January 19, 2024 • 56 mins
Hello listeners and welcome back to Strength in Recovery! We are kicking off the third season with guest Jane Termyna, Certified Life & Spirituality Coach specializing in grief. In this episode, we talk about the importance of grieving - whether it's for a loved one, a relationship, or a substance. Jane walks us through the six myths of grief and let's us know that it's okay to feel. This is an episode you won't want to miss - start 2024 with us in a BIG way by listening now!
Join us on strengthinrecovery.com or wherever you get your podcasts!
*The views and opinions expressed by the guests of this podcast should not be considered medical or treatment advice. Need treatment? Call 1-833-RCAALUM today. Looking for support? Visit www.rcaalumni.com.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Hello listeners, welcome to the first episode of 2024 of the Strength and Recovery podcast
(00:24):
sponsored by Recovery Centers of America.
I'm your host, Jay Rodenbush, director of alumni engagement at RCA.
And I'm sitting down today with Jane Termina.
She is our alumni coordinator from our Monroeville, Pennsylvania location.
It's located right outside of Pittsburgh, a beautiful facility.
(00:45):
And she serves as the alumni coordinator.
She has a long list of qualifications, but she's a life coach and life and spirituality
coach.
And she specializes in grief.
And I just thought, what better way to start our new season and to start 2024 with really
(01:06):
talking about some of the deeper issues that people experience that kind of couple or go
along with substance use disorder.
And often we find that grief and substance use go hand in hand and not dealing with the
grief or not knowing how to handle grief, not knowing how to grieve.
(01:31):
Can I say that, Jane?
Is that?
Yeah, absolutely.
Is problematic for a lot of people.
For a lot of people.
So why don't you just introduce yourself?
I know you've done some study.
The Columbia University has a series on complicated grief treatment.
So you're really experienced in this area.
And when I visited Monroeville and sat in on your groups, especially the grief group,
(01:56):
and I found it fascinating in how you present the different aspects of grief have been so
helpful for our patients.
So thank you very much.
And we're just really excited to hear from you today.
No, you're welcome.
I'm happy to be here.
It's good information.
And I think that in our Western culture specifically in America, grief and loss are not part of
(02:25):
the daily conversation.
There's a lot of places in the world where loss is part of life and they really incorporate
it.
I think that a really great example of that is the Mexican culture.
They have the day of the dead where people come together to try to connect with and stay
connected to their loved ones who have died before them.
(02:47):
So that is a celebration of let's present our loved ones who we are remembering very
fondly today with their favorite flowers and their favorite food and let's sing and dance
and try to incorporate them back into our lives.
It's a really wonderful tradition that other cultures do.
But in America, a lot of people don't even want to broach the subject that they are going
(03:11):
to die or things around them are going to die, whether it's pets or trees or people,
there's grief around all kinds of things.
I do like presenting this information to the recovery population because the way that you
need to manage yourself through a profound grief experience is really similar to the
(03:35):
kinds of ways that you manage your recovery.
The changes of people, places and things and the actual grieving, the loss of their substance.
That's a real thing because the substance, whether it's alcohol or drugs or food or gambling
becomes part of your life and there's a really specific relationship that people have with
(04:00):
their substance.
So that breakup, grieving a breakup is a real thing.
We try to correlate all that stuff together so that people know that's a natural process.
So I think that's such an important point.
So even though this is the right thing to do, you're giving up that substance, maybe
(04:22):
the temporary pleasure it brought, the rituals that people put around the use, all of those
things.
I'm sitting here and I'm sure many people are sitting with their cup of coffee.
If you told me that I could never have another coffee, I would miss holding the cup.
(04:42):
I would miss the sound of the percolator in the morning and all of those things.
The cup and the warmth and the ritual of this is how I do my additives, whether it's cream
or sugar, all of those things.
It's part of it's a really part of your day.
Be black for me, just a black cup of coffee.
(05:03):
You know, holding your black cup of coffee and the warmth of the cup and how it smells
and the chair that you sit in and your favorite mug, all of those things, if they took that
away from you, you have a relationship with that cup of coffee.
And if you had to break it for whatever reason, you would be sad.
So even though, and we can correlate that to even any kind of relationship, whether
(05:24):
it's a romantic relationship or a friend relationship, if there is a breakup that way and even though
it's for the best, it's still a big part of your life that you have to let go.
And there are, yeah.
I guess what I hear you saying is we're expanding our definition of what grief is.
When you hear the word grief, you think someone died.
(05:46):
Right.
But there's an expanded definition and that's where I think you're able to sit down with
patients and say, you know, what are these emotions and how are they connected to this
act that we all go through, which is grief.
Right.
(06:06):
Yeah, because grief comes from loss.
Loss are people for sure, but there's a myriad of things that people lose.
They lose, you know, empty nesters, you know, women especially who have always nurtured
a family.
And now the family has left the nest.
They've left home.
They're off living their own lives.
It leaves a void for a lot of people.
(06:29):
And that's an example of grief as well.
So we call that disenfranchised grief, the grief that people may not be able to see and
society doesn't recognize as major.
That doesn't mean it's not major to you.
So we talk about those kinds of things too.
And today I asked you to talk about, I've heard you give the presentation and it's just
so, so good and really Jane is a phenomenal group facilitator.
(06:55):
And that's an important experience in our treatment centers is being able to meet with
our group facilitators and talk about different topics and how they relate to recovery and
how they relate to mental health.
And Jane does a group on the seven myths of grief.
(07:15):
And so I just thought that would be a great framework for our conversation today.
And so I'm going to let you launch into that.
And I'm sure if you don't mind me interrupting from time to time and asking questions because
I'm naturally curious.
And maybe before, just can you tell me how much does grief, and I know we use the expanded
(07:41):
definition, but grief as in the traumatic loss of a person really, how often do you feel
like that pops up with patients or with people with substance use disorder?
I don't have a percentage, but it's often.
I will say that as people are coming through the program, therapists will reach out to me
(08:04):
fairly often to say that their husband died or their mother died 20 years ago, or it was
a recent loss.
And depending on the amount of time that has gone by, I will approach it in a different
way.
When we have fresh loss, when something is within 12 to 18 months, it's a different kind
(08:30):
of healing that typically happens.
But if it's long ago and it's complicated because it's been buried for a while under
a substance, that's when we have to do a little bit of extra digging to get it out of there.
But it's pretty often.
I don't have a number, but it's definitely pretty often.
I'll say that for the, and I'm just going to, we can go back and do this again, but
(08:55):
it's the sixth major myth of grief, not seven that I have today.
I have more.
Oh, okay.
The sixth major program is six.
We may throw in a couple of ourselves.
I have several, but this specific program is just for the sixth.
I even wrote six down.
(09:21):
For today, from the grief recovery method, which people can freely access online, but
the grief recovery method introduces six major myths of grief, and we can go through those
pretty quickly.
I think that they're going to sound common to people.
I think so.
(09:41):
Grief is the natural response to loss.
It is not a diagnosis.
Grief is not a diagnosis.
It's a verb.
It's something that you have to do.
Since it's not a diagnosis, you really can't medicate yourself through it.
I love that.
Yeah, you have to do grief.
Grief is a verb without question.
(10:02):
Because I, you know, and I ask the patients and I ask people that I know, if you've tried
to medicate yourself through grief, what happens is it just sits there waiting for you.
It doesn't go away.
So when you sober up, or if you're doing something else to try to avoid it, whether you're working
too much or distracting yourself somehow when you wake up the next day, it's still there.
(10:29):
And it's something that is supposed to be felt.
It's not something that we're supposed to just put in a box and put away on a shelf,
you know?
So when we talk about the major myths of grief, myth number one is not to feel bad.
So when we talk about don't feel bad, we're talking about not acknowledging the feeling.
(10:52):
So this will actually, this myth comes into play with relationships or with substance
for sure.
If I tell you, you know, don't feel bad about losing something, that's heartbreaking because
I can't judge what someone else's loss is compared to mine.
And I will share that, I've taken grief on because my only child died in a car accident
(11:17):
in 2015.
So I do have a profound understanding of how painful it is to have your heart ripped out
of your chest, you know?
That being said, I can't compare my loss to someone who has lost their favorite pet.
Maybe that's the hardest thing that they've had to do to date, and that pain is real.
(11:38):
We have to meet people where their pain is so that we can teach them how to feel it in
healthier ways as opposed to medicating ourselves through it, which is what I see a lot in treatment.
So when we talk about...
Yeah, go ahead.
I think having gone through the grief process myself in different ways, people want to cheer
(11:59):
you up, right?
Right.
Like, and there's this need that people need you to be happy.
Like, are you okay now?
Are you okay?
Like...
Yeah.
And I think that goes to not only do we not want to feel bad and maybe the loss, you know,
maybe it's someone's end to suffering, maybe it is, you know, we know it's for the best,
(12:22):
but we still feel sad.
We still mourn.
We still have these acts of grief.
Absolutely.
Like I said.
Yeah.
And especially as children go through grief, we think if we can just cheer them up, make
them feel better, take them to Disneyland and it really...
(12:44):
That's part of the medicating or trying to numb.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
So the example that they give, I'll just read a little blurb and play off of that, is
that, you know, as young children, we're teaching them not to feel bad.
So the example they give is when, let's say a child is on the playground and someone is
(13:07):
mean to them for whatever reason and the child comes home from school and any caretaker,
the mom, the dad, the grandma, whoever's in charge of caring for that child that day,
sees the child upset and says, what's happened?
And the kid says, so and so was mean to me today and they're in their feels about it.
And caretaker will say, oh, here, have a cookie, you'll feel better.
(13:30):
So we're trying to mask it with sugar as children are small and we're not giving them a chance
to run through the entire emotion to its completion.
It's cut off by the cookie.
