Recovery and Creativity – 431

We dive into the creative journeys of Karen B and Katie P, two singer-songwriters whose paths have been shaped by their experiences in recovery programs such as Al-Anon and ACA (Adult Children of Alcoholics and Dysfunctional Families). In their stories, they share how personal recovery has enriched and informed their artistic expression, providing a platform...

The post Recovery and Creativity – 431 appeared first on The Recovery Show.

Episode Transcript

(00:01):
How has your recoveryinformed your creativity?
Join us as Katie and Karenshare their experience.
Welcome to episode 431of the Recovery Show.
This episode is brought to you bySusan, Tenna, anonymous, and David.
They used the donationbutton on our website.
Thank you Susan, Tenna, anonymous, andDavid for your generous contributions.

(00:22):
This episode is for you.
We are friends and family members ofalcoholics and addicts who have found a path to serenity and happiness.
We who live or have lived with theseemingly hopeless problem of addiction understand as perhaps few others can.
So much depends on our ownattitudes, and we believe that changed attitudes can aid recovery.
Before we begin, we would like to statethat in the show we represent ourselves rather than any 12 step program.

(00:48):
During the show, we'llshare our own experiences.
The opinions expressed here are strictlythose of the person who gave them.
Take what you like and leave the rest.
We hope that you will find something inour sharing that speaks to your life.
My name is Spencer.
I'm your host today, and joiningme today are Katie and Karen.
Welcome to the Recovery Show.
Hi.
Yay.
Hi.

(01:08):
We're so happy to be here.
We'll open with a reading that you chose.
Karen, you gonna read that?
sure.
It's from Courage to Change.
page 41.
One of the effects of alcoholismis that many of us have denied or devalued our talents, feelings, achievements, and desires.

(01:28):
In Al-Anon, we learn to know,appreciate, and express our true selves.
Creativity is a powerfulway to celebrate who we are.
it's spiritual energy thatnourishes our vitality.
It is a way to replace negativethinking with positive action.
Every one of us is brimming withimagination, but it often takes practice to find it and put it to use.

(01:53):
Yet anything we do in anew way can be creative.
Building a bookcase, trying a newseasoning on a vegetable, taking a new approach to handling finances, finger painting, problem solving, tapping out a rhythm on a tabletop creative energy is within us and all around us.
Whether we are writing amasterpiece or folding the laundry.

(02:15):
Every original act asserts.
Our commitment to living our programencourages us to acknowledge our achievements and to live each day fully.
When we create, we plant ourselvesfirmly in the moment and teach ourselves that what we do matters.
And that page 41, that'sgonna be what, February 10th,

(02:37):
you got it.
Woo.
Impressive
first couple of months I can still do themath and after that it's like, no way.
That was amazing.
You weren't looking at the book.
No, it was like, January's got 31 days.
Okay, so take 31 outta 41 you got 10.
are in the presence of something beyond.
our skillset.

(02:57):
I was a math major in college,so I hope I can do arithmetic.
So you guys reached out and said,we'd like to talk about how our recovery has informed our creativity.
I understand you'reboth singer songwriters.
Right.
You wanted to start out by tellinga little bit of your own stories
of recovery, and I'll letyou decide who's going first.

(03:19):
The summary, of my story is, I grewup in, in an alcoholic home and I had a problem with my father's drinking.
So I really grew up just totallylearning deep into my bones, those coping mechanisms that are very common to alcoholic households.
I learned how to, hyperfocus on everyone else.

(03:42):
and to be hypervigilant as I did that,and to basically be whoever was needed.
Whatever was needed aroundme, I morphed into that.
And I, I enjoyed that.
I think I enjoyed being a helper.
I enjoyed, that role, but that was kindof the only way that I could, relate with the family and kind of feel like I was, I felt like I was holding things together.

(04:05):
I, I carried that into my adultlife and it fit really nicely with the teaching profession.
For over 20 years I was off and on.
I was either a high school Spanishteacher or an adult ESL teacher.
It's very easy for the four M'swith teaching, you know, managing and manipulating martyrdom, mothering, it's so easy.

(04:27):
It felt like home, being able to do allof that within the profession until it destroyed me and I had nothing left.
because I was using theseold coping mechanisms.
And of course I tookthose into my marriages.
In my first marriage, and this currentone, I'm working on that here every day.
for sure.
I started with recovery process in myearly twenties, going to some, I think it was ACA, adult children of alcoholics.

(04:52):
You know, I, I was starting to golike, oh, this may have affected me more than I thought it, it did.
I was in a church group, a college,church group, and the leader was like, you might wanna try ACA.
And
yeah.
Wow.
And at that time I was an obedientlittle churchgoer, so I was like, okay.
And so I did it.

(05:13):
And it was a good message.
That started me, and then laterI got into program because I was trying to help my sister.
Like typical codependent fun,where I was like, my sister's thinking about going to meetings.
So if I go, then she'll go.
Ah, yes.
Yes,
yeah.
I have a friend, that'show he came into Al-Anon.

(05:33):
He was trying to help his sister.
Yep.
Oh yeah.
Tale as old as time.
It, really is.
nonetheless, it got me through thedoor, and I stayed and now I've got, I think I'm gonna get like my 21 years or something like that, coming up, which is pretty cool.
And, it's just been the last 10 years,I'd say, having a sponsor and working with that person, over the course of those years, whenever I could in my busy life with being a mother and teaching full time and doing music.

(06:04):
Things significantly shifted,for me during those 10 years and I've experienced more recovery than I ever dreamed possible.
I went absolutely like the promises, sayfrom hopeless to having hope and things that I thought could never change, did change, through that ongoing process.
And through music then I metKatie, and then we also have.

(06:26):
recovery stuff together too with Al-Anon,
All right.
A not unfamiliar story.
How about you, Katie?
Karen actually brought me to Al-Anon,so that's part of why I wanted her to go first to set the stage.
similar to Karen, I also comefrom a family that has been impacted by substance use.
Down the line.
Like there's a whole branch of thefamily tree that's essentially a stump because people died in their forties from cirrhosis of the liver.

(06:54):
I've always had an awareness ofit and my dad, one good thing I think he did was that early on he was really, forthcoming that our family had issues around alcoholism.
He didn't includehimself in that, so much.
Because when I grew up, weactually had a pretty okay time.
I think my parents were really good athiding it and also their substance use.

(07:17):
My dad was a professional musiciantoo, and when you're a musician, it's hard to be in that party atmosphere and not participate, especially if you're the band leader.
He taught me, if you're getting acut of the bar give a lot of toasts so that people, will drink more.
So I didn't grow up really having asense that anything was odd until about adolescence when my dad's substance use.

(07:42):
And I not as clear on my mom'sthough, it came a little bit later.
The whole family system kind of imploded.
I went to go live with my grandparents.
and from that point on, things were justvery chaotic and a lot of instability.
I started to learn some coping mechanismsthat I'm still unwinding today which Karen mentioned some of them I think.

(08:06):
You know, three steps ahead,anticipating people's needs to avoid, feeling uncomfortable or feeling pain or have them avoid feeling pain, taking everything very personally, having to be responsible for everyone's wellbeing.
My dad, who has passed on now, hissubstance use really escalated.
He was always a good time guy.

(08:27):
but he made it look fun and henever looked out of control with it until he was in his sixties.
after his long-term partnerpassed away from her alcoholism, she was only 56, I believe.
That was about a year and ahalf before I got to Al-Anon.
That kind of broke him, andthen he just took a dive.
I think he'd always used substances tocope, but it just, it took a big turn and, he ended up having a major stroke and ending up in a nursing facility.

(08:55):
where he eventually, two weeksbefore his 68th birthday, passed.
from a host of thing, hardliving, lots of trauma.
But essentially, yeah,it's what did him in.
I wouldn't have been able to get throughthat time without Al-Anon for sure.
I also found myself in a profession.
I worked in nonprofit, workingwith unhoused Vulnerable Families, which is absolutely perfect for someone super codependent.

(09:20):
Yeah,
just get to like, you bethe hero to everybody.
I was the volunteer coordinator,so I had a lot of control.
It was a perfect fit until I burntout so badly that I had to quit.
The last day of my job itwas, December 31st, 2019.
And that's when I went backto, al-Anon for the first time.

(09:41):
But backing up, Karen did takeme to my first al-Anon meeting.
we were at this wonderful festival calledthe Kate Wolf Music Festival, where our band was playing, and we were just sitting around our campsite, and Karen was just sharing about her experience.
And I was like, oh, for three years, mytherapist has been telling me to go to Al-Anon and I've completely dismissed it.

(10:02):
But when Karen said it, I was like, well,Karen has her life completely together, so I'm gonna trust what she says.
I know differently now.
But that first meeting was, itwas like a balm to my soul that I didn't even know I needed.
It was so incredible to hear myexperience spoken back to me, especially the pain and shame that I had around the way my stepmother passed.

(10:28):
She was secretive and notsecretive about her alcoholism.
She was a proud AA member.
but she also like, neverreally got that sober.
even though she would bekind talking the talk.
So I think that's part of why Ihad a hard time even wanting to come to Al-Anon because I was like, well, it didn't work for her.

(10:48):
She's dead.
But once I came, it wasjust like the isolation.
And that's really the thing I loveabout Al-Anon so much is it takes us out of Isolation with our pain because that is the thing that really
can kill you as an Al-Anon is beingalone with the shame and the pain of living in the cycle of addiction.

(11:11):
All of a sudden it was like,oh, this weight was just lifted off of me and I didn't know I could actually feel that way.
The program has helped me profoundly tostay in relationship with people I love who have this issue, because so many of the people in my life who do have these issues, they're like the best people.
They're the most fun,

(11:33):
not all the time,
got that.
Yeah.
but I love them dearly.
I love them so much.
I think a lot of people, when they cometo Al-Anon, they think, oh, they're gonna tell you that you have to cut everybody off and it's gonna be this hardcore thing.
That could not have been farther fromthe truth of what my experience has been is that it's people in the rooms talking about how they stay in relationship with the people who are actively using or maybe in recovery themselves.

