The Men, Hardship and Triumph podcast series is a series of interviews with men as a resource for other men navigating the minefields of modern life. The men interviewed in this series talked about the difficulties of their lives, how they got through them and looking back, what strategies they used to survive the hard times. 

It is also a resource for men who are suffering from being separated from their children so that despite their suffering, they will still be able to do what is right by the children regardless of their circumstance, as well as for men who grew up in less-than-ideal family conditions to not repeat the mistakes of their parents hence breaking their intergenerational cycle of suffering.

In this episode, Clement shoots the breeze with Josh Creasey, a friend and an ex-colleague from their work together delivering a CBT coaching program for Beyond Blue a few years previously. Josh was also a personal trainer and a student of Exercise Science at university who enjoys mixed martial arts. 

In 2018 Josh was diagnosed with Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) which included multiple periods of being placed in mental health facilities due to having thoughts of suicides and having attempted suicide. At that time, Josh also struggled with alcohol addiction. 

Josh discusses his journey through managing his alcohol addiction, being suicidal and receiving a diagnosis of BPD, going through Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) to treat it. He touches on some of the differences between DBT and CBT, on learning to discard black & white thinking and lastly, on the negative impact of social media.

A summary of his strategies and what he learnt are listed below;

1. To delay the starting time when the drinking is to start to develop resistance to the urge to drink

3. To have a sense of responsibility/rule for his clients which stops him from drinking before the last client of the week

4. To change the function of drinking from being an escape to being a social one

5. To surround himself with good people as his support network

6. To understand what his drinking triggers or drinking patterns are

7. to accept help from others when he needs help

8. To take the time and effort to find a therapist that’s a great match for him

9. To look for resources or programs to suit his Mental Health needs

10. To extricate himself from environments that are not good for him

11. He advises that if you need help to not be afraid to reach out! There is a lot of help out there

12. To not compare yourself with others, especially with what you see in social media. 

13. To generate acceptance of yourself internally, not to worry about opinions of others, especially from strangers 

To listen to other podcasts in the series, go to clementdjaja.com or type "Shooting the breeze with Clement" on your podcast app search box.