In this episode, the final of three, Amy C. Sullivan, the author of ‘Opioid Reckoning Love, Loss, and Redemption in The Rehab State,’ shares more about family members’ powerlessness.
Sullivan masterfully uses her story as a launching point while including the voices of many touched by the disease of addiction to demonstrate how the opioid epidemic challenged longstanding recovery protocols in Minnesota, a state internationally recognized for pioneering addiction treatment.
Amy introduced me to a new term, living in a state of ambiguous loss. Listen to learn more.
I can only imagine how interesting and engaging her classes must be. Macalaster College, you are fortunate to have this gifted professor.
Don’t forget, Amy’s publisher has arranged for a 30% discount when you order ‘Opioid Reckoning’ at http://z.umn.edu/OpioidReckoning using the promo code MN89780.
This offer is good through Dec. 1, 2022.
See full transcript below.
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: Welcome back. On our last episode Amy left off talking about the fentanyl wave starting in 2016 and today my daughter bought me this fact. Overdose deaths in North Carolina in 2016 were 442 and rose to 3163 last year. Today Amy C. Sullivan author of ‘Opioid Reckoning’ shares about her personal challenges of facing her powerlessness and some of the tools she found vital while living in a state of ambiguous loss. Let’s get back to Amy.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret 01:13
I say this with the utmost respect because I agree with you the wave right now is devastating with fentanyl. The constant throughout all the decades of working in the industry that kills so many people is alcohol. And we haven’t even touched on that. Nor should we, because it’s not part of the book, the book is specifically focused. But you know, I think that for families listening, what would you want for them to know from your experience, personally and writing the book.
Amy Sullivan 01:47
This is really hard. I think it’s trust your gut. But get to know yourself. Don’t just rely on old tropes. Don’t rely on just the flippant kind of advice that you get from people who don’t really understand what you’re going through. Find a community of people who can support you. Don’t shut down, don’t withdraw. As hard as that is to do. I think, it’s really hard for dads to come to these meetings and be vulnerable, because they can’t fix it. And they just want to fix it. And it’s a growth opportunity. This is a growth opportunity. And no, you didn’t ask for it. And no, you don’t want it. But it’s in your life. And you got to figure out a way through it. And however that story unfolds, if you’re present to your own pain, to your own needs, to your own health, and you’re open to listening to the ideas of other people, to trying other things, you get to a point where you know, in your heart, you did everything you could possibly do if the outcome is not the outcome that you wanted, you know, still that you did everything that you could possibly do. And I think that having grace with yourself in those really dark moments and being like, yeah, well, okay, so that was a mistake. I’m not going to try that again. But I know that it was meant this way.
I think that if we haven’t experienced it ourselves, we can’t understand that depth of loneliness and shame that people feel, even when it looks like they aren’t, they’re feeling it. And staying in touch, saying that you love them, you just don’t know when is that last time that you say on love you going to be. And that sounds morbid, but you are living in a state of ambiguous loss, you are always feeling like you might lose your loved one. And you have to accept that and behave as if you have lost them in a way that embraces them and provides love and care that you would any other person who had a disease,
Margaret 04:05
That the uncertainty was real of not knowing what would happen?
Amy Sullivan 04:08
Yeah, we don’t know. And when you think about it, we don’t know what’s going to happen to any of us.
Margaret: No.
Amy: And that’s not to dismiss this and say, well, who knows what’s gonna happen?
Margaret: No
Amy: t’s more like, okay, there is uncertainty here. How am I going to show up in uncertainty?
Margaret 04:24
And bringing it back to a philosophy of 12 steps, which I do believe is fabulous for our wellbeing?
Amy: Yeah, yeah
Margaret: One day at a time.
Amy Sullivan 04:34
Yeah, right. What can I do today? Yes.
Margaret 04:36
What’s within my power? What can I do? How can I show up?
Amy: Right?
Margaret: So a lot of people react, to detach with love in a very critical way. I like what my colleague changed it to which was ‘caring without fixing’ because we can’t fix it.
Amy: Yes, yes. Yes.
Margaret: So how do we show up caringly and in their life, love them, care for ourselves. So that disease they have does not hurt us. So we can be healthy for them. And so we can say and be there for them when they do say, I want help, help me,
Amy: Right? Absolutely.
Margaret: So I know I have a daughter that struggle with mental illness. And after a tough time, I’d be in my job. And I’d hear family members talk about mental illness, and it would be right in my face. And my fear would come up.
