Episode 148 - Recovery Offers Us The Choice to Sustain Love, Healing, and Career Growth.

Today, we return with Casey Arrillaga, a man in long-term recovery and author of numerous books, including 'Mommy's Getting Sober' and 'Realistic Hope: The Family Survival Guide for Facing Alcoholism and Other Addictions.' Casey is a social worker and addiction counselor with Windmill Wellness and co-host of the podcast Addiction and the Family: Finding Recovery Together. 

In this final episode with Casey, we discuss navigating the ups and downs of recovery within a couple and a family. Casey shares his journey of becoming a counselor and author, and we dive into sustaining a long-term relationship throughout addiction and recovery. 

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Transcript

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:  Thompson welcome back in this final episode with Casey Arrillaga. We discuss navigating the ups and downs of recovery within a couple and a family. Casey shares his personal journey of becoming a counselor and an author, and we dive into sustaining a long-term relationship throughout the disease of addiction and recovery. Let’s rejoin Casey.

01:10

The Embrace Family Recovery Podcast

Margaret  01:26

You must have been a lot of fun to be married to for 34 years because you strike me as a person, a. highly intelligent, fascinated to learn, always want to be continuing to educate yourself. And I’m imagining that there are times where you do stop, and you are able to not be in that place. But is that true? Do you find yourself going there? Like you appear to be very, kind of like that 10-year-old boy who was determined to do something different, like I was going to learn I was going to be engaged, I was going to start on social, it feels like that’s still true. And you that you just have this curiosity for human capacity and human nature and always want to learn.

Casey Arrillaga  02:08

I will happily claim all of that. And believe me, there’s been plenty of ups and downs and times where we thought we were not going to make it, but my wife 34 years and would still say that I’m fun to be married to. And vice versa. We share our sense of humor, which is one of those big factors to say whether or not people are going to make it, and I know for a fact my sense of humor does not click for everybody. I’m still amazed sometimes when I will tell a joke and she laugh I’m like, you seriously think that’s funny? Because I know almost all my colleagues would just go oh, Casey, it’s a terrible joke. She thinks is funny. And she swears is for real. But yes, well, the thing is my wife is also really brilliant. She also loves to learn. So, we have those things in common. 

I am a higher energy than average person. So, I’m a higher energy person than she is in general. So sometimes I’m kind of that motor driving. But I think sort of part of the question. And there is like, yes, I do stop and relax. It’s not go go all the time. But and it’s not again, driven by fear as much as it used to be. I’m sure there’s still some in there, it’ll never be 100% gone. But as my first therapist, Lee would say the buttons get smaller and harder to push. So over time, this comes from more of a relaxed place. But I find it’s still who I am. Yes, I love to learn, I love to teach. 

And my first sponsor, we’ve, we’ve been why we still talk, I wouldn’t say he’s my sponsor at this point. But we’ve been talking for over 20 years. And so, he seen me through the whole ark he saw, you know, he knew me when I was just brand new sober. He saw me make the decision to go to school, little go all the way through and get my master’s has been, you know, watched all that he went to my graduation for my master’s degree. I graduated out in Boston, I’m living in Texas, my family’s in California. He said Casey, so, you know, any family going to graduation, I said, my wife’s flying out, we’re gonna fly out to Boston for the graduation. And he said, I’ll meet you there. He went to school in Boston. So, he and my wife were the two people that went to my graduation from a master’s degree at 48 years old. 

Margaret:  Awesome.

Casey Arrillaga:  And all of that, he would say, Casey, you watch you’re gonna have three phases to your career. There’s gonna be the phase where you’re just learning what you’re doing. There’s the phase where you do it, a whole bunch of you learn things, you develop things, you develop ways of doing things. And then there’s a phase of your career where you teach others, and you show them what it is that you learned, and you pass the torch to the next generation. And I looked around one day and said, wow, that happened. That’s where the impulse to write book,s have a podcast. At my workplace, I supervise people who are masters’ students, and I supervise people who just got their masters as they’re moving towards being clinical social workers. And I love all that stuff. My mom would tell you from a little kid, I love to teach. I now have something that I can speak about that I can teach. I’m going to teach it. I love it.

