How I Accidentally Became My Son’s Opioid Dealer & Got Sober to Save Us (Jennifer Chase)

Jennifer Chase is a trauma-informed life coach, speaker, and advocate for families navigating addiction and generational trauma. She became addicted to opiates after brain surgery and chronic pain. Her addiction collided with motherhood the day her son admitted he had taken her pills. That was the moment she realized she had become his drug dealer.

She grew up in a family filled with addiction. She was sexually abused by her grandfather and never felt protected by her parents. Opiates weren’t the problem. They were the solution that helped her survive decades of trauma.

She checked into rehab thinking she could save her son and learned the only way to save him was to save herself. This conversation is about addiction, recovery, family healing, setting boundaries, and forgiving the people who had no business being forgiven.

Jennifer’s mission is to help others know they are not alone, they are not broken, and it’s never too late to rewrite the story.

Learn more about Jennifer’s work at www.riseaddictionlc.com
Connect with her on TikTok: @‌jenchase

Step into Your Sober Era! Are you ready to embrace a life of clarity and empowerment? Let’s embark on this transformative journey together! [Subscribe Now ➔] Sam's Sober Stack | Samantha Parker | Substack

Want to Work with The Samantha Parker for Content Management CLICK HERE

Grab my Sober Travel Tips Guide HERE

Check out My Sober Storefront HERE

Follow me on TikTok https://www.tiktok.com/@samanthaparkershow

YouTube https://www.youtube.com/@thesamanthaparker

Instagram https://www.instagram.com/thesamanthaparker/

Grab $10 off Curious Elixirs https://oken.do/ho7cxduy

Shop Ryze Coffee - Grab 15% Off HERE

Transcript

  📍  📍  Hey guys. Welcome back to the Samantha Parker show. I'm sitting down with my guest today, Jennifer Chase. She is a trauma-informed life coach and a fierce advocate for families navigating addiction and generational trauma jennifer and I have been on a little adventure though.

So we started on Riverside and I think what happened is my desktop like has crashed. It did not like Riverside. So then I had to like pull out my laptop and now we're recording this podcast on Zoom. So welcome Jennifer. Perseverance. It goes along with our like podcast theme, right? Yeah, exactly. I was like, hold on, hold please.

And I was like looking around my office and I was like, oh, I've got my laptop. I brought my laptop with me today. Critical thinking problem solvers. I was really, I was impressed with that move. Yeah. Do you podcast? Do you have your own podcast? I don't. It's something that I would consider doing, but I haven't done it yet. Okay. Well, yeah. Yeah. We don't know. But I'm excited to have you today. So you are someone who has lived like both sides of trauma and you were an addict yourself.

What was like your drug of choice? I am an recovering from opiates. Okay. So I, had a brain tumor in 2003, and when they removed the brain tumor, they created chronic pain that I still experience today. And that led me to opiates. And I think really the important part about that is that opiates were not the problem.

They were the solution to the problem, right? Like they became the solution that I had been seeking my whole life. And they just kind of, it was the greatest. Experience of my life, if I'm being honest, when I finally found a solution to everything that I had walked through as a child. So do you feel like you were taking your childhood problem or like your childhood emotions?

Like kind of walk me through that because sometimes, I post a lot on TikTok and what you just said. That's something that they say in AA a lot. Like alcohol isn't the problem, it's been your solution. But when you're kind of in the middle of that, like it's really hard to like be like, that's what's going on.

So how do you kind of like navigate that? Well, it, so, so to give you a little background about me, I'm a daughter of an alcoholic, but generational, addiction in my family. So four generations down both sides of my family, my mom's side and my dad's side suffered with Mo what was mostly, mostly alcoholism, but there was a few opiates in there when it wasn't kind of a cool thing to.

To be. But and unfortunately I am a statistic that says that one out of every four little girl and one out of every six little boy that has grown up in the generational addiction trauma is sexually abused. And I was sexually abused by my mom's dad. So not only did I have a dad that was an alcoholic, but I also had this trauma of being abused as a child and a mom.