So then when they circle back around to it because that's what your body will do and
that's what your mind will do, I've not resolved this yet.
And the caretaker will say, oh, that's over.
(13:52):
You know, we're moving past that.
Have another cookie.
So on top of not being taught to let your emotions flow through to their completion,
we're also teaching them that there is an escape route.
So even though the child feels different, they don't feel better.
So when we talk about not feeling bad and not teaching our children to embrace disappointment
(14:17):
and hurt and anger and sadness, we're not setting them up for the rest of their lives,
not being able to manage their emotions.
So as time goes by, they're always going to look for something else to kind of mask what
they're feeling when as human beings we're designed to be able to withstand all of these
things.
(14:38):
So let's not, you know, America has a really, a really great way of wanting everybody to
be happy all the time.
And that's happy is not a state of being.
We are human people who have been given the all of the emotions, the entire range of emotions,
and we're supposed to experience them all for good, bad, or ugly.
(14:59):
It's just part of what we do.
And when we deny our being the ability to experience all emotions, that's when we may
get into trouble later in life, when we have access to things that are not as healthy or
not as good to, you know, to self-soothe.
We kind of hijack that reward system and say, then when I'm feeling bad or when I go to
(15:21):
these emotions, I need.
Yes.
I need something.
And you don't need something.
Or I get, right?
Maybe it's not even I need.
Maybe that I get.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's the danger zone for sure.
I had a patient one time say to me, so I'm just supposed to let them be unhappy.
And I said, yes, you are supposed to let them be unhappy and teach them how to be unhappy.
(15:46):
Because when children are out of our care, when they're adults, when they are teenagers
and they're out in the world, the rest of the world is not going to look at them and
go, oh, but it's Jane.
It's okay.
We'll, we'll just give her what she needs to make her happy.
That's not what happens.
And when, when we as adults or we as teenagers are butt up against the world then and we're
(16:06):
not getting our way, we don't know what to do.
And honestly, what we just have to do is kind of circle back around and feel the emotion,
let it play out.
And it's, it's different on the other side and it's, and it's healthier.
And I think in, in playing that out further as the caregiver, being able to show your
(16:27):
own unhappiness, not that we always want to be sad for our kids, but you know, when you're,
I've lost two moms in a very short amount of time.
And you know, to be able to sit with the kids and say, yeah, today's a really rough day.
I'm really, you know, we were doing Christmas shopping and we walked through them all.
(16:50):
And my daughter looks at me and she goes, you're missing mom, aren't you?
And I said, you know what I am.
And we were able to have a nice conversation.
She recognized that in somewhere I should have been really happy.
I was feeling a certain sort of way and we had a really nice moment, which was also powerful.
(17:11):
So I think teaching your kids that it's okay to grief, that, that that's part of grief.
That sadness, that loss, that not being on top of the world.
There's going to be days we're not on top of the world.
That's just helps the life cycle.
It's what we do.
(17:31):
So when we talk about not feeling bad, you gave a good example earlier, what if someone
has, you know, really lived out their life, they're 98 years old and they're getting to
a place where they're excused from being.
Just because it was an appropriate and natural end to a life, that doesn't mean you're not
going to miss people.
(17:51):
You're allowed to still be sad about that.
When you have a breakup that you know is, that is appropriate for your mental health
or for your being, but you've still invested a lot of time, you can still be sad about
that even though it's for the best.
You don't have to be happy that you're getting divorced because you don't like the person
anymore.
You can still retreat and go, wow, but all of that time or all of those experiences,
(18:14):
you're allowed to grieve the loss of that and still move forward.
It's okay.
So it's so good.
Yeah.
So all right, we got to get back to our list.
Yes.
All right.
So myth number two is replacing the loss.
We give examples of, you know, this kind of goes hand in hand with don't feel bad.
(18:35):
That what, you know, so if you are replacing a loss, if this happens a lot with pets, right?
So I've not completely gone through the loss of the dog or the cat or the fish or whatever
creature was making your life super happy and thinking that you can just replace the
loss with another pet.
(18:55):
Sometimes that stacks up and it doesn't, and it doesn't play out well.
So when we do that with children, thinking that they can just replace losses, that becomes
a problem as you're growing.
And a lot of times I refer to the children because that's kind of where we get our programming
for how we conquer and how we deal with things that are uncomfortable.
So that kind of starts that way.
(19:16):
And don't you think in people's efforts to make you feel better, they say really stupid
things, right?
Can we just call it, call it as made as made?
They're trying.
It's okay.
Everybody just wants you to feel better.
And that's because when you have not learned to resolve your own emotions, when you see
(19:37):
other people who are emotional, it is hard for you because people tend to take on what
other people are feeling.
And I always tell everybody, you cannot feel other people's feelings for them.
You cannot process grief for someone else.
You cannot process disappointment for someone else.
You have to give them the tools and the ability and the pleasure of doing it on your own because
(20:01):
that's how you're going to learn.
And that's why I think people want to tamp that down, especially parents.
We don't want to see our beloved cherubs feel badly about anything, but it's our job to
help them learn how to feel angry and how to feel sad.
But you've heard people say, oh, well, you know, there's more fish in the sea.
Like if it and related to a breakup or God forbid, you know, somebody loses a child and
(20:29):
they say, well, you can have more chance.
And the pain in that moment, and I think you're right, having compassion for that person because
maybe you're recognizing they haven't experienced it themselves.
Yeah.
Or they've experienced it and they've not been able to process it in a good way.
(20:50):
So it's making them feel it again.
And so feelings are feelings.
They're not thinking.
You cannot think your way out of grief and reason it.
So when we, yeah.
So when we talk about replacing losses that really comes in with relationships, as you
mentioned, there's more fish in the sea.
I'll just get another boyfriend.
I miss this person.
(21:11):
So I'm going to replace them with somebody else because I think I need somebody around.
And what happens is, especially in relationships, when we replace losses with relationships
and we have not gone through the entirety of the emotion that is involved with a breakup
loss.
We are compounding all of the things that we experienced.
(21:34):
So that means that when we take on another relationship and we've not resolved the emotion
that was with the first one, we're bringing the emotion of the first one that has not
been rectified into the next relationship.
The example that I give a lot in groups is have you been on the receiving end of someone
who is bringing the ghost of a past relationship into the relationship that you are in?
(21:58):
Are you looking for the behaviors of the other person in this one?
And that is actually going to cancel out your ability to be open and vulnerable with the
person you are currently with.
50% of marriages and in divorce probably because they have not resolved prior relationships
because most people do not marry their first love.
(22:20):
So if you've not gone through all of your feels about a breakup, then you're bringing
all of that baggage into the next relationship.
And if 50% of those marriages end in divorce and then we replace that loss and get married
again, 75% of relationships don't work out that way either because now you have two layers
(22:43):
of baggage that you've not dealt with.
So replacing the loss can really be a problem.
It just compounds all of the negative feelings or all of the difficult feelings.
I don't want to say they're negative because they're there to help you.
All of our feelings are there to help us.
They may be uncomfortable, but they're not negative.
They're there for really specific reasons to help us figure out who we are, how we feel
(23:04):
about the world, where we need to apply our boundaries moving forward.
There's a lot of really great information in heartache for sure.
And I think having that expanded definition of grief and doing this work relate that back
again to recovery process when someone doesn't do the work and relationships and unhealthy
(23:30):
relationships can be a real trigger and a real part of active addiction.
Yeah, and it actually plays a big part in relapse for sure and slip-ups because if you
are not accustomed to feeling the pain of emotional loss and emotional hurt, that's
(23:54):
when we get into trouble and if it's buried, your body remembers and your body's going
to find a way to bring it up for you.
And if you are not familiar with what it feels like, you're going to look to medicate yourself,
whether it's with alcohol or drugs or food.
So replacing the loss and not feeling bad kind of go hand in hand with this because
(24:19):
when we start feeling bad because of a breakup or because of whatever, we try to either get
something else to replace it or tamp it down because we're not supposed to feel bad.
Those things go hand in hand and especially in recovery because if you've not learned
how to feel uncomfortable with the emotion that arises that is there to teach you something
(24:41):
about the world and yourself, you try to medicate yourself through it.
We hear a lot the phrase becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Yes, and this is exactly what we're talking about.
Putting yourself, allowing yourself to be in uncomfortable circumstances.
I know often people want to get involved or want to come tell their story and they're
(25:07):
like, I'm so uncomfortable with public speaking, but I'm trying to allow myself to become comfortable
with those things that are uncomfortable.
And sometimes it's just having a good conversation with somebody that you trust, someone that
has earned your vulnerability.
When you have these conversations, whatever that thing is that's driving you crazy inside,
(25:28):
once you say it out loud and give it a name or speak of it, it loses its power over you.
So that's why the meetings are so important and that brings us to myth number three is
grieving alone.
We're not to grieve alone.
We are a communal tribal being and we're supposed to do everything together.
This is really one that does hit home with the recovery community because this is very
(25:52):
similar.
When people start to isolate, that's when we get into trouble.
We get a little heady.
We get too much in of our thoughts when we don't have anyone to speak to because either
we don't feel like they're going to understand or it's unrelatable or it's embarrassing.
I've had people say, my mom died 20 years ago.
I should be over this by now.
(26:13):
And that's not how it works.
I will say to the groups, my son died in 2015.
When is the appropriate time for me to be over it?
And everybody says you'll never get over it.
And I said, that's exactly right and neither will you.
What we try to do is learn how to manage how we feel about it and how to incorporate our
(26:33):
losses into our story because they're really important.
Our losses are how we become who we are.
Our losses are what we represent of the person that has gone.
So we are the legacy, whether they are our contemporaries, whether they are our parents,
(26:56):
whether they are our children, how we grieve is our legacy for that person.
