats on you and you get blindsided. So you put up more walls. Pushing people away.

Perhaps you convince yourself that it’s better to be alone. But ending up alone is your biggest fear.

You need to figure this out. And you have to do it now.

What’s the point of getting sober?

In my opinion, the point of getting sober is to live an amazing, fulfilling, extraordinary life and a big part of living that life includes experiencing love on the deepest level possible.

You’re here to connect. You’re here to love and be loved and if you have been suffering from addiction, it’s a lot more than likely that relationships have been a source of pain for you for quite some time.

When I was researching competition for this book, I googled a lot of things like relationships in recovery, relationship problems for addicts, how to be in a relationship in recovery. And do you know that the only thing that came up was “warning signs when you date an addict.” And “Why you should stay out of relationships in recovery”?

Until now, NO ONE is teaching what you need to learn the most. The nitty gritty, get down to it answers to your real life questions.

Let’s pretend that you plan on taking a year off from relationships. Ok, great! What do you expect to happen after that year? Are you magically going to be amazing at relationships? NO! You won’t! Because while you were working on yourself, you weren’t learning how to be with another person.

The path to enlightenment isn’t a solitary walk. You don’t get better at relationships by being alone.

Relationships teach you the most about yourself. And eventually you will be in one. What are you doing to prepare?

And what about those of you who are already in relationships? Too bad? Too late? Work on yourself? That’s all fine and good, but you have a partner and you need each other. You need to learn how to communicate, build trust, and move on from the past.

Listen, not talking about relationships is like refusing to talk about sex to a bunch of pregnant 7th graders. They are having sex and you are in relationships.

And you should be. You are built for love and you deserve it.

But let’s be honest, you’re bad at it. And that’s where I come in.

I spent over a decade coaching “normies” in their relationships. I was very successful. I even served as the Director of Operations for the Matchmaking institute in NYC, where I helped 100’s of people start their own matchmaking and dating companies. And at one point, I had a cushy office in Beverly Hills where I charged 20,000 dollars per client to help them find love.

And then, I got recruited to teach “how to have a healthy relationship” at one of the world’s leading drug and alcohol treatment centers. And that is where I really learned about love.

It was there, over the course of five ears, that I had thousands of case studies. Clients asked the same questions over and over.

They wanted specific answers and practical advice on how to deal with their partners and how to get ready to have a healthy relationship.

So, year after year, day in and day out, I taught Love classes. Over 1700 classes. I had the privilege of teaching those classes to thousands of people. And after they left the treatment center, I found that they were writing to me and calling me to tell me how amazing their relationships were! People were healing their marriages, and people were getting into amazing relationships!

What a transformation!

The truth is that relationships are the number one reason people give for relapsing.

And addiction is a disease of loneliness. But no one is teaching you how to love. I am willing to be a renegade for a good cause. In the five years, it became crystal clear how and what you want to learn about love. You want your questions answered directly. You don’t want “concepts”, you want concrete strategies. You want to be directed what to do, or what to say, or how to handle things.

And you want specific questions answered. You don’t want to waste time.

So, that’s how I’ve organized this book.

It’s a series of questions that have been asked thousands of times. I answer them one at a time.

There are two sections: Singles and “committeds”

My hope is that you find this book useful for your whole relationship journey to True Love.

It’s also my hope that we get this book into as many hands as possible who need to read it. So, please tell as many women as you can about it and where to get it.

Let’s work together to teach love to as many people as possible.

Love will save us, you know?

Love heals all and all there is, is love.

Buy the BOOK