Speaker 1Hello everybody, welcome back or welcome to Recovering Out Loud podcast, the podcast where we get real about addiction and recovery. Today, Rob L joins us in studio to share a deeply personal and powerful perspective, what it's like to walk the path of recovery when you are not the addict, but the father of two daughters who are. Coming from a culture where alcohol was always present, Rob was no stranger to substance use, but everything changed when both of his girls began struggling with addiction. One daughter is now in strong recovery, the other is still trying to go it alone. In this episode, Rob opens up about the heartbreak, the helplessness, and ultimately the healing he found in his own recovery journey as a support person. We discuss the emotional toll of loving someone through addiction, what boundaries and support really look like, and how recovery can reshape the lives of those on the sidelines. I learned a lot today and I hope you do too. Enjoy the show. You or someone you know is struggling with a loved one in addiction, please reach out for help. Send me a message and I can connect you with someone who may help. Rob, I appreciate you coming down, man. Thank you so much. Thank you for having me. We've been in contact for a while. You're a friend of my mom's. My mom introduced me to you and she says nothing but good things about you. I appreciate that you've been listening and sending me messages as well, saying that you appreciate the content. That means a lot to me. When anyone messages us, no matter what it is, the fact that it kind of touched you in some way, I appreciate that because that's why I wanted to start to do this thing. And, you know, those messages go along way. So thank you. I also too, I really wanted to, I think this, you know, loved one, the loved one of addicts, loved ones of addicts are an important voice. I want them to be an important voice in this podcast. It doesn't get talked about enough, right? So we were at a wedding last night, my wife and I, and it was a good friend of mine. And one of my buddies, you know, we were talking about it at the table and this podcast came up and I, it's funny. I don't know if you've heard of it, but it's funny. I'm still, I'm at a point right now. I don't know about you, but I have a, I'm getting better at it. I have a hard time taking compliments and taking good words about me. And that's something about my self-worth. I'm still healing from, you know, hating myself for so long. I'm getting a lot better at it now where I can just kind of like, listen to what somebody says. And instead of get like, Oh, uncomfortable, like I'm not, you know, he's wrong. I'm not a good person, right? This kind of uncomfortability. I just accept it. And I'm grateful for it today. Right? So last night we started talking about it and addiction at a, at a wedding dinner table is not, you know, the most comfortable subject to talk about for me. I'm okay because I can talk about it. I've there's like three or four strangers at the table and I'm like, what must they be thinking about this conversation? Right? We started talking about some pretty heavy stuff. Right. And I really want to get your opinion on this and we'll jump into it. But my friend, one of my really good buddies, so grateful for this. He looked at my wife and he just, he kind of said, how are you doing? How are you? And I find that that gets missed a lot in this conversation. We, we don't really realize how much addiction touches the loved ones and, and this kind of vicious precarious, uh, you know, butterfly effect that addiction has on. And so I was thinking about it this morning. I kind of drew it out on, in my notes. If there's one aspect that I think is really important, I think it's really important. I think it's really, really important. I think it's really important. I think there's three loved ones of that addict that are suffering. You don't think about this as much as maybe we should, but if there's even just, uh, let's just say three more people that love that loved one of the addict. Now that's 12 people thinking about the addict, right? Because this is kind of like spider web, this kind of like a trickle down effect. So now you have three loved ones worrying about the addict and you have, let's just say three loved ones, three loved ones of that loved one worried about the loved one. It's, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty intense,
Speaker 2right? Yeah. There's a, there's a lot to take from that. It's the way that you just described that kind of reminded me of, you're probably too young to remember this, but there was a shampoo ad when I was a kid that it's a, it had a woman and talking about this, this product that she was using. And then I told two friends and then they told two friends and so on and so on. And it was the, the, the, the scream kept splitting to more and more people in like little boxes, you know, like, um, like, uh, the Hollywood squares or something like that. So it's, you know, you make a really good point. Um, it is something that, you know, and we're, we're all hopefully lucky to have people in our lives that care about us. Right. And when you are lucky enough to be surrounded by people who care about you, um, those things which are causing you the most consternation and the most trauma, um, oftentimes for better or for worse become the prevalent topic of conversation every time that you see one another. Right. So many times the first question will be, so how's your daughter? Yeah. Right. Right. How, you know, so how, how are you? Um, and I think it's a natural thing because people who love you just want you to be okay. Um, um, but yes, um, to your point, um, I think that oftentimes, and we were talking about this a little bit before, you know, we turned on the equipment that the person who is, you know, in, in active addiction, the person who is experiencing the trauma that they are, um, their issue feels more immediate. It feels more real. It feels more like a, like a clear and present danger. Right. Whereas the person, the, the support network, the loved one, it feels kind of secondary, but oftentimes, um, people like that are suffering in silence. Right. Um, and then the question becomes out of that is how are you going to deal with it? Yeah. Right. Because on my road, I've made a lot of mistakes along the way. You know, and in some ways I'm glad for that. Um, because the clear path was brought to me. And in other ways, I still carry some baggage with it. Right. That I'm like, oh man, what was I thinking that I dealt with this by doing X, Y, Z, you know, like rookie move, dude. Yeah.
