SUMMARY KEYWORDS

drinking, repair, relationships, children, kids, parent, parents, stopping drinking, rebuilding relationships in recovery, recovery, social work, dysfunctional family, resentment, alcoholic, high functioning, communicate, help, support, healing, alcohol, becoming, codependent, mom, quit drinking, pregnant, grep up, drink, relationship with kids, sober, rebuild, sobriety, early sobriety, interaction, activities, isolation, guilt, shame, ashamed, embarrassment, self-doubt, support system, support group, therapy, counseling, marriage, spouse, anxiety, addiction, therapist, treatment, family, give up alcohol, struggling, struggle, respect, evolve, evolution, growth, self-compassion, practice, self-awareness, 12 steps, emotional muscle, healing, hope is key

SPEAKERS: Casey McGuire Davidson + Janice Johnson Dowd

00:02

Welcome to the Hello Someday Podcast, the podcast for busy women who are ready to drink less and live more. I’m Casey McGuire Davidson, ex-red wine girl turned life coach helping women create lives they love without alcohol. But it wasn’t that long ago that I was anxious, overwhelmed, and drinking a bottle of wine and night to unwind. I thought that wine was the glue, holding my life together, helping me cope with my kids, my stressful job and my busy life. I didn’t realize that my love affair with drinking was making me more anxious and less able to manage my responsibilities.

In this podcast, my goal is to teach you the tried and true secrets of creating and living a life you don’t want to escape from.

Each week, I’ll bring you tools, lessons and conversations to help you drink less and live more. I’ll teach you how to navigate our drinking obsessed culture without a bus, how to sit with your emotions, when you’re lonely or angry, frustrated or overwhelmed, how to self soothe without a drink, and how to turn the decision to stop drinking from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

I am so glad you’re here. Now let’s get started.

 

Hi there.

Today, we are talking about

 

how to repair relationships with your children after you stop drinking.

 

And my guest today is Janice Johnson Dowd. She’s a licensed master social worker, has been sober for 12 years, a mother to four, a speaker and the author of the book, Rebuilding Relationships in Recovery.

 

And I know this is a topic that a lot of you are interested in because once you stop drinking, it is hard to know how exactly to communicate that with your children, how to navigate that relationship especially if there are resentments or anger or hurt based on your drinking and what’s happened.

 

And even if there isn’t really resentment and hurt and, a difficult experience, it’s difficult to figure out how to talk to your children, whether they’re young or older about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

 

So, Janice, I’m really glad you’re here. Thank you for joining me.

Thank you for having me.

I am very happy to be here.

Yeah, I am too. So, when we started talking about this, I was interested in going through this topic because I’ve done episodes on parenting and on navigating sobriety and how to talk to other people about why you’re not drinking, including your spouse. But when I stopped drinking, my kids were really young. My daughter was 2. My son was 8. And I hadn’t had any huge experience where anyone told me that I needed to stop drinking or that it was extraordinarily obvious that I needed to stop drinking other than, you know, being vaguely hungover every day and passing out on the couch. So, you know, there was that, but other than that, my kids didn’t really have a huge awareness of me drinking or not drinking.

 

And I know that’s a challenge for a lot of my listeners. So, tell me, to start about your work, rebuilding relationships in recovery, why you started with that work and your approach to it.

Okay. Yes. Well, I essentially didn’t start drinking until my 40s. And so, prior to that, I had been working as a, well, I started my career in social work and addiction because my passion growing up in an alcoholic home with a high functioning dad.

 

I, you know, grew up with some of those characteristics of an adult child of an alcoholic. So, as a kid, I wasn’t drawn to drinking. I really found help, support really through sports, things like that and education and all of that. So, I like to say, I emerged from this dysfunctional family and instead of becoming, I definitely became a codependent. But, instead of becoming an alcoholic or having problems with alcohol, I became a social worker and went right into the field. And so, I did that for about 10 years, got married, had kids and I took less demanding social work positions and work part-time and focus more on being a mom.

 

And another part of my story is that because you mentioned beforehand, you know, that. One of the first times that you quit drinking was when you were pregnant.

 

So, that was true for me, too. I like to say, I mean, it’s honest, like, I spent most of my thirties pregnant, trying to get pregnant, breastfeeding, and so I didn’t drink, you know?

And I’d had that in the back of my mind, that I came from a family with alcohol problems and I needed to be wary of that.

So, yeah, I didn’t start drinking until after I was done having babies and I started in my 40s. And it gradually increased until it became the main problem in my life.

Now, the good part about that, if there’s a good part in terms of my relationship with my kids, when I went to treatment, my children were 13, 15, 20 and 21. I had the 13 and 15 year old had an experience of always seeing their parents drink, so they grew up with drinking parents and they probably took the brunt of the pain of my drinking because they were at home there. It got really bad, like, the last 3 years. So, you know, it’s essentially from they, I started drinking heavily when they’re like, 10 or 12 years old.

 

So, I don’t want to say they suffered more, but they suffered in a different way than the older two kids because the older two kids never saw, they never saw much alcohol in the home. They didn’t see their mom or dad drink. And my daughter who is a huge support. I have 3 boys and a girl, my daughter’s second.

