Addiction is a devastating and complex disease, not only for the person experiencing it, but also for their families. Those struggling often carry heavy shame asking themselves, why can't I stop? Why am I hurting the people I love? What's wrong with me? Addiction can also run through generations shaping family histories and futures. That's certainly true for our guest today. Jennifer Chase, my family sort of danced in the disease of addiction and I think what set us apart from a family that you might think that struggled with that many generations of addiction, my family was. Beautiful from the outside looking in, right? I grew up pretty affluently. Um, my grandparents were very well known in the community that, that I grew up in. after everything substances put her through. Growing up, Jennifer promised herself she'd live differently, but that changed after a medical emergency. I said out loud as though there were another 15 people sitting in that room. Where the hell has this been my whole life? Wow. Like it was the solution to all of it In that moment, Thankfully, Jennifer found recovery, but not before watching her son begin his own dangerous path with substances. Today she's made it her mission to use what she's lived through and everything she's learned about substance use disorder to support other families struggling with the disease. There's this, this balance between trust and rapport and love. That's not enabling, right? Not from the sense of, of enabling, but just from like, I love you regardless of what you have going on and detachment. I am Angela Kennecke. Welcome to Grieving Out Loud. Today I sit down with Jennifer Chase, a recovery coach and founder of Rise Addiction Life Coaching, who brings one of the most multidimensional stories of addiction that I've ever heard. Jennifer has lived this disease from nearly every side of it as the daughter of an alcoholic, the mother of a son in recovery, and as someone who's walked her own painful journey through addiction. In this conversation, we take a raw, honest look at addiction from every angle, the addict's battle, the family's trauma, and the long road toward healing together. Jennifer shares how her own recovery began, not because she wanted to stop using, but because she wanted to stop hurting the people she loved. She opens up about discovering that she was unknowingly supplying her son with drugs and the shame, denial, and codependency that followed, she and her husband eventually found recovery together. We also talk about what true support looks like, why tough love can sometimes do more harm than good, and how rescuing can actually prolong addiction. offers practical wisdom on boundaries, relapse prevention, and the deep emotional healing that has to happen in families for them to truly recover. you're struggling yourself or watching someone you love fight this battle, this conversation offers hope. Compassion and a roadmap toward breaking the cycle together. Welcome to grieving out Loud, Jennifer. Thank you so much. I'm so happy to be here. Wow. Your story just really floored me when I started digging in and doing the research today because I just thought, oh my gosh, you have been through so much starting with your own substance use disorder. But let's start by talking about the home that you grew up in. What was happening there? Yeah, so I come from, I've, I've been able to find four generations down my mom's side and four generations down my dad's side that struggled with the disease of addiction. So mostly that was alcoholism. I had a grandma that was an opiate addict in the fifties before that was kind of a thing to be, but for the most part, my family sort of danced in the disease of addiction and I think what set us apart from a family that you might think that struggled with that many generations of addiction, my family was. Beautiful from the outside looking in, right? I grew up pretty affluently. Um, my grandparents were very well known in the community that, that I grew up in. And so, um, there was this discrepancy of what I was experiencing inside the home and what, uh, was, what the world thought my home looked like. And, and early on I believed that that was a me problem. Um, and, and also statistically, I, uh, they say one out of every four little girl and one out of every six little boy that sort of grows up in that dynamic is sexually abused. And I was sexually abused by my mom's dad. So there? were a lot of things happening in my really early childhood that made me feel like I was the problem, right? If I could just be better, if I could just be happier, if I could just be something else, then I would be lovable. And that was kind of how my childhood rolled out. Well, I'm so sorry. And I do think that substance use disorder or addiction often is hidden in the shadows of shame, right? There's a lot of covering up that goes on. People have outward appearances. I mean, now it's on social media. Everyone's lives look perfect, right? But as you were growing up, the, the outward appearance really did not. Portray what was really happening on the inside. And when it comes to sexual abuse, I mean, I have talked to many people on this podcast who struggled with substance use disorder or who had other family members in, in sexual abuse was often involved. So there's so much rooted in grief, I'm sure, as you know, when it comes to substance use disorder and you really didn't, you lost your childhood. Well, and I say this for anybody