In this episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, we dive deep into the challenges families face when navigating addiction, particularly when multiple family members are affected. From setting essential boundaries for safety, especially for children, to the evolving nature of these boundaries over time, we explore the strategies that can help create a supportive environment for recovery.
Mallory insights from their work at the Caron Foundation, highlighting the importance of honest family conversations, early education, and consistent messaging across home and school environments. We’ll also discuss the critical role of systemic change and the empowerment of individuals to make informed decisions about their health.
Let’s return to Mallory Henry, the Senior Coordinator of Education Alliance at the Caron Foundation.
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.
Intro: Welcome back to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Today I conclude my conversation with Mallory Henry who is a sibling of someone with the family disease of addiction.
In this final episode with Mallory we hear how she’s navigated setting boundaries within her family and how she speaks with children so they can begin to understand the disease of addiction within the family. Mallory also shares her passion for supporting the family system and the magnificent work she does in helping others through her education series at the Caron Foundation.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:26
You mentioned that you have this on both sides. Ironic, maybe poor choice of words, that you ended up partnering as someone who has a sibling with the same illness.
Mallory Henry: Yeah,
Margaret: has that offered you support in some ways, because you both have an understanding, or is it more challenging because you both have that experience?
Mallory Henry 01:51
I think it’s probably more challenging genetically for our children.
Margaret: Yeah.
Mallory Henry: t’s on both sides we talk about. They’re not hitting the genetic lottery. I don’t think that was something we even like. Made connections with when we first started dating. I’m sure it played a role, right in kind of growing up in a situation where you know, you are a little outlier in a way of what that looks like. So I’m sure that 100% played a role. I think what it’s done for us now is allow us to have really vulnerable conversations, not only with each other, but with our kids.
Margaret: Yeah,
Mallory Henry: and also, really establish clear boundaries and show our kids what that looks like. Because I am lucky enough to have a brother who’s working his recovery he is not, you know, blessed with a brother who is working a recovery program. And those boundaries look different and have changed over time, and it lends itself to really hard conversations. But I know that, you know, there’s a piece of me that wishes those were had with me,
Margaret: Yeah,
Mallory Henry: when I was younger. So the fact that as uncomfortable as they are, the fact that we get to have those conversations, I think, is really powerful, and I hope, allows them to feel, the ability to be honest, that maybe I him and I did not feel.
Margaret 03:20
Right. So how are the boundaries different? I love that you said they’ve changed and evolved and had to at times, because I think that’s important about boundaries. They’re not in stone or black ink. They can evolve and change. How are the boundaries different with your two brothers?
Mallory Henry 03:38
I mean, with my brother, they’ve changed. So, when he, you know, left treatment, the second relapse experience, you know, there was a pretty strong boundary around I needed to establish trust with him before he could be alone with my kids,
Margaret: Right.
Mallory Henry: And that has changed over time, because he has illustrated trust and, you know, being healthy and making good decisions and things like that. It’s funny, he was driving my son to, like, a basketball game a couple months ago, and I looked at my husband, I was like, if you would have told me 10 years ago, you know, or 7 years ago, or 15 years ago, that I would trust my child in a car with my brother, I would have laughed in your face. But you know that boundary has changed over time. With
Margaret 04:23
That speaks to Mallory hope, right? Recovery brings about change, and there is healing and trust restored and hope.
Mallory Henry 04:30
Yes, yeah. And he’s an amazing human being, right? Like, and married a woman in recovery. They just got married in September.
Margaret: Congrats.
Mallory Henry: Yeah. And when I look at that wet like being in the room at the wedding, so many people in their support network were there. And I remember taking a second, I was standing next to my dad, and he was like, you know, if your brother hadn’t had that experience, if they both hadn’t had that experience, more than half these people would not be in this room. And they’re amazing people that live amazing lives in recovery and sharing their story and doing a lot for others. My brother works in the field. You know that they change lives every day too, and show that, yeah, it’s possible, and it’s possible, I think, for family members to reestablish a trust that I would have never thought would happen. And so, yeah, there’s a lot of healing.
