Today I have the absolute joy of introducing you to Dr. Sarah Bridges, the author of possibly my all-time favorite children’s book about this family disease of addiction. It is a pleasure to talk with Sarah about how hank came to be the star of her story, Hotdogs Anonymous. If you want to learn more about Dr. Sarah Bridges, the founder, and leader of Bridges Consulting, please email her at sarah@nullsarahbridges.com.
Be sure to register for The Embrace Family Recovery Coaching Group – this week March 22 at 8:00pm EST my special guest with be Sandy Swenson!
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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! So yeah I’m a giddy fan of my next guest’s book ‘Hotdogs Anonymous.’ It is an absolute thrill for me today to get the opportunity to introduce to you all Dr. Sarah Bridges the author of this phenomenal children’s book. What an opportunity to learn how Hank the golden retriever came to be the storyteller to help children understand this no fault family disease of addiction. It is my pleasure to introduce you to Dr. Sarah Bridges.
00:50
The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast
Margaret 01:09
I am so excited to have you Dr. Sarah Bridges, I hate to use the terms because it seems so formal when I know we’re going to just have a lovely conversation about your fabulous book. But I need to say first of all, thank you for agreeing to have this time with me. I have been a fan of your book since the day it came out. And it is the number one referenced book that I send out to any of my parents, any of my grandparents, anybody who wants a book that helps them talk to their children, grandchildren about this disease in language that’s palatable, but accurate, because I love how you blend a kid friendly book with terms that we use in the rooms. So welcome.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 02:01
Thank you so much. This is really a treat for me to be here.
Margaret 02:06
It’s a bigger treat for me, I assure you.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 02:09
I doubt it.
Margaret 02:10
So, when we talk about your work, let’s just share with people who you are and what you do for your career. Because you are a doctor, you have done amazing, 25 years of experience. And so, I’ll let you describe a little bit about your business, your practice. What you’re doing now. And then we’ll go backwards into what made the book come about.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 02:35
Well, I think the best introduction I ever got was from my middle son at a teacher conference, when the teacher asks, what does your mother do? And he said, she’s a doctor, but not the kind that helps people. And I thought that was perfect. I do have a doctorate in psychology, I do not practice as a therapist. I work in organizations, nonprofits, big companies, little companies, and work with the leaders and employees to help improve culture, help build good leadership, foster communication, all those kinds of things within different organizations.
Margaret 03:15
And has that been your career? Or did you switch out of private practice into that? Or is that always been what you’ve been drawn to?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 03:21
That has always been my career, right from the start?
Margaret 03:27
So your company’s name in case anybody wants to ever find you on that side of it, because we’re gonna go into you and your book and away from the career. But anything you want to share for people who want to know more about it?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 03:38
Sure. So, it would be sarahbridges.com. But it’s Bridges Consulting, there’s a group of us, we all happen to be women. And there’s six of us who work they’re all doing the same kind of work within organizations.
Margaret 03:53
Fantastic. And I will link all of that to the show notes. So, anybody interested in finding Sarah in that capacity can do so. But changing hats, you know, when you talk about consulting and working within corporations and nonprofits? I’m guessing Hotdogs Anonymous was probably not a brainchild for your professional career, (laughter) on that level.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 04:15
It was not a brainchild on that level. Nope. It really came out of personal experience going into recovery, and having children and when my four children were young, trying to explain what the heck this disease was. How we go about recovering from it and being in recovery. And the central role that other people on spirituality play in that but how do you talk about that really young kids in a way that they can relate to. And the book really came out of our own family.
Margaret 04:52
So, when you if you’re willing to go back a little to your own recovery story, because I think that’s helpful for people to understand that you’re in recovery. Long Term Recovery and your children were young. So how old were they when you got into recovery?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 05:07
Okay, so I have, which I think is not totally unusual kind of two stories of recovery. I got in when I was 23. And then following some personal things going on, I had another bout of getting back into drinking and got back into recovery 15 years ago.
Margaret 05:27
I thank you for sharing that.
Dr. Sarah Bridges: Of course,
Margaret: I think family members often feel their loved one will get into treatment, and it will be one time done and straight course into trajectory. Those listening who’ve been through it. No, that’s not the case for many families. But to hear you as an accomplished professional, as an author, as a speaker, as a psychologist, as a consultant, being honest about you had some time in recovery, and then some issues happen and return to use continued. And then you found your way back to recovery.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 06:02
That’s exactly right. Yeah, after 20 years of sobriety.
