When Addiction Enters a Household, the Walls Collapse with Nancy Espuche

[00:00:00] Well, the sad thing is the subject matter of drugs has always been somewhat of a stigma, and people have really shied away from even talking about addiction in any fashion at all, whether it’s at home, socializing or in the workforce. But I think out of the opioid epidemic, the workforce is starting to look at those struggling with substance use disorder.

And I don’t think yet, they are now looking beyond that, and I think that will come with time. I’m hopeful that it will because a great number of their employees are suffering as well, and in trauma as well. As we say, in my sad world, we are not only trying to save our children or our loved one, but we’re trying to save ourselves too, and we show up at work every single day.

Half alive.

Welcome to another episode of the Onward Podcast. [00:01:00] This is Emily Harmon, your host. February 18th, 1991 was the best day of Nancy as SP’s life. December 19th, 2016 was the day she was forever changed. On that day, her beautiful boy Lucas lost his gripping and grueling battle with addiction. In this episode, we discuss the long and heart-wrenching journey.

Nancy is Spoosh, is the founder of K B H A business committed to addressing and repairing the impact of addiction on those living with the loved ones, substance abuse. For the last decade, Nancy has been an active participant in the recovery community as she faced the daunting challenge of her son’s opioid addiction.

Her mission and purpose is to explore, develop, and provide steps for healing, tools for recovery, and opportunities for transformation. Let’s start the [00:02:00] interview. Nancy, welcome to the Onward Podcast. Thank you very much, Emily. I’m grateful to be here and glad for the opportunity to speak with you. Yes. It’s unfortunate that you have this opportunity though.

I know that you’ve been through an unimaginable pain and from losing your son. To an overdose and I saw an article that was about you on LinkedIn and it was talking about how you are turning your pain into purpose and you’re going around and talking to employers. About the fact that this heroin epidemic, this opioid epidemic, is impacting the workforce, whether they think it is or not, because I think you had said one in three people knows somebody.

Who had is impacted by this epidemic? Is that the right number? It’s the number that I know that I [00:03:00] knew a year and a half ago. I don’t know. It could have increased at this point, but it’s rare that you find somebody who doesn’t know somebody or hasn’t heard of a situation related to the opioid epidemic.

And if that’s the case, then why does there have to be so much education about it in the workforce? Well, the sad thing is, The subject matter of drugs has always been somewhat of a stigma, and people have really shied away from even talking about addiction in any fashion at all, whether it’s at home, socializing, or in the workforce.

But I think out of the opioid epidemic, the workforce is starting to look at those struggling with substance use disorder. And I don’t think yet. They are now looking beyond that, and I think that will come with time. I’m hopeful that it will because a great number of their employees are suffering as well, and in trauma as well.

As we say, in my sad world, we are not only trying to save our children or our loved one, but we’re [00:04:00] trying to save ourselves too. Yes, and we show up at work every single day. Half alive. Yes. So whether you know, an employer might not have somebody at work that is. Using the drugs, but they could easily have somebody at work that has somebody at home that’s using, and then this person at work is just distracted, very upset, doesn’t feel like they can talk about it at work if that employee’s, son, daughter, or loved one.

Had cancer, they would feel comfortable talk, you know, more comfortable talking about it. At work, people would bring meals, people would reach out to try to help. But when it’s addiction, there’s a lot of judgment that goes on and it’s like, well, you know, maybe you’re a bad parent or that, uh, loved one of yours just made some bad choices, kind of a loser.

And that’s not the case. Not the case. And it took me time to learn [00:05:00] that too. And as a mother who was actively and intimately involved in Lucas’s addiction, you don’t really understand the world of addiction until you’re in the world of addiction. And I think when it comes to medical challenges such as cancer or diabetes or such, there is an acceptance that your body is not doing what it was.

One’s doing and people have compassion and sympathy and concern. The subject matter of addiction is so far into so many people, and they do think still in many instances, it’s a question of will, and it’s a question of self-control, and it’s a question of just saying no, as Nancy Reagan said so famously, but you learn if you get educated that none of that is even close to the truth.

There is not one addict, and I would swear I’d put my life on the line and say, there’s not one person struggling with substance abuse disorder that wants to be in addiction. Oh, who completely [00:06:00] agree. Nobody wants it. Nobody consciously chooses it. Nobody moves in that direction or decides when they pick up whatever they pick up for the first time, whether it’s a drink or a joint, and says, okay, tonight I’m gonna.

So my way into being a full-blown addict, right? Or you know, has an injury and then gets prescribed pain pills and then unknowingly gets addicted to them and realizes that they need them just to, just to function day to day. It’s funny, I heard yesterday from a woman I went to high school with who I haven’t haven’t spoken to in a while, who knows my story, and she suggested that I reach out to this man by the name of David Marion, who is doing a lot of work in Minnesota, and we went to high school together and I ended up reaching him yesterday.

He lived two houses down from me where I grew up on Long Island. I knew him and his family very well. He was a stockbroker who was extremely [00:07:00] successful, lost. Everything. His work, his family, his children is doing beautifully, is in Minnesota now. He went to Hazleton and saved his life. Hazleton is a rehab place, so he was, he was, uh, opioid, um, heroin addict.

