🎙️ Welcome to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast! 🎙️
In this powerful episode, Jason Lennox, author of A Perfect Tragedy, returns and opens up about his profound journey from the depths of addiction to a life of purpose and recovery. Jason shares the emotional and psychological complexities of substance use, offering a raw and honest perspective shaped by personal experience.
Through his story, Jason sheds light on the myths surrounding addiction, the importance of having the right support system, and why family members need their own healing path—separate from their loved one’s recovery. His message is one of resilience, education, and unwavering hope, reminding us all that sometimes the breakthrough comes when we simply hang on one more day.
Tune in for an episode that will move, inspire, and empower you.
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
In this powerful episode of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, Jason Lennox, author, speaker, and recovering addict, shares the inspiration behind his book, ‘A Perfect Tragedy’ and the healing journey that began six months into recovery.
What started as a way to process his pain became a mission to educate, empower, and bring hope to others walking a similar path.
Jason dives into the emotional and psychological complexity of addiction, breaking down the misconception that often surrounds it. He speaks candidly about the unhelpful advice people in recovery often face, and the life changing power of real support, shared tools, and lived experience.
Bumper 01:15
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret 01:32
So, you’ve mentioned your book a few times. What is your book called?
Jason Lennox 01:36
It is ‘A Perfect Tragedy’.
Margaret: Yeah, show it.
Jason Lennox: I have it on Amazon.
Margaret: What made you write it?
Jason Lennox: You know, when I, in recovery, the rooms are recovery, you know, we have speakers, and I started doing some of that early, at six months into recovery, I was sharing my story. I didn’t think I had a lot to share, but I did more of that, and I really found some passion.
But where I really went this path was, I spoke to my old high school, and I was going back to the treatment center to say, how can I get involved here? I was four years into recovery, and she said, where are you from? And I told her, and she said, I’m going to your school next week to share. Do you want to come with? And well, sure enough, I had the day open, so she said, we’re going to go co present on this. Well, we showed up that day, and I actually did all the presenting. She didn’t have any intention of co-presenting, but whatever.
So, it’s, it’s the whole district. So, it’s, these are my old teachers who watch the demise of my life.
Margaret: Wow.
Jason Lennox: And of course, some of my fellow classmates by that time had turned into teachers. So, I just have this whole crowd of, you know, 100 a couple 100 people, and I delivered that speech that day, and I just remember the faces of people, and I remember the conversations after, and I just remember the oh my gosh. I had no idea. I did not realize that that’s what it was actually like, and I remember walking away that day thinking, I don’t know how I’m ever gonna feel that again, but that I gotta do that forever. And I realized throughout many more of those occasions, that, and I told you, I had this misconception of what substance use disorder actually was. I thought it was a choice. I thought it was all the things that were just so easy. It’s just you live or die, kids or no kids. It’s not that hard. I realized, having gone through that I still thought that, so I knew that the rest of the world, and by the way, the rest of the world, contributed regularly to just it’s, if you don’t want to go back there, then stop, then stop, then stop. That’s all I heard that so many times.
But I realized that it wasn’t that people wanted to hold on to that it wasn’t that people, just to be a jerk, wanted to feel and think those things they just didn’t know. And when I shared and when I told my story, these people were just like fascinated, and their entire mindset shifted, and they looked at this thing a completely different way. And when I caught the littlest wind of that, I knew that for the rest of my life I would have to speak, to write, to do all those things. And so, I started a blog, and I just started, you know, channeling the journey that way and realize, you know, and everybody’s saying you gotta write about this, you gotta.
So, it just over a six-year span of taking that mission and saying, I’m gonna go give this to as many people as possible, because I truly believe, to the core, that people only believe what they believe, because they don’t know any different
Margaret: Absolutely.
Jason Lennox: And when I have a message and I have an experience, I almost feel it’s my obligation to educate and to share with people what really goes on in the mind of somebody struggling here.
In the families, right? I wrote this book for two groups of people, a person who’s struggling, because there’s a lot of hope, I hope in there, and then the families and people who are around substance use disorder. So hopefully they could understand that it’s not what it seems to be.
And there was a third bonus group that just came in, cousins and other family members who didn’t have any problems with it. Maybe weren’t around it a lot, but they just said, holy cow. That not good enough. That not good enough that I read over and over and over. That was my life, yeah, man, I connect to this. And thank you. I want to do this, so,
Margaret: Right?
Jason Lennox: Yeah, that that’s, that’s why I did it. And, you know, some blood, sweat and tears and some hard stories to go back into,
Margaret: Right,
Jason Lennox: in a really deep way, but it’s, it was, it’s just something that’s there, and I hope, you know, can touch as many people as possible.
Margaret 05:43
Well, we’re going to help that happen, because I know that people will pick up the book. A lot of my listeners read the books of the authors that I come on they let me know how much they help. I just want to go back to one thing you said just then that really resonates, and that is, people only say you should stop or it’s not that hard, just don’t do it. And all those types of statements. They don’t say it to be malicious or to be hurtful. They say it because they don’t understand it. And I just having this revelation that’s probably not that much of an AHA to anyone else. But if you in the depths of it, having seen your dad in the depths of it, or at least the consequences of it, couldn’t understand that for you. How would anyone else? Who’s not been into an education and recovery experience understand it for themselves? Because it truly didn’t come to that truth, understanding for you until you were in your recovery process, being taught and being around people who showed you the truth.