Margaret 05:22
You know what? Though worth pointing out that due to the relapse and your brother finding his voice to say, I need you all in this, I’ve changed it. I’ve worked at it. You all, I need you in this, he’s been able to establish trust for you all.
Mallory Henry 05:41
yes, yes, yeah, I would say that relapse needed to happen. It needed to.
Margaret 05:47
I think a lot of family members don’t get that until they get that. That there is a loss of trust on both sides of the coin,
Mallory Henry: Oh Yesh.
Margaret: Not just the person with the substance use disorder or addiction.
Mallory Henry 05:58
Yeah. And I think that’s a really hard conversation, right? I know, you know to make amends, and you know, write your inventory and make amends is it’s on both sides,
Margaret: Absolutely
Mallory Henry: Right? It’s not just him saying to me, I wronged you. It’s also me saying to him, I played into this dynamic, I played into this system, and I can take accountability for the things that maybe I didn’t do so well, either there was a lot of resentment on my brother that I was the perfect child, right, that he couldn’t live up to that experience, or that I disengaged and left him to handle my parents, who were newly divorced,
Margaret: Right?
Mallory Henry: You know. And if he hadn’t verbalized those things to me, I it would have been really easy for me to say, Well, if you didn’t suck, right? You know, do drugs, right? Our family would have been fine, which is not accurate, right? I would say, take two to tango. It’s not just me over here doing my thing and him over there doing his thing. You know, there was a system at plan that that needed to be shifted.
Margaret 06:57
So the boundary it sounds like, with the kids is their safety from the disease?
Mallory Henry 07:02
Yes, yes. And I lean into values when I talk about boundaries, and that’s what I always say, like, I value the safety of my children above all else, which means they will not, you know, I cannot have them be around people who are actively using substances, because that puts their safety at risk. So, you know, the boundary for my brother is, if he’s clean and sober and working his recovery, he can have as much or little of a relationship he wants with his niece and nephew. For my brother-in-law, it’s if and when you would like to seek treatment, we will help with that. But until that point, the safety of our kids is of utmost important, and we can’t have them around people who are using substances. Which is a really challenging boundary to uphold.
Margaret 07:46
Especially, within a family system when other family members don’t necessarily hold the same boundaries.
Mallory Henry: Yes.
Margaret: So, Christmas must be interesting, and Hanukkah and holidays navigating who and what we see and what we do?
Mallory Henry 08:03
Yeah we kind of started, I think that boundary with his family and they, they do pretty much stick to the same boundary. I think we’ve all come to a consensus. I think that’s another piece of this process. Is it’s really important to make sure that everyone understands your boundary, but has their own boundary as well, and we verbalize those. So I’m not resentful of the fact that you have a different boundary than me, because I think that does creep up in recovery. I think within even my family system, you know, my mom’s boundaries are different than mine, and there was always resentment, I think there that built over time until we both were like, our boundaries are just different, and that’s okay.
Margaret: Right.
Mallory Henry: Like, I obviously really value vulnerability and honesty, but I have no issue sharing how things have impacted me. You know, my mom really values family, you know, so I think I would be really resentful sometimes that she didn’t share as openly, and she would be resentful of me for sharing my story. And it wasn’t until we really sat down and we’re like, well, that’s just because we’re different,
Margaret: Right
Mallory Henry: Our boundaries are going to be different about what we’re willing to express and what we’re not, and that’s okay, and we need to be okay with those differences. But I think for families, whether that’s active use or recovery, you need to be really verbal around what your boundaries are and respect those of everyone else around you, even if you don’t agree with them.
Margaret 09:25
Grace and compassion go a long way, right?
Mallory Henry: Yeah.
Margaret: And also, there’s a secondary grief. For example, if within your husband’s side of the family, the matriarch or patriarch are going to have the big gathering at the holidays, and because of your boundary that the children won’t be around him while he’s using you may have to not go to that gathering. And those are those secondary losses and grief that so many family members feel, and I hear you, reinforcing that even with grief, I hold to my boundary, because that’s primary.
