Welcome back to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Today I continue my conversation with Linda and Stephen, two of the stars of the documentary feature film, Our American Family. Our American Family is a courageous film made by a courageous family who generously allow us into their lives so the world can understand better the impact of this disease on a family system.
In this episode Linda and Stephen talk about the impact on themselves and their other family members. They share how they are living in the shadow of the disease addiction and how that has shaped their lives.
Intro 00:01
You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, a place for real conversations with people who love someone with the disease of addiction. Now here is your host, Margaret Swift Thompson.
Margaret 00:26
Welcome back today on the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, we pick up our conversation with Linda and Stephen, two of the stars of the documentary feature film, Our American Family. Our American family is a courageous film made by a very brave family who generously allow us into their lives so the world can better understand the impact of the disease of addiction on an entire family system.
In this episode, Linda and Stephen talk about the impact on themselves and the other family members. They share how they are living in the shadow of the disease of addiction, and how that has shaped their life.
Bumper 02:09
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 02:20
Opiate addiction can be hidden, not always well, but it can be hidden. Your mother’s disease was front center, out there. You lived in a world where you grew up where everyone was judging, or you assumed judging what was right in front of their face.
Linda 02:43
Yep. And nobody was fixing it. Nobody was even, I’ve been writing memoir. My sister and I fact checked with her, and now she’s like, where were our relatives when things like it was insane. It was absolutely she was like, 60 pounds. Like, that was her norm. 65/60 pounds. And they just kept giving her, you know, children, other people’s children. She would take in, babies. She would take in and babysit all day. And you’re like, where are the people you know? And we do develop a sense of humor around them, because you kind of have to, but you do wonder where are the people?
Margaret 03:23
And if it wasn’t spoken about in any kind of kind, honest, open way. If people weren’t, and again, another illness that people didn’t talk about, even if it was right in front of them, but talked around them. Mm, hmm. And so why would you not assume that’s going on everywhere?
03:43
Linda: Yeah, most people in my town thought she had cancer. So, they just thought my mom was sick with cancer, and that would have been easier for me. There’s not one person I knew growing up. There were alcoholic parents I knew, but there was nobody that had a mom like that, it was very lonely.
Margaret 04:04
Did you feel lonely, Stephen, growing up?
Stephen 04:07
Um, that’s a great question. I felt I felt lonely within myself. I always had a great group of friends that I was able to distract myself, and I’m still really good friends with those guys today. Um, but I felt lonely a lot.
I wasn’t able to tell what lonely really did feel like, because in school, I presented myself always as a fun, vibrant person that would. You would never expect me to be going through what I was going through as I presented myself in school. And because of that, I was able to have friends that come from extremely different backgrounds than me. So, if I were, you know, later on down the line, I would tell them things about my family that might honestly influence their decision on staying friends with me or not, when I was a kid. But I did have that solid group. I don’t think that I felt lonely to the degree that some people do feel lonely. So, I would feel bad for saying if I ever had those moments.
05:02
Linda: So, it was really hard. Christopher had an accident. It’s a long story, but he had to have facial reconstruction, and they gave him the opiates, and this was back in, like he was a sophomore in high school,
Stephen: 2013
Linda: Yeah, so Nicole was already an addict, like she had already been through rehabs, but I didn’t know. Like you said, I didn’t know about the Sackler family, I didn’t know about all that stuff. So, I put the bottle of pills next to him and went to work. And so, you can imagine, Nicole hung out a lot more. You know, people started hanging out a lot more, and this was in the home that I’m married with Brian, that where everything was supposed to be better, you know.
So, by the time he was 18, all the signs were there, but I didn’t see it, even though I had been through it before. And so, when he walked out on his 18th birthday, that was really hard for me, but Stephen, I remember making his bed, and it broke my heart, and he put a note under his pillow, and it just said, like, my brother’s gone. And it was like, because they were so close, and they were always doing stuff together. And it just broke my heart, because it did like, you know, that’s how it feels. You know, they’re gone.
