Fighting for Connection - Creating a Secure Marriage
Want a close connected and secure relationship? Maybe you feel like something's not quite right in your relationship, even though there are a lot of good things. You and your partner love each other, but there are moments that hurt. It's normal for all relationships to experience conflict or worry. The difference between the couples that remain close and the couples that drift apart is their ability to work through conflict and moments of worry and insecurity within the relationship.
Listen in to discover new ways to stay close and connected even through the toughest moments life throws at you.. Learn how to deal with your patterns of conflict and make your connection stronger. Simply listen, learn, make changes, and see positive transformations in your relationship.
Brett Nikula is an LMFT and Relationship coach that works with couples that want to stay together, that really care about each other, learn to communicate in a way that reduces the pain in the relationship and increases the connection.
Fighting for Connection - Creating a Secure Marriage
The Power of Love; Recovery from Addiction with Derek and Leanne Niemela
I so enjoyed this visit. We cried, and laughed, and chatted. And we also recorded. Listen in as Leanne and Derek share an incredible story of Love. We also talk about addiction and how it creates so much pain and havoc. But I couldn't help but walk away with a renewed desire to love more.
You can learn more about Leanne and her story at https://www.evolvefamilyrecovery.org/about or on instagram at https://www.instagram.com/evolve.addictionfamilyrecovery
You can find Derek and his business on instagram as well at https://www.instagram.com/dgndirtworkutilities
Thank you for listening.
Hello and welcome to the Fighting for Connection podcast. I'm Brett Nicola, a husband, father and fun lover. Listen in as I share stories, tips and inspiration that will move you toward the connection that you want in your relationship. Alright, welcome back to the Fighting for Connection podcast. Today I have with me a guest that's been on a few times and today she brought with her guest Leanne. Welcome on to the podcast and if you could introduce who you brought with us?
Speaker 2:I brought Derek, my husband. I'm excited to be on here with him.
Speaker 3:Yeah, welcome, derek. Thank you. Yeah, I'm excited to be on here too.
Speaker 1:So, leanne, you and I have talked on our previous couple episodes about addiction and I feel like the reason why you're in the work that you do and why you and I have had the conversations that we have is here today.
Speaker 1:It's really your relationship that you and Derek have together. I think for me, this conversation here today is so exciting because just offline I've talked with you guys and I know how open and transparent you guys are about the real struggles that I think affect so many relationships. I've talked on this podcast before that relationships still seem to be a taboo thing to have anything go wrong. It seems like we try hard to make the external view of our relationship seem that everything's hunky dory, like everything's fine. I guess I have my own perspective here that a lot of relationships have a lot of pain in them, and I think we have to open the cover on that a little bit so we can develop skills on how to navigate through the pain, so that we can stay together even when painful things happen. I guess for that reason, I'm really excited about the opportunity to listen to you guys and hear how you guys have navigated through the challenges that I think life presents oftentimes to us unsuspectingly and yeah, I guess we'll just get into it.
Speaker 2:Sounds good.
Speaker 1:Before we get too far into why we're talking about addiction, I think it'd be helpful just to hear your guys' story you guys are, I would say, your experts in the topic, because you guys have lived through this topic and maybe if you could just share with our listeners where this all started for you guys and what your guys' addiction story really is, so, yeah, I can start with my story.
Speaker 3:We may seem like experts, but we still have a lot to learn. Every day we're learning how to get through another day Totally. My addiction story started as a young kid. I grew up in a big family of 12. I think my addiction stuff started around age 10 or 11.
Speaker 3:I had a paper route and when I was delivering papers one morning I found a porno magazine on the side of the road and I picked it up. I was curious about it and looked at it and I knew it was wrong and it made me feel shameful. I threw it in the trash and then the next day I went and dug it back out of the garbage, kept it under my bed, looked at it all the time and then I throw it away and I did that several times. I just thought there was something wrong with me. I didn't realize that it was a start to my addiction. So I battled with that porn addiction for my whole life, basically. But that's just where it all started For sure. I started using alcohol when I was about 17 years old and I also used marijuana at that time.
Speaker 1:What did that look like for you? Like branching now into some of these substances, was it similar to like the pornography magazine you found? Was it presented to you? You were curious, or was it something you were searching, or I?
Speaker 3:think it was more of a peer pressure type of a thing. My friends were all using alcohol and marijuana at the time and I thought I could still hang out with them and not use it. When I actually noticed my best friend using it, that's when I gave in and decided that I could try it too If he was doing it. It didn't look as scary then at that point, where before I was always scared of it.
Speaker 1:So then from there you're 17, 18 years old, you're starting to use what we I guess I grew up in the dare era we call those kind of those gateway drugs. How did it develop from there? Where did this lead you? Because at this point, even with like the substances, it doesn't sound like an addiction. It sounds just like you're using them, You're having fun with them.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that's right. So at that time I didn't feel like I was addicted. I felt like I was doing it for fun. At the time, leanne and I were engaged and I kept it hidden from her. So I did it every chance I could when she wasn't around, anytime I could get away with it without her finding out about it. I did it. For some reason I had this belief that when you get married all those problems go away. So I was able to put down the drinking and marijuana. I didn't use it for 10 years, wow. But the porn addiction still was there. I struggled with that Off and on.
Speaker 3:It would be, sometimes it would be daily, and sometimes something would happen. Leanne might caught me doing something, so I would feel bad for it and ask her for forgiveness for it, and then might have abstained from it for a week or two or a month, and then it would always come back. Kept that a secret from everybody for a long time. Eventually that led to me not being faithful to my wife. That was about at the age 28. And at that time I think that the shame and the guilt from it is what led me back to drinking. Sure, so it was after that time where I was unfaithful to my wife, started drinking again and that just got worse and worse. Wow, I started getting in trouble with the law. With it, I got arrested several times.
Speaker 1:And I want to just slow up because I feel like there's an important element to what you just shared there, dear. I guess I don't need you to get into all the details, but I would be curious if you can, maybe, looking back on this pornography use, how it got to the extent of being unfaithful. Was it something that you could tell was escalating to that, or did it just seem like the use hardened you to that idea or having that happen?
Speaker 3:Yes. So what I've learned about addiction is it's a progressive disease and it continues to progress as time goes on. And that's exactly how the porn addiction went. It started out with porno magazines and then I'd go to the strip club and then it led me to calling, like date lines and chat lines, looking for people to get together with, and I didn't ever think that that would happen. It was just more of a, I think it was just more of something that I wanted it to happen, but it did.
Speaker 3:You know, I didn't think that I would ever actually do that to my wife For sure. But yeah, as time went on, it just kept leading to more and more and kept having more and more secrets from everybody around me. And I think just the shame and the even the guilt from it and what I thought would become of it Like I thought that I would never be able to tell anybody and that I'd go to hell over this stuff. So I think just that stuff kind of got me even more hardened to not caring as much anymore and then eventually leading to doing what I never thought would happen.
Speaker 1:Yeah you've used that phrase here a couple times already this morning that I never thought it would happen. I never thought I would end up drinking, I never thought I would commit like infidelity with my wife and then it did. And I wonder if that, if you felt that in the moment, like how what you thought never would happen just seemed to keep happening for you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I know that every time something happened that I thought would never happen, it would just it would really affect me. I really felt horrible and I didn't know what I, what I should do about it. I was just left with thinking that I was going to die with this on my conscience and never be able to tell anybody about it, because it was things that I just didn't ever imagine I would do so heavy.