(11:58):
We learn what our part in the dynamic is.
It's very attractive to me tobe like oh, they are so messed up, I am so put together.
And that is not true at all.
I have done insane things to try andmanage and manipulate in all of those thing, you know, to, to keep the alcoholic safe or to keep, someone from doing something horrible to themselves.

(12:21):
and the toll that's takenon me is, I got problems.
But it's also very much so informedmy creative process in a new way.
It's given me a new life in that too.
And that I have that as a touchstone togo back to and it helps me detach enough to where I can use it in my songwriting, to hopefully make well-crafted songs that resonate and have emotional depth.

(12:47):
Songwriting allows meto detach in a lot of ways.
and I'm very thankful for it.
I'm not as frequent attender as Karen is.
I dip in and out, but I do stillreally, love the program and have gotten so much from it.
When did you start creating musicand then after that, relative to when you came to Al-Anon or ACA,

(13:09):
I think I started writingsongs probably around 15 or 16.
Just the best songs ever too.
I remember all of them.
no, but I'd been writingsongs since that time.
and I never really stopped.
All that stuff was on piano.
It wasn't until I started playingguitar that all of a sudden like the floodgates opened and I had a totally new way to write songs.

(13:30):
At the time, I was in a prettyabusive relationship with someone with substantial substance use issues.
And it was a really wonderful outlet.
I didn't know about Al-Anon at that time.
My songwriting and the topics thatI've always kind of circled around have naturally always been in this realm.
I think because of my experiences,they just have naturally been talking about those types of things.

(13:56):
It was 2016 when I first started going.
So it was about 10 years ago almost.
Yeah.
At that point you had been writingand performing for a while,
And I started performing really young.
My dad would bring me up onstage when I was like six.
So I was singing and performing infront of large audiences really young.

(14:16):
I was recording really young.
And that I also learned, was a way forme to make my dad really happy with me.
And so it became intertwined with thatcodependency and even further on, like when our band became more successful, and he was past that time in his life, especially because of all of his health issues, he wasn't performing.

(14:37):
I would sometimes downplay things.
I knew he was proud of me, but Ialso knew it could make him a little unhappy that I was doing stuff or that I was writing so many songs.
I knew he was always proud of me.
But also, his personalitycould be a little jealous too.
The codependency justruns all the way through.
After coming to Al-Anon, it just openedup a whole new, like palette, I wanna say of how to approach these subject matters, With that element, again, of detachment.

(15:08):
So let's put a hold on that for a minute.
And I want to hear from, Karenabout how you came to music.
yeah, I was a little differentin that, my family wasn't that musical, although I think my parents sang in the choir or something in a Lutheran church in Pennsylvania.
So there was that.
And my dad had a guitar that he wouldbring out on rare occasions and play the three songs that he knew on them.

(15:30):
And I always thought that was cool.
When I was in high school,I became really religious.
It was a coping mechanism for me.
So I learned a lot of guitarthrough church and I started singing and playing in church.
But even at that time, like same time Iguess as Katie, when I was like about 16 or so, then I did start to write songs.

(15:50):
A few of them were church songs,but that was when I started to become aware of what I was feeling.
Because that was one of the mainthings that I wasn't doing, as a coping mechanism in my home, was that I just was not even aware of what I was feeling.
I was either like hyper spazz, fun.
Or angry, and I really don't know,if there was anything in between.

(16:12):
When I started writing songs, allthis pain came up and I was like, wow, I didn't know I felt like this.
I just, I started writing songs.
I would play them for my friends.
I would play them for my sister,but I really didn't play them out.
But the more I, wrote, the more Iwas like, wow, I really want to, I really wanna play these out.
And it became like a need.

(16:33):
I needed to share themin a larger context.
Just singing church songswasn't enough for me.
And that was really hard too,because I had a weird codependent relationship with church.
It was the thing that gave me affirmation.
And so doing something that was notpart of the playbook and being like, I wanna play my songs in coffee shops.
It was really hard tobreak away from that.
But, when I did that was such ahuge part, that creativity and that songwriting and playing out my songs for other people, essentially it was like having little meetings.

(17:03):
Like my shows were like little meetingsbecause people would tell me how much they related to what I was saying.
They were often about my family pain orrelationship pain or things like that.
It was a huge outlook and aconnection to myself that I had shut off to protect myself.
So for both of you, it's been part of your
life effectively, forever

(17:26):
Yeah.
from when you becameindependently thinking beings.
Yeah.
Yeah.
and then at some pointyou, you two came together.
Yay.
Yay.
Yes.
that story?
Great.
I started a band calledThe Bootleg Honeys.
I was a female trio, Americanaoriginal music with two other local singer songwriters.

(17:48):
Amazing songwriters.
We were looked at as like asuper group in our community.
'cause we'd all had independent things andthen we came together, and it just clicked and we hit the ground running and we had a lot of local support and local success.
and then right after we released,our first album, one of the members quit kind of suddenly.

(18:09):
It was hard.
but ultimately I have so muchgratitude for that moment because that's what brought us to Karen.
She was our first andonly choice to join.
We knew her just through friends.
We have actually some really weirdconnections, like other family connections that we figured out later on.
So, it was destined to be.
We did the band for about a yearand a half more with Karen.

(18:31):
And then it kind of imploded again.
The other member quit.
The previous member who'd quit came back.
You know, this has neverhappened with bands before.
Bands are very functional.
I was gonna say, familiar story.
yeah.
bands really are like littleweird dysfunctional families.
You have to have your issues together.

(18:54):
You're gonna be functional and havegood boundaries, which I had none.
I really took on everything.
I was terrified thatpeople were gonna leave.
So I just was like,Nope, I'll do everything.
I'll do all the booking, I'll do all this.
even when people wanted to takeon more responsibilities, I had a very hard time letting go of that.
It was 2017, the other band member left.

(19:15):
I found out I was pregnant like thesame week, which was a surprise.
And so everything justreally changed very suddenly.
and we decided to put the band on hold.
I went full-time with my nonprofit job.
Karen was back into teaching.
But we never stopped writing, neitherof us ever stopped writing even though we weren't really performing anymore.

(19:36):
We both, became moms around thesame time in different ways.
So our lives changed in that way.
And then just with the bandnot really being stable.
But we remained friends and actuallybecame closer friends, especially when the pandemic hit because so much isolation.
And I had quit my jobin 2019, December 31st.

(19:59):
I'm going to get back into playing music.
No.
then
and then 2020 happened andthere was no more music.
But I never stopped writing.
Karen never stopped writing.
And there was this one day that she called
oh, yeah.
Crying alongside the road, basicallyjust, oh, Maybe I'll let you say, it, Karen, 'cause it was your experience, but it's it was like a turning point for our whole project.

(20:23):
Yeah, it was a big turning point.
We were just starting to getback to some in-person teaching, which was just very nightmarish.
I think we were hybrid or somethinglike that at the time that, that this happened, that Katie's referring to.
I was driving home and I had just had fromjournaling and doing all this stuff, had this kind of revelation that, the reason that I was really shying away from music.

(20:44):
I wasn't listening to a lot of music.
I wasn't playing very much.
I would still write like onoccasion, but I was really having this weird, a aversion to it.
And I realized that the aversionwas based on how, although I loved it so much, I just felt like I could never be good enough.
I'm good enough for what I don'tknow, you know what I'm saying?
in, in my head, I was just like, I'msecretly ashamed that I'm not good enough.

(21:07):
And I told this cry, I pulled overan orchard and was like talking to Katie on the phone and she just like bursts out laughing.
She just
laughed at me.
apt to do.
Yes.
She was like, what?
what are you talking about?
She's like, you're amazing.
And we had this discussion where wejust realized that for each other that I said, Katie, I have no doubt in your ability, like, you are amazing.

(21:29):
Every song you write is amazing.
Your voice is thrilling.
All of this.
And she's like, well, that'swhat I think about you.
You
Dummy.
exactly.
So that's honestly right there, that'sreally the seed of where the whole podcast idea started was 'cause we realized that when we believed in each other that way, that we had what we needed to move.

(21:54):
I had what I needed to move forward andwe could, mutually encourage and support.
Okay, let's talk about that for a
minute.
our listener doesn't know thatyou have a podcast together.
Tell us a little bit about that.
I understand you're like ona season break or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, we have one eightepisode season that's up.
Each episode we, do a littlebrief breathing meditation.

(22:18):
We do what we call a headlines onlycheck in where we don't get into the blood and guts of our lives, but just to be like, what is real about what we're feeling right now?
And then we have a topic thatrelates to the songs we've brought.
We talk a little bit about the topicand then each one of us shares an original song, and then we basically shower each other with compliments about, why we're so amazing.

(22:41):
What we love about this song.
we point out craft elementsthat are good in the song and
Yes.
But then a lot of it then relatesback to our experience in recovery.
'cause so many of our songs are connectedto that, and the topics themselves.
You know, we're also songwritingcoaches, and we have like our little supernova system.

(23:01):
But so much of that isinformed by recovery.
so, we have, listening, doing the work.
what are some of the other ones, Karen?
Know, Like support, supporting each other.
Inspiration.
And I feel like we're missing one.
Yep.
Must not be that important.

(23:22):
Your podcast is called.
Supernova Support.
Okay.
We'll get some
links in the show notes sothat people can find it.
Yeah.
We'll give you a warningthat we swear like sailors.
My father was a Marine and soI just grew up and I learned to play poker when I was like five.
You know what I mean?
These things go together, you know?

