Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
Hello everybody, welcome back orwelcome to Recovering a loud
podcast, the podcast where we get real about addiction and
recovery. Today, Rob L joins us in studio
to share a deeply personal and powerful perspective.
What it's like to walk the path of recovery when you're not the
addict, but the father of two daughters who are.
Coming from a culture where alcohol was always present, Rob
(00:21):
was no stranger to substance use.
But everything changed when bothof his girls began struggling
with addiction. One daughter is now in strong
recovery, the other is still trying to go it alone.
In this episode, Rob opens up about the heartbreak, the
helplessness, and ultimately thehealing he found in his own
recovery journey as a support person.
We discussed the emotional toll of loving someone through
(00:43):
addiction, what boundaries and support really look like, and
how recovery can reshape the lives of those on the sidelines.
I learned a lot today and I hopeyou do too.
Enjoy the show. If you or someone you know is
struggling with a loved one in addiction, please reach out for
help. Send me a message and I can
connect you with someone who mayhelp.
(01:19):
Rob, I appreciate you coming down man, Thank you so much.
Thank you. For having me.
We've been in contact for a while now yes.
You're a friend of my mom's. My mom introduced me to you and
she says nothing but good thingsabout you very kind.
I appreciate that you know, you've been you've been
listening and sending me messages as well, saying that
(01:40):
you appreciate the content that means a lot to me.
You know, when anyone messages us, you no matter, no matter
what it is the the fact that it kind of touched you in some way.
I, I appreciate that because that's why I wanted to start to
do this thing. And, you know, those messages go
a long way. So thank you.
I, I, I also too, I really wanted to, I think this, you
(02:02):
know, loved one, the, the, the loved 1 of addicts, loved ones
of addicts are an important voice.
I want them to be an important voice in this podcast.
It doesn't get talked about enough, right?
So we were at a wedding last night, my wife and I, and it was
a good friend of mine and one ofmy buddies, you know, we were
talking about at the table and this podcast came up and I, it's
(02:25):
funny, I'm still, I'm at a pointright now, I, I don't know about
you, but I have AI. I'm getting better at it.
I have a hard time taking compliments and taking good
words about me. And that's something about
myself worth I'm still healing from, you know, hating myself
for so long. I'm getting a lot better at it
now where I can just kind of like listen to what somebody
says and instead of get like uncomfortable, like I'm not, you
(02:48):
know what, he's wrong. I'm not a good person, right?
This kind of uncomfortability, Ijust accept it and I'm, I'm
grateful for it today, right? So last night we started talking
about it. And addiction at a, at a wedding
dinner table is not, you know, the most comfortable subject to
talk about. For me, I'm OK because I can
talk about. I've started doing this.
(03:09):
I enjoy talking about it, right?But there's like 3 or 4
strangers at the table and I'm like, what must they be thinking
about this conversation, right? We started talking about some
pretty heavy stuff, right? And I really want to get your
opinion on this and we'll jump into it.
But my friend, one of my really good buddies, and I'm so
grateful for this. He looked at my wife and he
just, he kind of said, how are you doing?
(03:31):
How are you? And I find that that gets missed
a lot in this conversation. We, we don't really realize how
much addiction touches the lovedones and, and this kind of
vicious, precarious, you know, butterfly effect that addiction
has on. And so I was thinking about it
(03:52):
this morning. I kind of drew it out on in my
notes. If there's one addict and
there's three loved ones of thataddict that are suffering, you
don't think about this as much as maybe we should.
But if there's even just, let's just say three more people that
love that loved one of the addict, now that's 12 people
(04:14):
thinking about the addict, right?
Because it's this kind of like spider web, this kind of like
trickle down effect. So now you have three loved ones
worried about the addict and youhave, let's just say 3 loved
ones of that loved one worried about the loved one.
It's, it's pretty, you know, it's pretty intense, right?
Yeah, there's a there's a lot totake from that.
It's the way that you just described that kind of reminded
(04:36):
me of. You're probably too young to
remember this, but there was a shampoo ad when I was a kid that
it's, it had a woman and talkingabout this, this product that
she was using. And then I told two friends and
then they told two friends and then they told two friends and
so on and so on. And it was like the, the, the
(04:57):
screen kept splitting to more and more people in like little
boxes, you know, like like the Hollywood Squares or something
like that. So it's, you know, you make a
really good point. It is something that, you know,
and we're, we're all hopefully lucky to have people in our
(05:17):
lives that care about us, right?And when you are lucky enough to
be surrounded by people who careabout you, those things which
are causing you the most consternation and the most
trauma, often times, for better or for worse, become the
prevalent topic of conversation.Every time that you see one
(05:39):
another, right? So many times, the first
question will be, so how's your daughter, right?
