Navigating Life and A Loved One’s Addiction

[00:00:00] That’s really easy to get so sucked in that you begin to have blinders on so it isn’t selfish because literally I can’t live someone else’s life. I can only live my own. So the call to me is to live it to the best of my ability, right? To give my all for that. And we’re given desires in, in my belief system.

I 100% believe we’re given desires to bring them to manifestation, to give ourselves and our talent and our gifts to this to make contribution. To the world. And if we stop that because of what’s happening, then we miss twofold. Could be tenfold, right. But we miss realizing those dreams for ourselves, but also the contribution we can make for other people.

It’s also, um, showing your son that you have confidence in him because you’re not trying to do it all for him. Yes. Right. Emily. What? You just sit on something that’s really huge. Because we don’t realize the message that we send when we’re solving things for them.[00:01:00] 

The Onward podcast features authentic conversations on facing adversity, moving forward, and discovering ourselves along the way. I’m Emily Harmon, your host. Welcome to this last episode of Season two of the Onward Podcast. It’s been two years since I started publishing this podcast. I’ve thoroughly enjoyed it and learned so much from all of my guests, and I’m going to keep going.

My guest, Deborah Edwards and I today talk about navigating life. And a loved one’s addiction. At the same time, we are both very fortunate that our sons are in recovery from addiction, and in this episode we talk about how we navigated through that process as moms. This is one of the first episodes I conducted live, so sometimes you’ll hear me reading comments that a LinkedIn or a [00:02:00] Facebook user posted or reading a question that a user posted.

So I just am starting to do the episodes live and then also publishing them as a podcast episode later in the year. I introduced Deborah at the beginning of the interview, so let’s cut to the live interview. We are live. So Deborah, welcome to the second live version of the Onward podcast. Very nice to join you, Emily.

I’m excited to chat with you. It’s a hard topic, but an important one. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So people on LinkedIn, if they wanna connect with you, they can connect with you on LinkedIn at Deborah G. Edwards, and they can read your bio. But bottom line, I mean, you’ve had a really, really successful career and. You are right now, you’re a Gallup certified strengths coach, but you’ve just done so many things.

You’re an award-winning, corporate development expert, served as an entrepreneur, business owner, uh, sales, all the things. Yet you’ve also had [00:03:00] that a child suffering from addiction in your home. And you know, I was reading your book and I’ll put the book up here as a, a banner, that’s the name of your book, the title of your book, and.

Just brought back so many memories for me. So we’ve been through similar circumstances, so I know I wanted to go live on LinkedIn and in the Facebook group because I know that I feel that this is a topic that a lot of people deal with, but sometimes I. They’re ashamed and they don’t wanna talk about it.

So I’m glad that you’re wanting to talk about it because I think it’s important because I know that, especially now with Covid and just all the things going on, a lot of people are dealing with this and they don’t know what to do. Exactly. Yeah. It’s when you’re in the thick of it. It literally is, I don’t, you really don’t know what to do.

It’s such a confusing and, and hard experience. But before we really go dive in, I wanna put an exclamation on what you just said. With everything that we’ve [00:04:00] gone through this last year, especially as a country and where, where we are right now, there’s the extreme unrest, mental health issues, and depression.

It’s escalating. And right there with it will be people who use substance, whatever that is, drug or alcohol, in order to kind of subdue what it is that they’re the turmoil that’s inside. And so it is really important that we talk about it. It’s important that we just be open and be honest about it.

Because it’s reading. No, I definitely agree. So tell us, uh, what your book’s about and go ahead. Let’s go on into it. Okay. Really, it’s our story. I give my backstory in some of the things that I’ve, I’ve gone through in my life where maybe I learned some skills on how to navigate difficulties, but then I take the reader through the experience of realizing my son was addicted to heroin.

Uh, navigating the up and down of what. You go through with [00:05:00] rehab and relapse, the things I had to come to terms with choices I had to make that were excruciating and vital and, uh, kind of where things turned and, and how we both rose because I’m happy to say that Andrew is five and a half years in sobriety and, uh, doing amazing and managing his own life, living in Southern California.

He has his own business. And so that’s an incredible blessing. I wrote the book for two reasons. First, to give hope to the person who’s in the thick of it, because you and I both know that the story doesn’t always turn out the way ours did, and the worry about that, it’s a fear that’s. It’s hard to describe what, how it feels even in your body.

So to know that there are different ends to the story. And the second reason that I wrote the book is the thing that you touched on just a second ago, and that is a lot of times when [00:06:00] people experience something like this, they do go inward and they’re not open about it, and there’s an amount of shame that they contend with that almost creates a lack of living their own life.

Right? Mm-hmm. A lack of, of continuing to strive for goals and dreams and happiness. There’s, it looks that you take on this label or this coat that is not meant for you, right? But you take it on as it means something. My loved one who fell into addiction for whatever the series of reasons are, somehow means something about me and.

That’s my invitation now. That’s my encouragement is let them walk their road. You walk your road, you still get to be happy. It’s okay. And that the dealing with where they are in the journey, like the constant refreshing of that. His wrote is his, my wrote is mine. That’s, uh, incredibly important. So really that’s what the book is about.

