Happy 100th Episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast!
Today is a solo episode.
In this episode, I share The Three C’s of Recovery for both sides of the disease coin.
The Three C‘s:
I did not CAUSE.
I can not CONTROL.
I can not CURE.
It is undeniable to observe the parallel process of the disease and recovery for both the person with the disease of addiction and their loved ones.
In recovery, an important message for all of us is to look for similarities versus differences. Differences are the disease and Monkey’s way of keeping us isolated and stuck. If you haven’t learned about Monkey Chatter, check out Episode #15
Listen and see what resonates with you!
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See full transcript below.
00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now, here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Margaret 00:28
Welcome back, can you believe this is the 100th episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
I cannot believe we are here. And I am so absolutely beyond thrilled for the growth of the podcast, the incredible guests I’ve had, the people who’ve been so gracious and sharing their story, and the feedback I received from those of you who listen and found it valuable. This makes me so happy. So, we’re going to do a solo tonight.
01:08
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:26
I was driving in the mountains of North Carolina sounds like a story, doesn’t it? It’s hard to believe sometimes it’s my life.
And I was listening to podcasts as I often do. And I was listening to a podcast called My Child and Addiction.
The parents on the podcast were talking about the three C’s when dealing with the disease of addiction in someone they love.
Those three C’s are:
You can’t cause it.
You can’t control it.
And you can’t cure it.
It gave me an idea. Why don’t I do a podcast where I talk about the three C’s in parallel process of both sides of the coin of this illness. So, talking about the three C’s for the person with the disease, and the three C’s for the person who loves them?
Let’s begin with cause.
As a loved one, nothing we do causes a person to have a chronic, progressive, or potentially fatal illness called addiction.
Do we make mistakes as parents and partners? Absolutely.
Do we hurt our loved ones unintentionally? Do we have sometimes our own issues with addiction? Yes, to all of these and possibly many more.
None of these, make someone else have the disease of addiction.
Another question to ask yourself is if you’re a parent, did you raise your children similarly? Do they all have the no-fault disease of addiction?
We are powerless over someone else getting the disease or recovering from the disease. We did not cause this.
And parenting out of guilt partnering out of guilt that somehow we made this happen is fodder for the disease of addiction to manipulate us all with.
Now let’s flip the switch to the person with the disease of addiction.
Addiction is an illness. That is no one’s fault. I struggled to believe this, even with a master’s degree, where very little discussion about addiction was part of that master’s.
Many people with the disease and loved ones of the disease wounder this, struggle with this as well.
It’s part of the recovery journey to stop asking why I have addiction and begin to take the action of getting well. Even for the family.
It is human nature to want to find someone or something to blame.
As a prior supervisor used to say who amongst us hasn’t auditioned for the part of being addicted.
The only people that would be included in that very small number would be someone who has never touched a mood-altering substance of any kind, ever. Or a person who never ate sugar, never looked at any pornographic material, never tried gambling.
Any person who tries any of those has the possibility that they have the disease within them, which when it is tripped by that first use leads to a path of self-destruction at the hands of this disease.
I often hear people who are recovering addicted persons saying they knew something different the first time they tried, whatever it was.
Recently I heard Matthew Perry sharing about his memoir, and he said something simple and profound. The first time he drank it was like this “this is what normal people must feel like” a switch was flipped. And if you’ve been hearing any of his interviews in the press or read his memoir, you know, the destructive path, his disease took him down. It almost killed him numerous times.
Now let’s look at the second C.
Control.
Let’s go to the family side first. We have no ability to control anyone but ourself. I will attest to my own story that I certainly thought I had power to control people I love from going down a path I wish would not happen for them.
I know that in my work with 1000s of people with substance use disorders. Never have I met someone who started out using with the intention of having a disease potentially destroy every aspect of their life, and even take them to the doors of death or worse.
I have worked with people that didn’t make it despite every effort made by them, their loved ones, their treatment center staff, their continuing care team. Tragically, their disease became fatal in their life.
How many ways have we tried to control someone we love who we see slowly self-destructing in front of us? What things have we tried? How far have we gone? Have any of you found yourself doing things you can’t believe you did? Did any of you promise yourself you’d never do blank. And there you were doing exactly what you swore you wouldn’t.
Let’s flip it again. Let’s look at control from the addicted person’s perspective.
Every person I have met, who identifies as being addicted has set boundaries for themselves.
That they will never do blank, or they will never let this happen. It can be as simple as I won’t drink before noon, or I will not ever use and drive, to there’s no way I would let my children’s welfare be in jeopardy. To having a complete horrifying night of use, in active addiction and waking up promising the person I love I wouldn’t do it again. And every one of those statements was meant when it was said. And yet the power of the disease took them back to use.
Even though it was killing them. It gave them the solution and was the only one they felt could work.
In my addiction when things were going horribly wrong. I tried everything I could to outwit outmaneuver and control my disease. We can’t control the disease of addiction when we have it. It controls us.
F Scott Fitzgerald famously said, “first you take a drink, then the drink takes a drink, then the drink takes you.”
Isn’t it amazing to hear the similarities of both sides of the coin of this illness?