Right. How you know?
So how are you? And I think it's a natural thing
because people who love you justwant you to be OK.
But yes, to your point, I think that often times, and we were
(06:08):
talking about this a little bit before, you know, we turned on
the equipment that the person who is, you know, in in active
addiction, the person who is experiencing the trauma that
they are their issue feels more immediate.
It feels more real. It feels more like a like a
(06:29):
clear and present danger, right?Whereas the person, the, the
support network, the loved one, it feels kind of secondary.
But often times people like thatare suffering in silence, right?
And then the question becomes out of that is, how are you
going to deal with it, right? Because on my Rd., I've made a
(06:53):
lot of mistakes along the way, you know, And in some ways I'm
glad for that because the clear path was brought to me.
And in other ways, I still carrysome baggage with it, right?
That I'm like, oh man, what was I thinking?
That I dealt with this by doing XYZ, You know, like, rookie
(07:16):
move, dude. Yeah.
So you have two daughters? Yes, one is in currently in
active addiction, in the throes of action active addiction and 1
is in recovery, right? Correct.
Can you tell us a little bit about your story and, and, and
get into that a little? How far back do you want me to
go? As far back as you want to
(07:37):
today, I would say like what youknow, maybe I'll just whatever
you think is prevalent. I don't.
I don't. OK.
Yeah. So I guess for myself, I grew up
in AI, grew up in a household where alcohol was just sort of
(08:04):
accepted as a constant presence,the same way that, like milk or
bread or, you know, anything else was.
I don't ever want to get the impression that my folks abused
it, but my father was a Scottishimmigrant.
My mother was from Northern Ontario, but came from Irish
stock, so Scottish and Irish. Insert joke here.
(08:30):
You know about whiskey and you know, Guinness and beer and you
know everything in between. So, you know, my folks were very
hard workers. But on the weekends, you know,
when Saturday night came, they, you know, really enjoyed a few.
(08:50):
So, you know, alcohol to me was something that I just kind of
accepted. And it's funny because, you
know, I was thinking about this when we set up our session here,
when I hit my teenage years, as all kids do, and I started
fooling around with things that,you know, the law said I wasn't
(09:14):
yet ready. And, you know, and, and also at
the time, you know, things that were not legal, right?
Like, you know, so obviously I'mtalking about alcohol, weed.
And, you know, this is like late80s that we're talking that I
sort of came of age. So hash, mushrooms, acid, little
(09:35):
bit of cocaine. And whenever I got pinched and I
was very obviously drunk, often times it was Dad, you know, he
was just like, he's just blowingoff steam, It's fine.
When it was something else. Do you know how much you're
going to ruin your life? You know?
(09:57):
Yeah, Yeah. Because it.
But it was just wasn't part of their world, right.
You know, drugs was something that had to do with the
counterculture and, you know, dirty hippies and, you know,
stuff like that. So I sort of, I got all of that
out of my system. I'm not going to say that when
(10:19):
like I'm at a concert or a sporting event or a club or
something like that, that I don't drink because I do.
But it also doesn't have the same end result on me as what it
does on people that I care about, right.
So alcohol and you know, other substances were they were never,
(10:42):
you know, particularly prevalentin my relationship with my
children as they were growing up.
I am, I'm divorced and you know,my ex wife's family is Italian.
So, you know, wine was always a very big deal.
Like even just like with a dailylike a Wednesday night meal,
right? Not irresponsibly, just present.
(11:06):
So I couldn't say how that really affected the the sort of
acceptance of alcohol in my kidslives.
I think that you know, like that's their story, right?
But I think so, I guess this is so this, this would probably be
(11:33):
like the if, if I had to on the road map of where we've come to
this point, if I had to like define an exact moment.
And I'm I'm going to talk broadly just because I'm not
sure that I completely understand what potential legal
ramifications there could be in this.
But my kids were involved in a very, very bad accident when
(11:57):
they were teenagers, and they, as a result, received a lot of
money which was put into their hands right after they had both
turned 18 years old. Being 18 years old, that means I
have no legal recourse by which that I can instruct them right
(12:22):
now. I don't know about you, but when
you were 18 years old, if you were handed 1/4 of $1,000,000,
do I? I don't really need.
To I'm just I'm thinking about all the stuff that I would do at
18 and none of it is responsible.
So yeah, yeah, yeah. Wow.
(12:43):
So I that, that was really sort of like, I think a, that was
putting propane on the, on the BBQ right there, right.
