You Already Have The Keys To Leave

Your spouse’s addiction can make your life feel like a locked cell you didn’t choose and can’t escape. I’ve lived that panic and that loneliness, and I believed the same lie for years: that I’d been handed a life sentence. This conversation is for the person who feels the walls closing in, who keeps trying new ways to fix the unfixable, and who secretly wonders if freedom is even allowed.

We unpack what really keeps us trapped: the slow slide into caretaker mode, the loss of identity, and the codependent patterns that make the addict and the addiction the center of everything. I share the turning point that forced me to get help, what I learned in Christian counseling, and why the breakthrough wasn’t discovering something new about my ex-wife’s addiction. The truth that changed everything was about me, my worth, and the identity God speaks over me. If you’ve heard “the truth will set you free” and rolled your eyes, I get it. I also explain why that line becomes real when you stop believing the false story that you don’t matter.

We also talk practical next steps: protecting your kids, setting boundaries without living in fear, and why reclaiming your life isn’t the same as giving up on your spouse. If you’re ready to stop letting the circumstance define you, this is your starting line.

Subscribe, share this with someone who feels stuck, and leave a review or comment with the lie you’re ready to stop believing.

Great Community For Folks Like Us @ https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/landingpage

Free Downloads:  

Navigating Love @ https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/guide

10 Untold Truths @ https://funnel.walkrightcommunity.com/download

Visit us @ https://www.walkrightministries.com/

Transcript

A Prison You Never Chose

SPEAKER_00 0:00

In the midst of the chaos brought on by my ex-wife's addiction, I felt like I was handed a life sentence in the prison of hell. Have you ever felt that way? Like the walls were closing in. Not because of something you've done, but because of something you can't stop. 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.

The Lie Of A Life Sentence

SPEAKER_00 1:00

Hey, this episode we're talking about you don't have a prison sentence. One of the ten untold truths I wish somebody would have told me when I was entangled with an addict. We've been covering the Ten Untold Truths. It's a free download. It's in the show notes below. But you can get that download, and man, it can help bring some clarity to you. But we are on the sixth one today, and it is you don't have a prison sentence. Although you think you do, you don't. Because, like I said at the the intro, I thought I thought I was in prison. I thought I had a prison sentence given to me. But in reality, I had the keys the entire time. As we dive into that in this episode, just keep that in mind that if you are partnered with somebody right now and you feel like the walls are closing in, and you feel like you are in a prison, a life sentence in a prison. Man, you just gotta look around because you have the keys to get out of that. You really do. But before we go on, I just want to ask you to do me a favor. If you're new to the show or if you've been following the show, would you please like, subscribe, maybe comment on an episode here and there if you're on YouTube, follow me. If you're on a platform listening via a podcast, then maybe comment or share this with somebody that may need it. It really helps me out. I'm really trying to get out there to help people get unstuck and not destroy the rest of their life or their children's lives stuck in what they think is a prison. So if you would, please help me with that. But let's jump into the episode and talk about the prison.

