How Shame Keeps Families Stuck In Addiction And How Connection Opens A Way Out with Suzanna

Addiction does not just hurt the person drinking or using, it ripples through every relationship around them. We sit down with Suzanna to talk about what happens after the dramatic part is over: you leave treatment, you go home, and you still have to live inside your feelings. She shares how betrayal and anxious attachment helped ignite her alcohol use disorder, and why “if you loved me you’d stop” misunderstands how addiction turns alcohol into emotional survival.

We also dig into what actually supports long-term recovery: the unexpected healing power of simple kindness in a treatment center, the way AA meetings create instant safety through honesty, and the difference between compliance and surrender. Suzanna gets specific about building structure with “90 meetings in 90 days,” staying close to the rooms, and how accountability relationships can pull you back when motivation fades. If you’re a parent, partner, or friend trying to help, you’ll hear a grounded take on why you can’t force someone sober and what you can do instead.

Then the conversation turns to grief and relapse prevention. Suzanna talks about loving someone in recovery, losing him to an overdose relapse, and navigating devastating loss without disappearing into alcohol. We unpack the pink cloud, the reality that you’re always one drink from the ditch, and the skill that changed everything for her: reaching out immediately and “telling on yourself” before a slip becomes a spiral.

If you know someone who needs recovery, share this with them. Subscribe, download, and leave a review so more families can find real help and real hope.

Transcript

Addiction Touches Every Family

SPEAKER_00 0:05

Hi, and welcome back to the Relationship Blueprint, where you unlock your power of connection. The last time we were together with Susanna, she told us about her depths of despair and addiction. She told us about how she'd almost died five times. She told us about the family and friends that she hurt, but she also told us about how she found recovery and how she is staying in recovery now, what resources that she has found to help her stay clean. And this episode is for anyone who knows someone in their family who is struggling with any kind of addiction. Addiction hits every family, whether it's shopping, food, sex, gambling, it's everywhere. And yet there's still some shame attached to addiction. And as long as we stay in shame, it's really hard to find recovery. So we want to really expose what recovery is and how to get help. Today, Susanna is going to really tell us more about what the journey has been like since she's been sober and share the highs and the lows of that journey. So please listen to this podcast and then share it with friends and family because everyone knows someone who either is in recovery or needs recovery. And we really want this word of hope to get out there. So happy you were with us today. Hey. Hi. I'm so glad you came back. Me too. Yeah. I was telling our listeners how excited I was and I am that you're back because we didn't have enough time to tell your full story. We really talked a little bit about really how you dove into addiction non-intentionally. You were like every other college kid having a good time. Everybody around you is having a good time until it's not a good time. And the breakup that you had was pretty significant. And that that trauma may have been the thing to kick it off. Yeah. Did I get that? Yeah.

Why Love Cannot Stop Addiction

SPEAKER_01 2:12

I think that I've always had an anxious attachment style. And so in my mind, obviously, when I'm in a relationship, the worst thing that can happen to me is that person leaving. And then when this person left, and I believe it was the day after. The day after this person left me, my best friend came to me with all this information about what had really been going on during that relationship and how I was not only betrayed, but betrayed in a way that I just never could have fathomed. I think it just kind of like I didn't, I didn't e I couldn't grasp anything. My brain just felt like it had been completely turned upside down. My world had been turned upside down, my brain just kind of short circuited. I'd lost this person, and I didn't even have time to cope with the loss for more than 24 hours before I'm being told all this information that I believe is true. There's evidence I have no reason not to believe my best friend, but it just I up until that point never could have fathomed that the person that I was with for years would be able to do this. And not only do it once, but do it for upwards of I think 10 or 11 months. And so that just, you know, I I studied psychology. I've been in the program for a few years. I know how addiction works. I know that at some point in my life my alcohol usage was gonna go overboard. It was my time was coming. But that's what happened to be the thing that really threw it into high gear. I think that I might have had potentially a few more years before something else overwhelmed me emotionally, and that would have ended up being the catalyst. But um, I think another big thing that kind of activated it was that this person who I was in a relationship with was very educated on addiction because of their family, and so had noticed my addictive behaviors from the jump. It was before anyone else, this person had come to me on multiple occasions and shown concern about the way I was drinking already. And so not only did the trauma of that breakup kind of activate my addiction, but I think that their presence before the breakup was also kind of holding the addiction back because I'm I'm a people pleaser, I'm a peacemaker, I need everything to be okay all the time. And so I wasn't drinking as much as I wanted to because I didn't want to cause problems in this relationship. So when you combined the abandonment, the betrayal, and on top of both of those things, all of a sudden all of my accountability is gone. So that just not only do I want to drink all day, but I also have no reason not to anymore. And so when you combined all those things, I did not want to be sober for a single second every day, and I didn't have somebody on my ass telling me, like, it's two o'clock in the afternoon, why are you drinking? Or even if it's 10 o'clock at night, why have you had this much to drink? And so it all just the culmination of that all at once just was kind of a recipe for disaster. I started drinking, I believe, I think it was 9 a.m., yeah, one morning. I think it was a few days after the breakup because nobody was home. I had nowhere to be that day. I did not want to be feeling anything I was feeling. And yeah, it just didn't stop after that.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