She’ll tell you that she felt like she had a pretty normal childhood, you know, from up to age, about 10 or 12, you know, until we started drinking. So, their experiences are very different. And I think my relationship with them was different, too. Now, it’s not to say too that the older two were less angry or had fewer resentments because perhaps they did.

Going back to the question about, or you mentioned someone telling me, or beginning to point out that my drinking was a problem. My younger two children, I don’t think ever did that.

I take that back. My 15 year old, once I told them that I started going to a 12 step support group and that I was trying to quit drinking, then we had a little better conversation about it. But before that, they like walked on eggshells, tiptoed around me because I was very moody and inconsistent, my personality from sober Janice to drinking Janice.

Yeah, I’ve read a little bit and worked with clients about the impact on kids. And so I, I mentioned that I stopped drinking when my daughter was 2. She’s 10 now. Last year, I actually had her on the podcast to talk about, how we talk about alcohol in our home and what she knows about it.

 

And for my son, who was 8 when I stopped, and is 16 now. Our relationship is really positive. I’ve not drank for more than half his life when I drank. He was pretty young and it wasn’t, you know, most of my drinking. Say glasses 3 to 5 were after he went to sleep. So, he didn’t really see a major issue other than, you know, mommy was like, please don’t jump on the couch. I don’t feel so good. You know, all that kind of stuff. But I have seen that people who grow up with when they’re older when the person is struggling with alcohol, have Issues when they get older, or maybe issues when they’re a child, right?

They feel possibly a lot of anxiety. They feel often self-doubt you know, difficulty with trust and relationships fear of conflict, people, all that kind of stuff, as well as increased risk of substance abuse, and then also like hyper independence or struggles with responsibilities. So, all of this impacts them.

And then, there’s the question of once you stop drinking, how do you move forward with it? And also, if you are still drinking, what do you need to be aware of? And how can you try to improve that relationship with them?

So, can you tell me what are the major sort of symptoms or issues you saw with your children in terms of the way they reacted to the world around them, or the way they function. And then also, how did you work with them to rebuild that relationship and support them going forward?

That’s great. I’ve learned in sobriety about their experience is that they felt when I was even an early sobriety. So during the last years of my drinking and early sobriety, they felt embarrassed, ashamed, isolated, and like no one else knew what was going on. And after you.

 

Well, even before towards the end, when my kids were little, especially with the older 2, I was the fun mom and drove and carpooled everyone everywhere. And the last couple of years, they were like, no, 1 came to our house, you know, they didn’t invite people over. They didn’t encourage me to come to the birthday parties where parents were invited and I.

You know, I started to limit my own interaction with all those activities, too. But I guess the isolation, the shame, the embarrassment of having a mom with a problem was the biggest issue. And that carried into sobriety. It carried into my early recovery because they still felt alone. And different from others and because of anonymity in the program and the stigma attached to having a alcohol use disorder people don’t like to talk about it.

 

Kids don’t like to talk about it. And when I came home and I go to my support group meetings, I often ran into. Parents of their friends, or I ran into, especially some of the college kids who are coming home and going to those meetings, but because of the anonymity, I couldn’t talk about it with them.

You’re not alone. That’s really interesting because I often encourage people, my clients and people listen to the podcast, to talk to people around them and their kids about what they’re doing, but to do it in a way that they’re comfortable in a positive and empowering way that, you know, I’ve decided to stop drinking, whether it’s because you know, I’m tired of feeling terrible, or I don’t like the way I act when I’m drinking, or I don’t like what I say.

Or just this is a health and wellness choice for me, and it’s something I’m really proud of, but definitely there is not the shame or the anonymity about talking about what you’re doing. And so, a lot of people, even when, excuse me. Even when their children are older may have difficulty repairing those relationships, but they have said, like, for example, like, my daughter’s my biggest cheerleader.

My son is really proud of me. All that kind of stuff.

[00:13:00]

Yeah, and it takes a while to get there.

So, like, my number one piece of advice for parents is to be patient and to offer your children or your family members, the same compassion about their healing process because they’re injured, too.

You did a great job of talking about some of those injuries. Some things that they carry on. But we often overlook our family members when we’re working on ourselves.

So, I think so, being aware that your children are working on themselves, providing them some support, but offering them the same compassion. And I like to frame it this way. So, when you’re, for instance, you run into someone, or you interview 1st time who doesn’t drink like yourself, you feel an automatic kinship to them.

Right? Absolutely. And someone who has also struggled with alcohol and is now on the other side or even someone who is still drinking and I recognize even if they’re defensive or pushing me to drink or don’t get it that, you know, I always tell people, hey, if someone is drinking the way they are drinking, trust me.

They’re worried about it. They’re waking up at 3 a. m. Like, they may not act that way, but they know. Right, right. And so you’re compassionate and you would give them and work to not be judgmental and give them a little extra time and kindness. I think when we’re. on this side of it when we’re not drinking.

A lot of us expect our family members to just be excited and happy for us. So, my point being is that we have to understand their wounds are going to take time. We might get really excited, especially after, you know, those first 30 days when your body’s detoxed a little bit. And I know I experienced this.