But what’s interesting, he went to the doctor. Many, many, many years ago with an injury, the doctor prescribed him Oxycontin. He took two pills and he said he knew he was home, and he called the doctor an hour later and said, you know, I made an mistake. I accidentally kicked the prescription bottle into the toilet and I lost all of the medication.

And the doctor prescribed him with I don’t know how many of the pills, which was a complete. Fly. But he knew from that moment. And there are people who just know, I have met so many people, and Lucas said it too, the minute he took, took on his first joint, he said, Hmm, I feel different. This feels better.

[00:08:00] This feels better. So tell us about Lucas and tell us about his story and beautiful. And your story. Yes. Tell us beautiful, beautiful, who he was. Well, Lucas was born on February 18th, 1991. I always thought that it was good luck because in the Jewish religion, number 18 means life. So I always thought that I was blessed and I was, but I didn’t know what was coming.

Shortly after Lucas was about three to four months old, he started to have regular bouts of, um, intestinal challenges who throw up regularly. We went to multiple doctors. They finally discovered, well, they didn’t discover actually, they kept saying he had a stomach flu. We finally changed doctors and one of the doctors was concerned and suggested that we really keep an eye on him.

We ended up, uh, in the hospital when lupus was about nine months old. The vomiting bouts started to accelerate and expand in terms of length of time. And after [00:09:00] lupus turned about a year and a half, the pediatric surgeon who. Submitted us and and examined Lucas up at Mount Sinai said, I think Lucas is suffering with pancreatitis, and the only reason why a baby would have pancreatitis is if they’re drinking alcohol, which he’s not, of course, or if he has a pancreatic tumor.

They discovered after that, that Lucas did not have a pancreatic tumor, but. Dr. Dol, his name was a brilliant lifesaving man, and he suggested that Lucas had something called the collar seal, which is assist in the common bile duct between the gallbladder and the liver, and it completely blocks digest digestion, but they could not do an endoscopy because Lucas’ pancreas were so inflamed.

So for the next year and a half every week, Lucas had medical tests, sonograms blood work. Some tests, um, monthly were six hours long to see whether or not his liver was functioning and he was under complete [00:10:00] medical scrutiny. The interesting thing about Lucas is he did everything very quickly. He walked quickly, spoke quickly, moved quickly.

He was tall, he was six one, but he was always 99% tallest. In, in, in his age bracket was way beyond the charts in terms of his verbal ability, his acuteness, and. Was exceptionally smart, so nobody ever really understood that he was sick and they didn’t see him often when he was having a bout. And then about, uh, it was actually closer to his fourth birthday.

I knew something was up and I called the doctor and they decided to do the endoscopy, and they found the cyst. He did have a colido seal. They told us he had to be operated on the following day because of the cis burst. We were in big trouble. He had seven hours of surgery. Wow. They removed the cyst. And mind you, he had a couple of hospitalizations prior to that.

They removed the cyst, they took out his gallbladder, and when he woke up from recovery, [00:11:00] when I bent down to kiss him, and the surgeon was in the room, he called me Stupid Mommy, and the doctor pulled, Lucas’s dad and me out of the room and said something extremely wise to both of us and said, I need to warn you now.

Children with this kind of medical intervention often grow up with problems with play nice in the sandbox. They don’t listen well to rules and adults and keep your eye on him. And of course we didn’t know what he was talking about, but soon discovered Lucas’ Belligerence. And challenges with authority and, and not that he was an outcast.

In no way am I saying that he was exceptional and a and in so many remarkable ways and extraordinarily bright. And did a plane for the Jewish Olympics. He was superstar athlete. Basketball, soccer, played the piano, uh, could draw, but he [00:12:00] never really rectified or resolved his internal struggle and what it felt like for him being different as a kid.

He was, you know, could open from side to side. He would never tell anybody what that scar was. He couldn’t wait to get his six pack. And I’ve learned, I have to say Emily, quite a bit about trauma and the correlation between young. Childhood trauma and addiction. Yeah. Lucas started to smoke pot at a relatively early age, probably around the age of 15.

I watched it regularly. It frightened me and I wasn’t as forceful as, in retrospect, I wish I was. He went to college, um, got into multiple superb colleges, went to college, and um, I started to watch the decline from there. I discovered he was shooting steroids at one point. He had a gro mal seizure, uh, in the middle of a test from taking Xanax, which I, I did not know who he was taking and Adderall, [00:13:00] because they completely went, his brain went in opposite directions and blitzed out.

And then in the beginning of his junior year of college, I called an interventionist. And we did an intervention. And Lucas just went to his first treatment facility in North Carolina. Um, at that time. Did he, did he agree he needed to get help? No. Yeah, that’s a hard, that’s a very hard thing. I think he had agreed to go because I think he knew he was in trouble somewhere with the amount of drugs that he was purchasing, which I was unaware of, but he went always.