So that, you know, the what's hard for many, many people is how does somebody keep drinking? Well, they're they're finding with that um GLP drug, right, that people who typically had good appetites no longer have an appetite and they crave sugar less and they even stop drinking. So there's some research around that for people in recovery. But what I find most interesting about all that is that I think it suddenly gives people who do not have problems with alcohol a like a an awareness of I don't even want to drink. I'm out to dinner, and they might normally have a glass of wine and they don't even want that. Uh and I find it interesting to help people maybe who say, I can't get it. I just can't get it. Why, if he loved me, he'd stop drinking. If she loved me, you know, she would stop drinking. And how it must be so painful to believe that. You know, if this was about love, then it would be easy. It's really that alcohol becomes more than the problem, it's the solution. And when you just said, I just wanted an amount, I you couldn't feel anymore. The feelings were just right, it's like a tsunami, and alcohol became the solution. So we did talk about how how the it really kicked off, and we talked about your stays in rehab and what happened, especially. I love the story about the nurse. I miss him. I don't think he What's his name again?

Kindness In Rehab And Healing Connection

SPEAKER_01 7:55

His name is his real name is But he really I hope he doesn't watch. He really did look like a vampire. But you called him Twilight. Well, I didn't call him that. Someone else started calling him that. But everyone did. I would go and come back a couple months later and that would still be his Yeah. Because he would I think he clocked in at 11 o'clock every night. And he was just wake all night. He was just one of those people that he I don't know, I think a lot of people felt there's so many, and this is nothing on the nursing community, it's just the state of healthcare in general. But nurses are underpaid and overworked, and a lot of them are really struggling in their line of work, and he just you could feel on him, he was one of those people who was happy to be there. Well, you couldn't really see it on his face, but you could feel that he cared. And there's I mean, there was a chef who worked in the kitchen there, and she's worked there for a few years, and still when I see her, I just it makes my day. Yeah. You can tell that she she loves her work cooking, but also I don't know, it's just like there yeah, I feel like with certain people you can tell that they very clearly separate, like I'm here to I'm here to do my job and leave. And then there's the people who work there where it's like I'm here to form a bond while these pe with these people while I happen to be getting paid to do this other thing.

SPEAKER_00 9:26

Wow. Yeah. So this really Twilight and this chef are both there to serve a purpose, but perhaps and in your life they they served a higher purpose, which was to show you how much they cared. And in that kind of scary place, it's not that it is a scary place, but being in a place you really don't want to be and knowing what the risks are of leaving and you have to stay, and it's not your own home. And to have people like that surrounding you has to make a big difference. Yeah. And I think that's true about, you know, pretty much everything in life when you meet somebody and they just smile at you, like it doesn't cost anything. And people don't know. I don't I hope Twilight does hear this. I hope the chef does hear this, because people don't know the the part they've played in impacting someone's life by simple kindness. And this goes back to what I was telling you a little bit about with the Gabor and Mate uh research on addiction and how important it is uh to have connection. And even in that place, you had the other people that were trying to get sober, but you had these other two people that you would see on a daily basis, and that that that connection is what helps us heal, which is why I think AA and NA and all the groups that are out there, psychological groups for group therapy, it's having that connection, like, hey, I'm not the only one. Like you've got this too. You really get it. And those other people on the periphery really do make a big difference.