Margaret 06:08
That’s a great reminder to, those of us in long term recovery to not take for granted our recovery.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 06:14
It’s totally that, you know, it went along, I went to grad school, I had kids, I got married, all of that was in sobriety. And that all worked fine until a major stressor happened. Our second son ended up with very serious disabilities, and autism, and seizures. And in the relentless pursuit to kind of cure him, fix them, which I should have known from my own. My own experience, what we have come to is he is who he is and helping him manage his own difficulties. But my entire focus shifted to him. And off taking care of myself. I know, I’m not alone in that kind of story. And it didn’t happen right away. But a few years later, it did. And realized once again, okay, I know how to do this, it doesn’t mean it’s easy, but needing to regroup and kind of start back up.
Margaret 07:11
It’s interesting, we talk a lot because my audience is loved ones of people with this no-fault disease. We talk a lot about how to care for yourself when you love someone with the illness. And what you just spoke of is the parallel experience of people who love us in our disease. And for me, I’m a first-born codependent, second born recovering addict, right, like I know my primary illness. And it’s interesting to hear you say that around your son’s autism, your ability, which naturally happens for all of us to focus on self is secondary instinctively, to go to the child in need.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 07:50
That’s exactly right, and forgetting what I know through the program, which is I’m not of use to other people unless I’m taking full, thorough care of myself. But I think especially with us as parents, it’s easy. I mean, anytime it can feel like I’m being selfish, whether I’m in recovery from codependency or an active addiction, I’m being selfish not to focus on the person suffering. And yet, you know, I’m a firsthand example, that taking my eye off the ball of what I know, what had worked for 20 years, again, didn’t happen instantly. It’s a slow slide, but then it happened. And then then I need to focus on myself, and I’m not useful to him or anyone else.
Margaret 08:37
So how long were you back in use before you found help? And how did you find help? Because I know that some people talk about, you know, the first time we get into recovery is a gift the second time is a lot harder, because it isn’t the first time. So, I’m curious your experience with that if you’re willing?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 08:54
Well, that is very much my experience. It was about five years, I went to Hazelden. Actually, I don’t know if you even knew that part of the story.
Margaret: I did not.
Dr. Sarah Bridges: The second time for me was much harder. And I think part of it is because of feeling a lot of shame. I know better than this, you know, anyone. And I work with lots of other people fighting their way in or working hard on their own recovery. And no one can be harder on the person suffering than the person. I mean, I had to work through a whole issue around feeling ashamed about, I knew better. I had it for 20 years. What does this mean? This has happened. This wonderful sponsor. She was 78 years old said to me, you know, Sarah, here’s the deal. If your tire blows out on the side of the highway, you don’t sit there saying Why did my tire blow What am I going to do? To get yourself to the gas station and fix it then you can do a little reflecting. And the minute I made a shift from why is the is happening. What does this mean about me to what am I going to do? The doors open. And of course, within the program, there’s nothing but love in coming back. And people are even thankful that sort of I did their research for them, they don’t need to know. And they can see that even after 20 years, it’s like managing diabetes or anything that after a period of time kind of aged out of it, that’s still needed.
Margaret 10:29
Yeah, good friend of mine says, no matter where we are on the highway, we’re still as close to the ditch as we were on the first day we got on the highway.
Dr. Sarah Bridges: That’s really true.
Margaret: And what you share in your experience is we can get back on the highway no matter where we are, if we’re willing to do the work and you were.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 10:45
100% 100%.
Margaret 10:49
So, in those five years, your children’s age when you were in use was about what?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 10:54
Yeah, from quite young. My youngest at that point, I think was four, my oldest would have been 10. So, they were right in that span. And so, I was in that period going back to AA struggling. Here’s the other part of the story you can struggle, and struggle, and sometimes that’s part of it. It wasn’t drinking straight through, it was struggling having a slip and finally kind of crying out, calling and going to Hazelden.
But the kids saw me really grappling I mean; we were open about it. Saw me go into the program. They were young enough, they didn’t really understand what this is, and why can’t you just choose to stop on your own? And why do you have to go hang out with these other people and all of that, and it was hard to really explain that. And somehow that morphed into making it into a joke that our yellow lab had an addiction with hot dogs. And so, I started explaining about Riley needing to meet with the, well we called the dog Hank in the book.
Margaret: But Riley was your actual dog?
Dr. Sarah Bridges: Riley still is my actual dog, very old now. But what Riley had to do to get better. And that was what Hotdogs Anonymous was born from.
Margaret 12:14
So, it came from something you used to help your children understand what you were doing in your home.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 12:19
We really did. And part of it was we could laugh, and we used funny voices and would talk about Riley oh no, not again and Riley’s doing this. And somehow making it a little bit outside our direct family. And using humor was really helpful even in explaining what was happening.
