Family Disappeared

Finding Strength, Breaking Codependency & Rewiring Connection Through Recovery - Episode 109

• Lawrence Joss

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In this episode of the Family Disappeared podcast, host Laurence Joss leads a heartfelt discussion with a panel of parents and grandparents about their experiences with parental alienation and recovery. The conversation explores the transformative power of the 12-step program, the concept of alienation as a family disease, and the importance of community support in the healing process. Panelists share personal stories of growth, the challenges of navigating relationships, and the significance of self-reflection in recovery. The episode emphasizes the need for patience and understanding in the journey of healing and the impact of individual change on family dynamics.

Key Takeaways

  • The 12-step process can help change unmanageable situations.
  • Community support is crucial in the recovery journey.
  • Alienation affects the entire family system, not just individuals.
  • Personal growth leads to changes in family dynamics.
  • Recovery is about how we show up in relationships.
  • Patience is essential in the healing process.
  • The 12 steps provide a framework for addressing dysfunction.
  • Isolation can hinder recovery; connection is key.
  • Understanding alienation as a family disease helps in healing.
  • Self-reflection is vital for personal transformation.

Chapters

00:00 - Reflections on Change and Recovery
02:58 - The Power of Community in Recovery
05:49 - Understanding the 12-Step Framework
08:42 - Personal Experiences with Parental Alienation
11:55 - The Concept of Family Disease
14:48 - Navigating Relationships and Alienation
17:38 - The Role of Consistency in Recovery
20:49 - The Journey of Healing and Growth
23:47 - Final Thoughts and Community Support

If you wish to connect with Lawrence Joss or any of the PA-A community members who have appeared as guests on the podcast:

Email - familydisappeared@gmail.com
Linktree: https://linktr.ee/lawrencejoss

(All links mentioned in the podcast are available in Linktree)

Please donate to support PAA programs:
https://www.paypal.com/donate?hosted_button_id=SDLTX8TBSZNXS

This podcast is made possible by the Family Disappeared Team:
Anna Johnson- Editor/Contributor/Activist/Co-host
Glaze Gonzales- Podcast Manager

Connect with Lawrence Joss:
Website: https://parentalalienationanonymous.com/
Email- familydisappeared@gmail.com

Speaker 1:

And so I kind of go back to that, which was a popular song back in the days. You know the old song I'm looking at the man in the mirror and I'm asking him to change his ways, and that quote has stuck with me over the years that I'm looking at myself in a mirror and the 12 step process is a way I can change my ways, which changes the unmanageability of what I'm dealing with.

Speaker 2:

There was a time in my life when I was overwhelmed and underwater. Those days are the inspiration for this podcast. This is by far the ultimate healing journey for all of us. Healing ourselves emotionally, spiritually and physically is paramount to this journey. From this place of grounding we can all go out into the world and change all our interactions and relationships. We can engage people from an integrated and resourced place. This is a journey of coming home to ourselves.

Speaker 2:

In today's episode we'll start to explore some of these issues. Let's begin the healing journey today. Welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Hi, my name is Lawrence Joss and welcome to the Family Disappeared Podcast. Today we have the second part of our panel with some parents and grandparents and what a great heartfelt conversation and also so many nuggets that we could go in all different directions with. And if you're being around the community a little bit, you'll be really excited to see some familiar faces on the podcast. And if you're brand new, you're going to see some new faces and I highly suggest going back and checking out some of the older episodes with panels of parents and you'll see some of these different faces and they'll be talking about different aspects of their recovery and you can also see the trajectory of how their lives are changing and how they're presenting themselves in the conversation, which I think is marvelous. It's a marvelous way to track my own recovery from what I used to share to what I share now and how I share it, and how it's more embodied and more articulated. I have more understanding of more dynamics instead of just like, ouch, my heart hurts, I want my kids back, I'm going to die. Now I'm like oh, this is what's happening in the system, this is the kids' experiences, this is what's happening in the court, that's what's happening there. So good stuff. If you're new to the community, welcome.

