The Tell Before The Tell

The Tell Before The Tell

Curious about how others cope with the challenges of staying sober? This instalment of Doc Jacques: Your Addiction Lifeguard zeroes in on the subtle, often overlooked warning signs that relapse is quietly lining up in the background. Dr. Jacques de Broekert, an addiction specialist and counsellor, shares a memorable story about a man "four months clean" who looked like a model of recovery: meetings, sponsor, groups, ticking all the boxes.

Yet tiny details started to stand out — a phone always placed face down, a weekly "traffic" excuse that only appeared on the day of his session. As Jacques puts it, "Addiction, it's the great deceiver. It's the teacher of how to lie." From there, he breaks down what he calls "getting your sneaky on" — the behaviour shifts that show up long before someone actually picks up a drink or drug.

You’ll hear about disappearing acts, hiding in plain sight, playing dumb, saying one thing and doing another, and stirring up drama just to distract from what’s really going on. He explains how these patterns often start in childhood as survival skills in unsafe homes, then grow into a full-time defence system for addiction. This episode speaks directly both to people in recovery and to loved ones watching someone slip. Jacques reminds family members, "You're not crazy. You're not paranoid.

You're not overreacting. When your gut tells you something's off, it's off." He stresses that the real work is facing the fear underneath the lies and building honest, accountable relationships with sponsors, therapists and peers who "love you enough to call you out" without tearing you down. At the heart of it all is radical honesty: naming the lies, owning the pattern, and choosing truth over secrecy.

If your gut says something is off — in yourself or someone you care about — what would it look like to trust that feeling and start talking about it today?