So how well are we representing our grief to show the love because the amount of grief
equals the amount of love?
So how are we showing the world what this person meant to us?
If I decided at some point to sit in a corner with a bottle of Tito's, that's not serving
(27:19):
Michael's memory at all.
And that's not serving your loved one's memory either.
So how would you like that person to be remembered through you?
Let's work on that.
So grieving alone is a big, big problem.
And I'm seeing a lot of this happen in society now because there's a trend for people not
to have funerals.
(27:40):
Big trend.
I don't want you to spend the money.
I don't want people looking at me in the box.
I don't want the attention, those kinds of things.
Whether you want that or not, people are still going to agree for you.
And by science, we know that when the rituals begin, when the funerals begin, that's when
your brain starts to recognize that this is real.
(28:01):
When you gather, when people come together, when you are given an opportunity to hear
about how much someone liked your loved one, or you're able to receive a hug that day,
whether you're standing at the box or you're not standing at the box, however it goes,
there's a void that comes into play when people are not given an opportunity to love
(28:23):
on you when someone has died.
So grieving alone becomes a problem if you're not able to express what's happening for you,
because then that's what gets buried inside.
That's when people say, oh, it's been this amount of time and you're not over it by now,
all of those kinds of things.
There's a difference between isolation and solitude.
(28:46):
I personally am a big fan of solitude.
I love my alone time.
That's when I can reflect.
That's when I can rest.
That's when I can participate in self-care.
Isolation is when you're choosing to stay out of society because you don't want to talk
about it because you're going to self-medicate because you're going to ruminate and how awful
(29:09):
you feel.
That's isolation.
I love that distinction between isolation and solitude.
I think that is a really important point because I too, I was the youngest child by a long
shot.
I grew up with a lot of alone time.
(29:30):
I kind of crave that as part of my, and thankfully my family is used to that.
My husband was an only child, so he has his own sense of solitude, but not allowing that
to come into isolation and removing yourself from society and all of the things and social
(29:53):
obligations.
As a means of, it's one thing, we talked in other episodes about it's okay to say no,
it's okay to, and for that to be enough, you don't have to say yes to every social engagement.
It's okay to have boundaries, but when you find yourself avoiding, you at least need
(30:17):
to ask why.
That's why meetings are so important.
That's why we tell people to stay connection.
The opposite of addiction is connection.
This is a really great opportunity for you to learn that it is okay to speak up, to say
how you feel, and this is how it applies to recovery, get to the rooms, get to the meetings,
(30:41):
get online, just listen.
A lot of times if you're just listening, you're going to hear something similar to what you're
going through or have gone through and you won't feel alone.
These are the things that we have to really, even though it's painful to say things out
loud, a lot of times I will say that it gets stuck in my throat and it comes out my eyes.
(31:03):
Sometimes I can freely speak up, Michael, but for me, sometimes it gets stuck in my
throat and it comes out my eyes.
I think that everybody relates to that because there's all kinds of times when you're speaking
of something and all of a sudden it gets stuck and you can feel it coming.
In that early grief period, I think that's what people are afraid of.
Am I going to be able to keep my emotions in check?
(31:30):
You don't have to.
It's not a part of it.
What's number four?
Number four is my favorite one, the time heals all wounds.
If time healed all wounds, we would all be fine, wouldn't we?
But that's not how it works.
It's the work you do in the time.
(31:52):
When I am in a situation where I am comforting or aware of someone who has had a big loss,
I never say give it some time.
I always say, this is going to take some work, but you can do it.
The work is just feeling badly.
The work is allowing yourself to feel sad.
(32:15):
The work is allowing your body to receive all of the things that people have to offer
when they're trying to comfort you.
All of the things that people have to offer, whether it's food or some people will provide
cash if you're strapped for some reason, there's donations, all the things that people have
(32:39):
to offer.
Sometimes when you're on the receiving end of love, it's foreign because people don't
know how to do that.
But that's where the work is.
It's not time.
It's the ability to sit with your emotions about it and let them run their complete course.
I think this is an important thing to remember in recovery, too, is that a lot of times people
(33:05):
who are not familiar with addiction or how it impacts a person, that this could be a
lifelong or it is a lifelong part of someone's journey.
And so getting, whether they come to us for 30 days, hopefully they'll continue in treatment
(33:29):
and do our outpatient because we know the longer people stay in treatment, the better
success rates they have.
And they go through the process, they go to meetings.
Maybe they do start feeling better a year and two years in.
And maybe all of a sudden thoughts come up and it's like, wait a minute, but I had this
much time.
I should.
(33:50):
Yeah, it's the work over it.
Yeah, it's the work you do in the time and that specifically can translate back to being
in recovery as well.
It doesn't matter how long you went to treatment.
If you were sitting in treatment like it was a resort, not a rehab, and you weren't doing
the work, then you're not going to get better.
(34:12):
So the longer that you, the longer you stay in something, if you're not doing the work,
you're coming out just the same.
And it happens a lot, I think, as you go through life, if you're not doing it.
So let me go back.
I also tell the patients the definition of cheating is not doing the work.
(34:35):
Whether you are taking a test because you didn't study, you're cheating, right?
You didn't do the work.
If you're in a relationship and you cheat on your significant other, that's because
if you were uncomfortable, you weren't doing the work with your partner to make sure that
you guys were in a healthier state.
If you're cheating on your diet, you're not doing the work.
(34:58):
So cheating is just not doing the work.
Cheating in grief is not doing the work as well.
And honestly, when it just comes back to you have to let yourself feel bad about it.
And that's normal and natural and honoring and all of the things that we need to do.
There's still some cultures, I think, that will wear the black armband when someone is
(35:19):
in mourning.
I kind of wish that we would do that again because it would be nice to not just look
at someone with maybe not the happiest look on their face and go, hey, why aren't you
smiling?
Because that's sometimes offensive to people.
Maybe they're going through something that's really, really awful.
And it would be nice if we had some kind of signal.
(35:40):
When Michael did, I remember going to the store thinking, can people tell by looking
at me that I am not in a good way right now?
But there was no way for people to know.
And I think it would be kind if you had some kind of signification where people would just
kind of back off because you were working on something.
Like that would be really great.
But so when we talk about time healing all wounds, just know that that is not a thing.
(36:05):
It's the work you do in the time and the work you do is allowing yourself to feel the pain
bottom line.
Yeah.
So good.
All right.
We're on number five.
Okay.
So number five is being strong for others.
That we can get into a lot of trouble with that.
There is a reflex that kind of kicks in when we have to tend to the events surrounding
(36:33):
a death specifically.
We have to get with the funeral home.
We have to maybe pick readings for a ceremony.
We have to arrange for a luncheon if you don't have help with that.
There are tasks that need to be done around ceremony and around ritual.
And people will say, wow, she looks like she's doing really well up there.
She's not curled up in a ball and crying.
(36:56):
There's a mechanism that comes up that allows you to get through the days.
What happens sometimes is people don't circle back around to the pain.
So after events are over, after people stop sending chicken to your house, after everybody's
gone home and you're on your own a couple weeks later, that's when the work starts.
(37:18):
And just because all of those things are over and you performed them well, that doesn't
stop the pain from coming.
Right?
So, you know, my mom just died in October.
So I'm still floating around through all of those things and I'm really adhering to what
I need to do to self-soothe, to put myself in a place where I'm able to acknowledge my
(37:39):
mom's passing in a healthy way without having to power through because, well, that was three
months ago, so I should be fine by now.
That's not how it works, right?
We talked about that.
Or, you know, maybe other people are having their outward grief expression.
And so in those moments, you're the strong one.
(38:02):
And, you know, well, I need to be strong for my kids or I need to be strong, you know,
and I think this happens to the loved ones when, you know, it can happen.
Let's say when you have someone in treatment, maybe the spouse is like, well, this affected
(38:22):
the whole family.
I've got to be strong.
And they have grief.
There's loss.
There's about the relationship, how this person is responding to substance.
There's emotion there.
But they're never dealing with it, you know, as their loved one is getting well.
(38:42):
So making sure the whole family unit is considered in the grief process is considered in the substance
use treatment planning.
Like, because it is, we say addiction is a family disease.
But I think grieving includes your family too, whether it's a relationship, whether
(39:04):
it's physical loss, someone passing.
And that's what's great about RCA is that we do have so many things that are available
for families.
We have virtual groups that talk about all of these things that circle around with grief,
with families as well.
It's really important for everyone to realize that grief on every level affects the entire
(39:28):
family and everyone you know, lots of times.
So you know, the people who rally around you, when you get past the being strong during
events, there are people, your network of whoever your people are, right?
And you know who your people are, the people who allow you to emote, the people who will
(39:50):
just listen to you.
I know that after my, I give this example too, when Michael died, I had really specific
people that I could reach out to when I was having hard, hard days about it.
People who loved me dearly were unable to do that because it was too emotional for them.
I couldn't reach out to my mom.
(40:11):
My mom was unable to hold that space for me.
And that was fine because she had her own grief over Michael's death that had nothing
to do with me.
I had to let people do their own thing about it.
But I did have a network of people that I could go to and that's good.
So I had to be kind of strong for my mom because I knew that she would be heartbroken knowing
(40:32):
how hard it was for me.
So I kind of kept her out of that because it wasn't good for her.
But I did have people.
So good.
You had to find people that was good.
That didn't mean that she didn't love me.
That just meant that it was hard for her.
And I had to let her do her grief process over how badly she felt for me as a daughter
plus lost her first grandchild.
Like that was hard work for everybody.
(40:54):
And I had to be respectful of that.
That's why being strong for others had to become off the table.
And I had to find my tribe that was going to help me with that.
And that's important to make sure that you are acknowledging all that stuff.
And knowing that the recovery community serves a very important role in being able to talk
(41:18):
about triggers, being able to talk about cravings in a way that doesn't take your family back
to the crisis moment.