[00:15:00]

I, I came home and I was like, I wanted to tell everyone people are like, where have you been? I mean, like, oh, let’s have lunch and get together. And my kids would be like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I’m not ready for you to share that. Possibly because they didn’t trust you to keep going right, but they were still embarrassed and they didn’t want people to know that was me not being.

And I can imagine like that, when you stop drinking and are really proud of yourself because it’s a ton of work. And yet, they are still angry, resentful, not excited for you, feeling that hurt. It could, I mean, I would assume it would hurt your feelings like you would feel like possibly they’re undermining you or not appreciating the work you’re doing or how hard it is and.

You know, obviously it helps so much to talk with someone and to be around people who are your cheerleaders because the people you’re closest to may not be.

That’s true. That’s very true. And which is why it’s so important for us to have our own support systems as well. Again, for our family members to have that support system, it is really easy to not get resentful or angry.

And for me, it was the fear of rejection. I went from growing up in that dysfunctional family. I was so much of a people pleaser and I became what others wanted me to be. I was drawn to social work. So, I became the best social worker. I was an athlete. So, I worked really hard at that when I became a mom.

For that was everything to me. My identity switched from Janice, the individual, the social worker, to the mom. And then ,when I realized, and it took me a while in recovery, I was like 6 months sober before I really woke up and went, Whoa, my relationships with my kids are still through. A mess. So, I lost my train of thought.

 

We might have to pause there. What was I saying right before that?

I’ll jump in. So, is it at that point once your sobriety is more stable and you have your own support that the work then turns to repairing those relationships with your children.

 

It absolutely is. Yeah. Yes. So, question for you, did you encourage your kids to go to therapy themselves or?

Did you encourage them to? Do that healing on their own and what do you now say? To moms who do have difficulty with their relationships with their children. Are you like, okay? Try to get them into therapy try to get them some help to work through all of the things they are feeling whether it’s self-doubt or hyper vigilance or anger or resentment or whatever it is.

 

Yeah, absolutely. You’ve got to get your kids help and support groups. And that was part of the problem in our situation. Because I went to a treatment facility that was about 250 miles from home. All of my kids were in activities, so it was really difficult for them to come up and participate in the family program.

And, that was a big setback for us, which was a big motivation for writing the book and trying to get families more involved and treatment early on. I think it’s crucial for children to have their own support group and their own therapy and my I have to say, I’m. My marriage did not survive my drinking but my spouse at the time did his best to get them into counseling and therapy.

 

And, and I think that was helpful. However, I, the therapist was not an expert in addictions, and I think that was a deficit in their counseling experience. So that’s one other thing that I’m a big proponent of is, you know, I mean, if you broke your leg, you wouldn’t go to E. N. T. right? You would go to an orthopedic.

So if you have, if you struggle with anxiety, you’re going to a specialist who treats anxiety. If you struggle with your drinking, you’re going to go to a coach or a therapist who specializes. And helping you reduce your drinking. So, I felt you need someone who gets it and is compassionate towards you, but also doesn’t have preconceived notions about what it means or what the person has been through.

Right, right.

So, and the other thing, okay, so when I was 6 months sober and finally woke up and realized it, that the relationships had been at best stagnant and in some ways had been worse because I went from being inconsistent drinker, them not knowing what to expect from me to an inconsistent sober mom that instead of spending all my time drinking, I spent the bulk of my energy drinking in my recovery program. And I think this is common. A lot of us, especially I’ve heard you use the phrase high functioning drinkers before, you know, if we’re motivated, we pursue things really hard. And that’s what I did. And I alienated myself from my kids.

So, my 2nd great piece of advice is do your best to involve your children, your family members, family members in whatever way you can authentically.

 

I did and I, because of my fear of rejection, I reached out to them, but it was very superficially. It was very much like, how are you? Did you win your soccer game? What’s going on? Oh, I picked up my 60 day chip, you know, and you didn’t talk with them about your drinking or the impact of it. And I have to say, I get that on two different levels.

The first was, I mentioned that the first time. I tried to stop drinking which was now 12 years ago, because I’m 9 years alcohol-free. I went to a therapist, I was worried about my drinking for sure. And I went to a therapist specifically who specialized in anxiety and addiction.

[00:22:00]

And I went in there and was like, my boss, my kids, my husband doesn’t support me, I’m so stressed, and I drink a bottle of wine at night. And because he was an expert, and he was actually sober, and had been through it, he was like, great, let’s talk about your drinking. And I was like, no, no, no, let’s talk about my boss.

But he did encourage me to go to a 12 step program. Like, I said, it was 12 years ago. There was no sober Instagram. There was. I didn’t know sober coaches. I was definitely the one thing I had was I found an online Facebook group for people who were trying to stop drinking. He was very, very supportive, but with his encouragement and a friend from that group, I did start going to 12 step programs.

And one of the things that was difficult for me. Other than I mentioned there, there is an episode out there called, 12 step guide for skeptics that I’ve recorded. So, anyone who’s interested in my experience, you can listen to that and hear a different side other than sort of my, my challenges with the big book and the structure and God thing.

