You Came To Help Them And Found Yourself

If you’ve been living in the blast radius of addiction, you already know the routine: manage the moods, brace for the next lie, try a new plan, pray harder, hold the family together. But here’s the question that can change everything: what if the person who needs the most healing isn’t the addict, but you?

We talk about what happens when you’re married to an addict and your life becomes organized around their crisis. I share why so many people come looking for help for a spouse, a friend, or a family member and then realize they’re the one who is exhausted, numb, and stuck. We dig into codependency and how it quietly reshapes your self-worth, your choices, and your sense of safety until “fixer” feels like your only role. That’s not love at its best, that’s survival. And it’s a brutal way to live.

Then we turn a corner toward hope and healing rooted in identity in Christ. Your spouse’s addiction matters, but your health matters more because it’s the part you can actually surrender and change. We read Psalm 139:23-24 and treat it like an honest prayer for the partner who’s been hiding behind someone else’s problem for far too long. If you’re ready to stop pretending, stop performing, and start reclaiming your identity, this is your next step.

Subscribe, share this with someone who’s carrying the secret weight of addiction in marriage, and leave a review so more spouses and partners can find real support.

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Transcript

The Question That Changes Everything

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Can I ask you something before we get started today? What if the person that you think needs the most healing isn't actually them, the addict? What if it's you? Think about that for a moment. Because most of my life was spent managing the addict, praying harder for the addict, trying to control the addict, trying to fix the addict, trying to cover for the addict. Everything was about the addict. All along the way, I was the one that was lost. If this hits something in you right now, then maybe this episode's for you. Let's talk about it. I'll see you on the inside. Welcome

Podcast Mission And Support Options

SPEAKER_00 0:44

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. Welcome to this episode, and I just want to share how happy I am that you are here, that you're learning about yourself, that you are getting yourself some healing, hopefully, through these podcasts, and maybe even checking out our community and all the resources that we have to offer for you. You can go to partnersofaddicts.com and find out about the community. Found out about a couple of courses that I have created. I've created one, it's a $25 course called Why You're Still Stuck, goes through five things of why you're stuck with this addict today. And the other one is a weekend course. It's a deep dive into your soul to help you peel back some of the layers of why you continue to do what you do. It's called You're Not Alone. That weekend course is $47. And then, of course, there's the free area of the community that you can start in some healing for free. And I'd love you to check that out. Everything's at partnersofaddicts.com. Anyway, welcome to this episode.

Pretending Is Over Series Begins

SPEAKER_00 2:19

And I'm excited because we're going to do a five-part series. This series is going to be called Pretending Is Over. Pretending what you're doing is right, it's over. So we're going to have these five parts talking about the different reasons why you're affected by the addiction, how you're affected by the addict, and why that you keep banging your head against the wall day after day, week after week, month after month, year after year, and some people maybe even a decade. I don't know. I went through 13 years, so I know how all that feels, and it's not fun. But today's episode number one is called You Think You're Here for Them. You're not. And what this episode's about is about people that come into the community thinking that they are looking for help for somebody else when they're the ones that actually end up getting the help. These are going to be some really good episodes. I hope you stay around. And before we dive into it, would you please like, subscribe, do all that good stuff on the podcast socials, on all my socials, and on the YouTube channel. If you would like, subscribe there as well. You can watch this if you're really sick to your stomach and want to see me. Um, I'm there on YouTube all the time. I'm just kidding, of course. And then if you can listen on all the podcast outlets, I'm there as well. But it really helps me if you like, subscribe, and share this to people. For every addict out there, there's at least two to seven people that are connected in a loving relationship with that addict. And these people are the people I'm trying to reach. And if you're married and the person you married became an addict after you got married, that's the specialty I'm in. And to add on top of that, if you have kids and you're a follower of Christ, that is where I landed. That is what I know, that is what I walked, and I can help you through that. And if you don't have all those circumstances, you're married to an addict, but maybe you don't have kids and maybe you don't go to church, it's fine. This will help heal you as well. But I'm just saying that those things are what I knock out of the ballpark. That's what I lived, that's what I've learned, and that's what I love helping people with now. But anyway, enough about that. Let's dive into this episode. So

