In this heartfelt episode, Jason Lennox opens up about the turning point in his recovery journey—the day his family staged an intervention. What began in resistance transformed into a powerful path of healing, accountability, and deep self-discovery.
Jason shares the impact of treatment, the emotional weight of feeling unworthy, and how his grandmother’s unwavering love and the fear of returning to jail became anchors in his fight for change. He reflects on rebuilding trust, especially with his son, and how recovery has given him a life more meaningful than he ever imagined.
This is a story about family, second chances, and the incredible strength it takes to believe in yourself again. Let’s get back to Jason Lennox.
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1Bumper, Speaker 1, Jason Lennox, Margaret
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 00:27
Welcome back in this heartfelt episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, Jason Lennox continues his story and opens up about the turning point in his recovery journey, the day his family staged an intervention.
What began in resistance transformed into a powerful path of healing, accountability and deep self-discovery. Jason shares the impact of treatment, the emotional weight of feeling unworthy, and how his grandmother’s unwavering love, and fear of returning to jail became anchors in his fight for change.
He reflects on rebuilding trust, especially with his son, and how recovery has given him a life more meaningful than he ever believed possible. This is a story about family second chances and the incredible strength it takes to believe in yourself again.
Bumper 01:26
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 01:41
There are families who want to do interventions, who fear with, first of all, I want to acknowledge what you’ve been through, and your story is, and this is, I’m sure, just the glimmer of half of it, if that.
Is hard for a family member to hear the level of suffering And yet the level of self-destruction and the level of wanting to give up life before being able to see there could be a solution or a difference.
The courage it takes for a family to do an intervention is always underestimated, because they walk into a room knowing if this intervention does not go the way that they hope, which is that you will answer in the affirmative of yes, I’ll take help. Then they have some really hard consequences, boundaries to adhere to that are terrifying them. Many families walk into those interventions thinking they will not have a relationship with their identified person, again.
They fear volatility. They feel being rejected. They fear everything. So, your family gets together, and they do this, and the probably the worst-case scenario for them, happened, and you blew it off, stormed out, did whatever you did, and refused the help.
They then had to implement whatever boundaries they had established or consequences, which were probably hard for them, though maybe they had already been doing some of them beforehand. What I think is the most hopeful thing you’re sharing in the story, Jason, is that families need to hear that the seed was planted, even though it took a lot of scary stuff to get to the point that you got to when you called your mom and said, who was it that did that? I’m ready.
That I hope any family member who has done an intervention or considers doing an intervention knows that as much as you wanted to go a certain way, it may not, but do not ever underestimate the seed that might have been planted that their loved one will finally go at some point. Wait a minute. There was a hand for me to take if I wanted help. I want help now. So, I’m glad that you said to your mom, who was that I’m willing to be honest. What’d your mom say?
Jason Lennox 03:53
I mean, she probably jumped at the opportunity, and I just want to reflect and just share a little bit about what you said, because there’s something important in there and that by the time we get by the time we get to a place where we’re thinking about doing an intervention on somebody, things are probably pretty bad. And I of course, it can always get worse, but I just look back at that, and I think maybe my family is thinking, It can’t get much worse. He’s killing himself here. So, the worst-case scenario is we do this, it doesn’t go well, we don’t hear from him, we don’t see him. There are some things that did come from that that I never got to repair, but it can’t really go south any further, right? And so, in taking that chance, and I’m grateful that they did.
So yes, a year and a half goes by, I didn’t really see a lot of them, you know, for many months, and maybe even that entire time. But again, when I was suffering so badly, I remembered who that was. Her name was Liz and I called my mom, and so she, of course, got her in there. She, I think she was in two days later, wow. And I walked into the room, and I just kind of broke down, and she had actually,done several assessments on me because I had a long history of these problems. And I said, I’m just, I’m so sorry. I and I broke down, and I said, I’m going to tell you the truth, and I want to just tell you all these things. I don’t know what it was, but I just let it all out because I was in so much pain that I’m like, there’s got to be something different. And again, I didn’t believe there was anything different, like sustainable, long term,
Margaret: Rght?