Loneliness And Losing Your Identity

SPEAKER_00 2:53

We feel like we have a prison sentence when we're with an addict. Because in reality, the addiction and the addict controls everything. While we think we're in control, we're really not. And the more we realize that that becomes the case, the more that we feel like we're in a prison. The more the walls close in, the smaller the cell gets, and after a while it's just there's just no hope. There's just no hope left. So you try to love on this person, you try to fix the person, you try to get rid of the addiction, because those are the keys that you think that will get you out of the prison. But it's not. It's a lie. And we talked about the lies that you believe. So this is just another lie you're believing. You're believing that you have a prison sentence, you believe that you are locked up, you believe that you cannot get out of the prison. Because you've tried so many times to stop the addiction. You've tried nicely, you've tried lovingly, you've tried by being a complete jerk, you've tried by threatening, you've tried by taking away everything. You've tried by leaving, you've tried by threatening to take kids, you've you've done everything, and it just hasn't worked. And when you've spent so many years trying all those different things, not only are you insane because you keep trying the same thing over and over, just different ways, you do feel like you're in a prison, and you do feel like you've got a life sentence. And I totally can relate where you're at because I was there. I lived there for 13 years, as you know. And one of the biggest things that creeps in when you feel like you're in this prison is just loneliness, and that's a bad place to be. When you are lonely, when you have no one to turn to, when people can't help you or won't help you, don't know how to help you, you feel so isolated, and sometimes you feel like you're in solitary confinement. I mean, it gets pretty lonely, and you try to go on with your life every day, and you go to work, and you try to put on a face and you try to be happy, but deep down you're miserable and you just feel like you're in the prison. I describe it as I get to go out into the rec yard one hour a day. I get to interact with other adults. And while I'm out there playing basketball or lifting weights or whatever you do in a wreck yard, in the back of my mind, I'm still thinking about the addiction. I'm still thinking about the sentence, and I'm still thinking I'm never gonna get out of here. It takes control of you. But I'm here to tell you, you don't have a life sentence. You're not in the prison that you think you're in, and there's hope. There's a lot of hope. It's gonna be hard to step out of that door, but you have to realize the moment that you stopped being a person and you started to be a caretaker, that's one of the keys that will open that door. Back then in my marriage, I thought it was just a number. You know how you get a number. I'm inmate 789-1352. That's what I felt like. I lost my name. I lost my identity. I just know that I stopped existing for myself. And that was part of the prison, too.

The Turning Point And Getting Help

SPEAKER_00 6:49

Then there was a moment that I got help. And a bunch of things happened that I won't share on this episode, but those of you that know the story, you can find in different episodes or part of my interview process on different podcasts. There was a turning point, an event happened, and it was the breaking point for me because it threatened one of my kids. And when that happened, a good friend of mine pushed me to go to a Christian counselor, which I did. Didn't want to, but I did. And you've heard me say it on different episodes, but I kind of tricked myself into going to this counselor because I thought, if I can get a professional on my side that will convince her that she's wrong, I'll win. That's how sad we are. That's how messed up we are in these situations of codependency and just chaos in these relationships. But the turning point obviously was identifying that I had codependency, but the real turning point was learning that I had value, that there was truth in who I was, that the prison sentence I thought I had I could have walked out of at any time. But I just felt like I couldn't open a door because I didn't have the keys. But they were in my pocket the entire time. See, we don't think that our well-being matters when we're fighting an addiction. We don't think that we're equal. We think that we're way down here and an addict any addiction's way up here, and we fight that. And we don't know that we matter, our well-being matters, who we are matters, our feelings matter. Everything that we push to the bottom because of the addiction and the addict, we don't feel like we matter. It's a horrible, horrible mind game that the devil plays. This whole you're less than, you'll never get out of this prison, you're never gonna get out of this situation. This is the rest of your life. Those are all lies that we believe, those are all things to keep us in the prison, keep us locked in there. But one of the freeing things is, and I hope you can get to this point one day, one of the freeing things it is to say, my well-being matters. And when you can say that out loud, it's so freeing. It is so freeing.

