Addiction Medicine Made Easy | Fighting back against addiction

Wonderful Person, Horrible Disease: What It's Like Being Married To Someone With Addiction

• Casey Grover, MD, FACEP, FASAM

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A physician-mom sits across from us and tells the truth: she loved a good, kind man whose alcoholism, fueled by unhealed PTSD, dismantled their family one crisis at a time. From quiet home drinking to ER runs, withdrawal hallucinations, and an ICU ventilator, her story captures the clinical realities of alcohol use disorder and the human cost families carry in silence. She walks through safety plans for her kids, a neighbor’s garage that became a refuge, and a courthouse morning where getting a restraining order had to look “normal” so the children wouldn’t panic.

We dig into the mechanics of stigma—how judgment from colleagues, self-stigma as a physician, and the fear of losing a job keep people quiet. We talk person-first language, trauma-informed care, and the practical wisdom of respond, don’t react. She shares the hard boundary every caregiver eventually faces: sobriety can’t matter more to you than to the person using. Along the way, community shows up in surprising forms: a packed church, meals left at the door, volunteers finishing a half-built treehouse, hikes that reopen space to breathe, and faith that survives anger and doubt.

You’ll hear concrete takeaways for supporting loved ones with alcohol addiction: naming the disease without shaming the person, building child-first safety plans, seeking counseling that treats PTSD and substance use together, and finding support that fits your life when formal groups aren’t possible. Above all, you’ll hear hope—gritty, ordinary, persistent. If you’re carrying a similar weight, you are not alone. Listen, share this with someone who needs it, and leave a review to help more families find real support. Subscribe for more conversations that put compassion, science, and action at the center of addiction care.

SPEAKER_00:

Welcome to the Addiction Medicine Made Easy podcast. Hey there, I'm Dr. Casey Grover, an addiction medicine doctor based on California's Central Coast. For 14 years, I worked in the emergency department, seeing countless patients struggling with addiction. Now I'm on the other side of the fight, helping people rebuild their lives when drugs and alcohol take control. Thanks for tuning in. Let's get started. She contacted me because she wanted to share her story of being a doctor, married to someone with terminal addiction, and what that put her and her family through. And her hope in speaking to me was to encourage someone who might be in a similar situation to reach out and ask for help. Her story is really raw and emotional, and it has a lot to teach us about what it's like being a loved one of someone who has addiction and not knowing how to help. And the stigma that her family faced was uniquely challenging as she is a physician and believed that she should have been able to, because of her education and training, help him. So with that, let's get to Dr. Fan telling her story. All right. Hello, welcome. I'm so glad to have you on my podcast. Why don't you just start by telling us who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So thanks for having me, Casey. My name is Brenda Pan. I am a family physician. I guess there's three parts to me. One, my professional role. I'm currently working in an as-needed role as a hospitalist. And then I'll function as an inpatient attending for the family medicine residency service, working with my very delightful residents. I absolutely love teaching them and have so much fun doing that. The second part of me, and my most favorite part, is I'm a mom. I have two amazing kids. I have a boy and a girl. God bless me with one of each. And they're just wonderful. And then the third part of me is I'm a Bible study teacher. I teach Bible studies at our church, and I'm getting my master's in biblical and theological studies. I'm working on a paper right now, actually, that's due next week on global church history. So I picked the temperance movement because the how the church responded to alcohol plays into some of what I do. Hopefully, by the time this podcast airs, my paper will be done and I won't be stressed about it anymore. But that's me, basically, in a nutshell.

SPEAKER_00:

And you and I were going to connect today to talk about what it's like when a loved one has addiction.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Sounds like you have some lived experience there.

SPEAKER_01:

I do. Unfortunately, about 17 years worth. And then after he died, still dealing with it.

SPEAKER_00:

Where do you want to start with this story? It sounds like we have a lot to learn.

