In this final episode with Sheila Hyer, we talk about life with her son, Kevin, who is in recovery.
Sheila shares candidly the impact of the disease that still lingers and what she wishes she had known when her journey began. Sheila believes there is a reason for this and wants to help others.
Sheila, Ed, and Kevin have taken this harrowing experience and are making a difference through The Hyer Calling Foundation. Kevin leads The Hyer Calling Foundation in inspiring work to create a world where a prior Substance Use Disorder is not a barrier to professional success.
#recovery #addiction #addictionrecovery #addictionawareness #addictiontreatment #addictions #familyrecovery #familyrecoverycoach #familyrecoverycoaching #familyaddiction #familyaddictionrecovery #recoverysupport #recoverysupportgroup #recoverysupportservices #womenpodcaster #podcast #thehyercallingfoundation #addictionpodcast #recoverypodcast #recoverystories #recoverycommunity
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.
Intro: Welcome back! This is the last episode with Sheila Hyer. Sheila’s love for her son and her desire to learn and understand this family disease is so demonstrated in our conversation. Today we discuss service and the way their story moved forward. Fear and shame crop up as does resiliency and hope for recovery. Let’s get back to Sheila.
01:10
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret 01:27
So how do we move forward, he struggled with staying sober. And that was when he was living with you. So that was a really hard time. At some point, he has gained his recovery, he’s worked his recovery, continues to. How did that start? Where did that start? Was it an inpatient treatment ever? Or did it still continue to be outpatient?
Sheila 01:47
Wow, we went through so many outpatients. And finally, Kevin had a psychotic reaction to the drugs, very psychotic. Okay, he would call it panic attacks. Well, that’s probably what they were, because he lost his grip on reality. So that when he used, he was not responsible anymore. And it got so bad here at home because he was using that, I believe it was probably Ed who said, this can’t go on.
And Kevin, I think, he had to get to the point because nothing else was gonna get him there. But where he realized that reality was eluding him. Now, I didn’t tell you that when Kevin was a little guy, he was a gifted child. Okay, so always capable of speaking beyond his years, doing everything beyond his years. So, to watch him, try to tell you his reality, which was absolutely off the wall, was scary. It wasn’t fearful anymore. It was scary. Because his mind was gone.
Margaret 03:14
Yeah, drug induced psychosis is a very terrifying thing to see.
Sheila 03:18
And that’s what he had. And finally, he was able to realize even in that state, that he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore. So, I think he finally got scared that he was on a slope. And it was very slippery. And he wasn’t going to make it out. So, we were able to get a name of a place nearby that he went to, and it was the best decision he has ever made. And he is now in charge of his own recovery. But I think it was on his part, that the natural intelligence that he clearly had suddenly spoke to him, that what he was seeing, and thinking wasn’t real. And he’d never been there before that he recognized. I think that would be it. I don’t know what he would tell.
Margaret 04:26
You know, it’d be interesting to hear what he would say was the breakthrough moment for him. It might have also been very much part of seeing in the eyes of you two, and hearing his dad say that, the reality that this is in combination with whatever he was feeling of being out of control, you know, it’d be an interesting thing to know.
Sheila: It would,
Margaret: It would. Did you get help at that point? Were you given counseling, family program anything for you?
Sheila 04:53
We I think went to one or two Zoom meetings; we went to a Zoom meeting. It was funny that now that you bring it up. We went to a Zoom meeting when he was in one of his many outpatient programs. And we actually watched him manipulate the counselor. And that’s when we realized this doesn’t work, because you’re still using. And what we’re watching you do means nothing is working.
Margaret 05:25
So, with the disease in charge, you got to see how it was manipulating all of you at that point.
Sheila 05:31
I don’t know what I knew what I didn’t. And some of that was because I didn’t allow myself any feedback.
Margaret: Interesting.
Sheila: I didn’t feel like I had a safe place to go. And that’s being really honest. I think that’s what we as parents need is a very, very safe place where no one is going to hurt you anymore,
Margaret: right?
Sheila: You’re already at the ultimate of what you can handle. And if you’re fearful of judgment, and moral judgment, oh, really your child’s on drugs, now to moral issue, right? Nevermind, the physical issue that it is now it’s become a moral issue. And when you realize that there are people who are going to judge you, Judge you, what you’re doing, Judge Kevin, I never felt I had a safe place. Now, maybe I have to take responsibility for that Margaret. Because maybe I didn’t give people a chance, as in my two friends, but they were off in New England, you know, so it wasn’t like we could go for coffee. And I could tell someone, so I know that my own shame, my own lack of control. My own fear, again, fear just keeps coming up. There’s got to be something we can do about fear, because we have to learn how to handle it. I think once your child gets to where Kevin, is
Margaret: yeah.
