Welcome back, I am honored to introduce you to Jason Lennox—a speaker, author, and recovery champion.
He shares his powerful journey through addiction, trauma, and transformation. From early exposure to substance use in his family to his own descent into homelessness, arrests, and near-fatal overdose.
Jason opens up about the pivotal moment at age 24 that led him to choose life, healing, and purpose.
With unflinching honesty, he speaks about the fear of letting go of addiction, the pain of generational cycles, and the hard-won lessons of recovery. Jason’s story is a testament to the resilience of the human spirit—and a reminder that change is always possible, even in the darkest moments. Please meet Jason Lennox.
Click here to grab your copy of Healthy Strategies for Family Members to Cope and Even Thrive Through Addiction and receive my weekly newsletter.
Bumper 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: I’m honored to introduce you to Jason Lennox a speaker, author, and recovery champion.
He shares his powerful journey through addiction, trauma, and transformation from early exposure to substance use in his family to his own descent into homelessness, arrests, and near fatal overdose. Jason opens up about the pivotal moment at age 24 that led him to choose life, healing, and purpose. With unflinching honesty Jason speaks about the fear of letting go of addiction, the pain of generational cycles, and the lessons of recovery.
Jason’s story is a testament to the resilience of human spirit and the reminder change is always possible even in the darkest moments. Please meet Jason Lennox.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:23
All right. Well, welcome everybody to the podcast. I am fortunate to be spending time today with Jason Lennox, who I will ask Jason, if you would introduce yourself as you would want the listeners to know you. How would you introduce yourself to this audience?
Jason Lennox 01:41
Well yeah, thanks for having me, Margaret. And the easy part about this is just finishing a rebranding process on my website, new logo. So, the logo really is the best introduction to me/ I’m Jason Lennox. And I call myself speaker, author, recovery champion. So, three things, and I love doing all three of those. So speaking, I do professional speaking, and, you know, just get to spend time with lots of different organizations there. Writing, I authored a book, a memoir, released about 15 months ago, and then recovery champion, I spend time as a person in recovery, in the recovery industry, as well as working with many organizations to really, I’d like to say, bring humanity to business, and business to humanity. Really thinking about the way that organizations do business and operate a business, and then obviously there are clinical services and non-clinical services. And usually those are sometimes two sides of the fence there. And have clinical people saying, well, it’s, it’s not all about the money. And then you have businesspeople saying, well, how come we can’t just produce outcomes when, you know, really, there’s a middle ground, and everybody should realize that we’re all doing the best. So those are the things that I get to do, and I absolutely love it. Most of the work I do with organizations, again, kind of on the business side, and outside of the speaking, I get to work with insurance, with regulators to really optimize those relationships and manage the risk, and just, you know, do business a little better. So that’s a little bit about me.
Margaret 03:24
I like the word recovery champion, the combination. I think that’s a really great phrase. And there’s been many recovery champions that have helped me along my path. Um, let’s just start with the founders right of the 12-step program. Those were recovery champion.
So, when it comes to that part of your life, you are a person in recovery, and are you from a family where there were aspects of this disease in your family, or were you the first person who identified as having the disease of addiction?
Jason Lenox 03:59
Yeah, it’s a good question. Very relevant. I come from a family where there’s just a long history of substance use, and you know, from my grandfather, and I don’t know much beyond a couple generations up, but you know, my grandfather struggled, I should say, with alcoholism. My dad struggled with drugs, alcohol mom had some bouts at earlier ages. Then I have different families, siblings have struggled at different times. My life went down one of the darker paths of any of them but definitely sprinkled all over both sides of my family, maternal and paternal.
Margaret 04:39
So obviously anything I ask if it’s something you’re not comfortable answering, I know you won’t. When you look at your childhood, because I find this really helpful for families to hear at any point, did you think there was a problem with either of your parents’ use personally, at what age did you notice it, what’s your memories of that when you were growing up?