Speaker 1:Yeah, this happens at about 28 and it puts you in this position where you're feeling pretty horrible and it sounds like now the alcohol in the marijuana becomes kind of attractive again. It's like you remember how that felt when you were younger, or how does it turn to that from your perspective?
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe that's how I turned to it. It was because of all the other stuff that I believed about myself, about the shame and everything. I just turned back to it, remembering the feeling that it gave me. It gave me that escape that I needed to feel from all the guilt that I had.
Speaker 1:So we're at 28, 29 years old, leanne. We haven't heard from you yet, but now you're a fairly significant part of this story. At 28 years old, you guys were married. At what age? Exactly 18. 18. So 10 years into your marriage and, leanne, what are you experiencing during this time? Obviously, you didn't know. It sounds like anything really about the drinking or the marijuana previous to getting married, but was there like an inkling? Was there something in the back of your mind? Then, as the years go by, here You're becoming aware of some portions of this. Just walk me through that. What was going on for you?
Speaker 2:So we got married at 18. It was probably a month after we got married that there was a bill for porn in the mail that came, and I came home from work before Derek did, so I saw that bill and we didn't have cell phones then. So I looked at it and I was like, well, what is this? And I just had to wait for Derek to get home. He got home and I asked him about it and he told me what he had been struggling with, and then he also shared with me what had been happening before we got married. So we had a lengthy discussion that evening and I felt as though he was open with me and he didn't try to deny anything when I had asked him about it. So I felt good about it.
Speaker 2:Obviously, I didn't feel good about what had taken place, but I trusted him still, and so the next day I worked with my dad. I just mentioned to my dad about our conversation, because it had obviously still a little bit been weighing on me, and my dad was able to comfort me and just say, leanne, you guys talked about it. Derek wanted to be forgiven. I would just really encourage you to forgive him. That's all I needed to be told at that time. It just encouraged me to continue to move forward. So I did, but obviously there was times that I wondered if there was any more struggle. I didn't spend too much time on it at that point. However, in 2005, I was out painting the outside of the house on a Saturday, and the day was starting to be kind of long for Derek to be working and I couldn't get ahold of him.
Speaker 2:Finally, when he was able to call, he called me and said he had been robbed at gunpoint and held at this house for quite some time and they had kind of hijacked him in his vehicle and driven him around to try cash and checks.
Speaker 2:And then he told me how and it was due to his addiction and leading up to attempting to be unfaithful. That kind of led to a whole discussion. When he got home, we were both super emotional. We had to move out of this house because they had also called to threaten that they'd come out to the house, and so we moved to my mom and dad's. However, the shame for me was great. I didn't understand what was happening with Derek. It was all I was dealing with all this overnight and I didn't know yet how to process it myself, much as tell anybody else what we were dealing with, and I carried a lot of shame. I just I believed at that point that somehow I was at fault, and because I believed that, I also believed that everybody else would feel the same way. I didn't know what and what way I was to blame, but I just believed that somehow this was my fault. So I just told my parents that he had been robbed, but I didn't tell them what led up to that point. We moved in there, sold our house and then bought another house. In a couple months we moved into the next house.
Speaker 2:Obviously, at that point I'd mentioned to Derek that I think I hadn't heard of addiction. I didn't know anybody with addiction I didn't. I hadn't really been in my life at all. So I mentioned to Derek that maybe he's addicted, because I had started researching a little bit about these kinds of behaviors and then he said no, you know, I don't think that I am. I think this has just been a struggle that I've had that I haven't had the courage to talk about, but now that I've been able to talk about it again and cared for matters that, I think it'll be better. And I couldn't disagree with that. That's how I believed too. But I think addiction has it's more than just caring for it. That way, the next few years I did feel like I moved on. For the most part I did. I always wonder how was he truly doing?
Speaker 1:So that was 2005. That was 2005.
Speaker 2:So then, so the next few years, I think it scared him and from what he, derek says also that it really wasn't a struggle for a little while because that was a big event. But then, in the spring of 2008, things started to just not be making sense to me. I started having they say, like intuition, gut feelings, I don't know what you want to call it, but all kinds of alarms were ringing. I think in some ways I didn't want to believe that maybe we were dealing with something big.
Speaker 2:And maybe I wasn't ready to face it, but I knew that something wasn't right. Long days, sometimes not coming home at night. It was also the same time as the bridge collapse in 2007.
Speaker 1:All right, 35W bridge yeah.
Speaker 2:And he was working that job, so I think there was a lot of leeway for him to be able to. They were working long days and there was a lot of different things that needed to be done there. So I think I believed him a lot of the time when he was just supposed to be at work. However, it became apparent in that spring then, following the bridge collapse, that Derek had been unfaithful. That was life changing. That was for me. That probably, and probably to this day still is the very painful part of the story. I can talk about it, but it's been hard to share publicly just because of the nature of it. But I understand it. Who I am today, I understand it completely different than I did at that time, but I'll try to explain the best I can how I believed it to be at that time.
Speaker 2:But, I took it very personal and that it was somehow my fault and that if I was this way or that way, or looked that way or acted this way, or maybe I should change this, maybe I should change. I thought all those things, you know, if I just changed myself, then maybe Derek wouldn't struggle so much. So kind of. For me, the belief that it was my fault also escalated with his addiction I wasn't able to share with anybody, so nobody knew Derek did start seeking help at that point for sex addiction.
Speaker 1:So at this, point like, besides that little interaction with your dad, no one really knows what's going on. It's just basically you two holding this. Yeah, wow.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so these were really hard. Then. I do feel like people always ask how was your marriage? Like, how did you do? You have good memories, I do, from the day we got married until I mean, even that little month after, like the conversation went well, but after that it was like it seemed what we have? Got? Ton of good memories we have. We had a lot of friends, we did a lot of visiting, we enjoyed time together. We still enjoyed each other.
Speaker 2:But I do feel like in 2008, things changed. For me it became to read complete Habok on our marriage and myself as a wife and I started to suffer greatly with depression. I look at pictures from different events back then and, yeah, that day I cried all day but I had to show up at this baptism, put a smile on my face, you know those kinds of things. So there's a lot of that starting to happen where I knew I was not. Like when I look at this person, I'm like I wish I could go back and give her a hug, you know because I was dealing with a lot not knowing who to talk to.
Speaker 1:But in 2010, I did want to jump in there because what you're talking about like I think, really makes sense.
Speaker 1:Like when we get married to each other, we we bring on like an identity that is one and we do feel the effects of each other in that relationship.
Speaker 1:And, as you're just sharing how some of Derek's actions really felt like they meant something about you, I think that's very common, very normal, and it can make it very challenging to figure out how to even help our spouse in that way because it feels like it's something about us and we're kind of stuck in the same position as that other person. Like it feels so shameful, it feels so much like we can't share about this. And just listening to you share about that both you, derek and Leanne I feel like I can see how that would be difficult, even for you, leanne, who you weren't participating necessarily in in the addiction. You weren't using the drugs or the pornography or anything like that. But I think most couples would know how that would feel, like something that is happening within the marriage which is one, and how that identity is wrapped up. It's intertwined with the other person. And hearing how hard it was for you to reach out I would say makes sense to me that I felt like this is something about you too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, like he was something he was doing to me. You know, around that same time he started, alcohol was starting to enter the picture, but I again hadn't been around alcohol. I didn't recognize the smell of it, but there was. There was just something there. And finally he did open up about that too. You know, like I could notice that night unanswered questions, just just not knowing what's going on, but knowing something's going on.
