More Than The Addiction

You can love someone with an addiction and still lose yourself so completely that the addiction starts to feel like your identity. I’ve lived that spiral: denial, then caretaker mode, then full-on savior and control, until years pass and you wake up exhausted, angry, and unsure where God is in any of it. Today I’m sharing a hard but freeing truth: you are more than the situation, and you don’t have to keep living as the crisis manager of someone else’s choices. 

We talk honestly about how trauma and codependency can fuse you to the addict’s behavior, turning your days into constant monitoring, fixing, and emotional firefighting. I also address the part many people miss: what this does to kids. Even with the best intentions, stress spills over. Children pick up the tension, the venting, the instability, and it can follow them for years. Reclaiming your identity is not just self-care; it’s protection for your family’s future. 

Then we shift perspective with Ephesians 2:10 and the idea that you are God’s workmanship, created with purpose, meant to live as love and light. That doesn’t erase the pain, but it does change your center. Healing starts when the prayer becomes “God, heal me,” and clarity follows. If you’re searching for Christian support for spouses of addicts, faith-based recovery tools, and practical next steps for boundaries, identity, and peace, you’ll find them here. Subscribe, share this with someone who’s carrying the same burden, and leave a review so more people can find hope.

Codependency Download @https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/guide

10 Truths Download  @https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/guide 

Visit us @ walkrightministries.com

Transcript

When Addiction Becomes Your Identity

SPEAKER_00 0:00

You go through this trauma and you realize that you've now become part of the addict, and you identify yourself as a spouse of an addict, or you identify yourself as the addiction. Welcome to Reclaiming Your Identity, a podcast dedicated to providing hope, healing, and support for married individuals whose spouses are battling addiction. Rooted in the truth of your identity in Christ, this podcast offers practical guidance and biblical insight to help you navigate the challenges of addiction within your marriage. Here we'll find encouragement and embrace God's plan for restoration in your life. Let's walk this journey together, one step at a time.

Introducing The Ten Untold Truths

SPEAKER_00 0:37

Hello and welcome to Reclaiming Your Identity. I'm Steve, your host. Super excited that you're here today. On this episode, we are going down these ten untold truths that wish somebody would have told me while being partnered with or buried with an addict. And these ten truths are very informative and very valuable. And I wish somebody would have told me these things early on so I didn't have to battle for 13 years with an addict. So hopefully you're getting some good information out of this. But we're going to be on the untold truth number three today. And that untold truth is you are more than a situation. Especially if you're a follower of Christ and you are married and your spouse is battling some sort of addiction. Those three things right there, that's the specialty. But obviously, we want to help everybody partnered with an addict. But if you're following Christ, you're married and your spouse is battling an addiction. Man, that could be a hard road to go because not only you're dealing with the addiction, you're trying to follow Christ, you're wondering where God is in all this, you're wondering if he abandoned you, you're just with all the anxiety, all the frustrations, all the anger. I had all of it. All of it. I walked that road for 13 years. I ended up walking away from a church I had and the pulpit, and ended up walking away from God for a while. I was just so messed up. So we're here to tell you that you're more than the situation. And it's a good time to tell you that there is a download I have. And in the show notes below, you can click on this download. It will give you the 10 untold truths, the things that we're covering in these episodes here in this new podcast. So you can get that download for free and read through it and find a bunch of wonderful information. It also will direct you to our community, which is Walk Right Community, which is a place for people just like you that are following Christ, you're married, and your spouse is battling an addiction or unhealthy habit. But we invite all of you in that feel kind of lost and maybe partnered with somebody that's battling an addiction. But on today's

From Denial To Control Mode

SPEAKER_00 2:51

show, we are going to talk about you are more than this situation. And when you're in the midst of battling with an addict, entangled with an addict, I like to say, when you are in this moment, as it starts out, as we always discuss, you're a caring person, you want to help the person you're with, and you want them to stop the addiction. And at first you go through these emotions, like, wow, I you're you're addicted. I'm married to an addict, and there's the denial, and you kind of hope it goes away and it doesn't go away, and then you start transforming into this savior that's gonna fix the problem and save the person. And then it snowballs into I'm going to control the addiction. I'm gonna stop the addiction, I'm gonna control it at all cost. That's what I'm gonna do. Here's where we go, and the next thing you know, it's years later, and your life is just up against a wall. You feel lost, you feel alone, you feel so many different ways, and you've destroyed your kids along the way and don't even realize it. And it's just time to know that you are more than the situation. When I was in the midst of all that, I went through all that, I went through that whole gamut of that. I found myself now identifying myself with the addiction. I know that's weird, but you go through this trauma and you realize that you've now become part of the addict, and you identify yourself as a spouse of an addict, or you identify yourself as the addiction. You just get so consumed into that, you get sucked into that that you feel like you're now part of it. You became the caretaker, you became the savior, you became the one that's going to fix it, you became the hero, or you wanted to be all those things, but it just doesn't happen. Sometimes you're the scapegoat, you become the scapegoat of the whole situation, sometimes you're an enabler, sometimes, you know, you just make excuses for the person. I mean, there's just you become the addict, you become the addiction. Your identity is now focused on