Jason Lennox 05:03
Yeah, I would say my mom, she really has always figured out a way to just kind of manage and do well. And she raised, you know, four of us kids at times alone. So, I would say, by the time I was old enough to remember, there was nothing really, you know, obvious or problematic in her life. My father was not really around a ton. I spent most of my years the years I did spend around him were my very early years, so I don’t have a lot of memories. We did get connected and start to build a little bit of a relationship, as I was in junior high. But by then and I, and at that point, then I knew that there were some concerns, but growing up, not really having him, I just knew that there was something that was going on with him. I didn’t know what that was, so it just was never really something growing up that I looked around and thought, and frankly, you know, a lot of just family gatherings, things like that were at, you know, the American Legion and places like that. And so, it’s just kind of the norm for me, and I wouldn’t have spotted anything out of the ordinary.
Margaret 06:15
When you look at your dad and not being in your life. Was that due to his addiction or substance use disorder, mental illness, like was that known to you as to why he wasn’t there?
Jason Lennox 06:29
I didn’t know a ton I knew. And I believe the message I was given was, you know, he was sick, and there were just some things going on. And as I got into junior high, and we did go find him. So, I was born in Massachusetts, and that’s why there was such a distance. He did live here for a little bit, but he moved back to Massachusetts. My mom moved out here because her father was from southern Minnesota, where I’m, you know, spent most of my life. And when we did go back, we started getting into some trouble. And I have an older brother from the same father, and then I have a younger brother and younger sister from a man that she was married to. And after they got divorced, we moved to this smaller town, I started getting into some trouble for the first time as again junior high, and she sent us out to Massachusetts go see our father.
You know, I think thinking that if we saw the shape he was in and the life he was living, maybe we would clean up our acts, because I had started experimenting with drugs at that point, you know, as a very not even a teenager, right, 12/13, and started failing classes, and my brother, older brother, was getting into some trouble, not so much with substances, but we went out there and we found him, and then the first real recollection I have of him was in a detox center, because that’s where he was.
In fact, we went to my aunts and stayed with them, and they said we don’t know where he is, sorry, but we know how to find him. If we don’t know where he is, we call the treatment centers we call the detoxes. He’s going to be at one of them. And sure enough, that’s, that’s where we found him. So, by then, I, you know, was old enough to understand what was going on. He was out of it. He didn’t really know we were and then we hung out there for a couple weeks, and he would have to leave at night because, you know, he just wasn’t feeling good, and just some of those things, but it was very clear what was really going on.
So, I started on that. And then, you know, my mom was protecting us, and as little kids, probably not going to share that kind of information. And so, we started to learn a little more at that point. And by then he was, he was really sick. The doctors had already told him, he was 36 and they said you have the beginning stages of cirrhosis of the liver. So, it was apparent at that point that he really struggled.
Margaret 08:49
So, your mom was quite gracious in also not putting whatever she knew or may feel around him and his issues on you, yeah, by keeping you from that. That’s quite a gracious parenting move. You know, quite mature, yeah, quite considerate of the fact that you have your own perceptions and relationships with your dad. What I also think is interesting is you said that your mom maybe hoped you’d see him and think maybe I don’t want to go down this path. Do you have any memory of having that thought? Did it deter you? Did it have an influence on whether you partied or experimented?
Jason Lennox 09:26
Yeah, what’s interesting? There are times when it did. And in fact, my mom, we were kids, we were getting into trouble, and especially as I got into high school, hanging out with the other kids. Partying was the thing she was, to some extent, all right with that, but she always went back to like the drinking it’s not happening, because she knew what a problem that was. And, you know, there were moments, certainly, when other people my life realized my family history that I probably shouldn’t be doing that. Now, the interesting thing about substance use disorder and the way that it, the mind has really taken over, and the thought processes of a normal person don’t exist in that realm. Is that it was almost a twisted way of using, this is what was going on in my family. This is what could be possible if I went down that path. Somehow me using that as I would, I remember I would tell people, well, I know what’s going to happen if I go too far. So actually, I’m better off probably than most people, because I have that in front of me, and so it’s going to stop me from ever crossing any kind of line. So rather than, you know, shy away from it all together, I almost twisted that into an asset, which was, you know, just a bizarre way of thinking.