I had noticed with my youngest that there were already some
issues at that point that were alittle outside of what would be
normal teenage angst. My oldest, she like, it was
(13:08):
always like school boys, you know, Do I have the coolest pair
of Uggs? Like normal stuff, right?
Whatever normal means. But I, I, I can't, I don't know
that I can necessarily put a defining point on it.
But I noticed that with my youngest, there was something
deeper and more profound and youknow, dare I say darker that was
(13:33):
going on with her. I still don't.
You don't really understand whatthat is.
But again, that would be her story.
And so, you know, that influx, you know, this massively
(13:56):
lucrative influx of money really, you know, helped to fuel
where things went. Now, my oldest, she had taken
some advice, I believe it was from her mom, and she had said
you should get, you shouldn't take some of that money and put
(14:18):
it in real estate. You know, good idea, good idea,
right? It's the only thing that there's
never going to be more of. And so she bought a condo
downtown. And the thing was, is that I I
believe she was 19 when she got it right.
(14:38):
Imagine being 19 years old and owning like a prime real estate,
you know, downtown Toronto. Yeah, downtown Toronto, you
know, burgeoning neighborhood. It's.
A mecha of, you know, use and and alcohol.
Yeah. So what happened was because she
was young, because she had no existing credit profile, she had
(15:01):
said, will you cosign for me right now?
I had no reason to think that like, this seemed like money in
the bank as far as she was concerned that I was just
helping her out with, you know, building something at a really
young age. And she had a serious leg up on
where like 99% of the rest of the population would not.
(15:27):
And then probably about I would.My timelines are a little fuzzy,
but about two years later, this was during lockdown, which, you
know, as, you know, probably exasperated a lot of people's
tolerance. And mental health in general,
(15:47):
yeah, but yeah, you're. Right.
I had left my job at the time. I had found myself in a pretty
good position in in many different ways, like, you know,
financially, mentally, emotionally.
And I was like, you know what, considering that the world is
(16:08):
shutting down, I'm actually going to kind of try to make
lemonade out of lemons. And I left my job for a year and
I wrote a novel during that time.
Wow. Now there's something very
almost like a almost like a likea movie moment here where the
(16:33):
Friday afternoon that I had finished, that I had written the
end, I came bounding down the stairs, excited beyond all get
out. You know, the world is my
oyster. I'm I can go anywhere from here.
There's a knock on the door, right?
I get served with papers that the mortgage has been defaulted
(16:56):
on, that I had cosigned for, that I owned, you know, 0.5% of.
So that was when I came to the realization, fuck, like things
have gone seriously wrong under my nose.
(17:19):
Yeah. So that was that was sort of
like the pinpoint defining. Moment had you?
Had you had like hints along theway or was this a complete
shock? Yes.
But I always thought that, you know, there was a level of, you
know, maybe common sense and sensibility that existed there
that she wouldn't get pulled into this, right?
(17:42):
But, you know, as we both know, it isn't necessarily always
about common sense and sensibility.
There's something, you know, deeper that always goes on
there, right? And so I think maybe a month or
two after that, after that it happened, you know, the, the
(18:04):
timing on that is something thatI always look back on as being
like disturbingly profound, right?
Like it's like I was, I was in amoment of, you know, incredible
creative high. I had also been fortunate enough
that I, you know, I just bought my dream car as well, too.
(18:25):
And it was like everything was just going to lining up so
fabulously, right. And I'm not, I'm not saying
that, you know, to make anybody involved feel worse as a result.
You know, maybe just to kind of illustrate the point of exactly
where I was at that point in my life.
But so maybe, you know, a month or two after that, I had
(18:51):
received a phone call one morning from the police that she
had taken a serious beating froma guy that was in her life at
the time who had kind of introduced her to the world of
(19:11):
hard, dangerous narcotics and that she was in a detox
facility. She was in treatment.
And so, you know, she got in touch while she was there and
said, you know, can you come andpick me up on Saturday after I'm
fully detoxed, you know? Yeah.
(19:34):
So that's, that's my oldest daughter's story, you know, and
that was brutal, man. That was that was brutal that
Saturday that I went downtown togo pick her up and she came out,
you know, through the front doorand she was, you know, attended
by one of the people who worked there.
(19:58):
I, you know, I looked at this like just emaciated rake of a
child, you know, face just blackand blue.
You know, I'm like, who did thisto you?
You know, like your first instinct is just like.
I want to kill everybody that you have had any contact with
(20:21):
over the course of the last year, year and a half, You know,
something like that. Yeah.
But you know, that was an eye opener, man.
