The first Embrace Family Recovery Podcast guest is here! I am honored to introduce Janet who is a mama who found her recovery before her son found his!
I know, not the common way it happens – Janet is far from common!
Not only did Janet find it, she stays in recovery for herself and the powerful byproduct has been how Janet’s recovery positively impacts every aspect of her life.
See full transcript of the episode below.
TRANSCRIPT
Intro: You are 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: So today I have a conversation with Janet, a dear friend I have known since 2010 who works an incredibly strong recovery program. She has generously been willing to share her story to many newcomers and has offered to do it here with us. So, let’s hear from Janet. Alright wet the whistle and let’s chat!
Janet: OK let’s chat.
Margaret: So, Janet I think the thing that people will want to hear is what got you to this point like what has brought you to the journey of your own recovery?
Janet: I would say I’m generally a pretty happy person and I had lost that ability to be happy and I just wanted myself back. I had lost Janet. Somewhere along the way you know I was watching my son suffer and so I just really wanted to get some peace again.
Margaret: And was that something you came to on your own or you were exposed to something that helped you understand that you can have different?
Janet: How it really started for me is actually I was talking to somebody back then where I worked and they had mentioned getting some mental health counseling and so that’s kind of where I started, and that counseling really pushed me to go to Al Anon and it was there that the changes started taking place.
Margaret: So, one of the things I hear Janet is that people don’t find Al Anon until their loved one who has the disease starts their journey. did you start yours before or during or after your son’s treatment?
Janet: I started it kind of before. Yep, I did.
Margaret: So that’s wonderful and remarkable and good for people to hear that even though, if it’s ok to say, your son is the person in your family with the disease. Even though he hadn’t found his way into recovery you were able to find your way into support.
Janet: I was, and I think the biggest thing, you know I thought about this before we had this, I kind of remember thinking I had to redefine what love is. So, what does love really look like, so I thought so much the things I was doing for him was the act of love and it really wasn’t so I need to get help find out how do I really love my son, the best possible way.
Margaret: During this next segment Janet shares so clearly how the family member’s disease progresses in a parallel way while her son’s disease was also progressing.
Janet: I just kind of enabled you know if he needed money, I paid money. If he had an overdraft I’d pay the overdraft I just did whatever I did, ’cause I was rescuing him constantly. Just one time after the next after the next. I couldn’t imagine seeing him fail. I felt it was my job as a mother to save him in some way and that I had the power to do that and, I don’t but I believed I did. If I just said the right word at the right time. If I just shed enough tears. If I just said I love you a few more times a day, if I just did something this would be the thing that would turn the world around and it just never did.
Margaret: So somewhere along the journey you learned what all of us had to learn though painful – that we couldn’t make them use and we couldn’t make them recover.
Janet: Nope and I can’t cure him.
Margaret: When family members start this journey and hear that, some of them are filled with despair because then what do I do?
Janet: Right and you know I learned the long and the hard way too. I can’t anchor my happiness on my son’s sobriety. Not everybody is gonna make it, so you know there’s always that risk, and I knew that. But nothing changes if nothing changes and if I want to do things differently, I have to start figuring it out. I had to start trusting in my higher power and I just have to trust in a better outcome. And constantly helping and then what be mad at him? I had nothing to be mad at. I was just as much part of this as he was. I got into all his business. I took care of everything thinking that I was doing him a favor. I thought I had to be the banker, you know everything, counselor, best friend. I did it all yeah it was exhausting.
Margaret: Here Janet shares the benefits she received from attending a family program affiliated with her son’s treatment and, strongly recommends other family members gain the education and sense of community it offers.
Janet: I think it was also very helpful to know that I’m not alone and so when you go to family programs you see many families from all different parts of United States. You know that was very helpful to me just to know. I think as the mother or as a parent you believe it’s all me and you just think you’re the only one going through this, so hearing other people’s stories and just knowing I’m not alone was helpful.
Margaret: I remember that I remember feeling incredibly alone and not knowing where to turn and even when I walked into my first 12 step meeting it didn’t particularly feel like I’m home, but I came to value what that program gave me.
Janet: Yeah, yeah.
Margaret: One of the things I admire so much about Janet is her willingness to face things head on no matter how hard they are. Her son’s battle with addiction was not the first trial that Janet and her family suffered. They lost a son in a tragic accident many, many years before this son started his journey with addiction and it has impacted her life in so many ways. I imagine, I can only imagine ’cause I have fortunately not lost a child, that going through that would make it harder to not want to rescue and protect to any length possible your other children.
Janet: Yes, I think that’s, yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. So, I think my fear was that I was gonna lose another child. Yep, Yep, Yep! I see what you’re saying. I think that’s true, so it’s my job to rescue him because the possibility of losing him.
Margaret: One of the things we hear from people who have the disease of addiction is levels of justification for the need to use which is all manipulated by the disease I think we as family members have the same thing the justification of I’ve lost a child, by God I won’t let another one go makes a lot of sense.
Janet: Absolutely you know I guess I hadn’t really thought about that but that is very true I think I want to save him.