that will listen, all the people in the back of the room, right? Substance is not the problem. Substance is a solution to the problem. I don't, I, I've met a lot of addicts, I've. You know, I've sat with a lot of us and not one person said, yeah, substance is the problem. And when I quit using It all my life just magically got better. Right? That's, that is absolutely not the truth. The truth is I use substance to deal with the trauma, to deal with the problems that were going on, and, and when I stopped using substance, those didn't resolve themselves. Right. The, the hard work ultimately resolved that for me. Um, but. Substance and, and I, I, I share this with a lot of families that are, are walking through this with a loved one. Like, we can't fix this problem or heal from substance use disorder until we identify what the real problem is and start doing that work. It makes sense. It makes complete sense. And I think about you growing up. You had, you had two choices, right? You could either completely go against. Any kind of use. And I, I've seen that happen in families where they, someone had a parent who suffered from substance use disorder and they went in the opposite direction. Um, but yet so many people and, and genetics play such a strong role in all of this. Uh, continue the cycle. Well, and interestingly enough, I, my, my whole purpose in life was to go the opposite way, right? Oh. looked at my. Family, my grandparents, my parents, their, their inability to break the chains of this disease as just weakness, right? Yeah. Um, and unfortunately when I was 29 years old, I, um, had a, a brain tumor that had hemorrhage that I wasn't aware of and had to go through. Brain surgery and all of that. And that was when I was introduced to opiates and that's when my addiction really rooted. And so up until the, you know, my first 29 years, this was not gonna be me. My children were not gonna have the same life that I had had growing up. And, and I didn't know much about anything. I didn't know what I wanted to do when I grew up, if I was gonna have a family and get married. But I could tell you at an early age, like this is not gonna be me. So interestingly enough, you talk about biology. I think, you know, there's, there's components in this. There's the biology piece, there's also the trauma piece. Um, and when those worlds collide, unfortunately, um, you know, addiction happens. And, and that's what happened to me when I was introduced to opiates. Um. I remember I was about two weeks out of brain surgery and I was laying in my bed at home and I could hear my family playing in the living room. They were having a great time, laughing and joking, and I said out loud as though there were another 15 people sitting in that room. Where the hell has this been my whole life? Wow. Like it was the solution to all of it In that moment, What year would this have been? 2003. 2003. So we are talking like the, the opioid crisis is going gangbusters with prescriptions. Um, you know, the whole pain scale. I mean, this was what doctors were, thought they were doing the right thing. They were, Yes. we, know now so much more obviously when it was happening at the time, but I've talked to so many people that got addicted after a medical, um. Incident or surgery. What, like what you're talking about, and I've talked to so many people, I don't suffer from substance use disorder. You know, my daughter did, um, other members of her family have. And I, I've talked to so many people who have said the first or second time I tried, fill in the blank, I found my answer in life, something I'd always been looking for. So it sounds to me that's what you felt like. A hundred percent. And I think that that's one of the things I try to impress upon families, which is like, I didn't, I didn't want, I didn't get addicted to substance because I wanted to burn my life down. I didn't get addicted to substance because I wanted to ruin my children's childhood, right? like. quite the opposite. I wanted their lives to be different than mine, but the problem was the pull of that solution that I speak about all of a sudden. I didn't care that I had been sexually abused or I didn't care that my dad was an alcoholic or that my siblings didn't particularly like me and that my mother didn't protect me. I didn't care that I, two weeks previous to that, had had to literally say goodbye to my children.'cause I didn't know if I was gonna wake up from this brain surgery. Like in that moment, I finally felt like I could just. B, I could fit in my skin. I, I was gonna be okay. And the, I, I've quite honestly never met an addict that's like, yeah, my goal was to burn it down, to keep my mom up at night, to make my life, you know, miserable. That's not the, the goal. Now, do we go there? We do, unfortunately. Right? And, and the, and the consequences of substance use disorder are, you know, never ending. Um, but that's never how it starts. How it starts is just. Letting the pressure valve off of the pressure tank, right. That is one's life. Um, and that's kind of where it started for sure. For me. I've never heard anyone explain it exactly in that way, but it makes complete sense to me. It's a logical thing. That makes complete sense. Yeah. You just felt better, you felt okay about everything, um, and you'd never felt the. That way before because of how you'd grown up. And did you have any complications from the brain surgery? Did you recover from all that? Yeah, so