Cause that’s me, was here. There are 90 minute meetings, and it was very, very difficult for me to go to a 90 minute meeting after work. You know, I was working at a very big company where it was hard to take time off and then. Also, not spend time with my 2 year old and 8 year old and actually caused a lot of tension with my husband. He didn’t actually think I needed to stop drinking. He thought I was being a little extreme and definitely didn’t get why I needed to spend 90 minutes away and put all that responsibility on him.

So, the second time I quit drinking I had an online coach. I emailed her and talked to her but you know, It was not. Didn’t take a ton of time away from my family and I listened to sober books and sober audios and it was very much online. And so, I could do that while rocking my daughter to sleep or while driving to the gym or blocking out half an hour in my car in the middle of the day to talk to my coach.

So, I, all I’m trying to say is that time away from your family and focusing so much on your recovery. I felt that as a challenge to, I felt like it increased tension in my marriage for sure. And it also increased my time away from my kids for the four months that I went to the program.

Absolutely. And that’s one of the things that I’m passionate about too, is making sure people, especially early in recovery. Consider including their family members, children as part of their recovery program, we’ve got to start including them from day one and communicate about that.

 

Casey McGuire Davidson 

Hi there. If you’re listening to this episode, and have been trying to take a break from drinking, but keep starting and stopping and starting again, I want to invite you to take a look at my on demand coaching course, The Sobriety Starter Kit®.

 

The Sobriety Starter Kit® is an online self study sober coaching course that will help you quit drinking and build a life you love without alcohol without white knuckling it or hating the process. The course includes the exact step by step coaching framework I work through with my private coaching clients, but at a much more affordable price than one on one coaching. And the sobriety starter kit is ready, waiting and available to support you anytime you need it. And when it fits into your schedule. You don’t need to work your life around group meetings or classes at a specific day or time.

This course is not a 30 day challenge, or a one day at a time approach. Instead, it’s a step by step formula for changing your relationship with alcohol. The course will help you turn the decision to stop drinking, from your worst case scenario to the best decision of your life.

You will sleep better and have more energy, you’ll look better and feel better. You’ll have more patience and less anxiety. And with my approach, you won’t feel deprived or isolated in the process. So if you’re interested in learning more about all the details, please go to www.sobrietystarterkit.com. You can start at any time and I would love to see you in the course. 

 

[00:25:00]

So, 30 years ago, when I was a social worker, working on the other side of addiction as a family therapist in addiction treatment centers. The number one thing I would hear from family members was, I don’t see them anymore than I did before. They’re just as distanced, just as far away and removed. As they were when they were drinking. So experience is similar to what your husband was feeling alone and isolated and struggling.

 

So, we’ve got to include them and I think he was also wary about, like, who are these people? That you’re talking to my husband, even when I went to therapy, or it’s like, are you talking about me? And I was like, no, absolutely not. I’m definitely not talking about you. I was talking about him all the time, but I knew he’d be like, upset about that and, you know, be worried that he’s the bad guy and, you know, even when I was online talking to people in my sober Facebook group, he was like, it’s fine.

[00:26:00]

Who are you talking to? So, there’s also that jealousy and insecurity of you’re having all these deep intimate relationships with people I don’t know. And that is upsetting to me.

Yeah, absolutely. And I think that’s why it’s important to communicate early on that this intensity that I’m, or this time that I’m putting into my recovery is not going to be this intense.

Yeah. It is. Yeah. And also like, maybe I’m doing this for you, like, obviously you’re doing it for yourself for sure. But communicating this, the end goal is for me to be happier person in our family, to be more peaceful and stable. And you know, when I’m better, the whole family is better at least putting that out there.

 

Right. So, they get it. Yeah. And, and, okay. So, that goes back into my situation. I know my daughter in particular, because she’s much more verbal was before I quit drinking. She would say things like, I just want things to go back like they were when I was little. So, she had that expectation that when I got sober, I’m putting a few words in her mouth, but let’s.

Just round up that things were going to go back to normal and they didn’t immediately. So, that’s another thing to communicate with them. It’s going to take time for me to evolve. It’s going to take time for my body to detox from that alcohol for me to think clearly and we’ll get there. You got to let them know that it’s not an overnight process and it’s also going to be a new normal, right?

I mean, you can’t erase what happened. You’re older. They’re older. It did happen. You know, there’s hurt, there’s distance, there’s, you know, your own evolution and growth. So, it’s not going to go back to the way it was, right? Right.

Yeah. And that’s a thing too. I mean, as parents who give up alcohol, a lot of us struggle with guilt and shame and struggle with repairing the trust and getting earning back the respect of our Children.

 

And again, that fuels are feeling bad and sometimes angry or resentful. We have to understand that it’s going to take time You know that it doesn’t happen overnight and it is a process. You work at it, you chip at it a little bit at a time.

Yeah, and what that reminds me of is I actually did an episode with a therapist talking about infidelity and through that.

And one of the things he talked about passionately was that before you can deal with your relationship, and this was from the person who had been hurt.

