Welcome to 2023!
The title of Congresswoman Madeleine Dean and Harry Cunnane’s book ‘Under Our Roof, A Son’s Battle for Recovery, A mother’s Battle for Her Son’ says everything!
Today I have the honor of introducing you to Mad(as Congresswoman Dean invited me to call her) and her son Harry, who will share their story and the parallel aspects of the family and the addicted person’s journey in this family disease. It is so powerful to hear about their journey, mutual love and respect, and that they continue learning from each other. What a powerful way to kick off a new year!
I want to shout out to their book on Audible(click the link to hear a sample!) where Harry and Mad narrate their chapters. Listening to them read adds so much to this already powerful book! I can only imagine how emotional it was to read.
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: Storytelling is an art. To do it about the pain, truths sometimes ugly ones, and hope of your life is a specific gift I treasure and admire. Today you get to meet a mother and her son who did exactly that when writing their book entitled ‘Under Our Roof a Son’s Battle for Recovery a Mother’s Battle for Her Son’ by Madeleine Dean and Harry Cunnane!
Please welcome Harry and Mad.
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
Margaret 03:15
Harry and Mad I am thrilled to have you with. I have been a fan of your book since the moment I cracked it open. And I would love to start by welcoming you and thanking you for the time you’ll give my audience who are mainly family members.
People tune in from all walks of life, but mainly family members who are affected by this disease.
And the first thing I’d love to know is if you would share how you came to decide to write this book from the position of both of yours take on the same story, which is what grabbed me.
So, whose idea was that? How did that come to be?
Harry Cunnane 03:51
We always say it was not originally our idea.
So, my older brother Pat is an author and he had written a book and when his agent asked him if he had another book in him, he said I don’t, but maybe my mom and my brother might, you know, might be willing to share their story. And really, it was just that. I remember Pat called me one night and said, hey, would you be open to this? Would you be willing to and really, for me, almost without hesitation, I jumped on the idea.
You know, I found that it made me question a lot of sort of where I was and, pieces of my recovery from the biggest perspective, the anonymity, right. I was very much someone who, especially in the work environment was not comfortable talking about my addiction, my recovery.
And I thought about when I was struggling, one of the biggest hurdles that I found was I couldn’t identify anyone that I knew that was in recovery. So many people out there there’s more than 23 million Americans and we’re recovery. And I didn’t know any of them. What I found out was I did know, actually a handful of them, but I didn’t know that they were in recovery.
So, for me, it was just you know, if we can write this and get a story out there, our story, just one of those many millions of stories, to try to give some hope and let people know that this is possible, that recovery is possible. If we can do just that, then it’s worth it. And if we can help break down the stigma with it even better.
Madeleine Dean 05:31
Margaret, to your question, the day that Pat’s agent came to visit us in suburban Philadelphia, we both seized on the idea. Sort of looked at each other. If it’s okay with you, it’s okay with me.
But we thought immediately of separating ourselves and trying to recall for ourselves what we had been through. And we, even I think that day established that we would have different fonts, so that the reader would sort of visually be clued into, okay, this is Mad’s voice. This is Harry’s voice. And so, we literally separated, I said, I don’t want to blur my memory, any more than it already is, with your writing until I get my own writing underway. So, we sort of concede that very quickly.
Margaret 06:13
So, to the memory part, right, as we go through this experience, though, we’re in the same family living the same illness within the family, everybody’s perception within the family is so unique to them. How hard was it to recall the memories? Had you kept journals along the way to be able to write the story as well as you wrote it, to the truth of your story.
Harry Cunnane 06:36
So, I think for me, it was maybe a little bit easier, just because I had been sort of reliving and going through and unpacking so much of my story. This is a process of my own recovery. It kept a lot of it relatively fresh in the work that I was doing to maintain recovery.
But that being said, it was challenging to go back. For me, the most important part of sort of that writing separately process was to maintain the authenticity that we have different perceptions on the same events.
I think if we were trying to write a book, and we were trying to be the editors and merge this together, I think what would have come out would have been a much more sort of blurred version of what we really thought we experienced, because in hearing her, it would change my perception. And I’m sure if she knew what I was writing, we would try to make it fit. And fortunately, we didn’t have to do that we had a great editor who was able to sort of masterfully put it back together in something that was coherent.