Getting Someone To Treatment

SPEAKER_01 11:06

That's the most common thing I hear when I speak at the treatment center every week from women who are there for their first time in any sort of recovery setting. Most of them have never even been to a meeting because it was just kind of it it reached a boiling point and they were shipped off to treatment. And so it's their first time in any sort of recovery setting. The thing I hear said the most is this is the first time in my entire life I can speak openly or share my thoughts openly. Because before either I felt like everyone around me would look at me like I was crazy, or I did, and everyone looked at me like I was crazy. Yeah. So I think that I don't think people who are struggling with addiction until they get into whether their first experience in any sort of recovery setting is a meeting or a treatment center or whatever it may be, until they get there, I don't think they, I think they can imagine it, but until they get to that setting and share openly for the first time, I don't think they realize how much of a burden or a weight it is on them to be holding in. Cause you really don't until you start expressing them freely. Whether it's two other people, in my opinion, is better than writing it in a journal or yeah, speaking to, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 12:26

But you bring up such an important point because I can just speak for myself. When I walk, well, I would say when I had to walk into the doors of AA because my husband was just like, you need help if you're not going to treatment, you've got to do this. And uh I was so nervous about who would be there. We, you know, we have this small community that we live in, and what they would think, and what would I say, and did I belong there? And the thousands of thoughts, and then the same experience was maybe it wasn't the first day, it was the second, I think, for me. I walked in and I was like, there's something about being in this room with these people that I feel completely safe and it's gonna be okay. Like, I don't know what's gonna happen next, but right now I feel okay. And that was a profound feeling because I hadn't had peace in a really long time. And so I think it's helpful to hear your story of going to treatment and and knowing that the other people that are walking in those doors, they feel the same way. And I don't know that I'm not sure how many interventions include that part of transitioning that you're leaving your home. It's more like here's the intervention, you've got the problem, you got to get out, you go away from home. Somebody was just telling me about putting their son on an airplane, and they knew he'd be drunk on the airplane. He was on his way to treatment, and they were just so worried he wouldn't make his connection and just praying. And he got to Texas, and whether he was drunk or not, the mom didn't know. When she knew he arrived safely and the car was waiting for him, you know, she could breathe again. Same story, right? He's scared to death to go. And what's he gonna do at an airport? What do people with alcohol problems do at an airport?

SPEAKER_01 14:22

That's one of my worst. It's one of your worst is my mom flying with me to Florida. And it's I was in not as bad of shape as when I got to treatment for the last time, but I was in pretty bad shape and I didn't I didn't pack anything. And I think she was so pissed at me and so scared. I think a lot of her anger was fear, but also I was being a giant asshole. So she was scared, but also pissed.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

She didn't even feel like being like, hey, do you think do you think we need a bag for the 30 days?

SPEAKER_00 14:58

30 days. You had nothing with you.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

That's not true. I had a little toiletry bag. Bull of vodka. It's funny, no. It's funny now, but I had a little what happened was I woke up. My boyfriend at the time had spent the night, and he usually woke up and left at about five o'clock in the morning for work, and his alarm was going off at I would assume 5 a.m. And he got up and he didn't leave. And I was half asleep and definitely still very drunk, and I wasn't really I just thought he was dragging to get to work because he didn't want to go. And he turned on a light, and I remember probably being a bitch trying to get him to turn the light back off. And I rolled over and my mom was standing in the doorway to my bedroom. My mom lives four hours away. My mom doesn't live down the street, and so I as fast as a half-conscious, very drunk person can process something, processed that it was not a good sign that she was in my house. Probably not. No, it took me a minute, but I was I eventually was like, this can't mean anything good. I don't think she's here for a visit. A visit. No. And she told me to pack a bag because I was going to treatment. And I tried to run. I don't know, again, where I was gonna go, what I was gonna do. It was five o'clock in the morning. I was wearing a big t-shirt and nothing else, and I tried to run away from both of them. And my boyfriend gently, he was a really big guy, he just kind of like grabbed me by my shoulders and was holding me in place. And I kind of, even though I was half conscious and very drunk, it I was deep in this enough to know, like, I can I can either go to treatment now or I can run to wherever it is that I'm going and go to treatment when they find me. You still have some logic. That is pretty good.

SPEAKER_00 17:06

So I was like, you got me. What do you say to parents? If if I come to you as a as a parent and I have a daughter who's having a drinking issue, and I want to show up at her house and I want to take her to rehab, what do you say to that mother?