How Caretaking Turns Into Codependency

SPEAKER_00 5:01

that. And it wasn't until I took a step back and somebody helped me and realized that I had to find my identity in Jesus Christ, that I had to find my connection of who I was. I had to rediscover that. I had to find that. And I found out I had codependency through all of this. I was a codependent person. That makes it even more complex in this situation. Addiction creates this toxic relationship, it creates a storm in your relationship. So the confusion, the despair, all that different things that we're talking about, yes, that becomes starts to become who you are in your identity. And you have to untangle from that. You have to stop that, you have to unplug that because you're worth so much more than that situation. You may not see it, and you definitely don't feel it, but you are way more than that situation. And if you're a believer, your identity should be rooted in Jesus Christ. That's who you were created to be like. You were made in the image of Jesus Christ. When you go against what that identity was, you were made to be love, you were made to be light. That's who what we're created to be. That's very simple, that's very biblical. We're made to be love, we're made to be light. It's simple. We mess up Christianity and make it so crazy, but that's who you're supposed to be. And you're not doing that in the midst of an addiction because your identity is not in Jesus Christ, it's not who you are as a follower of Christ, because now you're angry at God, you're going against him, the devil's pitting you against uh the addict, God's, or the devil's pitting you against God, because now you feel even more separated when you never were, and you feel more alone, although you're not, but your identity is totally changed and totally shifted into that addiction. When you have to unconnect from that and realize how much worth you have and how valuable you are. And they're not just Christian cliches. I know they sound silly, especially when you're in the midst of hell. These things sound stupid, to be honest with you. They just sound stupid. We want to get help, but sometimes we don't want to hear these stupid Christianies words. I get it. I totally

The Hidden Cost To Your Kids

SPEAKER_00 7:24

get it. You're more than being wrapped up in your spouse's troubles. You're more than being wrapped up in the addiction. If you're a parent and you're identifying as that addiction, you're destroying your kids just as much as the addict is. Who's there for the kids? Who's there for emotionally for the kids? Because I guarantee you that you're doing these things. If you've been with an addict for a long time, if you have codependency, and if you've lost your identity, this is what's happening. You're not there emotionally for your kids. You think you are, but maybe you're dumping into your kids because you have no one else to dump into. Maybe you're taking your frustration out on your kids because you don't know how to handle all the motions and can't fix everything and just you're just going chaotic. Your kids are picking all of this up. So while you're dumping all this when you don't mean to onto your kids, you are. I can tell you that. For 13 years, I did it. And unfortunately, I'm dealing with the repercussions today because my two older kids that are a part of this have their own struggles right now. Because of partly what I did. I'm not going to blame it all on their mother. I'm not going to dishonor her and say it was all her fault. She was the addict and she did this and that and this and that and wash my hands clean. No, I know who I am and my identity in Jesus Christ now, and I know what I did in that situation, and I know that I took full responsibility for destroying my kids too. It's not something I want, and that's why I have the passion now to help you, and to help people like you get out of these situations so you can save yourself and save your kids. You're so much more than the situation. Your kids are so much more than the situation. And you have to understand that and you have to fully wrap your head around that. Oh, yeah, I'm I'm I know I'm more than the situation. No, you are more than the situation. And you have to believe it and you have to reconnect in the right way with your identity in Christ and not take it out on him and not be mad at him and not think he's abandoned you and not think he's separated you.

