CHECK YOUR HEAD: Mental Help for Musicians

Wesley Schultz (The Lumineers): Alcoholism & Mood Disorders Affecting Families w/Kerri Abernathy (Therapist & Addiction Specialist)

• Mari Fong / The Lumineers w/Kerri Abernathy • Season 3 • Episode 2

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Mari Fong interviews Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers with Kerri Abernathy, Marriage & Family Therapist and Addiction Specialist.  Schultz shares how a family member's severe alcoholism and  mood disorders affect him and his wife and the lives of other family members. The muse for The Lumineers's song "Gloria," this woman was sent to the ER 99 times in one year due to her alcoholism. Finding help with an addiction specialist and creating healthy boundaries for your own mental health.  Listen to The Lumineers's single "Brightside" off their new album of the same name.

Next, we have Marriage & Family Therapist and Addiction Specialist Kerri Abernathy who shares her own experience as a recovering alcoholic, and her professional advice what you can do to protect yourself from the alcoholic's ongoing drama. How to help the addict while also helping yourself, and the importance of the alcoholic experiencing the harsh consequences of addiction.

“Be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental help that you need.” For free and affordable solutions for mental health and addiction recovery, visit: http://checkyourheadpodcast.com/

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SPEAKER_02:

Welcome to the Check Your Head podcast, the podcast where notable musicians and experts share their stories and solutions for mental health and wellness. I'm your host, Mari Fong, a music journalist and life coach for musicians. And today I'm starting with difficulties and challenges that I'm going through, and that many of you may also be experiencing. So last week, I had a loved one test positive for COVID, where we both had to quarantine at home. It was a scary, stressful time for both of us, feeling overwhelmed with the worry of COVID, being physically separated and feeling sad about it, and the struggle to even do simple chores like making dinner or doing laundry. During this time, we also got our bikes stolen, biking being one of the few exercises that made me feel good during this pandemic. Then my computer crashed, so it's been a tough week, and although I'm really thankful for so many things in my life, If anyone can relate to this stress, wants to vent, or has words of encouragement, send me an email at checkyourheadpodcast at gmail.com. Even if you just write, Hi Mari, please know that your words would brighten my day. Now to our featured guests. Today we have the lead singer and songwriter of a band that's been hitting singles out of the park since 2012, with six of their songs ranking number one on the Billboard charts, including Jorge, Ophelia, and Gloria, with their latest single Bright Side also hitting number one. Today I'm excited to have Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers share his solutions for living and caring for a loved one with alcoholism and mental health issues, this woman actually being the muse behind their song Gloria. I'll also play a clip of their new single Bright Side from the Lumineers' fourth studio album of the same name, dropped on January 14, 2022. Next, we have marriage and family therapist and addiction specialist, Keri Abernathy, speak on how alcoholism can have a ripple effect among families, how to help a loved one with an addiction, while also mentally saving yourself. Keri also has a unique perspective, being both a therapist and a recovering alcoholic, and will give us her professional and real-world advice and guidance. But first, let's hear Wesley Schultz of the Lumineers share his story. First of all, I want to congratulate you on Bright Side. You also dropped Vignettes, which dropped in 2020. But we're actually going to go back to the themes of your album Three, which was dropped late 2019, which dealt with mental health, addiction, and alcoholism. But thank you so much for that, because that was such an open, honest, very vulnerable album with its lyrics and its focus.

SPEAKER_03:

Oh, thanks. Yeah, it was cathartic and it was a draining experience, but it had this life of its own once it got put out into the world. That is the album three where we've met so many people in the last 10 years touring as the Lumineers, but that was the most immediately intimate conversations I've ever had with complete strangers where you felt like you knew them because of the confessional side of things or even just the honesty side. it's a 360-degree view of emotion around it. It's not just saying totally sympathetic towards one side or the other, but it's trying to express how complicated the whole deal is for everybody involved. Like throwing a stone in the water, there's a ripple effect that everyone feels.

SPEAKER_02:

Right, and also that it's not necessarily a story that has a beginning, middle, or an end. It goes in so many different directions. But I also think that albums kind of represent... the chapter that we're going through in our lives. And it sounded like these lyrics came out during this time in your life. Can you kind of describe what was on your mind that inspired this whole theme?

SPEAKER_03:

So my wife, we've been together since 2009. And ever since I've known her, her mother's been a severe alcoholic. And so many things about that impacted our own relationship I began to appreciate how naive I was to solve problems relative to addiction like I thought you could just come in and say x y and z and that's what they're not doing and that's why it's not fixed and I'm kind of wired to see a problem and try to fix it and that's not helpful in certain situations so my wife has a ton of stories that she had told me and then we had shared stories once we got together. You know, she had taken her college tuition that her dad had left her to spend on her education and she spent that on her mom's rehab. And that was a number of times. You know, you'd get these calls in the middle of the night since we've been together and it would be your mom's in jail or your mom's in detox, your mom's escaped rehab or whatever the thing was, it left you feeling a bit haunted. You know, this person that you're supposed to love is sort of haunting you and causing you to live in almost this survival mode versus being present. You're sort of like existentially thinking about this a lot. And so I started to see that and it started dominating my thoughts and it began coming out in the writing. I wanted to get that out of me because I felt the best thing I can do is try to tell my side and also maybe a bit of compassion towards her side in writing these songs. You know, a lot of rock stars, the first thing they do when they get a little bit of money is they buy their mama house. So I bought my mama house and I bought her mama house. And it was a small house right outside of town in Fort Collins. We thought that was going to be great. She could walk to town. It'll get her exercising. It'll get her community. And instead, it led to her being severely isolated. You know, you can order alcohol for delivery. You can order food delivered. And so all she ended up doing was stacking up pizza boxes and she could drink a gallon of Tito's in a single day. And that's what she was doing. So we realized we had made a mistake and eventually had to evict her out of the house. And then she went on the run and became homeless, got in jail in different states. It's been a long haul. And finally, my wife and her brother got guardianship over her. She suffers from dementia and also severe alcoholism. And they were able to find a home for her that can actually meet some of those needs and help get her off of drinking mostly. So that's a relief because we don't have this person that we're so worried about all the time in harm's way out on the streets and worse. In a single year, we were told that she visited the ER 99 times. She was drinking herself into such a state that she was being brought in. So I couldn't get out of my head. But after having conversations with my wife about it, she said, well, you're a part of this family and it's been 10 years and you have every right to express this if you want and you have my blessing. And so I'd check in with her and I'd show her songs, but it was a tricky and still is a tricky thing. And so sometimes the outsider can see things a little more clearly or objectively because they're not codependent as much or they're not thinking in the same way that it can feel so hopeless when you're in that cycle with a family member. And it feels unmovable and unchangeable.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know, one thing you mentioned is your wife having to grow up in an atmosphere where alcoholism was part of that. How has that affected her and her mental health? Because I know sometimes when that happens, the daughter can feel like the mother.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, that's funny you say that because I've never, we just had celebrated Christmas together with her family and she's sort of the matriarch by default. She has three brothers, one older, two younger, and she was the mom in a lot of ways. When there would be an occasion like Christmas, she'd be racking up credit card debt so that everyone had a present because she felt so bad for her brothers and she knew that no one was going to step up in that way. And she still does it, and it causes a lot of tension because we'll go out to dinner and she wants to take care of them so much because she feels bad that there wasn't a mom I've seen that, and I've tried to support her in that, and I've also tried to question it and challenge it in a loving way. An example would be like, hey, I think your brothers want to help pay for this meal, or sometimes they want to treat us, but there's a protectiveness that she feels about them that I can't exactly relate to with my two siblings, where we weren't raised in that environment, so it's abnormal to me. It's just foreign to me to see that. My brother can take care of himself. If he wants to buy dinner, he'll buy dinner, I'll buy dinner, and And that's just not how it is in her mind. And I think it comes from a beautiful place, but it also comes from a sad place for me where she put two and two together and was like, well, we're not going to have presents under the tree if it's up to mom because she's busy not knowing what day of the week it is. She's blitzed out of her mind as a habit.

SPEAKER_02:

Sounds like she took on the mother role, but I'm wondering as her partner, there's got to be somebody to take care of her. Do you find that she's having a harder time accepting help from someone like yourself or even with the situation?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I mean, I think there's an independent streak in her that was forged out of that. That self-reliance became an identity and sometimes gets in the way of accepting love because you don't believe that you're worthy of it because this very pivotal person in your life. Honestly, I felt that too. I think we all struggle with worthiness at times. You know, she's a mother now and we tried to conceive for like four years and then we were like, maybe we just can't have kids. And then we were lucky enough to be able to do IVF and that worked. And when they do it, they allow you, if you want, to choose whether you want to have a boy or a girl. And she said, I want to have a boy first. So our son was picked first. And the reason she did that is because she had such a hard relationship with her mom that she was scared of how it would go if that was her first rodeo with our first kid was going to be a girl. So she went with the boy and that just shows you how intertwined it is in her head with how hard of a relationship that was. I think another part of it was that she's always reading the room. She was forced to understand and read people because that was how she survived. She could tell mom had been drinking or there was going to be a blowout, whatever. She had to develop that spidey sense way, way earlier than a typical kid would. So she's highly self-aware, almost to a point where she really wants to make sure everybody's okay. I'm more like, okay, if I piss someone off, it doesn't really matter to me. Because I came from a house where you were allowed to irritate someone. It wasn't the other world. And I didn't have to read everybody that closely. She's always the person who's, if there's someone who looks uncomfortable at a party, she's trying to make them feel okay. Because that's what she did all growing up. Her mom was really sad and she knew it. And she was always trying to cheer her up and do different things to make your parent feel happy when that's usually the roles reversed. Usually it's the parent is doting on the kid.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, one thing you mentioned is her trying to make her mom feel happy. Oftentimes with addiction, there are mental health issues or traumas that drive someone to drink. Was she or you ever able to get to the bottom of what it was that was driving her to drink?

SPEAKER_03:

No, I mean, we've asked her siblings, some of them, and they don't seem to know. It's not entirely clear. This is strange to say, but the only time I've ever talked to her and felt like I have to know her was when she had drank a bit and called us. And all her walls were gone, and she was playful, and she felt like herself. And it was almost like her normal... sober behavior was filled with barriers and walls and armor covering up something that she didn't want us to see. And then that one time when she called us, it sounds like I shouldn't be saying this or something, but it was a beautiful thing to at least see her once and be like, that's who's inside. That's that like innocent, happy, curious person. And she was denying us the ability to love her that way or show love. It was very uncomfortable for her. to be loved. I don't know where that comes from. That's a really sad thing that someone feels they avoid that instinctually. They can't trust it, even with your own kid. We did ask her siblings. It's a big family. She was one of seven. It's a lot of kids. And I'm just not sure what happened along the way. But I would imagine something happened to make her have these types of defenses up and maybe using alcohol to numb some sort of trauma or pain. became a habit.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, you know, one thing that was described through the music videos of the album Three was the intergenerational effects of alcoholism and addiction that could go through families. Was this seen throughout her family? Did it affect other members of the family with the addiction?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, certainly. I mean, among her and her siblings, there was different degrees of people getting out less or more scathed. There are stories I had heard about her showing up, passed out on one of the siblings lawn. And when he was at college and he came outside and she's laying on the dewy grass in the morning and her mom's, their mom's passed out. I mean, to other people, you don't think that must be embarrassing or humiliating, but to the person whose mom it is, you feel embarrassed and like it reflects on you. Also with Brandy, My wife and her mom, there was a lot of really combative and mean language used all the time. And whenever you thought things were going well, she'd say the meanest things. It was when she was drinking, because she was drinking almost all the time. And then I remember one Christmas, we were like, if you're going to come, we bought one of these breathalyzers, and you're going to have to blow in it. Because he just held one of the siblings' babies, and... I don't want there to be an accident that you feel bad about and we feel bad about. I don't want you to get in a drunk driving accident. And she refused to come, claiming it was disrespectful. And it was like, well, I'll do it. Well, I'll take it. It's a weird game. And then I remember we got her a dog, thinking that would help her. She'd go out for walks. It was a social dog. It would keep her company. Then she'd end up in these detox situations for days on end. And this poor dog was all by itself. And we had to rehome the dog and she didn't understand why you need to do that. She's like, I gave it enough food. We're like, this dog is going to die. Like, what are we talking about? This person can't take care of themselves, much less a poor, innocent dog. So we actually need to move this. And that was like, again, super painful. Those little details people don't think about. They think about the big things, but it's those little decisions like, hey, we have to call your mom and tell her we're taking your dog away. That's like a really awful thing.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, dogs become family members, and we love them like our own. To me, the first thing I felt is if she wasn't able to take care of her dog, what was going on when she was raising her children? It's a hard thing to think about. But even in the music videos, there were scenes where mom drank too much, she passed out, and the baby was there. Nobody was there to watch over the baby. So you mentioned about the ER visits. What it's like. to have to answer that call.

SPEAKER_03:

It's hard when the phone rings. It's receiving terrible news. Even if it's not that, suddenly it's lumped in with that when it's a certain hour. I remember getting a call from a Wyoming jail and it's like, she's in jail? But I also remember going in to see her at a hospital where she was getting detoxed and they put her on Ativan to ease her off of the DTs. And when you're under that, you can be pre-uninhibited. You're just truthful. That's when I found out how much she drank because they said, how much vodka do you consume in a day? And she's like, I drink a handle like a gallon. And we were like, holy shit. I thought that was for a few days. And she was at that point almost 70. She'd been doing it for 30 years. And it's just mind-blowing how out of control it was but normal to them. And I know she gave them love. I know she made them every meal at school. She got their blood types so she could make these immaculate, healthy food that was matched to their blood type. In some ways, she was extremely caring as a mother. And then in other ways, it was completely off the rails. She wasn't some evil person. It was just, it overshadowed all the good. And by the time I stepped in the situation, it was pretty out of control. And it was heading only one way. We just didn't know it. My dad was a psychologist and there was a theory at one point that I forget what psychologist said this, but he said, you know, you give me like 10 kids and I can make one a prisoner. I can make one a doctor. I can make one a soldier. I can make one a this, that, and the other. Like he was all about this idea of nurture versus nature. Like it was way more how you're treated determines who you are and not intrinsically your DNA or you're wiring, and that was his philosophy. And watching how Brandy and her siblings have turned out, it's clear that it can't be all nurture because they weren't raised in an ideal environment and they're all thriving, doing amazing stuff.

SPEAKER_02:

It's wonderful that they've broken the cycle of that because I hear about stories like that and either people go down the same road or they learn from that and say, I never want to have my children experience that.

SPEAKER_03:

I've seen it in Brandy where it's way different from me, where if I was Brandy, I think I would drink a lot more because she doesn't pay for it the way I pay for it. Her hangovers are nil. She's like energized in the morning. Her body and its ability to process alcohol, you can kind of see why if that's how her mom felt often, like pretty unscathed by a heavy night of drinking. It's really fun to get out of your own head and to maybe numb the pain of Or to just have fun and be uninhibited. I'm a musician. For the first eight years of touring, it was a lot of late nights and partying. And then I eventually got kind of injured. And I realized that I had to stop doing that. But again, people simplify it. If you partied all night and got up and felt fine the next day, you don't think you'd party more? People aren't actually realizing that for some people, like my wife, you see... how incredibly well their body processes alcohol. It's crazy. And it's like, I could see why that's a huge temptation. And then all of a sudden it's every night. And it might not even know when it began. It was just easier for you than other people. And that gave me a level of sympathy because I never really put that together. I was making it more of a caricature or one dimensional. And there's so many different things at play that might lead you down this eventual path that you find yourself on. To the point where with her mom, she was way happier at the time being homeless and being unregulated and allowed to drink versus being in rehab, being controlled by other people. It was everything to her, which is the essence of that addiction is that you're kind of like destroying yourself, but you think this is freedom.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm curious because there's so much ongoing drama. How did you and your wife deal with the stress of that and the anxiety of that?