Mallory Henry 10:05
Yeah, I’m glad you brought up grief, because that’s a topic I love, because I do feel like you know, we think of grief as we’re not grieving unless that person has died. But I mean, I think the grieving process all along of life not being what you expected it to be. Or, you know, I didn’t expect to not have my brother in my life or a chunk. I didn’t expect for him to be in treatment. I didn’t expect to not have a brother-in-law, meet my daughter like I there’s a lot of expectations that we also have to grieve the loss of. Yeah, but for me, what I’ve learned, and that’s, I think, my own recovery and my own process has been, I need to keep those clear boundaries, but not be, be open to them changing over time, but keeping those clear boundaries, because if I don’t, I know what that looks like, and it looks really uncomfortable for me, and it’s a bad space. It’s not a great space, physically, mentally or emotionally. for me, if I don’t have those boundaries.
Margaret: How old are the children?
Mallory Henry: I have a nine-year-old son and a seven year old daughter.
Margaret: Oh, great ages. So, what do they know about the disease?
Mallory Henry 11:17
Um, it’s funny, because, you know, I was just having this conversation with someone the other day, because they’re like, how do you talk to your kids? About substances? And you know, it’s not so. What they do know is we talk a lot about brain development. We do the upstairs and downstairs brain, and we talk about what it feels like when our upstairs brain is not online. And we have a lot of feelings. We have big feelings, and really just talking to them about, when you have a big, uncomfortable feeling, what do you do with that? Because we also talk to them about how we don’t know what their brains are wired to. Do, you know? So, I don’t know if they’re going to have a brain like mine, which does not suffer from a substance use disorder. I don’t know if they’re going to have a brain like our brothers, right? That that switch could activate very early on, and, you know, turn into, you know, a substance use disorder, disorder of any kind. So they do know that, they know that my brother and his wife are in recovery. I don’t know if they know the depths of what that means.
Margaret: Sure.
Mallory Henry: They know that they do not use anything that alters their mind. That’s how we kind of use the terminology. They know that in the past, when they’ve used something that altered their mind, they didn’t make the best choices, so now they choose to not use those substances so they can live in to be their best selves. Is kind of how we word it. So it’s not sitting them down and saying, don’t do drugs, right?
Margaret: It’s that works so well,
Mallory Henry: Yeah, we have lots of examples of how that doesn’t work. But, you know, talking about them, giving them that empowerment of you get to decide, you know, what your life looks like, and, you know, let’s, let’s talk about how to deal with uncomfortable feelings, because they’re going to happen. You don’t get to decide they’re only going to get more and more as you get older, but we need to know what to do with them, and we need to label those feelings that are associated with that so that when you are bored or you are angry or you are frustrated or you are sad, you’re not looking for an external source to soothe that internal feeling, right? And I do think kids, as you know, four or five, they’re not going to understand the complexities, but they know what you mean when you say that your body feels angry. They know what that feels like.
Margaret: absolutely
Mallory Henry: And you know, in all my time working with kids to the amount of kids that’ll say, well, that’s bad, right? Like feeling angry is bad, and it breaks my heart when I hear that, because I’m like, it’s a tough life. If you think you’re never going to get angry, you’re going to get angry. We all get angry, we all get sad, we all get frustrated, we all get jealous. It’s what you do with those feelings that’s different. That’s what we need to learn what to do. So, it’s really just labeling feelings. I’m sure my kids hate my work, because they’re like the guinea pigs of a lot of it, when I’m like, let’s talk about feelings today. Or, Hey, I got this new book for work. Let’s, let’s read this book about feelings. But in turn, I feel like I’m giving them a voice that that I didn’t get to have at a young age. Your
Margaret 14:17
Your kids are fortunate.
Mallory Henry: Thank you.