Right?
Right.
You know, when you talk to patients and they say, well, if I tell my mom I'm having a craving,
she's going to, you know.
Right.
And for people who've gone through that, who understand it, you can feel free to say, okay,
(41:45):
I'm having this and they don't go back right back to the crisis.
They can say, okay, let me help you strategize through that.
So right.
And that's our power of community.
Yes.
And that's how it all works together with all of the myths coming through.
So being strong for others, you may have to put on a different face when you're dealing
with your family because they're grieving the loss of the person that was not addicted.
(42:12):
Right?
So you didn't start out, maybe you didn't express or start out an addiction to that,
to whatever your substance is.
But your family remembers you before you were addicted to something or before you were out,
you know, but changed into the person that this is.
So they're grieving the loss of their person before addiction.
(42:35):
Now they have the person who is an addict of whatever the substance is and they're grieving
the loss of the person before that that they knew because I always say nobody holds a brand
new baby in their arms and goes, oh, you're going to be in trouble.
I can tell by looking at you.
Nobody does that.
Right.
So when our family members become ingrained in something that's really unhealthy, the
(42:59):
family grieves the fact that they're not going to have that person who is not an addict
again.
So being strong.
So when I say being strong for others through this, when you are the person who is trying
to get to meetings, you can kind of put on a healthier face for your family, but you
can't stay there.
That's why the meetings are important so that you do have your tribe of people that you
(43:21):
can express to so that you don't get stuck in the being strong for others while you're
grieving the loss of your addiction or the loss of your substance.
When you're grieving the loss of your substance, you still have to have an outlet to be able
to express how you're feeling about it.
It doesn't mean that you're not truthful with your family and say today's a hard day.
(43:45):
But you can learn and the recovery community helps you learn.
What can I say that lets them know today's a hard day, I need a meeting.
And then you can give the details to someone who's equipped to handle that.
Not everyone's a therapist.
Your mom's not a therapist.
(44:06):
They're not your sponsor.
And so learning what roles people can play in your lives and what's healthy for them.
And often we put a lot of expectations on the spousal relationship to be all things to
one person and learning and even with grief, like man, I should be able to just unload.
(44:32):
That's an awful way to put on one person.
And so yeah, you don't have to be strong for others, but learning to be honest, but also
finding people who can meet different needs to be able to express things you need to express.
And I think that people who are in recovery, if you've been in recovery for a minute or
(44:57):
10 years when someone asks you how you're doing and you just say I'm fine, I'm fine
as a misnomer, I'm fine doesn't count, I'm fine is being strong for others.
Know your audience where if someone says how are you doing?
I'm struggling today, that's okay.
That actually shows more strength.
You know, crying during sad events shows strength.
(45:20):
There are times in group where I will have that stuck in my throat and come out my eyes
for a little bit.
I know how to soothe and pull myself out of it.
But anytime I ask the communities, did that make you upset?
Or did that make you think that I was weak because I was crying in front of people?
They were like, absolutely not that that showed us how strong you are.
(45:42):
And I wish that people in general would embrace that, that your display of emotion and your
ability to flow through all of the things that life have to offer are what your strength
is built on.
And I hope that people get that message when they're coming through the program for sure.
Okay, number six.
Number six, keeping busy.
(46:05):
This is another way to avoid feeling stuff and people sometimes, you know, being busy
will help for a minute if you're trying to jump in and out of your new life.
So once you get to the point where you really have to feel what it's like to have an existence
without that person or that pet or that substance, it's going to be foreign.
(46:30):
It's going to be uncomfortable until you learn how to feel what the world is like without
that person with you.
Busy is jumping in and out.
I'm going to go to the store.
I'm going to come back.
I'm going to go to work.
I'm going to come back.
But if when you are performing these acts, when you're not busy or you're not trying
to, you know, spend all of your time doing something, when you come out of that and then
(46:58):
you sit down and you're like, oh, still sad, still feeling the loss.
I should do something so this goes away.
It doesn't.
It's the same thing as trying to medicate.
So I really correlate the keeping busy with using a substance with self-medicating.
And how does that relate?
In recovery, they will often say, you know, 90 meetings in 90 days, you know, you need
(47:20):
to find community, get-of-service.
Like, so a lot of the strategies are keeping yourself busy and occupied.
How would you say, what's the balance, I guess, between not just filling your calendar, but
also not because isolation is so much a part of addiction?
(47:42):
So how would you relate that?
If you're staying too busy, if you're not giving yourself an opportunity to feel what
it's like to be sober, because sober is going to be uncomfortable for a lot of people for
a long time.
And if you keep busying yourself, if you work yourself to exhaustion every day so that you
(48:02):
don't have to acknowledge anything, that's when we get into trouble.
So you're doing 90 meetings in 90 days.
You are, you're keeping yourself involved in meetings.
You're doing everything you can to occupy all of your time.
That is not sustainable for your whole life.
You have to learn what it feels like to have a missing person, to have missing substance,
(48:28):
to learn how to self-soothe, because it's unattainable.
You can't just stay busy all the time.
You can't work yourself into the ground, because then you're just going to wear your body out
anyway.
And those feelings of loss are still going to be there if you don't acknowledge them.
So when you get to the end of the day, and if you have not worked yourself into exhaustion
where you're sleeping, you still have to kind of sit back and go, okay, this is what sober
(48:52):
feels like.
This is what my emotions feel like now that I'm sober, because a lot of times, if we have
been trying to tamp down all of the negativity with a substance, the negativity might still
be there when you're sober.
How are you going to manage yourself?
And that's where therapy comes in.
That's where outpatient comes in.
(49:12):
That's where having a community comes in, where you have people around you who understand
and can hold space for you while you're having a conversation and can hold space for you
for you when you are sad or when you're angry.
And let's work together on trying to figure out what's the best way for me to move forward
where I don't have to work myself to exhaustion.
(49:35):
So when we talk about keeping busy, we're talking about working ourselves to exhaustion,
which is what we don't want to do.
I think that's good.
I think you raised a super important point about this is where outpatient comes in handy.
This is where just going to seven days and getting the substance out of your system isn't
(49:55):
enough.
We have to deal with all the stuff and all the baggage we've got.
And so having the tools of having a regular therapist without patient programming for
a while gives the brain time to heal and time to learn and try to process.
So when you come into treatment, we're not going to pick around on everyone's deepest
(50:18):
darkest stuff.
You get a lot of healing that you're doing just with the body.
And getting the substance relieved, it's almost like triage.
And then we need to start at step one and then step two.
(50:41):
Getting into longer term treatment, finding those meetings, finding the support groups.
I think that's so important.
I'd like you to end.
I've heard you say several times and it's becoming a buzzword.
It's more something you've heard in the last little bit.
Say find people who can hold space for you.
(51:01):
Will you define that?
What does that mean to you?
And just what should people be looking for?
Holding space means when you sit with someone, number one, you're not feeling their emotions
for you.
You are not trying.
Number two, you're not trying to fix them.
This is if you are the person, if you're holding space for another.
(51:25):
Yes.
If you are the holder, if you are the person that somebody comes to because they need an
ear, they need to vent, they need to show emotion somehow.
You are the person holding space is someone who is not going to try to soothe them, give
(51:45):
them excuses as to why they feel the way they do.
You're not the person who is trying to fix them or give them suggestions.
You're just the person who is able to sit and listen.
And listening is a really important skill.
You are not distracted by your phone or the TV.
(52:05):
You're able to make eye contact and just not say a word and just sit and be with the person
fully.
So when you're holding space, when you are able to relate, when you are free of distraction
and that person feels important, important enough that you do not have one other thing
on your mind but them.
(52:26):
That's probably the best person that you can find.
And once you have been on the receiving end of that, then you'll be able to do it for
someone else too.
That's beautiful.
Jane, thank you so much just for your work and for joining us today.
This has been enlightening and I really believe it's going to help a lot of people just to
(52:50):
be able to put some thoughts around those myths that come with the grieving process.
And I go back to what you said in the beginning, grief is a verb.
We have to do the work of grief and all of us have something in our life.
You say you're not in personal recovery but you say you're in, how to do that?
(53:13):
So I just let everybody know that even though I'm not addicted to any substance in particular,
I am in recovery from life.
There's been all kinds of things that I've had to get through and I do my best to work
to get through them every day.
And it is work.
Some days are harder than others but it's manageable if you dig in and if I can be an example
(53:37):
to help people learn how to feel life fully, then I hope that I'm doing a good job.
Thank you so much.
And thank you listeners for joining us today on the Strength in Recovery podcast.
Please share this podcast with others.
We would like to get the word out.
These are great recovery stories, recovery topics.
(54:01):
And if you have a topic you're interested in or you know someone who would be a great
would enjoy being on the podcast, let us know.
We'd love to hear some feedback from you.
And especially if you'd like to go on one of the platforms and leave us a great review,
that would be helpful as well.
(54:21):
Strengthinrecovery.com and if you or someone you know needs help, please reach out.
Our mission center employees are wonderful.
They understand addiction.
They understand crises moments and can help you through.
We have interventionists who will talk to your loved one who can help give you some
(54:43):
strategies.
So please call 1-833-RCA-ALUMN and let us see how we can partner with you to help you
help your loved ones or yourself find long term recovery.
Have a great day.
(55:27):
Continue to share these incredible stories of recovery.
The RCA alumni team aims to provide a safe, supportive environment for those in the recovery
community regardless of their affiliation with RCA.
We host a full calendar of virtual and in-person meetings seven days a week, 365 days a year
(55:50):
as well as free SOPA events every month.
To learn more about what we do, find us at rcaalumni.com.
Remember if you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, pick up the phone and dial
1-833-RCA-ALUMN.
Help is available 24-7.