Speaker 1So you have, um, two daughters. Yes. One is in currently in active addiction in the throes of action, active addiction, and one is in recovery. Right. Correct. Can you tell us a little bit about your story and, and, and get into that a little, uh, how far back do you want me to go? Um, as far back as you want to today, I would say like what, you know, maybe
Speaker 2I'll just, whatever you think is prevalent. I don't, I don't. Okay. Yeah. Um, so I guess for myself, I grew up in a, I grew up in a household, um, where, um, alcohol was, uh, just sort of accepted as a constant presence. Um, the same way that like milk or bread or, you know, anything else was, I don't ever want to give the impression that my folks abused it, but my father was a Scottish immigrant. My mother was from Northern Ontario, but came from Irish stock. So Scottish and Irish insert joke here, you know, about whiskey and, you know, Guinness and beer and, you know, everything in between. Um, so, you know, my folks were very hard workers, uh, but on the weekends, you know, when Saturday night came, they, you know, really enjoyed a few. Yeah. Um, so, you know, alcohol to me was something, um, that I just kind of accepted. And it's funny because, you know, I was thinking about this when we set up, um, our session here when I hit my teenage years as all kids do. Um, and I started fooling around with things that, you know, the law said I wasn't yet ready. Um, and, you know, and, and also at the time, you know, things that were not legal, right. Like, you know, so obviously I'm talking about alcohol. Um, and, you know, this is like late eighties that we're talking that I sort of came of age. So hash, mushrooms, um, acid, little bit of cocaine. Um, and whenever I got pinched and I was very obviously drunk, oftentimes it was dad, you know, he was just like, he's just blowing off steam. It's fine. When it was something else, do you know how much you're going to ruin your life? You know? Uh, yeah. Yeah. Because it, but it was just wasn't part of their world right you know drugs was something that had to do with the counterculture and you know dirty hippies and you know stuff like that um so i um sort of i got all of that out of my system um i'm not going to say that when like i'm at a concert or a sporting event or a club or something like that that i don't drink because i do um but it also doesn't have the same end result on me as what it does on people that i care about right um so um alcohol uh and you know other substances were they were never you know particularly prevalent in my relationship with my children as they were growing up um i am i'm divorced and um you know my ex-wife's family is italian so you know you know you know you know you know was always a very big deal like even just like with a daily like a wednesday night meal right um not irresponsibly just present yeah um so i couldn't say how that really affected um the the um sort of acceptance of alcohol in my kids lives um i think that you know like that's their story right but i think um so i guess this is so this this would probably be like the if if i had to um on the roadmap of where we've come to this point if i had to like define an exact moment um and i'm going to talk broadly just because i'm not sure that i completely understand what potential legal ramifications there could be in this but um my kids were involved in a very very bad accident uh when they were teenagers and um they as a result received a lot of money which was put into their hands right after they had both turned 18 years old being 18 years old that means um i have no legal recourse by which that i can instruct them right now i don't know about you but when you were 18 years old if you were handed a quarter of a million dollars
Speaker 1do i i don't really need to finish this yeah as you're talking i'm just i'm thinking about all the stuff that i would do at 18 and none of it is responsible so yeah yeah yeah wow um so i that
Speaker 2that was really sort of like um i think a that was putting propane on the on the barbecue right there right i had noticed with my youngest that there were already some issues that that point um that were a little outside of what would be normal teenage angst my oldest um she like it was always like school boys you know do i have the coolest pair of uggs like normal stuff right yeah whatever normal means but i i i can't i don't know that i can necessarily put a defining point on it but i noticed that with my youngest there was something um deeper and more profound and you know dare i say darker that was going on with her um i still don't you know really understand what that is but again that would be her story um and so you know that influx you know this massively um lucrative influx of money really you know helped to fuel where things went um now my oldest she had um taken some advice i believe it was from her