Well see, I think, um, and I haven’t finished reading the whole book, but it seems to [00:07:00] me that, uh, you didn’t know that right at the beginning because, and I didn’t either, but I remember. Saying, taking my son to a counselor and just saying, you know, can just fix him. Just fix it. And I thought it would be like that and it would be fixed, and I didn’t know how bad it was.

And so sometimes you just, you don’t really know. And you talk about in the book how you had always helped your son with his homework projects and, and things like that. And so as a mom especially, and this causes a lot of, uh, stress between the parents because the mom is always wanting to. Really help.

And um, I remember seeing, it was a little comic, this mom saying, her son’s standing there and she says, all right, I already did your 12 steps and I folded your laundry. It’s in your room and it’s an adult son. Okay. You can’t do it for them. Yeah. But it, but you just don’t wanna know that or admit it at the very beginning.

Yes, yes, yes, yes. I think it’s hard. What you said is right. As a mother, we do four. Right? So the, it’s [00:08:00] the nurture part of us, and it’s almost part of the role in the beginning because they’re dependent, right? But there’s a transition between them being dependent and us helping them individualize that I think I wasn’t fully aware of.

So I know that that was, I know that, I mean my, like I say, and I say in the book, my son does not. Like it, if I ever claim any responsibility because he, he fully owns his choices, but I still have to reflect what were the conditions, because I can’t change, I can’t write choice him into a decision or a path that I know is better for him, right?

He’s gonna make that choice. The only thing that I can do is position him. To make it. And I didn’t come to that realization until later. I mean, like, I was in it. Even he went to Teen Challenge. Mm-hmm. For what would be his, his first recovery, his first [00:09:00] experience in a rehab type environment. And I really believed that, uh, we’re good.

You know, that’s gonna, he’s, no, he’s gonna be fixed. That’s the situation will be fixed. Mm-hmm. Well, alright, this is a, a tongue in cheek question. What would you say to, you know, I had a two star, a three star admiral once tell me, addiction would never happen in my family. We were a good family, we were good parents.

We had dinner together every night, and I would’ve known if my addiction wouldn’t have happened, but also I would’ve known if my son was using drugs right away. Yeah. So I really caution anybody from saying this. Because I said this and I was wrong. Andrew grew up in church and we played as a family and we had meals together.

And even though his stepdad, which he was in Andrew’s life, for the majority of his growing up years, even though he traveled, we still on the weekends rode motorcycles. Right. Andrew was on the swim team. He, it’s, you would not [00:10:00] have looked at us. And said, you know, we had movie night all the time. The three of us would just, I mean, we hung out.

So you would never have thought, oh yeah, that’s gonna happen watching and once to submit a comment. Feel free to do that as well. Or a co comment or, yeah. Yeah, that’s, that’s the thing is I remember someone knocking at my door and she was looking for a deadbeat mom. Cause my son was hanging out with her son.

And she realized I wasn’t a deadbeat mom. So I had that opinion too. And I mean, I think it’s like until it happens to you. Oh, and someone got a comment here. Someone says, absolutely. Being a survivor of abuse, addiction, and depression, I can totally relate. And someone says, what a difficult balance. You have to walk alongside the person you wanna help.

Oh my God, oh my God. You could not have put it any better. This is exactly right. The balance between where you’re still being love and you’re holding boundary, where you’re still prioritizing yourself. Right when what you wanna do is try and, [00:11:00] uh, rescue and save. Like there it literally is this, uh, balance.

That’s Yeah. Cuz you don’t wanna be self and you’ve got a career. You’ve got a job. Andrew was a single and only child, right? Yeah. And I had a daughter. So you gotta also think about how it impacts the other child when all your focus is going to this child. Mm-hmm. That’s something that you struggle with too.

And a lot of, a lot of things are, you can’t like initially detecting it, especially when it’s teens because you can’t, what I did was kind of liken it to teenage behavior, right. And I really, so seeing the, the line between what is a normal boy, teenage boys emotional reaction versus. The fact that something is actually creating that fluctuation and emotion, right?

Like I didn’t know how to detect that. Well, and also they’ll tell you they’re really good liars. Oh, Andrew will. Yeah. He’ll also he, exactly. Oh they are. Yeah. [00:12:00] And the mom wants to believe it. So the combination of that, and maybe the dad too, but the mom. So what things do you recommend for parents to do to get support, like, How did you navigate it?

How did you deal with it at work? Did you share what was going on? I mean, there’s so many questions. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think in one way, the fact that my own life imploded around the same time was a blessing because I had to refocus. I had to go into my own, not just survival mode, because I refused to just.

Crawl my way through life. It was more like, okay, I recognize right now, so imagine 2011. It’s this period where all of this has happened and Andrew has now gone from, I smoked marijuana to heroin and my life is plummeted. Marriage was ending. Is that what Yeah, my marriage was ending. My father had died. My uncle had had died.

