Transforming Shame into Grace: Interview with author, Dawn Ward

 What do you do when the life you imagined is shattered by addiction—and it’s your family caught in the storm?

In this raw and hope-filled episode of The Higher Pursuit Podcast, Cecily Lachapelle sits down with speaker, writer, and biblical life coach Dawn Ward to unpack the emotional whirlwind of parenting through addiction, the silent burden of shame, and how faith makes healing possible—one surrendered step at a time.

If you've ever whispered "Where did I go wrong?" or carried guilt that doesn’t belong to you, this episode will speak straight to your heart. Dawn shares the hard-won wisdom she gained from walking with her husband and children through addiction, and how God repurposed her deepest pain into a calling to support other women walking the same path.

You’ll hear how grace became her anchor, why shame loses power in the light, and what it really looks like to trust God when your child’s future is unclear.

💡 You don’t have to carry this alone. There is healing on the other side of surrender.

Grab your copy of Dawn’s book, ‘From Guilt to Grace’ here: https://amzn.to/42yz9Ay—and begin your own journey of repurposing pain into purpose.

🎧 After you listen: Share this episode with a friend who feels alone in their struggle. And take one moment today to invite God into your pain—you don't have to navigate it without Him.

🔑 Episode Takeaways:

• Dawn shares how her love for Jesus and His Word became the foundation for healing and hope.
• Many mothers lose themselves trying to rescue addicted loved ones—often at the cost of their own well-being.
• Shame runs deeper than guilt and quietly shapes how mothers view themselves and their worth.
• Boundaries aren’t selfish—they’re essential for survival and healing in the midst of addiction.
• Family dynamics and past wounds can distort our understanding of love, trust, and identity.
• Healing begins when we stop hiding and start surrendering our pain to God.

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Chapters

00:00 Introduction to Repurposing Pain

05:00 Finding Purpose in Pain

10:02 Transforming Shame into Grace

25:11 The Impact of Family Dynamics on Shame

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Repurposing Pain
• 5:00 Finding Purpose in Pain
• 10:02 Transforming Shame into Grace
• 25:11 The Impact of Family Dynamics on Shame
• 26:47 Family Struggles and Vigilance
• 27:49 The First Signs of Trouble
• 30:19 Seeking Help and Support
• 32:08 Turning Points and Recovery
• 35:31 The Second Son's Struggles
• 39:41 Guilt and Self-Blame
• 41:12 The Spiral of Addiction
• 44:32 Finding Trust in God

Transcript

Cecily Lachapelle (00:01.048)
Hi everybody and welcome to the Higher Pursuit Podcast. We are so glad that you joined us. If you're looking for content that will encourage you, build you up in your pursuit of Jesus, and sometimes challenge you, then you have tuned into the right podcast. In case you're new here, the series that we're in right now is called Repurposing Our Pain. And today I am joined by a wonderful guest and a new friend, Dawn Ward.

Dawn, in case you don't know her yet, is a speaker, a writer, and a biblical life coach. She is the founder of The Faith to Flourish, which is a ministry offering support and encouragement to women with addicted loved ones. I know something about that. Dawn also equips women to live transformed lives through inspiring teaching, mentoring, and biblical resources. She's married to her wonderful husband, Steve.

and mom to three adult children. And her book, From Guilt to Grace, Hope and Healing. This is my copy for Christian Moms of Addicted Children. It was published in September of this year, so it's now available. And in her free time, Dawn enjoys traveling, hiking, and spending time with loved ones, always with a coffee in hand. So girl, that is probably why we're friends. I have a secret love.

Dawn Ward (01:06.658)
Mm-hmm

Dawn Ward (01:20.91)
you

Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27.138)
for coffee. Fun fact about me, which I don't think I've ever told you, I worked for Starbucks for three, almost three and a half years when my kids were in school because I had the amazing opportunity to have mother's hours. And so it was just such a perfect job for me because it gave me interaction with people and I got to be sort of like the mom on the floor. But I got free coffee.

Dawn Ward (01:56.2)
Hahaha

Cecily Lachapelle (01:57.49)
my gosh, it was worth it. They probably didn't even have to pay me to come to work. I loved it. So talk to me. What is your coffee? Here's our icebreaker question. What is your favorite coffee? If money was no object, you could go to any drive-thru, or do you not like drive-thru coffee? What is your coffee?

Dawn Ward (02:01.486)
You

Dawn Ward (02:19.118)
That is really a good question, and I'm not sure what makes that coffee unique, but we have a place here in Vegas that is called Earth and it's URTH and it's this organic coffee and it's not that organic coffee that I'm into all of that at all, but for some reason the way that they brew their coffee is and the way the way that they make any of their coffees the flavor is so rich.

And I'm an Americano drinker, and I just put a little splash of half and half. don't tend to be someone who just likes a lot of sweet drinks or anything. So this one, the flavor of the coffee really comes out. But to be honest with you, Starbucks is still one of my favorites because they're consistent.

Cecily Lachapelle (02:45.538)
Love it.

Dawn Ward (03:01.356)
and I can go in and order my grande americano with half and half and it'll turn out perfect every time. so I've acquired that taste. But definitely this one coffee really impresses me because I know that they have it grown for them somewhere in the world and it's just a really impressive coffee.

Cecily Lachapelle (03:01.378)
Mmm, yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (03:08.748)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (03:12.163)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (03:21.196)
Well, here's where I could really geek out on coffee. I would actually love to know where that coffee is from because Starbucks does an amazing job, at least they used to, of training the baristas about the importance of where coffee beans are grown. mean, African coffees are more acidic because the soil is drier. A Sumatran coffee is gonna be like deeper and more earthy because it's grown in volcanic soil. Yeah, I could really geek out. We're not gonna get off on coffee here because it is something I totally... You should...

Dawn Ward (03:39.182)
Dawn Ward (03:46.318)
I'm gonna find out for you though and I'm gonna get it to ya.

Cecily Lachapelle (03:51.406)
Yeah, because you know what it has, it actually talks a lot about if you want an Americano, then that's espresso shots and hot water. So where do they source their espresso from? It's so cool. Okay. Yeah.

Dawn Ward (04:03.542)
Right. have one other thing that's a cool fact is I didn't even start drinking coffee until I was 30. I was always a tea drinker, but my husband and my friend at the time always got annoyed with me because they were drinking coffee. And they're like, just have coffee. And I said, but I prefer tea. But I think it was just a hassle of, we don't want to have to make you a cup of tea, so you're going to learn how to drink coffee. So I learned how to drink at 30. But I truly do prefer.

Cecily Lachapelle (04:28.135)
my gosh.

Dawn Ward (04:31.282)
cup of americano over a regular cup of coffee though. So we do get we do get spoiled, yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (04:34.638)
And that's probably, yeah, I mean, cause espresso has a much more full bodied flavor to it than regular brewed coffee does just because of the way it's the type of beans and how it's roasted and all of that. you get, people think that espresso is more bitter, but it's actually not. If it's done right, it's not more bitter. anyway, my gosh, so exciting. I could talk to you about this all day.

Dawn Ward (04:40.014)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (05:00.098)
you

Cecily Lachapelle (05:01.932)
Well, I would love to know listeners, you can put this in your con. What kind of coffee do you drink? Do you drink an Americano? Are you the sweet latte person? Do you have to have the extra extra from Dunkin Donuts? Like what is what is your coffee jam? For me, I am simple. I like a cup of black coffee and it has to be a dark roast. So that's that's my coffee thing. All right. So, Dawn, let's get back to you. I want to know and my listeners want to know what

Dawn Ward (05:27.982)
Okay.

Cecily Lachapelle (05:30.84)
gets you out of bed in the morning. What mission, what cause, what project drives you in and who's your tribe? Who do you talk to?

Dawn Ward (05:41.358)
Well, you know, really what gets me up and who gets me up in the morning is Jesus. And I know a lot of people will say that. But for me, I have such a love for his word and for spending time with him. And I love any conversation or tribe or people who want to share about what he's doing in their life, what he's brought them through. And when I talk to people, I find out everyone has something they're going through. And a little bit of back history on me is that for over 25 years, I was

Cecily Lachapelle (05:50.819)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (06:11.456)
medical esthetician in plastic surgery and dermatology. And so just kind of like the local bartender, people would come in and they would talk to me and they'd see me every month to get their skincare treatment. And I got to learn a lot about people and to hear their hearts. And many did not share my faith and were, you know, just had their own.

Cecily Lachapelle (06:30.348)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (06:31.678)
idea of what they should have for faith and all of that and who they should follow. But for me, I got to hear the hearts of many. Most of my patients were women. And so I got to hear their hearts. And we struggle with a lot of the same things, regardless of what our faith is, whether it's raising children that are happy and healthy and whole and having a...

you know, being satisfied in our marriage, in our life, in what we do in our careers, whatever our calling is, our purpose is. So for the last 10 years, the Lord has had me speaking into the lives of women whose children struggle with addiction.

And that has even been a more challenging field than you would think. Because what happens when a mother is hurting over her child is that it's very easy to become fixated on our child and helping them get healthy, happy, and whole, like I've said. And what happens is we talk about Jesus, but we often talk about him in the context of what he's doing to help our child. What he's doing to help us help our child. And somewhere in that process,

Cecily Lachapelle (07:18.958)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (07:29.966)
Come on. Yeah. Yes.

Dawn Ward (07:36.08)
we lose sight of what he's doing in us. And it's like, Lord, if you'll just fix him and take care of him or her, then I'll be okay.

Cecily Lachapelle (07:39.118)
You know?

Dawn Ward (07:43.968)
And then the Lord starts putting his finger on those things in our lives and saying, well, what about this? That has nothing to with your child. And what about this? And so when I get up in the morning, my passion is that the women, whoever God places in my life, whether it's women or men, but whoever he places in my life will know how loved they are by God and that they're special to him and that he cares about them individually. And yes, he cares about your child because your child is part of your life that you love very much. He loves all of his children and he's a perfect father.

Cecily Lachapelle (07:44.13)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (07:50.126)
I don't

Cecily Lachapelle (08:02.126)
now.

Cecily Lachapelle (08:12.45)
Right.

Dawn Ward (08:13.824)
who's raised his children with perfect unconditional love and yet they still go astray. So he sees our hearts as broken moms and knows that we are hurting and cares about us individually. And so my passion is that whoever God places in my life to speak to will know his love and his deep concern for them and that they're seen and known and heard and loved by him.

Cecily Lachapelle (08:19.608)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (08:36.408)
That is so great. That is so wonderful. And it is so important as a mother of an addict and thank goodness, thank God, he is doing so well right now. He is doing so well in his sobriety. He's been sober for years now and has a wonderful wife and child and business and he's flourishing. But man, man, back when I was in the throes of all of it,

Dawn Ward (08:49.454)
Hallelujah.

Cecily Lachapelle (09:05.718)
and the sleepless nights and the fear, and we'll talk about this later, the shame of all of it, I really could have used someone like you to talk to. I went to 12-step meetings, and while that was great, and I needed that at the time, I needed someone to teach me those boundaries that love does not mean that you lie down like a rug and let people walk all over you. I needed to learn healthy boundaries.

Dawn Ward (09:11.726)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (09:26.754)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (09:32.248)
Mm-mm.