Jason Lennox 06:43
Yeah, there’s a, Margaret, there’s a psychological component to this disease that I think is there’s nothing else like it out there. We can’t make it one for one. It’s not apples to apples. But if you just generally think about a cancer diagnosis, and you don’t see cancer patients running to their doctor saying, well, I know you think I have cancer, but it’s, it’s, that’s not what it is. So, I just, you know, I’ll keep living my life, right?
Like that’s not the way that it that’s what happens with substance use disorder. Is professionals are there, we understand there’s a diagnosis as a treatment, there’s something that works, but still, the person, because of what’s going on psychologically, can just continue to truly and not like I always said when I’m walking from the jail cell back to town devastated and, you know, depressed and not ever wanting to do this, and saying I’m done.
Margaret: Yeah, you meant it.
Jason Lennox: There’s nobody else around me. I’m not saying that to mom. I’m not saying it to my brother. That’s me and that’s me and me, and I truly felt that there are times when, of course, I just fed people what they wanted to hear, but most of the time I didn’t want to be doing those things, and I wasn’t out there to lie to others. I truly believed that I wouldn’t go back there, and in a matter of hours, I was back there, and I hadn’t even thought about it.
I mean, I made a commitment when I left jail one time, at 8am that I was never going to do this again, and at 9am I was banging on the door of the liquor store saying your sign says 9am, and I don’t remember how that happened, how that that resolve at 8am turned into banging on the door one hour later. I mean, it’s, it’s, it really is. There’s a there’s something else there.
So, I think that’s so enlightening for people to understand that it isn’t just this conscious, regular, everyday choice to say, you know, I’m going to destroy all the relationships I have in my entire life. It’s, hard not to feel and think those things in the midst of watching this happen.
Margaret 08:46
Well, it feels deeply personal when you’re watching.
Jason Lennox: Yes, yes.
Margaret: What I think back to of your sharing so far in this conversation was the intervention, the things that were being said that were vile and inappropriate and hurtful and angry and whatever else they were, in my opinion, my humble opinion, your disease, who was threatened big time doing anything and everything it could to get you the hell away from the people that were going to actually stop it from having control over your life, because they were going to give you help.
However, everyone sitting in that room sees their beloved grandson, son, brother, cousin, and it’s coming out of your mouth with your voice, and feel like, how could it be this bad? How? How could he be this bad? How could he not take help? What is wrong? What did I do wrong? What? How could I have said it different?
You know, and that’s the thing that I think makes this so much of a family illness, family disease, is that every aspect of the family is touched by it, and every aspect of the family deserves education and support to have a different life experience. And when you say you promised yourself because no one was around. God, does that resonate with me? And even if I promised somebody out loud, I meant it because I didn’t want to do it, and yet I could not stop until I had tools, psycho education, and people in my life to be my lifelines that I would turn to instead of turning to what my disease was telling me to do.
Jason Lennox 10:27
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more. And I think the most critical thing you said in all of that, at least, that resonates with me, is that I had the tools. And really the tools are usually found through the channel of other human beings, and that’s what I needed more than anything. Because again, the thing I hung on to in the first couple weeks of my time was that person who got a 30-day medallion, and I looked and I listened to what they said, and I thought, not the person who had 15 years.
So, it drives me crazy when people are like, if you don’t have a year, you shouldn’t talk. No, no, no, no, no, I’m not hearing anything except what that person said. I looked at that person and said, that would be amazing if I could sustain 30 days of recovery and get one of those coins. Oh, my goodness. So, I that’s what kept me there was somebody else. And then after I get beyond that, right. I told you the family that took me in, and then a year into my recovery, I got to this suicidal place again because I couldn’t, like, I wasn’t really free of everything, like, emotionally, I just, I had, I hadn’t had that release yet. And I turned to other people. I turned to the people who had been there, and all they did was just open up their hearts and their homes.
And I say all that to bring it back to as families and as loved ones, we we’ve just got to rely on people, the experts that are out there, and the people who have this experience and have lived through it. And this is what makes it hard for families, is like all I’ve ever done is love this kid his whole life,
Margaret: right?
Jason Lennox: And here’s a guy who comes in and meets him, and two months later, opens his door to him, and has a way of helping him grow that I never could, and that’s not to be taken personally, that has nothing to do with anything that, oh, I’m not that crazy. There’s another person who went down that path, who thought the way I thought, who said the things I did, and now you live that way. Of course, I’m laser focused on that, and I’m going to listen to that right?