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. I guess I can start by telling you what my husband was like and walking through what happened with his disease, specifically alcoholism. Does that sound like a good place? Let's do it wherever it feels right to start. Sure. My husband was a good, kind man. He was very likable. He had a wonderful group of friends and a close-knit family. And I really want to emphasize that. He would help anybody. I remember one time he was late getting home because he ran across a mom with her daughter because a kitten got trapped inside the engine compartment under the hood of their car. And he just spent like an hour trying to get this poor kitten out for them. He would, and they were strangers, but he would just stop. He would help anybody. And his disease just was really bad. And it really ate away at those parts of him and it changed who he was. And the disease just basically destroyed him. And I just want to be really clear, and because I think it's very important that anything that I say about this is specifically talking about the evils of the disease. I'm not saying bad things about him as a person, because I don't think that's fair. I think he had an awful disease and it just changed how he acted and responded to things. And when I first met him, one of the things I was very impressed about was his initiative and the fact that he owned his own business. He was a carpenter remodeler. He built additions, remodeled things. And I was very impressed with him having his own business because I knew his past. And I think this is what started his alcoholism. You and the first responders talked about some PTSD. And I think this is really what started his road of self-medicating for that. But he, when he was 10, he was in a car accident. His mom, dad, older sister were in the front seat. They all died. He, his little brother, and little sister in the back seat survived. Both his parents were only children. So they ended up getting sent to Mooseheart, which it's basically a very large facility that takes care of orphaned kids back in that day. And he and his siblings were split up. He grew up in a home with boys his age, his sisters in another separate building with girls her age and so on. In a flash, his whole family and everything he knew was lost, and everything is brand new and trying to navigate that. And I was impressed that he overcame all of that and was able to have his own business. And it was one of the things that attracted me to him at the time. But after we got married, the first anniversary that I was with him on this accident, I realized he struggles with this. He would lay on the couch and be unable to go to work and just sleep all day. And I thought, okay, he's he has some depression here. And I think over the course of time, he struggled to deal with that even more. At that time he drank, but he would never drink outside of home. So there was never a worry about him drinking and driving. It was only at home. And as his drinking worsened, the risks he took escalated. He would start drinking when we were out at a restaurant. And never were he was drunk, because I never would have gotten in a car with a drunk driver, but nor would I have let him drive. But he I noticed there were subtle changes. And I think the main turning point for him was the Sandy Hook school shooting back in December of 2012. He was part of a ministry at our church that they had comfort dogs, these golden retrievers that were trained to go into traumatic situations and just let people pet the dogs and really be comforted by the dogs. And it was a great ministry because it helped, I think, a lot of people who struggled to verbalize what was happening in the midst of this trauma, they were able to sit down on the floor and just pet and hold a dog and be close to someone and get some comfort from that. So he and two church members went out to Sandy Hook over New Year's Eve that that December. And I don't think he was prepared for the amount of trauma. He worked with the kids that were part of that school, some of the siblings of the some of the children that had died. And I think that just was very overwhelming for him. So I think when he came back, um, his drinking escalated dramatically as he I think he tried to self-medicate some more. Again, the disease. I'm not trying to say anything bad about him as a person, but he got incredibly orthostatic. I checked him at home, and he's orthostatic, he's dizzy, can't stand up. I take him to the ER. It was actually his nephew's high school graduation, and we missed it. I took him to the ER. He was pancytopenic from the bone marrow suppression, hypokelemic, hypomagnesemic, his LFTs were up. And this is at my hospital where I'm working with my ER colleagues who were very gracious. I'm sure they just took one look at the labs and they know exactly what's going on. But they they didn't say anything, and I really appreciated them being so supportive. I think around that same time we were out at some summer fest, and I looked at him and his eyes were just bright yellow, like a bumblebee. He was incredibly jaunist all of a sudden. And that went away, which I don't understand how that just faded. He never got jaunist again. But he lost an incredible amount of weight. This is a guy who probably weighed 220, 230 in good shape, 6'2, 6'2 guy who's getting down to about 130 pounds. He lost a significant amount of weight. We had 30-day inpatient stays. Those were odd times trying to normalize taking the kids to an inpatient unit to visit their dad on a Saturday. And that tried to make this seem normal, like a normal part of family life was just, it was crazy. He wouldn't go to AA. He went a couple times, but didn't think that was helpful. So he refused to go back. And his disease just kept worsening and he kept taking incredibly more risks. At this point, he's driving while intoxicated. And it was a big issue for me. I had a 45-minute commute each way to work. And at this point, I'm trying to get the kids to and from daycare so that he's not driving them. So it was very stressful to try to get out of work on time. And you know, as a doctor, it's almost impossible to get out of work on time.

SPEAKER_00:

Yep.