You know, writing letters. I really understand. I, I’m taking an honest, hard look at myself. I mean, I have stacks and stacks of printed out emails, letters, cards, that this was quite demonstrative and quite verbal and communicative that way, but it was unable to really take an internal. Look, it was really difficult for him to, [00:14:00] he had some mother.

You wanna believe all of what they’re saying? Yes, you do. And you learn through the community and through the wisdom of others who have walked this path before me, that you need to believe yourself first and foremost. Believe your gut. Believe your gut is that what? Believe your instincts. Yeah. Believe your instincts.

They speak very loud. They do. And you know, there are so many stages for parents, for family members, for loved ones. The first is absolute shock and you can’t believe you sh you are here and don’t even know how you got here or how or why this happened. And. Then you go into, why is this happening to me? I can’t believe this is happening to me.

And where did I goof and what did I do? And then you learn from the wisdom of others that you didn’t, uh, cause it, you didn’t, you can’t cure it. And the other third sea, it’s, I didn’t, I didn’t cause it. I can’t, [00:15:00] uh, control it and I can’t cure it. And, but you know, there’s such a vacillation between responsibility and it’s your child, but you know, you know, and you know, having been a part of four different family programs, everybody has a very different school of thought or did, and your head sort of spins not knowing which school of thought to abide by.

Um, one is about tough love, one is about. Nurturing in a particular kind of way. One of them is about, you know, letting them be expressive and in with limited boundaries, which didn’t work either. I mean, you know, money’s lost, things are taken. It’s, it’s a downward spiral. Psychologically, financially, professionally, emotionally, spiritually, personally, relationship suffer.

Everything suffers. And I know what you mean about all those different schools of thought because I would go, I. Helped form this [00:16:00] organization that eventually morphed into another organization called Parents Affected by Addiction. And we met once a month and we, different parents would come and tell their stories and about what’s happening, and it’s like, well, it’s wintertime and I don’t really want ’em to live with me, but I don’t wanna put out on the street.

Some people would say, bring him in. Some people might say Tough love. If he has to live on the street, then he’s going to get better. But only you know your child. Yes. And you have to, I think taking in all that advice and hearing how it worked for other people can be helpful, but if you get too much of it, it can just make you go crazy.

And it’s just so hard to know if you’re doing the right thing. I don’t know if there’s a right thing. I think. Yeah, I think. I don’t, because from my perspective, nobody really truly understands addiction in that we are all unique, [00:17:00] walking, talking human beings with a unique set of circumstances, genes perception, experience, what the world has shown us, how we take in information and it all.

You know, it all meshes. It’s all contributory to who a book person becomes. Yes. Including their addiction. So to say that this school of thought works for somebody like Lucas and you take a child who came from a completely different background with no medical challenges and so forth and so on, I, I mean, it might work, but there’s no saying that this is the formula for everybody.

Yeah. I’m a big follow of Gabo Matte. I don’t know if you know him. No. Gabo Matte was a psychiatrist who actually grew up in Hungary, but at the age of one, the Nazis came in and took his family, I don’t know if I’m quoting this all Cor correctly, but [00:18:00] his mother gave him to a neighbor and said, please take care of my son.

And she did come back and they moved to, I don’t know exactly where, but he’s in Canada and has been for years. He’s in his seventies now, and he really talks about. Trauma being really the main cause of addiction and trauma can mean multiple different things. And I did have the opportunity to meet with him when he spoke at the University of Minnesota and he said, you know, Lucas’ medical intervention and trauma and pain and suffering were the ultimate abandonment, if you will, because parents are supposed to save their children no matter what.

And, and was no fault of ours of course, but you know, whether it’s, uh, psychological abuse, physical abuse, you know, mental health issues, all of these multiple forms of trauma really very much align with substance use later in life. Yes, he did. Lucas [00:19:00] go to counseling. Multiple counselors. Yeah. There was one man who I adore who flew out here for Lucas’s service.

His name is Michael. No, he was at the Freedom Institute of New York. He’s the one man that Lucas really related to. And you know, he asked Lucas two very important questions. He said, um, when you have all the information to go left, what is it that prompts you to keep going? Right. And Lucas never forgot it and repeated it a lot or couldn’t answer it for himself, couldn’t answer it.

And the second thing he said to him is, Lucas, you have free will. You’re over 18. You can do what you want, but the world will be your best teacher. And the world is gonna show up and then you’ll know or not. And believe me, the world tried. He had consequences and circumstances and he just couldn’t do it.

Couldn’t do it. So we left off where you said he went to his first rehab and I had asked the question about, Did he want to go or [00:20:00] not? And then we got off on a little tangent, not really a tangent. Something that was something that we should talk about. So he goes for the first time, how long was that? It was inpatient, I’m assuming he was half wilderness, half inpatient in North Carolina.

Three months, I believe. 90 days. He then went to Sober living and then Hitch typed his way back to New York. Yeah. Yeah. And then he was with me. And then I sent him to Karen Renaissance. I don’t know if it’s okay to say the places, but I sent him to a facility in Florida. He was there for 90 days. Went to aftercare, relapsed relatively shortly after that.