I did have complications. So because there was so much hemorrhaging going on, uh, they caused pretty massive nerve damage in my head, which then led me to chronic pain. So I spent. You know, all the years up until I got sober, I was at the Mayo Clinic and I've had multiple surgeries to try to help and all of the things and, and because nobody could really find a solution for me. And especially you spoke of the, the time which was right in the middle of the epidemic. Um. I was overprescribed, like, I can't even tell you how much I was overprescribed because doctors felt really powerless over being able to help me. Um, and so they overprescribed and then as it happens, then all of a sudden it's like, well, you're the problem, right? I'm a drug seeker now, even though I've been being prescribed for all these years. And so I still deal with chronic pain. I, I knew when I got sober that? it was just something that I was gonna have to live with. Um, but it is what sort of started this journey for me. I've actually had people get quite upset with me and the work that I do thinking I'm trying to take away their pain medication. People need it for pain. And, and so when you're talking about trying to, you know, live with the pain or find alternatives for the pain, I mean, this is a hard thing for people to find who truly may need some of these very addictive painkillers. I mean, it's kinda catch 22. So for me, it got to the point where the benefits of taking the substance were starting, the consequences were starting to outweigh the benefits. Right. And I knew, I, I'm not, I'm not the kind of addict that can take them. As prescribed anymore, right. I tried for a lot, a lot of years, and that became very clear to me was not an option. And so I know as we'll get to the story about, um, my son and my, um, culpability really when it comes to his own substance use. The, the consequences of having the drugs and using the drugs became so significant that it, it was more appealing to me to try to find alternative ways to deal with my chronic pain. Are you ready to protect the next generation from the dangers of substance use? Emily's Hope has created a comprehensive K through 12 substance use prevention curriculum designed to educate, empower, and equip students with the tools they need to make healthy choices are age appropriate lessons, starting kindergarten and build through high school using science, real stories and interactive learning to help kids understand their bodies, brains, and risk of drug use. We're already reaching thousands of students across multiple states, and we're just getting started. Visit emily's hope edu.org to learn more and share our curriculum with your school administrators and counselors. At Emily's Hope, we believe prevention begins with education. Let's work together to keep our kids safe. What was going on in your life because of the drug use? Yeah, it was not good. Right. Um, like I said, when, when this thing first started, the goal was to just, um, get out of pain a and. Be able to continue to feel this feeling of sort of peace. And any drug addict you talk to will say, I will forever be chasing that because as soon as you start using, um, all of those things change, right? Your tolerance goes up. You're constantly sort of seeking that initial high, if you will, that feeling. Um, and so when I got sick, my kids were two and five, and when I got sober, my kids were 18 and 21. So, um. I burned it all down. They had a very traumatic childhood, if you will. Um, by the grace of God, I stayed, I stayed married, but he became the, the best enabler in the, in the, in all the land. Well, tell me what you mean by that. Well, if I, so he did everything possible to keep the boat from rocking, even though we had like, you know, all the rocking going on. So he was trying to take care of the kids. Um, he allowed me to be high all the time. I mean, I was really high all the time. Um, if. There was a prescription that could be filled at midnight. He was at the pharmacy at, at 1202 to pick up the prescription, you know, whatever, to just keep it from rock, from the boat, from sinking. Um, and I'm certainly responsible for the use, but together, and, and if he were sitting here, he would tell you like, we contributed to the, to the dynamic. Right. And I, I can see his perspective. I, I actually can, you know, like, gosh, I just, I have these little kids, I have this Yes, I'm trying to keep my family together. I'm trying to just survive, yes, uh, while enabling. yes. So what, maybe looking back, obviously hindsight is 2020. What could he have done or should he have done differently, do you think? We've talked, we've talked about this a lot. He in high, you know, I was sober for a couple years and he asked me that very question, like, What could I have done? And the truth is, as hard as this is to say, um, the truth is was to allow me the discomfort and pain of my choices, right? So he made the discomfort and pain. Be minimized. Um, and so I didn't that if you think about this as a spectrum and, and because there are so many benefits for me particularly, and, and most addicts that you talk to, there's so many benefits from substance use and for people that don't have substance use disorder problems. That sounds wild. Um, but the, the benefits are. Extraordinary. And so it takes a lot of discomfort and consequences to switch that scale, if you will. Um, and that could have looked like kicking me out of the