We ended up [00:13:00] having to file bankruptcy. All these things happened in one year’s time and Andrew was fell into addiction, so, or walked himself right into it. So I had to first oxygen mask first. I had to heal. I had to figure out how to breathe again and then put my life back together. But even with that, It’s what, uh, she, it’s, it was a female that said, uh, the balance.

Right? Right. It was me, yes. Me in between. Okay, what can I do? So it was like when Andrew was in it, I was there, but I was working on the boundary I needed to hold, which is, you can’t live with me. You know, you’ve gotta figure this out. I love you. I’m here for you. But not, maybe not in the way that I used to be.

Who supported you through that? Did you have other parents that you talked to? Was there a support group or were you just like on your own through all of that? I was on my own through all of that. So I went to Al-Anon a few times. Okay. And it could very well have been the group. So this isn’t about Al-Anon per se, [00:14:00] but for me, the groups that I tried, they were very much about talk, spinning the story, and I was wanting to move.

Beyond the story. So I chose to go it on my own, but my focus became my own personal growth, right? So I really was confronting myself. I was going after, all right, what’s my truth and what’s my contribution to where I’m at? Where do I need to grow? Where do I need to change? What adjustments do I need to make in order to get where I want to be?

And at the same time, try and believe that as I’m doing that, If I hold love and belief at the same time that my son can recover that somehow he will, even though I can’t exactly see it. And I don’t know exactly when that’s gonna happen. And I just kept myself, my mind going back and forth between, okay, his journey is his, mine is mine, like a check myself.

And then I found things like yoga. Hot yoga, I mean things like that, climbing mountains. It saved me to be able to get in a space where I could [00:15:00] clear my head and be grounded and let things go. And trust. Trust God. Yeah. Huge. Very strong faith and that helped me too. Yes. Huge. Huge. And you know, I will say like I never, uh, I refuse to not hold belief for it, even if it absolutely didn’t look like it.

So I would say this, if you have a loved one that is going through this, wherever they are in the journey. To remember, it’s not for you. It’s for them to decide, number one. Number two, you can still be love and hold boundary at the same time. And number three, prioritize. It’s not selfish to pursue your heart’s desires, to pursue your dreams, and to bring happiness and joy into your life, even if, right, even if they’re not there yet.

What would you say? Here’s a, here’s, somebody said, um, What trust you must have in each of us having our own journey. I believe that 1000%. Yes, me too. It helps me. Like my kids are 27 now, my son and my [00:16:00] daughter’s 25. And you know, you never stop thinking about your kids, wondering about ’em. They, they’re making the right choices, but are talking to somebody.

A coach of mine about that yesterday, and I’ve said, you know, I’m concerned about this with my daughter or this with my son. And she goes, whenever you like, point the finger. Notice there’s three fingers pointing back at at you. So she said, Emily, that concern, they’re on their own journey. Your life is a reflection of you.

So whenever you see somebody or somebody in the meetings rubbing you the wrong way, or you’re upset about something, take a look. You and what’s that telling about you? About your situation? I was like, oh dang. I like that out on stuff. Yeah. Yeah. She in the eyes. Yeah. One thing I didn’t say is that I did have the incredible blessing of meeting somebody who ended up being a coach and becoming one of my very best friends.

So part of what you just described is something that I [00:17:00] experienced because she’s, she’s an amazing person. Her name is Sheila Weddington, and she. She delivers Truth with love. Right. Just like that. Like ah, yeah, definitely. What would you say to an employer who has somebody or who’s not sure if people at work are going through this or not?

Do you talk about it at work? Is it appropriate to talk about it at work? I mean, what do you recommend employers do about this? Cuz like I said in the video, I ga did earlier this afternoon, advertising this event. Every single employer, I’m convinced, has somebody that’s going through this that’s addicted or somebody that in their family is, or they know somebody who is.

Absolutely, I completely agree with you. And you know, there are functional alcoholics and functional addicts. It’s important to talk about it. It’s important to create an environment where it’s safe to bring it forward. I actually have a client. Who has a situation and there is an open space to [00:18:00] have dialogue about it, and no different than a parent.

You give opportunity to write the path, and at the same time, there has to be boundary and you can handle that with respect, with care, and not a no condemnation. Let me talk about judgment for a minute. You don’t know what it is that walked somebody into the choices that they made, but in this world, boy, we’re really good at judging and that helps no one and one thing, the thing that I say about judgment all the time that I will repeat probably until the day I die, judgment lives in the judger.

So let’s not be in that space. First of all, look what you’re doing to yourself, but look what you’re doing to what’s possible, because when you’re sitting across from somebody in a space of judgment, you remove the possibility for solution cuz you’re al you’re closed off, right? But if you make yourself available, And you’re open to conversation and you genuinely want to help, that can create something very [00:19:00] different.

So think outcome, what do you want? What’s the outcome you want? Yeah, as well said. Yeah, I definitely agree. Agree with that. If your son had cancer, you wouldn’t be ashamed to say that my son has cancer. And then if he relapsed and had had treatment and then for cancer and it went away and then he relapsed, you wouldn’t blame him.