Found his way back to New York. Things were starting to get a little outta hand. He was with me for a while. I did ask him to leave my apartment. He did. Uh, he then ended up in jail in Utah and we got him out of there pretty quickly because the bail bondsman Sydney. So you gotta get him outta here. Wow. [00:21:00] So he, um, my family was, my sister and her husband were extraordinarily, um, generous and took Luke in until we could get him into Hazelden.

And he went to Hazelden. He was there for three months too, maybe a little shorter, but was in, in a sober living for a while, five or six months. And, um, got out and relapsed shortly thereafter. And then I did another intervention and sent him to a place in California that he was at for maybe 30, 60 days and at aftercare for maybe five months.

And got his own apartment, got his real estate license in new in, uh, California. He had it in New York as well. Was selling real estate and doing okay. And, um, went to a doctor. Doctor gave him Xanax. Doctor who knew, who worked with people who were struggling with addiction. I don’t have any idea why he please don’t get, he started right?

And he was back in the [00:22:00] throws and he, um, It passed away about three years after he had been in California to a heroin Xanax combination, completely retards your respiratory system. I think, Nancy, this is just my opinion, don’t beat yourself up over that one doc. He would’ve found it if he had wanted it.

He would’ve from somewhere. Yep. No question. He could have been on the moon. Yeah. So why did he leave the sober livings after like five or six months? Is it because he just couldn’t stand living there anymore or he felt like he was, well, they were all 12 step based. Lucas never brought into the 12 steps.

He couldn’t really find a, and I spent a lot of time going to therapy with him. I went to California quite a bit and I, I. Really felt that he was not being authentic. Mm-hmm. Or being truthful. He’d never brought into the program. He had so much shame. He wanted to, all they kept [00:23:00] saying is, I wanna get on with my life.

I said, I get it. You can’t get on with your life until you understand what’s happening here. He turned a blind eye. It’s really hard because when they get to be 18, there’s not much you can do. I am not gonna make this about my son, but I just wanna say, you know about these sober living houses. Some of ’em, at least the one that my son went to for the first three months, I think it was, he had to go to a Narcotics Anonymous meeting.

Every day if he missed a meeting, he had to start over again for the 90 days and then he wasn’t unable to have a car. So because they want you to learn to reach out to others for help. I understand that. And so I can see, I, I’m not sure why my son stayed in one of those places for like a year and a half, but I can, s i he many, many times he was really frustrated with it.

And I can see how somebody like Lucas, who is [00:24:00] really pushing the boundaries and doesn’t, I, I can’t remember the words you said, but pushing the boundaries and doesn’t really wanna be told what to do. Living in a sober living house is really hard. Absolutely. And he did not wanna admit that he had a problem.

Right. So, so yeah, if that, if that’s the case, I think that’s the whole, that’s the whole thing. I think it’s the baseline from which you have to work from, if you cannot accept who you are as a. As a human with frailties and struggles, and this happens to be yours, you can’t move forward from there. I don’t really believe you can.

At least it wasn’t so with Lucas, and I believe that, you know, in my own life, unless I take an honest hard look at my own struggles and frailties, I can’t make the changes in my life that I’d like to make. Yep. So when you go and talk to employers, what is your message? Because the har really, really hard thing is, is that [00:25:00] if the person doesn’t wanna get help, not much they can do.

So the bottom line is the parents are really struggling with that. But what, what is your message to employers? My message, and I, just to let you know, I haven’t spoken directly to employers. I’ve been at things like the International Employees Assistance Professional Conference, which was. 800 international HR people who were right, and the New York Bar was about the people who are getting involved in this kind of overview now for their facilities, you know, for their law firms, et cetera.

My message is this, people need to be educated. People need to understand what their plight is. People need to know where to go. People need to build community, and people need resources, and people need somebody internally, whether it’s a, a branch of hr, whether it’s the employee Assistance Professional Association, people need a place to go anonymously to get support and help within a corporate structure so that they can.

[00:26:00] Focus to the best of their ability on what their work tasks are, because otherwise deadlines get missed, quotas get missed, tempers flare, people aren’t engaging, absences are increased, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. And businesses are thinking that they’ve got a bad employee now on their hands when in actuality, It could really be very different.

Yes. You know, when I found my world of compassionate individuals, people who understood my, my struggle and my plight and my heartache, I could function better. Yeah, you know, nothing goes in a straight line. This is a tidal wave that peaks and valleys, and you never know what’s gonna hit next, and that next phone call in the middle of the night, I mean, you are living on eggshells often for many years, but you can find a way to plant your feet back on the ground and to focus on your ex personal existence.

And if, if somebody had a kid [00:27:00] that was injured or had to go to the hospital for cancer, and I’m not belittling any of that, that’s all bad and, but it seems like employers tend to understand that more. I’ve heard stories of people trying to take sick leave to go and take their child to rehab and it’s been denied.

I can’t tell you how many people approach me. This is what we need to do. We want to do this, we will be in touch. You know, I’ve heard from a couple, but honestly, I think people are very cautious about bringing this internally, and I think that will change. I do. I think the floodgates have opened and I think that people are starting to take, you know, their myopic view has expanded and people are speaking up and out more and requesting the help and support just for themselves.