Speaker 3:You know, there was just a lot of that.
Speaker 2:Not too long after that that I did start opening up. I wrote a letter, I think, to his parents, and then I also reached out to a minister, or I drove to my mom and dad's. Actually. First I went to try to look for him one day that was actually the moment that I told my mom and dad and then from there I went and shared with the minister and I also wrote a letter to his parents.
Speaker 1:Okay.
Speaker 2:I had gone to pick up it was, I think it was a Saturday again, but I had gone to. He wasn't responding. I knew what he was struggling with and I think, in my own belief, that I could somehow stop the actions or behaviors. For fear of what was going to happen next. I went and packed all the kids in the car to try and look for him, thinking that I could change the course of events. And now what I know today, I recognize that as to trying to prevent the pain that I was already feeling from exacerbating. So I was trying to prevent all that. No, probably knowing realistically that I couldn't. Maybe I knew even deep down I wouldn't be able to find him. But maybe I left just on the flare of hope, that just maybe. But I got 45 minutes into the cities and I realized that this ain't happening.
Speaker 2:I mean it's big. It's big out there.
Speaker 1:That picture you illustrate there, leanne, just captures how desperate you were at that point.
Speaker 2:I was very desperate, yeah, I was reaching a breaking point, to be honest.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And I at that point did call my mom and dad and they must have heard it in my voice because when I got up to their house they were already outside- waiting for me, okay, wow. So I shared with them then what we were dealing with and what we were going through and that I needed some help, and we talked for a very long time and I stayed there the rest of the day and that was probably the very beginning of getting the helping process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and I think, like that desperation also comes because of that idea that this is somehow about you, like you're trying hard to do what you have to do to fix this. Yeah, and knowing that that was kind of wrapped up in your identity, that this was somehow a you problem, you were part of it, it was gave you this idea that you could somehow work hard enough, try hard enough, find the right solution that would solve this.
Speaker 2:Totally, and because of that I was responding to Derek from that same lens. So instead of viewing it as like an illness, I was viewing it as a moral offensive which obviously those behaviors are offensive, but I couldn't see it any other way, which now understanding what I know today was only feeding the shame of addiction.
Speaker 1:Sure, so give us a picture of like what that would look like, responding to it from that like moral perspective versus that addiction lens.
Speaker 2:So I would respond out of anger sometimes, and then the other times I would respond out of like plea for him to do this, do that. I would find a solution and figure this is what you got to do and I'll try clear kind of pathway for him to just go do it. So I'm coming at him thinking I know it all and that he doesn't know how to do this. But she's totally capable of from the lens today.
Speaker 2:But back then I was like he doesn't have a clue what to do, so I'm going to figure it out for him, you know almost like be a better person, yeah, and then sometimes I would if he wouldn't answer a call and call and call and text and call and text and call. So then when he and probably at that moment he's either passed out who knows what's happening, so he's not getting. He already knows and is feeling shame for not being available or even coming home.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:But then when he finally does come to, he's got 22 missed phone calls from his wife. He's not coming home. I feel like that shame just compounded on what he was already feeling. So now he's like now I'm nowhere to go.
Speaker 1:There's so many like raw and human emotions that I'm feeling here, just here in the story like Derek, that shame, I would say to a degree. I don't know your experience, but I've shared on this podcast here even my own struggle with pornography and that shame. When you speak of it, I feel something similar within within me and I know like how intense and how the way I've described it is like no matter what my wife Kelsey would say that was positive or what other people would say that was positive, there was like a birdie in the back of my brain. That was like if they only knew Brett, if they only knew, and it just took away the ability to feel like people knew me and people cared about me.
Speaker 1:It's not a good feeling and for you, leanne, this like desperation is actually the podcast that come out just before this talks about disconnect and I share there a little analogy about like a ship, this, like safe harbor, this if you're on a ship and like in my mind I picture someone falling off that ship. And if you're, if you can picture yourself in the water and the ship's moving away and you're trying to, you're trying to get back on that ship, you're trying to get back connected with that ship, how desperate you'd be. I feel like that's the desperation and that people feel an experience when they have something like this happening. It's like you're going to claw, you're going to scream, you're going to yell, you're going to do everything you can to get back on that ship.
Speaker 2:That's exactly how I felt. The life that you envisioned, or that you thought that you were going to have together and that you still wanted with that person is slowly escaping you, and you don't want that. You're definitely crying and trying to figure out how to get it back.
Speaker 1:And then I just had tears in my eyes with that picture you illustrated of your parents waiting there in the driveway. It's just like I think every parent knows what that might feel like. To have your child on the phone with that kind of desperation just really illustrates how difficult this situation is to navigate through, because these feelings are real and they leave us in a position where we're just trying our best to solve them. We just don't always know how.
Speaker 2:Totally, and I've known Derek since we were 15 and 16. And the biggest thing I remember feeling at the time is I didn't want anybody to not like him. I didn't want this to be a wedge. I wanted everybody to get on my page and how do we help him. But that was a big thing for me too, is I wanted them to still love him.
Speaker 1:Of course, I see that even with other couples that I work with. It's interesting. Couples come in to my office and they're in pretty significant conflict, but a lot of times in like the first two or three sessions, they're each other's biggest cheerleaders. It's actually kind of interesting to watch. They somehow want me to understand their pain, but they protect their spouse. I see that here too, that you knew him and you knew his heart and I think you could see much better than anyone else how earnest and genuine he was and you cared about him and you knew he was all the good and some of these challenging parts and you had the capacity to love him in that. And yeah, I think for other people they have a different relationship with Derek. They have a relationship with you oftentimes.
Speaker 1:Sometimes our friends and our parents and our family aren't always the best advice givers for relationships, because they want to not experience pain, and they experience pain when they say see you in pain. So then the solution is to get rid of whatever is causing you pain and they won't feel pain. Do you follow that? Sometimes it's so simple for them that, well, this hurts me to see you hurting like this. Just get rid of them and for you that's not an option.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, I would like to go back and talk about the shame part of it a little bit. It's part of our story where Leanne would have mentioned that she had catch me or she had seen the bill in the mail for the porn, and then I would talk about it with her and I would always leave stuff out. Like the shame was. I would only talk about what she taught me with and then I might talk about something that happened previous to try to make it so it would make sense to her why I did this. And it was just that was the battle of it. I would continuously just lie about it and only talk about what she knew about to get her to think that I was okay.
Speaker 1:And from your perspective, Derek, what I hear there is you're you want to have someone believe that you're okay, so you can believe that you're okay. Yeah, and you really wanted Leanne to see you as like good enough, not some disgusting pig or something like that. You wanted her to see you as the human that you were and to care about you and love you, because you were having a hard time doing that. It sounds like.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean. The truth is is I didn't never really think that I was okay. I knew inside of I felt like the worst person in the world. I didn't want anybody else. For some reason I thought I had to cover it up so that other people think I was okay.