That was an eye. So that's my oldest.
That's my oldest story. And with one exception, she has
(20:43):
trod the road of, you know, sobriety and recovery.
And, you know, in many ways, this kid's my hero.
Yeah. So my youngest, I have less
clarity on how that went. I, I know that there was always
(21:13):
a propensity with her for whatever reason.
And again, I, I wouldn't ever want to try and dissect it
because it's not my story. But there's always been a
tendency to maybe surround herself with people who I
suspect deep down she knows are not good for her.
(21:36):
And if I were to offer a theory,I would say that when you allow
yourself to be attended by people who you perhaps know are
not good for you, it gives you an excuse to behave in a way
that is destructive. That is not good for you, right?
(21:56):
Yeah, it kind of yeah. And I can relate to that a lot.
I hung out with, you know, in inone of our literatures that we
work with it, it talks about this idea of lower companions.
And what I've learned from my perspective is you, you nailed
it on the head. It's like I used to hang out
with these people that were, quote UN quote, worse than I was
(22:17):
doing worse than I was. And I I always had this, you
know, in addiction, we do this comparison thing where it's
like, well, I'm not as bad as him.
I'm not doing heroin yet. I'm not using needles yet.
I'm not smoking meth. Yeah, I'm only snorting meth.
And it kind of key. It fuels this.
It's it's OK, buddy. Like you're you're OK.
You're not that bad, right. So yeah.
Yeah, that's that. That is a.
(22:38):
That is a dangerous graph to find yourself trying to
navigate, you know, related but perhaps opposite.
You know, one of the things thatI had an epiphany about in my
own recovery and in my own program is there is no point
system with us, right? You know that it's like it like
(23:02):
the absolute ego to sit in a room with other people, you
know, who are all suffering their own traumas and say, yeah,
but my trauma is worse than yours.
You know, like it's it's not, it's not about that, right?
And what may seem like nothing to somebody is the end of the
(23:24):
world to somebody else, right? All of our lives are are tweaked
a little bit differently and we are shaped by experiences that
are unique, right? So going back to my youngest,
it's I, I think there was, you know, she has gone up and down,
(23:49):
struggled. There was an incident where she
was missing for a long weekend acouple of years ago.
It was Labour Day weekend and, you know, her phone was off.
(24:12):
Her mom had a key to her apartment, which was only a few
blocks away. And like, like, her bank card
had been left behind. And, you know, anything that
would have given her any sort ofconnection to resource.
Her cell phone was gone, though,so that was maybe a good sign.
(24:36):
But it wasn't on. There was a huge search by the
police. Eventually, you know, she was
found. She was OK, a little worse for
wear. I don't entirely know what
happened over the course of thatlong weekend.
I don't know that I want to knowit.
You know, in fact, it's probablybest that I don't.
(24:59):
But there were some serious, hard conversations after the
fact. And it was like, look, we'll
figure this out piece by piece. We're going to get you, you
know, cleaned up and you know, we'll, we'll take it from there.
We'll take it from there, right.So she ended up going to rehab.
(25:27):
We sent her to what seemed to bea fantastic rehab out on the
East Coast because as I'm sure that, you know, rehabs here are
pretty overtaxed, right? It's hard and, you know, not to
make it about money. But, you know, not everybody can
(25:48):
afford, you know, some of the resources that are available
here, myself included, like, some of them are pretty steep,
right? So she came back.
The rehab didn't take for whatever reason.
Again, that's her story. And, you know, we had hit a
(26:11):
point where it was like you're you're, you're living with us
now. Your behaviors haven't changed.
I can see that you're on a bad slope.
And this is also one of the things that I have learned as
time has gone on about acceptance and dealing with it
(26:34):
is, you know, I'm always here for you, right?
I am totally team you 100% of the way, but I don't have the
strength that I can watch you dothis to yourself, right?
And so the response to that was to kind of disappear again, go
(26:55):
on a Bender, and Long story short, there was an overdose and
she, over Christmas a couple of years ago, was in a coma for
five weeks. That was easily, you know, and
(27:24):
this includes, you know, the death of people that I have lost
around me through my life, you know, including my folks and a
brother-in-law and, you know, and other people that that was
like the sorry, man, that was the worst period of my life, you
know. But, you know, there was a
(27:46):
little bit of a miracle in that.She woke up on Christmas
morning, you know, and I said toher like, you know, you know,
what day it is today, you know, and she'd been intubated, you
know, so very raspy and, you know, and, and, you know, could
only speak like in kind of like a a growly whisper.