But the book really starts out as two very different perspectives, two different stories, two different experiences. And the gift is that through recovery, we still have a different perspective on the world today, but it’s gotten a lot closer, because it’s much more grounded in the truth and honesty.
Madeleine Dean 08:01
For me, I did not keep a journal. So, it was a struggle to go back in some ways, painful struggle to go back. Things I was hoping to let go of. But I really relied upon looking back at the calendar. A strange thing happened when we wrote about the weekend that we confronted Harry, I had to literally look at the calendar, and had forgotten that Superstorm Sandy was that weekend. I mean that massive an event that impacted our world, our neighborhood, and our geography, I had completely forgotten, because I was so much more focused on what I call the storm in our own house.
But I literally had to go back to sort of the calendar and current events to say, oh, right, that’s where we were that Mother’s Day. That’s where we were that weekend. It was a challenge. Harry was the faster writer, very evil. He’d say, Mom, I finished chapter three, where are you? I’m behind. (laughter)
Margaret 08:57
I think that’s great. I think though, you do make a very valid point, Harry, which is one of my passions for trying to give family members as many resources as possible to navigate their own recovery.
As a double winner, interesting term we use for people both in recovery community for an addiction and also recovery community for say Al-Anon or a support person.
I do have a framework of journal entries required by my sponsor as I unpacked my addiction.
So, I have a lot of stuff that I have since kept some, burnt a lot because it’s really hard to revisit.
So, I would assume that would make it easier to make the stuff come out accurately to your memory.
I assume, and I’d love correction on this. Writing this with your mother as a book that the world is going to read is a very different practice than doing your own work with your sponsor.
Harry Cunnane 09:54
It’s come up a lot and, in some ways, I think it could be but the writing process no matter how or what the end result is, I found was a very personal thing.
So, most of the time when I was writing, I was writing alone, just me and I wasn’t thinking about sort of where it’s going to go. My focus was on recalling accurately and just putting it all together.
Because my hope was, and what I sort of held on to throughout that was that based on where I am today, the things that I’m writing about the things that happened, I don’t have to have that shame for, because hindsight is 2020. You know, if I was still active in those behaviors, there’s no way I could write about them honestly, and truthfully.
But I just found that when I did sit down to write it was often you know, I was someone that I would usually write late at night, the kids were in bed, or try to sneak out for an hour on the weekend. And it was always a very sort of individual process. It was just he with the writing. And having never written a book or never done any publicity for a book. I had an idea of this is going to get out there. But I couldn’t grasp in what ways or what that would look like. So, I really just tried to focus on writing. And being in that moment.
Madeleine Dean 11:17
I was thinking, before I got into politics and public service, I taught writing at a university in Philadelphia for 10 years, and I would preach to my students that writing is thinking.
So, one of the things that I thought was as difficult as it might be, writing the book, or at least half of a book would help me think through where we had been. And that’s really a lucky exercise. I think it was such a gift that we had the chance to do this. And to think through actually where were we? What were we perceiving? How did I help or hinder? And of course, to examine the best part, which is the recovery and how thriving and healthy Harry is.
12:01
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Bumper: I’m thrilled to report that the holiday series of will be meeting once again on January 4th, Wednesday at 7:30 PM Eastern Standard Time.
It has been such a privilege to be with the members of the group through this holiday season strategizing, learning, sharing, and supporting one another with radical self-care.
The group is offered to anyone who registers, and it is anyone who loves someone with the disease of addiction looking for added support and guidance in this holiday time.
We’ll meet on January 4th for our last of the complementary groups and we will talk about our victories struggles and strategies what worked and didn’t through the holiday season to register for this final . Please find the link in the show notes attached to this episode of Embrace Family Recovery Podcast.
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 12:46
So, let’s go back a little. Let’s tell people a little of your story, not give away the book, because I think that’s going to be something that people will read and value so much for themselves. And the book is called ‘Under Our Roof, a Son’s Battle for Recovery and a Mother’s Battle for Her Son’, even that, I love so much your title. By Madeline Dean and Harry Cunnane.
So, take us back. Tell us a little bit about how you got to the point of writing a book about your story from the standpoint of what was the impetus, you said earlier part of it was you didn’t see anyone like you out there. Is that true when you’re active, were the people that you were using around, like you or different than you?
Harry Cunnane 13:29
When I was active in my addiction, I surrounded myself with people who were just like me. Because when I did that, it absolutely didn’t remove the shame, or you know how I felt about what I was doing. But I used it because it was a way to more easily justify what I was doing.