Speaker 1:Something like that is a significantly scary thing to believe about yourself, and what I know about relationships is we try to regulate ourselves through other people when we have like that kind of an insecurity, like I'm not okay. That's an insecurity. We want to be okay because then we feel safe. We feel like people will accept us, people love us, people care about us, which is what we all want. And so now this has you feeling anxious or insecure within your relationships, and what we'll do is we'll try to get other people to believe that, because in our mind it's like if other people believe that, then maybe we'll believe that too, but then any time there's any sort of negative feedback that would prove our insecurity, then it overpowers any of the good responses that we've gotten it. It just wipes it all out.
Speaker 1:The analogy that I use is, if I was insecure about the shirt I was wearing, I could get eight or nine compliments in a day, but one person says, like what are you wearing, brett? And I would never wear the shirt again because that neutral comment would confirm my insecurity. This is an ugly shirt. And we do that about our beliefs that we have about ourselves, and here what I'm hearing is this pretty deeply entrenched belief, derek, that I'm a problem. You said that right out of the gate when you were talking about pornography. You said like I thought I had a problem and that belief started there.
Speaker 3:Yeah, anytime Leanne or anybody else would say anything negative about me. That is when I would just be like, yeah, I know, I am. You know, if she just called me a sick jerk, I'd be like, yeah, I am. And I'd go drink it away because I believed that that's what I was.
Speaker 1:So it's just so raw, this story, and I appreciate you guys sharing it Because, again, I feel like I have a perspective where I think that these raw feelings are way more common than we'd even like to believe, and I sat in on a presentation that you guys gave and I thought, as I was sitting there, that I don't know how many people were listening maybe 600 or something like that.
Speaker 3:And.
Speaker 1:I think everyone there in some way was touched, but not everyone was dealing with addiction. And why is that? I think it's because the emotions that addiction bring up are universal. They're universal to relationships and I think, like the addiction can intensify it and maybe make it even more difficult to cover, eventually becomes more public than we'd like it to be for one reason or another, whether it's there's legal challenges or things like that. But these feelings of like I'm not good enough or somehow this means something about me or I have a problem, like those are, those are close to, I would say, most of us, and when you share this story, we all recall those feelings and I think it can do something to normalize them so that it doesn't have to get to this extent that we can reach out and get help. It doesn't have to be think that the term that I've heard you use Leanna's full blown addiction to really begin to work on these things that are underlying the addiction. So that brings us to what 2008, 2009, right, is that kind of where we are here?
Speaker 3:Yeah, right after I started drinking, the drinking was the same as the porn. It escalated quickly. I was drinking every day. I'd get up in the morning and I'd drink on my way to work and I'd drink while I'm at work. And I still would try to hide it from Leigh Ann. You know I would actually drink in the morning so that I could get home 10 hours later and she wouldn't be able to smell it. For some reason. I thought I had to keep it a secret from her still, even though she knew what I was battling with.
Speaker 3:And the drinking eventually led me to getting into trouble with the loss. I got arrested several times and the law pretty much forced me to quit drinking because I had to go in to take breathalyzers at the courthouse randomly, and then I had a breathalyzer in my vehicle that I had to blow in before I could start my vehicle. So at that time that's when I started using drugs I got introduced to meth and that was kind of on an accident too. I didn't really know what it was when I tried it, and the first time I tried it I actually didn't really like it. I didn't like how it made me feel. But then I tried it again and I think I got addicted to it the second time. I tried it. From then on, it was a daily thing for me for the next 10 years.
Speaker 1:So the second time you had it just like that, I went from I'm not really into this to daily use for 10 years. Yeah, wow, I think that's incredible actually that something could just take you like that, because that's not what we hear with other kind of addictive substances. Most people kind of build up and feels like a pretty significant, like zero to a daily use kind of a thing.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I mean the first year that I did it. It was a drug that made me feel better and it made me feel like I was performing better. It just did all the things for me, which is what made me get addicted to it. So that's why it was so powerful, because that first year it was amazing for me.
Speaker 1:You said something there that like makes a lot of sense. Is it made me feel productive? I think is the word you use there which which combats this feeling of like I'm a problem, I'm messed up, I'm somehow, I have issues, and now you're feeling like, hey, I'm productive, I'm adding value, I'm doing something, I'm good, and I can see how that would become very, very powerful.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. It was like the drinking did the opposite for me in the end, and I was crashing cars, I wasn't coming home at night, I was getting arrested, spending nights in jail and blacking out, not even knowing what I did or where I was half the time. And then I started using this method and it was the complete opposite.
Speaker 2:I think if we do, if we look at the whole picture, his addiction started ramping up. I mean, it started when he was 10, but 11. But then in 2008, it really took to the next step. It kind of throughout his life. So alcohol was a big problem, but that was forced to go away because of the consequences, yeah, but yet his addiction was not being treated.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:So introduced the drug, then I think for me I mean obviously drugs and meth are powerful, but also to me it speaks to where he was in the progression of his disease as well- yeah. Which explains a zero to 100, because he was that on 100 with the alcohol. Okay, but the law and his consequences squelched that. Totally but it just jumped ship to another substance.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 2:And it still continued.
Speaker 1:Yeah, which I think is interesting. Like that's kind of the reactive nature that we are as humans is we solve the symptoms, and what you said there is like they weren't taking care of the addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:I guess I don't know where you guys stand on this, but I think like the root of addiction is a lot of times in some of those negative self beliefs.
Speaker 2:Agree.
Speaker 1:And that's the theme that I've heard throughout your story, as you've talked there because there's like a there's a significantly powerful negative self belief that made these synthetic drugs, if you will, whether it's pornography, alcohol or meth feel better than then maybe they might to someone who doesn't have some of those negative self beliefs to that extent because because you were suffering as much as you were.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, when you, when I, when I was living in addiction and I was trying to cover up my mistakes and lying about everything that I did, like I said, I would only tell the truth when I had to. So there was always little pieces that I wasn't talking about which made me just keep living in the complete shame and guilt, which only led to my addiction even being becoming even worse.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so now from 2000,. What 2008 to 2018,? You're on meth. Are you drinking still or is the drinking completely?
Speaker 3:I would still drink occasionally, but it was the meth pretty much took over everything. Okay, yeah, it took over.
Speaker 1:And you're still working at this time, like bring me through how this progresses here.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so during this time I lost my first job because of meth, because I had an accident at work, which was something that would have happened whether I was on meth or not. But I had to go take a drug test because of it and I didn't, I just fled and quit the job and never went back. And that became the cycle of me having a job for three or four months, getting either drug tested or else not showing up. So I went through many jobs and you know, this whole time I'd continuously wanted to be sober too. So I would go to treatment, I would get sober, I'd get a new job, the play everywhere I worked they just thought I was the greatest, greatest worker and just the greatest guy.
Speaker 3:And then, all of a sudden, one day they're like what happened? Because I either wouldn't show up or else I couldn't perform anymore because of the drug. But yeah, that drug just took everything from me over and over again. I'd get sober, I'd get my life back somewhat and then I'd relapse and I'd end up back Back on the streets. Most of the time it was from having somewhere to live, having a job, having everything I needed to just be in on the street with nowhere to go, man Over and over again that like it sounds.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I feel like I feel a lot of emotions to try to put it on, just like obviously you've talked about the shame component of it, but just the frustration that it feels like you would have, just wanting so desperately similarly to the desperation that we talked about with Leanne to get rid of this, to just be done with it and make a new promise. You try again, you start somewhere fresh and it just takes it away.