Sheila: It’s easier to handle it.
Margaret 07:11
Once they’re in recovery and doing better.
Sheila 07:14
Yeah. But if they’re actively using, you still need tools, you still need tools, if you don’t want to kick them out, which is what society thinks you should do they could live in their car, and then find money to buy more drugs.
Margaret 07:31
The thing that I think is lost when we’re in the fear, understandably, is the capacity for the person to survive in their addiction and do what was necessary to continue to survive in their addiction. Those qualities, strengths, resiliencies, capacities to do things will serve them very well in recovery. If we give them the room to do that,
Sheila: Oh my
Margaret: here I think we get stuck is the scary visual of all the downhill slide, which is real, we lived it. I can’t see how they’ll come out of this. But what kept them surviving and living in this insanity and chaos. They always say the joke is and it’s not funny to the family ever, but to the people in treatment, they always say you don’t have to change much just about everything to get well. Right, which we know is true.
Sheila: Yeah,
Margaret: But the other piece is, if a person who has this disease puts 50% of the skills and energy that they used in using and surviving in using into their recovery, they’ve got this.
Sheila 08:36
Oh, my, what an optimistic way of looking at recovery. Rather than it being a uphill slog that you fight your way through. You just take all the qualities that helped you in your addiction, and now put them to use.
Margaret 08:55
Well, if I think of myself, and I put myself in Kevin’s shoes, I don’t know how I could have survived that. But he did.
Sheila 09:01
He did. Yes, he did. And he kept it quiet.
Margaret 09:08
Right? All the secrecy, all the covering up all the traits it took to keep going. We turn them around and put them into what do I need to keep, to help me thrive in recovery? And what do I need to let go of that are getting in the way of me thriving and recovery. And we need help to do that. And it makes me very sad Sheila that you didn’t have a community of support because it’s a very lonely, scary place when we don’t have others who’ve walked the path, who can show us some ways to do it. Who can support us, which is why I started Embrace Family Recovery because I know there are far too many people suffering like you did without resources. It’s not okay.
Sheila 09:51
Well, it is one more fear. Okay, it’s not like you’re not living in enough fear because you’re fearful. That what this yo yo is going to do next. Will the What if thinking come true?
Margaret: Right?
Sheila: Okay. So then to hope that you can go to a place where people won’t judge you, where you won’t hear, well, I wonder what you did, or whatever it is that your mind can let you go through. It’s funny because I heard you say something, and it was, I am a strong woman, I knew that the day we met, and he was okay with that that was going to be okay. But maybe it’s that same strength that gets in my own way.
Margaret 10:34
I would say that is true in my story.
Sheila: Okay. Yeah.
Margaret: Right. I’m gonna rely on this. And this, and this, and I’m gonna make it happen.
Sheila 10:44
Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, I can do this. I mean, that’s my swan song. Sheila can do it. And maybe that was the thing with Kevin that I have to realize Sheila doesn’t need to do it Kevin needs to do it.
Margaret 10:56
This about Kevin gets to, Kevin deserves to Kevin is allowed to, I will watch with all as he grows through his recovery, because I am so incredibly proud of where he’s overcome and what he’s come through. And a lot of people don’t like to use that word around recovery, because it feels like you’re giving them kudos for having a disease. Well, if we believe it’s a disease, then we don’t blame someone for having a disease. And if we believe it’s a disease that’s treatable and overcome able, why would we not celebrate the hard work they do to get to recovery?
Sheila 11:33
Again, I think that until you have been part of an addict’s journey, you have no idea what it takes for them to get well. Kevin says something interesting. I mean, now that he’s back, it’s so grand, you know, he will say, I am so glad I’m not an alcoholic. And you might look at a person and say, really, and what he’ll say is, I can go into Food Lion, I can go to any restaurant in the world. And the first thing they’re going to say to me is what would you like to drink? We have many beers, we have lots of wine. He says nobody ever comes to the table and says you want some meth?
Margaret: Right.
Sheila: And Kevin has a marvelous sense of humor, which I think is what’s helping him also.
Margaret: Yes.
Sheila: I got to let him do it, don’t I?