house. That could have looked like divorcing me. That could have looked like a lot of things that sort of helped me get to my pain tolerance. Right. And it's so hard as a family member, you know, I did some of those things with my daughter when, you know, I found drugs in the house. I, I, I tried to invoke the law when I, she was still under 18 thinking that would scare it. Tried these like natural i parenting with love and logic was my Bible when my kids were growing up. But for people that know about that natural consequences, right? And, and I tried all those things and I, I still have, because she died from fentanyl in the midst of active addiction. I still have some regrets. I guess I wouldn't even call it guilt, but I often think, well maybe if I, when she disappeared for four days, if I hadn't put her stuff on the front porch and said, you can't live here and do that. Right. Um, maybe if I hadn't done those things, she would still be alive. So I think it's just such a hard thing, especially for parents. And since you did have a son, and we'll get into his story in just a minute, who also suffered from this disease also suffers. I'm, I'm something that never really goes away. Um, we'll talk about that because it, I found out that really, like the really hard things I did drove her away, like punishments drove her away. Trying to keep her in my life with love seemed like the only thing I could do. Um, but I still, you know, it's just, it's just fraught no matter what direction you No, you're, a loved one. you're not wrong. I think what I would say to you is if the other way would've worked, it probably would've worked. Right. Like, it, it, it probably, I mean, for most people that I work with, they try that a lot of the times first, and, and it's not successful either. Right. And, and so that's the interesting thing about this is I, whenever I meet with a client, I will never promise them that their child isn't gonna lose their life to this disease. Right. the truth is some of us do, and, and I'm not even like if I were to relapse tomorrow, I'm not even saying that I wouldn't be part of that statistic. And So there's never a guarantee. Um, and, and I recently lost a client of mine, lost her son, and, and we've had many similar conversations to what, you know, you just said. Um, I, I don't think that we are the cause of it, nor can we cure it. Right. We can contribute one way or the other. And so there might not have been a solution for your daughter and for many people that struggle specifically with Fentanyl. Um, but I also know that the other way wouldn't have necessarily been the outcome that you were looking for. E either. So this is one thing I tell grieving parents all the time to put before their sentence of regret, even if. I would have done A, B, or C, Yep. child still could have Yes. Um, which is something that is true. and you, you, you have experiences from a parent's perspective as well. So tell me what happened. Your son started getting your medication at some point and you didn't know. Yeah, so when he was in high school, he started to smoke marijuana and I knew he was, you know, smoking marijuana. It's that battle. I, it's not, I certainly didn't condone it and I certainly, you know, would have feelings about it, but I also knew there was a certain amount of me that was powerless over what he was doing. Um, so he struggles with pretty significant. Um, depression and anxiety and, you know, he watched his mama do life on life's terms by using substance, right? So when it was good, I got high. When it was bad, I got high. When I was anxious, I got high. And so he, um, found sort of some peace, if you will, by, uh, self-medicating his um. Depression and anxiety originally. And then when he was a senior in high school, when he was 17 years old, um, based on some events that happened in our home, I found out that I indeed had inadvertently become his drug dealer. And I don't say that lightly. Um. I've done years and years and years of work, if you will, to try to, uh, not be buried by that shame, because again, the only thing that I wanted was for my children to have a different life than I had had growing up. And I, you know. not only did I add a link myself from this thing called addiction, but my son, right. I, I like. I added a link for him too. And So um, that was by far, um, and, and I wish I could tell you that that was the day that I quit using, I wish I could say that was like, I looked in the mirror and was like, oh my gosh, you're never using substance again. But that was be a lie. It was the beginning of the end for me as far as my substance use goes. But, um, learning that. I had inadvertently become my son's drug dealer. Still to this day feels almost unimaginable as it comes out of my mouth, So he's taking your opioids. Um, you didn't know about it un until you knew about right. and then even then you didn't stop using, but you knew you had a problem with your son. So what happened with him? Well, I immediately banished him to his room because now just get in my attic brain for me, because what I'm about ready to say makes no sense to the, you know, to, to most people. But my goal in that matter, in that moment was like, Oh, well now I know why I am running out every, you know, every month from my. your own. You were worried about your own supply at first. First My medicine, right? Because I was prescribed everything I ever had. So now I understand why I am running out. So I banished