[00:29:00]

For example, the children possibly or your spouse. He was like before you can try to get close again, before you can try to repair that relationship, you first have to deal with the betrayal trauma that has happened and take the time to understand that they need to heal from betrayal trauma before you can be like, Okay, we’re going to be best friends again, and we’re going to be close again, or what, you know, I apologized in this situation.

 

Like, I stopped the affair or I stopped drinking. Let’s now be close again, and then there’s a lot of hurt there, and that reminds me as well to understand, like, you’re healing, they need to deal with this betrayal, trauma or hurt, and you need to help them heal, and you possibly need to get outside help to figure out how to do that.

Absolutely. And one other little tool is, as parents, we have to be willing to listen without responding, justifying, minimizing, explaining. Just listen and affirm and validate our children’s, our loved one’s experiences because they’re so hard. Right? Because you’re defensive. And even when we’re drinking, we want to justify it and we drink for a reason.

So, it’s like, right. Yes, yes, yes. But here’s why that happened. And they don’t sometimes they don’t care. Right? True. They don’t care why it happened. They just care that it happened. Right? And they want to know that their perspective of what happened. Is there reality? We, I learned this from my sponsor early on.

She’s like, your child’s reality is their reality. You might remember the same situation differently. You might think it was not that bad. But it was to them, which is, I think, an important thing for parents to remember. I, I walked into treatment going, well, I never physically abused my kids. I never hurt them.

I didn’t drink and drove my kids. I didn’t put them in, you know, extreme danger. So, I was thinking in my head, what I did was not that bad, but I did verbally abuse them. I was inconsistent, unreliable. I embarrassed them. I did a lot of things that was abusive and to them, that was horrific. So ,I had to validate your experience is your experience.

I accept responsibility for my part in that. I want you to tell me about it. Please share your feelings. Then, as a parent, you empathize, you listen. Again, don’t explain, justify, minimize, because that will take away all the good stuff you just did and there are any phrases because a lot of people, I’m just thinking in that first part, a lot of people don’t even know what to say and so they want a script or phrases like when you’re like, don’t get defensive, validate their experience.

How do you do that? Do you know what I mean? It’s more than just sitting silently and being like, I’m sorry.

Yeah, no, no, that’s a great point. And this takes practice. This is where self-compassion is important and self-awareness which is why, you know, in the 12 step programs, making amends is a big part of repairing relationships and moving on.

 

I always encourage people to start with easier ones to practice. So you want to practice with friends, families, colleagues who are doing it. It might have an ugly story to tell you about your drinking, that you can practice building up that emotional muscle so that you can manage the stories that your kids might tell you.

 

And how do I do that in non 12 step speak or if you’re not in a 12 step program? Okay, so self-awareness, identify which triggers are what things make you defensive work on emotional intelligence. When you’re having a conversation and you’re feeling like you’re getting defensive or upset or you’re not able to think clearly, here are some things that I do. And they don’t always work, but my favorite phrase is this, you might be right. I need to think about that. Can we come back to this at another time?  That phrase, you might be right, is very powerful and I hear what you’re saying. I need to think about this.

Yes. Yes. But I think by saying, you might be right affirms that you’ve at least are making the attempt to hear their point of view.

Does that make sense? Do they get offended with the phrase might? Oh, that’s a good question. Because I could see someone being like, am right this. You know what I mean? Like, what do you mean you might be right? Yeah, like, emotionally, I was embarrassed. You did x. You weren’t there. You didn’t come to my play or, you know, whatever it was, you wouldn’t drive me to my practice or pick me up or whatever.

You know what I mean? They’re like, no, no, no. I am right.

No, and actually you could modify that and just say, you’re right. Yesterday. My son who’s in college is home for spring break. And he said something like, I think it was something simple. Just like, you’re not listening to me. And I looked up. He was trying to explain something and I was working on my laptop and we had the TV on.

I think he was explaining to me what was going on the show and he goes, you’re not listening to me. And I looked up. I went, you’re right, I’m sorry. I’m not. Let me pause this for a minute, which helped prevent a resentment, answered a problem. And you can start with these little things with your kids, too.

You don’t have to jump into that big, I’m sorry for the time that I showed up at your school performance and embarrassed you and stumbled and. Whatever. Start with the easy ones. So like, thank you for telling me. Thank you for telling me. I want to hear more. Yeah, I think whether it’s like, I’m sorry, you feel that way, like, it just still feels like you’re minimizing it when it’s their reality. And at the same time, of course, you’re defensive, right? You’re none of us like to look at anything. I have to say that, right? I finally interviewed my husband on the podcast about what our marriage was like, you know, when I was drinking and when I was not drinking and.

I was really scared to do it, honestly, because I didn’t want to hear it. Like, I was just like, shit, what’s he going to say? And I, I was probably 6, 7 years sober at the time and we never talked about it. Like, that’s crazy. And I don’t encourage that from anyone, but at the same time, like, I get it.

You’re just like, let’s just move forward without talking about the past because I’m scared to hear it. Or to have the discussion now, he was much kinder to me than I thought he might be. And like, all of my fears were not realized. I was like, damn, you’re way nice. But I could have also helped him earlier.