You know, there’s a different kind of stigma and shame that family members and loved ones face. And you said it at the beginning, Emily, am I a bad mother? What will people think? Yeah. You know, what did I do [00:28:00] wrong? I mean, I’ve had people, I’ve heard people say What happened in that household. Yes, I have. And it took a long while for the professionals and the people that live my life.

To counteract that belief in my head called, oh my God, what did I do? Yes. That’s really hard. I, I remember I, I met a friend of mine because she came to, we became friends later, but she came to the door looking for a deadbeat mom looking for me, but expecting that I was the deadbeat mom, cuz her son and my son were hanging out and something was going on.

And we ended up becoming friends and she realized, uh, Emily’s not a deadbeat mom and you know, neither was she. And we had to change our attitudes of this issue as well because, and I would say that I’m very, very fortunate. Not many people have this opportunity to have their son or daughter tell them, mom, there was nothing you could have done.

I’m fortunate to have [00:29:00] heard that. I’m sure Lucas would’ve told you that. He, he did in letters and he also came with me to my parent group meeting here. My meeting and. Said to about 50 people in the room. I wanna say this to all of you, and most importantly to my mom. We are not doing this to you. Yeah, we do not want to hurt you.

We do not even know why we’re doing it to ourselves. But it is not your fault. It is not because of you, and you really need to know that. And it is a small consolation. Oh, it is a small consolation and, and knowing that and ha hearing him see that still, you still have that doubt. I mean, not you, but we all do.

Yes, we play over. And o if only the woulda should, as could, as what would I have done different? Well, you know, with knowledge you do choose differently, but. [00:30:00] You don’t know from the beginning. And as you gain knowledge and wisdom, you choose differently. But as you gain more knowledge and wisdom, you choose differently then.

But you can’t go back to what, no, you can’t. If only you had that knowledge and wisdom now, and we want to impart it on other people, but you’ve probably run, um, you’ve run into the same thing. I have other people, and I guess this is just human nature. You don’t really listen to it until it impacts you, and then it’s almost too late.

It’s very scary. I mean, it’s so scary. It’s like, I don’t know what people could have talked about when I was younger or to my parents, but maybe it was about tobacco. Yeah. You know, and we all were smoking cigarettes anyway. Well, our parents would find to quit. Yeah. You know? Right. It’s really hard to get young people to understand, let alone their parents about something that, why do they have to think about it if they don’t have to think about it?

Yeah, I know. What propels you forward? [00:31:00] How are you moving? Moving onward, it’s been almost three years. How do you do it? Two and a half, three and a half. I know. Well, I work really hard at staying present as much as I can because when I start going to my past, It gets really challenging and when I start and I do plenty of times and days, think about it’s over and I’ll never see Lucas again, or you know, this chapter of my life is complete, it becomes too overwhelming.

So I work really hard at staying present, and I do have a wonderful. Wonderful therapist who has really helped me through some of the darkest moments. Thus far, I’m determined to bring gentle kindness to everything that I do in the name of Lucas. Yep. Cause for the times that I might have been harsh or frustrated.

Or lost my temper and wish in retrospect that [00:32:00] I have been gentler and kinder. I now consciously bring that to every relationship that I have to the best of my ability. But in the name of Lucas and in the name of our relationship, I keep reminding myself that parenting is an imperfect skill and that, uh, nobody gave me a roadmap or, um, School book.

I learned what I learned from watching my own family operate and from the people that surrounded me. And then I learned the rest on my own and what I learned. Some of it was helpful and some of it wasn’t. And I, um, just keep reminding myself that nothing is perfect and I did the best that I could. With everything that I had and remind myself that Lucas absolutely got the best of me.

He did. I love, he got really close, right? Extraordinarily close, and I gave every cell in my body to him. And I [00:33:00] think I really have found that if I don’t speak up and speak out, then I can’t heal. And I don’t know what healing looks like because I don’t see this being having a period at the end of the sentence.

But Lu, one of the last things he said to me is, mom, it’s your turn. You deserve to find joy. And as hard as that is for a parent who lost their child, particularly their only child, I go, how can I go on and have joy when I don’t have Lucas? But I’m trying now to take one step at a time because Lucas would want that from me.

And I also know, and I learned this through Lucas, who was my best teacher, really, that through our hardest relationships come our greatest opportunities for growth. And I use that as. A measure, and I thank Lucas every day for that. And that’s what propels me forward. And people I don’t wanna minimize and the most remarkable friends and family and support system because, you know, I don’t think I’d [00:34:00] be sitting here without all of them who have bolstered me and come to my rescue and listened and listened and listened some more and loved me.

And loved Lucas. Mm-hmm. What are the three most important life lessons that you’ve been given through this tragedy? Hmm. There’s no greater gift that we can offer than compassion acceptance and truth telling. It is what allows relationships to blossom. And I was afraid sometimes to tell Lucas the truth of where I was and what I thought and where I stood.