Margaret: Your kids are very fortunate, a little story that maybe give you a little hope, even though they’re like sometimes when you’re bringing stuff up. When I lost my mom a couple of years ago, I was in Bermuda, which is home, and my family, my husband and my kids were not with me. It was a really hard time, and I was having a tough day, and my kids have grown up with me saying the Serenity Prayer, morning and night with spawn see sponsor through my life. And my kids will definitely tell you, still not sure about the whole higher power, God, not sure where they stand on religion, one would say probably, Agnostic. And this one, my eldest called me to check on me, which was revolutionary, right? When you’re the parent that checks on kids and said, you know, mom, would it help to say the Serenity Prayer?
Mallory Henry: Mm, Oh.
15:18
Margaret: I’m like Yes, she said, well, let me look it up. I know I should know it by heart, I heard it so many times, but I don’t. And we sat there, and she said it with me.
Bumper 15:30
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Bumper: I am Margaret Swift Thompson, and I’m so grateful you’re listening to this podcast it means more to me than you know!
As a result of the growth and continuation of my mission to help more family members find resources and enhance their toolbox with things that can help them navigate this journey of recovery, we want to let you know that I’m coming back with family coaching.
So, I’m starting the Embrace Family Recovery Coaching Group again and I want to make sure people know that this is a group and it’s a coaching and it’s open to anyone impacted by the disease of addiction, from a family’s perspective. So, it could be your parent, your partner, your child, a sibling anybody. If you would like to be a part of this educational and supportive community, please go to my website embracefamilyrecovery.com and look into the coaching group. We’re going to have it for all people impacted so we’re not going to divide the group into parents or partners or siblings we’re going to just have an Embrace Family Recovery Coaching Group.
So, if you want to know more please head to my website and if you have any questions at all please reach out to me by e-mail at Margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com
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 16:49
So, know that the seeds you plant, you have no idea where they’re gonna go for your children.
Mallory Henry: Yeah,
Margaret: You know. And God, life is hard. We all know that, and we don’t know what our children are going to navigate, and my kids have both had their different challenges in this journey, and I’d love to take them away. So, when you say, now that I’m a parent, I have a comprehension of this is different as a parent versus a sibling. We can’t take it away. It’s part of the journey. So, arming them with every resource you can to navigate the world as a gift you give them that a lot of kids don’t get.
Mallory Henry 17:23
Yeah, yeah. And I think for me, working at Caron, that’s the whole point of our entire Education Alliance is, how do we give those skills to students, parents and then youth serving professionals, so educators or counselors, or, you know, people who work in after school situations so that they’re hearing it everywhere they go, right? So, it’s not a different mentality at school versus home. It’s everyone is it has the same language around feelings and that there’s no such thing as a bad feeling, and whatever you’re feeling is valid. And don’t let anyone tell you otherwise, because they don’t get to decide how we feel. So, I think that’s where I think my passion comes from. We’re always going to have families who are struggling, right? Being human is messy. There’s no way around it,
Margaret: Right?
Mallory Henry: But if we can help that one family intervene, maybe a little bit earlier, or get that sibling of support a little bit earlier, maybe 12 years won’t go by. And they won’t need as much support on the back end.
Margaret 18:28
Well. And I also really respect what you’re saying about the wraparound services, if you like, that you’re educating the youth, the providers for youth, the people touching the youth, the parents, because the more people who have this understanding, education, language, the more avenues for those children to seek services, resources and help and receive that rather than stigma, disconnect, ignorance. So it’s fabulous that you’re doing as much as you’re doing to fill the spaces in the world of destigmatizing this and educating about it. Did your husband on his journey with his brother, ever get sibling support?
Mallory Henry: No.
Margaret: No treatment, exposure, where no family program, no support?
Mallory Henry 19:21
Nope, no. No. And to be honest, it’s, I mean, the amount of siblings I talk to that will say the same thing, even if their family received education, right? So even if they’re like, well, my parents were given a webinar, you know what I mean, or something like that. Were, you know, I’ll say, like, did they ever? Were they told to share it with everyone in the fit like, you know, because I think siblings, but also, like grandparents aunts, like, there’s, it’s a it’s a system. Everyone’s impacted. So how can we not share this with everyone that loves this person? I don’t care if they’re blood related or not. You know how it’s anyone that has a touch point to that person is going to be impacted friends, you know, but no, he was never provided any support either. And again, I don’t think that’s uncommon. I’m just hopeful that we can change that narrative for future generations.
