Heal & Grow with Nickie
Join your host, Nickie Kromminga Hill, and her guests on a journey of personal stories and insights into healing and growth from past and current trauma. The focus is on fostering true connections through conversations centered around vulnerability and authenticity. The goal is to collectively heal and find opportunities for growth, promoting a sense of togetherness.
Heal & Grow with Nickie
28. A Conversation with Eric Paulson
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In this episode, we'll journey through the shadows as my friend, Eric Paulson, tumbles into a parent's worst nightmare - navigating a child's drug addiction. It's a raw, emotional rollercoaster that shatters the misconception of addiction being a character flaw. We walk with him on this tumultuous journey, overlooking the warning signs, dealing with the stark reality, and the grueling path to recovery. It's a testament to resilience, love, and the power of forgiveness.
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Educating, Principalship, and Working With Students
Speaker 1Hey, eric, you got any good jokes for me.
Speaker 2Well, you know, I do have a good joke for you, a good holiday joke. I don't know if it's a good joke.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2But it is a holiday joke.
Speaker 3Great, okay, that's appropriate, we'll see.
Speaker 2You can decide.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 2All right. So Santa Claus this time of year decided he could no longer hang out with the elves anymore. I know it was sad, but he just couldn't do it. And he went in and told Mrs Claus, I can't hang out with the elves anymore because they're elfin crazy.
Speaker 3Welcome to Heal and.
Speaker 1Grow with Nikki. I'm your host, Nikki Kraminga Hill. Here we talk about everything Grief, hope, illness, work, family, tragedy, possibilities, fun stuff and not so fun stuff.
Speaker 3It's all on the table. Let's take a look at our lives and work to Heal and Grow together. I'm so glad you're here.
Speaker 1Hey everybody, Welcome back to Heal and Grow with Nikki. I have a very special guest today, Mr Eric Paulson. Say hi, Eric.
Speaker 2Hello, and I'll add a woo-woo.
Speaker 1To know him is to love him. Eric is my friend and my partner in shenanigans with Alive and Kicken, which we talk about all the time on this podcast, so that's how I met you.
Speaker 2yeah, that is, that is, or I met you before that no, I think. I met you at Alive and Kicken. It was, yes, a couple of years ago, when you came in to help with the show.
Speaker 1Yeah, I think it was. April of 2022 is probably when I met you.
Speaker 2Well, we'll go with that. We'll go with that, let's go with that.
Speaker 1No one's going to fact check us and I didn't know then, but I do know now that you were brothers, brothers in law, brother in laws, brothers, brothers in law. There we go, it's like correct With Michael Matthew Farrell, who I've talked about a lot on this show. He was my friend and mentor and he was the one that got Alive and Kicken going, so is that how you found out about Alive and Kicken?
Speaker 2I did. Yeah, the first time I met Michael I was dating his sister, so this would have been probably December of 1982. And Diane, Michael's mom and Mary's mom took us out to eat at a place called Guadalajara that used to be in St Anthony, Maine, and I met Michael there for the first time and just really enjoyed him, enjoyed his energy and his sense of humor and how we could both pick on his sister and I had a partner in crime right from the beginning.
Speaker 1I'm sure Mary was like oh God, this again.
Speaker 2Oh, she's tough, she can handle it.
Speaker 1She can handle it. Okay, I'm going to read your bio real quick before we move on. A career educator, eric graduated from the University of Minnesota Twin Cities in 1982. He taught for two years at St Bartholomew School excuse me in Wysetta, then returned to his alma mater, richfield Public Schools, where he taught fifth and sixth grade for 11 years, then worked as an administrator for the next 22 years wow at both the elementary and high school levels. After retiring in 2017, he continued as a school bus driver for five years and now is a drug mule for capsule pharmacy. I see their commercials all of the time.
Speaker 2Well, there you go. It's a good pharmacy, you know. Plug, plug.
Speaker 1Eric's the guy delivering your drugs. He has been married to his wife, mary Michael Farrell's sister, for 40 years. They have three children Chelsea, carl and Anders, and three grandchildren Sophia, age three, olivia, age two and Graham, one year. He lied about his age and joined A&K in 2019. He has appeared in three A&K shows, plus Peace for the Ages, a collaboration with Stages Theater. He has worked in radio as a football and hockey analyst and, for a time, co-hosted the City of Richfield podcast. He has not written a book. He does not have his own podcast, but greatly admires people who have done these things. I've done those things. I can help you out.
Speaker 2Well, I greatly admire you, so it seems like a lot of work to me.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean kind of a little bit. Yeah, but you're an educator. I was only an educator for five years, like officially. I got my teaching license and taught in a public school for five years and that is as long as I could hack it. So you did what's? 22 plus? Would you say seven, five, I don't know like 30, some years you've been in education.
Speaker 2I think it was well 33, 34 years in schools. I just went there. I never learned how to get out. I never graduated. I went to the principal's office in seventh grade and never left.
Speaker 1Now that was the thing that surprised me about you when I met you is that and it shouldn't, because I'm around educators all of the time but you don't have the quote unquote stereotypical principal attitude. You're just this really, and maybe I was because I was always afraid of principles when I was little they were going to yell at me and suspend me or something which never happened. But you're just so fun and sweet and funny and carefree, but maybe that's what made you. I bet you're a really good principal just because you're so kind.
Speaker 2Well, I think that when you get to know principles, a lot of them are that way. I think they have that persona that you just vocalized about that. But there are just certain aspects of that role that you need to have to be good at it, because you wear so many hats, right, and ultimately, what you want to do is work for the kids and work for your students, but again with your staff, and I was fortunate I had wonderful people working for me, but it's like herding cats, so you have to have a lot of tricks in your bag to do that. So I think, once you get to know principles, I would feel that same way about district administrators. Yeah, oh, my goodness, no sense of humor. Yeah, what are these people? How boring are. But then I got to know them. Wow, you people can be a riot too. So I think once you get to know people in those roles, you'll find out yes, they are people other than there are people, and the only thing I have different than teachers had was I could send you home, right.