Speaker 3:Yeah, and towards the end of there, when I would have a relapse, I knew what it would do to me. I knew that. I remember one time I was driving to the drug dealer's house to pick up more meth and it was a relapse. I hadn't used it yet, I was sober.
Speaker 2:It was like 14 months you'd been sober.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I'd been sober for 14 months and when was this? This was in 2000. I don't remember the year, but it was one of the last times that I relapsed, okay. But yeah, I was driving there and I knew I had my life together at the time and things were coming easy and everything was back in place. And I was driving to this place just crying and screaming and punching my steering wheel. I just couldn't believe that I was going to do it. But yet I wasn't. It was so powerful that I could not stop myself from going to do it again. It was.
Speaker 1:Yeah, just to be in, you know, knotted in that powerful cycle I would call it. It's just. I can't imagine. You know what I feel compassion as I think about it. It's just like man it can't be easy, and now is a fairly significant period here, from 2008 to 2018. And I know just from talking offline and hearing your guys' story that the relationship really seemed to struggle the most during that time. Or from an outside perspective.
Speaker 2:We separated in 2012. First it was about a year and a half In that time I lived at my mom and dad's, and then I went to Arizona for a summer.
Speaker 1:Did you know he was doing meth now? No, I didn't Okay.
Speaker 2:I believed it to be alcohol at that point.
Speaker 3:Okay, and it might have been At that time. It was alcohol. It was during that separation. Yeah, it was when I started using meth.
Speaker 2:So then I went to Arizona for the summer, and that was another significant healing part for me was just creating a distance between me and the addiction and the constant roller coaster that I was still so closely tied to. And then there was just so much support there Not that there wasn't here, but I think because I removed myself from being so close to the addiction that I could embrace the support. And then so that was good, although I knew throughout that I remembered Derek's brother, aaron, asking me before I came home, like, are you ready to go home? Do you feel like Derek's in a good place? And I remember telling him Aaron, I'm still not Derek's number one, but I couldn't. I wanted to believe what Derek was saying and I wanted to believe that things were okay, but I knew they weren't. But I knew I had to go home, because that's where this is, where home was and that's where I lived. And so we went home and within a few days I learned that things were not good still, and so I moved into a rental with the kids, and I think it was just a few months later that Derek went to treatment, and then it was just kind of that same cycle, up and on for a little while. He moved home then, in June of 2013, for the next few years until 2017.
Speaker 2:In 2017, it was probably like the last six months-ish around six months where I lived with this uneasy I don't know what the answer is. I knew it wasn't alcohol because I couldn't smell it. I just knew it wasn't good and so I started suspecting that it was. I started having dreams that he was using drugs. He was leaving at 4.30 in the morning to go work out at a gym before work and then he was not needing that much sleep at night, just different symptoms that meth produces. But yeah, I still didn't know what drug. But I remember sitting in a wedding and he had just been laid off on a job and he outbid me during the wedding and he had tears coming down his face and he said I need to talk to you. And I knew then that he was going to share something vague with me and I knew at that point it was probably drugs. Because it because. Then I was like well, can we wait till after the wedding or do you want to go right after?
Speaker 3:He's like I want to go right away.
Speaker 2:And it was there that he told me, in a Walmart parking lot, that I've been using meth. I want to get sober from it, but I had to wait till I got laid off because I wouldn't be able to function at work without it and I didn't want my work to know. But this is a perfect opportunity for me to work on myself now that I'm laid off for the winter.
Speaker 2:So the first thing I did which I did with alcohol and stuff was to begin researching. What does withdrawal from meth look like? How do you support someone in withdrawal? What do they need? Is it safe? So the next two weeks he withdrawed at home, couldn't get out of bed for two two-ish weeks and at this point nobody knew. Again. I wasn't telling anybody Still don't ask.
Speaker 2:Everybody had began to know about the alcohol and that kind of thing. You know so because we had separated. But now we're in the same boat again, but with drugs.
Speaker 1:And Leanne, like I guess I just have so much empathy for your situation because, again, you still want everybody to know that he's just, he's a good guy, he's. You love him, you care about him and you just naturally protect even that kind of stuff.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you do, and I think even at that point I knew I still loved Derek, but I was at this point I started to wonder if he really was a good guy. Those kind of thoughts started coming in and maybe I've been wrong about him all these years.
Speaker 2:I think more at this point. I don't. Obviously I was afraid to tell people, but I think I was afraid to tell people because I didn't know what that meant for me. Where does that bring me then, and what does my life look like from here? You know, derek started treatment a local treatment center for that in 2015. And then we kind of just went back and forth with that cycle Again for a little while the relapse disappearing recovery, relapse, disappearing recovery. But in 2017, that July 24th Derek disappeared. That would be the last time for five years that he would be at home with us as a family 2017.
Speaker 2:That was just where I was like well, this, I can't keep doing this. He was disappearing for days at a time. I suppose I had just faced it long enough that I knew that this isn't how I could live anymore.
Speaker 3:And people had known between.
Speaker 2:I don't remember exactly when I told people about math, but it was sometime between 2015 and 2017. It wasn't like oh Derek's out of the home and now everybody knows it was. People had known that he had been struggling with sharing. Yeah, I'd started sharing sometime in there, but it obviously wasn't as significant as the first time that I shared, because I don't remember exactly the conversation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, what's happening for you, derek? And, like these, moves in and moves out that structural change that's taking place.
Speaker 3:So, yeah, that was during that period of time where I would relapse and then get sober and relapse. So one of these times during a sober time, we actually I got a good job and we were actually able to buy a house. It was shortly after that when things went downhill quick again, and that's that's when I disappeared from Leone. I moved, moved to a place in Pine City. That was like probably one of the worst times of my life it was. I spent about six months there in a camper outside in the winter with no heat, living just a miserable life.
Speaker 3:I was on unemployment and I was also a child support was coming out of my unemployment checks. So I think I'd get like $180 a week and I'd spend every dollar of it on math. That would keep me. I think I'd get my unemployment check on Tuesday and I'd go buy $180 worth of math and it would be gone by Friday and then I would sleep from Friday until Tuesday again, like I'd get out of bed and eat, eat some peanut butter sandwiches, and that went on for many months. I didn't save any money to buy any food or or anything. So I would, I would steal food during that time and this addiction just has it completely.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah. That's when I actually just yeah, cause I would steal gas from my car and I'd steal food, and that was another line that I was never going to cross. I was never going to be a thief.
Speaker 1:But you're living at that point. You're living for the drug.
Speaker 3:Yeah, wow. During that time I I'd gotten to a point where I just didn't want to go on anymore like that and I had prayed for help and somehow someway, Leanne called me one of that day that I prayed and she reminded me that my dad was willing to help me. I think it was that day I called my dad and he was. He said yeah, come, come to Arizona and be with me and we'll do what we can to help you. Leanne's dad, joe, came and picked me up from Pine City and brought me to their house and he let me stay the night there and they he actually bought me a plane ticket to Arizona. My mom and dad were there to pick me up and they took me in and took care of me for a long time.