SPEAKER_01:

And just to protect the kids from him driving, I had asked the daycare director if she could just not let him take the kids ever. And without a doctor's note or a court order, I can't deny a parent picking up their kids. So I had to beg her, please, if he seems incapacitated or intoxicated, please don't. You got to call me right away and I'll come get them. His spending increased and he stopped working. He he wouldn't go to work. And as I said, he had his own business. So I'm the only one working, I'm the only source of income. And he was building an addition for our house. So we have a lot of money going out without a lot of money coming in. And that ended up getting very stressful. He was spending a lot of money on other things that I had no idea about. And ultimately ended up taking the credit cards and the debit cards and the checkbook every time I left the house with me because I just wasn't confident that he would not go on a spending spree. I would kick him out of the house more than he was at home during this time because it had just gotten so bad. And I was terrified that he would drink and then try to come get the kids. And again, I'm emphasizing this is disease doing this. He would never ever do anything to hurt the kids I know. But when someone's drinking and they're that incapacitated, they just don't know what they're going to do. And my biggest concern at the time was my kids' safety. And we had a neighbor a couple doors down that I knew. And she didn't know much about our situation. We casual social talking as you pass on a walk through the neighborhood. But I called her up one day and I just said, listen, if something goes wrong here, can my kids go to your garage? They had a spot. We had would dog sit for them. So we had been in the garage and the area where the dog was. And I said, Could could my so I knew what their garage format was. And I said, Could my kids please go to your garage and hide there? Because I need to know they have a safe place to go or their dad might not try to find them, or you wouldn't think that they would be. And she asked no questions. She just said, Of course, you just, if I'm here, you send them to my house, I'll keep them, I'll do whatever you need. But she asked no questions. And when I think back to the people that helped me during that time, that was such a source of comfort and support for me. It's such a little thing, but it meant the world at that time. Sorry, I got a little chugged up. And then one of the other turning points was there were two turning points for me, I think, when I realized this is just out of control. I had left for work and forgot to bring my glasses. So I get about halfway to work and I realize I forgot to put my glasses on. So I turn around and go back home. It's about eight in the morning. And he's sitting on the couch with a giant drink. And at that point, he's drinking every day, and this isn't working. My goal growing up was always to be a mom and a doctor. I loved helping people. I loved science. So the doctor part was a natural goal, but I always wanted to be a mom more. And so my goal was to work part-time and be a mom. And because of the finances and the way things were working, I ended up having to work full-time. And I really resented that I was working full-time. So more than anything, I just wanted to be with the kids. And when I came home that day and he was drinking at eight in the morning, I was furious. And I called his doctor. And it's so funny because as a physician, I know we can't cure or solve the problem for them, right? The patient has to want to do this. They have to be motivated on their own. But I did what most of family members do to their doctors. I called his doctor and I'm like, You what do we do? I'm going to bring him into you today. And she's, I knew her. She was a colleague of mine, and I trusted her. She kept confidentiality. And I said, What am I? She said, What do you expect me to do? He has to want to recover. She says, You're going to take him to the ER for what? You know, they're they're just going to detox him and go back and drink. He's got to want to do this. And I realized she's right. Um, and so I didn't bring him in that day. He refused to go. But that's when I realized if he doesn't drink, he's withdrawing. And there was one time where he decided he would quit cold turkey and he was diaphoretic, tremulous, hallucinating, and tachycardic. And I said, You got to go in because you're going to seize. When he refused to go in, and at that point, what do I do? I can't force him to go in. He, and just real quickly, he did get hospitalized for withdrawal one time. He disassembled the bed alarm. He eloped from the hospital, calls me, tells me to come pick him up that he's by a cornfield. Now we live in Illinois. That doesn't narrow it down. I have no idea where he is. He can't tell me where he is. He can't describe what street he's on. All he can keep telling me is that he's by a cornfield. And so I call the police. We're trying to find him. I'm really worried he's going to seize because I visited him that morning in the hospital and he was hallucinating. He's on all the protocols. And we finally found him. I took him to another hospital nearby. And remember, these are all like our local hospitals. I know all the physicians. But we go to the ER of another hospital because he was willing to go there. And while we're in the ER, we call him Code Armstrong's, the security codes, because someone's getting violent and escalating. And at that point, I excused myself from the room. But it was all the withdrawals. And I ended up going home to the ER doc. I knew him. He's just, please go home, get some sleep. And at six in the morning the next morning, I get a call from the nurse letting me know that he's doing fine on a vent. And event? Like, how did he get put on event? His withdrawals got so bad that they had no other option except to sedate him that strongly that he was on event. So he's in the ICU now in another hospital. And I go, and of course, when I come out of the room and open up the curtain, there's several of my colleagues there. And they were very discreet. I think they they made assumptions about why I was there and why he was on a vent. And I appreciate the fact that they didn't bring it up. They maintained some privacy for me, which was very much appreciated. But even while he's on the vent, like the next day, I'm still getting the kids to take care and showing up at work on time because I can't lose my job. We need insurance, we need benefits, and we need a source of income. There were incidents with the police, the sheriff. My my final turning point was on New Year's Eve, we needed to get a restraining order. And my kids and I were not being abused, or we would, we I would have left and gotten us to a safe place, but we did need a restraining order. And attorneys' offices are not open on New Year's Eve, but it was a Friday, so the courts still were because it's not the legal holiday. So I took the kids to court. I'm like, just I'm just gonna have to figure this out. Somehow, well, I'll figure out how to do this. And um, I remember going up in front of the judge, and the kids were sitting in the back of the courtroom, and I'm trying to tell them, I'm trying to act like this is okay, this is normal, when all I want to do is saw, basically. And I don't want the kids to see that. And I'm standing before the judge getting the restraining order, and I'm thinking, this is absolutely crazy that as a mom, I'm trying to normalize this for my children. Like I shouldn't have to normalize a restraining order. Like this is so that was a turning point for me where I realized we we really have a problem. We ended up with the sheriff coming over multiple times with the restraining order. Our sheriffs and police department, they were phenomenal. But for the restraining order, there's like multiple big black suburbans on my street, you know, patrol squad cars, and several officers and sheriffs at our door to present the restraining order, which I know our neighbors saw, and it's nobody asked. Everybody was, I didn't think people know what to say, quite frankly. They just really don't. And but one of my neighbors mentioned something about um other drugs that she had thought he might be doing. So I then I have the sheriff coming over at the canine unit to sniff through the house because I don't want to risk my medical license with any sort of illegal drugs here. And they said that there were two spots where there was probably cocaine, but never found anything. But the sheriff said it was stored in these two spots in your house, and we didn't find anything. So I'm like, okay, I just didn't want to be busted for that. And because again, I had to provide for my family now. I'm the only person and we really was scared about losing benefits. But he ended up dying in 2018, and that's just one of the things you never think you have to sit your children down to tell them to let them know that their dad died. You can't really Google how do I tell them this. And anyhow, my son was 10 and my daughter was 13 at the time. And it was that was a rough, that was rough.