mom and she had said you should get you shouldn't take some of that money and put it in real estate you know good idea yeah good idea right um it's the only thing there's never going to be more of and and um so she bought a condo downtown and um the thing was is that i i believe she was 19 when she got it right imagine being 19 years old and owning like yeah a prime real estate you know and downtown toronto yeah downtown toronto you know burgeoning neighborhood mecca of you know use and and alcohol yeah so what happened was um because she was young because she had had no existing credit profile she had said will you co-sign for me right now i had no reason to think that like this seemed like um money in the bank as far as she was concerned that i was just helping her out with uh you know building something at a really young age and she had a serious leg up on where like 99 of the rest of the population would not yeah um and then probably about i would my timelines are a little fuzzy but about two years later um this was during lockdown which you know as you know probably exasperated a lot of people's tolerance yeah and mental health in general yeah but yeah you're right um i had um left my job at the time um i had found myself in a pretty good position in in many different ways like you know financially mentally emotionally um and uh i was like you know what considering that the world is shutting down i'm actually going to kind of try to make lemonade out of lemons and i left my job for a year and um i wrote a novel during that time wow now there's something very almost like a almost like a um like a movie moment here where the friday afternoon that i had finished that i had written the end i came bounding down the stairs excited beyond all get out you know the world is my oyster i can go anywhere from here there's a knock on the door right i get served with papers that the mortgage has been defaulted on that i had co-signed for that i owned you know 0.5 percent of so that was when i came to the realization like things have gone seriously wrong under my nose um yeah so that was that was sort of like the pinpoint defining moment had you had you had like hints along the way or was this a complete shock yes but i always thought that um you know there was a level of you know maybe common sense and sensibility that existed there that um she wouldn't get pulled into this right um but you know as we both know it isn't necessarily always about common sense and sensibility there's something you know deeper that always goes on there right and so i think maybe a month or two after that after that it happened you know the the timing on that is something that i always look back on as being like disturbingly profound right like it's like i was i was in a moment of you know incredible creative high um i had also been fortunate enough that i you know had just bought my dream car as well too and it was like everything was just going lining up so fabulously right um and i'm not i'm not saying that you know to make anybody involved feel worse as a result um you know maybe just to kind of illustrate the point of exactly where i was at that point in my life but so maybe you know a month or two after that i had received a phone call um one morning from the police um that um she had taken a serious beating from a guy that was in her life at the time who had um kind of introduced her to the world of um hard dangerous narcotics and that she was in a detox facility she was in treatment um and so you know she got in touch while she was there and said um you know can you come and pick me up on saturday after i'm fully detoxed you know um yeah so that's that's my oldest daughter's story you know and um that was brutal man that was that was brutal that that saturday that i went downtown to go pick her up and she came out you know through the front door and she was you know attended by one of the people who worked there um all right you know i looked at this like just emaciated rake of a child you know face just black and blue yeah you know and i'm like who did this to you you know like your first instinct is just like i want to kill everybody that you have had any contact with over the course of the last year year and a half you know something like that um yeah but you know that was an eye-opener man that was an eye so that's my oldest that's my oldest story um and with um one exception she has trod the road of you know sobriety and recovery um and uh you know in many ways this kid's my hero nice yeah yeah so um my youngest um i have less clarity on how that went um i um i know that there was always a propensity with her for whatever reason um and again i i wouldn't ever want to try and dissect it because it's not my story um but there's always been a tendency um to maybe surround herself with people who i suspect deep down she knows are not good for her um and if i were to offer a theory i would say that when you allow yourself to be attended by people who you perhaps know are not good for you it gives you an excuse to behave in a way um