But you know, she was like, it'sChristmas, you know, it's like,
(28:07):
you know, I'm getting really emotional, like just thinking
about it, you know. So the, you know, from there
that I am aware of, there has been at least one other
(28:28):
experience that she has like, legally died in the medical
sense, right? Like pale blue lips, you know,
stopped breathing, you know, that whole shebang, right?
And it makes a person wonder, like, what is it going to take,
(28:52):
right? But that is also not my decision
to make, right? Yeah, Yeah.
Thank you. I really appreciate you sharing
that. Rob, I know it's it's not easy
for you to come down here and open up about the stuff because
it is still ongoing and there's a lot of pain and in talking
(29:16):
about it. But that kind of and it, and it
for me, it begs the question like, because you've, you've
been pretty adamant about about coming on here and I really
appreciate that. You know, what, what is my
pleasure? Like what, what, what, what
makes you want to to kind of do this and talk about it and open
up and get get vulnerable. I think that there's maybe a few
(29:40):
different reasons for that. I think that one is I find, you
know, I had mentioned earlier about that, you know, at one
time I had worked in the film industry.
I've, I've always, you know, allof my endeavors, whether they've
been personal or professional onsome level, have always had a
(30:01):
level of creativity to them. And I find that, you know, the,
you know, at the risk of sounding like pretentious or
whatever, the artistic process, you know, by thinking things
through helps me, right. So, you know, I promise, you
know, to anybody in my life, if you've ever, you know, seen me
like, you know, talking to myself, I'm, I'm working
(30:24):
something through, I'm not nuts,you know, like I, I, I'm, I'm,
you know, like, well, what if I do this?
And what if I, Oh yeah. But you know, this could be the,
the best way for this to work out.
And I find that it applies to a lot of facets of my life, right.
So I think that a lot of times and you know, you know that I'm
in a recovery program for, you know, support of people who have
(30:46):
addiction issues. And I find that going and
listening and talking these things through and interacting
with people, it is a huge boon to my own well-being and mental
health. And then also, like I had said
to you in one of our first interactions with one another,
is it one thing that I have found and learned in my own
(31:10):
recovery is that life is servicemen.
And if and, and I, I, I'm assuming that you probably feel
the same way in, you know, in doing the podcast and, you know,
everything else that you do withyour, with, you know, anything
that has to do with your recovery.
If I can help one person, you know, if one person can hear my
(31:33):
words or, or, you know, understand my situation and they
can pull something from that andit makes them say, you know,
maybe that'll work for me. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm truly
blessed to be able to do that. It is legit.
My pleasure. Absolutely.
And a big part of that too, you know, I get emotional just
thinking about that too, becausewhen I was in when I was in
(31:59):
active addiction, I didn't even have that bone in my body to be
able to do that. And I'm just, it's the when I
cry like this, it's like a, it'struly out of gratitude because I
wouldn't, I wouldn't be here if,if everybody that came into
recovery didn't think like that,right?
I wouldn't be here if that firstmeeting I went to, which was
(32:23):
like one of the scariest momentsof my life, somebody hadn't come
up to me and shook my hand and said, Hey, we're happy, you're
here, welcome. You know, have a seat, grab a
coffee. You're going to be OK, right.
I, I wouldn't be here if that didn't happen.
So if I can, if I can do that and replicate that at even a, a,
a 8 tenths of a degree to somebody else, I've done my job,
(32:46):
right? And it's a, it's a truly a
beautiful thing. I often say this recovery thing
is like the pyramid scheme without the scheme, right?
And I talked about that in the beginning, this, you know, in a
negative connotation of this kind of butterfly effect of how
the addict effects so many people.
Now I just have to do that the other way around, man, right?
I just have to, to, to affect the butterfly effect to, you
(33:07):
know, implement that in a positive way.
And it doesn't have to be, I often say this doesn't have to
be this like profound speech from a hilltop.
In fact, that doesn't work in myexperience.
It's just simply me talking about what I went through, how I
got through it and my experience, strength and hope
that maybe somebody else can sayexactly what you said.
(33:28):
I love that is like, hey, maybe that'll work for me.
Maybe it won't. But I'm going to open my mind
and try it either way. So you're on your own healing
journey right now. You talked about that a little
bit. I think, you know, in talking to
my therapist who's also in sobriety, she says, like, bar
none, the hardest thing for her to do is to get the loved ones
(33:49):
of addicts to, to go into their own recovery program.
And there's like, well, why do Ihave to change?
It's their fault, right? And that's, you know, oh.