Jason Lennox: Different kind of life.
Margaret: Right?
Jason Lennox: I’ve been living this life for so long I know that it’s not possible. Nonetheless, had the conversation. We went to court, so I met with her on a Wednesday. She said, you know, I’m not worried about any of that. When I’m worried about is getting you help. Now, we’re going to get you in, see if we can get you in front of a judge. I’m going to find you a bed. We’re going to do this. And that’s what she did. And the next day, actually, we were in front of the judge, and they made their recommendation. And to my surprise, the judge said, do you have a way to get there? And my mom was there and said, I will drive him right now. It’s a half hour from here, but I will take him right now, and the judge, you know, said, all right, you’re going to be transferred. You will need to come back, and we will, you know, you’ll, you’ll still be property of the jail, essentially, and we’ll deal with this, but go and do something that’s going to help your case a little bit.
They got me down into a treatment program in southern Minnesota. And, you know, that’s that was kind of the beginning. And I was so fortunate that, you know, it was a one and done, up until this point, one and done that. I went and again, I think the expediency of the way in which my addiction progressed, I didn’t have anything, I didn’t have any questions. I told you, three years before, I knew this thing had me beat. So, I wasn’t pretending or trying to take an alternative path. I just knew I was doomed.
Margaret 06:49
There’s a lot of hope in that for our families listening, you know, the ones that are out there thinking, first of all, to hear you could be one and done with just the little you’ve shared of how out of control your use was and the consequences you experienced. When you finished treatment. Were you done with the legal system, or did you face legal parts as well?
Jason Lennox 07:10
I was still on probation. I had gone to court while I was in treatment still, and you know, to my surprise, there were some recommendations from my probation officer, from the prosecutor, to revoke this day of adjudication. They had a felony, and they’d given me a deal where that felony would be wiped away if I could complete probation successfully. And they knew I was in treatment. They acknowledged that I was doing some things well, but they, you know, they said this guy’s been running for almost a year, he was picked up with more drugs, 11 probation violations. This is his history. He continues to run and not listen to what we’re saying. Needs some consequence.
And the judge asked me, and I said, I’m not here to beg and plead anymore. You guys have given me so many chances. I think I understand a little bit about why I did what I did, and I’m hopeful that you know that journey is over, and I’m on a new path. And you know very well what, what that felony does to me and my future. But again, this is about my 12th chance, so I’m just here to take, take ownership. And, you know, he said, well, let’s, let’s not, let’s not ruin it quite yet you’re, you know, you finish treatment, if you do that, well, finish out your probation, and then we’re going to keep the terms as they are. And so, I did that, and it was about six months after I got out of the treatment that they I got a surprise early release letter from the probation office. And
Margaret: Wow.
Jason Lennox: miracle that I walked away from that
Margaret 08:38
Higher power working in your life. So, I know I can just hear the families out there listening, thinking. So, I’m going to ask, what I think they would ask, were you in treatment for a considerable amount of time? Did you step down into continuing care? Because that’s a lot of a struggle for people, they’ll go for the treatment. They’ll fight for the outpatient instead the inpatient What was your treatment process? Was it impatient?
Jason Lennox 09:07
Yeah. So, I went to the residential program for about 30 days, and again, in a transfer from the jail, a place that just absolutely broke me every time I went there, I was in and out of that place. But I went to that residential program for 30 days, and they recommended that I go to a halfway house. And again, anything was better than that jail cell, and I knew that’s where I had to return to. So, I was motivated by that. And early in my recovery, my thing I was one of the things I was mentioning about the intervention is my, it was at my grandma’s house. She really was an angel in our lives as kids, because we spent a lot of time there. It was kind of a safe, uh, retreat from everyday life. And it was at her house that we did this intervention, and she was just like begging for her grandson to come back. And so, when I left there, not only her, but the entire family was I was saying things that were not appropriate to share. And it just so happened that she had gotten sick about a year later, and I had actually remember calling into work several times saying, I gotta go see my grandma. She’s not doing well. I never made it.