SPEAKER_03:

It's a little bits of trauma here and there, or it's little bits of conflict that you're trying to deal with together. Like early on when we first started dating, she would tell me about these things and then say, I shouldn't tell you this. Maybe you won't love me. Or it felt like filth to her. Like it reflected exactly on her and no one else. And so it's funny because it led to a song where she said, you're like my dead sea. You know, like I can't sink. You hold me up. We ended up writing a song called Dead Sea because I really liked how it sort of sounded like an insult. You're my Dead Sea, but it actually is this beautiful expression of love. So I studied psychology. My dad was a psychologist. And just writing songs and being interested in people, I wanted to know her. And I didn't want her to apologize for something that was completely out of her hands. And I think maybe that acceptance of her helped her accept herself and helped our relationship. Part of it is that I'm not that. I'm not coming from that exact background. And I think that helps. If we were both coming from dysfunction in that way, it can lead to more and more because you're just used to that. That's normal to you. And so when I kept saying, this is not normal, I think she kind of knew she needed to hear that. You know what I mean? She had never put a boundary up with her mom ever until we met. And I said, she just called you the worst name you could call someone. And I think you need to ask for some space until she can learn to respect you. It's up to you. But I was like, this is kind of abusive. And she did. And went six months without talking to her. And then putting up those boundaries, it was hard for me because you're a little bit on the sidelines too. I can say so much, but it's your life and it's your mother. And I don't want to overstep. I'm just telling you as your partner, selfishly, all I really care about, number one, is you. I want you to be okay. And maybe she needed an advocate there because she's wired to put her mom's needs before hers just as a feature of growing up in that world.

SPEAKER_02:

I'm sure she relies on you in a lot of different ways to see things from a different perspective. One thing you mentioned is that going through these experiences, it's changed your perception about what alcoholism and addiction is. What are some of the things that kind of flipped you on your head as far as what you believe about it now I

SPEAKER_03:

think number one was watching someone decide to be homeless just so they could drink that spoke volumes to me versus anything she could have said I just had a naive thing that we all just had to say the right things as a family and then she would change like if we said we won't see you if you keep drinking she would stop but she was like no Drinking is number one. And the fact that you're even telling me this, fuck you. You don't have the right to tell me. I'm an adult. And that blew me away because if it was my kids, I can't imagine saying, no, I'm not going to see you anymore because I want to do anything like that. I kept thinking about standing in the ocean and these waves just hitting you where it's out of your control at some point. And it's very hard for us to understand because it's not... an X-rayable broken bone or an MRI can detect this. Because there's no way to measure it in that way, it's very confusing to know how to handle it. The appreciation I had for it was how far down she got, and it still controlled her even when she was at her lowest. And that's all I needed to see to understand I'm dealing with some force greater than what I thought. And then you pit siblings against siblings where you're like, oh, this one allows me to do what I want to do, so I love you. And these other ones don't love me. And it just messes with kids because they're wired to like want to be loved. We all want to be loved by our parents.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. That it's become her primary love, even beyond her family. That's the hard part is to realize that this thing actually has a stronger pull on her than the love of her family. I was reading something that you said, which I thought was really insightful. It said that you believe alcoholics drink. because they're feeling a lot of emotion and they're scared of being vulnerable, maybe afraid of their own feelings. So I'm wondering if the decision for an alcoholic, is it really about whether they're going to drink or not? Or is it really about whether or not they're going to face their emotions and the trauma or not?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, it seems a burden to live in your own mind, even on a sober level. My dad used to say it's hard enough to wake up in your own head every day, much less wake up and try to explain that to someone you're married to. Like the whole thing's insane. And it was really great to hear that. But just imagine some trauma that gets replayed in your head. I always felt when we would talk to her, if things got emotional, you'd see her eyes tear up and she would laugh or change the subject. Everything was so close to the surface. Everything was just at a simmering, almost boil. And you couldn't sense it because she had a good poker face. But maybe drinking allowed that to tamp down all those feelings, like she felt out of control or something. You can feel sympathy for someone like that. So it's like, how do you help this person if that's how raw everything feels? I think that's a way to attempt to understand someone's plight. Instead of labeling them, they don't have a strong enough will, or they're weak in some way. What if this was you? What if things felt that raw every day? Would you want to go through that? I can't blame them. That's probably the closest I can come to understanding is realizing how much pain is just below the surface.

SPEAKER_02:

You're saying maybe the alcohol allows them to push it down and they suppress it. But I do believe that when we do that, that it actually comes out in very dysfunctional, unhealthy ways because I believe that emotions need to have respect. You need to give them respect and see them and look at them. That's what it's there for, for you to look at and not looking at it. It almost makes it bigger in your head.

SPEAKER_03:

Like a kettle that is whistling and boiling over. It's going to come out one way or the other.

SPEAKER_02:

Well, I'm kind of curious because you said your dad is a clinical psychologist or psychiatrist.

SPEAKER_03:

psychologist yet.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah. From his view, has he given you any advice or suggestion on what can be done on the mental health end of your mother-in-law?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, I wish. I mean, my dad passed away in 07. So he never got to meet Brandy, unfortunately. And I never got to meet her dad either. He died at 56. My dad died at 57, really young. from cancer, respectively. So I never got to ask him that. I would love to know some of his thoughts on it. But he wasn't like an addiction specialist. So we met with different people to get their takes on it. And I would say the consensus is almost reminding me of being a lifeguard where you can't save someone from drowning if you're drowning yourself. You have to put up a healthy amount of boundaries to get through it and survive it. Otherwise, you're kind of going to get pulled under. And that's the cold reality when it gets that deep is that a lot of kids who become adults, sons and daughters of alcoholics, they need a lot of encouragement on saying it's okay to put up a boundary because they've almost been trained to say, you put my needs before yours from the parent. That was just a huge part of it is being in a relationship with Brandy was saying, hey, just so you know, this isn't just affecting you. You being... paralyzed by all of this anxiety and sadness and depression, it's actually affecting us. And when we have kids, it's going to affect our kids. That's probably what my dad would say is you need to save yourself first. And it goes against everything you've been trained to think. As a codependent thinker, if that's the environment you were raised in, is to think about yourself first because you've been trained to say that's evil, that's selfish. writing these songs. I spent so much time defending Brandy in my head and trying to protect her. And then starting to realize like, this is what she means when she says, well, she's still my mom. You know, that's still her daughter. And man, sorry. And it doesn't matter how much you think about it and intellectualize it. It's still, it's a tragic thing. And everybody would wish it was different if they could change it. You just keep returning to like, well, why? And you never have an answer. So the record, it's all open-ended. You're describing what happened versus offering some solution or happy ending.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. And just having to persist and survive and trying to thrive while you're going through this. You know, when somebody is in the midst of an addiction, they will do things to protect it. They'll do things to defend themselves. Sometimes they'll use guilt or they'll lie or they'll put blame on somebody else for what they're doing. But all those things are really hurtful. What kind of advice would you give to somebody who's just starting to go through this with somebody else?

SPEAKER_03:

One of the things that really helped was having a mediator that was a professional. I should be supportive of Brandy, but to have a a psychologist, let's say, or a therapist that specializes in addiction, that became a healthy thing for Brandy and I to look to instead of me saying, here's what I think as an amateur armchair psychologist. I don't know anything. Dad inevitably will advocate for your mutual well-being. You know what I mean? And so the first time Brandy met with her mom with a therapist, her mom left within a minute. She didn't like how it was going and left. And then Brandy spent the next hour or two talking to the therapist and it helped her so much. But just having someone there who knows way more than an amateur person is really good. And it don't always stop at the first one. There's a lot of bad dentists and there's a lot of bad therapists, like find one that has the bedside manner or the attitude and go with that because that's going to be an ally to you and also your relationship. So for me, it's just, again, Trying to put up boundaries and save yourself instead of getting pulled into it so deep that you can't even have a relationship with anyone else because this one demands everything from you and also is kind of ruining your head space and your well-being emotionally on a daily or weekly basis. What saved her and her siblings was their ability to lean on each other. There's four of them, so they got to call each other when they needed to sometimes and Seek professional help. It doesn't have to be some dirty secret.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. I've had musicians say things like, I'd go to the gym for my physical health. I'd go to my therapist for my mental health. And your wife's speaking to her siblings and commiserating, sharing stories. That's also a form of therapy. Just any way to vent and get it out and be able to process those emotions. And I'm sure you both do that for each other. But we've had people talk about Alcoholics Anonymous and Al-Anon, which is like a support group for people that are going through, you know, living with somebody who has an addiction. Was that ever anything that was tried within your family or considered?

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, we went to Al-Anon a handful of times. It works for some people in an ideal sense. And then other people, like with my wife, she's like, I just don't prefer this group thing. When I call my siblings and they say I understand, I know they understand. I just kind of need that. You should be able to vent to people and feel heard and seen, however that can come about. I just remember her trying it and just not feeling that connection she wanted. I think that's another part of it is that calling your sibling and saying something bad had happened and here's what happened. If you call a friend who's never been through that, they might try to plant some silver lining or preach to you a little bit or try to teach you something. And at the end of the day, you might just be looking for someone to go, that really sucks. I'm sorry.

SPEAKER_02:

With everything that you've seen as far as rehab, and it sounds like you've tried so many different ways to help your mother-in-law. What do you think the medical profession or society needs to do better to assist people with alcoholism? I

SPEAKER_03:

think there's a lot of addictions within the homeless community. And that's a good place to start to try to help people. And instead, it's treated as a bit of a nuisance. And it pits neighbors against homeless. It's just a weird, it's really inhumane the way it happens. I think that's a great place to start. And then trying to find the root cause of why you're drinking, instead of just saying, we're going to put you in this rehab, essentially like a milder form of jail. And then the minute you get out, you haven't really addressed any of that. I know there are other countries that approach it differently and I'm more successful with it. And I wish, I wish it wasn't so commodified, but more treated like it's our collective problem. Like this is not as simple as people are making it out to be. It's not just someone else's problem.

SPEAKER_02:

Right. It is a societal problem from what you're saying. It sounds like the care and compassion is not been a priority in this situation as much as it should be. And it's, taking the time to find out what is really going on with each person is not really being handled in the right way. You know, Brightside kind of changes the focus. Maybe you could talk a little bit about the contrast between Three and the focus now with Brightside.

SPEAKER_03:

Yeah, Three was a big storytelling arc. It was an ambitious sort of concept record. And Brightside is like, we went in there and just kind of expressed this feeling and expressed this hope you know we acknowledge the pain and the suffering within these songs and still there's this undeniable hope in us and it's funny because it happens even with the children of addicts or addicts themselves i'll change i'll change tomorrow tonight i'm going to do what i want to do we're all weirdly optimistic some might call that denial but i i think we're wired to be hopeful and that's where we're at right now not only as a country, but in the world. I think we all want to turn the page and get back to whatever normal means. It's just this almost innocence, but you're feeling the world is at your feet. It's all there and you have this swagger and you have this hopefulness. And it was reconnecting with that in a time when it's very easy to be completely cynical about everything.