Margaret 10:39
So, my language on that is that I think that this disease within us, changes our thinking, manipulates us with our own voice to believe whatever story it’s telling us, to get us to get to the next point. And that’s what that sounds like. It sounds like the nature of the beast, like you say, it hijacks and changes and controls what we think and do.
So, as you progress along this journey of experimenting but believing, because, you know, maybe that’s an advantage, because you can stop it from happening, which, you know, in fairness, I think any of us walking down this path thinks at some point, if we are concerned, we will stop it. Evidence proves that’s not the case, but we have to kind of get through it to realize we are in trouble and need help. So how did yours progress? Did you stay away from alcohol more because of dad? Or was it equal opportunity you abuse whatever substance? Or were you somebody who had a different drug of no choice than your dad with alcohol?
Jason Lennox 11:42
Yeah,I think my life just bounced back and forth. And it really was, you know, period specific. So, if I think about my high school years, certainly hanging out with the football guys and doing all those things. So just, there’s a lot of drinking on the weekends, but then, you know, smoking pot, and that was definitely a popular thing. Then I really shifted back and forth a lot. And this is, these are just some of the symptoms that we know of substance use disorders. I would convince myself, as you’re talking the thinking, there were moments when I thought, you know, drinking is clearly a problem in my family, and what, what I haven’t really gotten to yet is my father in eighth grade, and he actually moved to live with us. My mom was kind enough to say, you can come stay in my home. I don’t care if you pay me any money, I’ll feed you. I’ll keep you in a safe space. Only stipulation is you just, you can’t drink, and you can’t do those drugs. You got to be here for your kids. And so, he did. He came out here and lived with us for a while, and it was great to really get to know this man who was a bigger version of me, you know, really on the same level, emotionally, because he just, he had struggled. He was 13 when he lost his mother. She passed from leukemia, and that just changed the trajectory of his life. Really, all his sisters, my aunts, who I’m very close with, they just talked about that was that, was it like he lost his person, and so he, he just, he struggled from that age on. So, he’s 36 and he’s living with us and still kind of like, you know, he’s like us a little high schooler almost. He ends up leaving. We get come home from school one day. My mom’s like, I’m sorry. I had to get him a bus ticket. He had to go. And, you know, just he couldn’t do this. And you know, she the one of the hardest things she probably ever had to do,
Margaret: For sure.
Jason Lennox: but she had to do that. She knew she had to protect and so it was three years later that I woke up to the text message and he had passed away, so cirrhosis of the liver. The thing is, the doctor at 36 said, if you stop now, you probably will live a life like the rest of us, right? This doesn’t have to be the end, right? But if you continue down the path, it’s going to be and it’s going to be sooner than you think. And so, there were sometimes he found some periods of sobriety, but in the end, it was just too late.
Bumper 14:04
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Some of you may recall I had the pleasure of bringing together former colleagues of mine to create and implement a family recovery program based out in the community that is being continued in Amery WI by the Spiritual Program Retreat. I am thrilled to share that the weekend of May 2nd through 4th the Spiritual Program Retreat in Amery WI at Camp Wapogasset, what a beautiful location for a retreat, will be hosting their family program retreat with a very special guest speaker Bob Bernu. I will be there as a support role however this will be once again a fabulous place for anyone impacted by the family disease of addiction to get greater insight into the family disease and the benefits and resources for family recovery. I will attach the link to this wonderful family program retreat in my show notes.
You’re listening to the Embrace family recovery podcast. Can you relate to what you’re hearing? Never miss a show by hitting the subscribe button now back to the show.