Cecily Lachapelle (09:34.37)
so that I could stay alive myself. And so I wouldn't lose myself. I would have loved to have someone like you who was framing it out from the Bible to really help me walk through that. So I'm so happy for all the women that you get to touch through your Facebook group. So let's talk a bit, now I know your story because I've read your book and we've chatted, but for the...

The purpose of the listeners here who don't know you yet, let's talk about your transformation of repurposing shame into an encounter with God's grace. So go ahead and share that story.

Dawn Ward (10:15.298)
You know, I have met a few mothers on this journey, and I've met thousands that have never experienced the shame that we're talking about. And it's been profound to me. I don't know if they really haven't experienced it or if they just don't know what they're feeling or maybe they just really have had such a healthy upbringing that they bring to the table.

Cecily Lachapelle (10:24.846)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (10:38.786)
this sense of healthy boundaries and confidence. So when I've met these few women who have not struggled with mother shame and mother guilt, I find it fascinating. And so the reason I say this is not, again, not because I don't agree with them, but I stand in awe of that. I'm like, Lord, what is that like? For the most part, most fathers don't struggle with this father or father guilt. You'll meet some.

Cecily Lachapelle (10:42.039)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (10:50.787)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (11:06.011)
that's interesting. Wow.

Dawn Ward (11:06.914)
But for the most part, they know how, again, this is just what I've observed in all these years, is that for the most part, unless they really messed up, like they really abused their kid or something along that line, that they're just carrying guilt for that by itself, that alone is enough for them to feel guilty over. But for them to actually take the blame,

Cecily Lachapelle (11:21.88)
Hmm.

Dawn Ward (11:29.198)
and say, did something wrong to cause this, that seems to be a unique quality most of the time for the mothers compared to the fathers. OK, so like I said, if you're looking at it, maybe 10%, 15 % of the dads might struggle with guilt and shame, and maybe 5 % or less of the moms will not struggle. OK, yeah, so it's like 95 % or higher of moms have this. So understand.

Cecily Lachapelle (11:51.128)
Wow. Sure.

Cecily Lachapelle (11:56.878)
Do you think that that's because we feel innately like it's our job to nurture our children and that if our nurturing did not produce healthy, what we consider in our mind, emotionally healthy adults that we blew it? Do you think it's tied to something like that?

Dawn Ward (12:02.562)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (12:16.118)
Yeah, I do think it is. It's interesting because moms have gone back to work. In our generation, the majority of moms are working. And now there's some that can stay home. It doesn't seem to matter whether the mother stayed home or didn't stay home, statistically wise, as far as whether the children are addicted to drugs or not. But for the most part, we're carrying extra load. We're trying to work and juggle work and juggle getting the kids to school and keeping the house clean and doing all the things that

that we, our mother's generations for the most part, maybe our grandmother's generations for sure, weren't dealing with. So now we're dealing with this huge load of responsibility, not seeing ourselves as just human and thinking that we should be able to be all to everyone at all times and be there and be able to read every situation perfectly. And we're human.

Cecily Lachapelle (12:51.276)
Yeah. Right.

Dawn Ward (13:12.478)
And I think we just don't understand our own limitations. So taking this back for me, what was the root of my shame? Where did this come from? Because maybe I had a different level or a deeper level of shame. Because mother guilt is normal. But when you really take on shame, the difference between guilt is that I did something wrong. Shame is I am something's wrong with me.

Cecily Lachapelle (13:36.526)
Come on.

Cecily Lachapelle (13:40.6)
Yes. And yes. Yes. Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (13:40.758)
You know, right? There's a difference between I did my actions versus who I am. So when we start looking at shame, guilt you can sometimes wrestle with. think any parent can. They'll look at a situation and think, gosh, I wish I'd handled that differently. I wish I hadn't treated my child like that or talked to them that way or had such high expectations of them. But shame says,

Cecily Lachapelle (13:56.332)
Right.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (14:04.046)
I could have been a better mother. I'm a failure as a mom, or I'm a failure as a wife, or I'm a failure as a human being. so although my book is called From Guilt to Grace, shame is discussed in there as well. And false guilt is a guilt where we

Cecily Lachapelle (14:08.16)
Right. Yes. Yes.

Dawn Ward (14:23.222)
really have no reason to feel guilty at all, but it's just natural to us to feel guilty. So we feel guilty and that's a false guilt. And a false shame is also that sense of, know, gosh, my child deserved a better, a different mother or my husband deserves a different wife because I'm not the right, I'm just a mess. And so we have to of reckon with that when we're looking at how we are feeling. So for me, as a child growing up, I grew up in a home where my parents were

Cecily Lachapelle (14:36.706)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (14:52.812)
you know, middle class parents, worked in community service. My father was a fireman. My parents owned a small business. They didn't really purchase that business until I was probably about 12, 11 or 12. But up until then, my mom stayed at home. My dad was a fireman. He always had a small business, whether it was a landscape business or whatever. His brothers also were firemen. So we grew up in that.

environment and my dad just drank. He was he drank like a fish. He was a fireman and he drank beer and so he wasn't like what you would perceive as the town.

drunk or alcoholic, like they used to portray them back in the day, right, with a bottle in their hand behind a trash can in the alley. And I think we all kind of grew up with that sense of that's what somebody who was an alcoholic as they used to label them would look like. So I, as a kid, couldn't sort out why my dad, when he drank, got mean, belligerent, angry, argumentative, demeaning.

Cecily Lachapelle (15:33.667)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (15:44.802)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (15:55.584)
My uncles, on the other hand, would laugh and be jovial. And I couldn't understand why daddy just got so angry with everybody. Now, he didn't beat me or hit me or anything, but his words really hurt. And so often, things that would come out of his mouth would be, you drive me to drink. You drive your mother and I to argue all the time.

Cecily Lachapelle (16:08.024)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (16:17.0)
And so from the time I was really little, I heard this a lot. Or my dad blaming my mom. So I just assumed if somebody drank, it was someone else's fault. And yeah. And so then as my sister, and she's a couple years younger than me, and she was the middle child, and then seven years younger came my little brother. What happened is this continued was me being the oldest.

Cecily Lachapelle (16:21.87)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (16:27.456)
Right,

Dawn Ward (16:40.514)
there was often a lot of responsibility put on me and then I also put on myself, think because of my own personality to perform.

Cecily Lachapelle (16:46.894)
Right.

Dawn Ward (16:49.108)
and to keep the family peace and to keep my brother and sister from fighting and make sure the house was clean before mom and dad came home so they wouldn't fight and dad wouldn't drink and all of that. And it was just kind of a normal response that I had to what they were doing and what they were saying to me, the load that I was taking on. And so I think as this continued to get worse, my shame...

Cecily Lachapelle (17:09.763)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (17:16.136)
started to intensify. the reason I would say shame instead of guilt was because these behaviors were out of my control. So all I could see was that I must be, something must be wrong with me because my friends' daddies don't do this. so, yeah, and so, know, if you were to ask my dad now, he probably wouldn't remember half the things he said to me. A lot of times when people are drinking, and especially if they drink to that point where they forget what happened the day before,

Cecily Lachapelle (17:32.654)
Thanks

Dawn Ward (17:45.43)
or they choose selective amnesia. I my dad was such a wonderful provider, loved us very much and everything, but there was just his own things. That as I can look back now and say, my dad had his own issues, his own hurts, his own traumas and things that he never took to Jesus. So what's important, this important part of my story that I never like to leave out is that when I was four years old, I was only four, not quite five.

Cecily Lachapelle (17:53.965)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (18:02.03)
you

Dawn Ward (18:11.936)
I was not raised in a Christian home. And my parents, my dad never stepped foot in church except for funerals and weddings. My mother would take us occasionally for like a holiday, Christmas or something, but that was about it. Excuse me. so anyway, I remember feeling God's love when I would go to church though at such a young age and asking my mom to take me. Would you take me? And she would. She would take me and drop me off at Sunday school at the Lutheran church around the corner and she picked me up.

Cecily Lachapelle (18:24.15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (18:33.292)
So great.

Dawn Ward (18:40.27)
And so one day I was at home and I was very little and I know this because I know how old I was when my brother was born and he wasn't born yet and I know that we'd moved out of that house by the time he was born. So it was about, I was between four and five.

And my parents were fighting and I was hiding behind a chair. And I remember feeling the Lord reach down at the time I knew it was God and take my hand. And he said to me, and I remember hearing him from this little childlike innocence, Dawn, hold onto my hand and never let go because you're going to need me for this life. So at that young age,

I didn't know what being born again was. I didn't know salvation. I just knew Jesus loves me, this I know, for the Bible tells me so, and what I would hear when I would go to the Lutheran church. And so I continued to get very involved in church and had my confirmation and all of that. And so probably when I was about 11 or 12, I heard the salvation message for the first time.

and heard asking Jesus into your heart. And I went through that. I probably ran up a few times to receive Jesus at whatever, anytime there was an opportunity for me to receive him as Lord, I probably ran forward because I didn't think it stuck the time before. so I...

Cecily Lachapelle (19:50.303)
Hahaha.

Dawn Ward (19:53.334)
I always tell people that I discipled myself because even though I started going to churches that like Baptist or Pentecostal church, was kind of church hopping and friends were picking me up and taking me to church and everything. I was that kid whose mom and dad didn't come to church. And so, you know, I would go and I would learn and get a ride when I could get a ride and all of that. But I was learning to listen to God's voice.

and learning to listen when he spoke to my heart. And through that process, I started to believe that, you know what, this really is my dad's problem and my mom's problem. This really isn't my problem. But I still didn't know how to reconcile the feelings that I had inside. And one thing that I wasn't really planning to talk with about, but the Lord laid it on my heart last night and this morning with your listeners, is that

Cecily Lachapelle (20:18.318)
Hmm.

Dawn Ward (20:46.134)
And I do mention it very vaguely in my book, but I was one of several girls in my neighborhood that for several years was molested by somebody that we thought we could trust. But nobody talked to each other. Nobody knew this was going on. And the reason I tell you this as part of this particular story is because the man who was doing this that we called Grandpa, he said to me, don't tell your parents.

Cecily Lachapelle (20:59.126)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Dawn Ward (21:14.61)
I know how your dad is. I know what he is like when he comes home and he's been drinking and everything. I can hear him. And if you tell, then they will take, they will not believe you, but they will take your brother and you and your sister away from your home and they will separate all three of you. So he put on me this.

Cecily Lachapelle (21:34.135)
my lord.

Dawn Ward (21:36.946)
feeling that if I even told what was happening there. So see, he linked it to my father's drinking. See that? Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (21:41.294)
Wow.

Cecily Lachapelle (21:45.454)
And that your behavior and your decisions could impact negatively. You doing even you doing the right thing could cause somebody else to behave badly. Your behavior then is directly linked to somebody else's behavior, meaning your behavior then can control. If you do the right thing, the wrong outcome won't happen. But if you don't do the right thing, he has no...

Dawn Ward (21:55.319)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (21:59.927)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (22:08.034)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (22:15.342)
It's not his fault that he's drinking or that he reacts that way. Yes, I can totally see how that could link in your mind.

