Doing The Work: A Naples Integrated Recovery Podcast

Addiction can make decent people lie, hide, manipulate, and manage the truth while still carrying real pain underneath the behavior. In this episode, Brian uses Gabor Maté’s five levels of compassion to examine addiction without sentimentality: ordinary human compassion, curiosity and understanding, recognition, truth, and possibility.
Brian reflects on his own recovery, including the uncomfortable reality of bringing his parents donuts while also wanting access to the liquor cabinet. The episode explores compassion that recognizes suffering, understands the function of addictive behavior, tells the truth without contempt, and still sees the person underneath the pattern.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.com Want to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com

Why do some people turn a simple complaint into proof that they’re fundamentally flawed? In this episode, we break down “broken mirror syndrome” — how trauma distorts self-perception so that feedback feels like condemnation, imperfection feels dangerous, and self-criticism becomes identity-level attack. Using a real clinical example, we walk through how attachment wounds, shame conditioning, and nervous system activation reshape the way the brain processes relational input.
You’ll hear the difference between destructive self-criticism and precise, behavior-focused accountability, along with the actual mechanics behind decision paralysis, perfectionism, and that constant internal voice that says “you should be better by now.” This is a grounded look at how trauma rewires introspection — and how to recalibrate it without losing responsibility.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.com Want to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com
 

Most emotional suffering isn’t caused by pain itself, but by resistance to reality. This episode explores why reactivity escalates when life doesn’t match what the mind wants, and how suffering arises from that gap. Rather than treating emotions as random or overwhelming events, we look at suffering as something patterned—shaped by causes, conditions, and narrowed attention.
Awareness reduces reactivity not by numbing feelings or forcing calm, but by widening scope. When impermanence, causality, and non-suffering are brought back into view, emotions lose their authority to dominate the entire mental field. This episode walks through a practical way of relating to suffering that restores agency, clarity, and stability—without bypassing pain or pretending life should be easier than it is.
 
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.com 
Want to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470 
I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com 

Most people think their personality is fixed. “I’m anxious," “I’m avoidant,” "I'm sassy," "I'm just honest," “I’ve always been this way.” In this episode, we break down how many of the traits you call identity started as survival strategies. Behaviors that once lowered stress or protected you slowly stabilized into something that feels like who you are. When coping turns into personality, change starts to feel like self-erasure.
We look at how roles form inside relationships, why insight alone rarely produces real movement, and what actually has to expand for flexibility to develop. This isn’t about reinventing yourself. It’s about recognizing when you’re defending a strategy that once worked and learning how to stop mistaking output for essence. That’s doing the work.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.comWant to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com

When forgiveness is pushed before the nervous system has processed what happened, it turns into compliance rather than resolution. This episode looks at why saying the words doesn’t calm the body, why resentment resurfaces after you thought it was handled, and how pressure to forgive often deepens activation instead of relieving it. The focus stays on what actually keeps reactions alive and why forcing forgiveness tends to backfire.
Rather than treating forgiveness as a moral requirement or a milestone you’re supposed to reach, this episode traces what brings real settling: understanding the conditions that drove the injury, interrupting retaliatory loops, and letting the system stand down once it no longer reads the threat as active. The result is peace that lasts, because it’s rooted in regulation and clarity rather than obligation.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.com Want to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com

Why do otherwise thoughtful, self-aware people become instantly defensive when they receive real feedback? This episode breaks down defensiveness as an identity threat rather than a maturity problem, showing how the brain protects coherence before it allows learning. We look at why people who talk about growth often struggle most with change, how behavior gets fused to self-worth, and why feedback shuts down the moment it feels like a judgment of who you are.
The second half focuses on what actually makes feedback usable. Psychological distance lowers reactivity, meaning and purpose stabilize the self, and a larger sense of identity makes imperfection tolerable. Growth doesn’t come from armoring the ego or trying to erase it. It comes from flexibility, from building a self that can hold friction long enough to learn. This episode is about why insight alone doesn’t change people, and what does.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.com Want to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com
 

You can understand your patterns and still feel your body tighten when something real comes up. You can know why you shut down in relationships, get anxious, or pull away — and still watch it happen. This episode breaks down why awareness doesn’t automatically change your behavior and why your nervous system doesn’t shift just because your thinking does.
We get into what actually creates change. Why pushing yourself to heal faster makes it worse. Why hearing “you’re safe now” doesn’t land. And what it takes for those automatic reactions — shutting down, anxiety, pulling away — to finally start loosening over time.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.comWant to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com

In this episode, Brian sits down with Terry P, a connection from early sobriety during the pandemic when both were trying to find something that actually worked. What started as a small Zoom meeting with four guys grew into a global recovery community with over 10,000 people passing through—driven by Terry’s approach of making recovery something people want to be part of instead of something they endure.
They break down why so many people walk into meetings and feel disconnected, what separates “checking a box” from actually building a sober life, and how energy, structure, and community change the experience. The conversation moves into the long version of the Serenity Prayer and why ideas like “taking the world as it is” and being “reasonably happy” are directly applicable to anxiety, control, and everyday mental health.
They also unpack common relapse patterns like “I stopped” and “I’ve got this,” why there’s no graduating from the steps, what step work looks like years into sobriety, and the daily structure that actually keeps someone sober. The episode closes with a grounded breakdown of the Promises of recovery—not as theory, but as outcomes that show up through consistent action.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.comWant to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com

Addiction doesn’t stay contained in one person. It reorganizes entire families around survival, silence, control, and roles that outlive their usefulness. This episode breaks down why sobriety often destabilizes relationships, how rescuing and financial over-helping keep systems stuck, and why recovery requires differentiation, boundaries, and tolerating discomfort without control.
If things feel harder after the drinking stops, this explains why. Clear, direct discussion of enabling, money, trust rebuilding, and how families move from chaos management to adult functioning without pretending the past didn’t happen.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.comWant to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com

Catching patterns in real time sounds simple until you’re inside one that’s producing results. This episode breaks down how high performance, productivity, and “everything working” can hide a structure that drains you and keeps you from being present in your own life. Using a real clinical schedule and workload as the backdrop, it tracks how burnout, reduced presence, and constant output turn into fatigue quietly—and why awareness alone doesn’t change behavior.
The focus shifts to self-correction: recognizing the signal, interrupting the pattern, and making changes before things collapse. This episode walks through overwork, identity tied to performance, nervous system overload, and the decision to change direction without waiting for certainty. It’s about seeing where your current structure leads—and choosing to adjust anyway.
Check out the website for articles published weekly: www.naplesintegratedrecovery.comWant to work together? I see psychotherapy clients in Florida:https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/brian-granneman-naples-fl/1153470I also offer accountability, coaching, and sober companion services. Send an email: brian@naplesintegratedrecovery.com