Margaret  04:49

You will be incredible to spend time with, to learn from. It was a compliment and not a question even just it just amazes me when I meet people who are on on fire, through so much turmoil, what I think sets you on fire and maybe you know, push back if I’m wrong is the healing that you’ve been able to do that you just want other people to find their way through, and out, and in a different place. So, like to be able to share from a place of, wow, what a difference my life is. Thanks to my recovery, my mental health care my things I did. There’s hope there for everybody. I want more people to know.

Casey Arrillaga  05:28

Absolutely. Yeah. Once I got the hang of therapy with Lee, I initially just thought everyone needs to go see Lee. I just told my friend really, yeah, they talked about something, and I go like there’s a solution to that, go see Lee. Now I can say like, you know, here’s how to find a great therapist, here’s how to find a good recovery meeting. Here’s some good books you can read. It’s nice to have more resources, which is the most social worky thing ever. 

Margaret  05:51

But it’s true. We have come a long way. I mean, there was many more stretches to make and many more things to do. But to have access even just all the meanings you listed for Sex and Love Addicts, and to know the history of it, because it’s not something I’m familiar with, you know, my my tunnel has been pretty minimal around substances. Yes, there’s overlap, I don’t dispute that at all. But then my own recovery with food was like a major eye opener, because I didn’t think there was such a thing, right? So, it is nice to have you on to put voice to it. And thankfully, you’re willing to do that, a type of addiction that many people don’t know about are scared to ask about don’t even know where to begin with. So, it’s a huge blessing to have someone on who’s willing to talk openly about it and maybe offer a path for someone who’s finding themselves struggling.

Casey Arrillaga  06:39

That would be amazing. So yes, if there’s anyone listening or watching this and think like, maybe that’s me, let me just tell you, there’s so much hope and help available. And what I found is, as I healed, and let go of my own shame around it, it seemed like it was easier for other people to talk about it as well. Like, it just makes it easier. 

Whereas I think if I was going oh yeah, sex and love addiction, you know, and couldn’t even say it out loud, then I think other people to a certain extent, take some social cues from that. Not everybody, but some will take cues from that go like, oh, yeah, there must be something wrong with that. So, I think it’s important. It’s very real. But it’s important to be able to say like, hey, I can have my head held up, Hi, this is my life. This is what it looked like. It helps to be in recovery from it versus in the middle of it. That’s a lot harder to talk about. Or but even then, I see people all the time, who talk openly about like, I am struggling with this. I don’t know where to start. It’s beautiful to be able to say, there are so many answers and so much hope. And I didn’t have to invent it. I’m simply passing along what was freelly given to me, right?

Margaret  07:46

That’s right. How beautiful is it? Because you think about relationships, take away recovery, take away family of origin. Think about relationships, where else like this is when I, I wish more people had recovery. Because we are gifted something that I think is very unique to us. And that is a sponsor who we’ve known for 20 years who goes to your graduation in Boston, somebody you’ve talked to about the ins, the outs, the ups, the downs, the darks, the lights, who’s taken time with you over those 20 years, who knows how many hours, right? That’s pretty remarkable. Not many of us have that unless we find ourselves in some sort of recovery community with a tribe of people who get what we’re experiencing. 

Casey Arrillaga  08:26

Well, that’s absolutely true. And it’s highlights that so many of the things that I felt like I had to do, when I got it recovery, are now the same things that I get to do, I get to talk to a sponsor, I used to have to talk to, oh, I have to go to meetings, now I get to go to meetings, 

Margaret:  It’s true, 

You know, I get to do all of these things. And I feel bad for the average person on the street, where when they run into some major struggles, like they don’t know who to turn to. Or, as so many of us do, like they may turn to a family member or something like that, which I’m so glad when people have family support, but a lot of times your family hasn’t been through it. And they can’t say like, oh, I went through that it’s okay. You know, here’s how I got through it. 