Truth That Sets You Free

SPEAKER_00 9:45

And I want to talk a little bit about this Bible verse today. It's in John and it's chapter 8, and it's verse 32. It's Christian ease, you've heard it a ton of times. The truth will set you free. Jesus was talking to these Jews who kind of believed in him, and they were asking them questions, but he was talking about being set free. And they couldn't get their head around it because they're like, Well, we're descendants of Abraham, so we're already free. How could we be more free than we are? And Jesus was saying here in 832, for if you embrace the truth, it will release true freedom into your lives. Now I'm not going to go into the biblical history of that and what the Jews were saying in the back and forth. I'm just trying to give you a little bit of background, but what I want to focus on is how powerful of a statement that is, and how freeing it truly is. And it sounds, like I said, Christianese, it sounds cliche. Oh, the truth will set you free. I'm free, my friends. I am totally free. And it's not because A, I believe in Jesus, it's not because B, I read the Bible, it's not because of C, I do this or that, or D, I have to check all these boxes off. I am completely free because of the most important thing. I know I'm worth something, I know I'm valuable because of what Jesus has done. And once you realize that, and once you realize who you really are and who you were made to be, and that you're worth so more of this than the addiction, man, it's freeing. And transformation comes, and healing comes, clarity comes, hope comes back, and you have the power to open up that prison door. You have the power to swing open that door, kick it, and walk down the hall and leave that prison. Now, mind you, some guards are gonna try to keep you there. Some of those triggers are gonna come in and no, you can't leave this prison, you gotta stay in this prison, you're not good enough, you're not worthy enough, those kind of things are gonna creep in, but just walk out. It's not an overnight fix. I don't want everyone it to sound like that. I went through years of healing, but I can tell you that once I tasted freedom, I never turned backwards. I didn't go back the other way. And that seemed like it was instant. Now the healing process takes a little bit further, but that freedom was in it, it was just almost instant. And those of you that maybe been in that position understand completely how I feel and what it feels like. But for those of you that are still stuck, you have to grasp onto this. Jesus is saying something so powerful here that once you believe who you truly are, once you believe who you're truly made to be in his image, once you quit believing the false identity and the lies, once you quit believing that you're a piece of crap, once you quit believing all that stuff, freedom comes. Not because of religion, not because of anything else, but what he did on the cross and how God reconciled you back to where you should be. You've got to quit living in the lie. And even if you want to take spiritual stuff out of here, you're just like, Steve, I'm just not a Christian, I don't believe in that stuff. Uh okay, respect to you. God still loves you and He thinks you're amazing. And so do I. But once you can stop believing the negative thoughts about you and start believing the positive things of who you are, whether you believe in Jesus or not, that will set you free. But I guarantee you, it's it's God doing a work on you, whether you want to believe it or not. May take a little bit longer for you to heal because you got to let him in to some of those private dark areas in your soul. But let me tell you, you can still get freedom. And you're gonna be shocked to understand this, but the truth is nothing about the addiction. The truth was nothing about my ex-wife's addiction. The truth was about me. It wasn't going, oh, well, I believe that she's an addict. No, I knew she was an addict. It wasn't, oh, she's never gonna stop. No, I knew she was never gonna stop. It wasn't the truth of that that set me free. It was the truth about me. What Jesus said about me, what God said about me. And I know you hear me talk about identity all the time, and I don't want you to get afraid of that word. It's just it's just the word that we use. It's it's who your identity is, it's who you were made to be. We were made to be a part of something bigger than living in a prison with an addict. We were made much bigger than that.