(23:42):
Absolutely.
The thing that you wanted to talkabout outside of the stories, which I think we're up to now, right?
is about how emotional sobriety
is informing your creative process.
Katie, I know you startedgetting into that a little bit and I was like, wait, let's,
thank you.
the stories first.
and I just wanna note notethat the term emotional sobriety is not one that at least I hear frequently in the Al-Anon program.

(24:11):
There's a chapter in the aa bigbook about emotional sobriety.
But, I think I know what it means,but maybe you tell me what it means to you and how, it's changing the way in which you create.
My drug of choice isout of control emotions.
I think my experience of identifying,in the Al-Anon community is that I feel like I'm a little dry, like in in terms of a dry alcoholic.

(24:35):
I can be white knuckling, I can bedoing all these things that are very similar to someone who's maybe trying not to drink in terms of trying not to do all these, like emotionally damaging, harmful things to myself and others.
Because I'm not taking care ofmyself and my focus is outward trying to control, trying to manage.

(24:55):
What emotional sobriety means to meis that I am present to my emotions and that even if I am feeling overwhelmed, it's like a practice.
The practice of songwriting really justmelds into that for me, because I have this amazing tool that if I start to feel very emotionally overwhelmed or

(25:17):
activated, I can sometimes have theawareness to go, oh, that's right, I can, sit down with my guitar.
And then I can just purge that emotion.
I write very, stream ofconsciously to begin with.
Even if nothing comes from it, Ican use that to get in touch with those emotions and come down from a 11, to maybe a two where then I can start to have some perspective.

(25:44):
and it becomes a container whereI can also put that stuff.
and then put it aside and then, okay,maybe I'll come back to that song and then I can come back to those emotions.
Also in songwriting there's no rules forwhat you can say, what you can't say.
There's so much freedom in it.
Part of that white knuckling is keepingthe emotions inside until you explode.
Songwriting gives me that opportunityto say anything I want to.

(26:07):
I don't have to keep it inthe song a lot of times I do.
But it's something I love to do so much.
And it has this added benefitof regulating my nervous system.
Because doing something creativeimmediately gets you back into your body.
Mm-hmm.
And so I get to practice these twothings I love at the same time.
They inform each other, and I can'teven think of one without the other now.
In terms of the way I write,especially if I'm writing about topics that relate to my experiences of growing up in this kind of chaos.

(26:35):
Yes.
Talking about feelings, one of thethings that I noticed in myself as I was working the Al-Anon program, working the steps in particular, was coming to be able to identify feelings, to put words on what I was feeling.

(26:59):
When I try to tell my story ofrecovery, before Al-Anon there was anger, there was fear, but I just wasn't identifying feelings a lot.
I think, partly because as yousay, they sort of stacked up and the loudest ones got noticed.
But now I can recognizemore nuance and have words.

(27:25):
Does that match up withyour experience at all?
100%. I could not identify any otherfeelings besides probably the ones you mentioned for the life of me.
I have a fraternal twin and she'salso a singer and a songwriter.
She was labeled a sensitiveone in our family.
You know how it is in families, youtend to just stick to your lane.

(27:46):
And, that she was a sensitive one.
So I was like, no, I'm blah all this.
And then I realized I'm extremelysensitive, extremely sensitive, but I just couldn't identify them.
And that's definitelywhat songwriting did.
Songwriting is pretty much theonly thing that did that for me.
I don't think there was anything elsethat, that got to that no matter what, like nothing else could reach me.

(28:10):
When you write, writing doesn't lie.
Like it just, it comes outwhatever you're really thinking and feeling blah on the page.
That's why it's such a great practice.
So many times I have noidea what I'm feeling.
I did this on Friday night.
I was telling Katie, I sat down tothe keyboard and I was just feeling weird, but I didn't know what I was feeling and this song pops out with this information I didn't understand or have any idea that I was feeling.

(28:32):
And then this whole song cameout and I'm like, oh, that's how I'm feeling about that.
It's so useful.
The other thing I, I really wanna sayabout, the whole emotional sobriety, whatever, what it does for me, and I know Katie alluded to this, is that, really, I just wouldn't be doing anything with music if I didn't have recovery.
Because my entire life was takenup with managing everyone else.

(28:57):
And I didn't think I was allowedto pay attention to myself.
That's why when I saw thatreading, that we read in the beginning, that's just me 100%.
I didn't value my voice.
I didn't value my ability to write songs.
I thought, oh, that's a cute little thing.
You put that over there, Karen,but then get to the real business of teaching, teaching those little students who need you.
Which, they did.

(29:17):
And it was good.
But I was not valuing myself.
It is the thing that helps me.
It is the living my own life, thefocusing on myself part of recovery that we talk about so much in program.
So many people, we don'tknow what our life is.
It's really disconcerting when you startto let go of the four M's and you're like, what am I gonna do now that I'm not busy mothering and managing everyone around me?

(29:41):
And then, what do I even wanna do?
And so that was the process.
That'll come up in my song later.
That's what kind of came up for me asI started to develop it, that I'm like, oh, I do wanna do something with music.
When you talk about teaching, itsounds like you're not teaching now.
You caught that.
Yeah.
I escaped.
I escaped.
I didn't retire.
I just couldn't do it anymore.

(30:02):
I loved teaching for so many years.
and I love high schoolers.
They're crazy and fun andreal, and I love them.
But when I, Katie alluded tous becoming mothers, I started foster adopting my daughter when she was seven, around that time.
And of course any mothering isreally all consuming, at all.
But this situation was very huge.

(30:24):
And so I really, I was consumed with that.
So once I had my own child, 'causeall the other years of teaching, I didn't have a child, I was like, what?
How do people do this?
I knew all these people who were liketeaching and they had three kids and they were te I'm like, I can't do this.
And the older that she got whenshe started to become a teenager and I was teaching teenagers, I'm like, I can't do this.

(30:45):
I can't be at school whereeveryone's dissing me and then coming home and she's dissing me.
I just can't do that 24 7.
I just, it was too much.
It just became too much.
I realized that I just couldn'tgive what the students needed.
And it was really important tome to show up for the students in the way that they need.
And they need so much now.
They need so much.

(31:05):
I couldn't do it anymore.
I was gonna start saying things I didn'twanna say, and I didn't wanna do that.
Speaking as a parent who had childrenin school some years back now, I appreciate that you recognized that you weren't able to give to the job what you needed to, what you wanted to.
Mm-hmm.
I will say I also discovered I liketeens when my kids turned 13, you know?

(31:29):
I have twins.
When they turned 13, I. I waslike, oh my God, I have teenagers.
And by the time they turned 14, itwas like, oh my God, I have teenagers.
same words, totallydifferent, Tone of voice.
Totally different frame.
Yeah.
So I've been, almost 20 years now,working with the teens in my church.

(31:54):
remember you saying that on episodes now.
I
Yeah.
The beauty of that particularrole is I don't really have any responsibility for outcomes.
I need to be there.
I need to be authentically there.
I always felt as long as wehave a meaningful conversation, then we were successful,

(32:16):
Oh, yeah.
Being a caring adult it means everything.
I saw at least one of my kids, did findthat caring adult who was not a parent, who he was able to take stuff to.
I know I played that role forat least a couple of kids.
And you know, it's really important,

(32:38):
Yeah.
It's the number one resiliencyfactor that can counteract childhood trauma in the research.
Oh, yeah.
you go,
There you go.
Social worker.
Katie tells us how it is.
right.
Yes.
Teacher Karen and social worker Katie.
Okay.
Are you still doing that job, Katie?

(32:58):
no.
'cause I as I said, my lastday was december 31st, 2019.
and again, was when I got my butt backinto Al-Anon because I knew I was so burnt out and I was so disillusioned.
I had gotten into some very toxic andkind of codependent stuff with my job.
There had been a shift in leadership thatwas very contrary to my values, which was a pretty amazing thing actually, because it really brought forth like the things that I knew I couldn't compromise on.

(33:29):
So there was a positive piece toit too, but what I knew I couldn't compromise on was my wellbeing.
I couldn't continue to sacrificemyself, especially with the drastic changes at the agency.
I'd been there for 10 years.
It was very dear to me, butI was very enmeshed with it.
Working with families and workingwith vulnerable women, and it was a agency completely run by women.

(33:52):
we were doing something miraculous,but I just, my bandwidth with being a new mom, my kid had just turned two.
So I hadn't slept for two years.
I was well done at that point, though.
It seems to me, not having been in thatrole, but it seems to me that it is both a perfect place and maybe one of the worst places for a codependent to be.

(34:16):
True.
yes.
True.
If you have the support of anorganization, if you're working within an organization that recognizes that, and is actively supporting its employees to counteract that and says, yes, that's gonna be part of it.
As a volunteer coordinator, whenpeople would come to volunteer, I would say okay, you're here for a reason.

(34:38):
You might not know what it is.
You're gonna get triggered here.
And stuff's gonna come up foryou because no one comes here just because they wanna help.
You're here because there's somethingin you that resonates with the plight of what our families are experiencing.
Part of my training and onboardingwas like a huge section dedicated to how are you gonna take care of yourself after you leave here?

(35:01):
Because it's very intense.
You're gonna hear stories, you're gonnasee things firsthand that may shock you and may bring up and will bring up, stuff.
That was a huge part of the supportsI offered for the volunteers because you really can't be doing that work and not be engaged in that.
There's a limit to what you can do.
who was providing that support for you.

(35:23):
Ooh,
Exactly.
crickets.
I mean, I had amazing, like I hadpeople I'd worked with for 10 years.
We were.
And we still are very close.
So my coworkers were amazing.
The thing was too, like I got tobe pregnant there where, we served a lot of, pregnant women and women with children, obviously.
And, The support I got from ourparticipants just was incredible.

(35:48):
Our organization was rootedin some fundamental values of everyone deserves a place to be.
And It doesn't matter what you've done.
And doesn't matter if yourKids have been taken away.
You still deserve food and a safeplace to be, a place to go to the bathroom, a place to take a shower.
Our philosophy was like, if that'sall you can do here, it was a day program, so it was a drop in program.