Speaker 1that is destructive that is not good for you yeah right yeah it kind of yeah and i can relate to that a lot um i hung out with you know in in one of our literatures that we work with it talks about this idea of lower companions and what i've learned from my perspective is you nailed it on the head it's like i used to hang out with these people that were quote unquote worse than i was doing worse than i was and i i always had this you know in addiction we do this comparison thing where it's like well i'm not as bad as him i'm not doing heroin yet i'm not using needles yet i'm not smoking meth yeah i'm only just snorting meth and it kind of key it fuels this it's it's okay buddy like you're you're okay you're not that bad right so yeah yeah that's um
Speaker 2that is a that is a dangerous graph to find yourself um trying to navigate you know um related but perhaps opposite you know one of the things that i had an epiphany about in my own recovery and in my own program is um there is no point system with us right you know that it's like like the absolute ego to sit in a room with other people you know who are all suffering their own traumas and say yeah but my trauma is worse than yours you know like it's it's not it's not about that no absolutely right yeah and what may seem like nothing to somebody is the end of the world to somebody else right all of our lives are tweaked a little bit differently and we are shaped by experiences that are unique right um so um going back to my youngest um it's i i think there was um you know she has gone up and down struggled Um, there was an incident where she was missing for, um, a long weekend, uh, a couple of years ago, it was Labor Day weekend. Um, and you know, her phone was off. Um, her mom had a key to her apartment, which was only a few blocks away. And, um, like, like her bank card had been left behind and, you know, anything that would have given her any sort of connection to resource, um, her cell phone was gone though. So that was maybe a good sign, but it wasn't on. Um, there was a huge search by the police. Um, eventually, you know, she was found, she was okay, a little worse for wear. Um, I don't entirely know what happened over the course of that long weekend. I don't know that I want to know. You know, in fact, it's probably best that I don't. Um, but there were some serious, hard conversations after the fact. And it was like, look, we'll figure this out piece by piece. Um, we're going to get you, you know, cleaned up. Um, and, um, you know, we'll, we'll take it from there. We'll take it from there. Right. Um, so she ended up going to rehab. Um, we sent her to, um, what seemed to be a fantastic, um, rehab out on the East coast. Um, because as I'm sure that, you know, rehabs here are pretty overtaxed, right. It's hard. Um, and you know, not to make it about money, but, you know, not everybody can afford, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it.
Speaker 1Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it.
Speaker 2Um, and, um, you know, not everybody can afford it. some level have always had a level of creativity to them. And I find that, you know, the, you know, at the risk of sounding like pretentious or whatever, the artistic process, um, you know, by thinking things through helps me. Right. So, you know, I promise, you know, to anybody in my life, if you've ever, you know, seen me like, you know, talking to myself, I'm, I'm working something through, I'm not nuts, you know, like I I'm, I'm, you know, like, well, what if I do this? And what if I, Oh yeah, but you know, this could be the best way for this to work out. And I find that it applies to a lot of facets of my life. Right. Um, so I think that a lot of times, and, you know, you know, that I'm in a recovery program for, you know, support of people who have addiction issues. Um, and I find that going and listening and talking these things through and interacting with people, it is a huge boon to my own wellbeing and mental health. Absolutely. Um, and then also, like I had said to you in one of our first interactions with one another, is it one thing that I have found and learned in my own recovery is that life is service, man. And if, and, and I, I'm assuming that you probably feel the same way in, you know, in doing the podcast, um, and you know, everything else that you do with your, with, you know, anything that has to do with your recovery. Yeah. If I can help one person, you know, if one person can hear my words, um, or, or, you know, understand my situation and they can pull something from that and it makes them say, you know, maybe that'll work for me. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm truly blessed to be able to do that.