Margaret 06:17
Even though they’re alive, they’re not themselves, so they feel gone,
Stephen: Yeah, especially. That was one of the hardest years of my life by far. You know, you share a room with your older brother that you do everything with for 15 straight years, and then out of nowhere, you know, he makes a decision that really did affect his affect his life in the long run.
We always talked about how, if you know, our dad probably wasn’t a good person to go to, even when we’re adults, you know, we don’t want to have a connection with him because of the things that he did in the past were just too, just too significant to let go of. I guess I hold those values. But you know, in that moment, the drugs just mean everything, and he knew that he could go over there and have an environment to safely use for quite some time.
Margaret 07:10
When you were younger, because I hear this also from the sibling. You’re sort of straddling that relationship with your siblings and seeing things, knowing things and protecting, not protecting, who to tell, not to tell. Did you ever struggle with that around what you knew? Maybe before your parents knew?
07:30
Stephen: Maybe when I was younger, in middle school, when I was in high school, everybody did know that there was some drug addiction, within my family, I think that there was somewhat of a little bit of a hero complex there, because I was not doing hard drugs. So, when people would ask me, like, how do you come from this but not do it yourself? You know, it kind of makes you want to stay on the right track, because you’re already talking to people that are acknowledging that you’re on the right track, so you might as well stick with it. And you know, there’s bumps and bruises along the way, but
Margaret: Right?
Stephen: That’s not my entire experience with that. It’s just so complex to really delve into the entire the entire thing.
Margaret 08:10
I’ve had many youngsters say, I will never be like, I will never use like,
Stephen: Yeah,
Margaret: I will never end up like. And what we know is we don’t know who in the family will have the disease versus who in the family can socially use without consequence.
And do you remember either of you on your journeys having those thoughts? Maybe you Linda about your relationship with food. You Stephen with substances. Did you see that in either of your siblings, you know, say they would never be and yet, here they were, which just proves to me that it’s a no fault disease. We don’t know who has it or not.
08:50
Stephen: I can answer this, you know, I’ve said so many times to friends, myself and everybody you know, when it gets to the level of going a little bit harder, especially after sobriety time, why can’t they just smoke weed? Why can’t they just stick with drinking? Why can’t they just, or just not do anything? Why can’t they just stick with the program that they’ve been given because they’ve been handed so much, they’ve been all given all these resources, jobs, programs, everything. So why can’t they just stick with it?
Or, you know, more simplistically to the conversation, I would say, like, you know, like when they get so much sober time, why? Why do anything more than more than marijuana or alcohol? And then that’s my you know, also just not understanding everything in its entirety with addiction.
Margaret: Right?
Stephen: And when I ask myself that I know that I need to read a little bit more, I know that I need to do a little bit more educating myself, because that opinion is just clouded by my own frustrations.
Margaret 09:47
Understandably, as a human, it is incredibly frustrating. It’s like I find that after a loved one’s been sober for a while and then relapse, it’s really hard on the fan. Only because it’s like what we’ve done, this you got here, how could? And there’s grief, and then there’s resistance, and there’s anger and all the feelings that go along with that. And if it were easy to stay sober and use recovery tools, it would be done. If someone could use pot and never go back to heroin, it would be done. Cross addiction is a very real thing, and that can include behavioral addictions you know, that lead someone back to using and so your emotions are understandable. And what I work really hard with families to do is put them at the foot of the disease that constantly gets away scott free from all responsibility, rather than the person, which is really hard to do when they’re intertwined in the same person, right,
10:49
Linda: Right? Well, you know, I say, like, with the so I don’t want to, you know, just say everything. But as far as, like, we’ll say Nicole, right, just because I’m trying to make a point. When I know that this is the disease that’s talking, and I know that I will say the Nicole from five months ago would look at this very moment and laugh at me if I fell for the shit.