SPEAKER_01 17:24

I think I have an answer as from the logical, educated side of myself and also the side of myself that I know I would apply. I mean, not even if I was a mother, but if it were one of my friends. I know logically. And I've always heard, I've heard my whole life, that you can't make an addict recover. They have to want to do it for themselves. And it's only over the last few years that I've kind of put together okay, if your job says you have to get sober, you're just gonna hide it better from your job. If your partner says you have to get sober or I'm gonna leave, you're just gonna hide it better from your partner. Regardless of what the standard is for why you have to get sober, it's not gonna make you get sober. What that's gonna do is you're just gonna find a way to not get sober, but work with whatever that ultimatum is. And so the only, the only possible factor for getting sober that you can't at least try to work around is truly wanting it for yourself. And so I I know that logically, I know that I mean, in that moment, that one story I was just telling you about, I didn't I didn't give in because I all of a sudden decided I wanted to get a treatment. I gave in because, like I said, I can keep running, but he's just gonna chase me and bring me back to her. Yeah. And I don't really have an option here. And obviously that was only my second out of seven treatment trips. So things didn't turn around in those 30 days. And if you compare that, me trying to run out of my house barefoot down the street at five o'clock in the morning. Obviously, I I do believe I drank on the plane home from that trip to treatment. The morning that I went to rehab for the final time, I was calling everyone I knew. And this is extremely traumatic for all of the people who answered this call. And I this is a big part of the amends that I have to make for that last relapse because I know that this was not an okay position to put a lot of people in. I know I scared a lot of people, but I was calling every single person I could think of saying, if somebody can't give me ride a treatment right now, like I'm going to die. I'm scared. I don't know how much longer I have left in me. Like I have to get there today. And they can't come pick me up. And I think that I don't think it's a coincidence that all of the times before when I went to rehab, it was my my roommate staying on the phone with the guy to make sure that I got there because she knew I didn't want to go, my boyfriend having to physically stop me from leaving the house, my mom doing whatever she could to get me in the car, and then the treatment, the trip to treatment that kept me clean was the one where I was saying, I cannot, I can't, I don't even know if I have another hour in me. So if you could come pick me up yesterday, yeah, I would really appreciate it.

Building A Program That Sticks

SPEAKER_00 20:37

Well, Susanna, that's a really important story to tell because I I uh I know what you're saying makes total sense that when people want to get sober, they they really have to want it for themselves. And I think I did it at first to just be compliant, but I I read this article, Surrender versus Compliance, and it was probably an article at Diana that nobody else wanted to read. I'm such a nerd. But in all this that title just made so much sense to me. If being compliant for me was I can be compliant, I won't drink. I'll come here and I won't drink, but surrender. That was a whole different way of thinking about it. Like that I really it is the first step. You know, I no longer have control over this is controlling me. And I I feel like uh a couple definitions I've heard over time of, you know, what is addiction? And one of my favorites was a therapist that I was seeing who was also in recovery was after I got sober, who said, uh, you know, ask yourself this question every time uh I was in trouble, was I drinking? And every time I was drinking, did I get in trouble? So the answer is if if every time I was drinking, did I get in trouble? No. But every time I was in trouble, was there drinking involved? And I had to answer yes to that one. And that just may be round relationships. But it it didn't matter. That was a pretty good working definition. But what you're describing is that deep desire to protect the source, whatever that is, the food, the alcohol, the cocaine, to protect that source, you were willing to run away with just a t-shirt on. And people that don't understand addiction don't understand that like need to escape because you couldn't think of life without the substance. Well, I wanted to, in this episode, really kind of dive a little bit into what recovery looks like now. So you get out of treatment. Tell us about the steps you took after that. What did recovery begin to look like after this last time?

SPEAKER_01 23:01

Off the bat, made it my goal to do 90 meetings in 90 days. I had just moved back to where we live now. And I hadn't found the meetings I liked yet. So it was more of a chore in the beginning. It wasn't till a little bit later that I actually going to meetings was something I looked forward to and not something I was just checking off a list. And so after those 90 days, I did kind of I took a step back. I think it was more like two or three meetings a week. And then last fall, when you put me in contact with my new friend, the young girl who had just gotten out of treatment. She has she's a very big personality. She's very convincing. She's very hard to say no to. And she, I don't think she realizes how lucky she is. Off the bat was kind of she was really into meetings. She really enjoyed it. I don't know if it was, I think it was probably a mixture of boredom and also a genuine interest in the program. But off the bat, she was really into meetings and and she's 16, yes. And you were her guide, if you will. I started out believing that I was her guide, but and I don't know if she realizes this, but it quickly became the other way around. She wanted to go to meetings every day, and I was not allowed to say no. It was kind of uh, are you going to the meeting tonight? No. Okay, I'll see you there at 6.30 from her. Yeah. I just kind of, I think without even really realizing what was happening, just I'd never had somebody, I'd had people outside the program pushing me to go to meetings, but I'd never had somebody that I was supposed to bring into the program bringing me back into it. And I think I was just so caught off guard by the whole thing that I we just kind of got into this routine. And now her and I go to five meetings a week. And I really don't think I'm sure she does. She's a really smart kid. I'm sure subconsciously she sees it, but I don't know if she ever I have never said to her that I think that she deserves a lot of credit for especially when I've gone through harder times. I, you know, when you have these surface-level relationships with people in meetings, if you don't show up, they might text you, ask how you're doing, you say good, they say okay, just checking. Or they might not even text you at all. But when you have this one-on-one partnership in a way, she's like, I used to call her my sidekick. I think I might be her sidekick. It's just a lot harder to kind of fall out of the program. And I don't recommend that, like we were talking about earlier. You need to get sober for yourself and get involved in the program for yourself. You shouldn't rely on a 16-year-old to keep you present in the program. But I also believe that as much as you need to want this for yourself, there are going to be periods where your reasons come and go. And there have been periods where I didn't, it's not that I didn't want it for myself or I did want it for myself. I just didn't really care. And that presence, her big personality, just kind of every single time would pull me right back in. And as much as I did just say, you know, you can't rely on somebody else to be your reason, that is what the program is, is having that accountability, having people that you care about. That's why they tell you not to stay a stranger in the rooms so that there are people who notice when you aren't there to give you that push back in. My push just happens to be a 16-year-old, which in a lot of ways she is very much 16, but in a lot of ways, she is her presence and her story are more powerful than people who who have more sober time than I have a live time.