Margaret 12:39
That makes it even more special. You know, having read it so many times, read it to children in our little book club that we started at Hazelden Betty Ford on visiting day. It was one of the most memorable little things we did. I think it was once a month, we would have a story time where anyone whose children were visiting, could come over to the Family Program, and we would get an office and we would get on the floor with stuffed animals and toys. And we would have a bunch of books out and we would read different books. And this was one of the favorites. And I think what was so touching to witness was children being with their loved ones, clean and sober, loved ones being with their children clean and sober.
And what it touched in me personally was I remember, not with pride, but I remember in my active addiction, racing through story time, because I was so desperate to binge. Being irritable and short and oh that books too long or you know and the heartache I have for that being the truth of my experience in reading books to my children at naptime or bedtime.
To see these families, unite over that and be able to do it clear minded was a beautiful thing to witness for all of the family members and your book helped that happen.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 14:00
Oh, that that really is wonderful to hear.
14:04
This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.
Bumper: Have you struggled to find the place where love and addiction meet. Sandy Swenson, a mom of a son who struggles with the disease of addiction is the voice for parents living in exactly that challenge. I am thrilled Sandy Swenson will be with me as my guest on Wednesday March 22nd at 8:00 PM for the Embrace Family Recovery Coaching Group.
Do not miss this opportunity to hear from Sandy Swenson. Register in the link on my show notes for this episode as it is closed, and you have to register to attend.
Look forward to seeing you on March 22nd!
14:49
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 15:00
When the children reflect now, because the books still for sale, it’s still out there. It’s still your family story. You have now been in recovery for 15 years. So, they’ve known you steadfastly working your program, and they’ve grown. What do they say? How do they reflect on the tool in your home of Riley, and the book itself?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 15:24
It’s really sweet. I also named two of the characters after two of my sons. They just know the story from us telling stories. So, they always have really loved it. I mean, it ties right into their experience.
Margaret 15:39
Have you always been open about your recovery in your workspace, in your life? I mean, is it something you’ve been open about?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 15:46
It is, and people should do what works for them?
Margaret: Absolutely.
Dr. Sarah Bridges: But even in my organizational work, I mean, I bring it up appropriately. I don’t announce it as my intro. But most anyone who’s worked with me for a while, knows that and it’s so interesting, it’s never, of course been the focus of my work, work. But the number of times people have come to me out of organizational settings, because they’re having a struggle, one of their employees is and they know that I’m in recovery, and they can talk to me, I can help them direct to resources. It just creates a conduit. It also now with the pandemic and people talking more openly about mental health, it opens the door even to talk about wow, I have been struggling with depression. I mean, all of our whatever things are, may have a different flavor of that underwriting feeling of stuckness, of pain, of not being sure how to get out of something on our own, is a really common human feeling. And I don’t know it’s really enriched the relationships that I have with people.
Margaret 16:57
Again, I think that offers so much hope to people. Because I hear repeatedly, and I’m sure you do also, when people make that choice to share. Inevitably there’s so and so says, oh my gosh, I can relate. It’s in my family or I can relate I went through that. It’s very infrequent I hear from people when they’ve taken the risk that they’ve had any kind of negative reaction.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 17:18
I’m not exaggerating, I don’t think I’ve ever had a negative reaction. It’s really something I mean, I just recently gave a keynote talk to hundreds of leaders and mentioned it in there. I mean, to me, it’s a positive part of my story, now. As I think anyone in recovery for any period would say, a when you go to those kinds of depths, it’s impossible not to feel an empathy with other people.
Margaret: Right.
Dr. Sarah Bridges: And secondly, we learn when we can move through them that we can move through really hard things that’s transferable. And such a gift. All the pieces we learn in the program, I mean, sure they apply to stopping whatever the behavior is, but they just apply to life. If I wake up in a horrible mood, knowing you know, it’s going to pass, tomorrow’s a new day. And I’m going to get through today, all I need to do is get through today and get to bed and start up again.
Margaret 18:20
But I also feel Sarah, I mean, I think that is such a key point. Because I would assume like I back in the day, that was not my reality. When I was in that place. I didn’t think I could make it. I didn’t think I could navigate it, I could cope and anything that scared me like that, or brought out those feelings I’m running from in any way possible. So that’s huge growth, and progress, and healing from recovery.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 18:45
Yes, exactly. It is. So true. I mean, in the depths of it, and I kept lots of journals, I know exactly how I felt. It really is an experience of being totally stuck. And whether someone has had an addiction to a substance or not most of us have had that experience at some point. It’s just so profound when we’re in the grips of an actual addiction, feeling so stuck and so ashamed. And bizarrely, the very thing causing the problem seems like what will cause relief, and then it starts over and then everybody’s mad at you and your family, understandably, and concerned and at their own wits end.