Man, like I, I almost did with you saying that I almost just
like it felt like a, you know, ametaphorical punch in the
stomach. If, if I have any regrets about
(34:13):
the way that I have handled things with my kids, recovery
and when the severity of their issues came to the forefront
with me, Oh man, I, I know, I know I got to, I know I got to
let this go. I know forgiveness is, you know,
and letting go and all variations of that kind of
(34:36):
notion are very important to recovery, not just recovery, but
your own, you know, personal journey in life as well too.
But I remember and then, you know, subtopic, I should say as
well too, that you know, a lot of, and this is where we started
our conversation, a lot of support.
(34:58):
And what you find comes from being lucky enough to have
people around you, you know, that love you and they and they
support you and they just, they want to do what whatever it is
that is going to, you know, helpbring you to a better place.
I have a fabulous, fabulous partner in my life who has taken
this journey with me as well too.
(35:21):
And, you know, I don't want to talk too much, you know, because
she has her own story, but she'sone of those people who kind of
makes everybody around around her better.
You know, I'm a recognizing, excuse me, I'm very blessed in
(35:46):
that regard. But one of the worst things that
I have, you know, experienced inmy time or that, you know, as
the severity of this situation was rearing its head, was that
my oldest, she could see that I was really struggling with.
(36:10):
Like, how could you allow yourself, you know, to get to
this point, You know, all of those bullshit old fashioned
notions of I didn't raise you tobe this person, you know, and,
you know, we both know, as do a lot of people who are probably
listening and watching and in recovery.
(36:32):
One thing has nothing to do withthe next, right?
And she had, she had seen that Iwas, you know, really having
trouble getting my head around alot of this stuff.
And she had said, you know, maybe you might want to think
(36:53):
about going to a meeting, right?Because there are meetings that
exist for people who are affected by a loved one's
addiction, right? And anything I got to tell you,
man, like it's it probably one of the most shameful moments of
my life that I had said, listen,kid, you're the one with the
(37:14):
problem. It's not me, right?
And you know, as you know everything that I have just said
in the last 2025 seconds, wrong,wrong, wrong, right, all a
mistake, all a mistake, right? And, you know, there's a lot of
ego in addiction, and there's a lot of ego surrounding
(37:37):
addiction. And, you know, part of finding
that is you have to strip yourself of a certain amount of
it. I don't necessarily agree with
the notion that you need to strip yourself of all your ego.
It's certain breeds of ego that need to go.
Yeah. So.
(37:58):
I, I think this, this idea of ego deflation is entices me,
right? It's like, you know, it's, it
doesn't have to completely disappear because it's some of
us, some of it serves us right, It drives us to be better.
But there's certainly this over inflation of ego and addiction.
And I hadn't thought about it like that.
That's I'm, I'm happy that you brought that up because ego does
(38:19):
surround addiction too, right? There's this I'm fine, you need
to change idea and and you, you kind of you answered it already,
but there is, you know that thatmoment seems to be the the
moment where you were like, huh,Maybe I have a part in this,
right. I didn't 'cause it I I can't
control it. And I can't cure.
It thank you. I can't cure it, but maybe I do
(38:42):
have a part in this. So can you talk a little bit
about, you know, and I guess your part in it, like what, what
is your part in it? I don't know that I have a fully
formed answer yet. You know, We're all on our own
journey of discovery. I, you know, because you go back
(39:09):
and I think reflection is important.
I think that regret is overrated.
I just came up with that right now.
That's not bad. That's not bad.
I'm going to clip that for sure.I might, I might, you know, I'm,
I'm, I might hold on to that one.
I might put that on a sticky pad.
(39:31):
But it's one of those things where it's like, so, you know,
we've talked about a lot today, like even off mic, like as we
were, you know, just sort of like getting to know one
another. Not only am I like, you know, a
big movie guy, a big music guy, a big sports guy as well, too.
I still have a bone to pick withyou and Caleb about the CFL.
(39:53):
That'll be for another time. But you know, I'm, I, I'm lucky
enough that you know I'm, I'm, I'm a season ticket holder to a
couple of different sports franchises in the city.
And, you know, there were times when, you know, I would bring my
oldest to a game. My youngest, you know, at this
point in her life really doesn'thave a whole lot of interest.
(40:13):
But my oldest, you know, I wouldbring her to a game every once
in a while. And it would be like, you know,
I would, you know, buy her like a small, like 8 oz beer, you
know, just be like, don't tell your mom, you know, like that
kind of thing. Like maybe it's 16, you know,
and like 1, you know, but then in retrospect, when you see how
(40:36):
things have worked out, it's like, shit was I did that moment
that we were having like, you know, sort of a bonding.
