Circle of Chairs with Matt & Caroline Beidler

In this special bonus episode, I sit down with my husband Matt for an honest, heartfelt conversation about what it's like to love someone in recovery - from his perspective. 

We share the story of how we met, how he first learned about my recovery journey, and how we've navigated life's biggest changes together as a couple and as parents. 

To celebrate the launch of my new book, When You Love Someone in Recovery, I wanted you to hear from the person who lives this every single day alongside me.

New book from Caroline Beidler: 

Pre-Order: When You Love Someone in Recovery 

Caroline Beidler, MSW, is an author, speaker, and Managing Editor of Recovery.com, where she combines expert guidance with research to help people find the best path to healing and treatment. Her next book, When You Love Someone in Recovery: A Hopeful Guide for Understanding Addiction, is coming Spring 2026 with Nelson Books. Drawing from her own recovery journey through addiction, mental health challenges, and trauma, along with training as a clinical mental health provider and addiction recovery expert, Caroline is passionate about guiding you into seasons of greater healing. Learn more about her books here. 

Subscribe to her Circle of Chairs Substack community at carolinebeidler.substack.com 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to Circle of Chairs Conversations with Caroline Beidler. Real talk on addiction, mental health, healing, and hope for people in or seeking recovery and our loved ones. So pull up a chair. You are not alone.

SPEAKER_03 0:13

Hi, everyone. Welcome to this exclusive recording with my husband, Matt. Matt.

SPEAKER_01 0:20

Very exclusive.

SPEAKER_03 0:21

It is very exclusive.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

So this is a bonus.

SPEAKER_03 0:24

This is the bonus of all bonuses. So it is going to be an exciting connection and conversation today with y'all because my husband is joining. Hi, honey.

SPEAKER_01 0:34

Hi. How's it going?

SPEAKER_03 0:35

This is Matt.

SPEAKER_01 0:37

I'm Matt. I'm Caroline's husband.

SPEAKER_03 0:40

He's my husband. And um, we're gonna be talking today about what it means to love someone in recovery. So, honey.

SPEAKER_01 0:46

Where are we gonna start?

SPEAKER_03 0:47

I don't know. Where do we start? We have our coffee here. I guess we could start with maybe how we met.

SPEAKER_02 0:54

In the beginning.

SPEAKER_03 0:55

Or you know what? You want to tell in the beginning, there was two. Can you tell them a little bit about you? Like what do you do? Sure. Why why do we live in Tennessee?

SPEAKER_01 1:04

Tennessee because I work at Information National Laboratory. I'm a staff scientist there, and I study fusion energy, which is energy that comes from stars that we're trying to make here.

SPEAKER_03 1:15

Pretty awesome, huh? Yeah. I love that. So he he wowed me. That's all he had to say. And he had me a physicist. Um, so we met in Madison, Wisconsin.

SPEAKER_01 1:26

Um I was I was going there to be in Team Stock. And I think it was probably only a couple weeks until I was supposed to live there, and I didn't have a place to live. So yeah, my mom and I were looking around Madison and trying to look at houses, and we saw a sign in the yard, called the number for to look around, and Caroline picked up.

SPEAKER_03 1:49

So I was subletting when I didn't the place I was living.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Yeah. Then I showed up with my mom at night. My mom, when we opened the door, said, Oh, isn't she cute? And then my mom left. And then we got the talking. She introduced him to all of her pets and showed me the the little house that she had been living in and I was going to be living in.

SPEAKER_03 2:13

Yeah, so it turns out I ended up subliming to you. I moved out and moved in. And we connected after that because yeah, there's just something about it. You know, you know, if you know, you know what you know. And um, so it was kind of one of those happenings where I don't know if we ever would have met, or lives would have never collided.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

But I can tell you one thing I don't I didn't remember from that day. What I didn't remember that you were in recovery. There's nothing I ever saw. I just saw you, and I saw um yeah, how you welcomed me there and wanted to introduce me to your pets and how you said was all nice. Of course she was nice. And you were be you were beautiful too. Um that sort of made me nervous, I'm sure. But there was nothing about recovery at any point I heard.