From my perspective, who didn't protect me from either my dad, who by the way was my guy. I loved my dad, but he was an alcoholic, right? Yeah. And my grandfather and all of the situations that I had grown up with, and to me, every single one of those had a common denominator. I'm the youngest of three kids.

My siblings really liked each other, but I never felt like they really liked me. I spent a tremendous amount of time by myself. I started to isolate at the age of four is the first time I remember like that being my safe place. And the common denominator to every single one of these situations was me.

I. Right if you just keep looking for outward solutions, at some point you gotta look in the mirror and say, well, maybe I'm the problem. And I did that very, very, very early on in my life. And if you read the book, the Body Keeps Score, I think is the name of the book. Yeah. It speaks about how, our bodies keep these, these stories about our traumas, but we don't have, the enough life experience to articulate what's going on.

And that was pretty much my entire life up until when I found opiates. I knew something had happened to me. I knew there were a series of events that had happened in my childhood that weren't. Even. Okay. But I didn't know how to, find peace with that or deal with that, or even talk about it necessarily because it wasn't, like the abuse wasn't something that the rest of my family wanted to talk about.

So, when I found opiates, I tell a story. I had had just had brain surgery. I was laying in my bed after I had gotten home. I could hear my kids, my two kids and my husband out playing in the living room, and I'm in my bed high. And I said out loud as though there were a hundred people in that room with me.

Where the hell has this been my whole life? Do you feel like you just were finally feeling like relief from finally felt like I fit in my skin. Yeah. Finally felt like I could take a deep breath. Finally felt like I didn't care that I had been sexually abused or that my mother hadn't protected me. Like, and that's what I mean by it was the solution.

I mean, it was quite literally the solution to all of the pain that I had experienced up until those 29 years. And I tell people I was addicted. In that capacity, an emotional capacity, long before I was addicted in a physical capacity. So hold on though. Okay. Because you're like, oh, I had brain surgery, and you just kind Oh yeah.

That you just totally screwed. Yeah. I just, I just did. Yeah. Yes. So people are so fascinating to me. Like I, you know what I mean? Not in a bad way. Yeah. Like, did she just say she had brain? Yeah, I did. I did. Yeah. So I found out when I was 29 years old that I had a hemorrhaging brain tumor and I was given about 12 hours to live.

And they said, we, you know, we may or may not be able to fix this. And I. I think, you know, you add to the trauma of why that experience in my bedroom meant so much to me. Like not only had I experienced the sexual abuse and had the, my dad that was an alcoholic, but I had literally just said goodbye to my children a week and a half earlier and didn't know if.

If I was ever gonna see him again. Right. That was, that was going on in real time too. And obviously I survived. But they caused nerve damage because of the blood and the intricacy of your brain. They caused nerve damage in my head and led me on my path to chronic pain, which is why I mean, just another reason why opiates was the solution.

Just another benefit of taking them. Right. , When you're an addict, you, the benefits and the consequences at some point have to flip in order for us to wanna get sober. And there were a lot of benefits for me to take opiates. Yeah, well, you actually needed them too. Yeah. Yeah. How do you navigate that?

This is just a random thought that kind of pops into my head, but really like, how do you navigate that? Because I'm an alcoholic and I even like. I was prescribed like medicine that I really needed. Like I had bronchitis and laryngitis, but you know that codeine cough syrup? Mm-hmm. And I was like, freaked the fuck out, but like I needed it so I could sleep.

I mean, I was really sick, you know, I needed to stop coughing, if that makes sense. So how do you kind of, for sure. Yeah, it's an interesting battle for me because I knew the day that I decided to get sober that I was probably gonna be in pain every day the rest of my life. I also have rheumatoid arthritis.

So between the two, chronic pain is just a reality that I deal with, and it was a decision that I made at the time of I that I, that I got sober that. You're gonna, excuse my language, you're gonna have to mindfuck this, and you're gonna have to learn how to deal it with pain and, and you're gonna have to figure out how to enjoy life in the meantime, because I'm not a martyr.