Speaker 3:I I was sober for six months at that at that time, but for some reason I didn't think I needed to do any of the work. Like I just thought that it got miserable enough for me. Now I can stay sober. Like I don't want to go back. I can stay sober and just live my life. So I didn't do anything for my recovery at that point. I just went to work.
Speaker 1:How many times did he go through treatment to that point?
Speaker 3:I went to treatment. I believe. I believe I went nine times total, but there was, I went twice since this time, so I had been to treatment seven times. So yeah, for some reason I didn't believe what they told me in treatment. I just thought I could do it on my own and was able to for six months, but eventually I had. I don't even know what happened, but I went and got high again and that began the vicious cycle of relapsing and getting sober again.
Speaker 1:That story. It's interesting to me and maybe I'm even sensitive to share, because I don't want anyone to feel like they have to do more for, say, someone that they're experiencing an addiction with, but the love and the care that was around you at that time, like I truly believe, like one of the most powerful agents of change is love.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I believe that too. I couldn't have done any of this work without all these people around me that left me and that were willing to take me in over and over again. But if everybody turned to me away, I would. Where would I be? Don't think that I could be here today.
Speaker 1:The capacity that people there had to put a little few more dollars at you and parents to take you in and believe in you one more time and land to keep showing up. It's just so remarkable how powerful that love is and we try so hard to make people better, to change people through other means, but just holding capacity to love them, it seems like it just we know so closely where we're failing, where we're going wrong, what we're doing wrong. We just don't always know that we're loved.
Speaker 2:So it's interesting that you say this, because this is about the time in my own recovery story that I started learning that addiction is a disease that they're going to choose to destroy his life. He's not choosing to destroy mine. It's not something that's done to somebody, it's something that he struggles with. But yet I'm impacted and that's what I'm feeling, or was feeling, was the impacts of it. We started learning about the shame cycle of addiction and how our responses as loved ones to someone's struggle with addiction can feed the addiction or feed the recovery, and I started to recognize myself feeding the shame, which I don't beat myself up over, because nobody can go back and do that. We only do best with what we have. We're trying we're all trying to do our best.
Speaker 2:And that was my best. I didn't know any different and I didn't know another way. So if anyone's listening and is feeling like don't go down that road, that's not what this is about. It's about being willing to look forward and learn and move, being willing to look through life at a different perspective. If you've been trying one thing for 10 years, maybe it's time to look at a different. That's not working. So what can you do different? And that's kind of the point that I got to is this isn't working. I don't like the way I'm feeling. This isn't who I am at my core. I've never I've never been a person that has been mean to Derek or said mean things or been hurtful. I've. I don't like going to bed at night when he wasn't responding, knowing the long angry text I sent him, knowing he wasn't going to respond to it.
Speaker 2:I did not like how I felt, so I told myself one night you are, I'm going through enough. Now I am adding to my own pain, and I thought that's the first thing I can start doing today is not adding to my own pain, and one of the ways in which I did that was no longer said things I didn't feel good about.
Speaker 3:And so by nothing.
Speaker 2:nice to say, I didn't say anything at all it doesn't mean that those not nice things weren't there.
Speaker 2:They were there, but it's no longer said them to him, I wrote about it, I went on walks, I cried, I confided in the people closest to me that were willing to hear me out and that that seemed as though which I'm sure it affected them, but seemed as though my angry emotions didn't. They didn't blow with the wind, they just simply were a sounding board and they could go on with their day, because I didn't also want to ruin someone else's day over my own emotions, right? So I was super intuitive to like, well, I can't talk to so and so today, because I feel like it's going to upset them, I worried about that a lot more than I probably should have. Yeah, the process of healing began and just seeing community reinforcement and family training and the invitation to change and which I won't go into that so much here. But but if there is just an empathetic, loving approach, viewing the disease of addiction as a disease versus a choice, which, which, like this, is your work, leanne.
Speaker 1:I think people desperately wanting that information. So Leanne is an amazing resource for those kinds of resources and you mentioned, like, the craft method that you use and things like that. Where can they go to get more of that? Like, how can they follow you and your story and learn from some of the things that you've learned?
Speaker 2:You can go to evolve addiction family recovery support on Instagram, Facebook. There's also support group that I have on Monday nights. That's actually part of Thrive, but it's also Thrive is a group that's ran out of. Minnesota to buy Pam Landhart, and we collaborated to bring this support group along with evolve.
Speaker 1:It looks like that support groups been really well received. I've passed through it a few times just when we shared office space, and it seems like there's a supportive group there.
Speaker 2:Yeah, there is, and Derek's been coming now too, and it's been really. I love it and it feels, as though the people that come love it as well. And that's my goal. It's like I tell Derek all the time my biggest thing is I want people to walk away feeling a little more hopeful than they did when they come in, no matter how the day has gone. That's kind of what we focus on there. We follow the invitation to change workbook. I have a website evolvefamilyrecoveryorg.
Speaker 1:Go follow and learn those things, because we don't have the time here to even get into a sliver of everything that you offer there. So you weren't talking before we pivoted there. You know you were showing up in a way that, as you watched yourself in it, you're like I don't really like how I'm showing up, and that's one thing that I can do differently is make sure that I show up in a way that I like, and I remember from a previous podcast where he shared like about getting off the hamster wheel and not being so reactive to Derek and his behaviors, really responding autonomously from those things from your own place, and I want to get into how that maybe facilitated the recovery here. But before that, one other thought that I had was around this idea of our capacity to love, and I think sometimes it's good for us to recognize that, if we're dealing with an especially difficult situation, that the person on the other end isn't unlovable.
Speaker 1:But maybe there are times in our life where we just don't have the capacity to love, and I think that's important because it recognizes that it is something that we can change and develop If we want to. We can grow our capacity to care and love puts you back in a position where, like you started doing, you started figuring out how to grow your capacity to respond to Derek in a loving way. And that's really what I feel like that illustrates. And it wasn't because Derek was unlovable that you were doing those things. It was because that was the best way you thought you could help and that makes sense to me totally. But you're able to see how it didn't feel like love and care for you and you stepped off that hamster wheel and you developed a bigger capacity to show up in a loving, caring way.
Speaker 3:I did notice all of a sudden one day that Leanne became an easier person for me to talk to. She would text me just out of the blue asking how I'm doing and tell her you know bad day. And she would ask me oh, what can you do about it? Or she wouldn't start accusing me of doing this or that. She just she just became a lot more loving and I at the time I didn't know that that's what she was doing, but now, looking back, I can see that she's something that she was doing that was different.
Speaker 3:It definitely helped me on that last day that I used the day that I got sober, I totally and what I wanted to do, and she pointed me in a direction. She asked me well, what are you going to do to stay sober? And I was like I don't know. And she's like, do you want to listen to a sermon online? That helped me the other day and I was like, yeah, I'll listen to it. So she sent me that. Just things like that, where I think before she would have been been on my back. Just, you need to get the treatment right now. I called this place. They have a bed for you. I go to this hospital.
Speaker 3:She'd be throwing out all these things and telling me how to do it, and it would make me shut down and give up or whatever I did.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and that process, like logically, I can just see how we were there, right, like, of course, that's what you do. And it didn't work, so we tried something different, and I can't overlook this element of hearing Derek your prayer there in Pine City and getting that text from Leanne and Leanne's change of heart. It's more than a miracle.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is a miracle.