him to his room for a couple of weeks with the idea that he was gonna detox and get off of my medicine. Um, and, and that was really the first, the first sort of mindset was that. Uh, he's wrong and I'm not. Um, and, and so that, that went on, um, I don't know. I. clearly, after we banished him to his room for two weeks, there were still things missing. Like I became obsessed about counting my pills or counting the other things that I had and making sure that I had it all. And, and in that time I realized like, we're still missing things. And so a couple months into that, I started to ask myself the question like. How do we get here? How do, how do we get out of this? Like what's the resolution to this? Like it was, it was a very, very, very dark time in my life. You talk about the consequences were outweighing the benefits, um, all of a sudden after all of these years. Um, and so my initial plan was how. I could, Uh, bow out, if you will, gracefully. So my initial plan was how can I complete suicide? Um, I believed that it was going to be like the most loving thing that I could do for my family. Like that's where I was, um, the most loving thing for my husband, for my kids. well, we know that addiction and suicide can all often go hand in hand, and it's not unusual what you're telling me, but it's heartbreaking. Yeah. Well, and, and I think about how I felt in that time. Um, I. I didn't, I did not see a way out of this, right. My fears were paralyzing me. My addiction, both emotionally and physically were paralyzing me. Um, I had seen the harm, the shame was just. Abundant, if you will. Um, I was starting to see my kids become adults and how this had kind of impacted their life. And so the goal was like, we're just gonna, we're just going to do what I think is best for them and bow out. And unfortunately, I, I joke about this, it's not really a joke, but when you come from as much addiction as I come from, we've got great livers. So every morning I would wake up. Right. And every morning I would hate myself more than the night before when I tried to overdose. And so I got to the point where I was like, we've gotta come up with another plan. And um, that was the day that I decided that I was going to check myself in. My son graduated from high school on a Saturday, and I checked myself into an inpatient facility on Sunday. And I think that this is important because when I checked myself into that facility that day, the goal was an abstinence. The goal wasn't like, how do I stop using this? The goal, if I'm being honest, was how do I start using like a gentle lady? How do I get my tolerance down? How do I. save my son without stopping using altogether like it was a let's detox off of this and then learn how to use like normal people use. You were probably also trying to rationalize if you still had pain and Yeah. because of your brain surgeries. You were probably trying to say, well, I just wanna get this back so it's Yeah, so it's under control. I didn't know what it looked like without pain medicine when it came to my chronic pain. Like there was a lot of fear in and around that too. Um, and so that was the goal going in. And, and after spending 28 days there, um, you know, the mindset shifted from one way to the other. And, and when I walked outta that door, I knew that the only way to save my son was to save myself. Mm-hmm. And they always say, put your oxygen mask Yeah. Right? Yep, so that 28 day program really did save your life. it did. And, and I did outpatient after that. Um, and so that, not like 28 days is a magic number. We all know that. Right? But I'm saying in your case, in your case, yeah. Yeah. was effective in terms of getting you into long-term Yeah, so the, the 28 days provided enough distance from that, that physical dependency that I. had in order to start wanting to seek like a complete mindset shift, um, a complete life shift. And, and I would really probably give the outpatient program that I went to. More credit for that. But, and, and I say this, right, if substance was the problem, then the 28 days would be enough, but because substance is not the problem, um, you know, I needed a lot of work, uh, to be able to deal with why I use substance in the first place. and have you been able to remain in recovery since then? I have by the grace of all things wholly, I haven't relapsed. and, what Keep has kept you in recovery? What, what was it, is it the hard work you did looking at, you know, your childhood, the abuse you suffered, all of that? Or, or what was it that kept, that keeps you in recovery? I, it's an interesting question and I'm not sure it's just one thing. Um, we talk about, you know, I worked in the field of recovery for about six years before I started doing this on my own. Um, and we talk a lot about the idea that. You gotta make more deposits than you make withdrawals, right? I gotta deposit into my recovery bank more than I start pulling out of it. So in times of struggle or when I'm really having a hard time, there's gotta be some, some things in the bank account. Um, and so I think there's lots, I, um. Spiritually started to reexamine, like, what do I actually believe? Um, for somebody that went through the trauma that I went through as a child, I really kind of felt like, um, my higher power had kind of said, sorry, you're not worth fighting for at a very, very early age. And so I had to start rediscovering what that was for me. Um, I had to start, um. Connecting with