SPEAKER_03 3:01

Yeah. So when did you like how did that happen for you? Because I remember, you know, I had dated a little bit before, but I was definitely hesitant to date outside of like people that I knew in recovery. But yeah, how did how did that happen? How did we end up having that conversation?

SPEAKER_01 3:19

Or how did you like find out about you you know this, but I'll tell it. So it was 2015. So Facebook was still sort of cool then. No, it wasn't, but that was like main social media was Facebook, Instagram. So I did uh Facebook search. You said you stopped me. Of course, yeah. You're gonna stop me. If you want to say that, but looking at old pictures, not liking them, because that would be that would be awkward.

SPEAKER_03 3:48

Yeah, then I would for sure know you were looking at my old pictures like a creeper.

SPEAKER_01 3:52

But there was one picture where Caroline had a shirt that said, was it sober Saturday night? And I wasn't in recovery. I didn't have the healthiest habits. So when I saw that, it's like, what is this about?

SPEAKER_03 4:05

I think you're saying that nicely though, because you were probably like, eh, what? Sober on Saturday? I don't know if that's for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:13

Pretty animated about that. I was I was pretty easy to go at the time. So but it let us let me to ask, so what's what's that shirt about? And what were those bangs about?

SPEAKER_03 4:25

Bangs, yeah. I I in the past I've really loved dying my hair different colors. I haven't for a while, but yeah, I had very dark hair with bangs or very dark hair. Yeah, that was like my share era.

SPEAKER_01 4:38

Your share?

SPEAKER_03 4:39

Sarah, yeah, my that was my share.

SPEAKER_01 4:42

But that led to our first discussion about recovery. I didn't know very much before that. I knew about the old opioid crisis and I knew about sort of substance dependencies. Um it was always something that we talked about in my family, um, sort of sensitivity to overdoing it. But yeah, I never really met someone in recovery.

SPEAKER_03 5:07

So I guess how did that change for you then? Because you were a little bit taken aback at first, but then didn't you you continued on your research, right? Of me and who I was.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

I mean, at that point, yeah, I was still uh probably having a couple of beers every night. And again, it's it's nothing that seemed bad at the time, but was it healthy? No. But we got to know each other more. I think you invited me to Thanksgiving at your mom's family's sort of get together. And there was just so much laughing there. People were asking me about myself, talking about Caroline. I think after that, yeah, I went from Facebook stalking to Google stalking.

SPEAKER_03 5:45

Oh no, so that that's when we know it's when we know it's serious when he typed someone's name into Google. Yeah. Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

What came up? Uh in the search was the things you were doing at the University of Wisconsin. That it was, was it voices for recovery at that point? And you were in uh you were doing your master's in social work, and I saw the things you were doing. I saw that you had sort of started a woman's house there in Madison also. So, well, you know, I mean, I never saw anything different about you with you being in recovery, but then I saw the things that you were doing, giving back. And I didn't know the whole story. I didn't know any of that, but I saw you as you were at first. Then I saw the things you were doing to give back to your community. And you put two and two together and just seeing what type of person you are to rebuild your life and then work to help others do the same. And honestly, that's when I started to fall in love with you. Oh, was after that Thanksgiving and sort of seeing when you've been done because you're so honest when tell me those things. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:55

Oh well, and I I love how like it's your kind of the evolution of your understanding of what recovery is too. It wasn't so much about me talking about it necessarily, although I did talk about it and like did a lot of advocacy at that point for my job, but just the way that I lived my life. And that's something that your actions. Yeah. Yeah. And I talk about that like in the new book, When You Love Someone in Recovery, because you know, recovery is about so much more than just stopping something, just having sobriety on Saturday. Like it's about giving back. And so I really am passionate about helping other people understand just like what you've come through. So I'm curious, because that was then, and our life's a lot different now. It is that was 10 years ago. We have, yeah, our life is totally different. So let's walk through uh folks through. So we met, and then a year later we were engaged. Okay, because I told him I'm not getting any younger.

SPEAKER_01 7:50

I was a bit older. I think it was we dated for a year, and then she actually gave me the ring first.

SPEAKER_03 7:58

Well, okay, to be fair, I didn't propose, but I said, were you to propose? Here is my grandmother.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

It wasn't de facto a proposal.