SPEAKER_02:

I felt the excitement that you had with this album and the songs. Thank you for the authenticity and the honesty of your lyrics and really just the joy that you've brought us with all your music. But is there anything else that you would like to say about mental health or addiction? The

SPEAKER_03:

last thing I'll say is like the thing that I realized by making album three that I didn't quite realize before was that it's an enormous societal taboo in America and a lot of places in the world, the idea of addiction. It's something that you cover up and you hide within your family and you don't talk about unless you're totally sure that other person already knows your secret. And the more we can bring it out into the light, the less isolating it is and the less of a taboo and the less scary it is. In the same way that I saw that in my partner in Brandy where she was scared I was going to harshly judge her for something like that. Don't underestimate how much of a taboo this all is. And it's really good that you're having people talk about it and bringing it out into the light because then it can't be that boogeyman. We can't help each other if we don't know what the hell's going on.

SPEAKER_02:

Next up, we have a mental health expert who specializes in helping people with addiction and mental health disorders, working with couples and families on the conflict resolution that often comes with it. Marriage and family therapist and addiction specialist Carrie Abernathy will share her advice on how families and loved ones can help the addict with their mental health while also making their own mental health a priority. Carrie also speaks from personal experience being a recovering alcoholic herself. Now let's hear expert Carrie Abernathy share her knowledge and advice. You listened to Wesley of the Lumineers share his story about his mother-in-law. What are some things that stood out for you in that story?

SPEAKER_01:

That was a big story. So alcoholism and addiction, it's a spectrum disorder on a level of 1 to 10. And his mother-in-law was a very high spectrum person. alcoholic. She literally would not stop drinking. She couldn't come to events without drinking. They had tried to give her boundaries about being with each other and seeing the kids and she wasn't even trying because she's so high spectrum. That's a very specific type of alcoholism. You're looking at possibly some obsessive compulsive stuff when you get into that high spectrum. So there's multiple things going on. Those are complicated cases.

SPEAKER_02:

One thing you mentioned is that people's perception about alcoholism. For instance, if somebody is having issues with alcohol, and let's say they compare themselves with somebody like that, who's very high spectrum, they could say, well, I'm not like that. I'm not an alcoholic. Therefore, not realizing that They do have an issue, just not at that high of a spectrum.

SPEAKER_01:

That's correct. That's something that I talk about a lot. So it's a tricky thing. But what I say to people is like a level one alcoholic would be somebody who drinks a bottle of wine a day. And a level 10 alcoholic is somebody who wakes up with the shakes. They're drinking vodka next to their bed or out of the freezer. Those look obviously very different. but your brain is still hijacked by alcoholism in the same way. So at level one, if you're drinking a bottle of wine a day, you can still function. You can still go to work. You can still have relationships. There's a lot of things that you can still perform that a level 10 alcoholic wouldn't be able to do. But what we see at level one is anxiety, depression, feeling tired, puffy. all these symptoms that I just ask people, is that okay? Are you okay with low-level anxiety and low-level depression on a daily basis?

SPEAKER_02:

Well, one thing that I really respect about you is that not only are you a therapist, but you also had your own personal experience with alcoholism. Can you tell us a little bit about that just so that we have a bit of a backstory there?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. I grew up in an alcoholic family and they were high spectrum. My dad was high spectrum. So I always had that as my guide. So I grew up thinking, well, I'm never going to be an alcoholic like my dad. And I wasn't. I was actually an alcoholic like me, which is so interesting. Like I never drank beer out of a can. I never walked around in my underwear drinking beer, you know, all those things. So I think I was probably more of a classy drunk. Of course, classy with a K. So it just really something that snuck up on me. I was very high functioning. Something that is similar with alcoholics is that a lot of us are binge drinkers out the gate. When you talk to an alcoholic, you'll ask them, when's the first time you drank? And they'll be like, oh, when I was 13 or 16 or 17. And I was at a high school party or I stole alcohol from my parents. And you drink a lot. You binge a lot immediately. I would say that's true for the majority of alcoholics. So what I did drink, I was a binge drinker. I was drinking big. And that was something that I did. I don't know. Once a month or sometimes every weekend, but sometimes not. There was long stretches of no drinking at all, but binging. I remember when I got married, we didn't even have alcohol in the house. We didn't collect wine. We didn't have wine. It was just something that, you know, we would split a bottle of wine on the weekends and then we would do a wild Wednesday where we had friends over. So then it was like Wednesdays. Friday, Saturday, and those days just started adding on. But I remember switching at some point. I didn't want to split a bottle of red wine with him. I didn't drink during my pregnancy, so that was proof that I wasn't an alcoholic because only an alcoholic drinks during their pregnancy. So I had all these little things that I was doing that were proof that I pulled it together and high-functioning. I had all these little tricks that just justified my drinking. You lie about your story and your drinking so long. With all of that

SPEAKER_02:

going on for so long, it was brought to your attention by your husband. Did you realize it? Was there a particular event that made you say, you know what? I think I have a

SPEAKER_01:

problem. I ended up going to a therapist. She was not an addiction therapist. She was lovely, but she was very conservative. And I remember her saying to me, were you drinking when that happened? And I got really annoyed. And I said to her, I'm always drinking. You don't have to ask me, was I drinking or not drinking? So when I tell you a story, just assume I'm drinking. We don't have to discuss it every time. So she was like, do you think that is normal? I was so offended by her questioning that whole thing. Well, I do think that

SPEAKER_02:

whether it's conscious or unconscious, there's a time where it sounds like you're almost defending or protecting the alcoholism or protecting your wanting to drink.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I don't know a single addict or alcoholic that doesn't have that because that really is the crux of when I talk about a hijacked brain. In your brain, it's hijacked by drugs or alcohol. That really is the crux. Your brain is protecting that addiction above all else. And so the idea that you would quit, it's just really crazy. And you get very defiant. And I think one of the differences between an addiction therapist and a regular therapist is that when somebody does decide to quit drinking or quit drug use, we do a tremendous amount of grief and loss work around alcohol and drugs. Like you are mourning the loss of that best friend that was always there for you, right? Like you had that above everything else and now it's gone. And so you really have to do grief and loss work around alcohol losing your addiction because life is suddenly very scary.