God Wants To Heal You First

SPEAKER_00 9:34

Because I'm going to tell you the most important thing here. God is worried about you. And of course he's worried about your spouse and he's worried about your kids. But I mean, in a relationship with Jesus Christ, God wants you. See, for the longest time, I prayed that he would fix my wife. I prayed that he would fix her, that what's wrong with her, get her fixed, give me the tools to get her fixed, get all this done, get her fixed, get her fixed. I was in the situation, and that was the problem in the situation, not really that, hey Father, I need you to fix me. I need you to heal me. And he wants to heal you. Because once you start that healing process for yourself and you start to get into that connection with him, clarity is going to come. So much clarity is going to come, and you are going to be able to see exactly what you're doing wrong. You're going to be able to see what you've been doing wrong, and you're going to have a new excitement for finding this freedom and clarity. I promise you that. Once you start understanding this and you start getting back to your relationship with God, that's the most important. And then it's the kids. And it's repairing that and getting that realigned. And quite honestly, the addict's last on the list. I'm going to tell you that. It's last on the list. And what happens moving forward with that? We come across that when we cross that bridge, right? But the most important thing for you to understand today is you have to disengage, you have to disconnect from that entanglement, and you have to know that you are more than that situation. And you have to really believe

Ephesians 2:10 And Your True Worth

SPEAKER_00 11:19

that. So let's go to the Bible today, so we can shift our perspective. And I want to go to Ephesians, and we're going to be in chapter two, and we're going to go to verse 10. And it says, We become his poetry, a recreated people that will fulfill the destiny he has given each of us. For we are joined to Jesus, the anointed one. Even before we were born, God planned and advanced our destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it. Such a great verse. Might be kind of scary to you if you're not familiar with identity and who you are, but it's crucial to shift your perspective. Instead of viewing yourself solely as a caretaker, solely as a person that's going to stop the addict, solely as the savior, you have to embrace who you are fully, and you have to get into here and understand what all this means. You have become his poetry. What does that mean? It's a poem or poetry. Our lives are beautifully written by God in the identity of Jesus Christ. Now you might want to sit here and go, oh, so he's written this all out for me and has this destiny for me, and I have all these plans, and you know, where are they? What are they doing? I was stuck in that too. That's why I wrote a book called God's Imperfect Plan is Perfect. Because what we think is our destiny that He's given us in all the turmoil, all the trauma, all the stuff that was handed to us, man, his plan for me sucked, and it was a pretty bad poem. Until I understand who I was in Christ and what's going on. The truth behind everything that's happening. And that's another episode. But for we were joined to Jesus the anointed one before we were born. Did you know that we were made in the image of Jesus Christ before the foundations of the earth? That blew me away. You know, you read over this stuff and just read over it. But when you fully grasp that and says, I had a relationship with God before the foundations of the earth. He created me, he knew me before the foundations of the earth, before he created anything. And even before we were born, he planned and advanced my destiny and the good works we would do to fulfill it. So he's got my destiny planned out. Well, that's kind of weird because again, I'm stuck in the middle of an addiction. I'm stuck in the middle of a partner that is destroying our family. I don't know where to turn, and I'm mad at God, and this is part of his destiny. That sucks, and I don't want to be a part of it. I know all the feelings. I know all those feelings. But his destiny for you is to be love and to be light. That's it. That's what his destiny is. And you're gonna do the good works to fulfill that. It's not rules, it's not regulations. It's once you understand who you are, you go out to love and you wake up to love each and every day. And you're to be a light each and every day, even in the midst of some kind of suffering that you're going through. Because once you don't base your life off of circumstances, that is freedom.

Freedom From Circumstances Through Love And Light

SPEAKER_00 14:40

That is so much freedom. When you can wake up each day and not live in somebody else's circumstance and not live your life and value off of those circumstances, I tell you what, the the world's a different place. It really is. You were made to be this love and light, and you were made to fulfill the good works, not rules that you have to follow, not checklists that you have to check off. It's once you start living in this freedom, you will understand that everything that you want to do is for the betterment of somebody else. That's self-sacrificial love right there. You go out of your way to make somebody smile, you go out of your way to show love, you go out of your way to be Jesus, and you don't even have to mention the word Jesus, you can just be Jesus and be more impactful. That's what the destiny is. That is what the good works are for without any obligation that you need to feel from God. You just wake up to do it because you want to do it. And if you don't do it one day, guess what? He's not gonna be upset with you. You just have to live out your identity. And you have to get away from this separated view, you have to get away from this view that God's just waiting for you to mess up. You have to get away from all these different views that you carry around sometimes when you're entangled with this person that's an addict. Because you think God's punishing you, or you think God's just abandoned you, or you just don't think he's with you. And when you have those thought processes and and you actually live that not knowing that you're better than that situation, you're not gonna be light in love. You're not gonna fulfill the destiny of doing what's good for other people. You're not gonna do that. And even right now, if it's overwhelming, going, well, I don't want to go out and help other people, I can't even my my I'm my life's a wreck. I don't want to help other people. No, I I get that. It's a process, it's a long process. It's not something that's gonna happen tomorrow. You're gonna go, oh, okay, I get this. But listen, if you have children, listen. Unplug, find your identity, and fulfill that little destiny just right there with your kids. Be that love, be that light with the kids. And go from