Speaker 2:

We have over 100 podcasts done already. There's all different podcasts on all different subjects. Check out YouTube. We broke them down into different playlists. If you're looking for attorneys or therapists or panels or parents or whatever it is you're looking for, you should be able to find on there and please like, share, comment. Our email address is family disappeared at gmailcom. Love to hear your comments. Suggestions for panels, suggestions for interviews, what you like, what you don't like, or just to say hi. A bunch of great resources in the show notes. We'll put the questions from the show in the show notes too, if you're curious to see what those are and even answer some of them on any of our social media channels. Youtube would be be the preference. Lastly, we are a 501c3 nonprofit and would love some support if that feels appropriate to you. And with that, let's see what happens next on the panel.

Speaker 2:

So it's funny, we have these panels of parents and, as I'm here, thinking like how did this start and why did this come about, and it's an interesting story, at least to me when I reflect back on it and I never really seen panels of people doing any kind of stuff around recovery based until I got to Alcoholics Anonymous, where I got sober nearly 20 years ago, and we used to take panels into different kinds of institutions and different kinds of recovery houses or rehabs or stuff like that. And we're going with a panel of three or four people and and there'd be other people struggling with the same stuff and we'd share our stories, which is basically what we're doing on the panel today, and then people would ask questions about our stories and we'll talk about recovery. You know what I mean. And a lot of people there were in so much emotional pain they couldn't really get to hearing part of our recovery story and some people would go oh wow, I hear that you did X, y and Z and now X, y and Z has happened in your life and I can see that that's different than what's happening in my life and that's what recovery looks like. And it's just one person struggling with parental alienation, estrangement or erasure whatever you want to define it as talking to one other parent.

Speaker 2:

And Alcoholics Anonymous started nearly 90 years ago a little bit more, a little bit less than 90 years ago and it was just one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic.

Speaker 2:

And that's exactly what a panel is.

Speaker 2:

It's three or four of us just talking to three or four of you or one other person, or whatever the amount is is irrelevant, but it's one person sharing their experience with another person and from that place we get to have a conversation and that's how the whole panel stuff came about and that's why we get to have a conversation and that's how the whole panel stuff came about and that's why we have these panels appearance, because this is technology that, you know, alcoholics Anonymous has been using for 90 years.

Speaker 2:

They used to go into hospitals and psych wards and stuff like that to talk to people that were struggling with alcoholism and deliver the message of recovery that there was a way to live a full and meaningful life and not necessarily get exactly what you want. And that's what we're doing. We're sharing that. Hey, we're living a full and meaningful life. We're not stopping our lives and some of us, for a period of time, have put our lives on hold, but now we're living our life. We miss our children, we're becoming the best versions of ourselves, hope to have a relationship with them and we're living a life. So it's really cool to see the panels and hear the message and that's my experience with that and let's hear what everyone else has to say to the questions that are being asked.

Speaker 3:

Julie, you're up and again, we're taking some really nice time to dissect and dig into these questions and, yeah, so something that I've been thinking about is that I think many of us come from a 12-step background on one side or another, and it's interesting, lawrence, that you chose a 12-step format to address this particular issue, and I'm wondering what your thoughts are on why there seems to be a crossover between what brought us to 12-step in other programs and why it works in this framework as well, like what's the underlying thread in the 12-step that applies to alienation.

Speaker 2:

That's a great question, Julie. So why 12-step is universally adaptable to different traumas or different circumstances that we're dealing with and why we think it's adapted well to parental alienation. I love that. That's a really provocative question. Let's go to Anna first.

Speaker 4:

Thank you, I think.

Speaker 2:

Sorry, anna, not to interrupt you, but I just want to say I'm going to Anna, who didn't have any 12 step experience whatsoever, so it'd be super interesting to hear what your perspective is, and then we'll cycle through people that have different levels of 12-step exposure and just see what that sounds like yeah, thank you.

Speaker 4:

It was a great question, julie, that wasn't meant to be rude. I mean, I was reflecting my own inexperience with 12-step. That brings a different voice to the conversation, which is always valuable. And it's interesting because I was not familiar with 12-step programs at all before I joined the community about four years ago and my work in PAA has led me to another 12-step program, and the heart of all of that is dysfunction within my family system. So that's the root of everything for me. So it's helped me.