Margaret 12:23
And you are or he wouldn’t be where he is?
Sheila 12:26
Wow. I probably did it kicking and screaming.
Margaret 12:30
Maybe he’s doing it in mind despite you, but I don’t think so. I think he’s doing it because he wants it.
Sheila 12:37
Kevin believes that all of this happened for a reason. And I buy it. I buy it. I know, when I got a phone call that it was coming. So, I believe that there is a world beyond what we touch and feel. There has to be.
Margaret 12:57
If you can lean into that. Yeah, then the fear will lesson
Sheila 13:02
Yeah, I try to but sometimes I’m so strong,
Margaret: I get it.
Sheila: Yeah,
Margaret 13:11
we get in our own way, which is part of the stroke, we’re a recovering addict. And I think it’s vital to say that as a family member, the same is true. We get in our own way, or the disease gets in our way, or the monkey chatter gets in our way, or our survival mechanisms that are so well honed in us and so familiar to us get in our way. And change is hard. It takes work.
Sheila 13:38
Change is very hard. It’s easier to stay suffering with all the old habits than to put the effort.
Margaret 13:45
It’s familiar. Because I don’t know that it’s easy to stay in addiction. I don’t know that it’s easy to stay in, you know, rewind your life. Three years ago, I wouldn’t say that was easy.
Sheila 13:56
Didn’t mean addiction. Okay, I was really referencing me. And my challenge. I would never say it was easy to stay in addiction. I didn’t want you to think I meant that.
Margaret 14:05
Oh no, no, no, no, I hear you. And I do think people will say that though, as a recovering addict, myself. I knew what I knew then, I hated it. But I knew it. I knew what my life was going to feel like and look like in the cycle I was on. I was familiar with it. To get to the unknown of what recovery will look, like takes guts, courage, hard work. And a I’m sick and tired of being sick and tired in this old place, even though it’s familiar that I’m going to go to the uncomfortable new thing.
Sheila: Okay,
Margaret: So I do think that is a familiar experience to both sides of the coin also.
Sheila 14:42
Okay, yeah.
Margaret 14:45
Recovery is simple. The philosophy of how we get well is simple, but the journey is not easy. We have to work at it.
14:53
Sheila: Yes. Yes.
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16:15
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Margaret 16:26
With Kevin’s recovery, he’s engaged in helping others, the 12th step of recovery through and through. And I think you’ve been an integral part of that, too, from what I understand. So, do you want to talk a little bit about that? The Hyer Calling
Sheila 16:45
Okay, our involvement in higher calling is support for Kevin, and financial support. Interestingly, we have taken very much of a backseat to that. And I’m not sure if Ed and I were protecting ourselves. I think that often, I felt like I had no more to give.
You know once we got him back on his path, well, maybe it was that I didn’t let myself, Margaret. Because I kept living in the fear, because I did, keep living in the fear. And I do know that the one thing I said to him was, I can’t have walked this journey for nothing. I can’t just say, you’re okay. It seems selfish. It seemed wrong. That I was, one could say, in a good day, given the opportunity to watch what another living soul went through. And I can only imagine what other parents out there are going through. And I know they are as hidden as I was, I know there as hidden as I was, I probably pass umpteen people every day, who have lived my journey.
Margaret; Yes.
Sheila: But none of us know it, none of us know it. Because we don’t know how safe it’s going to be. And yeah, so our journey with Kevin is support. It’s financial support, which we will do what we can, because he believes in it. And he does believe in it. And every now and again, he’ll call and he’ll say, let me tell you a story. And he is just as high as he can be. Because something happened, that he could say, I’ve been there. I know what you’re talking about. Let me help. Let me buy you a suit at Target. So, you can go on an interview, you can’t go looking like that.
Margaret: Right.
Sheila: And that’s his field, his labor and employment. But we deliberately Margaret held back, we will support him financially, and we will support him emotionally. But we are 80. Okay, we were not looking for another career. Okay, I would be willing to do something clearly. And I don’t know how I don’t know why. But I can’t just have lived this and not try to help somebody else to say I am still standing. I am still standing, and I think probably better every day. So, if that could be a value to anybody else. I’ll do what I can.
Margaret 19:45
Which speaks to why you agreed to do this, because you obviously want to share your story to help someone else not have to suffer. So, saying that, in closing this out. I would love you to share what you wish you would have known when you were in it? So that someone who may be further back on the journey? Not in the recovery place? Could hear that. Like, what would you wish you’d done different? What would you wish were help? When you’re at that stage? What would you do? What would you offer?