SPEAKER_00 27:20

You know, I was just thinking about September and your connection with this young woman who just came out of treatment and I gave you a little call and hoped you might take her to a meeting. I had no idea you'd give back this much. And I want to acknowledge that right now, how grateful I am that you were able to do that with her and for her, because that's what we do. We help others who are suffering. Right. And I'm thinking about, you know, you talked about how, you know, there were ups and downs in your sobriety. And in early sobriety, you suffered a tragedy. Are you willing to talk about that today? So I understand that you met someone in rehab in Florida. No, no, it wasn't. That was my friend. That was your buddy. Where did you meet David? In AA and Charleston. In AA and Charleston. And that was over two years ago. Would that be right?

SPEAKER_01 28:17

It was the beginning of February in 2024. February 20th is when we originally met.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

And you became friends.

Love In AA And Sudden Loss

SPEAKER_01 28:26

Yeah, I later on in knowing him, it stood out to me that um we had been at a late night meeting on Friday, and um he had ridden with his roommate, and his roommate wanted to stay on later, and I wanted to leave, and he wanted to leave. So his car was at his house, and he asked if I could give him a ride back to his house, and I did. And that's not I had met him maybe one hour prior, and it just kind of stood out to me that when normally if a man who I had met one hour prior said, Can I get in your car along with you late at night and drive to an area you've never been to before, I would have politely declined to do that because that's objectively unsafe. But um, I just didn't really think twice about it with him.

SPEAKER_00 29:18

And yeah, after that night we just kind of became friends. I think it's hard for many people to understand how quickly friendships develop in the rooms, and how when you tell somebody you're you're there are very few secrets left to tell, and that creates intimacy immediately. So David became your friend, your AA friend, and when did it become more than a friend?

SPEAKER_01 29:48

He after a few months made it very clear that he had feelings for me, and I also had feelings for him, but I was at a place in my life where I was in and out of rehab. My mind was just in a million different places at once, and the way that he the way that he presented his feelings to me kind of scared me away. And I have always regretted the way I handled it. I wasn't I couldn't focus on one single thing in my life. I had so much anxiety about every aspect of my life, and that also was when I was sober and I was relapsing a lot during this period of my life, and I was just all over the place. And I think that I think that I made a lot of excuses. I think I told myself he only wants one thing from me, and he's just this whole declaration of romantic love is just a front for the one thing that he really wants, and he doesn't true, there's no way he can truly care about me. Like I just I think deep down I knew it was real, but on the surface, I was I was behaving like an asshole. And I wanted to, I think in making excuses for myself and also um absolving myself of that responsibility for how I was treating him, I was just like, it doesn't even matter how I'm treating him because there's he doesn't really he doesn't really feel like that. He just wants one thing and he thinks he's gonna get it by telling me that he feels this way about me. And I've always regretted that period of our friendship. And I once we did enter a relationship, I on many occasions made it very clear that I hoped he knew that I not only regretted that, but would never play with his feelings, jerk him around like that. However he would have described it, that that was not I wasn't making excuses as much as I was trying to explain what was going on with me. But regardless of why I was acting that way, I still do acknowledge that it's not okay. And it's really hard not to still regret that, considering I knew him for such a short time, that a lot of that was spent with me acting selfish and kind of like any any other person my age trying to get sober and trying to figure out other ways to replace the feeling of alcohol and drugs and not realizing how how easy it is to have other people kind of in that. He was kind of not what I'm trying to say. He was in my war path, and I didn't realize until after that I was having as much of an effect on him as I was, with everybody in my life, of course.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

But yeah, so while you weren't intending to hurt him, you just realized in your act of addiction and then trying to be soza and then relapsing that in that period of time you didn't accept that he loved you because we don't know why. We just know that deep down you did know that he did, but you couldn't accept it at that time, and you were really too confused. And what you struggle with even right now is this idea that you regret it because you didn't know him that long, and you want that time back, and you wish you could have known more then. And there were a lot of people in your path that while you were in your act of addiction that you hurt that you certainly never meant to hurt anyone. So when did you reconnect? Tell the reconnection story.