Like if my life is gonna be miserable, I'm gonna be high. That's just the truth of it. And so, really it was like an experiment of can I live in pain to some variated variation and still be happy and still, still live a productive life? And I gotta tell you, sometimes it's frustrating now for me because people forget that I live in pain, right?

So sometimes it's like. I'm irritable because I've been in pain for seven days and I just didn't say anything about it. But there are other coping skills that I had to find. So meditation has been a huge help for me. Journaling has been a huge help for me. I have found some non mind altering substances that help, especially if I can take them before I get to a flow a full blown crisis.

So it's just been a variety of things that I've tried to put in place to make it manageable. But I live in fear of what you're talking about, which is like, what happens one day if I break my arm and how, how do I navigate that? How do I navigate a situation where I need some coding? And we have some things in plan in place.

My husband and I should that ever happen, but it is for sure a fear of mine. Yeah. Like what? I'm like, what if you do get in a. Shitty car wreck. Yeah. But I mean, that's one of those things like what if, you know? Yeah. Like what if your house explodes? I don't know. You know? Yeah. Yep. Exactly. Okay, so how did you know the opiates and your addiction had kind of reached I.

Where you're like, oh my God, this is really messed up. Do you wanna take me down your rabbit hole? Yeah, I would love to. It was October of 2016. I had put about three pills or so on my night. Stand and I had gone to do something and come back and those pills were gone. And at the time we had guardianship of our niece and my son, who were both 17 at the time, and I.

Went nuts of trying to find where these pills had gone. And my husband was in my niece's room just dismantling it. And I'm in my son's room and we're dismantling it and I'm throwing things. I mean the, the chaos of what it was. And my son walked up to me and he put his arm around me and he said, mom, I took him.

And in that moment I realized that I had become my son's drug dealer. I. Oh, so your son was taking the pills? So my son became an opiate addict. And I was his drug dealer. I knew, earlier, probably a couple years before that, that he had started smoking marijuana to deal with some of his anxiety and depression that he was suffering from.

And like many of us that are addicts, he's a very deep feeler and that was impacting him. And so I knew that he was. What I thought was occasionally smoking marijuana. But in that moment I realized that that was not what we were doing. We were addicted to marijuana and we had become addicted to my opiates and I had become my son's drug dealer.

And I think the important part of that story is, my God, I wish that had been enough. Right? My God, I wish that I would have walked in my bedroom that day and said. What, where, what in the hell has happened, right? Like, you've gotta stop using. And the truth is, it wasn't, I used for another, I think another six to nine months.

In, in that six to nine months, I became very, I. Sort of contemplative about how we were, or I was going to get myself out of this. At the beginning of it, I was just mad because he was stealing my stuff and no wonder I was running out and I had a medical condition and you know, how dare he. And it quickly went to how am I going to save my son?

Yeah. What happened was my son graduated on May 27th, 2017, and I checked myself into an inpatient facility on May 28th, 2017, and I went into that facility to learn how to use like a gentle lady to decrease my tolerance to, to. Be able to hide the drugs better to, you know, whatever, whatever I needed to do to save my son.

And after that experience, I learned that the only way to save my son was to save myself and yeah, that's good. True. Addict me on my journey. Yep. That's a true addict experience. You're like, I just have to do this better. Yeah. I just have to be a better opiate addict. So is your son, he's clean now? Yeah.

So he does recovery a little bit different than I do for sure. But he is thriving in his life and doing really well. Just bought a house, which is really exciting for a 26-year-old. So is exciting. Yeah, he is doing, he's doing very well. So what about your parents? Great question. Thanks for asking.

My dad died of alcoholism in 2015. One of the most, my dad was my guy. And, without understanding the depth of my story, my dad was an alcoholic, but he was my guy, right? The one person in this world that I knew loved me without question, and watching him die from this disease was. One of the worst experiences of my life.