Boundaries Without Giving Up

SPEAKER_00 15:27

And somebody once said to me, well, actually, I get it a lot. Man, you promote splitting people up. That doesn't sound very Christian or pastor-like. You know what? Don't believe that lie either. I've got a little video out there that's about the five reasons why you're not leaving the addict. And one of them is believing that lie that, well, God doesn't like divorce, and God doesn't like this, and God doesn't like that, and don't live in that fear and don't believe that lie. As I've said in a lot of testimonies, God, I prayed and prayed and prayed for Him to fix the addiction, fix her, get her to quit, get her healed, get her, her, her, her, her. I never once prayed, God, fix me. And once that started to happen, then that freedom comes in because that's truth. It's truth of who I am, it's truth of who he wants. So don't believe that. Don't think I'm trying to split people up. Just understand that God wants you healthy, He wants your kids healthy, He wants you to be a good parent, He wants you to love on your kids correctly, not destroying them. And sometimes the only way you can do that is withdrawing yourself from the addict. And that's I always say and promote once you get yourself out of the prison and once you get yourself healthy, you have a clear mind on how you're gonna proceed forward. Are you gonna work with the addict to try to get them better? Or are you gonna realize that they're never going to change unless they start believing these truths? And that's something for you guys to figure out. And I walk, I stand beside people and walk people through this with my coaching and everything else, but that's up to you. And it's only for when you come across that bridge. Right now, the most important thing is to get you out of the prison, to get you thinking with a clear head, to get you disentangled from the addict. And why do we do this? Because you can start reconnecting with your passion. You can start reconnecting with what's on your heart, you can start reconnecting with the interest that you dropped because the addiction took over everything. You can start getting involved in your kids and what they want to do and promoting them and lifting them up instead of taking everything out on them. You have to redefine yourself. Redefine yourself in the love that you have to give to other people, which started as a caretaker because you actually love this person and you wanted to see them get help. Go back to that person. The love that you carried within yourself. You can shift from prisoner to a real person. You can shift from prisoner to living freely from addiction and an addict. And it's amazing. It's so amazing. I have a wonderful, blessed life now. Remarried, another child, and just loving where I'm at right now. Is life perfect? No, life's not perfect. But I no longer live in a prison, and I no longer think less of myself, and I'm free because the truth set me free. The truth of who I am in Jesus, the truth of why I was made, the truth of why I'm here, the truth of who I am as a father, who I am as a husband, who I am as a leader is all truth. And I live that every single day. Living in freedom does not erase the hard days. The person is still in their addiction. The triggers from that come up. Living in truth is knowing that you're reclaiming your life and it's not giving up on your spouse. A lot of people struggle with that. Oh, well, I'm just giving up, I'm just walking away. No, you're reclaiming who you are. And as I said, you can reclaim who you are, and then we can move forward from there. But first you've got to get healthy. I always tell people it's like being on an airplane. Flight attendants go through their spiel, right? They got the card and read it and put the mask on. And you have to put the mask on yourself first to save the person next to you, or to save your child. Because if you fumble around long enough trying to save your kids and you don't have the mask on, you're gonna pass out. What good are you to them when you don't take care of yourself first? So reclaiming your life is not giving up, reclaiming your life is saving others. And when we get into talking about boundaries and stuff like that, there's no problem advocating for yourself and your feelings and your own healing and still love another person that's an addict. Doesn't mean you have to be messed up in their world. But you can advocate for yourself. You can say, I'm gonna get better, I am getting better, and I don't care what you do, but I'm getting better, and I still love you. Once I gain clarity, we'll figure out what we're gonna do. Do not let the circumstance circumstance is define who you are. And if you feel like you're in a prison, you're letting addiction and stopping that addiction and that. Addict to take control of who you are. And you're only as good as those circumstances are gonna be. When they're good, you're good. When they're bad, you're bad. How much are just good for yourself because you love yourself? And because the truth will set you free. That's how good Jesus is. That's why he said it. The truth will set you free. But I'm already free, are you? Because Jesus was talking about something totally different than the Jews were. And while you may think you're free, if you're still living with an addict and coping with it and working your way around it, and you have kids, you're not free. You're just selling yourself on another lie. So I mentioned there are ten truths that are untold that I wish somebody would have told me when I was an addict.

Tools Community And Closing Charge

SPEAKER_00 23:06

The download is available in the show notes. Also, another guide I wrote about codependency, you can download that in another link. Has a self-evaluation tool in there to see if you have codependent traits. Because identifying that will really steer you in the right direction, especially when it comes to battling somebody who's an addict. And I want to take this time to invite you to the community that's now open, Walk Right Community. It's a place for people like you and me that are walking in the pits of hell or walked in the pits of hell with codependency, married to somebody who is an addict. And I want to invite you there. It's also in the show notes. You can click on the link. There's a free area, free membership. You can spend over a month in there in a free area. You can spend as long as you want in there, but a bunch of lessons in there for level one that can help you gain clarity immediately. And in this community, once you join, you get to book a call with me because I want to know you personally and I want to know where you're struggling and what troubles you're having. And I just want to know everybody personally, and I want to help you. I honestly want to help you. And it's not a place that's called the Steve Show. It's just a place that I facilitate all this stuff, all these lessons, all these worksheets, all these live things, but it's community, and community is very important. And it's for you guys to hang on to each other and support each other and walk with each other through this. So give it a shot. What do you have to lose? Again, you can download it in the show notes below. Walk by community, place of hope, healing, and transformation. I want to thank you for joining me on another episode. Hopefully, as always, this episode touches somebody's heart and somebody gains some kind of clarity from this. A duh moment, I like to call it. Duh. Maybe I should search a little bit deeper before I stay in this prison. But I want to thank you for being here. I want to thank you for listening. If you're on YouTube, again, like subscribe. If you're listening via Buzz Sprout or any other podcast platforms, please follow, like. It just helps me out. This is going to be a movement for people. This is going to be a movement of truth because the truth sets everybody free. Remember, as always, you're loved, you're holy, and I'm going to see you in the next episode. God bless.