SPEAKER_01 33:27

I'd gotten myself into a situation with another guy from the program that I didn't really know how to get out of. And I think David had kind of from what other people were saying and what he had seen, he had picked up on what was going on. And he just he never said this outright, but the the what I kind of got from his behavior and the things he was saying was that he was pissed at me, but he was even more pissed at this guy for how he was treating me. And he didn't really want to talk to me, but he also didn't want this guy living in my house. So he wasn't gonna talk to me, but he was gonna get rid of this guy. But then once that guy was gone, he was still gonna be pissed at me, and it was just kind of I mean, it it wasn't funny at the time, but looking back, it was just, I can't stand you, and you're a dumbass for getting yourself into this situation, and yeah, I'm gonna get rid of him, but don't talk to me while I'm doing it. And it just, I think, was a above everything else he had done for me and said to me, and above everything was just kind of the most display of unconditional love from him. At that point, he was so tired of my behavior, he was so pissed at me, he really didn't even want to talk to me, but he also wasn't gonna let somebody else stand by and hurt me and take advantage of me, especially when I was in such a vulnerable state from my drinking. So I I can't really remember very well, but I'm sure I called him and I told him what was going on, and I'm sure he said something really funny.

SPEAKER_00 35:02

Great sense of humor, David. Did he have a great sense of humor? Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 35:06

Yeah, that's what that's what pretty much everyone says about him. That's I think he left behind a lot of really positive legacies, and one of the biggest is his sense of humor.

SPEAKER_00 35:17

You have such a great sense of humor. You know how I feel about you. Just people only knew. It's just the best sense of humor as a therapist, is just like, all right, I gotta stop even trying to stop not laugh. Just can't do it. It's so funny. And so you shared that humor together. Yeah. Yeah, we were always laughing. So you started going to meetings together, or how did it go from you're a stupid ass to I want to be with you?

SPEAKER_01 35:43

Uh I went back to treatment after that situation with the other guy. And then when I got out of treatment, I think he just I think he was so I think part of it was that he was so hopeful that one day I would be in a place where him and I could that I could stay sober long enough to be in a meaningful relationship with him. And also me being in treatment gave him time to get over my stupid behavior once again. And so when I got out, he wasn't as pissed at me. And I think he was just really hopeful that this time it my my sobriety would stick. And so we started talking. And I had moved back to Bluffedon and he was still in Charleston, and we were just talking every day. I think after I think after I got out of treatment um that last time in November of 2024, I believe we talked from then on every day until he passed away. Maybe there were a few days in the beginning that we missed, but uh we were we were pretty much in contact every day. And then obviously when he moved here, I was with him every day.

SPEAKER_00 36:48

And when did he move here, Susanna? I believe February of 2025. And you had met his family and he had met your family.

SPEAKER_01 36:56

I had met his mom, and she was she was wonderful right off the bat. I could tell how much she loved him. I could tell that they were really just from seeing how him and his mom interacted, I could tell that they were a really tight-knit family. Um, and then as time passed, I met his dad and then his siblings. His sister lives in California, so it wasn't until later on that I met her, and his whole family is just so they're all so wonderful.

SPEAKER_00 37:27

And they've been good to you afterwards. And then he met Beth. I think she wanted to steal him. So your mom is Beth, and so she wasn't.

SPEAKER_01 37:34

He was everyone's boyfriend. He's just so I believe they had talked on the phone or texted. They had some sort of I mean, by the time I went to treatment for the last time, I'm pretty sure it I struggle to think of someone in my life who didn't either have any sort of contact with my mom or my dad or both, just because it was just kind of a thing that what did Bob think? We don't I don't really talk to him about my we talk more about the more practical sides of life. We've never I've never talked with him about the people that I've dated. And yet you feel his love.

SPEAKER_00 38:18

Yeah, yeah, definitely. There's definitely a big connection with you and your dad. So you're sober, you're in love, you're going to meetings, you're helping others, you have your 16-year-old side pick, life is good. And then what happened?