Margaret: Sure, what mother wouldn’t whether they’ve lost a child or not. We all want our children to thrive. Absolutely so even though you went through that and even though you knew that you found your way to Al Anon before he ever got help!
Janet: I went in October and he went through a treatment center in February. I just I just wanted to get better and I just really wanted to get better, and I want to know how to serve him better what is it you know how can I be a better mother and still reclaim my life.
Margaret: That’s powerful how can I be a better mother and still reclaim my life! Do you agree that this disease can hijack your life?
Janet: Oh, it can terribly you get on it you don’t even see it. Just like the denial for them I can see it now, but I couldn’t see it then and I would have done anything to make his life better.
Margaret: And one of the hardest learning parts, I believe, is that when I enable, when I do anything possible to make them OK, I in fact help the disease get stronger and not the person I love.
Janet: Yeah, that’s right you rob them of that experience. Yeah, yeah absolutely it’s important that they go through that experience, and the more I listen to my son as he shares his story, I hear that and everything that he reclaimed he did on his own. So, it’s you know, it makes him feel better. He you know his self esteem grew, his confidence grew in time and he knows he can weather the storms. I hear that with him because he has the tools to do it now. We let him. He built his own life.
Margaret: I think it’s important to say that the journey of recovery is never smooth right it’s very rarely an uphill climb we get sober we move forward we get into Al Anon we move forward do you think it’s like a few steps forward, back.
Janet: Yes, there was many days that I got my knees and that was just crying ’cause you know we just think now we’re into this and he had many ups and downs. Oh, there was a lot of things and we had a time when we didn’t talk for three months, that was really difficult.
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Margaret: now let’s get back to Janet where she shares the benefit of having a wonderful relationship with her sponsor.
Janet: And I can’t say enough for getting a good sponsor because that helped me tremendously. Not only the meetings but having somebody that’s really familiar with your story, that you can get kind of intimate about what’s going on and you know getting that help that was huge for me.
Margaret: So that’s probably revolutionary to a lot of Al Anon people that you had a sponsor because they assume from learning, that their person who has a disease, has a sponsor but they have one too. What do you do with your sponsor? How does your sponsor help you?
Janet: When I was especially going through difficult times it just helped to say it out loud and then know that they aren’t necessarily going to tell you what to do. ‘Cause that isn’t really what the program involved, but it’s just kind of kind of re-talking things through, and going through the 12 steps and just getting different perspective on it and looking at it a little bit differently and there’s something about saying it out loud And I had probably 5 different sponsors over the course of my Al Anon experience each of them taught me something. During the worst of the worst, I still remember my sponsor. She would say some pretty amazing things to me and, she’d remind me of the slogans, and she would just all those things that would play a part and then hang up and I’d have a good cry it was cleansing, it was all those things and then I would do that and then she would give me some ideas, some thoughts to think about and it would follow through with that ’cause nothing changes if nothing changes, so she remind me about it all the time so.
Margaret: We’re talking to Janet who has graciously agreed to share her story and one of my most memorable stories you’ve ever shared was when your son was in Florida wanting to come home. Are you willing to share that story?
Janet: I am shall I give you a little bit of background?
Margaret: No problem, anything you need to tell us.
Janet: Yeah, so he had gone through recovery program and afterwards they have a suggestion for what they should do. He made a friend who lives in Florida, so you know the idea that you know my problems will not follow me. So, I’ll just move to Florida, so my son went there and so he abandoned the plan from the treatment center.
Margaret: One of the things family members deal with is their loved one being given recommendations, and not taking them. How did you deal with that to begin with?
Janet: Well, um. Well, um I wasn’t happy with it, but we let him do it. Then not saying that was necessarily right or wrong but we did, and we actually bought the ticket for him to get there. So, he as soon as he was done with treatment he went right to the airport and went there and then he got there, and things kind of started falling apart.
Margaret: He called you and said I have to come home.
Janet: So, I call my sponsor, which is been so powerful to me so you have somebody that knows your story that kind of help walk through it and so we had kind of found a recovery center ’cause I did not want him coming home it wasn’t good for my mental health it wasn’t good for him we are not his escape. So, he took a bus we got a ticket for him, a one way ticket from Naples FL to Minneapolis or Saint Paul. And you know, when you think about it, he was at a homeless shelter and so he had only $20 and I think he bought a package of cigarettes so when you think that all though he didn’t have a lot of money and left.
Margaret: And he then went to a recovery Community Center that was different than what he first experienced.
Janet: Exactly I remember talking, I called my sponsor on the way there ’cause I was really nervous. She kept saying to me over and over whatever you do Janet you don’t fix anything, you don’t fix anything. So, when I got there he pretty much had me in in a corner ’cause I’m the most vulnerable one, and just like I’m not happy here mom the food isn’t good and I have a roommate who snores. You know and I just kept saying over and over I’m so sorry you went through this, I’m sorry that you have to go through this, but I never fixed anything.
Margaret: Please come back next week where we will continue the conversation with Janet, and you’ll have an opportunity to learn how her journey unfolds with her son. You won’t wanna miss it. Please find resources on my website embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you!