Speaker 4:

Not only 12-step give me a sort of a playbook in order to kind of replace the dysfunctional mode of being, but it's led me on another path to another community that helps me support other aspects that aren't necessarily specific to alienation. So I can't speak to the 12-step piece, but I've really been feeling lately, as I'm making progress in my recovery and I've been saying it to people, that I still cling very tightly to a lot of my dysfunctional ways, as I'm unpacking them as well, and what I'll come up in conversations is the fact that I like rules and I like structure and I like a framework and I knew what to do in terms of being part of dysfunctional connections and in the dysfunctional family system and I didn't want to let go of that, even though I can see that it's not helping me, it's actually hindering me and it's not healthy and all those things. But in order to pull that framework down, I know that I need something to replace it. So the 12 steps has become something to replace that. And I find myself saying that in conversation now and that's really cool. And I didn't necessarily feel that at the beginning and I didn't understand 12 steps and I didn't have a strong sense of a spiritual background from which I understood, had an understanding of from the beginning, was fundamental to the whole process too. So it was overwhelming at the beginning, but it's a lifeline now.

Speaker 4:

So when I pose the question about what do you go to in a crisis for me that's part of my 12-step framework when I feel like I'm floating around with no foundation, no basis, of not knowing what to do, which has the ability to throw my nervous system into serious overwhelm, then I look into the 12-step format and it doesn't mean that it gives me an answer, but it gives me something to lean into and I'm getting better at just okay. So I'm going to follow this and trust that it's going to be okay and put my best effort into it and not expect it to be perfect, but know that it's going to lead me down a path, that it's going to be okay. And then, even as I'm saying this out loud, I can feel my nervous system start to calm down. I love that. It's really cool the way and I'll be 12-stepping the rest of my life, I think, but it's cool the way that grows.

Speaker 4:

Like I'm still. I learn more about it. I hear people's experience, strength and hope and I understand it and when I walk through my daily life, I think, well, I just applied part of my recovery tools to that particular instance. Then it starts to become almost more automatic. I'm like, wow, and again my nervousness. I feel a lot more grounded, despite the fact that I still have things go on that I want to control. As I was talking about earlier, there's much more balance going on. So I attribute that to the 12 steps and I will stop talking.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, Anna. That's great to have a perspective of someone that's super new to 12 step and just kind of like what the entry is and then how the entry kind of evolves. So I appreciate that. And Stephen, what about you? Why do you think that this is adaptable to parental alienation and why it works well within this context?

Speaker 1:

You know I have very limited. Prior to PA, I just had been through a portion of a 12-step program for divorce recovery within a Christian community and that was my really my exposure to 12-step. But I had known about 12-step recovery from working with patients in my profession for many years and I knew the success stories. And so I would say for me, thinking about why it applies to this situation, is all the situations that 12-step recovery apply to are unmanageable situations. Situations that 12 step recovery apply to are unmanageable situations. And so for me, when I look in my life and think about things that feel unmanageable whether it be parental alienation or a situation with a coworker or some other situation in my life the 12 steps apply to anything that feels unmanageable, that I've come to the end of me and I can't solve it, and it's unmanageable and I need help. And so for me, that's how I came to these meetings three and a half years ago. That's where I was. It was unmanageable, I needed help. I had tried to solve this on my own. It wasn't working.

Speaker 1:

That's when I committed and threw myself into the 12 steps, and I guess the other thing I would say about it is that, for me, what attracted me to a 12 step process, other than knowing about it and hearing success stories from other people, was that I believe that how we show up matters, and to me, doing 12 step recovery work is improving how I show up, If I show up in a better way and not in a selfish way or just like focusing me, me, me, but just the idea that I can show up better. And when I show up better, when I make a change and show up better, the system has to change right. There's this idea of a closed system, which is that all the energy in a system if you have two electrons orbiting in a closed system and this one changes its path, this one automatically has to change its path because of this change. And I believe that I believe that about relationships, parent-child romantic relationships, societal relationships. So that really attracted me, that I could look at making noticeable changes in myself.

Speaker 1:

Not that I would like it had to make a change in the system, but I just knew that it would. In some way, the system that I was operating in would have to change, whether it be with my kids or, you know, just in my personal life or whatever, and so I kind of go back to that, which was a popular song back in the days. You know the old song I'm looking at the man in the mirror and I'm asking him to change his ways, and that quote has stuck with me over the years that I'm looking at myself in a mirror and the 12 step process is a way I can change my ways, which changes the unmanageability of what I'm dealing with. So that would be my answer.