(56:12):
Listen to another episode now or join us next time for the Strength and Recovery podcast.
Hello listeners, welcome to the first episode of 2024 of the Strength and Recovery podcast
(00:24):
sponsored by Recovery Centers of America.
I'm your host, Jay Rodenbush, director of alumni engagement at RCA.
And I'm sitting down today with Jane Termina.
She is our alumni coordinator from our Monroeville, Pennsylvania location.
It's located right outside of Pittsburgh, a beautiful facility.
(00:45):
And she serves as the alumni coordinator.
She has a long list of qualifications, but she's a life coach and life and spirituality
coach.
And she specializes in grief.
And I just thought, what better way to start our new season and to start 2024 with really
(01:06):
talking about some of the deeper issues that people experience that kind of couple or go
along with substance use disorder.
And often we find that grief and substance use go hand in hand and not dealing with the
grief or not knowing how to handle grief, not knowing how to grieve.
(01:31):
Can I say that, Jane?
Is that?
Yeah, absolutely.
Is problematic for a lot of people.
For a lot of people.
So why don't you just introduce yourself?
I know you've done some study.
The Columbia University has a series on complicated grief treatment.
So you're really experienced in this area.
And when I visited Monroeville and sat in on your groups, especially the grief group,
(01:56):
and I found it fascinating in how you present the different aspects of grief have been so
helpful for our patients.
So thank you very much.
And we're just really excited to hear from you today.
No, you're welcome.
I'm happy to be here.
It's good information.
And I think that in our Western culture specifically in America, grief and loss are not part of
(02:25):
the daily conversation.
There's a lot of places in the world where loss is part of life and they really incorporate
it.
I think that a really great example of that is the Mexican culture.
They have the day of the dead where people come together to try to connect with and stay
connected to their loved ones who have died before them.
(02:47):
So that is a celebration of let's present our loved ones who we are remembering very
fondly today with their favorite flowers and their favorite food and let's sing and dance
and try to incorporate them back into our lives.
It's a really wonderful tradition that other cultures do.
But in America, a lot of people don't even want to broach the subject that they are going
(03:11):
to die or things around them are going to die, whether it's pets or trees or people,
there's grief around all kinds of things.
I do like presenting this information to the recovery population because the way that you
need to manage yourself through a profound grief experience is really similar to the
(03:35):
kinds of ways that you manage your recovery.
The changes of people, places and things and the actual grieving, the loss of their substance.
That's a real thing because the substance, whether it's alcohol or drugs or food or gambling
becomes part of your life and there's a really specific relationship that people have with
(04:00):
their substance.
So that breakup, grieving a breakup is a real thing.
We try to correlate all that stuff together so that people know that's a natural process.
So I think that's such an important point.
So even though this is the right thing to do, you're giving up that substance, maybe
(04:22):
the temporary pleasure it brought, the rituals that people put around the use, all of those
things.
I'm sitting here and I'm sure many people are sitting with their cup of coffee.
If you told me that I could never have another coffee, I would miss holding the cup.
(04:42):
I would miss the sound of the percolator in the morning and all of those things.
The cup and the warmth and the ritual of this is how I do my additives, whether it's cream
or sugar, all of those things.
It's part of it's a really part of your day.
Be black for me, just a black cup of coffee.
(05:03):
You know, holding your black cup of coffee and the warmth of the cup and how it smells
and the chair that you sit in and your favorite mug, all of those things, if they took that
away from you, you have a relationship with that cup of coffee.
And if you had to break it for whatever reason, you would be sad.
So even though, and we can correlate that to even any kind of relationship, whether
(05:24):
it's a romantic relationship or a friend relationship, if there is a breakup that way and even though
it's for the best, it's still a big part of your life that you have to let go.
And there are, yeah.
I guess what I hear you saying is we're expanding our definition of what grief is.
When you hear the word grief, you think someone died.
(05:46):
Right.
But there's an expanded definition and that's where I think you're able to sit down with
patients and say, you know, what are these emotions and how are they connected to this
act that we all go through, which is grief.
Right.
(06:06):
Yeah, because grief comes from loss.
Loss are people for sure, but there's a myriad of things that people lose.
They lose, you know, empty nesters, you know, women especially who have always nurtured
a family.
And now the family has left the nest.
They've left home.
They're off living their own lives.
It leaves a void for a lot of people.
(06:29):
And that's an example of grief as well.
So we call that disenfranchised grief, the grief that people may not be able to see and
society doesn't recognize as major.
That doesn't mean it's not major to you.
So we talk about those kinds of things too.
And today I asked you to talk about, I've heard you give the presentation and it's just
so, so good and really Jane is a phenomenal group facilitator.
(06:55):
And that's an important experience in our treatment centers is being able to meet with
our group facilitators and talk about different topics and how they relate to recovery and
how they relate to mental health.
And Jane does a group on the seven myths of grief.
(07:15):
And so I just thought that would be a great framework for our conversation today.
And so I'm going to let you launch into that.
And I'm sure if you don't mind me interrupting from time to time and asking questions because
I'm naturally curious.
And maybe before, just can you tell me how much does grief, and I know we use the expanded
(07:41):
definition, but grief as in the traumatic loss of a person really, how often do you feel
like that pops up with patients or with people with substance use disorder?
I don't have a percentage, but it's often.
I will say that as people are coming through the program, therapists will reach out to me
(08:04):
fairly often to say that their husband died or their mother died 20 years ago, or it was
a recent loss.
And depending on the amount of time that has gone by, I will approach it in a different
way.
When we have fresh loss, when something is within 12 to 18 months, it's a different kind
(08:30):
of healing that typically happens.
But if it's long ago and it's complicated because it's been buried for a while under
a substance, that's when we have to do a little bit of extra digging to get it out of there.
But it's pretty often.
I don't have a number, but it's definitely pretty often.
I'll say that for the, and I'm just going to, we can go back and do this again, but
(08:55):
it's the sixth major myth of grief, not seven that I have today.
I have more.
Oh, okay.
The sixth major program is six.
We may throw in a couple of ourselves.
I have several, but this specific program is just for the sixth.
I even wrote six down.
(09:21):
For today, from the grief recovery method, which people can freely access online, but
the grief recovery method introduces six major myths of grief, and we can go through those
pretty quickly.
I think that they're going to sound common to people.
I think so.
(09:41):
Grief is the natural response to loss.
It is not a diagnosis.
Grief is not a diagnosis.
It's a verb.
It's something that you have to do.
Since it's not a diagnosis, you really can't medicate yourself through it.
I love that.
Yeah, you have to do grief.
Grief is a verb without question.
(10:02):
Because I, you know, and I ask the patients and I ask people that I know, if you've tried
to medicate yourself through grief, what happens is it just sits there waiting for you.
It doesn't go away.
So when you sober up, or if you're doing something else to try to avoid it, whether you're working
too much or distracting yourself somehow when you wake up the next day, it's still there.
(10:29):
And it's something that is supposed to be felt.
It's not something that we're supposed to just put in a box and put away on a shelf,
you know?
So when we talk about the major myths of grief, myth number one is not to feel bad.
So when we talk about don't feel bad, we're talking about not acknowledging the feeling.
(10:52):
So this will actually, this myth comes into play with relationships or with substance
for sure.
If I tell you, you know, don't feel bad about losing something, that's heartbreaking because
I can't judge what someone else's loss is compared to mine.
And I will share that, I've taken grief on because my only child died in a car accident
(11:17):
in 2015.
So I do have a profound understanding of how painful it is to have your heart ripped out
of your chest, you know?
That being said, I can't compare my loss to someone who has lost their favorite pet.
Maybe that's the hardest thing that they've had to do to date, and that pain is real.
(11:38):
We have to meet people where their pain is so that we can teach them how to feel it in
healthier ways as opposed to medicating ourselves through it, which is what I see a lot in treatment.
So when we talk about...
Yeah, go ahead.
I think having gone through the grief process myself in different ways, people want to cheer
(11:59):
you up, right?
Right.
Like, and there's this need that people need you to be happy.
Like, are you okay now?
Are you okay?
Like...
Yeah.
And I think that goes to not only do we not want to feel bad and maybe the loss, you know,
maybe it's someone's end to suffering, maybe it is, you know, we know it's for the best,
(12:22):
but we still feel sad.
We still mourn.
We still have these acts of grief.
Absolutely.
Like I said.
Yeah.
And especially as children go through grief, we think if we can just cheer them up, make
them feel better, take them to Disneyland and it really...
(12:44):
That's part of the medicating or trying to numb.
That's exactly right.
Yeah.
So the example that they give, I'll just read a little blurb and play off of that, is
that, you know, as young children, we're teaching them not to feel bad.
So the example they give is when, let's say a child is on the playground and someone is
(13:07):
mean to them for whatever reason and the child comes home from school and any caretaker,
the mom, the dad, the grandma, whoever's in charge of caring for that child that day,
sees the child upset and says, what's happened?
And the kid says, so and so was mean to me today and they're in their feels about it.
And caretaker will say, oh, here, have a cookie, you'll feel better.
(13:30):
So we're trying to mask it with sugar as children are small and we're not giving them a chance
to run through the entire emotion to its completion.
It's cut off by the cookie.
So then when they circle back around to it because that's what your body will do and
that's what your mind will do, I've not resolved this yet.
And the caretaker will say, oh, that's over.
(13:52):
You know, we're moving past that.
Have another cookie.
So on top of not being taught to let your emotions flow through to their completion,
we're also teaching them that there is an escape route.
So even though the child feels different, they don't feel better.
So when we talk about not feeling bad and not teaching our children to embrace disappointment
(14:17):
and hurt and anger and sadness, we're not setting them up for the rest of their lives,
not being able to manage their emotions.