We just treat mental illness so differently and I think it’s cuz you can’t really see it. It’s here, you know? And there’s just so much judgment about, that’s one of the reasons I really, really, really wanted to talk. About this, especially even on LinkedIn and I have some more episodes that are coming up where we’re gonna talk about not just addiction, but suicide, depression, things like that.

I just think it’s important because if we’re all aware that even more aware that that’s going on, there’s ways that we can reach out. Yes. Yeah. This is so timely with Covid, political unrest, violence, so many people are desperate and fall into addiction. We do need more resources. We definitely do. We need more resources.

We need to [00:20:00] understand it differently. We need to frame it differently, right? We need to be open to helping each other differently. It’s decades long. The stigma that’s been created about. Mental health and what it means and doesn’t mean we’ve, we’ve gotta start seeing it differently because we’re all human beings trying to have a, a happy and healthy and successful life.

And it’s not about this person is, what would be the, the word for it, Emily? A broken and should be discarded. No, no. Yeah. So how many times, like, what was it that. Got your son sober. Mm. Someone might a ask what did you do to get your son sober and that you didn’t, you couldn’t do anything. Right? That’s one of the hard things is to recognize that you, you know, if someone’s, um, an addict and they don’t recognize it, You’re probably not gonna be able to make ’em recognize it.

They’re gonna have to be the ones to wanna get help. So what did it take for your son to decide to get [00:21:00] help? Because heroin’s a tough addiction to overcome. It absolutely is a tough, all of it is life and death, heroin. You know, math, these are definitely in the realm of life and death. He relapsed more than once, so three times the last time he went to a different state, there was a point where he could have decide he didn’t.

By the way, he’ll, he’ll say this. He didn’t go. With the intention to recover. He went because his girlfriend, who also wanted to recover, wanted him to, so he didn’t get there with the intention initially of getting sober, but he was away from home. Yeah. He wasn’t coming back. So he was positioned, and this is what I mean by you can position, right?

You can, you can put them in a position to have to make a decision. Right? And that’s scary, right? Because in your mind, you, the fear of what might happen might cause you to, to try and solve it yourself or. [00:22:00] Right. Yeah. It’s wintertime. I can’t tell them that. Come back on the street, right? Like the street.

Yeah. Yeah. So there was a point where he, he has a little portion and he has several pieces in the book where he responds and gives his perspective, which I thought was really important to do. He talks about, it wasn’t like one big monumental thing, it was. One moment after another and one right decision after another.

So there was a moment where he had to make a decision. Okay, well I actually, I got no nowhere else to go. I don’t wanna go that direction. So he made a right decision and another right decision and another right decision. That’s what they say at uh, rehab. I think make do the next right thing. Yeah. Love that.

I learned too. Yeah. I interviewed a woman on my podcast. I can’t remember, but she went to rehab, I think it was 25 times before she came sober. So don’t ever give up. [00:23:00] Yes, I love that. Right. Likes. Yeah. Yeah. I five to her. I know, and she’s young. She’s living in Hawaii. She went, you know, she went to a rehab place where they, I should remember the name of it, but I can’t, um, if anyone wants to know the name of the episode, just let me know and I, I can post it in the comments.

But at that rehab, They also have jobs there. So while you’re in rehab, you start a job and then they help get you to be able to live on your own. And she was able to finally have her, I think her son was six or seven, have him come live with her in Hawaii and and stuff like that. So she was just so proud of herself and she should be cuz.

Of everything that she overcame. I think that’s amazing. Yeah. And you something that’s really important. And that’s the structure after. So the program after this is actually a problem. So people go to rehab, then they get finished and whatever is covered or not covered or what, like, [00:24:00] uh, because that’s a whole different conversation.

But they finish and then they’re out there, they’re in a sober living and they’re trying to figure out how they do life. There isn’t a transition. Right. And what you descri just described is a transition. So just build in some structure and skills and, and belief within yourself and, and confidence and, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah. Allie Morales is her name. They gave her just increasing more and more responsibility and stuff like that, and she was just so proud of herself to get her son back and, and to have that support around her. I remember when my son was being discharged from the hospital after. Detoxing from alcohol and finally wanting to get help.

The hospital’s just gonna discharge him. And what you want is you want to be discharged and go to a bed, have a bed at a rehab, because he was there, he was detoxing for a few days and there was no bed. And then what happens is they, they leave the hospital, there’s no bed, you know, they just kind of go back to their, you know how it is, you go to a, when you go to a training class or whatever and you’re like, yeah, I’m gonna [00:25:00] implement everything I learned when I get back.

And you learn. So then in between happens, right? Yeah. And you go home and you just fall back into your old routine. So that’s a long story, but I had to really fight to help get him a bed. Wow. And yeah, he got one. And uh, so your son now, he’s 28, right? And he’s been sober for five and a half years rehab, like three times.