SPEAKER_01 38:33

He attended AA as an alcoholic, but he was also in recovery from opiates. Um, in the fall of last year, he relapsed and he overdosed and passed away.

SPEAKER_00 38:45

It hasn't been very long. How have you been managing? I'm thinking about how September was also the time when just call her sidekick for this purpose, and sidekick has you go into five meetings a day and you don't really know how you let that happen, but you did. And how have you navigated recovery after such a big loss?

Grief Slips And Asking For Help

SPEAKER_01 39:09

I haven't really given myself the option to fall back on it. I think that at this point, with all the trial and error I've had getting and staying and no longer staying sober over and over again, I kinda it's not a matter of figuring out what to do to stay sober. I know how to do it. There's no question how to do it. It's just a matter of if I'm going to do it. And uh after leaving treatment for the last time, it there were times when I would not go entirely, but I would come and go a little bit. And then after he died, I just didn't really give myself still haven't given myself the option to pull away.

SPEAKER_00 39:49

Yeah. Watching watching you navigate this has been painful and a great honor. And what I've admired about this journey that you're on is how much service you're giving. You're pouring yourself into others, going to the treatment center where you went and being able to chair. You do two meetings there a week, and those newcomers that come in and are so fragile that you're really telling them your story honestly and from the heart, and not making it sound easy. Like some sometimes can happen, especially with people maybe who've had a lot of years. It can sound that they're happy, joyous, and free. And when you're brand new, you're anything but happy, joyous, or free. And so your real story, I I can't imagine how many people you're impacting right now.

SPEAKER_01 40:50

I think we him and I kind of have inverse impacts. I didn't stay entirely, I did have not a relapse, but I did slip a couple of times after he died. And I think that when people hear the combination of me having so little consecutive clean time and being able to figure this out after going through something so tragic, and then him, who he was the one with the clean time, had a slip, and that slip ended up being what killed him. I think that it kind of really puts it into perspective for especially newcomers that early sobriety, regardless of how difficult life gets, is possible, and that also once you're no longer in early sobriety and you do have time under your belt, you still it never goes away. And you don't get to recover from addiction and move on. You were in recovery forever. And a quote that is kind of it's pretty morbid and can be kind of a downer, but I think is necessary for people to remember is that it doesn't matter how far you drive, you're always the same distance away from the ditch and how far you drive, it counts for something, but it doesn't matter if it's 10 miles or a million miles, the ditch is still right there, it doesn't go away.

SPEAKER_00 42:18

Yeah. And I loved you said this in our last episode, you know, just the that the idea that you have a decision to make now whether or not to have a drink in this moment. You can choose, I offer you a drink, you could say yes, you could say no. And it's after that, after the yes, if someone takes the drink that all bets are off. And I think what you're pointing out is so important that while you did have a couple slips, they weren't binges, you were able to not go into a full relapse and you kept doing the work.

SPEAKER_01 42:53

Well, it's because I did the one thing that I had never done before. Every other from the first time I went to treatment until the last time, every single time that I had relapsed, I had never told anyone. It was always people slowly figuring it out. Whether they told other people or whether everyone just kind of figured it out for themselves, up until the day I would go back to treatment, I never told anyone. And these two times that it happened after my last treatment, I was so scared of it turning into that, of it ending with the hospital or with treatment. Best case scenario with jail or death, worst case scenario. I was just so scared that I had to reach out and ask for help. And I think that, you know, it's like you told me when in a session I told you that I had drank and I told you what I had done to put an end to it. You reminded me of the truth, which is that I still got extremely low. Lucky that I even had it in me, the willingness to ask for help instead of just being off to the races again. And from now for the rest of my life, I there is no guarantee. And it's more than likely not going to end like that again. And the next time I pick up a drink, the odds are not in my favor for it to end like it did that last time. And I know that. And I know that in that moment or in this moment right now, I know that. But I have to make sure that I keep myself in the program so that I remember that every moment for the rest of my life. Because just because sitting here right now I know it and can admit it, there very well may come a time when I look back on that last drink and think, well, I was I can just drink tonight as long as I call and ask for help tomorrow tomorrow morning. Well, that is some logic that I've heard.

SPEAKER_00 44:55

It's not good logic. It's not good logic, but that is the logic of the addicted brain. Right? You know? And so I guess what I'm wondering, you know, it's really hard. I I watched your joy. I watched you in the pink cloud. Do you want to tell them what the pink cloud is?