And I could also have taken away that fear of that conversation and my guilt way earlier. Right? You don’t know. I absolutely agree with that. That’s why it’s starting to make apologies early on is important. And, and we have to remember to that. We may have to apologize for the same thing more than a couple of times.

We don’t have to do it over and over again to the point where it becomes abusive. Then you set a boundary, but we do have to start those conversations earlier because I did the same thing. I avoided the big apologies to my kids for a long time. So I, I was afraid I was afraid they reject me. I was afraid of what they were going to say there was this situation where that people had been talking to December 23rd, 2012 was I blacked out was a horrible night and I didn’t really want to know what happened that horrible night.

So again, I was probably 2 or 3 years sober before I was like, what happened? That night, and when I heard the story, it wasn’t that bad. I mean, sorry, kids. It was bad. Your experience is your experience, but you feared it was something different. I feared it was much, much worse. So maybe, that’s a tool that parents have to use is facing your fear, being willing to step in and take that risk.

It’s nice to have. An objective person to report back to about it afterwards when you get wounded, because we don’t want to trigger you into drinking again.

Yeah, being miserable. Well, and 1 thing that that I’m hearing you say about self-compassion. And doing that healing work so that it’s not a trigger is don’t do this right away.

I tell women sometimes because they’re like, how do I deal with the guilt and the shame and all these regrets over the years I was drinking and I was like, You’re on day 30, there will be time to dig into all this. Right now, just be really proud of yourself right now. Right. Do the things you need to do to get stronger because dwelling on that guilt and shame isn’t going to help you.

Continue staying sober I absolutely agree with you. And I think one of the best tools for releasing that guilt and shame is, continuing to work on yourself and because you end up turning those experiences into value for yourself and for someone else. I mean, my kids and I talk about all of those experiences now.

And interestingly enough, my kids are great. They’re very supportive. It took a while to get there, but they’ll repost things on Facebook and Instagram and people have reached out to them and said, Hey. Where can I find out more information about this? Or how did you do that? Which to me, I mean, I will always feel a little guilt, but not the shame because of course, shame is feeling bad about who you are and guilt is feeling bad about what you did, but knowing that I’ve turned those experience, a lot of shame into me and to help for others reduces that and that takes time. I mean, it really does.

Yeah, we have to be careful on the other side of it. Like, when you’re in early sobriety, and you’re in that pink cloud moment, or being excited that you’ve got 30 days. That you don’t brag on yourself to your kids because 30 days to you and we know 30 days without drinking is a huge deal.

 

But, to my child, that’s nothing. Well, and so another question I have for you is you said. Involve your loved ones, involve your children in your recovery early. How do you bring those two points together? Because they seem to be at opposite ends.

Like, 30 days to you is nothing to them. Their experience is their experience and their hurt. But don’t dive into the guilt and shame early, because you need to be empowered like that’s difficult when you’re also saying involve them early.

 

Yeah, so what the research says with families, early focus is all behavioral and education. I personally feel this way. The more information I have about something, the less power and control it has over me.

 

Yeah, so it’s not about you. It’s not about, hey, I want you to be proud of me. You know, you should be incredibly proud of yourself, and you should find people who are proud of you and encourage you. But it’s more like, hey, I’m learning. All this stuff about addiction or about this substance and here’s what I know about this subject.

 

 

Does that sound right? And family treatment starts with education, too, so that when families come into treatment programs, families get involved in support groups, you’ll find the first emphasis is education and information for the family members, which helps reduce.

I mean, think about it this way. A friend of mine’s husband has been recently diagnosed with cancer, so, and he’s undergoing the biopsies and all those kinds of things.

Very traumatic life experience. It’s changing everything. What has she done? She’s researched as much information as she can and they are trying to gather the information to understand the disease, the treatment, and that. will help her and her husband adapt and cope with it. And the same, you know, addiction. Alcohol use disorder. We now look as an illness.

You know, it’s got genetic links. Oh, gosh, it’s an addictive substance, right? So, depending on why you’re drinking, which could even be your social circle or how much you’ve drank for whatever reason, the substance is working as designed. I think doctors I’ve talked to have said it’s to some extent a 50. 50 percent of people have a genetic link or, or something and then that means half of people don’t and it, it still impacts your brain and your emotions. Well, you reprogram the brain science of it all. So, which I’m not going to explain educating them. And then, I would also think that it depends what sources of information you use, because my dad was actually, you know, in terms of the cancer analogy, my dad was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer when I was 21, 22, and I immediately went online and all of the information was about he has 6 months to live and this is, you know, a 90 percent fatal disease and it’s quick and in his situation, they caught it really, really early. He had, an operation and he ended up living for 6 or 7 years. So, it was not. It was still terrible, but as a 21 year old thinking that your dad is going to die in 6 months is very different than knowing there are, there is hope and there are options.

So, all I’m wondering about is versus letting them go online. Like, what are the right pieces of information or sources you should use to educate them. Well, if you’re in any type of treatment program, those are resources available. I think it’s important to ask a lot of questions. Whether it’s friends, family, doctors, screen those people to get referrals to good information.