Speaker 2:

Thanks for bringing in the unmanageability and that you change and the system changes and from systems theory perspective, the number one leverage point in any system is the individual. And the other part of that is, as the individual is changing, it needs to be consistent. Like an individual can start changing, stop doing the work and expect the change to actually stick, because the system will pop back and go back to its original place, where it was. But if that person continues to do something, like in a framework of a 12-step program or whatever other program you have, if there is consistency, the system has no choice but to change because it has this consistent individual pressure where something is shifting. Julie, let's go to you next. What do you think about your question?

Speaker 3:

I'll start here. So my 12-step program before PA was Al-Anon. You know it started with my ex-husband but over the years my mom would keep asking me like why are you still doing that? You're not married to him anymore? Well, there's a reason. I ended up married to him. In this situation I kind of stepped away from Al-Anon. I felt like maybe it didn't apply to me anymore, but I never did work all 12 steps. Then, when this situation happened and I realized I was in orbit and I did not know how to get back to earth, I just did some research, like, is there a 12 step program for this? And lo and behold, there was, and it was familiar to me. So that was encouraging. And now I'm working the 12 steps within the PAA framework and my mom is saying, why are you still doing that? You have your son.

Speaker 3:

Well, I wonder if I had worked all the steps and continued to work them 13 years ago, would I need to be working them now in this framework? So I think the thread for me is somewhere along the line. I learned codependency At some point. I was codependent on my ex-husband and then I became codependent on my son which makes me a little nauseated to have to say out loud, but that's the truth. And until I can learn how to not be codependent on anyone and just dependent on myself, I'm going to keep cycling through every 12 step program there is. So let's stick to the one and see if we can make it through all 12 steps and really try to initiate some change.

Speaker 2:

I love that, julian, yeah, and your stuff with your mom's super funny, like, yeah, like why are you doing this? Aren't you healed yet? You know what I mean and it's that instant gratification and we get that and everything's going to be okay. Going back to Steven's, there's actually sustainable change, so that's why we keep coming back and that's why they say it in the room. And it's the most annoying thing I ever heard when I first get there is the old timers as they keep coming back. I'm like I hope you fall off a building, like that was my thought process at that time. But, renee, like what do you think it is that translates so we can have, even have, a PAA community? That's 12 step based.

Speaker 5:

Man, what a great question. What comes up for me initially is, I believe, like our sister program, brother program AA started 90 years ago. I believe it was divine intervention and the fact that this program however it happened I don't know all of the details about how it occurred to somebody to say, hey, maybe we apply the 12 steps to this. Again, I believe it was divine intervention. It works too well and it translates too well from Al-Anon to PAA. I know for me, I did work the steps 25 years ago. I've worked them several times since and, having done that in the past, once I started working these steps through PAA it was at a much deeper level and you know that other program helped me to deal with the issue there. But working the steps through PAA helped me to grow up. But working the steps through PAA helped me to grow up.

Speaker 5:

I was still very immature and that's why I think it transfers so well is the step work has taught me how to show up in the world as an adult. You know, I never really got that. I kind of walked through life feeling like I don't really get it, like I don't really get the rule book. Everything feels chaotic to me and confusing and I just don't really get it, like I don't really get the rule book. Everything feels chaotic to me and confusing and I just don't understand.

Speaker 5:

And as soon as I started doing this work, things little by slowly started to make sense. The puzzle pieces started to fall into place and it was just a whole new level of maturity for me. And that of course translates. You know the ripples that happen because somebody tossed that stone into the pond. Those ripples have gone out and out and out and I do believe that that is something that only someone divine could have created, because it just works way too well. If you work it, you know knowing about this steps logically does me absolutely no good. If I don't put my hands in it and start getting my hands dirty and figuring out what do I need to do to fix me. It's no longer, and hasn't been for a long time, about what I need to do to fix the ex or my children. It comes back to me and that's where the recovery really started to change for me.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, renee. And I think in the original big book of Alcoholics Anonymous it says something to the degree that a few meetings avail us nothing. You know what I mean? And these are people 90 years ago that came up with this framework, and what they were saying is going to meetings is great and it's a great place, and the work like Renee is referring to is where the recovery is and the relief too.