So, a week into my residential program, my mom and my uncle came to visit, and I knew that something was going on, because it was a visiting day. And they said, Yeah, I’m sorry. She’s gone. So, I that was the last time I saw it was the intervention, the things I said to her, and I never got a chance to repair that. Well, I did get to write her a letter, a Christmas card? And they said, I said, did she at least get to read it? You know, I was really broken. And she said, you know, she couldn’t read, but we read it to her, and she could hear us. She knew, like she acknowledged, and she knew you were here, and then she passed the next day. So, it’s just like, they’re like, she got
Margaret: Had peace
Jason Lennox: what she was waiting for
Margaret: Ah Jason.
Jason Lennox: And so that that moment, coupled with this whole jail thing, is like, I can’t go back to that place. It created a path, and I’m like, I got to do everything I can to try to get this right. Like, I’m all in, and I don’t know what that looks like, because I still don’t believe it’s possible for me, but I’m just going all in to see what happens in the next six months. And so, they said, go to a halfway house. I went to one, then I went to a second one. And I was doing it was in those for five months. So I was in treatment for six months again, some of those extenuating circumstances, and once, I caught a little bit of that in the treatment program, the gratitude I felt walking in there, realizing that for the first time, I was in a space with people who just wanted me to get better for no other reason than they wanted me to get better, created some gratitude, and I listened to the other people. I mean, it was important to see the other families, to see the other people I was with that had been there for longer than me, because I couldn’t believe it for myself, but I could look at these people, I could listen to them, and I could hear the conviction, and I knew they were telling the truth that there was a different life.
So, it just kept me around long enough to be curious, enough to keep learning and so six months of that, and then when I was leaving treatment, I didn’t have a place to go, really, and I was still homeless. I didn’t have a car. I just gotten a job. Had a whole bunch of legal, a whole bunch of financial, I couldn’t get a place rented to me so family I met in recovery, one of my sponsors and his wife, said, you can come stay with us and live in the basement. Just do it until you get on your feet. And I really just wanted my own place. And, you know, 11th hour, I had to leave the treatment program. They just ran out of funding. I went and stayed in the basement. And then this was a new family. This is a family in recovery. And just like a bonus set of parents that took me in and showed me, this is, this is how we do life, and this is how recovery works. And, you know, showed me a different kind of love. It just was a blessing. So, I would almost consider that a continuation of treatment, though they weren’t clinical services, I would just in a safe environment or the better part of a year.
Margaret 13:17
Like taking a page out of the original manuscript of the Big Book when they would bring people into their home. That’s what your sponsor did for you. It’s beautiful.
Jason Lennox: Yeah.
Bumper 13:27
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Margaret: 13:31
Hi everyone. I am Margaret Swift Thompson of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, I wanted to jump on in this bumper and just share how grateful I am that each and every one of you has chosen to listen, review, share this podcast. My intention is that anyone impacted by the family disease of addiction will get the opportunity to feel less alone and understand more about their journey and the disease with which they grapple, one day at a time, if you would be so kind as to follow subscribe, whether it be to the podcast platform or YouTube, if you would share with at least three friends this episode or any episode of The podcast, and also, if you have not written a review of the value you get from this podcast, please do so that means so much to me and helps more people out there who won’t know about this podcast without us doing this, get an opportunity to find the support they so do so. I appreciate you, and I thank you. Take care of you.
Bumper 14:43
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Margaret 14:54
An observation of something you shared that I wanted to touch back to, and I don’t know that you’ll have an answer to this, because I was trying to reflect, if I was asked this, would I have an answer? Because I relate to not believing it was possible for me when I walked into the rooms, the love of your grandma, who was very sacred to you and your family, was not enough to propel you to that desperation of something different, but the fear of being in that jail cell was enough to propel you into doing something different. Do you think that’s a core belief around the whole concept of love, and am I worthy?
