Welcome back to this second episode with Maeve O’Neill. In today’s episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, Maeve discusses what it was like to share her family experience growing up with her children. Listen as we also discuss the progress through three generations with resources for children impacted by this family disease of addiction.
Maeve O’Neill, MEd., LPC-S, CHC, CDTL, is the Director of National Compliance for CIRCA Behavioral Healthcare Solutions.
Let’s get back to Maeve.
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See full transcript below.
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.
01:10
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Intro: Welcome back to the second episode with Maeve O’Neill. In today’s episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, Maeve discusses what it was like to share her family experience growing up with her own children. Listen as we discussed the progress through three generations with resources, education, and empowering children with information. The impact of this family disease is generational and so is the impact of recovery. Let’s get back to Maeve.
Margaret 01:13
So, I need to ask this because I think for family members, there’s the struggle when they’re in the learning curve of this disease of separating the person from the disease. Are they separate? Are they different? I believe they are. I think that it takes over somebody and changes who they are. Would your father have physically hurt you? If he were sober? If you were not an alcoholic? Can you answer that?
Maeve O’Neill 01:47
I don’t think so. I think when he was sober, he was incredibly quiet. And I think very, very soft hearted. I think over the years, these incidents would happen. And then they would feel badly I do believe they felt badly. I remember a few apologies here and there. But mostly we just didn’t talk about it. It was an elephant in the living room literally, like we’re not going to mention what happened last night, which is even more crazy making them the actual incident that occurs, right?
Margaret 02:14
It is.
Maeve O’Neill 02:15
I don’t recall him ever being violent when he was sober. But you could see it building up. And that’s part of the fear two is, you know, stressful things are happening. And nothing’s being said, or nothing’s being handled. So, you know, it’s going to come out.
Margaret 02:31
Like that pressure cooker.
Maeve O’Neill 02:33
Yeah, exactly. And I, that’s also a positive, I’ve come to not let the pressure build up. If I need to say something, I’m gonna say it and we’re gonna resolve it. And we’re going to move forward, right, because I’m used to a building up that way. And I think even my mother is guarded as she was and is unkind as she could be. I remember my son was born, and she’d been gone for a while. Then she came back into the country. And she met my son, who’s now almost 21. He was probably a few months old. And she bent over his crib. And she told him that said, I love you to him. And I was like, Wow, I’ve never heard those words in her voice. And it was like, Wow, what a gift that she could shift that and give that to him. And maybe she meant to give it to me too at the time, because it was intentionally, you know, in front of me. So, you know, I think in their heart of hearts, they are who they are. And they were just not able to manage the stuff that life had thrown at them is how I see it. And addiction was only what they knew to kind of get through the day.
Margaret 03:32
And once hijacked by that disease, it’s hard to find a way to not repeat the pattern over and over again.
Maeve O’Neill 03:39
Absolutely.
Margaret 03:41
What do your children know of your story? Are you different than your parents and that you’re open about your journey?
Maeve O’Neill 03:46
They know everything, everything, and I think right or wrong, I’ve always told them everything. And early on, it was just you know, here’s who I am. Here’s, you know, kind of how we come to this, it’d be time to just find a reason to tell the story. And then they didn’t see our parents a lot. They would see other kids with their grandparents or people. And then for a while my dad lived with us when they were little. And they actually witnessed a time that he drank too much alcohol. And they were like, oh, that’s what you grew up with. And luckily, it wasn’t violent. It was just under the influence in a way they don’t normally see adults, you know, act and they’re like, oh, now I get it. And then we’ve had a couple of situations over the years where we’ve had to educate that and talk about that. And then I put them in Betty Ford’s Five Star Kid Program.
Margaret 04:40
Fabulous.
Maeve O’Neill 04:41
Having grown up with Jerry Moe in my life as a huge mentor, and you know, I adore him. The best. Yeah, if I credit my life to anybody, Jerry’s up there along with Sitz Wanger, and those guys, so Jerry met them at a conference. Gosh, they were probably like 10 and seven years old, but that guy’s cool. Oh, you know, and so then when they were, I think Aiden was turning 13. And Laney was 10. I put them in Betty Ford’s the program up here in Dallas. So, they went through that program and they both graduated. Gosh, that was such an, I can tell quick story with that.