(36:12):
if that's all you can do is just be hereand eat some food and maybe take a nap in the recliner, like that's absolutely okay.
There was no push.
We had to establish a lot ofsafety and a lot of trust.
And that means having realrelationships with people.
That culture had been from thefounding of the organization.
And when that shifted, Ijust couldn't exist in that.

(36:35):
It felt very contrary to justwho I am and what I believed.
So I feeling that conflict.
And again, I don't know if I would'vebeen even aware of it, in the same way, if I hadn't had the tools of Al-Anon to recognize those feelings.
So you had some of that, but you weren't,
I wasn't really actively going.

(36:56):
'cause again, I had a small child.
I was still, participating,through readings and journaling and still dabbling.
I didn't have a home meeting anymore.
But that day I quit.
I found a new home meeting, and startedattending very regularly and got a sponsor, and made it up to step six.
And then I bailed.
Yeah.
That happens.

(37:18):
Yep.
That happens.
That's a tough one.
Yeah.
I think I made it to like stepthree the first time with my first sponsor and that was it.
And then it literally took me adecade to go through the steps.
I talk about that all thetime, like at meetings.
I love that.
I'm like, take it.
As long as it, it takes,it doesn't matter.
That's what I had time to do.
I'll paraphrase one ofmy ministers who said.

(37:39):
We believe what we need to believe, andI think in a recovery program, we do it at the rate that we need to do it.
That's right.
and we inherit a lot of maybe baggagefrom AA where the need to is urgent.
whereas in Al-Anon recovery,I've known people who weren't even sure why they were there.

(38:06):
They just knew that they identified,that coming to meeting made them feel a little better and they identified with what people were saying, but they didn't really know.
Beyond that, they couldn't really say,this is why I'm here, and I would say, yeah, if you identify it, keep coming,
Yes.
if it's talking to you, keep coming,and you will figure out what you

(38:26):
need and we'll hopefullyhave it for you here.
Yeah.
I can remember many instancesof being in the rooms with folks like that who were unsure, and then as they continued to attend.
It was like, oh yeah.
My grandpa was an alcoholic.
or they were discovering like,oh, that's what that was.
and then it would be this revelationbecause it was like, I didn't grow up in this situ. You know, I felt that kind of way myself, because again, the substance use that was around me was framed like this is just how we party.

(38:56):
and this is just fun andnothing serious happens.
Until it does.
and then
Yeah.
I wanna come back to thecreativity, aspect here.
I'm wondering if you can think of acouple of songs that you wrote, one before you came into recovery and one more recently, and how the content and or the process was different.

(39:24):
Oh my God.
Wow.
That's a really good question.
the one song I can think of, whichKaren knows this song, 'cause it was on our first album, it's a song that I wrote after my stepmom had passed.
it's called Typical Season.
I love this song andpeople really loved it.
We can link that, it's onthe Bootleg Honey's album.

(39:47):
When I listen to it now, I can hear thatI'm like getting to something that I don't even think I was really conscious of.
And I can also look at thewriting and go, okay, there's some things that could be clearer.
And I think that maybe if I'd had thetools of Al-Anon under my belt more, it would've helped me clarify that song.

(40:09):
The song that I'm bringing today,Stardust Love, is almost a sister song.
to that song, I think becausethere's, the themes are very similar, but it's way more specific.
Craft wise, it's much more focused.
And I was intentionally writing it.
The other song, typical season, Ididn't even, think I realized what it was about until I'd finished it.

(40:34):
And then I was like,oh, this is about, her.
This is me processing this deep loss.
But I wasn't conscious ofit while I was writing it.
Whereas this song StardustLove, I was very conscious of what I was trying to say.
I will say, too, songwriting isa very spiritual experience for me.

(40:54):
That's my highway to Superpower?
to, to Higher power.
which feels like a superpower.
I don't think I was experiencingthat quite as much, too.
Now I feel much more connected to higherpower when I'm writing, specifically if it's about this type of topic.

(41:14):
That's a good one.
I like that.
I know both of those songs,
You do.
really cool.
No, because I've always loved that SIloved typical season and we were just
Yeah.
And people loved it.
it was like, People loved it.
It's like a slow song.
We, played a lot of bars and stuff,so we wrote songs specifically to get people drinking and dancing.
that was our goal, like when you're,

(41:35):
Totally.
that type of band.
And so this was a departure from that.
It was a ballad.
It was slow, but people really loved it.
It had a great feel.
But yeah.
Oh, I'm, yeah, I'm sittingthere racking, my brain.
Actually, I can think of several.
The one I'll say, it's funny'cause this song, I like the song, it's a kooky, fun song.
It's called De Rien and it's notin French, but that's the title.
It's a very upbeat, funsong I'll have to say too.

(41:56):
It goes to this extremely dissonantchord and it's really funny.
I'm feeling like the whole song is aboutfeeling out of control, like about how these feelings are overtaking me and like being in a jungle and hacking away in the jungle and wanting to be rescued.
it's a very frenetic, sounding song.

(42:17):
and the chorus is basically, when Ijust say that it doesn't really matter, when I just say I'm doing fine, when I just say it's really not that important.
I was hitting on this thing that like,there was something important to me, but I couldn't put my finger on what it was, and the way that I would ignore myself and I wouldn't listen to myself.

(42:38):
So that is definitely just a realtime cataloging that sense of that, that I think so many of us feel when we come into the program.
We're like, we don't know what is wrong.
but we know something's wrongand, we can't identify it, And then the song that we're using in the show here today is Amateur.
I just realized they're both French.
Which

(42:58):
You such a show off.
I mean, it's a borrowed word, whatever.
The song Amateur is thisbeautiful awakening to what it is that's important to me.
and it's this empowerment.
I feel like it getsreally woo woo at the end.
It's beautiful, but it'svery higher power connected.
And it's just about likefinally all those years later.

(43:20):
I'm making a choice.
I'm doing exactly what I said inthe program where I'm like, I am now gonna focus on my own life.
And whether I'm an amateur at musicforever or not, it doesn't matter because this is what I'm going to do because it's important to me and because it's how I can connect, to my higher power.
And what a great question, Spencer.
And can I mention this?

(43:41):
We haven't said that one of thereasons why we're even doing this podcast is because of you.
I'm like, Spencer didn't know how todo it in the beginning and like he, he would talk about how he doesn't know what he's doing and then he just did it.
And look at this thing that'sgrown up and it's so amazing and it helps so many people.
I'm like so many, I can't believethe thousands of people that are helped by the recovery show

(44:05):
I can't either
it's amazing.
so many people that we know inour groups and stuff, they listen.
They're regular
yes,
and another thing that's amazing.
No advertising,
yes.
Attraction, not promotion.
Yeah.
Attraction, not promotion.
I listen to these podcasts aboutpodcasting, and they're like, get out there on the socials.

(44:27):
And I'm like, okay.
no.
No, we have a hard timecoming with that too.
'cause I hate social media andI'm also just, terrified of it.
Because it.
activates a lot of my crazy stuff.
We have an open mic that we started.
That we have barely promoted.
And it's like this kind of Al-Anonmagic where we just started it and then people just started coming and we literally rarely promote it.

(44:54):
And it's full every time.
It's phenomenal.
And it does, it feels like thatmagic of if you're just doing it, the people who are meant to hear the message are gonna come.
Yeah.
So I just wanted tosay thank you for that.
'cause that's why we started.
thank you.
We'll take a short break and then we'llcontinue with our lives in recovery, where we talk about how recovery is working in our daily lives and maybe in our meetings.

(45:19):
karen, you want to tell usagain about your song Amateur?
yeah, the little bit more background Ican give was, at the time of writing it, I was in the throes of deciding whether I could stay in teaching or not.
It was, post pandemic, things were tryingto swing back to whatever normal is.
There is no normal, I mean, therenever has been, but there certainly isn't, post pandemic for education.

(45:44):
I was just really torn, back and forthand talking about it all the time.
And I just couldn't, I couldn't decide,but at the same time, I was beginning to put value towards the singing and this music and songwriting again, like that discussion with Katie when I pulled over on the side of the road.
I don't play piano, I never had, and Ijust started tinkering around with piano.

(46:07):
I sat down at the piano.
I didn't play it, and that's what'sthe extra hilariousness of the title Amateur, because I literally like, have never, I haven't played the piano before and I'm like, I'm gonna write a song.
So I just sat down andjust started plunking.
Also I don't normally, streamof consciousness write.
I think I started to write a littlebit actually on a notebook, but then I took it down to the studio and I started playing with it.

(46:32):
And it just kinda came out inthis stream of consciousness way that I'd never written before.
I never would allow myself to notwrite something that's structured.
it's like, where's the structure?
Like where's the chorus?
Where's the whatever?
It was like, it wasn't that at all.
I'm like, whoa, I'm just writing this.
It was such a beautiful, heartfeltexperience of writing what was truly on my mind and letting it flow, and watching it take shape as I wrote and

(46:58):
as I said, I have this great littleverse in there where I talk about teaching and it's a funny analogy.
I say, I, I make my money preppingpackages, little machines for the economic good, because so much of teaching, and back in the day too, literally like the purpose of education was to prepare workers, you know what I'm saying?

(47:20):
For the whatever.
And I always just felt reallydisgusting about that as a goal.
I'm like, that is not my goal,you know what I'm saying?
In education, I'm not preparingworkers for the system.
But there's always that feeling of that,even though people wouldn't say that.
Now in education, there is that thing.
You've gotta get 'em to college.
You've gotta get 'em to do this thing.
And so I, I got to express that, inthe song and say, but lately I've been thinking that I need to start thinking about considering what I love.