So as time goes by, they're always going to look for something else to kind of mask what
they're feeling when as human beings we're designed to be able to withstand all of these
things.
(14:38):
So let's not, you know, America has a really, a really great way of wanting everybody to
be happy all the time.
And that's happy is not a state of being.
We are human people who have been given the all of the emotions, the entire range of emotions,
and we're supposed to experience them all for good, bad, or ugly.
(14:59):
It's just part of what we do.
And when we deny our being the ability to experience all emotions, that's when we may
get into trouble later in life, when we have access to things that are not as healthy or
not as good to, you know, to self-soothe.
We kind of hijack that reward system and say, then when I'm feeling bad or when I go to
(15:21):
these emotions, I need.
Yes.
I need something.
And you don't need something.
Or I get, right?
Maybe it's not even I need.
Maybe that I get.
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And that's the danger zone for sure.
I had a patient one time say to me, so I'm just supposed to let them be unhappy.
And I said, yes, you are supposed to let them be unhappy and teach them how to be unhappy.
(15:46):
Because when children are out of our care, when they're adults, when they are teenagers
and they're out in the world, the rest of the world is not going to look at them and
go, oh, but it's Jane.
It's okay.
We'll, we'll just give her what she needs to make her happy.
That's not what happens.
And when, when we as adults or we as teenagers are butt up against the world then and we're
(16:06):
not getting our way, we don't know what to do.
And honestly, what we just have to do is kind of circle back around and feel the emotion,
let it play out.
And it's, it's different on the other side and it's, and it's healthier.
And I think in, in playing that out further as the caregiver, being able to show your
(16:27):
own unhappiness, not that we always want to be sad for our kids, but you know, when you're,
I've lost two moms in a very short amount of time.
And you know, to be able to sit with the kids and say, yeah, today's a really rough day.
I'm really, you know, we were doing Christmas shopping and we walked through them all.
(16:50):
And my daughter looks at me and she goes, you're missing mom, aren't you?
And I said, you know what I am.
And we were able to have a nice conversation.
She recognized that in somewhere I should have been really happy.
I was feeling a certain sort of way and we had a really nice moment, which was also powerful.
(17:11):
So I think teaching your kids that it's okay to grief, that, that that's part of grief.
That sadness, that loss, that not being on top of the world.
There's going to be days we're not on top of the world.
That's just helps the life cycle.
It's what we do.
(17:31):
So when we talk about not feeling bad, you gave a good example earlier, what if someone
has, you know, really lived out their life, they're 98 years old and they're getting to
a place where they're excused from being.
Just because it was an appropriate and natural end to a life, that doesn't mean you're not
going to miss people.
(17:51):
You're allowed to still be sad about that.
When you have a breakup that you know is, that is appropriate for your mental health
or for your being, but you've still invested a lot of time, you can still be sad about
that even though it's for the best.
You don't have to be happy that you're getting divorced because you don't like the person
anymore.
You can still retreat and go, wow, but all of that time or all of those experiences,
(18:14):
you're allowed to grieve the loss of that and still move forward.
It's okay.
So it's so good.
Yeah.
So all right, we got to get back to our list.
Yes.
All right.
So myth number two is replacing the loss.
We give examples of, you know, this kind of goes hand in hand with don't feel bad.
(18:35):
That what, you know, so if you are replacing a loss, if this happens a lot with pets, right?
So I've not completely gone through the loss of the dog or the cat or the fish or whatever
creature was making your life super happy and thinking that you can just replace the
loss with another pet.
(18:55):
Sometimes that stacks up and it doesn't, and it doesn't play out well.
So when we do that with children, thinking that they can just replace losses, that becomes
a problem as you're growing.
And a lot of times I refer to the children because that's kind of where we get our programming
for how we conquer and how we deal with things that are uncomfortable.
So that kind of starts that way.
(19:16):
And don't you think in people's efforts to make you feel better, they say really stupid
things, right?
Can we just call it, call it as made as made?
They're trying.
It's okay.
Everybody just wants you to feel better.
And that's because when you have not learned to resolve your own emotions, when you see
(19:37):
other people who are emotional, it is hard for you because people tend to take on what
other people are feeling.
And I always tell everybody, you cannot feel other people's feelings for them.
You cannot process grief for someone else.
You cannot process disappointment for someone else.
You have to give them the tools and the ability and the pleasure of doing it on your own because
(20:01):
that's how you're going to learn.
And that's why I think people want to tamp that down, especially parents.
We don't want to see our beloved cherubs feel badly about anything, but it's our job to
help them learn how to feel angry and how to feel sad.
But you've heard people say, oh, well, you know, there's more fish in the sea.
Like if it and related to a breakup or God forbid, you know, somebody loses a child and
(20:29):
they say, well, you can have more chance.
And the pain in that moment, and I think you're right, having compassion for that person because
maybe you're recognizing they haven't experienced it themselves.
Yeah.
Or they've experienced it and they've not been able to process it in a good way.
(20:50):
So it's making them feel it again.
And so feelings are feelings.
They're not thinking.
You cannot think your way out of grief and reason it.
So when we, yeah.
So when we talk about replacing losses that really comes in with relationships, as you
mentioned, there's more fish in the sea.
I'll just get another boyfriend.
I miss this person.
(21:11):
So I'm going to replace them with somebody else because I think I need somebody around.
And what happens is, especially in relationships, when we replace losses with relationships
and we have not gone through the entirety of the emotion that is involved with a breakup
loss.
We are compounding all of the things that we experienced.
(21:34):
So that means that when we take on another relationship and we've not resolved the emotion
that was with the first one, we're bringing the emotion of the first one that has not
been rectified into the next relationship.
The example that I give a lot in groups is have you been on the receiving end of someone
who is bringing the ghost of a past relationship into the relationship that you are in?
(21:58):
Are you looking for the behaviors of the other person in this one?
And that is actually going to cancel out your ability to be open and vulnerable with the
person you are currently with.
50% of marriages and in divorce probably because they have not resolved prior relationships
because most people do not marry their first love.
(22:20):
So if you've not gone through all of your feels about a breakup, then you're bringing
all of that baggage into the next relationship.
And if 50% of those marriages end in divorce and then we replace that loss and get married
again, 75% of relationships don't work out that way either because now you have two layers
(22:43):
of baggage that you've not dealt with.
So replacing the loss can really be a problem.
It just compounds all of the negative feelings or all of the difficult feelings.
I don't want to say they're negative because they're there to help you.
All of our feelings are there to help us.
They may be uncomfortable, but they're not negative.
They're there for really specific reasons to help us figure out who we are, how we feel
(23:04):
about the world, where we need to apply our boundaries moving forward.
There's a lot of really great information in heartache for sure.
And I think having that expanded definition of grief and doing this work relate that back
again to recovery process when someone doesn't do the work and relationships and unhealthy
(23:30):
relationships can be a real trigger and a real part of active addiction.
Yeah, and it actually plays a big part in relapse for sure and slip-ups because if you
are not accustomed to feeling the pain of emotional loss and emotional hurt, that's
(23:54):
when we get into trouble and if it's buried, your body remembers and your body's going
to find a way to bring it up for you.
And if you are not familiar with what it feels like, you're going to look to medicate yourself,
whether it's with alcohol or drugs or food.
So replacing the loss and not feeling bad kind of go hand in hand with this because
(24:19):
when we start feeling bad because of a breakup or because of whatever, we try to either get
something else to replace it or tamp it down because we're not supposed to feel bad.
Those things go hand in hand and especially in recovery because if you've not learned
how to feel uncomfortable with the emotion that arises that is there to teach you something
(24:41):
about the world and yourself, you try to medicate yourself through it.
We hear a lot the phrase becoming comfortable with being uncomfortable.
Yes, and this is exactly what we're talking about.
Putting yourself, allowing yourself to be in uncomfortable circumstances.
I know often people want to get involved or want to come tell their story and they're
(25:07):
like, I'm so uncomfortable with public speaking, but I'm trying to allow myself to become comfortable
with those things that are uncomfortable.
And sometimes it's just having a good conversation with somebody that you trust, someone that
has earned your vulnerability.
When you have these conversations, whatever that thing is that's driving you crazy inside,
(25:28):
once you say it out loud and give it a name or speak of it, it loses its power over you.
So that's why the meetings are so important and that brings us to myth number three is
grieving alone.
We're not to grieve alone.
We are a communal tribal being and we're supposed to do everything together.
This is really one that does hit home with the recovery community because this is very
(25:52):
similar.
When people start to isolate, that's when we get into trouble.
We get a little heady.
We get too much in of our thoughts when we don't have anyone to speak to because either
we don't feel like they're going to understand or it's unrelatable or it's embarrassing.
I've had people say, my mom died 20 years ago.
I should be over this by now.
(26:13):
And that's not how it works.
I will say to the groups, my son died in 2015.
When is the appropriate time for me to be over it?
And everybody says you'll never get over it.
And I said, that's exactly right and neither will you.
What we try to do is learn how to manage how we feel about it and how to incorporate our
(26:33):
losses into our story because they're really important.
Our losses are how we become who we are.
Our losses are what we represent of the person that has gone.
So we are the legacy, whether they are our contemporaries, whether they are our parents,
(26:56):
whether they are our children, how we grieve is our legacy for that person.
So how well are we representing our grief to show the love because the amount of grief
equals the amount of love?
So how are we showing the world what this person meant to us?
If I decided at some point to sit in a corner with a bottle of Tito's, that's not serving
(27:19):
Michael's memory at all.
And that's not serving your loved one's memory either.
So how would you like that person to be remembered through you?
Let's work on that.
So grieving alone is a big, big problem.
And I'm seeing a lot of this happen in society now because there's a trend for people not
to have funerals.
(27:40):
Big trend.
I don't want you to spend the money.
I don't want people looking at me in the box.