SPEAKER_03 8:07

It was kind of like this is a diamond. Yeah, yeah. I'm a planner too. So I'm just like just in case. So we have, you know, so you're prepared. Should you ever choose to, and then you set the expectations, right?

SPEAKER_01 8:19

Well, but we talked about it and went and looked at rings together, and yeah, you know, we knew what was was happening.

SPEAKER_03 8:26

Yeah, so we were engaged and then we got married a year after that.

SPEAKER_01 8:29

Got married a year after that, and our wedding was so beautiful too. It's nice out in Michigan.

SPEAKER_03 8:35

Yeah, so we got married in western Michigan, which I lived in western Michigan for a couple of years in my 20s. Yeah, I think my recovery and then along with that, like my the kind of spiritual side of it for me and my faith, and it was a really formative time. And interestingly, where I lived in western Michigan in my early 20s was exactly halfway between his family, yeah, in Erie, Pennsylvania. Who would have thought who would have thought in my family in Wisconsin? So he just had a very small wedding, which I loved. Very small. It was outside, it was on a we got married under the most beautiful tree. But people have a picture in this room, not in this room, but yeah, it's beautiful. It was a beautiful wedding. And uh Caroline showed pictures sometime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and show you guys something else. And it it was a beautiful morning. It rained fell that night, it just poured once we were all in my wedding little place where we were hanging out.

SPEAKER_01 9:29

Storm blew in and we went out onto one of the beaches. Oh my gosh, this is such a Caroline didn't have a wedding dress on anymore. We would have been swept away. The wind was blowing so hard, and just a lightning storm was over over the lake.

SPEAKER_03 9:46

It was so beautiful, and we just were like, let's go down to the beach and we just ran around on the shore.

SPEAKER_01 9:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 9:52

It was just gorgeous. Yeah. The made some wedding suit. Yeah. It was beautiful. It was beautiful. And then what happened six weeks after that?

SPEAKER_01 10:00

Babies. Yeah, what usually happens at all.

SPEAKER_03 12:53

Well, we won't go into specifics, but yes, we found out we were having a baby, um, one baby, and then we found out two babies. So we went um meeting, a year later engaged, a year later married, a year later, two babies.

SPEAKER_01 13:09

And then um, sort of the funding were my postdoc advisors ran out for my project. So we needed to move somewhere for me to find a new job.

SPEAKER_03 13:20

We lived painting. That was the top.

SPEAKER_01 13:23

Then being before 2020, we were able to buy a house at a modest price.

SPEAKER_03 13:30

And we we've been in Oak Ridge, eastern Tennessee, since 2018.

SPEAKER_01 13:39

As old as the kids are, yeah. So we we moved from Wisconsin down here to Tennessee when the kids were two and a half months old. So yeah, that was fun.

SPEAKER_03 13:49

Yeah. So like our meeting story and you learning more about recovery, I think all of those things then were, I don't want to say tested, but I think as I mean, those are some of the biggest life changes that people have, right? Yeah. So how did how did recovery during some of those challenging times? Because you know, having twins is is hard. And I had some health complications, and then what we moved away from family. What was heard of for me about moving to a new state at that time? I thought at that time I had my dream job. I was director of with staffs and voices for recovery and administering the grants to support uh, you know, opioid, the opioid epidemic. And I was just, I felt like I was where I was supposed to be. And then all of a sudden it's like the rug gets pulled out under you. And then I had to move somewhere where my recovery community was not at the time.

SPEAKER_01 14:39

That was that was a hard thing. I remember advocating.

SPEAKER_03 14:42

That was really hard. And it was like, and I learned more about I think the struggles for women in recovery without you know having kids. It's like, okay, how do I get to a meeting? How do I find support?

SPEAKER_01 14:53

And all that was, I think, more straightforward in Madison. Yes. Because we were, yeah, living in a city.

SPEAKER_02 15:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:01

Um, and then we came out to eastern Tennessee out in Goldfridge. It's more it's it's more rural. I mean, there are a lot of people working at the lab and all the the support that goes into it. Right. Did you see rural rural drivers? Yeah. Okay. But yeah, so it was harder for you to find meetings, or you harder for you to find peers. And we had to navigate all that. But if you're asking what I think allowed us to get through these transitions and sort of these stressful life events, it was communication. It was being honest, it was approaching each other in emotionally safe ways. Because we need to be honest, but also know that the the other person is feeling a lot of hard things too.