So, I’m not going to, because I trust that Nicole not what’s in front of me right now. And also, the Nicole, hopefully in the future that’s going to be sober is going to look back on this moment and say the same thing, you hate me in the future. You hate me in the past. You hate me everywhere in between. But then when it comes down to it, they always say, thank you for holding that line. But while you’re holding that line, you’re evil. You’re absolutely evil to them or to the disease,
Margaret: to the disease,
Linda: Yeah, absolutely so I just don’t talk to the disease. And I say that when things are going nuts, I’ll just say, you know, I love you very much. And they could be like throwing so much stuff at me, but I just like, I love you very much. I’m not. I’m gonna hang up, cause I’m not talking to your disease. I do not have anything to say to it.
Margaret 12:04
I think that’s a very healthy way to discern between the two, even though it gets so blurry, is to be clear when I’m being abused by somebody who I know normally is not that way. If they’re not using I know I’m dealing with the disease, and I’m not going to play with the disease, because I’ll never win,
Linda: Right?
Margaret: And it’s like talking to the wall. So, I love you when you can talk to me as my child, my sibling, I’m here. I will not play with this disease. It’s too scary for me, too upsetting for me.
Bumper 12:34
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Margaret 12:38
Hi. I am Margaret swift Thompson, and I am 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.
I want to let you know that I’m coming back with family coaching so I’m starting the Embrace Family Recovery Coaching Group. I want to make sure people know that this is a group, and it’s a coaching group, 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 find out more, learn more. And if you have any questions at all, please reach out to me by email at Margaret@nullembracefamilyrecovery.com
Bumper 14:19
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Margaret 14:30
So, I was curious with the movie. The other thing that I was struck by the chaos of the disease was so prevalent, like I could feel it in my bones when the movie started, like the chaos and the insanity of the disease the stories, even though, again, I think, without saying too much, not everybody was using at that point. But what was wild to watch, and feel was how as the movie went on, the level of that lowered little bit by little bit by little bit. It was beautiful. It was like the profound impact of what recovery can do for helping a family.
Linda: Yes, yeah.
Margaret 15:16
What makes me really excited is that you do recovery work. Linda, yeah, you do. You deserve to do it, and I’m glad you do it. And so, it sounds like Al-Anon is part of it. Dharma Recovery is part of it.
15:32
Linda: I do. It’s, it’s, we do a lot of meditation, so that’s where my part is, and it’s for process addictions too. So that’s how I qualify. And also, I do parent support group. And when I’m going on these trips, some places don’t have what we have, so I share resources with them and help them sometimes get parents work group started. So yeah, I feel like it’s, I’m very lucky to be able to do it, because a lot of moms don’t have that privilege. So, yeah, it’s a privilege. I have to do it, you know.
Margaret 16:08
How about you? Stephen, what do you do for recovery?
16:12
Stephen: I studied psychology in school. I went to Al-Ateen meetings growing up in the movie at the very end, it does say that I want to, you know, I aspire to work in the field. I still aspire to work in the field, absolutely, it just wasn’t my own first pick right out of college, just because so many things going on in the family at the time that I was personally dealing with directly,
Linda: I’m not gonna say
16:35
Stephen: no, just directly with addiction.
Linda: I was just gonna say, like, I’m being a mom, but like, I’m just protect you
Stephen: Be a mom
Linda: they did drive you nuts. Like.
16:45
Stephen: They absolutely drove me nuts.
Margaret: Whose they?
Stephen: Yeah, so my brother, my brother and sister definitely, like, drove me nuts throughout my life, in a way that you know, probably made me, um, view human beings differently, that were, that were struggling for for a while. So, you know, I don’t have those same feelings anymore, but studying psychology in school, my main goal was to eventually go work into the recovery field. It still is. It still eventually is.
Margaret 17:15
Can you see Steven that the disease is what drove everything nuts?
17:20
Stephen: Yes, yes, I really did see that. It was the, you know, the disease of addiction is what kind of like makes families drift apart. It was what was making my brother not my brother. It was what was taking my sister, not my sister. And so why would you know I was trying to make a decision toward the end of college there, like I didn’t know if I was mentally strong enough to be around that every single day.