other individuals. I had so many walls up that I didn't allow people into my life, and then I had to start doing the work on my own shame. Um, and you know, I think in combination of those three things, uh, but look, I am not a blow smoke up. You anyone's, you know what, right? Like being sober and being in recovery is hard some days. And just because I've been doing it a minute doesn't mean that there aren't days where I wake up feeling buried by my shame again. and so I you know, you I be open and willing and courageous enough to do that work. every day. Yeah. I would think that even when the pain strikes you that, that, that would be a time where it would be easy for you to relapse. Yeah. And, and I've been since sober, been, um, diagnosed with also rheumatoid arthritis, which is kind of a, so the grandma that I shared with you earlier that was an opiate addict before that was a thing. Um, she also had a brain tumor and was also had rheumatoid arthritis. Ironically enough, so I've kind of just, I've just followed into my, I'm like a carbon copy of my grandmother. Um, so I do have to deal with pain and there are days where it's harder and I have been able to find coping skills. I do a lot of meditation. I do a lot of journaling. I run, um, I do a lot, you know, things that help sort of manage some of that. Um, because I have to, I can, I can't just let it get out of hand or, you know, I am at risk. And what happened with your son after you went into treatment? What happened with him? It's such a dangerous time for Yeah, people especially. He didn't have his own prescription, so if he yeah, to the streets or something like that, what was going on with him? So I got sober in 2017 and um, my son used for another three years and the hardest three years of my life. So people ask me all the time, like. You kind of have like worn the child hat in this, you're, you're an addict yourself and a mama of an addict. Which one of those times has been the most challenging? And I would tell you without a doubt, it's being a mama. Um, there's a certain amount about being the addict, although I know I'm powerless. There's a certain amount of control I have every day to do what I know works to keep me sober, right? Like, I can do that with, with a child. As you are well aware, um, the powerlessness. Of having a child, um, that's in full blown addiction is, um, I don't think you'd understand it unless you've walked it. I don't think so either. Every parent that I've talked to on this podcast who has been in a similar situation, you know, feels the weight Yes, and the powerlessness and Yeah. and you feel like because you are the parent, you should be able to do more than what you can actually do. Um, and so it is a really tough, tough thing. Yeah. And so September, 2020, it was during the, um, at, uh, pandemic. I got a call from my husband. I was at work and he said, you need to come home. And I said, well, I can. I'm with a client. And he said, now, and I drove home and walked in the door and my son was in a fetal position in the corner, and he looked up at me and said, mama, I need your help. And, um, that's, that's where the journey for him has begun. And, you know, anyone that struggles or is in recovery from substance use disorder knows that this isn't always a linear line. Right. No. And again, the, the work is in. Healing the parts of you that chose substance as a solution to, to begin with. And, he has some mental health stuff and he chooses not to be medicate, medicated, which I honor. Um, and so he does a lot of work of trying to keep himself off the bottom when he's doing this. Um, but I couldn't be more proud of him. He, he bought a home this year, which is pretty cool for a 26-year-old. Um, he ha has a year, a year old baby girl that he loves and, and is supporting and watching him navigate this and the, and the. Just passion. I have like, just, I'm so proud of him in so many ways. More proud of him sometimes than I am of myself. Um, that it brings me a lot of joy to watch him sort of thrive. I think there's some work in parenting, especially in parenting, a child with substance use disorder that. Doesn't get talked about very much. And that's detachment Yeah. because really we cannot control another human being. And it's what I was working on actually, right before Emily died. I had actually read a book by a Buddhist nun, Pima Chore, Mm-hmm. um, about detachment. And I think that as parents, we wanna hold on so tightly this other human being who's a part of us, but yet we have to let them. Yeah. You know, live their lives and we can't, they're not puppets on a string, Yeah. That's, that's really my work now is trying to help families do that because there's the, there's this thing, um, the reason why we hold on so tight is because of our own fears, right. And Well, we don't wanna lose them. I mean, what's the ultimate fear of death? Right. faced that Right. so many other parents have faced it. And it's interesting, uh, some of the work that I do, uh, with people throughout the country, we, we talk about our worst case scenario, Right, Our biggest fear and and oftentimes when we start this journey, it is death, right? I think we all fear death, especially those of us that have opiate. Uh, you know, people that are loved, ones that like opiates.'cause we know the, the statistic, um. But oftentimes when you continue to do that work where you land, is that we're gonna keep doing this forever, right? That our loved