Speaker 1I don't know if you got to send me home.
Speaker 2That was the one thing that I could do differently.
Speaker 1I just I don't know, I think it's. I have a special fondness in my heart for educators, you know, just because I know what they go through, and I can only imagine how much more difficult it could be to be an administrator. Or maybe it's not that different. Like, what did you prefer? Did you not have a preference between teaching and administration?
Speaker 2Well, the biggest difference is when you're teaching, everything is guided by the clock. You're doing this at this time, you're ending a lesson at this time. The kids have to be to this place at this time. Once you become an administrator, nothing is by the clock anymore, because the minute you think you have some time to do a certain task, boom, there's a crisis. Right, so you have to. You have to enjoy being able to put out fires. Another big difference is you get into education. Most people do because they want to work with students, right, and once you become an administrator, you really have to find avenues to work with students, because that's why you got into it in the first place.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And so my favorite time of the day at the high school level is I love doing lunch duty. No other people would be out there just cringing, but that that's when I could talk to kids and develop relationships with kids on a casual basis. I thought that was phenomenal. Or hall duty, because that that's when I could touch base with kids and just say hi, how are you doing, How's your day going? Take off your hat, Take off your hat, take off your hood. Hey, I tell them I love wearing hats. Every minute I'm out of the school I wear a hat. I can't do it in here, so I get it.
Speaker 2So we have to ask you and really it was a. It's a safety thing. And you'd point out to kids. You'd say look at these cameras. Now, the majority of these cameras at that time were in black and white. If you're wearing a hood or you're wearing a baseball hat, we can't necessarily tell if you're a student here in the school or someone who doesn't belong here. So it's really a safety issue. Now, I'm not sure they really bought that, but it does boil down to that. But that was that, was that in suspending kids with. The two worst parts of the job was telling them to take their hats and hoods off or sending them also. Chaperoning dances was not one of my favorite activities.
Speaker 1I always rubbed my parents into chaperoning the dances. I don't know why they said yes.
Speaker 2Well, I remember doing that for my kids too, but I didn't have at that point though I didn't have to be, and we really, at Richfield, we really prided ourselves on not having anything goes on the dance floor. So I would be the one in there breaking no, we don't do that here. You want to do that? Go to the club. We don't dance like that here.
Speaker 1You don't grind on each other at school.
Speaker 2Exactly Right. So that became what my role was in chaperoning. So it's like, well, okay, but you know, it's just one of those things that's fun watching the kids have fun. But again, you're kind of always sitting on that powder keg of, okay, something's going to happen. Oh, my gosh, just waiting for it to happen. When's it going to happen, oh, and it always does.
Speaker 1Oh, always A horrible way to like have to go through work. Like always, like something's going to be around the corner or something's going to blow up in my face on a second. Where is it? Like the way that I can anticipate it and shut it down.
Parental Perspective on Child's Drug Addiction
Speaker 2And that's not everybody's cup of tea to do that. So you have to be comfortable with that part of that where something is going to happen and you just have to wait for it to happen and then deal with the aftermath of that. But I was very fortunate. I was never involved in a school shooting. I never had to go through any of that. Richfield was a wonderful place for me to have my career at. We had great kids, great families, so I really don't have bad memories of that whole time.
Speaker 1Did your kids grow up through the Richfield school system too?
Speaker 2No, my kids went to Bloomington so, and I really didn't want them to go to school with me being the principal at that school? No, we never. They never had to do that. I know they do that and I would stay it all the time.
Speaker 1But now we're not going to have to, right? So the reason why you're here, besides just chatting and talking about shenanigans with me shenanigans is one of my favorite words accidentally said it one time I alive and kicking and it's stuck and so shenanigans just means fun or doing things that you're not supposed to do.
Speaker 2There is some of that, yes.
Speaker 1But Eric's going to chat with us today about one of his kiddos who I mean I'll let you, I'll let you talk about it in an intro, all of it, and then I'll just interject with all of my questions and comments. But one of his kiddos is a recovering drug addict and Eric has just this really interesting perspective from being on the parental side of that. Typically, we hear these stories and we hear it from the kids side, the child side but we don't really ask, like, how did that affect you and your family and you know, and how is your relationship with your son now? So why don't you go ahead and just start chatting with us about that?
Speaker 2Well, and just so we know, I did ask my son, because this is his, really his story to share, but I told him what, what I'd be doing, and he's fine, he was fine yeah, go ahead of that, which is a testament to your relationship.
Speaker 2Yeah, it's fine, that's yeah that's fine, go ahead, and but I did make sure I did get his permission to be able to talk about that. Well, so our son, our youngest one, was not necessarily the typical suburban story how he got involved with drugs. Like a lot of kids in high school, they'll experiment with, you know, starting with alcohol or starting with chew, and then try different things and other things and what? In his case he had a friend whose dad was going through terminal cancer but also had a desk full drawer of oxy cotton. So the son would grab some oxy cottons and all of a sudden pass those around. And again, one of those things with addiction is people will find what they'll find their drug of choice, and then that's the one that triggers that. If you do suffer from addiction, which is a disease, it is not a personality or character flaw.
Speaker 2Amen to that it's been classified as a disease since the 50s.
Speaker 1Oh really, I didn't know it was that long People don't think that though. Right.