Jason Lennox 15:32
Yeah, I think there’s a definitely, like a worthiness component of the conversation that puts up huge barriers the people who tried and you know, again, like what I always say, the two things that I was afflicted with most were just my thoughts and everything that I thought about all the time, and I couldn’t shut this thing off, and sometimes still can’t, but at least it’s in good ways.
But then inside my heart, I mean, that’s where it hurt the most, so the things you know, and experiencing what I experienced with my family, and hearing from them, and just hearing the pain and knowing and you know, I wake up every day and I come back to reality, and I know the people I’ve hurt, there’s a sense of what I’m doing.
And that hurts so much that all I do is go back to the thing that creates it. And I don’t feel like, why are they still fighting for me? I can’t even fight for me anymore. I don’t think this is possible. Why would anybody else expend energy on this? This is how I’m going to die. Like, just let it happen. Let’s, let’s let it happen.
So, there is a worthiness component of that for sure, where I’m maybe I can’t even accept that, because when I did get to treatment, I said I started to experience this love. I told you, the people who just cared about me, right? I’m certain I had plenty of that throughout my upbringing. I didn’t know how to experience it, and that was the distinction there.
Margaret 16:57
Not because they weren’t loving. It sounds like it’s because of the thinking and the feeling that you carried in you well before you ever engaged in using chemicals.
Jason Lennox: Yes, yes not good enough.
Margaret: And the chemicals fed off of that in a really powerful and persuasive way and gave you something you hadn’t felt, which is really hard to give up.
And you know, Jim Atkins, who was a one of my mentors in Hazelden, where I worked for a very long time, used to do that lecture. And he was a math addict, and he would, he would do the lecture of that first use and that feeling. And then you’d go ahead and use again, get a little closer, but not all the way to that point. And then eventually you’re getting to try and get to normal. You’re using to try to get to normal. And even when you’re trying to get to normal, that’s then compounded with the self-loathing when seeing the people one loves being hurt, that takes it down again. And then I gotta go use to escape that feeling which makes it even and it’s nobody’s fault. And I think that’s so important to say over and over again. This is a no fault illness. You are not at fault, because any one of us could be addicted. We don’t know, and most of us experiment with something at some stage in our life. And it’s not your loved one’s fault. Do you feel you’re clear about that too, in your own recovery, that it’s not someone else’s fault and it’s not your fault.
Jason Lennox 18:25
Yeah, I, you know, there, there’s a distinction between a fault and responsibility, and I think, you know, I look at it like I have a responsibility to take care of now righting the ship, once I have the two and I need tools. I need people to help me with that.
Margaret: Yeah,
Jason Lennox: And so, I’m not escaping the fault, I’m not excusing any of the behaviors. But this, this was a disease, and that took me out, and took me a long time, and again, I was into my own recovery. This is an interesting moment of revelation, where I was working with a sponsor, and we were going through the fifth step, and we got to the point where he’s like, okay, let’s start with your resentments. And number one on my list was my dad. And he said, okay, why are you mad at your dad? He had life in his kids where he had drugs and alcohol, and of course, he’s gone. This is what he picked. This is what he chose. I’m in recovery, having gone through all this sense of, no, I don’t have a choice in the matter. But I’m still thinking this because I’m that sick, that’s just where my mind was. And he said, okay, and how about your son? Because at that point, I had a five-year-old son who I had abandoned for the better part of four of those years.
Margaret 19:31
So, I’m going to interject there. Sorry, Jason, I got to do this, because I do this to my families a lot. You abandon was your word. My word is. Your disease took you from him, kept you hostage from him, and yet I hear that I struggle with that too, that that language that still perpetuates somehow, I’m just a piece of crap.