Did I contribute to that? You know, I, I, I, I don't know
what the answer to that is, but I think also, you know, because
(41:03):
my kids grew up in two differenthomes, no matter how hard you
try and regulate that, there's always going to be some level of
disjointed parenting. And I don't know if that helped.
I know that it certainly wasn't intentional because I you know,
(41:24):
I always remained hyper, hyper cognitive to I want my kids
lives to be as normal as they possibly can, despite the fact
that they live with their mom here and they live with me here,
right? And you know, you do your best,
(41:47):
right, You do your best. I know like, so going back to
music for a second, you know, one of my guys is Springsteen,
right? And he grew up with, at the time
an undiagnosed bipolar father, right?
There's a movie about his life coming out in the in the fall.
So I'm sure that they'll touch upon this.
(42:08):
And his father later in life, you know, had received his
diagnosis, he had received treatment, He had received
medication. He got his condition under
control. And his dad, you know, later in
his life had had a moment where he said, you know, I was
probably pretty hard on you growing up, son, you know, and
(42:33):
Bruce had said to him, Dad, you did the best that you could with
the tools that you had at the time.
I love that, right? And, you know, not only does
that show an amazing sense of forgiving, you know, and of
acceptance, but it's. Yeah, I, I'm.
(42:58):
So I don't know how to end that you.
Know what and I want to clarify something too.
I, I kind of posed that in a wrong way, that question.
What, what I fully want people to, to understand, if anything,
out of this whole entire episodein the healing journey that
you're on now, what, what is, what is your part in healing
(43:22):
from this? Because I really and I, you
know, to answer your question, Ithink a lot of parents maybe do
think that they contributed moreto the addiction than they did.
I want to tell you right now, and I sure I'm sure you know
this, but I want to confirm it. Nothing my parents did made me
an addict at all. I was bound from day one.
I fully believe that I had an amazing household growing up.
(43:43):
I had amazing childhood. I had everything a kid needed,
wanted, could have asked for. There was no abuse in my
household. You know, nothing on paper
should have contributed to the the life that I ended up in,
right? I was bound from day one, like I
said, but I think that what I, what I really believe in is that
(44:07):
you have a problem here now, right?
And I'm not saying that you havea problem or just hypothetically
you're you're addicts. There's something on the table
the. Person in your life is
struggling with this, right? You have two choices.
You can shame them to high hell and tell them to change and and
beat them into oblivion, or you can kind of take this other Rd.
which you're clearly taking. And I, I noticed that in from
(44:29):
what my mom talks about you, butin even just in talking to you,
this kind of this acceptance that you mentioned, what is your
part in the healing journey of this, of this in your, your
daughter's lives? Yeah.
So, yeah, yeah, that's, that's, you know, kind of like a, that's
kind of like a Pandora's box question.
(44:51):
One thing that I do know, and this is, you know, a, a, a, a
thought process that I've gottena lot of mileage out of is that
there is a prevalent belief thatexists still within modern
society. Everything that we know going
through the opioid crisis, you know, alcoholism, you know,
picture poison. There is still, you know, a very
(45:15):
incorrect belief system out there that says these people are
choosing to do this, right? Right.
That's like saying to somebody, hey, you know what?
It's a real problem for me that you've got lupus.
I need you to stop having lupus.It's really inconvenient for me,
(45:38):
yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And it's like, it, it, it, it, it, it isn't that easy, right?
It's it like it's, it's actuallypreposterous to to look at it
from that perspective. And until you're able to get
your head around that concept, you are going to stay in
neutral, right? And that took me a long time to
(46:03):
recognize that I can certainly tell you a lot of the mistakes
that I made in the beginning. So, you know, in an instance
where like, you know, a creditorwas calling up and saying you
owe X amount of dollars because of an unpaid utility bill, you
(46:27):
know, you're behind on this, youknow, whatever, I was taking
care of all of those things, right?
And it's like, you know, so another, another rule, for lack
of a better term, that I have recognized in recovery is
there's a lot of stuff that you're going to be asked to
(46:50):
embrace that completely goes against every instinct that you
have as a parent, right? Every single one.
You know, it's like, you know, Iwas, I was, I was driving, I was
(47:11):
driving along in my neighborhoodlast week.
And, you know, because of the time of year that it is, I saw a
a Canada goose that had just given birth to a whole nest of
baby geese. And you know, they're just like
(47:32):
in the cartoons, like they're all walking in a row along a
sidewalk, right? And somebody was trying to get
past, I think, you know, to get to work or to get to the bus,
you know, or something like that, right?
And the mother just lost her shit, right?