Speaker 2And we'll get into that right what's wrong with you though, yeah, you're just a weak person. So then you know that experiment with those and he kind of found the drug that he liked in that and we didn't really have we had. We had some warning signs, but I think, like most parents, you're you kind of I don't want to say gloss over them, but you maybe excuse them for other things and you have blinders on. I think he had an underage drinking piece his junior year in high school, between his junior and senior year and it's like, well, okay, you know, when I was a kid in high school, their high school kids do this, experiment with that, right, those kinds of things. And so we, okay, well, this is just growing up, you'll go to college and this will happen and you'll get that all sorted out. This is just stuff that kids do, yeah, that way. And so that's kind of how his mom and I, you know, thought about that at that point in time with that and we really didn't have.
Speaker 2We look back on it and there were plenty of red flags. Now, when we look back on that, but going through it, you you don't know those red flags or you tend to minimize, yeah, some of what, some of what those red flags are that way. Okay, we'll get them through summer, we'll get them off to school and he'll love college. You know the freedom of college, he'll love all that. And he was a smart kid. I mean he walked into, take his a ct and I'm sure he was probably hung over when he took it and walked in and walked out of there with the 33, had a full business ride to the lube, our school of business at the University of Wisconsin Milwaukee.
Speaker 1Wow, without still doing. You know, even if he was doing drugs or drinking or whatever, he was high functioning. Yes, yeah, what he was right.
Speaker 2He was a kid whose school came easy to him that way, so he really didn't have to put in a ton of work at it. So school was fine, so it wasn't an issue of grades. His senior year he opted to go to Normandale for a senior year. Yeah, instead of staying at high school he went there and that's what he wanted to do and of course we were supportive of that. We're supportive parents, you know. Yeah, okay, go to that. And then one of the red flags was, I believe, in an English class he ended up getting a D and that wasn't.
Speaker 1Not typical.
Speaker 2Not typical him. So then it's one of those things where no, you're, you're not probably even going to class and at that point you can't get a lot of information when they're there at Normandale about your kids. Right, a lot of that school type they're not telling you hey, your kids not showing up at, nor the high school they would.
Speaker 2Right, but once they're out, community college, no, community college, that didn't necessarily happen, but he made it through. And, okay, well, senior again, another excuse. Well, senior slide, sure, this and that, you know, all that made sense. So we get get him graduated. He, you know he'd work in the summer but it also stay out a lot and but he was holding, you know, hold down a job. But he, okay, well, this your senior summer, your last summer, you're going to have fun, you're having fun, these kinds of things. And then, and we're going off to college and I think he has said the first time he tried heroin was the day before he left for college.
Speaker 3Wow.
Speaker 2The day before I brought him to Milwaukee, to you know, to start school.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2And he didn't. He, you know, was there and he was successful in school. Now he'd party like a, you know, like freshman and do that and and, but he was again. You know, school was successful. He's on the dean's list. So, okay, well, as long as you're getting decent grades and we're not getting calls from the police or from the school, things must be going well you know, things must be going well.
Speaker 2So he comes home for Christmas break, for winter break, and I'm in, he was downstairs in our house and Mary, my wife, comes up and says well, hey, eric, you got to come downstairs, something's going on with Anders. So I get up and I go walking downstairs and you tell he's just just out of it, just higher than a kite. And there were, you know, evidence that this was not just a drinking type thing. So I haul him into Fairview, down, you know, downtown, and kind of you know, sit there in emergency room with him for for five, six hours till he comes down out of this and you know, was he able to tell you what was happening?
Speaker 1I mean you just knew, okay?
Speaker 2No, he was right, he was in kind of that nodding off stage that happens to heroin addicts, and it went down. He then we kind of just sat through it till he got out of that emergency room. They really didn't do anything for him, it wasn't. He wasn't overdosing or anything.
Speaker 1Oh sure, so they're like there's nothing we can't really help.
Speaker 2So you just gonna sit here, just hang out here.
Speaker 1so you can be safe, but oh wow.
Speaker 2But now we knew kind of what was going on and of course we were naive enough to. Well, anders, you're never going to do that again, right? It's a god, no, no no, no, I won't do that again. I'll never do, okay. Well, we're going to send you back to school, but knowing, hey, we're concerned, but you're never going to do that again, right?
Speaker 2No no, I won't Wow. So now here he goes back off to school and again does well in school, or makes it, and I'm not saying well, but makes it, makes it through, it's not this is his freshman year, right, everything's fine.
Speaker 2if that well in our mind, out of sight, out of mind, okay, what's he really doing? We don't really know. We're assuming it's okay Because we're not getting information otherwise. Well then he comes home for the summer and I think that's probably the first time he went in his first treatment program that he went in down, I believe, at Fairview and lasted like two or three days and I made up some excuse to get out of there.
Speaker 1Did he go to treatment because he wanted to or because you asked him to?
Speaker 2I think it was. I think it was a combination. Sure Of that. I'm not sure he wanted to. I think he's wanting to is okay. This will maybe take some heat off me for mom and dad it shows that I'm Right that Taking care of it Right that I'm doing this and he talks about that first treatment program. As always said, I knew right away I was going to.
Speaker 1Out of here the whole time, wow. So he used during treatment.
Speaker 2Well he, he knew right away once he got out, as soon as he could, he would use again Got it.
Speaker 1So he lasted about three days Using.
Speaker 2Got him right, got himself kicked out.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 2And then you know, of course, always would assure us no, no, no, I'm not doing anything, I'm not using, I'm not doing that and, being the parents, we wanted to believe that.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2But now we're getting evidence that things are progressing in this disease and Makes it through the summer. Send them back to school. I believe he came back that that Fall and went, went into and then at winter break If we put him in another treatment program, he he was in and out of treatments probably about seven or eight times.