And at that time you were using, right? So did that still using, kind of ramp it up? I wish that had been enough, but it also wasn't enough to get me to stop. I don't know if it ramped it up, but it, it ramped the the depression and the anxiety, which then increased the substance use. So if that's what you're referring to.

Yeah, it absolutely did. Yeah. Watching him die from alcoholism. I, I, you know, as an opiate addict, if I do that, I just go to sleep. Right. I just go to sleep. Watching him die of alcoholism was awful. My mom is still alive. She is 81 years old. She lives close to me. We have a very complicated relationship.

My mom, if my mother spoke English, I spoke Chinese. If she spoke German, I spoke French. Right? We just never quite spoke the same language in our lives, and I've had to do a lot of, deconstructing and healing in that relationship just. In order to stay sober, I've worked a full 12 steps just on my mom.

And we've come to a place of peace today simply because I just realized that our relationship will never be what I needed it to be when I was four years old. Yeah. So, and then obviously your grandpa's passed away. He has, when you said your mom was 82, I was like, that would be wild if he was still alive.

Yeah. He died in his sleep, which feels a little too. Easy. But yeah. Was there ever any sort of like retribution there? None. My grandma, my, I'm sorry, my grandfather was a pretty, he was pretty significant in the community and, , never did anybody I. Confront him. , it wasn't until, I got sober that I started to say that I was abused with my full chest.

I had said it a couple of times where it had been met with, I'm not sure you're telling the truth or that's, you're crazy, or whatever it was. And it wasn't until I got sober and went down that journey, started that journey when I was in inpatient that I started saying it with my full chest.

And to be honest with you, the reason why I have the life I have today is because I forgave him. I was in a circle in an outpatient treatment facility and I had this experience where it was like, he does not get to control one more second of your life. And the only way that I could stop allowing that to happen was to forgive him.

Was that, what kind of experience was that? Was it like beautiful or was it, I. It was beautiful for me. Yeah, it was beautiful for that three or 4-year-old little girl that had tried to have somebody protect her whole life. Right. It was, it was beautiful. Look, I don't, you know, I say I'm writing a book right now and one of the things I say in that book is that I have forgiven a lot of people that had no business being forgiven, and he for sure is at the top of that list.

But I didn't do it for him. I did it for me. I did it for that little girl. And so in, in that context, it was the most beautiful thing I think that I've been able to accomplish. What a powerful statement too. You gave forgave people that you had no business forgiving or that they had no business being forgiven.

You know? I mean, that's a beautiful full circle right there. Yeah. It's kind of the point of life. When I think as an addict, people have forgiven me that I probably have no business being forgiven for either, and that's. I was just having this conversation with one of my friends. She reached out and was talking about a family member and I said, well, honestly, like, you know, maybe they haven't reached out to you 'cause they're now in recovery and have been clean for a while.

And I said, because of the shame and guilt, maybe they're just doing their best to like live their amends and maybe they're just doing their best to make sure that they don't suck you back in because they took such, you know, when you're in addiction, you're really like stomp on people. Well, and it's interesting, so I've been doing this a while, right?

I've been helping other people and speaking to other addicts and alcoholics and family members, and doing the deal. I woke up about two weeks ago just with such a heavy heart, and I called my daughter and I was crying and I'm like, I'm so sorry. And she's like, what are you, like, why, why are we doing this again?

Right. We've, we've sat in the counseling offices, we've forgiven, we, we see you, you know, living a living amends every single day. Like, why are we doing this? But the truth is sometimes that's still a suffocating feeling. And I just still continue to feel honored that, that people have given me the opportunity to be forgiven.

For sure. Yeah. Okay. So you've lived multiple sides of this addiction, child, mother, and your someone in recovery. Which role do you feel like is the hardest to work? Oh, that's, that's easy. That's an absolutely easy answer, and it is being a mom of an of an addict. I think. Being an addict myself, obviously I'm powerless, right?