So yeah, a little tip of the hat there, you know, put a children’s book out. And that kind of took over the book, I was in the middle of writing. Thank you. I was writing a completely different book that I’m still working on called ‘The Gift of Addiction,’ which is about what a gift it turns out to be when we go through this kind of crisis. And the ways that we grow. And I’m interviewing people and putting their stories into the book about the recognition of I would never have learned any of these things. Like if I hadn’t had the addiction, then I would never have grown in these ways. And I wouldn’t feel this inspired. And I can say the same thing. If I hadn’t been to the struggles even as a kid. That flash of insight at 10 years old wouldn’t have happened. Or if it had I just been like, oh yeah, whatever I probably would have gone on with my day and had a sandwich. Like I wouldn’t be inspired to live a life of growth. If there hadn’t been pain driving it initially. But what’s beautiful is that over time the pain goes away. But the growth does not. 

Margaret:  And the drive for growth doesn’t.

Casey Arrillaga:  Yeah, the drive for growth has never gone anywhere. There’s never been any point were, neh, okay. So again, maybe that’s that part of me says, Get as much as you can as fast as you can, except it’s also just all really good healthy stuff. I don’t know. Either way, it’s working out pretty well. 

Margaret  10:22

It is, I think it’s wonderful. And I think it’s very helpful for people who are listening who may not have ever ventured into a room where the 12 steps or another recovery community offers them. I know for me, the stunning awareness was sitting in one of my early meetings, having come from family and a history of people, when I did share something, it was, here’s how you fix it or don’t talk about it again. That I sat in that room, and these women who had never met never seen before. Didn’t give me a solution, didn’t tell me what to do. Showed me kindness and unconditional positive regard, as I call it, and shared themselves even if I wasn’t, it was like walking into what I assume it might feel like to land on a different planet. Because it was so a typical to what I knew and experience. And yet such a prevalent gift that I still hold dear, that I was greeted with people who shared, did not tell me what to do. When I asked what they did, were willing to share more, and just held space for me to show up and learn on my own timeline. Was an incredible life shifting experience. And I value that to this day. And I think that’s why podcasts are so appealing to me, because I know people are out there, they can get little nuggets at the pace they want. If they’re starting to venture into this learning and exploring possibilities around addiction as a disease for themselves, or as a family member’s disease, I think it’s quite remarkable to be able to go and listen without having to worry about sharing or having answers or being told what to do.

12:02

This podcast is made possible by listeners like you.

Bumper:  I hear from clients all the time; I feel so alone. No one understands. Why can’t they stop? Don’t they love me? I understand this as I felt it to my core when I was in a relationship with an ex-partner who had an addiction. I did not know what I didn’t know, and I felt so isolated, ostracized, fearful to share, to be judged or have him mistreated and judged. I was very much in protective mode of him and thought that I was helping him. I didn’t help him and actually I was hurting myself as I tried to fix, manage, and control a chronic, progressive, and potentially fatal illness alone. 

If you can relate to this feeling, to this experience please do not keep doing it alone. I can support you and educate you about this complex disease and we together can co create a path forward to peace and a strong recovery foundation for you. 

Reach out to me at embracefamilyrecovery.com where you’ll find a Work with Margaret page and we can set up a complimentary conversation to see if we’re a good fit to move forward.

13:02

You’re listening to the Embrace Family Recovery Podcast. Can you relate to what you’re hearing? Never missed a show by hitting the subscribe button. Now back to the show.

Margaret  13:14

‘Recovery is a Gift’, I love that that’s I look forward to your book. I think it’s so true. I remember thinking when I landed beat up and bruised by my ex’s, he caught it sexual compulsion. I remember feeling a. I would never love nor trust again, b. I am more damaged than I already was c. something is fundamentally wrong with me that he did this in our relationship, I must have done something wrong, I must have not been enough, you know all the stuff that goes along with the being of the partner of and then I would have never thought or dreamed that I would get to a point where I would say I can’t say I’m grateful I went through that. But I can say I believe that that led me to a solution that I probably wouldn’t have found without it. And I’m grateful for that. 

So, as you look at your 34-year relationship, which is wonderful. Congratulations. I really commend you both. It would seem that one of the things that has helped you maintain commitment and work on yourselves is the fact that you both have been avidly seeking, healing, growing, learning, leaning in versus leaning out, communication, a lot of the humor, the things that you talked about have helped you sustain and have a long-standing relationship.

Casey Arrillaga  14:42

Absolutely why and it goes back to that was my original like filter, was I’m only dating people who are willing to work on themselves and work on the relationship. And I recommend that to anyone that will listen, especially if you’re if especially if you’re on a growth path.