Dawn Ward (22:16.354)
Yes. No. Right. Yeah. And yes. And so what happened was I, everything that I found joy in.

from ice skating to gymnastics to different things. My parents were relying on him to take us for rides, drive us there. So everything became a situation where I didn't want to do any of those things anymore because I knew how the situation was going to end. So I finally got to that place, I think as I got closer to probably 10, maybe somewhere around there, I just would not go over to his house or anything.

And he only lived a couple of blocks down, but I would not tell my parents because I felt I needed to protect my brother and sister. And again, mom and dad won't drink if we're all in line, right? So what happened was one day my sister came in and she said, does grandpa ever do any of this to you? And I felt so guilty because I hadn't protected her. I felt so much shame because I hadn't protected her. I made her not, I said, we cannot tell anybody because they'll take us away from each other. And so we didn't. And so one day my dad came in, I can't.

maybe a year or so later, but I just tried to keep my sister away from him and just said I didn't like ice skating anymore. I didn't like gymnastics anymore. I didn't want to go to piano lessons anymore. I had all these different things I didn't want to do anymore because my parents were relying on him to take us. And so I remember my parents came in and asked, has this ever happened? So it was reported from other girls in the neighborhood. And the sad thing was that at least at that point, I know six of us and

supposedly our parents reported it to the police and the police said they gave him a lie detector test and he passed it and we were all lying. And so, and we were never questioned. We were never questioned at all. Now remember this was, I'm 62. So this was 50 plus years ago, but we were not believed. so now he told me they will not believe you.

Cecily Lachapelle (24:02.99)
Ugh.

Cecily Lachapelle (24:14.84)
Right.

Dawn Ward (24:15.016)
So of course, now we have this fear that we're going to get taken away. My parents are like, there's no way no one's going to take you away. And I don't know how my dad and the other firemen and police officers on the block dealt with it, whose kids were affected. But I do know that it was never talked about again. And so that just fed into this sense that I love Jesus and Jesus loves me, but men cannot be trusted in any way, shape, or form. And so as time went on,

Cecily Lachapelle (24:30.382)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (24:44.334)
I made it a vow that it was my job to protect. Like was my job to protect my brother and sister because I had obviously not done a good job with my sister. I needed to try and keep the family peace and keep everybody from fighting. Ultimately, my parents separated when I was 15 and my dad had another relationship and they were divorced by the time I was 17 and a half. So that meant my little brother

Cecily Lachapelle (25:11.192)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (25:13.644)
was only, he was seven years younger. So he was only about 10, but he was probably about eight when they separated. And I'm telling you this because this is gonna lead into a different part of the story. anyway, so when this happened, I then started feeling an overwhelming sense of responsibility to my mom and my siblings because now my dad isn't in the house.

And we're not feeling necessarily safe in the neighborhood that we're in and everything. So fast forward to when I got married, and it was about seven years in that we had children of our own. And I thought that God had done this great job of healing me, that I had figured it all out, that I was OK. I know who was to blame for what, who was responsible for what, what I was not responsible for.

Cecily Lachapelle (25:35.106)
Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (25:51.502)
you

Yup.

Dawn Ward (26:01.674)
until such time as I started having my own children. And then I, not knowing how I was parenting, I was so hypervigilant. And I...

Cecily Lachapelle (26:05.336)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (26:13.142)
I thought about everything that possibly could go wrong, tried to really vet their friends, whose homes they went to, aware of what could happen if I let them go to someone's house that I didn't really know the parents all that well. They went into Christian school. We just did everything possible to make sure that they were aware of the dangers. And I remember telling us, I have two boys and a girl, I remember telling them.

Cecily Lachapelle (26:22.488)
Thank you.

Dawn Ward (26:38.156)
Don't ever drink because in our family there's problems with alcohol and grandpa has a real hot temper, but all the men in the family have problems with it.

And my brother struggled with obesity and my sister with eating disorder and my mother had a gambling problem. So there was a lot of things going on and I knew that addiction was, know, everybody in the family was affected in one way or the other. So I was hyper vigilant in all the rules that I established to raise my children and then all the fears that I must have placed on them. And so now we're into that time in my life where

Cecily Lachapelle (26:47.725)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (26:52.696)
Wow.

Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (27:03.778)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (27:13.698)
The boys are in high school. My one son, my oldest son has graduated and he's in college.

My middle son, who had gone to Christian school up until junior high, and then he was in public school. I had to go back to work at that point. My husband had some injuries and back injuries and surgeries and things, and I was working full time. And so we couldn't really afford to keep him in private school. So we had moved them into public schools. My daughter, we didn't know at the time, was on the autism spectrum. So there was trying to home school and trying to figure out the right place for her because we could see some of the things she was going through.

Cecily Lachapelle (27:43.598)
and

Cecily Lachapelle (27:49.474)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (27:50.096)
So believe it or not, it was actually my middle son who was the first to have a problem with drugs. And his older brother was in college, it appeared to be doing well and living with friends and all of that. But he had done really well as far as we knew until that last year of high school. And in the last year of high school, the first warning sign I had was I caught him smoking.

I went to the store that he was working at just to do some shopping and he was out front smoking. I was like, you've got to be kidding me. And I thought, you know, he's in high school and he wants to go to college and he's always been into sports and football and all this. What's this dumb kid doing smoking? He had dyed his red hair black and, know, he just kind of looked real goth or whatever you want to call it. so

Cecily Lachapelle (28:18.99)
Hmm.

Dawn Ward (28:33.526)
I didn't know what was going on with him, but he just didn't seem OK to me. But I didn't have any idea how to go about doing things like drug tests or any of that. He was involved in the band at school, but now he was in a garage band. And he just seemed to be getting sloppy, and his grades were starting to slip. And here I am at work all day, working very long hours in the medical field, and trying to put my finger on what's going on with him.

Cecily Lachapelle (28:37.102)
Yep.

Cecily Lachapelle (28:58.646)
Yeah, I was gonna ask you.

Dawn Ward (28:58.784)
So that's where our story started in the lives of my children.

Cecily Lachapelle (29:03.522)
Yeah, did you, when you saw these changes in your son, and we don't have to go down this rabbit trail too much, did you have a gut feeling that something was off, that it could have been drugs and alcohol, yet have no proof, so it made you feel like you were kind of crazy? Did you ever go through that? Because I know I did in the beginning.

Dawn Ward (29:24.236)
I did, I did. Again, I didn't know. I thought you had to take him to like an emergency room to get him tested for whatever you think is going on with them. And if the kid is insisting he's not using drugs and something's wrong, but I can't figure out what this thing is. And his eyes, they just didn't look right. I found Visine, know, things like that. So if anything, I thought maybe he was tampering with some marijuana.

Cecily Lachapelle (29:30.838)
Right. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (29:35.774)
Yes. Right.

Dawn Ward (29:49.318)
And that's really what I thought. And so one day he came in and took his dad upstairs. And remember, he was a minor in high school. And his story is a lot more because he was a minor and it's a lot more private. He's given me permission to share it. But, you know, I try not to tell all the details because it's his story. I try to be careful with that in the book. His older brother, when we get into his story, is much more open. He's even had his own podcast that he had interviewed people who struggled in the

Cecily Lachapelle (30:03.426)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (30:16.875)
Okay.

Dawn Ward (30:19.104)
addiction and all of that. had that for a few years. So his story is a little bit more out there. He was an adult. And so I have a little I have more permission there. But with this one, he I think really just messed up. He got in with the wrong crowd. These kids he was having fun with. wanted to be part of the cool guys club and they were smoking what they thought was pot. And why I caution parents so much.

Cecily Lachapelle (30:24.078)
Mm.

Dawn Ward (30:41.774)
especially for parents that think, hey, it's OK for me to smoke pot and all of that, or smoke marijuana. And I just caution parents, because the kids may go out, if you're drinking a little bit of wine in front of them or getting a little tipsy, they might go out and get their hands on it and drink a lot. Or they may think, well, mom and dad say marijuana is OK, but then they go to the streets and they buy it. And the streets, 99.9 % are laced with

something else addictive. The mission of the dealers is to get them addicted because it's all about money. So when I talk about this, even back then, they were putting addictive substances into what should have just been marijuana, which would have been like the cool drug of the 60s and the 70s or whatever and just organic, natural, and all this. Nowadays, it's laced with fentanyl. Back then, it was laced with black tar heroin.

Cecily Lachapelle (31:08.334)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (31:38.574)
And then sometimes they'll put other things in there. They might put meth. I mean, they find ways to do this stuff. It's just like a concoction. But it's to make it addictive. And that's the reason, so that they can get him to keep coming back for more. So unbeknownst to him, he thought he had been trying. He'd been smoking pot, and all of a sudden he couldn't get off of it. And so that was his problem. So when he came, he came with the full intent of, I've messed up. This is what's going on. I need help.

Cecily Lachapelle (31:39.214)
now.

Cecily Lachapelle (31:59.391)
wow.

Dawn Ward (32:08.0)
He'd already done his homework. He'd already asked, you know, for to go to a certain place to get some counseling and and figure out what was going on. And him and his friend, his his little friend, they both realized that they were in trouble.

Cecily Lachapelle (32:20.206)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (32:21.524)
And so he started that process in high school right away of turning things around. He was still a minor and he wanted to be able to go to college and wanted to be able to get his life straight. Now, was it picture perfect? No, because they're kids and they think they know more than they think they know. And they think that they have it all figured out. What does mom and dad know? Right. But it took a little while, but really it was an ideal situation in that he was on board recognizing he had a problem.

and recognizing that he needed help. And so that was a good situation for us in that as soon as he graduated from high school, he said, I need to really go out of town. I need to get to, you know, go to school out of town. I need to kind of make new friends, a new support system. And so that's how things worked with him. And I would say I felt feelings of guilt with him right away that I had missed it.

Cecily Lachapelle (33:16.248)
Mmm.

Dawn Ward (33:17.702)
And I had felt very like, what was I thinking? And why didn't I know what I didn't know? And I never thought in a million years that my family's bad genes and generational curses or whatever you want to call any of it was going to come through in this manner in our lives. And one of the things I really believed was I would never be happy again. I 100 % believed. And I even said to my counselor, our addiction counselor, said, I will never be happy again.

Cecily Lachapelle (33:30.168)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (33:34.338)
Yes, yes.

Dawn Ward (33:45.582)
So the feeling of loss and being so despondent and so discouraged to have this happen to my 17-year-old baby, I just couldn't even imagine that life could be OK.

Cecily Lachapelle (33:45.774)
Mm.

Cecily Lachapelle (33:55.831)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (34:01.394)
So the guilt and everything was how come I didn't protect him. He might as well have run out in the middle of the street and been hit by a car while I was busy talking to the ladies, you know, in the gossip corner or something and not paying any attention at all. Rather than the truth was I was at work all day. I was seeing patients all day. I was coming home and doing the best I could but...

Cecily Lachapelle (34:08.088)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (34:12.618)
Right.

Dawn Ward (34:20.046)
couldn't figure it out and didn't know what I didn't know. I gave myself no grace. It was just like, mom, you must have been asleep at the will. And so that was probably the feelings of guilt that I had with his situation. So I was just miserable. I just really had a lot of self-loathing.

Cecily Lachapelle (34:20.398)
Yeah. Yeah.

Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (34:29.378)
Yep, I hear that.