Speaker 1It is legit my pleasure. Absolutely. And, uh, a big part of that too, you know, I get emotional just thinking about that too, because when I was in, when I was in active addiction, I didn't even have that bone in my body to be able to do that. And I'm just, it's the, when I cry like this, it's like a, it's truly out of gratitude because I wouldn't, I wouldn't be here if, if everybody that came into recovery didn't think like that. Right. I wouldn't be here if that first meeting I went to, uh, which was like one of the scariest moments of my life, somebody hadn't come up to me and shook my hand. And I was like, I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. I'm not going to do that. And said, Hey, we're happy. You're here. Welcome. You know, have a seat, grab a coffee. You're going to be okay. Right. I wouldn't be here if that didn't happen. So if I can, if I can do that and replicate that at even a, a, a 10th of a degree to somebody else, I've done my job. Right. And, uh, it's a, it's a truly a beautiful thing. I often say this recovery thing is like the pyramid scheme without the scheme. Right. And I talked about that in the beginning, this, you know, in a negative connotation of this kind of butterfly effect of how the addict affects so many people. Now I just have to do that the other way around, man. Right. I just have to, to, to affect the butterfly effect to, you know, implement that in a positive way. And it doesn't have to be, I often say this doesn't have to be this like profound speech from a hilltop. In fact, that doesn't work in my experience. It's just simply me talking about what I went through, how I got through it. And my experience, strength and hope that maybe somebody else can say exactly what's what you said. I love that is like, Hey, maybe that'll work for me. Maybe it won't, but I'm going to open my mind and try it either way. Um, so you're on your own healing journey right now. You talked about that a little bit. Um, I think, you know, in talking to my therapist, who's also in sobriety, she says like bar none, the hardest thing for her to do is to get the loved ones of addicts to, to go into their own recovery program. And there's like, well, why do I have to change? It's their fault. Right. And that's,
Speaker 2you know, Oh man, like I almost with you saying that I almost just like, it felt like a, uh, you know, a metaphorical punch in the stomach. Um, if, if I have any regrets about, um, the way that I have handled things with my kids recovery, um, and when the severity of their issues came to the I know, I know I gotta, I know I gotta let this go. I know forgiveness is, you know, and letting go and all variations of that kind of notion are very important to recovery, not just recovery, but your own personal journey in life as well, too. But I remember, um, and then, you know, subtopic, um, I should say as well, too, that, um, you know, a lot of, and this is where we support and what you find um comes from being lucky enough to have people around you um you know that love you and they and they support you and they just they want to do whatever it is that is gonna you know help bring you to a better place i have a fabulous fabulous partner in my life um who has taken this journey with me as well too um and um you know i don't want to talk too much you know because she has her own story um but um she's one of those people um who kind of makes everybody around around her better you know um i'm recognizing it excuse me i'm very blessed in that regard but one of the worst things um that i have you know experienced in my time um or that you know as the severity of this situation was rearing its head was that my oldest um she could see that i was really struggling um with like how could you allow yourself you know to get to this point you know all of those bullshit old-fashioned um notions of i didn't raise you to be this person you know um and you know we both know as do a lot of people who are probably listening and watching uh and in recovery one thing has nothing to do with the next right um and she had she had seen that i was you know really having trouble um getting my head around a lot of this stuff um and she had said you know maybe you might want to think about going to a meeting right because there are meetings that exist for people who are affected by a loved one's addiction right and anthony i gotta tell you man like it's it probably one of the most shameful moments of my life that i had said listen kid you're the one with the problem yeah it's not me right and you know as you know everything that i have just said in the last 20-25 seconds wrong wrong wrong right all a mistake all a mistake right um and you know there's a lot of ego in addiction and there's a lot of ego surrounding addiction and you know part of finding that is you have to strip yourself of a certain amount of it um i don't necessarily agree with the notion that you need to strip yourself of all your ego it's certain breeds of ego absolutely that need to go yeah um
Speaker 1yeah so i i think this this idea of ego deflation entices me right it's like you know it's it doesn't have to completely just disappear because uh it's some of us some of it serves us right it drives us to be better but there's certainly this overinflation of ego and addiction and i hadn't thought about it like that that's i'm i'm happy that you brought that up because ego does surround addiction too right there's this i'm fine you need to change idea and you you can't change it you answered it already but there's you know that that moment seems to be the the moment where you were like huh maybe i have a part in this right i didn't cause it i i can't control it um and i can't cure it thank you i can't cure it but maybe i do have a part in this so can you talk a little bit about you know and i guess your part in it like what what is your part in it