SPEAKER_03 15:48

Yeah. Yeah. And I, you know, the cover is amazing. And I over the years I'm healthier and I'm, you know, it's a it's a kind of progress, not affection mindset. I mean, we're always working towards kind of that next step and and working on ourselves. But I think over through some of that hardship, I think together we've been able to develop this resilience. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 16:11

But we still, you know, it wasn't their funding one.

SPEAKER_03 16:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 16:14

I mean, along with that communication, you're building trust. I mean, not that it's perfect. Like you said, it's not perfection. But I mean, we had our conversations. I mean, even just us talking about you being in recovery and what that was. I mean, that's it's not necessarily an easy conversation to have.

SPEAKER_03 16:35

Especially, yeah, like when you're not, because you talked about when we met and were drinking and what it's like to date and be in a relationship with someone where I have to protect my recovery and I also love you, and I'm not able to be happy.

SPEAKER_01 16:49

But I want to show you the people that I I knew from, you know, as a postdoc. So I knew a bunch of grad students. And of course, going out and being social with them was going to a bar. And you know, that was not something that was necessarily easy.

SPEAKER_03 17:05

It was really, it was really hard for me, especially early on. Yeah. I think I had, was it like five years in recovery at that point? And I just remember I remember this one night with when with your friends, I think it was that maybe one of the only times I did this, but went to this German restaurant.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Was it it was for my birthday. For your birthday.

SPEAKER_03 17:21

Yeah. So, and I just remember going outside, I needed a break, and doing that was a way that I was protecting my recovery. And then I ended up, I think we we left early.

SPEAKER_01 17:34

We did. So I mean, it was maybe a little too much to handle.

SPEAKER_03 17:38

It was for me, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:39

But so that just goes to show you don't always succeed. You're not always perfect. But we talked about and we addressed it and we could succeeding, I think, I think we did.

SPEAKER_03 17:49

I think succeeding wasn't me staying and like white-knuckling it. It was true making the decision.

SPEAKER_01 17:54

I guess success is the long-term thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:57

But in that specific scenario, it's not like everything's easy. I guess it's what some maybe saying success was not the right thing, but it wasn't easy.

SPEAKER_03 18:05

Right.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

But it wasn't, it wasn't like the worst thing ever either.

SPEAKER_03 18:09

Yeah. Um well, and I I talk in a book about this idea that boundaries are brave. And when we I think I think a lot of people misunderstand like what boundaries are and kind of the self-help, self-care culture that we're in has kind of perverted them a little bit or distorted them. I guess is probably a better way to say that, where it's not about just ourselves or being like this selfish, I have to like guard myself. But at the same time, it's also creating these protections and making these decisions that are healthy, not just for me, but for our family relationship. And so over time, will I occasionally go in situations where there's alcohol? Yes, but I still have, even after I'm 15 years on counting, I make those decisions, we make those decisions together. And I feel open to share, be able to share honestly with you about that. And one thing going back to like when things were really heard, like around 2020, you want to talk? Should we talk a little bit? Because I think for me, I I realized at that point that my recovery was about more than well, and I'd known it for a while, but I really learned that it was about more than just not using substances, that my mental health was a huge part of my recovery journey.

SPEAKER_01 19:26

Right because we were being, I guess we would have been out here in eastern Tennessee, but things were starting to shut down here and there. There were less meetings that were getting together. Plus, you didn't have a lot of peers living here in Oak Ridge. So to go find your peers, you'd have to go to Knoxville, which would be an hour, hour and a half round trip um in into Knoxville. And you didn't want to leave me and the kids for that long. Um, so what did what what did we do?

SPEAKER_03 19:57

Well, so we I have to say well, we decided to get support for like our I know I reached out to my count to my counselor. I started counseling again. I started medication for anxiety, had a lot of anxiety. And I think 2020 and just everything that was wrapped up around that really triggered a lot of my some of my past trauma and other things started to come up and like show themselves. And so you were so supportive and wanting to get help together.