Margaret 04:46
The best Yeah,
Maeve O’Neill 04:48
I’m going to try because this is a tough one not to cry too. But so, they were in the program. My son was a bit of a big kid. He’s a football player. So, he’s the oldest in the group of many, many younger kids. And Laney was seven and she’s a little bit more of an outgoing personality, a little bit tougher. So, I didn’t know how they were going to do I thought she’s probably not going to talk and he’s probably going to be like caretaking everyone because it’s just gonna be interesting. So, we dropped him off the first day. They both like, oh, come on. It’s like first day of summer break. Mom, do we have to do this? This is the dumbest thing ever. I have to give you every skill I know you can have you got to have these skills. Sure. So, they go and then we get in the car. We’re not picking them up. And Delaney who’s seven. She says, we learned about the backpack today. I said oh, the backpack where you put rocks in and it weighs and she’s like, oh, how do you know about the backpack? Okay, I kind of have some degrees and licenses behind my name. But that’s okay. They taught you about the backpack? That’s good. Yeah, at that point, she loved it. That was amazing. And Aiden was like, yeah, it was kind of nice. I had a good time. So went back the next day. And the final day, we got to go back and be with all the families, you know, and these kids in the group, their parents had passed away, their parents were locked up, they were in treatment, like, our kids are kind of like, our mom and dad’s right here. And they’re pretty cool. And we were still married at the time. You know, I think I kind of felt like, wow, our lives are not that bad, you know. So then afterwards, they pull us, of course, to our little family session. And I remember Kyle says to me, you know, Delaney shocked us today in our group. And I thought, oh, what did she can be a little bit. I wonder what she would have said to them, you know, and she sort of teared up. And she said, as we were going around the circle, all the kids were sharing what they had learned and what they liked. And she said, Laney says to the group, in her 10-year-old little voice, she said, you know, my family isn’t like your families in some ways. And I feel bad for the situation that you guys have to go through. And I’m grateful that my family, you know, doesn’t have some of these problems that your family has, then she goes, but now I wonder what it was like for my mom growing up. Oh, my God, you could not pay for that kind of empathy. Right? And she got it at that point. And the way she’s looked at me since that day has shifted, because she sees I think in me those little kids like, oh, that’s what my mom had to deal with. So, I can see her go to you know, even now she’s a teenager, she’s almost 18 You know, she sees that little girl sometimes and it shifts who she is, which is pretty cool.
Margaret 07:37
Wow, what a gift you are to your children that you shared your stories and you’ve been open but you’ve also afforded them resources and you know, one of the greatest things I think we gift our children is that mental health, rehabilitation, any kind of care on that scope is just like one of the doctor for physicals and going to the dentist for teeth. And you gave them that beginning at a nice young age to know that it’s okay. Yep, yep. Yep. In fact, they probably was eight and I remember early on maybe the early days of COVID or before COVID. He said, why doesn’t every high school kid have a counseling session every week? Don’t wait for a problem or an issue, like we should all just have it all the time. It’s preventative, would that makes sense.
Maeve O’Neill 08:18
Wish you could run the world.
Margaret 08:21
Wise Very wise. Yes. Why do we wait till the crisis or the bomb?
Maeve O’Neill 08:24
Right, right.
08:27
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09:26
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Margaret 09:38
So, the reason I reached out to you was you put a post on LinkedIn under the umbrella of All Sober but you wrote in there so eloquently and beautifully about being the child of and being raised in the family. I was really moved by that because we don’t see that lens very often and it’s obviously the lens I’m passionate about putting out there. So, I really appreciate your candor and your vulnerability, and your willingness to share that story. And also, be here to share it with the audience. When you look back over your journey in the field, your family you knew you get into helping? What parts of your recovery journey? Are you willing to share? Like what tools or resources? What has your evolution looked like in your own personal journey of recovery?
