A Mother's Love Heals a Son's Journey of Recovery and Addiction

What role does a mother's love truly play in the path to recovery? Join me as I share an intimate glimpse into my personal journey, shaped by the unwavering support of my late mother, Consuelo Guzman Vrsalovic. As the son of Bolivian immigrants, I navigate the complexities of addiction and recovery, with my mother's lessons on prayer, nutrition, exercise, and the arts serving as my guiding light. Her steadfast love proved to be a powerful force, laying the foundation for my transformation and resilience against gambling and alcohol addiction.

Our conversation extends beyond personal anecdotes as we explore the broader impact of family dynamics on addiction recovery. With a focus on emotional security, I discuss how the absence of emotional expression within my family contributed to my struggles and how I learned to transcend these challenges. The enduring influence of my mother's values not only guided me toward a healthier life but also instilled in me the importance of cherishing family bonds. This episode serves as a heartfelt tribute to the enduring significance of parental love and guidance, urging listeners to reflect on the value of family, love, and purpose in their own lives.

I Love You and I Will Miss You Mom.

Enjoy Heaven!!

Chapters

• 0:02 The Impact of a Mother's Love
• 14:08 Family in Addiction Recovery

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:02

Oh, today we're going to talk about a mother's love, the journey on how a mother impacts especially sons in their recovery, what happened in their addiction and what happens really after years of recovery. Welcome again to another episode of the 1% in Recovery podcast, where we encourage you to laugh every day. We encourage you to work hard, work hard in recovery, work hard in your relationships, work hard in your job or if you work for someone or you're in school studying, and to love, love unconditionally. Just put more love out there in the universe and just let more love come back. Like we say, your EQ is your IQ. Recovery is beautiful and you cannot outthink an emotional issue. Now what we encourage people to do is to join the community, a Facebook group, the Recovery Freedom Circle. That is where everybody gets to really try to live their best life by talking about their goals, their dreams, but how to get there? Through the steps, through my steps, through the original steps, talking about character traits, also talking about something inspirational or motivational as we can move forward. So, as you look at the show notes, join the Facebook group, recovery Freedom Circle. Now let's jump into this week's episode. Now let's jump into this week's episode. This week's episode is.

Speaker 1: 1:51

I am going to be talking about my mother. My mother just passed away. Passed away on February 2nd 2025. She was born January 14th 1935. She lived 90 years and we just had her funeral mass two days ago. But it came to me that Nita to speak on how important and what type of role our mothers, our parents but today we're going to talk about mothers but we all, mothers and fathers play in our recovery. But has also what had kind of happened or laid the groundwork on what kind of goes on in our addictions. Now, my mother was born in Bolivia, now my mother was born in Bolivia. So I am a son of an immigrant. Both my parents were born in Bolivia and I am the son of a Bolivian blood, born in New York City, raised in Texas, and all of that helped form me.

Speaker 1: 3:11

But I want to talk first about what happens in that vital point where we're about whether we're in rock bottom or we're thinking what about our addiction? For me it was that compulsive gambling and the alcohol, but for a lot of people it may be just that they're at a point where alcohol starts becoming a problem, gambling starts becoming a problem, and they're maybe not, and they don't just like everybody. No one wants to say they're an alcoholic or compulsive gambler, but they can see that they are a problem drinker and they are or a problem gambler and they're needing and seeking answers, help and where to go. And a lot of times the addict gets so hung up in whatever traumatic, gets so hung up in whatever traumatic painful event happened mainly, usually in childhood or early adulthood or something that could be a little later on in life. But a lot of times there's certain things that have laid the groundwork early and we don't know how to process those feelings and in turn it can develop into fun, like we like to tell ourselves oh, alcohol is fun, gambling is fun and then it accelerates, especially when we get into the cycles of addiction. But we have to go back to childhood and understand what had kind of happened. But we always get so focused and this is where people stay in their addiction way too long because they stay in the traumatic event and they don't actually look at the solution.

Speaker 1: 4:59

And usually the solution was laid down by our parents, by our mothers, by our fathers, some type of combination. Now, my father traveled extensively. He was out of the house about 50% of the time he was an industrial salesman selling valves. So he was in South America, central America, in the Caribbean. So the only person parent that was in the home every day was my mother. She was a stay-at-home mom and so a lot of that character development because that's ultimately what's going to get us into recovery, how we're dealing with our character and how we're dealing with relationships If we start developing, if, when we're in addiction, our character is really just all over the place, there is no consistency and that's what frustrates people and the relationships can be very selfish and there is no type of real connection.

Speaker 1: 6:11

So a lot of us really have to look at recovery, into developing strong character and deeper intimate relationships, and this is why childhood is so important. Instead of looking at what the problems were, look at the solution. Always look at the solution, and that is the whole reason I created the Recovery Freedom Circle. It's about the solution. It's about building the person up. It's not only about looking about either inventories or admitting that you can't do something, or character defects or making amends. It's really about rebuilding the person and that's what I think is so vital about my mother.

Speaker 1: 6:53

I'm going to list 10 things that she instilled in me and my brother. It was my parents, my older brother and me and it all starts with prayer and understanding how vital prayer is when we are growing up. When we used to pray on our knees, we'd say a Hail Mary and then we would jump in bed. It was always outside of the bed. We were there on the floor. Prayer was so important. Food and nutrition number two was so important Eating fruits, vegetables, oatmeal so we had fiber, we had protein, we had vitamins and minerals that were so essential to having a strong body. Always about getting outside exercise, doing playing sports or just having your body in movement. Number three was so important. It's something that I've carried on throughout my life and which is something that I truly, truly love Exercise.