So it’s people and those other people that are so willing to be there as families and as people who watch others struggling. We’ve got to leverage all those resources like are all our family love, all that family love. There were 10 of them in and they physically barricaded me in that intervention. They did everything they could, and it was not going to do anything. It was not going to do anything that day. But as soon as I started being in touch and talking with people who you know were just like me, they had been there, they had done that, and they weren’t trying to tell me anything other than this is where I went. This is how I got here. If you want to listen, if you want to take it, great, we can keep the conversation going. And it got me.
Bumper 13:11
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Margaret 13:15
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 deserve. I appreciate you, and I thank you. Take care of you.
Bumper 14:25
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Margaret 14:39
On the family side of the coin, they can’t come to you for their healing. They need their own community of people who have walked the path they walked, have heard the stories and experienced the trauma and been through the things they have to help them heal. They need their own set of tools, and your tools for recovery are not your family. Their tools for recovery are not you, and that’s really hard to get from your head to your heart, but it is so vital for both sides to understand that, and so I appreciate you sharing that that’s what you needed.
It wasn’t because you didn’t love your family or want them in your lives. I’m sure you really did. It was because this was what gave me that glimmer of hope, that glimmer of possibility, and that was what I needed. And I could hear from them things I couldn’t hear from the people that, in my opinion, my words, I hurt in my youth so badly that I had tons of shames that blocked me from possibly hearing the kind things from them.
Jason Lennox 15:42
Yeah, well, and the beautiful thing about that is when both sides can come to that place and go through that healing, then coming back together and the recreation of those relationships.
And, you know, the familial relationships I have today are they keep my life so full that it’s tiring sometimes, but it’s I would never trade any of it because it’s all the time. I mean, I have to tell people that I work with, you know, they’re just like another funeral. And I’m like, I know that sounds bad, but you know what? I have so many branches of my family that I really engage with and stay close to.
Yeah, it is. It’s a lot. It’s a that’s a lot of funerals, but it’s that’s a good problem to have. A lot of people don’t have that problem. So, coming back together after my healing. You know, of course, they had to do some work and when we get to create space and share space, in that sense, it’s better than there was any time before substance use disorder, during, and you know, it just continues to get better. So, it you’re right, there’s healing. And that’s why Lois and Al-Anon was created. They knew like he’s not going to help me. He’s got his thing going on over there.
Margaret: She tried.
Jason Lennox: I need my thing.
Margaret 16:59
She tried to feel better by serving tea and coffee and allowing these people in her home and being there at his every whim and then got resentful. And what was most beautiful about Lois story is she observed on a very dark night, there were all sorts of people sitting outside waiting for their husbands in the living room, and she was serving them coffee, and she went out there and said, I need to talk to someone. Will you come into my kitchen? That’s how it happened.
It was like that moment of awakening that we can’t go to each other because hurt people, hurt people, and there’s so much water under that bridge that has to be calmed and healed to help that relationship be different than the patterns of homeostasis, using a clinical term that have been established by the disease controlling everything.
So, you offer so much hope, Jason, I know my family members, especially my parents on my partners, all families will see such hope in your story. And I’m really grateful that you wrote your book. I’m grateful that I happened to hear you on the podcast, and that you agreed to be on this one. And I’d like to give you the opportunity. If there’s something you haven’t shared that you feel really is on your heart to share in closing, please do.
Jason Lennox 18:22
Yeah, I had this thought yesterday, really just was a I was listening to a country song. I don’t know who sings this. If I could write a letter to me, it’s a song. It’s a country song from the 90s. I’ll have to go look it up. But I heard it on the radio, and it’s about, okay, if I can write a letter to the younger me, you know, what would you say? And, you know, we hear that sometimes, what would you tell your younger self? And, and, and it just made me think. And I think back to in this will, you know, relate to, I think, a general message. But I think back to my time. I don’t know that I have a lot of good advice that I would ever tell the person that was going through any of that, the younger version of me that was going through that. I don’t know what I would have believed at that time, like I truly was out of hope. And so. the only thing that came to my mind was just hang on. Just hang on and I tie that back to a message that I sometimes share with audiences and share with people and just share in general. We just never know when something is going to change. And so, this goes for families. This goes for people who are struggling. It’s just hanging on one more day, right? And I always say the difference between the misery and the pain and the suffering and the inevitable fatal disease in life that I was living, and then now this beautiful life that I have. The difference between that was one day of happenings. It was 24 hours. I went from a hospital bed to a jail cell, and even though I was in a really bad spot, it was the beginning of something new. If we can hang on for one more day. The beautiful thing about one more day is that’s the difference between what was the worst life that I could have ever imagined, and the beginning of a life and we never know when that’s going to happen, and we can all just hang on for one more day.
So that’s a little bit of a twist, twist on the way I usually tell that, but one more day and hang and again, that message came to me was hearing that song, just hang on, Jason. I don’t know what else to tell you, but please just hang on, because there’s something else on the other side. There really is. Sometimes all we can do is hang on.
Margaret 20:46
Whether you’re struggling with addiction or love someone who is, this episode is a call to community, compassion and courage.
Recovery is possible, and no one can, nor has to do it alone.
Outro: I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability in sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website,
This is Margaret Swift Thompson, until next time, please take care of you.