He must have really wanted it. How did he feel when he re, when he relapsed? Like what, what happened when he relapsed? Did he, what was his attitude? It’s interesting, I think at the different relapses, he was in a different place. But if you were to summarize it, Honestly, it’s like, uh, especially with something that becomes addictive, where you begin to feel like you are needing this and you can have the same experience with alcohol.

Maybe it’s a little bit more physiological when it’s a chemical, right? And it gets in the brain, but, so there’s, it’s this pattern that was repeated and then he would beat himself up for. [00:26:00] Having given in. Right. And then, you know, that’s the thing in the, in the mind of somebody who’s going through this is that if they do beat themselves, nobody can beat themselves up better than they can.

Right, right. And then they fall into depression. And the only thing that can shut that off is, Right to, to the substance. So always it came to the point, you know, when it was time to try and get sober, it was some degree of awareness of this isn’t gonna work right, or this isn’t gonna last, or, or even, you know, the people that you begin to meet.

When you are in this environment and you’re working a program and you have community, you lose people. Right? And that’s shocking, but not always enough. Right to make you take a different, uh, road. So it was 2011 that he, that you not noticed he was using drugs? Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Because I think for my son it was around the same time and um, there’s a lot more support groups now.

From my friends and I, the ones that [00:27:00] came looking for the deadbeat mom, we became friends and we started this group called Parents of Teen Unite. We call it Pot now. I tell my kids I’m going to the pot meeting. I love that. Yeah. And then that melded into another group called Parents Affected by Addiction, which is still going.

There’s a Facebook page called, Papa parents. Parents affected by addiction. And there’s so many more, like the addicts mom and stuff like that. There’s so many more support groups. And we would meet once a month and someone would say, well, what do I do? This is happening with my son, or this is happening with my daughter, and we’d give them support.

And I think that that was really helpful and it’s very hard on a marriage. When this is happening too, because think men and women feel just ha take, take sometimes different stances. I was, um, I was married, but not to William’s dad. But the challenge I had with William’s dad was he never would make a decision or help me make a decision on anything.

But then when I made a decision, it was the wrong decision, of course, by him. So that was an additional [00:28:00] stress on top of, um, Everything else. So it’s just, that makes it really hard too. So just like you put yourself first, I think couples need to, you know, really work hard on keeping the marriage together and keep themselves first, and that marriage first.

Right. And that’s, I’m not the successful marriage expert, but maybe the, the reflector of the marriages that didn’t work and why, and I, I would definitely say that. That, that connectedness and communication and support the relationship part of marriage while you’re going through that is key. You are both coming at it from a, a different place and I came to realize that there’s value in the male viewpoint and presence like the, that, uh, voice the strengths within right.

There’s a need for that at the same time as there is for the female and for nurture and for support in a different way. And we can do that really well together. But it’s not easy [00:29:00] because it’s so, it’s so different. Whatever. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So yeah, mark says very important to have a date night and, uh, hi Gabrielle.

Thanks for joining us. So. What’s Andrew up to now? Uh, he has a, he just called me this morning, mom. I think I’m gonna get a dog. He has a, a, a mobile detailing and ceramic coding business. Oh. He has his own van and his own equipment, and he’s got some corporate contracts and he’s in Southern California. He has his own community.

He, he has. Spons that he helps and it’s really great to see him thrive. He lives on his own, in his, in his, his very own apartment for the first time, which is really such a cool thing. He literally asked me to come out and help him set it up just this fall, and I was like, I am not missing that. Right. So it was, I got to the point in your book where you were saying, That one [00:30:00] day when Andrew is nine, he told you he had a fear he was going to give into temptation.

I remember that moment. So crystal clear. He had a knowing and it was almost, I walked out of his bedroom that night with just the chills, like, because it wasn’t, it wasn’t just, it was the way he said it. Like he knew something like this was coming and boy, that’s a big weight, nine year old’s shoulder.

Yeah. I can look back and I can see some behaviors in my son that he had like addictive tendencies, like he always needed a Pokemon card pack. The next, the rare one would be in the next pack. Just things like that or, and then sometimes when we would go to counselors, he would, and the counselors maybe helping him through some things and they’re playing a game.

He would change the rules of the game if he was losing. And I’d be like, William, you can’t change the rules of life. Just so you know, when I look back at it I see. But, and then, but it’s, this is one of my favorite pictures. Oh yeah. Love it. We’re very fortunate. Yes, we [00:31:00] are. And boy, I know that you are fully aware of that because you have interviewed mothers who didn’t have the same outcome.

Like that just, uh, slices me when I think about it. And I am in such deep gratitude for what our outcome was. And I feel so, such deep sorrow. For the family members that have different outcomes. I have friends who have lost nieces and children, and it just, it’s, uh, heartbreaking and scary. So I am incredibly grateful and I’m, I’m happy and grateful for you too that, uh, Your son is doing so well.

Four years, right? Yeah, four years. And, um, you know, his dad died last year and I think that there’s always a little bit of you that’s a little guarded, right? I don’t know. Oh, like sometimes when he, when he calls me on my cell phone, he, he always, this is just the way he calls mom. And then there’s like always a little pause and I’m always like, yeah, but I was really, you know, not that I didn’t have faith in him, [00:32:00] ptsd, that comes from it.