Sheila 20:21
The first thing that I would wish is that I had trusted enough to try to have reached out into a community, I wished I had trusted enough. And that’s probably as much as I can say it. I didn’t trust, I didn’t trust that my child wouldn’t be judged. For having done the worst drug there is in this world to do. I didn’t want my son judged. Because the boy that use the drugs was not the boy that I knew for 38 years. Okay, he’s not the boy I know now,
Margaret: Right?
Sheila: So one of the things I’d be honest with you that I’ve thought about doing not that everything else I said wasn’t honest. I would love to get my courage way up and go down to the local police department or the middle school and go in and have the opportunity to talk to people. To I don’t know that it would be the children I would talk to. But I would wonder if the sheriff’s department who actually came to our house one time, would be willing to bring people together and say we have a mother here, a mother in our community who has lived with addiction. Would you want to come and hear her? Would you want to come and talk to her? I would do that. I’m the former trainer, I do know how to get up in front of people. And I know my story, in training, we were taught that you tell them what you’re going to tell them, you tell them then you tell them what you told them. And I could at least let people maybe in my community know that there’s somebody here, who knows what they’re going through. Because I didn’t reach out. I was too afraid.
Margaret 22:14
And I hear very loud, when you say that, what I hear from many parents in particular, and spouses and children, for that matter. Probably siblings, too. Is I don’t want to say anything, because I don’t want my person to be treated differently, judged, shamed.
Sheila: Yeah.
Margaret: So there’s this protective piece and the really difficult nuance. And that is, when we go into protective mode for that reason, we’re often protecting the disease more than we realize. We’re not protecting our child or our partner or our parent. And it’s tough. It’s tough to trust that, because it feels like you know, part of it. I don’t know about you, Sheila part of it is getting honest about my own judgment of people with this disease before I got into this world by pure accident. And I think that, that was a real wake up call, like, I got to look at the fact that I didn’t believe it was a disease until it was in my front yard or wherever it was.
Sheila 23:14
Well see, that’s what you keep saying. And I think that’s probably part of the education process, you would know more than I. But it’s a disease, it gets into their brain, and they lose control. And so, it’s not Kevin making a decision. There’s no decision to be made. It has to happen. It has to happen. He needs the drug, while he’s actively using or whoever, they need the drug. No, it’s not a case of saying no and walking away. They are incapable. But it’s not their decision. And that’s where judgment,
Margaret: Right
Sheila: comes in. Look what he did look what they chose to do. Well, they chose to take it the first time without any idea of the consequences,
Margaret 24:06
Correct.
That is the no fault. The judgment goes away if we can let it who amongst us and I say this often who amongst us listening hasn’t tried nicotine, marijuana, alcohol or other substances? Very few. And they’re by the grace of a higher power and not having the disease of addiction. Majority of us don’t have a problem.
Sheila: Yeah.
Margaret: Ones that do and it goes off the rails and we lose our values, our morals get affected our care for people, our care for ourselves, our health medically, mentally, spiritually, emotionally, everything changes because the disease is in charge. Until we get well.
Sheila 24:51
That’s the education piece. That really is the education piece is that you’ve got to stop looking at them in as though they are in control. Of course, when they’re on the drug, they think they can do anything, they are more than in control is. So, the correlation would be well then stop if you’ve got that much control. And that’s not how it happens. I’m sure that’s the same thing with the alcoholic isn’t it.
Margaret: absolutely,
Sheila: this is just drugs it, whatever the substance is that you get addicted to, is going to take over your life and the family’s life. So, all that shame. And that’s what I wish I wish I hadn’t felt such shame. Because maybe there are groups for all I know, there are well, whole groups right here in Goochland that I could have gone to
Margaret: right.
Sheila: But I didn’t share the story for all my own reasons, you know, so now you’re dealing with everybody else’s ego in the family and how everybody else looks at it. I loved what you said that the very thing that kept the addict alive. When he did or she did whatever they did to get the drug is this same courage, power, whatever you want to call it, that will get them through recovery. Because it’s not for the wimp as addiction is not for the wimp.
Margaret: No,
Sheila: they couldn’t fight their way through.