Speaker 3Okay.
Speaker 2Which is you find out. That's fairly typical.
Speaker 3Pretty typical. Right.
Speaker 2At that point. So our journey included, you know, fair, fair view. Downtown couple, hazelden's teen challenge, two or three different outpatient programs just trying to find what were thinking this would be the next, the next one.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And all along, mary and I are becoming more aware of this and You're into these. These are things you don't talk about with your neighbors or your friends. You don't talk about your son having these issues, so there's really no one and we've never dealt well. I think we both have had addiction in the family, but not in something where we had a you know, a responsibility to that particular individual at that time, like you do with with your child.
Speaker 3Right so you have.
Speaker 1So you're in the middle of this, you and Mary are in the middle of this and you can talk to each other about it, but there's really nowhere else. You felt like you could.
Speaker 2No, not, not that. We felt at that time, though, that we could, we could go.
Speaker 1That you could reach out and say hey, who has experience with this that can help us out? Yeah, Exactly.
Speaker 2And so you sit there and you go through all those things of okay, what did we do wrong, what should we have done, what you know, what can we say to make him stop Right All those? So those things just start to eat away at you. And then you also get to that point where you know you're worried that, okay, when are we going to get that phone call in the middle of the night.
Speaker 3Of course, just waiting for it.
Speaker 2And I remember going out with a pastor friend of mine and talking to him a little bit about that. He had an inkling at this and his first question to me was are you prepared for your son to die?
Speaker 3Oh, wow.
Speaker 2That was his first question, but the phrasing of the question are you meaning me? Prepared for this to happen?
Speaker 1And how did you answer that?
Speaker 2I thought about it for a minute and I kind of looked at him and said I don't know if you can be prepared, but I know that that's the reality.
Speaker 1That this is definitely a possibility.
Speaker 2Yes, and we had those conversations with him all the time and you know, eventually it got to be okay. You had two things here. One you're going to die, yeah. Two you're going to be in jail.
Speaker 3That's what you're looking at.
Speaker 2Because, as this went on through those years and it's probably six years, I think, and maybe six or seven years as it went on again we became much more well versed in what was happening and knew what was happening and going on and so, and having different things that didn't work for us in dealing with him, what we felt didn't work, not knowing what we didn't know, you know had, yes, those conversations that, well, these are your two roads, until we found Alenon.
Speaker 1Okay.
Speaker 2We eventually decided to attend to Alenon, and Mary went to a different one and I went to one. We didn't want it, we didn't go to the same group and after the first meeting I went to a meeting in Bloomington. She went to one out in Burnsville. My group was three elderly women and me yeah, and it's like, okay, this really isn't. I mean this, I didn't.
Speaker 1Did you just feel like, well, this is not for me.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, this is what this is. I'm not, you know nothing. And then Mary came home just kind of gushing about her group and the amount of parents that were there, and so well, I'm going to go to your group now, and so we started attending Alenon meetings.
Speaker 1And at what point did you start attending? Like a few years into it, like at what point in like this journey with Anders and just him trying to get in and out of treatment and everything. At what point did Alenon come in about?
Speaker 2Probably about the third year, so he's around 20. About the third year we were at, just you know, wit's end with what?
Speaker 1How do we help you? Yeah, how we help ourselves. Right, what's going to happen?
Speaker 2We didn't even know the questions asked or anything about you know helping yourself and like a lot of people that go into that first Alenon meeting, okay, well, what I want answers of what? What can you tell me to do to get him to stop? Sure, I'm looking for that magic bullet that we can't figure out. So what, what did?
Speaker 1and that's not that's not Alan, no.
Speaker 2I'm pretty soon. We realize no, this is not about that. This is about you and how you deal with it and how you care for yourself while your child is going through this, and so that was a whole different way for us to look at that, because we didn't know different.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2That way that, oh yeah, I guess we do have to take care of ourselves to be of any help, and so that began our Alenon journey with him, and really it was for us how to keep us sane and healthy.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2While he's going through this, and so it took a while to get into that mindset that, no, this is not about him, this is about you, right, and how you're handling this. And, of course, it gave you an outlet to meet with other parents that were going through the same thing that you're talking about in a safe space.
Speaker 1Yes. Where you, you could talk right exactly.
Speaker 2You could talk about these things and would walk out of meetings the first few meetings. Would walk out and go. Oh well, at least he hasn't had problems with the law.
Speaker 1Sure, because you're hearing these stories from other people Sure.
Speaker 2Well then, enough of you know. A couple months later, boom Okay.
Speaker 3He's having problems legal problems yeah.
Speaker 2All right, oh well, at least he hasn't overdosed. Sure enough, a couple months later, you know, we get the, we get the overdose and the Narcan and that whole, that whole piece of that. So whenever we got smart and just aware enough not to say well, at least our child isn't doing that, because invariably that's what would happen, like, oh well, ours a boy, but they're really having problems, ours isn't that much of a problem.
Speaker 1Well, you can't do that comparative suffering Right, because it never works out.
Speaker 2No, and it did not, because again we would say something and sure enough it would happen. We'd be having the same issues later on. Right With that. So we would do the treatments and it go to different. And it was interesting Our first treatment out in Hazelton we did the youth one which is out in Plymouth, I believe, by Armstrong High School and we did the parent week and they would come in and you'd see the kids. So here you'd see these other kids and these are good looking kids, athletic, smart.
Speaker 3Sure.
Speaker 2And again we're talking Hazelton. It's not like so. These are parents that have insurance or have the financial means to put them in resources to do that. But it was amazing that no, and you really did get the sense that no, this crosses. Addiction is not a rich person, poor person, black, white, whatever race issue Addiction doesn't discriminate.