Speaker 2i don't know that i have a fully formed answer yet um you know we're all on our own journey of discovery um i you know you because you go back and um i think reflection is important i think that regret is overrated um i just came up with that right now that's not bad that's not bad i'm gonna clip that for sure you know i might hold on to that one i might put that on a sticky pad but it's one of those things where it's like so um you know we've talked about a lot today like even off mic like as we were you know just sort of like getting to know one another yeah um not only am i like you know a big movie guy a big music guy a big sports guy as well too um i still have a bone to pick with you and caleb about the cfl um that'll be for another time yeah um But, you know, I'm lucky enough that, you know, i'm a season ticket holder to a couple of different sports franchises in the city and you know there were times when you know i would bring my oldest to a game my youngest you know at this point in her life really doesn't have a whole lot of interest but my oldest you know i would bring her to a game every once in a while and it would be like you know i would you know buy her like a small like eight ounce beer you know just be like don't tell your mom you know like that kind of thing like maybe it's 16 you know and like one you know but then in retrospect when you see how things have worked out it's like was i did that moment that we were having like you know sort of a bonding did i contribute to that yeah you know i i i don't know what the answer to that is um but i think also um you know because my kids grew up in two different homes no matter how hard you try and regulate that there's always going to be some level of disjointed parenting and i don't know if that helped i know that it certainly wasn't intentional because of course you know i always always remained hyper hyper cognitive too i want my kids lives to be as normal as they possibly can despite the fact that they live with their mom here and they live with me here yeah right um and you know you do your best right you do your best i know like so going back to music for a second you know one of my guys is springsteen right and he grew up with at the time an undiagnosed bipolar father yeah right there's a movie about his life coming out in the in the fall so i'm sure that they'll touch upon this and um his father later in life you know had received his diagnosis he had received treatment he had received medication he got his condition under control um and his dad um and his dad you know later in his life had had a moment where he said you know i was probably pretty hard on you growing up son you know and bruce had said to him dad you did the best that you could with the tools that you had at the time i love that right and you know not only does that show an amazing sense of forgiving you know and of acceptance um but um um it's um
Speaker 1yeah i i don't know how to end that you know what and i want to clarify something too i i i kind of pose that in a wrong way that question what what i fully want people to to understand if anything out of this whole entire episode um in the healing journey that you're on now what what is what is your part in healing from this because i really and i you know to answer your question i think a lot of parents maybe do think that they contributed more to the addiction than they did i want to tell you right now and i sure i'm sure you know this but i want to confirm it nothing my parents did made me an addict at all i was bound from day one i fully believed that i had an amazing household growing up i had amazing childhood i had everything a kid needed wanted could have asked for there was no abuse in my household you know nothing on paper should have contributed to the the life that i ended up in right i was bound from day one like i said but i think that what i what i really believe in is that you have a problem here now right and i'm not saying that you have a problem or just hypothetically you're you're at it there's something on the table the person in your life is struggling with this right yes you have two choices you can shame them to high hell and tell them to change and beat them into oblivion or you can kind of take this other road which you're clearly taking and i i noticed that in from what my mom talks about you but in even just in talking to you this kind of this acceptance that you mentioned what is your part in the healing journey of this
Speaker 2of this in your your daughter's life yeah so um yeah yeah that's that's you know kind of like a um that's kind of like a pandora's box question um one thing that i do know and this is you know a a a thought process that i've gotten a lot of mileage out of is that there is a prevalent belief that exists still within modern society everything that we know going through the opioid crisis you know alcoholism you know pick your poison there is still you know a very incorrect belief system out there that says these people are choosing to do this right right that's like saying to somebody hey you know what it's a real problem for me that you've got lupus
Speaker 1i need you to stop having lupus yeah it's really inconvenient for me yeah yeah right yeah yeah yeah