1. Yeah. And I think in some ways it just never goes away. You’re always a little on edge. I mean, it’s great. He’s living alone. My son’s doing well in school school’s, he’s going to college studying engineering. But, um, you, you don’t, you’re right, there is a, there is a piece of you because you we’re fully aware, right?

So we’ve lived long enough to know what life is like. We’ve lived long enough to know that there are people who are sober 25 years and yeah. Right, so it’s, it’s like you hold belief powerfully, but you also have that awareness that sort of sits off to the side and yeah. P T S D is so real. Yeah. Alexandra?

Yes, definitely. And Mark says every day can be a challenge. Must keep the light burning wherever you go. What happens when you go to a restaurant? What do they ask you? So what’s the first thing they ask you? What would you like to drink? Very first thing, wherever you go. I mean, it’s less than, it’s a McDonald’s or something, so what would you like to drink?

And my son ju, I’ve seen him [00:33:00] do it. He’ll just say, well, party never stops with me. I don’t really want anything. So he’s gotten some good habits with that. So, but you know, part of the, the title of our episode is all about too. We’ve talked a lot about our kids in the, and someone said, yeah, very hard growth for all involved.

Yes, for sure. Talk about again, how important it is and it’s not selfish. For you to take care of yourself and not just put your kids and everything. First, you take care of yourself. And if you had another child or other children in the family to pay attention to them too. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because it’s really easy to get so sucked in that you begin to have blinders on so it isn’t selfish because.

Literally, I can’t live someone else’s life. I can only live my own. So the call to me is to live it to the best of my ability, right? To, to give my all for that. And we’re given desires in, in my belief system, I 100% believe we’re given desires to bring them to manifestation, to give ourselves and our talent and our gifts to this, to make contribution to the world.

And if we stop that, [00:34:00] Because of what’s happening, then we miss twofold. Right. Um, could be tenfold, right. But we miss realizing those dreams for ourselves, but also the contribution we can make for other people. Yeah. I talk about, and it, it can be hard to do when you’re in the middle of it. So after I dropped Andrew off at the airport, which ended up being his last time in rehab, I drove away and in my head came model the rise.

And it came in multiple times. And I thought, okay, I don’t really know what that’s gonna look like, but okay. And in me, I felt like if he’s got a rise and he sees me giving my effort to do the same, then it’s at least a good example. Yeah. And so that’s if for nothing else, if you can’t do it for yourself, do it for the example that you set.

Right. Do it for yourself. And it’s also showing. Your son that you have confidence in him cuz you’re not trying to do it all for him. Yes, Emily. What? You just [00:35:00] sit on something that’s really huge because we don’t realize the message that we send when we’re solving things for them. Yeah. They, what they take in subconsciously is you don’t believe I can handle it.

So you’re absolutely right. Me saying, you’ve got this, you can do this. Right. I mean, I spoke those words, those kinds of words. Into him. While I would say, I love you and I wanna do life with you, but I’m not walking the road with you and I’m gonna take care of myself. Yeah. So I was a, a brand new senior executive in the Navy, and I was going to a class for a week, and the class started on Monday, on Sunday, I got a call.

Mom and bottom line is he wanted help. He was done. Mm-hmm. And he was gonna check, and he had just gone on a binge. We talk about it in my podcast episode with him. He couldn’t even talk. He had a woman with him who he knew was going to nursing school and would. Help him, but he had just done so much Stop it.

Not just my son did other drugs too. He never shot heroin because he [00:36:00] knew that that would be the end. He made that choice, but, so I’m getting ready to go to this class and he’s telling me he is gotta go to the hospital. Blood alcohol content is pretty high. We just got like 0.39. And I did not. I was an hour and a half away.

I was in dc. He was in southern Maryland, Patuxent River, and I did not go down there. I knew his dad was down there, but I didn’t rush to the hospital. I didn’t quit my class. I went to my class and that I wanted to send a signal that you’re 23, you’ve got this. It was the hardest thing to do. Oh, I am super proud of you.

I absolutely love that. Boy, we really have had the same experience. Same thing. I don’t know if you got to that part in the book about the house. Yeah, I haven’t. What happened with you? So, uh, I was in California and I had taken the train to visit my parents who lived in Orange and Andrew was still in Arizona and he was trying to detox.

Only he had taken his body so far that his body wasn’t handling the detox and his, they couldn’t, he, they, he [00:37:00] took him to the hospital via ambulance. They couldn’t regulate his heart. And I got this notification via text that Andrew’s been taken to the hospital, and I had to make that decision. Do I don’t have, and I, and I paid attention.

I didn’t have my car, right? Like I believe. Yeah. There. That was right for that mine. Notice what’s happening here, Deborah. And this was an all night experience for me in terms of am I going or not going because he could die and then can I, can I accept that? And I made the same decision. You did? What mess I asked myself the same question you asked, what message am I sending?