So, I naturally, curiosity as a mother to a mother wonder how you navigated that writing a book of the same illness with so many painful consequences while in your own recovery with your daughter? Like, how did you cope with those feelings that must have come up for you, when you were interviewing these people?
Amy Sullivan 05:49
Oh, absolutely.
So, my daughter found recovery two years before I started this project. So that was really helpful for us to get to know each other, again, to feel connected. And I have a beautiful granddaughter. And so, there was a lot of wonderful things happening.
So, I was very much buoyed by that. We’re healing and healed relationship. That gave me strength.
One of the ways that I approached these oral histories was as an insider, and my insider status allowed for repour, between myself and my narrator, because I understood certain things, I can see when they were having a hard time talking about something, and we would just stop or pause or change the subject. And then I would do the same for myself, I would just learn how to listen and understand the enormity of this problem. Like, the time that has been lost, the people who’ve been lost. I think I got into my historian’s mind, where I can kind of pull back a little bit and look at the bigger picture. And that was something that was really helpful.
I also am someone who has had trauma. So, I have studied trauma and from a personal perspective and an academic perspective. And so, I know when I see it, when I see it happening in a conversation, I’m aware, oh, there’s that, okay, there’s that way of speaking, there’s that way of looking. And then I can kind of guide the conversation in another way or ask if we need a break. But there’s no doubt that there was pain, that I felt that no doubt at all. But I think what I tried to do ultimately was meet that pain with empathy, and compassion. And never did anyone share something they didn’t want to share. This was not an interrogation, or like a journalism interview. These are oral histories, when done correctly, give the narrator the opportunity to reflect on their own lives and tell you the story the way that they want to tell it. And then it’s up to the writer or the scholar to then do with what they want. But it’s definitely interactive, and I think I already had some skills in my back pocket, some tools for dealing with that.
And also self-care. I mean, I think that it was really only after my child was in recovery that I was finally able to kind of think about, like, how do I show up for myself? How do I take care of myself? How do I pamper my own kind of soul and my own little troubles? How do I give myself space for that?
Margaret 08:40
Which is such an important message to the family members?
Amy Sullivan 08:43
Oh, it’s so important. And it feels like when you’re in crisis, that your self-care is like triage. You don’t really feel it yet. You’re still in shock. And you might have gotten a massage. But as soon as you walked out of that massage, something happened on your phone, and you just lost the whole massage. (laughter) So I, I learned how to think okay, well, if I’m gonna get a massage, it’s not so that I can relax it so that the person giving me the massage can work out all that tension that I’ve built up in my body, it doesn’t mean that I’m going to relax. Right? Because I don’t know what’s coming.
Margaret 09:20
Right
Amy: at any point
Margaret: The triggers
Amy: Yeah, yeah.
Margaret: The triggers.
Margaret: So, is it okay to ask? you mentioned the person that wrote you, which I can only imagine I’ve never had that experience as writing as something and then somebody reaching out and being witness
Amy Sullivan 10:38
was just incredible!
Margaret 10:40
I bet. So, what has the response been? Have you felt people valued it, are grateful for the book? Has it done what you hoped?
Amy Sullivan 10:51
Yes, that’s what I get. I do get a lot about wow; I had no idea. I didn’t understand this. I’ve learned so much. These stories are so powerful. So yes, I have had a very positive response and some very good reviews. I’m also excited that the paperback version is coming out in October at some point, I think the beginning. And then the other really incredible thing I got to do this summer was narrate the book for an audio book. And there were a couple of hard days there with the mothering chapter. That was the first chapter I wrote in the book. And that chapter just hits me every time. But it was a very powerful experience to read these stories out loud, which I had not had the opportunity to do. Powerful for me anyway.
Margaret 11:45
And I am sure it will be to those who hear you. But it speaks to hearing things differently when we say it out loud than when we read it or when we think it.
Amy Sullivan 11:51
Yeah. Oh, so true. So true. Well, and when you get tripped up on the words that you yourself put together.
Margaret 11:59
So, it was a long process or not too long.
Amy Sullivan 12:02
It wasn’t too long. I had a very good sound editor.
Margaret 12:05
Nice.
12:07
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Margaret 12:11
Hey, it’s Margaret Swift Thompson here host of the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, which was created to help you as people who love an addict feel less alone.
I interview people just like you who share their story of addiction in their family and their own recovery journey. I interviewed people like Janet who found recovery before her son. Sandy Swenson who wrote The Joey Song about her journey as a mama whose son is not in recovery yet. I’d love to share an episode with you that I think will inspire you to seek support.