Speaker 2:

I'd say for me, why I think this translates is that the first word of the first step is we, and as I'm isolated and trying to figure this stuff out by myself, it was impossible and I needed community, and then I needed to be in a community that there was a common language, and the common language is that I'm struggling with this particular pathology, whatever vision I have of it, and there's a commonality in that. So now I'm in a room that I have a commonality and I'm struggling with other people that are struggling with the same thing and I'm not alone, and I think that's why it translates so well, for pretty much anything that it can get adapted to is having direct experience, which we spoke about before, like having direct experience in something Like I think we were talking about in the court systems that a lot of people didn't have direct experience so people couldn't really understand. But if you get everyone together that has that same direct experience in any 12-step program, we have a basis to start the conversation and I think that's why this is successful and so many other programs out there are successful and we're also seeing new technology come into different 12 steps where the languaging is shifting a little bit and I'm watching it in this community, like, like. It is no different in this community than AA or Al-Anon or any of the 12-step program that I've been to, where I see people and the light comes on, they find community, they start working on their stuff and stuff starts to shift and some people come and get a little relief and they leave and it's identical to AA and the percentages of people that actually stay through all these programs is super low. It's three, four or 5% and it's a lot of work and different people are getting different needs out of it, but it's consistent.

Speaker 2:

Through every program I've been to is I see that recovery and in AA they call it the pink cloud and people start making friends and start getting some relief and start working the steps and everything seems like you can see a shade of green again and then it shifts as you go through recovery. So, yeah, it's a fantastic model that these folks came up with divinely, and it was originally just one alcoholic talking to another alcoholic is how they came up with the stuff. It was two guys. You know two people. So a great, great question. Super provocative question. Renee, what is your question?

Speaker 5:

all right. So my question, the one that I'm going to introduce, because the first one was a little bit more, I'd like to go off a different direction. Can you give your perspective on alienation being a family disease?

Speaker 2:

can you give your perspective on parental alienation being a family disease? That is a wonderful question, a provocative question. I know a lot of people come in and like family disease and they don't really understand even what that languaging means. So I'm actually going to start with you, renee, because it's a great question.

Speaker 5:

I'm super curious what you have to say about it you know, for me this opinion, this attitude, a way of looking at this has developed over the four years that I've been a part of this fellowship. And you know, at first it was hard for me to wrap my head around it. I can see it in other programs that it's a disease, a family disease, absolutely. You know, oftentimes if someone's an alcoholic there's alcoholism in the rest of the family Same a little bit with other illnesses. But with this I struggled at first and then over time my attitude started to change because I was able for me to define what that family disease is like, family diseases like, and I started to recognize, both in my ex-husband's family and my family where alienation had occurred over the years, you know, and it looked very different. In his family it was very much, almost like a cult, you know, if you're in, you're in and if you're not, you're not. And they fully alienated my family, my parents and everybody. But I had never been on the inside track of anything and they took me under their wing and they, you know, made me feel a part of and I just got sucked right into that and it never occurred to me that not only was I alienating my parents and my siblings, but that that was happening with my ex-husband's family because they grew up together, his parents and my parents went to high school together and now, all of a sudden, my family's on the outside and they always come last and I, of course, had no idea that that's what was happening. And then, with my family growing up, the way that alienation presented is more like an underlying attitude that we're better than other people.

Speaker 5:

And I was such a sweet, innocent child and really pretty naive that I would praise other members of my family. You know, oh, I just love aunt and uncle, so-and-so, and right away it would come back with well, but here's what's wrong with them. And I remember as a kid and I think what I learned was that, oh, I had a positive feeling about somebody. Then I'm told you're wrong, that's not accurate. You know, this came from a child's heart.

Speaker 5:

Like I really love these people, and I was immediately shut down. And the beautiful part of that for me and I'll end with this is I recently saw that same aunt and uncle at a funeral and I was able to go up to them and say to them you know, you all have always been some of my favorite people in the world Because as a child I didn't get to share that. You know, it was shut down so quickly that I immediately felt shame and guilt and that's a form of alienation in my opinion. You know, we don't want you to love anybody else the way that you're supposed to love us. And boy, what an epiphany to get to go from when I first walked into these rooms until four years later. For me, that's what the term family disease, that's how I would define it.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, renee, and for the provocative question. And cool, like, what a cool story. Like you're at a funeral and and you get to make this repair and correct this distorted mirroring that has gone on for so many years and acknowledge your heart and acknowledge some other people that are super special to you. What a beautiful example of what recovery can look like. And also, going back to the theme that seems to be here is time and patience and healing. That it took all those years to be able to express that stuff like this isn't some kind of something I'm going to happen in the next two minutes, like sometimes it takes 30 years. So thank you, that's a wonderful story. And, julie, what do you think about the term? You know alienation is a family disease.