You Say It’s For Them

SPEAKER_00 4:44

numerous times people have come into the community and they're like, hey, I'm here for my brother, I'm here for my sister, I'm here for my mother, I'm here for my father, I'm here for somebody close to me that is married or partnered with an addict. Okay, that's great that you're looking for your friend. So my first question is, why are you looking for this stuff? Why aren't they? I mean, I know you care about them, and generally people are trying to find stuff to help people. And hey, hey, look at this, you're stuck in this relationship. That does happen, don't get me wrong, but most people that I start to interact with that come in that way end up spilling beans, and I can pick through that and find out that they're really hurting themselves. That somebody close to them is actually stuck in addiction, or they were traumatized as a child and they're just stuck in codependency, not even with an addict, they're just lost, they're stuck in codependency, and it ends up turning into a beautiful conversation about them finally releasing some of this stuff, opening up to me, talking to me about it, and letting go and realizing that yes, I'm the one that needs to help. And it's a beautiful story that I get to see every so often. And as we're starting to grow this thing, it's becoming more common actually that people are here for somebody else. You found walk right community. You come here, maybe you listen to the podcast, maybe you just found the community on advertising, whichever way. You found walk right community for somebody else. That's what you told yourself. That's where you're going, that's what we're doing. All along your partner, your spouse, your brother, your parent, someone that you deeply love is battling an addiction. And you're just trying to figure out how to survive this thing. And I'm not saying it isn't real. I know the pain of loving somebody through addiction, and it's absolutely real. The chaos, the manipulation, the fights, the broken trust, the walking on eggshells, all of it. All of it's real. All of it. And that's what we talk about here at Walk Right Community. But let me tell you something. When was the last time you showed up someplace for you? Truly you, being open, not pretending, truly showed up for you. And not searching for stuff on how to fix them, not searching for stuff on how to manage them, not searching for stuff on some new creative way that you can get them to stop the addiction. I'm talking about some place that you went for yourself to get clarity, hope, and maybe some form of healing for you. And I'm gonna be honest with you, most of the people I talked to, they don't even remember. They don't remember when they did anything for themselves. They just happened to stumble across as community, stumbled across some of the points that I'm always hammering home on that hits deep in the heart, and they started to open up in a conversation. But they don't remember, besides that, anything else that they did for themselves. And this is probably the most important thing of the show right here. I have walked besides so many people going through this. I have walked myself through this hell and I lived it and I know it and I experienced the full length of it.

Codependency And Lost Identity

SPEAKER_00 8:18

But here's the important thing when you're in a relationship with an addict, you most likely have codependency. Codependency doesn't just affect your relationship with the addict, codependency affects your relationship with yourself. It trains you quietly and slowly over the course of time. It trains you to find your worth in someone else, to feel safe in a position of being a helper and a healer and a fixer, to generally believe that your needs are less than the person you're trying to fix or anybody else outside of that household. And it slowly tells you the lie that taking care of yourself is being selfish, and so you hide. And you've been hidden for a long time. And you've been pretending, you're really good at pretending, so you've been pretending for a long time as well. You hide behind their problem, their crisis, their recovery, their relapse, their repeat of the entire system all over again. Listen. As long as you hide behind their addiction, listen. As long as there is something wrong with them, you don't even have to look at yourself. You don't have to look to see that there's something wrong inside you. That's called a hiding place. And I'll be honest, it looks noble from the outside. It looks like you're tough. It looks like you're a survivor. Nobody questions the person who sacrifices everything for the addict, for the family, for the kids. Nobody questions that. I thought if I can fix the addict, I was the hero. She'd like me more. I thought she was taking medicine to escape me. I thought we were the problem, the family was the problem, and if I can just fix it, I can feel validated and be a hero again. And if you talk to most people like I do that live in this world of codependency, battling and entangled with an addict, most of their decisions are based out of fear. They're driven by a place of fear that just slowly crept in. It slowly creeps in and takes control over all your decision making. It's a fear that if you stop helping them, you'll lose them. It's a fear that if you stop managing the addiction, you'll have no purpose in life. It's a fear that if you stop performing, you're gonna lose control. Somewhere along the way, your identity got tangled up with their addiction. Somewhere along the way you started to realize that something isn't right and you go pretend to find help for somebody else when you really need it. I stopped being Steve. I stopped being who God designed me to be. I stopped being a father, I stopped being a husband, I became a codependent fixer who had a drive to fix everything because I was so lost on the inside. So lost. And then your identity is the spouse of an addict. That's your identity now. The spouse of an addict, the partner of an addict, the one who keeps it all together and keeps the family from drowning. That's not your identity. That's the role you were given in the middle of a crisis. And that's the role you took in the middle of walking in the midst of hell. And there's a version of you in there. It's still in there and it's wanting to come out. And this version of you is just screaming to break all of that trauma off of you, break all of that lost identity off of you, break all of that false lies about who you are off of you. I'm not saying that your partner's addiction or your spouse's addiction isn't important. It is. What I'm saying is your health is way more important because you can control that. You can't control the other. Only you have the power to surrender yourself to get yourself back to normal. You don't have the power to surrender them. You don't have the willpower to surrender them. They have to surrender themselves. You are the one that has to surrender yourself to get the help you need. I want to be honest and want you to listen to this. I'm gonna go back to the story at the beginning for the second. All those people that come in here pretending, looking for somebody else, trying to help somebody else, here's what happened. God met them, not the person that they were looking for, not the addict, not the spouse of the addict, nobody else. God met that person right here. He showed up and he met them. And as we go through our conversations and we start to peel back these layers, God just opens up more and more and just comes in a little bit more and more. It wasn't the right post I wrote, it wasn't the right message I sent back, it wasn't the conversation we had over uh Zoom. It was God and it's not coincidence. Most people that listen to this podcast, most people that follow me, most people that jump in to the community, most people that jump on the social medias are generally saying there's something in them and they're ready. They're ready to listen, they're ready to break the cycle, they're ready to move forward and start healing. They're ready to stop pretending, they're ready to stop hiding behind somebody else's problems, they're ready to just be free, they're ready to gain some clarity, they're ready to find out who they actually are on the other side of this. Those are the people that are coming. And is that you? You don't have to have this all figured out before you start. You don't have to be at the end of your rope or end of your wits' end to start getting clarity. You don't have to be in the full crisis that I talked about, that I walked through, that a lot of people are in. You don't have to go that far. You just have to show up. You just have to show up and be willing to stop pretending for long enough to let God speak to you, to let him in to your heart. Because he wants you out of this mess. He wants you to stop wearing a mask, stop parading around, acting super tough, like you're got all this under control, you're looking for somebody else, you're you know, you've got everything that you need, you're just trying to help somebody else. No, why don't you just help yourself? And that's what he's screaming at you. I don't mean to be harsh or push things on you, but most of the people really need the help themselves. Can