Maeve O’Neill 10:31
Well, I think I’m really lucky in that I started working in the field, so young. I was 18, my first job and in a treatment center. So, I pretty early on wasn’t doing what maybe other 18 year olds were doing. So, I’ve never developed what I consider to be an addiction. I’m not a non-drinker, but I’m not a heavy drinker. And I haven’t immersed myself in a recovery community. But I think because of the work that I do, I’m around people like me, I’m not around a lot of people that party or do a lot of that stuff. You know, we’ve got other stuff going on. We’re obviously very good, hardworking, committed parents. So that’s kind of been more with the circle that I’ve been around. I’ve certainly had people in my life personally in the family that we’ve had to navigate to treatment. And I actually feel really lucky to be able to do that. Someone say, well, here’s what’s going on, what do you think and help them to find that? I think that’s critical, because like you said, I think it should just be normal, you’d ask me, a dentist that I know, or a doctor or a primary care, you know, physician and ask me about therapists, and treatment centers, and meetings and all that good stuff. So, to me, it just sort of has been the world that I live in on a regular basis. And probably early on. I’ve had to navigate that because I’m not in recovery myself. I mean, I think recovery is where we are all kind of in recovery in some ways. But am I worthy to work with those people then since I don’t have that story? I remember early on the treatment they would say, well, how much time do you have? At first? I would oh, do I have to, should I lie? Like, should I make up that I’m in recovery and I finally got people saying it’s my family. And people react like oh, okay, so most people react in a very positive way that I and myself not in recovering, I can own that. But I think I have something to offer. Because of my family recovery and the things that I’ve learned it can help with so I’ve never had a problem with it. Once I got comfortable that it was a good contribution to bring.
Margaret 12:18
Boy, you’re singing my song. I remember landing at Hazelden coming out of the relationship. And I had that side of recovery. Like I knew I was a mess. I knew I needed help. But I didn’t know what help I needed. Thankfully, was given the grace to be around amazing people who directed me to Al-Anon directed me to therapy, directed me in ways to find recovery tools, but I remember sitting in the units, dreading the moment someone was going to say, so what’s your story? When did you use? How did you get sober? And had fellow students say to me, you have no business working in this field? Because you are not, you know, so you’re not alone in that. And one of the wise people, Elsa Sorenson, she was an amazing woman at Hazelden Betty Ford, and she ran one of the units I worked on. And at the time, I was in complete denial of my own food addiction, which came to light later. But she said to me, do you get through life by mood altering? Are you using to live your life? And I said, no, I don’t drink. I don’t use drugs, she says, then you’re role modeling everyday what our clients are trying to learn. You have place here.
Maeve O’Neill 13:33
That’s right. Oh, that’s good.
Margaret 13:34
I was like, okay, okay, I could do this. But it turned out, you know, my own fraudulence and my own addiction, very painful part of my journey in the field until I got clear and got help. Did you ever get directed to Al-Anon Alateen? Any of those resources when you were younger, navigating this?
13:54
Maeve O’Neill: No, I mean, that’s funny, I look back and I share a lot of my story in my ethics and compliance training that I find it almost shocking that as a kid, given how we were that no one ever intervened. I’m kind of surprised that a school counselor or teacher or someone never said or did anything, and I don’t know if that’s true, we all just presented really well, or I don’t know. No, I never had any kind of intervention or support. Although our family friends now would say, you know, they kind of laugh oh your family, you know, we would show up and we would take you guys for the weekends. They were doing it without us knowing that’s what they were doing. They were just loving on us and giving us that time and attention and kind of supporting our parents in ways they probably felt that they could. And then our immediate family, we had been estranged from them and we came back together later in life. And they too just sort of said we wish we could have done more, and you know, been around more but we weren’t being received well. So, we connected now we have cousins on my dad’s side that we reconnected with and that we’re very, very close with. So that’s a good thing. And maybe it’s a different time now let me know teachers are trained to recognize, you know, abuse or to ask those questions and all that. And I was in school early on getting my associates in addiction counseling. So went to those meetings for those purposes. And certainly, with the treatment centers I worked in, I would gravitate towards those meetings. So, I feel like I live and breathe the 12 steps, I understand them, I get it, but never formally went through it. Because then of course, you know, when you work in the field, and I go to the meetings, what if I see a client there? So, then I was always like, I need the information, but I don’t know that I can be in the community if I’m serving the community. So, it’s always really hard for me. So like, became a very active learner and reader. And as I got on, through my degree processes, I learned a lot and without directly going through and working a program.