You’re absolutely right because, and that’s why I’m passionate about, someone with an alcohol use disorder or trying to stop drinking should see a coach or therapist who understands this problem, who can provide them with the good information. I’m love coaching and therapy. I mean, I love referring people because I think it’s the most efficient way to get better quicker. And this is one of the deficits because you know, there’s good 12 step programs and even in a there’s good meetings and bad meetings. I’m a good meeting can have a bad day where the conversation is just It’s pitiful and there’s lots of bad advice given.

 

So, you do have to be aware of where that information comes from and also a therapist. You mentioned that your daughter went to a therapist who didn’t have a background in addiction and didn’t understand it. And I’m a big advocate for, interviewing. Oh, absolutely. Or a therapist, like, not feeling guilty that you don’t love your therapist, but actually talking with a few to see who you trust and who has expertise and whether their approach matches yours.

Yeah, same with coaches, right? Absolutely. I absolutely agree. There’s a section in the book about how to find a, well, explain a little bit of difference and explains questions to ask. So, I turned that into a blog post. That’s very helpful, and I would love to link to that in the show of this episode, so if anyone’s hearing this, and it’s interested in finding a therapist, a coach. A treatment facility or a program to help their kids or themselves. I want to link to that. So, they have the questions that you think that they should ask.

Yeah, absolutely. The list is very thorough. You don’t have to ask every question, but the most important thing is a good therapist or coach is going to be comfortable answering your questions, and they’re going to see that as a sign of your willingness to do the work. Does that make sense?

Absolutely. And, I absolutely love Amanda E. White, who is from therapy for women, and she wrote a book called Not Drinking Tonight, but I will link to that episode as well, because she talks about red flags and green flags from therapists and what you should do.

Watch out for and that was 1 of the things that she talked about, whether the therapist is open to you asking questions and understand or if it’s my way or the highway kind of thing. Right?

Right. And thankfully, there’s so many resources nowadays that you can find what works best for you. Like you said, earlier on the online stuff, fit into your life easier than actually going to 90 minute meetings, which took you much more time away from home. There’s much greater access to counseling and therapy, but you do have to interview them.

And then, you do have to set back at a certain point and go, is this a good match? Are we a good fit? And are we working towards the goals? That I want to work towards. Do we have the same goals? So, some of that takes a little bit of courage because I know, again, when I first got out of treatment and started therapy, I said to my therapist, look, I’m tired of group therapy and I’m tired of looking at my family of origin stuff.

So, I don’t want to deal with that. And I didn’t, she honored that we worked on other stuff and I built some really good sobriety skills and worked on them. Other things I’m sure, but when I woke up, I’m using that figuratively at 6 months and realized my relationship sucked with my kids and I came to her and she’s like, okay, are you ready to deal with your family of origin issues now, because those are impacting, which is a key point. We haven’t mentioned those old wounds from my childhood impact. My relationships with my kids and to have the best relationship with my kids.

I have to address my own issues. So. that was one of the things that I did.

Yeah. So, that’s also the idea of sometimes getting support for yourself. So, it’s not to spiral into guilt or shame or blame or whatever it is. Getting stronger before you necessarily dive into the really deep and painful and hard stuff I do think that there are stages of healing.

 

Yeah. And I think it’s okay to table some topics for a while. So, we’ve talked about a lot of different things, which I think is, is very, very helpful. If someone is listening to this and if they are wondering how to repair relationships with their children can you give us your high level advice?

And also, if the kids are older and they’ve experienced a lot of negative consequences, or if they’re younger, because I know people struggle with talking to them differently as well as how to help them, right? Right? Well, and these may seem kind of simple.

I would say 1, validate their feelings and experiences. Sit down and listen as best you can communicate. What is going on with you as best you can and you can say to them, I’m Struggling with explaining all this. I’m asking for patience from you. It’s going to get better, but I want you to know I’m trying so give them some hope definitely help them get some education and support because that feeling of isolation and aloneness It’s probably the worst things that can happen to them. Become willing to do the work yourself and be willing to listen.

 

We have to think long term, too. Like, yes, it’s going to really hurt to hear that story about what happened but it’s probably going to go a long way in healing our relationship. I think it’s important to not make expectations of what it’s going to be like, because there’s a whole range of experiences. My relationships with my family got much worse for it. Got better. I saw people. His family members surrounded them and supported them, 100 percent and we’re patient you have that whole realm of experience. So, you’ve got to be careful about your expectations. Educate yourself. The more information you have go to some Al Anon meetings or some support group meetings for family members so that you can learn what their experience was like, and maybe a safer, more objective way.

 

Yeah, I was thinking about that too, because even. In preparing for this, it was very helpful for me to do some reading and find good sources to understand what is going on from the kids perspective and the fact that they might have difficulty in relationships, whether it’s codependency or avoiding deep connections or feeling unworthy of love and attention or trying to fix everyone or whether they have anxiety or hyper vigilance like Just knowing that if they are acting out towards you.