Mm-hmm. Issue I want to send. So what do you recommend if, um, somebody. Has a, a friend who’s going through this, how did your friend support you and how could a friend support somebody whose son or daughter is going through something like this? The first thing I would say is make yourself available, because it’s a really hard thing for somebody to talk about.

We don’t just [00:38:00] automatically talk about it, which is why I was determined to talk about it. So make yourself available. Put yourself in a place of non-judgment. Even ask, how can I help? What do you need from me? Do you just need to talk about it? I’m not judging, right. I’m just here. And even if they, uh, they go silent, check on them because it’s just as, it’s easy to say, let’s just talk about it.

But if you could understand how thick the feeling of wanting to hide it is. Then you can appreciate how important it is that you’re consistent in how much you reach out. So reach out even to just say, I love you, I’m thinking about you. I know you’re having a hard time. I’m here. Mm-hmm. You know, and make space for that.

And then encourage them in whatever it is that they’re doing to, don’t try and misdirect away from what they need to talk about, but encourage them in whatever they’re doing. To move their life forward. One thing I admire about you, well, many things, but one thing I admire about you is that you did work that work on yourself.

I mean, I didn’t [00:39:00] really start doing that work until maybe two years ago. I don’t know if it’s just cuz of my childhood and then my military background feelings weren’t talked about. So I just kept pushing forward and I couldn’t even name my feelings until a few years ago. I didn’t deal with them. And one of my podcast guests talks about if you shove your feelings to the basement, they lift weights, uh, and they get a lot stronger and they come out at some point.

And I’ve discussed that with several people like, uh, Navy Seal, John McCaskill. In a recent episode, I experienced it when my kid’s dad. Got sick and died and things that I hadn’t dealt with from the divorce. I was somebody who just kept pushing on and I didn’t really, I read a lot of self-help books, but they were, I think they were mostly around like leadership, being organized, not really working on me.

So I think that that’s great that you did that. Parenting is not for the lighthearted. This is the truth. Thank you. I have a lot of [00:40:00] admiration for you, and I think you’re an amazing human. I totally understand what it is like to sort of get in motion, and especially if you’re, you know, you like achievement and accomplishment.

Yeah. I’m one of those people too, and I stuffed my feelings for a long time and then came to, it’s like, what? It’s like what you say it was like, okay, you know, Now I need to make sense of this, and I’ve since learned to be able to see what it is that I’m feeling, what that means, and to bring my mind to it.

So my logic and my emotion are working together versus one trying to lead or the other trying to lead. Right? Right. They can come alongside each other really powerfully. What am I feeling like? I’ve got this book. It talks about how like most Americans, maybe it’s everyone in the world, A lot of Americans can’t really name their feelings, good, bad, happy, sad, there’s so many more feelings.

And it’s called, the book is called Permission to Feel. And Brene Brown did a one of her podcast episodes on that book. And when I first started going to a coach, she would say like, what do you feel about that? And I don’t know what [00:41:00] I feel about it. I know what I think about it. What do you feel about it?

And where do you feel it? In your body? Mm-hmm. Like in your, in your heart, in your head. So when I used to journal, I would journal a lot about what happened in the day, but now I journal more about like my feelings. I’m more in touch with my feelings, which I think would’ve helped. I. Back then, but whatever things happen when they should, I guess.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. One of the things that helped me in really being willing to take the time to explore what it is I’m really feeling cuz cuz you’re right. You know, maybe I’m depressed, but maybe it’s not really depression. Maybe I’m angry about something. Maybe I’m feeling, uh, envious and it’s turned into something else, and I don’t even realize that it, it really started with me feeling envious about something.

There’s a full gamut of it. So first of all, I love the title of that book and I’m going to get it Permission to feel. Yeah, yeah. But the, I think the value of being willing to explore and find what the truth is about what you’re feeling is that you then can express it. You can express [00:42:00] it very differently and very cleanly because we tend to, especially in relationships, we come at things.

With the full power of, of the emotion that we haven’t actually even identified the relationship where we go to the refrigerator. Yeah. Gary wrote, motherhood is for men too. Yeah, I understand what you’re saying there. Yeah. Yeah. I totally understand that too. Absolutely. Yeah. And fatherhood is for women too, right?

Like the, I get that. Yeah. I think it was about a year ago, Gary, that. I was in Canada last year and I saw you, Gary lives in Toronto, and I went to Toronto to interview my roommate for the Naval Academy’s daughter who’s on the, um, Paralympic cycling team. And they were having a, a cycling race up there. And I met up with Gary.

We went ice skating. You remember that Gary? Gary’s a really good ice skater. I was slipping all around, but oh my gosh, I’ve really, really, I skated I think twice in my life and it wasn’t pretty. So, but I was really proud of myself that I [00:43:00] could, you know, very slowly but precisely not fall I was telling Gary.

So let’s see. I have a banner here. This is the title of your book and where can people find it? It’s so well written. I love reading your book and we didn’t even talk about some of the things that you talked about earlier. Like your sister passed away at 19. Yeah, I was 17. That was tough stuff. Yeah, that was the first, um, whoa.