Margaret 17:43
I respect that. Yeah, a lot of us get into the helping field for all the wrong reasons, because we think we can help everyone else, which will make us feel better. That doesn’t work. So, if you end up doing your own work to get to a point where you’re ready to do that work, you’re going to be on fire in the industry.
18:01
Stephen: Yeah, I agree, yeah. And I wasn’t addressing things that I was going through, depression wise, anxiety wise. I was going on to zoom therapy meetings, right as COVID did start, instead of actually going in person. And that was definitely the start of the decline to my mental health, for sure. Just not addressing the things that I should have been personally addressing my eating habits, which were not normal, and also the way that I viewed myself wasn’t entirely high.
So, I, you know, got to a breaking point and decided to address that. Go into an IOP program for depression, learn about more, you know, group therapy three times a week, even a little bit more than that beforehand, but that was really beneficial for me.
I’m still looking into more therapeutic services, maybe even some music therapy. I play guitar too. So, you know, just knowing and falling back in line with personal things about myself is what will eventually help and hope, hopefully make me have better days.
Margaret 19:00
Well, and the other piece of that is that you come from a family where you’ve been given the gift of parents’ role modeling. It’s okay to get help.
Stephen: Yeah, yes,
Margaret: This is a gift. A lot of us did not have that gift growing up.
19:14
Stephen: It’s the biggest gift in the world, and it’s what I definitely will pride myself about being a dad on, is just being able to, you know, raise Ellie and teach her things about addiction exactly the way that I was taught to and, you know, hopefully even, you know, get the help of my mom and step dad within that to, you know, make it even better. So, you know, it’s, it’s just a big learning journey.
Margaret 19:37
It is life is, isn’t it? Oh yeah, my sponsor says, when you’re green, you’re growing, when you’re ripe, you’re rotting. I’m not sure I want to ever rot, so I’ll keep growing, even though growing sucks, because it’s painful,
19:48
Linda: it’s hard.
Margaret 19:50
So, you’ve mentioned it’s there’s been a lot since the show was put out and filmed. Are you willing to talk about. Where things are at as you’ve moved forward, because I know I’m not going to say where the movie ended, because I want again people to watch it. But how are members of the family doing now? Stephen, you just shared you went through your own outpatient and attended to your mental health, which kudos to you.
20:16
Stephen: Thank you. Thank you. That was somewhat recent too. That was a couple of months ago. So awesome, getting back in the swing of things with work and, you know, really just trying to take what I learned.
Margaret 20:27
It’s good, good for you.
20:28
Linda: I mean, they’re both struggling. Brian, I would say, watching him really see it because, because he got to know, you know, there’s sobriety for a long time you get to know that person, and when that person goes away, I mean, I’m a little more equipped, because I’ve been through it, you know, he never was up until this point. And, um, you know, I had to tell him like you might have to go to Al-Anon, now because, you know, you’re trying to put a band aid on Niagara Falls here. It’s not happening, you know, but he came along like, it’s just hard to watch your husband grieve,
Margaret: Yes,
Linda: over your kids, you know.
Margaret: It also shows how much he loves them. He loves them so much, you know, wouldn’t grieve and wouldn’t feel if there wasn’t a lot of love there.
21:18
Linda: Yeah, and there’s so much potential, like in both of them, and it’s just so hard to watch a person just disappear, and not only disappear, but turn into something that they’re not. So, it’s, you know, it’s been hard, good, hard, good, you know? It’s just the way it is. In the movie, Nicole said something that we get sober, but we don’t get ,better, better or good. And you know, what she was really saying in that moment was, you know, you have to do a program. You have to do something besides get sober. So, all I’ll say is that wasn’t happening. So, you know, that was the for me, that was the problem. But, you know, I can’t speak on that, because then I’m stepping on outside of my stuff. And it’s not for me to say,
Margaret: Right,
Linda: but what I will say is, that’s what I experienced.