Speaker 2No, it does not discriminate and we really hit home when you saw that that way and just his journey through all that was very eye-opening for us. That again you see these kids that seems like have everything in the world going for them, you know, have stable families, have means, have you know the world kind of is their oyster except they have this disease.
Speaker 2And that impacts everything they do and we become. Eventually you come to the realization that you can't do anything about it as a parent. So they talk a lot about that detaching with love.
Speaker 1Detaching with love.
Speaker 2And how do you do that? That easy to say, really difficult to do, but that's one of the cornerstones is you have to detach with love. I mean you still have to love your kid, I get that, but you have zero control over how this is going to play out.
Speaker 1That's just got to be maddening, it is.
Speaker 2It's frustrating, but when you come to that realization and accept that, that makes those times where you're wondering about it. You know, boy, what did we do wrong? Where did we go wrong by this kid? What fault is it of ours that makes those moments lessen.
Speaker 3Sure.
Speaker 2You still have those.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And boy, you know how did he get into this, but it makes it. It gives you something to kind of rely on and say you know they're really until they decide to get clean. What we would say no, there isn't. And you come to that realization that they have to decide before it kills them and we were again. We were fortunate in that fentanyl wasn't a big thing at that time.
Speaker 1Right, like it is now.
Speaker 2Right, Because you're right. You never. You know these, these poor kids out there that take this stuff for the first time or whatever, and it kills them.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2And they don't know what they're doing.
Speaker 1They don't know what they're doing. They don't know what they're saying. Yes to.
Speaker 2No, so we and there was Narcan available, and so different, you know a little different journey now.
Speaker 3Sure.
Speaker 2Then back then, Then back then, Back when, when we were going through that. So you do, you do look at things and look at, well, you know you're, you're really there's some, there's something intervening in your life that he's still here, yeah, that way, and you know it just. But it is, it is a process. It is a process. I wish on no other parent, but you have to look at, okay, maybe there's a reason Mary and I were selected to go through this, you know maybe there was a reason.
Speaker 1I would I mean, how can we really know, how can we? Really know, but maybe Maybe there were lessons in there that you all needed to learn, or that we were the right people for him at this time.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2To go through this at this time that other people you know that way, and so you have to look for those kinds of things too when you're, when you're in the throes of this.
Speaker 1You have to find some hope.
Speaker 2Yeah, you do, you have to. And that's again that goes back to Al-Anon, right, you know giving people that and talking about that, and you know talking about finding and it doesn't. You know, finding some kind of higher power, right, doesn't necessarily have to be a Christian higher power or Hindu, it could be the sun.
Speaker 1It could be the couch Right you have to believe.
Speaker 2Well, there you go. You have to believe that something, that there is some kind of higher power and there's a reason that this is happening. Yeah, at least that helped us through the journey.
Speaker 1Yeah, they talk about that in AA too. I don't really I'm not really a member of AA necessarily, but I'm not not. I'm, you know, my sober journey is just whatever it takes, you know. So so sometimes it's AA, sometimes it's a different meeting, sometimes it's a reading or something like that. But I and I and I know that it puts a lot of people off to talk about a higher power sometimes, but I'm definitely someone who believes in higher power. Or somebody said once on Gus God universe source.
Speaker 1So, I'll be like I believe in Gus or you know, just, but I do believe that there is something, whether it's an energy, spirit, creation, whatever, outside of me, that is helping me along. You know, I think that people can get clean without that, you know, but for me it's just been easier to have something else, you know. And so to hear you talk about Al-Anon, I went to. Al-anon once, I should have probably gone back, but I didn't have a good experience.
Speaker 2Maybe you were with the same three older older later, so that I was with the Bloomington.
Speaker 1Yeah, I went once I still remember it very well, I think I was in my late 20s to just kind of talk about. It was when I was finally accepting the fact that my dad had an alcohol problem, that my dad was an alcoholic, because I denied that for so long and I think I just wasn't ready for it at the time because you know, people want you to like you don't have to talk if you don't want to, and I didn't want to, so no one made me, but I sort of felt like they really want me to talk and I don't want to and I'm not ready, whereas now I'd probably go back and be like let me just leave this damn meeting, you know but that you know people are afraid to go to the 12-step programs.
Speaker 1I think and really it's the most difficult part is getting off the couch and driving yourself to the meeting, because once you're there, everything is taken care of. You know you could participate as much or as little as you'd like. You know, if you like still coffee, it's great. I mean, how did you guys even know about Al-Anon? Someone finally told you about it, or did you? Because this is what 30 years ago, how did you know about Al-Anon?
Speaker 2Well, it wasn't necessarily 30 years ago, but we probably started attending Al-Anon meetings in Andrews. We graduated in high school in 2012.
Speaker 3So 2015 is probably yes.
Speaker 2I don't know.
Speaker 1I'm not sure what that would have been, Because I was thinking at the time did you just go to Google and you were like, how do I find help?
Speaker 2Some of that in some of the treatment things, because a lot of the treatment portion or portions have a parent component, especially when they're younger. Once your child hits like 21 or so, then that's not, but between that, when they're a little younger and a lot of people there would say advocate going to Al-Anon. So we were aware of what the name was then just doing a little more research on our own, looking it up and looking at things, Then that okay, well, we need to go to some, we need to try something to help us get through this for ourselves that way, or something that will help him.
Speaker 2Like I said before we went in there. Okay, what did you guys do to get your son to stop doing this? That's what we want to know. And you'd see new parents come in, and that's what they want. They want that silver bullet.
Speaker 3No, it's not about that, it's about you, it's not about them.
Speaker 1So tell us the rut. So Anders is not clean. What was that process like for all of?