(47:46):
Because amateur, the song titlemeans really someone who loves.
And so that's what I, that's what thesong is and how it came to what do I love?
And I realize that I really love makingmusic and I love singing, and I feel that it's part of my purpose for being here.
And I'm gonna do it no matter what.
It was just such a joy writing that song.

(48:08):
And Katie was so encouraging to me, in thespirit of what we do at Supernova support about, encouraging me in the song, asking me good questions about how to modify.
She helped me change that one verseI was talking about, which was fun.
'cause then I said, oh, I'vebeen fabricating fatal flaws.
That's what I said, just likethose war camp prisoners.

(48:28):
And she helped me tinker that verseand get it to that, because that's what I felt like in teaching that I was like, I am not necessarily preparing these people for college.
I just want them to know what they love.
I'm here to support, what do you love?
is that working on cars?
Do you know what I'm saying?
Is that being a beautician?
Then be a beautician?
it's just you don't need todo this certain thing that they're pushing you to do.

(48:51):
It was a really a revelation.
That song, I enjoyed it so muchwriting it and being able to sing it,
In this section of the podcast, wetalk about our lives in recovery.
How have we experienced recovery recently?

(49:12):
One of the things that I've talkedabout a lot recently is, taking care of myself, taking care of my body.
I got a new trainer at the YMCAand he's got a new routine for me.
And I came out of my firstmeeting with him kind of sore.
Which, maybe a good thing.
When we're done with this, I'm gonnahead over there later this afternoon.

(49:36):
because I'm trying to get in twice a week.
That is my commitment to myselfis to go at least twice a week to do like my weight work.
Last Friday, a small group ofpeople from my church organized what they called a pie day walk.
'cause it was March 14th,you know, pie day, right?
The walk was supposedto be 3.14 miles long.

(49:57):
We actually went a little over that.
it was a beautiful day here.
We walked, on a paved path in a park thatgoes along the side of the river in town.
There were four or five of usthere, and a couple of dogs.
And it was just a really nice afternoon.
Just walking along,chatting no real like goal.

(50:19):
Except to get our 3.14 miles in.
I sometimes forget that Ineed that sort of thing.
And now I remember what it wasthat I was gonna talk about.
I was listening to a podcast.
I listen to a lot of podcasts.
I'm listening to a podcast where thisis basically two friends chatting about whatever topic is on their mind that week.

(50:42):
I've only been listeningto it for a little while.
Only discovered it recently.
But, I think each week, likeone of them brings a topic.
They were talking about, and I don'tremember where this came up, what the real topic was where this conversation happened, but they were talking about how our phones, our devices, have sort of stolen us from ourselves.

(51:08):
The one guy said, I realized Idon't have any free time anymore.
Ooh.
Whenever I am not doing something,I'm on my phone, scrolling Twitter or playing a game or something.
And I don't have that time that Iused to have where I was just there with myself and I could be creative.

(51:39):
And I was like, oh my God.
Whoa.
If I sit down and I don't havesomething that I'm doing, or even if I do have something I should be doing, out comes the phone and up comes like solitaire or something.
Okay.
it's not even productive.
Okay.
But it's like I have to fill that time.

(52:00):
So one of the things aboutthe walk last Friday was I did not have a podcast in my ear.
I got there a little bit late.
So my first half of thewalk I was catching up.
So it was just me and the dog andthe river and the birds and, the occasional bicyclist zooming by.
I remembered that conversation inthat podcast that I'd been listening to and said, yes, I'm going to be intentionally not engaging myself, particularly with my phone.

(52:30):
That perennial distractionthat I carry in my pocket.
I don't know where that's gonnago, but it woke me up to, to, think about, okay, how am I going to get some of that me time back?
What am I gonna do differently?
And I don't know.
So, you know, more will berevealed, I'm sure, as they say.

(52:51):
This weekend we're having, asort of a regional lock in.
We're trying to get this thinggoing again after the pandemic.
We had this really strongculture of youth-led conferences,
Cool.
in, this multi-state region.
Michigan, Indiana, Kentucky,and a little sliver of Ohio.

(53:13):
Where they would run a weekendconference from Friday night to Sunday morning completely planned by and run by the youth with adult support.
But, unfortunately the pandemiceffects lasted long enough that everybody who was involved in that pre pandemic has now graduated out.
So we've lost the culture.

(53:34):
This one's been planned by adults, bythe religious educator professionals.
Hopefully we will then have peoplewho are like, yes, this is good.
I wanna do this, I want to beinvolved in making this happen.
One of the youth in my grouphas been in the planning calls.
Unfortunately, she's a senior,
darn it.
When you lose them,they get, they go away.

(53:55):
They always
yeah, they go away.
that's the thing.
They get good at it and then they go away.
I'm looking forward to this.
and also a little bit, Iknow I'm gonna be tired.
But I try to leach some ofthat massive teenage energy too.
yes.
It must be good for something.
so yeah, so that's where I am inmy life and recovery right now.

(54:18):
who would like to go next?
I have had some really annoyingback issues this past week that just snuck up on me.
I don't know what I did.
I think it's just being 42, I guess.
But I was pretty immobilized andso I really, had to take, easy does it to heart, which is hard for me.

(54:42):
I have a young, energetic child.
She's on spring break this week.
I think part of my patterns in thepast have been to suffer in silence or to ignore it, to push through, to do the dishes anyway, to do everything.
And not just be like, you know what,my body's actually more important.
So I really had to slow down, whichcan be very uncomfortable for me.

(55:05):
But I was pretty uncomfortable anyway.
so I really just had to stop andadvocate for myself and call the, you know, because a lot of times they don't wanna see you for back pain.
there's not a lot thatthey can do for you.
But I did, I got an appointment.
I've also had a kidney stonein the past, and it felt very reminiscent, of how that began.

(55:27):
So then I was terrified, and very anxious.
So instead of just sitting in thatanxiety and just bracing myself for the worst pain imaginable, if you ever had a kidney stone, I advocated for myself, which isn't always easy.
I was able to get an appointment andactually able to get some relief.
I was given some medication and someother helpful things from my doctor.

(55:52):
I feel like, you know, I wannadownplay it because I don't ever want to be compromised.
I wanna always be capable.
It was very humbling to walk into thedoctor's office, and be on the wrong floor and to have the person checking me in go, oh, you're in a lot of pain.
And I was like, yeah, Iam here for my appointment.
And she's like, well, you're on thewrong floor, so you need to go down.

(56:14):
It was really a beautiful thing though,to actually be seen, to be believed.
'cause I think I get that in my headtoo, that no one's gonna believe me.
I wonder where that comes from.
No one's gonna believe my pain.
As uncomfortable as it has been,it's getting a little better.
It really just forced me toleave the dishes in the sink.
And it's like, hey, it's okay.
if my Kid watches thismovie for the 10th time.

(56:37):
and I really do just have to take careof myself if I want to get better and show up in my life the way I want to.
So that phrase, easy doesit, just was looping through.
I love that slogan for so manyreasons, because I often find myself in that, coming to consciousness and going, oh, I am white knuckling.
Okay, gotta let go, gotta let go

(56:59):
Yeah.
and take it easy.
Yeah.
My wishes are with youfor continued recovery.
I'll start off by saying I wish thatI could say I'd been to a meeting.
I just gotta a temporary jobthing that took some my meeting time, and so I'm sad about that.
And I'm just giving a shout out.
You meeting people, you know who you are.
I love my meetings so much.

(57:20):
I wish that I could have beenthere this last two weeks.
I couldn't.
I'm thinking like part of therecovery thing is interesting for me.
It does harken back to a little bitof what I said about sitting down at the piano on Friday night and like stuff coming out is, I very much with the help of the program have finally
developed, I'd say in the last severalyears, a very specific practice, like a morning practice that I have, that I get up really early and I do kinda like a little yoga type routine.

(57:48):
And then at the end of the little yogathing, I have a kind of a meditation that I just set a timer, like for 10 minutes and I just sit there and, this is what I wanted to get at with how experienced recovery is.
being able to sit there for 10minutes and let whatever comes up, come up is very challenging.

(58:11):
, I think it's one of the deeperthings that has taken me a bazillion years in the program, is that tenderness and kindness with myself.
Because I know in meetings, that's thething is like meetings really taught me and continue to teach me how, I love listening to people at meetings and I would never dream of saying something mean
or being like, hurry it up or why are yousaying that, or anything like that in, in a meeting it's I'm just like, oh, it's so easy to, to listen tenderly, in a meeting.

(58:40):
So to have that finally filtered downto myself and to be able to sit there for 10 minutes and be like, this morning I'm like, I just was all over the map.
Like I didn't really have anything that,that was coming up, but just to be like.
That's all right.
You deserve someone to sithere and listen to you.
That's kind of weird.
You know what I'm saying?
and like for 10 minutes, that's okay.

(59:00):
And I'm just gonna sit herewith myself and just give space if something needs to come up.
And it's taken so many years inthe program for me to even just do 10 minutes of listening to myself.
Coming up in the podcast, I stillhave steps eight through 12 to do, and I'm having a little trouble finding a volunteer for step eight.
I think I'm gonna reach out to somespecific people who've been on the podcast before and say, Hey, one of you guys wanna do step eight with me?

(59:26):
'cause I don't know, this iswhere the rubber hits the road or something, and all of a sudden the volunteers are few and far between.
I'm sure when we get to 10 or 11.
There'll be plenty of them,but eight and nine, you know.
Those are doozies.
So, anyway, we will have episodes,on the rest of the steps.
We're not gonna stop at step seven.

(59:46):
We welcome your thoughts.
Please join our conversation, leavea voicemail or send us an email with your feedback or your questions.
And Katie, how can people do that?
You can send a voice memo or email tofeedback at the recovery show, or if you prefer, you can call and leave us a voicemail at 7 3 4 7 0 7 8 7 9 5.