SPEAKER_02:

One thing I've heard you say is like asking an alcoholic to stop drinking is almost like asking them to lose something that they really love. And you said something like asking a mother to stop talking or seeing their children. And that really struck me because I can't ever imagine doing that. But It was an example of the strong pull that alcohol has for the alcoholic. And now you're also saying that this was something that you relied on to help you get through things. And now you don't have that. So now what do you do?

SPEAKER_01:

What do you do? It's a tricky thing. And I tell people who are considering drinking or leaving drugs, it's a hard sell. And I tell people, all the time that I am a hopeless romantic when it comes to recovery. I believe it's possible for everybody, but it is a really hard sell because things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Just even chemically, you're going to have a huge dip in dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, all these chemicals in your brain. When you're drinking it, It comes to the point where that's the only thing that's giving you dopamine is the drink. You might go to a birthday party, but really what you're enjoying is that you're able to drink at that birthday party. So to try to convince somebody that they're going to lose access to dopamine, serotonin, norepinephrine, well, those are serious things. So you're likely going to go into a pretty mild or deep depression. and lots of anxiety when that drink goes away. Your relationships are likely going to get worse before they get better. Your sleep is going to be worse before it gets better. Your thoughts are going to be worse before they get better. So that's why I think it's really important to work with an addiction therapist or a sponsor. Sponsors are amazing. They do all that for free. So they can normalize what's going on in your brain.

SPEAKER_02:

I mean, how were you able to get through that period and finally get convinced to

SPEAKER_01:

stop drinking? So I did 30 movies in 30 days. A lot of people do 30 meetings in 30 days. But I just really hunkered down. I closed the drapes. in my house and just watched a lot of movies and had mild detox symptoms, sweating at night and probably raised blood pressure. And I was just cranky. I didn't really know what I was doing.

SPEAKER_02:

There's no medication or any kind of things to support you?

SPEAKER_01:

Now, if I had the options that I know now, I didn't know anything when this happened. I'm coming up on 11 years. So If I were to do it now, I would have gone to rehab. Rehab is great. I don't think it's the answer for everybody, but you get pretty intense psychoeducation. They get you involved with AA and whether or not you love AA or you hate AA, at least you're exposed to it in rehab. And you have a support system in rehab that are taking you to those meetings. So I would have done rehab and I would have gone there. likely on Welbutrin, which targets specifically dopamine. I would have gone to AA meetings. I would have found an addiction therapist. I would have gotten a sponsor and that would have been so great, but many people just don't know what the hell they're doing.

SPEAKER_02:

That's why it's important to share your story because there are a lot of people out there that think they can do it themselves and some can, but like you said, if you had the choice looking back, Why not have support? Why not have guidance? This is all information that would make things smoother. You know, applaud you for your persistence because it's a rough road to come back. You were drinking regularly and you were probably a different person. Your personality might have changed during that versus you being sober. Is that true?

SPEAKER_01:

It's a tough one. So the feedback that I get from my husband is that When I was drinking, I was mean. Because when I'm sober, I'm always on the verge of being mean anyway. It's really something that I have to manage. There's a toughness about me that needs to be managed. And it's unmanageable when you're drinking. So if you have extra co-occurring disorders, as we call them in my world, co-occurring disorder would be A personality disorder like narcissism or a mood disorder like anxiety, depression, bipolar. If you are drinking, you are just those things. So if you are a drinking borderline, you are beyond borderline personality disorder. That's all you are and nobody can see anything else. If you tend to be a depressed person and you are drinking, you are a depressed person. These are things that you cannot manage while you're drinking. And it's a tricky thing. So that's why people are like, oh, can I do harm reduction and just drink a little bit? I don't know. Do you want to be an asshole just a little bit of the time?

SPEAKER_02:

You've done a lot of family therapy with addiction. And there are people that have to deal with addicts that are like Wesley and his wife that is ongoing. And there may not be a solution. What is some advice that you can give family members or loved ones that love the addict as far as trying to keep up their mental health?

SPEAKER_01:

We'll go specifically with mothers right now and their addicted children. Normally by the time that they get to me, they've been in and out of rehabs. They've done all the family groups. They've gone to Al-Anon. So normally by the time that you get to me, they're just tired. And when we talk about what to do, And everybody wants boundaries to be black and white. And here's the line in the sand, and this is what I'm doing. And very typically, boundaries are not black and white. You can draw the line in the sand, but then something happens. So you got to reevaluate your boundary, which is why it's really important to have a therapist in your corner so you can discuss how does that make you feel. A lot of times we discuss three things. And we talk about what the mental health perspective is, what the perspective is from a mother and a parent, and what the perspective is from Al-Anon. And those aren't always the same perspective. I love Al-Anon, but Al-Anon can be black and white, right? They're all about detaching lovingly and trying to figure out how to do that. So a lot of the questions that I have with a mother in therapy is, if that is your decision and that is your boundary, will you be able to sleep? That's the biggest thing is, are you going to be able to sleep tonight?