Speaker 1:It's answered prayer.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 1:And you had talked just about how unworthy you felt and you felt like you've done all these things, you'd been hiding all these things. Surely you're going to hell. And you prayed and it was answered yeah, like wow, that's love.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is.
Speaker 2:Yeah, part of that change for me too was up until all those prior years I had been fighting for my will. You know, like I didn't want to be a single mom of 12 kids. I wanted Derek back because I loved him. I missed him. I didn't want this struggle with addiction. I didn't want one bit of my life. I didn't like it all where it was going, and that's kind of the lens in which I was responding to everybody and everything, including Derek, until one day I was at home and I realized I was getting very exhausted mentally, to a point you know that I'd considered maybe I could just end my life at this point.
Speaker 2:And I remember thinking that I trusted and believed in God, but I feared my life going forward. I thought that day that there's nothing more I can do, I'm too tired. I remember falling to my knees in my room. I'd shut the door, the kids were doing whatever they do and I was very emotional. I prayed to God and I distinctly Derek and I just talked about this the other night and I told them about this night and I prayed to God and I said God, I know, you know where I am and I know that you know how scared I am. I so badly do not want this life, but please, if this is the life you see fit for me, please hold my hand and show me the way.
Speaker 2:And it didn't get overnight easier. It wasn't like, oh poof, life was good. But that's the day, the moment that my life started to get better, I let go of my will and completely, with just a small little window of hope, wanted to trust that God knew where this, my life, was going and that he would help me in every aspect. And that was the beginning, then, of finding this new way gentler, less controlling, just a loving trust. God, you know that kind of approach. And and I also learned that one size doesn't fit off. So when Derek did reach out for help that last time, I knew it doesn't help to tell him how to do it. He's going to do what he feels most comfortable with and that's what we want him to do, because that's the change that would be sustainable is something that he's willing to do not what I'm wanting him to do and realizing that I was like I don't know what he needs to do.
Speaker 3:He knows what he needs to do.
Speaker 2:He's been through this so many times, all I need to do is just find something that can give him a little bit more hope. And then I remember the sermon that I had listened to that had given me hope. And I was like well, I can love him and I can encourage him in these kinds of ways, but the rest of the answers will come to him.
Speaker 1:Powerful story, and one that I don't know necessarily how to get someone there, but it does just. I think what you saw was the way you were trying to solve this wasn't just wasn't working. You'd come to a complete dead end, and it gave you the ability to take a risk into something completely different, which was like oh, like the holding on again really felt like safety to you.
Speaker 2:It did.
Speaker 1:In that way, I can appreciate how difficult it is to do what you did.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's a complete unknown, but I know. After that I did start to be accepting. I got to a point before Derek got sober even that I accepted my life as a single mother and I enjoyed the relationships I had. I was started feeling thankful again. I started seeing life completely different than I had prior Life plain and simply got much easier even though it was still very difficult, sure.
Speaker 1:So you said 2019 was when you were sober, derek.
Speaker 3:When I got sober, it was Easter Sunday of 2021. I believe it was April 5th.
Speaker 1:That was the call then, and that you shared the sermon. And then what happens?
Speaker 3:That time it was the same thing. I prayed for help. God helped me. I had the strength to call the end. I still didn't know what I was going to do or how I was going to do it.
Speaker 3:That next day I was over at my brother's house working as they're helping him, and my dad happened to stop by that day and he's like do you want to come over for dinner tonight? And is it? I said yeah, yeah, I do. I sat down for dinner and I told them at that time that I had just gotten sober two days before that. And they're like we want to try to help you again. If we can help, Would it help if you moved back in with us and had a place to stay again? I was like, yeah, I don't have anywhere to stay right now. I've been living in my truck and I think that would help.
Speaker 3:I moved back in that night and next morning we had a conversation. They wanted to know what they needed to do for me, or my dad had actually asked me if he wanted, wanted him to come with me to work. If I needed somebody with me, I would help. I probably am not in a good spot to be alone right now. So he came to work with me every day for the next two weeks. I remember that the last day he came, I think it was over 100 degrees and he's like Derek, I can't do this anymore, I'm getting too old and he dead. He looked like he was going to pass out. It was mixing concrete by hand and pouring it in a retaining wall and he was just. He couldn't handle it anymore.
Speaker 2:It was too hot.
Speaker 3:So I was like I needed you for the two weeks and I'm happy that you're able to help me and I think I can manage to go to work without you by my side every minute of the day anymore. So yeah, that's how that went. I also had a group of guys or about 10 guys, a group of AA guys that I had gotten to know. So I reached out to them and told them that I got sober again and one of them called me and said hey, do you need a sponsor? And I was like, yeah, I do. He's like I'll come over tonight, I'll be your sponsor. So I went over there that night and we worked on the steps, starting that night, and we did it every night for the next few weeks and I got through all the steps and still continue to work the steps today. It's a daily work, but we got through them in a quick order at that time. Just something I needed to do.
Speaker 1:That story. For me, if there's like one thing that I wish in listening to, is just that I would somehow be able to do what one of those people did Sounds amazing and like of course we all would want to do that, but I also know I've been in that situation too and it's a lot different when you're the person doing that. It's a sacrifice. People were just willing to help and just wish that someday, some time, given the opportunity, I would respond in that way yeah, I do too.
Speaker 3:I think about that often. I hope that if I ever am in that situation, that I have even half the strength that these guys did to just put down what they're doing and just help me that's all they wanted was for me to get better, and I really hope I have half of that strength If I ever run into a situation. So that alone is a miracle too, to just put down your life for this time and help.
Speaker 1:To help someone who doesn't know that they're lucked and to just, yeah, so freely give in that way. It's just highlights the power of love and the changing effect that it has. It's something that requires faith, because we do give of ourselves. You look at the story how much people gave for no real guarantee of return. Even you can't place a bet on that. I'm going to show up for two weeks and this will cure everything. At that point, there wasn't any more chance that time for them, from their perspective, than there was the first time. They helped you and they did. I just think I saw a reel that you guys made on Instagram where Leanne had asked you know, like what's one thing that you would say to encourage other people who are going through addiction, or something to that effect? You said don't ever give up, and I think you're speaking to the person who is struggling with the addiction there, maybe, but I think it also applies to those people who are around addiction.
Speaker 3:Yeah, that is what I was applying to is people that have a loved one. Okay, yep, just don't ever give up on them, no matter what, no matter how hopeless or worthless, or if they're alive, they're still hope.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so you touched on it briefly, but now you become sober. We're coming up on three years, yeah real close to three years.
Speaker 3:How has it gone? It gets a little bit easier as time goes on. I remember that first year there was one night where I almost had to relapse. I was up until four in the morning. I found where I was going to go pick up some mess from and I was ready to head out the door. And at that last moment I thought it all the way through and I thought of where it brought me to the last time and somehow that was able to give me enough courage to just go back inside and go to sleep. That was a really close call. I got lucky and I didn't. I was able to turn around and go back to bed.