Margaret 20:12
No, I don’t think that’s uncommon, and it makes it breaks my heart. I mean, I’m sure you can speak to this too, but one of my most favorite experiences in a family program. I was blessed to work at Hazelden for 23 years and be in the family program for a significant chunk of that when we would have multi-generational families in those rooms. It was incredible and to let them have their own space in small groups to share their story without having to censor it to whoever in the family might be sitting next to them.
Mallory Henry: Yes,
Margaret: is so empowering and positive. It was rare because most people didn’t have the resources to afford to bring everybody to a program.
Mallory Henry: Yeah,
Margaret: which is another factor.
Mallory Henry 20:58
Yep, I think we still see that.
Margaret 20:59
Yeah there’s definitely a privilege issue.
Mallory Henry 21:01
Yep, there’s an, it’s an access issue. So even if we do offer it, can everyone access? You know, it’s one thing to get two people there as parents. It’s another thing to get five people there when you tack on a couple extra siblings, yeah, there’s a privilege to have access,
Margaret 21:18
Right? So, moving into your work, because why not talk about the great work you’re doing at Caron, and your passion is evidence. So how did you jump? I know you’re in wanting to work within the field because of your own personal experience. But how did that happen, to go from education generally to education with Karen? Yeah.
Mallory Henry 21:40
Yeah, So, when my brother, so I went to school undergrad for teaching, so secondary education, and when I got out was really not a great time to get a job as an educator, and found myself in the behavioral health field, and really enjoyed it. At that same time was when my brother first went to treatment, the treatment after jail, and he had a couple years sobriety, and at the time, I was working doing in home team based therapy in Pennsylvania, and my brother called me and said, hey, someone told me, so when my brother left that treatment facility, he worked for the treatment facility,
Margaret: Okay?
Mallory Henry: And so, he called me and said, hey, because they had worked with Caron. Said, hey, I heard through like a grapevine that they’re looking to hire someone to do some prevention education work in the area that we where I lived. And he said, hey, I just someone told me about it, and I thought of you, because they were looking for someone who wanted to work in schools but do this kind of work. And I was like, oh, that sounds perfect. So, it kind of, it’s, I always say my brother’s kind of what brought me to Karen, and then I brought him full circle back to Caron.
Margaret: That’s great,
Mallory Henry: because he’s really the one that kind of pushed me to take this position. And, you know, I started off just part time, seasonal, doing prevention work in schools, and eventually, kind of have been afforded opportunities to really explore my passion with working in terms of educating, providing resources, and now really working with a lot of families, because that’s always been my passion, and, you know, they’ve been super, I’m blessed to have an amazing supervisor and leadership team at Caron that has been super open to any time I say, what about siblings? What about siblings? What about siblings? And they’re like, what do you want to do?
Margaret: Right?
Mallory Henry: Like those great. I feel like I’ve been afforded those, those opportunities, but that’s kind of what landed me here. And I just, I don’t plan on ever leaving. I love Caron because I feel like the work that they do and quite honestly, the gift that they give for families like they they gave my family a huge gift in allowing my brother to come to treatment at Caron and in that giving my parents and I the education that we so needed and we’re desperate for. You know that even working in the field, I wouldn’t have known the complexities of how it impacts families, doing the prevention, end of work. But again, now I see that big picture. Now I can place those puzzle pieces together to say, no, we really do need to do a better job of making this one large continuum. Because although you might have siblings again, that don’t have someone with a substance use disorder. That doesn’t mean they don’t have a sibling that was born with a heart defect that took away parents’ attention and resources from that. It has nothing to do with substance use.
Margaret 24:30
Well, I would go out on a limb and say that Caron is very fortunate to have you, Mallory, and your willingness to be open and persistent on resources for siblings, and whole families. I think that’s a gift to an organization, because, I mean, Caron’s reciprocity of that, of wanting to do it, says a lot for them as well. It’s nothing like being validated in your experience. But also, let’s change this for other people.