SPEAKER_02:

You know, if somebody comes to you and they're just at the beginning of their journey with a loved one who they believe has an addiction, what is some advice that you could give them as far as the attitude you should have with the

SPEAKER_01:

situation? So in the beginning, I'm really about not giving them money. and not enabling in that way. And so we really go through the bills of, okay, you're paying for their car and their car insurance. And so what are we willing to do here? And maybe not cutting it off immediately, but like maybe bringing in the child. And when I say child, I'm talking about literally like a 25 year old. I mean, but they're acting like children. So trying to figure out the financial plan Because if you're giving your 25-year-old child$2,000 a month to live, that would be rent, cell phone, food, right? You're not going to be comfortable just taking that$2,000 away. So we've come up with a financial plan of what are we going to do? How are we going to sleep? How are we going to feel comfortable reducing that$2,000? And also communicating effectively with that person. This is the plan. This is what we're going to do. So just so you know that this is coming.

SPEAKER_02:

You're talking about enabling. I think loved ones in their quest to try and help may not realize that they're enabling in certain ways.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, absolutely. So getting sober for anyone or harm reduction is always about negative consequences. Most people are not going to have the consciousness to be like, oh, I'm really struggling with anxiety and depression. I need to quit drinking. That's not a big enough negative consequence. We need to see other things like relationships deteriorating, losing a job, losing your housing, people coming up with boundaries, right? You're not invited to my birthday party because you hijacked the party and the police come. These are negative consequences for people. So they start to feel a little bit more uncomfortable. And when you give somebody$2,000 a month, What's the negative consequence on that one? There's no reason to go get a job. I

SPEAKER_02:

think that's probably one of the hardest things for a loved one is being able to watch this happen and to stand back from it. As a loved one, whether it's a spouse or sister or a mother, you want to protect that person from the badness that could happen from their addiction. I don't know. That's so hard, but it's really important. You know, I wanted to ask you about something that Wesley said. He believes alcoholics drink because they're feeling a lot of emotion and they're scared of being vulnerable. What do you think of this belief?

SPEAKER_01:

I would totally agree with that. I specifically am an attachment therapist. So I believe that drinking and using comes from attachment disorder and not properly attaching to a parent or maybe your mother was an alcoholic or maybe your dad left at a young age or maybe it's not that clear cut. Maybe it's just that you went to middle school and everybody hated you or you had the perception that everybody hated you and so you didn't feel attached to community. caregivers, there's a hole in you and you're unable to continually connect or maybe not at all connect to person's places or things, but specifically persons. So you're just like feeling odd man out at a party, or maybe everybody's laughing at the joke and you don't get it. Or maybe you're in a relationship, but you can't quite connect with your partner. And the drinking is about filling that hole. And some people fill it with gambling. Some people fill it with sex or porn or shopping or work, food. These are all things that we fill our attachment hole. And that will help us get through the moment or the day or the week. Most people have to continually fill that hole every single day. And that is about feelings and not being vulnerable. So you really have to remove those things that you're filling your hole with to try to figure out what the shit is going on.

SPEAKER_02:

When you said that it brought to light that the choice for the alcoholic really is, do I face these feelings that I really don't want to face that are hurtful, painful, angry, whatever it is, or do I continue to drink and just not do

SPEAKER_01:

that? That's right. And it's pretty apparent to me that the answer is usually just continue to drink. It's a really badass, courageous thing to do is to get sober. But when you're doing it, it certainly doesn't feel that way.

SPEAKER_02:

Yeah, a lot of persistence, a lot of discipline. So I applaud you for that. My last question is, how has your life improved since now that you don't have alcohol in your life

SPEAKER_01:

or the addiction? It's just night and day. Like my full-time hobby is my mental health. Because as I did get sober of course the real problems came up those are all things that you can learn to do in sobriety because you have consciousness and awareness and mindfulness but these are decisions that i make in sobriety and not being things that were modeled to me when i was growing up so not being passive aggressive not being critical not being blaming and these are things that you choose so It's all different, not to sound too hokey, but it's a spiritual practice. Some days you have better days than other days. Like I don't have the answer, but I'm working on the answers as they come. And those are all things that you can only do if you're not using chemicals. So it's totally different. Not to sound too jaded, but when people come to me, I say, you're fucked if you're sober and you're fucked if you're not sober, but you're way less fucked.

SPEAKER_02:

A big thank you to our musical guest, Wesley Schultz of The Lumineers, and our mental health expert, Carrie Abernathy. For more information on The Lumineers and Wesley Schultz, visit thelumineers.com, catch The Lumineers on tour starting February 2022, and follow The Lumineers on their socials, at The Lumineers. Stay tuned to listen to a clip of the Luminators' new number one single, Bright Side, from their album of the same name at the end of our episode. For more information on Carrie Abernathy, visit arborhousefriends.com and follow Carrie on Facebook at Arbor House Friends. So until next time, be brave, ask for help, and be persistent in finding the mental health that you need.

SPEAKER_00:

Gone on a freeway I'll be your bright side, baby, tonight I'll be your bright side, baby, tonight Tonight You're stranded on

SPEAKER_02:

Check Your Head Podcast is kindly supported and partnered with Sweet Relief Musicians Fund, DBSA San Gabriel Valley, Ear Shop Media, and Lemon Tree Studios in Los Angeles. Visit checkyourheadpodcast.com where we have over 100 solutions for mental health. Be our friends on social media at Check Your Head Podcast. Watch us on YouTube and support us with a kind donation on checkyourheadpodcast.com. Check Your Head podcast is sponsored by a 501c3 nonprofit with all donations being tax deductible. Thank you for your support and thank you for listening.

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Mari Fong

Host
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Kat Jensen

Producer