Speaker 3:It does take work. In the beginning of this, work that I didn't want to do, I didn't think that I liked reading and working on myself and praying and meditating and trying to help other people, and those are all the things that I have to do every day. Wake up in the morning and the first thing I do is I read. There's a daily reading in the A book and a daily reading in the NA book and I read those and I think about them and meditate of all them and just try to apply them in my own life for today and then I move on to doing my daily, normal daily work. But throughout the day I still, anytime I have a hard time, I pray, and anytime I start thinking the wrong way, I talk to Leanne about it or I talk to one of the guys about it. My main focus is to try to get to as many meetings as I can, and if somebody calls me, I pick up the phone and I talk to them.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it's just hearing that. The thing that popped out for me was the humility that this requires for you. Pride is, I would say, probably close to all of us, right, and especially when we build this new identity, the identity of sobriety, we become attached to that too. And now, all of a sudden, we don't want to even admit that we're as close to insubriety as maybe we still are right. We still want to do things our way. I can see how, even in sobriety, there's still work. It's not like you're good to go.
Speaker 3:No, yeah, it's still hard to admit that I need help with certain things, and then I still have a hard time with my thoughts and what goes on in my life and I still have a hard time reaching out and talking about those things with other people, because I think that I'm supposed to be able to get through it by myself.
Speaker 1:Which I think that's a universal human condition. So you're not unique in that at all. And yet, knowing how many times you've went through that cycle in the past, you know I have to imagine that it still is worrisome. Maybe that's a question I would ask you. It's like how does it feel now? Is it in a rearview mirror?
Speaker 3:Is it something you guys think about on the daily or yeah, I think it definitely hit a life that I didn't think was ever possible. I never thought I could have the things that I have today with my wife and kids Wow, but it's still there. My first thought always seems to be the wrong thought.
Speaker 3:My mind always goes to the wrong thing. Every time I'm able to think that thought all the way through and do the right thing rather than the wrong thing. It's amazing how, at least once a day, I can have a thought of I could have this relief from the drug or alcohol. For some reason that's still part of my thinking. I don't know if it'll ever go away, but I know that today I can talk about it and I can continue that thought and tell them I know what I should do.
Speaker 1:Yeah, how about for you, Leanne.
Speaker 2:I know in the beginning, before Derek got sober this time the tri sets are righty.
Speaker 2:I worried about it a great deal, but I think my own recovery has helped me not focus on a relapse. I definitely know a relapse could happen and we're in this fight for recovery for the rest of our lives, for both of us. I have noticed for myself when I'm not taking care of myself doing what I need to do. Like Derek has his daily things, I also have mine, because the roots of addiction are there for him and the impacts of addiction are there for me. And in order to stay at this place, I need to work at it, because the roots of me blaming myself or me wanting to micromanage or control or direct out of my own fear are still there. But I also know that each of us has the tools to move forward and deal with it, and I pray that there wouldn't be one. But should there be one, I pray that both of us would be able to get right back up into the recovery mode and use the tools that we've learned.
Speaker 1:I think for you maybe it feels like you're more susceptible to it, but I remember back in my undergraduate course there was a man who came in, a successful businessman and he shared how he had been in a skiing accident, broke his leg and was given opioids. Basically overnight he was in the throes of addiction. It's that close to, I think, all of us and your guy's ability to talk about this, to take the cover off like you have, is, I think, so helpful, because really the addiction takes over. How do we support that addiction? But then there's another story here that I feel like is a whole another hour and a half podcast.
Speaker 1:It's how these life events came into your guys's relationship and it left you guys. I have to believe it left you guys confused about your care for each other and here like now, I've watched you guys interact in different settings and watching you guys on the couch there. It's clear that you guys have found each other. You feel close and connected that way and I know you have a relationship and there's moments of confusion and there's moments of worry and hurt and things that you guys have experienced, but you've been able to, even in this, reassure each other that you want to figure this out together.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's the main thing. I feel like where we're at today. For whatever reason, some days are just a little harder to talk about the difficult parts of what we've been through than others, but I would say overall, that's not even the forefront of our relationship anymore, I feel I don't know what a normal relationship looks like.
Speaker 1:Let me know, I'm really interested about it.
Speaker 2:But I feel as though, like if you were to come sit in our house, maybe you wouldn't even know our marriage has been so directly impacted by addiction unless we sat down and shared with you which we have, you know but there would have been a time where you would have sat down and been like. These two are in deep pain, but I think today he does his recovery, I do mine. We might share a little bit in the morning or if something reminds us like we went to look at a job this morning and it's right, where the kids used to go to school and brought up some old memories, you know.
Speaker 2:So we share a little bit about that, but it's nothing that sinks our day and if it does, we're just like you know, today I'm not in the headspace to talk about that. I want to stay focused on what we have today and then we move on. We're we just gotten real matter of fact about what we've gone through and it's not loaded with the emotion that it once was. However, there is parts of our story that maybe we'll always bring some emotion because it's just impacted us in that way. But yeah, overall I'm so thankful that we have what we have today and I just feel lucky. I feel as though it's a gift that I got back again.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it is a gift. I'm amazed that Leanne's ability to get through all this stuff. I've heard her so many times and it's a real gift that she's able to work through it on her own and work through these things with me.
Speaker 1:I want to underscore this piece that I think there was hurt in both ways, and I don't think either of you were intending necessarily to hurt, but I think when you say that, derek, I just want to highlight that you've done that too. It takes both of you to be able to do that, yeah.
Speaker 3:It does take work on both parts. Even yesterday in the morning we argued about eggs, eggs, okay, of course, who doesn't?
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, and that is a relationship. That is marriage. It really is, and I think that's some of the taboos that is still there. It's like we want people to think that we're madly in love. We don't want them to think that we're fighting over eggs. Yeah, so we're going to put on this portrait of us madly in love and we're not going to talk about the argument about the eggs. The travesty in that is, I do think that there's skills that we can develop to find each other again on the other side and to work through that in a way that has you, less than 24 hours later, laughing, and I won't say you're cuddling on the couch.
Speaker 3:But it looks cute, you guys look cute over there. I wouldn't sit this close to anybody else. I believe it yeah.
Speaker 2:This morning the first thing he did when we got in the truck is he stuck up his hands and said high five, no fighting over eggs this morning.
Speaker 1:And those are those little ways that we reassure each other that we do care for each other, even when these emotions come up and yeah, there will be emotions that still come up as you think about your past and I believe that you guys have tools to work through them and have a better opportunity to stay, to repair from those feelings, to get back to a place of reassurance, and that is really going to be fundamental to your guys's recovery together, because I think we talked on one of our previous podcasts that connection really is the antidote to addiction.
Speaker 2:Yeah.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I'll never forget this conversation, just to have you guys here as open and transparent and vulnerable as you guys were. Effects of person in a way that I don't know that I can describe, but I leave this conversation hoping and praying that I can first myself be preserved from anything that you guys have experienced and I don't know why. I guess it doesn't make sense who affects and who it pulls in. I feel like I'm left, inspired and touched and I will continue to pray for you guys and your recovery and thank you for coming on and sharing with us.
Speaker 3:Thanks, Brett. It was good to talk about this stuff and I'm really hard, but it feels good to get it out.
Speaker 2:And thanks Brett.
Speaker 1:Bye-bye, bye-bye. This has been the Fighting for Connection podcast. If you've enjoyed this podcast and want more content like this, check out my Connected Couples Campus, which can be found on my website, wwwpivotalapproachcom, and become the difference you need in your relationship.