SPEAKER_03:

I'll leave it at that. I'm sure people can imagine that was just rough time. So there you go. Thank you for your bravery and sharing your story.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a lot to unpack.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, and I want to be clear, the reason, the only reason I tell the story, and this is truly the first time I've told so much about it, to be honest, is truly to help other people in the same situation that I was in. Because we don't talk about it at all. There's such a stigma with it. And I know in your podcast with um the first responders, you all talk about the stigma. And I could really relate to that. It took me a while. A friend of mine from church said, after he died that summer, a friend said you should write a Bible study about this to help other people. And I said, No, there's no way I want to do anything related to this anymore. I just want to take care of my kids, help us heal, recover, and move on somehow. And then a couple years ago, um, God kept bugging me about writing this Bible study. So I'm like, fine, I'll do it. So long story short, I ended up it's not all done. Eventually it'll get published, but I I ended up writing about how you can strengthen your faith when your loved one has an addiction. And the point of it is not to talk about the loved one with the addiction. The whole point of it is how do you not lose your faith during this time? And how do you handle some of the conflicts that come with having a loved one with an addiction? Like, how do you love your neighbors yourself when you're kicking him out of the house? And we're supposed to forgive. And how do you keep forgiving over and over again without implying that the addiction's okay? As a Christian, I really wrestled with a lot of those topics. And working through that, writing and leading those studies really helped. But that's the only reason I'm doing this is to let people know you're not the only ones with this crazy, bizarre, absurd life happening. And, you know, if it helps one person, I'm grateful.

SPEAKER_00:

I've taken the same approach with my own PTSD, is people look at me as a successful physician and they don't see PTSD. My earlier history earlier in life was anorexia, bulimia, and self-harm. And so when they look at me and I'm wearing my scrubs and I'm doing the doctor thing, when I can be vulnerable, I feel like I can be vulnerable on behalf of those who don't have the social capital to be able to be vulnerable, and it maybe inspires them to be willing to talk to someone. So I agree 100%. So again, thank you for your bravery. I have conversations with spouses and loved ones all the time in this same way. And I actually wrote recorded a podcast yesterday, which is on how to help encourage the person who's not ready for change to make change. So I'll be sure to send that to you when it's out. But as you look back, what are some of the things that you wish you had known then that you know now?