Margaret 19:27
And they can see if you would just stop doing it, your life would improve. But when you say it so well. You’re in it and you’re miserable. But yet you’re thinking the thing that’s making you miserable makes you have relief. You can’t see that truth. When you’re in the midst.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 19:44
I know. Even to me being outside of it, I can see and acknowledge how crazy that is and wild and illogical and that’s exactly how it feels in the middle of it.
Margaret 19:56
That’s why it’s a disease and how we’re wired versus just judgment or shaming factor. So, you said when you went back to get help, for your treatment, the struggle was shame, and try to figure out how and why it happened. How did you move through that to then be so public and say, you know what, I’ll hold my head up in recovery. And I’ll write a book, and I’ll talk about it when it’s appropriate in my professional world, like, where did that change happen Do you remember?
Dr. Sarah Bridges 20:28
You know, that same wonderful sponsor said to me, here’s how you get self-esteem, do esteem able acts. And over time that builds up, and you will feel better about yourself. It didn’t happen instantly. Although the part that did happen quickly is getting around other people in recovery, immediately shoots down that little self-sabotaging thought that I’m the only one, and I’m the worst. And how, you know, you get into the rooms, or you’re in recovery from anything and you realize, that’s part of it. For a lot of people, you don’t learn to play the piano on the first sit down,
Margaret: right?
Dr. Sarah Bridges: There are some people who do and God bless them. Not everybody does. But what I’ve learned is it’s the person really sticks with it. And after a period of time being out, and staying sober and rebuilding my life. I don’t have shame; I can look back, and of course, I feel regret about things with my children and those years. Although it’s funny, that same middle son when we were and we talk a lot openly about addiction and my own experience, and his experience, said, you know, Mom, I wouldn’t be the person I am today, if you hadn’t gone through that. It really taught me resilience and it’s made me very independent. And so, we can’t change anything in the past, but we can change how we look at it. And that’s been really critical in moving forward.
Margaret 22:03
And, yes, we would never want our children to gain resilience through living with us in active addiction
Dr. Sarah Bridges: no
and in early recovery, and isn’t it amazing that they can see the benefit. And I always say to people in early recovery, you can’t change as you said, what has been done in the disease. However, you can commit to your recovery, so you don’t repeat it, the harm that’s done is done. You don’t have to re harm those you love. If you work this program, like your life depends on it.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 22:39
That is so beautifully said. And over time. You accrue enough time and experiences where that doesn’t go away as an experience. But we can build up so much more that is positive and good.
Margaret 22:56
How long were you in recovery, when you decided the book needed to be shared? The story that helped her family needed to be shared,
Dr. Sarah Bridges 23:03
it was about four years into it, decided it was time to write it and put it out there. And that was when it happened.
Margaret 23:13
And it was one of the first ones that I’m aware of. I know there was like a few of the old school the bottle, the one with the worm that went in the bottle, I can’t think of the name of it. The Brown Bottle I think So, in full transparency. Why I love this most I mean, I loved it for many reasons, was I’m a food addict. So, like all of the fact that Hank has struggled with the food piece, really related to what my children knew of me, even though they didn’t necessarily understand it.
Like you, my kids were young enough that I don’t think they realized for sure what it was. But they definitely saw me fluctuate in mood. Approachability in like one mom, one minute, a different mom and next minute
Dr. Sarah Bridges: Yeah.
Margaret: And then they were growing up with me going to meetings and me being abstinent and me doing certain things to be abstinent with foods. So, they were seeing and hearing that. So having a book that used language that they would hear me say, but not in a scary way or in a way they could read this and understand that even though it’s a drag that I go to a meeting or even though it’s a drag that I don’t eat certain things because they’d like me to eat something they eat, which I don’t they can understand it a little differently in a less threatening way. Hearing Hank’s story.
Dr. Sarah Bridges 24:36
Yes, because Hank’s problem was hot dogs.
Margaret 24:40
I can relate to Hank, to be fully honest. (laugh)I can relate to Hank. Hank, more was better when it came to any kind of food, so I get it.
Outro: if you had told me back in 2002 when I was so miserable, ashamed, full of self-loathing while stuck in my food addiction that I would be laughing about it on a podcast in 2023 I would have never believed you.
Sarah’s book is such a gift to open conversation with the youngest members of this family’s disease. Come back next week, Dr Sarah Bridges will share more about this generational family disease and how knowledge is power and the incredible value we get in connection and being vulnerable with one another.
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!