If I had people around me, and ideally, they were people around me who were just slightly worse off than I was, because then I could look and say I’m not that bad yet.
I had surrounded myself with people like that. And for me, you know, I think like many it started out sort of very innocently. And a lot of those people that I was with, we fell into it together. We didn’t sort of fall off a cliff immediately things progress slowly.
But I remember I maybe was about 18 or 19. And some of my friends, they of course started getting in trouble and a couple of them went to treatment. And the people that I knew at the time that had been to treatment, or at least the people that I paid attention to, were the people who went to treatment and then came back into my life.
So, the people who go to treatment and then come back to me who’s actively using painted this impression of you know, well that’s not going to change it. We’re too far down this path for that to work for us. And for me that was something that was really hard, to think about and now almost 10 years into recovery, there were other people without a doubt. We actually had in the book, there’s Wally and Larry. And Larry was someone who was in recovery, he was, you know, in recovery. In maybe an untraditional sense, but he was absolutely in recovery, he lived with us. And I had no idea I could not put the pieces together of why he just drank straight tonic water, you know, and never drank alcohol until much later. And I think that’s part of what I wanted to see in writing this book was to just have more open conversations.
Margaret 15:39
Can I offer something there? Because I’m curious, the language I use with families to try and help them understand this baffling disease is we have to learn to separate the person from the disease. Do you think in hindsight, which is always different than when we’re living in it. The disease within you was keeping your focus on the sicker people, and not seeing the hope to keep you trapped by it like to keep you hostage to the disease? Do you think that’s part of what was happening?
Harry Cunnane 16:08
I would say, the large majority of the time yes. And I think there were sort of glimpses in time where I had these moments of hope that I could identify something. And there were a few of those that I talked about in the book, different paths, or ideas that I had to try to stop.
All of which, before the last attempt, all of which failed. And I think as that process happened, if I had some hope, and then failed, then I would even go deeper into shutting out anybody that wasn’t sort of matching the narrative that my disease wanted to find. That there’s nothing that I can do about it. Because there’s almost comfort in that familiar pain. You know, it’s horrible. It’s excruciating to live that way. But you know, what you’re getting. You know, what’s going to happen? You know, what you’re in for? And the fear of doing something dramatically different is horrifying.
Margaret 17:09
Absolutely. And I see Mad, you’re shaking your head? No. I’m curious what you what you’re thinking and feeling.
Madeleine Dean 17:17
Every time I have these conversations, I learned more. And of course, in reading Harry’s writing and listening to his words, it was so hard to watch him in what I thought was pain, just a painful existence. I don’t know the pain you’re talking about. But to watch your child be trapped in that cycle of failure, of pain, of shame, of
Margaret 17:45
self loathing.
Madeleine Dean 17:46
Yes, he literally was losing himself. We have three sons. They’re all fantastic. They’re all different. But Harry bounded through the room as a child. Biggest heart, most curious, wild eyed, just very, very fun. And to watch him as he slipped into addiction, or is actually addiction, hollowed him out, is the way I’ve come to watch it. And of course, it’s day by day.
You know, if you look back, and if I looked at pictures of him back then I’d be jarred by it. The sickness takes over day by day and steals a little bit more of the joyful affect, of the intellect, of the carrying all of the: he has such extraordinary qualities. And it’s just so painful to think how addiction robs people of those things.
Margaret 18:36
It is. It’s a painful disease for the person with it. And I think sometimes I’m curious, Harry, your thoughts sometimes harder for the people witnessing it? Because though it’s miserable for us, we numb out, like I always say, in my talking to families, when they’re like, how do they not know? Come to enough? See the pain and the wreckage who solution, go back down, take more. Whereas families are in it day in and day out without that reprieve, of the use. Not that I’m encouraging it, but that is the nature of it. Harry, would you agree that it’s somewhat different that way?
Harry Cunnane 19:12
Absolutely. And I think, you know, like everything in hindsight, yes. When I was in it, I would have never agreed with that. I would have thought that, you know, as my world, my pain. I’m not hurting anyone but myself. But, you know, I think that that’s an important point. Because the reality was for me that the drugs were effective, they worked in numbing out the feelings that I didn’t want to feel, and they didn’t last long. And the consequences of them got worse and worse as time went on. But moments of being able to just be really present, right? Moments of being able to not feel the anxiety, the shame, the guilt, the self-loathing. But you know, I think in hindsight, and having watched friends now, now that I’ve been in recovery.