Speaker 3:

I've definitely thought about that. How has alienation made me shown up in my own family? And I think I got the answer when I was alienated from my son and my mom said well, write him off, walk away and never look back. I mean, I realized that that is how my mom would have handled it with me if I had ever put up that strong a boundary with her. She would have written me off, and it's rough to hear and I realized that, oh, that's where it shows up in my own family. I also thought about it in my ex's family, you know.

Speaker 3:

Interestingly, it happened to his sister where her ex-husband did the exact same thing, accused her of abuse falsely and took the child away and her reaction was to say, okay, fine, and she walked away. And I think my ex thought I would do the same thing, that I would just wash my hands clean and he could be rid of me. And I chose a different path. I chose unconditional love. I know it worked because there was a moment with my son where he was just screaming bloody murder at me about everything he hated about me and I said I'm human and I made mistakes and I hope you can find a way to love me, even though I've made mistakes, in the same way that I love you, even though you've made mistakes. And something switched with him and we've been better ever since that conversation where he spent a whole car ride home, where we were stuck in bumper to bumper traffic just unloading on him.

Speaker 3:

So there's no question that there is a string that slides through both sides of the family that makes this possible.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, julie. And again, a great story. Just sitting in the car like this barrage is happening and then it shifts and it moves and it takes patience and time and the ability to create space for it to actually shift. So that's another great recovery story. Stephen, what do you think about parental alienation as a family disease? What's your take?

Speaker 1:

Well, I have to say, question five of my six questions was the exact same question. I must have been intuiting Renee's wonderful thinking here, so I'm probably not going to say much different than what's already been said. Is that once I came into PA and I remember I think that's part of our preamble at every meeting is that it's a family disease, and I remember I think that's part of our preamble at every meeting is that it's a family disease, and I remember hearing that at first and I was like what, what does that mean? Family disease? I remember really having this feeling of like I don't even know what that means. What does that mean? And then, the more I started thinking about it, I was like, oh my gosh, it is.

Speaker 1:

I started to look back in my family and in my ex's family and there were two completely different types of alienation that were occurring. My mom and dad met. They were from two different, completely different religions. My mom joined a very I'll call it a cult the church is actually in books on cults and she separated my dad entirely from his family, and that's how their relationship started. And so then our family was part of this really weird church which somebody mentioned before, where we were the called out or chosen ones, and we were better than everybody else. So we were isolated because we needed to keep ourselves pure and unspotted from those heathens out there who were living a life of debauchery and sin. And so I was alienated from my high school classmates. I was alienated from friends that weren't part of this church that I grew up in and that was my whole entire growing up. And then I was alienated from my dad's whole side of the family, which is really wonderful loving, huge, roman Catholic, beautiful Italian family who loved us but had no contact with us, and I can only imagine what they must have been feeling seeing that with my dad and not being able to, you know, connect with us and feeling that separation. It must have been horrible. And then on my ex's side, there's a litany of divorce, lots and lots of divorces, and in all those divorces the story passed down through the generation was always the guy's fault, all the divorces. So grandma divorced three times, ex-mother-in-law's sisters divorced a couple times, each ex-mother-in-law divorced. Now my ex divorced. And in all those situations, unfortunately, the story passed down through the generations is that it was a one-sided error.

Speaker 1:

My thing is like I want to figure out a way in my generation to bring this back together right Like can we stop the alienation? Can we learn to love each other? Can we learn to be forgiving? Can we learn to reconnect even with all our faults? Can we admit our faults openly and authentically and still love each other? I believe it's possible and I think for me, this program is a way to get there. Whether everybody else will be on the same bus with me, I don't know, but I'm going to be on the bus and I'm going to invite anybody else that wants to be on that bus to get on the bus with me. I find that really exciting. I hope and pray that my kids and my ex and others in my life will want to ride that bus with me.