(01:00:09):
You can also use the voicemailbutton on the website to join the conversation from your computer.
We'd love to hear from you.
Share your experience, strength, andhope or your questions about today's topic, of singer songwriters in recovery, or any of our upcoming topics, including steps eight through 12.
If you have a topic you wouldlike to talk about, let us know.
If you would like advanced notice forsome of our topics so that you can contribute to that topic, you can sign up for our mailing list by sending an email to feedback at therecovery.Show.

(01:00:42):
Put email in the subject lineto make it easier to spot.
Karen, where can our listeners findout, more about the Recovery show?
our website is the recovery dot show.
There you can find information aboutthe show, primarily notes for each episode, which include links to the readings and other resources and videos or links for the music we choose.

(01:01:07):
I will note that this episode willbe at the Recovery show slash 4 3 1.
We'll take a short breakbefore diving into the mailbag.
And our second musical selection, whichwill be available on the website is Stardust Love By Me, Katie Phillips.
This song came about after, a reallyhard and disappointing revelation that someone I love very much who's struggled with substance use, was back at it.

(01:01:38):
And I was mad.
I was feeling all this stuff.
and it was debilitating, howmuch it was impacting me.
It was, again, one of those momentswhere I went, okay, I gotta sit down and just see what comes out.
Similar to Karen's song, it really,it came out stream of consciousness, which is how I tend to write generally.

(01:02:01):
Oftentimes I'll just start playingand I'll hit record on my voice memo, and then go back and see, if there's anything to grab.
This song just came very quickly.
At first it really was justme processing these emotions.
But then this magical thing willhappen where all of a sudden I shift more into songwriter mode and then I go, oh, this is something.

(01:02:23):
Then I actually start, to think about it.
This song kind of goes through these stepsof looking at you know, the, the first line is, All of the pieces, falling into place, family disease is center stage.
You know, you can't hide from this.
But also, I can't keep sacrificing

(01:02:46):
myself.
There's one lyric in particular,it's, I can't worship the ground you walk on if you keep walking away.
I can't carve my heart upjust to feel your pain.
'cause so much of that, you know, theperson who's suffering from addiction, we learn to run their emotional reality through our own systems.
That's something I'vereally had to work a lot on.

(01:03:07):
This song was just like a bigboundary in a lot of ways.
There's, another line that'sI can't sacrifice myself at the altar of your mistakes.

I plagiarized myself (01:03:16):
I stole some lines from another song for the bridge, which is always a fun thing to do.
How many times can I lose you?
How many times can we do this?
This hurts so much.
How long can this even go on?
Then I came to the third versewhere I struggled for a while.

(01:03:36):
Because I wanted to get to the biggermessage I wanted to get to the truth, which is I love you no matter what.
I do have to live my life.
I cannot sacrifice myself, butI refuse to stop loving you.
I really wanted to zoom out.
In the last verse, it gets alittle metaphysical, talking about in the end, we all return to stardust and will return to love.

(01:04:03):
That's what's always true.
Yes, we have these human experiences,that are gonna be painful and we gotta just make it through.
I do believe we all are doing our best.
Even folks who are sufferingwith addiction issues.
You know, alcohol and drugs are likereally effective with dealing with pain.
They're kind of brilliant,

(01:04:25):
and then they're
Right?
And then,
and then there's a lot of consequences.
I've tried to learn to really letgo of blaming the person I love for finding something that gave them relief.
But I also cannot participate inways that are going to harm me.
I ended up doing some kind ofworkshopping with a friend of ours, where she got out a big piece of paper.

(01:04:51):
And she's like draw what you wantthis last verse to feel like.
I ended up drawing like the curvature ofthe earth and a little person standing on the earth and then like stars looking out.
I was like I wanna getthat much perspective.
Because everything else is very likein the minutiae of the experience.
I very intentionally want to zoom out andget back to that we are one, that there is no difference between us just because you're suffering with this thing doesn't make me better than you, or less flawed.

(01:05:21):
It's just what you're dealing with.
And here's what I'm dealing with.
And can we maybe not hurt eachother a lot in the process?
Because I love you.
Because I love you, I know you love meand let's get through this together.
I'm always gonna come back to that.
I'm always gonna come back.
Even if It takes me a long time.
There's no difference between us.

(01:05:42):
Earlier in our conversationwhen you started talking about using your recovery or emotional sobriety in the writing process, you threw out the word detachment.
This song says detachment with love to me.
Oh,
a hundred percent.
Yeah.
I'll have to say that this songis like one of my favorite.
I always say that about everysong Katie writes, but but this song is like one song.

(01:06:05):
I'm like, I want all programpeople everywhere to hear this song, because it is life altering.
It's so catchy and hummable too.
But the meaning of it iswhat we all need to hear.
I'm so excited that this isa song she shows for this
Thank you, Karen.
I think you actually forcedme to choose this song.
I don't think I actually chose that,
Chose as a euphemism.

(01:06:27):
and I think I forced you to
choose amateur, so we'rejust such a good team.
There you go.
There you go.
Now it's time for some listenerfeedback, hearing your voices, your thoughts, your ideas, your experience, strength, and hope.

(01:06:52):
I'm gonna say something that I meantto say earlier, which is that I am going to be at the AA International Convention in Vancouver in July.
If you're listening and you're also goingto be there, hopefully we can meet up.
Send me an email so that we can exchangeinformation about who we really are, because that's the only way we can find each other while we're there.

Alison writes (01:07:17):
Hi.
My name is Alison and I've listenedto your podcast for a few years.
I'm responding from your request tohear from people in Al-Anon who live with those who don't drink or use drugs, but are not in any recovery.
At first, I felt out of place inthe program only because a lot of people in my meetings left their qualifiers, typically spouses.

(01:07:38):
Or their partners had AA recovery.
What did it say about me and mychoices that I chose to be married to someone I call a dry drunk?
I was addicted to feelingashamed of myself, and this was yet another opportunity.
There are a few stories in the literaturethat I found about being with a dry drunk, but a lot of daily readers kept saying phrases like, don't just do something,

(01:07:59):
stand there, or wait at least six monthsbefore you decide whether to leave a partner unless you're in immediate danger.
And of course there was the opening.
You can find happiness, whether thealcoholic is still drinking or not.
Al-Anon has helped me tounderstand that there is always something beneath the drinking.
My spouse would get blackout drunkand not remember any of the issues that it caused in our relationship.

(01:08:23):
Before I started recovery,I gave the ultimatum either quit drinking or I'm gone.
What I know now is that some alcoholicswill truly do the bare minimum to avoid the consequences of their actions.
In short, after my spouse quit, Iwas still furious, simmering with resentment well after the fact.
Years later, the pain from thedrinking days remained, and it was during the pandemic, sharing a house with a dry drunk that I realized my life was completely unmanageable.

(01:08:51):
I had hit bottom and wasready to throw my life away.
Then I attended my first meeting.
I came to Al-Anon right on time.
One thing I've heard is there's thedrunk and there's the crazy person.
After many years of initial blunt chopdetachment, then peeling more and more layers of my emotional onion, testing the waters of this thing called intimacy,

(01:09:15):
rereading Tian Dayton's books, workingsteps, and meeting with my sponsor, I see more and more the human, I married.
The veil of the disease I have withmy spouse can lift and there is the person who is terrified of many things, living his life the best he can.
Are there days when I feellike life could be so much more being with a person in recovery?

(01:09:37):
Of course.
I wish I didn't have to see himwhite knuckling it through life.
But here's the thing.
That's his journey.
And after all these years,I've stayed married.
I've staved off bitterness.
I've grown.
We are different people.
At the end of the day.
I could see many moments whenmy anger and tolerance and judgment made me a bad spouse too.

(01:09:57):
And sometimes I see we'rejust plain compatible.
I am emotionally deep, thoughtful,sober, and intentional.
I don't numb my way through life.
Although I can see why manypeople I love, do and must.
Otherwise, life is simplytoo unbearable for them.
Al-Anon had given me compassionthat I simply never had before.

(01:10:18):
One of the worst things I did wasmake my spouse my higher power before recovery, and once I realized that, it was a game changer.
This person, nor any human,can be my higher power.
My life, my happiness, my directionis up to me and a higher power.
At the end of the day, I don't regrettelling my spouse to quit or else I'm out, which again, I said before my recovery.

(01:10:43):
That, truly wouldn'thave worked for my life.
But being dry wasn't enough either for me.
I personally needed recovery to unravelthe wounds from those days so they didn't leak into today's conflicts, which sometimes they do, and I can truly say it's why I'm still married, at least for now, with a wink emoji.

(01:11:03):
Alison.
Thanks for writing Alison.
Thanks for sharing that.
I think I've said this before, butmy understanding is that really the drinking is a symptom of the underlying spiritual illness that is alcoholism.
We of course, wish that our lovedones can find full recovery, but sometimes that doesn't happen.

(01:11:28):
Kimberly sent a voice memo.
Hi Spencer.
I just wanted you to knowhow much I really appreciated the speaker about Mar-Anon.
My son spent four weeks in a mentalhealth facility due to cannabis psychosis.
A psychotic break is not somethingeasily recovered from, even after he was released from the hospital.
There was so much recovery that needed tohappen because of the drugs that they put him on and the trauma he had gone through.

(01:11:53):
He was unable to work for quite a while.
He didn't really know what hewanted to do with his life, and of course, his father and I were left holding the bill and the bag.
It was very hurtful that family, friends,and my Al-Anon friends couldn't believe that simple pot could have brought this on and that pot could be the cause.

(01:12:13):
I have never heard of Mar-Anon, but Iguarantee you it could have helped my husband and I. I'm certainly glad that this exists and I'm grateful that your podcast has brought it to our attention.
I. As pot becomes legal over the UnitedStates, I believe these problems will become more widespread and known.
My son went on to have one yearof being clean and then thought he could go back to smoking pot again and ended up in the same situation back in the mental health facility.