Margaret:  Right, 

Casey Arrillaga:  It was beautiful. As I said that one time, and I don’t remember if I was talking to someone in one of the rooms in recovery, if I was talking to, I think I was talking to a client, therapy client, and they, they just talked about the insight they saw through the way that I had. And they said, that quality embodies so many other qualities. Because if you’re willing to work on yourself, then you have to have some measure of humility, some measure of insights, some measure of courage, some level of self-compassion, there’s so many other qualities that I would find positive in a human being, let alone a partner, that are embodied in the simple willingness to work on yourself, and work on things in the relationship. But it also gives you something that you can get through and I are like, a set of tools to get through things. I have like said that to people. Oh, yeah, well, I’m dating someone. I mean, they’re they really, they watch their diet, they work out all the time. I’m like, that’s great. But that’s not what I’m talking about. When I say work on yourself, I mean, specifically, no one not even spiritually, not physically, but psychologically, being willing to look at your own thinking patterns, and think about how you think and being willing to work on what you find, however, grudgingly, I mean, you know, look, I’m not gonna like, hype myself up here. 

I mean, many, many ways that I’ve grown, I went in kicking and screaming, and fighting it. And as people have said, before me and some of the rooms of recovery, everything I’ve let go of his scratch marks in it. You know, these were not things where I got up one day and said, I’m going to change myself. And then everything changed. This is a long, slow, at times, painful process, plenty of things where I say like, I don’t need to work on that, and then circle back and like, okay, let me look at it. And having that compassion and patience for myself, which is very much demonstrated by my wife, and then being able to offer that in return for her, which I’ve also not done perfectly. There’s been times with either of us, where we get impatient with each other, will you work on this forever? Or did you work on that thing in therapy? We don’t really say that anymore. But early days (laughter)

Margaret  17:05

Probably not a great thing to say to each other for working on stuff. The thing with that, though, do you think, and this is maybe going down a different path? But I’ve it’s, it struck me listening to you? Do you think that the way that I would describe it is when you’re in recovery as a partner, right, you’re going down this path, and sometimes your head, sometimes you’re behind, sometimes you’re off to the left or the right. But ultimately, you have all these tools around you that bring you back together in a healthier way, if you utilize them. So, like the asset of a sponsor, the asset of a philosophy of living through the 12 steps or smart recovery, whatever your path is, the spiritual growth, the emotional growth, the therapeutic value of seeing a therapist as a couple, individually, when things arise. How do people grow in relationships and sustain relationships without that?

Casey Arrillaga  17:59

Well, everyone’s got their own path. I’m gonna say sometimes luck. Sometimes they don’t. Maybe they are more patient than I am. And just be like, yeah, you know, I run into people like, oh, he’s just a grump. It’s kind of like, well, yes, I would agree from what the little I’ve seen, I can only imagine when he first wakes up in the morning. It’s kind of like, okay, well, maybe, you know, a high tolerance for, for difference. And, yeah, sometimes it doesn’t last, you know, a lot of marriages, don’t last a lot of relationships don’t make it. And again, there have been times where I was not sure our relationship was gonna make. 

But sometimes it was there are abandonment issues that kept us together, like me, you know, we were unhappy or unsettled or feeling threatened by each other. And yet, we really didn’t want to be without each other. And you know, I was 21 We got together, she was 22. We have grown up together, and most senses, seen each other go through an awful lot of change. But on the balance, shaking it all out, it’s all positive change in the aggregate of things. You know, it’s like one of those sort of stock charts where it’s, you know, up and down, and up and down. But over time. You know, if I look at where are we today, we’ve also both said, you know, what’s just absolute truth that if age differences notwithstanding, but if I had met 22-year-old her, or she met 20 year old me today, just where we’re at emotionally, each of us be like, oh, honey, oh, no. We’re not doing that.

Margaret  19:35

I think they’re gifts. I think those tools that we are gifted in our recovery, if we utilize them in our relationships, whether it be our partners, whether it be our parents, with our children, what gifts they bring to the quality of all those relationships if we use them.