Mm.

Dawn Ward (34:40.334)
And so when things looked better and he went to a, he did do some secular counseling and just figuring out what he was involved in outpatient, you know, they call it intensive outpatient where they go like a couple of times a week for counseling and they go to their 12 step meetings and all of that. And he was just 17. And like they said, they go, he's just like a punk kid. Like the people that are in here are often older and

Cecily Lachapelle (34:40.408)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (35:04.716)
have gone through this and spiraled several times and all of that. But when he did go out of state, he went to a faith-based program, and they actually train them, ones that are interested in becoming mental health and addiction counselors. And so he went through the whole training. He worked with them for a few years. He became a licensed mental health worker in the state of California. And he was there for a few years and really just

Cecily Lachapelle (35:31.811)
Fantastic.

Dawn Ward (35:32.416)
Yeah, he did well. And he decided to come home and wanted to go back to school and go back to college and everything. And now he, like you were telling me earlier, my son has been married for over 10 years and has been working professionally for many years. And he's doing really well. His story is just such a story of grace and a blessing to us. And so we thought, you know, we dodged a bullet. But what happened was no sooner were we kind of taking a breath than his brother, who had we found out his brotherhood at this point was about 25.

had just recently graduated from college, but he was dealing with a congenital birth defect. We didn't realize it at the time, but his entire life he'd been plagued with stomach problems and anxiety and all these things that go with it. Well, we didn't realize that he had a congenital birth defect that required a major surgery where they had to wrap his stomach around his esophagus. And as a result of that, they put him on

Cecily Lachapelle (36:19.201)
Dawn Ward (36:28.546)
those pain medications that at the time they said were not addictive. And we've all heard those stories. And so for him, they were just giving it to him for several months during that period when he was really on a liquid diet and pudding and just a very, very minimal diet. And they were just giving it to him like liquid candy. And when the time came for him to get off of it, he couldn't.

Cecily Lachapelle (36:33.422)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (36:51.286)
my.

Dawn Ward (36:54.89)
And I remember taking him to our family doctor and saying, what is going on? I was naive and just didn't even put it into the same category as the street drugs. And so I wasn't putting the two together. And the doctor, our family doctor said, well, the medical practice has failed you. And your son is addicted to this. And I was like, what are you talking about? And she said, yeah, I don't care what they say. I don't care what Big Pharma is saying. This is a highly addictive drug.

Cecily Lachapelle (36:55.064)
course.

Cecily Lachapelle (37:08.11)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (37:14.659)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (37:24.724)
And she kind of told me a lot about the pharmacology of it and everything. And at that point, I thought, OK, well, we'll just get him off of it and get him cleaned up and he'll be back to business as normal. college graduate, he'll get himself a great job and move on. But it was more like mother's milk to him. I think with the anxiety and the stomach problems and the depression and the different things that he had dealt with, he said it made him feel normal.

Cecily Lachapelle (37:46.594)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (37:50.946)
I think there was a lot of social anxiety around even the stomach problems because he would be afraid to eat in public and different things. And so this all of sudden became mother's milk to him. And it was very, he kept going back to it. And eventually it became, well, you we're not able to get the pills anymore or getting the pills on the street, but they're not affordable. So now the next thing is the black tar heroin, which was what was the big thing around Vegas at the time.

Cecily Lachapelle (38:18.926)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (38:19.154)
And so now we have a son that's addicted to street drugs and all of that going on again. And this time, if I thought I had to get out of jail free card with the first one, now everything came flying back again in my face. And now, mom, OK, one kid, maybe you cannot put this on you. Two, this is everything about you.

Cecily Lachapelle (38:40.024)
Right. Yep.

Dawn Ward (38:45.274)
And I really never looked at even my husband's family history. I never looked at anything but me. It couldn't possibly be anyone else's fault but mine. And if I didn't cause it, it was at least my fault that I didn't catch it before it became a problem and that I couldn't fix it. so that's where all that guilt and shame and self-blame came in because I thought I must have been asleep at the will or something.

Cecily Lachapelle (38:51.822)
Mm-hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (39:00.94)
Right, Yep, I heard all that too.

Dawn Ward (39:13.152)
for it to, you know, and at that point, my all outward appearances appeared to be functioning okay. I had to go to work every day and it was a great escape for me to be able to go in and just take care of my patients and hear their stories and just kind of keep mine away. My husband was missing work a lot at this point. I think he actually became disabled, was no longer working at this point because he had had five back surgeries. And in the process, he'd also become addicted to those pain meds, but

Cecily Lachapelle (39:13.806)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (39:23.854)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (39:31.33)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (39:41.582)
Good night.

Dawn Ward (39:42.022)
I didn't know it because the doctors were giving him more more pain meds and then he would try to go off of them and then he'd get sick. And now all of sudden I'm like, well, he's different. His situation is just chemical dependency, but he's got a good head. His brain is OK. But my other, my son has a chemical dependency, but his brain with his mental health issues and clinical depression and anxiety and all this, now he's combining all of these drugs with.

benzodiazepines like Xanax and different things. now it's becoming a very deadly combination. And so I'm looking at him and thinking my husband has a handle on it. And it really did escalate at one point to where neither one of them did. And my husband was also gambling. And that became an addiction. So I was dealing with all of this. And at this point, I'm like, what is wrong with me?

Cecily Lachapelle (40:08.894)
my goodness.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (40:30.604)
And then my husband, I would say his name's Steve and he's allowed me to share his story and he has shared the book, but he had had one situation and we'd gone and done all the things you're supposed to do. We went to celebrate recovery and we did the different.

counseling and all of that. And he seemed to have a really good handle on it. And of course, until the next surgery and the next injury. And then it started again. And see, that was still me not understanding that you can't go back to that. You know, can't go back to those drugs because you're going to, you know, because I just didn't know what I didn't know. And I wasn't talking a lot to my own doctors that I worked for about it because it was our family situation that I was trying not to bring to work. They were aware, but I wasn't getting into the depth of what we were going on.

Cecily Lachapelle (40:49.4)
wow.

Cecily Lachapelle (40:55.725)
Right.

trigger it all over again. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (41:09.87)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (41:11.948)
what was going on. And so for the most part, he did, my husband did pretty well for quite a while there. So I thought he was okay. So all my focus is going into my son and my son is his just spiraled so much worse. We're talking.

Cecily Lachapelle (41:13.368)
Right.

Dawn Ward (41:29.042)
numerous DUIs, rollover car accidents, he shouldn't have survived, but God had a bubble around him. He never hit anybody else or hurt anybody else. He walked away from them. It's such a God thing. A few times when he was so low that we needed to send help because he was threatening suicide and they said he was really at risk.

Cecily Lachapelle (41:36.957)
Isn't that such a godsend?

Cecily Lachapelle (41:49.709)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (41:49.81)
And so there was just things like that that were so intense that I couldn't believe that this was our life. And I started looking at, like asking my mother, you know, is anybody in your family have mental illness? And finding out that she had some aunts that had threatened suicide. And, you know, asking, but always looking at the women. It was an odd thing. I was looking and asking my mother about her family, not talking to my dad about it at all.

Cecily Lachapelle (41:55.394)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (42:16.68)
And he didn't even know a lot of what was going on because I was so private about it with him. that's revealed in my book as well as what the Lord did when I finally had that conversation with my dad. And that was when my older son was going through it. My father never even knew about what happened with my younger son.

Cecily Lachapelle (42:27.534)
Mmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (42:34.391)
Right.

Dawn Ward (42:34.75)
And so, but my mother, I was looking to the women, like it must be my fault, it must come from my mother. And I knew that the men in my family drank, but still it was this whole weird thing in my head about mom guilt and mom shame. It's just the strangest thing. And I say it's strange, but yet when you talk to moms like yourself, we all have wrestled with this, right?

Cecily Lachapelle (42:38.894)
Bye.

Cecily Lachapelle (42:57.698)
Same. Yes.

Dawn Ward (42:58.54)
Yeah, we've all wrestled with it. I act like it's unique, but in my case, I don't think it was any different than so much of what other moms are going through. And sometimes it's not even addiction. Sometimes their child is struggling with a learning disability or maybe another health problem. And they're

Cecily Lachapelle (43:07.149)
Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (43:14.35)
Or maybe it's just delinquency and getting into trouble and you have the police showing up at your door and you're thinking, my gosh, what are my neighbors thinking right now? Or, you know, yep, we do.

Dawn Ward (43:16.802)
Delinquency. Yeah, rebellion. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Dawn Ward (43:26.464)
All of that, all of that, and it can be very, and we just heap it on ourself. And so what happened was I...

He just was spiraling. in the process, was constantly, started to get to where, yes, I went to work and it appeared that I was handling everything OK. But in my mind, like a broken record, I could hear, you have to fix your son. You have to fix your son. It was really like background music if you were in a store. I could hear it in my brain. It gives me a lot of empathy for people who tell me about their brains and having mental health issues and things. Because our brains get to that point, just like any other part of our body.

Cecily Lachapelle (43:47.842)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (44:05.008)
whether it's our heart or our stomach, they can get to where they're struggling to. And my mind was really struggling. It was fixated on fixing my son. And it believed that until he was fixed, I would not be OK. I would not be. None of this is what I got to read the Bible every day. I spent time with the Lord every day. This is not what I would ever tell another mother. Yet I was in my own head believing these lies.

Cecily Lachapelle (44:10.435)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (44:16.142)
Hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (44:22.105)
yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (44:28.866)
Say that.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (44:33.784)
But out of my mouth was coming the truth. Like, OK, so I knew the truth, but my brain was fixated on the lies. And so one day, my husband was doing well at this point, thank God. And he's just like this chill kind of guy. And he says, you're going to worry yourself to death. And.

Because I mean, I was up at all hours research, taking him to Mexico, or we taking him to Costa Rica, like, where are we going to save this kid? And I said, you you have the right to write that on my tombstone. She worried herself to death. And I share this a lot because this was my aha moment. This takes me back to when that conversation as a little girl where I heard God speak. And at that point, immediately, I heard the Lord say, no, I wanted to say she trusted God.

Cecily Lachapelle (44:59.513)
us.

Cecily Lachapelle (45:24.717)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (45:25.128)
And it sounded just exactly like that little four-year-old girl who had to learn how to hear God's voice in the midst of chaos. Now I was happy to learn to hear his voice again in the midst of the chaos that was going on in my brain. Because I thought I was losing it. To have your brain just not be able to shut off at all. Wake up and hear it.

Cecily Lachapelle (45:38.402)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (45:47.064)
take a shower and hear it, be talking to people and hear it. And I knew I didn't have schizophrenia or anything. It's just that I was just that stressed out. And yeah, it was really rough. And so when the Lord said that to me, I wanted to say she trusted God. I made a vow that that was what my life was going to be, that I was going to trust Him. But I didn't know what that looked like.

Cecily Lachapelle (45:48.962)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (45:55.404)
Yes. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (46:06.528)
I love it.

Dawn Ward (46:08.544)
So I had to say, well, God, what does that look like? Jesus, what does it look like for me to trust you? Because I've said I trust you. And I tell people that are also going through this to trust Jesus. And so why is it that you're challenging me that I don't trust you and that I need to be trusting you? So what does it look like for me to trust you? And so I remember him telling me, well, it's going to look a little selfish. And it's going to be a little uncomfortable.

