Welcome to Back from the Abyss. This is a place for stories of hope and healing, recovery and redemption.

I'm Dr. Craig Hecock.

Before we start on today's story, I wanted to read a listener question that I got recently.

And the question was, how has the podcast changed you as a person and your work?

Well, before Back from the Abyss, I felt so alone and siloed in my solo private practice.

And I never could have guessed how connected I would become, how many amazing, wonderful people I would meet, all the storytellers, the experts, the BFTA fans who reached out to me, the nurse practitioners and psychiatrists and PAs who I'm now

mentoring, all of this has been such an unexpected gift.

I just don't feel like that solo goalkeeper anymore, trying to do all of this on

my own with no backup or support. The podcast, it's fostered so many beautiful connections,

and I'm forever grateful. Why do so many of us tend towards self-destructive behaviors?

Not just once or twice or even three times, but over and over and over.

Basically, no one as a little child thinks, hmm, I want to grow up and repeatedly choose neglectful or abusive partners.

Or, hmm, I want to grow up and fall deeply into using and abusing various drugs and alcohol

and never learn from the consequences.

Or, hmm, I think one day I'll try to pick out the people most likely to abandon me,

then just keep doing that.

From where we therapists sit, it's like telling our clients and patients, hey, just so you know,

behind door number one lies unending suffering and despair, but behind door number two lies recovery

and redemption, and then we watch them pick door number one over and over and over.

The driving force of so many of our self-destructive tendencies is not conscious.

It's an unconscious drive called the repetition compulsion,

where we try to reenact early childhood traumas or deficits,

...