Casey Arrillaga  19:47

Oh, absolutely. And you know, we talk about 12 Step programs, but all 12 Step programs, also incorporate 12 traditions and the traditions are things that talk about how am I in relationship with others. And even though we’re talking specifically, most literally about how to conduct a recovery group, they are also talking about how to relate to others, you know, am I putting the common welfare first in this decision? Am I in some way shape or form self-supporting through my own contributions? Or am I looking not just financially, but am I looking for my partner to carry all the emotional weight? Or am I actually sustaining myself and contributing? Is a loving higher power, the ultimate authority in the relationship, things like that those are big things that we can pull out of the 12 traditions that can very much be incorporated into a relationship.

Margaret  20:36

So, you got into writing at some point on this process of teaching and giving away what you’ve been giving and sharing, you got into writing what was the first book you wrote?

Casey Arrillaga  20:44

First book I wrote was one called ‘Realistic Hope, the Family Survival Guide for Facing Alcoholism and Other Addictions.’ And when I was near the tail end of my master’s, social work program, I remember saying to my wife, you know, when this is all done, I’m probably gonna write a book. I always felt like I should write a book. 

Now, my dad, my adopted dad, was a writer, and he wrote public relations and stuff like that. But he always wanted me to be a writer. And he very much raised me to be a writer. And I had recognized at one point that if I write by hand, I have to be conscious that my shoulder doesn’t go up. And my hand doesn’t tense up, because I’m waiting for him, even though he’s been dead 25 years. I’m still waiting for him to pop up and look over my shoulder said you spelt that wrong. 

Margaret:  Wow. 

Casey Arrillaga:  So, he was loving, but tough and critical. I tell people, he would probably be very proud that I write books now, he’d probably be horrified at what I write about. Because in my books, like in this interview, it’s all out there. So like, you know, here’s, here’s his drinking problem. Here’s the sexual abuse, here is my own stuff. Sex and Love addiction, it’s all in there. But it’s all in the context of how can you help your family survive addiction, and what are some of the tools. So that was, I wasn’t sure what I was gonna write about, I still have a book title that I’ve never used. So someday, I may get around to finally writing the book I thought it was going to write. But we were in the shower, one morning, I went, oh, of course, I’ve been running the family workshops for that point, around 10 years or so. And thought, I did the math on that. And I thought, okay, I do want to every weekend, but we go on vacation a couple weeks a year. So, let’s say 50 a year. At the time, I started writing, probably 400/450 family workshops, you know, 1000s of people have come through them. And I thought, that’s what I need to be writing about. And I’m going to say this part. And it always sounds like it should come out of ego, it doesn’t feel like it comes out of he goes, this is just the honest feedback I’ve gotten is, you know, I think I was when I was very early in doing family workshops. Because you’re right I’m passionate about helping families specifically. And that is again, one of those things just like you know, you go through med school, and you may decide that you’re going to be a hand surgeon, but you find that you have. You’re brilliant at heart surgery. And at some point, you feel like okay, I guess heart surgery is my thing, or pediatrics or whatever. For me, it was family work. As I was just learning how to be a counselor. I got thrown into doing the family workshop, and I just found I love this. And I seem to talk about it in a way that families can understand and wrap their heads around. And so, it’s helpful. 

And somebody said, man, what are you going to write a book? And meantime, I’m like working on my associate degree. Like, oh, yeah, right. Because no, I’m serious, you should write a book. And so, 10 years later, kind of fulfilling that promise and request price. And I’ve had people say, hey, the way you conduct the workshop, or the way you talk about these things, I’ve been to a bunch of these with other people. They’re shaming the families or telling people why it’s like, you know, it’s mom’s fault, or whatever. Or they’re telling the families like, hey, if you play your cards, right, you can basically manipulate your loved one in recovery. Like stop enabling, stop getting the money, just do this, this tough love that all this kind of stuff. And there’ll be sober, like that’s not true. That’s why I call it realistic hope. Sometimes we get families completely false hope, this illusion of control. 