Speaker 2you. Well, that's very interesting, because I think it's interesting. Hopefully your listeners will find it interesting. But Anders, he's an introvert and you have to peel away the onion to get to his core and his last treatment was Teen Challenge. Now, teen Challenge is one of the treatments with a Christian component, with a God component.
Speaker 1I didn't know that. I mean, I've heard of Teen Challenge.
Speaker 2Because the other ones don't really have that as a component. Teen Challenge does. And that was his last treatment. Now let's go back a little bit before that, probably the last three years that he was using. I would say that he was probably sober 90% of the time, and this is where a piece where he'd fall off the wagon for a week, then he'd recover and go to a different treatment, go to outpatient, something like that, and then a few months later he'd relapse and then so that kind of thought, okay, this is going to be the circle, he'll be clean for a while, then he'll relapse, but then again, okay, which time do you relapse that you're taking something that kills you? Piece of that. But probably like the last three years that he was in the throes of this, which was probably about seven years total, he was probably sober 90% of the time with that. So he knew what it was like to be sober. But with opioids it takes you a while to get your head clear.
Speaker 2I'm sure You're in a fog for quite a lot, so it takes you a while to think straight. Those are his words. So his last treatment was a teen challenge. We were, Mary and I were attending a wedding in California and I get a call Sunday afternoon. Hey dad, I left a teen challenge. I'm at home. Oh my goodness, we weren't coming flying home till Tuesday and immediately it's. But no, I've got a plan. I've got a plan. Okay, Well, we make arrangements and fly home as early as we can with that. And he did. He had a plan. He was checking into a different halfway house and working out of that and he had it all planned out. He just kind of had had enough of teen challenge at that time.
Speaker 3Sure, I think that's what he did.
Speaker 2He had a plan and that was his plan. So he um he's been. Next weekend will be his fourth year celebrating being sober.
Speaker 1Congratulations and he and his fiance.
Speaker 2They have Sophia who's? Three and she's just been a joy in our lives and in their lives. But it's interesting because I'll ask him why. You know why did you? What eventually got you to stop?
Speaker 1Right. What was the thing?
Speaker 2And again, it's a kid, you peel away the onion. So the the first answer was well, it just, it's just got to be such a hassle to live that way, yeah, To worry about.
Speaker 2okay, where am I going to get the money? Because we went through, you know, our things being pond taken, stuff ponding it. We went through all that in those years um, kicking them out of the house, driving them somewhere, dropping them off. You can't stay here, we, we, we did all those pieces. Oh my gosh. Um, he said it just got to be a hassle to live like that. I just got tired of living like that. Really, that's it. You just got tired of living like that. Um, you know what I'm thinking. Okay, I'm going to go deeper than that.
Speaker 1Yeah, that's not really resonating.
Speaker 2No, um, that just got to be a hassle where I was going to get money and where I was going to get the stuff, and it just got to be a hassle. Okay, but then, talking a little more, he finally he said something that really struck a chord with me and he said you know what would happen was he said, I couldn't forgive myself. I would go out, I'd be high and I would do something stupid, um, or say stupid things or whatever, and then I couldn't forgive myself for what I've done. So then I would just keep using to mask it, yep.
Speaker 2Um, he said until and now. These are his words and this, this is him, this is an individual story. He said until Jesus forgave me, then I could forgive myself and then I could move forward, and that just struck me as and we're not overly religious people- yeah. You know, we brought it, we'd bring our kids to church and do that. And then you know hey, this is your journey from now on.
Speaker 2You know, at this point. But um, that, really, you know, that struck me as okay until I could forgive myself, or somebody could forgive me. Then I could forgive myself, Right. Finally. I could move forward and not think about how I had hurt people, Right, Cause that would just keep me in the circle.
Speaker 1It's gonna you're gonna stay in that loop.
Speaker 2And again, this is only probably within the last two or three months that he's expressed it that way. What an incredible story, but I think that's got a lot of truth to it for him. Yeah, again, this is his journey.
Speaker 1It's not everybody's journey. No, no, no. But but at the end of the day, does it, does it matter? Like, like, maybe maybe for Andrews it's Jesus, you know. Um, maybe for for me, like, like I'm coming up on one year sober from alcohol, you know, for me it was oh, I'm, I'm hurting my family. You know, I'm seeing now that I'm hurting more than just myself, cause when I was only hurting me, I was okay with that. But when I saw that I was about to hurt or maybe kill other people, you know, so it doesn't matter if it's whatever, whatever your reasons are, that's your reason, you know, and then that's okay.
Speaker 2And it's, I think, being self-aware enough to reflect and have that reason. And again, you're absolutely right. Whatever that reason is or whatever, however, you get that self-awareness, be it, be it through a higher power or through anything else. Finally, he made the decision on his own to get sober, and until a person does that, everything else outside of that, what Mary and I found out, is just noise to them and maybe making it worse, because now it's in his case giving them more to feel bad about.
Speaker 2So I'm just going to use to mask the pain.
Speaker 2Right, yeah, and but you don't know that you think you know, hey, we're, we're trying to be real with you here and we're trying to be helpful because we're not, you know, having you live at home and we can't have you live at home because we know that that's not good for you. Just would sit downstairs and and just think and I'm sure what? Um? I know there was a story about um. I can't remember who it was, maybe it was Paul Westerberg from the replacements or whatever. He said I only tried heroin five or six times, but he said I still think about it every day.
Speaker 1Yeah, I mean the power.
Speaker 2I can't imagine what Andrews was thinking about. Sitting downstairs and somebody you know can that too well, just stop. Well, all right, how does that work in your body If you want to stop diarrhea? It's kind of like that.
Speaker 1Right.
Speaker 2How does that?
Speaker 1work. Just telling you to stop.