Speaker 2:

Thank you for that, stephen. And again, like all the different family dynamics and how it's affected different generations and different family members, and how this family disease has all these strings on the paternal, maternal side, going back sideways and through different relationships and experiences, it's a fascinating thing to track. And, anna, what do you think about the term that alienation is a family disease?

Speaker 4:

I do remember being perplexed by that as a statement alongside the. Read this 12-step book and take on this particular statement and this is like a starting point. It became easier for me to understand when I heard it described as a disease of relationships. I could relate more to that. It's interesting this is this conversation because it's making me emotional as I've unpacked that part of it and I see my own dysfunction dysfunction in my family members and not dissimilar to the other panel members alienation and estrangement, going back on different family lines and the same with my ex-husband. It's reminding me how challenging it's been for me to unpack that because as I unpack it, it reveals the nature of the relation, what's left behind and that there's a lot of pain. That's what I'm walking through at the moment. There's a lot of pain associated with that.

Speaker 4:

I guess I'm sharing this for people that are listening. It's a reminder to take time and take space and to do this slowly, because I know when I started I wanted to gung-ho and get into it and rip off the band-aid and get everything sorted out and figured out and I had no idea what I was walking into and I wasn't supposed to. I don't think because I've had moments where I wanted to walk away and back out because I don't want to be in more pain than I already am. But it's only through walking through it as you share, lawrence, in community and with other people, and I think, okay, this feels painful, but there's a bigger picture going on here and when you unpack these relationships, they're super complicated. Right, and I've showed up in the same way, so I'm undoing everything I've ever known and trying to build up a different way of connecting in myself and then bringing that into a different way of living. It can feel overwhelming and that again, that's yeah, this I feel like I'm going off topic, but this, for me, is where the recovery process in the 12-step piece, it brings it together and when you're part of a fellowship, then you, we can all join hands and support one another, but start to be part of a solution rather than part of the problem.

Speaker 4:

But I didn't have that ability. My thinking was so narrow at the beginning that there's no way I could think along those lines, and I'm grateful that when I was thinking this sucks, I will leave that, there were other people saying well, you can leave, no one's going to force you to stay, but why don't you wait for a week and come to some meetings, and then we'll revisit it in a week's time? And so then I allowed my nervous system to happen to think OK, I'm not being kicked out, I'm not being told what to do, and it allowed me space to feel those feelings and grow through them, instead of wanting to get out of dodge and doing what I've done most of my life and is fleeing and heading out the exit. But the relationship piece it falls at my heartstrings. It still does. It's hard. It's hard to manage.

Speaker 2:

Thank you, anna. And just to share my perspective and I think Stephen said that we actually read this in the preamble at all the meetings that alienation is a family disease and the way that it works in my head is going back to like the system and coming down to the actual family system, which is the immediate system, whether it's two partners and two kids or one kid or whatever it is. The alienation is affecting everyone in that system because, as we spoke to before, someone's putting something into a system and everyone's drinking the water, breathing the air, living together, going through this, this programming together, where everyone has a piece to it. So everyone's getting affected. Like if I walk into a room and instead of saying hello, everyone yells, jump at each other. It becomes part of how we communicate with each other and that's parental alienation. Everyone is affected. Whether one of my daughters I have a relationship with that I can contact anytime I want, and my other daughter I don't have any relationship with, are they affected less than each other? No way. This is something that's in their lives and something that they're going to have to deal with, as I am, forever. So every single person and then it extrapolates out to my parents have an opinion. My grandparents you know my sister like everyone in that relationship that has any kind of connection, is part of the disease and, like my nieces and nephews, have a view of what my relationship looks like with my kids and have their own projection. So this family disease is a really important component of this 12 step and any 12 step program is when you really extrapolate it out and see even the subtle nuances and how it pushes out in so many different directions and generations and I think even Steven said he's high school class.

Speaker 2:

This moves a lot of different people and I'm going to do something a little bit different here to wrap up the show, because I do have a question, but I'm not going to give anyone a chance to answer it here and what I'm going to welcome everyone in the community and the four of you, if you so desire, I think this episode and I can hopefully send out an email when this is coming out to everyone so they can go onto YouTube if that feels safe and accessible and there's a desire to participate and answer the question, and hopefully everyone out there that feels also cold to it can answer the same question. My question is what is the most significant shift in any one relationship that you have had. That's not with your children and grandchildren, but that you can track to recovery. So what's the most significant shift in any relationship that's not like this immediate fire that we think this is the reason that we're here.