SPEAKER_01:

That's a really good question. We went to a counselor to try to help him, and he refused to go back, but I kept going. I found it very helpful. And the counselor one time told me, you need to respond, don't react. And I thought about that when he said I was reacting with anger. Anger, bitterness, resentment were my key emotions during that time. I was so mad that my life was like this, and I was mad that it was it was seriously affecting my opportunity to be a mom to my kids while they were young. And I lament the loss of that opportunity. But I reacted with anger, and in some ways I wish I had learned, respond, don't react, in the sense that if I could have backed away from it and responded practically rather than reacting emotionally, I think it's easier said than done. And in hindsight, it sounds like such an easy thing to do. I'm not sure I could have done it, but I thought that was a helpful thing to think about. I don't know if that would have helped him. And quite frankly, I don't know if there was anything that I could have done to have helped him.

SPEAKER_00:

Did his PTSD ever get treated?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes and no in at times. So he would uh get some treatment for depression and anxiety, but then think it wasn't working and stop. He would never stick with counseling. We would try to go to different counselors because there was always a reason that particular counselor wasn't working. Try somebody else. And I think it was the self-medicating with alcohol, I think provided a quicker relief than anything else. It was just an easier fix, I think. And I don't know, quite frankly, what I could have done to have helped him more.

SPEAKER_00:

I came to addiction medicine in a unique way. Emergency medicine was my first career. And I I fell into addiction medicine as we were ER docs trying to reduce the overprescription of opioids, and we realized there was more under the hood, if you will. And PTSD and addiction, where they come together, is currently my niche. And it's just, it's it's so funny when I was a little baby doctor, fresh out of medical school, I thought, oh, addiction's just self-medicating. I go through all this training and take all these tests, and you're right, a lot of addiction is just self-medicating, and a lot of what I try to do is figure out what is it that substance is doing for you? How do we address that need in some other way, whether it's talk therapy, EMDR, Equine therapy, Prozac, a camper state, whatever it's gonna be. And it it's really interesting. I had no idea how profound PTSD was as a diagnosis until I got diagnosed. And I thought it was war veterans and victims of childhood abuse, and it's a really weird experience when all of a sudden you're in fight or flight mode and you're safe and you can't figure out why. I'm I I don't know if I could have helped him either, but I see exactly the portrait you paint of what he was like in his relationship with alcohol, and I see also why you speak about him so fondly and you speak about his disease as the enemy because that's really what it was.

SPEAKER_01:

That's true. That's true.

SPEAKER_00:

But yes, I think the way I approach it is we first have to recognize that there is PTSD. I usually go through the DSM 5 criteria with my patients. A lot of them have no idea. They'll be like, yeah, I thought I might have had it, but I wasn't sure. We talk about it. And then, yeah, some of my patients love talk therapy, some of my patients don't. I'll buy them workbooks, whatever we can do. But yeah, healing from PTSD is hard. And I'd be curious how you feel if I ask you the question, do you think you have any PTSD from this?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't think so. I get teary about the part with the kids, you know, because both the children that I have left for college together this fall, together for the first time. So you're talking to a mom who's a relatively new empty nester and feels like she missed out on some of her childhood times with the kids. I can't whine about that too much because they're at a college that's only 45 minutes away. And while they're living on campus, they're both coming home like once or twice a month. So I'm seeing them quite often, which is a real blessing. And they're both at the same place. So how much easier could that be for me? That part I I lament and just make the best of the time that I do have with them when I have time with them. Um, but I don't I don't feel like I have PTSD over it. I think I compartmentalize it very well. I've I talked with the counselor afterwards for a little bit, and uh honestly, it was such a relief to be free from that day-to-day unpredictability, unreliability, and and the effects of his drinking. That once that stopped, I feel like my life had color again. There was music again, and I could do fun things, and I didn't always have to worry. I honestly, the headache stopped, the nausea stopped. I had lost a ton of weight, and people at work were coming up to me asking me if I was okay because they noticed how much weight I had lost. And I was looking sickly. I was underweight actually at that point. It was it was a relief now to not have to try to manage around that all the time. And I think my faith absolutely was incredibly instrumental in helping me get beyond that. Without a doubt, believe me, I was pretty mad at God during some of this. I couldn't understand why having a loving, healthy family could not be what he would want for us. And I let him know I was mad at him for sure. But I do have a very strong grounding faith, and I think that's really what helped carry me through. And we have an incredible church family. The church for the funeral was packed, absolutely packed. It was amazing. Everybody from work came. He was working on a tree house for the kids. He had leftover building materials from our audition, and it was half done. And when he passed, our church has a ministry called LERT. It's the early response team. They'll go out when there's tornadoes and hurricanes and they'll. Do chainsawing of trees and help clean up some debris, and they do it all for just the volunteer to do this. And the guys from Lurk came over and finished the treehouse for us. I can't cook, which I think is pretty well known amongst our church. But I had meals, people just showing up randomly with food for me. Even months later, I remember one lady just showed up with a big pot of turkey chili, and I'm like, oh, thank you. We don't have to eat quesadillas or eggs again. Yeah, I think because we had such a strong supportive system and our family, of course, my mom and his sister were just amazing at being there for us and helping.