And I needed to surrender to all of that. But there's this itty bitty amount of control you have over what you do today to keep you sober tomorrow. Right? You have this itty bitty amount of control over which hard you're choosing today. When you are a mama of an addict, you are. The most powerless human being on the planet.

You don't have power over anything. Like surrender is a whole different ball game. And I mean, even in his recovery, watching him do hard, right? And all of the fears that come along with what happens if this happens or how is he gonna respond to this is by far the hardest thing I've ever dealt with.

Do you have any tips for anyone in the sense of, have you ever, I mean, I know you were going through recovery too, so it might feel different, but did you ever have to like implement just like really hard love with him and like let him eat shit, go through the consequences?

Yeah, and this is one of the things I try to help family with now is there's this idea of tough love. That it's, it's like you're adding pain onto somebody because you're hoping that that pain will help them make different decisions. Right. And then there's this idea of rescue and enabling because you can't deal with the discomfort yourself.

And I kind of buy into the idea of I'm not gonna add things. I'm not gonna add to your plate, but I'm not gonna remove things off of it either, right? I'm to allow people the full consequences and weight of their life. And so when his life was getting difficult, um, you know, the first thing I did was I, we kicked him out of his house, of our house.

I'm sorry, not because I tough love, but because it's like you broke a boundary and. That's the choice that you made when you broke the boundary, right? And so he became homeless. He had no money. We had to lock our house down like it's Fort Knox with cameras and all the things because things were missing all the time.

We had to not let, allow him in the house. Like all of the things, I wasn't trying to create more pain for him. I was just trying to allow him the full weight of this thing. And I think that's what's the most challenging for family is. We try to rescue and enable somebody 'cause of our own pain.

And it wasn't until the most loving thing that I could do for my son was get out of the way and let him reach his bottom, if you will. His pain tolerance if you will. The quickest. The, it, it would, that was what we all wanted, right? We all wanted this to end as quickly as possible. But it's so hard for family, you know, the sticking point sometimes is homelessness.

I. Well, how am I ever, what would the world think of me if I allowed my child to live on the streets? What if that's where God's gonna meet your child? What if God's waiting for them to be in that position on the streets and I keep 'em from that because of my own fears or my own experiences or, you know, what I think society would think about me?

And so yes, there was for sure times where I allowed him. To eat shit, as you would say, right? Like to, to just experience this life that he had created. And in the same sense, I let him, I let him figure that out, but then I also let him rebuild it so that he had the confidence and knew that he could do this life on his own.

I love that he was so young too, and that he actually did something with that, you know? Yeah, he, I tell this story. I was at work where I used to work and my husband called me and said, you need to come home. And I was like, well, I'm with a client. And he said, now, and hung up the phone and I came home and he was sitting in my entryway, balded in a, in a little, you know, in a little ball.

And he looked up at me and he said, mom, I need your help. And he was 21 years old at that moment and what a gift that was for him and me, because of course I had all the resources. Right. I knew all the things to be able to give him in order for him to walk down this path. And at the age of 21, I was so blessed that he did it when he did.

I know. Oh my gosh. That made me teary. I was like, I can't even imagine like going through that as a mom. My daughter's 20 and when my son is 14, you know? Yeah. And they, they, that's the, I think the hardest part is I knew before I even became an addict myself, right? I didn't start using opiates until I was 29.

So, I had some time before that and I knew that my kids had my biology, right? I knew it. I have so much addiction in my biology that I knew that it was a potential that one of them at least, was gonna struggle with addiction. But knowing what to do with it when it happens is a whole nother ballgame.

Yeah. So I feel like I'm really asking all these questions about all the people in your family, but I just appreciate this. Keep asking. I know. I'm like, we have to have these conversations. Yes, yes. How did your husband kind of navigate all this with you and your son? Like he seems like a tough guy.

Well, interesting, right. My husband and I are still married somehow. I don't know how, but, my husband. Is the best rescue and enabler on the planet. Right. He, same. Yeah. So if my, if my prescription came due at midnight, he was at the pharmacy at 1201 picking it up for me. Right. He took care of the kids.