I certainly put my life in jeopardy trying to show someone I loved that I believed in them, trusted them and loved them when they were in the throes of their compulsion. And their behavior was highly risky. And I found myself taking risks I never thought I would.
That’s powerlessness.
And my lengths I went to, to control someone else’s behavior, which I had no power over doing.
08:28
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Bumper 08:32
Thanks to you, my loyal listeners, and incredible guests. And a shout out to my editors.
We have aired 100 Embrace Family Recovery Podcasts.
In February 2021, when we launched 181, of you listened!
In February 2023, 1041, of you listened!
Thank you.
I have a goal to double my listeners over this next year and you can help more families feel less alone. How?
Go to Apple Podcast and write a review. The more apple sees five-star reviews, the more it shares the podcast to the general public.
I have a bonus. Once you’ve written your review screenshotted on your cell phone and text or WhatsApp it to me at 715-501-8392 and I will enter your name into a drawing on April 6 to win one of four gifts.
Thanks in advance for all your help and support.
09:44
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Can you relate to what you’re hearing? Never miss a show by hitting the subscribe button. Now back to the show.
Margaret 09:55
Let’s look at the third C cure.
As a family member, we would give just about anything to cure our loved ones have this awful disease that takes so much from them.
Changes who they are, changes their values, changes the way they interact robs them of experiences, people, careers, and their health. I’ve often said If love were enough to help people with the disease of addiction get well, I would be gladly out of a job.
How many family members listening have tried everything to fix the problem. I’ve spent hours trying to figure out what will work differently this time to make that loved one change and have the life I want so badly for them to have.
Let’s look at the addicted person.
They can’t cure this disease either. The recommendation is to not say they will never use again. Why?
Because in recovery, we have a daily reprieve from the destruction of the disease. if we work our tools and work our recovery.
If we use my good friend’s analogy of recovery, being like a journey down a highway, that the ditch on either side is relapse.
Our goal is to stay on the road the highway with the help of recovery tools like meetings, sponsorship, medicated assisted treatment, literature, whatever is needed.
No matter how far the highway we go down. The ditch is equal distance away from us. Whether it’s day one on the highway, or day 10,000 on the highway.
We can put addiction into remission, absolutely, it can stay in the ditch, we can live a very different life in recovery. A life that is more than we ever dreamed possible.
It’s going to take work. But wasn’t it a lot of work to stay stuck in active addiction.
Another saying in recovery is that when the person is sober, their disease is doing push-ups.
In my mind, scare tactics never worked. And if that said as a scare tactic, it doesn’t impact me. More likely I’ll rebel. However, as a fact of my illness, it does help me to remember I have to stay tuned into my recovery. I can’t get complacent. I can’t turn away from the tools that gave me the moments of freedom that I have experienced in recovery one day at a time.
I need my recovery community, and the accountability of the sponsor, and live one day at a time. And unbelievably, the promises of recovery do come true.
And yes, there are promises stated in recovery literature for both family members in Al-Anon and NAR-Anon, and other an-ons. And in the literature for AA and NA and other addictions. There are a list of promises we are guaranteed if we work a program of recovery.
It’s really interesting to reflect on how parallel of a process this disease is in its decline and destruction for both sides of the coin.
It’s also hopeful and interesting, and hopefully empowering to see that the parallel process continues in recovery.
And that is why Embrace Family Recovery came to be. Because we on the family side need and deserve as much support as we can to get our head around how this disease has impacted our life, and the behaviors we’ve adapted to as a result of being puppeteered by an insidious, cunning, baffling disease. To learn how to do different in recovery.
I want to close with a tool I learned at the Hazelden Betty Ford Children’s Program in October of 2017.
These are the 7 C’s to help children to cope with addiction.
I’m guessing most of my audience is adults looking at the statistics, most of you have been mid 30s and up.
If you grew up in a home with addiction, can you imagine being given permission to understand the disease which was living in your home.
To be given tools and resources to help you navigate life on life’s terms, without the burden of feeling you were to blame?
That’s what these 7 C’s do for our children and grandchildren today.
So, the seven C’s are:
I didn’t cause it.
I can’t control and
I can’t cure it.
But I can take care of myself by
communicating my feelings,
making good choices and
celebrating myself.
I think the wisdom in these seven C’s applies to all of us. And my hope is you’ll enhance your skills of recovery by finding your tribe, by finding your community of peers.
I want to thank you for helping this podcast grow and reach over 15,000 listeners!
And please know my intention is to continue to help people who love someone with the disease of addiction find resources, and a community.
So, let’s keep it going and growing. Here’s to the next 100 episodes!
Outro:
Do you want to be a guest and share your recovery story? Email me at
Margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com
And we will set it up.
Come back next week when I have the pleasure of introducing you to Harry Levant. A recovering gambling addict who has lots to share.
And if anyone is out there who has a loved one of someone with a gambling addiction, is willing to share your journey. I would really value that, and I believe the listeners would learn a lot because we want to talk about role forms and types of addiction on this podcast. Thank you for tuning in. Keep coming back, it works if you work it is a saying in the rooms of recovery. And I believe that to be true. Take care of you.
Please find resources on my website.
This is Margaret Swift Thompson. Until next time, please take care of you!