Jason Lennox 15:23
So, he ends up passing away. And so, people knew this, and certainly I had that in the back of my mind. And so, what I would do is say, well, yeah, you know what, you’re right. My dad died from drinking, so I should stay away from that. So, you’re I’m gonna smoke pot, and by the way, I’m not getting in trouble. I’m not driving drunk. So, this is probably better. But then I would get bored of that, and so convince myself and say, Yeah, but marijuana, is it legal? Alcohol is legal, so maybe that’s the better, even though it’s not legal for me, because I’m not 21 but you know, it’s just the ways in which I convince myself back and forth. So, I just bounce back and forth. I think stimulants probably got the best of me out of all the things that happened that drove the path down a really dark avenue, the quickest and really took every any chance of hope that ever had and withered it away. So it was
Margaret 16:16
At what age was that, Jason? What age did that dark path start with the chemicals that took you down.
Jason Lennox 16:23
It really was, I’ll say 16/17, now, you know, it’s 12 or 13 when they started. And another thing was it growing up, I just never really felt like I belonged anywhere. I didn’t. It was a home where we just didn’t do the things that kids did. There were no sports. There weren’t those things. Always concerned. Didn’t feel like I fit in. Always got picked on. So, when we moved to this new school, and I started hanging out with a crowd, they were the crowd that were, you know, was doing some of the extracurriculars and the not so good things, but I felt like I belonged there. So that’s why I continued to hang out with them. And then I got in and I started playing sports, and all of a sudden, I’m hanging out with the, you know, the cooler kids, and I get the girlfriend. And so, you know, growing up, I’m this kid who just only want, like, looks out there and sees all the things that I wish I was and that I wish I had. And then by the time I’m in 10th, 11th grade, I have all those things.
Now, everybody’s coming to my house like I had the girlfriend cheerleader on the varsity, running back, I just have a life that I only would have ever dreamed of, but I was already sick enough at that point, the ego, and the greed, and the and all those defects were really taking me down, and I just wanted more, better, faster, bigger, all the things. And in 11th grade, I left the girlfriend. My friends started to go, wait, what do you do? Like, what kind of behaviors do you have? And so, like that started to crumble. And after I left the girlfriend for another one, then she left me, and the friends started disappearing, everything came crumbling down. And then two months later, my dad passes away, and I’m just in a really dark place. And then I get introduced methamphetamines for the first time. So in a matter of six months, in my junior year, I went from the greatest life I thought I ever could have had to not only do I have none of it, but I all I’m doing is looking back and seeing what I’ve just thrown away, and I’ve lost my father, and now I’ve discovered this powerful drug that one takes it all away in the moment. So of course, I’m going to continue down that path, but coming on the backside of that puts me in a much worse position than I ever was before. And, you know, took me out of but the summer after, I ended up out of the house, and so I’m homeless. As a senior, I go to play football, and after football, I drop out, and I’m in and out of jail a couple times. Get a woman pregnant. I mean, this is all before I’m 18 years old, and so it’s just in a matter of a 12-month period, my life was essentially gone.
Margaret 18:59
In that period of time, was there any part of you that wanted help, thought this was going downhill too hard, too fast, or was the power of the meth just that much more that you couldn’t see? Maybe help would be an option.
Jason Lennox 19:18
That is a really good question. Margaret, and I don’t know that I’ve ever been asked that, at least not at those in those earlier moments. I don’t know that I ever saw one of the interesting things is I ran around this little town of 1000 people homeless, trying to figure out where I’m going to sleep at night, finding nickels and dimes to go buy bags of ramen noodles to eat right out of the bag. Dropped out of school. I don’t have anything. Relationships are all gone, right? I’ve like, dried up my friendships, or really, any level of support. And it never once occurred to me in those times that there’s a real problem here. And I think part of that was because I was, I was such in the survival mode at that point, it was wake up during the day, if, if I got decent sleep, figure out one, how I’m going to take the pain away. And so that usually meant seeking out some sort of drugs or alcohol and usually meant doing so in ways that were going to hurt somebody. And you know, that was a full day of trying to, trying to do that, and then by the time the night comes, I’m just like, my gosh, you know, it’s cold Minnesota, winter night. Now, what am I going to do? So, it’s, I just don’t know that I ever stopped and thought there’s something really wrong with this picture.