SPEAKER_00:

Did you ever do any Al-Anon or family support group meetings? Good question.

SPEAKER_01:

When he was in 30-day rehab, they had a couple family sessions that I went to. Al-Anon was just absolutely not a possibility for me. I had no spare time between trying to get up, get the kids to daycare, get to work, get home, pick them up, feed them, take care of the chickens, the dogs. By that time at night, it's I had no time. I really had no time. And at that point, I was so I for some time I was program director in a family medicine residency program. And eventually I ended up becoming an assistant vice president of medical affairs at the hospital. And that's really when his disease was escalating. And as AVP, I was busy. There was a lot of after hours work with that. So finding time to do anything on my own was an issue. And also if I was going to go to Al and even finding someone to watch the kids, that that was going to be a real challenge for me. It just wasn't practical. There were so many other things that I did everything around the house. I was doing literally everything. So it was tough managing that with full-time work.

SPEAKER_00:

What I've heard from you as you think about your own journey is to love the person, realize it's a disease, to think about responding and not reacting. In other words, being more in tune with your emotional reactivity and get support in a way that works for you. As you reflect back, are there other things that helped you get through this very difficult time?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, again, my family, my mom and his sister were just amazing. Family was tremendous. There were other family members, of course, but my mom and his sister were always there, always helping. Um, the church family, I think other things that were really helpful, and these are silly things, but just people being kind. And that weekend that I had to go to get the restraining order that Friday of New Year's Eve, it snowed a ton. And I love cross-country skiing. And I thought after getting the restraining order and going through that weekend, I thought I'm gonna go buy myself some cross-country skis because I love going outside. I love winter. And I went to go buy the skis, and the salesman was just so nice, and he walked me through everything. And I'm like, he was just so kind. It was just, it was those little pieces of kindness sometimes from strangers that just could make your day. What else helped me? I think going outside, I love being outside. So I would hike by myself quite a bit, and that was it was like the only time I got some peace and quiet. No one bugging me. I could have a half hour or an hour just to walk outside and be with the trees and enjoy the fresh air. That that was incredibly important. I think, I think making sure one of the things that I did not do very well for sure was I didn't talk to other people about this because of the stigma. It was impossible to sleep. I just could not sleep. And I wasn't eating very well. I definitely wasn't taking very good care of myself. And it was hard to, I felt nauseated all the time. I had headaches all the time. But I wish I had more confidence to talk to people. I was scared people were gonna judge me on two levels. One, she's a doctor and she can't fix this. What kind of doctor is she? And then my second worry was if people at work, if my bosses knew how crazy my home life was, like they're gonna think I'm nuts or they're gonna fire me. Again, I my fear of losing my job and not having benefits and income to take care of my kids was such a big concern and worry for me. But I often quote the Department of Health and Human Services percentage. So for 2024, um, that calendar year, 16.8% of the US population over the age of 12 battled an addiction with substances of some sort. 16.8%. So if we do the math and you figure that's let's say 1.6 people out of 10. And for every one of those 1.6 people battling an addiction, they have several family members like me, right? There's a spouse or parents, siblings, best friend, children. So by my calculation, over 50% of the population somehow is dealing with somebody who's had an addiction. And the times that I did talk with people at work, out of people that knew what was going on at home, I'm like, you're not gonna understand. And I tell them, they're like, I'm going through the same thing at home. I had colleagues that I was very close with who were dealing with the exact same situation at home, and we could have been a source of support for each other, but we weren't talking about it. I had people in my community that I knew very well that ultimately reached out and they've been dealing with it too for about the same amount of time. The fact that we don't talk about it because we're worried about the stigma just leaves us to be isolated and alone. And it just makes it so much worse. Instead of being able to support each other and talk about strategies, how are you handling it? What can you do? And even just someone to listen. I felt like when I told people, like, you won't believe what happened. Sometimes you just needed to tell somebody to make sure you're not crazy. And, you know, those were the those would be the kind of people that could understand and not think you're nuts. Like you must be exaggerating, or that can't possibly be true.