Margaret 22:12
And you’re raising your granddaughter,
Linda: Yes, who is now, eight.
Margaret: Eight. How do you juggle the boundaries of protecting her from Mom’s disease while still having a relationship when it’s possible
22:29
Linda: you’re getting us when we’re hot?
Margaret: Okay, yeah, well, we don’t have to go here.
Linda: It’s raw. Well, all I’ll say is it sucks like hell. It’s the worst thing that I’ve ever had to do, because I love my daughter and my granddaughters, of course, however, there’s a reason why Nicole gave her to me, and there’s a reason why even when she was sober, she didn’t gain custody.
And those reasons are because she wasn’t quite ready, and also, she maybe didn’t know if she was going to relapse, so she wanted to protect G from who she is now, right? So, it’s really hard, because she hates me.
Margaret: Her disease hates you
Linda: but the disease hates me, but we have to protect G like there’s so much minimizing going on right now. So as far as the boundaries go. Brian, I had to get Brian in the same space, because we have to be on the same page. And I waited for him to go through a little bit of that process until it was like, yo. we got, you know, we got to do something here. This is ridiculous. So, we did, and we made we drew a hard, hard, hard line in the sand this week. But when you do that, you know people say, oh, you know, when you go to these speaking engagements, and people say, gosh, you the one thing about your family, you stick together. And I’m like, but that’s a trap when you say that to me, because when you say that to me, what I hear is you expect me to always have my kids around the kitchen table, and even, you know, and do this.
And what I say is, sometimes being there for my kid means not being there at all, means cutting them off, turning them off, like just turning them off for a while, because I have to be right. And not only that, then they have to, they have to maybe look at themselves because they’re not. They don’t have me to scream at.
Margaret 24:25
I’m so glad you said that. One of the things, again, in coaching families, especially parents and even partners, it’s so important to not give fodder to the disease to use against both of you. So not being the one to repeat things, not being the ones to tell them what to do, because if it goes wrong, it’s all your fault. Stepping out of the way so they the disease doesn’t have you to use as ammunition, is so important, but yet so counterintuitive and hard to do.
24:54
Linda: Yes, it is, and you have to catch up with yourself sometimes, yeah, because it happens so fast and yeah. I’m like, wait a minute. Wait what is happening right now? I’m like, walking on eggshells. I’m afraid of everything. This is not how I want to live, and it’s not necessary to live. You don’t have to live that way. You don’t have to live that way.
Margaret 25:14
Yeah, you don’t. I believe, and I think you both know this from watching you as a family. At some point, higher power willing. With sobriety, your daughter will thank you for not exposing her daughter to the ugliness of the disease.
25:34
Linda: And that’s the whole thing I want. And every day I say, oh, mommy’s so funny. It’s a different story in the other person’s head, but what I’m actually doing is saying all good things about her. Giovanna understands that she relapsed. She understands she’s sick. She understands it her her father died of an overdose a couple years ago. So, she knows her stepmother died, so she’s had a lot of loss, so she knows what this is, and we have conversations. She sees a therapist; she goes to grief counseling with a group. So, she does understand what it is, but I try really hard to not tell her how I feel about it, except to say I love your mom so much and I really want her to be happy, things like that, because it’s the truth. That’s what I mean.
Margaret 26:23
You heard about the children’s program at Hazelden?
26:28
Linda: No I don’t think so.
Margaret 26:31
G and you guys, whoever in the family wants to do it, probably you and Brian would be my recommendation, not that I’m clinically there to make that recommendation, take g to Palm Springs and have a vacation if you can do it, and go through the Children’s Program with your granddaughter.
Linda: Really.
Margaret: 7 through 13-year-old. Kids get to learn age appropriate, non-threatening. It’s one of the most magnificent programs I have ever had the privilege to witness. I wish every kid in the world
27:05
Linda: My God It is making me cry.