But I did learn as time went on that it was the best thing I could do for both of us and for not only my own sanity, but for our relationship. What’s an example of that you were afraid to tell Lucas? What? Huh? That’s a good question. How hurtful his lying is. And [00:35:00] stealing from me that I never could have imagined that he could do such.

And I, you know, I was tiptoeing around him for a long time as opposed to really hitting the nail on the head. Because when we’re a parent of somebody struggling with substance use, we’re so afraid that anything we say is going to create an explosion or an avalanche of some kind. Yeah. But I learned that I could take care of myself even if that happened, if that was the result.

And I was better for it, and we were better for it. Mm-hmm. He wanted to know what I really thought, even if he had a reaction to it. It does take a village. It’s the second thing. It does take a village that there’s no, nothing less than there was. There’s so much knowledge and wisdom coming from other people.

You know, you listen and you get this golden nugget and you go, oh. That’s another way to look at this. Something you never would’ve thought of on your own, you know? And isolation is sometimes a big problem for people like us. Yes. And then we’re listening to our own tape and [00:36:00] our own craziness and our own mind, and we don’t hear the words of other people and it, they’re critical to our own soothing and nurturing.

It makes you feel you’re not alone too, when you hear other people are going through it and you’re not the only one. No. Sadly, I wouldn’t. Yes, there are so many of us. And just to show up, keep your heart open. Be brave. This takes courage. This takes a lot of stamina and a lot of courage. So take what works.

Throw out the rest, try new things. Keep talking, but give yourself what you need because it’s not an easy road, and often it’s not a short road. What do you do to take care of yourself, your health, your mental health? Well, I have this wonderful therapist. I read something spiritual every morning and every night.

I talk to people all the time. I have groups of people in New York, groups of people in Minnesota related to the recovery community, the family [00:37:00] members. I’m a very big walker. I walk if I can, two to three miles a day here just to listen to the birds sing. I get out in nature. That’s my form of exercise.

I’m a big You don’t have like your headphones in, you’re not listening to No. A book or you’re just being in the moment? No, I’m just looking at looking for the eagles. Mm-hmm. For the eagles and I’m, I like quiet. I keep my house quiet a lot. I don’t want the news loud, the insanity of. The world today. Um, sometimes I can listen to music, but music makes my heart skip a beat a lot.

Yeah, I am. I, Lucas was a music lover. Mm. And um, I find music challenging, but you know, I can be in a, so those are the things I keep. It’s physically active. I eat really well. I really eat well. I don’t drink. I haven’t had a drink in eight years When Lucas was struggling with, um, addiction. [00:38:00] I looked at my nightly drink when I came home from work and I went, no, Nancy, this does not support Lucas in any way.

Even though alcohol was not his thing, I never picked up a drink again. So I don’t use anything to sooth me that way, so, and it doesn’t soothe you anyway. It makes you right. Better. So I eat well and yeah. And sometimes it changes. Sometimes they do a little more of this and a little less of this. But I do find, I have five books that I read at one time and I read excerpts every morning and every night or chapters and in between I try to get a novel in.

So you said that Lucas leaves you little, what would you call them? Lucas leaves you messages, messages. What are his messages? How does he leave you a message? Well, I have to say, one of the other things I do that is important for me is I do speak to mediums. Mm-hmm. I really need to [00:39:00] hear from Lucas and I do, and you know, whenever I’m going down the trail of.

He’s not with me. He’s not with me. I do that and it has helped me quite a bit. And I write. I do write too. I find dimes and I find feathers, and one of the mediums said to me, you’re finding dimes and you’re finding feathers, aren’t you? That’s him, I swear to you. And in a book I’m reading now about the other side, they said, often people say that they find dimes.

And it is their loved one’s way. I will find a license plate. My sister’s license plate on her car, believe it or not, has been for 25 years, is Luke, but I have seen Lucas’s birthdate on a license plate in front of me. I look, I look and it’s awful. When I’m not looking that I’ll go, I’ll look over there and I’ll see the word Luke on a restaurant or another medium.

Tell me, look out for Blue Jays and it’s [00:40:00] Lucas’s. Bird to you. And sometimes I’m walking with my ex-husband, Lucas’s dad, who has moved to Minnesota now, and we’re walking and we’ll see a blue, a blue, um, a blue bird. Wow. Say hi, mom and dad. I hope so. I hope so. I’m sure. So I have a feather box and a feather book and I pick them up and I have a place for all my dimes.

And I found one today as a matter of fact, and one yesterday. And I did ask Lucas, I said, Lucas, I, I. I’m asking you, I need to know you’re around. Whether or not it’s him doesn’t matter really, as much as that, I wanna believe it and I will because it helps me. I believe it is him. I believe it’s too, there’s, there’s no way a medium would say that, and then that’s what you’re finding.

It’s just I believe it. I believe it. Nancy, so, so what wisdom can you offer to our listeners today? You know, I bought Lucas a plaque when he was in California and it says, be bold, [00:41:00] be brave, be you. And I now have it on my desk. And that’s really, I would say to people, be bold, be brave, and be yourself. Trust your instincts.