Speaker 1: 7:57

Number four was appreciating the arts. I just did not want to. Number one, dress up and then I'd have to go to the symphony to watch the ballet, the Nutcracker, or we'd go to some type of art museum and when you're so small it was boring. High school, college early on, and then afterwards, as a young adult in my 20s, started to appreciate being exposed to the arts and the beauty and how important all types of arts whether we're watching a performance, we're watching, going through museums or even participating in either playing a musical instrument or doing some type of painting drawing debate. So that was important.

Speaker 1: 8:55

Number five was travel. Because my parents were immigrants and they came from Bolivia, we were always on a plane early on in our life and headed to South America, not only to Bolivia but to Argentina. We would go to other countries as we got older and then, after I got out of college, was in Europe, was going through Southern Europe Before I was 25, went to large big cities in Asia. Travel my mother was really big on instilling on how travel could really just help you become open-minded, which is so essential in recovery. Number six it was always about work Get your work done, get up, go to school, go to practice, do your homework, then you can do something else. It was always about everybody in the family had to work and that was a way to instill a strong work ethic.

Speaker 1: 9:53

Number seven, which is so important, it was always family first we would have. It's always about we would take family vacations On Friday night. My dad had an expense account so we would go out to a restaurant Friday night. We would have when my dad was in town. We would always have family meals or it was just the three of us, my mother and my brother and I, having dinner together, and it was always like they say it is so vital for a strong family unit to eat together. Yeah, I firmly believe that you have to eat and that's maybe why I love food so much and I love eating in different types, whether it's in the fellowship, whether it's about business or whether it's about family. Meals and conversation are so, so important. Number eight God. We went to church every week. Number eight every Saturday night. We grew up Catholic. We would go to a Catholic service every week which helped us try to instill just about understanding about God, the Bible, christianity, catholicism, the sacraments, the saints, so many things, a lot of things that I truly did like and a number of things that I disliked and hated, but it was important, always understanding that you have to have a relationship with God. Number nine laugh humor.

Speaker 1: 11:37

My mother was funny. I never really appreciated it growing up. It really probably became later on, as I got older, in my 30s and 40s, and she always had things that just would make me laugh. And here, when people came to the funeral, mass and the reception, or texting or calling me, either when she was in the hospital or just after she had passed, always saying how funny my mother was. Give you a few examples, like if I wanted to get something from the kitchen and I wanted her help, I'd say mom, help me out. And her response was what are you? Are you paraplegic? Get it yourself. It's always pushing. Or if she thought that I was watching too much TV, she'd say quit being a potato couch, get outside, do something. And the other thing is is she was much more handy with a hammer than my father, and my father had the same name as I, hugo. But she would love to say I did not marry. I did not marry a handyman, hugo married a handywoman. That just gives you some examples of the gems that my mother would throw out throughout her life. She was very blunt. She would call it as she saw it. It's probably part of her Capricorn personality, but that's who she was.

Speaker 1: 13:13

And the other thing was always to give. I remember early on as a child I was about five years old, we're in Bolivia and she put some coins in my hand and there may be a homeless, poor person there on the street and she'd say go put some coins in that man's cup and it would be about 10, 15 feet away. So there was a walk man. I would be so nervous, but then I'd go in there, drop the coins in. The person would say gracias, thank you. And then my mother was always trying to instill give, always give of yourself, which was very an important concept to learn, and so I want to honor my mother. There are so many other things that have kind of gone on. I talked about how they can kind of play.

Speaker 1: 14:08

You know there's a few things that kind of probably played into my addiction the parts about we were never a hugging family, we never hugged, which now I see the essential, the need of hugging. We never talked about emotions. So there was a certain amount of emotional insecurity, security. So there were certain frameworks that a lot of us have within our families, that kind of almost cultivate and almost help breed. So then when something major happens we don't know how to deal with it and then sometimes we just escape into the drugs, the alcohol or the gambling, the alcohol or the gambling. But there are so many things that can help us get back out, to find to stay. Who do I need to be? What do I need to do? And these 10 things that I just listed were so vital in overcoming alcohol, overcoming gambling and really just overcoming that addictive personality into being that strong character, to be that loving person that my mother was always grooming my brother and I to be.

Speaker 1: 15:26

And I salute my mother, consuelo Guzman-Rosalovic. I feel that God blessed me so much and God loves me. He gave me such a wonderful mother, someone that I could live with and grow for 58 years. She helped guide me, she helped push me and she always said, as long as my brother, me and my two nieces, her two granddaughters, were doing the right thing, that gave her peace. And she was always ready to go to heaven as long as we were on a road to our own destiny, our own purpose.

Speaker 1: 16:15

And with that I bid my mom farewell. I will miss you. I will cry, I will laugh, I will feel, I will eat my fruit, I will pray. I will do all those things and always think about family, always think about travel, and I just wanted to honor my mother on this episode of the 1% in Recovery podcast. So, if your parents are still alive, spend some time with them. You never know when that last day will be, and I am now at peace, content, but I'm also a certain amount of numbness, certain amount of sadness, and with that we will end this episode of the 1% in recovery.