Margaret 27:06
It makes me cry because too many children don’t get this exposure. And you guys don’t go for the full time. So, you actually would get a vacation as a couple while she’s in the program during the day, but you get involved in the parts that are part of the parent or the Guardian part, I will send you information. I want you to do this
Linda: that sounds incredible.
Margaret: It is incredible.
27:29
Stephen: I consider myself a graduate of Al-Ateen, and that sounds like just another program that goes along with everything that I believe in the what our youth should be experiencing when it comes to the realities of addiction so important. That sounds incredible.
Margaret 27:43
It is incredible. And Stephen, when I think about you getting in the field, I don’t know you well, but I have a gut check that you’d be freaking amazing in that program.
27:52
Stephen: That would be great. I was a camp counselor for six years.
Linda: You know he would be so he used to run the Al-Ateen, the retreat.
Margaret 28:01
Maybe you need to go to get an exposure to it, but, you know, put it out to the universe, manifest it. Maybe it’s not supposed to happen yet, but I could just, I got the chills thinking about it, and I think that that’s just criminal to me, that you don’t know about it. So, we’re going to make that change. I’m going to contact them and find a way to make this happen, because G deserves to go through it, as do you guys. And one of the beautiful parts of it in in Palm Spring in California is it’s a great setting. They have these great accommodations at hotels around the area with, like, really fun swimming pools and all that stuff. You guys can go to Al Anon, there’s great recovery out there. She can go to a program; you can play at night and just take a break from life for a little while.
28:46
Linda: How long of a program is it?
Margaret 28:47
Three days.
28:49
Linda: Oh, that’s not bad
Margaret 28:51
Yeah It’s awesome. It was created by Jerry Moe. Do you know Jerry Moe? No, Jerry Moe created with Betty Ford, the president’s wife, the former president’s wife, they created this program.
Linda: Oh, okay, yeah.
Margaret: And Jerry also helped create the, I don’t know if you know this, which gives me such hope for our children, the Karli, the character on Sesame Street.
29:13
Linda: Yeah, oh yeah, yes.
Margaret 29:14
He helped create that storyline. And Karli’s mom is an addict, and so a kid sitting at home, Steven, think of yourself watching Sesame Street as a preschooler, being able to see Elmo talk to Karli about her mom going to meetings and that mom’s doing what she can to get well, like, it’s crazy cool. What’s happening?
29:33
Linda: that’s so awesome.
29:34
Stephen: My grandparents had to lie to me and say that my dad was going to spy camp when, you know, or there was other things too. But yeah, I would, I would. And then knowing, I remember being a little kid, knowing that he was not going to spy camp, but then just having to guess, like, what really is going on? I know, yeah, no, that was not you. But at the same
Margaret 29:53
time, and as a child, you come up with your own story, and it’s usually not great.
29:58
Linda: Yeah, we. Yeah, we tell G the absolute truth about not, I mean, AJ, but you know, she has no problem telling her friends that she’s allergic. She, she probably will be allergic to alcohol and drugs. We don’t know for a fact, but probably, you know, I would bet on it. I would hope not. I would be happy if she wasn’t,
Margaret: Of course,
Linda: But let’s just go forward thinking that might be that. And so we just call it an allergy. And you know,
Margaret: Which is, what it is,
Linda: Which is what it is, and people look at her like she’s a strong girl, you know, she doesn’t. She’s a whole different realm of a person. Like, I don’t know where she came from, because I don’t know. She lets us be in her world. That’s how I look at we get we get to hang out with Jay. That’s great,
Margaret 30:49
Stephen, you have a little one, yes, and you’re now a father, I bet she is. And so, you’re now facing the next stage of life, of raising a child in this world, knowing the risks, knowing the realities. How are you doing with it? I know she’s little, yet right? She’s, what, five months?