Margaret 20:38
So on the back end of that, Jason was anyone who loved you, which I’m sure many people loved you, and family wise and friends, though, there was a barrier between you because of the substance use disorder, any of them reach in to try and grab you, reach you, convince you, talk to you, offer you help. Was that part of the story at that point, or is it, again, something you were just not approachable about?
Jason Lennox 21:06
Yeah, I think I did a really good job. I said I was at varsity running back. Physically, I did a really good job at running, but metaphorically, that’s what I really did well, was run. And so, part of the breakdown in the relationship with my mom is just, you know, anytime I was challenged, or any of those sorts of things, I’m gone. You know, I had gotten the woman pregnant, and we didn’t last there. Just that wasn’t going to work for many reasons. But one of the things I did when I was leaving there is I was introduced to a foster family, and they didn’t foster me, necessarily, but they said, why don’t you come up here? They really wanted to do what they could. They knew that, you know, background was not the greatest, I was not the greatest places. And as I stayed there, got to know them a little bit. It was a safe space for me. They helped me get back into school after I dropped out. You know, it’s about halfway through. So, they really opened the doors there. Then when they started questioning, because they knew there were things going on, as soon as those questions came, I mean, I got up and actually took another person that was living there, who they had fostered in the past, but we’re just, you know, helping out, and we left in the middle of the night and took off. And so, there were certainly people in my life that were asking those questions and wondering, and not in a demeaning way, but just like, hey, we just want to help. Or, you know what’s going on here? Like, where, you at, I haven’t seen you, and I just, I don’t know if I was just so afraid of facing that, but I always avoided those in I ran.
Margaret 22:41
I appreciate that description. I think that what you raise is part of what baffles families so much in that no matter the approach, loving, concerned, in your face, gentle, like bending themselves into a pretzel to try and find the right avenue in. If you’re at the mercy of a substance and you are being controlled by it and to survive, you believe you need it to your toes. That’s what’s running the show. That’s what’s retaliating, reacting, making you be that incredible runner, metaphorically that I mean, you say your bigger gentleman, you know, that’s intimidating in itself, right? So, there was ways that worked to keep people at bay when your necessity was I have to use to survive. and families really struggle to understand that, like, how can they not see it? How can they not hear it? How can they not see the pain in my eyes and the worry I have for them? How? How come I’m getting attacked when I offer help? Help them understand you were there? Help them understand why that doesn’t work. Yeah,
Jason Lennox 23:54
Yeah, I think a couple things are very clear to me. One, there’s a level of inadequacy that I think any human does not want to face. And anytime I was challenged, I did very well. I went through school getting straight A’s before I started getting into trouble. I mean, it was in my own courses. I just I excelled. I excelled in in in gym classes. When I did get into sports, I like I said, I was, you know, running back in 10th grade, I did all the things, and I did really well at just about everything I did. And so, when I was confronted with this problem, and you know, I didn’t need help from the outside at some point to understand that internally, the dialog I’m having and the things I’m questioning about myself and the things so it brought up a why can’t I figure this out? Why can’t I do this? I’ve done everything else. I can solve every other problem I’ve ever been given, and I can’t solve this thing, which seems so obvious, right? That the way that I thought about it when when my dad came out was the doctor’s telling him, you’re going to live if you clean up or you’re going to die if you don’t. And my mom’s saying you can have your kids if you go down this path, or you won’t if you go down this path. And so, it’s just took me so long and even into my own recovery before I could finally answer the question, or before I could stop asking the question, why didn’t you just make the right choice? I just looked at it like a choice. So, there’s a, there’s an inadequacy there to really want to have the rest of the world and all my own thoughts saying, come on, come on, it’s not that hard. You’ve got to figure this out, right? I don’t want to face that. But there’s a, there’s a, probably the bigger component of this is by the time I found marijuana, and I actually got really sick when I first started using marijuana and alcohol, because I just was really sensitive to those things.