SPEAKER_01 45:15

I think the excitement to turn your life around can cause a false confidence. I think people get in their heads about how great their life is going to become and how they're going to get all these things back, and how once they get all these things back, they can never imagine using again. And it kind of creates this. I'm not sure why it's called pink, but you're up on this cloud of, I don't want to say false optimism, because it can be real. It's calling it false optimism would mean that you're going to fail. I don't think that's the case, but I think it's a misleading optimism that it's all going to be easy, that it's all going to come naturally to you, that you're never that once you get your old life back, that you can't you just can't fathom having cravings again. And that's just not how the attic brain works.

Pink Cloud Reality And Daily Sobriety

SPEAKER_00 46:04

Yeah. And I think for everyone, it's a different, a little different experience. My experience has been uh a lot of pink cloud moments over the last 15 years, a lot of them. And and I think that the pink cloud for me comes from like this deep gratitude that I'm just fortunate that I was able to surrender. I don't know. And I I went through a lot of guilt about that because when I was in early recovery, we were about five or six of us that were close to the same age, came into AA at the same time, go to dinner together, then a meeting. And this one woman who had been a flight attendant, she had been sober the same amount of time I was, not long. And um they found her in her bathroom. She had been drinking, and so she slipped and hit her head on the sink and bled out her brain. She had hit it that hard. And I remember my sponsor calling me and telling me I was new. And it was this realization that everything they told me was true. If I wasn't diligent, if I was I didn't really protect my sobriety, that it was very fragile. And it was so sad that we lost her, but it was absolutely a powerful lesson about the fragility. So, like you, I have had some tragedy sober. And I don't think sobriety means that life gets all rosy. You know, you still have life, but I believe that the program gives a path how to live life in a sober way. And I'm almost I I feel I try to encourage a lot of my clients to go to Al Anon and my friends, because it is a way of living with a lot more peace. And I wouldn't have had I wouldn't have had that had I not developed substance use disorder, right? So I want to end on what you're doing now with your life that you think you couldn't have done without these months that you've collected. What are you doing now that's different from say a year and a half ago?

SPEAKER_01 48:24

Every single thing that I do at all ever I couldn't be doing if I was drinking the way I I mean, from getting up and walking myself to the bathroom to working a job that requires any sort of brain power. I'm a good friend, I'm a good sister, I'm a good daughter, eat three meals a day. Like I every single aspect of my day-to-day life I couldn't have been doing and pretty much wasn't doing when I was drinking. I yeah, I I mean I lost everything at different speeds, but in the end, I really had I had pretty much lost everything. I'd lost my job. I still had my parents, but I there was no relationship there. It was just them trying to keep me alive and me rejecting it. So I yeah, I work a job that I'm happy with. I've gotten most of my friendships back. I've let go of the relationships that I know there is no repairing. I have relationships with my siblings. I have my general health back.

unknown 49:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 49:38

Because I think that's one thing that people don't realize is what's going on internally. They may feel like they look good on the outside and have no idea what's happening inside. Ill.

SPEAKER_01 49:48

I looked. It's a good reminder for me to look back on those pictures because at the time I wouldn't have. I mean, partially because I was mentally altered and just wasn't really thinking about anything that mattered, but also I didn't know anything different. I didn't look in the mirror and realize how awful I looked. And now that I have gained some weight back and have color in my face and my hair isn't falling out, I look back at those pictures and realize that it's not a metaphor to say I was poisoning myself. I was poisoning myself and it showed. And I I was too drunk all the time to really feel the effects of it, and I was too drunk all the time to notice the effects of it physically, like in my appearance. But when I look back now, when I look at pictures of myself today, next two pictures of those few years where I was drinking every second of every day, I look I'm almost unrecognizable.

SPEAKER_00 50:48

Is there anything you want to close with? Because you've shared so much of your story, and I'm so grateful, first of all, to know you and have you in my life. And I just wonder if there's anything that you would like to say before we close today. I'm just really grateful for you. And I'm grateful that you didn't give up on me. Never would. Ever by a woman. We do this thing day to time together. And with your help, of course. With your help. You're really who brought us together, right, Timmy? Yeah. She knows. She knows. So we're gonna sign off now and thank you again, Susanna, for your sharing of your beautiful story, the pain, the hope, and what hope there is for others for recovery. So thank you everybody for being with us today. My heart's filled with love and appreciation for Susanna's bravery and big heart. And we will see you the next time on the relationship blueprint, where you will unlock your power of connection. Please like us, subscribe, download the episode. This is how we are going to be able to be found by other people. I don't make any money doing this. This is really just something I feel so passionate about spreading the work of recovery in Imago. And uh until the next time, good day, everybody.