31:10
Stephen: Yeah, she’s five months old. She’ll be she’ll be six months two days after Christmas. But you know how we’re doing with it? I mean, it’s just as if it would look with, you know, a 2023, year old and the 26-year-old raising a baby and, you know, figuring things out. I mean, I think that we’re doing a good job, for what it’s worth. I know that we have all the plans to teach her about addiction. When that time does come
Especially with the next generations coming up, they absolutely need to be aware of it. They have their cell phones all day or just unlimited internet access. So even if they were never even exposed to drugs or alcohol, they can still be exposed to it through their phone. And I think that that’s a definitely a section and a big category within all of that that I want to focus on specifically when bringing it up with Ellie but, um, yeah, you know, I it is in raising, raising a baby too. It is about taking it one day at a time. So, I do take certain principles from the program and kind of try to try to adapt it within my own life, because they do work.
Margaret 32:21
They do. So, what is your relationship with your brother and sister as they struggle with your new baby? Like how your mom and stepdad have a strong boundary in place today?
Stephen: Yeah.
Margaret: And what are you doing? How are you coping?
32:33
Stephen: Um, so my boundaries are far less porous than they used to be. I did put a fence up recently, so the lines of communication aren’t necessarily there as my girlfriend, and I are parents to a five-month-old baby. I don’t want to be remotely a part of anything that would potentially put her in any harm’s way.
So, and I think that even they would be understanding of that right now
Where it was before I would probably play nice guy and be like, oh, you do need to talk to me right now about this. Okay? And probably go along with the conversation and the story that they’re telling in themselves, in their head. I’m cosigning that story, probably making it harder for my mom and stepdad at certain times. But I mean, I’m learning, you know, like I’m, still, especially being a dad, I’m learning. So, I had to put that fence up. I had to put up boundaries recently to just be able to focus on everything that is going on in my life. It’s a lot with work. It’s a lot with everything. So, I’m just, you know, it’s got to do it one day at a time.
Margaret 33:37
It’s amazing what loving another human being who is unable to protect themselves will do for helping you make boundaries that are in your best interests as well.
Stephen: Certainly.
Margaret: And yes, in their clear mind, they would never want to jeopardize your family, your child. They’re you’re any of you.
33:59
Stephen: I’m just talking in the realm of like, arguments that could happen, or just like, I don’t even want my baby to be around anywhere where the volume is too high on the TV.
Margaret 34:10
I get it, I get it, and I respect it, and I respect your humility to say you’re, you know, work in progress, and you’re growing. And, my God, Stephen, if, if all of us could be that tender hearted and also gracious to people in our lives who are struggling, to want to give them the space to be with them, but also, know, on some level, I have to put me first, which is really hard to do when you’ve not been in a family where that’s necessarily been promoted. Not for any fault of anyone’s, but because of necessity.
Stephen: Yeah, absolutely.
Margaret: And you’re doing that. You’re doing that with your daughter and yourself.
34:53
Linda: Yeah, there’s been a huge shift in you in the past six months. Huge. I haven’t told that too. Yeah, there’s been some things that came up where, you know, he just took care of business. He was like, here’s your plane ticket. Go like, it was just like, you’re not staying here, you know, that kind of thing. And he’s saying what’s really inside of him more, and not just what people want to hear. And I’m so happy about that. Yeah,
35:20
Stephen: Yeah, yeah. I think it’s important. I think it’s important to, you know, because of at certain times in my life, I didn’t even know what I was thinking. I just knew what I thought I had to say, yeah,
Linda: there’s a lot of that going on with you.
Margaret 35:35
There’s a really visibly representative child’s book out there that speaks to this called the dragon that lives in our house. And in this story, it’s the dad who has the disease, and the dragon is this little dragon on their shoulder that over time in the disease grows bigger and bigger to the point that it pushes dad, mom, child, out of the house. And the dad chooses to get help and starts hanging out with a guy who has a dragon on their shoulder, but it’s little. And then finally, dads gets little again, through the recovery work, through being with that person.