Margaret 15:44
And I don’t know that that’s that uncommon. You know, I think that some of us heal ourselves through a diverse platform of ways. It’s
Maeve O’Neill 15:52
yeah,
Margaret 15:52
reading, it’s listening to stories. It’s identifying with it’s picking up nuggets, it’s sitting in therapy for 10 years, it varies. It’s going to meetings, it’s what happened we find. Were you angry ever at the adults not noticing or not intervening? Did you ever go golly would somebody do something? Or were you just truly surviving? So that didn’t?
16:17
Maeve O’Neill: Yeah, I don’t remember as a kid being angry. I just remember more. So, there was adults in our lives, formative part of our years were in New Orleans, and we lived in the French Quarter. And it was pretty chaotic time, we went to a wonderful school, though, called the Free School, which was sort of the beginnings of the Montessori. But even more free, it was very much run by a group of hippies. And those adults in that circle, I just knew they loved us. I knew they loved us. And I knew that they accepted us. And I remember kind of thinking they knew what was going on, they just weren’t going to say, and maybe they were intervening in the background, I don’t know. I remember just feeling like okay, they get it, there could be a safe person, if I needed it, or we’ll just go to their house. There was a lady next door to us. And one of the places we lived, that I remember going to her house when he was Linda, go to Linda’s house and just sit on Linda’s porch. So, I remember just finding those safe places that didn’t necessarily say, oh, your family has this problem, but they were just available. And I think that’s what we can do in our schools, and our communities, even our treatment centers, you don’t always have to be like, in the clinical framework, right? We can just be there and be with people. And that’s pretty powerful.
Margaret 17:25
You’re right. I mean, it’s very much a part of who you are and how you came through this life. I mean, you gravitated to those people, you sought them, they were given to you, universe brought them to your life, however, the language is. But it sounds like your skill or approach to life has been to find the example that you wanted, or find people that you needed, family of choice versus family of birth, whatever language works for people.
Maeve O’Neill 17:54
Yes, yes.
Margaret 17:55
And that’s a huge skill that our children, I would think are even finding harder through COVID When we were so shut down and isolated that we couldn’t be with those other people who were positive influences in our lives.
Maeve O’Neill 18:09
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.
Margaret 18:10
Very hard time for many, many people.
Maeve O’Neill 18:12
Yes, I can imagine that. Luckily, we have the technology. So maybe they have phones, or laptops or iPads, they could seek it out online, I would hope that would be the case.
Margaret 18:22
Right, I would to. My observation of young people through COVID. Granted, I had a small window, because it was my exchange student, my youngest, and my oldest, were in the home, they had each other which was good and bad, drove each other crazy. The technology at first was incredibly intimidating, didn’t want to do it, they were afraid to do it. Even though they’re always on their phones, it was different. And having to encourage them to pick up the phone or zoom or connect, because the TikTok’s and the just mind numbingness of watching and escaping was more appealing than having to force yourself to do this. Whereas in school you’re visiting all day long,
Maeve O’Neill: Right?
Margaret: That was a challenge. And I’m sure you experienced your own version of that adjustment.
19:08
Meave O’Neill: Yeah, I think we’re lucky. We’re next school community here that the teachers seem to get that, you know, put your camera on for maybe a minute, turn it off, if you don’t feel comfortable, speak up if you want to. I feel like we were very lucky in honoring each person sort of challenges with it. And luckily, we kind of got through it. And my son went off to college, his first year of college was still at the end of of the COVID stuff. So, it was certainly an adjustment but you know, feeling like you have choice here, we don’t have choice in that. That can be really hard. So, in a weird way. I remember feeling like I feel like my kids grew up in this bubble like we were so protective and so careful to give them a different life. I don’t think we’re finding something in their life. That’s going to be difficult. Finally, some challenges. So, I’m proud of how they got through it. Then of course the divorce happened the exact same time.
Margaret 19:52
A lot happened.
Maeve O’Neill 19:53
Separated just months before COVID happened. So, it was a lot at one time. So, there’s been a lot of talking about that and I wish it wasn’t so hard but you know I know that is life to. Life can throw these things at us that we have to navigate.
Outro: In the next and final episode with Maeve O’Neill we discussed her expansive career in the field and the exciting project she’s currently working on to help all of those suffering from the disease of addiction, those who love them and those working in the field. There is an exciting resource in this episode that I’m thrilled to be sharing with our listeners.
Margaret 20:36
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!