So, I’ve gotten enough feedback of like, you’re, you’re saying this in a different way that is easy to understand that, that that’s got to be the book that I write? And I never thought I’d write a second book just like this is going to be, there’ll be my book. So, I wrote a book. And I published the book. And on the day that I finished it, the title to the next book, popped in my head, which is ‘Spirituality for People Who Hate Spirituality.’ And I thought, I’ve worked with a lot of people, particularly around 12 step recovery, who struggle with the spiritual part. And I thought, I struggled with the spiritual part. So, if I put part of my story in there, plus all the conversations, I’ve had the tools I’ve learned, and I did a bunch of research. So, if you’re looking at the back of my books outside of the children’s book, big reference section, if you want to go look up the study that I read, there it is. There’s lots of them, because I wanted to make sure I was saying something that was at least had some factual basis to the best of what we do know today. So that was the second book. 

And then as soon as I finished the second book, like literally finished the artwork on it and the title for ‘The Gift of Addiction’ popped in my head. That’s a great title. What am I going to write about? So that launched that one. And then partway through is that one still about a third of the way written at most? Because partly through I’m part of a writer’s Marketing Group, and somebody said, hey, kids, books are really hot. And I just thought, like, okay, that’s just like some marketing thing someone puts out there, like just write a children’s book or whatever. But here’s where my sense of humor is a little dark. I said, oh, like, what am I gonna write a book called mommy drinks too much? Come on. But by the time I drove home from the marketing meeting, I thought, no, I need to write a book called ‘Mommy’s Getting Sober.’ Like, what do we tell all these kids who have a parent in treatment, or early recovery? What do we tell them. And so, I went home. And that night, I wrote the first draft in the morning, I gotta polished it a little. And then said about finding an illustrator, I was really fortunate to find Skye Hilton, who just has a beautiful sort of magical realism and childlike wonder in her writing. And as she has been open about, and she did an interview on my podcast, talking about her own personal connection to the work because I wanted it, you know, you can hire lots of artists, but I wanted to find somebody who really got the material. And frankly, there’s a lot of artists that have been through some of this stuff, where I felt like, okay, I can find somebody and there was Skye, recommended by a friend. So, she did that one. And then the, the beautiful irony of the whole thing is people said, well, you should write more children’s books. I thought, what am I going to write? Same question. Well, the perhaps higher power answer to that one is actually the next book is in fact going to be called ‘Mommy Drinks Too Much?’ Because it occurred to me, there’s a lot of kids whose moms don’t get sober or haven’t gotten sober yet. And what are we telling them? 

Margaret:  Right, 

Casey Arrillaga:  So, she’s already got the preliminary sketches done for that one, text is done. So, and then we’re gonna write we make it a trilogy. The third book will be about talking to kids about once their parent is in longer term recovery. How does this child frame it and find their own recovery? What does that look like? So, the working title on that is ‘Mommy’s in Recovery, and So Am I.’ And so, it will end up being a trilogy. And that makes me happy. And then one of these days, I will finish the ‘Gift of Addiction.’ So yeah, that’s how I went through my journey of bookhead. I guess, what would I say? Higher Power keeps throwing ideas at me. And I keep saying, okay, thank you. I’m gonna put it on the list, we will get that one.

Margaret  27:27

Get to it. Yes. I think that that’s there is no irony or coincidence that you do have a passion for family, because your journey started as the child of and though you’ve had your own journey, as a partner of your own addiction, your own recovery as a parent of someone struggling with mental health issues, you know, it, it’s pretty wonderful that you have the gift of being able to see both sides of the journey so acutely well, that you can offer, through your writing, some of your experience some of what you witnessed, some of what you’ve heard, some of what you’ve learned. This book is fabulous. I love anything that gives children understanding and information to not be in that place you were at where nobody talks about it, but your few year older brother. I do wonder if it’s okay to ask, did your father ever find recovery?

Casey Arrillaga  28:34

He did in his own way. I didn’t find this out till he had been dead about 20 years. And how I found out was I was at my mom’s house and my mom does not throw things away. She has check registers from the 1970s. So, I’m looking through her pantry and I’m trying to find it she said, oh, I might have that tea or snack or whatever it is kind of look through the cupboards. I looked through the cupboard. And back behind all these things are about, I don’t know, 15/20 bottles of liquor with a thick coating of dust on them. It’s all my dad’s old liquors in there. And people would give these things to him as gifts because he was a high ranking, you know, professional in his field. And so, they wanted to win his favor, and they knew what he liked. So, he had all this alcohol. And I was like, Mom, you still kept all of Dad’s bottles, aka he’s she goes, Oh, yeah, no, it’s still in there. I said, would it be okay if we got rid of this? So, I got to live out my childhood dream of pouring all my dad’s liquor down the drain. Oh my god, the smell.

