Why Faith Matters in Addiction Recovery with Dr. Bruce Chalmer (Part 2)Why Faith Matters in Addiction Recovery with Dr. Bruce Chalmer (Part 2)
Retrieving Sanity
Keegan Reed and Dr Bruce Chalmer talk about how faith, emotional courage and relationship skills support addiction recovery and long-term growth. Their conversation blends personal experience with psychological ideas around intimacy, trauma and continuous change.
25:35•11 May 2026
Why Faith, Feelings and the Passion Paradox Matter in Recovery
Episode Overview
- Faith is presented as a practical mindset and skill that can be practised, rather than a fixed belief or feeling.
- Understanding the Passion Paradox helps couples see the tension between stability and intimacy instead of blaming themselves or each other.
- Emotional numbness in addiction often comes from fear of feelings, and learning to "drop into the body" is a gradual skill.
- Real growth means accepting past "stupidity" with compassion, recognising you only knew what you knew at the time.
- Crises such as betrayal, trauma or even serious accidents can eventually be seen as catalysts for meaningful change when approached with faith.
“"You can't beat yourself up for the things that only time could teach you."”
What drives someone to seek a life without alcohol and still build healthy, passionate relationships? Retrieving Sanity host Keegan Reed sits down again with psychologist and author Dr Bruce Chalmer to chat about faith, feelings and the messy work of change in recovery. This conversation leans into the "Passion Paradox" – that tug-of-war between craving stability and wanting real intimacy.
Dr Chalmer explains how couples often have a lightbulb moment when they see that tension clearly, and how his three-part course on relationships is built around that: getting a eureka moment, learning skills, then putting them into action.
As he puts it, "to be willing to take that risk of actually doing something substantively different is how you get back to yourself and break out of that perceived trap." Keegan brings in his own recovery experience, talking about years of overthinking and avoiding emotions because "feelings were bad" and "would get me in trouble". Their back-and-forth will resonate with anyone who's numbed out with drink, drugs, or just staying in their head to dodge pain.
Faith is framed less as religion and more as a mindset: choosing to see meaning in hardship, whether that’s betrayal, trauma, or even life-changing accidents. Dr Chalmer connects this to recovery work and to ageing, noting that growth means being able to look back and say, "I guess I was stupid before" without self-hatred, just compassion and curiosity.
The tone stays honest and often funny, with talk of nerdy quantum physics analogies, Buddhism, and the idea that "static knowledge is death" because we’re always a work in progress. If you’re sober, sober-curious, or rebuilding relationships after addiction, you’ll find gentle reassurance that faith, emotional risk and self-compassion are skills you can practise, not magical qualities you either have or don’t. What might change for you if you treated faith as a habit instead of a feeling?
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