(01:12:39):
He's now one year clean for the secondtime, and this time he's been using the 12 step program Narcotics Anonymous.
I am and have been a gratefulmember of Al-Anon for many years.
The tools of the program were very helpfulto me going through this with my son.
However, I think there is somethingvery valuable being able to talk to people who really know what you're going through and can share their specific experience, strength, and hope.

(01:13:06):
Thanks Spencer, for all you do.
You really are making adifference in this world.
Thank you Kimberly.
I did forward your note to Bart,who was on the Mar-Anon episode.
We also got an email fromMarcelle about that same episode.
Dear Spencer and Bart, I just listenedto your March 13th, episode number four 30 talking about Mar-Anon.

(01:13:30):
It was wonderful to hear this episodeto learn about 12 step programs specifically for people who have loved ones with a marijuana abuse problem.
My qualifier is addicted to marijuanaand has been for our entire 20 year marriage, but I always thought it's just weed, just like your guest spoke of.
I didn't get much support from my friendsbecause they would say it's just weed.

(01:13:53):
They don't understand that anaddiction is an addiction no matter what you're addicted to.
It's the behavior, not thething you're addicted to.
My qualifier is addicted to marijuanaand had alcohol abuse issues too, and chose addiction over our marriage and our life together of 23 years.
It was hard to feel soisolated in my situation.

(01:14:15):
I began attending Al-Anon and easilyput marijuana abuser in place of alcoholic in the steps, readings, conference approved literature.
My Al-Anon family thankfully held mysituation in the same regard as if it were alcohol, never saying it's just weed.
I'm a year into recovery and so grateful.
Because of this episode, I amaware that there are online Mar-Anon meetings I can now attend.

(01:14:40):
Yes, the dispensary andstreet cannabis vapes.
Edibles are so much stronger.
People are getting addicted, but Ithink it's okay because it's just weed.
Thank you for shedding light forso many people who are feeling isolated in this kind of situation.
The episode is a gift.
I'm so very grateful for receiving it.
Thank you Marcelle, for writing,and again, I forwarded your email to Bart because he's the one who really deserves the thanks, for coming and talking about Mar-Anon.

(01:15:09):
Got, A letter from an anonymouslistener who writes, hi Spencer.
I'm new to Al-Anon and have found yourpodcast so helpful and comforting.
Thank you so much for all theenergy you pour into your podcast.
I wondered if you could do apodcast for parents of adult children who are alcoholics.
There are some uniquechallenges that we face.
You may have done this already andhave not discovered that episode yet.

(01:15:32):
Anonymous shares, I have a child withmental health issues who we suspect has substance abuse issues as well.
I have found support from my Al-Anonfamily to be so comforting and I am finding new ways of being in this world.
I would love to hear an episodefor parents, which deals with how to support adult children who struggle with addiction.
We want our child to feel lovedand supported, but we do not want to contribute to the illness.

(01:15:57):
When is it appropriate to helpthem financially and in what ways?
We are helping with medical bills, forinstance, and have offered some time limited financial support for basic needs.
How do we detach with love?
How do we set aside denial and addressthe elephant in the room with the adult child, siblings and spouses in ways that are helpful and avoid triangulation?

(01:16:18):
How to deal with challengesof family vacations.
How to respond to rageand abusive behavior.
How to navigate getting helpfor them when appropriate.
How do couples protect theirown relationship from the stress of navigating this relationship with a troubled adult child?
These are some of the manyquestions that we have.
It seems that many of your podcasts havefocused more on people in Al-Anon who have a partner who struggles with drinking.

(01:16:43):
I have found all of your episodesextremely helpful, and I can apply the wisdom to my own situation, but I think there's a tremendous need for guidance and support of parents in this situation as well.
Thank you for yourconsideration of this subject.
I responded by email to the listener.
There are several episodes that featureparents of alcoholics or addicts, and they are tagged with the term parent.

(01:17:06):
So if you go to the website, therecovery show, click on the search tab in the menu, at the top of the screen if you're on a computer.
It's the so-called hamburger menuif you're on a phone or a tablet.
And then on the search page, lookat the list of tag values and find parent and tap or click on that.

(01:17:31):
You will see four episodes on the firstpage of results that are conversations with people struggling with their adult children's alcoholism or addiction.
Specifically, we have episode 3 95, therelationship between Mother and Son, episode 3 55, A Son's Addiction, episode 3 22, Deborah C Hands Off, Pays Off, and 2 87 Mark and Michel's son is in prison.

(01:18:00):
Also, the recent episode number 4 29titled Grief and Relief with Eric, where he talks about some of the issues he's having with his adult daughter.
not tagged with parent,but maybe it should be.
Thanks for writing.
Thanks for the topic and I'm sure wecan always use more people sharing your experience, strength, and hope on this question of how to deal with the addiction, alcoholism of an adult child.

(01:18:33):
If you have addressed some of thequestions that our anonymous listener asked, please share them with us.
Send an email to feedback at the recoveryshow or sign up to record an episode.
Tania left a comment on episode4 25 titled Shortcomings and Self-Acceptance, step seven.

(01:18:56):
Tania writes this Step seven show cameat a perfect time in a perfect storm.
I found Mary's comment that fear is nota character defect, useful to remember.
If you ever wanna talk about rage,I would love to share my experience, strength, and hope on the topic.
I have struggled with impulsivityand rage my whole life as a woman.
This has been difficult.

(01:19:17):
I often used it as a badge ofhonor, and my friends often used me as their battling ram.
Yes, I managed to have friends.
The program has helped immensely.
But I would like to go deeper withyou, Spencer, on the topic of rage as I feel and see you as a kindred spirit.
Lastly, I loved yourrecognition of building your own self-esteem by being on time.
Thank you for your incredible serviceand to all who make it happen.

(01:19:42):
I wrote back to Tania and said, I wouldlove to do an episode on rage with you.
So we'll see.
Kim commented on episode 1 42, oldie,but goodie, I guess, love and alcoholism.
She writes, I would love tohear and understand more about detaching from an alcoholic spouse.
I understand loving the personbut not liking his actions.

(01:20:04):
However, how do I carry on in thisrelationship when our goals are so misaligned for our future together?
Also, I've made extreme efforts tounderstand addiction and alcoholism.
He does not understand what it'slike to be married to one, et cetera.
That's a tough situation, Kim, and notgiving advice here, but if you and your spouse really are that misaligned, maybe you're not meant to be together.

(01:20:30):
I don't know.
I carried on in my relationship withmy alcoholic wife only by practicing the tools and the principles of the Al-Anon program, working the steps, going to a lot of meetings.
Attending open AA meetings, becausethat's where I really learned about alcoholism, how it affects other people who are not my wife and who then I could more easily hear the message from.

(01:20:59):
In the end, I decided Idid wanna stay with her.
I decided that before she found her ownsobriety, I would not have been able to do that without having a couple of years in Al-Anon under my belt first, though.
Mary commented on episode4 29, grief and Relief.
She says your stories were helpful.

(01:21:20):
Thank you.
What struck me was loss of the dream.
I had such aspirations for my daughter.
She was so bright with promise, but asan adult, she formed this habit and now my a d is in end stage liver failure.
I'm not sure what a d addicted daughter.
Alcoholic daughter.
I also grieve that she chooses to not livethe remainder of her life focused on life.

(01:21:44):
It never occurred to me shewouldn't cherish what's left of her life and devote herself to living in health, once diagnosed.
But she's not me and she's an alcoholic.
I do realize I am not incontrol of her actions.
She may still be drinking.
She's relapsed several times andhas ended up nearly comatose in the hospital, suffering from hepatic encephalopathy, something like that.

(01:22:06):
Encephalopathy.
There we go.
I grieve that she's given up becauseshe knows that by staying sober for six months she could get on a transplant list.
She speaks of dying and seeingfriends one last time rather than believing in the possibility she could survive with a transplant.
So I am experiencing anticipatory griefand it is heart wrenching and brings it stress and anxiety for family.

(01:22:32):
I want to let go, let God, buthow can I let go when I have so little time left with her?
Al-Anon's directives slash suggestionsdon't always make sense to me, especially re the mother child bond.
Mary, I feel deeply foryou and your situation.
You might find episode 3 95, therelationship between mother and son or episode 3 55, a son's addiction helpful, in hearing the experience, strength of hope of a couple other people.

(01:23:03):
I have a friend whose loved onehad hepatic encephalopathy.
It was really scary.
Like really scary.
Apparently it scared him intoa new period of sobriety and he recently got a liver transplant.
But man, hearing the symptomsof that disease, just wow, did not want to go there.

(01:23:27):
I will put a link to a Cleveland Clinicarticle about hepatic encephalopathy.
If you have never heard theterming, you're curious.
or if you have run into it and wanna knowmore about it, that will be in the show notes at the recovery show slash 4 3 1.
Sherryn sent us a voice memowith pronunciation of the Maori words and phrases in the email she sent in episode four 14.

(01:23:58):
Kia ora Spencer and hellofrom Aotearoa, New Zealand.
You did a really good job ofattempting your pronunciation, so He pohū kererū, you should be proud.
In terms of the bit that you didn'twant to even attempt, Ngā mihi nui ki a koe i tō mahi pai ake, many thanks for you for your good work.

(01:24:18):
Always happy to speak Maori to peoplewho are interested in hearing it.
Kia pai tō rā!
Have a good day.
Thank you, Sherryn forthat pronunciation lesson.
I really appreciate it.
Pat sent a voice memo.
Hi Spencer, this is Patfrom the West Coast.
I'm calling about the recent episodewith Eric about grief and relief.

(01:24:41):
I know it just hurts my heart to hearhis voice so sad and dejected sounding.
He usually has so much joy evenwhen he is been in rough times.
I'm so sorry you're there, Eric.
Regarding grief, I have alot of thoughts about it.
For me right now, my griefis a longer time away.