Speaker 2Um, and not having gone through what he's gone through, that's really difficult for me to put myself in his shoes, because I don't have an inkling of what his experience is or what he's thinking about, or what, what his demons are Right, so that's difficult too. So again, the Al-Anon piece is very much you need to take care of yourself, because you can't do that for the addict.
Speaker 1You can only control so much. Exactly Right. You can only control yourself and how you are viewing everything you know, and that's a hard thing for me. I like to control everything. Well you just can't.
Expectations and Perfectionism in Relationships
Speaker 2Well, no, that is difficult for a lot of people because in a lot of pieces of their life they have control and it's worked for them, and all of a sudden you get to something where you have no control, and for a person that needs that or thrives on that, it's really difficult. Um, in fact I have a couple. I brought the one day at a time. Al-anon book, because there are two, two things that really resonate to me.
Speaker 2Yeah, share with us Out of the book. The first one deals with expectations. Um, and I'll just read the today's reminder piece, I will not set a pattern based on my own experience and wishes and expect someone else to live up to it. This is interference of a subtle and damaging kind. It damages my peace of mind and dignity and those I am smothering with my expectations.
Speaker 1Whoa whoa, whoa, whoa. That just kind of blew my mind.
Speaker 2I mean it's, it's crazy, and then I think it's spot on is where, when we start putting our expectations on somebody else and how they should behave, all we're doing is setting a trap for ourselves.
Speaker 1Right, we're just going to fail.
Speaker 2It's not going to. It's not going to work and you just, it just isn't going to work, and I think that goes along with the control piece.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2If I put these pieces in place, I can expect you to act a certain way or behave a certain way. It doesn't work that way.
Speaker 1It doesn't.
Speaker 2No, and and it takes, but I mean that kind of phrase when, when we got to that, you know, hit me like a lightning bolt. Right, You're like oh, wow. That is.
Speaker 1I've been doing this. It wasn't my intention, but I've been doing it Exactly. How do I?
Speaker 2fall into that. And then yes again, you again. It's that self awareness piece that, okay, I'm casting my expectations on another person and how they should, how they should do that or not do that. Again, you're, you're, you're setting yourself up to fail.
Speaker 1Right, right and you're setting up your relationship with that other person to fail.
Speaker 2Exactly Right. And then the other one, if I can blow your mind again, um.
Speaker 1I'll be. I'll be making this purchase after you leave.
Speaker 2It's about trying to find the right place here. It's about being a perfectionist, and it says this setting our goals too high can lead to frustration and worse. The perfectionist clinging stubbornly to and this is written, this is I'm reading the pronouns as they're written stubbornly to her ideas of what life ought to be, often as difficulty grasping both the acceptance and detachment elements of the Al-Anon program. She demands too much of herself. End of in this case, end of the alcoholic partner. So it's a way about again expectation and perfectionism how they really are setting a trap up, a trap for all of us, I mean regardless of what we're talking about.
Speaker 1Like I think about it being the New Year soon and I'm not much of a New Year's resolution person.
Speaker 2I remember you're not much or something one of your previous podcasts. This is a tough time of year for you.
Speaker 1It really is, because I put a lot of pressure on myself. But it's also a reflective time too, like it's both end, where I get really reflective and I actually lately I've been thinking about this has actually been a very good year for me and just you know, I'm feeling better than I did a year ago. But it also is a why didn't you get this thing done that you said that you were going to do and I'm just thinking about? Obviously, your reading right now has to do with Al-Anon and alcoholism and usage and things like that, but I was just thinking of it as regular day to day expectations and perfectionism, things that I just can't attain, because I'm a human being and no one can actually attain those things.
Speaker 2Exactly yeah, and we would have people in the group we were going to. Their kids had been sober for 40 years.
Speaker 1Yeah.
Speaker 2They still went because it was just good life skills, good reminders and the thought of okay, I'm giving back, maybe I'm helping those next parents that are coming in here by sharing. No, get through this. You'll get through this. There's some steps to help you if you want to go down that road that way. But you're right, I think, like the holidays, the expectations we put on having and I still fall into that and on having this idyllic type holiday situation where everyone's together, everybody's happy, everyone's happy.
Speaker 2Yeah, and that's why the holidays are so stressful the people, because they put those kinds of expectations on things instead of just well, it's going to kind of be what it is.
Speaker 1It's going to be.
Speaker 2Whatever it is Right, we're going to put the pieces in place, we're going to have a place. Okay, even people are invited to come over, but I can't control much more than that of that Right. And if people come over hurting or come over in a not great place, that's what happens.
Speaker 1It's not on you, right. And yeah, we can take some of the pressure off of the holidays. You know like we don't, and again, it goes back to that, those expectations.
Speaker 2Okay, we're going to have the Courier and Ives holiday, Right yeah?
Speaker 1That just sounds exhausting. How many people have that?
Speaker 2How many people are so glad when they're done?
Speaker 1Well, that's a really good indication, is that, if you are so glad that it's over, maybe we're doing something wrong?
Speaker 2That's exactly right. Right it is.
Speaker 1It's like, oh, I'm so glad this party's over, or whatever, yeah, yeah. So tell me now what? How is your relationship with Anders now? I mean, after listening to you, I'm sort of assuming it's exactly the same as it always was. Right, you just love and care for this person to the best of your ability. You know, I kind of walked into this conversation not knowing too much and thinking, oh gosh, was there like a big blowout? Was there a? We don't talk to each other, but it just sounds like no, you just loved him throughout the best that you could.
Speaker 2Well, I was talking to Mary before I came and I said well, what? This is the first time I've talked about this Really. And I said what? Yeah, I mean the first time that I felt, and again I asked his permission to do that, to kind of tell his story and our story along with that. And I asked you know, mary, what kind of message should we give? And she just looked at me and said don't people, don't give up. Don't give up, don't give up.