Life. Is different than I thought Experience. You know, it really, it changed my world. It changed me in so many ways, for sure. Put certain things in motion, but the greatest value was the shift in perspective. I thought she was taken from me and that’s how I looked at it. And then I realized I could shift it and take that she was given to me for 17 years.

But hi. Yes, it’s on Amazon, so if you just search Hi and Deborah G. Edwards, it’ll come up the story of addiction Awareness. Right, right, right. Hi, [00:44:00] endeavor g Edwards. That’s how I found it. It’s an awesome book. I’m gonna finish it. I’m almost done. I didn’t get a hundred percent to finish it, but I appreciate that thing.

Yeah, I think I covered everything. Uh, we talked about enabling. I think we talked about too, that if someone doesn’t wanna get help, you can’t really force ’em to get help. But by not enabling them, like, I mean, you’ve probably heard the things like don’t give them money. Go to the gas station and buy them gas, bring them food.

Don’t give them money. Those kinds of things set boundaries for what it’s gonna be to live in your house, things like that. That line, they have to leave. Yeah. And that’s hard, but important. So, and that, that’s why I think, you know, I’m surprised, I don’t know how you did it without a support group. I mean, it is gotta be your faith in everything.

But, um, and you had your friend that you said was a coach, but I think it’s really helpful to find other people, you know, a support group of other people that are kind of, [00:45:00] have dealt with it or going through it to get, and you can lean on each other. Yeah, I completely agree with that. I think it would’ve been amazing.

I don’t know if I, if it’s how I function the majority of my life, because I tended to be the first person, right? Like with ju the loss of Julie and other things happened, so I’ve just navigated this way. Maybe it was that I really didn’t know how to find those resources. I don’t really know, but that’s just how it unfolded.

Yeah. But I absolutely can see the value of somebody else who, who understands just in that people who. Tough love. Yes. Just in that, people who have written to me that have read the book, they said that I’m so grateful for this because I don’t feel alone. Yeah, yeah. Because you do feel alone. And so just that, just the value of that is important in terms of having some kind of support network.

All the listeners, you should definitely, uh, get her book, Deborah’s book. I’ll put her up here one more time. And thank you so much for being my guest on the Onward [00:46:00] Podcast, Debra. Thank you, Emily. I really enjoyed chatting with you and I, uh, look forward to connecting with you in the future. Yeah. Once I get my rv, I gotta start bringing in a little more income, but once I get my rv, I really, that’s my goal, is to just go around the country and.

Visit all the people that I’ve met. I’ve met so many people through leading the Onward movement and hosting the Onward podcast. And yeah, I’m excited for you for that experience. Yeah. And we’re all just excited to be able to get out of our houses in homes. Right. If you had told me back in March last year that we were gonna be here, I don’t think we would believe it.

I think that you only get the pieces that you can handle. Right. Just like with. Just like when my ex-husband was sick with cancer and he was gonna die five months later. But if you had told me everything that was coming up, if you had known everything was coming up with your son, I don’t know if you could have handled it.

I mean, I don’t know. Maybe you could have, but I don’t know if I could have [00:47:00] you. I don’t know. I don’t think so. It was hard enough, like I needed to believe that it was gonna be fixed the first time in order to go on. Right. Yeah. Alexander Mattlock. I read the book. I love the book. It’s written so well. I it’s just awesome.

Yeah, I know who this is. She’s Oh, thank you, Gary. Call me anytime. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And uh, honestly, uh, Gary, if you wanna reach out to me, you can connect to me through Emily because I’d be happy to have a conversation. Yeah. All right. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for listening today. As you probably can tell this episode, this topic is near and dear to my heart.

Please share it. Everybody needs to hear it. Whether you’re an employer, a supervisor, a family member, and especially during these tough times that we’ve had the past two years with Covid V, we just need to support one another. People are hurting. Let’s be there for [00:48:00] them. Let’s be there. For ourselves as well.

I wanted to let you know about a couple of my coaching programs. The first program is the Onward Accelerator Coaching Program, and that program is intended to really help you do some deep introspection like Deborah and I talked about, that we’ve done over the years, and to help you create a life that you love living.

We look at all areas of your life, personal finances, relationships, work. Are you living a life you love in all of those areas? Because if you’re not, you deserve it. And sometimes we tell ourselves, no, I don’t deserve it, or I will, but not at this time. We kind of condition our life based on circumstances when really we don’t have to do that.

We can make changes in our lives. We don’t have to wait for circumstances to change. Part of what gets in the way of us doing that is our mind, and that’s why I also offer mental fitness coaching by improving [00:49:00] our mental fitness. We can reach peak performance, we can improve our health, our mental health, our relationships, and everything about our lives.

We really can. I’ve seen it happen with my clients and I’ve seen it happen with me. If you’d like to learn more about both of these coaching programs, please go to my website, Emily Harmon. Dot com and go under offerings and you’ll see more information on both of these programs. Check them out and if you would like to talk about them some more, just schedule a meeting.

You can do that with me. Schedule a meeting on my website and I look forward to talking with you. Have a great week onward. Thank you for listening.