Cecily Lachapelle (46:19.822)
Mmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (46:29.197)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (46:36.428)
So those are the two first things that he told me. Because as moms, any time we do something for ourself, especially if our children are struggling with such life-threatening conditions like addiction, it will feel abnormal to us. It will feel selfish to just do something like go have yourself a cup of coffee and relax for a couple of hours. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (46:45.975)
Yes.

All

Cecily Lachapelle (46:56.576)
Absolutely.

Cecily Lachapelle (47:01.484)
Yes, yes. And it feels unloving to set boundaries.

Dawn Ward (47:07.434)
It does. And so the first thing is those kind of things like self-care, soul care, setting boundaries like I needed to be able to get up the next day and go to work. And one of the first challenges that my counselor said was turning off the ringer of the phone.

you know, being able to get a good night's sleep. That was really hard for me in the beginning to what's going to happen if I don't know that he's calling. And he's like, trust me, they'll get ahold of you. Whoever needs to get ahold of you will get ahold of you. But you have to start taking some of these steps towards your own sanity, your own process of healing. And so whatever small thing, no matter how small it seemed, if the Lord told me to do it,

I needed to do it. And I needed to take those steps of faith. And that meant one of the first things was instead of Googling help for my son, was looking up help for me.

And yeah, and I had gone to, previously attended some of the 12 step meetings, the ones that I had attended, you know, we always look for like convenience, right? We want to go to the one that's closest to home when you get off work and you're tired and all of this. And I just found the people to be negative Nellies. And it put a lot of fear on me. And I, and I'm not saying that it would have ended that way, but after, you know, after going for a few months, I just felt that I was leaving discouraged all the time. Then I found out about some celebrate recovery meetings in our area and those people

Cecily Lachapelle (48:03.65)
There you go.

Cecily Lachapelle (48:14.423)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (48:33.386)
were definitely more focused on Christ, more focused on his presence and how he could help. For me personally, I think the one-on-one counseling with the family addiction counselor really provided me with a lot of help because he could give me that one-on-one sanity check and say like, OK, Dawn, you realize what you're saying isn't OK. And those kind of things. And so I started to work through that process of

Cecily Lachapelle (48:53.56)
Mm-hmm.

Right, right, right, exactly, exactly.

Dawn Ward (49:01.998)
of just saying, what is the reason why I feel like this is my fault? And why do I feel so responsible to fix my child? So even though I know the truth, I know that I didn't cause it, I can't control it, I can't cure it, any of that, why do I still feel like I'm supposed to be able to do these things? And so.

Cecily Lachapelle (49:25.59)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (49:27.06)
That's when the Lord had me take a deep dive into the scriptures. He said, know, Dawn, I'm not silent on addiction or alcoholism or bondage or any of this anymore than I'm silent on anything else. Like I have an opinion about everything and it's all covered in my word. You just need to dig into the word.

and see what I have to say about it. And so that I actually started that process. It ended up that I was writing this big Bible study. And that's when the Lord said, I want you to actually write a book and I want you to share your family story because this moms are gonna need to be able to identify. And I was like, but how am I gonna do that and not throw my family under the bus?

Cecily Lachapelle (49:47.273)
Mm-hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (50:02.094)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (50:09.198)
and not divulge too much and respect their privacy and their story. Lord, how are going to have me do that? And he was just like, you know, just I'll take care of it as you move along. I just want you to start the process. so that before that process of me starting writing the book, he had he had called me into the ministry and I said, Lord, this sounds like such a great idea. Yeah, I'm all I'm game. Anything but addiction.

Cecily Lachapelle (50:14.285)
Yep.

Cecily Lachapelle (50:20.962)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (50:32.024)
Hehehehe.

Dawn Ward (50:32.16)
And that was probably a good 10 years ago. And it was like anything but addiction. And it wasn't because I didn't want to minister and I didn't want to share love and truth, but I felt so unprepared and underqualified. And I felt like I hadn't arrived yet. So how could I?

be of any help to anyone else. And isn't that just like God to call us out into doing something like this when we don't feel equipped and we totally 100 % need to rely on him? So he kind of went radio silent on me. And I was like, gulp. I realized I'd hit what he wanted me to do. And so then I was like, well, what does that look like? And I had been co-serving with a woman that I had, at this point, had co-authored a book with.

Cecily Lachapelle (50:53.592)
Mmm.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (51:18.36)
for moms, was called, still standing after all the tears, and it was a workbook, and the Faith in the Battle Addiction. And so we were working through the process of just tools for moms to use and for women to use who are going through this. And we had a Facebook group, but hers wasn't really geared towards faith.

It was, she was a believer, but hers was just very open to all women, all moms who had loved ones that were struggling. And she decided to close that group as she was moving to do some other things at that point. And she decided to close the group. And so that's when the Lord said, I want you to start a faith-based group for moms. And I had another argument with them and said, Lord, there's plenty of groups on Facebook.

Cecily Lachapelle (51:42.51)
Mm-hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (51:52.823)
Nice.

Dawn Ward (51:58.254)
They're doing a great job. Why do we need another one? I don't even like social media. I can go down that rabbit hole way too quickly. so I really steered clear of it. And he said, no, you're going to start it. And I didn't know what it was going to be about until I pushed go and brought the group live. And then he said, it's going to be.

Cecily Lachapelle (52:06.882)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (52:10.274)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (52:18.158)
praying for your children, encouraging the moms and glorifying me. So the mission has always been a faith-based mission for us to just encourage each other. It's not a lobbying group. It's not an advocacy group. It really is about the hearts of the moms and what they're going through and knowing that they'll have prayer for that. And in the process,

Cecily Lachapelle (52:22.35)
awesome.

Cecily Lachapelle (52:29.848)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (52:34.242)
Mmm.

Dawn Ward (52:38.092)
That's a lot of how the book and the stories and the different things came out was because I was observing. The same way I'd learned how to observe my patients and listen to them, I'd learned how to observe these moms and hear their stories and what they were going through and see that we really are all alike. We all have different levels of what guilt, shame, self-blame look like in our life. For the most part, most of us have struggled with it.

Cecily Lachapelle (52:47.15)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (52:56.162)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (53:00.995)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (53:04.576)
And Jesus just also challenged me that we can make our children idols. And we don't like that word idolatry. We don't like to think that as a mother that there's anything wrong with our relationship with our child. But Jesus really challenged me, like you're putting so much on him of your happiness. Like if he's not, you're putting your happiness on his shoulders and saying he's responsible for your happiness. When it should be found in your relationship with me, with Jesus, you're putting this on a human being.

Cecily Lachapelle (53:09.517)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (53:15.95)
Mm.

Cecily Lachapelle (53:20.962)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (53:28.899)
Yes.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (53:34.146)
who is not capable of this. And so there were some challenges. Yeah. It's OK.

Cecily Lachapelle (53:36.748)
And if you think about it, you're, sorry to interrupt you, but that ties right back to your childhood because your parents put their happiness on your shoulders. If you did everything right, or at least you interpreted it that way. If I behave a certain way, then maybe dad won't drink. Maybe there won't be fighting in the house. If I protect my sister, then maybe...

Dawn Ward (53:44.983)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (53:53.646)
Yes, yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (54:05.322)
Things won't go bad in the family. So your behavior was totally tied back to theirs and The shit that that shame cycle you just brought that with you into your next really important role Yeah, I just actually want to press pause for one second and make sure that my listeners really catch that because Don has shared so much incredible

Dawn Ward (54:13.101)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (54:22.51)
Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (54:35.65)
meet about shame. And one of the things that we need to know is that, like she said, some of the moms that she's talked to, they also have alcoholic or drug addicted kids, but some of the moms or dads, they're experiencing shame in their parenting for other reasons. Doesn't matter what the actual scenario is that we're dealing with. And

What does matter is that the process is the same. The feeling that I'm broken, I'm deficient. There's something wrong with me. Other people came through their life and they're fine. I am the problem in this situation. That is the root of shame. And shame is a process. It doesn't just all of a sudden show up in our life one day. It starts like,

all fruit does with seeds. And those seeds are planted usually in childhood with a trauma, a loss or pain or some negative experience or negative messaging that we receive as children when we're wide open and innocent and we don't know how to differentiate, well, this is my parents' problem. And then by the time, like Dawn explained, by the time

We are old enough to say, that really wasn't my problem. mean, his drinking is his problem. It's too late. Those seeds of shame have already taken root in the soil of our innocent hearts. And when a person experiences then one of those root causes of shame, and if that painful root isn't dug up quickly, it's going to begin to grow until it becomes a full grown tree that's now bearing all kinds of fruit.

And the Bible is clear. Jesus said, you can know them by their fruit. That is by the way they act. Can you pick grapes from thorn bushes or figs from thistles? So the fact is, like Dawn has just testified, is that no fruit in our lives happens without a root giving it life. So, and she shared where she felt the root of shame started in her life. And with us and with Dawn, sometimes

Cecily Lachapelle (57:02.368)
It's not just one area. She talked about how shame was planted in her heart through her father's alcoholism, or at least over drinking in their home. And the issues that started in their family, the anger, the outburst, the instability that was constantly in her home growing up. And then also through the molestation she experienced.

So sometimes it's not one thing. Sometimes it can be a few things that plant those seeds. So maybe as you're listening to this podcast, you're not really relating to the addiction aspect, but maybe your shame came from an abuse, either an emotional abuse or spiritual abuse or a sexual abuse. And you understand the emotions of shame. You're in that cycle of shame.

that Dawn is talking about, that perpetual thought that I have to fix this. I have to fix this person. I am broken. This is my fault. If I was a better person, if I was a healthy person, if I was a spiritual enough person, if I was a better Christian, if I prayed more, loved more, fasted more, did more, if I was more, then my family, my loved one or this situation wouldn't be happening. So that is...

Dawn Ward (58:19.062)
Mm-hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (58:27.138)
such an amazing truth that she just unpacked. And I want to make sure that we kind of hit pause. And I want you all to start thinking and applying this right now. Where are you struggling with shame? You might be listening to this podcast, having tuned in thinking, I don't even have an issue with shame. I might have at one point, but I'm over it. But are you, or are you hearing that cycling of

I'm broken. I'm not good enough. Still going on in your head. So I just wanted to make sure that we're pressing pause here and that you can really take that moment to stop and think about what you're thinking about and where you're at. So Dawn, now share with us, where's the turning point? You mentioned the transformation was digging into the word of God. And what did you notice start to happen as you started to do that?

Dawn Ward (59:24.524)
Well, one of things I had mentioned earlier is that had to feel a little bit selfish. And that meant spending money on myself. And sometimes we don't have money to spend on ourselves. I didn't have a lot of money to spend on myself. But my point was I started to make decisions where, goodness, am I going to put money on my son's account at the jail because he's in jail right now? Am I going to spend all this money to keep dragging him to counselors when he doesn't even want to hear what they have to say?

Cecily Lachapelle (59:28.642)
Mmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (59:47.822)
Hmm.

Dawn Ward (59:54.042)
And those kind of things, am I going to actually allow God to show me where he wants to work on me? And I never felt OK with.

Cecily Lachapelle (59:54.094)
Our stories are so similar.