Margaret  29:43

How, wonderful. 

Casey Arrillaga  29:45

But I got to do that.

Margaret  29:46

Like a full circle moment. Right? Like even though he wasn’t there, and it wasn’t at him or about him. It was for you.

Casey Arrillaga  29:54

It was cool. But that led to a conversation with my mom, who again is not super open about all this stuff, but It became more open over time. And I like to think that’s partly because of the influence of recovery because I was becoming more open with her. And I was able to ask him straightforwardly like, Mom, I would like to know more about your life, you know, we only have so much time on Earth, I want to know you better. And she kind of brushed that off initially. And then she kind of came around to it and started talking more openly. 

And so, one of the things she told me is that my dad actually sobered up the last two years of his life. No program, no meetings, no help. So, I got to actually ask, because I know there, there’s, you know, a good percentage of people that just, you know, get sober on their own, they just stop. I said, what was that like for him, she goes, oh, he was miserable. Because he had to kind of fire all his friends, he stopped talking to people, he didn’t develop a bunch of new friends. And he didn’t have that social support that you get from recovery fellowships. So, he just did it as he had done so many things on sheer determination, anger, and willpower. And it worked for him. I mean, he quit smoking the same way. He just stopped one day. And it was apparently the same thing, the first time it was because, ironically enough, when he was drunk, he fell down, broke his arm, on Thanksgiving. And as they were doing the surgery on the arm, they found an aneurysm right up the middle that was going to kill him. Which by the way, those things are exacerbated by drinking alcohol. So, his compulsive drinking probably made that worse. But his compulsive drinking also saved his life, because without falling down, he would have just fallen over one day, probably at his desk, or God forbid, on the LA freeways. So, I believe he quit drinking when he got a cancer diagnosis. And he just stopped. But did he find recovery? Not in the sense that I think of it, he found sobriety. And I’m glad for him. I mean, that’s still better than going out, you know, the way many people who are drinking go out. 

And I would like to think that they gave them a chance to be more real and present with my mom. And they loved each other a lot. And he was very protective of her. But unfortunately, as is often the case of those dynamics, he would be able to protect her from everyone but himself. And so, my hope is, is that that allowed him to do a better job of that part. That’s my hope. But unfortunately, my mom she’s still alive. But she’s at an age where those conversations are gone. And so, I’ll never know. I’ll never really know what that was like for him. She has referenced how hard it was for her when he was drinking. So, my hope is that it was easier once he stopped for both of them.

Margaret  32:36

I think you’re a blessing to your mother. I mean, yes, challenging, I’m sure if she’s not wanting to talk, what a blessing to have a son who has worked so hard on himself and healing from. And being willing to be open about it, even though it can be uncomfortable when you come from a family where we don’t talk openly, and we don’t talk feelings. And we don’t do that. Like, I imagine that would have been, you know, you said earlier, my dad would probably be proud I’m writing but maybe not about what I’m writing about. I like to think he’d be proud of it all, because maybe you’re doing things, he didn’t have the courage to do.

Casey Arrillaga  33:18

That is always possible. He was often proud of my accomplishments, even when he didn’t understand them. And he was a very smart man. I don’t mean like, intellectually, but like emotionally. I made a lot of decisions where he just would think, why are you doing this? And a lot of times, he was right, like, why was that? I couldn’t tell you. A lot of them were not great decisions, but some of them were, you know, and he would use to kind of come around.

So, I don’t have a strong spiritual opinion about what happens after people die. But if he is aware, on some level of what I’m doing, then I’m sure that he’s very happy with it. 

Margaret: How’s your brother? 