I’ve lost a lot of incredible people and a few really recently to just to watch it, and to be powerless in so many ways. I think, as someone who’s in recovery, and this isn’t a blanket statement, but for me, I think that I have a lot more empathy for someone who’s struggling with it than most. But even with that empathy, it’s so difficult to watch someone that I care about struggle. So, magnify that, especially if it’s your child, I have three children, my oldest is 10. I would just say I’m not even at a point, even as a father of three that I could even fathom that pain.
Margaret 20:42
No one can, even when you’re a parent. You’re living in it day to day, it’s like you living in the disease, Harry, when you were active, the progression of it gradually, continually takes us to places we never thought we’d go. And family members, that same experience happens, and the strength and resilience families have to stand with their loved ones is mind boggling in such a tremendously painful, chaotic, unimaginable experience that you’re living in.
Right, Mad. I mean, it’s just different than anything you can imagine.
Madeleine Dean 21:19
Yeah, I use the expression for months and months, and probably a couple of years that I felt like, there was a fire in the walls of our house. And I was the only one who sensed it. Just that I know something is burning terribly wrong here. Under our roof, part of the reason for the title. But I can’t get my finger on it. I can’t find the truth of it. And I would go to bed at night just in a panic. What is going to happen next? Where’s he going to go next? Why is he falling into this black hole?
I found a very challenging to.
Another point that you just both raised, which is the loss of friends. Those who are in this life, our life are keenly aware of the disease of addiction, the hope and recovery. But the challenge of it. Sadly, is a world of people who know a lot of loss. Just in the last two months, two of your very good friends passed away. In April we buried the boy, son of a friend of ours, who had been working, and struggling, and trying and doing everything, and every one of their power honest with the disease and the work of recovery. They weren’t unaware. But there’s so much loss, and that is what is so maddening to me.
Margaret 22:46
It is maddening. I often say working in the field of addiction. I hate this disease. I hate that there’s no ability to know for sure who will make it and won’t. We know what works. And it’s up to a person to work it. But there’s so many factors contributing to that challenge of people finding the hope and feeling the hope. And that’s why again, your book is so wonderfully put together and offered in such an easy to consume way that shows the terror and the challenges but also shows the hope and the path out.
And I have to remember and I’m sure both of you have experienced this through the loss, even the recent losses. What do we do with that loss? Right? Do we push forward to continue the message, that there is hope and reach a handout to someone in need? Or do we give up because it feels so overwhelming. And obviously, I know your answer because of what you do, both of you. But that’s a day-by-day challenge. Some days, it just feels overwhelming.
The theory that I’ve had to hold in my 20 odd years of working in the field because as you spoken to, we lose a lot of people. It is the painful truth of this illness, I have to believe that if I can assist one person in finding one glimmer ,of reaching one new place, of finding one new way, of looking at it and understanding or getting help, then I’m doing my job. Because if I look at it any other way I will give up.
Madeleine Dean 24:20
Boy we’ve had that conversation a lot.
I think about that a lot. And when we agreed to write the book, that was our threshold. If we write this book and we have helped one person, work will have been worth it.
You know, in the Jewish faith, there’s a belief that to save a single life is to save the whole universe. It’s very hard to comprehend the depths of that. But I wear this starfish for that very same reason. I call it my line of work.
You know the story of the little boy on the beach after a high tide early morning washes up 1000s of starfish and he’s walking along the beach and he’s tossing them back in because he recognizes that they’re going to dry up and die. And an older man walks by much wiser of course and says little boy, what are you doing? And he said, I’m saving starfish. And the older man says, can’t you see, you can’t change this, you can’t make a difference. And he picks one up and tosses it in and said, I made a difference for that one.
That’s our line of work. If we can make a difference for one, and then that multiplies, hopefully, we’ve done something. Otherwise in my line of work, you would just you know, get under the covers, quit. I always find a lot of hope.
Outro: I am truly privileged to host The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast and I have the opportunity to meet new people who courageously share so much of themselves. I learn so much, and I love this mother son duo! Their frank and thoughtful story representing both sides of the same coin is masterful come back next week to hear more from Mad and Harry.
Margaret 26:13
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!