So, head to The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast, and check out episode 12 entitled, ‘How Does Sandy Detach with Love When it Hurts to do the Right Thing’. I know Sandy Swenson’s words helped me as do all my other guests. And I’m going to encourage you to check out whatever feels like the title that speaks to your soul. But please know that you can find any of my podcast episodes on my website:
or on your favorite platform.
Thanks!
13:26
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.
Margaret 13:38
I thank you as a person who is in the field of the professional side of working with this disease, because the way you presented it in the book was a way that I could read it and I had my moments of oh, I’m in that world, to moments of immense gratitude for your courage to put the facts out there with these beautiful stories intertwined in a way that I could hear it, and read it, and learn from it. So. I really thank you, Amy, I think you did a phenomenal job. And I would hesitate to say anyone working in the addiction world should read your book.
Amy Sullivan 14:17
Thank you. Thank you
Margaret: really should
Amy: thank you very much. Taking that from someone who has worked in the Minnesota model. Some of that audience, I was the most, the most worried being here in the you know, the heart of the rehab state. So, it means a great deal to me. So, thank you.
Margaret 14:36
You’re welcome. I’d like to believe that Minnesober, and the state with so many treatments, has the capacity to look outside of the box also, and see where things are not working, and to adapt and change.
Amy Sullivan 14:53
And I have seen that, and I see that now. You probably also notice there’s no argument in my book.
Margaret: No
Amy: There’s no agenda. There’s no, here’s how we need to do this. And this is wrong. And this is right. And I really have to say that the consequence of that was not just my own proclivities as a writer, but also the openness to which people are approaching the problems and the creativity with which people are trying to solve this crisis. And in all of addiction. There are so many amazing people in Minnesota working on this right now. And across the country. I mean, the clinic I mentioned in at Mass General, phenomenal, phenomenal. So, there is so much creativity and so much energy, and I hope that we can move forward with all those billions of dollars. And do something really substantial.
Margaret 15:47 Here, here. As interesting. I don’t know if you’ve heard about the movie, The Creative High, but I got the privilege of introducing the producer and the director of that. And it is a beautiful, beautiful movie about creatives and their addictions, and their recovery and using art and creative ways to navigate it.
Amy: Wow.
Margaret: Yeah, I think you’d enjoy it very much there. Like you say, there’s a lot more going on than we sometimes realize, because we have such tunnel vision many times in our own lane. And that’s what your book was beautiful about doing was kind of opening that eye a little bit. And what a privilege. It must be for your students to have you as a professor with this experience, not only academically but in life. And hopefully,
Amy: thank you
Margaret: helping the colleges address it and do harm reduction and education.
Amy Sullivan 16:39
Yes, we brought Narcan to campus a few years ago, I tell that story in the book. And I would say also that, besides the fact that I just love college students,
Margaret: me too,
Amy: they are just so exciting to work with. And just a final comment, I teach a class called uses and abuses and it’s about drugs addiction and recovery, the history of it. And we go topically, on drugs, mostly and bigger topics in the history and their ability to embrace new ideas, and think things through, and challenge old paradigms, while also being respectful. Some of them are less respectful. But just we need that we need young people in this conversation.
Margaret: Agreed.
Amy: We really do. We really need the young people here because we’ve lost a generation of young people. And I’ve kids coming into the class who lost a parent or lost a sibling or lost an uncle, their willingness to face, and learn. It really keeps me going. I think we need to look more to young people for these ideas.
Margaret 17:50 Agreed.
Amy: Yeah,
Margaret: agree. Thank God for the generations and the different experiences and wisdoms that people bring to the table.
Amy: Yeah.
Margaret: Some of us old guard have to recognize that’s what we are.
Abbi: It’s hard to let go
Margaret: and have to change the way we’ve done it that worked for what we did to okay, how do I open it up now to look at some of these alternatives?
Amy: Yeah, yeah,
Margaret: keep us young
Amy: Yes.
Outro: Thank you Amy for sharing your time, wisdom, and experience with us. I again will reiterate that I believe anyone working in the field of substance use disorder would benefit from reading this powerful book ‘Opioid Reckoning Love, Loss and Redemption in the Rehab State’ by Amy C. Sullivan.
I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability and sharing parts of their story. Please find resources on my website:
This is Margaret Swift Thompson.
Until next time, please take care of you!