Jason Lennox 19:54
Yeah, yeah, no, no. Language is it’s so critical the language is it. And I’m a huge advocate of trying to always honor and update and use language that makes a difference, because subconsciously, consciously, all that stuff matters. So that abandoned. Yes, I wasn’t in his life for four of those years, and I was really sick, and so he said, where is your son on your harm done to others list?
And I said, he’s not there. And he said, so you see what’s happening here. you’re so upset with the rest of the world and with your own you know, the the resentments that are happening that you can’t see, you really can’t see that this is what you’ve done in your own life.
And so, it really was an eye-opening moment where I where I really, I got that it wasn’t a matter of choice, and so that’s the fault versus responsibility. I make that clear with a lot of people, and I also make very clear, and this took several years into recovery of other self-development work and just continuing to go through it where I could get to the point where I can say that all the things that went on as in my childhood, you know what? I know that my mom, I know that my stepdad, I know that my father, I know that they all did the best that they could do with what they knew at the time.
That was a huge moment in my own recovery to to give up. Well, I felt this way, and I went through this, and I landed there because of this, and because of this, and because of this.
Margaret: Yeah.
Jason Lennox: That all happened. I love my mom’s stepdad dearly, like we’re really, really close, and I think they’re just two of the greatest people, and they would do anything. They did what they could with what they had and what they knew. And when I could come to that, yeah, I to answer your question and just make that very clear, that in the relationships, I take ownership of that. And sometimes maybe people think, well, maybe too much, but you know what, anytime that I can take ownership over a relationship, not feeling good, not feeling complete, I don’t care if it’s my fault or not. The reality is, if I take that step, we all win anyway, because, you know, we all get that gift of being with each other. So yes, I I’m a huge proponent of, how do I how do I own my contributions to any relationship and not blame my own upbringings or what other people are doing for any of my, it’s a freeing way to live.
Margaret 22:28
It really is. And boy, blaming others fueled my youth for decades. I used at people really didn’t hurt them. I mean, it did hurt them, but it hurt me way worse. Didn’t help me, and I think that one of my resistances to getting help was that it was like, Get Out of Jail Free card, like all the bad stuff I did could be blamed on the disease and and like you, one of the pivotal pieces of of embracing recovery is that this is the only progressive chronic and potentially fatal illness that does have the requirement in recovery that we make restitution, amends and right the wrongs and harms that were done in our history of our use. And I’m very grateful for that. I think that’s a huge part of the program of recovery that is such a blessing to every one of us who has a privilege of finding it and working it, even though it is painful and none of us usually like the way we get to it. I’m grateful for that piece. So, I hear that’s very important to you as well. And the other thing that comes across really loud, Jason is you afforded grace to yourself eventually, and to your loved ones for sure. Do you forward think that your recovery and that awareness will help you when it comes to your child, having grace for you and understanding why you were absent in those early years?
Jason Lennox 23:59
Yeah, one of the interesting thing is his mother, probably with the same level of protective just thought processes, didn’t really ever mention any of that to him. And so, and I didn’t know this until, actually, just when I launched the book, it’s just over a year ago, I held this book party, and we had a really strained. It just was really hard to ever really fully establish an emotional, deeper connection. And I invite him to this book party, of course, and he actually was really excited. He’s like, oh, my dad wrote a book, and he wanted to read it. And she’s like, I don’t know if I should, I don’t know if I want him to read it. And I said, Well, why there’s this? You know, we just explained to him like, this is what can happen with drugs and alcohol. And she said, well, he doesn’t really know that. That’s why you weren’t around. And you know, he’s 18 at the point, and he so he, I’m like, Well, we, it’s inevitable at this point, it’s unavoidable. So, let’s just have the conversation. So, he comes to the book party, and he was only going to be able to stay for an hour, and he to go to church. He stays for the holding thing. He’s there by the end, and I’m just like, what? And he comes up to me at the end, and he gives me this hug, and just tells me that he’s how proud he is. But then he’s, he really loses it, and he just, like, is violently, crying and again, this is like a stone face. He’s not gonna like, you’re not gonna see those emotions. And he couldn’t let go, and I actually couldn’t let go of him. And we did that for minutes. And it occurred to me then, that, yes, because he read the story, because he started to make sense of what was actually happening. That there was a level of grace there and an appreciation, and just a whole something I thought would never happen. And then I’m like, all these hours and all this time and all the dollars spent to release this book, if nothing else ever came of it that was worth it, just that moment, right?