Speaker 2:

What can I track? What does that look like in recovery in a relationship? That's not my primary alienation. So with that I'm going to say you're all rock stars. There's so many nuggets and recovery and we could spend another four hours just teasing this apart, which I would love to do, but I'm not going to and with that, you all have like 15 seconds to say your last word. Check out anything like that. We'll start with you first, julie.

Speaker 3:

I mean I always like to put a message out there. That 12 steps it sounds scary to a lot of people. It sounds freakily religious and off-putting and I would invite you to just give it a try. I mean, the nice thing about it is it's virtual, so you sign in and you hear what people have to say and if it doesn't work for you you don't have to come back, but it might, and it's nice to have a group of people that somebody in this group has been through something very similar to what you've been through and there is a lot of healing just in having that community to turn to.

Speaker 2:

Thank you so much, julie. Yay, renee, you're up.

Speaker 5:

I'm going to be very succinct. Don't quit before the miracle happens. Full stop.

Speaker 2:

I love that. It is so incredibly wise, and you're going to have to come to the rooms to figure out what that means, anna.

Speaker 4:

You know what Moving out of isolation and asking for help have been keystones in my recovery, and I need community to help me along with that. Thanks for the opportunity to share.

Speaker 2:

Love that community, love it, love it Stephen.

Speaker 1:

You know, I just feel, after I have the opportunity to do these podcasts, I just feel such a warm feeling of gratitude in my heart, but not just for the people here, but for the ability to have these discussions and to be authentic and to be open. And to anybody who's listening, I would just encourage you, like, come to a meeting, you know, come to a place where you can share, where things are open and authentic. Sometimes they're raw, and that's okay too, but I think you'll experience that same feeling of gratitude when you find this community. And to your point, lawrence, when you said, you know we it's a big word, but it's really meaningful. The connection I found through these rooms, through this podcast, those connections will last a lifetime and it's really something I'm very, very grateful for.

Speaker 2:

Wow, wow, wow, wow. I wish I could just keep saying that, but I have such appreciation for the community that we have these beautiful people and I think the people on the podcast today was probably between two years and four and a half years in program and our community has been around for almost probably about four and a half years. I don't know what month we're in here. We're coming up on our five-year anniversary and just to see these beautiful human beings that are trudging the same road as me and we're all changing, we're all struggling. Life keeps moving and, as was spoken about in the podcast, just when we understand one dynamic and can kind of navigate it, then something shifts and something else happens and we got to readapt and the more we practice working on ourselves, recovery, building community, the easier it is to adapt to these changes. As was shared on the podcast, which is my experience too, stuff happens in my life. I feel the effects of it. I feel emotional, sometimes I feel sad or mad or angry, and I'm able to move through it at a much quicker pace and it doesn't take over my life. I don't have to surrender my life just because something happened within this contextualization of parental alienation. So I'm super grateful for that. I'm super grateful for folks taking the time to come out and share their experience, strength and hope, and for fun and for free with everyone else out there, and hopefully it was useful. I'd love to hear if you liked it FamilyDisappeared at gmailcom. Please comment on any of our social medias and answer the question what significant relationship have you seen the most change in your life that's not directly related to parental alienation? Like? What relationship based on you working on yourself, whether it's in 12 step or any other place, has really shifted, and how did you track that? A little share would be great on youtube, if that's appropriate, or through an email, and maybe I'll read some of the stuff we get in on a later show.

Speaker 2:

So thanks for coming out and playing in the neighborhood today. Great stuff in the show notes. We really appreciate you. Please like share. We'd like to get these messages to as many people as possible and I love you. I hope you have you, have a beautiful day. I am going to go and hopefully no, not hopefully I'm going to go have a beautiful day. So yay me, yay you Go get them. See you around the neighborhood. Bye. Thanks for taking the time to join me on this episode of Family Disappeared Podcast. Do you know someone who can benefit from what we're discussing on today's episode? If so, please share this podcast with them and anyone else in your community that might be interested in changing their lives. Together we'll continue the exploring, growing and healing journey. I will see you on our next episode. Until then, happy days to all.