I don't want the attention, those kinds of things.
Whether you want that or not, people are still going to agree for you.
And by science, we know that when the rituals begin, when the funerals begin, that's when
your brain starts to recognize that this is real.
(28:01):
When you gather, when people come together, when you are given an opportunity to hear
about how much someone liked your loved one, or you're able to receive a hug that day,
whether you're standing at the box or you're not standing at the box, however it goes,
there's a void that comes into play when people are not given an opportunity to love
(28:23):
on you when someone has died.
So grieving alone becomes a problem if you're not able to express what's happening for you,
because then that's what gets buried inside.
That's when people say, oh, it's been this amount of time and you're not over it by now,
all of those kinds of things.
There's a difference between isolation and solitude.
(28:46):
I personally am a big fan of solitude.
I love my alone time.
That's when I can reflect.
That's when I can rest.
That's when I can participate in self-care.
Isolation is when you're choosing to stay out of society because you don't want to talk
about it because you're going to self-medicate because you're going to ruminate and how awful
(29:09):
you feel.
That's isolation.
I love that distinction between isolation and solitude.
I think that is a really important point because I too, I was the youngest child by a long
shot.
I grew up with a lot of alone time.
(29:30):
I kind of crave that as part of my, and thankfully my family is used to that.
My husband was an only child, so he has his own sense of solitude, but not allowing that
to come into isolation and removing yourself from society and all of the things and social
(29:53):
obligations.
As a means of, it's one thing, we talked in other episodes about it's okay to say no,
it's okay to, and for that to be enough, you don't have to say yes to every social engagement.
It's okay to have boundaries, but when you find yourself avoiding, you at least need
(30:17):
to ask why.
That's why meetings are so important.
That's why we tell people to stay connection.
The opposite of addiction is connection.
This is a really great opportunity for you to learn that it is okay to speak up, to say
how you feel, and this is how it applies to recovery, get to the rooms, get to the meetings,
(30:41):
get online, just listen.
A lot of times if you're just listening, you're going to hear something similar to what you're
going through or have gone through and you won't feel alone.
These are the things that we have to really, even though it's painful to say things out
loud, a lot of times I will say that it gets stuck in my throat and it comes out my eyes.
(31:03):
Sometimes I can freely speak up, Michael, but for me, sometimes it gets stuck in my
throat and it comes out my eyes.
I think that everybody relates to that because there's all kinds of times when you're speaking
of something and all of a sudden it gets stuck and you can feel it coming.
In that early grief period, I think that's what people are afraid of.
Am I going to be able to keep my emotions in check?
(31:30):
You don't have to.
It's not a part of it.
What's number four?
Number four is my favorite one, the time heals all wounds.
If time healed all wounds, we would all be fine, wouldn't we?
But that's not how it works.
It's the work you do in the time.
(31:52):
When I am in a situation where I am comforting or aware of someone who has had a big loss,
I never say give it some time.
I always say, this is going to take some work, but you can do it.
The work is just feeling badly.
The work is allowing yourself to feel sad.
(32:15):
The work is allowing your body to receive all of the things that people have to offer
when they're trying to comfort you.
All of the things that people have to offer, whether it's food or some people will provide
cash if you're strapped for some reason, there's donations, all the things that people have
(32:39):
to offer.
Sometimes when you're on the receiving end of love, it's foreign because people don't
know how to do that.
But that's where the work is.
It's not time.
It's the ability to sit with your emotions about it and let them run their complete course.
I think this is an important thing to remember in recovery, too, is that a lot of times people
(33:05):
who are not familiar with addiction or how it impacts a person, that this could be a
lifelong or it is a lifelong part of someone's journey.
And so getting, whether they come to us for 30 days, hopefully they'll continue in treatment
(33:29):
and do our outpatient because we know the longer people stay in treatment, the better
success rates they have.
And they go through the process, they go to meetings.
Maybe they do start feeling better a year and two years in.
And maybe all of a sudden thoughts come up and it's like, wait a minute, but I had this
much time.
I should.
(33:50):
Yeah, it's the work over it.
Yeah, it's the work you do in the time and that specifically can translate back to being
in recovery as well.
It doesn't matter how long you went to treatment.
If you were sitting in treatment like it was a resort, not a rehab, and you weren't doing
the work, then you're not going to get better.
(34:12):
So the longer that you, the longer you stay in something, if you're not doing the work,
you're coming out just the same.
And it happens a lot, I think, as you go through life, if you're not doing it.
So let me go back.
I also tell the patients the definition of cheating is not doing the work.
(34:35):
Whether you are taking a test because you didn't study, you're cheating, right?
You didn't do the work.
If you're in a relationship and you cheat on your significant other, that's because
if you were uncomfortable, you weren't doing the work with your partner to make sure that
you guys were in a healthier state.
If you're cheating on your diet, you're not doing the work.
(34:58):
So cheating is just not doing the work.
Cheating in grief is not doing the work as well.
And honestly, when it just comes back to you have to let yourself feel bad about it.
And that's normal and natural and honoring and all of the things that we need to do.
There's still some cultures, I think, that will wear the black armband when someone is
(35:19):
in mourning.
I kind of wish that we would do that again because it would be nice to not just look
at someone with maybe not the happiest look on their face and go, hey, why aren't you
smiling?
Because that's sometimes offensive to people.
Maybe they're going through something that's really, really awful.
And it would be nice if we had some kind of signal.
(35:40):
When Michael did, I remember going to the store thinking, can people tell by looking
at me that I am not in a good way right now?
But there was no way for people to know.
And I think it would be kind if you had some kind of signification where people would just
kind of back off because you were working on something.
Like that would be really great.
But so when we talk about time healing all wounds, just know that that is not a thing.
(36:05):
It's the work you do in the time and the work you do is allowing yourself to feel the pain
bottom line.
Yeah.
So good.
All right.
We're on number five.
Okay.
So number five is being strong for others.
That we can get into a lot of trouble with that.
There is a reflex that kind of kicks in when we have to tend to the events surrounding
(36:33):
a death specifically.
We have to get with the funeral home.
We have to maybe pick readings for a ceremony.
We have to arrange for a luncheon if you don't have help with that.
There are tasks that need to be done around ceremony and around ritual.
And people will say, wow, she looks like she's doing really well up there.
She's not curled up in a ball and crying.
(36:56):
There's a mechanism that comes up that allows you to get through the days.
What happens sometimes is people don't circle back around to the pain.
So after events are over, after people stop sending chicken to your house, after everybody's
gone home and you're on your own a couple weeks later, that's when the work starts.
(37:18):
And just because all of those things are over and you performed them well, that doesn't
stop the pain from coming.
Right?
So, you know, my mom just died in October.
So I'm still floating around through all of those things and I'm really adhering to what
I need to do to self-soothe, to put myself in a place where I'm able to acknowledge my
(37:39):
mom's passing in a healthy way without having to power through because, well, that was three
months ago, so I should be fine by now.
That's not how it works, right?
We talked about that.
Or, you know, maybe other people are having their outward grief expression.
And so in those moments, you're the strong one.
(38:02):
And, you know, well, I need to be strong for my kids or I need to be strong, you know,
and I think this happens to the loved ones when, you know, it can happen.
Let's say when you have someone in treatment, maybe the spouse is like, well, this affected
(38:22):
the whole family.
I've got to be strong.
And they have grief.
There's loss.
There's about the relationship, how this person is responding to substance.
There's emotion there.
But they're never dealing with it, you know, as their loved one is getting well.
(38:42):
So making sure the whole family unit is considered in the grief process is considered in the substance
use treatment planning.
Like, because it is, we say addiction is a family disease.
But I think grieving includes your family too, whether it's a relationship, whether
(39:04):
it's physical loss, someone passing.
And that's what's great about RCA is that we do have so many things that are available
for families.
We have virtual groups that talk about all of these things that circle around with grief,
with families as well.
It's really important for everyone to realize that grief on every level affects the entire
(39:28):
family and everyone you know, lots of times.
So you know, the people who rally around you, when you get past the being strong during
events, there are people, your network of whoever your people are, right?
And you know who your people are, the people who allow you to emote, the people who will
(39:50):
just listen to you.
I know that after my, I give this example too, when Michael died, I had really specific
people that I could reach out to when I was having hard, hard days about it.
People who loved me dearly were unable to do that because it was too emotional for them.
I couldn't reach out to my mom.
(40:11):
My mom was unable to hold that space for me.
And that was fine because she had her own grief over Michael's death that had nothing
to do with me.
I had to let people do their own thing about it.
But I did have a network of people that I could go to and that's good.
So I had to be kind of strong for my mom because I knew that she would be heartbroken knowing
(40:32):
how hard it was for me.
So I kind of kept her out of that because it wasn't good for her.
But I did have people.
So good.
You had to find people that was good.
That didn't mean that she didn't love me.
That just meant that it was hard for her.
And I had to let her do her grief process over how badly she felt for me as a daughter
plus lost her first grandchild.
Like that was hard work for everybody.
(40:54):
And I had to be respectful of that.
That's why being strong for others had to become off the table.
And I had to find my tribe that was going to help me with that.
And that's important to make sure that you are acknowledging all that stuff.
And knowing that the recovery community serves a very important role in being able to talk
(41:18):
about triggers, being able to talk about cravings in a way that doesn't take your family back
to the crisis moment.
Right?
Right.
You know, when you talk to patients and they say, well, if I tell my mom I'm having a craving,
she's going to, you know.
Right.
And for people who've gone through that, who understand it, you can feel free to say, okay,
(41:45):
I'm having this and they don't go back right back to the crisis.
They can say, okay, let me help you strategize through that.
So right.
And that's our power of community.
Yes.
And that's how it all works together with all of the myths coming through.