And what I envisioned when you said that, that I didn’t even necessarily know what I was thinking, or I would say what I thought for others, or whatever the concept is that we adapt to, you didn’t have a lot of room in your house because the disease was so big to take the time to feel, to acknowledge, to know, to understand, because everybody else’s issues were so much bigger.
36:39
Linda: Yeah, yeah,
36:41
Stephen: Boy is that the truth.
36:42
Linda: It really is the truth. You know, with the you hear about it so many times about like, their issue is bigger at the moment, and I say it in the movie too.
Margaret: You did,
Stephen: You know, a lot of the time I did feel as if, like, the littlest thing that was going on in their life definitely overshadowed what I was going through, and what I was going through was I thought that, you know, going to student council meetings, growing up and being a part like, you know, a couple years I played football, wrestled and played baseball. So just like, very busy sports wise and stuff and things would happen, I would have stories coming home from school, coming home from practice and whatnot. If I tried to share one of those stories at the dinner table, I’d probably get cut off and laughed at for absolutely no reason. But um, then, you know, as it went on, they weren’t as harsh with it, but saw how harsh I was being on myself,
Margaret: Right?
Stephen: So at that point, they just won.
Margaret: The disease was definitely in charge, right?
37:42
Stephen: Yeah, definitely.
Linda: Yeah. And you know, you, you just worked so hard at not being a problem, yeah, that you became a problem to yourself
37:56
Stephen: exactly, yeah, exactly, not knowing who I was, and, like, getting very lost and with what I would want to do career wise. And you know, so, yeah, it’s just very important to focus on yourself,
Margaret 38:09
The old analogy that never fails, put your own oxygen mask on first before you try and put it on anyone else. And yet that’s so counterintuitive.
As a mother flying because I’m from Bermuda originally, and I’d be taking my kids home to see my family.
And I would laugh, and I’m in the field working, I’d laugh when they say that, like you think I’m not putting it on my baby first, until I finally talked to a pilot and says, do you know how long you have before you can’t function? There’s no way you’re getting it on your babies. And then you, and either of you are probably coming out alive, right? And that’s what this is about. If we don’t put our own oxygen mask on as loved ones, and we don’t take care of ourselves one day at a time, we’ll die alongside them. This disease will take us out.
38:53
Linda: You’re absolutely right, and that means doing things that are joyful, even when they’re in the worst possible place,
Margaret: Correct?
Linda: Because if I don’t do that, then what do they look like? I’m doing it for me, but also it, what kind of example am I if they do want to come Around. I’m going to be in the ditch too, you know, somebody’s got to be living, you know? So, yeah, I feel strongly about that. I don’t always live it. I do fall into depression. Sometimes I do go there. So I’m not perfect, but I do have the tools, and I do find my way, but sometimes it’s really hard. You know, when life keeps knocking you down. It’s hard. It’s just anybody’s life, even without addiction, if it keeps knocking you down, you’re like, What the heck. But this disease has made us extremely strong, too.
Margaret 39:49
No doubt about it,
Linda: Yeah.
Margaret: No doubt about it.
Outro:
I am incredibly grateful to Linda, Stephen and the rest of this brave family for giving us the honest window into the multi-generational impact of the family disease of addiction.
They clearly demonstrate addiction is an all-encompassing force in not only the lives of the afflicted, but also everyone who surrounds them.
Tragically, I have an update to their family story with the devastating news that Christopher, Linda’s middle child lost his battle with addiction not long after we recorded this podcast.
We know that addiction is a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal illness though we hope and pray that death will never be the story for our loved ones.
Please hold Linda, Stephen and their entire family in your hearts and prayers.
Come back next week where we continue season 5 with a fascinating interview with good friends, Joe and Bob. They are men in long term recovery, retired from corporate worlds and Co-founded, East West Recovery Coaches. You’ll want to hear and the story of their recovery and their passion for serving others who are struggling with the disease of diction.
41:17
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website, embracefamilyrecovery.com.
Margaret 41:31
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you.