Casey Arrillaga: Anxious. He’s he is somebody where I’m gonna say also has opened up more overtime. I feel for him, I used to be very jealous of him. He was he was the one who kind of did all the things right, you know, got out of high school went right to a great school, graduated in four years. One of the top performers in the country in his field, you know, and he has no idea what to do with it. He just kind of like yeah, I guess. I mean, he is He is the true loyal son. He’s the one who is a gift to my mom, because when COVID happened he still lived back in Los Angeles area, and he just moved into her house and not unlike a Moochie kid, in a way there to protect my mom and make sure she survived kind of way and he has been her. Her prime caretaker. He does all the heavy lifting and that I’m I’m the guy who moved halfway across the country and writes a note card once a week and I’m happy to be able to do that by I will say that just few weeks ago, I was able to have a conversation with him, when we were talking about, you know, we’re getting older, you know, he’s two years older than I am. And while neither one of us is, you know, likely to fall off a health cliff anytime soon, it’s always possible. But to the best of my knowledge, he has some friends, but he doesn’t have anybody. I don’t think he’s built a strong relationship with Himself, let alone other people I know, he has friends who are good friends, I don’t know any of their names is very, very private. But I was able to say to him that you’re not alone in this and that I know, I was not a good brother. But I’m in a different place now. And I’ve grown a lot. And I am with you in this, we’re with you in this, you’re not gonna have to go through this alone. And that means a lot to me to be able to say that and to mean it. And, you know, we’ll see what it actually looks like as it goes along. We’ll probably all be leaning on my daughter, who knows. She’s a very straightforward person. We’ve even had conversations where she said, yeah, my life expectancy is probably a little bit lower than average for most people my age. So, she we’ll see who was longest, but you know, she and I have made up some funny T shirts that she can put on me if she puts me in a restaurant.

Margaret  36:18

Somehow, I don’t disbelieve that. I believe that to be very true. I think it’s really interesting. We have some similarities in our parents in our age. My brothers two years older, my brother was straight, a student went off to college, I was the problem child who was seeking anybody to make me feel better. And I was not a good sister, nor was I aware of what I had done, or not done as a sister, so I can relate to a lot of what you’re sharing. And isn’t it wonderful and shocking, when we engage in our own recovery, and we go back to our families of origin, who may not be in recovery, and how much things change, because wow, I was contributing that much to the problem. Is that one of those humbling experiences that I am also grateful for, because I just, I’m a big fan of recovery. I’m a big fan of taking our own inventory, keeping our side of street clean, growing and working and showing up differently for the people we love, once we have the capacity to do so. It’s pretty amazing.

Casey Arrillaga  37:22

Well, this also speaks to that idea of the gift of recovery is that I started out in my family, you know, at many points along the way. If you looked at the family constellation, through most lenses of society, I was the one who was the farthest behind. And now I’m by anything that I’m interested in measuring. I’m out front, I mean, my brother probably makes more money than I do. It’s not the kind of thing he’d ever discussed, I just sort of assume he does, but I do just fine. But emotionally, I’m in a place that none of my family members are anywhere near. And it comes out of starting from so far behind that again, I was one who was inspired to start working on myself out of sheer desperation and unhappiness with how things were going. But then I couldn’t find a reason to stop. And so I just kind of kept going and it’s I tell all my clients that I’m gonna your family may be here and you’re down here but if you go like this, you know when you get here, you don’t have to stop you could probably just gonna keep on going shooting past those kids in high school who are voted Most Likely to Succeed, etc. And you get to live this life. Not have to get to.

Margaret  38:37

And in recovery, we have choices we get to make which we didn’t have when we’re in the depths of our diseases, it was a lot harder to have those choices be possible for us. 

Outro:  As Casey shared in episode 146, my higher power can take any character defect I have and put it to good use. I’m so grateful Casey chose to share through his podcast, books, videos and the family program at Windmill Wellness Ranch. Inspiration, resilience and growth are descriptions I would use to describe Casey Arrillaga. Keep doing all you do to help the still suffering.

Come back next week when I have the privilege of introducing you to Jaclyn Brown who chose to leave corporate America to pursue her passion of reducing stigma surrounding substance use disorder and drug use. Empowering others to tell their stories and changing the conversation around addiction and mental health after tragically losing her brother to substance related issues.

I want to thank my guest for their courage and vulnerability and sharing parts of their story. 

Please find resources on my website. embracefamilyrecovery.com 

This is Margaret swift Thompson. Until next time, please take care of you!

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