He did all of the things and really he was the reason, if there is a reason that my children didn't experience more trauma in their childhood, right. Their dad really held it together. And if you ask him today what his. Biggest regret is he will tell you, and it's really hard to hear, but he will tell you that he didn't protect his kids from me during that time.

But he, he kept all, if I was dropping plates, he was keeping them in the air. Right? Yeah. And so. Once I got sober, I had been sober for about a year. And we were having a dis a discussion, it might have been a, you know, heated discussion. And I said to him, so what responsibility are you going to take for my addiction?

And he looked at me and got so, so, so mad, and I said, look, I didn't do this by myself. Right? Like, and, and I believe it so strongly, which is this thing is a family disease. And I'm not saying he contributed to me actually taking it and, and that addiction that I had, but the, the, my ability to use for as long as I did and my ability to not reach my pain tolerance or my bottom sooner was because he kept me off the bottom in a lot of ways.

Right. And that's one of the things I try to teach family now is. We, we all have the same goal, which is to get our loved one to stop using, or to transcend and get into recovery. But am I making decisions today that are keeping me farther away from that or am I making decisions today that are actually part of the solution?

And my husband didn't do it 'cause he was trying to be harmful or anything, he just didn't know. Right. I think that's one of the reasons I'm so darn passionate about helping families now is he just didn't have the information. He just wasn't educated. I remember when I first got sober and I was telling him about group, and I was telling him about the people that I was recovering with, and he looked at me and he said, I'm so happy that you have that experience.

What am I supposed to be doing? What would you say? I just kind of looked at him 'cause I didn't know. Right. But now I know that he needed a group, he needed people just like I needed people, right? If we were going to heal from this thing, we had to heal individually and then we had to come together and heal as partners.

And that's messy because people heal at different speeds. There's periods of time in this healing process where I thought I'm an outgrow him. Right. And then something would happen and he would catch up or sometimes outgrow me and, and he didn't have the resources. And that's one of the reasons why I'm so passionate about this now is family need to heal sometimes before the addict can actually heal.

Yes. Because a lot of times. Addict is because of the family. You know, it's a, it's a cycle. You've worded that really, really well. I know just for people listening, a re a great resource is Al-Anon. Did you guys do any of that? So my husband tried Al-Anon. It didn't super work for him. Yeah. I mean, everything works different for different folks.

Yep. You know? Yep. And I'm one of the people that I, there are a million ways to recover, and I am a champion of all of them. Right. I just want people to heal, but. So he, I do have clients now that have done some Al-Anon, coda. There's a coda meeting that sometimes is helpful. Mm-hmm. Some, which is a codependency just Yeah.

Yep. There's some 12 step programs within churches that people have found helpful. Working with somebody like me that helps you navigate that too, can be helpful. And so I think the, the moral of that story is find what works for you and find your people. You know. I like to mention Al-Anon because it is like a free resource. You know, I'm like, there are resources. It drives me crazy when people, you know, I'm like, go use the resources that are there, you know, and then go to therapy, like reach out to people like Jennifer and like.

Do something. One of the other really cool things that we've, one of, so there's three things that I do currently. One of them is the individual sessions of like helping you navigate this with your family, with your other kids, with your addict, with, you know, whoever. The second one is I do coaching calls and I, I share that because.

When I got sober, I realized that the, and you hear this, sometimes the opposite of addiction is connection. And that was true for me. It might not be true for everybody, but it was true for me. And when I started to build connections with other alcoholics and addicts, whether it was in the room of AA or in treatment or you know, social events that, recovery, social events, whatever it was.

And building that connection. That is really what I desired. And so when I started work with working with families, it was like I need to create that within the families. And so these coaching calls that I do, I've got people all over the country that come together and the goal is to find your people.