one is gonna struggle forever. Um, and peace lies in that detachment that you talk about. This is the tricky part. There's a, there's this, this balance between trust and rapport and love. That's not enabling, right? Not from the sense of, of enabling, but just from like, I love you regardless of what you have going on and detachment. And that's where the good stuff lies, is in between. How do I continue to build trust and rapport with them and really love them and yet loving, loving them from a detached place? Right, Yeah. another way to look at that is also loving with some boundaries that protects yourself and your own mental wellbeing. Yes. when you have a. Child who is not doing well. It's like a dark cloud Yep. you around 24 7 Yep. Well, and and that's the thing, live your life that right? And, and I, I say this too also to families. It's like, ha, being a mama of an addict or a dad or a sibling can come with similar shame as being an addict yourself. Right, and one of the most profound thing that has ever happened to me. I had been sober for about six months. My husband and I were driving down the street and I was on Cloud nine. Like I was building connections with people that I had yearned for for so long in my life. I was starting to heal. I was finding a light at the end of the tunnel, like I was feeling really, really good, and I was telling him about it. And I will never forget the look on his face. He looked at me and he said, I'm so happy for you. Now what the hell am I supposed to do? I've been doing this for 14 years too. And I was stu, I was like, oh my gosh. Right? And in that moment I realized that being a family member of a of an addict is as isolating, is as shameful is as. Like her, You know? the, the pain, the suffering is the same. And so often we just simply look at the addict's recovery. But then there's a whole group of people that remain suffering, and that's really what my goal now is, is to, to help that side of this thing heal. It's the ripples in a pond, right? It's the collateral damage. I often call it Yes. when you lose someone to substance use disorder, if it's a poisoning, an overdose, or just a slow death, Right. know, no matter what. It's just so, it's, there's so many people who are caught up in the tornado the family oftentimes is just not considered very much when, when we're, we're considering healing. right. And I think that that's an area as a, as a, um, field that we can do much better in. Have you lost a loved one to overdose or fentanyl poisoning? I'd like to invite you to share their story on our new Emily's Hope memorial website called More Than Just a Number. They were our children, siblings, cousins, husbands, wives, aunts, uncles, and friends. So much more than just a number. You can submit a memorial today on more than just a number.org. So what is your advice to those families listening who may have someone who is struggling, who have tried maybe everything? What can they do? Yeah, I think the first thing is you gotta identify what your worst fear is. It isn't until we can identify what the fear is, then we can see how we are making decisions out of that fear, right? So for instance, if I'm afraid that my addicted son is gonna commit suicide, so this is what he used to do. Uh, this was before I got sober. I'm gonna share the story, but he would just say the word suicide, and I would be so fearful. I. would give him whatever he wanted. Right, mean, right. I would give, give him literally whatever he wanted just to get him off of the cliff. And what I realized was, was that was perpetuating sort of the cycle and I had to deal with my worst case fear in order to stop allowing that to be a tool in his recovery, in his, in his healing or his lack of healing, if you will. How did you do that? Well, I had to, I, me dealing with my fear is a me problem, so. In the moment where he, and I'll share this story. So years later, uh, this was when I was sober, but he was not, he came over to my house one day and said, will you call dad? And I said, why? And he said, it's 'cause I'm gonna go drive my car off a cliff. And, and the truth is, I believed him. Right. I believed that he would do something like that, and I had to look at my son that day and say, buddy, I love you so much, but I don't have control whether you drive your car off the cliff or not. Mm-hmm. And I can share with you, that was the last day he said it to me. He's never said it to me since. And there's a certain amount that this thing doesn't have the power anymore. Like the addict doesn't have this tool anymore to, to hate to use the word manipulate because that's not what's going on in their head. But really that's what it is, right? He's manipulating me to get what he wants because history has said, I will give him whatever he wants. And I had to identify that fear and do the work required for me to grieve, to be afraid, to be miserably uncomfortable, um, in order for that to get taken off of the table. The second thing I would say that you can do right now is start setting baby boundaries. So boundaries, oftentimes when you're stuck in this toxicity, I'll set a boundary as a mom, but I'm never holding it. Right. I'll say, you need to be home by 12 o'clock, but 1215 comes along and I'm like, Ugh, close enough. Right? And so, um, oftentimes that's because I don't wanna have to deal with the consequence. So I don't wanna have to kick you out of the house, or I don't wanna ground you, or I don't wanna