(01:25:03):
I haven't had acute episodes ofgrief recently, but it's kind of like a big heavy train that even after you stop driving the engine, there's still all this momentum and it carries its way through life.
Grief is for the long haul, I think.
And I'll have events occur randomlythat remind me of people that I've lost or situations that I have grieved in the past and it does bring it up fresh.

(01:25:31):
I think there is just that simple.
If you're talking about tools in tinctureof time, just really helps with grief.
It's doesn't stay as acute.
But I find grief is reallytied up with regret.
For past actions with self recrimination.
It's tied up with a false sense of controlthat I had any control maybe over the choices that other people are making.

(01:25:58):
It was mentioned about that fantasylife and the grief that we have over unrealistic expectations of what our lives might have been like, or our children or spouses or whoever else.
And then trying to control them.
So looking at the tools, thethree Cs are very helpful to me.

(01:26:19):
Putting it in perspective is very helpful.
When I fall back to blaming myself,castigating myself for what I was as a parent or as a spouse or as a daughter, it's really important for me to look at what was my part in it.
Doing a step four on individual issues.

(01:26:42):
We haven't mentioned this ina long time on the podcast.
That is such a useful tool.
To sit down with a sponsor and really lookat it and say, what was my part in it?
Did I have a part in this?
And even if I did, what do Iwanna do differently next time?
And giving ourselves the grace of beinga learning human being is so important.

(01:27:05):
The other thing that struck me when I waslistening to the episode a second time is Eric mentioned being right back at step one and the beauty of Al-Anon is that once
you've gone through those steps, I findthat when I fall back to step one, moving forward again, using the program tools.

(01:27:26):
I've been there before.
I know what that path of recovery islike for me to look at a situation or something that was challenging.
It's easier, it's faster, it's smoother.
I have some knowledge and somewisdom that I've gained over the time and I know myself better.
I'm more readily able tobe honest with myself.

(01:27:49):
And it just makes thatresolution a lot easier for me.
So those are the things I wasthinking about around grief.
And then interestingly, thisreally ties in with some episodes you've done in the last few months about retirement, and aging.
And while I'm not at retirementyet, I've made a couple big choices.

(01:28:10):
One of the most important probably isto shred all of my old Al-Anon journals.
That sounds pretty harsh, but at thesame time, those were written for me.
I have faith that I rememberthe lessons learned.
That if I don't remember what was writtenthere or what a aha moment I had, at some point in time I can go ahead and learn it again and I'll learn it faster.

(01:28:34):
But I don't want the people that Ilove to read those and misinterpret them or become hurt by them.
I have gone through and taken everysingle shred of any Al-Anon journaling.
There's no historical data therethat's of value and I'm shredding that.
The other thing is that I've beenprocessing my photos and going through, and they were all over the place and photo albums and loose and in packets.

(01:29:01):
And so I've gone through and I've lookedat all of them and I've put them into chronological order and thrown out the ones I didn't think I wanted to digitize.
That has been a very joyful process.
It's also been painful because of courseI am seeing pictures of my first husband.
When we were a young couple and very muchin love and when we had young children and were really enjoying our life together.

(01:29:26):
Before that demon alcohol got ahold ofhim and he was dancing with that gorilla and he never made it out of the cage.
That gorilla just danced him to death.
So there you go.
There's still grief there.
It's been years.
And that's okay.
It's okay.
And in some ways it's reallyreassuring that I can remember the good times and that I can still be sad that he had the life he had and that he died the way he did.

(01:29:53):
So that's even I smile as Iget a little choked up here.
So there you go.
Little bittersweet as I worktowards my aging and my retirement, I have a few more years.
Thank you so much for all of your work.
Both Eric and Spencer.
And Eric.
My heart is with you and I wishfor you good Al-Anon journeys around this very difficult time.

(01:30:20):
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Thank you, Pat, for sharing thatexperience, strength, and hope.
I don't have anything to add to it.
Thanks.
I had some correspondence with Kathie.
She had found a daily reader, titledIf You Leave Me, Can I Come With You?
Subtitle is Daily Meditationsfor Codependents and Al-Anons, parentheses with a sense of humor.

(01:30:44):
The author is one Misti B and Karenthought, maybe it's that same Misti who was on episode 4 27 about cutting contact.
I wrote to Misti andsaid, Hey, is this you?
And she said, no, it's not.
It's a different Misti.
It is a wonderful book, which givesme a daily dose of recovery principles with a little bit of a chuckle or sometimes even a full laugh.

(01:31:10):
With the book, Kathie . Wrotea very nice note on a card.
The card on the front says gratitudechanges everything, and it has a little ribbon and a bow like it's a gift, which you know it is.
So thank you again, Kathie.
She writes, dear Spencer, I wantto express my deep gratitude for all the work and content you put into the recovery show.

(01:31:32):
When I first came intoAl-Anon, I was angry and lost.
I was convinced I wouldn't stick around.
I. Walking away has always beenone of my character defects.
At the time I knew I needed toleave my alcoholic boyfriend.
I kept hearing the phrase,detach with love in meanings.
I was completelyperplexed by this concept.

(01:31:52):
That curiosity led me down a Google rabbithole, which is how I found your podcast.
I ended up hearingexactly what I needed too.
You and your guests.
I would guess, Eric, helped me understandwhat detach with love truly meant.
From that point on your episodes becamea daily part of my long commute to work.

(01:32:12):
One episode led toanother and then another.
All while I continued going to meetings.
Slowly I started to get it.
Now, four years later, I'm still here.
I. I've worked throughthe steps with my sponsor.
I have sponsees of my ownand am active in service.
I love my Al-Anon circle of friends,and I truly love this new way of life.

(01:32:34):
My life isn't perfect, but I knowI can get through anything with my higher power and my program.
I can't thank you enough for being therefor me in those crucial early days.
I'm sure you've helped morepeople than you can even imagine.
I am forever grateful foryou and all of your guests.

(01:32:54):
In Love in Program, Kathie.
Thank you for the book and thankyou for that lovely note, Kathie.
Katie and Karen, I wanna thankyou for this conversation today.
This has been just so much fun.
I'm sure that there are people outthere who are gonna get so much from your experience, strength, and hope that you shared here today.

(01:33:17):
Thank you for having us.
This
Such a treat, a dream cometrue, really honestly.
Before you go, is there anythingof yours that you wanna talk about?
Promote?
You've got a podcast, which I don'tthink we said the name of earlier.
Yes, it's, Supernova Support and youcan find us on Apple Podcasts, Spotify.

(01:33:41):
We also have a Substack, whichis our home base right now while our website's getting created.
So if you put in substackSupernova Support.
Karen is an amazing writer, not onlysongwriter, but writer in general.
And she's writes thesebeautiful posts for us.
We also post some very silly videos of us.

(01:34:04):
The podcast, we are on a little bitof a break, but we'll be getting back into our second season soon.
There are eight episodesthat people can listen to
But the song salons though, is somethingwe could say because they're online.
We have these song salonsthat are so much fun.
if you're a songwriter, but evenif you're not a songwriter, just you're just interested in it.
Or if you're thinking about writing songs.

(01:34:25):
If you go on that substack, it'llhave a link to our song salons where you come and you bring a song.
You can either share like an MPthree or you can even play it live.
And we do this process that we do, whichis really just strength-based feedback.
And if you have questionsand things, we'll work on it too, a little bit with you.
it's delightful.
We have so much fun and we leavefeeling like new life, for our songs that we thought maybe weren't that worthwhile and we come back.

(01:34:50):
What?
They're amazing and, we feel mutuallyencouraged and supported and so we'd love to have anyone there 'cause it's online can be from anywhere.
Cool.
I will have links in the show notesat the recovery dot show slash 4 3 1.
Yeah.
To the substack, to the podcast.
The podcast on probably Apple and Spotify.

(01:35:11):
I'll have those links.
Thank you so much.
You know, I was gonna leave it atyou guys each brought one song, but then you're like, here's a couple of songs that we like
that,
I know I I couldn't help, butI was thinking about it on the way over because I was like, oh,
everyone recommends songs,
go for it.
You and, okay, so here's the thing.

(01:35:32):
I usually put links or videos.
If we have videos, which I think wedon't for your two songs, right Yeah.
Okay, that's fine.
Anyway, tell us about the song that,you wanted to, promote or whatever here.
Yeah.
the song that just came to me whileI was driving over to Karen's, is the song Hurricane by Brandy Carlisle.
First of all, just musically,it's a really stunning song.

(01:35:53):
Brilliant three part Harmony.
It speaks to someone's experience withdealing with someone in addiction.
The line that is the killer is youcan dance in a hurricane, but only if you're standing in the eye.
It just speaks to thechaos and the heartbreak.
that comes when you're in thatpush and pull of that dynamic.

(01:36:15):
It's just a gorgeous song.
Her voice is so crazy.
And the twins who are in her band,their harmonies are flawless.
So musically it's a masterpiece.
And then the message really resonateswith what we're talking about.
Oh, yeah, I think it is called The Eye.
I don't think it's called hurricane.
It was a song that we used to cover,and I am a very emotional person and would oftentimes in rehearsal, not be able to get through it.

(01:36:39):
And I was like singing the melody,so I kinda had to, so I also have that special connection to it, that it was just a song that we sang.
And, it, it's a brilliant tune.
Sometimes I don't knowhow you guys do that,
Yeah,
it's challenging.
All right.
thank you again.
Oh, Thank you, Spencer.

(01:37:00):
you.
thank you for listening andplease keep coming back.
Whatever your problems, there arethose among us who have had them too.
If we did not talk about a problemyou're facing today, feel free to contact us so that we can talk about it in a future episode.
May understanding, love and peacegrow in you one day at a time.