SPEAKER_01 20:26

Yes, because at the same time parenting, it was not just newborns and infants anymore. We were entering the terrible twos and green agreement. Is does four it'll have something. Sure. But things were starting to get more challenging. The kids were testing boundaries and traps in the house together. Yeah, yeah. I was working in the basement in a dark, a dark basement. Um lights up, but you when you're not seeing outside, it's tough. See it was a lot in the kids would be thundering around up on the first floor here.

SPEAKER_03 21:05

And you were so supportive of like not only my mental health, as I remember I needed to do things, I needed, you know, exercise, I needed therapy, I needed to go on virtual meetings. And the other thing, that was around the time when I really felt moved to write and start bringing people together. And, you know, that's when I started the International Women's Day and I started making calls with other women that I knew in recovery, like in the national advocacy space, um, not just in the local community, but I was really feeling that need to be of service, like deeply of service, and also to share stories and listen to stories of other women going through similar things. And you you have always been so supportive of me, not just my personal recovery, but how I it's like you know that I need to be an active part of the recovery community.

SPEAKER_01 22:00

That was something you talked about, wanting to work with people directly, wanting to be able to see people grow and heal it, and showing that to our kids too. Yeah. Because even when the kids were three entering four, they could understand a little bit. They could understand some somebody who's living in yeah, it's gonna a group home somewhere was people were struggling. They saw places that we went into and helped help clean at times and people we help support. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 22:33

Yeah. So they it's been something that we've shared with them. I love, I love this so much. So my daughter loves wearing my recovery t-shirt.

SPEAKER_01 22:41

Yes, she does.

SPEAKER_03 22:42

And she's so proud of all being like, Are you sure you want to wear that t-shirt again? The mobilized recovery. But she's like, mommy, it's a recovery shirt, you know. And it's like, recovery is this thing in our house that is on a pedestal, and it should be, you know, it's like this, it's this way of life and this health and uh wellness.

SPEAKER_01 22:57

And I remember I asked Violet in Henry what recovery means. Does up into that point, it was really just actions. Like, how how do you define something that you've only experienced as abstract as a kid?

SPEAKER_03 23:10

Right. Well, and you know, going back, that that actually is what led me to write this book, whereas that there is when we love someone in recovery, the whole guide to understanding addiction because book plug. Book plug, I know, because I was on my way out of the house going to a meeting at our church, and you are always supportive of me doing what I need to do. Um and as I was leaving, I think it was Henry, mommy wants recovery.

SPEAKER_01 23:40

Well, yeah, the kids were not big fans of Caroline. Oh, yeah, nothing to the VMs. They want long to stay and sit with them while we watch a show before bed and read it. So the kids were great at trying to make Caroline feel better.

SPEAKER_03 23:57

Well, yeah, but I also kids the question is really, really impactful. Yes, because it did make me stop and think how important it is for kids, family members, adult, everyone to really understand what recovery is.

SPEAKER_01 24:11

The kids didn't understand.

SPEAKER_03 24:12

Right. Like I had some understanding, but well, like, and imagine if I could have handed you this book, wouldn't I not? Yes, and been like, you know, I'm in recovery.

SPEAKER_01 24:22

If you want to understand that and know how to support me, like here we would have still had to go through the process of earning trust of each other. Of course, yeah. But that's yeah, I'm sure that would have helped accelerate things even more.

SPEAKER_02 24:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 24:35

And yeah, a way to describe things to our kids, my family members.

SPEAKER_03 24:40

Yeah, because that's the Excel family too. I mean, that's a whole nother piece of I feel like for us, recovery is really like everybody knows. And I remember being a little bit I won't say anxious, but like nervous at first for your parents to find out, you know, like what will they think of me? Will it make them think differently? And I think for some people, like, yeah, like family members will think differently because they don't understand what recovery is. Because and that's again, I think why I and so many others are so passionate about sharing about what recovery is, what it means, what we need to be healthy, and how people can actually show up. And I think it's it's just so important. Yeah. And so I I appreciate you and just your support of what I need to do for my personal recovery. And I think sometimes, and if you're listening and you're like parents of kids around our age or younger kids, even older kids, like it's a hard reason. Yeah. If you're anyone, um, whether you have kids yourself or maybe you're caregiving or you're being of service in community sponsoring, like it's hard, it's a hard season, but I will be open with you and just be like, look, I have not done anything for my personal recovery or connected with recovery community. It's been a week, it's been two weeks, it's been a month. And also I don't I need that.