Disengage With Boundaries And Lead Your Family

SPEAKER_00 17:11

maybe knocking down your spouse in front of your kids or talking less than about your spouse in front of your kids will change. And it doesn't mean that you have to be rolled over by the addict, but you can stand firmly in the love of Christ and love on your kids and say, Look, we're gonna pray for this person and we're gonna continue to pray that this person gets better, but we're not gonna put our whole focus and our whole value and identity in that addiction. We're gonna rise together, we're gonna heal together, and then we're gonna do what's best for the family. But we're gonna disengage and we're gonna know who our identity is. Just start in that little circle, that little family circle with your kids, with yourself, and then it's gonna move outward from there as you start to heal and gain clarity and you get transformation because God loves you so much, He loves you so much in this mess. And I can tell you that I did the same thing. I prayed and prayed and prayed. I was so angry at this and that, and finally God just got a hold of me and was like, Look, I just wanted to fix you. I just wanted to fix you. And then now that he's fixed me and transformed me, I don't hang on the well, why didn't you fix my wife and why didn't you do this? And why are my kids? It's like there's clarity, there's freedom from that. There's things I wish I didn't do, but I don't hang up on it anymore. Because I realize that everybody's responsible for their own actions. But if you remember the show previously, you're not responsible for their actions. That was another truth. You're not responsible for them, you're responsible for you. And you have to take action for you, and then to be a disciple to your children. That's what you need to do. That's your responsibility. So, yeah, you're so much more than you think you are. You're worth way much more, and you're so much more than the addiction, you're so much more than the situation you're in now, and you can live this more than it is now. I promise you that. I am more free now, I am more happy now, I am more secure now, I have more peace now that I'm out of that mess. And unfortunately it didn't end well for my ex-wife. And that's a different story, but it doesn't control who I am, and it doesn't bring me down, even though things didn't work out well for her. I'm in my own space now, I'm in my own identity, and I'm way more than that situation ever was.

Community Resources And Next Steps

SPEAKER_00 20:03

So as we wrap up today, I want to remind you that even in the darkest times that you're in, your identity shines bright in Christ. It has to. That's gonna be your only sanity. I mean, you can run from this, you can pack up your kids, you can leave tomorrow, and you can run from this. But if you don't know your identity in Jesus Christ, you're now just gonna be disengaged from an addict, but you're gonna be a wreck yourself, and you're still gonna destroy your kids, and you're still just gonna be lost. And I guarantee you're probably gonna be attracted to somebody else in the future that probably has the same characteristics or maybe even the same addiction. That's what codependency does. And we have to get it fixed. So you have to understand that you are more than your spouse's addiction. You are a beloved person, you're a beloved child of God, you are made in the image of Jesus Christ. You have a unique calling. You have to tap into all that. Embrace the truth and walk forward with this confidence, this confidence and peace that I have. Very rarely do I get knocked off my game. I'm not wrecked for four or five days because something happened. I'm not wrecked because of this circumstance or this circumstance. I'm just focused on the destiny of what God has for me. And that is to be love and light, and that's to help people just like you. And to save you before you destroy stuff any further, before you destroy yourself, before you destroy your partner, before you destroy your kids. I'm here to navigate these challenges with you. This is a perfect time to invite you into the community again. We have a community that is for people just like you, people that were just like me. I help walk beside you. This community has all kinds of things that I walk through courses, videos, worksheets, workshops, devotionals, all this stuff that will help you untangle and help you gain confidence. I want to thank you for joining me on this episode. If you would please like, subscribe, maybe comment, do all these different things. All the information is in the show notes. So please get those free resources. Visit the community. I think it will really help you. Continue to listen to these podcasts because they're going to be here for you, and they're going to help you maybe gain further clarity on the situation that you're in. And I will see you in the next episode. God bless. See you soon.