And so, yeah, I think that’s the beautiful thing about telling our stories and helping people understand that, you know, we want to do things. We want to be better people, and we want to do the right things. We suffer; we go through these things. It just creates a level of understanding, I think, and and relatedness for anyone.
Margaret 26:23
Absolutely, and it demonstrates that when we have an instinct to keep the secret from our children, though out of absolutely no mal intent, your son’s mother really looked out for your relationship with your son, trying to protect him from knowing the ugly truth at the time.
That he had an understanding in his bones, in his skin, in his body, that something wasn’t okay, and would make up his own story of the answer. Now he knows the reason and that it had nothing to do with him. Because most children think somehow it’s their fault that they don’t have a close relationship to that parent, which I’m sure runs back to your own feelings around your dad.
Jason Lennox 27:05
Yeah, 100% it was Same thing. Same story kind of played out again. And, you know, I’m just grateful that it didn’t end in in the same way, because, you know, that’s a much different story when that you don’t have that opportunity.
Though, you know, through my aunts and my dad’s family, I’ve gotten to know him so well long after he was gone, and I have gotten to the point where not only is it, is it okay, the way that things happen and there, not only am I, you know, accepting and gracious of that, I truly feel like, like it’s an honor for me to live out what, he’d want. I know he wanted to live out. I just feel like it’s an honor to live in his name. And that’s, that’s not something I thought for a long time.
Margaret: You live for both of you.
Jason Lennox: Yeah, yeah. I, you know, I just get to, get to do for him. And it was, it gave me twice the energy I have him and me. And so, it’s a
Margaret 28:11
And you know that he didn’t not choose you or love you. It’s the disease had the power over him that he couldn’t fight against. Find a way, and you came very close to the same end, and have been spared. And through your tenacity and exposure to recovery and your willingness, albeit slowly, to surrender and believe something different could happen, you’ve been given through your hard work and all of these gifts of people around you, a life beyond your dreams, I’m guessing.
Jason Lennox 28:44
Yeah, I, you know, like I was the little kid just dreaming of, you know, wanting the girlfriend and the sports and the friends, and then I got that. And this is tenfold, I think. I mean, I can say this in year five of my recovery, and I still just say it, because I think it’s, it’s just it’s a reflection of perspective. And, you know, I say when I went to treatment, if you would have told me that my biggest problems in my life, you know, after five years, after 10 years, after now, what’s 13 years ago, if you would have told me that the problems I have in my life would be the problems in my life. I would have not only not believed you, but I would have thought there was something wrong with you that in that I wouldn’t have even been able to achieve the things that were my problems.
So, the things that exist as my problems today are not things I could have dreamed of having, let alone have, as you know, my problems. And every year I’m baffled at the continued and that takes, you know, work, that’s growth, and that’s being a lifelong learner of this recovery thing, of the people, of the industry, of improving self, mental health, physical health, all aspects of wellness I never want to stop learning how to improve in those areas? And because of that, life is just it’s grown so incredibly much into something that I just think is a brilliant gift. That’s what my life is.
Margaret: Wonderful.
Outro 30:25
Come back next week where Jason Lennox, the author of ‘ A Perfect Tragedy‘, opens up about turning his rock bottom into a message of hope. Just six months into recovery, he began sharing his story and has never stopped. Jason gets real about the emotional weight of addiction, the myths that hold people back and the power of community in healing. This is more than a story, it’s a lifeline. Come back and see us next week,
Outro: I want to thank my guests for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story.
Please find resources on my website, embracefamilrecovery.com
This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you.