After that phase, I realized that all this pain that had been carrying very you know, call it traumatic, just really a childhood that I don’t actually remember a lot of and probably for good reason. And so by the time I found substances. Like I was searching for so long, for a way to shut this thing off, and in my heart, the pain that I was feeling and the thoughts that I was having, you know, the suicidal, very young age, all that really made life really hard, really, really hard. And when that was taken away, substances were the first time I found a solution to take that away.
There’s probably ego and greed that, you know, with the sports and the girlfriend and those things, but the substances did it every time, and to have people chat, like to the thought of not having that, I think is just so terrifying, even if it’s subconscious, that’s the bigger thing. Is my solution. I can’t be separated from it’s the only thing I ever found that made life feel like it was at least okay. Maybe not good, but at least okay. Yeah.
Margaret 26:58
Wow. And I’m curious when I hear you say that, and then I heard before that you said, when I was younger, I didn’t think the friends, school, the sports like nothing was going to be I was never going to fit in there. I was never going to have those things. Then I got those things. And something in me, despite that was telling me, but that’s still not enough to shut the brain and shut the feelings. So, then meth, pot, alcohol, the combo that did shut it down. And that’s a very hard thing to turn away from, because it works, like you say, your solution.
But what inevitably happens as we play the tape forward is at some point, the pain and consequences of that solution are unbearable, and you choose a different solution. Can you lead us to what that was that helped you get to the point of I surrender? There has to be another way.
Jason Lennox 27:59
Yeah, I can say I never walked into any phase of this part of my life thinking that that was actually going to happen. I can remember vividly I went to treatment when I was 24 years old. So, I spent the better part of 12 years, and really the last eight years homeless bad as could be. And so that really expedited all of the bad things that happened and really put me in a bad place.
But three years before I went to treatment, my cousin, who’s no longer here, he passed away in a motorcycle crash, and he was really a fundamental person in my life, growing up. And you know, even when I was in my worst days, he had his own struggles with addiction, but he asked me on his porch one Saturday morning when I’m completely out of it. I’ll just never forget, he said, Jace, why do you got your dad? You have the history; you have all this. Why do you why do you do what you do? Why do you go to this extreme? Like you got to realize this is and so that coming from him again, someone who struggled on his own to hear those words. I just remember being 21 and for the first time, like, I think I still lied to him, and I think I still made up something.
But for the first time to myself, I remember saying and thinking, I don’t know, I don’t know why I do what I do. And that’s, that’s when I gave up on any chance of, you know, hope in this life, or that there was ever going to be anything different. I was resigned to the fact that this is how it’s going to die, and I just hope that that would happen sooner than later, and got really close to making that happen multiple occasions.
I say all that because I had a near fatal overdose, a combination of drugs and alcohol the day before I went to jail for the last time, it was December 8 of 2010. And they took me from there to the hospital. Obviously, I spent some time in the hospital, a couple days, and from there, I had been on the run with felony warrants for about a year, and so the as the ambulance came, the police are there. They run my name. They’re waiting for me in the hospital. I’m not going anywhere. So, they take me to jail, and I just remember the unbearable pain I felt in that jail because I’ve been on the run for a year. I had thought I’d done a decent job of making people believe that I was trying to get my life back together, and one of the only jobs that I ever had for just a couple months working in a group home. And I knew then that this was just news everybody was going to see and hear about this one, and here I am again, failing again. And so, I just remember sitting in that jail cell for the last time. Wanted like, how can I end my life? I don’t want to keep doing this. I remembered a year and a half prior, when my family had done an intervention, and it was not a good day, and it was unsuccessful in that moment, but when I was really struggling, and that pain was so unbearable, I just wanted something different, I remember calling my mom and saying, who was that person that was there? Can you call her? Can you call that person? I will talk to her this time. I will tell her the truth.
Margaret: Wow.
Outro: in our next episode Jason shares how a family intervention cracked open the door to healing, recovery and a life beyond anything he imagined. From jail cells to second chances this is a powerful story of redemption, resilience, and the love that never gave up. Don’t miss it.
Margaret 33:06
I want to thank my guests for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website, embracefamilyrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you.