Mallory Henry 24:55
Yes, 100% that’s exactly how I feel like being validated, and that this is how you feel. But also, yes, let’s, let’s use that to help other families, so that no one has to feel the same way, and then we can hopefully get them the support they need, or at least have the support as an option, you know, if and when someone’s ready or or comfortable with it,
Margaret 25:21
Right, and so with your work now, as you said, you kind of doing a few things. You’re doing the sibling stuff. You do webinars. You do family work weekly, no, every month, monthly.
Mallory Henry 25:32
I do a monthly webinar, and then I also hold and facilitate strategies for family recovery workshops. So, at Caron’s regional offices, basically up and down the East Coast. I will run workshops for family members, online, in person, on, mostly on boundary setting, but yeah, so how do you what are those strategies for someone within recovery? So, in our outpatient and centers, working with the family members of the identified patient at the outpatient centers on what does that look like?
Margaret 26:02
And are you still in Pennsylvania, or are you somewhere else?
Mallory Henry 26:04
I’m in Pennsylvania, yep. So, I’m about an hour from Caron’s headquarters. So yeah, not far, but travel to the regional offices to do the workshops in person.
Margaret 26:14
And the school stuff. Are you going into schools? Is that what you do on that prevention side?
Mallory Henry 26:21
Yeah, so we provide a lot of supports for students, including, you know, psycho educational support groups, early intervention groups, parent education. We do level of care assessments as well. So, I coordinate those services in the Pennsylvania region. I have, like, the Philadelphia region as kind of my area, and we coordinate those services. So, we have a lot of staff really up and down the East Coast, quite honestly, that go into schools, youth serving organizations to provide that education, early intervention and as well as postvention. So, if someone comes back from treatment, how do we help them integrate back into a school system, because we know that’s so much more challenging for a young person that doesn’t have a lot of control over where they go back to.
Margaret: Right, and what that looks like in a school setting. So really just trying to again, to provide that entire continuum, but also intervene early, right? So, if we know students are using cannabis, if we know that they’re using nicotine. Can we get them a level of care? You know, intervention early in hopes that they never need inpatient treatment. That’s the goal.
Margaret 27:29
If a school was looking for a resource like that in their area. Like, how do schools know whether their area is involved? How they could go about doing this?
Mallory Henry 27:40
Yeah, so if you go to Caron’s website, we have an entire page on our Education Alliance, which will push out regions where we have coordinators in different regions. I get a ton of requests that just come through. You know, the little pop up on Caron’s website that says, like, Do you need help? I get a ton of requests from there that say, hey, I’m looking for school resources. And our admissions department will pop that over based on where they’re located, to, you know, myself or my fellow people in different regions, to make sure that we connect with them. And then we have options. So, we can either, if we have boots on the ground, great, we can do it, but we also have some curriculums that we will train on and give them those tools and support. So, you know, to do like a train the trainer version, to say, we can’t be here. We don’t have someone here, but we can train you so that you have these interventions in place. You know, right now, we’re seeing such an influx of nicotine and cannabis in schools, and schools really saying, what do we do with these kids? We can’t just suspend them, which I’m thankful for that we’re having that conversation. We can’t just suspend them. We need to also provide them an educational intervention. And what does that look like?
So, you know, we have curriculums that schools can utilize for that, so we’re getting those kids what they need, instead of just placing them out of school. And that’s, that’s the goal. Again, the goal is to get them that education so that they can make an educated choice around what they’re putting in their body, right? We just want to empower kids to be educated on what they’re choosing to put in their body. We can’t make decisions for them, right? If we could, I tell parents this all the time, like, if you could, you’d probably not make half the decisions your teenager makes,
Margaret: Right?
Mallory Henry: But at least empower them to make an educated decision, right? So, right? For my kids, they know that that educated decision means that their substance use in their genetics, right? So they need to be more aware of what they’re choosing to put in their body than someone who doesn’t have that genetic predisposition.
Margaret 29:34
Fantastic. You familiar with Jerry Moe ?
Mallory Henry: Of course,
Margaret: is he not the best?