Dawn Ward (01:00:05.672)
any time taking for myself when I thought anybody else needed something. And that's a mom thing. We tend to do that. My mom used to tell me that she wore false teeth and she used to say she didn't have any teeth because she always took us to the dentist. And we kids didn't appreciate it because we were eating too much candy and all of that. Well, I found out my mother had false teeth before she ever had me.

So it really was an all of her family did it must have been in malnourishment thing from the small town that they were from in South Dakota or something. They all had, you know, that was what they did back then. They had gum disease and they would just take their teeth. And so, but I always felt like, my gosh, my mother lost her teeth because of me. And my mother probably, my mother probably thought that.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:00:39.63)
Well... Well...

Cecily Lachapelle (01:00:46.506)
ooh.

Dawn Ward (01:00:49.536)
I knew that she didn't mean it. I don't think ever intentionally was cruel or tried to hurt me or anything. I just think I took a lot of things to heart that literally I was very much a child who had a command of the English language from the time I was very young and probably my brain couldn't handle some of the words that I heard and they stuck with me. And so we have to be careful with that too because children tend to be a lot smarter than we give them credit for and a lot more aware of what's going on than we give them credit for. So we have to real careful.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:00:58.691)
Hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:01:10.145)
Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:01:15.32)
So true.

Dawn Ward (01:01:19.44)
what we speak around them and how we speak over them. So the Bible says that you will know the truth, that the truth will set you free. So how was it that I would know the truth and know the word of God and be able to share it as a Bible teacher and writer with women, and yet in my own heart, it wasn't getting in there and transforming my heart? And part of that was being

Cecily Lachapelle (01:01:21.527)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:01:46.23)
understanding that I allowed things to stay in my head. OK, so it was a protection mechanism for me not to feel too deeply, was to let things stay up here and not get inside and reveal more pain, more failure, more whatever it was that I was afraid of. And so that was part of what the Lord was doing was challenging me on my belief system. Like, do you really believe?

Cecily Lachapelle (01:01:57.198)
Dawn Ward (01:02:12.962)
that I am your healer. Do you really believe that I love you? And one of the truths that I had to recognize that I believed as a lie was I believed everything was on me. It was my job to protect. When my dad left, we lived in a town in North Las Vegas and it was not a very safe area town. It was a safe area when we moved in. It wasn't a safe area when by the time we'd been there that long. And so there was some crime and things going on and our house had been broken into a few times.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:02:30.711)
and

Dawn Ward (01:02:42.9)
So I realized that I was a hypervigilant one. I was the one who would stay awake and sleep with one eye open and be listening for noises and be listening. And I think part of that was my dad coming home in the middle of the night all the time. So I was in this habit of always having one ear open. And so when our family, when our house went through some break-ins and then after I was out of the home, my mother was sexually assaulted and the intruder came into the home.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:02:55.896)
Wow.

Dawn Ward (01:03:09.224)
And so, and my brother and sister were there. And my mother figured out how to talk him into leaving the house and taking her in the backyard, which is very private. I haven't usually shared this part of the story, but in order to protect my siblings. But I remember feeling this guilt that I wasn't there to protect my mom. So see this weird hypervigilant thing I brought all into how did I not protect my children? And now the Lord is saying to me, wait a minute.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:03:09.25)
my word.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:03:24.078)
Wow.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:03:29.902)
Wow.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:03:36.502)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:03:38.828)
And he really put me on the spot, but he put himself on the spot because he said, it's my job. I'm God. It's my job to protect my children. And if I allow some of these things, I didn't cause them. But yes, I could prevent them. Isn't this big celestial question mark that we always have in our life of how come he

Cecily Lachapelle (01:03:54.956)
Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:03:58.648)
Hmm. Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (01:04:01.55)
a good God allows bad things to happen to good people kind of a thing. And while my mind understood as best as it could not being God and being human, that we do live in a fallen world and that Satan is the Prince of darkness and all of that, still you wrestle with these, your own finite ability to protect the people that you love and inability to protect the people you love.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:04:05.057)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:04:25.719)
rate.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:04:28.684)
And it's much easier to be able to protect your children when they're little. And you can control their comings and goings and all of that. But when they become adults and they're making decisions of their own and all the life lessons. And one of the things the Lord showed me is that you parented out of fear. You've lived every decision that you've made in your life has been on the basis of fear. What to do to make sure that bad thing doesn't happen. And you haven't parented out of faith.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:04:37.901)
Right?

huh.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:04:45.56)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:04:52.781)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:04:56.578)
Mm.

Dawn Ward (01:04:56.734)
And faith is going to require, is harder. It's going to require letting go and not meddling all the time and understanding that I've designed boundaries for a reason. Boundaries between sin and my holiness, boundaries between the ocean and the land and boundaries between people. And that while we can love each other and care for each other and support each other, we cannot control each other.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:05:04.642)
this.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:05:21.311)
Right. Right.

Dawn Ward (01:05:21.55)
And those were the things that I had to work through to look back and say, there were so many decisions made as I was growing up by other people that I had no control over. Even down to my mother not keeping the door locked. And I'm not blaming her in any way, or form, but I'm just saying that was a habit my mother had. They were from a small town in South Dakota. They were terrible about locking the door behind them. And I never thought that. That thought never crossed my mind until just even recently that there was little

Cecily Lachapelle (01:05:31.202)
Mm-hmm. Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:05:38.679)
right.

Dawn Ward (01:05:51.504)
made all the way that didn't make it one person's fault. It made the sin, the evil person, it was their fault. But the point is that I couldn't in any way, matter how hyper-vigilant I was, keep track of all the decisions, all the little decisions being made by my children, by my parents, by everybody in my life. And I had just become this incredible control freak and people pleaser and perfectionist. And there was just no way I could continue to live like that.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:06:10.54)
Yes.

Yes.

Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:06:21.634)
And so that was where, yeah, so that's where the faith and the obedience, yeah, that's where I had to learn how to live by faith if he said, don't send that text message, don't text your kid, you know, don't do it. Don't go onto the Google and try to find how to help him. You know, I want you to just sit in my presence and I want you to just worship me.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:06:21.848)
Yes, it's exhausting. It's exhausting. I live like that.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:06:34.894)
Thank

Cecily Lachapelle (01:06:41.144)
Yep.

Mm-hmm.

Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:06:46.418)
And I want you to trust me right now. What does that look like? I want you to go take your daughter to the movies. Leave the phone in the car. You know, was things like that. There were these steps of faith that required me to go against everything in my nature and that it was ingrained in me to do a certain way and to now take my focus off of my child and put my focus on God and trusting him with him.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:06:55.564)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:07:13.357)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:07:13.416)
And so that has been a big process for me. It didn't happen overnight. It's still something that I'm a work in progress. And the Lord is constantly working on me. You talked about trauma and I'm bringing up things in this conversation that I've never brought up in other conversations because the Lord's obviously showing me that there's some things there that he's been showing me that he's working through with me even now. So see, even writing the book, if I were to have a

Cecily Lachapelle (01:07:19.106)
No.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:07:37.474)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:07:40.418)
version two, volume two, there could be more stories in there. One of the things that I realized was how many blind spots I had. And I didn't realize that. And through a reoccurring dream, the Lord was starting to show me, ask me about what that's symbolic of. And in the dream, I would see certain things and not even think anything of it. And then the Lord's like, there actually is something to that. I want you to ask me about it. And when I'd ask him, he'd reveal to me a blind spot in my life.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:07:44.205)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:07:49.166)
Mmm.

Dawn Ward (01:08:10.356)
something in my relationship with him that I was unaware of where I wasn't trusting him. Things like that that he was showing me that I was like, I had no idea. Well, you can't know. If it's a blind spot, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter if people tell it to you 100 different ways until you, that part of your brain opens up and you can see it and you can take a step back and go, whoa. And yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:08:14.924)
Yes, yes.

Mm-hmm. Yes, yes, yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:08:25.784)
That's right.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:08:34.007)
I want to press pause right here because I want my listeners to hear this. What Dawn just said is huge and I harp on it in my book and it's the reason that I put the workbook activations at the back of the book. When we're working through pain, when we are repurposing pain, if we could have fixed ourselves the old way, we would have done it by now. If our modus operandi could have fixed us,

For all of our trying, we would have been fixed. We wouldn't be suffering with shame or fear or bitterness or anxiety, whatever we're struggling with. But the Lord is our healer. And therefore, journaling and allowing the Lord, excuse me, to speak to us is the only way we're gonna see our blind spots. It's the only way that the light is going to come on.

He uses the word and then he illuminates the word specifically. He makes that word a personal letter to us and he'll speak specifically to us as we give him time. But most of us, many of us I should say, are using our time with the Lord as a time to dump our laundry list of, God, I need you to take care of this. Help me here. Fix that.

Help them give us money, know, fix that, fix their addiction, do this and okay, bye, see you. Now I'm going to go off and go run my legs, run myself into the ground, trying to do all the things. When God says, I want you to come into my presence. I want you to lean back into me, lean back into my strength, my ability, my grace, grace being the desire and the ability to do His will.

Not our will, not what we think is the right thing to do in the moment, but what he knows is the right thing. And he wants to gently, very lovingly, without condemnation, he wants to lift the burden off us. That burden of shame, that false responsibility, the blinders, the lies. But he can't do it if we don't let him talk, if we don't give him space in the conversation.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:11:01.026)
to speak. So I hope you heard what Dawn just said because she said one of the tools that she used to repurpose her shame and to allow the Lord to heal that was allowing him to take the word that she knew in her head, turn the light on, put his finger on it and draw the line from the word of God to this pain point and say, let's make a connection now. There's not, there's been a disconnect between this truth

and this piece of pain right here, this shattered part of your soul that's like a jagged piece of glass. I want to patch it. I want to renew it. I want to restore your soul with this truth and make it yours so you own it. It belongs to you now and you can fight with it. So anyway, I just didn't want to go any further because Don just made such an important point there.

Dawn Ward (01:11:54.827)
Amen.

Dawn Ward (01:11:59.85)
I was thinking a lot about what you were saying there and I remember probably about a year or so before my mother passed away. She's been gone almost six years this month and she was probably wrestling with her own demons as you call them. My mother was a very private person. I didn't know a lot of her story and

Cecily Lachapelle (01:12:09.837)
Mmm.

Dawn Ward (01:12:20.056)
finding out a little bit more about it after she's passed away. But I do remember my mom saying, I wish that I had allowed you to be a child. She said, we put way too much on you. And she said, and I do wish I'd taken you kids out of that environment sooner.

Now, my dad is still alive and he doesn't know the Lord. And I look at him all the time and I realize so much of his unbrokenness and why he talked to us the way he does. He still talks to us that way. He'll still put negative, negative reinforcement, negative trying to get you to do things through negative. And he just is like that. And I have to sometimes remind him, hey, dad, like, that's not cool. But my point is my mother finally realized it and was many, many, years later.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:12:46.285)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:12:52.184)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:12:57.678)
I'm

Dawn Ward (01:13:02.878)
and apologized and said, just because you had big shoulders and you were strong and you were responsible didn't mean that I should have let you have all that responsibility of your siblings and all of that. And the reason I say this is because my mother had her kids turned out well. mean, her, if you want to call, turned out well. I didn't put her through the things that.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:13:16.494)
Mmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:13:28.696)
Yes. Right.