Psalm 139 And A Way Forward

SPEAKER_00 16:07

I go to the Bible for a second? I'd like to read just a couple of verses. Psalm 139, verse 23. And here's what it says. Here's what it says. God, I invite your searching gaze into my heart. Examine me through and through. Find out everything that may be hidden within me. Put me to the test and sift through me all my anxious cares, Father. See if there's any path of pain I'm walking on and lead me back to your glorious, everlasting way, the path that brings me back to you. Folks, that's a powerful verse in that psalm. I can pretty much say that most of the people listening to this have been on a path of pain for a long time. He wants to search your heart, he wants to remove all that anxious care, all those anxious thoughts, all that he wants to get rid of that, the fear, the anxiety, the insecurities, all that. He wants to remove that, and he can remove that. I'm telling you right now that I am proof that God works in people. I didn't go through some self-help. I didn't go through some, you know, program to get this way. I allowed God into my heart. I was a pastor for a long time and wouldn't allow him in anywhere. I just needed to be validated in the church because people loved me and they needed me and I felt important. I hid behind the role of a pastor too, is with codependency. But the moment that I really peeled back all those layers and let him in, that's when he led me back to his glorious everlasting way. And the path that brings me back to him and the plan that he had for me from the beginning. I don't know where you are today on your path to healing. I don't know if you've started, I don't know if you've been stumbling trying to get going. I know that people come into the community, they hit a wall, and then they join the community, and then nothing. And usually when that happens, life has gone deeper into hell. Don't be one of those people that say, Yeah, I'm gonna do it, but don't do anything. I've got all these resources available for people. I've got free booking. You can book a free call with me just so I can walk with you and try to guide you and help you through this. I've opened my heart, I've opened my life to help other people get unstuck. And if you have kids, it's to help save them so they don't continually be destroyed by what you're pretending to be. That's almost really an invitation. It's not about performance, it's not about a presentation, it's not about anything that you need to do, it's just an invitation to be known, to be really known by the God who created you. This invitation is for you right now, wherever you are, exactly where you are at this moment. And I want to thank you for listening to this episode of Reclaiming Your Identity. And I really hope that it hits some people right in the heart, and that you will stop pretending and you'll start searching and looking for the hope, the clarity, the healing that you you really need. Remember, this is gonna be a five-part series. This is number one of five, talking about pretending is over. It's over, it's done with. It's over, it's done with. And again, I just want to invite you into partnersofadicts.com, where you can find everything about the Walk Right community, you can find some resources, you can book a call with me. All of that is at partnersofadics.com. And please, again, follow me on all the socials. I'm on Instagram, uh, Facebook, TikTok, and YouTube. And I would love it if you just reach out to me and say hey, and just start a conversation. I'd love to hear that from you. And maybe, just maybe, God will meet you where you're at. Like he's met all the other people that I've talked to. He's that good. Remember, you're loved, you're holy. I'm gonna see you in the next episode. God bless.