do something, right. So I just, I let it go. And so the important thing to know about boundaries is, um, you know, I try to live in the gray now and not be black and white, but boundaries in nature are black and white. They have to be that way. So if I set a curfew at 12 o'clock, it has to be 12 o'clock and I have to hold to the boundary a hundred percent of the time. So if. If, if it's too big to say, if you're not home by midnight, I'm gonna kick you out of the house. Then we start little. So let me give you an example. I have a client who, a 45-year-old son lives at her house with her grandchildren and she's afraid that if she sticks to a bad, a big boundary, he's gonna take the kids and they're not gonna be safe. So we started to practice like what could be a smaller boundary. And let me share with you what she landed on. She landed on, if you don't unroll your socks. I'm not doing your laundry. Now, it seems little right, but what that did for her was, okay, I can stick to this boundary. I, I feel okay about not doing the laundry. And it started giving her confidence to make different decisions moving forward with bigger boundaries. And now she's at a place where like, I can do this. So,' cause I could see the threat of yes, them going into a horrible situation would be something that would keep you handcuffed yes. situation. So we start small and, and we move at the, at a slow pace if necessary. Right. We, we, we go as it feels natural to go. Um, but boundaries and dealing with my own fears is something that you can start working on today. Right. Just taking the small steps and, and I think also being kind to yourself and, and not blaming yourself for everything that, that's a family member. yep. think also, um, that's an important thing. Is there anything else before we wrap up this conversation that you want our listeners to know? I think more than anything, I want to just express hope. Um, you know, you look at my story generationally and um. Not all generations were able to break the chains of this thing. Right? My dad died from alcoholism in 2015 and it was awful. It was not only awful watching him die from this disease, but he was my guy, right? My dad was, was the one person on this planet that I knew loved me and so incredibly difficult to watch that and, and you know? generations before him have died from this disease. But this is the thing. There is hope and we do heal. If you have a loved one, a child, a sister that's suffering from addiction right now, I promise you, we can heal. Now, I said to you earlier, I'm not gonna make a promise to anybody that their child is not gonna lose the battle to this thing. But I think more than deaths, there are success stories of people being able to find peace and you know, transcend this disease. What we have to do as family members is allow them the discomfort that gets them to their pain tolerance that flips the scale and allows them to wanna get sober, right? Again, substance use for me had a lot of benefits until it didn't, and. I, it's, it's imperative that the people around the addict allow that discomfort and that pain to get to the point where those scales flip. But I promise you, I promise you there's hope. I always say, you know, we're called Emily's Hope, and I always say that there, as long as someone is alive, there is always hope. Yes. whether they're in prison, whether they're in active addiction, as long as they're alive, there is hope. after Emily's death, I, I have hope for other families. That's where I find my hope. Yeah. Well, and I think I get a lot of questions too about like, medically assisted treatment, right. MAT we're, we're talking about Suboxone and, and oftentimes, I, I tell people the same thing, like if they are alive today, we can work on tomorrow, but if they're dead, then, then, you know, we've, we've come to an end of that road. And so, um, again, I just think you're so Right. That is, if somebody is still alive, there is still hope. Right and medically assisted treatment. And is, is the gold standard for treating opioid use disorder. It should not be stigmatized. It is no different yes, medication for a different yes, of the mind and, um, I cannot say that yes, So, um, if, if you, um, have a loved one who is yes. from opioid use disorder, you should seek out. Those medications for them or help them to find them. Couldn't agree more. Yeah. Well, thank you so much, Jennifer. I so appreciate your insight. It is, you are a, a unique, uh, conversation for this podcast because you have experienced all angles of this as a child, as someone suffering yourself from this disease and as a parent dealing with it in your son, I just think your insight is, is so valuable. So thank you So You are welcome. thank you so much. for asking me to be here today. And thank you for listening and watching this episode of Grieving Out Loud. If you or a loved one is struggling with substance use disorder, please seek help. Your life matters. Help is available. You can find a list of helpful resources on our website. Emily's Hope Charity. We've put a link in the show notes, and while you're there, please take a moment to rate and review this episode and share it with your friends and family. Together we can raise awareness, reduce the stigma that keeps so many from seeking help and change lives. Thank you again for listening. Until next time, wishing you faith, hope, and courage. This podcast is produced by Casey Wallenberg, king and Kaylee Fitz.