Listen to your inner self, inner wisdom. Listen to your higher self. Know that you know somewhere what’s happening and when it gets to the point where you need a guidance and assistance, don’t wait for that point. Jump in way before, you know, get educated, get informed, speak to those who. Share your journey.

Listen to other people’s stories. Read up on multiple different schools of thoughts. Learn what feels best and most comfortable for you. Um, take a little from each if that works best, but, um, learn if there’s a remarkable to salad of information out there. And you can pluck anything out at any time and get well informed.

You’ve got the internet, [00:42:00] I would say. Understand the mystery of life and question it somewhere and not question yourself, but question what your child or loved one is really trying to communicate to you. Why are they suffering? How are they in pain? What is it that drives them towards a substance to make them feel better and come from that place versus blame, anger, weakness, control.

They’re communicating. They’re letting us know something’s not right. They’re hurting. So what would you say to a parent who’s finding that their child is addicted or their young adult child and the child doesn’t want to go to rehab or doesn’t think that they have a problem? Would you say send them? It depends on the circumstance.

Yeah. I dunno. It depends. I would say get out right now and find yourself parent groups. Yes, quickly. Get [00:43:00] to a reputable counselor who deals in addiction, talk to interview three. Three of them determine who fits with your essence and with your thought process. I don’t think the first step is to. Get your child into rehab unless of course this has been going on and your child’s in serious danger.

And that’s not to say that they’re not in serious danger, even at the beginning stages, but the minute you think something is wrong, it is right. Trust your gut and get yourself. Educated as quickly as possible to so that you can collectively start taking action with the help and support and guidance often of other people.

Right, and I would say a couple things I wanted to point out is one decision that you have to make is where to send them to rehab. Is it better to have them living at home with you and going to outpatient rehab? Is it better to send them completely [00:44:00] out of the state or to another county in the state?

And then once they get out, is it best to have them come home again? And where there might be some triggers at their previous job, is it better to have them work in a, in a different state and not come home where they have their old friends and places where they know they can easily get the drugs? Those are all things that you’ve gotta think of and.

The other thing I would say is like, I, I sent my son to a lot of different camps, summer camps, you know, a lot of times I thought, he’s not getting it, he’s not learning anything from these. But now I can tell he did. So Lucas, I’m sure, learned something from each of those rehabs and it made him think absolutely.

And for some people it might, you know, sent going two or three times, is what it’s gonna take. Yes, I know people who went eight times before took. Yeah. I think everything you said is pertinent and true, and I agree with it all and I think before you make any decisions about where or who or what direction, and I [00:45:00] think you can do it in stages.

I don’t think you have to think about them coming home. Immediately. Yeah. First think about getting them somewhere, but I spoke to five places before I sent Lucas to his first treatment facility because I was guided by people like Michael Nth and other people who suggested this place in North Carolina.

Based on knowing Lucas. So I don’t know if let people get people to know your child too, because every place often has a different personality that works best with their curriculum, if you will, or their school of thought. So start now. Get informed. You know, speak to people, learn what you’ve got in your state to offer what you’ve got out of your state to offer, what the requirements are, whether insurance will cover it, whether money of course, is a big deal.

You know, as we all know, it’s not, uh, it’s not just right costs money. So you have to also know what [00:46:00] your capabilities are. So you need to know that as well, because sometimes when you’re ready, You go, oh my God, they don’t take insurance and I’ve got nowhere to send them. Or they don’t have a bad what’s next and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So yeah. But if you have the slightest inkling if your child is accelerating their pot use, I would encourage everybody to start getting educated now doing, doing your research, doing your work, I mean, You know, I know marijuana’s a big deal right now. There’s a lot of legalized marijuana for medical use, but it’s getting legalized everywhere and I don’t know.

I don’t know. Yeah, there’s different schools of thoughts on that. Some people think that marijuana does lead to other kinds of drugs. Some people disagree. I don’t know. What I, I think, again, depends on the person. I agree. Probably. Totally. I agree. So I just know that. For many who smoke pot with regularity, they’re curious to know what the other next drug feels like.[00:47:00] 

Right. Well, what happens too, once you start taking drugs like the very first time, from what I’ve read, I’ve not done it, but the very first time you might have this euphoric high, but then the next time it’s not that great. So you go for a bigger dose or you’re going for a different drug, cuz you’re always chasing that first high that you felt.

You talking about heroin, right? Heroin. I think everybody said it’s called chasing the dragon. Yeah. That first high can never be repeated, I’m told. Right? But doesn’t stop people from trying, doesn’t stop. People from, I had no idea Lucas was using heroin. I was with him two months before he died in California and I knew he was using Oxycontin and, but I didn’t know you could shoot between your toes and he would walk around in underwear or shorts with nothing and barefoot, but I had no idea who would, I mean, you know that you’re looking at his arms, so those look fine.

How would you [00:48:00] know between you, I. That’s the thing. There’s so many things that those that the drug addicts know that we who’ve never really used drugs or whatever, have no clue. Nowhere where, where know how they hide it in their room, nowhere to look. You know those good look, I mean some, I was just naive, but those like Memphis and my son never did ha heroin.