SPEAKER_00:

When I educate about stigma and healthcare, stigmatizing language hurts in many ways. The patients hear it, the family members hear it. That judgment makes people not want to see care. But who's working next to you? Right? If you're in clinic and one of your staff makes a disparaging remark about people with alcohol addiction, that hurts you. And that's one of the things we've really worked on where I work, and we actually have a person-first language module for the staff and a stigma in healthcare module for the staff, is just realize that in our organization of 3,200 people, I don't know, 600, 700 of us are actively affected ourselves and who knows how many family members and friends. Stigma casts a wide net too. It's not just addiction, it's psoriasis, it's urinary incontinence, it's epilepsy. Stigma in healthcare kills. And so it's a really important topic for me and something we work very hard on in our practice is person-first language, safety, and no judgment. And I was gonna ask you, what was it like being a doctor and being like, I should know? So there's right, there's stigma, there's perceived stigma where people, you feel like you're being judged. What about the self-stigma? For you as a physician spouse of someone battling alcohol addiction?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, it that's a really good question. I was nervous people would not think I could do my job. I clinically, I wasn't worried about that. I still saw patients and I wasn't worried about that part, but the administrative part, I'm a physician leader in my hospital, I'm administratively supporting the physician peer review committee, the credentialing and all the projects. And I'm thinking, they're gonna think I can't handle this. When I and again, I was so worried about losing my job. My husband and I saw the same doctor, and I went to her because I was nauseated all the time. And I was absolutely convinced I had something wrong with me. And she was amazing. She was just the best doctor. And she sat down and she listened to what's wrong with your stomach. I'm like, I can't eat, I'm nauseated, I'm losing weight. And of course, I'm not honest with her, right? I think that's the other thing we do is we don't tell the truth about what's really going on at home. And she keeps asking me questions. And she's like, How long is your commute? I'm like, it's about 45 minutes each day. She's like, Really? And she's the one about the kids. And I'm like, I'm still nursing the youngest. So let me get this straight. You're pumping, nursing, commuting an hour and a half, you're working full time. How's your sleep? But she just persisted in all these questions. How are you eating? How are things at home with your husband? You got a lot going on. Your nausea is not anything physical. And she was very direct but compassionate and kind. But she took the time to tease out these answers, and it helped me realize yeah, I need to admit there's stuff wrong at home because I think I was in a bit of denial about that too. And after talking with her, I had to admit my nausea did get a little better, but didn't go away all the way. But it was helpful to have a fellow physician not just give me an order for an ultrasound or this, check my gallbladder. She really talked through the psychosocial aspects of my life and helped me realize there's other things happening here.

SPEAKER_00:

I just want to go back to the piece, though, about self-stigma. So self-stigma is the idea that we judge ourselves when things don't go right. Did you struggle with your own training in not being able to help him and feeling inadequate or guilty in some way?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, yes, of course. You feel guilty because I think his disease, um I think early in our relationship, he respected the fact that I was a physician and was was respectful of me. And I think as the disease got worse, and it made him lash out more. So I I think he would blame me. I'm drinking because you do this or you do that. And then that's where I started to question do I do that? Is this my fault? When you do start to feel guilty, I that that was a little bit of a challenge for sure. Not being able to help him, I struggled with that too. I felt like I tried everything. I tried the compassionate, we'll do this together, we'll go to counseling together. And I think it was Wendy, I think Gabrielle's mom, when you spoke with her on the podcast, she talked about struggling and finding that balance between tough love and then accountability. And I I worked real hard at trying to be supportive. And just like she struggled with that too, I would clean up the mess so the kids didn't see it. I'd try to protect him so that they didn't realize that he had a problem. And then at some point, you just get exhausted and tired of doing that. And I thought, he's got to have some of the consequences of this, you know, because otherwise he's not gonna learn from that. And then that didn't work. And so then, well, what if I yell more or I do this more? And any approach I had, it was not successful. And at some point I realized, I remember saying to him, too, I am working harder at your sobriety than you are. It can't mean more to me than it does to you. It his sobriety had to mean more to him, it had to come from within him. And I felt like it was coming from within me, pushing on him. And all that did was create more animosity and more tension for us. And that was a real struggle. I did feel like I just don't know what to do anymore. And I felt like I was so successful in the other aspects of my life. I felt like I was successful at work, and and it was, it just messed so much with my identity that I could succeed so well in this part of my life, but then this part of my life was such an unbelievably unsuccessful mess. And that was one of the things I lamented a lot and worried about a ton was that my children were growing up without seeing what a good marriage is, what a healthy relationship is. And that scared me for them. I I they had no example of a good marriage or role model in us. And I've since remarried and I talk with the kids about that a lot. And my daughter has said things like, Oh, I see how he treats you. And she's believe me, I want a man to treat me the same way. She's I'm settling for nothing less. So I'm grateful now that they can see what a healthy, loving, respectful relationship is. I'm so grateful that I was able to show them that, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Of course. Let's say tomorrow you get a phone call from a friend saying my husband is struggling with alcohol addiction. What's the best high-yield piece of advice you would give them?

SPEAKER_01:

I have gotten those calls. I ask, why don't we go get coffee or meat and let's just talk? Because if someone's at that point that they're reaching out, I I don't think they've reached out before. And I think what they need to do is just talk. And so I just sit there and listen, shed a few tears together. We've done that because I get it. And I and what I hear most often is it's so nice to know I'm not alone, that I'm not crazy. And so I I think providing validation that what you're going through, what you're feeling, you're not nuts. And there's hope. There's always hope. Although you can't see it all the time. But I try to make sure that they know you can call me anytime, day or night. Like if you need to talk, just call and I'll be there to talk. Because I wish I had availed myself of that. I know I would have had friends who would have been willing to have done that for me, but it was my fault for not reaching out.

SPEAKER_00:

I want to come back to your bravery in sharing this story. And I'm going to tell a little story about when we share and how it helps. So the icon of my podcast is a painting and it's a picture of a person trying to escape the black hand of addiction. And it was painted by a friend of mine named Paul, and he died of an overdose. And I share his art all the time when I teach about addiction. And his family didn't really know who this doctor that he was talking to and what the relationship was. And I was like, who's this, who's this doctor guy? But they asked me to speak at his funeral, and I promised his family that I would use his story, Living with Addiction, to teach. And it gave them so much closure to know that even after he passed and he struggled, his life is making a positive influence in the world. In fact, I was at high school this morning teaching kids, and I shared his art this morning and talked about how some of my patients are the nicest people I have ever met, and yet they really struggle. And Paul, who painted the painting, that is my podcast icon, was this was the same way. And again, thank you for being willing to share your story and your former husband's story, because yes, this episode, that story, his lived experience will absolutely help those who need it when they feel like they're the only one who's living with a loved one with addiction.

SPEAKER_01:

And and thank you for saying that. And I just want to tell you, you're doing such good work. And when you talk about being vulnerable and brave and sharing stories, I so appreciate you and your first responders and Wendy and Gabrielle and the other people you've interviewed on your podcast who are willing to share their stories because it really does, it makes a difference. And the work you're doing matters. And I just so appreciate you taking the time to make your podcast and do what you do. I know you've gone to schools many times to teach the kids and work with them, and it's so important. It's so important. So thank you.

SPEAKER_00:

As always happens, the hour flies by. Did we miss anything? Is there anything else that you wanted to share?

SPEAKER_01:

I guess the last thing I would say is if you are the loved one, and especially if you're in healthcare, go get help. Don't don't leave yourself lonely and isolated. There are there's lots of us out there, and we do want to help each other.

SPEAKER_00:

Well said. Our partnership helps me get the word out about how to treat addiction and prevent overdoses. To those healthcare providers out there treating patients with addiction, you're doing life-saving work and thank you for what you do. For everyone else tuning in, thank you for taking the time to learn about addiction. It's a fight we cannot win without awareness and action. There's still so much we can do to improve how addiction is treated. Together, we can make it happen. Thanks for listening. And remember, treating addiction saves lives.