The goal is to find your people, because dealing and having an addict as a loved one is counterintuitive a lot of the times to what society tells us. Loving a family member or loving your child or your husband or whatever should be. And it isn't until you find your people that understand your shame, understand your circumstances, that you really can start internally internally healing.

So the coaching calls are really important. And then the other thing that we do is we have retreats bi-annually where again, people from all other up the country come and have that physical connection and be able to do wellness retreats, together, which is pretty cool. That's awesome. And what is your website?

We'll link it below in the show notes, it's www dot rise RISE, addiction lc.com. Awesome. I was on your website yesterday. I just, I was trying to stalk you and then I was watching some of your tiktoks, you know, I need to get better on there. I I do well for a while, and then I, IL lack, so, yeah.

Well, TikTok is kind of like, what's really helped me accountable, I'm like, what am I gonna do? Just not show up on TikTok anymore. Yeah. Yeah, that, and I've never wanted to go back in and get a 24 hour chip, and I feel like the people who do I like really applaud them. I'm like, my God, good job. You know, the humility.

Yeah. Okay, so this is kind of a cliche question, but for anyone listening today, maybe they wanna get started on their sober journey. What are all the words, sober, curious, all those things? Or maybe they're already on it, or maybe they're like, they're just trying to help a family member. What would you say is just one thing to take that step forward?

So the very first thing I think we, you hear boundaries, right? You hear the word boundaries and sometimes boundaries feel like I'm punishing somebody. Or sometimes boundaries are so big, like when we say to our 20-year-old, you're living at home, you need to be home at 12 o'clock, and they're home at 1205.

And you're like, oh. And that wasn't too far away and pretty soon it's 1240. About how this boundary got so far outta control. So I think one of the very first things you can do is, can is to start small. Right. Start giving yourself some confidence about being able to hold the boundary.

Remember, boundaries are about, not about punishing somebody else. So let's say I have a client, I'll give you an example, who has a really hard time with boundaries, right? She's making decisions outta fear a lot of the times, and she knows it, and we broke it down to what she could hold to. Her adult son is living in her house.

And if he doesn't untangle her socks, she's not doing his laundry, he's, she's not washing his socks. And that was where she started with boundaries because she knew she could stick to that a hundred percent of the time. Yeah. And it gave her confidence to start, okay, what other thing can I do that I can hold to a hundred percent of the time?

So outside of reaching out. Outside of finding your people outside of, doing the internal work to figure out why we make decisions outta fear and, and what that looks like is really to start figuring out, okay, what boundaries can I hold to and start there. They can be very, very small and what they feel like to be insignificant.

Oh, that's really good advice. It's actually something I struggle with with our adult child who lives at home. 'cause I'm like, why can't you just make respectful decisions? You know? Yeah. I don't wanna tell you what to do. Yeah. So great advice all around there. Even just when you're struggling with anything, it's just like, what boundary can you stick to and move forward?

Yeah. Okay. Jennifer, thanks for sharing your story today. I know. All the things. And anytime I feel like someone is willing to share their story, it's such an act of bravery because it would be easier to just be like, this thing never happened to us. But yeah, I think that, you know, you talk about AA and it being anonymous, the anonymity.

Will kill me. Right? And I, I love it for other people, but anonymity will kill me. And the only way that I know how to make sense of any of this, and my prayer for people to be able to get there too, is the only way I know how to make sense of my childhood trauma and my dad's alcohols and whatever it is to talk about it, try to break the stigma of this thing and try to help somebody else out along the way.

Yes. I he out loud, you know? Yeah, for real. Like let's do more of that. Yeah. Okay. Well thank you so much for hanging out with me today. Thanks for sticking it through with our weird tech shit, so I'm just gonna call it shit. It was great. We got it done. Yeah. But the message is still here. Yeah. So thank you, Jennifer.

You just seem like a really beautiful, amazing soul. And if you ever make it down to the warmer side, if you come south. I'll North. Idaho's beautiful, but I, I don't like to go north. Get me up and we will get coffee. Okay. I love it.