So being strong for others, you may have to put on a different face when you're dealing
with your family because they're grieving the loss of the person that was not addicted.
(42:12):
Right?
So you didn't start out, maybe you didn't express or start out an addiction to that,
to whatever your substance is.
But your family remembers you before you were addicted to something or before you were out,
you know, but changed into the person that this is.
So they're grieving the loss of their person before addiction.
(42:35):
Now they have the person who is an addict of whatever the substance is and they're grieving
the loss of the person before that that they knew because I always say nobody holds a brand
new baby in their arms and goes, oh, you're going to be in trouble.
I can tell by looking at you.
Nobody does that.
Right.
So when our family members become ingrained in something that's really unhealthy, the
(42:59):
family grieves the fact that they're not going to have that person who is not an addict
again.
So being strong.
So when I say being strong for others through this, when you are the person who is trying
to get to meetings, you can kind of put on a healthier face for your family, but you
can't stay there.
That's why the meetings are important so that you do have your tribe of people that you
(43:21):
can express to so that you don't get stuck in the being strong for others while you're
grieving the loss of your addiction or the loss of your substance.
When you're grieving the loss of your substance, you still have to have an outlet to be able
to express how you're feeling about it.
It doesn't mean that you're not truthful with your family and say today's a hard day.
(43:45):
But you can learn and the recovery community helps you learn.
What can I say that lets them know today's a hard day, I need a meeting.
And then you can give the details to someone who's equipped to handle that.
Not everyone's a therapist.
Your mom's not a therapist.
(44:06):
They're not your sponsor.
And so learning what roles people can play in your lives and what's healthy for them.
And often we put a lot of expectations on the spousal relationship to be all things to
one person and learning and even with grief, like man, I should be able to just unload.
(44:32):
That's an awful way to put on one person.
And so yeah, you don't have to be strong for others, but learning to be honest, but also
finding people who can meet different needs to be able to express things you need to express.
And I think that people who are in recovery, if you've been in recovery for a minute or
(44:57):
10 years when someone asks you how you're doing and you just say I'm fine, I'm fine
as a misnomer, I'm fine doesn't count, I'm fine is being strong for others.
Know your audience where if someone says how are you doing?
I'm struggling today, that's okay.
That actually shows more strength.
You know, crying during sad events shows strength.
(45:20):
There are times in group where I will have that stuck in my throat and come out my eyes
for a little bit.
I know how to soothe and pull myself out of it.
But anytime I ask the communities, did that make you upset?
Or did that make you think that I was weak because I was crying in front of people?
They were like, absolutely not that that showed us how strong you are.
(45:42):
And I wish that people in general would embrace that, that your display of emotion and your
ability to flow through all of the things that life have to offer are what your strength
is built on.
And I hope that people get that message when they're coming through the program for sure.
Okay, number six.
Number six, keeping busy.
(46:05):
This is another way to avoid feeling stuff and people sometimes, you know, being busy
will help for a minute if you're trying to jump in and out of your new life.
So once you get to the point where you really have to feel what it's like to have an existence
without that person or that pet or that substance, it's going to be foreign.
(46:30):
It's going to be uncomfortable until you learn how to feel what the world is like without
that person with you.
Busy is jumping in and out.
I'm going to go to the store.
I'm going to come back.
I'm going to go to work.
I'm going to come back.
But if when you are performing these acts, when you're not busy or you're not trying
to, you know, spend all of your time doing something, when you come out of that and then
(46:58):
you sit down and you're like, oh, still sad, still feeling the loss.
I should do something so this goes away.
It doesn't.
It's the same thing as trying to medicate.
So I really correlate the keeping busy with using a substance with self-medicating.
And how does that relate?
In recovery, they will often say, you know, 90 meetings in 90 days, you know, you need
(47:20):
to find community, get-of-service.
Like, so a lot of the strategies are keeping yourself busy and occupied.
How would you say, what's the balance, I guess, between not just filling your calendar, but
also not because isolation is so much a part of addiction?
(47:42):
So how would you relate that?
If you're staying too busy, if you're not giving yourself an opportunity to feel what
it's like to be sober, because sober is going to be uncomfortable for a lot of people for
a long time.
And if you keep busying yourself, if you work yourself to exhaustion every day so that you
(48:02):
don't have to acknowledge anything, that's when we get into trouble.
So you're doing 90 meetings in 90 days.
You are, you're keeping yourself involved in meetings.
You're doing everything you can to occupy all of your time.
That is not sustainable for your whole life.
You have to learn what it feels like to have a missing person, to have missing substance,
(48:28):
to learn how to self-soothe, because it's unattainable.
You can't just stay busy all the time.
You can't work yourself into the ground, because then you're just going to wear your body out
anyway.
And those feelings of loss are still going to be there if you don't acknowledge them.
So when you get to the end of the day, and if you have not worked yourself into exhaustion
where you're sleeping, you still have to kind of sit back and go, okay, this is what sober
(48:52):
feels like.
This is what my emotions feel like now that I'm sober, because a lot of times, if we have
been trying to tamp down all of the negativity with a substance, the negativity might still
be there when you're sober.
How are you going to manage yourself?
And that's where therapy comes in.
That's where outpatient comes in.
(49:12):
That's where having a community comes in, where you have people around you who understand
and can hold space for you while you're having a conversation and can hold space for you
for you when you are sad or when you're angry.
And let's work together on trying to figure out what's the best way for me to move forward
where I don't have to work myself to exhaustion.
(49:35):
So when we talk about keeping busy, we're talking about working ourselves to exhaustion,
which is what we don't want to do.
I think that's good.
I think you raised a super important point about this is where outpatient comes in handy.
This is where just going to seven days and getting the substance out of your system isn't
(49:55):
enough.
We have to deal with all the stuff and all the baggage we've got.
And so having the tools of having a regular therapist without patient programming for
a while gives the brain time to heal and time to learn and try to process.
So when you come into treatment, we're not going to pick around on everyone's deepest
(50:18):
darkest stuff.
You get a lot of healing that you're doing just with the body.
And getting the substance relieved, it's almost like triage.
And then we need to start at step one and then step two.
(50:41):
Getting into longer term treatment, finding those meetings, finding the support groups.
I think that's so important.
I'd like you to end.
I've heard you say several times and it's becoming a buzzword.
It's more something you've heard in the last little bit.
Say find people who can hold space for you.
(51:01):
Will you define that?
What does that mean to you?
And just what should people be looking for?
Holding space means when you sit with someone, number one, you're not feeling their emotions
for you.
You are not trying.
Number two, you're not trying to fix them.
This is if you are the person, if you're holding space for another.
(51:25):
Yes.
If you are the holder, if you are the person that somebody comes to because they need an
ear, they need to vent, they need to show emotion somehow.
You are the person holding space is someone who is not going to try to soothe them, give
(51:45):
them excuses as to why they feel the way they do.
You're not the person who is trying to fix them or give them suggestions.
You're just the person who is able to sit and listen.
And listening is a really important skill.
You are not distracted by your phone or the TV.
(52:05):
You're able to make eye contact and just not say a word and just sit and be with the person
fully.
So when you're holding space, when you are able to relate, when you are free of distraction
and that person feels important, important enough that you do not have one other thing
on your mind but them.
(52:26):
That's probably the best person that you can find.
And once you have been on the receiving end of that, then you'll be able to do it for
someone else too.
That's beautiful.
Jane, thank you so much just for your work and for joining us today.
This has been enlightening and I really believe it's going to help a lot of people just to
(52:50):
be able to put some thoughts around those myths that come with the grieving process.
And I go back to what you said in the beginning, grief is a verb.
We have to do the work of grief and all of us have something in our life.
You say you're not in personal recovery but you say you're in, how to do that?
(53:13):
So I just let everybody know that even though I'm not addicted to any substance in particular,
I am in recovery from life.
There's been all kinds of things that I've had to get through and I do my best to work
to get through them every day.
And it is work.
Some days are harder than others but it's manageable if you dig in and if I can be an example
(53:37):
to help people learn how to feel life fully, then I hope that I'm doing a good job.
Thank you so much.
And thank you listeners for joining us today on the Strength in Recovery podcast.
Please share this podcast with others.
We would like to get the word out.
These are great recovery stories, recovery topics.
(54:01):
And if you have a topic you're interested in or you know someone who would be a great
would enjoy being on the podcast, let us know.
We'd love to hear some feedback from you.
And especially if you'd like to go on one of the platforms and leave us a great review,
that would be helpful as well.
(54:21):
Strengthinrecovery.com and if you or someone you know needs help, please reach out.
Our mission center employees are wonderful.
They understand addiction.
They understand crises moments and can help you through.
We have interventionists who will talk to your loved one who can help give you some
(54:43):
strategies.
So please call 1-833-RCA-ALUMN and let us see how we can partner with you to help you
help your loved ones or yourself find long term recovery.
Have a great day.
(55:27):
Continue to share these incredible stories of recovery.
The RCA alumni team aims to provide a safe, supportive environment for those in the recovery
community regardless of their affiliation with RCA.
We host a full calendar of virtual and in-person meetings seven days a week, 365 days a year
(55:50):
as well as free SOPA events every month.
To learn more about what we do, find us at rcaalumni.com.
Remember if you or a loved one is struggling with addiction, pick up the phone and dial
1-833-RCA-ALUMN.
Help is available 24-7.
(56:12):
Listen to another episode now or join us next time for the Strength and Recovery podcast.
Popular Podcasts
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
24/7 News: The Latest
The latest news in 4 minutes updated every hour, every day.
Therapy Gecko
An unlicensed lizard psychologist travels the universe talking to strangers about absolutely nothing. TO CALL THE GECKO: follow me on https://www.twitch.tv/lyleforever to get a notification for when I am taking calls. I am usually live Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays but lately a lot of other times too. I am a gecko.