SPEAKER_01 25:58

Yeah, I will take care of kids, I can take the kids somewhere, or I can put them to bed at night, I can cook dinner, I can help clean up the kitchen so you can get out early, it's whatever you need. And I'm sure it's not always easy to have to voice that that you're saying, I need to go and do something for my recovery to be able to ask for that when we have everything going on. It isn't easy, yeah. But like you know that I'm here for you. Um, again, we build that trust, we have this open communication about your needs. And I mean, you're doing your best, our family's doing best.

SPEAKER_03 26:38

What would you say to someone who might be in where we were 10 years ago? Like if whether it's someone who's about to connect with someone or they're dating, like what would you tell that person who was like you?

SPEAKER_01 26:50

You don't have to figure it all out at once. And you're gonna make mistakes. I make mistakes daily. I don't say the right thing, and you're not gonna know everything. But I think if you go in understanding that you're not gonna know everything right away, that's sort of freeing because you can be honest about that and you can show that you care by going and yeah, taking new steps each day, knowing that you may trip. But if you're doing it together, you're gonna pick each other up and you're gonna keep going forward.

SPEAKER_03 27:22

Yeah. Well, I appreciate you. Anything else that you want to share with folks for this exclusive? So, okay, I want to I'm gonna go into get slash. Yeah, so should we do the bonus bonus? All right, bonus bonus bonus. So when we have like a date memory, yes, what's our what's our ideal date for a recovery couple?

SPEAKER_01 27:41

Not the kids, first of all. Next time we meet each other. We love our kids. We love our kids, but yeah, we it's nice to not be caring for tiny humans all time.

SPEAKER_03 27:53

Yeah, so what else is our recovery date?

SPEAKER_01 27:59

Going out together. It doesn't have to be anywhere special, but it really just starts with us driving somewhere and reconnecting, being silly. Usually there's fool involved, right?

SPEAKER_03 28:13

Could be mocktails always, always mocktails. Yeah, it's a very important thing. We have a favorite restaurant here that has amazing mock tails that we call a joke because it's usually either dinner and a walk or dinner in a bookstore.

SPEAKER_01 28:26

A bookstore, they're really books. I mean, Caroline goes through her monthly book budget within, I don't know, a week each month. So we're we're talking about extending that book budget.

SPEAKER_03 28:37

Well, and I appreciate thanks for bringing that up, buddy. I appreciate your generosity when it comes to, but yeah, sometimes it's like, oh, there's another book in the mail.

SPEAKER_01 28:48

Which book is this now?

SPEAKER_03 28:50

But I think it's important. I just posted about this. There's every you should start the month with a stack of books. Like you should have a stack that you plan to.

SPEAKER_01 28:59

I should have start.

SPEAKER_03 29:00

Well, well, but just so there's you know, you've got yourself. I love books.

SPEAKER_01 29:04

I mean if you can see behind us, that's yeah, these are just the artsy looking books on the shelf back.

SPEAKER_03 29:10

I have books, but my favorite books for like oh writing. Oh, yeah, and there's there's what happens in the camera. Okay, there we go. Um, can I include hand signals? So I was gonna ask something else. Oh, speaking of writing of books, you are so supportive of my author journey. Yeah. And I love it. So it did start in 2020, and I really felt moved to write. And so I wrote my first book, Downstairs Church. And it's taken a lot, like over the past couple of years.

SPEAKER_01 29:35

A lot of time and additional resources about the things that aren't breaking, is what you find out.

SPEAKER_03 29:42

Yeah, like learning more about book marketing and yeah, just just the whole the whole thing.

SPEAKER_01 29:48

Writing to different audiences because the type of books you like aren't the type of books everybody likes. So, how do you write for everybody?