Margaret 26:27
Yeah, you know, you’ve seen it. You’ve seen the destruction, and you’ve seen the misery and you’ve seen the consequences. And he’s come through it. And he had to make a shift in his psyche with his recovery tools and help and community to say, you know what, this is killing me, this is hurting me, this is hurting the people I love, I got to do different, and I need the help to do different. And when I do different, I can get better. But alone, a person with the disease never gets well. Alone it’s not possible. So as a family member, I say then how can we expect ourselves to get well alone? We need help.
Sheila 27:03
I heard you going there. Yeah. Yeah,
Margaret 27:07
We deserve help. It’s a better word.
Sheila 27:09
Well, that’s a nice way of putting it. Yeah. Yeah. Because we didn’t ask for this. You know, and probably the best help you give the addict is you take care of yourself. And then you let them go.
Margaret 27:24
Because then you’re in a healthier place to actually help them when they need help.
Sheila: What do you call it?
Margaret: Monkey? Monkey chatter? Yeah, Monkey Chatter is like, you know, it’s like, you can’t focus on yourself. That’s not okay. You can’t get off the job. You better stay right here, right now. Because something bad’s gonna happen. It’s just nonstop. And so, it’s counterintuitive to every piece of us to get well but so is it counterintuitive to every addict in their disease to not use?
Sheila 27:50
So, it’s the same drive?
Margaret 27:54
Yes, the best description I was ever taught about the disease or definition or however, is it’s a pathological relationship with a substance or a behavior that supersedes every other human need I have. That’s addiction.
Sheila 28:09
Say it again,
Margaret 28:14
Pathological relationship with a substance or a behavior that supersedes ever other need we have. And so, as a result, we are at its mercy, because it tells us we have to have it more than we have to have love food, basic needs. And we’ll do whatever we have to, to get it because we believe to our toes, we need it to survive.
Sheila 28:41
Okay. Okay, pathological, supersedes. It’s exactly what it is.
Margaret 28:48
It is and it changes everything about the person. And so again, it’s like, it’s easy to get angry. You know, you said earlier, I would get angry, I get it. It’s easy to get angry. It’s like shake the person where are you? You know, it’s like the most baffling and frustrating thing to witness.
Sheila 29:03
Yes. Yes, yes, yes. Well, I feel better.
Margaret 29:10
You are an absolute delight. And you know, one of the things that I would say is, wouldn’t it be interesting now, Sheila, that you’re further away from the horrifying reality of the illness? To check out your community and see if there are in fact, actual meetings. I mean, you’ve just put this out on a platform that anybody in the world can hear one day, right. So, you’re past the point of keeping that shame secret.
Sheila: Oh, yeah. It’s no longer a secret.
Margaret: No. Would it be interesting to go and explore and see what is in your community? And I love your idea of you know, I think of you walking into a middle school parent group, for example. And sharing your story, and they’d be like, because stereotypes would be broken, judgments would be let go, assumptions would have to go out the window. And it would represent what you wish someone had done for you. So, you knew there was a way to get help, or there was going to be a way out?
Sheila: Yes.
Margaret: So, I’m curious to stay in your circle and find out where you go and what you do, do from this.
Sheila 30:19
Well I may have to do something now that I’ve said that I would, you know, and one of the things to Margaret, that Kevin has often said, Is that his story is different. All right, he’s an attorney. Okay. And it didn’t happen until his late 30s. It’s a different way of looking at something that hits everybody. But clearly, he has said to me from time to time that when he’s talking to a bar association or somewhere he’ll say, nobody would ever come out and do this. I said, it happened, it happened. And so that’s another thing that I could bring to this is that I’m probably not what you would expect to see that I would come up and tell you about my 39-year-old attorney, son. But I wouldn’t care anymore. You know, I guess I’ve made progress, huh.
Margaret 31:17
I would say you’ve made huge progress and it de-stigmatizes the disease for the next person who needs and deserves help.
Sheila 31:24
That would be the biggest gift I could give.
Margaret 31:27
You being willing to be honest and forthright me being willing to share my story, Kevin, being willing. All of that helps as a community as a world for us to be less judgmental, less afraid of a disease. It is a scary disease but be able to know there’s a solution and there is help for people and help people find help.
Sheila 31:50
Who knows Maybe that’s my next calling.
Margaret 31:51
Who knows who knows.
Outro: Thank you, Sheila Hyer, for your vulnerability, courage, strength, and willingness to always grow. As an 80-year-old woman you experienced addiction in many family relationships. You are no wimp! Join us next week when we talk with the one and only Karen Casey, author of 30 books for women in recovery, and fondly known as the godmother of women in recovery.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability and sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website.
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you!