And I think that, you know, a lot of our instincts as parents,
they go back to like, you know, our more primitive roots.
(47:55):
But it's like you see your childbeing threatened if there's if
there's any perceived threat that is in their proximity, you
just you want to go DEFCON 5 about this, right?
And a lot of the stuff that you learn in recovery is that you
need to let those things go, right?
Because in the long run, in a very ironic, sometimes cruel,
(48:16):
but ultimately real way, you can't meddle, You can't get
involved because there there is something on their journey that
they need to find themselves. You know, I had been, you know,
to one of my fellow travellers, you know, in in recovery.
(48:36):
I had been having a conversationa little while ago about, you
know, a little despondency abouthow that my abilities to help,
to foster a better path for my kid was had had been quite
(48:57):
fruitless. And this person had said to me,
you know, you maybe need to accept, Rob, that you are not
meant to be the vessel to impartthat wisdom in this section of
her journey. And as a parent, that is a
(49:21):
really, really jagged, bitter pill.
Absolutely, Yeah. I love that.
Yeah. I, I mean, you, you nailed it
with that. I think letting go goes is so
counterintuitive to parenting, right?
And I don't have any kids and I can't even begin to imagine what
that's like. But I've seen my mom go through
it, right? And she's talked about it
(49:42):
openly. So I want to and I want to close
with this. If there's one thing you could
say right now to a parent that'sthat's struggling with her kid
or a loved one that's strugglingwith an addict in their life,
what do you say? I think that, you know, maybe
tying in with what it was that we were just talking about.
(50:06):
And as hard as it is and you know, for some people, this is
unfortunately going to be an impossibility.
You need to let go of the notionthat you're the solution, right?
This is bigger than you. And you're not, you're not a
medical professional, You're not, you're not an addiction
(50:28):
specialist. And do what you can, but you
also need to set some healthy boundaries for yourself that,
you know, there's something thatI learned very, there was a, you
(50:50):
know, like a little fable, for lack of a better expression that
we learned very early in recovery about, you know, the
one about the parent and the child who are on a plane and the
oxygen masks drop. Oh, yeah, yeah, that's a common
one, yeah. Yeah, yeah, that's a good one.
So, you know, for anybody who iswatching or listening who
(51:11):
doesn't know it, you know, let'ssay, you know, it's a movie
scene, right? And there's a parent and a child
and they're sitting on a plane together and for whatever
reason, the auction masks go down.
You know, all the red lights start flashing in the plane.
There's announcements that come over the PA system, you know,
saying that, you know, we're experiencing this.
(51:32):
Put the mask on. You know, now as a parent or as
a loved one in general, your natural, you know, DNA bred
instinct is I need to get that mask on my kid right now, right?
The problem is though, that because of lack of oxygen that
(51:53):
may happen as a result of decompression or the plane going
down or whatever, you could passout while you are fumbling to
get that kids mask on, right? Ergo, you're no good to anybody,
right? Suddenly the person who really
relies upon you doesn't have youas a resource anymore, right?
And they're left to fend for themselves.
(52:15):
So you need to figure out, and every instance I believe is
unique, you need to figure out what that moment is for you,
right? And then maybe the last thing
that I would tack on to that as well too.
You need to find something for yourself that is going to give
(52:35):
you some sense of a stability inyour own thinking, right?
Something positive. I want to be very clear on
saying positive, you know, you know, whether it's, you know,
something as simple as, you know, getting on an exercise
bike for 20 minutes a day, you know, good book.
(52:57):
I know that this sounds really simple, but like it's seriously,
this stuff is important. You know, it really is.
You know, you got to and I have also found that we have, you
know, sometimes a need for immediacy with whatever problem
it is that comes up. And I have found that I have
(53:17):
gotten a lot of mileage out of this is important.
I understand that this is important.
I don't have the capacity in this exact moment that I can
help you reason this through. Give me some time and I'll get
back to you on it. Yeah.
There's nothing wrong with doingthat, right?
You know? Yeah.
Love that. Take care of yourself, right?
(53:41):
Yeah. Thank you so much, Rob, for
coming. I.
Appreciate it, man. And you know what?
You and Caleb keep doing what you're doing, man.
I I learned a lot today and I I hope that one person did as
well. Thank you, Rob.
You're the best man. Thank you.
Thanks for listening. Please help us grow the channel
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The discussions and stories shared on this podcast are for
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(54:03):
This content is not a substitutefor professional medical advice,
addiction treatment, or therapy.If you or someone you know is
struggling with addiction, please consult A licensed
physician, addiction specialist,or mental health professional.
You are no longer alone.