Or dealing with these deep emotions that you feel like they’re hurting you that there’s a reason for it or not. You take on that guilt or shame is secondary, but just say, okay, they are dealing with emotional instability or their own difficulty regulating emotions. So ,I need to be patient and realize that they’re struggling with their own issues. Right. That’s where you have to offer them the same compassion that you would offer another person struggling with their drinking.

Yeah. Sometimes hard for us to see that, but yeah. That’s, that’s a great point that you made. Love that. So just because you don’t, you’re like, okay, I hurt you, but you don’t actually understand what those symptoms might be and how they’re impacting your relationship with them from their side.

Yeah. And 1 of the things too, that I really struggled with and took me a long time to. Get over was like, when I was doing my own therapy work, it would be easy for me to go. Oh, I did that to my child too. When I would talk about dysfunctional family of origin, I go, I repeated that cycle. Well, the opposite is true, too.

I am now demonstrating how to get healthy, how to get well, and how to ask for help. So, 100 percent like you are breaking that cycle, right? I mean, my parents are good people. They really did the best they could. They did a better job than their parents. Parents had their own experiences.

I think even at my worst, I did a better job than my parents, but now I hope that I’m improving that and you know what’s great. I have, I’m blessed to have two grandchildren now and I just love my daughter in law and when I Occasionally go help. They live in Atlanta. I live in Daphne, Alabama. I just sit back. Sometimes, I look at their parenting skills. I’m like, it’s working. They are doing such a great job. So, I see that I go, they are breaking the cycle now. Thankfully, Michelle’s from a much healthier family than my son is from, so she has a better starting field. But they’re still improving and adapting to the new science and information and tools about parenting, which adapting is probably 1 of the important tools that we have to do.

And helping our children to is becoming adaptable to be flexible.

Yeah, absolutely. 1 of the things you mentioned that I just wanted to highlight. We had talked earlier about how anonymity. Yeah, absolutely. In the 12 step program made it difficult sometimes for you to talk to your children or share your experience based on what you’re learning in the program and then later you talked about the fact that your children now share things online and get feedback from other people saying me too, or how did that happen? Or, you know, other people having more understanding of where they are. And I think for every single person, it’s really helpful to know you’re not alone and other people get it. So, I can only imagine that it would be really hard for your kids to talk about their experience with you, with other people.

Mm hmm. By allowing them to have that would be. Really helpful for them as well. Yes, and it is and I have to say my daughter, who’s in her 30s now, has joined me on several podcast just for that, so that she can share her experience and give hope and her message typically is about giving hope. I would love to also put it in the show notes because I think it is really hard to find good sources of information either for you to understand or for your children to hear about their experience.

Like I said, sometimes you’re scared to hear it and it’s easier. To hear it from someone else about what they’ve gone through. Yeah, and that’s one of the things I did to early on when I was trying to repair relationships as I talked to my friends, children, I got information. And then I did that again when I was writing the book and getting feedback from, and I have to say, mostly teenagers and young adults, as opposed to smaller children that’s never been, even when I was a young social worker. My heart was working with teens and families. So, it’s not my level of expertise, though. I think it’s never too early to start talking to your kids about. Or just having empathy for any behavior or emotional issues that come out and helping them solve for that and having more patience with it or compassion as you talked about will you tell us a little bit about your book since you’ve done all this work on it and where people can find it and follow up with you.

All right, thank you. So the book is called, Rebuilding Relationships and Recovery. Subtitle is How to Connect with Family and Close Friends After Active Alcoholism and Addiction. It’s available at bookstores everywhere. You can look online and find it and find it and please check out my website and my blog because that’s some good information to cover some of the topics in that. And the book essentially is a guide. Directed more towards the person who’s given up alcohol to repair relationships with their family members in general, not just children.

[00:59:00]

There’s kind of a rhythm to the book in the sense that provide some information, help relieve some of your guilt and shame, then ask you to look deeper at yourself, then soothe your feelings. So, the book starts off with a little bit of my story, science about the science of addiction and then Diving into evaluating your situation, some tools, what kind of work to do, how to do a really good apology or amends, because I think that’s the most healing practice that we can do and can be done with younger children as well.

And then, it also has a little bit of information because not every relationship is going to heal. Not everything relationships going to be repair. So, it’s got information to how to grieve those, how to surrender, which is, I think, an important topic.

So, it’s got a lot of information about tools to get you started. It’s not textbook. Like, it’s an easy read. So, I wrote the book that I wish had been available to me when I was in treatment because despite being a social worker and having that background in addiction when I went through it. I had to start all over again from scratch.

The other thing I will put in the show notes just in terms of resources is I interviewed a Gottman therapist who is also an expert on addiction on How to navigate your marriage after addiction from the perspective of the person who struggled with alcohol.

So, I think there is a lot of steps that you can take once you’ve done enough internal healing and gotten far enough away from alcohol to be able to dive into that.

 

Yes. That was beautifully said. So tell us what your website is.

It’s janicejohnsondowd.com.

Well, thank you so much for coming on.

This was really helpful. And I hope that anyone listening to this has gotten some really useful tips and tools and self-compassion and hope.

 

I do, as well.

Hope is key.