SPEAKER_03 29:55

That's that's a really good question. Yes. Um, working on Lotland, but I just appreciate and and you know, when you love someone in recovery, it is showing up and being there and supporting their dreams and their passion and their vision. Because honestly, if you would have said when I was even after downstairs church, you know, because a publisher didn't pick it up, you know, it and I still love I love that book. I love maybe I'll rewrite it someday. But um, you know, you said, yes, I believe in you. And that belief in me, and I think that's what's really helped propel me over the years, doesn't matter what stage of recovery I've been at, but that belief in me has been so powerful. And I just think it's incredible. There's actually research, again, I talk about it in the book, but research that shows when family members are engaged and have hope for their loved one, they're more likely to maintain a sustained recovery over the long term.

SPEAKER_01 30:47

Makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 30:47

So that amazing. So can I ask a question before we close too? I'm just curious, how do I show up in our relationship? How do you think that good and bad? How do you think that he's laughing?

SPEAKER_01 31:00

It's a very complex question.

SPEAKER_03 31:01

Yeah, but like, but how does connecting it to recovery? Do you see recovery principles playing out in how I'm connecting a relationship or things learned from recording?

SPEAKER_01 31:12

You always talk about the honesty, right? In recovery, you need to be honest and accountable. So we're we are not guessing what the other person's thinking. We're talking about. We're not guessing about what we need to accomplish as a family, how to talk to our kids about things. We are working through their schoolwork or sports or um, yeah, yeah, being at our church, you know, the things we're doing, we're being intentional about it. Um, we talk about it, we come up with plans. Again, it's that word intentional. And I think that is a big part of recovery too, is you need to be intentional about doing recovery-based things to just help yourself and help our family to stop being intentional.

SPEAKER_03 31:58

So, what about like lunats?

SPEAKER_01 32:01

We have we have intentional.

SPEAKER_03 32:06

Yeah, I like that. Yeah, I love how like health, like wellness.

SPEAKER_01 32:11

Yeah, but we're always like yeah, massaging a little bit, but not playing an instrument. I gave them like the eye, it's just it was just like the way that you were moving. But yeah, it's it's never you're never at the final one. Things were always changing in your lives, so your parents know that. As soon as you know, feel like you know what you're doing, raising your kids, they're doing something else. And it's the same thing with the other rhythms. We are paying attention to we're not sleep blocking. We are seeing something's changing, and we are calling out if the changes aren't healthy for us, and then we are mitigating that. And we're we're figuring out how to change our rhythms to with the best last we can and be good role models and parents for our kids and our get take part community.

SPEAKER_03 33:02

Yeah, and about that. Well, let's close. I hear our kids pit or padding them outside speaking to kids. We're like, we need 30 minutes, I'll just um finish this sentence.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

What is this, Madeline's?

SPEAKER_03 33:18

Sort of finish this sentence when you love someone in recovery.

SPEAKER_01 33:23

You love someone in recovery. You uh you show up every day, you show up in demands to support them and to be intentional. No, not true.

SPEAKER_03 33:42

Thank you so much for being here, you all. I hope you've enjoyed this very again exclusive, exclusive bonus bonus conversation. I'm so honored that you are supporting um this book, When You Love Someone in Recovery. And I would love to ask you to share about it with your people. Like get your person that you love that loves you a copy. It is the perfect gift, I think. And I think it shows someone that like you want them to understand.

SPEAKER_01 34:11

There's some audio ball cheap, right?

SPEAKER_03 34:13

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_01 34:14

Listen to it in a car on the walks.

SPEAKER_03 34:17

And I'm telling you the audio book, you all it was powerful for me to like read that book. Like, yeah. Oh, can I share one quick story? No. When I of course you can when I was recording the audiobook, actually, the engineer like working on the audio files, came of the next morning, like the last morning of recording, and was like, I've started jogging, I've started like my life is changing from listening to me share the book. And I I came home and I told you that.

SPEAKER_01 34:48

Listen to Caroline change your life. It's beautiful.

SPEAKER_03 34:52

So, but yeah, thank you so much. I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you, honey, doing the things that I'm doing. And we wouldn't be here talking to these amazing people if if they weren't here too. So we just appreciate being on this journey. I'm gonna get emotional of a prior.

SPEAKER_00 35:10

Thanks so much, everybody.

SPEAKER_03 35:11

Bye.

SPEAKER_00 35:13

Thanks for listening. For more resources, visit CarolineBeidler.com.