Dawn Ward (01:13:28.878)
I've gone through. I was hypervigilant. I was fearful. I was trying to protect my children, and they still had these struggles. And then my mother had, we were raised in this kind of chaotic home, and my mother didn't.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:13:41.88)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:13:44.91)
even realized that by allowing me just to do my own thing, that in some ways that was encouraging some of this. And so she had her own set of her own reasons to feel guilt and shame. But I said, but mom, know, I don't know that I would have depended on the Lord and on his, had the relationship with him that I have today because he told me when I was four years old, I was going to need him for this life, right? And yeah, he said that to me. And so if he said that to me, he knew ahead of time.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:13:56.813)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:14:08.45)
Yes. Yes. Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:14:14.924)
that things were not going to be easy, but that was the path he was allowing me to go on to get to that place of absolute surrender. Maybe somebody else could have taken a different journey, but obviously the Lord knew that while this was going to be a hard journey for me, he was going to be in it with me.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:14:17.614)
more.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:14:30.893)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:14:31.178)
And he was going to teach me in the process of how to lean on him, not lean on my own understanding, not lean on my own ability, like I've done all my life, but instead to learn how to lean on him. And that's what I want to encourage your listeners is to get comfortable with being uncomfortable because the process of sanctification is a constant dying to our flesh.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:14:35.479)
Mm-hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:14:40.759)
Yes.

Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:14:49.996)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:14:55.534)
We all have different strengths and weaknesses. have different parts of our flesh that seem to easily follow Christ and be obedient. And then we have those parts of our flesh that tend to resist him. And we all have that. We're either fleeing pleasure, mean, pursuing pleasure or fleeing pain. And that's kind of what our lives are all about is this balancing act of trying to always stay comfortable. And maybe some people want more pleasure and good times, and that's what they go for. And then other people are just like, I just don't want to be depressed

Cecily Lachapelle (01:15:14.318)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:15:25.508)
all the time. Just a little bit above depression would be good for me. And they're satisfied with that. And it's all because we have, we're made up differently. We all have different minds and chemical imbalances and all the things that go on in our body. And so for me, I think just operating without that constant feeling of anxiety.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:15:27.127)
Right.

Yeah

Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:15:37.506)
Hmm.

Dawn Ward (01:15:47.726)
I didn't have the kind of anxiety that took me off the charts and that I was having panic attacks or anything. If anything, I realized that I operated in a constant state of freeze. And what that meant was I turned off my emotion so that I could function. And so what the Lord started doing was allowing me to feel some of these things that maybe my, I think my mother might've been a lot like that too. And so starting to feel some of these things that would cause me to go like that.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:15:49.12)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:15:59.662)
Thanks.

Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:16:07.532)
Mm-hmm. Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:16:15.906)
But then it was, OK, what do I want you to do with that, Dawn? I want you to bring that to me. I want you to be OK with feeling a little uncomfortable. And I'm not talking about fully falling apart, but things that weren't natural to me, that were not my natural way of handling things and allowing myself to feel some of that brokenness that I had tried to not feel and not see.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:16:16.398)
Mm-hmm.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:16:23.064)
Yes.

Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:16:31.714)
Mmm. Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:16:42.018)
Yes. Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:16:43.086)
were the things that and so really the selfish part of it is when all of a sudden we quit trying to fix whatever loved one that is that's going through whatever they're going through and we start allowing God to work on all these things that are going on in us. Of course we're going to feel uncomfortable. We're going to feel selfish. We're going to feel weird because it's like we've been told not to draw all this attention to ourself to die to self and now God is saying but I want to put my finger on this and I want to reveal this to you and I want to deal with this because I want to grow your faith.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:17:06.528)
Yes. Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:17:11.691)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:17:13.04)
and you're like, but I thought I was supposed to die to myself and not deal with any of this stuff and just put it in a shelf somewhere, put it behind, know, lock it away. And all of a sudden the Lord's like, no, we're gonna deal with this because it's coming between me and you, you know, and your faith in me and your trusting me. And so that's a problem.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:17:23.21)
Yes, yes, yes. And that's exactly why I wrote the book because my book repurposed your pain because I knew that there were so many believers who are just like me, who and like you, who thought, well, the past is the past. All things are new. I'm a new creation in Christ. I'm born again. So I'm going to just move on.

Dawn Ward (01:17:45.518)
Cecily Lachapelle (01:17:53.738)
And yet not understanding why we keep cycling around the same mountain, why there are still the same mental and internal conversations going on that we can't get past and why there are certain areas of our faith that we're not winning in. And it's because, like you just said, we haven't allowed the Lord to really heal that wound and the Lord wants to heal it.

Not so that we go back into our past, we dredge it all up, we live in the past, we're, you know, harping and rehearsing and repressing. No, he wants us to repurpose that pain. We're going back with a purpose. We're going back to bring his word. We're going back to bring the healing so that it is healed, it's done, and we can actually close the door. But when it's an infection, it never heals. It's like a wound that constantly keeps festering.

Dawn Ward (01:18:38.358)
Right.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:18:50.104)
And the Lord said, want to officially heal this, finally heal it. And yeah, it's going to take some time. In the beginning of my book, in the introduction, I say, you know, I hope that you will give yourself the time that it takes, that you will invest in yourself. It feels selfish to take the time to invest, to do the activations, to do the reading, to go alone with the Lord and pray and to really do the work.

but it's the best work you'll ever do. It makes you a better mom. It makes you a better spouse. It makes you a better Christian. It makes you a better neighbor. It makes you a better evangelist. It makes you a better disciple and a better lover of Jesus when everything is not being filtered through our glasses, our dark colored glasses of our pain. Don't you think?

Dawn Ward (01:19:22.24)
Amen.

Dawn Ward (01:19:36.184)
Amen.

Dawn Ward (01:19:46.732)
You know, I agree with you. In the book, there's a story of my mother and she was afraid of the water. My mother wasn't a swimmer, she couldn't swim. And she was very afraid of the water. But she knew that my dad, who was a fireman, was a certified first responder.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:19:54.786)
Yes, it's a great story.

Dawn Ward (01:20:05.254)
And living in Las Vegas, everybody had pools and everybody was swimming. And my dad, more than one time, had saved the life of people. And so she knew that he knew how to do that. When I look back on that, I remember many times, like one time I was driving down the road with my father. And for some reason, I must not have closed. I was a little girl. I must have only been, again, like about that four or five year old age because of the house that we were living in. And my door flung open.

faster than I could see anything. My dad's hand flew, and that was the days we didn't wear seat belts. And my dad's hand flew past me. I felt him put pressure against me as he grabbed that door and pulled it shut and leaned over me to do that. But the first thing he did, I remember, was he pulled me closer and then reached to grab the door. And so I look back on these times in my life when my father, who, like I said,

Cecily Lachapelle (01:20:36.291)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:20:48.237)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:20:53.676)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:21:00.298)
had his own struggles, obviously, and I share some of that in the book, too. But he was there to protect me. And that is what the Lord is showing me as far as his presence in our life. When he's allowing things, when things that seem to be scary or harmful are coming our way, he's revealing those things that happened. He wants to reveal his presence and his protection when we went through some of these things. Where I looked back and thought it was all on me.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:21:25.068)
Yes. Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:21:29.452)
to protect my family, protect myself, protect my mom, protect everybody. The Lord was showing me, I'm there. I am your protector.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:21:37.838)
Mmm. Amen.

Dawn Ward (01:21:38.316)
You know, the Lord, I am the protector. And sometimes things happen and they don't make sense, but I am with you. And so when I hear, when I remember the story of being this little girl and you saying, hold onto my hand and never let go because you're gonna need it for this life. I think about what it's like when you hold onto your dad's hand and he's taking you and you're going someplace and you're skipping along because usually your legs can't keep up and you feel so safe because your dad is holding onto your hand.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:21:58.36)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:22:05.718)
And I realized some people don't have that relationship with their dad. But maybe it was their grandfather, or maybe they had an uncle or somebody in their life that they trusted that they just felt safe. And it was like, whew, I wouldn't have to be hypervigilant at that point because I was safe with my dad. And that's what Jesus wants for us, is not for us to be in a situation where it's always flight, fight, freeze all the time because we're so hypervigilant because we don't feel protected.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:22:12.107)
us.

Dawn Ward (01:22:35.842)
by him. We don't feel that he's carrying us. But the truth is he is. And that has been so helpful for me because it's like I can just breathe and realize that if I'm feeling, if I'm operating from a place of fear right now, now sometimes there's legitimate fear, like if the house is on fire.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:22:37.388)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:22:53.974)
Hahaha!

Dawn Ward (01:22:54.208)
You know, that's a good fear response is to grab your family, grab the dog, whatever it is, and get out. Because, you the house is burning to the grounds. You need that. That makes sense. But a lot of times our fears are based on the possibility of something that could go wrong. Because of a past experience of something that did go wrong.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:22:59.466)
Yeah, yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:23:04.119)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:23:09.665)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:23:14.188)
And we're living in that space between what's a possibility. But God did not give us a spirit of fear, but of love and power and a sound mind. And so if my mind is not sound and it's frazzled and I'm confused and all these things are going on and I don't know why, I have to take myself back and say, Lord, am I trusting in you?

Cecily Lachapelle (01:23:14.37)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:23:20.524)
Amen.

Dawn Ward (01:23:34.966)
Am I holding onto your hand as you're leading me and guiding me? And I feel like some of your followers might need to hear this. One of my signs that I'm not in a good place with the Lord, that I'm not trusting him, is I tend to get, and this could be a trauma response, so this is why I'm mentioning it, overthink, overthinking, can't make a decision, just constantly going round and round the same mountain, playing out all the scenarios. Well, this could be good for this reason.

not the same as a productive pros and cons. This is the feeling that no matter what decision you make, it's going to be the wrong one. OK? And that is something that I've had to really wrestle with, because that's fear-based mindset. Instead of, hey, you you grab it onto God's hand. He's taking you along. You're skipping. And you thought you were going to go left, so you start to go a little bit left. And He pulls you over this way. And you just, ha, ha, ha. And you follow Him, because you completely trust Him.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:08.94)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:13.93)
Yes. Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:19.562)
Mmm. Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:34.38)
Yeah. Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:24:34.61)
And me, it's this constant contention with, God shouldn't be going over here. Come over this way. He's like, no, we're going right, Dawn. And so I tend to do that with a lot of decisions in my life. And I'm fessing up that this isn't an area that I've necessarily conquered. This is an area that he's continuing to work with me on, even where the ministry is involved, where my own life is involved with what I do with this.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:42.808)
guess.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:52.258)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:24:56.672)
last chapter of my life, you know, and all these things. It's like, Lord, what is it you want me to do? And he keeps coming back to just trust me, trust my plan. Things don't always make sense. They don't always seem like you have them all figured out before, but just follow my voice and trust me. And if you're feeling this intense fear,

Cecily Lachapelle (01:24:58.477)
You

Cecily Lachapelle (01:25:06.07)
yes

Cecily Lachapelle (01:25:10.999)
Yeah.