Speaker 1Don't give up on your kiddos.
Speaker 3Yeah.
Speaker 2And that's what we did. We did give up, we learned not to cater to them and we learned to detach from negative behaviors, but we didn't give up.
Speaker 1Right, and you just differentiated there, you know, because I think some people, myself included to a certain extent, would hear don't give up and interpret that as cater to your child's, everything you know like don't give up means I'm here for you, I support you, I love you, but it doesn't mean here, take all of our money and sure I'll pick you up and drive you to the drug dealer's house, and all of that.
Speaker 2It just means we believe in you Absolutely. That's right. Right, you have to learn those other pieces, and that's what they call the detaching with love.
Speaker 1Detaching with love.
Speaker 2You know we never gave up and you never give up the hope that, okay, that he's gonna or your child's gonna make it through this and unfortunately, a lot don't. But again, that was you know, don't give up. But it's not that. And then that gets confused with the oh, you need to love people unconditionally and I would always go through this and no, I've got conditions. I'm not gonna love you when you're using like that and pulling your life apart. Well, that wasn't the way to express it. It's just we can't be a part of this behavior or enable this behavior.
Speaker 1We can't enable this behavior anymore.
Speaker 2And it took us a long time to learn that, and that's part of the not giving up.
Speaker 1Or even realizing oh, I guess I was enabling you, but I didn't think that I was Right.
Speaker 2Yes, Just learning what that looks like. You don't know what. You don't know, Right, Until you get burned a few times and go okay well, this isn't working. This isn't working. How many times you came back to our house to live Right Until it was eventually no, you can't come back here and live anymore, because this is just not good for you.
Speaker 3Right.
Speaker 2We love you. You can't live here because we know what happens. Right and no, I think our relationship is. I think it's very much like you said. It's very much like it was Right. It really didn't go through a crazy stage, but a lot of that I credit to him because he could have let that go well. I'm not going to see my parents or talk to my parents or do any of that or put a drive, a wedge in here, and he really didn't. So you know, our relationship really hasn't changed a lot, other than he now starts to look back on things and realize and having a child, of his own realizing oh boy boy some of the stuff I did and he's allude to.
Speaker 2and he's again, he's an introvert, so for him to come out and get deep with stuff is hard, but he said, boy, I must have put you guys through a lot that way.
Speaker 2But again it's yeah well, yeah, you did, but we love you through it all and always well, and I said you know you remember this when you're raising your daughter. So, but again, this is our story. It's not everybody's story. Everybody goes through this differently and has their own pieces of that, and it's definitely not a blueprint for how you deal with a kid in addiction.
Speaker 3It's go all there. No, there isn't one no that's the.
Speaker 2there isn't a form to do that, but there are support pieces out there for you as an individual.
Speaker 1Yes.
Speaker 2You know they're not for. You know they're not for they're just for you internally and know that to help you get through it that way, Like I know you know, the analogy is when you're riding the airplane and the person comes on. The stewardess is up there doing all the hand signals and they talk about the mask. And you have to remember. They say you put the mask on yourself first, then help other people. You can't help other people first and then think you're helping yourself.
Speaker 1So I really no, that's right and that really kind of sums up.
Speaker 2You know the program and the Alinon program. I'm not a spokesperson for Alinon, it's not. It just it was a place for us to help us get through it.
Speaker 1I really appreciate that because I feel like a lot of people don't share what their resources are you know to. To hear that Alinon has been so beneficial for your family, I mean I'm going to, I'll link it. Yeah, I'm going to link this book in the show notes and I'm going to buy myself a copy. And everyone should buy themselves a copy for the holiday season.
Speaker 2Well, there are a lot of great life lessons that make you think about, and it's really about how to, how you live your life relationships with other people, and it's not just necessarily a person that has an addiction disease. It's just how to live with other people and find peace for yourself, which is really difficult.
Speaker 1This was incredible, Eric, Like I am so glad that we did this. Thank you for coming over Now. I'm not going to be able to give you crap at 11 kicking anymore.
Speaker 2You still will. You still will. This will be short lived, believe me, you still will and I will still expect it. I would feel weird if that didn't happen. Then I said, oh God, what's wrong with?
Speaker 3Nikki, something's wrong, we know each other too.
Speaker 1well, now Something's wrong. No, just thank you so much for being here.
Speaker 2And if this you know, the, the, your podcast that gets millions of listeners.
Speaker 1Millions.
Speaker 2Yes, and if this can help one person go through and say you know what, maybe I'll look into that or maybe something out there can can help me do that If they want to reach out to you and you reach out to me people need someone to talk to. I can connect you, for sure, I've done that with people before um about things. But if you know, again, it's one of those things where if this helps one person, that's kind of going through something that's way worth it.
Speaker 1Sit down and chat about it. Absolutely. You know, we talk about the talk about the yuck and how you get through it.
Speaker 2I mean, I think that's just how we well to you, that's right, and we didn't even get to. Okay, how does the how does his going through that affect the relationship with the two other siblings?
Speaker 1Oh, okay, we're going to have to do a part too.
Speaker 2So I mean, you know cause it's everybody everybody's.
Speaker 1It affects everything.
Speaker 2Yeah, it affects the whole family.
Speaker 1Oh my gosh, it's all super great time Love to you. Thanks for being with us.
Speaker 2Thank you, it was a lot of fun. Bye.
Speaker 3This podcast is for informational purposes only and should not be considered legal, health or professional advice. I am not responsible for any losses, damages or liabilities that may arise from the use of this podcast. This podcast is not intended to replace professional medical advice.