But those meos, um, plastic candy things. Yeah. Uh, there may not be candy in, there might be something else in the kid’s backpack. So they’ve got lots of secrets. Yeah. Seen in full-blown addiction. Has lots of secrets. Yeah. And they’re very, they can be very convincing. And as a mom, you wanna believe they convince themselves.

That’s the thing. They don’t know the truth. I, uh, I just briefly, I’m on the board of a foundation. I. And we are raising money for the University of Minnesota Center for Neuroscience and Addiction, [00:49:00] and the head neuroscientist there, Mark Thomas, is a brilliant, brilliant, brilliant man who is studying the brain and opioid addiction.

And you know, the brain is rewired. Mm-hmm. The brain is rewired. They don’t even know anything other than where’s my drug. Right. That’s, and as Mark said most recently when we did a fundraiser, he said, It’s not a question of where’s my drug, it’s your brain is telling you, you will die if you don’t get this right.

So what’s the name of your it? It’s called our Cardboard House. It’s with a k K a R D, capital b o a r d. But that’s one word, house. And when I was thinking of doing this, I gave Lucas three names and he chose Cardboard House. And his reason was when addiction enters a household, all the walls collapse. So that’s Lucas is very smart, very smart and insightful and profound.[00:50:00] 

So that’s cardboard house. I do have a website and the board that I’m on, the foundation that’s raising money is the Chris with home, W I V H O L M Foundation. Lucas and I are eternally grateful for your reaching out and for wanting to get to know us and our story. And our love, and our sadness and our tragedy.

And, um, I really thank you so much for the chance, the opportunity, and for listening. Thank you, Nancy. I know that each time you speak about it, it’s, it’s hard and painful, but also healing. I hope so. I won’t stop. I must. I must. Okay. Thank you, Emily. We’ll talk. Okay. All right. Thank you. Good night. In the interview, Nancy talks about how it takes a village and we can learn from others.

And learning from [00:51:00] others is critical to our own soothing and nurturing. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do with this podcast. And I have to say that despite all of this education on the opioid crisis, When my former husband passed away on December 11th, the hospice worker was there and she needed to take back any of the medicine that hospice had provided Bruce, and since she was there, I decided to go through all of the other medicine that we had collected over six months of his illness with cancer.

And I am shocked and disappointed to have to say, and I’m angry. I’m very angry to say that there were 186 Oxycontin pills that he had, and that doesn’t include the ones he took based on the prescription. But what happens is he had different OP doctors caring for him, and they’d each would prescribe different [00:52:00] medicines and no one would ask how many he had left over.

And some of those oxys were 10 milligrams, some of them were 40 milligrams. We never gave him the 40 milligram ones. We had to cut them in half. But it’s unacceptable that he had that many pills, that the doctors weren’t asking for these pills to be returned, that there was no system for accountability for these pills.

I gave them to the hospice worker so that she could dispose of them properly. But this is unacceptable. Inexcusable. What if we had teenagers in the house, somebody that was addicted to pills? They could easily have been stolen. What if the caregivers were addicts? No one was keeping track of these pills except for us, and luckily we were the caregivers, were responsible.

I’ll get off my high horse, but that just really, really, really makes me very [00:53:00] angry. In this episode, Nancy mentions the movie Chasing the Dragon, and I provided a link in the show notes. That’s an excellent video to watch. I highly recommend that she watched that video. And Nancy also talked about Cardboard House.

Cardboard House was founded by Nancy because her son struggled with addiction for over 10 years, and Nancy fully understands. How a loved one’s addiction impacts all aspects of life, including the work and professional environment. She also understands that without community healing is next to impossible, it does take a village, including those in the workplace.

And that’s why I’m hoping that employers will be listening to this episode and taking into consideration what resources they have. Within their company for parents whose children are suffering from [00:54:00] addiction. When I was an employee for the Navy, I spoke about this at the Naval Supply Systems Command. I spoke about it at Nav Air, the Naval Air Systems command.

I spoke about it wherever I could go. I spoke up about the issue of addiction. And I’ve mentioned it before in another episode, I had one admiral, three star Admiral tell me there’s no way addiction would ever happen in his family because they ate dinner together every night and they were a good family.

I just have to say that Admiral is very naive because addiction happens to all families, even the quote unquote. Good ones. Employers need to become more understanding and helpful to employees. Juggling the demands of work while caring for and struggling with a loved one undergoing substance abuse. The stigma, the shame, the lack of knowledge and understanding on the part of business leaders results in, in disrupted, reduced, and delayed business attention.

If an employee is [00:55:00] suffering, then the organization is suffering as well. Pressure mounts, client relations, weaken targets and goals are missed, and within most organizations, a certain percentage of their employees are struggling with the loved ones, substance abuse and every aspect of their lives is affected.

Thank you for listening today. Please help me share this podcast with as many people as possible. These stories are important. They’re told by everyday people like me and you. And by listening to these stories, we can all learn and we can make our communities even better, even stronger. Have a great day.