Dawn Ward (01:25:17.448)
Stop, get connected with me, because I didn't give you that spirit of fear. I gave you love and power and a sound mind. If you ask me for wisdom and you're not double-minded and you believe that you will receive it, I'm going to give it to you. But don't be double-minded. Trust me. And so those are some of the areas that I've had to learn to work with, because my thing was to control and to make it was my responsibility to make all the right decisions. And if I made all the right decisions,

Cecily Lachapelle (01:25:26.67)
Mm.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:25:31.159)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:25:45.046)
something good was going to happen, and I was under God's blessing. But if I made the wrong decisions, it was going to turn out bad, and now God was punishing me. Or maybe not punishing me, but allowed that bad thing to happen because I didn't listen. Well, guess what, moms? If you're in this situation, especially moms with children who struggle with addiction, you may be doing all the right things. And you may have heard from the Lord, and he may say, this is a boundary you need to establish in your relationship with your child. He doesn't get to live under your roof while he's using drugs. You don't give him any more money.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:25:54.626)
Yes. Right. Right. Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:26:13.454)
Alright.

Dawn Ward (01:26:14.486)
You've offered him the opportunity to go get help. You're willing to help him get help. If he wants help, he's refusing. You didn't kick him out. You didn't tell him. You didn't make him a homeless person. His decisions made him homeless because he refused to take the help. yeah, and so because it doesn't always turn out good.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:26:28.0)
Isn't that the hardest? Ugh, it's the hardest, ugh.

Dawn Ward (01:26:32.822)
to do the right thing. But isn't the Bible full of those stories? Jesus, who did nothing but obey his father and do everything his father told him to do, ended up crucified on a cross. By all outward appearances, that would look like a really bad thing. But a really good thing came out of it, that we can have eternal life with him. And we see other stories in the Bible of people who were obedient to Christ and to God and did what they were told to do. And things just went from bad to worse.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:26:33.143)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:26:44.824)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:26:51.33)
Yes. Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:02.402)
Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:27:02.666)
So it's that understanding that it's not just what we're going on. This is all temporary that's going on around us right now. God is doing an eternal work in everyone. And so I encourage moms, and I encourage moms of not just children struggling with addiction, but maybe their kids are off doing their own thing or living a rebellious lifestyle. Always pray for their salvation first. I pray for their salvation over their sobriety because I want them to know Jesus and to, because I want them to be with Jesus in heaven.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:09.052)
is.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:20.685)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:26.988)
Yes. Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:27:32.48)
even if the worst case thing happens on this earth, that they would know Jesus as their personal savior. And that should be our prayer for them because then he can get into, he gets in and does the sanctifying. He does the cleaning up, right? But because he's done it with me. And I came from a family where it's very normal,

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:35.182)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:38.912)
Amen. Amen.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:27:44.992)
Yes. Yes.

huh.

Dawn Ward (01:27:54.164)
I was telling somebody recently, said, my brain will still sometimes say, and I'm not a drinker, and I've always been really careful with alcohol because of my family, but where I would walk in the front door and this thought would pop into my mind, I need a drink. Well, it's because I heard it thousands of times growing up and it got into a neural pathway in my brain. And I was like,

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:08.749)
Wow.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:12.174)
Mmm.

Dawn Ward (01:28:15.222)
I don't need a drink, I don't drink. But my point in saying all of this is that these are the things that Lord is putting his finger on and renewing our minds and working on is the truth setting us free. But we don't often think of them. These belief systems are just in there having at it like a pinball in a pinball machine, know, boingy, boingy, boingy. And we're just going along with it because it's this belief system that feels normal to us. And then he starts putting his finger on these things and it's very uncomfortable and sometimes even painful.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:17.55)
Wow.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:26.498)
Yes.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:32.078)
That's it.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:38.414)
That's right.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:42.392)
Yes. Yes.

Dawn Ward (01:28:43.33)
that process is an OK thing to go through. And that's why if you need a good counselor, you need somebody, good biblical mentor, somebody who can kind of a good friend that really knows the word of God that can help you. But that encouragement of having somebody with you that you can kind of process these things off of is a good idea too.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:28:46.862)
Amen.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:29:06.376)
Amen. Amen. So good. So I hope you all were listening. Dawn has dropped so many golden nuggets and has given us so many great tools about how to repurpose our shame into an encounter with the grace of God. And that last one is allowing the Lord to really speak to our heart and allowing ourselves

to be transparent, not just with the Lord, but with other people. One of the things that I talk about in my chapter on shame is that shame wants to keep us in the closet. Shame wants us to think that we can't bring our skeletons out of the closet. The fear of rejection, the fear of reprisal, the fear that we will be outed for our brokenness.

We'd like to keep that a secret. And like that gentleman, that abuser told Don, well, you better not tell anybody about this because your whole life, you will be responsible for ruining so many people if you bring the skeleton out of the closet. So don't you do it. Keep that secret. That's what the devil wants. That's the liar. The accuser of the brethren is telling us that

Well, you better not bring that shameful thing out into the light. You better keep it a secret because you could blow up everything. If people find out what you're really like, what your family is really like, what is really happening behind closed doors. now Dawn and I are not saying you go blab it to anybody. I hope you heard what she said. You find somebody who knows the word of God, someone you trust, but who know was stable and strong.

in the Word of God, who's going to be able to love you unconditionally, but also point you to the truth. You also probably, you might need to find someone who is a counselor. If your situation involves abuse or alcohol abuse or addiction, things that are currently going on, you might need to find a licensed professional for that. But whatever you do, just understand.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:31:31.456)
Shame in the closet grows. Shame brought into the light withers and dies. And the enemy does not want you to do that. But there's going to come a day when you're going to be dancing with those skeletons. In my chapter on shame, I talked about the date rape that I experienced and the shame that overwhelmed me after that. I felt like I was this stupid girl.

who got myself into that situation and it's caused me to spiral into behaviors that just compounded that shame and made me feel worse about myself. And in the chapter I said, if you had told the 17 year old me that one day I would be writing about that experience in a book, that I would be sharing it openly for people to read, I would have died. I would have died a thousand deaths. I probably would have jumped off a bridge.

thinking, no, no, nobody can ever know this. But now it's my joy to share it because I can say, look what God has done. The enemy gave me his best shot and a bunch more. The enemy tried to destroy me with that, but God is greater. God restored everything that the devil stole and more. And he gave me a testimony of his faithfulness. He gave me a testimony of his power.

Jesus was close to me and showed me that he loved me despite any woundedness and that he was going to lead me to those streams of living water. And so now I don't have to be ashamed. I'm proud. I can wear those situations like a banner because I have become a trophy of God's grace. Now the Lord can hold me up and say,

You can be this broken and I can restore you. Your family can be this steeped in addiction and I can break you free and I can restore you. There's nothing beyond my power to restore. But as long as we keep that shame locked in a closet and we don't bring it out into the light, then we are allowing that woundedness to fester.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:33:56.122)
And we are allowing the skeleton to speak louder than the truth of who Jesus is and what he's done for us. So that last point that Dawn just made is a fantastic tool. All right. Well, we are going to actually bring this amazing discussion to a close. I had some things I was going to read from the book, but we didn't get to it. So I'm going to tell you all, see this book. I have all my little markers here. I've got a couple of bookmarks. I have read this book cover to cover. And if you are a mom,

or a parent that is struggling, that is a child struggling with addiction, or any shameful circumstance as a parent, you need to get this book. You can get it on Amazon, and it is a phenomenal read. And Christmas is coming, so you could purchase this book for yourself or for someone you know that is struggling with this, and give them the opportunity for a brand new year.

That's probably the best gift that you could give someone is I love you enough to put the truth in your hands. And you all probably know my book Repurpose Your Pain is about 10 pain points that are common to people. I share my experiences as well with that. And then we see what the word of God says about how we repurpose all of that pain. So Dawn and I are running in the same kind of a track. We just want to add value to your lives.

Everything that the enemy has tried to do in us, it's all backfiring because it's now become territory and ground we own. We own this land. We have anointing and we have authority to say, if God can do it for us, He will do it for you. Don't you fear. Just bring it out into the light. And we're here for you and the Lord is here for you. So we're going to just close this up in prayer right now. Hallelujah.

Dawn Ward (01:35:27.212)
Mm-hmm.

Dawn Ward (01:35:39.937)
Amen.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:35:52.172)
Heavenly Father, I thank you so much for these precious people that have tuned in, that have listened to Dawn's story. I know there are people right now who are weeping because everything she said has touched on pain points in their heart and that you have orchestrated them listening to this podcast right now for such a time as this. This is your sign, precious one.

that the Lord is pouring out grace upon you to turn to Him, to pour out the pain of your heart, to cast your cares upon Him, and He will heal you. The Lord is close, very close to the brokenhearted, and He loves to be there for His beloved and to restore you. So Father God, I thank you right now in the mighty name of Jesus that there is no distance in the spirit

and that your anointing is going even through the airwaves over YouTube, over Apple podcasts, wherever these people are listening. And your anointing is beginning to do the work to break the yoke of bondage. This is a new day and we decree it and call it done in Jesus' name. Amen. Amen. Man, Dawn, I wish we could keep talking because there are so much more that I know you could share.

Dawn Ward (01:37:10.122)
Amen.

Dawn Ward (01:37:15.576)
Yeah.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:37:18.35)
And I just want to thank you for sharing your amazing story with us and for adding so much value to my listeners. And before we sign off, my goodness, it's been my pleasure. Absolutely. And I just know that that God's called caused our past across for a reason. So this might not be the last time that my precious listeners get to hear from you. And we've got more to talk about. I know.

Dawn Ward (01:37:26.72)
You're welcome. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:37:46.776)
Well, before we sign off, I want to invite all the listeners to join our live Q and A and discussion when it gets scheduled. So keep your eyes on my Instagram and Facebook to see when Dawn and I are going to be hosting a live talk on Instagram, because maybe you have questions about how shame impacts your life or you want to ask Dawn some specific questions about how she repurposed her shame. It is such an amazing encounter with the truth of God's grace.

or maybe you have been doing this work with God and you just want to share your story and we'd love to hear about it. So in our Q &A, you're going to have the opportunity to do just that. So make sure to join us and share that link on your social media so that your friends and followers can join as well. And for now, I just want to thank you, my incredible tribe, for being a part of today's podcast. We're here to help you and encourage you on your journey. So if anything you heard today blessed you.

then please let me know in the comments. And also make sure to be a conduit of blessing so others can benefit. And this isn't just that crazy. Make sure to share and like and subscribe. You honestly, if something that you heard today was a benefit and a blessing to you, just share what you learned with other people, whether that is on social media or during a conversation or a coffee or hanging out with friends. And if you haven't already done it, subscribe to this podcast wherever you're listening to it.

on YouTube or Apple podcasts or Spotify. And you can join my email, my newsletter at higherpursuitministries.com so you can receive my newsletter and my blog. All right, I would love to just bless you right now in the name of Jesus. Folks, we are on this higher pursuit of more of Jesus together. None of us have arrived. And our goal for this podcast is always to offer you something nourishing that will strengthen

encourage and challenge you as you pursue Jesus in the middle of your, sometimes messy, everyday life. So until next time, I pray that you walk in the favor of God and I will see you in the next podcast. God bless.

Cecily Lachapelle (01:39:58.922)
All right. Nice!