Speaker 2yeah and it's like it it it isn't that easy right it's it like it's it's actually proportionally right it's it like it's it's actually preposterous to to look at it from that perspective and until you're able to get your head around that concept you are going to stay in neutral right um and that took me a long time um to recognize that i can certainly tell you a lot of the mistakes that i made in the beginning um so you know in an instance where like you know a creditor was calling up and saying you owe x amount of dollars because of an unpaid utility bill um you know you're behind on this you know whatever i was taking care of all of those things right and it's like you know you know so another another rule for lack of a better term that i have recognized in recovery is there's a lot of stuff that you're going to be asked to embrace that completely goes against every instinct that you have as a parent right every single one you know it's like you know i was i was i was driving i was driving along in my neighborhood uh last week and you know because of the time of year that it is i saw um a uh a canada goose that had just given birth um to a whole nest of baby geese and you know they're just like in the cartoons like they're all walking in a row along a sidewalk right and somebody was trying to get past i think you know to get to work or to get to the bus you know or something like that right and the mother just lost her right and i think that you know a lot of our instincts as parents they go back to like you know our more primitive roots that it's like you see your child being threatened if there's if there's any perceived threat that is in their proximity you just you want to go defcon 5 about this right and a lot of the stuff that you learn in recovery is that you need to let those things go right because in the long run in a very ironic sometimes cruel but ultimately real way you can't meddle you can't get involved because there there is something on their journey that they need to find themselves you know i had been you know to one of my fellow travelers you know in in recovery i had been having a conversation a little while ago um about uh you know a little despondency about how that my abilities to help to foster a better path um for my kid was had had been quite fruitless and this person had said to me you know you maybe need to accept rob that you are not meant to be the vessel to impart that wisdom in this section of her journey and as a parent um that is a really really jagged bitter pill absolutely yeah i love that yeah i i mean
Speaker 1that you you nailed it with that i think letting go goes is so counterintuitive to parenting right and i don't have any kids and i can't even begin to imagine what that's like but i've seen my mom go through it right and she's talked about it openly so um i want to you know i want to close with this if there's one thing you could say right now to a parent that's that's struggling with their kid or a loved one that's struggling with an addict in their life
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Speaker 2i think that you know maybe tying in with what it was that we were just talking about and as hard as it is and you know for some people this is unfortunately going to be an impossibility you need to let go of the notion that you're the solution right um this is bigger than you and you're not you're not a medical professional you're not uh you're not an addiction specialist um and do what you can um but you also need to um set some healthy boundaries for yourself um that you know there's something that i learned very there was a uh you know like a little uh fable for lack of a better expression um that we learned very early in recovery about you know the one about the parent and the child who are on a plane no and the oxygen masks
Speaker 1drop oh yeah yeah that's a common one yeah yeah that's a good one um so you know for anybody who
Speaker 2is watching or listening who doesn't know it you know let's say you know it's a movie scene right and there's a parent and a child and they're sitting on a plane together and for whatever reason the oxygen masks go down you know all the red lights start flashing in the plane there's announcements that come over the pa system you know saying that you know we're experiencing this put the mask on you know now as a parent or as a loved one in general your natural you know dna bread instinct is i need to get that mask on my kid right now right the problem is though that because of lack of oxygen that may happen as a result of decompression or the plane going down or whatever you could pass out while you are fumbling to get that kid's mask on right ergo you're no good to anybody right suddenly the person who really relies upon you doesn't have you as a resource anymore right and they're left to fend for themselves so you need to figure out and every instance i believe is unique um you need to figure out um what that moment is for you right um and then maybe the last thing that i would tack on to that as well too you need to find something for yourself that is going to give you um some sense of a stability in your own thinking right something positive i want to be very clear on saying positive you know um you know whether it's uh you know something as simple as you know getting on an exercise bike for 20 minutes a day you know good book i know that this sounds really simple but like seriously this stuff is important yeah you know it really is you know you gotta and i have also found that we have you know sometimes a a need for immediacy with whatever problem it is that comes up and i have found that i have gotten a lot of mileage out of this is important i understand that this is important i don't have the capacity in this exact moment that i can help you reason this through give me some time and i'll get back to you on it yeah there's nothing wrong with doing that
Speaker 1right you know yeah i love that take care of yourself right yeah thank you so much rob for
Speaker 2coming i appreciate it man you know what you and caleb keep doing what you're doing thank you i
Speaker 1learned a lot today and i i hope that uh one person did as well thank you rob you're the best man thank
Speaker 5you thanks for listening please help us grow the channel and like share and subscribe for more content the discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for informational and motivational purposes only this content is not a substitute for professional medical advice addiction treatment or therapy if you or someone you know is struggling with addiction please consult a licensed physician addiction specialist or mental health professional you are no longer alone
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