Mallory Henry 29:41
The best. He does a lot with my team, so I take on the family portion 18 plus, but we do a similar youth education program for seven to 17. And Jerry has been so wonderful. He’s actually going to be, this is like a sneak peek, but he’s going to be on our family webinar, I think in February. I want to say, yeah,
Margaret 30:02
he’s amazing.
Mallory Henry 30:03
I mean, what he does is just
Margaret: Yep,
Mallory Henry: second to none and working with children impacted. Because I again, that’s another, another lens that I think we just can’t do enough. We can’t do enough for these kids who are impacted, whether it’s a sibling or, you know, because we are getting a lot of kids who have an older sibling, you bet, suffering, or, you know, parents or, again, loved one of any sort doesn’t have to be whatever that definition of family is. I’ve had kids impacted before whose biological parents suffered, but they had never even met them. Yep, still impacts them as children. So yeah, he’s he’s amazing. What he does, amazing, amazing.
Margaret 30:43
And I one last question about a resource. Have you heard of the book hot dogs? Anonymous?
Mallory Henry 30:50
I have not.
Margaret 30:51
Okay, so when we get off, I need your address. I have a signed copy By Dr Bridges. I’ll send on down to you for your team to have a look at. It’s a great book. You might try it out on your kids. You can blame me.
Mallory Henry 31:06
They’re used to it,
Margaret 31:08
Buts its a really neat resource. Doctor bridges wrote this book, and it’s about a dog that’s addicted to hot dogs. And what’s so brilliant about it, for kids who understand a little bit of recovery, they hear terms that they don’t necessarily understand. She uses the terms we use as humans. Like going to meetings fellowship in this storybook about the dog and his dog friends. So, it’s very cool.
Mallory Henry 31:33
Love that I love that I love any resources we can put on a library shelf, the better I love. I love that. Well,
Margaret 31:40
Well, Sarah, will be thrilled for me to send it down to you, so I will get your address before we get off, or you can email and I’ll send you at least one or two signed copies, and you can share them with some of your folks.
Mallory Henry 31:49
Oh, absolutely. Our team would love that. Great, great.
Margaret 31:53
Well, Mallory, I can’t even thank you enough. I am so happy that I happened to get on that evening and listened to you and took a risk and said, I need to hear this woman’s story and look at you now. Sharing it for everybody, you are going to help so many people who may not have had the courage to have this conversation with their kids when there’s a sibling situation. Is there anything you would want to close with to encourage that sibling out there or that family with siblings to do or say.
Mallory Henry 32:26
I think for me, it’s just doing my own work has just been so healing for me, whether or not my brother took the trajectory he did, just the ability to give myself the gift of healing and recovery, and knowing that that healing that I’m doing will change future generations is just so powerful, and I don’t think we can say that enough that you know me, acknowledging I know sharing, I know doing my own work will change that trajectory for my kids,
Margaret: Yes,
Mallory Henry: and their kids in future generations, in hopes that no one ever needs inpatient treatment, because we will know the signs early. We’ll know how to talk to kids about it. We’ll know how to empower them to make good choices and healthy lifestyle choice choices and things like that. So it’s doing your own work is incredibly hard. I don’t want to say that it’s not. It’s incredibly, incredibly challenging and uncomfortable. And you know, might be uncomfortable for people around you, too, when you start setting those boundaries,
Margaret: You bet.
Mallory Henry: But the outcome on the other side has been far worth it for me.
Margaret 33:38
Well. said. Thank you, Mallory,
Mallory Henry 33:40
Thank you so much.
Outro: I don’t think it’s a coincidence how some of us end up in the field of addiction. Mallory is a fantastic example of the disease infiltrating her family through her brother’s illness and making a decision to seek help and support for her healing journey.
Come back next week when we have a return visitor from a previous podcast episode our former guest William Cope Moyers returns. William shares his ongoing recovery journey captured in his new book ‘Broken Open.’
35:31
I want to thank my guests for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website, embracefamilyrecovery.com.
Margaret 35:45
This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you.
